"... Americans were the victims of an elaborate con job, pelted with a daily barrage of threat inflation, distortions, deceptions and lies, not about tactics or strategy or war plans, but about justifications for war. The lies were aimed not at confusing Saddam's regime, but the American people. By the start of the war, 66 per cent of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 and 79 per cent thought he was close to having a nuclear weapon. ..."
"... This charade wouldn't have worked without a gullible or a complicit press corps. Victoria Clarke, who developed the Pentagon plan for embedded reports, put it succinctly a few weeks before the war began: "Media coverage of any future operation will to a large extent shape public perception." ..."
"... During the Vietnam War, TV images of maimed GIs and napalmed villages suburbanized opposition to the war and helped hasten the U.S. withdrawal. The Bush gang meant to turn the Vietnam phenomenon on its head by using TV as a force to propel the U.S.A. into a war that no one really wanted. ..."
"... When the Pentagon needed a heroic story, the press obliged. Jessica Lynch became the war's first instant celebrity. Here was a neo-gothic tale of a steely young woman wounded in a fierce battle, captured and tortured by ruthless enemies, and dramatically saved from certain death by a team of selfless rescuers, knights in camo and night-vision goggles. ..."
"... Back in 1988, the Post felt much differently about Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction. When reports trickled out about the gassing of Iranian troops, the Washington Post's editorial page shrugged off the massacres, calling the mass poisonings "a quirk of war." ..."
"... The Bush team displayed a similar amnesia. When Iraq used chemical weapons in grisly attacks on Iran, the U.S. government not only didn't object, it encouraged Saddam. ..."
"... Nothing sums up this unctuous approach more brazenly than MSNBC's firing of liberal talk show host Phil Donahue on the eve of the war. The network replaced the Donahue Show with a running segment called Countdown: Iraq, featuring the usual nightly coterie of retired generals, security flacks, and other cheerleaders for invasion. ..."
The war on Iraq won't be remembered for how it was waged so much as for how it was sold. It
was a propaganda war, a war of perception management, where loaded phrases, such as "weapons of
mass destruction" and "rogue state" were hurled like precision weapons at the target audience:
us.
To understand the Iraq war you don't need to consult generals, but the spin doctors and PR
flacks who stage-managed the countdown to war from the murky corridors of Washington where
politics, corporate spin and psy-ops spooks cohabit.
Consider the picaresque journey of Tony Blair's plagiarized dossier on Iraq, from a grad
student's website to a cut-and-paste job in the prime minister's bombastic speech to the House
of Commons. Blair, stubborn and verbose, paid a price for his grandiose puffery. Bush, who
looted whole passages from Blair's speech for his own clumsy presentations, has skated freely
through the tempest. Why?
Unlike Blair, the Bush team never wanted to present a legal case for war. They had no
interest in making any of their allegations about Iraq hold up to a standard of proof. The real
effort was aimed at amping up the mood for war by using the psychology of fear.
Facts were never important to the Bush team. They were disposable nuggets that could be
discarded at will and replaced by whatever new rationale that played favorably with their polls
and focus groups. The war was about weapons of mass destruction one week, al-Qaeda the next.
When neither allegation could be substantiated on the ground, the fall back position became the
mass graves (many from the Iran/Iraq war where the U.S.A. backed Iraq) proving that Saddam was
an evil thug who deserved to be toppled. The motto of the Bush PR machine was: Move on. Don't
explain. Say anything to conceal the perfidy behind the real motives for war. Never look back.
Accuse the questioners of harboring unpatriotic sensibilities. Eventually, even the cagey
Wolfowitz admitted that the official case for war was made mainly to make the invasion
palatable, not to justify it.
The Bush claque of neocon hawks viewed the Iraq war as a product and, just like a new pair
of Nikes, it required a roll-out campaign to soften up the consumers. The same techniques (and
often the same PR gurus) that have been used to hawk cigarettes, SUVs and nuclear waste dumps
were deployed to retail the Iraq war. To peddle the invasion, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell
and company recruited public relations gurus into top-level jobs at the Pentagon and the State
Department. These spinmeisters soon had more say over how the rationale for war on Iraq should
be presented than intelligence agencies and career diplomats. If the intelligence didn't fit
the script, it was shaded, retooled or junked.
Take Charlotte Beers whom Powell picked as undersecretary of state in the post-9/11 world.
Beers wasn't a diplomat. She wasn't even a politician. She was a grand diva of spin, known on
the business and gossip pages as "the queen of Madison Avenue." On the strength of two
advertising campaigns, one for Uncle Ben's Rice and another for Head and Shoulder's dandruff
shampoo, Beers rocketed to the top of the heap in the PR world, heading two giant PR houses:
Ogilvy and Mathers as well as J. Walter Thompson.
At the State Department Beers, who had met Powell in 1995 when they both served on the board
of Gulf Airstream, worked at, in Powell's words, "the branding of U.S. foreign policy." She
extracted more than $500 million from Congress for her Brand America campaign, which largely
focused on beaming U.S. propaganda into the Muslim world, much of it directed at teens.
"Public diplomacy is a vital new arm in what will combat terrorism over time," said Beers.
"All of a sudden we are in this position of redefining who America is, not only for ourselves,
but for the outside world." Note the rapt attention Beers pays to the manipulation of
perception, as opposed, say, to alterations of U.S. policy.
Old-fashioned diplomacy involves direct communication between representatives of nations, a
conversational give and take, often fraught with deception (see April Glaspie), but an exchange
nonetheless. Public diplomacy, as defined by Beers, is something else entirely. It's a one-way
street, a unilateral broadcast of American propaganda directly to the public, domestic and
international, a kind of informational carpet-bombing.
The themes of her campaigns were as simplistic and flimsy as a Bush press conference. The
American incursions into Afghanistan and Iraq were all about bringing the balm of "freedom" to
oppressed peoples. Hence, the title of the U.S. war: Operation Iraqi Freedom, where cruise
missiles were depicted as instruments of liberation. Bush himself distilled the Beers equation
to its bizarre essence: "This war is about peace."
Beers quietly resigned her post a few weeks before the first volley of tomahawk missiles
battered Baghdad. From her point of view, the war itself was already won, the fireworks of
shock and awe were all after play.
Over at the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld drafted Victoria "Torie" Clarke as his director of
public affairs. Clarke knew the ropes inside the Beltway. Before becoming Rumsfeld's
mouthpiece, she had commanded one of the world's great parlors for powerbrokers: Hill and
Knowlton's D.C. office.
Almost immediately upon taking up her new gig, Clarke convened regular meetings with a
select group of Washington's top private PR specialists and lobbyists to develop a marketing
plan for the Pentagon's forthcoming terror wars. The group was filled with heavy-hitters and
was strikingly bipartisan in composition. She called it the Rumsfeld Group and it included PR
executive Sheila Tate, columnist Rich Lowry, and Republican political consultant Rich
Galen.
The brain trust also boasted top Democratic fixer Tommy Boggs, brother of NPR's Cokie
Roberts and son of the late Congressman Hale Boggs of Louisiana. At the very time Boggs was
conferring with top Pentagon brass on how to frame the war on terror, he was also working
feverishly for the royal family of Saudi Arabia. In 2002 alone, the Saudis paid his Qorvis PR
firm $20.2 million to protect its interests in Washington. In the wake of hostile press
coverage following the exposure of Saudi links to the 9/11 hijackers, the royal family needed
all the well-placed help it could buy. They seem to have gotten their money's worth. Boggs'
felicitous influence-peddling may help to explain why the references to Saudi funding of
al-Qaeda were dropped from the recent congressional report on the investigation into
intelligence failures and 9/11.
According to the trade publication PR Week, the Rumsfeld Group sent "messaging advice" to
the Pentagon. The group told Clarke and Rumsfeld that in order to get the American public to
buy into the war on terrorism, they needed to suggest a link to nation states, not just
nebulous groups such as al-Qaeda. In other words, there needed to be a fixed target for the
military campaigns, some distant place to drop cruise missiles and cluster bombs. They
suggested the notion (already embedded in Rumsfeld's mind) of playing up the notion of
so-called rogue states as the real masters of terrorism. Thus was born the Axis of Evil, which,
of course, wasn't an "axis" at all, since two of the states, Iran and Iraq, hated each other,
and neither had anything at all to do with the third, North Korea.
Tens of millions in federal money were poured into private public relations and media firms
working to craft and broadcast the Bush dictat that Saddam had to be taken out before the Iraqi
dictator blew up the world by dropping chemical and nuclear bombs from long-range drones. Many
of these PR executives and image consultants were old friends of the high priests in the Bush
inner sanctum. Indeed, they were veterans, like Cheney and Powell, of the previous war against
Iraq, another engagement that was more spin than combat .
At the top of the list was John Rendon, head of the D.C. firm, the Rendon Group. Rendon is
one of Washington's heaviest hitters, a Beltway fixer who never let political affiliation stand
in the way of an assignment. Rendon served as a media consultant for Michael Dukakis and Jimmy
Carter, as well as Reagan and George H.W. Bush. Whenever the Pentagon wanted to go to war, he
offered his services at a price. During Desert Storm, Rendon pulled in $100,000 a month from
the Kuwaiti royal family. He followed this up with a $23 million contract from the CIA to
produce anti-Saddam propaganda in the region.
As part of this CIA project, Rendon created and named the Iraqi National Congress and tapped
his friend Ahmed Chalabi, the shady financier, to head the organization.
Shortly after 9/11, the Pentagon handed the Rendon Group another big assignment: public
relations for the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan. Rendon was also deeply involved in the planning
and public relations for the pre-emptive war on Iraq, though both Rendon and the Pentagon
refuse to disclose the details of the group's work there.
But it's not hard to detect the manipulative hand of Rendon behind many of the Iraq war's
signature events, including the toppling of the Saddam statue (by U.S. troops and Chalabi
associates) and videotape of jubilant Iraqis waving American flags as the Third Infantry rolled
by them. Rendon had pulled off the same stunt in the first Gulf War, handing out American flags
to Kuwaitis and herding the media to the orchestrated demonstration. "Where do you think they
got those American flags?" clucked Rendon in 1991. "That was my assignment."
The Rendon Group may also have had played a role in pushing the phony intelligence that has
now come back to haunt the Bush administration. In December of 2002, Robert Dreyfuss reported
that the inner circle of the Bush White House preferred the intelligence coming from Chalabi
and his associates to that being proffered by analysts at the CIA.
So Rendon and his circle represented a new kind of off-the-shelf PSYOPs , the privatization
of official propaganda. "I am not a national security strategist or a military tactician," said
Rendon. "I am a politician, and a person who uses communication to meet public policy or
corporate policy objectives. In fact, I am an information warrior and a perception
manager."
What exactly, is perception management? The Pentagon defines it this way: "actions to convey
and/or deny selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their
emotions, motives and objective reasoning." In other words, lying about the intentions of the
U.S. government. In a rare display of public frankness, the Pentagon actually let slip its plan
(developed by Rendon) to establish a high-level den inside the Department Defense for
perception management. They called it the Office of Strategic Influence and among its many
missions was to plant false stories in the press.
Nothing stirs the corporate media into outbursts of pious outrage like an official
government memo bragging about how the media are manipulated for political objectives. So the
New York Times and Washington Post threw indignant fits about the Office of Strategic
Influence; the Pentagon shut down the operation, and the press gloated with satisfaction on its
victory. Yet, Rumsfeld told the Pentagon press corps that while he was killing the office, the
same devious work would continue. "You can have the corpse," said Rumsfeld. "You can have the
name. But I'm going to keep doing every single thing that needs to be done. And I have."
At a diplomatic level, despite the hired guns and the planted stories, this image war was
lost. It failed to convince even America's most fervent allies and dependent client states that
Iraq posed much of a threat. It failed to win the blessing of the U.N. and even NATO, a wholly
owned subsidiary of Washington. At the end of the day, the vaunted coalition of the willing
consisted of Britain, Spain, Italy, Australia, and a cohort of former Soviet bloc nations. Even
so, the citizens of the nations that cast their lot with the U.S.A. overwhelmingly opposed the
war.
Domestically, it was a different story. A population traumatized by terror threats and
shattered economy became easy prey for the saturation bombing of the Bush message that Iraq was
a terrorist state linked to al-Qaeda that was only minutes away from launching attacks on
America with weapons of mass destruction.
Americans were the victims of an elaborate con job, pelted with a daily barrage of
threat inflation, distortions, deceptions and lies, not about tactics or strategy or war plans,
but about justifications for war. The lies were aimed not at confusing Saddam's regime, but the
American people. By the start of the war, 66 per cent of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was
behind 9/11 and 79 per cent thought he was close to having a nuclear weapon.
Of course, the closest Saddam came to possessing a nuke was a rusting gas centrifuge buried
for 13 years in the garden of Mahdi Obeidi, a retired Iraqi scientist. Iraq didn't have any
functional chemical or biological weapons. In fact, it didn't even possess any SCUD missiles,
despite erroneous reports fed by Pentagon PR flacks alleging that it had fired SCUDs into
Kuwait.
This charade wouldn't have worked without a gullible or a complicit press corps.
Victoria Clarke, who developed the Pentagon plan for embedded reports, put it succinctly a few
weeks before the war began: "Media coverage of any future operation will to a large extent
shape public perception."
During the Vietnam War, TV images of maimed GIs and napalmed villages suburbanized
opposition to the war and helped hasten the U.S. withdrawal. The Bush gang meant to turn the
Vietnam phenomenon on its head by using TV as a force to propel the U.S.A. into a war that no
one really wanted.
What the Pentagon sought was a new kind of living room war, where instead of photos of
mangled soldiers and dead Iraqi kids, they could control the images Americans viewed and to a
large extent the content of the stories. By embedding reporters inside selected divisions,
Clarke believed the Pentagon could count on the reporters to build relationships with the
troops and to feel dependent on them for their own safety. It worked, naturally. One reporter
for a national network trembled on camera that the U.S. Army functioned as "our protectors."
The late David Bloom of NBC confessed on the air that he was willing to do "anything and
everything they can ask of us."
When the Pentagon needed a heroic story, the press obliged. Jessica Lynch became the
war's first instant celebrity. Here was a neo-gothic tale of a steely young woman wounded in a
fierce battle, captured and tortured by ruthless enemies, and dramatically saved from certain
death by a team of selfless rescuers, knights in camo and night-vision goggles. Of course,
nearly every detail of her heroic adventure proved to be as fictive and maudlin as any
made-for-TV-movie. But the ordeal of Private Lynch, which dominated the news for more than a
week, served its purpose: to distract attention from a stalled campaign that was beginning to
look at lot riskier than the American public had been hoodwinked into believing.
The Lynch story was fed to the eager press by a Pentagon operation called Combat Camera, the
Army network of photographers, videographers and editors that sends 800 photos and 25 video
clips a day to the media. The editors at Combat Camera carefully culled the footage to present
the Pentagon's montage of the war, eliding such unsettling images as collateral damage, cluster
bombs, dead children and U.S. soldiers, napalm strikes and disgruntled troops.
"A lot of our imagery will have a big impact on world opinion," predicted Lt. Jane Larogue,
director of Combat Camera in Iraq. She was right. But as the hot war turned into an even hotter
occupation, the Pentagon, despite airy rhetoric from occupation supremo Paul Bremer about
installing democratic institutions such as a free press, moved to tighten its monopoly on the
flow images out of Iraq. First, it tried to shut down Al Jazeera, the Arab news channel. Then
the Pentagon intimated that it would like to see all foreign TV news crews banished from
Baghdad.
Few newspapers fanned the hysteria about the threat posed by Saddam's weapons of mass
destruction as sedulously as did the Washington Post. In the months leading up to the war, the
Post's pro-war op-eds outnumbered the anti-war columns by a 3-to-1 margin.
Back in 1988, the Post felt much differently about Saddam and his weapons of mass
destruction. When reports trickled out about the gassing of Iranian troops, the Washington
Post's editorial page shrugged off the massacres, calling the mass poisonings "a quirk of
war."
The Bush team displayed a similar amnesia. When Iraq used chemical weapons in grisly
attacks on Iran, the U.S. government not only didn't object, it encouraged Saddam.
Anything to punish Iran was the message coming from the White House. Donald Rumsfeld himself
was sent as President Ronald Reagan's personal envoy to Baghdad. Rumsfeld conveyed the bold
message than an Iraq defeat would be viewed as a "strategic setback for the United States."
This sleazy alliance was sealed with a handshake caught on videotape. When CNN reporter Jamie
McIntyre replayed the footage for Rumsfeld in the spring of 2003, the secretary of defense
snapped, "Where'd you get that? Iraqi television?"
The current crop of Iraq hawks also saw Saddam much differently then. Take the writer Laura
Mylroie, sometime colleague of the New York Times' Judy Miller, who persists in peddling the
ludicrous conspiracy that Iraq was behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
How times have changed! In 1987, Mylroie felt downright cuddly toward Saddam. She wrote an
article for the New Republic titled "Back Iraq: Time for a U.S. Tilt in the Mideast," arguing
that the U.S. should publicly embrace Saddam's secular regime as a bulwark against the Islamic
fundamentalists in Iran. The co-author of this mesmerizing weave of wonkery was none other than
Daniel Pipes, perhaps the nation's most bellicose Islamophobe. "The American weapons that Iraq
could make good use of include remotely scatterable and anti-personnel mines and
counterartillery radar," wrote Mylroie and Pipes. "The United States might also consider
upgrading intelligence it is supplying Baghdad."
In the rollout for the war, Mylroie seemed to be everywhere hawking the invasion of Iraq.
She would often appear on two or three different networks in the same day. How did the reporter
manage this feat? She had help in the form of Eleana Benador, the media placement guru who runs
Benador Associates. Born in Peru, Benador parlayed her skills as a linguist into a lucrative
career as media relations whiz for the Washington foreign policy elite. She also oversees the
Middle East Forum, a fanatically pro-Zionist white paper mill. Her clients include some of the
nation's most fervid hawks, including Michael Ledeen, Charles Krauthammer, Al Haig, Max Boot,
Daniel Pipes, Richard Perle, and Judy Miller. During the Iraq war, Benador's assignment was to
embed this squadron of pro-war zealots into the national media, on talk shows, and op-ed
pages.
Benador not only got them the gigs, she also crafted the theme and made sure they all stayed
on message. "There are some things, you just have to state them in a different way, in a
slightly different way," said Benador. "If not, people get scared." Scared of intentions of
their own government.
It could have been different. All of the holes in the Bush administration's gossamer case
for war were right there for the mainstream press to expose. Instead, the U.S. press, just like
the oil companies, sought to commercialize the Iraq war and profit from the invasions. They
didn't want to deal with uncomfortable facts or present voices of dissent.
Nothing sums up this unctuous approach more brazenly than MSNBC's firing of liberal talk
show host Phil Donahue on the eve of the war. The network replaced the Donahue Show with a
running segment called Countdown: Iraq, featuring the usual nightly coterie of retired
generals, security flacks, and other cheerleaders for invasion. The network's executives
blamed the cancellation on sagging ratings. In fact, during its run Donahue's show attracted
more viewers than any other program on the network. The real reason for the pre-emptive strike
on Donahue was spelled out in an internal memo from anxious executives at NBC. Donahue, the
memo said, offered "a difficult face for NBC in a time of war. He seems to delight in
presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration's
motives."
The memo warned that Donahue's show risked tarring MSNBC as an unpatriotic network, "a home
for liberal anti-war agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every
opportunity." So, with scarcely a second thought, the honchos at MSNBC gave Donahue the boot
and hoisted the battle flag.
It's war that sells.
There's a helluva caveat, of course. Once you buy it, the merchants of war accept no
returns.
On January 8, 2018, former government advisor Edward Luttwak wrote an opinion piece for
Foreign Policy titled "It's Time to Bomb North Korea."
Luttwak's thesis is relatively straightforward. There is a government out there that may
very soon acquire nuclear-weapons capabilities, and this country cannot be trusted to
responsibly handle such a stockpile. The responsibility to protect the world from a rogue
nation cannot be argued with, and we understandably have a duty to ensure the future of
humanity.
However, there is one rogue nation that continues to hold the world ransom with its nuclear
weapons supply. It is decimating non-compliant states left, right, and center. This country
must be stopped dead in its tracks before anyone turns to the issue of North Korea.
In August of 1945, this rogue nation dropped two atomic bombs on civilian targets, not
military targets, completely obliterating between 135,000 and
300,000 Japanese civilians in just these two acts alone. Prior to this event, this country
killed even more civilians in the infamous
firebombing of Tokyo and other areas of Japan, dropping close to 500,000 cylinders of
napalm and petroleum jelly on some of Japan's most densely populated areas.
Recently, historians have become more open to the possibility that dropping the atomic bombs
in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was not actually necessary to end World War II. This has also been
confirmed by those who actually took part in it. As the Nation
explained:
Fleet Adm. Chester Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet, stated in a public
address at the Washington Monument two months after the bombings that 'the atomic bomb played
no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan ' Adm. William
"Bull" Halsey Jr., Commander of the US Third Fleet, stated publicly in 1946 that 'the first
atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment . It was a mistake to ever drop it . [the
scientists] had this toy and they wanted to try it out, so they dropped it
A few months' prior, this rogue country's
invasion of the Japanese island of Okinawa also claimed at least one quarter of Okinawa's
population. The Okinawan people have been protesting this country's military presence ever
since. The most recent ongoing protest
has lasted well over 5,000 days in a row.
This nation's bloodlust continued well after the end of World War II. Barely half a decade
later, this country bombed North Korea into complete oblivion, destroying over 8,700 factories,
5,000 schools, 1,000 hospitals, 600,000 homes, and
eventually killing off as much as 20 percent of the country's population. As the Asia
Pacific Journal has noted, the assaulting country dropped so many bombs that they eventually
ran out of targets to hit, turning to bomb the irrigation systems, instead:
By the fall of 1952, there were no effective targets left for US planes to hit. Every
significant town, city and industrial area in North Korea had already been bombed. In the
spring of 1953, the Air Force targeted irrigation dams on the Yalu River, both to destroy the
North Korean rice crop and to pressure the Chinese, who would have to supply more food aid to
the North. Five reservoirs were hit, flooding thousands of acres of farmland, inundating
whole towns and laying waste to the essential food source for millions of North Koreans."
This was just the beginning. Having successfully destroyed the future North Korean
state, this country moved on to the rest of East Asia and Indo-China, too. As Rolling Stone's
Matt Taibbi
has explained :
We [this loose cannon of a nation] dumped 20 million gallons of toxic herbicide on Vietnam
from the air, just to make the shooting easier without all those trees, an insane plan to win
'hearts and minds' that has left about a million still disabled from defects and disease
– including about 100,000 children, even decades later, little kids with misshapen
heads, webbed hands and fused eyelids writhing on cots, our real American legacy, well out of
view, of course.
This mass murder led to the deaths of between 1.5 million and 3.8 million people,
according to the Washington Post. More bombs were dropped on Vietnam than were unleashed
during the entire
conflict in World War II . While this was going on, this same country was also
secretly bombing Laos and Cambodia, too, where there are over 80 million
unexploded bombs still killing people to this day.
This country also decided to bomb Yugoslavia ,
Panama
, and
Grenada before invading Iraq in the early 1990s. Having successfully bombed Iraqi
infrastructure, this country then punished Iraq's entire civilian population with brutal
sanctions. At the time, the U.N.
estimated that approximately 1.7 million Iraqis had died as a result, including
500,000 to 600,000 children . Some years later, a prominent medical journal attempted
to absolve the cause of this infamous history by refuting the statistics involved despite
the fact that, when interviewed during the sanctions-era, Bill Clinton's secretary of state,
Madeleine Albright, intimated that to this rogue government, the
deaths of half a million children were "worth it" as the "price" Iraq needed to pay. In other
words, whether half a million children died or not was irrelevant to this bloodthirsty nation,
which barely blinked while carrying out this murderous policy.
This almighty superpower then invaded Iraq again in 2003 and plunged the entire region
into chaos . At the end of May 2017, the Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR)
released a study
concluding that the death toll from this violent nation's 2003 invasion of Iraq had led to over
one million deaths and that at least one-third of them were caused directly by the invading
force.
Not to mention this country also invaded Afghanistan prior to the invasion of Iraq (even
though the militants plaguing Afghanistan were
originally trained and financed by this warmongering nation). It then
went on to bomb Yemen, Syria, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, and the
Philippines .
Libya famously
had one of the highest standards of living in the region. It had state-assisted healthcare,
education, transport, and affordable housing. It is now a lawless war-zone
rife with extremism where slaves are openly traded like commodities
amid the power vacuum created as a direct result of the 2011 invasion.
In 2017, the commander-in-chief of this violent nation took the monumental death and
destruction to a new a level by removing
the restrictions on delivering airstrikes, which resulted in thousands upon
thousands of civilian deaths. Before that, in the first six months of 2017, this country
dropped
over 20,650 bombs , a monumental increase from the year that preceded it.
Despite these statistics, all of the above conquests are mere child's play to this nation.
The real prize lies in some of the more defiant and more powerful states, which this country
has already unleashed a containment strategy upon. This country has deployed its own troops all
across the border
with Russia even though it promised in the early 1990s it
would do no such thing. It also has a specific policy of
containing Russia's close ally, China, all the while threatening China's borders with talks
of direct strikes on North Korea (again, remember it already did so in the 1950s).
This country also elected a president who not only believes it is okay to embrace this rampantly violent
militarism but who openly calls other
countries "shitholes" – the very same term that aptly describes the way this country
has treated the rest of the world for decades on end. This same president also reportedly once
asked three times in a meeting
, "If we have nuclear weapons, why don't we use them?" and shortly after proposed a policy to
remove the constraints protecting the world from his dangerous supply of advanced nuclear
weaponry.
If we have any empathy for humanity, it is clear that this country must be stopped. It
cannot continue to act like this to the detriment of the rest of the planet and the safety and
security of the rest of us. This country
openly talks about using its nuclear weapons, has used them before, and has continued to
use all manner of weapons unabated in the years since while threatening to expand the use of
these weapons to other countries.
Seriously, if North Korea seems like a threat, imagine how the rest of the world feels while
watching one country violently take on the rest of the planet single-handedly, leaving nothing
but destruction in its wake and promising nothing less than a nuclear holocaust in the years to
come.
There is only one country that has done and that continues to do the very things North Korea
is being accused of doing.
Take as much time as you need for that to resonate.
In any case withdrawal from Syria was a surprising and bold move on the Part of the Trump. You can criticizes Trump for not doing
more but before that he bahvaves as a typical neocon, or a typical Republican presidents (which are the same things). And he started
on this path just two month after inauguration bombing Syria under false pretences. So this is something
I think the reason of change is that Trump intuitively realized the voters are abandoning him in droves and the sizable faction
of his voters who voted for him because of his promises to end foreign wars iether already defected or is ready to defect. So this is
a move designed to keep them.
Notable quotes:
"... "America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said. ..."
President Trump's big announcement to pull US troops out of Syria and Afghanistan is now emerging less as a peace move, and more
a rationalization of American military power in the Middle East. In a surprise visit to US forces in Iraq this week, Trump
said he had no intention of withdrawing the troops in that country, who have been there for nearly 15 years since GW Bush invaded
back in 2003.
Hinting at private discussions with commanders in Iraq, Trump boasted that US forces would in the future launch attacks from there
into Syria if and when needed. Presumably that rapid force deployment would apply to other countries in the region, including Afghanistan.
In other words, in typical business-style transactional thinking, Trump sees the pullout from Syria and Afghanistan as a cost-cutting
exercise for US imperialism. Regarding Syria, he has bragged about Turkey being assigned, purportedly, to "finish off" terror
groups. That's Trump subcontracting out US interests.
Critics and supporters of Trump are confounded. After his Syria and Afghanistan pullout call, domestic critics and NATO allies
have accused him of walking from the alleged "fight against terrorism" and of ceding strategic ground to US adversaries Russia
and Iran.
Meanwhile, Trump's supporters have viewed his decision in more benign light, cheering the president for "sticking it to"
the deep state and military establishment, assuming he's delivering on electoral promises to end overseas wars.
However, neither view gets what is going on. Trump is not scaling back US military power; he is rationalizing it like a cost-benefit
analysis, as perhaps only a real-estate-wheeler-dealer-turned president would appreciate. Trump is not snubbing US militarism or
NATO allies, nor is he letting loose an inner peace spirit. He is as committed to projecting American military as ruthlessly and
as recklessly as any other past occupant of the White House. The difference is Trump wants to do it on the cheap.
Here's what he said to reporters on Air Force One before touching down in Iraq:
"The United States cannot continue to be the policeman of the world. It's not fair when the burden is all on us, the United
States We are spread out all over the world. We are in countries most people haven't even heard about. Frankly, it's ridiculous."
He added: "We're no longer the suckers, folks."
Laughably, Trump's griping about US forces "spread all over the world" unwittingly demonstrates the insatiable, monstrous
nature of American militarism. But Trump paints this vice as a virtue, which, he complains, Washington gets no thanks for from the
150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in.
As US troops greeted him in Iraq, the president made explicit how the new American militarism would henceforth operate.
"America shouldn't be doing the fighting for every nation on earth, not being reimbursed in many cases at all. If they want
us to do the fighting, they also have to pay a price," Trump said.
This reiterates a big bugbear for this president in which he views US allies and client regimes as "not pulling their weight"
in terms of military deployment. Trump has been browbeating European NATO members to cough up more on military budgets, and he has
berated the Saudis
and other Gulf Arab regimes to pay more for American interventions.
Notably, however, Trump has never questioned the largesse that US taxpayers fork out every year to Israel in the form of nearly
$4 billion in military aid. To be sure, that money is not a gift because much of it goes back to the Pentagon from sales of fighter
jets and missile systems.
The long-held notion that the US has served as the "world's policeman" is, of course, a travesty.
Since WWII, all presidents and the Washington establishment have constantly harped on, with self-righteousness, about America's
mythical role as guarantor of global security.
Dozens of illegal wars on almost every continent and millions of civilian deaths attest to the real, heinous conduct of American
militarism as a weapon to secure US corporate capitalism.
But with US economic power in historic decline amid a national debt now over $22 trillion, Washington can no longer afford its
imperialist conduct in the traditional mode of direct US military invasions and occupations.
Perhaps, it takes a cost-cutting, raw-toothed capitalist like Trump to best understand the historic predicament, even if only
superficially.
This gives away the real calculation behind his troop pullout from Syria and Afghanistan. Iraq is going to serve as a new regional
hub for force projection on a demand-and-supply basis. In addition, more of the dirty work can be contracted out to Washington's
clients like Turkey, Israel and Saudi Arabia, who will be buying even more US weaponry to prop the military-industrial complex.
This would explain why Trump made his hurried, unexpected visit to Iraq this week. Significantly, he
said
: "A lot of people are going to come around to my way of thinking", regarding his decision on withdrawing forces from Syria
and Afghanistan.
Since his troop pullout plan announced on December 19, there has been serious pushback from senior Pentagon figures, hawkish Republicans
and Democrats, and the anti-Trump media. The atmosphere is almost seditious against the president. Trump flying off to Iraq on Christmas
night was
reportedly his first visit to troops in an overseas combat zone since becoming president two years ago.
What Trump seemed to be doing was reassuring the Pentagon and corporate America that he is not going all soft and dovish. Not
at all. He is letting them know that he is aiming for a leaner, meaner US military power, which can save money on the number of foreign
bases by using rapid reaction forces out of places like Iraq, as well as by subcontracting operations out to regional clients.
Thus, Trump is not coming clean out of any supposed principle when he cuts back US forces overseas. He is merely applying his
knack for screwing down costs and doing things on the cheap as a capitalist tycoon overseeing US militarism.
During past decades when American capitalism was relatively robust, US politicians and media could indulge in the fantasy of their
military forces going around the world in large-scale formations to selflessly "defend freedom and democracy."
Today, US capitalism is broke. It simply can't sustain its global military empire. Enter Donald Trump with his "business solutions."
But in doing so, this president, with his cheap utilitarianism and transactional exploitative mindset, lets the cat out of the
bag. As he says, the US cannot be the world's policeman. Countries are henceforth going to have to pay for "our protection."
Inadvertently, Trump is showing up US power for what it really is: a global thug running a protection racket.
It's always been the case. Except now it's in your face. Trump is no Smedley Butler, the former Marine general who in the 1930s
condemned US militarism as a Mafia operation. This president is stupidly revealing the racket, while still thinking it is something
virtuous.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages.
Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor
for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For over 20 years he worked
as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Now a freelance journalist
based in East Africa, his columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation and Press TV.
dnm1136
Once again, Cunningham has hit the nail on the head. Trump mistakenly conflates fear with respect. In reality, around the world,
the US is feared but generally not respected.
My guess is that the same was true about Trump as a businessman, i.e., he was not respected, only feared due to his willingness
to pursue his "deals" by any means that "worked" for him, legal or illegal, moral or immoral, seemingly gracious or mean-spirited.
William Smith
Complaining how the US gets no thanks for its foreign intervention. Kind of like a rapist claiming he should be thanked for
"pleasuring" his victim. Precisely the same sentiment expressed by those who believe the American Indians should thank the Whites
for "civilising" them.
Phoebe S,
"Washington gets no thanks for from the 150-plus countries around the globe that its forces are present in."
That might mean they don't want you there. Just saying.
ProRussiaPole
None of these wars are working out for the US strategically. All they do is sow chaos. They seem to not be gaining anything,
and are just preventing others from gaining anything as well.
Ernie For -> ProRussiaPole
i am a huge Putin fan, so is big Don. Please change your source of info Jerome, Trump is one man against Billions of people
and dollars in corruption. He has achieved more in the USA in 2 years than all 5 previous parasites together.
Truthbetold69
It could be a change for a better direction. Time will tell. 'If you do what you've always been doing, you'll get what you've
always been getting.'
"... You know we can't touch the corporations - they are sacrosanct because they are the supposed "job creators" - this one title gives them carte blanche to act however they like, to make spurious claims about economies faltering, businesses going offshore and unemployment. They also donate heavily to the political parties. ..."
Shhhh... whatever you do, don't ever let them hear you criticizing the "job creators" or
there will be trouble.
You know we can't touch the corporations - they are sacrosanct because they are the
supposed "job creators" - this one title gives them carte blanche to act however they like,
to make spurious claims about economies faltering, businesses going offshore and
unemployment. They also donate heavily to the political parties.
Repeat after me:
"Blessed are the job creators"
"Blessed are the job creators"
"Blessed are the job creators"
"For THEY shall inherit the wealth"
Intelligence agencies, once created, has their own development dynamics and tend to escape from the control of
civilians and in turn control them. Such an interesting dynamics. In any case, the intelligence agencies and first of all top
brass of those agencies constitute the the core of the "deep state". Unlike civiliant emplorres they are protected by the veil of
secrecy and has access to large funds. Bush the elder was probably the first deep state creature who became the president of the
USA, but "special relationship" of Obama and Brennan is also not a secret.
Another problem is that secrecy and access to surveillance, Which gives intelligence agencies the ability to blackmail politicians.
Availability of unaccounted financial
resources make them real kingmakers. In a sense, as soon as such agencies were created the tail started waging the dog.
Notable quotes:
"... Serving under nine presidents, from Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon, the FBI was turned into a "Gestapo by Hoover whose modus operandi was blackmail". That's how President Harry Truman (1943-53) reportedly characterized Hoover's bureau. How else do you think he survived for so long – five decades – as the nation's top law enforcer? ..."
"... One of Hoover's mainstay sources is strongly believed to be Mafia crime bosses who had lots of dirt on politicians, from bribe-taking to vote-rigging, to illicit sexual affairs. It is suspected that the Mafia had their own dossier of images on Hoover in a compromising homosexual tryst which, in turn, kept him under their thumb. ..."
"... JFK was particularly wide open to blackmail owing to his rampant promiscuity and extra-marital liaisons, including with screen idol Marilyn Monroe. Kennedy more than once confided to his aides that "the bastards" had him nailed. It was for this reason that he made the thuggish Texan Senator Lyndon B Johnson his vice president even though he detested LBJ. Hoover and Johnson were longtime associates and the former no doubt pulled a favor to get LBJ into the White House. ..."
"... However, Hoover's blackmail on JFK was not enough to curtail his defiance of rabidly anti-communist Cold War politics. Against the hostility of the Pentagon, CIA and FBI, Kennedy pursued a courageous policy of detente with the Soviet Union and Cuba. Such a policy no doubt led to his assassination by the Deep State in Dallas on November 22, 1963. There is ample evidence that Hoover and Johnson, who became the new president, then colluded with the Deep State assassins to cover up the assassination as the act of lone nut Lee Harvey Oswald – a cover-up that persists to this day. ..."
"... But Hoover and Johnson got their revenge by subsequently letting Nixon know that there was classified information on him – thanks to FBI wiretaps. The specter of incrimination is possibly a factor in Nixon becoming increasingly paranoid during this presidency, culminating in the ignominy of the Watergate scandal that ended his career. ..."
"... Hoover certainly was the devious architect of a malign Deep State machine. But he was not alone. He instilled a culture and legacy that pervades the top echelons of the bureau. And not just the FBI. The early Cold War years saw the formation of the CIA and the NSA under the Machiavellian guidance of men like Allen Dulles and Richard Helms and a host of others ..."
No other individual in modern US history has a more sinister legacy than John Edgar Hoover,
the founder and lifetime director of the FBI. He founded the bureau in 1924 and was its
director until his death in 1972 at the age of 77.
Serving under nine presidents, from Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon, the FBI was turned
into a "Gestapo by Hoover whose modus operandi was blackmail". That's how President Harry
Truman (1943-53) reportedly
characterized Hoover's bureau. How else do you think he survived for so long – five
decades – as the nation's top law enforcer?
J Edgar Hoover and his henchmen kept files on thousands of politicians, judges, journalists
and other public figures, according to
biographer Anthony Summers. Hoover ruthlessly used those files on the secret and often sordid
private lives of senior public figures to control their career conduct and official decisions
so as to serve his interests.
And Hoover's interests were of a rightwing, anti-communist, racist bigot.
Ironically, his own suppressed homosexuality also manifested in witch-hunts against
homosexuals in public life.
It was Hoover's secret files that largely informed the McCarthyite anti-communist
inquisitions of the 1950s, whose baleful legacy on American democracy, foreign policy and
freedom of expression continues to this day.
One of Hoover's mainstay sources is strongly believed to be Mafia crime bosses who had lots
of dirt on politicians, from bribe-taking to vote-rigging, to illicit sexual affairs. It is
suspected that the Mafia had their own dossier of images on Hoover in a compromising homosexual
tryst which, in turn, kept him under their thumb.
Absurdly, the FBI chief maintained that there was "no such thing as the Mafia" in public
statements.
Two notorious cases of how FBI wiretapping worked under Hoover can be seen in the
presidencies of John F Kennedy (1961-63) and Richard Nixon (1969-74).
As recounted by Laurent Guyénot in his 2013 book , 'JFK to 9/11: 50
Years of Deep State', Hoover made a point of letting each new president know of compromising
information he had on them. It wouldn't be brandished overtly as blackmail; the president would
be briefed subtly, "Sir, if someone were to have copies of this it would be damaging to your
career". Enough said.
JFK was particularly wide open to blackmail owing to his rampant promiscuity and
extra-marital liaisons, including with screen idol Marilyn Monroe. Kennedy more than once
confided to his aides that "the bastards" had him nailed. It was for this reason that he made
the thuggish Texan Senator Lyndon B Johnson his vice president even though he detested LBJ.
Hoover and Johnson were longtime associates and the former no doubt pulled a favor to get LBJ
into the White House.
However, Hoover's blackmail on JFK was not enough to curtail his defiance of rabidly
anti-communist Cold War politics. Against the hostility of the Pentagon, CIA and FBI, Kennedy
pursued a courageous policy of detente with the Soviet Union and Cuba. Such a policy no doubt
led to his assassination by the Deep State in Dallas on November 22, 1963. There is ample
evidence that Hoover and Johnson, who became the new president, then colluded with the Deep
State assassins to cover up the assassination as the act of lone nut Lee Harvey Oswald –
a cover-up that persists to this day.
As for Richard Nixon, it is believed that "Tricky Dicky" engaged in secret communications
with the US-backed South Vietnamese regime on the cusp of the presidential elections in 1968.
Nixon promised the South Vietnamese stronger military support if they held off entering peace
talks with communist North Vietnam, which incumbent President Johnson was trying to organize.
LBJ wanted to claim a peace process was underway in order to boost the election chances of his
vice president Hubert Humphrey.
Nixon's scheming prevailed. The Vietnam peace gambit was scuttled, the Vietnam war raged on,
and so the Democrat candidate lost. Nixon finally got into the White House, which he had long
coveted from the time he lost out to JFK back in 1960.
But Hoover and Johnson got their revenge by subsequently letting Nixon know that there was
classified information on him – thanks to FBI wiretaps. The specter of incrimination is
possibly a factor in Nixon becoming increasingly paranoid during this presidency, culminating
in the ignominy of the Watergate scandal that ended his career.
These are but only two examples of how Deep State politics works in controlling and
subverting American democracy. The notion that lawmakers and presidents are free to serve the
people is a quaintly naive one. For the US media to pretend otherwise, and to hail the FBI as
some kind of benign bastion of justice, while also deprecating claims of "Deep State" intrusion
as "conspiracy theory", is either impossibly ignorant of history – or a sign of the
media's own compromised complicity.
Nonetheless, to blame this culture of institutionalized blackmail and corruption on one
individual – J Edgar Hoover – is not fair either.
Hoover certainly was the devious architect of a malign Deep State machine. But he was not
alone. He instilled a culture and legacy that pervades the top echelons of the bureau. And not
just the FBI. The early Cold War years saw the formation of the CIA and the NSA under the
Machiavellian guidance of men like Allen Dulles and Richard Helms and a host of others.
Once formed, the Deep State – as an alternate, unaccountable, unelected government
– does not surrender its immense power willingly. It has learnt to hold on to its power
through blackmail, media control, incitement of wars, and, even ultimately, assassination of
American dissenters.
The illegal tapping of private communications is an oxygen supply for the depredations of
the American Deep State.
Thinking that such agencies are not actively warping and working the electoral system to fix
the figurehead in the White House is a dangerous delusion.
So too are claims that American democracy is being "influenced" by malign Russian enemies,
as the US intelligence chiefs once again
chorused in front of the Senate this past week. The consummate irony of it!
The real "influence campaigns" corrupting American democracy are those of the "All-American"
agencies who claim to be law enforcers and defenders of national security.
US citizens would do well to refresh on the untold history of their country to appreciate
how they are being manipulated.
We might even surmise that a good number of citizens are already aware, if only vaguely, of
the elite corruption – and that is why Washington DC is viewed with increasing contempt
by the people.
You could help yourself by learning the real history ..I suggest the foremost historian on
the subject Thomas Thompson and his ' History of Arabia'. Jerusalem was not founded by Jews,
i.e. adherents of the Jewish religion. It was founded between 3000 BCE and 2600 BCE by a West
Semitic people or possibly the Canaanites, the common ancestors of Palestinians, Lebanese,
many Syrians and Jordanians, and many Jews. But when it was founded Jews did not
exist.
Jerusalem was founded in honor of the ancient god Shalem. It does not mean City of
Peace but rather 'built-up place of Shalem." The "Jewish people" were not building Jerusalem
3000 years ago, i.e. 1000 BCE. First of all, it is not clear when exactly Judaism as a
religion centered on the worship of the one God took firm form. It appears to have been a
late development since no evidence of worship of anything but ordinary Canaanite deities has
been found in archeological sites through 1000 BCE. There was no invasion of geographical
Palestine from Egypt by former slaves in the 1200s BCE. The pyramids had been built much
earlier and had not used slave labor. The chronicle of the events of the reign of Ramses II
on the wall in Luxor does not know about any major slave revolts or flights by same into the
Sinai peninsula. Egyptian sources never heard of Moses or the 10 plagues & etc. Jews and
Judaism emerged from a certain social class of Canaanites over a period of centuries inside
Palestine. Jerusalem not only was not being built by the likely then non-existent "Jewish
people" in 1000 BCE, but Jerusalem probably was not even inhabited at that point in history.
Jerusalem appears to have been abandoned between 1000 BCE and 900 BCE, the traditional dates
for the united kingdom under David and Solomon. So Jerusalem was not 'the city of David,'
since there was no city when he is said to have lived. No sign of magnificent palaces or
great states has been found in the archeology of this period, and the Assyrian tablets, which
recorded even minor events throughout the Middle East, such as the actions of Arab queens,
don't know about any great kingdom of David and Solomon in geographical Palestine. Since
archeology does not show the existence of a Jewish kingdom or kingdoms in the so-called First
Temple Period, it is not clear when exactly the Jewish people would have ruled Jerusalem
except for the Hasmonean Kingdom. The Assyrians conquered Jerusalem in 722. The Babylonians
took it in 597 and ruled it until they were themselves conquered in 539 BCE by the
Achaemenids of ancient Iran, who ruled Jerusalem until Alexander the Great took the Levant in
the 330s BCE. Alexander's descendants, the Ptolemies ruled Jerusalem until 198 when
Alexander's other descendants, the Seleucids, took the city. With the Maccabean Revolt in 168
BCE, the Jewish Hasmonean kingdom did rule Jerusalem until 37 BCE, though Antigonus II
Mattathias, the last Hasmonean, only took over Jerusalem with the help of the Parthian
dynasty in 40 BCE. Herod ruled 37 BCE until the Romans conquered what they called Palestine
in 6 CE (CE= 'Common Era' or what Christians call AD). The Romans and then the Eastern Roman
Empire of Byzantium ruled Jerusalem from 6 CE until 614 CE when the Iranian Sasanian Empire
Conquered it, ruling until 629 CE when the Byzantines took it back.
A. The Muslims, who ruled it and built it over 1191 years.
B. The Egyptians, who ruled it as a vassal state for several hundred years in the second
millennium BCE.
C. The Italians, who ruled it about 444 years until the fall of the Roman Empire in 450
CE.
D. The Iranians, who ruled it for 205 years under the Achaemenids, for three years under the
Parthians (insofar as the last Hasmonean was actually their vassal), and for 15 years under
the Sasanids.
E. The Greeks, who ruled it for over 160 years if we count the Ptolemys and Seleucids as
Greek. If we count them as Egyptians and Syrians, that would increase the Egyptian claim and
introduce a Syrian one.
F. The successor states to the Byzantines, which could be either Greece or Turkey, who ruled
it 188 years, though if we consider the heir to be Greece and add in the time the Hellenistic
Greek dynasties ruled it, that would give Greece nearly 350 years as ruler of Jerusalem.
G. There is an Iraqi claim to Jerusalem based on the Assyrian and Babylonian conquests, as
well as perhaps the rule of the Ayyubids (Saladin's dynasty), who were Kurds from Iraq.
I understand what you are saying, Jilles, but let's be accurate, shall we?
The Jews have ZERO right to "return" to Palestine one cannot go back to a place one never
left in the first place.
The story that the Romans expelled the Jews from Palestine 2000 years ago is FALSE.
See Israeli historian Shlomo Sand( the invention of the Jewish people).
At any rate, even had the story been true – and it is NOT – the notion of
modern Jews laying claim to the land 2000 years later is truly bizarre.
In short, today's Palestinians and their ancestors have been living continuously between
the River and the Sea for about 9,000 years."
Exactly.
In the preface of his book "Ten myths about Israel", Israeli historian Ilan Pappe,
writes:
Were the Jews indeed the original inhabitants of Palestine who deserved to be
supported in every way possible in their "return" to their "homeland"? The myth insists
that the Jews who arrived in 1882 were the descendants of the Jews expelled by the Romans
around 70 CE. The counterargument questions this genealogical connection. Quite a hefty
scholarly effort has shown that the Jews of Roman Palestine remained on the land and were
first converted to Christianity and then to Islam. Who these Jews were is still an open
question -- maybe the Khazars who converted to Judaism in the ninth century; or maybe the
mixture of races across a millennium precludes any answer to such a question.
"... now, playing catch-up, the US is employing the crudest of methods: tariffs & military bullying (& God help us all, kidnapping). ..."
"... Copley implies that cohesive societies that seek victory over all other societies can't have it, because a cohesive society must have enemies, invented or carefully preserved if necessary. Perhaps that's what the Russia affair is about. If so, its not working. ..."
"... Poor General Kelly, one of the generals who let 911 happen, is probably going to be promoted to Bechtel. I say poor because he's only worth about $5 Million, which is a low figure for the super rich who own the military industrial complex. ..."
"... my take is that we are in the end game of imperialism. the western empire is in terminal decline and there will be more empires. from the evidence Russia and China, having learned the lessons of a few thousand years of experience are not seeking for empires. ..."
"... War is Good for Business and Organized Crime. Afghanistan's Multibillion Dollar Opium Trade. Rising Heroin Addiction in the US Afghanistan's opium economy is a multibillion dollar operation which has a direct impact on the surge of heroin addiction in the US. ..."
"... Place this against the U.S. – NSA – on record for what seems to be global surveillance having tapped the phones of U.S. European allies heads of states like Angela Merkel -among other things- with it's budget of $80 billion per year. Similar amount to the total Russian defense budget. Then there is the CIA and other "three letter organizations" in the U.S. and similar operations in the U.K. I think this is David against Goliath struggle and the latter is doing most of the beating. ..."
"... This madness is driving Russia into coalition with China and creating all sorts of totally unnecessary tensions. Forcing them to avoid the US dollar and so forth. How any of this supports western interests, or the interests of U.S. or U.K. citizens is a great misery. One thing is certain – this is self-destruction policy for the U.S. in the long run. This is what happens when the lunatics take over the asylum. ..."
"... Thankfully Vladimir Putin seems to be extremely capable and stable person – not likely to fall into temptation of hitting back with horrible consequences for world peace. ..."
"... Navarro appears to have the full support of Silicon Valley, Boeing and our other high tech exporters. On the other side is Wall Street and possibly British interests. For all of the hullabaloo about Trump violating the law against private citizens conducting foreign diplomacy when he was President-elect, the Wall Street crowd appears to have transgressed much further: ..."
Most recently, a dissident economist and failed California politician named Peter Navarro has parlayed his hostility toward China
into the role of key architect of Donald Trump's "trade war" against Beijing. Like his Russian counterpart Alexander Dugin, Navarro
is another in a long line of intellectuals whose embrace of geopolitics changed the trajectory of his career.
Raised by a single mom who worked secretarial jobs to rent one-bedroomapartments where he slept on the couch, Navarro went to
college at Tufts on a scholarship and earned a doctorate in economics from Harvard. Despite that Ivy League degree, he remained an
angry outsider, denouncing the special interests "stealing America"
in his first book and later, as a business professor at the University of California-Irvine, branding San Diego developers "punks
in pinstripes." A passionate environmentalist, in 1992 Navarro plunged into politics as a Democratic candidate for the mayor of San
Diego, denouncing his opponent's husband as a convicted drug-money launderer and losing when he smirked as she wept during their
televised debate.
For the next 10 years, Navarro fought losing campaigns for everything from city council to Congress. He detailed his crushing
defeat for a seat in the House of Representatives in a tell-all
book , San Diego Confidential,
that dished out disdain for that duplicitous "sell out" Bill Clinton, dumb "blue-collar detritus" voters, and just about everybody
else as well.
Following his last losing campaign for city council, Navarro spent a decade churning out books attacking a new enemy: China. His
first "shock and awe" jeremiad
in 2006 told horror stories about that country's foreign trade; five years later, Death By China was filled with
torrid tales of "bone-crushing, cancer-causing, flammable, poisonous, and otherwise lethal products" from that land. In 2015,
a third book turned to geopolitics, complete with carefully drawn maps and respectful references to Captain Mahan, to offer an
analysis of how China's
military was pursuing a relentless strategy of "anti-access, area denial" to challenge the U.S. Navy's control over the Western Pacific.
To check China, the Pentagon then had two competing strategies -- "Air-Sea Battle," in which China's satellites were to be blinded,
knocking out its missiles, and "Offshore Control," in which China's entire coastline was to be blockaded by mining six maritime choke
points from Japan to Singapore. Both, Navarro claimed, were fatally flawed. Given that, Navarro's third book and a companion
film (
endorsed by one Donald Trump) asked: What should the United
States do to check Beijing's aggression and its rise as a global power? Since all U.S. imports from China, Navarro suggested, were
"helping to finance a Chinese military buildup," the only realistic solution was "the imposition of countervailing tariffs to offset
China's unfair trade practices."
Just a year after reaching that controversial conclusion, Navarro joined the Trump election campaign as a policy adviser and then,
after the November victory, became a junior member of the White House economic team. As a protectionist in an administration initially
dominated by globalists, he would be excluded from high-level meetings and,
according toTime Magazine , "required to copy chief
economic adviser Gary Cohn on all his emails." By February 2018, however, Cohn was on his way out and Navarro had become assistant
to the president, with his new trade office now the co-equal of the National Economic Council.
As the chief defender of Trump's
belief that "trade wars
are good and easy to win," Navarro has finally realized his own geopolitical dream of attempting to check China with tariffs. In
March, the president slapped
heavy ones on Chinese steel imports and, just a few weeks later,
promised to impose more of them on $50 billion of imports. When those started in July, China's leaders
retaliated against what
they called "typical trade bullying," imposing similar duties on American goods. Despite a
warning from the Federal
Reserve chairman that "trade tensions could pose serious risks to the U.S. and global economy," with Navarro at his elbow,
Trump escalated in September,
adding tariffs on an additional $200 billion in Chinese goods and threatening another $267 billion worth if China dared retaliate.
Nonetheless, Beijing hit
back, this time on just $60 billion in goods since 95% of all U.S. imports had already been covered.
Then something truly surprising happened. In September, the U.S. trade deficit with
China
ballooned to $305 billion for the year, driven by an 8% surge in Chinese imports -- a clear sign that Navarro's bold geopolitical
vision of beating Beijing into submission with tariffs had collided big time with the complexities of world trade. Whether this tariff
dispute will fizzle out inconsequentially or escalate into a full-blown trade war, wreaking havoc on global supply chains and the
world economy, none of us can yet know, particularly that would-be geopolitical grandmaster Peter Navarro.
The Desire to be Grandmaster of the Universe
Though such experts usually dazzle the public and the powerful alike with erudition and boldness of vision, their geopolitical
moves often have troubling long-term consequences. Mahan's plans for Pacific dominion through offshore bases created a strategic
conundrum that plagued American defense policy for a half-century. Brzezinski's geopolitical lunge at the Soviet Union's soft Central
Asian underbelly helped unleash radical Islam. Today, Alexander Dugin's use of geopolitics to revive Russia's dominion over Eurasia
has placed Moscow on a volatile collision course with Europe and the United States. Simultaneously, Peter Navarro's bold gambit to
contain China's military and economic push into the Pacific with a trade war could, if it persists, produce untold complications
for our globalized economy.
No matter how deeply flawed such geopolitical visions may ultimately prove to be, their brief moments as official policy have
regularly shaped the destiny of nations and of empires in unpredictable, unplanned, and often dangerous ways. And no matter how this
current round of geopolitical gambits plays out, we can be reasonably certain that, in the not-too-distant future, another would-be
grandmaster will embrace this seductive concept to guide his bold bid for global power.
Alfred W. McCoy, a
TomDispatch
regular , is the Harrington professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is the author of The Politics of
Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade , the now-classic book which probed the conjuncture of illicit narcotics and covert
operations over 50 years, and the recently published
In the Shadows of the American Century:
The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power ( Dispatch Books).
Dugin, regardless of what minor success he had ten years ago, is not influential in the Kremlin. He did not orchestrate Russia's
absorption of Crimea. Simple strategic needs demanded that Crimea be absorbed, and a flawless Russian execution of an ambitious
plan won the day.
Peter Navarro is correct w/r/t China. Our trading relationship with China has been a disaster for our economy (to which I mean
our ability to have an economy absent financial shenanigans) and USG has effectively funded China's rise. There is no strategic
benefit to offshoring productive capacity. I don't really care if Navarro has failed at other tasks in his life. He is correct
on this one.
we can be reasonably certain that, in the not-too-distant future, another would-be grandmaster will embrace this seductive
concept to guide his bold bid for global power.
Damn! Sounds just like me. Anyway, the US has made a lot of mistakes. It transferred much of its manufacturing base to China
and much of its technology. The Chinese see a chance to break away from the US economically and in technology.
The US invested in China's future. China invested in its future. Which is why China has a future.
Seeing geography as a decisive factor in the course of human history can be construed as a bleak view of the world, which
is why it is disliked in some intellectual circles. It suggests that nature is more powerful than man, and that we can only
go so far in determining our own fate.
Splitting the globe into ten distinct regions, former Sky News Diplomatic Editor Tim Marshall redresses our techno-centric
view of the world and suggests that our key political driver continues to be our physical geography. Beginning with Russia
(and its bewildering eleven time-zones), we are treated to an illuminating, border-by-border disassembly of what makes the
world what it is; why, for instance, China and India will never fall into conflict (the Himalayas), or why the Ukraine is such
a tactical jewel in the crown. With its panoptic view over our circumstance, Prisoners of Geography makes a compelling case
around how the physical framework of the world itself has defined our history. It's one of those books that prompts real reflection
and one that on publication absolutely grasped the imagination of our customers, ensuring it as a guaranteed entrant to our
2016 Paperbacks of the Year.
'One of the best books about geopolitics you could imagine: reading it is like having a light shone on your understanding.'
– Nicholas Lezard,
"There is no strategic benefit to offshoring productive capacity. "
Quite right. However – that horse has long bolted. And now, playing catch-up, the US is employing the crudest of methods:
tariffs & military bullying (& God help us all, kidnapping).
Unfortunately, circumstances demand a radical & imaginative response & even harder, a realisation that the horse has
bolted.
Now that you're here, you should read the Saker more. I'll pose this question though, If Russia and China are hell bent on
imperial expansion, why don't they show any interest in Mongolia? Fertile land, rich mineral resources, a tiny population incapable
of resistance it would be a no brainier. The reason they don't is because they are not imperial powers. Also, is empire a good
thing? In every historical example it has followed the same pattern and failed. Civilisations however endure through the ages.
" Vladimir Putin seeks to shatter the Western alliance with cyberwar " was where I noted this essayist is a fool and stopped
reading. Russians! Russians! Russians everywhere!
But since then has gone on to muse how it might be extended. My argument is that the Empire does not serve the American people
and is leading to the destruction of the republic and the American people. The sooner it ends the better, and if Trump can speed
up its demise, then he is our guy.
A very interesting article, for me, but, I suppose, for quite other reasons than most here expect. The essence of interest
is in the last two paragraphs.
In the first of these two those men are mentioned who by geopolitical ideas caused world wide disasters. If they did, I do not
know. The question 'did Napoleon make history or did history make Napoleon' still is a difficult one among historians, and will
remain difficult, is my idea. The man not mentioned in this paragraph is Hitler.
Then we get the ominous last paragraph, someone grabbing world wide power for geopolitical reasons, a great menace.
The essence of good propaganda is not telling lies, but telling just half truths. Not mentioned is that the area that now is
Germany for maybe hundreds of years could not feed the population, had to import food. In order to be able to import one must
export, a country with not enough agricultural production naturally must export industrial products, to fabricate these one needs
raw materials.
Not for nothing both WWI and WWII had geopolitical causes, German economic expansion to the SW and E, economic expansion that
threatened, in the British view, the autarcic British empire.
The implication of the last paragraph for me is clear, beware of the next Hitler. If the author has someone in mind who will
unleash the last world war is not clear to me.
Copley implies that cohesive societies that seek victory over all other societies can't have it, because a cohesive society
must have enemies, invented or carefully preserved if necessary. Perhaps that's what the Russia affair is about. If so, its not
working.
It's like the Federal German republic trying 90 year old people who were drafted as teenagers to be concentration camp guards
in late WW II, when the Reich was scraping through the bottom of the manpower barrel, or like the British digging up Cromwell's
bones (see Wikipedia, "Oliver Cromwell", section: "Death and posthumous execution"). Not convincing.
Alfred McCoy isn't the exact polar opposite of Bill Kristol who is wrong about everything , but McCoy does have a pretty
good track record of being mostly correct about the issues he covers, nevertheless, he still reads like an opinion column. He
also seems bonded by how he sees the American empire being some sort of force of benevolence when it acts and reacts in the same
manner as any other empire that's come and gone – and of course he loathes the idea of the next empire simply by default(they'll
brag about freedom too Alfred). And of course, in the realm of geopolitics, he never really mentions the bastard child; which
leaves a gaping hole in his analysis.
My guess is McCoy's basically on the right track. Not exactly, but he'll get you out of the woods.
For the past decade, he has been a forceful advocate for Russian expansionism
It gets a bit boring reading about how aggressive Putin is and how he wants to reconquer all the territories that were voluntarily
given up by his predecessors. How exactly would Russia benefit by reaquiring the Baltic States or Poland? These countries are
on life-support. Poland get $20bn annually in direct and indirect subsidies from the EU. As for Ukraine, what possible benefit
to Russia would it be to have an extra 35 million people who are broke. Ukrainians today spend half their income on food and that
other half on heat – and that in a country with a very cold winter.
Let's not forget that there would not have been a "Berlin Crisis" if Stalin had not given parts of Berlin to the USA, the UK
and France. Can you imagine the USA doing something similar? This whole article is a real let down. I am disappointed. I guess
every barrel has to have a rotten apple or two.
I would add that in my life, Henry Kissinger was the other supreme geopolitical theorist who attempted to establish a multipolar
geopolitics over a bipolar one. Keep in mind that it was he who essentially argued that China must be recognized in order to blunt
the USSR. Nixon thus became the one who opened China to the US, so that in theory the world was to be divided into the Russia
pole; the China pole; the American/NATO pole, and the "Third World" pole. With a dash of Mahan added to the mix, all would be
balanced and stable, or so Kissinger argued. Hmmmm, maybe not!
Are you for real? Have you looked at where these two respective areas are geographically? Hell, their borders aren't even adjacent.
As for China's interest in Tibet: what was once's part of the Empire will always be part of the Empire. Tibets been part of
the empire twice now, first under Genghis' Yuan Dynasty and again during under the Qing. That simple fact means from now until
the sun goes supernova, for China to be considered unified, Tibet must be a part of it. No ifs or buts.
That's not to mention the strategic considerations of occupying the high ground vis a vis the sub-continentals as well as the
area being the source of several great rivers. You'd have to be a madman to give that kind of advantage up.
@Anon Ghandi was of the opinion that the people of India, forgot the number, 100 million or more ?, served 400.000 rich Britons.
The Roman empire, I'd say 1% rich, 99% poor.
The tsarist empire, not much better.
The German empire again the exception, nowhere else at the end of the 19th century were common people in comparable living conditions.
The EU empire, EP members tax free incomes of some € 200.000 a year, plus an extravagant pension system.
Verhofstadt, additional income, not tax free, of at least € 450.000 a year.
Declarations, Schulz has been accused of spending € 700.000 in a year, among other things he liked a glass of wine.
When it suits their purpose, writers on economics–I won't call them Economists–praise the tiger-like speed and agility with
which Capitalism responds to the vagaries of pressures and demands that arise in world markets. But when they're engaging in public
relations we get this:
"Despite a warning from the Federal Reserve chairman that " trade tensions could pose serious risks to the U.S. and global
economy ," .. Whether this tariff dispute will fizzle out inconsequentially or escalate into a full-blown trade war, wreaking
havoc on global supply chains and the world economy
which throw a protective cloak over a poor, picked-upon capitalism which is, apparently, incapable of getting out of its own
way.
Disappointing read. No, there is nothing to suggest that Dugin has any influence on Putin. No, there is no Russian cyberwar.
Putin's aims are Russia's recovery from the disasters of communism (a road to a blind alley as he has called it) and defending
Russia against NATO's expansion, colour revolutions and numerous false accusations.
Beijing is the place to look today for big strategic thinking.
@Puzzled reasons would be the last. Because the Europeans would find of other sources and shut out Russia as being an unreliable
business partner. Moreover, Russia is now the largest exporter of wheat and is developing export levels of production in soybeans
and pork. You can't sell to countries that you have wrecked militarily.
It's the U.S., not Russia that is playing the 800 pound Global Cop Gorilla with its war-mongering, economic warfare and global
subversion.
Like Puzzled, when I read that stupid, irrational line by Alfred McCoy, I simply stopped reading. Because nobody that dense
about obvious geo-political reality deserves to be read.
Disappointing read. No, there is nothing to suggest that Dugin has any influence on Putin.
No kidding. This is what happens when you get your Russian news from the Times and the Beeb. I mean, if Dugin were such a Kremlin
favorite, how could he have lost his job at Moscow State University? You'd think he could just pick up the phone, call 'Uncle
Vova', and get his job back!
Of course Putin is a Eurasianist, but that's not because Dugin told him to be one. It's because every Russian ruler has been
a Eurasianist for centuries now. Why? Just look at a map: Russia is located in Eurasia. Would we therefore expect the Russians
to be Pan-Africanists or something else? Naturally they're going to be Eurasianists. They learned long ago that if they don't
dominate Eurasia, somebody else will -- and that will cause security problems for Russia. I can't say I hold that against them.
It's not as though the US would take kindly to some foreign empire coming on over to the Western Hemisphere and setting up shop,
say, in Latin America. In fact, just consider how Washington reacted when the Soviets concluded an alliance with Cuba. There was
no talk about the 'sovereignty of small nations' coming from the wallscreen then!
What financial shenanigans? And how has the US effectively funded China's rise? And how do tariffs destroy China ? (tariffs
are like shooting yourself in the foot)
The cause for poverty is located at the Pentagon because they own the national debt! When if ever will the Joint Chiefs be
put on trial for these treasonous Wars and lost trillions?
December 24, 2013 The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases
The US Military has bases in 63 countries. Adding to the bases inside U.S. territory, the total land area occupied by US military
bases domestically within the US and internationally is of the order of 2,202,735 hectares, which makes the *Pentagon* one of
the *largest* landowners worldwide.
Dec 21, 2013 Black Budget: US govt clueless about missing Pentagon $trillions
The Pentagon has secured a 630 billion dollar budget for next year, even though it's failed to even account for the money it's
received since 1996. A whopping 8.5 trillion dollars of taxpayer cash have gone to defence programmes – none of which has been
audited.
@Ilyana_Rozumova between other countries and with its own colonies. As the Dutch comparative advantage was frozen out, their
military aggression declined with it. America sitting on its hands while China becomes a giant Hong Kong and countries all over
Eurasia fall under its sway would by likely to lead to a very nasty war that America would loose and loose badly. It is better
to try now to stop China growing that big and dangerous by declining to trade with them under conditions that will inevitably
make them grow too large to fight. Will trade barriers to China work well enough? Probably not because they are past the lift
off stage now (Carter did too good a job), but it is worth a try.
There is opportunity for an American renaissance and really the only practical solution for its people – that is to swiftly
and decidedly push its pathetic government aside – and begin rapidly re-educating, re-training, re-tooling, and re-building a
next-generation manufacturing base.
Everything about this CIA agent's history lesson sounds fake. The blood sucking military runs the White House. ISIS or ISIL
or whatever the CIA calls itself today poses no threat. Poor General Kelly, one of the generals who let 911 happen, is probably
going to be promoted to Bechtel. I say poor because he's only worth about $5 Million, which is a low figure for the super rich
who own the military industrial complex.
@Sean ised an efficient military staff, efficient in planning. The Prussian army was the first to make extensive use of railways,
first time after the French 1870 attack. Very capable people, Germans. Red Army use of railways even in 1941 was a mess.
The GB preparations for the occupation of neutral Norway in April 1940, also a mess.
Pity quoted book is in German and with gothic letters, Ludendorff shows with extensive map material how the Germans in WWI fought
a two front, sometimes even three front war. Just possible through detailed transport planning.
Erich Ludendorff, 'Meine Kriegserinnerungen 1914 = 1918′, Berlin, 1918
As I said before, rhetorics such as 'USG has effectively funded China's rise' are just over-exaggeration if not BS. Facts:
–Foreign investments only constitute a small % of Chinese domestic investment,
–The majority of foreign Investment in china are NOT from US.
–Total investment in China in recent years amount to $trillions per year
If one cares to examine the major industrial sectors in China , like hi-speed rail, steel, photovoltaic panels, electricity,
energy,.. automobiles Only in the auto sector the americans have a sizable role because the yanks want market access.
we can be reasonably certain that, in the not-too-distant future, another would-be grandmaster will embrace this seductive
concept to guide his bold bid for global power.
my take is that we are in the end game of imperialism. the western empire is in terminal decline and there will be more
empires. from the evidence Russia and China, having learned the lessons of a few thousand years of experience are not seeking
for empires.
empires, traditional ones, are now altogether too costly, especially approaching their end. the world wont tolerate that anymore.
the credit empire is working so far but the people have cottoned on to that. to end global banking power simply take over the
banks, and recuse all debt for they were fraudulently accrued.
all banking will then by need be worker co-ops able to deal with all the financial services required by society..no conglomerates
required
the capitalists will probably try a desperate military gambit to try maintain their empire but that wont work. they are already
outgunned unless they decide to take the world down with them.
but I don't think we will have to worry about such trade 'grandmasters' farting around with the world for too much longer.
the end of imperialism will make such work redundant
and if the democracy does not replace capitalism and the elite wins, it's a Brave New World we looking at. Brilliant geneticist
bent on engineering humans. brilliant mind controllers, psychiatrists and such would be useful job qualifications to have, not
trade specialist.
Brave New World also makes the trade 'genius' redundant
December 31, 2018 War is Good for Business and Organized Crime. Afghanistan's Multibillion Dollar Opium Trade. Rising Heroin
Addiction in the US Afghanistan's opium economy is a multibillion dollar operation which has a direct impact on the surge of heroin
addiction in the US.
It's always fun to read articles and history. This article was fun and perhaps thought provoking. But at least some parts of
it make no sense to me.
Take for example the "heartland" theory. Yes it probably made sense over a century ago when strategist -always looking in the
rear view mirror- judged the situation based on the Roman empire or Napoleons conquest. And their thoughts grounded in traditional
territorial wars.
Today with nuclear weapons, fast long range missiles and in very different economic reality, I don't think the "Heartland"
is the key to control the world, Eurasia, Europe or indeed anything else than possibly the "Heartland" it self. Control from the
Heartland over nuclear France or the U.K?
Annexing small part of land on your own borders whose inhabitants overwhelmingly welcome you with open arms, like Russians
did in Crimea, is totally different from conquering unwilling, hostile neighbors. The latter is extremely costly and difficult
exercise with just about zero upside but gaping black hole on the downside. Remember Afghanistan or Iraq or Vietnam? So the former
isn't indication of the latter!
I dont't see anything that supports the theory the Russians are playing by the book of the Heartland theory. In current political
situation it's outlandish idea. Perhaps the idea is to paint Russia's leaders as lunatics?
Yes the Russians are probably engaged in cyber-war. They seem to have the Russian troll farm in St. Petersburg – as reported
by European media it's amateur operation costing perhaps few million dollars per year with 80 people from the unemployment list's
hammering on laptops working shifts creating and nurturing social media accounts. No experts in politics or advanced computing
in sight, no supercomputers, artificial intelligence. Like I said, amateur operation hardly indicating state-sponsored efforts.
Place this against the U.S. – NSA – on record for what seems to be global surveillance having tapped the phones of U.S.
European allies heads of states like Angela Merkel -among other things- with it's budget of $80 billion per year. Similar amount
to the total Russian defense budget. Then there is the CIA and other "three letter organizations" in the U.S. and similar operations
in the U.K. I think this is David against Goliath struggle and the latter is doing most of the beating.
The press? R.T and few other outlets versus the western MSM who has in recent years acted like a pack of rabid dogs against
Russia. Investigative journalism into international affairs is replaced by publishing official statements and "analysis" from
"experts". This is war propaganda – nothing less. And the Russians are playing desperate defense most days.
This madness is driving Russia into coalition with China and creating all sorts of totally unnecessary tensions. Forcing
them to avoid the US dollar and so forth. How any of this supports western interests, or the interests of U.S. or U.K. citizens
is a great misery. One thing is certain – this is self-destruction policy for the U.S. in the long run. This is what happens when
the lunatics take over the asylum.
Thankfully Vladimir Putin seems to be extremely capable and stable person – not likely to fall into temptation of hitting
back with horrible consequences for world peace.
It was a nice history essay, but there isn't much of a logical relationship between Mahan, Haushofer, et al. and the present
trade confrontation.
Navarro appears to have the full support of Silicon Valley, Boeing and our other high tech exporters. On the other side
is Wall Street and possibly British interests. For all of the hullabaloo about Trump violating the law against private citizens
conducting foreign diplomacy when he was President-elect, the Wall Street crowd appears to have transgressed much further:
It seems the New York banks would gladly trade the SV engineering jobs for a bigger share of the China banking business,
a la the Cleveland and Detroit auto industry jobs of the past.
A possible break with Britain is something even bigger to watch, as their involvement in China is even more finance-related.
@Anon ng, which far exceeded direct investments into China by any other country.
If we take a look at the Santander report on Hong Kong FDI, most of it seems to come from the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman
Islands (both offshore banking locations, with the funds coming from who knows where) and the UK.
By abetting the ad industry, universities are leading us into temptation, when they
should be enlightening us
... ... ...
I ask because, while considering the frenzy
of consumerism that rises beyond its usual planet-trashing levels at this time of year, I
recently stumbled across a paper that astonished
me . It was written by academics at public universities in the Netherlands and the US.
Their purpose seemed to me starkly at odds with the public interest. They sought to identify
"the different ways in which consumers resist advertising, and the tactics that can be used to
counter or avoid such resistance".
Among the "neutralising" techniques it highlighted were "disguising the persuasive intent of
the message"; distracting our attention by using confusing phrases that make it harder to focus
on the advertiser's intentions; and "using cognitive depletion as a tactic for reducing
consumers' ability to contest messages". This means hitting us with enough advertisements to
exhaust our mental resources, breaking down our capacity to think.
Intrigued, I started looking for other academic papers on the same theme, and found an
entire literature. There were articles on every imaginable aspect of resistance, and helpful
tips on overcoming it. For example, I came across a paper that counsels advertisers on how to
rebuild public trust when the celebrity they work with gets into trouble. Rather than dumping
this lucrative asset, the researchers advised that the best means to enhance "the authentic
persuasive appeal of a celebrity endorser" whose standing has slipped is to get them to display
"a Duchenne smile", otherwise known as "a genuine smile". It precisely anatomised such smiles,
showed how to spot them, and discussed the "construction" of sincerity and "genuineness": a
magnificent exercise in inauthentic authenticity.
Another paper considered how
to persuade sceptical people to accept a company's corporate social responsibility claims,
especially when these claims conflict with the company's overall objectives. (An obvious
example is ExxonMobil's attempts to convince people that it is environmentally responsible,
because it is researching algal fuels that could one day reduce CO2 – even as it
continues to
pump millions of barrels of fossil oil a day ). I hoped the paper would recommend that the
best means of persuading people is for a company to change its practices. Instead, the authors'
research showed how images and statements could be cleverly combined to "minimise stakeholder
scepticism".
A further
paper discussed advertisements that work by stimulating
Fomo – fear of missing out . It noted that such ads work through "controlled
motivation", which is "anathema to wellbeing". Fomo ads, the paper explained, tend to cause
significant discomfort to those who notice them. It then went on to show how an improved
understanding of people's responses "provides the opportunity to enhance the effectiveness of
Fomo as a purchase trigger". One tactic it proposed is to keep stimulating the fear of missing
out, during and after the decision to buy. This, it suggested, will make people more
susceptible to further ads on the same lines.
Yes, I know: I work in an industry that receives most of its income from advertising, so I
am complicit in this too. But so are we all. Advertising – with its destructive
impacts on the living planet, our peace of mind and our free will – sits at the heart of
our growth-based economy. This gives us all the more reason to challenge it. Among the places
in which the challenge should begin are universities, and the academic societies that are
supposed to set and uphold ethical standards. If they cannot swim against the currents of
constructed desire and constructed thought, who can?
Looks like Guardian start turning away from neoliberalism.
Notable quotes:
"... What price is paid when a promise is broken? Because for much of my life, and probably yours, the political class has made this pledge: that the best way to run an economy is to hack back the public realm as far as possible and let the private sector run free. That way, services operate better, businesses get the resources they need, and our national finances are healthier. ..."
"... I don't wish to write about the everyday failings of neoliberalism – that piece would be filed before you could say "east coast mainline". Instead, I want to address the most stubborn belief of all: that running a small state is the soundest financial arrangement for governments and voters alike. Because 40 years on from the Thatcher revolution, more and more evidence is coming in to the contrary. ..."
"... The other big reason for the UK's financial precarity is its privatisation programme, described by the IMF as no less than a "fiscal illusion". British governments have flogged nearly everything in the cupboard, from airports to the Royal Mail – often at giveaway prices – to friends in the City. Such privatisations, judge the fund, "increase revenues and lower deficits but also reduce the government's asset holdings". ..."
"... IMF research shows is that the Westminster classes have been asset-stripping Britain for decades – and storing up financial trouble for future generations ..."
The fund reports that Britain's finances are weaker than all other nations except Portugal,
and says privatisation is to blame
Columnists usually proffer answers, but today I want to ask a question, a big one. What price
is paid when a promise is broken? Because for much of my life, and probably yours, the
political class has made this pledge: that the best way to run an economy is to hack back the
public realm as far as possible and let the private sector run free. That way, services operate
better, businesses get the resources they need, and our national finances are healthier.
It's why your tax credits keep
dropping , and your mum has to wait half a year to see a hospital consultant –
because David Cameron slashed public spending, to stop it "crowding out" private money. It's
why water bills are so high and train services can never be counted on – because both
industries have been privatised.
From the debacle of universal credit to the forced conversion of state schools into
corporate-run academies, the ideology of the small state – defined by no less a body than
the International Monetary Fund as neoliberalism – is all pervasive. It decides how much
money you have left at the end of the week and what kind of future your children will enjoy,
and it explains why your elderly relatives can't get a decent carer.
I don't wish to write about the everyday failings of neoliberalism – that piece would
be filed before you could say "east coast mainline". Instead, I want to address the most
stubborn belief of all: that running a small state is the soundest financial arrangement for
governments and voters alike. Because 40 years on from the Thatcher revolution, more and more
evidence is coming in to the contrary.
Let's start with the IMF itself. Last week it published
a report that barely got a mention from the BBC or in Westminster, yet helps reframe the
entire debate over austerity. The fund totted up both the public debt and the publicly owned
assets of 31 countries, from the US to Australia, Finland to France, and found that
the UK had among the weakest public finances of the lot. With less than £3 trillion
of assets against £5tn in pensions and other liabilities, the UK is more than £2tn
in the red . Of all the other countries examined by researchers, including the Gambia and
Kenya, only Portugal's finances look worse over the long run. So much for fixing the
roof.
'British governments have flogged nearly everything in the cupboard from airports to
the Royal Mail – often at giveaway prices – to friends in the City.' Photograph:
Amer Ghazzal/Rex/Shutterstock
Almost as startling are the IMF's reasons for why Britain is in such a state: one way or
another they all come back to neoliberalism. Thatcher loosed finance from its shackles and used
our North Sea oil money to pay for swingeing tax cuts. The result is an overfinancialised
economy and a government that is £1tn worse off since the banking crash. Norway has
similar
North Sea wealth and a far smaller population, but also a sovereign wealth fund. Its net
worth has soared over the past decade.
The other big reason for the UK's financial precarity is its privatisation programme,
described by the IMF as no less than a "fiscal illusion". British governments have flogged
nearly everything in the cupboard, from airports to the Royal Mail – often at giveaway
prices – to friends in the City. Such privatisations, judge the fund, "increase revenues
and lower deficits but also reduce the government's asset holdings".
Throughout the austerity decade, ministers and economists have pushed for spending cuts by
pointing to the size of the government's annual overdraft, or budget deficit. Yet there are two
sides to a balance sheet, as all accountants know and this IMF work recognises. The same goes
for our public realm: if Labour's John McDonnell gets into No 11 and renationalises the
railways, that would cost tens of billions – but it would also leave the country with
assets worth tens of billions that provided a regular income.
Instead, what this IMF research shows is that the Westminster classes have been
asset-stripping Britain for decades – and storing up financial trouble for future
generations.
Privatisation and austerity have not only weakened the country's financial position –
they have also handed unearned wealth to a select few. Just look at
a new report from the University of Greenwich finding that water companies could have
funded all their day-to-day running and their long-term investments out of the bills paid by
customers. Instead of which, managers have lumbered the firms with £51bn of debt to pay
for shareholders' dividends. Those borrowed billions, and the millions in interest, will be
paid by you and me in our water bills. We might as well stuff the cash directly into the
pockets of shareholders.
Instead of competitively run utilities, record investment by the private sector and sounder
public finances, we have natural monopolies handed over to the wealthy, banks that can dump
their liabilities on the public when things get tough, and an outsourcing industry that feasts
upon the carcass of the public sector. As if all this weren't enough, neoliberal voices
complain that we need to cut taxes and red tape, and further starve our public services.
This is a genuine scandal, but it requires us to recognise what neoliberalism promised and
what it has failed to deliver. Some of the loudest critics of the ideology have completely
misidentified it. Academics will daub the term "neoliberal" on any passing phenomenon. Fitbits
are apparently neoliberal, as is Ben & Jerry's ice-cream and Kanye West. Pundits will say
that neoliberalism is about markets and choice – tell that to any commuter wedged on a
Southern rail train. And centrist politicians claim that the great failing of neoliberalism is
its carelessness about identity and place, which is akin to complaining that the boy on a moped
who snatched your smartphone is going too fast.
Let us get it straight. Neoliberalism has ripped you off and robbed you blind. The evidence
of that is mounting up – in your bills, in your services and in the finances of your
country.
• Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist and senior economics commentator
"
Nation
states must today be prepared to give up their sovereignty
",
according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel,
who told an audience in Berlin that sovereign nation states must not listen to the will of their citizens when it comes
to questions of immigration, borders, or even sovereignty.
No this wasn't something Adolf Hitler said many decades ago, this is what German Chancellor Angela Merkel
told
attendants
at an event by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Berlin. Merkel has announced she won't seek re-election
in 2021 and it is clear she is attempting to push the globalist agenda to its disturbing conclusion before she stands
down.
"
In
an orderly fashion of course,
" Merkel joked, attempting to lighten the mood. But Merkel has always had a tin ear
for comedy and she soon launched into a dark speech condemning those in her own party who think Germany should have
listened to the will of its citizens and refused to sign the controversial UN migration pact:
"
There
were [politicians] who believed that they could decide when these agreements are no longer valid because they are
representing The People
".
"
[But]
the people are individuals who are living in a country, they are not a group who define themselves as the [German]
people
," she stressed.
Merkel has previously accused critics of the UN Global Compact for Safe and Orderly Migration of not being patriotic,
saying "
That
is not patriotism, because patriotism is when you include others in German interests and accept win-win situations
".
Her words echo recent comments by the deeply unpopular French President Emmanuel Macron who stated in a Remembrance Day
speech that "
patriotism
is the exact opposite of nationalism [because] nationalism is treason
."
The French president's words were deeply unpopular with the French population and his approval rating nosedived even
further after the comments.
Macron, whose lack of leadership is proving unable to deal with growing protests in France, told the Bundestag that
France and Germany should be at the center of the emerging New World Order.
"
The
Franco-German couple [has]the obligation not to let the world slip into chaos and to guide it on the road to peace"
.
"
Europe
must be stronger and win more sovereignty
," he went on to demand, just like Merkel, that
EU
member states surrender national sovereignty to Brussels
over "
foreign
affairs, migration, and development
" as well as giving "
an
increasing part of our budgets and even fiscal resources".
"... Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was an Army Infantry/Intelligence officer before working as a CIA analyst for the next 27 years. Ray admits to a modicum of bias against Marine officers, but not those with whom he worked back in the day. He is co-creator of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, which includes Marines who remember what Semper Fi means. ..."
"... A case in point is when you hear members of congress criticize Trump decision to withdraw the US army personals from Syria and Afganistan. These members forget that the US army in Syria is in violation of international laws and US laws as well. ..."
utgoing Defense Secretary Gen. James "Mad Dog" Mattis was famous for quipping , "It's fun to shoot some
people." It remains a supreme irony that Mattis was widely considered the only "adult in the
room" in the Trump administration. Compared to whom? John Bolton, the rabid neocon serving as
national security adviser? That would be the epitome of "condemning with faint praise."
With his ramrod-straight image, not to mention his warrior/scholar reputation extolled in
the media, Mattis was able to disguise the reality that he was, as Col. Andrew Bacevich
put it on
Democracy Now! this morning, "totally unimaginative." Meaning that Mattis was simply incapable
of acknowledging the self-destructive, mindless nature of U.S. "endless war" in the Middle
East, which candidate-Trump had correctly called "stupid." In his resignation letter, Mattis
also peddled the usual cant about the indispensable nation's aggression being good for the
world.
Mattis was an obstacle to Trump's desire to pull troops out of Syria and Afghanistan (and
remains in position to spike Trump's orders). Granted, the abrupt way Trump announced his
apparently one-man decision was equally stupid. But the withdrawal of ground troops is
supremely sane, and Mattis was and is a large problem. And, for good or ill, Trump -- not
Mattis -- was elected president.
Marine Wisdom
Historically, Marines are the last place to turn for sound advice. Marine Gen. Smedley
Butler (1881-1940), twice winner of the Medal of Honor, was brutally candid about this after he
paused long enough to realize, and write, "War is a Racket":
I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members
of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service. My
mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher-
ups. "
Shortly after another Marine general, former CENTCOM commander Anthony Zinni, retired, he
stood by silently as he personally watched then-Vice President Dick Cheney give his most
important speech ever (on August 26, 2002). Cheney blatantly lied about Iraq's (non-existent)
WMD, in order to grease the skids for the war of aggression against Iraq. Zinni had kept his
clearances and was "back on contract." He was well read-in on Iraq, and knew immediately that
Cheney was lying.
A few years later, Zinni admitted that he decided that his lips would be sealed. Far be it
for a Marine to play skunk at the picnic. And, after all, he was being honored that day at the
same Veterans of Foreign Wars convention where Cheney spoke. As seems clear now, Zinni was also
lusting after the lucrative spoils of war given to erstwhile generals who offer themselves for
membership on the corporate Boards of the arms makers/merchants that profiteer on war.
Marine officer, now Sen. Pat Roberts, R, Kansas, merits "dishonorable mention" in this
connection. He never rose to general but did become Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee
at an auspicious time for Cheney and Bush. Roberts kowtowed, like a "good Marine," to their
crass deceit, when a dollop of honesty on his part could have prevented the 2003 attack on Iraq
and the killing, maiming, destruction, and chaos that continues to this day. Roberts knew all
about the fraudulent intelligence and covered it up -- together with other lies -- for as long
as he remained Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman
Scott Ritter on Pat Roberts
Roberts's unconscionable dereliction of duty enraged one honest Marine, Maj. Scott Ritter,
who believes "Semper Fi" includes an obligation to tell the truth on matters of war and peace.
Ritter, former UN chief weapons inspector for Iraq, who in April 2005 wrote, "Semper Fraud,
Senator Roberts," based partly on his own experience
with that complicit Marine.
Needless to say, higher ranking, more malleable Marines aped Zinni in impersonating Uncle
Remus's Tar Baby -- not saying nuttin'.
It is conceivable that yet another sharply-saluting Marine, departing Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, may be tapped by Trump to take Mattis's job. If that happens,
it will add to President Trump's bizarre penchant for picking advisers hell-bent on frustrating
the objectives he espoused when he was running for office, some of which -- it is becoming
quite clear -- he genuinely wants to achieve.
Trump ought to unleash Mattis now, and make sure Mattis keeps his distance from the Pentagon
and the Military-Industrial Complex before he is asked to lead an insurrection against a highly
vulnerable president -- as Gen. Smedley Butler was asked to do back in the day. Butler said
no.
Top Photo | U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis, sits on stage during a change of command
ceremony at the U.S. Southern Command headquarters on Nov. 26, 2018, in Doral, Fla. Brynn
Anderson | AP
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church
of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He was an Army Infantry/Intelligence officer before
working as a CIA analyst for the next 27 years. Ray admits to a modicum of bias against Marine
officers, but not those with whom he worked back in the day. He is co-creator of Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, which includes Marines who remember what Semper Fi
means.
I am not so much surprised that military generals keep their mouths shot rather than tell
the truth when the truth is needed to avoid wars. But worse is that the US congress which are
supposed to overlook over the government misbehavior to make the government abide by the laws
and protect the interests of the people against government wrongs.
A case in point is when you hear members of congress criticize Trump decision to
withdraw the US army personals from Syria and Afganistan. These members forget that the US
army in Syria is in violation of international laws and US laws as well.
The congress are supposed the authority to declare war but the US is engaged in multiple
wars without US Congress authorization. Worse off these idiots want to force the Trump
administration to keep its illegal wars going on? What is the role of the congress??? To
correct and force the Administration to abide by the rule of laws of the force them to keep
violating international laws and US laws as well????
Trump's bizarre penchant for picking advisers hell-bent on frustrating the objectives
he espoused when he was running for office
It's bizarre that he's hired so many Bill Kristol approved neocons when they abandoned him
for Hillary in 2016. Or not so bizarre when one remembers what Russ Tice said about Cheney
using the NSA to get blackmail dirt. Now they've lost control, so it will be interesting to
see how they try to regain it.
"... Maybe I am overestimating the intelligence of MIC profiteers, but my impression is that those thieves know that their loot is only useful as long as they are alive. There is a lot of silly hostile talk against Russia and China, but have you noticed how the US military always makes sure that there are no direct confrontations with countries that can turn the US into radioactive dust? The profiteers want huge Pentagon budget to steal from, but not the war where they lose along with everyone else. ..."
Maybe I am overestimating the intelligence of MIC profiteers, but my impression is that those thieves know that their loot
is only useful as long as they are alive. There is a lot of silly hostile talk against Russia and China, but have you noticed
how the US military always makes sure that there are no direct confrontations with countries that can turn the US into radioactive
dust? The profiteers want huge Pentagon budget to steal from, but not the war where they lose along with everyone else.
As to the wall, it is one of the silliest projects ever suggested. Maybe that's why it was so easy to sell it to the intellectually
disadvantaged electorate. There are two things that can stop illegal immigration.
First, go for the employers, enact a law that fines them to the tune of $50,000 or more per every illegal they employ. Second,
enact the law that anyone caught residing in the US illegally has no right to enter the US legally, to obtain asylum, permanent
residency, or citizenship for life, and include a provision that marriage to a US citizen does not nullify this ban.
Then enforce both laws. After that illegals would run out of the country, and greedy employers won't hire any more. Naturally,
the wall, even if built, won't change anything: as long as there are employers trying to save on salaries, immigration fees, and
Social Security tax, and people willing to live and work illegally risking nothing, no wall would stem the flow.
Unfortunately, no side is even thinking about real measures, both are just posturing.
Am wondering in which prosperous U.S. Zionist "career" field has John Yoo landed?
He is a distinguished professor at Berkley Law, UC. Here's his bio:
Professor Yoo is the Emanuel Heller Professor of Law and director of the Korea Law
Center, the California Constitution Center, and the Law School's Program in Public Law and
Policy. His most recent books are Striking Power: How Cyber, Robots, and Space Weapons
Change the Rules for War (Encounter 2017) (with Jeremy Rabkin) and Point of Attack:
Preventive War, International Law, and Global Welfare (Oxford University Press, 2014).
Professor Yoo is a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a visiting
fellow at the Hoover Institution
From 2001 to 2003, he served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of
Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on issues involving
foreign affairs, national security and the separation of powers.
Notice how they gloss over his diabolical activities as deputy AG for the Bush II
Adminstration "where he worked on issues involving foreign affairs, national security and the
separation of powers."
And, oh, yeah, he cobbled together legal statements that gave the Bush Admin carte blanche
to engage in "enhanced interrogation techniques," more commonly known as "torture." He was
about to be in big dodo for his crimes. but just like the 5 dancing Israelis were rescued by
Chertoff, a guy named David Margolis managed to get Yoo off the hook:
The Office of Professional Responsibilty (OPR) report concluded that Yoo had "committed
'intentional professional misconduct' when he advised the CIA it could proceed with
waterboarding and other aggressive interrogation techniques against Al Qaeda suspects,"
although the recommendation that he be referred to his state bar association for possible
disciplinary proceedings was overruled by David Margolis, another senior Justice department
lawyer.
The "Resistance" -- the loose affiliation of liberals, progressives and neo-conservatives
dedicated to opposing Donald Trump -- is NOT a grass-roots movement. They don't speak for the
everyman or the poor or the oppressed. They are a distraction, nothing more. A parlor game. The
face
to Trump's heel .
The Resistance is the voice of the Deep State -- Pro-war, pro-globalisation,
pro-Imperialism. It just hides its true face behind a mask of "progressive values". They prove
this with their own actions -- opposing Trump's moves toward peace with North Korea and finding
common ground with Russia.
In fact, though the resistance lives to criticize the Trump administration, they have been
notably quiet -- even in favour of -- three key issues: The bombing of Syria, the tearing up of
the INF treaty and the prosecution of Julian Assange.
They tell us, in clear voices, who they are and what they want and millions of people refuse
to listen. So totally brain-washed by the "Orange Man Bad" hysteria, that they will
side with anyone hitting the same talking points, spouting the right buzzwords, using the same
hashtags.
The painful prose paints a blurry picture of Mueller. Slapping ounces of vaseline onto the
lens of reality. It praises his hair and his clothes and his 35 dollar watch. It declares him a
soldier "forged in combat", regaling us with tales of the bravery of Mueller's marine regiment
-- "The Magnificent Bastards".
Vietnam is reduced to a movie set -- nothing but a backdrop for Mueller's courage under
fire. He won a bronze star, you know. Apparently while "The Magnificent Bastards" strode around
the Vietnamese jungle, burning villages down and watching the napalm fall from the sky, a
couple of angry farmers shot back and Mueller was wounded.
Taking a bullet in the leg from a terrified peasant who just wants you to sod off out of his
country will always win you medals, but it shouldn't.
Voluntarily signing on to enforce Imperial foreign policy in a war of conquest will always
have the media paint you as a hero, but it shouldn't.
What flaws the author does ascribe to Mueller are those we all happily admit to having
ourselves. He's a "micromanager" and he's "too tough".
Yes, and I'm sure he works himself too hard and doesn't suffer fools gladly
and always speaks his mind aswell.
Read the column if you want, but I'd suggest not eating for a few hours first. A more
nauseating panegyric I have not witnessed, at least since Barack Obama left
office .
Far more telling than what it does say is what it does not say. It mentions Mueller's
role as head of the FBI during the launch of the "war on terror", but doesn't go into any of
the abuse of human rights that accompanied (and still accompanies) the increasingly
authoritarian powers granted to US intelligence agencies by the Patriot Act.
Let's be clear: Mueller's FBI was complicit in rendition, torture, Gitmo. All of it.
Given that, it's rather unsurprising that the article doesn't mention the word "Iraq" once.
A breath-taking omission, considering Mueller's testimony in front of congress played a key
role in spreading the lie of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction":
It doesn't matter how many Vietnamese peasants took pot-shots at him, it doesn't matter how
tidy his hair is, or how cheap his watch. It doesn't matter if he looks like
Cooper or speaks like Eastwood or walks like Wayne. He is a proven liar -- a man culpable
in the greatest crime of the 21st century. He is, and always will be, a servant of the Deep
State.
A proven liar. A proven killer. An Imperialist. A criminal.
Is this the stuff of which political heroes should be made?
Only in "the Resistance".
Obviously, Trump's administration is dangerous -- it still stokes warlike approaches to Iran
and Russia. It has directly threatened Venezuela and Cuba. But you can't fight the right-hand
of the Deep State by clasping the left. They all join in the middle. They're the same
monster.
Anti-Trumpers, all over the world, need to take a good look at WHO they're fighting
alongside, and ask themselves WHAT they are fighting for.
Kit
Knightly is co-editor of OffGuardian. The Guardian banned him from commenting. Twice. He
used to write for fun, but now he's forced to out of a near-permanent sense of
outrage.
Mueller's FBI named their 9/11 investigation PENTTBOM=Pentagon Twin Towers Bombing
There were also numerous media accounts of explosives being used on 9/11–even ABC's
John Miller
stated initial FBI feedback was that there were additional explosives used at WTC on
9/11.
Did FBI test for explosives?
What were the results?
If no tests were done–why the F not?
Why didn't media or Congress ever follow up and ask FBI about the explosions which were
reported?
i was reading that puff-piece yesterday, thinking "i wonder how long off-g's response to
this journalistic offal will be in coming" you haven't disappointed! Kit..sorry, i sound like
a gushing fanboi. most people outside of america don't realise how deep statey Mueller really
is. he's the Harvey Keitel character from pulp fiction. the mob cleanup guy
the Graun is particularly odious at the moment. today's leader is a blatant opinion piece
where the "writer" is practically rubbing their hand on their thighs with glee, telling us
how trump is facing a subpoena cannon from the dems. good too see they're using their newly
re-minted political capital on the important business of running the country resistance my
arse
And with the anthrax investigation (which of course the Guardian doesn't mention), he's
also a proven incompetent.
Have to say though–I'm looking forward to the day when this investigation is
wrapped, the report comes out, and it's not at all what the Maddows wanted to hear. At that
point Mueller will suddenly be a Russian agent himself; incompetent; compromised, and any/all
other smears to explain why his investigation didn't find their irrational hysteria to be
true.
Then maybe a few months later Trump will fire him and he'll be a hero again and get a
Gofund to help this poor unemployed honorable soul.
Wonder how the Grauniad will explain away the Skripal case when it's revealed that
Mueller's Steele dossier was written by Skripal.
No wonder the British Deep State are panicking to prevent the publication of the documents
ordered by the Orange One.
The so-called anti-Trump Resistance(TM) plays the role of Good Cop to the Trump Regime's
Bad Cop. Nothing more.
This is the nature of the political shell game that passes for American democracy, which
in reality is an imperial plutocracy.
In all these Anglo imperialist nations in general like America, Britain, or Australia,
there is only one true party: the party of Anglo American imperialism.
The anti-Trump "Resistance" is merely one faction of the Anglo-American Empire, which is
in conflict with another faction of the Anglo-American Empire.
The supposed differences between them are similar to the differences between Coke and
Pepsi, or McDonald's and Burger King.
("A proven liar. A proven killer. An Imperialist. A criminal.
Is this the stuff of which political heroes should be made?
Only in "the Resistance").
-- - ah, there you go again bringing in reason, a rational argument, the historical
record, common sense, and in short objective – "reality" – into the equation. Of
course if you are using these sort of criteria Mueller isn't going to look so good. You have
to understand that the "Resistance" is, well, more of a "feeling" than anything rational or
intellectually defensible.and valorizing Muller certainly isn't based on his "real-world"
behavior. Simply put, Muller stands in opposition to Trump and that "feels" right to the
"resistance." You know, just like it "feels right" to this same segment of the U.S.
population not to let themselves think about the fact that Obama was illegally and immorally
bombing 8 Muslim countries as he left office.
Of course in the end Mueller as "hero" of the "resistance" is simply the deep state's
slight of hand PR campaign to oppose Trump as the impossibly and unacceptably "bad face" for
U.S. empire that he is.
I mean how are Merkel or Macron or May supposed to rally their even half-awake citizenry into
dutifully following our tweet crazed endlessly offensive "Orange One" into the next all
important battle against the newest deep state defined "Hitler" in Iran, or Syria, or . . .
while maintaining any credibility with their own populations?
It's astonishing how many self professed 'Progressives' swallow the Resistance line. There
certainly is a war within the Administration, Dark State v the President. The latest episode
seems to have centred around cutting off the legs of Trump's big partner in the ME and his
son in law's close friend, Crown Prince bin Salman. What promoted Turkey to release the
information they had on the murder in Istanbul? We can be satisfied it wasn't borne out of
humanitarianism! Were they acting in lock step with the American Agencies like the CIA that
now tells Turkey it has intercepts 'proving' the Crown Prince ordered the killing? The
'bloodless' Regime Change that is underway aims to remove an arrogant and reckless not to say
bloodthirsty man from Absolute Power, a position he might have held for 50 years or more. No
wonder Erdoghan would like to see him sidelined. 50 years of Absolute Power in one of the
richest countries on earth is an awful lot of time! For the Americans it is a case of seizing
control of Foreign Policy in the ME from Trump who keeps talking about 'getting out' of
Syria: the Military and the Agencies regard that as not in American interests; they intend to
stay and control the vast oil wells in the NE. But it requires agreement with Turkey so who
knows what the Agencies promise Turkey in return? It sounds like a deal dividing northern
Syria between the Turks and the Americans; no room for the Kurds (again). It's the most
serious blow to Trump's authority akin to the time the American military disobeyed Obama over
the cease fire with Russia in Syria when instead they 'accidently' bombed Syrian soldiers,
killing 80 of them. President's it seems are not allowed their own Foreign Policy and in
reality that has been the case since the CIA was founded. Only Kennedy seriously tried to
break away
'Trickle down effect' - the favourite buzzword of neoliberal supporters. I'd like to see
trickle down effect tried at the local pub on the taps by the local mp. Imagine what would
happen. Definitely doesn't pass the pub test.
"So we go to fallback argument B, which is "containing Iran." "Containment" was a U.S. policy
devised by George Kennan in 1947 to inhibit the expansion of a powerful and sometimes
aggressive soon-to-be nuclear armed Soviet Union, which was rightly seen as a serious
threat."
Seen as a serious threat by some?
"Taken together, these four volumes constitute an extraordinary commentary on a basic
weakness in the Soviet system. The Soviets are heavily dependent on Western technology and
innovation not only in their civilian industries, but also in their military programs. An
inevitable conclusion from the evidence in this book is that we have totally ignored a policy
that would enable us to neutralize Soviet global ambitions while simultaneously reducing the
defense budget and the tax load on American citizens."
"Containment" was a U.S. policy devised by George Kennan in 1947 to inhibit the expansion of
a powerful and sometimes aggressive soon-to-be nuclear armed Soviet Union, which was rightly
seen as a serious threat.
"which was rightly seen as a serious threat." So it was, was it? That's really the
beginning of the bullshit in American policy. There were a few naysayers back then, since
largely vindicated by the opening of former Soviet archives, who claimed that Stalin's
postwar moves were largely defensive in nature and intended to protect the USSR from the
talked about US preemptive attack on the Soviet Union. Stalin was well aware of all the loose
talk on the American side and his country had just endured the same attempt on the part of
Nazi Germany.
"Containment" was a U.S. policy devised by George Kennan in 1947 to inhibit the
expansion of a powerful and sometimes aggressive soon-to-be nuclear armed Soviet Union,
which was rightly seen as a serious threat.
Could someone explain to me how exactly was the Soviet Union a serious threat to the US,
particularly in 1947? The country was devastated by the war; some regions suffered from
hunger, for goodness' sake; tens of millions were dead or maimed; the worked force was
depleted as million of young men were killed, so the economic burden fell on the shoulders of
women and teenagers; the cost of housing of people left homeless by the war was staggering;
the cost of caring for orphan children, wounded and invalids -- ditto. In contrast, the
United States was getting fatter by the minutes having benefited enormously from the war in
Europe.
The Soviet Union "sometimes aggressive"? I am not aware of any Soviet plans to attack the
US but we all know about the American and British plant to attack the USSR formulated as
early as in 1945. No doubts the Soviet leadership was aware of such plans. The Soviets,
having witnessed a demonstration staged for their benefits in Japans of the power of nuclear
weapons, did everything with one purpose in mind: to prevent an attack, which they were in no
position to withstand. Needless to say, the USSR didn't have nuclear weapons at that time but
even after it had acquired them, it didn't quite catch up with the US in terms on number
until the very end.
It's fair to say that the Soviet Union was never ever a thereat to the US. On the
contrary, the US was a threat to the Soviet Union from the fist till the last day of its
existence, as it remains a treat to Russia today. The problems with the Americans, even the
most reasonable of them (not at all difficult to appear on today's insane background), is
that they don't question the entire narrative they are fed but only the bits of it.
@Tony
H. George Kennan's attitude towards Russia had evolved throughout the 70s-90s, but this
evolution has been carefully obscured by the ziocon warriors and other war-profiteers using
the ZUSA resources for their personal enrichment:
With the end of the Cold War, Kennan continued to emphasize the limits of American power
and the need for restraint in the exercise of it.
He lived to see the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war and
characteristically aimed to influence the role that the United States should play in the
new world circumstances.
He objected to plans for North Atlantic Treaty Organization expansion and to what he saw
as exploitation of Russian weakness.
"... Maybe I am overestimating the intelligence of MIC profiteers, but my impression is that those thieves know that their loot is only useful as long as they are alive. There is a lot of silly hostile talk against Russia and China, but have you noticed how the US military always makes sure that there are no direct confrontations with countries that can turn the US into radioactive dust? The profiteers want huge Pentagon budget to steal from, but not the war where they lose along with everyone else. ..."
Maybe I am overestimating the intelligence of MIC profiteers, but my impression is that those thieves know that their loot
is only useful as long as they are alive. There is a lot of silly hostile talk against Russia and China, but have you noticed
how the US military always makes sure that there are no direct confrontations with countries that can turn the US into radioactive
dust? The profiteers want huge Pentagon budget to steal from, but not the war where they lose along with everyone else.
As to the wall, it is one of the silliest projects ever suggested. Maybe that's why it was so easy to sell it to the intellectually
disadvantaged electorate. There are two things that can stop illegal immigration.
First, go for the employers, enact a law that fines them to the tune of $50,000 or more per every illegal they employ. Second,
enact the law that anyone caught residing in the US illegally has no right to enter the US legally, to obtain asylum, permanent
residency, or citizenship for life, and include a provision that marriage to a US citizen does not nullify this ban.
Then enforce both laws. After that illegals would run out of the country, and greedy employers won't hire any more. Naturally,
the wall, even if built, won't change anything: as long as there are employers trying to save on salaries, immigration fees, and
Social Security tax, and people willing to live and work illegally risking nothing, no wall would stem the flow.
Unfortunately, no side is even thinking about real measures, both are just posturing.
I still had some things I didn't talk about in Sunday's Trump Derangement
International , about how the European press have found out that they, like the US MSM, can
get lots of viewers and readers simply by publishing negative stories about Donald Trump. The
US president is an attention magnet, as long as you only write things about him designed to
make him look bad.
The Guardian is only too happy to comply. They ran a whole series of articles on Sunday to
do juts that: try to make Trump look bad. Note that the Guardian editorial team that okayed the
articles is the same as the one that allowed
the fake Assange/Manafort one , so their credibility is already shot to pieces. It's the
magic triangle of today's media profits: spout non-stop allegations against Russia, Trump and
Julian Assange, and link them when and where you can. It doesn't matter if what you say is true
or not.
Anyway, all the following is from the Guardian, all on December 23. First off, Adam Gabbatt
in New York, who has painstakingly researched how Trump's businesses, like Trump Tower and the
Trump store, don't appear to have sufficiently (as per him) switched from Happy Holidays to
Merry Christmas. Sherlock Holmes would have been proud. A smash hit there Adam, bring out the
handcuffs.
During Donald Trump's presidential campaign he talked often about his determination to win
one particular war. A war that had been raging for years, he said. Specifically: the war on
Christmas. But despite Trump's repeated claims that "people are saying Merry Christmas again"
instead of the more inclusive "happy holidays", there are several places where the Christmas
greeting is absent: Trump's own businesses.
The Trump Store, for example. Instead of a Christmas gift guide – which surely would
be more in keeping with the president's stated desire for the phrase to be used – the
store offers a holiday gift guide. "Shop our Holiday Gift Guide and find the perfect present
for the enthusiast on your list," the online store urges. "Carefully curated to celebrate the
most wonderful time of year with truly unique gifts found only at Trump Store. Add a bow on
top with our custom gift wrapping. Happy Holiday's!"
The use of the phrase "Happy Holiday's" [sic] in Trump marketing would seem particularly
egregious. The long-standing "War-on-Christmas" complaint from the political right is that
stores use the phrase "Happy Holidays", rather than specifically mentioning the Christian
celebration. It is offered as both an example of political correctness gone mad, and as an
effort to erase Christianity from the US.
It's just, I think that if Trump had personally interfered to make sure there were Merry
Christmas messages all around, you would have remarked that as president, he's not allowed to
be personally involved in his businesses. But yeah, you know, just to keep the negativity
going, it works, no matter how fluffy and hollow.
Second, still on December 23, is Tom McCarthy for the Guardian in New York, who talks about
Robert Mueller's phenomenal successes. Mueller charged 34 people so far. In a case that
involves "this complexity which has international implications, aspects relying on the
intelligence community, complicated cyber components". It really says that.
And yes, that's how many people view this. What do they care that Mueller's original mandate
was to prove collusion between the Trump campaign and 'Russians', and that he has not proven
any collusion at all so far, not even with 34 people charged? What do they care? It looks like
Trump is guilty of something, anything, after all, and that's all the circus wants.
One measure of special counsel Robert Mueller's prosecutorial success in 2018 is the list
of former top Donald Trump aides brought to justice: Michael Cohen pleaded guilty, a jury
convicted Paul Manafort, a judge berated Michael Flynn. Another measure is the tally of new
defendants that Mueller's team charged (34), the number of new guilty pleas he netted (five)
and the amount of money he clawed back through tax fraud cases ($48m).
Yet another measure might judge Mueller's pace compared with previous independent
prosecutors. "I would refer to it as a lightning pace," said Barb McQuade, a University of
Michigan law professor and former US attorney. "In a case of this complexity which has
international implications, aspects relying on the intelligence community, complicated cyber
components – to indict that many people that quickly is really impressive work."
But there's perhaps a more powerful way to measure Mueller's progress in his investigation
into Russian interference in the 2016 US election and links between Moscow and the Trump
campaign; that's by noticing how the targets of his investigation have changed their postures
over the course of 2018, from defiance to docility – or in the case of Trump himself,
from defiance to extreme, hyperventilating defiance.
In reality, you would be at least as correct if you would claim that Robert Mueller's
investigation has been an abject failure. Not one iota of collusion has been proven after 20
months and $20 million in funds have been used. And any serious investigation of Washington's
culture of fixers and lobbyists would land at least 34 people who have committed acts that
border on or over illegality. And in a matter of weeks, for a few hundred bucks.
Third, still on December 23, is Julian Borger in Washington, who's been elected to convey
the image of chaos. Trump Unleashed, says our modern day Shakespeare. With Jim Mad Dog Mattis
characterized as ".. the last independently minded, globally respected, major figure left in
the administration".. . Again, it really says that.
Because woe the man who tries to bring US troops home, or even promises to do so a few days
before Christmas. For pulling out America's finest, Donald Trump is being portrayed as
something eerily close to the antichrist. That truly is the world on its head. Bringing troops
home to their families equals chaos.
Look, guys, if Trump has been guilty of criminal behavior, the US justice system should be
able to find that out and convict him for it. But that's not what this is about anymore. A
million articles have been written, like these ones in the Guardian, with the sole intention,
evidence being scarce to non-existent, of smearing him to the extent that people see every
subsequent article in the light of a man having previously been smeared.
The US stumbled into the holiday season with a sense of unravelling, as a large chunk of
the federal government ground to a halt, the stock market crashed and the last independently
minded, globally respected, major figure left in the administration announced he could no
longer work with the president. The defense secretary, James Mattis, handed in his
resignation on Thursday, over Donald Trump's abrupt decision to pull US troops out of
Syria.
On Saturday another senior official joined the White House exodus. Brett McGurk, the
special envoy for the global coalition to defeat Isis and the US official closest to
America's Kurdish allies in the region, was reported to have handed in his resignation on
Friday. That night, senators flew back to Washington from as far away as Hawaii for emergency
talks aimed at finding a compromise on Trump's demand for nearly $6bn for a wall on the
southern border, a campaign promise which has become an obsession.
Now look at the next headline, December 23, Graeme Wearden, Guardian, and ask yourself if
it's really Trump saying he doesn't agree with the rate hikes that fuels the fears, or whether
it's the hikes themselves. And also ask yourself: when Trump and Mnuchin both deny reports of
Trump firing Powell, why do journalists keep saying the opposite? Because they want to fuel
some fears?
From where I'm sitting, it looks perfectly logical that Trump says he doesn't think Powell's
decisions are good for the US economy. And it doesn't matter which one of the two turns out to
be right: Trump isn't the only person who disagrees with the Fed hikes.
The main suspect for 2019 market turmoil is the inevitable fallout from the Fed's QE under
Bernanke and Yellen. And there is something to be said for Powell trying to normalize rates,
but there's no doubt that may hasten, if not cause, turmoil. Blaming it on Trump not agreeing
with Jay Powell is pretty much as left field as it gets.
Over the weekend, a flurry of reports claimed Donald Trump had discussed the possibility
of firing the Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell. Such an unprecedented move would
trigger further instability in the markets, which have already had their worst year since the
2008 crisis. US officials scrambled to deny Trump had suggested ousting Powell, who was
appointed by the president barely a year ago.
The Treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, tweeted that he had spoken to the president, who
insisted he "never suggested firing" Powell, and did not believe he had the right to do this
. However, Trump also declared – via Mnuchin – that he "totally disagrees" with
the Fed's "absolutely terrible" policy of raising interest rates and unwinding its
bond-buying stimulus programme, piling further pressure on the US's independent central
bank.
And now, in the only article in the Guardian series that's December 24, not 23, by Victoria
Bekiempis and agencies, the plunging numbers in the stock markets are Trump's fault, too.
Top Democrats have accused Donald Trump of "plunging the country into chaos" as top
officials met to discuss a growing rout in stock markets caused in part by the president's
persistent attacks on the Federal Reserve and a government shutdown. "It's Christmas Eve and
President Trump is plunging the country into chaos," the two top Democrats in Congress, House
speaker nominee Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, wrote in a joint
statement on Monday. "The stock market is tanking and the president is waging a personal war
on the Federal Reserve – after he just fired the Secretary of Defense."
Trump criticized the Federal Reserve on Monday, describing it as the "only problem" for
the US economy, even as top officials convened the "plunge protection team" forged after the
1987 crash to discuss the growing rout in stock markets. The crisis call on Monday between US
financial regulators and the US treasury department failed to assure markets, and stocks fell
again amid concern about slowing economic growth, the continuing government shutdown, and
reports that Trump had discussed firing Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell.
The last one is from one Jonathan Jones, again December 23, again for the Guardian. And it
takes the top award in the narrative building contest.
Again, the Guardian editorial team that okayed this article is still the same as the one
that allowed the fake Assange/Manafort one, an editorial team that sees no problem in making
things up in order to smear people. To portray Trump, Assange and anyone who's had the
misfortune of being born in Russia as suspicious if not outright criminal.
But look at what Jones has to say, and what Guardian editor-in-chief Kathy Viner and her ilk
allowed and pressured him to say. He wants to have a say in how Trump should dress (seasonal
knitwear), he evokes the image of Nazi architect Albert Speer for no reason at all, and then
it's a matter of mere inches until you arrive at Trump as a king, an emperor, an inner
tyrant.
"He's in a tuxedo!", Like that's a bad thing for Christmas. "She's in white!". Oh dear, call
the pope. If both Trumps would have put on Christmas sweaters in front of a fire, the writer
would have found something negative in that.
The absence of intimacy in the Trumps' official Christmas portrait freezes the heart. Can
it be that hard to create a cosy image of the presidential couple, perhaps in front of a
roaring hearth, maybe in seasonal knitwear? Or is this quasi-dictatorial image exactly what
the president wants to project? Look on my Christmas trees, ye mighty, and despair! If so, it
fuels suspicions that it is only the checks and balances of a 230-year-old constitution that
are keeping America from the darkest of political fates. You couldn't create a creepier
Yuletide scene if you tried. Multiple Christmas trees are currently a status symbol for the
wealthy, but this picture shows the risks.
Instead of a homely symbol of midwinter cheer, these disciplined arboreal ranks with their
uniform decorations are arrayed like massed soldiers or colossal columns designed by Albert
Speer. The setting is the Cross Hall in the White House and, while the incumbent president
cannot be held responsible for its architecture, why heighten its severity with such rigid,
heartless seasonal trappings? Everything here communicates cold, empty magnificence. Tree
lights that are as frigid as icicles are mirrored in a cold polished floor. Equally frosty
illuminations are projected on the ceiling. Instead of twinkling fairy magic, this lifeless
lighting creates a sterile, inhuman atmosphere.
You can't imagine kids playing among these trees or any conceivable fun being had by
anyone. It suggests the micromanaged, corporate Christmas of a Citizen Kane who has long
since lost touch with the ordinary, warm pleasures of real life. In the centre of this
disturbing piece of conceptual art stand Donald and Melania Trump. He's in a tuxedo, she's
wearing white – and not a woolly hat in sight. Their formal smartness adds to the
emotional numbness of the scene. Trump's shark-like grin has nothing generous or friendly
about it. He seems to want to show off his beautiful wife and his fantastic home rather than
any of the cuddly holiday spirit a conventional politician might strive to share at this
time.
It begs a question: how can a man who so glaringly lacks anything like a common touch be
such a successful "populist"? What can a midwestern voter find in this image to connect with?
Perhaps that's the point. After more than two centuries of democracy, Trump is offering the
US people a king, or emperor. In this picture, he gives full vent to his inner tyrant. If
this portrait contains any truth about the state of America and the world, may Santa help us
all.
I realize that you may be tired of the whole story. I realize you may have been caught in
the anti-Trump narrative. And I am by no means a Trump fan. But I will keep on dragging you
back to this. Because the discussion should not be based on a handful of media moguls not
liking Trump. It should not be based on innuendo and smear. If Trump is to be convicted, it
must be on evidence.
And there is no such evidence. Robert Mueller has charged 34 people, but none with what his
mandate was based on, none with Russia collusion. This means that the American political
system, and democracy itself, is under severe threat by the very media that are supposed to be
its gate keepers.
None of this is about Trump, or about whether you like him or not, or even if he's a shady
character or not. Instead, it's about the influence the media have on how our opinions and
ideas about people and events are being shaped on a daily basis.
And once you acknowledge that your opinions of Trump, Putin et al, even without any proof of
a connection between them, are actively being molded by the press you expect to inform you
about the truth behind what goes on, you will have to acknowledge, too, that you are a captive
of forces that use your gullibility to make a profit off you.
If our media need to make up things all the time about who's guilty of what, because our
justice systems are incapable of that, then we have a problem so enormous we may not be able to
overcome it in our present settings.
Alternatively, if we trust our justice systems to deliver true justice, we don't need a
hundred articles a day to tell us how Trump or Putin are such terrible threats to our world.
Our judges will tell us, not our journalists or media who are only in it for a profit.
I can say: "let's start off 2019 trying to leave prejudice behind", and as much as that is
needed and you may agree with me, it's no use if you don't realize to what extent your views of
the world have been shaped by prejudice.
I see people reacting to the star writer at Der Spiegel who wrote a lot about Trump, being
exposed as a fraud. I also see people trying to defend Julian Assange from the Guardian article
about his alleged meetings with Paul Manafort, that was an obvious big fat lie (the truth is
Manafort talked to Ecuador to help them 'sell' Assange to the US).
But reacting to the very obvious stuff is not enough . The echo chamber distorts the truth
about Trump every single day, and at least six times on Sunda y, as this essay of mine shows.
It's just that after two years of this going on 24/7, it is perceived as the normal.
Everyone makes money dumping on the Donald, it's a proven success formula, so why would the
Guardian and Der Spiegel stay behind? They'd only hurt their own bottom line.
It has nothing to do with journalism, though, or news. It's smear and dirt, the business
model of the National Enquirer. That's how far our once truthful media have fallen.
All these journalists are influenced and manipulated by 'Australian-American Leadership
Dialogue', 'Atlantikbrücke', Open Society Foundation money etc. Wars boost the NYSE
because many weapons manufacturers are listed there.
If the journalists weren't manipulated all 2018 compilations would not have omitted the
World Cup in Russia.
"... Friends of mine who make a living out of dealing both in stock and wealth creating schemes have no loyalty to this country, they are self motivated and libertarian in persuasion. "Government should get out of the way!" This is nothing short of scandalous. ..."
"... Unless we stand up for our rights and a civil society that provides adequate provision for fair and balanced policy making,xwe will continue until we will see an implosion. History is littered with examples of revolution based on the kind of inequality we are seeing happen in this country. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. ..."
This message is clear and concise. It is however never going to be heard beyond the
'Guardian'.
The MSM are hardly going to publish this article, nor are they going to
reference it, why should they? It goes against everything they have been fighting for and the
tin ear of their readership are unwilling to change teir views.
The only thing that they understand is money and the concentration of wealth. This
misonception as Dennis So far this has been handed to them on a plate, the taxation system
has enabled them to manipulate an multiply their earnings. So much of money the has nothing
to do with adding value to this countries economy but is speculative in nature based on
financial and overseas instruments.
No is the time for our government to take the lead and start as the Victorian ALP have
done and invest in people and jobs on the back of strategic investment. It is a fallacy that
governments don't create jobs they, through their policies do just that.
Friends of mine who make a living out of dealing both in stock and wealth creating
schemes have no loyalty to this country, they are self motivated and libertarian in
persuasion. "Government should get out of the way!" This is nothing short of
scandalous.
Unless we stand up for our rights and a civil society that provides adequate provision
for fair and balanced policy making,xwe will continue until we will see an implosion. History
is littered with examples of revolution based on the kind of inequality we are seeing happen
in this country. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.
When governments like the LNP (driven as it is by its ideology of greed, the IPA manifesto
and Gina Rinehart's idea of what Australia should look like [and how little she should pay to
pillage "communally owned" assets to enrich herself beyond imagination - she has no greater
claim over the Pilbara than any other Australian, but like all who live by the ethos of
greed, she thinks she should get it all for nothing]).
When the LNP talk about "small government" and "slashing red tape" it is politician-speak
for small government and NO red tape for the rich. What it also means is much more government
and red tape for the poor and vulnerable - as we would expect, the rich and powerful, who
really dictate economic and social policy in this country enlist willing governments to enact
measures that suppress the lower classes. It is not quite calling out the military (as Hawke
did during the pilot's strike at the insistence of the corpulent Ables - one act for which I
will always despise Hawke), but it has the same result by more surreptitious, lasting and
egregious means.
And one of the lasting legacies of the philosophies of neo-liberalism, from which the
Hanson's of the world "suck their oxygen" is that the political and corporate dialogue of the
last 30 or so years has pushed the notion of self-entitlement and vilification of the poor
and vulnerable further down the economic ladder. So now, we have countless Australians on
reasonable incomes who, like the rich, are convinced that all of our social and economic ills
can be rectified if we stop giving handouts to the bludgers, the malingerers, the disabled
and the indigenous - the neo-liberal rhetoric is now so widespread that it is easier than
ever for the vulnerable to be attacked and for many, that is seen as absolutely necessary. It
is the false US-sourced notion that if you are poor, it is because you deserve to be and if I
am rich - it isn't luck or inheritance - it is because I deserve it. This world-view makes it
so much easier to attack the vulnerable as receiving way to much to sit at home and
bludge.
Want to forget the now disgraced CEO of Australia Post who bought a Sydney mansion for $22
million and now wants to sell it for $40 million - tax free I might add. He is entitled to
that wealth enhancement. But someone on the dole smokes a spliff now and then and we think
they should lose their entitlements to an income that doesn't even get them up to the poverty
line (but they should be grateful for that pittance). Want to forget the CEO's who
pretentiously do their "sleeping rough" for a night and proclaim their empathy for the
homeless who would shriek at paying more tax to genuinely fund programmes to help the down
and outs. No problem - just embrace the selfish and greedy neo-liberalism philosophy.
This article is excellent and well overdue. All we need to do now is to wrench control of our
mainstream media out of the hands of Corporate (foreign) control. We are being told to vote
against ourselves in order for the few corporate elite to accrue massive wealth and
power over us.
MEDIA laws need to be very strict with very, very severe financial penalties for bias and
propaganda. Certainly remove this concept of self regulation whereby they sit on their own
disciplinary boards. Raise the standards of our media and allow us to retrieve some semblance
of our democracy.
Without media control, how would corporations be able to manipulate and propagandise the
populace with their own vested interests.
That is why governments are doing corporate bidding and getting fascist style surveillance
of its people, in order to counteract the ability of the people to gain knowledge through the
internet and vote against corporate control of our democracy.... nothing to do with terrorism
which was caused mostly by corporate foreign extraction of wealth through weapon sales;
resource acquisition, etc.
It is back to control of our mainstream media by the very (foreign) corporations that are
sucking out our wealth and putting nothing back.
Corporate media ia all powerful. They insidiously permeate the populace with corporate
views of Australia's financial and economy; infrastructure and every aspect of social
life from birth to euthanasia with racism and religion thrown in for good measure.
Should a politician have the audacity to act against their corporate interests, they do
not last long, without exclusions - PMs Whitlam and Rudd being prime examples.
This current mob of gutless underachieving dinosaur neo con nutters in govt, are
completely turning over Australia to these Corporate (foreign) parasites and our prospect is
not looking good.
Within no time we will be a Corporatocracy (as is the USA) and along with that comes 1%
owning 99% of the wealth; third world poverty; crime through the roof; drugs out of control;
public health and education a joke; public services non existent; legal system in disarray
and entrenched with bias and inequity.
"... The political strategy behind these contradictions is simple: it is difficult to criticise government spending on health and education, or popular regulations like consumer protection and limits on executive pay. So why not just criticise all government spending and all ..."
After the mining boom and decades of economic growth, how can Australia be broke?
Gina Rinehart was becoming the world's richest woman those on the minimum wage were falling further and
further behind
Australia just experienced one of the biggest mining booms in
world history. But even at the peak of that boom, there was no talk of the wonderful opportunity we finally had to invest in world-class
mental health or domestic violence crisis services.
Nor was there much talk from either major party about how the wealth of the
mining boom gave us a once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in remote Indigenous communities. Nope, the peak of the mining boom
was not the time to help those who had missed out in decades past, but the Howard government thought it was a great time to introduce
permanent tax cuts for high-income earners. These, of course, are the tax cuts that caused the budget deficits we have today.
Millions of tonnes of explosives were used during the mining boom to build more than 100 new mines, but it wasn't just prime farmland
that was blasted away in the boom, it was access to the middle class. At the same time that Gina Rinehart was becoming the world's
richest woman on the back of rising iron ore prices, those on the minimum wage were falling further and further behind their fellow
Australians.
Like Joe Hockey, Rinehart saw the problem of inequality as having more to do with the character of the poor than
with the rules of the game: "If you're jealous of those with more money, don't just sit there and complain. Do something
to make more money yourself – spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising, and more time working."
Privatisation is deeply unpopular with voters. Here's how to end it | John Quiggin
Australia isn't poor; it is rich beyond the imagining of anyone living in the 1970s or 80s. But so much of that
new wealth has been vacuumed up by a few, and so little of that new wealth has been paid in tax, that the public has
been convinced that ours is a country struggling to pay its bills.
Convincing Australians that our nation is poor and that our governments "can't afford" to provide the level of services they provided
in the past has not just helped to lower our expectations of our public services and infrastructure, it has helped to lower our expectations
of democracy itself. A public school in Sydney has had to ban kids from running in the playground because it was so overcrowded.
Trains have become so crowded at peak hours that many people, especially the frail and the disabled, are reluctant to use them. And
those who have lost their jobs now wait for hours on the phone when they reach out to Centrelink for help.
Although people with low expectations are easier to con, fomenting cynicism about democracy comes at a long-term cost. Indeed,
as the current crop of politicians is beginning to discover, people with low expectations feel they have nothing to lose.
As more and more people live with the poverty and job insecurity that flow directly from neoliberal welfare and industrial relations
policies, the scare campaigns run so successfully by the likes of the Business Council of Australia have lost their sting. Scary
stories about the economy become like car alarms: once they attracted attention, but now they simply annoy those forced to listen.
'If governments can't make a difference and all politicians are corrupt, why not vote for outsiders?
After decades of hearing conservative politicians say that government is the problem, a growing number of conservative
voters no longer care which major party forms government. If governments can't make a difference and all politicians
are corrupt, why not vote for outsiders like Jacqui Lambie or Clive Palmer? There is perhaps no clearer evidence of
the short-termism of the Liberal and National parties today than their willingness to fan the flames of anti-politician
rhetoric without considering that it is their own voters who are most likely to heed the message.
Back when he was leading the campaign against Australia becoming a republic, Tony Abbott famously argued that you couldn't trust
politicians to choose our head of state. And more recently, in campaigning against marriage equality, Minister Matt Canavan was featured
in a television advertisement laughing at the thought that we could trust politicians.
Neoliberalism: the idea that swallowed the world
Convincing Australians that the country was broke also helped convince us that we have no choice but to sell the
family silver. But of course we have a choice. Just as there is no right answer as to whether it's better to rent
a home or buy one, there is no right answer to whether it's better for governments to own the electricity supply,
the postal service or the water supply, or none of these things.
Different governments in different countries make different decisions at different points in time. While much of neoliberalism's
rhetorical power comes from the assertion that "there is no alternative," the simple fact is that the world is full of alternatives.
Indeed, even the so-called free marketeers in Australia can see alternatives.
Consider stadiums, for example. The NSW Liberal government has a long track record of being pro-privatisation. It has sold off
billions of dollars' worth of electricity, water and health infrastructure. But when it comes to football stadiums, it has no ideological
problem with public ownership, nor any fiscal inhibition about spending billions of taxpayers' dollars.
In 2016 the NSW Liberal government spent $220m buying back ANZ Stadium, built in the 1990s with taxpayer funds at a cost of $690m
and subsequently sold to Stadium Australia Group. Having bought back the stadium, the NSW government plans to spend hundreds of millions
of dollars refurbishing it. That same money could build a lot of school science labs, domestic violence crisis centres or skate parks
for the bored kids the shopping malls don't want scratching up their marble stairs. For the past 30 years, Australians have been
told that we can't afford high-quality public services, that public ownership of assets is inefficient, and that the pursuit of free
markets through deregulation would create wealth and prosperity for all. But none of this is true.
While the policy agenda
of neoliberalism has never been broadly applied in Australia, for 30 years the language
of neoliberalism has been applied to everything from environmental protection to care of the disabled. The result of the partial
application of policy and the broad application of language is not just a yawning gap between those with the greatest wealth and
those with the greatest need, but a country that is now riven by demographic, geographic and racial divides.
Cutting the budget deficit is very important – except when it isn't
Australian politics
isn't about ideology, it's about interests. The clearest proof of that claim is that neoliberal ideas such
as deregulation were never aimed at powerful interest groups like the pharmacists or the gambling industry. And savage spending cuts
were never aimed at subsidies for the fossil-fuel industry or private health insurers.
Tony Abbott, who claimed to have a philosophical problem with carbon taxing, once proposed a 20% increase in the tobacco excise
Just as conservative Christian theology provides an excuse for sexism and homophobia, neoliberal language allows
powerful groups to package their personal preferences as national interests – systematically cutting spending on their
enemies and giving money to their friends. Here are some examples:
John Howard said he was obsessed with deregulating the labour market, but introduced 762 pages of labour-market regulation,
which he entitled WorkChoices. He didn't deregulate the labour market; he re-regulated it in his preferred form. He knew that
government decisions matter. Similarly, the Abbott government declared it was waging a war on red tape, yet the Turnbull government
is determined to pass new laws restricting unions and NGOs.
If there is one thing that neoliberals really seem to believe, it is that reducing the budget deficit is very, very important.
Except when it isn't. The political and business leaders who said we needed to slash welfare spending because we had a "budget
emergency" are currently advocating a $65bn tax cut for business – even though the deficit is bigger now than it was at the
time of the alleged emergency.
The Productivity Commission and state treasuries spent years advocating the deregulation and privatisation of the electricity
industry – and succeeded in creating a "free market" system governed by 5,000 pages of electricity market rules. Electricity
is too dangerous and too important to be deregulated, and those pushing for deregulation always knew that. They didn't want
a free market; they simply wanted a market, one in which the government played a smaller role and the private sector made large
profits selling an essential service for much higher prices than the government ever charged.
The NSW government requires NGOs and disability service providers to compete with each other but, when it sold Port Botany
and the Port of Newcastle, it structured the sales to ensure that Newcastle could not compete with Port Botany for the landing
of the millions of containers that arrive by ship each year. While "competition policy" is applied to the vulnerable, those
buying billion-dollar assets are protected from those same forces of competition.
To be clear, there has been no obsession among the political elite with the neoliberal goals of reducing government spending,
regulation or tax collection in Australia over the past three decades. None. They didn't mean a word of it. While there may have
been economists, commentators and even business leaders who sincerely believed in those goals, it is clear from their actions, as
distinct from their words, that John Howard, Tony Abbott and even the former head of the Business Council of Australia Tony Shepherd,
the man tasked with running Abbott's National Commission of Audit, had no principled objection to spending large amounts of public
money on things they liked spending large amounts of public money on. Indeed, in his speakers' agency profile, Tony Shepherd brags
about his ability to get public money for private ventures:
It is no mean feat to convince governments to support private sector proposals, but as former prime minister, the honourable
Paul Keating, said, "Tony managed to get more money out of my government than any other person I can recall."
Hundreds of new pages of regulation now govern the conduct of charities. Billions of taxpayers' dollars have been spent by "small
government" politicians on everything from television ads for innovation to subsidies for marriage counselling. And Tony Abbott,
who claimed to have a philosophical problem with carbon taxing, once proposed a 20% increase in the tobacco excise.
The political strategy behind these contradictions is simple: it is difficult to criticise government spending on health and education,
or popular regulations like consumer protection and limits on executive pay. So why not just criticise all government spending and
all
red tape in general? Once you have convinced the public that all government spending is inefficient, you can set about
cutting spending on your enemies and retaining it for your friends. And once you convince people that all regulation is bad, you
can set about removing consumer protections while retaining the laws that protect the TV industry, the gambling industry, the pharmaceutical
industry and all your other friends.
Cover of Dead Right by Richard Denniss, Quarterly Essay.
When powerful groups want subsidies, we are told they will create jobs. When powerless groups want better funding
for domestic violence shelters or after-school reading groups, they are told of the need to reduce the budget deficit.
When powerful groups demand new regulations, we are told it will provide business with certainty, but when powerless
groups demand new regulations, they are told it will create sovereign risk.
Ideology has a bad name these days, but it simply means a "system of ideas and ideals." By that definition, it is possible to
think of neoliberalism as an ideology focused on the idea that market forces are superior to government decision-making. But while
large segments of Australian politics and business have draped themselves, and their policy preferences, in the cloak of neoliberal
ideas and ideals, in reality to call them "ideologues" is to flatter them. They lack the consistency and strength of principle to
warrant the title.
Tue 16 Oct 2018
13.00 EDT
Last modified on Tue 16 Oct 2018
19.11 EDT
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Australian economic growth has been a 'standout' says Bernie Fraser, but too many have missed the benefits.
Photograph: Tracey Nearmy/EPA
Neoliberalism has caused "misery and social polarisation" yet remains in vogue with the Coalition government,
according to the economist Bernie Fraser.
The former Treasury secretary and Reserve Bank governor has made the
comments in a presentation circulated to participants of the Australia Institute's revenue summit to be held in
Canberra on Wednesday.
Michael Keating, a former secretary to the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, will also use the summit
to raise doubts about the Morrison government's budget forecasts.
Australia's housing boom is not heading for a soft landing. How did we get
here? | Greg Jericho
Read more
In the background notes for Fraser's speech, seen by Guardian Australia, he says that Australia's 27 consecutive
years of economic growth is a "standout", "Winx-like" performance.
But the record deserves only "qualified applause" because "too many Australians remain unemployed, under-employed,
underskilled, underpaid and lack job security".
Fraser warns that society has become "less fair, less compassionate and more divided" and "more devoid of trust in
almost every field of human activity" in the past 20 years.
"As a disinterested player in climate change negotiations and a miserable foreign aid donor, we have slipped well
down the list of good global citizens."
Political ideologies appear to have contributed to inequality and disadvantage in Australia in that time, he
argues.
Fraser in large part blames "neoliberalism" and its influence on policymaking for the "disconnect between
Australia's impressive economic growth story and its failure on so many markers to show progress towards a better,
fairer society".
"Favouring the market system ahead of the state system, and individual interests ahead of community interests, can
lead to profoundly unfair social outcomes.
More than three million Australians living in poverty, Acoss report reveals
Read more
"Those unable to afford access to decent standards of housing, healthcare, and other essential services have to
settle for inferior arrangements, or go without."
Fraser says charitable organisations see the effects of "real poverty" that result in "misery, anxiety and loss of
self-esteem of mothers unable to put food on the table for their kids, of old and young homeless people, and the
victims of domestic violence and drug overdoses".
Fraser summarises the key thrusts of neoliberalism as "the pursuit of the lowest possible rates of income and most
other taxes and the maximum restraint on government interventions and spending programs".
Evidence in Australia and overseas shows the influence of neoliberalism on fiscal policy "and the misery and
social polarisation that has come with it", he says.
The global financial crisis "should have" marked a tipping point, when the "idealised view of financial markets
being self-regulating" was shattered. While Australia "avoided the worst traumas of the GFC" with prompt fiscal and
monetary policy responses, in Europe "taxes were increased and spending programs slashed", resulting in a further
five or six years of severe recession.
Fraser says that all political ideologies – taken to extremes – can be divisive and cause damage, including an
ideology "based on a state system".
But the former Reserve Bank governor focuses on neoliberalism because it "remains in vogue". The Morrison
government "continues to reaffirm its over-riding commitment to lower taxation, and to assert that this is the best
way to increase investment, jobs and economic growth" -
despite the lack of evidence to support the theory
.
Although Fraser recognises that politics never can or should be taken out of policymaking, he suggests the best
course is to "hammer away" at flaws of particular approaches.
In a separate presentation Keating – who headed PM&C from 1991 to 1996 – warns the government's promise to cap
expenditure while simultaneously cutting taxes and returning the budget to surplus is based on overly optimistic
assumptions of growth in GDP, wages and productivity.
Why are stock markets falling and how far will they go?
Read more
According to Keating, the government must stop assuming there have been no structural changes in the relationship
between unemployment and the rate of wage increases.
He notes that predictions of a tightening labour market leading to higher wages are predicated on assumptions of
growth averaging 3% or as much as 3.5%.
He will also say a sustained return to past rates of economic growth will be impossible unless we can ensure a
reasonably equitable distribution of income, involving a faster rate of wage increases, especially for the low-paid.
Eric Kaufmann, professor of politics at Birkbeck, has a forthcoming book, Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration and
the Future of White Majorities . He argues that what I would call "bad nationalism" –
the global surge in rightwing populism – is driven by large-scale immigration, and the
threat it poses to the cultural identity of the ethnic majority. Some people fear change; they
prefer the monocultural landscape in which they grew up, and visible changes to it threaten
their sense of belonging and security. Certain attitudes are, if not hereditary, baked in to
the point where they may as well be.
He supports this view with plentiful survey data, a favourite nugget being that the way you
answer the question, "Would you prefer your children to be well-mannered, or to be
considerate?" is a major predictor of whether you'd vote for or against Trump and Brexit .
The question is a proxy for what the cognitive linguist George Lakoff calls the strict
father (well-mannered) versus the nurturant family (considerate) model. These frames are the
timeless and elemental organising principles for our political divisions –
authoritarian versus pluralist, right versus left – all the way back to Christ the
Warrior versus Christ the Saviour.
I believe people respond to authoritarian and pluralist arguments according to who's
making them, how trenchantly they are made, and the economic, media and political environment
around them. Austerity soil has always been notoriously fertile for authoritarian ideas. Yet
Kaufmann dismisses any economic factor, saying that had there been one, 2008 would have seen
an upturn in rightwing nationalism, not 2017. My view is that depressions take years, not
months, to grind people down.
To me the key questions are how are the key decisions made and by whom are they made?
Globalism (not globalization, mind you) is a process whereby decisionmaking gets shifted
farther and farther from the people and democratic accountability is continually weakened -
ironically often with the rationale that we need this to "compete with China".
As a result, national borders (and therefore cultures) become less and less important
and institutions like central banks, the EU, the WTO, etc. become ever more powerful. What
you call neoliberalism is an effect - not the cause - of this phenomenon, in my
opinion.
By the way, I agree with you that there is hope - in fact I am more optimistic today
than I have been for many years - although probably for very different reasons than
you.
I am quite sure that for the time being the nation state is an essential form of political
and economic organisation. So I accept the necessity of nations. I reject nationalist
ideologies which at best are confused, like ZW's argument, and at worst are very nasty
things indeed.
I was stunned by the modernity of Renan's speech when I read it. Glad to see that it is
available online. Hope you read it.
Globalisation is the ability to move goods/finance/ideas/culture around the global at
speeds unheard of - there is no way to alter this, so your definition is inexact by quite a
margin.
What is happening is neoliberalism - the economic sytem which has hijacked Globalisation
- is playing havoc across the world.
These are not one and the same thing. Nationalism is a reaction to neoliberailsm, and
the way it is concentrating wealth in the hands of the few.
Take a look at places like Finland, Norway and other parts of Europe, where they have
restrained neoliberalism and do not have the same levels of inequality as in the USA or the
UK. Japan is the most equal developed nation in the world. We need to marry strong
democratic structures (at national and global level) with globalisation at the expense of
neo-liberalism, not in support of it.
In short, your view is depressing and misguided. There is hope.
Globalism is a system where a cosmopolitan class of technocratic elites makes all the
decisions after talking among themselves in well-appointed conference rooms to which common
people are not given access (think of what goes on in Brussels or in the ECB tower every
day).
Democracy is something else.
In my opinion the two are mutually incompatible.
Yes, I'm talking about both British and non-British Muslims. Here's the clarification
you're looking for: ICM Research for Channel 4 found that more than 100,000 British Muslims
sympathize with suicide bombers and people who commit other terrorist acts. Moreover, only
one in three British Muslims (34%) would contact the police if they believed that somebody
close to them had become involved with jihadists.
In addition, 23% of British Muslims said Islamic Sharia law should replace British law
in areas with large Muslim populations.
On social issues, 52% of the Muslims surveyed said they believe homosexuality should be
illegal, compared to 22% of non-Muslim Britons.
39% of Muslims surveyed believe women should always obey their husbands, compared to 5%
for non-Muslims. One in three British Muslims refuse completely to condemn the stoning of
women accused of adultery.
Admittedly, this ICM survey is from 2016 so the picture may have improved, but I think
you'll agree, these attitudes are quite a long way from the enlightenment values
mentioned.
Open borders and nationalism are really different issues. One can recognise the need for
borders and border controls without convincing oneself that the people within a given
border line are therefore endowed with some common essence about which they can feel pride
or shame.
The pity about this is that liberal writers like ZW nearly always start from zero on
this issue as if there wasn't a whole mass of discussion of a very detailed kind that has
already taken place. Thus I would say that Ernest Renan's speech to the Surbonne in the
1880s published as What is a Nation? (reprinted in Shloma Sand's book On the
Nation and the 'Jewish People' ) is well in advance of ZW's musings.
I am with Einstein on this. He was once asked if he regarded himself as a German or a Jew.
He replied: "I look upon myself as a man. Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the
measles of mankind".
I found ZW's suggestion that "you do not need to be proud of Oliver Cromwell in order to be
proud of Jessica Ennis-Hill" both revealing and ridiculous. If one is going to pick a
figure from English history not to be proud of why on earth would one choose Cromwell? And
on what grounds exactly does ZW feel proud of JE-H?
The Cromwell reference leads to a further point. Can the English, on ZW's argument, take
pride in the actions of Scots prior to the Act of Union? And can they take pride in the
actions of the Irish from Northern but not Southern Ireland?
I would nuance what you say just a little. Our actions contribute to producing not only
things but also people. A parent can feel justified pride in the actions of his/her
children as can a teacher in the actions of his/her pupils. There can also be a justified
sense of collective pride for people who have contributed to that collective. ZW is right
about that. She gets into a muddle when she tries to project this collective pride
backwards in time to things we could have had no part in.
People can be proud of their country , there is nothing wrong with it ,but when a country
consists of many ethnic groups and religions, identifying the country only with majority
ethno linguistic or religious group can lead to discrimination , alienation and resentment
. This has led to civil wars in many regions. Canada and Switzerland are some of the
exceptions where federal system and equalities of ethno linguistic groups have strengthened
their countries .I would call this good nationalism.
On the other hand, many countries in Asia and Africa are suffering from the conflicts due
to persecution or discrimination inflicted upon minorities from the majoritarian
governments.
Modi in India is using the nationalistic card, trying to give an impression that the
country only belongs to Hindus and Hindi speakers. In reality, India is not even a country
, it is a collection of nation states with many ethnic groups , languages and religions
which were united during the British rule. It is more diverse than the whole of Europe
.However Modi is keen to perpetuate the myth India is homogenous , this natinalistic
ideology might risk formenting divisions and conflicts in the future.I would call it 'bad
nationalism '
Aren't we looking for the word patriotism as opposed to nationalism here Mz. Williams? I've
always cleaved to Orwell's definitions of patriotism and nationalism. Predictably,
nationalism gets short shrift.....largely because nationalism is dim, divisive and utterly
undigestible for the vast majority of a nation at ease with itself. This is why Moggo,
Bojo, Foxy and Gove prefer nationalism.
I'm not the one who has a problem with neo-liberalism, it's provided for me more than
adequately. Having spent a lot of time living overseas, it's provided ALL Australians with a
far better deal than a few billion others.
If you are too naive to see this, then maybe you need to try an alternative for a while.
It's quite ok, i'll be waiting for when the alternative fails (they always do) and I can come
back and pick off the assets from the carcus of that little experiment for less than a cent
in the dollar.
The dog eat dog economy simply represents our nature, it's who we are, we thrive under
libertarianism.
Po-faced, Libertarian BOLLOCKS.
Privatisation is sucker-farming.
Milking the punters, like ants milk aphids.
Farming them, like bellbirds do with leaf-bugs.
And even THAT is only part of the equation.
The fondest goal, the one which gives the management class hard-ons ?
Privatisation de-unionises their workforces.
It is quite strange that the biggest supporters of neo-liberal economics with its belief that
giving money to the rich will solve all our problems call themselves 'Christians'.
I can't remember when Jesus preached trickle down. I don't remember the bit where Jesus
said to treat those seeking asylum and fleeing violence like they are the scum of the earth.
I don't remember when Jesus said the poor needed a good kick in the guts while they are down
to motivate them to work harder. I don't remember when Jesus said we should cut funds from
the sick to balance the budget. I don't remember Jesus saying that if you bear false witness
often enough then you will fool enough of the people enough to keep power so you can look
after your corporate buddy buddies.
In fact, almost all of the politicians in the Coalition who proclaim to be 'Christian'
must have their own secret bible because nothing I have heard from the New Testament
justifies their actions.
Me, I'm an atheist and I have more care, consideration, ethics and compassion than the
entire collection of right wing bible bashers sitting in parliament today.
Thanks for this. We need more of these articles pointing out the bullshit behind this story
that the Coalition has been feeding the gullible peasantry with for over 30 years, sneering,
smirking and sniggering as truckloads of public money goes to private corporations. The money
received from selling off public assets has been shoved into private businesses who then feel
very free to charge like bulls.
It's a shame so many folk still fall for this bullshit meaning that their own families, work
colleagues and community get shafted through diminishing public services.
They used to tell me I was building a dream
And so I followed the mob
When there was earth to plow or guns to bear
I was always there right on the job
They used to tell me I was building a dream
With peace and glory ahead
Why should I be standing in line
Just waiting for bread?
Once I built a railroad, I made it run
Made it race against time
Once I built a railroad, now it's done
Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once I built a tower up to the sun
Brick and rivet and lime
Once I built a tower, now it's done
Brother, can you spare a dime?
Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell
Full of that yankee doodle de dum
Half a million boots went sloggin' through hell
And I was the kid with the drum
Say, don't you remember, they called me Al
It was Al all the time
Say, don't you remember, I'm your pal
Buddy, can you spare a dime?
'This is more or less the definition of increased productivity and it is what ultimately
leads to improved living standards for everyone'
Lazy, neoliberal, supply-side economic guff. Neoliberals undermine government and
democracy and then scavenge on the wreckage. When does 'ultimately' begin for 'everyone'?
Never.
'Private companies provide the same service with much less labour'
Firing people is the answer? What a hardened realist you are. Must be great to be so
certain in your neoliberal convictions. Are you really telling us that every privatisation
has been a success?
These pieces of infrastructure have been built through generations of work and wise
investment - they are not any one government's to sell. It's just easier for a corrupt,
rudderless, feckless neoliberal shill to sell it than it is for them to to run it.
Can't even begin to address the characteristic Libertarian slyness in all that.
But I'll try.
"What you call neoliberalism was a set of responses to the failure of socialism or as Tony
Blair said 'what matters is what works'."
Incorrect.
What I--what the world--calls "Neoliberalism', is the corpse of Classical economics,
resurrected post-WW2 by Friedman and Hayek's 'Mont Pelerin Society. '
Why was it buried ?
Because during the Great Depression, its dogmatic insistence on continued austerity and wage
cuts only made things worse.
After all, in an economic slump, whats the worst thing you can do ?
Deprive people of whatever little purchasing power they have.
So, goodbye Classical economics.
After which, govts SPENT their societies out of slump, putting people to work.
(O, the horror ! O, the heresy !)
The public works of that era include Germany's autobahns and the US New Deal projects,
including the Tennessee Valley system and similar in Western States.
( O the horror ! O the heresy !)
Friedman, Hayek and the gang looked at those and post-WW2 programs of public benefit, such as
the UK's NHS and shat themselves. Typical fear-driven conservatives, they were convinced such
programs represented the thin end of the wedge which MUST end in imposition of Soviet-style
conditions.
What utter paranoid crap.
Their resurrected corpse of Classical economics ?.
THAT is what is 'Neoliberalism'.
Whether or not I call it so is immaterial.
Then, this lofty bit of finger-wagging assertion;
"This process of economic evolution is necessarily imperfect and incomplete...."
Your Lordship's overview is appreciated...
"....but currently leaves you free to own a computer, read news on-line, communicate using
the internet (maybe using NBN?) and express your views freely. "
Sez who ?
You ?
Besides, the only one talking about that old bogey, "socialism" is you.
Because its a conveniently perjorative label, eh ?
Pretty infantile, though.
"Anybody who doesn't agree with EVERYTHING I say, must be a 'socialist.' And they can't
play with my toys."
PS 'Adam', why do LIbertarians always project a Superiority Complex ?
Why are the buggers always so PLEASED WITH THEMSELVES ?
Neoliberalism = Socialism for the Rich - Capitalism for the Poor.
Politics needs reform, plain & simple. Fed ICAC and Integrity Commission is a good
start but it's not enough. The rules have to change too. Major decisions like privatising
services or tax handouts to the rich, shouldn't by law be allowed to get through parliament
or the senate unless the claims being made to justify them are quantifiable &
demonstrated to be in the National Interest. Currently politicians have no obligation to do
either.
e.g. claiming that jobs will be created if Penalty rates are cut = there's no way to
quantify such a BS claim and Doug Cameron got them to admit that in Senate Estimates. Even so
they were allowed to lie through their teeth and impose it anyway with no requirement to
prove their BS claims. This corporate tax handout = once again they claim it will lead to
more wealth to average Australians and more jobs but it can't be quantified or guaranteed via
regulation so it's all bullshit. The rich will hoard the wealth & kick Australians in the
guts as usual. That's what they've always done and always will do. Privatisation of
electricity..what a crock of shit. They claimed it would create competition and drive down
prices. What's happened? The complete opposite but politicians KNOW they're not accountable
and therein 'lies' the problem. The shortsheeting of the original NBN, = yet another lie.
They've totally crippled Australia's ability to compete in a digital age and completely
screwed regional 2nd tier cities and towns in terms of growth. As far as the National
interest is concerned the shortsheeting of the NBN is the complete opposite. Even so they
were allowed to bastardise that too without any accountability whatsoever. Australians need
to start demanding political reform so these bastards are accountable to the people.
Neoliberalism is just the academic name for the political ideology of greed, corruption, self
interest, self entitlement, corporate welfare, inequality, user pays, and poverty is your
fault.
Do you see any contradiction between privatised electricity and socialised stadiums?
Neoliberalism explains it all. Corruption in politics means that only profitable assets
are privatised. Stadiums lose money, so are kept in private hands as corporate welfare for
the various billionaire team owners and TV networks.
I love Richard Denniss! What a brilliantly concise and yet well supported argument. Now we
just need someone who can say it in terms that will persuade unwilling voters to think
carefully about their vote. If they do think carefully they simply cannot return this
government to power, now that they're all revealed as nothing but crony capitalists.
I must admit that like many people I also thought neoliberalism was an ideology, but then
I couldn't understand why they were so inconsistent in their spending of 'tax-payers'
funds'.
From now on I'll be pointing out those inconsistencies with more confidence - armed with
Richard's incontrovertible points, and also by a closer reading of Canadian Kean Birch's
article:
[The term neoliberalism ] is used to refer to an economic system in which the
"free" market is extended to every part of our public and personal worlds.
And here's wikipedia's definition of crony capitalism:
Crony capitalism is an economy in which businesses thrive not as a result of
risks they take, but rather as a return on money amassed through a nexus between a business
class and the political class.
NB But there's a more explicit definition here, which I like much better:
Crony capitalism is a term describing an economy in which success in business
depends on close relationships between business people and government officials. It may be
exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special
tax breaks, or other forms of state interventionism.
Yes, we have a spot of bother, and I think that their name - Institute of Public Affairs - is
quite a misnomer.
The way these people operate is more akin to Opus Dei and many other 'secret societies'
that have another public face altogether.
Given that IPA's agenda is a private members wish list which has a huge impact on matters
of a broad public nature, it's rather akin to incest, and we know where the confusion between
Church and State takes us regarding separation of powers, exactly where we are right now .two
Royal Commissions that are joined at the hip, Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse
(2013 – 2017) and our current horror show Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation,
and Financial Services Industry which could for all intents and purposes be as long as
aforementioned.
Stay with me, as these are issues that relate to other 'energy' systems, namely money, sex
and power, and if we have any doubts as to how far this cancer has spread, a quick purview of
the following members ought to resolve it for you:
For the 70th Birthday big bash, we know that guests to the party were:
• Gina Rinehart
• Rupert Murdoch
• Tony Abbott
• George Pell - Australian Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
• Michael Kroger - President of the Victorian division of the Liberal Party of Australia
and former director of the IPA
• Mitch Fifield - Communications Minister
Think horizontal and vertical industries/associations and you begin to get the picture,
and that's before thinking about BCA and VECCI.
First, elect the other mob next time around. They're in the pockets of the multinationals and
the US alliance as well, but they're not quite as bad, yet. The next thing is a full-on
assault on mainstream media. The frontline of the revolution, if there is to be one, is the
media. No more guns or territorial claims, it's a battle for the mind. Education is the key.
The "Neolibs" attack education at every opportunity - teachers, curriculum, funding etc. etc.
but there's nothing wrong with education - the real problem is that the mainstream media
relentlessly, all day every day works to an agenda of dis-education, deliberately undermining
and destroying the work of our schools. They preach doubt and mistrust - of learning, facts,
truth, intelligence, pure science, art, music, culture, thoughtfulness, forbearance, empathy
and altruism. They teach us to monetise and gamble on everything. Their aim is to dumb
everyone down to the point where not only can't they read an analog clock or drive their own
car but become entirely dependent on the word of authority (of which they are the mouthpiece)
for a continued existence. Today, with our vast social platforms we can target their lies and
threats, one by one. Pick each one, attack it, viciously, loudly, risibly, with facts,
comedy, derision and invitations to dance. Spread it wide. Call them out at every
opportunity. Sneer them into oblivion. Mainstream media is the primary problem. That's what
must be destroyed.
No, regrettably they have not.
The neoliberalist 'mistake' has been going on for around 40 yrs now - it has proved a
relentless descent into inequality and austerity.
Chris Bowen
at the National Press Club : "...Labor will go to the next election:
Achieving budget balance in the same year as the government;
Delivering bigger cumulative budget surpluses over forward estimates as well as substantially
bigger surpluses over the ten year medium term; and
That the majority of savings raised from our revenue measures over the medium term will go
towards budget repair and paying down debt...."
Pure neoliberal economic poison that will create further hardship for our citizens, worsen
inequality and recess the economy yet further.
People have got to come to understand that the bigger surpluses Bowen speaks of are
federal tax collection surpluses; i.e. he intends to withdraw further spending capacity from
the private sector, all while the current account deficit already draws 3.5% GDP (~$30bn) a
yr from that same heavily indebted private sector.
This Bowen statement report
from the SMH : "The whiff of a surplus, not reaching at least 1 per cent of GDP until 2026-27, does not
adequately protect Australia against the potential roiling seas of international
uncertainty," he will say.
"Australia needs bigger surpluses, sooner than the government is scheduling.
"We can't afford to let the next four years go to waste in the efforts for a healthier, safer
budget surplus."
Absolute macroeconomic stupidity, arrogant, vandalous ideological madness.
When will the people come to their senses and stop supporting such socially destructive
errant neoliberal economic alchemy?
Just look at the Citizens Assembly overseeing the law change in the recent Irish referendum.
Worked a treat, cause those involved wanted to find the bvest alternative, rather than
feather their own nest.
It is indeed important to make the distinction between the ideology of neoliberalism - the
ideology of private enterprise is good, and public spending is bad - and the operational
system of crony capitalism - the game of mates played by government and the special
interests.
And it is certainly equally important to call out the monumental hypocrisy involved in the
government's application of the ideology's set of rules to the powerless and public and the
government's application of corrupt practice rules to the special interests.
The system is destroying the egalitarian character of Australia and fanning the flames of
nativist authoritarianism here.
But what's even more dangerous is the fundamental dishonesty that the system necessitates,
and the alienating influence it has - on top of the growing economic inequality.
The system has destroyed the economic and environmental viability and sustainability of
the planet on which human civilization depends.
What is becoming increasingly clear to more and more of the public is that - simple put-
the system cannot be allowed to go on as it has been proceeding because it threatens the
future of civilization on earth.
Change is imperative now. However, how that will unfold is unclear, as well as, the toll
the destruc5turing system will take.
What is clear is that a great restructuring must happen - and soon.
"... Israel fears Iran, is my idea. Norman Finkelstein once stated that Israeli Jews do not see how there ever can be peace with the Palestinians 'after all we did to them'. Not all Jews are idiots. Forgot in which book I read that in the thirties a Zionist reached Palestine, and saw that this was not the 'land without people for people without land'. He stated 'this is a crime'. ..."
Israel fears Iran, is my idea. Norman Finkelstein once stated that Israeli Jews do not see
how there ever can be peace with the Palestinians 'after all we did to them'. Not all Jews
are idiots. Forgot in which book I read that in the thirties a Zionist reached Palestine, and
saw that this was not the 'land without people for people without land'. He stated 'this is a
crime'.
The destruction and destabilization of the ME, an Israeli plan, as far as I know.
In 1921 and later years there was the enormous population exchange, without any financial
compensation, between Turkey and Greece. To this day tensions exist between the two
countries.
Iran is one of the oldest civilizations. Twice, one might say even three time, the west
overthrew Iranian democracy. Iran knows of course quite well that the VS brought Saddam to
power so that he could subjugate Iran, that had rid itself of the USA puppet shah. Iran also
of course knows quite well Jewish power in the USA, Bush' s promise to AIPAC to destroy Iraq.
Will those leading Iran now ever trust the USA or Israel ?
So that Netanyahu and USA Jewry now are in complete panic, who had expected it to be
otherwise ? Uri Avnery wrote 'the only language zionists understand is power. Is there a
problem, use power, if it does not help, use more power, if that also fails, use even more
power'.
There has never been any serious negotiation between Israel and its neighbors, or with the
Palestinians. About the Oslo negotiations a book appeared in Israel with the title 'How we
fooled the Palestinians'? Sharon answered any Arab League peace proposal with force, Jenin,
one of them, if my recollection is correct. There always was the idea of overwhelming more
military power, and of USA support.
Kissinger saved Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur war by flying over hundreds of the newest
USA anti tank weapons, wire guided, TOW. What will the USA do in case Israel is attacked ? Is
Netanyahu crazy enough to provoke an attack ?
Michael Greenwood , Geoff Naylor and David Murray on the failures of economic policy
While agreeing with the thrust of Paul Mason's article (
A new politics of emotion is needed to beat the far right , Journal, 26 November), it is
surely necessary to employ economics if we are to defeat neoliberalism. We have lived under
this regime, with increasing severity, for 25 years or so. The result has been the stagnation
of real incomes for the large majority, with the benefits of GDP growth accruing to those at
the top of income and wealth distributions. This has suppressed growth, as those with less
money tend to spend it and those with more hide it and avoid tax. Lower UK growth is clearly
shown in comparative data.
So if neoliberalism is a school of economics, it is a failure if the aim of economic policy
is to encourage growth and the reinvestment of the benefits. Of course, neoliberalism is not
economics, it is political dogma, supported by its beneficiaries. We need economics
undergraduates to demand to be taught real economics and not the propaganda of power that is
neoliberalism.
Michael Greenwood Manchester
• In his search for a political narrative of economic hope to counteract the rise of
rightwing populism, Paul Mason overlooks the sense of belonging that exists in faith
communities. Here, a selfless collaboration for the inclusive good of one another has never
required disruption of the free-market economy. It is just that this ethos has not been
introduced at the national economic and political levels.
Geoff Naylor Winchester, Hampshire
• All suffered the same 2007-08 financial crash, but the "UK has weakest wage growth of
wealthy nations" ( Report
, 27 November). Anything to do with Tory-led government economic policy?
David Murray Wallington, Surrey
For 40 years, the ideology popularly known as "neoliberalism" has dominated political decision-making in the English-speaking
west.
People hate
it . Neoliberalism's sale of state assets, offshored jobs, stripped services, poorly-invested infrastructure and armies of the
forcibly unemployed have delivered, not promised "efficiency" and "flexibility" to communities, but discomfort and misery. The wealth
of a few has now swelled to a level of conspicuousness that must politely be considered
vulgar
yet the philosophy's entrenched itself so deeply in how governments make decisions and allocate resources that one of its megaphones
once declared its triumph "the end of history".
... ... ...
Paul Keating's rejection
It was a year ago that a third sign first appeared, when the dark horse of Australian prime ministers, Paul Keating, made public
an on-balance rejection of neoliberal economics. Although Liberal PM Malcolm Fraser instigated Australia's first neoliberal policies,
it was Keating's architecture of privatisation and deregulation as a Labor treasurer and prime minister that's most well remembered.
Now, "we have a comatose world economy held together by debt and central bank money," Keating has said, "Liberal economics has run
into a dead end and has had no answer to the contemporary malaise." What does the disavowal mean? In terms of his Labor heir Bill Shorten's growing appetite for redistributive taxation and close relationship to the union movement, it means "if Bill Shorten becomes
PM, the rule of engagement between labour and capital will be rewritten," according to The Australian this week. Can't wait!
Tony
Abbott becomes a fan of nationalising assets
Or maybe's Sukkar's right about the socialists termiting his beloved Liberal party. How else to explain the earthquake-like paradigm
shift represented by the sixth sign? Since when do neoliberal conservatives argue for the renationalisation of infrastructure, as
is the push of Tony Abbott's gang to nationalise the coal-fired Liddell power station? It may be a cynical stunt to take an unscientific
stand against climate action, but seizing the means of production remains seizing the means of production, um, comrade. "You know,
nationalising assets is what the Liberal party was founded to stop governments doing," said Turnbull, even as he hid in the dens
and in the rocks of the mountains to weather – strange coincidence –
yet another Newspoll
loss.
"new introduction to a re-released Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto.
Collective, democratic political action is our only chance for freedom and enjoyment."
Might be true. But frightening that people should naively still think that democracy is to be found in the 'Dictatorship of
the Proletariat' [ ie those who know what's good for you even if you don't like it ] of the Communist Manifesto after the revelations
of what that leads to in the Gulag Archipelago , Mao's China , Pol Pot , Kim John - un .
How quickly the world forgets. - you
might just as well advocate Mein Kampf it's the same thing in the end !
That's what you claim and it might be so but I'm not interested in keeping a score on the matter. The point you failed to get
is that the people you mentioned where totalitarian thugs. They used the banner of communism to achieve their ends. They would
have used what ever ideology that was in fashion to achieve the same results.
Does present day neo-liberalism actually qualify as a political movement?
Vested interests and the dollar seem to have all the power. Lies and deception are so common the truth is seen as the enemy.
The voting public are merely fools for manipulation. Nah, neo-liberalism is not government, it is something far nastier, and clearly
not what the public vote for, presuming a vote actually counts for anything anymore.
"... The Pity of It All : A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch, 1743-1933 ..."
"... Perhaps you are making too much of the so called decline of the neocons. At the strategic level, there is little difference between the neocon "Project for a the New American Century" and Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard," both of which are consistent with US policy and actions in the Ukraine. ..."
"... The most significant difference seems to me to be the neocon emphasis on American unilateral militarism versus Obama's emphasis on multilateralism, covert operations and financial warfare to achieve the desired results. ..."
"... Perhaps another significant difference is the neocon emphasis on the primacy of the American nation-state versus the neoliberal emphasis on an American dominated global empire. ..."
"... Interesting to juxtapose Brzezinski and the neocons. In a Venn diagram they would over-lap 90%. ..."
"... Right now, their interests have diverged over the Ukraine crisis. Though many of the American neocons do support subverting Ukraine as does Brzezinski it looks like Israel itself is leaning towards supporting Russia. ..."
"... Right Sector militias are the fighting force that led the coup against the legally elected Yanukovich government and were almost certainly involved in the recent massacre in Odessa. And you support them for their fight for freedom? You should be ashamed. Zionism is sinking to new lows that they feel the need to identify with open neo-Nazis. ..."
"... Well, the point is that Zionists in Israel do not identify with that particular set of open neo-Nazis. I suspect that this is simply a matter of the headcount of Jewish business tycoons that are politically aligned with (western) Ukraine and Russia. Or you can count their billions. ..."
"... The problem with your reasoning, Yonah, is that you are espousing the Neocon line while not apparently recognizing that embarrassing fact. You lament that the US is no longer playing the role of the world's superpower, and acting as the world's cop, confronting militarily Russia, China, Iran and anyone else. It is precisely that mentality that got us into Iraq, could yet have us in a war with Iran, would like to see us defending Ukraine, and thinks we should confront China militarily over bits of rock it and its neighbors are quibbling over. That is a neocon, American supremacy mentality. ..."
"... Zionism under Likud has played a major role in promoting the neocon approach to foreign policy in the US. It was heavily involved in the birth of that approach, and has helped fund and promote the policy and its supporters and advocates in this country. They (Likud Zionists and Neocons) played a major role in getting us into the Iraq war and are playing a major role in trying to get us involved in a war with Iran, a war in Syria, and even potential wars in Eastern Europe. That is a very dangerous trend and one folks as intelligent as you are, should be focusing on. ..."
"... "nationalist Armageddon that is nowhere found in the article by Sleeper" ..."
"... "The misadventure in Iraq has cost the US and the world a lot. The US a loss in humans and money and willingness to play the role of superpower, and the world has lost its cop. " ..."
"... Tough. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives don't rate a mention. ..."
"... " (let the Russians have their sphere of influence, let the Iranians have their bomb, let the Chinese do whatever they want to do in their part of the world, for after all they hold a trillion dollars in US government debt and so let them act like the boss, for in fact they have been put in that role by feckless and destructive and wasteful US policy). But Sleeper does not say that." ..."
"... But even if we do focus on neocons, neocons don't have opinions about foreign policy and USA dominance that are much distinct from what most Republican interventionists have. How much difference is there between David Frum and Mitt Romney or between Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld? ..."
"... Don't look to the US to get any justice in the ME, nor to regain US good reputation in the world. This will situation will not change because US political campaign fiancé system won't change–it just gets worse, enhanced by SCOTUS. ..."
"... But neoocns have the confidence that if they could impose the neocon's theology on the rest of the world, they can do it here as well on American street . They call it education, motivation, duty, responsibility, moral burden, and above all the essence of the manifest destiny. ..."
At the Huffington Post, Jim Sleeper addresses
"A Foreign-Policy Problem
No One Speaks About," and it turns out to Jewish identity, the need to belong to the powerful nation on the part of Jewish neoconservatives.
Sleeper says this is an insecurity born of European exclusion that he understands as a Jew, even if he's not a warmongering neocon
himself. The Yale lecturer's jumping-off point are recent statements by Leon Wieseltier and
David Brooks lamenting the decline of
American power.
In addition to Wieseltier and Brooks, the "blame the feckless liberals" chorus has included Donald Kagan, Robert Kagan, David
Frum, William Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and many other American neoconservatives. Some of them have
been chastened, or at least been made more cautious, by their grand-strategic blunders of a few years ago ..
I'm saying that they've been fatuous as warmongers again and again and that there's something pathetic in their attempts to
emulate Winston Churchill, who warned darkly of Hitler's intentions in the 1930s. Their blind spot is their willful ignorance
of their own complicity in American deterioration and their over-compensatory, almost pre-adolescent faith in the benevolence
of a statist and militarist power they still hope to mobilize against the seductions and terrors rising all around them.
At bottom, the chorus members' recurrent nightmares of 1938 doom them to reenact other nightmares, prompted by very similar
writers in 1914, on the eve of World War I. Those writers are depicted chillingly, unforgettably, in Chapter 9, "War Fever," of
Amos Elon's
The Pity of It All: A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch, 1743-1933. Elon's account of Germany's stampede into World
War I chronicles painfully the warmongering hysterics of some Jewish would-be patriots of the Kaiserreich who exerted themselves
blindly, romantically, to maneuver their state into the Armageddon that would produce Hitler himself.
This is the place to emphasize that few of Wilhelmine German's warmongers were Jews and that few Jews were or are warmongers.
(Me, for example, although my extended-family history isn't much different from Brooks' or Wieseltier's.) My point is simply that,
driven by what I recognize as understandable if almost preternatural insecurities and cravings for full liberal-nationalist belonging
that was denied to Jews for centuries in Europe, some of today's American super-patriotic neo-conservatives hurled themselves
into the Iraq War, and they have continued, again and again, to employ modes of public discourse and politics that echo with eerie
fidelity that of the people described in Elon's book. The Americans lionized George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and
many others as their predecessors lionized Kaiser Wilhelm, von Bethmann-Hollweg, and far-right nationalist associates who hated
the neo-cons of that time but let them play their roles .
Instead of acknowledging their deepest feelings openly, or even to themselves, the writers I've mentioned who've brought so
much folly and destruction upon their republic, are doubling down, more nervous and desperate than ever, looking for someone else
to blame. Hence their whirling columns and rhythmic incantations. After Germany lost World War I, many Germans unfairly blamed
their national folly on Jews, many of whom had served in it loyally but only a few of whom had been provocateurs and cheerleaders
like the signatories of [Project for New American Century's] letter to Bush. Now neo-cons, from Wieseltier and Brooks to [Charles]
Hill, are blaming Obama and all other feckless liberals. Some of them really need to take a look in Amos Elon's mirror.
Interesting. Though I think Sleeper diminishes Jewish agency here (Sheldon Adelson and Haim Saban are no one's proxy) and can't
touch the Israel angle. The motivation is not simply romantic identification with power, it's an ideology of religious nationalism
in the Middle East, attachment to the needs of a militarist Sparta in the Arab world. That's another foreign policy problem no one
speaks about.
Krauss, May 6, 2014, 2:11 pm
"Democracy in in the Middle East" was always just a weasel-word saying of "let's try to improve Israel's strategic position
by changing their neighbours".
The neocons basically took a hardline position on foreign interventionism based out of dual loyalty. This is the honest truth.
For anti-Semites, a handful of neocons will always represent "The Jews" as a collective. For many Jews, the refusal to come to
grips with the rise of the neocons and how the Jewish community (and really by "community" I mean the establishment) failed to
prevent them in their own midst, is also a blemish.
Of course, Jim Sleeper is doing these things now. He should have done them 15-20 years ago or so. But better late than never,
I guess.
Krauss, May 6, 2014, 2:16 pm
P.S. While we talk a lot about neocons as a Jewish issue, it's also important to put them in perspective. The only war that
I can truly think of that they influenced was the Iraq war, which was a disaster, but it also couldn't have happened without 9/11,
which was a very rare event in the history of America. You have to go back to Pearl Harbor to find something similar, and that
wasn't technically a terrorist attack but rather a military attack by Japan.
Leading up to the early 2000s, they were mostly ignored during the 1990s. They did take over the GOP media in the early 90s,
using the same tactics used against Hagel, use social norms as a cover but in actuality the real reason is Israel.
Before the 90s, in the 70s and 80s, the cold war took up all the oxygen.
So yeah, the neocons need to be talked about. But comparing what they are trying to do with a World War is a bit of a stretch.
Finally, talking about Israel – which Sleeper ignored – and the hardline positions that the political class in America have
adopted, if you want to look who have ensured the greatest slavishness to Israel, liberal/centrist groups like ADL, AJC and AIPAC(yes,
they are mostly democrats!) have played a far greater role than the neocons.
But I guess, Sleeper wasn't dealing with that, because it would ruin his view of the neocons as the bogeymen.
Just like "liberal" Zionists want to blame Likud for everything, overlooking the fact that Labor/Mapai has had a far greater
role in settling/colonizing the Palestinian land than the right has, and not to speak about the ethnic cleansing campaigns of
'48 and '67 which was only done by the "left", so too the neocons often pose as a convenient catch-all target for the collective
Jewish failure leading up to Iraq.
And I'm using the words "collective Jewish failure" because I actually don't believe, unlike Mearsheimer/Walt, that the war
would not have gone ahead unless there was massive support by the Israel/Jewish lobby. If Jews had decided no, it would still
have gone ahead. This is also contrary to Tom Friedman's famous saying of "50 people in DC are responsible for this war".
I also think that's an oversimplification.
But I focus more on the Jewish side because that's my side. And I want my community to do better, and just blaming the neocons
is something I'm tired of hearing in Jewish circles. The inability to look at liberal Jewish journalists and their role in promoting
the war to either gentile or Jewish audiences.
Kathleen, May 6, 2014, 6:53 pm
There was talk about this last night (Monday/5th) on Chris Matthew's Hardball segment on Condi "mushroom cloud" Rice pulling
out of the graduation ceremonies at Rutger's. David Corn did not say much but Eugene Robinson and Chris Matthews were basically
talking about Israel and the neocons desires to rearrange the middle east "the road to Jerusalem runs through Baghdad" conversation.
Bumblebye, May 6, 2014, 2:33 pm
"some of today's American super-patriotic neo-conservatives hurled themselves into the Iraq War"
Have to take issue with that – the neo-cons hurled young American (and foreign) servicemen and women into that war, many to
their deaths, along with throwing as much taxpayer money as possible. They stayed ultra safe and grew richer for their efforts.
Citizen, May 7, 2014, 9:03 am
@ Bumblebye
Good point. During WW1, as I read the history, the Jewish Germans provided their fair share of combat troops. If memory serves,
despite Weimar Germany's later "stab in the back" theory, e.g., Hitler himself was given a combat medal thanks to his Jewish senior
officer. In comparison to the build-up to Shrub Jr's war on Iraq, the Jewish neocons provided very few Jewish American combat
troops.
It's hard to get reliable stats on Jewish American participation in the US combat arms during the Iraq war. For all I've been
able to ascertain, more have joined the IDF over the years. At any rate, it's common knowledge that Shrub's war on Iraq was instigated
and supported by chicken hawks (Jew or Gentile) at a time bereft of conscription. They built their sale by ignoring key facts,
and embellishing misleading and fake facts, as illustrated by the Downing Street memo.
Keith, May 6, 2014, 7:47 pm
PHIL- Perhaps you are making too much of the so called decline of the neocons. At the strategic level, there is little
difference between the neocon "Project for a the New American Century" and Brzezinski's "The Grand Chessboard," both of which
are consistent with US policy and actions in the Ukraine.
The most significant difference seems to me to be the neocon emphasis on American unilateral militarism versus Obama's
emphasis on multilateralism, covert operations and financial warfare to achieve the desired results.
Perhaps another significant difference is the neocon emphasis on the primacy of the American nation-state versus the neoliberal
emphasis on an American dominated global empire.
So yes, the nationalistic emphasis is an anachronism, however, the decline of the US in conjunction with the extension of a
system of globalized domination should hardly be of concern to elite power-seekers who will benefit. In fact, the new system of
corporate/financial control will be beyond the political control of any nation, even the US. If they can pull it off. An interesting
topic no doubt, but one which I doubt is suitable for extended discussion on Mondoweiss. As for power-seeking as a consequence
of a uniquely Jewish experience, perhaps the less said the better.
Interesting to juxtapose Brzezinski and the neocons. In a Venn diagram they would over-lap 90%. The Ukraine crisis exposes that
10% difference. Brzezinski I very much doubt has any emotional attachment to Israel though he is happy to work in coalition with
them to further his one true goal which is to isolate and defeat Russian influence in the world. In the 1980s both were on the
same page in the "let my people go" campaign against the Soviet Union. Brzezinski saw it as a propaganda opportunity to attack
Russia and the neocons saw it has a source of more Jews to settle Palestine.
Right now, their interests have diverged over the
Ukraine crisis. Though many of the American neocons do support subverting Ukraine as does Brzezinski it looks like Israel itself
is leaning towards supporting Russia. When it comes down to it it is hard for many Jews, right wing or not, to support the political
movement inside Ukraine that identifies with Bandera. Now that was one nasty antisemite whose followers killed many thousands
of Ukrainian Jews during the holocaust. My wife's family immigrated from Galicia and the Odessa region and those left behind perished
during the holocaust. The extended family includes anti-zionists and WB settlers. There is no way that any of them would identify
with Ukrainian fascist movements now active there.
In any case, there does seem to be a potential split among the neocons over Ukraine. It would be the ultimate in hypocrisy
for all of those eastern European Jews who became successful in the US in the last few generations to enter into coalition with
the Bandera brigades.
(I know I'm always grabbing OT threads of discussion, but when it comes down to it, I know much less about Zionism and Israel/Palestine
than many, if not most of the regular commenters here.)
I also am going to drift further off-topic by saying there is strong evidence that the slaughter in Odessa last Friday was
highly orchestrated and not solely the result of spontaneous mob violence. Very graphic and disturbing images in all of these
links:
" and it turns out to Jewish identity, the need to belong to the powerful nation on the part of Jewish neoconservatives.
Sleeper says this is an insecurity born of European exclusion that he understands as a Jew, ..>>
Stop it Sleeper. Do not continue to use the victim card ' to explain' the trauma, the insecurities, the nightmares, the angst,
the feelings, the sensitivities, blah blah, blah of Zionist or Israel.
That is not what they are about. These are power mad psychos like most neocons, period.
And even if it were, and even if all the Jews in the world felt the same way, the bottom line would still be they do not have
the right to make others pay in treasure and blood for their nightmares and mental sickness.
As near as I can tell (correct me if I'm wrong), the Ukrainians themselves are about half and half pro Russia and Pro NATO.
Your glance at the history of the region as to why this is so, and your text on historical Ukranian suffering and POTV on MW commentary
on this –did not help your analysis and its conclusion.
There's a difference between isolationism and defensive intervention, and even more so, re isolationism v. pro-active interventionism
"in the name of pursuing the democratic ideal". See Ron Paul v. PNAC-style neocons and liberal Zionists.
Also, if you were Putin, how would you see the push of NATO & US force posts ever creeping towards Russia and its local environment?
Look at the US military postings nearing Russia per se & those surrounding Iran. Compare Russia's.
And note the intent to wean EU from Russian oil, and as well, the draconian sanctions on Iran, and Obama's latest partnering
sanctions on Russia.
Imagine yourself in Putin's shoes, and Iran's.
Don't abuse your imagination only by imagining yourself in Netanyahu's shoes, which is the preoccupation of AIPAC and its whores
in the US Congress.
Interesting to juxtapose Brzezinski and the neocons. In a Venn diagram they would over-lap 90%. The Ukraine crisis exposes
that 10% difference. Brzezinski I very much doubt has any emotional attachment to Israel though he is happy to work in coalition
with them to further his one true goal which is to isolate and defeat Russian influence in the world. In the 1980s both were on
the same page in the "let my people go" campaign against the Soviet Union. Brzezinski saw it as a propaganda opportunity to attack
Russia and the neocons saw it has a source of more Jews to settle Palestine.
Right now, their interests have diverged over
the Ukraine crisis. Though many of the American neocons do support subverting Ukraine as does Brzezinski it looks like Israel
itself is leaning towards supporting Russia. When it comes down to it it is hard for many Jews, right wing or not, to support
the political movement inside Ukraine that identifies with Bandera. Now that was one nasty anti-Semite whose followers killed
many thousands of Ukrainian Jews during the holocaust. My wife's family immigrated from Galicia and the Odessa region and those
left behind perished during the holocaust. The extended family includes anti-Zionists and WB settlers. There is no way that any
of them would identify with Ukrainian fascist movements now active there.
In any case, there does seem to be a potential split among the neocons over Ukraine. It would be the ultimate in hypocrisy
for all of those eastern European Jews who became successful in the US in the last few generations to enter into coalition with
the Bandera brigades.
Yonah writes The freedom of Ukraine is a worthy goal. If the US is not able to back up our attempt to help them gain their
freedom it is not something to celebrate, but something to lament.
What are you saying? Ukraine has been an independent nation for 22 years. What freedom is this? What we have witnessed is that
one half of Ukraine has gotten tired that the other half keeps on electing candidates that represent those Ukrainians that identify
with Russian culture. They (the western half) successfully staged a coup and purged the other (eastern half) from the government.
You call that "freedom". Doesn't it embarrass you, Yonah, that the armed militias that conducted that coup are descendants of
the Bandera organization.
Does that ring a bell? These are the Ukrainians that were involved in the holocaust. Does Babi Yar stir any memories Yohan?
It was a massacre of 40,000 Jews just outside of Kiev in 1942. It was the single largest massacre of Jews during WWII. The massacre
was led by the Germans ( Einsatzgruppe C officers) but was carried out with the aid of 400 Ukrainian Auxillary Police. These were
later incorporated into the 14th SS-Volunteer Division "Galician" made up mostly Ukrainians. The division flags are to this day
displayed at Right Sector rallies in western Ukraine.
Right Sector militias are the fighting force that led the coup against the legally elected Yanukovich government and were
almost certainly involved in the recent massacre in Odessa. And you support them for their fight for freedom? You should be ashamed.
Zionism is sinking to new lows that they feel the need to identify with open neo-Nazis.
Well, the point is that Zionists in Israel do not identify with that particular set of open neo-Nazis. I suspect that this
is simply a matter of the headcount of Jewish business tycoons that are politically aligned with (western) Ukraine and Russia.
Or you can count their billions. In any case, the neutral posture is sensible for Israel here. Which is highly uncharacteristic
for that government.
Toivo S- The history of Jew hatred by certain anti Russian elements in the Ukraine is not encouraging and nothing that I celebrate.
Maybe I have been swayed by headlines and a superficial reading of the situation.
If indeed I am wrong regarding the will of the Ukrainian people, I can only be glad that my opinion is just that, my opinion
and not US or Israel or anyone's policy but my own. I assume that a majority of Ukrainians want to maintain independence of Russia
and that the expressions of rebellion are in that vein.
My people were murdered by the einsatzgruppen in that part of the world and so maybe I have overcompensated by trying not to
allow my personal history to interfere with what I think would be the will of the majority of the Ukraine.
But Toivo S. please skip the "doesn't it embarrass you" line of thought. Just put a sock in it and skip it.
Well thanks for that Yonah. My wife's family descended from Jewish communities in Odessa and Galicia. They emigrated to the US
between 1900 and 1940. After WWII none of their relatives left behind were ever heard from again. Perhaps you have family that
experienced similar stories. What caused me to react to your post above is that you are describing the current situation in Ukraine
as a "freedom" movement by the Ukrainians when the political forces there descended from the same people that killed my inlaws
family (and apparently yours to). Why do you support them?
ToivoS- I support them because I trust/don't trust Putin. I trust him to impose his brand of leadership on Ukraine, I don't trust
him to care a whit about freedom. It is natural that the nationalist elements of Ukraine would descend from the elements that
expressed themselves the last time they had freedom from the Soviet Union, that is those forces that were willing to join with
the Nazis to express their hatred for the communist Soviet Union's rule over their freedom. That's how history works. The nationalists
today descend from the nationalists of yesterday.
But it's been 70 years since WWII and the Ukrainians ought to be able to have freedom even if the parties that advocate for
freedom are descended from those that supported the Nazis. (I know once i include the Nazi part of history any analogies are toxic,
but if I am willing to grant Hamas its rights as an expression of the Palestinian desire for freedom, why would I deny the Ukrainian
foul nationalist parties their rights to express their people's desire for freedom.)
Political parties are not made in a sterile laboratory, they evolve over history and most specifically they emerge from the
past. I accept that Ukrainian nationalism has not evolved much, but nonetheless not having read any polls I assume that the nationalists
are the representatives of the people's desire for freedom. And because Putin strikes me as something primitive, I accept the
Ukrainian desire for freedom.
What are you supporting? Let me refresh your historic memory: Black's Transfer Agreement. Now apply analogy, responding
to ToivoS. Might help us all to understand, explore more skillfully, Israel's current stance on the Putin-Ukranian matter .?
(I think Nuland's intervention caught on tape, combined with who she is married to, already explores with great clarification
what the US is doing.
"The misadventure in Iraq has cost the US and the world a lot. The US a loss in humans and money and willingness to play
the role of superpower, and the world has lost its cop. Most people here would probably disagree with Sleeper, because he does
not deny that the world needs a cop, nor that the US would play a positive role, if it only had the means and the desire to
do so. People here (overwhelmingly) see the US role as a negative one (let the Russians have their sphere of influence, let
the Iranians have their bomb, let the Chinese do whatever they want to do in their part of the world,"
The problem with your reasoning, Yonah, is that you are espousing the Neocon line while not apparently recognizing that
embarrassing fact. You lament that the US is no longer playing the role of the world's superpower, and acting as the world's cop,
confronting militarily Russia, China, Iran and anyone else. It is precisely that mentality that got us into Iraq, could yet have
us in a war with Iran, would like to see us defending Ukraine, and thinks we should confront China militarily over bits of rock
it and its neighbors are quibbling over. That is a neocon, American supremacy mentality.
Contrast that with the realist or realism approach recommended by George Kennan, and followed by this country successfully
through the end of the Cold War. That approach is conservative and contends we should stay out of wars unless the vital national
security interests of the US are at stake, like protecting WESTERN Europe, Japan, Australia, and the Western Hemisphere. This
meant we could sympathize with the plight of all the eastern Europeans oppressed by the Soviets, but would not defend militarily
the Hungarians (1956) or the Czechs (1968). It also meant we wouldn't send US troops into North Vietnam because we didn't want
to go to war with the Chinese over a country that was at best tangential to US interests. When we varied from that policy (Vietnam
and Iraq wars, Somalia) we paid a very heavy price while doing nothing to advance or protect our vital national security interests.
The sooner this country can return to our traditional realism-based foreign policy the better. Part of that policy would be
to disassociate the US from its entangling alliance with Likud Israel and its US Jewish supporters that espouse the Likud Greater
Israel line.
Zionism under Likud has played a major role in promoting the neocon approach to foreign policy in the US. It was heavily
involved in the birth of that approach, and has helped fund and promote the policy and its supporters and advocates in this country.
They (Likud Zionists and Neocons) played a major role in getting us into the Iraq war and are playing a major role in trying to
get us involved in a war with Iran, a war in Syria, and even potential wars in Eastern Europe. That is a very dangerous trend
and one folks as intelligent as you are, should be focusing on.
Please note, my criticism is directed neither at all Jews in general, Jews in the US, nor or all Israeli Jews. It is directed
at a particular subset of Zionists who support Likud policies, and their supporters, many of whom are not Jews. It is also directed
at Neoconservative foreign policy advocates, comprised of Jews and non-Jews, and overlap between the two groups. Please also note
my use of the term "major role", and that I am not saying the Neocons and their supporters (Jewish or non) were solely responsible
for our involvement in the Iraq war. I am offering these caveats in the hope that the usual changes of antisemitism can be avoided
in your or anyone else's response to my arguments.
The influence of Neocons on US foreign policy has been very harmful to this country and poses a grave danger to its future.
It would be wise for you to reflect on that harm and those dangers and decide whether you belong in the realist camp or want to
continue running with the Neocons.
Please note, my criticism is directed neither at all Jews in general, Jews in the US, nor or all Israeli Jews. It is directed
at a particular subset of Zionists who support Likud policies, and their supporters, many of whom are not Jews.
What about the role of *liberal Zionists*, like Hillary Clinton, in supporting and promoting the Iraq War? Clinton still hasn't
offered an apology for helping to drive the United States in a multi-trillion dollar foreign policy disaster - and she has threatened
to "totally obliterate" Iran.
What about Harry Reid's lavish praise of Sheldon Adelson?
"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has for some time billed the Koch brothers as public enemy No.1 .
But billionaire Republican donor Sheldon Adelson? He's just fine, Reid says.
"I know Sheldon Adelson. He's not in this for money," the Nevada Democrat said of Adelson, the Vegas casino magnate who
reportedly spent close to $150 million to support Republicans in the 2012 presidential election."
@ yonah fredman "nationalist Armageddon that is nowhere found in the article by Sleeper"
Strange
"state into the Armageddon .. "
"The misadventure in Iraq has cost the US and the world a lot. The US a loss in humans and money and willingness to
play the role of superpower, and the world has lost its cop. "
Tough. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi lives don't rate a mention.
" (let the Russians have their sphere of influence, let the Iranians have their bomb, let the Chinese do whatever they
want to do in their part of the world, for after all they hold a trillion dollars in US government debt and so let them act
like the boss, for in fact they have been put in that role by feckless and destructive and wasteful US policy). But Sleeper
does not say that."
You do tho, without quoting anyone "here".
BTW Pajero, strawmen no matter how lengthy and seemingly erudite, rarely walk anywhere
I'm going to put this down as Jewish navel gazing.
Jews are disproportionately liberal. Jews make up a huge chunk of the peace movement. Jews are relative to their numbers on
the left of most foreign policy positions.
Iraq was unusual in that Jews were not overwhelming opposed to the invasion, but it is worth noting the invasion at the time
was overwhelming popular. Frankly given the fact that Jews are now considered white people and the fact that Jews are almost all
middle class they should be biased conservative. There certainly is no reason they should be more liberal than Catholics. Yet
they are. It is the degree of Jewish liberalism not the degree of Jewish conservatism that is striking.
But even if we do focus on neocons, neocons don't have opinions about foreign policy and USA dominance that are much distinct
from what most Republican interventionists have. How much difference is there between David Frum and Mitt Romney or between Paul
Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld?
Strongly antiwar incumbent Rep. Walter Jones (R – NC) has won a hotly contested primary tonight, defeating a challenge from
hawkish challenger and former Treasury Dept. official Taylor Griffin 51% to 45%.
Voter turn out was light .. tea party types did a lot of lobbying for Griffin here .but Jones prevailed. Considering the
onslaught of organized activity against him by ECI and the tea partiers for the past month he did well.
@ lysias
Let's refresh our look at what Ron Paul had to say about foreign policy and foreign aid. Then, let's compare what his son has
said, and take a look of his latest bill in congress to cut off aid to Palestine. Yes, you read that right; it's not a bill to
cut off any aid to Israel.
Don't look to the US to get any justice in the ME, nor to regain US good reputation in the world. This will situation will
not change because US political campaign fiancé system won't change–it just gets worse, enhanced by SCOTUS.
The heavy artillery included the detestable Karl Rove, former Governor and RNC Chair Haley Barber and the War Party's highly
paid chief PR flack, Ari Fleischer.
But it was Neocon central that hauled out the big guns. Bill Kristol was so desperate to thwart the slowly rising anti-interventionist
tide within the GOP that he even trotted out Sarah Palin to endorse Jones's opponent"
But neoocns have the confidence that if they could impose the neocon's theology on the rest of the world, they can do it
here as well on American street . They call it education, motivation, duty, responsibility, moral burden, and above all the essence
of the manifest destiny.
"... Stocks have always been "a legal form of gambling". What is happening now however, is that a pair of treys can beat out your straight flush. Companies that have never turned a profit fetch huge prices on the stock market. ..."
"... The stock market suckered millions in before 2008 and then prices plummeted. Where did the money from grandpa's pension fund go? ..."
"... Abraham Lincoln said that the purpose of government is to do for people what they cannot do for themselves. Government also should serve to keep people from hurting themselves and to restrain man's greed, which otherwise cannot be self-controlled. Anyone who seeks to own productive power that they cannot or won't use for consumption are beggaring their neighbor––the equivalency of mass murder––the impact of concentrated capital ownership. ..."
"... family wealth" predicts outcomes for 10 to 15 generations. Those with extreme wealth owe it to events going back "300 to 450" years ago, according to research published by the New Republic – an era when it wasn't unusual for white Americans to benefit from an economy dependent upon widespread, unpaid black labor in the form of slavery. ..."
"... Correction: The average person in poverty in the U.S. does not live in the same abject, third world poverty as you might find in Honduras, Central African Republic, Cambodia, or the barrios of Sao Paulo. ..."
"... Since our poor don't live in abject poverty, I invite you to live as a family of four on less than $11,000 a year anywhere in the United States. If you qualify and can obtain subsidized housing you may have some of the accoutrements in your home that you seem to equate with living the high life. You know, running water, a fridge, a toilet, a stove. You would also likely have a phone (subsidized at that) so you might be able to participate (or attempt to participate) in the job market in an honest attempt to better your family's economic prospects and as is required to qualify for most assistance programs. ..."
"... So many dutiful neoliberals on here rushing to the defense of poor Capitalism. Clearly, these commentators are among those who are in the privileged position of reaping the true benefits of Capitalism - And, of course, there are many benefits to reap if you are lucky enough to be born into the right racial-socioeconomic context. ..."
"... Please walk us through how non-capitalist systems create wealth and allow their lowest class people propel themselves to the top in one generation. You will note that most socialist systems derive their technology and advancements from the more capitalistic systems. Pharmaceuticals, software, and robotics are a great example of this. I shutter to think of what the welfare of the average citizen of the world would be like without the advancements made via the capitalist countries. ..."
The poorest Americans have no realistic hope of achieving anything that approaches income equality. They still struggle
for access to the basics
... ... ...
The disparities in wealth that we term "income inequality" are no accident, and they can't be fixed by fiddling at the edges of
our current economic system. These disparities happened by design, and the system structurally disadvantages those at the bottom.
The poorest Americans have no realistic hope of achieving anything that approaches income equality; even their very chances for access
to the most basic tools of life are almost nil.
... ... ...
Too often, the answer by those who have hoarded everything is they will choose to "give back" in a manner of their choosing –
just look at Mark Zuckerberg and his much-derided plan to "give away" 99% of his Facebook stock. He is unlikely to help change inequality
or poverty any more than "giving away" of $100m helped children in Newark schools.
Allowing any of the 100 richest Americans to choose how they fix "income inequality" will not make the country more equal or even
guarantee more access to life. You can't take down the master's house with the master's tools, even when you're the master; but more
to the point, who would tear down his own house to distribute the bricks among so very many others?
mkenney63 5 Dec 2015 20:37
Excellent article. The problems we face are structural and can only be solved by making fundamental changes. We must bring
an end to "Citizens United", modern day "Jim Crow" and the military industrial complex in order to restore our democracy. Then
maybe, just maybe, we can have an economic system that will treat all with fairness and respect. Crony capitalism has had its
day, it has mutated into criminality.
Kencathedrus -> Marcedward 5 Dec 2015 20:23
In the pre-capitalist system people learnt crafts to keep themselves afloat. The Industrial Revolution changed all that. Now
we have the church of Education promising a better life if we get into debt to buy (sorry, earn) degrees.
The whole system is messed up and now we have millions of people on this planet who can't function even those with degrees.
Barbarians are howling at the gates of Europe. The USA is rotting from within. As Marx predicted the Capitalists are merely paying
their own grave diggers.
mkenney63 -> Bobishere 5 Dec 2015 20:17
I would suggest you read the economic and political history of the past 30 years. To help you in your study let me recommend
a couple of recent books: "Winner Take all Politics" by Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson and "The Age of Acquiescence" by Steve Fraser.
It always amazes me that one can be so blind the facts of recent American history; it's not just "a statistical inequality", it's
been a well thought-out strategy over time to rig the system, a strategy engaged in by politicians and capitalists. Shine some
light on this issue by acquainting yourself with the facts.
Maharaja Brovinda -> Singh Jill Harrison 5 Dec 2015 19:42
We play out the prisoner's dilemma in life, in general, over and over in different circumstances, every day. And we always
choose the dominant - rational - solution. But the best solution is not based on rationality, but rather on trust and faith in
each other - rather ironically for our current, evidence based society!
Steven Palmer 5 Dec 2015 19:19
Like crack addicts the philanthropricks only seek to extend their individual glory, social image their primary goal, and yet
given the context they will burn in history. Philanthroptits should at least offset the immeasurable damage they have done through
their medieval wealth accumulation. Collaborative philanthropy for basic income is a good idea, but ye, masters tools.
BlairM -> Iconoclastick 5 Dec 2015 19:10
Well, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, capitalism is the worst possible economic system, except for all those other economic
systems that have been tried from time to time.
I'd rather just have the freedom to earn money as I please, and if that means inequality, it's a small price to pay for not
having some feudal lord or some party bureaucrat stomping on my humanity.
brusuz 5 Dec 2015 18:52
As long as wealth can be created by shuffling money from one place to another in the giant crap shoot we call our economy,
nothing will change. Until something takes place to make it advantageous for the investor capitalists to put that money to work
doing something that actually produces some benefit to the society as a whole, they will continue their extractive machinations.
I see nothing on the horizon that is going to change any of that, and to cast this as some sort of a racial issue is quite superficial.
We have all gotten the shaft, since there is no upward mobility available to anyone. Since the Bush crowd of neocons took power,
we have all been shackled with "individual solutions to societal created problems."
Jimi Del Duca 5 Dec 2015 18:31
Friends, Capitalism is structural exploitation of ALL WORKERS. Thinking about it as solely a race issue is divisive. What we
need is CLASS SOLIDARITY and ORGANIZATION. See iww.org We are the fighting union with no use for capitalists!
slightlynumb -> AmyInNH 5 Dec 2015 18:04
You'd be better off reading Marx if you want to understand capitalism. I think you are ascribing the word to what you think
it should be rather than what it is.
It is essentially a class structure rather than any defined economic system. Neoliberal is essentially laissez faire capitalism.
It is designed to suborn nation states to corporate benefit.
AmyInNH -> tommydog
They make $40 a month. Working 7 days a week. At least 12 hour days. Who's fed you that "we're doing them a favor" BS?
And I've news for you regarding "Those whose skills are less adaptable to doing so are seeing their earnings decline." We have
many people who have 3 masters degrees making less than minimum wage. We have top notch STEM students shunned so corporations
can hire captive/cheaper foreign labor, called H1-Bs, who then wait 10 years working for them waiting for their employment based
green card. Or "visiting" students here on J1 visas, so the employers can get out of paying: social security, federal unemployment
insurance, etc.
Wake up and smell the coffee tommydog. They've more than a thumb on the scale.
I am a socialist. I decided to read this piece to see if Mr. Thrasher could write about market savagery without propounding the
fiction that whites are somehow exempt from the effects of it.
No, he could not. I clicked on the link accompanying his assertion
that whites who are high school dropouts earn more than blacks with college degrees, and I read the linked piece in full. The
linked piece does not in fact compare income (i.e., yearly earnings) of white high school dropouts with those of black college
graduates, but it does compare family wealth across racial cohorts (though not educational ones), and the gap there is indeed
stark, with average white family wealth in the six figures (full disclosure, I am white, and my personal wealth is below zero,
as I owe more in student loans than I own, so perhaps I am not really white, or I do not fully partake of "whiteness," or whatever),
and average black family wealth in the four figures.
The reason for this likely has a lot to do with home ownership disparities, which in turn are linked in significant part to
racist redlining practices. So white dropouts often live in homes their parents or grandparents bought, while many black college
graduates whose parents were locked out of home ownership by institutional racism and, possibly, the withering of manufacturing
jobs just as the northward migration was beginning to bear some economic fruit for black families, are still struggling to become
homeowners. Thus, the higher average wealth for the dropout who lives in a family owned home.
But this is not what Mr. Thrasher wrote. He specifically used the words "earn more," creating the impression that some white
ignoramus is simply going to stumble his way into a higher salary than a cultivated, college educated black person. That is simply
not the case, and the difference does matter.
Why does it matter? Because I regularly see middle aged whites who are broken and homeless on the streets of the town where
I live, and I know they are simply the tip of a growing mountain of privation. Yeah, go ahead, call it white tears if you want,
but if you cannot see that millions (including, of course, not simply folks who are out and out homeless, but folks who are struggling
to get enough to eat and routinely go without needed medication and medical care) of people who have "white privilege" are indeed
oppressed by global capitalism then I would say that you are, at the end of the day, NO BETTER THAN THE WHITES YOU DISDAIN.
If you have read this far, then you realize that I am in no way denying the reality of structural racism. But an account of
economic savagery that entirely subsumes it into non-economic categories (race, gender, age), that refuses to acknowledge that
blacks can be exploiters and whites can be exploited, is simply conservatism by other means. One gets the sense that if we have
enough black millionaires and enough whites dying of things like a lack of medical care, then this might bring just a little bit
of warmth to the hearts of people like Mr. Thrasher.
Call it what you want, but don't call it progressive. Maybe it is historical karma. Which is understandable, as there is no
reason why globally privileged blacks in places like the U.S. or Great Britain should bear the burden of being any more selfless
or humane than globally privileged whites are or have been. The Steven Thrashers of humanity are certainly no worse than many
of the whites they cannot seem to recognize as fully human are.
But nor are they any better.
JohnLG 5 Dec 2015 17:23
I agree that the term "income inequality" is so vague that falls between useless and diversionary, but so too is most use of
the word "capitalism", or so it seems to me. Typically missing is a penetrating analysis of where the problem lies, a comprehensibly
supported remedy, or large-scale examples of anything except what's not working. "Income inequality" is pretty abstract until
we look specifically at the consequences for individuals and society, and take a comprehensive look at all that is unequal. What
does "capitalism" mean? Is capitalism the root of all this? Is capitalism any activity undertaken for profit, or substantial monopolization
of markets and power?
Power tends to corrupt. Money is a form of power, but there are others. The use of power to essentially cheat, oppress or kill
others is corrupt, whether that power is in the form of a weapon, wealth, the powers of the state, or all of the above. Power
is seductive and addictive. Even those with good intensions can be corrupted by an excess of power and insufficient accountability,
while predators are drawn to power like sharks to blood. Democracy involves dispersion of power, ideally throughout a whole society.
A constitutional democracy may offer protection even to minorities against a "tyranny of the majority" so long as a love of justice
prevails. Selective "liberty and justice" is not liberty and justice at all, but rather a tyranny of the many against the few,
as in racism, or of the few against the many, as by despots. Both forms reinforce each other in the same society, both are corrupt,
and any "ism" can be corrupted by narcissism. To what degree is any society a shining example of government of, for, and by the
people, and to what degree can one discover empirical evidence of corruption? What do we do about it?
AmyInNH -> CaptainGrey 5 Dec 2015 17:15
You're too funny. It's not "lifting billions out of poverty". It's moving malicious manufacturing practices to the other side
of the planet. To the lands of no labor laws. To hide it from consumers. To hide profits.
And it is dying. Legislatively they choke off their natural competition, which is an essential element of capitalism. Monopoly
isn't capitalism. And when they bribe legislators, we don't have democracy any more either.
Jeremiah2000 -> Teresa Trujillo 5 Dec 2015 16:53
Stocks have always been "a legal form of gambling". What is happening now however, is that a pair of treys can beat out
your straight flush. Companies that have never turned a profit fetch huge prices on the stock market.
The stock market suckered millions in before 2008 and then prices plummeted. Where did the money from grandpa's pension
fund go?
Gary Reber 5 Dec 2015 16:45
Abraham Lincoln said that the purpose of government is to do for people what they cannot do for themselves. Government
also should serve to keep people from hurting themselves and to restrain man's greed, which otherwise cannot be self-controlled.
Anyone who seeks to own productive power that they cannot or won't use for consumption are beggaring their neighbor––the equivalency
of mass murder––the impact of concentrated capital ownership.
The words "OWN" and "ASSETS" are the key descriptors of the definition of wealth. But these words are not well understood by
the vast majority of Americans or for that matter, global citizens. They are limited to the vocabulary used by the wealthy ownership
class and financial publications, which are not widely read, and not even taught in our colleges and universities.
The wealthy ownership class did not become wealthy because they are "three times as smart." Still there is a valid argument
that the vast majority of Americans do not pay particular attention to the financial world and educate themselves on wealth building
within the current system's limited past-savings paradigm. Significantly, the wealthy OWNERSHIP class use their political power
(power always follows property OWNERSHIP) to write the system rules to benefit and enhance their wealth. As such they have benefited
from forging trade policy agreements which further concentrate OWNERSHIP on a global scale, military-industrial complex subsidies
and government contracts, tax code provisions and loopholes and collective-bargaining rules – policy changes they've used their
wealth to champion.
Gary Reber 5 Dec 2015 16:44
Unfortunately, when it comes to recommendations for solutions to economic inequality, virtually every commentator, politician
and economist is stuck in viewing the world in one factor terms – human labor, in spite of their implied understanding that the
rich are rich because they OWN the non-human means of production – physical capital. The proposed variety of wealth-building programs,
like "universal savings accounts that might be subsidized for low-income savers," are not practical solutions because they rely
on savings (a denial of consumption which lessens demand in the economy), which the vast majority of Americans do not have, and
for those who can save their savings are modest and insignificant. Though, millions of Americans own diluted stock value through
the "stock market exchanges," purchased with their earnings as labor workers (savings), their stock holdings are relatively minuscule,
as are their dividend payments compared to the top 10 percent of capital owners. Pew Research found that 53 percent of Americans
own no stock at all, and out of the 47 percent who do, the richest 5 percent own two-thirds of that stock. And only 10 percent
of Americans have pensions, so stock market gains or losses don't affect the incomes of most retirees.
As for taxpayer-supported saving subsidies or other wage-boosting measures, those who have only their labor power and its precarious
value held up by coercive rigging and who desperately need capital ownership to enable them to be capital workers (their productive
assets applied in the economy) as well as labor workers to have a way to earn more income, cannot satisfy their unsatisfied needs
and wants and sufficiently provide for themselves and their families. With only access to labor wages, the 99 percenters will
continue, in desperation, to demand more and more pay for the same or less work, as their input is exponentially replaced by productive
capital.
As such, the vast majority of American consumers will continue to be strapped to mounting consumer debt bills, stagnant wages
and inflationary price pressures. As their ONLY source of income is through wage employment, economic insecurity for the 99 percent
majority of people means they cannot survive more than a week or two without a paycheck. Thus, the production side of the economy
is under-nourished and hobbled as a result, because there are fewer and fewer "customers with money." We thus need to free economic
growth from the slavery of past savings.
I mentioned that political power follows property OWNERSHIP because with concentrated capital asset OWNERSHIP our elected representatives
are far too often bought with the expectation that they protect and enhance the interests of the wealthiest Americans, the OWNERSHIP
class they too overwhelmingly belong to.
Many, including the author of this article, have concluded that with such a concentrated OWNERSHIP stronghold the wealthy have
on our politics, "it's hard to see where this cycle ends." The ONLY way to reverse this cycle and broaden capital asset OWNERSHIP
universally is a political revolution. (Bernie Sanders, are you listening?)
The political revolution must address the problem of lack of demand. To create demand, the FUTURE economy must be financed
in ways that create new capital OWNERS, who will benefit from the full earnings of the FUTURE productive capability of the American
economy, and without taking from those who already OWN. This means significantly slowing the further concentration of capital
asset wealth among those who are already wealthy and ensuring that the system is reformed to promote inclusive prosperity, inclusive
opportunity, and inclusive economic justice.
yamialwaysright 5 Dec 2015 16:13
I was interested and in agreement until I read about structured racism. Many black kidsin the US grow up without a father in
the house. They turn to anti-social behaviour and crime. Once you are poor it is hard to get out of being poor but Journalists
are not doing justice to a critique of US Society if they ignore the fact that some people behave in a self-destructive way. I
would imagine that if some black men in the US and the UK stuck with one woman and played a positive role in the life of their
kids, those kids would have a better chance at life. People of different racial and ethnic origin do this also but there does
seem to be a disproportionate problem with some black US men and some black UK men. Poverty is one problem but growing up in poverty
and without a father figure adds to the problem.
What the author writes applies to other countries not just the US in relation to the super wealthy being a small proportion
of the population yet having the same wealth as a high percentage of the population. This in not a black or latino issue but a
wealth distribution issue that affects everyone irrespective of race or ethnic origin. The top 1%, 5% or 10% having most of the
wealth is well-known in many countries.
nuthermerican4u 5 Dec 2015 15:59
Capitalism, especially the current vulture capitalism, is dog eat dog. Always was, always will be. My advice is that if you
are a capitalist that values your heirs, invest in getting off this soon-to-be slag heap and find other planets to pillage and
rape. Either go all out for capitalism or reign in this beast before it kills all of us.
soundofthesuburbs 5 Dec 2015 15:32
Our antiquated class structure demonstrates the trickle up of Capitalism and the need to counterbalance it with progressive
taxation.
In the 1960s/1970s we used high taxes on the wealthy to counter balance the trickle up of Capitalism and achieved much greater
equality.
Today we have low taxes on the wealthy and Capitalism's trickle up is widening the inequality gap.
We are cutting benefits for the disabled, poor and elderly so inequality can get wider and the idle rich can remain idle.
They have issued enough propaganda to make people think it's those at the bottom that don't work.
Every society since the dawn of civilization has had a Leisure Class at the top, in the UK we call them the Aristocracy and
they have been doing nothing for centuries.
The UK's aristocracy has seen social systems come and go, but they all provide a life of luxury and leisure and with someone
else doing all the work.
Feudalism - exploit the masses through land ownership
Capitalism - exploit the masses through wealth (Capital)
Today this is done through the parasitic, rentier trickle up of Capitalism:
a) Those with excess capital invest it and collect interest, dividends and rent.
b) Those with insufficient capital borrow money and pay interest and rent.
The system itself provides for the idle rich and always has done from the first civilisations right up to the 21st Century.
The rich taking from the poor is always built into the system, taxes and benefits are the counterbalance that needs to be applied
externally.
Iconoclastick 5 Dec 2015 15:31
I often chuckle when I read some of the right wing comments on articles such as this. Firstly, I question if readers actually
read the article references I've highlighted, before rushing to comment.
Secondly, the comments are generated by cifers who probably haven't set the world alight, haven't made a difference in their
local community, they'll have never created thousands of jobs in order to reward themselves with huge dividends having and as
a consequence enjoy spectacular asset/investment growth, at best they'll be chugging along, just about keeping their shit together
and yet they support a system that's broken, other than for the one percent, of the one percent.
A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies issued this week analyzed the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans
and found that "the wealthiest 100 households now own about as much wealth as the entire African American population in the
United States". That means that 100 families – most of whom are white – have as much wealth as the 41,000,000 black folks walking
around the country (and the million or so locked up) combined.
Similarly, the report also stated that "the wealthiest 186 members of the Forbes 400 own as much wealth as the entire Latino
population" of the nation. Here again, the breakdown in actual humans is broke down: 186 overwhelmingly white folks have more
money than that an astounding 55,000,000 Latino people.
family wealth" predicts outcomes for 10 to 15 generations. Those with extreme wealth owe it to events going back "300
to 450" years ago, according to research published by the New Republic – an era when it wasn't unusual for white Americans
to benefit from an economy dependent upon widespread, unpaid black labor in the form of slavery.
soundofthesuburbs -> soundofthesuburbs 5 Dec 2015 15:26
It is the 21st Century and most of the land in the UK is still owned by the descendants of feudal warlords that killed people
and stole their land and wealth.
When there is no land to build houses for generation rent, land ownership becomes an issue.
David Cameron is married into the aristocracy and George Osborne is a member of the aristocracy, they must both be well acquainted
with the Leisure Class.
I can't find any hard work going on looking at the Wikipedia page for David Cameron's father-in-law. His family have been on
their estate since the sixteenth century and judging by today's thinking, expect to be on it until the end of time.
George Osborne's aristocratic pedigree goes back to the Tudor era:
"he is an aristocrat with a pedigree stretching back to early in the Tudor era. His father, Sir Peter Osborne, is the
17th holder of a hereditary baronetcy that has been passed from father to son for 10 generations, and of which George is next
in line."
If we have people at the bottom who are not working the whole of civilisation will be turned on its head.
"The modern industrial society developed from the barbarian tribal society, which featured a leisure class supported
by subordinated working classes employed in economically productive occupations. The leisure class is composed of people exempted
from manual work and from practicing economically productive occupations, because they belong to the leisure class."
The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions, by Thorstein Veblen. It was written a long time ago but
much of it is as true today as it was then. The Wikipedia entry gives a good insight.
DBChas 5 Dec 2015 15:13
"income inequality" is best viewed as structural capitalism. It's not as if, did black and brown people and female people somehow
(miraculously) attain the economic status of the lower-paid, white, male person, the problem would be solved--simply by adjusting
pay scales. The problem is inherent to capitalism, which doesn't mean certain "types" of people aren't more disadvantaged for
their "type." No one is saying that. For capitalists, it's easier to rationalize the obscene unfairness (only rich people say,
"life's not fair") when their "type" is regarded as superior to a different "type," whether that be with respect to color or gender
or both.
Over time--a long time--the dominant party (white males since the Dark Ages, also the life-span of capitalism coincidentally
enough) came to dominance by various means, too many to try to list, or even know of. Why white males? BTW, just because most
in power and in money are white males does not mean ALL white males are in positions of power and wealth. Most are not, and these
facts help to fog the issue.
Indeed, "income inequality," is not an accident, nor can it be fixed, as the author notes, by tweaking (presumably he means
capitalism). And he's quite right too in saying, "You can't take down the master's house with the master's tools..." I take that
ALSO to mean, the problem can't be fixed by way of what Hedges has called a collapsing liberal establishment with its various
institutions, officially speaking. That is, it's not institutional racism that's collapsing, but that institution is not officially
recognized as such.
HOWEVER, it IS possible, even when burdened with an economics that is capitalism, to redistribute wealth, and I don't just
mean Mark Zuckerberg's. I mean all wealth in whatever form can be redistributed if/when government decides it can. And THIS TIME,
unlike the 1950s-60s, not only would taxes on the wealthy be the same as then but the wealth redistributed would be redistributed
to ALL, not just to white families, and perhaps in particular to red families, the oft forgotten ones.
This is a matter of political will. But, of course, if that means whites as the largest voting block insist on electing to
office those without the political will, nothing will change. In that case, other means have to be considered, and just a reminder:
If the government fails to serve the people, the Constitution gives to the people the right to depose that government. But again,
if whites as the largest voting block AND as the largest sub-group in the nation (and women are the largest part of that block,
often voting as their men vote--just the facts, please, however unpleasant) have little interest in seeing to making necessary
changes at least in voting booths, then...what? Bolshevism or what? No one seems to know and it's practically taboo even to talk
about possibilities. Americans did it once, but not inclusively and not even paid in many instances. When it happens again, it
has to happen with and for the participation of ALL. And it's worth noting that it will have to happen again, because capitalism
by its very nature cannot survive itself. That is, as Marx rightly noted, capitalism will eventually collapse by dint of its internal
contradictions.
mbidding Jeremiah2000 5 Dec 2015 15:08
Correction: The average person in poverty in the U.S. does not live in the same abject, third world poverty as you might
find in Honduras, Central African Republic, Cambodia, or the barrios of Sao Paulo.
Since our poor don't live in abject poverty, I invite you to live as a family of four on less than $11,000 a year anywhere
in the United States. If you qualify and can obtain subsidized housing you may have some of the accoutrements in your home that
you seem to equate with living the high life. You know, running water, a fridge, a toilet, a stove. You would also likely have
a phone (subsidized at that) so you might be able to participate (or attempt to participate) in the job market in an honest attempt
to better your family's economic prospects and as is required to qualify for most assistance programs.
Consider as well that you don't have transportation to get a job that would improve your circumstances. You earn too much to
qualify for meaningful levels of food support programs and fall into the insurance gap for subsidies because you live in a state
that for ideological reasons refuses to expand Medicaid coverage. Your local schools are a disgrace but you can't take advantage
of so-called school choice programs (vouchers, charters, and the like) as you don't have transportation or the time (given your
employer's refusal to set fixed working hours for minimum wage part time work) to get your kids to that fine choice school.
You may have a fridge and a stove, but you have no food to cook. You may have access to running water and electricity, but
you can't afford to pay the bills for such on account of having to choose between putting food in that fridge or flushing that
toilet. You can't be there reliably for your kids to help with school, etc, because you work constantly shifting hours for crap
pay.
Get back to me after six months to a year after living in such circumstances and then tell me again how Americans don't really
live in poverty simply because they have access to appliances.
Earl Shelton 5 Dec 2015 15:08
The Earned Income Tax Credit seems to me a good starting point for reform. It has been around since the 70s -- conceived by
Nixon/Moynihan -- and signed by socialist (kidding) Gerald Ford -- it already *redistributes* income (don't choke on the term,
O'Reilly) directly from tax revenue (which is still largely progressive) to the working poor, with kids.
That program should be massively expanded to tax the 1% -- and especially the top 1/10 of 1% (including a wealth tax) -- and
distribute the money to the bottom half of society, mostly in the form of work training, child care and other things that help
put them in and keep them in the middle class. It is a mechanism already in existence to correct the worst ravages of Capitalism.
Use it to build shared prosperity.
oKWJNRo 5 Dec 2015 14:40
So many dutiful neoliberals on here rushing to the defense of poor Capitalism. Clearly, these commentators are among those
who are in the privileged position of reaping the true benefits of Capitalism - And, of course, there are many benefits to reap
if you are lucky enough to be born into the right racial-socioeconomic context.
We can probably all agree that Capitalism has brought about widespread improvements in healthcare, education, living conditions,
for example, compared to the feudal system that preceded it... But it also disproportionately benefits the upper echelons of Capitalist
societies and is wholly unequal by design.
Capitalism depends upon the existence of a large underclass that can be exploited. This is part of the process of how surplus
value is created and wealth is extracted from labour. This much is indisputable. It is therefore obvious that capitalism isn't
an ideal system for most of us living on this planet.
As for the improvements in healthcare, education, living conditions etc that Capitalism has fostered... Most of these were
won through long struggles against the Capitalist hegemony by the masses. We would have certainly chosen to make these improvements
to our landscape sooner if Capitalism hadn't made every effort to stop us. The problem today is that Capitalism and its powerful
beneficiaries have successfully convinced us that there is no possible alternative. It won't give us the chance to try or even
permit us to believe there could be another, better way.
Martin Joseph -> realdoge 5 Dec 2015 14:33
Please walk us through how non-capitalist systems create wealth and allow their lowest class people propel themselves to
the top in one generation. You will note that most socialist systems derive their technology and advancements from the more capitalistic
systems. Pharmaceuticals, software, and robotics are a great example of this.
I shutter to think of what the welfare of the average citizen of the world would be like without the advancements made via
the capitalist countries.
VWFeature 5 Dec 2015 14:29
Markets, economies and tax systems are created by people, and based on rules they agree on. Those rules can favor general prosperity
or concentration of wealth. Destruction and predation are easier than creation and cooperation, so our rules have to favor cooperation
if we want to avoid predation and destructive conflicts.
In the 1930's the US changed many of those rules to favor general prosperity. Since then they've been gradually changed to
favor wealth concentration and predation. They can be changed back.
The trick is creating a system that encourages innovation while putting a safety net under the population so failure doesn't
end in starvation.
A large part of our current problems is the natural tendency for large companies to get larger and larger until their failure
would adversely affect too many others, so they're not allowed to fail. Tax law, not antitrust law, has to work against this.
If a company can reduce its tax rate by breaking into 20 smaller (still huge) companies, then competition is preserved and no
one company can dominate and control markets.
Robert Goldschmidt -> Jake321 5 Dec 2015 14:27
Bernie Sanders has it right on -- we can only heal our system by first having millions rise up and demand an end to the corruption
of the corporations controlling our elected representatives. Corporations are not people and money is not speech.
moonwrap02 5 Dec 2015 14:26
The effects of wealth distribution has far reaching consequences. It is not just about money, but creating a fair society -
one that is co-operative and cohesive. The present system has allowed an ever divide between the rich and poor, creating a two
tier society where neither the twain shall meet. The rich and poor are almost different species on the planet and no longer belong
to the same community. Commonality of interest is lost and so it's difficult to form community and to have good, friendly relationships
across class differences that are that large.
"If capitalism is to be seen to be fair, the same rules are to apply to the big guy as to the little guy,"
Sorry. I get it now. You actually think that because the Washington elite has repealed Glass-Steagel that we live in a unregulated
capitalistic system.
This is so far from the truth that I wasn't comprehending that anyone could think that. You can see the graph of pages published
in the Federal Register here. Unregulated capitalism? Wow.
Dodd Frank was passed in 2010 (without a single Republican vote). Originally it was 2,300 pages. It is STILL being written
by nameless bureaucrats and is over 20,000 pages. Unregulated capitalism? Really?
But the reality is that Goliath is conspiring with the government to regulate what size sling David can use and how many stones
and how many ounces.
So we need more government regulations? They will disallow David from anything but spitwads and only two of those.
neuronmaker -> AmyInNH 5 Dec 2015 14:16
Do you understand the concept of corporations which are products of capitalism?
The legal institutions within each capitalist corporations and nations are just that, they are capitalist and all about making
profits.
The law is made by the rich capitalists and for the rich capitalists. Each Legislation is a link in the chain of economic slavery
by capitalists.
Capitalism and the concept of money is a construction of the human mind, as it does not exist in the natural world. This construction
is all about using other human beings like blood suckers to sustain a cruel and evil life style - with blood and brutality as
the core ideology.
Marcedward -> MarjaE 5 Dec 2015 14:12
I would agree that our system of help for the less-well-off could be more accessible and more generous, but that doesn't negate
that point that there is a lot of help out there - the most important help being that totally free educational system. Think about
it, a free education, and to get the most out of it a student merely has to show up, obey the rules, do the homework and study
for tests. It's all laid out there for the kids like a helicopter mom laying out her kids clothes. How much easier can we make
it? If people can't be bothered to show up and put in effort, how is their failure based on racism
tommydog -> martinusher 5 Dec 2015 14:12
As you are referring to Carlos Slim, interestingly while he is Mexican by birth his parents were both Lebanese.
slightlynumb -> AmyInNH 5 Dec 2015 14:12
Why isn't that capitalism? It's raw capitalism on steroids.
Zara Von Fritz -> Toughspike 5 Dec 2015 14:12
It's an equal opportunity plantation now.
Robert Goldschmidt 5 Dec 2015 14:11
The key to repairing the system is to identify the causes of our problems.
Here is my list:
The information technology revolution which continues to destroy wages by enabling automation and outsourcing.
The reformation of monopolies which price gouge and block innovation.
Hitting ecological limits such as climate change, water shortages, unsustainable farming.
Then we can make meaningful changes such as regulation of the portion of corporate profit that are pay, enforcement of national
and regional antitrust laws and an escalating carbon tax.
Zara Von Fritz -> PostCorbyn 5 Dec 2015 14:11
If you can believe these quality of life or happiness indexes they put out so often, the winners tend to be places that have
nice environments and a higher socialist mix in their economy. Of course there are examples of poor countries that practice the
same but its not clear that their choice is causal rather than reactive.
We created this mess and we can fix it.
Zara Von Fritz -> dig4victory 5 Dec 2015 14:03
Yes Basic Income is possibly the mythical third way. It socialises wealth to a point but at the same time frees markets from
their obligation to perpetually grow and create jobs for the sake of jobs and also hereford reduces the subsequent need for governments
to attempt to control them beyond maintaining their health.
Zara Von Fritz 5 Dec 2015 13:48
As I understand it, you don't just fiddle with capitalism, you counteract it, or counterweight it. A level of capitalism, or
credit accumulation, and a level of socialism has always existed, including democracy which is a manifestation of socialism (1
vote each). So the project of capital accumulation seems to be out of control because larger accumulations become more powerful
and meanwhile the power of labour in the marketplace has become less so due to forces driving unemployment. The danger is that
capital's power to control the democratic system reaches a point of no return.
Jeremiah2000 -> bifess 5 Dec 2015 13:42
"I do not have the economic freedom to grow my own food because i do not have access to enough land to grow it and i do not
have the economic clout to buy a piece of land."
Economic freedom does NOT mean you get money for free. It means that means that if you grow food for personal use, the federal
government doesn't trash the Constitution by using the insterstate commerce clause to say that it can regulate how much you grow
on your own personal land.
Economic freedom means that if you have a widget, you can choose to set the price for $10 or $100 and that a buyer is free
to buy it from you or not buy it from you. It does NOT mean that you are entitled to "free" widgets.
"If capitalism has not managed to eradicate poverty in rich first world countries then just what chance if there of capitalism
eradicating poverty on a global scale?"
The average person in poverty in the U.S. doesn't live in poverty:
In fact, 80.9 percent of households below the poverty level have cell phones, and a healthy majority-58.2 percent-have computers.
Fully 96.1 percent of American households in "poverty" have a television to watch, and 83.2 percent of them have a video-recording
device in case they cannot get home in time to watch the football game or their favorite television show and they want to record
it for watching later.
Refrigerators (97.8 percent), gas or electric stoves (96.6 percent) and microwaves (93.2 percent) are standard equipment in
the homes of Americans in "poverty."
More than 83 percent have air-conditioning.
Interestingly, the appliances surveyed by the Census Bureau that households in poverty are least likely to own are dish washers
(44.9 percent) and food freezers (26.2 percent).
However, most Americans in "poverty" do not need to go to a laundromat. According to the Census Bureau, 68.7 percent of households
in poverty have a clothes washer and 65.3 percent have a clothes dryer.
Don't ,forget John Bolton's late October visit to Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia where he
pragmatically refined US priorities for each country including the indication for sanction
waving in respect of South Stream energy. Bolton's tour followed on from a visit to Moscow.
DJT had a 50 minute private meeting with Erdogan at the G20 followed by a further extended
phone call on the 14th December and the final call on the 21st immediately prior to the
Policy announcement. This marks considered policy and unfortunately for the Rojave Kurds
their interest were found wanting in the balance. There will be complementary side deals
involving Iran, Assad, Putin and Netanyahu. There then remains Idlib.
https://www.dailysabah.com/...
https://www.tccb.gov.tr/en/...
https://www.tccb.gov.tr/en/...
The strong man with the dagger is followed by the weak man with the sponge." Lord
Acton
George Herbert Walker Bush died on Saturday. He was 94 years old. Thanks to decisions he made
throughout his career, thousands – perhaps millions – of people never got near 94. He
invaded Iraq in 1991, instituted sanctions that destroyed the country. He pardoned those involved
in the Iran-Contra affair and was head of the CIA when Operation Condor launched the military coup
in Argentina in 1976 .
Instead, Simon Tisdall – a mindless servant to the status quo, always happy to weave
invective about our designated enemies – treats us to paragraph after paragraph of inane
anecdotes.
Good old Georgie once gave him a lift in Air Force One.
Barbara gave him useful advice about raising Springer Spaniels.
The following words and phrases are not found anywhere in this article: CIA, Iraq,
Iran-Contra, Argentinian coup, Iran Air Flight 655, NAZI, Panama.
Rather, Tisdall refers Bush's term as "before the era of fake news". Which makes him either a
complete a liar or profoundly under-qualified to write on the subject – as the Bush-era
spawned the original fake news: The Nayirah testimony . A pack of lies told
before the Senate, and used to justify a war in the middle-east.
Bush started two wars as President. Planned and enabled countless crimes as director of the
CIA. pardoned all those implicated in the Iran-Contra affair. Refused to apologise when the US
Navy "accidentally" shot down an Iranian airliner, killing over 200 civilians, including 60
children.
He was the original neocon – his administration brought us Cheney and Powell and
Rumsfeld. Gave birth to the ideology that stage-managed 9/11, launched the "War on Terror", and
cut a blood-stained swath across North Africa and the Middle East.
We don't hear about that.
What we DO hear about is Bush's "deep sense of public duty and service" and that
"Bush was a patriot who did not need cheap slogans to express his belief in enduring American
greatness". No space is given over to analysis, to examine the fact that "belief in enduring
American greatness" is quasi-fascism, and responsible for more violent deaths this century than
any other cause you can name.
In hundreds of words, a notionally left-wing paper has nothing but praise for a highly
unpopular right-wing president. No space is given over even to the gentlest of rebukes.
The whole article is an exercise in talking without saying anything. Pleasantries replacing
truth. Platitudes where facts should be. A nothing burger, with a void on the side and an extra
order of beige.
It's an obituary of Harold Shipman that eschews murder talk and rhapsodises about his love of
gardening.
A eulogy to Pinochet that praises his economic reforms but neglects all the soccer stadiums
full of corpses.
An epitaph to Hitler that focuses, not on his "controversial political career", but on his
painting and his vegetarianism.
Did you know Genghis Khan once lent me a pencil? He was a swell guy. The world will miss
him.
We're no longer supposed to examine the lives, characters or morals of our leaders. Only
"honour their memory" and be "grateful for their service". History is presented to us, not as a
series of choices made by people in power, but as a collection of inevitabilities. Consequences
are tragic but unavoidable. Like long-dead family squabbles – To dwell on them is unseemly,
and to assign blame unfair.
Just as with John McCain, apologism and revisionism are sold to us as manners and good taste.
Attempts to redress the balance and tell the truth are met with stern glares and declarations
that it is "too soon".
It's never "too soon" to tell the truth.
John McCain was a dangerous war-mongering lunatic. George Bush Sr was a sociopath from a
family of corrupt sociopaths. The world would be a far better, and much safer place if just one
major newspaper was willing to say that.
Really, there are two obituaries to write here:
First – George HW Bush, corrupt patriarch of an old and malign family, passing out of
this world to face whatever eternal punishment (hopefully) awaits those who sell their immortal
soul in exchange for a brief taste of power.
Second – The Guardian, perhaps a decent newspaper once-upon-a-time, now a dried out
husk. A zombified slave to the state, mindless and brainless and lifeless. No questions, no
reservations, no hesitation. Obediently licking up the mess their masters leave behind.
It's sickening.
Kit Knightly is co-editor of OffGuardian. The Guardian banned him from commenting.
Twice. He used to write for fun, but now he's forced to out of a near-permanent sense of
outrage.
My mother believed it was only Bush Senior's longevity that prevented some of the neo-cons from
bumping off Bush Junior. He was President in name only and has long since fulfilled his
usefulness in committing the US to endless war. He is prone to verbal gaffes and that must make
him a liability, and when powerful evil people get nervous they often turn deadly.
Cut&Pasted from Lavrov interview in today's Saker Vineyard:
Question: When the death of President George H.W. Bush was announced, President Putin
expressed his condolences in a very emotional message. George Bush Sr. believed that one of the
worst mistakes of his presidency was failure to prevent the Soviet Union's dissolution. Did you
meet with him? What are your impressions of him?
Sergey Lavrov: I believe that George Bush Sr greatly contributed to the development of the
United States and ensured that his country responsibly played its role in the world,
considering its weight in international affairs.
I remember very well how President George H.W. Bush visited Moscow, and then he went to
Ukraine where he encouraged the Soviet republics' political forces to do their duty by
preserving the country rather than create huge, tragic problems for millions of people who
became citizens of different states the morning after the Soviet Union collapsed.
Mr Bush was a great politician. I believe that every word that will be said about his
achievements reflect the people's true attitude to this man. However, one comment about the
link between President Bush and the demise of the Soviet Union. I heard a commentator say that
George Bush Sr made history by helping Mikhail Gorbachev soft-land the Soviet Union. In fact,
George Bush Sr never did that; he simply wanted to protect millions of people from political
games. This is what we can say confidently about him.
It was German journalist, Udo Ulfkotte actually spilled the beans regarding the western media
in his best seller, Journalisten Gekaufte, (Bought Journalists). Ulfkotte described the degree
to which the CIA has penetrated the western media and corrupted, or bribed ( including himself)
the system which has become a PR organization for the intelligence services, and MIC. On
publication it immediately sold 120,000.00 copies and then strangely became unavailable in
English. He was described as a 'conspiracy theorist' (but of course) and died at the relatively
young age of a heart attack at 56. There are some salient issues surrounding his death raised
by Jonas Schneider in his book 'The Mysterious Death of Udo Ulfkotte: Evidence for a Murder.
"... The Defense Department under Mattis became more opaque and less accountable to the public and Congress. He presided over two years of shameful support for the Saudi coalition war on Yemen, and he went out of his way to offer absurd justifications for continued U.S. support for the war to the end of his tenure. ..."
"... No less than Secretary Pompeo, Mattis discredited himself in the desperate, unsuccessful effort to derail S.J.Res. 54. An administration that fights as hard as this has to keep the war on Yemen going is definitely not one interested in peace and restraint no matter what else happens. ..."
Officials said Mr. Mattis went to the White House on Thursday afternoon with his
resignation letter already written, but nonetheless made a last attempt at persuading Mr.
Trump to reverse his decision about Syria, which the president announced on Wednesday over
the objections of his senior advisers.
Mr. Mattis, a retired four-star Marine general, was rebuffed. Returning to the Pentagon,
he asked aides to print out 50 copies of his resignation letter and distribute them around
the building.
Mattis' departure from the administration after the midterms had been floated as a
possibility for months, but I don't think anyone seriously expected him to resign suddenly over
a policy disagreement with the president. It is telling and not to Mattis' credit that ending
an illegal war in Syria was the one policy disagreement with Trump that Mattis couldn't
stomach. The Defense Secretary had repeatedly disagreed with Trump on a range of issues, and he
usually lost the internal debate. The only times that he prevailed with Trump were when he
advised him to escalate ongoing U.S. wars, and his influence had waned enough that he couldn't
get his way on that, either. I was extremely
skeptical that a Syria withdrawal would actually happen. Now that Mattis has tried and
failed to reverse that decision, I have to acknowledge that I overestimated the ability of
Trump's advisers to change his mind.
The Defense Department under Mattis became more opaque and less accountable to the
public and Congress. He presided over two years of shameful support for the Saudi coalition war
on Yemen, and he went out of his way to offer absurd justifications for continued U.S. support
for the war to the end of his tenure. The disagreement over Syria will dominate coverage
of Mattis' resignation, but it is important to remember that when it came to the most
indefensible U.S.-backed war he and Trump were always on the same page. No less than
Secretary Pompeo, Mattis discredited himself in the desperate, unsuccessful effort to derail
S.J.Res. 54. An administration that fights as hard as this has to keep the war on Yemen going
is definitely not one interested in peace and restraint no matter what else happens.
As wrong as Mattis was on a number of foreign policy issues, there is a real danger that his
successor could be far worse. Even if Trump doesn't nominate a Tom Cotton or Lindsey Graham,
the next Defense Secretary is very likely to be a yes-man in the mold of Mike Pompeo. Almost
every time that Trump has replaced his top national security officials, he has chosen someone
who will flatter and praise him instead of telling him the truth and giving him the best
advice.
The next Defense Secretary is less likely to resist Trump's belligerent tendencies, and he
is more likely to indulge the president's worst impulses. Just as Pompeo has proven to be a
worse Secretary of State than Tillerson, Mattis' successor will very likely prove to be an
inferior Secretary of Defense.
You're right to fear what may replace him, especially after the disgusting Pompeo replaced
the decent but ineffectual Tillerson, but I'm glad Mattis is gone, especially if he quit over
the Syria decision, a no-brainer which should have been made two years ago.
It's hard to imagine anyone being worse than he was. Sadly, we may not have to imagine
it.
There's also the danger that the elites and establishment will now escalate their efforts to
remove him from office.
I've disagreed with Trump about many things, and I don't like the man, but I still trust
him more than the corrupt incompetents and foreign agents who dragged us into these Middle
East hellholes.
That is the terrible and ongoing damage that must be stopped.
But now that Trump has made a move in the direction of winding it down, you will almost
certainly see the fury and resentment of the elites and establishment redoubled. From their
point of view, the only thing worse than a Trump who doesn't keep his campaign promises is
one who does.
His next appointee will be no better and more than likely worse, a crafty Neocon who will
bite their tongue when they disagree with Trump in order to remain so that he can encourage
his worst tendencies. Bolton is a stellar example of this.
If he appoints someone like Cotton or Gen Jack Keane then Trump will be the last adult in
the room.
My SWAG, and this is merely SWAG, is that, since his election, Trump has given the neocons
everything they wanted or asked for, but he still is allowed any freedom of action.
In spite of governing much like a garden variety Republican, his enemies are still looking
for any excuse to remove him.
This is Trump reminding his enemies that he can do lots of things to upset the apple cart,
so cut him some slack, already.
You know already what I will respond to this. And I know already what you will say in return.
So, instead of getting into a back and forth about it, I will simply leave you with something
to consider.
The fact that each successive report that comes out that refutes the claims of the truther
movement is automatically dismissed by people like you shows how conspiracy theory thinking
works. The final 9/11 report comes out in 2004 and, of course, the truthers dismiss it
because it was written by a branch of the federal government who you believe perpetrated 9/11
in the first place. Then Popular Mechanics publishes a 5,500 word report in 2005 extensively
answering and debunking the movement claims.
Here, you people can't claim that it was a government cover-up -- at least not directly --
because Popular Mechanics is a privately owned publication. Therefore, new sub-conspiracy
theories are invented to "prove" how Popular Mechanics is part of the cover-up. To give just
one example Christopher Bollyn "claimed to have discovered why the 100-year-old engineering
magazine would take part in a government cover-up of the crime of the century: A young
researcher on the magazine's staff named Benjamin Chertoff was a cousin of then-Homeland
Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, and the magazine was seeking to whitewash the criminal
conspiracy with its coverage." (Slate 2011) Here we are seeing the kind of incredible mental
contortion that truthers are willing to engage in to continue believing their theories.
Then in 2008 the National Institute of Standards and Technology released the final
installment of its study into the causes behind the collapse of the buildings -- $16 million
was invested into the investigation. And, as I well know, you and other truthers will have a
smart Alec come-back as to why the NIST report is wrong, its authors are part of the vast
conspiracy and so on. On and on it goes no matter how many reports are published by however
many experts.
Again, I am not interested in getting dragged into a back-and-forth about the merits and
demerits of these reports. Rather, I wish to point out the flawed reasoning inherent to 9/11
trutherism: that it has its own internal mechanisms for discounting any evidence that
contradicts its central tenets. It therefore constitutes a closed system of thought because
there is nothing that would ever count as a refutation. In other words, for all contradictory
evidence another explanation is made to retroactively fit the latest gap in the theory that
is exposed.
Now, I know full well that this is probably not going to change your mind either. And I'm
sure that there will be plenty of responses to this comment and thumbs down from Off-Guardian
readers. But I hope that you at least consider whether you are wrong about this subject. For
my part, I worry that 9/11 trutherism obscures what are indeed important subjects -- US
imperialism, US govt. corruption, the nefarious influence of the CIA, the legitimate
grievance that people in the Middle East have against the US, Israel, the Saudi dictatorship
and so on. Above all, I worry that 9/11 trutherism makes it open season for the real enemies
-- the US foreign policy establishment, et cetera -- to portray the resistance to them and
their agenda as a bunch of tin foil hat wearing fruitcakes. I feel strongly that the left
needs to jettison this in-group, conspiracy theory-type stuff really become a major force and
overturn the status quo.
People like you must count as a great success for the obedience training that keeps
capitalist society running smoothly, with the few dissidents casually dismissed as "a bunch
of tin foil hat wearing fruitcakes".
Even NIST eventually admitted that WTC-7 free-fell for 2.5 seconds. That can only happen
if all the support columns fail at exactly the same time; otherwise it would topple over
sideways. Only controlled explosives can make that happen.
Your touching faith in the word of ruling-class "experts", over the evidence of your own
eyes, and basic physics, is a credit to the Middle Ages. It would warm the hearts of the
Catholic theologians who refused to look through Galileo's telescope because they knew, as a
matter of revealed truth, that what he said couldn't possibly be true.
What do the claims of a bunch of tinfoil-hat-wearing fruitcakes count for, against not
just ruling class dogma, but the entire weight of respectable middle-class opinion? The
social status and careers of millions of right-thinking professionals, like you, depend on
believing, or at least pretending to believe, not just the 9/11 Official Story, but all the
other Official Stories as well. How could all those comfy middle-class people, with their
comfy middle-class careers and high-status friends, be wrong? That would throw the entire
plan for next weekend's dinner party into question.
Do you believe the Offical Skripal Story? The Official ISIS story? The Official Syrian
Chemical Weapons Story? The Official JFK Assassination Story? The Official USS Liberty Story?
The Official Tonkin Gulf Story? How do you decide which Official Stories to believe, except
on the basis of careerism and status-seeking?
Again, I am not interested in getting drawn into a back-and-forth about the various claims of
9/11 truthers like yourself. I would just like to make one comment and then leave two things
for yourself and other truthers on here to consider.
First, I would like to comment upon the fact that I have been subjected to some rather
nasty personalized abuse on this thread simply for challenging the claims of trutherism. I'm
not pointing this out to feel aggrieved or to search for sympathy or to make myself out as
some kind of victim. Rather I do so to illustrate how it is indicative of the negative and
mind-closing effects of the group-think and the conspiracy theorist mind-set. It goes
something like this: "everyone who questions the tenets of the great truther theory is the
enemy, not just a skeptic but rather a collaborator in the evil system that suppresses the
"truth"."
The people it discusses were truthers and many of them reexamined their beliefs after
being confronted by actual specialists on the subjects basing their truther beliefs on. If
you are open-minded as you claim to be, then have the decency to at least read the article
and consider its points, rather than just reflexively rejecting the source as part of the
great cover-up.
Finally, I would like to leave you with a quote from Noam Chomsky. Now, I am well aware
that you think Chomsky is a sell-out for not getting on board with trutherism and that you
have all kinds of fancy come-backs as to why he is wrong. But he raises a very important
issue of priorities for people on the anti-imperialist left to consider. Is this obsession
with this issue really helping us to fight against imperialism and all of the other
iniquities of the world? I think not:
"One of the major consequences of the 9/11 movement has been to draw enormous amounts of
energy and effort away from activism directed to real and ongoing crimes of state, and their
institutional background, crimes that are far more serious than blowing up the WTC would be,
if there were any credibility to that thesis. That is, I suspect, why the 9/11 movement is
treated far more tolerantly by centers of power than is the norm for serious critical and
activist work." Noam Chomsky
Ah "truther", that neologism which serves the same purpose as the recasting of the term
"conspiracy" to designate foolishness, gullibilty etc.
And as for Chomsky, well here's what he had to say about the 9/11 "inside job" theory:
"And even if it were true, which is extremely unlikely, who cares? It doesn't have any
significance. It's a little bit like the huge energy that's put out on trying to figure out
who killed John Kennedy. Who knows? Who cares? Plenty of people get killed all the time, why
does it matter that one of them happened to be John F. Kennedy?"
Let's just consider that for a moment. Chomsky is considering the possibilty -- however
remote in his view -- that 9/11 may indeed have been an inside job. And he's saying it
doesn't have any significance that the US goverment carried out an attack on its own
population! It doesn't have any significance that the "war on terror" was launched on the
basis of a lie!
This is the moment when Chomsky truly stood revealed. He was like the kid with his hand in
the cookie jar who instantly concocts any number of excuses all of which contradict each
other. And yet even when caught out like this, he has his supporters who say he "dispels 9/11
theories with sheer logic"!
That's the one. I mean – who knows and who cares? It's not as if a terrorist attack on
mainland America that altered the face of New York and launched a war across the world is
actually important.
Well, I think the fact that Noam Chomsky has said this demonstrates how few people accept
these 9/11 truther ideas -- even amongst people who generally agree with your (and my) kind
of politics. George Galloway, who like Chomsky is about as far politically from the neocons
as you can get, has also spoken very eloquently against trutherism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_A5ToK6g0m8
Ironically, the only remotely public figure who does that I've heard mentioned on this
thread is some Reaganite crank that I had never heard of until now. That really does not bode
well for you, does it?
And having now listened to Mr Galloway and once again having to put up with his portentous
stretching out ..of the ..sentence to -- quite frankly pad the time out, I see that his
"points" come down to the following:
Two planes flew into the twin towers. Yes -- there's no disputing that one.
GW Bush could not possibly have planned the thing himself. Yes again -- no dispute. At
this point I must express my gratitude to Reagan for finally proving that the guy in front is
just a puppet.
If the US did it themselves and it "got out" it would be the end of America's credibility.
Yes indeed. Which is why, all across the mainstream press, it will only ever be presented as
a "nutty conspiracy theory"
Galloway: "I saw, myself, the airplanes hitting the twin towers."
-- which is supposed to constitute proof of the official
Evil-Terrorists-In-A-Cave-In-Afghanistan story.
attention, "flaxgirl": your grand unified theory of 9/11 now needs to incorporate George
Galloway as a fake witness for the US government, which seems strange, given his decades of
opposition, both before and after, to the imperial warfare for which 9/11 served as a
pretext.
The political function of the No-Planes-At-WTC claims could not be more clear; it's so
that people who dispute other aspects of the Official Story can all be dismissed as deranged
idiots.
But Peter you need to look at the evidence for yourself and not take others' word for it. And
be guided by those who know how buildings collapse -- Chomsky certainly doesn't.
This is a wonderful tutorial by Richard Gage, founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11
Truth.
The story of 9/11 is utterly preposterous. The only reason people believe it is to do with
psychology of how we relate to power nothing to do with the actuality of the story -- because
it's utterly ludicrous.
Wut? " less violent ones like England, the US or France " From here on it just gets worse
until Chomsky has no credible position left to argue from.
Heightened sense of cognitive dissonance by old Noam.
' even if it were true, which is extremely unlikely, then who cares? It doesn't have any
significance."
Wow, for someone with such intellect this is some low-level thinking. I almost feel sorry
for Chomsky for holding such an immoral position. Would he feel the same way if his wife was
murdered? "Ah, there's other things to worry about, anything else is a diversion of energy."
Very sad.
Where basic physics is concerned we should not speak of theory. The only possible explanation
for the collapse of the buildings is controlled demolition. There is no doubt whatsoever that
9/11 was an inside conspiracy. There is also no doubt that death and injury were staged
– at least, there is zero evidence of its reality in the visual record and one would
think that for the 3,000 dead and 6,000 injured claimed there would be at least one piece of
evidence for their reality, rather than every piece (anomalously small in number) in the
visual record perfectly fitting "staged". Not to mention other anomalies unrelated to the
visual record and that actual killing and injuring of people by the perpetrators would take a
highly-problematic form in the shape of a great number of loved ones (as opposed to the tiny
number presented) and the injured themselves when controlled demolition was so obvious.
When you say that there is no doubt whatsoever that 9/11 was an inside conspiracy, I feel you
are being overconfident unless what you are saying is that there is some evidence that some
figures at the World Trade Centres seemed to have foreknowledge.
Frankly, although we all have our theories as to who was responsible, I remain in full
agreement with Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth who state simply that the official
account conflicts with physics. All else is suspicion and supposition. It may well be well
grounded supposition, but until we discover who planned and executed the event and who
definitely had foreknowledge, what we are dealing with is speculation.
The problem with that is that the great many people who refuse to believe anything other
than the official account of 9/11 dismiss our views as those of cranks
The buildings came down by controlled demolition. The evidence for that is
incontrovertible and the rationale presented by NIST for fire being the cause is demonstrably
not based on a skerrick of evidence and is obviously fraudulent and false. There is not a
single reason to suspect that the cause of collapse of all the buildings wasn't controlled
demolition. If you believe there is a single reason to suspect another cause can you please
provide it.
Since waking up to 9/11, I find that people either decide something is something with too
little evidence or refrain from deciding on what something is when the evidence is so
overwhelming you're practically drowning in it. Being conservative in judgement in the face
of overwhelming evidence is no virtue in my opinion.
I have engaged in conversation with Mick West who runs the metabunk.org website that
allegedly debunks all the conspiracy theories. We have gone back and forth a number of times
over the cause of WTC-7's collapse and I have invited him to respond to an Occam's Razor
challenge to provide 10 points that favour "fire" over "controlled demolition". He did not
respond to the challenge, nor could he provide a single point that favours fire over
controlled demolition. Not a single point -- didn't change his mind though. https://occamsrazorterrorevents.weebly.com/5000-challenge.html
Nor has anyone responded to my other Occam's Razor challenges. I judge when I see that
there is a reasonable amount of evidence and that evidence points all one way and there is no
evidence pointing any other way. If you disagree with this method fair enough.
And just to add, that, of course, it must be an inside job in the case of controlled
demolition. As Graeme MacQueen says, there is no room in the official story for controlled
demolition.
The big secret is though that death and injury were staged. That's the real secret.
It was a totally excellent piece. No reservations.
"Theory"? Are you serious? If you believe that 9/11 was the work of 19 barely-trained
terrorists (one of whom cried when asked to do steep turns and stalls according to his
alleged flying instructor but was tasked with the most impossibly-expert manoeuvre of doing a
330 degree turn into the Pentagon), armed with boxcutters who managed to hijack 4 planes,
navigate them into 3 iconic buildings without being molested by a single fighter interceptor
through the most defended airspace on earth, which subsequently caused the 10-second
collapses (displaying all the characteristics of controlled demolition and none of
fire-caused collapses) of three high-rise steel frame buildings, here's a $5,000 challenge
for you. All you have to do is provide 10 points that support the "fire" hypothesis over the
"controlled demolition" hypothesis for the collapse of WTC-7 and you can choose your own
structural engineer to validate your points. There's so very much material on the collapse it
shouldn't be very difficult. In fact, all you have to do is come up with one point to support
WTC-7's collapse by fire and I'll give you $5,000. One point -- validated by a structural
engineer of your choice. https://occamsrazorterrorevents.weebly.com/5000-challenge.html
9/11 is probably the biggest hoax in history and includes the very clever subhoax of 3,000
dead and 6,000 injured. Not only was it a hoax but they did not aim for realism in any shape
or form and gave us extra clues in addition to their preposterous
against-physical-and-administrative-reality story.
This is what Paul Craig Roberts, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy, who has
had careers in scholarship and academia, journalism, public service, and business, has to say
about 9/11. https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/pages/about-paul-craig-roberts/
According to the official story, on September 11, 2001, the vaunted National Security
State of the World's Only Superpower was defeated by a few young Saudi Arabians armed only
with box cutters. The American National Security State proved to be totally helpless and was
dealt the greatest humiliation ever inflicted on any country claiming to be a power.
That day no aspect of the National Security State worked. Everything failed.
The US Air Force for the first time in its history could not get intercepter jet fighters
into the air.
The National Security Council failed.
All sixteen US intelligence agencies failed as did those of America's NATO and Israeli
allies.
Air Traffic Control failed.
Airport Security failed four times at the same moment on the same day. The probability of
such a failure is zero.
If such a thing had actually happened, there would have been demands from the White House,
from Congress, and from the media for an investigation. Officials would have been held
accountable for their failures. Heads would have rolled.
Instead, the White House resisted for one year the 9/11 families' demands for an
investigation. Finally, a collection of politicians was assembled to listen to the
government's account and to write it down. The chairman, vice chairman, and legal counsel of
the 9/11 Commission have said that information was withheld from the commission, lies were
told to the commission, and that the commission "was set up to fail." The worst security
failure in history resulted in not a single firing. No one was held responsible.
Washington concluded that 9/11 was possible because America lacked a police state.
The PATRIOT Act, which was awaiting the event was quickly passed by the congressional idiots.
The Act established executive branch independence of law and the Constitution. The Act and
follow-up measures have institutionalized a police state in "the land of the free."
Osama bin Laden, a CIA asset dying of renal failure, was blamed despite his explicit
denial. For the next ten years Osama bin Laden was the bogyman that provided the excuse for
Washington to kill countless numbers of Muslims. Then suddenly on May 2, 2011, Obama claimed
that US Navy SEALs had killed bin Laden in Pakistan. Eyewitnesses on the scene contradicted
the White House's story. Osama bin Laden became the only human in history to survive renal
failure for ten years. There was no dialysis machine in what was said to be bin Laden's
hideaway. The numerous obituaries of bin Laden's death in December 2001 went down the memory
hole. And the SEAL team died a few weeks later in a mysterious helicopter crash in
Afghanistan. The thousands of sailors on the aircraft carrier from which bin Laden was said
to have been dumped into the Indian Ocean wrote home that no such burial took place.
The fairy tale story of bin Laden's murder by Seal Team Six served to end the challenge by
disappointed Democrats to Obama's nomination for a second term. It also freed the "war on
terror" from the bin Laden constraint. Washington wanted to attack Libya, Syria, and Iran,
countries in which bin Laden was known not to have organizations, and the succession of faked
bin Laden videos, in which bin Laden grew progressively younger as the fake bin Laden claimed
credit for each successive attack, had lost credibility among experts.
Watching the twin towers and WTC 7 come down, it was obvious to me that the buildings were
not falling down as a result of structural damage. When it became clear that the White House
had blocked an independent investigation of the only three steel skyscrapers in world history
to collapse as a result of low temperature office fires, it was apparent that there was a
coverup.
After 13 years people at home and abroad find the government's story less believable.
The case made by independent experts is now so compelling that mainstream media has opened to
it. Here is Richard Gage of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth on C-SPAN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Zbv2SvBEec#t=23
In response to proposed Senate legislation that would target Russia's state-controlled banks
by freezing their access to dollars -- a step which could genuinely damage the Russian economy
-- Moscow issued a new threat. "If we end up we end up with something like a ban on banking
activities or the use of certain currencies, we can clearly call this a declaration of economic
war," Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev
stated , emphasizing that Moscow would "respond to this war. By economic means, by
political means and if necessary by other means."
... ... ...
Putin doesn't even need to rely on his military to harm American interests either. He could
choose to openly increase economic and political support for North Korea, thereby weakening
Washington's ability to pressure North Korea to curtail its nuclear program. Given that North
Korea remains on the cusp of being able to reach the continental United States with a ballistic
missile this would constitute a significant setback for American interests.
... ... ...
To be clear, Medvedev's threats may be mere bluster, and Moscow could respond to dollar
sanctions by hunkering down even further and try to ride out the economic and political storm.
However, if harsh sanctions were on the verge of causing the Russian economy to collapse --
especially if this resulted in unrest which threatened the stability of the Putin regime --
Moscow might well end up lashing out in unpredictable ways. American policymakers should be
forewarned and prepared.
Josh Cohen contributes to a number of media outlets including National Interest, Foreign
Policy, Reuters, Washington Post and others.
There are so many painful places in the US foreign politics: North Korea, Iraq,
Afghanistan, Pakistan, Latin America, North Africa, Yemen. All this weaknesses could be used
by the US foes and Russia knows it. I won't be surprised if Russia pushes this weakspots.
Yes, the US politicians have to be ready to aggresive and success reaction of Russia. And
they have to make an informed decisions. Very cautiously.
Can someone cite just one instance of American government imposing "sanctions" on a
foreign government where it actually worked to USA interests? Don't cite Iran, Trump scrapped
that deal - so much for negotiation with USA - think Boeing happy about all those lost
airplane orders?
"Russia provoking an armed confrontation in the Sea of Azov" - really? Why the author did
not mention that Ukraine made 2(!) acts of piracy against Russian vessels before Russia
answered? Vessels "Nord" and "Mehanik Pogodin" are still seized by Ukraine against of law,
while Russia inspects vessels in INTERNAL waters of Azov according to law.
Because it is not popular opinion in US massmedia. Ukraine is always right, Russia is
always evil. Nobody want to pay you if you defend Russians. But if you will blame them in all
sins - you have a chance to recive few dollars from Dems or from military corporations.
If you have another opinion - you are russian troll.
Inspection of ships in the Azov Sea is carried out in accordance with the agreement on
economic activities in the Sea of Azov, Russia and Ukraine signed in 2012, Russia did not
inspect Ukrainian ships until 2018, but after threats to blow up the Crimean Bridge, Russia
began using the right to inspect all vessels in the Azov Sea seas
In the Ukraine there is a civil war, Russia's involvement in the poisoning of the "former
Russian spy" has not been proven by anyone, and the holy belief in "election meddling" looks
like a sign of idiocy.
I agree with you, too much lie. These american authors live in their own cloud castle
which has no relations with reality. Only money from military corporations who need
enemy.
Many inconsistencies and blatant lies on this article, but I wish to focus on this
particular one.
The author claims "Russia provoking an armed confrontation in the Sea of Azov that could
serve as a pretext for a significant Russian military escalation in the region -- a step
right out of Moscow's 2008 playbook for its war in Georgia."
The 2008 South Ossetia war has been internationally recognized to be instigated by Georgia
itself (even the official EU report on the subject admitted this clearly). In what way did
Russia provoke the Georgian attack according to the author?
What evidence can he present to support this thesis? Or is he merely lying out of his
teeth?
Russia has attacked many countries, including Afghanistan in 1979 and Ukraine in 2014.
Luckily your terrorist colleague Zakharchenko has been dealt with.
Russia never attacked Ukraine. This propaganda bullshit lives only in someones damaged
brains and on papers of some mass media.
Zakharcheko never made any terror act. He defended his people from Ukraine nazis, who shelled
civil homes, kindergardens and schools from all possible guns. He never harmed any civil
human being. Vice versa - Kiev's bandits shell civil citizens of Donbass every day. There is
"Alley of angels" in Donetsk - the cemetry of kids killed by Kiev's terrorists.
In 1979 USSR entered Afghanistan by REQUEST OF LEGAL GOVERNEMENT of Afganistan. Because US
sponsored and supplied with weapons antigovernment bandits in Afgahnistan. CIA never hided
this. And waht do US do today in Syria? Who asked them to kill people and government forces
in Syria? And why did US sponsored putch in Kiev in 2014?
"... It is also a nice illustration of how "Westminster Style" democracy works. Any chance that the electorate might elect a left wing government and you get a Zinoviev letter or a Bologna railway station bombing. ..."
"... In other words "Elect whom you like". ("Provided we like them too!") It's really a bit like herding sheep. ..."
The documents reveal him as Alexis Bellegarde, one of four White Russian aristocrats believed
to have been behind an infamous forgery 15 years before the war began. The revelations of Bellegarde's
importance to MI6 will increase suspicions that British agents had a hand in the production of the
"Zinoviev letter"; its leak to the Daily Mail many believe cost Labour the 1924 general election.
foolisholdman -> Brian Milne 11 Oct 2015 05:55
Brian Milne
It is also a nice illustration of how "Westminster Style" democracy works. Any chance that
the electorate might elect a left wing government and you get a Zinoviev letter or a Bologna railway
station bombing.
In other words "Elect whom you like". ("Provided we like them too!") It's really a bit
like herding sheep.
AlbertTatlock53 -> LordUpminster 11 Oct 2015 08:35
Despite the blandness of the OH volumes on Ultra, some facts did leak out, like having a month's
notice of the Italian declaration of war and useful tactical and operational details like the
positions of wolf packs. It also reminded me of a couple of anecdotes about Ultra information
by unwitting sources in memoirs. I wouldn't deprecate Ultra or the British war effort that far.
The British army that went to Normandy was the most mechanised and armoured army in history and
pulled rather more than its own weight in the coalition. The principal offensive weapon of the
British empire was Bomber Command, which in the spring-summer of 1943 began to devastate the German
war economy.
The Soviet and then the US contributions to the war dwarfed the British empire but only relatively,
it was still a superpower in 1945, though by the Suez crime it had become a wholly-owned subsidiary
of Murder Inc.
LordUpminster ID7678903 11 Oct 2015 04:04
And no doubt the establishment will continue to play such dirty tricks to undermine our
so called democracy
Not the slightest: according to our friend jamesforysthe below that's essentially what they're
for.
Re. the Zinoviev letter, I did see one theory many years ago that the man behind it was the
then-Polish Army Minister Władysław Sikorski, the one who later headed the Polish exile government
in London and was killed in an air crash. Certainly in October 1924 he was bragging to people
in governmental circles in Warsaw that it was his agents who had arranged it - though why exactly
is not easy to see, given that Poland had no particular political interest in Britain at the time.
I suspect that it was empty boasting, and that it was Russian emigrés who were responsible.
Coming up soon: conclusive proof that Jeremy Corbyn was once an agent of the Tsarist Okhrana.
Brian Milne 11 Oct 2015 04:00
Had Labour won, thus Baldwin, MacDonald, Baldwin, Chamberlain probably not have been the course
of politics, would the UK necessarily have moved further left? The question remains to be seen,
but unless somebody more genuinely socialist had replaced MacDonald probably not. However, the
outcome may well have been a far more amicable relationship with the Soviet Union, the Versailles
Treaty and League of Nations possibly better conformed to and the rise of Hitler less likely.
The Zinoviev letter may well have been as much a contributory denominator in that than is implied.
Of course, we hall never know really, only historians expounding their own theories and interpretations
of history.
samuel glover -> jamesforsythe 11 Oct 2015 01:43
"Some brilliant espionage across the Middle-east and Israel is precisely what's needed
to bring these politically infantile areas into western like democratic administrations, this
century, not next. And with fewer wars. "
First, you think western intelligence agencies **haven't** been prominent in the history of
that region?!?!?
Second, you think these same agencies are capable of just whipping up entire social and political
structures and cultures on demand? Do you read newspapers?
Remember that these agencies -- in America, in Britain, in every NATO country -- spent decades
and billions of dollars and billions of man-hours staring obsessively at the USSR. EVERY ONE of
them was completely blindsided when the Soviet Union folded up.
error418 -> jamesforsythe 10 Oct 2015 23:21
"Our" best interests or that intelligence service´s best interests? ISI in Pakistan is a good
example of such a service gone rogue. Experts in election rigging.
Frisco27 10 Oct 2015 19:06
"Sexing up" documents? What a scumbag... That would never happen these days.
"... "Regional clients are happy to "stand with" the Trump administration so long as they aren't required to do very much" ..."
"... Yes. And that tells you how much of a threat they think Iran really poses. ..."
"... Their attitude is like this: "Well, if you want to threaten Iran in order to keep Israel and Saudi Arabia happy, go ahead. You can even attack Iran. We're okay with it. Just don't expect us to do any fighting, dying, or paying. And if you make a mess, don't expect us to help you clean it up. In fact, if you make a mess, we're going to jack up our foreign aid request. And we're not taking any of your goddamn refugees this time." ..."
Then-Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-KS, speaking at a rally in 2013. He faces a senate grilling for
his secretary of state nomination today.
Mark Taylor/Creative Commons Nahal Toosi reports
on an upcoming Pompeo speech planned for his visit to Egypt next month:
Pompeo's speech will likely focus heavily on Iran, as have many of his past public
remarks. The chief U.S. diplomat is likely to try to rally Arab capitals to stand with the
United States and thwart Iran's use of proxy forces, support for terrorism and other
activities in the region.
The Trump administration has made a regular habit of denouncing Iran in speeches by top
officials, and the administration's Iran policy has no more international support today than it
did a year ago. It's not clear what purpose another high-profile Iran-bashing session serves.
The administration's talking points are tediously familiar by now, and Pompeo's brusque and
overbearing manner is the opposite of persuasive.
Regional clients are happy to "stand with" the Trump administration so long as they aren't
required to do very much, and every attempt to get these clients to do more has so far produced
no results. The administration's ill-conceived, so-called Middle East Strategic Alliance (MESA)
has stalled, thanks to the broader anti-Saudi backlash in Washington and the lack of interest
on the part of many of its would-be members. The administration's Iran policy of regime change
in all but name isn't working as planned and isn't going to work, and there is not much else
for Pompeo to talk about that reflects well on the administration. He and the president have
gone out of their way to thwart Congressional opposition to the war on Yemen, and they have
bent over backwards to make excuses for Saudi crimes.
Pompeo won't admit it in his speech, but the current U.S. role in the region is a
destabilizing one that involves aiding and abetting war crimes and helping to cause mass
starvation.
"Regional clients are happy to "stand with" the Trump administration so long as they
aren't required to do very much"
Yes. And that tells you how much of a threat they think Iran really poses.
Their attitude is like this: "Well, if you want to threaten Iran in order to keep
Israel and Saudi Arabia happy, go ahead. You can even attack Iran. We're okay with it. Just
don't expect us to do any fighting, dying, or paying. And if you make a mess, don't expect us
to help you clean it up. In fact, if you make a mess, we're going to jack up our foreign aid
request. And we're not taking any of your goddamn refugees this time."
"... By far the biggest act of wage slavery rebellion, don't buy shit. The less you buy, the less you need to earn. Holidays by far the minority of your life should not be a desperate escape from the majority of your life. Spend less, work less and actually really enjoy living more. ..."
"... How about don't shop at Walmart (they helped boost the Chinese economy while committing hari kari on the American Dream) and actually engaging in proper labour action? Calling in sick is just plain childish. ..."
"... I'm all for sticking it to "the man," but when you call into work for a stupid reason (and a hangover is a very stupid reason), it is selfish, and does more damage to the cause of worker's rights, not less. I don't know about where you work, but if I call in sick to my job, other people have to pick up my slack. I work for a public library, and we don't have a lot of funds, so we have the bear minimum of employees we can have and still work efficiently. As such, if anybody calls in, everyone else, up to and including the library director, have to take on more work. ..."
"Phoning in sick is a revolutionary act." I loved that slogan. It came to me, as so many good things did, from Housmans, the radical
bookshop in King's Cross. There you could rummage through all sorts of anarchist pamphlets and there I discovered, in the early 80s,
the wondrous little magazine Processed World. It told you basically how to screw up your workplace. It was smart and full of small
acts of random subversion. In many ways it was ahead of its time as it was coming out of San Francisco and prefiguring Silicon Valley.
It saw the machines coming. Jobs were increasingly boring and innately meaningless. Workers were "data slaves" working for IBM ("Intensely
Boring Machines").
What Processed World was doing was trying to disrupt the identification so many office workers were meant to feel with their management,
not through old-style union organising, but through small acts of subversion. The modern office, it stressed, has nothing to do with
human need. Its rebellion was about working as little as possible, disinformation and sabotage. It was making alienation fun. In
1981, it could not have known that a self-service till cannot ever phone in sick.
I was thinking of this today, as I wanted to do just that. I have made myself ill with a hangover. A hangover, I always feel,
is nature's way of telling you to have a day off. One can be macho about it and eat your way back to sentience via the medium of
bacon sandwiches and Maltesers. At work, one is dehydrated, irritable and only semi-present. Better, surely, though to let the day
fall through you and dream away.
Having worked in America, though, I can say for sure that they brook no excuses whatsoever. When I was late for work and said
things like, "My alarm clock did not go off", they would say that this was not a suitable explanation, which flummoxed me. I had
to make up others. This was just to work in a shop.
This model of working – long hours, very few holidays, few breaks, two incomes needed to raise kids, crazed loyalty demanded by
huge corporations, the American way – is where we're heading. Except now the model is even more punishing. It is China. We are expected
to compete with an economy whose workers are often closer to indentured slaves than anything else.
This is what striving is, then: dangerous, demoralising, often dirty work. Buckle down. It's the only way forward, apparently,
which is why our glorious leaders are sucking up to China, which is immoral, never mind ridiculously short-term thinking.
So again I must really speak up for the skivers. What we have to understand about austerity is its psychic effects. People must
have less. So they must have less leisure, too. The fact is life is about more than work and work is rapidly changing. Skiving in
China may get you killed but here it may be a small act of resistance, or it may just be that skivers remind us that there is meaning
outside wage-slavery.
Work is too often discussed by middle-class people in ways that are simply unrecognisable to anyone who has done crappy jobs.
Much work is not interesting and never has been. Now that we have a political and media elite who go from Oxbridge to working for
a newspaper or a politician, a lot of nonsense is spouted. These people have not cleaned urinals on a nightshift. They don't sit
lonely in petrol stations manning the till. They don't have to ask permission for a toilet break in a call centre. Instead, their
work provides their own special identity. It is very important.
Low-status jobs, like caring, are for others. The bottom-wipers of this world do it for the glory, I suppose. But when we talk
of the coming automation that will reduce employment, bottom-wiping will not be mechanised. Nor will it be romanticised, as old male
manual labour is. The mad idea of reopening the coal mines was part of the left's strange notion of the nobility of labour. Have
these people ever been down a coal mine? Would they want that life for their children?
Instead we need to talk about the dehumanising nature of work. Bertrand Russell and Keynes thought our goal should be less work,
that technology would mean fewer hours.
Far from work giving meaning to life, in some surveys 40% of us say that our jobs are meaningless. Nonetheless, the art of skiving
is verboten as we cram our children with ever longer hours of school and homework. All this striving is for what exactly? A soul-destroying
job?
Just as education is decided by those who loved school, discussions about work are had by those to whom it is about more than
income.
The parts of our lives that are not work – the places we dream or play or care, the space we may find creative – all these are
deemed outside the economy. All this time is unproductive. But who decides that?
Skiving work is bad only to those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
So go on: phone in sick. You know you want to.
friedad 23 Oct 2015 18:27
We now exist in a society in which the Fear Cloud is wrapped around each citizen. Our proud history of Union and Labor, fighting
for decent wages and living conditions for all citizens, and mostly achieving these aims, a history, which should be taught to
every child educated in every school in this country, now gradually but surely eroded by ruthless speculators in government, is
the future generations are inheriting. The workforce in fear of taking a sick day, the young looking for work in fear of speaking
out at diminishing rewards, definitely this 21st Century is the Century of Fear. And how is this fear denied, with mind blowing
drugs, regardless if it is is alcohol, description drugs, illicit drugs, a society in denial. We do not require a heavenly object
to destroy us, a few soulless monsters in our mist are masters of manipulators, getting closer and closer to accomplish their
aim of having zombies doing their beckoning. Need a kidney, no worries, zombie dishwasher, is handy for one. Oh wait that time
is already here.
Hemulen6 23 Oct 2015 15:06
Oh join the real world, Suzanne! Many companies now have a limit to how often you can be sick. In the case of the charity I
work for it's 9 days a year. I overstepped it, I was genuinely sick, and was hauled up in front of Occupational Health. That will
now go on my record and count against me. I work for a cancer care charity. Irony? Surely not.
AlexLeo -> rebel7 23 Oct 2015 13:34
Which is exactly my point. You compete on relevant job skills and quality of your product, not what school you have attended.
Yes, there are thousands, tens of thousands of folks here around San Jose who barely speak English, but are smart and hard
working as hell and it takes them a few years to get to 150-200K per year, Many of them get to 300-400K, if they come from strong
schools in their countries of origin, compared to the 10k or so where they came from, but probably more than the whining readership
here.
This is really difficult to swallow for the Brits back in Britain, isn't it. Those who have moved over have experiences the
type of social mobility unthinkable in Britain, but they have had to work hard and get to 300K-700K per year, much better than
the 50-100K their parents used to make back in GB. These are averages based on personal interactions with say 50 Brits in the
last 15 + years, all employed in the Silicon Valley in very different jobs and roles.
Todd Owens -> Scott W 23 Oct 2015 11:00
I get what you're saying and I agree with a lot of what you said. My only gripe is most employees do not see an operation from
a business owner or managerial / financial perspective. They don't understand the costs associated with their performance or lack
thereof. I've worked on a lot of projects that we're operating at a loss for a future payoff. When someone decides they don't
want to do the work they're contracted to perform that can have a cascading effect on the entire company.
All in all what's being described is for the most part misguided because most people are not in the position or even care to
evaluate the particulars. So saying you should do this to accomplish that is bullshit because it's rarely such a simple equation.
If anything this type of tactic will leaf to MORE loss and less money for payroll.
weematt -> Barry1858 23 Oct 2015 09:04
Sorry you just can't have a 'nicer' capitalism.
War ( business by other means) and unemployment ( you can't buck the market), are inevitable concomitants of capitalist competition
over markets, trade routes and spheres of interests. (Remember the war science of Nagasaki and Hiroshima from the 'good guys'
?)
"..capital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt". (Marx)
You can't have full employment, or even the 'Right to Work'.
There is always ,even in boom times a reserve army of unemployed, to drive down wages. (If necessary they will inject inflation
into the economy)
Unemployment is currently 5.5 percent or 1,860,000 people. If their "equilibrium rate" of unemployment is 4% rather than 5% this
would still mean 1,352,000 "need be unemployed". The government don't want these people to find jobs as it would strengthen workers'
bargaining position over wages, but that doesn't stop them harassing them with useless and petty form-filling, reporting to the
so-called "job centre" just for the sake of it, calling them scroungers and now saying they are mentally defective.
Government is 'over' you not 'for' you.
Governments do not exist to ensure 'fair do's' but to manage social expectations with the minimum of dissent, commensurate
with the needs of capitalism in the interests of profit.
Worker participation amounts to self managing workers self exploitation for the maximum of profit for the capitalist class.
Exploitation takes place at the point of production.
" Instead of the conservative motto, 'A fair day's wage for a fair day's work!' they ought to inscribe on their banner the
revolutionary watchword, 'Abolition of the wages system!'"
Karl Marx [Value, Price and Profit]
John Kellar 23 Oct 2015 07:19
Fortunately; as a retired veteran I don't have to worry about phoning in sick.However; during my Air Force days if you were
sick, you had to get yourself to the Base Medical Section and prove to a medical officer that you were sick. If you convinced
the medical officer of your sickness then you may have been luck to receive on or two days sick leave. For those who were very
sick or incapable of getting themselves to Base Medical an ambulance would be sent - promptly.
Rchrd Hrrcks -> wumpysmum 23 Oct 2015 04:17
The function of civil disobedience is to cause problems for the government. Let's imagine that we could get 100,000 people
to agree to phone in sick on a particular date in protest at austerity etc. Leaving aside the direct problems to the economy that
this would cause. It would also demonstrate a willingness to take action. It would demonstrate a capability to organise mass direct
action. It would demonstrate an ability to bring people together to fight injustice. In and of itself it might not have much impact,
but as a precedent set it could be the beginning of something massive, including further acts of civil disobedience.
wumpysmum Rchrd Hrrcks 23 Oct 2015 03:51
There's already a form of civil disobedience called industrial action, which the govt are currently attacking by attempting
to change statute. Random sickies as per my post above are certainly not the answer in the public sector at least, they make no
coherent political point just cause problems for colleagues. Sadly too in many sectors and with the advent of zero hours contracts
sickies put workers at risk of sanctions and lose them earnings.
Alyeska 22 Oct 2015 22:18
I'm American. I currently have two jobs and work about 70 hours a week, and I get no paid sick days. In fact, the last time
I had a job with a paid sick day was 2001. If I could afford a day off, you think I'd be working 70 hours a week?
I barely make rent most months, and yes... I have two college degrees. When I try to organize my coworkers to unionize for
decent pay and benefits, they all tell me not to bother.... they are too scared of getting on management's "bad side" and "getting
in trouble" (yes, even though the law says management can't retaliate.)
Unions are different in the USA than in the UK. The workforce has to take a vote to unionize the company workers; you can't
"just join" a union here. That's why our pay and working conditions have gotten worse, year after year.
rtb1961 22 Oct 2015 21:58
By far the biggest act of wage slavery rebellion, don't buy shit. The less you buy, the less you need to earn. Holidays
by far the minority of your life should not be a desperate escape from the majority of your life. Spend less, work less and actually
really enjoy living more.
Pay less attention to advertising and more attention to the enjoyable simplicity of life, of real direct human relationships,
all of them, the ones in passing where you wish a stranger well, chats with service staff to make their life better as well as
your own, exchange thoughts and ideas with others, be a human being and share humanity with other human beings.
Mkjaks 22 Oct 2015 20:35
How about don't shop at Walmart (they helped boost the Chinese economy while committing hari kari on the American Dream)
and actually engaging in proper labour action? Calling in sick is just plain childish.
toffee1 22 Oct 2015 19:13
It is only considered productive if it feeds the beast, that is, contribute to the accumulation of capital so that the beast
can have more power over us. The issue here is the wage labor. The 93 percent of the U.S. working population perform wage labor
(see BLS site). It is the highest proportion in any society ever came into history. Under the wage labor (employment) contract,
the worker gives up his/her decision making autonomy. The worker accepts the full command of his/her employer during the labor
process. The employer directs and commands the labor process to achieve the goals set by himself. Compare this, for example, self-employed
providing a service (for example, a plumber). In this case, the customer describes the problem to the service provider but the
service provider makes all the decisions on how to organize and apply his labor to solve the problem. Or compare it to a democratically
organized coop, where workers make all the decisions collectively, where, how and what to produce. Under the present economic
system, a great majority of us are condemned to work in large corporations performing wage labor. The system of wage labor stripping
us from autonomy on our own labor, creates all the misery in our present world through alienation. Men and women lose their humanity
alienated from their own labor. Outside the world of wage labor, labor can be a source self-realization and true freedom. Labor
can be the real fulfillment and love. Labor together our capacity to love make us human. Bourgeoisie dehumanized us steeling our
humanity. Bourgeoisie, who sold her soul to the beast, attempting to turn us into ever consuming machines for the accumulation
of capital.
patimac54 -> Zach Baker 22 Oct 2015 17:39
Well said. Most retail employers have cut staff to the minimum possible to keep the stores open so if anyone is off sick, it's
the devil's own job trying to just get customers served. Making your colleagues work even harder than they normally do because
you can't be bothered to act responsibly and show up is just plain selfish.
And sorry, Suzanne, skiving work is nothing more than an act of complete disrespect for those you work with. If you don't understand
that, try getting a proper job for a few months and learn how to exercise some self control.
TettyBlaBla -> FranzWilde 22 Oct 2015 17:25
It's quite the opposite in government jobs where I am in the US. As the fiscal year comes to a close, managers look at their
budgets and go on huge spending sprees, particularly for temp (zero hours in some countries) help and consultants. They fear if
they don't spend everything or even a bit more, their spending will be cut in the next budget. This results in people coming in
to do work on projects that have no point or usefulness, that will never be completed or even presented up the food chain of management,
and ends up costing taxpayers a small fortune.
I did this one year at an Air Quality Agency's IT department while the paid employees sat at their desks watching portable
televisions all day. It was truly demeaning.
oommph -> Michael John Jackson 22 Oct 2015 16:59
Thing is though, children - dependents to pay for - are the easiest way to keep yourself chained to work.
The homemaker model works as long as your spouse's employer retains them (and your spouse retains you in an era of 40% divorce).
You are just as dependent on an employer and "work" but far less in control of it now.
Zach Baker 22 Oct 2015 16:41
I'm all for sticking it to "the man," but when you call into work for a stupid reason (and a hangover is a very stupid
reason), it is selfish, and does more damage to the cause of worker's rights, not less. I don't know about where you work, but
if I call in sick to my job, other people have to pick up my slack. I work for a public library, and we don't have a lot of funds,
so we have the bear minimum of employees we can have and still work efficiently. As such, if anybody calls in, everyone else,
up to and including the library director, have to take on more work. If I found out one of my co-workers called in because
of a hangover, I'd be pissed. You made the choice to get drunk, knowing that you had to work the following morning. Putting it
into the same category of someone who is sick and may not have the luxury of taking off because of a bad employer is insulting.
With an ever faster News cycle, People forget what happened in the Past bringing this World
to the Present.
Historical Facts Americans don't take into consideration.
1. Within weeks of 9/11, the US came out with WAR PLANS to change the governments of Iraq,
Libya, Syria and at THE END, Iran.
2. Republican Bush illegally invaded Iraq in 2003.
3. ISIS did not exist until the illegal US invasion of Iraq
4. Democrat Obama did Libya and started the Syrian regime phase of the 2001 US WAR PLAN for
the Middle East in 2011.
5. In line with the 2001 US WAR PLAN to change the Assad government, ISIS moved from Iraq to
Syria as proxy regime change fighters.
6. US MSM report the US illegally started bombing ISIS in Syria, and with all the US smart
bombs, they missed, and ISIS was getting stronger, on the verge of bringing down the Assad
regime after 4 years of Death and Destruction following the 2001 US WAR PLAN for Syria.
7. Russia and Iran are legally asked to come to the aid of their Middle East Ally, like
NATO's Article 5, and enter the Syrian WORLD WAR in 2015.
8. Russia starts bombing ISIS and doesn't miss. ISIS is finally degraded in Syria, putting a
stop to the 2001 US WAR PLAN for regime change.
9. The US has made regime change as American as Apple pie and refuses to look as the
terrorist failed States it begat implementing it's 2001 WAR PLAN. It does increase sales for
the Military-Industrial Complex.
10. This MATERIAL WORLD did not notice the Spiritual Sign of the Times, when ISIS destroyed
the Islamic Mosque in Nineveh, Iraq containing the tomb of Jonah in the Whale fame recorded
in the Jewish-Christian Bible some 2900 years ago. He was sent to that "World City Nineveh"
to warn them of impending destruction if they continue on the path they're on. He tried to
get away from being a buzzkill.
10. As Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be
three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. Matthew 12:39-41
I despise Trump, but if he's managed to stumble on doing something sensible, and actually
does it (never a certainty with the casino swindler) -- great! There's no sane reason for
us to muck about in Syria. However it comes about, we should welcome a withdrawal there. If
the move gives Trump some of the approval that he plainly craves, maybe he'll repeat the
performance and end our purposeless wallow in Afghanistan.
It doesn't say anything good about the nominal opposition party, the Dems, that half or
more of them -- and apparently *all* of their dinosaur "leadership" -- can't stifle the
kneejerking and let him do it. Of course many of them are "troubled" because their Israeli
& Saudi owners, er, "donors" expect it. But some of them seem to have developed a sudden
deep attachment to "our mission in Syria" for no better reason than, Trump is for it,
therefore I must shout against it .
And then, of course, there's the Russia hysteria. Oh yeah, what a huge win for Moscow if
it scores the "prize" of occupying Syria! If that's Putin's idea of a big score, how
exactly does it harm any American to let him have it?
I wonder if the Democratic Party will ever be capable of doing anything other than
snatching defeat from the jaws of victory?
"... You want to know what those casualty numbers tell us? American forces in Syria, Afghanistan, or Iraq aren't going outside the wire – off American bases – very often. That's how you stay alive in places like Syria and Afghanistan. You stay away from places where things like IEDs can kill you. And even then, in the comparative safety of American bases, you're not safe, because there are enemy soldiers posing as "friendly" Afghan soldiers who will kill you. ..."
"... This is the nature of the conflicts we're engaged in. You take thousands of American soldiers and send them thousands of miles away from home into combat zones in foreign lands, and you have them do as little as possible so not too many of them get killed. ..."
"... It pains me to say this, but Trump pulling 2,000 soldiers out of Syria and 7,000 soldiers out of Afghanistan is the right thing to do. It might be getting done by a certifiable loon with an orange muskrat on his head, but it's the right thing to do and it should have been done a long time ago. ..."
The arm-waving and hand-flapping and pearl-clutching in the foreign affairs and national
security "communities," not to mention in the Congress and among prominent Democrats, is
something to behold. Significant portions of all those communities have long thought we didn't
have any business being in Syria in the first place. Not to mention fighting our 17th year of
the so-called "war" in Afghanistan, from which Trump intends to remove some 7,000 American
troops...
More than 2,400 American soldiers dead in Afghanistan so far. More than 30,000
Afghan civilians killed. Sixty percent of Afghan districts under control of the Taliban. Opium
production at an "all-time high." Dozens, sometimes hundreds of Afghan soldiers killed every
single week. You thought Vietnam was a misbegotten military misadventure? How about 17 years in
Afghanistan with no end in sight? Hell, opium production was said to be at an "all-time high"
when I was in the Kunar River Valley in Afghanistan in 2004. That's 14 years ago, 14 years
of record-setting opium crops!
And what are the pundits saying about our military foray into the morass called Syria?
Listen to what I heard from one "expert" on MSNBC yesterday.
"Syria is a very winnable proposition," this numbskull said, looking gravely at the other
"experts" at the table. "The U.S. presence is actually very small numbers." Two thousand is the
"very small number" this blazer-and-tie wearing "expert" was talking about as he reached for
his "I'm a Pundit on the Katy Tur Show" cup and went on to blather about how "winnable" Syria
is.
Let me tell you what 2,000 soldiers is. It's about the size of a brigade, commanded by a
full colonel. A brigade is typically three to five battalions of 500 to 1,000 soldiers,
commanded by lieutenant colonels. Battalions are made up of three to five companies with around
200 soldiers, commanded by captains. Companies comprise three to four platoons of 40 to 100
soldiers, commanded by second lieutenants. So 2,000 soldiers is about 30 to 40 platoons of
soldiers. I used to command a platoon. I was 22 years old. There were about 40 soldiers in my
platoon. Let me tell you, taking care of 40 soldiers was a big fucking job, and we weren't even
in combat.
Taking care of 2,000 soldiers in a place like Syria with bullets flying and IEDs going off
is a huge fucking job. Taking care of 14,000 soldiers, like we currently have in Afghanistan,
or 7,000 which we'll have when Trump gets finished with his draw-down, is a massive fucking
job.
... ... ...
And now Trump's Last General's feelings are all hurt, because he wasn't consulted about
pulling 2,000 troops out of Syria or 7,000 troops out of Afghanistan. What were those troops
doing in Syria? We don't know, and I don't think Mattis had much of an idea what they were
doing, either.
We can get some idea what they're doing by the number of casualties American forces have
suffered in both places. An American soldier was killed in Manbij, Syria, by a roadside bomb in
March of this year. He was the fourth American killed in Syria since our forces entered the
country in 2014. There have been 18 Americans killed in Afghanistan this year. Eleven were
killed there last year. About half of those killed in Afghanistan have been so-called
"green-on-green" killings, incidents where "friendly" Afghans killed American soldiers, usually
on American bases.
You want to know what those casualty numbers tell us? American forces in Syria,
Afghanistan, or Iraq aren't going outside the wire – off American bases – very
often. That's how you stay alive in places like Syria and Afghanistan. You stay away from
places where things like IEDs can kill you. And even then, in the comparative safety of
American bases, you're not safe, because there are enemy soldiers posing as "friendly" Afghan
soldiers who will kill you.
This is the nature of the conflicts we're engaged in. You take thousands of American
soldiers and send them thousands of miles away from home into combat zones in foreign lands,
and you have them do as little as possible so not too many of them get killed.
It pains me to say this, but Trump pulling 2,000 soldiers out of Syria and 7,000
soldiers out of Afghanistan is the right thing to do. It might be getting done by a certifiable
loon with an orange muskrat on his head, but it's the right thing to do and it should have been
done a long time ago.
Advertisement:
All the talk you're hearing about how we've got to have American forces in this desert or
that mountainous no-man's land as a "counterbalance" to countries like Russia and Iran is
lip-flapping twaddle from the kind of "experts" who got us involved in Iraq, Syria, and
Afghanistan in the first place. They are the same "experts" you didn't hear a peep from when
Mattis stood loyally by Trump as he virtually capitulated to Vladimir Putin in Helsinki,
trashed NATO every chance he got, and sat down for Nuclear Kimchi with Kim Jong Un. Now Mattis
is all "maintaining strong alliances and showing respect to those allies" in his resignation
letter. Talk about a day late and a dollar short, he should call Angela Merkel and ask her how
much "respect" she's felt from the United States lately.
You want to know who can stop the resident of the adult day care center in the White House?
It wasn't Adult in the Room General McMaster. It wasn't Adult in the Room General Kelly. It
wasn't Adult in the Room General Mattis. And it's sure as hell not going to be somebody like
Secretary of Defense Kushner, or whoever the hell Trump decides he's going to sentence to a
padded cell on the E-Ring in the Pentagon next.
Trump can be stopped by Congress. The Congress can cut the funding for our misbegotten
misadventures in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan. It can refuse to fund the laughable wall along
our 1,900 mile border with Mexico that Trump apparently thinks 6,000 soldiers can guard in the
meantime. And Congress can impeach and convict Trump's insane clown ass for conspiring with a
foreign nation to defraud the United States of America. Congress can do all of this if
Republicans will stop bowing down before the Orange Hair Helmet and start looking out for the
United States of America.
Just between you and me, we'll wake up tomorrow morning, and even with The Last Adult in the
Room on his way out the door, the Western World will still be here, and so will Trump. Trust
me.
Lucian K. Truscott IV
Lucian K. Truscott IV, a graduate of West Point, has had a 50-year career as a journalist,
novelist and screenwriter. He has covered stories such as Watergate, the Stonewall riots and
wars in Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is also the author of five bestselling novels and
several unsuccessful motion pictures. He has three children, lives on the East End of Long
Island and spends his time Worrying About the State of Our Nation and madly scribbling in a
so-far fruitless attempt to Make Things Better. He can be followed on Facebook at The Rabbit
Hole and on Twitter @LucianKTruscott.
"... In his just published book, War With Russia? ..."
"... To paraphrase Putin: "You are making Russia a threat by declaring us to be one, by discarding facts and substituting orchestrated opinions that your propagandistic media establish as fact via endless repetition." ..."
"... Cohen is correct that during the Cold War every US president worked to defuse tensions, especially Republican ones. Since the Clinton regime every US president has worked to create tensions. What explains this dangerous change in approach? The end of the Cold War was disadvantageous to the military/security complex whose budget and power had waxed from decades of cold war. Suddenly the enemy that had bestowed such wealth and prestige on the military/security complex disappeared. ..."
"... The New Cold War is the result of the military/security complex's resurrection of the enemy. In a democracy with independent media and scholars, this would not have been possible. But the Clinton regime permitted in violation of anti-trust laws 90% of the US media to be concentrated in the hands of six mega-corporations, thus destroying an independence already undermined by the CIA's successful use of the CIA's media assets to control explanations. Many books have been written about the CIA's use of the media, including Udo Ulfkotte's "Bought Journalism," the English edition of which was quickly withdrawn and burned. ..."
Throughout the long Cold War Stephen Cohen, professor of Russian studies at Princeton University and New York University was a
voice of reason. He refused to allow his patriotism to blind him to Washington's contribution to the conflict and to criticize only
the Soviet contribution. Cohen's interest was not to blame the enemy but to work toward a mutual understanding that would remove
the threat of nuclear war. Although a Democrat and left-leaning, Cohen would have been at home in the Reagan administration, as Reagan's
first priority was to end the Cold War. I know this because I was part of the effort. Pat Buchanan will tell you the same thing.
In 1974 a notorious cold warrior, Albert Wohlstetter, absurdly accused the CIA of underestimating the Soviet threat. As the CIA
had every incentive for reasons of budget and power to overestimate the Soviet threat, and today the "Russian threat," Wohlstetter's
accusation made no sense on its face. However he succeeded in stirring up enough concern that CIA director George H.W. Bush, later
Vice President and President, agreed to a Team B to investigate the CIA's assessment, headed by the Russiaphobic Harvard professor
Richard Pipes. Team B concluded that the Soviets thought they could win a nuclear war and were building the forces with which to
attack the US.
The report was mainly nonsense, and it must have have troubled Stephen Cohen to experience the setback to negotiations that Team
B caused.
Today Cohen is stressed that it is the United States that thinks it can win a nuclear war. Washington speaks openly of using "low
yield" nuclear weapons, and intentionally forecloses any peace negotiations with Russia with a propaganda campaign against Russia
of demonization, vilification, and transparent lies, while installing missile bases on Russia's borders and while talking of incorporating
former parts of Russia into NATO. In his just published book, War With Russia? , which I highly recommend, Cohen makes a
convincing case that Washington is asking for war.
I agree with Cohen that if Russia is a threat it is only because the US is threatening Russia. The stupidity of the policy toward
Russia is creating a Russian threat. Putin keeps emphasizing this. To paraphrase Putin: "You are making Russia a threat by declaring
us to be one, by discarding facts and substituting orchestrated opinions that your propagandistic media establish as fact via endless
repetition."
Cohen is correct that during the Cold War every US president worked to defuse tensions, especially Republican ones. Since the
Clinton regime every US president has worked to create tensions. What explains this dangerous change in approach? The end of the Cold War was disadvantageous to the military/security complex whose budget and power had waxed from decades of
cold war. Suddenly the enemy that had bestowed such wealth and prestige on the military/security complex disappeared.
The New Cold War is the result of the military/security complex's resurrection of the enemy. In a democracy with independent media
and scholars, this would not have been possible. But the Clinton regime permitted in violation of anti-trust laws 90% of the US media
to be concentrated in the hands of six mega-corporations, thus destroying an independence already undermined by the CIA's successful
use of the CIA's media assets to control explanations. Many books have been written about the CIA's use of the media, including Udo
Ulfkotte's "Bought Journalism," the English edition of which was quickly withdrawn and burned.
The demonization of Russia is also aided and abetted by the Democrats' hatred of Trump and anger from Hillary's loss of the presidential
election to the "Trump deplorables." The Democrats purport to believe that Trump was installed by Putin's interference in the presidential
election. This false belief is emotionally important to Democrats, and they can't let go of it.
Although Cohen as a professor at Princeton and NYU never lacked research opportunities, in the US Russian studies, strategic studies,
and the like are funded by the military/security complex whose agenda Cohen's scholarship does not serve. At the Center for Strategic
and International Studies, where I held an independently financed chair for a dozen years, most of my colleagues were dependent on
grants from the military/security complex. At the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, where I was a Senior Fellow for three
decades, the anti-Soviet stance of the Institution reflected the agenda of those who funded the institution.
I am not saying that my colleagues were whores on a payroll. I am saying that the people who got the appointments were people
who were inclined to see the Soviet Union the way the military/security complex thought it should be seen.
As Stephen Cohen is aware, in the original Cold War there was some balance as all explanations were not controlled. There were
independent scholars who could point out that the Soviets, decimated by World War 2, had an interest in peace, and that accommodation
could be achieved, thus avoiding the possibility of nuclear war.
Stephen Cohen must have been in the younger ranks of those sensible people, as he and President Reagan's ambassador to the Soviet
Union, Jack Matloff, seem to be the remaining voices of expert reason on the American scene.
If you care to understand the dire threat under which you live, a threat that only a few people, such as Stephen Cohen, are trying
to lift, read his book.
If you want to understand the dire threat that a bought-and-paid-for American media poses to your existence, read Cohen's accounts
of their despicable lies. America has a media that is synonymous with lies.
If you want to understand how corrupt American universities are as organizations on the take for money, organizations to whom
truth is inconsequential, read Cohen's book.
If you want to understand why you could be dead before Global Warming can get you, read Cohen's book.
The recent veneration of George H.W. Bush has been wonderfully uplifting, especially as it
recalled his cautious use of persuasion and honest argument.
Peggy Noonan, Ronald Reagan's former speechwriter, beautifully described Bush's funeral in
the Wall Street Journal as reminding us of our dignity and "re-summoning our mystique."
The event, Noonan said, harkened back to when America was respected and admired, generous and
"expected to do good." President Bush, she noted, had presided over the collapse of the Soviet
Union diplomatically and without humiliating Russia's leaders or its people. He also declined
to occupy a Muslim country after defeating Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Bush was indeed a very
decent man. In fact, he was a
great statesman, as TAC 's editor Jim Antle has noted on these pages.
Yet almost none of the news reported on what was the darkest chapter of his legacy: the
First Gulf War. I was a co-founder at the time of a small and vastly outgunned opposition group
of conservatives and (mainly) libertarians, the Committee to Avert a Mid-East Holocaust
. Today, with at least a million Arabs, Afghans, and Americans dead from the unending chaos the
United States unleashed in the Muslim world, the name seems very appropriate.
Our group included truly great conservatives: Henry Regnery, almost the only publisher of
conservative books, who helped keep liberty alive during the dark days of the 1940s and '50s,
along with the always brave Pat Buchanan and Joseph Sobran. Regnery and Buchanan were the main
contributors to our group. But we were a virtual who's who of the incipient libertarian
movement: Ron Paul, the once and future Texas congressman who would eventually gain a wider
following as a presidential candidate; Lew Rockwell, his former congressional staffer; the
economist Murray Rothbard; Bill Niskanen, chairman of the Cato Institute; Sheldon Richman,
longtime editor at FEE ; Justin Raimondo, who
would go on to be a co-founder at Antiwar.com ; and Burt Blumert, who helped fund much of Rothbard and
Raimondo's work.
Our chair and guide was
Phil Nicolaides , former deputy director at Voice of America during the Reagan era. The
executive committee included myself, Richman, Sobran, and chess champion Phil Collier. Fran
Griffin, a strong Catholic and founding member of Young Americans for Freedom, did tremendous
work for almost no pay handling our mail-outs and administration with her company Griffin
Communications.
In those days, communication consisted of direct mail, while most of the media just accepted
pro-war government handouts. If only we'd the internet! We did get some news coverage but of
course we were no match for Kuwaiti money and evangelical supporters of Israel. Still, the
Senate vote in favor of the war was only 52-47, despite the overwhelming propaganda in favor of
it as described below.
The war led to a major break between
libertarians and conservatives , especially as the giant Heritage Foundation became a
champion of war from that moment on. Even today, Heritage has backed continued U.S. support for
the Saudi bombing of Yemen.
Much about the Gulf War and especially its lies and subsequent brutality were not reported.
Bush himself may not have known all that took place in the military campaign. After all, Dick
Cheney, whom we know now to be a liar, was his secretary of defense. But the deeds need to be
remembered and indeed researched.
Particularly odious was the calculated destruction of Iraq's sanitation, irrigation, and
electrical grid, with the intent of causing
mass civilian disease and starvation, as specified in a Defense
Intelligence Agency report. It would have been interesting to find out who ordered this
policy. Reconstruction supplies were then blockaded over the following nine years, including
during the Clinton presidency. The consequent half million deaths of children were deemed
acceptable by Clinton's former secretary of state Madeleine Albright in this famous 60 Minutes
interview with Leslie Stahl. Osama bin Laden later listed civilian suffering in Iraq as one
of the three reasons for his subsequent terrorist attack on America.
Public support for the war was in part ginned up by the infamous "incubator babies" lie and
claims that aerial photographs showed 200,000 Iraqi soldiers waiting along the border to invade
Saudi Arabia. Indeed, the reason given to Americans for sending troops was to protect the
Saudis.
The Christian Science Monitor and LA Times reported later
how it was untrue and that such photographs never existed. Photos of the border showed no
troops congregated there. The Defense Department claimed the photos were secret and never
released them even after the war.
Such
misinformation is critical if you're trying to get America into a war. Remember the British propaganda
that got us into the First World War? A repeated story was that German soldiers were eating
Belgian babies. In the second Iraq war, it was lies that Saddam had aided bin Laden and was
developing nuclear "weapons of mass destruction."
Kuwait's ruling family spent billions of dollars and paid for top public relations in
Washington. I remember particularly the yearly CPAC meeting when the Kuwaitis paid for a dozen
tables to be filled with students to cheer for war. Saddam was sending cash bequests to the
families of Palestinian terrorists whom Israel had killed, so pro-Israel forces in Washington
also supported the war, though they were less important to the lobbying effort than Kuwait.
Nevertheless, the United States initially hesitated to go to war. There was the meeting of
the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, with Saddam Hussein during which she told him that
inter-Arab quarrels were
not the concern of the United States government . A top State Department official told
Congress the same thing. The ambassador strangely disappeared from the news after the war
started.
Then there was President Bush's rather casual attitude about Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Only
after he met with British Prime Minister Thatcher and faced the vast pro-war publicity campaign
did he change his mind. Thatcher was very alarmed because Kuwait's vast deposits in British
banks were important for their solvency. She feared Iraq might continue threatening other Gulf
states and their bank deposits. She insisted and begged America to save Kuwait. Bush than
organized a United Nations Security Council vote to condemn Iraq and a coalition that included
many Arab nations. He did it with full international legality (unlike his son's subsequent war)
and above all he got our allies to pay for the war. There was massive support in America for
the operation.
Bush's national security advisor, Brent Scowcroft, later opposed the younger Bush's attack
on and subsequent occupation of Iraq in 2003. He understood well the limits of power and the
importance of having allies -- something the next President Bush cared little about.
Actually, George H. W. Bush only looks good next to the Current Occupant (of the Oval
Office).
I, too, can remember his Presidency, and even his candidacy, when he authorized the use of
those Willie Horton ads. (Which contributed both to the rise of the alt-right and the BLM
movements.)
I recall his first candidacy,k when he was opposed to "voodoo economics" before he was all
for it.
One need not lay out any secret cabal when he was in office as indicative of his
character. It was on full display long before. And it had nothing to do with a "kinder,
gentler America", only with the pursuit of power at any cost to integrity or honor.
Look there are valid reasons to challenger the first gulf war. It was strictly a debate
between Iraq and Kuwait. Historical issues and the matter of supplemental dollars for what
Iraq believed was a defense against the Iranian revolution.
But unlike the last invasion the First Gulf effort was largely supported even by Gulf
States. Stop dreaming up libertarian fantasies about Sen rand Paul. Libertarian anti-war
effort. As for PM thatcher's fears – the Iraqi invasion did not budge the price of oil.
This was a dispute between two neighbors and nothing more.
But it was the international effort that made the case. And it was not just Israel. It was
limited to one goal,pushing Iraqi troops back into Iraq proper.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
The valid critiques on Pres. Bush, Sr. are those in the above comments about economics and
"Willie Horton."
The case against iraq in the second effort was very clear.
Iraq had invaded no one
Had nothing to do with 9/11
No evidence the wmd in any viable state
No evidence that the weapons inspectors were not accomplishing their mission.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -
I didn't hear a peep from the likes of your clique about challenging the war in
Afghanistan. That was an effort that would have demonstrated some serious unnecessary
anti-war thinking. Some intellectual work in examining the issues and the consequence. The
internet was alive and well during the Afghanistan advance --
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
There is a difference between being anti-war and being opposed to unnecessary military
efforts. Libertarians trying to hide in the minutia of being anti-war as they savage their
fellow citizens with their immigration no borders nonsense, selling marijuana -- a tax boon
no where in sight in Colorado, Ca., or anywhere else, now want to unleash their carelessness
on heroin, cocaine, and hashish.
Bush talked about Dukakis's prison furloughs, and his campaign did produce and ad about them,
but the famous Willie Horton ad was produced by an independent PAC. It was done on Bush's
behalf, and Lee Atwater was all in favor of making Horton an issue, but so far as is known,
Bush didn't authorize or approve the well-known ad himself.
_________
I wonder if it would have been possible for antiwar conservatives (and conservatives
critical of trade and immigration policy) to mainstream their concerns. As it was, many
tended to become trapped in paleocon land, arguing forever that they were further to the
right than the others, and embracing some embarrassing ideas and historical icons.
You may recall John O'Sullivan's law – any organization that isn't explicitly
expressly right-wing will become left-wing over time. But the corollary seems to be that
critical or unorthodox movements on the right tend to get boxed into being "more conservative
than thou" and losing access to the centrist mainstream.
Whatever the current orthodoxy is appropriates the conservative label, and dissenters
either move to left or the far right.
Conservatives and liberals both have a great diversity of opinion, but it seems like
politics today are so polarized and binary that it's impossible for those of divergent
opinions to be on the same side or at more or less the same place on the political
spectrum.
One side is always going to be accused of being sell-outs to the enemy or of being on the
lunatic fringe.
I'm inclined to make a distinction between the "jus ad bellum" and the "jus in bello" aspects
of the Gulf War. I think I can say that I lean heavily anti-war in general, but I do think
the Gulf War was justified. Even if it's true that America and others wouldn't have
intervened in a case where the countries involved were small and unimportant, I don't think
the answer would be to also refuse to intervene in the case at hand. There's a great value in
upholding the principle that countries can't forcibly annex land from each other. Also, it's
hard to believe that Saddam Hussein would have settled down and minded his own business. It's
more likely that the lack of pushback from his Kuwait invasion would have encouraged further
adventurism.
None of that is to defend the way the war was actually conducted. It's just to suggest
that the preferable alternative would have been to wage the war more ethically rather than
not to wage it at all.
ElitCommInc appears to have a requisite necessity to interject "Sen rand Paul" into articles
that don't even mention him. C'est la vie.
As regards Afghanistan, I confess to having not a clue what is meant by " some serious
unnecessary anti-war thinking" but as I remember those days, while there was general support
for getting Bin Laden there were voices in the libertarian/paleoconservative movement that
argued for a special forces operation, a quit hit and not a full out occupation force.
Marijuana legalization has nothing to do with the article though I suppose those awful
libertarians also "savage" their fellow citizens with the sale of adult beverages as well.
C'est la vie.
I reluctantly got on board with the first Gulf War and about all that can be said that's
positive is that Bush Sr. at least endorsed a limited objective i.e. get Iraq out of Kuwait.
Not so that brain-dead son of his who was taking his orders from his VP.
The Great War Christmas Truce: 'They Were
Positively Human'For a brief moment in 1914, the guns went silent and the men risked
court martial to play soccer, smoke and sing---with the other side. By Hunter DeRensis
•
December 21, 2018
Wikimedia Commons/public domain A 19th-century peace activist once asked, "Is it possible
that any Christian, of whatever sect, who believes the New Testament to be anything better than
a fable, can doubt for a moment that the time will come when all the kingdoms of the earth
shall be at peace?"
Jesus Christ, as both a religious and historical figure, has been chronicled as the "Prince
of Peace." He was the man (or son of God) who instructed his followers to turn the other cheek.
This philosophy of love, forgiveness, and the rejection of violence is difficult to mesh with a
modern age that has fought two world wars. Reaching even farther back, it's hard to reconcile
Christ's message with the violence inflicted by Christians against both non-Christians and
other members of the faith.
But one moment, found in the bloody, secularized 20th century, stands out: the Christmas
Truce of 1914.
World War I had begun in August, engulfing most of Europe. On the western front, a German
invasion of France by way of Belgium had stalled just 50 miles outside of Paris. Fighting
quickly devolved into trench warfare, with German and British-French lines divided by a
no-man's land of barbed wire, shell holes, and death. Soldiers lived and died in trenches of
mud and dirt, infested with fleas and other vermin and often flooded with water that was knee
deep. Winter added frost and bitter cold. The war that people on both sides said would be done
by Christmas showed no sign of ending. By December, after barely five months of combat,
casualties on all sides numbered over two million.
Yet that Christmas Eve, an unexpected sound could be heard above the din of gunfire:
soldiers on the German side singing Stille Nacht , the original German-language
Silent Night . Small fir trees, makeshift replacements for the grand Christmas trees
back home, had been placed. The constant fighting might have had the effect of increasing
religious reflection. During the opening months of the war in 1914, churches in Germany were
fuller than they had ever been, even in working-class areas infamous for secular and
anti-clerical politics.
After much hesitation, soldiers on the British side began to poke their heads out of the
trenches. The Germans did not fire. The Brits responded by applauding and singing their own
English version of the carol. The two sides then met together in no man's land. Frederick James
Davies, a private in the 2nd Battalion Royal Welsh Fusiliers,
described his experiences in a letter home to his mother: "They [the Germans] were only
fifty yards away from us in the trenches. They came out and we went to meet them. We shook
hands with them . They also gave us cigars but they didn't have much food. I think they are
hard up for it. They were fed up with the war." They exchanged "cigs, jam and corn beef" and
Davies added that he had "a good chat with the Germans on Xmas day."
Writer Henry Williamson, then a private in the London Rifle Brigade,
wrote cheerfully home to his mother that he was smoking German tobacco he had exchanged
with a live soldier. He recounted, "Yesterday the British & Germans met & shook hands
in the Ground between the trenches, & exchanged souvenirs, & shook hands." He describes
his military counterparts: "Many are gentle looking men in goatee beards & spectacles, and
some are very big and arrogant looking." In other words, they looked positively human.
Williamson even showed empathy for their similar motivations: "The Germans put 'For Fatherland
& Freedom' on the cross. They obviously think their cause is a just one."
In his own account, Captain A.D. Chater of the 2nd Battalion Gordon Highlanders
wrote : "This extraordinary truce has been quite impromptu. There was no previous
arrangement and of course it had been decided that there was not to be any cessation of
hostilities."
This outbreak of peace was entirely spontaneous, started by privates on the front lines as
their officers threatened them with court-martial. Soldiers laughed, talked, sang, exchanged
gifts, and helped to bury their dead. A few games of soccer were even played.
They had been killing each other for months, indoctrinated for most of their lives to view
the "other" as evil, inhuman. But here they were, ordinary men who missed their homes and
families, who had only the vaguest idea of why they were there, why they were dying and
killing. Karl Muhlegg of the 17th Bavarian Regiment wrote home, "Never was I as keenly aware of
the insanity of war."
The truce continued until the end of Christmas. In some spots it continued for days. But
slowly men returned to their sides and fighting resumed. Europe would not see another Christmas
in peacetime until 1918, after 10,000,000 men had been killed. When the war ended, the French
military academy Saint-Cyr listed all its graduates who had fallen. For one year, it contains
just one brief but chilling entry: "The Class of 1914." In comparison, only 81 British soldiers
died on Christmas Day 1914 in all of Europe.
What is striking is the difference between the propaganda put forward by the governments on
the home front and the spontaneous actions that Christmas. Besides Pope Benedict XV, who urged
a temporary ceasefire so war cannons would not be booming across Europe on the night the angels
were meant to announce Christ's birth, what the soldiers did was opposed by governments on both
sides.
There's a case to be made that the truce had nothing to do with Christianity. Periodic and
unplanned truces occur in war regularly. Fighting ceases while the two sides take time to bury
their dead. And trade and fraternization do occur. One might ask, does the common soldier need
a higher reason to stop killing or be killed? But this rejoinder is far too simplistic. It's
estimated that roughly 100,000 soldiers participated in the Christmas Truce of 1914 to some
degree. This is far too large a number to be written off as a casual occurrence. This event was
unplanned, uncoordinated, and not sanctioned by the officer core. Yet it happened. And it just
happened to take place on the most celebrated day in the Christian calendar, the observance of
the birth of Christ, the "Prince of Peace." If both sides were not united under Christendom,
joined together in mutual belief, it is a definite that the truce would not have occurred.
In November 1914, three months into the war, Pope Benedict XV grieved, "Who would imagine,
as we see them thus filled with hatred of one another, that they are all of one common stock,
all of the same nature, all members of the same human society? Who would recognize brothers,
whose Father is in Heaven?" Perhaps on Christmas, with morals engraved on their innermost
hearts, the soldiers realized the truth of this statement.
As an event in the history of war, the Christmas Truce of 1914 is barely a footnote; it had
no major effects on the fighting or outcome of World War I. But in the history of peace, the
truce is a powerful story. This moment, this flash of love, bookended on both sides by
destruction and hate, was a triumph of humanity. It's the closest thing we'll see to a miracle
in this fallen world.
Frederick Niven, a minor Scottish poet, ended his poem "A Carol from Flanders" with a
sentiment that should be prayed for year-round:
O ye who read this truthful rime
From Flanders, kneel and say:
God Speed the time when every day
Shall be as Christmas Day
Hunter DeRensis is a regular contributor to. Follow him on Twitter @HunterDeRensis .
"Leaders" don't care about the ordinary soldier–and it doesn't matter which countries
are fighting. "God Save The King (or Queen)" "Deutschland Ueber Alles" "Allons enfant de la
Patrie" "Make The World Safe For Democracy". Blah, blah, blah.
Could you imagine the singing of "Happy Holidays" igniting such an overwhelming burst of
love? Do the owners of our mainstream media outlets pay announcers a bonus for everytime they
squeeze "holiday" into their scripts? I am not taking a holiday and I find it offensive to
discount the happiest day of my religious belief system discounted such. BTW – The
officers had to force the troops back into the killing fields at gunpoint. Had the Christmas
Peace of 1914 held – just imagine? The secularization of Christmas is not a joining
phenomenon it is a divisive act. Those who launched this war on Christmas have had great
victories here. It is being stalled overseas in both supposedly Christian and non-Christian
countries. If we get into a really nasty war – just see how quickly these warmongers
will give us back Christam (temporarily).
"War made the State and the State makes War."
These poor men had barely more influence on policy than livestock do in managing a cattle
ranch.
It's ridiculous to say Christians fought Christians etc.
These wars were made by States which had amassed the power – through ideology and
technology – to control multitudes of helpless, defenceless people.
History can be summed up as: Man v State; Law v Power; Civilisation v Barbarism.
In the twentieth century, we saw the triumph of State Power over Law, Civilisation and
Humanity.
(The State surpassed disease as mankind's greatest affliction.)
The German invasion didn't stall by itself before Paris. The French fought like lions at the
First battle of the Marne (the British troops' contribution was numerically quite reduced at
that time) and prevailed over the Germans. Sadly with not enough of a decision on the war
that then went on Why is it always so difficult for American magazines (and newspapers) to
mention the French ? It always gives the silent impression French were hapless bystanders to
a war on their own soil.
"... Defense Secretary James "Mad Dog" Mattis resigned from his position effective February 28. He disagreed with the president's decision. It was the second time in five years that an elected commander in chief had a serious conflict with Mattis' hawkishness. President Obama fired him as Central Command chief for urging a more aggressive Iran policy. Mattis is also extremely hawkish towards Russia and China. ..."
"... Mattis is an ingrained imperialist. He always asked for more money for the military and for more meddling abroad. One of Mattis' little notice acts as Defense Secretary was a unannounced change in the mission of the Pentagon : ..."
"... The Pentagon no longer "deters war" but provides "lethal force" to "sustain American influence abroad." There was no public nor congressional debate about the change. I doubt that President Trump agreed to it. Trump will now try to recruit a defense secretary that is more aligned with his own position. ..."
"... Associated Press ..."
"... Trump did not "capitulate". He always wanted to pull the U.S. troops out of Syria. He said so many times. When he was finally given a chance to do so, he grabbed the opportunity. Erdogan though, was not ready for that: ..."
"... Erdogan had planned to only occupy a 10 miles deep strip along the Syrian-Turkish border. Some 15,000 Turkish controlled 'Syrian rebels' stand ready for that. He would need some 50-100,000 troops to occupy all of east Syria northward of the Euphrates. It would be a hostile occupation among well armed Kurds who would oppose it and an Arab population that is not exactly friendly towards a neo-Ottoman Turkey. ..."
"... Any larger occupation of northeast Syria would create a serious mess for Turkey. Its army can do it, but it would cost a lot of casualties and financial resources. Turkey will hold local government election in March and Erdogan does not want any negative headlines. He will invade, but only if Syria and Russia fail to get the Kurds under control. ..."
"... 'The Pentagon's official website now defines its mission this way: "The mission of the Department of Defense is to provide a lethal Joint Force to defend the security of our country and sustain American influence abroad."' ..."
"... '"We had decided last week to launch a military incursion... east of the Euphrates river," he said in a speech in Istanbul'. So much for the UN Charter, then. Anyone who wants to can invade any other country and take over as much of its territory as he wants to - as long as Washington agrees. But, as Saddam Hussein could testify if he were still alive, it would be sensible to get such consent in writing. ..."
"... Macron's forces are illegally present too. Assad would have to request their presence, but I really doubt he will given the harm France has done to Syria over the past 7 years. Word is SAA's Tiger Forces will get sent East of Euphrates; when is now the question. ..."
"... One's got to worry about who will replace Mad Dog Mattis after February 28 next year. It would seem that whoever succeeds Mattis will be another former general, likely to share his views on maintaining and increasing US forces in Syria, Iraq and other parts of western Asia ..."
"... Compared to Mattis, Pompeo and Bolton, and now Nauert at the UN, are raving jingos. Thank Gord they have no ties to the US military. ..."
"... "there also a contingent of 1,100 French troops"... You can hear me laughing after reading this. The French empire was over a long long time ago and they still think that Syria is their colony. France has been sending French Jihadists for regime change in Syria since 2011 and their mission has failed since Russia intervened in 2015. France cannot even send troops to Mali - destabilized by Jihadists created by France in Libya to topple Kadhafi, without the help of the US!!! France is a de-facto vassal state of the US since they decided to joined the NATO central command under Sarkozy who was bribed by the zionist neocons. ..."
"... I personally distinguish between Trump's decision to withdraw from Syria and his move to withdraw partially from Afghanistan. The latter is a step towards ending a brutal, illegal NATO occupation war of over 17 years. The former is also illegal but the Syrian Kurds (left wing and largely communist) are likely to be supplanted as counters to "Iran" by fascists Turkey and Israel (this has been confirmed in reports), so we're moving from tactical NATO proxies to actual NATO governments seizing Syrian land. ..."
Fallout Of Trump's Syria Withdrawal - Why Erdogan Does Not Want To Invadeuuu
, Dec 21, 2018 1:37:31 PM |
link
President Trump's
strategic decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria creates some significant fallout.
The U.S. and international borg is enraged that Trump ends an occupation that is illegal
under international as well as U.S. domestic law. "That's un-American!"
Defense Secretary James "Mad Dog" Mattis
resigned from his position effective February 28. He disagreed with the president's
decision. It was the second time in five years that an elected commander in chief had a
serious conflict with Mattis' hawkishness. President Obama
fired him as Central Command chief for urging a more aggressive Iran policy. Mattis is
also
extremely hawkish towards Russia and China.
President Trump campaigned on lessening U.S. involvement in wars abroad. He wants to get
reelected. He does not need a Secretary of Defense that involves him in more wars that have
little to none defined purpose.
Mattis is an ingrained imperialist. He always asked for more money for the military
and for more meddling abroad. One of Mattis' little notice acts as Defense Secretary was a
unannounced change in the mission of the Pentagon :
For at least two decades, the Department of Defense has explicitly defined its mission on
its website as providing "the military forces needed to deter war and to protect the
security of our country." But earlier this year, it quietly changed that statement, perhaps
suggesting a more ominous approach to national security.
...
The Pentagon's official website now defines its mission this way: "The mission of the
Department of Defense is to provide a lethal Joint Force to defend the security of our
country and sustain American influence abroad."
The Pentagon no longer "deters war" but provides "lethal force" to "sustain American
influence abroad." There was no public nor congressional debate about the change. I doubt
that President Trump agreed to it. Trump will now try to recruit a defense secretary that is
more aligned with his own position.
The White House also announced that 7,000 of the 14,000 soldier the U.S. has in
Afghanistan will
withdraw over the next few months. The war in Afghanistan is lost with the Taliban ruling
over more than half of the country and the U.S. supported government forces losing more
personal than they can recruit. It was Mattis who had urged Trump to increase the troop
numbers in Afghanistan from 10,000 to 14,000 at the beginning of his term. There are also
8,000 NATO and allied troops in Afghanistan which will likely see a proportional
withdrawal.
The Associated Press has a
new tic toc of Trump's decision to withdraw from Syria:
Trump stunned his Cabinet, lawmakers and much of the world with the move by rejecting the
advice of his top aides and agreeing to a withdrawal in a phone call with Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week, two officials briefed on the matter said.
...
"The talking points were very firm," said one of the officials, explaining that Trump was
advised to clearly oppose a Turkish incursion into northern Syria and suggest the U.S. and
Turkey work together to address security concerns. "Everybody said push back and try to
offer (Turkey) something that's a small win, possibly holding territory on the border,
something like that."
Erdogan, though, quickly put Trump on the defensive, reminding him that he had
repeatedly said the only reason for U.S. troops to be in Syria was to defeat the Islamic
State and that the group had been 99 percent defeated. "Why are you still there?" the
second official said Erdogan asked Trump, telling him that the Turks could deal with the
remaining IS militants.
...
Erdogan's point, Bolton was forced to admit, had been backed up by Mattis, Pompeo, U.S.
special envoy for Syria Jim Jeffrey and special envoy for the anti-ISIS coalition Brett
McGurk, who have said that IS retains only 1 percent of its territory, the officials
said.
...
Bolton stressed, however, that the entire national security team agreed that victory over
IS had to be enduring, which means more than taking away its territory.
Trump was not dissuaded, according to the officials, who said the president quickly
capitulated by pledging to withdraw, shocking both Bolton and Erdogan.
Trump did not "capitulate". He always wanted to pull the U.S. troops out of Syria. He
said so many times. When he was finally given a chance to do so, he grabbed the opportunity.
Erdogan though, was not ready for that:
Caught off guard, Erdogan cautioned Trump against a hasty withdrawal , according to one
official. While Turkey has made incursions into Syria in the past, it does not have the
necessary forces mobilized on the border to move in and hold the large swaths of
northeastern Syria where U.S. troops are positioned , the official said.
The call ended with Trump repeating to Erdogan that the U.S. would pull out , but
offering no specifics on how it would be done, the officials said.
Erdogan had planned to only occupy a 10 miles deep strip along the Syrian-Turkish
border. Some 15,000 Turkish controlled 'Syrian rebels' stand ready for that. He would need
some 50-100,000 troops to occupy all of east Syria northward of the Euphrates. It would be a
hostile occupation among well armed Kurds who would oppose it and an Arab population that is
not exactly friendly towards a neo-Ottoman Turkey.
"We had decided last week to launch a military incursion... east of the Euphrates river,"
he said in a speech in Istanbul. "Our phone call with President Trump, along with contacts
between our diplomats and security officials and statements by the United States, have led
us to wait a little longer.
"We have postponed our military operation against the east of the Euphrates river until
we see on the ground the result of America's decision to withdraw from Syria."
The Turkish president said, however, that this was not an "open-ended waiting
period".
Any larger occupation of northeast Syria would create a serious mess for Turkey. Its
army can do it, but it would cost a lot of casualties and financial resources. Turkey will
hold local government election in March and Erdogan does not want any negative headlines. He
will invade, but only if Syria and Russia fail to get the Kurds under control.
Unfortunately the leaders of the anarcho-marxist PKK/YPK in Syria have still not learned
their lesson. They make the same demands to Damascus that were already rejected when similar
demands were made for Afrin canton before Turkey invaded and destroyed it.
YPG delegation was flown in to Mezzeh yday. Negos were inconclusive because they just
repeated their usual line of "SAA protects the border, we control the rest." No army allows
someone else allied with an enemy to control its rear and its supply lines. +
+ The YPG leadership is still stuck in its pro-Western rut. It needs to be purged before
any deal can be made with Damascus. Their present track will just lead to another Afrin,
then another, then another. Thousands of brave YPG/YPJ fighters will have died for nothing.
#Breakingnews: Private sources : President Bashar al Assad has rejected the Kurdish
proposal while Turkey is gathering forces (Euphrates Shield et al) to attack the Kurdish
controlled area north of #Syria. #Russia seems holding back president Erdogan for a while.
A lot of pressure
It is not (only) Russia that is holding Erdogan back. As seen above he has serious
concerns about such an operation. Moreover, he does not have enough troops yet and the U.S.
troops have not yet changed their pattern. As of today they still patrolled on the Turkish
border and yesterday new U.S. war material was
still coming in from Iraq. Erdogan does not dare to attack U.S. troops.
He will most likely want to avoid any additional military involvement in Syria. If
Damascus and Moscow can get the PKK under control, Ankara will be satisfied.
Besides the presence of 4,000 to 5,000 U.S. troops and contractors in northeast Syria
there also a contingent of 1,100 French troops and an unknown number of British forces.
France for now says
it wants to stay to finish the fight against the Islamic State enclave along the
Euphrates.
But France does not have the capability to sustain those forces without U.S. support.
Syria and Russia could ask Macron to put them under their command to finish the fight against
ISIS, but it is doubtful that President Macron would agree to that. It is more likely that he
will agree to a handover of their position to Russian, Syrian or even Iraqi or Iranian
forces. Those forces can then finish the fight.
Posted by b on December 21, 2018 at 01:09 PM |
Permalink
Comments
next page " Some of the conclusions toward the end of this article don't entirely
make sense to me. Trump is withdrawing 2000-4000 US troops. Why does it follow that their
absence would create a space requiring 50000 Turkish troops to fill? I don't see how
occupation of the entire eastern would be under consideration at all.
As far as IS is concerned, their defeat will be "enduring" when their sponsors stop paying
them, first of all.
Mattis comes across to me as a psycho case of a suppressed faggot who has spent his life
trying to disprove and conceal the blatantly obvious. There we go...fairly succinct analysis.
More importantly, Mattis, known to some by the nickname of "Mad Dog," has shown a callous
disregard for human life, particularly civilians, as evidenced by his behavior leading
marines in Iraq, comments he made about enjoying fighting in Afghanistan because "it's fun
to shoot some people. You know, it's a hell of a hoot," and myriad other problems.
...
While reporting from inside Fallujah during that siege, I personally witnessed women,
children, elderly people and ambulances being targeted by US snipers under Mattis' command.
Needless to say, all of these are war crimes.
For at least two decades, the Department of Defense has explicitly defined its mission on
its website as providing "the military forces needed to deter war and to protect the security
of our country." But earlier this year, it quietly changed that statement, perhaps suggesting
a more ominous approach to national security.
...
The Pentagon's official website now defines its mission this way: "The mission of the
Department of Defense is to provide a lethal Joint Force to defend the security of our
country and sustain American influence abroad."
At least Mattis is more honest than most of his fellow psychopath war criminals.
If the AP account is factually accurate (i.e. leaving aside the tendentious pro-imperial,
pro-war editorializing), then it's funny how fast Erdogan goes from "What are you doing here?
Why don't you leave?" to "I didn't mean now!" He was probably angling for something else and
didn't really want US withdrawal.
As for the French, what a contemptible squeak from a government on the ropes trying to
look tough.
Never Mind the Bollocks , Dec 21, 2018 1:48:37 PM |
link
'The Pentagon's official website now defines its mission this way: "The mission of the
Department of Defense is to provide a lethal Joint Force to defend the security of our
country and sustain American influence abroad."'
I wonder whether, perchance, the Chief Executive and Commander in Chief should have been
consulted about that. Traditionally, US Presidents have had some considerable say in defining
the country's foreign policy.
Although one could interpret the change as being wholly in tune with Mr Trump's overriding
policy of transparent honesty. After all, as long ago as 1900 - on the evidence of Marin
Major-General Smedley Butler - we know that the US armed forces were used almost exclusively
to promote American interests abroad. Maybe it's just refreshingly open to admit it at
last.
"Trump stunned his Cabinet, lawmakers and much of the world with the move by rejecting the
advice of his top aides..."
Please remind me: who was elected in 2016 - Mr Trump, or "his top aides"?
When David Ignatius reported that Mattis's bedtime reading was Marcus Aurelius in the
original Latin, who was responsible for the mistake? (Marcus Aurelius wrote in Greek.)
Ignatius, an aide of Mattis's, or Mattis himself?
"While Turkey has made incursions into Syria in the past, it does not have the necessary
forces mobilized on the border to move in and hold the large swaths of northeastern Syria
where U.S. troops are positioned, the official said".
Splendid! Let them hand it back to the lawfully elected democratic government of Syria,
then.
'"We had decided last week to launch a military incursion... east of the Euphrates river," he
said in a speech in Istanbul'.
So much for the UN Charter, then. Anyone who wants to can invade any other country and
take over as much of its territory as he wants to - as long as Washington agrees. But, as Saddam Hussein could testify if he were still alive, it would be sensible to get
such consent in writing.
thanks b... who replaces the war criminal mattis? and when does any american get charged in
the hague for the countless wars they start? how long do we have to wait for this to happen?
the fact he changed the wording is at least more honest, so i give him credit for that... he
could have said 'we are the worlds policeman, and we will continue to be the worlds policeman
too' which would have been equally appropriate...
one thing i do like about trump is his ability to surprise... he could have done this
earlier in his term - pull out of syria - but i guess he was waiting to see how things
went... as it stands i think the knifes are out for trump big time now, and i suspect he is
not going to last as president.. someone else mentioned this on the previous thread, and i
agree with that assessment..
at some point in the next month, it is going to look different if USA follows thru with
the commanders new position... meanwhile Russia has to continue to keep turkey on a leash and
Syria, Russia and Iran have to continue to work at regaining the area east of the Euphrates
as this unfolds... the leadership in France at this point are loony... the smart thing for
them would be to leave or hand it over to syria/ russia...
Macron's forces are illegally present too. Assad would have to request their presence, but I
really doubt he will given the harm France has done to Syria over the past 7 years. Word is
SAA's Tiger Forces will get sent East of Euphrates; when is now the question.
Rolling-back the Outlaw US Empire's overseas troop deployments and shuttering their bases
is something I've argued for since I was honorably discharged in 1985, with the monies turned
to desperate domestic needs -- the financial statement may declare the USA the world's richest
nation, but reality tells a very different story. That reality got Trump elected. The
haphazard, laissez-faire, unplanned structural nature of the USA's economy is in no way
prepared for the rising technological revolution, which is in stark contrast to China and
Russia's plans. The most important message Putin delivered in his annual meeting yesterday
was about the whys and hows of changing the structure of Russia's economy:
"I have said it on numerous occasions, and I will repeat it today. We need a breakthrough.
We need to transition to a new technological paradigm. Without it, the country has no
future . This is a matter of principle, and we have to be clear on this....
" Healthcare, education, research and human capital come first, since without them
there is no way a breakthrough can be achieved . The second vector deals with
manufacturing and the economy. Of course, everything is related to the economy, including the
first part. But the second part is directly linked to the economy, since it deals with the
digital economy, robotics, etc. I have already mentioned infrastructure....
"But we will not be able to achieve the GDP growth rates necessary for this breakthrough
unless the structure of the economy is changed. This is what the national projects are aimed
at, and why such enormous funds will be invested, which I have already said – to
change the structure and build an innovation-based economy . The Government is counting
on this, because if this happens, and we should all work towards this, then the growth rates
will increase and there will be other opportunities for development." [My Emphasis]
200 million residents of the USA--2/3s of the populous--also need a breakthrough, which is
why the Green New Deal has such
widespread support : "The survey results show overwhelming support for the Green New
Deal, with 81% of registered voters saying they either 'strongly support' (40%) or 'somewhat
support' (41%) this plan." IMO, domestic political pressure generally supports Trump's MAGA,
but the monies need to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is from the Outlaw US Empire
part of the USA.
One's got to worry about who will replace Mad Dog Mattis after February 28 next year. It
would seem that whoever succeeds Mattis will be another former general, likely to share his
views on maintaining and increasing US forces in Syria, Iraq and other parts of western Asia
where they're despised by the local people, and perhaps not averse to sounding out good ol'
Erik Prince to fill the vacancies left when US troops start leaving.
Tom Welsh. It's my understanding that the Constitution states that foreign policy IS the job
of the President. This Congress doesn't seem to have gotten the memo and though strictly a
legislative body, have engaged in some pretty spectacular over reach.
The Constitution also puts an elected civilian (the President) in charge of the armed forces
but put the power to declare war firmly in the hands of Congress.
The 1973 War Powers act has obscured this division of power. The President can order troops
anywhere for a short time but must get an Authorization for Military Force from Congress.
However, this is supposed to only in the case of attack or imminent danger, hardly the case
in the ME.
Time limits on AFMF are often ignored and Congressional! purse strings almost never limit
(exception: at the end of Viet Nam Congress was about to cut funding) any and all military
adventurism.
@ karlof1 14 Healthcare, education, research and human capital come first, since without them there is
no way a breakthrough can be achieved.
It would seem to me that if US politicians really cared about their job performance they
would be working more on your "human capital" and less on warfare and Russian collusion. But
there's no money in that, so they don't. So much for "democracy." Here's a recent article on
a US achieved "breakthrough," in a negative sense that is.
WaPo, Nov 29
Life expectancy in the United States declined again in 2017, the government said Thursday
in a bleak series of reports that showed a nation still in the grip of escalating drug and
suicide crises.
The data continued the longest sustained decline in expected life span at birth in a
century, an appalling performance not seen in the United States since 1915 through 1918.
That four-year period included World War I and a flu pandemic that killed 675,000 people in
the United States and perhaps 50 million worldwide.
Public health and demographic experts reacted with alarm to the release of the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention's annual statistics, which are considered a reliable
barometer of a society's health. In most developed nations, life expectancy has marched
steadily upward for decades. . .
here
Mattis could not, would not accept responsibility for the misappropriated 21 trillion dollars
at HIS defence department. Kick him out. He was always a moron and demonstrated his arrogant
dismissal of the elected president almost every day. $21 trillion buys a lot of MAGA.
Kurdish population in Syria is only 5% whereas the land they now control is 30% of the
country thanks to the democratic EUSA nations?
They can no longer feed the ISIS inmates (they'll end up in France or Germany or elsewhere
undertaking new projects?) since Khashoggi case (or Mr. Erdogan who caught the Saudis by
their balls) made Saudis quit financing the YPG. Almost all ISIS inmates left in Syria are
from abroad (they had been released from Libyan, Afghan, Iraqi prisons en mass at the
beginning of the war and are ready for relocation?
Will the globalists controlled China arrive to rebuild what the US demolitionmen destroyed
in Syria?
Who founded (USrael?) ISIS and made them lose water and oil rich territories in Syria to
the PKK/YPG/SDF and what are they planning to do now?
It'd be funny if Trump appointed Tulsi Gabbard to the post of DefSec.
I don't know much about her except that she's definitely very cute and probably isn't a
pushover. If the glowing praise of her MoA fans is any guide then she'd do a better job than
any recent appointment to the role and would then become a shoe-in for POTUS. If that came to
pass then 'Hillary Who?' would become part of America's Permanent Lexicon.
Thanks for your reply! Yes, the financialization and industrial hollowing-out of the USA's
economy renders following the path being broken by Russia/China very difficult, but the
projected outcome will be dire if the economy isn't radically restructured and the fake
economists and their financial predators aren't driven from the Temple by modern
Tribunes.
Meanwhile, shrouded by the Trump/Mattis circus,
Turkey & Iran held an "historic summit" that likely had an impact on Trump's decision
as everywhere he looks his previous foreign policy choices driven by his neocon advisors are
mostly backfiring.
The language of the US Constitution gives the President the power to make treaties and
choose Ambassadors, in consultation with and with the consent (2/3 majority) of the Senate.
Also, President is Commander-in-Chief of the military. This includes state militias if
formed. He also receives political figures from abroad.
Like so much else in the US Constitution, there has been creepy or 'necessary' or when
it's handy mission creep in regard to these delineated functions.
But more to the point, the US is and has long been a serial de facto repudiator of the US
Constitution and of International law. 'Let us discuss the fine points of law pertaining to
the repeated launching of wars of aggression on the basis of lies.'
Forgive the levity but here's Hillary's theme song.
Oh yes I'm the great pretender (ooh ooh)
Pretending that I'm doing well (ooh ooh)
My need is such I pretend too much
I'm lonely but no one can tell.
Oh yes I'm the great pretender (ooh ooh)
Adrift in a world of my own (ooh ooh)
I play the game but to my real shame
You've left me to dream all alone.
Too real is this feeling of make believe
Too real when I feel what my heart can't conceal
Ooh ooh yes I'm the great pretender (ooh ooh)
Just laughing and gay like a clown (ooh ooh)
I seem to be what I'm not (you see)
I'm wearing my heart like a crown
Pretending that I'm still around.
(stiill a rounnd)
If the U.S. withdraws its forces from NE Syria who will control the air space. That will
likely determine who controls the territory in the future. I don't think the Kurds have an
airforce.
mls
financial matters , Dec 21, 2018 4:13:46 PM |
link
karlof1 @ 14
"""But we will not be able to achieve the GDP growth rates necessary for this breakthrough
unless the structure of the economy is changed. This is what the national projects are aimed
at, and why such enormous funds will be invested, which I have already said – to change
the structure and build an innovation-based economy. The Government is counting on this,
because if this happens, and we should all work towards this, then the growth rates will
increase and there will be other opportunities for development."""
Similar sentiments are expressed by Rhiana Gunn-Wright.
After Sanders lost the Democratic primary in 2016 a group called 'Brand New Congress'
formed to carry on his ideas. This morphed into 'Justice Democrats' which helped
Ocasio-Cortez get elected. She is serving as a lightning rod giving the Green New Deal
popularity.
Rhiana Gunn-Wright is a young energetic and talented policy wonk working for 'New
Consensus' which is a spin off of the 'Justice Democrats'.
She is being tasked with forming policy for the Green New Deal.
'Again, the GND is not just climate policy. It's about transforming the economy, lifting
up the poor and middle class, and creating a more muscular, active public sector.
The GND "opens an opportunity to renegotiate power relationships between the public
sector, the private sector, and the people," says Gunn-Wright. "We are interested in
solutions that create more democratic structures in our economy.'
$21 Trillion + "interests abroad" DoD mission creep
>>
Silicon Valley hot air equity ($150,000 starting salaries for fresh graduates) on cash flow
only digital assetts
+ offshore oligarch accounts (kkr et al)
I found it helpful to take stock of reported conditions surrounding the troops out
move:
* ksa reportedly going bankrupt
* ksa reneges on golden glow globe sword dance MIC mou-s
* failed israeli missile attempt to start wwiii & ensuing s300 reinforcements
* kashoggi and related muslim brotherhood entanglements
* clinton foundation in DC "hearings" censored by msm
* continued censorship of Awan bros Blackberry scandal (espionage?)
* Cricket hero Khan batting for Pakistan
* Huawei affair
* Bibi & family corruption scandal
Trump has a keen eye for ratings, and surely knows giving the deplorables (private
contractors, self employeds etc) trying to rub two pennies together gasoline under $3/gallon
in the holiday season will mean much more to the public than Cnn Russiagate drivel working
people have no time for anyway. Keeping armed forces rank and file happy and re purposing for
disaster relief would be a good move.
Karlof1 is correct to make the most of the narrative. Glad b is on it. Hope troops arent
cleared for nuclear Armeggedon!
@mls The US currently does not control Syrian airspace. The Russians do, ever since they
switched from using the existing old Syrian S200 to the current advanced model S300, after
the downing of their plane by the Israeli interference.
This was probably another factor that made operating in Syria increasingly problematic and
handicapped: options of 'punishing Assad' or bombing mobile Iranian units were limited if
they didn't want to coordinate with the Russians.
The Syrians now have to amass a large contingent to 'control' the Kurdish area; likely the
Russians will be go-between to lower Kurdish demands as well as placate the SAA and achieve
some kind of tense co-existence which can keep Turkey satisfied.
Interesting to see how Syria will handle both wanting to mop up Idlib as well as re-establish
control over the North-East and its oil wells.
I read that Trump did not inform Netanyahu of the USA's Syria 'withdrawal' until about an
hour before it was made public via tweet. Five mins! according to another article. Also, that
Trump did discuss it with B.N. several days before (Haaretz), that sounded like a smoothing
over. Another article claimed that it was Pompeo who clued in Israel a short while before. So
who knows?
Right from the first time they met, Bibi was terrified of Trump, though I could not find
one telling vid. I saw.
Feb. 15 2017.
Trump today said that he is keeping his options open about how best to reach a peaceful
solution to the Israeli-Palestinian situation but urged Israel to hold back on settlement
building in occupied territories.
President Trump veered from years of U.S. policy in the Middle East by backing off the
"two-state solution," as the only path to peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
One article stated that Macron and Merkel learnt of the 'withdrawal' from the media! I
have noted that Macron is always very 'late' and 'behind the times' as far as the US is
concerned, obviously the F 'info' services have no clue, or he isn't kept informed, etc.
Not that there will be consequent 'fall-out' from either, for the moment. (Israel can only
go along, and the EU has more serious stuff on its plate.)
Yes, it's dispiriting, but not surprising that the anti-war "Left" movement has almost
totally dissolved following their failure to prevent the Iraq war. As a deeply cynical person
I'm certain that Hillary and the Clintonites worked behind the scenes in the DNC to undermine
the Anti-war movement in expectation of her eventual 2008 & 2016 runs, since she and Bill
supported the Iraq war and were no shrinking violets when it came to the use of military
force in furtherance of their foreign policy goals. The consequence of destroying the
Anti-war movement with the Democratic Party is that they have become a defacto Pro-war party
even in situations where the use of the military is blatantly illegal, futile and against the
National interest (since there is no organized Anti-war movement articulating why they should
not go to war/use military force to stand against the Military Industrial Complex that is
constantly advocating for more war). Hilariously, by becoming a Pro-war Party when the
American people are increasingly tired of constant warfare the Democratic Party lost the 2016
election to a mildly anti-war Trump, who will most likely be re-elected (unless he is
impeached or assassinated). In the long-term, unless the DNC faces up to the 30 years of
disastrous Clinton mismanagement and corruption and cleans house, I could certainty see the
Democratic Party collapsing over the next 15 years just like how the Labour Party in the UK
is still struggling with the legacy of Tony Blair.
What's really galling to me though is watching all these so called "liberals" (Cher, Beth
Midler, Rachael "Mad Cow" Maddow & Mia Farrow) whine about how the US should never leave
Syria and stay there indefinitely; Are they or their children going to be fighting this war?
Who gave the US such authority take seize parts of Syria? What exactly is the benefit to the
US & her people in doing all of this? How many hundreds of thousands people (mostly
Syrians) need to die for this ill-defined goal of spiting Syria & Russia? Just like the
destruction of the Anti-war left in the Democratic Party had long term consequences, people
will remember how Hollywood liberals behaved like jabbering, ignorant, warmongering
ideologues during this period of US decline and it will cause profound damage to them and
their professed causes.
Nice thoughts, but I don't think you have the time.
"Worst December since the great depression"
Just look at the pictures (charts), and scroll down.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-21/fear-reaches-most-extreme-ever-traders-see-panic-air
....
Trump has a tactic of "giving people what they ask for" (eg Jerusalem). Just to break a
deadlock. This Syria gambit seems to be something of the same as Erdogan now gets what he has
been asking for - and finds he doesn't want it yet.
I still think that there will be a continued US presence in Syria, concentrated around the
Oil sources. The Agricultural lands further north were owned by "Arabic", Christian, Yadizi
and other various tribes and ethnies. The Kurds only made up a small portion.
One reason that Trump may have decided to throw the Kurds to the wolves, is that they were
overstretched, and not motivated enough to continue to be cannon fodder for Uncle Sam. The
SDF (Which incorporates some turncoat ISIS members, which partly explains why there has only
been slow "progress" against the last ISIS enclave in Eastern Syria, brother against
ex-brother), also contains foreign mercenaries from various sources. What they will "demand"
is open to question. The tribal forces in the SAA who are directly opposite contain members
of the Shaitah, who saw 700 of their women and children massacred by ISIS. They may want
their own land back too, as well as "payback".
The other reason for Trump to act now is that Flynn has been given three months in which
to change his guilty "plea". After which, Mueller will HAVE TO provide proof, and not just
accusations and people that have been blackmailed into "plea deals". Trump doesn't have too
much time left for subtle tweet-tweets before the Dems arrive. etc (big topic by itself)
.... By the way, OT; Butina was really "brain-washed". 67 days in solitary confinement
with all the recognised means of brainwashing used on her. Assault (including sexual) sleep
deprivation, continued stress (including randomly timed "strip searches") probably lighting
either permanently on or randomly used to destroy time awareness. There are other methods to
be included, and at a "key" break point, a "counsellor/handler will whisper sweet nothings in
hear ear to control her way of thinking ( I am NOT a specialist in Brainwashing, but the
outline of what she suffered, means that she will always repeat what she has been told to
say.) Real Brainwashing from the cold war era .
b's statement regarding Turkey: "Its army can do it, but it would cost a lot of casualties
and financial resources."
During the entire war, Turkey's army has done not so much and not so well. Manbij, Afrin,
and where else? Well before the US presence with bases, the Turks could not hold their border
region from the Kurds.
They cannot impact deep anywhere. Their AF is not even as effective as Syria's, yet it is
a much better, more advanced arm of the military. It's special forces?
They are used to doing what NATO and US troops do. They murder civilians and massacre
opposition. They did little against ISIS which was a very fierce, mobile and effective
military.
They do have logistical advantage and can move heavy weapons for a siege. But they are a
set piece land force.
The Kurds also are quite overrated.
Erdogan knows that the notion of him holding the East is a pipedream. His FSA allies are
the weakest lot in Syria.
His real fighters are those in Idlib, al Nusra and the Uyghurs.
If he intends to hold land the US has marked out in the North-east and East, he will have
to move the headchoppers.
The Russians will annihilate them if they cross the zones in Idlib.
With the US vacuum the Syrians, Hezbollah, Quds, Iranian militias and the Russians will
complete the war.
The French and Brits say they are staying. They should write their Last Will letters. They
will be shot out of the sky and incinerated on the ground. Folly.
The pullouts from Syria and Afghanistan are severe blows to NATO as hegemonic shock
troops.
This time next year we will hear and see how Russia won and NATO is gone from Eurasia.
This is also an object lesson to those nations on Russia's periphery who are flirting with
the US, EU and NATO. Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan will have to recalculate.
I think we will see many more updates such as this one, showing us who's pushing back,
who's wavering, and who's simply blowing hot air. I could wish for better sources of the back
story than AP and Reuters, but we must wait for better analysis I think. I'm sure I'll see it
here first - thanks for your continued vigilance.
Meanwhile my guesses are that Trump holds the longest knife and will prevail in this
course. And that Erdogan is not faltering as the Reuters report implies, but is simply
letting players and forces adjust to the new situation. And that, regardless of the details
on the ground, the US flag has been struck in Syria, irreversibly. This is a geopolitical
milestone, and everything now changes from this.
@35 It has been my understanding that while the Russian forces have stepped up their air
defense systems the Americans still fly freely to the north-east of the Euphrates and have
not hesitated to attack SAA forces who came close to their proxies on the ground, as well as
attacking the SAA when they moved toward the U.S. base at al-Tanf. If the U.S. really does
evacuate their troops it will be interesting to see if they discontinue their air movements
over the eastern bank of the Euphrates. mls
Almost all ISIS inmates left in Syria are from abroad (they had been released from Libyan,
Afghan, Iraqi prisons en mass at the beginning of the war and are ready for relocation?
Who founded (USrael?) ISIS and made them lose water and oil rich territories in Syria to
the PKK/YPG/SDF and what are they planning to do now?
@ Kadath 39
As respects Rachel Mad Cow,MSNBC has been reading from the neo-con playbook for several years
now. Pre-Iraq War,Chris Matthews was vehemently against it, but in my limited recent
viewership they are silent on Syria in general. They did however have a one hour special by
Richard Engle which was essentially an hour of showing the carnage and saying "look what
Assad did". It was even more absurd than Fox's islamaphobic specials they ran a few times.
Truly pathetic and it feels like MSNBC is hewing to the HRC model "of no one can criticize me
fro the right on "national security".
my comment was chopped off... first time i can recall ew writing on foreign policy! at any
rate, skip the ew comment section, as the folks at ew can completely in denial about the role
the democrats have played in bringing the usa to this point in time... read @35 kadath post
for greater clarity on that...
Too many "old men who think in terms of nation states and peoples. There are no nations.
There are no peoples. There is only the Federal Reserve, the BIS, IMF, WB, WTO and an
entourage of multinational corporations all inextricably inter associated." as redux of Ned
Beatty's soliloquy from the film Network.
These pesky wars, as one front of many fronts, are getting in the way of NWO timing. The
world's major central banks are now involved in quantitative tightening and much of the
liquidity that was handed out as loans will now disappear and the debt trap will now be
sprung on many 'nation states' as it was in Greece. Turkey's major industries owe about 300
Billion. This while the Lira drops ever lower in relation to the Fed Reserve Note,
euphemistically the USD, and will be hard pressed to pay back the less abundant, higher
valued amounts at the higher interest rates of the FRN's borrowed. War, with very real
deaths, continues but on another front and Trump as the front figure is the main conductor of
this coming war.
When David Ignatius reported that Mattis's bedtime reading was Marcus Aurelius in the
original Latin, who was responsible for the mistake? (Marcus Aurelius wrote in Greek.)
Ignatius, an aide of Mattis's, or Mattis himself?
Posted by: lysias | Dec 21, 2018 1:54:56 PM | 9
Explanation from an aide of Mattis: the General purchased the volume while visiting Latin
America, so he always assumed that it is in Latin.
What theis "withdrawal" is about....To continue causing turmoil in Syria so as to impede its
rebuilt and return to peaceful normal life...This is why Israel has not said a word....
I have been away in the Scottish wilderness for a while, cut off from everything, so it with
somewhat jaded joy that I come back to stunning news from this unfailingly brilliant place to
hear the latest (US getting out of Syria, Mattis out, Macron on fire, Britain in an
existential crisis the like of which I have neither seen nor read about).
Like a schoolkid who has absented themselves I venture back into the classroom to take my
little seat, all the while carrying with me audio of howling winds and the low whistle of a
friend who came to visit, an Irish instrument that so resembles native American flutes. In
this Highland cabin I filled the stove with ash and oak and beech, listened to the haunting
sound of the low whistle and drank whisky as I watched the snow drift down.
The SDF (Which incorporates some turncoat ISIS members, which partly explains why there has
only been slow "progress" against the last ISIS enclave in Eastern Syria, brother against
ex-brother), also contains foreign mercenaries from various sources.
Josh on #35 hints at an explanation for Trumps action which is confirmed by a romanian
military expert in the article http://www.voltairenet.org/article204433.html
Assuming that analysis is correct, Trumps military associates like Mattis must have known but
was apparently more willing to risk american casualties.
So the past 2 years of bombing and support for bombing and special forces operations in
Syria, Yemen, Africa, Afghanistan and of course the ongoing genocide of the Palestinians in
Israel is blamed on Trumps aids, all of whom he hired.
Whenever something positive comes out (and Trump has said he was done in Syria before only
to be followed later by a barrage of missiles due to outrage over the poor babies killed in
the CW attack blamed on Assad) its presented as Trump heroically goes against his aids advice
and does right.
This is a common theme in MSM and almost all of the alt media now. Trumps swamp included
Bolton, Barr, Devos, Pompeo, Mnuchkin, Acosta, Haspel, Ross, Mulvaney, Kushner, Pruit,
Mattis. Blame them instead of the guy who hired them and has authority over them.
Right.
I have been away in the Scottish wilderness for a while, cut off from everything,
Posted by: Lochearn | Dec 21, 2018 6:03:22 PM | 51
I once spent a week in Glen Lyon which is not cut off from anything, there is a paved road
(one-lane for two way traffic, only in Scotland!) and Royal Mail operated, but these days
young people complain when there is no cell phone reception, there was a land line but our
niece was could not send any pics and texts to her boyfriend. Thus she very eagerly joined me
for a hike and after ascending 1000 m and getting the view of Loch Tay she immediately texted
etc. But something is brewing outside quiet glens: [video of parliamentary session] The
defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, says the UK will have 3,500 service personnel on standby
'to support any government department on any contingencies they may need'
Watch the situation, Lochearn, and if needed, run back to the hills.
Thanks for your reply with its post-2016 info! I returned to following domestic happenings
a few months prior to the 2018 election and was surprised by the gumption of the new Freshman
class. There was lots of negative speculation about how AOC would become a sellout, but I'm
impressed and added her twitter to my ever lengthening list. The first 2020 polls have
appeared with the narrative being Biden over washed up Sanders, but the reality is the
opposite. Wife and I had a dinner table discussion about that and related matters last night
from the frame of Media Truth from Putin's meeting I posted. There's an ideological divide
within the USA; but as AOC notes in this very informative* twitter
thread :
"People are starting to realize our issues aren't left and right, but top and bottom.
"And the just solutions will come from the bottom-up."
*--Informative due to the immoral hatred revealed, which unfortunately validates my
references to Monopoly philosophy and Zerosumism. Scrooge was tame in comparison.
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Dec 21, 2018 5:51:32 PM | 49
Explanation from an aide of Mattis: the General purchased the volume while visiting
Latin America, so he always assumed that it is in Latin.
Or in Latin American...
And it wasn't bedtime reading but bathroom reading.
Fortunately, the stock markets are not the economy. Trump campaigned on MAGA; the Green
New Deal makes MAGA possible and as the polling I linked to shows is popular across political
lines--the people know something must be done. Currently, it's the D Party Old Guard standing
in the way doing R Party work. When it comes to the traditional definitions of national
security and national interest, Trump was correct to say MAGA is a matter of national
security. Too many Trillions have already been wasted, and we within the USA cannot afford
any more of those mistakes from the past as the margin for success gets thinner daily. When I
compare the directions of China, Russia and USA, the former two are rising by attaining their
planned national goals, while the USA drops downward thanks to directionless policy
that only supports the greed of the greedy. I know its much better for an individual to be a
poor worker in China than a poor worker in the state of Georgia and too many other
places--very few opportunities and almost no social support very similar to the Great
Depression; but nowadays, you can't even hop a freight to go somewhere else as was possible
in the '30s.
Apparently, Mattis bought the book for the illustrations.
Latin America speaks Spanish and Portuguese not Latin American, which is not a
language.
Plus, there are secondary languages of indigenous people, and tertiary languages like German
and Italian, Japanese and Chinese as well as English.
From the "story" about Mattis, I think it is laughable. He pretended his whole life to be
a Patton.
Read their career stories and it is a joke that Mattis had four-stars, as did Patton.
"UK government refuses to release the documents on its 'counter-disinformation' programme
linked to the Integrity Initiative. Because (don't laugh now), it could 'undermine the
programme's effectiveness'."
Where is the evidence of widespread support for a green new deal as pushed by a couple of
people here. A poll of 966 people sorted by whether or not they are voters does not mean
there is widespread support. As in most polls claiming whatever we do not know the questions
that were asked or how they were framed. Thus they could have said "would you be for a new
green deal if it energized the economy bringing riches to all and extremely cheap rates on
power would you be for it." Until we know the full extent of this poll it's a nothing burger
pushing an agenda.
@ financial matters # 33 with the link to the Green New Deal....thanks
The problem with the GND is that it does not seem to address the underlying fact that
private finance makes all investment decisions. If they evolve to understand that, they can
do all they want if it is within the public government plans for investment.
If the government controlled finance instead of the private folk I would expect there to
be public input to/(control over) investment decisions.....just like the GND folks are
pushing for but in a more comprehensive context and manner.
The only reading generals do is Macchhiavelli, Von Clausewitz and Superman
O yeah -- and the bible, these days.
Posted by: bjd | Dec 21, 2018 7:42:17 PM | 60
A general slurps macchiato while reading The Prince of Niccolò
Machiavelli.
In the history of my country there is a nice episode when one of the main generals was
rousing the units before the critical battle that actually went well "In loco, spes in
virtute, salus in victoria" - Here, the (only) hope (lies) in bravery, salvation in victory,
which quotes Ceasar's De Bello Gallico. . Sadly, while the battle was brilliant, the
war was not. Nevertheless, I would recommend Ceasar.
Ceasar was victorious, so he should be balanced with History of the Peloponnesian
War of Thucidites. A terrible was in which one side lost terribly, while the other
succumbed to hubris, imposed painful domination on all and sundry to be irreversibly defeated
one generation after. Woe to the defeated, but the victors should be careful too.
The story of "Woe to the defeated", Vae victis , is interested too. Romans were
treated mercilessly by victorious (unmitigated?) Gauls, but then see De Bello Gallico
above.
Five unforgettable quotes by the killer, James Mattis (He will be missed?):
>1. 'It's quite fun to shoot them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot
some people.'
>2. 'There are some assholes in the world that just need to be shot.'
>3. 'I come in peace. I didn't bring artillery. But I'm pleading with you, with tears in
my eyes: If you fuck with me, I'll kill you all.'
>4. 'Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.'
>5. 'There are some people who think you have to hate them in order to shoot them. I
don't think you do.'. . .
here
I am sure getting tired of entering my personal info each time I post a comment because the
remember doesn't work...
@ karlof1 with
"
"UK government refuses to release the documents on its 'counter-disinformation' programme
linked to the Integrity Initiative. Because (don't laugh now), it could 'undermine the
programme's effectiveness'."
"
They are lying through there teeth. The real problem for them is that some could end up in
jail, and rightfully so. We can only hope that they take the City of London down with
them.
What is their long term plan for containing the IntegrityNOTInitiative scandal? The house
of cards seems to be falling and now is when we hope that the losers love their children
enough to not takes us to extinction with their pride.
It appears more people are aware of such a threat as
this article notes . Pelosi's unfortunately a whore of the sort needing pasteurization,
along with Feinstein.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Dec 21, 2018 9:04:06 PM | 66 Five unforgettable quotes by the killer, James Mattis ...
Yep, the influence of Marcus Aurelius is all over him. Through and through.
True philosopher general indeed.
The problem with the GND being discussed here is in the Green. Any New Deal that starts with
a false premise and bad science is a bad idea IMO.
That said, a New Deal that incorporates Ellen Browns and Edison/Fords ideas on public
financing I am all for. Goals should be universal health care, guaranteed income and housing,
vast infrastructure projects and alternative energy development. The latter two should be
green in the sense of nonpolluting (Co2 is not a pollutant). Jobs are fine but with
automation, AI, and robotics lets face it, a world where most people dont work except as a
hobby or to live better than others is coming, as my old science teacher predicted with envy
over 50 years ago. The neomalthusians and transhumanists have other ideas.
I would also devote massive resources for researching the safety of GMO , vaccines and
medicines as well as upgrading climate monitoring and climate research since climate does
change and we have so little understanding of it. Climate measurements are indadequate
(number of weather stations in US have dropped by a factor of 3 since climate became a thing
and quality is a key concern. This research needs to be free of influence from parties having
an agenda (political and financial). Good luck with that.
Mattis is a coward, he knows the American efforts in Syria has failed, and will go nowhere.
So for him this was a great excuse and a good uportunity to resign and not share the blame
for failure of his past advise and insistence to continue a lost effort. Now all the blames
for loosing in Syria will go to Trump. The blame game has already started coming out of MSM
and the DC swamp (you read sewer).
@ pft will the great follow on the the GND proposal
I want to add a data point to the universal health care initiative.
Because we are a society wedded to the profit motive we put it between the client and the
health care provider and worse only promote "therapies" that make a profit. Let me provide my
personal proof of that statement.
This week, after a 12 year journey, I can state that I have healed myself (with help) from
a traumatic brain injury using neurofeedback. Neurofeedback in a non-drug, non-invasive EEG
based therapy based on the mental health brain paradigm of dis-regulated neural networks. The
world of Big Pharma does not want to see neurofeedback advance because it will eliminate most
of them.
Some on MoA have read me writing about this before and I will do so more in some future
Open Thread.....when the dust settles a bit.
@1 Isn't it obvious? US forces are there to support the Kurdish forces. Training, supplying,
and a little moral "stiffening".
But Turkisk forces would go in with the aim of defeating those Kurds, and then suppressing
the local pop in. That requires an order of magnitude more troops.
One think-tanker expects problems with troop morale, which by the way was the killer that
ended the stupid Vietnam War.
Trump's sudden decisions to drawdown troops in Syria and Afghanistan that sparked Mattis'
resignation marked for perhaps the first time in American history the departure of a
defense secretary in protest and adds to the overall unease that remains, experts said.
"I think it adds to a feeling that in some sense the wheels are beginning to come off of
American foreign policy and national security policy," said John Hannah, a senior counselor
at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute
on foreign policy and national security in Washington.
Hannah said he thinks the Mattis resignation will inevitably affect troop morale . . . .
here
Tom Cotton is a rabid hawk especially on Iran. If Trump choses him then this will signal
what Trump meant by the next phase of the campaign after he announced a withdrawal
from Syria.
I read General Jack Keane was in the running but he doesn't want the job.
That leaves Lindsey Graham and David Petraeus. Both of these might be willing to take the
job, but I see Trump picking Petraeus over Graham, although Graham just visited the troops in
Afghanistan; maybe he's sending a subtle hint to Trump.
If it's Cotton, we should brace ourselves for escalation with Iran.
Well there are 50K Al Nusra fighters in Idlib that Russia and Syria want out of there and
Turkey is protecting. Maybe they will be on the move soon to deal with the Kurds in the NE
once the US pulls out. US can pretend ignorance and then step back in again under the cover
of stabilizing the region with replacement for the kurds to use against Assad and protect
assets in the NE. Everyone except the Kurds is happy, almost.
Further to your point about MSNBC, I just watched Michael Moore on MSNBC being interviewed
by Ali Velshi and Moore was actually advocating that the troops stay in Syria and blamed
Putin for ordering Trump to do this ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0SP7puk8f8)
- words fail..... Michael Moore, the Anti-Iraq war activist, the Occupy Wall Street advocate,
the Anti-Imperialist, has reached the terminal phase of his Trump Derangement Syndrome. His
irrational hatred of Trump has just driven him to torch all of his prior Anti-War work; to
betray every speech, every millimeter of film he's ever made all because he hates Trump that
much and everything he has previously done can be jettisoned if it furthers this new
goal.
Ugh... Is he doing this all for the money he can glean from the mainstream Media by being
even more extreme than them, was he always this shallow and empty? This is what I just cant
get over, do these jackanapes not understand that their words and behaviours are being
recorded and people will remember it, it will haunt their futures and taint their legacies.
Hating Trump is one thing (there is certainly no shortage of reasons to hate him), but I'm
rethinking my entire interpretation of Moore and his career because of these constant,
irrationally hateful and extreme statements. Michael Moore, Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon,
Rachal Maddow and Stephen Colbert can play to the crowd for now, but once Trump's term ends
people will never be able to take them seriously as public figures again because of all of
their delusional tirades while Trump was in office.
Troop moral today is far different than Vietnam. Reason in no order of importance
1. Well paid volunteer army, well trained with skills transferrable to private sector
2. Limited tour length, long paid breaks between tours
3. Skype/internet access on tours to stay in touch with family firiends
4. Contractors to do much of the dirty work
5. Military glorification at home treats them as heros and plenty of discounts
6. Far fewer casualties
7. Great benefits once the leave miliitary (loans, paid university transferrable)
8. Tax benfits for companies hiring vets helps them in job market
The main negative with fewer troops in Syria or Afghanistan means there are fewer tours
which means less money.
I expect they will be deployed elsewhere. Where is the big question. Like you say, moral
not an issue
Kadath 80 "do these jackanapes not understand that their words and behaviours are being
recorded and people will remember it"
The average person that watches MSM have the memory of a goldfish when it comes to politics.
"His irrational hatred of Trump has just driven him to torch all of his prior Anti-War
work"
Most that make it in politics or entertainment go with the flow - whatever will further their
career. Empty people. I don't know this Michael Moor, but sounds lie he is one of this
type.
People like Lindsey Graham simply cannot comprehend that USA is in fact a demolished country,
with its last leg - the stock market - getting cut off in real time, as we speak. The
implications of American equity markets collapse are momentous. The relentless year-end
selling means that government revenues will be drastically reduced, by at least couple
hundred billion dollars, driving US budget deficit to well in excess of $1.2T in current
fiscal year. And that's in a benign case. If America slips in a recession, and has to resort
to fiscal stimulus, we are talking about $1.5-2T budget shortfall. Add quickly deteriorating
demographics, and "japanisation" of the USA is all but inevitable (and yes, US financial
system is a dead man walking)
Trump, although not the brightest bulb, is infinitely smarter than Grahams, Rubios and
Cottons of the world. He knows that it's much better to withdraw on what looks like own
accord now, than being kicked out in the most disgraceful fashion upon the passage of time.
Or even worse, having your troops marooned in the troubled region without any prospect of
being extricated, unless on the most humiliating terms.
Whether Trump succeeds or fails in returning the troops home is irrelevant at this point.
They are coming home anyway. The only question remaining is not if but when, and how.
Maybe Trump is diversyfing, scaling down in the The Middle East (a lots been accomplished
already) and ramp up efforts in Africa and Latin America to counter BRICS
@87 once and future... first off i want to thank stonebird for there comments on this topic..
solitary confinement is inhumane.. that the usa is keen to use it in all sorts of
circumstances, is a reflection of their abu ghraib, guantanemo mentality... solitary
confinement is more of the same.. in a civilized world it would never be allowed to be
done... but this is more exceptional nation stuff from the exceptional nation and what the
world has come to expect from a country that preaches one thing while practicing something
completely different..
80 kadath... michael moore has really fallen... i was unaware of this and am not tapped
into the usa msm to be able to follow.. in fact, it is so depressing i have no interest in
following much of anything coming out of the usa at this point...
@78 circe.. another name mentioned was this tulsi gabbard from hawaii.. i doubt it very
much... the usa continues to fly way off the rails...
Michael Moore destroyed his credibility when he failed to denounce Obama for not jailing
the Banksters and it's been downhill from there as it's been with so many of his ilk. Another
case of money ruining youthful idealism. Caitlin's on a roll and deserves a much larger audience. The propagandizers have deluded
themselves via their own machinations and are now going mad.
"there also a contingent of 1,100 French troops"... You can hear me laughing after reading this. The French empire was over a long long time ago and they still think that Syria is their
colony. France has been sending French Jihadists for regime change in Syria since 2011 and their
mission has failed since Russia intervened in 2015. France cannot even send troops to Mali - destabilized by Jihadists created by France in
Libya to topple Kadhafi, without the help of the US!!! France is a de-facto vassal state of the US since they decided to joined the NATO central
command under Sarkozy who was bribed by the zionist neocons.
...
US can pretend ignorance and then step back in again under the cover of stabilizing the
region with replacement for the kurds to use against Assad and protect assets in the NE.
Everyone except the Kurds is happy, almost.
Posted by: Pft | Dec 21, 2018 11:19:21 PM | 79
I think you're right. And I hope so, too...
The Yanks should be counting their blessings. I thought it was extraordinarily generous of
Putin to agree with Donald that "the US beat ISIS in Syria" considering how
half-assed/limp-wristed their anti-ISIS actions were in comparison with Russia's 100+ sorties
per day 24/7 for many months.
Imo, if the Yanks dream up another excuse to go back into Syria, Putin will caution against
it and then make sure that none of them get out alive.
Blooming Barricade , Dec 22, 2018 2:07:30 AM |
link
I personally distinguish between Trump's decision to withdraw from Syria and his move to
withdraw partially from Afghanistan. The latter is a step towards ending a brutal, illegal
NATO occupation war of over 17 years. The former is also illegal but the Syrian Kurds (left
wing and largely communist) are likely to be supplanted as counters to "Iran" by fascists
Turkey and Israel (this has been confirmed in reports), so we're moving from tactical NATO
proxies to actual NATO governments seizing Syrian land.
All of that being said, both are policy decisions that should be able to be debated
freely. I can totally see why many on the anti-imperialist left welcome the decision to
withdraw from Syria, I'm not entirely unsympathetic to them. It the US and international
media response has been horrific.
The New York Times and Guardian are basically now neconservative papers indistinguishable from the Wall Steet Journal and Daily Telegraph. Not
a word of dissent is even remotely allowed or involved. The Blob has totally taken over the
entirety of the liberal global establishment which sees Trump's move as "treasonous." Not
looking forward to 2020 when Democrats will run on identical foreign policy platforms to Mitt
Romney.
Not sure if you watched when Michael Moore received the Oscar for Farenheit 9/11. Let's
remember he was addressing the top elite Liberal crowd and got booed. What is it they say
about prophets in their own land? Oh yeah, Jesus said: A prophet is without honor in his
own country.
I actually have some sympathy for Michael Moore. Aside from being a major critic of the
Bush Administration, Michael Moore was also very critical of Obama, and Hillary and was
lambasted by liberal centrists and neolibs. He was considered part of the radical left and
despite the success of his documentaries, he continued to be marginalized and never received
the respect he deserved. In 2015, Moore was supporting Bernie Sanders, but when Bernie was
railroaded, Moore who couldn't see himself voting for a Republican ever, especially a
depraved billionaire whom he rightly viewed as Chaos personified felt that Hillary was the
lesser evil, and from there found the respect that had been denied to him by his own side and
especially after he predicted Hillary was about to lose despite the polls and Michigan,
Wisconsin and Pennsylvania would deny her the Presidency. From the day his prediction
materialized Democrats were in awe of his perception. Since then he exchanged integrity for
their respect. The Michael Moore of 2003 would never criticize military de-escalation.
However, Moore recently released a new documentary Farenheit 11/9 wherein apparently he's
critical of Democrats whom he blames for the rise of Trump.
So don't be too hard on Moore who was an outcast in liberal country for too long. Once
you've earned the respect of your own and the mainstream it's not so easy to speak your truth
anymore. Thanks to Trump and the Dems, Moore has been temporarily altered. But you're right,
he'll look back with regret on this Syria opinion.
I can't stand Trump either, but I agree that getting out of Syria and de-escalating is a
good thing...IF in fact that's what he's really up to.
The national security adviser expanded U.S. goals in Syria to challenge Iran. But Trump
wasn't on board, senior officials say, and Turkey took an opportunity to push the U.S.
out.
...
Most that make it in politics or entertainment go with the flow - whatever will further their
career. Empty people. I don't know this Michael Moor, but sounds lie he is one of this
type.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Dec 21, 2018 11:48:20 PM | 83
Michael Moore has produced some brilliant anti-establishment docos focusing on gun-control
(Bowling for Columbine), the US healthcare rort, the sub-prime scam, and the absence of
socio-economic well-being in AmeriKKKa (Where To Invade Next?).
I'm hoping that Kadath @ #80 is kidding, but he's right about Moore being rabidly anti-Trump
from the get-go.
Geo-political chess. Russia, Turkey, Iran have called check and Trump is moving his pieces
accordingly. I think he will pull the US out of Syria. Seems he is not as blinded by his
hatred of Iran as his appointees.
So, does this mean that Bolton should or will resign?
I thought the update of the linked article with the statement about the Kurds from the
White House official was interesting: ""They've done the majority of the fighting against
ISIS in Syria," one U.S. official said. "How do you treat a partner like this?""
The trouble with CIA democrats is not that they are stupid, but that that are evil.
Hillary proved to be really destructive witch during her Obama stunt as the Secretary of State. Destroyed Libya and Ukraine,
which is no small feat.
Notable quotes:
"... The policy of the Obama administration, and particularly Hillary Clinton's State Department, was – and still is – regime change in Syria. This overrode all other considerations. We armed, trained, and "vetted" the Syrian rebels, even as we looked the other way while the Saudis and the Gulf sheikdoms funded groups like al-Nusra and al-Qaeda affiliates who wouldn't pass muster. And our "moderates" quickly passed into the ranks of the outfront terrorists, complete with the weapons we'd provided. ..."
"... She is truly an idiot. Thanks again, Ivy League. ..."
The Grauniad just quoted a tweet from a predictably OUTRAGED @HillaryClinton:
Actions have consequences, and whether we're in Syria or not, the people who want to
harm us are there & at war. Isolationism is weakness. Empowering ISIS is dangerous.
Playing into Russia & Iran's hands is foolish. This President is putting our national
security at grave risk.
This from the woman who almost singlehandedly (i.e. along with David Cameron and Sarkovy)
destroyed Libya and allowed -- if not encouraged -- the flow of US weapons to go into the
hands of ISIS allies in the US-Saudi-Israeli obsession with toppling Assad regardless of the
consequences. As Justin Raimondo wrote in
Antiwar.com in 2015:
The policy of the Obama administration, and particularly Hillary Clinton's State
Department, was – and still is – regime change in Syria. This overrode all
other considerations. We armed, trained, and "vetted" the Syrian rebels, even as we looked
the other way while the Saudis and the Gulf sheikdoms funded groups like al-Nusra and
al-Qaeda affiliates who wouldn't pass muster. And our "moderates" quickly passed into the
ranks of the outfront terrorists, complete with the weapons we'd provided.
This crazy policy was an extension of our regime change operation in Libya, a.k.a.
"Hillary's War," where the US – "leading from behind" – and a coalition of our
Western allies and the Gulf protectorates overthrew Muammar Qaddafi. There, too, we
empowered radical Islamists with links to al-Qaeda affiliates – and then used them to
ship weapons to their Syrian brothers, as another document uncovered by Judicial Watch
shows.
After HRC's multiple foreign policy fiascos she is the last person who should be
commenting on this matter.
a different chris, December 21, 2018 at 11:50 am
> the people who want to harm us are there & at war
Sounds like then they are too busy to harm us? She is truly an idiot. Thanks again, Ivy League.
you're one
of the millions of human beings who, despite a preponderance of evidence to the contrary, still
believe there is such a thing as "the truth," you might not want to read this essay. Seriously,
it can be extremely upsetting when you discover that there is no "truth" or rather, that what
we're all conditioned to regard as "truth" from the time we are children is just the product of
a technology of power, and not an empirical state of being. Humans, upon first encountering
this fact, have been known to freak completely out and start jabbering about the "Word of God,"
or "the immutable laws of quantum physics," and run around burning other people at the stake or
locking them up and injecting them with Thorazine. I don't want to be responsible for anything
like that, so consider this your trigger warning.
OK, now that that's out of the way, let's take a look at how "truth" is manufactured. It's
actually not that complicated. See, the "truth" is well, it's a story, essentially. It's
whatever story we are telling ourselves at any given point in history ("we" being the majority
of people, those conforming to the rules of whatever system wields enough power to dictate the
story it wants everyone to be telling themselves). Everyone understands this intuitively, but
the majority of people pretend they don't in order to be able to get by in the system, which
punishes anyone who does not conform to its rules, or who contradicts its story. So, basically,
to manufacture the truth, all you really need is (a) a story, and (b) enough power to coerce a
majority of people in your society to pretend to believe it.
I'm not going to debunk the Guardian article here. It has been debunked by better
debunkers than I (e.g., Jonathan
Cook ,
Craig Murray ,
Glenn Greenwald , Moon of Alabama, and many others). [ ed. including
us ]
The short version is, The Guardian's Luke Harding, a shameless hack who will affix
his name to any propaganda an intelligence agency feeds him, alleged that Paul Manafort,
Trump's former campaign manager, secretly met with Julian Assange (and unnamed "Russians") on
numerous occasions from 2013 to 2016, presumably to conspire to collude to brainwash Americans
into not voting for Clinton. Harding's earth-shaking allegations, which The Guardian
prominently featured and flogged, were based on well, absolutely nothing, except the usual
anonymous "intelligence sources." After actual journalists pointed this out, The
Guardian quietly revised the piece (employing the subjunctive mood rather
liberally), buried it in the back pages of its website, and otherwise pretended like they had
never published it.
The Guardian's latest attack on Julian Assange was not only a fallacious smear, it
represented a desperate attempt on behalf of the British intelligence community to conflate the
pending US charges against the journalist with Russiagate. The Guardian's article seeks to
deflect from the reality that the prosecution of Assange will
focus on Chelsea Manning-Era releases and Vault 7, not the DNC or Podesta emails.
We assert this claim based on the timing of the publication, the Guardian's history of
subservience to British intelligence agencies, animosity between The Guardian and WikiLeaks,
and the longstanding personal feud between Guardian journalist Luke Harding and Assange. This
conclusion is also supported by Harding's financial and career interest in propping up the
Russiagate narrative
"... " The information in this post alone should make everyone question why in the world the Guardian would continue to use a source like Villavicencio who is obviously tied to the U.S. government, the CIA, individuals like Thor Halvorssen and Bill Browder, and opponents of both Julian Assange and former President Rafael Correa." ..."
"... 2014 Ecuador's Foreign Ministry accused the Guardian of publishing a story based on a document it says was fabricated by Fernando Villavicencio, pictured below with the authors of the fake Manafort-Assange 'secret meeting' story, Harding and Collyns." ..."
"... "There is also evidence that the author of this falsified document is Fernando Villavicencio, a convicted slanderer and opponent of Ecuador's current government. This can be seen from the file properties of the document that the Guardian had originally posted (but which it has since taken down and replaced with a version with this evidence removed)." ..."
"... " This video from the news wire Andes alleges that Villavicencio's name appeared in the metadata of the document originally uploaded alongside The Guardian's story." ..."
"... One of my greatest journalistic experiences was working for months on Assange's research with colleagues from the British newspaper the Guardian, Luke Harding, Dan Collins and the young journalist Cristina Solórzano from @ somos_lafuente " ..."
"... The tweet suggests, but does not specifically state, that Villavicencio worked with the disastrous duo on the Assange-Manafort piece. Given the history and associations of all involved, this statement alone should cause extreme skepticism in any unsubstantiated claims, or 'anonymously sourced' claims, the Guardian makes concerning Julian Assange and Ecuador. ..."
"... The two photographs of Villavicencio with Harding and Collyns as well as the evidence showing he co-authored the piece doesn't just capture a trio of terrible journalists, it documents the involvement of multiple actors associated with intelligence agencies and fabricated stories. ..."
"... Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win." ..."
"... That Harding and Collyns worked intensively with Villavicencio for "months" on the "Assange story," the fact that Villavicencio was initially listed as a co-author on the original version of the Guardian's article, and the recent denial by Fidel Narvaez , raises the likelihood that Harding and the Guardian were not simply the victims of bad sources who duped them, as claimed by some. ..."
Regular followers of WikiLeaks-related news are at this point familiar with the multiple
serious infractions of journalistic ethics by Luke Harding and the Guardian, especially (though
not exclusively) when it comes to Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. However, another individual at
the heart of this matter is far less familiar to the public. That man is Fernando
Villavicencio, a prominent Ecuadorian political activist and journalist, director of the
USAID-funded NGO Fundamedios and editor of online publication FocusEcuador .
Most readers are also aware of the Guardian's recent publication of claims that Julian
Assange met with former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort on three occasions. This has now
been
definitively debunked by Fidel Narvaez, the former Consul at Ecuador's London embassy
between 2010 and 2018, who says Paul Manafort has never visited the embassy during the time he
was in charge there. But this was hardly the first time the outlet published a dishonest smear
authored by Luke Harding against Assange. The paper is also no stranger to publishing stories
based on fabricated documents.
In May,
Disobedient Media reported on the Guardian's hatchet-job relating to 'Operation Hotel,' or
rather, the normal
security operations of the embassy under former Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa. That
hit-piece ,
co-authored by Harding and Dan Collyns, asserted among other things that (according to an
anonymous source) Assange hacked the embassy's security system. The allegation was promptly
refuted by Correa as "absurd" in an interview with The Intercept , and also by WikiLeaks as an "anonymous libel" with which the
Guardian had "gone too far this time. We're suing."
How is Villavicencio tied to The Guardian's latest smear of Assange? Intimately, it turns
out.
Who is Fernando Villavicencio?
Earlier this year, an independent journalist writing under the pseudonym Jimmyslama penned a
comprehensive report
detailing Villavicencio's relationships with pro-US actors within Ecuador and the US. She sums
up her findings, which are worth reading in full :
" The information in this post alone should make everyone question why in the world the
Guardian would continue to use a source like Villavicencio who is obviously tied to the U.S.
government, the CIA, individuals like Thor Halvorssen and Bill Browder, and opponents of both
Julian Assange and former President Rafael Correa."
As most readers recall, it was Correa who granted Assange asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy
in London. Villavicencio was so vehemently opposed to Rafael Correa's socialist government that
during the failed 2010 coup against Correa he falsely accused the President of "crimes against
humanity" by ordering police to fire on the crowds (it was actually Correa who was being shot
at). Correa sued him for libel, and won, but pardoned Villavicencio for the damages awarded by
the court.
Assange legal analyst Hanna Jonasson
recently made the link between the Ecuadorian forger Villavicencio and Luke Harding's Guardian
stories based on dubious documents explicit. She Tweeted : 2014 Ecuador's
Foreign Ministry accused the Guardian of publishing a story based on a document it says was
fabricated by Fernando Villavicencio, pictured below with the authors of the fake
Manafort-Assange 'secret meeting' story, Harding and Collyns."
Jonasson included a link to a 2014 official Ecuadorian government statement which reads in part:
"There is also evidence that
the author of this falsified document is Fernando Villavicencio, a convicted slanderer and
opponent of Ecuador's current government. This can be seen from the file properties of the
document that the Guardian had originally posted (but which it has since taken down and
replaced with a version with this evidence removed)."
The statement also notes that
Villavicencio had fled the country after his conviction for libeling Correa during the 2010
coup and was at that time living as a fugitive in the United States.
It is incredibly significant, as Jonasson argues, that the authors of the Guardian's latest
libelous article were photographed with
Villavicencio in Ecuador shortly before publication of the Guardian's claim that Assange
had conducted meetings with Manafort.
Jonasson's Twitter thread also states: " This video from the news wire
Andes alleges that Villavicencio's name appeared in the metadata of the document originally
uploaded alongside The Guardian's story." The 2014 Guardian piece, which aimed a falsified
shot at then-President Rafael Correa, would not be the last time Villavicencio's name would
appear on a controversial Guardian story before being scrubbed from existence.
Just days after the backlash against the Guardian reached fever-pitch, Villavicencio had the
gall to publish another image of himself
with Harding and Collyns, gloating : "
One of my greatest journalistic experiences was
working for months on Assange's research with colleagues from the British newspaper the
Guardian, Luke Harding, Dan Collins and the young journalist Cristina Solórzano from @somos_lafuente " [Translated from Spanish]
The tweet suggests, but does not specifically state, that Villavicencio worked with the
disastrous duo on the Assange-Manafort piece. Given the history and associations of all
involved, this statement alone should cause extreme skepticism in any unsubstantiated claims,
or 'anonymously sourced' claims, the Guardian makes concerning Julian Assange and Ecuador.
Astoundingly, and counter to Villavicencio's uncharacteristic coyness, a recent video posted
by WikiLeaks via Twitter does show that
Villavicencio was originally listed as a co-author of the Guardian's Manafort-Assange
allegations, before his name was edited out of the online article. The original version can be
viewed, however, thanks to archive services.
The two photographs of Villavicencio with Harding and Collyns as well as the evidence
showing he co-authored the piece doesn't just capture a trio of terrible journalists, it
documents the involvement of multiple actors associated with intelligence agencies and
fabricated stories.
All of this provoke the question: did Villavicencio provide more bogus documents to Harding
and Collyns – Harding said he'd seen a document, though he didn't publish one (or even
quote from it) so readers might judge its veracity for themselves – or perhaps these
three invented the accusations out of whole-cloth?
Either way, to quote WikiLeaks, the Guardian has "gone too far this time" and its
already-tattered reputation is in total shambles.
Successful Propaganda, Failed Journalism
Craig Murray calls Harding an " MI6
tool ", but to this writer, Harding seems worse than an MI6 stooge: He's a wannabe-spook,
hanging from the coat-tails of anonymous intelligence officers and publishing their drivel as
fact without so much as a skeptical blink. His lack of self-awareness and conflation of
anecdote with evidence sets him apart as either one of the most blatant, fumbling propagandists
of our era, or the most hapless hack journalist to stain the pages of printed news.
To provide important context on Harding's previous journalistic irresponsibility, we again
recall that he co-authored the infamous book containing the encryption password of the entire
Cablegate archive, leading to a leak of the unredacted State Department Cables across the
internet. Although the guilty Guardian journalists tried to blame Assange for the debacle, it
was they themselves who ended up on the receiving end of some well-deserved scorn.
In addition to continuing the Guardian's and Villavicencio's vendetta against Assange and
WikiLeaks, it is clearly in Harding's financial interests to conflate the
pending prosecution of Assange with Russiagate. As this writer
previously noted , Harding penned a book on the subject, titled: " Collusion: Secret
Meetings, Dirty Money, and How Russia Helped Donald Trump Win." Tying Assange to
Russiagate is good for business, as it stokes public interest in the self-evidently faulty
narrative his book supports.
Even more concerning is the claim amongst publishing circles, fueled by recent events, that
Harding may be writing another book on Assange, with publication presumably timed for his
pending arrest and extradition and designed to cash in on the trial. If that is in fact the
case, the specter arises that Harding is working to push for Assange's arrest, not just on
behalf of US, UK or Ecuadorian intelligence interests, but also to increase his own book
sales.
That Harding and Collyns worked intensively with Villavicencio for "months" on the "Assange
story," the fact that Villavicencio was initially listed as a co-author on the original version
of the Guardian's article, and the recent denial by Fidel Narvaez
, raises the likelihood that Harding and the Guardian were not simply the victims of bad
sources who duped them, as claimed by some.
It indicates that the fake story was constructed deliberately on behalf of the very same
intelligence establishment that the Guardian is nowadays only too happy to take the knee
for.
In summary, one of the most visible establishment media outlets published a fake story on
its front page, in an attempt to manufacture a crucial cross-over between the pending
prosecution of Assange and the Russiagate saga. This represents the latest example in an
onslaught of fake news directed at Julian Assange and WikiLeaks ever since they published the
largest CIA leak in history in the form of Vault 7, an onslaught which appears to be building
in both intensity and absurdity as time goes on.
The Guardian has destroyed its reputation, and in the process, revealed the desperation of
the establishment when it comes to Assange.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Saturday said US sanctions will have no
impact on the policies of the Islamic republic at home or abroad.
"It is obvious that we are facing pressure by the US sanctions. But will that lead to a
change in policy? I can assure you it won't," Zarif told the Doha Forum policy conference in
Qatar.
"If there is an art we have perfected in Iran and can teach to others for a price, it is
the art of evading sanctions," he added.
Sanctions typically fail to change regime behavior, and they are even more likely to fail if
there is no practical way for the targeted regime to get out from under sanctions short of
surrender. The more importance that a regime places on the policies that the outside government
wants to change, the greater the likelihood of failure will be. When the outside government's
goals threaten the regime's security or even its very survival, there is no question of making
a deal.
Because the Trump administration is pursuing regime change in all but name, there is no
chance that Iran will yield to U.S. pressure. The administration's demands are so ambitious and
excessive that no self-respecting state could agree to them without giving up its sovereignty
and independence. It should be clear by now that pressure and coercion inspire defiance and
intransigence. If the U.S. wants to see changes in Iranian international behavior, it would
need to provide assurances and incentives that make taking that risk worth their while. Since
this administration has made a point of reneging on commitments already made to Iran, there are
no assurances that it could make that the Iranian government could trust, and the
administration is allergic to offering any incentives to its negotiating partners for fear of
appearing "weak."
Overall, arms sales increased in 2017, with total global sales nearing 400
billion dollars, marking a 2.5 percent increase from last year and the third year of continued
growth for the industry.
Russia comes in second, with year-over-year growth in arms production. In 2017, Russia
provided the world with 10 percent of arms sales, closely followed by The UK.
Only major arms companies were included in this study. China was excluded due to
insufficient data.
Problem with this is that the buyers of all that American weaponry are definitely not got
any 'bang for the proverbial buck' (pun intended). Horrendously overpriced weaponry which in
most instances render less value and effectiveness than similarly available Russian
analogues.
They know, the arms are inferior garbage, it's just like mafioso protection money or
better known as extortion. The charge a fortune for substandard weapons and MIC folks keep
the change. Same as murican tax payers. If there were no boogie men created then what would
be the justification for all the spending on military hardware?
There is no return on investment here. It's money laundering.
Letter of intent only. They have literally purchased none of those orders, despite
repeated US harassment for the 15 Billion for the THAADS to get the ball rolling. All bluster
and boasting and smoke and mirrors.
My suspicion is that SA under MBS is considering switching sides slowly and will purchase
Russian and Chinese instead. If the US had foreknowledge of this, hence the switch in tone re
butchering journalists and Yemenis ... hence why MBS isn't Time Magazine poster boy at the
moment.
Your correct I went back and checked it was order book not delivery,MBS situation is very
interesting with the recent high five with Putin there was some backstory that it was
celebration of a certain US admirals demise that was causing them problems whether true or
not I dont know but it would not surprise me if S400's end up in Saudi Arabia
Remember that old stuff about Krupp being the "Merchant of Death"? Aren't we, like, edging
into that territory? Is this what the Founders and Ratifiers had in mind? Could this enormous
arms trade and our military expenditures and adventures be a clue that we're on the wrong
track?
Swing between extremes, however, consistent in US history, economic predatory dependence on
free/ultra cheap labor with no legal rights. Current instantiation, offshored and illegal and
"temporary" immigrant labor. Note neither party in the US is proposing "immigration reform"
is green card upon hire. Ds merely propose green card for time served for those over X number
of years donated as captive/cheap.
The entitled to cheap/captive now want it in law, national laws and trade agreements.
All privilege/no responsibilities, including taxes.
Doesn't scale. 1929 says so, 2008 says so.
Liberals, the Left, Progressives -- whatever you want to call them suffer from a basic
problem. They don't work together and have no common goals. As the article stated they
complain but offer no real solutions that they can agree on. Should we emphasize gay pride or
should we emphasize good-paying jobs and benefits with good social welfare benefits? Until
they can agree at least on priorities they will never reform the current corrupt system -- it
is too entrenched. Even if the Capitalist Monstrosity we have now self-destructs as the
writer indicates -- nothing good will replace it until the Left get their act together.
"Lesser of two evils" needs to go on the burn pile.
Encumbent congress needs a turn over.
Not showing up to vote is not okay. If people can't think of someone they want to write-in,
"none of the above" is a protest vote. Not voting is silence, which equals consent.
Local elections, beat back Koch/ALEC, hiding on ballots as "Libertarian". "Privatize
everything" is their mantra, so they can further profitize via inescapeable taxes, while
gutting "regulation" - safety and market integrity, with no accountability.
Corporation 101: limited liability. While means we are left holding the bag. As in bailout -
$125 billion in 1990, up to $7.7 trillion in 2008.
Anything the Economist presents as the overriding choice is probably best relegated to
one factor among many. I respect Milanovic's work, but he's seeing things from where we are
now. Remember we've seen populist surges come and go from the witch-burnings and religious
panics of the 17th century to 1890s Bryanism and the 1930s far right, and each time they've
yielded to a more articulate vision, though the last time it cost sixty million dead - not
something we want to see repeated. This time it's hard because dissent still clings to a
"post-ideological" delusion that those on top never succumbed to. But change will come as
what I'd term "post-rational" alternatives fail to deliver. Let's hope it's sooner rather
than later.
"Brexit, too, was primarily a working-class revolt." Thank you Martin, at least someone
writing in the Guardian has got the point!
We voted against the EU's unelected European Central Bank, its unelected European Commission,
its European Court of Justice, its Common Agricultural Policy and its Common Fisheries
Policy.
We voted against the EU's treaty-enshrined 'austerity' (= depression) policies, which have
impoverished Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy.
We voted against the EU/US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, which would
privatise all our public services, which threatens all our rights, and which discriminates
against the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America.
We voted against the EU's tariffs against African farmers' cheaper produce.
We opposed the City of London Corporation, the Institute of Directors, the CBI, the IMF,
Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, which all wanted us to
stay in the EU.
We voted against the EU's undemocratic trilogue procedure and its pro-austerity Semester
programme. We voted to leave this undemocratic, privatisation-enforcing, austerity-enforcing
body.
Bailout was because that was public savings, pensions, 401ks, etc. the banks were playing
with, and lost. Bailout is billing all of us for it. Bad, letting the banks/financial
"services" not only survive but continue the exact same practices.
Bailout: $7.2 to $7.7 trillion. Current derivative holdings: $500 trillion.
Not just moral hazard but economic hazard when capitalism basic rule is broken, allow bad
businesses to die of their own accord. Subversion currently called "too big to fail", rather
than tell the public "we lost all your savings, pensions, ...".
Relocating poverty from the East into the West isn't improvement.
Creating sweatshops in the East isn't raising their standard of living.
Creating economies so economically unstable that population declines isn't improvement.
Trying to bury that fact with immigration isn't improvement.
Configuring all of the above for record profit for the benefit of a tiny percentage of the
population isn't improvement.
Gaming tax law to avoid paying into/for extensive business use of federal services and tax
base isn't improvement.
Game over. Time for a reboot.
I am glad you finally concede a point on neo-liberalism. The moral hazard argument is
extremely poor and typical in this era of runaway CEO pay, of a tendency to substitute
self-help fables (a la "The monk who sold his Ferrari) and pop psychology ( a la Moral
Hazard) for credible economic analysis.
The economic crisis is rooted in the profit motive just as capitalist economic growth is.
Lowering of Tarrif barriers, outsourcing, changes in value capture (added value), new
financial instruments, were attempts to restore the falling rate of profit. They did for a
while, but, as always happens with Capitalism, the seeds of the new crisis were in the
solution to the old.
And all the while the state continues growing in an attempt to keep capitalism afloat.
Neoliberalism failed ( or should I say "small state" ) and here is the graph to prove it: http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/include/usgs_chartSp03t.png
Interesting, and I believe accurate, analysis of the economic and political forces afoot.
However it is ludicrous to state that Donald trump, who is a serial corpratist, out-sourcer,
tax avoider and scam artist, actually believes any of those populist principles that you
ascribe so firmly to him. The best and safest outcome of our election, in my opinion, would
be to have a Clinton administration tempered by the influences from the populist wings of
both parties.
Great article, however the elite globalists are in complete denial in the US. Our only choice
is to vote them out of power because the are owned by Wall Street. Both Bernie and Trump
supporters should unite to vote establishment out of Washington.
There were similar observations in the immediate aftermath of 2008, and doubtless before.
Many of us thought the crisis would trigger a rethink of the whole direction of the previous
three decades, but instead we got austerity and a further lurch to the right, or at best
Obama-style stimulus and modest tweaks which were better than the former but still rather
missed the point. I still find it flabbergasting and depressing, but on reflection the 1930s
should have been a warning of not just the economic hazards but also the political fallout,
at least in Europe. The difference was that this time left ideology had all but vacated the
field in the 1980s and was in no position to lead a fightback: all we can hope for is better
late than never.
Yes it is, it's an extremely bad thing destroying the fabric of society. Social science
has documented that even the better off are more happy, satisfied with life and feel safer in
societies (i.e. the Scandinavian) where there is a relatively high degree of economic
equality. Yes, economic inequality is a BAD thing in itself.
Oh, give me a break. Social science will document anything it can publish, no matter how
spurious. If Scandanavia is so great, why are they such pissheads? There has always been
inequality, including in workers' paradises like the Soviet Union and Communist China.
Inequality is what got us where we are today, through natural selection. Phenotype is largely
dependent on genotype, so why shouldn't we pass on material wealth as well as our genes?
Surely it is a parent's right to afford their offspring advantages if they can do so?
Have you got any numbers? Or references for your allegations. I say the average or median
wealth, opportunity, economic circumstance and health measures are substantially better than
a generation (lets say 30 years) ago.
Again I don't think our system is perfect. I don't deny that some in our societies
struggle and don't benefit, particularly the poorly educated, disabled, mentally ill and drug
addicted. I actually agree that we could better target our social redistribution from those
that have to those that need help. I disagree that we need higher taxes, protectionism,
socialism, more public servants, more legislation. Indeed I disagree with proposition that
other systems are better.
George Orwell said, in the 30s, that the price of social justice would include a lowering of
living standards for the working- & middle-classes, at least temporarily, so I follow
your line of thought. However, the outrageous tilt toward the upper .1% has no "adjustment"
fluff to shield it from the harsh despotism it represents. So, do put that in your
statistical pipe and smoke it.
Add to this that Trump changed his election slogan from "make America [ "working class"]
great again" to "make Amerca [financial oligarchy] great again"
The only problem is that 'America' does not exist. America is a part description of a
continent and I think we are talking about the USA (only one country on North American
soil) Why do the yanks always have to exaggerate their own importance like the Olympics
bloke who claimed he was robbed at gunpoint lol! Do the USAians actually have an
inferiority complex?
It is very interesting and educational to read this pre-election article two years later and see where the author is
right and where he is wrong. The death of neoliberalism was greatly exaggerated. It simply mutated in the USA into "national
neoliberalism" under Trump. As no clear alternative exists it remain the dominant ideology and universities still
brainwash students with neoclassical economics. And in way catchy slogan "Make America great again" under Trump
means "Make American working and lower middle class great again"
It is also clear that Trump betrayed or was forced to betray most of his election promises. Standrd of living of common
americans did not improve under his watch. most of hi benefits of his tax cuts went to large corporations and financial
oligarch. He continued the policy of financial deregulation, which is tantamount of playing with open fire trying to
warm up the house
What we see under Trump is tremendous growth of political role of intelligence agencies which now are real kingmakers and can
sink any candidate which does not support their agenda. And USA intelligence agencies operated in 2016 in close cooperation
with the UK intelligence agencies to the extent that it is not clear who has the lead in creating Steele dossier. They are
definitely out of control of executive branch and play their own game. We also see a rise of CIA democrats as a desperate
attempt to preserve the power of Clinton wing of the Democratic Party ('soft neoliberals" turned under Hillary into into warmongers
and neocons) . Hillary and Bill themselves clearly belong to CIA democrats too, not only to Wall Street democrats, despite the fact
that they sold Democratic Party to Wall Street in the past. New Labor in UK did the same.
But if it is more or less clear now what happened in the USa in 2016-2018, it is completely unclear what will happen next.
I think in no way neoliberalism will start to be dismantled. there is no social forces powerful enough to start this job, We
probably need another financial crisi of the scale of 2008 for this work to be reluctantly started by ruling
elite. And we better not to have this repetition of 2008 as it will be really devastating for common people.
Notable quotes:
"... the causes of this political crisis, glaringly evident on both sides of the Atlantic, are much deeper than simply the financial crisis and the virtually stillborn recovery of the last decade. They go to the heart of the neoliberal project that dates from the late 70s and the political rise of Reagan and Thatcher, and embraced at its core the idea of a global free market in goods, services and capital. The depression-era system of bank regulation was dismantled, in the US in the 1990s and in Britain in 1986, thereby creating the conditions for the 2008 crisis. Equality was scorned, the idea of trickle-down economics lauded, government condemned as a fetter on the market and duly downsized, immigration encouraged, regulation cut to a minimum, taxes reduced and a blind eye turned to corporate evasion. ..."
"... It should be noted that, by historical standards, the neoliberal era has not had a particularly good track record. The most dynamic period of postwar western growth was that between the end of the war and the early 70s, the era of welfare capitalism and Keynesianism, when the growth rate was double that of the neoliberal period from 1980 to the present. ..."
"... In the period 1948-1972, every section of the American population experienced very similar and sizable increases in their standard of living; between 1972-2013, the bottom 10% experienced falling real income while the top 10% did far better than everyone else. In the US, the median real income for full-time male workers is now lower than it was four decades ago: the income of the bottom 90% of the population has stagnated for over 30 years . ..."
"... On average, between 65-70% of households in 25 high-income economies experienced stagnant or falling real incomes between 2005 and 2014. ..."
"... As Thomas Piketty has shown, in the absence of countervailing pressures, capitalism naturally gravitates towards increasing inequality. In the period between 1945 and the late 70s, Cold War competition was arguably the biggest such constraint. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there have been none. As the popular backlash grows increasingly irresistible, however, such a winner-takes-all regime becomes politically unsustainable. ..."
"... Foreign Affairs ..."
"... "'Populism' is the label that political elites attach to policies supported by ordinary citizens that they don't like." Populism is a movement against the status quo. It represents the beginnings of something new, though it is generally much clearer about what it is against than what it is for. It can be progressive or reactionary, but more usually both. ..."
"... According to a Gallup poll, in 2000 only 33% of Americans called themselves working class; by 2015 the figure was 48%, almost half the population. ..."
"... The re-emergence of the working class as a political voice in Britain, most notably in the Brexit vote, can best be described as an inchoate expression of resentment and protest, with only a very weak sense of belonging to the labour movement. ..."
"... Economists such as Larry Summers believe that the prospect for the future is most likely one of secular stagnation . ..."
"... those who have lost out in the neoliberal era are no longer prepared to acquiesce in their fate – they are increasingly in open revolt. We are witnessing the end of the neoliberal era. It is not dead, but it is in its early death throes, just as the social-democratic era was during the 1970s. ..."
In the early 1980s the author was one of the first to herald the emerging dominance of neoliberalism in the west. Here he argues
that this doctrine is now faltering. But what happens next?
The western financial crisis of 2007-8 was the worst since 1931, yet its immediate repercussions were surprisingly modest. The
crisis challenged the foundation stones of the long-dominant neoliberal ideology but it seemed to emerge largely unscathed. The banks
were bailed out; hardly any bankers on either side of the Atlantic were prosecuted for their crimes; and the price of their behaviour
was duly paid by the taxpayer. Subsequent economic policy, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, has relied overwhelmingly on monetary
policy, especially quantitative easing. It has failed. The western economy has stagnated and is now approaching its lost decade,
with no end in sight.
After almost nine years, we are finally beginning to reap the political whirlwind of the financial crisis. But how did neoliberalism
manage to survive virtually unscathed for so long? Although it failed the test of the real world, bequeathing the worst economic
disaster for seven decades, politically and intellectually it remained the only show in town. Parties of the right, centre and left
had all bought into its philosophy, New Labour a classic
in point. They knew no other way of thinking or doing: it had become the common sense. It was, as Antonio Gramsci put it, hegemonic.
But that hegemony cannot and will not survive the test of the real world.
The first inkling of the wider political consequences was evident in the turn in public opinion against the banks, bankers and
business leaders. For decades, they could do no wrong: they were feted as the role models of our age, the default troubleshooters
of choice in education, health and seemingly everything else. Now, though, their star was in steep descent, along with that of the
political class. The effect of the financial crisis was to undermine faith and trust in the competence of the governing elites. It
marked the beginnings of a wider political crisis.
But the causes of this political crisis, glaringly evident on both sides of the Atlantic, are much deeper than simply the financial
crisis and the virtually stillborn recovery of the last decade. They go to the heart of the neoliberal project that dates from the
late 70s and the political rise of Reagan and Thatcher, and embraced at its core the idea of a global free market in goods, services
and capital. The depression-era system of bank regulation was dismantled, in the US in the 1990s and in Britain in 1986, thereby
creating the conditions for the 2008 crisis. Equality was scorned, the idea of trickle-down economics lauded, government condemned
as a fetter on the market and duly downsized, immigration encouraged, regulation cut to a minimum, taxes reduced and a blind eye
turned to corporate evasion.
It should be noted that, by historical standards, the neoliberal era has not had a particularly good track record. The most dynamic
period of postwar western growth was that between the end of the war and the early 70s, the era of welfare capitalism and Keynesianism,
when the growth rate was double that of the neoliberal period from 1980 to the present.
But by far the most disastrous feature of the neoliberal period has been the huge growth in inequality. Until very recently, this
had been virtually ignored. With extraordinary speed, however, it has emerged as one of, if not the most important political issue
on both sides of the Atlantic, most dramatically in the US. It is, bar none, the issue that is driving the political discontent that
is now engulfing the west. Given the statistical evidence, it is puzzling, shocking even, that it has been disregarded for so long;
the explanation can only lie in the sheer extent of the hegemony of neoliberalism and its values.
But now reality has upset the doctrinal apple cart. In the period 1948-1972, every section of the American population experienced
very similar and sizable increases in their standard of living; between 1972-2013, the bottom 10% experienced falling real income
while the top 10% did far better than everyone else. In the US, the median real income for full-time male workers is now lower than
it was four decades ago: the income of the bottom 90% of the population has
stagnated for over 30 years .
A not so dissimilar picture is true of the UK. And the problem has grown more serious since the financial crisis. On average,
between 65-70% of households in 25 high-income economies experienced stagnant or falling real
incomes between 2005 and 2014.
Large sections of the population in both the US and the UK are now in revolt against their lot
The reasons are not difficult to explain. The hyper-globalisation era has been systematically stacked in favour of capital against
labour: international trading agreements, drawn up in great secrecy, with business on the inside and the unions and citizens excluded,
the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the
Transatlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) being but the latest examples; the politico-legal attack on the unions;
the encouragement of large-scale immigration in both the US and Europe that helped to undermine
the bargaining power of the domestic workforce; and the failure to retrain displaced workers in any meaningful way.
As Thomas Piketty has shown, in the absence of
countervailing pressures, capitalism naturally gravitates towards increasing inequality. In the period between 1945 and the late
70s, Cold War competition was arguably the biggest such constraint. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there have been none.
As the popular backlash grows increasingly irresistible, however, such a winner-takes-all regime becomes politically unsustainable.
Large sections of the population in both the US and the UK are now in revolt against their lot, as graphically illustrated by
the support for Trump and Sanders in the US and the Brexit vote in the UK. This popular revolt is often described, in a somewhat
denigratory and dismissive fashion, as populism. Or, as Francis Fukuyama writes in a recent excellent
essay
in Foreign Affairs : "'Populism' is the label that political elites attach to policies supported by ordinary citizens
that they don't like." Populism is a movement against the status quo. It represents the beginnings of something new, though it is
generally much clearer about what it is against than what it is for. It can be progressive or reactionary, but more usually both.
Brexit is a classic example of such populism. It has overturned a fundamental cornerstone of UK policy since the early 1970s.
Though ostensibly about Europe, it was in fact about much more: a cri de coeur from those who feel they have lost out and been left
behind, whose living standards have stagnated or worse since the 1980s, who feel dislocated by large-scale immigration over which
they have no control and who face an increasingly insecure and casualised labour market. Their revolt has paralysed the governing
elite, already claimed one prime minister, and left the latest one fumbling around in the dark looking for divine inspiration.
The wave of populism marks the return of class as a central agency in politics, both in the UK and the US. This is particularly
remarkable in the US. For many decades, the idea of the "working class" was marginal to American political discourse. Most Americans
described themselves as middle class, a reflection of the aspirational pulse at the heart of American society. According to a Gallup
poll, in 2000 only 33% of Americans called themselves working class; by 2015 the figure was 48%, almost half the population.
Brexit, too, was primarily a working-class revolt. Hitherto, on both sides of the Atlantic, the agency of class has been in retreat
in the face of the emergence of a new range of identities and issues from gender and race to sexual orientation and the environment.
The return of class, because of its sheer reach, has the potential, like no other issue, to redefine the political landscape.
The working class belongs to no one: its orientation, far from predetermined, is a function of politics
The re-emergence of class should not be confused with the labor movement. They are not synonymous: this is obvious in the US
and increasingly the case in the UK. Indeed, over the last half-century, there has been a growing separation between the two in Britain.
The re-emergence of the working class as a political voice in Britain, most notably in the Brexit vote, can best be described as
an inchoate expression of resentment and protest, with only a very weak sense of belonging to the labour movement.
Indeed, Ukip has been as important – in the form of immigration and Europe – in shaping its current attitudes as the Labour party.
In the United States, both Trump and Sanders have given expression to the working-class revolt, the latter almost as much as the
former. The working class belongs to no one: its orientation, far from predetermined, as the left liked to think, is a function of
politics.
The neoliberal era is being undermined from two directions. First, if its record of economic growth has never been particularly
strong, it is now dismal. Europe is barely larger than it was on the eve of the financial crisis in 2007; the United States has done
better but even its growth has been anaemic. Economists such as Larry Summers believe that the prospect for the future is most likely
one of secular stagnation .
Worse, because the recovery has been so weak and fragile, there is a widespread belief that another financial crisis may well
beckon. In other words, the neoliberal era has delivered the west back into the kind of crisis-ridden world that we last experienced
in the 1930s. With this background, it is hardly surprising that a majority in the west now believe their children will be worse
off than they were. Second, those who have lost out in the neoliberal era are no longer prepared to acquiesce in their fate – they
are increasingly in open revolt. We are witnessing the end of the neoliberal era. It is not dead, but it is in its early death throes,
just as the social-democratic era was during the 1970s.
A sure sign of the declining influence of neoliberalism is the rising chorus of intellectual voices raised against it. From the
mid-70s through the 80s, the economic debate was increasingly dominated by monetarists and free marketeers. But since the western
financial crisis, the centre of gravity of the intellectual debate has shifted profoundly. This is most obvious in the United States,
with economists such as Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Dani Rodrik and Jeffrey Sachs becoming increasingly influential. Thomas Piketty's
Capital in the Twenty-First Century has been a massive seller. His work and that of
Tony Atkinson
and Angus Deaton have pushed the question of the inequality to the top of the political agenda. In the UK,
Ha-Joon Chang , for long isolated within the economics
profession, has gained a following far greater than those who think economics is a branch of mathematics.
Meanwhile, some of those who were previously strong advocates of a neoliberal approach, such as Larry Summers and the Financial
Times 's Martin Wolf, have become extremely critical. The wind is in the sails of the critics of neoliberalism; the neoliberals
and monetarists are in retreat. In the UK, the media and political worlds are well behind the curve. Few recognize that we are at
the end of an era. Old attitudes and assumptions still predominate, whether on the BBC's Today programme, in the rightwing
press or the parliamentary Labor party.
Following Ed Miliband's resignation as Labour leader, virtually no one foresaw the triumph of
Jeremy Corbyn in the subsequent leadership election.
The assumption had been more of the same, a Blairite or a halfway house like Miliband, certainly not anyone like Corbyn. But the
zeitgeist had changed. The membership, especially the young who had joined the party on an unprecedented scale, wanted a complete
break with New Labour. One of the reasons why the left has failed to emerge as the leader of the new mood of working-class disillusionment
is that most social democratic parties became, in varying degrees, disciples of neoliberalism and uber-globalisation. The most extreme
forms of this phenomenon were New Labour and the Democrats, who in the late 90s and 00s became its advance guard, personified by
Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, triangulation and the third way.
But as David Marquand observed in a review for the New Statesman , what is the point of a social democratic party if
it doesn't represent the less fortunate, the underprivileged and the losers? New Labour deserted those who needed them, who historically
they were supposed to represent. Is it surprising that large sections have now deserted the party who deserted them? Blair, in his
reincarnation as a money-obsessed consultant to a shady bunch of presidents and dictators, is a fitting testament to the demise of
New Labour.
The rival contenders – Burnham, Cooper and Kendall – represented continuity. They were swept away by Corbyn, who won nearly 60%
of the votes. New Labour was over, as dead as Monty Python's parrot. Few grasped the meaning of what had happened. A Guardian
leader welcomed the surge in membership and then, lo and behold, urged support for Yvette Cooper, the very antithesis of the
reason for the enthusiasm. The PLP refused to accept the result and ever since has tried with might and main to remove Corbyn.
Just as the Labour party took far too long to come to terms with the rise of Thatcherism and the birth of a new era at the end
of the 70s, now it could not grasp that the Thatcherite paradigm, which they eventually came to embrace in the form of New Labour,
had finally run its course. Labour, like everyone else, is obliged to think anew. The membership in their antipathy to New Labour
turned to someone who had never accepted the latter, who was the polar opposite in almost every respect of Blair, and embodying an
authenticity and decency which Blair patently did not.
Labour may be in intensive care, but the condition of the Conservatives is not a great deal better
Corbyn is not a product of the new times, he is a throwback to the late 70s and early 80s. That is both his strength and also
his weakness. He is uncontaminated by the New Labour legacy because he has never accepted it. But nor, it would seem, does he understand
the nature of the new era. The danger is that he is possessed of feet of clay in what is a highly fluid and unpredictable political
environment, devoid of any certainties of almost any kind, in which Labour finds itself dangerously divided and weakened.
Labour may be in intensive care, but the condition of the Conservatives is not a great deal better. David Cameron was guilty of
a huge and irresponsible miscalculation over Brexit. He was forced to resign in the most ignominious of circumstances. The party
is hopelessly divided. It has no idea in which direction to move after Brexit. The Brexiters painted an optimistic picture of turning
away from the declining European market and embracing the expanding markets of the world, albeit barely mentioning by name which
countries it had in mind. It looks as if the new prime minister may have an anachronistic hostility towards China and a willingness
to undo the good work of George Osborne. If the government turns its back on China, by far the fastest growing market in the world,
where are they going to turn?
Brexit has left the country fragmented and deeply divided, with the very real prospect that Scotland might choose independence.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives seem to have little understanding that the neoliberal era is in its death throes.
Dramatic as events have been in the UK, they cannot compare with those in the United States. Almost from nowhere,
Donald Trump rose to capture the Republican nomination
and confound virtually all the pundits and not least his own party. His message was straightforwardly anti-globalisation. He believes
that the interests of the working class have been sacrificed in favour of the big corporations that have been encouraged to invest
around the world and thereby deprive American workers of their jobs. Further, he argues that large-scale immigration has weakened
the bargaining power of American workers and served to lower their wages.
He proposes that US corporations should be required to invest their cash reserves in the US. He believes that the North American
Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) has had the effect of exporting American jobs to Mexico. On similar grounds, he is opposed to the TPP
and the TTIP. And he also accuses China of stealing American jobs, threatening to impose a 45% tariff on Chinese imports.
To globalisation Trump counterposes economic nationalism: "Put America first". His appeal, above all, is to the white working
class who, until Trump's (and Bernie Sander's) arrival on the political scene, had been ignored and largely unrepresented since the
1980s. Given that their wages have been falling for most of the last 40 years, it is extraordinary how their interests have been
neglected by the political class. Increasingly, they have voted Republican, but the Republicans have long been captured by the super-rich
and Wall Street, whose interests, as hyper-globalisers, have run directly counter to those of the white working class. With the arrival
of Trump they finally found a representative: they won Trump the Republican nomination.
Trump believes that America's pursuit of great power status has squandered the nation's resources
The economic nationalist argument has also been vigorously pursued by
Bernie Sanders , who ran Hillary Clinton extremely
close for the Democratic nomination and would probably have won but for more than 700 so-called super-delegates, who were effectively
chosen by the Democratic machine and overwhelmingly supported Clinton. As in the case of the Republicans, the Democrats have long
supported a neoliberal, pro-globalisation strategy, notwithstanding the concerns of its trade union base. Both the Republicans and
the Democrats now find themselves deeply polarised between the pro- and anti-globalisers, an entirely new development not witnessed
since the shift towards neoliberalism under Reagan almost 40 years ago.
Another plank of Trump's nationalist appeal – "Make America great again" – is his position on foreign policy. He believes that
America's pursuit of great power status has squandered the nation's resources. He argues that the country's alliance system is unfair,
with America bearing most of the cost and its allies contributing far too little. He points to Japan and South Korea, and NATO's
European members as prime examples. He seeks to rebalance these relationships and, failing that, to exit from them.
As a country in decline, he argues that America can no longer afford to carry this kind of financial burden. Rather than putting
the world to rights, he believes the money should be invested at home, pointing to the dilapidated state of America's infrastructure.
Trump's position
represents a major critique of America as the world's hegemon. His arguments mark a radical break with the neoliberal, hyper-globalisation
ideology that has reigned since the early 1980s and with the foreign policy orthodoxy of most of the postwar period. These arguments
must be taken seriously. They should not be lightly dismissed just because of their authorship. But Trump is no man of the left.
He is a populist of the right. He has launched a racist and xenophobic attack on Muslims and on Mexicans. Trump's appeal is to a
white working class that feels it has been cheated by the big corporations, undermined by Hispanic immigration, and often resentful
towards African-Americans who for long too many have viewed as their inferior.
A Trump America would mark a descent into authoritarianism characterised by abuse, scapegoating, discrimination, racism, arbitrariness
and violence; America would become a deeply polarised and divided society. His threat to impose
45%
tariffs on China , if implemented, would certainly provoke retaliation by the Chinese and herald the beginnings of a new era
of protectionism.
Trump may well lose the presidential election just as Sanders failed in his bid for the Democrat nomination. But this does not
mean that the forces opposed to hyper-globalisation – unrestricted immigration, TPP and TTIP, the free movement of capital and much
else – will have lost the argument and are set to decline. In little more than 12 months, Trump and Sanders have transformed the
nature and terms of the argument. Far from being on the wane, the arguments of the critics of hyper-globalisation are steadily gaining
ground. Roughly two-thirds of Americans agree that "we should not think so much in international terms but concentrate more on our
own national problems". And, above all else, what will continue to drive opposition to the hyper-globalisers is inequality.
Exploitation is high on the priority list of any Tory government, wealth should be
distributed much more fairly than it currently is. The tories only serve the rich, they have
no time or empathy for the poor.
Empathy and compassion are vacant in the tory philosophy of the world. These two
components make up a psychopathic personality.
"... By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One, an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and co-founder of Bank Whistleblowers United. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... The idea that examiners should not criticize any bank misconduct, predation, or 'unsafe and unsound practice' that does not constitute a felony is obviously insane. ..."
"... The trade association complaint that examiners dare to criticize non-felonious bank conduct – and the WSJ ..."
"... I have more than a passing acquaintance with banking, banking regulation, and banking's rectitude (such an old fashioned word) in the importance for Main Street's survival, and for the country's as a whole survival as a trusted pivot point in world finance , or for the survival of the whole American project. I know this sounds like an over-the-top assertion on my part, however I believe it true. ..."
"... Obama et al confusing "banking" with sound banking is too ironic, imo. ..."
"... It was actually worse than this. The very deliberate strategy was to indoctrinate employees of federal regulatory agencies to see the companies they regulated not as "partners" but as "customers" to be served. This theme is repeated again and again in Bush era agency reports. Elizabeth Warren was viciously attacked early in the Obama Administration for calling for a new "watchdog" agency to protect consumers. The idea that a federal agency would dedicate itself to protecting citizens first was portrayed as dangerously radical by industry. ..."
"... Models on Clinton and Bush. What's not to like? Why isn't msm and dem elites showing him the love when he's following their long term policies? And we might assume these would be hills policies if she had been pushed over the line. A little thought realizes that in spite of the pearl clutching they far prefer him to Bernie. ..."
By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is
to Own One, an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas
City, and co-founder of Bank Whistleblowers United. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives
The Wall Street Journal published an article
on December 12, 2018 that should warn us of coming disaster: "Banks Get Kinder, Gentler
Treatment Under Trump." The last time a regulatory head lamented that regulators were not
"kinder and gentler" promptly ushered in the Enron-era fraud epidemic. President Bush made
Harvey Pitt his Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair in August 2001 and, in one of
his early major addresses, he spoke on October 22, 2001 to a group of accounting
leaders.
Pitt, as a private counsel, represented all the top tier audit firms, and they had
successfully pushed Bush to appoint him to run the SEC. The second sentence of Pitt's speech
bemoaned the fact that the SEC had not been "a kinder and gentler place for accountants." He
concluded his first paragraph with the statement that the SEC and the auditors needed to work
"in partnership." He soon reiterated that point: "We view the accounting profession as our
partner" and amped it up by calling accountants the SEC's "critical partner."
Pitt expanded on that point: "I am committed to the principle that government is and must be
a service industry." That, of course, would not be controversial if he meant a service agency
(not "industry") for the public. Pitt, however, meant that the SEC should be a "service
industry" for the auditors and corporations.
Pitt then turned to pronouncing the SEC to be the guilty party in the "partnership." He
claimed that the SEC had terrorized accountants. He then stated that he had ordered the SEC to
end this fictional terror campaign.
[A]ccountants became afraid to talk to the SEC, and the SEC appeared to be unwilling to
listen to the profession. Those days are ended.
This prompted Pitt to ratchet even higher his "partnership" language.
I speak for the entire Commission when I say that we want to have a continuing dialogue,
and partnership, with the accounting profession,
Recall that Pitt spoke on October 22, 2001. Here are the relevant excerpts from the NY
Times' Enron
timeline :
Oct. 16 – Enron announces $638 million in third-quarter losses and a $1.2 billion
reduction in shareholder equity stemming from writeoffs related to failed broadband and water
trading ventures as well as unwinding of so-called Raptors, or fragile entities backed by
falling Enron stock created to hedge inflated asset values and keep hundreds of millions of
dollars in debt off the energy company's books.
Oct. 19 – Securities and Exchange Commission launches inquiry into Enron
finances.
Oct. 22 – Enron acknowledges SEC inquiry into a possible conflict of interest
related to the company's dealings with Fastow's partnerships.
Oct. 23 – Lay professes confidence in Fastow to analysts.
Oct. 24 – Fastow ousted.
The key fact is that even as Enron was obviously spiraling toward imminent collapse (it
filed for bankruptcy on December 2) – and the SEC knew it – Pitt offered no warning
in his speech. The auditors and the corporate CEOs and CFOs were not the SEC's 'partners.'
Thousands of CEOs and CFOs were filing false financial statements – with 'clean' opinions
from the then 'Big 5' auditors. Pitt was blind to the 'accounting control fraud' epidemic that
was raging at the time he spoke to the accountants. Thousands of his putative auditor
'partners' were getting rich by blessing fraudulent financial statements and harming the
investors that the SEC is actually supposed to serve.
Tom Frank aptly characterized the Bush appointees that completed the destruction of
effective financial regulation as "The Wrecking Crew." It is important, however, to understand
that Bush largely adopted and intensified Clinton's war against effective regulation. Clinton
and Bush led the unremitting bipartisan assault on regulation for 16 years. That produced the
criminogenic environment that produced the three largest financial fraud epidemics in history
that hyper-inflated the real estate bubble and drove the Great Financial Crisis (GFC).
President Trump has renewed the Clinton/Bush war on regulation and he has appointed banking
regulatory leaders that have consciously modeled their assault on regulation on Bush and
Clinton's 'Wrecking Crews.'
Bill Clinton's euphemism for his war on effective regulation was "Reinventing Government."
Clinton appointed VP Al Gore to lead the assault. (Clinton and Gore are "New Democrat" leaders
– the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party.) Gore decided he needed to choose an
anti-regulator to conduct the day-to-day leadership. We know from Bob Stone's memoir the sole
substantive advice he gave Gore in their first meeting that caused Gore to appoint him as that
leader. "Do not 'waste one second going after waste, fraud, and abuse.'" Elite insider fraud
is, historically, the leading cause of bank losses and failures, so Stone's advice was sure to
lead to devastating financial crises. It is telling that it was the fact that Stone gave
obviously idiotic advice to Gore that led him to select Stone as the field commander of Clinton
and Gore's war on effective regulation.
Stone convinced the Clinton-Gore administration to embrace the defining element of crony
capitalism as its signature mantra for its war on effective regulation. Stone and his troops
ordered us to refer to the banks, not the American people, as our "customers." Peters' foreword
to Stone's book admits the action, but is clueless about the impact.
Bob Stone's insistence on using the word "customer" was mocked by some -- but made an
enormous difference over the course of time. In general, he changed the vocabulary of public
service from 'procedure first' to 'service first.'"
That is a lie. We did not 'mock' the demand that we treat the banks rather than the American
people as our "customer" – we openly protested the outrageous order that we embrace and
encourage crony capitalism. Crony capitalism's core principle – which is unprincipled
– is that the government should treat elite CEOs as their 'customers' or 'partners.' A
number of us publicly expressed our rage at the corrupt order to treat CEOs as our customers.
The corrupt order caused me to leave the government.
Our purpose as regulators is to serve the people of the United States – not bank CEOs.
It was disgusting and dishonest for Peters to claim that our objection to crony capitalism
represented our (fictional) disdain for serving the public. Many S&L regulators risked
their careers by taking on elite S&L frauds and their powerful political fixers. Many of us
paid a heavy personal price because we acted to protect the public from these elite frauds. Our
efforts prevented the S&L debacle from causing a GFC – precisely because we
recognized the critical need to spend most of our time preventing and prosecuting the elite
frauds that Stone wanted us to ignore..
Trump's wrecking crew is devoted to recreating Clinton and Bush's disastrous crony
capitalism war on regulation that produced the GFC. In a June 8,
2018 article , the Wall Street Journal mocked Trump's appointment of Joseph Otting
as Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The illustration that introduces the article bears the
motto: "IN BANKS WE TRUST."
Otting, channeling his inner Pitt, declared his employees guilty of systematic misconduct
and embraced crony capitalism through Pitt's favorite phrase – "partnership."
I think it is more of a partnership with the banks as opposed to a dictatorial perspective
under the prior administration.
Otting, while he was in the industry, compared the OCC under President Obama to a fictional
interstellar terrorist. Obama appointed federal banking regulators that were pale imitation of
Ed Gray, Joe Selby, and Mike Patriarca – the leaders of the S&L reregulation. The
idea that Obama's banking regulators were akin to 'terrorists' is farcical.
The WSJ's December 12, 2018 article reported that Otting had also used Bob Stone's
favorite term to embrace crony capitalism.
Comptroller of the Currency Joseph Otting has also changed the tone from the top at his
agency, calling banks his "customers."
There are many terrible role models Trump could copy as his model of how to destroy banking
regulation and produce the next GFC, but Otting descended into unintentional self-parody when
he channeled word-for-word the most incompetent and dishonest members of Clinton and Bush's
wrecking crews.
The same article reported a trade association's statement that demonstrates the type of
outrageous reaction that crony capitalism inevitably breeds within industry.
Banks are suffering from "examiner criticisms that do not deal with any violation of law,"
said Greg Baer, CEO of the Bank Policy Institute ."
The article presented no response to this statement so I will explain why it is absurd.
First, "banks" do not "suffer" from "examiner criticism." Banks gain from examiner criticism.
Effective regulators (and whistleblowers) are the only people who routinely 'speak truth to
power.' Auditors, credit rating agencies, and attorneys routinely 'bless' the worst CEO abuses
that harm banks while enriching the CEO. The bank CEO cannot fire the examiner, so the
examiners' expert advice is the only truly "independent" advice the bank's board of directors
receives. That makes the examiners' criticisms invaluable to the bank. CEOs hate our advice
because we are the only 'control' (other than the episodic whistleblower) that is willing and
competent to criticize the CEO.
The idea that examiners should not criticize any bank misconduct, predation, or 'unsafe
and unsound practice' that does not constitute a felony is obviously insane. While
"violations of law" (felonies) are obviously of importance to us in almost all cases, our
greatest expertise is in identifying – and stopping – "unsafe and unsound
practices" because such practices, like fraud, are leading causes of bank losses and
failures.
Third, repeated "unsafe and unsound practices" are a leading indicator of likely elite
insider bank fraud and other "violations of law."
The trade association complaint that examiners dare to criticize non-felonious bank
conduct – and the WSJ reporters' failure to point out the absurdity of that
complaint – demonstrate that the banking industry's goal remains the destruction of
effective banking regulation. Trump's wrecking crew is using the Clinton and Bush playbook to
restore fully crony capitalism. He has greatly accelerated the onset of the next GFC.
Thank you for this, Bill Black. IMO the long-term de-regulatory policies under successive
administrations cited here, together with their neutering the rule of law by overturning the
Glass-Steagall Act; de-funding and failing to enforce antitrust, fraud and securities laws;
financial repression of the majority; hidden financial markets subsidies; and other policies
are just part of an organized, long-term systemic effort to enable, organize and subsidize
massive control and securities fraud; theft of and disinvestment in publicly owned resources
and services; environmental damage; and transfers of social costs that enable the organizers
to in turn gain a hugely disproportionate share of the nation's wealth and nearly absolute
political control under their "Citizens United" political framework.
Not to diminish, but among other things the current president provides nearly daily
entertainment, diversion and spectacle in our Brave New World that serves to obfuscate what
has occurred and is happening.
I'm with you Chauncey. I believe the rot really got started with creative accounting in
early 1970s. That's when accountants of every flavor lost themselves and were soon followed
by the lawyers. Sauce for the goose.
Banks and Insurers and many industrial concerns have become too big. We could avoid all
the regulatory problems by placing a maximum size on commercial endeavour.
A number of years ago I did both the primary capital program and environmental (NEPA) review
for major capital projects in a Federal Region. Hundreds of millions of dollars were at
stake. A local agency wanted us (the Feds) to approve pushing up many of their projects using
a so-called Public Private Partnership (PPP). This required the local agency to borrow many
millions from Wall Street while at the same time privatizing many of their here-to-fore
public operations. And of course there was an added benefit of instituting a non-union
shop.
To this end I was required to sit down with the local agency head (he actually wore white
shoes), his staff and several representatives of Goldman-Sachs. After the meeting ended, I
opined to the agency staff that Goldman-Sachs was "bullshit" and so were their projects.
Shortly thereafter I was removed to a less high-profile Region with projects that were not
all that griftable, and there was no danger of me having to review a PPP.
Oh, and I denied, denied, denied saying "bullshit."
Thank you, NC, for featuring these posts by Bill Black.
I have more than a passing acquaintance with banking, banking regulation, and banking's
rectitude (such an old fashioned word) in the importance for Main Street's survival, and for
the country's as a whole survival as a trusted pivot point in world finance , or for
the survival of the whole American project. I know this sounds like an over-the-top assertion
on my part, however I believe it true.
Main Street also knows the importance of sound banking. Sound banking is not a 'poker
chip' to be used for games. Sound banking is key to the American experiment in
self-determination, as it has been called.
Politicians who 'don't get this" have lost touch with the entire American enterprise,
imo. And, no, the neoliberal promise that nation-states no longer matter doesn't make this
point moot.
adding: US founding father Alexander Hambleton did understand the importance of sound
banking, and so Obama et al confusing "banking" with sound banking is too ironic, imo.
It was actually worse than this. The very deliberate strategy was to indoctrinate
employees of federal regulatory agencies to see the companies they regulated not as
"partners" but as "customers" to be served. This theme is repeated again and again in Bush
era agency reports. Elizabeth Warren was viciously attacked early in the Obama Administration
for calling for a new "watchdog" agency to protect consumers. The idea that a federal agency
would dedicate itself to protecting citizens first was portrayed as dangerously radical by
industry.
Models on Clinton and Bush.
What's not to like? Why isn't msm and dem elites showing him the love when he's following
their long term policies?
And we might assume these would be hills policies if she had been pushed over the line.
A little thought realizes that in spite of the pearl clutching they far prefer him to
Bernie.
After the Soviet-backed People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) took power in 1978,
the Pentagon began arming the Islamist opposition to the PDPA. US officials, reeling from their
defeat in Vietnam, devised a policy of "sucking the Soviets into a Vietnamese quagmire" in
Afghanistan, as CIA official Robert Gates wrote in his 1996 memoir From the Shadows .
When the Kremlin invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, in a reactionary attempt to strengthen
the PDPA regime in Kabul and stabilize the PDPA's relations with the Afghan rural elites,
Washington used Afghanistan as a battleground to bleed the Soviet army.
One of the CIA's main allies in carrying out this policy, recruiting tens of thousands of
Islamist fighters worldwide to go and fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, was a young Saudi
billionaire, Osama bin Laden, the future leader of Al Qaeda. Hensman endorses the US policy in
Afghanistan, while remaining silent on the CIA-Al Qaeda alliance, and presents it as part of a
liberation struggle against Soviet imperialism.
She writes, "A PDPA coup in 1978 faced tribal revolts that developed into a full-scale
uprising by December 1979, when the Russians invaded and occupied Afghanistan. The military
campaign that followed resembled the US campaign in Vietnam in its brutality to civilians The
war had reached a stalemate in the mid-1980s when Reagan, who was already supporting the
mujahideen, agreed to supply them with Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. These weapons turned the
tide against the Russians..."
Hensman's defense of the US role in the Soviet-Afghan war, and her silence on CIA-backed
Islamist terror networks, are reactionary. She hides the bloody character of the CIA-backed
Islamist proxy wars, both in 1979–1992 in Afghanistan and in 1979–1982 in Syria. It
is the descendants of these same forces, who are fighting today's Syrian war, that Hensman
hails as a "democratic revolution."
And then there's Brzezinski, with his murderous legacy that contains a curious thread linking
the Mujahideen "freedom fighters" to 9/11. As was written in the recently republished article
on the Bush family fortune and the Holocaust, "the only constant is the defense of the power
and privilege of the ruling oligarchy by whatever means are required."
--- Brzezinski acknowledged in an interview with the French news magazine Le Nouvel
Observateur in January 1998 that he initiated a policy in which the CIA covertly began arming
the mujahedeen in July 1978 -- six months before Soviet troops intervened in Afghanistan --
with the explicit aim of dragging the Soviet Union into a debilitating war.
Asked, given the catastrophe unleashed upon Afghanistan and the subsequent growth of
Islamist terrorist groups like Al Qaeda, whether he regretted the policy he championed in
Afghanistan, Brzezinski replied:
"Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing
the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets
officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of
giving to the USSR its Vietnam War. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war
unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally
the breakup of the Soviet empire."
Asked specifically whether he regretted the CIA's collaboration with and arming of
Islamist extremists, including Al Qaeda, in fomenting the war in Afghanistan, Brzezinski
responded contemptuously: "What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or
the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central
Europe and the end of the cold war?"
Kind of a funny aside: to find the Z-bigz quote I wanted, I put "Brzezinski on
Afghanistan" into duckduckgo, and the wsws obituary was third from the top.
End of cheap oil is the next milestone in the development of neoliberalism. It remain to be seen if it can survive the end of
cheap oil.
Notable quotes:
"... According to a Gallup poll, in 2000 only 33% of Americans called themselves working class; by 2015 the figure was 48%, almost half the population. ..."
"... American politicians, Obama in particular, constantly talk about "the middle class" when they want to refer to the bulk of the working population, as if almost everybody were doctors, lawyers, teachers and managers. ..."
"... This situation in the USA remind me of Australia where we have a choice between two right wing parties ..."
"... austerity for the working class while the rich go untouched even to pay a fair share of taxation. It's world wide the servants of the 1% who own 50% of the world's economy. ..."
"... There is no country in the world that doesn't have a mixture of both. The mix is probably a bit strained in north Korea but those countries where private capital is supreme all have intolerable conditions for workers. The Nordic countries probably have the most enlightened approach and best living standards for the majority. Remember well the old adage: With communism man exploits man. With capitalism it's the other way round. ..."
"... one can only hope neoliberalism is dead and/or dying.... ..."
"... Trump does not truly represent the labor or economically frustrated class. He is saying things that they'd like to hear. He is a rich and pompous man who belongs to the class which benefited tremendously from neoliberalistic policies. People are so fed up with inequality, their emotions can be directed in any direction and manipulated. Anger needs a target - Mexicans, Blacks, women, Muslims, immigrants and the list expands. Trump is misleading them by speaking in their voices while enjoying the comfort of luxury that he built by exploiting those very people. ..."
Quote: According to a Gallup poll, in 2000 only 33% of Americans called themselves working
class; by 2015 the figure was 48%, almost half the population.
How strange. American politicians, Obama in particular, constantly talk about "the middle
class" when they want to refer to the bulk of the working population, as if almost everybody
were doctors, lawyers, teachers and managers. It's good therefore to know that the American
people know better than their politicians how to classify themselves.
This situation in the USA remind me of Australia where we have a choice between two right
wing parties. The LNP is extreme/ultra right wing and our Labor Party is right wing
controlled. At least in Britain you have a choice, from afar it seems that your Conservative
Party is equal to our LNP but your Labour Party seems to be a little more Left wing than our
Labor Party which is a good thing for Britain.
willpodmore your next target must be your tory government, they are doing to you what our
tory government in Australia is doing to us and if Trump gets elected the USA tory government
will do to them, austerity for the working class while the rich go untouched even to pay a
fair share of taxation. It's world wide the servants of the 1% who own 50% of the world's
economy. If you don't believe me type the 1% own 50% of Earth's economy into Dr Goggle and
see what come up.
The one thing all Left leaning people do agree on is 'fairness' and equity for all, in
economic terms it means that huge corporations pay a fair share of tax, as working people do.
Sadly Tory govts ignore the profits of corporations and fail to force them to pay a fair
share of tax. The basic problem that the neo-cons suffer from is insatiable greed where
enough is never enough, selfishness is also a trait along with lack of empathy or compassion
for their fellow mankind.
"neoliberalism" is simply unregulated capitalism as practiced by Tory governments around the
world. Labour governments usually regulate and force these huge corporations to pay a fair
share of taxation from their huge incomes. The corporations are owned by the 1% who own 50%
of the world economy and continuing to grow on a daily basis.
Yes, nothing has changed in my lifetime except the 1% now own 50% of Earth's economy. Working
people have always struggled while the rich build their mansions, both Bernie Sanders and
Jeremy Corbyn have the right idea of a fair distribution of wealth. This means these huge
corporations paying their fair share of their income in taxes to the host country so "all"
the people receive some benefit, apart from the 1%.
blaster1, the joke of the century, globalisation -- which will only increase to the benefit of
everyone eventually. You obviously have little knowledge apart from what the Tories feed you.
1% of the global population own 50% of Earth's economy and through their corporations who the
tories allow to avoid paying tax will build on that 50% how long will it eventually take the
other 99% to receive any benefit? 200,000 years?
Exploitation is high on the priority list of any Tory government, wealth should be
distributed much more fairly than it currently is. The tories only serve the rich, they have
no time or empathy for the poor. Empathy and compassion are vacant in the tory philosophy of
the world. These two components make up a psychopathic personality.
pantomimetorie yes, and England could also be if you had a government who were not merely
servants of the rich. A government interested in the fair distribution of wealth. Not a tory
government, obviously!
There's no such thing as neoliberalism, it's just capitalism and capitalism actually works,
unlike socialism.
Yes it works alright, it works for the 1% of the global population who own 50% of the global
economy, sadly it leaves in its wake an underclass of people living below the poverty line
struggling to survive. It works for the rich, but there is no mechanism in the system that
the conservative will use to force the rich to pay their fair share of taxation to the
country included in that are the multibillion pound multinational corporations who pay little
to naught in taxes also which leaves a huge swathe of the population on Struggle Street and
the sooner that democratic socialism is instituted the better off the other 99% will be.
Keep up! There is no country in the world that doesn't have a mixture of both. The mix is
probably a bit strained in north Korea but those countries where private capital is supreme
all have intolerable conditions for workers. The Nordic countries probably have the most
enlightened approach and best living standards for the majority. Remember well the old
adage:
With communism man exploits man.
With capitalism it's the other way round.
Think they call it lobbying. Companies pay professional lobby firms staffed with ex MPs or
whatever to ' meet' ministers. The PR companies make 'donations' to party funds and push for
government contracts, changes in legislation, favorable to their industry tax breaks. You
can do it of course. Write to your mp to get your local roads, parks, libraries, improved.
Don't hold your breath.
That has to be the joke of the year if not the century!!!!!!!!!!!!
The most dynamic period of postwar western growth was that between the end of the war and
the early 70s, the era of welfare capitalism and Keynesianism, when the growth rate was
double that of the neoliberal period from 1980 to the present.
It would be interesting to see those growth figures with inflation taken into account or
to average them out across the whole world and not just the West. I suspect that if the
massive growth in India, China and the rest of Asia was taken into account the growth figures
wouldn't be so bad.
Excuse me? You're the one claiming rural inhabitants "have no idea" what city life entails.
That may have been the case centuries ago, but not now. Offshoring is small potatoes in the shift of global production. It may have been big news
a decade ago. We aren't a decade ago.
"Poverty = no kids" is your myth. Human history proves otherwise. Nobody's "decimating western/westernized population for profit". Is what you're about
really more white people, fewer brown people? Just say it, this is the Guardian, we've heard
it all before.
So run your country then. But intelligently, not on the basis of twisted myth-making and
dodgy race myths that we had enough of in 1945.
The left, at least as far as I know, have not been able to build up a solid set of
ideas on which to build a political agenda nor have they sought to gain traction for their
ideas in sites of knowledge production. The neoliberals were organised and waiting when
their turn came. For me, the left have fragmented and have turned to cultural critiques and
identity politics, forgoing any kind of realistic transformative agenda.
Apologies for not answering earlier.
i) Traction in sites of knowledge production is happening certainly. Again I can point to the
article for support - Stiglitz, Ha-Joon Chang, Piketty etc did not arise to such prominence
due to an organised left-wing agenda but because events in the real world demanded an
explanation for why neoliberalism wasn't delivering its universal benison as promised, and
indeed was showing empirical signs that it might be poisonous to economic activity in certain
fundamental ways.
ii) In my view it is quite possible to support identity politics (social liberalism if you
like) and a more left wing view of economics. At present the more enthusiastic placard wavers
are seeing identity politics as more likely to produce a beneficial change, but many are
recognising that the former hegemony of neoliberalism is breaking, and the best way to really
enhance the welfare of vulnerable groups is to promote universal economic justice in some
form.
iii) You appear to want to replace one hegemonic system of thought with another. But these
are the wrong tactics for me, since we have things to do in the real world.
By all means explain some of the properties your new left hegemonic theory should have, I'd
be very interested to hear them.
But in the end the practical steps are obvious and consist of applying left wing principles
to the modern economy. An example would be privatising the natural monopoly of the
railways.
If that sounds retro, it isn't, because we've never had to deal with an economy in this
condition before. We must proceed step by step in my view. The hegemony of neoliberalism was
damaging and lasted 40 years and counting. We must be pragmatic to be successful, given what
we know about the modern economy, and proceed by finding successful strategies rather than an
abstruse new theory that ignores the messy present in favour of some pure, simple conception
of the world backed up by the PR department. As I said above, one of the critical faults of
neoliberalism is its insistence that it is the answer to everyone's prayers. That certainty
is also the seed of its destruction, because to avoid doubts it eventually has to answer
those unrealistic prayers.
Trump does not truly represent the labor or economically frustrated class. He is saying
things that they'd like to hear. He is a rich and pompous man who belongs to the class which
benefited tremendously from neoliberalistic policies. People are so fed up with inequality,
their emotions can be directed in any direction and manipulated. Anger needs a target -
Mexicans, Blacks, women, Muslims, immigrants and the list expands. Trump is misleading them
by speaking in their voices while enjoying the comfort of luxury that he built by exploiting
those very people.
Billions of Chinese and Indian have never seen a toilet in their life, so yes, they really
don't know what life in a city is. And that doesn't make them "dumb". In their domain,
farming, you don't look like a brain storm either.
Offshoring isn't a "tiny element". We are no longer self sustaining and if China slammed the
door (as they did for a brief instant on Japan), there'd be serious heartburn in the US
before transitioning.
The official western tautology is fail/fail for the public. Not enough jobs to consider
having kids? Too bad. Not enough money to raise your kids? Too bad. Due to natural events?
No, due to political gaming.
Decimating western/westernized population for profit. It's not complicated. It is you who
claim immigration is needed to leave it as it is. "Ending our ability to pay pensions by
ending immigration isn't improvement either. "
The west has no business meddling with the rest of the planet if it can't run their own
countries.
People aren't so dumb as you imagine. They really didn't know about life in the city? Every
village had its emigrant. I've no such disdain for those who made that move.
Offshoring's now a tiny element in western deindustrialisation. Your costs are too high,
you can't compete: don't blame those worse off than yourself, put your own house in order and
educate your workforce to do better than flip burgers.
"Birth control brings down reproduction rates" is a meaningless tautology. People have
been practising birth control for centuries, mainly by delaying marriage. The PRB peddles
malthusian nonsense that the past half-century has clearly discredited. I thought you were
for population growth anyway: "economies so economically unstable that population declines"?
Make your mind up.
The ridiculous boom did crash, in 2008. Maybe you missed it. I want to know how we go
forward. But people need to pay attention to what's going on outside our head too.
I correct misrepresentations of the truth such as yours.
And the problem with communism is that it suspends peoples right in favour of central
control.
Communism and socialism is a post -capitalist society, means exactly the same thing to
me as they did to Marx also.
The common ownership and democratic control by us all, of all the means and instruments
for creating and distributing wealth. 'Common' and 'social' mean the same.
Nothing to do with state ownership or corporate or private ownership.
Nothing to do with central control either . It is a post-capitalist system
which utilises the technological advances of capitalism to produce for use to satisfy human
needs, using self feeding loopback informational tools for stock measurements and control
with direct inputs at local regional and global levels to allow calculation in kind, as
opposed to the economic calculation of capitalism, only necessary to satisfy profit
taking.
The reality is that we can all choose to be rich or poor. We are free to do as we wish
(within the law).
Nonsense. If you are born poor you will most likely die poor. Poverty is both absolute
and relative.
All wealth comes from the exploited abour of the working class which creates a surplus value
above its rationed access (wages). A commonly owned society, would not have rich or poor, we
would all have free access to the commonly produced wealth, with no elite classes creaming it
off and storing it.
Other than that, mind your own damn business, if you can't deal with the arguments.
One of the biggest downsides of the rise of Corbyn and Sanders, interesting though it is, is
the oxygen it seems to be giving to several old Marxist hacks who have made a good living for
decades banging on about their discredited and blood soaked ideology, ie Jacques et al.
Recently joined by that newly hatched Marxist harpie on the block, the hipster bearded and
thoroughly poisonous Richard Seymour.
The fact is there is not and never was any such thing as "neoliberalism". What they are
really referring to is globalisation- which will only increase to the benefit of everyone
eventually. The world is shrinking ever faster and that is no bad thing. Progress, evolution,
the future, call it what you want. To try and make out that it is halting or in reverse is
plainly nonsense.
???
What I remember of Reagan,
- spent like a drunken sailor, "defense" spending, til it broke US economy
- unbounded "adjustable rate" and "balloon" mortgages, first bank bailout, bill kicked down
the road to Bush Sr., $125 billion, when it blew up
- "trickle down", wealth transfer, via having taxed public pick up the tab for not just his
defense binge spending, but also corporate welfare programs (patent office, Import/Export
bank, infrastructure, etc.)
- first soup kitchens, adults panhandling/will work for food signs that I'd ever seen
- illegal immigrant amnesty, millions
- "War On Drugs" and right after that black neighborhoods flooded with crack
Reagan and Thatcher kicking off their "gut the public of wealth" agenda.
Their story is "you're a failure". Because a) you don't work hard enough/long enough, b) hold
your household together (if you were at work all waking hours), c) don't know how to raise
decent, independent kids (whilst being at work every waking hour), d) aren't motivated to
improve your lot in life if you need to work every waking hour and e) probably need to take
stress management classes if this gets on your nerves because you personally are driving up
"our" health care costs with your irresponsible neglect of your health.
Or, as the economists tout in the papers, "Productivity is up!" Or as the oligarchical put
it, "we need immigrant work force", who'll do it for cheaper and not complain or
burden us with their need for an actual life outside of work.
Clinton is, was, and still is. despite her recent fake reversal, a staunch supporter of TPP
and other trade agreements that will further impoverish the working class. She is the
furthest thing from a populist. Case closed.
"... The crash was a write-off, not a repair job. The response should be a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth is created and distributed around the globe ..."
"... The IMF also admits that it "underestimated" the effect austerity would have on Greece. Obviously, the rest of the Troika takes no issue with that. Even those who substitute "kick up the arse to all the lazy scroungers" whenever they encounter the word "austerity", have cottoned on to the fact that the word can only be intoned with facial features locked into a suitably tragic mask. ..."
"... Yet, mealy-mouthed and hotly contested as this minor mea culpa is, it's still a sign that financial institutions may slowly be coming round to the idea that they are the problem. ..."
"... Markets cannot be free. Markets have to be nurtured. They have to be invested in. Markets have to be grown. Google, Amazon and Apple haven't taught anyone in this country to read. But even though an illiterate market wouldn't be so great for them, they avoid their taxes, because they can, because they are more powerful than governments. ..."
"... The neoliberalism that the IMF still preaches pays no account to any of this. It insists that the provision of work alone is enough of an invisible hand to sustain a market. Yet even Adam Smith, the economist who came up with that theory , did not agree that economic activity alone was enough to keep humans decent and civilised. ..."
"... Governments are left with the bill when neoliberals demand access to markets that they refuse to invest in making. Their refusal allows them to rail against the Big State while producing the conditions that make it necessary. ..."
The crash was a write-off, not a repair job. The response should be a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth is
created and distributed around the globe
Sat 8 Jun 2013 02.59 EDT First published on Sat 8 Jun 2013 02.59 EDT
The IMF's limited admission of guilt over the Greek bailout is a start, but they still can't see the global financial system's
fundamental flaws, writes Deborah Orr. Photograph: Boris Roessler/DPA FILE T he International Monetary Fund has admitted that some
of the decisions it made in the wake of the 2007-2008 financial crisis were wrong, and that the €130bn first bailout of Greece was
"bungled". Well, yes. If it hadn't been a mistake, then it would have been the only bailout and everyone in Greece would have lived
happily ever after.
Actually, the IMF hasn't quite admitted that it messed things up. It has said instead that it went along with its partners in
"the Troika" – the European Commission and the European Central Bank – when it shouldn't have. The EC and the ECB, says the IMF,
put the interests of the eurozone before the interests of Greece. The EC and the ECB, in turn, clutch their pearls and splutter with
horror that they could be accused of something so petty as self-preservation.
The IMF also admits that it "underestimated" the effect austerity would have on Greece. Obviously, the rest of the Troika takes
no issue with that. Even those who substitute "kick up the arse to all the lazy scroungers" whenever they encounter the word "austerity",
have cottoned on to the fact that the word can only be intoned with facial features locked into a suitably tragic mask.
Yet, mealy-mouthed and hotly contested as this minor mea culpa is, it's still a sign that financial institutions may slowly be
coming round to the idea that they are the problem. They know the crash was a debt-bubble that burst. What they don't seem to acknowledge
is that the merry days of reckless lending are never going to return; even if they do, the same thing will happen again, but more
quickly and more savagely. The thing is this: the crash was a write-off, not a repair job. The response from the start should have
been a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth is created and distributed around the globe, a "structural adjustment",
as the philosopher
John Gray has said all along.
The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at governments that run up debt. And, of course,
its loans famously come with strings attached: adopt a free-market economy, or strengthen the one you have, kissing goodbye to the
Big State. Yet, the irony is painful. Neoliberal ideology insists that states are too big and cumbersome, too centralised and faceless,
to be efficient and responsive. I agree. The problem is that the ruthless sentimentalists of neoliberalism like to tell themselves
– and anyone else who will listen – that removing the dead hand of state control frees the individual citizen to be entrepreneurial
and productive. Instead, it places the financially powerful beyond any state, in an international elite that makes its own rules,
and holds governments to ransom. That's what the financial crisis was all about. The ransom was paid, and as a result, governments
have been obliged to limit their activities yet further – some setting about the task with greater relish than others. Now the task,
supposedly, is to get the free market up and running again.
But the basic problem is this: it costs a lot of money to cultivate a market – a group of consumers – and the more sophisticated
the market is, the more expensive it is to cultivate them. A developed market needs to be populated with educated, healthy, cultured,
law-abiding and financially secure people – people who expect to be well paid themselves, having been brought up believing in material
aspiration, as consumers need to be.
So why, exactly, given the huge amount of investment needed to create such a market, should access to it then be "free"? The neoliberal
idea is that the cultivation itself should be conducted privately as well. They see "austerity" as a way of forcing that agenda.
But how can the privatisation of societal welfare possibly happen when unemployment is already high, working people are turning to
food banks to survive and the debt industry, far from being sorry that it brought the global economy to its knees, is snapping up
bargains in the form of busted high-street businesses to establish shops with nothing to sell but high-interest debt? Why, you have
to ask yourself, is this vast implausibility, this sheer unsustainability, not blindingly obvious to all?
Markets cannot be free. Markets have to be nurtured. They have to be invested in. Markets have to be grown. Google, Amazon
and Apple haven't taught anyone in this country to read. But even though an illiterate market wouldn't be so great for them, they
avoid their taxes, because they can, because they are more powerful than governments.
And further, those who invest in these companies, and insist that taxes should be low to encourage private profit and shareholder
value, then lend governments the money they need to create these populations of sophisticated producers and consumers, berating them
for their profligacy as they do so. It's all utterly, completely, crazy.
The other day a health minister,
Anna Soubry
, suggested that female GPs who worked part-time so that they could bring up families were putting the NHS under strain. The
compartmentalised thinking is quite breathtaking. What on earth does she imagine? That it would be better for the economy if they
all left school at 16? On the contrary, the more people who are earning good money while working part-time – thus having the leisure
to consume – the better. No doubt these female GPs are sustaining both the pharmaceutical industry and the arts and media, both sectors
that Britain does well in.
As for their prioritising of family life over career – that's just another of the myriad ways in which Conservative neoliberalism
is entirely without logic. Its prophets and its disciples will happily – ecstatically – tell you that there's nothing more important
than family, unless you're a family doctor spending some of your time caring for your own. You couldn't make these characters up.
It is certainly true that women with children find it more easy to find part-time employment in the public sector. But that's a prima
facie example of how unresponsive the private sector is to human and societal need, not – as it is so often presented – evidence
that the public sector is congenitally disabled.
Much of the healthy economic growth – as opposed to the smoke and mirrors of many aspects of financial services – that Britain
enjoyed during the second half of the 20th century was due to women swelling the educated workforce. Soubry and her ilk, above all
else, forget that people have multiple roles, as consumers, as producers, as citizens and as family members. All of those things
have to be nurtured and invested in to make a market.
The neoliberalism that the IMF still preaches pays no account to any of this. It insists that the provision of work alone
is enough of an invisible hand to sustain a market. Yet even Adam Smith, the economist who
came up with that theory , did not agree
that economic activity alone was enough to keep humans decent and civilised.
Governments are left with the bill when neoliberals demand access to markets that they refuse to invest in making. Their refusal
allows them to rail against the Big State while producing the conditions that make it necessary. And even as the results of their
folly become ever more plain to see, they are grudging in their admittance of the slightest blame, bickering with their allies instead
of waking up, smelling the coffee and realizing that far too much of it is sold through Starbucks.
Like the term "conspiracy theory "whataboutism" is a nasty and dirty propaganda trick. Truth can be understood only in historical
context.
Notable quotes:
"... The detail of b's analysis that stands out to me as especially significant and brilliant is his demolition of the Guardian's reuse of the Merkel "quote." ..."
"... Related to the above, consider the nature of the recently christened thought-crime, "whataboutism." The crime may be defined as follows: ..."
"... "Whataboutism" is the attempt to understand a truth asserted by propaganda by way of relation to other truths it has asserted contemporaneous with or prior to this one. It is to ask, "What about this *other* truth? Does this *other* truth affect our understanding of *this* truth? And if so, how does it?" ..."
"... Whataboutism seems to proclaim that each asserted truth stands on its own, and has no essential relation to any other past, present, or future asserted truth. ..."
The detail of b's analysis that stands out to me as especially significant and brilliant is his demolition of the Guardian's
reuse of the Merkel "quote."
This one detail tells us so much about how propaganda works, and about how it can be defeated. Successful propaganda both depends
upon and seeks to accelerate the erasure of historical memory. This is because its truths are always changing to suit the immediate
needs of the state. None of its truths can be understood historically. b makes the connection between the documented but forgotten
past "truth" of Merkel's quote and its present reincarnation in the Guardian, and this is really all he *needs* to do.
What b points out is something quite simple; yet the ability to do this very simple thing is becoming increasingly rare and
its exercise increasingly difficult to achieve. It is for me the virtue that makes b's analysis uniquely indispensable.
Related to the above, consider the nature of the recently christened thought-crime, "whataboutism." The crime may be defined
as follows:
"Whataboutism" is the attempt to understand a truth asserted by propaganda by way of relation to other truths it has
asserted contemporaneous with or prior to this one. It is to ask, "What about this *other* truth? Does this *other* truth affect
our understanding of *this* truth? And if so, how does it?"
Whataboutism seems to proclaim that each asserted truth stands on its own, and has no essential relation to any other past,
present, or future asserted truth.
"... Because once we go from "corruption is getting more and more common; something must be done" to "meh," we are crossing from a flawed democratic republic to outright tyranny and oligarchy with little way back. ..."
"... Why would anyone expect anything different from the Times, or any major U.S. Newspaper or media outlet? They are organs of the intelligence community and have been for many years. ..."
"... I think the ridiculous and pathetic explanations by NYT in this case are, in part, due to the fact that they simply don't care enough to produce better answers. In their view, these CIA connections and those with other Govt. agencies are paramount, and must be maintained at all costs. ..."
"... It is likely that the relationship is a little more formal than mere collusion ..."
"... "Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few" [George Bernard Shaw" ..."
"... Has been since Judith Miller told us there were WMD in Iraq in 2003. They don't plan anticipations of crises, but the actual crises themselves. In a moral world, the NYT is as guilty of genocide as Bush and Blair. ..."
The more important objection is that the fact that a certain behavior is common does not negate its being corrupt. Indeed,
as is true for government abuses generally, those in power rely on the willingness of citizens to be trained to view corrupt
acts as so common that they become inured, numb, to its wrongfulness. Once a corrupt practice is sufficiently perceived as
commonplace, then it is transformed in people's minds from something objectionable into something acceptable.
Because once we go from "corruption is getting more and more common; something must be done" to "meh," we are crossing
from a flawed democratic republic to outright tyranny and oligarchy with little way back.
Besides, they don't all do it ... there are honorable reporters out there, some few of whom work for the Times and the Post.
Another great article Glenn. The Guardian will spread your words further and wider. Salon's loss is the world's gain.
Why would anyone expect anything different from the Times, or any major U.S. Newspaper or media outlet? They are organs
of the intelligence community and have been for many years. That these email were allowed to get out under FOIA is indicative
of the fact that there are some people on the inside who would like to get the truth out. Either that, or the head of some ES-2's
Assistant Deputy for Secret Shenanigans and Heinous Drone Murders will roll.
Scott Horton quote on closely related Mazzetti reporting (in this case regarding misleading reporting on how important CIA/Bush
torture was in tracking down and getting bin Laden, the focus of this movie):
"I'm quite sure that this is precisely the way the folks who provided this info from the agency [to Mazzetti] wanted them to
be understood, but there is certainly more than a measure of ambiguity in them, planted with care by the NYT writers or their
editors. This episode shows again how easily the Times can be spun by unnamed government sources, the factual premises of whose
statements invariably escape any examination."
I think the ridiculous and pathetic explanations by NYT in this case are, in part, due to the fact that they simply don't
care enough to produce better answers. In their view, these CIA connections and those with other Govt. agencies are paramount,
and must be maintained at all costs.
If you don't like their paper-thin answers, tough. In their view (imo) this will blow over and business will resume, with the
all-important friends and connections intact. Thus leaving the machinery intact for future uncritical, biased and manipulative
"spin" of NYT by any number of unnamed govt. sources/agencies...
In what conceivable way is Mazzetti's collusion with the CIA an "intelligence matter" that prevents the NYT's managing
editor from explaining what happened here?
That one is easy, as we learned in the Valerie Plame affair. It is likely that the relationship is a little more formal
than mere collusion.
Just another step down the ladder towards despotism. "Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment
by the corrupt few" [George Bernard Shaw"
The relationship between the New York Times and the US government is, as usual, anything but adversarial. Indeed, these
emails read like the interactions between a PR representative and his client as they plan in anticipation of a possible crisis.
Has been since Judith Miller told us there were WMD in Iraq in 2003. They don't plan anticipations of crises, but the actual
crises themselves. In a moral world, the NYT is as guilty of genocide as Bush and Blair.
The humor seems to go completely out of the issue when 100,000 people are dead and their families and futures changed forever.
"We pledge subservience to the Owners of the United Corporations of America, and to the Oligarchy for which it stands, one Greed
under God, indivisible, with power and wealth for few."
Notable quotes:
"... bin laden gave terror a face. how conveeeenient for warmongers everywhere! ..."
"... CIA in collusion with mainstream newspaper NYT. And you call this news ? ..."
"... collusion between the us media and the us government goes back much, much further. Chomsky has plenty of stuff about this... ..."
"... The NYTimes has its own agenda and bends the news that's fit to print. Journalistic integrity? LOL. No one beat the war drums louder for Bush's Neocons before the Iraq war. Draining our nation's resources, getting young Americans killed (they didn't come from the 1%, you see). The cradle of civilization that's the Iraqi landscape wiped out. Worst, 655,000 Iraqis lost their lives, said British medical journal Lancet, creating 2.5mn each internal & external refugees. ..."
"... The NYT never dwelled on the numbers of Iraqis killed. Up to a few weeks ago, its emphasis on the current Syrian tragedy is to inform us on the hundreds or thousands who've lost their lives. ..."
"... World financial meltdown? When Sanford Weill of Citi pushed for the repeal of Glass-Steagall late 1990's, the FDR era 17-page law separating commercial from investment banks, a measure that's preserved the nation's banking integrity for over half a century, the Nyt added its megaphone to the task, urging Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin to comply, editorializing In 1988: "Few economic historians now find the logic behind Glass-Steagall persuasive" . In 1990, that "banks and stocks were a dangerous mixture" "makes little sense now." ..."
"... just off the top of my head I recall the editor of one of a British major was an MI5 agent; this is in the public domain. ..."
"... We pledge subservience to the Owners of the United Corporations of America, and to the Oligarchy for which it stands, one Greed under God, indivisible, with power and wealth for few. ..."
"... The NYT has been infiltrated for decades by CIA agents. Just notice their dogged reporting on the completely debunked "lone-gunman" JFK theory---they will always report that Oswald acted alone---this is the standard CIA story, pushed and maintained by the NYT despite overwhelming evidence that there was a conspiracy (likely involving the CIA). ..."
I've often wondered what you think of the journalism of someone like Seymour Hirsch. (sic) He broke some very important
stories by cozying up to moles in the MIC.
You'e confusing apples with oranges. Hersh seeks information on issues that outrage him. These do not usually include propaganda
for the intelligence agencies, but information they would like to suppress. He's given secret information because he appears to
his informers as someone who has a long record of integrity.
It's straight outta that old joke about the husband being caught by his wife in flagrante delicto with the pretty young lady neighbour,
who then tells his wife that he and his bit on the side weren't doing anything: "And who do you believe-- me, or your lying eyes?"
The NYTimes has its own agenda and bends the news that's fit to print. Journalistic integrity? LOL. No one beat the
war drums louder for Bush's Neocons before the Iraq war. Draining our nation's resources, getting young Americans killed (they
didn't come from the 1%, you see). The cradle of civilization that's the Iraqi landscape wiped out. Worst, 655,000 Iraqis lost
their lives, said British medical journal Lancet, creating 2.5mn each internal & external refugees.
Following the pre-Iraq
embellishment, NYT covered up its deeds by sacrificing Journalist Judith Miller. As Miller answered a post-war court case, none
other than Chairman & CEO Arthur Sulzberger jr. locked arms with her as they entered the courtroom.
The NYT never dwelled on the numbers of Iraqis killed. Up to a few weeks ago, its emphasis on the current Syrian tragedy is
to inform us on the hundreds or thousands who've lost their lives.
World financial meltdown? When Sanford Weill of Citi pushed for the repeal of Glass-Steagall late 1990's, the FDR era 17-page
law separating commercial from investment banks, a measure that's preserved the nation's banking integrity for over half a century,
the Nyt added its megaphone to the task, urging Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin to comply, editorializing In 1988: "Few economic
historians now find the logic behind Glass-Steagall persuasive" . In 1990, that "banks and stocks were a dangerous mixture" "makes
little sense now."
NYT, a liberal icon? In year 2000, when I lived in NYC, New York Daily News columnist A.M. Rosenthal used to regularly demonize
China in language surpassing even Rush Limbaugh. I told myself nah, that's not the Rosenthal-former-editor of the NYT. Only when
I read his obituary a few years later did I learn that it was indeed the same one.
We pledge subservience to the Owners of the United Corporations of America, and to the Oligarchy for which it stands, one Greed
under God, indivisible, with power and wealth for few.
NOAM CHOMSKY _MANUFACTURING CONSENT haven't read it? read it. read it? read it again.
thought totalitarianism and the ruling class died in 1945? think again. thought you wouldn't have to fight like grandpa's generation
to live in a democratic and just society? think again.
Would that we could hold these discussions without reference to personal defamations -- "darkened ignorance" and "educate yourself"
which sounds like "f___ yourself". Why can't we just say "I respectfully disagree"? Alas, when discussing political issues with
leftists, that seems impossible. Why the vitriol?
Greenwald's more lengthy posts make it clear that he believes that people who differ with him are "lying" and basing their
viewpoint upon "a single right wing blogger". He chooses this explanation over the obvious and accurate one -- legal rationales
developed by the Office of Legal Counsel during the Bush administration. The date of Greenwald's archive is February 19, 2006.
Oddly, he bases all of his contentions upon whatever he could glean up to that date. But the legal rationale for warrantless wiretaps
was based upon memos written by John Yoo at the OLC that Greenwald did not have access to in 2006. The memos were not released
until after Obama took office in 2009.
Obama released them in a highly publicized press conference staged for maximum political impact. Greenwald could not possibly
have understood the legal rationale for the program since he had not been privy to them until March 2009 if, indeed, he has bothered
to acquaint himself with them since then. Either way, nobody was "lying" except those who could have understood the full dimension
and willfully chose to hide or ignore the truth. It's not exactly like I am new to this subject as you seem to imply. I wrote
a 700 page book about Obama administration duplicity in this same vein. An entire chapter is devoted to this very topic.
Warrantless wiretaps were undertaken after a legal ruling from OLC. And after Obama took office, warrantless wiretaps were
continued. Obviously since they were based upon OLC rulings, since no prosecutions have ever been suggested and since they have
continued uninterrupted after Obama took office, the Justice Department under both administrations agrees with me and disagrees
with Greenwald. We arrive at this disagreement respectfully. Despite Obama's voluminous denunciations of the Bush anti-terror
approach on the campaign trail, he resurrected nearly every plank of it once he took office.
But this is a subsidiary point to a far larger point that some observers on this discussion to their credit were able to understand.
Despite all of these pointless considerations, the larger point of my original post was that Greenwald missed the "real" story
here, which was that the collusion between NYT and CIA was not due to institutional considerations as Greenwald seems to allege,
but due to purely partisan considerations. That, to me, is the story he missed.
I find that people who are losing debates try to shift the focus to subsidiary points hoping that, like a courtroom lawyer,
if they can refute a small and inconsequential detail raised in testimony, they will undercut the larger truth offered by the
witness. It won't work. Too much is on the record. And neither point, the ankle-biting non-issue about legality of warrantless
wiretaps or the larger, salient point about the overt partisan political dimension of NYT's collusion with a political appointee
at CIA who serves on the Obama reelection committee, has been refuted.
Joseph Toomey
Author, "Change You Can REALLY Believe In: The Obama Legacy of Broken Promises and Failed Policies"
Conspiracy theorists, have been, of course, telling you this for years (given media's motive is profit and not honesty). I suppose
the exact same conspiracy theorists other guardian authors have been too eager to denounce previously?
The NSA wiretap program revealed by Risen was not illegal as Greenwald wrongly asserts. As long as one end of the intercepted
conservation originated on foreign soil as it did, it was perfectly legal and required no FISA court authorization.
Mr. Toomey, in 2006 Greenwald
published a compendium of legal arguments defending the Bush Admin's warrantless wiretapping and the (sound) rebuttals of
them. It is exhaustive, and covers your easily dispensed with argument. By way of introduction to his many links to his
aggregated, rigorous analyses of the legal issues, he wrote this:
I didn't just wake up one day and leap to the conclusion that the Administration broke the law deliberately and that there
are no reasonable arguments to defend that law-breaking (as many Bush followers leaped to the conclusion that he did nothing
wrong and then began their hunt to find rationale or advocates to support this conclusion). I arrived at the conclusion that
Bush clearly broke the law only by spending enormous amounts of time researching these issues and reading and responding to
the defenses from the Administration's apologists.
He did spend enormous time dealing with people such as yourself, and all of his work remains available for you to educate
yourself with, at the link provided above.
Maybe you'd like to explain that to Samuel Loring Morison who was convicted and spent years in the federal system for passing
classified information to Janes Defence Weekly. I'm sure he'd be entertained. Larry Franklin would also like to hear it. He's
in prison today for violating the Espionage Act.
Courts have recognized no press privilege exists when publishing classified data. In 1971, the Supreme Court vacated a prior
restraint against NYT and The Washington Post allowing them to publish the Pentagon Papers. But the court also observed that prosecutions
after-the-fact would be permissible and not involve an abridgement of the free speech clause. It was only the prior restraint
that gave the justices heartburn. They had no issue with throwing them in the slammer after the deed was done.
Thomas Drake, a former NSA official, was indicted and convicted after revealing information to reporters in 2010. The statute
covers mere possession which even NYT recognized could cover reporters as well. There have been numerous other instances of arrests,
indictments and prosecutions for disclosure to reporters. It's only been due to political calculations and not constitutional
limitations that have kept Risen and others out of prison.
The NYT has been infiltrated for decades by CIA agents. Just notice their dogged reporting on the completely debunked "lone-gunman"
JFK theory---they will always report that Oswald acted alone---this is the standard CIA story, pushed and maintained by the NYT
despite overwhelming evidence that there was a conspiracy (likely involving the CIA).
What outrages me the most is the NYT's condescending attitude towards its readers when caught in this obvious breach of journalistic
ethics.
Both Baquet and Abramson, rather than showing some humility or contrition, are acting as if nothing bad has happened, and that
we are stupid to even talk about this.
This article misses the elephant in the room. Namely, that the NYT only plays footsies with Democrats in positions of power.
With the 'Pubs, it's open season.
Not true. There are many examples of the NYT colluding with the Bush administration, some of which Glenn has mentioned in this
article. Take, for example, the fact that the NYT concealed Bush's wire-tapping program for almost a year, at the request of the
White House, and didn't release details until after Bush's re-election.
"... The Government leaks classified material at will for propaganda advantage, but hunts Assange and tortures Private Manning for the same. ..."
"... these emails reflect the standard full-scale cooperation – a virtual merger – between our the government and the establishment media outlets that claim to act as "watchdogs" over them. ..."
"... The issue under discussion here, however, is the extent to which the media is an eager partner in the message-sending, rather than an unwitiing tool. ..."
The New York Crimes. The seamless web of media, government, business: a totalitarian system.
Darkly amusing, perhaps, unless one begins to tally the damage.
USA Inc. Viva Death,
Did you hear the one about the investment banker whose very expensive hooker bite off his
crank?
I'm not sure what's scarier--that the CIA is spending taxpayer dollars spending even a split
second worrying about what a two bit hack like Maureen Dowd writes, or that the NY Times
principals are so institutionally "captured" that they parrot "CIA speak".
Or maybe that our purported public servants in the legislature are bipartisanly
and openly attempting to repeal portions of the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Foreign
Relations Authorization Act in 1987 banning domestic propaganda.
America is becoming a real sick joke. And the last to know will be about 65% of the
populace I like to call Sheeple.
Very depressing. I thought we would get a smart bunch over here. The major trend I've noticed
instead? Blind support for the empire and the apparatus that keeps it thriving. Unable to be
good little authoritarians and cheer for the now collapsing British Empire, they have to
cheer for it's natural predecessor, the American Empire. This includes attacking all those
who might question the absolute infallible of The Empire. Folks like.. Glenn. It is
fascinating to watch, if not disheartening.
So all cozying up to spooks is not always a bad thing, huh?
Just my point.
I see. I thought your point was that there was some sort of equivalence between Hersh's
development of sources to reveal truths that their agencies fervently wished to keep secret
and Mazzetti's active assistance in protecting an agency's image from sullying by fellow
journalists.
And that ended his career in government service, as it should have...or not:
From Wikipedia: John O. Brennan is chief counterterrorism advisor to U.S. President
Barack Obama; officially his title is Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security
and Counterterrorism, and Assistant to the President.
Unfortunately this is nothing new for Mazetti or the New York Times, nor is it the first time
Glenn Greenwald has called Mazetti out on his cozy relationship with the CIA:
The CIA and its reporter friends: Anatomy of a backlash
The coordinated, successful effort to implant false story lines about John Brennan
illustrates the power the intelligence community wields over political debates.
Glenn Greenwald Dec. 08, 2008 |
...Just marvel at how coordinated (and patently inaccurate) their messaging is, and --
more significantly -- how easily they can implant their message into establishment media
outlets far and wide, which uncritically publish what they're told from their cherished
"intelligence sources" and without even the pretense of verifying whether any of it is true
and/or hearing any divergent views:
Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, New York Times, 12/2/2008:
Last week, John O. Brennan, a C.I.A. veteran who was widely seen as Mr. Obama's likeliest
choice to head the intelligence agency, withdrew his name from consideration after liberal
critics attacked his alleged role in the agency's detention and interrogation program. Mr.
Brennan protested that he had been a "strong opponent" within the agency of harsh
interrogation tactics, yet Mr. Obama evidently decided that nominating Mr. Brennan was not
worth a battle with some of his most ardent supporters on the left.
Mr. Obama's search for someone else and his future relationship with the agency are
complicated by the tension between his apparent desire to make a clean break with Bush
administration policies he has condemned and concern about alienating an agency with a
central role in the campaign against Al Qaeda.
Mark M. Lowenthal, an intelligence veteran who left a senior post at the C.I.A. in 2005, said
Mr. Obama's decision to exclude Mr. Brennan from contention for the top job had sent a
message that "if you worked in the C.I.A. during the war on terror, you are now tainted," and
had created anxiety in the ranks of the agency's clandestine service.
...The story, by Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, noted that John O. Brennan had withdrawn
his name from consideration for CIA director after liberal critics attacked his role in the
agency's interrogation program, even though Brennan characterized himself as a "strong
opponent" within the agency of harsh interrogation techniques. Brennan's characterization was
not disputed by anyone else in the story, even though most experts on this subject agree that
Brennan acquiesced in everything that the CIA did in this area while he served there.
"these emails reflect the standard full-scale cooperation – a virtual merger –
between our the government and the establishment media outlets that claim to act as
"watchdogs" over them."
Glenn - the only objection I have to your column and all your previous columns on this
matter is that I am not sure the establishment media actually claim to be watchdogs, at least
not any more, and certainly not since Sept 11. They really are more like PR reps.
The media is another tool in the [government, in this case] arsenal to help send a
message, as are speeches before think tanks and etc.
Yes. The issue under discussion here, however, is the extent to which the media is an
eager partner in the message-sending, rather than an unwitiing tool.
Did everyone forget the Judith Miller article? The usage of Twitter and other social media
during the Iranian election of 2009? The leaks about the Iranian nuclear program in the
Telegraph? ARDA?
The U.S. government, along with every other government in the world, uses the media to
influence public opinion and send geopolitical messages to others that understand the message
(normally not the masses). The media is another tool in the arsenal to help send a message,
as are speeches before think tanks and etc.
We use social media to create social unrest if it aligns with our interests. We use the
media to send political messages and influence public opinion. The vast majority of reporting
in the N.Y. Times, WSJ, Guardian, Telegraph, and etc. do not reflect this, but every now and
then "unnamed sources" help further a geopolitical message.
In this country, it has been that way since before the founding fathers and the Republic.
Remember the Federalist, Anti-Federalist, Sam Adams as Vtndex, and etc.? Newspapers used for
"propaganda" purposes.
Upthread I asked him for his comments on the reporting of Seymour Hirsh. He is someone
who cozied up to all kinds of people - and wound up busting some extremely important
stories in the process.
I think a modest amount of review of Sy Hersh's work will demonstrate that his "cozying
up" hasn't included running interference for the spooks' official PR flacks.
"... Bob Marley got it right.... the human race is becoming a rat race, and it's a disgrace. ..."
"... The biggest problem is the financialisation of the economy... what is the actual value of things? The market is so manipulated that real price discovery is not possible. ..."
"... We have an over-cooked service-sector economy unsustainably reliant on cheap debt, cheap energy, and cheap manufactured goods to fuel our 'high-end levels of consumption, and mobility or living standards, and an over-heated housing market that is unsustainably run according to the needs of investors and landlords rather than residents or tenants. ..."
"... What we need is a coordinated approach between our nations. Undercutting each other on corporate taxes, writing tax avoidance into law, and continuing to allow multinationals to influence our politicians and play our governments against each other is exactly the game we must end. ..."
"... Instead, it places the financially powerful beyond any state, in an international elite that makes its own rules, and holds governments to ransom. That's what the financial crisis was all about. The ransom was paid, and as a result, governments have been obliged to limit their activities yet further.... ..."
"... "Ransom". There is no better word to describe it. This (the ransom mentality) is exactly the reactionary, vindictive, doctrinaire psychology that must be extracted like a cancer from our institutional lives and the human species. A monolithic task. But identifying the cause is the first step to cure. ..."
"... these are the new medieval transnational barons ..."
@Crackerpot - The whole austerity crisis thing appears to have been engineered so that a few blinkered and unpatriotic, vulture
mafia privateers can make a killing, selling off vital state assets, such as infrastructure and ports, to the Chinese. This is
a very suspicious and widespread trend.
Bob Marley got it right.... the human race is becoming a rat race, and it's a disgrace.
I see it every day from the window of my flat, on a main road, in Bethnal Green. There's a 'mentally unstable' Rastafarian
who stands by the overground station, and shouts things out to people like "You're living in babylon".
The biggest problem is the financialisation of the economy... what is the actual value of things? The market is so manipulated
that real price discovery is not possible.
We have an over-cooked service-sector economy unsustainably reliant on cheap debt, cheap energy, and cheap manufactured
goods to fuel our 'high-end levels of consumption, and mobility or living standards, and an over-heated housing market that is
unsustainably run according to the needs of investors and landlords rather than residents or tenants.
The whole thing is going to blow apart. Our 'aspirations' are slowly killing us - they're destroying the social fabric.
What we need is a coordinated approach between our nations. Undercutting each other on corporate taxes, writing tax avoidance
into law, and continuing to allow multinationals to influence our politicians and play our governments against each other is exactly
the game we must end.
Deborah Orr:Instead, it places the financially powerful beyond any state, in an international elite that makes
its own rules, and holds governments to ransom. That's what the financial crisis was all about. The ransom was paid, and as
a result, governments have been obliged to limit their activities yet further....
I never thought I would live long enough to see this level of honesty ATL. It should have been published long ago, but at least
the discussion now begins.
"Ransom". There is no better word to describe it. This (the ransom mentality) is exactly the reactionary, vindictive, doctrinaire
psychology that must be extracted like a cancer from our institutional lives and the human species. A monolithic task. But identifying
the cause is the first step to cure.
"... Neoliberalism? This is not just a financial agenda. This a highly organized multi armed counterculture operation to force us, including Ms Orr [unless she has...connections] into what Terence McKenna [who was in on it] termed the `Archaic Revival'. That is - you and me [and Ms Orr] - our - return to the medieval dark ages, if we indeed survive that far. ..."
"... The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. ..."
"... the UK government did intervene in the economy when it bailed out the banks to the tune of many billions of pounds underwritten by the taxpayer. The markets should always be regulated sufficiently (light touch is absolutely useless) to prevent the problems currently being experienced from ever happening again. ..."
"... Traditional liberalism had died decades before WWII and was replaced by finance capitalism. What happened after WW II was that capitalism had to make various concessions to avoid a socialist revolution: social and political freedoms indeed darted ahead. ..."
"... No chance mate, at least not all the time greasy spiv and shyster outfits like hedge funds are funding Puffin face and the Vermin Party. They are never going to bite the hand that feeds them ..."
"... And in case we get uppity and endeavour to challenge the economic paradigm and the rule of these neoliberal elites, there's the surveillance state panopticon to track our movements and keep us in check. ..."
"... There is not a shred of logical sense in neoliberalism. You're doing what the fundamentalists do... they talk about what neoliberalism is in theory whilst completely ignoring what it is in practice. In theory the banks should have been allowed to go bust, but the consequences where deemed too high (as they inevitable are). The result is socialism for the rich using the poor as the excuse, which is the reality of neoliberalism. ..."
"... She, knowingly, let neo-liberal economic philosophy come trumpeting through the door of No10 and it's been there ever since; it has guided our politicians for the past 30 odd years. Hence, it is Thatcher's fault. She did this and another bad thing: the woman who glorified household economics pissed away billions of pounds of North Sea Oil. ..."
"... Bailouts have been a constant feature of neoliberalism. In fact the role of the state is simply reduced to a merely commissioning agent to private parasitical corporations. History has shown the state playing this role since neoliberalism became embedded in policy since the 1970s - Long Term Capital Management, Savings and Loans, The Brady Plan, numerous PFI bailouts and those of the Western banking system during the 1982 South American, 1997 Asian and 2010 European debt crises. ..."
@EllisWyatt - Here's the funny thing about those who cheer the broken neoliberal model. They
promise we will get to those "sunny uplands" with exactly the same fervor as old Marxists.
Neoliberalism has spawned a financial elite who hold governments to ransom
Neoliberalism? This is not just a financial agenda. This a highly organized multi armed counterculture operation to
force us, including Ms Orr [unless she has...connections] into what Terence McKenna [who was in on it] termed the `Archaic
Revival'. That is - you and me [and Ms Orr] - our - return to the medieval dark ages, if we indeed survive that far.
The same names come up time and time again. One of them being, father of propaganda, Edward Bernays.
Bernays wrote what can be seen as a virtual Mission Statement for anyone wishing to bring about a "counterculture." In the
opening paragraph of his book Propaganda he wrote:
"..The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important
element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government
which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas
suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.
This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organised. Vast numbers of human beings must
cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our daily
lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by
the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses.
It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind..."[28]
Bernays' family background made him well suited to "control the public mind." He was the double nephew of psychoanalysis
pioneer Sigmund Freud. His mother was Freud's sister Anna, and his father was Ely Bernays, brother of Freud's wife Martha
Bernays.
@OneCommentator - the UK government did intervene in the economy when it bailed out the banks
to the tune of many billions of pounds underwritten by the taxpayer. The markets should
always be regulated sufficiently (light touch is absolutely useless) to prevent the problems
currently being experienced from ever happening again.
Those at the bottom of society and
those in the public sector are the ones paying the price for this intervention in the UK. If
you truly believe in the 'free' market then all of these failing organisations (banks, etc)
should have been allowed to fail. The problem is that the wealth created under the current
system is virtually all going to those at the top of the income scale and this needs to
change and is one of the main reasons that neo liberalism should be binned!
Traditional liberalism had died decades before WWII and was replaced by finance
capitalism. What happened after WW II was that capitalism had to make various concessions to
avoid a socialist revolution: social and political freedoms indeed darted ahead.
@brighton2 - No chance mate, at least not all the time greasy spiv and shyster outfits like hedge funds are funding Puffin
face and the Vermin Party. They are never going to bite the hand that feeds them.
And in case we get uppity and endeavour to challenge the economic paradigm and the rule of
these neoliberal elites, there's the surveillance state panopticon to track our movements and
keep us in check.
I know what you are saying it's just sooner or later as those at the bottom continue to be
squeezed the wealthy will sow their own seeds of destruction. I think we are witnessing the
end game which is reflected in the desperation of the coalition to flog everything regardless
of the efficacy of such behavior, they feel time is running out and they would be right.
Call it what you will - "neoliberalism", "neoconservatism", "socialism" or whatever it is...
This debate is not even really solely about money: this is about liberty , about
free choice, about being permitted to engage in voluntary exchange of goods and services with
others, unmolested. About the users of services becoming the ones paying for those
services.
Ultimately the real effect will be to remove power from governments and hand it back to
where it belongs - the free market.
voluntary transactions among free agents. That's called a free market and it is by far
the most efficient way to produce wealth humanity has ever known.
Could you explain how someone bound by a contract of employment, with the alternative,
destitution, is a 'free agent'?
@SpinningHugo - Nothing comes out of nothing and i well remember black Monday in the City.
That was the start of the spivs running the economy as if it were a casino. If you think its only on CiF that Thatcher gets the blame, think on this, Scotland, a
whole nation blames her too.
Unless you are completely confused by what neoliberalism is there is not a shred of
logical sense in this.
There is not a shred of logical sense in neoliberalism. You're doing what the
fundamentalists do... they talk about what neoliberalism is in theory whilst completely
ignoring what it is in practice. In theory the banks should have been allowed to go bust, but
the consequences where deemed too high (as they inevitable are). The result is socialism for
the rich using the poor as the excuse, which is the reality of neoliberalism.
Savers in a neoliberal society are lambs to the slaughter. Thatcher "revitalised" banking, while everything else withered and died.
Neoliberalism is based on the thought of personal freedom, communism is definitely not.
Neoliberalist policies have lifted millions of people out of poverty in Asia and South
America.
Neoliberalism is based on the thought that you get as much freedom as you can
pay for, otherwise you can just pay... like everyone else. In Asia and South America it has
been the economic preference of dictators that pushes profit upwards and responsibility down,
just like it does here.
I find it ironic that it now has 5 year plans that absolutely must not be deviated from,
massive state intervention in markets (QE, housing policy, tax credits... insert where
applicable), and advocates large scale central planning even as it denies reality, and makes
the announcement from a tractor factory.
Neoliberalism is a blight... a cancer on humanity... a massive lie told by rich people and
believed only by peasants happy to be thrown a turnip. In theory it's one thing, the reality
is entirely different. Until we're rid of it, we're all it's slaves. It's an abhorrent cult
that comes up with purest bilge like expansionary fiscal contraction to keep all the money in
the hands of the rich.
@MickGJ - You are wrong about the first 2 of course.
Banksters get others to do their shit.
But unfortunately the poor sods who went down on D Day were in their way fighting for Wall
Street as much as anything else. It's just that they weren't told about it by the Allies massive propaganda machine. So partly right
The response should be a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth is created
and distributed around the globe
Which would be what? State planning? Communism? Totally free market capitalism? Oh wait, we already have the best of a bad bunch, a mixed capitalist economy with
democracy. That really is the crux of it, our system isn't perfect, never will be, but nobody has come
up with a better solution.
Barclays bank "only" paid out £660m in dividends to the bearers of risk capital,
while its bonus pot for a very select number of its staff was £1.5bn.
Fascinating! Now, one could infer that Barclays represent "beneficial capitalism",
rewarding its hard-working employees, but maybe we won't.
This is not the traditional capitalist style
The Traditional capitalist is not an extinct species but under threat. For the time
being the population is stagnant in some countries and even increasing in some others.
However, due to the foraging capacity of Neoliberal creature , competing in the same
economical niche, the size and life expectation of it are diminishing.
She, knowingly, let neo-liberal economic philosophy come trumpeting through the door of
No10 and it's been there ever since; it has guided our politicians for the past 30 odd years.
Hence, it is Thatcher's fault. She did this and another bad thing: the woman who
glorified household economics pissed away billions of pounds of North Sea Oil.
@MickGJ - No, you're right. Why let yesterdays experience feed into what you expect of the
future? Lets go forwards goldfish like, every minute a brand new one, with no baggage!
And by the way, who saved the hide of the very much private sector banks and financial
institutions? The hated STATE, us tax payers!
I think I agree with everything that you say here? The people at the top these days aren't
really of much use for anything, including capitalism. The only thing that they do excel at
is lining their own pockets and securing their privileged position in society.
They have become quite up front about it. There was a bit of a fuss last year when
Barclays bank "only" paid out £660m in dividends to the bearers of risk capital, while
its bonus pot for a very select number of its staff was £1.5bn. Barclays released a
statement before their AGM explaining:
"Barclays is fully committed to ensuring that a greater proportion of income and profits
flow to shareholders notwithstanding that it operates within the constraints of a
competitive market."
This is not the traditional capitalist style competition that they are talking about where
companies competed as to who can return the biggest profit for their shareholders this now
comes secondary to the real competition which is for which company can return the biggest
bonuses for a small group of employees.
Bailouts have been a constant feature of neoliberalism. In fact the role of the state is
simply reduced to a merely commissioning agent to private parasitical corporations. History
has shown the state playing this role since neoliberalism became embedded in policy since the
1970s - Long Term Capital Management, Savings and Loans, The Brady Plan, numerous PFI
bailouts and those of the Western banking system during the 1982 South American, 1997 Asian
and 2010 European debt crises.
No wonder you're so ignorant of the basics of economic policy if you won't flick through a
book - fear of accepting that you're simply wrong is a sure sign of either pig ignorance or
denial, and is as I said embarrassing so its not really much point in wasting anymore time
engaging with you.
The neoliberal idea is that the cultivation itself should be conducted privately as
well. They see "austerity" as a way of forcing that agenda.
..."neoliberal", concept behind the word, has nothing to do with liberal or liberty or
freedom...it is a PR spin concept that names slavery with a a word that sounds like the
opposite...if "they" called it neoslavery it just wouldn't sell in the market for political
concepts.
..."austerity" is the financial sectors' solution to its survival after it sucked most the
value out of the economy and broke it. To mend it was a case of preservation of the elite and
the devil take the hindmost, that's most of us.
...and even Labour, the party of trade unionism, has adopted austerity to drive its
policy.
...we need a Peoples' Party to stand for the revaluation of labour so we get paid for our
effort rather than the distortion, the rich xxx poor divide, of neoslavery austerity.
Of course it has. And it will continue to "fail", while provide us with all
sorts of goodies, for the foreseeable future. Capitalism's endless "failure" is of no more
concern than human mortality. Ever tried, ever failed, try again, fail better.
"... Now we see moneyed entities with vested interests, carpet bagging and flogging off the NHS and an unelected fossil fuel mandarin, at the heart of government decision making, appointing corporate yea-sayers, to the key government departments, with environmental responsibilities. Corporations capturing the state apparatus for their own ends, is 'corporatism.' ..."
"... "Neoliberalism in practice is every bit as bad as Communism in practice, with none of the benefits." ..."
"... The bailout is simply actual neoliberalism as opposed to the theory inside tiny right wing minds. The system depends on the wealthy not being allowed to suffer the consequences of their own greed, or it would represent revolution and still not work. ..."
"... Neoliberalism in practice is every bit as bad as Communism in practice, with none of the benefits. It always amusing to see neoliberal morons shout about the red menace when they're two sides of the same coin. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is nothing if not the opposite extreme of the communist planned economy. Like the communist planned economy, neoliberalism is doomed to failure. I think we've all been sold a lie. ..."
@NotAgainAgain - this is very true, it reminds me of an engineering company I worked for in
Nottingham (since gone under). The production manger was a corrupt thief. He gradually
sub-contracted the production work out to other companies in the area, taking backhanders for
his troubles.
Once all the production was farmed out, he somehow got himself promoted to
director level, where he and a sycophant subbed all the design work out. So all the
production and design was done out of house, standards dropped and the company closed,
leaving him with a nice payoff, just prior to retirement.
Some would say he played a blinder, my interpretation is he ruined a perfectly viable
company, making a very good product, and over the course of about 5 years put over 30 people
out of work.
In a just world he would be spending his retirement in prison.
Income distribution and a happy workforce is actually very good for business as well as
society!
Of course it is, but the capitalists do not know it. In many countries, including Finland,
the "condition of the working classes", ie. working conditions, have been in rapid decline
for the last 20 years.
Permanent salaried jobs have been replaced with temps from agencies, unpaid overtime is
becoming the norm, burnouts are commonplace and so on.
If in your country things are different, no mass lay-outs and outsourcing to China, count
yourself lucky!
But even though an illiterate market wouldn't be so great for them, they avoid their
taxes, because they can, because they are more powerful than governments
Noam Chomsky pointed this out aeons ago though-that the American model is to use tax money
to benefit private interests through technological infrastructure.
It was ever thus, if in slightly different forms. Still it is surprising that they have gone
so quickly from their stated position at the start of the republic of a rejection of kings
and emperors to their position now of corruption so ingrained it is impossible to make
distinctions. Proxy emperors are emperors all the same, no matter the rhetoric that promotes
them.
One senses that there is very little 'going back' possible. Besides, the great Neoliberal
scam is predicated upon the qualities of the 'governments' we have and the capacity of those
'rhetoricians' with the capacity to say anything or play any role, to lick any arse, to get
elected. Such apparent strength is weakness. In this world that now exists here, we have now
entered the same world as the USSR in the eighties, where the announcement of bumper harvests
of wheat, made everyone with a brain cell groan and think
'Oh fuck! no bread this winter-quick, run to the shops now, and buy up all the flour
there'.
But there is now no way to declare that without being seen as beyond the pale-a bug eyed
conspiracist.
Still, I am a believer in the connectedness of this world. The economic system and its
mythologies are just weird and distorted canaries in the coalmine of the wider environment.
It is indicating that there is a misalignment between the way we think and what is possible
in this world. Austerity promoters and 'Keynsian' Ballsites are one and the same thing-both
pretenders that the key to the problems is within their narrow gifts
Hubris is followed by nemesis. In a wider sense what we seen now is a complete failure of
the capacity to educate and to learn,and moderate behaviour, and find some way of caring for
our 'others', beyond the core of 'self'. nationalism is essentially an extension of 'self'.
We now shall see the failure of a retraction of thought into nationalism and
scapegoating.
I predict that the population of the world will decline over the next century-quite
markedly.
The only solace is that at the end of the process, the pain will be forgotten. It always
is.
@MickGJ - Cameron said 'We will cut the deficit, not the NHS,' and promised to be the
'greenest government ever,' saying that you could 'go green,' if you voted 'blue.'
Now we see
moneyed entities with vested interests, carpet bagging and flogging off the NHS and an
unelected fossil fuel mandarin, at the heart of government decision making, appointing
corporate yea-sayers, to the key government departments, with environmental responsibilities.
Corporations capturing the state apparatus for their own ends, is 'corporatism.'
Much of the healthy economic growth – as opposed to the smoke and mirrors of many
aspects of financial services – that Britain enjoyed during the second half of the
20th century was due to women swelling the educated workforce.
There was very little 'healthy economic growth' in Britain in the second half of the 20th
century.
Britain was bankrupt after WW2 with its people dependent on Marshall Aid and food
contributions from its former 'colonies'.
Whatever 'growth' occured after Marshall Aid arrived was scuppered by a class system where
company managers were more concerned with walking on the workers than with keeping their
businesses afloat while such discrimination provoked hard left trade union policies which
left british industry uncompetitive and ultimately non-existent.
If that wasn't enough, Thatcherism arrived to re-inforce class discrimination, sell off
national services and assets and replace social policy with neo-liberal consumerism.
Whether the workforce was swollen by women or anyone else is immaterial.
The anti-democratic incestuous class conflict latent in British society continues to ensure
that the UK will remain a mere vassal state of foot-soldiers and consumers for international
neo-liberal capitalism.
@DasInternaut - Completely agree. The performance has been poor to absymal. But this is a
failure of democratic governance because the collective interests of citizens as consumers
and service users are not being represented and enforced by the elected politicians since
they have been suborned by the capitalists elites and their fellow-travellers.
The people, indeed, have been sold a lie, but, unfortunately, it is only UKIP which is
making the political waves by revealing selected aspects of this lie. The three established
parties have been 'bought' to varying extents. But more and more citizens are beginning to
realise the extent to which they have been bought.
There is an upside to all of this, maybe I wont get modded so much from now on for being so
angry at the ideological criminals . Hopefully the middle classes will cotton on to the fact
that all this is not a mad hatters tinfoil hobby, we need more of them to be grumpy.
@MickGJ - We've already seen it. Not great so far. GS4, Winterbourne view, southern cross,
trains...............Welfare to work companies, delivering no better results than people left
to their own devices. Energy companies.
We'll see if the new wave of free schools, academy schools, and all the service outsourced by
the council perform any better.
Doubtful, as to make a profit, they have to employ poorer paid people, less well qualified,
and once they've got a contract, they've got very little competition, as when the second
round of bidding comes around, as the firms having got the first contract are the only one
with relevant experience, they are assured of renewal, the money machine will keep going!
Neoliberalism are policies that are
influenced by neo classical economics. If you are suggesting that the neoliberal school of
thought would advocate any kind of a bailout then you are mistaken. Where else have I
"apparently" embarrassed myself?
@TedSmithAndSon - This is just an inaccurate rant not a reply.
"The system depends on the wealthy not being allowed to suffer the consequences.."
Unless you are completely confused by what neolibralism is there is not a shred of logical
sense in this.
"The debt industry are the lenders who take advantage of a financial system..."
Which is what savers are. They come in the form of individuals businesses and governments.
This encompasses everyone.
"whilst paying the lowest possible rate. Wonga, for instance."
If you are a lender you do not pay anything, you receive.
"Thatchers revolution was to take our citizenship and give it a value, whilst making
everyone else a consumer, all for a handful of magic beans in the shape of British Gas
shares."
...not forgetting that she revitalised the economy and got everyone back to work
again.
"Neoliberalism in practice is every bit as bad as Communism in practice, with none of the
benefits."
Neoliberalism is based on the thought of personal freedom, communism is definitely not.
Neoliberalist policies have lifted millions of people out of poverty in Asia and South
America. Communism has no benefits for society open your eyes!
@ATrueFinn - After they are finished, what do Singaporeans eat?
Next year's harvest (possibly of GM food which makes better use of scarce
resources). I imagine the sun will eventually stop bombarding us with the energy that powers
photosynthesis but I'm not losing any sleep over it.
@MurchuantEacnamai - I think the point is this, Amazon make money by selling books, they
avoid paying taxes, yet expect an educated, literate population to be provided for them, on
the grounds that illiterate people don't buy books, and expect roads to move the books around
on.
@theguardianisrubbish - No! The bailout is simply actual neoliberalism as opposed to
the theory inside tiny right wing minds. The system depends on the wealthy not being
allowed to suffer the consequences of their own greed, or it would represent revolution and
still not work.
The debt industry are the lenders who take advantage of a financial system designed to
push profits upwards (neoliberalism in practice), whilst paying the lowest possible rate.
Wonga, for instance.
Thatchers revolution was to take our citizenship and give it a value, whilst making
everyone else a consumer, all for a handful of magic beans in the shape of British Gas
shares.
Neoliberalism in practice is every bit as bad as Communism in practice, with none of the
benefits. It always amusing to see neoliberal morons shout about the red menace when they're
two sides of the same coin.
.and provides them at a massively inflated cost accompanied by unforgivable waste and
inefficiency, appalling service and life-threatening incompetence.
as opposed to the private sector, who always does what it says it will do, at reasonable
cost, for the benefit of their customers, and with due regards to ethics?
Like the Banks, the financial sector, who will never sell you a product that isn't the best
for you, regardless of their interest? the private companies like Southern Cross, GS4?
The private insurance who refuse to take you on the minute you've got some illness or
disability? Get off it! The state isn't perfect, the services it provides are not perfect,
but replacing them with private provision isn't the answer!
@MurchuantEacnamai - How would you rate how well British government has done in ensuring
markets are genuinely competitive. How well has British government done in ensuring our
energy market is competitive, for example. Does the competitiveness we observe in the energy
market give customers better or worse value than they had before deregulation? How do you
rate the British government's performance in rail and public transport, with respect to
competitiveness?
Personally, and notwithstanding the notable exception of telecoms, I rate the British (and
US) government's performance in deregulating state entities, creating new markets and
ensuring competition, as poor.
Neoliberalism is nothing if not the opposite extreme of the communist planned economy.
Like the communist planned economy, neoliberalism is doomed to failure. I think we've all
been sold a lie.
"... Neoliberalism has spawned a financial elite who hold governments to ransom ..."
"... Neoliberal ideology acted as a smokescreen that enabled the financially powerful to rewrite the rules and place themselves beyond the law. ..."
"... So it seems that your suggestion is for a return to western capitalism post-war style - would that be right? (b.t.w. if I bring up the whole Soviet Union thing, it is partly because quite a few commentators in this debate come across as if they wish for something much more leftist than that). ..."
"... What you have missed, is that the lions share of the proceeds of that growth are not going to ordinary people but to a tiny minority of super rich. It is not working for the majority. ..."
"... The taxpayers are left to pick up the tab, nations are divided against immigrants and scroungers and then unfettered evangelists like you can spout as pompously as you like about how much big business would like to remove the state from corporate affairs. ..."
"... Without the state there wouldn't be neo-Liberalism, it took state regulated capitalism to build what unfettered purists insist on tearing apart for short term greed. ..."
"... The trouble is Neo-Liberals do not want to remove the state at all, they want to BE the state and in the process rendering democracy pretty much meaningless. And they've succeeded. ..."
"... The biggest swindle ever pulled was turning the most glaring and crushing failure of unfettered corporatism into the biggest and most crushing power grab implemented in order to suppress the will of the people ..."
"... Nobody hates a market more than a monopoly and capitalism must inevitably end in monopoly as it has. For the profiteering monopolies investment especially via taxation is insane as it can only undermine their monopoly. ..."
"... The bankers have always known that the austerity caused by having to pay off un-payable loans, that increase every year, will eventually produce countries very similar to the "Weimar Days" in pre-Hitler Germany. ..."
"... They also know that drastic conditions such as these often lead to a collapse of democracy and a resurgence of Fascism. ..."
"... Neoliberalism could not exist without massive state support. So the term is meaningless. There is nothing "liberal" about having a huge state funded military industrial complex that acts a Trojan horse for global corporations, invading other countries for resources. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is a branch of economic ideology which espouses the value of the free-market, and removing all protective legislation, so that large companies are free to do what they want, where-ever they want, with no impediments from social or environmental considerations, or a nation's democratic preferences. ..."
"... Business-friendly to who exactly: the nation or hostile overseas speculators? ..."
"... The golden age of 1945 - 1975 or so witnessed huge rises in standards of living so your point linking neo-liberalism to rising standards of living is literally meaningless. There was an explosive growth in economic activity during the three or four post war decades ..."
"... The assumption shared by many round here that the young are some untapped resource of revolutionary energy is deeply mistaken ..."
A wonderful article that names the central issue. Neoliberal ideology acted as a smokescreen
that enabled the financially powerful to rewrite the rules and place themselves beyond the
law. The resultant rise of financial capitalism, which now eclipses the productive
manufacturing-based capitalism that was the engine of world growth since the industrial
revolution, has propelled a dangerous self-serving elite to the centre of world power. It's
not just inequality that matters, but the character of the global elite.
The neo-liberal order commenced only in the late 1970s - there was a very different
order prior to this which was not "soviet socialism" as you term it.
So it seems that your suggestion is for a return to western capitalism post-war style -
would that be right? (b.t.w. if I bring up the whole Soviet Union thing, it is partly because
quite a few commentators in this debate come across as if they wish for something much more
leftist than that).
Anyway, my worry with this idea is that I am just not convinced that life in "The West
1945-80" was better on the whole than in "The West 1980-present". It's true that
unemployment is higher these days, but a lot of work in the post-war years was boring and
physically exhausting; in factories and mines where conditions were degrading and bad for
health; and where industrial relations were simply terrible. I think as well that the higher
unemployment is a localized phenomenon that many developing countries are not experiencing
(this is relevant because Deborah Orr proposes change for the whole world, not merely the
West).
There were also frequent recessions and booms - in fact, more frequent (albeit shorter)
than now. What seems to have changed in this respect is that, whereas we used to alternate
regularly between 2-3 years of boom and 1-2 years of bust, we now have 15 years of continuous
boom followed by a (maybe?) 10 year bust (this pattern began around 1980). If you asked me
which of these two patterns I preferred, then I think I'd go for the pre-1980 pattern, but
its not clear to me that the post-1980 pattern is so much worse as to underwrite a savage
indictment of the whole system.
As for Casino banking: they should reform that. Britain's Coalition Government has done
something in that respect, although its not very radical - I am hoping Labour can do more.
There is certainly a lot to be said for banks going back to a pre-"Big Bang" sense of
tradition and prudence.
Buts let's not also forget the plus sides in the ledger for post-1980 capitalism: hundreds
of millions in the former third world lifted out of poverty; unprecedented technological
innovation (e.g. the internet, which makes access to knowledge more equal even as income
inequality grows); and the accomodation (at least in the West) of progressive social change,
such as the empowerment of ethnic minorities, LGBT people and women.
Change, yes - but lets be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
OK, but both the claim and the link cited in support talk only about a problem in the US.
This can't really answer my point, which was that the rest of the world should not be
expected to support a change to the economic system of the whole world just because of
problems that are mostly localised to North America and Europe. People in developing
countries might like the fact that they are, at last, catching "the West" up, and might well
not care much about widening inequality of incomes in Western societies.
If you are going to propose changes that you want the whole world to adopt, as Deborah Orr
does, then you should be careful to avoid casually assuming that Africa, India, China, et al,
feel the same way about the world's recent history as we do. It seems to me that not enough
care has been demonstrated in this regard.
@MickGJ - Left to their own devices the most extreme neo-liberals would remove the state
almost completely from corporate life.
Except when the State has to step in to prop up an unsustainable ideology. Then it's all
meek murmurings and pleas for forgiveness and a timid "we'll be better from now" concessions
and the Government obliges the public with the farce that they actually intend to do anything
at all but make the public pay for the financial sector's state subsidized profligacy.
Once the begging bowl is re-filled of course then the pretense of "business as usual"
profligacy rises to the fore.
The taxpayers are left to pick up the tab, nations are divided against immigrants and
scroungers and then unfettered evangelists like you can spout as pompously as you like about
how much big business would like to remove the state from corporate affairs.
When you well know that is the last thing big business would like to do. More of the state
owned pie is always the most urgent of priorities. Poorer services at inflated costs equates
as 'efficiency' until the taxpayer is again left to step in and pick up the bill.
Without the state there wouldn't be neo-Liberalism, it took state regulated capitalism to
build what unfettered purists insist on tearing apart for short term greed.
The trouble is Neo-Liberals do not want to remove the state at all, they want to BE the
state and in the process rendering democracy pretty much meaningless. And they've
succeeded.
The biggest swindle ever pulled was turning the most glaring and crushing failure of
unfettered corporatism into the biggest and most crushing power grab implemented in order to
suppress the will of the people.
Just as IMF loans come with 'obligations' the principle of democracy itself was sold as
part of 'the solution'.
The unsustainable, sustained. By slavery to debt, removal of society's safety net and an
economy barely maintained by industries that serve the rich, vultures that prey on the weak
and rising living costs and the drudgery of a life compounded by a relentless bombardment of
everything in life that is unattainable.
Nobody hates a market more than a monopoly and capitalism must inevitably end in monopoly as
it has. For the profiteering monopolies investment especially via taxation is insane as it
can only undermine their monopoly. With the economy now globalised not even a world war could
sweep away the current ossified political economy and give capitalism a new lease on life.
It's socialism or monopoly capitalist barbarism. Make your choice.
Money that the governments don't actually need as they can print their own money and spend it
to use their countries own resources and then raise taxes to offset the extra spending and
thus maintaining monetary value. The reality is that a government should never, ever borrow
money.
The beginning period between the two world wars (1919-33) in Germany called the Weimar
Republic shows us exactly what severe austerity imposed by the Treaty of Versailles caused.
Because the German economy contracted severely due to reparations payments, steady inflation
and severe unemployment ensued. Of course the FED having started the Great Depression in
America had not helped matters much anywhere in the world. The bankers have always known that
the austerity caused by having to pay off un-payable loans, that increase every year, will
eventually produce countries very similar to the "Weimar Days" in pre-Hitler Germany.
They
also know that drastic conditions such as these often lead to a collapse of democracy and a
resurgence of Fascism.
What causes inflation is uncontrolled speculation of the kind we have seen fed by private
banking at various crucial points in history, such as the Weimar Republic. When speculation
is coupled with debt (owed to private banking cartels) such as we are seeing in America and
Europe now, the result is disaster. On the other hand, when a government issues its own "good
faith" commerce-related currency in carefully measured ways as we saw in Roman times or
Colonial America, it causes supply and demand to increase together, leaving prices
unaffected. Hence there is no inflation, no debt, no unemployment, and no need for income
taxes.
In reality, the Weimar financial crisis began with the impossible reparations payments
imposed at the Treaty of Versailles. It is very similar to the austerity being imposed on
European Nations and America as we speak – regardless of the fact that the IMF is
trying to pose as "the Good Cop" at the moment! The damage has been done to nations like
Greece, and others are soon to follow. The uncontrollable greed of banks and corporations is
leading to an implosion of severe magnitude! It's time to open their books and put a stop to
these private banks right now!
@MysticFish - So the US who has a greater spend on the military than communist China is
neoliberal?
Neoliberalism could not exist without massive state support. So the term is
meaningless. There is nothing "liberal" about having a huge state funded military industrial complex
that acts a Trojan horse for global corporations, invading other countries for resources.
The term neoliberal is not only meaningless but misleading as it implies a connection with
true liberalism, of which it has no meaningful connection.
Do away with deceptive terms like neoliberalism, capitalism, socialism, left wing and right
wing and things become clearer.
At root a lot of the people who get involved in all of the above have very similar
character traits - love of power, greed, deceitful, ruthlessness. Most start out with these
character traits, and others gain them as a result of power.
Anyone high up in politics or business is unhinged. You have to be. The organizational
structures in these things are so synthetic, the beliefs so artificial, rigid, dogmatic and
inhuman that only a unhinged person could prosper in this climate.
Most reasonable people admit doubt, are willing to accept compromise, are willing to make
the occasional sacrifice for the greater good. All these things are what make us human,
however all these things are seen as weaknesses in the inverted world of business and
politics.
Business and politics creates an environment where the must inhuman traits prosper.
"no but the highly placed banking and financial class are along with their venal
political mates"
For sure but are they capitalists? Although they may well own capital does their power
derive from the ownership of capital? You may, or may not be interested in this
lecture on the future of capitalism by John Kay.
@AssistantCook - Neoliberalism is a branch of economic ideology which espouses the value of
the free-market, and removing all protective legislation, so that large companies are free to
do what they want, where-ever they want, with no impediments from social or environmental
considerations, or a nation's democratic preferences. Von Hayek was a major influence and
Thatcher was a loyal disciple, as was the notorious dictator, Pinochet. It is economic
theory, designed for vulture capitalists, and unpopular industries like fossil fuel or
tobacco, and usually the 'freedom' is all one-sided.
@DavidPavett - If states are too big, then what about multinational banks and corporations? I
wonder why Neoliberal ideology does not try to limit the size of these. They are cumbersome
and destructive, predatory dinosaurs and yet our politicians seem mesmerised to the point of
allowing them special favours, tax incentives and the ability to determine our nation's
policies in matters such as energy and health. Why not 'Small is Beautiful,' when it comes to
companies? It doesn't make sense to shrink the state but then let non-transparent and
unaccountable, multinational companies become too powerful. One gets the feeling the country
is being invaded by the interests of hostile nations, using all-too-convenient Neoliberal
ideology and hidden behind a corporate mask.
Is the IMF ever stop evading its responsibility and blaming others for the worldwide
financial tragedy it has provoked? Is it ever stop hurting the working class?
"Neo-liberalism is based on the thought of personal freedom for the rich and powerful
elites is all."
No it is not that is what you want to believe. There is nothing in this statement other
than an opinion based on nothing.
"Many people across the globe were lifted out of poverty between 1945-1980 so what does
your statement about neo-liberalism prove"
Which countries during this period saw massive sustainable reductions in poverty without
some free market model in place?
"It is you who should open your eyes and stop expecting people on here to accept your
ideological beliefs and statements as facts."
I don't expect people to accept my beliefs I am just pointing out why I think their
beliefs are wrong. This is a comment section the whole idea of it is to comment on different
views and articles. How can you ever benefit or make an accurate decision or belief if you do
not try to understand what the opposite belief is? I think nearly everything I have said has
been somewhat backed up by logic or a fact, I have not said wishy washy statements like:
"Neo-liberalism is based on the thought of personal freedom for the rich and powerful
elites is all."
Unless you can expand on this and give evidence or some form of an example why you think
its true then it makes no sense. You are not the only commentor on this article to make a
similar statement and the way people have attempted to justify it is due to bailouts but as I
have said a bailout is not part of the neoliberal school of thought so if you have a problem
with bailouts you don't have a problem with neoliberalism.
@murielbelcher - I don't want to go to far into Thatcherism because it is slightly off topic.
The early 80s recession was a global recession and yes during the first few years
unemployment soared. Why was that because the trade unions were running amok the UK was
losing millions of days of work per month.
Inflation was getting out of control and the only
way to solve it was a self induced recession. You cannot seriously believe that without the
reforms that she implemented we would not have recovered as quick as we did nor can you argue
that it was possible for her or anyone else to turn around such an inefficient industry.
Don't forget the problems of the manufacturing industry go back way before Thatcher's time.
"Here's your problem. You believe that banks lend savings. They don't. Loans create
deposits create reserves."
I am not claiming to be an expert on this if you are then let me know and please do
correct me. I agree banks do not lend deposits but they do lend savings. There is a
difference putting money on deposit is different to say putting money into an ISA. I don't
agree though that deposits create reserves I believe that they come from the central bank
otherwise banks would be constrained by the amount of deposits in the system which is not
true and something you have said is not true.
Nevertheless, the majority of liquidity in the bond markets (like most other markets)
comes from institutional investors, i.e pension funds, unit trusts, insurance companies, etc.
They get their money from savings by consumers as well as sometimes companies. Ok we don't
always give our money to insurance companies when we save but via premiums is another way the
ordinary consumer contributes to this so called "debt industry". I also said that foreign and
local governments buy debt and companies invest directly into the debt market.
"In theory the banks should have been allowed to go bust, but the consequences where deemed
too high (as they inevitable are). "
Iceland would disagree.
"The result is socialism for the rich using the poor as the excuse, which is the reality
of neoliberalism."
Why have only the rich benefited from the bailout? You are not making any sense.
"The result is socialism for the rich using the poor as the excuse, which is the reality
of neoliberalism."
Why? You cannot just say a statement like that and not expand, it makes no sense.
"Thatcher "revitalised" banking, while everything else withered and died."
...but also revitalised the economy and got everyone back to work.
"Neoliberalism is based on the thought that you get as much freedom as you can pay for,
otherwise you can just pay... like everyone else."
Again you have to expand on this because it makes no sense.
"In Asia and South America it has been the economic preference of dictators that pushes
profit upwards and responsibility down, just like it does here."
Don't think that is true in most cases nor would it make sense. Why would a dictator who
wants as much power as possible operate a laissez-faire economy? You cannot have personal
freedom without having economic freedom, it is a necessary not sufficient condition. Tell me
a case where these is a large degree of political freedom but little to no economic freedom.
Moreover look at the countries in Asia and South America that have adopted a neoliberal
agenda and notice their how poverty as reduced significantly.
"I find it ironic that it now has 5 year plans that absolutely must not be deviated from,
massive state intervention in markets (QE, housing policy, tax credits... insert where
applicable), and advocates large scale central planning even as it denies reality, and makes
the announcement from a tractor factory."
Who has 5 year plans?
"In theory it's one thing, the reality is entirely different."
If the reality is different to the theory then it is not neoliberalism that is being
implemented therefore it makes no sense to dispute the theory. Look at where it has been
implemented, the best case in the world at the moment is Hong Kong look at how well that
country has performed.
"a massive lie told by rich people "
I can assure you I am not rich.
"Until we're rid of it, we're all it's slaves."
Neoliberalism is based on personal freedom. If you believe this about neoliberalism in your
opinion give me one economic school of thought where this does not apply.
"Bailouts have been a constant feature of neoliberalism."
What you are saying does not make sense. Whatever you say about that there was no where else
to turn the government had to bailout out the banks a neolibralist would disagree.
"In fact the role of the state is simply reduced to a merely commissioning agent to
private parasitical corporations. "
That's corporatism which so far you have described pretty well.
"History has shown the state playing this role since neoliberalism became embedded in
policy since the 1970s - Long Term Capital Management, Savings and Loans, The Brady Plan,
numerous PFI bailouts and those of the Western banking system during the 1982 South American,
1997 Asian and 2010 European debt crises."
What?! Bailouts have been occurring before the industrial revolution. Deregulation in the
UK occurred mainly during the 80s not 70's. Furthermore financial deregulation occurred in
the UK in 1986. In the USA the major piece of financial deregulation was the Gramm Leach
Bliley Act which was passed in 1999. So you have just undercut your own point with the
examples you gave above. You could argue Argentina and we could argue all day about the
causes of that, but I would say that any government that pursues an expansionary monetary
policy under a fixed ER is never going to end well.
"...policy if you won't flick through a book."
My point was that when people quote a source they tend to either quote the page that the
point comes from. To be honest if this book is telling you that neoliberalism and
neoclassical are significantly different (which you seemed to suggest in you earlier post)
then I would suggest put the book down.
"Google, Amazon and Apple... avoid their taxes, because they can, because they are more
powerful than governments."
Yes to the first, no to the second. Corporations with revenues exceeding the GDP of a small nation have quite a lot of power:
Exxon's revenue is between the GDP of Norway and Austria. In Finland Nokia generated 3 4 % of the GDP for a decade and the government bent backwards
to accommodate its polite requests, including a specific law reducing the privacy of
employees' emails.
We percieve a problem in (most of) Europe and North America because our economies are
growing more slowly than this, and in some cases not at all. The global growth figure comes
out healthy because of strong growth in the emerging countries, like China, Brazil and
India, who are narrowing the gap between their living standards and ours. So, the world as
a whole isn't broken, even if our bit of it is going through a rough patch.
@Fachan - Except that it isn't capitalism that was being criticized here, but neoliberalism:
a distinction that's often lost on neoliberals themselves, ironically.
I'm sure that Denis Healy and any number of African economists would confirm that the IMF is
quite simply a refuge of absolutely last resort, when investor confidence in your economy is
so shattered that the only way ahead is to open the shark gates and allow big money to
plunder whatever value remains there, without the benefit of any noticeable return for your
people. Greece is but one more victim of a syndrome that encompasses all the science and
forensic analysis of ritual sacrifice.
@OneCommentator - don't confuse economic deregulation which acted as handmaiden to global
finance and multinationals as economic freedoms for population
China's govt was doing what china's govt had decided to do from 1978 BEFORE the election
of Thatcher in 1979 or Reagan in 1980 (office from Jan 1981), so very little correlation
there I think
The GATT rounds whether you agree with their aims or not were the products of the post war
decades, again before Thatcher and Reagan came to power
The golden age of 1945 - 1975 or so witnessed huge rises in standards of living so your
point linking neo-liberalism to rising standards of living is literally meaningless. There
was an explosive growth in economic activity during the three or four post war decades
@theguardianisrubbish - you can't get away with this
She DID not get everyone back to work again. There were two recessions at either end of the 1980s. She TRIPLED unemployment during the first half of the 1980s and introduced the phenomenon
of high structural unemployment and placing people on invalidity benefits to massage the
headline unemployment count. Give us the figures to back up your assertion that she "got
everyone back to work again." I suspect that you cannot and your statement stands for the
utter nonsense that it is in any kind of reality.
A few months after she was forced out Tory Chancellor Norman Lamont in 1991 during yet
another recession declared that "unemployment was a price worth paying"!!!
Neo-liberalism is based on the thought of personal freedom for the rich and powerful
elites is all. Many people across the globe were lifted out of poverty between 1945-1980 so
what does your statement about neo-liberalism prove
It is you who should open your eyes and stop expecting people on here to accept your
ideological beliefs and statements as facts.
"The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at
governments that run up debt. And, of course, its loans famously come with strings attached:
adopt a free-market economy, or strengthen the one you have, kissing goodbye to the Big
State."
That's glib and inaccurate. A better read about the IMF from an insider:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/307364/ Digest: the biggest problem the IMF have to deal with in bailouts is always the politics
of cronyism; free-market oligarchs and government in cahoots.
"Many IMF programs "go off track" (a euphemism) precisely because the government can't
stay tough on erstwhile cronies, and the consequences are massive inflation or other
disasters. A program "goes back on track" once the government prevails or powerful oligarchs
sort out among themselves who will govern -- and thus win or lose -- under the IMF-supported
plan. The real fight in Thailand and Indonesia in 1997 was about which powerful families
would lose their banks. In Thailand, it was handled relatively smoothly. In Indonesia, it led
to the fall of President Suharto and economic chaos."
Generally whoever happens to be in opposition at the time. This made the LibDems
the ideal (sorry) choice for a long time but then they broke a long-standing if unspoken
promise that they would never actually be in government.
Last weekś Economist has some very interesting stuff from the British Social
Attitudes survey which shows the increasing drift away from collectivist ideals towards
liberalism over each succeeding generation.
The assumption shared by many round here that the young are some untapped resource of
revolutionary energy is deeply mistaken
"... The era of neoliberalism has seen a massive increase in government, not a shrinkage. The biggest change is the role of governments - to protect markets rather than to protect the rights and dignities of its citizens. When viewed by outcome rather than ideological rhetoric, it becomes increasingly clear that neoliberalism has nothing to do with shrinking the state, freeing markets, or freeing the individual, and everything to do with a massive power grab by a global elite. ..."
"... What was the billions of pounds in bank bailout welfare and recession on costs all about? You tell me. All the result of the application of your extremist free market ideology? Let the banks run wild, they mess up and the taxpayer has to step in with bailout welfare and pay to clear up the recession debris ..."
"... Market participants and their venal political friends have during the past 30 years of extremist neo-liberal ideology rigged, abused, distorted and subverted their market and elite power to tilt the economic and social balance massively in their favour ..."
"... Neo liberalism = the favoured ideology of the very rich and powerful elite ..."
"... at last somebody is looking at globalisation and asking whose interests is it designed to serve? It certainly ain't for the people. ..."
"... the highly placed banking and financial class are along with their venal political mates ..."
"... We've had three decades of asset stripping in favor of the rich elites and look at the mess we're in now. ..."
"... I strongly believe that people are not being told the full story. Like the NSA surveillance revelation, the effects will not be pretty when the facts are known. No country needs the IMF. ..."
"... The mythology surrounding deficits and national debt is a religion that the world is in desperate need of debunking. Like religion, the mythology is used as a means of power and entrenchment of privilege for the Ruling Caste, not the plebs (lesser mortals). ..."
This article is a testament to our ignorance. Orr is no intellectual slouch, but somehow,
like many in the mainstream, she still fails to address some fundamental assumptions and thus
ends up with a muddled argument.
"What they don't seem to acknowledge is that the merry days of reckless lending are never
going to return;"
Lending has not stopped - it's just moved out of one market into another. Banks are making
profits, and banks profit are made by expanding credit.
Neoliberal ideology insists that states are too big and cumbersome, too centralised and
faceless, to be efficient and responsive.
Yes and no. There is a difference between what is preached and what happens in practice. The
era of neoliberalism has seen a massive increase in government, not a shrinkage. The biggest
change is the role of governments - to protect markets rather than to protect the rights and
dignities of its citizens. When viewed by outcome rather than ideological rhetoric, it
becomes increasingly clear that neoliberalism has nothing to do with shrinking the state,
freeing markets, or freeing the individual, and everything to do with a massive power grab by
a global elite.
@MurchuantEacnamai - well righty ideologues such as yourself and your venal political
acolytes have utterly failed to support the case or institute measures that: "apply effective
democratic governance to ensure market
What was the billions of pounds in bank bailout welfare and recession on costs all about?
You tell me. All the result of the application of your extremist free market ideology? Let
the banks run wild, they mess up and the taxpayer has to step in with bailout welfare and pay
to clear up the recession debris
Market participants and their venal political friends have during the past 30 years of
extremist neo-liberal ideology rigged, abused, distorted and subverted their market and elite
power to tilt the economic and social balance massively in their favour
You the taxpayer are good enough to bail us out when we mess up but then we demand that
your services are cut in return and that your employment is ever more precarious and wages
depressed (at the lower end of the scale - never ever the higher of course!! That's the
neo-liberal deal isn't it
Neo liberalism = the favoured ideology of the very rich and powerful elite and boy don't
they know how to work its levers
Very insightful commentary and at last somebody is looking at globalisation and asking whose
interests is it designed to serve? It certainly ain't for the people. Amazing it's been
approved on a UK liberal newspaper as well!
@Fachan - There was nothing in the article about envy. It was an exposition of the failure of
our present system which allows the rich to get ever richer. That would be fine if it weren't
for the fact that the increasing disparity in wealth is bringing down the economy and making
it less productive while leaving a large part of the population in, or on the verge of,
poverty.
@CaptainGrey - but we're not talking about that form of capitalism are we?
Surely you must realise that there are very very different forms of capitalism. The capitalism that reigns now would not have permitted the creation of the NHS had it not
been devised in the1940s when a very different type of capitalism reigned. Its political acolytes and its cheerleader press would have denounced the NHS as an
extremist commie idea!!
The Chicago boys swarmed into eastern Europe after 1989 to introduce a form of gangster
unbridled capitalism. The very Chicago boys led by Milton Friedman who used the dictator Pinochet's Chile as
test bed for their ideology from September 1973 after the coup that overthrew Allende
The neo-liberal order commenced only in the late 1970s - there was a very different order
prior to this which was not "Soviet Socialism" as you term it.
As such this extremist rich man's ideological experiment has had a long innings and has
failed as the events of 2008 laid bare for all to see - it has been tried out disastrously on
live human beings for 34 years and has now been thoroughly discredited with the huge bank
bailouts and financial crash and ensuing and enduring recession It was scarcely succeeding
prior to this with high entrenched rates of unemployment, frequent recessions/booms and busts
and unsustainable property bubbles and deregulated unstable speculative aka casino banking
activity
1. Neoliberalism cannot be pinned on one party alone. It was accepted by the Thatcher
government, but no Prime Minister since has seriously challenged it.
2. Neoliberalism is logically contrary to conservative values. Either there are certain
moral imperatives so important that it is worth wasting money over them, or there are not. No
wonder that Tories are torn in two, not to mention Labour politicians who also try to combine
neoliberalism and moral principle.
3. Saying "even Adam Smith" is understandable but unfair. His work was rather enlightened
in the context of mercantilism, and of course the Wealth of Nations was not his only book.
Others will know his work better than me, but I think he dwells rather strongly on problems
of persistent poverty.
4. The political and redistributive functions of nations are indeed damaged by neolib, but
I don't think there is any realistic way of getting that power back without applying capital
controls. If we apply capital controls, all hell breaks loose.
5. Ergo, we are stuck with a situation where neolib is killing democracy, distributive
justice and conservative moral values, but there is nothing we can do about it without
pulling the plug altogether and unleashing a sharp drop in wealth and 1930s nationalistic
havoc. A bit of a tragedy, indeed.
Deborah Orr: The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it
wags its finger at governments that run up debt.
I strongly believe that people are not being told the full story. Like the NSA
surveillance revelation, the effects will not be pretty when the facts are known. No country needs the IMF. Any national government with its own national currency
sovereignty can pay its own debts within its own country with its own currency. International
borrowing in foreign markets is the biggest myth since religion. But since neoliberalism and
its inherent myths have been swallowed whole for so long, we are still at the stage where the
child points and laughs at the nude emperor. The fallout from the revelation and remedy is to
follow.
The problem with the Eurozone is not that the Euro is the "national" currency. Control of
the Euro resides with the European Central Bank, not the Troika (European Commission,
European Central Bank, IMF). The European Central Bank, as sole controller of the Euro (the
"national" currency), can issue funds to constituent Eurozone states to the extent necessary.
I challenge anyone to demonstrate how any central bank does not have power over its own
currency!
The mythology surrounding deficits and national debt is a religion that the world is in
desperate need of debunking. Like religion, the mythology is used as a means of power and
entrenchment of privilege for the Ruling Caste, not the plebs (lesser mortals).
@DavidPavett - Does anyone have any idea what this is supposed to mean? There are
certainly no leads on this in the link given to "the philosopher" John Gray
Gray wrote this in the Guardian in 2007:
Whether in Africa, Asia, Latin America or post-communist Europe, policies of wholesale
privatisation and structural adjustment have led to declining economic activity and social
dislocation on a massive scale
This doesn't seem to support Orrś assertion that he is calling for a
structural adjustment, rather the opposite. I'ḿ not really familiar with Grayś work
but he seems to be rather against the universal imposition of any system, new or old.
@CaptainGrey - Capitalism is not an undifferentiated mass. Late-stage neoliberal
hypercapitalism as practiced in the US and increasingly in the UK is a very different beast
than the traditional European capitalist social democracy or the Nordic model, which have
been shown to work relatively well over time. In fact, neoliberal capitalism - the sort Orr
is talking about here - is marked by increasing decline both in the state and in the economy,
as inequality in wealth distribution creates a society of beggars and kings instead of
spenders and savers. The gains achieved through carefully regulated capitalism won't stick
around in the free-for-all conditions preferred by those whose ideology demands the sell-off
of the state.
@PeterWoking - For some parts of the world , yes they are more affluent now , but a huge part of the globe is still without
food and water .
I think de regulation of the financial sector has caused a huge amount of damage to the world all round and
to be honest, i expect more of the same as the Bankers are still in control.
This is a typical neocon speech. Could be delivered by Hillary Clinton (if we removed some
Tea Party frosting). Attacked both Russia and China. Such a freashly minted US diplomat ;-)
The fact that he is mentioned Skripal poisoning suggests that his IQ is overrated... Or many
be that's his CIA past...
Trump want to pursue "might makes right" policy but times changed and it remains to be seen
how successful he will be.
Could you imagine if someone stood up and called out all the US crimes... 3 million
prisoners, war crimes in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan ect. Poverty disproportionate to the
wealth of the nation. On and on
It doesn't get any clearer than this. A group of people, with no conscience and therefore
no shame, no empathy, no emotion, no love, hold the reins of power on planet earth. They do
not distinguish between Afghani, Iraqi, European, African or American. We are all fodder for
their demented psychopathic agenda. It's time to wake up, because it's coming to your
doorstep.
"... The treaty is one of the most advantageous agreements to the U.S. that our government has ever negotiated, so it is extremely difficult to see how leaving the treaty benefits the U.S. ..."
calls on
the Trump administration not to kill the INF Treaty:
Losing patience with Russia's refusal to address legitimate concerns over its violation of
the treaty is understandable, but the way Pompeo framed the problem says a great deal about
how poorly the Trump administration is managing this sensitive issue. Pompeo told NATO, "the
burden falls on Russia to make the necessary changes. Only they can save this treaty." Having
built a rare instance of NATO unity, which for the first time has unanimously stated that it
believes Russia is in violation of the INF Treaty, U.S. President Donald Trump's team seems
more intent on using it as an opportunity to berate Russia than to save a valuable treaty
that benefits European and global security. While Russia is to blame for its own violations,
the United States will suffer just as much as Russia does if the treaty fails, and even more
so if the collapse produces more discord than unity within the NATO alliance. By going the
extra mile to save the treaty, instead of issuing ultimatums, the Trump administration might
even pull out a win for once. Excuse me if I don't hold my breath.
The INF Treaty is very much worth saving, and quitting it over a Russian violation is as
short-sighted and self-defeating as can be. If the U.S. withdraws, there will be no chance of
negotiating a replacement. Not only will the U.S. be held as the one most responsible for
killing the treaty, but by ending it the Trump administration will be opening the door to an
arms race that no one should want.
The treaty is one of the most advantageous agreements to the U.S. that our government
has ever negotiated, so it is extremely difficult to see how leaving the treaty benefits the
U.S.
Quitting the INF Treaty unfortunately fits the administration's pattern of reneging on and
abandoning agreements without giving any thought to the consequences of withdrawal. It makes no
sense to give up on a treaty that has proven its worth to the U.S. and our European allies for
more than thirty years.
The Trump administration has made the absolute minimum effort to resolve the dispute with
Russia before quitting the treaty, and that makes it clear that they are just looking for an
excuse to abandon it. If the U.S. gave up so easily on every agreement whenever there was a
violation, it would not keep any of its agreements for very long. The bigger problem is that
the administration's determination to leave the treaty is driven more by Bolton's ideological
hostility to all arms control agreements than it is by any concern about any violations. The
administration is seizing on Russian violations to withdraw from this treaty, but it also has
no desire to keep New START alive, either. Letting New START die would be even more dangerous,
but the administration isn't interested in extending a treaty that Russia has complied with for
almost eight years.
This morning I woke up to two news reports in my mailbox that indicated two things to
me:
Bigotry against Jews can no more nor less be distinguished from bigotry against any other
group of people or religion. Sectarianism by any other name is sectarianism.
The insistence on making bigotry against Jews (in its sense of sectarianism) a separate
or unique class of discrimination or hatred altogether, one that is given a special term and
that involves controversial and
false definitions, is designed to play into the hands of Zionists and neo-Nazis.
Zionist desperation to criminalize anti-Zionist criticism of Israel by legalizing false
definitions of anti-Semitism is a measure of how far the term "anti-Semitism" has traveled as a
misnomer.
The conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism is a bit of rhetorical sleight-of-hand
that depends on treating Israel as the embodiment of the Jewish people everywhere. Certainly,
some criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic, but it's entirely possible to oppose Jewish
ethno-nationalism without being a bigot. Indeed, it's increasingly absurd to treat the Israeli
state as a stand-in for Jews writ large, given the way the current Israeli government has
aligned itself with far-right European movements that have anti-Semitic roots.
The second news item comes from the Lobby Watch of the Electronic Intifada,
in which Asa Winstanley, an investigative reporter,
writes :
A new European Union declaration could make it harder to criticize Israel as a racist state
without being dubbed an anti-Semite.
The declaration asks all EU
governments to "endorse the non-legally binding working definition of anti-Semitism employed by
the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance."
The move, passed by EU member states' home affairs ministers, has already been condemned by
a number of Israeli
and French academics .
The term "anti-Semitism" to refer to animus against all Jews is a misnomer. By all accounts,
it was coined or
popularized by Friedrich Wilhelm Adolph Marr in 1879, a radical writer and politician,
described in the title of his first biography
as "The Patriarch of Anti-Semitism" and founder of the first "Anti-Semitic League", which he
formed in order to agitate against Jewish emancipation in Germany. "Anti-Semitism", as Marr
coined it, referred specifically to the anti-Jewish campaigns in central Europe at that time,
and not to bigotry or hatred against all Jews, as the term today connotes.
As is well known by now, the building of Palestine in the form of Israel did, in fact,
depend, and continues to depend in large part, on the good will of the Jews "outside," many as
Norman H. Finkelstein writes in American Jewish History, deriving renewed pride in their
religion and their connections to Israel with each Israeli military victory.
The irony/tragedy is that Israeli governments throughout history, including now with the
Trump
/Bannon merger, work with anti-Semites to promote Jewish immigration to Israel. Zionist
collaboration with Nazis is also
documented. Nevertheless, anti-Semitism should not be taking center stage either in arguments
against Palestinians or in pro-Palestine arguments.
Israel is using a misnomer (the term "anti-Semitism" as animus against all Jews) in order to
further its cause among Jews worldwide and among Western governments guilty of past bigotry
against Jews in their midst.
Does animus toward Jews because they are Jews exist? Yes. Is this animus special or unique
in what FiratHacıahmetoğlu
calls "the darker side of western modernity (colonisation, domination, poverty, misery,
inequities, injustices, commodification, and dispensability of human life)" or in Western Dark
Ages?
Of course, not.
Zionism is a political movement, not "a belief", as expressed in the following
definition :
Zionism is the belief that the Jewish nation, the exiles of the Kingdom of Judea that was
conquered by Rome in the year 70 CE, have a right to reclaim their homeland.
Jewish suffering, like the suffering of those subjected to bigotry anywhere, is the result
of conditions of society and ought to be addressed by fixing society through an increase in
political power for disenfranchised groups of people, wherever bigotry exists, thus aiding all
the oppressed -- as, in fact, many Jews in the U.S. have done.
In the early days of Zionism, the Jews who believed that Jewish suffering in Europe is
impossible to remedy within their societies (through socialism, for example) because of their
lack of political rights and the economic structure imposed on Jews at the time and those who
opted for a struggle to separate as a tribe through the acquisition of territory, any
territory, outside their countries, represent what Zionism really is as a political movement,
which is now oppressing a fourth generation of indigenous Palestinians in their own
homeland.
The way I see it, it is time to recognize "anti-Semitism" as the misnomer it is, in order
for us to be able to envision Palestinian emancipation and, indeed, all human emancipation, as
universal and just.
Note: The above content was first published (7 Dec 2018) as my
answer on Quora to the question "Is anti-Semitism a special kind of bigotry? What is the
history of the term?".
Rima Najjar is a former professor (now retired) at Al-Quds University,
Palestine
"... I don't like using the term "neo-liberalism" that much because there is nothing "new" or "liberal" about it, the term itself just helps hide the fact that it's a political project more about power than profit and the end result is more like modern feudalism - an authoritarian system where the lords (bankers, energy companies and their large and inefficient attendant bureaucracies), keep us peasants in thrall through life long debt-slavery simply to buy a house or exploit us as a captured market in the case of the energy sector. ..."
"... Since the word "privatisation" is clearly no longer popular, the latest buzzword from this project is "outsourcing". ..."
"... As far as I can see "neo-liberalism", or what I prefer to call managerial and financialised feudalism is not dead, it's still out and about looking around for the next rent-seeking opportunity. ..."
"... In the political arena, is enabling porkies facilitate each other in every lunatic pronouncement about "Budget repair" and "on track for a surplus". And its spotty, textbook-spouting clones ("all debt is debt! Shriek, gasp, hyperventilate!") fall off the conveyor belts of tertiary education Australia-wide, then turn up on The Drum as IPA 'Research Fellows' to spout their evidence-free assertions. ..."
"... And don't forget the handmaiden of neoliberalism is their macroeconomic mythology about government "debt and borrowing" which will condemn our grandchildren to poverty - inter-generational theft! It also allows them to continue dismantling government social programs by giving tax-cuts to reduce "revenue" and then claiming there is no money to fund those programs. ..."
"... "Competition" as the cornerstone of neoliberal economics was always a lie. Corporations do their best to get rid of competitors by unfair pricing tactics or by takeovers. And even where some competitors hang in there by some means (banks, petrol companies) the competition that occurs is not for price but for profit. ..."
"... We find a shift away from democratic processes and the rise of the "all new adulation of the so-called tough leader" factor, aka Nazism/Fascism. From Trump to Turkey, Netanyahu to Putin, Brazil to China, the rise of the "right" in Europe, the South Americas, where the leader is "our great and "good" Teacher", knows best, and thus infantalises the knowledge and awareness of the rest of the population. Who needs scientists, when the "leader" knows everything? ..."
"... There are indeed alternatives to neoliberalism, most of which have been shown to lead back to neoliberalism. Appeals for fiscal and monetary relief/stimulus can only ever paper over the worst aspects of it's relentless 'progress', between wars, it seems. ..."
"... Neoliberalism seems vastly, catastrophically misunderstood. Widely perceived as the latest abomination to spring from the eternal battle 'twixt Labour and Capital, it's actual origins are somewhat more recent. Neoliberalism really, really is not just "Capitalism gone wrong". It goes much deeper, to a fundamental flaw buried( more accurately 'planted') deep in the heart of economics. ..."
"... In 1879 an obscure journalist from then-remote San Francisco, Henry George, took the world by storm with his extraordinary bestseller Progress and Poverty . Still the only published work to outsell the Bible in a single year, it did so for over twenty years, yet few social justice advocates have heard of it. ..."
"... George gravely threatened privileged global power-elites , so they erased him from academic history. A mind compared, in his time with Plato, Copernicus and Adam Smith wiped from living memory, by the modern aristocracy. ..."
"... In the process of doing so, they emasculated the discipline of economics, stripped dignity from labour, and set in motion a world-destroying doctrine. Neo-Classical Economics(aka neoliberalism) was born , to the detriment of the working-citizen and the living world on which s/he depends. ..."
I don't like using the term "neo-liberalism" that much because there is nothing "new" or
"liberal" about it, the term itself just helps hide the fact that it's a political project
more about power than profit and the end result is more like modern feudalism - an
authoritarian system where the lords (bankers, energy companies and their large and
inefficient attendant bureaucracies), keep us peasants in thrall through life long
debt-slavery simply to buy a house or exploit us as a captured market in the case of the
energy sector.
Since the word "privatisation" is clearly no longer popular, the latest buzzword from this
project is "outsourcing". If you've had a look at The Canberra Times over the last couple of
weeks there have been quite a few articles about outsourcing parts of Medicare and Centrelink, using labour hire companies and so on – is this part of a current LNP plan
to "sell off" parts of the government before Labour takes the reins in May?
As far as I can see "neo-liberalism", or what I prefer to call managerial and
financialised feudalism is not dead, it's still out and about looking around for the next
rent-seeking opportunity.
Neoliberalism "dead"?
I think not.
It is riveted on the country like a straitjacket.
Which is exactly what it was always intended to be, a system gamed and rigged to ensure the
wage-earning scum obtain progressively less and less of the country's productive wealth,
however much they contributed to it.
The wage theft and exploitation Neoliberalism fosters has become the new norm.
Neoliberal idealogues thickly infest Federal and State Treasuries.
In the political arena, is enabling porkies facilitate each other in every lunatic
pronouncement about "Budget repair" and "on track for a surplus".
And its spotty, textbook-spouting clones ("all debt is debt! Shriek, gasp, hyperventilate!")
fall off the conveyor belts of tertiary education Australia-wide, then turn up on The Drum as
IPA 'Research Fellows' to spout their evidence-free assertions.
The IPA itself has moles in govt at every level--even in your local Council.
Certainly in ours.
Neoliberalism is "dead"?
Correction.
Neoliberalism is alive, thriving---and quick to ensure its glaring deficiencies and
inequities are solely attributable to its opponents. Now THERE'S a surprise.....
Agree! And don't forget the handmaiden of neoliberalism is their macroeconomic mythology
about government "debt and borrowing" which will condemn our grandchildren to poverty -
inter-generational theft! It also allows them to continue dismantling government social programs by giving tax-cuts
to reduce "revenue" and then claiming there is no money to fund those programs.
Neoliberalism will not be dead until the underpinning of neoliberalism is abandoned by ALP
and Greens. That underpinning is their mindless attachment to "budget repair" and "return to
surplus". The federal government's "budget" is nothing like a currency user's budget.
Currency users collect in order to spend whereas every dollar spent by the federal government
is a new dollar and every dollar taxed by the federal government is an ex-dollar. A currency
cannot sensibly have "debt" in the currency that it issues and no amount of surplus or
deficit now will enhance or impair its capacity to spend in future. A currency issuer does
not need an electronic piggybank, or a Future Fund, or a Drought Relief Fund. It can't max
out an imaginary credit card. It's "borrowing" is just an exchange of its termless no-coupon
liabilities (currency) for term-limited coupon-bearing liabilities (bonds). The federal
budget balance is no rational indicator of any need for austerity or for stimulus. The
rational indicators are unemployment (too small a "deficit"/too large a surplus) and
inflation (too large a "deficit"/too small a "surplus"). Federal taxation is where dollars go
to die. It doesn't "fund" a currency issuer's spending - it is there to stop the dollars it
issues from piling up and causing inflation and to make room for spending by democratically
elected federal parliament. The name of the game is to balance the economy, not the entirely
notional and fundamentally irrelevant "budget".
"Competition" as the cornerstone of neoliberal economics was always a lie. Corporations do
their best to get rid of competitors by unfair pricing tactics or by takeovers. And even
where some competitors hang in there by some means (banks, petrol companies) the competition
that occurs is not for price but for profit.
And changing the electoral system? Yes indeed. After years of observation it seems to me
that the problem with our politics is not individual politicians (although there are notable
exceptions) but political parties. Rigid control of policies and voting on party instruction
(even by the Greens) makes the proceedings of parliament a complete waste of time. If every
policy had to run the gauntlet of 150 people all voting by their conscience we would have
better policy. The executive functions could be carried out by a cabinet also elected from
those members. But not going to happen - too many vested interests in the parties and their
corporate sponsors.
With the election of Bolsonaro in Brazil (even though nearly 30% of electors refused to vote)
it may be a little presumptuous to dissect the dead corpse of neoliberalism, as Richard
Denniss' hopes that we can.
What is absolutely gob-smacking is that Brazilians voted for him; a man that Glenn Greenwald
describes as "far more dangerous than Trump" , that Bolsonaro envisages military
dictatorships as "being a far more superior form of government" advocating a civil war
in order to dispose of the left.
Furthermore, the election of this far-right neoliberal extremist also threatens the Amazon
forest and its indigenous people; with a global impact that will render combatting climate
change even more difficult.
Locally, recent Liberal Party battles over leadership have included the neolib factor, as the
lunatic right in that party - who I suspect would all love to be a Bolsonaro themselves -
aggressively activate their grumblings and dissension.
Oh, Richard how I wish you were right; but in the Victorian election campaign - currently
underway - I have seen Socialist candidates behaving in a manner that doesn't garner hope in
a different way of doing politics.
The fact that 'our' democracy is based on an adversarial, partisan system leaves me with
little hope.
Alain Badiou wrote that "ours is not a world of democracy but a world of imperial
conservatism using democratic phraseology" ; and until that imposition is discarded 'our'
democracy will remain whatever we are told it is, and neolibs will continue to shove their
bullshit down our throats as much as they can.
We find a shift away from democratic processes and the rise of the "all new
adulation of the so-called tough leader" factor, aka Nazism/Fascism. From Trump to
Turkey, Netanyahu to Putin, Brazil to China, the rise of the "right" in Europe, the South
Americas, where the leader is "our great and "good" Teacher", knows best, and thus
infantalises the knowledge and awareness of the rest of the population. Who needs scientists,
when the "leader" knows everything?
Have the people of the world abrogated their democratic responsibility?
Or is it the gerrymandering chicanery of US Republican backers/politicians( so long as you
control the voting machines ) that have sent the ugly message to the world, Power is yours
for the making and taking by any means that ignores the public's rights in the decision
making process. Has the "neo-liberal" world delivered a corrupted system of democracy that
has deliberately alienated the world's population from actively participating fully in the
full awareness that their vote counts and will be counted?
Do we need to take back the controls of democracy to ensure that it is the will of the
people and not a manipulation by vested interest groups/individuals? You're darn
tootin'!!!
A thoughtful piece. Thanks. There are indeed alternatives to neoliberalism, most of which
have been shown to lead back to neoliberalism. Appeals for fiscal and monetary
relief/stimulus can only ever paper over the worst aspects of it's relentless 'progress',
between wars, it seems.
Neoliberalism seems vastly, catastrophically misunderstood. Widely perceived as the
latest abomination to spring from the eternal battle 'twixt Labour and Capital, it's actual
origins are somewhat more recent. Neoliberalism really, really is not just "Capitalism gone
wrong". It goes much deeper, to a fundamental flaw buried( more accurately 'planted')
deep in the heart of economics.
Instead of trying to understand Neo-Classical Economics it is perhaps more instructive to
understand what it was built, layer by layer, to obscure. First the Land system, then the
Wealth system, and finally the Money system (hived off into a compartment - 'macroeconomics').
Importantly, three entirely different categories of "thing" .
In 1879 an obscure journalist from then-remote San Francisco, Henry George, took the world
by storm with his extraordinary bestseller Progress and Poverty . Still the only
published work to outsell the Bible in a single year, it did so for over twenty years, yet
few social justice advocates have heard of it.
George set out to discover why the worst poverty always seemed to accompany the most
progress. By chasing down the production process to its ends, and tracing where the proceeds
were going, he succeeded spectacularly. From Progress and Poverty , Chapter 17 - "The Problem Explained"
:
Three things unite in production: land, labor, and capital. Three parties divide the
output: landowner, laborer, and capitalist. If the laborer and capitalist get no more as
production increases, it is a necessary inference that the landowner takes the gain.
George
gravely threatened privileged global power-elites , so they erased him from academic
history. A mind compared, in his time with Plato, Copernicus and Adam Smith wiped from living
memory, by the modern aristocracy.
In the process of doing so, they emasculated the discipline of economics, stripped dignity
from labour, and set in motion a world-destroying doctrine. Neo-Classical
Economics(aka neoliberalism) was born , to the detriment of the working-citizen and the
living world on which s/he depends.
Einstein was a fan of George, and used his methods of thought-experiment and powerful
inductive reasoning to discover Relativity, twenty years later. Henry Georges brilliant
insights into Land (aka nature), Wealth (what you want, need), and Money
(sharing mechanism) are as relevant as ever, and until they are rediscovered, we are likely
to re-run the 1900's over and over, with fewer and fewer resources.
The "special relationship" between the United States and the United Kingdom is often assumed
to be one where the once-great, sophisticated Brits are subordinate to the upstart, uncouth
Yanks.
Iconic of this assumption is the mocking of former prime minister Tony Blair as George W.
Bush's "poodle" for his riding shotgun on the ill-advised American stagecoach blundering into
Iraq in 2003. Blair was in good practice, having served as Bill Clinton's dogsbody in the no
less criminal NATO aggression against Serbia over Kosovo in 1999.
On the surface, the UK may seem just one more vassal state on par with Germany, Japan, South
Korea, and
so many other useless so-called allies . We control their intelligence services, their
military commands, their think tanks, and much of their media. We can sink their financial
systems and economies at will. Emblematic is German Chancellor Angela Merkel's impotent ire at
discovering the Obama administration had listened in on her cell phone, about which she –
did precisely nothing. Global hegemony means never having to say you're sorry.
These countries know on which end of the leash they are: the one attached to the collar
around their necks. The hand unmistakably is in Washington. These semi-sovereign countries
answer to the US with the same servility as member states of the Warsaw Pact once heeded the
USSR's Politburo. (Sometimes more. Communist Romania, though then a member of the Warsaw Pact
refused to participate in the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia or even allow Soviet or other
Pact forces to cross its territory.
By contrast, during NATO's 1999 assault on Serbia, Bucharest allowed NATO military aircraft
access to its airspace, even though not yet a member of that alliance and despite most
Romanians' opposition to the campaign.)
But the widespread perception of Britain as just another satellite may be misleading.
To start with, there are some relationships where it seems the US is the vassal dancing to
the tune of the foreign capital, not the other way around. Israel is the unchallenged champion
in this weight class, with Saudi Arabia a runner up. The alliance between Prime Minister Bibi
Netanyahu and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) – the ultimate Washington
"power couple" – to get the Trump administration to destroy Iran for them has American
politicos listening for instructions with all the rapt attention of the terrier Nipper on the RCA
Victor logo . (Or did, until the recent disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Whether this portends a real shift in
American attitudes toward Riyadh remains questionable .
Saudi cash still speaks loudly and will continue to do so whether or not MbS stays in
charge.)
Specifics of the peculiar US-UK relationship stem from the period of flux at the end of
World War II. The United States emerged from the war in a commanding position economically and
financially, eclipsing Britannia's declining empire that simply no longer had the resources to
play the leading role. That didn't mean, however, that London trusted the Americans' ability to
manage things without their astute guidance. As Tony Judt describes in Postwar , the
British attitude of "
superiority towards the country that had displaced them at the imperial apex " was "nicely
captured" in a scribble during negotiations regarding the UK's postwar loan:
In Washington Lord Halifax
Once whispered to Lord Keynes:
"It's true they have the moneybags
But we have all the brains."
Even in its diminished condition London found it could punch well above its weight by
exerting its influence on its stronger but (it was confident) dumber cousins across the Pond.
It helped that as the Cold War unfolded following former Prime Minister Winston
Churchill's 1946 Iron Curtain speech there were very close ties between sister agencies
like MI6 (founded 1909) and the newer wartime OSS (1942), then the CIA (1947); likewise the
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ, 1919) and the National Security Administration
(NSA, 1952). Comparable sister agencies – perhaps more properly termed daughters of their
UK mothers – were set up in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. This became the so-called
"Five Eyes" of the tight Anglosphere spook community, infamous
for spying on each others' citizens to avoid pesky legal prohibitions on domestic
surveillance .
Despite not having two farthings to rub together,
impoverished Britain – where wartime rationing wasn't fully ended until 1954 – had
a prime seat at the table fashioning the world's postwar financial structure. The 1944 Bretton Woods
conference was largely an Anglo-American affair , of which the
aforementioned Lord John Maynard Keynes was a prominent architect along with Harry Dexter
White, Special Assistant to the US Secretary of the Treasury and Soviet agent.
American and British agendas also dovetailed in the Middle East. While the US didn't have
much of a presence in the region before the 1945 meeting between US President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt and Saudi King ibn Saud, founder of the third and current ( and hopefully last ) Saudi state – and didn't
assume a dominant role until the humiliation inflicted on Britain, France, and Israel by
President Dwight Eisenhower during the 1956 Suez Crisis – London has long considered much
of the region within its sphere of influence. After World War I under the Sykes-Picot agreement with
France , the UK had expanded her holdings on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire, including
taking a decisive
role in consolidating Saudi Arabia under ibn Saud. While in the 1950s the US largely
stepped into Britain's role managing the "East of Suez," the former suzerain was by no means
dealt out. The UK was a founding member with the US of the now-defunct Central Treaty
Organization (CENTO) in 1955.
CENTO – like NATO and their one-time eastern counterpart, the Southeast Asia Treaty
Organization (SEATO) – was designed as a counter to the USSR. But in the case of Britain,
the history of hostility to Russia under tsar or commissar alike has much deeper and longer
roots, going back at least to the
Crimean War in the 1850s . The reasons for the longstanding British vendetta against Russia
are not entirely clear and seem to have disparate roots: the desire to ensure that no one power
is dominant on the European mainland (directed first against France, then Russia, then Germany,
then the USSR and again Russia); maintaining supremacy on the seas by denying Russia
warm-waters ports, above all the Dardanelles; and making sure territories of a dissolving
Ottoman empire would be taken under the wing of London, not Saint Petersburg. As described by
Andrew
Lambert , professor of naval history at King's College London, the Crimean War still echoes
today :
"In the 1840s, 1850s, Britain and America are not the chief rivals; it's Britain and
Russia. Britain and Russia are rivals for world power, and Turkey, the Ottoman Empire, which
is much larger than modern Turkey -- it includes modern Romania, Bulgaria, parts of Serbia,
and also Egypt and Arabia -- is a declining empire. But it's the bulwark between Russia,
which is advancing south and west, and Britain, which is advancing east and is looking to
open its connections up through the Mediterranean into its empire in India and the Pacific.
And it's really about who is running Turkey. Is it going to be a Russian satellite, a bit
like the Eastern Bloc was in the Cold War, or is it going to be a British satellite, really
run by British capital, a market for British goods? And the Crimean War is going to be the
fulcrum for this cold war to actually go hot for a couple of years, and Sevastopol is going
to be the fulcrum for that fighting."
Control of the Middle East – and opposing the Russians – became a British
obsession, first to sustain the lifeline to India, the Jewel in the Crown of the empire, then for
control of petroleum, the life's blood of modern economies. In the context of the 19th and
early 20th century Great Game of empire, that was understandable. Much later, similar
considerations might even support Jimmy Carter's taking up much the same position, declaring in
1980 that "outside force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded as an
assault on the vital interests of the United States of America, and such an assault will be
repelled by any means necessary, including military force." The USSR was then a superpower and
we were dependent on energy from the Gulf region.
But what's our reason for maintaining that posture almost four decades later when the Soviet
Union is gone and the US doesn't need Middle Eastern oil? There are no reasonable national
interests, only corporate interests and those of the Arab monarchies we laughably claim as
allies. Add to that the bureaucracies and habits of mind that link the US and UK
establishments, including their intelligence and financial components.
In view of all the foregoing, what then would policymakers in the United Kingdom think about
an aspirant to the American presidency who not only disparages the value of existing alliances
– without which Britain is a bit player – but
openly pledges to improve relations with Moscow ? To what lengths would they go to stop
him?
Say 'hello' to Russiagate!
One can argue whether or not the phony claim of the Trump campaign's "collusion" with Moscow
was hatched in London or whether the British just lent some "
hands across the water " to an effort concocted by the Democratic National Committee, the
Hillary Clinton presidential campaign, the Clinton Foundation, and their collaborators at
Fusion GPS and inside the Obama administration. Either way, it's clear that while evidence of
Russian connection is nonexistent that of British agencies is unmistakable, as is the UK's hand
in a sustained campaign of demonization and isolation to sink any possible
rapprochement between the US and Russia .
As for Russiagate itself, just try to find anyone involved who's actually Russian. The only
basis for the widespread assumption that any material in the Dirty Dossier that underlies the
whole operation
originated with Russia is the claim of Christopher Steele , the British "ex" spy who wrote
it, evidently in collaboration with people at the US State Department and Fusion GPS. (The
notion that Steele, who hadn't been in Russia for years, would have Kremlin personal contacts
is absurd. How chummy are the heads of the American section of Chinese or Russian intelligence
with White House staff?)
Andrew Wood , a
former British ambassador to Russia Stefan Halper , a dual US-UK citizen. Ex-MI6 Director
Richard Dearlove . Robert Hannigan , former director of GCHQ; there is
reason to think surveillance of Trump was conducted by GCHQ as well as by US agencies under
FISA warrants. Hannigan abruptly resigned from GCHQ soon after the British government denied
the agency had engaged in such spying. Alexander Downer , Australian diplomat (well, not
British but remember the Five Eyes!). Joseph Mifsud , Maltese academic and suspected British
agent.
At present, the full role played by those listed above is not known. Release of unredacted
FISA warrant requests by the Justice Department, which President Trump ordered weeks ago, would
shed light on a number of details. Implementation of that order was derailed after a request by
– no surprise – British Prime Minister Theresa May . Was she seeking
to conceal Russian perfidy, or her own underlings'?
It would be bad enough if Russiagate were the sum of British meddling in American affairs
with the aim of torpedoing relations with Moscow. (And to be fair, it wasn't just the UK and
Australia. Also implicated are Estonia,
Israel, and Ukraine .) But there is also reason to suspect the same motive in
false accusations against Russia with respect to the supposed Novichok
poisonings in England has a connection to Russiagate via a business associate of Steele's,
one Pablo Miller , Sergei
Skripal's MI6 recruiter . (So if it turns out there is any Russian connection to the
dossier, it could be from Skripal or another dubious expat source, not from the Russian
government.) Skripal and his daughter Yulia have disappeared in British custody. Moscow
flatly accuses MI6 of poisoning them as a false flag to blame it on Russia.
A similar pattern
can be seen with claims of chemical weapons use in Syria : "We have irrefutable evidence
that the special services of a state which is in the forefront of the Russophobic campaign had
a hand in the staging" of a faked chemical weapons attack in Douma in April 2018. Ambassador
Aleksandr Yakovenko pointed to the so-called White Helmets, which is closely associated with
al-Qaeda elements and considered by some their PR arm: "I am naming them because they have done
things like this before. They are famous for staging attacks in Syria and they receive UK
money." Moscow warned for weeks before the now-postponed Syrian government offensive in Idlib
that the same ruse was being prepared
again with direct British intelligence involvement, even having prepared in advance a video
showing victims of an attack that had not yet occurred.
The campaign to demonize Russia shifted into high gear recently with the UK, together with
the US and the Netherlands,
accusing Russian military intelligence of a smorgasbord of cyberattacks against the World
Anti Doping Agency (WADA) and other sports organizations, the Organization for the Prohibition
of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the Dutch investigation into the downing of MH-17 over Ukraine, and
a Swiss lab involved with the Skripal case, plus assorted election interference. In case anyone
didn't get the point,
British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson declared : "This is not the actions of a great
power. This is the actions of a pariah state, and we will continue working with allies to
isolate them."
In sum, we are seeing a massive, coordinated hybrid campaign of psy-ops and political warfare
conducted not by Russia but against Russia, concocted by the UK and its Deep
State collaborators in the United States. But it's not only aimed at Russia, it's an attack
on the United States by the government of a foreign country that's supposed to be one of
our closest allies, a country with which we share many venerable traditions of language, law,
and culture.
But for far too long, largely for reasons of historical inertia and elite corruption, we've
allowed that government to exercise undue influence on our global policies in a manner not
conducive to our own national interests. Now that government, employing every foul deception
that earned it the moniker Perfidious Albion , seeks to embroil us
in a quarrel with the only country on the planet that can destroy us if things get out of
control.
This must stop. A thorough reappraisal of our "special relationship" with the United Kingdom
and exposure of its activities to the detriment of the US is imperative.
James George Jatras is an analyst, former U.S. diplomat and foreign policy adviser to
the Senate GOP leadership.
"... Non-elite members of the Party -- functionaries -- mistake their "secret" knowledge as professional courtesy rather than as perquisite and status marker. (I don't suppose it's a secret to anyone that the US CIA regularly plants stories in the NYTimes and elsewhere... unless you weren't paying attention in the strident disinfo campaign prior to the Iraq invasion.) ..."
Howard Zinn said, in a speech given shortly after the 2008 Presidential election, "If you don't know history, it's like you were
born yesterday. The government can tell you anything." (Speech was played on DemocracyNow www.democracynow.org about Jan. 4, 2009
and is archived, free on the website.)
Being older (18 on my last Leap Year birthday - 72), I recall the NYTimes and CIA have had relationship with, and was caught
having "planted CIA workers" as NYTimes writers. Within my adult lifetime, in fact.
This is what the CIA reflexively does: insists that [...] it is an "intelligence matter".
In a sense the CIA is always going to be right on this one - "Central Intelligence Agency" - but only as a matter of nomenclature,
rather than of any other dictionary definition of the word "intelligence".
Actually the collusion between the CIA and big business is far more damaging. The first US company I worked for in Brussels (it
was my first job) was constantly being targeted by the US media for having connections to corrupt South American and Third World
regimes. On what seemed like an almost monthly basis our personnel department would send round memos saying that we were strictly
forbidden to talk to journalists about the latest exposé.
It was great fun - even the telex operators knew who the spies were.
The line "'The optics aren't what they look like,' is truly an instant classic. It reminds me of one of my favorite Yogi Berra
quotes (which, unlike many attributed to him, is real, I think). Yogi once said about a restaurant in New York "Nobody goes there
anymore. It's too crowded." Perhaps Yogi should become an editor for the Times.
British readers will no doubt be shocked -- shocked! -- to learn of cozy relations between a major news organization and a national
intelligence agency.
"'I know the circumstances, and if you knew everything that's going on, you'd know it's much ado about nothing,' Baquet
said. 'I can't go into in detail. But I'm confident after talking to Mark that it's much ado about nothing.'
"'The optics aren't what they look like,' he went on. 'I've talked to Mark, I know the circumstance, and given what I know,
it's much ado about nothing.'"
How can you have a Party if you don't have Party elites?
And how can a self-respecting member of the Party claim their individual status within the Party without secret knowledge designed
to identify one another as members of the Party elite?
[Proles are] natural inferiors who must be kept in subjection, like animals ... Life, if you looked about you, bore no resemblance
not only to the lies that streamed out of the telescreens, but even to the ideals the Party was trying to achieve. ... The
ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering -- a world of of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines
and terrifying weapons -- a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts
and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting -- 300 million people all with the same
face. The reality was decaying, dingy cities, where underfed people shuffled to and fro in leaky shoes... [
1984 ,pp 73-74]
It makes no difference if an imagined socialist England, a collapsing Roman city-state empire, an actual Soviet Union, or a
modern American oligarchy.
Party members thrive while those wretched proles flail in confused and hungry desperation for something authentic (like a George
Bush) or even simply reassuring (like a Barack Obama.)
Non-elite members of the Party -- functionaries -- mistake their "secret" knowledge as professional courtesy rather than
as perquisite and status marker. (I don't suppose it's a secret to anyone that the US CIA regularly plants stories in the NYTimes
and elsewhere... unless you weren't paying attention in the strident disinfo campaign prior to the Iraq invasion.)
Manzetti has "no bad intent" because he is loyal to the Party.
Like all loyal (and very well compensated) Party members, he would never do anything as subversive as reveal Party secrets.
"... The term is used as a catchall for anything that smacks of deregulation, liberalisation, privatisation or fiscal austerity. Today it is routinely reviled as a shorthand for the ideas and practices that have produced growing economic insecurity and inequality, led to the loss of our political values and ideals, and even precipitated our current populist backlash ..."
"... The use of the term "neoliberal" exploded in the 1990s, when it became closely associated with two developments, neither of which Peters's article had mentioned. One of these was financial deregulation, which would culminate in the 2008 financial crash and in the still-lingering euro debacle . The second was economic globalisation, which accelerated thanks to free flows of finance and to a new, more ambitious type of trade agreement. Financialisation and globalisation have become the most overt manifestations of neoliberalism in today's world. ..."
"... That neoliberalism is a slippery, shifting concept, with no explicit lobby of defenders, does not mean that it is irrelevant or unreal. ..."
"... homo economicus ..."
"... A version of this article first appeared in Boston Review ..."
"... Main illustration by Eleanor Shakespeare ..."
As even its harshest critics concede, neoliberalism is hard to pin down. In broad terms, it denotes a preference for markets over
government, economic incentives over cultural norms, and private entrepreneurship over collective action. It has been used to describe
a wide range of phenomena – from Augusto Pinochet to Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, from the Clinton Democrats and the UK's
New Labour to the economic opening in China and the reform of the welfare state in Sweden.
The term is used as a catchall for anything that smacks of deregulation, liberalisation, privatisation or fiscal austerity.
Today it is routinely reviled as a shorthand for the ideas and practices that have produced growing economic insecurity and inequality,
led to the loss of our political values and ideals, and even precipitated our current populist backlash .
We live in the age of neoliberalism, apparently. But who are neoliberalism's adherents and disseminators – the neoliberals themselves?
Oddly, you have to go back a long time to find anyone explicitly embracing neoliberalism. In 1982, Charles Peters, the longtime editor
of the political magazine Washington Monthly, published an essay titled
A Neo-Liberal's Manifesto . It makes for interesting reading 35 years later, since the neoliberalism it describes bears little
resemblance to today's target of derision. The politicians Peters names as exemplifying the movement are not the likes of Thatcher
and Reagan, but rather liberals – in the US sense of the word – who have become disillusioned with unions and big government and
dropped their prejudices against markets and the military.
The use of the term "neoliberal" exploded in the 1990s, when it became closely associated with two developments, neither of
which Peters's article had mentioned. One of these was financial deregulation, which would culminate in the 2008
financial
crash and in the still-lingering euro debacle
. The second was economic globalisation, which accelerated thanks to free flows of finance and to a new, more ambitious type of trade
agreement. Financialisation and globalisation have become the most overt manifestations of neoliberalism in today's world.
That neoliberalism is a slippery, shifting concept, with no explicit lobby of defenders, does not mean that it is irrelevant
or unreal. Who can deny that the world has experienced a decisive shift toward markets from the 1980s on? Or that centre-left
politicians – Democrats in the US, socialists and social democrats in Europe – enthusiastically adopted some of the central creeds
of Thatcherism and Reaganism, such as deregulation, privatisation, financial liberalisation and individual enterprise? Much of our
contemporary policy discussion remains infused with principles supposedly grounded in the concept of
homo economicus
, the perfectly rational human being, found in many economic theories, who always pursues his own self-interest.
But the looseness of the term neoliberalism also means that criticism of it often misses the mark. There is nothing wrong with
markets, private entrepreneurship or incentives – when deployed appropriately. Their creative use lies behind the most significant
economic achievements of our time. As we heap scorn on neoliberalism, we risk throwing out some of neoliberalism's useful ideas.
The real trouble is that mainstream economics shades too easily into ideology, constraining the choices that we appear to have
and providing cookie-cutter solutions. A proper understanding of the economics that lie behind neoliberalism would allow us to identify
– and to reject – ideology when it masquerades as economic science. Most importantly, it would help us to develop the institutional
imagination we badly need to redesign capitalism for the 21st century.
N eoliberalism is typically understood as being based on key tenets of mainstream economic science. To see those tenets without
the ideology, consider this thought experiment. A well-known and highly regarded economist lands in a country he has never visited
and knows nothing about. He is brought to a meeting with the country's leading policymakers. "Our country is in trouble," they tell
him. "The economy is stagnant, investment is low, and there is no growth in sight." They turn to him expectantly: "Please tell us
what we should do to make our economy grow."
The economist pleads ignorance and explains that he knows too little about the country to make any recommendations. He would need
to study the history of the economy, to analyse the statistics, and to travel around the country before he could say anything.
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Pinterest Tony Blair and Bill Clinton: centre-left politicians who enthusiastically adopted some of the central creeds of Thatcherism
and Reaganism. Photograph: Reuters
But his hosts are insistent. "We understand your reticence, and we wish you had the time for all that," they tell him. "But isn't
economics a science, and aren't you one of its most distinguished practitioners? Even though you do not know much about our economy,
surely there are some general theories and prescriptions you can share with us to guide our economic policies and reforms."
The economist is now in a bind. He does not want to emulate those economic gurus he has long criticised for peddling their favourite
policy advice. But he feels challenged by the question. Are there universal truths in economics? Can he say anything valid or useful?
So he begins. The efficiency with which an economy's resources are allocated is a critical determinant of the economy's performance,
he says. Efficiency, in turn, requires aligning the incentives of households and businesses with social costs and benefits. The incentives
faced by entrepreneurs, investors and producers are particularly important when it comes to economic growth. Growth needs a system
of property rights and contract enforcement that will ensure those who invest can retain the returns on their investments. And the
economy must be open to ideas and innovations from the rest of the world.
But economies can be derailed by macroeconomic instability, he goes on. Governments must therefore pursue a sound
monetary policy , which means restricting the growth of liquidity to the increase in nominal money demand at reasonable inflation.
They must ensure fiscal sustainability, so that the increase in public debt does not outpace national income. And they must carry
out prudential regulation of banks and other financial institutions to prevent the financial system from taking excessive risk.
Now he is warming to his task. Economics is not just about efficiency and growth, he adds. Economic principles also carry over
to equity and social policy. Economics has little to
say about how much redistribution a society should seek. But it does tell us that the tax base should be as broad as possible, and
that social programmes should be designed in a way that does not encourage workers to drop out of the labour market.
By the time the economist stops, it appears as if he has laid out a fully fledged neoliberal agenda. A critic in the audience
will have heard all the code words: efficiency, incentives, property rights, sound money, fiscal prudence. And yet the universal
principles that the economist describes are in fact quite open-ended. They presume a capitalist economy – one in which investment
decisions are made by private individuals and firms – but not much beyond that. They allow for – indeed, they require – a surprising
variety of institutional arrangements.
So has the economist just delivered a neoliberal screed? We would be mistaken to think so, and our mistake would consist of associating
each abstract term – incentives, property rights, sound money – with a particular institutional counterpart. And therein lies the
central conceit, and the fatal flaw, of neoliberalism: the belief that first-order economic principles map on to a unique set of
policies, approximated by a Thatcher/Reagan-style agenda.
Consider property rights. They matter insofar as they allocate returns on investments. An optimal system would distribute property
rights to those who would make the best use of an asset, and afford protection against those most likely to expropriate the returns.
Property rights are good when they protect innovators from free riders, but they are bad when they protect them from competition.
Depending on the context, a legal regime that provides the appropriate incentives can look quite different from the standard US-style
regime of private property rights.
This may seem like a semantic point with little practical import; but China's phenomenal economic success is largely due to its
orthodoxy-defying institutional tinkering. China turned to markets, but did not copy western practices in property rights. Its reforms
produced market-based incentives through a series of unusual institutional arrangements that were better adapted to the local context.
Rather than move directly from state to private ownership, for example, which would have been stymied by the weakness of the prevailing
legal structures, the country relied on mixed forms of ownership that provided more effective property rights for entrepreneurs in
practice. Township and Village Enterprises (TVEs), which spearheaded Chinese economic growth during the 1980s, were collectives owned
and controlled by local governments. Even though TVEs were publicly owned, entrepreneurs received the protection they needed against
expropriation. Local governments had a direct stake in the profits of the firms, and hence did not want to kill the goose that lays
the golden eggs.
China relied on a range of such innovations, each delivering the economist's higher-order economic principles in unfamiliar institutional
arrangements. For instance, it shielded its large state sector from global competition, establishing special economic zones where
foreign firms could operate with different rules than in the rest of the economy. In view of such departures from orthodox blueprints,
describing China's economic reforms as neoliberal – as critics are inclined to do – distorts more than it reveals. If we are to call
this neoliberalism, we must surely look more kindly on the ideas behind the most dramatic
poverty reduction in history.
One might protest that China's institutional innovations were purely transitional. Perhaps it will have to converge on western-style
institutions to sustain its economic progress. But this common line of thinking overlooks the diversity of capitalist arrangements
that still prevails among advanced economies, despite the considerable homogenisation of our policy discourse.
What, after all, are western institutions? The size of the public sector in OECD countries varies, from a third of the economy
in Korea to nearly 60% in Finland. In Iceland, 86% of workers are members of a trade union; the comparable number in Switzerland
is just 16%. In the US, firms can fire workers almost at will;
French
labour laws have historically required employers to jump through many hoops first. Stock markets have grown to a total value
of nearly one-and-a-half times GDP in the US; in Germany, they are only a third as large, equivalent to just 50% of GDP.
The idea that any one of these models of taxation, labour relations or financial organisation is inherently superior to the others
is belied by the varying economic fortunes that each of these economies have experienced over recent decades. The US has gone through
successive periods of angst in which its economic institutions were judged inferior to those in Germany, Japan, China, and now possibly
Germany again. Certainly, comparable levels of wealth and productivity can be produced under very different models of capitalism.
We might even go a step further: today's prevailing models probably come nowhere near exhausting the range of what might be possible,
and desirable, in the future.
The visiting economist in our thought experiment knows all this, and recognises that the principles he has enunciated need to
be filled in with institutional detail before they become operational. Property rights? Yes, but how? Sound money? Of course, but
how? It would perhaps be easier to criticise his list of principles for being vacuous than to denounce it as a neoliberal screed.
Still, these principles are not entirely content-free. China, and indeed all countries that managed to develop rapidly, demonstrate
the utility of those principles once they are properly adapted to local context. Conversely, too many economies have been driven
to ruin courtesy of political leaders who chose to violate them. We need look no further than
Latin American populists or eastern European communist regimes to appreciate the practical significance of sound money, fiscal
sustainability and private incentives.
O f course, economics goes beyond a list of abstract, largely common-sense principles. Much of the work of economists consists
of developing
stylised models of how economies work and then confronting those models with evidence. Economists tend to think of what they
do as progressively refining their understanding of the world: their models are supposed to get better and better as they are tested
and revised over time. But progress in economics happens differently.
Economists study a social reality that is unlike the physical universe. It is completely manmade, highly malleable and operates
according to different rules across time and space. Economics
advances not by settling on the right model or theory to answer such questions, but by improving our understanding of the diversity
of causal relationships. Neoliberalism and its customary remedies – always more markets, always less government – are in fact a perversion
of mainstream economics. Good economists know that the correct answer to any question in economics is: it depends.
Does an increase in the minimum wage depress employment? Yes, if the labour market is really competitive and employers have no
control over the wage they must pay to attract workers; but not necessarily otherwise. Does trade liberalisation increase economic
growth? Yes, if it increases the profitability of industries where the bulk of investment and innovation takes place; but not otherwise.
Does more government spending increase employment? Yes, if there is slack in the economy and wages do not rise; but not otherwise.
Does monopoly harm innovation? Yes and no, depending on a whole host of market circumstances.
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Pinterest 'Today [neoliberalism] is routinely reviled as a shorthand for the ideas that have produced growing economic inequality
and precipitated our current populist backlash' Trump signing an order to take the US out of the TPP trade pact. Photograph: AFP/Getty
In economics, new models rarely supplant older models. The basic competitive-markets model dating back to Adam Smith has been
modified over time by the inclusion, in rough historical order, of monopoly, externalities, scale economies, incomplete and asymmetric
information, irrational behaviour and many other real-world features. But the older models remain as useful as ever. Understanding
how real markets operate necessitates using different lenses at different times.
Perhaps maps offer the best analogy. Just like economic models, maps are
highly stylised representations
of reality . They are useful precisely because they abstract from many real-world details that would get in the way. But abstraction
also implies that we need a different map depending on the nature of our journey. If we are travelling by bike, we need a map of
bike trails. If we are to go on foot, we need a map of footpaths. If a new subway is constructed, we will need a subway map – but
we wouldn't throw out the older maps.
Economists tend to be very good at making maps, but not good enough at choosing the one most suited to the task at hand. When
confronted with policy questions of the type our visiting economist faces, too many of them resort to "benchmark" models that favour
the
laissez-faire
approach. Kneejerk solutions and hubris replace the richness and humility of the discussion in the seminar room. John Maynard
Keynes once defined economics as the "science of thinking in terms of models, joined to the art of choosing models which are relevant".
Economists typically have trouble with the "art" part.
This, too, can be illustrated with a parable. A journalist calls an economics professor for his view on whether free trade is
a good idea. The professor responds enthusiastically in the affirmative. The journalist then goes undercover as a student in the
professor's advanced graduate seminar on international trade. He poses the same question: is free trade good? This time the professor
is stymied. "What do you mean by 'good'?" he responds. "And good for whom?" The professor then launches into an extensive exegesis
that will ultimately culminate in a heavily hedged statement: "So if the long list of conditions I have just described are satisfied,
and assuming we can tax the beneficiaries to compensate the losers, freer trade has the potential to increase everyone's wellbeing."
If he is in an expansive mood, the professor might add that the effect of free trade on an economy's longterm growth rate is not
clear either, and would depend on an altogether different set of requirements.
This professor is rather different from the one the journalist encountered previously. On the record, he exudes self-confidence,
not reticence, about the appropriate policy. There is one and only one model, at least as far as the public conversation is concerned,
and there is a single correct answer, regardless of context. Strangely, the professor deems the knowledge that he imparts to his
advanced students to be inappropriate (or dangerous) for the general public. Why?
The roots of such behaviour lie deep in the culture of the economics profession. But one important motive is the zeal to display
the profession's crown jewels – market efficiency, the invisible hand, comparative advantage – in untarnished form, and to shield
them from attack by self-interested barbarians, namely
the protectionists . Unfortunately, these economists typically ignore the barbarians on the other side of the issue – financiers
and multinational corporations whose motives are no purer and who are all too ready to hijack these ideas for their own benefit.
As a result, economists' contributions to public debate are often biased in one direction, in favour of more trade, more finance
and less government. That is why economists have developed a reputation as cheerleaders for neoliberalism, even if mainstream economics
is very far from a paean to laissez-faire. The economists who let their enthusiasm for free markets run wild are in fact not being
true to their own discipline.
H ow then should we think about globalisation in order to liberate it from the grip of neoliberal practices? We must begin by
understanding the positive potential of global markets. Access to world markets in goods, technologies and capital has played an
important role in virtually all of the economic miracles of our time. China is the most recent and powerful reminder of this historical
truth, but it is not the only case. Before China, similar miracles were performed by South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and a few non-Asian
countries such as
Mauritius . All of these countries embraced globalisation rather than turn their backs on it, and they benefited handsomely.
Defenders of the existing economic order will quickly point to these examples when globalisation comes into question. What they
will fail to say is that almost all of these countries joined the world economy by violating neoliberal strictures. South Korea and
Taiwan, for instance, heavily subsidised their exporters, the former through the financial system and the latter through tax incentives.
All of them eventually removed most of their import restrictions, long after economic growth had taken off.
But none, with the sole exception of Chile in the 1980s under Pinochet, followed the neoliberal recommendation of a rapid opening-up
to imports. Chile's neoliberal
experiment eventually produced the worst economic crisis in all of Latin America. While the details differ across countries,
in all cases governments played an active role in restructuring the economy and buffering it against a volatile external environment.
Industrial policies, restrictions on capital flows and currency controls – all prohibited in the neoliberal playbook – were rampant.
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Pinterest Protest against Nafta in Mexico City in 2008: since the reforms of the mid-90s, the country's economy has underperformed.
Photograph: EPA
By contrast, countries that stuck closest to the neoliberal model of globalisation were sorely disappointed. Mexico provides a
particularly sad example. Following a series of macroeconomic crises in the mid-1990s, Mexico embraced macroeconomic orthodoxy, extensively
liberalised its economy, freed up the financial system, sharply reduced import restrictions and signed the North American Free Trade
Agreement (Nafta). These policies did produce macroeconomic stability and a significant rise in foreign trade and internal investment.
But where it counts – in overall productivity and economic growth –
the experiment failed
. Since undertaking the reforms, overall productivity in Mexico has stagnated, and the economy has underperformed even by the
undemanding standards of Latin America.
These outcomes are not a surprise from the perspective of sound economics. They are yet another manifestation of the need for
economic policies to be attuned to the failures to which markets are prone, and to be tailored to the specific circumstances of each
country. No single blueprint fits all.
A s Peters's 1982 manifesto attests, the meaning of neoliberalism has changed considerably over time as the label has acquired
harder-line connotations with respect to deregulation, financialisation and globalisation. But there is one thread that connects
all versions of neoliberalism, and that is the
emphasis
on economic growth . Peters wrote in 1982 that the emphasis was warranted because growth is essential to all our social and political
ends – community, democracy, prosperity. Entrepreneurship, private investment and removing obstacles that stand in the way (such
as excessive regulation) were all instruments for achieving economic growth. If a similar neoliberal manifesto were penned today,
it would no doubt make the same point.
ss="rich-link"> Globalisation: the rise and fall of an idea that swept the world Read more
Critics often point out that this emphasis on economics debases and sacrifices other important values such as equality, social
inclusion, democratic deliberation and justice. Those political and social objectives obviously matter enormously, and in some contexts
they matter the most. They cannot always, or even often, be achieved by means of technocratic economic policies; politics must play
a central role.
Still, neoliberals are not wrong when they argue that our most cherished ideals are more likely to be attained when our economy
is vibrant, strong and growing. Where they are wrong is in believing that there is a unique and universal recipe for improving economic
performance, to which they have access. The fatal flaw of neoliberalism is that it does not even get the economics right. It must
be rejected on its own terms for the simple reason that it is bad economics.
A version of this article first appeared in
Boston Review
Trump lost control of foreign policy, when he appointed Pompeo. US voters might elect Hillary with the same effect on foreign policy
as Pompeo.
Notable quotes:
"... It is to Trump's disgrace that he chose Pompeo and the abominable Bolton. At least Trump admits the ME invasions are really about Israel. ..."
"... Energy dominance, lebensraum for Israel and destroying the current Iran are all objectives that fit into one neat package. Those plans look to be coming apart at the moment so it remains to be seen how fanatical Trump is on Israel and MAGA. MAGA as US was at the collapse of the Soviet Union. ..."
"... As for pulling out of the Middle East Bibi must have had a good laugh. Remember when he said he wanted out of Syria. My money is on the US to be in Yemen before too long to protect them from the Saudis (humanitarian) and Iranian backed Houthis, while in reality it will be to secure the enormous oil fields in the North. ..."
"... The importance of oil is not to supply US markets its to deny it to enemies and control oil prices in order to feed international finance/IMF. ..."
Pompeo is a Deep State Israel-firster with a nasty neocon agenda. It is to Trump's disgrace that he chose Pompeo and the abominable
Bolton. At least Trump admits the ME invasions are really about Israel.
Pompeo is a Deep State Israel-firster with a nasty neocon agenda. It is to Trump's disgrace that he chose Pompeo and
the abominable Bolton. At least Trump admits the ME invasions are really about Israel.
Trump, Israel and the Sawdi's. US no longer needs middle east oil for strategic supply. Trump is doing away with the petro-dollar
as that scam has run its course and maintenance is higher than returns. Saudi and other middle east oil is required for global
energy dominance.
Energy dominance, lebensraum for Israel and destroying the current Iran are all objectives that fit into one neat package.
Those plans look to be coming apart at the moment so it remains to be seen how fanatical Trump is on Israel and MAGA. MAGA as
US was at the collapse of the Soviet Union.
As for pulling out of the Middle East Bibi must have had a good laugh. Remember when he said he wanted out of Syria. My money
is on the US to be in Yemen before too long to protect them from the Saudis (humanitarian) and Iranian backed Houthis, while in
reality it will be to secure the enormous oil fields in the North.
Perhaps this was what the Khashoggi trap was all about. The importance of oil is not to supply US markets its to deny it
to enemies and control oil prices in order to feed international finance/IMF.
"... Yes, its far better than the "first past the post" systems of the UK and the US where the number of votes split between two almost identical candidates can lead to a far different candidate winning with only a little over a third of the total vote. ..."
Proportional representation is definitely the way to go. I am sick to death of the
born-to-rule mentality of the major parties, and how they change the rules to benefit
themselves and to exclude others.
Minority government? There is no such thing - there is only 'government', and it is
supposed to involve all members of parliament in the decision-making process. 'Majority'
governments are an anathema to good governance. Every time I hear the likes of Tony Abbott
claim they have a mandate to implement ALL their policies, even though they only receive
around 35% of the primary vote, I want to throw something at the TV.
Bugger them! Make them work for a living - and make them consider ALL views, not just the
ones from their own party.
Preferences are an extremely good feature of our voting system
Yes, its far better than the "first past the post" systems of the UK and the US where the
number of votes split between two almost identical candidates can lead to a far different
candidate winning with only a little over a third of the total vote.
Preferential voting also makes it more possible for the major party duopoly being
overturned, allowing people to vote for a good independent without taking the risk of helping
a despised major party candidate from winning by default.
"The problem with representative democracy is that it represents the special interest groups
far more than it represents the citizenry." You are spot on.
What a logical and stirring argument you put forward Richard Denniss, and a large majority of
the electorate would have to agree.
However there is also a large number of people in the electorate that cannot appear to rise
from their nightly slumber without wearing their Blue, Red, Green or Orange tinted glasses
before facing the new day.
And because of this, and preferential voting, sneaking in the background is a plethora of the
wild mindless sub creatures called politicians who demand their rights to sit in the big
white building on Canberra;s Capital Hill, just waiting to spoil not only the electorate's
party but also known to prostitute the country's governance to their own advantage.
Richard, we desperately need a follow up stirring article on how to overcome this black
menace to our country, for the sake of our country.
If you think the public has an appetite for more bureaucrats, more rules and regulations to
micromanage people's lives and even more political wheeling and dealing in Canberra, you
should get out more.
That the coalition government is on the slide is of no long term consequence. We'll get a
Labor government next year and in a few years another coalition government and so on.
What is of long term significance is the loss of public trust in pretty much all of the
institutions - including goverment and the various government agencies that would be more
powerful under your scenario.
The problem with representative democracy is that it represents the special interest
groups far more than it represents the citizenry. Perhaps the solution lies in more direct
democracy.
The same sex marriage plebiscite demonstrated that we commoners can deliberate on a
sensitive issue, and in doing so behave far better than our elected representatives in
Parliament. And can make a sensible and progressive decision that our elected representatives
could not - both coalition and Labor MPs had opposed same sex marriage when it was raised in
th e Parliament.
The internet provides a platform for direct decision making by the citizenry. Perhaps we
should try that instead of what you are suggesting.
It's been clear for years that proportional representation has progressively meant death to
effective government, and that it forces major parties policy development further to the
political fringes to appeal to the fruit loops on the periphery of their respective
demographics. Time for a return to simple preferential voting (a-la-house of Reps) in the
senate, and an overhaul of what's considered a valid ballot - if you want to only rank 1, 2,
3 or all candidates it should be entirely your choice.
Hung parliaments, with diametrically opposed clumps of "independents" jointly holding the
balance of power can only ever deliver legislative stasis and constant political turmoil (as
we have experienced since 2010 and Europe and the US have suffered for the last decade).
Oh for the good old days when one or the other of the major parties held a working
majority in both houses, and policy was targeted at the 'sensible centre" of the Australian
electorate. At worst, they only had to deal with a couple of sensible Democrats, and the odd
lunatic fringe-ist like Harradine.
"... I find the Australian electoral system very mediocre. All those people who vote but really don't get represented. All those votes that just get mopped up by the major parties. I really can't understand why Australians have put up with such a poor system for so long. ..."
Having spent many years in a New Zealand under a First Past the Post system
and then Mixed Member Proportional, I am an enthusiastic supporter of proportional systems.
I
find the Australian electoral system very mediocre. All those people who vote but really
don't get represented. All those votes that just get mopped up by the major parties. I really
can't understand why Australians have put up with such a poor system for so long.
Hettie7-> melbournesam 31 Oct 2018 00:45
Proportional representation makes the most sense. Each party gets the same percentage of seats in the parliament as it
received votes in the election. That really is fair.
Nationalisation of essential services is required to put this country back on an even keel.
It was a stupid idea by governments (of all persuasions) to sell off monopoly essential
service assets. The neoliberal experiment has failed.
Beware: Just build a HUGE worker owned, democratically run (by workers) sector to compete
against privately owned concerns. If workers are (democratically) involved in running and
managing their own workplaces that will give plenty of competition for private concerns.
Workers will be involved in the 'politics' and economics of their local area as part of work.
They'll have more control over the technologies they want to use, how much profit they want
to make or not, wages, investment, working conditions and all aspects of their concern.
Workers would 'participate' more and be more involved in thinking about larger concerns. This
would make a nation/region more democratic on the 'ground'. Not just reliant on
'representative' democracy/voting. You'd still need over-arching government(s) but people
would have more direct control over their livelihoods and work conditions. Such a BIG sector
would give (I'm talking about Health, Education, manufacturing etc - not 'bread shop',
basket-weaving coops/social enterprises) private enterprise some REAL competition on prices
and services. It would deliver democracy to masses of people, some control over wealth
generation/economy and on a large enough scale CHANGE society in terms of social justice and
politics.
You don't need to go to State control or Private control of 'the economy'. Just the right
kinds of structures.
Neoliberalism is like a cancer on a health democracy. If we'd treated it in its early
magnifications (when the Librerals and far right old version of Labor), first started selling
off public assets (that are then charged back to citizens to use at increasing price rates
etc), we would have been fine.
But now the cancer is deep in democracy's lymph glads ( in many of our public services)
and so needs radical prolonged treatment and some surgery to assure the country's thriving
democracy survives.
First surgically remove the source: cease (vote out always) all right wing conservative
nutters from ever gaining power, or media mogul influence of government. Most but not all
hide in the Coalition.
Then, begin the reconstruction surgery to re-assert public assets and services. This is a
temporary but life saving cost.
Then, monitor and manage, (educate) the citizens about this scourge on democracy.
The death of neoliberalism means we can finally have a national debate about the size
and role of government, and the shape of the economy and society we want to build.
Neoliberalism is far from dead Richard - neoliberalism is deeply entrenched in mainstream
thinking its corporate enriching magic works insidiously - mostly subliminally under cover of
'sensible' free market self clearing 'orthodox' economics.
You and many others from 'progressive' TAI almost daily, unwittingly play a role in
reinforcing and entrenching neoliberal ideology in the community by framing macroeconomic
analysis/commentary in neoliberal terms.
Your oft repeated call for 'budget balance' over the business cycle is such an example. Only
fiscal deficits can build a prosperous productive nation in the absence of consistent
external surpluses - no government can ever build and expand a nation without permanently
injecting more funds into the non government sector than (through taxation etc) it
withdraws.
Both our major parties of government espouse neoliberal economic orthodoxy as if there is
no alternative - and no one calls them out - not even the quasi progressive TAI.
DSGE based 'orthodox' economics provides the lifeblood to neoliberalism - the myth of tax
collections funding expenditure provides plausible cover to constrain spending on
citizen/social services - but when it comes to war/corporate subsidy spending, such
constraints are immediately abandoned.
Hetereodox MMT exposes the lie of such DSGE myths - but faithful Ptolemaic 'progressives'
refuse to investigate or debate such Copernican macroeconomic sacrilege.
The recent TAI 'outlook' economic conference (proudly sponsored by 'The Australian'!! )
was a classic progressive 'fail'; loaded with orthodox 'experts' like Bowen and Keating
spouting austerity inducing neoliberal orthodoxy - not one heterodox economist was invited to
present the unwelcome, uncomfortable truth of sovereign nation macroeconomic reality.
Prof Bill Mitchell is Australia's most widely & internationally respected REAL
progressive heterodox academic - yet the TAI ignores him.
Neoliberalism won't die until it extracts the last breath of available wealth from
Australia's citizenry. It will die a savage death with the onset of the impending depression
'to end all depressions' when the collapsing housing bubble leaves citizens with a 'decades
long' bubble of unpayable private debt.
Only then will people realise they have been elaborately 'conned' - too late.
P.S. For all TRUE progressives:
Some brilliant short videos here
and here by Parody Project.
That's really the point, much as you might expect government like the Howard and Abbott ones
to have stuck to their claimed neo-liberal principles, neither substantially altered the
compulsory nature of the scheme, despite the fact that it ran more or less completely
contrary to Chicago School principles. Howard might have been fond of shouting "socialism" or
"nanny state" when he felt the need to criticise something, but deeds speak stronger than
words, and for all his p!ssing and moaning he was never going to do anything that stopped all
those truckloads of money finding their way to his friends in the banking industry.
Yes historically high mass immigration in Australia has been used as a trojan horse by the
adherents of neo-liberalism - to break down the pay and conditions of Australian workers and
their rights and entitlements.
By importing "ready made" skilled workers, neither the Government or the private sector have
had to go to the trouble of training their workforce nor bear any of the costs of educating
and training them.
As to the lower skilled imported workers, in the main, this is a crude device to cut out the
locals so that accepted or legislated pay and conditions can be lowered. Most of those
imported workers don't know their rights and are ripe for exploitation.
The shonks, rip off and quick buck merchants love neo-liberalism for the what it has done to
the Australian labour market.
And the Labor party has been complicit in all this - when it should have been protecting
Australians and Australian workers present and future from the ravaging impacts of
neo-liberalism.
For something that's supposedly dead, it still looks like neoliberalism is in charge to me.
The relentless commodification of every aspect of life continues apace. Money is still the
measure of everything and takes precedence over the environment, ethics, community,
creativity, discovery, and virtually everything else you care to name. When water thiefs, big
bankers, corrupt politicians, environmental despoilers, and those that start pointless wars
are IN GAOL, then I'll start to believe things are changing.
Neoliberalism is not simply an economic agenda. From the beginning it was conceived as and
then constructed to be much more than that - it was in fact as much a pedagogical cum
psychological operation to change minds across generations with regard to free-market
capitalism and thus to orient all thinking to that, than it was a matter of simple monetary
or trade policy. Of course, this had to be done with a good deal of repression and oppression
backing it up, here and there - Chile e.g. Thus electing neoliberalism is an effect of this
pedagogy over time - we are all schooled in its 'normality - and not a reflection of either
some natural desire for it or an educated choice.
I agree that we should be discussing fiscal policy but I suspect that Richard Denniss is
using a false frame for this topic. He probably adheres to the claim made by the
macroeconomic equivalent of pre-Copernican physics that a government that issues its own
currency, enforces taxes in that currency, and allows the currency to float in foreign
exchange markets can run out of its currency.
The fiscal policy of the federal government should be to employ all available labour in
socially useful and environmental sustainable productive activity, maintain price stability,
minimize inequality of income and wealth, and fund public services and infrastructure to the
maximum extent permitted by the resources that are available for sale in the government's
currency.
If you think that the government's fiscal policy should be to reduce a fiscal deficit or
deliver a fiscal surplus, you are a dill.
It makes no sense to target a particular fiscal balance because the outcome is driven
largely by the aggregated spending and saving decisions of the domestic non-government sector
and the external sector. The federal government does not control those variables.
The federal government needs to target economically, socially, and environmentally
desirable goals and allow the fiscal balance to reach whatever level is needed at any given
time to achieve those goals.
'Democracy' needs to be structural as well as a moral idea. Workers have been disempowered
and impoverished and disenfranchished by neoliberalism. An answer to structurally improve the
wealth AND democratic power of the workers is to build a HUGE co operative sector in each
economy: worker owned workplaces/businesses/concerns AND democratically run. THAT will
improve the situation for workers/punters: democracy where they live and work. Democracy
rooted not in fine ideas only about rights but bedded down in economic livelihoods. People
will take an interest in their local 'politics' and also understand more of the politics of
the nation. You don't have to get rid of 'capitalism' just give it a 'good run' for it's
money - some real COMPETITION. Cooperatively run Hospitals, owned by doctors and nurses and
other stakeholders - not for profit - that'll soon see the 'private' for profit' health
providers/rorters wind their prices and necks in. Socially owned, worker-owned,
government/taxpayer supported enterprise, work places, democratically run will boot up the
level of 'democracy' in our societies. We can still have voter style over-arching national
government of course. If you don't root democracy where people actually can participate and
which gives them a lot of control over their workplaces/livelihood, then it can all be
hijacked by the greedy and cunning (see neoliberalism). OH, a large cooperative sector in the
economy democratically run by workers won't deliver 'heaven on earth' - it'll still be run by
people!
It is also a tool of the neoliberals along with the whole neoliberal trend in macroeconomic
policy. The essential thing underlying this, is to try to reduce the power of government and
social forces that might exercise some power within the political economy -- workers and
others -- and put the power primarily in the hands of those dominating in the markets. That's
often the financial system, the banks, but also other elites. The idea of neoliberal
economists and policymakers being that you don't want the government getting too involved in
macroeconomic policy. You don't want them promoting too much employment because that might
lead to a raise in wages and, in turn, to a reduction in the profit share of the national
income.
Austerity fits into the mix very well Keeping wages low, or debt pressure high, means
workers will be less likely to complain or make demands. As workers struggle to provide their
families with all the temptations that a capitalist society offers, they become far less
likely to risk their employment, and less able to improve their situation.
At bottom, conservatives believe in a social hierarchy of "haves" and "have nots". They
have taken this corrosive social vision and dressed it up with a "respectable" sounding
ideology which all boils down to the cheap labour they depend on to make their fortunes.
It shows a great sense of inferiority and knowing our "proper"place, that the populace
apparently accepted the colloquial term for neo-liberalism or economic rationalism, as being
"trickle down economics" and that all that the populace deserved and was going to get was a
trickle of the alleged wealth and benefits created.
Why were most people so compliant and accepting of something that as a concept, from the
outset, was clearly signalling it would economically completely discriminate against the 99%
and was intended to provide such a meager share of the wealth and economic benefits
generated?
A quick look around the world provides clear evidence that there really are a lot of
alternatives.
That's the crux: many (western, developed) countries before us have
proven over and over again that the best type of democratic government is one in which
consensus is the basis for long-term decisions to the benefit of all. Is it tedious? Yes.
Frustrating at times? You bet. Slow? Indeed, quite often so. But the point is,
consensus-based decision making works and eventually is in everyone's interest (left,
right and centre), resulting in better long-term outcomes. With the added benefit that new
"majority" Governments won't throw out the children with the bathwater all the time.
I'd add one aspect to the article though, and that is to combine a form of proportional
representation with longer terms of Government. You won't get much meaningful done in
3 years, whatever form of representation you choose. 4 years, 5 years... whatever strikes the
best balance between governments getting some runs on the board and voters feeling empowered
to change government coalitions in the ballot box when they stuff up.
But what economic system worked in the interests of majority of population. There was only
one such system -- USA in 1935-1970th and it was the result of WWII and record profits of the US
corporation after the war, when both Europe and Japan were devastated.
In no way the USSR was social system that worked for the majority of population. It worked
for the Nomenklatura -- a pretty narrow caste, similar to current top 1% under
neoliberalism.
Neoliberalism clearly works for the interests of the minority and against the interests of
the majority. Households are now worse off than they were 6 years ago and large businesses
are enjoying record profits. It feels as if the australian economy is being run for the
benefit of a small percentage of wealthy shareholders.
While a purported devotion to the principles and precepts of neo-liberalism has been claimed
by decades of right-wing politicians, businesses and bankers, drilling down deeper often reveals
that what is really happening in favoring the economic interests of the few at the expense of the
many, and very often involving compulsorily actions like switch to 401K accounts. Which was stoke
of genius for neoliberals to fleeces common people. acquired
Speaking as no fan of neo-liberalism, but there is a risk that the term gets overused. Things
that the right have embraced with open arms, like compulsory retirement savings (which have
enriched the private sector, especially banks and their shareholders), would have caused
sharp intakes of breath from the steely-eyed theorists who came up with the concept. While a
purported devotion to the principles and precepts of neo-liberalism has been claimed by
decades of right-wing politicians, businesses and bankers, drilling down deeper often reveals
that what is really happening in favouring the economic interests of the few at the expense
of the many, and very often involving compulsorily acquired public resources being
re-directed to business, with barely even the thinnest veneer of genuine theoretical
observance to the neo-liberal model. Both neo-liberalism itself, and bogus claims of its
practical use and benefits, need to be dead and buried.
I really would love the rich and powerful who basically prey on the average
person/worker/mums and dads, to be held accountable and penalised properly in relation to
their deeds. These bastards destroy families in their grab for greed, and almost every time
they are excused by their cohorts, and even go on to bigger and better opportunities to keep
feeding their voracious greedy appetites. Basically they steal, so why isn't their proceeds
of crime taken back by government; and why do they not do any jail time?
Natural monopolies like water and power, roads and public transport should be in public
hands. All call centres dealing with government issues should be done by public servants, not
outsourced to foreign corporations.
I'd start with a bank. Give people a non-greed infested alternative.
Under neo-liberalism we have gone from 1 person, 1 vote to $1, one vote. The con job that
is 'small government and little or no regulations' is bad for society and the environment.
Greed over need.
Dr. T. J. Coles is director of the Plymouth Institute for Peace Research and the author of
several books, including Voices for Peace (with Noam Chomsky and others) and the forthcoming
Fire and Fury: How the US Isolates North Korea, Encircles China and Risks Nuclear War in Asia
(both Clairview Books).
The current economic model being used by capitalist countries across the world is failing
most of the people in these countries while enriching tiny elites. Unfortunately, politicians
in these countries are often in the pockets of the elite or are themselves members of the
elite.
We need a new economic narrative which better reconciles the needs of the population with
the directives of the market.
Why not? Profits to the nation, not greedy corporates and their shareholders.
I think you will find there were no profits made that could be put "to the nation." When
the wall came down, the USSR and the entire eastern bloc were completely bankrupt.
As was Mao's China prior to the emergence of Deng and his "to get rich is glorious"
mantra, that set China on its current path. Of course his generally market-oriented approach
has since been bastardised to one of One Party State-capitalism dominated by cronyism,
corruption, and a perverted justice system.
Yes it has generated vast wealth, but it is an empire built on sand. As any analysis of
its shadow banking system will show.
And while the legions of newly minted millionaires of party benevolence celebrate, the
hundreds of millions stuck in poverty are left to fend for themselves.
Neoliberalism is a secular religion, so it doe need to be rational, to remains influential or even dominant, much like
Bolshevism or Trotskyism (actually neoliberalism should be viewed as a perverted mutation of Trotskyism -- Trotskyism for irch) .
It took 70 years for Bolshevism to became discredited and collapse (under the attack from neoliberalism).
In the absence of alternatives neoliberalism might continues to exist in zombie state for a very long time.
Notable quotes:
"... Poverty rate in the USA has been increasing since about the year 2000. ..."
"... Why do you think that all around the world voters are going hard against Neoliberalism and why do you think that Neoliberals are desperately trying to save their bankrupt philosophy by hiding behind Nationalism and Racism? ..."
"... While I would very much like to agree with the notion that neo-liberalism is dead, there's rather too much evidence that its pernicious influence lingers ghost-like and ghastly, having suffused far too many politicians of an ultra-conservative ilk ..."
"... The true believers in the neo-liberal faith, as it was never other than a creed espoused by Thatcher and Pinochet among others, are like those in the catholic church who continued to advocate an earth centric universe long after science proved them wrong. ..."
"... It will be a long wait until these myopic adherents to the gospel of Hayek, Friedman and Buchanan, are consigned to the waste bin of history where they belong. Until then, it will remain a struggle to right the many wrongs of this mis-guided and shallow populism. ..."
"... The neocons have had their day, though it'll no doubt take one hell of an effort to drag them out of their crony-capitalist, snouts-in-the-trough ways. The profit motive in the provision of essential services should be confined to covering costs, maintenance and associated investment. ..."
The death of neoliberalism means we can finally have a national debate about the size and
role of government, and the shape of the economy and society we want to build.
Unfortunately, I see lots of deaths but none of them is neoliberalism. I can see death of
a decent safety net in Australia. Death of biodiversity. Death of ecosystems. Death of
intelligent debate. Death of science.
Poverty rate in the USA has been increasing since about the year 2000. The international
poverty trend has been decreasing over time only because the definition of poverty is to earn
less than $1.25 per day..... So, if you earn $10/day you are well above the poverty line:
Good luck living on that income in any OECD country!
Standards of living are decreasing in Australia... ever heard of the housing crisis? The
household debt crisis?.... Paying for hospital and medicines, education, electricity and
other services.... should I go on?.... ACOSS found that "there are just over 3 million people
(13.2%) living below the poverty line of 50% of median income – including 739,000
children (17.3%)".
"The evil neo-liberalism" has delivered poverty, massive inequality, dissatisfaction,
unemployment/sub-employment and casualization, collapse of public services, high costs of
living.... and deterioration of the environment...
Why do you think that all around the world
voters are going hard against Neoliberalism and why do you think that Neoliberals are
desperately trying to save their bankrupt philosophy by hiding behind Nationalism and
Racism?
While I would very much like to agree with the notion that neo-liberalism is dead, there's
rather too much evidence that its pernicious influence lingers ghost-like and ghastly, having
suffused far too many politicians of an ultra-conservative ilk.
The true believers in the neo-liberal faith, as it was never other than a creed espoused
by Thatcher and Pinochet among others, are like those in the catholic church who continued to
advocate an earth centric universe long after science proved them wrong.
It will be a long wait until these myopic adherents to the gospel of Hayek, Friedman and
Buchanan, are consigned to the waste bin of history where they belong. Until then, it will
remain a struggle to right the many wrongs of this mis-guided and shallow populism.
Abso-bloody-lutely! The neocons have had their day, though it'll no doubt take one hell of an
effort to drag them out of their crony-capitalist, snouts-in-the-trough ways. The profit
motive in the provision of essential services should be confined to covering costs,
maintenance and associated investment. It's so painfully obvious that the market has not met
the needs of the average citizen without absurd cost. Bring on the revolution!
What made anyone think neo-liberalism was going to work? Why was this even tried or got past
a focus group?
Only the Murdoch press ever dreamed this could have any merit and a few totally selfish and
controlling wealthy people. 2008 and the GFC should have killed this idea instead it gained
traction as the perpetrators not only were not prosecuted but were subsidised to create more
havoc. Find the culprits and jail them ... it is not too late.
"... What about "competition", the God of Neoliberals?.... Competition can have some positive role in society only in an environment of Regulation. That's why the future is neither Neoliberal nor Socialist, but a Mixed Economy Social Democracy. ..."
"... Bring back a Commonwealth Bank! In fact bring back State run Electricity, Gas and Water utilities... ..."
"... The Coalition these days proudly subsidise their friends and regulate their enemies in order to reshape Australia in their preferred form. ..."
All essential infrastructure should be Nationalised. Water electricity supply and generation,
ports and railways, educational facilities, one major bank, one country wide telco and mail
delivery. Remove the for profit aspect, and they become assets. In at least a few of these
they also provide training opportunities across a wide spectrum of careers
Nationalise the banks and the Mining Industry .
Take back control of outrageous wages in both these sectors and return profits to the
taxpayer .
Nationalise the State Governments in other words get rid of them and appoint federal
controlled administrators same with local councils, sack the lot of them and appoint
administrators.
Just like the AFP is "nationalised", or education is also to a big extent "nationalised",
alongside a big chunk of the health system.... so we can nationalise other things, such as
the modes of production and distribution of energy, major mineral resources, etc.
What about "competition", the God of Neoliberals?.... Competition can have some positive
role in society only in an environment of Regulation. That's why the future is neither
Neoliberal nor Socialist, but a Mixed Economy Social Democracy.
Which party is for a Mixed Economy Social Democracy?.... Labor and to some extent the
Greens. A bunch of independents are also happy with the concept.... Together they are
currently a majority, only waiting for a Federal election.
Neoliberalism, the economic stablemate of big religion's Prosperity Evangelism cult.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology
. Dual streams of bull shit to confuse the citizens while the Country's immense wealth is
stolen.
"... Apologies, but Neoliberalism is far from 'dead'. But of course it should never have given 'life'. However, if it were 'dead' why did Labor vote with the Coalition to ratify the ultra-Neoliberal TPP??? The TPP is the penultimate wet dream of all neoliberal multinational vulture corporations. Why???? Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) Under these rules, foreign investors can legally challenge host state regulations outside that country's courts. A wide range of policies can be challenged. ..."
Apologies, but Neoliberalism is far from 'dead'. But of course it should never have given
'life'. However, if it were 'dead' why did Labor vote with the Coalition to ratify the
ultra-Neoliberal TPP??? The TPP is the penultimate wet dream of all neoliberal multinational
vulture corporations. Why???? Investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) Under these rules,
foreign investors can legally challenge host state regulations outside that country's courts.
A wide range of policies can be challenged.
Yeah! Philip Morris comes to mind. "The cost to taxpayers of the Australian government's
six-year legal battle with the tobacco giant Philip Morris over plain packaging laws can
finally be revealed, despite the government's efforts to keep the cost secret.
The commonwealth government spent nearly $40m defending its world-first plain packaging
laws against Philip Morris Asia, a tobacco multinational, according to freedom of information
documents.
Documents say the total figure is $38,984,942.97."
Neo- liberalism is not dead its only just started. We are not in an era of democracy and
freedom but of Oligarchy and governmental servitude.
Less restrictions doesn't mean freedom it mean free booters, privateers , and plunderers are
given government support and handouts the only thing free is their right to take.
The pirates who plunder the most are given Hero status and those plundered are laughed at
as losers.
Looks around you governments are becoming agents of theft find ways to channel money to
those who don't need it . They say its right wing fascism but its not for all their evil the
fascists were determined to improve the lot of the people, however perversely they went about
it.
What we have today is legalised privateering.
None of the political parties today have the least intention to change a system that works
for them.
Fred, I can't remember who said it, but an observer of human systems and institutions made
the observation that unless the prevalent social, economic or political structures of the day
was not either changed or renewed, then those within the system would 'game' it; corrupting
it from within for personal benefit to the detriment of society as a whole.
This perfectly sums up neo-liberalism.
Whatever positive virtues were extolled when this ideology was adopted wholesale by so many
governments and societies (and please spare me the '-we delivered billions out of poverty!'
line, that was a positive byproduct, never the objective of neo-liberalism), it has since
become thoroughly corrupted, serving an ever shrinking percentage of society - entrenching a
super-wealthy 'ruling class' that makes a mockery of the idea of democracy.
It's time to ditch this 21st Century feudalistic construct, and replace it with something
that serves the whole of society with more justice than this current gravy train for the one
percenters.
Fully agree with the things being said here. The privatisation of essential services has been
a bloody disaster. Telecommunications, health, education energy production/distribution. Look
at what the NSW conservatives are doing the the public transport or the feds have done to our
communications, including Telstra the ABC and SBS.
But the issue is that this will just turn into an ongoing political football with each
successive conservative government trying to sell off the farm again.
These critical public services and infrastructure must be protected in law needing a
referendum to make major changes. Also their funding must be guaranteed and they must be run
at arms length from the government to reduce political interference and ensure they are
delivering the best possible service and are competitive with the huge private sector
operators.
There charter of operation and obligation to the public must be extremely robust and
clearly outline their duties of care to operate in a transparent and open fashion putting the
public interest as a priority.
The opposite of a neoliberal economic agenda isn't a progressive economic agenda, but
democratic re-engagement.
You can have democratic engagement voting for a 'neo-liberal economic agenda'. In fact
we've had it for decades.
But of course not even the Coalition believes that any more. These days they proudly
subsidise their friends and regulate their enemies in order to reshape Australia in their
preferred form.
They're politicians - they've never applied their ideological views in a pure way. This is
nothing new.
Ironically, one of the major objections to proportional representation in Australia has
been that it tends to deliver minority government, a situation that the major parties
prefer to avoid.
There's a big difference between minority government by a major party + a handful of
votes, versus a minority government by a handful of minority parties, or a major party + a
minor party. They tend to lead to the kind of instability we'd prefer to avoid.
The death of neoliberalism means
I think you've called it a bit prematurely. Both major parties here are still peddling
neo-liberalism, with policies which only differ on the margins.
"... Neoliberal doctrine leads to skyrocketing inequality, a swelling in the desperate and forgotten poor who are vulnerable to populist messaging and the idea of a strongman peddling easy answers to keep people safe as civil unrest increases. Fascism seeks power for power's sake and total control over the populace, and always cruelty to the marginalised, the 'others'. How all the right wingers hand-wringing over the idea of 'socialist communisms!!1!' can't see that, I don't know. ..."
"... All over the world, failed neoliberalism is being replaced by right-wing populist nationalism & I don't think "repairing democratic institutions" is at the top of their to-do list. ..."
"... I'm certainly in favour of greater nationalisation, especially of essential services. But around the world, neo-liberalism has morphed into neo-fascism and this is where the next fight must be. ..."
"... In social systems, natural selection favours cooperation. In addition, we are biased toward ethical behaviours, so cooperation and sharing are valued in human societies. ..."
"... The consequences of four decades of financialized neoliberal trade policies were by no means equally shared. Internal and external class relations were made evident through narrowly distributed booms followed by widely distributed busts. ..."
"... No wonder you get fascist right wing insurgence in this climate! ..."
Never forget that fascism is the natural defence mechanism of capital. After it is accrued,
it must be defended. The current trend in global politics is not an anomaly but an entirely
predictable outcome.
Neoliberal doctrine leads to skyrocketing inequality, a swelling in the
desperate and forgotten poor who are vulnerable to populist messaging and the idea of a
strongman peddling easy answers to keep people safe as civil unrest increases. Fascism seeks
power for power's sake and total control over the populace, and always cruelty to the marginalised, the 'others'. How all the right wingers hand-wringing over the idea of
'socialist communisms!!1!' can't see that, I don't know.
It's too late for the US I fear, and time is rapidly running out for the UK if they don't
pull their finger out and have another referendum before the self immolation of Brexit.
All over the world, failed neoliberalism is being replaced by right-wing populist nationalism
& I don't think "repairing democratic institutions" is at the top of their to-do list.
If
Australia does swing the pendulum to the left, it, along with NZ, will be one of the few
countries to do so. De-privatising will not be easy & will be met with a huge reactionary
backlash. They'll need to tread very carefully if they want to stay in government.
Neoliberalism may be dead but the neoliberals in the government will never admit it as they
seamlessly transition to authoritarian nationalism with populist promises - and failure to
deliver on them.
The neoliberal project was always a philosophical cover for crony capitalism that betrayed
the public interest by rewarding vested interests for their patronage, perverted democracy,
and served as a mechanism for perverting the natural function of an economy - to fairly
distribute goods, resources, and services throughout society - to favor the welfare of the
few over the many.
The self-interested culture of neoliberalism - the cult of the individual that denies the
common good - pervades every aspect of Australia's life as a nation - business, politics,
sport, education, and health - denying and crowding out public spirit, selfless service, and
societal wellbeing.
For meaningful change to occur there must be a rebirth of the conception of the public
good, and the virtue and necessity of acting to realise it.
However at this stage there is not a communal recognition of what the problem is let alone
how to go about repairing it. For that to happen there must be a widely accepted narrative
that naturally leads to the obvious actions that must be take to redress the damage done by
the neoliberal con job: decreasing economic inequality, restoring democracy, and rebuilding a
sense of common cause.
Piecemeal change will not be sufficient to enact the the sweeping transformation that has
to occur in every department of life. It is not enough to tax multinationals, to have a
federal integrity commission, to build a renewable future, or to move to proportional
representation.
Someone, some party, some coherent philosophical perspective has to explain why it must be
done.
It's certainly the case that the Liberal party, in particular, are now using ideas that fall
outside and to the right of neo-liberalism, but it's also obviously the case that
neo-liberalism and current Liberal thinking share the same underlying goal. Namely, the
transfer of wealth and power towards a narrower and narrower group of people and
corporations.
That suggests the death of neo-liberalism is coming about because – having done so
much damage already – it's no longer capable of delivering the required results, and
that we're moving into a new phase of the death spiral. I think that can also be seen in both
the US (where Trump is using the identified problems of neo-liberalism to further the same
basic agenda, but with less decorum and a larger cadre of useful idiots) and the UK (where
there's still a very strong possibility that Brexit will be used as an excuse to roll back
great swathes of social and democratic safeguards).
Perhaps even more worrying – given the latest reports on how we're destroying
habitat as well as the climate, and how much of our biodiversity is in South America,
particularly the Amazon – is that Brazil is how on a similar path.
The likelihood is that the Liberal party won't get away with what they have planned, but
they – and the forces behind them – certainly won't stop trying. And
unfortunately it's far from obvious that the Labor party will repudiate neo-liberalism
anytime soon. That they signed up for the latest iteration of TPP is hardly a good omen.
Democratic re-engagement is the better way forward from neo-liberalism, but unfortunately
I think it's unlikely to be the one that we end up taking.
All of that said, the deepest problem of all is the way in which democracy and government
have been corrupted, often via the media, but typically at the behest of corporations, and if
there is a way forward it has to be found in addressing those interactions
I'm certainly in favour of greater nationalisation, especially of essential services. But
around the world, neo-liberalism has morphed into neo-fascism and this is where the next
fight must be.
In social systems, natural selection favours cooperation. In addition, we are biased
toward ethical behaviours, so cooperation and sharing are valued in human societies.
But what happens when we are forced into an economic system that makes us compete at every
level? The logical outcome is societal decline or collapse.
Perhaps the worst aspect of neoliberalism was its infection of the Labor party. This has
left our social infrastructure alarmingly exposed.
The consequences of four decades of financialized neoliberal trade policies were by no
means equally shared. Internal and external class relations were made evident through
narrowly distributed booms followed by widely distributed busts.
Globally, debt has forced policy convergence between political parties of differing
ideologies. European center-left parties have pushed austerity even when ideology would
suggest the opposite.
No wonder you get fascist right wing insurgence in this climate!
Thank you Richard Denniss we need to highlight this more and more and start educating the
dumbed down population saturated with neoliberal snake oil!
"... The senior member of the Donald Trump administration said a multilateral approach is failing to produce a world of unrestricted capitalism, so the US should rule supreme – sorry, assume a leadership role – to ensure that countries like China didn't try to offer an alternative way. ..."
"... The UN is a vehicle for regional powers to "collude" and vote in bad actors into the Human Rights Council. "Bad actors" are of course not Saudi Arabia. The World Bank and the International Monetary fund are in the way of private lenders. The EU is good, but Brexit should be a wake-up call for its bureaucracy, which doesn't know how good nationalism actually is. The International Criminal Court is "rogue" because it attempts to hold Americans accountable for crimes in Afghanistan. ..."
"... But what organization was a good boy and doesn't deserve a piece of coal from Uncle Sam? SWIFT was. The banking communications organization caved in to Washington and cut off Iranians from its system, so it has a place in the bright new world of US leadership. ..."
The US will lead a new liberal world order, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared.
Organizations and treaties not fitting this picture must be scrapped or reformed, so that
non-compliers could not use them against America. The vision of the bold new and prosperous
(for the US and its supporters) world was delivered by Pompeo in a keynote
speech to the German Marshall Fund on Tuesday.
The senior member of the Donald Trump administration said a multilateral approach is
failing to produce a world of unrestricted capitalism, so the US should rule supreme –
sorry, assume a leadership role – to ensure that countries like China didn't try to offer
an alternative way.
China, as well as Russia, Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and other nations on the US grudge list got
their share of bashing in the speech, but its focus was more on international institutions,
which Pompeo claimed to be incompatible with his grand vision.
The UN is a vehicle for regional powers to "collude" and vote in bad actors into the
Human Rights Council. "Bad actors" are of course not Saudi Arabia. The World Bank and the
International Monetary fund are in the way of private lenders. The EU is good, but Brexit
should be a wake-up call for its bureaucracy, which doesn't know how good nationalism actually
is. The International Criminal Court is "rogue" because it attempts to hold Americans
accountable for crimes in Afghanistan.
The Paris Agreement on climate change was bad for America, so it left. NAFTA was bad for
America, so it forced a renegotiation. The nuclear deal with Iran didn't make Tehran
complacent, so it had to go.
But what organization was a good boy and doesn't deserve a piece of coal from Uncle Sam?
SWIFT was. The banking communications organization caved in to Washington and cut off Iranians
from its system, so it has a place in the bright new world of US leadership.
Watch Murad Gazdiev's report about Pompeo's "new liberal order" to find out
more.
"The game motif is useful as a metaphor for the broader rivalry between nations and
economic systems with the rise of imperialism and the pursuit of world power. This game has
gone through two major transformations since the days of Russian-British rivalry, with the
rise first of Communism and then of Islam as world forces opposing imperialism. The main
themes of Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great Games include:
US imperial strategy as an outgrowth of British imperialism, and its transformation
following the collapse of the Soviet Union;
the significance of the creation of Israel with respect to the imperial
project;
the repositioning of Russia in world politics after the collapse of the Soviet
Union;
the emerging role of China and Iran in Eurasia;
the emerging opposition to the US and NATO.
This work brings these elements together in historical perspective with an understanding
from the Arab/ Muslim world's point of view, as it is the main focus of all the "Great
Games"."
Jay Dyer discusses the book here, its strengths and weaknesses:
https://democracynow.org - As the media memorializes George H.W. Bush, we look at the
lasting impact of his 1991 invasion of Iraq and the propaganda campaign that encouraged it.
Although the Gulf War technically ended in February of 1991, the U.S. war on Iraq would
continue for decades, first in the form of devastating sanctions and then in the 2003 invasion
launched by George W. Bush. Thousands of U.S. troops and contractors remain in Iraq. A largely
forgotten aspect of Bush Sr.'s war on Iraq is the vast domestic propaganda effort before the
invasion began. We look at the way U.S. media facilitated the war on Iraq with journalist John
"Rick" MacArthur, president and publisher of Harper's Magazine and the author of the book
"Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the 1991 Gulf War."
Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs weekdays on nearly 1,400 TV and
radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch our livestream 8-9AM ET:
https://democracynow.org
"... Capitalism never was benign, Chrustjow worked as a miner in a commercially exploited mine, where there was little regard for
safety, he abhorred capitalism. ..."
@Bill Jones Interesting to read
how these idealists agree with Christian Gerondeau, 'Le CO2 est bon pour la planete, Climat, la grande manipulation', Paris 2017
Gerondeau explains how many deaths reducing CO2 emissions will cause in poor countries, simply as an example how electricity
for cooking will remain too expensive for them, so cooking is done on smoky fires in confined spaces.
" to intentionally transform the economic development model for the first time in human history." " To intentionally impoverish
the world. To what end, I wonder ?
Anyone who knows anything about history is that the rich were always better off than the poor, in fact the very definition
of rich and poor.
In this respect it never mattered if a society was capitalistic, communistic, or a theocracy, as Tibet was.
These idealistic idiots do not understand how they created the problem they now intend to solve with creating an even bigger
problem, their example is the EU, the EU is following this policy for more than twelve years now, since 2005, when the EU grabbed
power through the rejected EU 'consitution'.
Capitalism is no more than deciding between consumption and investment, Robinson Crusoë invested in a fishing net by temporarily
reducing consumption, he did not go fishing, but made a fishing net, expecting that his investment would make it possible to eat
more fish.
Capitalism never was benign, Chrustjow worked as a miner in a commercially exploited mine, where there was little regard
for safety, he abhorred capitalism.
Dutch 17th century capitalistic commerce to the far Indies, east and west, was not benign. Typically a ship left Amsterdam,
near the Schreierstoren, trans 'the tower for the crying', wives, mothers and girl friends, with 300 men aboard, and returned
with 100. Most of those who died were common sailors, captain and officers had a far lower mortality, mainly better food.
Our East Indies commerce also was not much fun for the people in the East, in the Banda Sea Islands massacre some 30.000 people
were killed, for a monopoly on pepper, if I remember correctly.
But, as the earth developed economically, there came room for also poor people getting lives beginning to look as worth living.
Engels in 1844, hope the year is right, described the conditions of working people in GB, this resulted in Das Kapital.
This room for a better life for also the poor was not given by the capitalistic system
In their struggle for a better world for anyone the idealists wanted globalisation, level playing field, anyone should be welcome
anywhere, slogans like this.
Globaliation, however, is the end of the nation state, the very institution in which it was possible to provide a better life.
Anyone following me until here now can see the dilemma, the end of the nation state was also the end of protection by that state
against unbridled capitalism.
As the idealists cannot give up their globalisation religion they must, as those who cannot give up the biblical creation story,
find an ideological way out of their dilemma. My conclusion now is 'in order to save our globalisation religion we try to destroy
economic growth, by making energy very expensive, in the hope of destroying capitalism'.
Alas, better, luckily, capitalism cannot be destroyed, those who invented the first furnaces for more or less mass producing
iron, they were capitalists. They saw clearly how cheap iron would bring economic growth, the plow.
In the country where the CO2 madness has struck most, my country, the Netherlands, the realisation of the poverty that drastically
reducing CO2 emissions will cause, has begun. If there really is madness, I wonder.
I indeed see madness, green leftists unable to make a simple multipiclation calculations about costs, but maybe mainly political
opportunism. Our dictator, Rutte, is now so hated that he needs a job outside the Netherlands, in order to qualify, either at
Brussels or in New York, with the UN, has to howl with the wolves.
At the same time, we have a gas production problem,, earthquakes in the NE, houses damaged, never any decision made to solve
the problem, either stop gas production, or strenghten the houses, both expensive solutions.
So, in my suspicious ideas, Rutte now tries to improve himself, at the same time solving a problem: within, say ten years,
the Netherlands functions without gas, and remains prosperous; the idea he tries to sell to us. In a few years time it will emerge
that we cannot have both, prosperous, and zero emission, but the time horizon for a politician is said to be five years.
It has become all too easy for democracy to be turned on its head and popular nationalist
mandates, referenda and elections negated via instant political hypocrisy by leaders who show
their true colours only after the public vote. So it has been within the two-and-a-half year
unraveling of the UK Brexit referendum of 2016 that saw the subsequent negotiations now provide
the Brexit voter with only three possibilities. All are a loss for Britain.
One possibility, Brexit, is the result of Prime Minister, Theresa May's negotiations- the
"deal"- and currently exists in name only. Like the PM herself, the original concept of Brexit
may soon lie in the dust of an upcoming UK Parliament floor vote in exactly the same manner as
the failed attempt by the Greeks barely three years ago. One must remember that Greece on June
27, 2015 once voted to leave the EU as well and to renegotiate its EU existence as well in
their own "Grexit" referendum. Thanks to their own set of underhanded and treasonous
politicians, this did not go well for Greece. Looking at the Greek result, and understanding
divisive UK Conservative Party control that exists in the hearts of PMs on both sides of the
House of Commons, this new parliamentary vote is not looking good for Britain. Brexit:
Theresa May Goes Greek! "deal" -- would thus reveal the life-long scars of their true
national allegiance gnawed into their backs by the lust of their masters in Brussels. Brexit:
Theresa May Goes Greek!, by Brett Redmayne-Titley - The Unz Review
Ironically, like a cluster bomb of white phosphorous over a Syrian village, Cameron's Brexit
vote blew up spectacularly in his face. Two decades of ongoing political submission to the EU
by the Cons and "new" labour had them arrogantly misreading the minds of the UK
voter.
So on that incredible night, it happened. Prime Minister David Cameron the Cons New Labour
The Lib- Dems and even the UK Labour Party itself, were shocked to their core when the
unthinkable nightmare that could never happen, did happen . Brexit had passed by popular
vote!
David Cameron has been in hiding ever since.
After Brexit passed the same set of naïve UK voters assumed, strangely, that Brexit
would be finalized in their national interest as advertised. This belief had failed to
read
Article 50 - the provisos for leaving the EU- since, as much as it was mentioned, it was
very rarely linked or referenced by a quotation in any of the media punditry. However, an
article published four days after the night Brexit passed,
" A Brexit Lesson In Greek: Hopes and Votes Dashed on Parliamentary Floors," provided
anyone thus reading Article 50, which is only eight pages long and double-spaced, the info to
see clearly that this never before used EU by-law would be the only route to a UK exit.
Further, Article 50 showed that Brussels would control the outcome of exit negotiations along
with the other twenty-seven member nations and that effectively Ms May and her Tories
would be playing this game using the EU's ball and rules, while going one-on-twenty-seven
during the negotiations.
In the aftermath of Brexit, the real game began in earnest. The stakes: bigger than
ever.
Forgotten are the hypocritical defections of political expediency that saw Boris Johnson and
then Home Secretary Theresa May who were, until that very moment, both vociferously and very
publicly against the intent of Brexit. Suddenly they claimed to be pro- Brexit in their quest
to sleep in Cameron's now vacant bed at No. 10 Downing Street. Boris strategically dropped out
to hopefully see, Ms May, fall on her sword- a bit sooner. Brexit: Theresa May Goes Greek!, by
Brett Redmayne-Titley - The Unz Review
So, the plucky PM was left to convince the UK public, daily, as the negotiations moved on,
that "Brexit means Brexit!" A UK media that is as pro-EU as their PM chimed in to help
her sell distortions of proffered success at the negotiating table, while the rise of "old"
Labour, directed by Jeremy Corbyn, exposed her "soft" Brexit negotiations for the
litany of failures that ultimately equaled the "deal" that was strangely still called
"Brexit."
Too few, however, examined this reality once these political Chameleons changed their
colours just as soon as the very first results shockingly came in from Manchester in the wee
hours of the morning on that seemingly hopeful night so long ago: June 23, 2016. For thus would
begin a quiet, years-long defection of many more MPs than merely these two opportunists.
What the British people also failed to realize was that they and their Brexit victory would
also be faced with additional adversaries beyond the EU members: those from within their own
government. From newly appointed PM May to Boris Johnson, from the Conservative Party to the
New Labour sellouts within the Labour Party and the Friends of Israel , the
quiet internal political movement against Brexit began. As the House of Lords picked up their
phones, too, for very quiet private chats within House of Commons, their minions in the British
press began their work as well.
Brexit: Theresa May Goes Greek!, by Brett Redmayne-Titley -
The Unz Review
This article by Brett Redmayne is certainly right re the horrific sell-out by the Greek
government of Tsipras the other year, that has left the Greek citizenry in enduring political
despair the betrayal of Greek voters indeed a model for UK betrayal of Brexit voters
But Redmayne is likely very mistaken in the adulation of Jeremy Corbyn as the 'genuine
real deal' for British people
Ample evidence points to Corbyn as Trojan horse sell-out, as covered by UK researcher
Aangirfan on her blogs, the most recent of which was just vapourised by Google in their
censorship insanity
Jeremy Corbyn was a childhood neighbour of the Rothschilds in Wiltshire; with Jeremy's
father David Corbyn working for ultra-powerful Victor Rothschild on secret UK gov scientific
projects during World War 2
Jeremy Corbyn is tied to child violation scandals & child-crime convicted individuals
including Corbyn's Constituency Agent; Corbyn tragically ignoring multiple earnest complaints
from child abuse victims & whistleblowers over years, whilst "child abuse rings were
operating within all 12 of the borough's children's homes" in Corbyn's district not very
decent of him
And of course Corbyn significantly cucked to the Israel lobby in their demands for purge
of the Labour party alleged 'anti-semites'
The Trojan Horse 'fake opposition', or fake 'advocate for the people', is a very classic
game of the Powers That Be, and sadly Corbyn is likely yet one more fake 'hero'
My theory is, give "capitalism" and financial interests enough time, they will consume any
democracy. Meaning: the wealth flows upwards, giving the top class opportunity to influence
politics and the media, further improving their situation v.s. the rest, resulting in ever
stronger position – until they hold all the power. Controlling the media and therefore
the narrative, capable to destroy any and all opposition. Ministers and members of
parliaments, most bought and paid for one way or the other. Thankfully, the 1% or rather the
0.1% don't always agree so the picture can be a bit blurred.
You can guess what country inspired this "theory" of mine. The second on the list is
actually the U.K. If a real socialist becomes the prime minister of the U.K. I will be very
surprised. But Brexit is a black swan like they say in the financial sector, and they tend to
disrupt even the best of theories. Perhaps Corbin is genuine and will become prime minister!
I am not holding my breath.
However, if he is a real socialist like the article claims. And he becomes prime minister
of the U.K the situation will get really interesting. Not only from the EU side but more
importantly from U.K. best friend – the U.S. Uncle Sam will not be happy about this
development and doesn't hesitate to crush "bad ideas" he doesn't like.
Case in point – Ireland's financial crisis in 2009;
After massive expansion and spectacular housing bubble the Irish banks were in deep
trouble early into the crisis. The EU, ECB and the IMF (troika?) met with the Irish
government to discuss solutions. From memory – the question was how to save the Irish
banks? They were close to agreement that bondholders and even lenders to the Irish banks
should take a "haircut" and the debt load should be cut down to manageable levels so the
banks could survive (perhaps Michael Hudson style if you will). One short phone call from
the U.S Secretary of the treasury then – Timothy Geithner – to the troika-Irish
meeting ended these plans. He said: there will be no haircut! That was the end of it.
Ireland survived but it's reasonable to assume this "guideline" paved the road for the
Greece debacle.
I believe Mr. Geithner spoke on behalf of the financial power controlling – more or
less-our hemisphere. So if the good old socialist Corbin comes to power in the U.K. and
intends to really change something and thereby set examples for other nations – he is
taking this power head on. I think in case of "no deal" the U.K. will have it's back against
the wall and it's bargaining position against the EU will depend a LOT on U.S. response. With
socialist in power there will be no meaningful support from the U.S. the powers that be will
to their best to destroy Corbin as soon as possible.
My right wing friends can't understand the biggest issue of our times is class war. This
article mentions the "Panama papers" where great many corporations and wealthy individuals
(even politicians) in my country were exposed. They run their profits through offshore tax
havens while using public infrastructure (paid for by taxpayers) to make their money. It's
estimated that wealth amounting to 1,5 times our GDP is stored in these accounts!
There is absolutely no way to get it through my right wing friends thick skull that
off-shore accounts are tax frauds. Resulting in they paying higher taxes off their wages
because the big corporations and the rich don't pay anything. Nope. They simply hate taxes
(even if they get plenty back in services) and therefore all taxes are bad. Ergo tax evasions
by the 1% are fine – socialism or immigrants must be the root of our problems.
MIGA!
Come to think of it – few of them would survive the "law of the jungle" they so much
desire. And none of them would survive the "law of the jungle" if the rules are stacked
against them. Still, all their political energy is aimed against the ideas and people that
struggle against such reality.
I give up – I will never understand the right. No more than the pure bread
communist. Hopeless ideas!
" This is because the deal has a provision that would still keep the UK in the EU Customs
Union (the system setting common trade rules for all EU members) indefinitely. This is an
outrageous inclusion and betrayal of a real Brexit by Ms May since this one topic was the
most contentious in the debate during the ongoing negotiations because the Customs Union is
the tie to the EU that the original Brexit vote specifically sought to terminate. "
Here I stopped reading, maybe later more.
Nonsense.
What USA MSM told in the USA about what ordinary British people said, those who wanted to
leave the EU, I do not know, one of the most often heard reasons was immigration, especially
from E European countries, the EU 'free movement of people'.
"Real' Britons refusing to live in Poland.
EP member Verhofstadt so desperate that he asked on CNN help by Trump to keep this 'one of
the four EU freedoms'.
This free movement of course was meant to destroy the nation states
What Boris Johnson said, many things he said were true, stupid EU interference for example
with products made in Britain, for the home market, (he mentioned forty labels in one piece
of clothing), no opportunity to seek trade without EU interference.
There was irritation about EU interference 'they even make rules about vacuum cleaners', and,
already long ago, closure, EU rules, of village petrol pumps that had been there since the
first cars appeared in Britain, too dangerous.
In France nonsensical EU rules are simply ignored, such as countryside private sewer
installations.
But the idea that GB could leave, even without Brussels obstruction, the customs union,
just politicians, and other nitwits in economy, could have such ideas.
Figures are just in my head, too lazy to check.
But British export to what remains of the EU, some € 60 billion, French export to GB,
same order of magnitude, German export to GB, far over 100 billion.
Did anyone imagine that Merkel could afford closing down a not negligible part of Bayern car
industry, at he same time Bayern being the Land most opposed to Merkel, immigration ?
This Brexit in my view is just the beginning of the end of the illusion EU falling
apart.
In politics anything is connected with anything.
Britons, again in my opinion, voted to leave because of immigration, inside EU
immigration.
What GB will do with Marrakech, I do not know.
Marrakech reminds me of many measures that were ready to be implemented when the reason to
make these measures no longer existed.
Such as Dutch job guarantees when enterprises merged, these became law when when the merger
idiocy was over.
The negative aspects of immigration now are clear to many in the countries with the imagined
flesh pots, one way or another authorities will be obliged to stop immigration, but at that
very moment migration rules, not legally binding, are presented.
As a Belgian political commentator said on Belgian tv 'no communication is possible
between French politicians and French yellow coat demonstrators, they live in completely
different worlds'.
These different worlds began, to pinpoint a year, in 2005, when the negative referenda about
the EU were ignored. As Farrage reminded after the Brexit referendum, in EP, you said 'they
do not know what they're doing'
But now Macron and his cronies do not know what to do, now that police sympathises with
yellow coat demonstrators.
For me THE interesting question remains 'how was it possible that the Renaissance
cultures manoevred themselves into the present mess ?'.
@Digital
Samizdat Corbyn, in my opinion one of the many not too bright socialists, who are caught
in their own ideological prison: worldwide socialism is globalisation, globalisation took
power away from politicians, and gave it to multinationals and banks.
@niceland The
expression class war is often used without realising what the issue is, same with tax
evasion.
The rich of course consume more, however, there is a limit to what one can consume, it takes
time to squander money.
So the end of the class war may make the rich poor, but alas the poor hardly richer.
About tax evasion, some economist, do not remember his name, did not read the article
attentively, analysed wealth in the world, and concluded that eight % of this wealth had
originated in evading taxes.
Over what period this evasion had taken place, do not remember this economist had reached a
conclusion, but anyone understands that ending tax evasion will not make all poor rich.
There is quite another aspect of class war, evading taxes, wealth inequality, that is
quite worrying: the political power money can yield.
Soros is at war with Hungary, his Open University must leave Hungary.
USA MSM furious, some basic human right, or rights, have been violated, many in Brussels
furious, the 226 Soros followers among them, I suppose.
But since when is it allowed, legally and/or morally, to try to change the culture of a
country, in this case by a foreigner, just by pumping money into a country ?
Soros advertises himself as a philantropist, the Hungarian majority sees him as some kind of
imperialist, I suppose.
For me THE interesting question remains 'how was it possible that the Renaissance cultures
manoevred themselves into the present mess ?'.
Well , I am reading " The occult renaissance church of Rome " by Michael Hoffman ,
Independent History and research . Coeur d`Alene , Idaho . http://www.RevisionistHistory.org
I saw about this book in this Unz web .
I used to think than the rot started with protestantism , but Hoffman says it started with
catholic Renaissance in Rome itself in the XV century , the Medici , the Popes , usury
This whole affair illustrates beautifully the real purpose of the sham laughingly known as
"representative democracy," namely, not to "empower" the public but to deprive it of
its power.
With modern means of communication, direct democracy would be technically feasible even in
large countries. Nevertheless, practically all "democratic" countries continue to delegate
all legislative powers to elected "representatives." These are nothing more than consenting
hostages of those with the real power, who control and at the same time hide behind those
"representatives." The more this becomes obvious, the lower the calibre of the people willing
to be used in this manner – hence, the current crop of mental gnomes and opportunist
shills in European politics.
I would only shout this rambling ignoramus a beer in the pub to stop his mouth for a while.
Some of his egregious errors have been noted. and Greece, anyway, is an irrelevance to the
critical decisions on Brexit.
Once Article 50 was invoked the game was over. All the trump cards were on the EU side.
Now we know that, even assuming Britain could muster a competent team to plan and negotiate
for Brexit that all the work of proving up the case and negotiating or preparing the ground
has to be done over years leading up to the triggering of Article 50. And that's assuming
that recent events leave you believing that the once great Britain is fit to be a sovereign
nation without adult supervision.
As it is one has to hope that Britain will not be constrained by the total humbug which
says that a 51 per cent vote of those choosing to vote in that very un British thing, a
referendum, is some sort of reason for not giving effect to a more up to date and better
informed view.
@Digital
Samizdat Hypothesis: The British masses would fare better without a privatized
government.
"Corbyn may prove to be real .. .. old-time Labour platform [leadership, capable to]..
return [political, social and financial] control back to the hands of the UK worker".. [but
the privateers will use the government itself and mass media to defeat such platforms and to
suppress labor with new laws and domestic armed warfare]. Why would a member of the British
masses allow [the Oligarch elite and the[ir] powerful business and foreign political
interests restrain democracy and waste the victims of privately owned automation revolution?
.. ..
[Corbyn's Labour platform challenges ] privatized capitalist because the PCs use the
British government to keep imprisoned in propaganda and suppressed in opportunity, the
masses. The privateers made wealthy by their monopolies, are using their resources to
maintain rule making and enforcement control (via the government) over the masses; such
privateers have looted the government, and taken by privatization a vast array of economic
monopolies that once belonged to the government. If the British government survives, the
Privateers (monopoly thieves) will continue to use the government to replace humanity, in
favor of corporate owned Robots and super capable algorithms.
Corbyn's threat to use government to represent the masses and to suppress or reduce
asymmetric power and wealth, and to provide sufficient for everyone extends to, and alerts
the masses in every capitalist dominated place in the world. He (Corbyn) is a very dangerous
man, so too was Jesus Christ."
There is a similar call in France, but it is not yet so well led.
Every working Dutch person is "owed" 50k euro from the bailout of Greece, not that Greece
will ever pay this back, and not as if Greece ever really got the money as it just went
straight to northern European banks to bail them out. Then we have the fiscal policy creating
more money by the day to stimulate the economy, which also doesn't reach the countries or
people just the banks. Then we have the flirting with East-European mobsters to pull them in
the EU sphere corrupting top EU bureaucrats. Then we have all of south Europe being extremely
unstable, including France, both its populations and its economy.
It's sad to see the British government doesn't see the disaster ahead, any price would be
cheaper then future forced EU integration. And especially at this point, the EU is so
unstable, that they can't go to war on the UK without also committing A kamikaze attack.
@Brabantian
Thank you for your comment and addition to my evaluation of Corbyn. I do agree with you that
Corbyn has yet to be tested for sincerity and effectiveness as PM, but he will likely get his
chance and only then will we and the Brits find out for sure. The main point I was hoping to
make was that: due to the perceived threat of Labour socialist reform under Corbyn, he has
been an ulterior motive in the negotiations and another reason that the EU wants PM May to
get her deal passed. Yes, I too am watching Corbyn with jaundiced optimism. Thank you.
Armed conflict between the US and Iran is becoming more probable by the day as super-hawks
replace hawks in the Trump administration. The new National Security Adviser, John Bolton, has
called for the US to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal of 2015 and advocated immediate regime
change in Tehran. The new Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has said the agreement, which Trump
may withdraw from on 12 May, is "a disaster". Trump has told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu that he will not accept a deal with "cosmetic changes" as advocated by European
states, according to Israeli reporters. If this is so, then the deal is effectively dead.
... ... ...
The new line-up in Washington is being described as "a war cabinet" and it may turn out to
be just that. But looking at ignorant, arrogant men like Bolton and Pompeo, it is difficult to
avoid the feeling that it will all end in disaster.
Guardian is just a propaganda outlet. That sad fact does not exclude the possibility of publishing really good articles,
thouth. That still happens occasionally.
The fact that they follow MI6 and Foreign Office talking points in all foreign events coverage a is just a testament the GB is
a "national security state". Nothing more, nothing less.
Notable quotes:
"... I'm not going to debunk the Guardian article here. It has been debunked by better debunkers than I (e.g., Jonathan Cook , Craig Murray , Glenn Greenwald , Moon of Alabama , and many others). ..."
"... The short version is, The Guardian 's Luke Harding, a shameless hack who will affix his name to any propaganda an intelligence agency feeds him, alleged that Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, secretly met with Julian Assange (and unnamed "Russians") on numerous occasions from 2013 to 2016, presumably to conspire to collude to brainwash Americans into not voting for Clinton. Harding's earth-shaking allegations, which The Guardian prominently featured and flogged, were based on well, absolutely nothing, except the usual anonymous "intelligence sources." After actual journalists pointed this out, The Guardian quietly revised the piece ( employing the subjunctive mood rather liberally ), buried it in the back pages of its website, and otherwise pretended like they had never published it. ..."
"... By that time, of course, its purpose had been served. The story had been picked up and disseminated by other "respectable," "authoritative" outlets, and it was making the rounds on social media. Nonetheless, out of an abundance of caution, in an attempt to counter the above-mentioned debunkers (and dispel the doubts of anyone else still capable of any kind of critical thinking), Politico posted this ass-covering piece speculating that, if it somehow turned out The Guardian 's story was just propaganda designed to tarnish Assange and Trump well, probably, it had been planted by the Russians to make Luke Harding look like a moron. This ass-covering piece of speculative fiction, which was written by a former CIA agent, was immediately disseminated by liberals and "leftists" who are eagerly looking forward to the arrest, rendition, and public crucifixion of Assange. ..."
"... And this is why The Guardian will not be punished for publishing a blatantly fabricated story. Nor will Luke Harding be penalized for writing it. Luke Harding will be rewarded for writing it, as he has been handsomely rewarded throughout his career for loyally serving the ruling classes. Greenwald, on the other hand, is on thin ice. It will be instructive to see how far he pushes his confrontation with The Guardian regarding this story. ..."
"... It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. ..."
"... Those who are conforming to [official truth] are doing so, not because they are deceived, but because it is safer and more rewarding to do so. ..."
"... The powerless are either servants of power or they are heretics. There is no third alternative. ..."
"... It is important to realize that "the truth" is not going to "rouse the masses from their slumber" and inspire them to throw off their chains. People are not going to suddenly "wake up," "see the truth" and start "the revolution." ..."
"... The distinction is simple. We can't know the truth about distant and complex events like 9/11 or JFK unless we were directly involved, and those people are all dead. For big events we have to rely on, or ignore, the official accounts. ..."
"... Given all this, still, we can approach an approximation of truth that some can agree on. Here is where the trouble starts . ..."
The short version is, The Guardian 's Luke
Harding, a shameless hack who will affix his name to any propaganda an intelligence agency
feeds him, alleged that Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign manager, secretly met with
Julian Assange (and unnamed "Russians") on numerous occasions from 2013 to 2016, presumably to
conspire to collude to brainwash Americans into not voting for Clinton. Harding's earth-shaking
allegations, which The Guardian prominently featured and flogged, were based on well,
absolutely nothing, except the usual anonymous "intelligence sources." After actual journalists
pointed this out, The Guardian quietly revised the piece ( employing the subjunctive mood
rather liberally ), buried it in the back pages of its website, and otherwise pretended
like they had never published it.
By that time, of course, its purpose had been served. The story had been picked up and
disseminated by other "respectable," "authoritative" outlets, and it was making the rounds on
social media. Nonetheless, out of an abundance of caution, in an attempt to counter the
above-mentioned debunkers (and dispel the doubts of anyone else still capable of any kind of
critical thinking), Politico posted this
ass-covering piece speculating that, if it somehow turned out The Guardian 's story
was just propaganda designed to tarnish Assange and Trump well, probably, it had been planted
by the Russians to make Luke Harding look like a moron. This ass-covering piece of speculative
fiction, which was written by a former CIA agent, was immediately disseminated by liberals and
"leftists" who are eagerly looking forward to the arrest, rendition, and public crucifixion
of Assange.
At this point, I imagine you're probably wondering what this has to do with manufacturing
"truth." Because, clearly, this Guardian story was a lie a lie The Guardian got
caught telling. I wish the "truth" thing was as simple as that (i.e., exposing and debunking
the ruling classes' lies). Unfortunately, it isn't. Here is why.
Much as most people would like there to be one (and behave and speak as if there were one),
there is no Transcendental Arbiter of Truth. The truth is what whoever has the power to say it
is says it is. If we do not agree that that "truth" is the truth, there is no higher court to
appeal to. We can argue until we are blue in the face. It will not make the slightest
difference. No evidence we produce will make the slightest difference. The truth will remain
whatever those with the power to say it is say it is.
Nor are there many "truths" (i.e., your truth and my truth). There is only one "truth" the
"official truth". The "truth" according to those in power. This is the whole purpose of the concept
of truth. It is the reason the concept of "truth" was invented (i.e., to render any other
"truths" lies). It is how those in power control reality and impose their ideology on the
masses (or their employees, or their students, or their children). Yes, I know, we very badly
want there to be some "objective truth" (i.e., what actually happened, when whatever happened,
JFK, 9-11, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Schrödinger's dead cat, the Big Bang, or
whatever). There isn't. The truth is just a story a story that is never our story.
The "truth" is a story that power gets to tell, and that the powerless do not get to tell,
unless they tell the story of those in power, which is always someone else's story. The
powerless are either servants of power or they are heretics. There is no third alternative.
They either parrot the "truth" of the ruling classes or they utter heresies of one type or
another. Naturally, the powerless do not regard themselves as heretics. They do not regard
their "truth" as heresy. They regard their "truth" as the truth, which is heresy. The truth of
the powerless is always heresy.
For example, while it may be personally comforting for some of us to tell ourselves that we
know the truth about certain subjects (e.g., Russiagate, 9-11, et cetera), and to share our
knowledge with others who agree with us, and even to expose the lies of the corporate media on
Twitter, Facebook, and our blogs, or in some leftist webzine (or "fearless adversarial" outlet
bankrolled by a beneficent oligarch), the ruling classes do not give a shit, because ours is
merely the raving of heretics, and does not warrant a serious response.
Or all right, they give a bit of a shit, enough to try to cover their asses when a
journalist of the stature of Glenn Greenwald (who won a Pulitzer and is frequently on
television) very carefully and very respectfully almost directly accuses them of lying. But
they give enough of a shit to do this because Greenwald has the power to hurt them, not because
of any regard for the truth. This is also why Greenwald has to be so careful and respectful
when directly confronting The Guardian , or any other corporate media outlet, and state
that their blatantly fabricated stories could, theoretically, turn out to be true. He can't
afford to cross the line and end up getting branded a heretic and consigned to Outer Mainstream
Darkness, like Robert Fisk, Sy Hersh, Jonathan Cook, John Pilger, Assange, and other such
heretics.
Look, I'm not trying to argue that it isn't important to expose the fabrications of the
corporate media and the ruling classes. It is terribly important. It is mostly what I do
(albeit usually in a more satirical fashion). At the same time, it is important to realize that
"the truth" is not going to "rouse the masses from their slumber" and inspire them to throw off
their chains. People are not going to suddenly "wake up," "see the truth" and start "the
revolution." People already know the truth the official truth, which is the only truth there
is. Those who are conforming to it are doing so, not because they are deceived, but because it
is safer and more rewarding to do so.
And this is why The Guardian will not be punished for publishing a blatantly
fabricated story. Nor will Luke Harding be penalized for writing it. Luke Harding will be
rewarded for writing it, as he has been handsomely rewarded throughout his career for loyally
serving the ruling classes. Greenwald, on the other hand, is on thin ice. It will be
instructive to see how far he pushes his confrontation with The Guardian regarding this
story.
As for Julian Assange, I'm afraid he is done for. The ruling classes really have no choice
but to go ahead and do him at this point. He hasn't left them any other option. Much as they
are loathe to create another martyr, they can't have heretics of Assange's notoriety running
around punching holes in their "truth" and brazenly defying their authority. That kind of stuff
unsettles the normals, and it sets a bad example for the rest of us heretics.
#
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist
based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play
Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
Good piece. I think there's another layer, though.
The truth or falsehood of individual facts about the physical world can often be
determined with near-certainty. But when it comes to history, or "news" about current events/
politics, reality is much too complex to address directly. Too many individual facts to be
comprehensible, let alone useful.
We must pick, choose, emphasize, or ignore particular elements, and arrange them into some
kind of structure, in order to form a useful narrative. Or in the case of "news," the legacy
media oligarchy largely performs this function for us -- we simply passively accept/ adopt
their narrative. Or, in many cases, "choose" between the closely-related variants of that
narrative offered by the "liberal" vs. "conservative" press.
This process of abstraction, simplification, and organization inevitably involves data
loss. So no narrative is "true" in the same sense that individual facts about the real world
are true. But some narratives incorporate large amounts of "facts" that are demonstrably
false, and some are more useful/ descriptive/ predictive than others. No one engaged in this
process is "objective." They -- or we -- are all in some way part of the story. It should be
self-evident that some narratives are more useful to the perceived interests of owners of
major media outlets than others, and that these will assume a much more prominent place in
their coverage than ones that are deleterious to those interests.
Ideally, most people would take these factors into account when evaluating the "news," and
maintain a much more skeptical attitude than they typically do. But there are several factors
that prevent this.
One is simply time/ efficiency. These individual narratives, taken together, support --
and are supported by -- our overall worldview. There aren't enough hours in the day to be
constantly skeptical about everything, especially since the major tools of distortion
involved in constructing mainstream narratives tend to be selection bias/ memory-holing, with
obvious lies about known facts (like the Guardian story referenced here) used only sparingly.
It's simply not practical to to constantly consider potentially "better" narratives, and to
reevaluate one's worldview based on these.
And which narrative we believe often has more to do with perceived social pressure/ social
acceptability than with "truth." As you put it,
Those who are conforming to it are doing so, not because they are deceived, but because
it is safer and more rewarding to do so.
Mass media pushing a common narrative creates an artificial perception of social
consensus. Creating, or even finding, alternative narratives means fighting the inertia of
this perceived consensus, and potentially suffering social costs for believing in the "wrong"
one. The social role of narratives is largely independent of their "truth" -- if what you're
"supposed" to believe is highly implausible, that actually gives it higher value as a signal
of loyalty to the establishment.
It's probably best to maintain a resolutely agnostic attitude toward most "news" items,
unless one is particularly interested in that particular event. " Why are they pushing
this particular story?" "Why now ?" and " What are they trying to accomplish
here?" are often more useful questions than "Is it true?"
It's not a new issue -- only exacerbated by the advent of mass visual media:
"Propaganda" -- Edward Bernays (1928)
"The Free Press"– Hilaire Belloc (1918)
I get what Hopkins is trying to do here, but redefining terms (i.e., "truth") doesn't do what
he thinks it does.
The truth is not ' what most people think '; it's not ' what we are told to
believe '; it's not ' the official narrative '.
There is a useful cautionary tale embedded in Hopkins' piece, but he doesn't tease it out
properly.
Take this excerpt:
The truth is what whoever has the power to say it is says it is. If we do not agree that
that "truth" is the truth, there is no higher court to appeal to. We can argue until we are
blue in the face. It will not make the slightest difference. No evidence we produce will
make the slightest difference. The truth will remain whatever those with the power to say
it is say it is.
With significant caveats, it is a reasonable description of the way the political world
works: if the political class decides that its interests are best served by declaring that a
specific narrative X is 'true', it will obtain immediate compliance from about half
the livestock, and can then rely on force (peer pressure; subsidy or taxation; state
coercion) to get an absolute majority of the herd to declare that they accept the 'truth' of
X .
If X is objectively false, too bad.
Try to run a legal argument based on the objective falsity of a thing that the political
class has deemed to be true: you'll be shit outta luck.
This is highly relevant where I am sitting: here are two examples – one really
obvious, one a bit less so (but far more important because of its radical implications).
Obvious Example: Drug Dogs
Recent research has shown that drug sniffing dogs give false positive signals between 60%
and 80% of the time – i.e., in terms of identifying people who are in actual
physical possession of drugs at any point in time, drug sniffing dogs perform worse than
a coin toss.
Note that this is before considering that the dog's handler is often pointing the dog at a
target that the handler thinks is likely to be carrying drugs. (Although in reality, drug
dogs are paraded around at concerts and in public spaces, sniffing every passer-by).
However there is an Act of Parliament (capitalise all the magic words) that asserts that a
signal from a drug sniffing dog is sufficient to qualify as what Americans call "probable
cause" – i.e., reasonable suspicion for a search.
Does anyone think that evidence should be admissible if it results from a search conducted
based on 'probable cause' derived from a method that produces worse outcomes than tossing a
coin?
Judges will tie themselves into absolute epistemological knots to get that evidence
admitted – and they will refuse to permit defence Counsel from adducing evidence about
drug dog inaccuracy because since the defendant actually did have drugs in their
possession, the dog didn't signal falsely.
In other words, the judge conflates posterior probability with prior
probability; the prior probability that the dog is correct, is 10%-40%; this should not
suffice to generate probable cause (or 'reasonable suspicion).
More Interesting Example: 'Representative' Democracy
In general, Western governments assert that their legitimacy stems from two primary
sources: some founding set of principles (usually a constitution – written or
otherwise), and 'representativeness' (including ratification of the constitution by a
representative mechanism, for those places with written foundational documents).
The Arrow Impossibility Theorem [1,2] and the Gibbard-Satterthwaite Theorem
[3,4], both show that there is no way of accurately determining group preferences using an
ordinal voting mechanism.
What this boils down to, is that representativeness is a lie – and it's a lie before
any consideration of voting outcomes ; it's a meta -problem (the problem that
ordinal voting cannot do what it is claimed to do – viz ., accurately identify
the 'will of the people'/'social preferences'/'what the people want').
Beyond the meta-problem, there is also the actual counting problem: no government has ever
been elected having obtained the votes of an outright bare majority, i.e., 50%-plus-1
of the entire eligible franchise. (It's more like 25-35% for most parliamentary systems
– for US presidential elections in the full-franchise period, the winner is voted for
by 29% of the eligible population; you would be horrified to look at US Senate
results).
So when the new unhappy lords (and their Little Eichmann bureaucrat enablers)
promulgate laws based on assertions of legitimacy because of a constitutional
Grundnorm and/or the representative nature of government both of those things are
pretty obvious furphies; they are objectively not 'truth' and no amount of heel-clicking and
wishing will make it so.
Which brings us to a key legal aphorism that has a jurisprudential history going back four
centuries: Ratio legis est anima legis, et mutata legis ratione, mutatur ex lex
– which dates from Milborn's case ( Coke 7a KB [1609]).
The reason for a law is the soul of the law, and if the reason for a law has changed,
the law is changed .
What this means – explicitly – is that " no law can survive the
[extinction of the] reasons on which it is founded ".
American courts re-expressed this as " cessante ratione legis, cessat ipsa lex "
(the reason for a law having ceased, the law itself ceases) – e.g., in Funk v. United
States , 290 US 371 (1933) in which Justice Sutherland opined –
This means that no law can survive the reasons on which it is founded. It needs no
statute to change it; it abrogates itself . If the reasons on which a law rests are
overborne by opposing reasons, which in the progress of society gain a controlling force,
the old law, though still good as an abstract principle, and good in its application to
some circumstances, must cease to apply as a controlling principle to the new
circumstances.
(Emphasis mine)
Again: try running this argument in a court: " The asserted basis for all laws
promulgated by the government, is provably false. Under a doctrine with a 4-century
jurisprudential provenance, the law itself is void ."
See how far you get.
So Hopkins makes a good-but-obvious point – power does not respect either rights
or truth; as such it does you no good whatsoever to have the actual truth on your side.
He should have made the point better.
C J Hopkins, despite some good quotes and insights above, regrettably falls into the trap of
peddling Derrida-tier relativistic nonsense, playing a word game about 'truth', as if 'truth'
was not real merely because most people have strong incentives to avoid being devoted to it
Where you stand depends upon where you sit, etc., Karl Marx's dictums about economic and
power positions shaping consciousness, and of course the century-old classic:
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not
understanding it.
from Upton Sinclair (1878-1968). Hopkins more or less repeats Sinclair when he says
Those who are conforming to [official truth] are doing so, not because they are
deceived, but because it is safer and more rewarding to do so.
Despite selling-out truth to the relativism devil in some passages, Hopkins nevertheless
creates some quotable, including the particularly insightful:
The powerless are either servants of power or they are heretics. There is no third
alternative.
The following notion of Hopkins is seen now and then in the alt-sphere, but always bears
repeating
It is important to realize that "the truth" is not going to "rouse the masses from their
slumber" and inspire them to throw off their chains. People are not going to suddenly "wake
up," "see the truth" and start "the revolution."
Iron and blood are the tools used to force people to accept what isn't true.
(Another way to tell: it was uttered by a fucking politician – a cunt who wanted to
live in palaces paid for by the sweat of other people's brows).
Truth does not need violence to propagate itself: in a completely-peaceful system of free
exchange, bad ideas (of which lies are a subset) will get driven out of the market place
because they will fail to conform to ground truth.
Falsehood requires violence (arguably it is a form of violence: fraud is 'violent'
because it causes its victims to misallocate their resources or to deform their preferences
and expectations).
In a very real sense, truth does not need friends: all it requires is an absence of
powerful enemies.
The distinction is simple. We can't know the truth about distant and complex events like 9/11
or JFK unless we were directly involved, and those people are all dead. For big events we
have to rely on, or ignore, the official accounts.
But we CAN know the truth about our own situation, our own neighborhood, and our own
families. The current riots in France are a concrete ASSERTION of local truth against the
blatant and condescending official lies. The majority of France is getting poorer and
suffering more from migrant crime. Macron insists that starvation is necessary to serve Gaia,
and crime is necessary to serve Juncker. The people would prefer to have a leader that serves
France.
@FB Scientific truth
is limited by two factors – assumptions, and hidden variables. For example,
we might drop a brick in a vacuum and believe that it falls at 9.8 m/s squared. Here, we make
the assumption that the force of gravity is constant. And for most of history we were unaware
of the hidden variable of relativity to the speed of light.
So, assuming (LOL) that we are able to eliminate all assumptions and account for all
hidden variables, there is a scientific truth. That is ASSUMING we are not just a simulation
in someone elses computer!
Given all this, still, we can approach an approximation of truth that some can agree on.
Here is where the trouble starts .
@The scalpel LOL and
then there is the 'observer effect' also especially in good old quantum mechanics in the end
scientific truth does boil down to what 'some can agree on'
@Kratoklastes Strength
is the production of force over distance. That is to say, force is a quantifiable, physical
phenomenon that, deconstruct it as much as you want, will hit you like a tsunami whether you
believe it or not.
Force only works because there is a real world that transcends philosophical bullshit and
marketing.
The subjective piece is will: victory is attained when the enemies will to resist is
crushed. Through the repeated use of physical force, eventually any enemy can be worn down
and vanquished.
The world is finite, desire is infinite, and for every desire and appetite, there is a
will. As multiple wills will that they attain their infinite desires in a finite world, there
will always be a conflict of will, which will always ultimately be resolved by force. Which
means ultimately, despite the rich imaginations and appetites of humans, and their related
striving, physical force will ultimately rule the day, and conquer, condition, and constrain
the mental life of mankind.
Of course, desire and appetite will not take no for an answer, and in their frustration,
they will imagine, fantasize, and conceptualize rationales for why this is not so. This is
the nature of our desires, and in good times of prosperity and peace, they may even bend our
reason in the direction of these appetites and fantasies, until the instincts for self
preservation and endurance rust, and are even forgotten. But like the moon revealed by a
passing cloud, the perpetual war of human existence will inevitably reassert itself, and
those that have prepared for the inevitable will vanquish those who were content to daydream
when they should have been preparing.
After reading the article and the aggregate comments, I am strengthened in my belief that
the physics analogy of Schrödinger's cat is among the most useful (and
notwithstanding the otherwise valid criticism of it in the comments). In the same way that
the Oxford English Dictionary, for example, does not purport to define a given word,
per se , but rather gives a detailed description of how the word has in fact been used
over the years and centuries.
I refer to my version of Schrödinger's cat as counter-sense words or
oscillating-contradictions .
Oscillating contradictions and cogno-linguistic manipulation
The primary means by which corporate supremacy, for example, is achieved and maintained in
practice is via the maintenance and use of a small arsenal of about two dozen critical
counter-sense or yo-yo -like words/terms that are asserted or claimed to mean
either "X" or "Minus-X" at the option of the decision-maker.
Among the most important and sui generis (in a class of its own) is the word
person which is held to mean a living, breathing being of conscience (literally
a being of equity) with the rights, powers and privileges of such being ("X"), or else it can
mean a corporate entity which is a notional/inanimate item of property to be bought
and sold and otherwise traded for profit in the stock and financial markets ("Minus-X").
By way of example/demonstration of the ongoing cognitive manipulation process, if someone
had managed to hit the judges of the U.S. Supreme Court with a blast of truth-ray just
before they announced their decision in Citizens United, here is what we may have got
instead:
[MORE]
We here at the Supreme Court are part of what can be fairly and broadly referred to as
an arm of the entrenched-money-power.
At certain times and under certain circumstances it is to our enormous advantage over
you the masses that corporations be natural-persons-in-law with the rights, powers and
privileges of a natural person or living being of conscience.
At other times and other circumstances it is to our enormous advantage over you the
masses that corporations be items of property that can be actively bought and sold and
traded for profit in the stock and financial markets.
Your laughable naiveté is manifest in your expectation that you are going to
receive a definitive answer from this Court, or even that it is possible for us to give you
one. Among the foundational purposes of this Court is to actively prevent that question
from being answered definitively at all. The instant we give a definitive answer, the game
is over.
Whatever answer we give you must perpetuate the systematized delusion that the same
concept (corporate personhood) can mean either X (a living being of conscience), or minus-X
(an item of property), depending on the ever-changing needs of the decider.
So our current answer is that a corporation is a natural-person-in-law with the rights,
powers and privileges of a natural person, except when it isn't. We'll let you know next
time whether that situation has changed in the meantime.
Essentially all counter-sense words/terms follow that same template .
Notwithstanding that the respective concepts are logically and objectively mutually
exclusive , the judges of the Courts (and the broadly-defined
financial-world/social-control-structure) maintain that it can be either or both , and
we'll let you know if and when it becomes important.
So a corporate person has a right of free speech when giving money to
influence political parties, but not to object to itself being sold as a piece of property in
the stock and financial markets or when it is acquired in a merger or takeover financed by
its own assets. If a corporation has the legal capacity and rights of a natural person, then
how can it be owned as the legal property of another? The purpose of the Courts is to ensure
that that question is never presented in that way.
After person , the remaining most significant counter-sense or yo-yo
-like words are (surprise surprise) essentially all money-and-finance-based, and the most
important among these is the word principal and its role in facilitating illegal
front-loading or ex-temporal fraud (interest illegally and unlawfully compounded in
advance).
Is the amount of principal the actual or net amount advanced by the creditor and
received by the debtor for their own use and control?
Or is it the amount that the debtor agrees that they owe regardless of the amount
received?
Is the amount of principal a question of fact ? Or of the agreement of
parties ?
[Here is the premise / offer that is referenced immediately below:]
Lender (e.g., typical second-mortgage lender): "I will loan you $10,000 at 20%
per annum provided that you sign and give to me a marketable security that claims or
otherwise purports to evidence that I have loaned you $15,000 at 10% per annum, plus an
undisclosed and unregistered side-agreement and cheque (check) back to me for a bonus or
loan fee of $5,000 as a payment from the nominal proceeds."
In the process example used above, what is the principal amount of the loan? Is it
$10,000 because that is the factual net amount invested by the creditor and received by the
debtor for their own use? Or is it $15,000 because that is the amount that the debtor is
required to falsely agree that they have received and owe as a condition of the loan? Or is
it $20,000 because that is the total cash-equivalent/money assets ($15,000 mortgage + $5,000
cheque) that the debtor has to give to the creditor?
Is it a noun/fact ? Or is it an adjective/opinion merely pretending to be a
noun? All debt and therefore money in the world today depends on the answer to that question
that theoretically cannot exist.
Principal is a special type (and most significant form) of counter-sense
word or oscillating contradiction where dictionaries normally only give one sense,
while commercial practice defines the contrary. It would be very difficult to put the
Whatever-the-debtor-agrees-that-they-owe sense into a dictionary, because the fraud against
meaning (as well as the criminal law) is manifest in spelling it out, and ever more so in
more specialized financial dictionaries.
So virtually every legal, financial, accounting, and ordinary English dictionary and/or
regulation defines it to the effect "The actual amount invested, loaned or advanced to the
debtor/borrower net of any interest, discount, premium or fees", while virtually every
financial security in the real world at least implicitly incorporates the fraudulent
alternative/contrary meaning.
This in turn allows the academic world to function on the rational/factual
definition, while the markets maintain a wholly contradictory deemed or pretended
reality, while both remain oblivious to the contradiction.
Thus principal means the nominal creditor's actual and net investment, unless it
doesn't .
With this class of counter-sense word where there is a necessary and definitive
answer, the real job of the judges of the Courts becomes to make certain that the question is
never officially asked, and under no circumstances is it to be definitively answered.
With just one of these words you can theoretically steal the Earth . With a
financial system that is relatively saturated with them, such becomes child's play .
With these rules a group of competently-trained chimpanzees otherwise pulling
levers at random could do as well as the so-called wizards of Wall Street .
And significantly, these oscillating contradictions enable the judges to be self-righteous
in the extreme on behalf of the entrenched-money-power, while looting the little
people of the product of their labour.
As in: You have received the principal amount ($10,000) and you are going to pay
back the principal amount ($15,000) plus the ever-accumulating (and super-leveraged)
interest upon it according to your contract, while the meaning of the word oscillates
between fact and opinion – between a noun and an adjective
– according to what the judge needs it to mean (or accommodate) at any given instant in
time.
It seems impossibly obvious in this simple example, but with several of them orchestrated
simultaneously or sequentially, anything can truly be made to mean anything
.
A partial list of the most critical oscillating-contradicitions includes: loan, credit,
discount, interest, rate-of-interest, agreement, contract, security, repay, restitution,
etc., all of which mean either "X" or its conceptual opposite "Minus-X" at the option of the
entrenched-money-power whose vast financial fortunes are founded on such cogno-linguistic
arbitrage .
Here are what I believe to be four essential tools needed to triangulate
reality via congo-linguistic parallax . The first two are mine, and the last two
are from the American and English Courts, respectively.
1. Humans are highly cogno-linguistic . We perceive reality very largely as a
function of the language that we use to describe it. Most everyone inherently believes
and presumes that you have to be able to think something before you can say it.
The greater reality is that, above a certain base level of perception and communication, you
have to have the words and language by which to say something before you can think
it .
2. The world is ever-increasingly controlled and administered by people who genuinely
believe whatever is necessary for the answer they need. Administrative agents of the
entrenched-money-power have solved the criminal-law enigma of mens rea or guilty
mind by evolving or devolving (take your pick) into professional schizophrenics
who genuinely believe whatever they need to believe for the answer they need, and who
communicate among themselves subconsciously by how they name things. They suffer a
cogno-linguistically-induced diminished capacity that renders them incapable of
perceiving reality beyond labels .
3. Their core business model or modus operandi is the systematized delusion
:
"A "systematized delusion" is one based on a false premise, pursued by a logical process
of reasoning to an insane conclusion ; there being one central delusion, around which other
aberrations of the mind converge." Taylor v. McClintock, 112 S.W. 405, 412, 87 Ark. 243.
(West's Judicial Words and Phrases (1914)).
4.
One must not confuse the object of a conspiracy [to defraud] with the
means by which it is intended to be carried out. Scott v. Metropolitan Police
Commissioner [1974] 60 Cr. App. R. 124 H.L.
I have long since abandoned my search for truth, per se, since I came to realize that the
best I can ever do is to constantly strive to move closer to it. With apologies to the
physicists, Truth is the Limit of Infinite Good Faith .
@Tulip " which will
always ultimately be resolved by force."
Right there is where you lost the plot. That statement is just your opinion and it cannot
be proven true. The rest of your argument falls victim to this logical error.
" and those that have prepared for the inevitable will vanquish those who were content to
daydream when they should have been preparing."
Also, just your opinion. For example, the "dreamer" might die still comforted by his/her
dreams, while the "prepper" might waste his life witing for the "inevitable' that never
arrives.
In what can be described as a monumental step forward in the relentless pursuit of 9/11
truth, a United States Attorney has agreed to comply with federal law requiring submission to
a Special Grand Jury of evidence that explosives were used to bring down the World Trade
Centers.
The Lawyers' Committee for 9/11 Inquiry successfully submitted a petition to the federal
government demanding that the U.S. Attorney present to a Special Grand Jury extensive
evidence of yet-to-be-prosecuted federal crimes relating to the destruction of three World
Trade Center Towers on 9/11 (WTC1, WTC2 and WTC7).
After waiting months for the reply, the U.S. Attorney responded in a letter, noting that
they will comply with the law.
Some good documentary films here to watch for free:
My question/quibble relates to your objection to the use of sniffer dogs to establish
probable cause for search because it is no better than a coin toss. That seems fallacious
if, according to your figures, the dogs sniff 500 people and get excited by 10 of them of
which 3 are correctly identified and 7 are false positives.
Yeah. The concepts of sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, and negative
predictive value might be very helpful in assessing this.
"... The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at governments that run up debt. And, of course, its loans famously come with strings attached: adopt a free-market economy, or strengthen the one you have, kissing goodbye to the Big State. ..."
"... Yet, the irony is painful. Neoliberal ideology insists that states are too big and cumbersome, too centralized and faceless, to be efficient and responsive ..."
"... The problem is that the ruthless sentimentalists of neoliberalism like to tell themselves – and anyone else who will listen – that removing the dead hand of state control frees the individual citizen to be entrepreneurial and productive. Instead, it places the financially powerful beyond any state, in an international elite that makes its own rules, and holds governments to ransom. That's what the financial crisis was all about ..."
"... Markets cannot be free. Markets have to be nurtured. They have to be invested in. Markets have to be grown. Google, Amazon and Apple haven't taught anyone in this country to read. But even though an illiterate market wouldn't be so great for them, they avoid their taxes, because they can, because they are more powerful than governments. ..."
"... The neoliberalism that the IMF still preaches pays no account to any of this. It insists that the provision of work alone is enough of an invisible hand to sustain a market. Yet even Adam Smith, the economist who came up with that theory , did not agree that economic activity alone was enough to keep humans decent and civilised. ..."
The crash was a write-off, not a repair job. The response should be a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth
is created and distributed around the globe
he IMF's limited admission of guilt over the Greek bailout is a start, but they still can't see the global financial system's
fundamental flaws, writes Deborah Orr.
The International Monetary Fund has admitted that some of the decisions it made in the wake of the 2007-2008 financial crisis
were wrong, and that the €130bn first bailout of Greece was "bungled". Well, yes. If it hadn't been a mistake, then it would have
been the only bailout and everyone in Greece would have lived happily ever after.
Actually, the IMF hasn't quite admitted that it messed things up. It has said instead that it went along with its partners in
"the Troika" – the European Commission and the European Central Bank – when it shouldn't have. The EC and the ECB, says the IMF,
put the interests of the Eurozone before the interests of Greece. The EC and the ECB, in turn, clutch their pearls and splutter with
horror that they could be accused of something so petty as self-preservation.
The IMF also admits that it "underestimated" the effect austerity would have on Greece. Obviously, the rest of the Troika takes
no issue with that. Even those who substitute "kick up the arse to all the lazy scroungers" whenever they encounter the word "austerity",
have cottoned on to the fact that the word can only be intoned with facial features locked into a suitably tragic mask.
Yet, mealy-mouthed and hotly contested as this minor mea culpa is, it's still a sign that financial institutions may slowly be
coming round to the idea that they are the problem. They know the crash was a debt-bubble that burst. What they don't seem to acknowledge
is that the merry days of reckless lending are never going to return; even if they do, the same thing will happen again, but more
quickly and more savagely. The thing is this: the crash was a write-off, not a repair job. The response from the start should have
been a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth is created and distributed around the globe, a "structural adjustment",
as the philosopher
John Gray has said all along.
The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at governments that run up debt. And, of
course, its loans famously come with strings attached: adopt a free-market economy, or strengthen the one you have, kissing goodbye
to the Big State.
Yet, the irony is painful. Neoliberal ideology insists that states are too big and cumbersome, too centralized and faceless,
to be efficient and responsive. I agree.
The problem is that the ruthless sentimentalists of neoliberalism like to tell themselves – and anyone else who will listen
– that removing the dead hand of state control frees the individual citizen to be entrepreneurial and productive. Instead, it places
the financially powerful beyond any state, in an international elite that makes its own rules, and holds governments to ransom. That's
what the financial crisis was all about. The ransom was paid, and as a result, governments have been obliged to limit their
activities yet further – some setting about the task with greater relish than others. Now the task, supposedly, is to get the free
market up and running again.
But the basic problem is this: it costs a lot of money to cultivate a market – a group of consumers – and the more sophisticated
the market is, the more expensive it is to cultivate them. A developed market needs to be populated with educated, healthy, cultured,
law-abiding and financially secure people – people who expect to be well paid themselves, having been brought up believing in material
aspiration, as consumers need to be.
So why, exactly, given the huge amount of investment needed to create such a market, should access to it then be "free"? The neoliberal
idea is that the cultivation itself should be conducted privately as well. They see "austerity" as a way of forcing that agenda.
But how can the privatization of societal welfare possibly happen when unemployment is already high, working people are turning to
food banks to survive and the debt industry, far from being sorry that it brought the global economy to its knees, is snapping up
bargains in the form of busted high-street businesses to establish shops with nothing to sell but high-interest debt? Why, you have
to ask yourself, is this vast implausibility, this sheer un-sustainability, not blindingly obvious to all?
Markets cannot be free. Markets have to be nurtured. They have to be invested in. Markets have to be grown. Google, Amazon
and Apple haven't taught anyone in this country to read. But even though an illiterate market wouldn't be so great for them, they
avoid their taxes, because they can, because they are more powerful than governments.
And further, those who invest in these companies, and insist that taxes should be low to encourage private profit and shareholder
value, then lend governments the money they need to create these populations of sophisticated producers and consumers, berating them
for their profligacy as they do so. It's all utterly, completely, crazy.
The other day a health minister,
Anna Soubry
, suggested that female GPs who worked part-time so that they could bring up families were putting the NHS under strain. The
compartmentalised thinking is quite breathtaking. What on earth does she imagine? That it would be better for the economy if they
all left school at 16? On the contrary, the more people who are earning good money while working part-time – thus having the leisure
to consume – the better. No doubt these female GPs are sustaining both the pharmaceutical industry and the arts and media, both sectors
that Britain does well in.
As for their prioritising of family life over career – that's just another of the myriad ways in which Conservative neoliberalism
is entirely without logic. Its prophets and its disciples will happily – ecstatically – tell you that there's nothing more important
than family, unless you're a family doctor spending some of your time caring for your own. You couldn't make these characters up.
It is certainly true that women with children find it more easy to find part-time employment in the public sector. But that's a prima
facie example of how unresponsive the private sector is to human and societal need, not – as it is so often presented – evidence
that the public sector is congenitally disabled.
Much of the healthy economic growth – as opposed to the smoke and mirrors of many aspects of financial services – that Britain
enjoyed during the second half of the 20th century was due to women swelling the educated workforce. Soubry and her ilk, above all
else, forget that people have multiple roles, as consumers, as producers, as citizens and as family members. All of those things
have to be nurtured and invested in to make a market.
The neoliberalism that the IMF still preaches pays no account to any of this. It insists that the provision of work alone
is enough of an invisible hand to sustain a market. Yet even Adam Smith, the economist who
came up with that theory , did not agree
that economic activity alone was enough to keep humans decent and civilised.
Governments are left with the bill when neoliberals demand access to markets that they refuse to invest in making. Their refusal
allows them to rail against the Big State while producing the conditions that make it necessary. And even as the results of their
folly become ever more plain to see, they are grudging in their admittance of the slightest blame, bickering with their allies instead
of waking up, smelling the coffee and realising that far too much of it is sold through Starbucks.
The tributes to former President George H.W. Bush, who died on Friday aged 94, have been
pouring in from all sides of the political spectrum. He was a man "of the highest character,"
said his
eldest son and fellow former president, George W. Bush. "He loved America and served with
character, class, and integrity," tweeted former U.S. Attorney and #Resistance icon Preet
Bharara. According to another former president, Barack Obama , Bush's life was "a
testament to the notion that public service is a noble, joyous calling. And he did tremendous
good along the journey." Apple boss Tim Cook said : "We have lost a great
American."
In the age of Donald Trump, it isn't difficult for hagiographers of the late Bush Sr. to
paint a picture of him as a great patriot and pragmatist; a president who governed with "class"
and "integrity." It is true that the former president refused to vote for Trump in 2016,
calling him a " blowhard ," and that he eschewed the
white nationalist, "alt-right," conspiratorial politics that has come to define the modern
Republican Party. He helped end the Cold War without, as Obama said , "firing a shot." He spent
his life serving his country -- from the military to Congress to the United Nations to the CIA
to the White House. And, by all accounts, he was also a beloved grandfather and
great-grandfather to his 17 grandkids and eight great-grandkids
.
Nevertheless, he was a public,
not a private, figure -- one of only 44 men to have ever served as president of the United
States. We cannot, therefore, allow his actual record in office to be beautified in such a
brazen way. "When a political leader dies, it is irresponsible in the extreme to demand that
only praise be permitted but not criticisms," as my colleague Glenn Greenwald has argued
, because it leads to "false history and a propagandistic whitewashing of bad acts."
The inconvenient truth is that the presidency of George Herbert Walker Bush had far more in
common with the recognizably belligerent, corrupt, and right-wing Republican figures who came
after him - his son George W. and the current orange-faced incumbent - than much of the
political and media classes might have you believe.
Consider:
... ... ...
He made a dishonest case for war . Thirteen years before George W. Bush lied about weapons
of mass destruction to justify his invasion and occupation of Iraq, his father made his own set
of false claims to justify the aerial bombardment of that same country. The first Gulf War, as
an investigation by journalist Joshua Holland
concluded , "was sold on a mountain of war propaganda."
For a start, Bush told the American public that Iraq had invaded Kuwait " without provocation or warning
." What he omitted to mention was that the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, had given an
effective
green light to Saddam Hussein, telling him in July 1990, a week before
his invasion, "[W]e have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement
with Kuwait."
Then there is the fabrication of intelligence. Bush deployed U.S. troops to the Gulf in
August 1990 and claimed that he was doing
so in order "to assist the Saudi Arabian Government in the defense of its homeland." As Scott
Peterson wrote in the Christian Science
Monitor in 2002, "Citing top-secret satellite images, Pentagon officials estimated that up to
250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the border, threatening the key U.S. oil
supplier."
Yet when reporter Jean Heller of the St. Petersburg Times acquired her own commercial
satellite images of the Saudi border, she found no signs of Iraqi forces; only an empty desert.
"It was a pretty serious fib," Heller told Peterson, adding: "That [Iraqi
buildup] was the whole justification for Bush sending troops in there, and it just didn't
exist."
President George H. W. Bush talks with Secretary of State James Baker III and Secretary of
Defense Dick Cheney during a meeting of the cabinet in the White House on Jan. 17, 1991 to
discuss the Persian Gulf War. Photo: Ron Edmonds/AP
He committed war crimes. Under Bush Sr., the U.S. dropped a whopping 88,500
tons of bombs on Iraq and Iraqi-occupied Kuwait, many of which resulted in horrific
civilian casualties. In February 1991, for example, a U.S. airstrike on an air-raid shelter in
the Amiriyah neighborhood of Baghdad killed at least
408 Iraqi civilians . According to Human Rights Watch , the Pentagon knew
the Amiriyah facility had been used as a civil defense shelter during the Iran-Iraq war and yet
had attacked without warning. It was, concluded HRW, "a serious violation of the laws of
war."
U.S. bombs also destroyed essential Iraqi civilian
infrastructure -- from electricity-generating and water-treatment facilities to food-processing
plants and flour mills. This was no accident. As Barton Gellman of the Washington Post
reported in June 1991: "Some targets, especially late in the war, were bombed primarily to
create postwar leverage over Iraq, not to influence the course of the conflict itself. Planners
now say their intent was to destroy or damage valuable facilities that Baghdad could not repair
without foreign assistance. Because of these goals, damage to civilian structures and
interests, invariably described by briefers during the war as 'collateral' and unintended, was
sometimes neither."
Got that? The Bush administration deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure for
"leverage" over Saddam Hussein. How is this not terrorism? As a Harvard public health team
concluded in June 1991, less than four months after the end of the war, the destruction of
Iraqi infrastructure had resulted in acute malnutrition and "epidemic" levels of cholera and
typhoid.
By January 1992, Beth Osborne Daponte, a demographer with the U.S. Census Bureau,
was estimating that Bush's Gulf War had caused the deaths of 158,000 Iraqis, including
13,000 immediate civilian deaths and 70,000 deaths from the damage done to electricity and
sewage treatment plants. Daponte's numbers contradicted the Bush administration's, and she was
threatened by her superiors with dismissal for releasing " false information. " (Sound
familiar?)
He refused to cooperate with a special counsel . The Iran-Contra affair , in which the
United States traded missiles for Americans hostages in Iran, and used the proceeds of those
arms sales to fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua, did much to undermine the presidency of Ronald
Reagan. Yet his vice president's involvement in that controversial affair has garnered far less
attention. "The criminal investigation of Bush was regrettably incomplete," wrote Special
Counsel Lawrence Walsh, a former deputy attorney general in the Eisenhower administration, in
his final report on the
Iran-Contra affair in August 1993.
Why? Because Bush, who was "fully aware of the Iran arms sale," according to the special
counsel, failed to hand over a diary "containing contemporaneous notes relevant to Iran/contra"
and refused to be interviewed in the later stages of the investigation. In the final days of
his presidency, Bush even issued
pardons to six defendants in the Iran-Contra affair, including former Defense Secretary
Caspar Weinberger -- on the eve of Weinberger's trial for perjury and obstruction of
justice. "The Weinberger pardon," Walsh pointedly noted, "marked the first time a president
ever pardoned someone in whose trial he might have been called as a witness, because the
president was knowledgeable of factual events underlying the case." An angry Walsh accused
Bush of "misconduct" and helping to complete "the Iran-contra cover-up."
I knew there was something wrong with Donald Trump's presidency the day he bombed the
airbase at Al-Shairat in Syria. It was a turning point. I knew it was a mistake the moment he
did it and argued as such at the time.
No act by him was more contentious.
It cost me hundreds of followers gained throughout the campaign who wanted to believe Trump
was playing 4-D chess. My Periscopes went from being events to afterthoughts.
Those that left needed to believe this because they had invested so much in him.
They had to believe he was playing some deep game with Putin to bring peace to the
region.
He wasn't.
I was right and truth is painful. The need for him to be Orange Jesus was so strong they
created Qanon and the 'science' of political horoscope as slowly but surely Trump was stripped
of all of his power except that of complaining about how unfair it all is.
That day he did something in the moment, with bad intelligence and let fly with tomahawks
which Russian and Syrian air defenses misdirected and/or shot down.
Empty President
His goal was to show everyone there was a new, strong sheriff in town.
All it did was weaken him.
The neocons praised him as presidential. They began to get their hooks in him then. But
truly, Trump was destroyed before he took office, giving up Michael Flynn, expelling Russian
diplomats and compromising his cabinet picks.
Because making war is the only true test of a President to the laptop bombardiers who
control foreign policy. With that one act Trump's days as an independent agent in D.C. were
numbered.
And since then the hope has been that given the enormity of the opposition to his Presidency
he was still fighting for what he campaigned on -- no nation building, bring the empire home,
protect the borders, and clean up the corruption.
He's made a few minor changes but not enough to change the course of this country and, by
extension, the world.
The people want this change. Those with the power don't.
G-20 Ghost
So here we are with a pathetic Trump outclassed at the G-20, a meeting he should dominate
but instead is ushered around like a child, given poor earpieces and looking a little lost.
He's only allowed to have one meeting of note by his handlers, with China's Xi Jinping.
Because that meeting wasn't going to end with anything damaging to the long-term plan.
Trump's tariff game is tired and all it will do is hasten the demise of U.S. competitiveness in
the very industries he wants us to be competitive in.
Because tariffs are a band-aid on the real problems of bureaucracy, corruption, waste and
sloth within an economy. They are not a product of China stealing our technology (though they
have).
And that $1 trillion deficit Trump is running? Music to the ears of the globalists who want
the U.S. brought low. More military spending. More boondoggles the banks can cut a nice big
check to themselves for with funny money printed without risk. This can go on for a few more
years until it doesn't matter anymore.
Trump's folding on meeting Putin is the final nail in his presidency's coffin. He's not even
allowed to make statements on this issue anymore. That's for Sarah Sanders, Mike Pomposity and
John Bolt-head to do.
You know, the grown-ups in the room.
No. Putin and Trump met once when they weren't supposed to and since then Trump has been
getting smaller and smaller. Sure, he held some rallies for the mid-terms to shore up his base
for a few weeks while the Democrats stole more than a dozen House seats, three governorships
and a couple of Senate seats, but hey he's still working hard for no pay.
Please.
Trump needed to show some real moral courage and speak with Putin about the Kerch Strait
incident like men, not sulk in the corner over a couple of ships. And yet his still throws his
full support behind a butcher like Mohammed bin Salman because arms sales and Iran.
Putin, for his part, makes no bones about doing business with the Saudis. He knows that bin
Salman is creating a quagmire for Trump while driving the U.S. and European Deep State mad.
For this Secretary of Defense James Mattis calls Putin, " A slow learner." This is a
flat-out threat that Mattis has more coming Putin's way. But in fact, it is Mattis who is the
slow learner since he still thinks Putin isn't three steps ahead of him.
Which he is. The game is all about time and money. And thanks to Mattis and, yes, Trump,
Putin will win the war of attrition he is playing.
Because that is what has been going on here from the beginning. Iran, China and Russia know
what the U.S. power brokers want and they knew Trump would always cave to them. So, they knew
exactly how to get Trump to over-commit to a strategy that cannot and will not ever come to
fruition.
I warned that Trump's blind-spot when it comes to Iran was his weakness. I warned that he
would eventually justify breaking every foreign policy promise to fulfill his plan to unite the
Sunni world behind him and Israel by giving them Iran.
The End of the Beginning
Welcome to today. And welcome to the end of Trump's presidency because now he is
pot-committed to regime change while the vultures circle him domestically. He has become Bush
the Lesser with arguably better hair.
He has alienated everyone the world over with sanctions and tariffs, hence his desire to "
Get me out of here " as the G-20 wound down. No one believes he matters anymore. By tying
himself to the Saudis and the Israelis the way he has he, the master negotiator, has left
himself no room to negotiate.
And that is leading to everyone defying him versus cutting deals to carve up the world, end
the empire and come home.
Trump is not leading here. He is being led. And change requires leaders. He has been led
down the path so many presidents have, more militarism, more empire. Because when you're the
Emperor everyone is your enemy. This is the paranoia of a late-stage imperial mindset.
It certainly is the mindset of Trump's closest advisors - Mattis, Bolton and Pompeo.
So Trump's "America First' instincts, no matter how genuine, have been twisted into
something worse than evil, they are now ineffectual keepers of the status quo fueling ruinous
neoconservative dreams of central Asian dominance.
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I have what it takes to help you navigate a world going slowly mad.
His nose is wedged right up Adelson's & Bibi's ring-hole.
Even as we speak now, 100 drones crossed over from Turkey into Syria with French experts
modifying them to accept warheads of a chemical nature. Simultaneously the innovative British
military are providing miscellaneous WMD's/support to Jabhat-Al -Nusra in Idlib.
Time for Putin/Russia to take these cockroaches/vermin out in quick time, for their own
good.
Trump's grasshopper mind could be construed for severe Alzheimer's.
Trump boasted of how HE would "Make the US Military Great again" (as if it wasn't too big
to begin with..) and spent $16 billion EXTRA on 'defence,' yet now he suddenly flip-flopped
and calls defence spending "crazy."
Spot on, I completely agree with Luongo, and #metoo have been saying this for a long
time.
Trump's unstable and unhinged waffling, lying and flip-flopping (i.e. "4D chess") is
finally beginning to catch up with him and his presidency will not be marked with him being
the one who drained the swamp, but a presidency marked with a trail of destruction.
He has talked himself into so many corners, that it will be impossible to back out of
those corners....unless of course he turns the volume of his bullshitting, lying and waffling
up to 11.
"You can fool some people some of the time, but you can't fool all people all of the
time."
It's easy to fool dumb American Trumptards, but it's not easy fooling the Russians, the
Europeans and the Chinese. They see right through his fake bravado and ********.
"I am certain that, at some time in the future, President Xi and I, together with
President Putin of Russia, will start talking about a meaningful halt to what has become a
major and uncontrollable Arms Race," Trump wrote. "The U.S. spent 716 Billion Dollars this
year. Crazy!"
Another classic Tweet from Captain Bonespurs. No wall, no change to healthcare, no
immigration policy, no amazing trade agreements, no slavery, no mandatory mullets, no
mandatory bible study at school, no burning of witches. And now he is talking about reducing
the largest military budget in history.
Trump is finished. He had two years to replace Sessions and Rosenstein and have someone at
the DOJ appoint a Special Councils for each item to look into:
The Clinton Foundation
Uranium One Deal
Hillary's Email Server
The murder of Seth Rich
The Benghazi Consulate Disaster
The Democrats computer scandal with the Iwan brothers.
Bill Clinton giving China classified missile and sub technology
The unelected Deep State actors controlling the country.
Q is a total ******* fraud. Trump has 3 weeks before he is assraped and left bleeding on
the floor by the Democrats and the RHINO's in the senate. If he gets impeached, Pence will be
impeached and Nitwit Nancy becomes POTUS. And within 2 months of that happening, we will have
full balls out, open Civil War II.
"... What sticks in the neoliberalism craw is that the state provides these services instead of private businesses, and as such "rob" them of juicy profits! The state, the last easy cash cow! ..."
"... Who could look at the way markets function and conclude there's any freedom? Only a neoliberal cult member. They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be dissuaded. They cannot be persuaded. Only the market knows best, and the fact that the market is a corrupt, self serving whore is completely ignored by the ideology of their Church. ..."
"... when Thatcher and Reagan deregulated the financial markets in the 80s, that's when the trouble began which in turn led to the immense crash in 2008. ..."
"... Neo-liberalism is just another symptom of liberal democracy which is government by oligarchs with a veneer of democracy ..."
"... The state has merged with the corporations so that what is good for the corporations is good for the state and visa versa. The larger and richer the state/corporations are, the more shyster lawyers they hire to disguise misdeeds and unethical behavior. ..."
"... If you support a big government, you are supporting big corporations as well. The government uses the taxpayer as an eternal fount of fresh money and calls it their own to spend as they please. Small businesses suffer unfairly because they cannot afford the shyster lawyers and accountants that protect the government and the corporations, but nobody cares about them. ..."
"... Deborah's point about the illogical demands of neoliberalism are indeed correct, which is somewhat ironic as neoliberalism puts objective rationality at the heart of its philosophy, but I digress... ..."
"... There would not be NHS, free education etc. without socialism; in fact they are socialism. It took the Soviet-style socialism ("statism") 70 years to collapse. The neoliberalistic capitalism has already started to collapse after 30 years. ..."
"... I'm always amused that neoliberal - indeed, capitalist - apologists cannot see the hypocrisy of their demands for market access. Communities create and sustain markets, fund and maintain infrastructure, produce and maintain new consumers. Yet the neolibs decry and destroy. Hypocrites or destructive numpties - never quite decided between Pickles and Gove ..."
"... 97% of all OUR money has been handed over to these scheming crooks. Stop bailing out the banks with QE. Take back what is ours -- state control over the creation of money. Then let the banks revert to their modest market-based function of financial intermediaries. ..."
"... The State can't be trusted to create our money? Well they could hardly do a worse job than the banks! Best solution would be to distribute state-created money as a Citizen's Income. ..."
"... To promote the indecent obsession for global growth Australia, burdened with debt of around 250 billion dollars, is to borrow and pay interest on a further 7 billion dollars to lend to the International Monetary Fund so as it can lend it to poorer nations to burden them with debt. ..."
This private good, public bad is a stupid idea, and a totally artificial divide. After all,
what are "public spends"? It is the money from private individuals, and companies,
clubbing together to get services they can't individually afford.
What sticks in the
neoliberalism craw is that the state provides these services instead of private businesses,
and as such "rob" them of juicy profits! The state, the last easy cash cow!
Neoliberalism is a modern curse. Everything about it is bad and until we're free of it, it
will only ever keep trying to turn us into indentured labourers. It's acolytes are required
to blind themselves to logic and reason to such a degree they resemble Scientologists or
Jehovah's Witnesses more than people with any sort of coherent political ideology, because
that's what neoliberalism actually is... a cult of the rich, for the rich, by the rich... and
it's followers in the general population are nothing but moron familiars hoping one day to be
made a fully fledged bastard.
Who could look at the way markets function and conclude there's any freedom? Only a
neoliberal cult member. They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be dissuaded. They cannot
be persuaded. Only the market knows best, and the fact that the market is a corrupt, self
serving whore is completely ignored by the ideology of their Church.
It's subsumed the entire planet, and waiting for them to see sense is a hopeless cause. In
the end it'll probably take violence to rid us of the Neoliberal parasite... the turn of the
century plague.
"Capitalism, especially the beneficial capitalism of the NHS, free education etc. has
won and countless people have gained as a result."
I agree with you and it was this beneficial version of capitalism that brought down the
Iron Curtain. Working people in the former Communist countries were comparing themselves with
working people in the west and wanted a piece of that action. Cuba has hung on because people
there compare themselves with their nearest capitalist neighbor Haiti and they don't want a
piece of that action. North Korea well North Korea is North Korea.
Isn't it this beneficial capitalism that is being threatened now though? When the wall
came down it was assumed that Eastern European countries would become more like us. Some have
but who would have thought that British working people would now be told, by the likes of
Kwasi Kwarteng and his Britannia Unchained chums, that we have to learn to accept working
conditions that are more like those in the Eastern European countries that got left behind
and that we are now told that our version of Capitalism is inferior to the version adopted by
the Communist Party of China?
@bullwinkle - No , when Thatcher and Reagan deregulated the financial markets in the 80s,
that's when the trouble began which in turn led to the immense crash in 2008.
Neo-liberalism is just another symptom of liberal democracy which is government by oligarchs
with a veneer of democracy.
This type of government began in America about 150 years ago with the Rockefellers,
Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, Ford etc who took advantage of new inventions, cheap immigrant labour
and financial deregulation in finance and social mores to amass wealth for themselves and
chaos and austerity for workers.
All this looks familiar again today with new and old oligarchs hiding behind large
corporations taking advantage of the invention of the €uro, mass immigration into
western Europe and deregulation of the financial "markets" and social mores to amass wealth
for a super-wealthy elite and chaos and austerity for workers.
So if we want to see where things went wrong we need only go back 150 years to what happened
to America. There we can also see our future?
The beneficial capitalism of the NHS, free education etc. has won
Free education and the NHS are state institutions. As Debbie said, Amazon never taught
anyone to read. Beneficial capitalism is an oxymoron resulting from your lack of
understanding.
especially the beneficial capitalism of the NHS, free education etc. has won and
countless people have gained as a result.
At one and the same time being privatized and having their funding squeezed, a direct
result of the neoliberal dogma capitalism of austerity. Free access is being eroded by the
likes of ever larger student loans and prescription costs for a start.
they avoid their taxes, because they can, because they are more powerful than
governments
Let's not get carried away here. Let's consider some of the things governments can do,
subject only to a 5 yearly check and challenge:
force people upon pain of imprisonment to pay taxes to them
pay out that tax money to whomever they like
spend money they don't have by borrowing against obligations imposed on future taxpayers
without their agreement
kill people in wars, often from the comfort of a computer screen thousands of miles
away
print money and give it to whomever they like,
get rid of nation state currencies and replace them with a single, centrally controlled
currency
make laws and punish people who break them, including the ability to track them down in
most places in the world if they try and run away.
use laws to create monopolies and favour special interests
Let's now consider what power apple have...
- they can make iPhones and try to sell them for a profit by responding to the demands of
the mass consumer market. That's it. In fact, they are forced to do this by their owners who
only want them to do this, and nothing else. If they don't do this they will cease to
exist.
The state has merged with the corporations so that what is good for the corporations is good
for the state and visa versa. The larger and richer the state/corporations are, the more
shyster lawyers they hire to disguise misdeeds and unethical behavior.
If you support a big government, you are supporting big corporations as well. The
government uses the taxpayer as an eternal fount of fresh money and calls it their own to
spend as they please. Small businesses suffer unfairly because they cannot afford the shyster
lawyers and accountants that protect the government and the corporations, but nobody cares
about them. Remember, that Green Energy is big business, just like Big Pharma and Big Oil.
Most government shills have personally invested in Green Energy not because they care about
the environment, only because they know that it is a safe investment protected by government
for government. The same goes for large corporations who befriend government and visa
versa.
@NeilThompson - It's all very well for Deborah to recommend that the well paid share work.
Journalists, consultants and other assorted professionals can afford to do so. As a
self-employed tradesman, I'd be homeless within a month.
@SpinningHugo - Interesting that those who are apparently concerned with prosperity for all
and international solidarity are happy to ignore the rest of the world when it's going well,
preferring to prophesy apocalypse when faced with government spending being slightly reduced
at home.
@1nn1t - That is a point which just isn't made enough. This is the first group of politicians
for whom a global conflict seems like a distant event.
As a result we have people like Blair who see nothing wrong with invading countries at a
whim, or conservatives and UKIP who fail to understand the whole point of the European Court
of Human Rights.
They seem to act without thought of our true place in the world, without regard for the
truly terrible capacity humanity has for self destruction.
Deborah's point about the illogical demands of neoliberalism are indeed correct, which is
somewhat ironic as neoliberalism puts objective rationality at the heart of its philosophy,
but I digress...
The main problem with replacing neoliberalism with a more rational, and fairer system,
entails that people like Deborah accept that they will be less wealthy. And that my friends is the main problem. People like Deborah, while they are more than
happy to point the fingers at others, are less than happy to accept that they are also part
of the problem.
(Generalisation Caveat: I don't know in actuality if Deborah would be unhappy to be less
wealthy in exchange for a fairer system, she doesn't say)
Good critique of conservative-neoliberalism, unless you subscribe to it and subordinate any
morals or other values to it.
She mentions an internal tension and I think that's because conservatism and neoliberal
market ideology are different beasts.
There are different models of capitalism quite clearly the social democratic version in
Scandinavia or the "Bismarkian" German version have worked a lot better than the UKs.
Yet, mealy-mouthed and hotly contested as this minor mea culpa is, it's still a sign
that financial institutions may slowly be coming round to the idea that they are the
problem.
How is it a sign of that? We are offered no clues.
What they don't seem to acknowledge is that the merry days of reckless lending are never
going to return;
Try reading a history of financial crashes to dislodge this idea.
... even if they do, the same thing will happen again, but more quickly and more
savagely.
This may or may not be true but here it is mere assertion.
The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at
governments that run up debt.
At this point I start to have real doubts as to whether Deborah Orr has actually read even
the Executive Summary of the Report this article is ostensibly a response to.
All the comments that follow about the need for public infrastructure, education,
regulated markets and so on are made as if they were a criticism of the IMF and yet the IMF
says many of those same things itself. The IMF position may, of course, be contradictory -
but then that is something that would need to be demonstrated. It seems that Deborah has not
got beyond reading a couple of Guardian articles on the issues she discusses and therefore is
in no position to do this.
Efforts are being made to narrow the skills gap with other countries in the region, as
the authorities look to take full advantage of Bangladesh's favorable demographics and help
create conditions for more labor-intensive led growth. The government is also scaling up
spending on education, science and technology, and information and communication
technology.
Which seems to be the sort of thing Deborah Orr is calling for. She should spend a little
time on the IMF website before criticising the institution. It is certainly one that merits
much criticism - but it needs to be informed.
And the solution to the problems? For Deborah Orr the response
... from the start should have been a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth
is created and distributed around the globe, a "structural adjustment", as the philosopher
John Gray has said all along.
Does anyone have any idea what this is supposed to mean? There are certainly no leads on
this in the link given to "the philosopher" John Gray. And what a strange reference that is.
John Gray, in his usual cynical mode, dismisses the idea of progress being achieved by the
EU. But then I suppose that is consistent from a man who dismisses the idea of progress
itself.
... Conservative neoliberalism is entirely without logic.
The first step in serious political analysis is to understand that the people one opposes
are not crazy and are not devoid of logic. If that is not clearly understood then all that is
left is the confrontation of assertion and contrary assertion. Of course Conservative
neoliberalism has a logic. It is one I do not agree with but it is a logic all the same.
The neoliberalism that the IMF still preaches pays no account to any of this [the need
for public investment and a recognition of the multiple roles that individuals have].
Wrong again.
It insists that the provision of work alone is enough of an invisible hand to sustain a
market.
And again.
This stuff can't be made up as you go along on the basis of reading a couple of newspaper
articles. You actually have to do some hard reading to get to grip with the issues. I can see
no signs of that in this piece.
@NotAgainAgain - We are going off topic and that is in no small part down to my own fault, so
apologies. Just to pick up the point, I guess my unease with the likes of Buffet, Cooper-Hohn
or even the wealthy Guardian columnists is that they are criticizing the system from a
position of power and wealth.
So its easy to advocate change if you feel that you are in the vanguard of defining that
change i.e. the reforms you advocate may leave you worse off, but at a level you feel
comfortable with (the prime example always being Polly's deeply relaxed attitude to swingeing
income tax increases when her own lifestyle will be protected through wealth).
I guess I am a little skeptical because I either see it as managed decline, a smokescreen
or at worst mean spiritedness of people prepared to accept a reasonable degree of personal
pain if it means other people whom dislike suffer much greater pain.
"There is a clear legal basis in Germany for the workplace representation of employees in
all but the very smallest companies. Under the Works Constitution Act, first passed in 1952
and subsequently amended, most recently in 2001, a works council can be set up in all private
sector workplaces with at least five employees."
The UK needs to wake up to the fact that managers are sometimes inept or corrupt and will
destroy the companies they work for, unless their are adequate mechanisms to hold poor
management to account.
Capitalism, especially the beneficial capitalism of the NHS, free education etc. has
won
There would not be NHS, free education etc. without socialism; in fact they are
socialism. It took the Soviet-style socialism ("statism") 70 years to collapse. The neoliberalistic
capitalism has already started to collapse after 30 years.
I'm always amused that neoliberal - indeed, capitalist - apologists cannot see the hypocrisy
of their demands for market access. Communities create and sustain markets, fund and maintain
infrastructure, produce and maintain new consumers. Yet the neolibs decry and destroy.
Hypocrites or destructive numpties - never quite decided between Pickles and Gove, y'see.
@JamesValencia - Actually on reflection you are correct and I was wrong in my attack on the
author above. Having re-read the article its a critique of institutions rather than people so
my points were wide of the mark.
I still think that well heeled Guardian writers aren't really in a position to attack the
wealthy and politically connected, but I'll save that for a thread when they explicitly do
so, rather than the catch all genie of neoliberalism.
@CaptainGrey - deregulated capitalism has failed. That is the product of the last 20
years. The pure market is a fantasy just as communism is or any other ideology. In a pure
capitalist economy all the banks of the western world would have bust and indeed the false
value "earned" in the preceding 20 years would have been destroyed.
If the pure market is a fantasy, how can deregulated capitalism have failed? Does one not
require the other? Surely it is regulated capitalism that has failed?
97% of all OUR money has been handed over to these scheming crooks. Stop bailing out the
banks with QE. Take back what is ours -- state control over the creation of money. Then let
the banks revert to their modest market-based function of financial intermediaries.
The State can't be trusted to create our money? Well they could hardly do a worse job than
the banks! Best solution would be to distribute state-created money as a Citizen's
Income.
@1nn1t - Some good points, there is a whole swathe of low earners that should not be in the
tax system at all, simply letting them keep the money in their pocket would be a start.
Second the minimum wage (especially in the SE) is too low and should be increased.
Obviously the devil is in the detail as to the precise rate, the other issue is non
compliance as there will be any number of businesses that try and get around this, through
employing people too ignorant or scared to know any better or for family businesses - do we
have the stomach to enforce this?
Thirdly there is a widespread reluctance to separate people from the largesse of the
state, even at absurd levels of income such as higher rate payers (witness child tax
credits). On the right they see themselves as having paid in and so are "entitled" to have
something back and on the left it ensures that everyone has a vested interest in a big state
dipping it hands into your pockets one day and giving you something back the next.
@Uncertainty - Which is why the people of the planet need to join hands.
The only group of people in he UK to see that need were the generation that faced WW2
together.
It's no accident that, joining up at 18 in 1939, they had almost all retired by 1984.
To promote the indecent obsession for global growth Australia, burdened with debt of around
250 billion dollars, is to borrow and pay interest on a further 7 billion dollars to lend to
the International Monetary Fund so as it can lend it to poorer nations to burden them with
debt.
It is entrapment which impoverishes nations into the surrender of sovereignty,
democracy and national pride. In no way should we contribute to such economic immorality and
the entire economic system based on perpetual growth fuelled by consumerism and debt needs
top be denounced and dismantled. The adverse social and environmental consequence of
perpetual growth defies all sensible logic and in time, in a more responsible and enlightened
era, growth will be condemned.
"... 'Neoliberalism' is just a sanitised-sounding expression, to cover-up the fact that what we are really seeing here is re-branded, far-right, corporatist ideology. ..."
"... There is a major dividing line. There are those who recognise the abuses of the system and lobby for changes and there are those who lobby for further exploitation. ..."
"... The West became over-indebted when it embraced globalisation which necessarily impoverishes the Middle and Working Classes of the developed nations. A chap called Jimmy Goldsmith warned of this and was widely condemned for it. There is another issue Guardianistas would rather not confront : you can a welfare state or you can have open borders. But you can't have both. ..."
"... Private enterprise is inefficient because at it's heart it rules out cooperation. Being happiest if it's a monopoly, there's nothing a business would like better than wipe out all competition. ..."
"... Right now, the neoliberals think that those in the Far East are the workers and those in the West are the consumers, until the Far East becomes the market and wages so low in the West that they become the workers, unless of course some kind souls decide to invest money in Education, Health and infrastructure in Africa on a huge scale, so we then have Africa as the workers and the far East as the market, and the West, apart from those who own large numbers of shares or business outright, presumably either starve to death or pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and start all over again, inventing and setting up completely new industries, providing the newly universally educated and healthy Chinese and Africans and South Americans haven't done it first. ..."
"... The economic model we have is bankrupt and in its death throes ..."
"... Except it's not. It is still very much alive and growing. ..."
"... deregulated capitalism has failed. That is the product of the last 20 years. The pure market is a fantasy just as communism is or any other ideology. In a pure capitalist economy all the banks of the western world would have bust and indeed the false value "earned" in the preceding 20 years would have been destroyed. ..."
"... "Multinationals need to recognise that paying tax is an investment. Without that tax, their markets will slowly evaporate." However, the gains for the transnational rich are immediate and enormous, while the failure of their markets is slow and, so far, almost entirely painless. ..."
"... Accountants now hold the whip hand in government and business. They know the price of everything but the value of nothing. They advocate selling off industries, outsourcing to low wage economies, zero hours contracts and deregulation (under the bogus campaign line of cutting red tape). ..."
"... Google, Amazon and Apple haven't taught anyone in this country to read. But even though an illiterate market wouldn't be so great for them, they avoid their taxes, because they can , because they are more powerful than governments. ..."
"... If you invent a set of rules that says a country that deficit spends above an arbitrary percentage of its GDP is horribly inefficient and far too high then it should not be a surprise that when that happens, it is described as such. ..."
"... But the basic problem is this: it costs a lot of money to cultivate a market – a group of consumers – and the more sophisticated the market is, the more expensive it is to cultivate them. A developed market needs to be populated with educated, healthy, cultured, law-abiding and financially secure people ..."
"... The economic model we have is bankrupt and in its death throes is gobbling up the last scintilla of surplus that can be extracted from the poor ( anyone not independently wealthy). ..."
'Neoliberalism' is just a sanitised-sounding expression, to cover-up the fact that what we are really seeing here is re-branded,
far-right, corporatist ideology.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."
- Benito Mussolini
There is a major dividing line. There are those who recognise the abuses of the system and lobby for changes and there
are those who lobby for further exploitation.
So on the one hand there are relatively rich philanthropists who are quietly supporting campaigns to redistribute wealth and
our abstaining, and on the other you have people arguing for repealing employment legislation.Worst of the lot are people who
pretend to care about the poor but then proceed to fill their own boots.
As consequence people like Warren Buffet should perhaps be among the good guys, whilst people like Tony Blair are the worst
of lot.
All very true. The failures of markets are well documented in economics: the tendency towards monopoly, the failure to value social
goods etc.
In addition, it is ironic that the arch advocates of the 'free market' came begging ( read lobbying) to their governments insisting
upon public financial bailouts for themselves or their counter parties. It was the 'free markets' failure to correctly price 'risk'
that was the route of the economic collapse.
As regards access to 'free markets' it seems patently obvious that if you extract the most money from that market (Amazon et
al), you should contribute a fair share towards the infrastructure of that market: roads, educations, health care etc.
@EllisWyatt - ... we have a real problem with corporations that have a default setting of minimize taxes through ever more
complex structures. It can't be beyond the wit of HMRC to reduce the complexity of the tax legislation and make it harder to
avoid? The prize is continued access to the UK market
We also have the problem that for half the households in the land the level of welfare and benfits rather than wages is the
major determinant of their disposable income and general prosperity.
The welfare code is now comparable in size to the tax code. The tax-benefit affairs of the working poor in the UK are now becoming
as complex as those of the companies that employ them.
The welfare rights industry, which is essentially tax-benefit-lawyering for claimants, is now as large and complex as the tax-lawyering
industry for companies.
It really is insane that we set the minimum wage so low that it attracts income tax, and then attempt to collect tax from the
employing company to fund a tax credit to top up the same low wages that the same company is paying.
The neoliberalism that the IMF still preaches pays no account to any of this. It insists that the provision of work alone is
enough of an invisible hand to sustain a market
Does it? where does it say that? An article which as usual blanket condemns "financial institutions" but actually means banks.
The West became over-indebted when it embraced globalisation which necessarily impoverishes the Middle and Working Classes of
the developed nations. A chap called Jimmy Goldsmith warned of this and was widely condemned for it. There is another issue Guardianistas
would rather not confront : you can a welfare state or you can have open borders. But you can't have both.
Though I'd say private enterprise is capable of building markets - but not of sustaining them. Take books: If few people
know how to read, someone will start a fee paying school to teach those who can pay for it. Then books will take off. And that
will generate money for some, who'll send their kids to school.
However it will always, inevitably, crash at some point: Business can build up, but will always do it in destructuve cycles
- exactly like the brush fires that destroy and regenerate the savannas. As somebright spark once said: Capitalism contains the
seeds of it's own destruction, or something along those lines.
And we don't want to live like that - so we have regulation, and the state.And the state fertilises, and safeguards, by cutting
the grass, making mulch, and spreading the rich gooey muck all over the nice, green, verdant, state controlled pampa.
The cowboys, now, they prefer no cutting of grass, and letting their cattle chomp away undistrurbed. And now my analogy is
starting to wear thin.
The bottom line: Private enterprise is inefficient because at it's heart it rules out cooperation. Being happiest if it's
a monopoly, there's nothing a business would like better than wipe out all competition.
Hence, the necessity for state spending, and state regulation, which the private sector is blind to, because it can't look
ahead.
People are members of families, and are employers and workers, who are customers or clients, and part of
their local communities and professions and trades and hobbyists/clubs who are large scale wholesale consumers who create the
markets that provides employment and income to individuals who are workers. And, and, one big circle.
Right now, the neoliberals think that those in the Far East are the workers and those in the West are the consumers, until
the Far East becomes the market and wages so low in the West that they become the workers, unless of course some kind souls decide
to invest money in Education, Health and infrastructure in Africa on a huge scale, so we then have Africa as the workers and the
far East as the market, and the West, apart from those who own large numbers of shares or business outright, presumably either
starve to death or pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and start all over again, inventing and setting up completely new industries,
providing the newly universally educated and healthy Chinese and Africans and South Americans haven't done it first.
OK. I was against it for a long time, but go ahead. There's no way of avoiding it. Eat the Rich. Apart from the fact that ultra
thin is fashionable, and with all that dieting and exercising, they are the only people who actually get the time for lots of
exercise these days, and they'll taste incredibly tough and stringy.
@CaptainGrey - Ssshhh not on CiF, we all know that capitalism has failed its just that we can't point to a successful alternative
model because such a thing has never existed, its just that this time its different and the model I advocate will lead us all
to the sunny uplands of utopia.
Obviously there will be a little bit of coercion and oppression to get us to those sunny uplands, but you can't make an omlette
etc. plus don't worry that stuff will only happen to "bad people"
The economic model we have is bankrupt and in its death throes
Except it's not. It is still very much alive and growing. The "alternatives" have crashed and burned save Cuba and North
Korea. Capitalism, especially the beneficial capitalism of the NHS, free education etc. has won and countless people have gained
as a result.
@CaptainGrey - deregulated capitalism has failed. That is the product of the last 20 years. The pure market is a fantasy just
as communism is or any other ideology. In a pure capitalist economy all the banks of the western world would have bust and indeed
the false value "earned" in the preceding 20 years would have been destroyed.
In the 19th century based on experience the public services became part of the public sector to avoid corruption and corporate
blackmail. The neoclassical revolution of the late 20th century has pushed us back to days when elites regarded the state as their
property. Democracy was a threat which won out either through the British model or violent revolution. A small elite cannot endure
if the majority feel exploited.
The Bilderberg Conference should look to the past and learn from the mistakes committed. Neoclassicism will eventually impoverish
them
@UnevenSurface - Multinationals need to recognise that paying tax is an investment. Without that tax, their markets will
slowly evaporate.
"Multinationals need to recognise that paying tax is an investment. Without that tax, their markets will slowly evaporate."
However, the gains for the transnational rich are immediate and enormous, while the failure of their markets is slow and, so far,
almost entirely painless.
@UnevenSurface - I think corporation tax is becoming obsolete given globalization and the increasing dominance of online / global
distribution.
Amazon, Starbucks (and to a lesser extent Google) need to have people on the ground in their market, for customer service,
distribution, warehouse staff, baristas etc. So they'll pay employer taxes etc.
The question is is that enough? I think we are missing a trick with the UK market due to outdated tax legislation that hasn't
really changed in 30 years.
After the US the UK is arguably the most attractive market in the world. Large, homogenous, wealthy with a low propensity to
save and a rapid rate of adoption of new technology / products. We need to think about how we can exploit this in relation to
corporate taxes because even though I am far from left wing, we have a real problem with corporations that have a default setting
of minimise taxes through ever more complex structures.
It can't be beyond the wit of HMRC to reduce the complexity of the tax legislation and make it harder to avoid? The prize is
continued access to the UK market
Accountants now hold the whip hand in government and business. They know the price of everything but the value of nothing.
They advocate selling off industries, outsourcing to low wage economies, zero hours contracts and deregulation (under the bogus
campaign line of cutting red tape).
All of these policies will ultimately end up with capitalism destroying itself. Low wage stagnation will result in penniless
consumers which results in no growth which results in cuttin wages to maintain shareholder returns which results in penniless
consumers etc etc etc. All our institutions are gradually eroded and life for the average citizen will become more and more unpleasant.
Profit share may be a way forward, it's not perfect, companies can effectively use it to freeze wages and benefit from unpaid
overtime, that creates unemployment as four people working a couple of hours extra ever day are denying someone else a job, but
used in the right way it could ensure people get a share in the wealth they help create.
At the sharp end it's tough, at the
company I worked at, all the managers were summoned to a meeting in September and told they had until Christmas to increase turnover
and profits, or they would be out of a job.
At the same company, one of my managers complained that a successful manager at another branch was a crook. The CEO replied
'Yes, but he's a crook that makes a million pounds in profit every year'. I wonder how Deborah's article would have gone down
with him?
Everything was easier when the U S and Europe ran the world's economies with Bank regulations, currency controls and only the
establishment could avoid income, capital gains and IHT taxes and grow wealthy generation after generation. Today there are simply
too many players in the global arena and the rules have been torn up. We are in a jungle where greed is rife and only the powerful
and corrupt survive, shipping and burying their loot in offshore havens.
We need a new global order with a change of mentality
and more morality among the world's politicians, banking and corporate leaders. Unless we end corruption and exploitation of natural
resources in the poor nations and a fairer distribution of the economic wealth the world faces economic and social collapse
Google, Amazon and Apple haven't taught anyone in this country to read. But even though an illiterate market wouldn't
be so great for them, they avoid their taxes, because they can , because they are more powerful than governments.
Is it beyond the wit of government to close these (perfectly legal) loopholes? Otherwise, what you are asking for is for these
companies to make charitible donations to government - nothing wrong with that per se, but let's not hide behind the misleading
term 'tax avoidance' - companies are obliged to minimise taxes within the law, face it.
It is perfectly clear that in much of the EU public expenditure has been horribly inefficient and far too high
If you invent a set of rules that says a country that deficit spends above an arbitrary percentage of its GDP is horribly
inefficient and far too high then it should not be a surprise that when that happens, it is described as such.
Whether that has any basis in reality or, as I suspect, is only relevant within its own ridiculous framework, is surely the
question.
Deborah Orr is established writer for the Guardian and Married to a Will Self whose is almost certainly a millionaire. She
is one of the rich. The idea that envy is driving her politics is just utterly absurd, and suggests a total lack of reflection.
But the basic problem is this: it costs a lot of money to cultivate a market – a group of consumers – and the more sophisticated
the market is, the more expensive it is to cultivate them. A developed market needs to be populated with educated, healthy,
cultured, law-abiding and financially secure people
Not really; Amazon is just as happy to sell us trashy films, multipacks of chocolate, obesity drugs and baseball bats to stove
our neighbour's head in. There's certainly an argument to be made that companies should have a duty to invest in the infrastructure
that enables their product to be transported, stored etc...but they shouldn't be expected to give a toss if their customers are
unhealthy ignoramuses. A market's a market.
But some countries manage to do this much more efficiently and effectively than others.
In Europe it would appear to be the Social Democratic Nordic countries and Germany which has very strong employment rights.
Korea's economic growth was based on government investment and a degree of protectionism. These are precisely the ideas that neoliberalism
opposes.
If they had adopted The Keynes Plan at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference then the IMF and the World Bank would never have been
set up. We most likely would not have had the euro crisis and the problem of trade imbalances between counties would most likely
have gone away.
Now that is what I call 'Keynesian'. Feel free to continue to make up your own definitions though.
Socialism for the 1% with the rest scraping around for the crumbs in an ever more divided world run by The Bilderbergers who play
the politicians like puppets.
@emkayoh - I am not sure its in its death throes, I think what we are seeing is capitalism attempting to transform itself again.
The success of that transformation will depend on how willing people across the western world to put up with reduced welfare,
poverty pay and almost no employment rights. If we say no and make things too hot for the ruling class we have a chance to take
control of the future direction of our world, if not then what's the point.
This is a strange rant. Everyone agrees that free markets need to be nurtured by appropriate state institutions. But some countries
manage to do this much more efficiently and effectively than others. It is perfectly clear that in much of the EU public expenditure
has been horribly inefficient and far too high.
There is no contradiction between being in favour of free markets and believing that markets and societies should be nurtured
appropriately. We think people should be free and all accept that they should be nurtured.
So why, exactly, given the huge amount of investment needed to create such a market, should access to it then be "free"?
Corporate taxation is best explained as the license that business pays to access the market -- which is in turn created through
the schools, hospitals, roads, etc. that the tax pays for. Unfortunately the new Corporate Social Irresponsibility being acted
out by multinationals today neatly avoids paying that license, and sooner or later will damage them. Multinationals need to recognize
that paying tax is an investment. Without that tax, their markets will slowly evaporate.
The economic model we have is bankrupt and in its death throes is gobbling up the last scintilla of surplus that can be extracted
from the poor ( anyone not independently wealthy).
"... Socialism for the 1% with the rest scraping around for the crumbs ..."
"... Don't you think a global recession and massive banking collapse should be classified as 'crash and burn'? ..."
"... It's one of the major contradictions of modern conservatism that the raw, winner-takes-all version of capitalism it champions actually undermines the sort of law abiding, settled communities it sees as the societal ideal. ..."
"... Rich people have benefited from this more than most: they need workers trained by a state-funded education system and kept healthy by a state-funded healthcare system; they depend on lending from banks rescued by the taxpayer; they rely on state-funded infrastructure and research, and – like all of us – on a society that does not collapse. Whether they like it or not, they would not have made their fortunes without the state spending billions of pounds ..."
"... You have to be careful when you take on the banksters. Abe Lincoln John Kennedy and Hitler all tried or (in Kennedy's case planned) on the issuance of money via the state circumventing the banks. All came to a sticky end. No wonder politicians run scared of them. ..."
"... Now, that's a novel interpretation! The working people in "Communist" countries had free healthcare and education, guaranteed employment and heavily subsidized housing. The reason we have healtcare and free education is that working people in Capitalist countries would otherwise have revolted to have Socialism. In the absence of competition, there is no benefit for the Capitalist to be "beneficial". ..."
"... The banks could plainly see that they were stoking a bubble, but chose not to pass on the increased risk of lending to consumers by raising their interest rates and coolling the market. Why? Because they were making a handsome short-term profit. The banks put their own short-term interests above their long-term interests of financial stability. When the house of cards came tumbling down - we bailed them out. It was idiotic banks who failed to properly control their risk of lending that caused the crash, not interventionist politicians. ..."
Virtually everyone knows what went wrong, with the exception only of uncontrollable
ultra-right neoliberal buffs who try and put the blame on everyone else with various out and
out lies and deceptions, and they are thankfully petering and dying out by the day, including
deluded contributors to CiF, who seem to be positively and cruelly reveling in the suffering
their beloved thesis has and is causing.
So, now that we know the symptoms, what about the cure? The coalition want to make the poor
and vulnerable suffer even more than they have done over the last three decades or so while
still refusing to clamp down and wholly regulate the bankers, corporates and free markets, who
still hold too much power like the unions in the 70's,while Ed Miliband and 'One Nation
Labour' merely suggest in mild, diffident terms about financial regulation and a more balanced
economy, while still not wanting to upset those nice bankers too much.
It's time they were
upset though, and made to pay for their errors and recklessness; while they still award
themselves bonuses and take advantage of Gideon's recent tax cut, the poor and vulnerable who
were never responsible for the long recession now have money taken off them and struggle to
feed, pay bills and clothe themselves and their families, supported by the Daily Fail and co.
who look on them as scrounging, lazy, criminal, violent, drunken, drug addicted and promiscuous
sub-humans, who deserve their fate.
There's quite a few in the middle/professional classes
(many bankers) if they didn't know, but they don't bother with such, do they?
The economic model we have is bankrupt and in its death throes
I am not sure if this is true. We have the same economic system (broadly speaking,
capitalism) as nearly every country in the world, and the world economy is growing at a
reasonable rate, at around 3-4% for 2013-14 (see http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2013/01/pdf/c1.pdf
for more details).
We perceive a problem in (most of) Europe and North America because our economies are
growing more slowly than this, and in some cases not at all. The global growth figure comes
out healthy because of strong growth in the emerging countries, like China, Brazil and India,
who are narrowing the gap between their living standards and ours. So, the world as a whole
isn't broken, even if our bit of it is going through a rough patch.
This is pertinant to a discussion of Deborah Orr's article, because in it she calls for
global changes:
The response from the start should have been a wholesale reevaluation of the way in
which wealth is created and distributed around the globe, a "structural adjustment", as the
philosopher John Gray has said all along.
My point is: I don't think this argument will work, because I don't see why the emerging
countries would want wholesale change to what, for them, is quite a successful recipe, just
because it going down badly in Europe. Instead, European countries need to do whatever it
takes to fix their banking systems; but also learn to live within their means, and show some
more of the discipline and enterprise that made them wealthy in the first place.
@Uncertainty - I`m not defending philanthropy, i am saying in answer to some personal attacks
on Miss Orr below the line, that her status as either rich or poor is irrelevant, it is her
politics that count .
Tony Benn and Polly Toynbee both receive much abuse in this manner on Cif.
@kingcreosote - Socialism for the 1% with the rest scraping around for the crumbs
And yet the rest have more crumbs than under any other conceivable system. Look
at the difference that even limited market liberalisation has made to poverty in China. No loaf, no crumbs. You can always throw the loaf out of the window if you don't like the
inequality and then no-one can have anything.
@jazzdrum - I don't have much time for those rich who feel guilty about their greed and do
'charity' to salve their souls. Oh and get a Knighthood as a result.
The more honest giver is the person who gives of what little they have in their purse and
go without as a result. Not a tax dodge re-branded as philanthropy.
Also, such giving from the rich often has strings and may be tailored to what they think
are the 'deserving poor'. I don't like that either.
@Herbolzheim - It's one of the major contradictions of modern conservatism that the raw,
winner-takes-all version of capitalism it champions actually undermines the sort of law
abiding, settled communities it sees as the societal ideal.
More and more people are beginning to understand this as a fundamentally political problem (
ref. @XerXes1369). The 'left' prefers to concentrate on the role of a financial elite (which
is supposed to be exerting some kind of malign supernatural force on the state), to divert
attention from what mainstream 'left' poltics in this society has turned out to be.
When the state is taking over 60% of the income of even those on minimum wages we se
how, from the very top to the very bottom, that the state is the problem.
It's become a monster that will destroy us all.
I would query where you get these figures from, but where it not for the state, do you really
think that somebody on the minimum wage, keeping 100% of their wages, would be able to
afford, out of these wages, health care, schooling for their children, infrastructure
maintenance, their own police force and army, their own legal system?
This from an article in the Independent:
Rich people have benefited from this more than most: they need workers trained by a
state-funded education system and kept healthy by a state-funded healthcare system; they
depend on lending from banks rescued by the taxpayer; they rely on state-funded
infrastructure and research, and – like all of us – on a society that does not
collapse. Whether they like it or not, they would not have made their fortunes without the
state spending billions of pounds.
So the state, although not perfect benefit all of us, get over it!
You have to be careful when you take on the banksters.
Abe Lincoln John Kennedy and Hitler all tried or (in Kennedy's case planned) on the
issuance of money via the state circumventing the banks. All came to a sticky end. No wonder politicians run scared of them.
Free education and the NHS are state institutions. As Debbie said, Amazon never taught
anyone to read. Beneficial capitalism is an oxymoron resulting from your lack of
understanding.
Yes they are state institutions and the tax system should be changed to prevent
Amazon et al from avoiding paying their fair share. But beneficial capitalism is not an
oxymoron, it is alive and present in virtually every corner of the world. Rather than accuse
me of not understanding, I think you would do well to take the beam out of your eye.
I agree with you and it was this beneficial version of capitalism that brought down the
Iron Curtain. Working people in the former Communist countries were comparing themselves
with working people in the west and wanted a piece of that action.
Now, that's a novel interpretation! The working people in "Communist" countries had free
healthcare and education, guaranteed employment and heavily subsidized housing. The reason we have healtcare and free education is that working people in Capitalist
countries would otherwise have revolted to have Socialism. In the absence of competition, there is no benefit for the Capitalist to be
"beneficial".
The banks couldn't stop property hyperinflation, at 20% a year for well over a
decade.
The banks could plainly see that they were stoking a bubble, but chose not to pass on the
increased risk of lending to consumers by raising their interest rates and coolling the
market. Why? Because they were making a handsome short-term profit. The banks put their own
short-term interests above their long-term interests of financial stability. When the house
of cards came tumbling down - we bailed them out. It was idiotic banks who failed to properly
control their risk of lending that caused the crash, not interventionist politicians.
Last week there was a story where HSBC have taken on a senior ex-MI5 person to shore up
their money laundering 'problems'. They're being fined over a billion dollars by the fed
for taking blood money from murderers, drug dealers and corrupt politicians.
Not the Security Services' Director General by any chance?
-- In a filing to the Bermuda Stock Exchange ("BSX"), HSBC Holdings plc (Ticker:
HSBC.BH), announced the appointment of Sir Jonathan Evans to the Board of Directors.
The filing stated:
Sir Jonathan Evans (55) has been appointed a Director of HSBC Holdings plc with effect
from 6 August 2013. He will be an independent non-executive Director and a member of the
Financial System Vulnerabilities Committee.
Sir Jonathan's career in the Security Service spanned 33 years, the last six of which as
Director General. During his career Sir Jonathan's experience included counter-espionage,
protection of classified information and the security of critical national infrastructure.
His main focus was, however, counter-terrorism, both international and domestic including,
increasingly, initiatives against cyber threats. As Director General he was a senior
advisor to the UK government on national security policy and attended the National Security
Council.
He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in the 2013 New Year's
Honours List and retired from the Service in April 2013.
I think there's some really good points in the article.
Last week there was a story where HSBC have taken on a senior ex-MI5 person to shore up
their money laundering 'problems'. They're being fined over a billion dollars by the fed for
taking blood money from murderers, drug dealers and corrupt politicians.
Their annual fee for this guy with 20 years experience to tackle a billion dollar fine and
the disfunction in their organisation? A lousy 100 k. Fee to UK for training him? 0.
Ridiculous! It should have been 10 times that for him and a finders fee of perhaps 10
million to the state.
Realistically, the state has NO clue about it's real value, or the real value of the UK
population. And the example above, I think, demonstrates banks' attitude to the global demand
that they clean up their act. We neef to take this lot to the cleaners before the stench gets
any worse.
One month to the day after President Kennedy's assassination, the Washington Post published
an article by former president Harry Truman.
I think it has become necessary to take another look at the purpose and operations of our
Central Intelligence Agency -- CIA. At least, I would like to submit here the original reason
why I thought it necessary to organize this Agency during my Administration, what I expected
it to do and how it was to operate as an arm of the President.
Truman had envisioned the CIA as an impartial information and intelligence collector from
"every available source."
But their collective information reached the President all too frequently in conflicting
conclusions. At times, the intelligence reports tended to be slanted to conform to
established positions of a given department. This becomes confusing and what's worse, such
intelligence is of little use to a President in reaching the right decisions.
Therefore, I decided to set up a special organization charged with the collection of all
intelligence reports from every available source, and to have those reports reach me as
President without department "treatment" or interpretations.
I wanted and needed the information in its "natural raw" state and in as comprehensive a
volume as it was practical for me to make full use of it. But the most important thing about
this move was to guard against the chance of intelligence being used to influence or to lead
the President into unwise decisions -- and I thought it was necessary that the President do
his own thinking and evaluating.
Truman found, to his dismay, that the CIA had ranged far afield.
For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original
assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government.
This has led to trouble and may have compounded our difficulties in several explosive
areas.
I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into
peacetime cloak and dagger operations. Some of the complications and embarrassment I think we
have experienced are in part attributable to the fact that this quiet intelligence arm of the
President has been so removed from its intended role that it is being interpreted as a symbol
of sinister and mysterious foreign intrigue -- and a subject for cold war enemy
propaganda.
The article appeared in the Washington Post's morning edition, but not the evening
edition.
Truman reveals two naive assumptions. He thought a government agency could be apolitical and
objective. Further, he believed the CIA's role could be limited to information gathering and
analysis, eschewing "cloak and dagger operations." The timing and tone of the letter may have
been hints that Truman thought the CIA was involved in Kennedy's assassination. If he did, he
also realized an ex-president couldn't state his suspicions without troublesome
consequences.
Even the man who signed the CIA into law had to stay in the shadows, the CIA's preferred
operating venue. The CIA had become the exact opposite of what Truman envisioned and what its
enabling legislation specified. Within a few years after its inauguration in 1947, it was
neck-deep in global cloak and dagger and pushing agenda-driven, slanted information and
outright disinformation not just within the government, but through the media to the American
people.
The CIA lies with astonishing proficiency. It has made an art form of "plausible
deniability." Like glimpsing an octopus in murky waters, you know it's there, but it shoots
enough black ink to obscure its movements. Murk and black ink make it impossible for anyone on
the outside to determine exactly what it does or has done. Insiders, even the director, are
often kept in the dark.
For those on the trail of CIA and the other intelligence agencies' lies and skullduggery,
the agencies give ground glacially and only when they have to. What concessions they make often
embody multiple layers of back-up lies. It can take years for an official admission -- the CIA
didn't officially confess its involvement in the 1953 coup that deposed Iranian leader Mohammad
Mosaddeq until 2013 -- and even then details are usually not forthcoming. Many of the so-called
exposés of the intelligence agencies are in effect spook-written for propaganda or
damage control.
The intelligence agencies monitor virtually everything we do. They have tentacles reaching
into every aspect of contemporary society, exercising control in pervasive but mostly unknown
ways. Yet, every so often some idiot writes an op-ed or bloviates on TV, bemoaning the lack of
trust the majority of Americans have in "their" government and wondering why. The wonder is
that anyone still trusts the government.
The intelligence agency fog both obscures and corrodes. An ever increasing number of
Americans believe that a shadowy Deep State pulls the strings. Most major stories since World
War II -- Korea, Vietnam, Kennedy's assassination, foreign coups, the 1960s student unrest,
civil rights agitation, and civic disorder, Watergate, Iran-Contra, 9/11, domestic
surveillance, and many more -- have intelligence angles. However, determining what those angles
are plunges you into the miasma perpetuated by the agencies and their media accomplices.
The intelligence agencies and captive media's secrecy, disinformation, and lies make it
futile to mount a straightforward attack against them. It's like attacking a citadel surrounded
by swamps and bogs that afford no footing, making advance impossible. Their deadliest operation
has been against the truth. In a political forum, how does one challenge an adversary who
controls most of the information necessary to discredit, and ultimately reform or eliminate
that adversary?
You don't fight where your opponent wants you to fight. What the intelligence apparatus
fears most is a battle of ideas. Intelligence, the military, and the reserve currency are
essential component of the US's confederated global empire. During the 2016 campaign, Donald
Trump questioned a few empire totems and incurred the intelligence leadership's wrath,
demonstrating how sensitive and vulnerable they are on this front. The transparent flimsiness
of their Russiagate concoction further illustrates the befuddlement. Questions are out in the
open and are usually based on facts within the public domain. They move the battle from the
murk to the light, unfamiliar and unwelcome terrain.
The US government, like Oceania, switches enemies as necessary. That validates military and
intelligence; lasting peace would be intolerable. After World War II the enemy was the USSR and
communism, which persisted until the Soviet collapse in 1991. The 9/11 tragedy offered up a new
enemy, Islamic terrorism.
Seventeen years later, after a disastrous run of US interventions in the Middle East and
Northern Africa and the rout of Sunni jihadists in Syria by the combined forces of the Syrian
government, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, it's clear that Islamic terrorism is no longer a
threat that stirs the paranoia necessary to feed big military and intelligence budgets . For
all the money they've spent, intelligence has done a terrible job of either anticipating
terrorist strikes or defeating them in counterinsurgency warfare
So switch the enemy again, now it's Russia and China. The best insight the intelligence
community could offer about those two is that they've grown stronger by doing the opposite of
the US. For the most part they've stayed in their own neighborhoods. They accept that they're
constituents, albeit important ones, of a multipolar global order. Although they'll use big
sticks to protect their interests, carrots like the Belt and Road Initiative further their
influence much better than the US's bullets and bombs.
If the intelligence complex truly cared about the country, they might go public with the
observation that the empire is going broke. However, raising awareness of this dire threat --
as opposed to standard intelligence bogeymen -- might prompt reexamination of intelligence and
military budgets and the foreign policy that supports them. Insolvency will strangle the US's
exorbitantly expensive interventionism. It will be the first real curb on the intelligence
complex since World War II, but don't except any proactive measures beforehand from those
charged with foreseeing the future.
Conspiracy theories, a term popularized by the CIA to denigrate Warren Commission skeptics,
are often proved correct. However, trying to determine the truth behind intelligence agency
conspiracies is a time and energy-consuming task, usually producing much frustration and little
illumination. Instead,
as Caitlin Johnstone recently observed , we're better off fighting on moral and
philosophical grounds the intelligence complex and the rest of the government's depredations
that are in plain sight.
Attack the intellectual foundations of empire and you attack the whole rickety edifice,
including intelligence, that supports it. Tell the truth and you threaten those who deal in
lies . Champion sanity and logic and you challenge the insane irrationality of the powers that
be. They are daunting tasks, but less daunting than trying to excavate and clean the
intelligence sewer.
I sometimes wonder whether the Bond films are a psy-op.
I mean, the 'hero' is a psycho-killer ... the premise of the films is 'any means to an
end' ... they promote the ridiculous idea that you can be 'licensed to kill', and it's no
longer murder ... and they build a strong association between the State and glamour.
Bond makes a virtue out of 'following orders', when in reality, it's a Sin.
Can't remember which Section of MI6 Ian Fleming (novelist 007.5) worked but he came into
contact with my Hero, the best double-agent Cambridge, maybe World, has Ever produced, Kim
Philby. Fleming was a lightweight compared to him and was most likely provided the Funds, by
MI6 to titillate the Masses, spread the Word of Deep State.
The article makes many good points but still falls into use of distorting bs language.
For example, "after a disastrous run of US interventions" - well, they stole Libya's
wealth and destroyed the country: mission accomplished; that's what they were trying to do.
It was not an ""intervention", it was a f***ing war of aggression based on lies.
Well the good news is that folks now know there is deep State, shadow govt, puppet
masters, fake news MSM mockingbird programming, satanic "musik/ pop" promoters, etc.
Not everyone knows but more know, and some are now questioning the Matrix sensations they
have. That they have not been told the Truth.
Eventually humanity will awaken and get on track, how long it will take is unknown.
The CIA is a symptom of the problem but not the whole problem. Primarily it is the
deception that it sows, the confusion and false conclusions that the easily led fill their
heads with.
Now that you know there are bad guys out there...
Find someone to love, even if it is a puppy or a guppy. Simplify your needs, and commit
small acts of kindness on a regular basis. The World will heal, it may be a rocky
convalescence, yet Good triumphs in the end.
Like bolshevism this secular regions is to a large extent is a denial of Christianity. While Bolshevism is closer to the Islam,
Neoliberalism is closer to Judaism.
The idea of " Homo economicus " -- a person who in all
his decisions is governed by self-interest and greed is bunk.
Notable quotes:
"... There is not a shred of logical sense in neoliberalism. You're doing what the fundamentalists do... they talk about what neoliberalism is in theory whilst completely ignoring what it is in practice. ..."
"... In theory the banks should have been allowed to go bust, but the consequences where deemed too high (as they inevitable are). The result is socialism for the rich using the poor as the excuse, which is the reality of neoliberalism. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is based on the thought that you get as much freedom as you can pay for, otherwise you can just pay... like everyone else. In Asia and South America it has been the economic preference of dictators that pushes profit upwards and responsibility down, just like it does here. ..."
"... We all probably know the answer to this. In order to maintain the consent necessary to create inequality in their own interests the neoliberals have to tell big lies, and keep repeating them until they appear to be the truth. They've gotten so damn good at it. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is a modern curse. Everything about it is bad and until we're free of it, it will only ever keep trying to turn us into indentured labourers. ..."
"... It's acolytes are required to blind themselves to logic and reason to such a degree they resemble Scientologists or Jehovah's Witnesses more than people with any sort of coherent political ideology, because that's what neoliberalism actually is... a cult of the rich, for the rich, by the rich... and it's followers in the general population are nothing but moron familiars hoping one day to be made a fully fledged bastard ..."
"... Who could look at the way markets function and conclude there's any freedom? Only a neoliberal cult member. They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be dissuaded. They cannot be persuaded. Only the market knows best, and the fact that the market is a corrupt, self serving whore is completely ignored by the ideology of their Church. ..."
Unless you are completely confused by what neoliberalism is there is not a shred of logical sense in this.
There is not a shred of logical sense in neoliberalism. You're doing what the fundamentalists do... they talk about what neoliberalism
is in theory whilst completely ignoring what it is in practice.
In theory the banks should have been allowed to go bust, but the consequences where deemed too high (as they inevitable
are). The result is socialism for the rich using the poor as the excuse, which is the reality of neoliberalism.
Savers in a neoliberal society are lambs to the slaughter. Thatcher "revitalised" banking, while everything else withered and
died.
Neoliberalism is based on the thought of personal freedom, communism is definitely not. Neoliberalist policies have lifted
millions of people out of poverty in Asia and South America.
Neoliberalism is based on the thought that you get as much freedom as you can pay for, otherwise you can just pay... like
everyone else. In Asia and South America it has been the economic preference of dictators that pushes profit upwards and responsibility
down, just like it does here.
I find it ironic that it now has 5 year plans that absolutely must not be deviated from, massive state intervention in markets
(QE, housing policy, tax credits... insert where applicable), and advocates large scale central planning even as it denies reality,
and makes the announcement from a tractor factory.
Neoliberalism is a blight... a cancer on humanity... a massive lie told by rich people and believed only by peasants happy
to be thrown a turnip. In theory it's one thing, the reality is entirely different. Until we're rid of it, we're all it's slaves.
It's an abhorrent cult that comes up with purest bilge like expansionary fiscal contraction to keep all the money in the hands
of the rich.
Why, you have to ask yourself, is this vast implausibility, this sheer unsustainability, not blindingly obvious to all?
We all probably know the answer to this. In order to maintain the consent necessary to create inequality in their own interests
the neoliberals have to tell big lies, and keep repeating them until they appear to be the truth. They've gotten so damn good
at it.
Neoliberalism is a modern curse. Everything about it is bad and until we're free of it, it
will only ever keep trying to turn us into indentured labourers.
It's acolytes are required
to blind themselves to logic and reason to such a degree they resemble Scientologists or
Jehovah's Witnesses more than people with any sort of coherent political ideology, because
that's what neoliberalism actually is... a cult of the rich, for the rich, by the rich... and
it's followers in the general population are nothing but moron familiars hoping one day to be
made a fully fledged bastard.
Who could look at the way markets function and conclude there's any freedom? Only a
neoliberal cult member. They cannot be reasoned with. They cannot be dissuaded. They cannot
be persuaded. Only the market knows best, and the fact that the market is a corrupt, self
serving whore is completely ignored by the ideology of their Church.
It's subsumed the entire planet, and waiting for them to see sense is a hopeless cause. In
the end it'll probably take violence to rid us of the Neoliberal parasite... the turn of the
century plague.
How many alternative economic systems would you say have been given a fair trial under
reasonably favorable circumstances?
A good question. Answer: admittedly, not a huge number - but not none either. Feudalism
held sway in the middle ages and mercantilism in the 18th century, before both fell out of
fashion. In the 20th century Russia stuck with communism for 74 years, and many other
countries tried it for a while. At one time (around 1949-89) there were enough countries in
the communist block for us to be able to say that they at least had a fair chance to make it
work - that is, if it didn't work, they can't really blame it on the rest of the world
ganging up on them.
Lately, serious challengers to the global economic order have been more isolated
(Venzuela, Cuba, North Korea?) - so maybe you could argue that, if they are struggling, it is
because they have been unfairly ganged up on. But then again, aren't they pursuing a
version of socialism that has close affinities to that tried in the Soviet Union?
The problem with giving any novel political idea a really extended trial is that you have
to try it out on live human beings. This means that, once a critical mass of data has built
up that indicates a political idea doesn't work out as hoped, then people inevitably lose the
will to try that idea again.
So my question is: are critics of the current world economic order able to spell out
exactly how their proposed alternative would differ from Soviet-style socialism?
I'd tend to agree with you but in that case it's not an ideology, merely
pragmatism. The convergence of the parties merely reflects the wider consensus in society.
The alternative is simple but people have become so wedded to the libertarian parts of
liberal democracy that it will be some time before they are ready to contemplate the
alternative, a return to the Judaeo/Christian version of human rights - an absolute right to
God who made us, to the truth, to life, to a natural family, and to own the means of earning
a living - to which all should be entitled and all should be held to account.
These are rights that any sensible person will tell you that we should be entitled to but
believe it or not they are anathema to liberal democracy which is based on exploiting the
selfishness of the individual to the detriment of the common good and the good of society at
large.
This post is a variant of "fake prosperity" -- yet another neoliberal myth. Also known as
"rising tidelift all boats"
The improvement of the standard of living in 90th was mainly due to economic plunder of xUSSR
and Eastern Europe as well as well as communication revolution happening simultaneously. The
period from 1990 to 2000 is known as "Triumphal March of Neoliberalism". Aftger year 200
neoliberalism went into recession and in 2008 in deep crisis. The neoliberal ideology was dead by
2008.
Indeed. That was in the time of feudalism and mercantilism.
No, it was as recently as WW2 more or less. After that it followed a confusing
period where social and political freedoms darted ahead up to the '80s when the economic
freedoms started being championed by the right: Thatcher, Reagan, etc.
That saw a liberalisation of trade and an explosive growth in international trade with
huge benefits for the whole world: developing countries like the Asian dragons have seen
their standards of living skyrocket and practically they can't get up with the developed
countries in one generation. China, and India to an extent, is following on that path with
pretty good results.
As the same time the developed countries saw a huge improvement in their standard of
living with products and services available at incredible prices. Even the countries that did
not get on this yet are benefiting and the fact that starvation in the world is less of a
problem is the proof of that for example.
The response should be a wholesale reevaluation of the way in which wealth is created
and distributed around the globe
But we know already how that is done: voluntary transactions among free agents.
That's called a free market and it is by far the most efficient way to produce wealth
humanity has ever known. Sure, we tried other methods (slavery, forced labour, communal
entities, government controlled economies, tribal economies, etc.) but nothing worked as well
as free markets.
The calls for governments' intervention in the economy is misguided and counterproductive.
They already extract about 50% of all wealth created in this country. That's way too much
since most of the money taken by governments is money diverted from productive use.
Wrong. Traditional liberalism supported both social and economic freedoms. That included
support for most of the civil rights and freedoms we enjoy today AND free trade and free
investments.
Indeed. That was in the time of feudalism and mercantilism.
I take this opportunity to draw everyone's attention to a Finnish theorist and proponent
of liberal economical and political thinking, whose treatise on liberal national economy
preceded Adam Smith by 11 years: Anders Chydenius (1729-1803).
Margaret Thatcher left office 23 years ago. The de-regulation of the City occurred in
1986, 27 years ago. Since then UK GDP has more than doubled, inflation and unemployment are
far lower, and the numbers living in extreme poverty have fallen dramatically.
This is an attractive but idealistinc notion, because the person destiny often is shaped by
forces beyond his control. Like Great Depression or WWII. The proper idea is that the society as
a whole serves as a "social security" mechanism to prevent worst outcomes. At the same time
neoliberalism accept bailout for financial sector and even demand them for goverment.
@dmckm - Nobody is owed a good living in this world. That's what freedom means: one is free
to chose the best way to make a living. Are you saying that by forcing people to pay you
something they don't want to is freedom?
No market is 'Free'. Free markets do not exist. Markets are there for those with a vested
interest. i.e. the banksters. Note the growth of Hedge funds or slush funds for the rich.
Neoliberalism like Bolshevism is based on brainwashing and propaganda. In this case by
bought by financial elite and controlled by intelligence agencies MSM.
Notable quotes:
"... Neoliberalism? This is not just a financial agenda. This a highly organized multi armed counterculture operation to force us, including Ms Orr [unless she has...connections] into what Terence McKenna [who was in on it] termed the `Archaic Revival'. That is - you and me [and Ms Orr] - our - return to the medieval dark ages, if we indeed survive that far. ..."
"... The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. ..."
"... A free market larger than a boot fair has never existed. A market can never have power, it's just a market after all. It's the people in the market that have power... or some of them... the few... have it disproportionately compared to others, and straight away the market isn't free. ..."
"... It's only even approximately free when properly regulated, but that's anathema to market fundamentalists so they end up with a market run for the benefit of vested interests that they will claim is "free" until their dying breath. ..."
"... Power belongs with democratically elected governments, not people in markets responsible only to themselves. Amazing that people still think as you do after all that's happened. ..."
@taxhaven - I love this "free markets" expression, but can we really have free markets please
then? This means that no taxpayer money is to be spent to bail out the capitalist bankers
when things so sour.
It also means that there is completely free movement of labor so I as an employer should
be able to hire anyone I like for your job and pay the wage that the replacement is willing
to take i.e. tough luck to you if the person is more qualified and is willing to work for
less but does not have the work visa because in free markets there will be no such things as
work permits.
Neoliberalism has spawned a financial elite who hold governments to ransom
Neoliberalism? This is not just a financial agenda. This a highly organized multi
armed counterculture operation to force us, including Ms Orr [unless she has...connections]
into what Terence McKenna [who was in on it] termed the `Archaic Revival'. That is - you and
me [and Ms Orr] - our - return to the medieval dark ages, if we indeed survive that
far.
The same names come up time and time again. One of them being, father of propaganda,
Edward Bernays.
Bernays wrote what can be seen as a virtual Mission Statement for anyone wishing to bring
about a "counterculture." In the opening paragraph of his book Propaganda he wrote:
".. The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions
of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this
unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling
power of our country. We are governed, our minds are moulded, our tastes formed, our ideas
suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.
This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organised. Vast
numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a
smoothly functioning society. In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere
of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by
the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social
patterns of the masses.
It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind..."[28]
Bernays' family background made him well suited to "control the public mind." He was the
double nephew of psychoanalysis pioneer Sigmund Freud. His mother was Freud's sister Anna,
and his father was Ely Bernays, brother of Freud's wife Martha Bernays.
about being permitted to engage in voluntary exchange of goods and services with others,
unmolested.
And if we ever had that, would it make the ideal society?
A free market larger than a boot fair has never existed. A market can never have power,
it's just a market after all. It's the people in the market that have power... or some of
them... the few... have it disproportionately compared to others, and straight away the
market isn't free.
It's only even approximately free when properly regulated, but that's
anathema to market fundamentalists so they end up with a market run for the benefit of vested
interests that they will claim is "free" until their dying breath.
Power belongs with democratically elected governments, not people in markets responsible
only to themselves. Amazing that people still think as you do after all that's happened.
@MysticFish - If these are completely different things, why has the austerity-stricken
tax-payer been co-opted into paying for events like Thatcher's funeral
How is that corporatism?
Bilderberg policing,
How is that corporatism?
corporate funded think-tanks are having their non-mandated corporatist policies
prioritized over government election pledges on policy?
Neo-liberalism and fascist corporatism are completely different things.
If these are completely different things, why has the austerity-stricken tax-payer been
co-opted into paying for events like Thatcher's funeral and Bilderberg policing, and why is
it that corporate funded think-tanks are having their non-mandated corporatist policies
prioritised over government election pledges on policy?
In reality this is mostly neocolonial way of dealing with countries. Allowing local oligarchy
to steal as much loaned by foreign states money as they can and converting the country into the
debt slave. Look at Greece and Ukraine for two prominent examples.
The position of OneCommentator is a typical position of defenders and propagandists
of neoliberalism
IMF is part of "Washington Consensus" with the direct goal of converting countries into debt slaves of industrialized
West. It did not work well with Acia counties, but it is great success in some countries in Europe and most of Africa and Latin
America (with Argentina as the most recent example)
Notable quotes:
"... As central banks such as the FED and the ECB operate with insatiable greed and cannot be audited or regulated by any government body anywhere in the world, due to their charters having been set up that way, then bankers are free to meet secretly and plot depressions so as to gain full control over sovereign nations and manipulate markets so that their "chums and agents" in business can buy up assets and land in depressed economies – while possible wars could also make corporations and banks more money as well! ..."
..."neoliberal", concept behind the word, has nothing to do with liberal or liberty or
freedom..
Wrong. Traditional liberalism supported both social and economic freedoms. That
included support for most of the civil rights and freedoms we enjoy today AND free trade and
free investments. It used to be that liberals were practically unpopular with right wing
(traditional conservative for example) parties but more or less on the same side as left wing
parties, mainly because of their social positions. More recently the left wing parties became
more and more unhappy with the economic freedoms promoted by liberals while the right wing
parties embraced both the economic and social freedoms to a certain degree.
So, the leftists
found themselves in a bind practically having reversed roles which the the conservatives as
far as support for liberalism goes. So, typically, they're using propaganda to cover their
current reactionary tendencies and coins a new name for liberals: neoliberals which, they
say, are not the same as liberals (who are their friends since liberal means freedom lover
and they like to use that word a lot).
"austerity" is the financial sectors' solution to its survival after it sucked most the
value out of the economy and broke it.
Austerity is caused by incompetent governments unable to balance their budgets.
They had 60 years to do it properly after ww2 and the reconstruction that followed but many
of them never did it. So now it is very simple: governments ran out of money and nobody wants
to lend them more. That's it, they hit the wall and there is nothing left on the bottom if
the purse.
The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at
governments that run up debt.
It is a bit more complicated than that. Developed countries like Greece are supposed to run
more or less balanced budgets over longer periods. Sure, they need to borrow money on a
regular basis and may that is supposed to be done by issuing bonds or other forms of
government debt that investors buy on the open market. For such governments the IMF is
supposed to just fill in in a minor way not to provide the bulk of all the loans needed on a
temporary basis. Because of incompetent governments Greece is practically bankrupt hence it
is not going to be able to pay back most of the existing debts and definitely not newer
debts. So practically the IMF is not, ending money to them, it is giving them the money. So,
I would say that they have a good reason to wag its finger.
If private, stockholder-held central banks such as the FED and the FED-backed ECB were not
orchestrating this depression, and anybody who believed they were was a "wacko-nutcase
conspiracy theorist", then why do they keep repeating the same mistakes of forcing un-payable
bailout loans, collapsing banks, wiping out people's savings and then imposing austerity on
those nations year after year – when it is clearly a failed policy?
Possible Answers :
1. Bank presidents are all ex-hippies who got hooked on LSD in the 70's and have not yet
recovered fully as their brains are still fried!
2. Central bankers have been recruited from insane asylums in both Europe and America in
government-sponsored programs to see whether blithering idiots are capable of running large,
international financial institutions.
3. All catastrophic events in the banking/business world, such as the derivative and
housing crash of 2008, the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and The Great Depression of 1929-40
were totally random events that just occurred out of nowhere and central banks were caught
off guard – leaving them no option but to play with their willies for years on end
until a major war suddenly happened to pull the whole world out of "bad times"!
4. As central banks such as the FED and the ECB operate with insatiable greed and cannot
be audited or regulated by any government body anywhere in the world, due to their charters
having been set up that way, then bankers are free to meet secretly and plot depressions so
as to gain full control over sovereign nations and manipulate markets so that their "chums
and agents" in business can buy up assets and land in depressed economies – while
possible wars could also make corporations and banks more money as well!
Please choose one of the possible answers from above and write a short 500 word essay on
whether it may or may not true – using well-defined logical arguments. I expect your
answers in by Friday of this week as I would like to get pissed out of my mind at the pub on
Saturday night!
The neoliberal idea is that the cultivation itself should be conducted privately as
well. They see "austerity" as a way of forcing that agenda.
..."neoliberal", concept behind the word, has nothing to do with liberal or liberty or
freedom...it is a PR spin concept that names slavery with a a word that sounds like the
opposite...if "they" called it neoslavery it just wouldn't sell in the market for political
concepts.
..."austerity" is the financial sectors' solution to its survival after it sucked most the
value out of the economy and broke it. To mend it was a case of preservation of the elite and
the devil take the hindmost, that's most of us.
...and even Labour, the party of trade unionism, has adopted austerity to drive its
policy.
...we need a Peoples' Party to stand for the revaluation of labour so we get paid for our
effort rather than the distortion, the rich xxx poor divide, of neoslavery austerity.
@outragedofacton - You have to be careful when you take on the banksters.
Abe Lincoln, John Kennedy and Hitler all tried or (in Kennedy's case planned) on the
issuance of money via the state circumventing the banks.
I hadn't realised the John WIlkes Booth and Lee Harey Oswald were bankers.
But I do always enjoy the scenes in Saving Private Ryan when thousands of
heavily-armed Goldman Sachs employees land on Omaha beach.
Still it is surprising that they have gone so quickly from their stated position at the
start of the republic of a rejection of kings and emperors to their position now of
corruption so ingrained it is impossible to make distinctions.
Too right, I've spat my tea every time I hear some non-Brit brag of their
freedom from royal tyranny. They are blissfully unaware they have created/inherited such in
all but name. Fat Cat Bastard or Henry the Eighth, try to spot the difference in style or
attitude.
"... I can also assure you that Luke Harding, the Guardian, Washington Post and New York Times have been publishing a stream of deliberate lies, in collusion with the security services. ..."
Luke Harding and the Guardian Publish Still More Blatant MI6 Lies
The right wing Ecuadorean government of President Moreno continues to churn out its
production line of fake documents regarding Julian Assange, and channel them straight to MI6
mouthpiece
Luke Harding of the Guardian.
Amazingly, more Ecuadorean Government documents have just been discovered for the Guardian,
this time spy agency reports detailing visits of Paul Manafort and unspecified "Russians" to
the Embassy. By a wonderful coincidence of timing, this is the day after Mueller announced that
Manafort's plea deal was over.
The problem with this latest fabrication is that Moreno had already released the visitor
logs to the Mueller inquiry. Neither Manafort nor these "Russians" are in the visitor logs.
This is impossible. The visitor logs were not kept by Wikileaks, but by the very strict
Ecuadorean security. Nobody was ever admitted without being entered in the logs. The procedure
was very thorough. To go in, you had to submit your passport (no other type of document was
accepted). A copy of your passport was taken and the passport details entered into the log.
Your passport, along with your mobile phone and any other electronic equipment, was retained
until you left, along with your bag and coat. I feature in the logs every time I visited.
There were no exceptions. For an exception to be made for Manafort and the "Russians" would
have had to be a decision of the Government of Ecuador, not of Wikileaks, and that would be so
exceptional the reason for it would surely have been noted in the now leaked supposed
Ecuadorean "intelligence report" of the visits. What possible motive would the Ecuadorean
government have for facilitating secret unrecorded visits by Paul Manafort? Furthermore it is
impossible that the intelligence agency – who were in charge of the security –
would not know the identity of these alleged "Russians".
Previously Harding and the Guardian have published documents faked by the Moreno government
regarding a diplomatic appointment to Russia for Assange of which he had no knowledge. Now they
follow this up with more documents aimed to provide fictitious evidence to bolster Mueller's
pathetically failed attempt to substantiate the story that Russia deprived Hillary of the
Presidency.
My friend William Binney, probably the world's greatest expert on electronic surveillance,
former Technical Director of the NSA, has stated that
it is impossible the DNC servers were hacked, the technical evidence shows it was a
download to a directly connected memory stick. I knew the US security services were conducting
a fake investigation the moment it became clear that the FBI did not even themselves look at
the DNC servers, instead accepting a report from the Clinton linked DNC "security consultants"
Crowdstrike.
I would love to believe that the fact Julian has never met Manafort is bound to be
established. But I fear that state control of propaganda may be such that this massive "Big
Lie" will come to enter public consciousness in the same way as the non-existent Russian hack
of the DNC servers.
Assange never met Manafort. The DNC emails were downloaded by an insider. Assange never even
considered fleeing to Russia. Those are the facts, and I am in a position to give you a
personal assurance of them.
I can also assure you that Luke Harding, the Guardian, Washington Post and New York
Times have been publishing a stream of deliberate lies, in collusion with the security
services.
I am not a fan of Donald Trump. But to see the partisans of the defeated candidate (and a
particularly obnoxious defeated candidate) manipulate the security services and the media to
create an entirely false public perception, in order to attempt to overturn the result of the
US Presidential election, is the most astonishing thing I have witnessed in my lifetime.
Plainly the government of Ecuador is releasing lies about Assange to curry favour with the
security establishment of the USA and UK, and to damage Assange's support prior to expelling
him from the Embassy. He will then be extradited from London to the USA on charges of
espionage.
Assange is not a whistleblower or a spy – he is the greatest publisher of his age, and
has done more to bring the crimes of governments to light than the mainstream media will ever
be motivated to achieve. That supposedly great newspaper titles like the Guardian, New York
Times and Washington Post are involved in the spreading of lies to damage Assange, and are
seeking his imprisonment for publishing state secrets, is clear evidence that the idea of the
"liberal media" no longer exists in the new plutocratic age. The press are not on the side of
the people, they are an instrument of elite control.
My opinions are conflicted, but I'd rather give Assange a Nobel Peace Prize than a criminal
conviction. He definitely deserves a Nobel Prize more than Obama. I was in an eatery in
Cambridge, MA, when I heard Obama's prize announced, and even there people where aghast and
astounded.
The Guardian was bought by Soros, a few years ago.
Washpost, NYT and CNN, Deep State mouthpieces.
That the USA, as long as Deep State has not been eradicated completely from USA society, will
continue to try to get Assange, and of course also Snowdon, in it claws, is more than
obvious.
So what are we talking about ?
Assange just uses the freedom of information act, or how the the USA euphemism for telling
them nothing, is called.
How Assange survives, mentally and bodily, being locked up in a small room without a
bathroom, for several years now, is beyond my comprehension.
But of course, for 'traitors' like him human rights do not exist.
"I can also assure you that Luke Harding, the Guardian, Washington Post and New York Times
have been publishing a stream of deliberate lies, in collusion with the security services."
These outfits are largely state-run at this point. The Washington Post is owned by Jeff
Bezos, a man with deep ties to the CIA through his Amazon company (which depends upon federal
subsidies and has received security agency "support") and the Guardian is clandestinely
funded through UK government purchases, among other things. MI6 has also effectively
compromised the former integrity and objectivity of that outlet by threatening them with
prosecutions for revealing MI6 spy practices. And the NYT has always been state-run. See
their coverage of the Iraq War. The Israelis have bragged about having an asset at the Times.
The American government has several.
It's amazing to see the obvious progression of the lies as they take hold in an anti-Trump
elite who seem completely impervious to understanding his victory over Clinton. All these
people who claim to be so cosmopolitan and educated seem to think Assange or Manafort would
have any interest in meeting each other. (Let alone in the company of unspecified
'Russians'.)
At first it was that Assange was wrong to publish the DNC leaks because it hurt Clinton
and thus helped Trump.
Then it was that Assange was actively trying to help Trump.
Now it's that Assange is in collusion with Trump and the 'Russians'.
The same thing happened with the Trump-Russian nonsense which goes ever more absurd as
time goes on. Slowly boiling the frog in the public's mind. The allegations are so
nonsensical, yet there are plenty of educated, supposedly cosmopolitan people who don't
understand the backgrounds or motives of their 'liberal' heroes in the NYT or Guardian who
believe this on faith.
None of these people will ever question how if any of this is true how the security
services of the West didn't know it and if they supposedly know it, how come they aren't
acting like it's true. They are acting like they're attempting to smear politicians they
don't like, however.
Luke Harding is particularly despicable. He made his name as a journalist off privileged
access to Wilkileaks docs, and has been persistently attacking Assange ever since the Swedish
fan-girl farce.
Assange did make a mistake (of which I am sure he is all too aware now) in the choice to,
rather than leave the info. open on-line, collaborate with the filthy Guardian, the sleazy
NYT, and I forget dirty name of the third publication.
@anon Since you
are posting as Anon coward, I am not expecting a reply, but would be interested in (and would
not doubt) state funding of the 'Guardian'?
As for the NYT, they are plainly in some sense state-funded, but the state in question is
neither New York nor the U.S.A., but the state of Israel.
@Che Guava
Perhaps he is referring to the sheer volume of ads the British government places for public
sector appointments. As for the paper edition, most of it seems to be bought by the BBC!
So he screamed in the cafeteria and spilled his morning coffee. We all wondered what
happened to him and so we looked at his friend, and he told us that he must have read the
NYT, as that was his common reaction, a cry of pain and anguish and screams of "all lies, all
lies, all lies" whenever he reads the newspaper or watches the TV, esp. NYT.
Your article and the previous news about Manfort visiting Assange and the funny timing of
the same reminded me of this story.
The Western MSM is a lying scamming neoliberal propaganda machine.
"... You might like to report on the recent bill in Congress giving broadcasters "immunity" for spying. The New York Times acquires information from spying on citizens by the CIA twenty four hours a day - aa CIA Wire Service which is unconscionable for a newspaper. Such information allows the Times to keep competitors out of favored industries, scoop other news groups, and enhance revenues by pirated material. The Times isn't a newspaper at all but a clandestine operation run by intelligence units. ..."
"... Interestingly, the NYT revelation itself was illegal, a felony under the Intelligence Act of 1917. ..."
"... Which, ipso facto, makes at least that part of the Intelligence Act of 1917 unconstitutional: "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press" ( US. Constitution, Amendment I ). This perhaps explains why no newspaper has ever been prosecuted under the Intelligence Act of 1917. Prosecutors would rather have it available as a threat rather than having it thrown out as unconstitutional, and of course the Supreme Court can't rule on its constitutionality unless someone has standing to bring a case against it before them. ..."
"... It's also not surprising that the CIA would take an interest in how it is perceived. I would argue that the CIA was actually preventing or controlling the flow of info the WH was giving to filmmakers. ..."
"... This story only scratches the surface on the extent of corruption in US media and journalism in general over the last 10-15 years. The loss of journalistic integrity and objectivity in US media is on display as many media outlets showcase their one-sided liberal or conservative views. Sadly, the US media has become just as polarized as the government. However, the greatest corruption is not with the govt-media connection; the greatest corruption involves the lobbyists - foreign and domestic. Lobbying groups exert an enormous influence on politicians and the media and it extends to both sides of the aisle. ..."
"... It's no secret that the CIA and State Department have colluded with media since 1950. Public relations is nothing more than propaganda. And if you think the CIA doesn't have it's own PR department, with *hundreds* of employees, dedicated to misinformation, spin, half-truths, and psychological operations, well, consider this your wake-up call. ..."
"... "The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media." - William Colby - Former CIA Director ..."
"... "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." - William Casey, CIA Director 1981 ..."
"... While you rightly characterize this case as indicating the "virtual merger" of government and media "watchdogs," I think a meta-theme running through your writings illuminates the "virtual merger" of both corporate & state power (esp. after Citizens United), ..."
"... the real issue is not personalities or trivial post deletions, the real issue is that the CIA is tightly bound to the institutions of America ... and that this is not a good thing for everyone ..."
...this is the norm not the exception. It's also representative of a very significant cross
section of the State Department/CIA/Pentagon/DC Beaurcratic Machine, made up of various
Leftists, Statists, academia, and privileged youth with political science degrees from east
coast/DC/Ivy League schools.
I am having a very difficult time wrapping my mind around this story.....we have an alleged
CIA spokesperson purportedly attempting to engage in damage control with a prominent national
newspaper regarding the flow of information between the CIA and film-makers doing a story on
the Bin Laden raid. Ostensibly, the information provided, regarding the raid, was to help
secure the President's reelection bid?
I note that the logo on the phone of the published photo of CIA spokesperson Marie Harf
looks remarkably similar, if not identical, to the Obama campaign logo. A "Twitter" account
profile for M's. Harf references that she is a "National Security Wonk at OFA...." . Could
the "OFA" she makes reference to possibly be "Obama for America"? Her recent tweet history
includes commentaries critical of Romney and his supporters, which appear to be in response
to her observations while watching Republican Convention coverage.
My understanding heretofore was that those engaged in the Intelligence Community,
particularly spokespersons, preferred to keep a low profile and at least appear apolitical.
Based upon the facts as presented, one must reexamine whether a US intelligence agency is
engaging in the most blatant form political partisanship to unduly influence a US
Presidential election.
You might like to report on the recent bill in Congress giving broadcasters "immunity" for
spying. The New York Times acquires information from spying on citizens by the CIA twenty
four hours a day - aa CIA Wire Service which is unconscionable for a newspaper. Such
information allows the Times to keep competitors out of favored industries, scoop other news
groups, and enhance revenues by pirated material. The Times isn't a newspaper at all but a
clandestine operation run by intelligence units.
I'm surprised by the pettiness of it all. And it's this pettiness that makes me think that
such data exchange is not only routine, but an accepted way to enhance a career. After all, who really cares what Dowd writes? I
believe Chomsky called her 'kinda a gossip columnist'. And, that's what she is.
That anyone
would bother passing her column to the CIA is, on the face of it, a little absurd. I don't
say she is a bad columnist, she's probably quite good, but hardly of interest to the CIA,
even when she is writing about the CIA. So basically, someone passed her column along,
because this is normal, and the more ambitious understand that this is how you 'get along'.
This kind of careerism is something I see, on some level, every day: the ambitious see the
rules of the game, and follow them, and the rationale comes later. For most of us, this
doesn't involve the security services. However, the principle that the MSM is, at the least,
heavily influenced by state power is fairly well understood by now in more critical circles:
all forms of media are subject to unusual and particular state pressures, due to their
central import in propaganda and mass-persuasion. The NYT is, in short, an obvious target for
this kind of influencing. And as such should really know much much better.
Sadly, I have come to the conclusion that most of what I read, or see on the nightly
broadcasts, is essentially bullshit. I could switch to RT, and in a way its counter-point
would be useful in stimulating my own critical thinking, but much of what RT broadcasts is
also likely to be bullshit. We have a world of competing propaganda memes where nobody knows
the truth. It's like we are all spooks now, each and every one of us. An excellent article,
again.
Interestingly, the NYT revelation itself was illegal, a felony under the Intelligence
Act of 1917.
Which, ipso facto, makes at least that part of the Intelligence Act of 1917
unconstitutional: "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech, or of the
press" ( US. Constitution,
Amendment I ). This perhaps explains why no newspaper has ever been prosecuted under the
Intelligence Act of 1917. Prosecutors would rather have it available as a threat rather than
having it thrown out as unconstitutional, and of course the Supreme Court can't rule on its
constitutionality unless someone has standing to bring a case against it before them.
Excellent article, but it's not necessarily a surprise to see a reporter who has developed a
relationship with his source do that source a favor in hopes that the favor will some day be
returned with greater access.
It's also not surprising that the CIA would take an interest in
how it is perceived. I would argue that the CIA was actually preventing or controlling the
flow of info the WH was giving to filmmakers.
This story only scratches the surface on the
extent of corruption in US media and journalism in general over the last 10-15 years. The
loss of journalistic integrity and objectivity in US media is on display as many media
outlets showcase their one-sided liberal or conservative views. Sadly, the US media has
become just as polarized as the government. However, the greatest corruption is not with the govt-media connection; the greatest corruption involves the lobbyists - foreign and domestic.
Lobbying groups exert an enormous influence on politicians and the media and it extends to
both sides of the aisle.
What the commoners fail to understand is that the Public Relations (PR) industry controls 75%
of the information that you are fed from major media outlets. It's an industry that has
artfully masked everything you thought you knew. It's no secret that the CIA and State
Department have colluded with media since 1950. Public relations is nothing more than
propaganda. And if you think the CIA doesn't have it's own PR department, with *hundreds* of
employees, dedicated to misinformation, spin, half-truths, and psychological operations,
well, consider this your wake-up call.
Glenn, thanks for illuminating the insidious, dangerous cynicism pervading American media
& culture, which have become so inured to hypocrisy, corruption & desecration of
sacrosanct democratic values & institutions that has been crucial to the normalization of
formerly intolerable practices, laws & policies eating away at the foundations of our
constitutional democracy. The collective moral, principled "lines in the sand" protecting us
from authoritarian pressures are steadily being washed away, compromised, thanks to media
obsequious complicity.
While you rightly characterize this case as indicating the "virtual merger" of government
and media "watchdogs," I think a meta-theme running through your writings illuminates the
"virtual merger" of both corporate & state power (esp. after Citizens United), and all
the "checks & balances" enshrined in our constitution after 9/11 (e.g. deferential
judiciary, bi-partisan Congressional consensus on increasingly authoritarian, secretive US
executive, propagandistic media, etc.). At least that's my thinking, and I see no significant
countervailing pressure capable of slowing- let alone reversing- this authoritarian
re-ordering of our constitutional order & political culture, though a few exceptions
exist (e.g. Judge Forrest's suprising courage to suspend NDAA provision 1021), and rare
journalists like yourself.
One astounding example of this widespread cynicism facilitating this authoritarian trend,
was the media's rather restrained response to the revelation that elements in the massive
Terrorist/Military Industrial Complex (HBGary) had been plotting military-style
social-engineering operations to discredit & silence progressive journalists,
specifically naming YOU, who I see as one of the rare defenders of the
constitutional/democratic "lines in the sand" under relentless attack. Where was the
overwhelming collective shock & outrage, or media demanding criminal investigations into
US taxpayer-funded attacks on our so-called "free press?"
My question for Glenn, is whether he thinks it would be possible for him to get legal
standing to sue the private (& US??) entities, which proposed the covert
discrediting/repression operations targeting you specifically?
I'm no lawyer, but it seems the documents published by Anonymous, reveal actions
constituting criminal conspiracy. Given the proposed methods included forms of
politically-motivated military warfare & coercion, the guilty parties would likely be
aggressively investigated and charged with some terrorist crimes, if they had been busted
planning attacks on people/entities that trumpeted Obama administration policies or its
corporate backers (i.e. if they were Anonymous). The HBGary proposal to discredit/silence
Wikileaks defenders strongly indicated they had experience with- & confidence in- such
covert operations. Requiring a journalist/academic to be covertly
discredited/destroyed/silenced before they get legal standing would be as absurd as the Obama
administration's argument that Chris Hedges & Co. plaintiffs lack standing because they
hadn't yet been stripped of their rights & secretly indefinitately detained without
charges or trial.
I thought you might be in the unique position to use the US courts to pry open & shine
some light upon the clearly anti-democratic, authoritarian abuses of power, & virtual
fusion of corporate & state powers, which you so eloquently write about.
I glad that foreign journalism is available for me to read our the internet, it's the only
way i can find truthful information about what's going on in my own country (USA). I've known the liberal media bias was a problem for a long time, but articles like this
continually remind me that things are far worse than they appear.
All the actions surrounding the NY Times and the CIA on this issue are atrocious. With this
type of "journalistic independence", why am I paying for a Times account??
As a favor to all readers, following is a summation of all past, present, and future ideas as
articulated by the Fortune Cookie Thinker, John Andersson:
A certain amount of genocide is good because the world is overpopulated.
You should never question authority; after all, you are not an expert on authority.
Everyone wins when we kill terrorists; the more we kill, the more we generate, thus the
more we kill again, which makes us win more.
It is not possible to have absolute power; therefore, power does not corrupt.
Drones kill bad people. Only bad people are killed by drones. Thus, drones are good. We
should have more drones. That is all.
I secretly think he's the real "Jack Handy" from the Deep Thoughts series on SNL.
In my high school history class in 1968 I learned all about how newspapers printed propaganda
stories before WWI and Spanish American war in order to influence the public so they would
want to go to war and it was called "yellow journalism". I also had an English teacher that
taught us about "marketing" and how they use visuals and printed words and film to make us
want to buy a product. My father taught me to NOT BELEIVE everything you read. Now it is
called "critical thinking" and has been added as a general education class in college that
you have to take for a college degree. Critical thinking about what you read and see and hear
should be taught as early as 10 year olds so people can think for themselves. I do not read
main stream newspapers in America but read news sites all over the world.
THANK GOD FOR THE
INTERNET THAT YOU CAN READ WHAT OTHER NEWSPAPERS. I discovered Glenn on Democracy Now and
they are my go to place to read about what is really happening.
the real issue is not personalities or trivial post deletions, the real issue is that the CIA
is tightly bound to the institutions of America ... and that this is not a good thing for
everyone
"... We should not even talk about "conflict of interest" anymore. It is a collusion all the way. We saw it in the phone hacking scandal here, now at the New York Times. I have always wondered about these white tie dinners in Washington DC and how chummy and cozy the reporters looked mingling with the power-holders and -brokers. ..."
"... In what is turning out to be the CIA Century, the American President and major news outlets seem to operate under CIA authority and in accordance with CIA standard operating procedures. ..."
"... Or Afghanistan. Many of the cruise missile libs supported the invasion of Afghanistan but not Iraq. ..."
"... The press is managed on behalf of what I will call US powers. Those powers seem to be high level military, clandestine agencies, financial industry "leaders", and war contractors. The political parties and the faces they present to the public (with some few exceptions) act as functionaries to keep up the illusion that the US is a democracy. ..."
"... And I am not sure why I associate Washington's bureaucratic CIA with dancing midgets. ..."
If we thought the public trust in journalism is low, then this news only pushes it down further. Do people in journalism care?
Some do very much but for the most the media and the power-holders are in collusion.
We should not even talk about "conflict of interest" anymore. It is a collusion all the way. We saw it in the phone hacking
scandal here, now at the New York Times. I have always wondered about these white tie dinners in Washington DC and how chummy
and cozy the reporters looked mingling with the power-holders and -brokers.
The critical articles are nothing more than smokescreens. We are led to believe how hard-hitting the newspapers are and how
they hold the politicians and other power-brokers to fire. All hogwash. It is better we recognize that the citizens are merely
props they need to claim legitimacy.
Not till this moment did I realize that we are under siege. I thought Julian Assange was the one under siege but he was just trying
to offer us a path to freedom. With Assange neutralized and The New York Times and its brethren by all appearances thoroughly
compromised, how can any one of us stand for all of us against government malfeasance let alone tyranny?
Where would you go if you had dispositive proof of devastating government malfeasance? In what is turning out to be the
CIA Century, the American President and major news outlets seem to operate under CIA authority and in accordance with CIA standard
operating procedures.
It would actually be foolish to take evidence of horrific government behavior to the titular head of the government {who'd
likely persecute you as a whistleblower} or the major news organizations supposedly reporting to us about it {they'd bring it
right back to the government for guidance on what to do}.
Without safe and reliable ways to stand and speak for and to each other on a large scale about the foul deeds of our government,
we are damned to live very lonely vulnerable lives at the mercy of an unrestrained government.
Excerpt from script of Three Days of the Condor --
Higgins: I can't let you stay out, Turner.
Turner slowly stops, leans back against a building, shakes his head sadly.
Turner: Go home, Higgins. They have it all.
Higgins: What are you talking about?
Turner: Don't you know where we are?
Higgins looks around. The huge newspaper trucks are moving out.
Turner: It's where they ship from.
Higgins' head darts upward and he reads the legend above Turner's head. THE NEW YORK TIMES. He is stunned.
Higgins: You dumb son of a bitch.
Turner: It's been done. They have it.
Higgins: You've done more damage than you know.
Turner: I hope so.
Higgins: You want to rip us to pieces, but you damn fool you rely on us. {then} You're about to be a very lonely man,
Turner.
***
Higgins: It didn't have to turn out like this.
Turner: Of course it did.
Higgins: {calling out as they depart separate ways} Turner! How do you know they'll print it?
Turner stops. Stares at Higgins. Higgins smiles.
Higgins: You can take a walk. But how far? If they don't print it.
Several commenters have pointed out that the NYT does do "good" journalism. That is true. It is also true that they tell
absolute lies. See Judith Miller. The best way to sell a lie is to wrap it in the truth.
I know it's late in the comments thread by the time anyone bothers to read THIS minor contribution, but I think it worth mentioning
how this article from Glenn proves just how important are outlets like Democracy Now, RT, Cenk Uyger, Dylan Ratigan, et al. You
really have to turn away from the mainstream media as a source of anything. Far too compromised, by both their embeddedness with
the government, and their for-profit coroporate owners.
Note CNN's terrible ratings problems as of late, and the recent news that they are considering turning to more reality-type
shows to get the eyeballs back. If that isn't proof positive of the current value of corporate news, I don't know what is.
DemocracyNow.org. I think I'm going to donate to them today....
i'm do not understand why so many people are against authority in general, even when the legal & enforcement system is there
to protect your property, life and rights. i understand when corruption exists, it should be seriously addressed, but why throw
out a whole system that is "somewhat working"? why blindly call for revolution?
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments
are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying
its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety
and Happiness."
This is a political officer acting as editor of a major newspaper. I agree this has been going on for some time. Here is my analysis
of that. The press is managed on behalf of what I will call US powers. Those powers seem to be high level military, clandestine
agencies, financial industry "leaders", and war contractors. The political parties and the faces they present to the public (with
some few exceptions) act as functionaries to keep up the illusion that the US is a democracy.
Romney and Obama are functionaries. They do as they're told. Obama is the more useful of the two as fewer people seem able
to look honestly at his policies. They will not oppose Obama for doing the same things and worse as Bush. It is why all stops
are being pulled out to get him, rather than Romney elected. The policies will be the same but the reaction of our population
to each man is vastly different.
So yes, the capture of the media has been going on for quite some time. It appears nearly consolidated at this time. Instead
of using this as a reason to ignore the situation, it is more important than ever to speak out. History is helpful in learning
how to confront injustice. It is not a reason, as I see many use it, to say; "well it's always been that way, so what?" In history,
we learn about corruption but we also learn that people opposed corruption. Is there some reason why we cannot also oppose corruption
right now?
I though Michael Wolff's recent analysis of Apple (here in the Guardian) was in many ways metaphorical for Western leadership,
his article acting in some ways to explain the behavior we see in cultural "elites."
Worth the read.
And somehow, after reading this article, all I can think of is the Wizard of Oz and a dancing midget army singing in
repetitive, high-pitched tones.
And I am not sure why I associate Washington's bureaucratic CIA with dancing midgets.
Who will be the first commenter to leave the classic devastating critique: "The author fails to present a balanced view, showing
only one side. The author's argument has no substance and is not really worth anything."
Don't forget this one: "The author just complains and complains without ever offering a solution or a better approach."
Also, can anyone 'splain me how to do a "response"?
An interesting distinction: "nationalism is patriotism in its irritated state, or that nationalism recruits the patriotic
sentiment to accomplish something in a fit of anger." But he might be mixing nationalism, far right nationalism, and
fascism. It is fascism that emerges out of feeling of nation/country being humiliated, oppressed, fall into economic
despair... It tries to mobilize nation on changing the situation as a united whole -- in this sense fascism
rejects individualism and "human rights".
BTW there were quite numerous far right movements in the USA history.
The current emergence of nationalist movements is a reaction on the crisis of neoliberalism as an ideology (since 2008). So nationalism
might be a defense reaction of societies when the dominant ideology (in our case neoliberalism) collapses. It is a temporary and defensive
reaction. As the author notes: "Foreign aggression and the onset of war will reliably generate nationalist moods and responses. "
The key question here is when a nation "deserves" a sovereign state, and when it would be better off by being a part of a larger
("imperial state" if we understand empire as conglomerate of multiple nations). As it involved economics, some choices can be bad,
even devastating for people's wellbeing.
Notable quotes:
"... Macron is not the first to try to make a hard, fast, and rhetorically pungent distinction between nationalism and patriotism. Orwell attempted to do the same in a famous essay . He wrote that patriotism is "devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally." ..."
"... In the end, Orwell gives a rather unsatisfying account in which all the mental and moral vices of self-interest and self-regard are transmuted and supercharged by their absorption into a nationalistic "we." Nationalists in his account hold their nations supreme, thereby encouraging themselves to traduce any other people or nation. For Orwell, the patriot prefers this to that . The nationalist privileges us over them . For us, everything, to others nothing. ..."
"... In his recent book, The Virtue of Nationalism , Yoram Hazony makes a different contrast. His work is not primarily concerned with the moral status or self-deception of individuals, but with the organization of geopolitics. For him the contrast is between nationalism and imperialism. ..."
"... Orwell is tempted to believe the nationalist thinks his nation is best in all things, but much of nationalist rhetoric throughout Europe is a rhetoric of envy or arousal. Nationalists sometimes boast about their nations, but in many circumstances they express despair about their countries; they want to excite their people to achieve more, to take themselves as seriously as some rival national actor takes itself. ..."
"... Instead, nationalism is an eruptive feature of politics. It grows out of the normal sentiments of national loyalty, like a pustule or a fever. It could even be said that nationalism is patriotism in its irritated state, or that nationalism recruits the patriotic sentiment to accomplish something in a fit of anger. ..."
"... National loyalty attaches us to a place, and to the people who share in its life. Destroying national loyalty would almost certainly bring about the return of loyalties based on creed and blood. ..."
"... One of the outstanding features of nationalist political movements, the thing that almost always strikes observers about them, is their irritated or aroused character. And it is precisely this that strikes non-nationalists as signaling danger. ..."
"... nationalist movements are teeming with powerful emotions: betrayal, anger, aggression. ..."
"... Nationalist politics tends to be opportunist; it takes other political ideas, philosophies, and forms of mobilization in hand and discards them. Nationalists throughout the 20th century adopted Communism or capitalism to acquire the patronage or weapons to throw off imperial rule, or stick it to a neighbor, for example. ..."
"... The reemergence of nationalist politics in America and abroad requires us to ask those simple questions. What is bothering them? Do they have a point? What do they want to do about it? Would it be just? In broad strokes I intend to take those questions up. ..."
"... What the vast majority of people apparently fail to realize is that the United states is an empire which by definition is a group of states or countries containing diverse ethnic and cultural identities. ..."
"... The break-up of the Soviet Union can be blamed in part for failing to establish a strong national identity ..."
"... Greenfeld describes it as "civic nationalism" to differentiate it from the ethnic, anti-liberal "nationalism" later adopted by Russia and Germany. ..."
"... Identifying "the people" as a linguistic-cultural entity with or without borders set the stage for the bloody conflicts that were fought over borders for these groups, and the discrimination and ethnic cleansing for those who didn't belong to the dominant linguistic-cultural group, to say nothing of what needed to be done about members of the dominant group who lived outside its borders. ..."
"... Also, in the late 16th century during what is now called the Wars of Religions (but which they called Civil Wars) in continental Europe, people moved from Monarchists to Republicans and back, depending of whether they were Catholics or Protestants, but mostly depending of the position of strength in which they were at the time... ..."
"... "Modern Conservatives" have a vested interest in muddying the debate, so that it does not become clear that "conservatism" is not linked to specific political or economical models, and more importantly it is not true that the Founding Fathers were all absolutist libertarian free traders... ;-) ..."
"... What, exactly, are our children inheriting? Press 2 for Spanish. ..."
"... And let us not forget neocons. ..."
"... You should be out there carving an empire for yourself, showing your supremacy and spreading the seeds of your "culture" over uncharted territories and untamed tribes... ;-) ..."
"... I think the obvious irritant lending support to Nationalist sentiments is the non benign aspects of Globalism. ..."
What is nationalism? The word is suddenly and surprisingly important when talking about the times we live in. But we seem to be
working without a shared definition.
"You know what I am? I'm a nationalist," Donald Trump said in an October rally in Houston.
French president Emmanuel Macron slapped back at a commemoration ceremony for World War I in France. "Nationalism is a betrayal
of patriotism," he said. "By saying 'our interests first, who cares about the others,' we erase what a nation holds dearest, what
gives it life, what makes it great and what is essential: its moral values."
Macron is not the first to try to make a hard, fast, and rhetorically pungent distinction between nationalism and patriotism.
Orwell attempted to do the same in a
famous essay . He wrote that patriotism is "devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to
be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally."
On the other hand, "The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the
nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality."
In the end, Orwell gives a rather unsatisfying account in which all the mental and moral vices of self-interest and self-regard
are transmuted and supercharged by their absorption into a nationalistic "we." Nationalists in his account hold their nations supreme,
thereby encouraging themselves to traduce any other people or nation. For Orwell, the patriot prefers this to that . The nationalist
privileges us over them . For us, everything, to others nothing.
In his recent book, The Virtue of Nationalism , Yoram Hazony makes a different contrast. His work is not primarily concerned with
the moral status or self-deception of individuals, but with the organization of geopolitics. For him the contrast is between nationalism
and imperialism. For Hazony, it is the nationalist who respects spontaneous order and pluralism. Imperialists run roughshod over
these, trampling local life for the benefit of the imperial center.
A border will rein in the ambition of the nationalist, whereas the imperial character rebels against limits. A century ago, in
what he called the days of "clashing and crashing Empires," the Irish nationalist Eoin MacNeil felt similarly. For him, the development
of a nation -- any nation -- had in it "the actuality or the potentiality of some great gift to the common good of mankind."
It's difficult to find a consistent definition of nationalism from its critics, meanwhile. Sometimes nationalism is dismissed
as the love of dirt, or mysticism about language. Other times it's the love of DNA.
In the critics' defense, though, the way nationalism has expressed itself in different nations and different times can be maddeningly
diverse. Orwell is tempted to believe the nationalist thinks his nation is best in all things, but much of nationalist rhetoric throughout
Europe is a rhetoric of envy or arousal. Nationalists sometimes boast about their nations, but in many circumstances they express
despair about their countries; they want to excite their people to achieve more, to take themselves as seriously as some rival national
actor takes itself.
I'd like to propose a different way of thinking about the question. When we use the vocabulary of political philosophies, we recognize
that we are talking about things that differ along more than one axis. Take Communism, liberalism, and conservatism: The first is
a theory of history and power. The second is a political framework built upon rights. The final disclaims the word "ideology" and
has been traditionally defined as a set of dispositions toward a political and civilizational inheritance.
I would like to sidestep Hazony's championing of nationalism as a system for organizing political order globally, a theory that
my colleague Jonah Goldberg is tempted to call "nationism."
My proposal is that nationalism as a political phenomenon is not a philosophy or science, though it may take either of those in
hand. It isn't an account of history. Instead, nationalism is an eruptive feature of politics. It grows out of the normal sentiments
of national loyalty, like a pustule or a fever. It could even be said that nationalism is patriotism in its irritated state, or that
nationalism recruits the patriotic sentiment to accomplish something in a fit of anger.
In normal or propitious circumstances, national loyalty is the peaceful form of life that exists among people who share a defined
territory and endeavor to live under the laws of that territory together. National loyalty attaches us to a place, and to the people
who share in its life. Destroying national loyalty would almost certainly bring about the return of loyalties based on creed and
blood.
One of the outstanding features of nationalist political movements, the thing that almost always strikes observers about them,
is their irritated or aroused character. And it is precisely this that strikes non-nationalists as signaling danger. Republican democracies
should be characterized by deliberation. Conservatives distrust swells of passion. Liberals want an order of voluntary rights. But
nationalist movements are teeming with powerful emotions: betrayal, anger, aggression.
Therefore, I contend, like a fever, nationalism can be curative or fatal. And, like fevers, it can come and go depending on the
nation's internal health or the external circumstances a nation finds itself in. Foreign aggression and the onset of war will reliably
generate nationalist moods and responses. But cultural change can do it too. Maybe a national language falls into sharp and sudden
decline under pressure from a more powerful lingua franca. Even something as simple or common as rapid urbanization can be felt to
agitate upon a people's loyalties, and may generate a cultural response for preserving certain rural traditions and folkways. And
of course, sometimes nationalism is excited by the possibility of some new possession coming into view, the opportunity to recover
or acquire territory or humiliate a historic rival. The variety of irritants explains the variety of nationalisms.
You tend to find a lot of nationalism where there are persistent or large irritants to the normally peaceful sense of national
loyalty. Think of western Ukraine, where the local language and political prerogatives have endured the powerful irritant of Moscow's
power and influence in its region, and even in its territory. You find a great deal of nationalism in Northern Ireland, where a lineage
of religious differences signals dueling loyalties to the United Kingdom and to Ireland.
Until recently you didn't find a lot of political nationalism in the United States, because it is a prosperous nation with unparalleled
independence of action. But we are familiar with bursts of nationalism nonetheless -- for example, at times when European powers
threatened the U.S. in the early days of the Republic, during the Civil War and its aftermath, and especially during World War I,
which coincided with the tail end of a great wave of migration into the country.
If nationalist political movements are national loyalties in this aroused state, then we must judge them on a case-by-case basis.
When non-nationalists notice the irritated and irritable character of nationalism, often the very next thing they say is, "Well,
they have a point." You would judge a nationalist movement the way you would judge any man or group of men in an agitated state.
Do you have a right to be angry about this matter? What do you intend to do about it? How do you intend to do it?
We all do this almost instinctively. We understand that there are massive differences among nationalist projects. In order to
assert his young nation's place on the world stage, John Quincy Adams sought to found a national university. We may judge that one
way, whereas we judge Andrew Jackson's Indian-removal policy very differently. In Europe, we might cheer on the ambition of the Irish
Parliamentary party to establish a home-rule parliament in Dublin. That was a nationalist project, but so was the German policy of
seeking lebensraum through the racial annihilation of the Jews and the enslavement of Poland, which we judge as perhaps the most
wicked cause in human history. We might cheer the reestablishment of a Polish nation after World War I, but deplore some of the expansionist
wars it immediately embarked upon.
Nationalist politics tends to be opportunist; it takes other political ideas, philosophies, and forms of mobilization in hand
and discards them. Nationalists throughout the 20th century adopted Communism or capitalism to acquire the patronage or weapons to
throw off imperial rule, or stick it to a neighbor, for example.
The reemergence of nationalist politics in America and abroad requires us to ask those simple questions. What is bothering them?
Do they have a point? What do they want to do about it? Would it be just? In broad strokes I intend to take those questions up.
Kontraindicated 2 days ago
There is much discussion below as to the meaning of the term "nationalism" below. In the minds of many, it seems to be a relatively
benign term.
However, even recently we have seen extremely violent episodes break out that appear to be associated with some sort of flavour
of "nationalism", however it's defined.
In the former Yugoslavia, Tito tried to create a new "nation" that would have a common identity by breaking up the "nations"
that had previously existed on the same territory. This involved the forced relocation of various groups of Serbs and Croats (and,
to a lesser extent, Bosnians) who would now all live together in peace and harmony. However, when the political structures fell,
the people fell back into their old groups and immediately began fighting each other. The end result was an incredibly bloody
and vicious civil war and the ultimate re-establishment of Nations/Countries that mapped more closely to the ethnic/cultural/race
divisions that the people involved in the conflict were concerned with. Ultimately, they (as individuals) decided which team they
wanted to belong to and, as long as the "nation" agreed, they became part of that "nation".
Similar scenarios have played out across Africa and the Middle East (which was artificially set up for a century's worth of
conflict by Europeans in 1919).
All of which is mildly interesting, but it's not really related to the reason that this topic is coming up in NRO. The reason
that we are discussing this is that Macron spent a considerable amount of time during the Armistice Ceremony decrying "Nationalism"
(which, if we treat the term in the Yugoslavian context, likely did play a significant role in two World Wars) and Fox and Friends
were then able to teach Donald Trump a new word - after which he declared himself a "Nationalist".
So rather than beating ourselves up over semantics, would it not be better instead to debate two questions?:
Does "Nationalism" represent a growing force within enough countries that it represents a significant threat to the current
world order?
Does whatever Donald Trump thinks "Nationalism" means pose a threat to America's current place in the world and is it driving
the US away from its leadership role? (will "America First" lead to "America Isolated and Alone?")
Jean_Christophe_Jouffrey 2 days ago
Dear Kontraindicated,
First, your last question is already answered, in the WTO, the EU, China, Canada, Mexico have raised a complaint against the
falsified use of "national security" by Trump to justify tariffs. If the USA decided then to leave the WTO, because Trump's personal
honor would be stained, (without forgetting that the US Congress should have already protested that these tariffs were illegal
in the first place) this will be another occasion to show that it is indeed "America Isolated and Alone"... Trump could have allied
himself with the EU, Canada, etc. against some of the unfair practices of China, instead he got two of the biggest trading block
in the world (including its two territorial neighbors) to ally themselves against the USA.
What a way of winning Donnie! ;-)
Then, let's go back to the question of the meaning of Nationalism.
There are two aspects:
What is the real meaning of nationalism compared to patriotism, when we remove all the fake ideological recent additions
to these terms? (and I have answered at length on this in my other comments) And this meaning is not necessarily nefarious. It
becomes a problem when one claims that each Nation must have one "sovereign" State (in the sense of country), and there should
be only one such Nation per country.
What is the meaning which is actually meant by Trump? And it is clear that he means it the way that it was whispered to
him, which is "One Nation, One and only One State; One State, One and only One Nation"...
It is no longer "e pluribus unum", but "e uno unum" (one from one), which is slightly less ambitious and certainly less of
a reason to get up in the morning and do something productive (but then there is a lot of opportunity for "Executive Time" and
playing golf)... ;-)
Leroy 2 days ago
"Out of many, one." ONE. Get it through your head. ONE. If you are MANY, you ARE Yugoslavia. And that doesn't end well.
TitoPerdue 2 days ago
I try to imagine my parents being informed that they must now accustom themselves to white people being turned into a minority.
Would have been stunned, my folks, who first arrived in 1771.
My folks: "But what did we do wrong!"
Me: "You've been too successful and must now be punished."
My folks: "What's wrong with being successful!"
Me: "It's racist. Ask Jonah Goldberg. You know how much the Jews despise ethnocentrism."
Gaurus 3 days ago
This is a useful take on the subject. There is a big Tower of Babel problem with this word as it seems to mean different things
to different people, and different nations also define it differently.
This language barrier is why Macron's criticism of the President should be taken with a grain of salt. The left's myopic/robotic
attempts to unilaterally define this word on their terms is reprehensible, just like so many of their other attempts at PC authoritarianism
aka thought control which is pushed by the national media.
What the vast majority of people apparently fail to realize is that the United states is an empire which by definition
is a group of states or countries containing diverse ethnic and cultural identities.
You must at some point come to ask yourself, "what keeps these diverse groups contained in the U.S. from fracturing, dividing,
and falling apart?" The answer is nationalism/national identity. It is the keystone or glue that binds these diverse ethnic and
cultural groups together. Anyone or anything that tugs or tears at nationalism therefore is altogether a bad thing for the country
and will sow division and strife that was not previously there. Ultimately civil war could result if those seeking to divide the
country for political gain go too far and the left ignorantly seems all-in on doing this.
Applying recent trends in politics using this as a backdrop, one can see how pro-globalists wouldn't care to attack nationalism
as they are by definition against the very concept of a nation-state and want top bring back good old feudalism, but this time
on a global scale. For comparison Russia is another example of an empire that is aware It needs to fuel nationalist sentiment
to hold itself together. The EU is an emerging empire that is conflicted with what this means. The break-up of the Soviet Union
can be blamed in part for failing to establish a strong national identity.
Plymouth mtng, PA 3 days ago
Well said! This truth is exemplified by the evidentiary and documented history that the Founding Fathers and Jackson, Lincoln,
and Grant and the whole of 19th century America used the language of Liberty and Patriot to define the American Republic.
Leroy 3 days ago
I just learned something new. I thought that ethnicity was the same as race. It isn't. Ethnicity: "the fact or state
of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition." By that definition, we're all in an ethnic
group, and we can belong to smaller ethnic groups as well.
If Americans don't become nationalists, understand that we share common interests and goals, it won't matter how much we love
our country, because it will be unrecognizable.
Jean_Christophe_Jouffrey 3 days ago
Dear Leroy,
I happen to think that "race" does not exist, but we know that in the USA when people say "ethnic" they mean "race"... ;-)
I remember 30 years ago, at the hairdresser in London, picking up a copy of the tabloid "The Sun", and reading a sentence where
"ethnic" was used to mean "foreigner with a darker complexion"... (something like "the three men were ethnic") ;-)
Once more "ethnic" means "national", nothing more nothing less: "ethnos" is the Greek translation of "natio". These are words
which have been used for a few thousand years, and we have to understand what they really meant and what they really mean now,
and to remove from them the "ideological" additions.
The definition which you give shows such ideological addition, by adding "cultural" and "tradition". By definition a "nation",
as the same traditions and therefore the same "culture": they are just redundant in this definition.
An ethnic group is a nation. So yes, you are in an ethnic group, and you can "define" smaller and smaller ethnic groups within
the bigger one (the "tribes"). So in Gaul, there were many different "nations", who were Gauls, but had a great diversity between
them (just read a few pages of Cćsar).
But at some point when there are many ethnic groups within you country (and this is how a country like France was made by the
addition of regions with varying ethnic backgrounds and the migration/invasion of many other ethnic groups), at some point the
only unity is in the country, the "patria", this is there that you find the common interests and goals.
So you see in France the difference going from Nation to the Country, because in the early middle ages the king was called
"King of the French" Rex Francorum, (there were many other nations recognized on the French territory) and in the later part of
the Middle Ages, he was called "King of France", Rex Franciae.
But because the word "nation" is important, and people would not let it go, there has been a tendency to use it to mean "country",
as when we speak of the National Anthem, but this is by a shifting of its original sense.
When we want to oppose nationalism and patriotism, we need to go back to the original technical meaning, not invent a new one.
PS: the reason why "ethnic" and "race" are not the same thing, and we saw it with "Pocahontas" controversy (I mentioned it
then), it is because a nation can "adopt" somebody who was not genetically related to them. They shall still be fully part of
the nation... but their genetic material shall be different.
Leroy 3 days ago
I know you enjoy history, but the meaning of words can shift. I'll go with the meaning of the word Nation that the founders
meant when they founded this nation. Nations are sovereign, make laws and control territory. A group of people, who share a culture,
but who do not control territory is not a nation.
Hub312 3 days ago ( Edited )
Whoever wants a clear-headed understanding of nationalism, I suggest you read the world's foremost scholar on nationalism,
Liah Greenfeld's "Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity" and Pierre Manent's concise but rich "Democracy Without Nations?".
Nationalism is really just another word for modernity and democracy. . It arose in England at the end of the 17th and the 18th
centuries as the liberal answer to the question: if the people are sovereign, who are "the people" that we are now calling the
nation? Answer: those who live within the borders controlled by the sovereign. The nation state is our home and our protection
and we're all in it together regardless of language, culture, etc. This was the essentially liberal idea that was adopted and
adapted by the French. This was the form adopted by Americans too. Greenfeld describes it as "civic nationalism" to differentiate
it from the ethnic, anti-liberal "nationalism" later adopted by Russia and Germany.
It is the Russians, followed by the Germans and other central Europeans who followed their lead that gave nationalism a bad
name. Identifying "the people" as a linguistic-cultural entity with or without borders set the stage for the bloody conflicts
that were fought over borders for these groups, and the discrimination and ethnic cleansing for those who didn't belong to the
dominant linguistic-cultural group, to say nothing of what needed to be done about members of the dominant group who lived outside
its borders.
Empires and nations based on racial and ethnic identity have bloody borders, since it is impossible to draw any border anywhere
in the world that includes all members of the dominant group and excludes or oppresses all members of other groups.
Are they both called nationalisms? Yes. But they couldn't be farther apart.
Jean_Christophe_Jouffrey 3 days ago
Dear Hub312,
the word that is missing in your comment is "country". "if the people are sovereign, who are "the people" that we are
now calling the nation?... etc."
I am interested to see in which English author of the end of the 17th century you find the expression of "sovereign people"
or the "people are sovereign". Do you have some primary sources? I do not find it in Locke, but perhaps I am looking in the wrong
place.
And in the UK, in the 18th and 19th century, and still now, it is clear that English, Welsh, Irish and Scots are different
nations in the same "country"... Today, in Rugby the 6 nations championship takes place actually between four countries.
In the Middle Ages it is clear that the "supreme power" "summa potestas" comes God, and after this it is a question of open
debate whether it is invested directly in the King, or through the people who then may elect a king, or decide on a Republic.
And I find in the Renaissance of the 16th and early 17th century, many proponents of a summa potestas that belongs to the people,
which gives incidentally rise to the possibility of removing from power bad kings, but they happen to be Spanish and Catholics:
Francisco Suarez, Juan de Mariana and Roberto Bellarmino... worse, they are all Jesuits... ;-), and they claim that the supreme
power comes from the consent of the governed, and they were all dead by 1630... So that's it when it comes to the notion of people's
sovereignty "arising" in England in the late 17th century... It was up and awake already.
I cannot find "souveraineté" as a word (which is different from having a "sovereign"), before Jean Bodin (16th century) (but
you perhaps have better sources than mine), then I can direct you to many discussions about the nature and origin of "souveraineté"
in French in the 16th and 17th century.
Rousseau (mid-18th century) is famous for ascribing sovereignty to the people, but he was not English (although he was Protestant),
nor French, but he is also the inspiration for the "dictatorship of the people", and the Terror.
Rousseau is part of the Social Contract school, to which is usually adjoined his predecessors Hobbes and Locke, but there is
no doubt that Hobbes is a partisan of absolute monarchy, and again I fail to see in Locke a direct notion of people's sovereignty:
when he speaks of civil sovereigns he speaks of the "magistrates" who rule. But I am certain that you shall direct me to the proper
place in Locke, which currently escapes me.
The thing is that the "consent of the people" or even the "sovereignty of the people", or the "social contract" does not mean
that they are individually free afterwards... they may actually live under an absolute monarchy and still have "consented" to
it, or under a dictatorship of the people (socialist), or a national dictatorship, or a mixture of both... ;-)
Jean_Christophe_Jouffrey 3 days ago
Of course, as I read again what I wrote, I made the most silly of blunders: Bellarmino was Italian, not Spanish... this invalidates
all that I have ever written.. ;-)
Jean_Christophe_Jouffrey 3 days ago
Also, in the late 16th century during what is now called the Wars of Religions (but which they called Civil Wars) in
continental Europe, people moved from Monarchists to Republicans and back, depending of whether they were Catholics or
Protestants, but mostly depending of the position of strength in which they were at the time... There is a very interesting literature regarding the nature
and origin of the supreme power, and whether the people must have absolute obedience to the the sovereign civil power (whatever
shape it has). Of course none of this has to do with 17th century England, except that the same questions where asked and answered
their own way in the English Civil War (which was a religious war), when the Round-Heads decided to chop that of their King, whose
shape they did not like. ;-)
Bellarmino wrote against James I when he tried to sustain is absolute divine right to rule.
All of this to say that these questions were raised long before the Glorious Revolution. ;-)
Jean_Christophe_Jouffrey 2 days ago
Dear Hub312,
well, why would I read a secondary source book, if it does not know the primary sources which I know?
If this book describes nothing more than what you described (i.e. England, end of the 17th century, etc.), which is refuted
by the sources that I know, why would I waste time reading it? it could not edify me, if it does not add to what I know.
Hub312 4 hours ago ( Edited )
...and you would love the Manent book, written from a very European liberal perspective, which is brief and very concise.
Jean_Christophe_Jouffrey 3 days ago
Dear Michael Brendan Dougherty,
I have a revolutionary proposal: instead of investing words with supposed meanings in order to be able to say that we approve
of them or not (which in English is called begging the question), why don't we simply use the etymological meaning of the word?
;-)
It's easy, "national" means precisely the same thing as "ethnic": one is Latin, the other is Greek. You know what ethnicity
is a euphemism for in the US: "race". A "nation" does not need to have borders to be a nation, the "barbarian nations" of late
Antiquity early Middle Ages were roving nations. This is why also initially German nationalism i the 19th and early 20th century
was expansive: it meant to "unify" the German nation in one country. This is why Irish, Scottish or Welsh nationalism is divisive
and restrictive, it is meant to separate the English (seen as invaders) from the local version of a Celtic nation.
The "Patria" is the Land of the fathers: this is the "country", the "land".
The one is "Blood", the other is "Soil", you see that each can be assigned bad meaning or good meaning, if one wants to.
Behind this you have the age old conflicts between Cain and Abel, between the roving pastor, and the settled farmer.
Both Nation and Patria can be a limit within which to stay, or a limit to expand: so one can be an "imperialist" or not, whether
one is a patriot or a nationalist. Because even a patriot, may require more land, to ensure the safety of the one that he has,
his own version of "lebensraum".
These two notions are also linked to the "jus sanguinis" (right of blood) and the "jus soli" (right of soil/land) question
regarding citizenship.
In countries which have official separate notions of citizenship and nationality (in the former USSR for instance), citizenship
is clearly ascribed to the country, and nationality is clearly ascribed to ethnicity: so one can be a Russian national, citizen
of Kazakhstan.
It is the notion of the Nation-State (which is comparatively recent), which tends to make believe that for each identifiable
"Nation" there must be one identifiable "Country" (a sovereign state). It is the geographical difficulty if not impossibility
of this which lead to the political upheavals in the 19th and 20th centuries. It was trying to merge Nationalism and Patriotism
that created the problems.
In some cases when supposed "nations" wanted to be unified within one country, there was the notion of "Pan-somethingism",
Pan-Germanism, Pan-Slavism, etc., and/or Nations wanted to become independent: so you had the fights for the unification of Italy,
Germany, the independence of Poland, Greece, etc., within the 19th century. And then there were all these places were the population
was too mixed to make any such separation easy: the Balkans, the remnants of the Turkish Empire (a perfect example together with
the Persian Empire (for those who read Xenophon), why "Imperialism" does not mean "centralization"), remnants of "German" populations
in "Slavic" countries, etc. You know what followed.
So both nationalism and patriotism can have a good or a bad meaning, depending of how one intends to use them.
For instance the notion of a "Europe of Nations" is what helped secure the Good Friday Agreement, because another way of saying
it is a "Europe of Regions", where Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Basques, Bretons (of little Brittany), etc., have a possibility of
recognition, without necessarily breaking up "countries".
So you are right there is much more than one axis of meaning, and it is important that one opposes the right terms, and this
is the responsibility of what used to be called the "publicists", those who speak of the Res Publica, what we now call "pundits":
but in the USA none are more adept at using the wrong formulations than the "modern conservative" pundits. Why? well, "modern
conservative" says it all... because you are partly right conservatism is about "a set of dispositions toward a political and
civilizational inheritance", and "modern conservatism" is therefore an oxymoron. ;-)
And this is why "Modern Conservatism" became such an easy prey for the Alt-Right Anarchists: because they are not grounded
in an actual "tradition", but like all the "progressives" (which they are), they have to reinvent for themselves a new beginning...
in the 1950s, they said, now that there is National Review, we shall become "real" conservatives, "modern conservatives", before
us, they were not really conservatives... ;-)
But you cannot be a real conservative if you have to identify a date for the birth of your movement.
"Modern Conservatives" have a vested interest in muddying the debate, so that it does not become clear that "conservatism"
is not linked to specific political or economical models, and more importantly it is not true that the Founding Fathers were all
absolutist libertarian free traders... ;-)
So Conservatism is not the opposite of Liberalism, it is the opposite of Progressivism. Imperialism is indeed about expansion
of power, but it is not necessarily about "centralization", as many empires not only have left the "local life" untouched, but
this "local life" disappeared when a supposedly more "liberal" power took over...
Therefore I do beg American publicists, especially those of the conservative variety writing in NRO, stop begging the question
when you falsely "define" terms, so that they align with what you deem to be good or bad; be instead a real conservative, go back
to the etymology and the actual meaning of the words, see how they were used initially, not only in the last 50 or even 100 years...
because then you are using "progressive" definitions, and you keep repeating that "progressives" always change the meaning of
the words to suit their purpose... You are right on that one. ;-)
Leroy 3 days ago
Conservatism "has been traditionally defined as a set of dispositions toward a political and civilizational inheritance"?
That can't be true. We all know that conservatism now means free trade, where American workers are replaced by Chinese slave
labor. We know that conservatism means an insatiable desire for foreign migrants, adding millions of campesino's to our economy
every year. Most of all, we know that conservatism stands for foreign imperialist wars and globalist profits.
What, exactly, are our children inheriting? Press 2 for Spanish.
Jean_Christophe_Jouffrey 3 days ago
Dear Leroy,
I agree with you that US Conservatives are Progressives by another name. see my main comment here. ;-)
TitoPerdue 2 days ago
Indeed. And let us not forget neocons.
Jean_Christophe_Jouffrey 2 days ago
Dear TitoPerdue,
given that the Founding Fathers were already progressives, who for you committed the original sin of believing that "all men
are created equal", why do you still live in that den of iniquity that is the USA?
You should be out there carving an empire for yourself, showing your supremacy and spreading the seeds of your "culture" over
uncharted territories and untamed tribes... ;-)
I hear that there are still some fairly inaccessible places in Papua-New-Guinea... ;-)
Perfect place to show your supremacy, or end up in the cooking pot. For once your philosophy of life would become true: eat
or be eaten! ;-)
hawkesappraisal 3 days ago
I agree. "Nationalism" is a charged but nebulous word, but it describes something that is clearly important in spite of the
obscurity of its meaning. So the struggle to come up with coherent definitions is worthwhile. The current Nationalism is probably
best defined by, Progressives saying "America sucks!" and the Right responding, "No it doesn't! America is Awesome!"
freedom1 3 days ago ( Edited )
Thoughtful piece. I think the obvious irritant lending support to Nationalist sentiments is the non benign aspects of Globalism.
"What do you mean by claiming Hersh "cozys up" to MIC ppl? And what would be a specific
example of a story he broke after doing that?"
Our Men in Iran?
"We did train them here, and washed them through the Energy Department because the
D.O.E. owns all this land in southern Nevada," a former senior American intelligence
official told me. ... In a separate interview, a retired four-star general, who has advised
the Bush and Obama Administrations on national-security issues, said that he had been
privately briefed in 2005 about the training of Iranians associated with the M.E.K. in
Nevada
His conversations with Lieutenant Calley are apparently what allowed him to break the My
Lai massacre story as well, even though members of the military had already spoken out about
it, and there had been already been charges brought. It just revealed the story to the
general public, which prompted a fuller investigation and courts martial. I'm sure there are
others.
So, obviously Hersh's "cozying up" (surely not the right term for it, though) is in the
interests of raising public awareness of nefarious deeds, and is not scared of painting these
organizations in a bad light, whereas Mazzetti's goal here seems to be to maintain his
privileged access by providing favors - totally different motivations. It's rather easy to
contrast the two, which "smartypants54" has even stated here.
Whatever the case, it's true that elements of the NYT have been mouthpieces more or less
for government and corporate power for a long time. While I agree with Glenn about the faux
cynicism perpetuating this kind of activity - "don't be naive, this is done all the time" - I
can understand that it exists.
Such cynicism on the part of the public, rather than being an acknowledgment of
acceptance and approval of such practices, can also be seen as part of a more radical
critique of the corporate media in general, and the NYT particularly, in that such
organizations - not that I totally agree with this - , by their very nature, can't be
reformed and can never be totally effective checks on power because of the way they're
structured, and who they answer to.
That's definitely not a reason to stop pointing it out, though.
"... Here's a wonderful example of the NYT's propensity for re-writing history: http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2012/08/30/ny-times-scrubs-mention-cia-arming-syrian-rebels-177311/ Long live the memory hole. ..."
The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence Victor Marchetti
"It is the first book the federal government of the United States ever went to court to
censor before its publication. The CIA demanded the authors remove 399 passages but they
stood firm and only 168 passages were censored. The publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, chose to
publish the book with blanks for censored passages and with boldface type for passages that
were challenged but later uncensored."
There exists in our nation today a powerful and dangerous secret cult -- the cult of
intelligence. Its holy men are the clandestine professionals of the Central Intelligence
Agency.
Its patrons and protectors are the highest officials of the federal government.
Its membership, extending far beyond governmental circles, reaches into the power centers
of industry, commerce, finance, and labor. Its friends are many in the areas of important
public influence -- the academic world and the communications media.
The cult of
intelligence is a secret fraternity of the American political aristocracy.
The purpose of
the cult is to further the foreign policies of the U.S. government by covert and usually
illegal means, while at the same time containing the spread of its avowed enemy, communism.
Traditionally, the cult's hope has been to foster a world order in which America would
reign supreme, the unchallenged international leader.
Today, however, that dream stands
tarnished by time and frequent failures. Thus, the cult's objectives are now less
grandiose, but no less disturbing. It seeks largely to advance America's self-appointed
role as the dominant arbiter of social, economic, and political change in the awakening
regions of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. And its worldwide war against communism has to
some extent been reduced to a covert struggle to maintain a self-serving stability in the
Third World, using whatever clandestine methods are available.
Josh Rogin
uses the Senate's 63-37 vote on S.J.Res. 54 earlier this week to make a very strange
claim:
The Senate's stunning bipartisan rebuke of President Trump's handling of U.S.-Saudi
relations shows that the internationalist, values-based foreign policy of the late senator
John McCain still holds significant weight in both parties [bold mine-DL].
At the end of his career, McCain was one of the foremost defenders of U.S. involvement in
the war on Yemen. I suppose it was fitting that he capped off a long career of supporting
unnecessary and illegal wars by proudly supporting a truly indefensible one. When U.S. support
for the war began in 2015, he and Lindsey Graham
chastised Obama for not doing enough to help the Saudi coalition. Needless to say,
he was an
early and eager supporter of the intervention . When McCain was asked about the coalition's
bombing campaign and the civilian casualties that it was causing, he denied
that there were any. "Thank God for the Saudis," he once
said , praising the kingdom for its role in fueling the war in Syria.
I
commented on McCain's support for the war on Yemen in a post last year:
In addition to dismissing the civilian casualties caused by the indiscriminate coalition
bombing campaign, McCain has reliably recited Saudi propaganda to provide cover for the war
while completely ignoring the catastrophic humanitarian crisis that their campaign has done
so much to cause.
McCain was the champion of a particular strain of aggressive interventionism that relied on
moralizing rhetoric to justify unjust actions. His foreign policy was "values-based" in the
sense that he would use "values" language to rally support for attacking certain regimes, but
when it came to applying the same standards to U.S. allies and clients McCain frequently became
mute or turned into a cynical apologist on behalf of states aligned with Washington. That is
certainly how he acted
when it came to the
Saudi coalition war on Yemen . Back when there were very few critics of the war in the
Senate, McCain was one of their
loudest opponents :
McCain incredibly described the Saudis as a "nation under attack" because of incursions
into Saudi territory that were provoked by the Saudi-led bombing campaign. Graham portrayed
the Saudis as victims of Yemeni "aggression," which has everything completely and obviously
backwards. It requires swallowing Saudi propaganda whole to argue that the Saudis and their
allies have been acting in self-defense, and that is what McCain and Graham tried to do. Both
repeatedly asserted that the Houthis are Iranian proxies when the best evidence suggests that
Iran's role in the conflict has always been negligible, and then justified their complete
indifference to the consequences of the Saudi-led war by complaining about Iranian behavior
elsewhere. Needless to say, the humanitarian crisis brought on by the Saudi-led bombing
campaign and blockade never once came up in their remarks, but I'm sure if they ever do
mention it they'll blame it on Iran somehow.
McCain used many of the same cynical and dishonest arguments then that Trump administration
officials use now. The senators that voted for S.J.Res. 54 were not following McCain's example
and they were definitely not embracing the kind of foreign policy he supported. On the
contrary, the success of the Sanders-Lee-Murphy resolution this week was as much a rebuke to
McCain's foreign policy legacy as it was a rebuke to Trump's shameless Saudi First behavior.
Opposition to the war on Yemen was something that McCain vehemently rejected, and it is simply
and obviously wrong to credit McCain's foreign policy views for the antiwar victory that Sens.
Sanders, Murphy, Lee, and their colleagues won this week. For the last twenty-five years,
McCain never saw a U.S.-backed war he couldn't support, and that included the war on Yemen.
When the Senate voted to advance S.J.Res. 54 on Wednesday, they were voting against the war
that McCain had vocally backed for years.
Gage
Skidmore /
Charles Haynes /Flickr Josh Rogin
uses the Senate's 63-37 vote on S.J.Res. 54 earlier this week to make a very strange claim:
The Senate's stunning bipartisan rebuke of President Trump's handling of U.S.-Saudi
relations shows that the internationalist, values-based foreign policy of the late senator
John McCain still holds significant weight in both parties [bold mine-DL].
At the end of his career, McCain was one of the foremost defenders of U.S. involvement in
the war on Yemen. I suppose it was fitting that he capped off a long career of supporting
unnecessary and illegal wars by proudly supporting a truly indefensible one. When U.S. support
for the war began in 2015, he and Lindsey Graham
chastised Obama for not doing enough to help the Saudi coalition. Needless to say,
he was an
early and eager supporter of the intervention . When McCain was asked about the coalition's
bombing campaign and the civilian casualties that it was causing, he denied
that there were any. "Thank God for the Saudis," he once
said , praising the kingdom for its role in fueling the war in Syria.
I
commented on McCain's support for the war on Yemen in a post last year:
In addition to dismissing the civilian casualties caused by the indiscriminate coalition
bombing campaign, McCain has reliably recited Saudi propaganda to provide cover for the war
while completely ignoring the catastrophic humanitarian crisis that their campaign has done
so much to cause.
McCain was the champion of a particular strain of aggressive interventionism that relied on
moralizing rhetoric to justify unjust actions. His foreign policy was "values-based" in the
sense that he would use "values" language to rally support for attacking certain regimes, but
when it came to applying the same standards to U.S. allies and clients McCain frequently became
mute or turned into a cynical apologist on behalf of states aligned with Washington. That is
certainly how he acted
when it came to the
Saudi coalition war on Yemen . Back when there were very few critics of the war in the
Senate, McCain was one of their
loudest opponents :
McCain incredibly described the Saudis as a "nation under attack" because of incursions
into Saudi territory that were provoked by the Saudi-led bombing campaign. Graham portrayed
the Saudis as victims of Yemeni "aggression," which has everything completely and obviously
backwards. It requires swallowing Saudi propaganda whole to argue that the Saudis and their
allies have been acting in self-defense, and that is what McCain and Graham tried to do. Both
repeatedly asserted that the Houthis are Iranian proxies when the best evidence suggests that
Iran's role in the conflict has always been negligible, and then justified their complete
indifference to the consequences of the Saudi-led war by complaining about Iranian behavior
elsewhere. Needless to say, the humanitarian crisis brought on by the Saudi-led bombing
campaign and blockade never once came up in their remarks, but I'm sure if they ever do
mention it they'll blame it on Iran somehow.
McCain used many of the same cynical and dishonest arguments then that Trump administration
officials use now. The senators that voted for S.J.Res. 54 were not following McCain's example
and they were definitely not embracing the kind of foreign policy he supported. On the
contrary, the success of the Sanders-Lee-Murphy resolution this week was as much a rebuke to
McCain's foreign policy legacy as it was a rebuke to Trump's shameless Saudi First behavior.
Opposition to the war on Yemen was something that McCain vehemently rejected, and it is simply
and obviously wrong to credit McCain's foreign policy views for the antiwar victory that Sens.
Sanders, Murphy, Lee, and their colleagues won this week. For the last twenty-five years,
McCain never saw a U.S.-backed war he couldn't support, and that included the war on Yemen.
When the Senate voted to advance S.J.Res. 54 on Wednesday, they were voting against the war
that McCain had vocally backed for years.
This is from 1999 and in 2018 we see that Mills was right.
Notable quotes:
"... Personnel were constantly shifting back and forth from the corporate world to the military world. Big companies like General Motors had become dependent on military contracts. Scientific and technological innovations sponsored by the military helped fuel the growth of the economy. ..."
"... the military had become an active political force. Members of Congress, once hostile to the military, now treated officers with great deference. And no president could hope to staff the Department of State, find intelligence officers, and appoint ambassadors without consulting with the military. ..."
"... Mills believed that the emergence of the military as a key force in American life constituted a substantial attack on the isolationism which had once characterized public opinion. He argued that "the warlords, along with fellow travelers and spokesmen, are attempting to plant their metaphysics firmly among the population at large." ..."
"... In this state of constant war fever, America could no longer be considered a genuine democracy, for democracy thrives on dissent and disagreement, precisely what the military definition of reality forbids. If the changes described by Mills were indeed permanent, then The Power Elite could be read as the description of a deeply radical, and depressing, transformation of the nature of the United States. ..."
"... The immediate consequence of these changes in the world's balance of power has been a dramatic decrease in that proportion of the American economy devoted to defense. ..."
"... Mills's prediction that both the economy and the political system of the United States would come to be ever more dominated by the military ..."
"... Business firms, still the most powerful force in American life, are increasingly global in nature, more interested in protecting their profits wherever they are made than in the defense of the country in which perhaps only a minority of their employees live and work. Give most of the leaders of America's largest companies a choice between invading another country and investing in its industries and they will nearly always choose the latter over the former. ..."
"... Mills believed that in the 1950s, for the first time in American history, the military elite had formed a strong alliance with the economic elite. ..."
One of the crucial arguments Mills made in The Power Elite was that the emergence of
the Cold War completely transformed the American public's historic opposition to a permanent
military establishment in the United States. In deed, he stressed that America's military elite
was now linked to its economic and political elite. Personnel were constantly shifting back and
forth from the corporate world to the military world. Big companies like General Motors had
become dependent on military contracts. Scientific and technological innovations sponsored by
the military helped fuel the growth of the economy. And while all these links between the
economy and the military were being forged, the military had become an active political force.
Members of Congress, once hostile to the military, now treated officers with great deference.
And no president could hope to staff the Department of State, find intelligence officers, and
appoint ambassadors without consulting with the military.
Mills believed that the emergence of the military as a key force in American life
constituted a substantial attack on the isolationism which had once characterized public
opinion. He argued that "the warlords, along with fellow travelers and spokesmen, are
attempting to plant their metaphysics firmly among the population at large." Their goal was
nothing less than a redefinition of reality -- one in which the American people would come to
accept what Mills called "an emergency without a foreseeable end." "
War or a high state of war
preparedness is felt to be the normal and seemingly permanent condition of the United States,"
Mills wrote. In this state of constant war fever, America could no longer be considered a
genuine democracy, for democracy thrives on dissent and disagreement, precisely what the
military definition of reality forbids. If the changes described by Mills were indeed
permanent, then The Power Elite could be read as the description of a deeply radical,
and depressing, transformation of the nature of the United States.
Much as Mills wrote, it remains true today that Congress is extremely friendly to the
military, at least in part because the military has become so powerful in the districts of most
congressmen. Military bases are an important source of jobs for many Americans, and government
spending on the military is crucial to companies, such as Lockheed Martin and Boeing, which
manufacture military equipment. American firms are the leaders in the world's global arms
market, manufacturing and exporting weapons everywhere. Some weapons systems never seem to die,
even if, as was the case with a "Star Wars" system designed to destroy incoming missiles, there
is no demonstrable military need for them.
Yet despite these similarities with the 1950s, both the world and the role that America
plays in that world have changed. For one thing, the United States has been unable to muster
its forces for any sustained use in any foreign conflict since Vietnam. Worried about the
possibility of a public backlash against the loss of American lives, American presidents either
refrain from pursuing military adventures abroad or confine them to rapid strikes, along the
lines pursued by Presidents Bush and Clinton in Iraq. Since 1989, moreover, the collapse of
communism in Russia and Eastern Europe has undermined the capacity of America's elites to
mobilize support for military expenditures. China, which at the time Mills wrote was considered a serious threat, is now viewed by American businessmen as a source of great potential
investment. Domestic political support for a large and permanent military establishment in the
United States, in short, can no longer be taken for granted.
The immediate consequence of these changes in the world's balance of power has been a
dramatic decrease in that proportion of the American economy devoted to defense. At the time
Mills wrote, defense expenditures constituted roughly 60 percent of all federal outlays and
consumed nearly 10 percent of the U. S. gross domestic product. By the late 1990s, those
proportions had fallen to 17 percent of federal outlays and 3.5 percent of GDP. Nearly three
million Americans served in the armed forces when The Power Elite appeared, but that
number had dropped by half at century's end. By almost any account, Mills's prediction that
both the economy and the political system of the United States would come to be ever more
dominated by the military is not borne out by historical developments since his time.
And how could he have been right? Business firms, still the most powerful force in American
life, are increasingly global in nature, more interested in protecting their profits wherever
they are made than in the defense of the country in which perhaps only a minority of their
employees live and work. Give most of the leaders of America's largest companies a choice
between invading another country and investing in its industries and they will nearly always
choose the latter over the former.
Mills believed that in the 1950s, for the first time in
American history, the military elite had formed a strong alliance with the economic elite. Now
it would be more correct to say that America's economic elite finds more in common with
economic elites in other countries than it does with the military elite of its own....
"... With the advent of Obama, many peace leaders and followers joined the Obama political machine .Those who were not co-opted were quickly disillusioned on all counts. Obama continued the ongoing wars and added new ones -- Libya, Honduras, Syria. The US occupation in Iraq led to new extremist militia armies which preceded to defeat US trained vassal armies up to the gates of Baghdad. In short time Obama launched a flotilla of warships and warplanes to the South China Sea and dispatched added troops to Afghanistan. ..."
"... The anti-war movement which started in opposition to the Iraq war was marginalized by the two dominant parties. The result was the multiplication of new wars. By the second year of Obama's presidency the US was engaged in seven wars. ..."
"... The international conditions are ripening. Washington has alienated countries around the world ;it is challenged by allies and faces formidable rivals. The domestic economy is polarized and the elites are divided. ..."
Over the past three decades, the US government has engaged in over a dozen wars, none of
which have evoked popular celebrations either before, during or after. Nor did the government
succeed in securing popular support in its efforts to confront the economic crises of 2008
– 2009.
This paper will begin by discussing the major wars of our time, namely the two US invasions
of Iraq . We will proceed to analyze the nature of the popular response and the political
consequences.
In the second section we will discuss the economic crises of 2008 -2009, the government
bailout and popular response. We will conclude by focusing on the potential powerful changes
inherent in mass popular movements.
The Iraq War and the US Public
In the run-up to the two US wars against Iraq, (1990 – 01 and 2003 – 2011) there
was no mass war fever, nor did the public celebrate the outcome. On the contrary both wars were
preceded by massive protests in the US and among EU allies. The first Iraqi invasion was
opposed by the vast-majority of the US public despite a major mass media and regime propaganda
campaign backed by President George H. W. Bush. Subsequently, President Clinton launched a
bombing campaign against Iraq in December 1998 with virtually no public support or
approval.
March 20, 2003, President George W. Bush launched the second major war against Iraq despite
massive protests in all major US cities. The war was officially concluded by President Obama in
December 2011. President Obama's declaration of a successful conclusion failed to elicit
popular agreement.
Several questions arise:
Why mass opposition at the start of the Iraq wars and why did they fail to continue?
Why did the public refuse to celebrate President Obama's ending of the war in 2011?
Why did mass protests of the Iraq wars fail to produce durable political vehicles to
secure the peace?
The Anti-Iraq War Syndrome
The massive popular movements which actively opposed the Iraq wars had their roots in
several historical sources. The success of the movements that ended the Viet Nam war, the ideas
that mass activity could resist and win was solidly embedded in large segments of the
progressive public. Moreover, they strongly held the idea that the mass media and Congress
could not be trusted; this reinforced the idea that mass direct action was essential to reverse
Presidential and Pentagon war policies.
The second factor encouraging US mass protest was the fact that the US was internationally
isolated. Presidents George H. W. and George W. Bush wars faced hostile regime and mass
opposition in Europe, the Middle East and in the UN General Assembly. US activists felt that
they were part of a global movement which could succeed.
Thirdly the advent of Democratic President Clinton did not reverse the mass anti-war
movements.The terror bombing of Iraq in December 1998 was destructive and Clinton's war against
Serbia kept the movements alive and active To the extent that Clinton avoided large scale
long-term wars, he avoided provoking mass movements from re-emerging during the latter part of
the 1990's.
The last big wave of mass anti-war protest occurred from 2003 to 2008. Mass anti-war protest
to war exploded soon after the World Trade Center bombings of 9/11. White House exploited the
events to proclaim a global 'war on terror', yet the mass popular movements interpreted the
same events as a call to oppose new wars in the Middle East.
Anti-war leaders drew activists of the entire decade, envisioning a 'build-up' which could
prevent the Bush regime from launching a series of wars without end. Moreover, the
vast-majority of the public was not convinced by officials' claims that Iraq, weakened and
encircled, was stocking 'weapons of mass destruction' to attack the US.
Large scale popular protests challenged the mass media, the so called respectable press and
ignored the Israeli lobby and other Pentagon warlords demanding an invasion of Iraq. The
vast-majority of American, did not believe they were threatened by Saddam Hussain they felt a
greater threat from the White House's resort to severe repressive legislation like the Patriot
Act. Washington's rapid military defeat of Iraqi forces and its occupation of the Iraqi state
led to a decline in the size and scope of the anti-war movement but not to its potential mass
base.
Two events led to the demise of the anti-war movements. The anti-war leaders turned from
independent direct action to electoral politics and secondly, they embraced and channeled their
followers to support Democratic presidential candidate Obama. In large part the movement
leaders and activists believed that direct action had failed to prevent or end the previous two
Iraq wars. Secondly, Obama made a direct demagogic appeal to the peace movement – he
promised to end wars and pursue social justice at home.
With the advent of Obama, many peace leaders and followers joined the Obama political
machine .Those who were not co-opted were quickly disillusioned on all counts. Obama continued
the ongoing wars and added new ones -- Libya, Honduras, Syria. The US occupation in Iraq led to
new extremist militia armies which preceded to defeat US trained vassal armies up to the gates
of Baghdad. In short time Obama launched a flotilla of warships and warplanes to the South
China Sea and dispatched added troops to Afghanistan.
The mass popular movements of the previous two decades were totally disillusioned, betrayed
and disoriented. While most opposed Obama's 'new' and 'old wars' they struggled to find new
outlets for their anti-war beliefs. Lacking alternative anti-war movements, they were
vulnerable to the war propaganda of the media and the new demagogue of the right. Donald Trump
attracted many who opposed the war monger Hilary Clinton.
The Bank Bailout: Mass Protest
Denied
In 2008, at the end of his presidency, President George W. Bush signed off on a massive
federal bailout of the biggest Wall Street banks who faced bankruptcy from their wild
speculative profiteering.
In 2009 President Obama endorsed the bailout and urged rapid Congressional approval.
Congress complied to a $700-billion- dollar handout ,which according to Forbes (July 14, 2015)
rose to $7.77 trillion. Overnight hundreds of thousands of American demanded Congress rescind
the vote. Under immense popular protest, Congress capitulated. However President Obama and the
Democratic Party leadership insisted: the bill was slightly modified and approved. The 'popular
will' was denied. The protests were neutralized and dissipated. The bailout of the banks
proceeded, while several million households watched while their homes were foreclosed ,despite
some local protests. Among the anti-bank movement, radical proposals flourished, ranging from
calls to nationalize them, to demands to let the big banks go bankrupt and provide federal
financing for co-operatives and community banks.
Clearly the vast-majority of the American people were aware and acted to resist
corporate-collusion to plunder taxpayers.
Conclusion: What is to be Done?
Mass popular mobilizations are a reality in the United States. The problem is that they have
not been sustained and the reasons are clear : they lacked political organization which would
go beyond protests and reject lesser evil policies.
The anti-war movement which started in opposition to the Iraq war was marginalized by the
two dominant parties. The result was the multiplication of new wars. By the second year of
Obama's presidency the US was engaged in seven wars.
By the second year of Trump's Presidency the US was threatening nuclear wars against Russia,
Iran and other 'enemies' of the empire. While public opinion was decidedly opposed, the
'opinion' barely rippled in the mid-term elections.
Where have the anti-war and anti-bank masses gone? I would argue they are still with us but
they cannot turn their voices into action and organization if they remain in the Democratic
Party . Before the movements can turn direct action into effective political and economic
transformations, they need to build struggles at every level from the local to the
national.
The international conditions are ripening. Washington has alienated countries around the
world ;it is challenged by allies and faces formidable rivals. The domestic economy is
polarized and the elites are divided.
Mobilizations, as in France today, are self-organized through the internet; the mass media
are discredited. The time of liberal and rightwing demagogues is passing; the bombast of Trump
arouses the same disgust as ended the Obama regime.
Optimal conditions for a new comprehensive movement that goes beyond piecemeal reforms is on
the agenda. The question is whether it is now or in future years or decades?
Mass protest, which must ignore the mass media, depends on organizers. No organizers--no
protest. Since organizers are mostly working for somebodies agenda, those agendas apparently
don't want mass protest against war. They only want to push multi-genderism and minority
resistance, these days.
" Where have the anti-war and anti-bank masses gone? I would argue they are still with us
but they cannot turn their voices into action and organization if they remain in the
Democratic Party . Before the movements can turn direct action into effective political and
economic transformations, they need to build struggles at every level from the local to the
national. "
.gov gives not one damn what the people think and they willl do what pleases their
masters. We are allowed to "vote" once in a while to maintain the illusion that they
care.
Very few Americans are anti-war. They are just fine with endless war and the killing of
millions of people with brown skin for any reason the government gives. Even the so-called
anti-war protesters of the Sixties are now pro war. Back then there was a draft, and they
were at risk of dying in the war. Turns they were only against themselves dying, not somebody
else's child. The volunteer army is staffed by the unfortunates of American society who have
very few options except the military. Uneducated rural whites and inner city black youths are
today's military. Poor white trash and ghetto blacks. Who cares if they die? That's the
attitude of the Sixties anti-war crowd. Hypocrites.
A universal draft, male and female, would stop all the wars in a day.
True, I also believe many Americans turn their heads toward these endless/unneeded wars
because the "enemies" mortar fire is not landing in our own backyard.
But White people know if they pray, buy groceries, buy clothes for kids, keep their
appearance up... then losing jobs & middle class is only an obstacle if you don't work
harder... Fascism is about responsibility, looking and acting like the winner class. White
people will enlist in military, police, fire department... will work harder... will work 2-4
jobs... will blame themselves for everything.
No warning or reason given for closures,Customers, employees and communities are outraged
after Papa Gino's Pizza abruptly closed dozens of locations across New England overnight.
Now that congress serves only as a mechanism for creating and maintaining skimming
operations and rigging all markets, it is imperative that citizens get no information. Since
organized crime also owns the major media outlets, that is an easy task. With no information
in the mainstream there is no anti war and no anti bank.
Gone, like the people who wanted a real 9/11 investigation. Yahoos out there still think
that if it was an inside job someone would have spoke out by now . Lol
They are all their, they are just silenced in corporate main stream media whilst corporate
main stream media absolutely 'SCREAMS' about identity politics, not an accident. Identity
politics is the deep state and shadow government plan to silence the masses about fiscal and
foreign policy.
For example, even though I am centre left, I was there in the beginning of the alt right,
it was not white supremacy for the first few weeks it was Libertarian vs corporate
Republican, then the deep state and shadow government stepped in and using corporate main
stream media, re-branded alt-right as white supremacy, is was really fast.
Most people don't even know alt-right started out as very much Libertarian taking on the
corporate state and that is what triggered that attack and a stream of fake right wingers
(deep state agents) screaming they were the alt-right together with corporate main stream
media, to ensure Libertarian where silenced.
Look at it now, how much do you here from Libertarians, practically nothing, every time
they try, they are targeted as alt-right which they were as in the alternate to corporate
Republicans much the same as the Corporate Democrats. From my perspective the real left and
the Libertarians had much more in common, than the corporate Republicans and the corporate
Democrats (both attacking the libertarians and the greens to silence them).
They are all there fighting, just totally silenced in corporate main stream media, you
have to go to https://www.rt.com/ to find
them.
Bankers control the CFR, the CFR controls the media and most gov positions and most of the
deepstate 3 letter agencies.. Everything said is tracked by the NSA and everywhere you go is
tracked by your phone and cars. Ever wonder how they take over a grass root movement so fast?
Think about it.
And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every
Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether
he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass
arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city,
people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the
downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing
left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people
with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly
have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's
thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom
enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and
simply deserved everything that happened afterward.
The United States is now too big for popular protest. How can I, living in California,
have common cause with someone living in New York? We live on opposite sides of this
continent and have wildly different climates. Our heavy hitters are in Technology while New
York has Banking and Wall St.
Our elected officials are unable to get crap done in the same manner we're unable to get a
good protest underway. We can withdraw somewhat or go off grid where possible but that's
about it.
African American lack of support for the Iraq war:
According to several polls taken right before the war, only a minority of African-Americans
supported the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq. Most notably, a poll by the
Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies had found that only 19 percent of
African-Americans supported it.
That is a striking statistic, especially considering that more than 70 percent of white
Americans were in favor of the military invasion, according to some polls.
Also note that 90% of white males were for that illegal war of aggression.
the left is so obsessed with getting trump, they can do nothing else. they are so *******
stoopid, that they wont even try to develop someone to beat trump. they put 100% of their
energy in hating trump. they are blinded by hatred.
the end is nigh and there's nothing to be done about it.... 10 years and thats it....
beyond that and event horizon... black hole... no one knows. ai terminator coming soon...
thats all i can see.
Most thinking people are not wanting to be part of a movement that will be co-opted for
someone else's political gain. I would rather prepare myself and family for the inevitable
collapse of the economy and perhaps more that awaits us. That's enough to keep me busy. I
can't change the whole world but I can prepare to help my family friends and neighbors.
In answer to the the question posed by the headerof this article, they have either been
exiled from 'respectable' media or are stuck yelling "Trump! Trump! Trump! Russia! Russia!
Russia" like a poorly programmed NPC caught in an infinite loop.
The hidden hand behind the puppet show has done a hell of a job massaging the masses, and
turning their minds into mush.
"Where have the anti-war and anti-bank masses gone? I would argue they are still with us
but they cannot turn their voices into action and organization if they remain in the
Democratic Party ."
Exactly! If there are any anti-war people out there they sure as hell are not with the
Democratic Party. Those leftist lunatics are the most destructive political group on this
planet. Their thinking is 'divide & conquer', incite racial tensions, spew hatred,
promoting that killing babies before they are born, or even on the day they are born is
awesome. One has to wonder if people that evil even have souls.
As for anti-bankers... is this author off his rocker? He's not fooling anyone by trying to
present the theory that if there are any consciencous objectors out there they would be
supporters of the Democratic party. That thought is outright laughable. Even worse, to try to
create this new narrative by writing this type of article is absolutely despicable.
Fortunately, not the least bit convincing. People know better.
" Where have the anti-war and anti-bank masses gone? I would argue they are still with us
but they cannot turn their voices into action and organization if they remain in the
Democratic Party "
OK, so..... it's the Democrat Party, not the Democratic Party. Not like anyone gives a
**** what words mean any more, but.... whatever. Use the right ******* words or..... *******
don't. Not like any of this **** matters any more at this level.
And not all of us are ******* Democrats. Neither party is really anti-war or anti-bank
now, so the red/blue thing has little relevance to those subjects. We all argue about much
more important issues now like transgender bathrooms and whether Kanye West is a racist for
supporting Trump or not.
Politics has become a black hole collapsing on us. Black hole don't give a ****. Look at
that black hole. It just ate a star and became bigger. It don't care.
Sorry but I do not see Trump as "threatening nuclear war".
Surely some of the Deep Staters did. But it's hard to see Trump as in control. His
presidency has been great for exposing how things really work. That's worth a lot. If only
the idiots would pay attention. But they won't. They're too busy placing great importance on
the trifling and little or none on the critically important.
Excuse me I have to run now and get the latest iPhone.
"... Enough Afghans either support the Taliban or hate the occupation, and managed, through assorted conventional and unconventional operations, to fight on the ground. And "on the ground" is all that really matters. This war may well have been ill-advised and unwinnable from the start. ..."
"... There's no shame in defeat. But there is shame, and perfidy, in avoiding or covering up the truth. It's what the whole military-political establishment did after Vietnam, and, I fear, it's what they're doing again. ..."
America Is Headed For Military Defeat in
AfghanistanIt is time to acknowledge this is more than political. We can lose on the
battlefield, and it's happening right now. By Danny Sjursen •
November 30, 2018
Marines
with Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, sprint across a field to load onto a
CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter during a mission in Helmand province, Afghanistan, July 4,
2014. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Joseph Scanlan / released) There's a prevailing maxim,
both inside the armed forces and around the Beltway, that goes something like this: "The U.S.
can never be militarily defeated in any war," certainly not by some third world country.
Heck, I used to believe that myself. That's why, in regard to Afghanistan, we've been told that
while America could lose the war due to political factors (such as the lack of grit
among "soft" liberals or defeatists), the military could never and will never lose on the
battlefield.
That entire maxim is about to be turned on its head. Get ready, because we're about to lose
this war militarily.
Consider this: the U.S. military has advised, assisted, battled, and bombed in Afghanistan
for 17-plus years. Ground troop levels have fluctuated from lows of some 10,000 to upwards of
100,000 servicemen and women. None of that has
achieved more than a tie, a bloody stalemate. Now, in the 18th year of this conflict, the
Kabul-Washington coalition's military is outright losing.
Let's begin with the broader measures. The Taliban controls or contests more districts --
some 44 percent -- than at any time since the 2001 invasion. Total combatant and civilian
casualties are forecasted to
top 20,000 this year -- another dreadful broken record. What's more, Afghan military casualties
are frankly unsustainable: the Taliban are killing more than the government can recruit. The
death rates are staggering, numbering 5,500 fatalities in 2015, 6,700 in 2016, and an estimate (the number is newly
classified) of "about 10,000" in 2017. Well, some might ask, what about American airpower --
can't that help stem the Taliban tide? Hardly. In 2018, as security deteriorated and the
Taliban made substantial gains, the U.S. actually
droppedmore bombs than in anyother year of the war . It
appears that nothing stands in the way of impending military defeat.
Then there are the very recent events on the ground -- and these are telling. Insider
attacks in which Afghan "allies" turn their guns on American advisors are back on the rise,
most recently in an attack that wounded a
U.S. Army general and threatened the top U.S. commander in the country. And while troop numbers
are way down from the high in 2011, American troops deaths are rising. Over the Thanksgiving
season alone, a U.S. Army Ranger was
killed in a friendly fire incident and three other troopers
died in a roadside bomb attack. And in what was perhaps only a (still disturbing) case of
misunderstood optics, the top U.S. commander, General Miller, was filmed carrying his own M4
rifle around Afghanistan. That's a long way from the days when then-General Petraeus (well
protected by soldiers, of course) walked around the markets of Baghdad in a soft cap and
without body armor.
More importantly, the Afghan army and police are getting hammered in larger and larger
attacks and taking unsustainable casualties. Some 26 Afghan security forces were killed on
Thanksgiving, 22 policemen
died in an attack on Sunday, and on Tuesday 30 civilians were
killed in Helmand province. And these were only the high-profile attacks, dwarfed by the
countless other countrywide incidents. All this proves that no matter how hard the U.S.
military worked, or how many years it committed to building an Afghan army in its own image,
and no matter how much air and logistical support that army received, the Afghan Security
Forces cannot win. The sooner Washington accepts this truth over the more comforting lie, the
fewer of our adulated American soldiers will have to die. Who is honestly ready to be the last
to die for a mistake, or at least a hopeless cause?
Now, admittedly, this author is asking for trouble -- and fierce rebuttals -- from both
peers and superiors still serving on active duty. And that's understandable. The old maxim of
military invincibility soothes these men, mollifies their sense of personal loss, whether of
personal friends or years away from home, in wars to which they've now dedicated their entire
adult lives. Questioning whether there even is a military solution in Afghanistan, or, more
specifically, predicting a military defeat, serves only to upend their mental framework
surrounding the war.
Still, sober strategy and basic honesty demands a true assessment of the military situation
in America's longest war. The Pentagon loves metrics, data, and stats. Well, as demonstrated
daily on the ground in Afghanistan, all the security (read: military) metrics point towards
impending defeat. At best, the Afghan army, with ample U.S. advisory detachments and air
support, can hold on to the northernmost and westernmost provinces of the country, while a
Taliban coalition overruns the south and east. This will be messy, ugly, and discomfiting for
military and civilian leaders alike. But unless Washington is prepared to redeploy 100,000
soldiers to Afghanistan (again) -- and still only manage a tie, by the way -- it is also all
but inevitable.
The United States military did all it was asked during more than 17 years of warfare in
Afghanistan. It raided, it bombed, it built, it surged, it advised, it everything. Still, none
of that was sufficient. Enough Afghans either support the Taliban or hate the occupation,
and managed, through assorted conventional and unconventional operations, to fight on the
ground. And "on the ground" is all that really matters. This war may well have been ill-advised
and unwinnable from the start.
There's no shame in defeat. But there is shame, and perfidy, in avoiding or
covering up the truth. It's what the whole military-political establishment did after Vietnam,
and, I fear, it's what they're doing again.
Danny Sjursen is a U.S. Army officer and a regular contributor to Unz. He served
combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his
alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War,
Ghostriders of
Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . Follow him on Twitter @SkepticalVet .
Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an
unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of
the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.
"... The Senate didn't go for Pompeo and Mattis' sales pitch for the war on Yemen on Wednesday. That's because it was filled with dishonest nonsense ..."
"... The absurdity of Pompeo's position becomes clear when we remember that Yemen would not be suffering from the world's worst humanitarian crisis were it not for the Saudi coalition's intervention, blockade, and interference in Yemen's economy. ..."
The Senate didn't go for Pompeo and Mattis' sales pitch for the war on Yemen on
Wednesday. That's because it was filled with dishonest nonsense like this:
Secretary Pompeo
* @SecPompeo
Iran's regime has no interest in easing Yemeni suffering; the
mullahs don't even care for ordinary Iranians. Saudi Arabia has
invested billions to relieve suffering in #Yemen. Iran has
invested zero.
C10.8K 11:02 AM-Nov 28, 2018 в
The truth is that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have used their donations as another weapon of
war while doing everything in their power to worsen the humanitarian crisis that their policies
created. Saudi "aid" efforts have been denounced by humanitarian organizations as a "war
tactic," and the Saudi government has used its donations to buy
good publicity from aid agencies and silence criticism. The "investments" that the Saudi
coalition governments have made are little more than poorly-concealed bribes to relieve
international pressure, and these same governments have used their donations as leverage to
blackmail the U.N. in the past.
The absurdity of Pompeo's position becomes clear when we remember that Yemen would not be
suffering from the world's worst humanitarian crisis were it not for the Saudi coalition's
intervention, blockade, and interference in Yemen's economy. The governments responsible for
causing the displacement of millions of people and creating famine conditions potentially
affecting up to 14 million do not merit praise for throwing a little money at the catastrophe
they have unleashed. Iran's interest in assisting suffering Yemenis or lack thereof is truly
beside the point when it is the Saudi coalition backed by the U.S. that has caused so much of
that suffering. War criminals do not get credit when they throw some cash at the wreckage of
the country they have destroyed, and Pompeo's attempt to give Saudi Arabia credit for
"relieving" suffering in Yemen is as perverse and disgusting as it gets.
Pompeo's statements about saudi support is absolutely astonishing in a very bad way.
Does he actually believe such nonsense? Is he being fed these gross distortions of reality
by his Iran working group led by Hook?
At some point,these lies go beyond the absurd, they go beyond propaganda, they become for
the world to see a war monger's mantra and justification for an attack on Iran.
Pompeo and bolton have gained world wide recognition as being mindless war mongers with
much power but to continue with absurd twisting of facts on the ground really does this
country a huge disservice-meanwhile the population in yemen starve.
Where is the justice, where is the humanity amongst these lies?
Looks like Trump lost control of appointments in his administration... and it is Pompeo who is intrumental in defining the US
foreign policy, not Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... The decision by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to give former Wall Street Journal editorial writer Mary Kissel a senior position at the department, despite her previous clashes with US President Donald Trump, shows that neoconservatives are moving in on the administration ..."
"... As a writer, Kissel took Trump to task on Twitter on multiple occasions, criticizing him for his " frightening ignorance " on foreign policy. During a March 2016 appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Kissel even went as far as saying on air that then-candidate Trump had neither principles nor policies. To this, Trump shot back on Twitter, calling her a " major loser ." ..."
"... The only thing that I can think of is that nobody takes Trump seriously in the White House on what he says from day to day ..."
"... Kissel's recent appointment, to no one's surprise, isn't exactly sitting well with the folks on the more conservative side of the political spectrum. In a recent opinion piece for the Washington Examiner, writer Ryan Girdusky wrote that "Kissel is so wrong so frequently that not only should she not be advising Pompeo on policy, she shouldn't be employed by a single newspaper in the country to talk about politics." ..."
"... Kissel, however, isn't the first Trump opponent to be hired by Pompeo. There's also Jim Jeffrey, who, along with several other GOP insiders, signed a letter in August 2016 which noted that then-candidate Trump "lacks the character, values and experience" to be president. Despite his past objections, Jeffrey is now serving in the Trump administration as the special representative for Syria engagement. ..."
The decision by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to give former Wall Street Journal
editorial writer Mary Kissel a senior position at the department, despite her previous clashes
with US President Donald Trump, shows that neoconservatives are moving in on the
administration, investigative reporter Dave Lindorff told Sputnik.
As a writer, Kissel took Trump to task on Twitter on multiple occasions, criticizing him
for his " frightening ignorance " on
foreign policy. During a March 2016 appearance on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," Kissel even went as
far as saying on air that then-candidate Trump had neither principles nor policies. To this,
Trump shot back on Twitter, calling her a " major loser ."
An unidentified senior State Department official told Politico that Kissel's past remarks
were more of a reflection of her "role as a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial
board."
"As she has said previously when asked similar questions, her job there was to analyze and
write about policy," the department official said. "As a member of the editorial board, Mary
strongly endorsed this administration's policies on Iran, Afghanistan, tax cuts, energy policy,
regulatory reform, judicial nominations and other issues. She is proud to serve this President
and Secretary Pompeo."
"The only thing that I can think of is that nobody takes Trump seriously in the White House
on what he says from day to day," Lindorff told Radio Sputnik's Loud & Clear on
Wednesday in an attempt to explain Kissel's hiring.
"That could be one answer the other one could be that this kind of neocon person, which she
is, are basically taking over the White House. I wouldn't have called Trump a neocon when he
was running for office, but I think his policies are at this point pretty much in the neocon
playbook on foreign policy."
While it's unclear how Trump reacted to Pompeo's move, Lindorff, who also writes as a
columnist for CounterPunch, suggested that he might have let bygones be bygones after certain
apologies are exchanged.
Kissel's recent appointment, to no one's surprise, isn't exactly sitting well with the
folks on the more conservative side of the political spectrum. In a recent opinion piece for
the Washington Examiner, writer Ryan Girdusky wrote that "Kissel is so wrong so frequently that
not only should she not be advising Pompeo on policy, she shouldn't be employed by a single
newspaper in the country to talk about politics."
"It is frightening that Kissel has managed to fail forward," he added.
Kissel, however, isn't the first Trump opponent to be hired by Pompeo. There's also Jim Jeffrey, who, along with several other GOP insiders, signed a letter in
August 2016 which noted that then-candidate Trump "lacks the character, values and experience"
to be president. Despite his past objections, Jeffrey is now serving in the Trump
administration as the special representative for Syria engagement.
"... Trump's memo on the Saudis begins with the headline "The world is a very dangerous place!" Indeed, it is and behavior by the three occupants of the White House since 2000 is largely to blame. ..."
"... Indeed, a national security policy that sees competitors and adversaries as enemies in a military sense has made nuclear war, unthinkable since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, thinkable once again. ..."
"... George Washington's dictum in his Farewell Address , counseling his countrymen to "observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all." And Washington might have somehow foreseen the poisonous relationships with Israel and the Saudis when he warned that " a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification." ..."
"... Cautious optimism may be better than none, but futile nonetheless. Bullying, dispossession, slavery and genocide constitute the very bedrock, the essence and soul of the founding of our country. ..."
"... Truth be told we simply know of no other kinder, gentler alternatives to perpetual war and destruction as the cornerstone of our foreign policy. Normality? Not in my lifetime. ..."
"... Your CNI and 'If Americans Knew' informed me about Rand Paul's courageous move. I plan to call his office today to give him encouragement and call my Senators and Representative to urge them to support him (fat chance of that but I have to stick it in their face). ..."
"... America doesn't have a policy because America is no longer a real nation. It's an empire filled with diverse groups of peoples who all hate each other and want to use the power of the government for the benefit of their overseas co-ethnics. ..."
President Donald Trump's
recent statement on the Jamal Khashoggi killing by Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince might well be considered a metaphor for his foreign
policy. Several commentators have suggested that the text appears to be something that Trump wrote himself without any adult supervision,
similar to the poorly expressed random arguments presented in his tweeting only longer. That might be the case, but it would not
be wise to dismiss the document as merely frivolous or misguided as it does in reality express the kind of thinking that has produced
a foreign policy that seems to drift randomly to no real end, a kind of leaderless creative destruction of the United States as a
world power.
Lord Palmerston, Prime Minister of Britain in the mid nineteenth century, famously said that "Nations have no permanent friends
or allies, they only have permanent interests."The United States currently has neither real friends nor any clearly defined interests.
It is, however, infested with parasites that have convinced an at-drift America that their causes are identical to the interests
of the United States. Leading the charge to reduce the U.S. to "bitch" status, as Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard
has artfully put it , are Israel and Saudi
Arabia, but there are many other countries, alliances and advocacy groups that have learned how to subvert and direct the "leader
of the free world."
Trump's memo on the Saudis begins with the headline "The world is a very dangerous place!" Indeed, it is and behavior by the
three occupants of the White House since 2000 is largely to blame. It is difficult to find a part of the world where an actual
American interest is being served by Washington's foreign and global security policies. Indeed, a national security policy that
sees competitors and adversaries as enemies in a military sense has made nuclear war, unthinkable since the demise of the Soviet
Union in 1991, thinkable once again. The fact that no one is the media or in political circles is even talking about that terrible
danger suggests that war has again become mainstreamed, tacitly benefiting from bipartisan acceptance of it as a viable foreign policy
tool by the media, in the U.S. Congress and also in the White House.
The part of the world where American meddling coupled with ignorance has produced the worst result is inevitably the Middle East...
... ... ...
All of the White House's actions have one thing in common and that is that they do not benefit Americans in any way unless one
works for a weapons manufacturer, and that is not even taking into consideration the dead soldiers and civilians and the massive
debt that has been incurred to intervene all over the world. One might also add that most of America's interventions are built on
deliberate lies by the government and its associated media, intended to increase tension and create a casus belli where
none exists.
So what is to be done as it often seems that the best thing Trump has going for him is that he is not Hillary Clinton? First of
all, a comprehensive rethink of what the real interests of the United States are in the world arena is past due. America is less
safe now than it was in 2001 as it continues to make enemies with its blundering everywhere it goes. There are now
four times as many designated terrorists as there were in 2001, active in 70 countries. One would quite plausibly soon arrive
at George Washington's dictum in his Farewell Address
, counseling his countrymen to "observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all." And Washington
might have somehow foreseen the poisonous relationships with Israel and the Saudis when he warned that " a passionate attachment
of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary
common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former
into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification."
George Washington or any of the other Founders would be appalled to see an America with 800 military bases overseas, allegedly
for self-defense. The transfer of wealth from taxpayers to the military industrial complex and related entities like Wall Street
has been catastrophic. The United States does not need to protect Israel and Saudi Arabia, two countries that are armed to the teeth
and well able to defend themselves. Nor does it have to be in Syria and Afghanistan. And
If the United States were to withdraw its military from the Middle East and the rest of Asia tomorrow, it would be to nearly everyone's
benefit. If the armed forces were to be subsequently reduced to a level sufficient to defend the United States it would put money
back in the pockets of Americans and end the continuous fearmongering through surfacing of "threats" by career militarists justifying
the bloated budgets.
... ... ...
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational
foundation that seeks a more interests [email protected]
.
but even small steps in the right direction could initiate a gradual process of turning the United States into a more normal
country in its relationships with the rest of the world rather than a universal predator and bully.
Cautious optimism may be better than none, but futile nonetheless. Bullying, dispossession, slavery and genocide constitute
the very bedrock, the essence and soul of the founding of our country.
To expect mutations -- no matter how slow or fast in a
trait that appears deeply embedded in our DNA is to be naive. Add to that the intractable stranglehold Zionists and organized
world Jewry has on our nuts and decision making. A more congruent convergence of histories and DNAs would be hard to come by among
other nations. Truth be told we simply know of no other kinder, gentler alternatives to perpetual war and destruction as the cornerstone
of our foreign policy. Normality? Not in my lifetime.
Your CNI and 'If Americans Knew' informed me about Rand Paul's courageous move. I plan to call his office today to give
him encouragement and call my Senators and Representative to urge them to support him (fat chance of that but I have to stick
it in their face).
Hey, how about a Rand Paul-Tulsi Gabbard fusion ticket in 2024, not a bad idea, IMHO.
Going back to the Administration you can see the slimy Zionist hands of Steven Miller on all of those foreign policy statements.
Trump is allowing this because he has to protect his flanks from Zionists, Christian or otherwise. He might be just giving Miller
just enough rope to jettison him (wishful thinking on my part). Or he doesn't care or is unaware of the texts, a possibility.
1. Because that defies human nature. See all of history if you disagree.
2. America doesn't have a policy because America is no longer a real nation. It's an empire filled with diverse groups of peoples
who all hate each other and want to use the power of the government for the benefit of their overseas co-ethnics.
The beginning of USA foreign policy for me is the 1820 or 1830 Monroe Declaration: south America is our backyard, keep out.
Few people know that at the time European countries considered war on the USA because of this beginning of world domination.
When I told this to a USA correspondent the reply was 'but this declaration still is taught here in glowing terms'.
What we saw then was the case until Obama, USA foreign policy was for internal political reasons.
As Hollings stated in 2004 'Bush promising AIPAC the war on Iraq, that is politics'.
No empire ever, as far as I know, ever was in the comfortable position to be able to let foreign policy to be decided (almost)
completely by internal politics.
This changed during the Obama reign, the two war standard had to be lowered to one and a half.
All of a sudden the USA had to develop a foreign policy, a policy that had to take into consideration the world outside the USA.
Not the whole USA understands this, the die hards of Deep State in the lead.
What a half war accomplishes we see, my opinion, in Syria, a half war does not bring victory on an enemy who wages a whole
war.
Assad is still there, Russia has airforce and naval bases in Syria.
Normally, as any history book explains, foreign policy of a country is decided on in secret by a few people.
British preparations for both WWI and WWII included detailed technical talks with both the USA and France, not even all cabinet
members knew about it.
One of Trump's difficulties is that Deep State does not at all has the intention of letting the president decide on foreign policy,
at the time of FDR he did what he liked, though, if one reads for example Baruch's memoirs, in close cooperation with the Deep
State that then existed.
The question 'why do we not leave the rest of the world alone', hardly ever asked.
The USA is nearly autarcic, foreign trade, from memory, some five percent of national income, a very luxurious position.
But of course, leaving the rest of the world alone, huge internal consequences, as Hinckley explains with an example, politically
impossible to stop the development of a bomber judged to be superfluous.
Barbara Hinckley Sheldon Goldman, American Politics and Government, Glenview Ill.,1990
Good luck. A fight over resources with the biggest consumer of resources, the People That Kill People and all their little buddies
in the Alphabet Soup of Law Enforcement and Intelligence Depravity..
That could get a fella hurt. Ask Jack and Bob Kennedy.
"The bilateral relationship between the U.S. and Russia is now worse than it was towards the end of the Cold War". Classic American
cold warrior mentality. The present-day Russian Federation is assimilated to the former Soviet Union.
Tragically for America, and the West in general, President Trump is unrecognizable from
candidate Trump :
'This is a crossroads in the history of our civilization that will determine whether or not we the people reclaim control over
our government. The political establishment that is trying to stop us is the same group responsible for our disastrous trade deals,
massive illegal immigration and economic and foreign policies that have bled our country dry Their financial resources are virtually
unlimited, their political resources are unlimited, their media resources are unmatched, and most importantly, the depths of their
immorality is absolutely unlimited.'
"... And that bloody word...'modernisation' (Moderni- z -ation - for the management speak geeks). Why is it every time I come across that word in meetings, it means some worker is either losing money or losing their job? ..."
"... the monetisation of everything and the use of language to make the neo-liberal nightmare through which we are living seem, not only the norm, but the only way. ..."
"... Social security becomes welfare and suddenly masses of society (the majority of benefit claimants being in work) are not drawing on an insurance policy but are in receipt of 'welfare' subject to the largesse and judgements of an ever more cruel and avaricious 'elite'. ..."
"... I'm a big fan of Steven Poole's Unspeak , which looks at the way in which terms and terminology have been engineered precisely to hollow out meaning and present an argument instead. A kind of Neoliberal Emperor's New Clothes, the problem is that, obviously, if your vocabulary and your meanings become circumscribed, it limits what can be said, and even how people think about what's being said. ..."
And that bloody word...'modernisation' (Moderni- z -ation - for the management
speak geeks). Why is it every time I come across that word in meetings, it means some worker
is either losing money or losing their job? Or some manager is about to award themselves
a bonus?
@gyges1 - No, she is surely railing against the monetisation of everything and the use of
language to make the neo-liberal nightmare through which we are living seem, not only the
norm, but the only way.
Social security becomes welfare and suddenly masses of society (the majority of benefit
claimants being in work) are not drawing on an insurance policy but are in receipt of
'welfare' subject to the largesse and judgements of an ever more cruel and avaricious
'elite'.
Language matters and its distortion is a political act.
But without these Exciting New Word Uprating Initiatives, we can never win The Global Race...
or something.
I'm a big fan of Steven Poole's
Unspeak , which looks at the way in which terms and terminology have been engineered
precisely to hollow out meaning and present an argument instead. A kind of Neoliberal
Emperor's New Clothes, the problem is that, obviously, if your vocabulary and your meanings
become circumscribed, it limits what can be said, and even how people think about what's
being said.
(By the way, the link's to Amazon, but, obviously, you may find you have a better
"Customer Experience" if you get from somewhere less tax-dodgy.)
"... I was, of course, referring to the families of the disappeared in Chile. They are, of course, relevant and should not be excluded from any arguments about neoliberalism and its effects. Nor should the families of the disappeared in Argentina, though it is less well known, the junta was entrusted with the introduction of neoliberal policies in Argentina. ..."
"... The Argentinian military coup, like those in Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and Nicaragua, was sponsored by the US to protect and further its interests during the Cold War. By the 1970s neoliberalism was very much part of the menu; paramilitary governments were actively encouraged to practice neoliberal politics; neoliberalism was at this stage, what communism was to the Soviet Union; the ideological wing of the Cold War. You may be familiar with Operation Condor? ..."
"... It has been pretty firmly established that the Allende regime was victim of US sponsored military coup and that said coup was sponsored to protect US interests. The Chicago boys then flew into Chile to use the nation as a laboratory for the more outlandish (at the time) neoliberal policies they were unable to practice at home. ..."
"... The political class, with the aid of their subservient corporate media quislings, have taken our language apart and used it against us. We have been backed into a corner, we are told, by both Labour and Tories, that there is no choice, either rabid profiteering or penury and we have, to our everlasting shame, lapped up every word of it. ..."
"... We have become so embedded in the language of individuals, choice, contracts and competition that we cannot see any alternative. Even Adam Smith understood the difference between "economy" and "society" when he argued that labor is directly connected to public interest while business is connected to self-interest. If business took over the public sphere, Smith argued, this would be quite destructive. ..."
@finnkn - Apologies. I was, of course, referring to the families of the disappeared in Chile. They are, of course, relevant
and should not be excluded from any arguments about neoliberalism and its effects. Nor should the families of the disappeared
in Argentina, though it is less well known, the junta was entrusted with the introduction of neoliberal policies in Argentina.
The Argentinian military coup, like those in Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia and Nicaragua, was sponsored
by the US to protect and further its interests during the Cold War. By the 1970s neoliberalism was very much part of the menu;
paramilitary governments were actively encouraged to practice neoliberal politics; neoliberalism was at this stage, what communism
was to the Soviet Union; the ideological wing of the Cold War. You may be familiar with Operation Condor?
To be clear: I am arguing that the direct effects of 'actually existing neoliberalism' are very far from benign. I do not argue
that the militarisation of Central and South America are the direct consequence neoliberal theory.
@finnkn - Well I think many would. It has been pretty firmly established that the Allende regime was victim of US sponsored
military coup and that said coup was sponsored to protect US interests. The Chicago boys then flew into Chile to use the nation
as a laboratory for the more outlandish (at the time) neoliberal policies they were unable to practice at home.
Neoliberalism was first practiced in authoritarian states; the states in which neoliberalism is most deeply embedded are (surprise,
surprise) increasingly authoritarian, and neoliberalism solutions are regularly imposed on client/vulnerable states by suprastructures
such as the IMF, the EU, and the World Bank. Friedrich Hayek and Adam Smith were very clear that the potential for degeneracy
existed. We have now reached that potential; increasingly centralised authority, states within states, the denuding of democratic
institutions and crony capitalism. Neoliberalism in practice is very different to neoliberalism in practice. Rather like 'really
existing socialism' and Marxism.
works best in authoritarian states because (in practice, if not in theory
As the statistics on that link show, there are certain countries (notably Russia and the Ukraine) where the +65 age group disapprove
of the change to democracy and capitalism. In the majority, however, people of all ages remain in favour.
For 'job' read 'bribe' (keep your mouth shut or lose it), for 'management' read 'take most of the interest out of the job
for everybody else and put them on a lower scale', etc. I guess you get my drift.
It's sad that you have such a negative, self-hating attitude towards your work.
Work is usually – and certainly should be – a central source of meaning and fulfilment in human lives. And it has – or could
have – moral and creative (or aesthetic) values at its core
Spoken like a true champagne socialist in a creative industry. How do you find meaning and fulfillment, or creative values, in
emptying bins, cleaning offices, sweeping the streets and a whole load of other work which needs doing but which is repetitive,
menial and not particularly pleasant?
There are two ways to get people to do work that needs doing but wouldn't be done voluntarily: coercion or payment. I think
the second is a more healthy way to run a society.
I've thought pretty much the same myself. Democracies can be good or bad (as the Greeks knew well)...but in our politic-speak
it is used to denounce and make good; as in "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East"...it is intended to make us feel
something good about Israel, as it humiliates the Palestinians and steals their land.
In ancient Greece....'tyrant' simply meant
'usurper' without any neccessary negative association....simply someone who had usurped political power...they recognized that
tyrannies could be good, bad or indifferent.
In Rome, dictator simply meant the cahp that took over fpr periods of six months at a time, during times of crisis.
I used to vacation in Yugoslavia in Marshall Tito's time....it was a wonderful place, beautiful, inexpensive and safe...very
very safe. What came into the power vacuum after he died in 1980...what happened to the country? I'd argue that his was a good
dictatorship or tyranny....
I'm also not too sure what the 90% of people unaffected by and uninterested in power politics in any given country feel about
the 'liberation' of Libya and Iraq from their prior dictatorships...I'm sure that plenty of people whose previously steady lives
have been wrecked, are all that thrilled.
I have recently been exercised by the right's adoption of "Social Justice". In the past it was the left and churches who talked
of social justice as a phenomenon to empower the poor and dispossessed, whether in this country or the developing world. Social
Justice was a touchstone of Faith in the City, for example, but it seems now to be the smoke screen behind which benefits are
stipped from the "undeserving poor".
Most of this crap comes from America. Crappy middle-management bureaucrats spouting "free-market" bollocks.
The efficiency of the private sector - some nob with a name badge timing how long you've been on the toilet.
Freedommm!!!!
It is not just neoliberalism. Everyone is at it - sucking the meaning out of words. Corporate bullshit, public sector bullshit.
Being customers of your own government is a crime that everyone is guilty of. This is what Orwell railed against decades ago,
and it has got worse.
Case in point; just look at the way in which the Cameron set about co-opting words and phrases justifiably applied to his own
regime and repurposed them against his detractors.
For example, people who took a stand against the stealth privatisation of the NHS were branded as "vested interests", quite
unlike the wholesome MPs who voted for the NHS bill who, despite the huge sums of money they received from the private healthcare
lobby, we are encouraged to believe were acting in our best interests by selling our health service to their corporate paymasters.
Or the farcical attempt to rebrand female Tory MPs as "feminists" despite their anti-social mobility, anti-equality, anti-human
rights and anti-abortion views.
The political class, with the aid of their subservient corporate media quislings, have taken our language apart and used
it against us. We have been backed into a corner, we are told, by both Labour and Tories, that there is no choice, either rabid
profiteering or penury and we have, to our everlasting shame, lapped up every word of it.
@Obelisk1 - You have single-handedly proven Massey's argument. We have become so embedded in the language of individuals,
choice, contracts and competition that we cannot see any alternative. Even Adam Smith understood the difference between "economy"
and "society" when he argued that labor is directly connected to public interest while business is connected to self-interest.
If business took over the public sphere, Smith argued, this would be quite destructive.
Our whole conversation seemed somehow reduced, my experience of it belittled into one of commercial transaction. My relation
to the gallery and to this engaging person had become one of instrumental market exchange.
But in the eyes of the economic right, that is precisely the case. Adjectives like altruistic, caring, selfless, empathy and
sympathy are simply not in their vocabulary. They are only ever any of those things provided they can see some sort of beneficial
payback at the end.
maxfisher -> Venebles 11 Jun 2013 06:20
@Venebles - I was simply joining many commentators in the mire. Those that dispute the neoliberal worldview are routinely dismissed
as marxists. I thought I'd save you all the energy, duck.
I'm not sure that the families of the disappeared of Chile and Argentina would concur with you benign view of neoliberalism
and its effects.
Update 4 : A UN Security Council meeting has been called for 11am
tomorrow after Ukraine incident with Russia, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said in a
tweet.
* * *
Update 3 : according to media reports, on Monday Ukraine's president will propose imposing
military law, amid the ongoing crisis with Russia.
* * *
Update 2: This is the moment when the escalating crisis started...
* * *
Update 1: Following reports from the Ukraine navy that Russian ships had fired on Ukraine
vessels near the Kerch Strait, Ukraine accused Moscow of also illegally seizing three of its
naval ships - the "Berdyansʹk" and "Nikopolʹ" Gurza-class small armored artillery
boats and a raid tug A-947 "Jani Kapu" - off Crimea on Sunday after opening fire on them, a
charge that if confirmed could ignite a dangerous new crisis between the two countries.
As reported earlier, Russia did not immediately respond to the allegation, but Russian news
agencies cited the FSB security service as saying it had incontrovertible proof that Ukraine
had orchestrated what it called "a provocation" and would make its evidence public soon.
According to media reports, Russia said it has "impounded" three Ukrainian naval ships after
they crossed the border with Russia
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko immediately called a meeting with his top
military and security chiefs to discuss the situation.
Separately, the EU has urged both sides to rapidly de-escalate the tense situation at the
Kerch strait:
*EU URGES UKRAINE, RUSSIA TO DE-ESCALATE SITUATION AT STRAIT
*UKRAINE, RUSSIA SHOULD ACT W/ `UTMOST RESTRAINT', EU SAYS
*EU URGES RUSSIA TO RESTORE FREEDOM OF PASSAGE AT KERCH STRAIT
NATO has confirmed it is "closely monitoring" developments and is calling for "restraint and
de-escalation"...
" NATO is closely monitoring developments in the Azov Sea and the Kerch Strait, and we are
in contact with the Ukrainian authorities. We call for restraint and de-escalation.
NATO fully supports Ukraine's sovereignty and its territorial integrity, including its
navigational rights in its territorial waters. We call on Russia to ensure unhindered access
to Ukrainian ports in the Azov Sea, in accordance with international law.
At the Brussels Summit in July, NATO leaders expressed their support to Ukraine, and made
clear that Russia's ongoing militarisation of Crimea, the Black Sea, and the Azov Sea pose
further threats to Ukraine's independence and undermines the stability of the broader region.
"
Finally, Ukraine has called for an urgent UN Security Council meeting over 'Russian
aggression' while Ukraine's secretary for national security, Oleksander Turchynov, accused
Russia of engaging in an act of war: "We heard reports on incident and have concluded that it
was an act of war by Russian Federation against Ukraine"
* * *
As we detailed earlier, the Ukrainian navy has accused Russia of opening fire on some of its
ships in the Black Sea, striking one vessel, and wounding a crew member.
In a statement on its Facebook page , the Ukrainian navy said the
Russian military vessels opened fire on Ukrainian warships after they had left the 12-mile zone
near the Kerch Strait, leaving one man wounded, and one Ukrainian vessel damaged and
immobilized, adding that Russian warships "shoot to kill."
Ukraine accused a Russian coastguard vessel, named the Don, of ramming one of its tugboats
in "openly aggressive actions". The incident allegedly took place as three Ukrainian navy boats
- including two small warships - headed for the port of Mariupol in the Sea of Azov, an area of
heightened tensions between the countries.
Russia accused Ukraine of illegally entering the area and deliberately provoking a
conflict.
Sky News reports that the Ukrainian president has called an emergency session of his war
cabinet in response to the incident.
"Today's dangerous events in the Azov Sea testify that a new front of [Russian] aggression
is open," Ukrainian foreign ministry spokeswoman Mariana Betsa said.
"Ukraine [is] calling now for emergency meeting of United Nations Security Council."
It comes after a day of rising tensions off the coast of Crimea, and especially around the
Kerch Strait, which separates Crimea from mainland Russia after Ukrainian vessels allegedly
violated the Russian border. The passage was blocked by a cargo ship and fighter jets were
scrambled.
According to RT , Russia has
stopped all navigation through the waterway using the cargo ship shown above. Videos from the
scene released by the Russian media show a large bulk freighter accompanied by two Russian
military boats standing under the arch of the Crimea Bridge and blocking the only passage
through the strait.
"The [Kerch] strait is closed for security reasons," the Director-General of the Crimean sea
ports, Aleksey Volkov, told TASS, confirming earlier media reports.
Russian Air Force Su-25 strike fighters were also scrambled to provide additional security
for the strait as the situation remains tense. The move came as five Ukrainian Navy ships had
been approaching the strait from two different sides.
According to RT, two Ukrainian artillery boats and a tugboat initially approached the strait
from the Black Sea while "undertaking dangerous maneuvers" and "defying the lawful orders of
the Russian border guards." Later, they were joined by two more military vessels that departed
from a Ukrainian Azov Sea port of Berdyansk sailing to the strait from the other side.
The Russian federal security agency FSB, which is responsible for maintaining the country's
borders, denounced the actions of the Ukrainian ships as a provocation, adding that they could
create a "conflict situation" in the region. According to the Russian media reports, the
Ukrainian vessels are still sailing towards the strait, ignoring the warnings of the Russian
border guards.
According to
Reuters , a bilateral treaty gives both countries the right to use the sea, which lies
between them and is linked by the narrow Kerch Strait to the Black Sea. Moscow is able to
control access between the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea after it built a bridge that straddles
the Kerch Strait between Crimea and southern Russia.
Reuters adds that tensions surfaced on Sunday after Russia tried to intercept three
Ukrainian ships -- two small armored artillery vessels and a tug boat -- in the Black Sea,
accusing them of illegally entering Russian territorial waters.
The Ukrainian navy said a Russian border guard vessel had rammed the tug boat, damaging it
in an incident it said showed Russia was behaving aggressively and illegally. It said its
vessels had every right to be where they were and that the ships had been en route from the
Black Sea port of Odessa to Mariupol, a journey that requires them to go through the Kerch
Strait.
Meanwhile, Russia's border guard service accused Ukraine of not informing it in advance of
the journey, something Kiev denied, and said the Ukrainian ships had been maneuvering
dangerously and ignoring its instructions with the aim of stirring up tensions.
It pledged to end to what it described as Ukraine's "provocative actions", while Russian
politicians lined up to denounce Kiev, saying the incident looked like a calculated attempt by
President Petro Poroshenko to increase his popularity ahead of an election next year. Ukraine's
foreign ministry said in a statement it wanted a clear response to the incident from the
international community.
"Russia's provocative actions in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov have crossed the line and
become aggressive," it said. "Russian ships have violated our freedom of maritime navigation
and unlawfully used force against Ukrainian naval ships."
Both countries have accused each other of harassing each other's shipping in Sea of Azov in
the past and the U.S. State Department in August said Russia's actions looked designed to
destabilize Ukraine, which has two major industrial ports there.
@ABasu - My comment was not in direct agreement with the article, it was a critique of the
first comment above.
I won't even begin with the welfare debate in which you somehow think that 'welfare' and
its relatively recent introduction is somehow anti neo-liberal because that is nothing other
than newspeak...
The point I was making (with perhaps a less than perfect example) is that language is
political and therefore it matters greatly what we call things.
Quite. Language is the first victim of any hegemonic project. Examples abound in communism,
fascism and neoliberalism. There's nothing to argue with in this article yet, unsurprisingly,
the usual swivel-eyed brigade seem to have popped up. Perhaps your discussion of work strays
a little too close to philosophy for the unthinking. I don't know why I'm disheartened by
some of the responses, as the same voices appear btl in almost ever CIF article, but I am
somehow. Perhaps because the point of the article - the hijacking of language - is so
obviously true as to be uncontroversial to any but the ideologically purblind, yet still....
@thesingingdetective - what is an insurance policy other than a financial product where in
return for payments over a period of time a claim can be made in certain circumstances?
If anything, particularly given that the link between contributions and claims is now
nugatory, describing welfare as welfare is much more honest and much less "neoliberal". It is
a set of payments and entitlements society has agreed upon to ensure a level of welfare for
all rather than an insurance policy which each individual may claim against if they've kept
up their payments.
If an anti-neo-liberal, supportive of the article can get this so back to front, perhaps
the "debate" being posited is an empty one about language.
If you changed a few words from the Communist Manifesto, it could easily be about
neo-liberalism and leftist attitudes towards it.
"A spectre is haunting Europe; the spectre of neo-liberalism. All the leftists of old
Europe have entered into a Holy Alliance to exorcise this spectre; Toynbee and Loach;
Redgrave and Harris.
Where is the party in power that has not been decried as neo-liberalistic by its leftist
opponents on the sidelines?"
Take FE as a case study on how the coin counters have taken over the world.
Back in the dark ages of the 1980s, the maths department had 7 lecturers (2 part time) and
two people to look after the admin - there was also the Department Head (who was a lecturer)
and a Head of School. They had targets, loosely defined, but it was a rare year when there
wasn't a smattering of A grades at A level...
Then along came the coin counters, the target setters, with their management degrees and
swivel eyed certainty that 'greed is good... competition! competition! competition!' and with
them came the new professionals into the department... the 'Quality Manager'... the
'Curriculum Manager' the 'Exams Manager' the 'Deputy Exams Manager'... and the paperwork
increased to feed the beast that counts everything but knows nothing... and targets were
set.... 'Targets! Targets! Targets!... and we were all sent in search of excellence... 'teach
to the exam' 'We must meet our targets'... 'we won't use exam board 'A' because they're
tough' and the exam boards reacted to their own target culture by all simplifying. The
universities began to notice the standard of 'A' grade students (who increased) was
equivelant to a C grade of 5 years ago. However, targets were being met (on paper) quality
was maintained (on paper) we were improving year on year (on paper). However, what was going
on in the real world is that our students were being sold a pup - their level of competence
and of knowledge was very much inferior to their same grade fore bearers of just 5 years
previous
Eventually, the department became 1 full time lecturer and 4 on 'zero hour contracts' and
the Head of School became 'Chief Executive' the 'Head of Department' became 'Department
Manager' and a gap developed between those who taught and those who 'managed'... not just a
culture gap... a bloody big pay gap...
Who benefited from all this marketisation?
Not the lecturers... not the students... not the universities... not industry...not the
economy...
Who benefited? Work it out for yourselves (as I used to tell my students)
@roachclip - I am familiar with the numerous wiki sites including Wikipedia, thank you very
much. If you read the article yourself you would see it supports my point of view here.
There are loads of other examples of rarely scrutinised terms in our economic
vocabulary, for instance that bundle of terms clustered around investment and expenditure
– terms that carry with them implicit moral connotations. Investment implies an
action, even a sacrifice, undertaken for a better future. It evokes a future positive
outcome. Expenditure, on the other hand, seems merely an outgoing, a cost, a burden.
This is absolute nonsense...the terms "investment" and "expenditure" carry no moral
connotations that I can determine. Does the author accept that we need to have terms to
express each of these concepts? Perhaps she would like to come up with some alternative
suggestions for the notions of "contributing money" and "spending money"?
Seconded, its uses and abuses of the English Language second only that of the Church. A
fitting comparison in my book because they both have much in common. Both are well aware that
it is through language and the control of which that true cultural change is achieved.
Both know that this new language must be propagated as far and as wide as possible, with
saturation coverage. Control of information is a a must, people must see and they must know
only things of your choosing.
For example, back in the 4th Century AD (which is incidentally an abbreviation of the Latin
'Anno Domini', which means 'in the year of our Lord'), the church became centralised and
established under the patronage of the Roman Emperor Constantine. Part of this centralising
mission was the creation of a uniform belief system. Those that 'chose' to believe something
else were branded 'heretics'. The word 'heresy' coming from the Greek
'αἵρεσις' for 'choice'. Thus to choose to have your
own opinions was therefore deemed to be a bad thing.
As a quick aside, 'Pagan' comes from the Latin 'paganus' which means 'rural dweller'. I.e.
those beyond the remit of the urban Christian elites. 'Heathen' on the other hand is Old
English (hæðen). It simply means 'not Christian or Jewish.
When you have complete control over the flow of information, as the Church did by the 5th
Century, then you can write practically anything. This doesn't mean just writing good things
about yourself and bad things about your enemies. Rather it means that you can frame the
debate anyway you wish.
In modern times, I would argue that you can see similar things happen here. As the author
suggests, terms like 'Wealth Creator', 'Scrounger', 'Sponger', 'living on welfare', 'Growth',
'progress' and my personal favourite, 'reform', take on a whole new meaning.
Their definition of the word 'reform' and what we would see it to mean are two totally
different things, Yet since it is they that has access to the wider world and not us, then it
is their definition that gets heard. The same could be said for all the other words and their
latter day connotations.
Thus when you hear the news and you hear what passes for debate, you hear things on their
terms. Using their language with their meanings. A very sad state of affairs indeed.
Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of political economic practices that
proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial
freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private
property rights, free markets, and free trade.
You'll notice I've highlighted the word freedoms. Freedom is a word they hijacked right
from the start of the process and how they hijacked the Republican party in the USA.
For any way of thought to become dominant, a conceptual apparatus has to be advanced that
appeals to our intuitions and instincts, to our values and our desires, as well as to the
possibilities inherent in the social world we inhabit. If successful, this conceptual
apparatus becomes so embedded in common sense as to be taken for granted and not open to
question. The founding figures of neoliberal thought took political ideals of human
dignity and individual freedom as fundamental.
Concepts of dignity and individual freedom are powerful and appealing in their own right.
Such ideals empowered the dissident movements in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union before
the end of the Cold War as well as the students in Tiananmen Square. The student movements
that swept the world in 1968––from Paris and Chicago to Bangkok and Mexico
City––were in part animated by the quest for greater freedoms of speech and of
personal choice.
More generally, these ideals appeal to anyone who values the ability to make decisions for
themselves.
The idea of freedom, long embedded in the US tradition, has played a conspicuous role in
the US in recent years. '9/11' was immediately interpreted by many as an attack on it. 'A
peaceful world of growing freedom', wrote President Bush on the first anniversary of
that awful day, 'serves American long-term interests, reflects enduring American ideals
and unites America's allies.' 'Humanity', he concluded, 'holds in its hands the opportunity
to
offer freedom's triumph over all its age-old foes', and 'the United States welcomes its
responsibilities to lead in this great mission'. This language was incorporated into the US
National Defense Strategy document issued shortly thereafter. 'Freedom is the Almighty's gift
to every man and woman in this world', he later said, adding that 'as the greatest power on
earth we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom'.
When all of the other reasons for engaging in a pre-emptive war against Iraq were proven
wanting, the president appealed to the idea that the freedom conferred on Iraq was in and of
itself an adequate justification for the war. The Iraqis were free, and that was all
that really mattered. But what sort of 'freedom' is envisaged here, since, as the cultural
critic Matthew Arnold long ago thoughtfully observed, 'freedom is a very good horse to ride,
but to
ride somewhere'.To what destination, then, are the Iraqi people expected to ride the horse of
freedom donated to them by force of arms?
As Hayek quoted....
Planning and control are being attacked as a denial of freedom. Free
enterprise and private ownership are declared to be essentials of freedom.
No society built on other foundations is said to deserve to be called free.
The freedom that regulation creates is denounced as unfreedom; the justice, liberty and
welfare it offers are decried as a camouflage of slavery.
The Neoliberal idea of freedom 'thus degenerates into a mere advocacy of free
enterprise. It helps explain why neoliberalism has turned so authoritarian, forceful, and
anti-democratic at the very moment when 'humanity holds in its hands the opportunity to
offer freedom's triumph over all its age-old foes'. It makes us focus on how so many
corporations have profiteered from withholding the benefits of their
technologies, famine, and environmental disaster. It raises the worry as to whether or not
many of these calamities or
near calamities (arms races and the need to confront both real and
imagined enemies) have been secretly engineered for corporate advantage.
Political slogans can be invoked that mask specific strategies beneath vague
rhetorical devices. The word 'freedom' resonates so widely within the common-sense
understanding of Americans that it becomes 'a button that elites can press to open the door
to the masses' to justify almost anything.
Appeals to traditions and cultural values bulked large in all of this. An open project
around the restoration of economic power to a small elite would probably not gain much
popular support. But a programmatic attempt to advance the cause of individual freedoms could
appeal to a mass base and so disguise the drive to restore class power.
Fascinating article, thanks for publishing. It goes some way to explaining, not only the
tenacity of neo-liberalism, but also its ability to consolidate its power, even at the moment
when it seemed weakest. Its ability to rearticulate language and to present as natural law
what is socially constructed, shows the depth of its hold on society, economics, politics,
culture and even science.
There is a neat cross-over here between neo-liberal discourses and the use of language by
the military. Not only does this extend to the general diffusion of certain key phrases, but
I think it also runs deeper. Just as the elision of meaning in the language of war
facilitates the perpetuation of abuses and war crimes, so the neo-lib discourse permits the
perpetuation of questionable economic activity, even as this presents itself in the
unquestionable guise of "common sense".
@gyges1 - The idea of language is very important in the production of a way of thinking which
closes down other alternatives and futures. One which leaves neoliberal globalisation as 'the
only game in town'.
I worry that the very term 'neoliberalism' is one not used by the political classes and
much of the media, I don't think I've ever heard the world 'neoliberalism' used on the
BBC.
This unwillingness to even call a spade a spade has political consequences . For
example, I had an online discussion with someone over Thatchers death a little while ago. He
called me 'comrade' and then questioned the very existence of the term Neo-liberalism. At the
time I thought this was a bit of a cheap shot, but if you can quite cheerfully label someone
a 'socialist' and then refuse to accept that neo-liberalism exists, you are well on your way
to making people believe that the current set of social relations are indeed completely
normal and that there are few, if any, alternative ways of rewiring the world which can
create a better world.
Fascinating article, thanks for publishing. It goes some way to explaining, not only the
tenacity of neo-liberalism, but also its ability to consolidate its power, even at the moment
when it seemed weakest. Its ability to rearticulate language and to present as natural law
what is socially constructed, shows the depth of its hold on society, economics, politics,
culture and even science.
There is a neat cross-over here between neo-liberal discourses and the use of language by
the military. Not only does this extend to the general diffusion of certain key phrases, but
I think it also runs deeper. Just as the elision of meaning in the language of war
facilitates the perpetuation of abuses and war crimes, so the neo-lib discourse permits the
perpetuation of questionable economic activity, even as this presents itself in the
unquestionable guise of "common sense".
The Russian world is caught up in a drama. Its leading Orthodox Church faces a schism over the Ukraine's drive for its own independent
church. If Kiev regime succeeds, the split between Russia proper and its breakaway Western part, the Ukraine, will widen. The Russian
Church will suffer a great loss, comparable to the emergence of the Anglican church for the Catholics. However, there is a chance
for the Russians to gain a lot from the split, to gain more than to lose.
The Ukraine actually has its own church, and this church is the self-ruling autonomous Ukrainian Orthodox Church, a part of the
Russian Orthodox Church. Its autonomy is very broad; it can be considered independent practically in every aspect excepting its nominal
recognition of Moscow supremacy. The Ukrainian Church does not pay tribute to Moscow, it elects its own bishops; it has no reason
to push for more. No tangible reason, at least.
But in the Ukraine, there was and is a strong separatist tendency, with a somewhat romantic and nationalist tinge, comparable
to Scots or Languedoc separatism. Its beginning could be traced to 18th Century, when a Moscow-appointed ruler Hetman Mazeppa rose
against Russia's Peter the Great and allied himself with the Swedish warrior-king Charles XII. A hundred years after the revolt,
the foremost Russian poet, Alexander Pushkin, composed a beautiful romantic poem Poltava (following
Byron's Mazeppa ) where he gives Mazeppa the following words:
For far too long we've bowed our heads, Without respect or liberty, Beneath the yoke of Warsaw's patronage, Beneath the yoke of Moscow's despotism. But now is Ukraine's chance to grow Into an independent power. (trans. by Ivan Eubanks)
This romantic dream of an independent Ukraine became real after the 1917 Revolution, under the German occupation at the conclusion
of World War One. Within a year or two, as the defeated Germans withdrew, the independent Ukraine became Soviet and joined Soviet
Russia in the Soviet Union of equal Republics. Even within the Union, the Ukraine was independent and it had its own UN seat. When
Russian President Yeltsin dissolved the Union, Ukraine became fully independent again.
In the 1991 divorce with rump Russia (after hundreds of years of integration), the Ukraine took with her a major portion of the
former Union's physical and human assets. The spacious country with its hard-working people, fertile black soil, the cream of Soviet
industry producing aircraft, missiles, trains and tractors, with the best and largest army within the Warsaw Treaty, with its universities,
good roads, proximity to Europe, expensive infrastructure connecting East and West, the Ukraine had a much better chances for success
than rump Russia.
But it didn't turn out this way, for reasons we shall discuss elsewhere. A failed state if there ever was one, the Ukraine was
quickly deserted by its most-valuable people, who ran away in droves to Russia or Poland; its industries were dismantled and sold
for the price of scrap metal. The only compensation the state provides is even more nationalism, even more declarations of its independence.
This quest for full independence has been even less successful than economic or military measures. The Kiev regime could dispense
with Moscow, but it became subservient to the West. Its finances are overseen by the IMF, its army by NATO, its foreign policy by
the US State Department. Real independence was an elusive goal, beyond the Ukraine's reach.
A total break of the Ukrainian church with the nominal supremacy of Moscow appealed to President Petro Poroshenko as a convincing
substitute for real independence, especially with a view toward the forthcoming elections. He turned to the patriarch of Constantinople,
His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew asking him to grant his church its full independence (called autocephaly
in ecclesiastical language).
Fine, but what is 'his church'? The vast majority of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians and their bishops are content with their status
within the Russian Church. They have their own head, His Beatitude Metropolitan Onuphrius, who is also content with his position.
They do not see any need for autocephaly. However, the Ukraine has two small splinter orthodox churches, one led by the ambitious
bishop Filaret and another by Macarius; both are very nationalist and anti-Russian, both support the regime and claim for autonomy,
both are considered illegitimate by the rest of the Orthodox world. These two small churches are potential embryos of a future Ukrainian
Church of President Poroshenko.
Now we shall turn to Bartholomew. His title describes him as the patriarch of Constantinople, but in vain you will seek this city
on a map. Constantinople, the Christian capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, the greatest city of his time, the seat of Roman emperors,
was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 and became Islamic Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire and of the last Muslim
Caliphate; since 1920 it has been a city in the Republic of Turkey. The Constantinople Patriarchate is a phantom fossil of a great
past; it has a few churches, a monastery and a few ambitious monks located in Phanar, an old Greek quarter of Istanbul.
The Turkish government considers Bartholomew a bishop of the local Greeks, denying his 6 th -century title of Ecumenical
Patriarch. There are only three thousand Greeks in the city, so Bartholomew has very small foothold there indeed. His patriarchate
is a phantom in the world of phantoms, such as the Knights of Maltese and Temple Orders, Kings of Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia, emperors
of Brazil and of the Holy Roman Empire Phantom is not a swear word. Phantoms are loved by romantics enamoured by old rituals and
uniforms with golden aiguillettes. These honourable gentlemen represent nobody, they have no authority, but they can and do issue
impressive-looking certificates.
ORDER IT NOW
The Orthodox Church differs from its Roman Catholic sister by having no central figure like the Pope of Rome. The Orthodox have
a few equal-ranking heads of national churches, called Patriarchs or Popes. The Patriarch of Constantinople is one of these fourteen
church leaders, though he has more than his share of respect by virtue of tradition. Now the Phantom of Phanar seeks to make his
position much more powerful, akin to that of the Pope of Rome for the Western Church. His organization
claims that "The Ecumenical Patriarchate has the
responsibility of being the Church of final appeal in Orthodoxy, and it is the only Church that may establish autocephalous and autonomous
Churches". These claims are rejected by the Russian Church, by far the biggest Orthodox Church in the world.
As the Ukrainian church is a part of the Russian Church, it could seek its full independence (autocephaly) in Moscow, but it has
no such wish. The two small splinter churches turned to Phanar, and the Phanar leader was more than happy to get into the game. He
had sent two of his bishops to Kiev and started with establishing a united Ukrainian church. This church wouldn't be independent,
or autocephalous; it would be a church under the direct rule of Phanar, an autonomous or the stavropegial church. For Ukrainian
nationalists, it would be a sad reminder that they have the choice to go with Moscow or with Istanbul, now as their ancestors had
four hundred years ago. Full independence is not on the cards.
For the Phanar, it was not a first foray into Russian territory: Bartholomew also used the anti-Russian sentiments of Tallinn
and took a part of the Estonian churches and their faithful under his rule. However, then the Russians took it easy, for two reasons.
Estonia is small, there are not too many churches nor congregants; and besides, the Phanar had taken some positions in Estonia between
the wars, when Soviet Russia did not care much about the Church. The Ukraine is absolutely different. It is very big, it is the heart
of Russian church, and Constantinople has no valid claim on it.
The Russians say that President Poroshenko bribed Bartholomew. This is nonsense of very low grade; even if the Patriarch is not
averse to accepting gifts. Bartholomew had a very valid reason to accept Poroshenko's offer. If he would realize his plan and establish
a church of Ukraine under his own rule, call it autonomous or stavropegial or even autocephalous, he would cease being a phantom
and would become a very real church leader with millions of faithful. The Ukraine is second only to Russia in the Orthodox world,
and its coming under Constantinople would allow Bartholomew to become the most-powerful Orthodox leader.
The Russians are to blame themselves for much of their difficulties. They were too eager to accept the Phanar Phantom for the
real thing in their insistent drive for external approval and recognition. They could have forgotten about him three hundred years
ago instead of seeking his confirmation now and then. It is dangerous to submit to the weak; perhaps it is more risky than to submit
to the strong.
This reminds me of a rather forgotten novel by H. G. Wells
The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth . It is a story of a wondrous nourishment that allows children to grow into
forty-foot-high giants. Society mistreats the young titans. In a particularly powerful episode, a mean old hag scolds the tall kids
– thrice her size, and they timidly accept her silly orders. In the end, the giants succeed in standing their ground, throw off the
yoke and walk tall. Wells writes about "young giants, huge and beautiful, glittering in their mail, amidst the preparations for the
morrow. The sight of them lifted his heart. They were so easily powerful! They were so tall and gracious! They were so steadfast
in their movements!"
Russia is a young giant that tries to observe the pygmy-established rules. International organisation called PACE (The Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe) where Russia is harshly mistreated and is not even allowed to defend itself, is a good example.
International courts where Russia has little chance to stand its ground is another one. President Trump has taken the US out of a
few international organisations, though the US has huge weight in international affairs and all states pay heed to the US position.
Russia's voice is not even heard, and only now the Russians begin to ponder the advantages of Ruxit.
The church rules are equally biased as they place the biggest Orthodox state with millions of faithful Christians on the same
footing as Oriental phantoms.
In the days of the Ottoman Empire, the Patriarch of Constantinople had real weight. The Sultan defended his position, his decisions
had legal implications for the Orthodox subjects of the Empire. He caused many troubles for the Russian Church, but the Russians
had to observe his decrees as he was an imperial official. After Ataturk's revolution, the Patriarch lost his status, but the Russian
church, this young giant, continued to revere him and support him. After 1991, when Russia had turned to its once-neglected church,
the Russian Church multiplied its generosity towards Phanar and turned to him for guidance, for the Moscow Church had been confused
and unprepared for its new position. Being in doubt, it turned to tradition. We can compare this to the English "rotten boroughs"
of Dickens novels, towns that had traditionally sent their representatives to the Parliament though they scarcely had any dwellers.
In this search for tradition, the Russian church united with the Russian Church abroad, the émigré structure with its checkered
history that included support for Hitler. Its main contribution was fierce anti-Communism and rejection of the Soviet period of the
Russian past. However it could be justified by the Russians' desire to heal the White vs. Red split and restore the émigrés to the
Russian people. While honouring the Phanar Phantom as the honorary head of the Orthodox world had no justification at all.
The Phanar had US State Department backing to consider. US diplomacy has had a good hand in dealings with phantoms: for many years
Washington supported phantom governments-in-exile of the Baltic states, and this support was paid back a hundredfold in 1991. Now,
the US support for Phanar has paid back well in this renewed attack on Russia.
ORDER IT NOW
The Patriarch of Phanar, perhaps, underestimated possible Russian response to his Ukrainian meddling. He got used to Russian good
treatment; he remembered that the Russians meekly accepted his takeover of the Estonian church. Being encouraged by the US and driven
by his own ambitions, he made the radical step of voiding Constantinople's agreement of transfer of Kiev Metropolitan seat to Moscow,
had sent his bishops and took over the Ukraine to himself.
The Moscow Church anathemised Bartholomew, and forbade its priests to participate in service with Phanar priests and (!!!) with
priests that accept Phanar priests. While ending communion with Phanar is no pain at all, the secondary step – of ending communion
with the churches that refuse to excommunicate Phanar – is a very radical one. Other Orthodox churches are unhappy about Phanar moves.
They are aware that Phanar's new rules may threaten them, too. They are not keen to establish a Pope above themselves. But I doubt
they are ready to excommunicate Phanar.
The Russian church can take a less radical and more profitable way. The Orthodox world's unity is based on two separate principles.
One, the Eucharist. All Orthodox churches are united in the communion. Their priests can serve together and accept communion in any
recognised church. Two, the principle of canonical territory
. No church should appoint bishops on the other church's territory.
Phanar transgressed against the territorial principle. In response, the Russian Church excommunicated him. But Phanar refused
to excommunicate the Russians. As the result, the Russians are forbidden by their own church to accept communion if excommunicated
priests participate in the service. But the priests of the Church of Jerusalem do not ban anybody, neither Russians, no Phanariots.
As it happened with Russian counter-sanctions, they cause harm and pain mainly to Russians themselves. There are few Orthodox
pilgrims visiting Russia, while there are many Russian pilgrims visiting the Holy Land, Mount Athos and other important sites of
Greece, Turkey and Palestine, first of all Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Now these pilgrims won't be able to receive the holy communion
in the Holy Sepulchre and in the Nativity Cathedral, while Russian priests won't be able to celebrate mass in these churches.
The Russian priests will probably suffer and submit, while the lay pilgrims will probably break the prohibition and accept the
Eucharist in the Church of Jerusalem.
It would be better if the Russian church were to deal with Phanar's treachery on the reciprocity basis. Phanar does not excommunicate
Russians, and Russians may go back to full communion with Phanar. Phanar broke the territorial principle, and the Russians may disregard
territorial principle. Since the 20th century, canonical territory has increasingly become a violated principle of canon law, says
OrthodoxWiki . Facing such major transgression, the Russians
may completely drop the territorial principle and send their bishops to Constantinople and Jerusalem, to Rome and Washington, while
keeping all Orthodox churches in full communion.
The Russian church will be able to spread the Orthodox faith all over the world, among the French in France, among the Italians
in Italy, among Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. The Russian church dos not allow women into priesthood, does not allow gay unions,
does not consider the Jews its elder brothers, does not tolerate homosexual priests and allows its priests to marry. Perhaps it has
a good chance to compete with other churches for the flock and clergy.
Thus Moscow Church will be free of tenets it voluntarily accepted. Regarding communion, the Russian church can retain communion
with Phanar and Jerusalem and with other Orthodox churches, even with splinter churches on reciprocity basis. Moreover, the Russian
Church may allow communion with Catholics. At present, Catholics allow Russians to receive communion, but the Russian Church do not
allow their flock to accept Catholic communion and does not allow Catholics to receive communion in Russian churches. With all the
differences between the churches, we the Christians can share communion, flesh and blood of our Saviour, and this all we need.
All this is extremely relevant for the Holy Land. The Patriarch of Jerusalem, His Beatitude Theophilos does not want to quarrel
with Constantinople nor with Moscow. He won't excommunicate the priests of Phanar despite Moscow's requests, and I think he is right.
Ban on communion in the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem or in the Nativity of Bethlehem would become a heavy unnecessary and self-inflicted
punishment for Russian pilgrims. That is why it makes sense to retain joint communion, while voiding the territorial principle.
Russian church may nominate its bishops in Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth to attract the flock presently neglected by the traditional
Patriarchate of Jerusalem. I mean the Palestinian Christians and Israeli Christians, hundreds of thousands of them.
The Church of Jerusalem is, and had been ruled by ethnic Greeks since the city was conquered by the Ottomans in 16th century.
The Turks removed local Arab Orthodox clerics and appointed their loyal Greeks. Centuries passed by, the Turks are gone, the Greeks
are loyal only to themselves, and they do not care much about the natives. They do not allow Christian Palestinian monks to join
monasteries, they bar them from holding bishop cathedra and do not let them into the council of the church (called Synod). This flagrant
discrimination annoys Palestinian Christians; many of them turned to the Catholic, or even Protestant churches. The flock is angry
and ready to rise in revolt against the Greeks, like the Syrian Orthodox did in 1898, when they expelled the Greek bishops and elected
an Arab Patriarch of Antioch – with Russian support. (Until that time the Patriarch of Antioch had been elected in Istanbul by Phanar
monks exclusively from the "Greeks by race", as they
said in those days, and as is
the custom of the See of Jerusalem now).
Last Christmas, the Patriarch of Jerusalem had been blocked from entering the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem by angry local Christians,
and only Israeli army allowed him to get in. If the Russian Church will establish its bishops in the Holy Land, or even appoint her
own Patriarch of Rum (traditional name of the Church) many churches of the Holy Land will accept him, and many faithful will find
the church that they can relate to. For the Greek leadership of the Jerusalem church is interested in pilgrimage churches only; they
care for pilgrims from Greece and for Greeks in the Holy Land.
ORDER IT NOW
There are many Russian Orthodox in Israel; the Greeks of the Church do not attend to their needs. Since 1948, not a single new
church had been built by the Orthodox in Israel. Big cities with many Christians – Beer Sheba, Afula, touristy Eilat – have no churches
at all. For sure, we can partly blame Israeli authorities and their hatred of Christianity. However, the Church of Jerusalem is not
trying hard enough to erect new churches.
There is a million of immigrants from Russia in Israel. Some of them were Christians, some want to enter the church, being disappointed
by brutal and hostile Judaism. They had some romantic image of the Jewish faith, being brought up in atheist USSR, but the reality
was not even similar. Not only them; Israelis of every origin are unhappy with Judaism that exists now in Israel. They are ready
for Christ. A new church of the Holy Land established by Russians can bring Israelis, Jews and non-Jews, native Palestinians and
immigrants to Christ.
Thus Phanar's rejection of territorialism can be used for the greater glory of the Church. Yes, the Russian church will change
its character and assume some of global, ecumenical function. This is big challenge; I do not know whether the Russians are ready
for it, whether the Patriarch of Moscow Kyril is daring enough for it.
His Church is rather timid; the bishops do not express their views in public. However, a Moscow priest Fr Vsevolod Chaplin, who
was close to the Patriarch until recently, publicly called for full reformatting of the Orthodox Christianity, for getting rid of
rotten boroughs and phantoms, for establishing sturdy connection between laity and Patriarchate. Without great push by the incautious
Patriarch Bartholomew, these ideas could gestate for years; now they can come forth and change the face of the faith.
Constantinople, the Christian capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, the greatest city of his time, the seat of Roman emperors,
was conquered by the Ottoman Turks in 145 2
According to Wiki:
The Fall of Constantinople was the capture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire by an invading Ottoman army on 29 May
145 3 .
@geokat62 First, using Wikipedia as a
reference source is rather déclassé. You are right, however–Wikipedia is right, however–Constantinople did fall in 1493 and Mr.
Shamir was wrong. However, as the title of The Cambridge History of the Byzantine Empire c.500-1492 (sic) tells, the empire
was gone in 1492. We all make mistakes and a few months' difference in events that happened over 500 years ago seems of little
significance. That you needed to bring it to our attention has far more significance to me.
Well now we have the second installment of the Great Orthodox Schism Controversy
I must say that Shamir does spin a rather lively story here rather more gripping than Saker's sombre monograph of a few weeks
ago
One is tantalized by images of dancing Israelis who are 'ready for Christ' and French and Italians converting en masse to Orthodoxy
[what with all the advantages outlined here by Shamir, I must admit it does sound rather attractive, for anyone thinking of 'trading
in' so to speak...]
A possible 'takeover' of the Patriarchate of Rum [will they add Coke...?] the possibilities are endless
'A new church of the Holy Land established by Russians can bring Israelis, Jews and non-Jews, native Palestinians and immigrants
to Christ.'
I usually like Shamir's writings but this article clearly shows up his shortcomings on this particular subject. He treats the
whole affair as if it is a business deal and then tallies up the pluses and the minuses for the Russian Orthodox church. He forgets
that the Russian church was massively persecuted and that for them doing the correct thing in God's site is the only thing.
The spacious country with its hard-working people, fertile black soil, the cream of Soviet industry producing aircraft,
missiles, trains and tractors, with the best and largest army within the Warsaw Treaty, with its universities, good roads,
proximity to Europe, expensive infrastructure connecting East and West, the Ukraine had a much better chances for success than
rump Russia.
Soviet-era industries couldn't compete in the modern capitalist economy, and were destined to die. Post-communist Ukraine had
no capable class of entrepreneurs, its univercities couldn't meet the demands of the market economy, Ukrainian workers lacked
marketable skills. It was a recipe for failure. Russia had all the same problems of course, but it also retained its vast reserves
of oil and gas
" The Russian Church will suffer a great loss, comparable to the emergence of the Anglican church for the Catholics. "
The loss of the catholic church because of the Anglican church indeed was horrible, financially.
Not just catholic priests in England suffered, archbishops on the continent, of British sees, who had never been in England, suffered
enormously.
While I respect and generally enjoy Shamir's intellect and writing skills, in this topic he is completely out of his depth. He
recommends actions which would totally destroy Christ's Church on earth, deforming it into a mere worldly contestant for the praise
of men.
The one true Church is not an episode in political gamesmanship–regardless how heretical bishops may behave from time to time–but
Shamir only relates to it in terms of what behaviors would yield the greatest worldly satisfaction in political power. This is
the fatal road the Roman church went down (labeled with the year 1054) when their mere bishop decided he needs to be the Pope
of the entire world and so broke communion and excommunicated the rest of the Church (which remained Orthodox). The papacy then
went on to a successful pursuit of worldly power through the sword that continues to this day. Restore communion with the Roman
pope??? Is Shamir crazy??? Each pope puts himself in the place of Christ (antichrist), and true Orthodox will never have Eucharist
with that.
Russia's mistake and the mistake of the rest of Orthodoxy is to have gone along with Constantinople (out of brotherly love
and respect for Tradition) for the past 100 years of her micro-heresies. The First and Most Egregious action by Constantinople
was to exploit the bloody Soviet persecution of the Church in Russia to declare that the rest of the Orthodox world must switch
from the Church calendar to the secular, civil calendar devised by the Latins. This was the kickoff of a chain of heretical actions
which are continuing throughout the world, to the extent that now so-called churches contemplate legitimizing women priests, sodomy,
pedophilia, and turning the Eucharist into a cafeteria.
The USA is 100% actively behind the actions in Ukraine and the Phanar. In fact no one can be enthroned in Constantinople without
the sponsorship of the CIA. So this arch-heretic Bartholomew of the Phanar "elevates" an excommunicated prideful heretic, Philaret,
to be the "head" a new "orthodox church in Ukraine." This is the empire seeking to destroy the strength of Russia, which is Orthodoxy.
The Evil wants to turn Orthodoxy into a beautiful whitewashed tomb: resplendent cathedrals, sumptuous robes, exalted chanting,
artful icons, politically correct bishops. But inside it will be full of dead men's bones.
" The Russian Church will suffer a great loss, comparable to the emergence of the Anglican church for the Catholics. "
The loss of the catholic church because of the Anglican church indeed was horrible, financially.
Not just catholic priests in England suffered, archbishops on the continent, of British sees, who had never been in England, suffered
enormously.
While I respect and generally enjoy Shamir's intellect and writing skills, in this topic he is completely out of his depth. He
recommends actions which would totally destroy Christ's Church on earth, deforming it into a mere worldly contestant for the praise
of men.
The one true Church is not an episode in political gamesmanship -- regardless how heretical bishops may behave from time to time–but
Shamir only relates to it in terms of what behaviors would yield the greatest worldly satisfaction in political power. This is
the fatal road the Roman church went down (labeled with the year 1054) when their mere bishop decided he needs to be the Pope
of the entire world and so broke communion and excommunicated the rest of the Church (which remained Orthodox).
The papacy then
went on to a successful pursuit of worldly power through the sword that continues to this day. Restore communion with the Roman
pope??? Is Shamir crazy??? Each pope puts himself in the place of Christ (antichrist), and true Orthodox will never have Eucharist
with that.
Russia's mistake and the mistake of the rest of Orthodoxy is to have gone along with Constantinople (out of brotherly love
and respect for Tradition) for the past 100 years of her micro-heresies. The First and Most Egregious action by Constantinople
was to exploit the bloody Soviet persecution of the Church in Russia to declare that the rest of the Orthodox world must switch
from the Church calendar to the secular, civil calendar devised by the Latins. This was the kickoff of a chain of heretical actions
which are continuing throughout the world, to the extent that now so-called churches contemplate legitimizing women priests, sodomy,
pedophilia, and turning the Eucharist into a cafeteria.
The USA is 100% actively behind the actions in Ukraine and the Phanar. In fact no one can be enthroned in Constantinople without
the sponsorship of the CIA. So this arch-heretic Bartholomew of the Phanar "elevates" an excommunicated prideful heretic, Philaret,
to be the "head" a new "orthodox church in Ukraine." This is the empire seeking to destroy the strength of Russia, which is Orthodoxy.
The Evil wants to turn Orthodoxy into a beautiful whitewashed tomb: resplendent cathedrals, sumptuous robes, exalted chanting,
artful icons, politically correct bishops. But inside it will be full of dead men's bones.
Very thoughtful article. While the brilliant conclusion that there could be advantages in abandoning the territorial principle
in Orthodoxy might offer some hope to the incoherent situation in the American Church, on the other hand letting go of territoriality
sacrifices regionalism for globalism. So is this a great opportunity or an execration? That would depend on whether the Patriarchs
are intent on building Christ's Kingdom, or their own.
"... In the US, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has collected 5.4m "adverse event" reports over the past decade, some from manufacturers reporting problems in other parts of the world. ..."
"... Interviews with patients and doctors have revealed flaws in how the medical devices industry is regulated. ..."
Patients around the world are suffering pain and many have died as a result of faulty
medical devices that have been allowed on to the market by a system dogged by poor regulation,
lax rules on testing and a lack of transparency, an investigation has found.
Pacemakers, artificial hips, contraceptives and breast implants are among the devices that
have caused injuries and resulted in patients having to undergo follow-up operations or in some
cases losing their lives.
In some cases, the implants had not been tested in patients before being allowed on to the
market.
In the UK alone, regulators received 62,000 "adverse incident" reports linked to medical
devices between 2015 and 2018. A third of the incidents had serious repercussions for the
patient, and 1,004 resulted in death.
In the US, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has collected 5.4m "adverse event"
reports over the past decade, some from manufacturers reporting problems in other parts of the
world.
These included 1.7m reports of injuries and almost 83,000 deaths. Nearly 500,000 mentioned
an explant – surgery to remove a device.
The figures come from research by 252 journalists from 59 media organisations in 36
countries, which has uncovered a litany of problems in the global $400bn (£310bn)
industry.
Examples of failure in the market include:
Replacement hips and vaginal mesh products sold to
hospitals without any clinical trials. Patients relying on faulty pacemakers when manufacturers
were aware of problems. Complications with hernia mesh that ruled one of Britain's top athletes
out of competing for years. Regulators approving spinal disc
replacements that later disintegrated and migrated in patients. Surgeons admitting they were
unable to tell patients about the risks posed by implants because of a lack of central
registers. Patients in Australia being given devices that the regulator has approved on the
basis they have been approved in Europe.
The findings raise concerns about the level of scrutiny devices undergo before and after
they go on the market, and whether regulators detect and act upon findings quickly enough.
Information about problems with devices is, in many countries, kept under wraps, making it
difficult for patients to research procedures that have been recommended to
them.
Interviews with patients and doctors have revealed flaws in how the medical
devices industry is regulated.
Prof Derek Alderson, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said there had been
enough incidents involving flawed devices to "underline the need for drastic regulatory
changes", including the introduction of mandatory national registries for all implantable
devices.
"In contrast to drugs, many surgical innovations are introduced without clinical trial data
or centrally held evidence," he said. "This is a risk to patient safety and public
confidence."
The Guardian and organisations including the BBC , Le Monde and Süddeutsche Zeitung,
coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), have trawled
through thousands of documents, many obtained through freedom of information (FoI) requests, to
unearth some of the biggest problems.
Alongside interviews with patients and doctors, these have revealed flaws in the way the
industry is regulated that are unlikely to be fixed by rules due to come into force in
Europe.
Among the concerns raised by the Implant Files project are that manufacturers are in
charge of testing their own products after faults have developed – and are allowed to
shop around for approval to market their products, without declaring any refusals.
The Guardian has also heard about doctors who have close industry ties or seem eager to be
early adopters of the latest devices to enhance their professional standing.
Plans for tougher EU rules have been watered down after industry lobbying, according to a
huge trove of documents uncovered by the project.
She thought the investigation might have about six months left, although if Trump refuses a
face-to-face meeting, Mueller could seek a subpoena to put him before the grand jury. That
could be fought all the way to the supreme court.
There is a precedent, US v Nixon, when the justices ruled that the president must deliver
subpoenaed materials to a district court. Sixteen days later, Nixon resigned.
If Mueller decides not to have that fight, he could write a report saying he believed the
president obstructed justice. If he does not reach that conclusion, the Democratic-led House
could issue its own subpoenas.
"It is a chess match," said Milgram. "We'll have to see how it plays out in the next
year."
The denial of the economic ideology of Neo-liberalism is nothing more than a cheap debating point. If you pretend something
doesn't exist then you make it difficult to attack.
Notable quotes:
"... Strange then, that you can buy a book called: "Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics. By Daniel Stedman Jones. Princeton University Press". ..."
"... What were Friedrich Heyek and Milton Friedman: lollypop salesmen? ..."
"... All one needs to know is that English language is being manipulated just as it always has been by those that have the power to do it. Today the main manipulators are, Madison Avenue, agencies and departments the United States government, Wall Street, US television media. Most people don't realize that the language is being manipulated, when they hear or see in print words being used in unusual ways they just go along with it. ..."
"... Advertising frequently refers to things being "better" with no explanation of what it is better than. ..."
"... "Underpriviliged" to describe people living in poverty but no explanation of the privileges that people have who are not poor. ..."
"... I could go on and on, but I am sure that you scribblers who do not indulge in "confuse speak" know exactly what I am trying to explain. Best example I can give is "The free world" which by latest check includes Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and sundry other brutal regimes and one time actually included outright fascist countries. ..."
"... Yes - the person who said language was mankind's first technology were absolutely correct. I expect language was invented by those who invent all technology to be just out of reach of the general public until the inventers decide they can do business for themselves out of it. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is the final stage of liberal democracy which has been around for 60-70 years, the most destructive form of government the world has ever seen, based on deregulation for the wealthy oligarchs and debt and debauchery for the poor .............. which is rapidly taking us back to feudal times. ..."
"... I prescribe a course of Orwell, Start, perhaps, with short stories...... Politics and the English Language, Why I Write, Notes on Nationalism, for example. And then a full dose of Nineteen Eighty-Four. That should do the trick! ..."
"... Nothing has been learnt from the crash of 2008 beyond "get rich even quicker", or as its more commonly known, economic and ecological suicide. ..."
Term abuse didn't arrive with neoliberalism; it's been around since forever. Also, the fact
that most of our daily transactions might be commercial is a reflection of our own habits as
much as the changing use of language.
If a person is employed by a commercial gallery, they are effectively working in a shop,
and the people who visit these galleries are potentially customers. No surprise there. Just
like a person who uses transport can be a customer. Of course, there are public services
where commercial terms such as customer make little sense.
Sure, it isn't that important who is making the point, even if the point is made by
reference to questionable and contentious examples.
I also think that any even bigger influence on meaning / lack of meaning / interchangeable
meaning etc.has been postmodernity far more than neoliberalism.
All true but the left is just as bad as coining its Orwellisms. Witness the way nobody has to use an approved vocabulary to talk about every and any group
on fear of moral ridicule or worse. Language is a mental battlefield.
@RClayton - Can I suggest resurrecting William Morris's distinction between "work" (ie labour
that is moral, creative, aesthetic or, at least, hygienic - ie intrinsically worth doing) and
"toil" which is work done only because of the necessity to earn money to buy the means of
existence?
Having words that distinguish between these two ideas is useful. The 'work' you talk about
is 'toil' and most of it is done simply to service the money/capitalist system.
As an example, I have in front of me a rubber 'stress reliever' in the shape of PacMan. It
was given to me as a gift.
Presumably, somewhere in the world there is a factory full of people turning out this
rubbish. It adds nothing to the world's beauty, nor its ability to support the people living
on it. Its only uses are in providing paid 'toil' to support the factory workers and to
enable someone to give me something I don't need as a token of their friendship, probably
paid for from the fruits of their own toil.
Changing the words we use will not change this, but it does give us a framework in which
to think about how it might be changed.
Strange then, that you can buy a book called: "Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman,
and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics. By Daniel Stedman Jones. Princeton University
Press".
What were Friedrich Heyek and Milton Friedman: lollypop salesmen?
If I can repeat what I said at the top of this thread - The denial of the economic
ideology of Neo-liberalism is nothing more than a cheap debating point. If you pretend
something doesn't exist then you make it difficult to attack.
The biggest problem isn't so much that people use the language of commercial business and are
free and easy with their abuse of terms (there's a new one), but that people treat government
and politics as a service, and see their relationship with governance as akin to a
client/customer relationship, to that end we elect politicians who tell us what we want to
hear, even if what we hear can be, all to often, somewhat meaningless or trite.
@TheRealCmdrGravy - There's nothing vague about it, It represents the whole of UK and US
government economic policy for the last thirty years with the happy outcomes that we enjoy
today.
But now you know what a neoliberal is, perhaps you can reread the excellent article above
with added relish and understanding. Glad to be of assistance. If you want anything else
looking up I suggest using a search engine before posting here that a particular word is too
difficult for you.
According to Bradford DeLong, a Berkeley economic historian, neoliberalism has two main
tenets:
"The first is that close economic contact between the industrial core and the developing
periphery is the best way to accelerate the transfer of technology which is the sine qua
non for making poor economies rich (hence all barriers to international trade should be
eliminated as fast as possible).
The second is that governments in general lack the
capacity to run large industrial and commercial enterprises. Hence, [except] for core
missions of income distribution, public-good infrastructure, administration of justice, and
a few others, governments should shrink and privatize)."
All one needs to know is that English language is being manipulated just as it always has been by
those that have the power to do it.
Today the main manipulators are, Madison Avenue, agencies and departments the United States
government, Wall Street, US television media.
Most people don't realize that the language is being manipulated, when they hear or see in
print words being used in unusual ways they just go along with it.
Example:
A couple of years back a motormouth U.S TV show host used the word "impact" in place of the
word "affect". He did so simply because "impact" seemed more dramatic. Now it is almost
impossible to hear or see the word "affect" used anywhere.
Now there are some of you that will say that language and usage of words change over time,
and I would agree with you, but when you see a word used in a context that is completely
inappropriate and that use is adopted in general you have to ask yourself questions like who
benefits from this.
Remember when Bush wanted to increase troop levels, he refered to the increase as a "surge".
"Surge" until then had a distinct meaning it was not associated with any meaning of
permanence, and that is why it was used.
Advertising frequently refers to things being "better" with no explanation of what it is
better than.
"Underpriviliged" to describe people living in poverty but no explanation of the privileges
that people have who are not poor.
I could go on and on, but I am sure that you scribblers who do not indulge in "confuse speak"
know exactly what I am trying to explain.
Best example I can give is "The free world" which by latest check includes Saudi Arabia,
Yemen, and sundry other brutal regimes and one time actually included outright fascist
countries.
Now all London Underground passengers are 'customers', which implies you are buying the
travel experience rather than paying for transportation. When misused it suggests to me lack
of strength and self-belief from the organization concerned.
@callaspodeaspode - Gosh - an excellent example of how to get things completely wrong. Just because a firm has the government for a customer does not mean it is a public sector
business.
Note the word 'customer'. In the case of the FE college, who is the customer - the
government or the students? Are the students just incidental fodder?
Your contract with the government will be for a certain job done in a certain for a
certain sum of money. In FE, the government has a sum of money which gets paid out
irrespective of the outcome. Indeed, how do you measure the 'outcome' of an FE college? In
your case, it's easy - either the software works or it doesn't.
Your company no doubt is either owned by an individual, or has shareholders. Those people
live on the profits of the company, or lose their money if it goes bust.
What is the profit made by an FE college? Who are the shareholders? Who goes broke if the
college folds? Still think an FE college is the same as private company?
@TheRealCmdrGravy - No definition is a distinct improvement on your deliberate distortion. I
was assuming you had the sense to find a definition on the internet for yourself, since you
managed to find your way here.
I do not consider alternative viewpoints brainless, i consider a refusal to even engage in
debate brainless, pretending that a word is undefined when there's reams of literature as
well as concise definitions freely available from any number of sources. That might
reasonably be construed as brainless.
Here, fill your boots, then if you have an actual argument instead of a crude attempt to
derail the debate it can be considered.
Neoliberalism is a political philosophy whose advocates support economic
liberalization, free trade and open markets, privatization, deregulation, and decreasing the
size of the public sector while increasing the role of the private sector in modern society.
(From wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism)
I'm convinced you had the brains to look it up yourself, that's why I suspect your agenda.
Now please stop wasting everyone's time unless you have something to contribute. I even
looked it up for you.
And I can give a further example. I used to work in a Private Equity-owned firm, which
happened to have some contracts to provide software support to the government.
Thus, in your conceptual framework, it was a public sector business. Indeed, by your reasoning, Lockheed Martin is a state-owned company as well.
I agree that 'Neoliberalism' has hijacked our vocabulary, but that is about the limit of our
agreement. People fling the word 'neoliberalism' around these days as a synonym for 'anything
I and my friends have decided is politically-economically objectionable' ('have decided', not
'think'). In the old days, 'fascist' served the same purpose in all those late-night student
flat discussions. I assume, until proven otherwise, that people who talk about
'neoliberalism', fall into the same category as those people who had so much difficulty
distinguishing between 'liberal democracy' and 'fascism'.
I can actually think of liberal left-leaning intellectuals who I can recall having
self-described as neoliberal. They, however, are distinctive for the sort of nuanced
understanding of political economy you are unlikely to find represented around the candles in
the kitchen on a Friday night when the world's problems are being discussed and solved.
First of all I am impressed by the psychic ability which enables you to deduce my
"closed political agenda", very impressive
Not really. It is transparently obvious when you declare that neo-liberalism is "vague
stuff which I don't like" when there are cogent definitions of it, to which you have been
referred in the past.
this is not the kind of liberalism we needed it needed to be socially liberal but not
economically liberal. How dare people become entrepenurial or take the thatcherite tax cuts,
or buy goods made from slave labour. Some seriously sick yuppies out there.
Yes - the person who said language was mankind's first technology were absolutely correct.
I expect language was invented by those who invent all technology to be just out of reach
of the general public until the inventers decide they can do business for themselves out of
it.
She says that we need to look at the language as it says a lot about how we think. Sounds
about right to me. It's hardly arguing white means black, just that the words we choose say
something about what we mean.
Then she says that what we talk about isn't the stuff we need to concentrate on. That's a
matter of debate and opinion.
Except that preference theory does not take into account causality. In any event we have
the evidence, there are those who are perfectly happy to cast others to the wall just so long
as they do OK and even benefit from it.
@makingtime - Really ? Some very interesting points you've made there ...
your closed political agenda may make it impossible for you to understand without a
brain transplant.
First of all I am impressed by the psychic ability which enables you to deduce my "closed
political agenda", very impressive. Secondly though it's interesting that you think a "closed
political agenda", which I am taking to mean a concrete political viewpoint, can only be
remedied with a "brain transplant" rather than through discussion. It's almos as though
you're saying "those with political views different to mine are brainless" which is quite a
bigoted point of view.
No definition from you regarding the word neo-liberal though so all in all not a very
helpful or insightful post. Disappointing.
..the word "neo-liberal" which, so far as I can see, simply means "vague stuff which I
don't like".
Is it possible that you can't see very far because you're deliberately not looking? There
are perfectly adequate and precise definitions. I quite liked 'A Brief History of
Neoliberalism' by Prof D.Harvey as a long form definition, but since it's rather critical of
'vague stuff which I don't like', your closed political agenda may make it impossible for you
to understand without a brain transplant.
It is exasperating when political discussion is reduced to which foghorn can generate the
loudest interference. I suppose it's a mistake to waste time on correcting this rubbish
Doreen Massey is an academic. It shows in the way she writes. It's good that she raises
fundamental questions about society and the way it is managed. It has traditionally been the
role of academics to play that role.
The disappointing feature of the debate however is the absence of input from our
politicians. All our leading politicians have essentially the same view of our society and
economy. One in which, as Ms Massey indicates, choice exercised through market based
mechanisms is the key principal. There is no view of progress towards a good society. There
is no view of co-operation rather than competition. The only option is for us to measure
ourselves by what we consume.
Our political system and its parties have failed us. In particular it is the left that has
failed. It has accepted the social and economic arguments of the right and contented itself
with suggesting minor variations on the same theme. Activists on the left need to re-gather
their strength and more forcefully put forward a better alternative.
@retarius - Any government is only as good as the human rights it upholds.
Neoliberalism is the final stage of liberal democracy which has been around for 60-70 years,
the most destructive form of government the world has ever seen, based on deregulation for
the wealthy oligarchs and debt and debauchery for the poor .............. which is rapidly
taking us back to feudal times.
This is a view that misunderstands where pleasure and fulfilment in human lives are
found. Work is usually – and certainly should be – a central source of meaning
and fulfilment in human lives.
Wishful and naive thinking. Most work is very unfulfilling and even in cases where it is
meaningful the day to day grind and intensity required by a job is making it a chore. There
are very few people who have a job that is really a pleasure. There are many people though
who have empty lives and were brainwashed into believing that their job is the most important
part of their existence.
@gyges1 - " This is playground level debating. You are just saying the meaning you give to
words is to be preferred to that of your opponents."
Ah, I see the problem - a narrow mind with a broad-brush tendency.
I prescribe a course of Orwell, Start, perhaps, with short stories...... Politics and the
English Language, Why I Write, Notes on Nationalism, for example. And then a full dose of
Nineteen Eighty-Four. That should do the trick!
@RClayton - But if we start to think about work differently - which then gets its expression
with the words we use - maybe it can change. Your Bangladeshi example is interesting because
it assumes they need to work in that way to exist. Should we not try and change the system so
a Bangladeshi can harness his or her creativity to connect their creative ideas to a global
market and earn money in this way, rather than selling their physical labour to connect
someone else's t-shirt to a global market?
It's not just vocabulary, its demeanor, etiquette and peoples entire self perception that has
been usurped by the skewed modern logic of markets and the service industry.
People are preempting the technological singularity by rendering themselves robotic in a
quite tragic struggle to perpetually remain relevant and employable in the form that the
whims of the dictatorship of the market see fit to determine.
Some nationalities even have an intrinsic advantage, their national character tending rather
to the robotic from the outset. What remains of human expression, of impulsivity, of
spontaneity, of charisma, of originality is up for question, but the paucity of modern life,
of human expression and interaction, will increase in direct relation to the increases in
efficiency and productivity that will be demanded of citizens. And this despite the fact that
we are suffering under the weight of massive over production, and the excessive demand on
resources that this entails.
Nothing has been learnt from the crash of 2008 beyond "get rich even quicker", or as its more
commonly known, economic and ecological suicide.
@BaronessHawHaw - Working class pride in their jobs came from being highly skilled –
for example riveting in shipyards was difficult and you really were adding value there, so
was assembling a car and so on. Also, didn't most of their 'meaning and fulfilment' come from
the community, not really the work they were doing, except in so far as most of the people in
the community would be doing the same work so it gave them something to talk about?
I've never heard a modern person saying how much any of the jobs I listed give them
meaning or fulfilment. The kind of jobs that gave working class people a meaningful identity
have pretty much all gone.
Just looking at the Governments of Poland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Hungary as an
example seems to indicate centrist and centre-right parties in power.
As I'm reading the annual report of my old sixth form college - which also operate adult
learning courses - and they're an exempt charity and therefore not liable for corporation
tax. They have an operating surplus (read: profit) on which no tax is paid, quite unlike a
private sector company.
"... Neoliberalism is bankrupt, it isn't even a philiosophy its simple social nihilism. The proof is in the get rich quick, or short term profit mentality of those at the top. Get rich quick is tantamount to jumping the ship, its the economic equivalent of deserting a sinking vessel. Until people recognise the destructive cynical nature of the current economic philosophy and cast out those that are steering the ship, we are all doomed. ..."
"... Strange then, that you can buy a book called: "Masters of the Universe: Hayek, Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics. By Daniel Stedman Jones. Princeton University Press". ..."
"... What were Friedrich Heyek and Milton Friedman: lollypop salesmen? ..."
"... Well it could be argued that postmodernism is the necessary condition for neoliberalism. ..."
'Customer'; 'growth'; 'investment'. We should scrutinise the everyday language that shapes how we think about the
economy
'We need to question that familiar categorisation of the economy as a space into which people enter in order to
reluctantly undertake unwelcome and unpleasing "work''.'
A
t a recent art exhibition I engaged in an
interesting conversation with one of the young people employed by the gallery. As she turned to walk off I saw she
had on the back of her T-shirt "customer liaison". I felt flat. Our whole conversation seemed somehow reduced, my
experience of it belittled into one of commercial transaction. My relation to the gallery and to this engaging
person had become one of instrumental market exchange.
The message underlying this use of the term customer for so
many different kinds of human activity is that in all almost all our daily activities we are operating as consumers
in a market – and this truth has been brought in not by chance but through managerial instruction and the
thoroughgoing renaming of institutional practices. The mandatory exercise of "free choice" – of a GP, of a hospital,
of schools for one's children – then becomes also a lesson in social identity, affirming on each occasion our
consumer identity.
This is a crucial part of the way that neoliberalism has become part of our commonsense understanding of life.
The vocabulary we use to talk about the economy is in fact a political construction, as Stuart Hall, Michael Rustin
and I have argued in our
Soundings manifesto
.
Another word that reinforces neoliberal common sense is "growth", currently deemed to be the entire aim of our
economy. To produce growth and then (maybe) to redistribute some of it, has been a goal shared by both neoliberalism
and social democracy. In its crudest formulation this entails providing the conditions for the market sector to
produce growth, and accepting that this will result in inequality, and then relying on the redistribution of some
portion of this growth to help repair the inequality that has resulted from its production.
This of course does nothing to question the inequality-producing mechanisms of market exchange itself, and it has
also meant that the main lines of struggle have too often been focused solely on distributional issues. What's more,
today we are living with a backlash to even the limited redistributional gains made by labour under social
democracy. In spite of all this, growth is still seen as providing the solution to our problems.
The second reason our current notion of wealth creation, and our commitment to its growth, must be questioned is
to do with our relationship with the planet. The environmental damage brought about by the pursuit of growth
threatens to cause a catastrophe of which we are already witnessing intimations. And a third – and perhaps most
important – defect of this approach is that increased wealth, especially as measured in the standard monetary terms
of today, has few actual consequences for people's feelings of wellbeing once there is a sufficiency to meet basic
needs, as there is in Britain. In pursuing "growth" in these terms, as a means to realise people's life goals and
desires, economies are pursuing a chimera.
Instead of an unrelenting quest for growth, might we not ask the question, in the end: "What is an economy for?",
"What do we want it to provide?"
Our current imaginings endow the market and its associated forms with a special status. We think of "the economy"
in terms of natural forces, into which we occasionally intervene, rather than in terms of a whole variety of social
relations that need some kind of co-ordination.
Thus "work", for example, is understood in a very narrow and instrumental way. Where only transactions for money
are recognised as belonging to "the economy", the vast amount of unpaid labour – as conducted for instance in
families and local areas – goes uncounted and unvalued. We need to question that familiar categorisation of the
economy as a space into which people enter in order to reluctantly undertake unwelcome and unpleasing "work", in
return for material rewards which they can use for consuming.
This is a view that misunderstands where pleasure and fulfilment in human lives are found. Work is usually – and
certainly should be – a central source of meaning and fulfilment in human lives. And it has – or could have – moral
and creative (or aesthetic) values at its core. A rethinking of work could lead us to address more creatively both
the social relations of work and the division of labour within society (including a better sharing of the tedious
work, and of the skills).
There are loads of other examples of rarely scrutinised terms in our economic vocabulary, for instance that
bundle of terms clustered around investment and expenditure – terms that carry with them implicit moral
connotations. Investment implies an action, even a sacrifice, undertaken for a better future. It evokes a future
positive outcome. Expenditure, on the other hand, seems merely an outgoing, a cost, a burden.
Above all, we need to bring economic vocabulary back into political contention, and to question the very way we
think about the economy in the first place. For something new to be imagined, let alone to be born, our current
economic "common sense" needs to be challenged root and branch.
•
Doreen Massey will be discussing Vocabularies of the Economy at a
Soundings seminar
on 13 June, 6.30-8.30pm, at the Marx Memorial Library, London. More information [email protected]
@Yorkied24 - Well, I just don't accept that. I agree that monetarism is a major part
of Friedman's legacy (as incorporated into neo-liberal doctrine). But, neo-liberalism
is what is says on the tin. It is a 'new' version of the liberalist free trade agenda
of the past, modified to take into account the welfare state.
I guess what I'm most
interested in is how you can disentangle and separate politics from economics, since
they are two sides of the same coin (where does 'science' fit in, by the way).
it seems that the political side of Neo-liberalism (or liberal democracy) has come up
with a new definition of the word "Catholic".
The Irish Prime-minster stated with a straight face in the Irish parliament today
........ that he is a "Catholic" outside parliament but when he enters parliament he
is not a "Catholic"........ in relation to a bill allowing for abortion to be
legalized in Ireland.
@NeverMindTheBollocks - when you criticise the author of "nonsensical thinking", this
suggests to me that you are uncomfortable with ideas that question "common sense".
Rather than engaging with the arguments, you are simply dismissing them as somebody's
arbitrary opinion. You seem to be suggesting that Massey is forcing her opinion on you
- but surely, like any good academic, she is really asking critical questions, rather
than providing answers and solutions. That's what academia is for. Why does that seem
to make you so angry?
@Pumplechook - Enterprise culture is a fine emboldening phrase to describe the sinking
of society casting citizens adrift with nothing but what nature gave them to keep them
afloat. Some might suggest we need to concentrate on mono platform non deliverables
going backwards. Or on a fleet of very cheap rubber dinghies.
Ms Massey clearly fails to see importance of remaining customer/client-focused in our
modern enterprise culture. It is crucial in terms of achieving outcomes-based win-win
solutions, as well as assisting in the interation of leading-edge opportunities and
leveraging cross-platform deliverables going forward.
@KingOfNothing - No, what I said was that neoliberalism is not an economic theory. For
a start, Milton Friedman's work has its own name in economics, which is monetarism.
Neoliberalism is a made up political word only used by those who are more interested
in politics and rhetoric than economics and science.
Neoliberalism is bankrupt, it isn't even a philiosophy its simple social nihilism. The
proof is in the get rich quick, or short term profit mentality of those at the top.
Get rich quick is tantamount to jumping the ship, its the economic equivalent of
deserting a sinking vessel. Until people recognise the destructive cynical nature of
the current economic philosophy and cast out those that are steering the ship, we are
all doomed.
@bill4me - 'Sweet smell of success'?
No, it's just that your shit-detector is so absent or degraded that you can no longer
smell the stink of 'filthy lucre'.
@Yorkied24 - I disagree. There is only one writer that deserves volleys of ad hominem
attacks and cheap insults and thats Julie Burchill. I know she's about as relevant as
a horse drawn carriage but nevertheless I think we need to keep criticism of
journalists in proportion.
@bill4me - The US under the aegis of freedom and capitalism sponsored paramilitary
regimes in Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, Paraguay, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Chile and
Argentina. Not to mention Greece and Iran. It continues to sponsor repressive regimes
in the middle east and is about to make peace with the Taliban.
You mistake capitalism
as it exists in theory, or in your head with 'actually existing capitalism' which is
often red in tooth and claw. The bloody history of the 20th century (particularly
world war one, without which no world war two) was in many ways a consequence of
imperialism which was a consequence of capitalism.
Theories are all very well, but
they run into problems called people. This applies equally to Marx, Smith and Hayek.
@Yorkied24 - But they don't do they? They don't engage in cowardly and anonymous ad
hominem attacks. They are professional journalists. The Guardian pays them to write
articles. They then put their name to said articles. It's a transparent process. They
are infinitely better than people who anonymously insult them without engaging in
debate.
@bill4me - No, but it rather skews the data doesn't it? The Soviet Union lifted more
people out of extreme poverty than perhaps any society before or since. But I wouldn't
advocate Stalinism. I'm sure Pinochet's supporters could point to a growth in
prosperity during his reign, but I shouldn't imagine many Chileans would favour a
return to authoritarian rule.
Headline date is often meaningless, for example George
Osborne may be able to argue that more people are employed than ever before, whilst
the opposition may be able to argue that more people are unemployed than ever before.
Bo
Both statements my be true, but what do they tell us in isolation?
Does it not occur to you that appalling governance may be a consequence of the form
capitalism takes right now?
Strange then, that you can buy a book called: "Masters of the Universe: Hayek,
Friedman, and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics. By Daniel Stedman Jones. Princeton
University Press".
What were Friedrich Heyek and Milton Friedman: lollypop salesmen?
So, someone writes a book calling two economists 'neoliberals', so that makes it
so? By that argument, it also calls them Masters of the Universe, so they're fucking
He-Man too.
If you think capitalism is all winners and no losers you're either
tremendously naive or a bit thick.
I wouldn't rely on headline figures on Wikipedia to
support your argument. Drill down a little, find the data, look at individual
countries, see what type of regimes operate in said countries. And imagine, for a
second, that the stats are meaningful, then imagine what responsible capitalism could
achieve.
@Justthefactsman - Slightly off topic, but I hanker for obliged rather than obligated.
Also, most of the time I just feel ok, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Fair to middlin'
you might say. I seldom feel awesome.
No definition from you regarding the word neo-liberal though so all in all not a
very helpful or insightful post. Disappointing.
It's sometimes worth having a debate about what particular words mean, but all
debate rests on certain presumptions, a foundation on which the argument is built, and
in this case, Massey counts on her audience sharing her understanding of the term
'neoliberal', which many of us do. Anyone who doesn't can very easily look it up
online and quickly find a definition which sits well with Massey's points.
Your and others' approach to rejecting her argument is ungracious cavilling. It's
easy to do this in response to any argument, and make no mistake - anyone with
intelligence and an open mind can recognise it very clearly.
@Ken Terry - Chomsky is right, ("The Manufacturing of Consent") 'At the head of it is
the Military\Industrial Complex, coining the euphemisms of war to make the unthinkable
palatable.
On a localised scale, consider the Coalition who have done a similar job on the word,
"Reform". If you look at history's most accurate and honorific incidences of political
and parliamentary Reform look at the two Reform Acts which extended the franchise to
adult male suffrage, 1832 and 1867, under Peel and Disraeli, Tories FFS, opposed to
the Liberal's merciless free market obsessions.
What is "reforming" about stripping poor, ill and vulnerable people of their material
support?
Pure Deformation.
I'm not a Tory, (Lifelong Socialist) but I think it's important to reconnect the
Conservative Party with some of its avowed traditional self-definitions. "Maintaining
continuity with past institutions, and a 'gradualism', if change is necessary." (Henry
Cecil, I think).
Where has been the 'gradualism' in this Govt's' sudden and relentless pace of forcing
change on the mass of its people by Bill after Bill restricting our aspirations and
well-being?
We are governed by political liars who see this state of affairs as a triumph for
their expertise. Any criticism is dismissed as not being able to accept the world 'as
it is.'
The irony, of course, is that neoliberalism has *always* been coupled by high state
spending. I know they say different, but that doesn't make it a reality. Stop showing
your ignorance of the subject and go and delve in to some of the vast literature on
the subject.
@joseph1832 - I think this misses the point though. You're trying to claim there can
be words that are neutral, a language without a political dimension. This is besides
the point, it's certainly not feasible in a society constructed as it is now.
The
real point is that language is itself a field of struggle. It's a terrain on which
neoliberalism must be fought. In doing so we need not pretend to be doing anything
less than entering a political fight. In combating neoliberalism no claim to be
'neutral' is necessary, that would be precisely to do what it does from the opposite
direction - claim universality, eternalisation etc. The left does need to assert
interrogate the language of neoliberalism and assert its own. Not becuase this is less
political (I think "manipulation" is too strong a word here, the matter is somewhat
more complex than that) but becuase it can offer a better future.
@DemocracyNever - I should think the first two responses illustrate how and why debate
is increasingly meaningless. Neither of you engage with the argument or posit an
alternative; hence no debate.
That debate should be meaningful is given, that it should be an art form is,
frankly, silly.
"The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum
of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum."
Noam Chomsky
The only war the US will fight with Iran is a nuclear war. A population of 80 million
bordering Pakistan with 197 million is a big effort and the US has been a complete flop with
even 35 million Afghans and $2 Trillion spent. Israel can play the "Polish Card" the one FDR
used to blackmail Chamberlain into declaring war in 1939 – and boy did he apply pressure
! – but it won't help Israel survive and more than Poland did.
Israel cannot "solve the Palestinian problem" any more than the "Jewish problem" was solved
when Tsarist Russia let them emigrate to USA and USA stopped them emigrating from Nazi Germany
under Johnson-Reed Act 1924 as in case of SS St Louis in 1939 sent back to Germany.
Israel will never resolve the problem they perceive. The actions of their ally and friend
Mohammed bin Salman will make it nigh on impossible now the crudity of the gangsters running
alongside Israel are plain to see and Trump had better read up on Uncle Remus and the Tar
Baby
A thermonuclear attack on Iran by the USA would probably trigger a response by Russia. The
Russian defence doctrine clearly states that thermonuclear weapons will be used in the event
of an attack on Russia or its allies.
How close an ally Iran is in that context may be debatable; but Russia could not afford to
stand by while Iran was destroyed.
Marxism is a brilliant sui generis philosophy of history. The attending political
position was a heartfelt reaction to the immiseration of the working classes of Europe.
There were many similar ideologies to Marxism in political viewpoint, but Marxism is
outstandingly intellectually interesting.
Marx is not differentiated from other (Gentile) socialists by his politics but by his
genius. I doubt his part Jewishness had much to do with that.
Jews have made up a huge proportion of decent economists from all economic
perspectives.
Meanwhile, Ayn Rand was an highly eccentric writer of romantic fiction that lucidly
captured the snivelling, resentment fueled scumbags who make up the denizens of the
swamp.
Pychoanalysis – (((Freud)
Freud's psychoanalysis might be flawed but his work constitutes a truly great body of
literature and the invention of a new and important subject. He is one of the greatest
thinkers of all time.
USSR – (((Lenin))), (((Trotsky)
Lenin wasn't Jewish. Trotsky was. Lenin was in charge, while Trotsky ended up murdered
while in ignominious exile.
SJW/open society/antifa movements – (((Soros))) and other forture 400
(((billionaires)))
I'm not sure how you think antifa and billionaires are best buddies but Jews are obviously
a minority among billionaires.
Soros is deranged. There are plenty of bad people in every group. There are more maniac
progressive types among Jews. The explanations are mundane.
Big tech censorship – (((ADL))), (((SPLC))), (((Zuckerberg))), (((Brin)))
Again, Jews are a small minority of those enacting big tech censorship. Indeed, America
remains one of human history's least censored societies. That doesn't make it good but you
need get some perspective before you go all crazy.
Hollywood and other pop culture entertainment – easily all senior positions at the
very least 50% jewish
Nonsense. And a lot of that stuff is pretty good.
The jew really is to blame, which is also why they are so hell bent on censoring and
jailing people for stating these blatant truths.
Lenin wasn't Jewish. Trotsky was. Lenin was in charge, while Trotsky ended up murdered
while in ignominious exile.
apparently Lenin was part jewish and had disdain for white people, ethnic Russians
Trotsky was the racist he accused others of being – he wanted to fill Russia with
what he called "white n1ggers" presumably to ruled by jews like himself – what right a
5% has to rule the rest of the country? It would be like Chinese ruling the U.S.
Again, Jews are a small minority of those enacting big tech censorship.
really? (((Facebook))), (((Google))), and (((SPLC))) and (((ADL))) are the so called
"safety advisors" so no leftist or jew should ever have to stumble upon the truth on those
sites
also, why do you thnk BitChute lost access to PayPal and Stripe? why do think Paul Nehlen
suddenly had trouble with his upstream suppliers for the business he manages? its because
jews behind the scenes collude against and punish any competitiors or anyone speaking out
about jews – this is what they do
Indeed, America remains one of human history's least censored societies.
no thanks to the jews, who have pulled this "hate speech" crap already in Canada, UK,
Australia, and Europe. They are the reason those countries don't have Free Speech and they're
coming for Free Speech here in the U.S. too – because (((their))) feelings are more
important than your rights
The overwhelming majority of Jews are not Semites (peoples from the Middle East). Most Jews'
points of origin are in Europe.
My family (mother's side) German Jews – not a Semite in the bunch. Mostly blond
haired & blue eyes.
There is real resistance to those, who attempt to clarify this vital point. Ron Unz, this
is your website, and these are some of your topics. Why fear to tread? Why fear the truth?
You've come so far. Come all the way into the light.
Most Jews come from – – – Read Arthur Koestler's "The Thirteenth
Tribe" as a start for your education and a cure for your being brainwashed.
Have received some threatening emails, and despite all the political views this Anarchist
has, the threats have ALL been in response to my analysis of just who are, and are not
Semites. Unz, and Commentators, I need no help here. I fear not, and cannot live forever.
Orwell's 1984 , explains in detail the use of false language and false History as
the KEY tools in repressing Humanity, and Humanity's Liberty.
The misidentification of just who Semites are is a powerful weapon in the hands of the
Zionist Land Thieves and their American, British, & French puppets. The Jewish claim
to Semitism goes in tandem with their insistence on their right to exterminate
Palestinians and occupy their land, and later, the Zionist Oligarchs will continue to
occupy all the Middle East "eretz Israel," and concurrently, they will occupy and control
(with the weapons of financial/banking and physical terror), the peoples of this planet.
It is no wonder Gilad Atzmon has it all wrong. Look for no help here.
Jews have not been the only recipients of the Brutality that humans often inflict on one
another. And Jews have not been specially singled out, over Serbians, Russians, Chinese,
Armenians, Native Americans, Iraqis, Syrians, Vietnamese, Indonesians (1965), Yemenis,
Libyans, Afghanis, Africans (slavery and neo colonizing of their nations), and dozens
more.
Jews belong (yes, they, with all the rest of Earth's people, belong). Jews belong in
America, and Europe, where they may reside in happiness and freedom with all the other
peoples, and, if they wish, they may visit their newly Freed and Happy Palestinian friends,
(and host them in their European and American homes) – as well.
We American Patriots , we will host all, in our Restored American Republic.
And America's finest statesman, Dr. Ron Paul , will become our First Constitutional
President – since John F. Kennedy.
The Living Dream, and do not Fear.
Durruti for the Anarchist Collective
West Bank Settler and American Patriot, by Gilad
Atzmon - The Unz Review
@wayfarer
The USA is full of Jewish billionaires. Why on earth does Israel need any blood money from
the hard-pressed taxpayers when they could supply their home away from home with all the
extra money it needs, if indeed it needs any at all? If you are wondering about one of the
main causes of US anti-Semitism, look no further than the billions our AIPAC-controlled
traitorous Congress gives to that apartheid state every year.
West Bank Settler and American Patriot, by Gilad Atzmon - The Unz Review
What a pleasure to find Gilad Atzmon here at UNZ. And as usual, Mr. Atzmon delivers fresh
insights and bold perspectives.
I am grateful that Gilad is examining as well as talking to hyper-Zionists living in
Pennsylvania. This is revealing. I appreciate Yonatan Stern's willingness to address Atzmon's
questions.
I was similarly impressed–unexpectedly so–when I met the late Rabbi Meir
Kahane, who I briefly interviewed for a televised TV debate I produced ('Why Terrorism?') in
1986. Former US Congressman, Pete McCloskey (R-CA), took the opposing side in this exchange
concerning the future of Palestine/Israel as well as US policies there. In my opinion, Kahane
won the debate (though not on its merits).
Rabbi Kahane was an unabashed separatist (like most devout Jews) and he famously declared
(somewhat prematurely) that Israel's native gentiles ('Palestinians') had no future in a
Jewish State.
Kahane believed that all these resentful, recalcitrant Arabs should be kicked out of
Israel. He was unabashedly pro-separation. From a Zionist point of view, Kahane offered a
violent though practical long-term solution. Multiculturalism is inherently problematic and
destabilizing. It is also incompatible with Jewish nationalism. But Kahane made Jewish
liberals blush. As a result, he was declared a 'racist' by establishment Jews; even though
Judaism is, at its core, race-driven.
Please keep in mind that during this era (Carter through Clinton) the endless Mideast
'peace process' was still underway with all the hype, fanfare, and false hopes.
The 'peace process' ended up being a road to nowhere–full of highfalutin awards,
accords, meetings, 'confidence-building measures' and an endless array of Jewish advisors,
pro-Israel committees, donors and 'experts'. Kahane knew that it was doomed from the
start.
Nevertheless, Jews from nearly every 'mainstream' political faction world-wide derided
Kahane's straightforward and 'racist' solutions, even though his prophetic advice now mirrors
today's Israeli policies. Meir Kahane was simply ahead of his time. He was also far too
candid for his liberal cousins to own up to.
A few years after Kahane's televised debate with McCloskey, he was assassinated in
NYC.
In any event, it is undeniable that blood/ancestry is at the heart of Judaism. The Law of
Return tells us so. Religiosity on the other hand has become somewhat incidental to
Jewishness. A committed, ethnic Jew (but an atheistic one) such as Allen Dershowitz, for
instance, is as 'Jewish' as any orthodox rabbi. Identity and ancestry is what matters.
Thus I appreciate Stern's criticism of his Jewish cousins who have saddled America with
top-down 'liberalism', a movement that's functioned as a court-ordered Trojan Horse inside
America.
Like his Jewish cousins however, Stern's still a bit of a fraud–since he relies on
double-standards, special privileges, and ancestral grievances to justify his unique
collection of rights as a land-grabbing Zionist.
Stern hypocritically derides non-violent whites in Charlottesville who want the same
rights for themselves in America as Jews get in Israel: to preserve their culture,
traditions, racial lineage, and majority status. These are core Zionist values. But Stern
would deny them to any and all American whites.
Stern is also disinclined to express any gratitude to his duplicitous, liberal cousins for
their decades-long, pro-Jewish activism. Yet Stern is beneficiary of their subterfuge. Jewish
activism helps explain why Jews have risen in America while others–such as the white,
working-class men in Charlottesville–have fallen.
US Liberalism (with plenty of help from Zionist Jews) coercively integrated America
racially (but not in Israel), opened our borders to all (but not in Israel) and erected a
towering wall between 'church and state' (but not in Israel).
These tricks have been good for the Jews, which includes Stern. He can now wear his
yarmulke proudly and not get laughed at–or punched (since its a 'hate crime'
today).
Liberal and 'secular' Jews also helped orchestrate Washington's de facto marriage to the
State of Israel. This has also empowered Stern. And to the delight of most Jews (both left
and right) the US has been largely de-Christianized over the past sixty years. This is more
smart work by Jewish jurists, lawyers, and academics–many with close ties to the
'liberal' ACLU.
As a beneficiary of all this, Stern should thank his liberal cousins for this political
black magic. Yet he pretends to object.
Stern is at least correct when he acknowledges that 'progressive' Jews have damaged the
West and that they are still doing so.
CIA democrats of which Obama is a prominent example (and Hillary is another one) are are Werewolfs, very dangerous political beasts,
probably more dangerous to the world then Republicans like George W Bush. But in case of Ukraine, it was easily pushed into Baltic orbit,
because it has all the preconditions for that. So Nuland has an relatively easy, albeit dirty task. Also all this
probably that "in five years we will be living like French" was pretty effective. Now the population faces
consequences of its own stupidity. This is just neoliberal business as usual or neocolonialism.
Notable quotes:
"... populists on the right ..."
"... hired members of Ukraine's two racist-fascist, or nazi, political parties ..."
"... Disclaimer: No Russian, living or dead, had anything to do with the posting of this proudly home-grown comment ..."
Let's recap what Obama's coup
in Ukraine has led to shall we? Maybe installing and blatantly backing Neo Nazis in Ukraine might have something to do with the
rise of " populists on the right " that is spreading through Europe and this country, Hillary.
America's criminal 'news' media never even reported the coup, nor that in 2011 the Obama regime began
planning for
a coup in Ukraine . And that by 1 March 2013 they started organizing it
inside the
U.S. Embassy there . And that they hired members of Ukraine's two racist-fascist, or nazi, political parties , Right
Sector and Svoboda (which latter had been called the Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine until the CIA advised them to change
it to Freedom Party, or "Svoboda" instead). And that in February 2014 they did it (and here's the
4 February 2014 phone call instructing the U.S. Ambassador
whom to place in charge of the new regime when the coup will be completed), under the cover of authentic anti-corruption demonstrations
that the Embassy organized on the Maidan Square in Kiev, demonstrations that the criminal U.S. 'news' media misrepresented as
'democracy demonstrations ,' though Ukraine already had democracy (but still lots of corruption, even more than today's U.S. does,
and the pontificating Obama said he was trying to end Ukraine's corruption -- which instead actually soared after his coup there).
But wait there's more .... Remember
that caravan of refugees making their way through Mexico? Guess where a number of them came from? Honduras. Yep. Another coup that
happened during Obama's and Hillary's tenure.
In a recent op-ed in The Washington Post, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
used a review of Henry Kissinger's latest book, "World Order ," to lay out her vision for "sustaining America's leadership
in the world." In the midst of numerous global crises, she called for return to a foreign policy with purpose, strategy and pragmatism.
She also highlighted some of these policy choices in her memoir "Hard Choices" and how they contributed to the challenges that
Barack Obama's administration now faces.
**
The chapter on Latin America, particularly the section on Honduras, a major source of the child migrants currently pouring into
the United States, has gone largely unnoticed. In letters to Clinton and her successor, John Kerry, more than 100 members of Congress
have repeatedly warned about the deteriorating security situation in Honduras, especially since the 2009 military coup that ousted
the country's democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya. As Honduran scholar Dana Frank points out in Foreign Affairs, the
U.S.-backed post-coup government "rewarded coup loyalists with top ministries," opening the door for further "violence and anarchy."
The homicide rate in Honduras, already the highest in the world, increased by 50 percent from 2008 to 2011; political repression,
the murder of opposition political candidates, peasant organizers and LGBT activists increased and continue to this day. Femicides
skyrocketed. The violence and insecurity were exacerbated by a generalized institutional collapse. Drug-related violence has worsened
amid allegations of rampant corruption in Honduras' police and government. While the gangs are responsible for much of the violence,
Honduran security forces have engaged in a wave of killings and other human rights crimes with impunity.
Despite this, however, both under Clinton and Kerry, the State Department's response to the violence and military and police
impunity has largely been silence, along with continued U.S. aid to Honduran security forces. In "Hard Choices," Clinton describes
her role in the aftermath of the coup that brought about this dire situation. Her firsthand account is significant both for the
confession of an important truth and for a crucial false testimony.
First, the confession: Clinton admits that she used the power of her office to make sure that Zelaya would not return to office.
"In the subsequent days [after the coup] I spoke with my counterparts around the hemisphere, including Secretary [Patricia] Espinosa
in Mexico," Clinton writes. "We strategized on a plan to restore order in Honduras and ensure that free and fair elections could
be held quickly and legitimately, which would render the question of Zelaya moot."
Clinton's position on Latin America in her bid for the presidency is another example of how the far right exerts disproportionate
influence on US foreign policy in the hemisphere. up 24 users have voted. --
Disclaimer: No Russian, living or dead, had anything to do with the posting of this proudly home-grown comment
@snoopydawg@snoopydawg
Obama, Hillary and the rest of that administration knew it was a coup because that was the goal.
"..4. (C) In our view, none of the above arguments has any substantive validity under the Honduran constitution. Some are outright
false. Others are mere supposition or ex-post rationalizations of a patently illegal act. Essentially: --
the military had no authority to remove Zelaya from the country;
-- Congress has no constitutional authority to remove a Honduran president;
-- Congress and the judiciary removed Zelaya on the basis of a hasty, ad-hoc, extralegal, secret, 48-hour process;
-- the purported "resignation" letter was a fabrication and was not even the basis for Congress's action of June 28; and
-- Zelaya's arrest and forced removal from the country violated multiple constitutional guarantees, including the prohibition
on expatriation, presumption of innocence and right to due process. " https://www.wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/09TEGUCIGALPA645_a.html
That evil woman thinks she has the right to preach to others about how to handle the very fallout from the horrific disasters
that she HERself created? Hillary, look in the mirror, you evil woman.
Clinton said rightwing populists in the west met "a psychological as much as political yearning to be told what to do, and
where to go, and how to live and have their press basically stifled and so be given one version of reality.
" The whole American system was designed so that you would eliminate the threat from a strong, authoritarian king or
other leader and maybe people are just tired of it. They don't want that much responsibility and freedom. They want to be told
what to do and where to go and how to live and only given one version of reality.
"I don't know why at this moment that is so attractive to people, but it's a serious threat to our freedom and our democratic
institutions, and it goes very deep and very far and we've got to do a better job of shining a light on it and trying to combat
it."
This arrogance of looking down on the populace is very part and parcel of the neoliberal attitude of the ruling class takes
to the rest of us peons. They created this unreality for the American people and have suppressed our right to know what is really
happening in the world. Obama destroyed the Occupy Movement with violent police attacks and kettling. And then disgustingly, Clinton
comes out with her hubristic victim blaming.
The Clintons are nearly single handedly responsible for much of the destruction of the American middle class and the repression
of poor and black people under Bill and the violent destruction of many countries under Hillary. And yet neither Clinton is willing
to own up for all the human misery that they have caused wherever they go. Unfortunately, the one place they refuse to go is just
away forever.
The belief that HRC & her circle are principled & progressive is just as fictitious as the belief that they lost to a reality
TV host because of stolen emails, social media trolls, & a (fictitious) conspiracy between the reality TV host & the Kremlin:
https://t.co/iyTC1M6uws
Clinton says Europe should make clear that "we are not going to be able to continue provide refuge & support." Isn't this
the attitude we denounce Trump for? Speaking of irony, Clinton's regime wars in Libya & Syria (& Iraq, indirectly) fueled the
migration she wants to stop. https://t.co/CIkkGRRKNd
This ego-maniac sees the world's problems - which she had a huge hand in creating - only through the lens of her electability.
Apparently, the only problems the world has are the one's that keep her from sitting in the Oval Office. Everything else is
fine. She is deplorable.
That evil woman thinks she has the right to preach to others about how to handle the very fallout from the horrific disasters
that she HERself created? Hillary, look in the mirror, you evil woman.
Clinton said rightwing populists in the west met "a psychological as much as political yearning to be told what to do,
and where to go, and how to live and have their press basically stifled and so be given one version of reality.
" The whole American system was designed so that you would eliminate the threat from a strong, authoritarian king
or other leader and maybe people are just tired of it. They don't want that much responsibility and freedom. They want to
be told what to do and where to go and how to live and only given one version of reality.
"I don't know why at this moment that is so attractive to people, but it's a serious threat to our freedom and our democratic
institutions, and it goes very deep and very far and we've got to do a better job of shining a light on it and trying to
combat it."
This arrogance of looking down on the populace is very part and parcel of the neoliberal attitude of the ruling class takes
to the rest of us peons. They created this unreality for the American people and have suppressed our right to know what is
really happening in the world. Obama destroyed the Occupy Movement with violent police attacks and kettling. And then disgustingly,
Clinton comes out with her hubristic victim blaming.
The Clintons are nearly single handedly responsible for much of the destruction of the American middle class and the repression
of poor and black people under Bill and the violent destruction of many countries under Hillary. And yet neither Clinton is
willing to own up for all the human misery that they have caused wherever they go. Unfortunately, the one place they refuse
to go is just away forever.
@gulfgal98 Because they just HAVE to get a rich, far-right, patriarchal white woman elected at any cost for the sake
of 'making history'. If these idiots really wanted to make history, they'd work like hell to put someone in charge who actually
had the balls to hang the pigs and their collaborators for their crimes.
The belief that HRC & her circle are principled & progressive is just as fictitious as the belief that they lost to a
reality TV host because of stolen emails, social media trolls, & a (fictitious) conspiracy between the reality TV host &
the Kremlin: https://t.co/iyTC1M6uws
Clinton says Europe should make clear that "we are not going to be able to continue provide refuge & support." Isn't
this the attitude we denounce Trump for? Speaking of irony, Clinton's regime wars in Libya & Syria (& Iraq, indirectly)
fueled the migration she wants to stop. https://t.co/CIkkGRRKNd
This ego-maniac sees the world's problems - which she had a huge hand in creating - only through the lens of her electability.
Apparently, the only problems the world has are the one's that keep her from sitting in the Oval Office. Everything else
is fine. She is deplorable.
"... "The 10 Bcm/year into Europe is not a game-changer from a volume point of view, but it is a game-changer from a new source of product into mainland Europe perspective and it can be expanded." ..."
"... Meanwhile, however, Russia and Turkey are building another pipeline, Turkish Stream, that will supply gas to Turkey and Eastern Europe, as well as possibly Hungary. The two recently marked the completion of its subsea section. Turkish Stream will have two lines, each able to carry up to 15.75 billion cubic meters. One will supply the Turkish market and the other European countries. ..."
"... In this context, the Southern Gas Corridor seems to have more of a political rather than practical significance for the time being , giving Europe the confidence that it could at some future point import a lot more Caspian gas because the infrastructure is there. ..."
The Southern Gas Corridor on which the European Union is pinning most of its hopes for
natural gas supply diversification away from Russia is coming along nicely and will not just be
on schedule, but it will come with a price tag that is US$5-billion lower than the original
budget , BP's vice president in charge of the project
told S&P Global Platts this week.
"Often these kinds of mega-projects fall behind schedule. But the way the projects have
maintained the schedule has meant that your traditional overspend, or utilization of
contingency, has not occurred," Joseph Murphy said, adding that savings had been the top
priority for the supermajor.
The Southern Gas Corridor will carry natural gas from the Azeri Shah Deniz 2 field in the
Caspian Sea to Europe via a network of three pipelines : the Georgia South Caucasus Pipeline,
which was recently expanded and can carry 23 billion cubic meters of gas; the TANAP pipeline
via Turkey, with a peak capacity of 31 billion cubic meters annually; and the Trans-Adriatic
Pipeline, or TAP, which will link with TANAP at the Turkish-Greek border and carry 10 billion
cubic meters of gas annually to Italy.
TANAP was
commissioned in July this year and the first phase of TAP is expected to be completed in
two years, so Europe will hopefully have more non-Russian gas at the start of the new decade.
But not that much, at least initially: TANAP will operate at an initial capacity of 16 billion
cubic meters annually, of which 6 billion cubic meters will be supplied to Turkey and the
remainder will go to Europe. In the context of total natural gas demand of 564 billion cubic
meters in 2020, according to a forecast from the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies released
earlier this year, this is not a lot.
Yet at some point the TANAP will reach its full capacity and hopefully by that time, TAP
will be completed. Surprisingly, it was the branch to Italy that proved the most challenging,
and BP's Murphy acknowledged that. While Turkey built TANAP on time to the surprise of the
project operator, TAP has been struggling because of legal issues and uncertainty after the new
Italian government entered office earlier this year.
At the time, the government of Giuseppe Conte said the pipeline was pointless but, said
Murphy, since then he has accepted the benefits the infrastructure would offer, such as transit
fees. And yet local opposition in southern Italy remains strong but BP still sees first
deliveries of gas through Italy in 2020.
The BP executive admitted that at first the Southern Gas Corridor wouldn't make a
splash.
"The 10 Bcm/year into Europe is not a game-changer from a volume point of view, but it is
a game-changer from a new source of product into mainland Europe perspective and it can be
expanded."
Meanwhile, however, Russia and Turkey are building another pipeline, Turkish Stream, that
will supply gas to Turkey and Eastern Europe, as well as possibly Hungary. The two recently
marked the completion of its subsea section. Turkish Stream will have two lines, each able to
carry up to 15.75 billion cubic
meters. One will supply the Turkish market and the other European countries.
In this context, the Southern Gas Corridor seems to have more of a political rather than
practical significance for the time being , giving Europe the confidence that it could at some
future point import a lot more Caspian gas because the infrastructure is there.
"... The Private Contractors Using Vault 7 Tools for US Gov: Testimony Shows US Intel Needs a Ground-Up Rebuild Part 1... https://www.opednews.com/ar... ..."
"... Why Vault 7 Tools Used by Private Contractors Shows US Intel Needs a Ground-Up Rebuild- It's the News- Part 2... https://www.opednews.com/ar... ..."
"... Or is it owing to MI5/MI6 desperation, with how Trump will handle their involvement in the US Presidential Campaign. James Bond never had those types of problems, in the days when UK intelligence was not run by social media outlets. ..."
Not forgetting the US have their battalions of cyber trolls, together with the EU.
Then look into the media branches of cyber trolls. Ironic, when the UK Government is so
focused on Russia Today and the few funds they receive from the Russian Government.
Good point, with regards 'news' via social; media.
I do like the George Eliason articles, which explain intelligence agencies reliance on
social media. Including the US outsourcing 80% of it's intelligence to the social media.
Not just the US, when you look at the similarities with UK Media.
The Private Contractors Using Vault 7 Tools for US Gov: Testimony Shows US Intel
Needs a Ground-Up Rebuild Part 1...
https://www.opednews.com/ar...
Why Vault 7 Tools Used by Private Contractors Shows US Intel Needs a Ground-Up
Rebuild- It's the News- Part 2...
https://www.opednews.com/ar...
..........................
So what is with the timing? Is it to take attention away from BREXIT?
Or is it owing to MI5/MI6 desperation, with how Trump will handle their
involvement in the US Presidential Campaign. James Bond never had those types of
problems, in the days when UK intelligence was not run by social media outlets.
A new collection of essays, edited by former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, clearly shows
that it is the U.S. that is largely responsible for the poverty and suffering in these very
nations, says Robert Fantina.
By Robert Fantina
In two years, the world has become
accustomed to being shocked by the words and actions of United States President Donald Trump.
In January of this year, he again showed his lack of diplomacy, tack and common decency, when
he referred to many poorer countries as "sh*ithole countries", asking, "Why do we want all
these people from sh*thole countries coming here?" Former member of the House of
Representatives Cynthia McKinney, in the new book she has edited, How the US Creates 'Sh*thole' Countries ,
(Clarity Press) has gathered a collection of essays, including one of her own, that clearly
shows that it is the U.S. that is largely responsible for the poverty and suffering in these
very nations.
The first series of essays describes U.S. foreign policy, and its true motives. In the
essay, The End of Washington's 'Wars on the Cheap' , The Saker sums up U.S. foreign
policy as follows: "Here's the template for typical Empire action: find some weak country,
subvert it, accuse it of human right violations, slap economic sanctions, trigger riots and
intervene militarily in 'defense' of 'democracy', 'freedom' and 'self-determination' (or some
other combo of equally pious and meaningless concepts)." The hypocrisy of such a policy is
obvious. A weak and vulnerable nation is victimized by a far more powerful one. The U.S. has
done this countless times in its history, and there appears to be no appetite in the government
to change.
This introduction and explanation of U.S. foreign policy is followed by essays on some, but
certainly not all, of the countries that have been victimized by the United States, usually
following this template. As McKinney says in her essay, Somalia: Is Somalia the U.S.
Template for All of Africa , " while mouthing freedom, democracy, and liberty, the United
States has denied these very aspirations to others, especially when it inconvenienced the US or
its allies. In Mozambique and Angola, the US stood with Portugal until it was the Portuguese
people, themselves, who threw off their government and voted in a socialist government that
vowed to free Portugal of its colonies."
In the essay, How the U.S. Perpetuates the Palestinian Tragedy', Sami Al-Arian
writes:
" It might be understandable, if detestable, for Israel and its Zionist defenders to
circulate false characterizations of history and myths to advance their political agenda. But
it is incomprehensible, indeed reprehensible, for those who claim to advocate the rule of
law, believe in the principle of self-determination, and call for freedom and justice to fall
for this propaganda or to become its willing accomplices. In following much of American
political leaders' rhetoric or media coverage of the conflict, one is struck by the lack of
historical context, the deliberate disregard of empirical facts, and the contempt for
established legal constructs and precedents."
The U.S. leads in these distortions, with its
officials proclaiming, each time that Israel bombs Gaza, that "Israel has a right to defend
itself". There is hardly mention of the brutal, illegal occupation and blockade; never a
discussion of the fact that Palestine has no army, navy or air force, and Israel's military is
one of the world's most powerful thanks to the U.S. It is never stated that international law
allows an occupied people to resist the occupation in any way possible, including armed
struggle. The countless United Nations resolutions condemning Israeli actions in Palestine are
ignored by U.S. officials.
Once again, U.S. hypocrisy is on very public display.
The third section of this informative book describes the United States' mostly-successful
efforts to camouflage its vile intentions and international crimes. Christopher Black, in his
essay Western Imperialism and the Use of Propaganda", clearly articulates how this is
done:
" The primary concern they [U.S. government officials] have, in order to preserve their
control, is for the preservation of the new feudal mythology that they have created: that the
world is a dangerous place, that they are the protectors, that the danger is omnipresent,
eternal, and omnidirectional, comes from without, and comes from within. The mythology is
constructed and presented through all media; journals, films, television, radio, music,
advertising, books, the internet in all its variety. All available information systems are used
to create and maintain scenarios and dramas to convince the people that they, the protectors,
are the good and all others are the bad. We are bombarded with this message incessantly."
Our memories are short, indeed, if we have forgotten both President George W. Bush and his
Secretary of State, Colin Powell, telling the world from the United Nations the blatant lie
that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, threatening civilization. We are not paying
attention if we are unaware of the many innuendos given of the 'dangers' of all Muslims. Yes,
the government fosters fear, proclaiming subtly and not so subtly that there is danger
everywhere, and it is the role of the mighty United States to protect the world, whether or not
such protection is wanted or needed.
Lastly, the U.S. Itself can be described as a 'sh*thole' country. Its many violations of
international law, and crimes against humanity, are summarized by Richard Falk, in his essay
The Sh*thole Phenomenon at Home and Abroad:
" This kind of nationalist pride covered up and blindsided crimes of the greatest severity
that were being committed from the time of the earliest settlements: genocide against native
Americans, reliance on the barbarism of slavery to facilitate profitable cotton production
and the supposedly genteel life style of the Southern plantations. This unflattering national
picture should be enlarged to include the exploitation of the resources and good will of
peoples throughout Latin America, who, once freed from Spanish colonial rule, quickly found
themselves victimized by American gunboat diplomacy that paved the way for American investors
or joined in crushing those bold and brave enough to engage in national resistance against
the abuse of their homelands."
The final essay is the Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human
Rights on his Mission to the United States of America, authored by Philip Alston. While
Trump decries "sh*thole" countries, the conditions that the U.S. put those countries in are not
unknown in the U.S. A few facts from Alston's report will suffice:
The U.S.'s " immense
wealth and expertise stand in shocking contrast with the conditions in which vast numbers of
its citizens live. About 40 million live in poverty, 18.5 million in extreme poverty, and 5.3
million live in Third World conditions of absolute poverty. It has the highest youth poverty
rate in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the highest
infant mortality rates among comparable OECD States. Its citizens live shorter and sicker lives
compared to those living in all other rich democracies, eradicable tropical diseases are
increasingly prevalent, and it has the world's highest incarceration rate, one of the lowest
levels of voter registrations in among OECD countries and the highest obesity levels in the
developed world." " The United States has the highest rate of income inequality among Western
countries. The $1.5 trillion in tax cuts in December 2017 overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy
and worsened inequality." " For almost five decades the overall policy response has been
neglectful at best, but the policies pursued over the past year seem deliberately designed to
remove basic protections from the poorest, punish those who are not in employment and make even
basic health care into a privilege to be earned rather than a right of citizenship."
The information in these essays is all rigorously documented with extensive footnotes. The
writing is clear and the facts are presented in a concise manner that is highly beneficial for
the average reader or academic.
For anyone who questions U.S. policies, at home or abroad, and who has perhaps become more
aware of such issues since Trump's election,
says: November 24, 2018 at 5:38 pm
GMT 100 Words @Big Bill They fought that it
was Russia, that was holding them back, and by separating they could quickly achieve Western
European standard of living. The first guy to become president of independent Ukraine promised
people that they were going to "live like France" .in 5 years (!). lol
So their plan was something like this:
step 1: Separate from Russia.
step 2:
step 3: France
Lately, they began to think that the Ukraine's path to prosperity goes through EU
membership, hence popular support for Euromaidan, and you know the results Phanar Phantom
You're full of shit what the heck do you know about industry you useless little fart ?
are you an industrial engineer do you have any technical qualifications whatsoever or do
you just pull buzzwords like 'marketable skills' out your wazoo, as needed ?
Your industries are worth ZERO, if you're unable to sell your products, and the Ukraine
struggled to sell its manufactured goods after 1991. Its traditional customer – Russia
began to import Western goods.
You sound like Martyanov. lol It doesn't take any "special qualification" to figure out
that Soviet-era factories were churning out worthless crap – there is a reason why that
system fell apart, you know.
@Felix
Keverich Thanks for confirming that you have zero credentials in any technical field yet
you are somehow posing as someone qualified to talk about industry
Glad you are blocking me you little worm the Ostrich response do you cover your eyes and
ears when your teacher or parent [or caregiver, since you are obviously retarded] says
something that is true but which you don't want to hear ?
As for Soviet era factories churning out 'worthless crap' that would include the world's
best rocket engines, decades ahead of the west's technology ?
@Felix
Keverich Liberast opinion. People with this views destroyed the country, caused massive
displacement and demographic and social catastrophes. People with your views should not be
allowed to the levers of power for the distance of avangard shot. If to follow your logic USA
and China must dismantle and sell as scrap metal their MIC as they both clearly cannot
compete with Russian MIC. National manufacturing of everything is not about competition. It
is about souverenity in everything and national capability to provide own population both
with goods and means to make a living via manufacturing of everything needed. Current
situation with so much of everything made in China is an abomination that hurts too much
people around the globe. People with your views in Russia should be purged and preferably
executed for crimes against former Soviet people.
I find it strange that shamir who professes communist views is paying so much attention to
this basically religious spat about power and money. Wasn't it once th as t that religion is
opium for masses. It is here to keep population down so that it is easily fleeced by thieves.
The only value for Russia in orthodoxy at the moment is that the country completely devote of
ideology as per constitution there must be something to hold people together and give some
meaning to their existence.
Comments while mostly naive, are indicative for the part of the US society that elected Trump
and that Trump betrayed.
But the fact that gas went not to Europe, but to Turkey is pretty indicative. And even larger volume with go to China. At some
point Europe might lose part or all Russia gas supply as Russian gas reserved are not infinite. That the perspective EU leaders
are afraid of.
US shale gas is OK as long as the USA is supplied from Canada, Russia and other places as well. Some quantity can be
exported. But the USA can't be a large and stable gas supplier to Europe as shale gas is capital intensive and sweet spots
are limited.
Notable quotes:
"... Some worthy observations, especially with all the US "Think Tanks." But I would include the number of non-Jewish elites who have banded together with the Jewish elite and who have greatly aided in eating out the very heart of America. ..."
"... History also shows that ANY smaller entity (Israel) that depends on a larger entity (America) for its survival becomes a failed entity in the long run. Just saying. ..."
"... The American Empire is all cost and no benefit to the great majority of Americans. The MIC and that's it. Politicians on the right wave the flag and politicians on the left describe a politically correct future. All on our dime. ..."
While the Trump Administration still thinks it can play enough games to derail the
Nordstream 2 pipeline via sanctions and threats, the impotence of its position geopolitically
was on display the other day as the final pipe of the first train of the Turkstream pipeline
entered the waters of the Black Sea.
The pipe was sanctioned by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan who shared a public stage and held bilateral talks afterwards. I think it is
important for everyone to watch the response to Putin's speech in its entirety. Because it
highlights just how far Russian/Turkish relations have come since the November 24th, 2015
incident where Turkey shot down a Russian SU-24 over Syria.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/TkFR25SArYM
When you contrast this event with the strained and uninspired interactions between Erdogan
and President Trump you realize that the world is moving forward despite the seeming power of
the United States to derail events.
And Turkey is the key player in the region, geographically, culturally and politically.
Erdogan and Putin know this. And they also know that Turkey being the transit corridor of
energy for Eastern Europe opens those countries up to economic and political power they haven't
enjoyed in a long time.
The first train of Turkstream will serve Turkey directly. Over the next couple of years the
second train will be built which will serve as a jumping off point for bringing gas to Eastern
and Southern Europe.
Turkstream will bring 15.75 bcm annually to Turkey and the second train that same amount to
Europe. The TAP – Trans Adriatic Pipeline -- will bring just 10 bcm annually and won't do
so before 2020, a project more than six years in the making.
Political Realities
The real story behind Turkstream, however, is, despite Putin's protestations to the
contrary, political. No project of this size is purely economic, even if it makes immense
economic sense. If that were the case then the STC wouldn't exist because it makes zero
economic sense but some, if not much, political sense.
No, this pipeline along with the other major energy projects between Russia and Turkey have
massive long-term political implications for the Middle East. Erdogan wants to re-take control
of the Islamic world from the Saudis.
This is why they have the Saudis on a residual-poison-type drip
feed of information relating to the death of Jamal Khashoggi to extract maximal value from
the situation as Erdogan plays the U.S. deep state against the Trump/Mohammed bin Salman (MbS)
alliance.
The U.S. deep state wants Trump weakened and MbS removed from power. Trump needs MbS to
advance his plans for securing Israel's future and prolong the dollar's long-term health.
Erdogan is using this rift to extract concessions left and right while continuing to do
whatever he wants to do vis a vis Syria, Iran and his growing partnership with Russia.
Erdogan is in a position now to drive a very hard bargain over U.S. involvement in Syria,
which neither faction in the U.S. government (Trump and the deep state) wants to give up
on.
By controlling the oil fields in the eastern part of Syria and blocking the roads leading
from Iraq the U.S. is playing a game it can't win because ultimately the Kurds will either have
to be betrayed by the U.S. to keep Erdogan happy or cut a deal with the Syrian government for
their future alienating the U.S.
This has been the ultimate end-game of the occupation of eastern Syria for months now and
time is on both Putin's and Erdogan's side. Because the U.S. can't pressure Turkey to stop
growing closer to Russia and Iran.
Eventually the U.S. troops in Syria will be nothing more than an albatross around Trump's
neck politically and he'll have to announce a pull out, which will be popular back home helping
his re-election campaign for 2020.
The big loser in this is Israel who is now having to circle the wagons politically since
Putin put the screws to Benjamin Netanyahu for his part in the deaths of 15 Russian airmen back
in September by closing the Syrian airspace and allowing mostly free movement of materiel to
Lebanon.
Netanyahu, as I talked about last week, is now in a very precarious position after Israel
was forced to sue for peace thanks to the unprecedentedly strong response by the Palestinians
in Gaza.
Elijah Magnier commented
recently that it this was the net result of Trump's unconditional support of Israel which
united the Arab resistance rather than dividing and conquering it.
But the US establishment decided to distance itself from the Palestinian cause and
embraced unconditionally the Israeli apartheid policy towards Palestine: the US supports
Israel blindly. It has recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, suspended financial aid
to UN institutions supporting Palestinian refugees (schools, medical care, homes), and
rejected the right of return of Palestinians. All this has pushed various Palestinian groups,
including the Palestinian Authority, to acknowledge that any negotiation with Israel is
useless and that also the US can no longer be considered a reliable partner. Moreover, the
failed regime-change in Syria and the humiliating conditions place on Arab financial support
were in a way the last straws that convinced Hamas to change its position, giving up on the
Oslo agreement and joining the Axis of the Resistance.
Project Netanyahu,
as Alistair Crooke termed it , was predicated on keeping the support of the Palestinians
split with Hamas and the Palestinian Authority at odds and then grinding out the resistance in
Gaza over time.
Trump's plans also involved the formation of the so-called "Arab NATO" the summit for which
has been put off until next year thanks to Erdogan's deft handling of the Saudi hit on
Khashoggi. There are still a number of issues outstanding -- the financial blockade of Qatar,
the war in Yemen, etc. -- that need to be resolved as well before any of this is even remotely
possible.
At this point that plan has failed and the clash with Israel last week proved it is
unworkable without tacit approval of Turkey who is gunning for the Saudis as the leaders of the
Sunni world.
Show me the Money
But, more importantly, over time, a Turkey that can ween itself off the U.S. dollar over the
next decade is a Turkey that can survive politically the upheaval to the post-WWII
institutional order coming over the next few years.
Remember, all of this is happening against the backdrop of a U.S. and European political
order that is failing to maintain the confidence of the people it governs.
The road to dollar independence will be long and hard but it will be possible. Russia is the
model for this having successfully removed the dollar from a great deal of its trade and is now
reaping the benefits of that stability.
And projects like Turkstream and the soon to be completed Power of Siberia Pipeline to China
will see the gas from both trade without the dollar as the intermediary.
If you don't think this de-dollarization of the Russian economy is happening or significant,
take one look at the Russian ruble versus the price of Brent crude in recent weeks. We've had
another historic collapse in oil prices and yet the ruble versus the dollar hasn't really moved
at all.
The upward move from earlier this year in the ruble (not shown) came from disruptions in the
Aluminum market and the threat of further sanctions. But, as the U.S. puts the screws even
tighter to Russia's finances by forcing the price of oil down, the effect on the ruble has been
minimal.
With today's move Brent is off nearly $30 from its October high ( a massive 35% drop in
prices) just seven weeks ago and the Ruble hasn't budged. The Bank of Russia hasn't been in
there propping up its price. Normally this would send the ruble into a tailspin but it
hasn't.
The other so-called 'commodity currencies' like the Canadian and Australian dollars have
been hit hard but not the ruble.
Set the Way Back Machine to 2014 when oil prices cratered and you'll see a ruble in free
fall which culminated in a massive blow-off top that required a fundamental shift in both
fiscal and monetary policy for Russia.
This had to do with the massive dollar-denominated debt of its, you guessed it, oil and gas
sector. Today that is not a point of leverage.
Today lower oil prices will be a forward headwind for Russian oil companies but a boon to
the Russian economy that won't experience massive inflation thanks to the ruble being sold to
cover U.S. dollar liabilities.
Those days are over.
And so too will those days come for Turkey which is now in the process of doing what Russia
did in 2015, divest itself of future dollar obligations while diversifying the currencies it
trades in.
Stability, transparency and solvency are the things that increase the demand for a currency
as not only a medium of exchange but also as a reserve asset. Russia announced the latest
figures of bilateral trade with China bypassing the dollar and RT had a very interesting
quote from Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev.
No one currency should dominate the market, because this makes all of us dependent on the
economic situation in the country that issues this reserve currency, even when we are talking
about a strong economy such as the United States," Medvedev said.
He added that US sanctions have pushed Moscow and Beijing to think about the use of their
domestic currencies in settlements, something that "we should have done ten years ago."
" Trading for rubles is our absolute priority, which, by the way, should eventually turn
the ruble from a convertible currency into a reserve currency, " the Russian prime minister
said.
That is the first statement by a major Russian figure about seeing the ruble rise to reserve
status, but it's something that many, like myself, have speculated about for years now.
Tying together major economies like Turkey, Iran, China and eventually the EU via energy
projects which settle the trade in local currencies is the big threat to the current political
and economic program of the U.S. It is something the EU will only embrace reluctantly.
It is something the U.S. will oppose vehemently.
And it is something that no one will stop if it makes sense for the people on each side of
the transaction. This is why Turkstream and Nordstream 2 are such important projects they
change the entire dynamic of the flow of global capital.
Oil and commodity markets were used as a finishing move on the Soviet system. The book,
"The Oil Card: Global Economic Warfare in the 21st Century" by James R. Norman details the
use of oil futures as a geopolitical tool. Pipelines change the calculus quite a bit.
Soros funded 'migration' to Europe has also failed and created a massive cultural and
economic burden on Europe.
The Soros/Rothschild plan to destroy Middle Eastern countries and displace the people was
- of course - motivated by the Rothschilds 'bread and butter ' - OIL ( the worlds largest
traded commodity ) !!
...Where ever they go, they [neoliberals] get organised, identify the institutions/establishments/courts to infiltrate and then use that
influence to -
* Hijack the economy.
* Corrupt the society.
As the current trend shows, the nexus of the international economic activity is shifting
east. Turkey is not making a mistake aligning itself with the goals of Russia, Iran and
China. Although there is still a huge debt of the previous deeds that has to be paid.
"Half of the US billionaires are Jews while only being less then 3% of the population. And
it doesn't stop there. They work collectively to hijack the institutions critical for the
operations of the democracy."
Some worthy observations, especially with all the US "Think Tanks." But I would include
the number of non-Jewish elites who have banded together with the Jewish elite and who have
greatly aided in eating out the very heart of America.
I read on here previously some dimwit comment about "America prints a bill for 2 cents
while other countries have to earn a dollars worth of equity to buy it and we can do this
forever" kind of thing. Not if other countries don't supply the demand you can't :)
History also shows that ANY smaller entity (Israel) that depends on a larger entity
(America) for its survival becomes a failed entity in the long run. Just saying.
I think you could quite reasonably replace the term 'depends on a larger entity', with a
term that better describes a (smaller) ' parasite ' on a (larger) host...
From your lips to God's ear. The American Empire is all cost and no benefit to the great majority of Americans. The MIC
and that's it. Politicians on the right wave the flag and politicians on the left describe a
politically correct future. All on our dime.
Israhell is losing its status via Putins peaceful diplomacy and trade with ME countries
who are not onboard with the Yinon plan. This is why RUSSIAGATE, led by dual Israhelli democrats in Congress. There is always a
foreign policy issue attached to their demonizing of other countries. This is also why the UK just sent UK soldiers to Ukraine declaring war on Russia for
"invading Ukraine" and not telling parliament or the UK people.
UK/US blind support for Israhell will get us all killed.
We do know that UK soldiers have been sent to the Ukraine. We also know that, according to elements in the Government and the Civil Service, Russia
invaded and annexed the Ukraine, which is just another reason to not trust the
Government--any Government.
WRONG!!!!! NordStream Eins und Zwei are the Prizes, because DEU, Scandinavia, CHE, and FRA will
Benefit. TRK Wins 2nd Prize with TRKStream and SouthStream Pipelines. Losers are BGR and EU_PARAGOV, since BGR went from Prime Partner to Trickledown
Transiteer.
Ultimately, along with Nordstream and Turkstream, there will also be a Polarstream
(leading to UK and Iceland) and Southstream (which was already begun but temporarily
suspended after Obama threatened Bulgaria via Angela Merkel).
And, oh...I am sure there will also be a Ukrostream (also known as Mainstream)
unfortunately the Ukronazi government of Ukrainistan doesn't know this just yet. They will
find out in due course, I am sure.
First PolarStream is highly unlikely both because laying it would be extremely difficult
and expensive and because Iceland has no need for gas as it is sitting on thermal reserves
and the UK won't deal with Russia.
You are correct on SouthStream.
As to UkroStream (I assume you mean Ukraine) it is already in existence and has been for
50 plus years. Given the bad history between the parties the Russians will want to stop that
route asap, hence the timing of NordStream 2 and TurkStream. So in the future UkroSream is
going to end, not start.
long-term political implications for the Middle East. Erdogan wants to re-take control of
the Islamic world from the Saudis.
SA still has control of the Hajj -- religious tourism - command by the Magic Book that
even Turkish mohammadist must complete. +/- 18% of SA GDP-- and SA isn't sharing any of that
loot.
Ticip is required to go and throw rocks at the black orb -- and do the Muslim Hokey Pokey
along with all the rest.. oh, and pay the SA kings for the privilege !
The new 3D Grand Chessboard is being played very quietly out of Moscow.
The article is a wee bit deceptive. Whilst this was indeed the last bit of under sea pipe
they were celebrating, it should be pointed out the stunning speed that they achieved, about
a mile a day some to a depth of over 1000 feet, quite an achievement on land, let alone at
sea. This is quite interesting, especially the map
Also, as its landfall in Turkey is west of the Bosphorus, that is west of Istanbul, maybe
that 'for Turkish use' is a cover for its primary purpose, supplying the Balkans as well as
Turkey from January 2020.
Note the significance of the start to pump date, December 2019, the same as NordStream 2.
What else happens then? Oh yes, the gas transit contract with Ukraine ends. The combination
of these two new pipelines to a very great extent replace that agreement. Even though
politically everyone is saying Ukraine ($4B p.a. transit fees) should be protected.
Take another look at the map, note that it takes a dogleg south to Turkey. If at that
point it had gone straight ahead it would have gone to Bulgaria as SouthStream. But the US
and its EU vassal stopped that. Maybe the second pipeline the Russians are now discussing
will resurrect that route.
How long jews can maintain their political power, not just in the USA, but in the whole
west, I have no idea, there is not much that points to an important change soon.
This, of course, is the $64,000 question. Rather than us Dumb Goyim speculating
about it, why not listen to what a political insider had to say about this issue back in
2001?
His name is Dr. Stephen Steinlight. And although Ron Unz has characterized him as "some
totally obscure Zionist activist" he was was for more than five years Director of National
Affairs (domestic policy) at the American Zionist Committee. If that doesn't qualify him
as an "insider," I don't know what does.
Excerpts from The Zionist Stake in America's Changing Demography: Reconsidering a
Misguided Immigration Policy :
Facing Up to the Gradual Demise of Zionist Political Power
Not that it is the case that our disproportionate political power (pound for pound the
greatest of any ethnic/cultural group in America) will erode all at once, or even quickly.
We will be able to hang on to it for perhaps a decade or two longer. Unless and until
the triumph of campaign finance reform is complete , an extremely unlikely scenario,
the great material wealth of the Zionist community will continue to give it significant
advantages. We will continue to court and be courted by key figures in Congress. That power
is exerted within the political system from the local to national levels through soft
money, and especially the provision of out-of-state funds to candidates sympathetic to
Israel , a high wall of church/state separation, and social liberalism combined with
selective conservatism on criminal justice and welfare issues.
Zionist voter participation also remains legendary; it is among the highest in the
nation. Incredible as it sounds, in the recent presidential election more Jews voted in Los
Angeles than Latinos. But should the naturalization of resident aliens begin to move more
quickly in the next few years, a virtual certainty -- and it should -- then it is only a
matter of time before the electoral power of Latinos, as well as that of others, overwhelms
us.
All of this notwithstanding, in the short term, a number of factors will continue to
play into our hands, even amid the unprecedented wave of continuous immigration. The very
scale of the current immigration and its great diversity paradoxically constitutes at least
a temporary political asset. While we remain comparatively coherent as a voting bloc, the
new mostly non-European immigrants are fractured into a great many distinct, often
competing groups, many with no love for each other. This is also true of the many new
immigrants from rival sides in the ongoing Balkan wars, as it is for the growing south
Asian population from India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. They have miles and miles to go
before they overcome historical hatreds, put aside current enmities and forgive recent
enormities, especially Pakistani brutality in the nascent Bangladesh. Queens is no
melting pot!
For perhaps another generation, an optimistic forecast, the Zionist community is thus in
a position where it will be able to divide and conquer and enter into selective coalitions
that support our agendas. But the day will surely come when an effective Asian-American
alliance will actually bring Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Koreans, Vietnamese,
and the rest closer together. And the enormously complex and as yet significantly divided
Latinos will also eventually achieve a more effective political federation. The fact is
that the term "Asian American" has only recently come into common parlance among younger
Asians (it is still rejected by older folks), while "Latinos" or "Hispanics" often do not
think of themselves as part of a multinational ethnic bloc but primarily as Mexicans,
Cubans, or Puerto Ricans.
Even with these caveats, an era of astoundingly disproportionate Zionist legislative
representation may already have peaked. It is unlikely we will ever see many more U.S.
Senates with 10 Zionist members. And although had Al Gore been allowed by the Supreme Court
to assume office, a Jew would have been one heartbeat away from the presidency, it may be
we'll never get that close again. With the changes in view, how long do we actually
believe that nearly 80 percent of the entire foreign aid budget of the United States will
go to Israel?
If Steinlight was obscure or not, I do not know.
What struck me in one of his articles is how he sees the holocaust story as essential to Zionist power in the USA.
Also in that article he wondered if at some point in time Jews might be driven out of the
USA, 'but, there is always the life boat Israel'.
That Israel will collapse the minute Zionist power in the USA [eventually] ends, he seems unable to see
this.
About your quote, it seems to have been written before it became clear to the world that
western power is diminishing.
So even if Zionist power over the West remains, Zionist power in the world is diminishing
too.
NATO, EU, Pentagon, neocons, whatever, may still want war with Russia, my idea is that on the other
hand that more and more people see this intention, and are absolutely against.
While western influence is receding, Assad still is there, Russia has bases in Syria, Erdogan, on what side is he ?; and so on and so forth.
The battle cry 'no more war for Israel' exists for a long time in the USA. And I interpret discussions on
this side of the Atlantic about increasing anti-Semitism as the acknowledgement of the fact that more and more people
on this side begin to criticize Zionists, especially with regard to Palestinians.
These American fucktards actually think they can replace Russian gas supply to the EU. With
what you utter void heads? America had a net export capacity of 5 bcm in 2017 because it
imported about 87 bcm from Canada. When you fuckwad, douchebags get 150 bcm export capacity,
then start yapping. Until then, STFU.
Of course, it is clear to anyone with a functional brain that the US is totally dishonest
on claiming to want to supply the EU. In fact, it wants to saddle the EU with onerous LNG
contracts to third parties (e.g. Qatar) who can currently and for the near term supply the
volumes of LNG needed. At the same time the US damages the Asian tigers by increasing LNG
prices.
It is time for all the US bootlicks (Japan, the EU) to tell Uncle Scumbag to shove himself
in his own ass. The US is not even pretending to treat these countries with respect.
The US has repeatedly taken position against Nord Stream 2, a Russia-sponsored pipeline
planned to bring gas to Germany under the Baltic Sea. But this time Washington warned against
another such pipeline, bringing Russian gas under the Black Sea.
US Energy Secretary Rick Perry called on Hungary and its neighbors to reject Russian gas
pipelines which Washington says are being used to cement Moscow's grip on central and eastern
Europe.
Energy diversification would be crucial for the region, as Russia has used energy as a
weapon in the past, he said, as quoted by Reuters.
"Russia is using a pipeline project Nord stream 2 and a multi-line Turkish stream to try to
solidify its control over the security and the stability of Central and eastern Europe," Perry
added during a visit to Budapest.
Last July, Hungary signed a deal with Russia's Gazprom to link the country with the Turkish
Stream pipeline by end-2019.
Rick Perry is a salesman. He wants us Europeans to buy USA gas. Which is why he is against
North Stream 2 and Turkish Stream. Not because Russia may use gas to blackmail Europe --
unlike the USA, which blackmails Europe to sanction Iran and Russia –. No, he just
wants us to buy America.
Despite the fact that gas produced in the USA is far more expensive
than Russia's. Well, what can you expect from a minister in the government of a tycoon? What
else can you expect from today's USA?
One way or another, Gazprom is going to have to pay Ukraine $2.6 Billion, so they might as
well just do it and have it over with. Of course the Ukies will prance and jump up and down
in the streets and yell 'Slava Ukrainy' – and hasten off to prepare new lawsuits in
search of more money from the Russian state. But a Swiss court has ordered all Nord Stream
partners to not make any payments to Gazprom, instead to pay all monies owed to Gazprom to
Swedish bailiffs, who will redistribute it to Ukraine until they recover all their money.
Sanctions may have knocked as much as 6 percent off Russia's economy over the past four
years and the drag isn't likely to go away anytime soon.
A new study by Bloomberg Economics has found that the economy of the world's biggest
energy exporter is more than 10 percent smaller compared with what might have been expected
at the end of 2013, before the Crimea crisis triggered wave after wave of restrictions by the
U.S. and EU. While some of the blame falls on the slump in oil prices, sanctions are the
bigger culprit .
"The underperformance has been much bigger than crude alone can explain," wrote Scott
Johnson, an analyst at Bloomberg Economics in London. "Part of the gap is likely to
reflect the enduring impact of sanctions both imposed and threatened over the last five
years."..
They admit that part of the 6 percent gap could be attributed to other shocks, such as
the introduction of inflation targeting and a sell-off in emerging markets
####
More anal-cysts at the link & my extra emphasis not to mention more
qualifiers in the article too boot.
Timely 'proof' that USA still runs the world and can punish people? Hardly a surprise but
they could have also pointed to not so great EU economic performance and its effect, but what
would be the point in that? Is it a) keep the sanction up and Russia will collapse/change its
foreign policy etc.? b) no need for more far reaching sanctions that could lead to Boeing/ULA
being stranded etc.? c) filler and fluff? d) Bloomturd shilling for business after their
Supermicro debacle?
Again, what's the point? What's it trying to prove?
If anything, de-dollarization and accelerating ties with the growing Asia-Pacific region
is very good for Russia, even if there is some initial short term pain inflicted by others.
If I do have a problem with Russia, it is that it seems to be cautious and then reactionary
by nature – or is this more institutionally safe behavior?
I smell GDP growth shenanigans at GKS. Hellevig had a piece earlier that debunked the claim
of a 1.3% GDP growth in the first quarter of 2018 and estimated that it was closer to 6%. He
was a bit too optimistic but the point is that 1.5% annual GDP growth (roughly 6%/4years) is
falling through the cracks and likely deliberately.
I believe Putin introduced a misinformation campaign late in his first term in regards to
GDP growth in Russia to keep NATzO confused about Russia's resurgence. The CIA was not doing
a good job estimating the Russian GDP, so Putin could fake the numbers and NATzO
triumphalists would lap them up with glee. I think this policy was smart and actually worked.
That is why in 2014 Obama was certain the Russia's economy would collapse from the sanctions.
Read the articles in the NATzO MSM from 2014 and even through 2017 which assumed that massive
damage to Russia's economy was a given.
By keeping NATzO ignorant of Russia's actual potential, it could re-arm and regroup in
peace. I think it would have been bad for Russia if the events of 2014 happened in 2004. In
2004, the Russian defense industry physical plant was still in sad shape and collapsing. This
condition was basically rectified by 2014. And Russia was also able to deploy its new
hypersonic wunderwaffen. Anyone who thinks such machinations are tin foil hat nonsense does
not know the history leading up to WWII. The USSR managed to delay the attack of the Nazis by
2 years which allowed it to increase its military potential by 40% and to move defense
factories to the Urals.
Today Putin is pretending that NATzO sanctions are actually working when it is patently
obvious that they are not. This is ***physically*** apparent in Russia as import substitution
occurs on a massive scale. Since every dollar imports saved amounts to two dollars of
domestic production (one for local production and one for not exporting the dollar and
incurring a negative GDP accounting penalty) Russia's GDP growth should be over 4%. But you
would think that nothing was happening in terms of import substitution and that Russia's
economy was running cool and near recession. The employment statistics show that this is not
the reality. If the economy was near stagnation, the unemployment rate would go up. Low
unemployment occurs when the economy runs hot.
The way that Russia's GDP statistics are skewed is through the official CPI and PPI.
Nabiullina at the CBR claims that Russia is has serious inflationary instability. That is why
the prime rate is over three times the actual CPI (7.5% vs 2.3%). I have posted before why
there is no evidence of 1970s style South American inflation in Russia given the extremely
short lived inflation spike after the late 2014 ruble forex devaluation; the spike was
force-damped and did not have any recurring peaks after the initial one. Under real
inflationary conditions a 7.5% prime rate would do didley squat and, in fact, there is no
magic prime rate that controls the inflation. If it is set too high, the inflation actually
increases. Also, if Russia's economy was running cool there would not be any need for a 7.5%
rate since it would push the economy into a recession. So reality indicates that Russia's
economy is actually running hot and this has some inflationary pressure but also means that
1.3% GDP growth numbers are BS.
Today Putin is pretending that NATzO sanctions are actually working when it is patently
obvious that they are not.
I suspect that he is not the only one. There's a whole host of other sanctions that the
West has studiously avoided putting on Russia because of the damage that would be done to
itself, not to mention that it would always like to have a few extra sanctions to dangle
publicly/privately or both at will.
Vis the Bloomturd report, do they expect someone to pay for it? When you click on the link
to the 'report' you get:
The article you requested is only available for Bloomberg Professional Service
subscribers.
The article you requested is only available for Bloomberg Professional Service
subscribers.
####
Uh-huh. Who exactly is their target audience again?
"I believe Putin introduced a misinformation campaign late in his first term in regards to
GDP growth in Russia to keep NATzO confused about Russia's resurgence."
Well, you could be right with this , Kirill.
Belarus, Armenia ( near 10%) and Kyrgyzstan( countries with economies interlinked heavily
with Russia's of course) all had very strong growth in their economies in the last year.
Russia as the mother economy for those countries would be expected to have a lesser but still
significant growth figures like 3-4%.
Other things like improved health and rapidly improving crime statistics in Russia, plus
public spending could further support your theory ( nearly 60 trillion roubles for the next 3
years is allocated). On the other hand salaries going up is what is needed to substantiate
your theory.
Salaries are determined by what the market perceives. If the Russian government and CBR are
spreading a fake image of Russia's economic health, then that will have negative
consequences. The choice is between those negative consequences and the neo-Reich lunatics
who are openly baying for war on Russia.
GNP is undoubtedly a fairly crude indicator of the health of an economy- I am a little
surprised that both GNP and the size of FIRE are not routinely published. Here is an
interesting bar graph giving some detail as to how the Russian economy managed in
2015-2016
People like Andrei Martyanov (smoothieX12) argue that the (real) US economy is much smaller
than customarily claimed, whilst the Russian economy is much larger. I have copied the above
graph from a comment by smoothieX12 to his article http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2018/11/it-begins-to-sink-finally-but-too-late.html
Interesting. I would have thought there was much more growth in Russian agriculture than
that, but maybe some of the self-sufficiency efforts are still in their early stages, or
perhaps domestic sales are harder to track for effect. Anyway, it puts paid to the nonsense
that American sanctions are crushing the Russian economy.
This calls to mind Russia's deal with Iran, in which Russia will trade food, medicines and
what necessities Iran desires but which American-imposed sanctions make difficult to obtain,
for Iranian oil and gas which Russia will use domestically. Countries are reverting to the
barter system to nullify US sanctions in a way that does not use currency flow the USA might
try to interdict or confiscate. No actual money changes hands, so America can snoop on SWIFT
to its heart's content without seeing evidence of promising targets. Striking, too, is the
prevalence of real sympathy for Iran and an evident desire to help it with its problems. The
USA has apparently bitten off more than it can chew here, and several nations are openly
flouting its rules. If America cannot think of a way to come down hard on them, their example
may become contagious.
Vesti News
Published on 19 Nov 2018
Subscribe to Vesti News
Since Monday, we've been watching Poroshenko's panic. On the one hand, he was throwing rude
tantrums because his project to create a "new Church of Ukraine" didn't go as planned. He
only managed to create a branch of the Constantinople Patriarchate in Kiev, which is not the
division-building thing Poroshenko dreamed of. On the other hand, Ukraine, where it's already
snowing, isn't ready for winter.
My suspicion then that Poroshenko must have intended for this new Church of Ukraine to be
subservient to Kiev so that all its properties could be declared state properties and the
Church's wealth could be Kiev's (and Poroshenko's) for the taking only increased when I saw
this report. Interesting too that Poroshenko only now, near the end of his Presidency, is
selling off the assets he should have sold off at the start of his Presidency in compliance
with Ukrainian law.
Gee; who could ever have imagined such a thing would happen? Russia should handle any
emerging crisis very carefully, because Kiev will want to find a way to blame all Ukraine's
problems on Russia, as usual. Russia might win quite a few allies if it boxes clever.
No need to write Poroshenko's epitaph just yet; he's only sold off a ratty old shipyard
that likely was not making him any money anyway. That's not a bellwether of panic; not yet.
But he is almost certain to lose to Tymoshenko, and she will be a double whammy for Ukraine
because she has no more idea how to solve the problem than does Poroshenko, is steadfastly
loyal to the west although it has done nothing since the glorious Maidan but mess Ukraine up
even more than it already was, with the added bonus that she will probably usher in a
circuses-but-no-bread distraction of gunning for Poroshenko and his government, using the
premise that they are to blame for Ukraine's disintegration. That's broadly true, but
Tymoshenko has no plan at all for what comes after Ukrainians' fury is sated.
"On Nov.14, just a day before the decision to cut assistance, the European Parliament
overwhelmingly passed a nonbinding resolution saying Moldova has become a "state captured by
oligarchic interests" that exert their influence over most parts of Moldova's society. The
country is actually ruled by a small group of tycoons."
Ukraine is actually ruled by a small group of tycoons; according to the European Council
on Foreign Relations (which wants Ukraine to succeed as a western satellite, so you can bet
anything negative about it will be soft-pedaled), the 50 5ichest Ukrainians pre-maidan
controlled 45% of national GDP.
Anyone want to present the case that the situation has improved since its oligarchic
president took power, and used it to continuously enrich himself and his family, maintaining
his status as a wealthy businessman even as he takes the odd moment out now and again to see
how the country's doing? I thought not.
Last year, after the country has had quite a generous spell to throw off the shackles of
its oligarchy, the top FIVE Ukrainian oligarchs alone control 13% of the nation's GDP –
Rinat Akhmetov, Ihor Kolomoyskiy, Victor Pinchuk, Petro Poroshenko and Dmytro Firtash.
Waiting in the wings to take over the helm, Yulia Tymoshenko, once known as 'the Gas
Princess", and another oligarch who has been rich since she was very young, whose past
performance suggests Ukraine is in for another round of nest-feathering and struggle for
financial gain among its wealthy citizens, with not a toss given for the rest.
Think we'll see the EU cut them off from funding any time soon? Me, either.
"... "It's basically a high level of corruption and the rule of man instead of the rule of law" ..."
"... "We're getting a lot of inquiries from various investors, they come to talk to us, and we see the opportunities in Ukraine, but time after time we hear the concerns about the governance." ..."
"... "meaningful progress" ..."
"... "inefficient court system continues to obstruct the administration of justice." ..."
It has been five years to the day since Ukraine's 'Euromaidan' protest movement began,
with anti-government protesters demanding an end to corruption and a closer relationship with
the European Union. But what became of the dream?
On the evening of November 21, 2013, pro-West protesters began flocking to Kiev's Maidan
Square, carrying banners and waving EU flags. Hours earlier, then-president Viktor Yanukovych
had suspended preparations to sign a European Association Agreement, which would have been a
potential step on the road to joining the EU - and a move which Russia had warned would be
"trade suicide" for the post-Soviet state. The West, on the other hand, was determined
to wrangle Ukraine out of Russia's "orbit" and lure it into its own.
Ukraine was facing an economic crossroads. The country was being pulled in two directions,
asked to choose between closer alignment with the EU or Russia. When Yanukovych chose Russia by
refusing to sign the Association Agreement, it sparked outrage within the EU and a protest
movement which would quickly be hijacked and used to engineer a Western-backed coup - a
shortcut to bringing a pro-West government to power.
Such interference, manipulation and exploitation of Ukraine's internal political and
societal divisions was not without consequences. More than 10,000 died during an insurgency in
the eastern regions which began when the ethnic Russian population began to fear it would be
swallowed into an anti-Russia nationalist state backed by Western powers. But the West ignored
dangerous
signs of growing nationalism - and outright Nazi-style fascism - in Ukraine, bargaining
that anything was better than Russia 'winning' in a game of geopolitical chess.
Five years on, what has become of the protesters' dreams to rid Ukraine of corruption and
build an equal, transparent and functional democracy? The sad answer is that Ukraine's
revolution was a disaster which left the country teetering on the edge of becoming a failed
state.
An anti-corruption revolution?
Corruption is still rampant in Ukraine. A recent assessment by the International Monetary
Fund suggested that
corruption wipes about two percent off the country's GDP growth per year.
The IMF and World Bank also scolded the Ukrainian government for the "limited
results" that have been seen in fighting corruption, with no high-level officials
convicted - something which is said to be keeping investors out of the country.
World Bank Country Director for Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine Satu Kahkonen said that
"governance issues" were forcing investors to steer clear. "It's basically a high
level of corruption and the rule of man instead of the rule of law" that have prevailed in
Ukraine, she said. "We're getting a lot of inquiries from various investors, they come to
talk to us, and we see the opportunities in Ukraine, but time after time we hear the concerns
about the governance."
Higher living standards?
Ukraine is also emerging as Europe's poorest
country , with a GDP per capita of just €2,960 - well below Estonia's €22,420 and
Slovenia's €26,590 GDP per capita.
In fact, according to a recent Credit Suisse report, Ukrainians
rank among the world's poorest people, coming a dismal 123rd out of 140 countries, with the
net wealth of the country's citizens lagging behind Bangladesh and Cameroon. Another recent
study by the United Nations Development Program found that, despite continuing economic growth,
60 percent of Ukrainians live below the poverty line.
Less income inequality?
Meanwhile, Ukraine's richest 100 citizens have seen their wealth increase significantly in
the years after the Euromaidan protests. A recent report from the Novoe Vremya magazine
showed
that the wealth of the country's richest people is growing 12 times faster than Ukraine's total
GDP. Pro-West President Petro Poroshenko is the country's sixth richest man, increasing his
wealth by 10 percent to about $1.1 billion, all while average Ukrainians see little or no
improvement in their own living standards or net wealth.
Political reforms?
While some recent reforms in education, pensions and healthcare were welcomed by the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in its l atest country report , there has still been a lack of
"meaningful progress" in the reform of governance and an "inefficient court system
continues to obstruct the administration of justice."
European values?
Scant attention has also been paid by the Ukrainian government - and Western powers and
media - to the increasingly worrying growth of neo-Nazi sentiment in Ukraine. When, in October
2017, Ukraine witnessed its biggest neo-Nazi march in years, Western media all but ignored it. In
fact, in deeds and words, Ukraine's government has almost encouraged this kind of sentiment, by
praising as an "inspiration" the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) fighters who the Nazi
marchers were commemorating. In recent months, mainstream media have done more to acknowledge
this creeping fascism in Ukraine, but the admission comes far too late.
On the world stage, too, Ukraine's pro-West President Petro Poroshenko has faded into
near irrelevance, barely
acknowledged by US President Donald Trump at recent Armistice Day commemorations in Paris,
as geopolitics returned to business-as-usual with Kiev fading from the headlines.
Looks like the recent oil price drop was engineered like in 2014 by the USA
adminsitration...
" Concerns that strict sanctioning of Iranian oil would result in a spike in global oil
prices prompted Trump to grant waivers to eight of Iran's largest purchasers of oil, creating a
situation where Iran's oil-based income will increase following the implementation of sanctions.
The bottom line is that the current round of U.S. sanctions targeting Iran will not achieve
anything. "
Notable quotes:
"... With Iran, the issue of nuclear non-proliferation was an additional justification for sanctions. Here, disarmament concerns eventually trumped regime change desires, to the extent that when the U.S. was confronted by the reality that sanctions would not achieve the change in behavior desired by Tehran, and the cost of war with Iran being prohibitively high, both politically and militarily, it capitulated. It agreed to lift the sanctions in exchange for Iran agreeing to enhanced monitoring of a nuclear program that was fundamentally unaltered by the resulting agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Program of Action, or JCPOA. ..."
"... When Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, he did so in an environment that was radically different than the one that was in play when President Barack Obama embraced that agreement in July 2015. Today, the U.S. stands alone in implementing sanctions, while Iran enjoys the support of the rest of the world (support that will continue so long as Iran complies with the provisions set forth in the JCPOA.) Moreover, Iran is working with its new-found partners in Europe, Russia, and China to develop work-arounds to the U.S. sanctions. ..."
"... The coalition of support that the U.S. has assembled to confront Iran, built around Israel and Saudi Arabia, is not as solid as had been hoped -- Israel is tied down in Gaza, while Saudi Arabia struggles in Yemen, and is reeling from the fallout surrounding the murder of Jamal Khashoggi ..."
The
imposition of new, more stringent sanctions targeting Iranian oil sales by the Trump
administration has once again raised the question: is this even a viable policy?
The Council on Foreign Relations
defines sanctions as "a lower-cost, lower-risk, middle course of action between diplomacy
and war." In short, sanctions do not represent policy per se, but rather the absence of policy,
little more than a stop-gap measure to be used while other options are considered and/or
developed.
Not surprising, sanctions have rarely -- if ever -- succeeded in obtaining their desired
results. The poster child for successful sanctions as a vehicle for change -- divestment in
South Africa during the 1980s in opposition to the Apartheid regime -- is in reality a red
herring. The South
Africa sanctions were in fact counterproductive , in so far as they prompted even harsher
policies from the South African government. The demise of Apartheid came about largely because
the Soviet Union collapsed, meaning the South African government was no longer needed in the
fight against communism.
Another myth that has arisen around sanctions is their utility in addressing
nonproliferation issues. Since 1994, the U.S. has promulgated non-proliferation sanctions under
the guise of executive orders signed by the president or statutes passed by Congress. But there
is no evidence that sanctions implemented under these authorities have meaningfully altered the
behaviors that they target. Better known are the various sanctions regimes authorized under UN
Security Council resolutions backed by the United States, specifically those targeting Iraq,
North Korea, and Iran.
The Iraq sanctions were, by intent, a stop-gap measure implemented four days after the Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait and intended to buy time until a military response could be authorized,
organized, and executed. The nature of the Iraq sanctions regime was fundamentally altered
after Operation Desert Storm, when the objective transitioned away from the liberation of
Kuwait, which was achieved by force of arms, to the elimination of weapons of mass destruction,
which was never the intent of the sanctions to begin with. The potential for sanctions to alter
Iraqi behavior was real -- Iraq had made the lifting of sanctions its top priority, and thanks
to aggressive UN weapons inspections, was effectively disarmed by 1995.
This potential, however, was never realized in large part to the unspoken yet very real
policy on part of the U.S. that sanctions would not be lifted on Iraq, regardless of its level
of disarmament, until which time its president, Saddam Hussein, was removed from power. Since
the sanctions were not designed, intended, or capable of achieving regime change, their very
existence became a policy trap -- as the sanctions crumbled due to a lack of support and
enforcement, the U.S. was compelled to either back away from its regime change policy, which
was politically impossible, or seek regime change through military engagement. In short,
American sanctions policy vis-à-vis Iraq was one of the major causal factors behind the
2003 decision to invade Iraq.
One of the flawed lessons that emerged from the Iraq sanctions experience was that sanctions
could contribute to regime change, in so far as they weakened the targeted nation to the point
that a military option became attractive. This is a fundamentally flawed conclusion, however,
predicated on the mistaken belief that Iraq's military weakness was the direct byproduct of
sanctions. Iraq's military weakness was because its military had been effectively destroyed
during the 1991 Gulf War. Sanctions contributed significantly to Iraq being unable to
reconstitute a meaningful military capability, but they were not the cause of the underlying
systemic problems that led to the rapid defeat of the Iraqi military in 2003.
The "success" of the Iraq sanctions regime helped guide U.S. policy regarding North Korea in
the 1990s and 2000s. Stringent sanctions, backed by Security Council resolutions, were
implemented to curtail North Korea's development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missile
delivery systems. Simple cause-effect analysis shows the impotence of this effort -- North
Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile capability continued unabated, culminating in
nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching U.S. soil being tested
and deployed. The notion that sanctions could undermine the legitimacy of the North Korean
regime and facilitate its collapse was not matched by reality. If anything, support for the
regime grew as it demonstrated its willingness to stand up to the U.S. and proceed with its
nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
The Trump administration labors under the fiction that it was the U.S. policy of "maximum
pressure" through sanctions that compelled North Korea to agree to denuclearization. The
reality, however, is that it is North Korea, backed by China and Russia, that has dictated the
timing of the diplomatic breakthrough with the U.S. ( the
so-called "Peace Olympics" ), and the pace of associated disarmament. Moreover, North
Korea's insistence that any denuclearization be conducted parallel to the lifting of economic
sanctions demonstrates that it is in full control of its policy, and that the promise of the
lifting of economic sanctions has not, to date, prompted any change in Pyongyang's stance.
While President Donald Trump maintains that the U.S. will not budge from its position that
sanctions will remain in place until North Korea disarms, the fact of the matter is that the
sanctions regime is already collapsing, with China opening its border, Russia selling gasoline
and oil, and South Korea engaged in discussions about potential unification.
The U.S. has lost control of the process, if indeed it was ever in control. It is doubtful
that the rest of the world will allow the progress made to date with North Korea to be undone,
leaving the U.S. increasingly isolated. Insisting on the maintenance of a sanctions regime that
has proven ineffective and counterproductive is not sustainable policy. As with Iraq, U.S.
sanctions have proven to be the problem, not the solution. Unlike Iraq, North Korea maintains a
robust military capability, fundamentally altering the stakes involved in any military solution
the U.S. might consider as an alternative -- in short, there is no military solution. One can
expect the U.S. to alter its position on sanctions before North Korea budges on
denuclearization.
Iran represents a far more complex, and dangerous, problem set. The United States has
maintained sanctions against Iran that date back to the 1979 Iranian Revolution that overthrew
the Shah, and the seizure of the U.S. embassy and resultant holding of its staff hostage for
444 days. The U.S. policy vis-à-vis Iran has been one where the demise of the ruling
theocracy has been a real, if unstated, objective, and every sanctions regime implemented since
that time has had that outcome in mind. This is the reverse of the Iraqi case, where regime
change was an afterthought to sanctions. With Iran, the issue of nuclear non-proliferation
was an additional justification for sanctions. Here, disarmament concerns eventually trumped
regime change desires, to the extent that when the U.S. was confronted by the reality that
sanctions would not achieve the change in behavior desired by Tehran, and the cost of war with
Iran being prohibitively high, both politically and militarily, it capitulated. It agreed to
lift the sanctions in exchange for Iran agreeing to enhanced monitoring of a nuclear program
that was fundamentally unaltered by the resulting agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive
Program of Action, or JCPOA.
When Trump withdrew from the JCPOA, he did so in an environment that was radically
different than the one that was in play when President Barack Obama embraced that agreement in
July 2015. Today, the U.S. stands alone in implementing sanctions, while Iran enjoys the
support of the rest of the world (support that will continue so long as Iran complies with the
provisions set forth in the JCPOA.) Moreover, Iran is working with its new-found partners in
Europe, Russia, and China to develop work-arounds to the U.S. sanctions.
The coalition of support that the U.S. has assembled to confront Iran, built around
Israel and Saudi Arabia, is not as solid as had been hoped -- Israel is tied down in Gaza,
while Saudi Arabia struggles in Yemen, and is reeling from the fallout surrounding the murder
of Jamal Khashoggi .
Concerns that strict sanctioning of Iranian oil would result in a spike in global oil prices
prompted Trump to grant waivers to eight of Iran's largest purchasers of oil, creating a
situation where Iran's oil-based income will increase following the implementation of
sanctions. The bottom line is that the current round of U.S. sanctions targeting Iran will not
achieve anything.
For the meantime, Iran will avoid confrontation, operating on the hope that it will be able
to cobble an effective counter to U.S. sanctions. However, unlike Iraq, Iran has a very capable
military. Unlike Korea, however, this military is not equipped with a nuclear deterrent.
If history has taught us anything, it is that the U.S. tends to default to military
intervention when sanctions have failed to achieve the policy goal of regime change. Trump,
operating as he is under the influence of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security
Advisor John Bolton, is not immune to this trap. The question is whether Iran can defeat the
sanctions through workarounds before they become too crippling and the regime is forced to lash
out in its own defense. This is one race where the world would do well to bet on Iran, because
the consequences of failure are dire.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former
Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert
Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author of Dealbreaker:
Donald Trump and the Unmaking of the Iran Nuclear Deal (2018) by Clarity Press.
@ChuckOrloski
Not surprising to anyone who understands that stealing ,especially from 'others' is a first
choice career of Jews/Israelis.
I have always suspected that the 9 billion of stolen Iraq funds were stolen by the Jews who
were embedded in the US occupation administration and sent to Israel. Israel was so broke in
2001 they asked the Us for economic aid then suddenly in 2004 by some miracle they were
rolling in surplus money again.
Investigations reveal a pattern of Israeli officials stone-walling efforts to stop the
perpetrators of massive financial swindles in various countries, from Europe to the US to the
Philippines While some Israeli reporters work to expose the scams, a new one is already
underway
By Alison Weir
[MORE]
French and Israeli media report that a group largely made up of Israelis scammed 3,000 French
citizens out of approximately $20 million. Most of the stolen money is in Israel, but Israeli
authorities are reportedly failing to cooperate with France in prosecuting the scammers and
retrieving the money.
This is the latest of numerous examples of Israeli officials stone-walling international
efforts against the perpetrators of massive financial swindles around the world, according to
Israeli investigative journalists and others. These scams have brought estimated billions
into the Israeli economy, propping up a regime widely condemned for human rights abuses and
ethnic cleansing against indigenous Palestinians. Together, the stories paint a picture of a
government that seems to be turning a blind eye to -- and even protecting -- scammers.
A Finance Magnates analysis reports that one of the swindles alone has brought in over a
billion dollars and employs 5,000 people. And a new scam, described below, may help what is
predicted to be "the next major driver of the Israeli economy."
A former IRS expert on international crime notes that "fraudulent industries are often
major economic drivers, and that can translate into political clout."
Some Israeli journalists have been working to expose the situation in Israeli newspapers,
publishing exposés like "As Israel turns blind eye to vast binary options fraud,
French investigators step in" and "Are French Jewish criminals using Israel as a
get-out-of-jail card?" (Short answer: yes.)
Victimizing French business owners & churches
The victims of the recent scam against French citizens included churches and the owners of
small businesses -- delicatessens, car repair shops, hair salons, plumbers, etc. Some lost
their life savings and describe being threatened and intimidated by the scammers.
"... Last month, an unsealed FBI indictment of four American white supremacists from the Rise Above Movement (RAM) declared that the defendants had trained with Ukraine's Azov Battalion, a neo-Nazi militia officially incorporated into the country's national guard. The training took place after the white supremacist gang participated in violent riots in Huntington Beach and Berkeley, California and Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. ..."
"... Let's not forget that the illegal coup in Ukraine and ensuing civil war was pushed by Obama/Hillary. It was HRC who promoted Dick Cheney's chief foreign adviser, Victoria Nuland, to Secretary of European Affairs, and it was Nuland who was caught on tape discussing how to "midwife this thing" in Ukraine. ..."
US-Funded Neo-Nazis in Ukraine Mentor US White Supremacists November 17, 2018 •
43 Comments
Short-sighted U.S. foreign policy that backs jihadists in the Middle East and neo-Nazis in
Ukraine is once again blowing back on the United States, as Max Blumenthal explains.
FBI: Azov Battalion Trained Rise Above Movement
Last month, an unsealed
FBI indictment of four American white supremacists from the Rise Above Movement (RAM)
declared that the defendants had trained with Ukraine's Azov Battalion, a neo-Nazi militia
officially incorporated into the country's national guard. The training took place after the
white supremacist gang participated in violent riots in Huntington Beach and Berkeley,
California and Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017.
The indictment stated that the Azov Battalion "is believed to have participated in training
and radicalizing United States-based white supremacy organizations."
After a wave of racist violence across America that culminated in the massacre of twelve
Jewish worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue, the revelation that violent white supremacists
have been traveling abroad for training and ideological indoctrination with a well-armed
neo-Nazi militia should cause extreme alarm.
Not only are white supremacists from across the West flocking to Ukraine to learn from the
combat experience of their fascist brothers-in-arms, they are doing so openly -- chronicling
their experiences on social media before they bring their lessons back home. But U.S. law
enforcement has done nothing so far to restrict the flow of right-wing American extremists to
Azov's bases.
There is one likely explanation for the U.S. government's hands-off approach to Azov
recruitment: the extremist militia is fighting pro-Russian separatists as a front-line proxy of
Washington. In fact, the United States has directly armed the Azov Battalion, forking over
anti-tank rocket launchers and even sending a team of Army officers to meet in the field with
Azov commanders in 2017.
Though Congress
passed legislation this year forbidding military aid to Azov on the grounds of its white
supremacist ideology, the Trump administration's authorization of $200 million in offensive
weaponry and aid to the Ukrainian military makes it likely new stores of weapons will wind up
the extremist regiment's hands. When queried by
reporters about evidence of American military training of Azov personnel, multiple U.S. army
spokespersons admitted there was no mechanism in place to prevent that from
happening.
... ... ...
Hide Behind , November 18, 2018 at 6:55 pm
Strange people that live in US, those that live under belife of free speech and
expression, and yet there are literally thousands of examples where those of opposing view
points that try and present them in public are met with disruptive behaviors, banning from
presentations of opposing ideology from speaking at Colleges and University campus, and
removal and witholding of tenure to those who question edicts of correct speech and lets
admit it anything that questions support of Israel the State.
And condoling of violent behavior by groups in US , crosses religious, political Partys,
Anarchist, and now a liber storm trooper style ANTIFA that is beginning to better equip
themselve tha. just pipes, knives, and clubs into having numbers armed with the Leftist hate
most guns.
We have ultra right Trump supportive Militia that actively said they would revolt if Trump
was defeated and now if he is impeached.
The largest and most virulent part of the southern state militia are of Christian Zionist,
and some militias signature patches have Star of David upon them and the cross
You think that the October massacre marks a culmination? That is naive: it is undoubtedly
not an end point and part of a crescendo building for decades. Meanwhile, the professional
Right keeps denouncing the Democrats for anti-Semitism, which is frequently simply criticism
of Israel and has nothing whatever to do with attacks on persons or property. Your article
reminds us that these psychopathic attacks are coming from a particular branch of the "White
Right" which has been talking upon Satanic Judaism and killing Jews–and targeting
synagogues–for quite a while.
Zenobia van Dongen , November 18, 2018 at 5:21 pm
Fascinating article by Max Blumenthal.
Max Blumenthal rightly denounces Italy's fascist Casa Pound party but fails to report that
Casa Pound is on excellent terms with Hezbollah, as reported by the Italian daily Repubblica
in 2015.
According to Repubblica, the European Parliament declared Hezbollah a terrorist group on 10
March 2005.
On 26 September 2015 a convention called "Mediterranean Solidarity", "the first international
convention of solidarity [among] identities" was held in Rome attended by Rima Fakhri, member
of Hezbollah's politburo and Sayyed Ammar Al Moussaw, responsible for Hezbollah's
international relations, as well as by top Casa Pound leaders like Alberto Palladino, who was
seen in the Donbass during fighting between Russia and the Ukraine, Franco Nerozzi, who was
convicted of international terrorism in Verona after taking part in a failed coup detat on
the Comoros islands, Casa Pound leader Giovanni Feola, and Luca Bertoni, representing the
Lombardy-Russia Association, who always accompanies Matteo Salvini, leader of the far-right
Lega, on his trips to Moscow.
"Italian right-wingers have consolidated relations with the most fundamentalist and militant
Islamic groups. In 2013 the City of Rome refused permission to the Syrian Uodai Soso Ramadan,
also invited to the congress, to hold a pro-Assad demonstration. At the time he was staying
at CasaPound."
The article on the neo-Nazi presence in Ukraine is very interesting. I am a white
working-class white separatist with some longtime following. Even though this article had
both lies, truths and maybes. It was well done. However, when it says there is no other side
in the US with another view, you are wrong. I have experienced the attempted and sometimes
successful penetration of the right wing by CIA types for many years and gotten rid of 2
serious penetrations in years past.
I have warned those that listen not to involve themselves
in the Ukraine situation. In fact, don't travel to other countries. Where you do not really
know the score and may be fighting on the wrong side anyway.
I am aware that anything the
State Department involves itself in is totally suspect and probably criminal. Even if you
don't acknowledge it there are other factions that are pretty much out of the right wing, but
are still very strongly White separatists . In fact, my politics have moved to the left on
several important issues. It would appear to me that the powers that be are attempting to
design a right wing alleged neo-Nazi movement somewhat patterned some what after ISIS.It is
obvious Blumenthal's article has a lot of truth in it, but his mindset tends to get in the
way . When he uses the old dog whistles like Trump when labeling people. Tom Metzger
Geo , November 18, 2018 at 6:36 pm
Curious why you are a White Separatist? Is there any logical reason because the best I can
gather from the many separatist commenters that have littered threads like these over the
years is that they're too fragile to get by in an ethically equal society. It seems that
they're greatest problem is that others have rights now so it's harder for these White
Separatists to succeed seeing as how they must do so on merit instead of birthright.
Be curious to find out if there is any justification for ethnic separatism other than
petty whining because of some mythical birthright you feel you're being denied?
rosemerry , November 18, 2018 at 1:56 pm
Notice that they admit the connection goes back at least to 2014. We never hear much about
the overthrow of the new pro-Russian government in Ukraine after the Russians had worked for
four years with the pro-Western lot. Only when Nuland/Yats and co interfered did the new
"government" with its Nazi links become powerful with the help of the EU and of course USA.
The whole continuing insistence on Russia being an enemy has no basis in reason or sense. To
support Ukraine now just because it is fanatically against Russia after decades of
cooperation in the USSR is not justified by any possible link with "national security of the
USA" or of Europe.
See this video of Obama's ambassador to Ukraine Pyatt going to visit training base in
western Ukraine where Nazis brought into the then newly formed National Guard are still being
trained by US Army Special Forces from Fort Carson, Colorado . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxeZFS9hTUg
Patrick Lucius , November 18, 2018 at 12:01 pm
Let's not forget that the illegal coup in Ukraine and ensuing civil war was pushed by
Obama/Hillary. It was HRC who promoted Dick Cheney's chief foreign adviser, Victoria Nuland,
to Secretary of European Affairs, and it was Nuland who was caught on tape discussing how to
"midwife this thing" in Ukraine.
Nuland is wife of chief neocon Richard Kagan, founder of
PNAC. This essentially restarted the cold war between Russia and America. Obama tarnished his
presidency primarily by working with Clinton, including the destruction of Libya. Where were
the Democrats to object to such shenanigans? I don't know where they were, but I do know
where they are now–charging Trump with colluding with the Russians. I thought it was
fascinating that Trump, when he secured the Republican nomination, insisted that the
Republicans remove from their platform the promise of military aid to Western Ukraine, to
fight the pro-Russian eastern Ukrainians. Where were the Democrats to applaud this anti-war
mongering? I know where I, as a Democrat was–I was leaving the party and becoming a
Trump supporter.
Martin - Swedish citizen , November 18, 2018 at 2:30 pm
Thanks, these are important points, is about the neocons.
On our smaller Swedish scale ,
I was similarly disgusted with the support by the once much more ethical Social Democratic
Party for the US- and EU-supported coup in Kiev.
lucius , November 18, 2018 at 7:58 pm
Lots of room for disgust In America, the traditional Democrats and Republicans both are
backing the neocons' stance with just about no questioning or examination. It seems to be a
tribal thing, or some sort of group response, like geese in flight, or buffalo running off a
cliff
Thank you for providing a platform for Max Blumenthal's reporting.
Wayne Mclaughlin , November 18, 2018 at 10:35 am
Very good article except for the line " .. Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the
failure of the EU and NATO to prevent it ." I always take issue with that representation
because it implies an aggressive and forceful action by Russia when in fact Crimea seceded
from Ukraine after the western backed and illegal coup of the democratically elected
government.
Skip Scott , November 18, 2018 at 2:11 pm
One of the definitions of annexation is "the adding of new territory". I believe this is
the way the word is being used in this article. It has come to mean "forceful acquisition" to
many folks, and this leads to confusion. To those of us who know a little history, maybe a
better word would have "rejoining", since Crimea was part of Russia until the early 1950's.
When Khrushchev gave it to Ukraine it was still part of the USSR, so it was really no more
than a gesture. The Russian naval base in Sevastopol has been there since the 1700's.
Martin - Swedish citizen , November 18, 2018 at 2:25 pm
Very good point!
Wording is important, and accepting the word annexation without clarification may be a step
towards buying the lie.
It must be a terrible feeling to know you can't compete with people that you believe are
inferior. Nice to have some fellow losers to commiserate with, I suppose.
Is there anything you won't do in your rabid efforts to dominate the planet?
Of course, when you think about it, these Ukrainian thugs are no worse than other outfits
America heavily supports, from the mercenaries of Syria and the government of Saudi Arabia to
the King of Bahrain and the government of Israel.
A couple of these last – Israel, Saudi Arabia – kill more innocent civilians
than any terrorist organization could dream of doing.
And no one says a thing.
mike k , November 18, 2018 at 8:27 am
Max Blumenthal does a valuable service shining a light into the dark places of Nazi
Fascism in the US. Anyone who thinks these groups are too small to be important, should
recall how small the movement that gave us Hitler was in it's beginnings.
mike k , November 18, 2018 at 8:16 am
Pro Nazi sentiment has never died in the US Oligarchy. The CIA is essentially a fascist
organization pretending to be protectors of democracy. Worship of violence and
authoritarianism is endemic to the American Spirit. All the better for being the world's
greatest bully, pretending to be the guardians of the highest values. Those in high places
here are the evil scum of the universe.
(Thanks for the new font! So much better.)
John A , November 18, 2018 at 7:57 am
The US is now funding a schism in the Orthodox church between Ukraine and Russia. The evil
of the US knows no bounds.
rosemerry , November 18, 2018 at 2:01 pm
Of course, "good ole Americans" like Mike Pence claim to be Christians, and many other US
Christians blame the Russian Orthodox church for not being as modern as they are and ready to
accept LGBTQ..
Realist , November 18, 2018 at 4:14 am
Not surprising that some Americans think that racial bigotry is okie dokie when both
political parties in Washington, especially the one that bases its platform on membership in
certain favored identity groups, practice it routinely against anyone or anything Russian or
Iranian. They have a few other fall guys as well, but those are the two blamed for everything
these days.
No question but that Ukraine is one of the most ethnically prejudiced and fascist regimes
on the planet, though that doesn't seem to bother Washington, as long as they are
frenetically Russophobic. Neither does Israel's rampant anti-Arab, anti-Persian and
anti-Muslim Zionism bother the bigots in DC in the slightest.
Yet they get into a lather when the small nations of Eastern Europe, especially those in
the Visegrad countries (plus Austria, Slovenia and Croatia) constituting most of the
Intermarium that the author alluded to, which happen to have both small populations and low
birthrates, reasonably fear that their native populations will be swamped out within a couple
of generations if they are forced by the EU to take in significant numbers of Islamic
migrants from the lands thrown into turmoil by the U.S.-instigated wars throughout the Middle
East and North Africa. Hungary's Viktor Orban is vilified in the West as some sort of new
Hitler (must be Putin's twin brother) for implementing on a much smaller scale what Donald
Trump is trying to institutionalise in the enormously larger United States.
Rather than force all these sociological "side effects" to its catastrophic wars on its
putative "allies," perhaps Washington should finally see the light and do the right thing by
winding down the carnage and aiding the resettlement and rebuilding of the war-torn countries
by their displaced citizens. But they won't–they have overtly refused, at least until
none of America's debts can be paid with devalued petrodollars, because that would let Russia
off the hook, whom Washington wants to see crushed as badly as der Fuehrer did–I think
it's trying to complete his mission. Plus the glorious new war against Iran would have to be
cancelled. They used to say, "all roads lead to Rome." They oughta re-write that for the
modern world as, "all strife traces from Washington."
mike k , November 18, 2018 at 8:19 am
Excellent comments Realist.
Joe Tedesky , November 18, 2018 at 10:55 am
Like our 'Big Pharma Over Medicated Society' we in the West would rather beat the hell out
of the symptom rather than cure the cause, is our American hegemonic trademark. Similar to
tightening the screw so tight the fragile glass begins to crack so you fix it with a hammer.
It appears our leaders love spreading their chaos. None of this shows signs of ever ending
well, but yet we overdose the symptom to the extreme that the side affect is what finally
kills us. In the end it only matters how it shows on a profit and loss sheet.
rosemerry , November 18, 2018 at 2:05 pm
An excellent contribution-thanks realist.
The USA has steadfastly refused to rebuild their devastated victims' lands even when UN legal
demands clearly demanded it eg Nicaragua.
Excellent reporting, Max! I'm curious. Is there any connection with present or former Eric
Prince mercenary soldiers, or soldiers from other private mercenary organizations, with these
fascist movements?
Joe Tedesky , November 17, 2018 at 11:15 pm
This fascist trend should go well with Operation Timber Sycamore, where the U.S. armed the
terrorist jihadist. When will our American leaders learn, that if you play with fire you will
get burned. The rise of the Nazi is one more reason that we Americans should focus on this
type of news as Max Blumenthal reports. Furthermore the American Jewish who do not support
the Israeli apartheid state should join good thinking Americans to put down this disgusting
happening. So thank you Victoria Nuland, Geoffrey Pratt, and the rest of this sick and insane
DC bunch, because without you where would our Homeland Security budget be?
Think it can't happen here . the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooter lived 4 blocks from me. Btw
these racist don't vote, they just hate. And 'no' I didn't know him, but I know of others
sick birds all of them.
And especially a warm thank you goes out to Max Blumenthal for his courageous reporting.
Bless you Max. Joe
Bob Van Noy , November 18, 2018 at 10:32 am
Thank you Joe. The larger picture and insanity of the "enemy of my enemy is my friend"
Philosophy, is and always has been totally without moral responsibility. Interestingly, it
seems to be a fundamental aspect of post WWII organizing by our own OSS, who became the CIA
in 1949. Alan Dulles was busy organizing this kind of activity before that war ended.
Thanks to you Joe and of course Max Blumenthal for addressing this subject. I'll include a
link to the early heritage of this bizarre and illegal concept here. Many thanks Consortium
News.
Thanks Bob reading John Mearsheimer well defined portrayal of what led up to the fall of
the Ukraine as we once knew it, is reminiscent of reading Robert Parry's many articles on
this subject. If you recall Parry was deeply into this U.S. led NATO aggression. Through the
MSM of the West the tables were turned to point the finger to instead Russian aggression.
Putin is never shown in light of his policy achievements nor are his speeches calling out to
the world for sensible detente where needed ever covered, but instead Putin is demonized to
no end.
Little is remembered, or even known by those in the West of another time where American
and British capitalism hugged the very nature of Nazism, while the Russians even back then
were too the target of this type of Western aggression. Who's needs history when dreams of
speculative profit should cloud their eyes?
May I ever so slightly differ from one of your points?
You stated; "The result of this will, however, be catastrophic for the top 100 U.S.
'defense' contractors, such as Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Raytheon, because then
all of those firms' foreign sales except to the Sauds, Israel and a few other feudal and
fascist regimes, will greatly decline."
I would suggest that these top US defense contractors sales will decline for the simple
reason that they would then have to compete with the rest of the world. One of these US
defense strategies had been to sell their products, or rather say force their products on
NATO no matter how inferior they were. If my memory serves me correctly the UK had a good
fighter jet in the Lightning, but the US forced NATO to buy the vastly inferior American
product which had many crashes and killed quite a few pilots.
But in the situation of a multi-polar world the US would have to really compete with the
likes of Russia and China, which as we know are already producing superior products and the
US has never really been able to compete in such an atmosphere.
There is one other statement which I would also like to differ upon: " a mono-polar world
is a world in which one nation stands above international law" and this statement is
flawed.
A mono-polar world' has never given the right for one nation to be above international
law. America did though start calling itself the International 'policeman', modelling itself
on something similar to a New York policeman stealing apples from a greengrocer's stand. Once
the US realised that there were no voices to be heard, they automatically progressed from the
uniform policeman to the likes of 'Al Capone', which I've noted many bent policemen do.
The trick for such policemen is to know when to retire and get out of the game, but the US
has never been able to retire, and now its fruits are coming back to haunt them.
Eisenhower's
worst nightmare has come true, as defense mega-contractors climb into the cockpit to ensure we
stay overextended. What President Dwight D. Eisenhower dubbed the "military-industrial
complex" has been constantly evolving over the decades, adjusting to shifts in the economic and
political system as well as international events. The result today is a "permanent-war
complex," which is now engaged in conflicts in at least eight countries across the globe, none
of which are intended to be temporary.
This new complex has justified its enhanced power and control over the country's resources
primarily by citing threats to U.S. security posed by Islamic terrorists. But like the old
military-industrial complex, it is really rooted in the evolving relationship between the
national security institutions themselves and the private arms contractors allied with
them.
The first phase of this transformation was a far-reaching privatization of U.S. military and
intelligence institutions in the two decades after the Cold War, which hollowed out the
military's expertise and made it dependent on big contractors (think Halliburton, Booz Allen
Hamilton, CACI). The second phase began with the global "war on terrorism," which quickly
turned into a permanent war, much of which revolves around the use of drone strikes.
The drone wars are uniquely a public-private military endeavor, in which major arms
contractors are directly involved in the most strategic aspect of the war. And so the drone
contractors -- especially the dominant General Atomics -- have both a powerful motive and the
political power, exercised through its clients in Congress, to ensure that the wars continue
for the indefinite future.
♦♦♦
The privatization of military and intelligence institutions began even before the end of the
Cold War. But during the 1990s, both Congress and the Bush and Clinton administrations opened
the floodgates to arms and intelligence contractors and their political allies. The contracts
soon became bigger and more concentrated in a handful of dominant companies. Between 1998 and
2003, private contractors were getting roughly half of the entire defense budget each year. The
50 biggest companies were getting more than half of the approximately $900 billion paid out in
contracts during that time, and most were no-bid contracts, sole sourced, according to the
Center for Public Integrity.
The contracts that had the biggest impact on the complex were for specialists working right
in the Pentagon. The number of these contractors grew so rapidly and chaotically in the two
decades after the Cold War that senior Pentagon officials did not even know the full extent of
their numbers and reach. In 2010, then-secretary of defense Robert M. Gates even confessed to
Washington Post reporters Dana Priest and William M. Arkin that he was unable to
determine how many contractors worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which includes
the entire civilian side of the Pentagon.
Although legally forbidden from assuming tasks that were "inherent government functions," in
practice these contractors steadily encroached on what had always been regarded as government
functions. Contractors could pay much higher salaries and consulting fees than government
agencies, so experienced Pentagon and CIA officers soon left their civil service jobs by the
tens of thousands for plum positions with firms that often paid twice as much as the government
for the same work.
That was especially true in the intelligence agencies, which experienced a rapid 50 percent
workforce increase after 9/11. It was almost entirely done with former skilled officers brought
back as contractor personnel. Even President Barack Obama's CIA director Leon Panetta admitted
to Priest and Arkin that the intelligence community had for too long "depended on contractors
to do the operational work" that had always been done by CIA employees, including intelligence
analysis, and that the CIA needed to rebuild its own expertise "over time."
By 2010, "core contractors" -- those who perform such functions as collection and analysis
-- comprised at least 28 percent of professional civilian and military intelligence staff,
according to a fact sheet from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
The dependence on the private sector in the Pentagon and the intelligence community had
reached such a point that it raised a serious question about whether the workforce was now
"obligated to shareholders rather than to the public interest," as Priest and Arkin reported.
And both Gates and Panetta acknowledged to them their concerns about that issue.
Powerfully reinforcing that privatization effect was the familiar revolving door between the
Pentagon and arms contractors, which had begun turning with greater rapidity. A 2010 Boston
Globe investigation showed that the percentage of three- and four-star generals who left
the Pentagon to take jobs as consultants or executives with defense contractors, which was
already at 45 percent in 1993, had climbed to 80 percent by 2005 -- an 83 percent increase in
12 years.
The incoming George W. Bush administration gave the revolving door a strong push, bringing
in eight officials from Lockheed Martin -- then the largest defense contractor -- to fill
senior policymaking positions in the Pentagon. The CEO of Lockheed Martin, Peter Teets, was
brought in to become undersecretary of the Air Force and director of the National
Reconnaissance Office (where he had responsibility for acquisition decisions directly
benefiting his former company). James Roche, the former vice president of Northrop Grumman, was
named secretary of the Air Force, and a former vice president of General Dynamics, Gordon R.
England, was named the secretary of the Navy.
In 2007, Bush named rear admiral J. Michael McConnell as director of national intelligence.
McConnell had been director of the National Security Agency from 1992 to 1996, then became head
of the national security branch of intelligence contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Not
surprisingly McConnell energetically promoted even greater reliance on the private sector, on
the grounds that it was supposedly more efficient and innovative than the government. In 2009
he returned once again to Booz Allen Hamilton as vice chairman.
The Pentagon and the intelligence agencies thus morphed into a new form of mixed
public-private institutions, in which contractor power was greatly magnified. To some in the
military it appeared that the privateers had taken over the Pentagon. As a senior U.S. military
officer who had served in Afghanistan commented to Priest and Arkin, "It just hits you like a
ton of bricks when you think about it. The Department of Defense is no longer a war-fighting
organization, it's a business enterprise."
♦♦♦
The years after 9/11 saw the national security organs acquire new missions, power, and
resources -- all in the name of a "War on Terror," aka "the long war." The operations in
Afghanistan and Iraq were sold on that premise, even though virtually no al Qaeda remained in
Afghanistan and none were in Iraq until long after the initial U.S. invasion.
The military and the CIA got new orders to pursue al Qaeda and affiliated groups in
Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and several other African countries, parlaying what the Bush
administration called a "generational war" into a guarantee that there would be no return to
the relative austerity of the post-Cold War decade.
Drone strikes against targets associated with al Qaeda or affiliated groups became the
common feature of these wars and a source of power for military and intelligence officials. The
Air Force owned the drones and conducted strikes in Afghanistan, but the CIA carried them out
covertly in Pakistan, and the CIA and the military competed for control over the strikes in
Yemen.
The early experience with drone strikes against "high-value targets" was an unmitigated
disaster. From 2004 through 2007, the CIA carried out 12 strikes in Pakistan, aimed at
high-value targets of al Qaeda and its affiliates. But they killed only three identifiable al
Qaeda or Pakistani Taliban figures, along with 121 civilians, based on analysis of news reports
of the strikes.
But on the urging of CIA Director Michael Hayden, in mid-2008 President Bush agreed to allow
"signature strikes" based merely on analysts' judgment that a "pattern of life" on the ground
indicated an al Qaeda or affiliated target. Eventually it became a tool for killing mostly
suspected rank-and-file Afghan Taliban fighters in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, particularly
during the Obama administration, which had less stomach and political capital for outright war
and came to depend on the covert drone campaign. This war was largely secret and less
accountable publicly. And it allowed him the preferable optics of withdrawing troops and ending
official ground operations in places like Iraq.
Altogether in its eight years in office, the Obama administration carried out a total of
nearly 5,000 drone strikes -- mostly in Afghanistan -- according to figures collected by the
Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
But between 2009 and 2013, the best informed officials in the U.S. government raised alarms
about the pace and lethality of this new warfare on the grounds that it systematically
undermined the U.S. effort to quell terrorism by creating more support for al Qaeda rather than
weakening it. Some mid-level CIA officers opposed the strikes in Pakistan as early as 2009,
because of what they had learned from intelligence gathered from intercepts of electronic
communications in areas where the strikes were taking place: they were infuriating Muslim males
and making them more willing to join al Qaeda.
In a secret May 2009 assessment leaked to the Washington Post , General David
Petraeus, then commander of the Central Command, wrote, "Anti-U.S. sentiment has already been
increasing in Pakistan especially in regard to cross-border and reported drone strikes, which
Pakistanis perceive to cause unacceptable civilian casualties."
More evidence of that effect came from Yemen. A 2013 report on drone war policy for the
Council on Foreign Relations found that membership in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in
Yemen grew from several hundred in 2010 to a few thousand members in 2012, just as the number
of drone strikes in the country was increasing dramatically -- along with popular anger toward
the United States.
Drone strikes are easy for a president to support. They demonstrate to the public that he is
doing something concrete about terrorism, thus providing political cover in case of another
successful terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Donald Trump has shown no interest in scaling back
the drone wars, despite openly questioning the stationing of troops across the Middle East and
Africa. In 2017 he approved a 100 percent increase in drone strikes in Yemen and a 30 percent
increase in Somalia above the totals of the final year of the Obama administration. And Trump
has approved a major increase in drone strikes in Afghanistan, and has eliminated rules aimed
at reducing civilian casualties from such strikes.
Even if Obama and Trump had listened to dissenting voices on the serious risks of drone wars
to U.S. interests, however, another political reality would have prevented the United States
from ending the drone wars: the role of the private defense contractors and their friends on
Capitol Hill in maintaining the status quo.
♦♦♦
Unlike conventional bombing missions, drone strikes require a team to watch the video feeds,
interpret them, and pass on their conclusions to their mission coordinators and pilots. By 2007
that required more specialists than the Air Force had available. Since then, the Air Force has
been working with military and intelligence contractors to analyze full-motion videos
transmitted by drones to guide targeting decisions. BAE, the third-ranking Pentagon contractor
according to defense revenues, claims that it is the "leading provider" of analysis of drone
video intelligence, but in the early years the list of major companies with contracts for such
work also included Booz Allen Hamilton, L-3 Communications, and SAIC (now Leidos).
These analysts were fully integrated into the "kill chain" that resulted, in many cases, in
civilian casualties. In the now-famous case of the strike in February 2010 that killed at least
15 Afghan civilians, including children, the "primary screener" for the team of six video
analysts in Florida communicating via a chat system with the drone pilot in Nevada was a
contract employee with SAIC. That company had a $49 million multi-year contract with the Air
Force to analyze drone video feeds and other intelligence from Afghanistan.
The pace of drone strikes in Afghanistan accelerated sharply after U.S. combat ended
formally in 2014. And that same year, the air war against ISIS began in Iraq and Syria. The Air
Force then began running armed drones around the clock in those countries as well. The Air
Force needed 1,281 drone pilots to handle as many "combat air patrols" per day in multiple
countries. But it was several hundred pilots short of that objective.
To fulfill that requirement the Air Force turned to General Atomics -- maker of the first
armed drone, the Predator, and a larger follow-on, the MQ-9 Reaper -- which had already been
hired to provide support services for drone operations on a two-year contract worth $700
million. But in April 2015 the Air Force signed a contract with the company to lease one of its
Reapers with its own ground control station for a year. In addition, the contractor was to
provide the pilots, sensor operators, and other crew members to fly it and maintain it.
The pilots, who still worked directly for General Atomics, did everything Air Force drone
pilots did except actually fire the missiles. The result of that contract was a complete
blurring of the lines between the official military and the contractors hired to work alongside
them. The Air Force denied any such blurring, arguing that the planning and execution of each
mission would still be in the hands of an Air Force officer. But the Air Force Judge Advocate
General's Office had published an article in its law review in 2010 warning that even the
analysis of video feeds risked violating international law prohibiting civilian participation
in direct hostilities.
A second contract with a smaller company, Aviation Unlimited, was for the provision of
pilots and sensor operators and referred to "recent increased terrorist activities," suggesting
that it was for anti-ISIS operations.
The process of integrating drone contractors into the kill chain in multiple countries thus
marked a new stage in the process of privatizing war in what had become a permanent war
complex. After 9/11, the military became dependent on the private sector for everything from
food, water, and housing to security and refueling in Iraq and Afghanistan. By 2009 contractors
began outnumbering U.S. troops in Afghanistan and eventually became critical for continuing the
war as well.
In June 2018, the DoD announced a $40 million contract with General Atomics to operate its
own MQ-9 Reapers in Afghanistan's Helmand Province. The Reapers are normally armed for
independent missile strikes, but in this case, the contractor-operated Reapers were to be
unarmed, meaning that the drones would be used to identify targets for Air Force manned
aircraft bombing missions.
♦♦♦
There appears to be no braking mechanism for this accelerating new reality. U.S. government
spending on the military drone market, which includes not only procurement and research and
development for the drones themselves, but the sensors, modifications, control systems, and
other support contracts, stood at $4.5 billion in 2016, and was expected to increase to $13
billion by 2027. General Atomics is now the dominant player in the arena.
This kind of income translates into political power, and the industry has shown its muscle
and more than once prevented the Pentagon from canceling big-ticket programs, no matter how
unwanted or wasteful. They have the one-two punch of strategically focused campaign
contributions and intensive lobbying of members with whom they have influence.
This was most evident between 2011 and 2013, after congressionally mandated budget
reductions cut into drone procurement. The biggest loser appeared to be Northrop Grumman's
"Global Hawk" drone, designed for unarmed high-altitude intelligence surveillance flights of up
to 32 hours.
By 2011 the Global Hawk was already 25 percent over budget, and the Pentagon had delayed the
purchase of the remaining planes for a year to resolve earlier failures to deliver adequate
"near real time" video intelligence.
After a subsequent test, however, the Defense Department's top weapons tester official
reported in May 2011 that the Global Hawk was "not operationally effective" three fourths of
the time, because of "low vehicle reliability." He cited the "failure" of "mission central
components" at "high rates." In addition, the Pentagon still believed the venerable U-2 Spy
plane -- which could operate in all weather conditions, unlike the Global Hawk -- could carry
out comparable high-altitude intelligence missions.
As a result, the DoD announced in 2012 that it would mothball the aircraft it had already
purchased and save $2.5 billion over five years by foregoing the purchase of the remaining
three drones. But that was before Northrop Grumman mounted a classic successful lobbying
campaign to reverse the decision.
That lobbying drive produced a fiscal year 2013 defense appropriations law that added $360
million for the purchase of the final three Global Hawks. In Spring 2013, top Pentagon
officials indicated that they were petitioning for "relief" from congressional intent. Then the
powerful chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, California Republican Buck McKeon, and
a member of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, Democrat Jim Moran of Virginia,
wrote a letter to incoming Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on May 13, 2013, pressing him to fund
the acquisition of the Global Hawks.
The Pentagon finally caved. The Air Force issued a statement pledging to acquire the last
three Northrop Grumman spy planes, and in early 2014, Hagel and Dempsey announced that they
would mothball the U-2 and replace it with the Global Hawk.
Northrop spent nearly $18 million on lobbying in 2012 and $21 million in 2013, fielding a
phalanx of lobbyists determined to help save Global Hawk. It got what it wanted.
Meanwhile, Northrop's political action committee had already made contributions of at least
$113,000 to the campaign committee of House Armed Services Committee Chairman McKeon, who also
happened to represent the Southern California district where Northrop's assembly plant for the
Global Hawk is located. Representative Moran, the co-author of the letter with McKeon, who
represented the northern Virginia district where Northrop has its headquarters, had gotten
$22,000 in contributions.
Of course Northrop didn't ignore the rest of the House Armed Services Committee: they were
recipients of at least $243,000 in campaign contributions during the first half of 2012.
♦♦♦
The Northrop Grumman triumph dramatically illustrates the power relationships underlying the
new permanent-war complex. In the first half of 2013 alone, four major drone contractors --
General Atomics, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing -- spent $26.2 million lobbying
Congress to pressure the executive branch to keep the pipeline of funding for their respective
drone systems flowing freely. The Center for the Study of the Drone observed, "Defense
contractors are pressuring the government to maintain the same levels of investment in unmanned
systems even as the demand from the traditional theatres such as Afghanistan dies down."
Instead of dying down, the demand from drones in Afghanistan has exploded in subsequent
years. By 2016, the General Atomics Reapers had already become so tightly integrated into U.S.
military operations in Afghanistan that the whole U.S. war plan was dependent on them. In the
first quarter of 2016 Air Force data showed that 61 percent of the weapons dropped in
Afghanistan were from the drones.
In the new permanent-war complex the interests of the arms contractors have increasingly
dominated over the interests of the civilian Pentagon and the military services, and dominance
has became a new driving force for continued war. Even though those bureaucracies, along with
the CIA, seized the opportunity to openly conduct military operations in one country after
another, the drone war has introduced a new political dynamic into the war system: the drone
makers who have powerful clout in Congress can use their influence to block or discourage an
end to the permanent war -- especially in Afghanistan -- which would sharply curtail the demand
for drones.
Eisenhower was prophetic in his warning about the threat of the original complex (which he
had planned to call the military-industrial-congressional complex) to American democracy. But
that original complex, organized merely to maximize the production of arms to enhance the power
and resources of both the Pentagon and their contractor allies, has become a much more serious
menace to the security of the American people than even Eisenhower could have anticipated. Now
it is a system of war that powerful arms contractors and their bureaucratic allies may have the
ability to maintain indefinitely.
Gareth Porter is an investigative reporter and regular contributor to. He is also
the author of Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare.
It's in Europe's elite that we find the spirit of appeasement that once enabled fascists
and communists. •
November 16, 2018
French President Emmanuel Macron has a new go-to rhetorical trope: alarm over the return of
the horrors of the 1930s. Last summer, he decried the reappearance of populist governments
"rising like a leprosy, throughout Europe," as well as a "resurgent nationalism" and the
emergence of governments that support the closing of frontiers and don't respect "even the
right to asylum."
Macron's targets are the newly formed government of Italy, along with Hungary, Poland, and
the Czech Republic, all resistant to the flow of migrants into Europe. He returned again to the
analogy earlier this month, telling an interviewer he was "struck" by the present's
similarities to the 1930s and calling again for resistance to the "nationalist leprosy." He
went on this tear yet again while hosting the Armistice Day centenary commemorations, where he
contrasted the "generous" France of "universal values" with the shallow nationalism of nations
that look out only for their own interests, a remark widely interpreted as a rebuke to
President Trump.
To punctuate his point, he added a reference to Julien Benda's Treason of the
Intellectuals , published in 1927, which decried burgeoning nationalist sentiments among
Europe's intellectuals as a whole and certain French conservatives in particular. It closed
with a paean to Franco-German cooperation, the European Union, and the United Nations.
Macron is surely correct that the 1930s were generally a terrible decade. That's true even
if what he said is not all that different from the commonplace left-wing view that all
conservatives who think about anything more than reducing taxes can be safely decried as
fascists and Nazis and deserve no platform in our political system. But the analogy to the
1930s deserves unpacking. Whatever lessons might be learned from history, they're not nearly so
straightforward as Macron seems to believe.
First of all, there was not one but two active murderous totalitarian movements popular in
the '30s: fascism and communism. Communism came first. The Soviet government had probably
killed 10 million innocent people before Hitler came to power. By the 1930s, huge slices of the
intelligentsia in Britain, France, and, yes, the United States were head over heels in love
with Stalinism. These thinkers produced reams of tributes to the bloodthirsty Soviet system,
and were far more dominant in Western intellectual life than the targets of Benda's ire in the
1920s. Second, because Bolshevism came first, it acted as an accelerant, perhaps even a major
cause, of fascism. One definition of fascism -- from my thesis supervisor Bob Paxton, probably
the greatest American expert on the subject -- is "hard measures by a frightened middle
class."
What they were frightened of, of course, was Bolshevism. And rightly so, even if pursuing
violent and anti-democratic means in defense of property and order had a cost in suffering just
as horrific as those they had feared.
Additionally, among the large numbers of people who were neither fascists nor communists,
nor fellow travelers to either, there were significant currents of opinion hardly conducive to
maintaining democratic peace. In early 1933, the Oxford Union held one of its most famous and
historically significant debates: aye or nay on the motion "that this House will in no
circumstance fight for its King and Country." The motion carried by a nearly two-to-one margin,
a result noted and commented upon all over the world.
Some of the arguments made in favor of "aye" were standard communist fare, i.e., "It is no
mere coincidence that the only country fighting for the cause of peace, Soviet Russia, is the
country that has rid itself of the warmongering clique." But it's likely that the vast majority
of the students who supported the motion, the bright and favored sons of Britain's
establishment, were motivated by pure disgust at the horrendous toll, paid for no terribly good
reason, in the trenches of the Western Front. In any case, the sentiment was widespread enough
in Britain's ruling circles to buttress the arguments for appeasement made a few years later.
It certainly contributed to Hitler's view that Britain and France were soft, unwilling to
resist him.
So if one of the evils of the '30s was the extreme nationalism and fascism that Macron
decried, another was communism. And the combined energy of both led to a spirit of appeasement
on the part of those attached to neither far left or right but unable also to summon much
energy to defend an imperfect bourgeois order. It's this spirit that's most analogous to the
regnant attitudes in contemporary Europe.
For as world leaders and press descended upon Paris to commemorate the end of World War I,
one could see that desire for appeasement take a new form. Last week, a middle-aged Pakistani
Christian woman, a farm worker named Asia Bibi, was freed after eight years on death row for
the charge of "blasphemy." Her conviction was overturned by Pakistan's supreme court, a
decision that immediately provoked mass demonstrations by fundamentalist Muslims demanding her
death. Her attorney fled the country for his safety. Her family requested asylum in Britain, a
request that was reportedly denied because the British government feared it would provoke
"unrest" among Muslims.
Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron, those wordy celebrants of Europe's asylum generosity,
have uttered not a word in support of Bibi, even as both (particularly Merkel) have facilitated
entry into Europe of millions of young Muslim men as "refugees." In contrast to them, Italy's
interior minister Matteo Salvini has said that Italy would welcome Bibi and her family -- who
at this writing are still unable to leave Pakistan.
It's a telling moment -- the government indirectly accused by Macron of harkening back the
dark days of the 1930s is ready to open its arms to a genuine political refugee, while the
governments of Theresa May, Macron, and Merkel opt for social peace -- a "paix bien Munichoise"
as a writer for the French journal Causeur aptly describes the establishment's
accommodating stance towards fundamentalist Islam on European soil.
The Bibi case brings to mind the fascinating story of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Dutch woman of
Somali origin who became a member of parliament and then, after 9/11, a critic of Islam.
Because of threats of murder from Dutch Islamists, she was first forced to live under police
protection and eventually had her citizenship withdrawn by the Dutch government. She moved to
America, becoming, as Salman Rushdie put it, "maybe the first refugee from Western Europe since
the Holocaust."
But in Macron's view, and the view of others from the West's Davos-style establishment, the
threat to Europe's core values can come only from "nationalists" like Hungary's Victor
Orbán, Italy's Salvini, and the likes of Donald Trump. In his famous poem written at the
outbreak of World War II, W.H. Auden famously called the 1930s "a low dishonest decade." The
attitudes that made it so are very much alive in Europe's ruling classes today.
Scott McConnell is a founding editor of and the author of Ex-Neocon: Dispatches From
the Post-9/11 Ideological Wars .
Was French president Emmanuel Macron correct at the WWI commemoration over the weekend when he
asserted that patriotism is the opposite of nationalism in a pointed dig at US president Donald
Trump? RPI Board Members Lew Rockwell and John Laughland join scholar George Szamuely on RT's
Crosstalk to debate whether nationalism is the bogeyman that Macron and others make it out to
be. Or is blaming nationalism just a way to further destroy national sovereignty and bring
about an unelected permanent globalist empire?
Food scarcity and malnutrition of children under the age of 5, places the Ukraine in
percentage terms lower than Pakistan, Ethiopia, Libya, Iraq .the Ukraine welcomes the Cookie
Monster (stats National Geographic)
Here is how U.S. President Barack Obama proudly, even imperially, described it when
delivering the Commencement address to America's future generals, at West Point Military
Academy, on
28 May 2014 :
The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation . [Every other nation is
therefore 'dispensable'; we therefore now have "Amerika, Amerika über alles, über
alles in der Welt".] That has been true for the century passed and it will be true for the
century to come. America must always lead on the world stage. If we don't, no one else
will...
Russia's aggression toward former Soviet states unnerves capitals in Europe, while China's
economic rise and military reach worries its neighbors. From Brazil to India, rising middle
classes compete with us. [He was here telling these future U.S. military leaders that they
are to fight for the U.S. aristocracy, to help them defeat any nation that resists.] ...
In Ukraine, Russia's recent actions recall the days when Soviet tanks rolled into Eastern
Europe. But this isn't the Cold War. Our ability to shape world opinion helped isolate Russia
right away. [He was proud of the U.S. Government's effectiveness at
propaganda, just as Hitler was proud of the German Government's propaganda-effectiveness
under Joseph Goebbels.] Because of American leadership, the world immediately condemned
Russian actions; Europe and the G7 joined us to impose sanctions; NATO reinforced our
commitment to Eastern European allies; the IMF is helping to stabilize Ukraine's economy;
OSCE monitors brought the eyes of the world to unstable parts of Ukraine.
No other nation regularly invades other nations that never had invaded it. This is
international aggression. It is the international crime of "War of Aggression" ; and the only
nations which do it nowadays are America and its allies, such as the Sauds, Israel, France, and
UK, which often join in America's aggressions (or, in the case of the Sauds' invasion of Yemen,
the ally initiates an invasion, which the U.S. then joins). America's generals are taught this
aggression, and not only by Obama. Ever since at least George W. Bush, it has been solid U.S.
policy. (Bush even kicked out the U.N.'s weapons-inspectors, so as to bomb Iraq in 2003.)
In other words: a mono-polar world is a world in which one nation stands above international
law, and that nation's participation in an invasion immunizes also each of its allies who join
in the invasion, protecting it too from prosecution, so that a mono-polar world is one in which
the United Nations can't even possibly impose international law impartially, but can impose it
only against nations that aren't allied with the mono-polar power, which in this case is the
United States. Furthermore, because the U.S. regime reigns supreme over the entire world, as it
does, any nations -- such as Russia, China, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Nicaragua,
Cuba, and Ecuador -- that the U.S. regime (which
has itself been scientifically proven to be a dictatorship ) chooses to treat as an enemy,
is especially disadvantaged internationally. Russia and China, however, are among the five
permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and therefore possess a degree of international
protection that America's other chosen enemies do not. And the people who choose which nations
to identify as America's 'enemies' are America's super-rich and not the entire American
population, because
the U.S. Government is controlled by the super-rich and not by the public .
If one of the five permanent members of the Security Council would table at the U.N. a
proposal to eliminate the immunity that the U.S. regime has, from investigation and prosecution
for any future War of Aggression that it might perpetrate, then, of course, the U.S. and any of
its allies on the Security Council would veto that, but if the proposing nation would then
constantly call to the international public's attention that the U.S. and its allies had
blocked passage of such a crucially needed "procedure to amend the UN
charter" , and that this fact means that the U.S. and its allies constitute fascist regimes
as was understood and applied against Germany's fascist regime, at the Nuremberg Tribunal in
1945, then possibly some members of the U.S.-led gang (the NATO portion of it, at least) would
quit that gang, and the U.S. global dictatorship might end, so that there would then become a
multi-polar world, in which democracy could actually thrive.
Democracy can only shrivel in a mono-polar world, because all other nations then are simply
vassal nations, which accept Obama's often-repeated dictum that all other nations are
"dispensable" and that only the U.S. is not. Even the UK would actually gain in freedom, and in
democracy, by breaking away from the U.S., because it would no longer be under the U.S. thumb
-- the thumb of the global aggressor-nation.
Only one global poll has ever been taken of the question "Which
country do you think is the greatest threat to peace in the world today?" and it found
that, overwhelmingly, by a three-to-one ratio above the second-most-often named country, the
United States was identified as being precisely that, the top threat to world-peace . But then,
a few years later, another (though less-comprehensive) poll was taken on a similar question,
and it produced
similar results . Apparently, despite the effectiveness of America's propagandists, people
in other lands recognize quite well that today's America is a more successful and
longer-reigning version of Hitler's Germany. Although modern America's propaganda-operation is
far more sophisticated than Nazi Germany's was, it's not entirely successful. America's
invasions are now too common, all based on lies, just like Hitler's were.
On November 9th, Russian Television headlined "'Very insulting': Trump bashes
Macron's idea of European army for protection from Russia, China & US" and reported
that "US President Donald Trump has unloaded on his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, calling
the French president's idea of a 'real European army,' independent from Washington, an insult."
On the one hand, Trump constantly criticizes France and other European nations for allegedly
not paying enough for America's NATO military alliance, but he now is denigrating France for
proposing to other NATO members a decreasing reliance upon NATO, and increasing reliance,
instead, upon the
Permanent Structured Cooperation (or PESCO) European military alliance , which was begun on
11 December 2017, and which currently has "25 EU Member States participating: Austria, Belgium,
Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary,
Italy, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania,
Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain and Sweden." Those are the European nations that are now on the path
to eventually quitting NATO.
Once NATO is ended, the U.S. regime will find far more difficult any invasions such as of
Iraq 2003, Libya 2011, Syria 2012-, Yemen 2016-, and maybe even such as America's bloody coup
that overthrew the democratically elected Government of Ukraine and installed a racist-fascist or
nazi anti-Russian regime there in 2014 . All of these U.S. invasions (and coup) brought to
Europe millions of refugees and enormously increased burdens upon European taxpayers. Plus,
America's economic sanctions against both Russia and Iran have hurt European companies (and the
U.S. does almost no business with either country, so is immune to that, also). Consequently,
today's America is clearly Europe's actual main enemy. The continuation of NATO is actually
toxic to the peoples of Europe. Communism and the Soviet Union and its NATO-mirroring Warsaw
Pact military alliance, all ended peacefully in 1991, but
the U.S. regime has secretly continued the Cold War, now against Russia , and is
increasingly focusing its "regime-change" propaganda against Russia's
popular democratic leader, Vladimir Putin, even though this U.S. aggression against Russia
could mean a world-annihilating nuclear war.
Europe's desire to create its own army and stop relying on Washington for defense is not
only understandable, but would be "positive" for the multipolar world, Vladimir Putin said
days after Donald Trump ripped into it.
" Europe is a powerful economic union and it is only natural that they want to be
independent and sovereign in the field of defense and security," Putin told RT in Paris where
world leader gathered to mark the centenary of the end of WWI.
He also described the potential creation of a European army "a positive process," adding
that it would "strengthen the multipolar world." The Russian leader even expressed his
support to French President Emmanuel Macron, who recently championed this idea by saying that
Russia's stance on the issue "is aligned with that of France" to some extent.
Macron recently revived the ambitious plans of creating a combined EU military force by
saying that it is essential for the security of Europe. He also said that the EU must become
independent from its key ally on the other side of the Atlantic, provoking an angry reaction
from Washington.
Once NATO has shrunk to include only the pro-aggression and outright nazi European nations, such as
Ukraine (after the U.S. gang accepts Ukraine into NATO, as it almost certainly then would
do), the EU will have a degree of freedom and of democracy that it can only dream of today, and
there will then be a multi-polar world, in which the leaders of the U.S. will no longer enjoy
the type of immunity from investigation and possible prosecution, for their invasions, that
they do today. The result of this will, however, be catastrophic for the top 100
U.S. 'defense' contractors , such as Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and Raytheon,
because then all of those firms' foreign sales except to the Sauds, Israel and a few other
feudal and fascist regimes, will greatly decline. Donald Trump is doing everything he can to
keep the Sauds to the agreements he reached with them back in 2017 to buy
$404 billion of U.S. weaponry over the following 10 years . If, in addition, those firms
lose some of their European sales, then the U.S. economic boom thus far in Trump's Presidency
will be seriously endangered. So, the U.S. regime, which is run by the owners
of its 'defense'-contractors , will do all it can to prevent this from happening.
This critique is pretty superficial. The truth is that Ukraine drifted to Baltic model (not without help from Western Europe
and the USA) for a long time. And the process started in 2001 not in 2014. That means that February 2014 coup d'état by far right
nationalist forces was just quantity turned into quality. With the dissolution of the USSR, it is clear that the result of WWII
and Yalta conference will be revised.
While it is true that it was the greatest geopolitical victory of Barack Obama and the USA against Russia, it made
the world more dangerous. The fact that it saws the teeth of dragon escaped those great US neocon strategists, like
Victoria Nuland. She looks pretty medictre person to me, judging from her public appearances. Far below the level of
position she occupied. Out of depth. Kind of early variation of Nikki Haley theme.
The USA established itself as a world power at the end of WWI, and the No.1 nation after WWII. So apparance of the USA on
world scene happened a century ago and the period of the USA primacy started around 1945 or 72 year ago. But after
dissolution of the USSR the US elite lost the countervailing power that kept it in check (and Sober) and now neocons which came to
power after the crash fo the USSR are destroying the USA pretty fast. They are real national cancer. So sad...
Neocons policy of fighting and challenging the rest of the world essentially guarantee that its dominant position will not last
more one century.
In
March 23rd, Gallup headlined
"South Sudan, Haiti and Ukraine Lead World in Suffering" , and the Ukrainian part of that
can unquestionably be laid at the feet of U.S. President Barack Obama, who in February 2014
imposed upon Ukraine a very bloody coup (see above), which he and his press misrepresented (and
still misrepresent) as being (and still represent as having been) a 'democratic revolution',
but was nothing of the sort, and actually was instead the start of the Ukrainian dictatorship
and the hell that has since destroyed that country, and brought the people there into such
misery, it's now by far the worst in Europe, and nearly tied with the worst in the entire
world.
America's criminal 'news' media never even reported the coup, nor that in 2011 the Obama
regime began planning
for a coup in Ukraine . And that by 1 March 2013 they started organizing it inside
the U.S. Embassy there . And that they hired members of Ukraine's two racist-fascist, or
nazi, political parties, Right Sector and Svoboda (which latter had been called the Social
Nationalist Party of Ukraine until the CIA advised them to change it to Freedom Party, or
"Svoboda" instead). And that in February 2014 they did it (and here's the 4 February 2014 phone call instructing
the U.S. Ambassador whom to place in charge of the new regime when the coup will be completed),
under the cover of authentic anti-corruption demonstrations that the Embassy organized on the
Maidan Square in Kiev, demonstrations that the criminal U.S. 'news' media misrepresented as
'democracy demonstrations,' though Ukraine already had democracy (but still lots of corruption,
even more than today's U.S. does, and the pontificating Obama said he was trying to end
Ukraine's corruption -- which instead actually soared after his coup there).
The head of the 'private CIA' firm Stratfor said it was
"the most blatant coup in history" but he couldn't say that to Americans, because he knows
that our press is just a mouthpiece for the regime (just like it was during the lead-up to
George W. Bush's equally unprovoked invasion of
Iraq -- for which America's 'news' media suffered likewise no penalties).
When subsequently accused by neocons for his having said this, his response was "I told the
business journal Kommersant that if the US were behind a coup in Kiev, it would have been the
most blatant coup in history," but he was lying to say this, because, as I
pointed out when writing about that rejoinder of his, he had, in fact, made quite clear in
his Kommersant interview, that it was, in his view "the most blatant coup in history," no
conditionals on that.
Everybody knows what Obama, and Clinton , and Sarkozy, did to Libya -- in
their zeal to eliminate yet another nation's leader who was friendly toward Russia (Muammar
Gaddafi), they turned one of the highest-living-standard nations in Africa into a failed state
and huge source of refugees (as well as of weapons that the
Clinton State Department transferred to the jihadists in Syria to bring down Bashar
al-Assad, another ally of Russia) -- but the 'news' media have continued to hide what Obama
(assisted by America's European allies, especially Poland and Netherlands, and also by
America's apartheid Middle Eastern ally, Israel) did to Ukraine.
I voted for Obama, partly because the insane McCain ("bomb, bomb, bomb Iran") and the creepy
Romney ("Russia, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe") were denounced by
the (duplicitous) Obama for saying such evil things, their aggressive international positions,
which continued old Cold-War-era hostilities into the present, even after the Cold War had
ended long ago (in 1991) (
but only on the Russian side ). I since have learned that in today's American political
system, the same aristocracy controls both of our rotten political Parties, and American
democracy no longer exists. (And the
only scientific study of whether America between the years 1981 and 2002 was democratic
found that it was not, and it already confirmed what Jimmy
Carter later said on 28 July 2015 :
Now it's just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting
the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to
governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members."
But yet our Presidents continue the line, now demonstrably become a myth, of 'American
democracy', and use it as a sledgehammer against other governments, to 'justify' invading (or,
in Ukraine's case, overthrowing via a 'democratic revolution') their lands (allies of Russia)
such as in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and maybe even soon, Iran.
Here are some of the events and important historical details along the way to Ukraine's
plunge into a worse condition than most African nations:
Please send this article to every friend who is part of the majority that, as a Quinnipiac
University poll published on March 22nd reported, "A total of 51 percent of voters say they
can trust U.S. intelligence agencies to do what is right 'almost all of the time' or 'most of
the time'" (and that level of trust was far higher than for the rotten press and for the rotten
politicians), even after the CIA's rubber-stamping Bush's lies to invade Iraq, and after the
FBI's shameless performance on Hillary Clinton's privatized State Department emails even after
her
smashing their cell-phones with hammers , etc., and all the other official cover-ups, with
no American officials even so much as being charged for their rampant crimes against the
American public. Besides: ever since the CIA's founding, it has had an "Operation Gladio" that specializes in
organizing terrorist acts so as for them to be blamed on, first, communist countries when they
existed; and, then, after the end of communism, on allies of Russia. Did the American
dictatorship begin right after FDR died in 1945? How much longer will these lies succeed?
For the people of
Iraq , and of Syria
, and of Ukraine, and many such countries, this dictatorship has destroyed their lives.
Trusting the 'intelligence' services of a dictatorship doesn't make any sense at all. They're
all working for the aristocracy, the billionaires -- not for any public, anywhere; not here,
not there, just nowhere. Should the cattle trust the feedlot-operator? Only ignorance can
produce trust, under the conditions that actually exist.
So, unless the idea is that ignorance is bliss, pass along the truth, when you find it,
because it is very rare -- and the system operates to keep it that way.
Overthrowing Ukraine was an attempt to end Russia being the major power on the Black Sea and
establish it as a NATO lake to stop Russia from using the sea to aid Syria or Iran. That was
ruined when Putin seized Crimea, keeping the Russian naval base.
In fact, the destabilization of the Ukraine occurred at the dawn of the new century in 2004.
The Presidential election of that year between Victor Yuschenko and Victor Yanukovich
resulted initially in the victory of Yanukovich. However serious allegations regarding
electoral fraud were raised. This resulted in mass demonstrations in Kiev and other cities
throughout Ukraine.
A re-run was ordered and the second time around Yushchenko took the Presidency with 52% of
the vote to Yanukovich's 44%. Suffice it to say that prior to the re-run a number of shadowy
foreign NGOs – including the National Endowment for Democracy – were active in
promoting civic disobedience in a number of Ukrainian cities in west and central Ukraine.
Independence Square in the middle of Kiev was occupied after the first election which was
declared invalid. These events became known as the 'Orange Revolution'.
It would be misleading to assume that significant numbers of the protestors did not have a
valid case against Yanukovich in terms of corruption and self-serving. However, it was
equally true that many of the demonstrators' motives were somewhat less noble. Prior to the
election Yushchenko had promised his running mate Yulia Tymoshenko the position of Prime
Minister should he win the election. Thus throughout, the disturbances were a struggle
between the eastern and western oligarchs.
On the crucial question of the nature of these events, 'Peoples power' or 'revolutionary
coup' the issue remains undecided.
This notwithstanding the British historian David Lane of Emmanuel College Cambridge argued
that
"The 'Orange Revolution' in Ukraine was widely considered to be an instance of the
'coloured revolutions' of 1989 engendered by democratic values and nascent civil societies in
the process of nation building. The extent to which the 'Orange Revolution' could be
considered a revolutionary event stimulated by civil society, or a different type of
political activity (a putsch, coup d'état), legitimated by elite-sponsored 'soft'
political power. Based on public opinion poll data and responses from focus groups, the
author contends that what began as an orchestrated protest election fraud developed into a
novel type of political activity -- a revolutionary coup d'état. It is contended that
the movement was divisive rather than integrative and did not enjoy widespread popular
support."
Which is about the nearest we will get to an authentic answer.
What followed, however, was a complete and corrupt shamble of opportunism, corruption and
self-serving misrule of Yuschenko and Tymoshenko who, after becoming involved in some dubious
energy deals was to become known as the 'Gas Princess'. These two paragons of democracy
eventually became bitter enemies and saw the return of Yanukovich after the Presidential
contest between her and Yanukovich in 2010 which Yanukovich narrowly won.
It's long been a truth that democracy in the US died a long time ago and the wealth and
power behind the POTUS, irrespective of who that might be, are mere puppets. Obama won his
presidency on outright lies and the crooked Clintons and Sarkozys of the US corrupt elite
serve no-one's interests but their own at the cost of the lives of Ukrainian Russian ethnics
and the Libyan, Iraqi and Syrian people. "Saving Syria's children" would require the removal
of the source of their suffering, which can be firmly laid at the door of murderous
Washington War Hawks, rent-a-gobs like Samantha Powers and Victoria Nuland(nee Kagan)and
corrupt MSM supporting the rogue state that is the USA.
by John Quiggin on November 11, 2018 It's 100 years since
the Armistice that brought an end to fighting on the Western Front of the Great War. Ten
million soldiers or more were dead, and even more gravely wounded, along with millions of
civilians. Most of the empires that had begun the war were destroyed, and even the victors had
suffered crippling losses. Far from being a "war to end war", the Great War was the starting
point for many more, as well as bloody and destructive revolutions. These wars continue even
today, in the Middle East, carved up in secret treaties between the victors.
For much of the century since then, it seemed that we had learned at least something from
this tragedy, and the disasters that followed it. Commemoration of the war focused on the loss
and sacrifice of those who served, and were accompanied by a desire that the peace they sought
might finally be achieved.
But now that everyone who served in that war has passed away, along with most of those who
remember its consequences, the tone has shifted to one of glorification and jingoism.
In part, this reflects the fact that, for rich countries, war no longer has any real impact
on most people. As in the 19th century, we have small professional armies fighting in faraway
countries and suffering relatively few casualties. Tens of thousands of people may die in these
conflicts, but the victims of war impinge on our consciousness only when they seek shelter as
refugees, to be turned away or locked up.
In the past, I've concluded message like this with the tag "Lest we Forget". Sadly, it seems
as if everything important has already been forgotten.
novakant 11.11.18 at 11:11 am (no link)
There's an interesting review in this week's TLS (paywall) by Richard J. Evans of
Jörn Leonhard: Pandora's Box – A History of the First World War
I think it varies per place, even within countries. In my English village this morning, about
a quarter of the population gathered in front of the war memorial, closing the only road.
They stood there, quietly. A couple of older people spent twenty minutes reading out the
names of all the poor souls who had left the village for war and never returned. Then there
was two minutes silence, the vicar called for personal peace for all those affected by war,
and then demanded that all those who could work for peace do so. A grim soberness marked the
whole thing
I had nearly not gone, expecting it to be too jingoistic, but it was nothing of the sort. I
am sure across the many communities remembering the Armistice across the world, many will be
doing the same.
This is my way of responding to Armistice Day.
Bob Dylan, Masters of War" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCnYmrADSns
"You that fasten all the trigger
For the others to fire
And you sit back and watch
While the death toll gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud"
Phil Ochs, "I Declare the War Is Over https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOs9xYUjY4I
"One-legged veterans will greet the dawn
And they're whistling marches as they mow the lawn
And the gargoyles only sit and grieve
The gypsy fortune teller told me that we'd been deceived
You only are what you believe"
Big Ed McCurdy, "Last Night I Had the Strangest Dream" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc5hxqNdqKo
"Last night I had the strangest dream
I ever dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war"
Just a personal question on jq. I left Australia 30 years ago. I can remember no jingoism on
armistice Day. On Australia Day and Anzac Day perhaps, but never on remembrance Day. Had that
really changed?
Regarding Leonhard, it is always a cause for concern when a reviewer calls a historian
"judicious."
The most important thing to remember about the Great War is that it wasn't caused by
malign ideologies, or nefarious leveling schemes, or crazed utopian economic cranks. It was
simply an inevitable breakdown of the normal operation of the capitalist world system.
Remember that when the ever growing infestation of libertarians, respected by their peers,
trot out their mythology.
Speaking of "lest we forget," how many people and how many commemorations have managed to
forget that the armistice came about as a direct consequence of the socialist uprising in
Germany, sparked in large part by a mass mutiny among German sailors in Kiel? Two days before
the formal armistice declaration, workers led by the left wing of the SPD stormed the
Reichstag, an ad hoc governing coalition led by the right wing of the SPD negotiated the
abdication of the Kaiser, and both the left and right wings of the SPD simultaneously issued
separate proclamations of a socialist German republic (by which they meant two very different
things, of course, a divergence that was notoriously written out over the following few years
in the blood of revolutionaries like Rosa Luxemburg).
In short, you can toss Armistice Day into the category as things like weekend, the 8 hour
work day, the 40 hour work week, social safety nets, and so on: if you celebrate it, don't
forget to thank revolutionary socialism for making it possible.
I'm with John on this one. I'll wear the poppy in recognition of the sacrifice, but will
avoid the local cenotaph ceremony. I find the current temper of Remembrance Day services
distasteful and the "our freedoms" trope abhorrent.
Reason @5 It's mostly Anzac Day, but the 100th anniversary has made Remembrance Day a bigger
deal than usual. And we just had a breathless announcement that "veterans" (I still haven't
got used to this Americanism) would be given boarding priority on Virgin airlines.
To be fair, our PM, who is generally hopeless on this and other issues, gave quite a good
speech on the day, which ran under the headline "War is always a failure of our humanity"
the loss of life and the lasting injuries that follow the fighting remain to show the
futility of allowing war to arise as an answer to our conflicting ideas. humanity has failed
as the dominant species. the fault lies in the hopes of too many to emulate the past society
of material greed as a goal. reaching our limits of destroying the clean air and poisoning
the seas with chemical and plastic waste as though the planet could absorb an endless spew
will cause humanity's end. honoring the dead is the least we may do to salute those that went
before us.
steven t johnson@6: WWI was "simply an inevitable breakdown of the normal operation of the
capitalist world system".
Remind me how many other "inevitable breakdowns of the normal operation" happened before,
or after 1914.
Remind me how far the authorities in Serbia, Russia (or indeed Austria-Hungary or Germany)
believed themselves to be operating in the interests of, or governed by, the capitalist world
system.
Come to that, for the next catastrophe in 1939, do the same for the authorities in Russia,
Poland and Germany.
And explain why there have been no such inevitable breakdowns since.
John Quiggin@10 "To be fair, our PM, who is generally hopeless on this and other issues, gave
quite a good speech on the day, which ran under the headline 'War is always a failure of our
humanity'" It seems to me to be quite unfair to blame WWI on us and our depraved human
nature. As Norman Angell notoriously demonstrated "us" do not get any benefit from war. Cui
bono? Nationalists want to go back to a world where sovereign nations struggle for their
place in the sun. Some, like Trump and Putin, want to go it alone. Others like the lords of
the EU want a consortium. What all share is a system of capitalist competition which will,
like all complex, crisis-ridden systems, eventually break down. Whining about human nature
seems to me detestable.
stephen@12 agrees with majority here, and elsewhere, of course. Nonetheless the confidence
the Spanish-American war, the Boer war, the Russian-Turkish war, the Sino-Japanese war, the
Russian-Japanese war and either of the Balkan wars would of course not, ever, possibly, have
spread like the third Balkan war, er, WWI would be touching were it not so disingenuous. Even
if one insists only conflicts between the great powers, the possibility that the Crimean war,
the war with Magenta and Solferino, the Schleswig-Holstein war, the Franco-Prussian war
(proper,) could not possibly have spread out of control is equally disingenous. Remember
54-40 or fight, the Aroostook war? The monotonously repetitive crises like Fashoda and the
first and second Moroccan crises and the brouhaha over the annexation of Bosnia clearly shows
crisis is normal operation. stephen's insistence this is all irrelevant is convenience, not
argument.
As to the absurd notion that a capitalist world system, in which states are the protectors
of the property of the nation's ruling class, somehow means the chieftains are pursuing the
general interests of world capitalism is delirious twaddle. It is the reformist who pretends
globalism means trade and peace.
I am well aware that everyone agrees with stephen on this point, but it is still
wrong.
Tens of thousands of people may die in these conflicts
Try 2 million in Korea.
One million in Vietnam.
500,000 in Iraq.
And who knows how many in Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Serbia, Somalia and all our
various proxy wars in Yemen, Latin America and Africa plus all of the civilians massacred by
our client-state dictators in Chile, Nicaragua, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, Congo, Egypt, the
Dominican Republic, Haiti, Guatemala and others I'm likely forgetting.
America is the biggest purveyor of death, destruction and human misery on the globe, but
it sounds like we've "forgotten" that as well.
Plenty of horrible things have happened in various American and other war zones since the
Western Front. Plenty of busted-up vets in every city. The problem can't be that we
forgot .
but isn't the capitalist system an emergent effect based on properties of human nature:
individualism, acquisitiveness, aggression. Surely a change of human nature would lead to a
change of economics at least; hopefully in a progressive direction but not necessarily
so.
A while back, a native American on Twitter commented that her people had already
experienced an apocalypse. This led to the following reflection on my part:
The history of modern Western Europe can be viewed as a series of apocalypses. War after
war after war, only at peace after nearly destroying itself. And that is the history of the
modern world.
>In short, you can toss Armistice Day into the category as things like weekend, the 8
hour work day, the 40 hour work week, social safety nets, and so on: if you celebrate it,
don't forget to thank revolutionary socialism for making it possible.
Do and the 100 million people revolutionary socialists would murder in the 80 or so years
following armistice day, what do they owe the revolutionary socialists?
@13
>What all share is a system of capitalist competition which will, like all complex,
crisis-ridden systems, eventually break down. Whining about human nature seems to me
detestable.
Ah yes, we all remember how non-violent those non-capitalist systems were, with the gulags
and mass killing and terror famines.
In an Old Holborn 'baccy tin somewhere in the house is my grandad's WW1 medal. He served in
the London Labour Battalions. Gassed.
He worked twice between his return and his too early death. Both jobs being very
temporary. His family lived in poverty in the East End; the "Panel" was used at times:
charity from the worthies. My dad was crippled with diseases of poverty. He was a communist
(until the 50s).
He signed up with his mates in '39. His best mate Jimmy Biscoe killed in a bomber operation
in the early 40s.
I got my dad's medals this year, twenty years after his death. He only told me a bit of
his experiences when he was dying. He loved my mum, music and kindness.
My dear, gruff dad-in-law lost his left leg at Monte Cassino. Every few years he'd get a
new "fitting", which was a great strain for him. He loved his family, his garden, rowing; we
talked a little about his experiences one quiet afternoon at the RSA. He too died too
early.
My Mum's favourite brother was a boy sailor. He went through the River Plate among other
actions. He spent time in psychiatric hospital after the war for his 'war trauma'. He too
died early.
The padre at my daughter's funeral had been a padre at Arnhem. A quiet, deeply
compassionate man who took his own life some three years later.
My best friend at school, dead in his twenties, doing his "duty".
Not a hero among them: ordinary, flawed, loved and loving human beings.
And the people left behind ? Lives filled with quiet, unresolved sadness and loss; getting by
with grit and quiet courage.
I used to go to Dawn Service. Then it got to be political Theatre. I get f .g angry with
all the brouhaha, preening and cavorting. None of this helps or helped any of those people
mentioned above.
Half a billion for the AWM? And cutting the funding of food banks? Moral bloody Bankruptcy
writ large.
You know I could possibly be sympathetic with all of you if it wasn't the case that
utopian ideology didn't have more victims than all the nationalisms put together. A plague on
all your houses.
Birdie@17 is telling us human nature generated capitalism a hundred thousand years ago? Or is
telling us that human nature is only free in a capitalist system? I think neither.
Raven Onthill@18 seems to think it is incumbent on the lesser peoples to surrender without
a fight, and accept the status quo as God-given. That Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman empires
could be liquidated peacefully, like a common bankruptcy. That is not how it works in a
capitalist system of sovereign states defending the property of their respective ruling
classes, against other states. The rise of Germany and the US against the relative decline of
the British empire meant the balance of forces must change. The new balance could only be
found by war.
The relative decline of the US means the current balance of forces must change. That's why
the US government has explicitly declared Russia and China to be revisionist powers. The US
state will no more go quietly than the British empire, which would not reach a peaceful
accommodation with Germany then any more than it can reach a real accommodation with "Europe"
today.
ironoutofcavalry@19 spells out the shared premises of liberal democrats and fascists, the
determination that famines and wars under capitalism are acts of God, while everything that
happens under socialism is always deliberate. Even if you somehow pretend the depopulation of
the Americas and the mass deaths of the Middle Passage somehow had nothing to do with
capitalism, there were plenty of holocausts in later days. See Mike Davis' Late Victorian
Holocausts. (Davis contention that famines relatively soon after the revolution are the same
as the great Bengal famine or the Irish famine is social-democratic piety, the sort of thing
that gives it a bad name.) Idiot theorists of "totalitarianism" are invited to comment upon
the Triple War in South America.
ironoutofcavalry, the Black Book of Communism is a contemptible far-right propaganda rag
whose death tally was denounced by several of its own co-authors due to the main author's
obsession with reaching the nice round 100 million mark by any means necessary, with "victims
of communism" including such figures as hypothetical deaths due to lack of population growth
during famine periods, Soviet civilian deaths resulting from the economic dislocations of the
Nazi invasion, and even Nazi soldiers killed on the battlefields of the Eastern Front. By
standards much more rigorous and defensible than those used in the Black Book of Communism,
the basic functioning of global capitalist material inequality kills tens of millions of
people per decade -- which is before you even begin trying to tally the casualties of
capitalist conflicts like the two world wars, let alone any of the other massively
destructive imperial interventions around the world before and since, which people like
stephen seem to have trained themselves not to regard as catastrophic in the same way as
WWI/WWII as long as the victims are mostly poor brown people in the Third World. Hell, even
at this very moment the US is providing direct political and military support for a campaign
of intentional starvation by its Saudi proxy state against millions of people in northern
Yemen, a "terror famine" at least as deliberate and premeditated as anything Stalin or Mao
ever dreamed of.
If you must insist on spreading uninformed reactionary bromides, at least take it to a
less serious discussion space where it belongs, and regardless, don't forget to thank a
socialist if you enjoy not being sent to die in a muddy trench.
Stephen, here's a reasonable
summary of how the dynamics of capitalist economic development led inexorably to WWI and
WWII, and are leading to a future global conflict that may be much less distant than we'd
like to imagine. Now before you click the link, note the following passage quoted in the
linked article, by a political commentator writing in 1887 about the prospect of:
a world war, moreover of an extent the violence hitherto unimagined. Eight to ten
million soldiers will be at each other's throats and in the process they will strip Europe
barer than a swarm of locusts. The depredations of the Thirty Years' War compressed into
three to four years and extended over the entire continent; famine, disease, the universal
lapse into barbarism, both of the armies and the people, in the wake of acute misery
irretrievable dislocation of our artificial system of' trade, industry and credit, ending
in universal bankruptcy collapse of the old states and their conventional political wisdom
to the point where crowns will roll into the gutters by the dozen, and no one will be
around to pick them up; the absolute impossibility of foreseeing how it will all end and
who will emerge as victor from the battle. That is the prospect for the moment when the
development of mutual one-upmanship in armaments reaches us, climax and finally brings
forth its inevitable fruits. This is the pass, my worthy princes and statesmen, to which
you in your wisdom have brought our ancient Europe.
Now based on what you can guess of my political orientation strictly from what I've
posted here, try to guess which 19th century European political figure might have written
that passage. No, your first guess is wrong, he died in 1883, but close, now guess again.
Yes, your second guess is correct .
I've seen "X is bad" statements receive the "Oh yeah? Well Stalin was worse !" non
sequitur in response for many values of X. But this thread is the first time I've seen it
happen for X = WWI.
WLGR@7: if you think that revolutionary socialism made possible "weekend, the 8 hour work
day, the 40 hour work week, social safety nets" how do you explain that all these things
happened in states that did not have to endure the catastrophic misfortunes of revolutionary
socialism?
steven t johnson@14
This is the first time that I have ever been told that everyone [on CT? in the wider
universe?] agrees with me, but if that is so I do not see it as a reason for supposing I am
wrong. Rational arguments dissenting from my opinions are of course always welcome.
stj's argument that, because conflicts pre-1914 did not result in world wars, therefore
WWI was inevitable, has only to be made explicit to collapse.
I am particularly interested by stj's argument that the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78,
between two absolutist non-capitalist monarchies, was in some way the result of international
capitalism. If he will reconsider that opinion, he might like to recalibrate his denunciation
of other wars as capitalist. I would recommend the works of an intelligent Marxist, Perry
Anderson, who explains why pre-Revolutionary Russia and Wilhelmine Germany had many
capitalists, they were not actually capitalist states.
As for his denunciation of capitalism in which "states are the protectors of the property
of the nation's ruling class": there is of course some truth there, but in which system is
that not true? In capitalism, unlike some other systems – revolutionary socialism, to
start with – whose property has been protected?
Birdie@17: "isn't the capitalist system an emergent effect based on properties of human
nature: individualism, acquisitiveness, aggression?" Human nature indeed; try explaining to
Ashurbanipal of Assyria, Alexander, Genghiz Khan why these properties did not apply to their
very n0n-capitalist selves.
Stephen, are you under the impression that western Europe and the US never had a
revolutionary socialist tradition? If so, I don't really know what to tell you other than to
read even the most passing history of Western mass politics and labor struggles, the upshot
of which is that yes of course it was Western ruling classes' fear of working-class
revolutionary agitation that led to the implementation of every single one of those things,
up to and including the German ruling class in early November 1918 deciding to hand over
power to the moderate reformist wing of the SPD, whose first major policy decision as soon as
they'd settled into their desks was to pursue an armistice with the Entente. I can understand
maybe a few token Birchers or Randroids poking their heads out here and there, but has the
anti-intellectual right-wing fever swamp of our current era really risen high enough that
such mild observations are somehow surprising or controversial even in a forum like this one?
'I used to go to Dawn Service. Then it got to be political Theatre. I get f .g angry with
all the brouhaha, preening and cavorting. None of this helps or helped any of those people
mentioned above."
After Trump's election, I chose to abstain for a while from the drenching but never quenching
fire hose of information of the web, and for a while worked through the stacks of books I had
long left unread.
One I avoided for quite a while, not remembering its provenance was "Human Smoke", by
Nicholson Baker. It could not have been a gift; no one in the family still living is familiar
with this author.
It's an assemblage of quotes from various authors from the beginning of the twentieth
century up until the operation of the crematoria which furnishes the title, and its general
tendency is pacifism, disarmament, the efforts made both before and after the Great War to
prevent such catastrophes, and the inhumanity of the conduct of the war. From the outset, the
policy of our side was to starve the other into submission through naval blockades, and to a
considerable extent it was successful.
In the second round, our side was the first to start bombing civilians, and we got better
at it the longer the war went on, though it's far from clear that this was a useful
strategy.
Baker's book is not, could hardly be, a convincing argument for pacifism, given the
drumbeat of fascist pronouncements, threats, denunciations, bragging and swaggering. The
first world war was so pointless that it's hard to understand how it happened, why it
couldn't have been avoided, why it couldn't have been stopped sooner. The second was
different.
It is worth remembering that the First World War was called, by those who opposed it after
the fact, the "War to End War". An organisation was set up to ensure that there would be no
more wars, and an international agreement renouncing war was signed.
The organisation was being set up while the war was actually going on, if you count the
Western blockade and invasion of Russia, and the Greek invasion of Turkey, as part of the
war.
Nevertheless, within less than twenty years you had the Italian invasion of Ethiopia
(arguably an after-effect of Italy's failure to get what it wanted out of the First World
War) and soon after that, the Japanese invasion of southern China (inarguably, ditto).
It is possible for people to argue that since there has not been a similar war since 1945,
"humanity" has "learned its lesson". In reality, however, the reason why there has been no
similar war has been that the principal protagonists have nuclear weapons and no means of
defense against them. If anybody comes up with a genuinely reliable defense against ballistic
and cruise missiles, I'd give the world less than ten more years of peace.
Incidentally, I'd give the world less than ten more years of peace at the moment, but
that's because of the preponderance of doltish psychopaths in governments. It's interesting,
however, that a doltish psychopath like Macron is nevertheless capable of realising that
France is vulnerable to the intermediate-range nuclear missiles which the U.S. is currently
unleashing on the world, and therefore is trying to, er, have a conference about banning the
use of naughty weapons and about promoting world peace.
Stephen has won the gallery with the claim that repeated crises failing to result in systemic
failure of the world diplomatic system (that is, causing world war,) on a an easily
predictable schedule shows obviously it is entirely possible for us to go back to a world of
sovereign nations like before the US hegemony and have endless crises with nary a collapse.
It's like the capitalist economy that way. "We" are now so wise that we can avoid the follies
of our predecessors, who are obviously stupid, which is proven by their being dead, dead,
dead.
I am sure Stephen has also won hearts and minds with the claim Russian conquests
against Turkey meant the extension of the Russian empire rather than the creation of the
states of Montenegro, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria. But perhaps people think those new
countries came complete with serfdom; extensive church lands and widespread monasticism;
aristocratic estates and caste privileges; relative absence of cities, etc. That is, the new
states were non-capitalist because absolutist monarchy isn't capitalist.
(I'm not familiar with Perry Anderson because leftist and foreign means it will not be
easily available in the US outside elite libraries. But if Perry Anderson thinks absolutism
and mercantilism were not part of the transition to capitalism, I believe he is gravely
mistaken. Defining "capitalism" as the most refined bourgeois democracy in the imperial
metropole is popular, because it is so usefully apologetic, yet it is still nonsense.)
Last and least, reason@21 utters the preposterous claim "utopian ideologies" have killed
more people than anything else. (The comment seems to include ironoutof cavalry, but I'm sure
ironoutofcavalry, like Stephen and reason, are resolutely complacent about social evils,
because, anti-utopian.) Personally I think business as usual, not utopian ideology, had
everything to do with the great Bengal famine circa 1770 (not the WWII one.) Etc. etc. etc.
in a litany that would sicken the soul, were it not fortified by the conviction it is utopian
ideology that is the spirit of evil.
"Sadly, it seems as if everything important has already been forgotten".
But Von Clownstick just remembered it was "them Germans" – and sadly not one comment
here was about Macron reminding US that "everything important" is how to deal with
"Nationalism"?
– and about:
"But now that everyone who served in that war has passed away, along with most of those who
remember its consequences, the tone has shifted to one of glorification and jingoism".
Didn't the French and the Germans mention that it is now 70 years that these "Archenemies"
at peace? – and I think to this "Armistice Day" the first time even the Germans were
invited? – but how true there was a "shifted tone" by the German Baron Von Clownstick
–
(who somehow still pretends he is "American"?)
Britain tried to negotiate an end to the naval arms race with Germany at least twice
before 1914. Germany was not interested. After 1905 Russia was also keen to avoid conflict.
The proponents of this policy lost credibility due to German sabre-rattling and insouciant
reversals by Vienna.
– and for everybody who might have missed it – let me explain what was going on
at this "Armistice Day".
Baron von Clownstick was very, VERY unhappy -(not only because he was afraid to ruin his
hair) BUT also – BE-cause as he always says "we built the best Arms" – "the most
beautiful weaponry" – and when he always told them Germans and them French and all
these other Nato members to pay more for Nato he was hoping for more Sales of US Arms BUT
then this Macron dude -(and now also Merkel) suddenly were talking about "Europeans
protecting themselves" -(and NOT buying more US weapons) and that made Von Clownstick very,
VERY sad – as his funny tweets about the US not wanting to protect Europe anymore
– if Europe wasn't "pony up" came to let's call it – to "fruition" – or a
classical "protect me from what I want" – and THAT's what happened on this –
"Armistice Day" –
(besides the danger for Von Clownsticks hair)
Just wading in a bit to say that "Revolutionary Socialism" is one of those labels that
obfuscates more than it reveals. Lenin, Debs, and Luxembourg were all contemporaries who
believed in Socialism and revolution, but they didn't all believe in the same "Revolutionary
Socialism." Just look at the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks for proof that even seemingly
small distinctions in what it means to be "revolutionary" have huge implications.
People seem to have settled on using "Revolutionary" as a code word to mean "violent,
dangerous, and radical," or "serious, committed, and effective," depending on their politics,
while "Democratic" is treated as being the opposite (for good or ill), but it's a false
dichotomy. Pacifists can be radical, democrats can be thuggish, and democracy can be
revolutionary or counterrevolutionary, and "effectiveness" is subjective. Given that even
with conventional definitions, it's not always easy to see which of the two camps a
particular Socialist falls under (and many of them changed factions), it's probably best to
clarify what type of revolution you're talking about up front.
er, Peter T, Britain wanted to end the naval arms race with Germany because it was ahead and
in complete control of European seas. It was Britain which had introduced the Dreadnought
battleship and the battlecruiser. It's rather like the American calls to restrict the number
of nuclear weapons and discourage countries which don't have them from acquiring them.
I won't say that German sabre-rattling wasn't a factor in promoting European crisis.
However, it's hard not to see the Russian military buildup in Europe between 1905 and 1914 as
anything other than preparation for war (however inept it turned out to be in practice), and
of course the Russians were heavily involved (diplomatically) in the Balkan wars. It
certainly wasn't the Austrians who orchestrated the murder of their heir to the throne, and
if Britain were to grow grumpy at Syria murdering Prince Charles I would hardly call that
"insouciant".
Wars are a strategy for male reproduction. Invade. Kill the competing men. Impregnate the
women. Enslave and trade women as reproductive property. Repeat. It's what men have done for
centuries.
Eg. Iceland
. ""This supports the model, put forward by some historians, that the majority of females
in the Icelandic founding population had Gaelic ancestry, whereas the majority of males had
Scandinavian ancestry,"
Britain had roughly 70% of the world's merchant fleet, a world-wide empire tied together
by maritime communications and was critically dependent on sea-borne trade. This was not new
– it had been the situation since 1815. Germany set out to build a fleet specifically
designed to challenge Britain's control of its home waters (heavy on battleships, short
range). Britain responded by building the dreadnoughts, then by coming to an arrangement with
France so as to free up forces from the Med, all the while seeking a naval truce. One can
argue that Germany had every right to seek to diminish British naval dominance, but it was
surely both a foolish and an aggressive policy, given that it posed a threat no British
government could not respond to (the invasion of Belgium and German plans to annex the
Belgian coast were similar, in that they would place the High Seas Fleet across Britain's
major trade artery. In 1914 London was the greatest port in the world).
The Viennese insouciance I had in mind was in regard to the Bosnian annexation in 1909.
The details are in Dominic Lieven's Towards the Flame, but it was a typical bit of
Austro-Hungarian over-clever dickishness. It added a layer of distrust that was not helpful
in 1914.
What worried Germany the most was Russian railway-building, which threatened to make their
military planning more difficult. They saw 1914 as a narrow and shrinking window (much as
many of the same people saw war in 1939 as a last military opportunity). Indeed, they had
mooted war against Russia in 1906 and again in 1909.
It's overlooked that Europe had an established mechanism for resolving diplomatic crises
– either an international congress or a meeting of the affected powers (as at Vienna
1813, Berlin 1878, London 1912..). The Powers had imposed settlements in the Balkans on
several previous occasions, and could have done so this time. Britain and France proposed a
congress; Berlin refused.
While they all look similar to us, Germany really was much more militarist and much more
inclined to seek salvation from their dilemmas in war than the other powers. While all the
elites were in a febrile state, Germany's were in something close to a collective nervous
breakdown, isolated, truculent and fearful.
I am a big fan of Hobson's book "Imperialism, a study", written in 1902, that I believe
explain tendencies, that evidently were present in 1902 and before, that later exploded and
caused WW1 and WW2.
The general theory of the book is that capitalist countries face underconsumption problems
at home, due to the exceedigly low wage share (Hobson though is not a marxist so he doesn't
believes that this is the normal situation in capitalism).
This underconsumption forces capitalist countries to expand in the colonies, and ultimately
also to create an military/financial/industrial complex that becomes the valve through which
excess savings (due to underconsumption due to excessively low wages) can be reinvested.
I'll leave out a discussion if Hobson's economic theories make sense (I think they do) or
wether they are the same of marxist theories (I think they are the same expressed from
another point of view and with a more moderate approach), but I want to point out the chapter
about "the scientific defence of imperialism" (pp.162 onwards in the link), because it
clearly speaks of the "scientific racism" theories that are nowadays associated with fascism
and nazism.
Here a cite from p.163:
Admitting that the efficiency of a nation or a race requires a suspension of intestine
warfare, at any rate l' =trance, the crude struggle on the larger plane must, they urge, be
maintained. It serves, indeed, two related purposes. A constant struggle with other races
or nations is demanded for the maintenance and progress of a race or nation ; abate the
necessity of the struggle and the vigour of the race flags and perishes. Thus it is to the
real interest of a vigorous race to be " kept up to a high pitch of external efficiency by
contest, chiefly by way of war with inferior races, and with equal races by the struggle
for trade routes and for the sources of raw material and of food supply." " This," adds
Professor Karl Pearson," is the natural history view of mankind, and I do not think you can
in its main features subvert it." Others, taking the wider cosmic standpoint, insist that
the progress of humanity itself requires the main-tenance of a selective and destructive
struggle between races which embody different power and capacities, different types of
civilisation.
From this I think it's obvious how Italian fascism and German nazism were mostly an
extremisation of theories that were already present before WW1 (and Japanese militarism and
probably many other militarism that we prefer to forget today).
In fact Mussolini justified the entry of Italy into WW2 with the idea of a natural struggle
between nations/races/cultures.
Now the main question is: was Hobson correct to say that these theories were just covers
for economic interests, that in turn were caused by underconsumption?
Or to say the same thing from a more marxist standpoint, is it true that WW1 was caused by
various capitalist countries were forced by the capitalist need for continuous
growth/expansion to continually expand their colonial empires, and in the end they had to
clash one with the other?
I think it is true.
This doesn't mean that all war in history were caused by capitalism, before capitalism ever
existed. Hower this gives an answer to some of your questions, and specifically:
1) Why didn't the normal conditions of capitalist production give rise to a world war
before?
Because various capitalist powers hadn't already conquered most of the world, so they didn't
have to go directly at each other's throat before WW1.
2) Why didn't the normal conditions of capitalist production give rise to a world war
after WW2?
Because
(2.a) after WW2 the capitalist system in developed countries had a much higer wage share due
to government intervention and anyway excess savings were repurposed through Keynesian
policies and inflation, thus much less underconsuption,
and
(2.b) because after WW2 for some decades there was only one main capitalist pole, that was
the USA, that was the main proponent of this kind of keynesian policies, either because it
was wiser, or because of the menace of socialism, or for whatever the reason.
WLGR@29: You ask whether I am "under the impression that western Europe and the US never had
a revolutionary socialist tradition?" Well, definitely not, and I cannot see that I have
written anything that could lead you to form an honest opinion that I am, or even might be.
Nor can I see any basis for your belief that, disagreeing with you, I must be wholly ignorant
of Western mass politics. I would advise you to have less faith in your own powers of
telepathy.
To refresh your memory: I wrote that various good thing happened in states that did not
have to endure the catastrophic misfortunes of revolutionary socialism. And I cannot see how
you can dispute either that states which were historically ruled by revolutionary socialists
suffered catastrophes; or that many European and other states, though never ruled by
revolutionary socialists and so avoiding their catastrophes, acquired these good things.
Pre-emptive disclaimer: I am not of course claiming that all catastrophes have been due to
revolutionary socialism.
stj@33: with regard to Russo/Turkish history, I think you are rather confused. You seem to
think I claimed that "Russian conquests against Turkey meant the extension of the Russian
empire rather than the creation of the states of Montenegro, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria." I
didn't: I merely pointed out that the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-8 was not in any intelligible
sense a conflict between two capitalist states. But if you want to widen the discussion to
cover Russian conquests against Turkey, I must point out that (1) several such conquests did
in fact involve extension of the Russian empire: take a quick look at the history of Ukraine
and Crimea (2) the creation of Montenegro was a result of Austrian and Venetian victories,
not Russian (3) Russia never conquered any part of Serbia from the Turks, though Russian
support for autonomously rebellious Serbs was significant (4) a complicating factor in the
formation of Romania was the Russian invasion of the principalities of Wallachia and
Moldavia, followed by an attempt to incorporate them into the Russian empire: many Romanians
preferred Ottoman rule (5) Bulgaria, you're right for once, that was a direct and
uncomplicated result of Russian conquest followed by creation of a new state. Which I never
said it wasn't.
I really do think it would be a good idea for you to read Perry Anderson's thoughtful and
erudite works before dismissing them; they may be more accessible than you think. I don't
know if your socialist principles would allow you to use the capitalist outfit Amazon
yourself, but if so Anderson's Lineages of the Absolutist state is available at $29.95 plus
postage. I would also recommend on a rather different topic Passages from Antiquity to
Feudalism, same price: second-hand copies of either are a little cheaper.
Wasn't World War I the result of Germany pursuing conquest?
World War 1 was equally the result of Britain 'pursuing conquest', i.e. its decades-long
ambition to expand its empire into the Near and Far Easts. Josh Marshall is, I'm afraid, an
unreconstructed Anglophile who also believes silly claims that the British went back to
'peace' (whatever that may be for a militarised empire) after WWI.
MFB @ 39
Correct. From contemporary accounts, we know that those members of the public who were
paying attention at the time could see the various empires building up to war for years
beforehand.
Marxist explanations work better for some events than for others; I don't think they work
particularly well for WW 1, though they aren't completely irrelevant.
I don't keep up with the historiography (e.g., the probably endless debate btw the Fischer
school and its critics/opponents), but one can distinguish btw contingent and deeper causes.
The latter were both 'ideational' (e.g., hypernationalism; views of war in general; 'cult of
the offensive'; influence of Social Darwinist and racialist perspectives on intl relations;
relative weakness of the peace mvts and their msg; dominant styles of diplomacy; etc.) and
'material' (e.g., problems faced by the multinational empires, esp. Austria-Hungary; rigidity
of mobilization plans; economic and political pressures on ruling elites; etc.), though the
distinction between ideational and material is somewhat artificial.
I'm not sure which among all the historical works is most worth reading (J.C.G. Rohl was
mentioned by someone in a past thread on this topic, and there were a lot of books published
around 2014 on the centenary of the war's start); but istm James Joll's work, among others,
has held up pretty well. Political scientists/ IR people have also continued to publish on
this. (The last journal article I'm aware of is Keir Lieber's in Intl Security several yrs
ago [and the replies], though I'm sure there have been others since. And even though it's
old, S. Van Evera's piece from the '80s, "Why Cooperation Failed in 1914," is still worth
reading, for the copious footnotes to the then-extant historical work in English (and English
translation), among other things.)
MFB: "It was Britain which had introduced the Dreadnought battleship and the battlecruiser."
Hmm, wasn't the Dreadnought class a direct response to the Tirpitz Memorandum (1896) and
the subsequent German Navy Bill of 1898, the purpose of which was to build a battleship fleet
with which to confront the Royal Navy?
As regards the historical arguments about war guilt, there was a strong pro-war faction in
nearly every European country, and even in Australia (on this last point, and the links to
the British pro-war faction, see Douglas Newton's Hell Bent ). The pro-war faction
prevailed nearly everywhere. Arguing about which pro-war faction was most responsible for
bringing about the war they all wanted seems pointless to me.
Moreover, once the war started, no-one wanted in power anywhere to bring it to an end on
any terms other than victory, annexations and reparations.
Looking specifically at the British government, since it seems to have the most defenders,
they first refused an offer of alliance from Turkey and then (when Turkey entered on the
German side instead) made a secret deal with France to carve up the Ottoman empire. As
mentioned in the OP, we are still dealing with the consequences today. That's not to excuse
the pro-war factions that dominated the governments of Germany, France, Russia,
Austria-Hungary, Italy etc.
President Macron's protests against nationalism this weekend stand in stark contrast with
the words of France's WWII resistance leader and the man who would then become president:
General Charles de Gaulle.
Speaking to his men in 1913, de Gaulle reminded them:
"He who does not love his mother more than other mothers, and his fatherland more than
other fatherlands, loves neither his mother nor his fatherland."
This unquestionable invocation of nationalism reveals how far France has come in its pursuit
of globalist goals, which de Gaulle described later in that same speech as the "appetite of
vice."
While this weekend the media have been sharpening their knives on Macron's words, for use
against President Trump, very few have taken the time to understand what really created the
conditions for the wars of the 20th century. It was globalism's grandfather: imperialism, not
nationalism.
This appears to have been understood at least until the 1980s, though forgotten now. With
historical revisionism applied to nationalism and the great wars, it is much harder to
understand what President Trump means when he calls himself a "nationalist." Though the fault
is with us, not him.
" Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism: nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism
By pursuing our own interests first, with no regard to others,' we erase the very thing that
a nation holds most precious, that which gives it life and makes it great: its moral values,"
President Macron declared from the pulpit of the Armistice 100 commemorations.
Had this been in reverse, there would no doubt have been shrieks of disgust aimed at Mr.
Trump for "politicizing" such a somber occasion. No such shrieks for Mr. Macron, however, who
languishes below 20 percent in national approval ratings in France.
With some context applied, it is remarkably easy to see how President Macron was being
disingenuous.
Nationalism and patriotism are indeed distinct. But they are not opposites.
Nationalism is a philosophy of governance, or how human beings organize their affairs.
Patriotism isn't a governing philosophy. Sometimes viewed as subsidiary to the philosophy of
nationalism, patriotism is better described as a form of devotion.
For all the grandstanding, Mr. Macron may as well have asserted that chicken is the opposite
of hot sauce, so meaningless was the comparison.
Imperialism, we so quickly forget, was the order of the day heading into the 20th century.
Humanity has known little else but empire since 2400 B.C. The advent of globalism, replete with
its foreign power capitals and multi-national institutions is scarcely distinct.
Imperialism -- as opposed to nationalism -- seeks to impose a nation's way of life, its
currency, its traditions, its flags, its anthems, its demographics, and its rules and laws upon
others wherever they may be.
Truly, President Trump's nationalism heralds a return to the old U.S. doctrine of
non-intervention, expounded by President George Washington in his farewell address of 1796:
" It must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary
vicissitudes of [Europe's] politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her
friendships or enmities."
It should not have to be pointed out that the great wars of the 20th century could not be
considered "ordinary vicissitudes", but rather, that imperialism had begun to run amok on the
continent.
It was an imperialism rooted in nihilism, putting the totality of the state at its heart.
Often using nationalism as nothing more than a method of appeal, socialism as a doctrine of
governance, and Jews as a subject of derision and scapegoating.
Today's imperialism is known as globalism.
It is what drives nations to project outward their will, usually with force; causes armies
to cross borders in the hope of subjugating other human beings or the invaded nation's natural
resources; and defines a world, or region, or continent by its use of central authority and
foreign capital control.
Instead of armies of soldiers, imperialists seek to dominate using armies of economists and
bureaucrats. Instead of forced payments to a foreign capital, globalism figured out how to
create economic reliance: first on sterling, then on the dollar, now for many on the Euro. This
will soon be leapfrogged by China's designs.
And while imperialism has served some good purposes throughout human history, it is only
when grounded in something larger than man; whether that be natural law, God, or otherwise. But
such things are scarcely long-lived.
While benevolent imperialism can create better conditions over a period of time, humanity's
instincts will always lean towards freedom and self-governance.
It is this fundamental distinction between the United States' founding and that of the
modern Republic of France that defines the two nations.
The people of France are "granted" their freedoms by the government, and the government
creates the conditions and dictates the terms upon which those freedoms are exercised.
As Charles Kesler wrote for the Claremont
Review of Books in May, "As a result, there are fewer and fewer levers by which the governed
can make its consent count".
France is the archetypal administrative state, while the United States was founded on
natural law, a topic that scarcely gets enough attention anymore.
Nationalism - or nationism, if you will - therefore represents a break from the war-hungry
norm of human history . Its presence in the 20th century has been rewritten and
bastardized.
A nationalist has no intention of invading your country or changing your society. A
nationalist cares just as much as anyone else about the plights of others around the world but
believes putting one's own country first is the way to progress. A nationalist would never seek
to divide by race, gender, ethnicity, or sexual preference, or otherwise. This runs contrary to
the idea of a united, contiguous nation at ease with itself.
Certainly nationalism's could-be bastard child of chauvinism can give root to imperialistic
tendencies. But if the nation can and indeed does look after its own, and says to the world
around it, "these are our affairs, you may learn from them, you may seek advice, we may even
assist if you so desperately need it and our affairs are in order," then nationalism can be a
great gift to the 21st century and beyond.
"... Orwell grew up in a time of increasing scale, Managerialism, and atomization. His thinking narrates the moral discourse shaped by that anti-social environment and its effects (mass wars) but dresses it up in an emancipatory narrative. One is immediately struck by his lack of foresight in predicting how power would operate as the 20th century wore on (Foucault and and Huxley are a lot closer the truth), and his inability to grapple with the essence of power and its moral and conceptual implications as a whole. ..."
"... Orwell proceeds to demand by implication we view the ancestral efforts which secured our position in the present day as illegitimate, since they conformed to emergent anthropological patterns of conflict and conquest instead of categorical laws plucked out of thin air by self-styled 'enlightened' big-brains during the 18th century. ..."
"... Had we actually lived by these 'standards', those of us left would be a marginalized set of tribes pushed to the far north of Europe, regularly getting shafted by whatever Magian civilization moved in. As a matter of fact, that's happening right now as these self-critical ideas have installed themselves within our cultural substrate. ..."
"... But if you have a decline and you have a desire to assert yourself to arrest the decline, and you have to apologize to yourself about even having the idea of assertion to arrest decline, you're not going to get anywhere, are you? ..."
Orwell's intellect is overrated, and his aphorisms have become thought-ending cliches. Look at the string of assumptions in quote
above. Do individuals really 'choose' to 'sink' their consciousness into a greater body? What makes far more sense is that at
the 'core' of I there is a 'we', which is conditioned by prior forms of particularity - religion, ethnicity, language, race, and
culture. This is the basis of a harmonious common good, and a meaningful lifeworld.
Orwell grew up in a time of increasing scale, Managerialism, and atomization. His thinking narrates the moral discourse
shaped by that anti-social environment and its effects (mass wars) but dresses it up in an emancipatory narrative. One is immediately
struck by his lack of foresight in predicting how power would operate as the 20th century wore on (Foucault and and Huxley are
a lot closer the truth), and his inability to grapple with the essence of power and its moral and conceptual implications as a
whole.
In reality, power is a moral imperative, and its acquisition and application the inaugural raison d'ętre of the state and the
concomitant society. Hence, the cogito subject at the heart of Orwell's evaluative presuppositions is itself a product of prior
systems of power, upstream from personal judgment and value sets.
Orwell proceeds to demand by implication we view the ancestral efforts which secured our position in the present day as
illegitimate, since they conformed to emergent anthropological patterns of conflict and conquest instead of categorical laws plucked
out of thin air by self-styled 'enlightened' big-brains during the 18th century.
Had we actually lived by these 'standards', those of us left would be a marginalized set of tribes pushed to the far north
of Europe, regularly getting shafted by whatever Magian civilization moved in. As a matter of fact, that's happening right now
as these self-critical ideas have installed themselves within our cultural substrate.
These pious set of mere assertions are deployed by the ruling globalist cabal to justify the replacement of Western founding
stocks. Yet they are so ingrained among our senior cohort, when their *own people actually under attack* seek to affirm themselves
without contradiction in *response*, they are viewed as the root menace. But if you have a decline and you have a desire to
assert yourself to arrest the decline, and you have to apologize to yourself about even having the idea of assertion to arrest
decline, you're not going to get anywhere, are you?
Those who feel uncomfortable about this should have worked harder to prevent the erosion of the historic American nation, and
if there is nothing they could have done against the DC Behemoth, abstain from opposing the instinctive response of the cultural
immune system.
I'm not American, but i'm 5th generation in an Anglo-setter nation. The implication here is that i'm an ungrateful you whipper-snapper
who just doesn't grasp the sacrifices and horrors of the 20th century. Exactly when does my generation get the moral cachet
entitling us to input directions into the civilizational compass? Arguments predicated on commitment to a cause haven no inherent
validity. I'm certainly not disparaging or denying here, but you're putting us in a position where our ambit of choice is circumscribed
by the ideology that justified post-War US hegemony (for which people from my community were still dying until very recently
in Afghanistan).
I have long thought that NATO should have been abolished after the fall of the USSR. Go your own way. I am not concerned with
you foreigners in Europe or anywhere else. I am concerned with the state of mind of my own people who should wise up and forget
about Europe except as a trading partner and a tourist destination.
Well, I would love to do that Col., but unfortunately Western civilization as a whole goes the way of Washington, New York,
Brussels, and maybe Paris and Moscow. What happens to weaker power centres without the strong ones? What has happened Tibet,
that's what.
Thinking in terms of elites tied to specific nations is no longer a good model to conceive of politics. Formal institutions
like NATO are an expression of that. We have to address transnational networks of soft power that bind together and enculturate
the ruling class. I have more in common with a Trump voter from flyover country and he with me than either of us with our respective
'national' elites.
An important distinction, thank you for forcing us to consider the difference.
The two are not always easy to distinguish and a 'My country right or wrong' mindset seems to be dangerously on the rise.
I was considering the use of the national flag on homes in the US and UK. It surprised me how common it seemed in the States
and assumed it was a show of Patriotic fervor when I see it in the UK it sends a shiver down my spine as (with the exception
of major international sporting events) I interpret it as extreme Nationalism often associated with racist or Neo-Nazi sympathies.
Conflation of the two seems much the same as that of Anti-Israeli, Anti-Zionist and Anti-Semitic again three very distinct
mindsets.
... Look, mostly this whole patriotism/nationalism word game is just sadly funny. You are a patriot if you think like me. You
are a nationalist if you don't. Patriotism is good, nationalism is bad. If I am a patriot, I am good, if you are a nationalist,
you must be bad.
I think that the wisdom of Humpty Dumpty when speaking to Alice fits here:
"When I use a word..it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is which is to be master -- that's all."
"... Look, mostly this whole patriotism/nationalism word game is just sadly funny. You are a patriot if you think like me. You are a nationalist if you don't. Patriotism is good, nationalism is bad. If I am a patriot, I am good, if you are a nationalist, you must be bad. ..."
... Look, mostly this whole patriotism/nationalism word game is just sadly funny. You are a patriot if you think like me. You
are a nationalist if you don't. Patriotism is good, nationalism is bad. If I am a patriot, I am good, if you are a nationalist,
you must be bad.
I think that the wisdom of Humpty Dumpty when speaking to Alice fits here:
"When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is which is to be master -- that's all."
"... . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com. ..."
In a rebuke that bordered on a national insult Sunday, Emmanuel Macron sniped at Donald
Trump's calling himself a nationalist.
"Patriotism is the exact opposite of nationalism; nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism,"
Macron said.
As for Trump's policy of "America first," Macron trashed such atavistic thinking in this new
age: "By saying we put ourselves first and the others don't matter, we erase what a nation
holds dearest, what gives it life, what makes it great and what is essential: its moral
values."
Though he is being hailed as Europe's new anti-Trump leader who will stand up for
transnationalism and globalism, Macron revealed his ignorance of America.
Trump's ideas are not ideological but rooted in our country's history.
America was born between the end of the French and Indian War, the Declaration of
Independence in 1776, and the ratification of the Constitution in 1788. Both the general who
led us in the Revolution and the author of that declaration became president. Both put America
first. And both counseled their countrymen to avoid "entangling" or "permanent" alliances with
any other nation, as we did for 160 years.
Were George Washington and Thomas Jefferson lacking in patriotism?
When Woodrow Wilson, after being re-elected in 1916 on the slogan "He Kept Us Out of War,"
took us into World War I, he did so as an "associate," not as an Allied power. American troops
fought under American command.
After that war, the U.S. Senate rejected an alliance with France. Under Franklin Roosevelt,
Congress formally voted for neutrality in any future European war.
The U.S. emerged from World War II as the least bloodied and least damaged nation because we
stayed out for more than two years after it had begun.
We did not invade France until four years after it was occupied, the British had been thrown
off the Continent, and Josef Stalin's Soviet Union had been fighting and dying for three
years.
The leaders who kept us out of the two world wars as long as they did -- did they not serve
our nation well, given that America's total losses were just over 500,000 dead, compared with
the millions that other nations lost?
At the Armistice Day ceremony, Macron declared, "By saying we put ourselves first and the
others don't matter, we erase what a nation holds dearest its moral values."
But Trump did not say that other countries don't matter. He only said we should put our own
country first.
What country does Emmanuel Macron put first?
Does the president of France see himself as a citizen of the world with responsibility for
all of Europe and all of mankind?
Charles de Gaulle was perhaps the greatest French patriot of the 20th century. Yet he spoke
of a Europe of nation-states, built a national nuclear arsenal, ordered NATO out of France in
1966, and, in Montreal in 1967, declared, "Long live a free Quebec" -- inciting French
Canadians to rise up against "les Anglo-Saxons" and create their own nation.
Was de Gaulle lacking in patriotism?
By declaring American nationalists anti-patriotic, Macron has asserted a claim to the
soon-to-be-vacant chair of Angela Merkel.
But is Macron really addressing the realities of the new Europe and world in which we now
live? Or is he simply assuming a heroic liberal posture to win the applause of Western
corporate and media elites?
The realities: in Britain, Scots are seeking secession, and the English have voted to get
out of the European Union. Many Basques and Catalans wish to secede from Spain. Czechs and
Slovaks have split the blanket and parted ways.
Anti-EU sentiment is rampant in populist-dominated Italy.
A nationalism their peoples regard as deeply patriotic has triumphed in Poland and Hungary
and is making gains even in Germany.
The leaders of the world's three greatest military powers -- Trump in the U.S., Vladimir
Putin in Russia, and Xi Jinping in China -- are all nationalists.
Turkish nationalist Recep Tayyip Erdogan rules in Ankara; Hindu nationalist Narendra Modi is
head of India. Jair Bolsonaro, a Trumpian nationalist, is the incoming president of Brazil. Is
not Benjamin Netanyahu an Israeli nationalist?
In France, a poll of voters last week showed that Marine Le Pen's renamed party,
Rassemblement National, has moved ahead of Macron's party for the May 2019 European Parliament
elections.
If there is a valid criticism of Trump's foreign policy, it is not that he has failed to
recognize the new realities of the 21st century. It's that he has not moved expeditiously to
dissolve old alliances that put America at risk of war in faraway lands where no vital U.S.
interests exist.
Why are we still committed to fight for a South Korea far richer and more populous than the
nuclear-armed North? Why are U.S. planes and ships still bumping into Russian planes and ships
in the Baltic and Black seas?
Why are we still involved in the half-dozen wars into which Bush II and Barack Obama got us
in the Middle East?
Why do we not have the "America first" foreign policy we voted for?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That
Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever . To find out more about Patrick
Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators
website at www.creators.com.
If this is Trump policy, then Trump is 100% pure neocon. It took just three months for the Deep state to turn him.
Notable quotes:
"... Bolton shrugged off the reality that Iran is still doing business internationally, saying that he believes Iran is "under real pressure" from the sanctions, and that he's determined to see it keep getting worse. ..."
With the newly reimposed US sanctions against
Iran having little to no perceivable economic impact, national security adviser John Bolton
is talking up his plans to continue to escalate the sanctions track, saying he will "
squeeze
Iran until the pips squeak ."
Bolton shrugged off the reality that Iran is still doing business internationally, saying
that he believes Iran is "under real pressure" from the sanctions, and that he's determined
to see it keep getting worse.
Bolton went on to predict that the European efforts to keep trading with Iran would
ultimately fail. He said the
Europeans are going through the six stages of grief , and would ultimately led to
European acceptance of the US demands.
Either way, Bolton's position is that the US strategy will continue to be
imposing new sanctions
on Iran going forward. It's not clear what the end game is, beyond just damaging
Iran.
It's probably more complex and there is not solid boundary between nationalism (love of your
own country or ethnicity at the expense of other) and patriotism (just love of you own country).
Envy is a very human trait (Great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin said that it is the sister of
competition, so it comes for noble family) and if you love you country you definitely can envy
other countries and this feeling complicates things -- bridging the gap between the patriotism
and the nationalism.
The two are not always easy to distinguish and a 'My country right or wrong' mindset seems to
be dangerously on the rise. Also often this whole patriotism/nationalism word game is just sadly funny. You are a patriot if you
think like me. You are a nationalist if you don't. Patriotism is good, nationalism is bad. If I am a patriot, I am good, if you
are a nationalist, you must be bad.
Ukrainians has a saying that reflect this deep feeling of envy " God I do not want any
specific favors for myself, but please make it so that my neighbor house was burned out"
Notable quotes:
"... I long ago decided that Nationalism as these two great minds defined it was a bad thing and that I hoped the United States would not descend to such a depth of false pride as to become nationalistic in this sense. I have lived to be disappointed in this. ..."
George Orwell wrote in "Notes on Nationalism," that "By 'patriotism' I mean devotion to a
particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world
but has no wish to force upon other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both
militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for
power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige,
not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his
own individuality ."
I have tried to act as I imagine a patriot should and in a way that Kedourie and Orwell
might approve. I long ago decided that Nationalism as these two great minds defined it was
a bad thing and that I hoped the United States would not descend to such a depth of false pride
as to become nationalistic in this sense. I have lived to be disappointed in this.
In general I support Macron's expressed view on this subject but it should be said that much
of his vehemence on this subject is caused by his own search for approval in France and
reluctance to see Europe deprived of the post WW2 economic benefits and subsidized defense
against the USSR long provided by the United States. From my point of view Macron appears a
self serving politician in this matter.
We should all be careful not to confuse Patriotism and Nationalism. pl
Orwell's intellect is overrated, and his aphorisms have become thought-ending cliches.
Look at the string of assumptions in quote above. Do individuals really 'choose' to
'sink' their consciousness into a greater body? What makes far more sense is that at the
'core' of I there is a 'we', which is conditioned by prior forms of particularity -
religion, ethnicity, language, race, and culture. This is the basis of a harmonious
common good, and a meaningful lifeworld.
Orwell grew up in a time of increasing scale, managerialism, and atomizaton. His
thinking narrates the moral discourse shaped by that anti-social environment and its
effects (mass wars) but dresses it up in an emancipatory narrative. One is immediately
struck by his lack of foresight in predicting how power would operate as the 20th century
wore on (Foucault and and Huxley are a lot closer the truth), and his inability to
grapple with the essence of power and its moral and conceptual implications as a
whole.
In reality, power is a moral imperative, and its acquisition and application the
inaugural raison d'être of the state and the concomitant society. Hence, the cogito
subject at the heart of Orwell's evaluative presuppositions is itself a product of prior
systems of power, upstream from personal judgement and value sets. Orwell proceeds to
demand by implication we view the ancestral efforts which secured our position in the
present day as illegitimate, since they conformed to emergent anthropological patterns of
conflict and conquest instead of categorical laws plucked out of thin air by self-styled
'enlightened' big-brains during the 18th century. Had we actually lived by these
'standards', those of us left would be a marginalized set of tribes pushed to the far
north of Europe, regularly getting shafted by whatever Magian civilization moved in. As a
matter of fact, that's happening right now as these self-critical ideas have installed
themselves within our cultural substrate.
These pious set of mere assertions are deployed by the ruling globalist cabal to
justify the replacement of Western founding stocks. Yet they are so ingrained among our
senior cohort, when their *own people actually under attack* seek to affirm themselves
without contradiction in *response*, they are viewed as the root menace. But if you have
a decline and you have a desire to assert yourself to arrest the decline, and you have to
apologize to yourself about even having the idea of assertion to arrest decline, you're
not going to get anywhere, are you?
Those who feel uncomfortable about this should have worked harder to prevent the
erosion of the historic American nation, and if there is nothing they could have done
against the DC Behemoth, abstain from opposing the instinctive response of the cultural
immune system.
I'm not American, but i'm 5th generation in an Anglo-setter nation. The
implication here is that i'm an ungrateful you whipper-snapper who just doesn't
grasp the sacrifices and horrors of the 20th century. Exactly when does my
generation get the moral cachet entitling us to input directions into the
civilizational compass? Arguments predicated on commitment to a cause haven no
inherent validity. I'm certainly not disparaging or denying here, but you're
putting us in a position where our ambit of choice is circumscribed by the
ideology that justified post-War US hegemony (for which people from my community
were still dying until very recently in Afghanistan).
I have long thought that NATO should have been abolished after the fall of the
USSR. Go your own way. I am not concerned with you foreigners in Europe or
anywhere else. I am concerned with the state of mind of my own people who should
wise up and forget about Europe except as a trading partner and a tourist
destination.
Well, I would love to do that Col., but unfortunately Western civilization as a
whole goes the way of Washington, New York, Brussels, and maybe Paris and Moscow.
What happens to weaker power centres without the strong ones? What has happened
Tibet, that's what.
Thinking in terms of elites tied to specific nations is no longer a good model
to conceive of politics. Formal institutions like NATO are an expression of that.
We have to address transnational networks of soft power that bind together and
enculturate the ruling class. I have more in common with a Trump voter from
flyover country and he with me than either of us with our respective 'national'
elites.
An important distinction, thank you for forcing us to consider the difference.
The two are not always easy to distinguish and a 'My country right or wrong'
mindset seems to be dangerously on the rise. I was considering the use of the
national flag on homes in the US and UK. It surprised me how common it seemed in
the States and assumed it was a show of Patriotic fervor when I see it in the UK
it sends a shiver down my spine as (with the exception of major international
sporting events) I interpret it as extreme Nationalism often associated with
racist or Neo-Nazi sympathies. Conflation of the two seems much the same as that
of Anti-Israeli, Anti-Zionist and Anti-Semitic again three very distinct
mindsets.
I can truthfully state that I am either fish, nor fowl, nor good red meat on this
one. It seems to me to be a standard bit of verbal "wanking" so beloved by the
folks in the political arena.
I think that mostly this is a in your face dig at Trump, same tenor, same
sneering superiority that was displayed by the urban democrats who are currently
in their third year of an extended tantrum over Trump's taking their shiny ball
from them.
Look, mostly this whole patriotism/nationalism word game is just sadly funny.
You are a patriot if you think like me. You are a nationalist if you don't.
Patriotism is good, nationalism is bad. If I am a patriot, I am good, if you are
a nationalist, you must be bad.
I think that the wisdom of Humpty Dumpty when speaking to Alice fits here:
"When I use a word..it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor
less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many
different things."
"The question is which is to be master -- that's all."
But I suspect he also does not want to see another Verdun. Or another
Douaumont charnel house where the unidentified bones of 130,000 French and German
soldiers reside.
Or he does not want another Zone Rouge like the two million acres around
Verdun that remains forbidden territory even now. The only ones allowed in are
the EOD techs of the Département du Déminage that are still
digging out unexploded ordnance 102 years later. Much of that UXO contains
mustard, phosgene, or chlorine. All of it is badly corroded and volatile. French
EOD pulls out hundreds of tons every year.
I just heard that ignorant swine pansy Jesse Watters say that the French have not
known military glory sine Bonaparte. Too bad we cannot deposit him in that
contaminated zone to find his way out.
Somewhat related: Trump's refusal to stand in the rain on that solemn 100th
anniversary spoke more of the man than anything previous. Didn't want to get
rained on! That war, those trenches, the rain, the rain, the rain. He probably
cannot spell infantry, much less describe what it is. There is the Commander In
Chief in all his glory. We are lost.
Rob,
That was the fake news take on it. The reality is that the Secret Service wasn't
prepared to get him there in a vehicle. The original plan was to arrive by helo.
He was there the next day in the rain. Fake news is the enemy of the people.
No military record here, sir, I am a civilian, born in peace time, even at a time
when military service was no more mandatory....But no unaware of war fatigues,
since here in Europe we have had almost all relatives who fought the great
war....Granpa was a partisan then....
Just read that about the trenches and the rain...and remembered this film....I
hope you all can enjoy it....It´s good to watch this kind of films,
especially for us who had the great fortune of never being there...
It did not learn a single lesson from its fake reporting that led the Iraq War
Eh? They learned everything from it. They got away with it. Subsequent wars and aggression
in Libya, Syria, Yemen, Ukraine, Georgia could not have happened without Iraq paving the way.
Self professed liberals and leftists cams out in favour of, or remained indifferent to, all
of these assaults on national sovereignty. What is under attack here is the concept of
independent and sovereign nation states and national governments. Imperfect they might be,
but they are the only mechanism we have for protecting citizens' rights and freedom to pursue
a path of development independently of the dictates global monopoly capitalism is trying to
impose on the world.
"... Veterans Day is not a holiday to honor the men and women who have dutifully protected their country. The youngest Americans who arguably defended their nation from a real threat to its shores are in their nineties, and soon there won't be any of them left. ..."
"... Every single person who has served in the US military since the end of the second World War has protected nothing other than the agendas of global hegemony, resource control and war profiteering. They have not been fighting and dying for freedom and democracy, they have been fighting and dying for imperialism, Raytheon profit margins, and crude oil. ..."
"... Veterans Day, like so very, very much in American culture, is a propaganda construct designed to lubricate the funneling of human lives into the chamber of a gigantic gun. It glorifies evil, stupid, meaningless acts of mass murder to ensure that there will always be recruits who are willing to continue perpetrating it, and to ensure that the US public doesn't wake up to the fact that its government's insanely bloated military budget is being used to unleash unspeakable horrors upon the earth. ..."
"... Your rulers have never feared the Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Iraqis, the terrorists, the Iranians, the Chinese or the Russians. They fear you. They fear the American public suddenly waking up to the evil things that are being done in your name and using your vast numbers to shrug off the existing power structures without firing a shot, as easily as removing a heavy coat on a warm day. If enough of you loudly withdraw your consent for their insatiable warmongering, that fear will be enough to keep them in check. ..."
The US will be celebrating Veterans Day, and many a striped flag shall be waved. The social
currency of esteem will be used to elevate those who have served in the US military, thereby
ensuring future generations of recruits to be thrown into the gears of the globe-spanning war
machine
Veterans Day is not a holiday to honor the men and women who have dutifully protected their
country. The youngest Americans who arguably defended their nation from a real threat to its
shores are in their nineties, and soon there won't be any of them left.
Every single person who
has served in the US military since the end of the second World War has protected nothing other
than the agendas of global hegemony, resource control and war profiteering. They have not been
fighting and dying for freedom and democracy, they have been fighting and dying for
imperialism, Raytheon profit margins, and crude oil.
I just said something you're not supposed to say. People have dedicated many years of their
lives to the service of the US military; they've given their limbs to it, they've suffered
horrific brain damage for it, they've given their very lives to it. Families have been ripped
apart by the violence that has been inflicted upon members of the US Armed Forces; you're not
supposed to let them hear you say that their loved one was destroyed because some sociopathic
nerds somewhere in Washington decided that it would give America an advantage over potential
economic rivals to control a particular stretch of Middle Eastern dirt. But it is true, and if
we don't start acknowledging that truth lives are going to keep getting thrown into the gears
of the machine for the power and profit of a few depraved oligarchs. So I'm going to keep
saying it.
Last week I saw the hashtag #SaluteToService trending on Twitter. Apparently the NFL had a
deal going where every time someone tweeted that hashtag they'd throw a few bucks at some
veteran's charity. Which sounds sweet, until you consider three things:
2. The NFL has taken millions of
dollars from the Pentagon for displays of patriotism on the field, including for the
policy of bringing all players out for the national anthem every game starting in 2009 (which
led to Colin Kaepernick's demonstrations and the obscene backlash against him).
3. VETERANS SHOULD NOT HAVE TO RELY ON FUCKING CHARITY.
Seriously, how is "charity for veterans" a thing, and how are people not extremely weirded
out by it? How is it that you can go out and get your limbs blown off for slave wages after
watching your friends die and innocent civilians perish, come home, and have to rely on charity
to get by? How is it that you can risk life and limb killing and suffering irreparable
psychological trauma for some plutocrat's agendas, plunge into poverty when you come home, and
then see the same plutocrat labeled a "philanthropist" because he threw a few tax-deductible
dollars at a charity that gave you a decent prosthetic leg?
Taking care of veterans should be factored into the budget of every act of military
aggression . If a government can't make sure its veterans are housed, healthy and happy in a
dignified way for the rest of their lives, it has no business marching human beings into harm's
way. The fact that you see veterans on the street of any large US city and people who fought in
wars having to beg "charities" for a quality mechanical wheelchair shows you just how much of a
pathetic joke this Veterans Day song and dance has always been.
They'll send you to mainline violence and trauma into your mind and body for the power and
profit of the oligarchic rulers of the US-centralized empire, but it's okay because everyone
gets a long weekend where they're told to thank you for your service. Bullshit.
Veterans Day, like so very, very much in American culture, is a propaganda construct
designed to lubricate the funneling of human lives into the chamber of a gigantic gun. It
glorifies evil, stupid, meaningless acts of mass murder to ensure that there will always be
recruits who are willing to continue perpetrating it, and to ensure that the US public doesn't
wake up to the fact that its government's insanely bloated military budget is being used to
unleash unspeakable horrors upon the earth.
The only way to honor veterans, really, truly honor them, is to help end war and make sure
no more lives are put into a position where they are on the giving or receiving end of evil,
stupid, meaningless violence. The way to do that is to publicly, loudly and repeatedly make it
clear that you do not consent to the global terrorism being perpetrated in your name. These
bastards work so hard conducting propaganda to manufacture your consent for endless
warmongering because they need that consent . So don't give it to them.
Your rulers have never feared the Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Iraqis, the terrorists, the
Iranians, the Chinese or the Russians. They fear you. They fear the American public suddenly
waking up to the evil things that are being done in your name and using your vast numbers to
shrug off the existing power structures without firing a shot, as easily as removing a heavy
coat on a warm day. If enough of you loudly withdraw your consent for their insatiable
warmongering, that fear will be enough to keep them in check.
This Veterans Day, don't honor those who have served by giving reverence and legitimacy to a
war machine which is exclusively used for inflicting great evil. Honor them by disassembling
that machine.
* * *
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Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers .
So the USA Congress operates under CIA surveillance... Due to CIA access to Saudi money the situation is probably much
worse then described as CIA tried to protect both its level of influence and shadow revenue streams.
Notable quotes:
"... The idea that the CIA would monitor communications of U.S. government officials, including those in the legislative branch, is itself controversial. But in this case, the CIA picked up some of the most sensitive emails between Congress and intelligence agency workers blowing the whistle on alleged wrongdoing. ..."
"... I am not confident that Congressional staff fully understood that their whistleblower-related communications with my Executive Director of whistleblowing might be reviewed as a result of routine [CIA counterintelligence] monitoring." -- Intelligence Community Inspector General 2014 ..."
"... The disclosures from 2014 were released late Thursday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). "The fact that the CIA under the Obama administration was reading Congressional staff's emails about intelligence community whistleblowers raises serious policy concerns as well as potential Constitutional separation-of-powers issues that must be discussed publicly," wrote Grassley in a statement. ..."
"... According to Grassley, he originally began trying to have the letters declassified more than four years ago but was met with "bureaucratic foot-dragging, led by Brennan and Clapper." ..."
"... Back in 2014, Senators Grassley and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) had asked then-Director of National Intelligence Clapper about the possibility of the CIA monitoring Congressional communications ..."
"... CIA security compiled a report that include excerpts of whistleblower-related communications and this reports was eventually shared with the Director of the Office of Security and the Chief of the Counterintelligence Center" who "briefed the CIA Deputy Director, Deputy Executive Director, and the Chiefs of Staff for both the CIA Director and the Deputy Director ..."
"... During Director Clapper's tenure, senior intelligence officials engaged in a deception spree regarding mass surveillance," said Wyden upon Clapper's retirement in 2016. ..."
CIA intercepted Congressional emails about whistleblowers in 2014
The Inspector General expressed concern about "potential compromise to whistleblower confidentiality" and "chilling effect"
Newly-declassified documents show the CIA intercepted sensitive Congressional communications about intelligence community whistleblowers.
The intercepts occurred under CIA Director John Brennan and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. The new disclosures
are contained in two letters of "Congressional notification" originally written to key members of Congress in March 2014, but kept
secret until now.
In the letters, then-Intelligence Community Inspector General Charles McCullough tells four key members of Congress that during
"routing counterintelligence monitoring of Government computer systems," the CIA collected emails between Congressional staff and
the CIA's head of whistleblowing and source protection. McCullough states that he's concerned "about the potential compromise to
whistleblower confidentiality and the consequent 'chilling effect' that the present [counterintelligence] monitoring system might
have on Intelligence Community whistleblowing."
The idea that the CIA would monitor communications of U.S. government officials, including those in the legislative branch,
is itself controversial. But in this case, the CIA picked up some of the most sensitive emails between Congress and intelligence
agency workers blowing the whistle on alleged wrongdoing.
"Most of these emails concerned pending and developing whistleblower complaints," McCullough states in his letters to lead Democrats
and Republicans on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees at the time: Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-California) and Saxby Chambliss
(R-Georgia); and Representatives Michael Rogers (R-Michigan) and Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Maryland). McCullough adds that the type
of monitoring that occurred was "lawful and justified for [counterintelligence] purposes" but
"I am not confident that Congressional staff fully understood that their whistleblower-related communications with my Executive
Director of whistleblowing might be reviewed as a result of routine [CIA counterintelligence] monitoring." -- Intelligence Community
Inspector General 2014
The disclosures from 2014 were released late Thursday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa). "The
fact that the CIA under the Obama administration was reading Congressional staff's emails about intelligence community whistleblowers
raises serious policy concerns as well as potential Constitutional separation-of-powers issues that must be discussed publicly,"
wrote Grassley in a statement.
According to Grassley, he originally began trying to have the letters declassified more than four years ago but was met with
"bureaucratic foot-dragging, led by Brennan and Clapper."
Grassley adds that he repeated his request to declassify the letters under the Trump administration, but that Trump intelligence
officials failed to respond. The documents were finally declassified this week after Grassley appealed to the new Intelligence Community
Inspector General Michael Atkinson.
History of alleged surveillance abuses
Back in 2014, Senators Grassley and Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) had asked then-Director of National Intelligence Clapper about the
possibility of the CIA monitoring Congressional communications. A Congressional staffer involved at the time says Clapper's
response seemed to imply that if Congressional communications were "incidentally" collected by the CIA, the material would not be
saved or reported up to CIA management.
"In the event of a protected disclosure by a whistleblower somehow comes to the attention of personnel responsible for monitoring
user activity," Clapper wrote to Grassley and Wyden on July 25, 2014, "there is no intention for such disclosure to be reported
to agency leadership under an insider threat program."
However, the newly-declassified letters indicate the opposite happened in reality with the whistleblower-related emails:
"CIA security compiled a report that include excerpts of whistleblower-related communications and this reports was eventually
shared with the Director of the Office of Security and the Chief of the Counterintelligence Center" who "briefed the CIA Deputy
Director, Deputy Executive Director, and the Chiefs of Staff for both the CIA Director and the Deputy Director."
Clapper has previously come under fire for his 2013 testimony to Congress in which he denied that the national Security Agency
(NSA) collects data on millions of Americans. Weeks later, Clapper's statement was proven false by material leaked by former NSA
contractor Edward Snowden.
"During Director Clapper's tenure, senior intelligence officials engaged in a deception spree regarding mass surveillance,"
said
Wyden upon Clapper's retirement in 2016.
"Top officials, officials who reported to Director Clapper, repeatedly misled the American people and even lied to them."
Clapper has repeatedly denied lying, and said that any incorrect information he provided was due to misunderstandings or mistakes.
Clapper and Brennan have also acknowledged taking part in the controversial practice of "unmasking" the protected names of U.S.
citizens - including people connected to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump - whose communications were "incidentally" captured
in US counterintelligence operations. Unmaskings within the US intelligence community are supposed to be extremely rare and only
allowed under carefully justified circumstances. This is to protect the privacy rights of American citizens. But it's been revealed
that Obama officials requested unmaskings on a near daily basis during the election year of 2016.
Clapper and Brennan have said their activities were lawful and not politically motivated. Both men have become vocal critics of
President Trump.
Can you imagine what kind of place the US would have been under Clinton?!!!!!!
All the illegality, spying, conniving, dirty tricks, arcancides, selling us out to the highest bidder and full on attack against
our Constitution would be in full swing!
When intel entities can operate unimpeded and un-monitored, it spells disaster for everyone and everything outside that parameter.
Their operations go unnoticed until some stray piece of information exposes them. There are many facilities that need to be purged
and audited, but since this activity goes on all over the world, there is little to stop it. Even countries that pledge allegiance
and cooperation are blindsiding their allies with bugs, taps, blackmails, and other crimes. Nobody trusts nobody, and that's a
horrid fact to contend with in an 'advanced' civilization.
Forget the political parties. When the intelligence agencies spy on everyone, they know all about politicians of both parties
before they ever win office, and make sure they have enough over them to control them. They were asleep at the switch when Trump
won, because no one, including them, believed he would ever win. Hillary was their candidate, the State Department is known overseas
as "the political arm of the CIA". They were furious when she lost, hence the circus ever since.
From its founding by the Knights of Malta the JFK&MLK-assassinating, with Mossad 9/11-committing CIA has been the Vatican's
US Fifth Column action branch, as are the FBI and NSA: with an institutional hiring preference for Roman Catholic "altared boy"
closet-queen psychopaths "because they're practiced at keeping secrets."
Think perverts Strzok, Brennan, and McCabe "licked it off the wall?"
I agree with you 100%. Problem is, tons of secret technology and information have been passed out to the private sector. And
the private sector is not bound to the FOIA requests, therefore neutralizing the obligation for government to disclose classified
material. They sidestepped their own policies to cooperate with corrupt MIC contractors, and recuse themselves from disclosing
incriminating evidence.
Everyone knows that spying runs in the fam. 44th potus Mom and Gma BOTH. An apple doesn't fall from the tree. If ppl only knew
the true depth of the evil and corruption we would be in the hospital with a heart attack. Gilded age is here and has been, since
our democracy was hijacked (McCain called it an intervention) back in 1963. Unfortunately it started WAY back before then when
(((they))) stole everything with the installation of the Fed.
The FBI and CIA have long since slipped the controls of Congress and the Constitution. President Trump should sign an executive
order after the mid terms and stand down at least the FBI and subject the CIA to a senate investigation.
America needs new agencies that are accountable to the peoples elected representatives.
A determined care has been used to cultivate in D.C., a system that swiftly decapitates the whistleblowers. Resulting in an
increasingly subservient cadre of civil servants who STHU and play ostrich, or drool at what scraps are about to roll off the
master's table as the slide themselves into a better position, taking advantage to sell vice, weapons, and slaves.
What the hell does the CIA have to do with ANYTHING in the United States? Aren't they limited to OUTSIDE the U.S.? So why would
they be involved in domestic communications for anything? These clowns need to be indicted for TREASON!
>>Johnstone: The Best Way To Honor War Veterans Is To Stop Creating Them<<
Preach!
The military defends Money Power Monopolist Mega-Corporate Fascist Global Empire, not
America, and definitely NOT the Constitution. The New Deal effectively wiped out the
Constitution, which was the "Old Deal."
Syria and Iran aren't threats, they are countries that don't have debt-based money systems
controlled by the Money Power Monopolists.
"In a sense, there is no "future". Currently, you note a consolidation of the few
remaining countries without a "central bank" ...and how rapidly this is occurring. Look for
Syria next to fall, and fall quickly.
North Korea has already cut a deal under the aegis of China...feit accompli. Cuba has also
agreed to the North American integration once Fidel "passes".
That leaves IRAN. And biblical prophesy. The fallout from that conflict sets the stage for
the true new world order as has been broadcast in the media for the last 13 years or so."
~Unnamed Rothschild
The establishment of central banks is ALWAYS a necessary first step of subjugation of
geographically congregated bloodlines. Note that Libya's first official act, before even the
corpses turned stiff...was the establishment of a central bank. Those rebel forces were
certainly well schooled by someone!
~Unnamed Rothschild
Amazing how Libyan rebels took time out of their daily war duties to establish a CENTRAL
BANK! Imagine the paperwork in getting that done on the battlefield!
Those rebels are a well educated lot!
Laughing out Loud!
Seriously, don't the serfs notice things like this?
~Unnamed Rothschild
The financier of the military makes it clear they are attacking Western countries -
monetarily and economically.
"Remember, the equity and bond markets exist only to remove fiat from circulation!"
~Unnamed Rothschild
Our soldiers joined, were trained, given orders. The best way to honor veterans is to quit
putting it on them. This is the government we have because it is the government we
want. It's the government we allow. This is on all of us . I think it's time for
people who are dissatisfied with the treatment of veterans, with the voter fraud, with the
lies and theft of elected officials, local, state, and federal, tired of the media lying to
us and creating fake events... perhaps it's time to peacefully strike. Perhaps it's time to
say No to vote fraud, to say No to lies and deceit.
Perhaps it's time to peacefully petition the government for redress of grievances. That's
a Constitutional Right guaranteed to Citizens of the United States. That requires an active,
constructive peaceful assembly. Everyone has had it up to the eyes with this ******** and
this con-game we're being fed.
I'd rather get stomped to death than live on with this never ending slow coup against We
The People. We hold the power. Just us. We designate that power. It should be here to protect
us. That social contract deserves respect. You may be watching the only chance in your life
that you could do anything about it, given the current President and his attitude. I really
think that. It's not enough to watch the Proud Boys punch an Antifa in the jaw. That doesn't
do it for me. That's theatre.
My girlfriends father is old army security. I'm paying the bill at Dennys and he says, let
me put my military discount on that. So he's behind a guy in an Operation Iraqi Freedom
jacket. He says, hey; I like your jacket. The guy looks at him and he says, nice hat. Army
Security Agency. The military deserves more than a discount at ******* Denny's. They deserve
a country. So do I. So do you. But there's not going to be any country if we don't peacefully
come together to hang every last traitor scumbag lying trasonous seditious bastard by just
saying NO! Arrest these traitors! I don't want my vote raped. I don't want my speach raped.
Or yours! I don't give a **** about illegals or their kids because I take care of my kids
legally and lawfully and didn't put them in that **** expecting a parent of the century
award.
I don't ******* care what you call yourself. But if it's more important than your right to
call yourself whatever you want, you are my enemy and I tell you no.
If it's legal to vote and legal to be off work to vote, to peacefully assemble, it should
be legal to redress government. It's time to show out. It's time to say we want this ********
to stop. We have paid very well for the lifestyles and presidential libraries and foundations
and kept all the traitors in good health. But we reserve the right to cut you off if you
abuse our sacrifice to you and our votes to you. We reserve the right without prejudice to
say NO. That's our right. And until we say NO! our silence equals consent.
I say NO. I say **** THE SEDITIOUS TRAITORS trying to hold on to rape us of all our
Rights. And I say long live Trump for giving our country back to us at inauguration. That's
what's up. Let's peacefully **** these people up. USE IT OR LOSE IT.
And from a movie that says the futility of it all: "We fight because we are here." Imagine
dying in the trenches of WWI or in a shithole like the trenches of Korea.
The least we could do is to learn what really happened and why. I realize I was taught an
endless string of lies about history, especially US History, WWI, WWII, Vietnam war.
Be very careful and informed before joining the military.
Libtards don't really know much about anything, so it seems. Here's the deal:
As long as there are assholes in the world, there will be wars.
I don't have a problem with that. It's the world that I live in. It's been the case
throughout all of human history. A world without wars is pure ******* fantasy. It will never
happen. It's high time that libtards start accepting the world that they live in.
The problem that we're having , is that we're shooting the wrong assholes instead
of the right ones. But you know what? All of human history shows that problems like that are
always remedied as well. And if you're doing some soul-searching, trying to figure out who
the assholes are, they're probably going to be any group of people, who can't leave other
groups of people the hell alone .
Not surprisingly, the 20th century seems to be characterized by assholes fighting each
other.
Our psychopathic dna as a nation comes mainly from england, one of the most, if not the
most murdering countries in history. england cruelly colonized Asia and Africa, and literally
never stopped murdering the innocents. Now as our ALLY, among the other killing nations, such
as France and Germany, we the USA can kill literally any country or countries for any reason
or no reason.
we as the american people will be blamed for all the monstrous destruction and
innocents deaths. separation of our country and our politicians would be necessary if we are
to have a future. looking dim. why are we still dirty, and killing innocents, why are we
allowing saudi and israel to mass murder innocent women and children ?
no one cares enough
yet. you would think by 2018 we all would have banned war and conflict, we have not. this
makes me sick. I am a vet.
I'm actually thinking of not watching football anymore the war propaganda is constant. I
went to a game and it was like walking into an armed camp. Hundreds of cops and military.
Every five minutes they're marching around and everyone has to "honor" them. It's disgusting.
All the players are told to kiss every soldiers ***. The Army are the terrorists. They all
make me want to puke.
In Australia at the moment the suicide rate is a shocker among those coming back from
Afghanistan, Iraq and places unknown, the solution they are proposing is for priority airport
treatment and more medals and other stuff along the model the US has, which is an insult as it
does nothing to financially support or mentally cure, its a cop out.
Very few wars are even about righting some amazing wrong. They merely tend to be about
treasure i.e. nat gas, oil, rare earth materials, diamonds, water, blah blah blah. And, if
there happens to be some fight, ala WWII, then you can bet your *** on it that all corporate
assholes are funding and benefiting from the war....on both sides of the coin i.e. backing
each side until a peace is called.
I don't have an answer to the human condition or our propensity to be violent and fight
etc., but I sure as **** am not cool with sacking places, and killing kids, over *******
things. We're better than this.
I have 2 kids myself. You can all be on notice that if a bomb were to be dropped on my
house, and if my kids were killed, I would likely devolve and start picking off the low
hanging fruit i.e. the zombies shuffling in and out of said bomb makers companies, and
wasting them 1 person as a time. I'd slowly, if still able, work my way up to the execs.
Hopefully, and along the way, I'd be able to wipe shareholders off of the grid, also.
When you go off to fight for "freedom", and arrive home to find that you have little to no
real freedom and essentially live in a police state, it's a shocking blow.
This sounds like something I would write. And even the damn CHURCHES honor the veteran
"serving" his country. What a crock of ****. I tell the pastor that he will be judged harshly
when his time comes. And I tell Christians that because they support the rampant murder of
millions that when they die and are standing before Jesus for judgement they will be soaked
in the blood of the innocent and he will ask you why did you support this? Why did you not
speak out against it? Then I look at them and say "good luck because you're gonna need
it".
The world is not ruled by pure evil yet. In Brazil A nationalist was elected, in Italy and
much of eastern Europe other nationalists were elected. You think the Chinese protected the
Italian and Brazilian right to free and fair elections? You think Russia is the arsenal of
freedom? You think the EU upheld the votes of the people, allowing Britain to vote on leaving
the EU and Italy and eastern Europe? You think the unelected rulers of the EU respected other
peoples right to vote? Look out onto the world, and recognize that as of today, the nations
of the world have A group to join if they chose to fight for liberty, capitalism and all the
other virtues, and that group is grounded and guaranteed by the United States of America. In
G-d I trust.
Hopeful thinking for a hopeless reality. Truth is tyrants never fall by their own swords.
It always takes someone else's. The modern problem is a bit more complex when we make the
tyrants that we later topple. The toppling is where the bucks are... just ask any of the the
last 4 Presidents and their respective Congresses.
So war is just an American problem, something we just invented? Do we read much history or is it all PBS specials now. War has ALWAYS been fucked up. Violence has been a major contributor to immigration for
all of history. Like it or not, we live in dangerous times. We can ASSUME that if America shrank it's
military and ended all interventions that world peace would magically appear....but it won't.
We can pray that while we retreat behind of big screen TVs that China will end their
territorial expansion and military programs, but they WON'T.
I'm all for reigning in our interventions, but let's not pretend that America is to blame
for human evil and aggressive behaviors....just because we are good at it..
There is an endless stream of history illustrating the absolute brutality and evil that
had persisted since the beginning of time. We should avoid embracing it but we should avoid
thinking we have the power to end it. More arrogance to be used for destructive purposes.
Nah, it is just that USA has made forever war such a profitable and ongoing
mega-business. The degenerate banker and royal families of Europe would only fight every generation or
two. You fight all the time and try to start new ones, before you finish off with the old ones,
and print global toilet paper to pay for it all. Because it is good business. **** laws,
lives and human decency.
And then you have Hollywood make ****-for-brain movies about just wars, war comradery and
heroic sacrifice and spread that **** all over the world.
So yeah, you got all the reasons for being hated for your war business.
The only way to honor veterans, really, truly honor them, is to help end war and make
sure no more lives are put into a position where they are on the giving or receiving end of
evil, stupid, meaningless violence
A bit too close to the Bone for the average American to appreciate. A well thought out & articulated article.
The machine is not the problem. It's like a gun. Guns are just mechanical devices and
can't kill until people aim them and pull the trigger. It's people that kill by forcing the
machine to do their terrible evil bidding.
It's the business and political leaders that build, guide and enable the machine and
facilitate the infrastructure and culture to wage war.
Democrats love War as we saw with LBJ, Bill Clinton (bombing the hell out of and
destroying Yugoslavia), Obama and Hillary Clinton. Democrat McNamara was one of their finest! McNamara's Folly: The Use of Low-IQ Troops in the Vietnam War
It's both Republicans and Democrats - George Bush I's Desert Storm, Panama; George Bush II
invading Iraq, Afghanistan; Reagan invading GRENADA!, Nixon in Vietnam, assassinating
Salvador Allende in Chile, bombing Laos and Cambodia; Eisenhower started in Vietnam,
installed a dictator in Guatemala in 1954, installed Batista in Cuba, Kennedy was going to
withdraw from Vietnam and part of the reason he was assassinated; and on and on and on.
"... officials and politicians in Britain and France conspired to transform Serbia's murder of Austro-Hungary's Crown Prince into a continent-wide conflict. France burned for revenge for its defeat in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War and loss of Alsace-Lorraine. Britain feared German commercial and naval competition. At the time, the British Empire controlled one quarter of the world's surface. Italy longed to conquer Austria-Hungary's South Tyrol. Turkey feared Russia's desire for the Straits. Austria-Hungary feared Russian expansion. ..."
"... Prof Clark clearly shows how the French and British maneuvered poorly-led Germany into the war. The Germans were petrified of being crushed between two hostile powers, France and Russia. The longer the Germans waited, the more the military odds turned against them. Tragically, Germany was then Europe's leader in social justice. ..."
"... Britain kept stirring the pot, determined to defeat commercial and colonial rival, Germany. The rush to war became a gigantic clockwork that no one could stop. All sides believed a war would be short and decisive. Crowds of fools chanted 'On to Berlin' or 'On to Paris.' ..."
"... The 1904 Russo-Japanese War offered a sharp foretaste of the 1914 conflict, but Europe's grandees paid scant attention. ..."
"... This demented war in Europe tuned into an even greater historic tragedy in 1917 when US President Woodrow Wilson, driven by a lust for power and prestige, entered the totally stalemated war on the Western Front. One million US troops and starvation caused by a crushing British naval blockade turned the tide of battle and led to Germany's surrender. ..."
"... Vengeful France and Britain imposed intolerable punishment on Germany, forcing it to accept full guilt for the war, an untruth that persists to this day. The result was Adolf Hitler and his National Socialists. If an honorable peace had been concluded in 1917, neither Hitler nor Stalin might have seized power and millions of lives would have been saved. This is the true tragedy of the Great War. ..."
"... Let us recall the words of the wise Benjamin Franklin: `No good war, no bad peace.' ..."
We are now upon the 100th anniversary of World War I, the war that was supposed to end all
wars. While honoring the 16 million who died in this conflict, we should also condemn the
memory of the politicians, officials and incompetent generals who created this horrendous blood
bath.
I've walked most of the Western Front of the Great War, visited its battlefields and haunted
forts, and seen the seas of crosses marking its innumerable cemeteries.
As a former soldier and war correspondent, I've always considered WWI as he stupidest, most
tragic and catastrophic of all modern wars.
The continuation of this conflict, World War II, killed more people and brought more
destruction on civilians in firebombed cities but, at least for me, World War I holds a special
horror and poignancy. This war was not only an endless nightmare for the soldiers in their
pestilential trenches, it also violently ended the previous 100 years of glorious European
civilization, one of mankind's most noble achievements.
I've explored the killing fields of Verdun many times and feel a visceral connection to this
ghastly place where up to 1,000,000 soldiers died. I have even spent the night there, listening
to the sirens that wailed without relent, and watching searchlights that pierced the night,
looking for the ghosts of the French and German soldiers who died here.
Verdun's soil was so poisoned by explosives and lethal gas that to this day it produces only
withered, stunted scrub and sick trees. Beneath the surface lie the shattered remains of men
and a deadly harvest of unexploded shells that still kill scores of intruders each year. The
spooky Ossuaire Chapel contains the bone fragments of 130,000 men, blown to bits by the
millions of high explosive shells that deluged Verdun.
The town of the same name is utterly bleak, melancholy and cursed. Young French and German
officers are brought here to see firsthand the horrors of war and the crime of stupid
generalship.
Amid all the usual patriotic cant from politicians, imperialists and churchmen about the
glories of this slaughter, remember that World War I was a contrived conflict that was totally
avoidable. Contrary to the war propaganda that still clouds and corrupts our historical view,
World War I was not started by Imperial Germany.
Professor Christopher Clark in his brilliant book, `The Sleepwalkers' shows how officials
and politicians in Britain and France conspired to transform Serbia's murder of
Austro-Hungary's Crown Prince into a continent-wide conflict. France burned for revenge for its
defeat in the 1870 Franco-Prussian War and loss of Alsace-Lorraine. Britain feared German
commercial and naval competition. At the time, the British Empire controlled one quarter of the
world's surface. Italy longed to conquer Austria-Hungary's South Tyrol. Turkey feared Russia's
desire for the Straits. Austria-Hungary feared Russian expansion.
Prof Clark clearly shows how the French and British maneuvered poorly-led Germany into the
war. The Germans were petrified of being crushed between two hostile powers, France and Russia.
The longer the Germans waited, the more the military odds turned against them. Tragically,
Germany was then Europe's leader in social justice.
Britain kept stirring the pot, determined to defeat commercial and colonial rival, Germany.
The rush to war became a gigantic clockwork that no one could stop. All sides believed a war
would be short and decisive. Crowds of fools chanted 'On to Berlin' or 'On to Paris.'
Few at the time understood the impending horrors of modern war or the geopolitical demons
one would release. The 1904 Russo-Japanese War offered a sharp foretaste of the 1914 conflict,
but Europe's grandees paid scant attention.
Even fewer grasped how the collapse of the antiquated Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires
would send Europe and the Mideast into dangerous turmoil that persists to our day. Or how a
little-known revolutionary named Lenin would shatter Imperial Russia and turn it into the
world's most murderous state.
This demented war in Europe tuned into an even greater historic tragedy in 1917 when US
President Woodrow Wilson, driven by a lust for power and prestige, entered the totally
stalemated war on the Western Front. One million US troops and starvation caused by a crushing
British naval blockade turned the tide of battle and led to Germany's surrender.
Vengeful France and Britain imposed intolerable punishment on Germany, forcing it to accept
full guilt for the war, an untruth that persists to this day. The result was Adolf Hitler and
his National Socialists. If an honorable peace had been concluded in 1917, neither Hitler nor
Stalin might have seized power and millions of lives would have been saved. This is the true
tragedy of the Great War.
Let us recall the words of the wise Benjamin Franklin: `No good war, no bad peace.'
It's interesting that Clapper is against abandoned by Trump Iran deal.
Tramp administration is acting more like Israeli marionette here, because while there a
strategic advantage in crushing the Iranian regime for the USA and making a county another Us
vassal in the middle East, the cost for the country might be way to high (especially if we count
in the cost of additional antagonizing Russia and China). Trump might jump into the second
Afghanistan, which would really brake the back of US military -- crushing Iran military is one
thing, but occupying such a county is a very costly task. And that might well doom Israel in the
long run as settlers policies now created really antagonized, unrecognizable minority with a high
birth rate.
Vanishing one-by-one of partners are given due to collapse of neoliberalism as an ideology.
Nobody believes that neoliberalism is the future, like many believed in 80th and early 90th. This
looks more and more like a repetion of the path of the USSR after 1945, when communist ideology
was discredited and communist elite slowly fossilized. In 46 years from its victory in WWII the
USSR was dissolved. The same might happen with the USA in 50 years after winning the Cold
War.
Notable quotes:
"... a vanishing one by one of American partners who were previously supportive of U.S. leadership in curbing Iran, particularly its nuclear program. ..."
"... The United States risks losing the cooperation of historic and proven allies in the pursuit of other U.S. national security interests around the world, far beyond Iran. ..."
Only well calibrated multilateral political, economic and diplomatic pressure brought to
bear on Iran with many and diverse partners will produce the results we seek.
"Then there were none" was Agatha Christie's most memorable mystery about a house party in
which each guest was killed off one by one. Donald Trump's policy toward Iran has resulted in
much the same: a vanishing one by one of American partners who were previously supportive
of U.S. leadership in curbing Iran, particularly its nuclear program.
Dozens of states, painstakingly cultivated over decades of American leadership in blocking
Iran's nuclear capability, are now simply gone. One of America's three remaining allies on
these issues, Saudi Arabia, has become a central player in American strategy throughout the
Middle East region. But the Saudis, because of the Jamal Khashoggi killing and other reasons,
may have cut itself out of the action. The United Arab Emirates, so close to the Saudis, may
also fall away.
Such paucity of international support has left the Trump administration dangerously
isolated. "America First" should not mean America alone. The United States risks losing the
cooperation of historic and proven allies in the pursuit of other U.S. national security
interests around the world, far beyond Iran.
... ... ...
European allies share many of our concerns about Iran's regional activities, but they
strongly oppose U.S. reinstitution of secondary sanctions against them. They see the Trump
administration's new sanctions as a violation of the nuclear agreement and UN Security Council
resolutions and as undermining efforts to influence Iranian behavior. The new sanctions and
those applied on November 5 only sap European interest in cooperating to stop Iran.
... ... ...
The United States cannot provoke regime change in Iran any more than it has successfully in
other nations in the region. And, drawing on strategies used to topple governments in Iraq and
Afghanistan, the United States should be wary of launching or trying to spur a military
invasion of Iran.
Lt. Gen. James Clapper (USAF, ret.) is the former Director of National Intelligence.
Thomas R. Pickering is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Russia and
India.
"... Over 60,000 US troops either killed or wounded in conflicts ..."
"... The study estimates between 480,000 and 507,000 people were killed in the course of the three conflicts. ..."
"... Civilians make up over half of the roughly 500,000 killed, with both opposition fighters and US-backed foreign military forces each sustaining in excess of 100,000 deaths as well. ..."
"... This is admittedly a dramatic under-report of people killed in the wars, as it only attempts to calculate those killed directly in war violence, and not the massive number of others civilians who died from infrastructure damage or other indirect results of the wars. The list also excludes the US war in Syria, which itself stakes claims to another 500,000 killed since 2011. ..."
Over 60,000 US troops either killed or wounded in conflicts
Brown University has released a new study on the cost
in lives of America's Post-9/11 Wars, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The study estimates between 480,000 and 507,000 people
were killed in the course of the three conflicts.
This includes combatant deaths and civilian deaths in fighting and war violence. Civilians make up over half of the roughly
500,000 killed, with both opposition fighters and US-backed foreign military forces each sustaining in excess of 100,000 deaths as
well.
This is admittedly a dramatic under-report of people killed in the wars, as it only attempts to calculate those killed directly
in war violence, and not the massive number of others civilians who died from infrastructure damage or other indirect results of
the wars. The list also excludes the US war in Syria, which itself stakes claims to another 500,000 killed since 2011.
The report also notes that over 60,000 US troops were either killed or wounded in the course of the wars. This includes 6,951
US military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11.
The Brown study also faults the US for having done very little in the last 17 years to provide transparency to the country about
the scope of the conflicts, concluding that they are "inhibited by governments determined to paint a rosy picture of perfect execution
and progress."
"... Over 60,000 US troops either killed or wounded in conflicts ..."
"... The study estimates between 480,000 and 507,000 people were killed in the course of the three conflicts. ..."
"... Civilians make up over half of the roughly 500,000 killed, with both opposition fighters and US-backed foreign military forces each sustaining in excess of 100,000 deaths as well. ..."
"... This is admittedly a dramatic under-report of people killed in the wars, as it only attempts to calculate those killed directly in war violence, and not the massive number of others civilians who died from infrastructure damage or other indirect results of the wars. The list also excludes the US war in Syria, which itself stakes claims to another 500,000 killed since 2011. ..."
Over 60,000 US troops either killed or wounded in conflicts
Brown University has released a new study on the cost
in lives of America's Post-9/11 Wars, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The study estimates between 480,000 and 507,000 people
were killed in the course of the three conflicts.
This includes combatant deaths and civilian deaths in fighting and war violence. Civilians make up over half of the roughly
500,000 killed, with both opposition fighters and US-backed foreign military forces each sustaining in excess of 100,000 deaths as
well.
This is admittedly a dramatic under-report of people killed in the wars, as it only attempts to calculate those killed directly
in war violence, and not the massive number of others civilians who died from infrastructure damage or other indirect results of
the wars. The list also excludes the US war in Syria, which itself stakes claims to another 500,000 killed since 2011.
The report also notes that over 60,000 US troops were either killed or wounded in the course of the wars. This includes 6,951
US military personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since 9/11.
The Brown study also faults the US for having done very little in the last 17 years to provide transparency to the country about
the scope of the conflicts, concluding that they are "inhibited by governments determined to paint a rosy picture of perfect execution
and progress."
"... You know something is fundamentally wrong when the average high school drop-out MAGA-hat-wearing Texan or Alabaman working a blue collar job has more sense, can SEE much more clearly, than the average university-educated, ideology-soaked, East Coast liberal. ..."
"... Trump is a "nationalist". More or less every administration previous to his, going back at least 100 years, was "globalist". For much of its history, the USA has been known around the world as a very patriotic (i.e., nationalist) country. Americans in general had a reputation for spontaneous chants of "USA! USA! USA!", flying the Stars And Stripes outside their houses and being very proud of their country. Sure, from time to time, that pissed off people a little in other countries but, by and large, Americans' patriotism was seen as endearing, if a little naive, by most foreigners. ..."
"... Globalism, on the other hand, as it relates to the USA, is the ideology that saturates the Washington establishment think-tanks, career politicians and bureaucrats, who are infected with the toxic belief that America can and should dominate the world . This is presented to the public as so much American largess and magnanimity, but it is, in reality, a means to increasing the power and wealth of the Washington elite. ..."
"... Consider Obama's two terms, during which he continued the massively wasteful (of taxpayer's money) and destructive (of foreigners' lives and land) "War on Terror". Consider that he appointed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, who proceeded to joyfully bomb Libya back to the stone age and murder its leader. Consider that, under Obama, US-Russia relations reached an all-time low, with repeated attacks (of various sorts) on the Russian president, government and people, and the attempted trashing of Russia's international reputation in the eyes of the American people. Consider the Obama regime's hugely destructive war waged (mostly by proxy) on the Syrian people. Consider the Obama era coup in Ukraine that, in a few short months, set that country's prospects and development back several decades and further soured relations with Russia. ..."
"... The problem however, is that the Washington elite want - no, NEED - the American people to support such military adventurism, and what better way to do that than by concocting false "Russian collusion" allegations against Trump and having the media program the popular mind with exactly the opposite of the truth - that Trump was a "traitor" to the American people. ..."
"... The only thing Trump is a traitor to is the self-serving globally expansionist interests of a cabal of Washington insiders . This little maneuver amounted to a '2 for 1' for the Washington establishment. They simultaneously demonized Trump (impeding his 'nationalist' agenda) while advancing their own globalist mission - in this case aimed at pushing back Russia. ..."
"... The US 'Deep State' did this in response to the election of Trump the "nationalist" and their fears that their globalist, exceptionalist vision for the USA - a vision that is singularly focused on their own narrow interests at the expense of the American people and many others around the world - would be derailed by Trump attempting to put the interests of the American people first . ..."
Billed as a 'referendum on Trump's presidency', the US Midterm Elections drew an
unusually high number of Americans to the polls yesterday. The minor loss, from Trump's
perspective, of majority Republican control of the lower House of Representatives, suggests, if
anything, the opposite of what the media and establishment want you to believe it means.
An important clue to why the American media has declared permanent open season on this man
transpired during a sometimes heated post-elections press conference at the White House
yesterday. First, CNN's obnoxious Jim Acosta insisted on bringing up the patently absurd
allegations of 'Russia collusion' and refused to shut up and sit down. Soon after, PBS reporter
Yamiche Alcindor joined her colleagues in asking Trump another loaded question , this time on the 'white
nationalism' canard:
Alcindor : On the campaign trail you called yourself a nationalist. Some people saw
that as emboldening white nationalists...
Trump : I don't know why you'd say this. It's such a racist question.
Alcindor : There are some people who say that now the Republican Party is seen as
supporting white nationalists because of your rhetoric. What do you make of that?
Trump : Why do I have among the highest poll numbers with African Americans?
That's such a racist question. I love our country. You have nationalists, and you have
globalists . I also love the world, and I don't mind helping the world, but we have to
straighten out our country first. We have a lot of problems ...
The US media is still "not even wrong" on Trump and why he won the 2016 election.
You know something is fundamentally wrong when the average high school drop-out
MAGA-hat-wearing Texan or Alabaman working a blue collar job has more sense, can SEE much more
clearly, than the average university-educated, ideology-soaked, East Coast liberal.
Trump is a "nationalist". More or less every administration previous to his, going back at
least 100 years, was "globalist". For much of its history, the USA has been known around the
world as a very patriotic (i.e., nationalist) country. Americans in general had a reputation
for spontaneous chants of "USA! USA! USA!", flying the Stars And Stripes outside their houses
and being very proud of their country. Sure, from time to time, that pissed off people a little
in other countries but, by and large, Americans' patriotism was seen as endearing, if a little
naive, by most foreigners.
Globalism, on the other hand, as it relates to the USA, is the ideology that saturates the
Washington establishment think-tanks, career politicians and bureaucrats, who are infected with
the toxic belief that America can and should dominate the world . This is presented to the
public as so much American largess and magnanimity, but it is, in reality, a means to
increasing the power and wealth of the Washington elite.
Consider Obama's two terms, during which he continued the massively wasteful (of taxpayer's
money) and destructive (of foreigners' lives and land) "War on Terror". Consider that he
appointed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, who proceeded to joyfully bomb Libya back to
the stone age and murder its leader. Consider that, under Obama, US-Russia relations reached an
all-time low, with repeated attacks (of various sorts) on the Russian president, government and
people, and the attempted trashing of Russia's international reputation in the eyes of the
American people. Consider the Obama regime's hugely destructive war waged (mostly by proxy) on
the Syrian people. Consider the Obama era coup in Ukraine that, in a few short months, set that
country's prospects and development back several decades and further soured relations with
Russia.
These are but a few examples of the "globalism" that drives the Washington establishment.
Who, in their right mind, would support it? (I won't get into what constitutes a 'right mind',
but we can all agree it does not involve destroying other nations for profit). The problem
however, is that the Washington elite want - no, NEED - the American people to support such
military adventurism, and what better way to do that than by concocting false "Russian
collusion" allegations against Trump and having the media program the popular mind with exactly
the opposite of the truth - that Trump was a "traitor" to the American people.
The only thing
Trump is a traitor to is the self-serving globally expansionist interests of a cabal of
Washington insiders . This little maneuver amounted to a '2 for 1' for the Washington
establishment. They simultaneously demonized Trump (impeding his 'nationalist' agenda) while
advancing their own globalist mission - in this case aimed at pushing back Russia.
Words and their exact meanings matter . To be able to see through the lies of
powerful vested interests and get to the truth, we need to know when those same powerful vested
interests are exploiting our all-too-human proclivity to be coerced and manipulated by appeals
to emotion.
So the words "nationalist" and "nationalism", as they relate to the USA, have never been
"dirty" words until they were made that way by the "globalist" element of the Washington
establishment (i.e., most of it) by associating it with fringe Nazi and "white supremacist"
elements in US society that pose no risk to anyone, (except to the extent that the mainstream
media can convince the general population otherwise). The US 'Deep State' did this in response
to the election of Trump the "nationalist" and their fears that their globalist, exceptionalist
vision for the USA - a vision that is singularly focused on their own narrow interests at the
expense of the American people and many others around the world - would be derailed by Trump
attempting to put the interests of the American people first .
Also if administration really wants war, Iran is not Ieaq and will fight more efficiently,
while the US army despite technological supreiority is demoralized. nobody believe into the the
building of global neoliberal empire any longer.
Notable quotes:
"... The administration's policy seems sure to fail on its own terms, and it is also the wrong thing to do. ..."
"... If a foreign power waged an economic war against your country, would you be likely to respond to that foreign coercion by effectively taking their side against your own government? Of course not. The idea that Iranians will do the work of their country's enemies by rising up and toppling the regime has always been far-fetched, but it is particularly absurd to think that Iranians would do this after they have just seen their economy be destroyed by the actions of a foreign government. ..."
"... People normally do not respond to economic hardship and diminishing prospects by risking their lives by starting a rebellion against the state. ..."
"... Making Iranians poorer and more miserable isn't going to encourage them to be more politically active, much less rebellious, but will instead force them to focus on getting by. That is likely to depress turnout at future elections, and that is more likely to be good news for hard-line candidates in the years to come. ..."
"... Iran hawks typically don't understand the country that they obsess over, so perhaps it is not surprising that they haven't thought any of this through, but their most glaring failure is not taking into account the importance of nationalism. ..."
Originally
from: The Futility of Trump's Iran Policy By Daniel LarisonNovember
6, 2018, 10:54 AM • The administration's policy seems sure to fail on its
own terms, and it is also the wrong thing to do.
The Trump administration's plan to throttle
the Iranian economy is as poorly-conceived as it is cruel:
"For ordinary people, sanctions mean unemployment, sanctions mean becoming poor, sanctions
mean the scarcity of medicine, the rising price of dollar," said Akbar Shamsodini, an Iranian
businessman in the oil and gas sector who lost his job six months ago as European companies
started to pull out of Iran in fear of US sanctions.
" By imposing these sanctions, they want to force Iranians to rise up in revolt against
their government but in practice, they will only make them flee their country [bold
mine-DL]," he said, adding that ironically it would be Europe that would have to bear the
burden of such a mass migration.
"We're being squashed here as an Iranian youth who studied here, worked here, the only
thing I'm thinking about now is how to flee my country and go to Europe."
If a foreign power waged an economic war against your country, would you be likely to
respond to that foreign coercion by effectively taking their side against your own government?
Of course not. The idea that Iranians will do the work of their country's enemies by rising up
and toppling the regime has always been far-fetched, but it is particularly absurd to think
that Iranians would do this after they have just seen their economy be destroyed by the actions
of a foreign government.
People normally do not respond to economic hardship and diminishing prospects by risking
their lives by starting a rebellion against the state. As Mr. Shamsodini says above, it is
much more likely that they will leave to find a way to make a living elsewhere. All that
strangling Iran's economy will manage to do is push young and ambitious Iranians to go abroad
while inflicting cruel collective punishment on everyone that remains behind. Making
Iranians poorer and more miserable isn't going to encourage them to be more politically active,
much less rebellious, but will instead force them to focus on getting by. That is likely to
depress turnout at future elections, and that is more likely to be good news for hard-line
candidates in the years to come.
Iran hawks typically don't understand the country that they obsess over, so perhaps it
is not surprising that they haven't thought any of this through, but their most glaring failure
is not taking into account the importance of nationalism. When a foreign power tries
dictating terms to another nation on pain of economic punishment, this is bound to provoke
resentment and resistance. Like any other self-respecting nation, Iranians aren't going to
accept being told what to do by a foreign government, and they are much more likely to band
together in solidarity rather than start an uprising against their own government. The stronger
the nationalist tradition there is in a country, the more likely it is that the reaction to
foreign threats will be one of defiance and unity. It simply makes no sense to think that the
U.S. can pressure a proud nation to capitulate like this.
The administration's policy seems sure to fail on its own terms, and it is also the wrong
thing to do. President Washington exhorted his countrymen in his Farewell Address : "Observe good
faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all." The
administration's Iran policy represents the total rejection of that advice. If the U.S.
followed Washington's recommendations, it would not be abrogating an agreement that it had just
negotiated a few years earlier, and it would not be punishing an entire country for the wrongs
of a few. Instead, the U.S. would have built on the success of the earlier negotiations and
would have sought to reestablish normal relations with them.
"... Union Jackboot: What Your Media and Professors Don't Tell You About British Foreign Policy ..."
"... There seems to be a consensus that we need a strong military because Russia is on the rise. What do you think about that rationale? ..."
"... What about military threats? ..."
"... So we've extended NATO to pretty much the Russian border? But there's a hard border there. Everyone knows we're never going to attack Russia, both for reasons of morality and self-preservation. So maybe this situation is safer than you imply. ..."
"... Brexit White Paper ..."
"... T. J. Coles is a postdoctoral researcher at Plymouth University's Cognition Institute and the author of several books. ..."
"... Matthew Alford teaches at Bath University in the UK and has also written several books. Their latest is ..."
"... The Rise and Fall of the British Empire ..."
"... Bolshevism and Imperial Sedition ..."
"... Power without Responsibility ..."
"... Russian Roulette: A Deadly Game: How British Spies Thwarted Lenin's Global Plot ..."
"... Statement for the Record: Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community ..."
"... Vision for 2020 ..."
"... Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future ..."
"... The New Atlanticist ..."
"... The United Kingdom's relations with Russia ..."
Alford: There seems to be a consensus that we need a strong military because Russia is on the rise. What do you think about
that rationale?
Coles: There's no consensus, except among European and American elites. Europe and America are not the world.
There are a lot of issues to consider with regards to Russia. Is it a threat? If so to whom? What kind of threat is Russia? So
let's consider these questions carefully. As far as the British establishment is concerned, Russia is an ideological threat because
it is a major power with a substantial population. It's also self-reliant where oil and gas is concerned, unlike Britain. So there's
lots of potential for Russian political ideology to undermine Britain's status. In fact, there are European Council on Foreign Relations
papers saying that Putin's Russia presents an "ideological alternative" to the EU.
[i] And that's dangerous.
Britain, or more accurately its policymaking elites, have considered Russia a significant enemy for over a century. Under the
Tsar, the so-called Great Game was a battle for strategic resources, trading routes, and so on. The historian Lawrence James calls
this period the first Cold War, which went "hot" with the Crimean War (1853-56).
[ii] Britain had a mixed relationship with
the Tsars because, on the one hand, theirs' were repressive regimes and Britain tended to favour repressive regimes, hence their
brief alliance with Russia's enemy, the Ottomans. On the other hand, Russia was a strategic threat to Britain's imperial interests,
and thus the Crimean War (1853-56).
When the Bolsheviks took over Russia, beginning 1917, the relationship became much less ambiguous – Russians, and especially Bolsheviks,
were clearly the enemy. Their ideology posed a threat internally. So Winston Churchill, who began as a Liberal and became a Conservative,
considered the Labour Party, which was formed in 1900, as basically a front for Bolsheviks.
[iii] That shows the level of paranoia among
elites. The Labour Party, at least at the beginning, was a genuine, working man's political organisation – women couldn't vote then,
remember. So by associating this progressive, grassroots party representing the working classes as an ideological ally or even puppet
of the brutal Bolshevik regime, the Tories had an excuse to undermine the power of organised, working people. So you had the Zinoviev
letter in 1924, which we now know was a literal conspiracy between the secret services and elements of the Tory party to fabricate
a link between Labour and Moscow. And it famously cost Labour the general election, since the right-wing, privately-owned media ran
with the story as though it was real. It's an early example of fake news.
[iv]
That's the ideological threat that Russia has posed, historically. But where there's a threat, there's an opportunity. The British
elites exploited the "threat" then and as they do today by associating organised labour with evil Bolshevism and, in doing so, alienate
the lower classes from their own political interests. Suddenly, we've all got to be scared of Russia, just like in 1917. And let's
not forget that Britain used chemical weapons – M-Devices, which induced vomiting – against the Bolsheviks. Chemical weapons were
"the right medicine for the Bolshevist," in Churchill's words. This was in 1919, as part of the Allied invasion of Russia in support
of the White Army. [v]
So if we're talking about the historical balance of forces and cause and effect, Britain not Russia initiated the use of chemical
weapons against others. But this history is typically inverted to say that Russia poses a threat to the West, hence all the talk
about Novichok, the Skripals, and Dawn Sturgess, the civilian who supposedly came into contact with Novichok and died in hospital
a few days later.
The next question: What sort of threat is Russia? According to the US Army War College, since the collapse of the Soviet
Union and since pro-US, pro-"free market" President Boris Yeltsin resigned in 1999, Russia has pursued so-called economic nationalism.
And the US doesn't like this because markets suddenly get closed and taxes are raised against US corporations.
[vi] That's the real threat. But you can't
tell the public that: that we hate Russia because they aren't doing what we say. If you look through the military documents, you
can find almost nothing about security threats against the US in terms of Russian
expansion, except in the sense that "security" means operational freedom. You can find references to Russia's nuclear weapons,
though, which are described as defensive, designed "to counter US forces and weapons systems."
[vii] Try finding that on the BBC. I should
mention that even "defensive" nukes can be launched accidentally.
The real goal with regards to Russia is maintaining US economic hegemony and the culture of open "free markets" that goes with
it, while at the same time being protectionist in real life. (US protectionism didn't start under Trump, by the way.) Liberal media
like the New York Times run sarcastic articles about Russian state oil and gas being a front for Putin and his cronies.
And yes, that may be true. But what threat is Russia to the US if it has a corrupt government? The threat is closing its markets
to the US. The US is committed to what its military calls Full Spectrum Dominance. So the world needs to be run in a US-led neoliberal
order, in the words of the US military, "to protect US interests and investment."
[viii] But this cannot be done if you have
"economic nationalism," like China had until the "reforms" of the '70s and '80s, and still has today to some extent. Russia and China
aren't military threats. The global population on the whole knows this, even though the domestic US and British media say the opposite.
Alford: What about military threats?
Coles: The best sources you can get are the US military records. Straight from the horse's mouth. The military plans for war and
defence. They have contingencies for when political situations change. So they know what they're talking about. There's a massive
divide between reality, as understood from the military records, and media and political rhetoric. Assessments by the US Army War
College, for instance, said years ago that any moves by NATO to support a Western-backed government in Ukraine would provoke Russia
into annexing Crimea. They don't talk about Russia spontaneously invading Ukraine and annexing it, which is the image we get from
the media. The documents talk about Russia reacting to NATO provocation.
[ix]
If you look at a map, you see Russia surrounded by hostile NATO forces. The media don't discuss this dangerous and provocative
situation, except the occasional mention of, say, US-British-Polish war-gaming on the border with Russia. When they do mention it,
they say it's for "containment," the containment of Russia. But to contain something, the given thing has to be expanding. But the
US military – like the annual threat assessments to Congress – say that Russia's not expanding, except when provoked. So at the moment
as part of its NATO mission, the UK is training Polish and Ukrainian armed forces, has deployed troops in Poland and Estonia, and
is conducting military exercises with them.
[x]
Imagine if Scotland ceded from the UK and the Russians were on our border conducting military exercises, supposedly to deter a
British invasion of Scotland. That's what we're doing in Ukraine. Britain's moves are extremely dangerous. In the 1980s, the UK as
part of NATO conducted the exercise, Operation Able Archer, which envisaged troop build-ups between NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries.
Now-declassified records show that the Russians briefly mistook this exercise for a real-world scenario. That could have escalated
into nuclear war. This is very serious. [xi]
But the biggest player is the USA. It's using the threat of force and a global architecture of hi-tech militarism to shape a neoliberal
order. Britain is slavishly following its lead. I doubt that Britain would position forces near Russia were it not for the USA. Successive
US administrations have or are building a missile system in Europe and Turkey. They say it's to deter Iran from firing Scud missiles
at Europe. But it's pointed at Russia. It's a radar system based in Romania and Turkey, with a battery of Patriot missiles based
in Poland. The stationing of missiles there provoked Russia into moving its mobile nuclear weapons up to the border in its Kaliningrad
exclave, as it warned it would do in 2008.
[xii] Try to find any coverage of that in the media, except for a few articles in the print media here or there. If Western media
were interested in survival, there would be regular headlines: "NATO provoking Russia."
But the situation in Ukraine is really the tipping point. Consider the equivalent. Imagine if Russia was conducting military exercises
with Canada or Mexico, and building bases there. How would the US react? It would be considered an extreme threat, a violation of
the UN Charter, which prohibits threats against sovereign states.
Alford: So we've extended NATO to pretty much the Russian border? But there's a hard border there. Everyone knows we're never
going to attack Russia, both for reasons of morality and self-preservation. So maybe this situation is safer than you imply.
Coles: There's no morality involved. States are abstract, amorphous entities comprised of dominant minorities and subjugated majorities
who are conditioned to believe that they are relatively free and prosperous. The elites of those states act both in their self-interests
– career, peer-pressure, kickbacks, and so on – and in the interests of their class, which is of course tied to international relations
because their class thrives on profiting from resource exploitation. So you can't talk about morality in this context. Only individuals
can behave morally. The state is made up of individuals, of course, but they're acting against the interests of the majority. As
we speak, they are acting immorally – or at least amorally – but creating the geopolitical conditions that imperil each
and every one of us.
As for invasion, we're not going to invade Russia. This isn't 1918. Russia has nuclear weapons and can deter an invasion. But
that's not the point. Do we want to de-escalate an already tense geopolitical situation or make it worse to the point where an accident
happens? So while it's not about invading Russia directly, the issue is about attacking what are called Russia's "national interests."
Russia's "national interests" are the same as the elites' of the UK. National interest doesn't mean the interests of the public.
It means the interests of the policymaking establishment and the corporations. For example, the Theresa May government sacrificed
its own credibility to ensure that its Brexit White Paper (2018) appeased both the interests of the food and manufacturing
industries that want a soft Brexit – easy trade with the EU – and the financial services sector which wants a hard Brexit – freedom
from EU regulation. Everyone else be damned. That's the "national interest."
So for its real "national interest," Russia wants to keep Ukraine in its sphere of influence because its oil and gas to Europe
pass through Ukraine. About 80% of Russia's export economy is in the oil and gas sector. It's already had serious political tensions
with Ukraine, which on several occasions hasn't paid its energy bills, so Russia has cut supplies. If Europe can bump Ukraine into
its own sphere of influence it has more leverage over Russia. This is practically admitted in Parliamentary discussions by Foreign
Office ministers, and so forth. [xiii]
Again, omitted by the media. Also, remember that plenty of ethnic Russians live in eastern Ukraine. In addition, Russia has a naval
base in Crimea. That's not to excuse its illegal action in annexing Ukraine, it's to highlight the realpolitik missing in
the media's coverage of the situation.
T. J. Coles is a postdoctoral researcher at Plymouth University's Cognition Institute and the author of several books.
Matthew Alford teaches at Bath University in the UK and has also written several books. Their latest is
Union Jackboot(Até Books).
[ii] 'Anglo-Russian relations were severely
strained; what was in effect a cold war lasted from the late 1820s to the beginning of the next century'. The Crimean War seems to
have set a precedent for today. James writes:
[It] was an imperial war, the only one fought by Britain against a European power during the nineteenth century, although some
would have regarded Russia as essentially an Asiatic power. No territory was at stake; the war was undertaken solely to guarantee
British naval supremacy in the Mediterranean and, indirectly, to forestall any threat to India which might have followed Russia
replacing Britain as the dominant power in the Middle East.
Lawrence James (1997) The Rise and Fall of the British Empire London: Abacus, pp. 180-82.
All these strikes and rumours of strikes and threats of strikes and loss and suffering caused by them; all this talk of revolution
and "direct action" have deeply offended most of the British people. There is a growing feeling that a considerable section of
organized Labour is trying to tyrannize over the whole public and to bully them into submission, not by argument, not by recognized
political measures, but by brute force
But if we can do little for Russia [under the Bolsheviks], we can do much for Britain. We do not want any of these experiments
here
Whether it is the Irish murder gang or the Egyptian vengeance society, or the seditious extremists in India, or the arch-traitors
we have at home, they will feel the weight of the British arm.
A settlement of relations between the two countries [UK and Russia] will assist in the revolutionising of the international
and British proletariat, [and] make it possible for us to extend and develop the propaganda and ideas of Leninism in England and
the colonies.
It also says that 'British workmen' have 'inclinations to compromise' and that rapprochement will eventually lead to domestic
'[a]rmed warfare'. It was leaked by the services to the Conservative party and then to the media. Richard Norton-Taylor (1999) 'Zinoviev
letter was dirty trick by MI6' Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/politics/1999/feb/04/uk.politicalnews6
and Louise Jury (1999) 'Official Zinoviev letter was forged' Independenthttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/official-zinoviev-letter-was-forged-1068600.html
. For media coverage at the time, see James Curran and Jean Seaton (1997) Power without Responsibility London: Routledge,
p. 52.
[v] Paul F. Walker (2017) 'A Century
of Chemical Warfare: Building a World Free of Chemical Weapons' Conference: One Hundred Years of Chemical Warfare: Research, Deployment,
Consequences pp. 379-400 and Giles Milton (2013) Russian Roulette: A Deadly Game: How British Spies Thwarted Lenin's Global Plot
London: Hodder, eBook.
[vi] 'The Russian Federation has shown
repeatedly that common values play almost no role in its consideration of its trading partners', meaning the US and EU. 'It often
builds relationships with countries that most openly thwart Western values of free markets and democracy', notably Iran and Venezuela.
'In this regard, the Russian Federation behaves like "Russia Incorporated." It uses its re-nationalized industries to further its
wealth and influence, the latter often at the expense of the EU and the U.S.'. Colonel Richard J. Anderson (2008) 'A History of President
Putin's Campaign to Re-Nationalize Industry and the Implications for Russian Reform and Foreign Policy' Senior Service College, US
Army War College, Pennsylvania: Carlisle Barracks, p. 52.
[vii] Daniel R. Coats (2017) Statement
for the Record: Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Washington,
DC: Office of the Director of
[ix] The document also says: 'a replay
of the West-sponsored coup against pro-Russian elites could result in a split, or indeed multiple splits, of the failed Ukraine,
which would open a door for NATO intervention'.Pavel K. Baev (2011) 'Russia's security relations with the United States: Futures
planned and unplanned' in Stephen J. Blank (ed.) Russian Nuclear Weapons: Past, Present, and Future Strategic Studies Institute
Pennsylvania: Carlisle Barracks, p. 170, www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB1087.pdf.
[xi] For example, Nate Jones, Thomas
Blanton and Christian F. Ostermann (2016) 'Able Archer 83: The Secret History' Nuclear Proliferation International History Project
Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/able-archer-83-the-secret-history
.
[xii] It was reported in the ultra-right,
neo-con press at the time that:
[Russian] President Dmitri Medvedev announced in his first state-of-the-nation address plans to deploy the short-range SS-26
("Iskander") missiles in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad if the U.S. goes ahead with its European Ballistic Missile Defense
System (BMDS). Medvedev told parliament that the deployment would "neutralize" U.S. plans for a missile defense shield based in
Poland and the Czech Republic [now in Romania), which the U.S. claims as vital in defending against missile attacks from 'rogue
states' such as Iran.
Neil Leslie (2008) 'The Kaliningrad Missile Crisis' The New Atlanticist , available at http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/the-kaliningrad-missile-crisis.
[xiii] For example, a Parliamentary
inquiry into British-Russian relations says of the newly-imposed US-British ally in Ukraine:
President Poroshenko's Government is more openly committed to economic reform and anti-corruption than any previous Ukrainian
Administration. The reform agenda has made considerable progress and has enjoyed some successes including police reform, liberalisation
of the energy market and the launch of an online platform for government procurement
The annexation of Crimea also resulted in a ban on importing products from Crimea, on investing in or providing services linked
to tourism and on exporting certain goods for use in the transport, telecoms and energy sectors.
Alastair Crooke (former UK dip and MI6) knows more about ME than any other white man. He
describes how Jared Kushner became Trump's stovepipe of disinformation on behalf of Netanyahu
and MBS.
The economic sanctions on Iran will be much tighter, beyond what they were, before the
nuclear agreement was signed. "Hit them in their pockets", Netanyahu advised Trump: "if you
hit them in their pockets, they will choke; and when they choke, they will throw out the
ayatollahs"".
This was another bit of 'stovepiped' advice passed directly to the US President. His
officials might have warned him that it was fantasy. There is no example of sanctions alone
having toppled a state; and whilst the US can use its claim of judicial hegemony as an
enforcement mechanism, the US has effectively isolated itself in sanctioning Iran: Europe
wants no further insecurity. It wants no more refugees heading to Europe.
A long fight by lawmakers like Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) is set to go mainstream, and an
antiwar push on Yemen soon after the midterms could show how.
WASHINGTON ― As Democrats plan for a potential future in which they have control of
the U.S. House, lawmakers, candidates and outside groups close to the party are quietly
preparing a new push against the overlooked war in Afghanistan. The last time the party
controlled the lower chamber of Congress, the U.S. had close to 50,000 troops in Afghanistan.
Today that number is 15,000 -- but it's been eight years, and there's still no clarity about
when the longest war in American history will actually come to an end. President Donald Trump 's stated
policy is that the U.S. presence has no time limit. So Democrats are considering long-discussed
proposals to torpedo the war's entire legal justification -- the sweeping post-9/11
congressional authorization that has been used to support U.S. military action well beyond
Afghan borders -- and tie funding for the campaign to clearly outlined strategic goals and
troop reductions. There's also talk of using new oversight powers to hold top officials,
military commanders, defense contractors and foreign partners accountable for accusations of
human rights violations, corruption and political posturing at the cost of human lives. And
while party leaders are loath to commit to a particular course, they feel certain this is an
issue their colleagues and their political base see as a priority. A dramatic but now largely
forgotten vote in June 2017 underscored why this is a natural fight for Democrats. House
Appropriations Committee lawmakers from both parties voted for the first time for a measure
long pushed by war critic Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) that would repeal the authorization. GOP
leadership quashed the effort, but it clearly signaled that, after years of worrying about
being seen as too dovish, Democrats have reached a moment when even the other party and its
voters can seriously consider serious antiwar action. "We've come a long way from just one vote
in opposition [when the authorization came up in 2001] to a widespread recognition among
members of Congress that this was an overly-broad authorization that set the stage for
perpetual war," Lee wrote in an email to HuffPost. She sees Democratic unity on the issue
today: "There's a lot of common ground across the caucus around holding this debate and
vote."
"... "a group called CARA Family Detention Pro Bono Project" a group that has received funding from Soros, to Pueblo Sin Fronteras through a person named 'Alex Mensing' who works both for CARA and as "an on-the ground coordinator in Mexico for the Pueblo Sin Fronteras". ..."
"... ..A vital part of that expansion has involved money: major donations from some of the nation's wealthiest liberal foundations, including the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Open Society Foundations of the financier George Soros, and the Atlantic Philanthropies. Over the past decade those donors have invested more than $300 million in immigrant organizations, including many fighting for a pathway to citizenship for immigrants here illegally.... ..."
"... US based groups or cutouts are the organizers of the caravan. ..."
"... The list of Democratic Party-connected organizations that might have originated the idea of a caravan from Central America is small. I surmise Clinton Global Initiative because they would have the requisite connections and blaming Soros seems to easy and convenient. But Soros is also rumored to be behind support for European migrants so it's certainly possible. ..."
How did this group of thousands come together to walk to US were Trump has vowed to keep
illegals out. People like this would naturally come together if they were catching a ship, or
at some sort of aid post refugee camp ect.
After a search on caravan starting point, I found this at the Guardian.
"Who organized the caravan?
In interviews, Honduran members of the group said that they learned about the caravan from
Facebook posts, and a report on the local HCH television station, which erroneously suggested
that a former congressman and radio host would cover the costs of the journey.
After that, rumours spread quickly, including the mistaken promise that any member would be
given asylum in the US. Darwin Ramos, 30, said he was desperate to flee threats from a local
drug gang, and when news of the caravan reached his neighbourhood, he seized on it as his
best chance to escape."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/24/caravan-migrants-what-is-it-where-from-guatemala-honduras-immigrants-mexico
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pueblo_Sin_Fronteras
"Pueblo Sin Fronteras (en: People without Borders) is an immigration rights group known for
organizing several high profile migrant caravans in Mexico and Central America. The
organization's efforts to facilitate immigration and calls for open borders attracted
considerable amounts of coverage in the Mexican and American media."
Pueblo Sin Fronteras website. Zero information there other than the have bases or offices
in San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Tijuana in Mexico. https://www.pueblosinfronteras.org/commitees.html
No information on who they are or who funds them. Very much a political organization.
On two caravans like this have occurred, both organized by this shadowy group.
Slow moving lots of press coverage that can last for weeks so long as the peasant suckers
stay suckers and don't pull out. Very much an anti Trump political show put on by whoever
funds and controls this Pueblo Sin Fronteras organisation.
Centro Sin Fronteras is the parent group to Pueblo Sin Fronteras. https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/centro-sin-fronteras/
"Elvira Arellano, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, former fugitive from U.S. immigration
authorities, and activist for illegal immigrants in the U.S., formed the activist group La
Familia Latina Unida ("The United Latin Family") as an expansion of the Centro Sin Fronteras.
[7] La Familia Latina Unida runs Pueblo Sin Fronteras ("People Without Borders"), a group
that organizes "migrant caravans" from Mexico and Latin America to cross the U.S. border
illegally"
The majority of people in the caravan may be leaving their own countries due to violence
poverty ect, but the caravan itself is a manufactured political event. left to their own
devices, some may have moved towards the US in small groups, others would have been deterred
due to Trumps immigration policy, but they have joined this so called caravan on false
promises made by the organisers. Nothing better than kids, women and oldies doing it tough or
better yet dying for political media coverage.
As for the politically organized caravan, the peasants have officially been offered a home
in Mexico, but the organizers prefer them to go on to the US. As they have been offered a
place in mexico, they are now economic migrants wanting greener pastures in the US rather
than refugees.
The peasants themselves, I think are mostly genuine though organizers are mixed through
the group. The peasants are no more than consumables in a political action.
. ..A vital part of that expansion has involved money: major donations from some of
the nation's wealthiest liberal foundations, including the Ford Foundation, the Carnegie
Corporation of New York, the Open Society Foundations of the financier George Soros, and the
Atlantic Philanthropies. Over the past decade those donors have invested more than $300
million in immigrant organizations, including many fighting for a pathway to citizenship for
immigrants here illegally.... https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/15/us/obama-immigration-policy-changes.html
How can people not see this caravan march as the obvious false flag it is to influence the
election. The actors are being paid and busses have been mobilized and paid for to move them
forward. The right says Soros money might be behind it and they may be right. Surprised the
left has not blamed Putin. Which proves my point that the left is actively conspiring with
the right the keep them in power. Why wouldnt they care?. As Caitlin Johnstone says, after I
said it, they get paid the same no matter what. As part of a 2 party monopoly,with 2 parties
the minimum to serve the illusion of a representative Democracy,the oiligarchs will continue
to throw money to the loser.
This has been scripted well in advance. Republicans need to maintain both houses for the
2nd stage of Trumps destruction of America (credibility and finance), especially its
government and middle class as the elite will be protected from the damage. Democrats are
standing on the sidelines rambling about Russia Gate or Khashoggi Gate or mobilizing their
forces to support gay marriages and transgender access to bathrooms. And to boot they bring
out Hillary and Obama at the last moment to bash Trump to galvanize the rights voters even
more. No other purpose for doing so.
To be sure, a Democratic win means nothing except perhaps as a poor proxy for a lack of
support for Trump. 40% of their candidates come from the military or intelligence services.
They are owned by the oligarchs as much as tbe Republicans. The only difference in the
parties is the costumes they wear and the rhetoric the speak
Or perhaps its as simple as not wanting to share responsibility for what is to come as
their best shot to win in 2020
Frankly the best outcome would be the decimation of the Democrat Party and its subsequent
dissolution. Lets end the farce of a Democracy. One party for all. Hail Trump or whomever he
appoints as his successor, or just let the elites vote and announce who they voted for every
4 years. Thats pretty much what the constitution meant for us to be doing anyways. The idea
of a Direct vote by all citizens for President and Senate would have horrified them. Seeing
the results of elections these past 40 years I have concluded they are right.
Invaders or Dupes? Have the caravan migrants been misled?
While it's true that anyone can request asylum, the caravan migrants appear to be under
the impression that they have a legitimate claim to asylum in USA because they are fleeing
gang violence in their home country. That is very likely to be untrue.
Such a claim MIGHT be valid in countries that have signed the Cartagena Declaration
and ratified it into law - but the US has not. The Declaration expands the definition of
refugees to include:
"persons who have fled their country because their lives, security or freedom have been
threatened by generalized violence, foreign aggression, internal conflicts, massive
violation of human rights or other circumstances which have seriously disturbed public
order".
FYI
The 1951 UN Convention as amended defines a refugee as someone with a "well-founded fear
of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular
social group or political opinion" . The caravan stories I have heard are unlikely to
qualify under this definition.
Some countries that have loads of asylum seekers have set up camps to hold them. Some,
like Australia, even have camps in foreign countries. Trump's talk of setting up tents
implies that USA will also establish such camps. Life in these camps is likely to be
uncomfortable and unproductive. Only those will genuine asylum claims would tough it out.
How telling it is that when we disagree on the nature of the Caravan, we fall into an
either-or choice between 2 absolutes. Either it is a complete hoax from the ground up, or
it's a completely authentic grass-roots happening.
But we have seen enough color revolutions to understand that there is always an authentic
component to each one. I have commented several times on how delicately the CIA and other
organizers of color revolutions symbiotically fuse with good and authentic people who have a
noble cause. How these bad people can merge with such good people is a wonder to me.
But this itself is the fact that must demolish the partisan thinking of "one side or the
other". It's clear that the people who run things and their henchmen who arrange things are
marvelously nuanced when it comes to good and evil. They'll be good when it suits them and
evil for the same reason, and treat people well and badly, all depending on the exigencies of
the mission.
In simple words, there undoubtedly is a core heart to the population of the caravan that
is good, hopeful, enterprising and industrious, and that hopes to receive just one little
break from the world, and a sliver of social justice. This radiating core of goodness and
humanity, which would break open the hearts of ordinary people like you and me, to the
organizers and their fixers is simply the perfect place to hide, concealed by superb
protective coloration.
Take a look at the Maidan in Ukraine, and see how many good people thought they were
fighting to create a wonderful new world, until the snipers fired on both sides and brought
off the color revolution with superb skill and complete amoral ruthlessness - all as a result
of long planning and preparation, not to mention the cash to hire mercenaries and provide the
best logistics.
So I personally will stand by my thought that we will see what this is when the shooters
begin to provoke the violence. And if that happens, then sadly, it will be the innocents who
again, as always, are massacred.
But if the US handles it well, and permits controlled entry under the supervision of the
border authorities, and there are no shooters and no provocations coming either from the
Caravan people - or from some other force off to the side that doesn't seem to belong to
anyone, but which seems to be the cause of death to both sides - then this will all fizzle
out as another political skirmish of short duration, and the Democrats and Republicans will
move on to their next diversions.
You wrote: "Either it is a complete hoax from the ground up, or it's a completely
authentic grass-roots happening."
I am inclined to believe that it is both, to wit an authentic grass-roots happening that
has been hijacked (like so many others) by interested parties for their own ends.
Grieved 97
That's the way I'm seeing it. "But we have seen enough color revolutions to understand that
there is always an authentic component to each one. I have commented several times on how
delicately the CIA and other organizers of color revolutions symbiotically fuse with good and
authentic people who have a noble cause. How these bad people can merge with such good people
is a wonder to me."
Well put, not only the above paragragh but the whole comment. Not much most of us can do
to help the naive perhaps desperate people sucked in to the US political caravan but we
should at least be exposing those who are exploiting and furthingf their misery for political
purposes.
Requirement for any President or political leader is to be a good actor. I believe they
simply follow a script prepared by the real rulers operating in the shadows. Maybe I am
wrong. Its like fake wrestling as Caitlin Johnstone pointed out. You have to be a good actor
and pretend to care while actually making sure you qlose if the script calls for it
Jackrabbit@100
Its true they have been duped but the point is that desparate and poor people rarely work
together spontaneously in an organized fashion and a caravan such as this must be organized
and paid for. Someone is feeding them. The timing is too good to be true. Obviously they have
been promised something, asylum, money or whatever and assured of their safety. To determine
who is behind it you simply need to look at who benefits.
When discussing this caravan "false flag", many people will dismiss "conspiracy theories"
that involve paid actors.
RJPJR @98 thought the caravan an an "authentic grass-roots happening that has been
hi-jacked" . But that theory is also unsatisfying. As you point out (Pft), it is strange
that ordinary people organize themselves to make a march like the caravan.
The best explanation is that people were organized to make the march by local groups
[connected to Clinton Global Initiative?] which got PAID to do so. These trusted local groups
then told the marchers that: 1) they would get support along the way, and 2) that they have a
good/great chance of actually getting asylum.
Organizers would not want a member of the caravan to tell a reporter that the march was
fake, or that they are paid. But it has been reported that "well wishers" have given the
marchers food and money. And the press has not questioned that support. And the marchers seem
to have a genuine belief that they qualify for asylum. Such a belief would be easy to instill
in poor, uneducated people who can be easily duped into believing that an international
treaty like the Cartegena Declaration applies to all countries.
Jackrabbit, in my post @67 I linked the Pueblo Sin Fronteras website. When I found out about
this group I looked for their website which I was able to access, and although information
was sparse on this shadowy group, they proudly advertised their work on this caravan.
Since posting a link here I am now censored from that website - security exceptions blah
blah.
Not local globalist groups but US based groups or cutouts are the organizers of the
caravan.
But my hunch is that the trail ends with a one or more local groups that are known to
people in the area. These poor people basically had to be sold a 'bill of goods'. That's
difficult unless you are known/trusted (have a "brand" like Coca-Cola).
There would be several intermediary groups. Maybe a large in-country charity with US
connections? And one or more groups outside the country (US, Mexico, even EU) that are
connected to / get funding and direction from a major US group.
Let's face it, whoever was behind this would not want the caravan to be connected to back
to group with US political connections. And it's probably unlikely that we will find any
'smoking gun' that does that.
The list of Democratic Party-connected organizations that might have originated the
idea of a caravan from Central America is small. I surmise Clinton Global Initiative because
they would have the requisite connections and blaming Soros seems to easy and convenient. But
Soros is also rumored to be behind support for European migrants so it's certainly
possible.
It really the same reasoning that led b to suspect that it was CIA/MI6 that foiled
assassination plot in Denmark, not Mossad.
"... Bolsonaro, like Trump, is not a disruption of the current neoliberal order; he is an intensification or escalation of its worst impulses. He is its logical conclusion. ..."
"... Despite their professed concern, the plutocrats and their media spokespeople much prefer a far-right populist like Trump or Bolsonaro to a populist leader of the genuine left. They prefer the social divisions fuelled by neo-fascists like Bolsonaro, divisions that protect their wealth and privilege, over the unifying message of a socialist who wants to curtail class privilege, the real basis of the elite's power. ..."
"... The true left – whether in Brazil, Venezuela, Britain or the US – does not control the police or military, the financial sector, the oil industries, the arms manufacturers, or the corporate media. It was these very industries and institutions that smoothed the path to power for Bolsonaro in Brazil, Viktor Orban in Hungary, and Trump in the US. ..."
"... Former socialist leaders like Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva or Hugo Chavez in Venezuela were bound to fail not so much because of their flaws as individuals but because powerful interests rejected their right to rule. These socialists never had control over the key levers of power, the key resources. Their efforts were sabotaged – from within and without – from the moment of their election. ..."
"... The media, the financial elites, the armed forces were never servants of the socialist governments that have been struggling to reform Latin America. The corporate world has no interest either in building proper housing in place of slums or in dragging the masses out of the kind of poverty that fuels the drug gangs that Bolsonaro claims he will crush through more violence. ..."
"... As in Pinochet's Chile, Bolsonaro can rest assured that his kind of neo-fascism will live in easy harmony with neoliberalism. ..."
"... Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair" (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net . ..."
With Jair Bolsonaro's victory in Brazil's presidential election at the weekend, the doom-mongers among western elites are out in force once again. His success, like Donald Trump's, has confirmed a long-held prejudice: that the people cannot be trusted; that, when empowered, they behave like a mob driven by primitive urges; that the unwashed masses now threaten to bring down the carefully constructed walls of civilisation.
The guardians of the status quo refused to learn the lesson of Trump's election, and so it will be with Bolsonaro. Rather than engaging the intellectual faculties they claim as their exclusive preserve, western "analysts" and "experts" are again averting their gaze from anything that might help them understand what has driven our supposed democracies into the dark places inhabited by the new demagogues. Instead, as ever, the blame is being laid squarely at the door of social media.
Social media and fake news are apparently the reasons Bolsonaro won at the ballot box. Without the gatekeepers in place to limit access to the "free press" – itself the plaything of billionaires and global corporations, with brands and a bottom line to protect – the rabble has supposedly been freed to give expression to their innate bigotry.
Here is Simon Jenkins, a veteran British gatekeeper – a former editor of the Times of London who now writes a column in the Guardian – pontificating on Bolsonaro:
"The lesson for champions of open democracy is glaring. Its values cannot be taken for granted. When debate is no longer through regulated media, courts and institutions, politics will default to the mob. Social media – once hailed as an agent of global concord – has become the purveyor of falsity, anger and hatred. Its algorithms polarise opinion. Its pseudo-information drives argument to the extremes."
This is now the default consensus of the corporate media, whether in its rightwing incarnations or of the variety posing on the liberal-left end of the spectrum like the Guardian. The people are stupid, and we need to be protected from their base instincts. Social media, it is claimed, has unleashed humanity's id.
Selling plutocracy
There is a kind of truth in Jenkins' argument, even if it is not the one he intended. Social
media did indeed liberate ordinary people. For the first time in modern history, they were not
simply the recipients of official, sanctioned information. They were not only spoken down to by
their betters, they could answer back – and not always as deferentially as the media
class expected.
Clinging to their old privileges, Jenkins and his ilk are rightly unnerved. They have much
to lose.
But that also means they are far from dispassionate observers of the current political
scene. They are deeply invested in the status quo, in the existing power structures that have
kept them well-paid courtiers of the corporations that dominate the planet.
Bolsonaro, like Trump, is not a disruption of the current neoliberal order; he is an
intensification or escalation of its worst impulses. He is its logical conclusion.
The plutocrats who run our societies need figureheads, behind whom they can conceal their
unaccountable power. Until now they preferred the slickest salespeople, ones who could sell
wars as humanitarian intervention rather than profit-driven exercises in death and destruction;
the unsustainable plunder of natural resources as economic growth; the massive accumulation of
wealth, stashed in offshore tax havens, as the fair outcome of a free market; the bailouts
funded by ordinary taxpayers to stem economic crises they had engineered as necessary
austerity; and so on.
A smooth-tongued Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton were the favoured salespeople, especially
in an age when the elites had persuaded us of a self-serving argument: that ghetto-like
identities based on colour or gender mattered far more than class. It was divide-and-rule
dressed up as empowerment. The polarisation now bewailed by Jenkins was in truth stoked and
rationalised by the very corporate media he so faithfully serves.
Fear of the domino effect
Despite their professed concern, the plutocrats and their media spokespeople much prefer a
far-right populist like Trump or Bolsonaro to a populist leader of the genuine left. They
prefer the social divisions fuelled by neo-fascists like Bolsonaro, divisions that protect
their wealth and privilege, over the unifying message of a socialist who wants to curtail class
privilege, the real basis of the elite's power.
The true left – whether in Brazil, Venezuela, Britain or the US – does not
control the police or military, the financial sector, the oil industries, the arms
manufacturers, or the corporate media. It was these very industries and institutions that
smoothed the path to power for Bolsonaro in Brazil, Viktor Orban in Hungary, and Trump in the
US.
Former socialist leaders like Brazil's Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva or Hugo Chavez in
Venezuela were bound to fail not so much because of their flaws as individuals but because
powerful interests rejected their right to rule. These socialists never had control over the
key levers of power, the key resources. Their efforts were sabotaged – from within and
without – from the moment of their election.
Local elites in Latin America are tied umbilically to US elites, who in turn are determined
to make sure any socialist experiment in their backyard fails – as a way to prevent a
much-feared domino effect, one that might seed socialism closer to home.
The media, the financial elites, the armed forces were never servants of the socialist
governments that have been struggling to reform Latin America. The corporate world has no
interest either in building proper housing in place of slums or in dragging the masses out of
the kind of poverty that fuels the drug gangs that Bolsonaro claims he will crush through more
violence.
Bolsonaro will not face any of the institutional obstacles Lula da Silva or Chavez needed to
overcome. No one in power will stand in his way as he institutes his "reforms". No one will
stop him creaming off Brazil's wealth for his corporate friends. As in Pinochet's Chile,
Bolsonaro can rest assured that his kind of neo-fascism will live in easy harmony with
neoliberalism.
Immune system
If you want to understand the depth of the self-deception of Jenkins and other media
gatekeepers, contrast Bolsonaro's political ascent to that of Jeremy Corbyn, the modest social
democratic leader of Britain's Labour party. Those like Jenkins who lament the role of social
media – they mean you, the public – in promoting leaders like Bolsonaro are also
the media chorus who have been wounding Corbyn day after day, blow by blow, for three years
– since he accidentally slipped past safeguards intended by party bureacrats to keep
someone like him from power.
The supposedly liberal Guardian has been leading that assault. Like the rightwing media, it
has shown its absolute determination to stop Corbyn at all costs, using any pretext.
Within days of Corbyn's election to the Labour leadership, the Times newspaper – the
voice of the British establishment – published an article quoting a general, whom it
refused to name, warning that the British army's commanders had agreed they would sabotage a
Corbyn government. The general strongly hinted that there would be a military coup first.
We are not supposed to reach the point where such threats – tearing away the
façade of western democracy – ever need to be implemented. Our pretend democracies
were created with immune systems whose defences are marshalled to eliminate a threat like
Corbyn much earlier.
Once he moved closer to power, however, the rightwing corporate media was forced to deploy
the standard tropes used against a left leader: that he was incompetent, unpatriotic, even
treasonous.
But just as the human body has different immune cells to increase its chances of success,
the corporate media has faux-liberal-left agents like the Guardian to complement the right's
defences. The Guardian sought to wound Corbyn through identity politics, the modern left's
Achille's heel. An endless stream of confected crises about anti-semitism were intended to
erode the hard-earned credit Corbyn had accumulated over decades for his anti-racism work.
Slash-and-burn politics
Why is Corbyn so dangerous? Because he supports the right of workers to a dignified life,
because he refuses to accept the might of the corporations, because he implies that a different
way of organising our societies is possible. It is a modest, even timid programme he
articulates, but even so it is far too radical either for the plutocratic class that rules over
us or for the corporate media that serves as its propaganda arm.
The truth ignored by Jenkins and these corporate stenographers is that if you keep
sabotaging the programmes of a Chavez, a Lula da Silva, a Corbyn or a Bernie Sanders, then you
get a Bolsonaro, a Trump, an Orban.
It is not that the masses are a menace to democracy. It is rather that a growing proportion
of voters understand that a global corporate elite has rigged the system to accrue for itself
ever greater riches. It is not social media that is polarising our societies. It is rather that
the determination of the elites to pillage the planet until it has no more assets to strip has
fuelled resentment and destroyed hope. It is not fake news that is unleashing the baser
instincts of the lower orders. Rather, it is the frustration of those who feel that change is
impossible, that no one in power is listening or cares.
Social media has empowered ordinary people. It has shown them that they cannot trust their
leaders, that power trumps justice, that the elite's enrichment requires their poverty. They
have concluded that, if the rich can engage in slash-and-burn politics against the planet, our
only refuge, they can engage in slash-and-burn politics against the global elite.
Are they choosing wisely in electing a Trump or Bolsonaro? No. But the liberal guardians of
the status quo are in no position to judge them. For decades, all parts of the corporate media
have helped to undermine a genuine left that could have offered real solutions, that could have
taken on and beaten the right, that could have offered a moral compass to a confused, desperate
and disillusioned public.
Jenkins wants to lecture the masses about their depraved choices while he and his paper
steer them away from any politician who cares about their welfare, who fights for a fairer
society, who prioritises mending what is broken.
The western elites will decry Bolsonaro in the forlorn and cynical hope of shoring up their
credentials as guardians of the existing, supposedly moral order. But they engineered him.
Bolsonaro is their monster.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include
"Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East"
(Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair" (Zed Books).
His website is www.jonathan-cook.net .
"... As of today, the US is embargoing all Iranian energy exports and freezing Iran out of the US-dominated world financial system, so as to cripple the remainder of its trade and deny it access to machinery, spare parts and even basic foodstuffs and medicine. ..."
"... In doing so, American imperialism is once again acting as a law unto itself. The sanctions are patently illegal and under international law tantamount to a declaration of war. They violate the UN Security Council-backed 2015 Iran nuclear accord, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) ..."
"... Financial Times ..."
"... Those developing the SPV are acutely conscious of this and have publicly declared that it is not Iran-specific. ..."
"... The strategists of US imperialism are also aware that the SPV is a challenge to more than the Trump administration's Iran policy. Writing in Foreign Affairs ..."
"... With its drive to crash Iran's economy and further impoverish its people, the Trump administration has let loose the dogs of war. Whatever the sanctions' impact, Washington has committed its prestige and power to bringing Tehran to heel and making the rest of the world complicit in its crimes. ..."
"... The danger of another catastrophic Mideast war thus looms ever larger, while the growing antagonism between Europe and America and descent of global inter-state relations into a madhouse of one against all is setting the stage ..."
Washington's imposition of sweeping new sanctions on Iran -- aimed at strangling its economy and precipitating regime change in
Tehran -- is roiling world geopolitics.
As of today, the US is embargoing all Iranian energy exports and freezing Iran out of the US-dominated world financial system,
so as to cripple the remainder of its trade and deny it access to machinery, spare parts and even basic foodstuffs and medicine.
In doing so, American imperialism is once again acting as a law unto itself. The sanctions are patently illegal and under
international law tantamount to a declaration of war. They violate the UN Security Council-backed 2015 Iran nuclear accord, or Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), an agreement that was negotiated at the behest of Washington and under its duress, including
war threats.
All the other parties to the JCPOA (Russia, China, Britain, France, Germany and the EU) and the International Atomic Energy Agency,
which is charged with verifying Iranian compliance, are adamant that Iran has fulfilled its obligations under the accord to the letter.
This includes dismantling much of its civil nuclear program and curtailing the rest.
Yet, having reneged on its support for the JCPOA, Washington is now wielding the club of secondary sanctions to compel the rest
of the world into joining its illegal embargo and abetting its regime-change offensive. Companies and countries that trade with Iran
or even trade with those that do will be excluded from the US market and subject to massive fines and other penalties. Similarly,
banks and shipping insurers that have any dealings with companies that trade with Iran or even with other financial institutions
that facilitate trade with Iran will be subject to punishing US secondary sanctions.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who like US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran and ordered
military strikes on Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard forces in Syria, has hailed the US sanctions as "historic." Saudi Arabia
and the United Arab Emirates, two other US client states, are pledging to ramp up oil production to make up for the shortfalls caused
by Washington's embargoing of Iranian oil exports.
But America's economic war against Iran is not just exacerbating tensions in the Middle East. It is also roiling relations between
the US and the other great powers, especially Europe.
On Friday, the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany and European Union Foreign Policy Chief Frederica Mogherini issued
a statement reaffirming their support for the JCPOA and vowing to circumvent and defy the US sanctions. "It is our aim," they declared,
"to protect European economic operators engaged in legitimate business with Iran, in accordance with EU law and with UN Security
Council resolution 2231."
They declared their commitment to preserving "financial channels with" Iran, enabling it to continue exporting oil and gas, and
working with Russia, China and other countries "interested in supporting the JCPOA" to do so.
The statement emphasized the European powers' "unwavering collective resolve" to assert their right to "pursue legitimate trade"
and, toward that end, to proceed with the establishment of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) that will enable European businesses and
those of other countries, including potentially Russia and China, to conduct trade with Iran using the euro or some other non-US
dollar medium of exchange, outside the US-dominated world financial system.
Friday's statement was in response to a series of menacing pronouncements from Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other
top administration officials earlier the same day. These fleshed out the new US sanctions and reiterated Washington's resolve to
crash Iran's economy and aggressively sanction any company or country that fails to fall into line with the US sanctions.
In reply to a question about the European SPV, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, said he had "no expectation" it will prove
to be a conduit for "significant" trade. "But if there are transactions that have the intent of evading our sanctions, we will aggressively
pursue our remedies."
Trump officials also served notice that they will sanction SWIFT, the Brussels-based network that facilitates secure inter-bank
communications, and the European bankers who comprise the majority of its directors if they do not expeditiously expel all Iranian
financial institutions from the network.
And in a step intended to demonstratively underscore Washington's disdain for the Europeans, the Trump administration included
no EU state among the eight countries that will be granted temporary waivers on the full application of the US embargo on oil imports.
Germany, Britain, France and the EU are no less rapacious than Washington. Europe's great powers are frantically rearming, have
helped spearhead NATO's war build-up against Russia. Over the past three decades they have waged numerous wars and neocolonial interventions
in the Middle East and North Africa, from Afghanistan and Libya to Mali.
But they resent and fear the consequences of the Trump administration's reckless and provocative offensive against Iran. They
resent it because Washington's scuttling of the nuclear deal has pulled the rug out from under European capital's plans to capture
a leading position in Iran's domestic market and exploit Iranian offers of massive oil and natural gas concessions. They fear it,
because the US confrontation with Iran threatens to ignite a war that would invariably set the entire Mideast ablaze, triggering
a new refugee crisis, a massive spike in oil prices and, last but not least, a repartition of the region under conditions where the
European powers as of yet lack the military means to independently determine the outcome.
To date, the Trump administration has taken a haughty, even cavalier, attitude to the European avowals of opposition to the US
sanctions. Trump and the other Iran war-hawks like Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton who lead the administration are
buoyed by the fact that numerous European businesses have voted with their feet and cut off ties with Iran, for fear of running afoul
of the US sanctions.
The Financial Times reported last week that due to fear of US reprisals, no European state has agreed to house the SPV,
which, according to the latest EU statements, will not even be operational until the new year.
The European difficulties and hesitations are real. But they also speak to the enormity and explosiveness of the geopolitical
shifts that are now underway.
Whilst European corporate leaders, whose focus is on maximizing market share and investor profit in the next few business quarters,
have bowed to the US sanctions threat, the political leaders, those charged with developing and implementing imperialist strategy,
have concluded that they must push back against Washington.
This is about Iran, but also about developing the means to prevent the US using unilateral sanctions to dictate Europe's foreign
policy, including potentially trying to thwart Nord Stream 2 (the pipeline project that will transport Russian natural gas to Germany
under the Baltic Sea and which Trump has repeatedly denounced.)
As Washington's ability to impose unilateral sanctions is bound up with the role of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency
and US domination of the world banking system, the European challenge to America's sanctions weapon necessarily involves a challenge
to these key elements of US global power.
The European imperialist powers are taking this road because they, like all the great powers, are locked in a frenzied struggle
for markets, profits and strategic advantage under conditions of a systemic breakdown of world capitalism. Finding themselves squeezed
between the rise of new powers and an America that is ever more reliant on war to counter the erosion of its economic might and that
is ruthlessly pursing its own interests at the expense of foe and ostensible friend alike, the Europeans, led by German imperialism,
are seeking to develop the economic and military means to assert their own predatory interests independently of, and when necessary
against, the United States.
Those developing the SPV are acutely conscious of this and have publicly declared that it is not Iran-specific.
Speaking last month, only a few weeks after European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker used his State of the EU address
to called for measures to ensure that the euro plays a greater global role, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire declared the "crisis
with Iran" to be "a chance for Europe to have its own independent financial institutions, so we can trade with whomever we want."
The SPV, adds French Foreign Ministry spokesperson Agnes Von der Muhl, "aims to create an economic sovereignty tool for the European
Union that will protect European companies in the future from the effect of illegal extraterritorial sanctions."
The strategists of US imperialism are also aware that the SPV is a challenge to more than the Trump administration's Iran
policy. Writing in Foreign Affairs last month, former Obama administration official Elizabeth Rosenberg expressed grave
concerns that the Trump administration's unilateral sanctions are causing the EU to collaborate with Russia and China in defying
Washington, and are inciting a European challenge to US financial dominance. Under conditions where Russia and China are already
seeking to develop payments systems that bypass Western banks, and the future promises further challenges to dollar-supremacy and
the US-led global financial system, "it is worrying," laments Rosenberg, "that the United States is accelerating this trend."
With its drive to crash Iran's economy and further impoverish its people, the Trump administration has let loose the dogs
of war. Whatever the sanctions' impact, Washington has committed its prestige and power to bringing Tehran to heel and making the
rest of the world complicit in its crimes.
The danger of another catastrophic Mideast war thus looms ever larger, while the growing antagonism between Europe and America
and descent of global inter-state relations into a madhouse of one against all is setting the stage...
However, the primary problem would not even be the doubtful profitability, but rather
logistics. Iran's oil fields are in the south. To reach Russia, the oil would have to make its
way to Caspian ports in the north. Iran has no main pipelines connecting its southern oil
fields with northern ports. These ports do have the infrastructure for oil, but they were built
to receive oil from swap deals with Kazakhstan, Russia and Azerbaijan. They were never meant to
export oil.
Consequently, before any exports could begin, Moscow and Tehran would have to invest in
creating the necessary storage and loading infrastructure at the Iranian ports. Iran would also
need to upgrade its transport infrastructure to deliver oil from the south to the Caspian
seashore -- that would also present a challenge.
Finally,
Russia and Iran would have to substantially increase their tanker fleets in the landlocked
Caspian Sea to exchange large quantities of oil, as the local geography does not allow for the
use of large tankers. In this situation, a planned railroad connection between Russia and Iran via
Azerbaijan could increase the volume of oil moved from Iran to Russia, but this project has not
been completed.
Under these circumstances, Russian officials are demonstrating far greater interest in
resuming the so-called oil-for-products program, under which Russia would broker Iranian oil
abroad in exchange for Iran buying Russian industrial machinery and providing investment
opportunities to Moscow.
Russia and Iran have discussed an oil-for-products initiative for years. Initially, it was
supposed to help Tehran evade the oil trade embargo imposed by the United States, European
Union (EU) and their partners. When those sanctions were lifted as part of the 2015 nuclear
deal, the initiative was expected to compensate for Iran's lack of financial reserves, which
kept Tehran from paying for imports of Russian equipment in hard currency. However, after US
President Donald Trump
withdrew from the deal in 2018 and began reimposing sanctions, the oil-for-products deal
again gained importance as a way to evade sanctions.
In November 2017, Moscow received 1 million barrels from Iran as payment for railroad
equipment imported from Russia, and arrangements were in the works for Russia to buy an
additional 5 million tons of oil in 2018. Indeed, in January and February there were reports of
some oil dispatches transferred from Iran to Russian companies. Yet, by March, they stopped . Moscow still plans
to revive the deal in 2019, though it might never happen.
On the one hand, Russia has had problems finding buyers for Iranian oil.
Concerned about the US sanctions, potential clients refused to purchase it. On the other hand,
Iran's main hopes for sanctions relief are more connected to the EU than Russia. There is a
strong belief in Tehran that Europeans will be able to offset the negative influence of US
economic pressure on Iran. The EU wants to salvage as much of the nuclear deal as possible. Yet
the strength of Tehran's belief is hard to explain: Large EU companies have already pulled out
of Iran. The EU officials Al-Monitor interviewed openly said that Tehran should not expect a
lot from Brussels.
Though Russian and Iranian officials have an on-again, off-again marriage of convenience,
Iran's general public and its elite strongly oppose any substantial deals with Moscow. Russia
is not trusted or welcomed by Iranians and the countries have a long history of
differences . A well-informed and respected Iranian expert on Tehran's foreign policy told
Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that a Russian oil-for-products initiative would be
difficult to implement.
"A large part of Iranian society believes that giving our oil to Russia -- especially at the
discounted prices -- is no better than agreeing to Trump's demands," he said.
The U.S. is going for the jugular with new Iran sanctions intended to punish those who trade
with Teheran. But the U.S. may have a fight on its hands in a possible post- WWII
turning-point...
The next step in the Trump administration's "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran has
begun, with the most severe sanctions being re-imposed on the Islamic Republic. Crucially, they
apply not only to Iran but to anyone who continues to do business with it.
It's not yet clear how disruptive this move will be. While the U.S. intention is to isolate
Iran, it is the U.S. that could wind up being more isolated. It depends on the rest of the
world's reaction, and especially Europe's.
The issue is so fraught that disputes over how to apply the new sanctions have even divided
Trump administration officials.
The administration is going for the jugular this time. It wants to force Iranian exports of
oil and petrochemical products down to as close to zero as possible. As the measures are now
written, they also exclude Iran from the global interbank system known as SWIFT.
It is hard to say which of these sanctions is more severe. Iran's oil exports have already
started falling. They
peaked at 2.7 million barrels a day last May -- just before Donald Trump pulled the U.S.
out of the six-nation accord governing Iran's nuclear programs. By early September oil exports
were averaging a million
barrels a day less .
In August the U.S. barred Iran's purchases of
U.S.-dollar denominated American and foreign company aircraft and auto parts. Since then the
Iranian rial has crashed to
record lows and inflation has risen above 30 percent.
Revoking Iran's SWIFT privileges will effectively cut the nation out of the
dollar-denominated global economy. But there are moves afoot, especially by China and Russia,
to move away from a dollar-based economy.
The SWIFT issue has caused infighting in the
administration between Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and John Bolton, Trump's national security
adviser who is among the most vigorous Iran hawks in the White House. Mnuchin might win a
temporary delay or exclusions for a few Iranian financial institutions, but probably not much
more.
On Sunday, the second round of sanctions kicked in since Trump withdrew the U.S. from the
2015 Obama administration-backed, nuclear agreement, which lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange
for stringent controls on its nuclear program. The International Atomic Energy Agency has
repeatedly certified that the deal is working and the other signatories -- Britain, China,
France, Germany and Russia have not pulled out and have resumed trading with Iran. China and
Russia have already said they will ignore American threats to sanction it for continuing
economic relations with Iran. The key question is what will America's European allies
do?
Europeans React
Europe has been unsettled since Trump withdrew in May from the nuclear accord. The European
Union is developing a trading mechanism to get around U.S. sanctions. Known as a
Special Purpose Vehicle , it would allow European companies to use a barter system similar
to how Western Europe traded with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
Juncker: Wants Euro-denominated trading
EU officials have also been lobbying to preserve
Iran's access to global interbank operations by excluding the revocation of SWIFT privileges
from Trump's list of sanctions. They count
Mnuchin,who is eager to preserve U.S. influence in the global trading system, among their
allies. Some European officials, including Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European
Commission, propose making the euro a global trading currency
to compete with the dollar.
Except for Charles de Gaulle briefly pulling France out of NATO in 1967
and Germany and France voting on the UN Security Council against the U.S. invading Iraq in
2003, European nations have been subordinate to the U.S. since the end of the Second World
War.
The big European oil companies, unwilling to risk the threat of U.S. sanctions, have already
signaled they intend to ignore the EU's new trade mechanism. Total SA, the French petroleum
company and one of Europe's biggest, pulled
out of its Iran operations several months ago.
Earlier this month a U.S. official confidently
predicted there would be little demand among European corporations for the proposed barter
mechanism.
Whether Europe succeeds in efforts to defy the U.S. on Iran is nearly beside the point from
a long-term perspective. Trans-Atlantic damage has already been done. A rift that began to
widen during the Obama administration seems about to get wider still.
Asia Reacts
Asian nations are also exhibiting resistance to the impending U.S. sanctions. It is unlikely
they could absorb all the exports Iran will lose after Nov. 4, but they could make a
significant difference. China, India, and South Korea are the first, second, and third-largest
importers of Iranian crude; Japan is sixth. Asian nations may also try to work around the U.S.
sanctions regime after Nov. 4.
India is considering purchases of Iranian crude via a barter system or denominating
transactions in rupees. China, having already said it would ignore the U.S. threat, would like
nothing better than to expand yuan-denominated oil trading, and this is not a hard call: It is
in a protracted trade war with the U.S., and an oil-futures market launched in Shanghai last
spring already claims roughly 14 percent of the global market for "front-month" futures --
contracts covering shipments closest to delivery.
Trump: Unwittingly playing with U.S. long-term future
As with most of the Trump administration's foreign policies, we won't know how the new
sanctions will work until they are introduced. There could be waivers for nations such as
India; Japan is on record asking for one. The E.U.'s Special Purpose Vehicle could prove at
least a modest success at best, but this remains uncertain. Nobody is sure who will win the
administration's internal argument over SWIFT.
Long-term Consequences for the U.S.
The de-dollarization of the global economy is gradually gathering momentum. The orthodox
wisdom in the markets has long been that competition with the dollar from other currencies will
eventually prove a reality, but it will not be one to arrive in our lifetimes. But with
European and Asian reactions to the imminent sanctions against Iran it could come sooner than
previously thought.
The coalescing of emerging powers into a non-Western alliance -- most significantly China,
Russia, India, and Iran -- starts to look like another medium-term reality. This is driven by
practical rather than ideological considerations, and the U.S. could not do more to encourage
this if it tried. When Washington withdrew from the Iran accord, Moscow and Beijing immediately
pledged to support Tehran by staying with its terms.If the U.S. meets significant resistance,
especially from its allies, it could be a turning-point in post-Word War II U.S.
dominance.
Supposedly Intended for New Talks
All this is intended to force Iran back to the negotiating table for a rewrite of what Trump
often calls "the worst deal ever." Tehran has made it clear countless times it has no intention
of reopening the pact, given that it has consistently adhered to its terms and that the other
signatories to the deal are still abiding by it.
The U.S. may be drastically overplaying its hand and could pay the price with additional
international isolation that has worsened since Trump took office.
Washington has been on a sanctions binge for years. Those about to take effect seem
recklessly broad. This time, the U.S. risks lasting alienation even from those allies that have
traditionally been its closest.
by Chris Bertram on October 31, 2018 Candice Delmas, A
Duty to Resist: When Disobedience Should Be Uncivil (Oxford University Press, 2018).
Political obligation has always been a somewhat unsatisfactory topic in political
philosophy, as has, relatedly, civil disobedience. The "standard view" of civil disobedience,
to be found in Rawls, presupposes that we live in a nearly just society in which some serious
violations of the basic liberties yet occur and conceives of civil disobedience as a deliberate
act of public lawbreaking, nonviolent in character, which aims to communicate a sense of grave
wrong to our fellow citizens. To demonstrate their fidelity to law, civil disobedients are
willing to accept the consequences of their actions and to take their punishment. When Rawls
first wrote about civil disobedience, in 1964, parts of the US were openly and flagrantly
engaged in the violent subordination of their black population, so it was quite a stretch for
him to think of that society as "nearly just". But perhaps its injustice impinged less
obviously on a white professor at an elite university in Massachusetts than it did on poor
blacks in the deep South.
The problems with the standard account hardly stop there. Civil disobedience thus conceived
is awfully narrow. In truth, the range of actions which amount to resistance to the state and
to unjust societies is extremely broad, running from ordinary political opposition, through
civil disobedience to disobedience that is rather uncivil, through sabotage, hacktivism,
leaking, whistle-blowing, carrying out Samaritan assistance in defiance of laws that prohibit
it, striking, occupation, violent resistance, violent revolution, and, ultimately, terrorism.
For the non-ideal world in which we actually live and where we are nowhere close to a "nearly
just" society, we need a better theory, one which tells us whether Black Lives Matter activists
are justified or whether antifa can punch Richard Spencer. Moreover, we need a theory that
tells us not only what we may do but also what we are obliged to do: when is standing by in the
face of injustice simply not morally permissible.
Step forward Candice Delmas with her superb and challenging book The Duty to Resist:
When Disobedience Should Be Uncivil (Oxford University Press). Delmas points out the
manifold shortcomings of the standard account and how it is often derived from taking the
particular tactics of the civil rights movement and turning pragmatic choices into moral
principles. Lots of acts of resistance against unjust societies, in order to be effective, far
from being communicative, need to be covert. Non-violence may be an effective strategy, but
sometimes those resisting state injustice have a right to defend themselves. [click
to continue ]
Hidari 10.31.18 at 3:41 pm (no link)
Strangely enough, the link I was looking at immediately before I clicked on the OP, was this:
It would be interesting to see a philosopher's view on whether or not civil disobedience
was necessary, and to what extent, to prevent actions that will lead to the end of our
species.
Ebenezer Scrooge 10.31.18 at 4:52 pm (no link)
Two points:
As far as the Nazi-punching goes, it is important to remember that we hung Julius Streicher
for nothing but speech acts.
I have no idea who Candice Delmas is, but "Delmas" is a French name. The French have a very
different attitude toward civil disobedience than we do.
Moz of Yarramulla 10.31.18 at 11:23 pm (no link)
civil disobedience as a deliberate act of public lawbreaking, nonviolent in character,
which aims to communicate a sense of grave wrong to our fellow citizens.
I think that's a pretty narrow view of civil disobedience even if you just count the
actions of the protesters. Often NVDA is aimed at or merely accepts that a violent response
is inevitable. The resistance at Parihaka, for example, was in no doubt that the response
would be military and probably lethal. And Animal Liberation are often classified as
terrorists by the US and UK governments while murderers against abortion are not.
Which is to say that the definition of "nonviolent" is itself an area of conflict, with
some taking the Buddhist extremist position that any harm or even inconvenience to any living
thing makes an action violent, and others saying that anything short of genocide can be
nonviolent (and then there are the "intention is all" clowns). Likewise terrorism, most
obviously of late the Afghani mujahideen when they transitioned from being revolutionaries to
terrorists when the invader changed.
In Australia we have the actual government taking the view that any action taken by a
worker or protester that inconveniences a company is a criminal act and the criminal must
both compensate the company (including consequential damages) as well as facing jail time.
tasmania and
NSW and of course the anti-union
laws . The penalties suggest they're considered crimes of violence, as does the
rhetoric.
Moz of Yarramulla 11.01.18 at 12:13 am (no link)
Jeff@11
one should never legitimize any means toward social change that you would not object to
seeing used by your mortal enemies.
Are you using an unusual definition of "mortal enemy" here? Viz, other than "enemy that
wants to kill you"? Even US law has theoretical prohibitions on expressing that
intention.
It's especially odd since we're right now in the middle of a great deal of bad-faith use
of protest techniques by mortal enemies. "free speech" used to protect Nazi rallies,
"academic freedom" to defend anti-science activists, "non-violent protest" used to describe
violent attacks, "freedom of religion" used to excuse terrorism, the list goes on.
In Australia we have a 'proud boys' leader coming to Australia who has somehow managed to
pass the character test imposed by our government. He's the leader of a gang that requires an
arrest for violence as a condition of membership and regularly says his goal is to incite
others to commit murder. It seems odd that our immigration minister has found those things to
be
not disqualifying while deporting someone for merely
associating with a vaguely similar gang , but we live in weird times.
As far as the Nazi-punching goes, it is important to remember that we hung Julius
Streicher for nothing but speech acts.
I do remember that*, but it's not clear to me why you think it's important to remember it
in this context. If somebody who had fatally punched a Nazi speaker were prosecuted for
murder, I doubt that 'he was a Nazi speaker' would be accepted as a defence on the basis of
the Streicher precedent.
*Strictly speaking, I don't remember it as something that 'we' did: I wasn't born at the
time, and it's not clear to me who you mean by 'we'. (Streicher himself probably would have
said that it was the Jews, or possibly the Jews and the Bolsheviks, who were hanging him, but
I don't suppose that would be your view.) However, I'm aware of the events you're referring
to, which is the real point.
Rawls presupposes that we live in a nearly just society in which some serious violations
of the basic liberties yet occur For the non-ideal world in which we actually live and where
we are nowhere close to a "nearly just" society, we need a better theory
People need to stop spreading this misinterpretation about Rawls on civil disobedience, which
I've seen several places in the past few years. Rawls focuses on the case of a nearly just
society not because he thinks it's the only case in which you can engage in civil
disobedience but because he thinks it's the only case in which there are difficulties with
justifying it. He states this very clearly in A Theory of Justice : in cases where the
society is not nearly just, there are no difficulties in justifying civil disobedience or
even sometimes armed resistance. His natural duty account is not put forward as a general
theory of civil disobedience but to argue that civil disobedience can admit of justification
even in the case in which it is hardest to justify.
I'm not a fan of Rawls myself, but I don't know how he could possibly have been more clear
on this, since he makes all these points explicitly.
LFC 11.02.18 at 12:45 am (no link)
J-D @18
The Nuremberg tribunal was set up and staffed by the U.S., Britain, USSR, and France; so
whether Ebenezer's "we" was intended to refer to the four countries collectively or just to
the U.S., it's clear who hanged Streicher et al., and the tone of your comment on this point
is rather odd.
anon 11.02.18 at 4:23 pm (no link)
Resisting by protesting is OK.
However, here in the USA, actual legislation creating laws is done by our elected
representatives.
So if you're an Amaerican and really want Social Change and aren't just posturing or
'virtue signaling' make sure you vote in the upcoming election.
I'm afraid too many will think that their individual vote won't 'matter' or the polls show
it isn't needed or some other excuse to justify not voting. Please do not be that person.
Don Berinati 11.02.18 at 5:06 pm (no link)
Recently re-reading '1968' by Kurlansky and he repeatedly made this point about protests
– that to be effective they had to get on television (major networks, not like our
youtube, I think, so it would be seen by the masses in order to sway them) and to do that the
acts had to be outlandish because they were competing for network time. This increasingly led
to violent acts, which almost always worked in getting on the news, but flew in the face of
King's and others peaceful methods.
So, maybe punching out a Nazi is the way to change people's minds or at least get them to
think about stuff.
Historians of the now seventeen-year old U.S. war in Afghanistan will take note of this past week
when the newly-appointed American general in charge of US and NATO operations in the country made a
bombshell, historic admission.
He conceded that
the United States cannot win in
Afghanistan
.
Speaking to NBC News last week, Gen. Austin Scott Miller made his
first public statements after taking charge of American operations, and shocked with his frank
assessment that that
the Afghan war cannot be won militarily and peace will only be
achieved through direct engagement and negotiations with the Taliban
--
the very
terror group which US forces sought to defeat when it first invaded in 2001.
"This is not going to be won militarily,"
Gen. Miller said.
"This is going to a political solution."
Gen. Austin Scott Miller, the U.S. commander of resolute support, via EPA/NBC
My assessment is the Taliban also realizes they cannot win militarily.
So if you
realize you can't win militarily at some point, fighting is just, people start asking why.
So you do not necessarily wait us out, but I think now is the time to start working through the
political piece of this conflict.
He gave the interview from the Resolute Support headquarters building in Kabul. "We are more in
an offensive mindset and don't wait for the Taliban to come and hit [us]," he said. "So that was an
adjustment that we made early on. We needed to because of the amount of casualties that were being
absorbed."
Starting
last summer it was revealed
that
US State Department officials began meeting with
Taliban leaders in Qatar to discuss local and regional ceasefires and an end to the war
. It
was reported at the time that the request of the Taliban, the US-backed Afghan government was not
invited; however, there doesn't appear to have been any significant fruit out of the talks as
the Taliban now controls more territory than ever before in recent years
.
Such controversial and shaky negotiations come as in total the United States has spent well
over $840 billion fighting the Taliban insurgency
while also paying for relief and
reconstruction in a seventeen-year long war that
has become more expensive, in current
dollars, than the Marshall Plan
, which was the reconstruction effort to rebuild Europe
after World War II.
Even the
New
York Times
recently chronicled the
flat out deception of official Pentagon
statements vs. the reality
in terms of the massive spending that has gone into the
now-approaching two decade long "endless war" which began in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.
Via NYT report
As of September of this year the situation was as bleak as it's ever been after over a
decade-and-a-half of America's longest running war, per
the NYT's numbers
:
But since 2017, the Taliban have held more Afghan territory than at any time since
the American invasion
. In just one week last month, the insurgents killed 200 Afghan
police officers and soldiers, overrunning two major Afghan bases and the city of Ghazni.
The American military
says
the
Afghan government effectively "controls or influences" 56 percent of the country. But that
assessment relies on
statistical sleight of hand
. In many districts,
the
Afghan government controls only the district headquarters and military barracks, while the
Taliban control the rest
.
For this reason Gen. Miller spoke to NBC of
an optimal "political outcome" instead of
"winning"
--
the latter being a term rarely if ever used by Pentagon and officials
and congressional leaders over the past years.
Miller
told NBC
: "I naturally feel compelled to try to set the conditions for a political outcome. So,
pressure from that standpoint, yes. I don't want everyone to think this is forever."
And ending on a bleak note in terms of the "save face" and "cut and run" nature of the U.S.
future engagement in Afghanistan, Gen. Miller concluded,
"This is my last assignment as
a soldier in Afghanistan. I don't think they'll send me back here in another grade. When I leave
this time I'd like to see peace and some level of unity as we go forward."
Interestingly, the top US and NATO commander can now only speak in remotely hopeful terms of
"some level of unity"
--
perhaps just enough to make a swift exit at least.
Tags
War Conflict
Politics
There not going to come out as say, where here because we want
BOMB IRAN a few years down the track and maintain US Military
deployment for Israel's long-term interests. Israel are suspected
of committing 9/11 attacks, if you think about it long term policy
of expansion, getting ride of its surrounding threats it's all
makes sense. scraficing 3000 americans for Israel's longterm
policy's seems to be the pill they were willing to swallow.
US is trying to shift the blame on Russia, as the Talibans went
to Moscow for peace talks.
And with Pakistan aligning with Russia/China and Iran (
Pakistan being the main supply route for the US army in
Afghanistan), the US army is practically f*cked.
Good to know that Trump is not prepared to continue to protect
Deep State opium production at the taxpayers' expense. I hope he's
planning to withdraw US armed forces from all foreign soil.
Based on what? What did he stop? Which wars did he pull out out
of?
Military was a huge contributor to his votes. He's not
going to lift a finger. He would have started by pardoning
Snowden, or closing Gitmo - something Obama lied about when
making campaign promises. Where, here is your chance, Donald.
Do at least one single thing that shows you as anything other
that a MIC puppet. Just one thing! Anything!
Bombing Syria? Yep. Blind eye to Saudi crimes in Yemen? Yep.
Dancing to Zionist demands? Yep.
Trade wars? Oh sure, those things never lead to military
conflict either!
The only reason we were in Afghanistan in the first place was to
protect the heroin trade from acquisition by the Taliban. It's
time to pull out and let the British protect their poppy fields if
they want em that badly.
Notice that Rivera says the Marines just had a visit from
Prince Charles. If you want to know more about why we have
so much heroin in America now and who benefits.. read Dope
Inc.
+ 45
DR
Members
+ 45
28 posts
Posted
Wednesday
at 03:48 AM
On 10/18/2018 at 11:38 PM,
Jan van Eck
said:
The problem that Qatar faces is one of population and geography. Qatar is dominantly Sunni, but
not the really severe branch that envelops KSA. And it sits next door to Bahrain, which is
apparently about 70% Shia. Qatar also juts way out into the Gulf, and is thus a convenient
sea-land bridge from Iran. Were Iran to go for a land invasion of KSA, then crossing into Qatar
with landing craft, or seizing a Qatari airport, is logical. To prevent this, the USA has built
a major air base in Qatar, specifically to cut off this route. That big US base is a natural
(and juicy) target for Iran should a shooting war break out, and the USA join in against Iran
(and that would be logical).
Meanwhile Qatar has this bizarre and unfathomable dysfunctional relationship with MbS, and a
very difficult relationship with Bahrain, which has cut off diplomatic relations and sent the
Qatari diplomats packing, in 2017. Now Iran is under sanctions, which is stressing their cash
receipts. Iran pushes back, against their ideological and religious rivals and enemies the
Sunnis, by threatening to either invade or to sink tankers with gas coming out of Qatar. The
problem for gas LNG tankers is that the stuff is kept docile by bringing the temp down to minus
176 degrees. If you whack an LNG tanker with a torpedo and breach the container spheres, easy
enough to do, then that ship is likely to blow up; one little spark and all that gas will be a
salient lesson for all the others.
The deterrent effect of this will be that nobody will dare to tempt fate by sending in an LNG
tanker. So Iran can shut down LNG traffic without firing a shot, all they have to do is go
crazy and start threatening. Iran has these subs that can go sit on the bottom of the Gulf and
pop up to launch a torpedo, and everyone knows it. That is one heck of a deterrent.
Meanwhile you have Europe now heavily dependent on gas. Either the Europeans continue to
genuflect to the Russians, which some Europeans at least find unpalatable, or they have to find
an alternative source. That is likely going to be the USA. I predict that the aggressions of
the Russians, and the problems of Qatar in any real ability to fill long-term contracts, and the
threat of
force-majeure
hovering in the background, brings Europe to buy US LNG.
Qatar delivered 80 million tons last year, as number 1 LNG exporter by a long shot. Australia
trailed behind at 56 million, followed by Malaysia 26M, Nigeria 21M, Indonesia 16M, USA 13M, Algeria
12M.
Qatar was responsible for 17M tons exported to EU, followed by Algeria at 10.4M. US Liquefaction
capacity is estimated to match the whole Middle East by 2025 with Calcasieu, LA at 4 bcf/day,
Brownsville, TX at 3.6 bcf/day; Plaquemines at 3.4 bcf/day; and Nikiski Alaska at 2.6 Bcf/day for the
Asian market.
BP has its new 'Partnership Fleet', Shell is chartering heavily and owns a large fleet as well.
Gaslog has over 25 modern large capacity vessels on the water, and the order book for 2019-2020
deliveries is extensive, and they will be available for US to EU transport (Tellurian and Cheniere
have already chartered Gaslog ships for their exclusive use)
The catch here is that Russia is delivering 10.8 million tons per year via Yamal, and their
upcoming Arctic 2LNG that will be on the ice in the Arctic circle adding even more to that production.
They have a fleet delivering year round of Teekay and Dynagas ice breaker LNG carriers, and their
primary clients have been Belgium, France and Spain during their debut ice breaking season. They are
centrally located to maximize deliveries to Asia and Europe.
I doubt that Russia will cut off Europe after spending all that money to secure liquefaction and
transport capabilities in the Arctic, but who knows. They are geared up to deliver to Asia, but could
only do so in the Summer months, or during the Winter months with the assistance of a Nuclear
Icebreaker to lead the ships.
Honestly, I hope that Germany completes the Hamburg LNG Terminal quickly and begins buying US LNG
so that we can diversify from our usual Mexico, S Korea, Japan, Spain, Portugal, Chile, Egypt, Jordan
clientele. Germany consumed over 90 million CBM of natural gas last year (controversial because they
stopped 'officially' disclosing the numbers after 2016, these are OECD estimates from the IEA), and
are getting close to Japan's 120 million CBM.
Qatar/Iran tensions could be the perfect storm for a US to EU energy boom.
"... Along with Nemtsov, Kara-Murza was an early backer of the US congressional passage of the Magnitsky Act in 2012, which targets Russian oligarchs and officials who support the Putin regime and are accused of corruption and human rights abuses. ..."
"... Since 2014, Kara-Murza has worked for the Open Russia Foundation, which was founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who rose to become one of the most powerful and richest oligarchs of Russia during the 1990s and was imprisoned by Putin in 2003. ..."
"... Gessen also teaches at Columbia University's Journalism School and is the brother of Masha Gessen, who has been heavily involved in the anti-Putin media propaganda for many years. ..."
On Wednesday, October 17, Vladimir Kara-Murza, a leading Russian liberal oppositionist, was interviewed by Keith Gessen, editor
of the n+1 magazine, in an event hosted by Columbia University's Harriman Institute for the Study of Eurasia, Russia and
Eastern Europe. The event was a stark testimony to the advanced preparations for a US-backed "color revolution" in Russia, i.e.,
an imperialist-orchestrated and funded movement of a section of the oligarchy and upper middle class to topple the Putin regime,
similar to those that have taken place in Ukraine and Georgia.
Vladimir Kara-Murza is one of the many shadowy figures of Russian politics who, while little known to most people inside or outside
Russia, are playing a key role in directing and supporting the US anti-Russia policy and the course of the Russian pro-US liberal
opposition. The son of Vladimir Kara-Murza, Sr., who was a major figure in the oligarch-controlled Russian media under Boris Yeltsin
in the 1990s, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Jr. worked for many years as the right-hand man of Boris Nemtsov, one of Yeltsin's key allies
in the 1990s and a right-wing political opponent of Putin, who was assassinated in 2015 under murky circumstances.
Along with Nemtsov, Kara-Murza was an early backer of the US congressional passage of the Magnitsky Act in 2012, which targets
Russian oligarchs and officials who support the Putin regime and are accused of corruption and human rights abuses. He has lobbied
for the adoption of similar legislation by governments throughout the world. Through this work, Kara-Murza also became close to the
late John McCain, one of Washington's foremost supporters of "color revolutions" throughout the territory of the former Soviet Union.
In August, Kara-Murza served as a pallbearer at McCain's funeral, along with former Vice President Joe Biden and the actor Warren
Beatty.
Since 2014, Kara-Murza has worked for the Open Russia Foundation, which was founded by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who rose to become
one of the most powerful and richest oligarchs of Russia during the 1990s and was imprisoned by Putin in 2003.
In short, Kara-Murza has been at the center of the operations for a color-revolution-type movement in Russia for years. And this
is precisely what he was invited to speak on with the self-styled leftist and Russia expert Keith Gessen, founding editor of the
n+1 magazine, one of the most popular magazines among pseudo-left circles. (Gessen also teaches at Columbia University's
Journalism School and is the brother of Masha Gessen, who has been heavily involved in the anti-Putin media propaganda for many years.)
The event started with Keith Gessen asking Kara-Murza about the
assassination of Boris Nemtsov which the
latter, of course, attributed to the Kremlin. For most of the discussion, however, Kara-Murza detailed his involvement in the preparations
for a color revolution in Russia.
Kara-Murza insisted that "the history of Russia teaches us that big political changes in our country can start quickly and unexpectedly."
He referred to both the 1905 Revolution and the February Revolution of 1917, which, as Kara-Murza pointed out, even took Lenin by
surprise, and then the collapse of the USSR "in three days" in 1991. "This is how things happen in Russia", he insisted, and "the
problem with this is that nobody is prepared. We [at the Open Russia Foundation] see it as our mission to begin those preparations
for future change now. We cannot afford to not be ready again. Most of the things we do inside of Russia is targeted at preparing
for this future transition."
The Open Russia Foundation, he continued, had 25 regional branches and a series of working groups which were already elaborating
plans for political reforms and constitutional changes for the post-Putin period. Furthermore, they were focusing on "work with the
new generation, the people who will be in charge of Russia" through training and education programs. Lastly, they were doing "international"
work, which he himself was in charge of, which included "outreach" directed, again, at preparing the "future transition."
When later asked by an audience member how he saw the future of Russia in the next few decades, he declared that this change would
come not within the next few decades, but within the next few years.
When he was asked from the audience whether the latest pension reform, which is opposed by over 90 percent of the population,
could trigger the kind of "sudden change" he was expecting, Kara-Murza said: "It could but it doesn't have to. There is always the
argument that it's [going to be] something of a socio-economic nature. Actually, if we look at the two decades of Putin, the peak
of the protests was in December 2011 when the middle class was booming. It was about dignity, it had nothing do to with social issues.
The trigger will not be necessarily economic."
He continued, "The only really shaky point [for Putin] was when so many people felt insulted that the government was wiping its
feet over them. I think it's going to be something like that. A color revolution of dignity," like the events in Ukraine in 2014.
In other words, what Kara-Murza and the Open Russia Foundation are working on is the promotion of a right-wing middle-class movement
similar to the Maidan in Ukraine, which would provide the basis for a coup to topple the current government.
The key figures and mechanisms for such a "color revolution" were also addressed at some length. Keith Gessen asked how Kara-Murza
viewed the campaign of the blogger Alexei Navalny, who, as the WSWS has written, is a
far-right, pro-US figure who cloaks his right-wing
program behind murky phrases about corruption. Just how fraudulent and politically calculated this focus is became clear in the discussion
when Keith Gessen asked whether Navalny's focus on corruption as the center of his political platform was "a winning platform." Kara-Murza
responded: "Yes, it is. Corruption is such a widely understandable issue. It's an issue that everybody is aware of."
In the discussion, a graduate student from Harriman asked whether the Open Russia Foundation had a "particular road map" for what
to do when the "sudden event" Kara-Murza expected actually occurred. Kara-Murza replied: "If there were a model, it would be something
like the Polish roundtable [of 1989]. The way we want a transition to happen in Russia is peaceful and smooth. We don't want a violent
revolution. Russia has had enough revolutions. The problem is that the people who are in power today are doing everything for a revolution
to occur."
Then, he went into the figures who would be included in such a roundtable. "Of course, Boris Nemtsov would have been at the roundtable",
but, he assured his audience, there were many others. The figures he named were: Yevgeni Roizman, the mayor of Yekaterinburg, who
is a notorious far-right-winger, with deep ties to the local mafia. In Russia, he became known above all through his alleged "drug"
relief program, which has involved heavy physical abuse of drug addicts.
He also named Galina Shirshina, a member of the liberal opposition party Yabloko (which Nemtsov led until his assassination) as
well as Lev Shlosberg, a local politician in Pskov who is also a leading member of "Yabloko." Finally, Kara-Murza named Dmitri Gudkov,
who is heading the opposition "Party of Changes" with Ksenia Sobchak, the daughter of Putin's mentor Anatoly Sobchak, who
ran as a presidential candidate this year
.
"Navalny and Khodorkovsky would obviously also be at the roundtable", Kara-Murza added. When Gessen asked "What about the Communists?"
Kara-Murza said that Sergei Udaltsov, the leader of the Stalinist and National Bolshevik "Left Front", may also hope for a seat at
the roundtable. "We have very different views, but we have a good personal relationship. He's a decent human being, politically and
on a human level."
Then, he added, "there are also many nationalists who are not controlled by the Kremlin" and who could join the roundtable. Throughout
the event, Kara-Murza repeated that he and his allies were the true patriots and Russian nationalists, as opposed to Putin and the
oligarchs and officials around him. "I just don't want to bore everyone with a long list of names," he said, as he concluded his
enumeration of prospective of roundtable participants.
Like all Russian liberal oppositionists, Kara-Murza makes a hue and cry about rigged elections under Putin. Yet at no point did
he even mention the possibility of an election before or after such a "roundtable," the participants of which have most evidently
already been discussed and set.
There could hardly be a more open statement about the complicity of the so called opposition forces in Russian in a premeditated,
US-backed plot to overthrow the Putin regime and install another, more pro-US, right-wing government in its place.
Kara-Murza speaks for a section of the oligarchy which not only seeks to gain control over the social and economic wealth of Russia,
but also fears that a continuation of the Putin regime will threaten not only Russia's geopolitical position, but also social revolution.
They see their main goal in making sure that a reshuffling within the oligarchy and upper middle class takes place, to assure both
a reorientation of Russian foreign policy more directly in line with the interests of imperialism, and the ongoing suppression of
the working class.
The complete indifference toward the implications of these policies for the masses of working people in Russia was at full display
when Kara-Murza defended the process of capitalist restoration and the 1990s as time when Russia was actually make headway on the
world stage: Russia was included in the G8 and finally internationally recognized, Kara-Murza stressed.
He contemptuously dismissed any criticism of the 1990s by referring to this decade as the "supposedly horrible 90s." The fact
that the Russian economy experienced the worst collapse recorded in modern history for peacetime; that life expectancy plummeted,
that hundreds of thousands committed suicide and were driven into substance abuse and that workers were going without pay for months
and years, all of this is evidently of no concern to him.
Underlining the recklessness of the whole operation, the question of the potential consequences of a "color revolution" was not
even raised. But anyone who looks at the past three decades of US foreign policy knows where this type of intervention of leads:
civil war, ethnic strife, dictatorial regimes, and decades of economic, social and economic crisis. In the case of Russia, a "color
revolution" would most likely mean the violent break-up of the Russian Federation -- many opposition leaders in fact argue for different
borders of Russia. It would, moreover, raise the very immediate danger of a nuclear catastrophe: what if a section of the military
resorts to the vast nuclear arsenal of Russia to defend its interests? And what will the US military and NATO do if a color revolution
underway in Russia suddenly threatens to go astray? Will they intervene directly militarily?
The involvement of Keith Gessen in this dubious event is revealing. At no point did he raise something akin to a critical question.
His role was nothing but to ask polite questions and provide Kara-Murza with a platform. A self-styled leftist, Gessen has translated
and published the writings of Kirill Medvedev, a leading figure in the Russian Socialist Movement (RSM), a Pabloite formation in
Russia. This year, he published a novel "A Terrible Country" in which he, yet again, promotes the Russian pseudo-left. In 2014, the
RSM fully backed the far-right coup in Kiev. In Russia itself, the RSM has long shifted toward full support for Alexei Navalny's
right-wing "anti-corruption campaign," ignoring or dismissing his history of support for Russian fascism and racism. The role of
Gessen in this event is emblematic of the role of these forces as handmaidens US and European imperialism.
It was befitting for Columbia University's Harriman Institute to host this event: the first interdisciplinary Russia institute
to be formed after the beginning of the Cold War, it has historically been associated with US imperialist plotting against first
the Soviet Union and then Russia. To this day, the Harriman Institute, which is a non-profit, functions primarily as a think tank
as well as an educational and recruiting center for Washington's foreign policy establishment and the CIA.
For much of its existence, the Harriman Institute was dominated by the figure and work of
Zbigniew Brzezinski who, for over half a
century, played a central role in elaborating the world strategy and justifying the war crimes of US imperialism. One of Brzezinski's
political trademarks was his advocacy for fostering political opposition and insurrections in the Soviet Union, to undermine the
regime and thus fight what he saw as one of the US's main competitors for the control of Eurasia. The "color revolution" strategy
of US imperialism since 1991 stands in precisely this tradition. Now as then, far-right forces within the elites and fake left tendencies
are the props of imperialism "on the ground."
Events like the one at Columbia reveal much about the state of world politics. "Color revolutions" which will impact the lives
of hundreds of millions and threaten civil and all-out nuclear war, are being discussed and plotted behind the exclusive doors of
an Ivy League institution with an audience of some 50 people, most of whom are graduate students and professors who, one may assume,
either already are on the payroll of the CIA and the State Department or seeking to get there.
The Putin regime offers no alternative to these imperialist machinations. Like the sections of the oligarchy that Kara-Murza speaks
for, Putin and his cronies have emerged out of and enriched themselves on the basis of the destruction of the Soviet Union which
was carried by the Stalinist bureaucracy hand-in-gloves with imperialism. It considers not imperialism, but the Russian working class
to be its main enemy, and, hence, responds to every imperialist provocation is a response of desperate attempts to find a deal with
imperialism, largely behind closed doors, and the promotion of nationalism and militarism at home.
This sinister event is a warning to the international working class about the advanced preparations for the next step in the efforts
of US imperialism to topple the Putin regime and bring the resources of Russia under its direct control: it is high time for workers
both in the US and in Russia to intervene in politics on an independent basis to put an end to these dangerous conspiracies of imperialism
through the struggle for socialism.
Hitler and Napoleon learned that it is impossible to conquer Russia size of continent of
militarily impossible weather with now a network of underground fortifications, tunnels that
cannot be nuked.
There is no conquering Russia with measly million soldiers west could at best deploy for
their sure deaths. Hence no western strategist plan for that and so the idea of Russia
responding to conventional attack with nuke was a propaganda aim to end the conversation
about that absurd, no sides really considers, but is used to spread fear.
US may attack Russia with nukes but no strategic goal would be achieved by that while
retaliation would have been devastating.
Even conventional attack on Russia is absurd. Poland 50k 5k offensive capability, All
Baltic states 10k, Slovakia 5k, Hungary 9k facing what?
Russian allies: Donbas rebels 40k war hardened rebel soldiers would be hard to beat;
Belarus 250k highly trained soldiers, fully integrated Air, Space, Ground and electronic
warfare with all newest Russian toys, while entire army of 2 millions. Russia 3-5 million
military can call at least 10 millions will maintain air and space superiority over their
territory , digged in while invaders are exposed.
There is will be no invasion of Russia only intimidation of the elites to submit to US
political and economic dictates. Also there is no conquering China as well. Not possible.
The only nuke war can occur when global elite will be losing grip on power and going down
in flames in socialist revolution and only to take entire humanity with them to hell.
If faced with an existential conventional attack, Russian doctrine calls for nuclear
response. It would be silly to think they'd limit it to low yield missiles in staging areas
in E Europe. They WILL hit continental US and the Pentagon whizkids know this.
The US is using every tool to destabilize them for a change of government, and all the
provocations to now are not on a scale of all out war. It does serve to build a compelling
narrative that allows no discussion when laws are finally passed limiting freedom of
information and association.
I see it as the real target being all the natural resources and cheap but skilled labor in
the former USSR (on top of bringing down a competitor), and the US population just stading in
the way because they're not brainwashed enough for the generals taste.
The capitalist economies can't work in autarchy, they need to get more markets, they need to
bring down competitors. or they fall themselves, If you place the control of the population
at the top of their priorities, how do you explain the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq etc ?
How do you explain the mamoth military budget ? is it just in case a whole US city turns
communist and they need to reduce it to ashes ?
First they would have to make sure the rest of the country didn't learn about the one that
went communist. Then instead of reducing it to ashes they would use the association trees
they have built tracking internet and social media to identify and round up the ringleaders.
Rest of the country might never even know what had happened between partial blackouts and
misinformation.
Don't get me wrong, the US would love to replace partial state control of key Russian
industries with Western banking interests and have a free hand with the natural resources.
This is certainly the long term plan. But...in the near term they have to reestablish control
of the narrative.
The military budget is wealth transfer to folks who enjoy and agitate for any war.
Afghanistan was about military contracts, hydrocarbons and opium, the Taliban had to go. Iraq
(and Syria) are a problem for Israel - problem solved. Libya was setting up an alternative
banking system and possessed attractive gold reserves.
Afghanistan was a good occasion for military contracts, but hydrocarbons of the whole region,
(especially the project for a pipeline through the caspian sea that Russia and Iran opposed),
were a bigger reason.
Why israel so important to the US ? because the resources of the whole region, and because
they could threaten the suez canal.
This is the net result of neoliberalism enforced debt slavery for the country. And there is no chances for Ukrainians to
climb back from this debt hole.
Notable quotes:
"... Ukraine's SSS has acknowledged that so far this year, the population has already decreased by 122,000. ..."
"... While the country's low birth rate of approximately 1 birth for 1.5 deaths is a contributing factor to the country's depopulation, emigration is by far the biggest factor. ..."
"... Between 2002 and 2017, an estimated 6.3 million Ukrainians emigrated with no plans to return. ..."
"... Through 2015 and 2017, as a result of the ongoing war in the Donbass region and the plunging value of the Ukrainian hryvnia, migration increased notably: 507,000 people went to Poland; 147,000 to Italy; 122,000 to the Czech Republic; 23,000 to the United States; and 365,000 to Russia or Belarus. ..."
"... The easing of visa-free travel by the European Union (EU) in September 2017 only increased the flow of Ukrainians to countries such as Poland, which is facing its own demographic crisis and in need of workers. In 2018 alone, more than 3 million Ukrainians applied for passports that would allow them to work in Poland. Poland is the only EU country that allows Ukrainians to obtain seasonal work visas with just a passport. Ukrainians have received 81.7% of all work visas issued in Poland this year. ..."
"... Between 1 and 2 million Ukrainian workers now reside in Poland, where they are often forced to take jobs "under the table," are easily exploited by employers, and work in dangerous conditions. Many Ukrainian laborers are recruited to Poland by scam offers of employment, only to then find themselves stranded and forced to work for whatever wage they can get. ..."
"... While Russia is constantly demonized in the Ukrainian and Western press as the eternal enemy of Ukraine, 2 million Ukrainian citizens now live or work in Russia. According to Olga Kirilova, between 2014 and 2017, 312,000 Ukrainians were granted Russian citizenship and Ukrainians make up the vast majority of immigrants to Russia. ..."
"... The migration of Ukrainian workers abroad has reached such a level that remittances from migrants now constitute 3 to 4 percent of the country's GDP. They exceed the amount of foreign investment in Ukraine. Nonetheless, such transfers are not nearly enough to make up for the negative impact of the currency's falling value, inflation, and the disappearance of skilled workers. ..."
"... The Ukrainian ruling class acknowledges that the country is in serious trouble. "One of the main risks of the current scenario is the continuation of the outflow of labor from Ukraine, which will create a further increase in the imbalance between demand and supply in the labor market," noted a report from the country's national bank. ..."
"... The Corrupt, extreme right wing government of Poroshenko, that has driven large proportions of the Ukrainian population into poverty and despair has only been able to take power and remain I office thanks to US imperialism and Angela Merkel's scheming and regime change program. ..."
"... Popular support for the "maidan" in the Ukraine was based on misleading and dishonest claims by pro EU and Pro US opportunistic political operators that such "regime change" would lead to total integration with Europe and open borders.... ..."
"... One of the most horrific consequences of the dismantling of the Soviet Union was the explosion of sex trafficking and very large numbers of Ukrainian women were caught up in this horrific exploitation and continue to be. ..."
"... Oh the benefits of US installed dictatorships. ..."
"... "Welcome to Europe, Ukraine. Here are your rubber gloves and toilet cleaning brush. Oh, you're a young woman? The red light district is three blocks that way". ..."
"... In Baltic states after being "freed from communism and Soviet occupation" the population decline is also very prominent, the same reasons as in Ukraine too. ..."
As fascist far-right nationalist groups regularly parade through the country demanding "Ukraine for Ukrainians," Ukraine faces
a massive depopulation crisis. Millions of people of all ethnicities are leaving the country, fleeing poverty and war.
Since the restoration of capitalism in 1991, the overall population of Ukraine has declined from just over 52 million to approximately
42 million today, a decrease of nearly 20 percent. If the separatist-controlled provinces of the Donbass region and Crimea are excluded,
it is estimated that just 35 million people now live in the area controlled by the government of Petro Porosehnko.
Ukrainian governments, including the current one, have been loath to carry out an official census, as it is widely believed that
the population estimates reported by the country's State Statistics Service (SSS) are inflated by including deceased individuals.
One aim of this is to rig elections. An official country-wide census has not been held since 2001. In late 2015, the Poroshenko government
postponed the 2016 census until 2020.
Despite the lack of reliable official numbers, all independent reports point to a sharp reduction in the population. According
to Ukraine's Institute of Demography at the Academy of Sciences, by 2050 only 32 million people will live in the country. The World
Health Organization has estimated that the population of the country will drop even further, to just 30 million people.
Ukraine's SSS has acknowledged that so far this year, the population has already decreased by 122,000.
Such data are a testament to the monumental failure of capitalism to provide a standard of living that matches, much less exceeds,
that which existed during the Soviet period over 25 years ago.
While the country's low birth rate of approximately 1 birth for 1.5 deaths is a contributing factor to the country's depopulation,
emigration is by far the biggest factor.
Between 2002 and 2017, an estimated 6.3 million Ukrainians emigrated with no plans to return.
Facing poor employment prospects, deteriorating social and medical services, marauding far-right gangs, and the ever-present
prospect of a full-scale war with Russia, Ukrainian workers are fleeing the country in great numbers, either permanently or as temporary
labor migrants.
According to a report from the Center for Economic Strategy (CES), almost 4 million people, or up to 16% of the working-age population,
are labor migrants. Despite having Ukrainian citizenship and still technically living in Ukraine, they actually reside and work elsewhere.
Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has put the number of Ukrainian migrant workers even higher, at 5 million.
Through 2015 and 2017, as a result of the ongoing war in the Donbass region and the plunging value of the Ukrainian hryvnia, migration
increased notably: 507,000 people went to Poland; 147,000 to Italy; 122,000 to the Czech Republic; 23,000 to the United States; and
365,000 to Russia or Belarus.
The easing of visa-free travel by the European Union (EU) in September 2017 only increased the flow of Ukrainians to countries
such as Poland, which is facing its own demographic crisis and in need of workers. In 2018 alone, more than 3 million Ukrainians
applied for passports that would allow them to work in Poland. Poland is the only EU country that allows Ukrainians to obtain seasonal
work visas with just a passport. Ukrainians have received 81.7% of all work visas issued in Poland this year.
Between 1 and 2 million Ukrainian workers now reside in Poland, where they are often forced to take jobs "under the table," are
easily exploited by employers, and work in dangerous conditions. Many Ukrainian laborers are recruited to Poland by scam offers of
employment, only to then find themselves stranded and forced to work for whatever wage they can get.
While migrant workers in Poland are constantly subjected to anti-immigrant rhetoric from the right-wing PiS government in Warsaw,
the Polish state classifies Ukrainian laborers as "refugees" in order to comply with EU quotas and reject refugees from Syria and
elsewhere.
According to polls of Ukrainian migrants in Poland, over half are planning to move to Germany if the labor market there is ever
open to them.
While Russia is constantly demonized in the Ukrainian and Western press as the eternal enemy of Ukraine, 2 million Ukrainian
citizens now live or work in Russia. According to Olga Kirilova, between 2014 and 2017, 312,000 Ukrainians were granted Russian citizenship
and Ukrainians make up the vast majority of immigrants to Russia.
The dearth of a working-age population in Ukraine is putting further strain on an already struggling pension system. According
to Ukraine's SSS, as a result of widespread labor migration, only 17.8 million out of 42 million Ukrainians are economically active
and paying into the pension system.
The migration of Ukrainian workers abroad has reached such a level that remittances from migrants now constitute 3 to 4 percent
of the country's GDP. They exceed the amount of foreign investment in Ukraine. Nonetheless, such transfers are not nearly enough
to make up for the negative impact of the currency's falling value, inflation, and the disappearance of skilled workers.
The Ukrainian ruling class acknowledges that the country is in serious trouble. "One of the main risks of the current scenario
is the continuation of the outflow of labor from Ukraine, which will create a further increase in the imbalance between demand and
supply in the labor market," noted a report from the country's national bank.
However, the government can do nothing to slow the mass emigration, as it is thoroughly under the control of international finance
capital and committed to implementing the austerity programs demanded by Western states and banks.
Despite assurances from the Poroshenko regime that the economy will improve, the emigration and emptying of the country shows
no signs of slowing.
The Corrupt, extreme right wing government of Poroshenko, that has driven large proportions of the Ukrainian population into
poverty and despair has only been able to take power and remain I office thanks to US imperialism and Angela Merkel's scheming
and regime change program.
Without the working class intervening the only ones remaining in Ukraine will be those unable to leave and those that have
their noses in the trough.
Another excellent report of decaying of artificial entity of Ukraine (and capitalism specializes in collapsing societies) that
never even existed before 1992 in European history and was resurrected ( from brief self declared by Bandera racist state status
in 1941) and funded by Germany, Canada and US only to nurture their Fascist and actual Nazi traditions starting from Doncov to
Bandera terror of hundreds of thousands dead 1941-1948 of OUN-B, UPA and Ukrainian SS, all against Russia, as Ukrainian "Country"
was and is used as a Trojan horse to push Putin to submit to the west even more than he does now.
Pain and suffering of Ukrainian people is enormous as only 5% of population of Ukrainian Nazi thugs terrorist nation like like
Hitler street thugs in 1932-1934. It is tragedy that capitalism instigated, exasperated and augmented and should be a lesson for
the left what nationalism does, divides working class that was rendered powerless in Ukraine as Ukrainian industry tied to Russia
collapsed and forces massive migration and de-cohesion of communities, divisions of working class and eradication of any real
leftist leadership via murder, intimidation and exile.
Just a note. All that anti Russia hoopla after 2014 and ensuing NATO belligerence and warmongering and sanctions all were focused
on so called annexation of Crimea to Russia which was nothing but reunification of land under control of Russia since 1754.
I was shocked watching an episode of Columbo, crime series in 1970s when one of characters proudly referred to California joining
in US 1845 as annexation from Mexico, with no shame or condemnation like hinting that it was international aggression of US as
Alta California was never part of US before that.
Well, it was before 1984 and Orwellian newspeak.
Note that Crimea remained autonomous region, not a part of Russia but part of Russian Federation.
Popular support for the "maidan" in the Ukraine was based on misleading and dishonest claims by pro EU and Pro US opportunistic
political operators that such "regime change" would lead to total integration with Europe and open borders.... That would
have allowed (so the misconception went) Ukrainians to flee the country much more openly with less red tape and hassle at the
borders. So, far from being politically or ideologically supportive of Europe or the US or opportunist/nationalist Ukrainian politicians,
the vast majority of Ukrainians only wanted to be allowed to flee, as they experience it, a social shipwreck
One of the most horrific consequences of the dismantling of the Soviet Union was the explosion of sex trafficking and very
large numbers of Ukrainian women were caught up in this horrific exploitation and continue to be.
Victoria Newland and Geoffrey Pyatt, both US officials, were recorded at the time of the right wing and fascist led coup that
overthrew Russian backed Yanakovic, boasting that Washington had poured $5 billion into Ukraine ensuring that their man, an ex
World Bank executive, was elected.
Since then the most rabid anti working class/ anti Russian governments have ruled the roost.
Only those unable to flee this hell- hole and those whose snout is in the trough will soon be left there. Oh the benefits
of US installed dictatorships.
In addition to emigration, Ukraine's decreasing population is a result of a higher infant mortality rate than surrounding countries.
High infant mortality rates always indicate economic and social stress.
According to The World Bank 2017 figures for infant mortality in that region, the rate per 1,000 births in Ukraine is 7.5 compared
to the following rates in surrounding countries:
Poland - 4.0
Romania - 6.6
Russia - 6.5
Belarus - 2.8
Hungary -3.8
Slovak Republic - 4.6
Only poor Moldova is higher at 13.3
Kinda shot themselves in the foot with their "Revolution of Dignity" fascist coup. "Welcome to Europe, Ukraine. Here are your
rubber gloves and toilet cleaning brush. Oh, you're a young woman? The red light district is three blocks that way".
Life in Crimea must be looking pretty good to them now.
The puppet of the USA, Poroshenko , needs to go, and the USA should get the hell out of the Ukraine plus NATO has no business
being on the borders of Russia. This is all the fault of the USA, And, the current immigration problem world wide is because the
USA bombs countries eviscerating them yet the USA refuses to admit refugees which are fleeing from the USA wars.
In Baltic states after being "freed from communism and Soviet occupation" the population decline is also very prominent, the
same reasons as in Ukraine too.
These same right-wing, fascist Ukrainian Banderovitzes love to yell and scream about the bogus "Holodomor" hoax (which has been
debunked by serious scholars such as Pers Anders Rudling, and others, as well as Thottle). They falsely claim that the USSR tried
to "depopulate" Ukrainians, when they are the ones who have depopulated Ukraine.
Speaking of Ukraine, the Russian sanctions against Ukraine have been announced. Predictably,
Poroshenko considers them to be 'an award', or so he says. I don't know why he feels
qualified to speak for those so honoured, since he was not on the list.
Trade between Russia and Ukraine hit a low of $10.26 Billion in 2016, but struggled back
up to $12.9 Billion last year. Mind you, pre-glorious-Maidan it was more than $50 Billion
annually. Never mind; I'm sure Yurrup will pick up the slack, just like it did after the
glorious Maidan. Amazingly, the New York Times is still referring to Poroshenko as a
'chocolate tycoon', in the same sentence in which it calls Viktor Pinchuk an oligarch.
"... Her announcement on Monday that she will vacate the leadership of Germany's ruling center-right Christian Democrats marks the culmination of what has been a slow denouement of Merkelism. ..."
"... Long the emblematic figure of "Europe," hailed by the neoliberal Economist as the continent's moral voice, long the dominant decider of its collective foreign and economic policies, Merkel will leave office with border fences being erected and disdain for European political institutions at their highest pitch ever. In this sense, she failed as dramatically as her most famous predecessors, Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, and Helmut Kohl, succeeded in their efforts to make Germany both important and normal in the postwar world. ..."
"... "We can do this!" she famously declared. Europe, she said, must "show flexibility" over refugees. Then, a few days later, she said there was "no limit" to the number of migrants Germany could accept. At first, the burgeoning flood of mostly young male asylum claimants produced an orgy of self-congratulatory good feeling, celebrity posturing of welcome, Merkel greeting migrants at the train station, Merkel taking selfies with migrants, Merkel touted in The Economist as "Merkel the Bold." ..."
"... The euphoria, of course, did not last. Several of the Merkel migrants carried out terror attacks in France that fall. (France's socialist prime minister Manuel Valls remarked pointedly after meeting with Merkel, "It was not us who said, 'Come!'") Reports of sexual assaults and murders by migrants proved impossible to suppress, though Merkel did ask Mark Zuckerberg to squelch European criticism of her migration policies on Facebook. Intelligent as she undoubtedly is (she was a research chemist before entering politics), she seemed to lack any intellectual foundation to comprehend why the integration of hundreds of thousands of people from the Muslim world might prove difficult. ..."
"... Merkel reportedly telephoned Benjamin Netanyahu to ask how Israel had been so successful in integrating so many immigrants during its brief history. There is no record of what Netanyahu thought of the wisdom of the woman posing this question. ..."
"... In any case, within a year, the Merkel initiative was acknowledged as a failure by most everyone except the chancellor herself. ..."
Drop of Light/Shutterstock Whatever her accomplishments
as pathbreaking female politician and respected leader of Europe's dominant economic power, Angela Merkel will go down in history
for her outburst of naivete over the issue of migration into Europe during the summer of 2015.
Her announcement on Monday that she will vacate the leadership of Germany's ruling center-right Christian Democrats marks
the culmination of what has been a slow denouement of Merkelism.
She had seen the vote share of her long dominant party shrink in one regional election after another. The rebuke given to her
last weekend in Hesse, containing the Frankfurt region with its booming economy, where she had campaigned extensively, was the final
straw. Her CDU's vote had declined 10 points since the previous election, their voters moving toward the further right (Alternative
fur Deutschland or AfD). Meanwhile, the further left Greens have made dramatic gains at the expense of Merkel's Social Democrat coalition
partners.
Long the emblematic figure of "Europe," hailed by the neoliberal Economist as the continent's moral voice, long the
dominant decider of its collective foreign and economic policies, Merkel will leave office with border fences being erected and disdain
for European political institutions at their highest pitch ever. In this sense, she failed as dramatically as her most famous predecessors,
Konrad Adenauer, Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt, and Helmut Kohl, succeeded in their efforts to make Germany both important and normal
in the postwar world.
One can acknowledge that while Merkel never admitted error for her multiculti summer fling (beyond wishing she had communicated
her goals better), she did manage to adjust her policies. By 2016, Germany under her watch was paying a healthy ransom to Turkey
to keep would-be migrants in camps and preventing them from sailing to Greece. Merkel's departure will make the battle to succeed
her one of the most watched political contests in Europe. She has turned migration into a central and quite divisive issue within
the CDU and Germany, and the party may decide that it has no choice but to accommodate, in one way or another, the voters who have
left them for the AfD.
Related to the issue of who should reside in Europe (objectively the current answer remains anyone who can get there) is the question
of how are such questions decided. In July 2015, five years after asserting in a speech that multiculturalism has
"utterly failed" in Germany (without addressing what policies should be pursued in an increasingly ethnically diverse society)
and several weeks after reducing a young Arab girl to tears at a televised forum by telling her that those whose asylum claims were
rejected would "have to go back" and that "politics is hard," Merkel changed course.
For those interested in psychological studies of leadership and decision making, it would be hard to imagine a richer subject.
Merkel's government first announced it would no longer enforce the rule (the Dublin agreement) that required asylum claimants to
be processed in the first country they passed through. Then she doubled down. The migrants fleeing the Syrian civil war, along with
those who pretended to be Syrian, and then basically just anyone, could come to Germany.
"We can do this!" she famously declared. Europe, she said, must "show flexibility" over refugees. Then, a few days later,
she said there was "no limit" to the number of migrants Germany could accept. At first, the burgeoning flood of mostly young male
asylum claimants produced an orgy of self-congratulatory good feeling, celebrity posturing of welcome, Merkel greeting migrants at
the train station, Merkel taking selfies with migrants, Merkel touted in The Economist as
"Merkel the Bold."
Her words traveled far beyond those fleeing Syria. Within 48 hours of the "no limit" remark, TheNew York Times
reported a sudden stirring of migrants from Nigeria. Naturally Merkel boasted in a quiet way about how her decision had revealed
that Germany had put its Nazi past behind it. "The world sees Germany as a land of hope and chances," she said. "That wasn't always
the case." In making this decision personally, Merkel was making it for all of Europe. It was one of the ironies of a European arrangement
whose institutions were developed in part to transcend nationalism and constrain future German power that 70 years after the end
of the war, the privately arrived-at decision of a German chancellor could instantly transform societies all over Europe.
The euphoria, of course, did not last. Several of the Merkel migrants carried out terror attacks in France that fall. (France's
socialist prime minister Manuel Valls remarked pointedly after meeting with Merkel, "It was not us who said, 'Come!'") Reports of
sexual assaults and murders by migrants proved impossible to suppress, though Merkel did ask Mark Zuckerberg to squelch European
criticism of her migration policies on Facebook. Intelligent as she undoubtedly is (she was a research chemist before entering politics),
she seemed to lack any intellectual foundation to comprehend why the integration of hundreds of thousands of people from the Muslim
world might prove difficult.
Merkel reportedly telephoned Benjamin Netanyahu to ask how Israel had been so successful in integrating so many immigrants
during its brief history. There is no record of what Netanyahu thought of the wisdom of the woman posing this question.
In any case, within a year, the Merkel initiative was acknowledged as a failure by most everyone except the chancellor herself.
Her public approval rating plunged from 75 percent in April 2015 to 47 percent the following summer. The first electoral rebuke came
in September 2016, when the brand new anti-immigration party, the Alternative fur Deutschland, beat Merkel's CDU in Pomerania.
In every election since, Merkel's party has lost further ground. Challenges to her authority from within her own party have become
more pointed and powerful. But the mass migration accelerated by her decision continues, albeit at a slightly lower pace.
Angela Merkel altered not only Germany but the entire European continent, in irreversible ways, for decades to come.
Scott McConnell is a founding editor ofand the author of Ex-Neocon: Dispatches From the Post-9/11 Ideological Wars
.
"... On the other hand, President Trump is pushing Merkel on policy on Russia and Ukraine that furthers the image that she is simply a stooge of U.S. geopolitical ambitions. Don't ever forget that Germany is, for all intents and purposes, an occupied country. So, what the U.S. military establishment wants, Merkel must provide. ..."
"... But Merkel, further weakened by another disastrous state election, isn't strong enough to fend off her emboldened Italian and British opposition (and I'm not talking about The Gypsum Lady, Theresa May here). ..."
"... Merkel is a lame-duck now. Merkelism is over. Absentee governing from the center standing for nothing but the international concerns has been thoroughly rebuked by the European electorate from Spain to the shores of the Black Sea. ..."
"... Germany will stand for something other than globalism by the time this is all over. There will be a renaissance of culture and tradition there that is similar to the one occurring at a staggering pace in Russia. ..."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has stepped down as the leader of the Christian Democratic
Union, the party she has led for nearly two decades. Yesterday's election in Hesse, normally a
CDU/SPD stronghold was abysmal for them.
She had to do something to quell the revolt brewing against her.
Merkel knew going in what the polls were showing. Unlike American and British polls, it
seems the German ones are mostly accurate with pre-election polls coming close to matching the
final results.
So, knowing what was coming for her and in the spirit of trying to maintain power for as
long as possible Merkel has been moving away from her staunch positions on unlimited
immigration and being in lock-step with the U.S. on Russia.
She's having to walk a tightrope on these two issues as the turmoil in U.S. political
circles is pulling her in, effectively, opposite directions.
The globalist Davos Crowd she works for wants the destruction of European culture and
individual national sovereignty ground into a paste and power consolidated under the rubric of
the European Union.
They also want Russia brought to heel.
On the other hand, President Trump is pushing Merkel on policy on Russia and Ukraine that
furthers the image that she is simply a stooge of U.S. geopolitical ambitions. Don't ever
forget that Germany is, for all intents and purposes, an occupied country. So, what the U.S.
military establishment wants, Merkel must provide.
So, if she rejects that role and the chaos U.S. policy engenders, particularly Syria, she's
undermining the flow of migrants into Europe.
This is why it was so significant that she and French President Emmanuel Macron joined this
weekend's summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan in Istanbul.
It ended with an agreement on Syria's future that lies in direct conflict with the U.S.'s
goals of the past seven years.
It was an admission that Assad has prevailed in Syria and the plan to atomize it into yet
another failed state has itself failed. Merkel has traded 'Assad must go' for 'no more
refugees.'
To President Trump's credit he then piggy-backed on that statement announcing that the U.S.
would be pulling out of Syria very soon now. And that tells me that he is still coordinating in
some way with Putin and other world leaders on the direction of his foreign policy in spite of
his opposition.
But the key point from the Istanbul statement was that Syria's rebuilding be prioritized to
reverse the flow of migrants so Syrians can go home. While
Gilbert Doctorow is unconvinced by France's position here , I think Merkel has to be
focused on assisting Putin in achieving his goal of returning Syria to Syrians.
Because, this is both a political necessity for Merkel as well as her trying to burnish her
crumbling political throne to maintain power.
The question is will Germans believe and/or forgive her enough for her to stay in power
through her now stated 'retirement' from politics in 2021?
I don't think so and it's obvious Davos Crowd boy-toy Macron is working overtime to salvage
what he can for them as Merkel continues to face up to the political realities across Europe,
which is that populism is a natural reaction to these insane policies.
Merkel's job of consolidating power under the EU is unfinished. They don't have financial
integration. The Grand Army of the EU is still not a popular idea. The euro-zone is a disaster
waiting to happen and its internal inconsistencies are adding fuel to an already pretty hot
political fire.
On this front, EU integration, she and Macron are on the same page. Because 'domestically'
from an EU perspective, Brexit still has to be dealt with and the showdown with the Italians is
only just beginning.
But Merkel, further weakened by another disastrous state election, isn't strong enough to
fend off her emboldened Italian and British opposition (and I'm not talking about The Gypsum
Lady, Theresa May here).
And Macron should stop looking in the mirror long enough to see he's standing on a quicksand
made of blasting powder.
This points to the next major election for Europe, that of the European Parliament in May
where all of Merkel's opposition are focused on wresting control of that body and removing
Jean-Claude Juncker or his hand-picked replacement (Merkel herself?) from power.
The obvious transition for Merkel is from German Chancellor to European Commission
President. She steps down as Chancellor in May after the EPP wins a majority then to take
Juncker's job. I'm sure that's been the plan all along. This way she can continue the work she started
without having to face the political backlash at home.
But, again, how close is Germany to snap elections if there is another migrant attack and
Chemnitz-like demonstrations. You can only go to the 'Nazi' well so many times, even in
Germany.
There comes a point where people will have simply had enough and their anger isn't born of
being intolerant but angry at having been betrayed by political leadership which doesn't speak
for them and imported crime, chaos and violence to their homes.
And the puppet German media will not be able to contain the story. The EU's speech rules
will not contain people who want to speak. The clamp down on hate speech, pioneered by Merkel
herself is a reaction to the growing tide against her.
And guess what? She can't stop it.
The problem is that Commies like Merkel and Soros don't believe in anything. They are
vampires and nihilists as I said over the
weekend suffused with a toxic view of humanity.
Oh sure, they give lip service to being inclusive and nice about it while they have
control over the levers of power, the State apparatus. But, the minute they lose control of
those levers, the sun goes down, the fangs come out and the bloodletting begins.
These people are vampires, sucking the life out of a society for their own ends. They are
evil in a way that proves John Barth's observation that "man can do no wrong." For they never
see themselves as the villain.
No. They see themselves as the savior of a fallen people. Nihilists to their very core
they only believe in power. And, since power is their religion, all activities are justified
in pursuit of their goals.
Their messianic view of themselves is indistinguishable to the Salafist head-chopping
animals people like Hillary empowered to sow chaos and death across the Middle East and North
Africa over the past decade.
Add to this Merkel herself who took Hillary's empowerment of these animals and gave them a
home across Europe. At least now Merkel has the good sense to see that this has cost her nearly
everything.
Even if she has little to no shame.
Hillary seems to think she can run for president again and win with the same schtick she
failed with twice before. Frankly, I welcome it like I welcome the sun in the morning, safe in
the knowledge that all is right with the world and she will go down in humiliating defeat yet
again.
Merkel is a lame-duck now. Merkelism is over. Absentee governing from the center standing
for nothing but the international concerns has been thoroughly rebuked by the European
electorate from Spain to the shores of the Black Sea.
Germany will stand for something other than globalism by the time this is all over. There
will be a renaissance of culture and tradition there that is similar to the one occurring
at a staggering pace in Russia.
"... Roberts goes on to say that the ideology of US neoconservatives is "akin to the German Nazy Party last century" in their ideology of American supremacy and exceptionalism. ..."
Roberts, Former Asst. Treasury Secretary in the Reagan administration and former
contributing editor at the Wall Street Journal has been an outspoken critic of neocon foreign
policy and Washington corruption from a conservative viewpoint.
He has an enormous following on the internet and publishes at the Unz Review and on his own
website.
... ... ...
Roberts, 79, served in the Reagan administration from 1981 to 1982. He was formerly a
distinguished fellow at the Cato Institute and a senior research fellow at the Hoover
Institution, and has written for the Wall Street Journal and Businessweek.
Roberts maintains an active
blog .
He's also vehemently against interventionary wars around the world , and spoke with Russia's
state-owned Sputnik news in a
Tuesday article - in which Roberts said that President Trump's decision to pull out of the
Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty was a handout to the military-security
complex.
The former Reagan administration official clarified that he does not think "that the
military-security complex itself wants a war with Russia, but it does want an enemy that
can be used to justify more spending. " He explained that the withdrawing from the INF
Treaty "gives the military-security complex a justification for a larger budget and new
money to spend: manufacturing the formerly banned missiles."
...
The economist highlighted that " enormous sums spent on 'defense' enabled the armaments
corporations to control election outcomes with campaign contributions ," adding that in
addition, "the military has bases and the armaments corporations have factories in almost
every state so that the population, dependent on the jobs, support high amounts of
'defense' spending."
"That was 57 years ago," he underscored. "You can imagine how much stronger the
military-security complex is today." - Sputnik
Roberts also suggested that " The Zionist Neoconservatives are responsible for Washington's
unilateral abandonment of the INF treaty, just as they were responsible for Washington's
unilateral abandonment of the ABM Treaty [in 2002], the Iran nuclear agreement, and the promise
not to move NATO one inch to the East. "
Is this what got him suspended?
Roberts goes on to say that the ideology of US neoconservatives is "akin to the German
Nazy Party last century" in their ideology of American supremacy and exceptionalism.
" Their over-confidence about their ability to quickly defeat Israel's enemies and open the
Middle East to Israeli expansion got the US bogged down in wars in the Middle East for 17 years
... During this time, both Russia and China rose much more quickly than the neoconservatives
thought possible."
Dr. Roberts opined that US policy makers are seeking to weaponize the Russian opposition
and "pro-Western elements" to exert pressure on Moscow into "accommodating Washington in
order to have the sanctions removed." On the other hand, the Trump administration's new arms
race could force Russia into spending more on defense, according to the author. - Sputnik
While we don't know if Roberts' Sputnik interview resulted in his Twitter ban 48 hours
later, it's entirely possible.
"... The fact that the US dollar remains the overwhelming dominant currency for international trade and financial transactions gives Washington extraordinary power over banks and companies in the rest of the world. That's the financial equivalent of a neutron bomb. That might be about to change, though it's by no means a done deal yet. ..."
"... German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told Handelsblatt, a leading German business daily, "Europe should not allow the U.S. to act over our heads and at our expense. For that reason, it's essential that we strengthen European autonomy by establishing payment channels that are independent of the US, creating a European Monetary Fund and building up an independent SWIFT system ." ..."
"... In addition to the recent statements from the German Foreign Minister, France is discussing expanding the Iran SPV to create a means of insulating the EU economies from illegal extraterritorial sanctions like the secondary sanctions that punish EU companies doing business in Iran by preventing them from using the dollar or doing business in the USA. ..."
"... F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine "New Eastern Outlook." https://journal-neo.org/2018/10/23/the-eu-russia-china-plan-to-avert-iran-oil-sanctions/ ..."
It may well be that the unilateral wrecking ball politics of the Trump Administration are
bringing about a result just opposite from that intended. Washington's decision to abandon the
Iran nuclear agreement and impose severe sanctions on companies trading Iran oil as of 4
November, is creating new channels of cooperation between the EU, Russia, China and Iran and
potentially others. The recent declaration by Brussels officials of creation of an unspecified
Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to legally avoid US dollar oil trade and thereby US sanctions,
might potentially spell the beginning of the end of the Dollar System domination of the world
economy.
According to reports from the last bilateral German-Iran talks in Teheran on October 17, the
mechanisms of a so-called Special Purpose Vehicle that would allow Iran to continue to earn
from its oil exports, will begin implementation in the next days. At end of September EU
Foreign Policy chief Federica Mogherini confirmed plans to create such an independent trade
channel, noting, "no sovereign country or organization can accept that somebody else decides
with whom you are allowed to
do trade with ."
The SPV plan is reportedly modelled on the Soviet barter system used during the cold war to
avert US trade sanctions, where Iran oil would be in some manner exchanged for goods without
money. The SPV agreement would reportedly involve the European Union, Iran, China and
Russia.
According to various reports out of the EU the new SPV plan involves a sophisticated barter
system that can avoid US Treasury sanctions. As an example, Iran could ship crude oil to a
French firm, accrue credit via the SPV, much like a bank. That could then be used to pay an
Italian manufacturer for goods shipped the other way, without any funds traversing through
Iranian hands or the normal banking system.A multinational European state-backed financial
intermediary would be set up to handle deals with companies interested in Iran transactions and
with Iranian counter-parties. Any transactions would not be transparent to the US, and would
involve euros and sterling rather than dollars.
It's an extraordinary response to what Washington has called a policy of all-out financial
war against Iran, that includes threats to sanction European central banks and the
Brussels-based SWIFT interbank payments network if they maintain ties to Iran after November 4.
In the post-1945 relations between Western Europe and Washington such aggressive measures have
not been seen before.It's forcing some major rethinking from leading EU policy circles.
New Banking Architecture
The background to the mysterious initiative was presented in June in a report titled,
Europe, Iran and Economic Sovereignty: New Banking Architecture in Response to US Sanctions.
The report was authored by Iranian economist Esfandyar Batmanghelidj and Axel Hellman, a Policy
Fellow at the European Leadership Network (ELN), a London-based policy
think tank .
The report proposes its new architecture should have two key elements. First it will be
based on "gateway banks" designated to act as intermediaries between Iranian and EU commercial
banks tied to the Special Purpose Vehicle. The second element is that it would be overseen by
an EU-Office of Foreign Asset Controls or EU-OFAC, modeled on the same at the US Treasury, but
used for facilitating legal EU-Iran trade, not for blocking it. Their proposed EU-OFAC among
other functions would undertake creating certification mechanisms for due diligence on the
companies doing such trade and "strengthen EU legal protections for entities engaged in Iran
trade and investment ."
The SPV reportedly is based on this plan using designated Gateway Banks, banks in the EU
unaffected by Washington "secondary sanctions," as they do not do business in the US and focus
on business with Iran. They might include select state-owned German Landesbanks, certain Swiss
private banks such as the Europäisch-Iranische Handelsbank (EIH), a European bank
established specifically to engage in trade finance with Iran. In addition, select Iran banks
with offices in the EU could be brought in.
Whatever the final result, it is clear that the bellicose actions of the Trump
Administration against trade with Iran is forcing major countries into cooperation that
ultimately could spell the demise of the dollar hegemony that has allowed a debt-bloated US
Government to finance a de facto global tyranny at the expense of others.
EU-Russia-China
During the recent UN General Assembly in New York, Federica Mogherini said the SPV was
designed to facilitate payments related to Iran's exports – including oil –so long
as the firms involved were carrying out legitimate business under EU law. China and Russia are
also involved in the SPV. Potentially Turkey, India and other countries could later join.
Immediately, as expected, Washington has reacted. At the UN US Secretary of State and former
CIA head Mike Pompeo declared to an Iran opposition meeting that he was "disturbed and indeed
deeply disappointed" by the EU plan. Notably he said ""This is one of the of the most
counterproductive measures imaginable for regional and global peace and security." Presumably
the Washington plan for economic war against Iranis designed to foster regional and global
peace and security?
Non-US SWIFT?
One of the most brutal weapons in the US Treasury financial warfare battery is the ability
to force the Brussels-based SWIFT private interbank clearing system to cut Iran off from using
it. That was done with devastating effect in 2012 when Washington pressured the EU to get SWIFT
compliance, a grave precedent that sent alarm bells off around the world.
The fact that the US dollar remains the overwhelming dominant currency for international
trade and financial transactions gives Washington extraordinary power over banks and companies
in the rest of the world. That's the financial equivalent of a neutron bomb. That might be
about to change, though it's by no means a done deal yet.
In 2015 China unveiled its CIPS or China International Payments System. CIPS was originally
viewed as a future China-based alternative to SWIFT. It would offer clearing and settlement
services for its participants in cross-border RMB payments and trade. Unfortunately, a Chinese
stock market crisis forced Beijing to downscale their plans, though a skeleton of
infrastructure is there.
In another area, since late 2017 Russia and China have discussed possible linking their
bilateral payments systems bypassing the dollar. China's Unionpay system and Russia's domestic
payment system, known as Karta Mir, would be
linked directly .
More recently leading EU policy circles have echoed such ideas, unprecedented in the
post-1944 era. In August, referring to the unilateral US actions to block oil and other trade
with Iran, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told Handelsblatt, a leading German business
daily, "Europe should not allow the U.S. to act over our heads and at our expense. For that
reason, it's essential that we strengthen European autonomy by establishing payment channels
that are independent of the US, creating a European Monetary Fund and building up an
independent SWIFT system ."
A Crack in the Dollar Edifice
How far the EU is willing to defy Washington on the issue of trade with Iran is not yet
clear. Most probably Washington via NSA and other means can uncover the trades of the
EU-Iran-Russia-China SPV.
In addition to the recent statements from the German Foreign Minister, France is discussing
expanding the Iran SPV to create a means of insulating the EU economies from illegal
extraterritorial sanctions like the secondary sanctions that punish EU companies doing business
in Iran by preventing them from using the dollar or doing business in the USA. French Foreign
Ministry spokeswoman, Agnes Von der Muhll, stated that in addition to enabling companies to
continue to trade with Iran, that the SPV would, "create an economic sovereignty tool for the
European Union beyond this one case. It is therefore a long-term plan that will protect
European companies in the future from the effect of illegal extraterritorial
sanctions ."
If this will be the case with the emerging EU Special Purpose Vehicle, it will create a
gaping crack in the dollar edifice. Referring to the SPV and its implications, Jarrett Blanc,
former Obama State Department official involved in negotiating the Iran nuclear agreement noted
that, "The payment mechanism move opens the door to a longer-term degradation of US sanctions
power."
At present the EU has displayed effusive rhetoric and loud grumbling against unilateral US
economic warfare and extraterritorial imposition of sanctions such as those against Russia.
Their resolve to potently move to create a genuine alternative to date has been absent. So too
is the case so far in other respects for China and Russia. Will the incredibly crass US
sanctions war on Iran finally spell the beginning of the end of the dollar domination of the
world economy it has held since Bretton Woods in 1945?
My own feeling is that unless the SPV in whatever form utilizes the remarkable technological
advantages of certain of the blockchain or ledger technologies similar to the US-based XRP or
Ripple, that would enable routing payments across borders in a secure and almost instantaneous
way globally, it won't amount to much. It's not that European IT programmers lack the expertise
to develop such, and certainly not the Russians. After all one of the leading blockchain
companies was created by a Russian-born Canadian named Vitalik Buterin. The Russian Duma is
working on new legislation regarding digital currencies, though the Bank of Russia still seems
staunchly opposed. The Peoples' Bank of China is rapidly developing and testing a national
cryptocurrency, ChinaCoin. Blockchain technologies are widely misunderstood, even in government
circles such as the Russian Central Bank that ought to see it is far more than a new "South Sea
bubble." The ability of a state-supervised payments system to move value across borders,
totally encrypted and secure is the only plausible short-term answer to unilateral sanctions
and financial wars until a more civilized order among nations is possible.
Trump may have his own views, but he has no own foreign policy. He is a neocon's
marionette.
Notable quotes:
"... Instead Bush, and later Obama, transitioned the military mission -- without consultation from Congress -- into a nation-building effort that was doomed from the start. Candidate Donald Trump spoke of a different approach to the Middle East and railed against nation-building abroad. His instincts on Afghanistan have been consistent and correct from very early on. Had it not been for the relentless pressure of several key officials, the war might already have come to end. ..."
"... Woodward wrote ..."
"... Trump defers to the Pentagon because he doesn't really care. He says he wants to get out of Afghanistan (and I support that) but getting out isn't going to make him any money, or get him any votes. So why bother with it, especially when he can lie to his base and tell them we are already out, and they'll believe him? ..."
"... Trump is the kind of person who likes to "talk the talk" but when comes right down to it, he going to sadly, "walk the walk" that the Washington establishment tells him to walk. ..."
"... The treasonous MIC and those top generals do not care about the nation and ordinary Americans. They care only about their profits, careers and their own egos. ..."
"... There is no war they don't like – Middle East, checked, Ukraine, yes, South China Sea, sure, Korea, definitely. It is so sad that Trump turns out to be such a weak and impotent president, contrary to what the supporters claim. ..."
In a routine dating back to 2004, U.S. officials
regularly claim that the latest strategy in Afghanistan is working -- or as General David
Petraeus said in
2012 , the war had "turned a corner." It hadn't and it still hasn't. In fact, evidence
overwhelmingly affirms that the newest "new" strategy will be no more effective than those that
came before it. It is time to stop losing U.S. lives while pretending that victory is just
around the corner. It is time to end the war in Afghanistan.
Last week, one of the most brazen insider attacks of the war took place in Kandahar when one
of the Afghanistan governor's bodyguards turned rogue,
killingthree high-profile
Afghan leaders and
wounding the senior U.S. field commander, Brigadier General Jeffrey Smiley. Miraculously,
the new commander, General Scott Miller, escaped harm. But in 2018,
eight Americans have been killed in Afghanistan, bringing the American death toll to
2,351 .
On October 7, 2001, President George W. Bush
addressed the nation as combat operations in Afghanistan began. He emphasized that the
American "mission is defined. The objectives are clear. [Our] goal is just." Those objectives,
he explained , were "targeted actions" that were "designed to disrupt the use of
Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations and to attack the military capability of the
Taliban regime."
By the summer of 2002, those objectives were fully met as the Taliban organization was
wholly destroyed and al-Qaeda severely degraded. As of 2009, there were reportedly
as few as 100 stragglers scattered impotently throughout Afghanistan. The military mission
should therefore have ended and combat forces redeployed.
Instead Bush, and later Obama, transitioned the military mission -- without consultation
from Congress -- into a nation-building effort that was doomed from the start. Candidate Donald
Trump spoke of a different approach to the Middle East and railed against nation-building
abroad. His instincts on Afghanistan have been consistent and correct from very early on. Had
it not been for the relentless pressure of several key officials, the war might already have
come to end.
After a December 2015 insider attack, Trump tweeted : "A suicide
bomber has just killed U.S. troops in Afghanistan. When will our leaders get tough and smart.
We are being led to slaughter!" According to Bob Woodward's book Fear , Trump brought
that same passion against the futility of the Afghan war into the White House.
Woodward
wrote that at an August 2017 meeting on Afghanistan, Trump told his generals that the
war had been "a disaster," and chided them for "wanting to add even more troops to something I
don't believe in."
Woodward claims that Trump then told the top brass, "I was against this from the beginning.
He folded his arms. 'I want to get out,' the president said. 'And you're telling me the answer
is to get deeper in.'" Under pressure -- from the likes of Secretary of Defense James Mattis
and Senator Lindsey Graham -- Trump eventually gave in.
Events have since proven that Trump would have done the country a favor by resisting that
pressure and sticking to his instincts to end the war. The violence
keeps up at a record pace, civilian casualties continue to set
all-time highs , and Afghan troops struggle
mightily with battle losses. The president was right in August 2017 and his instincts
remain solid today.
The longer Trump continues to defer to the establishment thinking that produced 17
consecutive years of military failure, the longer that failure will afflict us, the more
casualties we will suffer unnecessarily, and the more money we will pour down the drain.
It is time for Trump to remember that it is futile to try to win the unwinnable and finally
end America's longest war.
Daniel L. Davis is a senior fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lieutenant
Colonel in the U.S. Army who retired in 2015 after 21 years, including four combat deployments,
two of which were in Afghanistan.
Trump defers to the Pentagon because he doesn't really care. He says he wants to get out of
Afghanistan (and I support that) but getting out isn't going to make him any money, or get
him any votes. So why bother with it, especially when he can lie to his base and tell them we
are already out, and they'll believe him?
Trump is the kind of person who likes to "talk the talk" but when comes right down to it, he
going to sadly, "walk the walk" that the Washington establishment tells him to walk.
The treasonous MIC and those top generals do not care about the nation and ordinary
Americans. They care only about their profits, careers and their own egos.
There is no war they don't like – Middle East, checked, Ukraine, yes, South China
Sea, sure, Korea, definitely. It is so sad that Trump turns out to be such a weak and impotent president, contrary to
what the supporters claim.
I think a lot of us could have tolerated the asinine antics if he had stuck to his campaign
positions on this and other things .
God; what might have been .
SDS, you are correct. I've often thought that Trump could have forged a majority coalition by
doing things the People really wanted, or at least didn't hate: nominating another Gorsuch,
cutting the size of government, appointing competent people, getting out of the Middle East,
no tariffs, less racism, getting concession from businesses that benefited from the tax cut,
following emoluments rules, etc. etc.
"I think a lot of us could have tolerated the asinine antics if he had stuck to his
campaign positions on this and other things . God; what might have been ."
First, sorry you fell for The Con. I understand. Maybe. Second, the real question is, "What are you going to do about it?". Vote Republican Nov 6? Why would you do that? Hope against all hope? Dementia? Gluttony
for punishment? BTW. HRC is not on the ballot this time, and will never be again.
Unless we intend to invade en mass, and scour the country from one end to the other to defeat
any and all opponents, the mission in Afghanistan will remain what it is. "new wine (of
sorts) in old wineskins.
If we are going to remake a country -- we had better remake it. I am not sure i have ever
said this before but the entire affair
We hear Pakistan is now desperate for IMF aid. That the One belt One Road initiative there by
China has already put the country in the position of having to stand down its creditor,
China. Partly with the help of Japanese finance, Iran and India are out to squeeze Islamabad
out of world trade.
The Pakis are headed into a new dark age, so don't expect the Russians to bark wildly and
chase down this car. With any luck, they and China will revive the Northern Alliance, make a
garrison of Kabul, and eventually Xi and Vladi will have their own escalating civil war over
control over Central Asia.
I'd say January 2019 is a good time to begin a quick US withdrawal, just as long as we
pull out of the IMF and not give another red American cent to the region, save a green zone
around Kabul with economically productive areas.
I would argue that although this would seem like an American loss, it will put our
Progressive yappers to shame. What human values would they stand up and defend now, among the
IndoPak Caravan? Maybe then we'll really focus on our own border and wage the good fight
where it is needed -- the Culture War.
Obama had intended to leave. The military insisted on vict'ry and another Surge. He gave them
their Surge and their time to do it. They failed, made things worse and prevented Obama from
leaving. They're still playing. Trump's just the latest Oval Office 'sucker'.
"... Another reason to hate the Catholic Church: The Catholic Church= Mike Pompeo mentored by Papal Advisor Harvard Law Professor Mary Ann Glendon ..."
Another reason to hate the Catholic Church: The Catholic Church= Mike Pompeo mentored by Papal Advisor Harvard Law Professor Mary
Ann Glendon .
Pompeo the Cockroach .as it .(Mike Pompeo is an it, as is that other well known BLATARIA .Hillary Clinton) .is known to the
residents of Satan's filthy stinking reeking toilet bowl waaaaaaaaay down in putrid HELL!!!!!!!
Don't mind the split infinitive they are really quite alright .only a girly boy grammar NAZI!!! would shriek about it ..
John Bolton suffers a crippling shortage of olives.
Notable quotes:
"... "As far as I remember, the US coat of arms features a bald eagle that holds 13 arrows in one talon and an olive branch in another, which is a symbol of a peace-loving policy," ..."
"... "Looks like your eagle has already eaten all the olives; are the arrows all that is left?" ..."
Meeting with US national security adviser John Bolton in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir
Putin made a comment about Washington's hostility that went right over the hawkish diplomat's
head. "As far as I remember, the US coat of arms features a bald eagle that holds 13 arrows
in one talon and an olive branch in another, which is a symbol of a peace-loving policy,"
Putin said in a meeting with Bolton in Moscow on Tuesday.
"I have a question," the Russian president added. "Looks like your eagle has
already eaten all the olives; are the arrows all that is left?"
About 15-20 minutes to get through (the facilitator seems like a bit of a wet blanket), but
fascinating to read, if like me, most of what you hear about Putin has been filtered through
the MSM.
A couple of reflections:
Putin does detail. He is courteous and patient. He is highly pragmatic and appears to be
widely (and, for my money, effectively) briefed.
For those of us lucky enough to follow VVP in his native language – it is indeed a
delight. (And – mind you – it was only after I took the time to follow him in his
native language that I was able to appreciate this person and his leadership abilities. If one
follows him through NYT – no chance that would give one an accurate picture.) He is erudite, informed, and has a wicked sense of humour, as shown in this clip: https://www.rt.com/news/442068-putin-olives-eagle-bolton/
Despite the almost unprecedented divisive nature of Donald J. Trump's presidency, he is
chalking up some impressive foreign policy victories, including finally bringing Beijing to
task over its decades long unfair trade practices, stealing of intellectual property rights,
and rampant mercantilism that has given its state-run companies unfair trade advantages and as
a result seen Western funds transform China to an emerging world power alongside the U.S.
Now, it looks as if Trump's recent tirade against America's European allies over its
geopolitically troubling reliance on Russian gas supply may also be bearing fruit. On Tuesday,
The Wall Street Journal reported that earlier this month German Chancellor Angela Merkel
offered government support to efforts to open up Germany to U.S. gas, in what the report called
"a key concession to President Trump as he tries to loosen Russia's grip on Europe's largest
energy market."
German concession
Over breakfast earlier this month, Merkel told a small group of German lawmakers that the
government had made a decision to co-finance the construction of a $576 million liquefied
natural gas (LNG) terminal in northern Germany, people familiar with the development said.
The project had been postponed for at least a decade due to lack of government support,
according to reports, but is now being thrust to the center of European-U.S. geopolitics.
Though media outlets will mostly spin the development, this is nonetheless a geopolitical and
diplomatic win for Trump who lambasted Germany in June over its Nordstream 2 pipeline deal with
Russia.
In a televised meeting with reporters and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg before a
NATO summit in Brussels,
Trump said at the time it was "very inappropriate" that the U.S. was paying for European
defense against Russia while Germany, the biggest European economy, was supporting gas deals
with Moscow.
Both the tone and openness of Trumps' remarks brought scathing rebukes both at home and
among EU allies, including most media outlets. However, at the end of the day, it appears that
the president made a fair assessment of the situation. Russia, for its part, vehemently denies
any nefarious motives over its gas supply contacts with its European customers, though Moscow's
actions in the past dictate otherwise.
Moscow also claims that the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline is a purely commercial venture. The
$11 billion gas pipeline will stretch some 759 miles (1,222 km), running on the bed of the
Baltic Sea from Russian gas fields to Germany, bypassing existing land routes over Ukraine,
Poland and Belarus. It would double the existing Nord Stream pipeline's current annual capacity
of 55 bcm and is expected to become operational by the end of next year.
Russia, who stands the most to lose not only in terms of regional hegemony, but economically
as well, if Germany pushes through with plans to now build as many as three LNG terminals,
always points out that Russian pipeline gas is cheaper and will remain cheaper for decades
compared to U.S. LNG imports.
While that assessment is correct, what Moscow is missing, or at least not admitting, is a
necessary German acquiescence to Washington. Not only does the EU's largest economy need to
stay out of Trump's anti-trade cross hairs, it still needs American leadership in both NATO and
in Europe as well.
Russian advantages
Without U.S. leadership in Europe, a vacuum would open that Moscow would try to fill, most
likely by more gas supply agreements. However, Russia's gas monopoly in both Germany and in
Europe will largely remain intact for several reasons.
First, Russian energy giant Gazprom, which has control over Russia's network of pipelines to
Europe, supplies close to 40 percent of Europe's gas needs.
Second, Russia's gas exports to Europe rose 8.1 percent last year to a record level of 193.9
bcm, even amid concerns over Russia's cyber espionage allegations, and its activities in Syria,
the Ukraine and other places.
Moreover, Russian gas is indeed as cheap as the country claims and will remain that way for
decades. Using a Henry Hub gas price of $2.85/MMBtu as a base, Gazprom
recently estimated that adding processing and transportation costs, the price of
U.S.-sourced LNG in Europe would reach $6/MMBtu or higher – a steep markup.
Henry Hub gas prices are currently trading at $3.151/MMBtu. Over the last 52-week period
U.S. gas has traded between $2.64/MMBtu and $3.82/MMBtu. Russian gas sells for around $5/MMBtu
in European markets and could even trade at lower prices in the future as Gazprom removes the
commodity's oil price indexation.
While soon-to-be
ex-UN ambassador Nikki Haley might be the talk of the town at the moment -- from chatter she
should run
in 2020 against Donald Trump to replacing Mike
Pence on the GOP ticket all the way to
running against Pence in 2024 -- her many
faults are being glossed over. That's a big problem for someone being floated as the next
leader of the free world -- as recent history has
taught us all too tragically.
Thankfully, reality always has a way of casting doubt on such picture-perfect narratives
before they are ever fully formed. Case in point, buried in a recent
article from Harper's Magazine was the fact that Haley tried out her own amateur
hour version of what can only be described as nuclear poker: telling China's ambassador to the
UN that Trump might invade North Korea.
I had to read the article over and over to make sure I didn't miss something. But alas it
was real -- and terrifying. Such a threat, if relayed to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un,
combined with several other U.S. actions at the time -- and one that almost occurred that we
know of thanks to Bob Woodward's recent book -- could have set in motion a preemptive strike by
Pyongyang that almost certainly would have involved the use of nuclear weapons. And that means
millions of people would have died.
Now ask yourself: is this person really ready to be president? Is this what passes as the
stuff of presidential timber?
Here are the details. Journalist Max Blumenthal recorded Haley's remarks -- her last major
address before she handed in her resignation -- as the only journalist present at a late
September event at the Council for National Policy. In a Q&A session that Blumenthal
described as "an extended series of candid, and at times disturbing, recollections of Trump's
campaign of maximum pressure against North Korea," Haley broke down her opposition to the
president's tough talk at the UN. But the real money shot from Blumenthal's
piece is here:
It was September 2, 2017, and North Korea had just embarked on its sixth nuclear test
launch. Haley's mission was to ram a resolution through the UN Security Council to sanction
the isolated state. This meant that she had to secure abstentions from Russia and China, the
two permanent members that maintained relations with Pyongyang. It was a tall task, but as
she boasted to the rapt audience at the CNP, she had a few tricks up her sleeve.
"I said to the Russians, 'Either you're with North Korea, or you're with the United States
of America,'" Haley recalled. She said she went to the Chinese ambassador and raised the
prospect of an American military invasion of North Korea. "My boss is kind of unpredictable,
and I don't know what he'll do," she said she warned her Chinese counterpart.
Sadly, besides some mentions on social media and a
fewarticles
, her threat received very little mainstream media coverage. Maybe that's a blessing in
disguise. But one can easily construct a scenario where Haley's comment sets off a chain of
events that starts a Second Korean War. For example, we don't know what the Chinese ambassador
did after Haley made the threat, but most likely he promptly reported it back to Beijing. What
the Chinese government did with that information is vital. Did they warn the North Koreans? Did
they react in some other way?
We will never really know. However, if Pyongyang was tipped off by Beijing, seeing three
U.S. Navy aircraft carriers
drilling with South Korean and Japanese warships in November of last year surely must have
terrified them. Such a concentration of firepower would have been a prerequisite for any type
of invasion or attack. In fact, could these have been the reasons the north decided to test
another ICBM in November?
Again, we will never know. However, Trump's very real proposal, as reported in Bob
Woodward's book Fear , of "sending a tweet declaring that he was ordering all U.S.
military dependents -- thousands of the family members of 28,500 troops -- out of South Korea"
definitely would have provoked a response from the Kim regime.
While Woodward does not give specific dates as to when this nearly occurred -- the full text
before this section suggests an early 2018 timeframe -- he still reveals that we did dodge a
potential war. Just two paragraphs down, Woodward notes that on December 4, 2018, "[M]cMaster
had received a warning at the White House. Ri Su-yong, the vice chairman of the [North Korean]
Politburo, had told intermediaries 'that the North would take the evacuation of U.S. civilians
as a sign of imminent attack.'"
If you put it all together -- not to mention the now famous call to give Kim a "
bloody nose " in early January 2018 -- it is easy to see how close to war we came from
roughly September 2017 to early January of this year. If events had occurred just a little
differently -- if North Korea had perceived things in a direr way thanks to a Chinese warning
of a possible invasion, if Trump had acted on his impulses a little further -- our world would
be a very different place. Pyongyang, thinking an invasion was coming, might have decided that
its only chance to survive was to use its vast arsenal of weapons of mass destruction before
they were destroyed. That would have meant launching atomic weapons at military bases and
potential ports of entry for U.S. forces in South Korea, Japan, Guam, Hawaii -- or even
attacking the American homeland itself with nuclear weapons. From simulations I have run over
the years, I can tell you that millions of people
would have died in such an event.
Thankfully, history broke a little different and it never happened -- and thank God for
that. But let's not heap praise on public figures who think they can bluff their way through
the great game of global politics. That's not what great presidents are made of.
Harry J. Kazianis(@Grecianformula) serves as director of
Defense Studies at the Center for the National Interest, founded by President Richard Nixon.
The views expressed in this piece are his own.
"... By taking a similarly pragmatic look at the activities of Ukrainian far right, I claim that they should be viewed as political entrepreneurs who are trying to capitalise on their expertise in violence. ..."
"... Azov's network amounts to a far-right "state within a state" – a universe that aims to monopolise the nationalist sector of Ukraine's political field ..."
"... On the national level, this makes Azov's political patron, Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, the second most powerful person in the country, effectively possessing a private army which once in a while makes ambiguous comments about the possibility of a coup . However, the patronage networks and conflicts go much deeper on the local level. Some of them can be uncovered by analysing the events mentioned above. ..."
"... Many of Azov's public gestures, including incidents involving violence, are aimed at reinforcing the image of an independent movement, opposed to both Ukraine's police leadership and corrupt elites ..."
"... November 2016: Autonomous Resistance's social centre in Lviv is attacked by far-right. Source: YouTube / Kateryna Benjuk. ..."
"... In Kyiv, open struggle against the (weaker) leftists and liberals is the preferred activity of C14 – an organisation headed by Yevgen Karas, a former Svoboda activist who split from the party to become an independent entrepreneur of political violence. ..."
"... Aiming for Ukraine's mainstream patriotic public, C14 positions itself as a group of young and resolute men ready to employ violence for the sake of (national) justice. Their enemies are usually represented as (latent) supporters of pro-Russian separatists, which automatically diminishes their worth in the eyes of the public and amplifies the attackers' heroism. In effect, C14 is trying to take the niche that was occupied by Svoboda before Maidan: relatable and well-meaning troublemakers prepared to break the law for the greater good (by comparison, the agenda of National Corps stresses the values of order). ..."
"... Karas freely admitted to a sympathetic journalist that he cooperates with Ukraine's security services. Among Ukrainian far-right organisations, the activities of C14 are closest to those of Russian online vigilante movements such as "Occupy Pedophily" or "Lev Protiv"; their YouTube channel is consciously crafted to attract audiences (thus literally monetising their violence), and the most popular videos have between 50,000 and 300,000 views. ..."
"... Having created a "municipal guard" officially financed by Kyiv's city council, C14 works towards realising both aims: it gives them a pretext to patrol streets and maximise the probability of violent encounters (which can be publicised), and at the same time provides a "second-best" opportunity to those who could or would not join the structures of Azov. ..."
"... Its advertised readiness to resort to violence was the key to Svoboda's electoral success before Maidan, but this was overshadowed by the efforts of the competing entrepreneurs of political violence in the post-Maidan conjuncture, in which the level of and tolerance to violence has escalated. On the other hand, Svoboda keeps holding on to its hegemony in regional power settings in western Ukraine, even though its relations to nation-wide patronage networks is unclear. All in all, Azov/National Corps seems to be clearly the most successful partner in the big nationalist threesome, receiving the most from this alliance. ..."
"... As I have argued above, Ukraine's far right are taking the logic of "violent entrepreneurship" outside the purely commercial and apolitical realm – and employing it in the domain of political contestation, where illicit violence is a precious resource that can be bought and rented. ..."
The recent wave of anti-Roma pogroms in Ukraine has spawned
a new series of texts on right-wing violence. However, a significant part of this literature
still
mostly relies on discourse analysis , which cannot fully explain the actions of far right
organisations on the ground. Analysing far-right movements' programmes and ideological
statements can be useful when combined with a closer look at the actual activities of the
movements in question, the way they interact among themselves and the wider social and
political context. But judging a group primarily by how it presents itself to the world is
misleading.
The lack of primary sources from Ukraine's far-right milieu, as well as the general scarcity
of research on non-EU (and non-Russian) eastern Europe, has led to an exoticised perception of
central and eastern Europe as whole – and one that is open to politicisation by both
liberals and leftists. Public discussion thus tends to degenerate into either liberal denial of
the very existence of the far-right problem in Ukraine or sensationalist and exaggerated
"anti-imperialist" accounts of the "fascist junta" ruling the country.
To avoid oversimplification, I focus on the grounded context rather than ideologies and
programmes of far-right groups. Here, I will try to contribute to a better understanding of the
far right in Ukraine by conceptualising them as "entrepreneurs of political violence" – a
portmanteau of two established terms from different fields. A "political entrepreneur" is a
political actor who pursues opportunistic strategies aimed at gaining popularity and influence,
rather than following a specific ideological agenda. Likewise, "Violent
entrepreneurs" is the title of an influential study of Russian organised crime by
sociologist Vadim Volkov, who analysed post-Soviet mafia as a particular kind of
entrepreneurship where violence resources become a crucially important capital asset.
By taking a similarly pragmatic look at the activities of Ukrainian far right, I claim
that they should be viewed as political entrepreneurs who are trying to capitalise on their
expertise in violence. This can be a more productive lens than engaged approaches which
"take a stance" on the far right – approaches that simply acknowledge the gravity of the
situation or belittle it. These tend to be accompanied by wider political conclusions, and do
not seek to understand the issue at hand.
I give a concise chronology of the incidents of right-wing violence between January and
April 2018 (i.e. before the more recent string of Roma pogroms). I will look only at episodes
reported in the media, involving violence or a realistic threat of violence by members of
various organised far-right groups, directed outside the far right subculture, in peaceful
areas of Ukraine. I will then regroup these episodes, interpreting them as several processes
that have their own inner logic, but which intersect in time and space.
Chronology of
events
The 2018 season of political violence opened in Kyiv on 19 January, when nationalist
organisation C14
attacked a demonstration commemorating Russian antifascists Stanislav Markelov and
Anastasia Baburova.
This annual event is a traditional
target for the far right , although previous attacks had been led by different forces. C14
activists blocked the demonstration organised by liberal and leftist activists in central Kyiv,
shouting down the speakers and attacking them with snowballs and eggs. The Kyiv police failed
to create a barrier separating the two demonstrations, advising the antifascists simply "not to
provoke" their opponents. Later, the police detained eight anarchists; the arrest was met with
cheers from the nationalists, who were free to keep assaulting the demonstrators physically and
verbally. After the end of the demonstration, the far right attacked a random passerby whom
they mistook for an antifascist – he
happened to be a British tourist .
19 January 2018: attack on anti-fascist march, Kyiv. Source: Youtube. Ten days later, an
important incident
took place in Lviv . On 28 January, a large group of far-right activists, mostly members of
the Azov National Corps and its allied group Misanthropic Division, violently attacked a
demonstration (organised by the local leftist scene) against the use of animals in circuses.
The attackers threw smoke grenades into the crowd and shook hands with police officers,
exchanging the motto "White Pride". The police soon intervened by detaining leftist
demonstrators in a brutal manner; they were all taken to a police station, where they spent
several hours.
On the next day, 29 January, Azov's vigilante organisation National Militia blocked
Cherkasy city hall in central Ukraine. Here, they forced city deputies to vote for the
self-dissolution of the city council after they refused to approve new members of the executive
committee proposed by the mayor. The police did not intervene.
These January events set the trends for the period that followed. On 11 February, Azov
fighters violently
intervened and stopped a lecture about discrimination in the film industry, held at a
cultural centre in Mariupol. On 13 February, a group called Freikorps, which is believed to be
close to the Azov/National Corps movement, attacked a
lecture on the LGBT movement in Kharkiv in a similar manner. Two days later, C14 and Azov's
National Militia clashed
with police forces in Kyiv during a bail court hearing concerning Odessa city mayor Gennady
Trukhanov, who is facing theft charges.
International Women's Day, 8 March, saw many public events and almost as many attacks by far
right groups. Azov assaulted feminists and liberals marching in Mariupol. In Kyiv, attackers
from several organisations made use of the benevolent passivity of the police,
who were reluctant to protect the marchers . A plainclothes police officer actually helped
them steal a feminist banner.
The Kyiv police ignored statements by victims of violence. Instead, they opened criminal
proceedings against Olena Shevchenko, the organiser of the Women's March, after nationalists
claimed that the contents of the banner were tantamount to desecration of national symbols. The
first court hearing was held in the presence of a large nationalist audience, mobilised by C14,
Katekhon (a conservative circle tied to Ukrainian far-right political party Svoboda) and
Tradition and Order (TiP), a conservative nationalist group. At the second hearing, the defence
mobilised their own support, including some diplomats and liberal politicians. With the
dignitaries present in the court hall, and with far right waiting outside, the court acquitted
Shevchenko. She had to leave by taking a taxi from the court's backdoor.
On the same day in Lviv, members of National Corps physically assaulted
visitors at a feminist exhibition and participants of a "Sisterhood, Support, Solidarity"
march. When the marchers retreated into a tram, the attackers started throwing cobblestones at
it and later burnt one of their banners saying "No means no". The city police, meanwhile, stood
by, ready to intervene the moment the leftists would try to fight back. Some of the police
exchanged friendly greetings with the far right.
Meanwhile, in Uzhgorod, events took a slightly different turn. Activists of the local
organisation Karpatska Sich (KS)
poured red paint over a speaker at a local feminist demonstration, which led to a chemical
eye burn. Here, the police promptly detained the attackers – though they were released
later that day. In the week that followed, Karpatska Sich organised a string of attacks against
local leftist and liberal activists. Coincidentally, that week also hosted a wave of anonymous
property destruction against cars with Hungarian or other EU number plates. Once again, local
police reacted very reluctantly. According to activists, these were preparations for a large
demonstration that Karpatska Sich staged on 17 March. In Uzhgorod as well as in Lviv, local
police, realising their own inability to control the streets during such big events, simply
gave carte blanche to the far right.
A 17 March event in Uzhgorod to honour wartime nationalist anti-Hungarian fighters
(Karpatska Sich's namesake) became an event of
nationwide importance , gathering a wide spectrum of Ukraine's extreme right, from Right
Sector and Tryzub to C14 and Freikorps. Karpatska Sich, the hosting organisation, accounted for
a few dozen of the 250 participants. Contrary to the customary repertoire, the marchers readily
demonstrated "controversial" symbols like the "Celtic cross" and gestures like the "Roman
salute". Normally these are avoided at public events as too "provocative".
17 March: Karpatska Sich hosts a march in honour of wartime anti-Hungarian fighters,
Uzhgorod. Source: Karpatska Sich. On the eve of this gathering, the regional police chief
refused to take measures to protect a roundtable on discrimination and hate crimes organised by
an LGBT organisation, and strongly advised them to cancel it. Upon receiving this information,
the hotel that was to host the event revoked its agreement. Rank-and-file police officers were
better disposed to the organisers and helped them leave the town safely.
The town's leftist/liberal milieu reacted to these events by
organising a demonstration "For a European Uzhgorod" on 31 March. Their opponents occupied
the same square with their own demonstration,"For traditional family values". The city council
tried to forbid all demonstrations on that day, citing public safety considerations. However, a
local court did not prohibit the gatherings. Notably, Karpatska Sich was not officially present
at the counter-demonstration: it was formally organised by a KS-allied group "Black Sun",
Social-Nationalist Assembly (SNA) and a few less significant organisations. Karpatska Sich
militant activists were present next to the square, but there was no violence on that day. The
police did their job, efficiently separating the two demonstrations.
On 19 March, the far right blocked two events organised by liberal NGOs: a roundtable on
countering discrimination and hate crimes in
Vinnytsia and a lecture on gender-sensitive words in
Ivano-Frankivsk . In Vinnytsia, around 40 far right introduced themselves as ordinary
citizens, blocking the entrance and demanding to be let inside. The police created a corridor
to evacuate the participants of the roundtable. In Ivano-Frankivsk, the lecture was sabotaged
by Karpatska Sich and their partner organisation, Sokil. KS promised to repeat such
interventions in the future.
Unlike Right Sector, which tried and failed a strategy of violent confrontation with the
post-Maidan government, Azov's leadership has opted for a "long march through the
institutions"
On 23 March, a special police squad conducted searches at Kyiv's ATEK factory, which is used
by Azov as its headquarters and training grounds. Police chiefs explained that the intervention
had nothing to do with Azov, but the latter nevertheless quickly mobilised around 1,000
supporters, including members of parliament from Svoboda, to block the work of the police and
expel them. On that day, Azov leader Andriy Biletsky mentioned that "a considerable part of the
military will support in their hearts" a hypothetical coup d'état.
Three days later, 26 March was marked by
far-right violence against a lecture about the dangers of the far-right violence in Kyiv:
Right Sector, Svoboda and Tradition and Order, altogether around 40 people, invaded a cultural
centre and tore down posters bearing the slogan "Respect diversity". The police pushed them
outside, where they verbally attacked people coming in. Two hours later, the police evacuated
the building due to an anonymous report of a bomb threat.
On 29 March, several dozen National Militia members
broke into the Mykolayiv regional council and demanded that the deputies impeach the
regional governor. The deputies did not comply with this request, but the next day the governor
himself asked the president Poroshenko for temporary suspension.
On 16 April, an art exhibition dedicated to the far-right violence, which was opened at the
premises of a university in Kyiv under heavy police protection, had to close down . The exhibition's curator
insisted on shutting it down, citing the risk of aggression from far-right groups; the
administration of the university put additional pressure, accusing the artists of a
provocation.
On 18 April, C14 organised an anti-Roma raid at Kyiv railway station. The Roma, who had been
staying at the station for a few days, had become the subject of a moral panic in the
mainstream Ukrainian media a few days before. On 20 April, Hitler's birthday, a voluntary
"municipal guard" consisting of C14 activists violently expelled a Roma camp from a Kyiv
park, burning their possessions in the process. Their report, illustrated with picturesque
photos, received a very enthusiastic feedback from the wider public on social media. The city
police chief said they had not received any official violence complaints, and that the
municipal guard had simply burnt some garbage left by the Roma.
A few days later, when a news website published a video of men chasing Roma
families and attacking them with pepper spray and stones, the police said they had opened two
criminal proceedings into hate crime and hooliganism.
Connecting the dots
Can this intimidating but chaotic sequence of events be disentangled and regrouped into
several distinct plots, each having its own main characters and dynamics even while
intersecting with others? I will try to do so below.
The main character of the first thread to be found here, and indeed of the far-right
political scene in Ukraine as a whole, is the extended network of various structures known under the
general Azov movement brand . Unlike Right Sector, which tried and failed a strategy of
violent confrontation with the post-Maidan government, Azov's leadership has opted for a "long
march through the institutions", extending local patronage networks with criminals and
politicians and building a wide network of organisations and side projects.
Azov's network amounts to a far-right "state within a state" – a universe that
aims to monopolise the nationalist sector of Ukraine's political field
The creation of the Azov Civil Corps was the first step in this direction. This structure,
formally divorced from the Azov National Guard regiment, decided on a more pronounced public
political face. The Civil Corps served the double purpose of keeping Azov military regiment
veterans busy while also spreading Azov's hegemony among the far-right audience. This was
followed by creating the National Corps political party, the network of Azovets children's
summer camps, the Sports Corps, the veterans organisation Zirka, the nation-wide vigilante
network of National
Militias and other outlets. Azov's network thus amounts to a far-right "state within a
state" – a universe that aims to monopolise the nationalist sector of Ukraine's political
field.
Azov has become an important umbrella brand for Ukrainian far right organisations. On
the national level, this makes Azov's political patron, Ukraine's Interior Minister Arsen
Avakov, the second most powerful person in the country, effectively possessing a private army
which once in a while makes ambiguous comments about the possibility of a
coup . However, the patronage networks and conflicts go much deeper on the local level.
Some of them can be uncovered by analysing the events mentioned above.
For instance, the March 2018 incident at the ATEK factory in Kyiv. Here what's at stake is
the struggle for ownership rights to this factory, which currently hosts Azov's headquarters.
The factory previously belonged to Oleksandr Tretiakov, a politician and owner of a Ukrainian
lottery operator which allegedly
benefits from the National Corps' violent raids directed against competing lottery outlets
under the pretext of a campaign against illegal gambling. Tretiakov's old political partner,
Ukraine's former justice minister Roman Zvarych, helped Azov establish itself at the factory's
premises in November 2014.
At the time, the factory was at the centre of a corporate conflict. As reported by Hromadske , a
former lawyer for one of the parties to the factory dispute, KVV Group, claimed he paid
$195,000 to Sergey Korotkikh, Azov's head of intelligence, to occupy the factory on KVV's
behalf. However, after Azov did this, they refused to permit KVV to enter. Instead, according
to KVV's former lawyer, Azov advised KVV to discuss financial matters with Svitlana Zvarych,
whose charity foundation demanded 45.5m UAH ($3m) in order for Azov to leave the premises.
Svitlana Zvarych refutes this claim. Meanwhile, Azov started converting the factory to produce
military equipment with an eye on attracting government orders, while Azov Civil Corps, headed
at that time by Roman Zvarych, politicised the conflict by staging street protests "in defense of the
factory" .
Many of Azov's public gestures, including incidents involving violence, are aimed at
reinforcing the image of an independent movement, opposed to both Ukraine's police leadership
and corrupt elites
In October 2016, the co-owner of KVV Group, having spent two months in prison on charges of
financing separatism, surrendered his ownership rights to Zvarych's charitable foundation.
However, in the same month, according to Svitlana Zvarych, she was kicked out of the factory by
Azov's forces after refusing to give a share in the company's capital to Sergey Korotkikh and
Vadym Troyan, Kyiv regional police chief and former Azov battalion commander.
This context allows us to better understand Azov's apparent overreaction to the police visit
in March 2018 in contrast to their official explanation, which stated that the ""unreformed"
police wanted to plant weapons at Azov's base and then disband them. Indeed, Azov's official
version helps them mute their ties with Avakov, posing for the nationalist audience as victims
of the regime.
Many of Azov's public gestures, including incidents involving violence, are aimed at
reinforcing the image of an independent movement, opposed to both Ukraine's police leadership
and corrupt elites. Azov's clash with Odessa mayor Gennady Trukhanov's hired thugs and, more
importantly, with the police, is one such publicity stunt which "cleanses" the image of
National Squads from allegations of Avakov's patronage.
Azov's involvement in the incidents in Cherkasy and Mykolayiv, on the other hand, seems to
be connected with its involvement in patronage networks. Cherkasy city council was
torn by a conflict between city mayor Anatoliy Bondarenko and city council secretary
Oleksandr Radytsky. The latter, supported by the president's Petro Poroshenko Bloc and the
nationalist Svoboda party, commanded the majority of votes in the assembly and paralysed the
budget confirmation process. The mayor asked the parliament to dissolve the city council and
call a new election.
Here, the sudden intervention of Azov's National Militia, sporting balaclavas and firearms
cases, turned the tide in the mayor's favour. The city council passed the budget and then voted
for its own dissolution. Whether or not the claims about Avakov's political interests in
Cherkasy are true, this episode shows that the local configuration of power is often more
important than broad political agreements on the national level. Azov played into the hands of
the forces belonging to a different camp on the national scale, against fellow nationalists and
formal partners from Svoboda.
In Mykolayiv, the official reason for the intervention of Azov's National Militia were
accusations against regional governor Oleksiy Savchenko, whose corrupt ways allegedly motivated
the suicide of the local airport director, a war veteran. However,
according to another interpretation , this is an episode of a wider conflict between Azov's
patron Arsen Avakov and Ukraine's former general attorney, police general Vitaliy Yarema. The
latter is gaining influence on president Poroshenko, putting his trusted men, former policemen,
to important positions in the regions – and Oleksiy Savchenko is one of Yarema's
protégés. For Avakov, who wants to monopolise influence on the Ukrainian police
force, this situation is perceived as a threat.
Finally, the Mariupol episodes demonstrate the behaviour of Azov in their "base" city close
to the front line. As any large industrial city,
Mariupol has a lot of powerful local and regional interests , such as the important
metallurgical assets belonging to the country's richest man, Rinat Akhmetov -- these would
normally dwarf the influence of the likes of Azov. But the war, given the city's strategic
importance and reasonable doubts about the political loyalty of its population, has made Azov a
more influential player.
Mariupol's Azov movement feel enough at home to have installed a statue of medieval prince
Sviatoslav (a central figure in post-Soviet anti-Semitic mythology) in the city centre, despite
the lack of official permission from the city council, and to organise regular torchlight
marches there. A soldier from Azov, who killed a man in the street after a political argument
earlier this year,
was released by the local court , which sentenced him to a fine. Even if they do not
possess a complete monopoly on violence, Azov has certainly established political control of
the streets in Mariupol. To maintain this control, they have to react violently, even if not
officially, to any public event which diverges sufficiently from their political agenda.
The struggle for hegemony in Lviv
The contested hegemony over street-level political activism is the common rationale behind
the acts of far-right political violence in Lviv. This western city, Ukraine's "national
Piedmont", has always been considered the heartland of Ukrainian nationalism.
As early as 2010, Svoboda gained an absolute majority in the city council and relative
majority in the regional council. At that point, the party was in the control of an energetic
militant movement, Autonomous Resistance (AO). Founded by the former Hitlerist leadership of
the now defunct Ukrainian National Labour Party, it was headed by Svoboda deputy Yuriy Mykhalchyshyn,
whose PhD thesis dealt with the history of NSDAP and Mussolini's PNF. The militant movement,
which followed Strasserism , borrowed its political style from
the German autonomists. After a bitter conflict with Mykhalchyshyn in 2013, Autonomous
Resistance cut ties with Svoboda and gradually slided leftward politically. It played a
prominent role during Maidan in Lviv, occupying the regional council and fighting Svoboda
deputies. Coming from a right-wing background, AO paid attention to the development of combat
skills of its membership. It created its own MMA training facility, which is the core of a
social centre that hosts lectures and presentations. An online shop selling imported athletic
clothing previously provided the organisation with an independent source of income.
The peculiar political face of AO – their eclectic left nationalist ideology,
commitment to key nationalist symbols and figures, and active participation in the military
conflict in the east – has allowed them to survive politically, unlike most other leftist
organisations which have failed to find a winning strategy in the post-Maidan environment. A
number of splits gave birth to several other organisations, less nationalist but very active,
possessing street violence skills and maintaining partnerships with AO. This meant that the
street politics of the most important city in western Ukraine was dominated by a leftist
milieu.
The first far-right organisation that attempted to contest this situation was Right Sector.
In 2015, its local cell
forcibly blocked the 1 May "Social march" organised by AO, in order to "prevent a
neo-Bolshevik revanche". However, after a series of splits, Right Sector lost its mobilising
potential, as did Svoboda. Over 2016-2017, Lviv has seen a string of dramatic incidents of
right-wing violence: a
mobilisation against a Festival of Equality which intended to tackle LGBT rights issues; a
brutal attack on an AO march by several hundred Nazis;
attacks at a Publishers Forum because of two books allegedly promoting LGBT and leftist
politics. However, Right Sector did not figure prominently in these incidents. Most of these
far-right mobilisations were to a large extent anonymous, featuring "patriotic youth" instead
of specific political brands.
November 2016: Autonomous Resistance's social centre in Lviv is attacked by far-right.
Source: YouTube / Kateryna Benjuk.
The same lack of clear authorship is also true of violent incidents in 2018. However, in
personal communication to me, activists who were present on the ground clearly indicate the
leading role of Azov's National Corps in these attacks. According to them, Right Sector today
constitutes an alternative to Azov only as a military unit in eastern Ukraine, but politically
the latter "has swallowed up both Right Sector and Svoboda". Most participants of the 2015
blockade have since then either joined National Corps, or military battalions allied to Right
Sector or the police force. Having consolidated the local far-right scene, Azov is trying to
clean the political field of its leftist competitors. The Lviv police rank-and-file, which is
infiltrated by the far right according to local activists, do not prevent, or even choose to
help them to achieve this aim.
Why then is the National Corps reluctant to lead the struggle in Lviv as openly as it does
elsewhere? Several hypotheses can help answer this question. First, it cannot afford to lose
publicly. In November 2016, a potent coalition of several hundred Nazis joined forces to
physically destroy the organised left in Lviv – activists arrived from different regions,
representing Azov's Civic Corps, Right Sector and Karpatska Sich. Amazingly, they lost: failing
to penetrate the gates of the office under attack, eventually they had to retreat. For
political reasons, this kind of loss is unacceptable for an ambitious movement like Azov.
Therefore, they will not lead the fight officially unless they are guaranteed to win.
The second hypothesis concerns competition between the agencies of state violence. Both 2016
and 2017 have seen attacks on the Lviv left scene organised by the
Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). According to persons involved, these investigations seem
to have been partially motivated by SBU's own strategic aims, partially by the request of a
local developer, and partially by the personal revenge of Yuri Mykhalchyshyn (who now works for
the SBU as a consultant). Whatever the exact reasons in each specific case, Azov's National
Corps would hardly consider it expedient to be seen voluntarily helping the state institution
which is traditionally hostile to their political patron Arsen Avakov – and to give other
far right groups even more grounds to talk about their subservience to "the regime".
Finally, Azov's hegemony over the local extreme right may still not be quite consolidated
yet. Their relations with Svoboda may be too complicated for open involvement in Lviv at a
scale similar to other cities which have less competitive far-right scenes.
Challengers in Kyiv
In Kyiv, open struggle against the (weaker) leftists and liberals is the preferred
activity of C14 – an organisation headed by Yevgen Karas, a former Svoboda activist who
split from the party to become an independent entrepreneur of political violence. Compared
to the other far right organisations mentioned above, C14's profile has less to do with quietly
establishing informal domination and engaging in illicit activities for material gain, and more
with mediatised activities oriented at a wider audience.
Aiming for Ukraine's mainstream patriotic public, C14 positions itself as a group of
young and resolute men ready to employ violence for the sake of (national) justice. Their
enemies are usually represented as (latent) supporters of pro-Russian separatists, which
automatically diminishes their worth in the eyes of the public and amplifies the attackers'
heroism. In effect, C14 is trying to take the niche that was occupied by Svoboda before Maidan:
relatable and well-meaning troublemakers prepared to break the law for the greater good (by
comparison, the agenda of National Corps stresses the values of order).
C14's profile has less to do with quietly establishing informal domination and engaging in
illicit activities for material gain, and more with mediatised activities oriented at a wider
audience
This orientation is obvious from a Facebook poll in which C14 asked their audience which
politician associated with the old regime they would like the group to beat up (so far they did
not manage to target any of the persons mentioned in the poll). In line with this strategy,
Karas
freely admitted to a sympathetic journalist that he cooperates with Ukraine's security
services. Among Ukrainian far-right organisations, the activities of C14 are closest to those
of Russian online vigilante movements such as "Occupy Pedophily" or "Lev Protiv"; their YouTube
channel is consciously crafted to attract audiences (thus literally monetising their violence),
and the most popular videos have between 50,000 and 300,000 views.
The recent wave of anti-Roma pogroms fits this strategy very well: it has produced immense
positive feedback in the form of online comments from non-politicised "regular citizens",
enhancing brand recognition for C14. Roma can hardly pass as "separatists", but their
marginalised status makes them a perfect aim for this kind of strategically calculated
violence. Notably, the first anti-Roma raid at Kyiv railway station was a reaction to swelling
public demand (heated up by a moral panic in the media), rather than C14's own ideologically
dictated initiative. Meanwhile, the attack on the Kyiv antifascist rally in January 2018 is the
continuation of C14's more traditional political style – attacking easy targets that can
be represented as the "fifth column".
The 2018 feminist march in Kyiv also proves the selective approach of C14: it did not figure
prominently among the counter-protesters on 8 March, but afterwards it seized the opportunity
to inflate the hysteria around the feminist banner, claiming that the symbol of Azov's National
Militia on it looked too much like Ukraine's national symbol, and was located too close to the
woman's anus. Characteristically, the National Militia ignored the story, but C14 did its best
to mobilise its activists to attend the court hearings.
Here, though, there is a deeper calculation: consolidating Kyiv's far-right scene behind
C14. Just like Azov, C14 combine generic "healthy patriotic" message with subtler hints which
can be easily deciphered by members of the subculture (such as the symbolic date of the Roma
pogrom on Hitler's birthday or indeed the very name of the organisation). Similarly, people
belonging to politicised subcultures understand very well that the antifascists who were
attacked in January 2018 were not Kremlin agents, but old political enemies who cannot be
allowed to grow stronger. Having created a "municipal guard"
officially financed by Kyiv's city council, C14 works towards realising both aims: it gives
them a pretext to patrol streets and maximise the probability of violent encounters (which can
be publicised), and at the same time provides a "second-best" opportunity to those who could or
would not join the structures of Azov.
The desire to dominate the local far-right milieu is also apparent behind another series of
violent acts by C14, not mentioned above because they were directed against the participants of
the far-right scene. Dmitry Riznichenko, a prominent veteran of Ukraine's far right scene and
former member of C14, left the organisation after Maidan. After serving in the Donbas volunteer
battalion, Riznichenko created his own organisation, more socially liberal than is custom among
today's far right. (Some have gone as far as declaring him a leftist.) Whatever Riznichenko's
actual political views, the important thing is that he, along with another "erring rightist"
organisation ChorKom (Black Committee), maintains openly friendly relations with Lviv's AO and
openly challenges the hierarchy within the scene. Struggling to defend its authority, C14
launched an intensive
campaign of brutal physical attacks against Riznichenko.
"Anti-gender" ideology as a universal mobiliser
Even though neither Azov nor C14 explicitly mobilised for International Women's Day on 8
March, the demonstration did encounter violent far-right counter-protesters, aided and abetted
by some rank-and-file policemen belonging to the same political milieu.
The most prominent violent proponent of the "anti-gender" agenda in the post-Maidan years
has been Right Sector. Its ideological face was always more "fascist" or "Francoist" than the
white supremacist/Hitlerist Azov or LePen-like Svoboda. Inside the movement, Right Sector was
the main engine behind violent mobilisations against LGBT events such as the Equality March in
Kyiv. On the wider scale, it contributed to popularising and reinforcing the dichotomy between
pro-EU, pro-Poroshenko liberals and revolutionary conservative nationalists.
Today, this dichotomy is a common-sense understanding. The "anti-gender" ideology has turned
from an exclusive feature of Right Sector into a generic far-right set of ideas, which can be
used by anyone. This is one reason behind the anonymity of some attacks and blockages: their
authorship is known inside the relevant milieu, serving as one of the criteria for building
subculture hierarchies.
It is also noticeable that Azov has never officially participated in any "gendered" violent
actions. Even in their "home" town of Mariupol, attacks are not formally done on behalf of the
movement. Partially, this can be explained by their special relationship with the state
leadership, which was dying to hide all visible manifestations of xenophobia, homophobia and
other signs of lack of social progress from the eyes of the EU, which could have reacted by
backtracking on the visa-free regime, politically important for Ukrainian government.
However, this type of violence also generally does not fit Azov's strategy of publicity.
They like repeating that they fight "real and strong" enemies – Russians and separatists,
but also corrupt officials and other powerful figures within the society, almost ignoring some
classic rightist scapegoats.
Instead, the "anti-gender" violence scene has recently seen the rise of two new aspiring
actors, which stand behind all recent "gendered" episodes in Kyiv. One of them, Katekhon, is a
conservative Orthodox group, somewhat resembling the Russian
Union of Orthodox Banner-Bearers with their aggressive fundamentalist style. This group is
headed by Yuriy Noyevyi, a politician from Svoboda. Not long ago, in 2012-2014, Noyevyi and his
comrades were active in a different niche: their organisation Ukrainian Student attempted to
become a far-right student union, competing for the influence with the anarcho-syndicalist
union Priama Diya (Direct Action). When the latter ceased to be an important political
contender, Noyevyi's interests shifted from university syndicalism to religious fundamentalism.
Effectively, Katekhon is the rebranded Ukrainian Student, serving the same technological
purposes – promoting the interests of the party in the spheres which are considered the
most promising at the moment.
The second ambitious newcomer at the market of gendered political violence is Tradition and
Order (TiP). This party was created in the second half of 2016, and took Revanche, a group of
admirers of Italian fascism, as its basis. The creation of the party was facilitated by
political technologists involved in the patronage circles of the president's political
party, Petro Poroshenko Bloc. Today, the perception of TiP as "pro-Poroshenko" is widely shared
in Kyiv's marginal political subculture. Most likely, their task is to try and create an
alternative centre of gravity among the far right that would balance the influence of Azov
(whose political patron is not unconditionally loyal to Poroshenko) and the remaining authority
of Svoboda and Right Sector.
Thus, people violently fighting against "gender propaganda" shoulder to shoulder were
brought together in the same place by very different, and sometimes mutually exclusive,
considerations. In March 2017, National Corps, Svoboda and Right Sector
signed a "National Manifesto", pledging to coordinate their efforts in a joint struggle
against the government; however, in reality this political field is full of conflicting
interests as well as ambitious newcomers with powerful patrons.
The regional monopoly in Uzhgorod
There is one more far right group actively and violently fighting against "gender ideology"
in Ukraine – Karpatska Sich (KS), whose area of activity is mostly confined to Uzhgorod.
Unlike Azov, they are not tied by the limitations imposed by high-status patrons and
parliamentary political ambitions, and do not shy away from certain topics, catering to all
possible audiences in the regional far-right milieu.
This group is a financially self-sufficient political and criminal unit, functioning in a
border region where smuggling and similar petty criminal activities are an important source of
income for a large part of the population. The leadership of KS are founders of a
charitable foundation that receives goods confiscated at the customs for free, pledging to
deliver them to soldiers at the eastern front. However, among the goods thus obtained there
were two
tonnes of marble and women's lingerie , which can be hardly considered a useful material
aid but can be profitably sold. One of the founders also figures in cases of illicit land
allocations by Uzhgorod city council.
Simultaneously, KS has successfully established its exclusive control over street-level
violence in Uzhgorod. The publication of the information on their illicit activities by a local
anti-corruption activist was followed by a string of attacks against him and his colleagues by
KS. On the other hand, the nature of their relations with the police and local government is
markedly different from the situation in Kyiv and Lviv. In this case, there is hardly an
infiltration or benevolent attitude on the part of rank-and-file policemen; rather, the police
and the state apparatus are too weak to persecute KS as severely as they perhaps would like to.
In 2017, the leader of KS Taras Deyak was included in the list of 100 most influential people
of the region – this is very unusual, and suggests the depth of the group's involvement
in local criminal networks.
This influence is used to expand the clout of KS among the far-right scene and reap benefits
in high politics. The list of organisations which participated in the 79th anniversary march
was telling. It did not include either National Corps or Svoboda. Instead, it featured C14
(whose sphere of influence is geographically divided from KS) and the Social-National Assembly.
According to some
rumours , the leader of SNA Oleh Odnorozhenko (who was previously Azov's main ideologue) is
drifting closer to Oleh Lyashko and Igor Mosiychuk – people who left Azov in 2014.
Lyashko's Radical Party is an influential player in mainstream politics, and he personally
enjoys high rankings in presidential polls, opposing both Avakov and Poroshenko. Odnorozhenko's
frequent visits to Uzhgorod and participation in joint events may be a prelude to the inclusion
of SNA and KS into Lyashko's electoral machine.
Hegemony toolkit: Dosing violence, choosing friends and victims
The first and most important of the plots we have been able to discern above is the
establishment of the Azov movement as dominant in Ukraine's far-right scene on the national
level – and as a significant political player in the mainstream political scene.
The key factors that have allowed Azov to rise to these positions are its strategic choices
to maintain a reserved but not hostile public attitude towards the government and to maintain
close patron-client relationships with certain factions both on the national level and in
specific regional and local configurations. The third factor is Azov's military background,
which grants it access to the infrastructure of violence (arms, training facilities etc.) and
ensures its legitimacy both in the eyes of the wider public and of the nationalist scene. This
legitimacy hinges on the balanced demonstration of the resources of violence available to the
movement and its discretion in using them.
This combination is unique among the major far-right structures in Ukraine. Right Sector has
a strong military component, but its decision to choose an openly
confrontational path in its relations with the governing factions of the ruling class has
prevented it from gaining access to important physical and symbolic resources. In this
situation, Right Sector's bet on their clientelist relations with an opposition faction of
Ukraine's haute bourgeoisie (Ihor Kolomoisky's Privat Group) and revolutionary image did not
pay off. Now this movement seems to be in decline.
Svoboda, meanwhile, was too compromised by its perceived proximity to power during and
immediately after Maidan. The creation of Svoboda's own volunteer war units appears to have
failed to neutralise the lack of radicalism and militarism in its public image. Its
advertised readiness to resort to violence was the key to Svoboda's electoral success before
Maidan, but this was overshadowed by the efforts of the competing entrepreneurs of political
violence in the post-Maidan conjuncture, in which the level of and tolerance to violence has
escalated. On the other hand, Svoboda keeps holding on to its hegemony in regional power
settings in western Ukraine, even though its relations to nation-wide patronage networks is
unclear. All in all, Azov/National Corps seems to be clearly the most successful partner in the
big nationalist threesome, receiving the most from this alliance.
As mentioned above, Azov's success hinges partly on the measured dosage of violence in the
public space, which should project an image of a force conscious of its superiority in terms of
violent resources – but still using it sparingly. This is why National Corps prefers
semi-anonymity when acting in situations where its single-handed superiority is not guaranteed
a priori, like in Kyiv and Lviv. Its interpenetration with the police forces helps it establish
its hegemony in a covert manner. The efforts of National Corps to dominate street politics in
Lviv are the second plot.
The third plot concerns the activities of C14 in Kyiv. This movement is closer to a classic
vigilante group, generously using violence against commonly recognised "public enemies", i.e.
subjects of moral panic like the Roma or alleged pro-Russian fifth columnist. In their
activity, they appeal to two audiences: the wider public with its patriotic and anti-Roma
instincts and the far-right political subculture able to see more nuanced details. The first
dimension makes C14 a structural analogue of Russian vigilante groups with their commercialised
online platforms; the second dimension, oriented inside the far-right scene, has elevated C14
to the position of a co-organiser of the annual nationalist marches on 14 October, on a par
with the much more powerful Azov, Svoboda and Right Sector.
The use of "anti-gender" ideology is the fourth theme. The cases analysed here show that
this mobilising subject is used as a self-promotion arena by two competing groups: Katekhon,
trying to restore Svoboda's once leading positions in the scene; and TiP, aimed at creating
there a separate gravitation pole embedded in Poroshenko's patronage network. On the other
hand, Azov/National Corps seems reluctant to invest too much effort in forcing the topic.
Finally, a separate plot is unfolding in Uzhgorod, where the locally entrenched political
and criminal structure Karpatska Sich is overtly competing with the state apparatus for
influence on the regional level and is struggling to build alliances on the national scale.
These alliances, if constructed successfully, will be able to undermine the dominance of
Azov/National Corps by creating a patronage network of comparable capacity to compete with it
politically and otherwise on all levels.
As I have argued above, Ukraine's far right are taking the logic of "violent
entrepreneurship" outside the purely commercial and apolitical realm – and employing it
in the domain of political contestation, where illicit violence is a precious resource that can
be bought and rented.
Ukrainian Nazi movements thus exist on the intersection of several worlds (criminal,
commercial, military, marginal-political, mainstream political) and are prepared to mobilise
their violent resources for advancement of their own positions, up to and including displacing
former patrons and stepping into their shoes. The skillful and measured management and use of
these violent resources is the key to success in this strategy.
B, it does seem that the k affair has risen the crisis in Yemen to the foreground just as
many predicted. Thank goodness.
You are correct in that many are looking too far into this as some kind of conspiracy. I
am reminded by this of many who put forth that it made no difference as to who won the prez
election. It did make a difference to the military as well as Hillary's backers in the cIa
and fbI.
The Saudis screwed up and they will get their comeuppance it seems. Russia might be able
to wiggle their way into the middle then, filling the vacuum of uncle Sam at the circle
jerk. The Saudis will have to curtail their operation in Yemen and no quarter will be given
to wahhabi-terrorists by ksa who wish retribution against Russia. Win-win.
Interesting take by Ghassan Kadi on the Saker's blog, for those who still sense a
conspiracy in this. https://thesaker.is/insights-into-the-khashoggi-ordeal-who-and-why/
Goes back to this 'fiance', but adds Gullen to the mix and makes Erdy out to be an
instigator. Good to have a viewpoint from someone who has lived in Sawdi land.
"The Saudis say they are countering Iran, which backs the Houthis. But the Houthis are an indigenous group with legitimate grievances,
and the war has only enhanced Iranian influence . As has been obvious for some time, the only solution is a negotiated settlement.
But the Saudis have done their best to sabotage a U.N.-led peace process. Talks planned for Geneva in September failed when Saudi
leaders
would not grant safe travel guarantees to Houthi leaders." Bezos' editorial board at WaPo
---------------
Beneath the largely specious argument that Saudi Arabia has the US by the cojones economically lies the true factor that
has caused the two countries to be glued together.
This factor is the Israeli success in convincing the US government, and more importantly, the American people, that Iran is a
deadly enemy, a menace to the entire world, a reincarnation of Nazi Germany, and that Saudi Arabia, a country dedicated to medieval
methods of operation, is an indispensable ally in a struggle to save the world from Iran. The successful effort to convince us of
the reality of the Iranian menace reflects the previous successful campaign to convince us all that Iraq was also Nazi Germany come
again.
The Iran information operation was probably conceived at the Moshe Dayan Center or some other Israeli think tank. and then passed
on in the form of learned papers and conferences to the Foreign Ministry, the Mossad and the IDF. After adoption as government policy
the Foreign ministry and Zionist organizations closely linked to media ownership in the US and Europe were tasked for dissemination
of the propaganda themes involved. This has been a brilliantly executed plan. The obvious fact that Iran is not presently a threat
to the US has had little effect in countering this propaganda achievement.
Last Saturday morning, the Philadelphia based commentator Michael Smerconish openly asked on his popular talk show why it is that
US policy favors the Sunni Muslims over the Shia. i.e., Saudi Arabia over Iran. To hear that was for me a first. This was an obvious
defiance of the received wisdom of the age. I can only hope that the man does not lose his show.
It is a great irony that the barbaric murder of a personally rather unpleasant but defiant exiled journalist has caused re-examination
of the basis and wisdom of giving strategic protection to a family run dictatorship. pl
Erdogan called the Khashoggi murder brutal and premeditated, but did not reveal any damning audio or video evidence. Elijah Magnier
surmises Erdogan extracted a heavy payment from both the Saudis and the Americans in exchange for his relative silence. We shall
see if the economic pressure on Turkey dissipates in the coming days and weeks.
It appears the central pillar of the Borg creed, so eloquently and precisely described here by Colonel Lang, will survive this
bout of heretical thinking. Will journalists and other members of the press be able to keep challenging the Borg? With Trump so
thoroughly assimilated into the Borg, will the "resistance" keep the issue of Saudi perfidy alive? I have my doubts. The Israeli
information operations machine is a juggernaut. Few have the stamina and will to resist it. But it is a fight worth fighting.
"Satire has lost all meaning: The former director of the CIA (which has for decades
trained and armed far-right terrorist death squads), who is now US secretary of state, called
Iran "the greatest sponsor of terrorism in the world" while he was meeting with regime
officials in Saudi Arabia, an extremist Wahhabi absolute monarchy that supported ISIS and
al-Qaeda."
Obama was a neocon, Trump is a neocon. what's new ?
Chinese leaders appeared to be acting on the advice of the 6th century BC philosopher and general Sun Tzu, who wrote in The Art
of War, "there is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare."
Candidate Trump railed against the invasion of Iraq during his campaign, at one point blaming George W. Bush directly and saying,
"we should have never been in Iraq. We have destabilized the Middle East." As president-elect, Trump continued to promise a very
different foreign policy, one that would "stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn't be
involved with."
The election of Donald Trump gave the international community pause: Trump appeared unpredictable, eschewed tradition, and flouted
convention. He might well have followed through on his promise to move the U.S. away from its long embrace of forever war. China's
government in particular must have worried about such a move. If the U.S. focused on its internal problems and instead pursued a
restrained foreign policy that was constructive rather than destructive, it might pose more of an impediment to China's rise to global
power status.
But the Chinese need not have worried. With a continued troop presence in Afghanistan and Syria, a looming conflict with Iran,
and even talk of an intervention in Venezuela, Trump is keeping the U.S. on its perpetual wartime footing.
This is good news for Beijing, whose own foreign policy could not be more different. Rather than embracing a reactive and short-sighted
approach that all too often ignores second- and third-order consequences, the Chinese strategy appears cautious and long-ranging.
Its policymakers and technocrats think and plan in terms of decades, not months. And those plans, for now, are focused more on building
than bombing.
This is not to say that China's foreign policy is altruistic-it is certainly not. It is designed to cement China's role as a great
power by ensnaring as many countries as possible in its economic web. China is playing the long game while Washington expends resources
and global political capital on wars it cannot win. America's devotion to intervention is sowing the seeds of its own demise and
China will be the chief beneficiary.
Naftogaz has now begun to help itself to money from Russia's gas-transit payments, arguing
that it is owed money from the Stockholm Arbitration ruling which Gazprom has refused to pay.
Apparently Russia is still paying the old rate, from before the ruling (because to do
otherwise would be to recognize the debt and accept responsibility for it), which results in
an overpayment since it is higher than Naftogaz would charge, if I understand correctly. So
Naftogaz has decided to confiscate it as owing.
This, obviously, sets the stage for another shutdown of European gas supplies, just as
winter is coming on. Perhaps Ukraine has realized that nothing it can do or say is going to
stop Nord Stream II from going ahead, and so it might as well recover what it can, and who
cares if it results in a shutdown of Europe's gas, regardless where the blame ends up? Once
again Ukraine's maneuvering puts Russia in a difficult spot – it can recognize the
Stockholm award and pay Ukraine $2.6 Billion or whatever it was. Or it can accept that
Ukraine will keep part of its transit payments against the debt until it can shut down gas
transit across Ukraine altogether. Or it can shut off the gas now.
If it were up to me, I would take the middle option. Let Ukraine congratulate itself on
one-upping me with its native cleverness (assuming here that I am Russia), and let them keep
$9 or $10 million of the transit fees each month; that would probably be a lot cheaper than
acknowledging the Stockholm award and paying Ukraine billions, in view of the fact that
Ukraine never paid back the money it was lent by Russia; Stockholm neatly solved that for
them, by awarding them huge damages, part of which was understood to be the amount Ukraine
owed. Okay, that goes toward Ukraine's debt to Russia, and now you owe Ukraine $2.6 Billion
more.
I would just focus on getting Nord Stream II completed. Then I would not only stop gas
transit through Ukraine, I would tell them to kiss my ass if they wanted to buy gas for
themselves. You were so pleased with yourselves for not buying any gas from Russia last year
– obviously you can get along fine without it. But I sure hope Europe is going to keep
giving you money to buy European gas forever.
Washington is concocting ludicrous charges against a Russian national for alleged election
meddling merely to find reasons for new sanctions and to play the 'Russia card' ahead of the
midterms, a top Kremlin official has warned.
The US is bringing up "ludicrous accusations" with a "laughable 'body of proof'" simply to
slap Moscow with a new round of sanctions, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov
said
in a statement on Saturday. He added that "certain" US politicians hope to use charges against
Russia to gain the upper hand in "interparty brawls" ahead of the midterm elections, slated for
November 6.
Ryabkov made his remarks after the US Department of Justice officially leveled charges
against Russian national Elena Khusyaynova, who allegedly served as the chief accountant for
'Project Lakhta.' The officials suspect her of handling the funds used to pay online trolls for
posting comments to "sow discord in the US political system," and to "undermine faith" in US
democracy. These alleged activities were part of what Washington calls Russian strategic
efforts to meddle in the 2016 US presidential race and as well as the upcoming midterms.
... ... ...
Russian official Ryabkov dismissed the charges as "flagrant lies" and yet another element of
the "shameful slanderous campaign" unleashed by Washington against Moscow.
"The US clearly overestimates its capabilities," the deputy foreign minister said.
"While exhibiting hostility towards Russia and looking down on the whole world, they will
only meet tougher pushback."
This months gas tariff for "Ukrainians" increases by 24%!!
The context is that Ukrainian consumers have the lowest gas rate in Europe. Moldovan
households pay more for gas than do Ukrainian ones. Even with a 24% price increase Ukraine will
still have the cheapest gas in Europe for its consumers:
A huge line for free food at the charity kitchen in Kiev can be seen here: http://rusvesna.su/news/1539952343
(those who read Russian can find details in the accompanying news item).
I guess all of this is a great achievement of Maidan. Ukies, please comment.
'When she was offered the UN role, Haley reportedly recalled, "I told [Trump], 'Honestly, I
don't even know what the UN does,' " to which the crowd "erupted with sympathetic
laughter and applause," Blumenthal writes.
Baturally after saying she doesn't know what UN does Nikki got the job
Attempt to split the church were pretty much predictable, as it increases the level of sovereignty of the Ukrainian
state. So Poroshenko position is logical.
The problem here that there are not that many believers in eastern part of Ukraine. But there is substantial number of Uniate
believers in Western part of Ukraine.
Notable quotes:
"... Could it be that the Vatican is the principal force behind the 2014 Maidan uprising in Kiev, the regime-change operation in Ukraine, as a part of its millennium-old war against Russian Orthodoxy? ..."
"... a very clear way the textbook activities of color revolution conducted by that most powerful and respectable institution of soft power, a religious university - the Ukrainian Catholic University - with its own media group, its own business academy, and funding and contacts with many "philanthropies" from the west. It's also headed by an American bishop, with a substantial provenance and respected standing in US elite circles. ..."
"... The Catholic Church is losing its hold over the masses, losing its power, and yet continues with its war against the Orthodox side of the schism, and doubles down on tools of domination, experimenting in Ukraine and some other eastern European countries with ways to control a society - a clear threat to western Europe if it could but see it. ..."
Could it be that the Vatican is the principal force behind the 2014 Maidan uprising in
Kiev, the regime-change operation in Ukraine, as a part of its millennium-old war against
Russian Orthodoxy?
The article is a keeper - I recommend bookmarking it for reference if nothing else. It
details the events leading up to and following the Maidan, and illustrates in a very clear
way the textbook activities of color revolution conducted by that most powerful and
respectable institution of soft power, a religious university - the Ukrainian Catholic
University - with its own media group, its own business academy, and funding and contacts
with many "philanthropies" from the west. It's also headed by an American bishop, with a
substantial provenance and respected standing in US elite circles.
Although the article is long, it's very readable, and well translated.
Towards the end, it poses a view that I had never considered, but which resonates with the
trajectory of the more secular US empire. The Catholic Church is losing its hold over the
masses, losing its power, and yet continues with its war against the Orthodox side of the
schism, and doubles down on tools of domination, experimenting in Ukraine and some other
eastern European countries with ways to control a society - a clear threat to western Europe
if it could but see it.
I don't understand much about the recent moves of the Church in Ukraine, but anyone can
see how fraught are the faithful because of these lawless acts. I often forget the old battle
by Rome against Constantinople, but I have every inclination to believe it completely. This
article does a splendid job of detailing it and making it very visible.
If you are finding your way out of the dark forest of propaganda there are two speeches by
Putin that I point people toward. First, at the Munich Security Conference in 2007. Video
here : Transcript
here
Second, at the UN General Assembly September 2015, Video here : Transcript here .
I fail to see how any rational person could disagree with the sentiments he expresses.
Warning! You may become a Putin-bot!
The governor General Abdul Raziq, the police chief and the intelligence chief of Kandahar
have all been killed today. Bodyguards turned their guns on them. Two U.S. soldiers were
wounded. The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan was present but not hurt.
Raziq was a brut, thief, killer, drug baron and the CIA's man in Kandahar.
In 2011 Matthieu Atkins portrait him:
Our Man in Kandahar Abdul Raziq and his men have received millions of dollars' worth of U.S. training and
equipment to help in the fight against the Taliban. But is our ally -- long alleged to be
involved in corruption and drug smuggling -- also guilty of mass murder?
The United States, specifically Cheney and Petraeus and Rodham, imposed the Imperial
Executor form of Federalist government upon a people who were a well-organized heirarchical
society while William the Conqueror was still head chopping Anglo-Saxons in bear skins.
Cheny wrote the Afghan petroleum and strategic resources laws *in English* at the
beginning of the 2001 invasion. The US imposed a new flag, a new pledge of allegiance, a new
national song and even a new national currency on the Afghan people, then imposed the first
imperial caesar, Karzai.
You break it, you own it!
For the $TRILLIONS hoovered up by Deep State and their war profiteering minions, we could
have put every Afghan male of military age through Harvard Business School.
Cheney, Petraeus and Rodham ALSO created the Federal Republican Guard ANA and ANP,
goombahs, renegade hijackers and shakedown artists who, like those same ANA/ANP 'personal
guards' mentioned in b's article, assassinated the governor and the others. And umm, yes,
I've been on the muzzle end of those ANA/ANP thugs in an attempted kidnapping, so been there,
done that.
AFA Russ' defense of William the Conqueror as some 'high point' of a Western Civilization
of Red Haired Yettis, they were still head-chopping each other in England while Afghanistan
ruled from East Persia to Western India, an advanced civilization far more ancient than
Anglo-Saxon bearskin cave dwelling knuckle draggers, at the time.
Of course, now today we have the White Scientocratic Triumphal Exceptionalist Civilization
and its Miracle of the Two Planes and Three Towers to prove it, even if Johnny and Jillian
can't read, write or do their ciphers.
just watched the Atlantic council's Championing the Frontlines of Freedom: Erasing the
"Grey Zone", only interesting thing to come out of the conference was Kurt Volker's (US
Special Representative for Ukraine) comments;
Escalating sanctions vs Russia every 1-2 months there will be new & expanded
sanctions on Russia.
Stable borders should not be a requirement to be a part of NATO, "Occupied" states can
be taken into NATO and receive support from NATO to liberate themselves (he stressed that
the US would not be escalate the conflict, but how the hell could anyone guarantee
that).
Opposition to Russia is now bipartisan, regardless of the Nov elections, US Senate
& Congress are unified against Russia
when asked how "We" (the Atlantic council) can make political elites care about Baltic
states (plus Ukraine/Georgia), WITHOUT knowing the historical and political details of
these states he, unsurprisingly answered "this is about spreading our liberal values"
(translation: the American people don't need to be informed about the region are changes
are non-negotiable). the long and the short of the 3 hour conference was the new cold war
vs Russia will continue indefinitely, I would say this is the start of another generation
conflict that will last 10-20 years at least
Ok i'l stick my neck out !
It's over for America ! That's my assessment their day is d d d done ! Am basing my view on
the worldwide picture politically, the mind set of the general public I talk to, the many
sites I visit on the net left and right. Plus overall wisdom and overstanding (a Rasta thing)
Empires fall, this one has more than had its day. If it was a buseness what does it produce ?
And at what cost? It just robs other peoples hard earned resources and assets! For all it's
wealth it treats it's own public like dirt milking them dry. It's intelligent public it
curupt's. Nature abbor's greed, and wil correct that imbalance.
I think Putin understands this, and understands as I do 'desperate people do desperate
things' hence his speech.
Censoring the truth on a massive network like the internet is truly impossible and plainly
desperate !!!
In Bavaria's state elections, German voters sent a powerful message to German Chancellor
Angela Merkel, who has been harshly criticized for opening up Germany's borders to the free
flow of migration. But strangely enough the pro-immigrant Green Party took a solid second
place.
Merkel and her fragile coalition, comprised of the Christian Social Union (CSU), the Social
Democrats Party (SPD) and Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) suffered staggering losses
in Bavaria on Sunday, losses not experienced by the two powerhouse conservative parties for
many decades.
The CSU won just 37.3 percent of the vote, down 12.1 percent from 2013, thus failing to
secure an absolute majority. It marked the worst showing conservative Christian Bavaria, where
the CSU has ruled practically unilaterally since 1957. But the political mood in Germany has
changed, and Merkel's so-called sister party will now be forced to seek a coalition to cover
its losses.
Meanwhile, the left-leaning Social Democrats (SPD), in an awkward alliance with their
conservative allies, secured just 9.5 percent of the Bavarian vote, down almost 10.9 percent
from its 2013 showing.
The dismal results were not altogether unexpected. CSU leader Horst Seehofer has regularly
clashed with Angela Merkel over the question of her loose refugee policies, which saw 1.5
million migrants pour into Germany unmolested in 2015 alone. In January 2016, when the number
of arrivals had peaked, Bavaria grabbed headlines as Peter Dreier, mayor of the district of
Landshut, sent a
busload of refugees to Berlin, saying his city could not handle any more new arrivals.
Yet, despite such expressions of frustration, and even anger, Germany, perhaps out of some
fear of reverting back to atavistic nationalistic tendencies that forever lurks in the
background of the German psyche, has not come out in full force against the migrant invasion,
which seems to have been forced upon the nation without their approval. As with the young girl
in the video below, however, some Germans have come forward to express their strong
reservations with the trend.
In general, however, the German people, in direct contradiction to the stereotype of them
being an orderly and logical people, do not seem overly concerned with the prospects of their
tidy country being overrun by the chaos of undocumented and illegal migrants. This much seemed
to be confirmed by the strong showing of the pro-immigration Green Party, which took second
place with 18.3 percent of the votes, a 9 percent increase since the last elections.
Katharina Schulze, the 33-year old co-leader of the Bavarian Greens,
told reporters "Bavaria needs a political party that solves the problems of the people and
not create new ones over and over again."
However, a political platform that seems fine with open borders seems to contradict
Schulze's claim to not creating new problems "over and over again." Today, thanks to Merkel's
disastrous refugee non-plan, which the Greens applaud,
every fifth person in Germany comes from immigration, a figure that will naturally increase
over time, placing immense pressure on the country's already overloaded
social welfare programs, not to mention disrupting the country's social cohesiveness.
Thus Schulze may find it an impossible challenge "solving the problems of the people," one
of the vaguest campaign pledges I have ever heard, while embracing a staunchly refugee-friendly
platform that seems doomed to ultimate disaster.
Indeed, Germany appears to be on a collision course between those who accept the idea of
being the world's welcome center for refugees, and those who think Germany must not only close
its borders, but perhaps even send back many refugees. After all, it has been proven that many
of these new arrivals are in reality
'
economic migrants' who arrived in Europe not due to any persecution back home, but rather
from the hope of improving their lot in life. While it's certainly no crime to seek out
economic opportunities, it becomes a real problem when it comes at the expense of the domestic
population.
From an outsider's perspective, I cannot fathom how it is possible that Angela Merkel is
still in power. Although there is no term limit on the chancellorship, people must still go to
the polls and vote for this woman and the CDU, which the majority continues to do –
despite everything.
In a search for answers, I found an explanation by one Arne Trautmann, a German lawyer from
Munich.
"I think the answer lies in German psychology. We do not like instability. We had our
experience with it (hyperinflation, wars and such) and it did not work very well. Angela Merkel
offers such stability. Simply because she has been around for so long."
Still, that answer just drags up more questions that perhaps only the Germans can answer.
After all, if the German people "do not like instability," then the specter of their borders
being violated on a daily basis such be simply unacceptable to them. Perhaps I am missing
something.
In any case, there was a consolation prize of sorts in the Bavarian elections, as the
anti-immigrant AfD party took fourth place (behind the Free Voters) with 10.2 percent of the
votes, an increase of 10 percent from their 2013 performance.
This will give the AfD parliamentary power in the state assembly for the first time, which
should work to put the brakes on illegal migrants entering the country. For the future of
Germany, it may be the last hope.
After eight years of the Obama regime expanding the Bush regime's wars from around two to
around seven (with very little opposition from the so-called antiwar movement ), the Women 's
March on the Pentagon is rebuilding a movement from practically scratch.
We are struggling to not get trapped in the antiwar old ways which never have been truly
successful. If the anti-Vietnam war movement, its tactics, and energy were so awesome, then why
is the US currently mired so deeply in at least seven wars for Empire with 1000 bases in over
130 countries around the world and continued support for the apartheid, colonial, illegal state
of Israel?
We are planning to march on the Pentagon. The Pentagon is not a typical target because many
activists are afraid of offending the military despite recognizing that the US military is the
largest terrorist organization in the world. We are also having a rally on the 21st of October
and are committed to "Occupying" the Pentagon until Veteran's Day, November 11th.
We are also reimagining new ways to state what the Women 's March on the Pentagon is
doing.
Yes, we are against the US Empire's perpetual and devastating wars but being "anti" war was
never enough. Being "pro" peace is also deficient because peace is just not an absence of war
-- it is also the presence of social justice and social safety nets.
WMOP is putting the PRO back in PROtest but before we are PRO-peace, we feel we need to be
each of the following. The list that follows is not exhaustive, but it is a good start.
PRO-woman: Every single woman on this planet, regardless of race, religion, sexual
orientation, economic status or national origin, is entitled to the same quality of life as
wealthy, white women in the USA -- including being free from military occupation (and all the
horrors that brings, including rape and the murder of children) and other oppression.
PRO-equality: Every human is entitled to every good thing, including the right to PRO-test
wrong things.
PRO-planet: The Pentagon's War Machine is responsible for a hugely disproportionate amount
of pollution, waste, environmental degradation and use of fossil fuels. The Pentagon seriously
needs to be reduced to a size where it can be drowned in a bucket before we can save human life
from extinction on our only planet, our Mother Earth.
PRO-education: Education is a human right and the trillions of dollars spent on active wars
and empire maintenance robs our communities and schools from money needed to give our children
a high-quality and free education from Pre to University. In all levels, our children should
feel safe to attend school without the horrors of mass-shootings and police state
oppression.
PRO-gun control: As long as guns, ammunition, bombs and other weapons of murder are taken
from the Pentagon and police forces first. Our mothers and grandmothers in occupied lands,
inner cities, and other economically disadvantaged areas should not have to worry themselves
sick when their young ones leave the home that they will be executed by a killer cop or
drone-bombed by the USA. Our sisters in other countries should not have to bury their children,
or flee their homes in fear for their lives, because of the US Empire.
PRO-health care: Women bear the burden of ill children and are likely the ones to miss work
when a child is ill. Health care must be free and high-quality, but it must also serve families
and communities with healthy food, water, air and opportunities for care for ill children (or
elderly relatives) when the woman needs or wants to go to work. Health care must be
comprehensive and include dental, mental, chiropractic and any other holistic
treatment/prevention that is needed/wanted. Prescriptions must be free and no woman/family
should have to choose between life-saving medication and/or food.
PRO-labor at a living wage and PRO-basic guaranteed income
PRO-housing/food: In a nation as wealthy as the US, not one person should exist without
shelter or healthy and abundant food. Housing and food are human rights, not privileges. Most
homeless people work hard, but cannot afford a place to live. 19% of the United States of
American children (14 million) go to bed hungry every night in the land of plenty and plenty of
waste. These statistics are shameful and abominable but can be changed after the
commodification and privatization of everything for profit over people ends.
PRO-redistribution of resources: Ending the Pentagon, the billions of dollars of waste and
more than a trillion dollar budget would go a long way to address the horrendous human rights'
abuses and fundamental economic crises 2/3 of the people in the US face.
Once there is justice, environmental sustainability, economic equality and celebration of
diversity, combined with the end of the US Military Empire, THEN, and only then, will we live
in relative peace in our communities and families.
If one woman is living under military occupation, colonial rule, or otherwise oppressed,
none of us are free!
"... I just love the fact that Trump is publicly calling out Merkel on this; she has been nothing but two-faced and hypocritical on the Russia question. ..."
"... She was one of the ones who pushed the EU hard, for example, to sanction Russia in the wake of the coup in Ukraine (which she had also supported). And then she pushed the EU hard to kill off the South Stream pipeline, which would have gone through SE Europe into Austria. She used the excuse of 'EU solidarity' against 'Russian aggression' to accomplish that only to then turn around and start building yet another pipeline out of Russia and straight into Germany! The Bulgarians et al. must feel like real idiots now. It seems Berlin wants to control virtually all the pipelines into Europe. ..."
I just love the fact that Trump is publicly calling out Merkel on this; she has been
nothing but two-faced and hypocritical on the Russia question.
She was one of the ones who pushed the EU hard, for example, to sanction Russia in the
wake of the coup in Ukraine (which she had also supported). And then she pushed the EU hard
to kill off the South Stream pipeline, which would have gone through SE Europe into Austria.
She used the excuse of 'EU solidarity' against 'Russian aggression' to accomplish that only
to then turn around and start building yet another pipeline out of Russia and straight
into Germany! The Bulgarians et al. must feel like real idiots now. It seems Berlin wants to
control virtually all the pipelines into Europe.
So, three cheers for Trump embarrassing Merkel on this issue!
"... This is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 1018 donors have already invested in our efforts to combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in the financial realm. Please join us and participate via our donation page , which shows how to give via check, credit card, debit card, or PayPal. Read about why we're doing this fundraiser and what we've accomplished in the last year, and our current goal, extending our reach . ..."
"... By Tsvetana Paraskova, a writer for the U.S.-based Divergente LLC consulting firm. Originally published at OilPrice ..."
"... As long as NATO exists, Washington will continue to use it to drive a wedge between the EU and Russia. Merkel foolishly went along with all of Washington's provocations against Russia in Ukraine, even though none of it benefited Germany's national interest. ..."
"... She did indeed go along with all the provocations and she sat back and said nothing while Putin railed against US sanctions. Yet Putin didn't blame Germany or the EU. Instead he said that the Germany/EU is currently trapped by the US and would come to their senses in time. He is leaving the door open. ..."
"... What US LNG exports? The US is a net importer of NG from Canada. US 2018 NG consumption and production was 635.8 and 631.6 Mtoe respectively (BP 2018 Stats). Even the BP 2018 Statistical Review of World Energy has an asterisks by US LNG exports which says, "Includes re-exports" which was 17.4 BCM or 15 Mtoe for 2018. ..."
"... Natural gas negotiations involve long term contracts so there are lots of money to exchange ensuring business for many years to come. Such a contract has recently been signed between Poland's PGNiG and American Venture Global Calcasieu & Venture Global Plaquemines LNG (Lousiana). According to the Poland representative this gas would be 20% cheaper than Russian gas. (if one has to believe it). Those contracts are very secretive in their terms. This contract in particular is still dependent on the termination of liquefaction facilities in Lousiana. ..."
"... IIRC, the US is pushing LNG because fracking has resulted in a lot of NG coincident with oil production. They've got so much NG coming out of fracked oil wells that they don't know what to do with it and at present, a lot of it just gets flared, or leaks into the atmosphere. ..."
"... So they turn to bullying the EU to ignore the price advantage that Russia is able to offer, due to the economics of pipeline transport over liquefaction and ocean transport, and of course the issues of reliability and safety associated with ocean transport, and high-pressure LNG port facilities compared to pipelines. ..."
"... Trump will probably offer the EU 'free' LNG port facilities financed by low-income American tax-payers, and cuts to 'entitlements', all designed to MAGA. ..."
"... It seems we have been maneuvering for a while to raise our production of LNG and oil (unsustainably) in order to become an important substitute supplier to the EU countries. It sort of looks like our plan is to reduce EU opposition to our attacking Russia. Then we will have China basically surrounded. This is made easier with our nuclear policy of "we can use nuclear weapons with acceptable losses." What could go wrong? ..."
"... The United States should lead by example. Telling Germany not to import Russian gas is rich considering the U.S. also imports from Russia. https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2018/07/12/russia-was-a-top-10-supplier-of-u-s-oil-imports-in-2017/ ..."
"... I just love the fact that Trump is publicly calling out Merkel on this; she has been nothing but two-faced and hypocritical on the Russia question. ..."
"... She was one of the ones who pushed the EU hard, for example, to sanction Russia in the wake of the coup in Ukraine (which she had also supported). And then she pushed the EU hard to kill off the South Stream pipeline, which would have gone through SE Europe into Austria. She used the excuse of 'EU solidarity' against 'Russian aggression' to accomplish that only to then turn around and start building yet another pipeline out of Russia and straight into Germany! The Bulgarians et al. must feel like real idiots now. It seems Berlin wants to control virtually all the pipelines into Europe. ..."
This
is Naked Capitalism fundraising week. 1018 donors have already invested in our efforts to
combat corruption and predatory conduct, particularly in the financial realm. Please join us
and participate via our donation page , which shows how to give via
check, credit card, debit card, or PayPal. Read about why we're doing
this fundraiser and what we've
accomplished in the last year, and our current goal, extending
our reach .
Yves here. It's not hard to see that this tiff isn't just about Russia. The US wants Germany
to buy high-priced US LNG.
By Tsvetana Paraskova, a writer for the U.S.-based Divergente LLC consulting firm.
Originally published at
OilPrice
The United States and the European Union (EU) are at odds over more than just the Iran
nuclear deal – tensions surrounding energy policy have also become a flashpoint for the
two global powerhouses.
In energy policy, the U.S. has been opposing the Gazprom-led and highly controversial
Nord Stream 2 pipeline project , which will follow the existing Nord Stream natural gas
pipeline between Russia and Germany via the Baltic Sea. EU institutions and some EU members
such as Poland and Lithuania are also against it, but one of the leaders of the EU and the
end-point of the planned project -- Germany -- supports Nord Stream 2 and sees the project as a
private commercial venture that will help it to meet rising natural gas demand.
While the U.S. has been hinting this year that it could sanction the project and the
companies involved in it -- which include not only Gazprom but also major European firms Shell,
Engie, OMV, Uniper, and Wintershall -- Germany has just said that
Washington shouldn't interfere with Europe's energy choices and policies.
"I don't want European energy policy to be defined in Washington," Germany's Foreign
Ministry State Secretary Andreas Michaelis said at a conference on trans-Atlantic ties in
Berlin this week.
Germany has to consult with its European partners regarding the project, Michaelis said, and
noted, as quoted by Reuters, that he was "certainly not willing to accept that Washington is
deciding at the end of the day that we should not rely on Russian gas and that we should not
complete this pipeline project."
"Germany is totally controlled by Russia, because they will be getting from 60 to 70 percent
of their energy from Russia and a new pipeline," President Trump said.
Germany continues to see Nord Stream 2 as a commercial venture, although it wants clarity on
the future role of Ukraine as a transit route, German government spokeswoman Ulrike Demmer
said last month.
Nord Stream 2 is designed to bypass Ukraine, and Ukraine fears it will lose transit fees and
leverage over Russia as the transit route for its gas to western Europe.
Poland, one of the most outspoken opponents of Nord Stream 2, together with the United
States, issued a joint statement last month during the visit of Polish President Andrzej Duda
to Washington, in which the parties
said , "We will continue to coordinate our efforts to counter energy projects that threaten
our mutual security, such as Nord Stream 2."
The president of the Federation of German Industry (BDI), Dieter Kempf, however, told
German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung last month, that he had "a big problem with a third
country interfering in our energy policy," referring to the United States. German industry
needs Nord Stream 2, and dropping the project to buy U.S. LNG instead wouldn't make any
economic sense, he said. U.S. LNG currently is not competitive on the German market and would
simply cost too much, according to Kempf.
The lower price of Russian pipeline gas to Europe is a key selling point -- and one that
Gazprom uses often. Earlier this month Alexey Miller, Chairman of Gazprom's Management
Committee, said at a gas forum in
Russia that "Although much talk is going on about new plans for LNG deliveries, there is no
doubt that pipeline gas supplies from Russia will always be more competitive than LNG
deliveries from any other part of the world. It goes without saying."
The issue with Nord Stream 2 -- which is already
being built in German waters -- is that it's not just a commercial project. Many in Europe
and everyone in the United States see it as a Russian political tool and a means to further
tighten Russia's grip on European gas supplies, of which it already holds more than a third.
But Germany wants to discuss the future of this project within the European Union, without
interference from the United States.
Maybe the US thinks it will also have to go out of its way to accommodate Germany and the
EU by offering to construct the necessary infrastructure in Europe for the import of LNG at
exorbitant US prices. MAGA. How long would that take?
The question is, is it inevitable that the EU/US relationship goes sour?
Continentalism is on the rise generally, and specifically with brexit, couple this with the
geographical gravity of the EU-Russia relationship makes a EU-Russia "alliance" make more
sense than the EU-US relationship.
Ever since the death of the USSR and the accession of the eastern states to the EU, the
balance of power in the EU-US relationship has moved in ways it seems clear that the US is
uncomfortable with.
To all of this we must add the policy differences between the US and the EU – see the
GDPR and the privacy shield for example.
I have said it before – the day Putin dies (metaphorically or literally) is a day
when the post war order in Europe may die, and we see the repairing of the EU-Russia
relationship (by which I mean the current regime in Russia will be replaced with a new
generation far less steeped in cold war dogma and way more interested in the EU).
"The post war order in Europe will doe and we see the repairing of the EU/Russian
relationship "
I think you mean the German/Russian relationship and that repair has been under way for
more than a decade. The post war order is very very frayed already and looks close to a break
point.
This Nord Stream 2 story illustrates more than most Germany's attitudes to the EU and to
the world at large. Germany used its heft within the EU to 1 ) get control of Russian gas
supplies into Central Europe (Germany insisted that Poland could not invest in the project
apparently and refused a landing point for the pipeline in Poland. Instead it offered a flow
back valve from Germany into Poland that the Germans would control) 2) thumb its nose at the
US while outwardly declaring friendship through the structures provided by EU and NATO
membership.
Even Obama suspected the Germans of duplicity (the Merkel phone hacking debacle).
It's is this repairing relationship that will set the tone for Brexit, the Ukraine war,
relations between Turkey and EU and eventually the survival of the EU and NATO. The point ?
Germany doesn't give a hoot about the EU it served its purpose of keeping Germany anchored to
the west and allowing German reunification to solidify while Russia was weak. Its usefulness
is in the past now, however from a German point of view.
Putin dying isn't going to change Washington. As long as NATO exists, Washington will
continue to use it to drive a wedge between the EU and Russia. Merkel foolishly went along
with all of Washington's provocations against Russia in Ukraine, even though none of it
benefited Germany's national interest.
Come to think of it, maybe Merkel dying off would improve German-Russian relations
She did indeed go along with all the provocations and she sat back and said nothing while
Putin railed against US sanctions. Yet Putin didn't blame Germany or the EU. Instead he said
that the Germany/EU is currently trapped by the US and would come to their senses in time. He
is leaving the door open.
Germany won't lose if NATO and the EU break up. It would free itself from a range
increasingly dis-functional entities that, in its mind, restrict its ability to engage in
world affairs.
I think you are right. Russia and Germany are coming together and there's nothing we can
do about it because "private commercial venture." Poetic justice.
And the economic link will
lead to political links and we will have to learn a little modesty. The ploy we are trying to
use, selling Germany US LNG could not have been anything more than a stopgap supply line
until NG from the ME came online but that has been our achilles heel.
It feels like even if
we managed to kick the Saudis out and took over their oil and gas we still could no longer
control geopolitics. The cat is out of the bag and neoliberalism has established the rules.
And it's pointless because there is enough gas and oil and methane on this planet to kill the
human race off but good.
That exactly right. and Gerhard Schroder has been developing those political relationships
for more than a decade. The political/economic links already go very deep on both sides.
if the rapprochement is occurring, Brexit, the refugee crisis and Italy's approaching debt
crisis are all just potential catalysts for an inevitable breakup. Germany likely views these
as potential opportunities to direct European realignment rather than existential crises to
be tackled.
What US LNG exports? The US is a net importer of NG from Canada. US 2018 NG consumption
and production was 635.8 and 631.6 Mtoe respectively (BP 2018 Stats). Even the BP 2018
Statistical Review of World Energy has an asterisks by US LNG exports which says, "Includes
re-exports" which was 17.4 BCM or 15 Mtoe for 2018.
The US produces annually about 33,000,000 million cubic feet and consumes 27.000.000
million according to the EiA . So there is an
excess to export indeed.
Natural gas negotiations involve long term contracts so there are lots of money to
exchange ensuring business for many years to come.
Such a contract has recently been signed between Poland's PGNiG and American Venture
Global Calcasieu & Venture Global Plaquemines LNG (Lousiana). According to the Poland
representative this gas would be 20% cheaper than Russian gas. (if one has to believe it).
Those contracts are very secretive in their terms. This contract in particular is still
dependent on the termination of liquefaction facilities in Lousiana.
I don't know much about NG markets in Poland but according to Eurostat prices for
non-household consumers are very similar in Poland, Germany, Lithuania or Spain.
Gas contracts are usually linked to oil prices. A lot of LNG is traded as a fungible
product like oil, but that contract seems different – most likely its constructed this
way because of the huge capital cost of the LNG facilities, which make very little economic
sense for a country like Poland which has pipelines criss-crossing it. I suspect the
terminals have more capacity that the contract quantity – the surplus would be traded
at market prices, which would no doubt be where the profit margin is for the supplier (I
would be deeply sceptical that unsubsidised LNG could ever compete with Russia gas, the
capital costs involved are just too high).
IIRC, the US is pushing LNG because fracking has resulted in a lot of NG coincident with
oil production. They've got so much NG coming out of fracked oil wells that they don't know what to do
with it and at present, a lot of it just gets flared, or leaks into the atmosphere.
IMO, the folks responsible for this waste are as usual, ignoring the 'externalities', the
costs to the environment of course, but also the cost of infrastructure and transport related
to turning this situation to their advantage.
So they turn to bullying the EU to ignore the price advantage that Russia is able to
offer, due to the economics of pipeline transport over liquefaction and ocean transport, and
of course the issues of reliability and safety associated with ocean transport, and
high-pressure LNG port facilities compared to pipelines.
This doesn't even take into account the possibility that the whole fracked gas supply may
be a short-lived phenomenon, associated with what we've been describing here as basically a
finance game.
Trump will probably offer the EU 'free' LNG port facilities financed by low-income
American tax-payers, and cuts to 'entitlements', all designed to MAGA.
Just to clarify, fracked gas is not usually a by-product of oil fracking – the
geological beds are usually distinct (shale gas tends to occur at much deeper levels than
tight oil). Gas can however be a byproduct of conventional oil production. 'wet' gas
(propane, etc), can be a by-product of either.
It's common for oil wells both fracked and conventional to produce natural gas (NG) though
not all do. The fracked wells in the Permian Basin are producing a great deal of it.
Natural gas does indeed form at higher temperatures than oil does and that means at
greater depth but both oil and NG migrate upward. Exploration for petroleum is hunting for
where it gets captured at depth, not for where it's formed. Those source rocks are used as
indicators of where to look for petroleum trapped stratigraphically higher up.
It seems we have been maneuvering for a while to raise our production of LNG and oil
(unsustainably) in order to become an important substitute supplier to the EU countries. It
sort of looks like our plan is to reduce EU opposition to our attacking Russia. Then we will
have China basically surrounded. This is made easier with our nuclear policy of "we can use
nuclear weapons with acceptable losses." What could go wrong?
I wonder what the secret industry studies say about the damage possible from an accident
at a LNG port terminal involving catastrophic failure and combustion of the entire cargo of a
transport while unloading high-pressure LNG.
They call a fuel-air bomb the size of a school bus 'The Mother of all bombs', what about
one the size of a large ocean going tanker?
Many years ago, someone was trying to build an LNG storage facility on the southwest shore
of Staten Island 17 miles SW of Manhattan involving very large insulated tanks. In spite of
great secrecy, there came to be much local opposition. At the time it was said that the
amount of energy contained in the tanks would be comparable to a nuclear weapon. Various
possible disaster scenarios were proposed, for example a tank could be compromised by
accident (plane crashes into it) or terrorism, contents catch fire and explode, huge fireball
emerges and drifts with the wind, possibly over New Jersey's chemical farms or even towards
Manhattan. The local opponents miraculously won. As far as I know, the disused tanks are
still there.
A 28-inch LNG underground pipeline exploded in Nigeria and the resulting fire engulfed
an estimated 27 square kilometers.
Here's one from Cleveland;
On 20 October 1944, a liquefied natural gas storage tank in Cleveland, Ohio, split and
leaked its contents, which spread, caught fire, and exploded. A half hour later, another
tank exploded as well. The explosions destroyed 1 square mile (2.6 km2), killed 130, and
left 600 homeless.
The locals in Nigeria drill hole in pipeline to get free fuel.
The Nigeria Government has been really wonderful about sharing the largess and riches of
their large petroleum field in the Niger delta. Mostly with owners of expensive property
around the world.
I am trying to think of what might be in it for the Germans to go along with this deal but
cannot see any. The gas would be far more expensive that the Russian deliveries. A fleet of
tankers and the port facilities would have to be built and who is going to pick up the tab
for that? Then if the terminal is in Louisiana, what happens to deliveries whenever there is
a hurricane?
I cannot see anything in it for the Germans at all. Trump's gratitude? That and 50 cents
won't buy you a cup of coffee. In any case Trump would gloat about the stupidity of the
Germans taking him up on the deal, not feel gratitude. The US wants Germany to stick with
deliveries via the Ukraine as they have their thumb on that sorry country and can threaten
Germany with that fact. Nord Stream 2 (and the eventual Nord Stream 3) threaten that
hold.
The killer argument is this. In terms of business and remembering what international
agreements Trump has broken the past two years, who is more reliable as a business partner
for Germany – Putin's Russia or Trump's America?
I find it impossible to believe that a gas supplier would keep to an artificially low LNG
contract if, say, a very cold winter in the US led to a shortage and extreme price spike.
They'd come up with some excuse not to deliver.
My recollection was that there was a law that prohibited export-sales of domestic US
hydrocarbons. That law was under attack, and went away in the last couple years?
LNG with your F35? said the transactional Orangeman
The fracked crude is ultralight and unsuitable for the refineries in the quantities
available, hence export, which caused congress to change the law. No expert, but understand
that it is used a lot as a blender with heavier stocks of crude, quite a bit going to
China.
The petroleum industry has been bribing lobbying the administration for quite a
while to get this policy in place, The so called surplus of NG today (if there is), won't
last long. Exports will create a shortage and will result in higher prices to all.
also, if Germany were to switch to American LNG, for how long would this be a reliable
energy source? Fracking wells are short lived, so what happens once they are depleted? who
foots the bill?
I just love the fact that Trump is publicly calling out Merkel on this; she has been
nothing but two-faced and hypocritical on the Russia question.
She was one of the ones who pushed the EU hard, for example, to sanction Russia in the
wake of the coup in Ukraine (which she had also supported). And then she pushed the EU hard
to kill off the South Stream pipeline, which would have gone through SE Europe into Austria.
She used the excuse of 'EU solidarity' against 'Russian aggression' to accomplish that only
to then turn around and start building yet another pipeline out of Russia and straight
into Germany! The Bulgarians et al. must feel like real idiots now. It seems Berlin wants to
control virtually all the pipelines into Europe.
So, three cheers for Trump embarrassing Merkel on this issue!
Putting money aside for a moment, Trump, as well as the entire American establishment,
doesn't want Russia "controlling" Germany's energy supplies. That's because they want America
to control Germany's energy supplies via controlling LNG deliveries from America to Germany
and by controlling gas supplies to Germany through Ukraine. This by maintaining America's
control over Ukraine's totally dependent puppet government. The Germans know this so they
want Nord Stream 2 & 3.
Ukraine is an unreliable energy corridor on a good day. It is run by clans of rapacious
oligarchs who don't give one whit about Ukraine, the Ukrainian "people", or much of anything
else except business. The 2019 presidential election may turn into a contest among President
Poroshenko the Chocolate King, Yulia Tymoshenko the Gas Princess, as well as some others
including neo Nazis that go downhill from there. What competent German government would want
Germany's energy supplies to be dependent on that mess?
It has been said that America's worst geopolitical nightmare is an
economic-political-military combination of Russia, Iran, and China in the Eurasian
"heartland". Right up there, if not worse, is a close political-economic association between
Germany and Russia; now especially so since such a relationship can quickly be hooked into
China's New Silk Road, which America will do anything to subvert including tariffs,
sanctions, confiscations of assets, promotion of political-ethnic-religious grievances where
they may exist along the "Belt-Road", as well as armed insurrections, really maybe anything
short of all out war with Russia and China.
Germany's trying to be polite about this saying, sure, how about a little bit of LNG along
with Nord Stream 2 & 3? But the time may come, if America pushes enough, that Germany
will have to make an existential choice between subservience to America, and pursuit of it's
own legitimate self interest.
It's hard to make NG explode, as it is with all liquid hydrocarbons. It is refrigerated,
and must change from liquid to gaseous for, and be mixed with air.
I've also worked on a Gas Tanker in the summer vacations. The gas was refrigerated, and
kept liquid. They is a second method, used for NG, that is to allow evaporation from the
cargo, and use it as fuel for the engine (singular because there is one propulsion engine on
most large ships) on the tanker.
The stunning CSU defeat in Bavaria means that the coalition partner in Angela Merkel's
government has lost an absolute majority in their worst election results in Bavaria since
1950.
In a preview analysis before the election, Deutsche
Welle noted that a CSU collapse could lead to Seehofer's resignation from Merkel's
government, and conceivably Söder's exit from the Bavarian state premiership, which would
remove two of the chancellor's most outspoken critics from power , and give her room to govern
in the calmer, crisis-free manner she is accustomed to.
On the other hand, a heavy loss and big resignations in the CSU might well push a
desperate party in a more volatile, abrasive direction at the national level. That would
further antagonize the SPD, the center-left junior partners in Merkel's coalition, themselves
desperate for a new direction and already impatient with Seehofer's destabilizing antics, and
precipitate a break-up of the age-old CDU/CSU alliance, and therefore a break-up of Merkel's
grand coalition. In short: Anything could happen after Sunday, up to and including Merkel's
fall.
The Financial Times reports that the campaign was dominated by the divisive issue of
immigration, in a sign of how the shockwaves from Merkel's disastrous decision to let in more
than a million refugees in 2015-16 are continuing to reverberate through German politics and to
reshape the party landscape.
The Duran's Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss the stunning
Bavarian election defeat of the CSU party, and the message voters sent to Angela Merkel, the
last of the Obama 'rat pack' neo-liberal, globalist leaders whose tenure as German Chancellor
appears to be coming to an end.
Pompeo puts on his Global Cop Gorilla suit again making absolute demands as a condition for
even continuing negotiations.
However the big question is how much North and South Korea move ahead in spite of the
ham-fisted United States. Then the revealed scenario will be much more stark. I.e., it's not
what the Korea's want that matters, it's what the Gorilla wants.
The play then will be driven by China and Russia. They don't want North Korea with nuclear
weapons either because it's bad for business. As they work with the Korea's toward a
settlement, the question then becomes it what way will the U.S. subvert any settlement in
which it alone does not define the outcome.
P.S. like with the Russia led Minsk agreement and the Astana talks in which the U.S. has
been shut out, the U.S. cares little about attaining the fundamental peace objectives in
Korea, only that it calls the tune in every regard.
the question then becomes it what way will the U.S. subvert any settlement in which it
alone does not define the outcome?
Note that this lack of total control by the U.S. in Korea and other venues may eventually
induce a pathologically dangerous response on several fronts when the Washington Nomenklatura
becomes fully aware of its asymmetric weaknesses. I.e., When a War Machine hammer is all you
got, everything else is a nail.
During a discussion with Tyrel Ventura and Tabetha Wallace, hosts of RT show Watching the
Hawks , CIA Whistleblower, John Kiriakou, revealed that Nikki Haley who recently resigned
from her position as US ambassador to the United Nations, is planning to run for president in
2024.
As Kiriakou said:
I actually had occasion to speak with a former very senior member of the Trump campaign, and he
told me a fascinating story. He told me that Henry McMaster, who is currently the governor of
South Carolina and had been a lieutenant governor, was the first elected official in America to
endorse Donald Trump in early 2016.
And by the end of the year, Donald Trump had won the presidency and the campaign contacted
McMaster and said 'what do you want as a reward?' And he said 'I want to be governor of South
Carolina.'
Well, Nikki Haley was the governor of South Carolina. So, what is Nikki Haley want? Nikki Haley
wants to be President of the United States, and she had zero foreign policy experience.
So, what they did, is they moved Haley to the United Nations to give her a foreign policy
experience, Henry McMaster now is a very happy governor of South Carolina. Haley only wanted to
be in the position long enough to say she had been in the position and she knew a lot about
foreign policy.
So, now she's resigning. She's going to campaign for Republicans running for Congress - She's
gonna campaign for the president in 2020 - She's gonna make a lot of money in the meantime. And
then, she's gonna run for president in 2024. During a discussion with Tyrel Ventura and Tabetha
Wallace, hosts of RT show Watching the Hawks , CIA Whistleblower, John Kiriakou,
revealed that Nikki Haley who recently resigned from her position as US ambassador to the
United Nations, is planning to run for president in 2024.
As Kiriakou said:
I actually had occasion to speak with a former very senior member of the Trump campaign, and he
told me a fascinating story. He told me that Henry McMaster, who is currently the governor of
South Carolina and had been a lieutenant governor, was the first elected official in America to
endorse Donald Trump in early 2016.
And by the end of the year, Donald Trump had won the presidency and the campaign contacted
McMaster and said 'what do you want as a reward?' And he said 'I want to be governor of South
Carolina.'
Well, Nikki Haley was the governor of South Carolina. So, what is Nikki Haley want? Nikki Haley
wants to be President of the United States, and she had zero foreign policy experience.
So, what they did, is they moved Haley to the United Nations to give her a foreign policy
experience, Henry McMaster now is a very happy governor of South Carolina. Haley only wanted to
be in the position long enough to say she had been in the position and she knew a lot about
foreign policy.
So, now she's resigning. She's going to campaign for Republicans running for Congress - She's
gonna campaign for the president in 2020 - She's gonna make a lot of money in the meantime. And
then, she's gonna run for president in 2024.
"... Describing Nikki Haley as a "moderate Republican" is like describing Jeffrey Dahmer as "a moderate meat eater". Besides John Bolton there is nobody within the depraved Trump administration who's been a more reliable advocate for war, oppression and American/Israeli supremacism, no more virulent a proponent of the empire's photogenic version of fascism than she. ..."
"... But because she only advocates establishment-sanctioned mass murders (and perhaps partly because she wears the magical "Woman of Color" tiara), Haley can be painted as a sane, sensible adult-in-the-room by empire lackeys who are paid to normalize the brutality of the ruling class. ..."
"... Haley will be departing with a disgusting 75 percent approval rating with Republicans and 55 percent approval with Democrats, because God is dead and everything is stupid. ..."
Empire Loyalists Grieve Resignation of Moderate Psychopath Nikki Haley
"Describing Nikki Haley as a 'moderate Republican' is like describing Jeffrey Dahmer as 'a moderate meat eater'"
Caitlin Johnstone
Thu, Oct
11, 2018
|
820 words
3,560
164
World War Three proponent and US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley has
announced her resignation
today, to the dismay of establishment bootlickers everywhere.
"Nikki Haley, ambassador to the United Nations, has resigned, leaving the administration with one less moderate
Republican voice,"
tweeted
the New York Times, without defining what specifically is "moderate" about relentlessly pushing for
war and starvation sanctions at every opportunity and adamantly defending the slaughter of unarmed Palestinian
protesters with sniper fire.
"Too bad Nikki Haley has resigned,"
tweeted
law professor turned deranged Russia conspiracy theorist Laurence Tribe. "She was one of the last
members of Trumplandia with even a smidgen of decency."
"Thank you @nikkihaley for your remarkable service. We look forward to welcoming you back to public service as
President of the United States,"
tweeted
Mark Dubowitz, Chief Executive of the neoconservative think tank/
covert
Israeli
war
psyop firm
Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
"Thank you @nikkihaley for your service in the @UN and unwavering support for Israel and the truth,"
tweeted
the fucking IDF. "The soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces salute you!"
I'm not going to go over every single fawning, sycophantic tweet, but if you ever ingest poison and can't
afford to go to the hospital because of America's disastrous healthcare system, you can always try going to
Haley's Twitter page
and looking at all the empire loyalists she's been retweeting who've been falling all over themselves to paint her
as something other than the bloodthirsty psychopath that she is. If that doesn't empty your stomach contents all
over your screen, you are made of stronger stuff than I.
Describing Nikki Haley as a "moderate Republican" is like describing Jeffrey Dahmer as "a moderate meat eater".
Besides John Bolton there is nobody within the depraved Trump administration who's been a more reliable advocate
for war, oppression and American/Israeli supremacism, no more virulent a proponent of the empire's photogenic
version of fascism than she.
Whether it's been blocking any
condemnation
of or
UN investigation
into the slaughter of unarmed Palestinian protesters via sniper fire,
calling for a coalition against Syria
and its allies to prevent them from fighting western-backed terrorist
factions, outright
lying about Iran
to advance this administration's regime change agenda in that nation, her
attempts to blame Iran
for Saudi Arabia's butchery of Yemeni civilians with the help of the US and UK, her
calls for
sanctions against Russia
even beyond those this administration has been willing to implement, her
warmongering against North Korea
, and many, many examples from a list far too long to get into here, Haley has
made death and destruction her life's mission every day of her gore-spattered tenure.
But because she only advocates establishment-sanctioned mass murders (and perhaps partly because she wears the
magical "Woman of Color" tiara), Haley can be painted as a sane, sensible adult-in-the-room by empire lackeys who
are paid to normalize the brutality of the ruling class. While you still see Steve Bannon routinely decried as a
monster despite his being absent from the Trump administration for over a year, far more dangerous and far more
powerful ghouls are treated with respect and reverence because they know what to say in polite company and never
smoked cigars with Milo Yiannopoulos. All it takes to be regarded as a decent person by establishment punditry is
the willingness to avoid offending people; do that and you can murder as many children with explosives and
butterfly bullets as your withered heart desires.
Haley will be departing with a disgusting 75 percent
approval rating
with Republicans and 55 percent approval with Democrats, because God is dead and everything is
stupid. It is unknown who will replace her once she vacates her position (I've got my money on Reaper drone in a
desk chair), but it's a safe bet that it will be someone who espouses the same neoconservative imperialist foreign
policy that this administration has been elevating since the beginning. Whoever it is should be watched closely,
as should the bipartisan beltway propagandists whose job it is to humanize them.
UPDATE: Had to include
this gem
from the New York Times editorial board:
"... They should definitely send more women to the places they messed up - Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Iraq, Iran etc. They should never send them to Iran as they will have a fit when they see how civilised and courteous ordinary people are over there. For some strange reason, most Iranians like America. I could never understand that. ..."
Samantha Power was terrible too. Hard to say which is worse. They share the same
discourse. No difference between democrats and Republicans. Both defend the Empire by
resorting to invasions, conspiracies, and murder.
Think Power had slightly more between her ears... but the same warmongering
attitudes.
What's wrong with women when they get into positions of power, that so many of them
become warhawks? Think Power, Haley, Rice (both of them), Clinton, Albrighton, Thatcher,
et al?
And them the feminists tell us that the world would be a more just and peaceful place if
there were more of them in office!
"What's wrong with women when they get into positions of power, that so many of them
become warhawks?"
They should definitely send more women to the places they messed up - Afghanistan,
Libya, Somalia, Iraq, Iran etc. They should never send them to Iran as they will have a fit when they see how
civilised and courteous ordinary people are over there. For some strange reason, most
Iranians like America. I could never understand that.
Because women in power want to imitate men's behavior. Don't want to differentiate
themselves. Bad news for bad feminism. U.S. feminists adore people like Albright or H
Clinton. They are not credible.
US and its 100,000 Intelligence community working for "Monaco" makes as much sense as
Hitler worked for Luxembourgh.
With 22 new Capitol Hill size buildings in Washington DC for CIA since 2001, they could
house whole Israeli state administration alone
Judicial Watch today released
49
pages
of new documents obtained from the US Department of State about US Agency for International
Development (USAID) funding for George Soros's left-wing nonprofit organizations in Albania. The documents
deal primarily with the activities of Soros' top operative in Albania, Andri Dobrushi, the director of Open
Society Foundation-Albania, who was actively engaged in channeling funding to what Hungarian Prime Minister
Viktor Orban calls Soros' "
mercenary
army
." The documents show US grant money flowing through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that
profess to promote "civil society," while in fact attacking traditional, pro-American groups, governments
and policies.
The records reveal that Soros operative Dobrushi was the first person on a list of invitees by then US
Ambassador to Albania Donald Lu to attend an "
election
rollout event
" held at the US Embassy on April 27, 2015. The event was intended to "launch US assistance
for the June local elections," being held in Tirana, Albania. As Judicial Watch previously reported in an
April 4, 2018,
press
release
, Ambassador Lu has been closely associated with Soros and the socialist government in Albania,
which he assisted by denying US visas to conservative jurists from the conservative party in Albania. Lu has
since
been
nominated
by the Trump administration to become US Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan.
Additionally, a
June 18, 2015, email from
Ilva
Cuko
, a Program Specialist in the Public Affairs Office of the US Embassy in Tirana, invites
several people, including
Dobrushi
,
to a "
Donors
Grant Reviewing meeting
" at the US Embassy, in which the participants would review applications
for grants submitted by NGOs seeking US taxpayer grant money from the State Department. Cuko says she
would "like to invite you in a discussion on these proposals. Your valuable input and comments will be
used by the US Embassy's Democracy Commission, which has the ultimate authority in awarding the
grants."
Cuko on August 28, 2015, also invited Dobrushi to attend another US Embassy Democracy Commission Small
Grants Program "
Grant
Proposal Technical Review
" meeting on September 3 at the US Embassy. At this meeting, Cuko said
they would focus on applications dealing with "anticorruption." Ironically, under the leadership of
Soros' close friend, socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama, who took power in 2013, corruption in Albania
has soared, with
cannabis
trafficking
in the country increasing 300 percent between 2016 and 2017.
In a February 22, 2016, email, Cuko again invites several people, including Dobrushi, to another "
Donors
Grant Reviewing Meeting
" held at the US Embassy on February 26 where Dobrushi would be able to
influence Embassy officials who have "the ultimate authority in awarding the grants."
Harry Kazianis reviews
Nikki Haley's record as ambassador to the U.N. and finds it very lacking:
That was my problem with the ambassador. Not that she did a bad job, not that she was a
terrible representative of our nation's interests, but simply that she lacked of the
experience and natural abilities needed in such a role. Spitting back Trumpian rhetoric is
not enough to be credible on the world's stage.
Kazianis is right that Haley was ill-prepared for the job, and I would add that she made a
habit of making false claims ,
unreasonable demands, and
unnecessary threats . Whether she was
threatening military action over missile tests, telling lies about the
nuclear deal with Iran , or warning
that the U.S. would be "taking names" of the states that didn't fall in line, Haley proved
herself to be a poor diplomat and an ineffective representative of the United States. Her time
at the U.N. was marked by unwarranted, cruel actions to punish
the Palestinian civilian population, a disgraceful
defense of the massacre of protesters in Gaza, and a misguided decision to
withdraw from the Human Rights Council. While the world's worst humanitarian crisis
intensified in Yemen with U.S. support for the Saudi coalition, Haley was too busy trying to
distract everyone's attention by shouting about Iran.
Haley didn't have a good grasp of substance, and instead relied on talking points to a
fault. Kazianis quotes a Republican consultant's view of the ambassador:
"Haley was a great spokesperson for the administration; in fact, she was great at
parroting whatever lines Trump wanted her to deliver," the consultant continued. "But for
anyone who has ever interacted with her, one thing became very clear. The second she left the
land of talking points, any time she was asked to discuss any issue in any depth, it was
apparent there was nothing there. And that is not what we need as ambassador at the UN."
It is a sign of how little many of her fellow hawks care about substantive knowledge that
several of them greeted news of her resignation with dismay. Max Boot described her resignation as a
"sad moment," and Bill Kristol began fantasizing about a primary challenge
to Trump that will never happen. When these are the people touting Haley's record, it is a safe
bet that the U.S. will be better off being represented by someone else at the U.N.
Following Reagan and Trump, the only reason we don't see actual actors hired for
candidacies and campaigns is because the best Judas Goat for any election rodeo is one that
believes its own BS.
Let's face it. Trump did not have an army of qualified people to fill government and
administration posts. He had to fill positions from the Neocon pool of bureaucrats. Nikki
Haley is a mind-numbed robot, drunk on Neocon Kool-Aid and Premillenial Dispensationalism.
Really sad that Trump picked her for the UN slot. Even sadder is he will replace her with
someone just as bad, but more clever at disguising a rotten foreign policy.
If one had to identify the main reason behind the utter failure of the U.S. political
establishment and military leadership, both civilian and in uniform, to identify and prioritize
weapons programs and procurement that was truly in line with the national defense needs of the
country, it would be the institutional corruption of the U.S. military industrial complex. This
is not a fault of one party, but is the inevitable outcome of a thoroughly corrupted system
that both generates and wastes great wealth at the expense of the many for the benefit of the
few.
Massive defense budgets do not lead to powerful military forces nor sound national defense
strategy. The United States is the most glaring example of how a nation's treasure can be
wasted, its citizens robbed for generations, and its political processes undermined by an
industry bent on maximizing profitability by encouraging and exacerbating conflict. At this
point it is questionable that the United States' could remain economically viable without war,
so much of its GDP is connected in some way to the pursuit of conflict.
There is no doubt that the War Department was renamed the Department of Defense in an
Orwellian sleight of hand in 1947, just a few years after end of World War II. The military
industrial complex grew into a monolith during the war, and the only way to justify the
expansion of the complex, was by finding a new enemy to justify the new reality of a massive
standing military, something that the U.S. Constitution expressly forbids. This unlawful state
of affairs has persisted and expanded into a rotten, bloated edifice of waste. Wasted effort,
wasted wealth and the wasted lives of millions of people spanning every corner of the planet.
Tens of thousands of brave men and women in uniform, and millions of civilians of so many
nations, have been tossed into the blades of this immoral meat grinder for generations.
President Donald Trump was very proud to announce the largest U.S. military budget in the
nation's history last year. The United States spent (or more accurately, borrowed from
generations yet to come) no less than $874.4 billion USD. The declared base budget for 2017 was
$523.2 billion USD, yet there are also the Overseas Contingency Operations and Support budgets
that have to be considered in determining the total cost. The total DOD annual costs have
doubled from 2003 to the present. Yet, what has the DOD really accomplished with so much money
and effort? Very little of benefit to the U.S. tax payer for sure, and paradoxically the
exorbitant waste of the past fifteen years have left every branch of the U.S. military
weaker.
The U.S. Congress has the duty and responsibility of reigning in the military adventurism of
the executive branch. They have the sole authority to declare war, but more importantly, the
sole authority to approve the budget requests of the military. It is laughable to think that
the U.S. Congress will do anything to reign in military spending. The Congress and the Senate
are as equally guilty as the Executive in promoting and benefitting from the military
industrial complex. Envisioned as a bulwark against executive power, the U.S. Congress has
become an integral component of that complex. No Senator or Representative would dare to go
against the industry that employs so many constituents within their state, or pass up on the
benefits afforded them through the legalized insider-trading exclusive to them, or the
lucrative jobs that await them in the defense industry and the many think tanks that promote
continued prosecution of war.
Qatar is jubilating! Turkey, too! Saudi Arabia will be criticized and isolated as most GCC
countries would dissaprove and prefer to dissociate from such a crime. Dismembering the body
of a dead moslem man is a very serious crime in Islam.
Kuwait and Bahrein are already cozyng up with Syria, the UAE is slowly moving out the
Yemen war and reviewing ist relation with Syria.
Kashoogi's alleged martyr may save Yemenis lives and may have the Western world faced to
the reality that in the region, the evil is not Iran but their best friend, Saudi Arabia and
its smiling monster MBS.
Kashoogi may have succeeded unintentionally to destabilize MBS and probably trigger his
removal. The USA will have no problem in sacrificing MBS for the sake of keeping the Saudi
milking under control. The only problem will be that it will reflect on Kushner-MBS Grand
Palestinian plan.
Maybe Kashoogi's love for fiancee made him take the risk to get a divorce paper from the
Saudi Arabia consulate and be killed.
@75 Why should Trump make a big issue about some dead Arab? Because he was a journalist?
Trump hates journalists.
If bleeding heart progressives want to make a fuss so be it. He knows his base don't give
a shit about the world outside the USA as long as they buy American arms.
I don't know what is happening in Brazil, but from what I have read from some Russians and
some German geopolitical analysts it seems that the far right Jair Bolsonaro will be the key
of a future American proxy war against Venezuela. The US deep state want a ''middle
easternization'' in South America.
Ukraine Naftogaz Commercial Director Yuriy Vitrenko, in an interview with "The Fifth
Channel" has spoken of a plan that has been prepared in order to protect Naftogaz interests
in the event of the launch of "Nord Stream-2".
According to him, if the gas pipeline project is indeed implemented, then Kiev will demand
that a penalty against against Russia be awarded the Ukraine for the loss it will suffer
because of the redundancy of its gas transport system.
The loss incured has been estimated by the Ukraine to be $12 billion. A lawsuit has
already been filed by Naftogaz for international arbitration.
So for several years I have been shopping at a Pyatyorochka supermarket around the corner
from our house. Now there's a new Billa supermarket around the other corner. It has a wider
range of goods and is very competitive as regards its Pyatorocka prices, so I now do most of
my shopping at Billa.
Does this mean Pyatyorachka can sue me for damages because of the loss of income it is
suffering because of my choice to use another retail outlet?
I shall check with the Swedish court of arbitration.
Perhaps they would get further by suing the US Department of State. I'm pretty sure that if
it were not for them, Ukraine's gas transit system would still be in use. Ukraine could at
least make a sensible case, which they cannot do against Russia. Mind you, a UK judge would
probably rule in their favour, because simply wanting to get at Russia seems to be good
enough these days – making a sensible case is not required.
"the GRU's disregard for global values and rules that keep us all safe".
Like the values and rules that led the NSA to eavesdrop on Chancellor Merkel's phone calls
for years, and to use American Embassies as listening posts. Mutti Merkel was very
understanding, considering they were only doing it to keep us all safe.
In another stellar example of simply making up an optimistic headline that makes readers feel
good – those readers who only read headlines, for example – a French analyst is
apparently willing to go out on a limb and say that Nord Stream II 'won't be built as
planned'. That's already a little hedgy, but if you read the article itself, he doesn't say
anything remotely like that. In fact, he says Russian gas is the cheapest option, and most
American LNG cargoes thus far to Europe are promptly sold on to someplace else where the
Europeans can get more for it.
The major issue is that US LNG may come if we have higher prices. But why would we need
them? They are quite high already. If China is prepared to overbid us, we don't need the
American gas. We can ask for more Russian gas
Russia's Energy Minister sees the potential to double Russian gas exports by 2035. Russia's
gas exports are growing by 6-7%/yr while global gas demand growth is at 2.6%/yr until 2035.
Probably not the greatest news for the environment, as most analysts agree we need to
start immediately moving away from a petroleum-based energy policy. But getting rid of all
use of coal would be a good start for the present; gas is relatively clean, although I don't
know if that makes any real difference to greenhouse-gas emissions.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on October 7 in Belgrade that NATO
conducted the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999 with the aim of
protecting the civilian population against the regime of President Slobodan
Milosevic.
"I said that we did this to protect the civilian population and prevent further actions
of the Milosevic regime", said Stolberg.
He also stressed that his most important message was the need to"look to the
future".
I am sure those Serbs appreciate the great concern NATO had for their well-being.
Sound familiar? It's the old western elitist argument – Nobody could have foreseen
this. This is no time for finger-pointing. We all have to work together to solve the problem.
That's really shameful – even for NATO. Stoltenberg knows perfectly well that NATO
deliberately, contrary to various Geneva Conventions, targeted civilian infrastructure. Tony
Blair is on record 'celebrating' this – he vigorously supported the bombing of the
Serbian TV station which killed many civilians including such enemies of the civilised world
as make-up ladies. It all began in Yugoslavia – the whole R2Protect nonsense. The West
got away with it there and this facilitated the attacks on Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria
and, waiting in the wings, Iran.
NATzO "double tapped" the TV station with its Tomohawks. They sent another round 15 minutes
later to kill the emergency responders. NATzO bombed a passenger train as it was crossing a
bridge. It claimed the train was collateral damage and produced a sped-up video meant to
convince the NATzO consumer sheeple that poor NATzO pilots didn't have time to react. The
fuckers had no business bombing every civilian bridge in Serbia in the first place. It wasn't
WWII but some illegal "policing" operation. NATzO also bombed Nis with cluster bombs. Human
Rights Watch and the rest of the phony NATzO "human rights organizations" couldn't be
bothered to complain. But they claimed use of cluster weapons as grotesque war crimes in 2008
in South Ossetia (no such weapons were used and the fuckers showed a spent Israeli casing as
"proof", i.e. it was Georgian forces that used them).
But the main achievement of NATzO is to be the air force of the UCK terrorists and enabled
the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo i Metohija of hundreds of thousands of Serbs. Before WWII,
Albanians were 30% of the population of this province and have zero claim on it as some
ancestral land. Albanians love to cite Roman sources as supposedly proving that they lived
there for 2000+ years. This is BS and they migrated to the Balkans like basically every other
ethic group there (the Dacians, now Romanians, and Greeks have been there the longest).
Romans also recorded that the lands they observed occupied were empty at later times. The
1800th century concept of nation was totally alien even 1000 years ago.
Tito allowed/induced Albanians to live in Kosovo as part of a concerted anti-Serb campaign.
He was the West's greatest political success in post WW II (assuming Gorbachev was not an
agent of the West).
Serbia gave the SU the break it needed to survive and eventually defeat the West in WW II.
They gave Russia the break it needed to survive and to eventually defeat the West in the 21st
century.
I hope that Russia will help Serbia to recover its history and its independence.
A suspected third member of the Kremlin hit squad behind the Salisbury nerve agent attack
has been named, according to a respected Russian news website.
Sergey Fedotov, 45, travelled to the UK on the same day as the two assassins already
charged by British authorities – and boarded the same flight home.
The Telegraph had previously reported the existence of a third member of the Russian
intelligence hit squad and a trawl of flight records by the Fontanka news agency matched it
to Fedotov.
According to Fontanka, Fedotov flew to the UK on a passport whose number differs by
only a few digits from those used by the two GRU military intelligence agents officially
wanted for the nerve agent attack.
It is almost certain Fedotov is not the passenger's real name but an alias. No traces
of Sergei Fedotov have been found in documentary databases or on social media. He has no
property, vehicles or telephone numbers registered to his name in Russia, according to
Fontanka.
No "alleged"in "Kremlin hit squad behind the Salisbury nerve agent attack but It is
almost certain Fedotov is not the passenger's real name but an alias.
Or those who hate him – and they are legion – wanted her out, because if Trump
wanted her out her replacement would already have been announced. I saw on one of those
'sponsored content' trash teaser clickbait headlines that it was going to be Ivanka, but not
even Trump would do that. Although you never know – it's not as if Haley brought any
wealth of foreign-policy knowledge to the table, and she was mostly there to be a partisan
spoiler of initiatives the USA did not want to pass. I suppose anyone could do that.
Nikki Haley's resignation as President Trump's Ambassador to the United Nations yesterday came
as quite a surprise. Haley seemed pleased to play her imagined role as the world's procurator,
as she used her UN perch to incessantly threaten and condemn all the global enemies of her
fellow neoconservatives. She came to the job with no foreign policy experience and she will be
leaving exactly as she arrived.
If Haley's departure came as a surprise, so too did her appointment in the first place.
During the primaries, she was famously in the "
anyone but Donald Trump " camp of neocons, saying that Trump was "everything a governor
doesn't want in a president."
Trump soon returned the compliment,
Tweeting that, "The people of South Carolina are embarrassed by Nikki Haley!"
Nevertheless, like many neocons who had been critical of Trump, she found herself rewarded
with a top position in the Administration. From her position she had consistently gotten ahead
of her boss, the President, in policy pronouncements and at almost every turn she appeared to
be pushing a Haley foreign policy rather than a Trump foreign policy.
For example, just as President Trump was returning from his historic summit meeting in
Helsinki with Russian President Vladimir Putin, where the US President spoke very
optimistically about a new approach to US/Russian relations, Nikki Haley gave an interview in
which she said, "we don't trust Russia, we don't trust Putin; we never will...they're never
going to be our friend...that's a fact."
Last September she acted as if she, rather than Trump, were the commander-in-chief, Tweeting
of North Korea, "we cut 90% of trade and 30% of oil. I have no problem kicking it to Gen.
Mattis because I think he has plenty of options." The idea that she, and not her boss, would
"kick it" to Defense Secretary Mattis was preposterous, but contradicting and countermanding
Trump's disappointingly rare bobs toward diplomacy and disengagement over bluster and bombs was
a chief characteristic of Haley's reign as UN chief finger-wagger.
President Trump had been extremely critical of Syria's Assad, particularly after he fell for
two false-flag rebel gas attacks blamed on Assad, but he had been careful not to explicitly set
US policy as "Assad must go," as had his predecessor. Nevertheless Nikki Haley again got out
ahead of official US policy with her own policy,
stating in September 2017 that, "we're not going to be satisfied until we see a solid and
stable Syria, and that is not with Assad in place."
Nikki Haley had long been associated with neocon warhawk John Bolton and had also benefited
from the largesse of GOP moneybags Sheldon Adelson, the Israel-obsessed casino magnate who
bankrolled Haley's PAC to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars in 2016 alone. Haley was
Adelson's kind of governor: While South Carolina's executive, she signed the nation's first law
making it a criminal offense to support a boycott of Israel.
How did the mainstream media handle the surprise resignation of such an extreme warhawk?
Someone one might consider on the far fringe of US political life? The New York Times mourned
the departure of Ambassador Haley,
Tweeting that it would be "leaving the administration with one less moderate Republican
voice."
"Moderate" voice?
For such a pro-war extremist to be considered "moderate" by the newspaper of record may
strike some as odd, but as Glenn Greenwald so accurately
explained :
The reason NYT calls her "moderate" is because she affirms all of the standard pro-war,
pro-imperial orthodoxies that are bipartisan consensus in Washington. That's why @ BillKristol reveres her. She was a Tea Party candidate, but "moderate" means:
loves US wars & hegemony.
That's it in a nutshell. Because in Washington being extreme pro-interventionist
and pro-war is the orthodoxy. The facade that there are real differences between the Republican
and Democrat party is carefully crafted by the mainstream media to cover the fact that we do
live in a one-party state. Pro-war, pro-intervention, pro-bombing, pro-overthrow, pro-meddling
- these are moderate positions. For Washington and the mainstream media, the extremists are the
ones who wish to abide by the admonitions of our Founding Fathers that we go not abroad in
search of monsters to destroy.
Well, it seems there are plenty of monsters closer to home.
So good riddance to Nikki Haley...but don't hold your breath that it means the end of Nikki
Haley-ism, which is the foundation of US foreign policy. Clearly we have much work left to
do.
Your tax deductible
contributions to the Ron Paul Institute allow us to provide you with real
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Sincerely yours,
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Pat,
" why her UN staff did not know until this morning that she was resigning. "
Dunno, but what about the possibility that she herself didn't knew she was to "retire"
until this morning? That she didn' quit but just quietly (which would be very un-Trumpish)
got the boot?
As for firing people, Trump made a TV show out of that, though usually he prefers to "use
megaphones over whispering".
That'd be the sort of retirement that's more frankly called " get the eff out and shut
the eff up on your way out, and don't forget to say thank you! ".
All it needed for that to happen is the orange king having a "fart sit crosswise". As for
Harper's good riddance, indeed.
IMO, at least she knew she is a goner since last week, I also think she agreed to leave on a
non-embarrassing way, meaning not to be fired in mob boss' favorite way as in Apprentice.
Like Colonel suggest
neocons and her Israeli backers like to preserve her for a later day, she is a useful idiot.
IMO, Trump, like the mob boss he think he is, and acts like, believes she was cause of his
embarrassing performance/program at UN, again like mob bosses Don Trump doesn't give a second
chance to anyone.
Trump is a master of political timing. Perhaps for whatever reason he wanted to move on from
the Kavanaugh hubbub to something else--like Haley resigning. It has dominated the news cycle
moreso than if it had been leaked by a staffer. Just my guess.
My latest information is that Haley's neocon and Zionist sponsors and handlers kept her
busy rhetorically pushing Trump toward what they wanted as foreign policy positions but
which he did not want. Somehow he figured that out, and fired her immediately after
finishing up the Kavanaugh affair. The woman herself is a fairly good looking walking
mass of ambition and dumb as a post. Her sponsors will now stuff her pockets with money
and hope they can keep her alive politically until she can be useful again.
Would I be wrong in asking if NH knew she was going to be fired when she went into that
meeting? Could the reception of Trumps UN speech been the proximate cause, assuming NH
saw it in advance and "approved" it (assuming she had been asked for input)? What does
the UN speech say about the worldview of NH's backers (if anything)?
as washington and americas world influence wanes the UN becomes less useful to the point
of being an obstruction for washintons machinations.
back in the day when washington could herd all the liliputians at the general assembly
the UN provided great cover and legitimacy for the USA. since the mask has slipped
revealing to all but the most obtuse amongst us, washingtons lack of moral legitimacy and
soft power, our influence among the GA members is on a downward trajectory.
ergo it no longer really matters who is our UN ambassador because washington simply
bypasses what it doesn't like that goes on at the UN since it can no longer control the
outcome.
we just had captain kangaroo resign we might as well call up Mcdonalds and see if
ronald would like the gig.
for a rapidly declining empire such as ours it makes no damn difference who is
installed at the UN. one cipher is the same as any other so lets at least err on the side
of entertainment for all of us in flyover land.
Of course she can follow the time-tested formula of top politicians and government
officials - make money lobbying after writing the obligatory book with a huge
advance.
I agree with Harper's take...she was 'eased' out...I have to say that no member of this
administration is more repugnant than this harpy...why Trump ever appointed her is a
mystery...as for her future prospects, I doubt she will go far...I think her 15 minutes
are up...
Speculating that this April incident didn't help Haley back than claiming 'I don't get
confused' regarding additional sanctions on Russia by prematurely announcing the
sanctions according to Larry Kudlow. Kind of a terse comment by her and possibly not
appreciated by the Trump team.
https://www.theguardian.com...
Does Nikki think that she can pull an Emmanuel Macron stunt ?
or is it the fact that her family is in a financial hole and she knows that she can
make more $$$$$ in the private sector , trying to mimic Lt Gen Flynn making hundred
thousands at FOX or another network.
Thank god she's gone!!! I liked Haley just fine as the governor of SC. At first I
thought, given her ethnic background, that she might do well her UN role once she learned
the ropes.
But then I heard her first few shrill neocon-style anti-Russia speeches at the UN
shortly after her appointment. I thought this quite odd given Trump's repeated campaign
statements about having better relations with Russia, so I figured the Borg assimilated
her and was using her as an inside tool to obstruct Trump's FP desires.
This got me thinking about which Borgians might be advising/mentoring her. It sure
wasn't any of the realists at Kissinger Associates. So which Borg think tank might it be?
Maybe Kimberley Kagan took her under her wing or someone else at PNAC
Harper, do you know who any of Haley's mentors are?
One other recent intriguing item was Trump's invitation to Rosenstein to accompany on
his flight to that police chiefs speech the other day. That seemed very important... and
symbolic. It was clearly a dominance technique. Wonder what they talked about on Air
Force One. Not going to be able to get away with any secret recordings there.
Trump has had to deal with some pretty shady characters during the course of his
career. I pondered whether Trump might be trying to "turn" Rosenstein to get at the roots
of the coup.
Do any of you have any better info on the Trump-Rosenstein meeting?
Thanks god and congratulations to our planet, that Niki bites the dust, the very
embarrassing day that the egomaniac Trump chaired the UNSC I knew she will be a goner.
People around trump should know, that he wouldn't take it lightly being embarrassed in
front of whole world and will blame it on who ever organized such an event. I remember he
end up leaving that UNSC meeting early with his head down, thinking how and when he will
be embarrassing her in front of the whole world.
Pat,
" why her UN staff did not know until this morning that she was resigning. "
Dunno, but what about the possibility that she herself didn't knew she was to "retire"
until this morning? That she didn' quit but just quietly (which would be very
un-Trumpish) got the boot?
As for firing people, Trump made a TV show out of that, though usually he prefers to
"use megaphones over whispering".
That'd be the sort of retirement that's more frankly called " get the eff out and
shut the eff up on your way out, and don't forget to say thank you! ".
All it needed for that to happen is the orange king having a "fart sit crosswise". As
for Harper's good riddance, indeed.
IMO, at least she knew she is a goner since last week, I also think she agreed to leave
on a non-embarrassing way, meaning not to be fired in mob boss' favorite way as in
Apprentice. Like Colonel suggest
neocons and her Israeli backers like to preserve her for a later day, she is a useful
idiot. IMO, Trump, like the mob boss he think he is, and acts like, believes she was
cause of his embarrassing performance/program at UN, again like mob bosses Don Trump
doesn't give a second chance to anyone.
Trump is a master of political timing. Perhaps for whatever reason he wanted to move on
from the Kavanaugh hubbub to something else--like Haley resigning. It has dominated the
news cycle moreso than if it had been leaked by a staffer. Just my guess.
Former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon slammed UN ambassador Nikki Haley's decision on
Tuesday to announce her resignation, calling it "suspect" and "horrific," and that it
overshadowed positive news that Trump and the Republicans need to build support going into
midterms, according to
Bloomberg .
The timing was exquisite from a bad point of view ," Bannon told Bloomberg
News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait on Wednesday at the Bloomberg Invest London forum. "
Everything she said yesterday and everything she said about stepping down could have been done
on the evening of November 6. The timing could not have been worse. "
Haley's announcement, according to Bannon, took White House officials by surprise - and
distracted attention from Brett Kavanaugh's first day as a justice on the Supreme Court, along
with headlines over the lowest US unemployment rate in five decades. Haley's decision
undermines Trump's message to Republican voters, said Bannon.
In the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump said Haley told him six months ago she wanted a break
after spending two years in the post. She'll continue in her role until year-end. Haley said
Tuesday that she was ready for a break after two terms as South Carolina's governor and two
years at the United Nations. -
Bloomberg
Bannon also says that he took Haley at her word that she has no political aspirations -
particularly when it comes to running against Trump in 2020. She says that she looks forward to
campaigning for Trump in two years. That said, Bannon calls Haley "ambitious" and "very
talented," though he said so using a backhanded compliment.
"I think she is incredibly politically ambitious," Bannon added. " Ambitious as Lucifer but
that is probably...I am probably taking Milton out of context."
Trump defended the timing of Haley's departure on Wednesday, saying "there's no good time"
for her to have announced her resignation - and that if she'd waited until after midterms, it
would have raised questions as to whether her motive was based on the results.
Bannon is unhinged. Nikki Haley was horrible in her position! If Bannon payed attention to
voter base of Trump, he'd see Haley was a thorn in the side of the Trump administration.
One of the best appointments Trump has made, is Mike Pompeo. I thought he'd be some crazed
warmonger, but has turned out to be quite the opposite.
He's got this kind of easy going swagger and confidence about him. He's chubby, and his
every day guy, sort of approach, is affable.
Yes sir... her rhetoric is pure deep state war mongering of the most evil kind. She was
told to stir up as much hatred and fear at the UN as possible and try to get the opposition
to do something stupid in response to her remarks. That's not Trump talk for damned sure...
that's deep state talk.
He makes a GREAT point that occurred to me immediately. If you are resigning effective at
the end of the year and everything is awesome, just time to move on.... why the hell are you
publicly announcing it 3 weeks before a VERY contentious midterm election and only a day or
so after a brutal SCOTUS nomination conclusion? Why? Why now? Very curious and a unforced
error.
"... This is not new and has been going for at least a century. And the US elites have a long tradition of false flags to to get the people of America riled up for war. ..."
"... As Petras says: "The ten theses define the nature of 21st century imperialism" because, I feel, they are the same values that defined the British Colonial Empire. ..."
Few, if any, believe what they hear and read from leaders and media publicists. Most people
choose to ignore the cacophony of voices, vices and virtues.
This paper provides a set of theses which purports to lay-out the basis for a dialogue
between and among those who choose to abstain from elections with the intent to engage them in
political struggle.
Thesis 1
US empire builders of all colors and persuasion practice donkey tactics; waving the carrot
and wielding the whip to move the target government on the chosen path.
In the same way, Washington offers dubious concessions and threatens reprisals, in order to
move them into the imperial orbit.
Washington applied the tactic successfully in several recent encounters. In 2003 the US
offered Libyan government of Muammar Gaddafi a peaceful accommodation in exchange for
disarmament, abandonment of nationalist allies in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. In 2011,
the US with its European allies applied the whip – bombed Libya, financed and armed
retrograde tribal and terrorist forces, destroyed the infrastructure, murdered Gaddafi and
uprooted millions of Africans and Libyans. . . who fled to Europe. Washington recruited
mercenaries for their subsequent war against Syria in order to destroy the nationalist Bashar
Assad regime.
Washington succeeded in destroying an adversary but did not establish a puppet regime in the
midst of perpetual conflict.
The empire's carrot weakened its adversary, but the stick failed to recolonize Libya
..Moreover its European allies are obligated to pay the multi-billion Euro cost of absorbing
millions of uprooteded immigrants and the ensuing domestic political turmoil.
Thesis 2
Empire builders' proposal to reconfigure the economy in order to regain imperial supremacy
provokes domestic and overseas enemies. President Trump launched a global trade war, replaced
political accommodation with economic sanctions against Russia and a domestic protectionist
agenda and sharply reduced corporate taxes. He provoked a two-front conflict. Overseas, he
provoked opposition from European allies and China, while facing perpetual harassment from
domestic free market globalists and Russo-phobic political elites and ideologues.
Two front conflicts are rarely successful. Most successful imperialist conquer adversaries
in turn – first one and then the other.
Thesis 3
Leftists frequently reverse course: they are radicals out of office and reactionaries in
government, eventually falling between both chairs. We witness the phenomenal collapse of the
German Social Democratic Party, the Greek Socialist Party (PASOK), (and its new version Syriza)
and the Workers Party in Brazil. Each attracted mass support, won elections, formed alliances
with bankers and the business elite – and in the face of their first crises, are
abandoned by the populace and the elite.
Shrewd but discredited elites frequently recognize the opportunism of the Left, and in time
of distress, have no problem in temporarily putting up with Left rhetoric and reforms as long
as their economic interests are not jeopardized. The elite know that the Left signal left and
turn right.
Thesis 4
Elections, even ones won by progressives or leftists, frequently become springboards for
imperial backed coups. Over the past decade newly elected presidents, who are not aligned with
Washington, face congressional and/or judicial impeachment on spurious charges. The elections
provide a veneer of legitimacy which a straight-out military-coup lacks.
In Brazil, Paraguay and Venezuela, 'legislatures' under US tutelage attempted to ouster
popular President. They succeeded in the former and failed in the latter.
When electoral machinery fails, the judicial system intervenes to impose restraints on
progressives, based on tortuous and convoluted interpretation of the law. Opposition leftists
in Argentina, Brazil and Ecuador have been hounded by ruling party elites.
Thesis 5
Even crazy leaders speak truth to power. There is no question that President Trump suffers a
serious mental disorder, with midnight outbursts and nuclear threats against, any and all,
ranging from philanthropic world class sports figures (LeBron James) to NATO respecting EU
allies.
Yet in his lunacy, President Trump has denounced and exposed the repeated deceits and
ongoing fabrications of the mass media. Never before has a President so forcefully identified
the lies of the leading print and TV outlets. The NY Times , Washington Post
, the Financial Times, NBC, CNN, ABC and CBS have been thoroughly discredited
in the eyes of the larger public. They have lost legitimacy and trust. Where progressives have
failed, a war monger billionaire has accomplished, speaking a truth to serve many
injustices.
Thesis 6
When a bark turns into a bite, Trump proves the homely truth that fear invites aggression.
Trump has implemented or threatened severe sanctions against the EU, China, Iran, Russia,
Venezuela, North Korea and any country that fails to submit to his dictates. At first, it was
bombast and bluster which secured concessions.
Concessions were interpreted as weakness and invited greater threats. Disunity of opponents
encouraged imperial tacticians to divide and conquer. But by attacking all adversaries
simultaneously he undermines that tactic. Threats everywhere limits choices to dangerous
options at home and abroad.
Thesis 7
The master meddlers, of all times, into the politics of sovereign states are the
Anglo-American empire builders. But what is most revealing is the current ploy of accusing the
victims of the crimes that are committed against them.
After the overthrow of the Soviet regime, the US and its European acolytes 'meddled' on a
world-historic scale, pillaging over two trillion dollars of Soviet wealth and reducing Russian
living standards by two thirds and life expectancy to under sixty years – below the level
of Bangladesh.
With Russia's revival under President Putin, Washington financed a large army of self-styled
'non-governmental organizations' (NGO) to organize electoral campaigns, recruited moguls in the
mass media and directed ethnic uprisings. The Russians are retail meddlers compared to the
wholesale multi-billion-dollar US operators.
Moreover, the Israelis have perfected meddling on a grand scale – they intervene
successfully in Congress, the White House and the Pentagon. They set the Middle East agenda,
budget and priorities, and secure the biggest military handouts on a per-capita basis in US
history!
Apparently, some meddlers meddle by invitation and are paid to do it.
Thesis 8
Corruption is endemic in the US where it has legal status and where tens of millions of
dollars change hands and buy Congress people, Presidents and judges.
ORDER IT NOW
In the US the buyers and brokers are called 'lobbyists' – everywhere else they are
called fraudsters. Corruption (lobbying) grease the wheels of billion dollars military
spending, technological subsidies, tax evading corporations and every facet of government
– out in the open, all the time and place of the US regime.
Corruption as lobbying never evokes the least criticism from the mass media.
On the other hand, where corruption takes place under the table in Iran, China and Russia,
the media denounce the political elite – even where in China over 2 million officials,
high and the low are arrested and jailed.
When corruption is punished in China, the US media claim it is merely a 'political purge'
even if it directly reduces elite conspicuous consumption.
In other words, imperial corruption defends democratic value; anti-corruption is a hallmark
of authoritarian dictatorships.
Thesis 9
Bread and circuses are integral parts of empire building – especially in promoting
urban street mobs to overthrow independent and elected governments.
Imperial financed mobs – provided the cover for CIA backed coups in Iran (1954),
Ukraine (2014), Brazil (1964), Venezuela (2003, 2014 and 2017), Argentina (1956), Nicaragua
(2018), Syria (2011) and Libya (2011) among other places and other times.
Masses for empire draw paid and voluntary street fighters who speak for democracy and serve
the elite. The "mass cover" is especially effective in recruiting leftists who look to the
street for opinion and ignore the suites which call the shots.
Thesis 10
The empire is like a three-legged stool it promotes genocide, to secure magnicide and to
rule by homicide. Invasions kills millions, capture and kill rulers and then rule by homicide
– police assassinating dissenting citizens.
The cases are readily available: Iraq and Libya come to mind. The US and its allies invaded,
bombed and killed over a million Iraqis, captured and assassinated its leaders and installed a
police state.
A similar pattern occurred in Libya: the US and EU bombed, killed and uprooted several
million people, assassinated Ghadaffy and fomented a lawless terrorist war of clans, tribes and
western puppets.
"Western values" reveal the inhumanity of empires built to murder "a la carte" –
stripping the victim nations of their defenders, leaders and citizens.
Conclusion
The ten theses define the nature of 21 st century imperialism – its
continuities and novelties.
The mass media systematically write and speak lies to power: their message is to disarm
their adversaries and to arouse their patrons to continue to plunder the world.
When was the last time "Nation building" resulted in a livable country. Iraq? Libya?
Americans, and I am one, can barely keep their own country from sinking into a pit of decay.
Why "deliver Democracy" when Dubai makes much of the US look like shit in terms of
infrastructure, crime and poverty.
When was the last time "Nation building" resulted in a livable country.
Why "deliver Democracy" when Dubai makes much of the US look like shit
Because what a ZOG does with it's host nation has nothing to do with improving anything
for the occupied peoples.
Think of it like the Communist Manifesto. They thump it around, preaching utopia and
equality and all that sugar and honey. This is because they want you to buy what they are
selling. But they don't have any intention of ever delivering. None whatsoever.
All they're really trying to do is whip up an army of useful idiots to be used as blunt
instruments. And once these useful idiots are done fulfilling their role in the
redistribution of wealth and power, they are discarded only to realize too little too late
that they have been working against their own interests all along.
The same thing goes for exporting Democracy. It's never been about improving anyone's
lives. In the West or any of their target nations. It's been about whipping useful idiots up
into an army that can be used as a blunt instrument against the obstacles in the way of
(((someone's))) geopolitical ambitions.
This is not new and has been going for at least a century. And the US elites have a long
tradition of false flags to to get the people of America riled up for war.
False Flag Events Behind the Six Major Wars
False flags to fool Americans into the Spanish American War, WW1, WW2, Korean War, Vietnam
War and the War on terror.
Interesting is that a USA textbook already describes USA imperialism, without using the
word:
Barbara Hinckley, Sheldon Goldman, 'American Politics and Government, Structure, Processes,
Institutions and Policies', Glenview Ill., 1990
Vietnam was a mess for a decade at least and created an immigration crisis in
Australia. The US had a surplus budget when Clinton left office. When Bush left office, oil prices
were sky-high and the economy was dreadful. Who benefits. Israel? Syria is a mess that threatens their borders.
A great comment with the proper name calling for the ZUSA in relation to the current
situation in Turkey:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/08/how-turkeys-currency-crisis-came-to-pass.html#comments
Excerpts:
" The Dollar op indicates that the USA ( or rather those who pull the strings in the
US ) finally admits that our Ally is responsible for almost all mischievous events which
took place in Turkey.
The USA is not a country, but rather a useful contract killer on a larger scale
compared to the PKK-FETO-ISIS etc.
The US is now stepping forward fearlessly because 'the arms of the octopus', as Erdogan put
last week, has been severed in Turkey."
These two definitions do stick:
1. the US is manipulated by the puppeteers -- people (the US citizenry at large) have no
saying in the US decisions (mostly immoral and often imbecile); the well-being of the US is
not a factored in the decisions
2. the US has become a "contract killer" for the voracious puppeteers
Prof. Petras, thanks. A while back I read something called Confessions of an Economic Hit
Man (?) in which the writer describes his efforts to put other nations into debt to
American institutions and American-controlled or -influenced international institutions for
the ulterior purpose of political control. Sounded plausible enough, and I saw the author
speak on TV on his book tour.
How do any of us know we're living in a country gone massively wobbly? Can a German
sipping wine in Koblenz in 1936 even imagine Hitler's Germany will be a staple of American
cable shows eighty years hence, and not in a good way? Can a Russian in the same year imagine
that the latest round of arrests won't be leading to a Communist utopia now, or ever?
FWIW-my guess is America's imperial adventures are heavily structural, being that foreign
policy is strongly within the President's purview, and Congress can be counted on to
rubber-stamp military expeditions. Plus, empire offers a good distraction from domestic
politics, which are an intractable mess of rent-seeking, racial animus, and corporate
interests.
I don't like it much having to live in a racketeerized America, but there's not a whole
lot we can do.
Professor Petras glasses are becoming little bit foggy, but his scalpel still cuts to the
bone.
But this article is lecture for beginner class, or the aliens visitors who just landed on
Earth
Yet in his lunacy, President Trump has denounced and exposed the repeated deceits and
ongoing fabrications of the mass media.
A damned good article, Sir! And bless you for calling bankster propaganda anything
but "mainstream."
Ours is a problem in which deception has become organized and strong; where truth is
poisoned at its source; one in which the skill of the shrewdest brains is devoted to
misleading a bewildered people.
-Walter Lippman, A Preface to Politics ( 1913 ), quoted in The Essential
Lippmann, pp. 516-517
Lippman was an Allied propagandist among many other things.
The 10 theories that led Petras to conclude "{the message is "to disarm their adversaries and
to arouse their patrons" to continue to plunder the world}" is an example, that the American
people are clueless about how events documented by Petras research, led Petras to conclude
the USA is about plunder of the world .
There is a distinct difference between USA governed Americans and the 527 persons that
govern Americans.
Access by Americans to the USA 1) in person with one of its 527 members, 2) by communication
or attempted communication via some type of expression or 3) by constitutionally allowed
regime change at election time. None of these methods work very well for Americans , if at
all; but they serve the entrenched members of the USA, massive in size corporations and
upstream wealthy owners, quite well.
Secondly, IMO, Mr. Petras either does not understand democracy or has chosen to make a
mockery of it?
The constitution that produced the USA produced not a democracy, but a Republic.
A republic which authorized a group ( an handful of people) to rule America by rules the USA
group
decides to impose. Since the group can control the meaning of the US Constitution as well
as change it's words, the group has, unlimited power to rule, no matter the subject matter or method
(possible exceptions might be said to be within the meaning of the bill of rights; but like
all contract
clauses, especially a contract of the type where one side can amend, ignore, change or
replace or use
its overwhelming military and police powers to enforce against the other side, leaving the
other side no
recourse, is not really a contract; it might better be called an instrument announcing the
assumption of
power which infringes inalienable human rights).
Therefore just because 527 members of the USA government might between themselves practice
Democracy does not mean the governed enjoy the same freedoms.
So the USA is ruled by puppets, 527 of them, puppets of the Oligarchs. Since the
ratification of the USA constitution, Americans have been governed by the USA [The US
constitution (ratified 1778) overthrew and disposed of the Articles of Confederation
(Government of America founded 1776). Not a shot was fired, but there was a war none-the-less
(read Federalist vs Anti-Federalist and have a look at the first few acts of the USA).
(Note: The AOC, was the American government that defeated the British Armies [1776-1783],
the 1776 American AOC American Government was the government that surveyed all of the land
taken from the British by the AOC after it defeated the entire British military and stopped
the British aristocrat owed, privately held corporate Empires from their continuous raping of
America and abuse of Americans. those who did the work.
The AOC was the very same American Government that hired G. Washington to defeat and chase
the British Aristocratic Corporate Colonial Empires out of America. The 1776 American AOC
Government was the very same government that granted freedom to its people (AOC really did
practice democracy, and really did try to divide and distribute the vast American lands taken
from the British Corporate Colonial Empire equally among the then living Americans. The AOC
ceased to exist when the US Constitution installed the USA by a self proclaimed regime
change process , called ratification). There were 11 presidents of the AOC, interestingly
enough, few have heard of them.
Once again the practice of political self-determination democracy is limited to the 525
USA members who have seats in the halls of the Congress of the USA or who occupy the offices
of the President of USA or the Vice-President of the USA. All persons in America, not among
the 527 salaried, elected members of the USA, are governed by the USA.
@Heisendude Israel has no constitution, and therefore no borders.
A constitution also describes borders.
An Israeli jew one asked Ben Gurion why Israel has no defined borders, the answer was
something like 'we do not want to define borders, if we did, we cannot expand'.
@Jeff Stryker Why does Israel assist all sorts of bandits, including, but not limited to,
ISIS, in Syria? Just recently Israel helped in extracting the White Helmets, a PR wing of
Nusra (Syrian branch of Al Qaida) from South Syria. Please explain.
@Anonymous Those 527 are bought and paid for lackeys. We don't know how many real owners
of the USA there are, don't know many of their names, but we do know that when those lackeys
imagine that they are somebodies and try to govern, they are eliminated (John Kennedy is the
most unambiguous example).
You may have heard of it. Globalism, N(J)ew World Order. That which the
(((internationalists))) are always working towards. A one world government with them at the
top, the ruling class.
Vietnam was a mess for a decade at least and created an immigration crisis in
Australia.
Australia is a white nation. All white nations are supposed to suffer and ultimately
collapse upon the creation of their New World Order. Vietnam was a complete success for the
one's who really wanted that war.
The US had a surplus budget when Clinton left office. When Bush left office, oil prices
were sky-high and the economy was dreadful.
Bush was a neocon, wars for Israel with that 'surplus' were the intention all along. As
wars under Hillary would have been as well. And as they potentially could still be if Trump
proves to be a lap dog for Israel as well. He campaigned on no pointless wars, but there's no
saying for sure until he either brings all our troops home or capitulates and signs Americans
up to be cash cows and cannon fodder for more Israeli geopolitical ambitions.
Who benefits.
Those same rootless cosmopolitans that always benefit from playing both sides of the
field, seeding conflict and then cashing in on the warmongering, genocidal depopulation and
population displacement in the name of their geopolitical ambitions.
Israel? Syria is a mess that threatens their borders.
Israel made that mess. Threatened their borders with war. Land theft. Y'know. Golan
Heights. Genocide land theft and displacement are all Israel does. Their borders have
expanded every year since their creation.
Everything that's happening in the Middle East is because of the Rothschild terror state
of Israel and the Zionist Jews who reside in it .. as well as in our various western
ZOGs.
Have you really never heard of the Oded Yinon Plan ? Their genocidal outline for
waging wars of aggression for the purpose of expanding their borders and becoming the
dominant regional superpower by balkanizing the surrounding Arab world.
The only nations of significance left on their check list are as follows : Syria, Iran,
Saudi Arabia. And many will argue that the House of Saud has always been crypto, helping
Israel behind the scenes. Their sudden post-coup cooperation with their former 'enemies' is
little more than a sign that they are needed as a wartime ally more in the current phase of
their Yinon Plan than as controlled opposition funding and arming ISIS while keeping the
public eye off of Israel's role in their creation and direction. Sure enough, it seems there
is a rather strong push for an alliance between KSA, Israel and the US for war with Iran.
Technological progress, particularly the progress in information technology is pushing
mankind with accelerated speed toward final solution and final settlement.
Corruption is endemic in the US where it has legal status and where tens of millions of
dollars change hands and buy Congress people, Presidents and judges.
Yep. I have been ranting for years calling for a Anti-Corruption Political Party Platform
by some group.
The corruption of our politicians is the cause of all the problems everyone else is ranting
about.
In some ways I think most people deserve what they are going to get eventually because
they ignore the corruption of their heroes .whether it be Trump, Hillary or any other.
I tell you sheeple .if someone will cheat and lie to others they will do the same thing to
you ..you are stone cold stupid if you think other wise.
@Biff Jeff and Mikeat are both correct if my friend's account of his participation in a
recent trade show there is true. My friend's wife is a ding bat Hillarybot and she got to
yammering to me after returning about all the wonderful diversity she saw in the streets of
Dubai, but I shut her down pretty quickly by pointing out that the diversity darlings in
Dubai were paid help for the Sheikdom and weren't even second class temporary residents by US
standards; that they can be (and are) summarily deported to some slave market in Yemen if
they don't mind their Ps and Qs VERY carefully in that society. She's also a wino, but
confessed that the Trader Joe's box grade merlot sold for about US$18 to $25 a goblet in a
tourist zone food and beverage joint. (and that didn't slow her down one bit) Hubby had to
watch her close, as obvious public drunkenness (even in the tourist zone) has high potential
for extreme justice.
The New Economy plan being promoted there is the development of a sort of Disneyworld on
steroids international vacation attraction, as the leaders seem to think that their oil is
going to run out soon.
@peterAUS CNN, Washpost and NYT since a very long time suffer from a serious mental
disorder.
It reminds me of Orwell's The Country of the Blind.
When the man who could see was cured all was well.
@DESERT FOX While the Fed is a focal point, it is not the central issue. If Americans,
were actually in voting control of the central issue Americans could and probably would
abolish the fed and destroy its income by removing the income tax laws, very early on.
But if the Fed and Income taxes are not the central issue, what is the central issue?
Could it be majority will "control of the structure and staffing of that structure" that
often people call government? Look back to the creation of the US Constitution! There the
central issue for the old British Aristocracy accustomed to having their way, was: can
Aristocrats stay in control (of the new American democracy) and if so, how should "such
control" be established so that British corporate power, British Aristocratic wealth and
British Class Privilege can all survive the American revolution? {PWP}.
The question was answered by developing a form of government that enabling the Oligarch
few to make the rules [rule of law] that could control the masses and to produce a government
that had a monopoly on the use of power, so that it could enforce the laws it makes, against
against the masses and fend off all challenges. The constitution blocked the people's right
to self determination; it empowered the privileged, it favored the wealthy, and most of all
it protected and saved pre-war British owned PWP as post war PWP.
Today those who operate the government do so in near perfect secrecy (interrupted only
occasionally by Snowden, Assange, and a few brave others). It spies on each person, records
each human breath taken by the masses, relates relationships between the masses, because
those in charge fear the power of the masses should the masses somehow find a way to impose
their will on how things are to be. How can rules made by Aristocrats in secret, be
considered to be outcomes established by self- determination of the masses who are to be
governed?
Ratification is the process that abolished Democracy in America. The story of those
who imposed ratification has not yet been told. Ratification was used to justify the
overthrow of the Articles of the Confederation (AOC was America's government from 1776 to
1789). To defeat the British empire the AOC hired the most wealthy man it could find to
organize an Army capable to defeat the British Military. The AOC warred on the British Armies
with the intent to stop colonial corporate empires from continuing to rape American
productivity and exploit the resources in America for the benefit of the British Corporate
Empires [Read the Declaration of Independence].
You might research.. How did George Washington achieve his massive, for its time, wealth?
I don't think tossing coins across the mile wide Potomac made him a dime? How did GW attain
such wealth in British owned, corporately controlled Colonial America? Why was George
Washington able to keep that British earned wealth after the British were chased out of
America? More importantly many gave their all, life, liberty and property to help chase the
British out, GW gave ..?
Title by land grants [Virginia and West Virginia] are traceable to GWs estate.
What the land grant landowners feared most was that the new American democracy, might
allow the masses to revoke or deny titles to real estate in America, if such title derived
from a foreign government (land grant). The Articles of Confederation government was talking
about dividing up all of the lands in America, and parceling it out, in equal portions, to
all living AOC governed America. Deeds from kings and queens of England, France, Spain,
Portugal, and the Netherlands to land in America would not be recognized in the chain of
title? Such lands would belong to the new AOC government or to the states who were members of
the AOC.
You might check out Article 6, (Para 1) of the US Constitution.. it says in part
" All Debts contracted and Engagements[land grants and British Corporate Charters] entered
into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States
under this Constitution, as under the confederation.
(meaning loans to British Banks would be repaid and land deals made with foreign nations
and corporations including those that resulted in creating a land Baron in British Colonial
America, were to be treated as valid land titles by US Constitution. Consider the plight of
Ex British Land Grant Barron Aristocrat [EBLGBA] who finds himself in now independent
democratic America? Real Americans might decide EBLGBAs were some kind of terrorist, or
spies. Under such circumstances, the EBLGA might look at Americans as a threat to their
Aristocracy, a threat to their PWP..
Example: A Spanish Land Grant property in America ( King of Spain gave 5 million acres of
land in America to ZZ in 1720 (ZZ is a Spanish Corporation ZZ doing business in America), the
land transaction was recognized as valid under British Colonial Law in America. But would
Independent AOC America recognize a deed issued by a Spanish King, or British Queen to Real
Estate in America?
After the Revolution, the question does a EBLGBA retain ownership in the American located
land that is now part of Independent America? Ain't no dam deed from a Spanish government
going to be valid in America. King of England cannot give a deed to land that is located in
independent America.
So if, a corporation, incorporated under British Law, claims it owns 5 million acres of
American land because the Queen of England deeded it the the corporation: does that mean the
5 million acres still belongs to British Corporation X, and of course to the person made
Aristocrat by virtue of ownership of the British Corporation). Is a British Corporation now
to be an American Corporation? British Landed Gentry (land grant owners) in independent post
war America, were quick to lobby for the constitution because the constitution protected
their ownership in land granted to them by a foreign king or queen in fact the constitution
protected the PWP.
I agree with your Zionist communist observation. It is imperative for all persons
interested in what is happening to study the takeover of Russia from the Tzar by Lenin and
his Zionist Communist because what the Zionist did to the Christians in Russia in 1917 seems
to be approaching for it to happen here in America and because that revolution was a part of
the organized Zionist [1896, Hertzl] movement to take control of all of the oil in the world.
Let us not forget, Lenin and crew exterminated 32 million White Russians nearly all of whom
were educated Christians living in the Ukraine.
As Petras says: "The ten theses define the nature of 21st century imperialism" because, I
feel, they are the same values that defined the British Colonial Empire.
So the USA is ruled by puppets, 527 of them, puppets of the Oligarchs. Since the
ratification of the USA constitution, Americans have been governed by the USA [The US
constitution (ratified 1778) overthrew and disposed of the Articles of Confederation
(Government of America founded 1776). Not a shot was fired, but there was a war
none-the-less (read Federalist vs Anti-Federalist and have a look at the first few acts of
the USA).
What a relief to find that there are a few (very few) others who have a clue. The
"constitution" was effectively a coup d'etat. We proles, peasants and other pissants have
been tax and debt slaves ever since, and the situation has continuously worsened. Lincoln's
war against Southern independence, establishment of the Federal Reserve, Wilson's and
especially FDR's wars, and infiltration of the US government and industry by Commies,
Zionists and other Eastern European goon-mafiosi scum have completely perverted what this
country is supposedly about.
I doubt the situation will ever begin to improve unless and until the mass of brainwashed
dupes understand what you wrote.
@Anon Please comment more often. Excellent info there.
You might research.. How did George Washington achieve his massive, for its time,
wealth?
True. Especially since the guy was a third rate, (probably mostly incompetent), Brit
military officer and terrorist who treated the men under his command like sh!t.
Reminds me of Ol Johnny Boy McCain and other such scum.
@jilles dykstra "Ben Gurion: 'we do not want to define borders, if we did, we cannot
expand'.
-- Right. Hence the mass slaughter in the Middle East.
Hapless Canada is going to accept the "humanitarian" terrorists from While Helmets
organization. The rescue is a joint Israel-Canada enterprise: https://www.rt.com/op-ed/435670-white-helmets-canada-syria/
-- -- -- -
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland (a committed banderist and admirer of Ukrainian
neo-Nazis) and Robin Wettlaufer (Canada's representative to the Syrian Opposition and a harsh
critic of Assad "regime") have been playing a key role in the evacuation of the White
Helmets. But there are some questions to Robin: "Did Canadians get to vote on whether or not
to bring potential terrorists or supporters of terrorists to Canada? No. No vote in the
Parliament, no public discussion. Why did the Canadian government refuse the entry of 100
injured Palestinian children from Gaza in 2014, a truly humanitarian effort, and yet will
fast-track the entry of potentially dangerous men with potential ties to terrorists?"
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/435670-white-helmets-canada-syria/
-- Guess Robin Wettlaufer, due to her ethnic solidarity, would be fine with these injured
Palestinian children being smothered by someone, but the well-financed White Helmets are the
extremely valuable material for realizing Oded Yinon plan for Eretz Israel (see Ben Gurion
answer).
The US had a surplus budget when Clinton left office
It turns out that 'budget surplus' does not mean what most people think it means. When your household has a budget surplus, its rate of debt accumulation reverses
(i.e., the total value of household debt falls). Credit cards get paid down, mortgages get
paid off, and eventually you end up with a large and growing positive net worth. That's what
running a 'budget surplus' means , right?
Not so for governments : the US government could run perpetual budget 'surpluses'
and still grow government debt without bound – because they do not account for things
the way they insist that we serfs account for things there are a bunch of their expenditures
that they simply don't count in their 'budget'.
It's a bit like if you were to only count the amount your household spent on
groceries , and declare your entire budget to be in 'surplus' or 'deficit' based on
whether or not there's change after you do your weekly shopping. Meanwhile, you're spending
more than you earn overall, and accumulating debt at an expanding rate.
Runaway debt is what destroys – whether it's families or countries.
There has only been one year since 1960 in which the US Federal Debt has fallen :
1969 .
During the much-touted "Clinton Surpluses", the US Federal Debt rose by almost a
quarter- trillion dollars . The first two Bush years had larger surpluses than
either of the two Clinton surpluses – but still added $160 billion to the
Federal debt.
I know those don't sound like big numbers anymore – much given that Bush added $602
billion per year on average, and Obama added twice Bush 's amount (1.19 trillion per
year).
Her
biggest problem as UN ambassador was simple: she was totally out of her depth. "She was
picked for UN Ambassador for one reason," explained a senior GOP political consultant to me,
reacting to the news that Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina, had just resigned
from the Trump administration. "She was supposed to present a feminine, or supposedly softer
version of Trump's America First message. Instead she became the administration's national
security sledgehammer."
"Haley was a great spokesperson for the administration; in fact, she was great at parroting
whatever lines Trump wanted her to deliver," the consultant continued. "But for anyone who has
ever interacted with her, one thing became very clear. The second she left the land of talking
points, any time she was asked to discuss any issue in any depth, it was apparent there was
nothing there. And that is not what we need as ambassador at the UN."
Perhaps I can come up with a better description of Nikki Haley. She was Donald Trump's very
own "Baghdad Bob," the propaganda chief under Saddam Hussein who appeared on TV during the 2003
Iraq invasion and said anything the regime wanted, no matter how inflammatory or wrong. While
Haley was never forced to claim anything so preposterous as that Saddam's Republican Guard was
winning a war against a superpower, her ability to trump even Trump in crazy talk was a rare
talent -- and not a welcome one.
That was my problem with the ambassador. Not that she did a bad job, not that she was a
terrible representative of our nation's interests, but simply that she lacked of the experience
and natural abilities needed in such a role. Spitting back Trumpian rhetoric is not enough to
be credible on the world's stage. It would be like asking me to become a plumber: sure, I could
figure it out at some point, but I would leave behind quite a few clogged toilets and busted
faucets along the way.
Haley left behind some busted faucets, that's for sure. If she did make any sort of major
impression, it was thanks to her tough talk on North Korea and Iran. But it was her
hard-hitting rhetoric leveled at the Kim regime that stuck out the most. In an almost comical
attempt to parrot the words of President Trump, who in early September
said at the UN that America "has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend
itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea," Haley stated
in November that "if war comes, make no mistake, the North Korean regime will be utterly
destroyed."
That's just for starters. There were also the clear missteps, when we could see her lack of
expertise and preparation at work. In a primetime interview with Fox News nighttime anchor
Martha MacCallum, Haley was asked about the 2018 Olympics and whether U.S. athletes would
participate. North Korea experts knew this was the question that would have to be asked,
and were keen to see what Haley would have to say.
She blew it, big time. The interview, conducted in January, at a time when some thought a
war with the Kim regime was still very possible, drove headlines the world over, as Haley said
she would not commit to U.S. citizens participating, stating, "there's an open question."
MacCallum pounced on Twitter, and rightly so, writing that "Amb. Nikki
Haley not certain we should send our athletes to the Olympics. Will depend on NK
situation."
Now, to be fair to Haley,
the remarks were more qualified than the press made them out to be. Still, they were
confusing to say the least, and show that she was not ready for what was an obvious question.
In fact, Haley seemed to stumble, adding, "I have not heard anything about that" and "I do know
in the talks that we have -- whether it's Jerusalem or North Korea -- it's about, how do we
protect the U.S. citizens in the area?"
What? As another Republican put it to me just a day later: "She had no idea what the hell
she was talking about."
Haley even scared some very senior diplomats, who wondered exactly what the administration
was planning if Washington would not send its citizens or athletes to the Olympics. "Is America
getting ready to attack North Korea? Is that where this is headed?" asked a senior diplomat
here in Washington minutes after the interview was over.
I could go on, but I think you get my point. President Trump can do far better than
Haley.
Harry J. Kazianis ( @grecianformula ) is director of defense studies at
the Center for the National Interest and executive editor of its publishing arm The National
Interest. Previously, he led the foreign policy communications efforts of the Heritage
Foundation, and served as editor-in-chief of The Diplomat and as a fellow at CSIS:PACNET. The
views expressed are his own.
Immediately after she resigned, Twitter lit up with theories and opinions about the reason,
with many suggesting Haley could be the Trump administration official behind a highly critical
anonymous
op-ed published by the New York Times last month.
"... "It was abusive, how bad the international community was to Israel. It reminded me of a kid being bullied in the playground I just wasn't going to have it. It was just so upsetting to see, that I just started yelling at everybody " ..."
"... We had the back of Israel, and if they were going to mess with Israel they had to mess with the US. ..."
"... As you consider your vote, I encourage you to know the president and the US take this vote personally. The president will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I report back on those who voted against us. ..."
"... We don't trust Russia. We don't trust Putin. We never will. They're never going to be our friend. That's just a fact. ..."
"... "They are aggressive and they can be difficult to work with in the Council... And they do try to cause some disruption, but we manage them and we continue to remind them what their place is." ..."
"... "weapon of choice and we have to make sure we get in front of it." ..."
"... When a country can come interfere in another country's elections, that is warfare. ..."
"... We are going to fight for Venezuela and we are going to continue doing it until [President Nicolas] Maduro is gone! ..."
"... If there are chemical weapons that are used, we know exactly who's going to use them. ..."
"... Judging by how it has fallen short of its promise, the Human Rights Council is the UN's greatest failure. It has taken the idea of human dignity and it has reduced it to just another instrument of international politics. ..."
"... "Its members included some of the worst human rights violators – the dictatorships of Cuba, China and Venezuela all have seats on the Council," ..."
"... We're aware of that. We've been watching that [Binomo situation] very closely. And I think we will continue to watch as we deal with the issues that keep coming up about the South China Sea. ..."
Israel seems to be most upset by Haley's resignation from her UN job, since the envoy for
Washington often ended up championing Israeli interests at the world body. Statements like this
one perfectly explain Tel Aviv's grief:
"It was abusive, how bad the international community was to Israel. It reminded me of a
kid being bullied in the playground I just wasn't going to have it. It was just so upsetting to
see, that I just started yelling at everybody "
We had the back of Israel, and if they were going to mess with Israel they had to mess
with the US.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:
"I would like to thank Ambassador @nikkihaley , who led the
uncompromising struggle against hypocrisy at the UN, and on behalf of the truth and justice
of our country. Best of luck!" pic.twitter.com/Lr6IvkM5U9
The US envoy was also never shy to pressure the UN member states into voting the way
Washington saw fit. The most notable example of such extortion was the vote on recognition of
Jerusalem as Israel's capital last December.
As you consider your vote, I encourage you to know the president and the US take this
vote personally. The president will be watching this vote carefully and has requested I
report back on those who voted against us.
The threats did not work, however, as the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly rejected
Washington's unilateral recognition of the disputed city as Israeli capital.
Russia is
'never going to be our friend'
When it came to relations with Moscow, the top US diplomat just wasn't very diplomatic on
many occasions, instead choosing to amplify Russophobic rhetoric put forth by Trump's
opposition.
We don't trust Russia. We don't trust Putin. We never will. They're never going to be
our friend. That's just a fact.
"They are aggressive and they can be difficult to work with in the Council... And they
do try to cause some disruption, but we manage them and we continue to remind them what their
place is."
Haley was fully on board with accusations that Moscow meddled in the 2016 US election,
calling them aggression on Russia's part. Election meddling, she said, is Russia's "weapon
of choice and we have to make sure we get in front of it."
When a country can come interfere in another country's elections, that is
warfare.
'Fight until they're gone'
The ambassador showed no sign of awareness that her comments about interference sounded
ironic and hypocritical when placed next to some others she made – regarding places like
Venezuela or Syria.
Last month, Haley joined Venezuelan protesters outside the UN headquarters in New York,
shouting into the megaphone:
We are going to fight for Venezuela and we are going to continue doing it until
[President Nicolas] Maduro is gone!
The US envoy even showed hints of psychic powers, as she tried to downplay Russia's warnings
that Western-backed terrorists were preparing a false flag chemical attack in Syria in order to
set up Damascus. Gazing straight into the future, she appeared to point her finger at President
Bashar Assad's government.
If there are chemical weapons that are used, we know exactly who's going to use
them.
In July, the US stunned the international community by withdrawing from the UN Human Rights
Council, and the American ambassador had some strong words to back the move.
Judging by how it has fallen short of its promise, the Human Rights Council is the
UN's greatest failure. It has taken the idea of human dignity and it has reduced it to just
another instrument of international politics.
"Its members included some of the worst human rights violators – the dictatorships
of Cuba, China and Venezuela all have seats on the Council," Haley fumed.
Freedom
fighters of Binomo
When dealing with other states, the US envoy tried her best to uphold an image of an expert
on international affairs including on those nation that... well, didn't even exist.
In a scandalous YouTube recording made by two Russian pranksters, posing as a high-ranked
Polish official, Haley was asked to comment on the aspirations of the nation of Binomo in the
South China Sea.
We're aware of that. We've been watching that [Binomo situation] very closely. And I
think we will continue to watch as we deal with the issues that keep coming up about the
South China Sea.
She also said that Russia "absolutely" meddled in the country's election as well
– a truly extraordinary achievement, given that Binomo was entirely made up.
"... The Peter Principle is alive and well in the fractured U.S. governance model. ..."
"... Is there any advanced country on the planet with a political class saturated with so much mediocrity? ..."
"... BTW, the BoD scam is a standard political payoff. Susan Bayh the wife of former Senator Evan Bayh is a middling attorney who made over $2 Million a year flitting from BoD meeting to BoD meeting. Must be nice ..."
"... How did this woman move herself from the dignified, elected position of Governor to trump underling and Israeli bull horn? The things we do for greed! ..."
"... Good riddance. An embarrassment to US diplomacy. Her full throated echoing of Trump's stupidest and most destructive ideas should end her political career, especially coming on the heels of earlier denunciations of Trump. ..."
"... She leaves Turtle Bay with no achievements and the sound of jeering delegate laughter at the General Assembly still ringing in her ears. ..."
NBC
News
reports that Nikki Haley will be resigning from her position as ambassador to the United
Nations:
In an unexpected development, President Donald Trump's U.N. ambassador, Nikki Haley, plans
to resign, NBC News has confirmed.
Haley informed her staff that she plans to resign. The news, first reported by Axios,
comes ahead of an announcement she plans to make with President Donald Trump at the White
House Tuesday morning.
Haley's tenure as U.N. ambassador was fairly brief and not very successful. The Security
Council did approve additional North Korea sanctions during her time there. Otherwise, she was
known
mostly for ineffectively
promoting the administration's Iran
obsession , picking
fights with most other states over Israel, and calling attention to how isolated the U.S.
has become following the withdrawal from the JCPOA. Her last big effort at the U.N. was the
Security Council session last month that was originally supposed to focus on criticizing Iran.
The administration changed the subject of the meeting to nonproliferation, but that still
allowed all of the other members to tout their support for the nuclear deal and criticize U.S.
withdrawal from the agreement. If that was meant to be Haley's crowning achievement before she
left, it didn't work out very well.
Trump's decision to appoint Haley to this position struck me as odd
from the beginning. Haley had no diplomatic or foreign policy experience, and beyond the usual
knee-jerk "pro-Israel" reactions she did not have any record of talking or thinking about
foreign policy. It is taken for granted that she took the job to build up her credentials on
foreign policy, but her stint as ambassador has been so short that I'm not sure that it will do
her very much good in future political campaigns. When she was appointed, I said that "this may
prove to be a rather fruitless detour for the next few years." Haley's resignation after less
than two years in the job suggests that she concluded that there was no point in sticking
around any longer.
The speculation I've seen, that after the election Trump fires Sessions, appoints Graham, and
Haley gets appointed to Graham's Senate seat, makes a ton of sense. She'll be back, and
she'll run for President someday, guaranteed.
One theory I've heard is that Nikki Haley was thought to be the top contender for a potential
primary challenge to Trump in 2020 (if things didn't go well for the Trump administration).
As you previously noted, she was a vocal critic of Donald Trump in the primaries (the
President doesn't easily forgive or forget criticism). So she was dumped into the UN as a way
to keep her from going rogue. The President doesn't like to see figures in his administration
outshining him, so as she began to make a name for herself as being exceptionally tough on
Iran, Trump kicked the legs out from under that policy directive and sent her to haplessly
defend "non-proliferation".
End result? Two years have passed and Nikki Haley has no real accomplishment to show for
it (Sad!), while at the same time by virtue of working within the Trump Administration, she's
been effectively silenced for two years in her once-vocal criticism. Trump: 1, Haley 0.
The Peter Principle is alive and well in the fractured U.S. governance model.
Of course when that Nitwit Hack transitions to the "private sector" she will be invited to
sit on various BoD's to be a potted plant at Board meetings. And she will also live large
from the remuneration for just showing up. And don't forget the honorary degrees Nikki will
be awarded. It's like the Tin Man getting an honorary "Th.D", (Doctor of Thinkology) from the
Wizard of Oz.
Is there any advanced country on the planet with a political class saturated with so
much mediocrity?
BTW, the BoD scam is a standard political payoff. Susan Bayh the wife of former
Senator Evan Bayh is a middling attorney who made over $2 Million a year flitting from BoD
meeting to BoD meeting. Must be nice
Yeah, agreed with all of the above. Although it's unclear to me that anyone associated with
the Trump administration will walk away with a leg up to seek higher office.
By virtue of most folks disinterest in foreign policy or the UN Haley may have the
advantage over the others in the Trump administration. Getting out early is smart.
As for her lack of competence and knee-jerk Israel supporting bent this may not hurt her
in the long run either with a GOP that has proven itself to be on a path of less and less
competence, less and less integrity, and (one can only hope) less and less relevance.
Well said. She is more the ambassador for Isreal than for America. One can only hope that
Trump realizes this and appoints a diplomat with skills and an even keel. Hope he does not
have Jared Kushner in mind?
There are stories that she accepted gifts she wasn't supposed to accept (no, not curtains). I
think she resigned to head those off, as well as to be available for other positions that
might open up (Senator? President?).
Whatever, it's just the latest in an unprecedented amount of people leaving this
administration. If Trump only hires the best people, why do those smart people keep leaving
him?
1. Yes, she has the Trump stench on her. But by resigning now she has two years to try to
wash it off.
2. To a certain segment of the GOP base, being completely ineffectual at the UN will be
seen as a feature, not a bug.
3. She has one huge advantage over some other potential rivals (Flake, for example) in
that by not being in the Senate this past week she played no part in the Kavanaugh fiasco.
Since she never had to vote on it, she can still try to play it both ways.
Good riddance. An embarrassment to US diplomacy. Her full throated echoing of Trump's
stupidest and most destructive ideas should end her political career, especially coming on
the heels of earlier denunciations of Trump.
Instead, she'll be bankrolled by some rich Zionist creeps, a la Rubio, and turn up again
in 2020 or 2024 offering to keep us bogged down in Middle East wars another four years.
Russian President Vladimir Putin accused Washington of making a "colossal" but "typical"
mistake by exploiting the dominance of the dollar by levying economic sanctions against regimes
that don't bow to its whims.
"It seems to me that our American partners make a colossal strategic mistake," Putin
said.
"This is a typical mistake of any empire," Putin said, explaining that the US is ignoring
the consequences of its actions because its economy is strong and the dollar's hegemonic
grasp on global markets remains intact. However "the consequences come sooner or later."
These remarks echoed a sentiment expressed by Putin back in May, when he said that Russia
can no longer trust the US dollar because of America's decisions to impose unilateral sanctions
and violate WTO rules.
... ... ...
With the possibility of being cut off from the dollar system looming, a plan prepared by Andrei Kostin, the head of Russian
bank VTB, is being embraced by much of the Russian establishment. Kostin's plan would facilitate the conversion of dollar
settlements into other currencies which would help wean Russian industries off the dollar. And it already has the backing of
Russia's finance ministry, central bank and Putin.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin is also working on deals with major trading partners to accept the Russian ruble for imports and exports.
In a sign that a united front is forming to help undermine the dollar, Russia's efforts have been readily embraced by China
and Turkey, which is unsurprising, given their increasingly fraught relationships with the US. During joint military exercises
in Vladivostok last month, Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping declared that their countries would work together to counter
US tariffs and sanctions.
"More and more countries, not only in the east but also in Europe, are beginning to think about how to minimise dependence on
the US dollar," said Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin's spokesperson. "And they suddenly realise that a) it is possible, b) it needs to
be done and c) you can save yourself if you do it sooner."
"... Thanks to media, to this day very few people in the West know that towards the end of the 78-day war, US and UK deliberately targeted several completely civilian facilities (bridges, hospitals and schools) and in just a few days of such targeting killed about 200 civilians. ..."
Kiza
says: October
7, 2018 at 7:50 am GMT 500 Words @Quartermaster
I am not going to insult you personally, but as a cheap paid troll you have absolutely no clue
about the subject you are typing about for your Israeli masters. FB has not explained
everything perfectly but what he wrote is correct. It is not true that an airforce would target
radar installations only with HARM missiles, which all NATO countries and Israel have, but in
practice HARM are the only missiles to reliably target mobile air defence. During the attack on
Serbia, US flew more than 90% of NATO missions and it managed to destroy three missile
batteries and one radar station (using HARM). But the mobility of the Serbian immobile air
defences had two major effects:
1) Unlike Iraq, Serbia let NATO bomb targets without always switching on its air defences to be
detected and destroyed; this grossly reduced NATOs air effectiveness because with every bomber
they had to constantly send at least one support plane with jammers, HARMs etc. NATO tried to
claim a virtue out of this by saying that they were soft on Serbia and will get tougher, but in
reality their military attack was becoming difficult to manage, expensive and risky (the NATO
unity was beginning to fray).
2) It was a running joke in Serbia how NATO planes would attack some completely empty hill
(Serbia is a relatively hilly country), create literally free fireworks for the villagers, just
because there was an air defense installation on the hill maybe 5-10 hours ago. A similar joke
was how the Serbian military or even the local villagers would spread a strip of black builders
plastic over a river and NATO planes flying at above 5 km to avoid manpads would blast this $2
bridge with $200,000 worth of bombs (adding mission cost to the cost of bombs).
Regarding US F117, it was more "stealth" than F35 and similar stealth to the smaller F22,
but the Serbians used the Checkoslovakian TAMARA passive radar, using ionospheric scatter, and
also launched multiple operator guided missiles at F117 without a proper engagement radar to be
HARMed. Self-confident in stealth the pilots of F117 did not manoeuvre, thus it was easy to
predict their path even without the targeting and engagement radar.
Forcing US to retire F117 was the second costliest damage the Serbians have done (Lockheed
did not cry, through their lobbyists they turned the loss into an opportunity to sell more
rubbish). But the biggest cost to US was that Milosevic sold several unexploded cruise missiles
and all F117 parts to China and used the money to rebuild and repair all civilian buildings in
Serbia destroyed by NATO. Later, UK and US did a colour revolution in Serbia, got their hands
on Milosevic, who then died from a health "accident" in NATO jail.
@Cyrano
You are spot-on. The Serbian military fought NATO to a draw, proven by the fact that the
peace treaty signed in Kumanovo in FYRM, did not contain the Rambouye clauses and even left
Kosovo under Serbian jurisdiction as per UNSC 1244.
Even this military draw was forced on Serbia by increased bombardment of civilian targets
in Serbia combined with open threats of carpet bombing by US B57. Serbia is a fairly densely
populated country, no jungles to hide in as in Vietnam. The civilian targets were bombed to
show that they could do carpet bombing with impunity (with the help of MSM). Thanks to
media, to this day very few people in the West know that towards the end of the 78-day war,
US and UK deliberately targeted several completely civilian facilities (bridges, hospitals
and schools) and in just a few days of such targeting killed about 200 civilians.
Naturally, any agreements with the West are totally pointless. After the Kumanovo
agreement, US and UK organized a color revolution in Serbia, took Kosovo away and got their
Serbian puppets to agree to all Rambouye demands. Serbia did not lose the war, but it lost
the agreement peace with the West.
' to my knowledge the Serbians did not use a radiating radar to shoot-down one/two F117.
They used a passive radar, which does not emit at all, it only receives a rough and noisy
location of the stealth plane '
This is complete nonsense once again you choose to pontificate on things in which you have
no knowledge
In your earlier comment,
you identified this 'passive radar' allegedly used by the Serbs as the Czech 'Tamara' system
which the Serbs did not possess
Not only that but this kind of system is not used for guiding SAM shots, and is certainly
not any kind of 'anti-stealth' weapon this category of device is known as an emitter locator
system [ELS], and is used to listen in on radio emissions from hostile aircraft and to then
track them, by means of a number of geometrically deployed antennas that can then triangulate
the bearing and direction of the aircraft
However, the basic physics involved means that these emitter locators are effective at
tracking signals OTHER THAN the aircraft's onboard radar this would include the IFF
[identification friend or foe transponder signal] and other onboard radio emitters which are
OMNIDIRECTIONAL emitters
An aircraft radar's narrow pencil beam could not reach multiple [at least 2] ELS antenna
[which would be geographically dispersed] to provide the needed triangulation
' A topic which appears to crop up with monotonous regularity [is] Warsaw Pact equipment
"capable of detecting stealth aircraft".
These claims invariably involve either the Czech designed and built Tesla-Pardubice
KRTP-86 Tamara or ERA Vera Emitter Locating Systems, or the Ukrainian designed and built
Topaz Kolchuga series of Emitter Locating Systems.
More than often this equipment is described as 'anti-stealth radar', 'radar' or
'passive radar', all of which are completely incorrect.
Much of everything else you have farted out here regarding the Serb takedown of the F117
is similar bullshit
The
3′rd battery of the 250′th Air Defense missile Brigade, commanded by then Lt
Col Zoltan Dani killed both F117s [the second one made it back to Aviano, Italy but was
scrapped, as USAF Col Riccioni confirms in his F22 report I linked to earlier] as well as the
kill on the F16 of then 555′th squadron Commander, then Lt Col David Goldfein, who,
since 2016 happens to be Gen Goldfein and the USAF
Chief of Staff
Here is Goldfein's F16 canopy and tail feathers on display at the Belgrade Aviation
Museum
Incidentally, Col Riccioni mentions in that same report that Goldfein was doing 'other
than what he was supposed to be doing' when shot down I guess in today's USAF that means you
have the 'right stuff' to become The Chief
Also incidentally, the Goldfein kill was overseen by Col Dani's Deputy Maj Bosko Dotlic,
as Col Dani was off duty at the time
The point is that that one single S125 battery accounted for ALL the confirmed kills of
the Serb IADS in 1999 [although there are many more 'probable' kills that either ditched in
the Adriatic, or limped back but were scrapped]
This speaks to my earlier point about human competence and the 'hawks' and 'doves' just
like a small fraction of fighter pilots rack up the overwhelming majority of kills the same
goes for air defense commanders, submarine captains, tank commanders etc
You have spewed here a whole lot of garbage about 'secret' anti-stealth weapons and 'lucky
shots' etc which is a complete insult to the historical record and the great work by Col Dani
and his men and to the entire principle of working and training hard to achieve professional
competence in a military skill
Here is a picture of the side of the 3′rd Battery Command Cabin, with Three kills
stenciled in the F117 [black] on top a B2 [not confirmed] and Goldfein's F16 in white at
bottom
As per standard Russian air defense design doctrine, the S125 uses a separate
acquisition and tracking radar which DOES operate at a lower frequency in this case the
P15 'Flat Face'
which operates in the decimetric wavelength band [which is similar to ATC radar frequency of
about 1.2 to 1.4 GHz...ie L band]
As explained previously the acquisition radar serves to find and track the target at long
range and cues the engagement radar to scan a precise sector where the acquisition radar has
found the target the engagement radar's increased precision [due to its higher frequency and
antenna size] then provides pinpoint accuracy to guide the missile
It is this combination of separate radars working together that allows the targeting of
low observable aircraft and what the 3′rd Battery did was a textbook example of using
the equipment to its full potential despite the fact that this old radar technology was in
fact susceptible to jamming, which the Nato forces employed massively
Col Dani also trained his men hard to be able to disassemble their radar and launchers
within 90 minutes and load everything up on trucks and move to another location he also
exercised strict discipline with regard to emissions allowing the radar to be turned on only
for very short bursts at a time about a minute or two at most
This is all textbook Soviet operating procedure and the difference was the exceptional
work ethic and competence that Col Dani maintained in his unit
It should be noted here that the Serb air defense was in fact very successful overall war
is a game of survival and attrition and what the Serbs accomplished was noted by air combat
practitioners
'The air campaign over Kosovo severely affected the readiness rates of the United States
Air Force's Air Combat Command during that period. Units in the United States were the most
badly affected, as they were were stripped of their personnel and spare parts to support
ACC (Air Combat Command) and AMC (Air Mobility Command) units involved in Operation Allied
Force.
The Commander of the USAF's Air Combat Command, General Richard E Hawley, outlined this
in a speech to reporters on 29 April, 1999.[10] Further, many aircraft will have to be
replaced earlier than previously planned, as their planned fatigue life was prematurely
expended.
PGM inventories needed to be re-stocked, the warstock of the AGM-86C Conventional
Air-Launched Cruise Missile dropping to 100 or fewer rounds.[11] Of the more than 25,000
bombs and missiles expended, nearly 8,500 were PGMs, with the replacement cost estimated at
$US1.3 billion.[12]
Thus the USAF suffered from virtual attrition of its air force without having scored
a large number of kills in theatre. Even if the United States' best estimates of Serbian
casualties are used, the Serbians left Kosovo with a large part of their armoured forces
intact.
Incidentally, several years ago the downed USAF pilot Col Dale Zelko, traveled to Serbia
to visit the man who shot him down Col Dani a film The Second Meeting was made here is
a trailer
PS I will have more to say later, as you have littered this thread with all kinds of
technically incorrect crapola
@Johnny
Rico NATO failed to defeat the Yugoslav army so NATO targeted Serbian civilians. You have
suffered far more losses than you acknowledge so you started killing women and children. You
rained the main marked and the main hospital of my hometown with cluster bombs. That's why
Serbia accepted UN resolution 1244 and the Kumanovo agreement. Given the ultimatum in
Rambouillet, that's not what I would call a capitulation. The only reason Serbia signed was
because you threatened to mass murder Serbian civilians. Why would you threaten to massacre
civilians if you had so soundly defeated the Yugoslav army? Never have so many American
military died during training exercises than during the aggression against Serbia. We
consider you to be shit at war. Extremely armed fags who pee in their pants when they face
opposition. But believe what you want.
@Kiza
The Russians failed to defend Serbia in 1999. That's the Serbian approach.
Why on Earth would Russians defend Serbs who only remember "Russian" brothers when they're in
dire straits?
Why would the Russian "love" us more than we "love" them? What is their interest? Because
Serbs love "Tolstoevsky"?
Don't blame the Russian for Serbian failures. In true love as in a true contract, you have to
give in order to take. Russia has given us a lot with no expectance of return. If she
expected anything, we have given her nothing. We aren't Russia's spoiled child.
NATO failed to defeat the Yugoslav army so NATO targeted Serbian civilians.
Actually, they started to target civilian infrastructure. The objective was to intimidate
the regime in Belgrade into surrender by pushing the country towards stone age.
I guess you could be onto something here:
You have suffered far more losses than you acknowledge .
and
Never have so many American military died during training exercises than during the
aggression against Serbia.
As for
That's why Serbia accepted UN resolution 1244 and the Kumanovo agreement.
there was a little matter of Russia guaranteeing something too, I guess. While the
drunkard was in the Kremlin.
Perceptions aside (Argentinians still believe they sank Royal Navy aircraft carrier in
'82, for example) NATO delivered what its political masters wanted at the time.
Serbs lost .BADLY.
@Vojkan
Yes. It's pretty much standard American practice to bomb civilian infrastructure immediately,
regardless of the degree of resistance put up by the opposing military.
@Vojkan
I don't mean to interfere in inter-Serbian squabble, but I'll volunteer an opinion anyway. I
think you are exaggerating what Russia has done for Serbia for example. How so? As a proud
Balkaneer ( I am exaggerating here a little bit myself – the proud part) I have to say
that we in the Balkans have always benefited from the simple fact that usually Russia's
enemies are our enemies too, so when Russia takes care of their enemies, they automatically
take care of our enemies too.
But I don't think that the Russians would necessarily put their neck on the line for the
Balkan Slavs to defend them against enemies that are not their enemies as well. So,
unfortunately for Serbia, that equation didn't work for them in the 90's – simply put
– Serbia's enemies were not automatically Russia's enemies too. Russia was still trying
to be friends with the west. I forgot who it was, but some prominent Russian politician at
the time said: "We are not going to start nuclear war with US over Serbia".
But it seems that Serbia is always the canary in the mine – whenever someone attacks
Serbia – Russia is next. That's why that buffoon Yeltsin had to go. Friendship with the
west was over the moment they attacked Yugoslavia (Serbia). Now the Russia didn't start a
nuclear war over Serbia, but they still might have to – to defend themselves, and as
always Serbia will benefit from this – if anything is left over from this world after
things go nuclear.
@peterAUS
Serbs did lose badly. Albeit not on the battlefield. Though there never was a real
battlefield.
I have no reason to doubt the accounts of my friends in the military who sought in the rare
conversations I've had with them on the subject, to humble down their achievements.
I believe Russians capitalised on the Serb's defeat. I can't blame them for that. No one is
responsible for what happened to Serbs, as it happened, but Serbs. They're so keen on making
the wrong decisions for the sake of appearing glorious, you can't blame the devil for that.
It's their informed choice
@Beefcake
the Mighty To be fair, they only did it after they realised that the Serb military were
too smart to be depleted by aerial bombardment and that in order to defeat them, you'd have
to fight them on the ground. That's why NATO bombarded civilians. On a man to man basis,
Serbs and Russians are the best soldiers in the world. No navy seal, no marine, no SAS can
match them. Fighting for their homes gives them the little bit of adrenaline needed to
prevail.
@Cyrano
My point was never "Russians" are our brothers. My point is, whatever cultural, religious or
blood affinity I have with the Russians, they have their interests and we have ours. I cannot
expect of Russians to defend Serbia for "ses beaux yeaux". The same goes the other way
around. To some people Russia has "betrayed" Serbia, to some other Serbia has "betrayed"
Russia. Yet the West sees us as one whole, Russia and little "Russia". I didn't ask myself
before but now I love Russia infinetely more than the West. Russia has asked me nothing, has
given me nothing and is expecting nothing from me.
If we can have a mutually beneficial relationship with Russia, great. We will never have that
with the USA or the UK or Germany or France. They're guilty of the spoilation of Serbs' lives
and private properties. Russians never spoiled Serbs of anything.
@Frederick
V. Reed The idea of 'stealth' aircraft is in fact mostly a gimmick designed to enrich the
military contractors it doesn't actually work very well at all, as proved in 1999 when the
Serb air defense, using ancient Soviet surface to air missiles of 1950s vintage, shot down
the USAF F117 aircraft and damaged another that was then written off, and therefore counts as
a kill
–F117 canopy displayed at the Belgrade Aviation Museum
But let's look at the idea of 'low observable' aircraft technology in a little more
detail, and how it may be countered by air defense
Ufimtsev, working at the Moscow Institute of Radio Engineering, developed a coherent
theory on the behavior of radio wave scattering off solid objects he published his seminal
work Method of Edge Waves in the Physical Theory of Diffraction in 1962 the Soviet
military saw no real value in this and allowed it to be published
In 1971, the USAF translated this work into English and a couple of engineers at Lockheed
realized that Ufimtsev had provided the mathematical foundation to predict how radar waves
deflect off an aircraft it was a lightbulb moment the main insight of Ufimtsev's work was
that the size of a radar return was more a function of the edge geometry of the aircraft than
its actual size
Retired USAF Lt Colonel William B O'Connor, who flew the F117 gives a good telling of the
story
here
The end result is that the F117 and B2 were developed by programming Ufimtsev's math into
powerful computers in order to come up with aircraft shaping geometry that minimized radar
reflection subsequent 'low observable' aircraft like the F22 and F35 all build on this basic
physics
Now while the idea of reducing an aircraft's radar return sounds good in principle it has
a lot of real-world drawbacks for instance the shaping can only be optimized for one
particular aspect, such as a head-on if the aircraft turns into a bank for instance its radar
return will increase by as much as 100 fold owing to the simple fact that a banking aircraft
exposes its broad underbelly, which has no way to be optimized to also be 'stealthy' the
shaping cannot accomplish the same result of scattering radio waves off in all directions,
from all angles
There are other challenges the vertical tail surfaces will also bounce back radio waves
this is why a tailless, flying wing design like the B2 is better suited to the task but this
kind of configuration brings with it compromises in aircraft maneuverability and agility
Aside from the aircraft geometry, which is the main means of achieving 'low observability'
there are also special coatings that are designed to 'absorb' radio waves although this is
only of limited effectiveness and depends a lot on the thickness of the rubbery coating I had
the opportunity to physically examine a piece of the wreckage of that F117 shot down in
Serbia, and the thickness and weight of that coating was surprising it was about 1/16 inch
thick in places along the vertical stabilizers and seemed to weigh more than the underlying
composite honeycomb structure itself [typical of Lockheed lightweight structural design]
This additional weight is a major disadvantage of 'stealth' aircraft aircraft must be as
light as possible to perform well that is just basic physics but these logical design
considerations have seemingly been sidelined in what can only be explained as a money-making
gimmick that only detracts from actual aircraft capability
The F35 is far worse of course but Col Riccioni passed away before he could fully train
his guns on this very deficient aircraft
The fact of the matter is that the F117 was more 'stealthy' than the F22 or F35 this due
to its faceted design wherein the airframe shape was defined largely by a series of flat
plates [remember that the whole physics of radio reflection boils down to edge
geometry...]
The current MIC propaganda is that the faceted shape is not necessary due to improved
supercomputers that can calculate the math for curved surfaces well, the physical fact is
that curved surfaces reflect in all directions and no amount of 'supercomputing' can change
that Col Riccioni, who is no slouch in physics, having designed and taught the first
graduate-level course in astronautics at the USAF Academy, confirms that the F117 was a more
'stealthy' design than the F22 and the F35 is considered not as stealthy as the F22
As for defending against 'low observable' aircraft with surface to air missiles [SAMs] let
us review some of the pertinent factors that go into this equation a SAM system consists
basically of powerful radars that spot and track enemy aircraft and guide a missile shot to
the target the only way to kill a SAM system by means of an attacking aircraft is to target
its radars with a special type of missile that homes in on radio signals known as
anti-radiation missiles [HARMs] such as the US AGM88
The problem becomes one of reach how far can the SAM missiles reach and how far can the
HARMs reach ?
A long range SAM like the S300/400 wins this contest easily the S300 can hit targets as
far as 250 km away [400 km for S400] while the best Harms can reach about 150 km at most and
that's if fired at high aircraft speed and altitude so it becomes a question of how do you
get within the SAM missile kill zone to fire your Harm in the first place ?
In the 1999 bombing of Serbia, the US and 18 participating Nato allies mustered over 1,000
aircraft and fired a total of over 700 Harms at Serb air defenses, over the course of 78 days
but managed to knock out only three 1970s era mobile SAM units the 2K12 'Kub'
This campaign was truly a David vs Goliath match, yet the Serbs effectively fought the
alliance to a draw
NATO never fully succeeded in neutralizing the Serb IADS [integrated air defense
system], and NATO aircraft operating over Serbia and Kosovo were always within the
engagement envelopes of enemy SA-3 and SA-6 missiles -- envelopes that extended as high as
50,000 feet.
Because of that persistent threat, mission planners had to place such high-value
surveillance-and-reconnaissance platforms as the U-2 and JSTARS in less-than-ideal orbits
to keep them outside the lethal reach of enemy SAMs.
Even during the operation's final week, NATO spokesmen conceded that they could confirm
the destruction of only three of Serbia's approximately 25 known mobile SA-6
batteries.'
Lambeth notes that things could have been much different had the Serbs had the S300
'One SA-10/12 [early S300 variant] site in Belgrade and one in Pristina could have
provided defensive coverage over all of Serbia and Kosovo. They also could have threatened
Rivet Joint, Compass Call, and other key allied aircraft such as the airborne command and
control center and the Navy's E-2C operating well outside enemy airspace.
Fortunately for NATO, the Serb IADS did not include the latest-generation SAM equipment
currently available on the international arms market.'
Since 1999, the last major SEAD [suppression of enemy air defense] operation by Nato the
Russian air defense capabilities have only become more lethal the radars employed on the
S300/400 series are phased array types which are very difficult to jam and much more precise
in guiding a missile to the target
Phased array means that instead of a parabolic dish, the antenna consists of several
thousand individual antenna elements that are electronically steered in order to create a
very precise radar beam [instead of a dish antenna being mechanically rotated and tilted]
'With electronic beam steering, very low sidelobes and a narrow pencil beam mainlobe,
the 30N6 phased array is more difficult to detect and track by an aircraft's warning
receiver when not directly painted by the radar, and vastly more difficult to jam.
While it may have detectable backlobes, these are likely to be hard to detect from the
forward sector of the radar. As most anti-radiation missiles rely on sidelobes to home in,
the choice of engagement geometry is critical in attempting to kill a Flap Lid.'
Shown is the latest generation 92N6 'Grave Stone' engagement radar used with S300/400
systems the engagement radar actually guides the missile shot, while separate early warning
and acquisition and tracking radars first detect the target, then cue the engagement radar to
point to the target and guide the missile shot
In this scenario the weakest link of the S200 is eliminated its obsolete parabolic dish
type engagement radar the S200 missile is instead guided to the target by the formidable new
S300/400 radars
'In this arrangement, an SA-20/21 system with its high power aperture and highly jam
resistant acquisition and engagement radars prosecutes an engagement, but rather than
launching its organic 48N6 series missile rounds, it uses the SA-5 Gammon round instead
The challenge which a hybrid SA-5/SA-20/SA-21 system presents is considerable. The
SA-20/21 battery is highly mobile, and with modern digital frequency hopping radars, will
be difficult to jam.
Soft kill and hard kill become problematic. In terms of defeating the SA-5 component of
the hybrid, the only option is to jam the missile CW homing seeker, the effectiveness of
which will depend entirely on the vintage of the 5G24N series seeker and the capabilities
of the jamming equipment. If the customer opts for an upgrade to the seeker electronics,
the seeker may be digital and very difficult to jam.'
This could be the most important part of the story, since the Syrians have a large number
of S200 systems it is certain that a number of additional S300/400 radars have been delivered
as part of that '49 pieces' reported in Russian media and these powerful and fully mobile
radars [truck mounted] will be used to modernize the S200 network
It is worth noting also that SAM mobility is a key advance of the S300/400 systems the
various radars and the missile launchers are all mounted on large trucks and are designed for
five minute shoot and scoot this mobility proved key to the Nato difficulty with Serbian
SAMs, even though those old systems were not designed for that, but the Serbs nonetheless
would dismantle and move the fixed radars and launchers on a regular basis
In order to attack a SAM with an aircraft you first have to know where it is the only way
to know is when it turns on its radar at which point it may be too late if it is pointed at
you after taking the shot, the whole thing packs up and moves in five minutes flat [the
Patriot takes 30 minutes by comparison]
It should be noted here that these mobile Russian search and acquisition radars are
extremely powerful the 'Big Bird' series is in the same class as the Aegis radar mounted on
USN missile cruisers and destroyers
'The 64N6E Big Bird is the key to much of the improved engagement capability, and
ballistic missile intercept capability in the later S-300P variants.
This system operates in the 2 GHz band and is a phased array with a 30% larger aperture
than the US Navy SPY-1 Aegis radar, even accounting for its slightly larger wavelength it
amounts to a mobile land based Aegis class package. It has no direct equivalent in the
West.'
The final piece of the puzzle when it comes to countering 'stealth' aircraft is a special
category of radar designed specifically for that purpose these operate at much lower
frequencies [ie longer wavelength] which renders the stealth shaping useless since the
physics dictates that aircraft features shorter than the radar wavelength cannot produce the
desired scattering effect as Col Riccioni notes
[The F22's] radar signature is admittedly small in the forward quarter but only to
airborne radars. The aircraft is detectable by high-power, low-frequency ground based
radars
it is physically impossible to design shapes and radar absorptive material to
simultaneously defeat low power, high-frequency enemy fighter radars, and high power,
low-frequency ground based radars.'
The system uses a series of radars of varying wavelength each mounted on a mobile chassis
as with all the modern Russian SAM radars the long wavelength radar finds the 'stealth'
target easily and then cues a shorter wavelength radar to further pinpoint the target, which,
in turn, cues the engagement radar that guides the missile shot
Shown is such a deployment of three radars and a command vehicle in the background
All told, the upgrade of the Syrian air defenses now presents a very formidable system it
should be noted that the S200 missile when used with these powerful radars could be an
especially deadly combination this rocket was until 2009 the longest range SAM rocket in the
world, with a maximum range of up to 375 km
Unlike modern SAM missiles that use solid propellant rocket motors [basically a bottle
rocket] the S200 uses a real liquid fuel rocket engine it has a top speed of 2.5 km/s which
is actually faster than the S400 rockets and the liquid engine means it can be throttled to
decrease or increase its speed [minimum flying speed is 700 m/s] something that a solid
rocket cannot do
In the right hands, this combination of advanced S300 radars and the superb kinematic
performance of the S200 missile could be a deadly combination the fact that Syria has a lot
of these S200 missiles means that adding those S300 radars makes it a whole new ballgame we
already saw back in February when an S200 shot down an Israeli F16 in Israeli airspace there
are unconfirmed reports that a second aircraft was hit and possibly destroyed
The question of Israeli F35s trying to attack these mobile S300 SAMs is not really a
serious consideration for any air combat practitioner the F35 has terrible flight
characteristics such as very high wing loading, which directly affects its turning ability
[think of running with a 100 lb backpack and how that might affect your maneuverability]
The basic flight physics of this airplane are terrible, as many qualified experts have
pointed out it would be difficult to envisage how it could play a role in mounting an attack
against these Syrian S300s
The only realistic option to attack such an air defense zone would be to use the
mountainous terrain along the Levant coast and fly a nap of the earth mission with highly
maneuverable fighters like the F15 and F16 to try to hide from radar in the mountains and get
close enough to deliver a Harm missile to an S300 radar
But this would be a very risky mission especially considering that the Russians are flying
their AWACS planes over Syria, so even terrain following is not going to work in trying to
hide
Because that is precisely how the smear game works. The way it works is, the smearers bait
the smearee into defending himself against the defamatory content of the smears. Once the
smearee has done that, the smearers have him. From then on, the focus of the debate becomes
whether or not the smears are accurate, rather than why he's being smeared, how he's being
smeared, and who is smearing him .
This is the smearers' primary objective, i.e., to establish the boundaries of the debate,
and to trap the target of the smears within them. If you've followed the fake "Labour
Anti-Semitism" scandal, you've witnessed this tactic deployed against
Corbyn , who unfortunately
fell right into the trap and gave the smearers the upper hand.
No, the only way to effectively counter a smear campaign (whether large-scale or
small-scale), is to resist the temptation to profess your innocence, and, instead, focus as
much attention on the tactics and the motives of the smearers as possible . It is
difficult to resist this temptation, especially when the people smearing you have significantly
more power and influence than you do, and are calling you a racist and an anti-Semite, but,
trust me, the moment you start defending yourself, the game is over, and the smearers have
won.
@Justsaying The evidence is that before Cockburn died Counterpunch would routinely
publish articles which were basically honest about Israel (ie not terribly flattering) and
now does not (as it states in the article above viewpoints of the extreme left and right ie
genuine critique will not be tolerated so only critique from inside established paradigms
will be allowed-just like every other media outlet).
Counterpunch used to be outside of the Jewish paradigm (ie it was genuinely leftist) but
now will be just another gelded publication. Cockburn did a good job of fending off
criticism-Counterpunch was a rather niche publication so it flew under the radar of the
Jews.
Counterpunch was routinely critical of the neocons and even pointed out their Jewishness
but a lot of liberal Jews did not like the neocons. Israel was and is the real litmus
test.
The Guardian always had Alan Rusbridger who I beleive was Jewish. It is not exactly funded
by Jewish money- it mainly subsists off of government departments advertising public sector
jobs. Before the rise of the internet and gumtree etc it was mainly funded by sales of
autotrader a car trading magazine (lol at the nost po faced anti pollution newspaper being
funded by the sales of cars).
What changed is that the Jews are no longer able to control the narrative- they used to
feel they could afford semi-critical comments about Israel before but not any more. This has
gone hand in hand with increased efforts to censor the internet. The Jews were able to
infiltrate BDS and subvert it, they were able to use their explicit power to pass anti BDS
laws but they were not able to really turn the tide of public opinion. They have resorted to
outright censorship.
As you say it is not suprising that Counterpunch was taken over any
publication/organisation that wants to work outside of established Jewish limits on
intellectual discourse will eventually be subverted. Just look at the British Labour party.
Corbyn is an old school lefists (ie he wants to give people options other than the new labour
globalist neo liberalism) and a very principaled one. He stands up for the Palestinians (some
people say he just does this because of his Muslim constituents but that is not the case-he
has always stood up for them) and as a result has been smeared time and time again by the
Jewish press.
There is a power struggle in the Labour party (Muslim ethnics weight of numbers vs Jewish
money) and it looks like the Jews will win.
It's very sad and like I said I hope the new Counterpunch will fold leaving Cockburn's
histroy of excellent journalism unsullied.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg says that people having "poor" memories of NATO's
1999 bombing of Yugoslavia are wrong because the military bloc did this to protect civilians
and save lives.
"I stressed that we did this to protect civilians and to stop the Milosevic regime,"
Stoltenberg stated during a meeting with the students of Belgrade University.
The NATO secretary stated further that the bloc supports a "dialogue" between Serbia and its
breakaway region [now a self-proclaimed state] of Kosovo. According to him, Belgrade has to
"look into the future" for furher cooperation between the two sides.
The attitude showed by Stoltenberg is a common example how the US-NATO propaganda works. Any
actions, incluindg illegal military interventions, false flag provocations and mass civilian
casualties, are being explained by the need to "defend democracy", "protect civilians" and
"save lives".
"Also do not forget that all invisible stuff that US army had during the Clinton/HRC era,
were easily visible. F-117 in Serbia,"
See: Comment #43: (very detailed, links to open source US mil docs)
"The idea of 'stealth' aircraft is in fact mostly a gimmick designed to enrich the
military contractors it doesn't actually work very well at all, as proved in 1999 when the
Serb air defense, using ancient Soviet surface to air missiles of 1950s vintage, shot down
the USAF F117 aircraft and damaged another that was then written off, and therefore counts as
a kill "
Thanks for that link. That's an essay in itself, and I'm still reading it. Fascinating and
valuable background on stealth.
First takeaway for me is that the Russians invented stealth but considered it
impracticable at the time. The US designers took the Russian equations and ran with them,
throwing out many other considerations of plane-worthiness in order to promote this dud of a
magic bullet.
"... Accountability is for the little people, immunity is for the ruling class. If this ethos seems familiar, that is because it has preceded some of the darkest moments in human history ..."
"... September began with John McCain's funeral – a memorial billed as an apolitical celebration of the Arizona lawmaker, but which served as a made-for-TV spectacle letting America know that everyone who engineered the Iraq war is doing just fine. ..."
"... The underlying message was clear: nobody other than the dead, the injured and the taxpayer will face any real penalty for the Iraq debacle. ..."
"... Meanwhile, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon garnered non-Onion headlines by floating the idea of running for president – a reminder that a decade after his firm played a central role in destroying countless Americans' economic lives, he remains not only unincarcerated and gainfully employed, but so reputationally unscathed that he is seen as a serious White House candidate. ..."
Accountability is for the little people,
immunity is for the ruling class. If this ethos seems familiar, that is because it has preceded some of the darkest moments in human
history
'If there are no legal consequences for profiteers who defrauded the
global economy into a collapse, what will deter those profiteers from doing that again?' Illustration: Mark Long/Mark Long for Guardian
US W hen the former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling was
released from prison
a few weeks ago, the news conjured memories of a corporate scandal that now seems almost quaint – and it was also a reminder
that Enron executives were among the last politically connected criminals to face any serious consequences for institutionalized
fraud.
Since Skilling's conviction 12 years ago,
our society has been fundamentally altered by a powerful political movement whose goal is not merely another court seat, tax cut
or election victory. This movement's objective is far more revolutionary: the creation of an accountability-free zone for an ennobled
aristocracy, even as the rest of the population is treated to law-and-order rhetoric and painfully punitive policy.
Let's remember that in less than two decades, America has experienced the Iraq war, the financial crisis, intensifying economic
stratification, an opioid plague, persistent gender and racial inequality and now seemingly unending climate change-intensified disasters.
While the victims have been ravaged by these crime sprees, crises and calamities, the perpetrators have largely avoided arrest, inquisition,
incarceration, resignation, public shaming and ruined careers.
That is because the United States has been turned into a safe space for a permanent ruling class. Inside the rarefied refuge,
the key players who created this era's catastrophes and who embody the most pernicious pathologies have not just eschewed punishment
– many of them have actually maintained or even increased their social, financial and political status.
The effort to construct this elite haven has tied together so many seemingly disparate news events, suggesting that there is a
method in the madness. Consider this past month that culminated with the dramatic battle over the judicial nomination of Brett Kavanaugh.
September began with John McCain's funeral – a memorial billed as an apolitical celebration of the Arizona lawmaker, but which
served as a made-for-TV spectacle letting America know that everyone who engineered the Iraq war is doing just fine.
The event was attended by Iraq war proponents of both parties, from
Dick Cheney to
Lindsey
Graham to Hillary Clinton. The funeral featured a saccharine eulogy from the key Democratic proponent of the invasion, Joe Lieberman,
as well the resurrection of George W Bush. The
codpiece-flaunting
war president who piloted America into the cataclysm with
"bring 'em on" bravado,
"shock and awe" bloodlust and
"uranium from
Africa" dishonesty was suddenly portrayed as an icon of warmth and civility when he
passed a lozenge to Michelle Obama. The scene was depicted not as the gathering of a rogues gallery fit for a war crimes tribunal,
but as a
venerable
bipartisan reunion evoking
nostalgia for the supposed halcyon days – and Bush promptly used his newly revived image to
campaign
for Republican congressional candidates and
lobby
for Kavanaugh's appointment .
The underlying message was clear: nobody other than the dead, the injured and the taxpayer will face any real penalty for the
Iraq debacle.
Next up came the 10th anniversary of the financial crisis – a meltdown that laid waste to the global economy, while providing
lucrative taxpayer-funded bailouts to Wall Street firms.
To mark the occasion, the three men on whose watch it occurred – Fed chair Ben Bernanke, Bush treasury secretary Hank Paulson
and Obama treasury secretary Tim Geithner – did not offer an apology, but instead promised that another financial crisis will eventually
occur, and they
demanded lawmakers give public officials
more power to bail out big banks in the future.
In a similar bipartisan show of unity, former Trump economic adviser
Gary Cohn gave an interview in which he asked "Who broke the law?" – the implication being that no Wall Street executives were
prosecuted for their role in the meltdown because no statutes had been violated. That suggestion, of course, is undermined by
banks
'
own
admissions that they defrauded investors (that includes
admissions of fraud
from Goldman Sachs – the very bank that Cohn himself ran during the crisis). Nonetheless,
Obama's attorney
general, Eric Holder – who has now rejoined
his old corporate defense law firm – subsequently backed Cohn up by arguing that nobody on Wall Street committed an offense that
could have been successfully prosecuted in a court of law.
Meanwhile, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon garnered non-Onion headlines by
floating the idea
of running for president – a reminder that a decade after his firm played a central role in destroying countless Americans' economic
lives, he remains not only unincarcerated and gainfully employed, but so reputationally unscathed that he is seen as a serious White
House candidate.
Again, the message came through: nobody who engineered the financial crisis will pay any real price for wreaking so much havoc.
Then as
Hurricane Florence provided the latest illustration of climate change's devastation, ExxonMobil
marched into the supreme court to demand an end to a state investigation of its role denying and suppressing climate science.
Backed by 11 Republican attorneys general
, the fossil fuel giant had reason to feel emboldened in its appeal for immunity: despite
investigative reporting detailing the company's prior knowledge of fossil fuel's role in climate change, its executives had already
convinced
the Securities and Exchange Commission to shut down a similar investigation.
Once again, the message was unavoidable: in the new accountability-free zone, companies shouldn't be bothered to even explain
– much less face punishment for – their role in a crisis that threatens the survival of the human species.
... ... ...
The answer is nothing – which is exactly the point for the aristocracy. But that cannot be considered acceptable for the rest
of us outside the accountability-free zone.
David Sirota is a Guardian US columnist and an investigative journalist at Capital & Main. His latest book is Back to Our Future:
How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now
Ryan Chilcote : Let's return to energy, or at least more directly to energy,
President Putin, and talk about Nord Stream 2. That's the pipeline that Gazprom wants to build
between Russia and Germany. Again, the President of the United States has said his opinion
about this. He says that Germany is effectively a hostage already of Russia, because it depends
on Russia for so much of its energy and gas supplies, and that it's vulnerable to "extortion
and intimidation" from Russia. What do you make of that?
Vladimir Putin : My response is very simple. Donald and I talked about this very
briefly in Helsinki. In any sale, including the sale of our gas to Europe, we are traditionally
the supplier, of pipeline gas I mean. We have been doing this since the 1960s. We are known for
doing it in a highly responsible and professional manner, and at competitive prices for the
European market. In general, if you look at the characteristics of the entire gas market, the
price depends on the quantity and on sales volumes. The distance between Russia and Europe is
such that pipeline gas is optimal. And the price will always be competitive, always. This is
something all experts understand.
We have a lot of people here in this room, in the first row, who could easily be seated next
to me, and I would gladly listen to them, because each one is an expert, so each of them can
tell you that. And so Nord Stream 2 is a purely commercial project, I want to emphasise this,
warranted by rising energy consumption, including in Europe, and falling domestic production in
European countries. They have to get it from somewhere.
Russian gas accounts for around 34 percent of the European market. Is this a lot or a
little? It is not insubstantial, but not a monopoly either. Europe certainly can and does
actually buy gas from other suppliers, but American liquefied gas is about 30 percent more
expensive than our pipeline gas on the European market. If you were buying products of the same
quality and you were offered the same product for 30 percent more , what would you choose? So,
what are we talking about?
If Europe starts buying American gas for 30 percent more than ours, the entire economy of
Germany, in this case, would quickly become dramatically less competitive. Everyone understands
this; it is an obvious fact.
But business is business, and we are ready to work with all partners. As you know, our
German partners have already begun offshore construction. We are ready to begin as well. We
have no problems with obtaining any permits. Finland agreed, and so did Sweden, Germany, and
the Russian Federation. This is quite enough for us. The project will be implemented.
< >
Ryan Chilcote : President Putin, did you want to jump in here?
Vladimir Putin:(following up on the remarks by CEO of Royal Dutch Shell Ben van
Beurden) We understand the realities and treat all our partners with respect. We have very
good, amiable long-term relations with all our partners, including the company represented by
my neighbour on the left. This company is working in the Russian market and working with great
success, but we understand everything very well and understand the realities. We are carrying
out the project ourselves. We do not and will not have any problems here. That is to say, they
may arise, of course, but we will resolve them.
Some things are beyond the realm of political intrigue. Take supplies to the Federal
Republic of Germany. Not everyone knows that the decision was made there to shut down the
nuclear power industry. But that is 34 percent of its total energy balance. We are proud of the
development of the nuclear power industry in the Russian Federation, although the figure for us
is just 16 percent. We are still thinking about how to raise it to 25 percent and are making
plans. Theirs is 34 percent and everything will be closed down. What will this vacuum be filled
with? What?
Look at LNG [liquefied natural gas ] which is sold by our various competitors and partners.
Yes, LNG can and should be in the common basket of Europe and Germany. Do you know how many
ports built in Europe are used for LNG transfer? Just 25 percent. Why? Because it is
unprofitable.
There are companies and regions for which it is profitable to supply LNG and this is being
done. The LNG market is growing very fast. But as for Europe, it is not very profitable, or
unprofitable altogether.
Therefore, in one way or another we have already seen Nord Stream 1 through and its
performance is excellent. Incidentally, our gas supplies to Europe are continuously growing.
Last year, I believe, they amounted to 194 billion cubic metres and this year they will add up
to 200 billion cubic metres or maybe even more.
We have loaded practically all our infrastructure facilities: Blue Stream to Turkey, Nord
Stream 1 is fully loaded. Yamal-Europe is fully loaded – it is almost approaching 100
percent, while the demand is going up. Life itself dictates that we carry out such
projects.
Ryan Chilcote : President Trump's position on American LNG exports is perhaps a
little bit more nuanced. His point is that instead of buying Russian gas, even perhaps if it's
a bit more expensive, the Germans and other European allies of the United States, because the
United States is paying for their defence, should be buying American gas even if there is, I
guess the argument suggests, a little bit of a higher price for that
Vladimir Putin : You know, this argument doesn't really work, in my opinion. I
understand Donald. He is fighting for the interests of his country and his business. He is
doing the right thing and I would do the same in his place.
As for LNG, as I have already said, it is not just a little more expensive in the European
market but 30 percent more. This is not a little bit more, it is a lot more, beyond all reason,
and is basically unworkable.
But there are markets where LNG will be adopted, where it is efficient, for instance in the
Asia-Pacific region. By the way, where did the first shipment of LNG from our new company
Yamal-LNG go? Where did the first tanker go? To the United States, because it was profitable.
The United States fought this project but ended up buying the first tanker. It was profitable
to buy it in this market, at this place and time, and it was purchased.
LNG is still being shipped to the American continent. It's profitable.
It makes no sense to fight against what life brings. We simply need to look for common
approaches in order to create favourable market conditions, including, for example, conditions
conducive to the production and consumption of LNG in the United States itself and securing the
best prices for producers and consumers. This could be achieved by coordinating policy, rather
than just imposing decisions on partners.
As for the argument, "We defend you, so buy this from us even if it makes you worse off", I
don't think it is very convincing either. Where does it lead? It has led to the Europeans
starting to talk about the need to have a more independent defence capability, as well as the
need to create a defence alliance of their own that allegedly will not undermine NATO while
allowing the Europeans to pursue a real defence policy. This is what, in my view, such steps
are leading to.
This is why I am sure that a great many things will be revised. Life will see to that.
The recent history of the Supreme Court has been one of Justices playing the part of
politicians in robes. Perhaps no better example was the nullification of the recount in the
Bush v Gore election with the "Brooks Brothers Riot" where paid operatives of the republicans
stormed the election office in Florida and declared the recount over in an extra judicial
action which was backed up by the members of the Supreme Court leading to their moniker
"politicians in robes". The Supreme Court basically stole that election by upholding the use
of violence as a tool to stop the recount instead of reacting on its own to denounce the use
of such tactics.
The Supreme Court has become weaponized as a force for right wing agendas and it has taken
a partisan position many times due to justices who have become radicalized to advance right
wing views. This is part of a vast right wing well funded and well oiled political money
machine. Little debut over the 10 million dollars spent by anonymous donors greasing the
nomination of Neil Gorsuch. The $10 million effort to win federal appeals court Judge Neil
Gorsuch's confirmation, funded by unknown donors to a conservative interest group called the
Judicial Crisis Network, follows a successful $7 million effort last year to block President
Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland. The group calls it "the most robust operation in the
history of confirmation battles."
Billionaires are funding the selection and nomination of Supreme Court Justices for one
reason. So that the Supreme Court is stacked by loyal conservatives who will side with big
industrialist businesses on every case brought against big industrialists.
This is a long term strategy funded with hundreds of millions of dollars poured into
efforts to create a three point strategy. Fund AstroTurf phony grass roots populist
organizations which claim they are formed by housewives and farmers and middle class folk but
who really serve the interests of the billionaire class. Fund politicians and judges who are
begging to get the money to win elections by promising they will do everything to support the
uber class and groveling at their feet for the cash to be had. Create laws to serve the
interests of billionaires.
So far each effort has been a phenomenal success. Funded with hundreds of millions of
dollars willing recipients of all the corporate cash have created the ostensible populist
front defending wedge issues like abortion, gun control and anti immigration along with a
health dose of anti establishment hatred of the government. Their real aim is to serve the
corporate interests.
Donald Trump is perhaps the biggest benefactor of the money machine having won election
based on this populist jargon while spending little of his own money but really serving the
corporate interests most obviously by supporting the 1.9 Trillion dollar tax breaks for
billionaires.
It is unlikely that the average American would get angry about health care or their own
social security which is funded by workers not billionaires unless they were propagandized by
every main stream media outlet with Fox News and other more extremely radical right wing
media outlets and all the rightwing websites and right wing syndicated media pundits.
Average Americans have been suckered to believe that what is in their own interests is
very bad for America and Freedom and Democracy etc. They have been hoodwinked into voting for
politicians who want to strip them of healthcare, social security, financial security and
basic rights to privacy and access to the judicial system with arbitration clauses attached
to every product down to toothbrushes and sunglasses. They have come to believe that
defending wedge issues means they will vote for republicans no matter how bad their economic
future is compromised and their future put at risk by predatory businesses which offer
paycheck loans, balloon mortgages, sky high interest and insurance rates, multiple bank
accounts with lots of surcharges (Pinkerton Bank) and promise to end Medicare and Social
Security because its Okay to give trillions to billionaires but not Okay to help average hard
working people.
Donald Trump is the pinnacle of this usurpation of power capturing the Executive Branch
funded by free advertising from the media and running on a fake AstroTurf populist campaign
strategy while delivering all the money to the billionaires as he entertains guests for huge
fees at his Florida Property against the Emoluments Clause which appears to be dead. No
president should economically benefit from the position of the highest office in the land for
personal enrichment yet the Tax Cuts seem to have been perfectly tailored for Trumps own
enrichment via a little known clause which allows property investment owners to pass the
profits gained via those holdings to other entities like his kids at greatly lower taxes.
What a windfall for Trump who has investment pass through properties all over the place. It's
a really nice deal" for Trump and pass-through owners like him, said Roberton Williams, a
senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
So much for the little guy as republicans now demand that the giant deficit created by
their enormous tax cuts for the wealthy now be shrunk by eliminating all social welfare
programs like Social Security which if funded by workers under the payroll deduction tax.
Payroll taxes are taxes imposed on employers or employees, and are usually calculated as a
percentage of the salaries that employers pay their staff. Payroll taxes generally fall into
two categories: deductions from an employee's wages, and taxes paid by the employer based on
the employee's wages. These taxes fund Social Security/ Workers earnings are garnished to pay
for Social Security. The Government does not steal this money from rich people. They take it
from every worker according to a schedule.
How stupid we are to willingly call this wasteful government spending and buy the BS of
the republicans that it must end. What will they do with all the money once none of us is
going to see a dime of what we donated under law? Why they will steal it of course.
Who has the authority to declare all social welfare programs unconstitutional? The Supreme
Court. Who has the power to decline any case brought against and well monied entity including
the President? The Supreme Court.
It is not so much about beer and drunkenness and abuse of women but about the continued
abuse of us all by the republican party which is funded by the rich and operated by the rich
for the rich and only for the rich.
As Russia is preparing plans to wean its banking system off the dollar, advancing a trend of
de-dollarization among the US's largest economic and geopolitical rivals, Russian President
Vladimir Putin accused Washington of making a "colossal" but "typical" mistake by exploiting
the dominance of the dollar by levying economic sanctions against regimes that don't bow to its
whims.
"It seems to me that our American partners make a colossal strategic mistake," Putin
said.
"This is a typical mistake of any empire," Putin said, explaining that the US is ignoring
the consequences of its actions because its economy is strong and the dollar's hegemonic
grasp on global markets remains intact. However "the consequences come sooner or later."
These remarks echoed a sentiment expressed by Putin back in May, when he said that Russia
can no longer trust the US dollar because of America's decisions to impose unilateral sanctions
and violate WTO rules.
While Putin's criticisms are hardly new, these latest remarks happen to follow a report in
the
Financial Times, published Tuesday night, detailing Russia's efforts to wean its economy
off of the dollar. The upshot is that while de-dollarization may be painful, it is, ultimately
doable.
The US imposed another round of sanctions against Russia over the summer in response to the
poisoning of former double-agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, and the US Senate is
considering measures that would effectively cut Russia's biggest banks off from the dollar and
largely exclude Moscow from foreign debt markets.
With the possibility of being cut off from the dollar system looming, a plan prepared by
Andrei Kostin, the head of Russian bank VTB, is being embraced by much of the Russian
establishment. Kostin's plan would facilitate the conversion of dollar settlements into other
currencies which would help wean Russian industries off the dollar. And it already has the
backing of Russia's finance ministry, central bank and Putin.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin is also working on deals with major trading partners to accept the
Russian ruble for imports and exports.
In a sign that a united front is forming to help undermine the dollar, Russia's efforts have
been readily embraced by China and Turkey, which is unsurprising, given their increasingly
fraught relationships with the US. During joint military exercises in Vladivostok last month,
Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping declared that their countries would work together to
counter US tariffs and sanctions.
"More and more countries, not only in the east but also in Europe, are beginning to think
about how to minimise dependence on the US dollar," said Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin's
spokesperson. "And they suddenly realise that a) it is possible, b) it needs to be done and
c) you can save yourself if you do it sooner."
Still, there's no question that US sanctions have damaged Russia's currency and contributed
to a rise in borrowing costs. And whether Russia - which relies heavily on energy exports - can
convince buyers of its oil and natural gas to accept payment in rubles remains an open
question. Increased trade with China and other Asian countries has helped reduce Russia's
dependence on the dollar. But the greenback still accounted for 68% of Russia's payment
inflow.
But, as Putin has repeatedly warned, that won't stop them from trying. The fact is that
Russia is a major exporter, with a trade surplus of $115 billion last year. As the FT pointed
out, Russia's metals, grain, oil and gas are consumed around the world - even in the west,
despite the tensions surrounding Russia's alleged involvement in the Skripal poisoning and its
annexation of Crimea.
To be sure, abandoning the dollar as the currency of choice for oil-related payments would
be no easy feat. But China has already taken the first step and show that it can be done by
launching a yuan-denominated futures contract that trades in Shanghai - striking the most
significant blow to date against the petrodollar's previously unchallenged dominance.
That should embolden Putin to continue with his experiment - not that the US is leaving him
much choice.
"... Along these lines, the Trump Administration has informed Russia in April 2017 that the period of "strategic patience" is over (well, at least official 'cause being 'patient' didn't seem to deter regime change and covert ops) . They now employ a policy of "maximum pressure" instead. ..."
"... Also note: The Trump Administration has officially labeled Russia and China as enemies when they called them "recidivist" nations in the National Defense Authorization Act in late 2017. (Note: "recidivist" because Russia and China want to return to a world where there is not a hegemonic power, aka a "multi-polar" world). ..."
"... we're already within an ongoing Hybrid Third World War, which is more readily apparent with Trump's Trade War escalation. ..."
"... the "real" US economy is only 5 Trillion, only 25% of what's claimed as the total economy ..."
"... at's clearly happening--and it's been ongoing for quite awhile--for those with open eyes is the Class War between the 1% and 99%. The domestic battle within the Outlaw US Empire for Single Payer/Medicare For All healthcare is one theatre of the much larger ongoing war. ..."
"... Clearly, the upcoming financial crisis must spark a massive political upheaval larger than any ever seen before to prevent institution of the 2008 "solution." ..."
"... The primary dynamic of history is war. This has caused immense suffering. It is now becoming exponentially worse ..."
"... If we think of humankind as a large complex living entity, then like all such entities it will expire at some point. So in the larger picture, what we are moving towards is natural, and to be expected. ..."
It is rather surprising that the Democrats who have demonized Donald Trump at every turn
have voted in favour of the this extremely bloated defense budget, putting even more military
might into the hands of a President and Commander-in-Chief that they seem to despise and who
they are demonizing because of his alleged collusion with Russia.
We've been in WW3 for several years now. Bolton went "Full Monty" with his
declaration that U.S. forces will stay in Syria until Iran vacates. The introduction of a
Yemen War Powers Resolution in the House last week is a hopeful sign. A reason to root
for a Blue Wave in November. Dem leadership, already on record backing the War Powers
Resolution, would be obligated to block U.S. enabling genocide in Yemen.
I disagree with Eric Zusse's belief that USA wants to start WWIII. I think they want to
contain/constrain discontent of allies and citizenry as they attempt to destroy the Russian
and Chinese economies. War is only a last resort. But heightened military tensions mean that
the major protagonists have to divert resources to their military, causing a drag on the
economies.
Along these lines, the Trump Administration has informed Russia in April 2017 that the
period of "strategic patience" is over (well, at least official 'cause being 'patient' didn't
seem to deter regime change and covert ops) . They now employ a policy of "maximum pressure"
instead.
The big concern for me is that "maximum pressure" also means an elevated chance of
mistakes and miscalculations that could inadvertently cause WWIII.
Also note: The Trump Administration has officially labeled Russia and China as enemies
when they called them "recidivist" nations in the National Defense Authorization Act in late
2017. (Note: "recidivist" because Russia and China want to return to a world where there is
not a hegemonic power, aka a "multi-polar" world).
PS IMO Trump election and the Kavanaugh and Gina Haspel nominations are key to the pursuit
of global hegemony.
Most warnings have centered on a financial meltdown, as this article
reviews . As most know, IMO we're already within an ongoing Hybrid Third World War,
which is more readily apparent with Trump's Trade War escalation.
As noted in my link to Escobar's latest, the EU has devised a retaliatory mechanism to
shield itself and others from the next round of illegal sanctions Trump's promised to impose
after Mid-term elections.
In an open thread post, I linked to Hudson's latest audio-cast; here's what he said on the 10th
anniversary of the 2008 crash: "So this crash of 2008 was not a crash of the banks. The banks
were bailed out. The economy was left with all the junk mortgages in place, all the
fraudulent debts."
Another article I linked to in a comment to james averred the "real" US economy is
only 5 Trillion, only 25% of what's claimed as the total economy . Hudson again:
"Contrary to the idea that bailing out the banks helps the economy, the fact is that the
economy today cannot recover without a bank failure ." [My emphasis]
Wh at's clearly happening--and it's been ongoing for quite awhile--for those with open
eyes is the Class War between the 1% and 99%. The domestic battle within the Outlaw US Empire
for Single Payer/Medicare For All healthcare is one theatre of the much larger ongoing
war.
As Hudson's stated many times, the goal of the 1% is to reestablish Feudalism via
debt-peonage. All the other happenings geopolitically serve to mask this Class War within the
Outlaw US Empire. Clearly, the upcoming financial crisis must spark a massive political
upheaval larger than any ever seen before to prevent institution of the 2008 "solution."
Many predict that this crisis will be timed to occur in 2020 constituting the biggest
election meddling of all time.
The crisis will likely be blamed on China without any evidence for hacking Wall Street and
causing the subsequent crash -- a Financial False Flag to serve the same purpose as 911.
Much can occur and be obscured during wartime. The radical changes to USA from 1938-1948
is very instructive--the commonfolk were on the threshold of gaining control over the federal
government for the first time in US history only to have it blocked then reversed (forever?)
by FDR and the 1% who tried to overthrow him in 1933.
Same with the current War OF Terror's use to curtail longstanding civil liberties and
constitutional rights and much more. To accomplish what's being called "Bail-In" within the
USA, Martial Law would need to be emplaced since most of the public is to be robbed of
whatever cash they have, and World War would probably be the only way to get Martial Law
instituted--and accepted by the military which would be its enforcer.
A precedent exists for stealing money from the people--their gold--via Executive Order 6102 , which
used a law instituted during WW1 and still on the books.
The primary dynamic of history is war. This has caused immense suffering. It is now
becoming exponentially worse . Critical graphs are going off their charts. The end is
near.
If we think of humankind as a large complex living entity, then like all such entities
it will expire at some point. So in the larger picture, what we are moving towards is
natural, and to be expected.
Like individual humans, the human population as a whole can pursue activities that
maintain it's health, or it can indulge in activities that create disease and hasten it's
death. Humankind is deep in toxifying behaviors that signal it's demise in the near
future.
After 9/11," said US Navy Vice Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Bill Moran, "our focus was
supporting the ground fight, which meant we were operating that force a lot, and when you
operate the force a lot it eats up a lot of your cash, it eats up a lot of your service
life."
Operating a Nimitz-class carrier runs about $298 million per year, the Government
Accountability Office estimated in a 1997 study. The current carrier fleet is made up entirely
of Nimitz-class carriers, with the lone ship of the new Ford-class still undergoing sea
trials.
"Add on to this the cost of the air wing, the combat power behind the aircraft carrier," a
US Navy lieutenant commander wrote in thesis paper from 2012. "An average current air wing is
composed of four fighter/attack squadrons of 10-12 aircraft each, an electronic warfare
squadron of four aircraft, an airborne command and control squadron of four aircraft, two
onboard delivery aircraft and a helicopter squadron of six aircraft."
The workhorse F/A-18 carrier aircraft, according to the Office of the Under Secretary of
Defense Comptroller, costs about $10,507 to fly per hour. Brett Odom, former F/A-18 pilot and
financial expert at Fighter Sweep, has disputed the Pentagon's cost accounting, however, on the
grounds that it only covers marginal costs.
Odom estimated that the cost to pay pilots and support crews, conduct engine maintenance and
fuel the aircraft for an hour was $11,140 -- approximately in line with DoD's estimate. But
then there is the cost of the aircraft itself: an F/A-18 runs about $65 million. Odom refers to
this figure as capital cost. Incorporating the average acquisition cost smoothed out over an
expected life of 6,000 flight hours into the equation, the expert reached $22,000 in cost per
flight hour.
"There are valid reasons to ignore capital costs and treat them as sunk costs in certain
situations. However, by ignoring capital costs, the Department of Defense is implicitly stating
that its fighter aircraft are free, or -- like the pyramids -- they can be expected to function
forever," Odom wrote
for Fighter Sweep in 2016.
"This has all been building up" for 17 years "through overuse of the carrier force and naval
aviation," former Pentagon official Bob Work said in comments to USNI.
"When we kept two carriers in the Persian Gulf for a period of time, we kept telling the
senior leadership that this was going to have a downstream effect, and it would really put a
crimp maintenance-wise, and there would be gaps both in the Pacific as well as the Middle East.
That is coming home to roost," Work said.
While the US Navy carrier fleet was taxed abroad, Washington's defense budgets continued to
grow.
"It's fairly obvious that corporate interests for the defense industry like Raytheon and
others have driven a lot of our spending in the last 20 years or so, especially given the War
on Terror post-9/11," Daniel Sankey, a California-based financial policy analyst, said in an
interview with Sputnik News.
"We've carried this huge, outsized expenditure," he noted. "Eventually the money supply
starts going down. It's not infinite, even though the US pockets are pretty deep."
The carrier force is now facing the music of the Pentagon's "credit card wars" since 9/11,
conflicts that have been paid for with mostly borrowed funds. Brown University's Institute for
International and Public Affairs found that post-9/11 war expenses add up to about $5.6
trillion.
"You have a thoroughbred horse in the stable that you're running in a race every single day.
You cannot do that. Something's going to happen eventually," Secretary of the Navy Richard V.
Spencer told reporters in August.
"... "a key feature of the Roman Empire in its final slide to collapse ... shared values and consensus which had held the Empire's core together dissolved, leaving petty fiefdoms to war among themselves for what power and swag remained." ..."
"... If we understand the profound political disunity fracturing the nation and its Imperial Project, we understand the Deep State must also fracture along the same fault lines. ..."
"... If we consider the state of the nation from 40,000 feet, several key indicators of profound political disunity within the elites pop out: ..."
"... Psychopaths with no moral principles. The nation's elites are not just divided--they're exhibiting signs of schizophrenic breakdown : disassociation and a loss of the ability to discern the difference between reality and their internal fantasies. ..."
"... A funny thing happens when a nation allows itself to be ruled by Imperial kleptocrats: such rule is intrinsically destabilizing, as there is no longer any moral or political center to bind the nation together. The public sees the value system at the top is maximize my personal profit by whatever means are available , i.e. complicity, corruption, monopoly and rentier rackets , and they follow suit by pursuing whatever petty frauds and rackets are within reach: tax avoidance, cheating on entrance exams, gaming the disability system, lying on mortgage and job applications, and so on. ..."
"... But the scope of the rentier rackets is so large, the bottom 95% cannot possibly keep up with the expanding wealth and income of the top .1% and their army of technocrats and enablers, so a rising sense of injustice widens the already yawning fissures in the body politic. ..."
"... As the Power Elites squabble over the dwindling crumbs left by the various rentier rackets, there's no one left to fight for the national interest because the entire Status Quo of self-interested fiefdoms and cartels has been co-opted and is now wedded to the Imperial Oligarchy as their guarantor of financial security. ..."
"... The divided Deep State is a symptom of this larger systemic political disunity. I have characterized the divide as between the Wall Street-Neocon-Globalist Neoliberal camp--currently the dominant public face of the Deep State, the one desperately attempting to exploit the "Russia hacked our elections and is trying to destroy us" narrative--and a much less public, less organized "rogue Progressive" camp, largely based in the military services and fringes of the Deep State, that sees the dangers of a runaway expansionist Empire and the resulting decay of the nation's moral/political center. ..."
"a key feature of the Roman Empire in its final slide to collapse ...
shared values and consensus
which had held the Empire's core together dissolved, leaving petty fiefdoms to war among themselves for what power
and swag remained."
If we understand the profound political disunity fracturing the nation and its Imperial Project, we understand
the Deep State must also fracture along the same fault lines.
If we consider the state of the
nation from 40,000 feet, several key indicators of
profound political disunity within the elites
pop out:
The overt politicization of the central state's law enforcement and intelligence agencies: it is now
commonplace to find former top officials of the CIA et al. accusing a sitting president of treason in the
mainstream media. What was supposed to be above politics is now nothing but politics.
The overt politicization of the centralized (corporate) media: evidence that would stand up in a court of
law is essentially non-existent but the interpretations and exaggerations that fit the chosen narrative are
ceaselessly promoted--the classic definition of desperate propaganda by those who have lost the consent of the
governed.
Psychopaths with no moral principles.
The nation's elites are not just divided--they're exhibiting signs of schizophrenic breakdown
:
disassociation and a loss of the ability to discern the difference between reality and their internal fantasies.
It's impossible to understand the
divided Deep State
unless we situate it in the larger
context of
profound political disunity
, a concept I learned from historian Michael Grant, whose
slim but insightful volume
The
Fall of the Roman Empire
I have been recommending since 2009.
As I noted in my 2009 book
Survival+
,
this was a key feature of the Roman Empire in its final slide to collapse.
The shared values and
consensus which had held the Empire's core together dissolved, leaving petty fiefdoms to war among themselves for
what power and swag remained.
A funny thing happens when a nation allows itself to be ruled by Imperial kleptocrats:
such
rule is intrinsically destabilizing, as there is no longer any moral or political center to bind the nation
together. The public sees the value system at the top is
maximize my personal profit by whatever means are
available
, i.e. complicity, corruption, monopoly and
rentier rackets
, and they follow suit by
pursuing whatever petty frauds and rackets are within reach: tax avoidance, cheating on entrance exams, gaming the
disability system, lying on mortgage and job applications, and so on.
But the scope of the rentier rackets is so large, the bottom 95% cannot possibly keep up with the expanding
wealth and income of the top .1% and their army of technocrats and enablers, so a rising sense of injustice widens
the already yawning fissures in the body politic.
Meanwhile, diverting the national income into a few power centers is also destabilizing
, as
Central Planning and Market Manipulation (a.k.a. the Federal Reserve) are intrinsically unstable as price can no
longer be discovered by unfettered markets. As a result, imbalances grow until some seemingly tiny incident or
disruption triggers a cascading collapse, a.k.a. a phase shift or system re-set.
As the Power Elites squabble over the dwindling crumbs left by the various rentier rackets, there's no one left
to fight for the national interest because the entire Status Quo of self-interested fiefdoms and cartels has been
co-opted and is now wedded to the Imperial Oligarchy as their guarantor of financial security.
The divided Deep State is a symptom of this larger systemic political disunity.
I have
characterized the divide as between the Wall Street-Neocon-Globalist Neoliberal camp--currently the dominant
public face of the Deep State, the one desperately attempting to exploit the "Russia hacked our elections and is
trying to destroy us" narrative--and a much less public, less organized "rogue Progressive" camp, largely based in
the military services and fringes of the Deep State, that sees the dangers of a runaway expansionist Empire and
the resulting decay of the nation's moral/political center.
What few observers seem to understand is that concentrating power in centralized nodes is intrinsically
unstable.
Contrast a system in which power, control and wealth is extremely concentrated in a few nodes
(the current U.S. Imperial Project) and a decentralized network of numerous dynamic nodes.
The disruption of any of the few centralized nodes quickly destabilizes the entire system
because
each centralized node is highly dependent on the others. This is in effect what happened in the 2008-09 Financial
Meltdown: the Wall Street node failed and that quickly imperiled the entire economy and thus the entire political
order, up to and including the Global Imperial Project.
Historian Peter Turchin has proposed that the dynamics of profound political disunity (i.e. social, financial
and political disintegration) can be quantified in a Political Stress Index, a concept he describes in his new
book
Ages
of Discord
.
If we understand the profound political disunity fracturing the nation and its Imperial Project, we
understand the Deep State must also fracture along the same fault lines.
There is no other possible
output of a system of highly concentrated nodes of power, wealth and control and the competing rentier rackets of
these dependent, increasingly fragile centralized nodes.
"... Trump's nationalist fans are sick of the globalist wars that America never seems to win. They are hardly against war per se. They are perfectly fine with bombing radical Islamists, even if it means mass innocent casualties. But they have had enough of expending American blood and treasure to overthrow secular Arab dictators to the benefit of Islamists; so, it seemed, was Trump. They also saw no nationalist advantage in the globalists' renewed Cold War against Assad's ally Russian president Vladimir Putin, another enemy of Islamists. ..."
"... The Syrian pivot also seemed to fulfill the hopes and dreams of some antiwar libertarians who had pragmatically supported Trump. For them, acquiescing to the unwelcome planks of Trump's platform was a price worth paying for overthrowing the establishment policies of regime change in the Middle East and hostility toward nuclear Russia. While populism wasn't an unalloyed friend of liberty, these libertarians thought, at least it could be harnessed to sweep away the war-engineering elites. And since war is the health of the state, that could redirect history's momentum in favor of liberty. ..."
"... But then it all evaporated. Shortly after Bannon's ouster from the NSC, in response to an alleged, unverified chemical attack on civilians, Trump bombed one of Assad's airbases (something even globalist Obama had balked at doing when offered the exact same excuse), and regime change in Syria was top priority once again. The establishment media swooned over Trump's newfound willingness to be "presidential." ..."
"... Since then, Trump has reneged on one campaign promise after another. He dropped any principled repeal of Obamacare. He threw cold water on expectations for prompt fulfillment of his signature promise: the construction of a Mexico border wall. And he announced an imminent withdrawal from NAFTA, only to walk that announcement back the very next day. ..."
"... Poor white people, "the forgotten men and women of our country," have been forgotten once again. Their "tribune" seems to be turning out to be just another agent of the power elite. ..."
"... Who yanked his chain? Was there a palace coup? Was the CIA involved? Has Trump been threatened? ..."
"... Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy ..."
"... Even in a political system based on popular sovereignty, Michels pointed out that, "the sovereign masses are altogether incapable of undertaking the most necessary resolutions." This is true for simple, unavoidable technical reasons: "such a gigantic number of persons belonging to a unitary organization cannot do any practical work upon a system of direct discussion." ..."
"... " while Trump might be able to seize the presidency in spite of establishment opposition, he will never be able to wield it without establishment support." ..."
Did the Deep State deep-six Trump's populist revolution?
Many observers, especially among his fans, suspect that the seemingly untamable Trump has already been housebroken by the Washington,
"globalist" establishment. If true, the downfall of Trump's National Security Adviser Michael Flynn less than a month into the new
presidency may have been a warning sign. And the turning point would have been the removal of Steven K. Bannon from the National
Security Council on April 5.
Until then, the presidency's early policies had a recognizably populist-nationalist orientation. During his administration's first
weeks, Trump's biggest supporters frequently tweeted the hashtag #winning and exulted that he was decisively doing exactly what,
on the campaign trail, he said he would do.
In a flurry of executive orders and other unilateral actions bearing Bannon's fingerprints, Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific
Partnership, declared a sweeping travel ban, instituted harsher deportation policies, and more.
These policies seemed to fit Trump's reputation as the "
tribune of poor white people
," as he has been called; above all, Trump's base calls for protectionism and immigration restrictions. Trump seemed to be delivering
on the populist promise of his inauguration speech (thought to be written by Bannon), in which he said:
"Today's ceremony, however, has very special meaning. Because today we are not merely transferring power from one administration
to another, or from one party to another – but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the American
People.
For too long, a small group in our nation's Capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.
Washington flourished – but the people did not share in its wealth. Politicians prospered – but the jobs left, and the factories
closed.
The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories; their
triumphs have not been your triumphs; and while they celebrated in our nation's capital, there was little to celebrate for struggling
families all across our land.
That all changes – starting right here, and right now, because this moment is your moment: it belongs to you.
It belongs to everyone gathered here today and everyone watching all across America. This is your day. This is your celebration.
And this, the United States of America, is your country.
What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people. January
20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again. The forgotten men and women of our country
will be forgotten no longer.
Everyone is listening to you now." [Emphasis added.]
After a populist insurgency stormed social media and the voting booths, American democracy, it seemed, had been wrenched from
the hands of the Washington elite and restored to "the people," or at least a large, discontented subset of "the people." And this
happened in spite of the establishment, the mainstream media, Hollywood, and "polite opinion" throwing everything it had at Trump.
The Betrayal
But for the past month, the administration's axis seems to have shifted. This shift was especially abrupt in Trump's Syria policy.
Days before Bannon's fall from grace, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley declared that forcing Syrian president Bashar al-Assad
from power was no longer top priority. This too was pursuant of Trump's populist promises.
Trump's nationalist fans are sick of the globalist wars that America never seems to win. They are hardly against war per se. They
are perfectly fine with bombing radical Islamists, even if it means mass innocent casualties. But they have had enough of expending
American blood and treasure to overthrow secular Arab dictators to the benefit of Islamists; so, it seemed, was Trump. They also
saw no nationalist advantage in the globalists' renewed Cold War against Assad's ally Russian president Vladimir Putin, another enemy
of Islamists.
The Syrian pivot also seemed to fulfill the hopes and dreams of some antiwar libertarians who had pragmatically supported Trump.
For them, acquiescing to the unwelcome planks of Trump's platform was a price worth paying for overthrowing the establishment policies
of regime change in the Middle East and hostility toward nuclear Russia. While populism wasn't an unalloyed friend of liberty, these
libertarians thought, at least it could be harnessed to sweep away the war-engineering elites. And since war is the health of the
state, that could redirect history's momentum in favor of liberty.
But then it all evaporated. Shortly after Bannon's ouster from the NSC, in response to an alleged, unverified chemical attack
on civilians, Trump bombed one of Assad's airbases (something even globalist Obama had balked at doing when offered the exact same
excuse), and regime change in Syria was top priority once again. The establishment media swooned over Trump's newfound willingness
to be "presidential."
Since then, Trump has reneged on one campaign promise after another. He dropped any principled repeal of Obamacare. He threw cold
water on expectations for prompt fulfillment of his signature promise: the construction of a Mexico border wall. And he announced
an imminent withdrawal from NAFTA, only to walk that announcement back the very next day.
Here I make no claim as to whether any of these policy reversals are good or bad. I only point out that they run counter to the
populist promises he had given to his core constituents.
Poor white people, "the forgotten men and women of our country," have been forgotten once again. Their "tribune" seems to be turning
out to be just another agent of the power elite.
Who yanked his chain? Was there a palace coup? Was the CIA involved? Has Trump been threatened? Or, after constant obstruction,
has he simply concluded that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em?
The Iron Law of Oligarchy
Regardless of how it came about, it seems clear that whatever prospect there was for a truly populist Trump presidency is gone
with the wind. Was it inevitable that this would happen, one way or another?
One person who might have thought so was German sociologist Robert Michels, who posited the "iron law of oligarchy" in his 1911
work Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy .
Michels argued that political organizations, no matter how democratically structured, rarely remain truly populist, but inexorably
succumb to oligarchic control.
Even in a political system based on popular sovereignty, Michels pointed out that, "the sovereign masses are altogether incapable
of undertaking the most necessary resolutions." This is true for simple, unavoidable technical reasons: "such a gigantic number of
persons belonging to a unitary organization cannot do any practical work upon a system of direct discussion."
This practical limitation necessitates delegation of decision-making to officeholders. These delegates may at first be considered
servants of the masses:
"All the offices are filled by election. The officials, executive organs of the general will, play a merely subordinate part,
are always dependent upon the collectivity, and can be deprived of their office at any moment. The mass of the party is omnipotent."
But these delegates will inevitably become specialists in the exercise and consolidation of power, which they gradually wrest
away from the "sovereign people":
"The technical specialization that inevitably results from all extensive organization renders necessary what is called expert
leadership. Consequently the power of determination comes to be considered one of the specific attributes of leadership, and is gradually
withdrawn from the masses to be concentrated in the hands of the leaders alone. Thus the leaders, who were at first no more than
the executive organs of the collective will, soon emancipate themselves from the mass and become independent of its control.
Organization implies the tendency to oligarchy. In every organization, whether it be a political party, a professional union,
or any other association of the kind, the aristocratic tendency manifests itself very clearly."
Trumped by the Deep State
Thus elected, populist "tribunes" like Trump are ultimately no match for entrenched technocrats nestled in permanent bureaucracy.
Especially invincible are technocrats who specialize in political force and intrigue, i.e., the National Security State (military,
NSA, CIA, FBI, etc.). And these elite functionaries don't serve "the people" or any large subpopulation. They only serve their own
careers, and by extension, big-money special interest groups that make it worth their while: especially big business and foreign
lobbies. The nexus of all these powers is what is known as the Deep State.
Trump's more sophisticated champions were aware of these dynamics, but held out hope nonetheless. They thought that Trump would
be an exception, because his large personal fortune would grant him immunity from elite influence. That factor did contribute to
the independent, untamable spirit of his campaign. But as I
predicted
during the Republican primaries:
" while Trump might be able to seize the presidency in spite of establishment opposition, he will never be able to wield it
without establishment support."
No matter how popular, rich, and bombastic, a populist president simply cannot rule without access to the levers of power. And
that access is under the unshakable control of the Deep State. If Trump wants to play president, he has to play ball.
On these grounds, I advised his fans over a year ago, " don't hold out hope that Trump will make good on his isolationist rhetoric
" and anticipated, "a complete rapprochement between the populist rebel and the Republican establishment." I also warned that, far
from truly threatening the establishment and the warfare state, Trump's populist insurgency would only invigorate them:
"Such phony establishment "deaths" at the hands of "grassroots" outsiders followed by "rebirths" (rebranding) are an excellent
way for moribund oligarchies to renew themselves without actually meaningfully changing. Each "populist" reincarnation of the power
elite is draped with a freshly-laundered mantle of popular legitimacy, bestowing on it greater license to do as it pleases. And nothing
pleases the State more than war."
Politics, even populist politics, is the oligarchy's game. And the house always wins.
Dan Sanchez is the Digital Content Manager at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), developing educational and inspiring
content for FEE.org , including articles and courses. The originally appeared on the
FEE website and is reprinted with the author's permission.
span y gjohnsit on Fri, 09/28/2018 - 9:16pm Last week the Trump Administration
ranted
against OPEC because the Iranian sanctions are driving up
oil prices .
That's called blowback.
Today we see the next level of
blowback.
The State Department says the U.S. consulate in the southern Iraqi city of Basra is being
evacuated following attacks blamed on Iran-backed militias. The U.S. embassy in Baghdad will
provide full consular services for Basra and the surrounding area, the State Department said.
What's most notable is the reaction by US
secretary of state Mike Pompeo.
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo directly threatened retaliation against Iran on Friday,
after accusing Iranian forces of repeatedly directing attacks against US diplomatic
facilities in Iraq.
"Iran should understand that the United States will respond promptly and appropriately to
any such attacks," Mr Pompeo said in a statement, adding both the US consulate general in
Basrah and the US embassy in Baghdad had been targeted.
Recently, #Iran -supported
militias in Iraq launched rocket attacks against the U.S. embassy in Baghdad and our
consulate in Basra. We'll hold #Iran 's regime
accountable for any attack on our personnel or facilities, and respond swiftly and decisively
in defense of American lives. pic.twitter.com/nqbmogbeCA
What is happening in Iraq could lead directly to a proxy war with Iran in Iraq.
The Pentagon says U.S. forces will
stay in Iraq "as long as needed". There are about 5,200 U.S. troops in Iraq, versus about
100,000 Shia militiamen.
Pompeo is working with Saudi Arabia to form an anti-Iran
coalition known as the Middle East Strategic Alliance.
As recently as April, the U.S. was telling those Shia militias were welcome in
Iraq.
Last month those Shia militias threatened to attack foreign
troops in Iraq if they didn't leave.
span y Amanda Matthews on Fri, 09/28/2018 - 9:59pm
" Has the regime in #Iran lived together with other nations in peace? Has it been a good
neighbor? Look around the world and you'll see the answer is a deafening "no."
"Iran-backed militias." That would be Iraqis, no? Is the ultimate plan then to, um,
eliminate Iraq's Shia? I expect to hear, soon, that Iraqi Shia test their chemical weapons on
children.
The UN Charter calls for nations to "live together in peace with one another as good
neighbors." Has the regime in #Iran lived together with other nations in peace? Has it been a
good neighbor? Look around the world and you'll see the answer is a deafening "no."
Why the leaders of the rest of the world didn't walk out on Trump when he threatened other
countries is beyond my comprehension. How much longer will they waste their citizen's lives and
their money just because we told them to jump?
Remember when Obama said that "no country should have to tolerate bombs dropping on them
from outside their borders?
I think those measure have implicit blessing from Washington, which realized how dangerous
withdrawal of Iraq oil from the market can be for the USA economy
The UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York is a place where world leaders are able to hold
important meetings behind closed doors. Russia, China, the UK, Germany, France, and the EU
seized that opportunity on Sept. 24 to achieve a real milestone.
The EU, Russia, China, and Iran
will create a special purpose vehicle (SPV), a "financially independent sovereign channel,"
to bypass US sanctions against Tehran and breathe life into the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action (JCPOA) , which is in jeopardy. "Mindful of the urgency and the need for tangible
results, the participants welcomed practical proposals to maintain and develop payment
channels, notably the initiative to establish a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to facilitate
payments related to Iran's exports, including oil," they announced in a
joint statement. The countries are still working out the technical details. If their plan
succeeds, this will deliver a blow to the dollar and a boost to the euro.
The move is being made in order to save the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. According to Federica
Mogherini , High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security
Policy, the SPV will facilitate payments for Iran's exports, such as oil, and imports so that
companies can do business with Tehran as usual. The vehicle will be available not just to EU
firms but to others as well. A round of US sanctions aimed at ending Iranian oil exports is to
take effect on November 5. Iran is the world's seventh-largest oil producer. Its oil sector
accounts for 70% of the country's exports. Tehran has warned the EU that it should find new
ways of trading with Iran prior to that date, in order to preserve the JCPOA.
The SPV proposes to set up a multinational, European, state-backed financial intermediary to
work with companies interested in trading with Iran. Payments will be made in currencies other
than the dollar and remain outside the reach of those global money-transfer systems under US
control. In August, the EU passed a blocking statute to guarantee the immunity of European
companies from American punitive measures. It empowers EU firms to seek compensation from the
United States Treasury for its attempts to impose extra-territorial sanctions. No doubt the
move will further damage the already strained US-EU relationship. It might be helpful to create
a special EU company for oil exports from Iran.
Just hours after the joint statement on the SPV, US President Trump defended his unilateral
action against Iran in his
UNGA address . US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo condemned the EU initiative ,
stating:
"This is one of the most counterproductive measures imaginable for regional global peace
and security."
To wit, the EU, Russia, and China have banded together in open defiance against unilateral
steps taken by the US. Moscow and Beijing are in talks on how to combine their efforts to fend
off the negative impacts of US trade tariffs and sanctions. A planned Sept 24-25 visit by
Chinese Vice-Premier Liu, who was coming to the United States for trade talks, was cancelled as
a result of the discord and President Trump added more fuel to the fire on Sept. 24 by imposing
10% tariffs on almost half of all goods the US imports from China. "We have far more bullets,"
the president
said before the Chinese official's planned visit. "We're going to go US$200 billion and 25
per cent Chinese made goods. And we will come back with more." The US has recently imposed
sanctions on China to punish it for the purchase of Russian S-400 air-defense systems and
combat planes. Beijing refused to back down. It is also adamant in its desire to continue
buying Iran's oil.
It is true, the plan to skirt the sanctions might fall short of expectations. It could fail
as US pressure mounts. A number of economic giants, including Total, Peugeot, Allianz, Renault,
Siemens, Daimler, Volvo, and Vitol Group have already left Iran as its economy plummets, with
the rial losing two-thirds of its value since the first American sanctions took effect in May.
The Iranian currency dropped to a record low against the US dollar this September.
What really matters is the fact that the leading nations of the EU have joined the global
heavyweights -- Russia and China -- in open defiance of the United States.
This is a milestone event.
It's hard to underestimate its importance. Certainly, it's too early to say that the UK and
other EU member states are doing a sharp pivot toward the countries that oppose the US
globally, but this is a start - a first step down that path. This would all have seemed
unimaginable just a couple of years ago - the West and the East in the same boat, trying to
stand up to the American bully!
"... According to media reports, the Chinese Department purchased the weapons from Rosoboronexport, Russia's principal arms exporter. This violated a 2017 law passed by Congress named, characteristically, the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which sought to punish the Russian government and its various agencies for interfering in in the 2016 US election as well as its alleged involvement in Ukraine, Syria and its development of cyberwar capabilities. Iran and North Korea were also targeted in the legislation. ..."
"... Reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation . ..."
Perhaps it is Donald Trump's business background that leads him to believe that if you
inflict enough economic pain on someone they will ultimately surrender and agree to do whatever
you want. Though that approach might well work in New York real estate, it is not a certain
path to success in international relations since countries are not as vulnerable to pressure as
are individual investors or developers.
Washington's
latest foray into the world of sanctions, directed against China, is astonishing even when
considering the low bar that has been set by previous presidents going back to Bill Clinton.
Beijing has already been pushing back over US sanctions imposed last week on its government-run
Equipment Development Department of the Chinese Central Military Commission and its director Li
Shangfu for "engaging in significant transactions" with a Russian weapons manufacturer that is
on a list of US sanctioned companies. The transactions included purchases of Russian Su-35
combat aircraft as well as equipment related to the advanced S-400 surface-to-air missile
system. The sanctions include a ban on the director entering the United States and blocks all
of his property or bank accounts within the US as well as freezing all local assets of the
Equipment Development Department.
More important, the sanctions also forbid conducting any transactions that go through the US
financial system. It is the most powerful weapon Washington has at its disposal, but it is
being challenged as numerous countries are working to find ways around it. Currently however,
as most international transactions are conducted in dollars and pass through American banks
that means that it will be impossible for the Chinese government to make weapons purchases from
many foreign sources. If foreign banks attempt to collaborate with China to evade the
restrictions, they too will be sanctioned.
So in summary, Beijing bought weapons from Moscow and is being sanctioned by the United
States for doing so because Washington does not approve of the Russian government. The
sanctions on China are referred to as secondary sanctions in that they are derivative from the
primary sanction on the foreign company or individual that is actually being punished.
Secondary sanctions can be extended ad infinitum as transgressors linked sequentially to the
initial transaction multiply the number of potential targets.
Not surprisingly, the US Ambassador has been summoned and Beijing has canceled several
bilateral meetings with American defense department officials. The Chinese government has
expressed "outrage" and has demanded the US cancel the measure.
According to media reports, the Chinese Department purchased the weapons from
Rosoboronexport, Russia's principal arms exporter. This violated a 2017 law passed by Congress
named, characteristically, the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which
sought to punish the Russian government and its various agencies for interfering in in the 2016
US election as well as its alleged involvement in Ukraine, Syria and its development of
cyberwar capabilities. Iran and North Korea were also targeted in the legislation.
Explaining the new sanctions, US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert issued a
statement elaborating that the initial sanctions on Russia were enacted "to further impose
costs on the Russian government in response to its malign activities." She added that the US
will "urge all countries to curtail relationships with Russia's defense and intelligence
sectors, both of which are linked to malign activities worldwide."
As engaging in "malign activities" is a charge that should quite plausibly be leveled
against Washington and its allies in the Middle East, it is not clear if anyone but the French
and British poodles actually believes the rationalizations coming out of Washington to defend
the indefensible. An act to "Counter America's Adversaries Through Sanctions" is, even as the
title implies, ridiculous. Washington is on a sanctions spree. Russia has been sanctioned
repeatedly since the passage of the fraudulent Magnitsky Act, with no regard for Moscow's
legitimate protests that interfering in other countries' internal politics is unacceptable.
China is currently arguing reasonably enough that arms sales between countries is perfect legal
and in line with international law.
Iran has been sanctioned even through it complied with an international agreement on its
nuclear program and new sanctions were even piled on top of the old sanctions. And in about
five weeks the US will be sanctioning ANYONE who buys oil from Iran, reportedly with no
exceptions allowed. Venezuela is under US sanctions to punish its government, NATO member
Turkey because it bought weapons from Russia and the Western Hemisphere perennial bad boy Cuba
has had various embargoes in place since 1960.
It should be noted that sanctions earn a lot of ill-will and generally accomplish nothing.
Cuba would likely be a fairly normal country but for the US restrictions and other pressure
that gave its government the excuse to maintain a firm grip on power. The same might even apply
to North Korea. And sanctions are even bad for the United States. Someday, when the US begins
to lose its grip on the world economy all of those places being sanctioned will line up to get
their revenge and it won't be pretty.
Neoliberal hegemony provides the foreign policy elite with many attractive career opportunities, since dominating the whole globe
is a very labor intensive enterprise. This is a classic example of parasitic rents under neoliberalism.
Also neocon elite that occupied the State Department and the US foreign policy in general brazenly thinks that it has know how for
intervention into politics of other countries that produce the desired effect. The whole school of "color revolution: was created to
this effect.
Notable quotes:
"... Read an excerpt from "The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities" here ..."
After the end of the Cold War, U.S. foreign policy officials prided themselves on bringing communism to an end. Decades earlier,
they claimed victory over the defeat of fascism.
Both were viewed as part of the country's mission to spread liberal values – such as human rights and an open economy – to the
rest of the world, in hopes that other nations would become replicas of the United States. But a local scholar argues that this kind
of foreign policy, called "liberal hegemony," is doomed to fail, if it hasn't already.
Mearsheimer, a political science professor and co-director of the University of Chicago's Program on International Security Policy,
said liberal hegemony involves three tasks: spreading liberal democracy around the world; getting other nations "hooked" on capitalism
by creating an open, international economy; and including countries in international institutions that the U.S. has played a key
role in creating.
Ultimately, that kind of foreign policy will run up against nationalism and realism, Mearsheimer argues in his new book.
"With regards to nationalism, that's the most powerful ideology on the planet, and foreign countries do not like the United States
occupying them and trying to arrange their politics to pursue American interests," he told Chicago Tonight, citing the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan as examples.
"So as we begin to push towards Russia and China and think about regime change, which is what liberal hegemony is all about, you
get a realist backlash from countries like Russia and China," Mearsheimer continued. "And that's when you get something like the
Ukrainian crisis."
"... So, Donald Trump finally folding on stopping Nordstream 2 is yet another example of the limits of what power the U.S. has and of its threats. When he denounced the project he said, ..."
"... "I never thought it was appropriate. I think it's ridiculous. And I think it's certainly a very bad thing for the people of Germany. And I've said it very loud and clear." ..."
"... But notice that he never said why. Because there is no downside for Germany. That's the point. Russian piped gas is simply cheaper and more reliable than LNG produced more than 3000 miles away. The downside is for the U.S. ..."
"... It begins the process of Germany and Russia re-establishing stronger economic ties cut in half by the 2014 sanctions over Crimea. It keeps Merkel in power a little while longer having stood up to the bully Trump and showing some German independence. ..."
"... Most importantly, this gas will be paid for in euros, not dollars. And this further undermines the effectiveness of U.S. sanctions as Gazprom will have a steady supply of euros to pay back its investors and diversify Russia's currency reserves. ..."
"... We saw this last winter when vicious cold snaps forced a hostile Britain to buy a few tankers of Yamal LNG from Novatek to keep its citizens from freezing. With the planet cooling rapidly, expect this source of spot demand to Europe to increase. ..."
"... But, for Germany, and the EU as a whole, more cheap energy is the path to remaining somewhat relevant in the global economy. With Germany ending the use of nuclear power it needs the type of energy Nordstream 2 supplies. In fact, Germany will eventually need Nordstream 3. ..."
Since its first announcement I have been convinced the Nordstream 2 pipeline would be built.
I have followed every twist of this story from my days writing for Newsmax.
And the reason for my confidence can be summed up in one word. Money.
Nordstream 2 simply makes too much economic sense for any amount of political whining from
the U.S. and Poland to stop it. Poland has no power within the European Union.
Germany does. And while I'm no fan of Angela Merkel getting another political weapon to hold
over the heads of the Poles, their attempts to derail the project were always going to end in
tears for them.
And so now Poland and the U.S. cried a lot of crocodile tears recently when President Trump
finally acceded to reality and ended the threat of sanctioning five of the biggest oil majors
in the world over doing business with Gazprom over Nordstream 2.
Nordstream 2's investors are Uniper, OMV, Wintershall, Royal Dutch Shell and Engie. After
all the permits were issued and construction begun the only thing that could stop Nordstream
from happening was these five companies folding to U.S. pressure and backing out of the project
by calling in their loans to Gazprom.
And when they were unwilling to do that, Trump had to fold because you can't cut these
companies out of the western banking system and starve them of dollars and euros without an
extreme dislocation in oil prices and global trade.
Bluff called. Nordstream 2? Holding Aces.
Trump? Holding two-seven offsuit.
Lack of Polish
The big loser here is Poland unless they come down off their Russophobic high horse.
Why is Nordstream 2 so important to Poland? Because it forces Poland into choosing between
two things the current ruling Law and Justice Party doesn't like.
Renegotiating a gas transit deal with Gazprom through Ukrainian pipelines without as much
leverage. Because the current agreement expires at the end of 2019.
If they reject this first option then they are at the mercy of buying gas from Nordstream
2 putting them politically in the hands of Germany.
Merkel is angry with Poland for trying to assert its sovereignty having begun Article 7
proceedings over their law putting Supreme Court justices under review from the legislature,
which the EU has termed a violation of its pledge to protect 'human rights.'
And so, expect Poland to now open up talks with Gazprom to negotiate a new deal or be stupid
and buy LNG from the U.S. at two to three times the price they can get it from
Gazprom.
Keeping Them Distant
From the U.S. side of the equation there are few things in this life that Donald Trump and
Barack Obama agree upon, and stopping Nordstream 2 was one of them. This, of course, tells you
that this opposition is coming from somewhere a lot higher than the Presidency.
U.S. and British foreign policy has been obsessed for more than a hundred years with
stopping the natural alliance between Germany's industrial base and Russia's vast tracts of
natural resources as well as Russia's own science and engineering prowess.
These two countries cannot, in any version of a unipolar world dominated by The Davos
Crowd, be allowed to form an economic no less political alliance because the level of
coordination and economic prosperity works directly against their goals of lowering everyone's
expectations for what humans can accomplish.
That is their greatest source of power. The complacency of our accepting low
expectations.
So, Donald Trump finally folding on stopping Nordstream 2 is yet another example of the
limits of what power the U.S. has and of its threats.
When he denounced the project he said,
"I never thought it was appropriate. I think it's ridiculous. And I think it's certainly a
very bad thing for the people of Germany. And I've said it very loud and clear."
But notice that he never said why. Because there is no downside for Germany. That's the point. Russian piped gas is simply
cheaper and more reliable than LNG produced more than 3000 miles away. The downside is for the U.S.
It begins the process of Germany and Russia re-establishing stronger economic ties cut in
half by the 2014 sanctions over Crimea. It keeps Merkel in power a little while longer having
stood up to the bully Trump and showing some German independence.
This is something she sorely needs right now coming into regional elections in October.
Most importantly, this gas will be paid for in euros, not dollars. And this further
undermines the effectiveness of U.S. sanctions as Gazprom will have a steady supply of euros to
pay back its investors and diversify Russia's currency reserves.
The Flow of Money
There is no way for U.S. LNG supplies to be competitive in Europe without massive artificial
barriers-to-entry for Russian gas. And even if Nordstream 2 was somehow stopped by the U.S.,
Russia's massive Yamal LNG facility on the Baltic Sea would still out compete U.S LNG from
Cheniere's terminal in Louisiana.
Location. Location. Location.
We saw this last winter when vicious cold snaps forced a hostile Britain to buy a few
tankers of Yamal LNG from Novatek to keep its citizens from freezing. With the planet cooling
rapidly, expect this source of spot demand to Europe to increase.
And this is why Russia also benefits from Poland building an LNG terminal. Because don't for
a second think Poles will suffer extreme cold because Andrej Duda hates Russians.
That's just funny, right thar!
But, for Germany, and the EU as a whole, more cheap energy is the path to remaining somewhat
relevant in the global economy. With Germany ending the use of nuclear power it needs the type
of energy Nordstream 2 supplies. In fact, Germany will eventually need Nordstream 3.
Each intervention by the U.S. or one of its satraps (and Poland's leadership certainly fills
that bill) to block any further business between Russia and Europe, but especially Germany,
keeps the world on edge and inches us closer to a military confrontation while open trade and
travel moves us farther from that outcome.
And anyone who argues otherwise is simply talking their book. They profit from war
and tension. They profit from manipulating markets and, in effect, stealing the wealth someone
else created.
So, this is not to say that Nordstream 2 is some kind of messianic gift from the gods or
anything. It is the result of massive interventions into the free market for energy born of
necessity in a world governed by nation-states for more powerful than they have any right to be
because of control of the issuance of money and the rent-seeking behavior of the
people who most benefit from the creation of endless supplies of that money.
But, that said, in the current state of things, rapprochement between Germany and Russia via
projects like the Nordstream 2 points us towards a future without such nonsense.
I said points, not achieves. It's a beginning not an end. Lost in all of this discussion of
European energy security is the fact that even at the height of the Cold War the U.S.S.R. never
once shut off gas supplies to its enemies. And under Putin that fact remains.
And how's that for an inconvenient truth.
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"... But strangely most of us are much readier to concede the corrupting influence of the relatively small power of individuals than we are the rottenness of vastly more powerful institutions and structures. We blame the school teacher or the politician for abusing his or her power, while showing a reluctance to do the same about either the education or political systems in which they have to operate. ..."
"... It is relatively easy to understand that your line manager is abusing his power, because he has so little of it. His power is visible to you because it relates only to you and the small group of people around you ..."
"... It is a little harder, but not too difficult, to identify the abusive policies of your firm – the low pay, cuts in overtime, attacks on union representation ..."
"... It is more difficult to see the corrupt power of large institutions, aside occasionally from the corruption of senior figures within those institutions, such as a Robert Maxwell or a Richard Nixon ..."
"... But it is all but impossible to appreciate the corrupt nature of the entire system. And the reason is right there in those aphorisms: absolute power depends on absolute control over knowledge, which in turn necessitates absolute corruption. If that were not the case, we wouldn't be dealing with serious power – as should be obvious, if we pause to think about it ..."
"... The current neoliberal elite who effectively rule the planet have reached as close to absolute power as any elite in human history. And because they have near-absolute power, they have a near-absolute control of the official narratives about our societies and our "enemies", those who stand in their way to global domination ..."
"... What is clear, however, is that the British intelligence services have been feeding the British corporate media a self-serving, drip-drip narrative from the outset – and that the media have shown precisely no interest at any point in testing any part of this narrative or even questioning it. They have been entirely passive, which means that we their readers have been entirely passive too ..."
"... Journalists typically have a passive relationship to power, in stark contrast to their image as tenacious watchdog. But more fundamental than control over narrative is the ideology that guides these narratives. Ideology ensures the power-system is invisible not only to us, those who are abused and exploited by it, but also to those who benefit from it. ..."
"... It is precisely because power resides in structures and ideology, rather than individuals, that it is so hard to see. And the power-structures themselves are made yet more difficult to identify because the narratives created about our societies are designed to conceal those structures and ideology – where real power resides – by focusing instead on individuals ..."
"... Before neoliberalism there were other systems of rule. There was, for example, feudalism that appropriated a communal resource – land – exclusively for an aristocracy. It exploited the masses by forcing them to toil on the land for a pittance to generate the wealth that supported castles, a clergy, manor houses, art collections and armies. For several centuries the power of this tiny elite went largely unquestioned ..."
"... Neoliberalism, late-stage capitalism, plutocratic rule by corporations – whatever you wish to call it – has allowed a tiny elite to stash away more wealth and accrue more power than any feudal monarch could ever have dreamt of. And because of the global reach of this elite, its corruption is more endemic, more complete, more destructive than any ever known to mankind ..."
"... A foreign policy elite can destroy the world several times over with nuclear weapons. A globalised corporate elite is filling the oceans with the debris from our consumption, and chopping down the forest-lungs of our planet for palm-oil plantations so we can satisfy our craving for biscuits and cake. And our media and intelligence services are jointly crafting a narrative of bogeymen and James Bond villains – both in Hollywood movies, and in our news programmes – to make us fearful and pliable ..."
"... The system – whether feudalism, capitalism, neoliberalism – emerges out of the real-world circumstances of those seeking power most ruthlessly. In a time when the key resource was land, a class emerged justifying why it should have exclusive rights to control that land and the labour needed to make it productive. When industrial processes developed, a class emerged demanding that it had proprietary rights to those processes and to the labour needed to make them productive. ..."
"... In these situations, we need to draw on something like Darwin's evolutionary "survival of the fittest" principle. Those few who are most hungry for power, those with least empathy, will rise to the top of the pyramid, finding themselves best-placed to exploit the people below. They will rationalise this exploitation as a divine right, or as evidence of their inherently superior skills, or as proof of the efficiency of the market. ..."
"... And below them, like the layers of ball bearings, will be those who can help them maintain and expand their power: those who have the skills, education and socialisation to increase profits and sell brands. ..."
"... None of this should surprise us either. Because power – not just the people in the system, but the system itself – will use whatever tools it has to protect itself. It is easier to deride critics as unhinged, especially when you control the media, the politicians and the education system, than it is to provide a counter-argument. ..."
"... so neoliberalism is driven not by ethics but the pursuit of power and wealth through the control of the planet. ..."
"... The only truth we can know is that the western power-elite is determined to finish the task of making its power fully global, expanding it from near-absolute to absolute. It cares nothing for you or your grand-children. It is a cold-calculating system, not a friend or neighbour. It lives for the instant gratification of wealth accumulation, not concern about the planet's fate tomorrow. ..."
I rarely tell readers what to believe. Rather I try to indicate why it might be wise to
distrust, at least without very good evidence, what those in power tell us we should
believe.
We have well-known sayings about power: "Knowledge is power", and "Power tends to corrupt,
while absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely." These aphorisms resonate because they say
something true about how we experience the world. People who have power – even very
limited power they hold on licence from someone else – tend to abuse it, sometimes subtly
and unconsciously, and sometimes overtly and wilfully.
If we are reasonably self-aware, we can sense the tendency in ourselves to exploit to our
advantage whatever power we enjoy, whether it is in our dealings with a spouse, our children, a
friend, an employee, or just by the general use of our status to get ahead.
This isn't usually done maliciously or even consciously. By definition, the hardest thing to
recognise are our own psychological, emotional and mental blind spots – and the biggest,
at least for those born with class, gender or race privileges, is realising that these too are
forms of power.
Nonetheless, they are all minor forms of power compared to the power wielded collectively by
the structures that dominate our societies: the financial sector, the corporations, the media,
the political class, and the security services.
But strangely most of us are much readier to concede the corrupting influence of the
relatively small power of individuals than we are the rottenness of vastly more powerful
institutions and structures. We blame the school teacher or the politician for abusing his or
her power, while showing a reluctance to do the same about either the education or political
systems in which they have to operate.
Similarly, we are happier identifying the excessive personal power of a Rupert Murdoch than
we are the immense power of the corporate empire behind him and on which his personal wealth
and success depend.
And beyond this, we struggle most of all to detect the structural and ideological framework
underpinning or cohering all these discrete examples of power.
Narrative control
It is relatively easy to understand that your line manager is abusing his power, because he
has so little of it. His power is visible to you because it relates only to you and the small
group of people around you.
It is a little harder, but not too difficult, to identify the abusive policies of your firm
– the low pay, cuts in overtime, attacks on union representation.
It is more difficult to see the corrupt power of large institutions, aside occasionally from
the corruption of senior figures within those institutions, such as a Robert Maxwell or a
Richard Nixon.
But it is all but impossible to appreciate the corrupt nature of the entire system. And the
reason is right there in those aphorisms: absolute power depends on absolute control over
knowledge, which in turn necessitates absolute corruption. If that were not the case, we
wouldn't be dealing with serious power – as should be obvious, if we pause to think about
it.
Real power in our societies derives from that which is necessarily hard to see –
structures, ideology and narratives – not individuals. Any Murdoch or Trump can be
felled, though being loyal acolytes of the power-system they rarely are, should they threaten
the necessary maintenance of power by these interconnected institutions, these structures.
The current neoliberal elite who effectively rule the planet have reached as close to
absolute power as any elite in human history. And because they have near-absolute power, they
have a near-absolute control of the official narratives about our societies and our "enemies",
those who stand in their way to global domination.
No questions about Skripals
One needs only to look at the narrative about the two men, caught on CCTV cameras, who have
recently been accused by our political and media class of using a chemical agent to try to
murder Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia back in March.
I don't claim to know whether Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov work for the Russian
security services, or whether they were dispatched by Vladimir Putin on a mission to Salisbury
to kill the Skripals.
What is clear, however, is that the British intelligence services have been feeding the
British corporate media a self-serving, drip-drip narrative from the outset – and that
the media have shown precisely no interest at any point in testing any part of this narrative
or even questioning it. They have been entirely passive, which means that we their readers have
been entirely passive too.
That there are questions about the narrative to be raised is obvious if you turn away from
the compliant corporate media and seek out the views of an independent-minded, one-time insider
such as Craig Murray.
A former British ambassador, Murray is asking questions
that may prove to be pertinent or not. At this stage, when all we have to rely on is what the
intelligence services are selectively providing, these kinds of doubts should be driving the
inquiries of any serious journalist covering the story. But as is so often the case, not only
are these questions not being raised or investigated, but anyone like Murray who thinks
critically – who assumes that the powerful will seek to promote their interests and avoid
accountability – is instantly dismissed as a conspiracy theorist or in Putin's
pocket.
That is no meaningful kind of critique. Many of the questions that have been raised –
like why there are so many gaps in the CCTV record of the movements of both the Skripals and
the two assumed assassins – could be answered if there was an interest in doing so. The
evasion and the smears simply suggest that power intends to remain unaccountable, that it is
keeping itself concealed, that the narrative is more important than the truth.
And that is reason enough to move from questioning the narrative to distrusting it.
Ripples on a lake
Journalists typically have a passive relationship to power, in stark contrast to their image
as tenacious watchdog. But more fundamental than control over narrative is the ideology that
guides these narratives. Ideology ensures the power-system is invisible not only to us, those
who are abused and exploited by it, but also to those who benefit from it.
It is precisely because power resides in structures and ideology, rather than individuals,
that it is so hard to see. And the power-structures themselves are made yet more difficult to
identify because the narratives created about our societies are designed to conceal those
structures and ideology – where real power resides – by focusing instead on
individuals.
That is why our newspapers and TV shows are full of stories about personalities –
celebrities, royalty, criminals, politicians. They are made visible so we fail to notice the
ideological structures we live inside, which are supposed to remain invisible.
News and entertainment are the ripples on a lake, not the lake itself. But the ripples could
not exist without the lake that forms and shapes them.
Up against the screen
If this sounds like hyperbole, let's stand back from our particular ideological system
– neoliberalism – and consider earlier ideological systems in the hope that they
offer some perspective. At the moment, we are like someone standing right up against an IMAX
screen, so close that we cannot see that there is a screen or even guess that there is a
complete picture. All we see are moving colours and pixels. Maybe we can briefly infer a mouth,
the wheel of a vehicle, a gun.
Before neoliberalism there were other systems of rule. There was, for example, feudalism
that appropriated a communal resource – land – exclusively for an aristocracy. It
exploited the masses by forcing them to toil on the land for a pittance to generate the wealth
that supported castles, a clergy, manor houses, art collections and armies. For several
centuries the power of this tiny elite went largely unquestioned.
But then a class of entrepreneurs emerged, challenging the landed artistocracy with a new
means of industrialised production. They built factories and took advantage of scales of
economy that slightly widened the circle of privilege, creating a middle class. That elite, and
the middle-class that enjoyed crumbs from their master's table, lived off the exploitation of
children in work houses and the labour of a new urban poor in slum housing.
These eras were systematically corrupt, enabling the elites of those times to extend and
entrench their power. Each elite produced justifications to placate the masses who were being
exploited, to brainwash them into believing the system existed as part of a natural order or
even for their benefit. The aristocracy relied on a divine right of kings, the capitalist class
on the guiding hand of the free market and bogus claims of equality of opportunity.
In another hundred years, if we still exist as a species, our system will look no less
corrupt – probably more so – than its predecessors.
Neoliberalism, late-stage capitalism, plutocratic rule by corporations – whatever you
wish to call it – has allowed a tiny elite to stash away more wealth and accrue more
power than any feudal monarch could ever have dreamt of. And because of the global reach of
this elite, its corruption is more endemic, more complete, more destructive than any ever known
to mankind.
A foreign policy elite can destroy the world several times over with nuclear weapons. A
globalised corporate elite is filling the oceans with the debris from our consumption, and
chopping down the forest-lungs of our planet for palm-oil plantations so we can satisfy our
craving for biscuits and cake. And our media and intelligence services are jointly crafting a
narrative of bogeymen and James Bond villains – both in Hollywood movies, and in our news
programmes – to make us fearful and pliable.
Assumptions of inevitability
Most of us abuse our own small-power thoughtlessly, even self-righteously. We tell ourselves
that we gave the kids a "good spanking" because they were naughty, rather than because we
established with them early on a power relationship that confusingly taught them that the use
of force and coercion came with a parental stamp of approval.
Those in greater power, from minions in the media to executives of major corporations, are
no different. They are as incapable of questioning the ideology and the narrative – how
inevitable and "right" our neoliberal system is – as the rest of us. But they play a
vital part in maintaining and entrenching that system nonetheless.
David Cromwell and David Edwards of Media Lens have provided two analogies – in the
context of the media – that help explain how it is possible for individuals and groups to
assist and enforce systems of power without having any conscious intention to do so, and
without being aware that they are contributing to something harmful. Without, in short, being
aware that they are conspiring in the system.
When a shoal of fish instantly changes direction, it looks for all the world as though the
movement was synchronised by some guiding hand. Journalists – all trained and selected
for obedience by media all seeking to maximise profits within state-capitalist society
– tend to respond to events in the same way.
Place a square wooden framework on a flat surface and pour into it a stream of ball
bearings, marbles, or other round objects. Some of the balls may bounce out, but many will
form a layer within the wooden framework; others will then find a place atop this first
layer. In this way, the flow of ball bearings steadily builds new layers that inevitably
produce a pyramid-style shape. This experiment is used to demonstrate how near-perfect
crystalline structures such as snowflakes arise in nature without conscious design.
The system – whether feudalism, capitalism, neoliberalism – emerges out of the
real-world circumstances of those seeking power most ruthlessly. In a time when the key
resource was land, a class emerged justifying why it should have exclusive rights to control
that land and the labour needed to make it productive. When industrial processes developed, a
class emerged demanding that it had proprietary rights to those processes and to the labour
needed to make them productive.
Our place in the pyramid
In these situations, we need to draw on something like Darwin's evolutionary "survival of
the fittest" principle. Those few who are most hungry for power, those with least empathy, will
rise to the top of the pyramid, finding themselves best-placed to exploit the people below.
They will rationalise this exploitation as a divine right, or as evidence of their inherently
superior skills, or as proof of the efficiency of the market.
And below them, like the layers of ball bearings, will be those who can help them maintain
and expand their power: those who have the skills, education and socialisation to increase
profits and sell brands.
All of this should be obvious, even non-controversial. It fits what we experience of our
small-power lives. Does bigger power operate differently? After all, if those at the top of the
power-pyramid were not hungry for power, even psychopathic in its pursuit, if they were caring
and humane, worried primarily about the wellbeing of their workforce and the planet, they would
be social workers and environmental activists, not CEOs of media empires and arms
manufacturers.
And yet, base your political thinking on what should be truisms, articulate a worldview that
distrusts those with the most power because they are the most capable of – and committed
to – misusing it, and you will be derided. You will be called a conspiracy theorist,
dismissed as deluded. You will be accused of wearing a tinfoil hat, of sour grapes, of being
anti-American, a social warrior, paranoid, an Israel-hater or anti-semitic, pro-Putin,
pro-Assad, a Marxist.
None of this should surprise us either. Because power – not just the people in the
system, but the system itself – will use whatever tools it has to protect itself. It is
easier to deride critics as unhinged, especially when you control the media, the politicians
and the education system, than it is to provide a counter-argument.
In fact, it is vital to prevent any argument or real debate from taking place. Because the
moment we think about the arguments, weigh them, use our critical faculties, there is a real
danger that the scales will fall from our eyes. There is a real threat that we will move back
from the screen, and see the whole picture.
Can we see the complete picture of the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury; or the US election
that led to Trump being declared president; or the revolution in Ukraine; or the causes and
trajectory of fighting in Syria, and before it Libya and Iraq; or the campaign to discredit
Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour party; or the true implications of the banking crisis a
decade ago?
Profit, not ethics
Just as a feudal elite was driven not by ethics but by the pursuit of power and wealth
through the control of land; just as early capitalists were driven not by ethics but by the
pursuit of power and wealth through the control of mechanisation; so neoliberalism is driven
not by ethics but the pursuit of power and wealth through the control of the planet.
The only truth we can know is that the western power-elite is determined to finish the task
of making its power fully global, expanding it from near-absolute to absolute. It cares nothing
for you or your grand-children. It is a cold-calculating system, not a friend or neighbour. It
lives for the instant gratification of wealth accumulation, not concern about the planet's fate
tomorrow.
And because of that it is structurally bound to undermine or discredit anyone, any group,
any state that stands in the way of achieving its absolute dominion.
If that is not the thought we hold uppermost in our minds as we listen to a politician, read
a newspaper, watch a film or TV show, absorb an ad, or engage on social media, then we are
sleepwalking into a future the most powerful, the most ruthless, the least caring have designed
for us.
Step back, and take a look at the whole screen. And decide whether this is really the future
you wish for your grand-children.
In my own words then. According to Cook the power elites goal is to change its
appearance to look like something new and innovative to stay ahead of an electorate who are
increasingly skeptical of the neoliberalism and globalism that enrich the elite at their
expense.
Since they do not actually want change they find actors who pretend to represent change
, which is in essence fake change. These then are their insurgent candidates
Trump serves the power elite , because while he appears as an insurgent against the
power elite he does little to change anything
Trump promotes his fake insurgency on Twitter stage knowing the power elite will counter
any of his promises that might threaten them
As an insurgent candidate Trump was indifferent to Israel and wanted the US out of
Syria. He wanted good relations with Russia. He wanted to fix the health care system,
rebuild infrastructure, scrap NAFTA and TTIPS, bring back good paying jobs, fight the
establishment and Wall Street executives and drain the swamp. America First he said.
Trump the insurgent president , has become Israel's biggest cheerleader and has launched
US missiles at Syria, relations with Russia are at Cold War lows, infrastructure is still
failing, the percentage of people working is now at an all time low in the post housewife
era, he has passed tax cuts for the rich that will endanger medicare, medicaid and social
security and prohibit infrastructure spending, relaxed regulations on Wall Street, enhanced
NAFTA to include TTIPS provisions and make US automobiles more expensive, and the swamp has
been refilled with the rich, neocons , Koch associates, and Goldman Sachs that make up the
power elites and Deep State Americas rich and Israel First
@34 pft... regarding the 2 cook articles.. i found they overly wordy myself...
however, for anyone paying attention - corbyn seems like the person to vote for given how
relentless he is being attacked in the media... i am not so sure about trump, but felt cook
summed it up well with these 2 lines.. "Trump the candidate was indifferent to Israel and
wanted the US out of Syria. Trump the president has become Israel's biggest cheerleader and
has launched US missiles at Syria." i get the impression corbyn is legit which is why the
anti-semitism keeps on being mentioned... craig murrary is a good source for staying on top
of uk dynamics..
(a) talk coherently
(b) have some kind of movement consisting of people that agree with what is says -- that
necessitates (a)
Then he could staff his Administration with his supporters rather than a gamut of
conventional plutocrats, neocons, and hacks from the Deep State (intelligence, FBI and
crazies culled from Pentagon). As it is easy to see, I am describing an alternate reality.
Who is a Trumpian member of the Administration? His son-in-law?
The swamps been filled with all kinds of vile creatures since the Carter administration.
This is when the US/UK went full steam ahead with neoliberal globalism with Israel directing
the war on terror for the Trilateral Empire (following Bibis Jerusalem conference so as to
fulfill the Yinon plan). 40 years of terror and financial mayhem following the coup that took
place from 1963-1974. After Nixons ouster they were ready to go once TLC Carter/Zbig kicked
off the Trilateral era. Reagan then ran promising to oust the TLC swamp but broke his
promise, as every President has done since .
"... The U.S. should help Kim pull his country back from seven decades of confrontation. Kim's apparent reasonableness may turn out to be fake, but it is in Washington's interest to create positive incentives for the North. If President Donald Trump can do it right -- imagine a White House signing ceremony for a peace treaty with Kim, China's Xi Jinping, and South Korea's Moon Jae-in -- a Nobel Peace Prize might just be within reach. ..."
"... The other half of the ban is almost entirely symbolic, intended mainly to demonstrate that the Muslim "travel ban" is, well, not a Muslim travel ban. Other than DPRK officials, the only North Koreans likely to hop on a plane to America are defectors. And they should be welcomed. ..."
"... Secretary of State Mike Pompeo extended the prohibition another year on September 1, for no obvious reason other than the fact he could do so. It was an extraordinarily foolish step, given Kim's evident desire to improve trust. If the president believes that the supreme leader is prepared to disarm, he should listen to Kim's conditions and encourage expanded private ties. ..."
"... But Pyongyang does not just kidnap Americans. The 17 detained over the last couple decades all "did something," as the head of a U.S. NGO told me while I was visiting the North last year. That is, every one of them fell afoul of DPRK rules, several by evangelizing. Of course, what they did should not be crimes, but in that the North is not alone. Show up in, say, Pakistan and tell people what you think of the prophet Mohammed: the result might be deadly. ..."
"... And Washington should not stop there. Political relations should be made formal. It is time for diplomatic recognition. This step should be treated as communication rather than reward. Imagine the Cold War, including the Cuban Missile Crisis, without any reliable channels between the two governments. Or what if the U.S. and the People's Republic of China had been in contact as allied forces neared the Yalu in late 1950? Washington and Beijing might have found a modus vivendi to avoid war. ..."
Let Americans Visit North Korea NowKim has expressed his desire for contact with
Americans. The Trump administration should give it to him.
North Korea is changing. That doesn't mean Kim Jong-un is mimicking Mikhail Gorbachev or even
Deng Xiaoping, at least not yet. But it does increasingly appear that Kim intends to chart a
more moderate course for his nation -- that is, make it less threatening, though not more
democratic.
The U.S. should help Kim pull his country back from seven decades of confrontation. Kim's
apparent reasonableness may turn out to be fake, but it is in Washington's interest to create
positive incentives for the North. If President Donald Trump can do it right -- imagine a White
House signing ceremony for a peace treaty with Kim, China's Xi Jinping, and South Korea's Moon
Jae-in -- a Nobel Peace Prize might just be within reach.
Of course, good policy is critical. The supreme leader is a ruthless survivor who appears to
have eliminated all serious domestic rivals. He is unlikely to turn over his nuclear weapons up
front, sacrificing his leverage in the hope that Washington, where the president's national
security advisor has counseled war, will join him in a Kumbaya songfest. And even if he does
make other worthwhile concessions that reduce the risk of conflict in Northeast Asia, he may
want to keep a few of his nukes.
But more diplomacy is necessary. Kim has expressed his desire for contact with Americans.
The Trump administration should give it to him, starting with a repeal of the ban on travel to
the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Even before the Kim-Trump summit, the supreme leader was quoted by South Koreans as saying:
"If we meet often and build trust with the United States, and if an end to the war and
nonaggression are promised, why would we live in difficulty with nuclear weapons?" Moreover,
the short summit communique was structured to reflect this perspective: the two governments
would first "establish new U.S.-DPRK relations" reflecting a mutual desire "for peace and
prosperity." Next they would "build a lasting and stable peace regime." Then they would work
towards denuclearization, however defined.
Which makes sense. Assume that Kim is serious about improved ties with the U.S. and
improving his standing worldwide. Further assume that he is open to the idea of at least
curbing or even eliminating his nuclear ambitions. Then he has to trust that Washington won't
follow its policy in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, and pursue regime change. The case of
Libya is particularly chastening. At the time of its civil war, the DPRK blamed the old fool
Moammar Gaddafi for giving up his missiles and nukes, which allowed him to be driven from power
the moment the U.S. and Europe had an opportunity.
If anything could generate both shared interest and trust, it would be creating a
relationship characterized not just by official meetings, but even more human contacts. If
Americans and other foreigners are visiting the North, investing in and trading with North
Korean entities, staging cultural and sporting events, and more, U.S. bombers are less likely
to pay a hostile visit to Pyongyang. The starting point for such an approach should be to
eliminate the dual travel ban imposed on the DPRK.
Right now, North Koreans cannot come to America and Americans cannot go to North Korea. The
latter matters most, having ended a tourist trade involving around 1,000 U.S. visitors
annually, and hindering everyone else from aid workers to journalists seeking to go to the
North. Exemptions for visiting the North are available, but representatives of NGOs with whom
I've spoken indicate that the approval process remains both bureaucratic and uncertain.
The other half of the ban is almost entirely symbolic, intended mainly to demonstrate that
the Muslim "travel ban" is, well, not a Muslim travel ban. Other than DPRK officials,
the only North Koreans likely to hop on a plane to America are defectors. And they should be
welcomed.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo extended the prohibition another year on September 1, for no
obvious reason other than the fact he could do so. It was an extraordinarily foolish step,
given Kim's evident desire to improve trust. If the president believes that the supreme leader
is prepared to disarm, he should listen to Kim's conditions and encourage expanded private
ties.
Moreover, every American who visits the North helps pry open another door or window into the
Hermit Kingdom. Indeed, that nickname no longer really applies to the DPRK. The country is more
open, elites are enjoying greater prosperity, market incentives are present throughout the
economy, threats of war have disappeared from the regime's lexicon, Kim has dramatically
stepped out onto the international stage, and America no longer is the domestic demon du
jour.
The excuse for last year's prohibition was the horrific plight of Virginia college student
Otto Warmbier, who was in a comatose state when he was returned from North Korean custody -- he
was taken off life support and died shortly after -- and conveniently forgotten this year when
Trump shifted strategies. Warmbier did not deserve whatever happened to him, but the best
evidence, attested to by his doctors and the coroner who examined his body, was that he was not
beaten. In fact, it was in the North's interest to keep him alive. (There is still no official
explanation for his brain damage, however.)
But Pyongyang does not just kidnap Americans. The 17 detained over the last couple decades
all "did something," as the head of a U.S. NGO told me while I was visiting the North last
year. That is, every one of them fell afoul of DPRK rules, several by evangelizing. Of course,
what they did should not be crimes, but in that the North is not alone. Show up in, say,
Pakistan and tell people what you think of the prophet Mohammed: the result might be
deadly.
Anyway, given the North's strong push for respectability, no repeat is likely. Even more
important than visitors are aid workers, journalists, businessmen and women, and others who can
demonstrate the benefits of international contact. With Kim apparently interested in a more
respectable foreign role, the Trump administration should enlist other Americans to set forth a
vision of a well-connected and well-rewarded DPRK. Maybe Kim is not serious, but the U.S.
should proceed on the assumption that he is. The cost of doing so is small while the benefits
of success would be great.
And Washington should not stop there. Political relations should be made formal. It is time
for diplomatic recognition. This step should be treated as communication rather than reward.
Imagine the Cold War, including the Cuban Missile Crisis, without any reliable channels between
the two governments. Or what if the U.S. and the People's Republic of China had been in contact
as allied forces neared the Yalu in late 1950? Washington and Beijing might have found a modus
vivendi to avoid war.
Washington could start small, with an offer of consular relations. The administration could
insist that ensuing discussions be wide-ranging, including not only denuclearization but human
rights. Such ties would also provide a channel for dealing with errant American tourists. In
this way providing Pyongyang with something it values would enable the U.S. to push forward on
topics uncomfortable for the Kim regime. Positive movement would justify fully normal ties.
There is very little downside to treating the North like most other nations.
Establishing these kinds of relationships would lead naturally to the next step in the
U.S.-DPRK summit statement: creating a peace regime. Most obvious would be a peace treaty to
end what remains a formal state of war. One criticism is that such a pact would benefit the
North, yet all parties should desire an end to hostilities. If Pyongyang is not serious, that
will be obvious in its behavior. The fact that Washington and Moscow are formally at peace has
not stopped the U.S. from conducting a quasi-containment/Cold War strategy against Russia.
The second complaint is that the South might respond to a peace treaty by evicting U.S.
troops and ending the alliance. Yet Washington's defense commitment and troop deployment are
means to an end, not ends themselves. The Republic of Korea enjoys overwhelming advantages
compared to the DPRK and is capable of defending itself. America should take the lead in
shifting defense responsibility to South Koreans. A peace treaty would help formalize such a
step.
No one knows how the president's North Korean gambit will turn out. But he deserves credit
for upending conventional wisdom and making peace at least seem possible. Much needs to be
done. However, a good start would be for the administration to encourage contacts between
peoples as well as governments. There is no guarantee of success. But having moved this far,
the president should push the bilateral relationship to the next level.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to
President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global
Empire.
"... Instead of being countries, they resemble country clubs, in which a dominant few paying customers effectively make the rules and hire others to implement them. A large share of their populations are foreign and live in the shadows, with few rights and no opportunity to participate politically in the societies in which they live. ..."
"... "To survive, the Gulf governments need to look beyond simple questions of labor-force nationalization and economic austerity." ..."
Until recently, life in Qatar was quite pleasant. But
then Saudi Arabia, backed by President Donald Trump, who has gone from critic to fan of the
ruling royals there, led an effort to isolate its smaller neighbor. With supreme irony, Riyadh,
whose people have done more to fund and man terrorist attacks on Americans than any other
nation, accused Doha of backing terrorists.
It's impossible to predict the outcome of Saudi Arabia's hypocritical jihad. More moderate
Kuwait has not joined Saudi Arabia, whose leaders, among the most licentious in the Muslim
world, run a government that may also be the least tolerant. Despite President Trump's Saudi
swoon, the Defense and State Departments have taken more measured positions. Turkey rushed to
Qatar's defense, Iran airlifted food, and Russia, ever more active in the Mideast, called for a
diplomatic resolution of the conflict.
The Gulf countries really cannot afford to be at odds. The half-dozen Gulf states share a
critical characteristic: all are essentially fake countries. To be sure, they have governments,
diplomats, and military. But they are monarchies, some of recent vintage, in a world that long
ago abandoned primogeniture.
And all contract out the hardest work, from manual to professional, to foreigners. Instead
of being countries, they resemble country clubs, in which a dominant few paying customers
effectively make the rules and hire others to implement them. A large share of their
populations are foreign and live in the shadows, with few rights and no opportunity to
participate politically in the societies in which they live.
That Qatar could not operate without its foreign workers is evident when landing in Doha.
Almost any practical job of importance is performed by a foreigner. It's the same in the other
Gulf States.
It's not unusual for governments to contract out work. Western governments do so, though
usually to their own citizens, and in order to save money. What makes the Gulf States unique is
the scale of reliance on foreign labor and the reason for doing so: to ensure that their own
citizens need not be bothered having to work, or at least work unduly hard.
The increased role of expatriates reflects oil wealth. In the early 1970s the number of
foreigners in the Gulf was modest. But as oil prices rose, starting in 1973 the disposable
income of these states rose dramatically -- as did demand for expatriate labor. The number
trebled within a decade. And the numbers have continued to rise. At the same time the
proportion of non-Arabs (and non-Muslims) rose.
Estimates of the share of expatriates are rough but striking. Up to 90 percent (some
estimates are a bit lower) of the residents of the United Arab Emirates are foreigners. Roughly
85 percent of Qatar's population is foreign. Kuwait comes in at 70 percent. Bahrain's expat
share is 55 percent. Both Oman, the least visible of the Gulf nations, and Saudi Arabia, the
most populous of the six, fall in at 30 percent. In the latter even the smaller percentage
means there are upwards of eight million foreigners in the Desert Kingdom. In sharp contrast
are Iran, Iraq, and Yemen, which have followed a different path.
Money obviously can buy comfort, if not happiness. It seems to have worked for the Gulf
States. But the fall in oil prices has put the Gulf model under severe stress. Once addicted to
free spending, the countries are facing deficits and being forced to borrow to maintain current
outlays. Yet even the latter is no longer easy. Bahrain and Oman have seen their credit ratings
downgraded to junk status.
Kuwait, with a democratically elected National Assembly, has faced popular resistance to
retrenchment, particularly reductions in social benefits and economic subsidies. Roughly half
of the Assembly members elected last November formed an unofficial opposition. Even the most
dictatorial of the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, feels the pressure. The deputy crown prince led
efforts to trim expensive social benefits and subsidies as well as government salaries last
fall, but the monarchy recently reversed those cuts. This will exacerbate the underlying
economic problems.
Another austerity target is expat labor. For years governments have officially committed to
labor force nationalization, without great effect. Some recently launched new efforts to reduce
reliance on expats: taxes on hiring foreigners, requirements for domestic hiring for particular
occupations, and employment quotas in some industries. A few have even rounded up and deported
some expats. But an increased cash crunch may provide the most powerful incentive of all to
change.
Nevertheless, moving toward a more normal balance in the labor force won't be easy. First is
the sheer magnitude of expatriate hiring. A nation that brings in nine times as many foreigners
as it has citizens cannot easily replace the former's labor. Although many of the jobs are
nonessential, such as domestic servants, they remain popular.
Lack of adequate skills is another issue. Some jobs require specialized training or
professional education, which takes time and commitment. Local interest in such occupations
doesn't match demand. Even worse, many locals exhibit a minimal work ethic.
Equally problematic, the sense of entitlement runs deep. The number of nationals employed in
private business has been increasing. But government remains the preferred type of employment.
Even locals joke at the difference: Kuwaiti officials privately talk dismissively of the
willingness of their fellow citizens to work. Many Gulf residents believe their national oil
wealth entitles them to easy but remunerative employment.
More fundamentally, citizenship has a feeling of being transactional. Monarchs of dubious
legitimacy get to rule so long as they share enough revenue with their citizens to provide
lives of relative ease. In effect, foreign labor becomes part of the deal, essentially an
entitlement of citizenship available only to a privileged few. Although the regimes usually
retain control of security agencies, there are creative exceptions, such as Bahrain importing
Sunni Muslims from Bangladesh and Pakistan as emergency service workers and policemen.
Plenty of Americans and Europeans like their welfare states and clamor for more benefits.
Yet in all those nations the same people pay taxes and sometimes are required to perform
military or other national service. Most see their political community as a larger whole and
perceive citizenship as something beyond mutual transactions. The Gulf States feel
differently.
While the Saudi-led attack on Qatar is dominating today's headlines, a more fundamental
challenge faces the Gulf. Can artificial states dependent on buying the loyalty of their own
citizens while farming out the toughest work to others survive forever?
Iran scares Riyadh and its neighbors because the former poses a moral rather than military
threat. Islamist rule in Tehran is odious, but offers meaning to people who believe in more
than money. Transactional rule is tenuous even in the best of times. It becomes more dubious as
the cash flow slows.
To survive, the Gulf governments need to look beyond simple questions of labor-force
nationalization and economic austerity. They must adopt political reforms that give their
peoples a greater stake in their own societies. Ultimately the best way to defeat Iran is to
offer a more convincing governing philosophy and a genuine sense of community --
characteristics now absent from the monarchies that are America's closest Arab allies in the
region.
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and a former Special Assistant to
President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire.
MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR
" Instead of being countries, they resemble country clubs, in which a dominant few paying
customers effectively make the rules and hire others to implement them. A large share of
their populations are foreign and live in the shadows, with few rights and no opportunity to
participate politically in the societies in which they live. "
And how many actual citizens Athens had during the "Athenian democracy", versus the metics
and slaves? What was ratio of the Spartiates to helots in Laconia?
I would not call Saudi Arabia even dictatorial. Deriving from Roman magistracy, a
dictatorship must have at least a veneer of legality. Saudi Arabia doesn't have that. It's
simply a tyranny.
The Gulf is of interest because of oil, period. Whether the people who control the oil can be
considered "real states" is immaterial, because we have to deal with whomever controls the
oil. We don't war on behalf of these "fake states", any more than we warred in Iraq and
Afghanistan to prevent abuse of women and children; we war in the Middle East for continued
access to the oil.
Re: "To survive, the Gulf governments need to look beyond simple questions of labor-force
nationalization and economic austerity."
The sclerotic Gulf state regimes already have an alternative plan in place. Their
multi-BILLION dollar weapons deals with the American Merchants of Death are implicit
protection money to the U.S. to guarantee their security. Trump's ridiculous sword dance with
the odious Saudi princes was the icing on the cake of the warped compact.
One way or another, U.S. influence is now propagated at the point of a gun.
Having lived in the region for some years, I think Bandow's blanket description of
relationships between government and people there as "transactional" is quite wide of the
mark, even ignorant.
These countries are quite obviously not western democracies, but more like a tribal
government where one family runs things for the whole tribe, and the tribe and clans have
been able in the past to either tell the family to find a new leader or to transfer their
allegiances to another family. It's not Jeffersonian democracy, but in once bitterly poor
countries with very little education, it worked quite well, just like Liechtenstein.
An analogy that is not entirely wrong would be the relation Italian Mafia dons had with
villages in the days before they got into drugs etc. He didn't keep a parliament, but if you
had problems, you could go to him and expect him to help you find a solution.
I should also point out to Bandow that nobody forces these foreigners to work in the gulf
states, nor do they complain that they found work there. So what is his problem with their
arrangements?
If Islamist rule in Iran "offers meaning to people who believe in more than money" why is it
"odious"? After all it governs largely with the consent of people. Is it "odious" because it
does not confirm to Western concept of government and democracy in other words "Western
exceptionalism"? Iran is evolving alternate path to Islamic democracy and the Persian Gulf
could take a lesson from them. Instead of demonizing Iran, we should encourage its neighbors
to make peace with it and emulate it!
Islamist rule in Tehran is odious, but offers meaning to people who believe in more than
money.
"Odious" compared to what? And who are we to say?
I get the feeling that even when writing articles like this one, that are critical of the
regimes in the gulf, the authors feel some obligation to say something gratuitous and
negative about Iran.
The parallels with our own country are there, though strangely not mentioned alongside the
differences. In the Gulf states, there is a shared religion and a shared ethnicity to bind
the minority "citizens", but in the USA those bonds do not unite even citizens. How much is
the "patriotism" of today really based on moral necessity -- particularly when the
insistence to "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" comes from a religion that is no longer
encouraged -- rather than on threats or bribery? (And like the Gulf states, Uncle Sam is
finding it harder to afford to pay the bribes.)
The Gulf will never ever be able to offer a more convincing governing philosophy and a
genuine sense of community than Iran. When you hear Iranian people telling you: We are from
Persia, or when every non-official Iranian I saw outside Iran in the West is Liberal you know
there is something different than the Zoo called Gulf.
Im a Syrian-American Christian who lived 2 years in KSA. And yes what Trump did in the Gulf
was wrong and nothing but wrong. We hoped for a new day. The only support Trump got before
elections was from the Syrians: Syrian Vice President wrote an article defending him!
The people of Iran remain loyal to their country not due primarily to fealty to "Islamist
rule," but because of 1000's of years of glorious Persian history –arts, philosophy and
literature, heroic figures etc. What such roots have the Gulf States in contrast?
Why aren't more literate Americans complaining about our slavish support of Saudi Arabia? US
demonize Iran, a somewhat repressive theocracy in which women have rights and other
monotheistic religions can be practiced. Find me a church in Saudi.
What would happen to the United States if Iran became he hegemon of the middle east? Aside
from US oil interests and American Israelis, how would Americans suffer if we just bugged out
of the Middle East?
Oil is for sale on the international market. We can get if whether it comes from Iran,
Saudi or somewhere in the Western Hemisphere.
@skeptical is exactly right. Before oil became the most necessary commodity in the world the
Middle East was unimportant and in 50 or so years when oil and natural gas are nearly gone
the area will be a backwater again. The Suez Canal may remain a major trade route, Israel's
hold on the world's attention and particularly its influence in the US will still be a
factor, Iran will still be a potential global actor, but the days of US presidents visiting
Saudi Arabia and figuratively kissing the king's ring will be over. That is not to say the
oil sheikdoms won't be problems, perhaps at war with one another, but it will only be a
problem for the US, Russia, or Europe if our leaders cannot control their need to interfere
in every little thing, everywhere.
@Steven, Yes the Gulf countries are basically run in an anachronistic way. Not much different
from how this region was governed locally, except with British intervention, Ibn Saud managed
to dominate others in his area, and the British also helped to form the others.
The only 2 with significant populations are the Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
Seems to be needing to rely so heavily on foreigners is really an acknowledgement of
incompetence, not because locals do not want to work.
Iran is actually the best run ME country. It has capable women and allows them space. A
young girl designed a much lauded bridge in Tehran. Which other ME country has given females
this latitude?
"Ultimately the best way to defeat Iran is to offer a more convincing governing philosophy
and a genuine sense of community -- characteristics now absent from the monarchies that are
America's closest Arab allies in the region."
It is truly sad that these states are America's closest allies. What if the people of
these states wanted political change? They would have to go up against Kings armed to the
teeth by America. It is therefore America which stands in the way of real change as much as
the Kings themselves. America is the great enabler of most if not all Arab Kingdoms.
"Ultimately the best way to defeat Iran is to offer a more convincing governing philosophy
and a genuine sense of community -- characteristics now absent from the monarchies that are
America's closest Arab allies in the region."
I've yet to hear a good reason why it would be a good thing for anybody to 'defeat' Iran.
After all, Iran is currently only in open military conflict with Al Qaeda and ISIS types, so
who do we want to see defeated? Also, no matter how odious we may find the government, Iran
is still a paradise of freedom and democracy when compared to Saudi Arabia (as was Syria, for
that matter).
Who gave Americans the right to decide that this or that state is "fake" or "artificial"? Or
that they "must" adopt political reforms? Or that this or that other state is "moral" and
"offers meaning to people who believe in more than money"? Mr Bandow certainly doesn't seem
to beleive in "non-intervention"! Although (cynical me, you may say!), he might well make an
exception in regard to Ukraine.
"Ultimately the best way to defeat Iran is to offer a more convincing "
Not until the last line, but is that what this article is about? Why must this author
promulgate the obnoxious "Iran is evil" line – we can go and find all over MSM! I
suspect you have little experience in these countries and find your words on Iran stale (and
odious).
I'm one of the few Iranian-Americans that has extensive experience working in the Arab
countries and also in visiting Iran and all I can say is just stay away from it. Most of
these Arab countries are going to implode at some point whereas Iran I expect will moderate
and mature. In the meantime, get off the oil.
The Islamic revolution and Islamic republic institutionalized constitutionalism, elections
from the local level to the highest officials, mass literacy and education from primary to
post-doc level, military power and mass healthcare and in Iran after 2,500 years of monarchy.
Instead of wanting to "defeat" Iran, the American REPUBLIC should ally itself with the
Islamic REPUBLIC against the Gulf clowns and the apartheid state in Israel.
Somebody should check and see if Cato gets any Gulf money, hey who knows
"... Well, we know where Mattis is going when he leaves the Pentagon. Nice work if you can get it. ..."
"... Seriously, anyone taking a knife to the Pentagon budget is putting a knife top their throat, unless they have support. ..."
"... Gen Mattis wants to save big money stop sending US forces to needless adventures. ..."
"... On top of the firing, I found the last three or four paragraphs all about insider trading as opposed to job performance, goals, budget cutting, not even budget accountability . . . Personalities over performance -- holy petolies. ..."
"... Given that the United States spends more money on defense than the next seven countries COMBINED including Russia and China it's not a question of how much you spend it's a question of how well. Until DOD passes that financial audit that all other agencies are obligated to do DOD should be get any increase in funding. ..."
"... When folks learn that the DOD is the swamp, then we can start having a conversation. ..."
"... "Lap Dog" Mattis. ..."
"... The Trump Administration is the most incompetent and corrupt since Warren G. Harding. There is no swamp draining going on. It is just a fight on who occupies it. ..."
Hired to Drain the Swamp, Fired in Less Than a Year'This is the Boeing mafia in
all of its glory,' one DoD official said of John 'Jay' Gibson's mysterious demise. By
Mark
Perry •
September 26, 2018
The
Pentagon ( Frontpage /
Shutterstock ) On April 4, 2003, Col. Joseph Dowdy -- whose 1st Marine Regiment was then
fighting its way through a tangle of Iraqi villages south of Baghdad -- was called to the tent
of Gen. James Mattis and told he was being relieved of his command. A career Marine, Dowdy was
stunned: Mattis's action in the midst of a battlefield fight was nearly unprecedented and, as
Dowdy knew, would mark the end of his military career. Adding to the humiliation, Mattis told
Dowdy to remove his sidearm and hand it to him. "We're going to give you a rest," he said.
Dowdy had known that his job was in danger, the result of complaints from Mattis and his
staff that he wasn't moving his regiment quickly enough. But it's not as if Dowdy was taking
his time: his troopers had been involved in bitter firefights against tenacious "Saddam
Fedayeen" killers every day for the previous two weeks. But Dowdy had no choice in the matter,
so while he objected to Mattis's action he packed up his gear, called his wife, returned to the
U.S. and retired from the Marine Corps.
That Mattis acts quickly and decisively is part of his lore -- it's what good Marines do.
But while quick and decisive might work on the battlefield, they're not always a good fit for a
secretary of defense. Mattis learned this earlier this month, after he fired John H. "Jay"
Gibson II, the Pentagon's first-ever Chief Management Officer and its third highest ranking
official. The reason for the firing, as TheWall Street Journal's Gordon Lubold
reported on September 5, was for "lack of performance."
The firing was immediately controversial, spurring under-the-radar resentments among senior
defense officials in the Pentagon's E-Ring where military and civilian managers huddle to run
the world's largest bureaucracy. "This doesn't make any sense," a senior Pentagon official told
TAC . "Jay was CMO for seven months; he hadn't even gotten his staff in place."
John H. 'Jay' Gibson II (U.S. Government)
Gibson came to Washington to oversee Mattis's attempt to cut waste from the Pentagon budget
by identifying savings that would lessen the ballooning impact of the Trump administration's
$670 billion defense spending proposal. Armed with an impressive resume (including a successful
stint as an assistant secretary of the Air Force and deputy undersecretary of defense for
management reform, where his efforts saved billions of dollars), Gibson was tasked with
reforming Pentagon procedures in buying and developing weapons and in managing logistics and
supply, technology systems, community services, human resources, and health care.
Gibson was given a broad mandate to "shake up the system," which the deputy defense
secretary Patrick Shanahan (the department's number two official and Gibson's boss) admitted
would cause "screaming and yelling" from the Pentagon bureaucracy.
Even so, Gibson was told he would have the Trump administration's support -- which is why he
decided to give up his post as president of XCOR Aerospace, a Texas company that develops
rocket engines and space launch systems. "Jay did this over his wife's objections," a friend of
Gibson and a senior official at a major private sector financial institution told TAC in
a wide-ranging interview, "because he thought he could make a difference. He is a cracker-jack
administrator; he knows how to dig and dig. So he came into D.C., started digging into the
Pentagon budget and was fired. In my world, when that happens it isn't because you're doing a
lousy job, but because you're stepping on the wrong toes."
In fact, as the senior Pentagon official with whom I spoke says, the toes that Gibson
stepped on belonged to Patrick Shanahan, the deputy secretary of defense and a former vice
president and general manager of Boeing Missile Defense Systems, a major Pentagon contractor.
Shanahan and Gibson had a falling out in August, according to the senior Pentagon official with
whom I spoke, and Shanahan reported the difficulty to Mattis -- "who pulled a Dowdy." Put
simply, this official adds, when the "screaming and yelling" from the Pentagon's senior
bureaucracy reached a fever pitch at the end of the summer, Mattis and Shanahan decided that
firing Gibson would be easier than defending him.
"I am not familiar with the details of what happened here and I wouldn't want to speculate,"
Todd Harrison, an official with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (and a
well-known defense budget expert) says. "But I think that anyone in the new CMO position was
signing on to the toughest job in Washington. It's one thing to identify waste, and another to
actually get rid of it. The truth is that waste is built into the Pentagon budget; if you
eliminate it, you eliminate jobs." A Pentagon official confirms this, but adds that "firing an
official charged with making reforms for 'lack of performance' is laughable. Who are these guys
trying to kid? The truth is that if Jay didn't perform, he'd still have his job."
The timing of Gibson's firing, just weeks after the death of Senate Armed Services Committee
heavyweight John McCain, also raises uncomfortable questions. "The minute Gibson was fired,
McCain would have had Mattis, Shanahan, and Gibson on the carpet in his office, asking them
what the hell they were doing," a senior congressional staffer who monitors Pentagon personnel
issues notes. "That's not going to happen now."
In fact, McCain had little love for Shanahan, telling aides that his appointment raised
conflict of interest issues. McCain's worries were aired when he grilled Shanahan on answers
the Boeing executive gave to written questions posed to him by the committee in June 2017. It
was a classic McCain scorcher: "The answers that you gave to the questions," he told Shanahan,
"whether intentionally or unintentionally, were almost condescending, and I'm not overjoyed
that you came from one of the five corporations that receive 90 percent of taxpayers' dollars.
I have to have confidence that the fox is not going to be put back into the henhouse." McCain
was livid.
"Not a good beginning," McCain told Shanahan. "Do not do that again, Mr. Shanahan, or I will
not take your name up for a vote before this committee. Am I perfectly clear?" Shanahan nodded
his agreement. "Very clear," he said.
As it turns out, Shanahan's appointment resulted from a series of contentious negotiations
between Trump transition official Mira Ricardel and retired Adm. Kevin Sweeney, Mattis's chief
of staff. "There was no love loss between Mattis and Ricardel," the senior Pentagon civilian
with whom TAC spoke says. "So the SecDef told Sweeney to deal with her. Sweeney is a
tough guy and Mira has sharp elbows, so this got nasty."
The skirmishing got so bad that when Ricardel said she wanted to be the Pentagon's
undersecretary for policy, Mattis killed the idea, with Ricardel sidelined as the
undersecretary of commerce for export administration. But Ricardel got her revenge: she not
only successfully slotted Shanahan as Mattis's number two, she was named as deputy to John
Bolton, appointed by Trump to succeed H.R. McMaster as the administration's national security
advisor. "It's the ultimate irony," the senior Pentagon official says. "Jim Mattis ignored H.R.
and he ends up with Mira Ricardel. Incredible."
That Jay Gibson has been caught in the Mattis-Ricardel crossfire is an open secret at the
Pentagon, where key officials speculate that Ricardel's promotion of Shanahan has less to do
with his commitment to Pentagon budget reform than to the fact that the two were close
colleagues at Boeing, where Ricardel served for nine years (from 2006 to 2015) as vice
president of strategic missile and defense systems. That is to say, Jay Gibson's still
unexplained firing has reinforced John McCain's worries that the fox would end up guarding the
henhouse.
"This is the Boeing mafia in all of its glory," the senior Pentagon official says. "Anyone
who comes in here [to the Pentagon] will always have Jay Gibson's experience as a marker. You
think anyone who's willing to take on the bureaucracy is going to want that job? No way. Budget
reform is dead, d-e-a-d dead. So much for draining the swamp."
"Even so, Gibson was told he would have the Trump administration's support -- "
Look these are the issues in which the executive has to be made of sterner stuff. I suspect
that the tag line after the articles title heading is more accurate and that has probably
nothing to do with COS being quick on the draw.
Seriously, anyone taking a knife to the Pentagon budget is putting a knife top their
throat, unless they have support.
Gen Mattis wants to save big money stop sending US forces to needless
adventures.
On top of the firing, I found the last three or four paragraphs all about insider
trading as opposed to job performance, goals, budget cutting, not even budget accountability .
. . Personalities over performance -- holy petolies.
In this day and age there seems to be no other tune.
All federal agencies are by congressional mandate obligated to pass financial audits EVERY
year. DOD hasn't done one in over 10 years. Mattis supposedly was "working" on one for this
year. Where is it?
We see endless stories of waste, fraud, and mismanagement in DOD. The littoral combat ship
that more than doubled in price and clearly can't do what it was designed to do. So many
others.
Given that the United States spends more money on defense than the next seven countries
COMBINED including Russia and China it's not a question of how much you spend it's a question
of how well. Until DOD passes that financial audit that all other agencies are obligated to do
DOD should be get any increase in funding.
The Trump Administration is the most incompetent and corrupt since Warren G. Harding. There
is no swamp draining going on. It is just a fight on who occupies it.
The Trump Administration taking months to fill a position and then not having a support
staff in place after 7 months is totally incompetent.
Порошенко
заявил немцам,
что
строительство
"Северного
потока – 2" не
имеет никакого
смыслаPoroshenko has told Germans that the
construction of "North Stream 2" makes no sense. По его словам,
российский газ
европейцам
гораздо
выгоднее
получать через
Украину, а
новый
газопровод –
лишь
"инструмент
давления" на
Европу According to him, it is much more profitable to send Russian gas to Europe through the
Ukraine, and the new pipeline is just a "tool to pressurize" on Europe
Please help me get even more wealthier, I beg you!
The leader of "Independent" Ukraine, Petro Poroshenko, has once again tried to convince
Europeans that they do not need the "North Stream 2", pipeline, which is being constructed on
the bed of the Baltic sea, bypassing the Ukraine
"This pipeline makes no sense from an economic point of view. This is a Russian attempt
to weaken the Ukraine, which previously received about three billion dollars annually for
transit", he said in an interview with German newspaper "Rheinische Post".
According to Poroshenko, "Why spend $20 billion on a pipeline", if his country "has
more than sufficient logistical capacity for the delivery of Russian gas to Europe". He
stressed that "the facts speak against" this project.
The President of the Ukraine has decided to warn his "European friends" that the gas
pipeline "North Stream 2" is "a geopolitical instrument of pressure on Western Europe, and
that the dependence of European countries on gas supplies from Russia is opening up a wide
area for their blackmailing".
Recall, as reported by the website kp.ru previously, the Chancellor of Germany, Angela
Merkel, speaking at a joint press conference with the President of Lithuania, Dalia
Grybauskaite, and the Prime Ministers of the three Baltic State countries, stated the
importance of the "North Stream 2" project for Germany, noting that the need of her contry
for natural gas supplies will only grow.
Put a sock in it, Banderatard. Nord Stream II makes sense merely because it removes the $3
billion per year of transit fees you parasites charge. The Banderatard thinks that everyone
is an innumerate moron.
I notice the estimated transit fees have gone up by almost a billion dollars. I wonder if
they have budgeted in planned increases if they are successful at getting Nord Stream II shut
down. Or were they just low-balling the figures before, like when they were joking about the
planned pipeline and how it would make no difference to Ukraine?
Ignoring reality and focusing just on a comparison of a $3 billion recurring expense versus a
$20 billion CAPEX, a ROI of less than 7 years is quite respectable for a major project.
Lots of interesting information regarding conversations between Bill Clinton and Yeltsin
but allow me to focus on the NATO bombing of Serbia:
Although Clinton and Yeltsin enjoyed friendly relations, NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia
tempered Moscow's enthusiastic partnership with the West.
"Our people will certainly from now have a bad attitude with regard to America and with
NATO," the Russian president told Clinton in March 1999. "I remember how difficult it was for
me to try and turn the heads of our people, the heads of the politicians towards the West,
towards the United States, but I succeeded in doing that, and now to lose all that."
Yeltsin urged Clinton to renounce the strikes, for the sake of "our relationship" and
"peace in Europe."
The declassified White House Yeltsin files reveal the drama at the turning point in
US-Russia relations, when Yeltsin pleaded, threatened and despaired trying to make Clinton
call off the bombing of Yugoslavia.
"It is not known who will come after us and it is not known what will be the road of
future developments in strategic nuclear weapons," Yeltsin reminded his US
counterpart.
But Clinton wouldn't cede ground.
Clinton to Yeltsin on Milosevic: "It will be your decision if you decide to let this
bully destroy the relationship we worked hard for over six and a half years to build up I'm
sorry he is a Serb. I wish he were Irish or something else, but he is not."
"Milosevic is still a communist dictator and he would like to destroy the alliance that
Russia has built up with the US and Europe and essentially destroy the whole movement of your
region toward democracy and go back to ethnic alliances. We cannot allow him to dictate our
future," Clinton told Yeltsin.
It was much more than the all-out bombing campaign by NATO. Serbia resisted for more than
70 days by courage and intelligence including bagging at least one stealth aircraft and its
army remaining virtually untouched and ready to take on a NATO land invasion.
If Trump is a Deep State puppet, then why Deep stat fight it with such intensity. Why "Steele dossier", w3hy Mueller, why "Mistressgate"
But it is true that Trump essentially conduct typical Republican President policy, like Obama betraying his electorate.
Notable quotes:
"... So the Deep State which is far more than entrenched bureaucrats as the naive define it (it includes the ruling elite in finance, MIC, oil, MSM, retired intelligence/military/state/congress, etc), brought in a controlled Trojan horse pretending to be a populist who was all about the working class and anti establishment, anti war and anti globalist while those he served were opposites. Look at what he has done and who he has surrounded himself with. Lol ..."
"... offshore money coming home due to tax breaks and of course the plunge protection team removing the risk of a major drop until after the mid term elections. We are already seeing the beginning of the next housing market collapse. ..."
Stormy Daniels supposedly said she was surprised to hear Trump was running for President
because he had said to her he didnt want to be be President. After all, why would he? Rich
guy with maybe 5 years left to live. Who needs it?
So why did he run. He had no choice. Look at the ease in which government can bring dawn
anyone with tax and money laundering charges and look at his partners and a number of his
dodgy financial dealings not to mention the ongoing audit firing his campaign. His buddy
Felix Sater cut a deal and so didn't Trump. Run and serve and keep your wealth and stay out of
jail, and make a few billion with insider deals while you are at it.
So the Deep State which is far more than entrenched bureaucrats as the naive define it (it
includes the ruling elite in finance, MIC, oil, MSM, retired
intelligence/military/state/congress, etc), brought in a controlled Trojan horse pretending
to be a populist who was all about the working class and anti establishment, anti war and
anti globalist while those he served were opposites. Look at what he has done and who he has
surrounded himself with. Lol
So what is the endgame for this Russiagate and this phony Deep State vs Trump nonsense?
Why Trump?
Not sure I know for sure. Polarizing and dividing the US with perhaps a civil war when
Trump gets impeached and resigns, or at least imposition of permanent martial law. Get
support for massive censorship which all authoritarian regimes need. And of course as the US
goes down this path its puppet states in EU, UK and elsewhere will follow. I guess we will
have to wait and see.
In the meantime, Trump will feed the beast (tax cuts for rich, tarrifs for middle class,
higher Military spending, cuts to Medicare/Medicaid/social security, higher insurance
premiums/HC costs, phony economic figures to mask deteriorating economic conditions for the
median (remember when Trump said the same of Hillary using the same bogus figures)
Fewer people are working in the US under Trump as more people are disappeared from the
work force. GDP growth per MH is due to higher extraction of wealth from middle class by the
rentier class, and stock market growth is due to central bank purchases, offshore money
coming home due to tax breaks and of course the plunge protection team removing the risk of a
major drop until after the mid term elections. We are already seeing the beginning of the
next housing market collapse.
"... If the so-called "Resistance" to Trump was ever actually interested in opposing this administration in any meaningful way, this would be the top trending news story in America for days, like how "bombshell" revelations pertaining to the made-up Russiagate narrative trend for days. Spoiler alert: it isn't, and it won't be. ..."
"... The US Senate has just passed Trump's mammoth military spending increase by a landslide 92–8 vote . The eight senators who voted "nay"? Seven Republicans, and Independent Bernie Sanders. Every single Democrat supported the most bloated war budget since the height of the Iraq war . Rather than doing everything they can to weaken the potential damage that can be done by a president they've been assuring us is a dangerous hybrid of equal parts Benedict Arnold and Adolf Hitler, they've been actively increasing his power as Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful military force the world has ever seen. ..."
"... They're on the same team, wearing different uniforms. ..."
"... US politics is pretty much the same; two mainstream parties owned by the same political class, engaged in a staged bidding war for votes to give the illusion of competition. ..."
"... In reality, the US political system is like the unplugged video game remote that kids give their baby brother so he stops whining that he wants a turn to play. No matter who they vote for they get an Orwellian warmongering government which exists solely to advance the agendas of a plutocratic class which has no loyalties to any nation; the only difference is sometimes that government is pretending to care about women and minorities and sometimes it's pretending to care about white men. In reality, all the jewelers work for the same plutocrat, and that video game remote won't impact the outcome of the game no matter how many buttons you push. ..."
"... The only way to effect real change is to stop playing along with the rigged system and start waking people up to the lies. As long as Americans believe that the mass media are telling them the truth about their country and their partisan votes are going somewhere useful, the populace whose numbers should give it immense influence is nullified and sedated into a passive ride toward war, ecocide and oppression. ..."
"... Reprinted with author's permission from Medium.com . ..."
"... Support Ms. Johnstone's work on Patreon or Paypal ..."
A new article from the Wall Street
Journal reports that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
lied to congress about the measures Saudi Arabia is taking to minimize the civilian
casualties in its catastrophic war on Yemen, and that he did so in order to secure two billion
dollars for war profiteers.
This is about as depraved as anything you could possibly imagine. US-made bombs have
been conclusively tied to civilian deaths in a war which has caused the single worst
humanitarian crisis on earth, a crisis which sees
scores of Yemeni children dying every single day and has
placed five million children at risk of death by starvation in a nation where families are
now eating
leaves to survive . CIA veteran Bruce Riedel
once said that "if the United States of America and the United Kingdom tonight told King
Salman that this war has to end, it would end tomorrow, because the Royal Saudi Airforce cannot
operate without American and British support." Nobody other than war plutocrats benefits from
the US assisting Saudi Arabia in its monstrous crimes against humanity, and yet Pompeo chose to
override his own expert advisors on the matter for fear of hurting the income of those very war
plutocrats.
If the so-called "Resistance" to Trump was ever actually interested in opposing this
administration in any meaningful way, this would be the top trending news story in America for
days, like how "bombshell" revelations pertaining to the made-up Russiagate narrative trend for
days. Spoiler alert: it isn't, and it won't be.
It would be so very, very easy for Democratic party leaders and Democrat-aligned media to
hurt this administration at the highest level and cause irreparable political damage based on
this story. All they'd have to do is give it the same blanket coverage they've given the
stories about Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos and Paul Manafort which
end up leading nowhere remotely near impeachment or proof of collusion with the Russian
government. The footage of the starving children is right there, ready to be aired to pluck at
the heart strings of rank-and-file Americans day after day until Republicans have lost all hope
of victory in the midterms and in 2020; all they'd have to do is use it. But they don't. And
they won't.
The US Senate has just passed Trump's mammoth military spending increase by
a landslide 92–8 vote . The eight senators who voted "nay"? Seven Republicans, and
Independent Bernie Sanders. Every single Democrat supported the most bloated war budget
since the
height of the Iraq war . Rather than doing everything they can to weaken the potential
damage that can be done by a president they've been assuring us is a dangerous hybrid of equal
parts Benedict Arnold and Adolf Hitler, they've been actively increasing his power as
Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful military force the world has ever seen.
The reason for this is very simple: President Trump's ostensible political opposition does
not oppose President Trump. They're on the same team, wearing different uniforms. This is the
reason they attack him on Russian collusion accusations which the brighter bulbs among them
know full well will never be proven and have no basis in reality. They don't stand up to Trump
because, as Julian Assange once said , they are
Trump.
In John Steinbeck's The Pearl, there are jewelry buyers set up around a fishing community
which are all owned by the same plutocrat, but they all pretend to be in competition with one
another. When the story's protagonist discovers an enormous and valuable pearl and goes to sell
it, they all gather round and individually bid far less than it is worth in order to trick him
into giving it away for almost nothing. US politics is pretty much the same; two mainstream
parties owned by the same political class, engaged in a staged bidding war for votes to give
the illusion of competition.
In reality, the US political system is like the unplugged video game remote that kids give
their baby brother so he stops whining that he wants a turn to play. No matter who they vote
for they get an Orwellian warmongering government which exists solely to advance the agendas of
a plutocratic class which has no loyalties to any nation; the only difference is sometimes that
government is pretending to care about women and minorities and sometimes it's pretending to
care about white men. In reality, all the jewelers work for the same plutocrat, and that video
game remote won't impact the outcome of the game no matter how many buttons you push.
The only way to effect real change is to stop playing along with the rigged system and start
waking people up to the lies. As long as Americans believe that the mass media are telling them
the truth about their country and their partisan votes are going somewhere useful, the populace
whose numbers should give it immense influence is nullified and sedated into a passive ride
toward war, ecocide and oppression.
If enough of us keep throwing sand in the gears of the lie
factory, we can wake
the masses up from the oligarchic lullaby they're being sung. And then maybe we'll be big
enough to have a shot at grabbing one of the real video game controllers.
Reprinted with author's permission from
Medium.com .
"... In April of 1992, the Congress had overwhelmingly rejected then President Boris Yeltsin's attempt to take emergency powers. It had also approved the draft new Russian constitution prepared by the Constitutional Commission led by the very young lawyer, Oleg Rumyantsev. By September, Rumyantsev's draft for a parliamentary republic of roughly the French type, was headed for enactment if and when the Congress was reconvened. That should have been in October, as had been planned. ..."
"... That session was also certain to reject the economic policy programme ("reform" in Bortin's list of approbative nouns) delivered to the Kremlin by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), through Yegor Gaidar, then half-way through his six months as acting prime minister. Detested throughout the country, Gaidar was another of Bortin's approbative nouns. ..."
Journalists arranging tuxedo events to give themselves prizes are even sillier than
Hollywood actors at the Oscar ceremony. There are also no comedians to tell jokes to neutralize
the gastroenteric reflex that is always brought on in audiences by a surfeit of brown-nosing.
For the British children in the audience who don't know what that term means, the Private Eye
term is the more onomatopoetic -- arslikhan.
Meg Bortin, the second editor of the Moscow Times and one of the shortest termers, has been
rolled out for today's celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Times. The true anniversary
actually fell in March, eight months ago. But if that was the point from which to hang the
anniversary celebration, Bortin couldn't call herself the "founding editor in chief".
She's also awarded herself the job of rewriting Russia's past and future, and demonstrate
how brown her nose still is. "The question for the next 20 years, " she opines in
today's edition , "is whether the paper can retain this independence -- a willingness to
look at the news in Moscow and Russia and tell the truth, even if that truth is sometimes
displeasing to the authorities."
This is mock-bravery. The authorities Bortin recognized in Moscow at the time – the
ones in residence at Spaso House – were the only ones she dared not, never thought of
displeasing. She also ran an editorial policy that dared not controvert their policy. Bortin
reserved special venom – the adjective "pro-communist" – for the Congress of
People's Deputies, elected two years earlier; its Speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov; and the executive
chamber then known as the Supreme Soviet. Bortin knew none of them; had no sources in the
factions or the party leaders' offices; and detested them all, insisting that the reporting of
the Times should depict them and their debates as anti-democratic, communistic, anti-American,
etc., etc.
In April of 1992, the Congress had overwhelmingly rejected then President Boris Yeltsin's
attempt to take emergency powers. It had also approved the draft new Russian constitution
prepared by the Constitutional Commission led by the very young lawyer, Oleg Rumyantsev. By
September, Rumyantsev's draft for a parliamentary republic of roughly the French type, was
headed for enactment if and when the Congress was reconvened. That should have been in October,
as had been planned.
That session was also certain to reject the economic policy programme ("reform" in Bortin's
list of approbative nouns) delivered to the Kremlin by the International Monetary Fund (IMF),
through Yegor Gaidar, then half-way through his six months as acting prime minister. Detested
throughout the country, Gaidar was another of Bortin's approbative nouns.
The showdown between Bortin and I came on September 1, 1992, after I had filed a
12-paragraph news story, entitled "Khasbulatov postpones People's Congress session." Read the
original despatch
here . My sources were from Speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov's office; from the Congress
factions; from staff in Gaidar's office; and from the Kremlin. The big news was that
Khasbulatov had decided not to allow the Congress to resume its session in October. The
significance was that he was postponing the conflict of powers between the executive and the
legislature. Khasbulatov thought, the story reported, that he was buying time to give Yeltsin
more rope to hang himself; the president was polling 30% or less approval in Moscow at the
time. Khasbulatov thought the showdown would come eventually, but he wanted to appear to be
keeping himself above the fray, and mobilize a cross-party consensus behind the new
constitution. If the time came to drive Yeltsin from power, Khasbulatov thought it could, and
should be done constitutionally. In retrospect, Khasbulatov's misjudgement was colossal. In
time he has admitted it.
Bortin, though, didn't understand then, has never understood what was happening. But she
wouldn't allow my little news story to run. She would also brook no direct-source reporting
from the congress, the constitutional commission, or the parties then in opposition to the
president. That led to that showdown of all showdowns in newsrooms the world over – the
showdown over the truth. It also led to a brief but noisy episode of clinical hysteria from
Bortin, and a confession from Bortin's publisher, Derk Sauer, one of the Dutch co-owners of the
Times.
Bortin had been an embarrassment to Sauer, which he apologized for, telling me that an
American national was necessary to secure the funding on which the Moscow Times depended. I was
polite enough not to enquire what funding he was talking about; I already knew. The occasion
was that I – now the only (American) reporter from the original team under the first
editor, Michael Hester, still at work in and on Russia – had refused to attach the
required derogatory adjectives to the parliamentary opposition to Yeltsin, and refused to
report the IMF programme with the required noun, "reform". Not even my sources at the IMF
Moscow office, including the French protégé of IMF Director Michel Camdessus,
accepted that guff from Gaidar. But Bortin did, so she fired me on September 3, 1992. Sauer
then rehired me with an increased salary to be paid each month on condition I didn't report
what had happened, and didn't join the competition .
In 1994, after two years at the Moscow Times, Bortin went off to a sanatorium in Paris. She
reports in her blog that she is writing a memoir called Desperate to be a Housewife and a
manual called The Everyday French Chef. It's been a case of – if you can't stand the
heat, go to the kitchen.
After her exit, Sauer's US money began to dwindle, so he applied to Mikhail Khodorkovsky to
keep the Times's press rolling. Khodorkovsky's money was followed by other oligarchs, and some
especially Russophobic Finns, until now Sauer himself is reported to be contemplating enrolment
in the ranks of Mikhail Prokhorov, in a unit as elite as Muammar Qaddafi's female battalion
once was, if not quite as handsome.
Bortin missed out. It takes chutzpah to claim that "when the first issue of Russia's first
independent English-language daily came out the next morning -- on Friday, Oct. 2, 1992 -- no
one could have imagined the impact The Moscow Times would have in the months and years ahead."
The only accurate term in that account is "daily"; the Moscow Tribune was in English, and had
been coming out independently, but weekly, for more than two years earlier. As for the future
conditional about noone imagining what impact the Moscow Times would have, the only word Bortin
got right there is "noone". That's because the Times has been wrong on every major position it
has taken over the past twenty years. It hasn't been independent; it hasn't had any impact. It
is neither as cleverly comic, nor as linguistically memorable as The Exile, whose editors, Mark
Ames and Matt Taibbi, have been erased from Bortin's 20-year anniversary roll.
For all these years then the Moscow Times has been to Russia as ersatz coffee was to Germans
during World War II. You might say that if you start a war and lose it, you deserve to have
ersatz coffee instead of the real thing. Those who think the Moscow Times is the real thing
have lost their war, but can't be weaned off their taste for their ersatz. From nose to mouth
in twenty years – not far, no taste.
"... "....cunning, ambitious,and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.....". ..."
"... JFK and the Unspeakable: Why He Died and Why It Matters by James W. Douglass ..."
The CIA is not really in the business of collecting "intelligence." That "agency" is and always has been in the business of
subverting or toppling other governments.
So they have finally gotten around to subverting the USSA government. Why am I not surprised.
What came to my mind when I read this good article, MB, is words from George Washington's Farewell Address. He may have written
to explain about the dangers of political parties, but it resonates exactly about what is occurring in this present state of American
governance.
"....cunning, ambitious,and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to
usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.....".
So much of mainstream journalism has descended to the level of a cult-like formula of bias,
hearsay and omission. Subjectivism is all; slogans and outrage are proof enough. What matters
is 'perception'...
The death of Robert Parry earlier this year felt like a farewell to the age of the reporter.
Parry was "a trailblazer for independent journalism", wrote Seymour Hersh, with whom he shared
much in common.
Hersh revealed the My Lai massacre in Vietnam and the secret bombing of Cambodia, Parry
exposed Iran-Contra, a drugs and gun-running conspiracy that led to the White House. In 2016,
they separately produced compelling evidence that the Assad government in Syria had not used
chemical weapons. They were not forgiven.
Driven from the "mainstream", Hersh must publish his work outside the United States. Parry
set up his own independent news website Consortium News, where, in a final piece following a
stroke, he referred to journalism's veneration of "approved opinions" while "unapproved
evidence is brushed aside or disparaged regardless of its quality."
Although journalism was always a loose extension of establishment power, something has
changed in recent years. Dissent tolerated when I joined a national newspaper in Britain in the
1960s has regressed to a metaphoric underground as liberal capitalism moves towards a form of
corporate dictatorship.
This is a seismic shift, with journalists policing the new "groupthink", as Parry called it,
dispensing its myths and distractions, pursuing its enemies.
Witness the witch-hunts against refugees and immigrants, the willful abandonment by the
"MeToo" zealots of our oldest freedom, presumption of innocence, the anti-Russia racism and
anti-Brexit hysteria, the growing anti-China campaign and the suppression of a warning of world
war.
With many if not most independent journalists barred or ejected from the "mainstream", a
corner of the Internet has become a vital source of disclosure and evidence-based analysis:
true journalism sites such as wikileaks.org, consortiumnews.com, wsws.org, truthdig.com,
globalresearch.org, counterpunch.org and informationclearinghouse.com are required reading for
those trying to make sense of a world in which science and technology advance wondrously while
political and economic life in the fearful "democracies" regress behind a media facade of
narcissistic spectacle.
Propaganda Blitz
In Britain, just one website offers consistently independent media criticism. This is the
remarkable Media Lens -- remarkable partly because its founders and editors as well as its only
writers, David Edwards and David Cromwell, since 2001 have concentrated their gaze not on the
usual suspects, the Tory press, but the paragons of reputable liberal journalism: the BBC, The
Guardian , Channel 4 News.
Cromwell and Edwards (The Ghandi Foundation)
Their method is simple. Meticulous in their research, they are respectful and polite when
they ask why a journalist why he or she produced such a one-sided report, or failed to disclose
essential facts or promoted discredited myths.
The replies they receive are often defensive, at times abusive; some are hysterical, as if
they have pushed back a screen on a protected species.
I would say Media Lens has shattered a silence about corporate journalism. Like Noam Chomsky
and Edward Herman in Manufacturing Consent, they represent a Fifth Estate that deconstructs and
demystifies the media's power.
What is especially interesting about them is that neither is a journalist. David Edwards is
a former teacher, David Cromwell is an oceanographer. Yet, their understanding of the morality
of journalism -- a term rarely used; let's call it true objectivity -- is a bracing quality of
their online Media Lens dispatches.
I think their work is heroic and I would place a copy of their just published book,
Propaganda Blitz , in every journalism school that services the corporate system, as they all
do.
Take the chapter, Dismantling the National Health Service, in which Edwards and Cromwell
describe the critical part played by journalists in the crisis facing Britain's pioneering
health service.
The NHS crisis is the product of a political and media construct known as "austerity", with
its deceitful, weasel language of "efficiency savings" (the BBC term for slashing public
expenditure) and "hard choices" (the willful destruction of the premises of civilized life in
modern Britain).
"Austerity" is an invention. Britain is a rich country with a debt owed by its crooked
banks, not its people. The resources that would comfortably fund the National Health Service
have been stolen in broad daylight by the few allowed to avoid and evade billions in taxes.
Using a vocabulary of corporate euphemisms, the publicly-funded Health Service is being
deliberately run down by free market fanatics, to justify its selling-off. The Labour Party of
Jeremy Corbyn may appear to oppose this, but is it? The answer is very likely no. Little of any
of this is alluded to in the media, let alone explained.
Edwards and Cromwell have dissected the 2012 Health and Social Care Act, whose innocuous
title belies its dire consequences. Unknown to most of the population, the Act ends the legal
obligation of British governments to provide universal free health care: the bedrock on which
the NHS was set up following the Second World War. Private companies can now insinuate
themselves into the NHS, piece by piece.
Where, asks Edwards and Cromwell, was the BBC while this momentous Bill was making its way
through Parliament? With a statutory commitment to "providing a breadth of view" and to
properly inform the public of "matters of public policy," the BBC never spelt out the threat
posed to one of the nation's most cherished institutions. A BBC headline said: "Bill which
gives power to GPs passes." This was pure state propaganda.
Media and Iraq Invasion
Blair: Lawless (Office of Tony Blair)
There is a striking similarity with the BBC's coverage of Prime Minister Tony Blair's
lawless invasion of Iraq in 2003, which left a million dead and many more dispossessed. A study
by the University of Wales, Cardiff, found that the BBC reflected the government line
"overwhelmingly" while relegating reports of civilian suffering. A Media Tenor study placed the
BBC at the bottom of a league of western broadcasters in the time they gave to opponents of the
invasion. The corporation's much-vaunted "principle" of impartiality was never a
consideration.
One of the most telling chapters in Propaganda Blitz describes the smear campaigns mounted
by journalists against dissenters, political mavericks and whistleblowers.
The Guardian' s campaign against the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is the most
disturbing. Assange, whose epic WikiLeaks disclosures brought fame, journalism prizes and
largesse to The Guardian , was abandoned when he was no longer useful. He was then subjected to
a vituperative – and cowardly -- onslaught of a kind I have rarely known.
With not a penny going to WikiLeaks, a hyped Guardian book led to a lucrative Hollywood
movie deal. The book's authors, Luke Harding and David Leigh, gratuitously described Assange as
a "damaged personality" and "callous." They also disclosed the secret password he had given the
paper in confidence, which was designed to protect a digital file containing the U.S. embassy
cables.
With Assange now trapped in the Ecuadorean embassy, Harding, standing among the police
outside, gloated on his blog that "Scotland Yard may get the last laugh."
The Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore wrote, "I bet Assange is stuffing himself full of
flattened guinea pigs. He really is the most massive turd."
Moore, who describes herself as a feminist, later complained that, after attacking Assange,
she had suffered "vile abuse." Edwards and Cromwell wrote to her: "That's a real shame, sorry
to hear that. But how would you describe calling someone 'the most massive turd'? Vile
abuse?"
Moore replied that no, she would not, adding, "I would advise you to stop being so bloody
patronizing." Her former Guardian colleague James Ball wrote, "It's difficult to imagine what
Ecuador's London embassy smells like more than five and a half years after Julian Assange moved
in."
Such slow-witted viciousness appeared in a newspaper described by its editor, Katharine
Viner, as "thoughtful and progressive." What is the root of this vindictiveness? Is it
jealousy, a perverse recognition that Assange has achieved more journalistic firsts than his
snipers can claim in a lifetime? Is it that he refuses to be "one of us" and shames those who
have long sold out the independence of journalism?
Journalism students should study this to understand that the source of "fake news" is not
only trollism, or the likes of Fox News, or Donald Trump, but a journalism self-anointed with a
false respectability: a liberal journalism that claims to challenge corrupt state power but, in
reality, courts and protects it, and colludes with it. The amorality of the years of Tony
Blair, whom The Guardian has failed to rehabilitate, is its echo.
"[It is] an age in which people yearn for new ideas and fresh alternatives," wrote Katharine
Viner. Her political writer Jonathan Freedland dismissed the yearning of young people who
supported the modest policies of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn as "a form of narcissism."
"How did this man .," brayed the Guardian 's Zoe Williams, "get on the ballot in the first
place?" A choir of the paper's precocious windbags joined in, thereafter queuing to fall on
their blunt swords when Corbyn came close to winning the 2017 general election in spite of the
media.
Complex stories are reported to a cult-like formula of bias, hearsay and omission: Brexit,
Venezuela, Russia, Syria. On Syria, only the investigations of a group of independent
journalists have countered this, revealing the network of Anglo-American backing of jihadists
in Syria, including those related to ISIS.
Leni Riefenstahl (r.) (Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)
Supported by a "psyops" campaign
funded by the British Foreign Office and the U.S. Agency for International Development, the
aim is to hoodwink the Western public and speed the overthrow of the government in Damascus,
regardless of the medieval alternative and the risk of war with Russia.
The Syria Campaign, set up by a New York PR agency called Purpose, funds a group known as
the White Helmets, who claim falsely to be "Syria Civil Defense" and are seen uncritically on
TV news and social media, apparently rescuing the victims of bombing, which they film and edit
themselves, though viewers are unlikely to be told this. George Clooney is a fan.
The White Helmets are appendages to the jihadists with whom they share addresses. Their
media-smart uniforms and equipment are supplied by their Western paymasters. That their
exploits are not questioned by major news organizations is an indication of how deep the
influence of state-backed PR now runs in the media. As Robert Fisk noted recently, no
"mainstream" reporter reports Syria.
In what is known as a hatchet job, a Guardian reporter based in San Francisco, Olivia Solon,
who has never visited Syria, was allowed to smear the substantiated investigative work of
journalists Vanessa Beeley and Eva Bartlett on the White Helmets as "propagated online by a
network of anti-imperialist activists, conspiracy theorists and trolls with the support of the
Russian government."
This abuse was published without permitting a single correction, let alone a right-of-reply.
The Guardian Comment page was blocked, as Edwards and Cromwell document. I saw the list of
questions Solon sent to Beeley, which reads like a McCarthyite charge sheet -- "Have you ever
been invited to North Korea?"
So much of the mainstream has descended to this level. Subjectivism is all; slogans and
outrage are proof enough. What matters is the "perception."
When he was U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus declared what he called "a
war of perception conducted continuously using the news media." What really mattered was not
the facts but the way the story played in the United States. The undeclared enemy was, as
always, an informed and critical public at home.
Nothing has changed. In the 1970s, I met Leni Riefenstahl, Hitler's film-maker, whose
propaganda mesmerized the German public.
She told me the "messages" of her films were dependent not on "orders from above", but on
the "submissive void" of an uninformed public.
"Did that include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie?" I asked.
"Everyone," she said. "Propaganda always wins, if you allow it."
Propaganda Blitz by David
Edwards and David Cromwell is published by Pluto Press.
I gave up on the Guardian's comment site myself, 10 years ago, as the censorship on there
made it pointless. Has something changed?
There was one prolific commenter there, MrPikeBishop, who was so popular, he was even
commissioned to write articles above the line. Then one day, bam, he is banned, and his entire
posting history gone. That did it for me; little emperors not fit to clean his boots, just
rubbed him out. I spat on the site that day and never went back. Proclaiming themselves the
bastion of free speech, when they actually the enemies of it.
Actually, I was caught out here in the UK, by the demise of the old five pound note, and
then the ten pound note, because I stopped reading and watching MSM years ago. It's worth it,
to get their irritating buzzing out of my head.
Back to the linked Guardian article; this is indeed interesting – these questions
asked by the journalist:
– Who really did shoot down this plane? Was it an accident or did France and/or Israel
attack?
– Are Russia publicly accepting a false narrative to avoid having to retaliate?
– Do they even understand how close we're coming to global war, whenever a NATO country
operates in Syria?
– How long can we rely on Russian common sense to avoid WWIII?
Russia and the West are facing the worst crisis since the Cold War. According to US Special
Envoy Amos Hochstein, Washington's goal is to reduce Russia's gas market share in Eastern
Europe by 20% by 2020.
Russia cannot be allowed to build a gas pipeline that would bypass
Ukraine, as it would pose a threat to Europe's energy security
Pipeline bypassing Ukraine = threat to Europe's energy security
That is a total non sequitur. Also, Russia is part of Europe. The EU is not the whole of
"Europe". In fact, the EU is not even the EU as evidenced by Hungary and Italy.
And Washington can have Eastern Europe. Go ahead – take them as customers, and sell
them expensive LNG they can't afford. Russia would probably be glad to be shut of Poland and
the Baltics. And having to pay way more for their gas would teach them a lesson. Win/win.
Pipeline bypassing Ukraine = threat to Europe's energy security
That is a total non sequitur. Also, Russia is part of Europe. The EU is not the whole of
"Europe". In fact, the EU is not even the EU as evidenced by Hungary and Italy.
And Washington can have Eastern Europe. Go ahead – take them as customers, and sell
them expensive LNG they can't afford. Russia would probably be glad to be shut of Poland and
the Baltics. And having to pay way more for their gas would teach them a lesson. Win/win.
Doesn't the pipeline via the lo-land of Po-land go via Belarus? Warsaw buying gas from
elsewhere would starve Minsk of transit fees, no? Maybe the idea is similarly to undermine
Belarus and thus impose further costs/indirect sanctions on Russia?
So what does Trump do before the midterms? Live with higher prices? Quietly drop the
sanctions ? Find a way to get Iranian oil on the market while pretending there are sanctions?
Accept the high prices and blame Obama?
Oil price can rise some, now. It's only a month and a half to go. Gasoline stocks are high,
so it will take some trickle down time. Raiding the SPR is overkill.
I'm betting they don't. Saudi production in September is more likely to be down than up. But
if it is up it will only by a tiny amount, not near enough to affect prices. Saudi Arabis is
just not interested in increasing production by any significant amount. They would like to
keep production steady .if possible.
"Just spoke to King Salman of Saudi Arabia and explained to him that, because of the
turmoil & disfunction in Iran and Venezuela, I am asking that Saudi Arabia increase oil
production, maybe up to 2,000,000 barrels, to make up the difference Prices to high! He has
agreed!" the tweet read.
And of course, after the King hung up the phone he probably said: "We are not going
to do any of that shit." The Saudis, just like Trump's staff, know he is an idiot.
"And of course, after the King hung up the phone he probably said: "We are not going to do
any of that shit."
I doubt that happened but I don't have any inside contacts in the WH to confirm. My guess
is that Trump has turned up the heat on Iran because of requests from KSA & Israel.
The USA has been helping MbS with is Yemen war, as well as proxy war in Syria. If KSA want
the US to economically crush Iran, than KSA will need to help but increasing its Oil exports.
Perhaps KSA as some oil stashed in storage that it could release for a short period. My guess
KSA would delay using its storage reserves until there is a price spike that might force the
US to back off on Iran.
I doubt that happened but I don't have any inside contacts in the WH to confirm.
You doubt what happened? The quote was a tweet directly from the President. He sent it out
to the world, you don't need an inside contact to the White House. Trump's tweets go out to
the public.
Yes, it did happen. Of course, the part about what the King did afterward was just
speculation on my part. But he did not increase oil production as Trump requested. That much
we do know.
Not arguing the tweet Trumpet made, but your reasoning that the MbS will ignore the
request.
I am reasonably sure MbS wants the USA to go after Iran, and thus has a motive to try to
comply with Trumpet's request for more Oil. That said, I very much doubt KSA can increase
production, but they may have 50 to 150 mmbl in storage they could release if Oil prices
spike.
FYI:
"Why The U.S. Is Suddenly Buying A Lot More Saudi Oil"
" the Saudis are responding to the demands of their staunch ally U.S. President Donald
Trump, who has repeatedly slammed OPEC for the high gasoline prices, urging the cartel in
early July to "REDUCE PRICING NOW!""
"Saudi Arabia cut last week its official selling price (OSP) for its flagship Arab Light
grade for October to Asia by US$0.10 a barrel to US$1.10 a barrel premium to the Dubai/Oman
average"
So it appears that KSA is trying to comply with Trumpet's request. At least by trying to
lower the oil prices via selling their oil at a discount.
** Note: Not trying to be a PITA, just providing an alternative viewpoint. I do value what
you post. Hope you understand.
The questions raised: Who really did shoot down this plane? Was it an accident or did France
and/or Israel attack? If France are attacking Russia/Syria what prompted this? What do they
have to gain? Is it possible for Syria to "accidentally" bring down an allied plane? Don't they
have IFFs? Are Russia publicly accepting a false narrative to avoid having to retaliate? Will
Russia retaliate against Israel? They have claimed that right already. What will they expect to
extract as a quid pro quo on this issue? How will the media report this? Will they call
it a "near miss"? That's surely what it was. Do they even understand how close we're coming to
global war, whenever a NATO country operates in Syria? How long can we rely on Russian common
sense to avoid WWIII?
I notice you don't advocate that Russia should have immediately retaliated militarily. All
the things you do advocate (well, most) – quite rationally – would not have shown
any results as yet, so we don't know they haven't been done, do we?
But, to repeat, you don't defeat a man who is trying to lure you into a fight by punching
him in the face. Intelligence is underrated by the non-intelligent. Subtlety is unappreciated
by the crass. The Russian govt's actions tend to be both subtle and intelligent –
whether you approve of them or not, and so can go unappreciated by many on all sides of the
debate.
As to ascendancy – Syria was intended to be a new Libya by now. That this has
been avoided, that the various terrorists are in retreat, that the country remains largely
functional, and all without direct confrontation between east and west (so far), is an
achievement anyone with any intelligence should recognise, and which the Russia government
has every right to be proud of.
Forgive me, but people have been saying variants of "if Putin doesn't DO SOMETHING HUGE
right now he's going to burn" for at least the last four years, and they are still saying it,
despite the fact he hasn't burned (and neither have we), and, if their sage advice had been
followed, we might all be cinders on a dead and cindered planet right now.
The only reason it hasn't come to that yet is that the ground was not prepared fully before.
Russia is slowly being pushed back to the ropes, the average Western citizen is being
conditioned to racially hate Russians (did you read Nikki Haley's comment today that Russians
are culturally conditioned to lie and cheat?) and the consent is being steadily manufactured.
As I said in my original comment, by showing "restraint" and not that he has teeth, Putin is
encouraging his country's enemies. Personally, I don't give a damn about what he does
about people he doesn't like, but he's not a private citizen; he is in control of Russia, for
good or ill. Most of my Russian friends, all of the far left variety, despise him,
incidentally, but that's neither here nor there. The simple fact is that if Russia is to
avoid a big war it has to actively deter one, not act like someone attempting to disarm an
armed drunk by logical words and sweet reason. That is not going to work.
If the Russians got a cruise missile down the funnel of the French frigate Auvegne (assuming
there is a funnel) what do you think NATO would do? Would they shrug and say it serves Macron
right or would they take off the safety locks and blast Russia from every direction in order
to protect their partner who had been so 'wrongly' attacked? Haven't they been waiting for
the chance for years? Aren't they already loaded up expecting the 'chemical weapons' shout to
go up this very week? It would be vey foolish of Russia to take the bait of these
provocations and it makes for uneasy reading when Westerners, sitting comfortably in safety,
complain that Russians aren't prepared to die for us in large enough numbers to keep them
safe. You first guy!
When provoked so blatantly you need to look to see what the guy is hiding behind his back. In
this case the West had built up their forces for a full scale attack on Syria as soon as the
White Helmets released their video of choking children filmed a week or so ago. Putin
disappointed them by coming to an agreement with Turkey that means the jihadis are further
isolated and pushed into possible conflict with radicals.
The time scales of the agreement are vague/unknown but it's unlikely we will see a Jihadi
Caliphate set up under Turkish protection.
Like the Syrians it's the crazy foreign fighters that alarm the Turks, the Chinese
especially of whom there are 6000 heavily armed in the South. Turkey is keen to see the
extremists pushed South making it difficult for them to enter Turkey. Putin's reaction is far
more sensible than firing the gun for a major conflict which Russia is most unlikely to
win.
Russia is still on track to squeeze the jihadis into smaller and smaller areas where they
might be eliminated. It might make liberals happy to see Russia sacrifice herself a la 1941
but it's not going to help anybody except their enemies.
You can't help thinking Putin knows exactly what he's doing.
There can never be a non-nuclear war between the US and Russia. Every strategist worth
anything knows this. It's the belief – created by the PNAC neocons – that this
isn't true that drives the hardcore nuts in Washington and London and elsewhere.
This is the problem. They are delusional and believe they can fight a limited war with
Russia. Those who know they are wrong, and that any such war would go nuclear very very fast
are stuck in a profound dilemma. – How to defend oneself and one's interests while
avoiding the conflict the lunatics want, which will destroy life on earth?
Answers on a post card please for anyone who thinks they can do better than the current
Russian govt is doing.
It's a complex web.. one has to bear this in mind.. the inter-relationships.. the
connections.. Putin for example has to tread the razor edge and fight with one hand tied
behind his back due to the Zionist influence atop the Russian hierarchy .
S-200 uses the SAHR guidance system. The radar signal is fairly wide, and if multiple objects
fall within the signal, the one with the largest cross-section will be targeted. The Russian
IL is much larger than the American F-16. Larger missiles like the 200's 5V21 also tend to
hit from above (they come down in a parabolic arc after the motors burned out). So if the
F-16's stayed a little behind and below the IL they'd basically guarantee the IL get's
killed.
As "Partisangirl" claims, but does not properly understand, Russia integrated Syrian AD
into their network some time ago. The purpose of such a integration was to avoid similar
accidents.
One problem: That was only for the newer stuff.
A Pantsir, for example, can be told where targets are and what to shoot at by a larger
system (they work in a pyramid hierarchy). S-200s are older than h*ll though. It's basically
a dumb system from the 60's. (even dumber than a BUK)
What it'll do is spot a target, fire the missile and then when the missile "thinks" it's in
the right area (the kill box), it's seeker head goes active (it's a semi active seeker). It
starts looking for radar 'reflections' and then homes in on the biggest one it can see. It
doesn't actually know what it's looking at and doesn't care. Just goes for the shiniest thing
it can detect.
My favourite part is how all these lies are held up as if they merit discussion and as if
they deserve to be given equal treatment with what actually happened. It's like holding a
"discussion" as to whether or not Aliens rule the Earth.
I tend to agree with you, on the whole, Mulga, about issues to do with Israel, though perhaps
not so stridently. But on this occasion I think Matt is honestly telling things how he sees
it.
On the other hand, one should ask why Israel is arbitrarily attacking targets in a
sovereign country that is not threatening it. Of course, the answer is that this is what
Israel does with impunity – witness USS Liberty among many others. On this occasion, it
appears, from what I have read, that Israel was targeting the delivery of Iranian S300 copies
to Syria – that is weapons to defend from this kind of attack in future. In reality,
far from attacking Israel, Syria has even done nothing about recovering territory lost to
Israel in 1967, though in international law Israel – that Israel signed up to –
it should be given back to Syria. A few days ago, Israel attacked Damascus airport during an
international fair with many visitors and potential for massive loss of life. It seems clear
that Israel is trying (probably with US approval) to provoke a response.
Putin always keeps his eye on the long term view but it is time for him to put a stop to
this activity if he is to maintain credibility with his allies and his voters. This attack
will serve to weaken Putin's hitherto Israel friendly stance unless he wants to lose support
in Russia. Putin is the best friend Israel has in Russia. It seems that Russian military is
saying that there will be a response – much stronger than Putin.
On the other hand – re my previous comment, Matt, IAF was clearly using the Russian
ELINT plane as cover. It is tantamount to using civilians as human shields. Though the crew
were Russian military, they were not involved in the action, apparently, and Israel had
agreed not to target Russian assets in Syria. One cannot absolve Israel on this and the
Russian military know it. They will be looking to Putin to permit a response.
Then you surely would not object if Russia were to ask Israel to hand over the pilots
involved so they can explain in a Russian military court or a similar setting their actions
and the thinking and expectations that motivated them to hide their jets in the Ilyushin
transport plane's radar shadow.
Yes, there is a large element of theatre at play in this conflict. What many people don't
want to accept is that they have no way of knowing what the entire truth is. All the
information about situations and events comes from partisan organizations with vested
interests. Expecting the side one personally favours to present objective truths is wishful
thinking at best, downright delusional at worst.
The post-truth era means everybody walks around believing they have 'figured out' the
truth, no hard evidence required, but they can't all be right can they?
Not so long ago Netanyahu was pleading with Putin [successfully] not to supply the S300 anti
aircraft system [defensive] to Syria, at the same time Israel was the first country to get a
fleet of F35's [offensive] from the US. Putin defers far to much to the US/Israel, we now see
the results. Incidentally how come Saudi Arabia can buy the S400 system, when they were one
of the instigators of Syrian regime change. Russia's "partners" want Syria destroyed, the
warmonger McCain always said the US should take on Syria and that Russia would 'do nothing',
was he right?
Let's recall the realities here and not succumb to hysteria. One of the reasons these
provocations are happening is that Russia is winning in Syria, militarily and politically.
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Harry has touched on an important point: that Russia and Israel are becoming closer and
closer strategic Russophone partners. Russia was the first country in the world to recognise
W Jerusalem as Israel's capital (before even Trump). There was only one foreign dignitary at
the May 9th Victory Parade their growing economic, military and cultural ties (Customs Union
negotiations and visa free travel for instance) cannot be ignored.
The IDF's 200 strikes in 18 months must lead to serious consideration of tacit Russian
approval because they could be quite quickly stopped without it? But that would escalate the
situation. Where does Iran stand in this, because VVP made quite clear to Netanyahu that Iran
was Russia's principle strategic partner in the region. Is that set to change?
Netanyahu has met VVP what, three times this year, behind closed doors. What was said, and
what agreements were made? It is also reputed that they have a direct one-to-one encrypted
comms network (though I can't confirm it was activated). But that they are in regular contact
is undoubted.
There is a lot more going on beneath the surface than first meets the eye. VVP's relations
with Netanyahu blurs the boundaries and greys the narrative. The fact that VVP is saying it
"looks accidental" doesn't ring true it looks anything other than accidental to me. Was there
a communication breakdown as VVP is in Hungary?
I do not know, and based on what we have been told, neither does anyone else. The FS
Auvergne fired missiles just as the Il-20 HQ went off screen. They weren't firing at the IDF,
I wouldn't be too sure they were "window dressing" for them either. Whatever went on, we are
being kept in the dark. Not precipitating WW3 is a good thing. Other than that, Russia's
foreign policy and ME relations are a 3D chess game that we know little of the motivation
behind: but I can infer that Russia's strategic needs are primary. At what point can that be
labelled imperialist?
Are you expecting to be spoon fed? And by the biased BBC, Guardian, etc!
It's pretty clear that Assad has won with Putin's support. China is on side too as
evidenced by recent military manoeuvres. What is happening now is the US, UK, France, Israel,
Turkey, Saudi just saving face and been allowed the odd small success or two.
However, Israel royally fucked up last night and Netanyahu will lose a plane or three if
he tries it again.
You didn't really read my comment: this "odd small success " has happened 200 times in the
last 18 months with the downing of how many IDF planes 1? Russia providing S-300s, or S-400s,
or upgrading the 1960's SAM 2s would secure Syrian airspace. But these supplies are not
forthcoming. Because Israel will not allow them.
The situation is a lot more complex: and no, I don't want to be spoonfed by the BBC. The
Saker posits a "Zionist 5th Column" in Russia that VVP has to accommodate. You seem to want a
simplistic ZioNATO v Russia narrative, all I am saying it is a lot more nuanced than that.
And I didn't get that from the Graun!
200 IDF strikes in 18 months, that could be stopped by turning on their S-400s, would be an
instance.. Israel has lobbied successfully to prevent Syria from securing its own airspace.
The majority of these attacks are to prevent Assad acquiring what Haaretz terms "lethal
weaponry" a euphemism for Iranian supplied air defences that could secure Syrian airspace. As
could a Russian declared NFZ (though the IDF would just standoff over Lebanon or the Med, and
not penetrate Syrian airspace). Or Russian supplied S-300s.
So my answer is yes and no. The Russophone alliance of Russia and Israel seems to be
ascendant over Syrian sovereignty. Or it was, until Monday. There appears to have been a
breakdown in the de-confliction agreement, or a deliberate misuse and provocation by Israel.
The jury is out on that one for the moment. If the attacks are stopped, I would tend to agree
with you.
There is the small matter of the international silence surrounding the FS Auvergne firing
missiles concurrent with the downing of the Il-20 HQ. These either hit the Il-20 or Latakia.
Has anyone considered the Il-20 WAS the target? That there was no accident, but a deliberate
targeting? Did the IDF or French take out the Russian early warning system and electronic
warfare capability to leave Latakia vulnerable? I don't know, and Rothschild Macron said no!
It is worth considering though, I feel.
Integrated into the systems view of militaristic, imperialistic, and sub-imperialistic,
and extractivist proliferation: it hardly matters who did what when. They are not giving us
an insight into their collective insanity and power games, where the stakes are humanities
very survivability. Russia only seemed to remember on Monday that the serial numbers on the
MH-17 BUK, means it was made in 1986. What else have they forgotten? What else do they not
know?
Humanity has no strategic allies within the global neoliberal ruling class. Arming the
world is a "pro-conflict policy", wouldn't you agree? Where militaristic proliferation can't
facilitate peace: the only possible de-confliction becomes system change? There are good and
bad actors within the current globally hegemonic cultural system: VVP is possibly the best,
so it would be unfair to heap the woes of an essentially evil system upon him especially in
isolation. So it must fall to those outside the transnational globally integrated system to
call out where this insanity will lead. That's you and me?
What I am suggesting is rather than the inevitably favourable comparison of VVP, and well,
just about anyone else let's look at the bigger picture. International World Capitalism, as
Guattari termed it, has faced us with the choice of three suicides. Without a radical
transformation of the oppressed consciousness (a la Guattari, Deleuze, Freire, Bookchin,
Naess, but better still the secular Buddha) there will soon enough come the day that does not
dawn Monday night was a foreshadowing of that very day?
The idea a head of state can function as a moral paragon is naive of course. Putin pursues
Russia's interests, not world peace and brotherhood. But at the same time we can't ignore the
fact he does so while adhering to the requirements of international law far more than the
west does. In that sense, he has some claim to respect from those who value ethical conduct.
Whatever his motives may be this fact deserves to be stated and made clear.
"Israel is unlikely to freely use Syrian airspace in the wake of the crash of a Russian
Il-20 military aircraft over the Mediterranean Sea, Yakov Kedmi, a former high-ranking
Israeli intelligence official, told Sputnik.
"There was an agreement between Israel and Russia that the actions of Israel in Syria's
airspace would not endanger lives of Russian troops. Israel breached this commitment What
happens next will depend on the position of Israel. Most likely, Israel will no longer be
able to enjoy the same freedom in the sky of Syria as it did before the incident," Kedmi
said.
"Israel's attack in itself, regardless of the consequences, was an irresponsible step,
because there is not a single facility on the territory of Syria that might have been used by
Iran and whose destruction would have justified an attack on it, which could endanger the
Russian troops," Kedmi said."
The US must be the worst nation on the face of the Earth. Everywhere it goes, death and
destruction follow. To top it all off, the blatant hypocrisy is too much to handle. America
is treacherous and duplicitous in the extreme. It has supported terrorists of all stripes in
the Middle East and elsewhere for its own selfish geopolitical reasons. It is an entity not
to be trusted, ever!
Regarding (the long tradition of ) British-French-Israeli collusion
"Not only Russian and (allegedly) Israeli and French aircraft and missiles were in the
air. Civilian radar also tracked British Royal Air Force aircraft, which, unusually, had
switched on their transponders and gone into holding patterns – most likely to avoid
being somehow involved in the exchange of fire over Latakia." (source: Haaretz)
we should remember Sykes-Picot and "Operation Revised" (the 1956 Suez-deception)
"The documentary evidence does not leave any room for doubt that at Sèvres, during
the three days in late October 1956, an elaborate war plot was hatched against Egypt by the
representatives of France, Britain and Israel. The Protocol of Sèvres is the most
conclusive piece of evidence for it lays out in precise detail and with a precise time-table
how the joint war against Egypt was intended to proceed and shows foreknowledge of each
other's intentions .
The central aim of the plot was the overthrow of Gamal Abdel Nasser. This aim is not
explicitly stated in the protocol but it emerges clearly and unambiguously from all the
records of the discussions surrounding it. Yet each of the three partners had a very
different perspective on this war plot, and it was not at all clear how even the agreed aim
was to be achieved.
The French were the most straight-forward, unwavering and unabashed advocates of military
force. As far as they were concerned, Colonel Nasser supported the Algerian rebels and that,
along with his nationalization of the Suez Canal Company, was enough to justify a war to
overthrow him. For their part, the French did not need any further pretext for taking
military action. It was the British, unwilling to incur Arab hostility by appearing as ally
of Israel, who needed a pretext and Israel was able and willing to provide it but only at a
price. Israel also required the elimination of Nasser's air force, for which task Britain
alone had the heavy bomber bases sufficiently near at hand."
I was also struck by the Haaretz report that "Something strange was definitely in the air
over Syria on Monday night with British and French forces reportedly present." I hope this
open thread may bring more information on this alleged NATO involvement. I am beginning to
think this incident may have rather more actors than we've been told. Loading...
Yes – agreed. FUKUS ships have moved closer to the Syrian coast in the last few days,
presumably in anticipation of an attack (chemical or otherwise) that they could justify a
response to. The Russians have been doing a great job in the (non-Western) media of
predicting potential chemical fake attacks and thereby defusing them. The one minute warning
from Israel suggests the possibility (no more than that) that the Israelis saw the ELINT
plane approaching the airfield and quickly decided to use it as cover for whatever reason.
As I've said in other posts, the Israelis have narrowed Putin's options. Of FUKUS +I they
are the easiest to pick off.
A very different and is some ways attractive theory is presented here:
I am not totally convinced – Matt's view on the capability of the Syrian SAMs seems
more convincing and it is not clear that Russian fighters could have scrambled in time,
especially as the Israelis had agreed not to target Russian assets, but if true it perhaps is
a clever – nay Machiavellian – way of opening up options for Putin vis-a-vis his
Israeli/Russian Jewish oligarchs and hanging the Israelis out to dry.
Is there any information about whether the Auvergne did or didn't fire missiles? The Syrians
(and Russians?) said they had witnessed the firing of missiles which seemed to be aimed at
the same government buildings as that being attacked by Israel which suggests collusion.
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The US and NATO's compliant poodles are clearly willing to risk WWIII as they think Russia
will simply back down when they instigate open warfare and regime change in Syria. My own
belief is that poor honest broker Russia has been left to decide the fate of world peace.
Personally, for all our futures, I believe Russia must declare a no fly zone over Syria
– anyone entering to bomb will be at mercy of S400. Otherwise this will continue and if
the US gets Syria it will be Iran next and WWIII – that is, armageddon.
The entire of the West has now become simply a huge collective criminal enterprise operating
completely outside the bounds of international law and threatening to bring about armageddon
in the process. Of course one would never know this by reading or watching Western media
where our clueless psychopathic leaders are portrayed as gallantly fighting for "human
rights" and "democracy" through "regime change" and endless slaughter.
BTL SyrPer Auslander on September 18, 2018 · at 7:54 am EST/EDT
Israeli plane apparently passed just in front of the plane, SAA got a lock, Israeli
doglegged left, missile lost lock and chose the biggest target ..our plane. Israel violated
protocol, called one minute before the attack, not enough time for our bird to get out of the
way. The french frigate was window dressing.
Here are a couple of quotes that show how far the system has been rigged/corrupted:
"one of the things we need to do is give young Jewish people the confidence to be proud of
their identity – as British, Jewish and Zionist too .. There is no contradiction
between these identities and we must never let anyone try to suggest that there should be
..
"You can also count on my commitment to Israel's security .. I am clear that we will always
support Israel's right to defend itself."
– UK Prime Minister Theresa May, at the United Jewish Israel Appeal
"I've never seen a President -- I don't care who he is -- stand up to them (Israel). It
just boggles the mind. They always get what they want. The Israelis know what is going on all
the time. I got to the point where I wasn't writing anything down. If the American people
understood what a grip these people have got on our government, they would rise up in arms.
Our citizens certainly don't have any idea what goes on."
– U.S. Navy Admiral and former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Thomas Moorer
The significance of direct military involvement by Israel and France is that the facade of a
"civil war" (albeit by proxy) can no longer be maintained. The only thing that prevents it
from being a regular war between nations is the omission of a declaration.
Is it possible for Syria to "accidentally" bring down an allied plane? Don't they have
IFFs?
Yup, and kinda. It's perfectly possible to do it and IFF doesn't really work the way a lot
of people think. (IFF transponder beacon works by transmitting a signal to the ground station
or launcher).
If the ground station recognises the beacon it labels the aircraft as friendly and either
denies launch permission or warns the operator beforehand.
However with a system like the S-200 that will not actually matter. The SA-5 (S-200) is an
old system from the 60's which uses a semi active radar homing missile and how it works is
quite simple.
When the ground system detects a target it illuminates the target with it's radar like a
torch and launches the missile.
The missile then follows the radar reflection from the target until it gets close enough
to detonate, goes bang, shoots plane down.
However the beam from the radar 'torch' can be quite wide (miles wide), F-16's are quite
small, IL-20's quite big.. and the missile itself is pretty dumb.
As such by hiding in behind the larger aircraft the smaller aircraft can almost guarantee
an incoming missile will prioritise the large aircraft reflection and kill that instead. It
doesn't actually matter if the missile was launched against the smaller target in the first
instance or if IFF came into play. The missile itself is too dumb to care. It just goes for
the largest thing it can see.
Thanks for clearing that up: but it raises the question that the Il-20 was on a pre-planned
flight path known in advance to both Russian and Syrian air traffic control (whom I believe
are sitting next to each other?) Knowing what you have just posted (which I do not doubt) it
can hardly be termed "accidental"?
I suspect the FS Auvergne fired its Aster missiles, but I'm not expecting a clarification
of that. The situation is greyed by the burgeoning Russian-Israeli Russophone alliance. A
simple narrative will not be forthcoming, I suspect.
The IL-20's been on station flying figure 8's on constant rotation for months so it's flight
and landing path would be known to everyone with half assed radar or even functional
eyeballs.
Putin can't afford to get it wrong – for everybody's sake. His power is limited. He has
done an excellent job in defeating the West in Syria but how could he react to missiles from
the French frigate without triggering a massive NATO attack not just on Syria but Russia? In
the current climate and the West's readiness it could happen in hours. He has always
emphasised he puts Russian interests first – and those included eliminating thousands
of Russian Jihadis before they returned home to create mayhem. He has never said he'll take
on the World. So the French missiles were a mirage and the plane an accident? Well that's
better than an even bigger war maybe?
If the French and Israeli's attacked at the same time then they must have liased with each
other. Or conspired is another way of putting it. Shades of 1956? But nowadays there wouldn't
be the slightest outrage at such a collusion; it's oar for the course. And where is the
missing partner, the UK? "No longer up to it" the French would say. "Too busy" say the Brits.
NB which bit of Syria are the French after this time? Or do they see it descending into the
chaos of a Libya, their last successful destabilisation.
Note Russian and IDF planes in direct line from s-200 being fired ..with French frigate
..looks like deliberate coordination to provide cover for each .but if frigate attacked then
IDF planes available to directly attack Bashir in Damascus .and frigate to provide a source
of provocation for excuse for Nato forces to launch their massive attack they desparately
wish to do .especially as Putin agreed no military attack in Idlib ..and Russian MoD
presentation yesterday it was a Ukraine BUK .in fact it is tempting to say Nato did this to
get back at Russian MoD and punish them for this and expose in any way Russia's belief in
trust and agreements and hotlines as a laughing stock ..and they have succeeded .a Russian
plane shot down by an outdated Russian missile launched by Syria and Russia failing to supply
s-300 but Turkey and everyone else can have s-400 which might ? have not ended up like
this.
And did not Russia promise to deal with the "launch source" of any more missiles against
Syria since the previous lot? Surely their are Russians in Latakia
The elephant in the room is Iran .no responses from them yet even though Israel uses excuses
to say it is defending itself from them and continues to attack what tjey call Iranian assets
or anything they might vaguely claim have any connections to Iran ..does Iran follow Putins
example to keep calm and carry on .thinking their"partnership" is being put to the test as of
course it is in order to provoke it to invite a response by usa and associates .does it say
to Putin enough is enough we are going to do our thing as you have said Russia is only in
Syria to protect its own interests so cannot we do the same ..what options covert or overt
does Iran have one wonders ..
One question you didn't ask is whether this act, which appears to be an Israeli provocation
assisted by the French, is related to the Sochi talks/agreement? Seems that supporters of the
Syrian Opposition, of which France is right behind Turkey, might not like the agreement,
partly because it stalls the plans for a "Syrian gas attack" by removing the pretext.
However I think the wider question is why and how has France been involved in this, described
on SBS as "Israeli and French forces conducting aerial attacks on Syrian State assets"?
Israel is a law unto itself, but France's intervention without any pretext whatsoever is a
blatant war crime and escalation. The whole thing looks like a provocation, and one wonders
when Russia will break. If Putin was unhappy having to make a peace agreement with the psycho
Erdogan, he will be more unhappy now.
If Russia was 'obliged' to retaliate to Israeli or French attacks its inherent weaknesses
would be exposed. It remains a relatively poor country and Putin must be well aware it can't
take on the US, Israel, the KSA and the other Gulf Emirs as well as France and the UK. It's
done a fantastic job saving Syria but it can't take on The Rest of the World. If it has
accepted Syrian missile defences brought it down that may well be the way out of a bigger war
– this time.
I agree, Paul X. These are not only perilous waters, but untested to boot. In fact not one of
the military powers you cite has had its strength tested against a non third world adversary.
I know there are infantile tendencies crying "bring it on!" – as though speaking of a
long awaited prize fight involving their heavyweight boxer of choice – but saner voices
can only express alarm and profound dismay at what Western rulers seem bent on dragging us
into. I say enough of this macho nonsense about who would prevail. I do take some comfort in
the possibility –
https://www.unz.com/tsaker/book-review-losing-military-supremacy-the-myopia-of-american-strategic-planning-by-andrei-martyanov/-
that US military power is overstated, but it is comfort of the bleakest possible kind.
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The point is this, Russia can take on the whole World if it had to, but it would be a pyrrhic
victory, because to do so would require nuclear weapons which no nation could survive.
However, Russia has many allies, the largest of which is China, so it probably would only be
taking on one major opponent, the US and a few of its erstwhile allies (France, Britain
etc.), not by any stretch of the imagination, the whole World!
China is even weaker than Russia and not long ago said it was 10 years behind the US in
military terms and it's hard to see they'd welcome a bit of sacrifice to pull Putin's
chestnuts out of the fire. That Alliance is for the future. Right now a full blooded NATO
response would be quite enough. Many in America would be delighted if Russia used a nuke;
total annihaltion of Russia would follow, something they've been dying to do for 75 years.
And of course they might go for the First Strike.
I know the US is in the grip of AIPAC, the Neocon's and their Billionaire masters etc
(including Trump). But it's time for the American people to accept responsibility for their
part in what is happening. It is not OK to accept medals and money for military service
overseas to support the Empire. Occupying foreign nations and killing foreign people in order
to pay for college and to pay the mortgage and set up an retirement plan is weakness, not
strength. "Thank you for your service", indeed. Too many Americans still worship at the altar
of the Pentagon.
It's time for Americans to kick the MIC to the curb, give up the Petrodollar and
corruption that comes with it, and come up with a saner national business model and way of
life. I know that many, many American soldiers have paid a heavy price for their "service" or
even "servitude", but not more so than the nations they have ruined during their service.
It's time for the American people to come together and accept that "War" cannot be the
solution to every problem facing America in it's foreign or domestic policies. It is time to
Down Tools and clean up the corruption in DC and on Wall Street and in the US establishment
in general.
I believe these sentiments are not shocking to most Americans, but this also means the
sense of desperation in the US/Zio elites wedded to War is growing, another reason they push
so hard and so frantically. They know time is running out for them. On this front and many
others.
Occasional Poster on September 19, 2018 · at 8:16 pm EST/EDT
@ Christian,
I have Serbian roots, and US & its NATO poodles bombed and finished their decade long job of destroying my country in 1999.
That nightmare just doesn't end.
But my definition of evil is worth noting. Evil can put a bullet in your head, but where is the fun in that? Put the gun in
the hand of a good person, deceive them, and get them to do it. THAT's true evil, and there in a nutshell is what has been
done to the US.
I struggled to understand as a child, why lying was as great a crime in Christianity as murder and stuff, but I later
understood; deceit is the greatest evil, it turns good people into monsters. There is no anger like righteous anger.
All that evil needs to thrive, is ignorance. The American people as a whole, are grossly ignorant, but they are not evil;
they are simply deceived, just like Brits actualy. A good number of yanks on Zerohedge wish Putin was their own president, so
some are awake. Overall, the US citizenry actually can't give a hoot about Russiagate. There is no mass ill will towards
Russia.
So those are just my thoughts. I just want the American, and European people to wake out of their trance.
"... As for Nutty Nikki Haley, Israeli PM Netenyahu wanted Haley in that spot, both for her rabid pro-Israel stance and to give her the chance to 'make her bones.' To see if she has the right traitorous qualities Israel needs in the WH. Nutty has passed that test with honors, so look for Nutty to get promoted to POTUS, where she'll be a loyal & faithful servant to our Colonial Overlord, Israel. ..."
There is an ongoing coup against not only Trump, but the entire nation, as this video by
"Project Veritas" proves. This State Department subversive claims to be a Democratic
Socialist, which are just Antifa terrorists in suits. Antifa was too radical for SANE
Americans so they re-branded their putrid form of Communism to call it DSA. They're traitors
& saboteurs and should be treated as such .
As for Nutty Nikki Haley, Israeli PM Netenyahu wanted Haley in that spot, both for her
rabid pro-Israel stance and to give her the chance to 'make her bones.' To see if she has the
right traitorous qualities Israel needs in the WH. Nutty has passed that test with honors, so
look for Nutty to get promoted to POTUS, where she'll be a loyal & faithful servant to
our Colonial Overlord, Israel.
Many Americans labor under the delusion that we're an independent democratic republic,
with a USG that honors the cherished Constitution and serves We the People. But that is a
fiction, created by a motley assortment of gangsters, think tanks, the MSM and their mighty
Wurlitzer organ, Hollywood.
The USA is under Israeli occupation, with our American neoCON & Zionist Jew Overseers
still cracking that whip on our backs, but a digital one, not leather. The NWO Plantation
owner is Israel, aided and abetted by the money power of those Rothschild central banks, like
the FED, which is the biggest counterfeiting outfit on the planet. The only way to fix this sordid mess would be a repeat of what happened back in 1776. Either
that, or resign ourselves–and offspring–to a life of misery, poverty, endless
wars and terror .
The week leading up to the funeral of Senator John McCain produced some of the most bizarre
media effusions seen in this country since the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963.
McCain, who never saw a war or regime change that he didn't like, was apparently in reality a
friend of democracy and freedom worldwide, a judgment that somehow ignores the hundreds of
thousands of presumed foreign devils who have died as a consequence of the policies he
enthusiastically promoted in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya.
McCain, who supported assassination of US citizens abroad and detention of them by military
commissions back at home, was hardly the upright warrior for justice eulogized in much of the
mainstream media. He was in fact for most of his life a corrupt cheerleader for the
Establishment and Military Industrial Complex. McCain was one of five Senators who, in return
for campaign contributions, improperly intervened in 1987 on behalf of Charles Keating,
Chairman of the Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, a target of a regulatory investigation by
the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB). The FHLBB subsequently did not follow through with
proposed action against Lincoln.
Lincoln Savings and Loan finally did collapse in 1989, at a cost of $3.4 billion to the
federal government, which had insured the accounts, while an estimated 23,000 Lincoln
bondholders were defrauded, many losing their life savings. When the Keating story broke in
1989, the Phoenix New Times newspaper called McCain
the worst senator from any state in American history.
There was plenty of pushback on the McCain legacy coming from the alternative media, though
nothing in the mainstream where politicians and pundits from both the left and the right of the
political spectrum united in their songs of praise. Amidst all the eulogies one
article did, however, strike me as particularly bizarre. It was written by Jeffrey
Goldberg, Editor in Chief of The Atlantic , and is entitled " McCain would have
passed the Anne Frank test" with the sub-heading "The senator spent decades
demonstrating his willingness to fight powerful men who abused powerless people."
Goldberg, a leading neoconservative, casually reveals that he has had multiple discussions
with McCain, including some in "war zones" like Iraq. He quotes the Senator as saying "I hated
Saddam. He ruled through murder. Didn't we learn from Hitler that we can't let that happen?"
Goldberg notes that McCain's hatred "for all dictators burned hot" before hitting on a number
of other themes, including that, per the senator, it was Donald Rumsfeld's "arrogance and
incompetence that helped discredit the American invasion" of Iraq. Goldberg quotes McCain as
saying "He [Rumsfeld] was the worst."
Jeffrey Goldberg also claims a conversation with McCain in which he asserted that, even
though an Iraq war supporter, he had become frustrated with the effort to "renovate a despotic
Middle Eastern country." As he put it, "theory of the American case was no match for the
heartbreaking Middle East reality," which is yet another defense of U.S. interventionism with
the caveat that the Arabs might not be ready to make good use of the largesse.
Elsewhere Goldberg, echoing McCain, has attributed the disaster in Iraq to the
"incompetence of the Bush Administration," not to the policy of regime change itself,
presumably because the Pentagon was unsuccessful at killing enough Arabs quickly enough to suit
the neoconservatives. McCain's reported response to Goldberg's equivocation about Saddam
Hussein's Iraq was "But genocide! Genocide!"
... ... ...
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based
U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected] .
As a follow-up to my Aug 27th blog, I ask people to name McCain's most important
accomplishment during his long political career. They can think of none, but the TV tells
them McCain was great because he was a neocon. Senator Paul Laxalt saw more combat than
McCain and had an equally long and distinguished career. He was not a crazed neocon so our
media barely reported his death last month.
Here are two examples of McCain's bad character just this past year. McCain had always
opposed Obamacare and campaigned against it. The Republicans had tried to repeal it for
years. The election of President Trump also brought in more Republican congressmen. The House
easily repealed it, and the Senate finally had a majority to vote for a partial repeal. This
would be a big victory for the Republicans led by President Trump. When the vote was held,
McCain shocked everyone and voted against it, thus abandoning his principles and backstabbing
his party! This was applauded by the Democrats and the insurance companies who profit from
Obamacare. They praised McCain as a "maverick", although everyone knows this was done just to
thwart a Trump victory.
On his deathbed, McCain directed his staff not to invite his Presidential running mate
Sarah Palin to his funeral. She campaigned for him as a loyal teammate and never said a bad
word about McCain during the campaign or after their loss. McCain blamed her for his loss and
expressed this in a childish manner. Allow me to summarize his life. John McCain was as
selfish, spoiled brat who had no sense of decency.
As I have stated before it is with great sorrow that I note the passing of McCain. A more
just god would have prolonged the agony of cancer for may years to come so he could live in
misery, anguish, and pain, as penance for the lives he has destroyed here and abroad. I fear
that several such lifetimes in such suffering would be grossly inadequate recompense for what
he has wrought.
Small wonder that I have no belief in such an inordinately cruel and unjust god who allows
men like McCain to live and thrive and then vanish into the ether with his debts unpaid,
while the crew of USS Liberty live their lives in the knowledge of their betrayal by McCain's
father, and later McCain himself.
An orphaned child weeps in Iraq while America lauds this beast among men while he lived,
and sings his praises on his death. A curse on all his enablers.
This was a stirring editorial, Philip, and an much-needed rejection of John McCain's
artificial status as a 'great American'.
Indeed, the fact that such a murderous sycophant as McCain would receive extended,
bi-partisan honors by establishment 'liberals' and 'conservatives' alike, demonstrates what a
staged and loathsome cesspool of corruption has become Imperial Washington, not to mention
our vaunted Fourth Estate. I haven't felt this estranged from my own country since the last
time Bibi Netanyahu addressed both houses of Congress.
What on earth is the Anne Frank test ?
The Anne Frank story simply is of jews in hiding in the Netherlands in WWII, discovered in
1944, deported, where Anne Frank died in early 1945 died of typhoid, while others who stayed
in the same Amsterdam canal achterhuis, literally 'behind house', built later in the garden,
survived.
Before I continue, there is not a shred of doubt that the hiding place and the way they were
in hiding is not true.
However, if a fourteen year old wrote the diary, there are doubts.
Except for the text itself, how at the end of 1944 a ball point pen arrived in occupied
Netherlands, the last part is written by ballpoint, no explanation whatsoever.
Jews were in hiding all over the Netherlands, my mother told me how after the Canadians had
driven out the Germans, snow white people appeared in her small village, that she had known
nothing about, they had been inside for several, maybe five, years.
The effort to get food to them must not be underestimated, food was rationed strictly.
I will keep my fence. His policies regarding Carte Blanche' support for Israel, the invasion of
Iraq, Afghanistan, , interventions in Libya, Syria the Ukraine and pressing the matter on Iran
-- the Russia baiting and Russia conspiracies –
From reading these uppity remarks by Mr. Giraldi, it's obvious he didn't get the text
commanding all good Americans to get on their knees and worship the dead mass-murderer
psychopath McCain.
"He said that, in the post holocaust world, all civilized people, and the governments of
all civilized nations, should be intolerant of leaders who commit verified acts of genocide
"
"Verified?" John Boy using legalese to slither away from his participation in numerous acts
of genocide, both directly by dropping Napalm on Vietnamese civilians or as one of the US
Senate's most rabid war mongers, demanding that this nation or that country be bombed, invaded
and smashed, because McCain had set himself up as judge, jury and executioner? No facts needed,
verdict already in, GUILTY as usual, off with their heads.
If the ICC was actually functional and not just a tool of NATO, EU, Israel and its US
colony, McCain–along with a slew of other US and Israeli war criminals–would of
been dancing on air a long time ago.
I served among fighter jocks back in the 1970s. They're great guys, cut a good public
figure, they're patriotic, true believers in air power, and they enjoy the prestige of their
military occupation. They are also straight-line-only thinkers. They'd bristle at the idea that
they've been "handled" by anyone.
We had a retired Navy captain here who was elected county commissioner. Bristling with
energy and ideas, he had the security of his good government pension. So he thought. Bought by
a local zillionaire, he served prison time.
Fighter jocks simply won't "get" that the job of our political masters is to cripple and
puppetize nominally representative institutions by bribery, blackmail, extortion, and the like,
for the purpose of providing rhetorical cover for what they want to do.
You should and you should try to get others even more influential than yourself (I'm thinking
Pat Buchanan), to browbeat CBS to disclose that this Jeffrey Goldberg is an Israeli
citizen. He's on 'Face The Nation' almost as much as the lovely Margaret Brennan.
"That McCain enthusiastically became Goldberg's patsy is at least one good reason that we
should all be grateful that he never was elected president."
Yes, McCain did not appear to be particularly bright, but he was highly energized by the
"dueling banjos" of ambition and avarice (dumping his sick first wife for a younger, much
richer one), and hence a perfect mark for the wily Zionist manipulators.
"... he has seen "no proof" that Assad "ever used chemical weapons" and disparages the reputability of the White Helmets organization whose claims have been used to build support for US military actions in Syria. ..."
"... Wilkerson states: "My serious concern is about the way [US National Security Advisor John Bolton] and others in their positions of power now are orchestrating a scenario whereby Donald Trump, for political reasons or whatever, can use force in a significant way against Assad and ultimately Iran, because Iran's forces are there, and ultimately against Russia, because their forces are there in Syria, and this is most disquieting." ..."
Interviewed Tuesday by host Sharmini Peries at The Real News , Lawrence Wilkerson, a College of William &
Mary professor and former chief of staff for United States Secretary of State Colin Powell,
warned that "the neoconservative agenda" for an escalated United States war on Syria followed by
war on Iran has had a "resurrection" in President Donald Trump's administration.
Regarding talk
about the US taking military action in Syria in response to potential allegations of the use of
chemical weapons – false flag or otherwise – in the country, Wilkerson comments that
the war advocates are "looking for every excuse, any excuse, all excuses, to reopen US
operations, major U.S. operations, against [President Bashar al-Assad] in Syria, always realizing
that the ultimate target is Tehran." Tehran is the capital of Iran.
Addressing previous
allegations of chemical weapons use by the Syria government that were used to justify US military
actions in the country, Wilkerson, who is an Academic Board member for the Ron Paul Institute for
Peace and Prosperity, states that he has seen "no proof" that Assad "ever used chemical weapons"
and disparages the reputability of the White Helmets organization whose claims have been used to
build support for US military actions in Syria.
Wilkerson further warns that the neoconservative
agenda regarding war on Syria and Iran also threatens both conflict between the US and Russia and
the long-term bogging down of US military forces in major conflict.
Wilkerson states: "My serious
concern is about the way [US National Security Advisor John Bolton] and others in their positions
of power now are orchestrating a scenario whereby Donald Trump, for political reasons or
whatever, can use force in a significant way against Assad and ultimately Iran, because Iran's
forces are there, and ultimately against Russia, because their forces are there in Syria, and
this is most disquieting."
The neoconservatives' military plan, argues Wilkerson, is "a recipe
for" the US military being in the region for "the next generation" with significant force "mired
even deeper in this morass" and with the "day after day" attrition of dollars and lives.
While it is good to hear a voice in opposition to the warmongering among U.S. profiteers,
it is unfortunate Wilkerson is "unaware" of any documented uses of chemical weapons by the
Assad regime. The U.N. documentation can be found here. https://pulsemedia.org/2018...
But a just solution for the use of chemical weapons by one regime can't be implemented by
another regime which itself has so recently used them. https://www.washingtonpost....
It is inconceivable that Wilkerson would be unaware of the use of such weapons and the war
crimes committed by U.S. forces, especially on the tail end of Bolton's cowardly retreat from
the ICC. Wilkerson almost certainly knows; but if he doesn't know, that simple bit of
ignorance by a war "professional" underscores the fact that those who make war their business
are themselves the real threat the whole world over -- no matter their organization. We've
had far more than enough of their expertise and protection. Indeed, we would be immensely
better off without any of it. Wilkerson is no doubt trying to make amends for the crimes of his former boss, Colin Powell.
But, once again, shouldn't Powell himself be one of the main witnesses and defendants bearing
testimony before the ICC, and perhaps even Wilkerson himself?
Thanks, but no thanks. I, for one, have had far more than enough of all the protection and
expertise of all the heroes, experts and profiteers who claim to be protecting us. We would
all be better off if all of them would sit down, throw all their weapons and arms industries
away, accept a greatly reduced bank account, and quietly fade into the sunset.
Good piece well written & concise. The craziest aspect of stiring up the morass of
danger these shallow hawks are crafting is the vast danger to their own heartland that these
reckless actons could ignite. Are they in possession of some secret weapon which would bar America from effects of the
inevitable thermonuclear pushback????? The last reports I have seen don't show anything
better than 1 in 3 intercepts of of ICMS in the best of setup test circumstances. 66% of the
Russian answer would certainly end much of the good life we enjoy. The smouldering cities
would be an unbearable albatross of shame for longer than decades, more like centuries. All
those responsible would end up not much better than the worst of the victims still alive on
the losing side. They would find no safe quarter with the entire world as the
avengers!!!!!
Thanks George. Your points are excellent. It's almost as if well-reasoned points don't
matter anymore, and that's the most worrisome aspect of our modern political life in the U.S.
Our current president was the leading birther and many millions more are at least as
ignorant. Add to that the apocalyptic yearning for the end times by heretical Christians in
the USA and we have political dynamic as insane as anything ISIS dreamed up. The Prince of
Peace would climb down from His cross to turn Ted Cruz's congressional table over before
Raytheon could count the profits of the cruise missiles Ted would use to carpet bomb Mideast
civilians. But Ted - due to his selfless love of America - would certainly insist Jesus climb
back up on His cross just before casting the final vote for congressional approval to unleash
the bombs he would drop on Him. The Christian Taliban was a far greater threat than the one
in Afghanistan. It wasn't clear to many when Jesus was whispering in W's ear, but it should
be clear after the consequences of our wars.
You're too partisan. Plenty of Christians are against these stupid wars. The "Christian
Zionists" are heretics. They believe things that simply are not Christian, ergo not really
Christians.
It's just a new cult, as Wicca is a cult, as many crazed ideologues are cult-like,
especially those seeking secular paradise by following secular prophets like Marx.
What's the basis for saying I'm too partisan? I did not say plenty of Christians are not
against these wars. I realize the vast majority of the world's Christians do oppose U.S.
wars. In fact, I am a Christian myself. But I do live in the USA and heretical Christian
ideologues on the Right have been calling the shots. This has increasingly been the case ever
since Falwell and Robertson supported the Guatemalan genocide in the 80s. Right-wing
Christian heresy in the USA is a real genocidal threat.
I appreciate that you see them as heretics also. Too many Americans, including "smart"
Americans, are pulled along by media orgs, not thinking for themselves, and the Christian
Zionists really help in providing a dedicated pressure group, directing sentiment. I pray I
can help counter them; I'm quite motivated myself.
Dems also like the warring and meddling though. It's just a different group. GOP was
fairly critical of Serbian War under Clinton. Then the US was nuked in 2000 with the election
of Dubya.
You are wrong. There was no proof of any chemical attacks. In fact Sy Hersh reported on
that event. Your own link shows a so called "white helmet" in staged action. lol. That report
has no credibility.
Pervasive racketeering rules because we allow it to, especially in education and medicine. Both are self-destructing under the
weight of their own money-grubbing schemes.
Notable quotes:
"... Because of the loans' disgracefully high interest rates, my family and I have paid more or less the equivalent of my debt itself in the years since I graduated, making monthly payments in good faith -- even in times of unemployment and extreme duress -- to lenders like Citigroup, a bank that was among the largest recipients of federal bailout money in 2008 and that eventually sold off my debt to other lenders. This ruinous struggle has been essentially meaningless: I now owe more than what I started out owing, not unlike my parents with their mortgage . ..."
"... By Daniela Senderowicz. Originally published in Yes! Magazine ..."
"... Activists are building meaningful connections among borrowers to counter the taboo of admitting they can't pay their bills. ..."
"... Gamblers and reality TV stars can claim bankruptcy protections when in financial trouble, but 44 million student loan borrowers can't. Unemployed, underpaid, destitute, sick, or struggling borrowers simply aren't able to start anew. ..."
"... With a default rate approaching 40 percent , one would expect armies of distressed borrowers marching in the streets demanding relief from a system that has singled out their financial anguish. Distressed student debtors, however, seem to be terror-struck about coming forward to a society that, they say, ostracizes them for their inability to keep up with their finances. ..."
"... When we spoke to several student borrowers, almost none were willing to share their names. "I can't tell anyone how much I'm struggling," says a 39-year-old Oregon physician who went into student loan default after his wife's illness drained their finances. He is terrified of losing his patients and reputation if he speaks out about his financial problems. ..."
"... Debtors are isolated, anxious, and in the worst cases have taken their own lives . Simone confirms that she has "worked with debtors who were suicidal or had psychological breakdowns requiring psychiatric hospitalization." ..."
"... "Alienation impacts mental health issues," says New York mental health counselor Harriet Fraad. "As long as they blame themselves within the system, they're lost." ..."
"... A recent manifesto by activist and recent graduate Eli Campbell calls for radical unity among borrowers. "Young people live in constant fear that they'll never be able to pay off their debt. We're not buying houses or able to afford the hallmarks of the American dream," he explains. ..."
"... Do a little research on car selling and you will see the pressures on the dealer sales force to suck the vast majority of buyers into long term debt. Car loans are now five or six years, routinely. ..."
Yves
here. This article describes how the stigma of struggling to pay student debt is a burden in
and of itself. I wish this article had explained how little it take to trigger an escalation
into default interest rates and how punitive they are. The piece also stresses the value of
activism as a form of psychological relief, by connecting stressed student debt borrowers with
people similarly afflicted.
But the bigger issue is the way indebtedness is demonized in a society that makes it pretty
much impossible to avoid borrowing. One reader recounted how many (as in how few) weeks of
after tax wages it took to buy a car in the 1960s versus now. Dealers don't want to talk to
buyers who want to pay in full at the time of purchase. And if you don't have installment
credit or a mortgage, the consumer credit agencies ding you!
It goes without saying that the sense of shame is harder to endure due to how shallow most
people's social networks are, which is another product of neoliberalism.
In keeping, the New York Times today ran an op-ed by one of its editors on how student
debtors are also victims of the crisis, reprinted from a longer piece in The Baffler (hat tip Dan
K).
Key sections :
Because of the loans' disgracefully high interest rates, my family and I have paid
more or less the equivalent of my debt itself in the years since I graduated, making monthly
payments in good faith -- even in times of unemployment and extreme duress -- to lenders like
Citigroup, a bank that was among the largest recipients of federal bailout money in 2008 and
that eventually sold off my debt to other lenders. This ruinous struggle has been essentially
meaningless: I now owe more than what I started out owing, not unlike my parents with their
mortgage .
Many people have and will continue to condemn me personally for my tremendous but
unexceptional student debt, and the ways in which it has made the recession's effects linger
for my family. I've spent quite a lot of time in the past decade accepting this blame. The
recession may have compounded my family's economic insecurity, but I also made the conscious
decision to take out loans for a college I couldn't afford in order to become a journalist, a
profession with minimal financial returns. The amount of debt I owe in student loans -- about
$100,000 -- is more than I make in a given year. I am ashamed and embarrassed by this, but as
I grow older, I think it is time that those profiting from this country's broken economic
system share some of my guilt
[At my commencement in 2009] Mrs. Clinton then echoed a fantasy of boundless opportunity
that had helped guide the country into economic collapse, deceiving many of the parents in
attendance, including my own, into borrowing toward a future that they couldn't work hard
enough to afford. "There is no problem we face here in America or around the world that will
not yield to human effort," she said. "Our challenges are ones that summon the best of us,
and we will make the world better tomorrow than it is today." At the time, I wondered if this
was accurate. I now know how wrong she was.
By Daniela Senderowicz. Originally published in
Yes! Magazine
Activists are building meaningful connections among borrowers to counter the taboo of
admitting they can't pay their bills.
Gamblers and reality TV stars can claim bankruptcy protections when in financial
trouble, but 44 million student loan borrowers can't. Unemployed, underpaid, destitute, sick,
or struggling borrowers simply aren't able to start anew.
With a default rate approaching
40 percent , one would expect armies of distressed borrowers marching in the streets
demanding relief from a system that has singled out their financial anguish. Distressed student
debtors, however, seem to be terror-struck about coming forward to a society that, they say,
ostracizes them for their inability to keep up with their finances.
When we spoke to several student borrowers, almost none were willing to share their
names. "I can't tell anyone how much I'm struggling," says a 39-year-old Oregon physician who
went into student loan default after his wife's illness drained their finances. He is terrified
of losing his patients and reputation if he speaks out about his financial problems.
"If I shared this with anyone they will look down upon me as some kind of fool," explains a
North Carolina psychologist who is now beyond retirement age. He explains that his student debt
balance soared after losing a well-paying position during the financial crisis, and that he is
struggling to pay it back.
Financial shame alienates struggling borrowers. Debtors blame themselves and self-loathe
when they can't make their payments, explains Colette Simone, a Michigan psychologist. "There
is so much fear of sharing the reality of their financial situation and the devastation it is
causing in every facet of their lives," she says. "The consequences of coming forward can
result in social pushback and possible job -- related complications, which only deepen their
suffering."
Debtors are isolated, anxious, and in the worst cases have taken
their own lives . Simone confirms that she has "worked with debtors who were suicidal or
had psychological breakdowns requiring psychiatric hospitalization."
With an average debt of just over $37,000 per borrower for the
class of 2016 , and given that incomes have been flat since the 1970s , it's not
surprising that borrowers are struggling to pay. Student loans have a squeaky-clean reputation,
and society tends to view them as a noble symbol of the taxpayers' generosity to the working
poor. Fear of facing society's ostracism for failure to pay them back has left borrowers
alienated and trapped in a lending system that is engulfing them in debt bondage.
"Alienation impacts mental health issues," says New York mental health counselor Harriet
Fraad. "As long as they blame themselves within the system, they're lost."
Student debtors can counter despair by fighting back through activism and political
engagement, she says. "Connection is the antidote to alienation, and engaging in activism,
along with therapy, is a way to recovery."
Despite the fear of coming forward, some activists are building a social movement in which
meaningful connections among borrowers can counter the taboo of openly admitting financial
ruin.
Student Loan Justice, a national grassroots lobby group, is attempting to build this
movement by pushing for robust legislation to return
bankruptcy protections to borrowers. The group has active chapters in almost every state, with
members directly lobbying their local representatives to sign on as co-sponsors to HR 2366.
Activists are building a supportive community for struggling borrowers through political
agitation, local engagement, storytelling, and by spreading a courageous message of hope that
may embolden traumatized borrowers to come forward and unite.
Julie Margetaa Morgan
, a fellow at The Roosevelt Institute, recently noted that student debt servicers like Navient
have a powerful influence on lawmakers. "Student loan borrowers may not have millions to spend
on lobbying, but they have something equally, if not more, powerful: millions of voices," she
says.
A recent manifesto by activist
and recent graduate Eli Campbell calls for radical unity among borrowers. "Young people live in
constant fear that they'll never be able to pay off their debt. We're not buying houses or able
to afford the hallmarks of the American dream," he explains.
In his call for a unified national boycott of student loan payments, inevitably leading to a
mass default on this debt, Campbell hopes to expose this crisis and instigate radical change.
In a recent interview he
explained that the conditions for borrowers are so bad already that debtors may not join the
boycott willingly. Instead, participation may simply happen by default given the lack of proper
work opportunities that lead to borrowers' inability to pay.
While a large-scale default may not happen through willful and supportive collective action,
ending the secrecy of the crisis through massive national attention may destigmatize the shame
of financial defeat and finally bring debtors out of the isolation that causes them so much
despair.
Activists are calling for a significant conversation about the commodification of educating
our youth, shifting our focus toward investing into the promise of the young and able, rather
than the guarantee of their perpetual debt bondage. In calling for collective action they
soothe the hurt of so many alienated debtors, breaking the taboos that allow them to say, "Me,
too" and admit openly that in this financial climate we all need each other to move
forward.
How much are the interest rates on student loans there in the USA? Here in India its 11.5%
if you want to finance studies abroad. 8.5 for some select institutions.
I wonder if the media's obsession with "millenials" isn't primarily a way to try to divide
people with shared interests, above all around the topics of student debt and the job market
and to make the problems seem like they have shallower roots than they really do. The
individuals mentioned here are older than that 24-37 age cohort, one of them much older.
Dealers don't want to talk to buyers who want to pay in full at the time of
purchase.
Yes Yes. Car manufacturers are actually finance houses selling products manufactured by
subcontractors – such is the state of American industry – but their dream is to
move to a SaaS model where ownership, of anything, becomes a relic of the past (except for
the overlords and oligarchs).
This could not be possible without government corruption and revolving-door regulation.
Maybe these PAYG vehicles will contain built-in body scanners too; for our own security, of
course.
In his call for a unified national boycott of student loan payments, inevitably leading
to a mass default on this debt, Campbell hopes to expose this crisis and instigate radical
change.
Default, or radical change, would bring the economy to it's knees. But when there is
another economic downturn, this is going to happen anyway. Terrible situation; negative real
interest rates destroying the pensions of the elderly, student loan servitude destroying the
youth and the middle class being squeezed to oblivion. What can be done to fix it, I ask?
Yet they are doing God's work, are they? Well, this is not a God I choose to worship.
Well good for you. How many cars, of what age, have you bought, for your anecdote to rate
as anything vaguely resembling the wide reality, and how does your personal financial
situation let you just write checks for $30 or $70,000?
Do a little research on car selling and you will see the pressures on the dealer sales
force to suck the vast majority of buyers into long term debt. Car loans are now five or six
years, routinely.
And one wonders what the investment is in trying to impeach the points of this report, wth
such an unlikely and atypical claim.
Maybe a little traction, then, for the notion, and increasingly the inescapable reality, of
#juststoppaying on those "remember Joe Biden" virtually non-dischargeable, often fraudulently
induced, "student loan" debt shackles?
"... Another example is the Danish newspaper "Information" founded during WWII, as very leftist it has today morphed, in the dark, into a center right neo- liberal rag, full of no- news and idiotic scribbles by irrelevant formerly known peoples talent-less sons and daughters. ..."
"... Wel thanks b, for telling the truth and letting me start my Sunday moderately depressed, I guess news that Washington D.C had been swallowed by a giant sink-hole, would cheer me partly up. ..."
Den Lille Abe , Sep 16, 2018 12:47:49 AM |
49 ">link
Thank you b, for yet another good article!
Your article made me reflect the situation in general. While it is good the The White
Frauds have been called out as an Empire front and as Western propaganda psy-op, I do thing
the real Enemy is the MSM. These crimes by our governments, the White Frauds, Isil, ect,ect,
would not be possible without the control of the MSM. But I am completely at a loss how to
fight them, or just diminish their influence.
The Guardian s a blatant example, and its turnaround from "reasonable reliable" to "paid
shill" was clumsily and obviously executed. Looking at the UK for real news , there is only
the blogoshere left, all opposition has been subverted. And it is not only in the UK.
Another example is the Danish newspaper "Information" founded during WWII, as very
leftist it has today morphed, in the dark, into a center right neo- liberal rag, full of no-
news and idiotic scribbles by irrelevant formerly known peoples talent-less sons and
daughters.
The situation in Sweden is even more depressing (it is!) the newspapers here are on level
with the Sun and the Daily Heil.
Wel thanks b, for telling the truth and letting me start my Sunday moderately
depressed, I guess news that Washington D.C had been swallowed by a giant sink-hole, would
cheer me partly up.
... "What we have is a desperate corporate media, dutifully parroting the nonsense from the US State Department, and investing
virtually nothing in on-the-ground investigative reporting. But real evidence? We are in very, VERY short supply of that."
... From article: He [Clegg] also argued that the country should lose the right to host the 2018 World Cup after Russian
troops allegedly downed the civilian airliner Flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine last July. Well, there's evidence in itself. Ei incumbit
probatio qui dicit, non qui negat. (The burden of proof is on he who declares, not on he who denies). He wants to punish before the
publication o the report. It's like a mediaeval witch-hunt. The law of the jungle seems to be Clegg's guiding principle. No surprise
he's been banned.
..."I can only assume it is as badge of honour if you buy into all the dimwitted propaganda being published by the western corporate
media -- who seem to have a daily axe to grind against the Russian state, but who say nothing about the warmongering actions of the
US. I imagine I would have the same opinion of you if I was to uncritically swallow such toxic rubbish."
..."The only way to effectively block people from other regions (blanket censor them, in other words) would be to positively identify
the source. All that you would likely achieve is blocking actual individual commentators and letting through the government astroturfers.
Why you would want to resort to such tactics is worth asking. The 'Western side' may be losing the propaganda war with Russia because
our lies are bigger and harder to sell -- rather than Pooty-poot being cleverer. Repeated debunked claims in our media are also going
to be far more damaging than anything similar in Russia. The problem doesn't lie with those you are asserting to be 'trolls' that are
disputing the reporting -- the problem lies with the reporting.
Notable quotes:
"... But it's very suspect when you say things like "Putin's created a criminal war in East Ukraine" when it was Kiev which started the violence in reaction to the Russian Ukrainians voting for Federalization in response to the coup in Kiev. It means that everything else you write has to be treated as suspect. ..."
"... alpamysh ... you've merely regurgitated the standard NeoCon list of justifications for why a democratically-elected leader needed to be overthrown ..."
"... The article isn't worth the headline really. The new cold war is on and obviously they'll be barring each other. ..."
"... On the other hand the EU has also put an entry ban on leading Russian politicians, among which are the chairman of the Federation council, politicians from the state Duma and also close advisors to the Russian president Vladimir Putin. It is not anticipated that either side will lift the entry bans in the near future. (Excerpt and rough translation from German) ..."
"... "In December, Nuland reminded Ukrainian business leaders that, to help Ukraine achieve "its European aspirations, we have invested more than $5 billion." She said the U.S. goal was to take "Ukraine into the future that it deserves," by which she meant into the West's orbit and away from Russia's. ..."
"... But President Yanukovych rejected a European Union plan that would have imposed harsh austerity on the already impoverished Ukraine. He accepted a more generous $15 billion loan from Russia, which also has propped up Ukraine's economy with discounted natural gas. Yanukovych's decision sparked anti-Russian street protests in Kiev, located in the country's western and more pro-European region. ..."
"... By late January, Nuland was discussing with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt who should be allowed in the new government. ..."
"... "Yats is the guy," Nuland said in a phone call to Pyatt that was intercepted and posted online. "He's got the economic experience, the governing experience. He's the guy you know." By "Yats," Nuland was referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who had served as head of the central bank, foreign minister and economic minister - and who was committed to harsh austerity. ..."
"... Well, there's evidence in itself. Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat. (The burden of proof is on he who declares, not on he who denies). He wants to punish before the publication o the report. It's like a mediaeval witch-hunt. The law of the jungle seems to be Clegg's guiding principle. No surprise he's been banned. ..."
"... "Putin wants sanctions" ... what a bunch of silly conjecture. As for "Putin style rule" and "Tzar" .. you presumably know that Russia held democratic elections which Putin won. ..."
"... let me guess, The list probably contains politicians whose real loyalty maybe is with the US? Judge from the 2 names mentioned, Malcolm Riffkind is Co-Vice Chair of the Global Panel Foundation – America – with Dr. Dov S. Zakheim, the former U.S Under-Secretary of Defense and Comptroller of the Armed Forces. ..."
"... your constant anti-Russia/Putin comments mark you as a shill/troll ..."
"... What we have is a desperate corporate media, dutifully parroting the nonsense from the US State Department, and investing virtually nothing in on-the-ground investigative reporting. But real evidence? We are in very, VERY short supply of that. ..."
"... I can only assume it is as badge of honour if you buy into all the dimwitted propaganda being published by the western corporate media - ..."
"... We're the global overlords, and so second-rate nations aren't allowed to reciprocate our petulant actions. When they do so it causes some people to question the assumed status of the 'Western' hegemony (and our claimed system of morally superior 'values'). We can't allow that sort of thing, Popeyes. ..."
"... The Guardian has a clear pro-EU/USA position on the new cold war against Russia. ..."
"... The 'Western side' may be losing the propaganda war with Russia because our lies are bigger and harder to sell -- rather than Pooty-poot being cleverer. ..."
"... The problem doesn't lie with those you are asserting to be 'trolls' that are disputing the reporting -- the problem lies with the reporting. ..."
JordanFromLondon -> Havingalavrov 31 May 2015 12:26
"Look at the Moscow apartment bombings"... look at any number of CIA false flag operations. As for "most of the national T.V
is Putin press." ... Murdoch has a controlling interest in printed press and a large share of TV news in Australia and the UK.
Maybe you are one of the CIA-employed agitators against Russia, or maybe you have a chip on your shoulder about a failed relationship
with a Russia bride. I can't be sure from your comments.
But it's very suspect when you say things like "Putin's created a criminal war in East Ukraine" when it was Kiev which
started the violence in reaction to the Russian Ukrainians voting for Federalization in response to the coup in Kiev. It means
that everything else you write has to be treated as suspect.
Huo Fu Yan 31 May 2015 12:24
I don't see a big issue with that list. If some people from that list travel anywhere, it will be considered wasting tax payer
money anyways. They aren't even embraced by a majority in their own countries, some of them belonging to totally irrelevant weird
initiative, shouting and crying about this and that.
For others on that list, being linked to military organisations, the should be banned naturally. As for vacation, I don't think
Russia was on those guys list either
JordanFromLondon -> alpamysh 31 May 2015 12:14
alpamysh ... you've merely regurgitated the standard NeoCon list of justifications for why a democratically-elected leader
needed to be overthrown(e.g. Egypt's Morsi). If we take your "Hitler was elected" argument, we can apply that one
to any election outcome. If you won your high school "class monitor" election ... we'll Hitler won an election too. It's nothing
more than a lazy smear by association. If we take your "rigs the right of the opposition" argument, well there goes Israel's claims
to democracy. They arrest/ban viable Arab opposition figures to prevent them standing in elections. Also, we have to eliminate
Ukraine, who have assassinated about 12 of Yanukovich's inner circle since the coup.
uzzername 31 May 2015 12:09
The article isn't worth the headline really. The new cold war is on and obviously they'll be barring each other.
Russia, along with the rest of BRICS is an emerging economy. While in the developed economies big corporations scramble for
every penny they rip off off the consumers, the BRICS are a goldmine for adventurous capitalists as you can score quite a bit
of dope in one scoop if you invest enough in it.
That's why some of them suits on the list are pissed off. Obvs not because their summer holiday in Siberia has gone into smithereens.
umweltAT2100 31 May 2015 12:04
According to a report in ARD (German state media) the entry ban is a reaction / retaliation in response to the entry ban imposed
on Russians in connection with the Crimea annexation. Approximately 200 people are on the Russian black list. The largest number
are from the USA, with the Republican John McCain declared "persona non grata", followed by Canadian politicians.
On the other hand the EU has also put an entry ban on leading Russian politicians, among which are the chairman of the
Federation council, politicians from the state Duma and also close advisors to the Russian president Vladimir Putin. It is not
anticipated that either side will lift the entry bans in the near future. (Excerpt and rough translation from German)
Russian entry ban for dozens of politicians – Moscow's black list is out. (Hermann Krause, ARD Radio studio, Moscow,
30.05.2015)
Russische Einreiseverbote für Dutzende Politiker Moskaus "schwarze Liste" ist raus. Von Hermann Krause, ARD-Hörfunkstudio Moskau,
30.05.2015
Victoria Nuland and the neocons to be more precise,
"In December, Nuland reminded Ukrainian business leaders that, to help Ukraine achieve "its European aspirations, we have
invested more than $5 billion." She said the U.S. goal was to take "Ukraine into the future that it deserves," by which she meant
into the West's orbit and away from Russia's.
But President Yanukovych rejected a European Union plan that would have imposed harsh austerity on the already impoverished
Ukraine. He accepted a more generous $15 billion loan from Russia, which also has propped up Ukraine's economy with discounted
natural gas. Yanukovych's decision sparked anti-Russian street protests in Kiev, located in the country's western and more pro-European
region.
Nuland was soon at work planning for "regime change," encouraging disruptive street protests by personally passing out cookies
to the anti-government demonstrators. She didn't seem to notice or mind that the protesters in Kiev's Maidan square had hoisted
a large banner honoring Stepan Bandera, a Ukrainian nationalist who collaborated with the German Nazis during World War II and
whose militias participated in atrocities against Jews and Poles.
By late January, Nuland was discussing with U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt who should be allowed in the new
government.
"Yats is the guy," Nuland said in a phone call to Pyatt that was intercepted and posted online. "He's got the economic
experience, the governing experience. He's the guy you know." By "Yats," Nuland was referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk, who had served
as head of the central bank, foreign minister and economic minister - and who was committed to harsh austerity.
As Assistant Secretary Nuland and Sen. McCain cheered the demonstrators on, the street protests turned violent. Police clashed
with neo-Nazi bands, the ideological descendants of Bandera's anti-Russian Ukrainians who collaborated with the Nazi SS during
World War II.
With the crisis escalating and scores of people killed in the street fighting, Yanukovych agreed to a E.U.-brokered deal that
called for moving up scheduled elections and having the police stand down. The neo-Nazi storm troopers then seized the opening
to occupy government buildings and force Yanukovych and many of his aides to flee for their lives." https://consortiumnews.com/2014/03/02/what-neocons-want-from-ukraine-crisis/
JordanFromLondon -> alpamysh 31 May 2015 11:53
What proof do you have that the Russian elections were phony ? The results were in line with independent opinion polls. Which
referendums was phony ? The first Iraqi election after Sadam was toppled was certainly phony. The US military whisked away the
ballot boxes for a week after voting was completed before announcing that the Shia (60% of Iraqis) had failed to get a majority
(despite the 20% Bathist Sunni boycotting the election so only the 20% Kurds voted against the 60% Shia).
geedeesee -> SnarkyGrumpkin 31 May 2015 11:50
From article: He [Clegg] also argued that the country should lose the right to host the 2018 World Cup after Russian troops
allegedly downed the civilian airliner Flight MH17 in eastern Ukraine last July.
Well, there's evidence in itself. Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat. (The burden of proof is on he who declares,
not on he who denies). He wants to punish before the publication o the report. It's like a mediaeval witch-hunt. The law of the
jungle seems to be Clegg's guiding principle. No surprise he's been banned.
JordanFromLondon -> Havingalavrov 31 May 2015 11:45
"Putin wants sanctions" ... what a bunch of silly conjecture. As for "Putin style rule" and "Tzar" .. you presumably know
that Russia held democratic elections which Putin won. That's more than many of the US/UK allies can say (take your pick
of the Gulf state leaders). Don't buy into the mindless anti-Russian propaganda doing the rounds. I suspect that it's intended
to soften public opnion for anti-Russian attrocities committed in our name to come.
Huo Fu Yan -> David Port 31 May 2015 11:36
It's true, 1/3 the list are politicians and military leader from Poland and baltics with no intend to enter Russia anyways.
The rest are merely people engaged in military organisations (should be banned naturally) or weird political groups and initiatives.
Furthermore, there are a few irrelevant politicians on the list for whatever reason. To be frank, a few people from that list
you wouldt want in your own country either.
meewaan 31 May 2015 11:07
let me guess, The list probably contains politicians whose real loyalty maybe is with the US? Judge from the 2 names mentioned,
Malcolm Riffkind is Co-Vice Chair of the Global Panel Foundation – America – with Dr. Dov S. Zakheim, the former U.S Under-Secretary
of Defense and Comptroller of the Armed Forces.
Not sure about banning Nick Clegg, - has his wife remunerated by her work for companies linked to the US? Take, for example,
Mrs Clegg's firm's advertisement (again, on its website) of the fact it makes considerable sums from helping rich people avoid
inheritance tax, saying that it offers 'personal estate planning advice and financial and tax-planning services to high net worth
individuals'.
'We combine sophisticated estate planning skills with international resources . . . We help U.S. and non-U.S. trustees and
beneficiaries transfer wealth efficiently through lifetime and testamentary trusts designed to minimise tax exposure.'
SuchindranathAiyer 31 May 2015 10:35
It required a "Tit for Tat" to establish that sanctions are working? Here is the geo-political back drop:
Reigan and Gorby arrived at certain agreements and understandings which Clinton (the husband) violated. He pulled Poland and
others into NATO and bombed Russian ally Belgrade, violating international law, while a helpless Russia fumed, for 84 days to
given Islam its first ethnically cleansed enclaves (Bosnia and Kosovo) after 1489.
Bush (the son), declared the "Star Wars" missile shield in direct violation of the Regan-Gorbachev agreements while Russia
continued to fume, but began to re arm and prepare itself for war. Apart from, of course, violating International Law and invading
Russian ally Iraq to distract anger over 9/11 from Saudi Arabia and its Nuclear-Terrorist sword arm Pakistan and threw thriving
communities of Jews, Christians, Yazidis, discos and bars that the Saudis, Qataris and Kuwaitis resented into the maws of Islam.
Russia fumed and continued to rearm and began to rally around Putin's nationalism. The US commenced "regime change" operations
in Russian (and Iraqi) Secular ally Syria, throwing even more Jews, Christians, Yazidis and Kurds into the maws of Islam. US was
to weakened by Iraq to wage war unilaterally in Syria. China and Russia blocked the US at the UN. Putin wrote an open letter to
Obama on Syria in the NY Times which gained traction with the American Citizens, bending Obama's nose and driving the US regime
change operation in Syria further under ground (covert). Prince Bandar (what an appropriate name!) head of Saudi intelligence
went ot Moscow to bribe Putin to back the putsch in Syria. Putin refused and told Bandar that if Islam tried a Beslan at Sochi,
he would bomb the Q'aba. This bent the Saudi nose. So the US commenced operation regime change in Ukraine. This sparked the secession
of Crime to Russia. The US fumed and fretted because its more develoed and intelligent NATO allies (France and Germany) would
not back the US backed fascist regime in Ukraine. The US shot down MH-17 in a false flag operation and started a canard against
Russia to revive NATO. There is a NATO now imposing US-Saudi conceived sanctions on Russia. We are now in the Second Cold War
so NATO won't go away. Russia and China will ally because, Clinton to Obama, the US has demonstrated the dangers of a unipolar
world, particularly as Islamic Petro Dollars own the decision and opinion makers of the West and have used the US military to
further the Islamic agenda as much as carry on with the old anti-Communist prejudices. (While Russia is not Totalitarian, China
is. India is really the last Soviet franchise in the World with its "Animal Farm" totalitarian Constitution and thinking which
is why the US is an ally of Pakistan and as hostile to India as to Russia. Consider that as recently as 2012, the man who lolls
in Lutyen's drawing room today moved "retrospective" legislation in the same Parliament that nationalized 20% of private (non
minority) education and removed the truth from Govt approved History text books, in the highest traditions of Nehru, Ambedkar
and Indira Gandhi.)
wilpost37 -> AbsolutelyFapulous 31 May 2015 10:33
Absolutely/Goman
Almost all the tourists of Crimea were Ukrainians before 2014. They stopped coming, and likely are spending their vacation
elsewhere.
Crimea is rebuilding its infrastructures (Kiev had neglected them for 22 years), and its tourist base.
It expects to have over 4 million visitors in 2015 and 5 million in 2016, because many Russians are no longer going to EU countries,
and are going to Crimea, Sochi, etc., instead. It will take time, but Crimea is a beautiful area.
Crimea became part of the Russian Empire by conquest over the Tartars in 1793.
The Tartars had been kidnapping nearby people (several million over many decades) and selling them to the Turks. Catherine
the Great put an end to that.
Khrushev was stupid to give it to Ukraine in 1954.
After the CIA/FBI-assisted coup of Kiev, the Crimean people, 67% Russian, feared for their future, as did the Donbas people.
SHappens 31 May 2015 10:24
"Just one thing remains unclear: did our European co-workers want these lists to minimise inconveniences for potential 'denied
persons' or to stage a political show?"
It is pretty clear that it turned out to be another media circus.
Socraticus -> alpamysh 31 May 2015 10:12
Lesson 1 - everyone on this site is a guest, you included
Lesson 2 - the majority of posters herein are actually westerners, not 'Russian trolls'
Lesson 3 - all politicians lie to advance their own social/economic/political agendas
Lesson 4 - all MSM distort/suppress the truth to support governmental narratives
Lesson 5 - many of us westerners actually bother to investigate the true facts
Lesson 6 - if a leader's being demonized its because they won't capitulate to the US
Lesson 7 - every illicit invasion is preceded by demonization of a leader/country
Lesson 8 - your constant anti-Russia/Putin comments mark you as a shill/troll
Lesson 9 - you can educate yourself or remain blind to facts - your choice
Lesson 10 - you will learn the consequences of your choices
UnsleepingMind -> EssoBlue 31 May 2015 10:12
You realise that Russia is one the most important members of the BRICS and that they group has recently established a development
bank? That's hardly the sign that the other BRICS nations are not reading from the same hymn sheet as Russia...
What did anyone expect flowers from russia from the unfair treatment it's getting. The west paying for Ukraine part nazi government
and creating a coup in a democratically ekected president last february. Then sanctioning the Russian people expecting them to
turn in yheir president. The west should be ashamed of what they accomplished that being fronting a proxy war against Russia.
Vijay Raghavan -> Huo Fu Yan 31 May 2015 09:54
Developing all-round military-to-military relations. China's armed forces will further their exchanges and cooperation with
the Russian military within the framework of the comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination between China and Russia,
and foster a comprehensive, diverse and sustainable framework to promote military relations in more fields and at more levels
They made that statement in their white paper issued last week.Offcourse Guardian or BBC will not keep up with such "Breaking
News".
UnsleepingMind -> EssoBlue 31 May 2015 09:49
1) Yes, the BRICS countries are very much behind Russia.
2) Russia, unlike the US, has tabled a resolution to condemn Nazism and Nazi movements in the highest forum possible (the UN).
The US, along with Canada, and its puppet government in Ukraine, voted against it (in defiance of most of the world's nations).
You would think, with all the technology at the disposal of the US security state, that it might (just might) be able to provide
us with real, irrefutable evidence of a ground invasion. You know, perhaps some high resolution satellite imagery, the odd photo
of a modern Russian tank moving over the Ukrainian border, some chatter from the wires between embassy officials and security
personnel, etc., etc.
But of course we have nothing of the sort. What we have is a desperate corporate media, dutifully parroting the nonsense
from the US State Department, and investing virtually nothing in on-the-ground investigative reporting. But real evidence? We
are in very, VERY short supply of that.
UnsleepingMind -> ponott 31 May 2015 09:34
I can only assume it is as badge of honour if you buy into all the dimwitted propaganda being published by the western
corporate media -- who seem to have a daily axe to grind against the Russian state, but who say nothing about the warmongering
actions of the US. I imagine I would have the same opinion of you if I was to uncritically swallow such toxic rubbish.
UnsleepingMind -> alpamysh 31 May 2015 09:30
'Because we have the right to ban people who invade other countries'.
That's why we've recently arrested George Bush (who, with the help of Tony Blair invaded Iraq and Afghanistan), Barack Obama
(who bombed Libya, engineered coups in Honduras and Ukraine, and is now funding Islamic extremists in Syria)...
We reserve the right to ban, but we use that 'right' to ban official enemies (i.e. anyone daring to follow a geopolitical game
plan that is distinctly at odds with our own).
Also, your suggestion that Putin's Russia has invaded 'other countries' is preposterous. The western media has been spewing
this nonsense for months now and yet there is not a shred of real evidence (including hi-res satellite imagery) to back it up.
And if you are referring to Crimea, let me say this: Russia troops have been staged in Crimea for many, many years; moreover,
the people of Crimea voted to break with Ukraine in a recent referendum (not that that squares with your hectoring rhetoric).
PyrrhicVictory 31 May 2015 09:27
The doors of the gravy train for politicians like Clegg are fast closing. When we exit the EU, then the Brussels gravy train
will also be beyond him. He might, just might, having to start behaving like an honest politician for once and earn a decent wage
based on truth not lies.
johnsmith44 -> NegativeCamber 31 May 2015 09:25
Why dont you go spread democracy to some oil-producing Third World country, together with your poodles the brits? And make
sure you do it properly, so that monstrosities like ISIS are guaranteed?
ex-CIA personnel openly describing their involvement in the dowining of Korean Airlines passenger flight 007 over Siberia on
August 30, 1983 and I believe it becomes apparent who downed MH-17.
Jerome Fryer -> Popeyes 31 May 2015 09:11
We're the global overlords, and so second-rate nations aren't allowed to reciprocate our petulant actions. When they do
so it causes some people to question the assumed status of the 'Western' hegemony (and our claimed system of morally superior
'values'). We can't allow that sort of thing, Popeyes.
davidncldl 31 May 2015 09:10
The Guardian has a clear pro-EU/USA position on the new cold war against Russia. Mr Putin is their democratically
elected leader and he is enormously popular. Only an imbecile would be surprised or indignant about Russia retaliating for unjust
EU/US sanctions. What do the globalisers and bankers' friends at the Guardian expect? I imagine you think that the ruination of
the Venezuelan and Russian economies by the manipulation of the oil price is just "free market" activity.
Hass Castorp 31 May 2015 09:07
"More than 6,200 people have been killed in fighting between Ukrainian government forces and pro-Russian separatists."
This is a language of propaganda, Guardian. Last i checked Guardian advertised to be a newspaper, not a bulletin of The Ministry
of Truth.
My reformulation; "More than 6200 (in some estimates up to 50.000) have been killed and up to 1 million civilians displaced
(who mostly fled to Russia) by Ukrainian government troops and private terrorist kommandos of Ukrainian oligarchs."
Jerome Fryer -> henry919 31 May 2015 09:03
The only way to effectively block people from other regions (blanket censor them, in other words) would be to positively identify
the source. All that you would likely achieve is blocking actual individual commentators and letting through the government astroturfers.
Why you would want to resort to such tactics is worth asking. The 'Western side' may be losing the propaganda war with
Russia because our lies are bigger and harder to sell -- rather than Pooty-poot being cleverer.
Repeated debunked claims in our media are also going to be far more damaging than anything similar in Russia. The problem
doesn't lie with those you are asserting to be 'trolls' that are disputing the reporting -- the problem lies with the reporting.
(If your argument must be protected against criticism then it is a weak argument.)
Thank you for describing my work as "meticulously researched and argued."
A point of dissent: I don't know of any "Jewocracy."
I'm cognizant of the power and influence of Zionism and Talmudism, but I would be loathe
to generalize about Judaic people under the rubric of "Jewocracy."
On pp. 463-466 of Judaism Discovered this writer attempts to elucidate the rabbinic
principle taught to Orthodox youth: " Halacha hi beyoduah she'Eisav soneh l'Yaakov "
("It is a given law: it is known that Esau hates Jacob").
What does this instruction connote within the broader context of Orthodox Talmudism? It
teaches that all goyim are irrevocably Jew-haters and that this hate is irrational and
directed at all Judaic persons, whether good or bad, Left or Right, Zionists or not,
religious or not. The intent of this deceitful and racist generalization is to unify
Judaics and keep them in the rabbinic fold, since it is asserted that they will be hated for
no reason no matter what they do, even if they reject the Talmud .
The antidote to this rabbinic propaganda is love for Judaic people and openness in
particular to those Judaics who seek a way out of Talmudism and/or Zionism. This is what my
books represent and one reason why they are viewed as a mortal threat to the
antediluvians.
When terms such as "Jewocracy" are employed then " Halacha hi beyoduah she'Eisav soneh
l'Yaakov " is being fulfilled.
The vast majority of the movement by non-Judaics to critique or oppose the Talmud is
almost always grounded in some sort of negative typecasting about "The Jews. " Hence,
when the individual Judaic who is trying to get free of the bondage of the Orthodox rabbinate
sees generalizations like that, their motivation is subverted and their suspicions that
perhaps the teaching imparted to them in their youth was true, is kindled anew.
If we truly wish to convert people into allies of truth and freedom, then we will not
replicate their slavemasters' tropes in our discourse. In other words, we will not behave
like Talmudists. If on the other hand, our principal aim is to vent our rage and anger at
Talmudic supremacy, then reckless disregard for these distinctions will hold sway, along with
the continued defeat of our espoused objectives.
There actually is only one fount of racism and supremacy on earth and it emanates from the
primeval antecedents of the Babylonian Talmud and the Zohar (Kabbalah), and the cognate
"sacred texts" that proceed from them. When the Germans began to worship themselves
(something Luther and Nietzsche detested and eschewed), as part of the Nazi praxis, they
became rabbis spiritually and psychologically, since the most fundamental constituent of
Orthodox Judaism is self-worship .
A sincere and empowered critic of the theology of the Talmud cannot himself be a
supremacist or a racist since those mental attitudes and philosophical commitments are part
and parcel of the Talmudic mentality. A Talmudist cannot cast out the Talmud (Matthew
12:25-26).
Michael Hoffman
Author: Judaism Discovered
and Judaism's Strange Gods
Thank you for describing my work as "meticulously researched and argued."
A point of dissent: I don't know of any "Jewocracy."
I'm cognizant of the power and influence of Zionism and Talmudism, but I would be loathe
to generalize about Judaic people under the rubric of "Jewocracy."
On pp. 463-466 of Judaism Discovered this writer attempts to elucidate the rabbinic
principle taught to Orthodox youth: " Halacha hi beyoduah she'Eisav soneh l'Yaakov "
("It is a given law: it is known that Esau hates Jacob").
What does this instruction connote within the broader context of Orthodox Talmudism? It
teaches that all goyim are irrevocably Jew-haters and that this hate is irrational and
directed at all Judaic persons, whether good or bad, Left or Right, Zionists or not,
religious or not. The intent of this deceitful and racist generalization is to unify
Judaics and keep them in the rabbinic fold, since it is asserted that they will be hated for
no reason no matter what they do, even if they reject the Talmud .
The antidote to this rabbinic propaganda is love for Judaic people and openness in
particular to those Judaics who seek a way out of Talmudism and/or Zionism. This is what my
books represent and one reason why they are viewed as a mortal threat to the
antediluvians.
When terms such as "Jewocracy" are employed then " Halacha hi beyoduah she'Eisav soneh
l'Yaakov " is being fulfilled.
The vast majority of the movement by non-Judaics to critique or oppose the Talmud is
almost always grounded in some sort of negative typecasting about "The Jews. " Hence,
when the individual Judaic who is trying to get free of the bondage of the Orthodox rabbinate
sees generalizations like that, their motivation is subverted and their suspicions that
perhaps the teaching imparted to them in their youth was true, is kindled anew.
If we truly wish to convert people into allies of truth and freedom, then we will not
replicate their slavemasters' tropes in our discourse. In other words, we will not behave
like Talmudists. If on the other hand, our principal aim is to vent our rage and anger at
Talmudic supremacy, then reckless disregard for these distinctions will hold sway, along with
the continued defeat of our espoused objectives.
There actually is only one fount of racism and supremacy on earth and it emanates from the
primeval antecedents of the Babylonian Talmud and the Zohar (Kabbalah), and the cognate
"sacred texts" that proceed from them. When the Germans began to worship themselves
(something Luther and Nietzsche detested and eschewed), as part of the Nazi praxis, they
became rabbis spiritually and psychologically, since the most fundamental constituent of
Orthodox Judaism is self-worship .
A sincere and empowered critic of the theology of the Talmud cannot himself be a
supremacist or a racist since those mental attitudes and philosophical commitments are part
and parcel of the Talmudic mentality. A Talmudist cannot cast out the Talmud (Matthew
12:25-26).
Michael Hoffman
Author: Judaism Discovered
and Judaism's Strange Gods I don't buy your cloying and passive aggressive pretense of
not hating Jews but being merely interested in their salvation.
I even struggle to imagine anyone who'd be stupid enough to do so.
(Does it help you sell books or is it merely a prop against horrific
self-realisation?)
Regardless, it is a shame that even your "scholarship" may be unbooked. Painfully dumb
arguments have value. They provide it by contrast.
I am not even particularly interested in that here though. Inevitably there's lots of
weird stuff in a milennia old wikipedia and bozos, sorry "revisionists", will read into it
what they feel like.
The issue though is very simple. Were any of these effluent theories that take causation
to run from Judaism to globalism to actually be true then we would see that the more Orthodox
the Jew, the more globalist they would be.
Yet the facts sit precisely opposite.
The very worst Jews, on politics, that I've met or read have never heard of the Talmud.
Indeed, the Ultra-Orthodox wouldn't even consider them (or me) actual Jews at all.
That you can't even get this most basic of observations right totally discredits you.
Still, I hope your books get reinstated. I don't care what people who hate me choose to
waste their money on and, to be honest, it makes my meagre qualities look good by
comparison.
@Miro23 There are useful parallels with Christianity, which went from being powerless and
persecuted in its early days under Imperial Rome to eventual domination of Medieval Europe.
It was a longish process, but an early small, private and ethical movement did eventually
morph into a dictatorial organization that hunted down its own dissidents (heretics).
In this game of power, the church certainly collected great wealth, developed a complex
administration, made alliances with temporal (non-spiritual) power holders , and instituted
the Holy Office of the Inquisition (or equivalents) to root out dissidents (heretics) or
anyone who got in the way.
Green quotes a complaint by historian Manuel Barrios[172] about one Inquisitor, Diego
Rodriguez Lucero, who in Cordoba in 1506 burned to death the husbands of two different
women he then kept as mistresses. According to Barrios,
the daughter of Diego Celemin was exceptionally beautiful, her parents and her husband
did not want to give her to [Lucero], and so Lucero had the three of them burnt and now
has a child by her, and he has kept for a long time in the alcazar as a mistress,
(Wikipedia).
It was the "higher power" in the form of the Revolutionary Republican Napoleon
Bonaparte who finally abolished the Inquisition with the French invasion of Spain, which
suggests by parallel that when the US state collapses it will take its Jewish inquisitors
with it. Also the Jewish attempt to develop "Holocaustianity" with themselves as the leading
martyrs is failing, since Judaism doesn't have the mass appeal of Christianity: 1) it lacks
the ethical content 2) it isn't universalist (accepting all races).
Bolshevism (class guilt) was an earlier attempt to found a religion with Saint Trotsky and
themselves as the leading martyrs, which did actually (for a while) connect with the public,
since they harnessed the rising tide of Socialism/Communism with its fantasy of an
egalitarian "workers paradise" (themselves in the leadership role).
Unfortunately Jewish leftism (not to be confused National Democratic leftism) still
survives in the West in its bizarre SJW LGBT form, with Jews yet again trying to present
themselves as victims – this time of fabricated "White Oppression" – never mind
that white America gave them a generous refuge and a home after they were chased out of
Central Europe.
However, the search for power through SJWism (race guilt) is being rejected in the West,
so realistically Jews can only maintain their ethnic group power through a straightforward
coup at the centre (United States) – which they seem to be working on a the moment,
with some kind of fabricated Emergency involving Russia/Syria/Iran designed to give them a
dictatorship.
And if they get it, it won't be benevolent judging by the mass murdering precedents in
Russia and Hungary.
Thank you for describing my work as "meticulously researched and argued."
A point of dissent: I don't know of any "Jewocracy."
I'm cognizant of the power and influence of Zionism and Talmudism, but I would be loathe
to generalize about Judaic people under the rubric of "Jewocracy."
On pp. 463-466 of Judaism Discovered this writer attempts to elucidate the rabbinic
principle taught to Orthodox youth: " Halacha hi beyoduah she'Eisav soneh l'Yaakov "
("It is a given law: it is known that Esau hates Jacob").
What does this instruction connote within the broader context of Orthodox Talmudism? It
teaches that all goyim are irrevocably Jew-haters and that this hate is irrational and
directed at all Judaic persons, whether good or bad, Left or Right, Zionists or not,
religious or not. The intent of this deceitful and racist generalization is to unify
Judaics and keep them in the rabbinic fold, since it is asserted that they will be hated for
no reason no matter what they do, even if they reject the Talmud .
The antidote to this rabbinic propaganda is love for Judaic people and openness in
particular to those Judaics who seek a way out of Talmudism and/or Zionism. This is what my
books represent and one reason why they are viewed as a mortal threat to the
antediluvians.
When terms such as "Jewocracy" are employed then " Halacha hi beyoduah she'Eisav soneh
l'Yaakov " is being fulfilled.
The vast majority of the movement by non-Judaics to critique or oppose the Talmud is
almost always grounded in some sort of negative typecasting about "The Jews. " Hence,
when the individual Judaic who is trying to get free of the bondage of the Orthodox rabbinate
sees generalizations like that, their motivation is subverted and their suspicions that
perhaps the teaching imparted to them in their youth was true, is kindled anew.
If we truly wish to convert people into allies of truth and freedom, then we will not
replicate their slavemasters' tropes in our discourse. In other words, we will not behave
like Talmudists. If on the other hand, our principal aim is to vent our rage and anger at
Talmudic supremacy, then reckless disregard for these distinctions will hold sway, along with
the continued defeat of our espoused objectives.
There actually is only one fount of racism and supremacy on earth and it emanates from the
primeval antecedents of the Babylonian Talmud and the Zohar (Kabbalah), and the cognate
"sacred texts" that proceed from them. When the Germans began to worship themselves
(something Luther and Nietzsche detested and eschewed), as part of the Nazi praxis, they
became rabbis spiritually and psychologically, since the most fundamental constituent of
Orthodox Judaism is self-worship .
A sincere and empowered critic of the theology of the Talmud cannot himself be a
supremacist or a racist since those mental attitudes and philosophical commitments are part
and parcel of the Talmudic mentality. A Talmudist cannot cast out the Talmud (Matthew
12:25-26).
Michael Hoffman
Author: Judaism Discovered
and Judaism's Strange Gods I thank you for that comment. Beautifully put, logically
reasoned. Now I want to propose an idea for you to consider. The Orthodox Talmudic
instruction that you mention above has morphed well beyond the limitations of the Orthodox
rabbinate. You yourself just mentioned Judaics that want to "seek a way out of Talmudism and
/ or Zionism". Zionism certainly isn't Talmudism; it is blood and soil nationalism of a land
that belongs to other people. Couching this original Talmudic instruction as merely a method
of keeping Jews in "the rabbinic fold" is inaccurate. The unifiying of Jews through this
belief that all goyim are Jew-haters and vilification of those Judaics who break out has
grown well beyond the rabbinic fold, and it is present in every manifestation of Judaism,
from the secular atheist to the most Orthodox. Indeed, it seems to be the common thread that
holds all Jews together.
I thank you again for your ideas, Michael Hoffman. I will visit your website and try to
purchase your books, even though I am not a wealthy man.
It's really difficult rationally explain Trump obsession with Iran. may be Israeli lobby influence would be the most
appropriate instead of "The Insecurity Of A Teenage Girl"
At the end of a week in which former Secretary of State John Kerry's unauthorized meetings
with top Iranian officials have taken center stage, and in which both President Trump and
current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have
publicly thrashed Kerry's "unheard of" and "illegal meetings" with Iran that "undercut" the
White House, Kerry has gone on his own anti-Trump rant .
Appearing on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher Friday night, Kerry slammed the president as
having "the maturity of an 8-year-old boy with the insecurity of a teenage girl" in remarks
that are sure to continue the ongoing war of words. Previously in the week upon news of John
Kerry's Wednesday
Hugh Hewitt Show radio interview in which he admitted meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister
Javad Zarif "three or four times" since Donald Trump took office, President Trump slammed the
"illegal meetings" as serving to "undercut" White House diplomatic dealings with Iran .
Trump further hinted that Kerry violated the Logan Act by rhetorically asking whether Kerry
is officially registered as a foreign agent .
The president tweeted: John Kerry had illegal meetings with the very hostile Iranian Regime,
which can only serve to undercut our great work to the detriment of the American people. He
told them to wait out the Trump Administration! Was he registered under the Foreign Agents
Registration Act? BAD!
When asked about the White House's potential threats of legal inquiry
into the meetings, Kerry dismissed: "There's nothing unusual about it. The conversation he
really ought to be worrying about is Paul Manafort with Mueller."
"Unfortunately, we have a president, literally, for whom the truth, the whole truth and
nothing but the truth is three different things, and you don't even know what they are," Kerry
added.
We can only imagine how Trump is going to respond, whether on Twitter, or perhaps by
announcing a legal inquiry over Kerry possibly breaking the Logan Act and failing to register
as a foreign agent, as Trump's Thursday evening tweet suggested.
Another problem is how much gas for sale the USA actually has? Or they want to resell gas
they buy for Russia Sakhalin? They already did a couple of times.
Oh, please, God, let the USA impose sanctions on European companies in an attempt to stop the
building of Nord Stream II (which, incidentally, has begun and is already underwater).
I can't think of anything more likely to incite European fury against America, and while
we're on the subject, under what authority would the USA fine European companies for not
obeying sanctions imposed by the USA? I can see how they could get away with further
penalizing Russia – they are piggybacking on the Skripal affair, that's why they
pretend so fervently to believe Britain's accusations even though it has offered no proof at
all, just more accusations. The legal instrument it is using is a national-security clause
(big surprise) meant to stop the spread of chemical-warfare threats. But how is it going to
justify imposing a big fine on BASF-Wintershall, for example, and what would it do if the
latter simply said, "Cram it up your chuff!" and refused to pay?
Anyway, the calling-out of Britain's 'evidence' in front of the UN is going to be
extra-special, in that light. Because the Skripal thing is the USA's whole basis for further
sanctions. Without it – if the case is demolished, and I frankly can't see how the UK
government could sensibly respond to all the discrepancies picked up at sites like Slane's
'Blogmire' – they've got nothing; no grounds for further sanctions.
And that was perfectly possible, had it been started years ago, and had the USA come to
Europe with a business plan which answered the question, "What's in it for me?" Everybody in
business likes to make money; it's kind of what keeps business going. And if the USA could
still sell to Europe under those circumstances – because it has a lot of a product it
can sell at a competitive price and still make money – it would still be possible to do
it. The problem there is that the USA cannot sell LNG at a competitive price against pipeline
gas and still make money. A further problem is that in business dynamics, the guy who has
control in a business relationship is the guy who supplies you with a product you can't get
anywhere else at the same or a lower price.
The USA wants the profits realized by selling gas to Europe, and right away, that's not
going to work, because shipborne LNG cannot compete with pipeline gas for price. The USA
would have to sell it for a lot less than it takes to recover and ship it, and it's not
willing to do that because it is contrary to every principle of business. But that's a big
problem, because the profit is actually secondary. What Washington really wants is the power
conveyed by being Europe's main supplier – then it can play energy politics like it
constantly accuses Russia of doing, although actual evidence of Russia threatening to cut off
Europe's gas if it does not, let's say, drop sanctions against Russia, is zip, Nada. No
evidence. But Washington would do it, and you know they would, and so does Brussels. So it is
trying to muscle Europe's main supplier out of the market by coercion, because it can't do it
simply by offering a better price.
Which leaves it in the ridiculous position of arguing, "We should be your supplier instead
of Russia, because ain't we the bestest of friends and allies?", at the same time it is
conducting a trade war for American business advantage and threatening to impose sanctions
against European companies who participate in the pipeline project as investors.
Here we go again with reliable pot-stirrer the UK, in the form of a ruling by the UK Court of
Appeals that Ukraine does have a valid case, after all, of grieving the ordered repayment of $3
Billion it was lent by Moscow after Yanukovych decided to reject the European Association
Agreement, and petitioned Russia for assistance.
Some facts that should be recalled here; Ukraine has to the very best of my knowledge
never paid this debt, although the IMF
grudgingly backed Russia's claim that it was a bilateral loan . Then Ukraine imposed a
moratorium on further payments, trying to squeeze Russia into accepting a 'restructuring' of
the debt, a colourful euphemism for 'write off some of it and give us until forever to pay
the rest', allowing Ukraine to simply roll over its outstanding debt each year and put off
payment until the promised western flood of incredible prosperity finally arrives.
The ever-helpful IMF then rewrote its own laws so that it could continue lending to
Ukraine although it exhibited all the classic symptoms of a bad debtor. Most of us said it
would all end in tears for the IMF, and where is it now, again? How much of that $17 Billion
aid package has been disbursed?
Georgetown University Professor Anna Gelpern offered Ukraine
an out , stating that in her legal opinion, the obligation amounted to 'odious debt',
which consequently did not have to be repaid. Longtime kook Anders Aslund enthusiastically
embraced that view, bleating that really Russia should be repaying Ukraine, for invading and
plundering it.
Let me give you my not-legal opinion; Ukraine does not have a hope of winning this case.
The UK is just trying to help it kick the can a little further down the road, and put off
repayment for another year or two while the courts wrangle the issue out all over again, and
lawyers pocket hefty fees. It also serves the British hobby of sticking its thumb in Russia's
eye every chance it gets to do it. The money is probably not a big issue to Russia; it's the
principle, and it would probably suit the Kremlin to duke it out in court again just on the
probability that Ukraine will suffer another humiliating defeat, although that will make no
difference at all to its willingness to pay. I propose, though, another option; one to be
exercised immediately, and one down the road a bit. First, communicate to Kuh-yiv that if it
goes ahead with this, Russia will pull out all foreign investment in Ukraine, immediately and
finally. I personally do not think the economy could sustain that kind of hit, since it is on
life support now. Second, Russia should communicate to Britain that once Brexit becomes
operative, the UK will have to negotiate with Europe for energy supplies and pay their asking
price, since there will be no direct transfers of energy to the UK. That might have been the
case anyway, since to the best of my knowledge no systems serve the UK directly from Russia
except LNG cargoes. But it would not hurt to remind them.
It occurs to me that the west has only itself to blame for Ukraine's current and ongoing
dysfunction and 'cutie-pie' criminality, since the west keeps encouraging it to greater
heights of irresponsibility, covering for it and then rewriting its own rules so that
behaviour previously illegal is magically permissible.
The London High Court is not going to like being reversed; such reversals often do not look
good for the judges, although there certainly cannot be any murmuring of 'political
motivation' here, since the court was most decidedly motivated to rule for Ukraine in the
original judgment if it could. As I said, this is just kicking the can down the road a piece,
and buying time for Kuh-yiv. And that might be a valid strategy, if a burgeoning economy was
about to break free in Ukraine. Is that the case? I'm afraid I don't think so. In fact,
Ukraine is broke and living on handouts, its reserves down to record lows; it doesn't have
the money, so the UK is trying to rig the judgment so as to head off its having to pay, at
least temporarily. More short-term thinking, such as is characteristic of crisis management.
The Appeals Court is likely ruling on a technicality because it believes (or has been
encouraged to believe) it deserves further examination. But, again, I have to believe that in
such a politically-charged case, the court which rendered the original verdict would have
carefully picked over every argument which might have worked in Ukraine's favour, since the
UK was highly motivated to support Ukraine if there were any way it could legally do so. The
efficacy, reliability and non-volatility of Eurobonds is at stake here, and a ruling now for
Ukraine is likely to provoke a drawback from Eurobonds and European financial instruments by
every nation that perceives it is or might one day be perceived as a foe of a Europe still in
thrall to the United States. Russia chose such an instrument precisely because of the high
risk of a Ukrainian default even if Yanukovych had remained in power, and that was a wise
decision to the extent that the west has had to completely rewrite the book in order to
challenge the stratagem. That, too, will play to its great disadvantage down the road, as
every debtor nation has the right of precedent to exercise such options.
The funny thing is that if Europe simply laid out the situation bluntly to Moscow, as an
equal and a respected partner to the deal, and asked for mercy for Ukraine, there is every
chance Moscow would find a way to accommodate, provided it was given due credit for its
magnanimity. Instead, as usual, Europe has gone with a strategy of creating the appearance
that Moscow fucked Ukraine, breaking the law in the process. It will be interesting to see
what Alexander Mercouris has to say about this, and I am sure he will offer an opinion, but
I'm afraid I haven't time now as I have to get ready for work. But I should like to once more
point out that all the advantage lies with Russia here, if it only remains patient and keeps
its temper; it is Russia which is keeping Ukraine alive now, through transit fees and
significant FDI. It can choose to withdraw one at any time it pleases, and the other as soon
as Nord Stream II is completed. The west's attempts to change the beloved 'facts on the
ground' amount to no more than scrabbling at the noose that is tightening around Ukraine's
throat.
Further to the criminal act perpetrated by the Ukrainian government, namely the cutting off
of water supplies to the Crimea, one has to admit that as regards this matter the foreign
minister of the Ukraine, Pavel Klmkin, is one obnoxious little twat:
It is not the Ukraine that has cut off the Crimea from water: Russia did it, by its
cutting off of the Crimea from the Ukraine by force. In its own right, the occupation of the
Crimea is a terrible violation of international law and the rights of all
Crimeans.
Yes, and they have desalination plants. The water from the canal that runs from Kherson is
chiefly for irrigation. When they first closed the sluice in the Ukraine, the Crimea harvest
suffered. No doubt Crimea-Tatar farmers were very pleased about this.
Crimean water resources are limited, failing to fully meet the drinking and economic
needs of the region. Over 50 years, the problems of water resources in Crimea were solved by
using Dnieper water supplied through North-Crimean Canal; however, after the integration of
Crimea into Russia, Ukraine suspended water supply. At the aggravation of political situation
between Russia and Ukraine, the situation in the water-management sphere in the Republic of
Crimea looks very complicated. The water-management problems of Crimea should be solved based
on its own potential. Groundwater resources are the leading factor of sustainable development
of Crimean Region at the present stage.
My understanding is that in 2015, Russian geologists discovered three aquifers in Crimean
territory so pipelines have been built to connect the aquifers to the North Crimean Canal and
to supply water to people living in eastern Crimea near Kerch. https://sputniknews.com/russia/201504041020474871/#ixzz3WNLsZ6sG
Right. Indulging the will of the very great majority of Crimeans is a terrible violation of
international law, and that same population consequently deserves to be without water even
though the supply they depended upon comes from Ukraine. Pull the other one, Pavlo. Not even
a day-one civil-rights lawyer would buy that argument. The west has never contested that the
decision of Crimeans to sever their ties to Ukraine was that of the majority – not
really, It has danced around with that voting-at-the-point-of-a-Kalashnikov bullshit, but the
vote was not even close. If there were a do-over with the strictest supervision of western
officials, and Kuh-yiv itself got to write the referendum question, Crimea would still vote
to secede, and the west knows it. If it was such a loyal part of Ukraine before, why was it
the autonomous republic of Crimea?
The Ukraine-Crimea affair should stand as a textbook example of how the country that lost
territory did absolutely everything wrong in its attempts to get it back.
@anarchyst I see stuff written about the Vietnam war and it never fails they don't talk
at all about the whole picture. The Vietnam war was a war to stop the spread of Communism in
Southeast Asia. In that aspect it won some and lost some. Vietnam had nothing to do with oil
or Colonialism. Any look at a map would show it's vast strategic location for the Communist.
It has one the best ports in Asia. They talk about Tet defeating us. Nothing could be further
from the truth. It ended forever the Viet Cong in the South. From then on all the attacks
were from the North. The next big attack...
And in Viet Nam the North sent 150,000 men south with as much armor as the Wehrmacht had
in many WW II engagements. That was in 1973, and of that 150,000 fewer than 50,000 men and no
armor returned to the North, at a cost of under 1,000 American casualties. Most would count
that an outstanding victory.
(Alas, in 1975 North Viet Nam had another army of over 100,000 and sent it South; the
Democratic Congress voted our South Vietnamese 20 cartridges and 2 hand grenades per man, but
refused naval and air support; Saigon predictably became Ho Chi Minh city as we pushed
helicopters off the decks of out carriers in our frantic evacuation; but that is hardly the
fault of the US military).
The South lost when they ran out of ammunition. During the time we were fighting in
Vietnam all the other Asian countries with their own Commies attacking them were fighting
also. Many of them won. The ones that fell like Cambodia paid a harsh price. By all
measurement of what we went to Vietnam for we didn't lose. It did stop the spread of
Communism to all Asia. Rarely in any wars do you get all you want.
The Democrat party has been saying that the Vets fought a losing war when in actuality the
Democrats directly are responsible for the loss of South Vietnam. There are only a few
highways leading South and they were packed with tanks and troop transport in 75. It would
have been a complete turkey shoot like the war in Kuwait. We even had battleships at that
time that could have pounded them from the coast. If we would have attacked it would have
probably caused them such a defeat that they would have never attacked again maybe even the
government of the North would have been overthrown by the people for such incompetence.
Unfortunately the Nixon was gone and Ford was directly told if he helped the Vietnamese with
air power he would be impeached.
The idea that the Vietnam vets died for nothing is a huge psyops by the Democrats. The
South had defeated all the guerillas. All they needed was support to hold off the North and
the Democrats sold them out. If the South Vietnamese had not fell it's very likely that the
Cambodian Genocide would have never happened.
The Democrats had said the war was lost so many times that they had to prove it so by
actually losing it.
we were fighting in Vietnam all the other Asian countries with their own Commies
attacking them were fighting also. Many of them won. The ones that fell like Cambodia paid
a harsh price.
On the other hand, the Khmer Rouge victory in Cambodia was precipitated by the U.S.
bombings:
Estimates vary widely on the number of civilian casualites inflicted by the campaign;
however,as many as 500,000 people died as a direct result of the bombings while perhaps
hundreds of thousands more died from the effects of displacement, disease or starvation
during this period.
The Khmer Rouge, previously a marginalized guerrilla group, propagandized the bombing
campaign to great effect; by the CIA's own intelligence estimates, the US bombing campaign
was a key factor in the increase in popular support for the Khmer Rouge rebels. After their
victory in 1975, the Khmer Rouge oversaw a period in which another one-to-two million
Cambodians died from execution, hunger and forced labour.
"... My guess is that this book is just too dangerous to allow it to become part of the debate on "fake news" and "Russiagate." Of course now the CIA doesn't even have to exclusively – "own"- journalists as fronts when ex-CIA heads are being hired outright by MSM as pundits. I just wish someone with access would post an English language PDF version online. It would be a real contribution to free thought and free speech to do so. ..."
"... Western elites realize what they could have, what they could do and what they could get away with, but only if they reinvent the political system Hitler created. If they defeat every enemy abroad who might stop them, next they'll do to their own people what the Nazis did to those they didn't want alive ..."
"... Journos have long been pliant enablers for Intel agencies. It's strange how Dr. Ulfkotte's revelations have been taken as some signifier of further Western moral decay/decadence. ..."
"... The real story here, which the media pretends not to notice, is that if Intelligence services and corporations did not finance newspapers they would cease to exist. The old business model whereby newspapers covered their costs by selling advertising and paid circulation is finished. Under that model there were, to an extent, incentives for the publisher to preserve a modicum of credibility in order to keep readership, as well as reasons to publish sensational stories to beat competition. ..."
"... The days that Ulfkotte recalled were times when it took lots of money and careful preparation to put spooks into the newsroom, nowadays the papers are only too happy to publish the CIA's PR and very grateful if the government pays their journalists' salaries. ..."
"... To understand how journalism is bought, go analyze the output of the Uk's Daily Telegraph. They literally sell space to lobbyists and for several years outraged BTL comment would tear the articles to shreds. The whole UK Press prostitutes itself whenever there is a US war on i.e. all the time. It really is about time the CIA were unmasked – they do not serve our interests, they serve only their own . ..."
The rather obvious suppression of the English version of what was a "best seller" in Germany suggests that the Western system
of thought manipulation and consent manufacture sees itself as weaker and more vulnerable than one might at first imagine.
We can see from a year+ of "Russiagate" that Western media is a clown-show, much of so called "alternative media" included.
My guess is that this book is just too dangerous to allow it to become part of the debate on "fake news" and "Russiagate."
Of course now the CIA doesn't even have to exclusively – "own"- journalists as fronts when ex-CIA heads are being hired outright
by MSM as pundits. I just wish someone with access would post an English language PDF version online. It would be a real contribution
to free thought and free speech to do so.
Just like "200 years together" by Solzhenitsyn which was never officially published in English despite Andrei having authored
many works which were big sellers. Just an example of other private business and corporations are often fully responsible
for pro-establishment censorship.
The treatment of the book aroused suspicion because of its content – ie supine news outlets forever dancing to the tune of western
military imperatives.
Ongoing support for illegal wars tell us that the MSM has hardly been at the forefront of informing readers why war criminals
like Hilary and Obama keep getting away with it. In fact Obama, just like Kissinger was awarded a peace prize – so obviously something
has gone very wrong somewhere.
It may be, although it seems unlikely that the mis-handling of an important theme like this is simply due to oversight by the
publisher (as Matt claims) but neither is it beyond the realms of possibility that somebody has had a word with someone in the
publishing world, perhaps because they are not overly keen on the fact Udo Ulfkotte has deviated from the media's mono-narrative
about why it is necessary for the US to destabilise countries and kill so many of their citizens.
Lets face it – it would be harder for the pattern to be maintained if the MSM was not so afraid of telling the truth, or at
least be more willing to hold to account politicians as the consequences of their disastrous policies unfold for all to see.
Maybe you want to have a go at answering the obvious question begged by such self evident truths – why are the MSM usually
lying?
Somebody said banning books is the modern form of book burning, and like Heinrich Heine said two centuries ago, "Where they burn
books, in the end, they start burning people."
Western elites realize what they could have, what they could do and what they could get away with, but only if they reinvent
the political system Hitler created. If they defeat every enemy abroad who might stop them, next they'll do to their own people
what the Nazis did to those they didn't want alive. If enough water sources are lost to fracking, and enough food sources
lost through poisoned seas and forest fires, many people will go to their camps as refuge but few will survive them. This ecological
destruction is for future population reduction.
In the US they use newspeak to say what the Nazis described with more honesty. Their master race became the indispensable nation,
their world domination became full spectrum dominance, and Totalerkrieg became the global war on terror. There will be others.
Farzad Basoft anyone ? Journos have long been pliant enablers for Intel agencies. It's strange how Dr. Ulfkotte's revelations
have been taken as some signifier of further Western moral decay/decadence.
Maybe I am taking what you wrote out of context but I don't find it strange at all .It is just that someone, Udo, on the inside
has become a whistle blower , and confirmed what most suspected .The establishment can't have that.
As the economy growth has this so-called invisible hand, journalism also has an 'invisible pen'. One of the questions that
need an answer: how come feminists are so anti-Putin and anti-Russia? Easy to connect to dots?
The real story here, which the media pretends not to notice, is that if Intelligence services and corporations did not finance
newspapers they would cease to exist. The old business model whereby newspapers covered their costs by selling advertising and
paid circulation is finished. Under that model there were, to an extent, incentives for the publisher to preserve a modicum of
credibility in order to keep readership, as well as reasons to publish sensational stories to beat competition.
Those days
are gone: none of the newspapers make financial profits, they now exist because they have patrons. They always did, of course,
but now they have nothing else- the advertisers have left and circulation is diminishing rapidly.
The days that Ulfkotte recalled were times when it took lots of money and careful preparation to put spooks into the newsroom,
nowadays the papers are only too happy to publish the CIA's PR and very grateful if the government pays their journalists' salaries.
As to competition that is restricted to publishers competing to demonstrate their loyalty to the government and their ingenuity
in candy coating its propaganda.
Anyone doubt that Luke Harding will be in the running for a Pulitzer? Or perhaps even the Nobel Prize for Literature?
For what it's worth, I skimmed through this very long link by Matt, and could find no mention of poison gas -- certainly no denunciation
-- just horrific conventional arms : Der Spiegel 1984:
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/print/d-13508659.html
Also for what it's worth, the German publisher's blurb which I got Google to translate above, says there is much more to the
book than old Soddem: the author names names and points to organizations.
Now, without any evidence, based only on my faulty memory and highly biased interpretation of events strung together on a timeline,
here is my conspiracy story about a very nice country called Iraq and a very nasty Iraqi called Saddam who came to a very nasty
end at the hands of his much more nasty friends, who first gave him a boost and then put in the boot.
1914 Great Britain invades Iraq and BP takes over the Iraqi oilfields.
1968 Iraqi govt member under Yaya wants to nationalize the oil. CIA coup replaces Yaya with Saddam as a safe pair of hands.
1970 Saddam the dirty dog does the dirty on the friends who put him in power; he nationalizes Iraqi oil. And nationalizes Iraqi
banks. From now on Saddam is a dead man walking. Like Mossadeq in Iran whom the US-UK replaced with the Shah
1978 But in Iran the Shah is replaced by the Islamic Socialist Republic -- who again nationalize Iranian oil. Saddam's
friends now face a dilemma: kill him first, or kill the Ayatollah's first? They decide to first go for the Ayatollahs -- with
Saddam's help.
1980 Saddam invades Iran with help from US and Germany -- including, strangely enough, generous supplies of poison gas.
1984-1989 Saddam's invasion of Iran flops. Reports about use of poison gas by Saddam begin to emerge, first in German newspapers
then even debated US govt.
1990 Saddam thinks he has restored credit with the US & Germany by using their weapons against Iran, and now has the green
light to invade another country. Finds out his mistake in the Gulf War. He is once again, a dead man walking. So is his country.
2001 Saddam is accused of harbouring Islamic terrorists who knocked down 3 skyscrapers by flying 2 passenger planes into
them. The idea of Secular Baathist Saddam in league with religious fanatics is ridiculous, but what the heck it's a story.
2003 Saddam hanged for, inter alia, use of chemical weapons; likewise his minister whom the MSM have a field day comically
calling "Chemical" Ali.
2017 Who's next? The Ayatollahs, of course. And anyone else who dares to nationalize "our" oil. Or "our" banks.
That is more than plausible. Unfortunately. Hard not to sympathize with the Iraqis and feel shame for what has been done in the
name of the US and UK. Rotten to the core, and sanctimonious to boot.
To understand how journalism is bought, go analyze the output of the Uk's Daily Telegraph. They literally sell space to lobbyists
and for several years outraged BTL comment would tear the articles to shreds. The whole UK Press prostitutes itself whenever
there is a US war on i.e. all the time. It really is about time the CIA were unmasked – they do not serve our interests, they
serve only their own .
The Guardian sells space to lobbyists too. Not ad space – article space. It's literally hiring itself out to whomever wants to
buy the right to publish an article under its name.
Well one things stands out in bold and that is the fear that such a revelation is associated with. 'Broad spectrum dominance'
of a central intelligent agency is a reversal of the wholeness of being expressing through all its parts.
Fake intelligence
is basically made up to serve a believed goal. The terrorism of fear generates the goal of a self-protection that sells true relationship
to 'save itself'.
This goes deep into what we take to be our mind. The mind that thinks it is in control by controlling what it thinks.
If I can observe this in myself at will, is it any surprise I can see it in our world?
What is the fear that most deeply motivates or drives the human agenda?
I do not ask this of our superficial thinking, but of a core self-honesty that cannot be 'killed' but only covered over with a
thinking-complex.
And is it insane or unreal to be moved by love?
We are creatures of choice and beneath all masking, we are also the creator of choice.
But the true creative is not framed into a choosing between, but feeling one call as the movement of it.
When the 'intelligence' of a masking narrative no longer serves, be the willingness for what you no longer claim to have, and
open to being moved from within.
I am so tired of the simmering fury that lives inside me. This bubbling cauldron brim full of egregious truths, images and accounts
accumulated over nearly 40 years of looking behind the headlines. I disagree that the usurpation of journalists and media organisations
is in any way a recent phenomena. It certainly predates my emergent mind. And even the most lauded of anti-establishment hacks
and film makers self-censored to some degree. True, the blatant in your face propaganda and thought control agenda has accelerated,
but it was always there. I do not believe Chomsky, Oliver Stone, Pilger and their like could have done much more than they have,
that is to guide us in a direction counter to the official narrative. And to insinuate they are gatekeepers, when our heads never
stretch above the parapet, is really just a reflection of our own frustration that despite their work the only change remains
for the worse.
Yet I fear worse is to come. Our safe bitching in glorious anonymity has been all that we have had as solace to the angst that
pervades us, the other 1%. But the the thumbscrew is tightening. We may be as little as months away from any dissent being entirely
removed from the internet by AI algorithms. I have already been receiving warnings on several sites anyone here would call legitimate
that have had their security certificates removed and the statement that the site may contain malicious code etc. How prepared
are we for blackout?
A foundation should be set up in remembrance of Udo and sponsored by all true journalists and truth seekers. Maybe some day there
will be a Udo Ulfkotte award to the bravest journalist of the year .Wouldn't that be something .Udo's work would not have been
in vain . That would throw a monkey wrench into orgs like the Guardian and their ilk .Just dreaming out loud maybe , but with
good intentions.
Thank you Alun for the link to the German edition, which I have managed to download (naughty me!) I think the suggestion of retranslating
important sections and dressing these in some commentary for (presumably legitimate) publication on e.g. Off-G would be a good
idea. I'm quite fluent in German and would be glad to help.
Mods: do you see any legal pitfalls?
That depends on who holds the rights to the English language version and the original and whether they would want to take issue.
If it's Ulfkotte's family they may be happy to see his work get some sort of airing in English. If it's his publishers we can
imagine they will see things differently – as indeed would whoever it is that seems to want the book buried.
I heard it is blocked in many western countries, as the site is well known for its disregard for copyright. Fortunately not the
case where I am (NZ). If you're technically inclined, a VPN or anonymising application may help, although a VPN that 'exits' in
a western area won't get you any further ahead.
One hopes. I also hold out hope for F. William Engdahl's "Geheimakte NGOs." Here's a Dissident Voice article in which Engdahl
discusses the role of NGOs in aiding and abetting the US regime change program:
Yes, it has also been interesting to note that in 2015 the Guardian published a review of Richard Sakwa's book 'Frontline Ukraine'
in which the author was critical of both NATO and the EU, in fomenting this crisis. The 2014 'coup' which was carried out in February
2014 was, according to the independent geopolitical publication, Strator, 'the most blatant in history.' The appraisal which was
carried out by Guardian journalist Jonathon Steele was generally favourably disposed to Sakwa's record of events; however, Mr
Steele now rarely publishes anything in the Guardian. Read into this what you like.
As to Sakwa's latest book,'' Russia Against the Rest'', – nothing, not a peep, it doesn't exist, it never existed, it never
will exist. It would appear to be the case that the Guardian is now fully integrated into the military/surveillance/media-propaganda
apparatus. The liberal gatekeeper as to what is and what isn't acceptable. Its function is pure to serve the interests of the
powerful, in much the same way as the church did in the middle ages. The media doesn't just serve the interests power it is also
part of the same structure of dominance, albeit the liberal wing of the ruling coalition.
During the British war against the Boers in South Africa, at the turn of the 19/20 century, the then Manchester Guardian took
a brave and critical stand against the UK government. This lead to its offices in Manchester being attacked by jingoistic mobs,
as was the home of the then editor C.P.Scott, whose family needed police protection. In those days 'Facts were Sacred', unlike
the present where opposing views are increasingly ignored or suppressed.
Having just watched the documentary film tribute to I.F. Stone, "All Governments Lie", I was struck by the fact that no-one mentioned
Michael Hastings, the Rolling Stone journalist (who outed General McChrystal, but whose Mercedes went mysteriously out of control,
hit a tree and exploded, throwing the engine 200 yards clear of the wreck ). Here was a film about control and self-censorship,
yet no-one even breathed the acronyms C.I.A. or FBI. Matt Taibbi referred to a silent coup, but none dared to mention the assassinations
of JFK, MLK and RFK. These doyens of Truth included the thoroughly dodgy Noam Chomsky. Finally, the Spartacus website suggests
that the saintly I.F. Stone was in the pay of the CIA. Other terms unspoken were CIA Operation Mockingbird or Operation Northwoods.
There was a clip of 9/11, but zero attempt to join up all the dots.
RIP Udo Ulfkotte. CIA long ago developed a dart to induce all the signs of a heart attack, so one is naturally somewhat suspicious.
Lies and assassinations are two sides of the same coin.
The only thing harder to find than Udo Ulfkotte's book is a Guardian review of it.
I daresay any mention of this book, BTL, would immediately be moderated (i.e censored) followed by a yellow or red card for
the cheeky commentator.
The level of pretence on this forum has now reached epic proportions, and seems to cuts both ways, ie. commentators pretending
that there are not several subjects which are virtually impossible to discuss in any depth (such as media censorship), and moderators
pretending that 'community standards' is not simply a crude device to control conversational discourse, especially when a commentators
point of view stray beyond narrow, Guardian approved borders.
Books, such as 'Bought Journalists' (which expose the corruption at the heart of western media) are especially inconvenient
for the risible 'fake news' agenda currently being rammed down the readerships throat – some of these people at the Guardian have
either absolutely no insight, or no shame.
Ulfkotte and Ganser in their ways are both telling a similar story – NATO, i.e an arm of the US military industrial complex
are mass murderers and sufficiently intimidating to have most western journalists singing from the same hymn sheet.
Since the Guardian follows the party line it is only possible to send coded or cryptic messages (BTL) should commentators wish
to deviate from the approved narrative.
For example, I was 'pre-moderated' for having doubts about the veracity of the so called 'Parsons Green tube bomb', especially
the nature of the injuries inflicted on a young model who looked like she was suffering from toothache.
https://www.thenational.ae/image/policy:1.628812:1505494262/wo16-web-parsons-green.JPG?f=16×9&w=1024&$p$f$w=e135eda
Been there, done that. What ordinarily happens if the submission is proper and cannot be censored on the basis of impropriety
or foulmouthedness or any other good reason, but exposes a Guardian sacred cow in an embarrassing light, is that it is said to
be off topic. Now this is really unaccountable, and truly subjective.
The community in community standards is "them" and has close ties to the 1%, if I hazard a guess.
"... Obama, it turns out, was among the most militaristic White House occupants in American history, taking the imperial presidency to new heights. It has been said that Obama was the only president whose administration was enmeshed in multiple wars from beginning to end. His imperial ventures spanned many countries – Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia along with proxy interventions in Yemen and Pakistan. ..."
"... Obama engineered two of the most brazen regime-change operations of the postwar era, in Libya (2011) and Ukraine (2014), leaving both nations reduced to a state of ongoing civil war and economic ruin. ..."
"... United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric recently decried this violence, noting the indiscriminate shelling by armed groups killing civilians, including children. Not to be outdone, the U.S. (joined by a few European states) issued a statement condemning the violence in Libya, reading in part: "We urge armed groups to immediately cease all military actions and warn those who tamper with security in Tripoli or elsewhere in Libya that they will be held accountable for any such actions." How thoughtful of those very military actors who, with U.N. blessing, brought nothing but endless death and destruction to the Libyan people. ..."
"... In Ukraine, as Vladimir Putin was being demonized as the "new Hitler", real fascists (or at least neo-fascists) were installed in power through the well-planned and generously-funded conspiracy of Obama's neocon functionaries, led by Victoria Nuland and cheered on by such visiting notables as John McCain, Joe Biden, and John Brennan -- all scheming to bring the Kiev regime into the NATO/European Union orbit. The puppet Poroshenko regime has since 2014 been given enough American economic and military largesse to finance its warfare against separatists in the Russian-speaking Donbass region, resulting in more than 10,000 deaths, with no end in sight. Following the gruesome pattern of Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan, Ukrainian society descends into deepening chaos and violence with no end in sight. ..."
"... It is easy to forget that it was the Obama administration that planned and carried out the first phases of the Mosul operation (begun in October 2016) which produced hundreds of thousands of casualties (with at least 40,000 dead), left a city of two million in Dresden-like state of rubble, and drove nearly a million civilians into exile. The same fate, on smaller scale, was brought to other Sunni-majority cities in Iraq, including Ramadi, Tikrit, and Fallujah (already destroyed by U.S. forces in 2004). Whatever the official goal, and however many secondary collaborators were involved, these were monstrous war crimes by any reckoning. ..."
"... In the months before Obama departed the White House he laid the groundwork for a new, more dangerous, Cold War with Russia. This agenda, negating earlier plans for a "reset" with the Putin government, would be multi-faceted – expanded NATO forces along Russian borders, renewed support for the oligarch Poroshenko in Ukraine, new and harsher economic sanctions, expulsion of diplomats, accelerated cyberwarfare, charges of Russian interference in the 2016 elections. Not only has this strategy, eagerly advanced by the Clintonites and their media allies, brought new levels of insanity to American politics, it has left the two nuclear powers menacingly closer to armed confrontation than even at the peak of the Cold War. ..."
"... Obama's contributions to a more robust imperial presidency went further. Collaborating with Israel and Saudi Arabia, he stoked the Syrian civil war by lending "rebel" fighters crucial material, logistical, and military aid for what Clinton – anticipating electoral victory – believed would bring yet another cheerful episode of regime change, this one leaving the U.S. face-to-face with the Russians. During his tenure in office, moreover, Obama would deploy more special-ops troops around the globe (to more than 70 countries) than any predecessor. ..."
Obama, it turns out, was among the most militaristic White House occupants in American
history, taking the imperial presidency to new heights. It has been said that Obama was the
only president whose administration was enmeshed in multiple wars from beginning to end. His
imperial ventures spanned many countries – Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia along
with proxy interventions in Yemen and Pakistan. He ordered nearly 100,000 bombs and
missiles delivered against defenseless targets, a total greater than that of the more
widely-recognized warmonger George W. Bush's total of 70,000 against five countries. Iraq alone
– where U.S. forces were supposed to have been withdrawn – was recipient of 41,000
bombs and missiles along with untold amounts of smaller ordnance. Meanwhile, throughout his
presidency Obama conducted hundreds of drone attacks in the Middle East, more than doubling
Bush's total, all run jointly (and covertly) by the CIA and Air Force.
Obama engineered two of the most brazen regime-change operations of the postwar era, in
Libya (2011) and Ukraine (2014), leaving both nations reduced to a state of ongoing civil war
and economic ruin. For the past seven years Libya has been overrun by an assortment of
militias, jihadic groups, and local strongmen – predictable result of the U.S./NATO
bombing offensive to destroy the secular nationalist (and modernizing) Kadafi regime. This was
purportedly Secretary of State Clinton's biggest moment of glory, her imperialist gloating on
full display following Kadafi's assassination. As this is written conditions in Libya worsen by
the day, reports surfacing of hundreds of people killed during violent clashes in the suburbs
of Tripoli as rival militias fight for control of the capital. Militias now exercise control
over ports, airfields, and much of the oil infrastructure. More tens of thousands of Libyans
are being forced from their homes, a development greeted with silence at CNN and kindred media
outlets.
United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric recently decried this violence, noting the
indiscriminate shelling by armed groups killing civilians, including children. Not to be
outdone, the U.S. (joined by a few European states) issued a statement condemning the violence
in Libya, reading in part: "We urge armed groups to immediately cease all military actions and
warn those who tamper with security in Tripoli or elsewhere in Libya that they will be held
accountable for any such actions." How thoughtful of those very military actors who, with U.N.
blessing, brought nothing but endless death and destruction to the Libyan people.
In Ukraine, as Vladimir Putin was being demonized as the "new Hitler", real fascists (or
at least neo-fascists) were installed in power through the well-planned and generously-funded
conspiracy of Obama's neocon functionaries, led by Victoria Nuland and cheered on by such
visiting notables as John McCain, Joe Biden, and John Brennan -- all scheming to bring the Kiev
regime into the NATO/European Union orbit. The puppet Poroshenko regime has since 2014 been
given enough American economic and military largesse to finance its warfare against separatists
in the Russian-speaking Donbass region, resulting in more than 10,000 deaths, with no end in
sight. Following the gruesome pattern of Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan, Ukrainian society
descends into deepening chaos and violence with no end in sight.
It is easy to forget that it was the Obama administration that planned and carried out
the first phases of the Mosul operation (begun in October 2016) which produced hundreds of
thousands of casualties (with at least 40,000 dead), left a city of two million in Dresden-like
state of rubble, and drove nearly a million civilians into exile. The same fate, on smaller
scale, was brought to other Sunni-majority cities in Iraq, including Ramadi, Tikrit, and
Fallujah (already destroyed by U.S. forces in 2004). Whatever the official goal, and however
many secondary collaborators were involved, these were monstrous war crimes by any
reckoning.
After calling for a nuclear-free world (and receiving a Nobel Peace Prize for that promise),
Obama reversed course and embarked on the most ambitious U.S. nuclear upgrading since the early
1950s – the same project inherited by Trump. Speaking in Prague in 2009, the president
called for total abolition of nukes, saying "the Cold War has disappeared but thousands of
those [nuclear] weapons have not . . . Our efforts to contain these dangers [must be] centered
on a global non-proliferation regime." A laudable objective to be sure. But for a price tag of
one trillion dollars (over two decades), Obama decided to create new missile delivery systems,
expand the arsenal of tactical warheads, and fund a new cycle of bombers and submarines –
all with little political or media notice. These initiatives violated the Nuclear
Non-proliferation Treaty prohibiting such moves, while essentially blocking any genuine efforts
toward nuclear reduction and nonproliferation.
In the months before Obama departed the White House he laid the groundwork for a new,
more dangerous, Cold War with Russia. This agenda, negating earlier plans for a "reset" with
the Putin government, would be multi-faceted – expanded NATO forces along Russian
borders, renewed support for the oligarch Poroshenko in Ukraine, new and harsher economic
sanctions, expulsion of diplomats, accelerated cyberwarfare, charges of Russian interference in
the 2016 elections. Not only has this strategy, eagerly advanced by the Clintonites and their
media allies, brought new levels of insanity to American politics, it has left the two nuclear
powers menacingly closer to armed confrontation than even at the peak of the Cold War.
Obama's contributions to a more robust imperial presidency went further. Collaborating
with Israel and Saudi Arabia, he stoked the Syrian civil war by lending "rebel" fighters
crucial material, logistical, and military aid for what Clinton – anticipating electoral
victory – believed would bring yet another cheerful episode of regime change, this one
leaving the U.S. face-to-face with the Russians. During his tenure in office, moreover, Obama
would deploy more special-ops troops around the globe (to more than 70 countries) than any
predecessor.
Many liberals and more than a few progressives – not to mention large sectors of the
media intelligentsia -- will find it difficult to reconcile the picture of an aggressively
imperialist Obama with the more familiar image of a thoughtful, articulate politician who laced
his talks with references to peace, arms control, and human rights. But this very dualism best
corresponds to the historical reality. In his book The Obama Syndrome
, Tariq Ali writes: "From Palestine through Iraq, Obama has acted as just another steward
of the American empire, pursuing the same aims as his predecessors, with the same means but
with more emollient rhetoric." He adds: "Historically, the model for the current variant of
imperial presidency is Woodrow Wilson, no less pious a Christian, whose every second word was
peace, democracy, or self-determination, while his armies invaded Mexico, occupied Haiti, and
attacked Russia [yes, Russia!], and his treaties handed one colony after another to his
partners in war. Obama is a hand-me-down version of the same, without even Fourteen Points to
betray."
As the 2018 midterm elections approach, Obama has chosen to depart from historical norm and
go on the attack against a Trump presidency viewed as signifying all that is evil. A Democratic
victory would reject Trump's "dark vision of the the nation and restore honesty, decency, and
lawfulness to the American government". In his first speech Obama said that orchestrated public
fear has created conditions "ripe for exploitation by politicians who have no compunction and
no shame about tapping into America's dark history of racial and ethnic and religious
division." Does Obama need to be reminded that such "dark history" also includes militarism and
imperialism?
Whatever one's view of the Trump phenomenon in its totality, the amount of death and
destruction he has brought to the world does not (yet) come close to Obama's record of warfare,
drone strikes, regime changes, military provocations, and global deployments. If neocon
interests have come to shape U.S. foreign policy, those interests have so far been more fully
embraced by Obama and the Clintonites than by Trump, despite the scary presence of Trump's
hawkish circle of lieutenants. Unfortunately, Obama's eight years of imperial aggression
elicited strikingly few liberal or progressive voices of dissent across the political and media
terrain. He enjoyed nearly complete immunity from protest at a time when even the smallest
vestiges of a once-vigorous American antiwar movement had disappeared from the scene.
CARL BOGGS is the author of several recent books, including Fascism Old and New
(2018), Origins of the Warfare State (2016), and Drugs, Power, and Politics (2015). He can be
reached at [email protected].
Prime Minister Teresa May took
to the floor of the Parliament today to report that the Crown Prosecution Service and Police
had issued warrants for two Russian GRU officials who, they claim, had carried out the Skripal
attacks last March. "We were right," she said with a stiff upper lip, "to say in March that the
Russian State was responsible." Mugshots were released of two people whose names, she declared,
were aliases (how they know they are GRU officials if they don't know their names was not
explained). "This chemical weapon attack on our soil was part of a wider pattern of Russian
behavior that persistently seeks to undermine our security and that of our allies around the
world," she intoned.
At the same time, dire warnings have been issued to Syria and Russia that there will be a
major military response if Syria uses chemical weapons in Idlib. This is despite the fact that
Russia has presented the proof to the OPCW and to the UN that the British intelligence-linked
Olive security outfit and the British-sponsored White Helmet terrorists have prepared a false
flag chlorine attack in Idlib, to be blamed on the Syrian government, to trigger such a
military atrocity by the US and the UK.
Also at the same time, in the US, Washington Post fraudster Bob Woodward released a book
claiming that numerous Trump cabinet officials made wildly slanderous statements about Trump --
all third hand from anonymous sources, of course. Chief of Staff John Kelly called the claims
"total BS," while Secretary of State Jim Mattis called it typical Washington DC fiction, adding
that "the idea that I would show contempt for the elected Commander-in-Chief, President Trump,
or tolerate disrespect to the office of the President from within our Department of Defense, is
a product of someone's rich imagination."
Worse, the New York Times, apparently for the first time, printed an "anonymous" op-ed by
someone claiming to be a "senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known
to us," under the title: "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration -- I work
for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and
his worst inclinations." Whether this person is or is not who they claim to be, it is clearly
part of the British coup attempt, as proven in the op-ed itself. After calling Trump amoral,
unhinged, and more, and claiming there is discussion within the Administration of using the
25th Amendment to remove him for mental incompetence, it then states: "Take foreign policy: In
public and in private, President Trump shows a preference for autocrats and dictators, such as
President Vladimir Putin of Russia and North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, and displays little
genuine appreciation for the ties that bind us to allied, like-minded nations [read: the United
Kingdom - ed.]. Astute observers have noted, though, that the rest of the administration is
operating on another track, one where countries like Russia are called out for meddling and
punished accordingly, and where allies around the world are engaged as peers rather than
ridiculed as rivals. On Russia, for instance, the president was reluctant to expel so many of
Mr. Putin's spies as punishment for the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain. He
complained for weeks about senior staff members letting him get boxed into further
confrontation with Russia, and he expressed frustration that the United States continued to
impose sanctions on the country for its malign behavior. But his national security team knew
better such actions had to be taken, to hold Moscow accountable."
And, while news about the British drive for war with Russia and their attempted coup against
the government of the United States fills the airwaves and the press, not a single word --
repeat, not a single word -- has been reported in the US or British media about the truly
historic conference which took place on Monday and Tuesday in Beijing, the Forum on
China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAP). Helga Zepp-LaRouche declared this week that this event will
be recognized in history as the end of the era of colonialism and neo-colonialism. Every
African nation except one was represented at the conference in Beijing (the "one" was
Swaziland, the last holdout on the African continent which still maintains diplomatic relations
with Taiwan rather than Beijing).
All but six were represented their head of state. They reviewed the transformation taking
place across Africa due to the Belt and Road Initiative since the last FOCAP meeting in 2015,
and laid out plans for the even more rapid development over the next three years, and on to
2063 -- the target year for full modernization over 50 years, adopted by the African Union in
2013. One after another the leaders of the African nations described the actual liberation
taking place, finally seeing in China the example that real development and the escape from
poverty is possible. The program launched at the 1955 Asian-African Conference in Bandung,
Indonesia, where the formerly colonized nations met for the first time without their colonial
masters, has finally been realized.
But no one reading the western press would even know that this transformative event had
taken place.
Rather, there is only the new McCarthyism, trying to demonize Russia and China, to revive
the "enemy image" which should have been eliminated with the fall of the Soviet Union and the
recognition of the People's Republic of China.
Trump threatens this new McCarthyism, insisting that America should be friends with Russia
and China. No longer will the U.S. accept Lord Palmerston's imperial dictate for the Empire,
that "nations have no permanent friends or allies, only permanent interests." The "special
relationship" is to be no more.
This is the cause of Theresa May's hysterical rant today in the Parliament. Better war, led
by the "dumb giant" America, than to see the Empire destroyed in a world united through a
shared vision of universal development.
Britain's drive for war must be exposed and stopped, along with their Russiagate coup
attempt in the US. A victory for the common aims of mankind is within our grasp, but the danger
is great, and the time is short.
Kirk Douglas starred in a great film about fighting in World War I: "Paths of Glory." I
highly recommend the film for its accuracy, best described in Wiki by the reaction of
governments:
Controversy
On its release, the film's anti-military tone was subject to criticism and censorship.
In France, both active and retired personnel from the French military vehemently
criticized the film -- and its portrayal of the French Army -- after it was released in
Belgium. The French government placed enormous pressure on United Artists, (the European
distributor) to not release the film in France. The film was eventually shown in France in
1975 when social attitudes had changed.[17]
In Germany, the film was withdrawn from the Berlin Film Festival to avoid straining
relations with France;[18] it was not shown for two years until after its release.
In Spain, Spain's right-wing government of Francisco Franco objected to the film. It was
first shown in 1986, 11 years after Franco's death.
In Switzerland, the film was censored, at the request of the Swiss Army, until
1970.[18]
At American bases in Europe, the American military banned it from being shown.[18]
May 28, 2018 - A Memorial to the Great War Disaster
Books about World War I are not popular in the USA because they are depressing. The
world's great European powers destroyed a generation of men in pointless bloody battles. Few
Americans realize that World War I was America's worst foreign policy blunder that killed
millions and set the stage for World War II.
When the "Great War" began in 1914, royals and generals hoped for swift victories.
However, advances in technology, mostly machine guns and rapid fire artillery, allowed
concentrated firepower to annihilate attacking formations. The war in France bogged down into
a bloody stalemate and the construction of fortified positions ensured that any offensive
would grind to a stop. The king of England and Germany were first cousins who grew up
together, so a peaceful resolution was likely in 1916.
The problem was that British bankers had loaned its government lots of money and most
could not be repaid. They wanted to win the war so they could loot Germany by requiring
Germans to pay reparations so the British government could repay them. If they could lure the
powerful USA to join the war, victory was assured. They blocked peace efforts and used their
agents of influence to manipulate the USA into joining the war. Soon after President Wilson
was elected with the promise to stay out the war, he worked with Congress to declare war.
As a result, the war dragged on for two more bloody years before enough American men and
material arrived in France to turn the tide. The war was unpopular back home, leading Wilson
to censor the US mail by blocking anti-war newsletters and magazines. He threw thousands of
political opponents in jail, implemented a draft to fill out the Army, and sent these
reluctant Americans into battle with little training and poor equipment. The Americans fought
bravely, but the Germans had three years of combat experience and chewed up American units
foolishly thrown into frontal attacks that had little chance of success. After four years of
war, the Germans had no more manpower to replace losses, and surrendered based on a just
peace promised by President Wilson. That never happened and Germany was looted and
humiliated, which led to the rise of the Nazis and World War II.
So this Memorial Day, remember the 116,516 Americans President Wilson killed in that
senseless war. Moreover, the American intervention extended the war and resulted in World War
II. American GIs slaughter Germans so British bankers could collect debts, with interest! I
was inspired to write this blog post after reading the brilliant David Stockman's recent
essay about America's disastrous intervention in World War I.
https://original.antiwar.com/David_Stockman/2018/05/16/why-the-empire-never-sleeps-the-indispensable-nation-folly-part-2/
I have to agree with much of what stated in his reply. But I would like to also add my own
in-depth notes
I tend to concentrate my military studies on World War I (in addition to the "War for
Southern Independence" and the inter-war years (1919-1939)). And as everyone here has
concluded, World War I was an abomination of an atrocity.
Professor Bacevich, a man I have great respect for, did however make some minor but
critical errors in this piece.
Kaiser Wilhelm had no desire to enter into a world conflagration. When he realized that
events were spinning out of control, he did everything in his power to contact his cousin,
the Russian Czar, to request that Russian Mobilization be halted, the actual cause of the
start of the conflict. Due to the fact that diplomacy, unlike the military (which had adopted
wireless and wired communications), was still using traditional methods of face-to-face
discussion or formal letters for diplomacy, the Kaiser was unable to get through to his
cousin in time to stop what the Czar most likely could not halt in any event. Mobilization of
forces at the time had taken on a life of their own due to the technologies of modernized
train transport.
In 1915 or 1916, the German high command attempted to offer to negotiate peace with
Britain and France but Britain, with the war being run basically by Churchill (a warmonger of
the first order) refused to talk to the Germans, since he loathed them for whatever
reasons.
The war was won by Germany in the winter of 1917 at which point the megalomaniacal Woodrow
Wilson pushed the US into the conflict with his god-like notion that he could create peace on
Earth. The man was truly clinically insane (but functional) as much recent documentation has
attested to (see the late Thomas Fleming's, "Illusion of Victory" for a thrill ride through
Wilson's addled thinking).
Had the US not entered the war, there would have been an amenable peace developed in 1917
among the European belligerents. And probably as a result, no World War II.
England was the cause of the war indirectly with her centuries old "balance of power"
politics applied to continental Europe. In this vein, fearful of the loss of her dominance on
the high seas as a result of the Kaiser's excellent buildup of the Kaiserliche Marine
(Imperial Navy), which in turn would threaten her empire, the British military started to
collude with the French military, I believe as early as 1906, to develop joint operational
plans in case of war with Germany. This latter of course, the British were very much hoping
would happen. And with Churchill being one of the most influential cabinet members on the
matter, there was little doubt that Britain would need very little pretext to enter a
conflict.
However, it was France's alliance with Russia that was directly responsible for the
initiation of the entire conflagration. This alliance was centered upon loans to Russia from
France for Russian domestic development and French fears that if Germany attacked her she
would be left on her own to defend herself. Russia agreed in principal to ally herself with
France but used the French loans instead to rebuild her military (though it did her little
good against superior German arms).
Germany, bound in alliance with Austro-Hungary, did in fact support Austria's punitive
strike into Serbia and provided what some have called a "blank check", which provided for
military and financial support as a result of the alliance. Austria's military, one which had
a very spotty historical record of being on and off again as far as quality was concerned,
was definitively off in 1914 and was summarily defeated by superior Serbian Forces.
Franz-Josef of Austria had no expectation of a world war when he committed Austria to such
an incursion into Serbian territory and by that time no else did either as a result of the
assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand since royal assassinations had become pretty common
place in Europe from 1880 onward. However, on the Austrian side we have general Conrad von
Hotzendorf to thank for this strike at Serbia. He hated Serbia probably as much as Churchill
hated the Germans but Conrad had good reason to since the Balkan nation was always causing
all sorts of problems on the Austro-Hungarian borders. Unfortunately, Conrad was not all that
good a military man and cost Austrian hundreds of thousands of combatant deaths during the
conflict.
As a result, this assassination, a real non-event, has been touted to school children ever
since as the cause of World War I. In reality, it was simply window dressing for idiots in
the US educational system to latch onto.
The reaction of Russia to the attack on Serbia was to fully mobilize her military, which
up through World War II has always been seen as an imminent sign of war.
This automatically dragged France into war, which in turn dragged England as a result of
the secret military partnership. Austria then was forced to follow suit and formally declare
war, which brought the final player into the conflict, Germany, who with the exception of
some in the German high command really had questions about engaging in such a widening war,
which was supposed to be a localized conflict.
Seeing that there was no hope to ending the conflict on amenable terms, the Kaiser
abdicated in 1918 and fled for the Royal Netherlands where he was taken in and granted
political asylum. However, by this time General Ludendorf had become a de-facto military
dictator of Germany. And though both he and his senior military aide. Max Hoffman, , who did
the majority of the planning, developed superior battlefield strategy, Ludendorf's political
decisions caused untold problems for the German social infrastructure, some of which was a
reaction to the new pressures that US Forces were finally bringing to bare on German
arms.
The original number of deaths for World War I began at around ten million but had been
upgraded over the years to around twenty million. However, this does not take into account
the highly damaging effects of what would become known as the Spanish Flu in 1918. Recent
research into this aspect of the war is now postulating of up to sixty million deaths all
told.
The Spanish Flu was actually a very mild flu; not the devastating epidemic that again
idiot educators and historians have touted over the years. What made this particular strain
of Flu so devastating was not the virus itself but the need for adequate health-care and
recovery. However, within the field armies that were facing each other, the deprivations that
the war had brought to continental Europe, and the very poorly developed 33 US training camps
in the States, affected personnel and civilian populace did not have the proper facilities
and health-care required to allow them to recover quickly and properly from this disease. The
result was that patients lingered in terrible conditions making recovery impossible and
allowing death to ensue.
Finally, it was not just British bankers who wanted their loans paid back but the US banks
desired it as well for their own loans; a first in the annals of military history between
allies. However, the Wilson Administration never considered the US an ally to Britain or
France. It instead viewed itself as an "associated nation", whatever that meant. However,
Wilson was famously known for his ridiculous vagueness and slogans ("saving the world for
democracy", which even at the time no one could quite figure out the meaning of). As a
result, the US would not sign a peace agreement until 1922.
The World Wars (I and II) can be seen as an increasingly desperate attempt of a fading
British Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, with the material, human,
and moral cost of the wars actually accelerating the empire's demise.
Likewise, the current endless "War on Terra" can be seen as an increasingly desperate
attempt of a fading American Empire to hold on to and maintain its power and hegemony, again
with the material, human, and moral cost of this war actually accelerating its demise.
But in the meantime, in both examples, the Bankers and the MIC just keep reaping their
profits, even at the expense of the empires they purportedly support and defend.
'There has never been a just [war], never an honorable one–on the part of the
instigator of the war. I can see a million years ahead, and this rule will never change in so
many as half a dozen instances. The loud little handful–as usual–will shout for
the war. The pulpit will– warily and cautiously–object–at first; the great,
big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be
a war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, "It is unjust and dishonorable, and there is
no necessity for it." Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair men on the other side
will argue and reason against the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a hearing
and be applauded; but it will not last long; those others will outshout them, and presently
the anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity. Before long you will see this
curious thing: the speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech strangled by hordes of
furious men who in their secret hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers–as
earlier– but do not dare to say so. And now the whole nation–pulpit and
all– will take up the war-cry, and shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who
ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths will cease to open. Next the statesmen
will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man
will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and
refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that
the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of
grotesque self-deception'.
- Satan, in Mark Twain's "The Mysterious Stranger" (1908)
Today, Washington need not even bother to propagandize the public into supporting its
war. By and large, members of the public are indifferent to its very existence. And given
our reliance on a professional military, shooting citizen-soldiers who want to opt out of
the fight is no longer required.
Yep, I was looking for a quote like this. We have a mercenary military now so the ruling
elite can send them anywhere they want with little agitation from the general public. That's
why I advised my son not to join, not that he was leaning in that direction anyway.
(Grin)
I posted this in another thread, but here it is more appropriate:
That's what happens when hubris replaces strategy. In the US today only MIC has a strategy:
produce any fakes necessary to keep the gravy train rolling. The leadership of the country is
wholly owned by MIC and allied forces (AIPAC is one of those) and mostly resembles biblical
blind lead by the blind
Andrew J. Bacevich is hard at work writing a book about how we got Donald J. Trump.
Buying his book would be a waste of money I can tell you for free.
Trump was elected out of the sheer desperation of a large number of Americans fed up to
death with a corrupt government and noxious [neo]liberalism. period.
Unfortunately he was a fraud ..but the most desperate are still clinging, hoping against
hope.
No, it's not the generals who have let us down, but the politicians to whom they
supposedly report and from whom they nominally take their orders.
I'd say both. The generals have greatly assisted in stringing along the trusting public,
always promising that victory is just around the corner, provided the public supports this or
that final effort. Petraeus in particular willingly played his part in misleading the public
about both Iraq and Afghanistan. His career would be a great case study for illuminating what
is wrong with the U.S. today.
As to the apparent failure of the Afghanistan war – one must be careful to separate
stated goals from real ones. What kind of "lasting success" can the U.S. possibly hope for
there? If they managed to defeat the Taliban, pacify the country, install a puppet regime to
govern it, and then leave, what would that achieve? The puppet regime would find itself
surrounded by powers antagonistic to the U.S., and the puppets would either cooperate with
them or be overthrown in no time. The U.S. are not interested in winning and leaving –
they want to continue disrupting the peaceful integration of East, West, and South Asia.
Afghanistan is ideally placed for this purpose, and so the U.S. are quite content with
dragging out that war, as a pretext for their continued presence in the region.
I would disagree on one point though: "Today, Washington need not even bother to
propagandize the public into supporting its war. By and large, members of the public are
indifferent to its very existence."
This is an error. A majority of the American public think that wasting trillions of
dollars on endless pointless foreign wars is a stupid idea, and they think that we would be
better off spending that money on ourselves. It's just that we don't live in a democracy, and
the corporate press constantly ignores the issue. But just because the press doesn't mention
something, doesn't mean that it does not exist.
So during the last presidential election Donald Trump echoed this view, why are we
throwing away all this money on stupid wars when we need that money at home? For this he was
attacked as a fascist and "literally Hitler" (really! It's jaw-dropping when you think about
it). Despite massive propaganda attacking Trump, and a personal style that could charitably
be called a jackass, Trump won the election in large part because indeed most American don't
like the status quo.
After the election, Trump started to deliver on his promises – and he was quickly
beaten down, his pragmatist nationalist advisors purged and replaced with defense-industry
chickenhawks, and now we are back to the old status quo. The public be damned.
No, the American people are not being propagandized into supporting these wars. They are
simply being ignored.
When are you going to stop insulting our intelligence with this Boy's State civics crap?
You're calling on political leaders to stop war, like they don't remember what CIA did to
JFK, RFK, Daschle, or Leahy. Or Paul Wellstone.
Your national command structure, CIA, has impunity for universal jurisdiction crime. They
can kill or torture anyone they want and get away with it. That is what put them in charge.
CIA kills anybody who gets in their way. You fail to comprehend Lenin's lesson: first destroy
the regime, then you can refrain from use of force. Until you're ready to take on CIA, your
bold phrases are silent and odorless farts of feckless self-absorption. Sack up and imprison
CIA SIS or GTFO.
I would disagree on one point though: "Today, Washington need not even bother to
propagandize the public into supporting its war. By and large, members of the public are
indifferent to its very existence."
This is an error. A majority of the American public think that wasting trillions of
dollars on endless pointless foreign wars is a stupid idea, and they think that we would be
better off spending that money on ourselves. It's just that we don't live in a democracy, and
the corporate press constantly ignores the issue. But just because the press doesn't mention
something, doesn't mean that it does not exist.
So during the last presidential election Donald Trump echoed this view, why are we
throwing away all this money on stupid wars when we need that money at home? For this he was
attacked as a fascist and "literally Hitler" (really! It's jaw-dropping when you think about
it). Despite massive propaganda attacking Trump, and a personal style that could charitably
be called a jackass, Trump won the election in large part because indeed most American don't
like the status quo.
After the election, Trump started to deliver on his promises - and he was quickly beaten
down, his pragmatist nationalist advisors purged and replaced with defense-industry
chickenhawks, and now we are back to the old status quo. The public be damned.
No, the American people are not being propagandized into supporting these wars. They are
simply being ignored. While I agree the slave-American is ignored, I think the elected,
salaried members of the elected government are also ignored.. The persons in charge are
Pharaohs and massively powerful global in scope corporations.
Abe Lincoln, McKinnley, Kennedy discovered that fact in their fate.
Organized Zionism was copted by the London bankers and their corporations 1897, since then
a string of events have emerged.. that like a Submarine, seeking a far off target, it must
divert to avoid being discovered, but soon, Red October returns to its intended path. here
the path is to take the oil from the Arabs.. and the people driving that submarine are
extremely wealthy Pharaohs and very well known major corporations.
I suggest to quit talking about the nation states and their leaders as if either could
beat their way out of a wet paper sack. instead starting talking about the corporations and
Pharaohs because they are global.
" The United States of
Amnesia ." That's what Gore Vidal once called us. We remember what we find it convenient to
remember and forget everything else. That forgetfulness especially applies to the history of
others. How could their past, way back when, have any meaning for us today?
Well, it just might. Take the European conflagration of 1914-1918, for example.
You may not have noticed. There's no reason why you should have, fixated as we all are on
the daily torrent of presidential tweets and the flood of mindless rejoinders they elicit. But
let me note for the record that the centenary of the conflict once known as The Great War is
well underway and before the present year ends will have concluded.
Indeed, a hundred years ago this month, the 1918 German Spring Offensive -- codenamed
Operation Michael -- was sputtering to an unsuccessful conclusion. A last desperate German
gamble, aimed at shattering Allied defenses and gaining a decisive victory, had fallen short.
In early August of that year, with large numbers of our own doughboys now on the front lines, a
massive Allied counteroffensive was to commence, continuing until the eleventh hour
of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, when an armistice finally took effect and the guns
fell silent.
In the years that followed, Americans demoted The Great War. It became World War I, vaguely
related to but overshadowed by the debacle next in line, known as World War II. Today, the
average citizen knows little about that earlier conflict other than that it preceded and
somehow paved the way for an even more brutal bloodletting. Also, on both occasions, the bad
guys spoke German.
So, among Americans, the war of 1914-1918 became a neglected stepsister of sorts, perhaps in
part because the United States only got around to suiting up for that conflict about halfway
through the fourth quarter. With the war of 1939-1945 having been sacralized as the moment when
the Greatest Generation saved humankind, the war-formerly-known-as-The-Great-War collects dust
in the bottom drawer of American collective consciousness.
From time to time, some politician or newspaper columnist will resurrect the file labeled
"August 1914," the grim opening weeks of that war, and sound off about the dangers of
sleepwalking into a devastating conflict that nobody wants or understands. Indeed, with
Washington today having become a carnival of buncombe
so sublimely preposterous that even that great journalistic iconoclast H.L. Mencken might have
been struck dumb, ours is perhaps an apt moment for just such a reminder.
Yet a different aspect of World War I may possess even greater relevance to the American
present. I'm thinking of its duration: the longer it lasted, the less sense it made. But on it
went, impervious to human control like the sequence of Biblical plagues that God had inflicted on the
ancient Egyptians.
So the relevant question for our present American moment is this: once it becomes apparent
that a war is a mistake, why would those in power insist on its perpetuation, regardless of
costs and consequences? In short, when getting in turns out to have been a bad idea,
why is getting out so difficult, even (or especially) for powerful nations that
presumably should be capable of exercising choice on such matters? Or more bluntly, how did the
people in charge during The Great War get away with inflicting such extraordinary damage on the
nations and peoples for which they were responsible?
For those countries that endured World War I from start to finish -- especially Great
Britain, France, and Germany -- specific circumstances provided their leaders with an excuse
for suppressing second thoughts about the cataclysm they had touched off.
Among them were:
mostly compliant civilian populations deeply loyal to some version of
King and Country, further kept in line by unremitting
propaganda that minimized dissent; draconian discipline -- deserters and malingerers faced
firing squads -- that
maintained order in the ranks (most of the time) despite the unprecedented scope of the
slaughter; the comprehensive industrialization of war, which ensured a seemingly endless supply
of the weaponry, munitions, and other equipment necessary for outfitting mass conscript armies
and replenishing losses as they occurred.
Economists would no doubt add sunk costs to the mix. With so much treasure already
squandered and so many lives already lost, the urge to press on a bit longer in hopes of
salvaging at least some meager benefit in return for what (and who) had been done in was
difficult to resist.
Even so, none of these, nor any combination of them, can adequately explain why, in the
midst of an unspeakable orgy of self-destruction, with staggering losses and nations in ruin,
not one monarch or president or premier had the wit or gumption to declare: Enough! Stop this
madness!
Instead, the politicians sat on their hands while actual authority devolved onto the likes
of British Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig, French Marshals Ferdinand Foch and Philippe Petain,
and German commanders Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff. In other words, to solve a
conundrum they themselves had created, the politicians of the warring states all deferred to
their warrior chieftains. For their part, the opposing warriors jointly subscribed to a
perverted inversion of strategy best summarized by Ludendorff
as "punch a hole [in the front] and let the rest follow." And so the conflict dragged on and
on.
The Forfeiture of Policy
Put simply, in Europe, a hundred years ago, war had become politically purposeless. Yet the
leaders of the world's principal powers -- including
Allow me to suggest that the United States should consider taking a page out of Lenin's
playbook. Granted, prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, such a suggestion might
have smacked of treason. Today, however, in the midst of our
never-ending efforts to expunge terrorism, we might look to Lenin for guidance on how to
get our priorities straight.
As was the case with Great Britain, France, and Germany a century ago, the United States now
finds itself mired in a senseless war. Back then, political leaders in London, Paris, and
Berlin had abrogated control of basic policy to warrior chieftains. Today, ostensibly
responsible political leaders in Washington have done likewise. Some of those latter-day
American warrior chieftains who gather in the White House or testify on Capitol Hill may wear
suits rather than uniforms, but all remain enamored with the twenty-first-century equivalent of
Ludendorff's notorious dictum.
Of course, our post-9/11 military enterprise -- the undertaking once known as the Global War
on Terrorism -- differs from The Great War in myriad ways. The ongoing hostilities in which
U.S. forces are involved in various parts of the Islamic world do not qualify, even
metaphorically, as "great." Nor will there be anything great about an
armed conflict with Iran , should members of the current administration get their
apparent
wish to provoke one.
Today, Washington need not even bother to propagandize the public into supporting its war.
By and large, members of the public are indifferent to its very existence. And given our
reliance on a professional military, shooting citizen-soldiers who want to opt out of the fight
is no longer required.
There are also obvious differences in scale, particularly when it comes to the total number
of casualties involved. Cumulative deaths from the various U.S. interventions, large and small,
undertaken since 9/11, number in the hundreds of thousands . The precise tally
of those lost during the European debacle of 1914-1918 will never be known, but the total
probably surpassed
13 million .
Even so, similarities between the Great War as it unspooled and our own
not-in-the-least-great war(s) deserve consideration. Today, as then, strategy -- that is, the
principled use of power to achieve the larger interests of the state -- has ceased to exist.
Indeed, war has become an excuse for ignoring the absence of strategy.
For years now, U.S. military officers and at least some national security aficionados have
referred to ongoing military hostilities as " the Long War ." To describe our conglomeration of
spreading conflicts as "long" obviates any need to suggest when or under what circumstances (if
any) they might actually end. It's like the meteorologist forecasting a "long winter" or the
betrothed telling his or her beloved that theirs will be a "long engagement." The implicit
vagueness is not especially encouraging.
Some high-ranking officers of late have offered a more forthright explanation of what "long"
may really mean. In the Washington Post , the journalist Greg Jaffe
recently reported that "winning for much of the U.S. military's top brass has come to be
synonymous with staying put." Winning, according to Air Force General Mike Holmes, is simply
"not losing. It's staying in the game."
Not so long ago, America's armed forces adhered to a concept called victory , which
implied conclusive, expeditious, and economical mission accomplished. No more. Victory
, it turns out, is too tough to achieve, too restrictive, or, in the words of Army
Lieutenant General Michael Lundy, "too absolute." The United States military now grades itself
instead on a curve. As Lundy puts it, "winning is more of a continuum," an approach that allows
you to claim mission accomplishment without, you know, actually accomplishing anything.
It's like soccer for six-year-olds. Everyone tries hard so everyone gets a trophy.
Regardless of outcomes, no one goes home feeling bad. In the U.S. military's case, every
general gets a medal (or, more likely, a
chest full of them).
"These days," in the Pentagon, Jaffe writes, "senior officers talk about 'infinite
war.'"
I would like to believe that Jaffe is pulling our leg. But given that he's a conscientious
reporter with excellent sources, I fear he knows what he's talking about. If he's right, as far
as the top brass are concerned, the Long War has now officially gone beyond long. It has been
deemed endless and is accepted as such by those who preside over its conduct.
Strategic Abomination
In truth, infinite war is a strategic abomination, an admission of professional military
bankruptcy. Erster General-Quartiermeister Ludendorff might have endorsed the term,
but Ludendorff was a military fanatic.
Check that. Infinite war is a strategic abomination except for arms merchants, so-called
defense contractors, and the " emergency
men " (and women) devoted to climbing the greasy pole of what we choose to call the
national security establishment. In other words, candor obliges us to acknowledge that, in some
quarters, infinite war is a pure positive, carrying with it a promise of yet more profits,
promotions, and opportunities to come. War keeps the gravy train rolling. And, of course,
that's part of the problem.
Who should we hold accountable for this abomination? Not the generals, in my view. If they
come across as a dutiful yet unimaginative lot, remember that a lifetime of military service
rarely nurtures imagination or creativity. And let us at least credit our generals with this:
in their efforts to liberate or democratize or pacify or dominate the Greater Middle East they
have tried every military tactic and technique imaginable. Short of nuclear annihilation,
they've played just about every card in the Pentagon's deck -- without coming up with a winning
hand. So they come and go at regular intervals, each new commander promising success and
departing after a couple years to
make way for someone else to give it a try.
It tells us something about our prevailing standards of generalship that, by resurrecting an
old idea -- counterinsurgency -- and applying it with temporary success to one particular
theater of war, General David Petraeus acquired a reputation as a military genius. If Petraeus
is a military genius, so, too, is General George McClellan. After winning the Battle of Rich
Mountain in 1861, newspapers
dubbed McClellan "the Napoleon of the Present War." But the action at Rich Mountain decided
nothing and McClellan didn't win the Civil War any more than Petraeus won the Iraq War.
No, it's not the generals who have let us down, but the politicians to whom they supposedly
report and from whom they nominally take their orders. Of course, under the heading of
politician, we quickly come to our current commander-in-chief. Yet it would be manifestly
unfair to blame President Trump for the mess he inherited, even if he is presently engaged in
making matters worse .
The failure is a collective one, to which several presidents and both political parties have
contributed over the years. Although the carnage may not be as horrific today as it was on the
European battlefields on the Western and Eastern Fronts, members of our political class are
failing us as strikingly and repeatedly as the political leaders of Great Britain, France, and
Germany failed their peoples back then. They have abdicated responsibility for policy to our
own homegrown equivalents of Haig, Foch, Petain, Hindenburg, and Ludendorff. Their failure is
unforgivable.
Congressional midterm elections are just months away and another presidential election
already looms. Who will be the political leader with the courage and presence of mind to
declare: "Enough! Stop this madness!" Man or woman, straight or gay, black, brown, or white,
that person will deserve the nation's gratitude and the support of the electorate.
"... Further oil price increases could trigger a slowdown in domestic or global economic growth, which could further complicate the U.S.' Iran policy and Trump's domestic political situation. ..."
Further oil price increases could trigger a slowdown in domestic or global economic
growth, which could further complicate the U.S.' Iran policy and Trump's domestic political
situation. September 12th, 2018
Despite the Trump administration's "
maximum pressure " campaign targeting the Iranian economy, Iran's crude oil and oil product
revenues
jumped a surprising 60 percent from March 21 to July 23. In addition, figures provided by
Iran's Central Bank show that Iran's revenues from oil sales soared by 84.2 percent over that
same period, setting a new record.
The increased revenues seem to have resulted from a jump in oil prices this year as well as
Iran's high oil export volume during part of that period. Notably, the increased revenues were
reported despite the United States' announcement in May that it
would sanction those purchasing Iranian oil starting in early November, with the ultimate
goal of reducing Iranian oil sales to zero in order to place pressure on the Iranian
government.
The U.S.' efforts have had some noticeable effects on Iranian oil exports, as the country's
exports for the month of August were
significantly lower than those of July. However, the drop has only seen exports fall to
near March 2016 levels , when the U.S. was not pursuing a sanctions policy against Iran and
the Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was
in effect.
Further dashing U.S. hopes of crushing Iranian oil exports have been recent announcements
from Iran's top two customers,
China and
India , that they would continue to import Iranian crude despite the looming threat of U.S.
sanctions. India, along with some other countries, has sought " waivers
" from Washington that would allow them to continue to import Iranian oil and avoid retaliation
from the U.S. for a certain period of time.
In addition, the European Union, which had previously joined the U.S. in targeting Iranian
oil exports in 2012, has shown its unwillingness to follow Washington's lead this time around,
openly
vowing to rebel against the U.S. sanctions regimen and increasing the likelihood that
Europe will continue to buy some Iranian oil despite U.S. threats.
Risks for U.S. and
global economies
Another indication that efforts to curb Iranian oil exports are backfiring for the Trump
administration is
the jump in oil prices that has resulted from concerns about the U.S. sanctions on Iran's
oil exports. The increase in oil prices is likely to be felt domestically in the U.S., the
world's largest consumer of oil, potentially posing a political risk to Trump and his fellow
Republicans ahead of the November 6 midterm elections. In addition, further oil price increases
could trigger a slowdown in domestic or global economic growth, which could further complicate
the U.S.' Iran policy and Trump's domestic political situation.
Such concerns have prompted
U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry to meet his Saudi and Russian counterparts in an effort to
convince those two countries to keep oil output high in order to offset a reduction in future
Iranian oil exports. While Saudi Arabia
has already stated it would increase output, Russia is unlikely to comply, given its
relationship with Iran and Washington's threat to impose new sanctions on Moscow. The U.S.,
Saudi Arabia and Russia
are currently the world's three largest oil producers, accounting for about a third of
global crude oil output.
While the Trump administration may have assumed that U.S. oil producers – and the U.S.
economy in general -- would benefit from the elimination of Iranian oil exports, the growing
rejection of the impending U.S. sanctions by other countries shows that these nations are
unwilling
to pay for more expensive American oil or even Saudi oil,
preferring less expensive Iranian oil despite potential future consequences. Furthermore,
efforts to increase U.S. crude production
have fallen short of government expectations, further complicating the U.S.' efforts to
offset an increase in oil prices resulting from Iranian oil sanctions.
Whitney Webb is a staff writer for MintPress News and a contributor to Ben Swann's Truth
in Media. Her work has appeared on Global Research, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century
Wire, among others. She has also made radio and TV appearances on RT and Sputnik. She currently
lives with her family in southern Chile.
... hilariously, UK security minister Wallace asserted the Novichok was assuredly in a perfume bottle, got into the country
because of poor baggage checks, had the capability "to kill or injure hundreds and hundreds of people", but was not a health risk
to persons on the plane or public transit used by the suspects. ????
Article over at the Stalker Zone on the forged letter that brought down the first UK Labour government of Ramsey McDonald in 1924.
"The frank forgery that is the "Zinoviev's letter" came to London from the Riga department of the Secret Intelligence Service
of the Foreign & Commonwealth Office of Britain (or SIS, nowadays better known as MI-6) with an assurance that the authenticity
of the document "does not raise doubts" (the most ancient form of "highly likely") The Labour government was doomed. Rectifying
the situation in such a short period of time before elections didn't seem to be possible."
Mark Twain's truism still holds today, "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
And the media is little different except for sites like this. Thanks B and keep up the good fight. Don't let the bastards get
you down.
Vladimir Kornilov: The Prequel to the Skripal Affair – Britain Investigates the "Great Forgery"
"... We know the proceeds will go unmentioned into offshore havens and the London property market. Britain would derive no geopolitical benefit as a whole. The benefits would accrue only to a kleptocracy who think they have a right to use our country as a loan shark's leg-breaker. ..."
Freedland recently put this argument on Newsnight.
It is flawed to the point of dishonesty.
He talks of removing assets as if the process was being conducted under laboratory
conditions. There are ten nations enmeshed in a warzone with numerous factions under no one's
control. It is magical thinking that cannot be achieved and will only result in rapid,
uncontrolled escalation. The idea that there will be no collateral damage is laughable and I
regret to suggest that it is deliberately misleading.
Moreover, in engaging Assad when he is on the brink of victory, the Syrian Civil War will
be extended. The Syrian people will then pay the price.
Should Assad subsequently fall - and that is the actual aim of intervention - then Syria
will become another anarchic wasteland ruled over by fundamentalist warlords. The spiral of
migration will be renewed bringing loons wrapped in the dispossessed to our own streets.
Worse, the militants next stop will be Lebanon and then Israel will be directly involved.
Freedland advocates acting against Assad without even attempting to predict the consequences.
At the very least I would expect the usual misdirection 'of course this time we must have a
plan for rebuilding Syria', secure in the knowledge that by that time there will be another
crisis and Syria can be left in entropy.
No good can come from military intervention. The satisfaction of commentators that the
right thing has been done is an irrelevance. The right thing is always just public relations.
Every bit of ruthless geopolitics has to have a casus belli to make the killing all righteous
and unavoidable. It has always been thus. For resources to be expended on this kind of scale
there has to be a rock solid bit of bankable realpolitik. In this case its the struggle for
regional hegemony between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Syria can either be part of a supply chain
selling Sunni gas/oil to Europe or Shi'a gas/oil to Europe. This is about killing Syrians for
the glory of Saudi Arabia. You can see why there has to be a casus belli because thats not
something that can be sold. We know the proceeds will go unmentioned into offshore havens and
the London property market. Britain would derive no geopolitical benefit as a whole. The
benefits would accrue only to a kleptocracy who think they have a right to use our country as
a loan shark's leg-breaker.
It is therefore my contention that Freedland is promoting an immoral act that will have
serious consequences without offering any serious improvement in the situation. This is
arguably the most dangerous situation since the Cuban Missile crisis and an analysis that
advocates pouring oil on the flames is either ridiculously stupid or calculatedly
duplicitous.
"Up to" 13,000 "opponents" killed over five years during a period of war. I'm assuming that
number of "opponents" includes a large number of out and out terrorists who have thrown the
country into chaos.
The UK and France bares a heavy responsibility for the current situation in Syria. The
cavalier attitude that the ConDems took to international law during the Arab spring
encouraged the Saudi s and their proxies to distablise the recognised Govt. Assad is no
paragon of virtue, but prior to the insurgency steps were in place to make the country a
better place for its citizens, and whilst its true political dissent was not allowed, people
could live their lives and go about their business in safety.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis acknowledges that U.S. instructors are
training Ukrainian military units at a base in western Ukraine. Washington also has
approved two important arms sales to Kiev's ground forces in just the past nine months. The
first transaction in December 2017 was limited to small arms that at least could be portrayed
as purely defensive weapons. That agreement included the export of Model M107A1 Sniper Systems,
ammunition, and associated parts and accessories, a sale valued at $41.5 million.
A transaction in April 2018 was more serious. Not only was it larger
($47 million) , it included far more lethal weaponry, particularly 210
Javelin anti-tank missiles -- the kind of weapons that Barack Obama's administration had
declined to give Kiev.
Needless to say, the Kremlin
was not pleased about either sale. Moreover, Congress soon passed legislation in May that
authorized $250 million in military assistance, including lethal weaponry, to Ukraine in 2019.
Congress had twice voted for military support on a similar scale during the last years of
Obama's administration, but the White House blocked implementation. The Trump administration
cleared that obstacle out of the way in December 2017 at the same time that it approved the
initial small-weapons sale. The passage of the May 2018 legislation means that the path is now
open for a dramatic escalation of U.S. military backing for Kiev.
On September 1, former U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker disclosed during an interview
with TheGuardian that Washington's future military aid to Kiev would
likely involve weapons sales to Ukraine's air force and navy as well as the army. "The Javelins
are mainly symbolic and it's not clear if they would ever be used," Aric Toler, a research
scholar at the Atlantic Council, asserted
. One could well dispute his sanguine conclusion, but even Toler conceded: "Support for the
Ukrainian navy and air defence would be a big deal. That would be far more significant."
Volker's cavalier attitude about U.S. arms sales to a government locked in a crisis with
Russia epitomizes the arrogance and tone-deaf nature of the views that too many U.S. foreign
policy officials exhibit regarding the sensitive Ukraine issue. "We can have a conversation
with Ukraine like we would with any other country about what do they need. I think that there's
going to be some discussion about naval capability because as you know their navy was basically
taken by Russia [when the Soviet Union dissolved]. And so they need to rebuild a navy and they
have very limited air capability as well. I think we'll have to look at air defence."
One suspects that Americans would be incensed at comparable actions by Moscow if the
geo-strategic situations were reversed. Imagine if Russia (even a democratic Russia) had
emerged from the wreckage of the Cold War as the undisputed global superpower, and a weakened
United States had to watch as the Kremlin expanded a powerful, Russian-led military alliance to
America's borders, conducted alliance war games within sight of U.S. territory, interfered in
Canada's internal political affairs to oust a democratically elected pro-American government,
and then pursued growing military ties with the new, anti-U.S. government in Ottawa. Yet that
would be disturbingly similar to what Washington has done regarding NATO policy and U.S.
relations with Ukraine.
Moreover, although Kiev's cheerleaders in the Western (especially U.S.) media like to
portray Ukraine as a beleaguered democracy that plays the role of David to Russia's evil
Goliath, the reality is far murkier. Putin's government overstates matters when it alleges that
Ukraine's 2014 Maidan revolution was a U.S.-orchestrated coup that brought outright fascists to
power in Kiev. Nevertheless, that version contains more than a little truth. Prominent,
powerful U.S. figures, most notably the late Senator John McCain and Assistant Secretary of
State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, openly sided with
demonstrators seeking to unseat Ukraine's elected government. Indeed, Nuland was caught on tape with U.S.
Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt scheming about the desired composition of a new government
in Kiev.
It is unfair to portray Ukraine's current administration led by President Petro Poroshenko
as a neo-fascist regime. Post-revolution elections appear to have been reasonably free and
fair, and there are major factions that are committed to genuine democratic values. But Ukraine
also is hardly a model of Western-style democracy. Not only is it afflicted with extensive
graft and corruption, but some extreme nationalist and even
neo-Nazi groups play a significant role in the "new" Ukraine. The notoriously fascist Azov
Battalion, for example, continues to occupy a prominent position in Kiev's efforts to defeat
separatists in Ukraine's eastern Donbass region. Alexander Zakharchenko, prime minister of the
self-declared Donetsk People's Republic in the pro-Russia rebel-occupied city of Donetsk,
was assassinated on September 1 and officials there and in Russia are blaming Kiev. The
Ukrainian government has denied involvement.
Other ultranationalist factions act as domestic militias that attempt to intimidate more
moderate Ukrainians. Even the Poroshenko government itself has adopted troubling censorship
measures and other autocratic policies. Officials in both the Obama and Trump administration
have taken a much too casual attitude toward U.S. cooperation
with extremist elements and a deeply flawed Ukrainian government.
Both the danger of stoking tensions with Moscow and becoming too close to a regime in Kiev
that exhibits disturbing features should caution the Trump administration against boosting
military aid to Ukraine. It is an unwise policy on strategic as well as moral grounds. Trump
administration officials should refuse to be intimidated or stampeded into forging a risky and
unsavory alliance with Kiev out of fear of being portrayed as excessively "soft" toward Russia.
Instead, the president and his advisers need to spurn efforts to increase U.S. support for
Ukraine. A good place to start would be to restore the Obama administration's refusal to
approve arms sales to Kiev. Washington must not pour gasoline on a geo-strategic fire that
could lead to a full-blown crisis between the United States and Russia.
Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato
Institute and a contributing editor at TAC , is the author of 10 books, the contributing
editor of 10 books, and the author of more than 700 articles on international affairs .
"... General Eisenhower told us to our faces all about the fiction, and yet we as a culture/civilization pretend the president is solely in charge. ..."
What's truly remarkable is Gen. Eisenhower told us upon leaving presidency all about who
competes with our elected president on what happens.
Those presidents that toe the "military industrial complex" line most closely are seen as
the most in charge.
President Kennedy did not, was murdered. President Johnson did, it
eventually sickened him, he did not seek reelection. President Nixon was removed from office.
President Carter was humiliated. President Reagan's dream of a nuclear free world was vetoed
by guess who. President Bush was defeated by the mother of all sycophants to that force.
President Clinton was their man. Vice President Cheney was even more so. President Obama
tried to hide the fact he was not. President Trump has not tried to hide that fact.
Reporting on the Trump phenomena would benefit by more imagination.
Is it not a public service, irrespective of one's opinions on him, that it should now be
clear to all, now via the Trump Phenomena, that what was plainly told us all in the 1950s
from a General, is the way it is?
Yet a "criticism" of Trump is his "sin" of taking off the mask.
General Eisenhower told us to our faces all about the fiction, and yet we as a
culture/civilization pretend the president is solely in charge.
What is remarkable is the amount of reporting on the current president that lacks
imagination, insight, logic, rationality, reason, common sense, and insight.
However, that is not remarkable given that most of the reporters lived all their lives in
a culture/civilization that fails to educate us in a meaningful way. Their and our
professors, mentors, supervisors, and family, and friends and significant others, also so
socialized; however, the road to progress is in front of us if we are curious enough.
Were the goal of contemporary American Politics first and foremost a search for the truth,
that would be one thing.
The Shining Star of American Politics, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren perfectly
epitomizes that it is not, as she knows better, was seduced by power, and all that that
implies. The ends justify the means for the entire lot of them.
Whatever that evil perspective engender, progress is and never shall be one of them.
That has been my take on affairs sine some time: Trump is just the mouthpiece of, and strong-armed by the Media Military Industrial Intelligence Complex (MMIIC).
Full disclosure: I despise Trump for a great number of reasons.
Even fuller disclosure: I despise with a vengeance the Intel community, which has taken over the media and the DNC and are
the Jesuits of the MIC.
Below is a New Silk Strategies translation from the Russian site teknoblog.ru .
It is clear from Trump's enthusiastic sales talk to the Polish authorities on July 6, 2017
(as we reported here
) that the centrepiece of Trump's economic policy is LNG exports. The US has no major economic
projects even remotely comparable to China's One Belt One Road initiative, the biggest
infrastructure project in history. But worse, all of the energy companies involved in fracking
are
running in the red with no prospects of ever making profits unless oil prices skyrocket to
new highs and stay there. The wells are short-lived and by the time they are producing
steadily, they are already drying up, necessitating new drilling and more borrowing. Worse,
that big deal with China to sujpply a major portion of their gas needs may be about to fizzle,
thanks to Trump's tough guy act.
In 2016, Henry Kissinger
floated the idea of using Russia to oppose China and shared the idea with an enthusiastic
Donald Trump. Kissinger had entertained this idea in the 1970s as Nixon's national security
adviser. The problem is, the whole notion of granting China "most-favoured nation" status, ie,
doing essentially free trade with it, was based on just the opposite mission of opposing
Russia using China as a club, and both ideas have their die-hard supporters
in Washington. Keen observers know neither approach will succeed. In fact, recently the
National Interest reported that China and Russia are planning joint military drills.
Looks like my comment made on the previous Syria thread was a waste of my time. Oh Well!
The Iraqi situation has clearly turned in the favor of the Outlaw US Empire as it craves
chaos. It seems more likely than ever that Sadr's been turned given his behavior. The
situation will give comfort to Neocons who want to "consolidate gains" within Syraq and
continue building their military presence.
I very much welcomed the Russian statement on the al-Tanf terrorist base; its liquidation
will hopefully come swiftly. It's instructive to compare the political stability of Syria
with Iraq's political chaos. I think it very likely we'll see Daesh's resurrection within
Iraq as that's the Outlaw US Empire's main tool to keep the chaos ongoing--the empire doesn't
fight against Daesh; rather, it uses Daesh to fight against its stated enemies
everywhere.
The Iraqi situation has clearly turned in the favor of the Outlaw US Empire as it craves
chaos.
I don't agree with that, for the obvious reason that it will be impossible to
support the US position in al-Tanf. And indeed in Syrian Kurdistan. What the US wants is a
US-agreed PM in Iraq, and moderate stability.
"... McCain was a protégé of neo-Conservative founder Senator Henry Scoop Jackson, a crazy servant of the British imperial agenda who constantly sought military confrontation with Russia. ..."
"... The British were so enamored of Jackson's views that they have dedicated an entire society of British intelligence spooks to him, the Henry Jackson Society. The former incarnation of this group was the Committee on Present Danger and the Project for a New American Century in the United States. ..."
"... Leading members of both groups hastily retreated to British mother ship after they led the mobilization for the failed and disastrous Iraq War here in the U.S. Sir Richard Dearlove, who has shepherded Christopher Steele and other British aspects of the coup against Donald Trump, is a leading member of this group. ..."
"... He was uniquely ruthless when it comes to advancing imperial goals, barnstorming from one conflict zone to another to personally recruit far right fanatics as American proxies ..."
"... He backed the installation of the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood to govern Egypt, another failed and insane project. More than $5.6 trillion was spent chasing John McCain's idyll of democracy in Southwest Asia. Six thousand seven hundred Americans died, more than 50,000 were wounded, entire countries were reduced to rubble with accompanying genocide against their populations, the largest mass human migration ever was sent into Europe resembling something akin to the desperate mass flights of the Middle Ages. ..."
John McCain died and deserved a decent funeral based on his war record and his long, if destructive, public service. McCain and
others in Washington's arrogant and narcissistic elite decided before his death, however, to use McCain's demise to advance the coup
against the President, and to make claims about the late Senator and themselves which are totally and utterly false and delusional.
The funeral was a national media extravaganza achieving a status normally only enjoyed by former Presidents. It was, according to
New Yorker Magazine , also the "biggest resistance meeting yet." President Donald Trump was not invited so that the cowards
in the funeral crowd, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush, could freely take potshots at the President. McCain picked these leaders
of the country's descent into hell deliberately, to romanticize his death, and to trash talk the current President, albeit, in eloquent
and lofty language and knowing allusions. In effect, they wrapped the murderous crimes of empire in the American flag.
McCain was a protégé of neo-Conservative founder Senator Henry Scoop Jackson, a crazy servant of the British imperial agenda
who constantly sought military confrontation with Russia.
The British were so enamored of Jackson's views that they have dedicated an entire society of British intelligence spooks
to him, the Henry Jackson Society. The former incarnation of this group was the Committee on Present Danger and the Project for a
New American Century in the United States.
Leading members of both groups hastily retreated to British mother ship after they led the mobilization for the failed and
disastrous Iraq War here in the U.S. Sir Richard Dearlove, who has shepherded Christopher Steele and other British aspects of the
coup against Donald Trump, is a leading member of this group.
Funding for McCain's political adventures came from his second wife, whose brewing company fortune was completely mixed up in
Arizona mob and mob funding during its earlier years.
With respect to McCain's activities, Max Blumenthal characterized them accurately in the August 27th Consortium News:
"McCain did not simply thunder for every major intervention in the post-Cold War era from the Senate floor. . .
He was uniquely ruthless when it comes to advancing imperial goals, barnstorming from one conflict zone to another to personally
recruit far right fanatics as American proxies . . .
In Libya and Syria, he cultivated affiliates of Al-Qaeda as allies, and in Ukraine, McCain recruited actual sig-heiling neo-Nazis.
. .
Following the NATO orchestrated murder of Libya's leader, McCain tweeted: "Qaddafi on his way out, Bashar Al Assad is next."
He backed the installation of the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood to govern Egypt, another failed and insane project. More than
$5.6 trillion was spent chasing John McCain's idyll of democracy in Southwest Asia. Six thousand seven hundred Americans died, more
than 50,000 were wounded, entire countries were reduced to rubble with accompanying genocide against their populations, the largest
mass human migration ever was sent into Europe resembling something akin to the desperate mass flights of the Middle Ages.
It is these horrific actions by McCain, not the myth peddled at his funeral, which is the source of the conflict between Trump
and John McCain, and between Trump and George Bush and Barack Obama. Trump promised to end the imperial policy of endless religious
and population wars and Wall Street bailouts, and the voters responded resoundingly by electing him President.
"... We Americans are totally subject to ziocon propaganda when it comes to Middle East affairs. Anyone that disagrees with that viewpoint is immediately labeled anti-semitic and now banned from social media and of course from the TV talk shows. ..."
"... Jack posed an interesting question, how does someone like Putin respond to an irrational US who in their delusions can easily escalate military conflict if their ego gets bruised when it is shown that they don't have the unilateral power of a hegemon? ..."
"... Always thought that Nikki Haley was the price Donald Trump had to pay to get Sheldon Adelson's large campaign contributions in 2016. Adelson was Trump's second biggest contributor. So was recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. Sheldon got his money's worth. https://www.investopedia.co... ..."
"... Nikki Haley's Sikh origins may have something to do with her anti-Muslim feelings. ..."
"... it is hypocritical in the extreme for the U.S. to be criticising anyone for killing people anywhere after what they have been doing in the Middle East. According to Professor Gideon Polya the total avoidable deaths in Afghanstan alone since 2001 under ongoing war and occupation-imposed deprivation amount to around three million people, about 900,000 of whom are infants under the age of five (see Professor Gideon Polya at La Trobe University in Melbourne book, 'Body Count: Global Avoidable Mortality Since 1950' and Washington DC-based Physicians for Social Responsibility study: http://www.psr.org/assets/p... . ..."
"... Is it in our DNA that we can't learn lessons from our interventionist experience in the Middle East? Looks like Iraq is spinning out of control once again. I'm sure many including the Shia may reminisce favorably to the Sadam years despite his tyranny. https://ejmagnier.com/2018/... ..."
"... We are indoctrinated with the idea that all people are basically the same. In fact this is only true at the level of basics like shelter, food, sex, etc. We refuse to really believe in the reality of widely varying cultures. It makes us incapable, as a group, of understanding people who do not share our outlook. i have been dealing with this all my life as a delegated "ambassador" to the "others." ..."
"... In this context, if you were Vladimir Putin and knowing that President Trump is completely ignorant when it comes to history and policy details and has surrounded himself with neocons as far as foreign policy is concerned and Bibi has him eating out of his hands, how would you deal with him if he starts to get belligerent in Syria and Ukraine? ..."
"... Did the Syrians get upset by General Sherman's destructive march through South Carolina? No. It was a mistake for the US ever getting involved in Syria, with forming, equipping and training foreign armies and shadow governments including replacement prime ministers, all in violation of the UN Charter. ..."
"... Trump is more savagely and ignorantly aggressive. ..."
"... Trump, Nikki and Bolton have been tweeting warnings about the Idlib offensive and already accusing Assad if there are any chemical attacks. Wonder why? Lavrov has also made comments that he expects a chemical use false flag. Not sure about this post on Zerohedge, but if it has any credibility then it would appear that the US military is getting ready for some kind of provocation. ..."
"In her statement during the UN Security Council briefing, Haley said that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and its "enablers,"
Russia and Iran have a playbook for the war in Syria. First, they surround a civilian area. Next, they make the "preposterous claim
that everyone in the area is a terrorist," thus making all civilians targets. That is followed by a "starve and surrender" campaign,
during which Syrian security forces keep attacking until the people no longer have food, clean water, or shelter. "It's a playbook
of death. The Assad regime has spent the last seven years refining it with Russia and Iran's help."
According to her it has happened many times before, in July 2018 it happened in Dara'a and the southwest of Syria, where Syrian
forces "trapped and besieged civilians." In February 2018, it was Ghouta. In 2017 it was Aleppo, and prior to that places like Madaya
and Hama.
According to her, Assad's government has left the country in ruins. "The atrocities committed by Assad will be a permanent stain
on history and a black mark for this Council -- which was blocked over and over by Russia from taking action to help," Nikki Haley
said." SF
------------
Well, strictly speaking, her parents were immigrants, not she. She was born in Bamberg, South Carolina, a little town in the Piedmont
that is majority Black. Her parents were professional people at Amritsar in the Punjab. Haley is the surname of her husband. Nikki
is a nickname by which she has long been known. As governor, she was in favor of flying the Confederate flag on the Statehouse grounds
before the Charleston massacre of Black Christians at a Bible study session. They were killed by an unstable white teen aged misfit
whom they had invited to join their worship. After that Nikki discovered that the Confederate flag was a bad and disruptive symbol.
It was a popular position across the country and Nikki became an instant "hit," the flavor of the month so to speak.
I suppose that she was supposed to be an interesting and decorative figure as UN ambassador. She is quite pretty and the South
Carolina accent adds to the effect.
The positions she has taken at the UN with regard to the ME are similar to those expressed by her boss, President Trump. They
are largely reflections of images projected by the popular and mass media operating as Zionist propaganda machines. I don't believe
that the State Department's INR analytic bureau believes the crapola that she spouts with such hysteric fervor. I don't believe that
my former friend David Satterfield believes the crapola. So, where does she get ideas like the ones quoted above? IMO she is trying
to out-Trump Trump. DJT is a remarkably ignorant man concerning the geo-politics of just about everything in the ME. He appears to
have once seen the film, "Exodus" and to have decided on the basis of Paul Newman's performance as Begin that the situation was and
is quite simple - Israel good! Everyone else bad! Nikki's depth of knowledge appears to be just about the same.
She also appears to me to be in receipt of a stream of opinion from various Zionist and anti-Muslim groups probably related to
the anti-Muslim ravings of Maronite and other Christian ME extremists.
These groups cannot seem to understand that alliances shift as does policy. They don't seem to understand that Israel's policy
in Syria is no longer regime change. They never seem to have understood that the Syrian government is the protector of the religious
minorities against Sunni jihadi fanatics.
They don't seem to understand that the Syrian government has no choice but to recover Idlib Province, a piece of Syria's heartland.
pl
Haley's "playbook" is used by the US but not by Russia & Iran as she claims, with all civilians being targeted. Instead, Russia
& Iran have taken warfare to a higher and better level, allowing the armed factions to surrender their arms and get on a bus or
be killed, and many of them took the bus to preserve their lives until the final offensive. A third option, which many of them
took, was to join the SAA and fight against their former comrades. All of this statecraft was revolutionary, and was not at all
as Haley described, including the crocodile tears over Syrian lives which has never been honest especially considering the level
of support Assad has within Syria.
I agree it is revolutionary, at least in modern times in the western world. I wonder if it will set a "trend": a more humane way
to wage war. I am sure it will be studied in war colleges.
One observation I had while thinking about the Ambassador Haley quote you provided (which I think supports the point you
were making in your post):
When the US was in a somewhat similar situation during the occupation of Iraq, where Sunni militants were in open rebellion
and controlling towns like Fallujah, our response wasn't wildly different to the Syrian government's response. The US gov't at
the time typically labeled any armed resistance "terrorists", and while they might acknowledge that there were civilians in those
territories in addition to terrorists, they were just "human shields" and "regrettable collateral damage". Did the US try a little
harder, and have a bit better of technology, training, etc, and do a little bit better of trying to limit damage to civilians
when crushing those uprisings? Yes. But we're mostly talking modest quantitative differences in response, not fundamentally morally
superior qualitative differences. I bet you if you took pictures of towns like Fallujah, Sadr City, etc, after US counter-insurgency
operations, and mixed them in with pictures of trashed Syrian towns that had just been liberated from rebel groups, and showed
them to Nikki Haley, or frankly any neocon, they'd have a hard time telling the difference.
As I was reading this topic Raqqa and Fallujah came to mind. In the case of Fallujah I don't recall if the civilians were given
an opportunity to evacuate. They were not in ISIS controlled Raqqa. In any event Haley's blather at the UN is for the consumption
of the rubes.
as far as i recall in the battle for fallujah, only women and children were permitted to leave during the siege.and during the
siege of Mosul they were dropping leaflets telling people not to try and leave.
And giving civilians a chance to evacuate doesn't help as much as one would think if the insurgents/rebels really do want to use
them as human shields.
Speaking to young marines in the aftermath of the second assault on Fallujah I learned that although women and children were allowed
to pass the checkpoints but men of fighting age (also known as the father, brother or husband who was driving the families out
of the city) were sent back into the city.
In talking with people here in the U.S. about Syria there is the total lack of understanding of Assad's Alawite government. There
are a couple million Christians in Syria and it is Assad's government that protects them from the Saudi sponsored Sunni headchoppers
who would like to eliminate Christians, Jews, and Shia from the Middle East. Perhaps, the Alawites being an offshoot of Shia makes
them sensitive to minority religions. However, mentioning Assad evokes strong negative reaction among U.S. Christians, similar
to Trumps "lets kill them all". On my one visit to Damascus, traveling on my U.S. Passport rather than my Israeli one, The Christians
I met were uniformly positive about Assad and the need for Assad to control the ENTIRE country.
Thank you for providing your direct experience of the views of Christian Syrians you met there.
Unfortunately none of those views ever make it to either to our print or broadcast media. We Americans are totally subject
to ziocon propaganda when it comes to Middle East affairs. Anyone that disagrees with that viewpoint is immediately labeled anti-semitic
and now banned from social media and of course from the TV talk shows.
Jack posed an interesting question, how does someone like Putin respond to an irrational US who in their delusions can
easily escalate military conflict if their ego gets bruised when it is shown that they don't have the unilateral power of a hegemon?
Always thought that Nikki Haley was the price Donald Trump had to pay to get Sheldon Adelson's large campaign contributions
in 2016. Adelson was Trump's second biggest contributor. So was recognition of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital. Sheldon got his
money's worth.
https://www.investopedia.co...
There's a disturbing piece up today at WaPo by Karen De Young asserting the USA is doubling down in Syria. From the piece, emphasis
by ex-PFC Chuck:
"We've started using new language," [James] Jeffrey said, referring to previous warnings against the use of chemical weapons.
Now, he said, the United States will not tolerate "an attack. Period." "Any offensive is to us objectionable as a reckless
escalation" he said. "You add to that, if you use chemical weapons, or create refugee flows or attack innocent civilians,"
and "the consequences of that are that we will shift our positions and use all of our tools to make it clear that we'll have
to find ways to achieve our goals that are less reliant on the goodwill of the Russians."
Jeffrey is said to be Pompeo's point person on Syria. Do any of you with ears closer to the ground than those of us in flyover
land know anything about this change of tune?
.Iraq PM urged to quit as key ally deserts him over unrest.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi faced calls to resign yesterday as his alliance with a populist cleric who won May elections
crumbled over deadly unrest shaking the country's south. The two leading groups in parliament called on Abadi to step down, after
lawmakers held an emergency meeting on the public anger boiling over in the southern city of Basra.,...
The Conquest Alliance of pro-Iranian former paramilitary fighters was "on the same wavelength" as Sadr's Marching Towards Reform
list and they would work together to form a new government, Assadi said. Abadi, whose grouping came third in the May polls, defended
his record in parliament, describig the unrest as "political sabotage" and saying the crisis over public services was being exploited
for political ends.
http://news.kuwaittimes.net...
Nikki Haley's Sikh origins may have something to do with her anti-Muslim feelings. According to J. D Cunningham, author
of 'History of the Sikhs (Appendix XX)' included among the injunctions ordained by Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth guru, 'a Khalsa
(true Sikh) proves himself if he mounts a warhorse; is always waging war; kills a Khan (Muslim) and slays the Turks (Muslims).'
Aside from this, it is hypocritical in the extreme for the U.S. to be criticising anyone for killing people anywhere after
what they have been doing in the Middle East. According to Professor Gideon Polya the total avoidable deaths in Afghanstan alone
since 2001
under ongoing war and occupation-imposed deprivation amount to around three million people, about 900,000 of whom are infants
under the age of five (see Professor Gideon Polya at La Trobe University in Melbourne book, 'Body Count: Global Avoidable Mortality
Since 1950' and Washington DC-based Physicians for Social Responsibility study:
http://www.psr.org/assets/p... .
Your good professor sounds like a great piece of work. "Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950" Perhaps we should have
stopped all that foreign aid in the '50s.
The under five mortality figures from Afghanistan (1 in 5) are a problem that preceded our involvement by many years. However,
the failure of the international community to make any significant progress over the last 17 years would be a legitimate criticism.
Is it in our DNA that we can't learn lessons from our interventionist experience in the Middle East? Looks like Iraq is
spinning out of control once again. I'm sure many including the Shia may reminisce favorably to the Sadam years despite his tyranny.
https://ejmagnier.com/2018/...
We are indoctrinated with the idea that all people are basically the same. In fact this is only true at the level of basics
like shelter, food, sex, etc. We refuse to really believe in the reality of widely varying cultures. It makes us incapable, as
a group, of understanding people who do not share our outlook. i have been dealing with this all my life as a delegated "ambassador"
to the "others."
Thank you, Sir. It makes perfect sense with the End if History and all those beliefs.
In this context, if you were Vladimir Putin and knowing that President Trump is completely ignorant when it comes to history
and policy details and has surrounded himself with neocons as far as foreign policy is concerned and Bibi has him eating out of
his hands, how would you deal with him if he starts to get belligerent in Syria and Ukraine?
You may be interested in a recent article in Unz by SST's own 'smoothieX12' in response to Paul Craig Roberts asking how long
Russia should continue to turn the other cheek:
http://www.unz.com/article/...
Did the Syrians get upset by General Sherman's destructive march through South Carolina? No. It was a mistake for the US ever
getting involved in Syria, with forming, equipping and training foreign armies and shadow governments including replacement prime
ministers, all in violation of the UN Charter.
A new PM was at the top of H.Clinton's to-do list as Secretary of State. My favorite Assad replacement candidate was Ghassan
Hitto from Murphy Texas, but he only lasted a couple months.
here
I don't trust converts except for the adjustment from Protestant to Catholic or vice versa. I suppose shifts from one madhab to
another, or between Buddhist schools are also ok.
Sad that in a moment of crisis,so many of the rising political stars of both parties are so hollow to the point of dangerousness.
Has anything really changed much with our policies in the ME in the past 50+ years? Haven't we been deeply influenced/controlled
by Israeli interests in this period, maybe even beyond if the attacks on USS Liberty are taken into account? Is the Trump administration
just following in the traditions of Reagan, Bush Pčre et fils, Clinton and Obama, or is there a qualitative difference?
Trump, Nikki and Bolton have been tweeting warnings about the Idlib offensive and already accusing Assad if there are any
chemical attacks. Wonder why? Lavrov has also made comments that he expects a chemical use false flag. Not sure about this
post on Zerohedge, but if it has any credibility then it would appear that the US military is getting ready for some kind of provocation.
Maybe this is all just "positioning" and "messaging" but maybe not. With Bibi, Nikki, Bolton and Pompeo as THE advisors, does
anyone have a clue what Trump decides, when, not if, the jihadi White Helmets stage their chemical event in Idlib?
"... In return for the EU dropping billions of dollars in penalty fees, GazProm agreed to end limitations on the use of gas purchased by EU members, allow them to re-sell the gas ..."
"... About the Author ..."
"... Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West, and the 'New Cold War ..."
"... Russia's Revolution From Above: Reform, Transition and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet Communist Regime, 1985-2000 ..."
"... Russia's Islamic Threat ..."
"... The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global Jihadism in Russia's North Caucasus and Beyond ..."
Russia has advanced forward in something of a tactical and potential strategic victory in
the Russo-Western gas war. This is a three-party war, with the US, EU, and Russia each
promoting separate interests. It is one sphere where a united West has failed to 'isolate
Russia.' The US seeks move in on the European energy market with LNG supplies and replace
Russian pipeline-delivered natural gas supplies to Europe. Washington is using the risks of
dependence on Russian gas and Russia's 'bad behavior' as leverage in attempting to convince
Europeans to reject Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Russia is said to be unreliable and prone
to shut off gas supplies to Europe.
Due to past Russian-Ukrainian gas crises, the Ukrainian crisis, and general Russian-Western
tensions, Europe has decided on a gas diversification policy in which each EU member should
have at least three sources of natural gas supply. One additional option that could facilitate
this diversification policy is US liquified natural gas (LNG), but the US is still unable to
supply enough LNG to offset Russian gas supplies that might be rejected by Europe. In the
process, Washington is looking less like a 'team West' player and more like a solely
self-interested power maximizer in European eyes and therefore no more reliable than Moscow. As
a result, Europeans are deciding to stick with the Russians while finding new options in the
east, such as Turkey and Azerbaijan. This is creating competition if not tensions in present
and potential gas transit countries in southeastern and eastern Europe, for example.
The Battle Over Re-Sale: No Victors
One recent battle was largely inconclusive, but if a victor has to be designated it may be
Moscow. In May, the European Commssion concluded a settlement with Russia's Gazprom in May
ending a seven-year anti-trust dispute. In return for the EU dropping billions of dollars in
penalty fees, GazProm agreed to end limitations on the use of gas purchased by EU members,
allow them to re-sell the gas. Some EU members, such as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia,
Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia have re-sold or wanted to re-sell gas. Moscow
frowned, for example, on Slovakia's resale of natural gas to Ukraine at cheaper prices than
Moscow sought to charge Kiev.
The agreement will also restrict Moscow's ability to charge
different countries different prices. So EU members in central and eastern Europe can get a
price close to that paid by Germany and appeal to an arbitration court in case of a dispute.
The agreement guarantees Russia's presence on the European gas market at a time when the
latter's reliance on the former has peaked.
The Northern Front: Nord Stream 2
At the same time, the battle over Russia' Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline has heated up.
When it comes on line in 2019, the 759-mile pipeline will carry GazProm natural gas along the
bed of the Baltic Sea to Germany and double the supply Nord Stream pipeline's current annual
capacity of 55 billion cubic meters (bcm). The Trump administration has threatened yet more
sanctions on third-party companies, this time with those that work on the pipeline. The US
sanctions threat is an attempt to promote American LNG interests as well as to protect
Ukrainian interests, though it contradicts the view that Ukraine should eschew its dependence
on Russian gas.
US officials have been hammering home to Europeans the 'Russian threat' in tandem with the
risk of reliance on Russian gas may pose, which will increase with Nord tream 2, but to no
avail. Public opinion is not working in the US favor, with Germans trusting Moscow more than
Washington, despite all the crimes laid at the Kremlin's door by the West. A recent ZDF
Television opinion survey found that only 14 percent of Germans regard the U.S. as a reliable
partner, while 36 percent view Russia as reliable (
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-17/trump-s-global-disruption-pushes-merkel-closer-to-putin-s-orbit
). Thus, notwithstanding Ukraine, Syria and alleged chemical attacks, Russiagate, and the
Skrypals, GazProm's supplies to Europe have risen to hold nearly 40 percent of its gas market,
growing last year by 8.1 percent last year to a record level of 193.9 billion cubic metres
(bcm).
Nevertheless, with the EU decision, the U.S., Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania and others have
stepped up their pressure on Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and other western Eureopean EU
members to abandon the Nord Stream 2 project. Germans and other western Europeans are unlikely
to give up the short-term gain of energy security for the US LNG given the higher price and
unproven nature of Washington's numerous allegations against the Kremlin. German officials say
they still have no proof from 10 Downing on Russia's culpability for the Skrypal poisoning so
loudly trumpeted by British PM Theresa May.
One motivation for the Russians in building Nord Stream 2 is to obviate the need to
transport gas through Ukraine, which will hurt Ukraine's own energy supply – given
Ukrainian skimming -- and overall economy beyond the present non-sale of Russian gas to
Ukraine. Another Russian motivation is to avert the unreliable Ukrainians, who have failed to
make payments according to contract in the past causing Russian gas cutoffs to Ukraine and thus
Europe with the resulting crises blamed solely on Moscow. The Trump sanctions threat has put
Germany and the other Nord Stream 2 supporting countries between a rock and a hard place,
between Russia and the US. Therefore, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, while supporting Nord
Stream 2, has called for guarantees from Russia that Ukraine will remain a gas transit country.
Ukraine's current contract with Russia ends in 2019 at the very time Nord Stream 2 is to go on
line and the EU has urged re-starting EU-mediated negotiatons now in order to avoid another gas
crisis. Putin agreed to do this at his meeting with Germany's merkel in late May. Nord Stream 2
significantly strengthens Putin's hand in any such talks.
The Southern Front: Turkish Stream, SGC and the Azeri and Bulgarian Factors
Russia is strengtheining its position on the European gas war's southern front by building
the Turkish Stream (TS) gas pipeline to Europe. TS consists of a sea and a land leg. The former
runs under the Black Sea from Russia to Turkey and is built, with Russo-Turkish talks on the
land leg ongoing.
Russia's Turkish Stream is being challenged by the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) backed by
Western powers, including the EU (along with Turkey and Azerbaijan), which sees the SGC as a
means of diversifying from dependence on Russia. Not just Turkey, but Azerbaijan is emerging as
a major player on the EU gas market, with a shift in policy accenting gas supplies to Europe as
well as oil supplies as in the past. The SGC consists of three components: an expanded South
Caucasus Pipeline and the to be constructed Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) and
Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). TANAP is 51 percent Azerbaijani owned, 37 percent Turkish, and
12 percent belonging to British Petroleum. The SGC will carry Azerbaijani gas through Turkey to
Europe and will be able to supply up to one-third of the gas consumed by Bulgaria, Greece and
Italy ( https://en.trend.az/business/energy/2910573.html
). However, the source of the gas supplying the pipeline demonstrates the limits of Western
attempts to isolate Russia (and Iran). Azerbaijan's Shah-Deniz gas field is co-owned by British
Petroleum (29 percent), Turkey's Turkish Petroleum (19 percent), Azerbaijan's SOCAR (17
percent), Malaysia's Petronas (15 percent), Russia's LukOil (10 percent), and Iran's NICO (10
percent). Moreover, Russia's LukOil is negotiating with SOCAR a stake in Azerbaijan's
second-largest gas field, Umid-Babek, which also includes Britain's Nobel Upstream (
https://newsbase.com/topstories/lukoil-talks-join-umid-babek-project
).
Again the Ukrainian issue is part of the picture here, as a good portion of GasProm supplies
to Bulgaria go through Ukraine. Turkish Stream can replace at least some of that supply should
Moscow decide to entirely avert Ukraine's pipeline system. It is of interest that no one in the
West has offered to include in any of these projects or attempted to fashion a pipeline or
pipeline extension that could link up with the Ukrainian network.
During Bulgarian President Rumen Radev's late may visit to Moscow, Putin reported to Radev
that during his meetings with Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan, the latter said he would
pose no oppsotion to extending the Turkish Stream gas pipeline to Bulgaria. In response, Radev
seemed to suggest making Bulgaria a "a gas redistribution center, a hub" for the Turkish
Stream's supplies further into Europe ( http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/57608
).
Moreover, one gets the impression that Bulgaria is wary more about its dependence on Turkey
and Ankara's new offensive energy policy in Europe than on Russia and might help Moscow detour
Ukraine.
In 2015, Erdogan declared a major policy initiative of making Turkey a, if not
the major energy transit hub for supplies heading from the east to Europe.
Russia's
annexation of Crimea could help Russia in its talks both with Erdogan over the Turkish Stream
and pose the threat of undermining the SGC. It may also help Putin deal with Merkel, Kiev and
the EU over the Ukraine pipeline system's future role. Bulgarian President Radev also said in
Moscow that Sofia supports building a direct gas pipeline under the Black Sea to bring Russian
gas to Bulgaria ( https://echo.msk.ru/news/2206394-echo.html ).
The Bulgarian option could be used by Putin to threaten Erdogan with reducing the Turkish
Stream's supplies or abandoning it altogether in favor of a Black Sea Russian-Bulgarian Stream
and to reduce Russia's dependence on Ukraine as well.
Implications
Thus, EU energy diversification policies are transforming Turkey, Azerbaijan and perhaps
even Bulgaria into key players on the southern gas transit front, while Ukraine falters to
Germany, and eastern Europe to Western Europe on the northern front.
Tensions between Ankara
and Sofia on these grounds cannot be excluded, and they could draw in Turkey's semi-ally
Azerbaijan. US, EU, Russian and Ukrainian energy diplomacy is likely not only to be focused on
each other, therefore, but also on Ankara, Baku, and Sofia over the next year.
Unless, the US
can rapidly reduce the cost of extracting and shipping LNG to Europe, it is unlikely to be able
to become a major alternative to these players, and Russia will continue to dominate the
European gas market, with a balance of competition and cooperation with Azerbaijan.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
About the Author – Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D., Expert Analyst at Corr
Analytics, http://www.canalyt.com and a
Senior Researcher at the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group,
San Jose, California, www.cetisresearch.org .
Dr. Hahn is the author of Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West, and the 'New Cold
War (McFarland Publishers, 2017) and three previously and well-received books:
Russia's Revolution From Above: Reform, Transition and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet
Communist Regime, 1985-2000 (Transaction Publishers, 2002); Russia's Islamic
Threat (Yale University Press, 2007); and The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global
Jihadism in Russia's North Caucasus and Beyond (McFarland Publishers, 2014). He has
published numerous think tank reports, academic articles, analyses, and commentaries in both
English and Russian language media and has served as a consultant and provided expert testimony
to the U.S. government.
Dr. Hahn also has taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, and San Francisco
State Universities and as a Fulbright Scholar at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia. He
has been a senior associate and visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies and the Kennan Institute in Washington DC as well as the Hoover Institution at Stanford
University.
Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says the developments in Syria and the US defeat in the Arab country
show that Washington can be contained.
The Leader made the remarks in a Friday meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who traveled to Tehran to participate in
a key trilateral
summit
on Syria, hosted by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and also attended by Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
"Cooperation between Iran and Russia on the Syrian issue is a prominent example and a very good experience of bilateral cooperation,"
the Leader said.
Ayatollah Khamenei added that the two countries can expand cooperation on global issues, saying, "One of the cases that the
two sides can cooperate with each other is to contain the US, because it is a danger to humanity and it is possible to contain
it."
The Leader stated that the Americans suffered a real defeat in Syria and failed to achieve their goals.
Ayatollah Khamenei also said sanctions imposed by the US on Iran, Russia and Turkey are a very strong common ground for strengthening
cooperation, and urged Tehran and Moscow to develop political and economic relations and follow up on the agreements of the summit
in Tehran.
The Leader stressed the importance of pursuing non-dollar transactions in trade.
Europeans did not fulfill JCPOA commitments: Ayatollah Khamenei
Elsewhere in his remarks, Ayatollah Khamenei said Iran has so far remained committed to a multilateral nuclear agreement, officially
known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), reached between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries in 2015.
"But the Europeans did not carry out their duties, and it is not acceptable that we completely fulfill our commitments within
the JCPOA while they don't," the Leader pointed out.
The Leader praised the Russian president's approach to the nuclear deal, adding that the Islamic Republic would adopt a stance
on the JCPOA which would meet its national interests.
Although the US now raises Iran's missile program and regional developments, their problem with the Islamic Republic relates to
issues beyond them, Ayatollah Khamenei said.
The Leader added that the US has been seeking to topple the Islamic Republic over the past 40 years, but Iran has managed to make
substantial advancements during this period.
"The resistance of the Islamic Republic and its advances are another successful example that the US can be contained," Ayatollah
Khamenei said.
The Leader also pointed to the deplorable situation of the Yemeni people and their killing at the hands of Saudi Arabia, adding,
"The Saudis will definitely fail to achieve a result in Yemen and will not be able to bring the resilient Yemeni people to their
knees."
During the meeting, which was also attended by Iranian First Vice President Es'haq Jahangiri, the Russian president said he held
very fruitful and good negotiations with President Rouhani on mutual issues of interest, including the situation in Syria.
Iran and Russia discussed the expansion of relations in all fields, particularly in the economic and trade sectors, Putin added.
He said the US is putting obstacles, including banking restrictions, in the way of the development of Tehran-Moscow relations,
and added that Washington is making a strategic mistake by limiting financial transactions.
The Russian president expressed regret that the remaining sides to the JCPOA failed to fulfill their commitments under the deal
after the US withdrawal.
He said although the Europeans announce that they are seeking ways to keep the nuclear accord alive, they are following the US
due to their dependence on Washington.
"... The crisis in Ukraine is a direct result of the two policies of NATO expansion and EU enlargement, which led NATO to declare Ukraine (and Georgia) will be NATO members at numerous NATO summits and in other fora, led the EU to push too hard and too early for an association agreement with the corrupt Viktor Yanukovych government, and led the West, especially Washington, to lend opposition-promotion assistance to revolutionaries and endorse a clearly illegal oligarch-ultranationalist revolt in February 2014 despite an agreement that essentially ensured Yanukovych's departure from the presidency in ten months. In Syria, Putin's Russia has won. Regime change is over. ..."
Rather than dealing with secondary issues, those which are easiest to resolve, or those in
which we have common interests, contacts must address the core problems in the inter-state
US-Russian or larger Western-Russian relationship. Those issues are NATO expansion, EU
expansion, U.S. missile defense, Ukraine, Syria, and interference in each other's domestic
politics.
Rather, than expanding Western institutions in complete disregard of Russian
interests, the West must work closely with Moscow. The West must acknowledge its responsibility
in the making of the original crisis in Kiev, which equals if not exceeds that of Moscow's in
deepening the crisis in Crimea and Donbass.
The crisis in Ukraine is a direct result of the two
policies of NATO expansion and EU enlargement, which led NATO to declare Ukraine (and Georgia)
will be NATO members at numerous NATO summits and in other fora, led the EU to push too hard
and too early for an association agreement with the corrupt Viktor Yanukovych government, and
led the West, especially Washington, to lend opposition-promotion assistance to revolutionaries
and endorse a clearly illegal oligarch-ultranationalist revolt in February 2014 despite an
agreement that essentially ensured Yanukovych's departure from the presidency in ten months. In
Syria, Putin's Russia has won. Regime change is over.
The U.S. in its hubris miscalculated in
going a bridge too far. Ambition led to supply weapons either intentionally or accidentally --
and in denial of the obvious -- to Islamists and jihadists. This was a direct consequence of US
President Barak Obama's haste to carry forth his gravely misguided Muslim Brotherhood-based
regime change strategy in the Islamic world. Syria's longstanding ties to Moscow and the
presence of North Caucasus-based mujahedin within the ranks first of the Al Qa`ida-affiliated
'Jabhat al-Nusra' jihadi group and then of the Islamic State or ISIS prompted Putin's limited
and strategically successful intervention.
More globally, the West has been and remains the
'champion' when it comes to interference in the politics of other states. For financial reasons
alone, Russia cannot hold a candle to US efforts in this regard, no less those of the entire
West. Rather than seeking to dominate or willfully 'transforming' Eurasia in the Western image,
the West should more gently propose democratization and work on strengthening its own
democratic order to serve as a model for non- and less democratic states to emulate.
Those
living in non- or less democratic states who want change have access to all the information
they need on the Internet, except in the most authoritarian countries. Even in the latter,
access is possible if more difficult. The native population and opposition leaders understand
the intricacies of their nation's culture far better than outsiders do and can therefore better
fashion a peaceful, stable regime transformation. If this is not what they want, then they are
unlikely to establish a democratic order when they seize power.
Change the Goal and Strategy
The core problem in Western-Russian relations has been Western, especially, NATO expansion.
NATO expansion, carried forth on the back of EU expansion, effectively 'militarized' Western
democracy-promotion and EU expansion, insulting Russian 'honor' and trust in the West in the
wake of Cold War-ending Western promises that NATO would not expand beyond reunified Germany
and turning Russia away from democracy. Washington and Brussels must discard, therefore, its
basic goal of expanding the community of democracies in brinksmanship-like
fashion–everywhere and immediately, regardless of those expansions' effects on the
Russian and Chinese geostrategic calculation. This means abandoning the strategy of achieving
that goal: NATO and EU expansion. These two prongs of the main strategy, especially NATO
expansion, have added greater cost of driving Russia into China's increasingly powerful arms,
as I predicted a quarter of a century ago.
New Goal and Strategy
Regarding security, the West
should seek to integrate Europe and Eurasia first in the area of negotiating ongoing conflicts
and preventing new conflicts by reinvigorating the Organization of Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE) as the main multilateral forum for Western-Eurasian relations. It should also
become the locus of negotiations between NATO and the Collective Security Treaty Organization
(CSTO) on building a new European security architecture (NESA). During the life of the NESA
negotiations, the West should institute an openly declared moratorium on NATO expansion. After
such the NESA is in place negotiations might begin with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO) on a Eurasia-wide security architecture. Similarly, the European Union should learn from
its misbegotten unilateral expansionism and 'Eastern Partnership' and seek to negotiate a
gradual integration of the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU).
... ... ...
There is very likely to be some
agreement towards extending the START nuclear arms treaty by executive order as well as
negotiating a replacement treaty to be signed at the end of the first or beginning of a second
Trump term.
For the Ukrainian crisis, Trump might propose the creation of a US-Russian working
group to assist the Minsk process. Should Trump be convinced that only US involvement can
resolve the issue, perhaps the group could be incorporated into the Minsk process. He might
also hint that in return for some Moscow concessions on Ukraine, such as backing a more
expanded version of the proposed peacekeeping mission beyond the line of contact, he might be
willing to put pressure on Kiev to finally fulfill its Minsk agreement obligation to engage a
dialogue with the Donbass rebel regions' representatives:
(1) on the modalities related to
conducting elections in the Donbass,
(2) on a Ukrainian law to be adopted according to Minsk-2
'On the temporary order of local government in certain areas of the Donetsk and the Lugansk
regions,' or
(3) 'with respect to the future operation of these areas on the basis of the Law,'
or, for that matter,
(4) on any other subject related to the crisis. Washington pressure on
Kiev to talk directly with the rebels may be possible now that four years too late some of the
Washington institutions that supported the Maidan revolt and illegal overthrow of Yanukovych
such as the Atlantic Council and Freedom House, are waking up to the neofascist threat on the
edges of the Maidan regime and in society.
About the Author – Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D., Expert Analyst at Corr
Analytics, http://www.canalyt.com and a
Senior Researcher at the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group,
San Jose, California, www.cetisresearch.org .
Dr. Hahn is the author of Ukraine Over the Edge: Russia, the West, and the 'New Cold
War (McFarland Publishers, 2017) and three previously and well-received books:
Russia's Revolution From Above: Reform, Transition and Revolution in the Fall of the Soviet
Communist Regime, 1985-2000 (Transaction Publishers, 2002); Russia's Islamic
Threat (Yale University Press, 2007); and The Caucasus Emirate Mujahedin: Global
Jihadism in Russia's North Caucasus and Beyond (McFarland Publishers, 2014).He has
published numerous think tank reports, academic articles, analyses, and commentaries in both
English and Russian language media and has served as a consultant and provided expert testimony
to the U.S. government.
Dr. Hahn also has taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, and San Francisco
State Universities and as a Fulbright Scholar at Saint Petersburg State University, Russia. He
has been a senior associate and visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies and the Kennan Institute in Washington DC as well as the Hoover Institution at Stanford
University.
Lyttenburgh, July 7, 2018 at 6:25 am
"and agreed to meet in neighboring Sweden"
Finland.
"This suggests the level of distrust Putin has towards Washington, his low expectations for a successful summit, and the high
price he is likely to demand for concessions on his part."
It suggests nothing of the sort. You are too dramatic.
"[T]he approach of dealing with issues that are easiest to resolve or where we have common interests alone is insufficient
and a non-starter as far as putting the relationship where it should be. By definition, an approach that seeks to avoid areas
where there are disagreements will not resolve a deeply troubled relationship that is putting international security and
peace at risk. Only addressing the core differences complicating relations can a qualitatively new relationship be forged."
Finally someone is willing to admit that! You can't willy-nilly go and ask your neighbor to borrow some sugar after you
wrecked his fence and expect him to "cooperate" on such small issue out of sheer goodness.
"It also means abandoning the approach of designing policies from hubris rooted in the sense that Western democracy is
morally superior to authoritarianism. Although the latter is true"
In what way? I (and quite a lot of people) see particular Western "democracy" as morally bankrupt compared to what it
seemingly randomly calls "authoritarianism"
"In Syria, Putin's Russia has won."
And that writes a man who detest the term, devoting so much ink and time to show to the ignorant that, no – it's Russia's
Putin. Why not say Russia, or Moscow, or even "Pro-Assad coalition"?
"Rather than seeking to dominate or willfully 'transforming' Eurasia in the Western image, the West should more gently
propose democratization and work on strengthening its own democratic order to serve as a model for non- and less democratic
states to emulate."
What, you forgot the immortal words of Paul Wolfowitz so soon? For, you see, "We Are An Empire Now". Crawling back in the
shell won't help to solve the domestic very partisan issues – finding a common enemy does that. Your tactics are good for a
neutered housecat of a nation – not for the mighty Great Again (And Forever) lion which both the elite and the commoners of
the West consider their Republic.
" and turning Russia away from democracy."
Wrong. It turned Russia away from liberalism – not democracy. You know the difference, right? Because your following analysis
suggests otherwise:
"Washington and Brussels must discard, therefore, its basic goal of expanding the community of democracies"
"Putin's Russia" is democracy. As well as Poland under PiS, Hungary under Orban and Turkey under Erdogan. Hell, even Ukraine
is democracy! Democracy is just a mode of rule.
"driving Russia into China's increasingly powerful arms"
Yeah, that's bad for the US. For the rest – not so.
"During the life of the NESA negotiations, the West should institute an openly declared moratorium on NATO expansion."
Absolutely meaningless and easily revertible promise that runs directly against the West self-identification as the only
Empire on the planet.
The list of topics of your Grand Design that follows is too far fetch, unrealistic and abstract that they are basically the
equivalent of "charming" Russian naďve natives with the glass beads. As for your fanatical support of the free trade – it's
era has gone. Again. If you fail to grasp that it was precisely Russian objections of EU version of free trade coming to the
Ukraine which lead to 2013-14 conflict on Maidan – well, nothing can help you.
"Non-Western partners must also be willing to sacrifice some of their present interests for the sake of the benefits of
stability and cooperation that will accrue in future. "
Like I said – land for the glass beads.
"In Ukraine, the U.S. must get more involved in the Minsk 2 negotiating process."
No, they shouldn't.
"Without a clear signal from Trump that Washington is not interested in expanding NATO to Ukraine or using the crisis to
isolate Moscow through sanctions and the like and intends to lead the search for a solution, Moscow is unlikely to make any
meaningful concessions."
You don't see it, do you? It's Kiev for whom the conflict is more beneficial. It allows all sort of, yes, authoritarian
things and policies without fear of the "real war". You can silence all your critics with – "but Putin might attack us!" or
"are you a secret separ?!". Kiev has no other viable strategy but to commit an ethnic cleansing of DNR or LNR should they be
returned to it. Simple as that.
BTW – have you read Minsk II accords? How about Kiev fulfils its part first?
"Washington could be able to convince Moscow to abandon its support for the elements of the Iran presence in Syria and
Lebanon that arrived in the context of the Syrian civil war."
Nothing of the sort will happen. Sowing division among potential USA rivals is a viable tactic – but don't take everyone for
an idiot.
"There is very likely to be some agreement towards extending the START nuclear arms treaty"
Wanna bet, that there won't be? Also – nothing of the Ukraine, nothing on NATO. A little something on Syria (officially)
with, maybe, an unofficial concession of the defeat of the West-backed "unicorns".
Tl;dr. This is not about coming Trump-Putin summit. You are just venting off your fantasy about Bright Future. You present
solely pro-US perspective of the summit, enumerating things that Trump must "ask", nay, "demand" either for free or some
minor concessions on his part. Have you ever tried to think what Russia might want of the summit instead?
Salsibury Watchdog, July 11, 2018 at 2:19 am
"It also means abandoning the approach of designing policies from hubris rooted in the sense that Western democracy is
morally superior to authoritarianism. Although the latter is true"
Mr. Khan, if what Western elites are doing to other sovereign nations is 'a democracy' why is it done so covertly: through
murky slash funds, secrets coups and illegal bombings?
I've never seen a referendum asking people in the US whether they wanted to fund another war. Had they been asked, people
would've chosen affordable healthcare, housing and access to education instead, and you know it as well I do.
Yet you're still talking about 'Western democracy'?
"... "What is quietly happening across parts of Iraq is less of a resurgence, and more a resurfacing, of the Islamic State. Many of these fighters never actually left, but merely scattered temporarily, having melted away into the population only to return. " ..."
How is ISIS resurfacing in Iraq? The short answer is that it never really left. Despite US
President Donald Trump's orders to "
annihilate ISIS ," members of the organization have continued to exist in Iraq and Syria
and carry out attacks. The caliphate has fallen and the group no longer holds the vast
territory and population it once controlled. However, supporters, organizers and fighters have
not simply disappeared. Instead, the aspiring proto-state has reverted back to its roots as a
terrorist insurgency. The US-based Soufan
Center assessed the environment as such:
"What is quietly happening across parts of Iraq is less of a resurgence, and more a
resurfacing, of the Islamic State. Many of these fighters never actually left, but merely
scattered temporarily, having melted away into the population only to return. "
The US and the UN agree that there may be as many as 30,000 ISIS
members still present in Iraq and Syria. Jason Warner and Charlotte Hulme writing for the
Combating Terrorism Center at West Point (CTC) also recently estimated that an additional
6,000
fighters are spread across Africa , with the Islamic State West-Africa Province (Boko
Haram) contributing more than half of the total. ISIS continues to wield influence further
abroad with IS-Khorasan in
Afghanistan as well as supporters in the Philippines
, Indonesia
, and throughout the Indo-Pacific.
These members and supporters received encouragement and direction from their highest leader,
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in an
audio message released last month. The message promoted patience and perseverance, claiming
that the time will come again for a resurgence. In Iraq, this may be a functional
strategy.
Little change
ISIS's Iraqi presence began as al-Qaeda in Iraq, an al-Qaeda affiliate led by
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi . The group found footholds in Iraq in the chaos caused by the US
invasion in 2003, and then re-branded itself as the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) following its
founder's death in 2006. While pressured by the Anbar
Awakening and the US troop surge in 2007,
ISI managed to survive and wait for conditions to become more favorable.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki , a Shia
politician, would contribute to these conditions by giving preferential treatment and status to
Shiite Iraqis. As a result, many of Iraq's Sunnis were disillusioned and alienated from the
Iraqi state and were at least indifferent to ISIS, if not supportive. Renad Mansour of the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace wrote in 2016 that a lack of options for Sunni
political engagement combined with "intra-Sunni conflict" drove the power development of ISI.
Following the withdrawal of US troops in 2011, the Iraqi security forces were left mostly alone
to fight the extremist group, and quickly buckled under the task.
Research published by the CTC earlier this year sought to analyze the
opinions of young men in Mosul , ISIS"s Iraqi capital. While largely characterized as
"corrupt, brutal, and hypocritical," 93% reported that ISIS had positive effects during the
beginning of their authority. Even now that they have lost that authority, most respondents
were confident that ISIS will not disappear anytime soon. The Sunni community in general was
characterized by the men as divided and both spiritually and physically weak.
Following the collapse of the caliphate, Iraq began judicial proceedings for thousands of
accused ISIS members. While trials are a necessary and positive element in resolving the
conflict, Iraq's courts have been quickly overwhelmed, resulting in trials lasting for as
little as
10 minutes . Innocent Sunnis are at risk of being swept
up in these trials, and joining the many who have already been sentenced to
death as a result of these proceedings.
Shia militias also continue to act with impunity as an element of Iraq's security
forces , reinforcing the power disparity between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq. With Sunni
estrangement, internal conflict and disunity, and a perception of weakness continuing, it falls
on the government to enforce security and suppress violence.
Political inclusion
Perhaps the largest result of the Iraqi election this year was the ascension of
Muqtada al-Sadr , a Shia cleric, as the leader of the winning parliamentary block. Al-Sadr
promoted Iraqi unity and the abandonment of political divisiveness in his campaign; however,
his group has also been accused of
past aggression against Sunnis . How al-Sadr and the new Parliament will lead Iraq, enforce
security, and form relationships with Sunni communities remains to be seen.
The Sunni community apparently remains internally conflicted and continues to face
challenges at the hands of the Iraqi state. Renad Mansour believes that greater power-sharing
at high levels and greater autonomy at low levels is key to relieving the pressure on Sunni
communities and reengaging them with the state while also accounting for the lack of unity
within the Sunni community. Without political engagement, and facing institutionalized
challenges, many Sunnis may continue to support or be indifferent to extremist groups like
ISIS. Although the group itself has lost its attractiveness among most of Iraq's Sunnis, the
conditions which fueled its earlier growth are still present.
Doubtless, members of the group have gone into hiding and will continue to launch attacks
for the foreseeable future. ISIS will likely never return to the high point it experienced
several years ago, but it has defied expectations before. With smart re-branding and a strategy
made to appeal more to the local population, combined with a messy government unable to provide
security, ISIS may manage regain some of the power it has lost.
As the Soviet Union collapsed, NATO engaged in its first out-of-area operation with the Gulf
War against Sadaam Hussein in response to the latter's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Moscow
supported this effort, but the West then turned its attentions to Russia's traditional ally
Serbia. In a war where all sides were to blame for its outbreak and then proceeded to commit
war crimes, the West intervened, defeated and singled out for prosecution in the Hague
Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevicz and his minions. The Clinton Administration intervened in
Serbia's war with Kosovar separatists on behalf of the latter, doing so in violation of
international law in lacking a UN mandate. Then, by recognizing Kosovo's independence in 2008,
the West violated UN resolution, which it sponsored requiring the preservation of Serbia's
territorial integrity.
The West then backed anti-Russian color revolutionaries in traditionally Russian-allied
countries Serbia (Bulldozer revolution in 2000), Georgia (Rose Revolution, 2004), Ukraine
(Orange revolution, 2004), and Ukraine again (Maidan Revolution, 2014), among others. This was
part of the political intervention that supported NATO expansion and necessitated at times
military intervention. With Rose revolution leader and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's
intervention in South Ossetiya on 7 August 2008, Russia imitated the Western protege's
interventionist method, sending forces through the Roki Tunnel to rout Saakashvili's invasion.
Russia then imitated the West's recognition of Kosovar independence by recognizing South
Ossetiya's and Abkhaziya's independence. It is important to note that Abkhaziyan and South
Ossetyan support for independence from Georgia was no less robust that Kosovar support for its
own independence.
An 'Immortal Regiment' march celebrating Victory Day in Riga, Latvia.
It has been nearly three decades since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Despite Russia's
reemergence on the world stage as a respected power after market-oriented 'reforms' destroyed
its economy for the duration of the nineties, the breakup of the USSR is an event regarded by
an increasing amount of Russians as a catastrophic tragedy rather than a triumph of 'freedom
and democracy.'
In recent years, there have been numerous polls showing that more than half of Russians not
only regret
the collapse of the Soviet Union but would even
prefer for its return . However, the nostalgia only comes as a surprise to those who have
forgotten that not long before the failed August Coup that led to its demise, the first and
only referendum in its history was held in March of 1991 which polled citizens if they wished
to preserve the Soviet system.
The results were more than three quarters of the population in the entire socialist
federation (including Russia) voting a resounding yes with a turnout of 80% in the
participating republics. In Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan the outcome
was more than 90% voting for renewal. Even the country with the lowest amount of support, the
Ukraine, was still 70% in favor. While the measure was officially banned in six republics --
Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, and the three Baltic states -- despite being unrecognized by their
local governments the vote was still organized and the outcomes were all over 90%.
Ironically, the union dissolved five months later under the pretext of establishing
'democracy' in Eastern Europe just as it ignored the very wishes of Soviet citizens. After more
than 25 years of suffering at the hands of economic and trade liberalization, gutting of state
subsidies and mass privatization of the former state-run industry, is it any wonder that
Russians are yearning for a return to socialism?
The consequences of the disintegration are still felt in the relations with the United
States today. It planted the seeds for the carefully arranged revival of the Cold War that was
hiding in plain sight until it surfaced with 'color revolutions', proxy wars and dubious spy
poisonings. One source of the strained relations between the West and Russia has been the
Baltic states, which burgeoned following their integration into the European Union and
enrollment in NATO membership in 2004 during its enlargement. NATO
continues its provocations with massive war games bordering Kaliningrad, while Moscow is
painted as the aggressor even though the U.S. defense spending increase this year alone
surpasses Russia's entire military budget.
The antagonism between Latvia, Estonia and(to a lesser degree) Lithuania with Moscow stems
partly from from the cessation of the USSR itself. The conclusion of the Cold War resulted in
more than 25 million Russians instantly discovering themselves living abroad in foreign
countries. For seventy years, fifteen nations had been fully integrated while Russians migrated
and lived within the other republics. The Soviet collapse immediately reignited national
conflicts, from the Caucasus to the Baltics. While the majority of the ethnic Russian diaspora
live in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, nearly 1 million reside in the post-Soviet Baltics and since
1991 they have been subjected to a campaign of forced assimilation, discrimination and
exclusion.
The Baltic republics made nationalism their official state policy while moving away from
Russia's sphere of influence into a closer relationship with the West. Boris Yeltsin's
subservience to Washington eclipsed any concern for the fate of captive Russians as the Soviet
Bloc was herded into the EU, but his administration did quarrel with the new Baltic authorities
and
accused them of creating an anti-Russian 'apartheid.'
As geopolitical tensions have increased under his successor, Vladimir V. Putin, who has
embarrassed Western imperialism in the international arena, so has Moscow's disapproval of the
treatment of its minority held hostage in the Baltic Rim. Is a comparison to South Africa
warranted? Even if the similarities are only partial, the three states show evidence of deep
ethnocracy.
While less than 10% of Lithuania is ethnically Russian, in Latvia and Estonia the number is
much higher at a quarter of their entire populations. The three governments have passed laws
promoting their official languages and restored citizenship requirements that existed up until
1940, demanding that their Russian minorities apply or risk losing basic rights and guarantees.
Russia has interpreted these measures as a form of slow-motion ethnic cleansing intended to
coerce Russians to immigrate elsewhere.
When the three states first became independent, in an act of systematic discrimination they
distributed non-citizen 'alien' passports to ethnic Russians and excluded them from obtaining
citizenship automatically, even if they had lived and worked in a Baltic state for their entire
life. In fact, citizenship was not immediately granted to anyone whose ancestry arrived after
1940, a policy that specifically targeted ethnic Russians who without naturalization are left
stateless.
For example, when Estonia first declared its independence more than 30% of its population
(or every third person) did not have citizenship of the country of residence. This inscribed
ethnic division into their society and although many Russians have become naturalized over the
last two decades, there are still more than 80,000 in Estonia without determined status who are
mostly former Soviet citizens and their descendants. In Latvia, segregation runs even deeper
where more than 250,000 Russians (15% of the population) remain stateless. Even when they do
become citizens, the parliaments have attempted to pass laws banning non-EU immigrants
(predominantly Russians) from possessing voting rights on several occasions. Polls also show
the prejudice within their societies, with many Balts indicating they would prefer their
Russian-speaking neighbors to repatriate.
Meanwhile, the Russian population has expressed concern about the reemergence of neo-Nazism.
The authorities have nurtured holocaust denial, such as the Latvian government objecting
to an UNESCO Holocaust exhibition of the Salaspils concentration camp on the basis it would
'tarnish the country's image.' No kidding.
Children held in Salaspils concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Latvia during WWII.
One criteria for the naturalization exams is based on language where in order to become
citizens Russians must become fluent in Latvian and Estonian, even though they are such a large
minority that in larger cities they often constitute 50% of the population and Russian may be
the most spoken language. Simultaneously, any attempt to make Russian a second official
language have been struck down. It is a deliberate effort to assimilate the Russian-speaking
minority and erase remnants of Soviet culture.
In order to obtain basic entitlements, Russians have to pass the tough naturalization tests
which many fail several times (especially the elderly), facing fines and risking losing their
employment in the process. The tests are notoriously difficult as Latvian and Estonian
languages bear little resemblance to Slavic Russian and are much closer to Finnish.
Apart from ethnicity, 40% of Latvia as a whole identifies as Russian-speaking and have been
accustomed to schooling in their native tongue where they already have low career prospects and
income rates. Rather than inclusion, they have been mandated to adopt the Baltic languages.
Beginning in 2019, the Russian language education options in Latvia will be discontinued
altogether in higher education at colleges and universities as well as many secondary schools,
which has sparked
demonstrations in protest .
Russian-speakers protesting Latvia's language reform laws
It should be made clear that what ethnic Russians experience in the Baltics has its own
particularities that make it significantly different from the institutionalized racism and
violently enforced segregation that existed in South Africa (or what many believe is applicable
to the Palestinians under Israeli occupation). The word apartheid itself originates from the
Afrikaans word for 'separateness' (or apart-hood), but an exact comparison is not the real
issue. There are many overlapping characteristics that make an analogy arguable.
For instance, the use of an ID system denoting ethnicity and alien status with the inability
of Russians to participate in the democratic process or politics. Their reduced standing
contributes to a society where ethnic groups often do not intermingle and are concentrated in
particular areas with Russians mostly residing in urban cities. Yet even Israel recognized
Arabic as a second official language (until 2018), while none of three Baltic states do so for
Russian. When referendums have been held on whether to adopt Russian as a second language, the
non-citizen communities are excluded from voting, ensuring its inability to pass.
The exams also coerce Russians to accept a nationalist and historically revisionist account
of the last century where the Soviet Union is said to have "occupied" the Baltics. A history
lesson is needed to understand how this is untrue and based on pure Nazi mythology. During the
Romanov dynasty, the Baltic states had been part of the Russian Empire but became independent
for the first time in centuries following the February Revolution in 1917.
Along with Belarus and Finland, the Bolsheviks were unable to regain the three republics
during the Russian Civil War. During the 1930s, the three nations were officially sovereign
states but under their own brutal nationalist regimes. The Soviet liberation of the Baltics can
hardly be seen as a 'forceful incorporation' considering what they replaced were not
democracies themselves and they were absorbed in order to block Hitlerite expansionism.
Since the restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe, the Baltic states have waged a
campaign of diminishing and obscuring the Holocaust into a 'double genocide' of equal
proportions , conflating the Nazis and the Soviets as twin evils. Western 'democracies' have
helped obfuscate the truth about the widely misunderstood Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the treaty
of non-belligerence between Germany and the USSR. The 1939 non-aggression pact has been painted
as a 'secret alliance' between the Nazis and the Soviets, disregarding that France and Great
Britain had done the same with the Germans the previous year with the Munich Agreement.
Only the Soviets are said to have 'conspired' with Hitler, just as when the West fought the
Germans it was for 'liberal values' but when the USSR did so it was for competing 'dominion'
over Europe. In order to mask their own fascist sympathies, the West has falsified the
historical reasons for the accord. In reality, there were measures incorporating the Baltic
states into the USSR as part of a mutual defense and assistance against German imperialism and
their 'master plan' for the East.
The truth is that the ruling class in the West feared the spread of communism much more than
fascism, and actually viewed the rise of Hitler and Mussolini in Europe as an opportunity to
crush the Soviet Union. Leading up to WWII, not only was it Western capital investment which
financed the rapid buildup of Germany's armed forces, but the U.S., Britain and France did
everything within their power to encourage Hitler's aggression toward the USSR. More than once
they
collectively refused to sign any mutual security alliance with Moscow while appeasing
Hitler's expansionism in Czechoslovakia, with the British in particular guilty of sabotaging
negotiations to isolate the Soviets and pit them into a war against Germany.
Stalin was well aware the Nazis planned to expand the Lebensraum further East, but
the Soviets were in the midst of a rapid industrialization process that accomplished in a
single decade what took the British more than a century. They needed time to guarantee they
could defeat an offensive by the Wehrmacht, the most powerful and developed military force in
the world at the time. It provided an additional year and ten months of further buildup of
Soviet armaments -- if not for this move, it is possible the Germans would never
have been stopped twenty kilometers short of Moscow and turned the outcome of the war in their
favor. The real reason the pact infuriated the West was because it obligated them into having
to fight the Germans, something the imperial powers had hoped to avoid altogether.
More disturbingly, the Baltic governments have drawn from the traditions of the far right by
whitewashing the local nationalists that sided with Germany during their invasion of the Soviet
Union in 1941 which broke the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. The Nazi collaborators have been
restored and normalized as 'freedom fighters' who fought solely for Baltic independence.
The Estonian parliament has even adopted resolutions
honoring the Estonian Legion and 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Estonian)
without any such equivalent measure for the more than 30,000 Estonians who courageously fought
in the Red Army.
To most Russians, it is an absolute insult to the 27 million Soviets who died defeating the
Nazis, including the Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians who did so as well. Today, if they
wish to become citizens they must swear an oath of allegiance to this rewriting of history
which has been made a precondition for obtaining citizenship. The three states also do not
recognize the May 9th Victory Day as a holiday, forcing the Russian minority to celebrate it
informally.
20th Estonian SS Division
The rehabilitation of the local nationalists who fought alongside the Germans has been done
under the false premise that the collaboration was a purely strategic alliance. The Soviets are
portrayed as equal to or worse than Nazi Germany, a false equivalency between fascism and
communism that is a ubiquitous trait among ultra-rightists today. Tens of thousands of Latvians
and Estonians volunteered and were conscripted into legions of the SS which participated in the
Holocaust, as did Lithuanians in the Nazi-created Territorial Defense Force and their Security
Police.
They did not simply coordinate on the battlefield with the Germans, but directly
participated in the methodical slaughter of Jews, Roma and others because they shared their
racism. In Lithuania, for example, quislings welcomed the Wehrmacht as liberators and for the
next three years under Nazi occupation helped murder 200,000 Jews, nearly 95% of the country's
Jewish population, a total which exceeded every other European country in terms of percentage
of extermination. It is certain that the only thing that prevented Lithuania's Jews from
extinction was the heroism and sacrifice of the Red Army.
Latvians greeting the Red Army after the liberation of Riga
During the Cold War, the US and NATO sought to whitewash certain Nazi war criminals when it
suited its strategic interests against the Soviets. This went beyond the Germans themselves,
whether it was recruiting
their spies for espionage, atomic scientists in Operation Paperclip , or making Hans
Speidel the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in Central Europe.
The Baltic Waffen SS Units are to be considered as separate and distinct in purpose,
ideology, activities, and qualifications for membership from the German SS, and therefore the
Commission holds them not to be a movement hostile to the Government of the United States
under Section 13 of the Displaced Persons Act, as amended."
While the displaced persons laws let Jewish refugees into the United States, it also
provided cover for the reserved spaces for thousands of Nazi collaborators in an open-door
policy providing them safe harbor. Following the end of WWII, many of the former members of the
Baltic SS units became anti-Soviet partisans known as the Forest Brothers who carried on a
guerilla campaign against the Soviets with the assistance of the CIA and MI6 until it was
defeated in mid-50s. Unfortunately, Nikita Khruschev then made one of a series of colossal
mistakes by permitting the exiled Baltic nationals to return as part of the de-Stalinisation
thaw.
Latvian Legion
The idea that regiments of the Schutzstaffel were fighting purely for Estonian and Latvian
independence is a horrifying fabrication in defiance of the overwhelming evidence documented by
holocaust historians. The West has exploited this sanitizing of history that reappeared
following the reinstatement of free enterprise in eastern Europe which has proliferated the far
right in the EU as a whole. Why? It serves their cynical immediate interests in undermining
Moscow. The same manipulations are occurring in the Cold War's sequel. Last year, NATO even
produced a short film and a-historical reenactment entitled
Forest Brothers: Fight for the Baltics , glorifying the anti-Soviet partisans as part of
its propaganda effort against Russia.
Any crimes that were committed by the Soviet NKVD during the war are dwarfed by the tens of
thousands of Jews and Roma which were exterminated on an industrial level by the Nazis and
their co-conspirators using the race theory -- there is no comparison. Not to
mention that the reintroduction of the free market to Eastern Europe killed more people than
any period in Soviet history, reducing life expectancy by a decade and undoing seventy years
worth of progress. We only ever hear of the faults of socialism and the inflated numbers of
losses of life attributed to its failure, never the daily crimes of capitalism or the tens of
millions lost in the wars it produces.
he Soviet brand of socialism was far from perfect, but nevertheless a model for what
humanity can achieve in the face of tremendous adversity without being shackled by the
contradictions of capitalism -- an industrial society with relative equality in
education, wealth, employment and basic necessities. Now that Western capitalism is once again
collapsing, it is making friends with nationalists to revise its ugly history and the Russian
minority in the Baltics are suffering the consequence. It will continue to apportion blame on
the up-and-coming power in Moscow, no longer the quasi-colony of the Yeltsin era, for its
soon-to-be expiration. Let us hope it does not start another World War in the midst of
it -- for all our sake.
Max Parry is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst. His work has appeared in
publications such as The Greanville Post, Global Research, CounterPunch and more. Read him on
Medium . Max may be reached at
[email protected]
I did not know about the vote in 1991. Thank you for exposing yet another example of US
meddling in elections, i.e. not recognizing the results and essentially forcing a coup via
Yeltsin. The war crimes of the US and Israel are beyond comprehension. Loading...
Yes, the Baltics, like the western Ukraine, rolled out the red carpet to the German invaders
in 1941. The Nazi genocide was outsourced from Waffen SS and Einsatzgruppen to Baltic Nazis
since the numbers involved were too big to handle for the Germans alone.
The Arajs Kommando death squad (also: Sonderkommando Arajs), was led by local SS and
collaborators Viktors Arājs, Franz Stahlecker and Robert Stieglitz and a unit of Latvian
Auxiliary Police (Lettische Hilfspolizei) which was subordinated to the German
Sicherheitsdienst (a special security branch of the German SS). It was a notorious killing
unit during the Holocaust. Stahlecker instructed Arajs to set up a commando unit that
obtained an official name Latvian Auxiliary Security Police or Arājs Kommando.
The following day on July 2 1941 Arajs learned from Stahlecker during a conference that
the Arajs commando had to unleash a pogrom that looked spontaneous and these pogrom-like
disorders were to break out before German occupation authorities had been properly
established. The Einsatzkommando a sub-group of the SS death squads, belonging to the larger
Einsatzgruppen) influenced mobs of former members of Pērkonkrusts (Latvian
ultra-nationalists and other extreme right-wing groups) began mass arrests, pillaging and
murders of Jews in Riga, which led to death of between 300 to 400 Jews.
Killings continued under the supervision of SS Brigadeführer Walter Stahlecker and
ended when more 2,700 Jews had been murdered. The activities of the Einsatzkommando were
constrained after the full establishment of the German occupation authority, after which the
SS made use of select units of native recruits. German General Wilhelm Ullersperger and
Voldemar Weiss, a well known, Latvian nationalist, appealed to the population via a radio
address to attack "internal enemies".
During the next few months, activities of the Latvian Auxiliary Security Police was
primarily focused on killing Jews, Communists and Red Army stragglers in Latvia as well as in
neighbouring Belorussia. The group alone murdered almost half of Latvia's Jewish population,
about 26,000 Jews, mainly in November and December 1941. The creation of the Arajs Kommando
was "one of the most significant inventions of the early Holocaust", that marked a transition
from German organised pogroms to systematic killing of Jews by local volunteers (former army
officers, policemen, students, Aizargi).
This helped resolve a chronic problem with German personnel shortages, and provided the
Germans with relief from the psychological stress of routinely murdering civilians. By the
autumn of 1941, the SS deployed Latvian 'Police Battalions' to Leningrad, where they were
consolidated as Latvian Second SS Volunteer Brigade.
In 1943, this brigade, which would later become the Latvian Nineteenth SS Volunteer
Division, was consolidated with the Latvian Fifteen SS Volunteer Division to become the
Latvian Legion. Although formally the Latvian Legion (Schutzmannschaft or Schuma) was a
volunteer Waffen-SS military formation; it was voluntary only by name, because approximately
80-85% of personnel were conscripted into the legion.
Yes lovely people these Batlics. They are now among the poorest countries in Europe and
are suffering massive demographic problems as anyone who can, leaves. As my old mother used
to say. "God pays debts without money..
"
People of Russian heritage are denied passports, the right to vote, and any official
employment, amongst other forms of discrimination and persecution.
These are sh***y little Nazi countries, with their big annual SS parades. They desecrate war
memorials and the graves of Russian soldiers who died liberating the Baltic countries in the
war. Many Baltic politicians are US dual citizens, neocons parachuted in after 1991 by the
State Department. They are ideologically driven and lose no opportunity to vent their spleen
against Russia. They are constantly foolishly provocative towards a neighbour that could be a
valuable economic partner. We see the same pattern in Ukraine. The US pulled off a stunt
where 10,000 US troops in 1,000 tanks and vehicles drove up and down the Latvian border just
a few yards from Russian territory, through communities of predominantly Russian
heritage.
Part of this hostility to Russia is probably contrived by the political class to cover up
their abject failures since independence. Their economies were looted and hollowed out by
western finance capital over the past few decades. They were previously highly developed
parts of the Soviet Union with industries like machinery, vehicles and shipbuilding. That is
now ancient history. The economy has collapsed, and 25% of the population of Latvia has
emigrated, scratching a living doing menial jobs or working as prostitutes in the EU, the
only future those countries have. Riga was a natural transit hub for Russia, but faced with
official visceral hatred from that quarter, the Russians expanded and developed their own
port facilities in the Baltic. Riga has been left as a ghost town. That is why Nordstream has
been developed, to replace unreliable partners in neighbouring countries who are always ready
to cut off their noses to spite their face and please their US neocon masters. Their loss
– they could have made billions from energy transit fees. It's the same story with
sanctions, for which the Baltic states were enthusiastic cheerleaders. Russia's counter
sanctions against agricultural imports have hit them hard. In the course of events, these
countries and Russia would be economic partners for their mutual benefit.
As NATO members, these countries believe they can be as foolishly provocative and offensive
to Russia as they wish, like the obnoxious kid in the school playground who spits in
somebody's face and runs and hides behind his big brother. Small countries like this can
cause a disaster, like Serbia and WW1. They are now failed states, like Ukraine. They are
just pawns in a neocon game against Russia. They have no future. Loading...
'The Baltic republics made nationalism their official state policy while moving away from
Russia's sphere of influence into a closer relationship with the West.'
I strongly supported the Soviet Union and likewise I support the CIS, but this article,
frankly, is so partial that it misrepresents the reasons why the Baltic States behaved as
they did following the Nazi invasion of 1941 and following the collapse of the Soviet Union
in 1991.
There is no mention of Staln's takeover of the Baltic States in 1940. It is clear that
Stalin needed those states as a buffer against Germany, but that said, it is fully
understandable that many Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians would see the Nazis as
liberators and would resent their countries' reabsorption into the Soviet Union in 1944,
followed by settlement by Russian nationals including members of the Soviet state apparatus
including the KGB. Of course, we may all deplore collaboration with Nazi race policies,
especially in Lithuania, but to ignore factors such as Russia's takeover of the Baltic states
ignores a major factor at the heart of those countries' treatment of Russians to this
day.
The author explains Stalin's wish to forestall the inevitable war with Nazism because the
Soviet Union was involved in industrialisation. This is true, but the article ignores the
purges that had led to the Red Army being so ineffectual in its war with Finland that Hitler
believed that Barbarossa would be a pushover. When one considers that when the Baltic States
became part of the Soviet Union, this will have included the apparatus of state terror that
Stalin had been visiting upon the rest of the Soviet Union for several years. Contrary to the
above whitewashed view of history, Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians had strong grounds for
resenting the presence of Russians in their erstwhile independent nations.
I deplore the Baltic States' treatment of ethnic Russians since they gained their
independence in September 1991, but ignoring the follies of their Soviet past will do nothing
to alleviate their plight.
I appreciate the historical background, but the treatment of Ukrainians, Latvians, Estonians
and Lithuanians by Stalin might explain their actions in WWII; doesn't excuse them, sorry.
Loading...
"erstwhile independent nations."
To be clear these former provinces-highly favoured provinces- in the Russian Empire had been
'independent' since 1921.And thanks in part too to the Bolshevik doctrine that the Czarist
Empire was a 'prison house of peoples.'
No doubt many in the Baltic states resented the invasion of the Red Army but it was only a
small minority which celebrated by killing Jews and enrolling in the siege of Leningrad.
In more modern terms there is no reason why these three states, and Ukraine, could not thrive
independently without setting themselves up as bases for provocations against Russia and
convenient locations for US torture chambers.
The people of Ireland suffered far more under the British Empire than the Balts did under St
Petersburg but that did not lead to more than a handful of Irishmen, if that many, in the
Second World War joining the SS. Loading...
This article takes no account of the threat posed to our allies in NATO, Eastern Europe, and
to the security of the world due to the rising tensions of recent years. Now, more than ever,
in the wake of Salisbury attack, we need to stress to our European counterparts in the
governments of the Baltic States, that we wish to work with them to maximise the power of
collective sanctions against violations of international law – whether by Russia or
anyone else. I think we should make clear that our UK commitment to such collective action
will not be diminished by Brexit. Similarly, now more than ever, it is vital that the UK and
all other NATO members make it clear to all our allies in the Baltic States, and elsewhere,
that we want to protect peace and security on the borders, without ramping up tensions
unnecessarily, and that such a commitment is not conditional on their levels of defence
spending.
Tory defence spending cuts have put Britain's security at risk.. I think the next Labour
government should commit to boost our military obligations, above the benchmark of 2% GDP, in
line with the last Labour government's commitment to NATO.
This is the second parody posted by BigB. A parody so skilful, such inane stringing together
of non-sequiturs to an insane c,nclusion, it might have come from the very lips of blessed
Theresa of Westminster. Loading...
Very close, Vex: St Jeremy of Islington North. Most of it is verbatim, with some reworded
conjunctions. The source text is from Hansard 26/03/18. The last para is a reword taken from
quote in John Pilger's excellent article about Labour's non-existent foreign policy which
would likely be imperialistic. Or the vague platitude of a return to 'Robin Cook ethical
diplomacy' of starting three wars in two years and selling Hawk aircraft to Mugabe.
It struck me recently when I point out the actual words that JC says, I take the flak. To
prove a point (if only to myself) I posted his own (disguised) words to see how people would
react. The source text for yesterday was his reply to Treason May, when she announced the two
counterfeit suspects for the fabricated Novijoke crime against the intelligence.
It is my supposition that very few know the full context of what is said, relying on media
soundbites instead. The media pick a single phrase – such as only saying "evidence
points strongly" – and contrast with Bojo's "weaselly words" to construct an entirely
inauthentic narrative. It is a pseudo-oppressor/oppressed narrative that creates a false
sense of pity and invokes an invented victim mentality (we all know how Brit's love an
underdog!).
Anyway, I surmised his words were weaselly, though not in the context of the received
culture machine narrative but in themselves, taken in their given context (in Parliament and
later in Hansard). They amount to a servile connivance with power (a power that provides the
testimony and meaning to the hollow phonemes).
I could have just said that, but I decided to post the slightly disguised text to make a
point. Point made.
Soviet "Communism" was de facto never more than a branch of Anglo-American bourgeois
progressivism. A geopolitical rivalry developed between the two factions after the defeat of
Germany. Note that Western capitalists built the Soviet industrial base in the 1920s and
1930s, so it was obvious they were not seen as a threat then:
http://www.thebirdman.org/Index/Others/Others-Doc-ConspiracyTheory&NWO/+Doc-ConspiracyTheory-FalseEnemies/TheWestFinancedSoviets.htm
( )
American technical leadership began to replace German leadership in rebuilding the Soviet
Union.
"Of the agreements in force in mid-1929, 27 were with German companies, 15 were with
United States firms and the remaining ones were primarily with British and French firms. In
the last six months of 1929, the number of technical agreements with U.S. firms jumped to
more than 40." (Sutton, Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development, 1917-1930, pp.
346-347).
The new program was announced, however, only "after a sequence of construction and
technical-assistance contracts with Western companies had been let. The Freyn-Gipromez
technical agreement for design and construction of giant metallurgical plants is economically
and technically the most important." (Ibid., p. 347).
EXTENT OF AID "ALMOST UNBELIEVABLE"
During the early thirties, the amount and type of "aid and comfort" to the Soviet Union was
almost unbelievable. In 1930 the Ford Motor Company established the Russian motor car
industry by constructing a factory "capable of turning out 140,000 cars a year." By the end
of the decade the factory, at Gorki, was one of the largest in the world. Ford also provided
training for the Russians in assembling automobiles "plus patent licenses, technical
assistance, and advice," and "an inventory of spare parts." (Keller, East Minus West Equals
Zero, pp. 208-209, 215-216). Americans also built, in the Soviet Union, the largest iron and
steel works in the world; patterned after the city of Gary, Indiana. The huge steel complex,
built at Maginitogorsk, was constructed by a Cleveland firm. (Ibid., pp. 209-210).
LARGEST TRACTOR FACTORY IN THE WORLD
The largest tractor factory in the world was another American contribution to Soviet
technology.
"Tractors were a necessity to modernize Soviet agriculture. A Detroit engineer designed
and constructed a tractor factory without parallel in any other country. The assembly works
were 2,000 feet long and 650 feet wide, covering an area of thirty acres. Twenty-one American
football fields would fit into just one building, with locker rooms for the players. The
tractors produced were copies of the American Caterpillar Company, but there were no
arrangements made for payment for use of the patent. Russia merely bought one sample and
copied it. The factory was so designed that production could be adopted almost overnight to
the production of another less innocuous commodity – tanks." (Ibid., p. 213).
( )
Russia today is clearly not seen as a partner of Western
neoliberalism/progressivism. Therefore, Putin (along with Trump) has become the new
Hitler.
Curri, thank you for presenting that healthy corrective to my previous one-sided view; up
till now I had read only of US aid to Nazi Germany. Loading...
To put these observations into context it must be understood that the Soviet
government-obsessed with a crude mechanistic theory of economic development and desperately
trying to reproduce all of the 'stages' of economic progress into a succession of Five Year
Plans- bled the peasantry and working class dry in order to pay for what Curri calls a
partnership. The industrialists, largely Anglo Saxon, who jump started Russian industry after
the catastrophes of war and civil war extorted a heavy price, in hard currency, for their
'aid.'
The notion that the Soviet Union, even under Stalin, was accepted as a partner by the west is
historically illiterate. The record is clear. And clarified further by the continuity in
Foreign Policy which was (and is) the Cold War. Loading...
200,000 Jews in Lithuania alone! And they give all this fuss over Corbyns reluctance to
conflate anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism.
I knew there was prejudice in these northern Baltic states but this piece has shocked me. I
now understand the self deprecating remarks made to me recently by a supermarket cashier over
her being a Russian speaking Lithuanian. Next time I see her I will make a point of offering
her my solidarity.
I meet many of these northerners in my work. Now I have some of this background I can ask
pertinent questions. Loading...
It would be a mistake to discover the cause for this discrimination in popular prejudice. The
actual reason lies in the determination of the ruling class to maintain
fascist-collaborationist successor politicians in power.
These politicians, many of whom had origins in expatriate communities in the west, after
fleeing their homelands in the baggage of the Wehrmacht and SS, have been finding it very
difficult to survive after leading their countries into economic disaster mitigated only by
the welcome boost that NATO bases bring to countries in which unemployment rates are at
levels not seen since the 1930s.
Like their predecessors they have turned to racism and fascism to prop themselves up.
What is true of the Baltic states is even truer of Ukraine, where Russian speakers constitute
a persecuted majority, and where the Speaker of the Rada is on record, this past week, as
being inspired by the Fuhrer who he sees as the greatest democrat of the C20th.
As racism and fascism spread westwards into Austria, Germany and elsewhere the complacence of
western 'liberals' in cosseting and subsidising the sources of infection is largely to blame.
It is of course history repeating itself: the fascism of eastern europe in the 1930s was also
sponsored and armed by the 'democracies' of the west. And for the same reason: to keep Russia
at bay.
Whoever it was, this "gutless" person seems pretty craven, opportunistic neocon of McCain
flavor. Most neocons are chickenhawks. And there are plenty of neocons in Trump
administration.
It might well be that anonymous "resistance" op-ed in NYT is CIA operation to promote Woodward's book ( Woodward is definitely
connected to CIA from the time of Nixon impeachment)
Notable quotes:
"... You are not protecting this country, you are sabotaging it with your cowardly actions ..."
During an interview with Fox and Friends, conducted onstage prior to Trump's rally and set
to air on Friday, the president called the paper's decision to publish the column "very
unfair".
"When somebody writes and you can't discredit because you have no idea who they are,"
Trump said. "It may not be a Republican, it may not be a conservative, it may be a deep state
person that's been there a long time.
It's a very unfair thing, but it's very unfair to our country and to the millions of
people that voted really for us."
Since the editorial was published, the highest-ranking officials in Trump's administration
have come forth to
publicly deny any involvement. Those distancing themselves from the column have included
the vice-president, Mike Pence, and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, along with much of
Trump's cabinet. The first lady, Melania Trump, also condemned the author and called on the
individual to come forward.
"You are not protecting this country, you are sabotaging it with your cowardly actions," she
wrote.
The editorial was published as the White House was contending with yet another
firestorm.
A book authored by the famed journalist
Bob Woodward , poised for release next week, chronicles the chaos and dysfunction within
the Trump administration.
Excerpts released on Tuesday provided an unflattering portrait of the
president, who was described by aides in disparaging terms that included being likened to a
schoolchild.
"... This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Zen Cash , The War State , by Mike Swanson; WallStreetWindow.com ; Roberts and Roberts Brokerage Inc. ; LibertyStickers.com ; TheBumperSticker.com ; and ExpandDesigns.com/Scott . ..."
Danny Sjursen is interviewed on his service in the Terror Wars, how he became antiwar, and
how he wants his service and the service of others to be honored.
"... According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, [on] 24 December 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed, it was July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. ..."
"... We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire. ..."
"... What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War? ..."
The alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorists attacks, Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, was
recruited during the Soviet-Afghan war, "ironically under the auspices of the CIA, to fight
Soviet invaders".(Hugh Davies, "`Informers' point the finger at bin Laden; Washington on alert
for suicide bombers." The Daily Telegraph, London, 24 August 1998).
In 1979 the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA was launched in
Afghanistan:
"With the active encouragement of the CIA and Pakistan's ISI, who wanted to turn the
Afghan Jihad into a global war waged by all Muslim states against the Soviet Union, some
35,000 Muslim radicals from 40 Islamic countries joined Afghanistan's fight between 1982 and
1992. Tens of thousands more came to study in Pakistani madrasahs. Eventually, more than
100,000 foreign Muslim radicals were directly influenced by the Afghan jihad." (Ahmed Rashid,
"The Taliban: Exporting Extremism", Foreign Affairs, November-December 1999).
This project of the US intelligence apparatus was conducted with the active support of
Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), which was entrusted in channelling covert
military aid to the Islamic brigades and financing, in liason with the CIA, the madrassahs and
Mujahideen training camps.
U.S. government support to the Mujahideen was presented to world public opinion as a
"necessary response" to the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in support of the pro-Communist
government of Babrak Kamal.
The CIA's military-intelligence operation in Afghanistan, which consisted in creating the
"Islamic brigades", was launched prior rather than in response to the entry of Soviet troops
into Afghanistan. In fact, Washington's intent was to deliberately trigger a civil war, which
has lasted for more than 25 years. (photo: CIA and ISI agents)
The CIA's role in laying the foundations of Al Qaeda is confirmed in an 1998 interview with
Zbigniew Brzezinski, who at the time was National Security Adviser to President Jimmy
Carter:
Brzezinski: According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahideen
began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, [on] 24
December 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise. Indeed,
it was July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the
opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the
President in which I explained to him that in my opinion, this aid was going to induce a
Soviet military intervention.
Question: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you
yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
Brzezinski: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we
knowingly increased the probability that they would.
Question:When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to
fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe
them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?
Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of
drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the
Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the
opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to
carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the
demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Question: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having
given arms and advice to future terrorists?
Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the
collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe
and the end of the Cold War? ( "The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan, Interview with
Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser", Le Nouvel
Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998, published in English, Centre for Research on
Globalisation, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html
, 5 October 2001, italics added.)
Consistent with Brzezinski's account, a "Militant Islamic Network" was created by the
CIA.
The "Islamic Jihad" (or holy war against the Soviets) became an integral part of the CIA's
intelligence ploy. It was supported by the United States and Saudi Arabia, with a significant
part of the funding generated from the Golden Crescent drug trade:
"In March 1985, President Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 166 [which]
authorize[d] stepped-up covert military aid to the Mujahideen, and it made clear that the
secret Afghan war had a new goal: to defeat Soviet troops in Afghanistan through covert
action and encourage a Soviet withdrawal. The new covert U.S. assistance began with a
dramatic increase in arms supplies -- a steady rise to 65,000 tons annually by 1987 as well
as a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and Pentagon specialists who travelled to the secret
headquarters of Pakistan's ISI on the main road near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. There, the CIA
specialists met with Pakistani intelligence officers to help plan operations for the Afghan
rebels."(Steve Coll, The Washington Post, July 19, 1992.)
Does the concept of 'blowback' matter, ie that the USA might actually be responsible for
some of the bad things that happen to it? Would Hillary have been a stronger candidate if she
had not taken part in globalist 'nation-building' activities?
No it doesn't. Not across borders. Nations reserve the right to internally bitch and moan
about what happened to them regardless if it is blowback or not. That is how things work on
two different sides of a fence. It just happens to work better when you're fully in control
of the media too.
Because when you fuck with people, they often have the desire to fuck with you right back.
Preferably in the exact same way you did to them. This is typically known as "the cycle of
violence".
For example, did you know the US meddled in the 1996 Russian election to get Yeltsin
re-elected? It's absolutely
true, a lot of people were proud of it at the time and it wasn't a secret. [i.redd.it] He
was in fifth place with ratings in the single digits before the Americans got involved. This
was disastrous for Russia, as the oligarchs and Western neo-liberal economists made a mess of
things. This started the chain of events that led directly to Putin seizing power four years
later. Action, reaction.
uke Harding likes writing books
about things that he wasn't really involved in and doesn't really understand. Unfortunately for
the rest of the world, that covers pretty much everything. His book about Snowden, for example,
was beautifully
taken down by Julian Assange – a person who was actually there.
He's priming the traumatised public for another of his works, this time about Sergei
Skripal. This one will probably be out by Christmas, unless he can find someone else's work to plagiarise , in which case he might
get it done sooner.
It will have a snide and not especially clever title, perhaps a sort of pun –
something like "A Poison by Any Other Name: How Russian assassins contaminated the heart of
rural England" . It will relate, in jarring sub-sub-le Carre prose, a story of Russian
malfeasance and evil beyond imagining, whilst depicting the whole cast as bumbling caricatures,
always held up for ridicule by the author and his smug readership.
There's an extract in The Guardian today. It's not listed as one, but trust me, it
will be in the book. It's title, as predicted above, is sort of a pun (and will probably
be a chapter heading):
Planes, trains and fake names: the trail left by Skripal suspects
You see? Like that film? I don't really get it either but until someone else comes up with
something clever he can copy, Luke is left to his own rather meagre devices.
It starts off surprisingly strong, waiting three whole sentences before lurching violently
into totally unsupported conjecture:
The two men were dressed inconspicuously in jeans, fleece jackets and trainers as they
boarded the flight from Moscow to Gatwick. Their names, according to their Russian passports,
were Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov. Both were around 40 years old. Neither looked
suspicious.
This is, as far as we know so far, true.
The plane trundled down the icy runway. In Moscow the temperatures had fallen below -10C,
not unusual for early March. In Britain it had been snowing.
and so is this. In fact, in googling "Moscow weather March 2018" Harding has displayed an
uncharacteristically thorough approach to research that was rarely (if ever) evidenced in his
previous works.
They had also packed a bottle of what appeared to be the Nina Ricci perfume Premier Jour.
The box it came in was prettily decorated with flowers, it listed ingredients including
alcohol and it bore the words "Made in France".
This is where truth ends and guesses take over: there is no evidence, at all, that these two
men had anything to do with the "perfume bottle" allegedly found by Charlie Rowley on June 27th
and allegedly containing a powerful nerve agent. There is (as far as we know) no fingerprint or
DNA evidence on the bottle, nobody saw them with the bottle, and there's no released CCTV
footage of them holding or carrying the bottle. Saying "it's in their backpack" is meaningless
without any evidence to back it up.
According to the Metropolitan police, the bottle in fact contained novichok, a lethal
nerve agent developed in the late Soviet Union. The bottle had been specially made to be
leakproof and had a customised applicator.
Note he doesn't feel the need to examine, question or even verify the words of the
Metropolitan Police. This is a recurring theme in Harding's works – there are people who
tell the truth (US) and people who lie (RUSSIANS). Evidence is a complication you can live
without.
Moscow's notorious poisons factory run by the KGB made similar devices throughout the cold
war.
Did they? Because he doesn't show any evidence this is true. One thing you can be sure of,
if there had ever been even a whisper about a "modified perfume bottle" in any Soviet archive
or from any "whistleblower currently living in the United States", it would be on the front
page in big black letters.
Petrov and Boshirov were aliases, detectives believe. Both men are suspected to be career
officers with the GRU, Russia's powerful and highly secretive military intelligence
service.
Note use of the word "believe", it makes regular appearances alongside it's buddies:
"suspect" and "probably".
And yes, they "believe" they are aliases because IF they were assassins then obviously they
used aliases. There's no evidence taken from their (currently totally theoretical) visa
applications that point to forgery, nobody at the time questioned their passports. As of today,
we have been given no reason to think they were aliases, except reasoning backwards from
assumed guilt which isn't how deduction works.
In fact, there's more than enough reason to assume they aren't aliases –
Firstly, they passed the visa check, secondly their passports were never questioned, thirdly
they've used them before (see below), and finally just WHY would a Russian spy-come-assassin
use a fake Russian name and a fake Russian passport? That's ridiculous.
The officers' assignment was covert. They were coming to Britain not as tourists but as
assassins.
[citation needed]
Their target was Sergei Skripal, a former GRU officer who spied for British intelligence,
got caught and was freed in a spy exchange in 2010. They were heading for his home in
provincial Salisbury.
Luke doesn't feel the need to dig down into the nitty gritty here – motive is a
trifle, to be added in the footnotes or made up on the spur of the moment when asked at a book
signing. I'm a bit more fussy than that – I feel the need to ask "Why did they release
him in 2010 and then try to kill him in 2018?" If they had wanted to kill him, why not just do
it when he was in prison in Russia between 2006 and 2010? If they wanted to kill him why do it
just weeks before the World Cup? What could they possibly have to gain?
Luke doesn't know, and neither do I.
Their Aeroflot flight SU2588 touched down at 3pm on Friday 2 March. They were recorded on
CCTV going through passport control, Boshirov with dark hair and a goatee beard, Petrov
unshaven and wearing a blue gingham shirt. Both were carrying satchels slung casually over
the shoulder.
This is all true, and completely unnecessary. It's what we in the industry call "filler" or
"padding". Totally meaningless and useless words that do nothing but take up space. Without it,
a lot of Luke's books would only be about 700 words long.
According to police, the pair had visited the UK before.
Way to bury the lead there, Luke.
This is actually quite important isn't it? I mean, when did they visit the UK before? Did
they visit Salisbury then too? Did they have any contact with Sergei Skripal? Were they
travelling under the same names? Were these visits linked with other intelligence work? Were
they just holidays? What kind of assassins would use the SAME FAKE IDS ON TWO DIFFERENT
OCCASIONS?
These are all very important questions, but Luke doesn't ask them. Because Luke is a modern
journalist, and they don't interrogate the claims of the state, just report them. To
Guardian reporters a question mark is just that funny squiggle next to the shift
key.
From Gatwick they caught the train to London Victoria station and then the tube to east
London, where they checked in to the City Stay hotel in Bow. It was a low-profile choice of
accommodation. The red-brick Victorian building is next to a branch of Barclays bank, a busy
train line and a wall daubed with graffiti. Across the road is a car pound and a Texaco
garage.
This just more filler. Totally meaningless packaging material. The prose equivalent of
All-Bran.
On hostile territory, Boshirov and Petrov operated in the manner of classic intelligence
operatives.
In this instance "the manner of classic intelligence operatives" means, flying direct to
London from Moscow, using Russian names and Russian passports (which you've used before),
checking into a hotel with a CCTV camera on the front door, going straight to the hometown of
an ex-double agent, leaving a Russian poison his front door even though he's already gone out,
dumping your unused poison in a charity bin on the high street, going back to your hotel,
smearing poison around that too even though you already dumped it, and then flying directly
back to Moscow without even waiting to see if the plan worked and the target is dead.
This, in Luke's head, is ace intelligence work.
On the day of the hit, according to detectives, the pair made a similar journey, taking
the 8.05am train from Waterloo to Salisbury and arriving at 11.48am.
Yes, they arrived at 11.48, making it absolutely pointless to put poison on the Skripal's
door, as they had already gone out.
The perfume bottle was probably concealed in a light grey backpack carried by Petrov.
It was "probably concealed" in that backpack because, as I said above, there's no evidence
either of those men ever knew the perfume bottle existed. You never see it in their
possession.
Oh, and the backpack would have to contain TWO bottles of perfume – because the police
aren't sure the bottle Rowley found 3 months later was the same bottle, and Rowley reported it
was unopened and wrapped in cellophane. Perhaps Luke should have read the details of the case
instead of trolling IMDB looking for movie titles with "plane" in them or googling "insouciant"
to see if he was using it right.
From Salisbury station the two men set off on foot. It was a short walk of about a mile to
Skripal's semi-detached home in Christie Miller Road.
which doesn't matter, because the Skripals weren't there. They left at 9.15 and there is no
evidence they ever returned.
At Skripal's house the Russians smeared or sprayed novichok on to the front door handle,
police say.
which doesn't matter, because the Skripals weren't there. They left at 9.15 and there is no
evidence they ever returned.
It doesn't matter if Borishov and Petrov re-tiled the bathroom with novichok grouting or hid
novichok in the battery compartment of Sergei's TV remote or replaced all his lightbulbs with
novichok bombs that explode when you use the clapper .according to everything we've been told
so far Sergei and Julia were literally never in that house again.
Luke seems to write a lot about this case, considering he is barely acquainted with the most
basic facts of it.
The moment went unobserved
True. There is not a single piece of footage, photograph or eyewitness placing these men
within a hundred feet of the Skripals, or their house. The "moment went unobserved" is an
incredibly dishonest way of phrasing this, "the moment is entirely theoretical" is rather
fairer. Or, if you want to be honest "it's possible none of this happened".
At some point on their walk back they must have tossed away the bottle, which at this
point was too dangerous to try to smuggle back through customs.
It's all falling into place perfectly isn't it?
At some point the two men, who we never see holding or carrying the bottle, must have
thrown it away because three months later someone else found it.
They took it through customs once but couldn't a second time, because reasons.
Also one of them was smiling a sort of "I just poisoned somebody" smile:
At 1.05pm the men were recorded in Fisherton Street on their way back to the station. They
appeared more relaxed, Petrov grinning even.
Those evil bastards.
By the time Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were found collapsed on a park bench
in the centre of Salisbury later that afternoon, the poisoners were gone.
No Luke: By the time Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were found collapsed on a
park bench in the centre of Salisbury later that afternoon, the ALLEGED poisoners were
gone.
Alleged is an important word for example, there is a marked difference between being an
ALLEGED plagiarist, and being a
plagiarist .
The visitors were captured on CCTV one more time, at Heathrow airport. It was 7.28pm and
both men were going through security, Petrov first, wheeling a small black case. In his right
hand was a shiny red object, his Russian passport. Police believe the passport was genuine,
his name not. In other words, that it was a sophisticated espionage operation carried out by
a state or state entities.
You see? Nobody thought the passport was fake, which means it was a really good fake
. So the Russian state must have been in on it. This is known as an unfalsifiable hypothesis.
If the passport did look fake, that would be evidence that the men were spies and
therefore the Russian state was in on it.
Harding has created a narrative where there is literally no development that could ever
challenge his conclusions.
Seemingly, the GRU plan – executed two weeks before Russia's presidential election
– had worked perfectly.
This is an example of the cum hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy – two things
happen at the same time, therefore they happen for the same reason. It's a maneuver we at OffG
refer to as "the Harding", where you state two separate assertions or facts one after the other
in such a way as to imply a relationship, without ever making a solid statement. I'll give you
an example:
Luke Harding was born in 1968, mere weeks before the brutal assassination of Robert
Kennedy.
Harding is suggesting some sort of connection between the election and the poisoning. He
can't STATE it, because then he has to explain his reasoning – and there isn't any.
Putin, and Russia as a whole, had nothing to gain from poisoning an ex-spy they had released
nearly a decade earlier, especially on the eve of a Presidential election and mere weeks before
the World Cup. There's no argument to be made, so he doesn't attempt to make one, he just makes
a snide and baseless insinuation.
Vladimir Putin, the man whom a public inquiry found in 2016 had "probably" signed off on
the operation to kill Litvinenko. The UK security services say a "body of evidence" points to
the GRU.
"Probably" is also a big word. For example, there's a marked difference between "probably
being a plagiarist" and "being a
plagiarist" .
It seems clear that Moscow continues to view Britain as a playground for undercover
operations and is relatively insouciant about the consequences, diplomatic and political. The
Skripal attack may have misfired. But the message, mingling contempt and arrogance, is there
for all to see: we can smite our enemies whenever and wherever we want, and there is nothing
you can do about it.
This is the second time Luke has used the word "insouciant" in two days, which means that
word of the day
calendar was a probably sound investment, but he forgot to flip it over this morning.
Other than that, this final paragraph is nothing but paranoia.
The Russians were TRYING to make it obvious, to send a message. But were also lazy and
arrogant. And yet also left no solid evidence because they are experts at espionage. They had
no motive except being mean, and couldn't even be bothered to make sure they did it right. They
want us all to know they did it, but will never admit it.
The actual truth of the situation can be summed up in a few bullet points.
Currently:
There is no evidence these men were using forged documents. There is no evidence
these men were travelling under aliases or assumed names. There is no evidence these men ever
had any contact with Sergei Skripal's house. There is no evidence these men ever had any
contact with Sergei Skripal or his daughter. There is no evidence these men were Russian
intelligence assets or had any military training. There is no evidence these men ever possessed
or had any contact with the perfume bottle found by Charlie Rowley on June 27th. They have
visited the UK before, not on intelligence business (as far as we know). Their movements don't
align with the timeline of Skripal's illness.
The entire narrative is created around half a dozen screen caps of two (allegedly) Russian
men, not behaving in any way illegally or even suspiciously. All the rest is fiction, created
by a hack to service an agenda. This isn't one of those "You couldn't make it up" stories, it's
not that incredible. It's just insulting and stupid.
I followed that assault on Fallujah very closely at the time. Remember that the US Marines
had tried to take over the town some months before but met with very fierce resistance and
were chased out of town. Therefore there was an element of revenge and also punishment about
this second assault. First they occupied the civilian hospital on the outskirts of Fallujah
(a war crime). They then systemically bombed and destroyed the power station, the water
pumping station and the sewage works (all war crimes).
Then as you point out they used white phosphorous munitions (a war crime), but there was
something peculiar in the immediate aftermath. Having eventually successfully subdued the
town, US troops went around the central area and systematically shot out, and thus drained,
all the water towers (these were numerous as many houses had them). Then military bulldozers
moved in and removed all the topsoil from a couple of square kilometres. This led to
speculation that some form of illegal chemical weapons had been deployed.
Mad Dog indeed.
"... "[W]e should value all these successes which the north and the south made hand in hand and keep advancing without deviation the north-south ties that have definitely entered the new orbit of peace, the orbit of reconciliation and cooperation." ..."
A RoK delegation returning from yesterday's meeting with DPRK officials and accompanying
news reports say Kim is willing to sign a
Declaration
of Peace with Moon prior to the Outlaw US Empire removing its troops, while also taking
note of other related developments:
"Chung Eui-yong, Moon's national security adviser, told reporters Thursday that Kim said he
would be willing to sign the end-of-war declaration that Seoul and Pyongyang have been pursuing
since the spring without concomitantly demanding the withdrawal of the 28,500 US troops
stationed in South Korea or an end to the alliance between the US and South Korea."
Kim said the following and more:
"[W]e should value all these successes which the north and the south made hand in hand and
keep advancing without deviation the north-south ties that have definitely entered the new
orbit of peace, the orbit of reconciliation and cooperation."
The next Moon/Kim Summit will be in Pyongyang September 18-20. Imagine the pressure on the
Outlaw US Empire should Kim and Moon sign such a Declaration! I bet Trump would sign it just to
pressure the warmongering Senate to vote for a Peace Treaty. Imagine the global uproar if they
declined to ratify!
The spring of 2016 in Washington, D.C. was unusually warm, as I remember, perhaps
foreshadowing the raucous year yet to come. One night a group of journalists and policy hands
gathered at the Dupont Circle bar Rebellion to commiserate. No one knew it yet but it was the
closing moment in Act One of the Trump revolution; our 21st-century P.T. Barnum was well on his
way from presidential impossibility to presumptive nominee. Yet no one was talking about Trump.
That evening, perhaps bespeaking of both the sleeplessness and sexlessness of those gathered,
the conversation focused on a new addition to Senator Ted Cruz's national security team: Frank
Gaffney, the former Reagan hand and uber-foreign policy hawk.
Back in 2016, Cruz -- capable, erudite, and reviled -- was positioning himself as the last
great hope of movement conservatism. The only candidate who could still plausibly defeat Trump,
or individually force a convention brawl, Cruz wanted to convert his early primary brand -- a
kind of diluted libertarianism mixed with cultural evangelicalism -- into something more
conventionally Republican. Gone was the poaching of the platforms of Rand Paul and Ben Carson,
and in was Lindsey Graham who had previously called the junior Texas senator "demonic."
"This is what we're supposed to oppose Trump with? The paragon of reason, Frank Gaffney?"
intoned one policy veteran sympathetic to a restrained foreign policy and, correspondingly, to
Paul, who had only recently dropped out of the race. In truth, Cruz was simply trying to
replicate a trick mastered by Trump -- a sort of Heisenberg Uncertainty machination of modern
conservative politics -- occupying, at the same time, the least and most hawkish spaces on the
political field. For every enthrallingly refreshing "Iraq was a big fat mistake" from candidate
Trump, there was "we're going to bomb the s**t out of ISIS" and promises to restart the torture
program of the Bush years.
Gaffney's recent career, now re-ascendent in Trump's orbit, is perhaps most emblematic of
that conflict of vision.
When you talk to Gaffney, as I did in his Washington offices at the Center for Security
Policy in August of 2017, you get the sense that he and his allies think that the September 11
attacks are now almost a distraction. For the hardcore -- and this includes some principals at
more mainstream outfits such as the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) -- the
true, largely unencumbered villain in America's war on terror is either -- pick your poison --
the Muslim Brotherhood or Hezbollah. For Gaffney, and his life's work stands as testament to
this, it's decidedly the former. Anxieties about the alleged power of the the Muslim
Brotherhood are rife in the publications put out by his Center for Security Policy. This often
lapses into matters more sinister and conspiratorial: the enemy within, and the enemy itself.
His center's books -- and he readily gave me more than 10 -- have titles such as Star
Spangled Sharia and Bridge-Building to Nowhere: The Catholic Church's Case Study in
Interfaith Delusion . The texts allege elaborate financial and political influence
maneuvers by Muslim agents, most concerningly the Brotherhood. Gaffney even intimated to me,
before backtracking, that Congressman Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress,
could be a Brother, or at least compromised by the Brotherhood.
"The assertion that the dangers that we're facing, most obviously post-9/11, have nothing to
do with Islam and [that] the people who are fighting us with terrorism or in Afghanistan or
Iraq or elsewhere, are actually hijacking a great Abrahamic faith and a religion of peace and
all of that, is simply uninformed," Gaffney told me. "What the authorities of Islam call
sharia , has, at its core, our destruction." He added that adherents to sharia
"are obliged to engage in jihad, of one kind or another, to impose it on everybody else."
Yet Gaffney, in the seventh month of the presidency of the man who once told CNN "I think
Islam hates us," seemed lukewarm at best over Donald Trump.
The week I met with him came just after the largest bloodletting of the administration: the
rapid-fire ousters of key figures who had been with Trump during the campaign -- Reince
Priebus, Sean Spicer, Anthony Scaramucci, and Stephen K. Bannon. From where Gaffney was
sitting, the White House inner circle was now a mishmash of the kind of conventional
Republicans -- James Mattis, Rex Tillerson, H.R. McMaster, and John Kelly -- who, as Peter
Beinart reported in The Atlantic , had long "treated Gaffney as a pariah." The so-called axis of adults
was unlikely to prioritize fighting for the embattled travel ban in the courts, or pursuing
regime change in Iran or Qatar -- "the ATM of the Muslim Brotherhood," as Jonathan Schanzer of
FDD put it in a phone conversation with me.
Since that discussion, however, Gaffneyism has experienced a clear uptick in fortunes.
Gaffney's relevance stems from his relationship with Trump's national security advisor, John
Bolton, as well as the chief of staff of Bolton's National Security Council, Fred Fleitz.
Fleitz has worked as chief for both men. As I detailed in the Spectator
USA, Bolton was eventually able to leverage his media appearances into one of the
most senior positions in the government. (Gaffney is also a fellow, though not parallel,
traveler of Bannon's.)
Both the genius and the secret of the modern anti-establishment right is, like Trump, its
ability to occupy two places at once. Bannon's former outlet Breitbart News , where
Gaffney is a regular radio guest (as was Bolton previously), is proof positive. Breitbart has
staunchly defended most actions of the Netanyahu government in Israel while condemning the
Pentagon for its support of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. On foreign policy, the Trump
coalition is a tenuous alliance between some of the GOP's least interventionist voices, Rand
Paul as well as Bannon on most issues, and some of its most interventionist voices, like
Gaffney and Bolton.
But there is one area where the hawks in this arrangement have prevailed: cutting Iran down
to size.
In fact, it hasn't been much of a fight: Trump leaving the Iran nuclear deal in some fashion
was never really in doubt. As I
reported last fall, at one point, the fight inside Trump circles was essentially between
two plans to exit the deal as written during the Obama years: Bolton, Bannon, and Gaffney's
plan versus the more restrained architecture favored by the FDD.
Gaffney didn't get full sway over that decision, but he didn't have to.
His biggest victory was the president's selection of Bolton. While Bolton himself campaigned
to get the job at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), it was Gaffney
who was most direct: "You know, everybody says it's great to be back at CPAC, but nobody means
it like I do," he said, declaring, "The president of the United States must fire H.R. McMaster
and hire John Bolton!" Years back, Gaffney had denounced CPAC's organizing body, the American
Conservative Union (ACU), for its support of Suhail Khan, a Muslim former Bush administration
official he accused of being an agent of the Brotherhood. The dispute had played out
prominently in the national news.
And that's really the handle: going forward, will Gaffney's very real policy influence be
sundered by what some see as a penchant for wacky prejudice? He isn't without real influence,
and as Peter Beinart argued earlier this year, Bolton has helped rehabilitate him even further
on the right. "The man has one of the best minds in D.C.," said Raheem Kassam, who was raised
Muslim and is the former editor of Breitbart London. He added, however: "Genius doesn't come
without eccentricity."
One example is that, in conducting research for this article, two sources familiar with the
matter told me of Gaffney's history of compiling opposition research dossiers on those who fall
out of his favor. One recent case involved a former member of Gaffney's circle (a clique that
includes Ginny Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas) who became
romantically involved with a Muslim -- apparently a bridge too far. And Gaffney's flare-ups
with Grover Norquist, the conservative tax policy kingmaker who married a Muslim woman in 2004,
are well documented. A
dossier put out by CSP and its allies on the subject reads: "The Islamists' -- and their
Enablers' -- Assault on the Right: The Case Against Grover Norquist and Suhail Khan."
Cracks on policy have shown. In addition to holding views on Islam that are emphatically
outside the mainstream, Gaffney, doctrinaire hawkish in a way that the president is not,
recently joined in on the criticism of Trump's Helsinki summit, while his center has repeatedly
urged regime change as the best course in North Korea. After Trump's meeting with Vladimir
Putin, Gaffney said Trump could be making President Obama look strong by comparison. In a
published statement, he intoned: "President Trump needs now to clarify -- and walk back -- any
mandates for institutionalizing Moscow's agenda in ways that would make the appalling
Obama-Clinton 'reset' with Russia seem robust."
That's the real question for Bolton's NSC and this Republican Party: as Trump continues to
remake American conservatism in his image, at what point, if any, does Gaffney go from lodestar
to liability?
Curt Mills is the foreign affairs reporter at The National Interest, where he
covers the State Department, National Security Council, and the Trump presidency.MORE
FROM THIS AUTHOR
Gaffney's a crank. This kind of attention only encourages him.
He and other neoconservatives didn't get the good hard boot in the face they so richly
deserved after the Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen disasters they caused. Happily for
Christendom, it seems that omission will be remedied in the not too distant future.
Note that at the February CPAC conference in which Gaffney endorsed Bolton for Trump's
NSA, he also called for "regime change" in China.
Amazing. Gaffney sees the Super-Power U.S. as a giant hegemonic anaconda that can swallow
anything no matter how big.
Note too that Gaffney's Center for Security Policy took in over $7,000,000 in 2016, (last
posted IRS Form 990). Where does that money come from? Especially given that Gaffney is a
supposed "crank". He obviously has benefactors who want to leverage his fear-monger schtick
for their own purposes.
And OBTW, Gaffney pays himself over $350 Grand via a crony Board of Directors who
authorize that kind of mad money. Not bad scratch for just showing up and gas-bagging.
In the end, Gaffney is the quintessential parasitic Beltway Hack, i.e., paid large for
mind dumps scripted for his benefactors.
HD Id agree with the Zionist puppet masters (which I normally think of as neoconservatives
and neoliberals).
I have to wonder whether Trumps embrace of hawks and warmongerers is to placate and
passify them so they don't join the ranks of never Trumpers, Russian colluders and other
manufactured and fictional stories to undermine the Trump Administration.
So far he has embraced them with a military buildup, tough talk with North Korea,
withdrawing from the JCPOA, chastising NATO, waging trade wars and sending US ships into the
South China Sea (to the consternation of China) and sending US troops to African to fight
Islamic radicalism (there is more than one place in the world where Islamic wars are being
fought).
But at the same time, Trump has not fallen into the trap of GBushII in being their lapdog
following their dictates nor has he opposed them withdrawn and starved the military like
Obama.
Trump has used hawks to appear strong and strengthen his defenses but he has not created
any new military confrontations which gives me confidence that Trump knows how to handle
powerful constituencies. Lets hope he continues to do so.
Interesting article. There is a lot to digest but does the writer have evidence to the
contrary of what Mr. Gaffney is saying in his reports.
I read Robert Spencer's book "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam" years ago and it
made quite an impression on me.
Sometimes these so called fringe people are right on track but so far ahead of popular
thought that no one wants to believe what they are saying until it is too late.
This is one of many really disgusting people that the media has been having on for
years.
How about asking this question:
how come they never have a critic of these neo-con policy guys?
How come no critics of what these guys who peddle hate against a whole religion and
nationalities are ever on?
But these neo-cons are on all the time.
And, let's not keep kidding ourselves and each other-every 'think tank' that has an 'expert'
on foreign affairs is in that neo-con group and the hosts on any network, cable and
otherwise, don't even tell the viewers what the hell the think tank/s is about!
They are one of the top, if not the number one reason why the American public knows either
nothing about what the Middle-East situations are, or they have a stupid slanted view and it
is always against anything Arabic, Palestinian and such
you know it and I know it
can you dig it
thanks, this is,
dear Fayez
"Sometimes these so called fringe people are right on track but so far ahead of popular
thought that no one wants to believe what they are saying until it is too late."
like the fruit-cakes out in Idaho jabbering about "ZOG" back in the 1980s and 90s. We knew
better didn't we? No danger of excessive Israeli influence on US politicians or policy, and
even if there were, what possible negative consequences could there be? It's not like the
Muslims would get all riled up and knock down the World Trade Center or something. Right? Ha
ha ha ha! Only paranoids and anti-semites believe that sort of nonsense.
@The Dean, Stitch In Time
I think it isn't too hard to recognize Gaffney & Co what they are: pro Israeli, pro-Likud
propagandists. I am cool with that. A number of folks on the right fast becoming Russophiles
for a variety of reasons, that isn't illegal either.
In our history we went through times when various groups advocated in the interest of country
A or B and we are still here.
So Gaffney and the likes can spew nonsense as long as we recognize what he is up to.
No need for rank antisemitism, using phrases like ZOG sending out happy merchant memes,
because that instantly eliminates you from any sort of reasonable discussion.
During the Reagan administration Gaffney was Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for
Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy under neocon Richard Perle (aka "Prince of Darkness").
In April 1987, Gaffney was nominated to the position of Assistant Secretary of Defense for
International Security Affairs. Unfortunately for Gaffney–but fortunately for
America–he served in that position for only seven months during which time he was
deliberately and systematically excluded by senior Reagan administration officials from the
then-ongoing arms control talks with the Soviet Union. In Nov, 1987 Gaffney was forced out of
the Pentagon and immediately began a campaign criticizing President Reagan for his efforts to
bring about an arms control agreement with the USSR.
"In a 1997 column for The Washington Times, Gaffney alleged that a seismic incident in
Russia was actually a nuclear detonation at that nation's Novaya Zemlya test site, indicating
Russia was violating the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTB). (Subsequent scientific analysis
of Novaya Zemlya confirmed the event was a routine earthquake.) Reporting on the allegation,
the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists observed that, following its publication, 'fax machines
around Washington, D.C. and across the country poured out pages detailing Russian duplicity.
They came from Frank Gaffney'." (Wikipedia)
It probably won't add anything to this discussion for me to say that Gaffney is a
dangerous whack-job, so I'm not going to call Gaffney a dangerous whack-job.
"I think it isn't too hard to recognize Gaffney & Co what they are: pro Israeli,
pro-Likud propagandists. I am cool with that."
I'm not. Trillions of dollars. Thousands of American dead. Tens of thousands of American
with ruined brain, amputated limbs, grievous wounds that haven't healed.
That's a big price to pay for Gaffney and Co. and their sick foreign policy
prescriptions.
Too big.
It's past time they were shut up and expelled from American public life. It's not anymore
about mere differences of opinion, matters over which decent people can disagree. There's
real evil here. And real damage to America.
So Gaffney and the likes can spew nonsense as long as we recognize what he is up
to."
The opportunity cost of allowing the neocons to impregnate our national and international
life is too high. Iraq will forever be a blotch on our national soul. Their embedded power
must never be underestimated. It must be understood in the context of what they really want.
Which country do they actually support? It is difficult to include the U.S. as a beneficiary
in their neverending lust for more wars. Now, as folks like TAC, seek a reason as to why the
main front will be an attack on free speech. Ask yourself -why? Who fears free speech?
Frank Gaffney is an ironic figure. Today he leads the Center for Security Policy which
purports to expose Muslim Brotherhood influence operations in the US. 20 years ago he was
part of American Committee for Peace in Chechnya which wrote apologia for Chechen militants
who worked closely with Al Qaeda. The leader of the Chechen rebels was a Saudi born man
personally dispatched by Osama bin Laden so this connection was not a secret. ACPC didn't
just have Gaffney, but also Bill Kristol, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and James Woolsey to name a
few. It also recieved funding from the FDD and NED so it wasn't a rogue operation by any
means. Considering this Frank Gaffney's commitment to combating Islamic extremism seems
dubious at best. He warrants a closer look if anyone does.
In my opinion the Centre for Security Policy is NOT into just "spewing hate." Listen to
their podcasts and read their policy position papers. Look down the lists of their guest
speakers and interviewees: they are mostly the old school realist (not neocon) conservative
national security apparatus. Their attitude is there are three tremendous national security
threats that in each case have elements THAT IN THE EXPERIENCE OF TOP MILITARY INTELLIGENCE
agents have proved themselves time & time again simply NOT WORTHY OF BEING TRUSTED and
that if the USA gives them a "trust blank cheque" they would surely lose a major conflict,
just as much as France "trusted" that its vaunted Maginot Line was sufficient to keep a
"cowed" Prussian-led German Army & the Germans would never be so foolish to attempt
another invasion of France. THe most talked about danger at the moment by Gaffney and its
informative Centre is the danger of an EMP attack, which is surely neither "hate" nor
"wackiness."
This is a provocation/false flag operation completely in style of Steele dossier. So MI6 links might exist. Among "candidates"
They missed late Senator McCain, who was involved with Steele dossier. They also included two definitely bogus candidates
(Jarvanka and Melania)
BTW in 2008, the world's richest man, Carlos Slim, saved the Times from bankruptcy. "When that guy saves your company, you dance
to his tune." --
Carlos
Slim- The New York Times' Sugar Daddy
Don McGahn
We know the White House counsel is a short-timer -- planning to leave in the fall. We also know that McGahn has clashed with
Trump repeatedly in the past -- refusing Trump's order to fire special counsel Robert Mueller. And McGahn has already shown a
willingness to look out for the broader public good, sitting down for more than 30 hours with special counsel Robert Mueller's
team to aid their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Dan Coats
The Director of National Intelligence is very much a part of the long-term Washington establishment, having spent not one but
two stints in the nation's capital as a senator from Indiana. Coats has also shown a tendency to veer from the Trump songbook.
Informed of Trump's plans to invite Russian president Vladimir Putin for a summit in the United States this fall, Coats said
"That is going to be special" -- a line that drew the ire of the President.
Kellyanne Conway
Conway, a White House counselor, is someone who has survived for a very long time in the political game. And not by being dumb
or not understanding which way the wind blows. Plus, there is the X-factor of her husband -- George -- whose
Twitter
feed regularly trolls Trump
.
John Kelly
The chief of staff has clashed repeatedly with the President and
seems
to be on borrowed time
. Kelly sees his time in the job as serving his country in the only way left to him. Might he view
exposing Trump in this way as a last way to be of service?
Kirstjen Nielsen
The head of the Department of Homeland Security is a close ally of Kelly, who we know has a very fraught relationship with
Trump. And she has reasons of her own: Trump scolded her in a Cabinet meeting over the number of undocumented immigrants
entering the country. Nielsen reportedly drafted a resignation letter but backed away.
Jeff Sessions
Sessions sticks out as a possibility for a simple reason:
He's
got motive
. No one has been more publicly maligned by Trump than his attorney general. Trump has repeatedly urged Sessions
to use the Justice Department for his own pet political concerns. And this week, Sessions found out that Trump has referred to
him as "mentally retarded" and mocked his southern accent, according to a new book by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward.
Sessions is also someone who spent two decades in the Senate prior to being named attorney general by Trump after the 2016
election.
LIKE WHAT YOU'RE READING?
James Mattis
The defense secretary has been Trump's favorite Cabinet member. But the quotes attributed to Mattis in Woodward's book are
VERY rough on Trump, though Mattis quickly denied that he ever said them. And if anyone has less to lose than Mattis -- he is
a decorated military man serving his country again -- it's hard to figure out who that would be. Plus, Mattis is an ally of
John Kelly (see above) and Rex Tillerson, the former secretary of state that Trump ran out on a rail.
Fiona Hill
Hill, a Russian expert who joined the Trump administration from the Brookings Institution, a DC think tank, might have reason
to so publicly clash with Trump. She is far more skeptical about Russia's motives than Trump -- and was notably left out when
Trump and Putin huddled on the sides of the G20 meeting in Germany in 2017. She was a close adviser to national security
adviser
H.R.
McMaster, who was removed from the White House
. And, she was also reportedly mistaken for a clerk by Trump in one of her
earliest meetings with him on Russia.
Mike Pence
The vice president is all smiles, nods and quiet, deferential loyalty in public. Which of course means that he has the perfect
cover to write something like this in The New York Times. Pence is also ambitious -- and there's no question he wants to be
president. But would taking such a risk as writing this scathing op-ed be a better path to the White House than just waiting
Trump out?
Pence's deputy chief of staff and communications director Jarrod Agen denied Thursday that Pence or anyone from their office
authored the op-ed.
The Vice President puts his name on his Op-Eds. The
@
nytimes
should be
ashamed and so should the person who wrote the false, illogical, and gutless op-ed. Our office is above
such amateur acts.
Twitter Ads info and privacy
Nikki Haley
The United Nations ambassador is, like Pence, one of Trump's favorites. She is also, however, someone deeply engaged on the
world stage and a voice of concern when it comes to how the President views Russia and Putin. Haley, again like Pence, is
ambitious and has her eye on national office. Would this service that goal?
"... 45 young men were sentenced to death by a kangaroo court ..."
"... The Great Tribes of Libya sounds like an organically risen and named group; in contrast to Al Quaeda ("The Database" OR "The Toilet"). ..."
"... So, I'm for any Libyans trying to take back theuir country from the UK/USRael/France (FUKUS) 'coalition' which destroyed the most prosperous African country with the largest middle class. ..."
Libyan War The Truth
The Great Tribes of Libya have begun their cleansing of the terrorists brought into their country illegally by NATO in their 2011
invasion of Libya.
These terrorists include groups such as Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), Ansar Al Sharia, ISIS,
Salafists, Wahabists and other assorted small criminal mercenary militia gangs. All of these militia gangs have been controlling
Tripoli since 2011, ILLEGALLY. These terrorists are working with the UN puppet government, appointed by the UN (headed by the criminal
Serraj) without any authority or vote of the Libyan people. These terrorist gangs answer to no laws or rules. They roam the streets
armed and attack or steal at will. The Libyan people have suffered under these gangs ever since NATO, Obama, Clinton, McCain and
others invaded their country with NATO using a false flag lie of a revolution to justify their war crimes.
Today, many of the largest tribes in Libya joined the Tarhouna tribe near Tripoli to support them in the cleansing of the rubbish
controlling the city of Tripoli. The people of Libya who are all members of tribes and represented by the tribes, have had enough.
Recently, as I reported earlier, 45 young men were sentenced to death by a kangaroo court made up of criminal militias.
These young men had broken no laws, their only crime was being members of the Libyan army fighting against NATO invaders in 2011.
This was just one more criminal act that pushed the Libyan people (tribes) over the edge. Even though the tribes have no support
from outside like the militias who receive weapons and money from the US (via Turkey), Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Sudan; the Great
Tribes of Libya have joined together to take back their sovereignty no matter what.
The terrorist gangs (militias) fearing the loss of their "golden goose" have called their brother terrorists from all over Libya
to support them in their battle. These terrorists (Salafists and Wahabists, et. al) are being flown into the Mitiga Airport in Tripoli.
The Mitiga airport, the old Wheelus Air Base , is being
controlled by the terrorists.
So, as the world watches, the Great Tribes of Libya, standing alone with all their Libyan brothers and sisters, take on the New
World order and their proxy army of terrorists.
We ask the people of the world to stand with their Libyan brothers and sisters as they fight the Zionist New World Order, Khazarian
mafia cabal. The Cabal has taken their country by illegal means and placed their criminals on the ground to keep the Libyan people
from their security and sovereignty.
The Great tribes of Libya are showing the world how to fight, they deserve your support and your respect. God bless them all as
they fight against the evil that is permeating the entire world today.
Comment: More from
Sputnik:
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on the conflicting parties in Libya to immediately cease fire and sit down at the
negotiating table, his spokesman said in a statement on Saturday.
"The Secretary-General calls on all parties to immediately cease hostilities and abide by the ceasefire agreement brokered
by the United Nations and the Reconciliation Committees," the secretary-general's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
Guterres condemned the continued hostilities in and near Tripoli, in particular, the indiscriminate shelling, which killed
and injured civilians, including children. He offered his deepest condolences to the victims' relatives.
"He urges all parties to grant humanitarian relief for those in need, particularly those who are trapped by the fighting,"
the spokesman added.
Ghassan Salame, a special representative of the UN secretary-general and the head of the United Nations Support Mission in
Libya (UNSMIL), will continue to work and cooperate with all parties to achieve a long-term political agreement acceptable to
all, he concluded.
[F]ighting erupted on August 26 reportedly between local militias and Kani tribal fighters from Tarhouna, southeast of Tripoli.
According to the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) NGO, heavy shelling in residential areas resulted in an unspecified number of
casualties and approximately 8,000 refugees and asylum seekers remaining trapped in closed detention centers in dire humanitarian
conditions.
The Great Tribes of Libya sounds like an organically risen and named group; in contrast to Al Quaeda ("The Database" OR "The
Toilet").
So, I'm for any Libyans trying to take back theuir country from the UK/USRael/France (FUKUS) 'coalition' which destroyed
the most prosperous African country with the largest middle class.
But that's their plan - as enacted further daily - here in the West, too.
What is interesting is that Wolffe links the op-ed and publishing Bob Woodward's latest
book: "Woodward has cornered the panicked Trump rats into screeching about all the ways they
prevented
World War Three , or a massive trade war, by ignoring the ranting boss or snatching papers
off his desk."
Notable quotes:
"... Nothing proved, unnamed sources, claims about this, claims about that. Until someone is prepared to step forward and reveal themselves this is a non story. Still, it gives the Trump haters comfort. ..."
"... Personally, I am not surprised or impressed by this White House insider's account. Nothing he or she has said should be a real revelation to anyone who has cast a critical eye on the Trump presidency. And whoever it is, this person is so enamored with tax cuts, deregulation, ramping up military spending and the usual Republican horse shit that he or she does not seem prepared to risk further discrediting the administration by identifying him/herself and resigning publicly. ..."
If you really believe your boss is a threat to the constitution which you've
taken an oath to protect, perhaps you should consider quitting or going public. As in: going on
Capitol Hill to hold a press conference to urge impeachment.
In this regard, and only in this regard, our anonymous whistleblower has handed the crazy
boss a degree of righteous indignation.
"If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist," tweeted the madman in the
attic, "the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at
once!"
Donald, we feel your pain, albeit briefly. Your internal enemies are indeed gutless, and if
you feel better putting that in ALL CAPS, that's fine. Let it out.
But that bit about turning people over to you for national security reasons is kind of the
point here. If you'll allow us to summarize the GUTLESS person's arguments: you are
fundamentally a threat to democracy and national security yourself. You are indeed, as your
lawyers have pointed out repeatedly, your own worst witness.
This much we know from this week's other bombshell in the shape of Bob Woodward's latest
book. Woodward has cornered the panicked Trump rats into screeching about all the ways they
prevented
World War Three , or a massive trade war, by ignoring the ranting boss or snatching papers
off his desk.
... ... ...
Mr or Ms GUTLESS describes Trump's decisions as "half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally
reckless", while chief of staff John Kelly says Trump is "an idiot" living in a place called
"Crazytown". This revelation led to the priceless statement from Kelly where he had to deny
calling the president an idiot.
Somewhere in Texas, former secretary of state Rex Tillerson is swirling a glass of bourbon
muttering that he lost his job for calling Trump a moron.
Second, Trump's staffers are enabling the very horrors they claim to hate, while grandiosely
pretending to be doing the opposite.
Mr or Ms GUTLESS says there were "early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th
amendment" in what he imagines is a clear sign they can distinguish reality from reality
TV.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Trump cabinet: please know that you will not be accepted into
the next edition of Profiles in Courage for your early whispers. If you truly believe the
president is incapacitated, you should perhaps consider raising your voice to at least
conversational level, if you're not inclined to bellow from the mountaintops. Library rules are
inoperative at this point.
Given the weight of evidence, even the most diehard Trump defenders are now conceding the
obvious, by signing up to the GUTLESS gang's self-promotion. Brit Hume, a Fox News veteran, let
the cat out of the bag when he tweeted that it was a "good
thing" they were restraining Trump "from his most reckless impulses".
This is how the pirate ship Trump eventually sinks to the ocean's floor. You can fool some
of Fox News's viewers all of the time, and you can fool all of them some of the time.
But no fool wants to drown with the captain we all know is plain crazy.
It's someone high up that makes policy decisions, brags about everything they have done to
help America despite Cheetos interfering. Why now? Pence wants it known that he is running
the government not useless trump whom has passed nothing. Pence will come out as the author
when Don is removed from office. Which could be nearing since this OPED is likely to expose
him. Maybe he planned it that way.
What's most remarkable to me is how closely the Michael Wolff's White House, Omarosa's
White House, Bob Woodward's Whitehouse, and Anonymous Staffer's White House reflect each
other.
Clearly a massive conspiracy. And one which Trump is helpfully participating in by
constantly saying and doing stuff which accords with the pictures they're all painting.
What's most remarkable to me is how closely the Michael Wolff's White House, Omarosa's White
House, Bob Woodward's Whitehouse, and Anonymous Staffer's White House reflect each other. All
these sources come together to display a rather coherent image of a chaotic White House led
by a man who's not bright enough to realize he's in over his head.
The New York Times attack piece was anonymous. It is therefore completely unverifiable and
could have been written by anyone, including any of the politically biased NYT editorial
team, or by Bob Woodward to publicize his new book. It's junk news.
I'm firmly convinced that when it's all said and done we'll be able to represent his
presidency as an MMO boss fight. This is the bit where everyone concentrates fire on the
glowy spot until the enrage mechanic kicks in. In fact it looks like the mad flailing has
started and now everyone will try not to stand in the AoE as they DPS him down.
Mussolini was in power for twenty years before his functionaries deposed him to keep the
regime intact while removing its newly-a-liability head. Mussolini was the legal (if
abhorrent) premier of a coalition government in a liberal-democratic (both words with a pinch
of salt) regime for his first two years, until winning a parliamentary majority of his own;
indeed, after the leader of the Socialist Party was killed by his supporters, his coalition
partners almost pulled out of government: that's not a totalitarian dictatorship, but what
was then called "pre-fascism", and today we'd call it an 'illiberal democracy'. The
dictatorship was informal (result of a supportive majority) until the constitional reform of
1928 - five years into his government.
Thinking that all will turn out fine because American democracy is under strain but
generally intact, is a dangerous complacency. All interwar autocrats went through a
transition of first governing under the old constitution, slowly undermining opposition, then
installing a new organic law. Perhaps all will turn out well in the US, and Trump will leave
office with the old 'rules of the game' untouched - but that can't be assumed, and we won't
know until after he is gone.
Pepperoni Pizza is absolutely correct. We DON'T know his staff are going behind his back
- we have this anonymous bollocks as the totality of our evidence.
Truckloads of "anonymous bollocks" reported by credible, highly respected journalists with
excellent reasons to protect their sources.
"Anonymous" bollocks" which syncs perfectly with events and pronouncements by the
president himself - including numerous firings of so many of the "best people" he hired.
"Anonymous bollocks" confirmed in evidence/testimony presented publicly and under oath in
court.
Nothing proved, unnamed sources, claims about this, claims about that. Until someone is
prepared to step forward and reveal themselves this is a non story.
Still, it gives the Trump haters comfort.
There is a segment of this country that is willfully ignorant because a con man told them
to be. We really need to ignore this shrinking number of fuck-nuts and just out vote
them.
We live in a democracy. If you choose to use facebook as your only source of news about the
world, it is not because a con man told you to, it is because you are just too plain stupid
to go looking elsewhere.
I'm surprised that no one has compared the author of the anonymous article in the New York
Times with "Deep Throat", who anonymously met Bernstein and Woodward in an underground
parking garage in Washington to spill the beans about Watergate. Deep Throat turned out to be
Mark Felt, a high-ranking official in the FBI who kept working against Nixon under cover and
whose name was revealed only a few years ago.
Personally, I am not surprised or impressed by this White House insider's account. Nothing he
or she has said should be a real revelation to anyone who has cast a critical eye on the
Trump presidency. And whoever it is, this person is so enamored with tax cuts, deregulation,
ramping up military spending and the usual Republican horse shit that he or she does not seem
prepared to risk further discrediting the administration by identifying him/herself and
resigning publicly.
Screw whoever it is, they are obviously no hero to the American people.
Nice post and well put.
I am currently sitting in an office where 30% are blaggers of the highest order. They talk
and kiss ass - but ultimately - deep down - know they cannot do they do not know the job. The
responsibiltiy they have will make you shudder. I have told friends and they are visibly
shaken that this can happen. But I think it is the way of the world at the moment. They dare
not argue with me for full knowledge they will be sent packing, they already have been but on
"minor" non work related items.
"Fake it til you make it" is the slogan they clutch tight to their heart the consequences
however are far far reaching. My only hope is that should any of them leave here - they will
get found out in a week.
Yes the likes of Trump are a reflection of just that.
The mad thing is - I now am of the belief that I could do that job ie President of the US.
That is madness.
to foil the wishes of the elected members of government.
No. Just one member. And that one member isn't a supreme leader. You need to look
elsewhere for those types of leaders - they're usually standing next to Trump while he fawns
over them.
Personally I'm grateful for a bureaucracy that frustrates bad ideas - wherever they
come
from. That's part of their role.
Everything, with the exception of Steve Bannon in Michael Wolf's book, has been anonymous.
These people write things, attribute them to, say, John Kelly, then Kelly says I NEVER SAID
THAT and we're left to believe whom?
If there is genuine resistance inside the White House to Trump- If it is at all like
anybody says- then I would imagine that a genuine top level appointee would go on camera,
throw themselves on their sword, and speak to the American people. Until such a time I
question what is Woodward's agenda? Do I trust Omarosa? Is Michael Wolf credible? What are
their goals? I'm not blind but I want to see more than anonymous. And until then... I don't
believe it.
I agree, I'd hate to defend him either, but you can't help thinking he has a point by
calling this person gutless. Either stand up in public and say it or, if s/he really is
working in the background to save us from Trump's excesses, then surely you're better off
(and the country as a whole) staying there and not alerting him?
It's the New York Times, and no, they certainly haven't been against Trump since his
election.
Their lead White House correspondent, Maggie Haberman, still writes extremely
understanding pieces of Trump. And she's been covering the man for almost 15 years, so one
would think she had the measure of the man long ago.
More importantly, the NYT threw the election for Trump by first exonerating Trump of any
Russian collusion - which was false - and by covering the last-minute Comey statements on the
Clinton emails in the worst negative light possible for the Democratic candidate. The NYT
turned out to be wrong, but the damage was done.
The NYT even tried to put new faces on their opinion staff with close connections to
actual American neo-Nazis (!) and only failed when old tweets came to light.
I'm not quite sure what the NYT is playing at - I guess it's easy to play the devil's
advocate in artsy-fartsy, liberal New York - but they most certainly have not been
against Trump from January 2017 at all.
Trump is not a freedom fighter, he is not your Great White Messiah, he's not an advocate
for blue collar American citizens. Trump is a stupid, vulgar, greedy old fat racist who
conned his way into the White House. There has been a lot of talk in all mediums about his
unsuitability for the office, and his obvious ties to the Kremlin, but there has been no
organized effort to remove him from office, no matter what you might have read on Qanon.
You think the entire population is incapable of thinking about serious issues because there's
some tittle-tattle on twitter? When did that happen? No-one would work because there's always
fluffy kittens on YouTube.
Fascinating to see the tinfoil hat brigade turn out in such numbers to rant and rave about the
"Deep State!" and poor, honest Donald Trump as a freedom fighter who is daily sacrificing
himself for the good people of America.
Why do bullies always pretend to be victims?
As with science, human nature can usually boiled down to the most likely answer, the simple
observable truth. Such as; Donald Trump's entire life is a story of greed, vulgarity and self
promotion to the exclusion of all else. He did not, in his 8th decade, suddenly develop a
desire to serve the American people at his own expense. He is in the White House doing exactly
what he has always done, he is pursuing whatever makes him happiest in the moment with no
regard to consequences, morality or even common sense.
"... If the reports are true, the situation is an ironic one for Europe: while trying to reduce its dependence on Russian gas it is inadvertently increasing it and is even paying more for it than it would if it bought the extra loads directly from Gazprom. ..."
The documents suggest that a company with US ownership is buying Russian
gas from petrochemical giant Sibur, and then selling it -- at a profit, of course -- to the
European Union, which is in a rush to build as many LNG terminals as it can in a bid to reduce
its dependence on Russian gas.
If the reports are true, the situation is an ironic one for Europe: while trying to reduce
its dependence on Russian gas it is inadvertently increasing it and is even paying more for it
than it would if it bought the extra loads directly from Gazprom.
One might wonder how a U.S. company is able to do business with a Russian one. It's simple:
Wilbur Ross himself said earlier this week that
Sibur is not a subject to sanctions, so for Navigator Holdings and the petrochemical giant,
everything is business as usual.
"... While Syria's long serving President Hafez al-Assad was criticised by Iraq for his apparent eagerness to enter into an armistice with Israel in 1974 and while Hafez appeared to be on the verge of recognising Israel in the mid-1990s, recent revelations brought to the world's attention by former US Secretary of State John Kerry indicate that his son and current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad drafted a letter to Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asking to enter into discussions regarding Israel's withdrawal from the occupied Golan Heights in exchange for Syria entering into a Jordanian style peace agreement with Tel Aviv. ..."
"... A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, ..."
"... As such, Russia looks to balance the ambitious of each of these players against one another in order to attain a regional equilibrium in which Moscow plays the role of both benign power broker and economic partner. ..."
"... the so-called Arab Spring was supposed to pave the way for a future Greater Israel, that too is now dead as Russia would not let Tel Aviv threaten the long term territorial integrity of Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon or any other Middle East state. ..."
"... When viewed with the benefit of hindsight, the gamble that Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu took in 2011 to forfeit good relations with politically stagnant, diplomatically compromised and generally malleable Arab Nationalist leaders in order to attempt and fracture the political structures and territorial unity of multiple Arab states has backfired in extraordinary fashion. ..."
"... While in 2010 Russia was scarcely a major factor in the region and while Iran did not have much influence in the Arab world outside of southern Iraq and parts of southern Lebanon, today the opposite is very much the case. As a result, while a combination of Israeli-US pressure and internal pettiness helped render many once proud Arab Nationalist states impotent, the omnipresence of Russia as the only regional power with a desire and ability to balance Iranian, Turkish, Arab and Israeli interests means that while Israel's existence is now guaranteed, its expansionist aims are permanently dead. In this sense, the Arab Spring was in reality, an Israeli winter. ..."
At the beginning of 2011 while Iraq was still on its knees following the illegal 2003 US/UK
invasion, the rest of the Arab world was generally calm, domestic politics was predictable and
most importantly from the American and Israeli perspective, the revolutionary fervour that
underpinned the Arab Nationalist revolutions of the mid-20th century had largely given way to
pragmatic and at times self-effacing secular Arab regimes that posed no serious military or
diplomatic challenge to America's desired pro-Israel status quo in the region. At the beginning
of 2011, Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak looked and acted unsinkable. Crucially, this included
his unsinkable loyalty to the United States and Israel. The same was true in Jordan's monarchy
while in Libya, Muammar Gaddafi had given up on the Arab Nationalist cause in order to pursue
what he believed was a more tangible and potentially more rewarding Pan-African cause.
Crucially, not long after trading Arab Nationalism for Pan-Africanism, Gaddafi established
normal relations with the United States and its traditional partners in 2003.
While Syria's long serving President Hafez al-Assad was criticised by Iraq for his apparent
eagerness to enter into an armistice with Israel in 1974 and while Hafez appeared to be on the
verge of recognising Israel in the mid-1990s, recent revelations brought to the world's
attention by former US Secretary of State John Kerry indicate that his son and current Syrian
President Bashar al-Assad drafted a
letter to Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asking to enter into discussions
regarding Israel's withdrawal from the occupied Golan Heights in exchange for Syria entering
into a Jordanian style peace agreement with Tel Aviv.
In a rational environment, Netanyahu and Obama should have been utterly contented with the
fact that an Arab world which was once united behind the cause of Palestinian justice had
gradually capitulated while even Arab Nationalist hold out Syria was on the verge of doing much
the same. But rather than being content with getting concessions from the Arab world that as
comparatively recently as the mid-1970s would have sounded fantastical, Washington with
Israel's clear consent and cooperation instead decided to light a fuse beneath the Arab
world.
The so-called Arab Spring began with "protests" in Tunisia in December of 2011. But the real
coming out party for America and Israel's new policy of 'lead from behind regime change' in the
Arab world was in Egypt. It was in Cairo on the 25th of January that a combination of genuine
demonstrators, paid agitators and terrorists took to Tahrir Square to protest government
policies. The protests eventually lead to the downfall of President Mubarak who had governed
the country since 1981.
Mubarak had many genuine home grown opponents to be sure and this is before one accounts for
opposition from proscribed terror groups including and especially the Muslim Brotherhood. And
yet it was only when the United States officially withdrew support for Mubarak that a full
regime change came to pass which itself paved the way for a highly unstable Muslim Brotherhood
regime led by Muhammad Morsi.
Unable to facilitate the kinds of lead from behind protests in Libya that were rather easy
to foment in an Egyptian society where a great deal of genuine discontent served to cover the
true intentions of the Obama administration in the Arab world, the US decided to accuse Libya's
government of crimes against the Libyan people including an accusation of mass rape committed
by soldiers that turned out to be as fake as the 2002 allegation that Iraq maintained
stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. While most Libyans were too busy enjoying the
benefits of Africa's most generous welfare state to protest, the US began preparing for a full
scale military attack on Libya while France and Britain became the public face of America's
biggest war on an Arab state since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
It was around the same time in early 2011 that provocations against the Syrian government of
Bashar al-Assad were staged near the Jordanian border in the city of Daraa. Unlike in Libya
there was a measure of discontent in Syria due to a five year long drought which severely
impacted domestic agriculture. Likewise, in spite of modest economic reforms, the economy was
largely stagnant. Be that as it may, genuine discontent in Syria was not only less than in
Libya but less than in Egypt. From the US perspective this became all the more reason to fan
the flames of long latent sectarian divisions and likewise it became the private excuse for
offering arms and funds to individuals who later formed anti-government militias and terror
groups.
The results of this so-called Arab Spring have led to instability in Egypt under Muslim
Brotherhood rule which itself led to the politically and economically stagnant government of
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. In LIbya what was once Africa's most stable and prosperous nation, a
failed state peppered with terrorist training camps and slave auctions has developed which
itself has led to the worst migrant crisis in the modern history of Afro-European relations. In
Syria, the war which began in 2011 is still being fought and while an end is in sight, Syria is
still a long way away from peace.
The mutual desire of the United States and Israel to weaken Arab Nationalist governments and
retard the advancement of progressive Arab unity long predates the tragic events of 2011. But
while 1996 saw arch-neocon Richard Perle draft A Clean Break: A
New Strategy for Securing the Realm, a radical anti-Arab foreign policy paper
presented to Benjamin Netanyahu as a kind of gift, by 2010, many of the goals contained in
A Clean Break had already been achieved through co-opting Arab states into a policy of
submission which supplanted the radicalism of previous decades.
What had not been achieved by 2010 however was the realisation of anything approximating the
Yinon
Plan , a controversial policy proposal advocating for the creation of a so-called "greater
Israel" that was first published in 1982 in the Israel journal Kivunim. The Yinon Plan called
for the aggressive expansion of Israeli territory into Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria and
Lebanon.
While the Yinon Plan was based partly on modern far-right notions of political expansionism
and in other parts based on the most extreme interpretations of Zionist mythology, the idea of
intentionally weakening once powerful Arab Nationalist states in the region was clearly an
attempt to begin the early stages of what could have become expanded political influence and
territorial domination throughout the Middle East for Israel.
Today however, it would appear that the plan has backfired for two largely unrelated
reasons. First of all, the agitations of Iraq's Shi'a majority population in Iraq combined with
the phenomenon of a Shi'a Islamic Resistance spreading to Syria as a means of countering
extremist Sunni Takfiri groups including Daesh, along with the increased influence of Hezbollah
in Lebanon has made a once isolated Islamic Republic of Iran a major player in much of the
northern half of the Arab world. Thus, as Arab Nationalist states and political movements in
the northern half of the Arab world have weakened a militarily resurgent Iran has only become
stronger and as such is something of a bulwark against Yinon's map of a Greater
Israel.
But the rise of Iran has also led to another major development, the long term importance of
which is still being overlooked as much in the Arab world as in the west. Russia has returned
to the Middle East as a major player only unlike during the Cold War, Russia is now on
exceptionally good terms with every major player in the region including multiple rivalling
Arab states, Turkey, Iran and crucially both Palestine and Israel.
As such, Russia looks to balance the ambitious of each of these players against one another
in order to attain a regional equilibrium in which Moscow plays the role of both benign power
broker and economic partner. As a result, the old Arab Nationalist dream of liberating
Palestine is virtually dead as Russia views the importance of safeguarding Israel's territory
as on-par with that of all of its neighbors. That being said, while the so-called Arab Spring
was supposed to pave the way for a future Greater Israel, that too is now dead as Russia would
not let Tel Aviv threaten the long term territorial integrity of Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon
or any other Middle East state.
When viewed with the benefit of hindsight, the gamble that Barack Obama and Benjamin
Netanyahu took in 2011 to forfeit good relations with politically stagnant, diplomatically
compromised and generally malleable Arab Nationalist leaders in order to attempt and fracture
the political structures and territorial unity of multiple Arab states has backfired in
extraordinary fashion.
While in 2010 Russia was scarcely a major factor in the region and while Iran did not have
much influence in the Arab world outside of southern Iraq and parts of southern Lebanon, today
the opposite is very much the case. As a result, while a combination of Israeli-US pressure and
internal pettiness helped render many once proud Arab Nationalist states impotent, the
omnipresence of Russia as the only regional power with a desire and ability to balance Iranian,
Turkish, Arab and Israeli interests means that while Israel's existence is now guaranteed, its
expansionist aims are permanently dead. In this sense, the Arab Spring was in reality, an
Israeli winter.
DO NOT BELIEVE WHAT IS BEING PUT OUT IN THE WESTERN MEDIA. THE MEDIA AND ZIONIST NEW WORLD
ORDER CABAL IS ATTEMPTING TO FABRICATE THE SAME PROBLEM AS IN 2011 BY PRINTING LIES.
THERE IS NO CEASEFIRE, THERE IS NO TRUCE.
THE FIGHT IN TRIPOLI IS BETWEEN THE LIBYAN PEOPLE (TRIBAL ARMY) AND THE TERRORIST GANGS
CALLED MILITIAS.
These are the facts on the ground today in Tripoli:
1. The combined army of the Great Tribes of Libya is fighting against the terrorists and
mercenaries in Tripoli. These terrorists call themselves militias, but they are nothing more
than hired thugs, thieves, murderers and criminals made up of Muslim Brotherhood, LIFG, Ansar
Al Sharia, ISIS, Al Qaeda, etc. These terrorists were brought into Libya by the illegal NATO
war against the sovereign country of Libya. They are supported by the US (via Turkey), Qatar,
Sudan and Saudi Arabia, they work with the UN puppet government in Tripoli. As long as they
roam the streets of Tripoli with their weapons there is no security, no peace and no life for
the innocent Libyans.
2. All Tribes of Libya support this army.
3. All legitimate Libyan people in Tripoli and throughout Libya support the tribes and are
against these terrorist militias
4. The Great Tribes of Libya will not stop until all terrorists are dead or gone outside of
Libya. The terms of any truce with the tribal army would mean the end of the criminal puppet UN
government and the end of the terrorist militias, so there will not be a truce.
On September 2, 2018 Reuters reported that 400 prisoners escaped from the Ain Zara prison in
Tripoli. The truth is that the army of the Libyan tribes attacked the prison and effected the
freedom of 400 Libyan soldiers about 5pm on September 2. Amongst those 400 were the 45 young
men to be assassinated as condemned last week by the kangaroo militia court in Tripoli. In
2011, when NATO invaded they opened all the prisons in Libya and let out all the criminals to
help attack the Libyan people. Most if not all of the people imprisoned in Libya now were
people who were fighting against NATO or were against the NATO take over (working in the
government).
I am fully aware as are the honorable leaders of the tribes in Libya that all of our
conversations are monitored as we are the only true source of information of the activities of
the Libyan tribes and their struggle to regain their sovereignty. Having stated that, I want to
editorialize by saying that the illegal activities of the US mercenaries in Libya concerning
their Kangaroo court and their decision to assassinate 45 mostly dark skinned Libyan soldiers,
was the straw that broke the camels back. This left the legitimate Libyan people with no option
except to go into the streets and wrest control of their country from these paid
mercenaries.
One of the tribal spies inside these criminal militias told us 2 weeks ago that all the
criminal militias have been frightened by the impending death of John McCain, they consider him
their brother, founder, funder and protector. McCain had protected them from all scrutiny and
allowed their barbarianism. The death of McCain would mean all their sins would be exposed.
They wanted to kill all the prisoners, but their UN handlers said the militias must have the
appearance of legitimacy. Consequently, the kangaroo court was set in motion.
The great tribes of Libya have taken on the battle to free their country of the terrorists
and puppets placed there by the New World Order Zionists who in effect own NATO. This is a
serious battle for their sovereignty. They take this on with no outside help, unlike Syria who
has had the aid of Russia, Iran and China, the Libyan people are alone in this battle. They are
battling the same criminals as are the Syrian army. They know this is a battle of life or death
for them, they are not a large population, they have already lost over one million people, they
are now only 5.5 million. As the world watches Syria, please let it not forget the fight for
freedom happening now in Libya.
About the Author:
James and Joanne Moriarty were appointed official spokespersons of the Tribes of Libya by
their Supreme Leader in 2012. For their story and mission to get the message out and help the
Libyan people, go here.
The Taliban says that in order to end "this long war" the "lone option is to end the
occupation of Afghanistan and nothing more."
In June, the
17th American nominated to take command of the war, Lieutenant General Scott Miller,
appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee where Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) grilled him
on what he would do differently in order to bring the conflict to a conclusion. "I cannot
guarantee you a timeline or an end date," was Miller's confident reply .
Did the senators then send him packing? Hardly. He was, in fact, easily confirmed and starts
work this month. Nor is there any chance Congress will use its power of the purse to end the
war. The 2019 budget request for U.S. operations in Afghanistan -- topping out at
$46.3 billion -- will certainly be approved.
#Winning
All of this seeming futility brings us back to the Vietnam War, Kissinger, and that magic
number, 4,000,000,029,057 -- as well as the question of what an American military victory would
look like today. It might surprise you, but it turns out that winning wars is still
possible and, perhaps even more surprising, the U.S. military seems to be doing just that.
Let me explain.
In Vietnam, that military aimed to "
out-guerrilla the guerrilla ." It never did and the United States suffered a crushing
defeat. Henry Kissinger -- who presided over the last years of that conflict as national
security advisor and then secretary of state -- provided his own
concise take on one of the core tenets of asymmetric warfare: "The conventional army loses
if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose." Perhaps because that eternally
well-regarded but hapless statesman articulated it, that formula was bound -- like so
much else he
touched -- to crash
and burn .
In this century, the United States has found a way to turn Kissinger's martial maxim on its
head and so rewrite the axioms of armed conflict. This redefinition can be proved by a simple
equation:
Expressed differently, the United States has not won a major conflict since 1945; has a
trillion-dollar national security budget; has had 17 military commanders in the last 17
years in Afghanistan, a country plagued by 23,744 "
security incidents " (the most ever recorded) in 2017 alone; has spent around
$3 trillion , primarily on that war and the rest of the war on terror, including the
ongoing conflict in Iraq, which then-defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld swore , in 2002, would be
over in only "five days or five weeks or five months," but where approximately
5,000 U.S. troops remain today; and yet 74% of the American people still express high
confidence in the U.S. military.
Let the math and the implications wash over you for a moment. Such a calculus definitively
disproves the notion that "the conventional army loses if it does not win." It also helps
answer the question of victory in the war on terror. It turns out that the U.S. military, whose
budget and influence in Washington have only grown in these years, now wins simply by not
losing -- a multi-trillion-dollar conventional army held to the standards of success once
applied only to under-armed, under-funded guerilla groups.
Unlike in the Vietnam War years, three presidents and the Pentagon, unbothered by fiscal
constraints, substantive congressional opposition, or a significant antiwar movement, have been
effectively pursuing this strategy, which requires nothing more than a steady supply of troops,
contractors, and other assorted camp followers; an endless parade of Senate-sanctioned
commanders; and an annual outlay of hundreds of billions of dollars. By these standards, Donald
Trump's open-ended, timetable-free "Strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia" may prove to be the
winningest war plan ever. As he described it:
"From now on, victory will have a clear definition: attacking our enemies, obliterating
ISIS, crushing al-Qaeda, preventing the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan, and stopping mass
terror attacks against America before they emerge."
Think about that for a moment. Victory's definition begins with "attacking our enemies" and
ends with the prevention of possible terror attacks. Let me reiterate: "victory" is defined as
"attacking our enemies." Under President Trump's strategy, it seems, every time the U.S. bombs
or shells or shoots at a member of one of those 20-plus terror groups in Afghanistan, the U.S.
is winning or, perhaps, has won. And this strategy is not specifically Afghan-centric. It can
easily be applied to American warzones in the Middle East and Africa -- anywhere, really.
Decades after the end of the Vietnam War, the U.S. military has finally solved the conundrum
of how to "out-guerrilla the guerrilla." And it couldn't have been simpler. You just adopt the
same definition of victory. As a result, a conventional army -- at least the U.S. military --
now loses only if it stops fighting. So long as unaccountable commanders wage benchmark-free
wars without congressional constraint, the United States simply cannot lose. You can't argue
with the math. Call it the rule of 4,000,000,029,057.
That calculus and that sum also prove, quite clearly, that America's beleaguered
commander-in-chief has gotten a raw deal on his victory parade. With apologies to the American
Legion, the U.S. military is now -- under the new rules of warfare -- triumphant and deserves
the type of celebration proposed by President Trump. After almost two decades of warfare, the
armed forces have lowered the bar for victory to the level of their enemy, the Taliban. What
was once the mark of failure for a conventional army is now the benchmark for success. It's a
remarkable feat and deserving, at the very least, of furious flag-waving, ticker
tape , and all the age-old trappings of victory.
Military conquests are the most ephemeral. Colonisation lasts longer. A mere century or two
in the case of Europeans. But even 900 years was not sufficient for Greeks to remove the
military n cultural threat posed by the Semites n Iranians of Southwest Asia, from
Alexander's conquest in 323 BC till the Muslim "reconquista" of 632 AD. Only demographic
"conquest" works in the end. If your women are not out-reproducing their women, then your
military will fail spectacularly n quickly, as what had once been your population transforms
into theirs. At that point, far from victory parades, you get to see statues to your former
heros torn down, n the highest "patriotism" becomes enthusiastically opening the gates to
what had once been your people's deadliest enemies.
1. keep Israhell on the map.
2. keep oil-producers taking dollars and only dollars for their oil
3. keep the CIA's poppy fields in Afghanistan in full production
on 1: ongoing victory, Israhell is still there
on2: Iraq and Libya back on the petrodollar, Iran pending
on3: ongoing victory, CIA drug ops proceeding normally
in ZOG-ruled 'Murka, every day is a day of new victories.
Mr. Turse is a comic. What a beautiful summary of the situation.
See a group, Imagine a possible threat, if both occur, bingo group =converts to
=>terrorist
and each member converts to a subliminal threat. Imagine the psychology that can be applied
to that bit of information to produce next day propaganda. Let us not forget the real media
that displays the propaganda is owned by just 6 entities; global access to knowledge and real
truth is gated and directed by search engine magic these two facts are IMO a real global
threat to humanity.
Win by not losing/ In such a scenario increasing numbers in a terror group or increasing
numbers of, or broadening the global distribution of terror groups produces more terror
fodder. The competent imagination derives its threats from terror fodder ( fodder fits any
size imagination).
When ever it is needed, proof of any non self-inflicted terrorism can be conjured from the
imagination. As Mr Turse says proof of terrorism can be found in the definition, proof of
victory can be found in the attack (as Mr. Turse so adequately expressed), and both are
recorded in the history of terrorism, which can be found in the daily media presentations and
the MSM annual report "Dollars Spent Chasing Terrorist from the Imagination". a joint
publication of the Internationally linked intelligence services and the global college of
paranoia producing propaganda.
victory is found in the attack because dollars start to flow; the more dollars the greater
the victory.
But how much of this would be possible if the reserve currency were no longer the dollar?
What will happen when Russia, China, Iran and others produce a new reserve currency or
displace existing reserve currencies by assigning exchange value to the currency of each
nation? The issuer of reserve currency measures its money supply by the checks he writes
[their checks never bounce], everyone else measures their currency by the amount of the
reserve currency they are able to keep in the bank ( to prevent their checks from
bouncing].
@Sean
Because although Health and Education Keynesianisn would work as well as the Military
variant, it also leads to an organised population mobilising for social change. And while
wars do end eventually, social spending seems to increase over time without limit. I was
almost sold on that explanation to my honest question, until the phrase
wars do end eventually
Would wars "ending eventually", not render the MIC obsolete? Is it not the MIC that
thrives on perpetual wars with seemingly endless supplies of cash to fund their wars? Even in
periods of relative calm (if ever, since WWII that is), is it not the constant threat of war
that keeps the military monstrosity grinding away?
74% of Americans express high confidence in their military? I wonder if 74% of Americans are
even aware that we're at war. I read somewhere that U.S. generals now define victory as
getting the Taliban to the bargaining table.
"out-guerrilla the guerrilla." was coined by Col. David Hackworth as out "G" ing the G and
was shown to work in the Delta. Read his book "About Face" or "Steel my soldiers hearts"
Elites, read Bolsheviks or Freemasons win no war, they do not win over diseases, crime, idiot
bla, bla. They are making money on them and they always turn to both sides. To the criminal
gangsters, to the associations of the sick, to the losers in war, they can win in 20 years,
etc. etc. This article is foam, foam. The Elites are trying to do everything and nobody
understands anything, so the elite wins – the banker always has his blood money.
the United States has not won a major conflict since 1945; has a trillion-dollar
national security budget; has had 17 military commanders in the last 17 years in
Afghanistan, a country plagued by 23,744 "security incidents" (the most ever recorded) in
2017 alone; has spent around $3 trillion, primarily on that war and the rest of the war on
terror, including the ongoing conflict in Iraq, which then-defense secretary Donald
Rumsfeld swore, in 2002, would be over in only "five days or five weeks or five months,"
but where approximately 5,000 U.S. troops remain today; and yet 74% of the American people
still express high confidence in the U.S. military.
Let me correct that 1st sentence for you: the United States has not REPEATED THE MISTAKE
OF WINNING a major conflict since 1945.
Why? Because as they quickly discovered, WW2 was the best thing that ever happened to the
US economy, and that lots more money is made fighting wars than winning one, as proven by the
above quoted figures.
December 24, 2013 The Worldwide Network of US Military Bases
The US Military has bases in *63* countries. According to Gelman, who examined 2005
official Pentagon data, the US is thought to own a total of *737* bases in foreign lands.
Hi Nick Turse,
Given OBL and Afghanistan Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11 terror attacks, it appears
likely that the W. Bush regime launched war upon the Taliban exclusively for geopolitical
interests, minerals, i.e., lithium, and construction of natural gas pipelines directed
southeast to the subcontinent, India.
Fyi, approximately seven years ago, I saw a U.S. Veterans informational map which identified
the Neo-"Grunts" military bases as within close proximity to pipeline construction.
Consequently, for me, I see US military's incessant stay in "the graveyard of Empires" as a
stilted profit & loss (P&L) "'victory," but of course there's no (!) dividend for
dumb goyim American citizens, but voila, oodles for global energy companies, untouchable
Military-Industrial-$ecurity Complex, & killing "Poppy Fields," including Moneychanger
pharmaceutical-opioid trade!
In short, the incredible cost for U.S. military's GWOT & advanced targeting of Russia is
diabolically placed upon future generations of American taxpayers who, at the moment-of-their
birth, are in debt, & the Mom and Pop' "victory" is incarnate in a 'guvmint CHIP
card.
ZUSA wars "victory" is in the pockets of P&L-benefactors, and on Sunday afternoons, one
can feel the "bern" when fighter jets flyover NFL stadiums!
Thanks for the education, Mr. Turse!
@jilles
dykstra It did not in the civilised societies of north and western Europe. The nordic "
model " is dead , and it has been a bad example to the world . Sweden has 10 million people ,
Norway 4 , Danmark 6 . These little countries can not be a valid model for anyone .
Like Toynbee said nordics are kind of a failed egoistic subcivilization of the germans ,
english of russians , with which they never had the courage to integrate . They seem to be
happy in their autistic cold world , pretending to be a showroom for the UN perverts .
As to Vietnam the author is just clueless. Where was the so called crushing defeat? When we
Americans pulled out in 1971 to 1972 the NVA was still stymied and impotent. Our so called
allies hated us totally and the feeling was mutual. We actually had no allies in Vietnam
except the savage yard tribes. But yes after we pulled out the South collapsed fast as we
knew they would. They got exactly what they deserved. But it was a South Vietnamese defeat.
By 1975 our armies were long gone. Repeat, there were no American divisions, battallions or
platoons to lose. We were gone.
We still do not know exactly what Kissinger got from the Chinese at Paris in 1971-2, but
he and Nixon seemed happy enough, and we pulled out and ceded Vietnam. We do know this was
the exact time China began to cooperate with us in the Cold War against the Bolsheviks.
Specifically, we know the Chinese allowed our B-52′s, loaded with nukes, to overfly,
all along the Soviet border, and this continued to 1987, when the game was already up.
A couple of Ukraine-related items caught my attention this week.
The first is a
report by Baylor University professor Serhiy Kudelia which discusses how to bring peace to
Donbass. Kudelia starts by saying that Western states have regarded the resolution of the war
in Donbass as being dependent on changing Russian behaviour. This is insufficient, he says, for
'the successful reintegration of Donbas into Ukraine rests on designing a new institutional
framework that can provide long-term guarantees to civilians and separatist insurgents.'
Kudelia says that academic literature on conflict resolution would suggest four elements to
such a framework:
Autonomy for Donbass within Ukraine. Such autonomy would come with risks, by
entrenching local rulers with patronage networks outside of central control and with the
means to challenge central authority. To reduce these risks, Kudelia suggests giving autonomy
not just to the territories currently controlled by the Donetsk and Lugansk People's
Republics (DPR & LPR), but to the whole of Donbass, thereby bringing within the
autonomous region some more pro-Ukrainian elements of the population as well as groups not
connected to the DPR/LPR power structures. He also suggests devolution of power within the
autonomous region to weaken the potentially disruptive consequences of hostile elements
controlling the region's government.
Transformation of the rebel state and military structures into political
parties. Experience in other countries suggests that when this happens, the prospects of
a successful transition increase substantially.
Comprehensive and unconditional amnesty for everyone involved in the war. For
obvious reasons, rebel leaders won't agree to the first two proposals without an amnesty.
Past experience speaks to the necessity of this measure.
No elections in Donbass for two to three years. Kudelia notes that, 'Holding
elections in a volatile post-conflict environment creates ample opportunities for voter
intimidation, electoral fraud, and disinformation campaigns that could build on
conflict-related divisions.' Kudelia doesn't say who would rule Donbass in the meantime. I
would have to assume that it would mean that the existing authorities would remain in place.
That could be problematic.
With the exception of that last point, these are sensible suggestions. But when boiled down
to their essentials, they don't differ significantly from what is demanded in the Minsk
agreements -- i.e. special status for Donbass and an amnesty. As such, while I don't think that
the leadership of the DPR and LPR would like these proposals, my instincts tell me that they
would be quite acceptable to the Russian government, which would probably be able to coax the
DPR and LPR into agreeing to them. If implemented, the results would be something Moscow could
portray as a success of sorts.
And there's the rub. For that very reason, I can't see Kiev agreeing to any of this.
Kudelia's argument is founded on the idea that there's more going on in Donbass than Russian
aggression. Accepting that something has to be done to 'provide long-term guarantees to
civilians and separatist insurgents' means accepting that there are civilians and insurgents
who need reassuring, not just Russian troops and mercenaries. And that means changing the
entire narrative which Kiev has adopted about the war. So while Kudelia's proposals make sense
(after all, what's the alternative? How could Donbass be reintegrated into Ukraine without
autonomy and an amnesty?), what's lacking is any sense of how to get there.
A large part of the problem, it seems, is the attitude in Kiev. This becomes very clear in
the second item which caught my attention -- an article
on the website Coda entitled 'Now Healthcare is a Weapon of War in Ukraine.' The
article describes how the DPR and LPR are encouraging Ukrainians to come to rebel territory to
receive free medical treatment, and then using this as propaganda to win support for their
cause. This is despite the fact, as the article shows, that the medical facilities in the two
rebel republics are in a very poor state. Author Lily Hyde isn't able to confirm how many
Ukrainians have taken up the rebel offer of free medical aid, but does repeat a claim by the
rebel authorities that 1,200 people have done so.
What interests me here is not the sensationalist headlines about healthcare being
weaponized, but the question of why Ukrainians might feel it necessary to go to the effort of
crossing the front lines to get treatment. And the article provides an answer, namely that
parts of Donbass 'are trapped in a precarious limbo, still under Ukrainian government control
but cut off from key services like healthcare.' The war destroyed much of the healthcare system
in Donbass, but 'Ukraine provides no financial or other incentives for medics to work in
frontline areas', and has done little to repair shattered infrastructure. Healthcare seems to
be a lower priority than fighting 'terrorism'.
While the DPR and LPR use healthcare as a 'weapon' by providing it to people, Kiev has
'weaponized' health in another way -- by depriving people of it. As the article reports:
Kiev has not outlawed receiving medical treatment in occupied Donetsk or Luhnaks. But
collaborating with the separatists -- or supporting their propaganda efforts -- is illegal.
How exactly such charges are defined is not clear, but past experience has taught both
individuals and organizations to be wary of such accusations. The Ukrainian authorities have
investigated non-governmental organizations (NGOs) based in Ukraine who have provided
foreign-funded medicines and other supplies to occupied Donetsk and Luhansk. NGOs working
there have been banned by the de fact authorities [of the DPR and LPR] on similar charges.
Doctors have found themselves placed on blacklists by both Ukrainian officials and the
separatists, accused of being 'terrorist collaborators' by one side, or of being spies by the
other.
Hyde contrasts the Ukrainian government's policies towards the DPR and LPR with that of
Georgia, where:
The government offers free healthcare for people from Abkhazia, a breakaway territory it
still claims which is now under de facto Russian occupation. The government is building a
modern hospital in the nearest town to the boundary line, aimed at people from Abkhazia.
Essentially, says Hyde, it's 'a question of attitude'. She cites Georgy Tuka, Ukraine's
Deputy Minister for Temporarily Occupied Territories -- '"There's a wish to punish people,"
Tuka acknowledged.'
That's quite an admission from a government minister.
Even if the details need fleshing out, the institutional framework required to reintegrate
Donbass into Ukraine has been pretty obvious for a long time now. The problem has been getting
people to accept it. It is indeed, therefore, 'a question of attitude'. Sadly, the prevailing
attitude stands firmly in the way of the institutional changes required for peace. The desire
seems to be to punish people, not to reach agreement with them in order to promote
reintegration and reconciliation. The issue, then, is whether this attitude can be changed (and
if so, how) or whether it is now so firmly entrenched that there is nothing which can be done.
Sadly, I fear that it may be the latter.
It's too late for the reintegration of Donbas into Ukraine, there
will be no implementation of any agreement.
-- Ukraine have gone full neo-Nazi
-- language law is offensive to all minorities not just Russian speakers
-- Russophobia is rampant
-- attacks on the orthodox church
Why would anyone in DPR/LPR want to be part of this.
I agree with the other commentators integration of the
Donbass into an aggressive nationalist Ukraine which is not capable of respecting
minority rights is not possible. A more sensible option would be for Ukraine to divide
into a nationalist part and a rusdophone part, this may be in a confederation like
Belgium. As you say the Kiev government wants complete victory rather than a peace based
on reconciliation the conflict will continue at low level if the Kiev regime believes
that they cannot win but will ignite into another major war if they believe that they
can. What should Russia do ? In my opinion provide suitable aid to the people of the
Donbass to ensure their survival and build institutions, a stable and peaceful
Pridnistrovye type situation is the best that can be achieved in the foreseeable future
Just a direct quote from prof. S Kudelia "Peace plan"
linked above:
" Rebel Disarmament, Demobilization, and Conversion
Reaching an agreement on power-sharing is one precondition for beginning to disarm
and demobilize combatants in civil wars. Another component is the inclusion of former
rebels in the competitive political process through "rebel-to-party transformations
Integration of the party tied to former rebel groups can eliminate potential spoilers,
develop stakeholding in the new system, provide non-violent means of conflict
resolution, make them more accountable to their constituency, and increase legitimacy
of the election process and new authority structures. However, some of the positive
effects from rebel conversion depend on the prior organizational structure of
separatist groups and their political wings. Groups with a highly integrated political
and military structure are the least likely to undergo a successful transformation into
an exclusively political force . This points to major challenges in achieving rebel
conversion in Donbas.
The leaders of the armed groups in Donbas have already established their own
political organizations, which participate in separatist-administered elections,
control local councils throughout the conflict region, and engage with residents. They
have turned into what a security analyst Benedetta Berti calls "hybrid
politico-military organizations" tightly linking political activities and armed
struggle. In both "republics" military and political wings are subordinated to a single
leader
However, an integrated political-military structure also presents three
important challenges for successful transition into the political arena. First, in
contrast to political wings of rebel forces in other countries, these organizations
emerged as key tools for separatist governance in DPR and LPR. Their ideological
program promotes independence for these regions and would be incompatible with
participation in Ukraine's institutional politics. Their reintegration would require a
major revision of their principles and goals with an emphasis on accommodation with the
Ukrainian state and acceptance of its jurisdiction over the entire region . Otherwise,
their inclusion in the political process risks deepening the war-based dividing lines
and hampering reconciliation. Second, the centrality of the leaders of these groups in
organizing an armed struggle against Ukrainian forces and their direct involvement in
the fighting delegitimizes them in Ukrainian public opinion and with the central
government . The recently adopted law on "temporarily occupied areas of Donetsk and
Luhansk oblasts" describes the ruling structure of the "republics" as an "occupational
administration of the Russian Federation." This further complicates their post-conflict
acceptance as legitimate regional representatives. Hence, leadership turnover in
separatist groups is a crucial precondition for the beginning of their direct talks
with the Ukrainian authorities . Finally, the current control that DPR/LPR leaders
exercise over the separatist military apparatus means that even following disarmament
and demobilization they would maintain some influence over local law enforcement. This,
in turn, would allow these leaders to rely on an informal personal militia after
demobilization or revive the military component of their organizations if they sensed a
threat to their power status.
The conversion of rebel groups into recognized political organizations could be
one of the most complex and contested elements of the transition."
Sounds like a palace coup to me: first, news of the forthcoming Woodward book (and excepts);
then-coincidentally-today's "anonymous" and 'Gutless' article in the Times.
As far as I'm concerned, this entire hellish administration is sheer "madness" and a very
clear indication that this country is in its agonizing twilight.
Each and every senior official in this administration is an enabler of this "shithole"
human being and current president, so there is no such thing as bravery here, just covering
one's tail if a coup were to occur.
Not once, as has been mentioned here and elsewhere, has this 'Gutless' wonder decried the
immorality of family separation, employing white racists as policy makers, shredding the
social safety net for millions of this nation's most vulnerable; an outlandish Pentagon
budget and etcetera.
What is solidly on display in this unfolding miasma is a firmly entrenched kleptocracy,
enabled and supported by U.S. corporations and the death of democracy.
The Woodward book seems to me just more kiss and tell stories of the Michael Wolff ilk
(remember him?). The juiciest quotes - Trump being called an idiot by Kelly - is denied by
Kelly himself and most of the others are ex-employees.
A better - more objective - book would
get past the unconventional, apparent chaos of the Whitehouse and perhaps investigate whether
Trumps methods have or will bear fruit.
That perhaps, as David Lynch said, traditional
politicians can't take the country or the world forward - they can't get things done anymore
because they are afraid of political consequences or media backlash. Trump and his ego
doesn't seem to care about that - is that a good thing or a bad thing? Trump has turned
everything on it's head and liberals find themselves allying with establishment politicians
and business groups. It is a fascinating period of political change and time - and better
journalism - will eventually judge Trump more objectively.
'Pence... not a dangerous, mentally ill megalomaniac'
Pence is more dangerous – make that outright terrifying – than Trump. Yes.
Trump is a senile vulgarian oaf – but he doesn't really believe in anything and is
motivated only by his greed and pathological need for self-aggrandizement. He's mentally
incompetent in a very obvious way, which renders him laughably inept at trying to bring his
more odious policy objectives to fruition (in fact, inept at everything, pretty much).
Pence is far more sinister, because he's a dementedly fanatical believer in a
fundamentalist and authoritarian mutation of religion – a crazed zealot. While
sometimes able to imitate the superficial demeanour of a person of sound mind, he is in truth
utterly deranged.
While Trump lies and denies obvious specific facts almost as a reflex, he doesn't really
sustain his warped world view consistently or with conviction that lasts longer than it takes
to play his next round of golf.
Pence vehemently espouses a whole alternative reality based
upon his religious fantasies, and believes he has a mission to impose his delusional ideas in
a punitive and repressive manner on his country's entire population, permanently. He may have
the cunning to be chillingly effective at realising his most ghastly ambitions.
Trump represents a temporary aberration; a collective brain fart. Pence could be the
instigator of a new dark age for the USA
Having seen this type of character assassination visited on Bill and Hillary Clinton,
character assassination before any reported crimes have been proven against them or for that
matter any sexual misdemeanors as president are proven, what exactly is going on here?
I totally disagree with this type of thing even if the person is someone I don't
understand much. The world has come to a dangerous place where digital lynching without
reference to law seems to be the prevailing modus operandi.
A little word of warning. Be careful what you wish for. If Don can be removed prior to the
next election, (and I don't believe that would happen), then Mike Pence takes the reins. He
has just as many crazy notions as his current boss, but is an experienced politician who
knows the ins and outs of Congress. He may get more of the programme through than little Don
can. And that would not be good.
He's done it before. Lots of times.
Example: one of his posts back in April:
"Trump is a genius. Nobody can take him down, the man is a fighter, you punch him and he'll
punch you back 10 times harder. The FBI, Democrats and MSM have tried to take him down since
he decided to run for president, yet he's standing tall and with a 50% approval rating."
There's no point in engaging in discussion with folks like that ...
Welcome to postmodernist politics folks. It will continue to degenerate until, in despair,
people turn toward an orderly system of politics; the Chinese system, the Russian system or
even a coherent religious system. Counsellors will be on hand for those who feel hurt or
upset by the return to authoritarianism -- they will be able to get great treatment in
re-education centres. Just a matter of time before our current system just crumbles from
within.
Yeah they're sucking it direct from Ayn Rand's teat. Bunch of sociopaths. And I think most
political scientists are well aware that citizens united was the death of American democracy
as a representative political system. The illusion of functionality has collapsed under the
weight of corruption. Trump is really just a symptom of that. A giant orange enema of the
state.
LOL. The west is about to collapse. There is no more money to finance the Ponzy Scheme of the
everlasting growth you seem to think is natural. while everyone is distracted in this
dualistic BS, the planet is slowly shutting down her ressources.
The Russia after years of
sanctions have developed an economy that make them less dependant on other countries. So
They will probably less affected by what is coming.
Unless you live in you own bubble, maybe
you noticed that Occidental countries have become empty shells...gutted from their skills at
making stuff. It is all virtual production now...all banking stuff, numbers insurance...most
skilled stuff are either in Germany or in Asia...what is going on?
Trump is a megalomaniac I agree, but he is not dangerous and is not mentally ill.
Mental illness is a real thing and you shouldn't casually trivialize it in this way.
Finally anyone who runs for office as President of the USA is by very definition a pretty
extreme megalomaniac. So you have two points that are not real and/or could be considered erroneous
discrimination and one point that is a prerequisite for any POTUS candidate.
Looking for a reason to impeach him is a ridiculous back to front thing to do and is itself
proof that any impeachment will fail. To impeach someone you must first start with a very
obvious reason.
It's simply not possible to impeach a president because you don't like their politics or
their personality. This whole searching for a reason to impeach is itself evidence that any
impeachment is politically motivated and the very optics of this serve only to strengthen
Trump's own political support in direct opposition.
Trump is President because the DNC was captured by very stupid and deeply corrupt
people.
Many say Mike Pence could have been the one behind the op-ed, because the unidentified author
singled out the late John McCain as "a lodestar for restoring honor to public life and our
national dialogue." The word isn't that commonly used. But Pence has used the word with some
regularity. Yet the word could have been a ploy to divert attention from the real author, who
claimed to support many of the GOP policies – "effective deregulation, historic tax
reform, a more robust military and more."
No doubt the current crisis works for Pence: "Given the instability many witnessed, there
were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a
complex process for removing the president." Of course he and the GOP didn't want to
"precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration
in the right direction until -- one way or another -- it's over." But they don't want Trump
to finish his term and hope that he'll soon be gone.
Pepperoni Pizza is absolutely correct. We DON'T know his staff are going behind his back - we
have this anonymous bollocks as the totality of our evidence.
This op-ed is going to absolutely confirm, in the eyes of Trump supporters, all his whines
about being thwarted by the Deep State. It's going to increase his support among the crazies,
and it's also useful for the Republicans who want to ditch him in favour of Mike Pence.
The whole thing stinks to high heaven and for the Democrats or the 'resistance' to see it
as some kind of bonus is insane. Even if you take it at face value it's a disgusting piece of
authoritarian, we-know-best hypocrisy. If you look at its actual effects, the net result is
not likely to benefit the forces of sanity in any way.
The media's complacency about all of this, and their failure to actually report on the
Republican trajectory and the bigger picture, is criminal. Instead we get YET ANOTHER bit of
'oh look the wheels are just about to come off the bus!', and all the while the Republicans
are gerrymandering and purging voter rolls like crazt before the midterms, and of course
refusing to change their unaccountable electronic voting machines and - did you read THIS one
in the news? - blocking a bill which would have audited the election results.
Tl;dr: The US, and by extension the planet via environmental destruction and possibly war
on top, is utterly fucked.
"... Mr anonymous also concedes that the administration has done some good things .. like .. a robust military. Now call me old fashioned, but having a military with twice(three times .. four times) the capability of the rest of the world put together and spending enough yearly to run the whole of Africa .. probably India too, just on a means of killing .. and this even before the US military became .. robust?.. ..."
Mr anonymous also concedes that the administration has done some good things .. like .. a
robust military. Now call me old fashioned, but having a military with twice(three times ..
four times) the capability of the rest of the world put together and spending enough yearly
to run the whole of Africa .. probably India too, just on a means of killing .. and this even
before the US military became .. robust?..
What is wrong with you people .. national security?.. Laughable .. when is your security
ever, ever, ever threatened! And yet people starve, people don't have clean water to drink
..
Perhaps were the US to help lift the basic burdens of millions who have bugger all, then
there wouldn't be so many suposed 'enemies'. I do believe film maker Michael Moore has voiced
this very same thing .. but then, what purpose all those shiny new expensive killing
machines?..
Something is seriously wrong in America .. and it ain't just Trump!
This is a very poor op-ed piece. Simply calling the President "a crazy loon " isn't political
analysis, or at least not the sort of political analysis I would be willing to pay for. Nor
do I think the thesis that certain members of the administration are busy trying to shore up
their reputations in the face of a sinking presidency holds water. Firstly, unless the
current investigations provide incontrovertible evidence that the President was engaged in
criminal activity I don't think there is any change that he will be impeached. Secondly, if
you wanted to protect your reputation surely the thing to do would be to resign and maintain
a dignified silence while you are writing your memoirs. Or if you really were part of a
secret clique protecting the American constitution against a reckless President you would
keep quiet and get on with your important business. It seems to me that this anonymous piece
was either a clumsy attempt to further damage the President or a sophisticated attempt to
galvanise his support base by "proving" that the President is being undermined by unelected
traitors. Or something else completely might be going on. That's why I would like to read a
thoughtful opinion piece by an informed observer.
Sounds like there's a treasonous public servant there, doing their best to subvert the will
of the people. And of course loudly supported by the squealing hard left guardian mob.
Looking at the type of far left fascists crawling out of the woodwork, I would say
Trump is provoking utter derangement in all the right people.
"the corrupt metropolitan elites have swindled them again"
-Who appointed these 'corrupt metropolitan elites' if it was not Trump himself? Who are these
people-Betsy DeVos, Wilbur Ross and Steve Mnuchin- quite apart from Jeff Sessions and the now
disgraced Michael Flynn? Trump appointed them, they weren't forced on him by the "corrupt
metropolitan elites". Is Trump to be given a free pass for his own mistakes?
What many commentators here seem to fail to recognise, because of their political bias I
suppose, is that there is a ground swell of dissatisfaction with the political consensus that
has seen the working class and lower middle class disenfranchised or at least their perceived
interests ignored. As a result, populist ideologies, as espoused by Steven Bannon, and
others, and exemplified by leaders like Donald Trump have thrown away the rule book with all
its aims to support the extremely wealthy and have reached out to those that want jobs before
green policies, law and order before gender diversity programs and so on.
I doubt that many of the readers here will receive the message but we are witnessing a
revolution that I see as significant as the rise of the sans-culottes in the early part of
the French Revolution. That didn't end well for the sans-culottes or their aims but we can
hardly blame them for trying. Today the retrenched car worker in the US can hardly be blamed
for being unhappy that the CEO of a car company receives a huge pay rise and bail outs from
the government and similar stories in other areas.
Vive la revolution.
Some of this stuff is clearly nonsense. Example: the insider claimed Trump is an admirer of
dictators:
"In public and in private, President Trump shows a preference for autocrats and dictators,
such as President Vladimir Putin of Russia and North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, and
displays little genuine appreciation for the ties that bind us to allied, like-minded
nations."
And yet the forthcoming Bob Woodward book claims Trump told his defence secretary he
wanted to kill Assad:
Donald Trump ordered his defence secretary to assassinate Syria's president Bashar
al-Assad and "kill the f****** lot of them" in the leader's regime, in the wake of a chemical
attack against civilians, according to a new book.
Defence secretary James Mattis is said to have told the president during a phone call he
would "get right on it" before hanging up the phone and instead telling an aide: "We're not
going to do any of that. We're going to be much more measured." In the wake of the chemical
attack in April 2017, the president's national security team developed options that included
the more conventional airstrike that Mr Trump eventually ordered.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The anti-Trump lot can't have it both ways. He can't be a fan of dictators but also want to
kill them! It's clear there is lying or exaggeration on both sides. The people out to impeach
Trump (or sell books!) will lie too.
he reversed the war in afghanistan? drones? did he prosecute bankers? does he favor
increasing offshore drilling? now it looks like he's renegotiating clinton's nafta and
pushing for some version of obama's trade treaties. trump is the invading python, and the
democrats and establishment republicans are the alligators; whichever wins, the small furry
animals get eaten. i just hope they don't start world war 3 while they're settling
things--trump looks to be doubling down on obama's syria policy too, and support of the
current ukrainian government.
'Fraid so. Every new generation of neocons regurgitates the same discredited lies from the
previous generation, and suckers believe them all over again. Even the title "neocon" or
"neoliberal" is a lie: there's nothing new about them.
Trump was not only openly attacked during the nomination process, the Republican Party
nominee who was selected to fight Obama in 2012 -Mitt Romney- delivered a savage attack in
which he described Trump as a con-man and a chronic liar -yet the same people who could,
there and then have told Trump to get lost backed him. Trump has been attacked from the start
and every time and all of the time said to his attackers: so what? I dare you to remove me
from the nomination, I dare you to remove me from the Office of President. This is a man who
is challenging the governance of the US in a manner no other President has done before, and
so far, he is still winning. That is the scary part.
Trump is threatening Deep State corruption by placing his own family members in positions of
power and profiting from charging the nation for his and his staff's repeated use of Trump
Tower and Mar-a-Lago? That's a bizarre way of draining the swamp.
The US political system has many flaws, not least that the President can be elected on an
apparent electoral college landslide while losing the popular vote. But then again no
country's political system is perfect, human nature being what it is.
However, Trump is clearly not up to the job. Not by intellect, understanding of world
affairs, honesty, temperament, respect for the law, nor constitution. The list goes on
frankly.
The system has gone bad. Trump hasn't "drained the swamp", he's made it far deeper. That
said, "the system" such as it is should work in the hands of honest men and women of
integrity. The trouble is they're few and far between in the GOP as it wilfully ignores
issues in which they would be clamouring for a Democrat president to be impeached.
I sincerely hope the GOP get a thrashing in the mid-terms which may, just may, give them
pause for thought. A Democrat Congress might also actually hold Trump to account. The only
danger there is that he lashes out with even less self control.
Dangerous times.
I assumed it was an effort at creating some sort of record of resistance. Does anybody
really believe Paul Ryan is retiring from the 3rd most powerful position in the US Government
to "spend more time with family"? The rats are fleeing a sinking ship. Even if Trump serves
out a full four years, anybody too closely tied to this stupid shit-storm of an
Administration will be tarred in public eyes. But, American voters are notoriously forgetful,
and getting out before the ship goes down will probably work.
Funny shit. "the mole" wrote an Op/Ed piece, that contains no information of a sensitive
nature. S/he wrote of their own personal observations working in the White House. There is
nothing illegal in that.
I get that you might not have any functional understanding of
US law, but it is deeply disturbing that the President of the United States is calling for
the arrest of a citizen exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights.
The op-ed piece being anonymous makes me wonder if Mr Trump himself put someone up to do it.
What better way of stirring up the base ahead of the mid-terms than talk of undemocratic
factions within the administration and fifth columnists to be rooted out for the cause. It
also offers the president another cudgel against the press that will appeal to his core
constituencies.
Even if Mr Trump isn't capable of coming up with such a scheme, there are certainly those
around him who are.
The statements in the opinion piece are horribly anti-pluralist anti-democratic in
themselves. The writer's nationalist appeal to 'American' unity at the end is based on
everyone uniting around US Republican principles of neo-liberalism, inequality and
militarism. S/he would use a false unity against Trump to impose the worst kind of
conservative fundamentalism and eliminate anything more progressive from the political
spectrum.
Maybe this is mainstream neo-liberal thinking but it's the end of a plural, democratic
state. There would be no more room to discuss inequality, climate change, race or gender
discrimination or new welfare provisions. Just an offer of false unity around hard neoliberal
principles. I guess it's a very similar game to Brexit, which is a choice between
life-threatening asset striping of the UK or May's 'hard right soft Brexit' super
Thatcherism.
The op-ed represents a shocking critique of Trump and is without precedent in modern
American history. Former CIA Director
John Brennan , who has sparred fiercely with the president, called the op-ed "active
insubordination born out of loyalty to the country, not to Donald Trump".
"This is not sustainable to have an executive branch where individuals are not following the
orders of the chief executive," Brennan told NBC's "Today" show. "I do think things will get
worse before they get better. I don't know how Donald Trump is going to react to this. A
wounded lion is a very dangerous animal, and I think Donald Trump is wounded."
In it, the anonymous author describes Trump as amoral, "anti-trade and anti-democratic" and
prone to making "half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions".
The writer claims aides had explored the possibility of removing Trump from office via
the 25th amendment , a complex constitutional mechanism to allow for the replacement of a
president who is "unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office", but had decided
against it.
The op-ed is nauseating because it tells us the truth why they do it: Because conservatives got
their tax cuts, deregulation and all the other conservative politics that gamble with people's
lives. It's disgusting.
Notable quotes:
"... Pirate ships were in reality the most egalitarian institutions that existed in the 17th century. Their articles laid out that both the captain and quartermaster (who divided the spoils) served at the pleasure of their crew, and that the entire crew had rights to a fair portion of the proceeds. ..."
"... On a real pirate ship, Captain Trump would have lost his job long ago and been abandoned on some tiny island with a single shot in his pistol. ..."
I am outraged at describing Trump's administration as a "pirate ship"!
Pirate ships were in
reality the most egalitarian institutions that existed in the 17th century. Their articles
laid out that both the captain and quartermaster (who divided the spoils) served at the
pleasure of their crew, and that the entire crew had rights to a fair portion of the
proceeds.
On a real pirate ship, Captain Trump would have lost his job long ago and been abandoned
on some tiny island with a single shot in his pistol.
According to Balmasov, while the number of voyages via the Northern Sea Route so far
this year has been roughly the same as last year, the main difference compared to 2017 is LNG
traffic out of the port of Sabetta, the port that Russia's gas producer Novatek uses to ship
the Yamal LNG cargoes to Europe and to Asia.
Arctic Logistics data compiled by Bloomberg shows that by early July, a total of 34
tankers made the voyage from Sabetta to Europe, and one to the east. Since early July,
another two LNG tankers have shipped the fuel to Asia
In mid-July, Novatek said that it had shipped its first LNG cargoes from Yamal LNG to
China via the Northern Sea Route, with the voyage from Sabetta completed in 19 days, compared
to 35 days for the traditional eastern route via the Suez Canal and the Strait of
Malacca
####
Tut tut! Cannot have LNG going via Russia's northern passage (fnar! fnar!).
Vis ship pollution, why simply hold LNG carriers up to much higher environmental
standards? After all most of them are much newer and are specialist vessels. Or are they
already? Indeed they are, the use of duel-fuel engines that can make use of boil-off:
As of 2005, a total of 203 vessels had been built, of which 193 were still in service.
At the end of 2016, the global LNG shipping fleet consisted of 439 vessels.[3] In 2017, an
estimated 170 vessels are in use at any one time
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LNG_carrier#Reliquefaction_and_boil-off
According to WGI, on a typical voyage an estimated 0.1–0.25% of the cargo converts to
gas each day, depending on the efficiency of the insulation and the roughness of the
voyage.[16] In a typical 20-day voyage, anywhere from 2–6% of the total volume of LNG
originally loaded may be lost.[16]
Normally an LNG tanker is powered by steam turbines with boilers. These boilers are
dual fuel and can run on either methane or oil or a combination of both. ..
I love how an eventuality we were all raised to dread – the melting of the polar
ice caps – is now spun as a net positive. Make hay while the sun shines! When life
hands you lemons, make lemonade! Pick your metaphor. We are destroying the planet we live on,
inch by irrecoverable inch, but the merchants of Stay-Positive maintain it is
AWESOME.
I don't know if you heard – probably not, since it was never much of an
international story – but the Canadian Federal Court of Appeals, in a surprise
decision, overturned the government's commitment to the Trans-Mountain pipeline.
Alberta's Rachel Notley reportedly bent spoons with her teeth, since she had just
jubilantly reported that the court challenge by the city of Burnaby (British Columbia) was
defeated. "To date, Alberta has won every case brought against Trans Mountain. Your Alberta
government will not back down until this pipeline is built and the national interest is
secured", she crowed on Twitter; the modern equivalent of a legislature, I guess, since all
politicians who are anybody turn first to Twitter to get their message out.
That one, of course, was "a victory for all Canadians". Except for British Columbia's
crybabies, of course, who did not want to play host to Alberta's tanker armada, considering
Alberta has no seacoast. So you would think she would quietly accept this later decision by
the legal system she purports to revere. Not a bit of it. She immediately withdrew Alberta
from the national climate-change plan, and restarted her rhetoric about cutting off BC's gas
supply.
Get it? When the court rules in Alberta's favour, it is just – the solemn power
of the law makes you want to weep with awe. When it rules against Alberta, it is a clown show
of unevolved primates. That's modern politics.
All this theatre when the completion of the pipeline is inevitable – the very
day, almost to the hour that the Court of Appeals rendered its decision, the shareholders of
Kinder-Morgan Canada voted 99% in favour of selling the pipeline to the government of Canada.
So now the government owns it, and although it may be delayed a couple of years, it's down
but not out. Now the government has to re-do its consultations with all the native bands,
this time selling the impression that it is actually listening and the consultative process
is real, and it has to conduct a review of the environmental impact of increased tanker
traffic (which it formerly declaimed as outside its purview). I'd say if there is agreement
on changing some routes and perhaps permissible speed until well offshore, it will almost
certainly pass next time.
Jonathan Sacks is given an award by the war-criminal Tony Blair
Jeremy Corbyn
has a beard. So has
Jonathan
Sacks
. But this shared
philopogony
hasn't
brought the two men closer together. Sacks is the former Chief Rabbi
of Britain and, to be fair, I think we be better off if more Jews
were like him. He doesn't seem to
hate
Whites and the Christian religion
in the way so many of his
co-ethnics do.
Battle of the Beards
But that doesn't mean Sacks is a reasonable or objective man where
his own race is concerned. He can be ethnocentric and apply double
standards with the best of them, as he's just proved by his comments
on his fellow beardie:
Jeremy Corbyn is "an anti-Semite" who has "given support to
racists, terrorists and dealers of hate", the former chief rabbi
Jonathan Sacks has said. In an exclusive interview with the
New
Statesman
, the peer described Corbyn's recently reported
2013 remarks on "Zionists" as "the most offensive statement made
by a senior British politician since Enoch Powell's 1968 'Rivers
of Blood' speech".
Sacks, who was chief rabbi from 1991 until 2013, added: "It was
divisive, hateful and like Powell's speech it undermines the
existence of an entire group of British citizens by depicting
them as essentially alien."
At a speech made at the Palestinian Return Centre in London in
2013, Corbyn said of a group of British "Zionists": "They
clearly have two problems. One is they don't want to study
history and, secondly, having lived in this country for a very
long time, probably all their lives, they don't understand
English irony either." (
Corbyn's
"Zionist" remarks were "most offensive" since Enoch Powell, says
ex-chief rabbi
,
The
New Statesman
, 28th August 2018)
Enoch Powell
predicted
that
mass immigration would lead to race war.
Jeremy
Corbyn
said that some Zionists don't get "English irony."
Whether or not you agree with Powell, is it reasonable to compare
the words of the two men? Are they "hateful" and "divisive" in a
similar way? I'd say no, they're obviously not, and the vast
majority of British Whites probably agree with me.
Sacks doesn't agree with me, and he has the Community with him,
according
to
the
Jewish
Chronicle
: "Reform Rabbi Jonathan Romain of Maidenhead
Synagogue said that, while the Enoch Powell analogy may have shocked
people, 'it accurately reflected what most British Jews feel.'"
The poisoning of Britain's politics
Well, if Rabbi Sacks and other Jews want anti-Semitism, I think they
should look much closer to home. This is from the
Jerusalem
Post
in 2007:
Sacks: Multiculturalism threatens democracy
Multiculturalism promotes segregation, stifles free speech and
threatens liberal democracy, Britain's top Jewish official
warned in extracts from [a recently published] book Jonathan
Sacks, Britain's chief rabbi, defined multiculturalism as an
attempt to affirm Britain's diverse communities and make ethnic
and religious minorities more appreciated and respected. But in
his book,
The
Home We Build Together: Recreating Society
, he said the
movement had run its course. "Multiculturalism has led not to
integration but to segregation," Sacks wrote in his book, an
extract of which was published in the
Times
of
London.
"Liberal democracy is in danger," Sacks said, adding later: "The
politics of freedom risks descending into the politics of fear."
Sacks said Britain's politics had been poisoned by the rise of
identity politics, as minorities and aggrieved groups jockeyed
first for rights, then for special treatment. The process, he
said, began with Jews, before being taken up by blacks, women
and gays. He said the effect had been "inexorably divisive." "A
culture of victimhood sets group against group, each claiming
that its pain, injury, oppression, humiliation is greater than
that of others," he said. In an interview with the
Times
,
Sacks said he wanted his book to be "politically incorrect in
the highest order." (
Sacks:
Multiculturalism threatens democracy
,
The
Jerusalem Post
, 20th October 2007; emphasis added)
So Sacks claimed that "Britain's politics had been poisoned" by a
self-serving, self-pitying, self-aggrandizing ideology that "began
with Jews" and had been "inexorably divisive." His claim is
absolutely classic anti-Semitism, peddling a stereotype of Jews as
subversive, manipulative and divisive outsiders whose selfish
agitation has done huge harm to a gentile society.
Sacks was right, of course: Jews do demand special treatment and did
indeed invent the "identity politics" that has poisoned British
politics (and
American
,
Australian
,
French
and
Swedish
politics
too).
By saying all that, Sacks was being far more "anti-Semitic" than
Jeremy Corbyn was, even by the harshest interpretation of those
comments on Zionists. Furthermore, Sacks has proved that Corbyn was
right. Zionists
do
lack
irony. In 2007 Sacks, a staunch Zionist, claimed that the
"poisoning" of British politics "began with Jews." In 2018 he's
condemning Jeremy Corbyn for saying something much milder about
Zionists.
"Absolutely nothing apartheid about this"
And in 2018 Sacks is also offering a ridiculous defence of a new law
in his beloved land of Israel:
Asked by the
New
Statesman
to comment on Israel's new nationality law, which
states that the Jewish people have "an exclusive right to
national self-determination" in the country and stripped the
Arab language of its official status, Sacks said: "I'm not an
expert on this. My brother is, I'm not, he's a lawyer in
Jerusalem, he tells me that there's absolutely nothing apartheid
about this, it's just correcting a lacuna. As far as I
understand, it's a technical process that has none of the
implications that have been levelled at it." (
Corbyn's
"Zionist" remarks were "most offensive" since Enoch Powell, says
ex-chief rabbi
)
When Sacks said there was "absolutely nothing apartheid about this,"
he was
protesting
too much
. He is clearly uncomfortable about the new law and
struggling to defend it, which is why his usual fluency deserted him
when he spoke to the
New
Statesman
. One "levels" accusations, not implications. And the
implications of
the
new law
are perfectly clear, which is why Sacks was driven to
waffle about "a technical process." Yes, the law is a technical
process whereby Arabs are defined as second-class citizens and
Jewish supremacism is openly proclaimed as the guiding principle of
the Israeli state.
Of Monkeys and Men
I'm sure that one of Sacks' heroes, the great Jewish philosopher and
Talmudic scholar
Maimonides
(c.
1135-1208), would have applauded the new law. This is what
Maimonides wrote in his hugely influential
Guide
for the Perplexed
(c. 1190), one of the most revered and
respected texts in the three thousand years of Judaism:
The people who are abroad are all those that have no religion,
neither one based on speculation nor one received by tradition.
Such are the extreme Turks that wander about in the north, the
Kushites [Blacks] who live in the south, and those in our
country who are like these. I consider these as irrational
beings, and not as human beings; they are below mankind, but
above monkeys, since they have the form and shape of man, and a
mental faculty above that of the monkey. (
Guide
for the Perplexed
, Book 3, chapter 51)
Now
that
is
racism, ladies and gentlemen. And if you want proof that Maimonides'
poisonous ideas are alive and well in the Jewish world today, look
no further than Yitzchak Yosef, the Sephardic Chief Rabbi in Israel,
who
was
condemned
this very year for "calling black people 'monkeys'."
Rabbi Yosef has visited the headlines before: in 2016 he "stated
that non-Jews should not be allowed to live in Israel, except to
serve the Jewish population." The
Jewish
Chronicle
added
that
he "later reversed this position."
"Very, very good relations with the Jewish community"
Well, he might have said he no longer believed it, but that wouldn't
be speaking the truth. Servitude for goyim, the superiority of Jews
and the subhumanity of Blacks are all perfectly orthodox Jewish
doctrines. Jews are not the philanthropic egalitarians that they
pretend to be, and Jonathan Sacks was perfectly correct to describe
them as poisoners of British politics. He himself has upended
another vat of poison by joining in the hysteria and hyperbole about
Jeremy Corbyn's mild comments on Zionists.
Let's compare Corbyn with the
shabbos
goy
Tony Blair,
who
gave Sacks
a "Lifetime Achievement Award" in February this year
and hailed Sacks as "one of my heroes."
According
to
the
Jewish
Chronicle
, Blair "was conscious of the need to have very, very
good relations" with "the Jewish community."
In other words, the tiny Jewish minority pulled Blair's strings. At
the behest of his Jewish "fundraiser"
Lord
Levy
, Blair lied Britain into a hugely expensive
war
on Iraq
that killed vast numbers of
innocent
civilians
, fomented sectarian strife in the Middle East and
terrorism in Europe, and led directly to the rise of Islamic State.
Jeremy Corbyn
resolutely
opposed
the war and predicted its dire consequences. Blair is a
liar, confidence-trickster and war-criminal who will one day, I
hope, face
the
death-penalty
for what he and his Jewish immigration minister
Barbara
Roche
did to Britain. Jeremy Corbyn, by contrast, is a virtue-signalling
Marxist idiot who opposes war and the
military-industrial
complex
.
But Blair obeyed Jewish orders and Corbyn doesn't. That's why Blair
is now worth
more
than Ł60 million
and Corbyn is endlessly vilified in the British
media. Few British Whites know the term "
ethnocentrism
,"
but more and more of them can see the Jews practising it.
Image
copyright
REUTERS
Image
caption
Alexander
Zakharchenko in a 2017 photo
A leader of Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, Alexander
Zakharchenko, has been killed in an explosion at a cafe in Donetsk city.
"The head of the DNR [Donetsk People's Republic]... has died as the
result of a terrorist attack," Zakharchenko's spokeswoman told AFP news
agency.
Russia's foreign ministry said it suspected Ukraine of organising the
latest killing.
The Ukrainian government has denied any involvement.
Some observers have attributed previous deaths of rebel leaders in
Donetsk to infighting among the rebels, or moves by Moscow to eliminate
inconvenient separatist leaders.
What are the two sides saying?
Rebel and Russian news reports say the separatists' "finance minister"
Alexander Timofeyev was wounded in the blast at the Separ cafe that
killed Zakharchenko.
Ukrainians suspected of being behind the blast were arrested nearby, a
security source was quoted as saying.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said "there is
every reason to believe that the Kiev regime is behind the murder".
She said the Kiev "party of war" was "violating its pledges about peace
and has decided on a bloodbath".
However, recent reports suggested that Zakharchenko had fallen out of
favour with Russia.
A spokeswoman for Ukraine's state security service, Yelena Gitlyanskaya,
rejected Moscow's accusations.
She said the killing was a result of "internal fighting... between the
terrorists and their Russian sponsors".
What is happening in eastern Ukraine?
Heavily armed rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk regions refuse to recognise
the Ukrainian government in Kiev.
The rebels seized large swathes of territory there in an uprising in
April 2014. Since then, thousands of people have died in fighting
between the rebels and Ukrainian government forces.
Moscow denies sending regular troops and heavy weapons to the
separatists, but admits that Russian "volunteers" are helping the
rebels.
There has been shooting on the frontline despite a "back-to-school
truce" that was supposed to take effect on Wednesday. International
monitors reported 70 ceasefire violations on that day alone.
Who was Alexander Zakharchenko?
He played a key role in the Russian-backed separatist military operation
from its very beginning.
In early 2014, soon after Ukraine's pro-Russian government was toppled
by the Maidan revolution, he took part in the seizure of the Donetsk
regional administration building by people saying they were protesting
against the new pro-Western authorities.
Later that year, he was chosen as the prime minister of the
self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic by its parliament, the
"Supreme Council".
He had been in the role ever since, assuming the title of president, and
was among the signatories of the stalled Minsk peace agreement.
He was wounded twice in combat, and survived a car bomb blast in August
2014.
Expensive weapon systems for export is Trump administration official policy, his Military
Keyseanism stance.
Notable quotes:
"... The US is to render substantial military assistance to a country with an economy in the doldrums , reforms that have foundered , a democracy that is in question , and corruption that is widespread . ..."
...
Kurt Volker , US Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations, said in an interview
with the Guardian published on September 1 that "Washington is ready to expand arms supplies to
Ukraine in order to build up the country's naval and air defense forces in the face of
continuing Russian support for
eastern separatists ." According to him, the Trump administration was "absolutely" prepared
to go further in supplying lethal weaponry to Ukrainian forces than the anti-tank
missiles it delivered in April .
Mr. Volker explained that "[t]hey need to rebuild a navy and they have very limited air
capability as well. I think we'll have to look at air defense."
The diplomat
believes Ukraine needs unmanned aerial vehicles, counter-battery radar systems, and
anti-sniper systems. The issue of lethal arms purchases has been discussed at the highest
level.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 allocated
$250m in military assistance to Ukraine, including lethal arms. The
US has delivered Javelin anti-tank missile systems to Kiev but this time the
ambassador talked about an incomparably larger deal. Former President Barack
Obama had been unconvinced that granting Ukraine lethal defensive weapons
would be the right decision, in view of the widespread corruption there. This
policy has changed under President Trump, who - among other things - approved deliveries
of anti-tank missiles to Kiev last December.
Ukraine has officially requested US air-defense systems. According to
Valeriy Chaly, Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, the Ukrainian
military wants to purchase at least three air-defense systems. The cost of
the deal is expected to exceed $2 billion, or about $750 million apiece. The
system in question was not specified, but it's generally believed to be the
Patriot.
Volker's statement was made at a time of rising tensions in the Sea of Azov,
which is legally shared by Ukraine and Russia. It is connected to
the Black Sea through the Kerch Strait. The rhetoric has heated up and ships
have been placed under arrest as this territorial dispute turns the area
into a flashpoint.
Russia has
slammed the US for backing Ukraine's violations of international law in
the area. According to a 2003 treaty, the Sea of Azov is a jointly
controlled territory that both countries are allowed to use freely.
The US military already runs a maritime operations center located within
Ukraine's Ochakov naval base. The facility is an operational-level warfare
command-and-control organization that is designed to deliver flexible
maritime support throughout the full range of military operations. Hundreds
of US and Canadian military instructors are
training Ukrainian personnel at the Yavorov firing range.
NATO has
granted Ukraine the status of an aspirant
country - a step that is openly provocative toward Russia. Macedonia,
Georgia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina are also aspirant nations. Last year,
Ukraine's parliament adopted
a resolution recognizing full membership in NATO as a foreign policy
goal. In 2008, NATO agreed that Ukraine along with Georgia should become a
full-fledged member. In March, Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia announced the
formation of an alliance to oppose Russia.
"... Alberto Nisman and Argentina's History of Assassinations and Suspicious Suicides ..."
"... Whether the crusading prosecutor's death is found to be a suicide or homicide, many Argentines probably won't believe it. The past has taught them to always look for the sinister explanation. ..."
"... Decades after the military murdered thousands, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo warn that the current era of alternative facts poses a new threat ..."
"... They'll gain the world but lose their souls They'll gain the world but lose their souls ..."
"... Don't believe politicians and thieves They want our people on their bended knees Pirates and robbers, liars and thieves You come like the wolf but dressed like the sheep ..."
"... If you go to Lagos what you find, vampires If you go to Kinshasa what you find, vampires If you go to Darfur what you find, vampires If you go to Malabo what you find, vampires ..."
"... Lies and theft Guns and debt Life and death IMF ..."
"... When the bank man comes to your door Better know you'll always be poor Bank loans and policies They can't make our people free ..."
"... You live on the blood of my people Everyone knows you've come to steal You come like the thieves in the night The whole world is ready to fight ..."
SHARMINI PERIES: It's The Real News Network. I'm Sharmini Peries, coming to you from
Baltimore.
For several months now. Argentines have been taking to the streets to protest against
neoliberal austerity measures of President Mauricio Macri. The most recent such protest took
place on July 9 on Argentine's Independence Day. There has also been three general strikes thus
far. In the two years since he took office, President Macri has laid off as many as 76,000
public sector workers, and slashed gas and water and electricity subsidies, leading to a
tenfold increase in prices, in some cases.
Now, the government argues that all of this is necessary in order to stem inflation, and the
decline of the currency's value. Last month, Macri received the backing of the International
Monetary Fund. The IMF agreed to provide Argentina with a $50 billion loan, one of the largest
in IMF history. In exchange, the Macri government will deepen the austerity measures already in
place.
Joining me now to analyze Argentina's economic situation and its new IMF loan is Michael
Hudson. Michael is a distinguished research professor of economics at the University of
Missouri Kansas City. Welcome back, Michael.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Good to be back, Sharmini.
SHARMINI PERIES: Michael, why is it that Argentina needs such a huge credit line from the
IMF?
MICHAEL HUDSON: For precisely the reason that you explained. The neoliberal policy has its
aim rolling back any of the wage increases in employment that Mrs. Kirschner, the former
president, implied, as part of the class war. So in order to shrink the economy, you have to
basically cut back business, cut back employment. And so the purpose of the IMF loan was to
enable the wealthy Argentinians, the oligarchy that's run the country for a century, to get all
its money out and run. So like almost all IMF loans, the purpose is to subsidize capital flight
out of Argentina so that the wealthy Argentinians can take their money and run before the
currency collapses.
The aim of the loan is to indebt Argentina so much that its currency will continue to go
down and down and down, essentially wrecking the economy. That's what the IMF does. That's its
business plan. It makes a loan to subsidize capital flight, emptying out the economy of cash,
leading the currency to collapse, as it is recently collapsed. As soon as the $50 billion was
expended, or wasted, in letting wealthy Argentinians take their pesos, convert them into
dollars, move them offshore to the United States, to England, to the Dutch West Indies, and
offshore banking centers. Then they let the currency collapse so that the IMF model, which it's
announced for the last 50 years, the model is if you can depreciate a currency what you're
really lowering is the price of labor. Because raw materials and capital have an international
price. But when a currency goes down it makes imports much more expensive, and that causes a
price umbrella over the cost of living; that labor has to pay the equivalent international
price for grain, for food, for oil and gas, for everything else.
And so what Macri has done is they agree with the IMF to wage class war with a vengeance,
devaluation, leaving Argentina so hopelessly indebted that it can't possibly repay the IMF
loan. So what we're seeing is a replay of what happened in 2001.
SHARMINI PERIES: Exactly. I was going to ask you, now, that was only 17 years ago, Michael.
Argentinians do have memory here. They know what happened. They experienced it as well. Now,
that was back in 2001 during the economic crisis when unemployment had increased so
dramatically. That country went through a series of presidents and went through a series of
crises. And we saw images of, you know, very similar to what we had seen in, in Greece not too
long ago. Now, tell us more about that history. What exactly happened during that crisis, and
then eventually how did Nestor Kirschner relieve the economy and come out of that crisis?
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, the IMF staff said, don't make the loan. There's no possible way
Argentina can pay the loan. It's all going to be made to the oligarchy for capital flight.
You're giving the IMF money for crooks, and you're expecting the Argentine people to have to
pay. So Argentina very quickly was left totally broke, as the IMF intended it to be. And so
although it was 17 years ago, for the last 17 years the IMF has had a slogan: No more
Argentinas. In other words, they said, we're never going to make the loan that is only given to
oligarchs for capital flight to steal. It's as if you make a loan to the Ukraine, or to the
Russian kleptocrats, or to the Greek banks to move offshore.
And yet here, here again, we're having a replay of what happened was, after Mrs. Kirschner
came in, it was obvious to the [inaudible] to everybody, as it had been to the IMF staff, many
of whom had resigned, that Argentina couldn't pay. So about 80 percent of Argentines'
bondholders agreed to write down the debt to something that could be paid. They said, OK, you
know, either it's a total default because they can't pay anything, or we'll write it down very
substantially to what could be paid. Because the IMF really made a completely incompetent- not
incompetent, directly corrupt insider deal. Well, unfortunately, the oligarchy had a fatal
clause put in the original bond issue, saying they would agree to U.S. arbitration and to U.S.
law if there was any dispute.
Well, after the old Argentine bonds depreciated in price, the bonds that were not
renegotiated as part of the 80 percent, you had vulture funds buy them out. Especially Paul
Singer, the Republican campaign donor who tends to buy politicians, along with foreign
government bonds. And sued, and said, we want 100 percent on the dollar, not, you know, the 40
cents on the dollar or whatever they'd settled. And the case went to a senile, dying judge,
Griesa in New York City, who said, well, there was something that's about a clause that said
investors have to be treated separately. And Argentina said, well, that's fine, we'll pay the
other 20 percent [inaudible] the 80 percent of all agreed to. The majority rules. And Griesa
said, no, no, you have to pay the 80 percent all the money that the 20 percent demands. That's
symmetry, because only if you let the hedge funds win can you go bankrupt again, wreck the
government, and bring in oligarchy.
And so that ruling caused absolute turmoil. The United States State Department set out to
support the oligarchy by doing everything it could to destabilize Argentina. And the Argentine
people said, well, we'd better vote in a government that's supported by the United States.
Maybe it will be nice to us. I don't know why foreign countries think that way, but they
thought maybe if they voted the neoliberal that the United States would agree to forgive some
of its debt. Well, that's not what neoliberals do. The neoliberal did just what you said at the
beginning of the program; announced that he was going to cut employment, lower, stop inflation
by making the working class bail, bear all of the costs, and would borrow- actually, it was the
largest loan in IMF history, the $50 billion to enable the Argentine wealthy class to move its
money offshore, leaving the economy a bankrupt shell. That's what the IMF does.
SHARMINI PERIES: Right. So let's imagine you are given the opportunity to resolve this
issue. How would you be advising the Argentine government in terms of what can they do to
stabilize the economy, given the circumstances they're facing right now?
MICHAEL HUDSON: Very simple. I'd say this debt is an odious debt. There is no way that
Argentina can pay. The clause that bankrupted us was put in as a result of tens of thousands of
professors, labor leaders, [land] people being assassinated. The United States financed an
assassination team throughout Latin America after Pinochet in Chile to have basically a proxy
government, and the Argentine loan that said we will, we will follow U.S. rules, not Argentine
rules, basically should disqualify that debt from having to be paid. And it should say the IMF
debt is an odious debt. It was given under fraudulent purposes solely for purposes of capital
flight. We will not pay.
SHARMINI PERIES: Now, Michael, just one last question. Did you want to add something to what
you were saying?
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well, once it doesn't pay the foreign debt, its balance of payments will be,
will be there. The problem is that the creditors have always used violence in order to get
their way. I don't see how the Argentina situation can be solved without violence, because the
creditors are using police force, covert assassination. They're just as bad as the dirty war
that had that mass assassination period in the late, into the early '90s. There's obviously
going to be not only the demonstrations that you showed, but an outright war, because it's
broken out in Argentina more drastically than anywhere else right now in Latin America, except
in Venezuela.
SHARMINI PERIES: Michael, at the moment, the Fed is gradually increasing interest rates and
the dollar is gaining in value. This is sucking the financial capital not only in Argentina but
in many places around the world. Also, you know, they're going to be soon in crisis as well.
What is, what can the developing economies do?
MICHAEL HUDSON: Here's the problem. When the United States raises interest rates, that
causes foreign money to flow, flow into the dollar, because the rest of the world, Europe and
other areas, are keeping low interest rates. So as money goes into the dollar, to take
advantage of the rising interest rates, the dollar rises. Now, that makes it necessary for
Argentina or any other country, third world country, to pay more and more pesos in order to buy
the dollars to pay that foreign debt. Because Argentina and third world countries have violated
the prime rule of credit. And that is never to denominate a debt in another currency that you
can't pay. And all of a sudden, the dollar debts become much more expensive in peso terms, and
as a result, all throughout the world right now you're having a collapse of bond prices of
third world debt. Argentine bonds, Chilean bonds, African bonds, near Eastern bonds. Third
world debt bonds are plunging, because the investors realize that the countries can't pay. The
game looks like it may be over.
The good side of this is that Argentina now can join with other third world countries and
say we are going to redenominate the debts in our own currency, or we just won't pay, or we
will do what the world did in 1931 and announce a moratorium on intergovernmental debts. Now,
that was done on German reparations and the World War I inter-ally debts. Something like that.
Some international conference to declare a moratorium and say, what is the amount that actually
can be paid? And to write down third world debts to the amount that should be paid.
Because the principle that countries have to say is that no country should be obliged to
sacrifice its own economy, its own employment, and its own independence to pay foreign
creditors. Every country has a right to put its own citizens first and its own economy first
before foreign creditors, especially when the loans are made under false pretenses, as the IMF
has made pretending to stabilize the currency instead of subsidizing capital flight to
destabilize the currency.
SHARMINI PERIES: All right, Michael. I thank you so much. And we'll continue this
conversation. There's so much more to discuss, and so many countries here in this situation for
that discussion as well. I thank you so much for joining us today.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Thanks. I think it's going to get worse, so we'll have a lot to discuss.
SHARMINI PERIES: And thank you for joining us here on The Real News Network.
Why does the IMF have a US dollar credit line at the US FED, and Argentina does not;
countries like Canada do, as do companies like Harley Davidson. Why the discrimination?
"The IMF was originally laid out as a part of the Bretton Woods system exchange agreement
in 1944. During the Great Depression, countries sharply raised barriers to trade in an
attempt to improve their failing economies. This led to the devaluation of national
currencies and a decline in world trade."
IMF is an anachronism, a perpetual organization seeking new reasons for its continued
existence.
And like all Western post WW II institutions, is part of the Cold War. Of course any
actions by US connected entities in Latin America/Caribbean are part of the Monroe Doctrine
;-(
Gas prices in Egypt have just been raised by 75% as part of the austerity measures
attached to the $12bn loan granted by the IMF. Regular folk barely have two pennies to rub
together and have been battered by this and other measures ostensibly designed to "lift the
economy and lure back investors (as per the IMF rationale behind these crushing loan
conditions). I wonder if the same sleight of hand outlined by Prof Hudson applies here (I.e.
whether this is an IMF subsidised capital flight scheme designed to aid the Egyptian
oligarchy in repatriating its loot) and whether we should cast a suspicious eye towards the
oligarchs in any country the IMF extends a loan to.
This puts me in mind of a blog that I came across sometime ago at http://ferfal.blogspot.com/ which has relevance here.
Yeah, he tries to flog a lot of survival gear and the like but this site came out of his
experiences in the first crash in Argentina in 2001. If you are prepared to dig deep into his
files you will find all sorts of stories about what life was like in Argentina and it was
awful and desperate. Probably the best place to start is at http://ferfal.blogspot.com/search/label/Argentine%20Collapse
From your link, this jumped out, as agnotological apologetics:
" Right now with President Mauricio Macri there's hope, but the change the country needs
will take decades "
He didn't make much of an effort to clarify, who holds this "hope" nor what "change the
country needs". OTOH Michael Hudson, in his last two interviews on NC, did. He (Feral) also
seems oblivious to the neoliberal projects role in Latin America, and in Argentina's 2001
crises.
And this:
"Anyway, that's what happened in Argentina and this is why in spite of the good president
we now have we need another 10 or 20 years for an entire generation of people to know
something other than populism and corruption as a way of life."
Again, oblivious to the neoliberal projects role in Latin America, and in Argentina's 2001
crises. Who benefits from austerity, and how?
"As soon as the $50 billion was expended, or wasted, in letting wealthy Argentinians take
their pesos, convert them into dollars, move them offshore to the United States, to England,
to the Dutch West Indies, and offshore banking centers"
Not sure I understand this. Who is converting the Oligarch pesos to dollars? Crooks in the
Argentine government?
As I understand it, it's the Oligarchs' butlers and footmen in the Argentine government
that do it. If the Argentine government has a policy of pegging the peso at some set number
of pesos per dollar, then the government is obliged to hand over this many dollars in
exchange for that many pesos. That's what a peg is. One way to get the dollars would be
through a loan which the IMF would "reluctantly" give them, conditional on a few crushing
social policies.
Like I said before, this so much resembles a leveraged buy-out.
Could someone please explain the mechanisms by which the $50B loan leaves the country.
Exactly how do the elites get their hands on this money and then get it out of the
country?
If you haven't already read it, check
Prof. Hudson's previous article . It describes more about the methods.
Of course, if you have, then I'm not helping.
They convert their liquid cash into Dollars.
Then wire it to Banks outside the Argentine, and invest, (typically buy property). In addition, they take out loans against their Argentinian assets or property,
and convert those pesos into dollars,
and export those dollars as well.
All legal and above board.
When the peso collapses, they repatriate some of their dollars, and pay of the now
deflated loans.
'The Argentine loan that said we will, we will follow U.S. rules, not Argentine rules,
basically should disqualify that debt from having to be paid.'
Most foreign currency bonds floated by developing economies specify New York or London
legal jurisdiction because of (1) well-developed case law; (2) creditors don't trust the
objectivity of courts in borrower countries.
If all developing country debt were considered "odious" merely because of New York or
English legal jurisdiction, lending to developing countries would stop cold.
'I don't see how the Argentina situation can be solved without violence, because the
creditors are using police force, covert assassination.'
Cite one -- just one -- link showing "covert assassination" occurring in Argentina. The
Dirty War of the 1970s and early 1980s doesn't count. You can't keep waving the bloody shirt
of military dictatorship in South America more than thirty years after it ended.
I'm sure there is a nice polite clear unassailable explanation for what happened in this
instance:
" Alberto Nisman and Argentina's History of Assassinations and Suspicious
Suicides
Whether the crusading prosecutor's death is found to be a suicide or homicide, many
Argentines probably won't believe it. The past has taught them to always look for the
sinister explanation. "
And maybe creditors like to have their loan docs choose US/NY courts and law as the basis
for dispute resolution because both are stacked in favor of creditors? Home court "white shoe
lawyer" advantage? No history of support for the great creditor scams of the past? the word
"jackal" has no meaning? There was no reason for that guy to write a sequel to "Confessions
of an Economic Hit Man"?
Really, there's no need for the "bloody shirt," now is there, given current right-wing
dictators supported by "us," what the Empire and Banksters and the rest are doing in and to
central and South America, now is there? But it's a great distraction, I'll grant, and might
even work as impeachment for some folks
"No country should be obliged to pay its bondholders if the price of paying means austerity,
unemployment, shrinking population, emigration, rising suicide rates, abolition of public
health standards, and selloffs of the public domain to monopolists."
These sorts of rules would put a dead stop to foreign loans.
Something always bothers me about the "bondholder" sanctity meme. Bonds are "investments,"
right? And there are RISKS associated with investments, right? And there's supposed to be a
"risk premium" built into the "price" of the bond, right?
At least Investopedia and other sources say so, basically that these are NOT God-sanctioned
absolute-right deals where the bondholder takes priority over everyone else in the world,
right? https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/05/bondrisks.asp
And bonds are sort of contracts, subject to the rules and defenses that apply in contract
disputes, albeit specialized rules, right? Impossibility and stuff? Fraud?
So why are the rest of us, like where "the government" is dumb or corrupt (CalPERS?)enough
to "obligate" the wealth and future of a country by "selling bonds" to "investors," as
security for "loans" that get siphoned off by corruption and stupidity, dumb enough to
usually just roll over and accept that we have to live like serfs to "pay off the bonds?"
Especially when the same scam has been pulled by the same set of Banksters over and over?
And yes, in the financialized westernized world, we mopes are tied to the "paying for
progress [some definition of same] by borrowing," aren't we?
Interesting that the hated Sharia Law, the banking and investment part of it, kind of
makes those allegedly risk-free kinds of fee- and profit- and reacketeer-generating "deals"
not only unlawful, but against the will of G_D? https://shariabanking.com/
How telling. Was only 7 years ago that the torture-murderer of mothers and nuns, the
Blonde Angel of Death himself, Alfredo Ignacio Astiz, was sentenced to life in prison. Per
Wikipedia:
Astiz, a specialist in the infiltration of human rights organizations, was implicated in
the December 1977 kidnapping of twelve human rights activists, including Azucena Villaflor
and two other founders of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and two French nationals,
Léonie Duquet and Alice Domon, who were Catholic nuns. None of the twelve was seen
alive again outside detention and all were believed killed, rumored to be among the bodies
washed up on beaches south of Buenos Aires in late 1977.
To this day, torturers and murderers hold public offices. But I'm sure that's all in the
past. Anyone who still talks about the US-sponsored 16 years of Dirty War, from 1967-1983, is
a bloody shirt-waving fool, amirite Jim?
BUENOS
AIRES, Argentina (CNN) [2 March 1998] -- Argentina's "dirty war" ended 15 years ago,
but it is an ugly episode that cannot be buried and refuses to be silenced.
Aging mothers and grandmothers march each week as the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, carrying
banners and chanting, "We will not be stopped. We will not be broken. We have held on for
20 years."
They demand to know the whereabouts of sons and daughters and husbands and wives who
were detained by the ruling military junta between 1976 and 1983, and then disappeared.
The junta seized power in Argentina in March 1976 and began a systematic campaign to
wipe out left-wing terrorism. But the terror it spread exceeded anything the leftists ever
dreamed of, claiming the lives of dissidents as well as innocent civilians.
More than 9,000 people disappeared during the dirty war, and some human rights groups
say as many as 30,000 may have been tortured and killed.
"We only want to know where our sons and daughters are -- alive or dead," says one
woman. "We are anguished because we don't know whether they are sick or hungry or cold. We
don't know anything. We are desperate, desperate because we don't know who to turn to.
"Consulates, embassies, government ministries, churches. Every place is closed to us.
Everywhere they shut us out. We beg you to help us. We beg you."
Decades after the military murdered thousands, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo warn that
the current era of alternative facts poses a new threat
Torturers and murderers hold public office, thanks to an amnesty. But I'm sure no one
today, in the whole of Argentina, would ever consider what well, actually has long been
standard operating procedure in Argentina.
While not precisely on point, reminds me of a monologue to music titled "FMI", the
Portuguese abbreviation for IMF, by Portuguese poet Mario Branco. Salient lyrics (English
translation) of IMF:
"It's 'Monetary Internationalism' The IMF doesn't exist The IMF is a mask."
"There can't exist a reason for so much suffering."
Thievery Corporation were far more brutal in their Fela-Kuti-inspired "Vampires"
Lyrics (abridged):
They'll gain the world but lose their souls
They'll gain the world but lose their souls
Don't believe politicians and thieves
They want our people on their bended knees
Pirates and robbers, liars and thieves
You come like the wolf but dressed like the sheep
If you go to Lagos what you find, vampires
If you go to Kinshasa what you find, vampires
If you go to Darfur what you find, vampires
If you go to Malabo what you find, vampires
Lies and theft
Guns and debt
Life and death
IMF
When the bank man comes to your door
Better know you'll always be poor
Bank loans and policies
They can't make our people free
You live on the blood of my people
Everyone knows you've come to steal
You come like the thieves in the night
The whole world is ready to fight
The clause that bankrupted us was put in as a result of tens of thousands of professors,
labor leaders, [land] people being assassinated. The United States financed an
assassination team throughout Latin America after Pinochet in Chile to have basically a
proxy government, and the Argentine loan that said we will, we will follow U.S. rules, not
Argentine rules, basically should disqualify that debt from having to be paid. And it
should say the IMF debt is an odious debt. It was given under fraudulent purposes solely
for purposes of capital flight. We will not pay.
And this:
The problem is that the creditors have always used violence in order to get their
way.
Are why I so love Michael Hudson. There's the blood so studiously avoided in the
desanguinated language of "economics." Its absence is the tell-tale of the kind of
disembodiment described by Nancy Krieger
(h/t
Lambert ).
Embodiment, in other words, is literal. The
ecosocial premise is that clues to current and
changing population patterns of health, includ-
ing social disparities in health, are to be found
chiefly in the dynamic social, material, and
ecological contexts into which we are born,
develop, interact, and endeavour to live mean-
ingful lives. The contrast is to pervasive aetiolo-
gical hypotheses concerned mainly with
decontextualised and disembodied ''behaviours''
and ''exposures'' interacting with equally decon-
textualised and disembodied ''genes.'' The dis-
tinction is more than simply between
''determinants'' and ''mechanisms.'' Consider,
for example, contending -- and longstanding --
claims about racism compared with ''race'' as
causes of racial/ethnic disparities in health.
An embodied approach promotes testing hypoth-
eses to ascertain if the observed disparities are a
biological expression of racial discrimination,
past and present; by contrast, a disembodied
and decontextualised approach promulgates
research focused on detrimental genes and/or
''lifestyles.'' The vastly different implications
of these approaches for generating epidemiolo-
gical knowledge and informing policy underscore
the utility of clarifying the significance of
''embodiment'' for epidemiological inquiry.
[Footnotes omitted, emphasis added.]
Ah yes, but talking about our ideas about the problem, or talking about the talking about
the problem, is so much better for catapulting the propaganda.
Also, if it looks, walks, and bankrupts Argentina over and over exactly like an Economic
Hit Job aka mass murder and looting under the color of law by the Suits in broad g.d.
daylight, then yes. Yes it is.
In the '70s at the best universities Ecology Classes were instituted and the young well
off students were told first, that the climate was being altered as a result of human
activities.
Nixon was told by the CIA that overpopulation was the main treat to future US Security.
The Vatican quashed that way of looking at it. Gopsay policies are all the same as Vatican
policies.
Loyalty to the nation of their birth for a rich person & their wealthy families was
thrown out the window.
The jetsetter class now buys the best deal far as taxes and protections.
Their goal is to eliminate any harm to them or their families from "Forces beyond their
control." If the leaders of the world are going to co-operate with them, those leaders will
be paid. For the majority who are born to labor and become labor those things done by bankers
and their leaders become for them "Forces beyond their control."
The rich know that overpopulation is already the fact at 7.5 billion. They will bond
together on the tarmacs hanging around their jets for little talks as took place between Bill
Clinton and Lauretta Lynch.
"All those people that don't like how we get rich, who are taking up space we want, well, let
them starve. The science says there are too many of them anyway."
(Wasn't a discussion of how to engineer revolts wonderful to crush, but is used as
illustrative of how jet setters get around to meetings that lead to this or that policy of
the day.)
This is the essence of "Scientific Socialism". Current Trump Administration policies will
cause the withdrawal of US lands devoted to agriculture. What was for Stalin destruction of
the Kulaks and collectivization starvation of Armenians, or Peasants, or the Intellogemtsia,
or all those ambivalent about who is in power and are therefore Counter-Revolutionaries,
starving them all leaves only the ignorant, cowed, or lucky alive.
Creating the conditions for civil wars is a great thing for the banks and their loyal
patrons, the war materiel`s industries. The people rebel and oligarchs at the top have them
killed.
Trotsky made the point that the weapons in the arsenals are the peoples. Somehow soldiers
and police in nation after nation don't see it that way. In the US the police are made
soldiers in the drug war. Keeping the peace is not their primary job. No pot smoking
peaceniks are to be hired so the ranks are securely filled by thugs and incompetents made
special by law. They shoot Black people at the drop of a hat. They shoot the poor driven
crazy pretty often as well.
Somebody wondered why in the US Blues & Reds or Democrats, the Leftists silo and don't
talk civilly to each other. Trump supporters show and shoot guns or as in Charlottesville
Virginia run as many people as possible over and are obviously willing to kill other
Americans. In Weimar Germany the "Scientific Socialists" had their uniformed enforcers.
Dictators have their own organizations exultant at the opportunity to be rewarded for
beating and killing the people who object to the destruction of civilization. Spectaculars in
stadiums, like Trump's to come Military Parade become more common as if such is civilization
when it is more indicative of a break down of civilization itself.
I have no means to remove myself and my wife from the roiling clouds of more murder in the
streets. I'll be "collapsing in place" as described by Lambert Strether. These things and the
ideologies behind them happening are not accidental of "Forces Beyond My Control".
The true purposes of the IMF loan are questionable to me.
1.) Over the past few years, we have seen market rigging by large transnational banks in
both the LIBOR and foreign exchange markets. This raises the question of whether there was
covert market manipulation to rapidly drop the Argentine peso and coerce the Argentine
government to borrow funds from the IMF to defend the peso in order to assure that nation was
able to pay for necessary imports?
2.) Was this debt undertaken to facilitate capital flight for a small, wealthy segment of
the Argentine population without the consent of or benefit to the people of Argentina, or for
some other unstated reason?
If either of these is true, this debt can legitimately be considered as "odious debt" by
the people of Argentina and potentially repudiated.
It also appears to me that there is a high probability that the austerity measures likely
to be imposed under this $50 billion loan to Argentina by the IMF could violate the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Not an attorney, nor knowledgeable about international law. Just my opinion as an ordinary
citizen based on my reading of the post and Wikipedia.
What is neoliberalism?
Neoliberalism (a.k.a. The Washington
Consensus ) is the dominant ideology of the political class in Washington D.C., shared by
both legacy parties. In fact, it's not clear there is another ideology, which is why
we get seemingly weird policymaking processes like RomneyCare morphing into ObamaCare, even as
proponents of each version of the same plan hate each other, "narcissism of small
differences"-style. Of course, in neo-liberalism's house are many mansions, many factions, and
many funding sources, so it's natural, or not , that an
immense quantity of obfuscation and expert opinion
has accumulated over
time , making for many fine distinctions between various shades of neo-liberalism.
In this brief post, I hope to clear the ground by proposing two simple rules to which
neo-liberalism can be reduced. They are:
Rule #1: Because markets.
Rule #2: Go die!
Of course, these rules can't be applied, willy-nilly, inartfully, in just any context; Rule
#1 -- and here we owe an immense debt of gratitude to
the work of Outis Philalithopoulos on academic choice theory -- doesn't apply to in (let's
label it) Context #1: The world of the neo-liberal practitioners themselves ; the
academic guilds, media outlets[1], and think tanks to which they adhere,
Flexian style , are
distinctly not market-driven ; just
look at
Thomas Friedman . It follows that Rule #2 does not apply to neo-liberal practitioners
either, because of their social position just described in Context #1: "wingnut welfare" and
its equivalent in the "progressive" nomenklatura ; they will have -- to strike a
blow at random -- corporate health insurance. In addition, we have Context #2: The world of the
0.01%, to whom no rules apply by definition. Summarizing, the rules do not apply in the
following two contexts:
Context #1: The rules of neoliberalism do not apply to those who write the rules.
Context #2: The rules of neoliberalism do not apply in the world of the 0.01%.
Both have impunity[2]. These asymmetries will become more interesting shortly.
Let's start with the dull stuff, because pragmatism. Linguists are calling the
"prepositional-because." Or the "because-noun." [For example:] But Iowa still wants to sell
eggs to California, because money. It's a usage, in other words, that is exceptionally bloggy
and aggressively casual and implicitly ironic. And also highly adaptable. it also conveys a
certain universality. When I say, for example, "The talks broke down because politics," I'm
not just describing a circumstance. I'm also describing a category. I'm making grand and yet
ironized claims, announcing a situation and commenting on that situation at the same time.
I'm offering an explanation and rolling my eyes -- and I'm able to do it with one little
word. Because variety. Because Internet. Because language.
Because neo-liberalism. Because I like the idea, a lot, of catching the Mount Pelerin
Society, Pinochet, Diane Rehm, the Friedmans, Joe Biden, Rush Limbaugh, and the people who
drafted the Democratic platform in one big net, and then deep-sixing the entire squirming and
gesticulating political class with language that's "exceptionally bloggy and aggressively
casual and implicitly ironic."
And this tactic really is fair. Trap a neo-liberal in conversation next to a whiteboard, or
hand them a napkin, and you can probably coax them to "educate" you by drawing the famous
"Because Markets" diagram, which looks like this:
Figure 1: "Because Markets"
And when your targeted neo-liberal is done sketching, they will express the idea, with
varying degrees of quasi-religious fervor, that the price set by the intersection of the
downward-sloping demand curve and the upward-sloping supply curve is the right price
.
Except the supply and demand curve ain't necessarily so. The other day, I saw an elegant
hi-so lady eating a Krispy Kreme in Bangkok's Siam Paragon . With a fork!
That donut cost her 27 baht -- 84¢, 5¢ more than the US , in a city with
half the
cost-of-living of New York ! So, what's going on? To her, Krispy Kreme donuts are a luxury
good. How does she know that? Exactly because they have a high price! Therefore -- Thorstein
Veblen would be proud --
those donuts have an upward sloping demand curve ! (Yves, who is actually qualified to talk
about this stuff, goes over these issues in more detail than I can, in
ECONned .) So, empirically, seeking truth from facts, as they say, Figure 1 is by no means
universal. And that's before we get to the idea that "Because markets" isn't appropriate for
vast swaths of human endeavor; Common Pool Resources, for example, are not best managed
as a form of private property .
But by "right," your neo-liberal interlocutor will not mean right mechanically or
arithmetically, but right morally ; that is, the best of all possible worlds will be
created when there are no pesky artificial factors interfering with the frictionless operation
of the sacred curves. Note, however, that by the asymmetry of Context #1, Figure 1 does not
apply to the neo-liberal practitioner themselves, nor, by the asymmetry of Context #2, to the
class of people who own the markets in which the prices are set. So, if unions raise the price
of human rental, that's not just an ordinary bargaining process, it's wrong, even evil: It's a
defilement of the sacred curves. But if a squillionaire uses their power to bust that
same union, that's not merely no problem, it's not even part of the problem (by
Context #2). Hence, we have the pleasant and realistic outcome that
the price of a Walmart worker's time isn't enough to live on , the price of the (no doubt
credentialled) neo-liberal practititioner's time is somewhere in, er, the "middle," and the
price of a squillionaire's time is so high
they buy grotesquely expensive homes and forget they own them . Because markets.
Lawmakers who wrote the Affordable Care Act fell for [assuming good faith] the health
insurance industry's insistence that Americans want "choice and competition." [Rule #1, which
lawmakers share with insurers.] Having worked in that industry for two decades, I know the
real reason insurers and their allies kept reciting the "choice and competition" mantra was
to scare lawmakers away from even daring to give serious thought to a single-payer health
care system [which is a Rule #1 violation, at least in for citizens seeking treatment].
And I also know that insurers benefit from the marketplace confusion that "choice and
competition" can create. I can assure you that some insurers are counting on you becoming
overwhelmed by all the choices and picking a plan that might appear at first glance to be a
bargain. But beware: if you're not careful and pick a plan without really kicking the tires,
you very possibly will be buying something that could wind up costing you much more than you
ever imagined if you get sick or injured.
That happened to my friend Donna Smith, who as executive director of the Health Care for
All Colorado Foundation, knows more about health insurance than most of us. She spent quite a
bit of time last fall on the Colorado exchange trying to figure out which plan would offer
the best value for her and her husband. If she had to do it over again, she would have taken
the additional step of calling the insurance companies directly after reviewing the plans
they were offering on the exchange, just to be certain of what her out-of-pocket obligations
would be if she had to be hospitalized during the year.
A cancer survivor, Donna knew there would be a chance she might get sick again and need
expensive care [Rule #2]. It never occurred to her, though, that picking a gold or platinum
level plan with a higher premium would likely have been better deal than the silver Kaiser
Permanente plan she opted for and that seemed to be more affordable.
To make shopping for coverage even more challenging, Kaiser and most other insurers offer
several silver plans on the Colorado exchange, so Donna had to spend time trying to figure
out which silver plan would be the best deal.
Donna told me the she took the time to compare the monthly premiums, co-pays and annual
deductibles of each of the silver plans before making her decision. "I felt that the one I
chose offered the most coverage I could afford with my premium buying dollar," she said.
Sure enough, within days after the plan went into effect on January 1, Donna got sick and
was hospitalized for a week.
To her shock, she later found out some limitations of her coverage that made her overall
financial responsibility much higher.
You can see that Smith really was making a life-and-death choice when she purchased
insurance in the "Marketplace" designed by insurance companies. And if you multiply Smith's
story by millions nationwide, you'll see that those are not good at manipulating the market to
their ends, or don't have the hours to spend that Donna does, are more likely to have lethal
outcomes from their choices -- choices they
are mandated to make only so that parasitical health insurance rent extractors can
make a buck -- than those who have better skills, or have the hours to spend, or who have
their insurance purchased for them by trusted agents. Statistically, and actuaries no doubt can
calculate this sort of thing, a percentage of the insured will not make the choices that will
get them the care they need, and, again statistically, a certain percentage of those will lose
their lives. Because markets.
Fairfax County, Va., and McDowell County, W.Va., are separated by 350 miles, about a
half-day's drive. Traveling west from Fairfax County, the gated communities and bland
architecture of military contractors give way to exurbs, then to farmland and eventually to
McDowell's coal mines and the forested slopes of the Appalachians. Perhaps the greatest
distance between the two counties is this: Fairfax is a place of the haves [Contexts #1 and
#2], and McDowell of the have-nots. Just outside of Washington, fat government contracts
[that is, through policy choice] and a growing technology sector buoy the median [!!]
household income in Fairfax County up to $107,000, one of the highest in the nation.
McDowell, with the decline of coal, has little in the way of industry. Unemployment is high.
Drug abuse is rampant. Median household income is about one-fifth that of Fairfax.
One of the starkest consequences of that divide is seen in the life expectancies of
the people there. Residents of Fairfax County are among the longest-lived in the country: Men
have an average life expectancy of 82 years and women, 85, about the same as in Sweden. In
McDowell, the averages are 64 and 73, about the same as in Iraq .
Since the 1980s, "socioeconomic status [class] has become an even more important indicator
of life expectancy." That was the finding of a 2008 report by the Congressional Budget
Office. But dollars in a bank account have never added a day to anyone's life, researchers
stress. Instead, those dollars are at work in a thousand daily-life decisions
[like Donna Smith's] -- about jobs, medical care, housing, food and exercise -- with a
cumulative effect on longevity.
"Why might income have an effect on morbidity or mortality?" said David Kindig, an
emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and an expert in
longevity issues. "We have these causal pathways, through better jobs, better health
insurance, better choice of behaviors, he added. On top of that, "there's the stress effects
of poverty and low educational status."
[T]he contrast between McDowell and Fairfax shows just how deeply entrenched these trends
are, with consequences reaching all the way from people's pocketbooks to their
graves.
Because markets. Go die![4]
NOTES
[1] The social experiment of the moment,
squillionaires with big ideas , has yet to play out in the media. Too soon to tell!
[3]
Via a podcast from sadly decayed New Yorker . It's quite a treat to hear Herzberg and
Remnick gradually allow themselves to dimly understand that they know literally nothing of the
experience of the average person buying Obamacare because they have never had to buy their own
insurance since they get it corporately (see Context #1).
[4] Again from Lowrey, a fine example of Rule #2:
"These things are not nearly as clear as they seem, or as clear as epidemiologists seem to
think," said Angus Deaton, an economist at Princeton.
Just doing his job .
UPDATE Adding, I'm not claiming that I've synthesized the neo-liberal literature. My claim
is that if you engage a neo-liberal in conversation on policy ("at the whiteboard"), at some
point you will be able to reduce what they say to rule #1 as a premise and rule #2 as an
injunction, given the asymmetrical contexts #1 and #2. It's rather like the famous headline
"Ford to City: Drop Dead," but on a society-wide scale, and with the 0.01% in the place of
Ford.
My favorite quote regarding supply-demand curves goes something like "Like unicorns,
supply-demand curves are often drawn but never seen in reality". From the book Economyths. A
highly entertaining and readable debunking of neoclassical economics theory.
What a superb post! I particularly enjoyed how you correctly identified "parasitical rent
extraction" as the preferred modus operandi of the 1% and their enablers.
How could we boil down an ideology opposed to neoliberalism?
1) Because humanity. We are all brothers and sisters who should care for one another.
2) Go live in joy and harmony. Caring for one another, and the health of our environment, we
can enjoy living and creating together in an atmosphere free of undue stress and strife.
Absolutely. Now go read the story about "How One City turned Poverty into a Prison
Sentence" in the links section. It is a case study of rent extraction with jail as the final
profit making solution when the poor are sucked dry. Money and politicians have so corrupted
our democracy that it has become predatory. The political system is broke and I really don't
see any real solutions to breaking the grip of those corrupting the system.
I haven't had time to read much of what's in NC today, but I did read part of the
Poverty/Prison article. Absolutely infuriating! When people can't pay their fines, community
service should be an option. But I guess private companies don't make any profits from
community service.
"The political system is broke and I really don't see any real solutions to breaking the
grip of those corrupting the system."
"I can UNDERSTAND pessimism, but I don't BELIEVE in it. It's not simply a matter of faith,
but of historical EVIDENCE. Not overwhelming evidence, just enough to give HOPE, because for
hope we don't need certainty, only POSSIBILITY."-Howard Zinn
I think "because markets" was abetted by the Left-Liberal "postmodern turn" of the 1970s
and 80s. The Civil Rights and Anti-War movements had a hard moral center. Biting into them
could crack teeth. Postmodernism and certain kinds of multiculturalism were gooey all the way
through. They allowed the professoriate and the outside intellectuals to not have to make
moral distinctions and moral choices. Everything could be analyzed (thus boosting publication
output) and no hard work of condemnation, organization, or resistance need happen, because
language was indeterminate, morals relative, and knowledge suspect. Surrender to the market
was a way for a bunch of soft, queasy people to not have to make hard choices and defend them
(such defense, in the ideological mood of the day, being a sign of a lack of
"sophistication", "philosophical rigor", and "nuance", and an indicator of "crude"
thinking–in other words, you'd be seen as a naive dunce not worth being granted
tenure).
And, if you were one of those profs who could parlay the latest methodology into a big,
splashy list of publications and exploit the burgeoning star system, the market was very,
very good to you. So why ask such vulgar materialistic questions about economic outcomes when
you could add a gay black woman to your syllabus and feel like you were "exploding the
canon", "fighting the power", and "sticking it to the Man"?
Wow! I think your critique is spot on. The rot starts, in many ways, with the U.S.
intellectual class that has been, largely, silenced and/or assigned to mediocre endeavors as
you suggest.
"Universities no longer train students to think critically, to examine and critique
systems of power and cultural and political assumptions, to ask the broad questions of
meaning and morality once sustained by the humanities. These institutions have transformed
themselves into vocational schools. They have become breeding grounds for systems managers
trained to serve the corporate state. In a Faustian bargain with corporate power, many of
these universities have swelled their endowments and the budgets of many of their departments
with billions in corporate and government dollars. College presidents, paid enormous salaries
as if they were the heads of corporations, are judged almost solely on their ability to raise
money. In return, these universities, like the media and religious institutions, not only
remain silent about corporate power but also condemn as "political" all within their walls
who question corporate malfeasance and the excesses of unfettered capitalism." http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/the_death_of_the_liberal_class_20101029
Universities used to teach only a small number (5% when I went) and HE has expanded to a
target of 50%. I don't wear the better days argument implicit in this. Standards have dropped
so far it's hard to teach anything conceptual and most staff wouldn't be up to it. I suspect
universities were never much good and people got better education in jobs with decent firms.
And what of virtue ethics and other such clap-trap? Most of the prats who came up with that
didn't challenge slavery. The German elite got bildung which helped them not at all to resist
the Nazis. Scientists get none of that rot and turn out more generally ethical and leftist
than the rest of HE output.
I think that's very perceptive and I agree. I always knew the deconstructionists were up
to no good -- readers will correct me but my impression is they destroyed English Department
after English Department -- but your comment reminds how very no good their "no good"
was.
Agreed.
They destroyed English departments, but the destroyers got tenure tracks and a lot of
goodies, so perhaps like death by carbon monoxide poisoning, they were largely (and
arrogantly, in a few cases that I've seen UpCloseAndPersonal) oblivious of the harm their
sanctimonious behavior created.
@Lambert Strether
You nailed it, too, but I personally would have changed "markets" to "psychotic parasitical
greed and lust", but that is probably too long. I guess one word is the limit. *sigh*
Krugman writes: "economic opportunity has shriveled for half the population." I'd like to
see a little acknowledgment that NAFTA had something to do with that. And since trade is
Krugman's bailiwick, I'd like to see a full-throated denunciation of TPP, instead of that
lame promise to do "homework" (in his own field?!) followed by a nothing-burger of a
column.
Krugman talks a good game. He's still a card-carrying member of the political class, and a
supporter of ObamaCare, which is a "Because markets. Go die!" solution if ever I've seen one,
which is covered in the post .
Yeah, they are all trying to carry water for The Party while grudgingly admitting that the
buckets are full of holes, or pretending that it's only the other guys who are carrying the
buckets.
Of course he's a member of the political class! You don't get to write for the NYT if you
aren't–not any more. Look the mainstream Party Line is the only game in town. Who will
be there for him when he loses his place at the table? The left has not made it easy for
people to turn left–where is the funding, the organization and so on? The mainstream
Washington consensus is all there is right now–TINA is a reality because the left
perpetually sleeps and believes that cries of "it's not fair!" are enough.
Neo-liberal is a wuss phrase invented by guilt ridden liberals to avoid using the word
that truly describes the state of affairs.
"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and
corporate power"
― Benito Mussolini
"We have buried the putrid corpse of liberty"
― Benito Mussolini
Please don't think that I am defending either Neo-Liberalism or Fascism; I'm not. Both are
odious. But it's not clear that Mussolini actually said that about corporatism, since that
appears to be a mistranslation of the Italian word "corporatzione" See WikiQuote on Mussolini's Disputed
Quote :
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and
corporate power."
This misunderstanding of the meaning of 'corporatzione' spread rapidly in the United
States after appearing in a column by Molly Ivins (24 November 2002). It is repeated often
and sometimes attributed to the "Fascism" entry in the 1932 Enciclopedia Italiana, but does
not appear there. See "Mussolini on the Corporate State" by Chip Berlet which discusses the
corporatzione – councils of workers, managers and other groups set up by the Fascist
Party to control the economy and everyone in it.
Here's the Chip Berlet article . Since I don't
speak Italian, I don't know what the truth about this is. Perhaps an NC reader who is fluent
in Italian can comment for us.
Fascism's corporativismo was something altogether different -- the
corporazioni were State-mandated guilds; it's another story, entirely. What we have
in the US, instead, is a system governed by an ever more oligarchically-diseased, and
outwardly aggressive, bureau-technocracy, which, internally, presides over a gradual
privatization of public-functions, a sweeping commercialization of all spiritual endeavors
(higher learning and the arts), and a virtual monopolization (corporatization) of all
economic activity.
Thepolitical idea of "corporatism" was not original to Mussolini, but is far older. In
shortest form, a "corporatist" state was one in which persons were represented as members of
a particular class, as opposed to a "representative state" where persons were represented as
residents of a particular geographical community. In crude form, plumbers would be
represented in the councils of state by a plumber, veterinarians by a veterinarian, etc. The
Wikipedia article under this entry describes some of the 19th century intellectual history of
this political idea
Agreed. Totally trendy and juvenile. Belongs in the same category as "Let's do lunch."
English is a rich language, offering many word choices with which to craft a scathing
critique without resorting to slang.
While I am (I think) in agreement with you, this is one of the most obfuscatory (your
word) articles I have looked at on NC for awhile. Preaching to the choir is one thing (I am,
after all, in that choir), but all that grammatical analysis that morphs into economic
analysis may be cute but is just unnecessary. Please write more clearly next time!
I didn't understand why anyone would want a crispy cream doughnut.
Lambert's walk through is very similar to modern work on argument. We tend to avoid best
argument and just do easy ones with obvious "evidence", which is pretty dumb as data and
theory spin together and there is no neutral observation language. Markets equate with 'suck
it and see'. Neo-liberalism is well over 2000 years old. It's essence is lying. Machiavelli
described it well. You say a pile of liberal 'dulldung' in public expressing your princely
virtue and act as a ruthless bastard behind the scenes, trading on insider information and
keeping savage attack dogs fed with the profits. Virtue ethics are extensively taught to an
elite cadre in a system supported by slaves. Honesty is the best policy is taught alongside
the need to lawyer up and deceive the enemy with clever strategies. You really are a decent
person but have to fight the shameless enemy on her own terms.
Neo-liberalism is profoundly non-scientific and non-modern. Even if markets were real, we
would want to do experiments that didn't ground out in them to find out how to change or
maintain them. I'm afraid those of us who know E = MC2 isn't very important in relativity
(excellent link the other day) rarely get arsed with economics and politics. They just aren't
where we'd start to try and get a reasonable society going, given the chance. And both lack
the show and tell we like.
A major ruse in neo-liberalism is to turn arguments about change into fantasies requiring
a totally remodelled world-view. I know Kuhn used the term paradigm in this sense, but he'd
stuffed that before his second edition and was talking 'disciplinary matrices', which wasn't
half as catchy. This ruse disguises the fact that most critique really just asks 'where's
your evidence'? In primitive societies, there is more murder than civilisation can match
through war, at least before some clown pops off a hydrogen bomb or biological wizardry. Do
we leave murder to Mr Market? There are many other examples we don't cede to market throws of
the dice.
Neo-liberalism works by shouting loud. It might do us good to work out what our role in
the performance of the Naked Emperor is. Drowning out the voice of the child shouting he is
naked with clever critique?
"That donut cost her 27 baht -- 84¢, 5¢ more than the US, in a city with half
the cost-of-living of New York! So, what's going on? To her, Krispy Kreme donuts are a luxury
good. How does she know that?"
The cost of living has little to nothing to do with if the cost to produce, sell, and
profit from a Krispy Kreme donut in Thailand vs NYC. This is either the same terrible
critical thinking skills you accuse the neo-liberals of possessing or easily dismissible
sophistry.
The demand curve is a good starting point for discussing Economics because it starts the
conversation about what really goes into the price of a good and the cost/willingness of its
consumption.
I feel satisfied to have shown that neo-liberalism is false and lethal. I notice you don't
dispute that. I don't see why I have to present an alternative. In any case, I don't do
assignments.
Yes you do Lambert. So do I. We just mark our own these days. Important to say critique
doesn't need an alternative. Sadly, you have not slain the neo-blobby dragon and it will be
round for the rent tomorrow. Somehow we need to trick it into a knife fight when we have
pistols. One of the neo-clogger gun batteries is this 'what's your alternative' stuff. We
should not go Light Brigade. The truth here is they prevent alternatives and practise sacking
raids on any established.
It would be interesting to see speculation in here concerning what life would be like with
guaranteed income set at three squares and a roof over one's head. I'm particularly
interested in employee relations and what real motivation to work is.
And the sale price of a donut has nothing necessarily to do with the cost of production
and sales, so long as there is a sufficiently fashionable level of profit in doing so.
Anecdotal evidence still beats a priori assertion.
And furthermore, "presenting an alternate" is simply abrogation of responsibility in the
form of a romantic prayer, most often deployed by those whose social identity and/or access
to power are directly or indirectly threatened by the criticial analysis in progress.
In other words, it's begging the question "because markets".
Price distortions are the result of market inefficiencies which can be contrived in any
number of ways to enable rent extraction. You're invited to confess to your own favorite
methods.
The supply-demand diagram as shown is inaccurate. As such it is an effective demonstration
of lying by omission.
To correctly model real-world markets it needs to show how the supply and demand curves
are shifted through industry collusion, improper government mandates, and other market
distortions and manipulations. It needs to show how prices are increased through market
inefficiencies and how economic rent is contrived. It needs to demonstrate the differences
between a non-profit utilitarian system, a competitive system that allows for a normal
profit, and one that is perverted to enable rent extraction.
The diagram as shown doesn't do any of these things, and a corporate con artist who tries
to fob off such a thing on you needs to be taken to school about their ignorance of economics
and their propensity for blatant dishonesty and thievery. You certainly don't want such a
pirate to get away with using the Blinding With Science fallacy on you when it's fairly
straightforward to expose the lying for what it is with just a little standard explanatory
material.
I've heard the "narcissism of small differences" theory before but I don't think I buy it.
The differences are large, but they're the Yankee/Cowboy War differences detailed by Oglesby,
not a disagreement over any of the main points of the Washington Consensus..
The war between the Eastern Establishment and the Cowboy Capitalists largely ended when
the factions called a truce in 1980 and put Bush and Reagan on the ticket. Since then the
transnational globalizing elite have pretty much buried those old cohorts or coopted them.
The Tea Party and Fox News are the last refuges of the Cowboys, along with the nitwits at
Commentary. But I think that the biggest players no longer see the United States as the
exclusive or even primary stage on which capital is to be accumulated and deployed. America
now functions primarily as rent collector and strike breaker.
Rule 2 reminds me of the title of H Rap Brown's autobiography, written fifty years
ago.
"I lived near Louisiana State University, and I could see this big fine school with modern
buildings and it was for whites. Then there was Southern University, which was about to fall
in and that was for the niggers. And when I compared the two, the message that the white man
was trying to get across was obvious Die Nigger Die."
A comment – Jordan P Soreff #3 Be quiet and civil while going about #2 Because
Markets. -- Lovely weather we're having. Did you see Miley Cyrus? OMG Dead as a doornail.
The commedia dell'arte mourning of McCain is in full bloom. In a vulgar orgy of pompous,
bathetic praise from Congress and the media, he is being piously canonized. To counter this
shameless obsequy by attacking him for what he actually was would be an exercise in futility,
just as the endless ad hominem hatchet jobs on Trump accomplish nothing.
It's more useful to examine the grisly American disease of which he was a champion and
cynosure. The son and grandson of Admirals, a bred-in-the-bone military man, he flew a fighter
in Vietnam. Shot down -- and amazingly not summarily executed -- he was held as a POW, and
became a lifelong advocate of unlimited use of military force for American world
domination.
Nothing unusual in that. It is and has been the baseline political credo of all American
politicians since Monroe, at least, up to and including Trump, Hillary, Sanders, and Warren.
The surest way to the graveyard for political hopefuls is to be seen or slimed as "soft on
defense".
The fact that actual defense of the country has not been necessary since the War of 1812,
and is not now, and that the hoax only exists to suck our national wealth into the War Machine
has not been effectively articulated. The idea, false to its core, that America must spend
astronomic sums to "defend" its polity and its people has taken on the character of revealed
religion in a country where multitudes believe in angels and Endtimes.
This appropriation of the wealth of the people by the corporate forces of imperial murder
has not come suddenly. Oceans of innocent blood have drenched the world from our military
violence since Quincy Adams said of America that "she goes not abroad in search of monsters to
destroy".
World War II proved to Eisenhower's Military/Industrial/Congressio nal Complex the
obscene profit to be had from annihilating people, cities, and countries. Schumpeter
defined the War Machine far better than Ike did: "Created by the wars that required it, it now
creates the wars it requires."
Since 1945, America, by then firmly in its grasp, has relentlessly scoured the world behind
the gross and cynical lie of defense of freedom, to foment, ignite, and expand the brutal,
devastating, shock-and-awe gorefests the War Machine has to have. That Korea, Vietnam, and the
catalog of Middle Eastern horrors the US perpetrated were failures on a cosmic scale except as
cash cows for the War Machine has been of little concern to the most somnolent, propagandized,
passive public since that of the Third Reich. These national mass murder atrocities were sold
to Americans as defense of our indispensable "homeland" from barbarian, sub-human "others".
Some, such as Al Qaida were, absurdly, our Deep State's own creations.
It is commonly said and believed that the American public is not at fault for its profound,
intractable moral cowardice since War Machine swag has kept them in a combination insane
asylum, crack house, and human zoo. How else could they have lived with the intolerably bitter
truth that their country is the serial violator and exterminator, the voracious destroyer, of
so many millions of simple, guiltless, victim peoples?
This is where John McCain and his ilk comes in. Exploiting his bogus and accidental
credentials, he became a pitch man for the massive con of American purity and idealism as a
front for imperialist greed, and made a career promoting and lionizing the War Machine as it
raped the peoples of earth and robbed Americans blind in pursuit of its cancerous
enrichment.
Still, McCain was only a cracked and bent tool. He was always an effect, a symptom; never a
cause. The real driver of the War Machine is heartless, soulless, predatory Capitalism. Its
credo is exploitation of everything to maximize profit. In a closed system, competing capital
conflicts, collides. Greed eclipses reason and war results. The greatest capital concentration
requires the most terrible military, in which violence displaces conscience. There never has
been, and never can be, Capitalism without war.
Indoctrinated, baffled, saddled with a cesspool Congress and the deeply stupid, vulgarian
Trump, centrist Americans, desperate for refuge, rush mindlessly to the new War Party,
Democrats eager to use McCain's $700 billion dollar hogwallow "defense" bill, to insult and
provoke China and Russia, and to attack Iran. Hubris, false bravado, and panic rule; nowhere is
there self knowledge and with it, long overdue, sorrow, regret, and shame.
Karmic retribution--the pitiless hand of Nemesis--is all America deserves.
Paul Edwards is a writer and film-maker in Montana. He can be reached at: [email protected]
@82 There is some logic to the Iranians fielding a jet fighter of any sort, even if it is
based on a relic of the 1970s.
An Israeli campaign against Iranian nuclear sites is going to involve F-15 and F-16 jets
loaded to the gills with big-arse bombs. Those will be unable to dogfight even a relic like
an F-5 unless they drop that ordinance.
If that is all those Iranians do that then they will have achieved their purpose.
Alternatively, the Israelis could use fighter escorts but then you have to consider that
each escort represents one less bomb-laden F-16 (or, put another way, twice as many
sorties).
Simply put: Absent any Iranian jet fighters then the Israelis can commit ALL of their jets
to the task of bombing Iranian targets, and do so from the very beginning. But once Iranian
fighters are in the mix then the job becomes much harder: the Israelis either have to take
out those jets first before committing to a bombing campaign, or they have to commit half
their force to escort duties from the very start.
Sure, SU-35s would be much better, but an F-5 is still way better than nothing.
You seem ignorant about economic issues. For example, when it comes to natural gas market,
European countries are not in the same boat. Britain and Spain import virtually no gas from
Russia. These countries built lots LNG terminals and import from Qatar.
Germany, Italy and France have a well-diversified supply from multiple sources. The
countries that are truly dependent on Russia are in ex-communist Eastern Europe. They still
rely on a network of pipelines built by USSR, and would go into energy crisis if Russia
suddenly ended supply.
There is no Chinese FDI in Belarus, and in Russia it accounts for 1% of the total FDI.
Nobody is learning Chinese in Russia or Belarus. I don't know what you're smoking.
Bombing it induced a humanitarian crisis in the coastal region where Gaddafi's power was
concentrated, contributed to a wave of refugees, and let the cities which supported him know
they were not impregnable, that their weaknesses were being exploited. The stupid cover
story, solemnly intoned by talking heads who believe their listeners are almost too stupid to
breathe without prompting and assistance, was because cutting the civilian population off
from water in order to force capitulation is a war crime.
So, the metamorphosis is done. President Trump has finally, fully, shed his 2016 Campaign
'skin' of loosely imagining a grand foreign policy bargain that could be the foundation for
"WORLD PEACE, nothing less!" as Trump tweeted when imposing sanctions on Iran. We wrote, on 3
August,
quoting Prof Russell-Mead, that Trump's '8 May metamorphosis' (the US exit from JCPOA),
constituted a step-change of direction: one that reflected "[Trump's] instincts, telling him
that most Americans are anything but eager, for a "post-American" world. Trump's supporters
don't want long wars, "but neither are they amenable to a stoic acceptance of national
decline".
It all began, very precisely, with Trump's '8 May metamorphosis' - which is to say, to the
moment when the US president definitively took the Israeli 'line': exiting from the Iranian
nuclear accord, deciding to sanction and to lay siege to Iran's economy, and when he endorsed
the (old, never materialized) idea of a Sunni 'Arab NATO', led by Riyadh, that would confront
Shi'a Iran.
In practical terms, Trump's Art of the Deal geo-strategy, as we now see, became thus
transformed into the search for radical US leverage (through weaponising a strong dollar and
tariffs) -- looking always to the means to force the capitulation of the counter-party. This
cannot be rightly termed negotiation: It is rather, more as if the script has been lifted from
The Godfather.
But, when Trump unreservedly took the Israeli (or, more properly the Netanyahu) 'line', he
assumed to himself all 'the baggage' that comes with it, too. The 1996 Clean Break document,
prepared by a study group led by Richard Perle for Binjamin Netanyahu, meshed the Israeli and
US neocon camps into one. And they are still umbilically linked. 'Team Trump' now is filled with neocons who
are unreserved Iran-haters. And Sheldon Adelson (a major Trump donor, a patron of Netanyahu,
and the instigator for the US embassy move to Jerusalem), consequently has been able to implant
his ally, John Bolton (a neocon), as Trump's chief foreign policy advisor.
The Art of the Deal has effectively been neocon-ised into a tool for enlarging American
power – and there is nothing of earlier 'mutual advantage' to be heard of, or to be seen,
these days.
And now, this week, the metamorphosis has been cemented. After the Helsinki summit between
Trump and President Putin, there seemed to have opened a small window of opportunity –
for co-operation between the two states - to return stability to Syria. Many hoped that from
this small terrain of tentative Syria co-ordination, some lessening of tensions between the US
and Russia, might have found fertile soil.
Trump said some positive things; the area around Dera'a, in south Syria, was smoothly
cleared of insurgents, and was retaken by the Syrian army. Israel did not demur in having the
Syrian army as their near neighbours. But then co-operation rather obviously stalled. It is not
clear why, but perhaps this was the first sign of power fracturing apart in Washington. The
Helsinki 'understandings' somehow were melting away (though military-to-military co-ordination
continued).
Putin dispatched the head of the Russian Security Council to a meeting with Bolton in Geneva
on 23 August, to explore whether there was still any possibility for joint co-operation; and,
if so, was such activity politically 'viable'. But before even that bilateral meeting with a
Russian envoy could be held, Bolton - speaking from Jerusalem (from what was billed as a
'roll-back Iran' brainstorming with PM Netanyahu) - warned that the United States would respond
"very strongly" if forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad were to use chemical
weapons in the offensive to retake Idlib province (expected to commence early September),
claiming that the US had intelligence of the intent to use such weapons in Idlib.
The Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, however, said on August 25 "Militants of Hay'at
Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), [trained by a named British company], are preparing to stage a chemical
attack in northern Syria that will be used as a pretext for a new missile strike by the U.S.,
the UK and France - on facilities of the Damascus government". Russian officials said they had
full intelligence on this false flag operation.
What is clear is that since early August the US has been moving a task force (including the
USS The Sullivans and USS Ross) into position that would be able to strike Syria, as well as
positioning air assets into the US airbase in Qatar. French President Emmanuel Macron too has
declared that France was also ready to launch new strikes against Syria, in case of a chemical
weapons attack there.
The Turkish newspaper Hurriyetsays that the
US military is laying the groundwork to close the airspace over northern Syria. US military
freighters are reported to have transported radar systems to the city of Kobanî,
controlled by the Kurdish militia, and to the US military base in Al-Shaddadah in southern
al-Hasakah. Hurriyet claims that the US plans to use these complexes to establish a no-fly zone
over the territory between Manbij in Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor. (This claim however, is
unconfirmed)
Evidently, Russia takes this US threat seriously (it has deployed 20 naval vessels into the
E. Mediterranean, off Syria). And Iran evidently takes the threat seriously, too. The Iranian
Defence Minister on Sunday made a rapid unscheduled visit to Damascus in order to agree a
tri-partite (Russia, Syria Iran) response to any US attack on Syria.
Then, in the wake of Bolton's chemical weapons claims, and the pre-positioning of US
guided-missile vessels close to Syria, Petrushev and Bolton met.
The meeting was a disaster. Bolton insisted that Petrushev admit to Russian interference in
the US elections. Petrushev refused. Trump said we have 'secret' evidence. Petrushev retorted
if that were so, what was the purpose of demanding admission. Bolton said effectively: We
sanction you anyway.
Well not surprisingly, the two were unable to agree on Iranian withdrawal from Syria (which
Petrushev put on the table). Bolton not only said flatly 'no', but afterwards went public with
the Russian initiative to talk possible Iran withdrawal – thus killing it, and killing
the initiative as a gambit to leverage further diplomacy. Even the customary, bland,
uninformative, final communiqué that is usual in such circumstances, could not be
agreed.
The message seems clear: any Helsinki understandings on Syria are dead. And the US is
prepared it seems (they have actually moved assets into position) to strike Syria. Why? What is
going on?
One obvious element is, that until now, Trump's hand in all this is not visible. Now,
power appears to have fractured in Washington with regard to Middle East policy. The
neocons are in the lead. This is very significant, since the slender pillar on which Trump's
rapport with President Putin had been built, was the prospect of US-Russian co-operation over
Syria. And that hat seems, now, to be a dead letter.
Lawrence Wilkerson, now a professor, but formerly the Chief of Staff to Secretary of State
Colin Powell during the infamous Saddam Hussein's 'weapons of mass destruction' episode
says it 'cold'
:
"It has to do with the return of the Neoconservatives (Neocons) what is happening today, as
Trump is preoccupied increasingly with the considerable, ever-growing challenges to him
personally and to his presidency institutionally, is the re-entry into critical positions in
the government of these people, the people who gave America the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Even
those many of them who declared "Never Trump" -- as arch-Neocon Eliot Cohen summed it up -- are
salivating at the prospect of carrying out their foreign and security policy - while Trump
essentially boils in his own corrupt juices.
"A vanguard, of course, is already in our government to beckon, comfort, and re-establish
others of their type. John Bolton as national security advisor to the president leads this pack
though he's not, strictly speaking, a card-carrying Neocon
"Presently, their first and most identifiable target is the unfinished business -- which
they largely commenced -- with Syria and Iran, Israel's two most serious potential threats. If
the Neocons got their way -- and they are remarkably astute at getting their way -- it would
mean a reignited war in Syria and a new war with Iran, as well as increased support for the
greatest state sponsor of terrorism on earth, Saudi Arabia".
Bolton, Pompeo and the neocons have made it abundantly clear that they – at least
– have not abandoned 'regime change' in Syria, as their objective - and they remain set
on delivering somehow a strategic setback to Iran (Bolton has said that sanctions alone, on
their own, and without Iran suffering some extra strategic blow, would be insufficient to alter
Iranian 'malign behaviour').
Whether or not Mattis and Votel are fully on board with Bolton's "very strong" military
reprisal on Syria threat (for alleged chemical weapons use) is not clear. (Mattis succeeded in
mitigating the last missile strike by Trump on Syria, and to co-ordinating with Moscow a 'nil
response' to Trump's Tomahawk salvo). Will it be the same this time if the US again makes an
unsubstantiated (and later unproven) claim of chemical weapons use by the Syrian
government?
Will Israel join in any attack – using the pre-text of its self-awarded 'right' to
attack Iranian forces anywhere in Syria? Given the new strategic 'fact' of the Iranian Defence
minister's 'surprise' Sunday visit to Damascus to sign a common resolve on countering
any such attack on Syria. Will Netayahu 'bet' on the Russians not responding to hostile Israeli
aircraft entering Syrian airspace?
Who will blink first? Netanyahu? Or will Trump surface from his domestic tribulations
sufficiently, to take notice and to say
'no' ?
Whatever happens, Presidents Putin and Xi can 'read the runes' of this affair – which
is to say that President Trump's highest officials remain committed, openly, or through 'false
flags', to defend the American 'global order'. These officials share a disdain for the Obama
administration's retrenchment and retreat. They want to arrest, and even truncate the rise of
America's rivals, whilst restoring to their former position, those former pillars to U.S. world
power: i.e. America's military, financial, technological and energy, dominance.
Russia is trying to defuse the critical situation by sharing their intelligence with
Washington that Tahrir al-Sham (formerly known as al-Nusra), was plotting a chemical attack
that would then be misrepresented as another 'atrocity' committed by the 'Syrian regime'. Eight
canisters of chlorine have been delivered to a village near Jisr al-Shughur city, and a
specially trained group of militants, prepped by a British security company, have also arrived
in the area, to imitate a rescue operation to save the civilian 'victims'. Militants plan to
use child hostages in the staged incident, Russian officials say .
But will Washington listen? From the moment that the Syrian or the Iranian 'regime' is
subjected to a judgement of moral delinquency (irrespective of evidence) – in the context
of America's claim to its own Manifest (moral) Destiny – these 'regimes' become
transformed from being a temporary, relative adversaries, into an absolute enemy. For, when one
is upholding humanity's 'destiny' and seeking "WORLD PEACE, nothing less!", how can one wage
war - unless it is in the name of a self-evident good. What is afoot is
not attacking an adversary, but punishing and killing the guilty.
Faced with the radical moral devaluation of the 'Other' across western media; and - on the
other hand - with the virtue signaling of western good consciousness, can Russia's rational
presentations hope to carry weight? The only fact that might just weigh in the balance is the
threat that Russia will use its missile arsenal assembling in the East Mediterranean. But what
then?
"... Washington – does not give a fuck about the economic well-being of Ukrainians, does not have even the brotherly connection
of being of the same ethnic group, and for so long as Ukraine is willing to suffer being poor in silence, for that long it will not
be a problem for its new 'partners'. ..."
A few are beginning to wake up to the reality that snatching Ukraine away from Russia was never about prosperity and security
for its people, and all about destabilizing what the west perceived as the quickening of an unwelcome regional influence, and
curbing it. The EU – and its string-puller, Washington – does not give a fuck about the economic well-being of Ukrainians,
does not have even the brotherly connection of being of the same ethnic group, and for so long as Ukraine is willing to suffer
being poor in silence, for that long it will not be a problem for its new 'partners'.
Nationalist Nazi nutjobs are always proposing the border be sealed ever-tighter, if it were feasible to build a stainless-steel
wall between Ukraine and Russia which reached to low earth orbit, they would vote for it. But the Great Wall Of Yatsenyuk never
materialized, he's enjoying his Florida condo, and there is no practical way to limit commerce between the two countries while
the people are increasingly motivated toward its continuing.
Ukraine is on the edge of collapse, and I don't think any force on earth can prevent its sliding over the edge. The west is
not going to pony up the $170 Billion or so it would take to rescue it; if it did so, Porky and his minions would steal most of
it for themselves, and Russia is unlikely to ever permit again the degree of fraternal closeness that existed between the two
countries, since it is clear it would take only another western intervention to render it once again an untrustworthy spoiler.
Once Nord Stream II is built, Ukraine will have lost its leverage and will be of no further significant value to the western purveyors
of destabilization.
More such core realization is necessary to prevent Ukraine from officially blaming its collapse on anyone but itself. The government
will try that course, naturally, and you don't need to be able to see very far into the future to know that it is Russia who will
be blamed, despite plenty of empirical evidence that Russian investors and Ukrainian refugees working in Russia were all that
kept it alive before the end. But in order that Ukrainians know in their heart of hearts that their government stepped on its
own dick over and over, and that they passively failed to correct it, there needs to be more such public confession. I can show
you plenty of analysis, in English, published before things went pear-shaped in the dying moments of 2013, which proposed that
severing trade relationships with Russia as the nationalists insisted would cost Ukraine just about exactly what the Rada now
says will happen, years too late. But they got one thing right – Ukraine and Russia cannot be brothers, not even friends, for
so long as Ukraine harbours that nutty nationalist element.
Give western Ukraine to Poland, and encourage all the nationalists
to go to the new paradise, and ensure that happens. They can bore the Poles with their raptures about Kievan Rus. Then maybe some
relationship could be salvaged.
This war is tremendous waste of resources on both sides with no clear
victory in sight. Killing of individual commanders does not change the
strategic situation. It just invites retaliation.
Although the war did increase the coherence of the Ukrainian society
(like any war does) the price is way too high.
Zakharchenko was a soldier and knew the risks, many others are ready to take his
place.
VV Putin could have occupied the whole so-called ukraine in the same manner he occupied
Crimea, even better, he could've sent volunteers to shoot CIA and Mossad agents during the
maidan events.Lots of volunteers.
He didnt.
Please consider that ukraine project is an infinite black hole sucking money and resources
(agents, weapons, influence) from the Hegemon, at the same time bringing him absolutely
nothing.
Especially the Debaltsevo cauldron was painful, as lots of modern artillery control gear
was lost in pristine state and sent directly to Moscow.Without considering the humiliation of
German and Canadian mercenaries being caught and released for indeterminate price.
In exchange the Hegemon learned that Russian artillery is still as dangerous as in '45, at
Saur Mogila whole battalions of Ukrainian army disappeared literally in minutes when caught
by Buratino fire.
Perhaps some remember the shellshocked Ukrainian infantry lieutenant, when interviewed by
CNN freshly out of Ilovaisk, screaming into the mic that *two meters, you must dig two
meters, or you die!* , well-intentioned American female reporter decidedly confused.
The show will go on until Hegemon decides that he had enough, and gives green light to the
ukrainian army to coup the govt, exterminate the nazi battalions, and begin a very slow and
painful ascension back into a semblance of normality first, then re-unification with the
Motherland next.
As usual, the most vulnerable, old people, women, workers will suffer the most, and the
guilty will go unpunished.
"Jeremy Corbyn has acknowledged Labour has a "real problem" with antisemitism as he
attempted to defuse the row engulfing his party."
Well, yes, "real problems," but not what you might think from a quick glance at the
headline.
The real problem is people using the accusation as a cheap attack, a way to libel a decent
man and influence a party, and doing so regularly over a considerable period of time.
Where was all this "anti-Semitism" hiding in Tony Blair's day? Or even after? It just
suddenly exploded into existence under Corbyn? Like a parody of Athena suddenly erupting from
the head of Zeus? No reasonable person can believe that. It's a bizarre notion. No, what has
changed since Blair's day is simply this.
A leader who helped kill about a million people and destroy a society, lying continuously
about what he was doing, and received the Israel Peace Prize plus many handsome sinecures for
his efforts, stopped being leader. Another man, a decent man who is fair-minded about the
Middle East, as he is about many other matters, became leader. So, all stops were pulled by
interested parties in doing something about it.
He's been attacked from the beginning. He had to win his leadership vote twice. The attacks,
here or there, seem to fade a bit, then, wham!, they're back, this recent round perhaps the
worst ever.
Well, you can have whatever kind of country you like, but this way of doing things is shabby
and dishonest and can produce nothing good.
Much as some of Theresa May's incompetent efforts and unwarranted attacks, all damaging and
utterly without evidence.
As a young man, I always thought of Britain as more honorable political society than the
United States with its folks like Senator Joseph McCarthy or FBI Director J Edgar Hoover or
blood-drenched liar, Lyndon Johnson.
But either I was naive or Britain has changed, and changed greatly for the worse
_________________________
Response to a comment, "But Jeremy Corbyn has said that Jews, uniquely, can't be trusted
to define anti-Semitism and that he knows best":
That's just plain dishonest.
He said no such thing.
But your using that claim as an argument is symbolic of this whole shabby business.
In the US, it is amazing how few young Americans know anything about the Vietnam War, a war
in which America conducted a holocaust killing 3 million Vietnamese, many in the most horrible
fashion as with napalm.
It was also a time that nearly divided America like a new Civil War.
Polls find few young Americans know much about it.
___________________________
Response to a comment:
Please, don't forget, the USSR lost 27,000,000 in the Hitler invasion.
The loss of men caused a huge demographic deficit.
Also, alcoholism in the USSR, in the 1970s, was widespread and desperate. Many men died
prematurely.
But the suffering from the collapse of the USSR did a lot of damage.
_________________________
Response to a comment:
I wasn't labeling Russians.
It is just a fact about the drinking, and it did shorten average lifespan.
Some of the conditions in the Soviet era could be pretty grim. You've heard the joke about
"They pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work?"
Americans are indeed drug addicts. They consume about as many drugs as the rest of countries
together.
There is a whole range of this activity from cocaine at wealthy parties to people in the
streets and gutters consuming God-knows-what.
It's American demand that drives the awful drug cartels of Mexico, but Americans never give
that a thought.
In a number of American cities recently, the murder rates among blacks have been dramatic,
and it involves competitive gangs selling drugs.
The price of some drugs has dropped on the streets and there is over-supply. This has a lot
to do with America's pointless invasion of Afghanistan.
Growing opium poppies had been virtually halted by the Taliban government. Then America
invaded, and it has been "let her rip" with a flood of drugs.
This always happens in such regions with America. It happened too in the Vietnam War. Many
believe CIA makes off-the-books cash by working with drugs in such places. It was said Air
America, a then covert private airline serving CIA used to fly loads out. I don't doubt it at
all.
By the way, in early America, heavy drinking was very common. Rum from the Caribbean and
home-made whisky.
And it is said that Britain's industrial revolution was fueled by cheap gin for the
workers.
_______________________________
Response to a comment about the need for education:
You get no argument from me about education.
Trouble is, as with so many of society's institutions, public education – especially
in the United States – is highly political.
Many subjects and many ways of talking about those subjects are dangerous territory.
And what could be more stifling than the political correctness of local school boards, state
education departments, and the teachers' unions?
It's amazing when anything gets done beyond the basics.
With all these forces at work, in many locations of the US, public education likely has
little more latitude than in the good old USSR. Religion? Hands off. Political corruption?
Hands off. The delirious effects of plutocracy? Hands off. The political corruption of money?
Hands off. Why all the American wars? Hands off.
I don't see a lot of hope in general from education, although there always are exceptional
teachers who manage somehow. I had a few.
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MICHAEL KREIGER IN RUSSIA INSIDER
"People Aren't Having Intelligent Conversations Anymore, They're Just Yelling at Each
Other"
I agree with the tone of the article.
But the United States has never been a place where what the French call "politesse"
featured. It is a myth for anyone to think so.
Going back to President Andrew Jackson, who horsewhipped an opponent and who regularly
challenged men to duels, this plainly is the fact. Yet note that his image is honored today on
the twenty-dollar bill.
You can never forget all those years of slavery – Jackson owned gangs of them (As did
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and others) – which entailed public auctions of slaves
stripped of their clothes, including women who were sometimes bought by lonely rural farmers
for "company."
Slavery existed for the best part of a century in the formal United States, but of course it
went back long before that in order to build the colonial society that would become strong
enough to seek independence.
The culture and undertone of much of America were heavily colored for the future by this
pervasive and poisonous institution. It was definitely was not one that encouraged
conversations among either camps, supporters and opponents. There were violent disagreements
and brawls by politicians over much of the era.
The fact that slave owners quite typically slept with pistols and/or hunting knives under
their pillows or within easy reach, such was the constant paranoid fear of slave rebellion,
explains a great deal about America's violent gun culture down to this day and its relations
between black and white citizens.
Slavery, de facto, continued for about a century after the Civil War (1861-5) in the South's
sharecropper system combined with Jim Crow Laws. You know, even when Franklin Roosevelt was
President in the 1930s, lynching in town squares was common. It was even a practice, in parts
of the South, to hold family picnics on the grass at a lynching.
Then for much of the same period, we had America's treatment of Native people. Again, early
on, the honored Andrew Jackson featured. He signed a bill called the Indian Removal Act which
was to uproot tens of thousands of peaceful Natives belonging to about half a dozen tribes like
the Cherokee in America's Southeast, people who in many cases practiced agriculture, and drive
them with the American Cavalry to what was then the remote west, Oklahoma Territory, a land
that had no relationship to the places like Florida whey had lived and farmed for a long time.
It was quite a different climate and physical geography into which they were unceremoniously
dumped.
This forcible removal, named the Trail of Tears (1830s), caused the deaths of several
thousand by hunger, exhaustion, and exposure. This was a big number in those days when military
battles losses were often counted in hundreds. Their farms and settlements and resources in the
Southeast were greedily seized by white Americans.
Years later, as American population grew and pushed West, we had the Indian Wars, which
involved the American Calvary's again driving Natives off their lands. Since these were not
mainly settled farmers but migrating hunters on horseback, the tactics used against them were
much harsher. Whole villages were burned down and all the people killed, just as though they
were packs of wild animals being subdued. It was viewed about the same way as farmers shooting
coyotes or wolves.
We have old photos of things like a Cavalry Trooper posed proudly with his boot on a man's
dead body, resembling an image from the film, "Planet of Apes," and of long trench-like mass
graves into which rows of bodies were flung, something resembling smaller, rural versions of
Auschwitz.
As America continued to expand and drive westward, there was a constant sequence of such
violent events, including the appalling and unwarranted Mexican War (1846-8) intended only to
steal land from Mexico.
Still later in the 1890s, we had America's seizure of the Hawaiian Islands, a place which
had its own royalty and an established society. The Hawaiians were overwhelmingly opposed to
Washington's rule and sent a delegation to submit a petition signed by virtually everyone on
the islands. No one in Washington would even speak to them. They were ignored and treated with
contempt.
The ruthlessness and crudity weren't limited to stealing land and killing natives. Americans
practiced the kind of wholesale theft of what today is called "intellectual property" from
Europe. Many mechanisms and machines, as for farming, were purchased in Europe, shipped to
America, and then copied. This was done with anything you care to mention, even books. Charles
Dickens got quite bitter about the way a new book of his would appear shortly after publication
in London as a separate edition in Boston. He never saw a penny in royalties. It is ironic that
today America feels so self-righteous about the Chinese, for example, in this regard. All they
are seeing is their own history repeated.
Well, that's just a part of the story, but a surprising number of Americans have no idea of
the brutality involved in America's growth. There was mighty little civility ever. America was,
and remains, in many respects a raw place. G B Shaw joked that it went from barbarism to
decadence without ever passing through civilization. The fact that we still laugh at the joke
tells us something of its sharp truth.
A lot of what people complain of today in political discussion reflects some effects of the
Internet. All the ugly thoughts and words that once were reserved for the streets and alleys
now are put on view for anyone to share, and they do share them. And believe me, having grown
up in Chicago in the 1950s, there was plenty of ugly stuff around. There was just no way to
broadcast it, except graffiti, and there was plenty of that.
Look at Trump. You simply could not find a ruder, more careless-mouthed man if you tried,
and here he is, as President, constantly sending out thoughtless, libelous, and brutal words.
Maybe the incivility of much of the Internet helped pave the way for acceptance of his
record-setting public crudity.
Candidates for President were once limited by something so simple as having been divorced.
Although those kinds of limits were a social pretense, representing a lot of hypocrisy and
dishonesty, we have dropped the pretense. And we have dropped the pretense about the rudeness
and crude expression that was always there in private.
In many ways, Trump represents a large portion of contemporary American society. The words
and thoughts are not new, but the method of widespread transmission is, as is the ready
willingness to use it. And note that he is not ignored, by the mainline press or anyone else.
His stupidities if unreported would have far less effect, but his words are reported and
commented upon and copied daily.
I think it probably is creating something of a downward spiral in the public tone of
discussion as people become accustomed to nasty language, ugly thoughts, and prejudice openly
broadcast on the Internet, even by the President of the country. Experience suggests that any
practice which becomes much repeated, one way or another, tends to drive things even further
along. New norms keep being set.
By that, I'm not advocating any form of censorship, something to which I'm utterly opposed,
but I am making it clear that we are unavoidably into a new era of public discussion, although
I think "discussion" a wholly inadequate word, carrying, as it does, the connotation of calm
and rational exchange of ideas.
Indeed, the whole discussion of notions like "fake news," a Trump favorite with its
pejorative and accusatory tone, is muddled and meaningless since all sides in the debate
constantly engage in lying, distortion, and hypocrisy. That goes for The New York Times and
Washington Post as much as it does for an outfit like Breitbart News.
Everyone wants to get their views "out there," with little authentic regard for facts.
Outfits like The Times still maintain a façade of tone and claim of respectability, but
behind the façade, they have an immensely long history of dishonesty and promoting ugly
establishment interests, supporting wars and coups and aggression and imperialism in polite
words. I actually do not find that more attractive than what we are getting with the Internet.
They are both repulsive for anyone who wants to understand some truth.
And I stress that the nastiness and brutality have always been there as an integral part of
American culture, only lacking a mechanism of direct communication to large numbers and perhaps
being tamped down somewhat by a desire to seem a bit less crude in public. An awareness that
others in the world did not engage in quite the same way and responded badly to it may have
played a role. But such niceties are lost today.
Traditional religious values may have played a role too in tamping down the public tone, but
not only is traditional religion declining rather quickly, a good deal of what remains in
America has morphed into bizarre forms with preachers in some cases having parishioners bring
their guns to church services or preaching in fervent support of the kind of absolutely brutal
violence we see in Israel. Ditto for invoking God's blessings on "our troops" as they illegally
invade yet another country and bomb more women and children.
Actually, the traditional press used to act as something of a filtering mechanism. A great
deal of ugly stuff never made it out for anyone's attention, but it was in fact still there in
private. That same impulse to maintain an appearance of civility brought many dishonesties to
journalism.
Americans never even knew facts like Roosevelt being wheel chair-bound or Kennedy being
anything but a family man or Nixon, around the time of his resignation, putting his wife into
the hospital with a serious beating.
And likewise, they never knew the lies and most of the horror of Korea or Vietnam or Iraq.
The absolutely massive levels of brutality, as the fact that one-fifth of the entire population
of North Korea was exterminated by three years of American carpet bombing. Or that America left
Vietnam having killed 3 million souls with more carpet bombing and napalm and early cluster
bombs, also leaving the land packed with landmines and soaked with Agent Orange to keep killing
and crippling for decades.
Even earlier, there was journalism's lies about things like "Remember the Maine" in the
deliberately-engineered Spanish-American War, a false slogan which made its way into American
grade school history books as fact.
The Internet puts much into plain view, but it also does so with a new confusion, a chaotic
situation in which ugly fact and ugly myth and deliberate propaganda all come jumbled together.
Only people who carefully read and assess and balance realize its potential for communicating
truth, but such people always anywhere are a minority.
The chaotic nature of so much "discussion" in America is, just like the country's brutality
and crudeness, simply a part of America's heritage.
__________________________
Response some days later to someone who wrote a long and angry comment:
There's an old saying you might profitably make note of.
It's usually a good idea to know the words to the music before you get up to sing.
Nothing worse than using a statistic you've picked up somewhere to attempt characterizing a
situation you clearly have no understanding of.
Only a few percent of Americans were slaveholders?
My God, it is only a few percent of any population that are criminal, but they influence us
all every day of our lives.
They make police forces necessary. They make courts necessary. And prison systems and guards
and wardens. They make an entire criminal legal system necessary with criminal lawyers, judges,
juries, parole boards, the acts of politicians legislating, etc. Their acts fill our newspapers
and broadcasting, causing much fear and upset in many ordinary people. Their acts are the topic
of endless private and public discussion.
And just so slavery, perhaps even more so. I've read a good deal of serious history of the
United states. Slavery and all of its related issues colored and affected everything from the
way the Constitution was written to import laws to the courts and political arguments. It
affected the careers of politicians, it affected law enforcement, North and South, it affected
the courts and their decisions. It affected attitudes of people. Its pervasive and noxious
influence never went away, having absolutely no connection with the number of slaveholders.
A person of any understanding knows that this is the case for a great many parts of human
affairs. Today, we have the economic issue of the extremely lopsided distribution of wealth and
income and the "one-percent." And I suppose you think they do not affect almost everything in
society because of their small number? Its politics and the candidates of its political
parties? Its laws? Its wars and turmoil? Its taxation system? The government's treatment of
those less fortunate?
As for Trump, do you really think the approach of some corporate business people should
characterize government? The ways of Google or Apple or Amazon or John D. Rockefeller or Henry
Ford? There are many reasons for thinking that is a terrible idea. Such people already have
inordinate influence on government and its policies., and astute observers on both the Left and
the Right agree.
Running a company and running a government are two very different things. Different skills.
Different understanding. Different expectations. And working under different sets of rules.
Trump is an exceedingly ignorant and impatient man, and he did not even write "The Art of
the Deal," of which he told us he is so proud. He paid a ghostwriter. And that ghostwriter has
now spoken out several times about his private observations of Trump. He is an appalling man
who listens to no one, is totally obsessed with his own opinions, and is rude and unpleasant.
He, of course, only confirms the views of other outsiders who have worked near Trump and
written about it.
And do you really think it is the job of a head of government to publicly insult various of
its citizens? That is the behavior of an angry child, and a not very pleasant child. He is
supposed to be president of all the people, not just some. Imagine Putin doing this in Russia?
No, Putin only speaks to the kind of matters a President should speak to. He has what we used
to call "class," a quality utterly missing in Trump. You, know, some of his cheap-bully
remarks, here or there, might seem funny at first to some because we've never heard their like
before, but they do in fact lasting and long-term damage to society.
Again, the number of lynchings, which you obviously regard as small and try to minimize?
What an asinine statistic to quote. It addresses nothing but your own ego. I am well familiar
with it, but it has nothing to do with what I said.
By the way, from some of your remarks you show that you did not even understand what I
wrote. Hard to know why you would want to comment then, but one detects in your tone that same
Trumpian quality, a person ready to open his mouth, and loudly, without ever pausing to
think.
"... "But he needs to move quickly and decisively now" ..."
"... This fixation over anti-Semitism, always without any effort to provide proof of anything, borders on the days of Stalin. ..."
"... If Stalin was looking for "wreckers of the Revolution," as he did every once in a while, the phrase being his code words for a new purge, and you happened to be one in the eyes of your local NKVD detachment – perhaps for as little cause as the their needing to achieve their quota of wreckers this week – you were in deadly trouble. ..."
"... Corbyn is hated in Israel because he is fair-minded on Israel and Palestine, and that these days is simply not allowed. Actually, true liberals and the Left are hated widely in Israel because they stand for traditional Western values of human and democratic rights. ..."
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY MATTHEW NORMAN IN THE INDEPENDENT
"But he needs to move quickly and decisively now"
Move on what?
Nothing inappropriate was said or done, but someone has to "move" on it?
There is no anti-Semitism in the words. None. People were called "Trump fanatics." The
people happen to be Jewish, something they themselves continually draw attention to in their
unwarranted attacks on Corbyn.
This fixation over anti-Semitism, always without any effort to provide proof of anything,
borders on the days of Stalin.
If Stalin was looking for "wreckers of the Revolution," as he did every once in a while, the
phrase being his code words for a new purge, and you happened to be one in the eyes of your
local NKVD detachment – perhaps for as little cause as the their needing to achieve their
quota of wreckers this week – you were in deadly trouble.
That truly is the level of so much of this name-calling reverse-prejudice filth against a
decent man, Jeremy Corbyn.
I have never seen such ugliness, and I do understand the reason for it.
Corbyn is hated in Israel because he is fair-minded on Israel and Palestine, and that these
days is simply not allowed. Actually, true liberals and the Left are hated widely in Israel
because they stand for traditional Western values of human and democratic rights.
"... "The 'Magnitsky Trio' (John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Ben Cardin) Pushes for War With Russia With New Sanctions ..."
"... "The proposed sanctions by the Graham bill are so insane that even the Treasury department thinks they are a bad idea.' ..."
"... Israel, assisted by its very powerful lobby in America, was the driving force in the set of Neocon Wars that have burned through the Middle East. ..."
"... And I strongly suspect, given the intensity of his all efforts for Israel, that he was caught once in a Mossad "honey trap" and given to understand that very compromising photos of him existed. ..."
"... His constituents back home – conservative Southern Baptists and the like – of course, are not aware of his sexual proclivities, so pictures would make a serious threat. ..."
"... This kind of thing would not at all new to Washington. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, also a closet gay and indeed a cross-dresser according to one reliable biographer, is said to have been compromised the same way by the American Mafia, something which explains his long reluctance to act against Mafia interests, allowing them to flourish while he chased after largely non-existent communists across America. ..."
"The 'Magnitsky Trio' (John McCain, Lindsay Graham and Ben Cardin) Pushes for War With
Russia With New Sanctions
"The proposed sanctions by the Graham bill are so insane that even the Treasury
department thinks they are a bad idea.'
I think in many such analyses about American-Russian strained relations an important actor
is left out, and that actor is America's strange Middle East quasi-colony, Israel.
Israel, assisted by its very powerful lobby in America, was the driving force in the set
of Neocon Wars that have burned through the Middle East.
In order to have the kind of highly aggressive America represented by those wars, much in
Israel's favor, effort has to be made to keep antagonisms high. And Russia is inevitably viewed
as a barrier to an aggressive America, no matter how friendly Russian-Israeli relations are,
and Putin does a very good job of trying to keep good relations.
But, still, while Netanyahu and his gang smile for the cameras after meetings, their
deep-down drives are in conflict with Russia in some fundamental ways that cannot be made to
disappear with handshakes or smiles. A highly aggressive America serves Israel in its own
aggressive regional ambitions as well as in vague matters as "security," the term likely used
by its lobby in America.
Russia has her own experience with these drives in the unhappy induced-coup in Ukraine,
something in which that charming Neocon from the State Department, Barbara Nuland, famous for
bragging that America spent $5 billion on its Ukraine operation and also for once shouting
within earshot of others, "Fuck Europe!" played an important role.
The anti-Russian crowd in Washington – very much including the Neocons, who are part
and parcel of the total multi-fronted Israel Lobby in Washington, many of the Neocons holding
(or having held, as Nuland did) influential government posts – won something for their
cause whichever way events in Ukraine went.
They gained either a large country, hostile to Russia right on its border, one with good
American connections, to harass and worry Russia, or with the outcome we see, Ukraine having
made a fool of itself in falling apart through incompetence and pig-headedness, they have
gained the theme of Russian aggression. While Putin's moves were masterful and required, making
the very best of a very bad situation, what has emerged still serves these nasty folks in
stoking hatred of Russia, now accused of aggression, a charge strongly embraced in Washington
and in American-influenced parts of Western Europe.
Lindsay Graham is about the most vocal and reactionary defender of Israel in the Congress.
He might be matched by John McCain, but I'm not sure he doesn't in fact earn top honors in his
service to another country. He quite literally leaps to his feet at any mention of Israel. So,
when a guy like that strongly advocates greatly increased hostility towards Russia, it should
tell us something.
And I strongly suspect, given the intensity of his all efforts for Israel, that he was
caught once in a Mossad "honey trap" and given to understand that very compromising photos of
him existed.
You see, Graham is known as a fairly flagrant gay in Washington.
His constituents back home – conservative Southern Baptists and the like –
of course, are not aware of his sexual proclivities, so pictures would make a serious
threat.
This kind of thing would not at all new to Washington. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover,
also a closet gay and indeed a cross-dresser according to one reliable biographer, is said to
have been compromised the same way by the American Mafia, something which explains his long
reluctance to act against Mafia interests, allowing them to flourish while he chased after
largely non-existent communists across America.
"... Jeremy Corbyn is a man who has dedicated his entire life to fighting racism and injustice -- he is not a racist and therefore clearly he is not anti-Semitic. He has not once denied the Holocaust and therefore he is not a Holocaust-denier. It seems, however, that none of this matters to those who would bring him down. ..."
"... The desperation of those seeking to oust Corbyn can be seen by the latest accusation against him: attending a memorial for terrorists. ..."
"... Corbyn did not remain silent. True to himself once again, he struck back, reminding Netanyahu that what is deserving of condemnation is Israeli forces' killing of hundreds of protesters in Gaza and the passing of the new, racist Israel Nation State Law . ..."
"... By trying to silence the discussion regarding Zionism and its legitimacy, Israel abuses the memory of the millions who died in the Holocaust, particularly the Jewish victims. There are entire communities of Jewish Holocaust survivors and descendants of survivors who are quite ready to discuss and debate any issue, including the Holocaust, and who view the Zionists' stance as absurd. These same Jewish communities also reject Zionism and support the Palestinian call for BDS , or Boycott Divestment and Sanctions against Israel. It is time that these voices be heard. ..."
"... Miko Peled is an author and human rights activist born in Jerusalem. He is the author of " The General's Son. Journey of an Israeli in Palestine ," and " Injustice, the Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five ." ..."
Jeremy Corbyn is a man who has dedicated his entire life to fighting racism and
injustice -- he is not a racist and therefore clearly he is not anti-Semitic. He has not once
denied the Holocaust and therefore he is not a Holocaust-denier. It seems, however, that none
of this matters to those who would bring him down.
The U.K. Labour Party conference is more than three weeks away and Jeremy Corbyn, true to
himself and his principles, has risen above the mud-slinging and continues to fight for the
principles to which he has dedicated his entire life. He focuses on issues like social justice;
caring for the many rather than the few, the millions not the millionaires; and, as Corbyn
himself said in his speech at last year's convention, "end[ing] the oppression of the
Palestinian people."
Zionist groups within the Labour Party, which include LFI (Labour Friends of Israel) and the
JLM (the Zionist 'Jewish Labour Movement'), skillfully utilize the pro-Zionist media. They are
trying -- and failing -- to paint Jeremy Corbyn as an anti-Semite. However, the problem is not
anti-Semitism but Corbyn's stance on Palestine.
These Zionist groups want to get rid of Corbyn because of his principled stance on Palestine,
Israeli colonialism and occupation of Palestine, and they use anti-Semitism labels because they
think it will work.
The 1972 Munich-attacks issue
The desperation of those seeking to oust Corbyn can be seen by the latest accusation against
him: attending a memorial for terrorists.
It was given impetus by a remark by the Israeli prime minister, in what is a shocking
intervention by Israel in British politics. Benjamin Netanyahu made
remarks about the Labour leader, saying that he deserves "unequivocal condemnation." In
what can only be described as an escalation of the already heavy-handed
intervention of Zionist groups to end Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, Netanyahu said that
Corbyn's participation in a ceremony at a cemetery in Tunis in 2014 is deserving of
condemnation, because -- according to Netanyahu -- terrorists are buried there.
Corbyn did not remain silent. True to himself once again, he struck back, reminding
Netanyahu that what is deserving of condemnation is Israeli forces' killing
of hundreds of protesters in Gaza and the passing of the new, racist Israel
Nation State Law .
Netanyahu -- along with what may well be the loudest Zionist mouthpiece in Britain, The
Daily Mail -- claims that Corbyn was present at a ceremony and even laid a wreath on the
graves of terrorists connected with the 1972 attack on the Israeli athletes during the
Munich
Olympic games .
The truth of the matter is that the event in which Corbyn participated had nothing to do
with the Munich attack. In 2014 Jeremy Corbyn attended a service at a cemetery in Tunis
commemorating the victims of the 1985
Israeli airstrike on the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) offices in Tunis. This
Israeli attack was a breach of international law, violated the sovereignty of another country,
and received worldwide condemnation, including by the United
States .
Furthermore, none of the
eight men who participated in the Munich attack are buried in Tunis. The four men who are
buried there -- and whose tombstones are shown in The Daily Mail photo -- are Salah Khalaf, who was Yasser Arafat's deputy; his aide,
Fakhri al-Omari; Hayel Abdel-Hamid, who was the PLO chief of security; and Atef Bseiso. Bseiso
was assassinated in Paris in 1992 -- 20 years after the Munich Olympics. He was heavily
involved in talks with the CIA in an attempt to advance relations between the U.S. and the PLO.
Israel claimed that all four were involved in the attack in Munich and had all of them
assassinated either directly or by the proxy terror group, Abu-Nidal. There was never a shred
of proof, not to mention a trial, to substantiate Israel's allegations against these men.
Blatant intervention
The big question is why does the Israeli prime minister feel he needs to engage in such
blatant intervention and and make such blatantly false accusations just as Britain's largest
political party is about to convene? Netanyahu and his henchmen must realize that U.K. Labour,
having gained over half a million members since Jeremy Corbyn's ascent as leader, is poised to
win in the next elections, so that, if Israel fails to oust him, Jeremy Corbyn will end up in
10 Downing Street.
One of the ridiculous charges laid against Corbyn is the following: He was criticized for
attending a passover
Seder with a particular group of Jewish people who "dismissed concerns about anti-Semitism
in the party." So it is not good enough that he went to a Seder and that he opted to do so
among people who live in his own constituency; he had to do so with Jewish people who think a
particular way.
Corbyn was also criticized for participating in an event with the late
Hajo Meyer , a Jewish holocaust survivor himself. This was in 2010, when Corbyn hosted a
Holocaust Memorial Day event in London with Meyer as the main speaker. Hajo Meyer was, like
many holocaust survivors, a fervent advocate for Palestinian rights and a severe critic of
Israel -- hence the criticism.
Anti-Semitism
Another sticking point is the self-appointed International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (
IHRA ), which apparently adopted a new and, in their own words, "non-legally binding"
working definition of
anti-Semitism . Initially Labour's national executive committee refused to accept this
definition, but there are signs that a compromise might be on the horizon. This definition of
anti-Semitism is one that entire Jewish communities do not accept because it seeks to silence
criticism of Israel and conflates Zionism with Judaism. The anti-Semitism definition includes
several clauses that have nothing to do with racism or anti-Semitism and have everything to do
with protecting Israel from criticism. For example:
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination; e.g., by claiming that the
existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
War of attrition
Another example, in which I was personally involved, has to do with a comment that I made at
a fringe event during the 2017 Labour conference and that turned into a major news item. During
a panel on free speech, I said that free speech means we should be able to discuss every issue,
including Palestine and the Holocaust. The Daily Mail published this as though it was a
scandalous thing to say and accused Labour and even Corbyn himself for allowing it to
happen.
Every other
newspaper in Britain followed suit and then papers in Palestine and even the Israeli papers
picked it up as well. I added in my remarks that, while free speech should not be criminalized,
we do not need to give a platform to proponents of any racist ideology, and that includes
Zionists who regularly demand to be present and give their perspective at events and
lectures.
My presence during the conference and my comments did not warrant such attention. However,
this is a war of attrition in which Labour Friends of Israel, the so-called 'Jewish Labour
Movement, and the British Daily Mail are leading the charge and will jump at every
opportunity to get attention. Once again, the problem was not denial of the Holocaust or
anti-Semitism -- because there was no expression of either one -- but the fear of a discussion
on Palestine and Zionism.
By trying to silence the discussion regarding Zionism and its legitimacy, Israel abuses the
memory of the millions who died in the Holocaust, particularly the Jewish victims. There are
entire communities of Jewish Holocaust survivors and descendants of survivors who are quite
ready to discuss and debate any issue, including the Holocaust, and who view the Zionists'
stance as absurd. These same Jewish communities also reject Zionism and support the Palestinian
call for BDS , or Boycott Divestment and
Sanctions against Israel. It is time that these voices be heard.
Jeremy Corbyn is a man who has dedicated his entire life to fighting racism and injustice --
he is not a racist and therefore clearly he is not anti-Semitic. He has not once denied the
Holocaust and therefore he is not a Holocaust-denier. However, none of this matters. As was
stated clearly in The Daily Mail,
"The Board of Deputies of British Jews warned Mr. Corbyn to 'come out of hiding' and said
the anti-Semitism crisis would not go away."
In other words, there is nothing he can say or do to "clear" himself. They are determined to
oust him and they think the anti-Semitic card will do the trick.
Your comment implies that people should continue to bang their heads against a wall.
In fact, no one has said NOT to participate in politics. To be effective, it's important
to understand the reality of politics and the power structure.
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing
business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while
average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.
The results provide substantial support for theories of Economic-Elite Domination
...
That's why candidates like Ron Paul on the Republican side and Denis Kucinich on the
Democratic side never stood a chance. They made way too much sense; they dared speak truth to
power so they had to be marginalized by their respective parties so no one would take them
seriously. They were literally swallowed up by the duopoly and relegated to
quasi-obscurity.
I would say 'contra-Russia'. Trump is just the current vessel.
Let us not forget, that under the mighty and loved O-bomber, a group of US Senators back
in 2014 made Bulgaria drop South Stream with god knows what threats, whereas Brussels had
previously failed (intentionally?) to do so. Guess who was the lead Senator?
At this time there is a request from the European Commission, after which we've suspended
the current works, I ordered it," Oresharski told journalists after meeting with John McCain,
Chris Murphy and Ron Johnson during their visit to Bulgaria on Sunday. "Further proceedings
will be decided after additional consultations with Brussels."
McCain, commenting on the situation, said that "Bulgaria should solve the South Stream
problems in collaboration with European colleagues," adding that in the current situation
they would want "less Russian involvement" in the project.
"America has decided that it wants to put itself in a position where it excludes anybody
it doesn't like from countries where it thinks it might have an interest, and there is no
economic rationality in this at all. Europeans are very pragmatic, they are looking for cheap
energy resources – clean energy resources, and Russia can supply that. But the thing
with the South Stream is that it doesn't fit with the politics of the situation," Ben Aris,
editor of Business New Europe told RT .
####
See, nothing has changed. At least it looks like U-rope has learned its lesson. Not so the
US. Russia hatin' is a too good 'dead cat on the table' to give up.
Underneath everyone's observations/comments lurks the basic question: Why?
Enter the Big Picture provided yesterday by Pepe Escobar who also links to and cites the
controversial Alastair Crooke ideological essay I linked to last week. Part of the Big
Picture is the #1 policy goal of the Outlaw US Empire--Full Spectrum Dominance of the
Planet--and its recently published National Defense
Strategy(NDS) related to that goal:
"The central challenge to U.S. prosperity and security is the reemergence of long-term,
strategic competition by what the National Security Strategy classifies as revisionist
powers. It is increasingly clear that China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with
their authoritarian model -- gaining veto authority over other nations' economic, diplomatic,
and security decisions."
Do please note the combination of prevarication with ideology in the above as it's
reflective of the point Crooke tried to make in his piece. A strategy based upon lies to
oneself is a sure recipe for defeat as you're deceiving yourself which violates the first law
of war as pronounced by so many: "All war is based on deception." But then given the
political-economic nature of the USA's Keynesian Militarism, perhaps this deception is aimed
domestically so as to transfer even more tax dollars upwards to the 1%. So, actions must be
closely observed even more than usual.
During the election campaign, it was speculated that Trump's desire to ease tensions with
Russia was a last-ditch gambit suggested by Kissinger to split the Chinese-Russian alliance.
So, Russiagate served to defeat that gambit while pushing China and Russia even closer
together. With the Syrian regime change ploy rapidly being defeated and Ukraine going
nowhere, Deep State planners were left without an oar, so the reversion to Cold War
Russophobia with an occasional bout of Sinophobia thrown in for good measure--neither of
which is any sort of strategy.
Another quote from the NDS:
"Today, we are emerging from a period of strategic atrophy, aware that our competitive
military
advantage has been eroding."
That was realized before Putin's display of highly advanced Russian weaponry, which was
announced in March, the NDS was released in January. What's amazing is "strategic atrophy"
with budgets beyond $600 billion must mean a massive portion's being wasted--delivered to the
1%--such that it's corruption that's caused the erosion of "our competitive advantage." I'd
opine much of the chaos we see being played-up is done to obscure interpretations like mine
so that even more $$$ can be wasted, although lip service is given to improvements.
So, who/what's really in charge? Big Money rules as it has since the Civil War within the
USA and much earlier when we include London and Amsterdam. Big Money's angry because it's
locked out of BRI, BRICS, EAEU, and developing nations are mostly on to IMF's and World
Bank's disingenuous "development" plans because it abhors the notion that it's not Top Dog.
So, the dollar got weaponized and the Trade and Financial War--the Hybrid Third World
War--was finally begun in earnest after earlier fits and starts. Yet it appears that the
effort will fail since Big Money is finding itself trapped inside a web of its own making
that's based on a fiat currency supported by Junk Economics.
It is reported that the German company and partner in Nord Stream II, Uniper, may pull out
of the project due to the risk of US sanctions (previously it said Uniper will pull
out sic see link.).* In related news, construction has been started in German waters.
Still silence from Denmark as to whether they will block it or not.
If I were Moscow, I would announce that the pipeline's route will avoid Danish waters and
sit back to see the reaction. Why? Coz you can bet that some will claim it is
punishment/bribe/threat/anti-competitive to Denmark, to whit, Russia can simply reply that
Denmark has XXX days to provide the permits before it is no longer economically feasible for
the route to go through its waters.
What p* me off about the reported 'threat from NSII' and even in articles like the one
above that point out it is in Europe's interest, none of them mention the preceding sabotage
of South Stream II under the mighty Obama and the impact from that led directly to
Nord Stream II.
At this time there is a request from the European Commission, after which we've
suspended the current works, I ordered it," Oresharski told journalists after meeting with
John McCain, Chris Murphy and Ron Johnson during their visit to Bulgaria on Sunday. "Further
proceedings will be decided after additional consultations with Brussels."
McCain, commenting on the situation, said that "Bulgaria should solve the South Stream
problems in collaboration with European colleagues," adding that in the current situation
they would want "less Russian involvement" in the project.
"America has decided that it wants to put itself in a position where it excludes
anybody it doesn't like from countries where it thinks it might have an interest, and there
is no economic rationality in this at all. Europeans are very pragmatic, they are looking for
cheap energy resources – clean energy resources, and Russia can supply that. But the
thing with the South Stream is that it doesn't fit with the politics of the situation," Ben
Aris, editor of Business New Europe told RT .
####
Yes kids. Warmonger McCain was at the forefront of getting it killed after interference
from Brussels failed to shift the asshole Borissov's government. So when a European asks
"What has John McCain done for us? , he's already f*ed you over for the benefit of the US
and U-ropean poodle Krazy K**t Klan.
And let's remember what a hard lesson Bulgaria learned from its leap of faith into
Brussels' arms.
On May 30, Bulgarian PM Boyko Borisov met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. During
the joint press conference, Borisov apologized to Putin for the failure of South Stream and
for his responsibility in causing the deterioration of relations between the two countries.
Borisov said: "We know about the difficult relations in the past and are grateful to our
colleagues for not being vindictive and the fact that Russian-Bulgarian relations do not
depend on the extent of guilt of some politicians
"I would like to thank President Putin for his attitude once again. I am to blame for
creating certain tensions When it came to the worst and I wanted to talk, my calls were
always answered. And I really accept part of the guilt for those developments."
Putin then added that he regrets that the South Stream project has not been
implemented, since it would have "greatly benefited" Bulgaria.
In response, Borisov blamed the EU of having imposed Bulgaria diktats that other
countries do not respect anyway. Borisov said: "We are the most loyal and the most
disciplined country in the European Union. This is the reason why all the pipelines bypassed
our territory. We hope that today we have redressed an injustice.
Bulgaria stepped up when the European Commission called and got absolutely fuck-all in the
way of thanks or compensation – to the contrary, the decision cost Bulgaria a great
deal of money. Let that be a lesson to other EU countries; Brussels is big on ideas, but it
does not have your back and if your stepping-up causes your country grief and it turns out
you made a terrible mistake, and want to talk about it
There is absolutely nobody else to blame but Borissov himself, a third rate playa .
The position of neither Brussels nor Washington was a surprise at all. They are very well
known quantities. Big surprise. Not.
Borissov vacillated and played the same failed and weak gambit we have seen for years in
the Ukraine. That he is still around as the biggest fish in the local fish shop is that he is
the biggest spineless shit that floats to the surface while the opposition is little more
than useless. That is repeated elsewhere in the neighborhood to various degrees and where it
is not, it's a choice between two sides of the same gangster/clan coin. To misquote Douglas
Adams, So long, and thanks for none of the fish.
Well, I don't think a decision has been made yet. But the consortium has 'applied to
Denmark for an alternate route' – which, since the alternate route would not go through
Danish territorial waters, implies Denmark does not really have any say over it, and is
essentially a challenge to Denmark to either veto the original route on security grounds (you
never know, Putin might hide submarines in it, or Novichok or something) or get on with it.
But Denmark is presented with more or less the Bulgarian Alternative: do Washington's bidding
and get a pat on the head, or defy it and get transit fees.
All the news on the subject that I saw announced that the consortium is 'exploring' an
alternate route. It seems they are still hopeful the original route will be cleared, but are
getting it on the table that denying it will not stop the project.
But of course western 'analysts' continue to squeal that Putin and the Kremlin are using
the Nord Stream II pipeline to 'invade Europe'. Curiously, the same people who once smirked
scornfully that Nord Stream II was not needed because the current pipeline is only running at
half-capacity now claim "even with Nord Stream 2 on line Russia would still need to send
substantial amounts of gas through Ukraine – at least until the upcoming TurkStream
pipeline is also finished." Whoa – wut? Even both legs of Nord Stream running at full
capacity will not be enough? You don't say.
Once again, nobody is forcing Europe to take more Russian gas than it needs, although the
draw-down of domestic supplies suggest it will need more all the time unless 'green energy'
becomes more commercially viable and reliable. Certain players want Europe's gas to go
through Ukraine for two reasons – one, Ukraine badly needs the money from transit fees
to prop up its calamitous economy. Two, it is a ready tickle-trunk of conflict whenever the
west wants to make problems for Russia; presto! Ukraine is in a new fight with Russia over
gas prices, and Europe is trembling with fear that its gas supplies will be shut off.
Here, you numpties – let me solve the problem for you. Soon there is going to be a
perfectly good (according to Ukraine and the west) pipeline network idling without much to
do. Why not let all those competitors Europe is always gibbering about use Ukraine's pipeline
network to send their gas to Europe? They could have the whole thing all to
themselves, completely cutting Gazprom out of Ukraine! What a victory that would be! And they
could pay Ukraine transit fees, saving the day there and bringing enormous comfort to
Ukrainian economists! It's win/win!
See,
this is why I enjoy Leonid Bershidsky's writing . Despite his idealistic prattling that
Russia is actually guilty of all the things America says it is – his ultimate loyalty
is still to his adopted homeland, the land of milk and honey – he remains essentially a
realist. And his take on the economic dynamics is brutally realistic; the United States
cannot 'bring the Russian economy to its knees'. Once again, America's ridiculously-high
opinion of itself and its power fail to take account of consequences.
Oh, it could, I suppose, in a way. A way that would see the world's largest economy
– arguably, and certainly in its last days if it is actually still the world's largest
economy – wreck the global economy and its own trade relationship with the world in
order to damage Russia. Is it willing to go that far? You just never know, as decades of
feeding itself exceptionalism have addled its thinking.
Bershidsky points out – correctly, I think – that Russia has held off on
punishing American companies in Russia just as the USA has not dared to sanction the energy
industry in Russia. Neither wants to take that step, although one will certainly provoke the
other.
In fact, it occurs to me that if Russia were really as malignant and evil as Washington
pretends it is, Russia would be first to take that step, booting American companies out of
Russia, perhaps giving them 72 hours to clear out their desks and get out. What would happen
then? America would be bound to drop the sanctions hammer on oil and gas. And what would
happen then? Europe would say, it's been a lovely party, but I must be going. I give that an
8 of 10 chance of happening, and solely because of the stupid actions heretofore by the Trump
government. Had America been reasonable, it would have stood a chance of carrying Europe with
it to a war against Russia. But Trump and his blowhard bullying have hardened European
resolve against the USA.
Very good article from Patrick Lawrence, and count me in on treason, too, might never
makes right. Good post, Joe, the American people have been shaken down while their misleaders
were shaking down and blowing up much of the world and expecting that, hey, they're supposed
to sit back and take that? Hillary would have advanced the already existing decay from
neoliberal policies that Obama implemented, but Trump is using dynamite in his Kaiser Wilhelm
ham-fisted way to give quicker results of economic gunboat Twitter diplomacy.
Macron just spoke publicly of getting along and doing business with Russia, Merkel just
met with Putin, and on Iran's oil other nations like China, Russia, Turkey, are strategizing
to find ways around the bully US that can't implement anything but war games including
economic ones. And isn't it ironic that the bully boy bunch preside over a massive debt and
deficit, while their vilified nemesis Russia has little to no debt and has divested itself of
much US dollar business and continues to do so?
But the gangsters can't figure out anything but throwing more bombs. Today we hear of a
bomb in a cafe killing a leader of Donetsk separatist movement who didn't want those
neo-Nazis and their corrupt chocolate puppeteer Poroshenko put in by the US in 2014. Could
the CIA be involved? And Russia just went to the UN to report that there is planned chemical
attack in Syria again to blame on Assad, attempting to preempt it. Spoiling is all the US can
do, while the misleaders also spoil the lives of regular middle class Americans, many who
still don't understand how they are abused. And the Deep State TV show of Muellergate goes on
daily.
Gregory Herr , August 31, 2018 at 4:42 pm
Astounding, isn't it? Back to the false flag chemical attack playbook once
again–even though any rational person knows that a chemical attack in Idleb would not
merely be one of the most ineffective tactics the Syrian Army could use to regain territory,
but would be counterproductive in terms of PR both at home with Syrian citizens, and in the
eyes of the world. A
ny ploy (no matter how deceitful or overplayed) that the U.S. war planners can use as an
excuse to attack Syria and keep the conflict going will be used. The desperadoes know that
when the fighting stops and an extensive joint rebuild begins, the truth from Syrian citizens
themselves will out.
The testimony of millions of Syrians cannot be denied. The fact that refugees want to
return home cannot be denied–they fled terrorism, not Assad.
The war planners didn't dream Syria wouldn't fall, just as they didn't dream Clinton would
lose. Now all the dirty tricks are coming to light–and it sure isn't a good look.
Anyway, thoughtful post as usual Jessika.
JR , August 31, 2018 at 2:59 pm
BRAVO! This predicted "false flag white helmets chemical attack" in Syria coincides with
what I picked up on-line earlier in the week from Col. W. Patrick Lang's site: http://turcopolier.typepad.com site. He
describes himself as a retired senior officer of US. Military Intelligence & U.S Army
Secial Forces (The Green Berets) . Check out his site & bio: About Me It seemed to be
what Sergei Lavrov is saying based on Russian Intel. Correct me if I'm wrong gotta go now to
do urgent errands.
KiwiAntz , August 31, 2018 at 9:19 am
The dilemma America is confronted with, is that it can't allow "peace to break out"
anywhere in the World! Be that in Nth Korea, Syria or anywhere else! As a vile, War
profiteering, Warmongering, dying Empire, nothing must prevent it from waging endless war to
justify its demonic existence! And if the US can't win the conflicts they will continue to
play a spoiling role as we have seen in Syria & will do everything possible to sabotage
& disrupt any peace making attempts by others because that's what War criminals do! It's
petty, vindictive & pathetic! The sooner this deathcult Empire explodes like a dying star
& collapses in on itself into a black hole will be a great day for this World!
Martin - Swedish citizen , August 31, 2018 at 2:18 pm
Yes, and isn't perpetual war indeed a foundation of Neocon ideology?
mike k , August 31, 2018 at 7:47 am
What we are seeing now is the drama of the US Hegemon taking on the world, in a last
ultimately futile attempt to make it bow to the Empire's fading power. This is going to be
very, very messy. All of this is playing out in the shadow of the imminent collapse of
industrial civilization and the ongoing extinction of crucial strands in our ecological
safety net.
Ma Laoshi , August 31, 2018 at 7:36 am
Apart from the reality-show atmosphere surrounding it all, is there really anything new
here? It is the US Govt's written policy to prevent the people of Eurasia from
conducting their business among themselves without Wall St getting its cut; in Reagan's
famous words, "That's why we fought two world wars". So spoil they must. It has become such
an accepted part of the Pentagon jargon that they "want a presence", intend to "play a role",
etc. It's all but acknowledged that the wars or at a minimum the base-building must go on;
mission objectives or even on whose side the US intervenes are secondary in comparison.
One notes that the Resistance fights Trump on cultural and symbolic issues which are safe
for Democrats, not on what the Donald does in the world–once back in power,
they'd do the same things.
John Puma , August 31, 2018 at 6:21 am
Re: Quote author of article: " it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the U.S.
objective is to strangle the Russian economy."
With all due respect, it appears the author is ?3.5 years late. (More like 70 years.)
It was BH Obumma who said, in his 2015 State of the Union Address:
"Last year, as we were doing the hard work of imposing sanctions along with our allies,
some suggested that Mr. Putin's aggression was a masterful display of strategy and strength.
Well, today, it is America that stands strong and united with our allies, while Russia is
isolated, with its economy in tatters."
It IS the US objective and it is unmistakably (if pathetically and pathologically)
"bipartisan."
The Cold War was restarted when Bush II abrogated the ABM treaty
"Whether the president or his minders are running affairs, Patrick Lawrence sees the U.S.
being reduced to playing a spoiler role in the Middle East and Northeast Asia. "
Noisy, ugly, and unpleasant – all qualities Trump posses in abundance – have
nothing to do with the power relationship between a President and the Washington power
establishment.
My point is that Obama from whom we expected a little heroism proved an almost complete
coward. He did as was expected of him – in Libya, in Syria, in Bahrain, in Egypt, in
Ukraine, and in China. He gave us industrial-scale drone murder, something every American
should be deeply ashamed of.
Trump had no promise at all in most areas, but on the crucial matter of the Neocon Wars
across the Middle East and relations with Russia – both extremely important matters
– he did offer some promise of change. And he has been completely unable to deliver.
He's paralyzed.
George Bush was the first convincing proof that America doesn't even need a President,
except to sign the required papers put before him by the likes of Cheney and Rumsfeld.
Obama's sad time proved it further as the man who once wore sandals and eschewed a
ridiculous American flag pin on his lapel, killed at least half a million people across the
Mideast, created millions of refugees to nearly destabilize Europe, and supported a dangerous
and destructive coup in Ukraine. And then there's those drones killing thousands of
innocents, because even the targets are legally innocent, let alone the "collateral
damage."
And Trump hasn't delivered on one important imperial matter. The killing goes on across
the Mideast, and an important country like Russia is treated disgracefully.
Its what the power establishment wants.
So it's what America gets, no matter who is elected, rendering American elections close to
meaningless.
You know, you can can either have a empire or you can have a decent country. You
cannot have both, and you very much do not.
Great empire, with the anti-democratic and authoritarian instincts of the Pentagon and CIA
and the plutocrats who benefit from it all, is about as far from decent and truly democratic
as you can get.
With all respect, are you even making sense here. Why would Russia ever have needed to buy
Iranian oil? Rather, Russia's less-than-solid commitment to its Iranian ally has in part to
do with the two being energy-export rivals. But your larger point stands: no country wants to
be caught out in front facing the hegemon's wrath, only to find that the cavalry hasn't
followed behind them–the High Noon thing.
It may be just how our chimpanzee brain is wired to approach power. After every disaster,
prayer vigils and temples go up to hopefully propitiate God better next time round. Nobody
says: "No praises for You until You learn to behave".
Realist , August 31, 2018 at 5:02 pm
Oil is fungible. Russia has, in fact, been accepting oil from Iran in exchange for other
goods needed by the Islamic Republic. I suppose it sells the oil to other clients.
" it is under $500 million and is likely mostly money from Ukrainians working in
Russia. I do not see any corporate level investment happening in the current climate.
"
The above linked RBK article goes on to read:
According to the presented data, during the period from January to June, the Ukraine
received $1,259 billion, of which $436 million came from Russia. In second place was Cyprus,
which invested $219 million and in third place amongst the largest investors was the
Netherlands ($207.7 million).
In addition, contributions were made to the Ukraine economy by Austria ($58.7 million),
Poland ($54.1), France ($46.9) and the UK ($43.4).
The report says that almost 60% of these funds ($750 million) were invested in the
financial and insurance sphere; 9.6% of of the funds were invested by the Ukrainian
authorities into the wholesale and retail trade; 8.2% into industry and 7.9 per cent. into
information and telecommunications.
In mid-August, former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said that Russia had been
the main trading partner of the Ukraine since 2014 and because of this the return of the
Crimea and the resolution of the conflict in the Donbass were becoming impossible. "There is
no plan for victory in this state. Because you are not behaving like people who want a
victory. You are already slaves", he said.
In response to Yushchenko's statement, the ex-head of the Ukrainian Ministry of the
Economy, Viktor Suslov, said that the words of the former Ukrainian leader were "absurd" and
considered any damage to Kiev caused by breaking off trade with Russia as being
"colossal".
Doesn't sound like all of this money sloely consists of that sent off to "Independent"
Ukraine by economic migrants from that country who are eking out a living in the Evil
Empire.
Verkhovna Rada Deputy Vadym Rabinovich on air of TV channel "112 Ukraine" said that the
termination of trade with Russia will destroy Ukrainian economy.
According to him, Russia remains the largest trading partner of the Ukraine, as trade
turnover between the two countries is growing every month.
"The trade balance with Russia is growing every month for one simple reason: the free
economic zone with Europe has brought us only losses", said Rabinovich.
He noted that the interruption of trade between Moscow and Kiev is fraught with the
loss, of "approximately one third of the gross national product".
"With all of the stupidity that you have done in the country, then with another
unbalanced step you'll destroy the economy", summed up the Rada deputy.
Earlier, former head of the Main Department of the Ukrainian security Service, Vasily
Vovk, proposed that the border with Russia be completely blocked and that ties with her be
cut.
A few are beginning to wake up to the reality that snatching Ukraine away from Russia was
never about prosperity and security for its people, and all about destabilizing what the west
perceived as the quickening of an unwelcome regional influence, and curbing it. The EU
– and its string-puller, Washington – does not give a fuck about the economic
well-being of Ukrainians, does not have even the brotherly connection of being of the same
ethnic group, and for so long as Ukraine is willing to suffer being poor in silence, for that
long it will not be a problem for its new 'partners'.
Nationalist Nazi nutjobs are always proposing the border be sealed ever-tighter, if it
were feasible to build a stainless-steel wall between Ukraine and Russia which reached to low
earth orbit, they would vote for it. But the Great Wall Of Yatsenyuk never materialized, he's
enjoying his Florida condo, and there is no practical way to limit commerce between the two
countries while the people are increasingly motivated toward its continuing.
Ukraine is on the edge of collapse, and I don't think any force on earth can prevent its
sliding over the edge. The west is not going to pony up the $170 Billion or so it would take
to rescue it; if it did so, Porky and his minions would steal most of it for themselves, and
Russia is unlikely to ever permit again the degree of fraternal closeness that existed
between the two countries, since it is clear it would take only another western intervention
to render it once again an untrustworthy spoiler. Once Nord Stream II is built, Ukraine will
have lost its leverage and will be of no further significant value to the western purveyors
of destabilization.
More such core realization is necessary to prevent Ukraine from officially blaming its
collapse on anyone but itself. The government will try that course, naturally, and you don't
need to be able to see very far into the future to know that it is Russia who will be blamed,
despite plenty of empirical evidence that Russian investors and Ukrainian refugees working in
Russia were all that kept it alive before the end. But in order that Ukrainians know in their
heart of hearts that their government stepped on its own dick over and over, and that they
passively failed to correct it, there needs to be more such public confession. I can show you
plenty of analysis, in English, published before things went pear-shaped in the dying moments
of 2013, which proposed that severing trade relationships with Russia as the nationalists
insisted would cost Ukraine just about exactly what the Rada now says will happen, years too
late. But they got one thing right – Ukraine and Russia cannot be brothers, not even
friends, for so long as Ukraine harbours that nutty nationalist element. Give western Ukraine
to Poland, and encourage all the nationalists to go to the new paradise, and ensure that
happens. They can bore the Poles with their raptures about Kievan Rus. Then maybe some
relationship could be salvaged.
"During his 32 years in the US Senate, the real John McCain was a consistent warmonger ,
advocating US military intervention in Africa, South America, Korea, and almost everywhere.
He sang "bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" before a veterans group, and called demonstrators
against Henry Kissinger "despicable scum." The record of his public calls for coups,
invasions, blockades, bombings and assassinations to advance US military and economic
domination of the planet is far too long to list.
All this explains why corporate media are lifting up their whitewashed and manufactured
version of John McCain. He's one of their own, a genuine war criminal and loyal servant of
capital. Lifting him up, creating and embellishing his heroic story lifts up and legitimizes
the rule of the rich. Now they'll be looking for parks, schools and airports to name after
him. Just as the elementary school in Aaron Magruder's Boondocks was named after J. Edgar
Hoover, we'll soon see John McCain's name staring back at us from what little public property
is left. Get ready for it."
Ahhh but there is much more to the story here look and read:
"... Developing the tradition charted by C. Wright Mills in his 1956 classic The Power Elite , in his latest book, Professor Peter Phillips starts by reviewing the transition from the nation state power elites described by authors such as Mills to a transnational power elite centralized on the control of global capital. ..."
Developing the tradition charted by C. Wright Mills in his 1956 classic The Power Elite
, in his latest book, Professor Peter Phillips starts by reviewing the transition from the
nation state power elites described by authors such as Mills to a transnational power elite
centralized on the control of global capital.
Thus, in his just-released study Giants: The Global
Power Elite , Phillips, a professor of political sociology at Sonoma State University
in the USA, identifies the world's top seventeen asset management firms, such as BlackRock and
J.P Morgan Chase, each with more than one trillion dollars of investment capital under
management, as the 'Giants' of world capitalism. The seventeen firms collectively manage more
than $US41.1 trillion in a self-invested network of interlocking capital that spans the
globe.
This $41 trillion represents the wealth invested for profit by thousands of millionaires,
billionaires and corporations. The seventeen Giants operate in nearly every country in the
world and are 'the central institutions of the financial capital that powers the global
economic system'. They invest in anything considered profitable, ranging from 'agricultural
lands on which indigenous farmers are replaced by power elite investors' to public assets (such
as energy and water utilities) to war.
In addition, Phillips identifies the most important networks of the Global Power Elite and
the individuals therein. He names 389 individuals (a small number of whom are women and a token
number of whom are from countries other than the United States and the wealthier countries of
Western Europe) at the core of the policy planning nongovernmental networks that manage,
facilitate and defend the continued concentration of global capital. The Global Power Elite
perform two key uniting functions, he argues: they provide ideological justifications for their
shared interests (promulgated through their corporate media), and define the parameters of
action for transnational governmental organizations and capitalist nation-states.
More precisely, Phillips identifies the 199 directors of the seventeen global financial
Giants and offers short biographies and public information on their individual net wealth.
These individuals are closely interconnected through numerous networks of association including
the World Economic Forum, the International Monetary Conference, university affiliations,
various policy councils, social clubs, and cultural enterprises. For a taste of one of these
clubs, see this account of The Links in New York. As Phillips
observes: 'It is certainly safe to conclude they all know each other personally or know of each
other in the shared context of their positions of power.'
The Giants, Phillips documents, invest in each other but also in many hundreds of investment
management firms, many of which are near-Giants. This results in tens of trillions of dollars
coordinated in a single vast network of global capital controlled by a very small number of
people. 'Their constant objective is to find enough safe investment opportunities for a return
on capital that allows for continued growth. Inadequate capital-placement opportunities lead to
dangerous speculative investments, buying up of public assets, and permanent war spending.'
Because the directors of these seventeen asset management firms represent the central core
of international capital, 'Individuals can retire or pass away, and other similar people will
move into their place, making the overall structure a self-perpetuating network of global
capital control. As such, these 199 people share a common goal of maximum return on investments
for themselves and their clients, and they may seek to achieve returns by any means necessary
– legal or not . the institutional and structural arrangements within the money
management systems of global capital relentlessly seek ways to achieve maximum return on
investment, and the conditions for manipulations – legal or not – are always
present.'
Like some researchers before him, Phillips identifies the importance of those transnational
institutions that serve a unifying function. The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, G20,
G7, World Trade Organization (WTO),
World Economic Forum (WEF), Trilateral
Commission, Bilderberg Group ,
Bank for International Settlements, Group of 30 (G30), the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Monetary
Conference serve as institutional mechanisms for consensus building within the transnational
capitalist class, and power elite policy formulation and implementation. 'These international
institutions serve the interests of the global financial Giants by supporting policies and
regulations that seek to protect the free, unrestricted flow of capital and debt collection
worldwide.'
But within this network of transnational institutions, Phillips identifies two very
important global elite policy-planning organizations: the Group of Thirty (which has 32 members) and the extended executive
committee of the Trilateral Commission
(which has 55 members). These nonprofit corporations, which each have a research and support
staff, formulate elite policy and issue instructions for their implementation by the
transnational governmental institutions like the G7, G20, IMF, WTO, and World Bank. Elite
policies are also implemented following instruction of the relevant agent, including
governments, in the context. These agents then do as they are instructed. Thus, these 85
members (because two overlap) of the Group of Thirty and the Trilateral Commission comprise a
central group of facilitators of global capitalism, ensuring that 'global capital remains safe,
secure, and growing'.
So, while many of the major international institutions are controlled by nation-state
representatives and central bankers (with proportional power exercised by dominant financial
supporters such as the United States and European Union countries), Phillips is more concerned
with the transnational policy groups that are nongovernmental because these organizations 'help
to unite TCC power elites as a class' and the individuals involved in these organizations
facilitate world capitalism. 'They serve as policy elites who seek the continued growth of
capital in the world.'
Developing this list of 199 directors of the largest money management firms in the world,
Phillips argues, is an important step toward understanding how capitalism works globally today.
These global power elite directors make the decisions regarding the investment of trillions of
dollars. Supposedly in competition, the concentrated wealth they share requires them to
cooperate for their greater good by identifying investment opportunities and shared risk
agreements, and working collectively for political arrangements that create advantages for
their profit-generating system as a whole.
Their fundamental priority is to secure an average return on investment of 3 to 10 percent,
or even more. The nature of any investment is less important than what it yields: continuous
returns that support growth in the overall market. Hence, capital investment in tobacco
products, weapons of war, toxic chemicals, pollution, and other socially destructive goods and
services are judged purely by their profitability. Concern for the social and environmental
costs of the investment are non-existent. In other words, inflicting death and destruction are
fine because they are profitable.
So what is the global elite's purpose? In a few sentences Phillips characterizes it thus:
The elite is largely united in support of the US/NATO military empire that prosecutes a
repressive war against resisting groups – typically labeled 'terrorists' – around
the world. The real purpose of 'the war on terror' is defense of transnational globalization,
the unimpeded flow of financial capital around the world, dollar hegemony and access to oil; it
has nothing to do with repressing terrorism which it generates, perpetuates and finances to
provide cover for its real agenda. This is why the United States has a long history of CIA and
military interventions around the world ostensibly in defense of 'national
interests'.
An interesting point that emerges for me from reading Phillips thoughtful analysis is that
there is a clear distinction between those individuals and families who have wealth and those
individuals who have (sometimes significantly) less wealth (which, nevertheless, is still
considerable) but, through their positions and connections, wield a great deal of power. As
Phillips explains this distinction, 'the sociology of elites is more important than particular
elite individuals and their families'. Just 199 individuals decide how more than $40 trillion
will be invested. And this is his central point. Let me briefly elaborate.
There are some really wealthy families in the world, notably including the families
Rothschild (France and the United Kingdom), Rockefeller (USA), Goldman-Sachs (USA), Warburgs
(Germany), Lehmann (USA), Lazards (France), Kuhn Loebs (USA), Israel Moses Seifs (Italy),
Al-Saud (Saudi Arabia), Walton (USA), Koch (USA), Mars (USA), Cargill-MacMillan (USA) and Cox
(USA). However, not all of these families overtly seek power to shape the world as they
wish.
Similarly, the world's extremely wealthy individuals such as Jeff Bezos (USA), Bill Gates
(USA), Warren Buffett (USA), Bernard Arnault (France), Carlos Slim Helu (Mexico) and Francoise
Bettencourt Meyers (France) are not necessarily connected in such a way that they exercise
enormous power. In fact, they may have little interest in power as such, despite their obvious
interest in wealth.
In essence, some individuals and families are content to simply take advantage of how
capitalism and its ancilliary governmental and transnational instruments function while others
are more politically engaged in seeking to manipulate major institutions to achieve outcomes
that not only maximize their own profit and hence wealth but also shape the world itself.
So if you look at the list of 199 individuals that Phillips identifies at the centre of
global capital, it does not include names such as Bezos, Gates, Buffett, Koch, Walton or even
Rothschild, Rockefeller or Windsor (the Queen of England) despite their well-known and
extraordinary wealth. As an aside, many of these names are also missing from the lists compiled
by groups such as Forbes and
Bloomberg , but their
absence from these lists is for a very different reason given the penchant for many really
wealthy individuals and families to avoid certain types of publicity and their power to ensure
that they do.
In contrast to the names just listed, in Phillips' analysis names like Laurence (Larry) Fink
(Chairman and CEO of BlackRock), James (Jamie) Dimon (Chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase) and
John McFarlane (Chairman of Barclays Bank), while not as wealthy as those listed immediately
above, wield far more power because of their positions and connections within the global elite
network of 199 individuals.
Predictably then, Phillips observes, these three individuals have similar lifestyles and
ideological orientations. They believe capitalism is beneficial for the world and while
inequality and poverty are important issues, they believe that capital growth will eventually
solve these problems. They are relatively non-expressive about environmental issues, but
recognize that investment opportunities may change in response to climate 'modifications'. As
millionaires they own multiple homes. They attended elite universities and rose quickly in
international finance to reach their current status as giants of the global power elite. 'The
institutions they manage have been shown to engage in illegal collusions with others, but the
regulatory fines by governments are essentially seen as just part of doing business.'
In short, as I would characterize this description: They are devoid of a legal or moral
framework to guide their actions, whether in relation to business, fellow human beings, war or
the environment and climate. They are obviously typical of the elite.
Any apparent concern for people, such as that expressed by Fink and Dimon in response to the
racist violence in Charlottesville, USA in August 2017, is simply designed to promote
'stability' or more precisely, a stable (that is, profitable) investment and consumer
climate.
The lack of concern for people and issues that might concern many of us is also evident from
a consideration of the agenda at elite gatherings. Consider the International Monetary
Conference. Founded in 1956, it is a private yearly meeting of the top few hundred bankers in
the world. The American Bankers Association (ABA) serves as the secretariat for the conference.
But, as Phillips notes: 'Nothing on the agenda seems to address the socioeconomic consequences
of investments to determine the impacts on people and the environment.' A casual perusal of the
agenda at any elite gathering reveals that this comment applies equally to any elite forum.
See, for example, the agenda of the recent WEF meeting in
Davos . Any talk of 'concern' is misleading rhetoric.
Hence, in the words of Phillips: The 199 directors of the global Giants are 'a very select
set of people. They all know each other personally or know of each other. At least 69 have
attended the annual World Economic Forum, where they often serve on panels or give public
presentations. They mostly attended the same elite universities, and interact in upperclass
social setting[s] in the major cities of the world. They all are wealthy and have significant
stock holdings in one or more of the financial Giants. They are all deeply invested in the
importance of maintaining capital growth in the world. Some are sensitive to environmental and
social justice issues, but they seem to be unable to link these issues to global capital
concentration.'
Of course, the global elite cannot manage the world system alone: the elite requires agents
to perform many of the functions necessary to control national societies and the individuals
within them. 'The interests of the Global Power Elite and the TCC are fully recognized by major
institutions in society. Governments, intelligence services, policymakers, universities, police
forces, military, and corporate media all work in support of their vital interests.'
In other words, to elaborate Phillips' point and extend it a little, through their economic
power, the Giants control all of the instruments through which their policies are implemented.
Whether it be governments, national military forces, 'military contractors' or mercenaries
(with at least $200 billion spent on private security globally, the industry currently employs
some fifteen million people worldwide) used both in 'foreign' wars but also likely deployed in
future for domestic control, key 'intelligence' agencies, legal systems and police forces,
major nongovernment organizations, or the academic, educational, 'public relations propaganda',
corporate media, medical, psychiatric and pharmaceutical industries, all instruments are fully
responsive to elite control and are designed to misinform, deceive, disempower, intimidate,
repress, imprison (in a jail or psychiatric ward), exploit and/or kill (depending on the
constituency) the rest of us, as is readily evident.
Defending Elite Power
Phillips observes that the power elite continually worries about rebellion by the 'unruly
exploited masses' against their structure of concentrated wealth. This is why the US military
empire has long played the role of defender of global capitalism. As a result, the United
States has more than 800 military bases (with some scholars suggesting 1,000) in 70 countries
and territories. In comparison, the United Kingdom, France, and Russia have about 30 foreign
bases. In addition, US military forces are now deployed in 70 percent of the world's nations
with US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) having troops in 147 countries, an increase of 80
percent since 2010. These forces conduct counterterrorism strikes regularly, including drone
assassinations and kill/capture raids.
'The US military empire stands on hundreds of years of colonial exploitation and continues
to support repressive, exploitative governments that cooperate with global capital's imperial
agenda. Governments that accept external capital investment, whereby a small segment of a
country's elite benefits, do so knowing that capital inevitably requires a return on investment
that entails using up resources and people for economic gain. The whole system continues wealth
concentration for elites and expanded wretched inequality for the masses .
'Understanding permanent war as an economic relief valve for surplus capital is a vital part
of comprehending capitalism in the world today. War provides investment opportunity for the
Giants and TCC elites and a guaranteed return on capital. War also serves a repressive function
of keeping the suffering masses of humanity afraid and compliant.'
As Phillips elaborates: This is why defense of global capital is the prime reason that NATO
countries now account for 85 percent of the world's military spending; the United States spends
more on the military than the rest of the world combined.
In essence, 'the Global Power Elite uses NATO and the US military empire for its worldwide
security. This is part of an expanding strategy of US military domination around the world,
whereby the US/ NATO military empire, advised by the power elite's Atlantic Council , operates in service to the
Transnational Corporate Class for the protection of international capital everywhere in the
world'.
This entails 'further pauperization of the bottom half of the world's population and an
unrelenting downward spiral of wages for 80 percent of the world. The world is facing economic
crisis, and the neoliberal solution is to spend less on human needs and more on security. It is
a world of financial institutions run amok, where the answer to economic collapse is to print
more money through quantitative easing, flooding the population with trillions of new
inflation-producing dollars. It is a world of permanent war, whereby spending for destruction
requires further spending to rebuild, a cycle that profits the Giants and global networks of
economic power. It is a world of drone killings, extrajudicial assassinations, death, and
destruction, at home and abroad.'
Where is this all heading?
So what are the implications of this state of affairs? Phillips responds unequivocally:
'This concentration of protected wealth leads to a crisis of humanity, whereby poverty, war,
starvation, mass alienation, media propaganda, and environmental devastation are reaching a
species-level threat. We realize that humankind is in danger of possible extinction'.
He goes on to state that the Global Power Elite is probably the only entity 'capable of
correcting this condition without major civil unrest, war, and chaos' and elaborates an
important aim of his book: to raise awareness of the importance of systemic change and the
redistribution of wealth among both the book's general readers but also the elite, 'in the hope
that they can begin the process of saving humanity.' The book's postscript is a 'A Letter to
the Global Power Elite', co-signed by Phillips and 90 others, beseeching the elite to act
accordingly.
'It is no longer acceptable for you to believe that you can manage capitalism to grow its
way out of the gross inequalities we all now face. The environment cannot accept more pollution
and waste, and civil unrest is everywhere inevitable at some point. Humanity needs you to step
up and insure that trickle-down becomes a river of resources that reaches every child, every
family, and all human beings. We urge you to use your power and make the needed changes for
humanity's survival.'
But he also emphasizes that nonviolent social movements, using the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights as a moral code, can accelerate the process of redistributing wealth by pressuring
the elite into action.
Conclusion
Peter Phillips has written an important book. For those of us interested in understanding
elite control of the world, this book is a vital addition to the bookshelf. And like any good
book, as you will see from my comments both above and below, it raised more questions for me
even while it answered many.
For this reason I do not share his faith in moral appeals to the elite, as articulated in
the letter in his postscript. It is fine to make the appeal but history offers no evidence to
suggest that there will be any significant response. The death and destruction inflicted by
elites is highly profitable, centuries-old and ongoing. It will take powerful,
strategically-focused nonviolent campaigns (or societal collapse) to compel the necessary
changes in elite behavior. Hence, I fully endorse his call for nonviolent social movements to
compel elite action where we cannot make the necessary changes without their involvement. See
'A Nonviolent Strategy to End Violence and Avert Human Extinction' and Nonviolent Campaign Strategy .
Fundamentally, Giants: The Global
Power Elite is a call to action. Professor Peter Phillips is highly aware of our
predicament – politically, socially, economically, environmentally and climatically
– and the critical role played by the global power elite in generating that
predicament.
If we cannot persuade the global power elite to respond sensibly to that predicament, or
nonviolently compel it to do so, humanity's time on Earth is indeed limited.
*
Robert J. Burrowes has a lifetime commitment to understanding and ending human violence.
He has done extensive research since 1966 in an effort to understand why human beings are
violent and has been a nonviolent activist since 1981. He is the author of 'Why Violence?' His email address
is [email protected]
and his website is here . He is a frequent contributor to Global
Research.
"... With all due respect, Mr. Larison (and that is not passive aggression, as it is obvious that you are both honest and have your heart in the right place) – you assume that Trump and Iran hawks even want to get it right. ..."
"... They don't, or at least they don't care, as long as they get what they want. They want Iran destroyed, just as the neocons wanted their war on Iraq, and spent the better part of fifteen years concocting excuses until Bush came into office. Bush was weak and easily manipulated (like Trump), and the hawks got the war that they wanted ..."
"... The results for the United States and Iraq are well known. The hawks not only paid no personal or professional price for their crimes, they are largely the same crew cheerleading for the war they have planned for Iran. ..."
"... The same can be said with Libya. In that case, the hawks didn't even bother sticking around after they destroyed the country ..."
"... Why would anybody debate the lies and inanities of paid-for stooges? Never attribute to malice or stupidity what could and should be properly attributed to money, profit, greed: Saudi and Israeli-American oligarch money to selected representatives in exchange for services. ..."
"... Trump is the tragedy of George "Cakewalker" Bush repeating as a farce. There is nothing that cannot be bought of The American People, it you offer the right amount to the right people. ..."
"The problem is that Trump knows so little about Iran and the region that he never
realizes that he is relying on shoddy "analysis" offered up by propagandists and
ideologues."
And boy do the propagandists and ideologues know it!
""When I came into here, it was a question of when would they take over the Middle
East," Trump said Thursday"
You must be thinking of ISIS, Mr. President.
Mr. President, the total territory taken by Iran in the last one hundred years well, its
none. Nothing at all, actually. Zero acres. Zero hectares. Zero square feet, if you prefer.
An "Iranian Empire" was never about to take over the Middle East, Mr. President, because an
"Iranian Empire" hasn't existed even as a wizened husk since about 1925. Those around you who
claimed to fear such a thing despite all evidence to the contrary are either fools or liars.
And they obviously don't mind making you one.
Stick to your campaign promise: a) bomb the hell out of ISIS and b) get out of the Middle
East. You did a). Now do b).
Iran hawks don't have to get Iran right. They have to get Israel and Saudi Arabia right.
"Truth" misses the point. It's all about what MbS and Bibi want. Say the right things and the
Saudi/Israel money flows. Say the wrong thing and, well, don't say the wrong thing: free
speech isn't a "Western value" any more.
All very true but to play Devil's Advocate, what's the harm in strangling Iran? You have
them on the defensive even if they don't collapse. Answer: Iraq 2, the sequel. The mother of
all carnage.
The same people who got us into war against Iraq are re-creating the same terms against
Iran.
1. They are replacing the transparency of the JCPOA with the opaqueness of WMD Iraq.
2. They are backing Iran into a corner just like we did Saddam.
3. They have MEK just like they had Chalabi.
4. Saddam was the Nexis of terrorism as they now claim wit Iran.
5. They will greet us as liberators.
6. War will be cheap this time, we have stand off weapons (ignoring Iran's ballistic missile
arsenal and potential allies, Russia and China).
Also add in Iran's Electronic Warfare capability. They have an awful nice computer virus
on hand they can re-release as well as solid GPS denial and spoofing technology. They wrote a
white paper on it. Either kill the signal completely or throw a vessel miles off course;
should be fun for shipping.
If I may a minor correction to the header . The correct term in regards to the majority of
those proponents for war and regime change should be : ' ChickenHawks ' .. the political
idiom not the bird
With all due respect, Mr. Larison (and that is not passive aggression, as it is
obvious that you are both honest and have your heart in the right place) – you assume
that Trump and Iran hawks even want to get it right.
They don't, or at least they don't care, as long as they get what they want. They want
Iran destroyed, just as the neocons wanted their war on Iraq, and spent the better part of
fifteen years concocting excuses until Bush came into office. Bush was weak and easily
manipulated (like Trump), and the hawks got the war that they wanted .
The results for the United States and Iraq are well known. The hawks not only paid no
personal or professional price for their crimes, they are largely the same crew cheerleading
for the war they have planned for Iran.
The same can be said with Libya. In that case, the hawks didn't even bother sticking
around after they destroyed the country .
Normally, I'd say that never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by
stupidity, but this cannot be adequately explained by stupidity.
The Iranian government is all-powerful, bent on taking over the Middle East. The Iranian
people are fully behind it and/or powerless to change it. We must attack!
The Iranian government is weak and falling apart, and the Iranian people are eager to
rise up and able to depose of it at the first opening. We must attack!
Why would anybody debate the lies and inanities of paid-for stooges? Never attribute
to malice or stupidity what could and should be properly attributed to money, profit, greed:
Saudi and Israeli-American oligarch money to selected representatives in exchange for
services.
Plurality must never be posited without necessity. Call it Cicero's Blade of human
behavior: If it can be explained by profit, it is all-advised to search for other
explanations.
War is a racket. It is never begun unless somebody expects to profit from it. If our age
is different in any respect, is that we define "profit" as nothing more than convertible
currency. It is the single-mindedness of utilitarianism and capitalism applied to all aspects
of the human condition.
When Trump "came into" the Oval Office, it was a question of when would the US take over
the Middle East again. Now it's a question of will the US survive. It's a big difference in
one and a half years.
"they exaggerate the fragility of the regime because it makes regime change seem
relatively easy to achieve."
Or possible at all.
Trump is the tragedy of George "Cakewalker" Bush repeating as a farce. There is
nothing that cannot be bought of The American People, it you offer the right amount to the
right people.
Basically, the usual suspects in the Trump Administration, the FDD types, are trying to
sever Iran from the IAEA. It wasn't enough to have the U.S. withdraw from the agreement. They
want to make it technically impossible for other countries to remain in the agreement by
making inspections and the redesign of Arak impossible.
"... The same people will insist that Iran is "on the march" and then in the next breath pretend that their government is a shaky house of cards that just needs a nudge to come tumbling down. ..."
"... The reality is that Iran hawks are always missing the mark in both directions: they exaggerate the threat from Iran because it makes it easier to sell aggressive policies against them, and they exaggerate the fragility of the regime because it makes regime change seem relatively easy to achieve. ..."
"... The problem is that Trump knows so little about Iran and the region that he never realizes that he is relying on shoddy "analysis" offered up by propagandists and ideologues. That doesn't bode well for the future of U.S. Iran policy, which is already defined by its cruelty , stupidity , and ineffectiveness. ..."
The president's Iran obsession is
paired with exceptionally poor understanding of the region:
"When I came into here, it was a question of when would they take over the Middle East,"
Trump said Thursday in an Oval Office interview with Bloomberg News. "Now it's a question of
will they survive. It's a big difference in one and a half years."
Only Iran hawks have ever claimed that Iran was capable of "taking over" the entire region,
and they were completely wrong when they said that. Now they're fantasizing about regime
collapse, and their analysis is just as bad as before. Iran hawks will always overstate Iranian
power for the sake of fear-mongering, and then they will make equally unfounded claims about
Iran's internal weaknesses to lend support to their plans for regime change. The same
people will insist that Iran is "on the march" and then in the next breath pretend that their
government is a shaky house of cards that just needs a nudge to come tumbling down. They
invariably sound the alarm about Iranian "expansionism" when Iran has relatively less regional
influence and then boast about Iranian isolation when most other countries are happy to do
business with them. The reality is that Iran hawks are always missing the mark in both
directions: they exaggerate the threat from Iran because it makes it easier to sell aggressive
policies against them, and they exaggerate the fragility of the regime because it makes regime
change seem relatively easy to achieve.
The silly contrast Trump drew between now and a year and a half ago would make a more
thoughtful president question some of his assumptions. If the "question" at the start of 2017
was when Iran would "take over" the entire region, the people asking that question were
inexcusably ignorant. If the same people are now wondering whether the regime that was
supposedly on the verge of regional domination is going to survive, it's safe to say that no
one should ever listen to anything those people say. The problem is that Trump knows so
little about Iran and the region that he never realizes that he is relying on shoddy "analysis"
offered up by propagandists and ideologues. That doesn't bode well for the future of U.S. Iran
policy, which is already defined by its
cruelty , stupidity
, and ineffectiveness.
"... Unfortunately, the Trump administration's Iran policy just keeps getting worse. While administration officials pay lip service to the welfare of the Iranian people, they obviously don't care that their policies are impoverishing a country of eighty million people. They have no interest in what Iranians affected by their policies say about those policies, and they aren't bothered by the damage that they're doing to the entire population. ..."
"... Trump has adopted Obama's policies in Libya, Yemen, and Syria and Hillary Clinton's policy toward Iran. That's not what we voted for. When are getting out of the Middle East and starting the "America First" policies that you promised us? ..."
It will come as no surprise that Iranians don't want the U.S. meddling in their
politics:
Although demonstrators in Iran may be occasionally emboldened to call for the death of
Rouhani and Khamenei, they do not necessarily view support from Trump administration
regime-change hawks such as national security adviser John Bolton as the answer.
"Just look at our neighbors, Iraq and Afghanistan. After 6 p.m., you can't go out. It's
too dangerous. This is what happens when Americans intervene in other countries," said
Mohammad, a merchant at Tehran's Grand Bazaar, referring to two countries where the United
States has spent billions of dollars on military occupations and long-term nation-building
missions. "The reality is that we don't want the U.S. interfering with our problems."
Most Iranians can see very clearly from our government's track record that our interference
tends to make other countries' problems worse. They understandably want none of that for their
own country. Our meddling is destructive and therefore it is naturally unwelcome.
The deleterious effects of sanctions are already being felt by ordinary Iranians:
Inside Iran, there is a mixture of anger and weariness at Trump's decision to reimpose
sanctions. Though Washington insists the sanctions are not aimed at Iran's civilians, only
its government and nuclear program, Iranians find that line of reasoning hard to accept; even
though the sanctions don't target them directly, restrictions on Iran's use of the global
financial system have led to severe shortages of cancer drugs, certain food supplies and key
consumer goods. They also have led to an economic crisis that has severely affected salaries,
prices and jobs.
"Please tell Mr. Trump that it will only get worse for ordinary Iranian workers and their
families," said Fereshteh Dastpak, head of Iran's National Carpet Center. Dastpak lamented
the likely effect of the sanctions on the 1.5 million people who earn their living in Iran's
rug industry. Nearly $100 million worth of Persian carpets were exported to the USA last year
amid the lifting of sanctions tied to the nuclear accord negotiated during President Barack
Obama's tenure. The year before the deal? There were no carpets imported. "Trump needs to
reconsider," Dastpak said.
Unfortunately, the Trump administration's Iran policy just keeps getting worse. While
administration officials pay lip service to the welfare of the Iranian people, they obviously
don't care that their policies are impoverishing a country of eighty million people. They have
no interest in what Iranians affected by their policies say about those policies, and they
aren't bothered by the damage that they're doing to the entire population.
"This is what happens when Americans intervene in other countries."
Let us discuss the US' "malign behavior" in the region.
Iran, whatever its failings, is responsible for far fewer deaths than the US – from
fueling Saddam's attempted invasion of Iran, to the deaths and misery in Libya and Syria, to
aiding and abetting our clients' atrocities in Gaza and Yemen, to meddling in Egypt, to
outright invading, occupying, and fragmenting Iraq, to doing as much as the wahabbi
"malignancy" of the House of Saud to spread sectarian strife and purchase Sunni "awakenings"
. the whole idea that the US has the moral standing left to call out Iran on "malignancy" and
"meddling" regarding the Middle East is beyond hypocrisy and by now exceeding farce.
It is an embarrassment that the purveyors of this kind of hogwash aren't dismissed
wholesale from what passes as our "national discourse". But surely the "media" will mediate
and protect us from manufactured "news" and arrant BS.
"They have no interest in what Iranians affected by their policies say about those
policies, and they aren't bothered by the damage that they're doing to the entire
population."
The concept of US "nation building" by "shock'n'awe" is a strange mix of patriotic
self-inflation and capitalist/puritan "efficiency". We throw a bunch of expensive bombs on
the "flyover abroad", and then, instant revolution – a whole captive population just
waiting to become US proxies fighting and dying for dollars and markets.
It makes you wonder – do the "true believers" laboring on behalf of the profiteers
see their own US "revolutionary" history in this manner? Are the victims of our
"liberation-related activities" expected to stand up and fight for our ideals, and are they
expendable failures if they do not fight, or fail to win, on our behalf? You'd have to take
seriously the idea that a tax revolt on behalf of plantation owners was somehow a struggle
for freedom to rival and exceed the convulsions of the French revolution to manufacture this
inflated expectation on how The People of other nations are supposed to conduct themselves in
response to US economic warfare or the aftermath of impunitive "strategic" bombing
campaigns.
"They" are supposed to do the dying "over there", and if they don't, we'll just have to
kill them, and it's their own damn fault by not living up to those standards that, we
strenuously pretend, our forerunners set for everybody else. Not much revolutionary fervor at
home these days, but high expectations for the rest of the world.
Here is a kind of depressing thing I have long suspected -- most Americans don't actually
care that much what we do to other people. They care if Americans get hurt. It isn't sadism,
except in extreme cases. It just isn't real to them or something.
I think, though, it is probably the press's fault to some degree. They train us to think
some things are more important than others by the emphasis they give to different stories and
no matter how smart we might be, propaganda works.
"Just look at our neighbors, Iraq and Afghanistan. After 6 p.m., you can't go out. It's
too dangerous."
Even the Iranian man-on-the-street sees that the neocons are good at turning other
people's countries into hellholes. Presumably they can see, as we can, that the neocons are
also good at getting Americans killed and good at wasting stunning amounts of American
taxpayer money.
They aren't good at much else, but when you're good at things like that it doesn't seem to
matter. Which must be as puzzling to the Iranian man-on-the-street as it is to us.
Trump has adopted Obama's policies in Libya, Yemen, and Syria and Hillary Clinton's
policy toward Iran. That's not what we voted for. When are getting out of the Middle East and
starting the "America First" policies that you promised us?
FWIW an Israeli journalist has made an FOI request to the Israeli government in an attempt
to tease out Israeli government connections with the villification of Corbyn by the various
'Friends of Israel' in the UK and the role of Masot wrt Israel as partially exposed in the Al
Jazeera undercover video on attempts to oust UK MPs insufficiently obeisant to Israel..
The problem with this scenario is that it's starting to look ineffective. Jeremy Corbyn is
still there and the pro Israelis have had an unprecedented amount of media coverage to convince
the population that he's on a par with Goebbels. I suspect having already suffered the
vilification he received in his ambassador days, he is in a much better position to endure
another campaign. There is also the (not so) small matter of a very loyal and supportive blog
readership which is always willing to help him in his hour of need. Craig Murray isn't the
sitting duck you would like him to think he is.
Samuel Moyn's review of Michael Walzer's A Foreign
Policy for the Left is worth reading in its entirety. This passage jumped out at me:
Walzer's attempt to snatch the promise of American intervention from the jaws of recent
horrors shows the need to repeat the litany. The left has long since learned how difficult it
is to respond to those who laughed when it tried to save the pure idea of communism from its
totalitarian applications. Walzer applies the same strategy to humanitarian intervention, as
if it might work better in this case.
Remarkably, Walzer does not even mention the Libyan intervention in 2011 [bold mine-DL],
which -- like the Iraq War -- has left hopes for militarized humanism in shambles. Ever since
Democrats and their allies abroad acted to topple Muammar al-Qaddafi under the cover of
humanitarian protection, the possibility of insulating the so-called "responsibility to
protect" civilians abroad from great power designs and horrendous long-term outcomes has
become incredible. Much like a stock newsletter touting a new strategy to beat the odds after
a market crash, the promise of a better scheme for picking winners among prospective
interventions has become unbelievable, at least for now. For Walzer, however, the priority is
to chide fellow leftists for failing to defend the option of humanitarian intervention in
theory, not to understand today why almost nobody thinks it improves the world in
practice.
It seems strange that Walzer wouldn't mention the Libyan war at all in this book. As Moyn
says, it is extremely relevant to the debate over "humanitarian" interventions and their
consequences. What makes this omission even more striking is that Walzer was a public
opponent of the Libyan war when it happened. Walzer opened his article written at
the start of the intervention with this statement:
There are so many things wrong with the Libyan intervention that it is hard to know where
to begin.
Walzer was absolutely right to oppose the Libyan war, and his early arguments against it
were very similar to some my own objections. That makes his decision not to mention the Libyan
war or his opposition to it that much more difficult to understand. He could have cited his
opposition as an example of good judgment and proof that he could distinguish between necessary
and unnecessary wars, but for whatever reason he didn't do that. Libya is one of the chief
examples most people today would think of when discussing the merits and flaws of
"humanitarian" intervention, but apparently Walzer doesn't think it is worth talking about. It
is even odder that Walzer would make defending "humanitarian" interventionism the focus of his
book when he saw very clearly then how easily the rhetoric of protecting civilians could be
abused to launch an unjustified war.
From farm subsidies to the Export-Import Bank, special interest feeding frenzies are
still the norm throughout government. By DOUG BANDOW • August
29, 2018
Congress created the usual special interest frenzy with its latest iteration of the farm
bill. Agricultural subsidies are one of the most important examples of corporate welfare --
money handed out to businesses based on political connections. The legislation suffered a
surprise defeat in the House, being viewed as too stingy. But it is certain to return.
Fiscal responsibility is out of fashion. The latest federal budget, drafted by a Republican
president and Republican-controlled Congress, blew through the loose limits established under
Democratic President Barack Obama. The result is trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can
see.
Spending matters. So does the kind of spending. Any amount of corporate welfare is too
much.
Business plays a vital role in a free market. People should be able to invest and innovate,
taking risks while accepting losses. In real capitalism there are no guaranteed profits. But
corporate welfare gives the well-connected protection from many of the normal risks of
business.
Business subsidies undermine both capitalism and democracy. Allowing politicians to channel
economic resources toward their preferred ends distorts investment and trade. Moreover, turning
government into an engine of illicit profit encourages what economists call rent-seeking.
Well-organized special interests usually triumph over the broader public and national
interest.
Explained Mercatus scholar Tad DeHaven, then a budget analyst at the Cato Institute:
"Corporate welfare often subsidizes failing and mismanaged businesses and induces firms to
spend more time on lobbying rather than on making better products. Instead of correcting market
failures, federal subsidies misallocate resources and introduce government failures into the
marketplace."
While corporate welfare suggests money for big business, firm size is irrelevant. There is
no substantive difference between, say, the Small Business Administration and the Export-Import
Bank. Both turn capitalism into a rigged game of Monopoly.
Aid comes in many forms. There is spending, typically in grants, loans, and loan guarantees;
limits on competitors, such as tariffs and quotas; tax preferences, attached to broader tax
bills to benefit individual companies and industries. All help ensure business profits.
Agriculture in particular has spawned a gaggle of sometimes bizarre subsidies. Payments,
loans, crop insurance, import quotas, and more underwrite farmers. When these distort the
marketplace, further efforts are concocted to address those dislocations. A dairy program
created milk surpluses, which in turn encouraged state price fixing that generated massive
cheese stockpiles, in turn triggering giveaways to the poor. The federal government killed off
cows even as it continued to subsidize milk.
Money also goes to agricultural enterprises through the Rural Business-Cooperative Service,
which supports "business development." Through it, observed the Cato Institute's Chris Edwards,
Washington subsidizes "utilities, housing developers, and a vast range of other businesses,
such as auto shops, tractor companies, clam producers, carwashes, and pharmaceutical firms."
The defeated farm bill even included $65 million in special health care subsidies for
agricultural associations. Ironically farm households enjoy higher median income and wealth
than non-farm households.
The Market Access Program subsidizes agricultural exports. So do the Emerging Markets
Program and Foreign Market Development Program. Other programs support general trade and
investment. For instance, the Export-Import Bank is known as Boeing's Bank. It provides cheap
credit for foreign buyers of American products. Ironically this gives foreign firms, such as
airlines that purchase Boeing airplanes, an advantage over U.S. carriers, which must pay full
fare. Ex-Im's biggest beneficiary in recent years has been China, especially its state-owned
firms.
Contrary to its claims, Ex-Im is not vital for American exports: it backs fewer than 2
percent of them. Around 10 companies benefit from roughly two thirds of the organization's
largesse. Ex-Im likes to say it makes money. But the real cost is channeling economic resources
to the politically favored.
The Overseas Private Investment Corporation provides another carefully camouflaged subsidy.
OPIC underwrites U.S. investment -- recipients have ranged from Papa John's Pizza to the
Ritz-Carlton -- in potentially unstable nations. If the project pays off, investors win. If
not, the rest of us lose. OPIC's real cost includes channeling business investment into
protected regions and industries. American businesses hoping to make money in foreign markets
should not expect American taxpayers to guarantee those profits.
♦♦♦
At the other end of the commercial spectrum is the Small Business Administration. Smaller
firms are a vital part of the American economy and play an important cultural, community, and
family role. Yet small businesses are not an underserved market. There is no dearth of, say,
liquor stores, bakeries, or antique shops. (Personally, I would love to see an antique shop on
every street corner.) SBA is a response to a political opportunity, not an economic need.
Much corporate welfare is disguised in broader terms. The Commerce Department's Economic
Development Administration subsidizes "development" in "distressed communities," meaning the
agency underwrites business, with dubious results. The Department of Housing and Urban
Development's Community Development Block Grants do much the same. So does the Appalachian
Regional Commission. Cato's Chris Edwards complained that "these are pork-barrel handouts, not
proper federal activities." There are some 180 "economic development" programs of one sort or
another.
The Rural Utilities Service (once the Rural Electrification Administration) continues, never
mind that rural America got electricity decades ago. Today RUS underwrites service in wealthy
resort areas and has expanded into broadband internet and even television service. The Federal
Communications Commission has several programs to subsidize phone service. The Commerce
Department includes the Minority Business Development Agency, which underwrites companies that
qualify as minority-owned.
The Bureau of Land Management (mis)manages federal lands, subsidizing use of rangeland by
ranchers, for instance. There are federal subsidies to develop, finance, and promote fisheries.
There are incentives for airline companies to serve small markets. Foreign Military Financing
is presented as a national defense measure, but in most cases the chief beneficiaries are arms
makers. There is money to develop high-speed rail and aid shipyards, while the Jones Act
imposes huge costs on consumers to preserve expensive U.S. merchantmen.
♦♦♦
There are many housing subsidies, most notably mortgage support and tax preferences, though
the latter were trimmed by last year's tax bill. Federal Reserve monetary policy also is a
massive subsidy for housing industry enterprises and other asset-based businesses. The Trump
administration is pushing subsidies for what the president calls "beautiful" coal power
plants.
Federal research and development outlays also offer bountiful benefit to business. The more
basic the R&D, the better the argument that the public interest is being served. But even
there, warned DeHaven, "the government's basic research can be unproductive and pork-barrel in
nature." The closer to commercialization, the more the expenditures are essentially corporate
welfare. Alas, Uncle Sam has a hideous record of choosing winners and losers. Most often he
chooses the politically influential, which can mean picking losers.
That certainly was the case in the area of "green" energy, for instance. The Obama
administration funneled $535 million worth of loan guarantees to Solyndra, which President
Barack Obama called an "engine of economic growth." The company filed for bankruptcy in 2011
after spending $1.8 million on its Washington lobbyists. The Washington Post later
reported that $3.9 billion in Energy Department grants and financing flowed to 21 companies
backed by firms connected to five Obama administration staffers and advisers.
The Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program provides $25 billion in loans for
development of cars powered by alternative fuels. Tesla is a major beneficiary. Some players
enjoy multiple benefits. DeHaven pointed to Enron, which "received billions of dollars in aid
for its projects from the Export-Import Bank, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the
U.S. Trade and Development Agency, the U.S. Maritime Administration, and other agencies." When
the firm collapsed taxpayers were stuck with several bills.
Although most public attention falls on direct expenditures, trade "protection" is no less a
form of corporate welfare. Both tariffs and quotas allow domestic manufacturers to charge more
for their products. Unfortunately, the cost of this form of corporate welfare is hidden from
the public. Tariffs and other fees alone come to around $40 billion a year. Estimating the cost
of quotas and other non-financial restrictions is much harder.
♦♦♦
Tax preferences are another means of corporate welfare. Buried in the tax code, they often
are difficult to identify. Measures that affect only one firm or industry, in contrast to those
with general economic impact, should be treated as subsidies. Some measures are both, such as
the mortgage interest deduction.
The Tax Foundation once calculated that "special tax provisions" cost more than $100 billion
annually in lost revenue. Toss in just the mortgage interest deduction and the total jumps
dramatically. Although last year's tax bill covered important policy issues, it also
incorporated more than a few preferences called "tax extenders."
States and localities also offer subsidies, many through grants, free property, and tax
preferences to attract businesses to a particular area. The New York Times pointed to
the case of General Motors: "For years, mayors and governors anxious about local jobs had
agreed to G.M.'s demands for cash rewards, free buildings, worker training and lucrative tax
breaks." Estimates of these costs run between $50 billion and $80 billion.
With the annual federal deficit again approaching $1 trillion, ending corporate welfare
alone would not restore fiscal sanity in Washington. But it would be a good down payment.
Killing corporate welfare also would help answer the question: does the system operate only for
the influential and elite? Ending welfare for profit-making companies should be a starting
point for any effort to balance the budget.
The Import-Export Bank helps little guys compete with big guys. It provides resources for
international payments that otherwise are too expensive to set up for smaller transactions
and smaller buyers and sellers.
The attack on the Bank is an attack in support of monopoly power of the biggest companies
that can afford to do it for themselves (and only for themselves).
It's imperative not to leave out the MIC. No matter much the defense contractors screw up
they are always invited back to the FedGov trough to screw up some more. Recent acquisition
catastrophes include:
F-22
F-35
Littoral Combat Ship
Zumwalt Class Destroyer
Army Future Combat System
There are scores of others. Do a search on almost any platform the Pentagon sought to
acquire and "boondoggle" to see what kind of economic wreckage surfaces.
What gets me is the Generals and Admirals who testify in front of Congress and wail about
the "hollowed out force structure" when the original program plans for all weapons systems
had plenty of platforms being delivered at a notionally affordable cost.
Begging for more money for programs when those same Brass screwed up the oversight of the
ones that are busted reminds me of the kid who kills his parents and then throws himself at
the mercy of the court because he's an orphan.
And the Pentagon Brass is really fronting for the defense contractors they want to work
for when they get out. It's all a Corporate Welfare scam.
Nobody can hold a candle to the 5-Sided Pleasure Palace when it comes to Corporate
Welfare.
A challenge . Name one solitary major industry in the US that does not receive massive tax
payer funded subsidies . Think you know the answer ? All bets are your wrong . So lets take a
look at the worst of the worst receiving the most amount of tax payer dollars in what can
only be described as corporate welfare ;
1)Energy ( e.g. The Oil / Petrochemical industry along with coal and nuclear )
2) Arms industry ( both military and civilian )
3) Commercial and to a lesser extent residential developers and builders ( hint hint
recently increased by the current administration )
4) AgraBusiness
5) Big Pharma
6) Auto Industry
7) Transportation ( e.g. the airlines )
8) Communications ( e.g. satellite and cable tv . land line & cell phone providers ,
internet providers )
All en total or in part fully supported by a GOP unwilling to provide so much as
reasonable healthcare to the general public while spending billions of our dollars on
corporate welfare
In conclusion another challenge . In light of the above irrefutable facts .. where is the
genuine conservatism so many conservatives make claim to ?
For instance, the Export-Import Bank is known as Boeing's Bank. It provides cheap
credit for foreign buyers of American products. Ironically this gives foreign firms, such as
airlines that purchase Boeing airplanes, an advantage over U.S. carriers, which must pay full
fare.
Wow – that's a stretch.
I would like to see some real evidence that foreign carriers have been getting
significantly lower interest rates on their loans than US carriers when purchasing planes
from the Boeing factory.
Sure, there's a theoretical point there. But I've never seen one real world example, and
I've not heard any of the domestic carriers complaining.
Meanwhile, thanks to Ex-Im, which costs US taxpayers nothing, Boeing and a lot of other
businesses get to provide jobs to American workers.
I still will never understand the right wing hatred for a program that has helped American
trade balance far more over the years than any of Trump's tariffs will ever do.
"... Maximum pressure usually just provokes maximum resistance, and it leads to more of the behavior that the pressure campaign was supposed to stop. ..."
"... Our policymakers rarely, if ever, learn much of anything from our government's past blunders and crimes. If they acknowledge that previous policies failed, they are reluctant to admit that the policies were certain to fail. It is much more common for policymakers and pundits to blame the failure of our policies abroad on the inadequacies of our proxies and allies or the designs of our adversaries. The fact that these policies can be undone so easily by obvious and foreseeable problems does not seem to matter. There are not many that are willing to accept that a policy failed because it was inherently unsound. ..."
"... Real learning is impossible without a willingness to question and then discard faulty assumptions, and far too many of our policymakers and political leaders won't ever get rid of certain assumptions about the U.S. role in the world. Once someone takes for granted that the U.S. has both the right and the authority to meddle in the affairs of other states and dictate their policies to them on pain of collective punishment and/or war, he is likely to see the pursuit of regime change in other lands as being almost synonymous with American "leadership" itself. ..."
"... "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!" Upton Sinclair. ..."
"... The largest donor to re-election campaigns are the military industrial complex, and it is always in their best interest to start or continue more wars. Since they are the ones that control the money, it is always in the interest of elected representatives to support starting or continuing wars. ..."
"... "When will we ever learn?" When will war cease to be profitable for those that have, or claim, War Powers? ..."
"... One should not mistake the useful "bolt-on" careerists that might or might not be true believers in the Great Gamble with the profiteers that have the actual power. The oligarchs and the arms manufacturers do not care whether the policies are wrong or right, failed or successful, as long as there is blood money to be made. If anything, failure in perpetuity is a guarantor of future cash flow and continued rent extraction. ..."
"... When it comes to their relationship with the world, empires do not learn. They bully. Why should the policy makers learn? They are the invincable empire. They can bully and pounce without consequences, no matter the outcome. Learning is for weaklings who need that in order to survive. ..."
"... As a general rule for understanding public policies, I insist that there are no persistent "failed" policies. Policies that do not achieve their desired outcomes for the actual powers -- that-be are quickly changed. If you want to know why the U.S. policies have been what they have been for the past sixty years, you need only comply with that invaluable rule of inquiry in politics: "follow the money." ..."
"... When you do so, I believe you will find U.S. policies in the Middle East to have been wildly successful, so successful that the gains they have produced for the movers and shakers in the petrochemical, financial, and weapons industries (which is approximately to say, for those who have the greatest influence in determining U.S. foreign policies) must surely be counted in the hundreds of billions of dollars. ..."
Thomas Pickering explains that the Trump
administration's Iran policy is doomed to fail on its own terms:
The policy of maximum pressure and unachievable demands is based on deeply flawed
assumptions about Iran and the wise use of American power.
Pickering is describing Trump's Iran policy here, but he could just as easily be talking
about the president's handling of many other issues. The Trump administration insists on
demanding that other governments capitulate, make sweeping concessions that would overturn most
of their current policies, and then punishes them if the other side refuses to comply with
insane ultimatums. No one responds well to being dictated to, and that is particularly true of
regimes that have made opposition to the U.S. a major part of their reigning ideology.
Maximum pressure usually just provokes maximum resistance, and it leads to more of the
behavior that the pressure campaign was supposed to stop.
Later on in his column, Pickering reviews the sorry record of U.S.-sponsored regime change
and then asks:
When will we ever learn?
If the last two decades are anything to go by, the answer is never. Our policymakers
rarely, if ever, learn much of anything from our government's past blunders and crimes. If they
acknowledge that previous policies failed, they are reluctant to admit that the policies were
certain to fail. It is much more common for policymakers and pundits to blame the failure of
our policies abroad on the inadequacies of our proxies and allies or the designs of our
adversaries. The fact that these policies can be undone so easily by obvious and foreseeable
problems does not seem to matter. There are not many that are willing to accept that a policy
failed because it was inherently unsound.
"We" never learn because so many of our political leaders and analysts don't think that our
failed policies were wrong in themselves. The only thing that they are interested in knowing is
how to implement the same bad ideas more "effectively" the next time. These are the people that
still think that preventive war and regime change are appropriate policy options when done the
"right" way. Real learning is impossible without a willingness to question and then discard
faulty assumptions, and far too many of our policymakers and political leaders won't ever get
rid of certain assumptions about the U.S. role in the world. Once someone takes for granted
that the U.S. has both the right and the authority to meddle in the affairs of other states and
dictate their policies to them on pain of collective punishment and/or war, he is likely to see
the pursuit of regime change in other lands as being almost synonymous with American
"leadership" itself.
While I appreciate your optimism I am far more cynical. Our leaders won't learn for the
same reason tobacco companies rejected evidence that smoking is bad for you.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his
not understanding it!" Upton Sinclair.
The largest donor to re-election campaigns are the military industrial complex, and it is
always in their best interest to start or continue more wars. Since they are the ones that
control the money, it is always in the interest of elected representatives to support
starting or continuing wars.
There is no money to be made in peace. Everything else, sadly, is just window
dressing.
A sound conclusion based on accumulated evidence is hard to refute. But 2 decades? Nah,
more like 5, at least for those who remember Vietnam, a case in which political affiliation
ultimately didn't matter to those pursuing the inevitable conclusion of the mistakes they
believed they could set right. LBJ got us into it and Nixon, having committed treason by
secretly undermining the peace negotiations while running in '68, 'finished the job' by
keeping us there 4 more years, at a huge cost in American lives that far exceeded the
casualty toll in the more recent debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The real reason why is because the US is so rich even George W Bush's $2 Trillion blunder
in Iraq is something a $20T economy can shrug off. How long that remains the case against a
resurgent China is anyone's guess.
"our political leaders and analysts don't think that our failed policies were wrong in
themselves"
One should not mistake the useful "bolt-on" careerists that might or might not be true
believers in the Great Gamble with the profiteers that have the actual power. The oligarchs
and the arms manufacturers do not care whether the policies are wrong or right, failed or
successful, as long as there is blood money to be made. If anything, failure in perpetuity is
a guarantor of future cash flow and continued rent extraction.
Mr. Larison is an American Republican in the original sense of the word in my view. But I
get the feeling he does not realize that when it comes to foreign policy, the US is not a
republic. It is an empire. It only is a republic at home.
When it comes to their relationship with the world, empires do not learn. They bully. Why
should the policy makers learn? They are the invincable empire. They can bully and pounce
without consequences, no matter the outcome.
Learning is for weaklings who need that in order to survive.
Empires do not learn, they fall. Either military or financially. Till that day comes, no learning!
Good to hear from Tom Pickering. I'm very glad his generation retains its voice and
contributes to the foreign policy debate. Sometimes it seems like it's all punk kids and
neocons who either don't know what the hell they're talking about or are lobbying for a
foreign country. More Pickering please, and less of the other stuff.
As a general rule for understanding public policies, I insist that there are no
persistent "failed" policies. Policies that do not achieve their desired outcomes for the
actual powers -- that-be are quickly changed. If you want to know why the U.S. policies have
been what they have been for the past sixty years, you need only comply with that
invaluable rule of inquiry in politics: "follow the money."
When you do so, I believe you will find U.S. policies in the Middle East to have been
wildly successful, so successful that the gains they have produced for the movers and
shakers in the petrochemical, financial, and weapons industries (which is approximately to
say, for those who have the greatest influence in determining U.S. foreign policies) must
surely be counted in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
So U.S. soldiers get killed, so Palestinians get insulted, robbed, and confined to a set
of squalid concentration areas, so the "peace process" never gets far from square one,
etc., etc. -- none of this makes the policies failures; these things are all surface froth,
costs not born by the policy makers themselves but by the cannon-fodder masses, the bovine
taxpayers at large, and foreigners who count for nothing.
If the paeans to McCain by diverse political climbers seems detached from reality, it's
because they reflect the elite view of U.S. military interventions as a chess game, with the
millions killed by unprovoked aggression mere statistics.
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new, bringing the most stable and secure forms of currency, gold and silver, to the consumer,
in digital form.
As the Cold War entered its final act in 1985, journalist Helena Cobban participated in an
academic conference at an upscale resort near Tucson, Arizona, on U.S.-Soviet interactions in
the Middle East. When she attended what was listed as the "Gala Dinner with keynote speech",
she quickly learned that the virtual theme of the evening was, "Adopt a Muj."
"I remember mingling with all of these wealthy Republican women from the Phoenix suburbs and
being asked, 'Have you adopted a muj?" Cobban told me. "Each one had pledged money to sponsor a
member of the Afghan mujahedin in the name of beating the communists. Some were even seated at
the event next to their personal 'muj.'"
The keynote speaker of the evening, according to Cobban, was a hard-charging freshman member
of Congress named John McCain.
During the Vietnam war, McCain had been captured by the North Vietnamese Army after being
shot down on his way to bomb a civilian lightbulb factory. He spent two years in solitary
confinement and underwent torture that left him with crippling injuries. McCain returned from
the war with a deep, abiding loathing of his former captors, remarking as late as 2000, "I hate
the gooks. I will hate them as long as I live." After he was criticized for the racist remark,
McCain
refused to apologize. "I was referring to my prison guards," he said, "and I will continue
to refer to them in language that might offend some people because of the beating and torture
of my friends."
'Hanoi Hilton' prison where McCain was tortured. (Wikimedia Commons)
McCain's visceral resentment informed his vocal support for the mujahedin as well as the
right-wing contra death squads in Central America -- any proxy group sworn to the destruction
of communist governments.
So committed was McCain to the anti-communist cause that in the mid-1980s he had joined
the advisory board of the United States Council for World Freedom, the American affiliate of
the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). Geoffrey Stewart-Smith, a former leader of WACL's
British chapter who had turned against the group in 1974, described the organization as "a
collection of Nazis, fascists, anti-Semites, sellers of forgeries, vicious racialists, and
corrupt self-seekers. It has evolved into an anti-Semitic international."
Joining McCain in the organization were notables such as Jaroslav Stetsko, the Croatian Nazi
collaborator who helped oversee the extermination of 7,000 Jews in 1941; the brutal Argentinian
former dictator Jorge Rafael Videla; and Guatemalan death squad leader Mario Sandoval Alarcon.
Then-President Ronald Reagan honored the group for playing"a leadership role in drawing
attention to the gallant struggle now being waged by the true freedom fighters of our
day."
Being Lauded as a Hero
On the occasion of his death, McCain is being honored in much the same way -- as a patriotic
hero and freedom fighter for democracy. A stream of hagiographies is pouring forth from the
Beltway press corps that he described as his true political base. Among McCain's most
enthusiastic groupies is CNN's Jake Tapper, whom he chose as his personal stenographer for a
2000 trip to Vietnam. When the former CNN host Howard Kurtz asked Tapper in February, 2000,
"When you're on the [campaign] bus, do you make a conscious effort not to fall under the
magical McCain spell?"
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But the late senator has also been treated to gratuitous tributes from an array of prominent
liberals, from George Soros to his soft
power-pushing client, Ken Roth, along with three fellow directors of
Human Rights Watch and "democratic socialist" celebrity Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, who hailed McCain as
"an unparalleled example of human decency." Rep. John Lewis, the favorite civil rights symbol
of the Beltway political class, weighed in as well to
memorialize McCain as a "warrior for peace."
If the paeans to McCain by this diverse cast of political climbers and Davos denizens seemed
detached from reality, that's because they perfectly reflected the elite view of American
military interventions as akin to a game of chess, and the millions of dead left in the wake of
the West's unprovoked aggression as mere statistics.
There were few figures in recent American life who dedicated themselves so personally to the
perpetuation of war and empire as McCain. But in Washington, the most defining aspect of his
career was studiously overlooked, or waved away as the trivial idiosyncrasy of a noble servant
who nonetheless deserved everyone's reverence.
McCain did not simply thunder for every major intervention of the post-Cold War era from the
Senate floor, while pushing for sanctions and assorted campaigns of subterfuge on the side. He
was uniquely ruthless when it came to advancing imperial goals, barnstorming from one conflict
zones to another to personally recruit far-right fanatics as American proxies.
In Libya and Syria, he cultivated affiliates of Al Qaeda as allies, and in Ukraine, McCain
courted actual, sig-heiling neo-Nazis.
While McCain's Senate office functioned as a clubhouse for arms industry lobbyists and
neocon operatives, his fascistic allies waged a campaign of human devastation that will
continue until long after the flowers dry up on his grave.
American media may have sought to bury this legacy with the senator's body, but it is what
much of the outside world will remember him for.
'They are Not al-Qaeda'
McCain with Abdelhakim Belhaj, leader of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a former Al
Qaeda affiliate.
When a violent insurgency swept through Libya in 2011, McCain parachuted into the country to
meet with leaders of the main insurgent outfit, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG),
battling the government of Moamar Gaddafi. His goal was to make kosher this band of hardline
Islamists in the eyes of the Obama administration, which was considering a military
intervention at the time.
What happened next is well documented, though it is scarcely discussed by a Washington
political class that depended on the Benghazi charade to deflect from the real scandal of
Libya's societal destruction. Gaddafi's motorcade was
attacked by NATO jets , enabling a band of LIFG fighters to capture him,
sodomize him with a bayonet, then murder him and leave his body to rot in a
butcher shop in Misrata while rebel fanboys snapped cellphone selfies of his fetid corpse.
A slaughter of Black
citizens of Libya by the racist sectarian militias recruited by McCain immediately followed
the killing of the pan-African leader. ISIS took over Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte while
Belhaj's militia took control of Tripoli, and a war of the warlords began. Just as Gaddafi had
warned , the ruined country became a staging ground for migrant smugglers on the
Mediterranean, fueling the rise of the far-right across Europe and enabling the return of slavery to
Africa.
Many might describe Libya as a failed state, but it also represents a successful realization
of the vision McCain and his allies have advanced on the global stage.
Following the NATO-orchestrated murder of Libya's leader, McCain tweeted , "Qaddafi on his way
out, Bashar al Assad is next."
McCain's Syrian Boondoggle
Like Libya, Syria had resisted aligning with the West and was suddenly confronted with a
Salafi-jihadi insurgency armed by the CIA. Once again, McCain made it his personal duty to
market Islamist insurgents to America as a cross between the Minutemen and the Freedom Riders
of the civil rights era. To do so, he took under his wing a youthful DC-based Syria-American
operative named Mouaz Moustafa who had been a consultant to the Libyan Transitional Council
during the run-up to the NATO invasion.
In May 2013, Moustafa convinced McCain to take an illegal trip across the Syrian border and
meet some freedom fighters. An Israeli millionaire named Moti Kahana who coordinated efforts
between the Syrian opposition and the Israeli military through his NGO, Amaliah, claimed to have "financed the opposition group
which took senator John McCain to visit war-torn Syria."
"This could be like his Benghazi moment," Moustafa remarked excitedly in a scene from a
documentary, "Red
Lines," that depicted his efforts for regime change. "[McCain] went to Benghazi, he came
back, we bombed."
During his brief excursion into Syria, McCain met with a group of CIA-backed insurgents and
blessed their struggle. "The senator wanted to assure the Free Syrian Army that the American
people support their cry for freedom, support their revolution," Moustafa said in an interview
with CNN. McCain's office promptly released a photo showing the senatorposing beside a beaming
Moustafa and two grim-looking gunmen.
Days later, the men were
named by the Lebanese Daily Star as Mohammad Nour and Abu Ibrahim. Both had been implicated
in the kidnapping a year prior of 11 Shia pilgrims, and were identified by one of the
survivors. McCain and Moustafa returned to the U.S. the targets of
mockery from Daily Show host John Stewart and the subject of harshly critical reports from
across the media spectrum. At a town hall in Arizona, McCain was berated by constituents, including Jumana
Hadid, a Syrian Christian woman who warned that the sectarian militants he had cozied up to
threatened her community with genocide.
McCain with then-FSA commander Salam Idriss, an insurgent later exposed for kidnapping Shia
pilgrims.
But McCain pressed ahead anyway. On Capitol Hill, he introduced another
shady young operative into his interventionist theater. Named Elizabeth O'Bagy, she was a
fellow at the Institute for the Study of War, an arms industry-funded think tank directed by
Kimberly Kagan of the neoconservative Kagan clan. Behind the scenes, O'Bagy was consulting for
Moustafa at his Syrian Emergency Task Force, a clear conflict of interest that her top Senate
patron was well aware of. Before the Senate, McCain cited a Wall Street Journal editorial by
O'Bagy to support his assessment of the Syrian rebels as predominately "moderate," and
potentially Western-friendly.
Days later, O'Bagy was
exposed for faking her PhD in Arabic studies. As soon as the humiliated Kagan fired O'Bagy,
the academic fraudster took another pass through the Beltway's revolving door, striding into
the halls of Congress as McCain's newest foreign policy aide.
McCain ultimately failed to see the Islamist "revolutionaries" he glad handled take control
of Damascus. Syria's government held on thanks to help from his mortal enemies in Tehran and
Moscow, but not before a billion dollar CIA arm-and-equip operation helped spawn one of the
worst refugee crises in post-war history. Luckily for McCain, there were other intrigues
seeking his attention, and new bands of fanatical rogues in need of his blessing. Months after
his Syrian boondoggle, the ornery militarist turned his attention to Ukraine, then in the
throes of an upheaval stimulated by U.S. and EU-funded soft power NGO's.
Coddling the
Neo-Nazis of Ukraine
On December 14, 2013, McCain materialized in Kiev for a meeting
with Oleh Tyanhbok , an unreconstructed fascist who had emerged as a top opposition leader.
Tyanhbok had co-founded the fascist Social-National Party, a far-right political outfit that
touted itself as the "last hope of the white race, of humankind as such." No fan of Jews, he
had complained that
a "Muscovite-Jewish mafia" had taken control of his country, and had been photographed throwing
up a sieg heil Nazi salute during a speech.
None of this apparently mattered to McCain. Nor did the scene of Right Sector neo-Nazis
filling up
Kiev's Maidan Square while he appeared on stage to egg them on.
"Ukraine will make Europe better and Europe will make Ukraine better!" McCain proclaimed to
cheering throngs while Tyanhbok stood by his side. The only issue that mattered to him at the
time was the refusal of Ukraine's elected president to sign a European Union austerity plan,
opting instead for an economic deal with Moscow.
McCain met with Social-National Party co-founder Oleh Tyanhbok.
McCain was so committed to replacing an independent-minded government with a NATO vassal
that he even mulled a military assault on Kiev. "I do not see a military option and that is
tragic," McCain lamented in an interview about the crisis. Fortunately for him, regime change
arrived soon after his appearance on the Maidan, and Tyanhbok's allies rushed in to fill the
void.
By the end of the year, the Ukrainian military had become bogged down in a bloody trench war
with pro-Russian, anti-coup separatists in the country's east. A militia affiliated with the
new government in Kiev called Dnipro-1 was
accused by Amnesty International observers of blocking humanitarian aid into a
separatist-held area, including food and clothing for the war torn population.
Six months later, McCain appeared
at Dnipro-1's training base alongside Sen.'s Tom Cotton and John Barasso. "The people of my
country are proud of your fight and your courage," McCain told an assembly of soldiers from the
militia. When he completed his remarks, the fighters belted out a World War II-era salute made
famous by Ukrainian Nazi collaborators: "Glory to Ukraine!"
Today, far-right nationalists occupy key posts in Ukraine's pro-Western government. The
speaker of its parliament is
Andriy Parubiy , a co-founder with Tyanhbok of the Social-National Party and leader of the
movement to honor World World Two-era Nazi collaborators like Stepan Bandera. On the cover of
his 1998 manifesto, "View From The Right," Parubiy appeared in a Nazi-style brown shirt with a
pistol strapped to his waist. In June 2017, McCain and Republican Speaker of the House Paul
Ryan
welcomed Parubiy on Capitol Hill for what McCain called a "good meeting." It was a shot in
the arm for the fascist forces sweeping across Ukraine.
McCain with Dnipro-1 militants on June 20, 2015
The past months in Ukraine have seen a
state sponsored neo-Nazi militia called C14 carrying out a pogromist rampage against
Ukraine's Roma population, the country's parliament erecting an exhibition honoring Nazi
collaborators, and the Ukrainian military formally approving the pro-Nazi
"Glory to Ukraine" greeting as its own official salute.
Ukraine is now the sick man of Europe, a perpetual aid case bogged down in an endless war in
its east. In a testament to the country's demise since its so-called "Revolution of Dignity,"
the deeply unpopular President Petro Poroshenko has promised White House National Security
Advisor John Bolton that his country -- once a plentiful source of coal on par with
Pennsylvania -- will now purchase coal from the
U.S. Once again, a regime change operation that generated a failing, fascistic state stands as
one of McCain's greatest triumphs.
McCain's history conjures up memory of one of the most inflammatory statements by Sarah
Palin, another cretinous fanatic he foisted onto the world stage. During a characteristically
rambling stump speech in October 2008, Palin accused Barack Obama of "palling
around with terrorists." The line was dismissed as ridiculous and borderline slander, as it
should have been. But looking back at McCain's career, the accusation seems richly ironic.
By any objective standard, it was McCain who had palled around with terrorists, and who
wrested as much resources as he could from the American taxpayer to maximize their mayhem.
Here's hoping that the societies shattered by McCain's proxies will someday rest in peace.
"... Here is an except from "A Colony in a Nation" by Chris Hayes that she recently discussed (Chris Hayes is also the author of Twilight of the Elites ) ..."
"... ...we have built a colony in a nation, not in the classic Marxist sense but in the deep sense we can appreciate as a former colony ourselves: A territory that isn't actually free. A place controlled from outside rather than within. A place where the mechanisms of representation don't work enough to give citizens a sense of ownership over their own government. A place where the law is a tool of control rather than a foundation for prosperity. ..."
"... A Colony in a Nation is not primarily a history lesson, though it does provide a serious, empathetic look at the problems facing the Colony, as well as at the police officers tasked with making rapid decisions in a gun-rich environment. ..."
"... Elsewhere, Hayes examines his own experiences with the law, such as an incident when he was almost caught accidentally smuggling "about thirty dollars' worth of marijuana stuffed into my eyeglass case" into the 2000 Republican National Convention. Hayes got away without so much as a slap on the wrist, protected by luck, circumstances and privilege. ..."
Here is an except from "A Colony in a Nation" by Chris Hayes that she recently discussed (Chris
Hayes is also the author of Twilight of the Elites )
...we have built a colony in a nation, not in the classic Marxist sense but in the deep
sense we can appreciate as a former colony ourselves: A territory that isn't actually free. A
place controlled from outside rather than within. A place where the mechanisms of representation
don't work enough to give citizens a sense of ownership over their own government. A place where
the law is a tool of control rather than a foundation for prosperity.
... ... ...
A Colony in a Nation is not primarily a history lesson, though it does provide a serious,
empathetic look at the problems facing the Colony, as well as at the police officers tasked with
making rapid decisions in a gun-rich environment.
Hayes takes us through his less-than-successful experience putting himself in the latter's
shoes by trying out an unusual training tool, a virtually reality simulator: "We're only one scene
in, and already the self-righteous liberal pundit has drawn his weapon on an unarmed man holding
a cinder block."
Elsewhere, Hayes examines his own experiences with the law, such as an incident when he
was almost caught accidentally smuggling "about thirty dollars' worth of marijuana stuffed into
my eyeglass case" into the 2000 Republican National Convention. Hayes got away without so much
as a slap on the wrist, protected by luck, circumstances and privilege.
For black men living in the Colony, encounters with the police are much more fraught. Racial
profiling and minor infractions can lead to "being swept into the vortex of a penal system that
captures more than half the black men his age in his neighborhood... an adulthood marked by prison,
probation, and dismal job prospects...."
"... During the C21st the Conservative Party has become reliant on Jewish money. Even more than her predecessor Cameron, May is a "value free zone", as the commentator Richard North categorised her. She does whatever the donors want. Not that the Labour Party in power would be any better. It is just as riddled with Israel-supporting "moderates". ..."
CRITICIZE ISRAEL AND GO TO JAIL? IS THAT HOW LOW ZIONISTS HAVE SUNK?
Thanks for the interesting article, Sir.
As I read it, I felt sick in the abdomen, at how low the Zionists have sunk, demanding
that those who criticize Israel go to jail.
If there is evil in this world, this is it. These are the dark ages. These people are
primitive and seem to resist civilization.
No civilized human being should put up with this sort of evil.
The Brits need to wake up and actually repeal laws that make certain speech criminal
offences that are already on the books (except for incitements to violence and porn).
The need to vote for Labor and keep Corbyn, or vote for BNP, and tell the Zionists that
they are evil to make these demands.
Israel is not a democracy for a much simpler reason than that the author offers.
It denies the vote to the gentile inhabitants of Gaza and the West Bank; that is to say,
to about a quarter of its subjects.
Since the Jewish parties in the Knesset boycott the few Arab representatives that are
there, Israel effectively denies political representation to the gentiles within its
'pre-1967′ boundaries as well -- that is to say, to another sixth or so of its total
subject population.
Obviously, Israel is not a democracy in any sense of the word. 25% of its subjects are
without even theoretical representation, and another 17% lack it in any practical sense. It's
as if the US denied the vote to all inner-city residents except white 'settlers,' refused to
work with Congressmen who weren't Protestants. It would be absurd to regard it as a
democracy.
There are some democracies in the Middle East. Israel isn't one of them.
and Norm Finkelstein brilliantly demolishes the notion that there's any anti-semitism to
speak of in Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party, or Britain in general.
Corbyn is shell shocked and cannot comprehend what is required for him to counter this
blatant attempt at his ouster. An individual that could help him tremendously as an advisor
is Miko Peled, an Israeli citizen, living in the U.S. I mention Peled, because he is a
"lefty" just like Corbyn.
Giraldi writes that, "there exists an 'Israel Lobby' in many countries, all dedicated to
advancing the agendas promoted by successive Israeli governments no matter what the actual
interests of the host country might be."
ADL, a branch of the B'nai B'rith global enterprise, confirms they are subversive agents
that work against their host nation. Straight from their mouth
The center of the Axis of Evil is Zionist Israel. No other country, not even the planet's
"sole superpower" wields so much power and control over other "sovereign" nations as does
Zionist Israel. Regime change? Zionist, apartheid Israel has perfected that art and science
-- and without firing a shot. Why do it when others will cheerfully fight your battles for
you? Evil is as evil does. Still obsessed with Russophobia? Distractions aplenty for the
stupefied.
These efforts to criminalize criticism of Israel seem to be the necessary precursors to
major military moves in the Middle East to create 'the greater Israel.'
Probably in coordination with the ongoing efforts to neutralize and destroy all
independent players such as Iran and Russia.
There used to be a "supermarket" chain in Montreal called Steinberg, owned by Steinberg,
"Canadian" Jews. They sold the business to another supermarket label, Métro-Richelieu
or something, owned by a would-be-venture capitalist/economics professor, Michel Gauthier or
something. It was a laughing transaction even in the news. But during the due diligence for
the sale it surfaced that Steinberg had unusual deals with his suppliers, meat, dairy or
whatever. If you wanted to sell your products to Steinberg, Steinberg made you sign an
agreement to buy Israeli bonds. Talk about tied-selling under the Canada Competition Act!
Talk about Stephen Harper financing!
During the C21st the Conservative Party has become reliant on Jewish money. Even more than
her predecessor Cameron, May is a "value free zone", as the commentator Richard North
categorised her. She does whatever the donors want. Not that the Labour Party in power would
be any better. It is just as riddled with Israel-supporting "moderates".
In the near future, the Labour Party will break down into 2 or more groups. The "moderates"
and more radical groups who will be chasing the Muslim vote.
On top of that, a second Scottish Independence Referendum may not be too many years away. I
suspect it will be successful this time.
The dissolution of the British state seems likely over the coming years. The question is how
much damage May and her Conservatives In Name Only will do in the interim.
How ironic that a brave and principled man (Jeremy Corbyn) is being hounded out of office
and defamed from all sides while a dishonest neocon toady like such as John McCain is
lionized by both wings of Washington's duopoly (as well as our MSM) as a 'hero' and a
'maverick'.
Could this really be happening?
Oh it's happening alright.
McCain dutifully pimped for every US war against any Israeli foes since GHW Bush. McCain
expressed no regrets for the destruction of Iraq, the destruction of Libya, the dismemberment
of Palestine, or the destabilization of Syria. McCain never apologized for all the needless
death and suffering caused by spineless servants such as himself. He also openly advocated
for a US war on Iran, just as Israel wanted.
If the Zions didn't control our entire mass media this level of venality would not occur.
But they do and it does.
Indoctrination. Brainwashing. Repetition. Conformity. Taboo. Shame. Blacklisting.
Political corruption.
Do you deny making anti-Semitic remarks? What will your friends and family say?
The falsification of history is an ongoing and daily occurrence.
The manipulation of the masses: it works!
Who are you going to believe?–your own fallible judgement?–or the expert
analysis of our entire political class–including Harvard-educated scholars and
journalists?
C'mon. Get a clue. Think right. Stop talking that way.
It is Israel again up to its old tricks being the real entity that interferes in foreign
elections:
Corbyn is viewed by Israel as effectively the "figurehead of the delegitimisation
network".
"They hope that by taking action against him, they can decapitate what they see as the
most powerful figure in this network," he told Middle East Eye. "By making an example of
him, they can sow division, spread fear and suppress speech on Israel."
Certainly, Israel's fingerprints look to be present in the current claims of an
anti-Semitism crisis supposedly revolving around Corbyn.
Active interference by the Israeli government in British politics was highlighted last
year in a four-part undercover documentary produced by the Qatari channel Al Jazeera. It
secretly filmed the activities of an operative in Israel's embassy in London named Shai
Masot.
The Al Jazeera investigation provoked numerous complaints that it breached broadcasting
rules relating to anti-Semitism, bias, unfair editing and invasions of privacy. However,
Ofcom, the British broadcasting regulator, cleared the programme of all charges.
In fact, I think all of this has more to do with Brexit than with Israel. The Brexiteers
are in total panic. If they put the exit package to a referendum, they'll lose. If they call
an election on it, Corbyn will probably win and he opposes Brexit. Even a parliamentary vote
could be lost inasmuch as the Tories don't have a majority and the Brexiteers are a minority
within the party.
Thus, Corbyn has to be discredited at all costs. Whether accusations of
anti-Semitism will discredit him is quite another matter. In Europe generally, people are
indifferent to Israel. They don't care what happens to it one way or the other.
Nobody who is
likely to vote Labour cares a hoot about Israel and are not going to change their vote
because of the accusations. If anything, people will perceive the campaign against Corbyn as
Jewish bullying and rally to him.
I was surprised to learn that the population of Israel is only 8.8 million. So small!
Contrast that with Iran's 82 million .Egypt's 100 million Iraq's 40 million or Turkey's 82
million. How such a relatively tiny country makes so much noise and disruption for the rest
of the world is something to ponder. If you ever google one of those 'most hated countries in
the world' polls Israel or USA invariably top the list.
Gilad Atzmon, the self-described ex-Israeli and ex-Jew, writes reams about the Jewish
assault on Corbyn. In this
recent piece , he quotes from Douglas Reed's The Controversy of Zion :
The Conservative Party membership numbers are no longer published but they could be as low
as fifty thousand going on revenue from membership fees.
All this smearing has so far had no impact at all, in fact it is leading some to question
what is the agenda here. There is a nice article on the Israeli smear campaign in the Middle
East Eye.
Many believe that the easily observable dominance of the friends of Israel over some
aspects of government policy is a phenomenon unique to the United States, where committed
Jews and Christian Zionists are able to control both politicians and the media message
relating to what is going on in the Middle East.
Thank you for pointing this out.
Although I am no longer much of a Christian myself, I have always bristled every time I
hear some left-wing (usually Jewish) anti-Zionist blame American Christians for Washington's
mid-east policies, while describing the influence of the Jewish lobby as being 'exaggerated'.
The obvious counterargument is: if American Christians have so much power over the federal
government that they can virtually dictate mid-east policy, how come they can't ban abortion
or gay marriage? How come they can't–forgive the metaphor–resurrect prayer in
school?
Indeed, the mere fact that the US now has an entire branch of Christianity
devoted to Rapture-Zionism gives you a clue as to who rules whom in this country. Think about
it, people: we now have 'Christian' churches who are actually willing to put the interests
and well-being of another religion ahead of their own! And their otherwise patriotic
followers are being conned into putting the interests of another country ahead of their own.
Absolutely astounding! In modern America at least, not only have the Christians lost control
of their government; they've even lost control of Christianity!
Moreover, what about all those other western countries, such as Britain, France and
Germany, which really lack anything like American-style Rapture-Christians, yet are still
completely in thrall to Israel? L'affaire Corbyn is, if nothing else, proof that we are not
the only ones being jacked around by the Zionists.
Don't get me wrong: I really wish American Christians would wake the f*ck up and see that
they're being used, being made to look pathetic by the Zionists. But the allegation that
those Christians are actually running the show in the West is completely fatuous. In fact,
it's just a left-wing 'anti-Zionist' gate-keeper story. Don't believe it!
Failure to confront Israel's crimes against humanity combined with an inability to
resist its demands regarding how issues like anti-Semitism and hate speech are defined has
done terrible damage to free speech in Western Europe and, most notably, in the Anglophone
world.
We are all Palestinians now!
I really hope this serves as a wake-up call to all of the pro-Zionist alt-righters out
there. The Zionists can never truly be our friends. After all, once they are able to
ban anti-Zionist talk for being anti-Semitic, how much longer will be it before they are able
to just go ahead and ban all anti-Semitic speech? Then where will you be? You won't
even be allowed to criticize George Soros anymore!
Corbyn is indeed a man of the left who has consistently opposed racism, extreme
nationalism, colonialism and military interventionism.
Well, I'm not a hundred-percent sure about the "nationalism" part. While "extreme" may
well be in the eye of the beholder, it's also true that the IRA and most of the Palestinian
groups do self-describe as 'nationalist', and Corbyn has always been OK with them (as am I).
The only nationalism his seems to have a real problem with is English nationalism.
The traditionally liberal Guardian has in fact been in the forefront of Jewish criticism
of Corbyn, led by its senior editor Jonathan Freedland
They should just go ahead and relaunch The Guardian as The Shomer .
As Norman Finkelstein once observed, Jews "never forgive and never forget." Corbyn ought
to keep that in mind. All his bobbing and weaving will availeth nothing.
Why should there be panic by the Brexiteers ?
Britain's export to the remaining EU is far less than from the remaining EU to GB.
Especially France and Germany have huge exports to GB.
As a Brexiteer already long ago mentioned 'they need us more than we them'.
If Merkel and Macron would survive a hard Brexit, I wonder.
Under estimated is the why of Brexit, they want their country back, as one voter said 'they
even interfere with vacuum cleaners'.
I stopped reading the Guardian full stop 4-5 years ago, back when they launched their
"Russia is evildoer!!" shrill campaign of propaganda–also about the time the Ukraine
civil war got into gear. Never looked back, the Guardian is a steaming pile of
US/NATO/Atlantic Council bullshit. I'll never understand why so many fixate on it, such as
the Off-guardian.org bloggers who've devoted an entire blog for years on end to criticising
Guardian journos, 'comment is free', comment mods, etc. All fine and good, but why?
With so
many other better news sources is there a need? No, there isn't. Just move on. The Guardian
is not a relevant news outlet. I mean, why keep going there to read pro-Israeli/pro-US
government articles which make you angry? Doesn't make any sense.
we keep accepting these arguments like Giraldis' here and functioning intellectually at
this paused rate which is insufficient to the needs of the day and time.
it is immediate the reality in which we live, in all its demands on us and we must respond
at the same speed. the enemy moves at the rate of speed of life and succeeds in slowing us
down with these arguments in the media
Corbyn is bloody well wrong. he has gone out of his way to compromise with the Zionists
and every time they want more. we we knew that, that they would not compromise did we not .we
knew it. we know the game. they know they game. they have the power and they never
compromise..never! they know to give ground is to lose.
and it is in fact to lose..and the same for the people. that is why it is zero sum. the
economic/political game is no place to compromise.
in principle the people have all the power..and we do. where are the leaders who bring the
people into awareness of their total power, set up and lead them into that power in the
process of fixing society?
why must the leader of those who have all the power be at the feet of a minority who is
bleeding the life out of the society?
Corbyn behaves as if he has no power..as if he is not fixing to assume in behalf of the
people the greatest social power there is..the power of the people. so he is apologetic and
compromising of the peoples power, on and in dealing with the peoples issues
the people's power and social interest have been usurped and compromised by a minority
power and their pets in the peoples power structure..and in the media too. that is why we are
dealing with a prevaricator in Giraldi and not a radicalized person who brings us up to
speed..the speed required to fix society
the peoples power has been betrayed by treasonous citizens who have lied to the people and
usurped the peoples power. that is the truth, the immediate truth and requires an immediate
and direct response..no compromise will work. this article here by Giraldi is not an
immediate response but a kind of time-wasting prevarication. Corbyn and his politics are also
prevarication
MoscowBob ( you're never going back to London to live ), the above official Parliamentary
Research Briefing makes alarming reading if you are a Conservative supporter. As of April
2018, Conservative membership is put at 124,000, narrowly ahead of the SNP at 118,000.
Conservative membership collapsed from 1 million in 1990 ( see page 7 ) to less than 500,000
5 years later ( John Major ). Apart from a brief period, it has been declining steadily since
the year 2000, especially from 2009 ( David Cameron).
It is no longer a mass membership political party, it is Conservative In Name Only and at the
beck and call of any (((big donors ))).
This situation cannot continue much longer. Its hold on political power will be ended shortly
unless there is a turnaround, which seems unlikely.
Jonathan Cook has also recently written a very good article on the current Israeli
engineered onslaught against Jeremy Corbyn, making much the same argument as Dr. Giraldi.
"... There is consensus between commentators who have studied the effects of neo-liberalism that it has become all pervasive and is the key to ensuring that the rich remain rich, while the poor and the merely well to do continue on a perpetual hamster's wheel, going nowhere and never improving their lot in life while they serve their masters. ..."
"... Monbiot says of this largely anonymous scourge: "Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulations should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous, a reward for utility and a genera-tor of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve." ..."
"... Senior cadres co-opted Unfortunately, history shows that some key senior cadres of the ANC were all too keen to be coopted into the neo-liberal fold and any attempts to put forward radical measures that would bring something fresh to the table to address the massive inequalities of the past were and continue to be kept off the table and we are still endlessly fed the neo-liberal trickle-down baloney. ..."
SA is cursed with neo-liberal trickle-down baloney stifling radical economicchangeKevin Humphrey, The New Age, Johannesburg, 1 December 2016
South Africa's massive inequalities are abundantly obvious to even the most casual observer. When the ANC won the elections in
1994, it came armed with a left-wing pedigree second to none, having fought a protracted liberation war in alliance with progressive
forces which drew in organised labour and civic groupings.
At the dawn of democracy the tight knit tripartite alliance also carried in its wake a patchwork of disparate groupings who, while
clearly supportive of efforts to rid the country of apartheid, could best be described as liberal. It was these groupings that first
began the clamour of opposition to all left-wing, radical or revolutionary ideas that has by now become the constant backdrop to
all conversations about the state of our country, the economy, the education system, the health services, everything. Thus was the
new South Africa introduced to its own version of a curse that had befallen all countries that gained independence from oppressors,
neo-colonialism.
By the time South Africa was liberated, neo-colonialism, which as always sought to buy off the libera-tors with the political
kingdom while keep-ing control of the economic kingdom, had perfected itself into what has become an era where neo-liberalism reigns
supreme. But what exactly is neo-liberalism? George Monbiot says: "Neo-liberalism sees competi-tion as the defining characteristic
of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process
that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that 'the market' delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning."
Never improving
There is consensus between commentators who have studied the effects of neo-liberalism that it has become all pervasive and
is the key to ensuring that the rich remain rich, while the poor and the merely well to do continue on a perpetual hamster's wheel,
going nowhere and never improving their lot in life while they serve their masters.
Monbiot says of this largely anonymous scourge: "Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and
regulations should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade
unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is
recast as virtuous, a reward for utility and a genera-tor of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a
more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve."
Nelson Mandela
South Africa's sad slide into neo-liberalism was given impetus at Davos in 1992 where Nelson Mandela had this to say to the assembled
super rich: "We visualise a mixed economy, in which the private sector would play a central and critical role to ensure the creation
of wealth and jobs. Future economic policy will also have to address such questions as security of investments and the right to repatriate
earnings, realistic exchange rates, the rate of inflation and the fiscus."
Further insight into this pivotal moment was provided by Anthony Sampson, Mandela's official biographer who wrote: "It was not
until February 1992, when Mandela went to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that he finally turned against nationalisation.
He was lionised by the world's bankers and industrialists at lunches and dinners."
This is not to cast any aspersions on Mandela, he had to make these decisions at the time to protect our democratic transition.
But these utterances should have been accom-panied by a behind the scenes interrogation of all the ANC's thoughts on how to proceed
in terms of the economy delivering socialist orientated solutions without falling into the minefield of neo-liberal traps that lay
in wait for our emerging country.
Senior cadres co-opted Unfortunately, history shows that some key senior cadres of the ANC were all too keen
to be coopted into the neo-liberal fold and any attempts to put forward radical measures that would bring something fresh to the
table to address the massive inequalities of the past were and continue to be kept off the table and we are still endlessly fed the
neo-liberal trickle-down baloney.
Now no one dares to express any type of radical approach to our economic woes unless it is some loony populist. Debate around
these important issues is largely missing and the level of commentary on all important national questions is shockingly shallow.
Anti-labour, anti-socialist, anti-poor, anti-black The status quo as set by the largely white-owned media revolves
around key neo-liberal slogans mas-querading as commentary that is anti-labour, anti-socialist and anti-poor, which sadly translates
within our own context as anti-black and therefore repugnantly racist.
We live in a country where the black, over-whelmingly poor majority of our citizens have voted for a much revered liberation movement
that is constantly under attack from within and without by people who do not have their best interests at heart and are brilliant
at manipulating outcomes to suit themselves on a global scale.
Kevin Humphrey is associate executive editor of The New Age
I stopped reading the Guardian full stop 4-5 years ago, back when they launched their
"Russia is evildoer!!" shrill campaign of propaganda -- also about the time the Ukraine civil
war got into gear. Never looked back, the Guardian is a steaming pile of US/NATO/Atlantic
Council bullshit.
I'll never understand why so many fixate on it, such as the Off-guardian.org bloggers
who've devoted an entire blog for years on end to criticising Guardian journos, 'comment is
free', comment mods, etc. All fine and good, but why?
With so many other better news sources is there a need? No, there isn't. Just move on. The
Guardian is not a relevant news outlet. I mean, why keep going there to read
pro-Israeli/pro-US government articles which make you angry? Doesn't make any sense.
Critique of Israeli government interference in internal affair of other states in a form of
pro-Israel lobby, or critique Zionism as an ideology is not equivalent to anti-Semitism.
Neoliberal states like Israel do not represent interests of its citizens, but mostly
transnationals and top 1%. Attempt to link those mean weaponizing anti-Semitism. For example,
while Israel is an ally of the USA some if its action are definitely are against the USA citizens
interests. Although the role of Israel as a collective lobbyist for US MIC should be
acknowledged.
Conversion of Israel into ethnostate is probably a logical development, but the problem here
is that it further alienate Palestinians, which have higher birth rate then Israelites.
Notable quotes:
"... It was also learned that the Israeli Embassy was secretly subsidizing and advising private groups promoting Israeli interests, including associations of Members of Parliament (MPs). ..."
"... Corbyn's crime has been that he is critical of the Jewish state and has called for an "end to the repression of the Palestinian people." As a reward, he has been hounded mercilessly by British Jews, even those in his own party, for over two years. ..."
"... Last month, rightwing Labour Parliamentarian Margaret Hodge raised the stakes, calling Corbyn "a fucking anti-Semite and a racist". She then wrote in the Guardian ..."
"... All of the invective has been more-or-less orchestrated by the Israeli government, which directly supports the gaggle of groups that have coalesced to bring down Corbyn. This effort to destroy the Labour leader has included the use of an app disseminating messages via social media accusing Corbyn of anti-Semitism. The app was developed by Israel's strategic affairs ministry , which "directs Israel's covert efforts to sabotage the Palestine solidarity movement around the world". ..."
"... The principal argument being made against Corbyn is that the Labour Party is awash with anti-Semitism and Corbyn has done little or nothing to oppose it. Some of the most brutal shots against Corbyn have come from the usual crowd in the United States. ..."
Many believe that the easily observable dominance of the friends of Israel over some aspects
of government policy is a phenomenon unique to the United States, where committed Jews and
Christian Zionists are able to control both politicians and the media message relating to what
is going on in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the reality is that there exists an "Israel
Lobby" in many countries, all dedicated to advancing the agendas promoted by successive Israeli
governments no matter what the actual interests of the host country might be. Failure to
confront Israel's crimes against humanity combined with an inability to resist its demands
regarding how issues like anti-Semitism and hate speech are defined has done terrible damage to
free speech in Western Europe and, most notably, in the Anglophone world.
For the United States this corruption of the media and the political process by Israel has
meant
endless wars in the Middle East as well of loss of civil liberties at home, but some other
countries have compromised their own declared values far beyond that. Former Canadian Prime
Minister Stephen Harper praised Israel completely inaccurately as a
light that " burns bright, upheld by the universal principles of all civilized nations --
freedom, democracy justice." He has also said "I will defend Israel whatever the
cost" to Canada, an assertion that some might regard as very, very odd for a Canadian head of
state.
In some other cases, Israel plays hardball directly, threatening retribution against
governments that do not fall in line. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
recently warned New Zealand that backing a U.N. resolution condemning Israeli settlements
would be a "declaration of war." He was able to do so because he had confidence in the power of
the Israel Lobby in that country to mobilize and produce the desired result.
It might surprise some that the "Mother of Parliaments" in Great Britain is perhaps the
legislative body most dominated by Israeli interests, more in many respects than the Congress
in the United States. The ruling Conservative Party has a Friends of Israel caucus that
includes more than 80% of its Parliamentary membership. BICOM , the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre,
is an American Israel Political Action Committee
(AIPAC) clone located in London. It is well funded and politically powerful, working
through its various "Friends of Israel" proxies. Americans might be surprised to learn how that
power is manifest, including that in Britain Jewish organizations uniquely are
allowed to patrol heavily Jewish London neighborhoods in police-like uniforms while driving
police-type vehicles. There have been reports of the patrols threatening Muslims who seek to
enter the areas.
Prime Minister Theresa May is careful never to offend either Israel or the wealthy and
powerful British Jewish community. After Secretary of State John Kerry described Israel's
government as "extreme right wing" on December 28, 2016, May sprang to Tel Aviv's defense,
saying "we do not believe that it is appropriate to attack the composition of the
democratically elected government of an ally." May's rejoinder could have been written by
Netanyahu, and maybe it was. Two weeks later, her government cited
"reservations" over a French government sponsored mid-January Middle East peace conference
and would not sign a joint statement calling for a negotiated two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict after Netanyahu vociferously condemned the proceedings.
This deference all takes place in spite of a recent astonishing expose by al-Jazeera, which
revealed how the Israeli Embassy in London connived with government officials to "take down"
parliamentarians and government ministers who were considered to be critical of the Jewish
State. It was also learned that the Israeli Embassy was secretly subsidizing and advising
private groups promoting Israeli interests, including associations of Members of Parliament
(MPs).
British Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn has been under unrelenting fire due to the fact that he
is the first major political party leader in many years to resist the demands that he place
Israel on a pedestal. Corbyn is indeed a man of the left who has consistently opposed racism,
extreme nationalism, colonialism and military interventionism. Corbyn's crime has been that
he is critical of the Jewish state and has called for an "end to the repression of the
Palestinian people." As a reward, he has been hounded mercilessly by British Jews, even those
in his own party, for over two years.
The invective being spewed by some British Jews and Israel has increased of late, presumably
because Theresa May's Conservative government is perceived as being weak and there is a
distinct possibility that the leader of the Labour Party will be the next Prime Minister. That
a Prime Minister might be sympathetic to the plight of the Palestinians is viewed as completely
unacceptable.
Last month, rightwing Labour Parliamentarian Margaret Hodge raised the stakes, calling
Corbyn "a fucking anti-Semite and a racist". She then wrote in the Guardian that
Labour is "a hostile environment for Jews." The traditionally liberal Guardian has in
fact been in the forefront of Jewish criticism of Corbyn, led by its senior editor Jonathan
Freedland, who reportedly believes
that "his Jewish identity is intimately tied to Israel, and that to attack Israel is to attack
him personally he is demanding the exclusive right to police the parameters of discussions
about Israel." Last month he featured in his paper a
letter attacking Corbyn signed by 68 rabbis.
All of the invective has been more-or-less orchestrated by the Israeli government, which
directly supports the gaggle of groups that have coalesced to bring down Corbyn. This effort to
destroy the Labour leader has included the use of an app disseminating messages via social
media accusing Corbyn of anti-Semitism. The app was developed by Israel's strategic affairs
ministry , which "directs Israel's covert efforts to sabotage the Palestine solidarity
movement around the world".
There are two principal objectives to the "get Corbyn" campaign. The first is to remove him
from the Labour Party leadership position, thereby ensuring that he will never be elected Prime
Minister, while also eliminating from the party any and all members who are perceived as being
"too critical" of Israel. In practice that has meant anyone who criticizes Israel at all. And
second it is to establish as a legal principle that the "hate crime" offense of anti-Semitism
specifically be defined to include criticism of Israel, thereby making it a criminal offense to
write or speak about Israel's racist behavior towards its Muslim and Christian minority while
also making it impossible to freely discuss its war crimes.
The principal argument being made against Corbyn is that the Labour Party is awash with
anti-Semitism and Corbyn has done little or nothing to oppose it. Some of the most brutal shots
against Corbyn have come from the usual crowd in the United States. Andrew Sullivan
recently
observed in New York Magazine that "When it emerged, that Naz Shah, a new Labour
MP, had opined on Facebook before she was elected that Israel should be relocated to the U.S.,
and former London mayor Ken Livingstone backed her up by arguing that the Nazis initially
favored Zionism, Corbyn didn't make a big fuss." Sullivan then went on to write that "It then
emerged that Corbyn himself had subscribed to various pro-Palestinian Facebook groups where
rank anti-Semitism flourished" and had even " attended a meeting on Holocaust Memorial Day in
2010, called 'Never Again for Anyone: Auschwitz to Gaza,' equating Israelis with Nazis."
In other words, Corbyn should have been responsible for policing the personal views of
Shah and Livingstone ,
both of whom were subsequently suspended from the Labour Party with Livingstone eventually
resigning. He should have also avoided Palestinian Facebook commentary because alleged
anti-Semites occasionally contribute their views and ought not to acknowledge in any fashion
the Israel war crimes being committed on a daily basis in Gaza.
So Corbyn must go based on the "fact" that he has to be a closet anti-Semite as discerned by
the likes of Andrew Sullivan on this side of the Atlantic and a host of Israel-firsters in
Britain. But the Labour leader's worst crime that is being regarded as an "
existential threat " to Jewish people everywhere is his resistance to the pressure being
exerted on him to endorse and adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA)
precise multi-faceted definition of what constitutes anti-Semitism. The IHRA basic definition
of anti-Semitism is reasonable enough, including "a certain perception of Jews, which may be
expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are
directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community
institutions and religious facilities."
The Labour Party and Corbyn have accepted that definition but have balked at eleven
"contemporary examples of anti-Semitism" also provided by IHRA, four of which have nothing to
do with Jews and everything to do with Israel. They are:
Accusing Jewish citizens of being
more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of
their own nations. Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g.
One might observe that many Jews
And yes, Israel is a "racist endeavor." Just check out the recent nationality
law passed by the Knesset declaring Israel to be a Jewish State. It grants
self-determination only to those living within its borders who are Jews. And if using racial
distinctions for full citizenship while also bombing hospitals and schools while lining up
snipers to shoot thousands of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators is not Nazi-like behavior, then
what is? Israel and its leader are sometimes compared to Nazis and to Adolf Hitler because they
behave like Nazis and Adolf Hitler.
And finally there is the definition that challenges any "double standard" in demanding
behavior from Israel that is not expected from any other democratic nation. Well, first of all
Israel is not a democracy. It is a theocracy or ethnocracy if you prefer wrapped around a
police state. Other countries that call themselves democracies have equal rights under law for
all citizens. Other democracies do not have hundreds of thousands of settlers stealing land and
even water resources from the indigenous population and colonizing it to the benefit of only
one segment of its population. Other democracies do not regularly shoot dead unarmed
protesters. How many democracies are currently practicing ethnic cleansing, as the Israeli Jews
are doing to the Palestinians?
Will Corbyn give in to the IHRA demands to save his skin as party leader? One has to suspect
that he will as he is already regularly conceding points and apologizing, publicly delivering
the required obeisance to the holocaust as "the worst crime of the twentieth century." And
every time he tries to appease those out to get him he emerges weaker. Even if he submits
completely, the Israel firsters who are hot to get him, having just like in American
significant control over the media, will continue to attack until they find the precise issue
that will bring him down. The Labour National Executive Council will meet in September to vote
on full acceptance of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. When they, as is likely, kneel
before force majeure that will be the end of free speech in Britain. Criticize Israel and you
go to jail.
And the same thing is happening in the United States in precisely the same fashion.
Criticism of Israel or protesting against it will sooner rather than later be criminalized. I
sometimes wonder if Senator Ben Cardin and the others who are promoting the hate legislation
really understand what will be lost when they sacrifice the U.S. Constitution to defend Israel.
Once free speech is gone, it will never return.
"... I am not here speaking about the elites who dominate our societies. They have their own agenda. They trade only in the language of money and power. I am speaking of us: the 99 per cent who live in their shadow. ..."
"... While this camp concedes that the media is owned by a handful of corporations driven by a concern for profit, it is nonetheless confident that the free market -- the need to sell papers and audiences -- guarantees that important news and a full spectrum of legitimate opinion are available to readers. ..."
"... This camp believes too that western democracies are better, more civilised political systems than those in other parts of the world. Western societies do not want wars, they want peace and security for everyone. For that reason, they have been thrust -- rather uncomfortably -- into the role of global policeman. Western states have found themselves with little choice of late but to wage "good wars" to curb the genocidal instincts and hunger for power of dictators and madmen. ..."
"... The current obsession with Russian conspiracies is in large part the result of the extraordinarily rapid rise of a second camp, no doubt fuelled by the unprecedented access western publics have gained through social media to information, good and bad alike. At no time in human history have so many people been able to step outside of a state-, clerical- or corporate-sanctioned framework of information dissemination and speak too each other directly and on a global stage. ..."
"... This new camp too is not easy to characterise in the old language of left-right politics. Its chief characteristic is that it distrusts not only those who dominate our societies, but the social structures they operate within. ..."
"... This camp regards such structures as neither immutable, divinely ordained ways for ordering and organising society, nor as the rational outcome of the political and moral evolution of western societies. Rather, it views these structures as the product of engineering by a tiny elite to hold on to its power. ..."
"... For this camp, politicians are not the cream of society. They have risen to the surface of a corrupted and corrupting system, and the overwhelming majority did so by enthusiastically adopting its rotten values. These politicians do not chiefly serve voters but the corporations who really dominate our societies. ..."
"... Likewise, the media -- supposed watchdogs on power -- are seen by this camp as the chief propagandists for the ruling elite. The media do not monitor the abuse of power, they actively create a social consensus for the continuation of the abuse -- and if that fails, they seek to deflect attention from, or veil, the abuse. ..."
"... This is inevitable, the second camp argues, given that the media are embedded within the very same corporate structures that dominate our societies. They are, in fact, the corporations' public relations arm. They allow only limited dissent at the margins of the media, and only as a way to create the impression of an illusory pluralism. ..."
"... These "enemies" are a real foe in the sense that, in their different ways, they refuse to submit to the neoliberalising reach of the western-based corporations. But more significantly, they are needed as an enemy, even should they want to make peace. These manufactured enemies, says the second camp, justify the redirection of public money into the private coffers of the military and homeland security industries. And equally importantly, a ready set of bogeymen can be exploited to distract western publics from troubles at home. ..."
"... The second camp is accused by the first of being anti-western, anti-American and anti-Israel (or more mischievously anti-semitic) for its opposition to western "humanitarian interventions" abroad. The second camp, it says, act as apologists for war criminals like Russia's Vladimir Putin or Syria's Bashar Assad, portraying these leaders as misunderstood good guys and blaming the west for the world's ills. ..."
"... Putin has power, but it is immeasurably less than the combined might of the profit-seeking, war-waging western military industries. Faced with this power equation, according to the second camp, Putin acts defensively or reactively on the global stage, using what limited strength Russia has to uphold its essential strategic interests. One cannot reasonably judge Russia's crimes without first admitting the west's greater crimes, our crimes. ..."
"... While the whole US political class obsess over "Russian interference" in US elections, this camp notes, the American public is encouraged to ignore the much greater US interference not only in Russian elections, but in many other spheres Russia considers to be vital strategic interests. That includes the locating of US military bases and missile sites on Russia's borders. ..."
"... The other camp has one small space to make its presence felt -- social media. That is a space rapidly shrinking, as the politicians, media and the corporations that own social media (as they do everything else) start to realise they have let the genie out of the bottle. This camp is derided as conspiratorial, dangerous, fake news. ..."
"... The two most significant disrupters of the first camp's narrative are climate breakdown and economic meltdown. The planet has finite resources, which means endless growth and wealth accumulation cannot be sustained indefinitely. Much as in a Ponzi scheme, there comes a point when the hollow centre is exposed and the system comes crashing down. We have had intimations enough that we are nearing that point. ..."
"... Our political language is rupturing because we are now completely divided. There is no middle ground, no social compact, no consensus. The second camp understands that the current system is broken and that we need radical change, while the first camp holds desperately to the hope that the system will continue to be workable with modifications and minor reforms. ..."
"... We are arriving at a moment called a paradigm shift. That is when the cracks in a system become so obvious they can no longer be credibly denied. Those vested in the old system scream and shout, they buy themselves a little time with increasingly repressive measures, but the house is moments away from falling. The critical questions are who gets hurt when the structure tumbles, and who decides how it will be rebuilt ..."
"... They have rightly identified social media as the key concern. This is where we -- the 99 per cent -- have begun waking each other up. This is where we are sharing and learning, emerging out of the darkness clumsily and shaken. We are making mistakes, but learning. We are heading up blind alleys, but learning. We are making poor choices, but learning. We are making unhelpful alliances, but learning ..."
"... Corbyn's significance -- and danger -- is that he brings much of the language and concerns of the second camp into the mainstream. He offers a fast-track for the second camp to reach the first camp, and accelerate the awakening process. That, in turn, would improve the chances of the paradigm shift being organic and transitional rather than disruptive and violent. ..."
"... That is why he has become a lightning rod for the wider machinations of the ruling elite. They want him destroyed, like blowing up a bridge to stop an advancing army. ..."
"... The corporate elite weaponised anti-semitism not because they care about the safety of Jews, or because they really believe that Corbyn is an anti-semite. They chose it because it is the most destructive weapon -- short of sex-crime smears and assassination -- they have in their armoury. ..."
"... The truth is the ruling elite are exploiting British Jews and fuelling their fears as part of a much larger power game in which all of us -- the 99 per cent -- are expendable. They will keep stoking this campaign to stigmatise Corbyn, even if a political backlash actually does lead to an increase in real, rather than phoney, anti-semitism. ..."
The latest "scandal" gripping Britain -- or to be more accurate, British elites -- is over the use of the term "Zionist" by the
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, the head of the opposition and possibly the country's next prime minister.
Yet again, Corbyn has found himself ensnared in what a small group of Jewish leadership organisations, which claim improbably
to represent Britain's "Jewish community", and a small group of corporate journalists, who improbably claim to represent British
public opinion, like to call Labour's "anti-semitism problem".
I won't get into the patently ridiculous notion that "Zionist" is a code word for "Jew", at least not now. There are lots of existing
articles explaining why that is nonsense.
I wish to deal with a different aspect of the long-running row over Labour's so-called "anti-semitism crisis". It exemplifies,
I believe, a much more profound and wider crisis in our societies: over the issue of trust.
We now have two large camps, pitted against each other, who have starkly different conceptions of what their societies are and
where they need to head. In a very real sense, these two camps no longer speak the same language. There has been a rupture, and they
can find no common ground.
I am not here speaking about the elites who dominate our societies. They have their own agenda. They trade only in the language
of money and power. I am speaking of us: the 99 per cent who live in their shadow.
First, let us outline the growing ideological and linguistic chasm opening up between these two camps: a mapping of the divisions
that, given space constraints, will necessarily deal in generalisations.
The trusting camp
The first camp invests its trust, with minor reservations, in those who run our societies. The left and the right segments of
this camp are divided primarily over the degree to which they believe that those at the bottom of society's pile need a helping hand
to get them further up the social ladder.
Otherwise, the first camp is united in its assumptions.
They admit that among our elected politicians there is the odd bad apple. And, of course, they understand that there are necessary
debates about political and social values. But they agree that politicians rise chiefly through ability and talent, that they are
accountable to their political constituencies, and that they are people who want what is best for society as a whole.
While this camp concedes that the media is owned by a handful of corporations driven by a concern for profit, it is nonetheless
confident that the free market -- the need to sell papers and audiences -- guarantees that important news and a full spectrum of
legitimate opinion are available to readers.
Both politicians and the media serve -- if not always entirely successfully -- as a constraint on corruption and the abuse of
power by other powerful actors, such as the business community.
This camp believes too that western democracies are better, more civilised political systems than those in other parts of
the world. Western societies do not want wars, they want peace and security for everyone. For that reason, they have been thrust
-- rather uncomfortably -- into the role of global policeman. Western states have found themselves with little choice of late but
to wage "good wars" to curb the genocidal instincts and hunger for power of dictators and madmen.
Russian conspiracies
Once upon a time -- when this camp's worldview was rarely, if ever, challenged -- its favoured response to anything difficult
to reconcile with its core beliefs, from the 2003 invasion of Iraq to the 2008 financial crash, was: "Cock-up, not conspiracy!".
Now that there are ever more issues threatening to undermine its most cherished verities, the camp's response is -- paradoxically
-- "Putin did it!" or "Fake news!".
The current obsession with Russian conspiracies is in large part the result of the extraordinarily rapid rise of a second
camp, no doubt fuelled by the unprecedented access western publics have gained through social media to information, good and bad
alike. At no time in human history have so many people been able to step outside of a state-, clerical- or corporate-sanctioned framework
of information dissemination and speak too each other directly and on a global stage.
This new camp too is not easy to characterise in the old language of left-right politics. Its chief characteristic is that
it distrusts not only those who dominate our societies, but the social structures they operate within.
This camp regards such structures as neither immutable, divinely ordained ways for ordering and organising society, nor as
the rational outcome of the political and moral evolution of western societies. Rather, it views these structures as the product
of engineering by a tiny elite to hold on to its power.
These structures are no longer primarily national, but global. They are not immutable but as fabricated, as man-made and replaceable,
as the structures that once made incontestable the rule of a landed aristocracy over feudal serfs. The current aristocracy, this
camp argues, are globalised corporations that are so unaccountable that even the biggest nation-states can no longer contain or constrain
them.
Illusions of pluralism
For this camp, politicians are not the cream of society. They have risen to the surface of a corrupted and corrupting system,
and the overwhelming majority did so by enthusiastically adopting its rotten values. These politicians do not chiefly serve voters
but the corporations who really dominate our societies.
For the second camp, this fact was well illustrated in 2008 when the political class did not -- and could not -- punish the banks
responsible for the near-collapse of western economies after decades of reckless speculation on which a financial elite had grown
fat. Those banks, in the words of the politicians themselves, were "too big to fail" and so were bailed out with money from the very
same publics who had been scammed by the banks in the first place. Rather than use the bank failures as an opportunity to drive through
reform of the broken banking system, or nationalise parts of it, the politicians let the banking casino system continue, even intensify.
Likewise, the media -- supposed watchdogs on power -- are seen by this camp as the chief propagandists for the ruling elite.
The media do not monitor the abuse of power, they actively create a social consensus for the continuation of the abuse -- and if
that fails, they seek to deflect attention from, or veil, the abuse.
This is inevitable, the second camp argues, given that the media are embedded within the very same corporate structures that
dominate our societies. They are, in fact, the corporations' public relations arm. They allow only limited dissent at the margins
of the media, and only as a way to create the impression of an illusory pluralism.
Manufactured enemies
These domestic structures are subservient to a still-bigger agenda: the accumulation of wealth by a global elite through the asset-stripping
of the planet's resources and the rationalisation of permanent war. That, this camp concludes, requires the manufacturing of "enemies"
-- such as Russia, Iran, Syria, Venezuela and North Korea -- to justify the expansion of a military-industrial machine.
These "enemies" are a real foe in the sense that, in their different ways, they refuse to submit to the neoliberalising reach
of the western-based corporations. But more significantly, they are needed as an enemy, even should they want to make peace. These
manufactured enemies, says the second camp, justify the redirection of public money into the private coffers of the military and
homeland security industries. And equally importantly, a ready set of bogeymen can be exploited to distract western publics from
troubles at home.
The second camp is accused by the first of being anti-western, anti-American and anti-Israel (or more mischievously anti-semitic)
for its opposition to western "humanitarian interventions" abroad. The second camp, it says, act as apologists for war criminals
like Russia's Vladimir Putin or Syria's Bashar Assad, portraying these leaders as misunderstood good guys and blaming the west for
the world's ills.
The second camp argues that it is none of these things: it is anti-imperialist. It does not excuse the crimes of Putin or Assad,
it treats them as secondary and largely reactive to the vastly greater power a western elite with global reach can project. It believes
the western media's obsession with crafting narratives about evil enemies -- bad men and madmen -- is designed to deflect attention
from the structures of far greater violence the west deploys around the world, through a web of US military bases and Nato.
Putin has power, but it is immeasurably less than the combined might of the profit-seeking, war-waging western military industries.
Faced with this power equation, according to the second camp, Putin acts defensively or reactively on the global stage, using what
limited strength Russia has to uphold its essential strategic interests. One cannot reasonably judge Russia's crimes without first
admitting the west's greater crimes, our crimes.
While the whole US political class obsess over "Russian interference" in US elections, this camp notes, the American public
is encouraged to ignore the much greater US interference not only in Russian elections, but in many other spheres Russia considers
to be vital strategic interests. That includes the locating of US military bases and missile sites on Russia's borders.
Different languages
Two camps, two entirely different languages and narratives.
These camps may be divided, but it would seriously misguided to imagine they are equal.
One has the full power and weight of those corporate structures behind it. The politicians speak its language, as do the media.
Its ideas and its voice dominate everywhere that is considered official, objective, balanced, neutral, respectable, legitimate.
The other camp has one small space to make its presence felt -- social media. That is a space rapidly shrinking, as the politicians,
media and the corporations that own social media (as they do everything else) start to realise they have let the genie out of the
bottle. This camp is derided as conspiratorial, dangerous, fake news.
This is the current battlefield. It is a battle the first camp looks like it is winning but actually has already lost. That is
not necessarily because the second camp is winning the argument. It is because physical realities are catching up with the first
camp, smashing its illusions, even as it clings to them like a life-raft.
The two most significant disrupters of the first camp's narrative are climate breakdown and economic meltdown. The planet
has finite resources, which means endless growth and wealth accumulation cannot be sustained indefinitely. Much as in a Ponzi scheme,
there comes a point when the hollow centre is exposed and the system comes crashing down. We have had intimations enough that we
are nearing that point.
It hardly needs repeating, except to climate deniers, that we have had even more indications that the Earth's climate is already
turning against humankind.
Out of the darkness
Our political language is rupturing because we are now completely divided. There is no middle ground, no social compact, no
consensus. The second camp understands that the current system is broken and that we need radical change, while the first camp holds
desperately to the hope that the system will continue to be workable with modifications and minor reforms.
It is on to this battlefield that Corbyn has stumbled, little prepared for the heavy historic burden he shoulders.
We are arriving at a moment called a paradigm shift. That is when the cracks in a system become so obvious they can no longer
be credibly denied. Those vested in the old system scream and shout, they buy themselves a little time with increasingly repressive
measures, but the house is moments away from falling. The critical questions are who gets hurt when the structure tumbles, and who
decides how it will be rebuilt .
The new paradigm is coming anyway. If we don't choose it ourselves, the planet will for us. It could be an improvement, it could
be a deterioration, it could be extinction, depending on how prepared we are for it and how violently those invested in the old system
resist the loss of their power. If enough of us understand the need for discarding the broken system, the greater the hope that we
can build something better from the ruins.
We are now at the point where the corporate elite can see the cracks are widening but they remain in denial. They are entering
the tantrum phase, screaming and shouting at their enemies, and readying to implement ever-more repressive measures to maintain their
power.
They have rightly identified social media as the key concern. This is where we -- the 99 per cent -- have begun waking each
other up. This is where we are sharing and learning, emerging out of the darkness clumsily and shaken. We are making mistakes, but
learning. We are heading up blind alleys, but learning. We are making poor choices, but learning. We are making unhelpful alliances,
but learning .
No one, least of all the corporate elite, knows precisely where this process might lead, what capacities we have for political,
social and spiritual growth.
And what the elite don't own or control, they fear.
Putting the genie back
The elite have two weapons they can use to try to force the second camp back into the bottle. They can vilify it, driving it back
into the margins of public life, where it was until the advent of social media; or they can lock down the new channels of mass communication
their insatiable drive to monetise everything briefly opened up.
Both strategies have risks, which is why they are being pursued tentatively for the time being. But the second option is by far
the riskier of the two. Shutting down social media too obviously could generate blowback, awakening more of the first camp to the
illusions the second camp have been trying to alert them to.
Corbyn's significance -- and danger -- is that he brings much of the language and concerns of the second camp into the mainstream.
He offers a fast-track for the second camp to reach the first camp, and accelerate the awakening process. That, in turn, would improve
the chances of the paradigm shift being organic and transitional rather than disruptive and violent.
That is why he has become a lightning rod for the wider machinations of the ruling elite. They want him destroyed, like blowing
up a bridge to stop an advancing army.
It is a sign both of their desperation and their weakness that they have had to resort to the nuclear option, smearing him as
an anti-semite. Other, lesser smears were tried first: that he was not presidential enough to lead Britain; that he was anti-establishment;
that he was unpatriotic; that he might be a traitor. None worked. If anything, they made him more popular.
And so a much more incendiary charge was primed, however at odds it was with Corbyn's decades spent as an anti-racism activist.
The corporate elite weaponised anti-semitism not because they care about the safety of Jews, or because they really believe
that Corbyn is an anti-semite. They chose it because it is the most destructive weapon -- short of sex-crime smears and assassination
-- they have in their armoury.
The truth is the ruling elite are exploiting British Jews and fuelling their fears as part of a much larger power game in
which all of us -- the 99 per cent -- are expendable. They will keep stoking this campaign to stigmatise Corbyn, even if a political
backlash actually does lead to an increase in real, rather than phoney, anti-semitism.
The corporate elites have no plan to go quietly. Unless we can build our ranks quickly and make our case confidently, their antics
will ensure the paradigm shift is violent rather than healing. An earthquake, not a storm.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations:
Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair"
(Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net .
"The corporate elite weaponised anti-semitism not because they care about the safety of Jews, or because they really
believe that Corbyn is an anti-semite. They chose it because it is the most destructive weapon – short of sex-crime smears
and assassination – they have in their armoury."
I must admit I assumed it was because he's less than 100% behind Israel and thinks, not unreasonably, that the Palestinians
have had a pretty rough deal over the last 60 years. He raises the frightening (to some) prospect of a UK government that is more
neutral on the issues, and doesn't think we can bomb peace into the Middle East.
Occam's Razor would seem to suggest that's the answer.
"Corbyn's significance – and danger – is that he brings much of the language and concerns of the second camp into the
mainstream. "
You're right about the electorate being divided – but I'd suggest young Corbyn voters are just as blinkered as any Daily Mail
reader. My kids all voted for him because they thought he'd cancel their student debt.
Maybe Corbyn activists are better informed, but I very much doubt it.
Corbyn has to resist the temptation to give way to them. He is right on the Palestinian issue, and, since the Palestinians
are 100 % semites (though "anti-semitism" has been appropriated to mean anti-Jewish most Jewish emigrants from Europe have considerable
non-semitic blood mixed in) the real anti-semites here appear to be the Israeli element bent on eliminating the Palestinians.
The Gaza strip is a ghetto operated in a similar manner to how the Nazis operated the ghettoes in occupied Poland (though without
the Auschwitz end game up to now). The thing is, if Corbyn stands up to this, in my view, his supporters will fully back him up.
In my view, the Israelis are risking real anti-Israeli blowback which could resurrect evils buried with the collapse of the Nazi
regime. Indeed, the way they are acting on this and other related issues, threatening those who criticise them in any fashion
seems to be providing ex post facto justifications of the most absurd propaganda the Nazis put forward during that era.
The real question is why it is that even the slightest hint of a politician not being totally onboard with >1% of the population
results in a years long campaign to destroy him by most of the media, but mentioning the open desire of all three parties to discriminate
against and replace the native population of Britain makes you a pariah.
You said it. It's because Corbyn is not totally on board with the less than 1% that he is seen as a threat. Total control of
everyone and everything is their aim.
There is certainly an MSM/Blairite full court press to push the anti-Semitism story, that is mostly being fronted by goyim
who are kissing up – Jess Phillips, Maajid Nawaz, Dan Hodges (Glenda Jackson's son) etc. But it is getting no traction with the
public at large. If they force another leadership contest Corbyn will win easily.
These people live in a North London Anglo-American bubble, and they are now realizing that there is no large Evangelocon constituency
in Britain.
No Bubbas waiting to be raptured = Nobody much cares about Israel
"... I lost all respect for him first on his treatment of his first wife when he returned from captivity. I notice that no one in the media mentioned her existence. ..."
Of course, you already know that because the headlines are dominating the news coverage.
Most of the coverage is also lionizing him as some kind of hero who defended America from his
time as a POW in Vietnam to his attacks on Russia for supposedly trying to undermine American
democracy. The fact is, and I know this because I've documented some of it in the course of my
own work in recent years, he was a warmonger supreme. McCain never met a war–especially a
regime change war–he didn't like, nor a terrorist he couldn't endorse as a "freedom
fighter," especially, as in the case of Syria, if that terrorist was in the service of the
regime change war he endorsed. In Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine, a million or more people have
died and tens of millions more are suffering as a result of these wars that McCain did so much
to bring about.
In a short but to-the-point piece. Sputnik summarizes
McCain's extreme Russophobia and his love for the Nazi regime in Kiev. Vladimir Putin was being
charitable when, as Sputnik recounts, he told Oliver Stone that McCain was a patriot, but one
who couldn't accept that the world had changed. "People with such convictions, like the Senator
you mentioned, they still live in the Old World," Putin said. "And they're reluctant to look
into the future, they are unwilling to recognize how fast the world is changing." That Putin
was able to say that says more about his genuine humanity than it does about McCain, who gave
up whatever humanity he had a long time ago.
Anyone fighting for a genuine peace in the world will not mourn the passing of John McCain.
I endorse Willy B's view of McCain. From dealing with him personally i would say that he
was indeed a fighter. He would fight anyone who disagreed with him about anything. RIP
The beatification of McCain by our media is a symptom of a decadent political and media
culture that sees no need to look, see, or hear anything beyond the most superficial
analysis. That culture does nothing more than use stock images, phrases, and slogans that
trigger blind acceptance by much of the population. (Present company excepted of course.)
That's my biggest issue. The MSM fawned over him so much he was a virtual cult hero. I
could not watch CNN for more than a total of about 5 minutes over the weekend because they
were pouring it on so thick. Jack Tapper would have married the guy.
If you interview his colleagues and they want to wax eloquent and you let them, fine, I
get that. But it is unseemly for the hosts themselves to join in and remind us that they are
now basically state media.
Anna Cabrera jumped in and said, in regard to his hawkishness, 'He always wanted to spread
freedom around to the less fortunate'.
Were they really praising McCain or was it a form of self worship, because McCain and his
kind always assured us that we in the U.S. was always 100% right and our enemies were 100%
wrong and needed to be vanquished. If CNN hosts entertained different ideas, they would
actually have to work for a living.
Had McCain said nice things about Trump, I can assure you this little love fest we are
witnessing right now would be playing out a bit differently right now.
He was an abomination and stupid beyond words. I am very grateful I will no longer have to
listen to his hate speech directed against any and all in the world who disagreed with him.
His allies Al-Qaeda in Syria I am sure are mourning his passing along with the false flag
specialist of the world. He would have been instrumental in any upcoming false flag trying to
incite a WWIII conflagration between the US and Russia. The only time in life he would have
had peace would have been the 15 minutes he knew the nuclear missiles were flying toward
Russia. This tells you everything you need to know about the man. The current hagiography is
ridiculous when you realize his own co-workers in the Senate hated him almost to a man minus
his BFF Graham. He is property of the Heavens now and no longer our problem here on
Earth.
This quasi-religious veneration of politicians is unseemly. It is profane. It is
unbecoming of us as a people, and it has transformed the majority of public offices into ones
that are truly attractive only to men who are unfit to hold them.
As much as one single man is responsible for anything, John McCain
is responsible for the Iraq, Libya, Syria and Ukraine Wars. Any memorial that doesn't include
this is propaganda.
Sidney Schanberg, the Journalist of "The Killing Fields" wrote a damning story about
McCain helping cover up evidence of left behind US POWs in Vietnam.
https://www.theamericancons...
John McCain was a flawed man, just like the rest of us. I did not agree with many of his
policy prescriptions but he seemed genuine in his pursuit of what he thought was right.
Anyone who has to stand up in front of the world for all to see and take a political position
will find many who agree and many who disagree with only history providing 20-20 hindsight.
In 20 years will readers of this Blog go to the achieves and find any stupidity in some of
the comments made this past year? It would be an interesting experiment.
I did not agree with many of his policy prescriptions but he seemed genuine in his
pursuit of what he thought was right.
the question is was he "genuine"? And if so, what is that?
jdledell reverts to to standard etiquette here. But he does not quite utter the ultimate
one: May he rest in peace. Does he?
For me the outsider it looks that McCain, may have been the 'partisan spearheader ' within
a larger American institutional representative consensus. What's the core and what is the
reason for that phenomenon? Nitwit question, I admit. ...
It might only take a few days after I've written a comment here or elsewhere to see that
something I wrote sounded stupid or just me getting way ahead of myself. I try and remember
my place when I comment but sometimes dumb stuff gets through. I love this blog.
Wow...looking for perfection, are we? Why don't we try a reasoned analysis of McCain's
good and bad points---he did some good and some bad. I, personally, am not as upset about his
war-mongering (although you are certainly correct) but am quite upset that he put Sarah Palin
forward into the national spotlight as a possible President. Dear Merciful, what was he
thinking! That is probably the single most anti-democracy and anti-American move of his
career.
As a time traveler left behind from that period and someone who led the clandestine search
for MIAs and remains I must tell you that I do not think any MIAs were left behind in SE
Asia. My operation in Defense HUMINT searched diligently across SE Asia for years and found
lots of remains which were reported to the Hickam AFB facility but never any MIAs. There were
a few deserters from US forces who chose to remain SE Asia but that was their business and we
left them alone once we found them.
Col Lang , a bit off topic here , but do you know if there's french operatives (those who
assigned / lived among the tribes) are left abandoned when french pulled out ? i recall
reading about it in Bernard Fall's book
No, There were some few of the GCMA who chose to stay. But, in general, it was our
montagnard allies and those of the French who were abandoned to the the mercies of the ethnic
communist enemies.
Col. Lang -- I'm glad you addressed this MIA issue. IMHO, the MIA hagiography may well
have been the beginning of the conspiracy theory/fake news extravaganza that we live under
today.
My spook project was based in SE Asia where we could get into all these countries
surreptitiously. They reported to me for command and control and product to JCRC. Based on
our data among other research they did they asked the VN government, etc. for access to the
sites. This was in the early '90s. There was a liaison office in DIA that kept the Congress
and the families at bay while we searched.
Reasoned analysis? Perhaps you should ask those who were at the other end of your
country's gun barrel whether it is possible to have a reasoned analysis about this man. The
millions who suffered and died because of this "imperfect" Mc Cain surely must not be sorry
this man has passed away. Neither am I. There are evil people whose disappearance lets
mankind breath a sigh of relief.
Like every person Sen. McCain had good and bad. While we can admire his grit and courage
as a POW and empathize with his suffering in Vietnam, we should not airbrush his incessant
campaigning and support for all the regime change interventions that killed millions of
innocent civilians.
I very much dislike this type of relativistic thinking, because you can say the same about
literally anything, making such a statement almost entirely meaningless.
Yes McCain was a neo-conservative who as a senator advocated wars of aggression. However,
it was Bush and Cheney who made the decision to go into Iraq - not McCain. Why lay all the
responsibility for millions of innocent deaths on just John McCain.
McCain is being promoted as a great American hero. IMO he does not deserve that. I have
known brave men who were not the fils a papa of a four star and they were and are ignored. In
the ME, he, Lieberman and Graham were just puppets of Israel.
I don't disagree. All I am saying is that there are still one or two O-6s out there that
get the honorary title of Commodore when a task-organized unit that does not rate a flag
officer arises. That is both in the USN and USCG.
I can write only as a citizen who has little influence in politics, if any. These are my
thoughts::
First, I did vote for him when he was running for POTUS. But I held my nose in doing so..
We really had two terrible choices that year. Obama or McCain. I think I liked voting for his
choice of VP mostly because it set the talking heads into such a state of shock.
I lost all respect for him first on his treatment of his first wife when he returned from
captivity. I notice that no one in the media mentioned her existence.
Then his "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" "joke" just seemed shockingly nasty to me. Suggesting
bombing of people as a joke?
The McCain / Graham duo of the neocon philosophy would always cause me to turn off the TV.
Did no one in the media ever want to do any real investigation of the consequences of the War
in Iraq?
I was taught not to speak ill of the dead. And I try not to dwell on the death of Mccain
right now. So, I've kept my television off. As a committed Christian, I know Who is sitting
in judgement of McCain, and I trust His judgement will be fair and honest and the judgement
will be from the heart of a "father" in regard to a "son" who, as we all have, had flaws as
well as strengths.
He is now with his Maker, as some day we each will be.
In other words, Diana, his bomb, bomb, Iran shocked you a lot less then did the idea Obama
could become president? Notice, I am not judging you. My own possibly ill-guided choice would
have been based on the fact that he was one of the few that voted against the Iraq War.
You remember your reasoning in 2007?
How exactly did the soccer Mom surface in that context? Arbitrary choice, wasn't aware of
the history of its use in elections. By the way. But whenever I hear or read Palin "soccer
mom" pops up on my mind, Followed let's say by the flags on her desk and rumors around Weekly
Standard's influencing the choice.
I voted for Obama twice because I could not live with the prospect of the alternatives.
Obama, IMO turned out to be a crypto-revolutionary. we don't need a revolution in the US. We
need good government and we are getting it with regard to the economy.
His views on many things I disagreed with strongly, but compared to so many herd-minded
pusillanimous creatures which hold office in both houses these days..his courage stands out.
His finest hour:
"... Empire – the old far left and the new far right are against the USA having an Empire and against perpetual war. ..."
"... Economy – the old far left and the new far right think free trade and Wall Street are killing middle class jobs and the ladders of success. ..."
"... Race/Sex/Gender – the old far right KKK vlugar bigoted view is pretty much dead in America. The new far right is trying to work through real facts on group differences and what is reasonable to do about it. Everyone else is CCCrazy. ..."
I think we are all struggling to come up with a new vocabulary to rationally describe the
new forces at work in our society. I would welcome suggestions because I've got nuthin
here.
I agree. I used to be liberal, then became far left, and I am now far right. And I never
changed my views! The politics around me changed.
Here are some forces at work:
1. Empire – the old far left and the new far right are against the USA having an
Empire and against perpetual war. Read Pat Buchanan and Mike Whitney on Middle East wars
and Russia and they sound a lot alike. Everyone else in America supports the Empire, either
actively or passively.
2. Economy – the old far left and the new far right think free trade and Wall
Street are killing middle class jobs and the ladders of success. It's the old Democrat pro
union view and the old Republican main street vs. wall street view. If you like socialism, you
gotta hate Wall Street. If you like free markets, you gotta hate Wall Street. Everyone else in
America supports Wall Stree rule over the Fed and economic policy, either actively or
passively.
3. Race/Sex/Gender – the old far right KKK vlugar bigoted view is pretty much dead
in America. The new far right is trying to work through real facts on group differences and
what is reasonable to do about it. Everyone else is CCCrazy.
A name embraced by white nationalists and/or white supremacists to refer to themselves and
their ideology, which emphasizes preserving and protecting the white race through populist
endeavors, which includes the return of patriarchy, the revocation of the 1965 Immigration
Act, an emphasis on race realism and/or the reinstitution of Western Christian
civilization.
"Who speaks for it?"
John Derbyshire. Steve Sailer. Vox Day. Richard Spencer. Mike Cernovich. For starters.
In the alt-right/far left scenario, we are supposed to dismiss the actual wishes of
Ukrainians, Estonians, Poles, Georgians and other peoples who hate Russia (and love the US)
as being simply irrelevant. Or, worse backed by shadowy Western forces.
Or how about we wish these East European countries well but we choose not to take their
side in whatever feud they have going with Russia? Maybe the people who "love the US" love
the worst aspects of America? Maybe a lot of them come across as greasy little hustlers on
the make? Ever think of that?
Anyone who has spent time in Ukraine knows how deep hatred of Russia goes, especially
in Western Ukraine.
And that's precisely why countries like Ukraine, the Baltic states and Poland shouldn't be
in NATO. We should never have included countries with deep resentments against, and hazy
borders with Russia. The geniuses running the West should have encouraged the creation of a
lots of neutral states -- like Finland and Austria -- rather than expand NATO eastward.
who has spent time in Ukraine knows how deep hatred of Russia goes
I don't know where is Ukraine you spent your time and in what company, but this is
complete BS. The South-Eastern Ukraine hates the Western Ukrainian "banderovtsi" as much as
the Russians do if not more -- after all, the followers of Bandera operated mostly on the
Ukrainian soil. There are deranged individuals in every country, of course, and Ukraine has
been subjected lately to intense hate propaganda as well as repressions, but there is no
hatred of Russia. This is contradicted by both sociology and everyday behavior of Ukrainian,
which move to Russia in droves, spend time in Russia, support Russian sport teams, etc.
we are supposed to dismiss the actual wishes of Ukrainians, Estonians, Poles, Georgians
and other peoples who hate Russia (and love the US)
Nobody is asking about what the real Ukrainians, Estonians, Georgians or even Poles
actually think, least of all the US. There are almost as many Georgians living in Russia as
there are in Georgia, and they show no desire to move back. In 2008 during the conflict,
their biggest fear was that they'd be deported.
The Ukraine's Maidan was a violent coup, where a few thousand militants armed and trained
abroad overthrew a government elected by the entire country. Protests that immediately
started all over the country were suppressed with force -- the one in Donbass still is.
How could anyone with an access to Internet remain unaware of these facts is beyond
me.
That's an interesting point. Even if true, doesn't matter. One could wonder ..who are the
people populating Ukrainian Armed Forces? Or who are the guys, in Ukrainian Armed Forces,
presently engaged against Donbass? All of them. Including those is logistics/maintenance
depots far away from the (current) line of separation?
The will to fight against "Russia" ranges from a deep hate to simply not wishing to go
against the (current) Ukrainian government. The former are in those "shock" battalions. The
later are manning the logistics train. And everything in between.
Now .if/when a real shooting starts, as soon as Russia, as expected (and desired) by the
most of readers here, starts delivering ordnance into operational depth of Donbass enemy, the
ratio hate/don't care shall shift, hard and fast. Not in Russian favor, I suspect.
Why should anyone freaking care and put his ass in the line of fire because you bunch of
primitives hate Russia? Between having a nuclear cataclysm because you pathetic dwarfs of
nations are frustrated to have a neighbour you can't bully and Russia obliterating you, I say
let Russia obliterate you, thus we won't have to suffer the ear-hurting dissonnance of your
incessant whining any more. Though I doubt Russia would stomp on you. When you see shit, you
don't stomp on it, you don't want you don't want your shoes to stink, you just walk around
it.
Or who are the guys, in Ukrainian Armed Forces, presently engaged against Donbass?
Besides those in "volunteer battalions", which tend to be nationalistic with distinct Nazi
overtones, people in the regular Armed Forces are there for the money. There are very few
paying jobs in today's Ukraine, so men enlist and hope for the best.
the ratio hate/don't care shall shift, hard and fast. Not in Russian favor, I
suspect.
That could've been the case in 2014. Today I very much doubt it. Even the Right Sector
people are fed up with the current power in Kiev, and even the dumbest nationalists are
beginning to realize what a deep hole the country is in. Normal people all over the
South-East are hoping and praying for the Russians to come. The problem is the Russians
aren't coming.
This is Ukrainian future, unless the government neoliberal policies
change...
Notable quotes:
"... The fact that Brussels euroclowns celebrated in triumph the exit of Greece from the memorandum agreement, should be taken only as a huge farce. ..."
"... Greece entered the bailout program with national debt at 120% of GDP. Now, the debt remains close to 180% of GDP! Unemployment remains at record levels. Public property has been sold-off for pennies to foreign 'investors'. Labor rights almost vanished, the situation resembles the Middle Ages. Social state and benefits severely damaged. This is the Troika 'success story'. ..."
"... This contradiction could be explained by the fact that the neoliberal regime apparatus wants to send a warning sign to Tsipras administration not to take any action without permission. It is more than certain that the tight scrutiny will be continued and Tsipras must prove to the Western neocolonialists that he will not even think to implement any anti-austerity policies. ..."
"... Without a bailout program, Greece will be left alone now to swim with the bloodthirsty sharks of the global financial mafia in the wild sea of the supposedly 'free markets'. ..."
"... Either way, the debt colony will deliver to the predators every single asset that has been left untouched. ..."
The fact that Brussels euroclowns celebrated in triumph the exit of Greece
from the memorandum agreement, should be taken only as a huge farce.
The Troika (ECB, European Commission, IMF) bailout program has officially
ended and the result is a scenery of disaster. If you still believe that this
program has been implemented to save the Greek economy and not the
Franco-German banks , take a look at the situation today.
Greece entered the bailout program with national debt at 120% of GDP. Now,
the debt remains close to 180% of GDP! Unemployment remains at record levels.
Public property has been sold-off for pennies to foreign 'investors'. Labor
rights almost vanished, the situation resembles the Middle Ages. Social state
and benefits severely damaged. This is the Troika 'success story'.
So, in reality, the experiment was indeed successful for the goals of the
international capitalist predators who transformed the country into a debt colony.
For more than eight years, they boiled the frog slowly with the help of Troika,
and now it's impossible to escape from the hot water.
While the clowns in Brussels had to present a 'success story' to cover their
huge failure and slow down the centrifugal forces against eurozone's existence
and unity, the mainstream media didn't exactly celebrate. Most of the headlines
were quite moderate and even alarming for the future of the Greek economy.
This contradiction could be explained by the fact that the neoliberal regime
apparatus wants to send a warning sign to Tsipras administration not to take
any action without permission. It is more than certain that the tight scrutiny
will be continued and Tsipras must prove to the Western neocolonialists that
he will not even think to implement any anti-austerity policies.
It is worth to mention that most of the neutral/pessimistic headlines came
from the Anglo-American mainstream media. This could be also considered another
indication about the level of deterioration in the relations between the Anglo-American
axis and the Brussels-Berlin axis, inside the Western camp.
Greece will have to give much more to the Western neoliberal predators. Otherwise,
the rating agencies will be ordered to attack again and force the ruined Greek
economy into another round of disastrous bailouts.
Either way, the debt colony will deliver to the predators every single asset
that has been left untouched.
To add to the list of things that the Russians had on Hillary .
IIRC, she was Sec of State at the time the US election-meddling-and-color-revolution
brigade tried to rig the Russian elections against Putin.
Putin does not seem to be the sort to let emotion be more important than policy, but I've
always wondered that to the small extent the Russians did take a pop at Hillary's campaign,
if it didn't bring a bit of a smile to Putin's face to know he was just giving back the hits
he'd already taken from her.
Hillary of course was incompetent in having America interfere in Russian elections. That
campaign never had a chance as Putin is a lot more popular in Russia than Hillary is in
America. So, she took a pot shot at a rival world leader knowing (or at least some smart
people did) that it would have no effect and that Putin would win that election anyways.
And of course Hillary the Arrrogant could never imagine that another player in the game
would get to take a turn, and that others might interfere in her election, and she knew she'd
run and she knew she'd rig the Dem party to get the nod, in the same way the NED and the
Soros NGO's tried to interfere in Russia.
"... The US is run by a somewhat unstable president being advised by nuts like Bolton whose main focus is following Israeli diktats, therefore i would not expect them to be looking out for US interests. ..."
The US is prepared to use sanctions to drive Iranian oil exports down to zero, the US
national security adviser, John Bolton, has said.
"Regime change in Iran is not American policy, but what we want is massive change in the
regime's behaviour," Bolton said on a visit to Israel, as he claimed current sanctions had been
more effective than predicted.
Donald Trump took the US out of Iran's nuclear deal with the west in May and is imposing
escalating sanctions, both to force Iran to renegotiate the deal and to end Tehran's perceived
interference in Yemen, Syria and Lebanon.
Complete removal of Iranian oil from world markets would cut oil supply by more than 4%
probably forcing up prices in the absence of any new supplies.
SNIP
Fuller US sanctions, including actions against countries that trade in Iranian oil are due to
come into force on 5 November, 180 days after the initial Trump announcement to withdraw.
The measures against Iranian oil importers, and banks that continue to trade with the Central
Bank of Iran, will ratchet the pressure to a higher level.
Pompeo has set up an Iran Action group inside the US State Department to coordinate US leverage
on companies and countries that cannot show that their trade, including in oil, has fallen
significantly by November.
Measures may also be taken against firms that insure ships carrying Iranian crude.
It is expected some of the major Iranian oil importers, such as Russia, China and Turkey, will
either ignore the threat of US sanctions, or, possibly in the case of Iraq, Japan and South
Korea, seek exemptions.
China takes a quarter of all Iran's oil exports, and with Chinese banks little exposed to the
US it can avoid the impact of Trump's sanctions.REPLY
I wonder if China could just take all of Iran's oil? I imagine at the right price they
would be happy to do so. China imports about 8 Mb/d, Iran exports about 2.5 Mb/d of oil,
seems possible.
Also note that if this does occur and there is no drop in Iranian output, the impact of
the Iranian sanctions on the World Oil market will be effectively zero.
I wonder what the capacity is of the Chinese and Iranian oil tanker fleet is? If nobody
else will buy it or ship it then the tanker fleet will have to be owned/insured by either
Iran or China.
I'm interested in knowing if Chinese oil tankers are even capable of hauling 2.5 million
barrels a day home from Iran. It seems doubtful that anybody else will be doing it for them.
I can't find much info on the size of the Chinese owned tanker fleet and it's
capabilities.
While US forces have been known to seize North Korean oil tankers hauling Libyan oil, I
find it doubtful that they will seize Chinese ones, for the reason you mentioned; China
punches back. Nothing spells the end of hegemony like getting your ass kicked.
One would assume its easy for the chinese to buy used oil tankers if they offer a bit over
current market prices. This is a very long term conflict, and they could buy tankers,
reregister them Chinese or Iranian or say Russian and start moving that oil.
The US is run by a somewhat unstable president being advised by nuts like Bolton whose
main focus is following Israeli diktats, therefore i would not expect them to be looking out
for US interests.
"... This financial dynamic has hijacked industrial capitalism. It is leading economies to polarize and ultimately collapse under the weight of their debt burden. That is the inherent dynamic of finance capitalism. The debt overhead leads to a financial crisis that becomes an opportunity to impose emergency rule to replace democratic lawmaking. So contrary to Hayek's anti-government "free enterprise" warnings, "slippery slope" to totalitarianism is not by socialist reforms limiting the rentier class's extraction of economic rent and interest, but just the opposite: the failure of society to check the rentier extraction of income vesting a hereditary autocracy whose financial and rent-seeking business plan impoverishes the economy at large. ..."
Text of Michael Hudson's speech on debt and the world economy, presented at Peking
University's School of Marxist Studies, May 5-6, 2018.
Volumes II and III of Marx's Capital describe how debt grows exponentially, burdening the
economy with carrying charges. This overhead is subjecting today's Western finance-capitalist
economies to austerity, shrinking living standards and capital investment while increasing
their cost of living and doing business. That is the main reason why they are losing their
export markets and becoming de-industrialized.
What policies are best suited for China to avoid this neo-rentier disease while raising
living standards in a fair and efficient low-cost economy? The most pressing policy challenge
is to keep down the cost of housing. Rising housing prices mean larger and larger debts
extracting interest out of the economy. The strongest way to prevent this is to tax away the
rise in land prices, collecting the rental value for the government instead of letting it be
pledged to the banks as mortgage interest.
The same logic applies to public collection of natural resource and monopoly rents. Failure
to tax them away will enable banks to create debt against these rents, building financial and
other rentier charges into the pricing of basic needs.
U.S. and European business schools are part of the problem, not part of the solution. They
teach the tactics of asset stripping and how to replace industrial engineering with financial
engineering, as if financialization creates wealth faster than the debt burden. Having rapidly
pulled ahead over the past three decades, China must remain free of rentier ideology that
imagines wealth to be created by debt-leveraged inflation of real-estate and financial asset
prices.
Western capitalism has not turned out the way that Marx expected. He was optimistic in
forecasting that industrial capitalists would gain control of government to free economies from
unnecessary costs of production in the form of rent and interest that increase the cost of
living (and hence, the break-even wage level). Along with most other economists of his day, he
expected rentier income and the ownership of land, natural resources and banking to be taken
out of the hands of the hereditary aristocracies that had held them since Europe's feudal
epoch. Socialism was seen as the logical extension of classical political economy, whose main
policy was to abolish rent paid to landlords and interest paid to banks and bondholders.
A century ago there was an almost universal belief in mixed economies. Governments were
expected to tax away land rent and natural resource rent, regulate monopolies to bring prices
in line with actual cost value, and create basic infrastructure with money created by their own
treasury or central bank. Socializing land rent was the core of Physiocracy and the economics
of Adam Smith, whose logic was refined by Alfred Marshall, Simon Patten and other bourgeois
economists of the late 19th century. That was the path that European and American capitalism
seemed to be following in the decades leading up to World War I. That logic sought to use the
government to support industry instead of the landlord and financial classes.
China is progressing along this "mixed economy" road to socialism, but Western economies are
suffering from a resurgence of the pre-capitalist rentier classes. Their slogan of "small
government" means a shift in planning to finance, real estate and monopolies. This economic
philosophy is reversing the logic of industrial capitalism, replacing public investment and
subsidy with privatization and rent extraction. The Western economies' tax shift favoring
finance and real estate is a case in point. It reverses John Stuart Mill's "Ricardian
socialism" based on public collection of the land's rental value and the "unearned increment"
of rising land prices.
Defining economic rent as the unnecessary margin of prices over intrinsic cost value,
classical economists through Marx described rentiers as being economically parasitic, not
productive. Rentiers do not "earn" their land rent, interest or monopoly rent, because it has
no basis in real cost-value (ultimately reducible to labor costs). The political, fiscal and
regulatory reforms that followed from this value and rent theory were an important factor
leading to Marx's value theory and historical materialism. The political thrust of this theory
explains why it is no longer being taught.
By the late 19th century the rentiers fought back, sponsoring reaction against the socialist
implications of classical value and rent theory. In America, John Bates Clark denied that
economic rent was unearned. He redefined it as payment for the landlords' labor and enterprise,
not as accruing "in their sleep," as J. S. Mill had characterized it. Interest was depicted as
payment for the "service" of lending productively, not as exploitation. Everyone's income and
wealth was held to represent payment for their contribution to production. The thrust of this
approach was epitomized by Milton Friedman's Chicago School claim that "there is no such thing
as a free lunch" – in contrast to classical economics saying that feudalism's legacy of
privatized land ownership, bank credit and monopolies was all about how to get a free lunch, by
exploitation.
The other major reaction against classical and Marxist theory was English and Austrian
"utility" theory. Focusing on consumer psychology instead of production costs, it claimed that
there is no difference between value and price. A price is whatever consumers "choose" to pay
for commodities, based on the "utility" that these provide – defined by circular
reasoning as being equal to the price they pay. Producers are assumed to invest and produce
goods to "satisfy consumer demand," as if consumers are the driving force of economies, not
capitalists, property owners or financial managers.
Using junk-psychology, interest was portrayed as what bankers or bondholders "abstain" from
consuming, lending their self-denial of spending to "impatient" consumers and "credit-worthy"
entrepreneurs. This view opposed the idea of interest as a predatory charge levied by
hereditary wealth and the privatized monopoly right to create bank credit. Marx quipped that in
this view, the Rothschilds must be Europe's most self-depriving and abstaining family, not as
suffering from wealth-addiction.
These theories that all income is earned and that consumers (the bourgeois term for
wage-earners) instead of capitalists determine economic policy were a reaction against the
classical value and rent theory that paved the way for Marx's analysis. After analyzing
industrial business cycles in terms of under-consumption or over-production in Volume I of
Capital, Volume III dealt with the precapitalist financial problem inherited from feudalism and
the earlier "ancient" mode of production: the tendency of an economy's debts to grow by the
"purely mathematical law" of compound interest.
Any rate of interest may be thought of as a doubling time. What doubles is not real growth,
but the parasitic financial burden on this growth. The more the debt burden grows, the less
income is left for spending on goods and services. More than any of his contemporaries, Marx
emphasized the tendency for debt to grow exponentially, at compound interest, extracting more
and more income from the economy at large as debts double and redouble, beyond the ability of
debtors to pay. This slows investment in new means of production, because it shrinks domestic
markets for output.
Marx explained that the credit system is external to the means of production. It existed in
ancient times, feudal Europe, and has survived industrial capitalism to exist even in socialist
economies. At issue in all these economic systems is how to prevent the growth of debt and its
interest charge from shrinking economies. Marx believed that the natural thrust of industrial
capitalism was to replace private banking and money creation with public money and credit. He
distinguished interest-bearing debt under industrial capitalism as, for the first time, a means
of financing capital investment. It thus was potentially productive by funding capital to
produce a profit that was sufficient to pay off the debt.
Industrial banking was expected to finance industrial capital formation, as was occurring in
Germany in Marx's day. Marx's examples of industrial balance sheets accordingly assumed debt.
In contrast to Ricardo's analysis of capitalism's Armageddon resulting from rising land-rent,
Marx expected capitalism to free itself from political dominance by the landlord class, as well
as from the precapitalist legacy of usury.
This kind of classical free market viewed capitalism's historical role as being to free the
economy from the overhead of unproductive "usury" debt, along with the problem of absentee
landownership and private ownership of monopolies – what Lenin called the economy's
"commanding heights" in the form of basic infrastructure. Governments would make industries
competitive by providing basic needs freely or at least at much lower public prices than
privatized economies could match.
This reform program of industrial capitalism was beginning to occur in Germany and the
United States, but Marx recognized that such evolution would not be smooth and automatic.
Managing economies in the interest of the wage earners who formed the majority of the
population would require revolution where reactionary interests fought to prevent society from
going beyond the "bourgeois socialism" that stopped short of nationalizing the land, monopolies
and banking.
World War I untracked even this path of "bourgeois socialism." Rentier forces fought to
prevent reform, and banks focused on lending against collateral already in place, not on
financing new means of production. The result of this return to pre-industrial bank credit is
that some 80 percent of bank lending in the United States and Britain now takes the form of
real estate mortgages. The effect is to turn the land's rental yield into interest.
That rent-into-interest transformation gives bankers a strong motive to oppose taxing land
rent, knowing that they will end up with whatever the tax collector relinquishes. Most of the
remaining bank lending is concentrated in loans for corporate takeovers, mergers and
acquisitions, and consumer loans. Corporate capital investment in today's West is not financed
by bank credit, but almost entirely out of retained corporate earnings, and secondarily out of
stock issues.
The stock market itself has become extractive. Corporate earnings are used for stock
buybacks and higher dividend payouts, not for new tangible investment. This financial strategy
was made explicit by Harvard Business School Professor Michael Jensen, who advocated that
salaries and bonuses for corporate managers should be based on how much they can increase the
price of their companies' stock, not on how much they increased or production and/or business
size. Some 92 percent of corporate profits in recent years have been spent on stock buyback
programs and dividend payouts. That leaves only about 8 percent available to be re-invested in
new means of production and hiring. Corporate America's financial managers are turning
financialized companies into debt-ridden corporate shells.
A major advantage of a government as chief banker and credit creator is that when debts come
to outstrip the means to pay, the government can write down the debt. That is how China's banks
have operated. It is a prerequisite for saving companies from bankruptcy and preventing their
ownership from being transferred to foreigners, raiders or vultures.
Classical tax and banking policies were expected to streamline industrial economies,
lowering their cost structures as governments replaced landlords as owner of the land and
natural resources (as in China today) and creating their own money and credit. But despite
Marx's understanding that this would have been the most logical way for industrial capitalism
to evolve, finance capitalism has failed to fund capital formation. Finance capitalism has
hijacked industrial capitalism, and neoliberalism is its anti-classical ideology.
The result of today's alliance of the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) sector with
natural resource and infrastructure monopolies has been to reverse that the 20th century's
reforms promoting progressive taxation of wealth and income. Industrial capitalism in the West
has been detoured along the road to rent-extracting privatization, austerity and debt
serfdom.
The result is a double-crisis: austerity stemming from debt deflation, while public health,
communications, information technology, transportation and other basic infrastructure are
privatized by corporate monopolies that raise prices charged to labor and industry. The debt
crisis spans government debt (state and local as well as national), corporate debt, real estate
mortgage debt and personal debt, causing austerity that shrinks the "real" economy as its
assets and income are stripped away to service the exponentially growing debt overhead. The
economy polarizes as income and wealth ownership are shifted to the neo-rentier alliance headed
by the financial sector.
This veritable counter-revolution has inverted the classical concept of free markets.
Instead of advocating a public role to lower the cost structure of business and labor, the
neoliberal ideal excludes public infrastructure and government ownership of natural monopolies,
not to speak of industrial production. Led by bank lobbyists, neoliberalism even opposes public
regulation of finance and monopolies to keep their prices in line with socially necessary cost
of production.
To defend this economic counter-revolution, the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA)
and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures now used throughout the world were inspired by
opposition to progressive taxation and public ownership of land and banks. These statistical
measures depicting finance, insurance and real estate as the leaders of wealth creation, not
the creators merely of debt and rentier overhead.
What is China's "Real" GDP and "real wealth creation"?
Rejection of classical value theory's focus on economic rent – the excess of market
price over intrinsic labor cost – underlies the post-classical concept of GDP. Classical
rent theory warned against the FIRE sector siphoning off nominal growth in wealth and income.
The economics of Adam Smith, David Ricardo, J.S. Mill and Marx share in common the view that
this rentier revenue should be treated as an overhead charge and, as such, subtracted from
national income and product because it is not production-related. Being extraneous to the
production process, this rentier overhead is responsible for today's debt deflation and
economically extractive privatization that is imposing austerity and shrinking markets from
North America to Europe.
The West's debt crisis is aggravated by privatizing monopolies (on credit) that historically
have belonged to the public sector. Instead of recognizing the virtues of a mixed economy,
Frederick Hayek and his followers from Ayn Rand to Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, the
Chicago School and libertarian Republicans have claimed that any public ownership or regulation
is, ipso facto, a step toward totalitarian politics.
Following this ideology, Alan Greenspan aborted economic regulation and decriminalized
financial fraud. He believed that in principle, the massive bank fraud, junk-mortgage lending
and corporate raiding that led up to the 2008 crisis was more efficient than regulating such
activities or prosecuting fraudsters.
This is the neoliberal ideology taught in U.S. and European business schools. It assumes
that whatever increases financial wealth most quickly is the most efficient for society as a
whole. It also assumes that bankers will find honest dealing to be more in their economic
self-interest than fraud, because customers would shun fraudulent bankers. But along with the
mathematics of compound interest, the inherent dynamic of finance capitalism is to establish a
monopoly and capture government regulatory agencies, the justice system, central bank and
Treasury to prevent any alternative policy and the prosecution of fraud.
The aim is to get rich by purely financial means – by increasing stock-market prices,
not by tangible capital formation. That is the opposite of the industrial logic of expanding
the economy and its markets. Instead of creating a more productive economy and raising living
standards, finance capitalism is imposing austerity by diverting wage income and also corporate
income to pay rising debt service, health insurance and payments to privatized monopolies.
Progressive income and wealth taxation has been reversed, siphoning off wages to subsidize
privatization by the rentier class.
This combination of debt overgrowth and regressive fiscal policy has produced two results.
First, combining debt deflation with fiscal deflation leaves only about a third of wage income
available to be spent on the products of labor. Paying interest, rents and taxes – and
monopoly prices – shrinks the domestic market for goods and services.
Second, adding debt service, monopoly prices and a tax shift to the cost of living and doing
business renders neo-rentier economies high-cost. That is why the U.S. economy has been
deindustrialized and its Midwest turned into a Rust Belt.
How Marx's economic schema explains the West's neo-rentier problem
In Volume I of Capital, Marx described the dynamics and "law of motion" of industrial
capitalism and its periodic crises. The basic internal contradiction that capitalism has to
solve is the inability of wage earners to be paid enough to buy the commodities they produce.
This has been called overproduction or underconsumption, but Marx believed that the problem was
in principle only temporary, not permanent.
Volumes II and III of Marx's Capital described a pre-capitalist form of crisis, independent
of the industrial economy: Debt grows exponentially, burdening the economy and finally bringing
its expansion to an end with a financial crash. That descent into bankruptcy, foreclosure and
the transfer of property from debtors to creditors is the dynamic of Western finance
capitalism. Subjecting economies to austerity, economic shrinkage, emigration, shorter life
spans and hence depopulation, it is at the root of the 2008 debt legacy and the fate of the
Baltic states, Ireland, Greece and the rest of southern Europe, as it was earlier the financial
dynamic of Third World countries in the 1960s through 1990s under IMF austerity programs. When
public policy is turned over to creditors, they use their power for is asset stripping,
insisting that all debts must be paid without regard for how this destroys the economy at
large.
China has managed to avoid this dynamic. But to the extent that it sends its students to
study in U.S. and European business schools, they are taught the tactics of asset stripping
instead of capital formation – how to be extractive, not productive. They are taught that
privatization is more desirable than public ownership, and that financialization creates wealth
faster than it creates a debt burden. The product of such education therefore is not knowledge
but ignorance and a distortion of good policy analysis. Baltic austerity is applauded as the
"Baltic Miracle," not as demographic collapse and economic shrinkage.
The experience of post-Soviet economies when neoliberals were given a free hand after 1991
provides an object lesson. Much the same fate has befallen Greece, along with the rising
indebtedness of other economies to foreign bondholders and to their own rentier class operating
out of capital-flight centers. Economies are obliged to suspend democratic government policy in
favor of emergency creditor control.
The slow economic crash and debt deflation of these economies is depicted as a result of
"market choice." It turns out to be a "choice" for economic stagnation. All this is
rationalized by the economic theory taught in Western economics departments and business
schools. Such education is an indoctrination in stupidity – the kind of tunnel vision
that Thorstein Veblen called the "trained incapacity" to understand how economies really
work.
Most private fortunes in the West have stemmed from housing and other real estate financed
by debt. Until the 2008 crisis the magnitude of this property wealth was expanded largely by
asset-price inflation, aggravated by the reluctance of governments to do what Adams Smith, John
Stuart Mill, Alfred Marshall and nearly all 19th-century classical economists recommended: to
keep land rent out of private hands, and to make the rise in land's rental value serve as the
tax base.
Failure to tax the land leaves its rental value "free" to be pledged as interest to banks
– which make larger and larger loans by lending against rising debt ratios. This "easy
credit" raises the price of obtaining home ownership. Sellers celebrate the result as "wealth
creation," and the mainstream media depict the middle class as growing richer by higher prices
for the homes its members have bought. But the debt-financed rise in housing prices ultimately
creates wealth mainly for banks and their bondholders.
Americans now have to pay up to 43 percent of their income for mortgage debt service,
federally guaranteed. This imposes such high costs for home ownership that it is pricing the
products of U.S. labor out of world markets. The pretense is that using bank credit (that is,
homebuyers' mortgage debt) to inflate the price of housing makes U.S. workers and the middle
class prosperous by enabling them to sell their homes to a new generation of buyers at higher
and higher prices each generation. This certainly does not make the buyers more prosperous. It
diverts their income away from buying the products of labor to pay interest to banks for
housing prices inflated on bank credit.
Consumer spending throughout most of the world aims above all at achieving status. In the
West this status rests largely on one's home and neighborhood, its schools, transportation and
other public investment. Land-price gains resulting from public investment in transportation,
parks and schools, other urban amenities and infrastructure, and from re-zoning land use. In
the West this rising rental value is turned into a cost, falling on homebuyers, who must borrow
more from the banks. The result is that public spending ultimately enriches the banks –
at the tax collector's expense.
Debt is the great threat to modern China's development. Burdening economies with a rentier
overhead imposes the quasi-feudal charges from which classical 19th-century economists hoped to
free industrial capitalism. The best protection against this rentier burden is simple: first,
tax away the land's rising rental valuation to prevent it from being paid out for bank loans;
and second, keep control of banks in public hands. Credit is necessary, but should be directed
productively and debts written down when paying them threatens to create financial
Armageddon.
Marx's views on the broad dynamics of economic history
Plato and Aristotle described a grand pattern of history. In their minds, this pattern was
eternally recurrent. Looking over three centuries of Greek experience, Aristotle found a
perpetual triangular sequence of democracy turning into oligarchy, whose members made
themselves into a hereditary aristocracy – and then some families sought to take the
demos into their own camp by sponsoring democracy, which in turn led to wealthy families
replacing it with an oligarchy, and so on.
The medieval Islamic philosopher Ibn Khaldun saw history as a rise and fall. Societies rose
to prosperity and power when leaders mobilized the ethic of mutual aid to gain broad support as
a communal spirit raised all members. But prosperity tended to breed selfishness, especially in
ruling dynasties, which Ibn Khaldun thought had a life cycle of only about 120 years. By the
19th century, Scottish Enlightenment philosophers elaborated this rise-and-fall theory,
applying it to regimes whose success bred arrogance and oligarchy.
Marx saw the long sweep of history as following a steady upward secular trend, from the
ancient slavery-and-usury mode of production through feudalism to industrial capitalism. And
not only Marx but nearly all 19th-century classical economists assumed that socialism in one
form or another would be the stage following industrial capitalism in this upward technological
and economic trajectory.
Instead, Western industrial capitalism turned into finance capitalism. In Aristotelian terms
the shift was from proto-democracy to oligarchy. Instead of freeing industrial capitalism from
landlords, natural resource owners and monopolists, Western banks and bondholders joined forces
with them, seeing them as major customers for as much interest-bearing credit as would absorb
the economic rent that governments would refrain from taxing. Their success has enabled banks
and bondholders to replace landlords as the major rentier class. Antithetical to socialism,
this retrogression towards feudal rentier privilege let real estate, financial interests and
monopolists exploit the economy by creating an expanding debt wedge.
Marx's Theories of Surplus Value (German Mehrwert), his history of classical political
economy, poked fun at David Ricardo's warning of economic Armageddon if economies let landlords
siphon off of all industrial profits to pay land rent. Profits and hence capital investment
would grind to a halt. But as matters have turned out, Ricardo's rentier Armageddon is being
created by his own banking class. Corporate profits are being devoured by interest payments for
corporate takeover debts and related financial charges to reward bondholders and raiders, and
by financial engineering using stock buybacks and higher dividend payouts to create "capital"
gains at the expense of tangible capital formation. Profits also are reduced by firms having to
pay higher wages to cover the cost of debt-financed housing, education and other basic expenses
for workers.
This financial dynamic has hijacked industrial capitalism. It is leading economies to
polarize and ultimately collapse under the weight of their debt burden. That is the inherent
dynamic of finance capitalism. The debt overhead leads to a financial crisis that becomes an
opportunity to impose emergency rule to replace democratic lawmaking. So contrary to Hayek's
anti-government "free enterprise" warnings, "slippery slope" to totalitarianism is not by
socialist reforms limiting the rentier class's extraction of economic rent and interest, but
just the opposite: the failure of society to check the rentier extraction of income vesting a
hereditary autocracy whose financial and rent-seeking business plan impoverishes the economy at
large.
Greece's debt crisis has all but abolished its democracy as foreign creditors have taken
control, superseding the authority of elected officials. From New York City's bankruptcy to
Puerto Rico's insolvency and Third World debtors subjected to IMF "austerity programs,"
national bankruptcies shift control to centralized financial planners in what Naomi Klein has
called Crisis Capitalism. Planning ends up centralized not in the hands of elected government
but in financial centers, which become the de facto government.
England and America set their economic path on this road under Margaret Thatcher and Ronald
Reagan by 1980. They were followed by even more pro-financial privatization leaders in Tony
Blair's New Labour Party and Bill Clinton's New Democrats seeking to roll back a century of
classical reforms and policies that gradually were moving capitalism toward socialism. Instead,
these countries are suffering a rollback to neofeudalism, whose neo-rentiereconomic and
political ideology has become mainstream throughout the West. Despite seeing that this policy
has led to North America and Europe losing their former economic lead, the financial power
elite is simply taking its money and running.
So we are brought back to the question of what this means for China's educational policy and
also how it depicts economic statistics to distinguish between wealth and overhead. The great
advantage of such a distinction is to help steer economic growth along productive lines
favoring tangible capital formation instead of policies to get rich by taking on more and more
debt and by prying property away from the public domain.
If China's main social objective is to increase real output to raise living standards for
its population – while minimizing unproductive overhead and economic inequality –
then it is time to consider developing its own accounting format to trace its progress (or
shortcomings) along these lines. Measuring how its income and wealth are being obtained would
track how the economy is moving closer toward what Marx called socialism.
Of special importance, such an accounting format would revive Marx's classical distinction
between earned and unearned income. Its statistics would show how much of the rise in wealth
(and expenditure) in China – or any other nation – is a result of new tangible
capital formation as compared to higher rents, lending and interest, or the stock market.
These statistics would isolate income and fortunes obtained by zero-sum transfer payments
such as the rising rental value of land sites, natural resources and basic infrastructure
monopolies. National accounts also would trace overhead charges for interest and related
financial charges, as well as the economy's evolving credit and debt structure. That would
enable China to measure the economic effects of the banking privileges and other property
rights given to some people.
That is not the aim of Western national income statistics. In fact, applying the accounting
structure described above would track how Western economies are polarizing as a result of their
higher economic rent and interest payments crowding out spending on actual goods and services.
This kind of contrast would help explain global trends in pricing and competitiveness.
Distinguishing the FIRE sector from the rest of the economy would enable China to compare its
economic cost trends and overhead relative to those of other nations. I believe that these
statistics would show that its progress toward socialism also will explain the remarkable
economic advantage it has obtained. If China does indeed make this change, it will help people
both in and out of China see even more clearly what your government is doing on behalf of the
majority of its people. This may help other governments – including my own – learn
from your example and praise it instead of fearing it.
"... "I guess we've just got to pull up our socks and back ol' Boris again," Clinton told an aide. "I know the Russian people have to pick a president, and I know that means we've got to stop short of giving a nominating speech for the guy. But we've got to go all the way in helping in every other respect." Later Clinton was even more categorical: "I want this guy to win so bad it hurts." With that, the public and private resources of the United States were thrown behind a Russian presidential candidate. ..."
"... Four months before the election, Clinton arranged for the International Monetary Fund to give Russia a $10.2 billion injection of cash. Yeltsin used some of it to pay for election-year raises and bonuses, but much quickly disappeared into the foreign bank accounts of Russian oligarchs. The message was clear: Yeltsin knows how to shake the Western money tree. In case anyone missed it, Clinton came to Moscow a few weeks later to celebrate with his Russian partner. Oligarchs flocked to Yeltsin's side. American diplomats persuaded one of his rivals to drop out of the presidential race in order to improve his chances. ..."
"... Yeltsin won the election with a reported 54 percent of the vote. The count was suspicious and Yeltsin had wildly violated campaign spending limits, but American groups, some funded in part by Washington, rushed to pronounce the election fair. The New York Times called it "a victory for Russia." In fact, it was the opposite: a victory by a foreign power that wanted to place its candidate in the Russian presidency. ..."
"... American interference in the 1996 Russian election was hardly secret. On the contrary, the press reveled in our ability to shape the politics of a country we once feared. When Clinton maneuvered the IMF into giving Yeltsin and his cronies $10.2 billion, the Washington Post approved: "Now this is the right way to serve Western interests. . . It's to use the politically bland but powerful instrument of the International Monetary Fund." After Yeltsin won, Time put him on the cover -- holding an American flag. Its story was headlined, "Yanks to the Rescue: The Secret Story of How American Advisors Helped Yeltsin Win." The story was later made into a movie called "Spinning Boris." ..."
"... This was the first direct interference in a presidential election in the history of US-Russia relations. It produced bad results. Yeltsin opened his country's assets to looting on a mass scale. ..."
"... It is a delightful irony that shows how unwise it can be to interfere in another country's politics. If the United States had not crashed into a presidential election in Russia 22 years ago, we almost certainly would not be dealing with Putin today. ..."
FOR ONE OF THE world's major powers to interfere systematically in the presidential
politics of another country is an act of brazen aggression. Yet it happened.
Sitting in a distant capital, political leaders set out to assure that their
favored candidate won an election against rivals who scared them. They succeeded.
Voters were maneuvered into electing a president who served the interest of
the intervening power. This was a well-coordinated, government-sponsored project
to subvert the will of voters in another country -- a supremely successful piece
of political vandalism on a global scale.
The year was 1996. Russia was electing a president to succeed Boris Yeltsin,
whose disastrous presidency, marked by the post-Soviet social collapse and a
savage war in Chechnya, had brought his approval rating down to the single digits.
President Bill Clinton decided that American interests would be best served
by finding a way to re-elect Yeltsin despite his deep unpopularity. Yeltsin
was ill, chronically alcoholic, and seen in Washington as easy to control. Clinton
bonded with him. He was our "Manchurian Candidate."
"I guess we've just got to pull up our socks and back ol' Boris again,"
Clinton told an aide. "I know the Russian people have to pick a president, and
I know that means we've got to stop short of giving a nominating speech for
the guy. But we've got to go all the way in helping in every other respect."
Later Clinton was even more categorical: "I want this guy to win so bad it hurts."
With that, the public and private resources of the United States were thrown
behind a Russian presidential candidate.
Part of the American plan was public. Clinton began praising Yeltsin as a
world-class statesman . He defended Yeltsin's scorched-earth tactics in Chechnya,
comparing him to Abraham Lincoln for his dedication to keeping a nation together.
As for Yeltsin's bombardment of the Russian Parliament in 1993, which cost 187
lives, Clinton insisted that his friend had "bent over backwards" to avoid it.
He stopped mentioning his plan to extend NATO toward Russia's borders, and never
uttered a word about the ravaging of Russia's formerly state-owned economy by
kleptocrats connected to Yeltsin. Instead he gave them a spectacular gift.
Four months before the election, Clinton arranged for the International
Monetary Fund to give Russia a $10.2 billion injection of cash. Yeltsin used
some of it to pay for election-year raises and bonuses, but much quickly disappeared
into the foreign bank accounts of Russian oligarchs. The message was clear:
Yeltsin knows how to shake the Western money tree. In case anyone missed it,
Clinton came to Moscow a few weeks later to celebrate with his Russian partner.
Oligarchs flocked to Yeltsin's side. American diplomats persuaded one of his
rivals to drop out of the presidential race in order to improve his chances.
Four American political consultants moved to Moscow to help direct Yeltsin's
campaign. The campaign paid them $250,000 per month for advice on "sophisticated
methods of polling, voter contact and campaign organization." They organized
focus groups and designed advertising messages aimed at stoking voters' fears
of civil unrest. When they saw a CNN report from Moscow saying that voters were
gravitating toward Yeltsin because they feared unrest, one of the consultants
shouted in triumph: "It worked! The whole strategy worked. They're scared to
death!"
Yeltsin won the election with a reported 54 percent of the vote. The
count was suspicious and Yeltsin had wildly violated campaign spending limits,
but American groups, some funded in part by Washington, rushed to pronounce
the election fair. The New York Times called it "a victory for Russia." In fact,
it was the opposite: a victory by a foreign power that wanted to place its candidate
in the Russian presidency.
American interference in the 1996 Russian election was hardly secret.
On the contrary, the press reveled in our ability to shape the politics of a
country we once feared. When Clinton maneuvered the IMF into giving Yeltsin
and his cronies $10.2 billion, the Washington Post approved: "Now this is the
right way to serve Western interests. . . It's to use the politically bland
but powerful instrument of the International Monetary Fund." After Yeltsin won,
Time put him on the cover -- holding an American flag. Its story was headlined,
"Yanks to the Rescue: The Secret Story of How American Advisors Helped Yeltsin
Win." The story was later made into a movie called "Spinning Boris."
This was the first direct interference in a presidential election in
the history of US-Russia relations. It produced bad results. Yeltsin opened
his country's assets to looting on a mass scale. He turned the Chechen
capital, Grozny, into a wasteland. Standards of living in Russia fell dramatically.
Then, at the end of 1999, plagued by health problems, he shocked his country
and the world by resigning. As his final act, he named his successor: a little-known
intelligence officer named Vladimir Putin. It is a delightful irony that
shows how unwise it can be to interfere in another country's politics. If the
United States had not crashed into a presidential election in Russia 22 years
ago, we almost certainly would not be dealing with Putin today.
This "Trump vs Davos globalists" theme is unconvincing. Trump actions
are ruthless globalist actions, who wnat to preverse the US status of
superpower at all costs, even by abrogating important treaties.
He might be not a neoliberal globalist thouth -- he does not offere equl
seats on the table to vassals.
Trumpo statement that if Germany buy Russian gas it does not need NATO
is very shroud indeed.
Notable quotes:
"... Optics are important and this image captures what both parties wanted to convey. This meeting is the beginning of a shift in the relationship between Germany and Russia for the better. ..."
"... The obvious answer is necessity brought about by pressure being placed on both countries by Donald Trump through sanctions and tariffs and their shared interests represented by the Nordstream 2 pipeline. ..."
"... But, this meeting went far deeper than that, especially since Merkel's Foreign Minister Heiko Maas boldly proclaimed that Europe needs an alternative to the SWIFT system of international electronic payments so as to keep global trade alive while the U.S. further weaponizes the U.S. dollar ..."
"... Why would Merkel allow Maas to state this publicly and why was it picked up by that establishment stenographer The Financial Times ? ..."
"... If Trump's goal, as presented by much of the European press (as presented here by Gilbert Doctorow), is to regain complete subjugation of Europe to American dominance, then this seems counter-productive. ..."
"... SWIFT is the main lever on which much of the U.S.'s sanctions power rests. Because it is through SWIFT that transactions can be tracked, payments halted and fines imposed. That none of this is strictly legal is irrelevant in the game of power-politics. ..."
"... This undermines the EU's credibility at a foundational level. It shows them to be the toothless and, in EU President Donald Tusk's case, witless when faced with opposition to their rule that isn't supported by The Davos Crowd, which Trump most definitely doesn't represent. ..."
"... And I've talked about these in the past. His real goal is the destruction of that post WWII institutional order which in his mind bankrupts the U.S. treasury through massive trade deficits. ..."
"... I said back in June that Trump's leaving the JCPOA was all part of his strategy to drive a wedge between the U.S. and Germany. The Davos Crowd needs that deal to keep the dream of transferring the power of the world back to Europe from the U.S. via cheap, Iranian energy and keep the conflict between Israel/Saudi Arabia and Iran front and center to foment global chaos awhile keeping Russia from getting rich again. ..."
"... It needs that to support the narrative we need NATO to protect us from the inevitable Russian attack after we provoke them into it. This keeps the money flowing through the banks and lobbyists while draining the U.S. dry through the military/industrial complex. ..."
"... And despite relentless Russia bashing since before Trump was elected, the American people overwhelmingly want peace with Russia, not war. ..."
"... By driving a wedge between Germany and the US over NATO and attacking the foundations of the German economy Trump is ensuring the current rapprochement between Germany and Russia? ..."
Vladimir Putin's charm tour of Germany and Austria last weekend is a significant sign of
change to come.
To the U.S. and European press Putin is only a step or two away from Hitler reincarnated
(thanks chiefly to Bill Browder). It serves the purpose of maintaining the post WWII
institutional order.
But, Putin is always nothing but relentlessly patient in his diplomatic efforts, even when
European leaders, like Merkel, treat him and Russia poorly. She is, after all, the leading
mouthpiece and political ally of The Davos Crowd that believes they run the world.
The conduct of his Foreign Ministry under Sergei Lavrov always strikes the perfect balance
between bluntness and diplo-speak.
So, color me surprised when I see the official photos of his meeting with Merkel carefully
framed to paint him in a positive light.
Putin in light blues and grays, Merkel in green, the fountain in the background, leaning in
looking directly at each other and a simple Sunday morning chat.
If I didn't know better I'd be expecting them to share photos of their grandkids, well,
Putin's grandkids anyway.
Optics are important and this image captures what both parties wanted to convey. This
meeting is the beginning of a shift in the relationship between Germany and Russia for the
better.
And the question is why?
The obvious answer is necessity brought about by pressure being placed on both countries by
Donald Trump through sanctions and tariffs and their shared interests represented by the
Nordstream 2 pipeline.
But, this meeting went far deeper than that, especially since Merkel's Foreign Minister
Heiko Maas boldly proclaimed that Europe needs an alternative to the SWIFT system of
international electronic payments so as to keep global trade alive while the U.S. further
weaponizes the U.S. dollar.
The U.S. just seized another $5 billion of Russian 'oligarch' money using Credit Suisse as
its enforcement arm.
SWIFT is the main lever on which much of the U.S.'s sanctions power rests. Because it is
through SWIFT that transactions can be tracked, payments halted and fines imposed. That none of
this is strictly legal is irrelevant in the game of power-politics.
Banks like Credit Suisse can't function without access to SWIFT.
So they will roll over to the pressure. That's why the response from EU leadership to
Trump's abandoning the JCPOA has been far more bark than bite. Because the measures implemented
to protect European businesses from U.S. retaliation against them hold no weight with the
companies staring at billions in losses.
Case in point: France's Total pulling out of a multi-billion exploration deal with Iran.
This undermines the EU's credibility at a foundational level. It shows them to be the
toothless and, in EU President Donald Tusk's case, witless when faced with opposition to their
rule that isn't supported by The Davos Crowd, which Trump most definitely doesn't
represent.
So, again, the question is why?
All of this seems incredibly contradictory, at times even to a jaded and cynical observer
like me. Until you step back for a second and think bigger picture and ask the most important
question of all.
What are Trump's real goals?
It's Good to Have Goals
And I've talked about these in the past. His real goal is the destruction of that post WWII
institutional order which in his mind bankrupts the U.S. treasury through massive trade
deficits.
And in a word that means . NATO.
Trump goal is the dissolution of NATO. He wants it dismantled because it is a massive drain
on our capital base. Building weapons and maintaining bases in Europe is expensive and that
money is needed here. He knows this.
Even the mere hint of this has The Davos Crowd in apoplexy. Hence, the post-Helsinki freak
out. Hence, the drive to impeach him over Stormy Freaking Daniels. It's pathetic.
I said back in June that Trump's leaving the JCPOA was all part of his strategy to drive a
wedge between the U.S. and Germany. The Davos Crowd needs that deal to keep the dream of transferring the power of the world
back to Europe from the U.S. via cheap, Iranian energy and keep the conflict between
Israel/Saudi Arabia and Iran front and center to foment global chaos awhile keeping Russia from
getting rich again.
It needs that to support the narrative we need NATO to protect us from the inevitable
Russian attack after we provoke them into it. This keeps the money flowing through the banks
and lobbyists while draining the U.S. dry through the military/industrial complex.
The problem is that that narrative is garbage. And despite relentless Russia bashing since
before Trump was elected, the American people overwhelmingly want peace with Russia, not
war.
Poland and the Baltics sound like Democrats unhinged hysterical children over the 'threat of
Russian aggression.'
This is why Trump is also pressuring Turkey at the same time. He knows Europe is vulnerable
to Turkey's implosion. Turkey and Germany are major trading partners and the vast bulk of
Turkey's foreign currency exposure is owned by European banks, making them, as
I've said previously, Ground Zero for the debt bomb.
So the final question then is this.
Has this been Trump's goal the entire time? Is this what Trump and Putin discussed behind
closed doors in Helsinki?
The NATO Wedge
By driving a wedge between Germany and the US over NATO and attacking the foundations of
the German economy Trump is ensuring the current rapprochement between Germany and Russia?
Merkel, for her part, has been so terminally weakened by her immigration policy and
strong-armed approach to dissent that this whirlwind weekender by Putin was as much for her
benefit, politically, as his.
The implication being that if Merkel wants to stay in power with her weakening coalition and
poll numbers it's time for her to reverse course. And if that means cozying up to Russia then
so be it.
Merkel will continue to talk a good game about Crimea and Ukraine while Putin will speak
directly to the German people about ending the humanitarian crisis in Syria as a proxy for
ending the threat of further immigration.
This outflanks Merkel's position and undermines George Soros' goals of the cultural
destruction of Europe. At this point, politically, how can Merkel even argue against that
without betraying her true loyalties?
And that's what makes the implications of this Summit-That-Wasn't so interesting.
If this is indeed the case then the future of the world rests on the mid-term elections and
whether Trump is not indicted for having sex with a couple of porn stars.
I almost feel dirty writing that.
* * *
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"... Meanwhile, what is surely the single most urgent issue for both sides was not mentioned at all in their opening statements: namely how to respond to US President Donald Trump's new sanctions on Russia and on participants in the Nord Stream II gas pipeline project that both countries support. ..."
"... The Washington Post ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... The Washington Post ..."
"... New York Times' ..."
"... I close out this little survey of English-speaking media by pointing to an article in The Guardian ..."
"... Both Merkel and Putin are now facing the same challenge: US foreign policy has become unpredictable, both for its allies and for rivals like Moscow. Notwithstanding the warm discussions Donald Trump had with Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, the American administration has just announced a new wave of sanctions on Russia relating to the Skripal affair. ..."
"... La Libre Belgique ..."
"... "Germany is not the only 'Western' nation to return to the Kremlin. Putin is taking full advantage of the boomerang effect caused by the policies of Donald Trump, who, by hammering away at his customary allies is pushing them to other interlocutors. By looking for confrontations, imposing taxes and sanctions while thinking that this rampant isolationism will make the United States 'great again,' Trump is helping to build a wall that he no doubt did not imagine, that of the anti-Trump people." ..."
"... Frankfurter Allgemeine ..."
"... Putin is under economic pressure to find closer ties with Europe. In Austria, which now chairs the European Council, he has allies in the government, namely the extreme right populists of the Freedom Party which installed Kneissl. But the way to Europe passes by way of Merkel and Putin knows that. ..."
"... Vremya Pokazhet ..."
"... Frankfurter Allgemeine ..."
"... In my view, Trump's use of sanctions and tariffs here, there, everywhere has a totally different logic from what is adduced in the writings of my peers in the analyst community. He invokes them because 1. they are within his sole power as Chief Executive and 2. they are in principle as American as apple pie and do not require grand explanations in Congress or before the public. As to why he invokes them, there you have to look at Trump's foreign policy from a 360 degree perspective and not merely as it relates to Putin or to Erdogan or to any of the small slices we see discussed in the news. ..."
"... When viewed in the round, it is obvious that Trump is reshuffling the deck. He is doing what he can to break up NATO and the other military alliances around the world which are consuming more than half of the U.S. defense budget and do not arguably provide greater security to the American homeland than the country can do for itself without fixed alliances and overseas bases. ..."
"... By contrast, what Trump is now doing is not a blunder or a bit of bluster. Even if he is not conversant with the whole of the Realist School of international relations, as surely he is not, he does grasp the fundamentals, namely the centrality of the sovereign nation-state and of the balance of power mechanism by which these states are constantly changing alignments of these nation-states to ensure no one enjoys hegemony . ..."
"... Accordingly, I insist that the possible rapprochement of Russia and Germany will be in line with Trump's reshuffling of the deck not in spite of it. ..."
Reading the tea leaves of the Putin-Merkel meeting
During this past Saturday, 18 August, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a brief visit to
Austria to attend the wedding of the country's Minister of Foreign Affairs Karin Kneissl. Per
the Kremlin, this stop of several hours in the Styrian wine country not far from the border
with Slovenia was a "purely private" side excursion "on the road to Germany" for the state
visit with Chancellor Angela Merkel starting later in the day at the Meseberg Palace, the
federal guest house 60 km north of Berlin.
Journalists were admitted to film the wedding party, including Putin's dance with the 53
year old bride. No questions were taken and no statements were issued by the President's Press
Secretary, who also was present. We know only that on the return journey to Graz airport, Putin
was accompanied by Austria's Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Presumably they had some issues to
discuss that may be characterized as official talks.
Prior to their meeting both Putin and Angela Merkel made statements to the press listing the
topics they intended to discuss. We may assume that these lists were not exhaustive. Comparing
their lists, we find that the respective priorities of the parties were in inverted order, with
economic cooperation at the head of Putin's list while regulating the Donbass crisis in Ukraine
was the top concern of Merkel. Moreover, the content of issues bearing the same heading was
very different. Both sides spoke of Syria, but whereas for Putin the issue for discussion is
the humanitarian crisis of refugees, ensuring their return to their homes from camps in
Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey by raising funds to repair and replace fundamental infrastructure
destroyed in the war. For Merkel, the number one issue in Syria is to prevent the
Russian-backed Syrian armed forces from creating a new humanitarian disaster by their ongoing
campaign to retake Idlib province from the militants opposed to Bashar Assad.
Meanwhile, what is surely the single most urgent issue for both sides was not mentioned at
all in their opening statements: namely how to respond to US President Donald Trump's new
sanctions on Russia and on participants in the Nord Stream II gas pipeline project that both
countries support.
As was explained at the outset, there was to be no press conference or joint statement
issued at the conclusion of the talks. The only information we have is that Merkel and Putin
conferred for more than three hours, which is in itself quite extraordinary and suggests that
some understandings may have been achieved.
In a word, the potentially very important diplomatic developments of Saturday remain, for
once, a state secret of the parties, with no leaks for the press to parse. And yet there is
material here worthy of our consideration. I have in mind the interpretations of what might
transpire before, during and after the events of Saturday in the news and commentary reportage
of various countries having greater or lesser interest in Russian affairs. Indeed, my perusal
of French, Belgian, German, British, American and Russian news media shows great diversity of
opinion and some penetrating and highly pertinent remarks based on different information bases.
This material is all essential if we are to make sense of the behavior of the parties on the
international stage in the coming weeks.
In this essay, I will set out what I have found per country, starting with the least
attentive to detail - the United States - and ending with those who offered the best informed
and most interested reportage, Germany and Russia. I will conclude with my own reading of the
tea leaves.
* * * *
Let us take The Washington Post and The New York Times as our markers for
how US mainstream media reported on Putin's meetings this past Saturday.
On the 18th, The Washington Post carried in its online edition two articles dealing
with the Putin diplomatic doings. "At Austrian foreign minister's wedding, Putin brings the
music, the flowers and the controversy" was written by the newspaper's bureau chief in Berlin,
Griff Witte. It is accompanied by video clips of Vladimir Putin dancing with the bride and
speaking, in German, to the wedding party seated at their banquet table. The journalist touches
very briefly on the main political dimensions of Putin's visit to Austria, including the party
relations between United Russia and the far right Freedom Party in Austria's ruling coalition
which nominated Kneissl for her post, the criticism of Putin's participation in the wedding
coming from the Opposition parties in Austria who see it as a violation of the government's own
ambition to be a neutral bridge between East and West, and the issue of Putin's sowing division
on the continent. The only criticism one might offer is that the article is superficial, that
each of the issues raised deserves in-depth analysis separately.
The newspaper's second article online, which spread its net more broadly and covered the
meeting with Merkel in Germany as well as the visit in Austria, came from an Associated Press
reporter, not its own staff. Here again, the problem is that issues surrounding the meetings
are not more than bullet points, and the reader is given no basis for reaching an independent
finding on what has happened..
The New York Times' feature article "Merkel and Putin Sound Pragmatic Notes After
Years of Tension," also published on the 18th and datelined Berlin was cited by Russian
television news for a seemingly positive valuation of the talks in Meseberg Palace. However,
the content of the article by reporter Melissa Eddy is more cautious, highlighting the pattern
of "conflicts and reconciliations" that have marked German-Russian relations over the centuries
and seeing the present stage not as a warming of relations but instead as reaching for
compromises "on Syria, energy and other key issues while maintaining their differences over
Russia's role in the conflict in Ukraine." She sees the Syrian issue as one where German and
Russian interests may be closest given that refugees from the Middle East are now a German
preoccupation with political weight. The reporter cites several experts attached to well-known
institutes in Germany that are generally skeptical about Russia's intentions. But the end
result is better informed than most NYT reporting on Russia even if it leaves us
wondering what will result from the Saturday diplomacy.
In both mainstream papers there is no attempt to find a link between Putin's two visits on
Saturday.
I close out this little survey of English-speaking media by pointing
to an article in
The Guardian from the 18th entitled "Putin urges Europe to help
rebuild Syria so refugees can return." This piece comes from the Agence France-Presse in Berlin. It is not much
more than a recitation of the lists of topics for discussion that Putin and Merkel issued
before their talks. But the reporter has made his choice for the most important of them, Syria
and refugees.
The French-language press does not seem to have been very interested in Putin's "private"
trip to the wedding of the Austrian foreign minister, but was definitely keen to discuss
Putin's trip to Berlin. On the day preceding the Putin-Merkel meeting, the French press offered
a clear concept of where things were headed. We read in Figaro , "Merkel receives
Putin Saturday to renew a difficult dialogue." A caption in bold just below is more
eye-catching: "While the German Chancellor has become the main opponent to the Russian
President within the EU, the policy of sanctions conducted by Washington has led to a
rapprochement between Berlin and Moscow with regard to numerous issues."
The reporter notes that following the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, relations
between the two heads of state had become quite bad and in four years they met only when
obliged to do so during international summits.
"But starting three months ago, their diplomatic exchanges have intensified: in May Angela
Merkel met the chief of the Kremlin in Sochi, Russia. In July, she met the head of the Russian
diplomatic corps, Sergei Lavrov, in Berlin. By inviting Vladimir Putin this time, the German
Chancellor has promised 'in-depth discussions.' "She is pursuing a pragmatic attempt at
normalization of German-Russian relations, because the international realities have changed,'
explains Stefan Meister, director of the Robert Bosch Center for Russia."
And how has the calculus of international relations changed? Both Merkel and Putin are now
facing the same challenge: US foreign policy has become unpredictable, both for its allies and
for rivals like Moscow. Notwithstanding the warm discussions Donald Trump had with Vladimir
Putin in Helsinki, the American administration has just announced a new wave of sanctions on
Russia relating to the Skripal affair.
"The American policy represents a danger for the Russian economy and a threat to German
interests."
A spokesperson from Merkel's CDU party responsible for foreign policy is quoted on the
possible dangers of secondary sanctions being directed at Germany through the application of US
extraterritoriality against those failing to respect the new sanctions on Russia.
The article explains the issues surrounding the Nord Steam 2 pipeline, and in particular
Trump's hostility to the project for its locking in German dependence on Russian
hydrocarbons.
And the author points to the common interests of Germany and Russia over maintenance of the
Iranian nuclear deal as a factor powering the rapprochement of the two countries. Here again
the common threat is Donald Trump and American sanctions against those companies which continue
to trade with Iran.
The article concludes that divergent views of Russia and Germany over Ukraine and Syria
exclude any breakthrough at the meeting on Saturday. But nonetheless the dialogue that was
lacking these several past years is being recreated.
In its weekend edition issued on 18 August, the Belgian mainstream daily La Libre
Belgique was even more insistent on interpreting the Merkel-Putin meeting as a consequence
of the policies of Donald Trump. Their editorial captures the sense very nicely in its
tongue-in-cheek headline: "Trump is the best 'ally' of Putin."
La Libre sees Vladimir Putin's latest diplomatic initiatives as directly resulting
from the way his host at the White House has annoyed everyone. Moreover, his outreach is
welcomed:
"Germany is not the only 'Western' nation to return to the Kremlin. Putin is taking full
advantage of the boomerang effect caused by the policies of Donald Trump, who, by hammering
away at his customary allies is pushing them to other interlocutors. By looking for
confrontations, imposing taxes and sanctions while thinking that this rampant isolationism
will make the United States 'great again,' Trump is helping to build a wall that he no doubt
did not imagine, that of the anti-Trump people."
The editors point to Turkish President Erdogan's clear signal that he is now
looking for other allies. He has done his calculations and has said he has more to gain with
Moscow than with Washington.'
The editorial concludes that a summit on reconstruction of Syria might even take place at
the start of September between Moscow, Ankara, Paris and Berlin. The conclusion? "Putin has
taken center stage on the chessboard. Thank you, Mr. Trump."
The article filed by La Libre 's correspondent in Berlin, Sebastien Millard, bears
a heading that matches the editorial view of the newspaper: "Merkel and Putin - allies of
convenience facing Trump." The author credits Donald Trump with being the catalyst for the
resumption of dialogue between Germany and Russia; they are telling Washington that they do not
accept its blackmail. He notes that we should not expect any reversal of alliances. There are
too many differences of view between Berlin and Moscow on a variety of issues.
* * * *
The German press paid a good deal of attention to Vladimir Putin's visit to Austria for the
wedding of Foreign Minister Karin Kreissl.
In an article posted on the 16th entitled "Suspicion that Austria is a Trojan horse,"
Die Welt highlighted the negatives of Putin's presence. Quoting an "expert from the
University of Innsbruck" this does not cast a good light on the country. They anticipate
political fall-out. This will impair Austria's ability as chair of the European Council to play
a role of intermediary in the Ukraine conflict. The only beneficiary of the visit will be the
the Russia-friendly be the Russia-friendly Freedom Party. For Putin, being a guest provides him
with the opportunity to demonstrate that he is not isolated but is instead highly welcome in
society of an EU country.
As for the coming meeting with Merkel on Saturday evening, Die Welt in a related
article of the same day lists the issues for discussion. Without taking a position, it cites
experts for and against the Nord Stream II pipeline and other issues on the list.
Welt's report from the wedding party on the 18th was gossipy and unfriendly, comparing it to
a wedding of some European royal family because of the extraordinary guest list that included
the country's chancellor, vice chancellor, and defense minister as well as the head of OPEC
and...Vladimir Putin. With typical German petty financial accounting, they reckon that the 500
police and other security measures needed for the safety of the highly placed guests cost the
Austrian tax payers 250,000 euros.
A separate article in Die Welt deals with Putin's meeting with Merkel at the
Meseberg Palace. The emphasis here is on Merkel's remarks during the Statement prior to the
talks that cooperation with Russia is "vital" to deal with many conflicts globally and that
both sides bear responsibility to find solutions.
The article quotes from the opening statements of the leaders on all the issues in their
list for discussion - Syria, Ukraine, Nord Stream II. We are given bare facts without any
analysis to speak of.
The other major mainstream daily Frankfurter Allgemeine in its Saturday, 18 August
edition offered separate articles on Putin's visits to Austria and Germany.
The article on Karin Kneissl's wedding heads off in a very different direction from the
reporting in other media that I have summarized above. FAZ notes that Kneissl is
rarely in the headlines and it asks: who is she? They answer the question with some curious
details. We learn that Kneissl was once active in competitive sports and even now swims a
kilometer every day. For many years she has lived on a small farmstead with a couple of boxers,
two ponies, hens and cats. Each morning her chauffeur takes her and the dogs to her office in
Vienna, to return in the evening. Regrettably, FAZ does not take this curious
biographical sketch further. No connection is drawn between her personality and the Russian
President's acceptance of her invitation to her wedding.
FAZ similarly has chosen to amuse rather than inform in its coverage of the meeting
in Berlin entitled "Sparkling wine in Austria, sparkling water in Meseberg." They comment on
how Putin arrived half an hour late, on how it is hard to see how the meeting could be
characterized as a success. They stress that we know nothing about the content of the
consultations. Then they tick off the opening positions of the sides as set out in their
statements before the talks.
Spiegel online risks more by giving more interpretation and less bare facts. Its
article entitled "Something of a new start" suggests that a rapprochement is underway and that
both Merkel and Putin have a lot in play. Unlike the other German press we have mentioned,
Spiegel sees a direct link between Putin's attending the wedding in Styria and his visit to
Merkel.
Putin is under economic pressure to find closer ties with Europe. In Austria, which now
chairs the European Council, he has allies in the government, namely the extreme right
populists of the Freedom Party which installed Kneissl. But the way to Europe passes by way of
Merkel and Putin knows that.
Meanwhile, says Spiegel , Germany also is interested in improving relations with
Russia despite all the controversy, namely due to the growing conflicts with US President
Donald Trump. We don't know the exact content of the talks which were confidential, but there
is some movement now between Germany and Russia.
Spiegel remains cautious. Cordiality does not enter into the relationship. The
parties keep their distance. There is no laughter to lighten the atmosphere. Yet, it concludes:
"The talks have prospects and we can see the wish to make progress through common positions,
and without being silent about contradictions. Diplomatic normality, as it were. A step
forward."
* * * *
If the great bulk of commentary in the West about Putin's diplomatic weekend was reserved
and stayed by the bare facts without speculation, Russian television more than made up for
dryness. I point in particular to two political talk shows which invited a mixture of experts
from different backgrounds.
Let us begin with the show Vremya Pokazhet (Time will tell) on
state television's Pervy Kanal . Their Friday, 17 August program focused on Putin's
forthcoming visit to the wedding 'on the road to Berlin,' which several panelists saw as a
strong signal to Germany that Russ1+
ia had other channels to the EU if Germany refuses to be its intercessor.
The visit was said to be breaking new ground in diplomatic practice. According to panelist
Andrei Baklanov, deputy chair of the association of Russian diplomats, this kind of positive,
human diplomacy is Russia's answer to the negative behavior in international affairs that has
occupied center stage in the recent past - sanctions, fake news, etc. As another panelist
interjected, this is the first time that a Russian head of state attended a wedding abroad
since Tsar Nicholas did so in Germany in 1913.
Baklanov proceeded to provide details about the bride, however, bringing out aspects of her
career that are far more relevant to her attracting the attention of Putin than the
Frankfurter Allgemeine produced. We learn that she grew up in Amman, Jordan, that she
speaks 8 languages: Arabic, Hebrew, Magyar, French, Spanish, Italian, English as well as her
native German. She studied Near Eastern languages in Vienna University, in the Jewish
University of Jerusalem, in the University of Jordan and also graduated from the National
School of Administration in France. She holds a doctorate in law. She is a non-party minister,
which also attests to her generally recognized professionalism. For all of these reasons, she
is a good fit with Putin's determination to find supporters in Europe for investments to
restore Syrian infrastructure and enable the return of refugees.
Sergey Mironov, leader of the socialist party Fair Russia said that despite Merkel's warning
in advance not to expect breakthroughs it is likely progress was made in agreeing how to deal
with US sanctions. This would be tested in the coming days.
As for the link between the visits to Austria and Germany, the representative of a
pro-business party Sergey Stankevich reminded viewers that Germany and Austria are the market
makers in Europe for Russian gas. Nord Stream II gas may land in Germany but a large part of it
will be pumped further to Austria's hub for distribution elsewhere in Europe. Whatever may have
been said publicly, Stankevich believes that Merkel and Putin did agree on many if not all the
subjects named before the start: Iran, Syria, Ukraine, Nord Stream.
Russian media coverage of the Saturday travels of their President continued on Russian news
programs into Monday, with video clips of Putin dancing at the wedding and speaking alongside
Merkel before entering into their talks at Meseberg Palace.
* * * *
Looking back at the media coverage of Putin's visits to Austria and Germany on 18 August,
and with all due respect to those who opinions are different from mine, I find that the most
helpful for our understanding of the present day international situation were the report and
editorial in Belgium's Libre Belgique and the unruly, risky but at times brilliant
insights on Russian television.
What comes out of this is the understanding that the visits to a wedding in Austria and to
the federal Chancellor outside Berlin were directly linked in Russian diplomatic strategy, that
Russia is playing the Austrian card during the country's six months at the helm of the European
Council in Brussels, that Russia is pushing for a multi-party relief effort for Syria to
facilitate the return of refugees to their home and pacification of the war-torn country. The
web of common interests that Russia is pursuing has at its core the fragility of the current
world order and generalized anxiety of leading countries due to America's aggressive pursuit of
narrow national interest under Donald Trump as seen in his tariff wars and sanctions directed
at friends and foes alike.
Where I differ from the interpretations set out in the foregoing press reports is in my
understanding of what Trump is doing and why.
The nearly universal assumption of commentators is that Trump's policies known as "Make
America Great" are ignorant and doomed to fail. They are assumed to be isolationist,
withdrawing America from the world community.
However, Trump did not invent bullying of US allies. That was going strong under George W.
Bush, with his challenge "you are either with us or against us" when he sought to align the
West behind his invasion of Iraq in 2003 without authorization of the UN Security Council. His
more urbane successor Barack Obama was no kinder to U.S. allies, who were slapped with crushing
fines for violations of U.S. sanctions on Iran, just to mention one way in which they were kept
in line. And the U.S. Congress today is no more reasonable and diplomatic than the President in
the brutal unilateral sanctions it has on its own initiative advocated against not just Russia
but also against Turkey and other states which are not snapping to attention with respect to
purchases of military materiel from Russia.
What made U.S. bullying tolerable before Trump was the ideological smokescreen of "shared
values," namely democracy promotion, human rights and rule of law, that all members of the
alliances could swear to and which set them apart from the still unenlightened parts of the
globe where autocrats hold sway.
In my view, Trump's use of sanctions and tariffs here, there, everywhere has a totally
different logic from what is adduced in the writings of my peers in the analyst community. He
invokes them because 1. they are within his sole power as Chief Executive and 2. they are in
principle as American as apple pie and do not require grand explanations in Congress or before
the public. As to why he invokes them, there you have to look at Trump's foreign policy from a
360 degree perspective and not merely as it relates to Putin or to Erdogan or to any of the
small slices we see discussed in the news.
When viewed in the round, it is obvious that Trump is reshuffling the deck. He is doing what
he can to break up NATO and the other military alliances around the world which are consuming
more than half of the U.S. defense budget and do not arguably provide greater security to the
American homeland than the country can do for itself without fixed alliances and overseas
bases.
The first two presidencies of this millennium undid the country's greatest geopolitical
achievement of the second half of the 20th century: the informal alliance with China against
Russia that put Washington at the center of all global politics. Bush and Obama did that by
inattention and incomprehension of what was at stake. That inattention was an expression of
American hubris in the unipolar world which, it was assumed, was the new normal, not a
blip.
By contrast, what Trump is now doing is not a blunder or a bit of bluster. Even if he is not
conversant with the whole of the Realist School of international relations, as surely he is
not, he does grasp the fundamentals, namely the centrality of the sovereign nation-state and of
the balance of power mechanism by which these states are constantly changing alignments of
these nation-states to ensure no one enjoys hegemony . We see this understanding when he speaks
about looking out for American interests while the heads of state whom he meets are looking out
for the interests of theirs.
In his tweets we find that our allies are ripping us off, that
they are unfair competitors. His most admiring remark about Russia is that it is a strong
competitor. The consistent element in Trump's thinking is ignored or willfully misunderstood in
the press.
Accordingly, I insist that the possible rapprochement of Russia and Germany will be in line
with Trump's reshuffling of the deck not in spite of it.
Good Optics · about 3 hours ago
This nuanced analysis rings true and speaks to the fact that -
though Trump may not exactly be playing 47D chess - he certainly
does have some good intentions that, left to follow their course,
would have a chance of making the world a better place. But that
will not be allowed to happen by those in the US with firm
commitments to pursue the world's subjugation through any means
possible.
The Cs did tell us that Trump's heart is in the right place, unlikely
though that does appear a lot of the time . . .
Why is Congress so obsessed with starting a new Cold War with Russia? Are they all gripped
by group-think? Who do sanctions hurt most? And how can people visit with Rep. Thomas Massie
and Ron Paul later this month? Tune in to today's Ron Paul Liberty Report with a very special
guest!
You can always count on the neocons in Congress to ignore reality, ignore evidence, and
ignore common sense in their endless drive to get us involved in another war.
Last week, for example, Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-NC), Bob Menendez
(D-NJ), and others joined up to introduce what Senator Graham called "the sanctions bill from
hell," aimed at applying "crushing" sanctions on Russia.
Senator Graham bragged that the bill would include "everything but the kitchen sink" in its
attempt to ratchet up tensions with Russia.
Sen Cory Gardner (R-CO) bragged that the new sanctions bill "includes my language requiring
the State Department to determine whether Russia merits the designation of a State Sponsor of
Terror."
Does he even know what the word "terrorism" means?
Sen Ben Cardin (D-MD) warns that the bill must be passed to strengthen our resolve against
"Vladimir Putin's pattern of corroding democratic institutions and values around the world, a
direct and growing threat to US national security."
What has Russia done that warrants "kitchen sink" sanctions that will "crush" the country
and possibly designate it as a sponsor of terrorism? Sen. Menendez tells us:
"The Kremlin continues to attack our democracy, support a war criminal in Syria, and
violate Ukraine's sovereignty."
There is a big problem with these accusations on Russia : they're based on outright lies and
unproven accusations that continue to get more bizarre with each re-telling .
How strange that when US Senators like Menendez demand that we stand by our NATO allies even
if it means war, they attack Russia for doing the same in Syria. Is the Syrian president a "war
criminal," as he claims? We do know that his army is finally, with Russian and Iranian help,
about to defeat ISIS and al-Qaeda, which with US backing for seven years have turned Syria into
a smoking ruin. Does Menendez and his allies prefer ISIS in charge of Syria?
And how hypocritical for Menendez to talk about Russia violating Ukraine's sovereignty. The
unrest in Ukraine was started by the 2014 US-backed coup against an elected leader. We have
that all on tape!
How is Russia "attacking our democracy"? We're still waiting for any real evidence that
Russia was involved in our 2016 elections and intends to become involved in our 2018 elections.
But that doesn't stop the propagandists, who claim with no proof that Russia was behind the
election of Donald Trump.
These Senators claim that sanctions will bring the Russians to heel, but they are wrong.
Sanctions are good at two things only: destroying the lives of innocent civilians and leading
to war.
As I mentioned in an episode of my Liberty Report last week, even our own history shows that
sanctions do lead to war and should not be taken lightly. In the run-up to US involvement in
the War of 1812, the US was doing business with both France and the UK, which were at war with
each other. When the UK decided that the US was favoring France in its commerce, it imposed
sanctions on the US. What did Washington do in response? Declared war. Hence the War of 1812,
which most Americans remember as that time when the British burned down the White House.
Recent polls show that the majority of Americans approve of President Trump's recent meeting
with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Among Republicans, a vast majority support the meeting.
Perhaps a good defeat in November will wake these neocon warmongers up. Let's hope so!
"... What started as small moments of defiance a few years ago are turning into full-throated shouts of opposition as the US pushes its leverage in financial markets to step on the necks of anyone who doesn't toe the line. ..."
"... What we are seeing is the culmination of a long-term plan by global elites to tighten the financial noose around the world through overlapping trade and tariff structures and weaponizing the dollar's position at the center of global financial interdependence. ..."
"... So, everyday another round of sanctions makes the case against continuing to do business with the US stronger. Everyday another global player speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and makes contingency plans for a world without the dollar at the center of it all. ..."
"... Maas openly accused the US of weaponizing the dollar and disrupting the very foundations of global trade, which is correct, to achieve its goals of regime change in Turkey and Iran. Maas mainly tied this to Trump's pulling out of the JCPOA but the reality is far bigger than this. ..."
"... The Magnitsky Act and its progenitors around the world are a major evolution in the US's ability to bring financial pain to anyone who it disapproves of. Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws also into this framework. ..."
What started as small moments of defiance a few years ago are turning into full-throated
shouts of opposition as the US pushes its leverage in financial markets to step on the necks of
anyone who doesn't toe the line.
And Trump feeds off this by casting everyone as a leach who has been sucking off the US's
breast for decades. It doesn't matter the issue, to Trump US economic fragility is a hammer and
every trade and military partner a nail to be bashed over the head to pay their way.
What we are seeing is the culmination of a long-term plan by global elites to tighten
the financial noose around the world through overlapping trade and tariff structures and
weaponizing the dollar's position at the center of global financial interdependence.
Trump is against that in principle, but not against the US maintaining as much of the empire
as possible.
So, everyday another round of sanctions makes the case against continuing to do business
with the US stronger. Everyday another global player speaks with Russian President Vladimir
Putin and makes contingency plans for a world without the dollar at the center of it
all.
The latest major one was with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. This meeting wasn't expected
to provide anything concrete, only vague assurances that projects like the Nordstream 2
pipeline goes through.
But, no breakthroughs on Crimea or Ukraine were expected nor delivered. It was, however, an
opportunity for both Putin and Merkel to be humanized in the European media. Between Putin's
attending Austrian Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl's wedding as well as the garden party photo
op background for their talk, this meeting between them was a bit of a 'charm tour' to assist
Merkel in the polls while expanding on Putin's humanity post World Cup and Helsinki.
That said, however, the statement by Merkel's Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, about the need
for a new financial payment system which bypasses the US-dominated SWIFT system was the big
bombshell.
Maas openly accused the US of weaponizing the dollar and disrupting the very foundations
of global trade, which is correct, to achieve its goals of regime change in Turkey and Iran.
Maas mainly tied this to Trump's pulling out of the JCPOA but the reality is far bigger than
this.
The Magnitsky Act and its progenitors around the world are a major evolution in the US's
ability to bring financial pain to anyone who it disapproves of. Know Your Customer (KYC) and
Anti-Money Laundering (AML) laws also into this framework.
While KYC and AML laws can at least have the appearance of validity in attempting to stop
illegal activity, targeted sanctioning is simply Orwellian.
It politicizes any and all economic activity the world over. Just look at the recent reasons
for these sanctions – unproven allegations of chemical weapons usage and electioneering.
Recent actions by the US have driven this point home to its 'allies' with stunning clarity.
Why do you think Putin brought up Bill Browder's name at the Helsinki press conference? He
knows that Browder's story is a lie and it's a lie that has been used as the foundation for the
type of political repression we're seeing today.
The US is blocking the simplest of transactions in the dollar now, claiming that any use of
the dollar is a global privilege which it can revoke at a whim. Aside from the immorality of
this, that somehow dollars you traded goods or services for on the open market are still
somehow the property of the U.S to claw back whenever it is politically convenient, this
undermines the validity of the dollar as a rational medium of exchange for trade.
This is why after the first round of sanctions over the reunification with Crimea Putin
ordered the development of a national electronic payment system. He rightly understood that
Russia needed a means by which to conduct business that was independent of US political
meddling.
So, to me, if Heiko Maas is serious about the threat posed by continued use of the dollar in
EU trade, he should look to Putin for guidance on building a system separate from SWIFT.
Moreover, Maas' statement didn't go out to the world without Merkel's approval. This tells
me that this was likely the major topic of conversation between her and Putin over the weekend.
Because a payment system that skirts the dollar is one the US can't control.
It took the Russians longer than they should have to develop MIR. Putin complained about how
slow things went because too many within the Bank of Russia and the financial community could
be thought of as fifth columnists for the West.
It's also why development of the crypto-ruble and Russia's policy on cryptocurrencies has
been so slow. It took Putin publicly ordering the work done by a certain time to get these
tasks completed. In the end, it shouldn't take the EU long to spin up a SWIFT-compliant
internal alternative. It is, after all, just code.
And that's why so many of the US's former satraps are now flexing their geopolitical muscle.
The incentives aren't there anymore to keep quiet and go along. Alternatives exist and will be
utilized.
I don't expect the EU brass to do much about this issue, the threat may be all that is
needed to call Trump's bluff. But, if in the near future you see an announcement of MIR being
accepted somewhere in the EU don't be surprised.
Because what used to be a node of political stability and investor comfort is now a tool of
chaos and abuse. And abusing your customers is never a winning business model in the long run.
Customers of the dollar will remind the US of that before this is over.
"... Trump's authorization for the establishment of a "US Space Force" as an additional military branch was one of the more egregious trashing of a longstanding international treaty. ..."
"... In June 2018, America's Israeli-style harassment was also meted out to former Spanish Foreign Minister and NATO Secretary General Javier Solana. He was denied a US visa waiver because he had visited Iran in 2013 to attend President Hassan Rouhani's inauguration. ..."
On December 6, 2017, Trump announced official US recognition of Jerusalem
as the capital of Israel. In 1980, a UN Security Council abstention permitted
the adoption of Resolution 478. The measure supplemented the earlier Resolutions
252, 267, 271, 298, and 465, which required that all UN member states, including
the United States, are under an obligation not to recognize the illegal Israeli
occupation of East Jerusalem. The passage of Resolution 478 resulted in nations
that had moved their embassies to Jerusalem, including Costa Rica and El Salvador,
moving them back to Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, or Herzliya. Trump's action reversed
that action, with Guatemala, Paraguay, and Honduras moving their embassies back
to Jerusalem.
On May 8, 2018, Trump renounced the US signature on the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran, the nuclear agreement with Iran. Even though
the pact was signed by the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, Germany, the
European Union and endorsed by the United Nations Security Council, Trump, taking
his cues from the Israeli war hawk, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, decided,
once again, to make the United States an outlier. Trump effectively gave the
back of his hand to the international community to placate Netanyahu. Moreover,
Trump threatened "secondary sanctions" against foreign nations and firms that
continued to engage in commerce with Iran after a November 4, 2018 deadline.
Trump's authorization for the establishment of a "US Space Force" as
an additional military branch was one of the more egregious trashing of a longstanding
international treaty. The 1967 Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities
of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and
Other Celestial Bodies, known simply as the "Outer Space Treaty," established
the basis for international space law. The original signatories were the United
States, Soviet Union, and United Kingdom. Since 1967, 107 nations have fully
ratified the treaty, which bans the placement of weapons of mass destruction
in Earth orbit and the establishment of military bases, installations, and fortifications
on the Moon and other celestial bodies.
Trump's creation of a military Space Force to supplant the civilian National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in US space operations and his call
for space to be a "new warfighting domain" effectively violate US treaty obligations.
The US Air Force's X-37B robotic space planes, smaller versions of NASA's
discontinued space shuttle orbiter, are believed to have carried out top secret
military-oriented missions since 2010. Trump's creation of a Space Force represents
a public admission of America's desire to militarize space, even as the Air
Force remains mum on the actual purpose of the X-37B program.
The basis in international law for the Outer Space Treaty was the Antarctic
Treaty of 1959. The Antarctic Treaty bans military activity of the continent.
Only scientific research in Antarctica is permitted under the Antarctic Treaty
System. However, Trump's disregard for the entire international treaty system
has placed the Antarctic Treaty in as much jeopardy as the Outer Space Treaty.
The suspected presence of rare earth minerals and gas hydrates under melting
Antarctic ice shelves has Trump's cronies in the mining and fossil fuel industries
anxious to undermine the Antarctica Treaty and open the continent to commercial
exploitation.
Considering the schoolmarmish haughtiness of Trump's ambassador to the UN,
former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, someone who had no foreign policy
experience before taking over at the US Mission to the UN, the 1947 US-UN treaty,
titled the "Agreement Between the United Nations and the United States of America
Regarding the Headquarters of the United Nations," may also be violated. The
imposition of draconian visa bans and other sanctions and travel restrictions
on government officials of Iran, Turkey, Russia, Venezuela, North Korea, Nicaragua,
Cuba, China, Chad, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Pakistan, Yemen, Myanmar, Laos, Syria,
Somalia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Eritrea places in jeopardy US law that requires
the facilitation of travel for delegations of UN member states and official
observers to and from the UN headquarters in New York.
Trump's total disregard for international laws and treaties may eventually
see leaders and diplomats of foreign nations detained or arrested when they
arrive in New York to attend UN sessions. Such harassment began in earnest just
a few weeks after Trump was inaugurated as president. In February 2017, former
Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik was caught up in Trump's visa
ban against visitors from Muslim nations. Bondevik was detained at Dulles International
Airport outside of Washington and subjected to questioning about an Iranian
visa in his diplomatic passport.
In June 2018, America's Israeli-style harassment was also meted out to
former Spanish Foreign Minister and NATO Secretary General Javier Solana. He
was denied a US visa waiver because he had visited Iran in 2013 to attend President
Hassan Rouhani's inauguration. Solana told Spanish television, "It's a
bit of a mean decision... I don't think it's good because some people have to
visit these complicated countries to keep negotiations alive." Trump's renunciation
of the US signature on the Iran nuclear deal showed the world what Trump and
his neo-conservative advisers think about peace "negotiations." Although the
general purpose visa waiver ban was instituted by Barack Obama, the Trump administration
has been violating the spirit and intent of the US-UN Treaty by applying it
to those, like Bondevik and Solana, possessing diplomatic passports.
Trump has made no secret of his disdain for foreign government officials
and the countries they represent. During a briefing on the Indian sub-continent,
Trump reportedly delighted in referring to Nepal as "nipple" and Bhutan as "button."
According to the "tell-all" book by former White House adviser Omarosa Manigault
Newman, Trump, after viewing a video of his pushing aside Montenegro Prime Minister
Duško Marković at the 2017 NATO summit, called him a "whiny punk bitch." Trump
referred to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as "meek and mild" over a
rift on US-Canadian trade policy.
One of Trump's first phone calls as president with a foreign leader resulted
in Trump complaining that his discussions with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm
Turnbull were "most unpleasant." Before warming to North Korean leader Kim Jong
UN, Trump referred to him as "little rocket man." During remarks at the UN in
September 2017, Trump referred to Namibia as "Nambia." Later, he called African
countries and Haiti "shithole" countries.
Cities that have served as hosts for international summits and meetings have
also earned Trump's scorn. He called Brussels a "hell hole," London a magnet
for Muslim terrorist immigrants, and Paris not being Paris any longer because
of Muslim immigrants.
Trump, ever the America Firster – a phrase invented by pro-Hitler politicians
in the 1930s – has decimated international law on issues ranging from the environment
and outer space to the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and international guarantees
for the right of the Palestinians. Trump's tearing up of international treaties
signed by his predecessors with the chiefs of various Native American tribes
warrants it own article. Mr. Trump's damage to international relations represents
a historical watershed event and it will take decades to recover from the current
"dark ages" of American diplomacy.
"... The people known as " neo-conservatives " form a group of Trotskyist intellectuals (thus opposed to the concept of nation-states), militants of Social Democrats USA, which worked with the CIA and MI6 to fight the Soviet Union. ..."
"... Today they conserve the control of a common Intelligence agency connected with the " Five Eyes " (Australia, Canada, New-Zealand, UK, USA) - the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) ..."
"... they have popularised the idea of " democratising " régimes by way of " Colour Revolutions ", or directly by means of war. ..."
"... If we look a little closer, we may note that his entire career since the collapse of the USSR has been centred around Iran, but not necessarily in opposition to it. For example, during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iran fought alongside Saudi Arabia under the orders of the Pentagon. ..."
"... According to Pompeo, the aim of this new group is not to change the régime, but to force Iran to change its politics. This strategy appears while the Islamic Republic is navigating a major economic and political crisis. ..."
"... Contrary to the image we were presented in the West, Ayatollah Khomeiny's revolution was not clerical, but anti-imperialist. The protests can therefore either lead to a change of the régime, or to the continuation of the Khomeinist Revolution, but without the clergy. It is this second option which is represented by ex-President Ahmadinejad (today under house arrest) and his ex-Vice-Ppresident Baghaie (imprisoned for 15 years and held incommunicado). ..."
"... On 15 August, in other words, on the day before Pompeo's announcement, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, recognised that he had been in error when he allowed Cheikh Hassan Rohani's team to negotiate the JCPoA agreement with the Obama administration ..."
"... Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who makes a distinction between the policies of Presidents Obama and Trump, wrote to the new President just after his election [ 7 ]. He demonstrated that he shared Donald Trump's analysis of the Obama-Clinton global system and its painful consequences for the rest of the world and also for the citizens of the United States. ..."
The people known as " neo-conservatives " form a group of Trotskyist intellectuals
(thus opposed to the concept of nation-states), militants of Social Democrats
USA, which worked with the CIA and MI6 to fight the Soviet Union. They were
associated with Ronald Reagan's power structure, then followed through all the
US political mutations, remaining in power under Bush Senior, Clinton, Bush
Junior and Obama.
Today they conserve the control of a common Intelligence agency
connected with the " Five Eyes " (Australia, Canada, New-Zealand, UK, USA) -
the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) [
3 ]. Partisans of the " World Revolution ", they have popularised the idea
of " democratising " régimes by way of " Colour Revolutions ", or directly by
means of war.
In 2006, they created the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group within the
Bush Junior administration. It was directed by Elizabeth Cheney, the daughter
of Vice-President Dick Cheney. At first, they were housed with the Secretariat
of Defense, then transferred to the Vice-President's offices. The group had
five sections.
The transfer of weapons to Iran and Syria from Bahreďn, the United Arab Emirates
and Oman ;
The support for the Trotskyists and their allies, in Iran (the Peoples' Mujaheddin)
and Syria (Riad al-Türk, Georges Sabra and Michel Kilo) ;
The surveillance of Iranian and Syrian bank networks ;
The infiltration of pro-Iranian and pro-Syrian groups in the " Greater Middle
East " ;
The penetration of the medias in the region in order to broadcast US propaganda.
In 2007, this group was officially disbanded. In reality, it was absorbed
by an even more secret structure tasked with the strategy for global democracy
(Global Democracy Strategy). This unit, under the command of neo-conservative
Elliott Abrams (who was involved in the " Iran-Contras affair "), and James
Jeffrey, spread this sort of work to other regions of the world.
It is this Group which supervised the planning for the war against Syria.
When the new President had a long meeting with Abrams at the White House,
the US Press, which is violently anti-Trump, presented him as the first possible
Secretary of State for the Trump administration. It obviously came to nothing.
However, the fact that ambassador James Jeffrey has just been nominated as
a special representative for Syria makes the accusation that the Trump administration
was attempting to resuscitate this strategy more credible.
Jeffrey is a career " diplomat ". He organised the application of the Dayton
agreements in Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was on post in Kuwaďt during the Iraqi
invasion. In 2004, under the orders of John Negroponte, he supervised the transition
from the Coalition Provisional Authority (which was a private company [
4 ]) to the post-Saddam Hussein Iraqi government. Then he joined Condolleezza
Rice's cabinet in Washington, and participated in the Coalition Provisional
Authority. He was one of the theorists for US military redeployment in Iraq
(the Surge), implemented by General Petraeus. He was also the assistant of National
Security Advisor Stephen Hadley during the war in Georgia, then Bush Junior's
ambassador in Turkey and Obama's ambassador in Iraq.
If we look a little closer, we may note that his entire career since the
collapse of the USSR has been centred around Iran, but not necessarily in opposition
to it. For example, during the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iran fought alongside
Saudi Arabia under the orders of the Pentagon. On the other hand, in Iraq, Jeffrey
opposed the influence of Teheran. But when Georgia attacked South Ossetia and Abkhasia, he did not defend President Saakachvili, since he knew that he had
rented two airports to Israël to facilitate an attack on Iran.
Mike Pompeo named Brian Hook as the head of the Iran Action Group. He is
an interventionist who was the assistant for Condoleezza Rice, working with
international organisations. Until now, he was tasked with elaborating strategies
for the State Department.
According to Pompeo, the aim of this new group is not to change the régime,
but to force Iran to change its politics. This strategy appears while the Islamic
Republic is navigating a major economic and political crisis. While the clergy
(doubly represented by the Cheikh President and by the Supreme Leader of the
Islamic Revolution) is clinging to power, there are demonstrations against it
all over the country.
Contrary to the image we were presented in the West, Ayatollah Khomeiny's revolution was not clerical, but anti-imperialist. The protests can
therefore either lead to a change of the régime, or to the continuation of the
Khomeinist Revolution, but without the clergy. It is this second option which
is represented by ex-President Ahmadinejad (today under house arrest) and his
ex-Vice-Ppresident Baghaie (imprisoned for 15 years and held incommunicado).
On 21 May last, before the Heritage Foundation, Mike Pompeo presented his
12 objectives for Iran [
5 ]. At first glance, this seemed to be a long list of demands which are
impossible to satisfy. However, when we look closer, points 1 to 3 relative
to the nuclear question do not go as far as the JCPoA. Point 4 concerning ballistic
missiles is unacceptable. Points 5 to 12 aim to convince Iran to give up the
idea of exporting its revolution by force of arms.
On 15 August, in other words, on the day before Pompeo's announcement, the
Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, recognised
that he had been in error when he allowed Cheikh Hassan Rohani's team to negotiate
the JCPoA agreement with the Obama administration [
6 ]. Note that the Supreme Leader had authorised these negotiations before
Rohani's election, and that he – and the eviction of Ahmadinejad's movement
– had been part of the preparatory discussions.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who makes a distinction between the policies of Presidents
Obama and Trump, wrote to the new President just after his election [
7 ]. He demonstrated that he shared Donald Trump's analysis of the Obama-Clinton
global system and its painful consequences for the rest of the world and also
for the citizens of the United States.
When the demonstrations began in December 2017, the Rohani government accused
Ahmadinejad of being responsible. In March 2018, the ex-President clinched his
break with the Supreme Leader by revealing that Khamenei's office had misappropriated
80 billion rials belonging to humanitarian and religious foundations [
8 ]. Two weeks before Pompeo's announcement, although he was under house
arrest, he called for the resignation of President Rohani [
9 ].
Everything therefore points to the idea that although the Obama administration
supported Rohani, Trump's administration supports Ahmadinejad's party. Just
as when President Carter and his advisor Brzeziński launched "Operation Eagle
Claw " against the Revolution, while President Reagan supported Imam Khomeiny
(October Surprise).
In other words, the White House could be quite comfortable with a return
to power of Ahmadinejad's party, on the condition that Iran agrees to export
its Revolution only by the debate of ideas.
"... Trump is being promoted by the MSM as the leader of the deplorables – an orange straw man. I support him to the degree that he is confounding the deep state elites and social engineering. ..."
Here is my take on the priorities of the deep state and its public face – the
MSM:
stopping the deplorable rebellion
cutting off the head of the rebellion – perceived as Trump
reinstating the Cold War in an effort to derail Rusisa's recovery and international
leadership role
bitch slapping China
The rest involves turning unsustainable debt into establishment of a feudal world
comprised of elites living on Mount Olympus, legions of vassals and a vast sea of cerebrally
castrated peasants to serve as a reservoir for any imaginable exploitation.
Upon further reflection, Trump is being promoted by the MSM as the leader of the
deplorables – an orange straw man. I support him to the degree that he is confounding
the deep state elites and social engineering.
"... Brennan was caught spying on the Senate Intelligence Commitee in violation of the Constitution and subsequently lied about it and allegedly directed personnel under his command to lie about to the Senate and the IG ..."
"... Congress fears the intelligence agencies and takes orders from them, not the other way around as envisaged in the constitution or spelled out in legislation. ..."
"... Let Trump try to control the agencies by firing all of their top officers, slashing their budgets, freezing their funds or shutting down their operations, even specific projects, and watch congress come to their rescue in a New York minute. ..."
"... Congress will save any significant component of intel or the pentagon before they'd rescue Social Security or any other social program. If pressed for an answer as to which of the "usual suspects" really whacked Kennedy, I suspect most folks would put their money on the CIA, the FBI or some combination of the major intel agencies. ..."
"... The neoliberal globalists, I fear, have taken that phrase "drowning government in the bathtub" all too literally. ..."
Brennan was caught spying on the Senate Intelligence Commitee in violation
of the Constitution and subsequently lied about it and allegedly directed personnel
under his command to lie about to the Senate and the IG
He could easily be brought up on rather serious charges.
Abby , August 18, 2018 at 11:23 pm
He also leaked classified information to the press as did others and
they could have been prosecuted under the espionage act. They will be losing
their security clearances soon too. The information that they leaked was
the NSA information on Flynn to the Washington post. But of course the Obama
justice department only prosecuted people who exposed Washington's dirty
secrets.
Realist , August 17, 2018 at 1:21 am
Yes, what Kenneth might like to see happen may be admirable but not going
to happen in 2018 or 19, which is practically a different universe from
1975 and for exactly the reasons you specify. This country and its self-appointed
minders have changed massively in 45 years. Besides, 1975 was a year after
Watergate was finally resolved with Nixon and Agnew's resignations and Congress
may have been feeling its oats, going so far as to defund the Vietnam war!
Imagine defunding ANY of the multiple wars ongoing!
Congress fears the intelligence agencies and takes orders from them,
not the other way around as envisaged in the constitution or spelled out
in legislation. Schumer let that feline out of the sack when he warned
the president not to mess with them.
Let Trump try to control the agencies by firing all of their top
officers, slashing their budgets, freezing their funds or shutting down
their operations, even specific projects, and watch congress come to their
rescue in a New York minute.
We saw how the CIA worked around congressionally-imposed budgetary restraints
in Iran-Contra: by secretly running drugs from Columbia to LA, selling arms
to Iran and using the proceeds to fund death squads in Central America.
Congress didn't have the guts to take that investigation to it logical conclusion
of impeachments and/or indictments. Why?
Congress will save any significant component of intel or the pentagon
before they'd rescue Social Security or any other social program. If pressed
for an answer as to which of the "usual suspects" really whacked Kennedy,
I suspect most folks would put their money on the CIA, the FBI or some combination
of the major intel agencies.
Unfettered Fire , August 17, 2018 at 12:11 pm
The neoliberal globalists, I fear, have taken that phrase "drowning
government in the bathtub" all too literally.
Rosa Brooks' book How War Became Everything and Everything Became
the Military exposes the vast expansion and added responsibilities of
the MIC, as governmental departments continue to be dismantled and privatized.
She even said in a book circuit lecture that she thought the idea of
Congress "declaring war" was antiquated and cute. Well, how long will it
be when the very hollowed out structures of Capitol Hill and the White House
are considered antiquated and cute?
What if the plan all along has been to fold up this whole democratic
experiment and move HQ into some new multi-billion dollar Pentagon digs?
Remember the words of Strobe Talbott:
"Within the next hundred years nationhood as we know it will be obsolete;
all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty
wasn't such a great idea after all."
This nation had better wake up fast if it wants to salvage the currency
authorizing power of government and restore its role in the economy, before
it's no longer an option and the private bankers, today's money lenders
in the temple, govern for good.
"The bank strategy continues: "If we can privatize the economy, we
can turn the whole public sector into a monopoly. We can treat what
used to be the government sector as a financial monopoly. Instead of
providing free or subsidized schooling, we can make people pay $50,000
to get a college education, or $50,000 just to get a grade school education
if families choose to go to New York private schools. We can turn the
roads into toll roads. We can charge people for water, and we can charge
for what used to be given for free under the old style of Roosevelt
capitalism and social democracy."
This idea that governments should not create money implies that they
shouldn't act like governments. Instead, the de facto government should
be Wall Street. Instead of governments allocating resources to help the
economy grow, Wall Street should be the allocator of resources – and should
starve the government to "save taxpayers" (or at least the wealthy). Tea
Party promoters want to starve the government to a point where it can be
"drowned in the bathtub."
But if you don't have a government that can fund itself, then who is
going to govern, and on whose terms? The obvious answer is, the class with
the money: Wall Street and the corporate sector. They clamor for a balanced
budget, saying, "We don't want the government to fund public infrastructure.
We want it to be privatized in a way that will generate profits for the
new owners, along with interest for the bondholders and the banks that fund
it; and also, management fees. Most of all, the privatized enterprises should
generate capital gains for the stockholders as they jack up prices for hitherto
public services.
You can see how to demoralize a country if you can stop the government
from spending money into the economy. That will cause austerity, lower living
standards and really put the class war in business. So what Trump is suggesting
is to put the class war in business, financially, with an exclamation point."
Gazprom leads the world in capital expenditure (capex) on global energy projects, by a
wide, wide margin – $160 Billion to be spent on 84 projects worldwide, including Nord
Stream II and Turkish Stream. That's nearly double the spending of its next-closest
competitor, Sinopec, at $87 Billion. Royal Dutch Shell is third, and Exxon a distant
fourth.
If you add Rosneft, that's another $50 Billion in capex for Russia. Odd behaviour for an
isolated country whose economy is in tatters. One whose government debt is 12.6 % of GDP and
declining.
Speaking of government debt, how's that parameter looking for The Exceptional Nation?
Whoa: that's exceptional. Not even much point in expressing it as a percentage of GDP, I
guess.
Just to drive the point home for any who might not have gotten it, Russia –
friendless, alone against the world, and reeling from the bite of American sanctions –
is outspending the USA nearly three to one on global energy investments, although its debt is
a tiny fraction of America's out-of-control spending on other important things, like its
bloated defense budget.
Oh, that's right – Vladimir Putin is a tyrant and a dictator, squeezing the country
dry in neverending pursuit of self-enrichment. I almost forgot.
"... Sounds like the rich Russians who refused to believe their wealth wouldn't be confiscated in the West just learned a hard lesson. The "rule of law" is for suckers. ..."
"... The west wants Putin gone so badly that there is no law they will not break, no amount of hard-earned soft power they will not throw away, no western business they will not throw under the bus if they think they will realize that goal. ..."
ZURICH (Reuters) – One of Switzerland's largest banks, Credit Suisse, has frozen
roughly 5 billion Swiss francs ($5 billion) of money linked to Russia to avoid falling foul
of U.S. sanctions, according to its accounts, further increasing pressure on Moscow .
Credit Suisse is being cautious in part because of earlier bad experiences. In 2009, it
reached a $500 million settlement with U.S. authorities over dealings with sanctions-hit
Iran.
There have been other instances where European banks have been punished. In 2014,
France's BNP Paribas ( BNPP.PA ) agreed to pay a record $8.9 billion for violating U.S.
sanctions against Sudan, Cuba and Iran.
Switzerland's banking watchdog FINMA does not require Swiss banks to enforce foreign
sanctions, but has said they have a responsibility to minimize legal and reputational
risks.
I hope the present Russian administration and those yet to come remember this.
Sounds like the rich Russians who refused to believe their wealth wouldn't be confiscated
in the West just learned a hard lesson. The "rule of law" is for suckers.
I doubt very many ordinary Russians lost anything, but they got a pretty useful lesson for
free. The west wants Putin gone so badly that there is no law they will not break, no
amount of hard-earned soft power they will not throw away, no western business they will not
throw under the bus if they think they will realize that goal.
I wonder whose money this was. Russian offshoring is rather sneaky and uses all sorts of
places like Cyprus and the Cayman Islands through various instruments. As of 2014, simply
keeping money in a western bank was no longer an option.
So this is either illegal money or Credit Suisse is simply lying.
That's a good point; some time ago (you're probably correct that it was 2014, or around
there) the Russian government did somewhat formalize its advice to not keep money in western
banks. As I best remember, it was only mandatory for members of government. But it seems
unlikely the government would order all its ministers and senators to move all monies held in
western banks out of those banks, and then leave government funds there itself. So perhaps
some oligarch/s got burned.
Possibly, but I doubt it. Saint Mikhail's money, what there is left of it, is transparent to
western investigations, and if they could think of a good reason they would give him a lot
more, especially if he were even remotely popular in Russia and they thought he might be a
candidate for insertion into Putin's role.
Now Credite Suisse says that Russian accounts have not been frozen, that the Bank had
reclassified certain assets placed under sanctions. By these actions no Russian customers
have been affected, reports TASS .
Meanwhile, in the world's greatest dirty money laundry, it has been revealed that the
London branch of Deutsche Bank has issued threats to the Russian government.
Deutsche Bank AG threatened to end business with Russia's government earlier this year
in a letter sent to the state demanding that it provide more information related to
know-your-customer records.
The lender's London branch sent the correspondence in June saying the business
relationship could be terminated if Russia failed to submit the documents within 30 days.
While that deadline has long since elapsed, Russia never answered the letter and the German
bank hasn't followed up on the initial request, according to two people with knowledge of the
matter.
Arschlöcher!
I was working only yesterday and last week as well in the main office of Deutsche Bank
here in Moscow.
Never saw no Fritzes there, only Ivans. Seemed to be business as usual to me..
Skripal (most probably false flag) poisoning now has distinct Washington connections. Cue
Bono?
Nobody can still explain why Skripals lost conscience simultaneously. That kills UK version
of door knob. Another strange issue is why all but one victims survived. That can be explained
only if this was a false flag and novichok was injected in bio samples.
Plans to impose the latest sanctions were announced by the Trump administration on Aug. 8, a
response to what the State Department said was Moscow's use of a nerve agent against a former
Russian agent and his daughter in Britain in March.
Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in Russia's GRU military intelligence service, and his
33-year-old daughter, Yulia, were found unconscious on a bench in the southern English city of
Salisbury after a liquid form of the Novichok type of nerve agent was applied to the front door
of his home. Both survived the attack.
Moscow has denied involvement in the attack. It has also denied meddling in the 2016 U.S.
elections.
'CHANGE IN BEHAVIOUR'
Trump's national security adviser, John Bolton, said on Friday Moscow must change its ways
before the United States will lift its already long list of sanctions.
"The sanctions remain in force and will remain in force until the required change in Russian
behaviour," he told a news conference in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.
The new measures will be published and come into effect on Aug. 27 and remain in place for
at least one year, according to the notice in the Federal Register, a daily catalogue of
government agency actions. They are authorized by the 1991 Chemical and Biological Weapons and
Warfare Elimination Act.
Space flight activities, government space cooperation, areas concerning commercial aviation
safety and urgent humanitarian assistance will be exempt.
A second batch of penalties will be imposed after 90 days unless Russia gives "reliable
assurance" that it would no longer use chemical weapons and allow on-site inspections by the
United Nations or another international observer group.
Soon after the attack on the Skripals, Washington also showed solidarity with Britain and
announced it would expel 60 Russian diplomats, joining governments across Europe in punishing
the Kremlin.
"... The 78 day all-out NATO bombing of Serbia was the act that, I believe, shocked/energized Russia's patriotic elements into action. The fact that little Serbia, after years of severe sanctions and every dirty trick imaginable would not buckle to the empire showed Russia that the Empire was not invincible. ..."
For me, I would say that the ' few days of bombing Serbia ' in 1999 ripped any last
vestiges of belief that the West was here to help mega violently (deliberate bombing
of the Chinese embassy) away from everyone. Of course plenty happened in the years running up
to that event The other is when China joined the WTO on 11/12/2001 and hit the ground running
– they were expected to behave meekly and ask the great white men for their advice and
follow it.
The 78 day all-out NATO bombing of Serbia was the act that, I
believe, shocked/energized Russia's patriotic elements into action. The
fact that little Serbia, after years of severe sanctions and every dirty
trick imaginable would not buckle to the empire showed Russia that the
Empire was not invincible.
The deliberate attack on the Chinese embassy IIRC triggered waves of spontaneous
demonstrations in China of such intensity that the Chinese government had to take means to
dampen. But, the message was not lost on the leadership.
Those acts of hubris and cruelty by the Empire may have been the beginning of its end.
"... If it's really true that the centre cannot hold, The Empire is going to have an increasingly hard time cloaking its lies. Of course, the west could simply return to the values of brotherhood and the common struggle it continues to espouse but never really seriously practiced. But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to happen. ..."
So let's start with America's next big war -- the Gulf War against Iraq, Take One. John
McCain voted for war . Were
there casualties? You could say that; 294 Americans died in the Gulf War. The UK lost 47. It's
worth noting, as an aside, that Syria was a US ally in the Gulf War, and had 2 of its soldiers
killed. How about Iraqis? Well, nobody seems to have kept a very accurate count -- they were,
after all, the enemy, and killing them was encouraged -- and the official American
count is established from Iraqi prisoner-of-war records, and was featured in a report
commissioned by the US Air Force. It estimates 20,000-22,000 combat deaths overall, in both the
air and ground campaigns. Was that a slaughter? You tell me. And before we move on from the
Gulf War, John McCain voted (after
the war was over) against providing automatic annual cost-of-living adjustments for certain
veterans' benefits.
Four years later, McCain supported an appropriations bill that underfunded the Departments
of Veterans Affairs and other federal agencies by $8.9 billion. The following year, McCain
voted against an amendment to increase spending on veterans programs by $13 billion. As of the
year 2000, 183,000 U.S. veterans of the Gulf War, more than a quarter of the U.S. troops who
participated, had been declared permanently disabled by the Department of Veterans Affairs.
You may only be 'slaughtered' if you are dead, but the irrevocable changes for the worse in
the quality of life for thousands of Americans who were only doing what their country ordered
them to do should count for something, what do you say?
This from the American senator who famously could not remember how
many houses he and his wife owned . For the record, the number of homes, ranches, condos,
and lofts, together worth a combined estimated $13,823,269.00, was ten.
Gee; I'm starting to get a little mad at McCain. Well, let's move on.
In 2003, the US government of the day decided that Saddam Hussein had not learned his lesson
the first time, and so this time he had to go. Accordingly, the USA polled its allies for
military forces who were not otherwise occupied, and had another go at it. John McCain said
hell yes, let's get it on. American military
casualties , 4,287 killed, 30,187 wounded. A bit more of a slaughter than the first
attempt. The advent of ceramic-plate body armor protected the soldier's body core, so that many
more survived injuries that would have been so horrific they would surely have killed them. The
downside is that many lived who lost limbs too badly damaged to save, and were crippled for
whatever life remained to them. The Iraqi casualty figures were again an estimate,
although better documented; by the most reliable count, somewhere between 182,000 and 204,000
Iraqis were killed. Needlessly and pointlessly slaughtered, many of them; American troops grew
so fearful as a result of the steady drip of casualties among their own that they frequently
opened fire on families in cars with children simply because they did not obey instructions in
a language they did not speak or understand. At Mahmudiya, in March 2006, Private Steven Green
and his co-conspirators raped and
killed 14-year-old Abeer Qassim Hamza, killed her family and set her body afire to blur the
details of the crime. When Iraqi soldiers arrived on the scene, Green and his fellow murderers
blamed it on Sunni insurgents.
The following year, President Bush approved a 'surge' of 20,000 additional troops, which
John McCain so energetically agitated for that it became known informally as 'the McCain
doctrine'. That's after he claimed in 2004 that if an elected government in Iraq asked that US
forces leave, they would have to go even if they were not happy with the security situation. He
also recognized, the following year, that Iraqis resented the American military presence, and
the sooner and more dramatically it could be reduced, the better it would be for everyone. I
guess if you lay claim to both sides of the argument, you're bound to convince someone that you
know what you're doing.
That same year, 2007, John McCain
voted against a requirement for specifying minimum time periods between deployments for
soldiers deployed to Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. When they need you
back in the meat-grinder, you go, never mind how many times you've already been there. Let's
just keep in mind, before we leave Iraq, that the entire case for war the second time around
was fabricated with wild tales of awful weapons Saddam supposedly had which could kill
Americans while they were still in America , and so he had to be dealt with. When it was
suggested to the Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, that America should concentrate on
Afghanistan, since that is where the backers of the 9-11 strike against America had fled, he
mused
that there were 'no good targets in Afghanistan' , although there were 'lots of good
targets in Iraq'. Some researchers suggest he was after a 'teachable moment' for America's
enemies which would convince them of America's irresistible power. While John McCain assessed
that Donald Rumsfeld was the worst Secretary of Defense ever, his complaint was not that
Rumsfeld was not killing enough people, but that he showed insufficient commitment to winning
the war.
Libya. Hoo, boy. In 2009, John McCain -- together with fellow die-faster-please senators Joe
Lieberman and Lindsey Graham --
visited Tripoli , to discuss Libya's acquisition of American military equipment. John
McCain assured Gadaffi (his son, actually) that America was eager to provide Libya with the
equipment it needed. Hardly more than a year later, he espoused the position that Gadaffi must
be removed from power because he had American blood on his hands from the Lockerbie bombing. In
2011, he visited the Libyan 'rebels', and
publicly urged Washington to consider a ground attack to forcibly remove Gaddafi from
power. Just a friendly public service reminder; the Lockerbie bombing was most likely carried
out by Syria, was -- according to pretty reliable testimony -- rigged by
the American intelligence services to finger Libya , and probably the stupidest thing
Gaddafi ever did was to admit to it anyway and pay compensation, in an effort to move on.
Anyway, more war. What the fuck is it with this guy?
Well, even something so grim as war has its comic moments. What else would you call it when
NATO claims, with a straight face, that the enemy is hiding his
tanks and artillery from its watchful eye inside the water pipes of the Great Man-Made
River? What they actually wanted was an excuse to bomb it -- which they did, as well as the
pumping stations which brought abundant fresh water to the coastal region, in the certain
knowledge that it would create a crisis for the civilian population. Which, by the bye, is
against just about every convention on the subject ever written.
Well, even something so grim as war has its comic moments. What else would you call it when
NATO claims, with a straight face, that the enemy is hiding his
tanks and artillery from its watchful eye inside the water pipes of the Great Man-Made
River? What they actually wanted was an excuse to bomb it – which they did, as well
as the pumping stations which brought abundant fresh water to the coastal region, in the
certain knowledge that it would create a crisis for the civilian population. Which, by the bye,
is against just about every convention on the subject ever written.
Here are some of the pipe sections, when they were being trucked to the assembly point. As
the article suggests, these sections are 4 meters across; but remember, that's at their widest
point. They are only 4 meters for about a foot, because a water pipe is a circle.
Libya mostly used the T-72 Main Battle Tank, and those would be the ones NATO wanted to
eliminate, since the others were considerably older. A T-72, width-wise, would just fit in a
4-meter water pipe, as it is 3.6 meters wide . However,
it's also over 45 tons in weight. The concrete rings were designed to carry free-flowing water,
not a 45-ton tank. Would they take that kind of weight, distributed only over a 7-meter length?
Where is there an entry point to the water-pipe that is the same width as the widest diameter
of the pipe? As discussed, the water pipe is 4 meters wide at its widest point. But the T-72 is
2.3 meters high. The tank would only fit if it was as high as a lunchbox, because the 4-meter
width narrows dramatically from the widest point; it's a circle. Even where it did fit, it
would be supported only on the outer edges of its tracks, and you have to cut the 4-meter
measurement approximately in half, because the upper portion of the tank would have to be above
the point where the tracks touched on each side. The idea was preposterous from the outset, and
it speaks to what fucking simpletons western government believes make up its populations that
they would dare to put such nutjobbery in print. A T-72 could not fit in a 4-meter water pipe.
The notion was demonstrably foolish. But NATO wanted to destroy the water system, so it made up
a reason that would allow it to be a well-meaning potential victim of deadly violence.
According to The Guardian – the same source that told you Gadaffi was hiding
his tanks in the plumbing – the death toll in the Libyan civil war prior to the NATO
intervention was about 1000-2000. According to the National Transitional Council, the outfit
the west engineered to rule post-Gaddafi Libya,
the final butcher's bill was about 30,000 dead . The very day after NATO folded its tents
– figuratively speaking, as the western role was entirely air support for the
flip-flop-wearing rebels – and went home, al Qaeda
raised its black flag over the Benghazi courthouse .
Caitlin Johnstone claimed John McCain used his political career to advocate for military
interventions which resulted in the slaughter of large numbers of human beings. Is that
accurate? What say you, members of the jury? In each of the cases above, John McCain used his
political influence, over and above his vote, to argue, advocate, hector and plead for military
intervention by the armed forces of the United States of America and such coalition partners as
could be rounded up. In each of the cases above, the necessity of toppling the evildoing
dictator was exaggerated out of all proportion, portrayed as an instant and refreshing
liberation for his people, and as only the first phase of a progressive plan which would turn
the subject country into a prosperous, western-oriented market democracy. In each of the cases
above the country is now a divided and ruined failed state whose pre-war situation was
significantly better than its miserable present. And in each of the cases above, a lot of
people were killed who could otherwise have reasonably expected to be alive today.
Also, each of the cases above is chronologically separated from the others by a sufficient
span for it to be quite evident what a cluster-fuck the previous operation was, so that anyone
disposed to learn from his mistakes might have approached the situation differently as it
gained momentum, argued for caution based on previously-recorded clusterfuckery, pleaded for
reason to prevail and for improved dialogue to be a priority. Not John McCain. He learned
precisely the square root of nothing from previous catastrophes, and plunged into the next
catastrophe with the enthusiasm most remarked among those who are not all there, as the
vernacular describes it. He not only voted for war every time, he expended considerable effort
in cajoling and persuading the reluctant to go along.
Perhaps the introduction here of the definition for 'warmonger' would be helpful
to the jury. To wit; "O ne who advocates or attempts to stir up war. A person who fosters
warlike ideas or advocates war." Synonyms: hawk, aggressor, belligerent, militarist, jingoist,
sabre-rattler. There, John; I just saved you the trouble of writing an epitaph.
Will the world be a better place once John McCain is gone? Difficult to say, really, and the
present state of affairs in the world argues strongly that it will not. But it will certainly
be no poorer for his passing, and if he were to be replaced politically by an individual who
took the trouble to do a little research, muse on previous experience, and review all the
available options before voting to send in the Marines why, that would be a victory for
everyone in a world where victory is increasingly not even a possibility.
Was Caitlin Johnstone right? Broadly speaking, and going on the information available at the
time her statement was made, yes; she was.
More dirt on McCain, whose source I now forget, but, if I rightly recall, it was a comment
made by a US citizen on some blog way back. I have posted it before:
Allow me to disparage Mr. McCain (again), with facts. By several accounts ("Why Does
the Nightingale Sing", for example), he only got into the Naval Academy for a free college
degree because Dad and GrandDad were Admirals, and he should have been kicked out several
times if not for that too. He was a lousy pilot who got into trouble often and crashed two
aircraft because of neglect. He was shot down on his third mission over Vietnam, and getting
captured is not heroic.
What happened over there is difficult to pin down, but upon returning from POW status,
he passed a physical and regained flight status as a pilot. Yet after he finished 20 years of
service that allowed generous retirement pay, he obtained a 100% VA disability rating
allowing him to collect some $40,000 a year tax free too! The LA Times mentioned this when
McCain was insisting he was fit to serve as commander in Chief. He now hauls in over $240,000
a year from the Feds for military retirement, 100% VA disability, social security retirement,
while all the while working full-time in the US Senate. So is he retired, or disabled, or
gainfully employed? He is all three! This is textbook case of abuse and why or system needs
reform to protect workers against rich welfare kings like McCain.
McCain's loyal wife was disabled in a serious auto accident while he was a POW. Soon
after he returned, McCain dumped her for a wealthy woman 20 years younger. The Reagans were
so angry they never spoke to him again. He then married his new babe before he officially got
divorced, so there's that bigamy thing.
I don't know why any Arizonian votes for this crazed man, especially since he's a big
advocate for open borders. At a union meeting, he told workers illegals are needed because
Americans are too lazy to work farm fields, even for $50 an hour.
McCain has never labored his entire life, always on the government dole now earning ten
times minimum wage worker pay, whose increase he opposes.
McCain grew up wealthy and enjoyed free government health care his entire life, yet
thinks it's nothing commoners deserve. While running for president and attacking the poor a
rare good reporter asked how many houses he owned. He was unsure, but thought maybe
seven.
McCain is walking talking proof that sociopaths are fast-tracked for success. There never
was a man, in my opinion, in US politics that was more exploitative, coldly calculating and
utterly ruthless than that bag of shit.
But, Mark said it much better with style, slashing wit and evidence.
Thanks, Mark, for another analysis of the opinion-management being rolled out across the
media.
The stand-out memory I have of the great Ken Kesey novel "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest"
is the description of a "pecking party" inside a battery hen building in which one bird is
injured, a speck of blood appears and the crazed neighbours peck it to death. Unfortunately
they get spattered and their neighbours take up the pecking a bloodbath ensues. That seems
like a decent analogy to the current attempts to close down any alternative to official
narrative promotion.
Thanks, Cortes, and to all my well-wishers. I loved 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest', it
was at least as memorable as 'Flowers for Algernon' for me, and I read them both at around
the same point in my life, when I was in my early 20's.
If it's really true that the centre cannot hold, The Empire is going to have an
increasingly hard time cloaking its lies. Of course, the west could simply return to the
values of brotherhood and the common struggle it continues to espouse but never really
seriously practiced. But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
"Flowers For Algernon" is such a stunning work it's a real shame that it's not better
known (at least in the UK).
On the news management front, I get the sense that the narrative is slipping away from
control. Over a couple of months I've noticed that the free "Metro" papers have been left
unread in largish amounts on some buses (busy routes) -- when they were being snaffled up
until recently. People can sense that they are being herded, I think, and resent it.
"... Robinson talks like he has given up on impeachment by what he calls a powerless and spineless Congress. Maybe he's thinking of something quicker and cleaner than a coup, something that could be carried out by a small group of conspirators within an agency trained in removing uncooperative heads of state? ..."
"... I'm still looking for an English copy of Journalists for Hire by Udo Ufkotte. ..."
From the WaPo op-ed "God Bless the Deep State," by Eugene Robinson:
Democrats in Congress are powerless; the Republican leadership, spineless. Experienced
government officials know that their job is to serve the president. But what if the
president does not serve the best interests of the nation?
In this emergency [emphasis mine], the loyal and honorable deep state has a
higher duty. It's called patriotism.
Is Robinson really suggesting a military coup? That would take a lot of planning and
organization and would be almost impossible to keep secret. Some honest military officer
might find out and put the kibosh on it, like Kirk Douglas did in Frankenheimers's classic
political thriller, Seven Days in May .
Robinson talks like he has given up on impeachment by what he calls a powerless and
spineless Congress. Maybe he's thinking of something quicker and cleaner than a coup,
something that could be carried out by a small group of conspirators within an agency trained
in removing uncooperative heads of state?
Since deep state conspirators routinely smear all those who demand evidence as "Russian
agents," maybe non-conspirators should use the same tactic on them, e.g.: Is Robinson
on the CIA payroll? Because anyone who agrees with anything the CIA says is obviously working
for the CIA, right?
What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
I'm still looking for an English copy of Journalists for Hire by Udo
Ufkotte.
Ltichfield
, August 17, 2018 at 4:03 pm
Re "Thank god for the Deep State."
Amazing, absolutely amazing, statement.
This is, obviously, an admission of the existence of the Deep State -- otherwise generally
written off as a "conspiracy theory."
Simultaneously it is a statement that the Deep State "knows better than voters" and also
"knows what to do."
This is, actually, a treasonous statement. Why doesn't anyone notice this???
There is only one article that is translated into English: "The world upside down"
2006, http://www.ulfkotte.de/18.html
Journalists for Hire is available in German only. (I was able to buy a copy last year.)
I've always avoided Eugene Robinson's columns because he seemed like the quintessential,
no-think, Borg-assimilated, groupie to me. His column of July 19 entitled "God Bless the Deep
State" proves it.
I started highlighting the patent falsehoods in Robinson's column. It didn't take me long
to realize that it would be much quicker to highlight the truthful comments. Much, much
quicker. I've read the column twice and my copy remains unmarked.
It's a tough call, but probably the most bizarre of Gene's assertions was the
following:
"God bless them. With a supine Congress unwilling to play the role it is assigned by the
Constitution, the deep state stands between us and the abyss."
Seriously? The deep state stands between us and the abyss? In the real world, where the
rest of us live, the deep state is the abyss!
Seems like Washington has been overrun by pod people from an alternate universe, where
everything is an inverted, mirror image of reality. Up is down, left is right, etc. Their
moral compasses aren't exactly broken, they just point south instead of north.
As for Brennan, he and the president are both zealous advocates of torture. That tells us
much about the condition of their moral compasses. A plague on both their houses, with
the following reservation: as a certified neocon and Clinton dead-ender, Brennan is even more
dangerous to us real-worlders than Trump. He called Trump a traitor for trying to do
the right thing. In Brennan's alternate-universe Washington, to do evil is the summum
bonum of patriotism.
"My strong suspicion is that 'Russiagate' is a kind of nemesis, arising
from the fact that key figures in British and American intelligence have, over
a protracted period of time, got involved in intrigues where they are way out
of their depth. The unintended consequences of these have meant that people
like Brennan and Younger, and also Hannigan, have ended up having to resort
to desperate measures to cover their backsides."
Brennan exposed "intelligence community" as a forth branch of government.
The branch more powerful that then the other three combined.
Assume, for the sake of argument, that powerful, connected people in the
intelligence community and in politics worried that a wildcard Trump presidency,
unlike another Clinton or Bush, might expose a decade-plus of questionable
practices. Disrupt long-established money channels. Reveal secret machinations
that could arguably land some people in prison.
The main suspicion is that Steele's involvement may
have been less in crafting the dossier, than making it possible to conceal
its actual origins while giving it an appearance of credibility. It could
also be the case that Nellie Ohr's sudden interest in radio transmissions
had to do with communications inside the United States, rather than with
Steele.
Notable quotes:
"... Los Angeles Times ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... It's a misnomer to term these people representatives of a hidden "deep state." In recent years, they have been amply visible on television and newspaper op-ed pages. Instead, they see and present themselves as members of a fully empowered and essential fourth branch of government. ..."
"... The Washington Post ..."
"... To be fair, Brennan may only be a symptom of this profound American crisis, some say the worst since the Civil War. ..."
Brennan's allegation was unprecedented. No such high-level intelligence official
had ever before accused a sitting president of treason, still more in collusion
with the Kremlin. (Impeachment discussions of Presidents Nixon and Clinton,
to take recent examples, did not include allegations involving Russia.)
Brennan clarified his charge : "Treasonous, which is to betray one's trust
and to aid and abet the enemy." Coming from Brennan, a man presumed to be in
possession of related dark secrets,
as he strongly hinted , the charge was fraught with alarming implications.
Brennan made clear he hoped for Trump's impeachment, but in another time, and
in many other countries, his charge would suggest that Trump should be removed
from the presidency urgently by any means, even a coup. No one, it seems, has
even noted this extraordinary implication with its tacit threat to American
democracy. (Perhaps because the disloyalty allegation against Trump has been
customary ever since mid-2016, even before he became president, when an array
of influential publications and writers -- among them a former acting CIA director
-- began branding him Putin's "puppet," "agent," "client," and "Manchurian candidate."
The
Los Angeles Times even saw fit to print an article suggesting that
the military might have to remove Trump if he were to be elected, thereby having
the very dubious distinction of predating Brennan.)
Why did Brennan, a calculating man, risk leveling such a charge, which might
reasonably be characterized as sedition? The most plausible explanation is that
he sought to deflect growing attention to his role as the "Godfather" of the
entire Russiagate narrative, as Cohen argued back in February. If so, we need
to know Brennan's unvarnished views on Russia.
They are set out with astonishing (perhaps unknowing) candor in
a New York Times op-ed of August 17. They are those of Joseph McCarthy
and J. Edgar Hoover in their prime. Western "politicians, political parties,
media outlets, think tanks and influencers are readily manipulated, wittingly
and unwittingly, or even bought outright, by Russian operatives not only to
collect sensitive information but also to distribute propaganda and disinformation.
I was well aware of Russia's ability to work surreptitiously within the United
States, cultivating relationships with individuals who wield actual or potential
power. These Russian agents are well trained in the art of deception. They troll
political, business and cultural waters in search of gullible or unprincipled
individuals who become pliant in the hands of their Russian puppet masters.
Too often, those puppets are found." All this, Brennan assures readers, is based
on his "deep insight." All the rest of us, it seems, are constantly susceptible
to "Russian puppet masters" under our beds, at work, on our computers. Clearly,
there must be no "cooperation" with the Kremlin's grand "Puppet Master," as
Trump said he wanted early on. (People who wonder what and when Obama knew about
the unfolding Russiagate saga need to ask why he would keep such a person so
close for so long.)
And yet, scores of former intelligence and military officials rallied around
this unvarnished John Brennan, even though, they said, they did not entirely
share his opinions. This too is revealing. They did so, it seems clear enough,
out of their professional corporate identity, which Brennan represented and
Trump was degrading by challenging the intelligences agencies' (implicitly including
his own) Russiagate allegations against him. It's a misnomer to term these people
representatives of a hidden "deep state." In recent years, they have been amply
visible on television and newspaper op-ed pages. Instead, they see and present
themselves as members of a fully empowered and essential fourth branch of government.
This too has gone largely undiscussed while nightingales of the fourth branch
-- such as
David Ignatius and
Joe Scarborough in the pages of the The Washington Post -- have
been in full voice.
The result is, of course -- and no less ominous -- to criminalize any advocacy
of "cooperating with Russia," or détente, as Trump sought to do in Helsinki
with Putin. Still more, a full-fledged Russophobic hysteria is sweeping through
the American political-media establishment, from Brennan and -- pending actual
evidence against her -- those who engineered the arrest of Maria Butina (imagine
how this endangers young Americans networking in Russia) to the senators now
preparing new "crippling sanctions" against Moscow and the editors and producers
at the Times , Post , CNN, and MSNBC. (However powerful, how
representative are these elites when surveys indicate that a majority of the
American people still prefer good relations with Moscow?)
As the dangers grow
of actual war with Russia -- again, from Ukraine and the Baltic region to Syria
-- the capacity of US policy-makers, above all the president, are increasingly
diminished. To be fair, Brennan may only be a symptom of this profound American
crisis, some say the worst since the Civil War.
Finally, there was a time when many Democrats, certainly liberal Democrats,
could be counted on to resist this kind of hysteria and, yes, spreading neo-McCarthyism.
(Brennan's defenders accuse Trump of McCarthyism, but Brennan's charge of treason
without presenting any actual evidence was quintessential McCarthy.) After all,
civil liberties, including freedom of speech, are directly involved -- and not
only Brennan's and Trump's. But Democratic members of Congress and pro-Democratic
media outlets are in the forefront of the new anti-Russian hysteria, with only
a few exceptions. Thus a generally liberal historian
tells CNN viewers that "Brennan is an American hero. His tenure at the CIA
was impeccable. We owe him so much." Elsewhere the same historian
assures readers , "There has always been a bipartisan spirit of support
since the CIA was created in the Cold War." In the same vein, two Post
reporters write of the FBI's "
once venerated reputation ."
Note from the author : As friends have quickly pointed out, the situation
is even worse than described here. Quarterly reviews by the troika will continue.
The German Bundestag will still vote on any debt deferrals, and -- as I do stress
-- the crushing austerity will continue indefinitely. A nightmare.
2010 to 2018 will go down in Greek history as an epic period of colonization;
of asset stripping and privatization; of unfunded health and education; of bankruptcies,
foreclosures, homelessness, and impoverishment; of unemployment, emigration,
and suicide. These were the years of the three memoranda, or "financial-assistance
programs" accompanied by "structural reforms," enacted supposedly to promote
Greek "recovery" from the slump and credit crunch of 2010. They were, in fact,
a fraud perpetrated on Greece and Europe, a jumble of bad policies based on
crude morality tales that catered to right-wing politics to cover up unpayable
debts.
This was a bailout? The word reeks of indulgence and implied disapproval. As
it was often said, "The Greeks had their party and now they must pay." Yes,
there was a party -- for oligarchs with ships and London homes and Swiss bank
accounts, for the military, for engineering and construction and armaments companies
from Germany and France and the United States. And yes, there was a bailout.
It came from Europe's taxpayers, and went to the troubled banks of France and
Germany. Greece was merely the pass-through, and the Greeks who paid dearly
with their livelihoods were just the patsies in the deal. The third "memorandum
of understanding" expires today. With Greece's
completion
of a three-year, 61.9-billion-euro eurozone emergency-loan package, it can once
again borrow at market rates. The expiration of the memorandum also ends, for
now, the direct control by Europe's "troika" -- the International Monetary Fund,
the European Commission, and the European Central Bank -- over the Greek government.
But its conditions, constraints, and consequences will endure.
Read also: Conference of the modern Left in Iceland: learning from each other
Back in 2010, Greece, along with Portugal, Spain, Ireland, and Italy, was
definitely in trouble. The Great Financial Crisis crashed into all of Europe,
but it hit the weaker countries hardest -- and Greece was the
weakest of them all. Its economy shrunk by a quarter, and youth unemployment
rose to roughly 50 percent. The memorandum was, for all concerned, the easy
way out. It started a game of "extend and pretend" on the Greek debt, based
on optimistic forecasts and on policies of reform that had no basis in the reality
of Greek economic conditions.
The policies came from the IMF -- its standard repertory of austerity and
"reform." But its staff and directors knew from the beginning that these measures
would not suffice. IMF executive directors from Australia, Switzerland, Brazil,
and China voiced objections. Channels were therefore bypassed, objections ignored.
The Fund was nearly out of work and money because of the failures of its programs
-- and the relative success of countries that ignored them -- all over the world.
And its managing director at the time wished to be the next president of France.
So Greece, which is to say its creditors -- especially French and German banks
-- received the largest loan in IMF history (relative to its ownership share).
And that 289-billion-euro loan came largely from U.S. taxpayers.
In Athens, teams of functionaries from the Fund, the European Central Bank,
and the European Commission came to Greece, where they stayed in fancy hotels
at Greek expense and were escorted by uniformed police from ministry to ministry
to dictate policy in detail. (Such a nice gig, in a warm and sunny place, so
close to the sea.) In 2015, they were lodged for a time in a four-star hotel,
deprived of their convoys, and given protection by elite forces dressed in plain
clothes. They didn't like that at all, and their bosses, Mario Draghi and Christine
Lagarde, complained loudly on their behalf.
And what of the policies? Public assets were to be dumped en masse at fire-sale
prices, but only if they were already profitable. (Regional airports making
losses, for example, stayed with the state.) Dutch dairies and German drug companies
were taken care of. Labor markets were deregulated while collective bargaining
was wiped out -- an unethical experiment on an untenable premise. Neither German
nor Chinese industry was moving to Greece even if the Greeks worked for free.
The value-added tax was raised, pensions were cut, and hundreds of thousands
of civil servants were sacked. Ministries lost cleaning ladies, who set up camp,
bless them, in front of the Ministry of Finance. The Greeks rebelled in 2015,
as they were right to do. But the European Central Bank held the high card:
It could shut the banks and confiscate deposits, forcing Greece out of the euro
and perhaps out of the European Union. The government, undermined from within,
capitulated. The third memorandum was signed, and Syriza, the left-wing coalition
that had swept into power in January, by that July had become the model prisoner
of the European elites.
The irony is that in 2012 Greece's debts were already postponed, so that
from late 2015 to 2022 there would be a grace period with relatively few major
payments due. Now there is a primary-budget surplus and the markets need not
be tested. So the memorandum can end, but austerity will not; the debt still
looms in the long term, so the commitment to surplus extends for more than 40
years. In any event, the Greeks' will to resistance appears to have been broken,
so it seems safe enough to leave them alone. For now.
But the damage done extends far beyond Greece. The cynicism and brutality
of what happened there is for everyone to see. The fact that Europe imposed
a policy of privation on one of its weakest members -- not for its own sake,
and not with any expectation of economic success, but to intimidate the Italians
and the French, as the German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble conceded to
the Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis privately in 2015 -- was not lost
on British voters who chose Brexit in 2016. The Greek debacle helped to turn
the French left against Europe, and fueled the inchoate coalition now in power
in Italy. The German and east European far right is surely not motivated by
sympathy -- on the contrary, they despise the Greeks. But they do resent the
supposed "solidarity" -- a fiction if ever there was one -- that Germany's Chancellor
Angela Merkel and her allies invoked to sell their parliaments and voters on
the idea of the Greek loans.
Europe is therefore rotting Hat both ends. Its economy must remain unified,
but it is coming apart at its political seams. It needs institutions and policies
of social stabilization, financial reform, and full employment -- a dramatic
change in ideas and action at the continental level to thwart the rising tide
of nationalist reaction. There is therefore a growing sense, among those who
are watching closely, that a major democratic reform -- a New Deal for Europe
-- is the only way to hold it together in the long run.
* James K. Galbraith is author of Welcome to the Poisoned Chalice: The Destruction
of Greece and the Future of Europe . In 2015 he served as an informal assistant
to the finance minister of Greece.
"... Here, for instance, is what I wrote about our Afghan War in 2008, almost seven years after it began, when the U.S. Air Force took out a bridal party, including the bride herself and at least 26 other women and children en route to an Afghan wedding. And that would be just one of eight U.S. wedding strikes I toted up by the end of 2013 in three countries, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen, that killed almost 300 potential revelers. "We have become a nation of wedding crashers," I wrote, "the uninvited guests who arrived under false pretenses, tore up the place, offered nary an apology, and refused to go home." ..."
"... Thought of another way, the U.S. military is now heading into record territory in Afghanistan. In the mid-1970s, the rare American who had heard of that country knew it only as a stop on the hippie trail . If you had then told anyone here that, by 2018, the U.S. would have been at war there for 27 years ( 1979-1989 and 2001-2018), he or she would have laughed in your face. And yet here we are, approaching the mark for one of Europe's longest, most brutal struggles, the Thirty Years' War of the seventeenth century. Imagine that. ..."
"... raison d'ętre ..."
"... Afganistan is the graveyard of poor empires. It's the playground of the rich American empire, a place to test weapons, test men, gain battle experience, get promotions, and generally keep the military-industrial complex in top health. If it didn't exist, we'd have to invent it. ..."
"... As shown in this article there is a very interesting connection between growing wealth inequality in the United States and American wars: https://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2018/07/how-american-wars-lead-to-increased.html ..."
"... it's not a war; it's an occupation. More cops get killed/wounded in USA proper then military personnel in that "war". 2017, 46 U.S. police officers were killed by felons in the line of duty; 17 military personnel in Afghanistan. ..."
"... Yes , the US military industrial complex is rich and in top health as you say , but what I see is that the health of the US as a whole , physical and mental , is going down in the last 50 years . Maybe the metastasis of the " healthy " military cancer are killing the American host . ..."
Fair warning. Stop reading right now if you want, because I'm going to repeat
myself. What choice do I have, since my subject is the Afghan War (America's
second Afghan War, no less)? I
began writing about that war in October 2001, almost 17 years ago, just
after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. That was how I inadvertently launched
the unnamed listserv that would, a year later, become TomDispatch .
Given the website's continuing focus on America's forever wars (a phrase I first
used in
2010 ), what choice have I had but to write about Afghanistan ever since?
So think of this as the war piece to end all war pieces. And let the repetition
begin!
Here, for instance, is what I
wrote about our Afghan War in 2008, almost seven years after it began, when
the U.S. Air Force took out a bridal party, including the bride herself and
at least 26 other women and children en route to an Afghan wedding. And that
would be just one of eight U.S. wedding strikes I
toted up by the end of 2013 in three countries, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen,
that killed almost 300 potential revelers. "We have become a nation of wedding
crashers," I wrote, "the uninvited guests who arrived under false pretenses,
tore up the place, offered nary an apology, and refused to go home."
Here's what I
wrote about Afghanistan in 2009, while considering the metrics of "a war
gone to hell": "While Americans argue feverishly and angrily over what kind
of money, if any, to put into health care, or decaying infrastructure, or other
key places of need, until recently just about no one in the mainstream raised
a peep about the fact that, for nearly eight years (not to say much of the last
three decades), we've been pouring billions of dollars, American military know-how,
and American lives into a black hole in Afghanistan that is, at least in significant
part, of our own creation."
Here's what I
wrote in 2010, thinking about how "forever war" had entered the bloodstream
of the twenty-first-century U.S. military (in a passage in which you'll notice
a name that became more familiar in the Trump era): "And let's not leave out
the Army's incessant planning for the distant future embodied in a recently
published report, 'Operating Concept, 2016-2028,' overseen by Brigadier General
H.R. McMaster, a senior adviser to Gen. David Petraeus. It opts to ditch 'Buck
Rogers' visions of futuristic war, and instead to imagine counterinsurgency
operations, grimly referred to as 'wars of exhaustion,' in one, two, many Afghanistans
to the distant horizon."
Here's what I
wrote in 2012, when Afghanistan had superseded Vietnam as the longest war
in American history: "Washington has gotten itself into a situation on the Eurasian
mainland so vexing and perplexing that Vietnam has finally been left in the
dust. In fact, if you hadn't noticed -- and weirdly enough no one has -- that
former war finally seems to have all but vanished."
Here's what I
wrote in 2015, thinking about the American taxpayer dollars that had, in
the preceding years, gone into Afghan "roads to nowhere, ghost soldiers, and
a $43 million gas station" built in the middle of nowhere, rather than into
this country: "Clearly, Washington had gone to war like a drunk on a bender,
while the domestic infrastructure began to fray. At $109 billion by 2014, the
American reconstruction program in Afghanistan was already, in today's dollars,
larger than the Marshall Plan (which helped put all of devastated Western Europe
back on its feet after World War II) and still the country was a shambles."
And here's what I
wrote last year thinking about the nature of our never-ending war there:
"Right now, Washington is whistling past the graveyard. In Afghanistan and Pakistan
the question is no longer whether the U.S. is in command, but whether it can
get out in time. If not, the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, the Indians,
who exactly will ride to our rescue? Perhaps it would be more prudent to stop
hanging out in graveyards. They are, after all, meant for burials, not resurrections."
And that's just to dip a toe into my writings on America's all-time most
never-ending war.
What Happened After History Ended
... ... ...
In reality, when it comes to America's
spreading wars , especially the one in Afghanistan, history didn't end at
all. It just stumbled onto some graveyard version of a Möbius strip. In contrast
to the past empires that found they ultimately couldn't defeat Afghanistan's
insurgent tribal warriors, the U.S. has -- as Bush administration officials
suspected at the time -- proven unique. Just not in the way they imagined.
Their dreams couldn't have been more ambitious. As they launched the invasion
of Afghanistan, they were already looking past the triumph to come to Saddam
Hussein's Iraq and the glories that would follow once his regime had been "decapitated,"
once U.S. forces, the most technologically advanced ever, were
stationed for an eternity in the heart of the oil heartlands of the Greater
Middle East. Not that anyone remembers anymore, but Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld,
Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, and the rest of that crew of geopolitical dreamers
wanted it all.
What they got was no less unique in history: a great power at the seeming
height of its strength and glory, with destructive capabilities beyond imagining
and a military unmatched on the planet, unable to score a single decisive victory
across an increasingly large swath of the planet or impose its will, however
brutally, on seemingly far weaker, less well-armed opponents. They could not
conquer, subdue, control, pacify, or win the hearts and minds or anything else
of enemies who often fought their
trillion-dollar foe using weaponry valued at the
price
of a pizza . Talk about bleeding wounds!
A War of Abysmal Repetition
Thought of another way, the U.S. military is now heading into record
territory in Afghanistan. In the mid-1970s, the rare American who had heard
of that country knew it only as a stop on the
hippie trail . If you had then told anyone here that, by 2018, the U.S.
would have been at war there for 27 years (
1979-1989 and 2001-2018), he or she would have laughed in your face. And
yet here we are, approaching the mark for one of Europe's longest, most brutal
struggles, the Thirty Years' War of the seventeenth century. Imagine that.
... ... ...
Almost 17 years and, coincidentally enough,
17 U.S. commanders later, think of it as a war of abysmal repetition. Just
about everything in the U.S. manual of military tactics has evidently been tried
(including dropping "the mother of all bombs," the
largest non-nuclear munition in that military's arsenal), often time and
again, and nothing has even faintly done the trick -- to which the Pentagon's
response is invariably a version of the classic
misquoted
movie line, "Play it again, Sam."
And yet, amid all that repetition,
people are
still dying ; Afghans and others are being
uprooted and
displaced across Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and deep into Africa;
wars and terror outfits are spreading. And here's a simple enough fact that's
worth repeating: the endless, painfully ignored failure of the U.S. military
(and civilian) effort in Afghanistan is where it all began and where it seems
never to end.
A Victory for Whom?
Every now and then, there's the odd bit of news that reminds you we don't
have to be in a world of repetition. Every now and then, you see something and
wonder whether it might not represent a new development, one that possibly could
lead out of (or far deeper into) the graveyard of empires.
As a start, though it's been easy to forget in these years, other countries
are affected by the ongoing disaster of a war in Afghanistan. Think, for instance,
of Pakistan (with a newly elected, somewhat
Trumpian president who has been a
critic of America's Afghan War and of U.S. drone strikes in his country),
Iran, China, and Russia. So here's something I can't remember seeing in the
news before: the military intelligence chiefs of those four countries all
met recently in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, officially to discuss
the growth of Islamic State-branded insurgents in Afghanistan. But who knows
what was really being discussed? And the same applies to the
visit of Iran's armed forces chief of staff to Pakistan in July and the
return visit of that country's chief of staff to Iran in early August. I
can't tell you what's going on, only that these are not the typically repetitive
stories of the last 17 years.
And hard as it might be to believe, even when it comes to U.S. policy, there's
been the odd headline that might pass for new. Take the recent private, direct
talks with the Taliban in Qatar's capital, Doha,
initiated by the Trump administration and seemingly ongoing. They might
-- or
might not -- represent
something new , as might President Trump himself, who, as far as anyone
can tell, doesn't think that Afghanistan is "
the right war ." He has, from time to time, even indicated that he might
be in favor of ending the American role, of "
getting the hell out of there," as he reportedly told Senator Rand Paul,
and that's unique in itself (though he and his advisers seem to be raring to
go when it comes to what could be the next Afghanistan:
Iran ).
But should the man who would never want to be known as the president who
lost the longest war in American history try to follow through on a withdrawal
plan, he's likely to have a few problems on his hands. Above all, the Pentagon
and the country's field commanders seem to be hooked on America's "
infinite " wars. They exhibit not the slightest urge to stop them. The Afghan
War and the others that have flowed from it represent both their raison
d'ętre and their meal ticket. They represent the only thing the U.S. military
knows how to do in this century. And one thing is guaranteed: if they don't
agree with the president on a withdrawal strategy, they have the power and ability
to make a man who would do anything to avoid marring his own image as a winnner
look worse than you could possibly imagine. Despite that military's supposedly
apolitical role in this country's affairs, its leaders are uniquely capable
of blocking any attempt to end the Afghan War.
And with that in mind, almost 17 years later, don't think that victory is
out of the question either. Every day that the U.S. military stays in Afghanistan
is indeed a victory for well, not George W. Bush, or Barack Obama, and certainly
not Donald Trump, but the now long-dead Osama bin Laden. The calculation couldn't
be simpler. Thanks to his "
precision" weaponry -- those 19 suicidal hijackers in commercial jets --
the nearly 17 years of wars he's sparked across much of the Muslim world cost
a man from one of Saudi Arabia's
wealthiest families a mere
$400,000 to $500,000 . They've cost American taxpayers, minimally,
$5.6 trillion dollars with no end in sight. And every day the Afghan War
and the others that have followed from it continue is but another triumphant
day for him and his followers.
A sad footnote to this history of extreme repetition: I wish this essay,
as its title suggests, were indeed the war piece to end all war pieces. Unfortunately,
it's a reasonable bet that, in August 2019, or August 2020, not to speak of
August 2021, I'll be repeating all of this yet again.
Afganistan is the graveyard of poor empires. It's the playground
of the rich American empire, a place to test weapons, test men, gain
battle experience, get promotions, and generally keep the military-industrial
complex in top health. If it didn't exist, we'd have to invent it.
All very human. If America wasn't doing it, somebody else would.
Its all about pipelines, rare-earth elements and drug money for CIA black
ops.
15 years of American efforts to suppress opium growing and the heroin
trade in that country (at historic lows, by the way, when the U.S. invaded
in 2001).
And many record harvests after the US invasion.
' In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can
bet it was planned that way ' Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Unless Washington shifts from a program of funding wars by deficit financing
to funding wars through direct taxation, wars being fought by the United
States will continue to contribute to America's growing income inequality.
About the only thing I take away from this insufferably droll, repetitive
piece on America at war forever, is how powerless the both the writer and
the reader are. All we can do is read these depressing articles which remind
us of a war we can do absolutely nothing about. Very shitty and depressing,
just like USA!
Pretty much. Besides, it's not a war; it's an occupation. More cops
get killed/wounded in USA proper then military personnel in that "war".
2017, 46 U.S. police officers were killed by felons in the line of duty;
17 military personnel in Afghanistan.
The article's point/issue is simply overblown. That's why people don't
pay attention to it.
BS; it's an alien invasion = Nuremberg-class war crime.
More cops get killed/wounded in USA proper
This looks very much like the "tu quoque" or the appeal to hypocrisy
fallacy plus 'oranges vs. apples.' What the good US-burghers do in their
own country is entirely their business, and IF it looks like they act like
antediluvian neanderthal savages [a direct result of their risible 'education'
+ night & day TV, perhaps] THEN tough luck for the cops. It probably doesn't
help that the US-cops are just as much free with the lead as their oppressed
subjects. And don't think that the same sort of savagery won't impact someone
near you; a quick glance into abc.net.au/news/justin reveals horrendous
'social situations,' like bodies in barrels, say, or aggravated home invasions,
etc., also caused by defective education plus importing 'cheap' labour.
That's why people don't pay attention to it
More BS; the sheeple ignore US/Z aggression everywhere it occurs because
the corrupt&venal MSM+PFBCs [= publicly financed broadcasters, like the
AusBC] sell the powerless population pups = the sheeple get actively, deliberately
brainwashed [cf. Lügenpresse ]. Apologists for [here terrorist] criminals
make themselves accessories = assign themselves guilt and should be punished
after being tried & found so guilty.
" The U.S. has spent 25 trillion since the Vietnam War, what do they
have to show for it? " Jack Ma Ali Baba
" The genius of our ruling class is that it has kept the majority of people
from ever questioning the inequity of a private for profit fraudulent banking
system where most people drudge along, paying heavey taxes for which they
get nothing in return." Gore Vidal
(War) "It's something we do all the time because we're good at it. And
we're good at it because we're used to it. And we're used to it because
we do it all the time." Sergeant Michael Dunne played by Paul Gross in Passchendaele
the Movie
I'm not sure, but I don't think we are good at it anymore. But it appears
to me that the Russians, Iranians, Syrians and Houthi's are and that really
scares us. But it does make a lot of money for some people, careers for
others and the MSM loves it for the ratings and avoiding telling the truth.
Your opening photo is of two of the dumbest son-of-a-bitches to ever
hold the office of President of The United States. Indicative of the shit
slide this country is on.
"Afghans and others are being uprooted and displaced across Asia,
South Asia, the Middle East, and deep into Africa ."
So the strategy is to depopulate the country of its indigenous peoples
until "we" outnumber them? Never mind the damage these re-settled folks
are doing to Western Europe, not to mention other places.
.generally keep the military-industrial complex in top health
Yes , the US military industrial complex is rich and in top health
as you say , but what I see is that the health of the US as a whole , physical
and mental , is going down in the last 50 years . Maybe the metastasis of
the " healthy " military cancer are killing the American host .
The same happened to most of the empires , got drunk on blood and fell
.
"... Our government is quick to apply sanctions and extremely reluctant to lift them. Once a government is targeted with sanctions on one issue, it becomes even easier to apply additional sanctions for other reasons. Multiple overlapping sets of sanctions give the targeted government little reason to cooperate. ..."
"... Now Trump has not only gone back on the promise of sanctions relief, but he is going out of his way to use U.S. sanctions to force other governments to wage economic war on Iran as well. ..."
"... Other governments understandably consider U.S. secondary sanctions on foreign firms to be illegal and unacceptable, and it is only a matter of time before many more states look for ways to get around them. ..."
"... Sanctions addicts are under the mistaken impression that they can force the targeted state to change its behavior, but in practice this just causes them to do more of what the U.S. doesn't want to give them additional leverage ..."
"... If the Trump administration succeeds in completely blowing up the deal, Iran won't have to abide by its restrictions any longer. In the worst-case scenario, the U.S. pressure campaign could convince Iran's government to leave the NPT. In its vain and destructive attempt to force Iran to make deeper concessions, the Trump administration could very easily repeat the Bush administration's North Korea blunder ..."
"... In fact, my guess would be that Iran could get a lot more "bang for the buck" by investing the significant efforts and budgets of pursuing a nuclear deterrent – with the resulting "window of vulnerability" – into those conventional and irregular deterrents: A2/AD and IRGC, Hezbollah, proxies in Iraq. ..."
"... Trump and Obama might be dumb enough to waste trillions on mutually assured nuclear suicide, Iran appears to have a more frugal approach to deterrence ..."
"... I find another aspect of sanctions illuminating. Sanctions have significant cost – opportunity cost, loss of investment, penalties on breach of contract – for large segments of US and EU industry – as our "allies" are now learning ..."
"... Is sanction enforcement by itself more profitable than the trade it suppresses? Or are sanctions without profitable "regime change" and the follow-thru looting – Russia 1991 or Iraq 2003 – a net loss? ..."
"... the interests of various factions of the presidential-congressional-military-industrial complex are not in perfect alignment ..."
"... "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." ..."
"... U.S. foreign policy has been completely militarized. "Our way or the highway" diplomacy is defined by the ham-fisted war-mongers Pompeo and Bolton. With Nutjob Nikki Haley cheering them on with Dragon Lady Gina Haspel and her arrogant minions hatching regime change plots at CIA with anticipatory delight. ..."
"... The U.S./Russia relationship has been fatally wrecked by the one-way ratchet sanctions ginned up by a nitwit Congress oblivious to unintended consequences. China and the rest of Asia are formulating an economic model decoupled from the Global Cop Gorilla. They will capture Iran's business and are peeling off Turkey. Europe is realizing the lunatic incoherence of U.S. foreign policy. ..."
"... BTW, Trump is so clueless he thinks that Putin will pow-wow with him under the current circumstances. ..."
Iran's Foreign Minister recently
criticized the U.S. for its "addiction" to sanctions:
"I believe there is a disease in the United States and that is the addiction
to sanctions," he told CNN, adding that, "Even during the Obama administration
the United States put more emphasis on keeping the sanctions it had not
lifted rather than implementing its obligation on the sanctions it lifted."
Zarif has his own reasons for saying this, but the addiction he describes
is all too real. Our government is quick to apply sanctions and extremely
reluctant to lift them. Once a government is targeted with sanctions on one
issue, it becomes even easier to apply additional sanctions for other reasons.
Multiple overlapping sets of sanctions give the targeted government little reason
to cooperate. In Iran's case, they made significant concessions on the
nuclear issue in the expectation of receiving sanctions relief. Contrary to
the lies of nuclear deal opponents, Iran made the bulk of its concessions up
front in exchange for the promise of relief later. That relief was very slow
in coming to the extent that it came at all. Now Trump has not only gone
back on the promise of sanctions relief, but he is going out of his way to use
U.S. sanctions to force other governments to wage economic war on Iran as well.
Iran is still in compliance with the deal even after the U.S. broke its promises,
and now the U.S. is piling on sanctions simply for the sake of inflicting economic
harm. Other governments understandably consider U.S. secondary sanctions
on foreign firms to be illegal and unacceptable, and it is only a matter of
time before many more states
look for ways to get around them. The more that our government
abuses sanctions , the more likely it is that other states will create mechanisms
to shield themselves and their companies from them.
U.S. abuse of sanctions reminds me of another part of Bloomberg's recent
editorial on the nuclear deal. The editors write:
But a deepening economic crisis could yet force a change of heart in
Tehran. A second round of U.S. sanctions, targeting oil exports and due
in November, could also concentrate minds. For his part, Trump has said
he's open to meeting with Iran's leaders "whenever they want to." He might
welcome a second act to his summit with North Korea's Kim Jong Un. The Iranians
might reflect on the fact that Kim lost nothing from that encounter.
All this is, admittedly, slim hope on which to base a long, tortured
process of negotiation. But it's better than the false hope that Europe's
leaders are currently clinging to.
If additional sanctions "concentrate minds" in Tehran, what is likely to
happen? Prior to the nuclear deal, increasing sanctions spurred Iran to build
tens of thousands of centrifuges and advance their nuclear program significantly.
Sanctions addicts are under the mistaken impression that they can force
the targeted state to change its behavior, but in practice this just causes
them to do more of what the U.S. doesn't want to give them additional leverage
. In order for sanctions to have any chance of being effective, the other government
has to believe that there is way to get the sanctions lifted permanently. Iran's
leaders no longer believe that because Trump shredded our government's credibility
by reneging on the deal. Now that the U.S. has shown that its promises of sanctions
relief are meaningless, it can impose any number of sanctions for as long as
it wants and all it will do is provoke Iran into doing exactly what our government
opposes.
If the Trump administration succeeds in completely blowing up the deal,
Iran won't have to abide by its restrictions any longer. In the worst-case scenario,
the U.S. pressure campaign could convince Iran's government to leave the NPT.
In its vain and destructive attempt to force Iran to make deeper concessions,
the Trump administration could very easily repeat the Bush administration's
North Korea blunder . Sanctions addicts don't think that abusing sanctions
can have adverse and undesirable consequences, but in this case they could end
up producing a much worse outcome to the detriment of all concerned. Posted
in
foreign policy ,
politics . Tagged
Iran ,
North Korea ,
Bloomberg ,
NPT ,
Mohammad Javad Zarif ,
Donald Trump ,
JCPOA .
"In the worst-case scenario, the U.S. pressure campaign could
convince Iran's government to leave the NPT."
For the Bolt-On et.al. this would be a best case outcome. There are good
arguments that Iran will refrain from anything that would deliver a pretext
for "non-proliferation at gunpoint" until at least 2020 – US election –
and 2021 – Iranian elections.
In fact, my guess would be that Iran could get a lot more "bang for
the buck" by investing the significant efforts and budgets of pursuing a
nuclear deterrent – with the resulting "window of vulnerability" – into
those conventional and irregular deterrents: A2/AD and IRGC, Hezbollah,
proxies in Iraq.
When the Trump administration and Congress defined that "malignancy",
which so mirrors our own, they signaled clearly that Iran's actions were
exposing weaknesses and serve as constraints on US impunitive action.
Trump and Obama might be dumb enough to waste trillions on mutually
assured nuclear suicide, Iran appears to have a more frugal approach to
deterrence .
I find another aspect of sanctions illuminating. Sanctions have significant
cost – opportunity cost, loss of investment, penalties on breach of contract
– for large segments of US and EU industry – as our "allies" are now learning
. For administrations such as Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump, that all hail
from different toxic brews of corporate and oligarch interests, there has
to be a reason to force these costs on one segment of their true "constituencies".
On first glance, it would imply that the interests of the presidential-congressional-military-industrial
complex – that is, the profit and business interests of the industrial segment,
or the ancillary benefits for the other war profiteers – trump (for lack
of a more appropriate word) the concerns and interests of the non-defense
and non-electioneering business.
Bloomberg, of all publications, should be sensitive to this, unless they,
too, place a premium on "national securities".
Is sanction enforcement by itself more profitable than the trade
it suppresses? Or are sanctions without profitable "regime change" and the
follow-thru looting – Russia 1991 or Iraq 2003 – a net loss?
Our foreign policy might be decided and defined by this trade-off.
Do our war profiteering business elites consider regime change a requirement
for deferred return on investment, or would they prefer sanctions in perpetuity?
Certainly, the interests of various factions of the presidential-congressional-military-industrial
complex are not in perfect alignment . For example, a trillion dollar
budget for mutually assured nuclear suicide might offer significant short
term profits to a narrow "market segment" while increasing the "business
risks" to all beneficiaries of inbred wealth across the world, for generations.
But it would appear that these trade-offs are not well understood. I
guess I cannot complain about that, given my choice of "inbred wealth" as
a description for the multi-generational estrangement of the rich, connected
and powerful from existential realities.
Given the Neocon constitution of Trump's inner circle, it is not surprising
that the Karl Rove delusion is again in play:
"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.
And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll
act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's
how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will
be left to just study what we do."
How did that work out last time?
U.S. foreign policy has been completely militarized. "Our way or
the highway" diplomacy is defined by the ham-fisted war-mongers Pompeo and
Bolton. With Nutjob Nikki Haley cheering them on with Dragon Lady Gina Haspel
and her arrogant minions hatching regime change plots at CIA with anticipatory
delight.
How did that work out in Libya, Ukraine and Syria? And Mattis successfully
fear-mongers out the wazoo for even more hyper-expensive "lethality".
The U.S./Russia relationship has been fatally wrecked by the one-way
ratchet sanctions ginned up by a nitwit Congress oblivious to unintended consequences.
China and the rest of Asia are formulating an economic model decoupled from
the Global Cop Gorilla. They will capture Iran's business and are peeling off
Turkey. Europe is realizing the lunatic incoherence of U.S. foreign policy.
And incredulously, Trump merely stands back and watches as his minions run
his albeit mal-formed foreign policy vision into the ground. BTW, Trump
is so clueless he thinks that Putin will pow-wow with him under the current
circumstances.
Stick a fork in this harebrained administration – because it's cooked
"... In this version of 21st century slavery, all these disadvantages have been eliminated! Slaves stay in their homecountry: there is no need to bring them from there, no need to live amongst them and to feed them! Slaves are forced to work hard in the hope of paying off their debt, so they are motivated and hardworking. And most importantly, no civil war in the USA! ..."
This year, the Ukraine Prime Minister Groisman said that the external debt is 83% of the GDP. And by the end of the year, having
been pressurized by the IMF, it will reach 90%. In order to service its external debts, the Ukraine spends $4.8 billion a year.
This is real slavery - only a new, improved version of it. From the 17th to the 19 centuries, slavery in [the North American
British colonies and then - ME] the United States had a number of serious deficiencies: slaves had to be brought all the way from
Africa; slaves were not extremely industrious; Americans themselves had to live amongst the slaves; and, most unpleasantly, all
this led to civil war in the United States.
In this version of 21st century slavery, all these disadvantages have been eliminated! Slaves stay in their homecountry: there
is no need to bring them from there, no need to live amongst them and to feed them! Slaves are forced to work hard in the hope
of paying off their debt, so they are motivated and hardworking. And most importantly, no civil war in the USA!
"Russian influence will flow through that pipeline right into Europe, and that is what we
are going to prevent," an unnamed U.S. official told the
Wall Street Journal just as Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chancellor Angela
Merkel meet outside of Berlin on Saturday centered on the two countries moving forward with the
controversial Russian-German Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, but also involving issues from the
Iran nuclear deal to ending the war in Syria.
Intense pressure from Washington is overshadowing the project, construction of which is
already in advanced stages, as
the WSJ cites current and former US officials who say sanctions are under discussion and
could be mobilized in a mere matter of weeks .
These potential sanctions, ostensibly being discussed in response to US intelligence claims
of Russian interference in the 2016 election, could target companies and financial firms
involved in the massive pipeline's construction . This comes after comments from President
Trump at the opening of a NATO summit in July made things uncomfortable for his German
counterpart when he said that Germany is so dependent on Russia for energy that it's
essentially being "held captive" by Vladimir Putin and his government.
"Germany is captive of Russia because it is getting so much of its energy from Russia. They
pay billions of dollars to Russia and we have to defend them against Russia,"
Trump told NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg at a televised opening breakfast.
The pipeline has been opposed by multiple US administrations, who have long accuse the
Kremlin of seeking to accrue political leverage over Europe given the latter's already high
dependence on Russian natural gas. The pipeline has been a frequent talking point and target of
attacks by Trump,
who has threatened to escalate the trade war against Germany going back months if it
supported the construction of the pipeline. US officials have also expressed concern that
Russia will pull pack significantly from delivering natural gas via Ukraine when its Gazprom
tranit contract expires by the close of 2019. Ukraine is currently the chief Russian
natural-gas export point to the EU and depends heavily on levying fees on this trade.
Both Russia and Germany have sought to calm US concerns over the Ukraine issue, with Putin
himself reportedly telling both Merkel and Trump that he is "ready to preserve" gas transit
through Ukraine even after Nord Stream 2 was completed.
US officials speaking to the WSJ , however, downplayed the Ukraine issue, instead focusing
on the urgency of allowing such significant and irreversible Russian economic, political, and
infrastructural inroads into the heart of Europe .
Richard Grenell, the U.S. ambassador to Germany, told the
WSJ , "We have been clear that firms working in the Russian energy export-pipeline sector
are engaging in a line of business that carries sanctions risk," -- something which he's
repeatedly emphasized with officials in Berlin. President Trump himself has also reportedly
raised the issue directly with Chancellor Merkel on multiple occasions. But for all the shrill
US media claims that Trump is somehow doing Putin's bidding, the WSJ
has this illuminating line : "Officially, the European Commission, the EU's executive body,
is coordinating the gas-transit talks, but Ms. Merkel also has played a leading role because of
her regular contacts and longstanding relationship with Mr. Putin, European officials say
."
Meanwhile, it appears that Washington has a losing hand even while making threats of
sanctions in an attempt to block the pipeline project.
A European energy executive familiar with the discussions said company representatives had
told John McCarrick, deputy assistant secretary in the State Department's Bureau of Energy
Resources, that the five European companies and Gazprom had already provided €5.5
billion ($6.3 billion) in financing and that the project wouldn't be stopped even if the U.S.
were to impose sanctions .
The Nord Stream 2 project was started in 2015 and is a major joint venture between Russia's
Gazprom and European partners, including German Uniper, Austria's OMV, France's Engie,
Wintershall and the British-Dutch multinational Royal Dutch Shell.
The pipeline is set to run from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea - doubling the
existing pipeline's capacity of 55 cubic meters per year, and is therefore critical for
Europe's future energy needs.
Currently, the second phase involves utilizing an existing pipeline already channelling
smaller amount of gas from Russia to Germany. Construction for the second phase started in May
of this year.
"... Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business ..."
"... there will be no war and no negotiations ..."
"... carries out the decrees, and answers to the Supreme Leader of Iran, who functions as the country's head of state ..."
"... Trump's ALL IN CAPS meme ..."
"... This is where Ali Khamenei's stance is more puzzling, at least to me: when he says that there will be no war, does he mean that the US threats are not credible or does he mean that Iran has the means to deter a US attack? His words make it sound like he is quite certain that there will be no war. How can he be so sure? I am especially amazed by the apparent Iranian confidence that the AngloZionists will not attack them when I compare it with the obvious Russian policy of actively preparing for war since at least 2014 (also see here , here , here , here , here and here ). Of course, Iran has been preparing for war with the US for almost 40 years now whereas the Russians only woke up to reality comparatively recently. I see several potential explanations for Ali Khamenei's statement (there might be more, of course) ..."
"... Personally, every time I think of a possible US attack on Iran I think of the Israeli attack on Lebanon in 2006 which happened in spite of the fact that it was plainly visible to everybody that the Israelis were waltzing straight into a conflict which they could not win and which, in fact, resulted into one of the most abjects defeats in military history. Conversely, while Hezbollah did win a truly historical victory, it also remains a fact that Hezbollah leaders did not expect the Israelis to launch a full-scale ground offensive. Finally, history is full of examples of wars which were started in spite of all objective factors indicating that they would end up in disaster. ..."
"... If it weren't for its nuclear arsenal, the US could be dismissed as a particularly obnoxious country led by ignorant leaders with bloated and mostly ineffective armed forces. Alas, the US nuclear arsenal is very real (and still very capable) and we know that top-level US Neocons have already considered using tactical nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state's conventional force in the past . In a twisted way, this makes sense: if you are a megalomaniac infused with a sense of messianic superiority then international or even civilizational norms of behavior are of no interest (or even relevance) to you. Listening to US Presidents, pretty much all of them (but especially Obama and Trump) it is pretty clear that these folks consider themselves to be the Kulturträger ..."
"... Shaytân-e Bozorg ..."
"... It would be a big mistake to dismiss the US because of its incapable military or moral bankruptcy. The truth is that in terms of aggregate national power, the US still remains the most powerful country on the planet (even if we don't include nuclear weapons). Anyone doubting that needs to look how how the currencies of the countries the US is singles out for attack suddenly began slipping: the Russian ruble (which has since bounced back), the Iranian rial, the Venezuelan bolivar, the Turkish lira , etc.) or how little time it took Trump to bring the (admittedly spineless) Europeans to heel . ..."
"... As for Russia, for all her military might, she remains only a semi-sovereign country in which the pro-US/pro-Israeli "Atlantic Integrationists" continue to try to sabotage (often successfully) everything Putin and his supporters are doing . I would not place big hopes in China either, especially considering the lack of meaningful Chinese action in Syria where Russia and Iran did all the heavy lifting. ..."
"... So count with yet another imperial war of aggression, a barrel of crude at over 100$ and oil shortages, rocketing inflation, job losses, a stagnant real estate market and stock exchange, and a national debt and government deficit which would make even Reagan proud. And plenty of dead Americans (nevermind the Iranians, right?). But don't worry: there will still be a huge supply of Chinese-made US flags to wave! ..."
=>
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We can all thank God for the fact that the AngloZionists did not launch a war on the DPRK, that no Ukronazi attack on the Donbass
took place during the World Cup in Russia and that the leaders of the Empire have apparently have given up on their plans to launch
a reconquista of Syria. However, each of these retreats from their hysterical rhetoric has only made the Neocons more frustrated
and determined to show the planet that they are still The Hegemon who cannot be disobeyed with impunity. As I wrote after the failed
US cruise missile strike on Syria this spring, " each click brings us closer
to the bang ". In the immortal words of Michael
Ledeen , " Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against
the wall, just to show the world we mean business ". The obvious problem is that there are no "small crappy little countries"
left out there, and that those who are currently the object of the Empire's ire are neither small nor crappy.
Having now shown several times that for all its hysterical barking the Empire has to back down when the opponent does not cower
away in fear, the Empire is now in desperate need to prove its "uniqueness" and (racial?) superiority. The obvious target of the
AngloZionist wrath is Iran. In fact, Iran has been in the cross-hairs of the Empire ever since the people of Iran dared to show the
AngloZionists to the door and, even worse, succeed in creating their own, national and Islamic democracy. To punish Iran, the US,
the USSR, France and all the other "democratic" countries unleashed their puppet (Saddam Hussein) and gave him full military support,
and yet the Iranians still prevailed, albeit at a terrible cost. That Iranian ability to prevail in the most terrible circumstances
is also the most likely explanation for why there has not been an overt attack on Iran for the past four decades (there have, of
course, there has been plenty of covert attacks during all these years).
I won't list all the recent AngloZionist threats against Iran – we all know about them. The bottom line is this: the US, Israel
and the KSA are, yet again, working hand in hand to set the stage for a major war under what we could call the " Skripal-case rules
of evidence " aka " highly likely ". And yet, in spite of all this saber-rattling, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has summed
up Iran's stance in
the following words " there will be no war and no negotiations ".
First, let's first look at Iranian rationale for "no negotiations"
The obvious: "no negotiations"
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been very clear in his explanations for why negotiating with the US makes no sense. On his Twitter
account he wrote:
The Iranian Supreme Leader even posted a special graphic summary to summarize and explain the Iranian position:
Finally, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reiterated his fundamental approach towards the AngloZionist Empire:
The contrast between the kindergarten-level low-IQ bumbling hot air and threats coming out of the White House and the words of
Ali Khamenei could not be greater, especially if we compare the words the two leaders decided to post all in caps;
Trump : To Iranian President Rouhani: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES
OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS
OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!
Khamenei : THERE WILL BE NO WAR, NOR WILL WE NEGOTIATE WITH THE U.S..
Notice first that in his typical ignorance, Trump fails to realize that Hassan Rouhani is only the President of Iran and that
threatening him makes absolutely no sense since he does not make national security decisions, which is the function of the Supreme
Leader. Had Trump taken the time to at the very least check
with Wikipedia he would have understood that the Iranian President " carries out the decrees, and answers to the Supreme
Leader of Iran, who functions as the country's head of state ". It is no wonder that Trump's infantile threats
instantly
turned into an Internet meme !
In contrast, Khamenei did not even bother to address Trump by name but, instead, announced his strategy to the whole world.
Trump's ALL IN CAPS meme
Of course, issuing ALL IN CAPS threats just to be treated with utter contempt by the people you are trying to hard to bully and
having your words become a cause of laughter on the Internet will only further enrage Trump and his supporters. When you are desperately
trying to show the world how tough and scary you are, there is nothing more humiliating as being treated like some stupid kid. Therein
also lies the biggest danger: such derision could force Trump and the Neocons who run him to do something desperate to prove to the
word that their "red button" is still bigger than everybody else's.
ORDER IT NOW
It is important to note here that making negotiations impossible is something the Trump administration seems to have adopted as
a policy. This is best illustrated by the conditions attached to the latest sanctions against Russia which, essentially, demand that
Russia admit poisoning the Skripals. In fact, all the western demands towards Russia (admitting that Russia is guilty for the Skripal
case, that Russia shot down MH-17, that Russia hand over Crimea to the Ukronazis, etc.) are carefully crafted to make absolutely
sure that Russia will not negotiate. The sames, of course, goes for the ridiculous
Pompeo demands towards the DPRK
(including handing over to the US 60 to 70 percent of its nukes within six to eight months; no wonder the North Koreans denounced
a "gangster-like" attitude) or the latest US grandstanding towards Turkey. Sadly, but the Neocon run media has successfully imposed
the notion that negotiations are either a sign of weakness, or treason, or both. Thus to be "patriotic" and "strong" no US official
can afford to be caught red-handed negotiating with the enemy of the day.
Under these conditions, why would anybody want to negotiate with the US?
Frankly, the "no negotiations" approach makes perfectly good sense, and while the Iranians are the only ones who have openly said
so, the Russians have hinted to the same on many occasions (see their words about the US being "non-agreement capable" or about US
diplomats confusing Austria and Australia). To any objective observer it should by now be completely obvious by now that a) the US
cannot negotiate (due to intellectual, cultural and political limitations) and b) the US has no desire to negotiate. This is, of
course, a highly undesirable and dangerous situation, but it would only make things worse to pretend that civilized negotiations
with the US are possible.
So, if both sides agree on "no negotiations", what about war?
The not so obvious: No war?
This is where Ali Khamenei's stance is more puzzling, at least to me: when he says that there will be no war, does he mean
that the US threats are not credible or does he mean that Iran has the means to deter a US attack? His words make it sound like he
is quite certain that there will be no war. How can he be so sure? I am especially amazed by the apparent Iranian confidence that
the AngloZionists will not attack them when I compare it with the obvious
Russian policy of actively preparing for war
since at least 2014 (also see
here
, here ,
here ,
here ,
here and
here ). Of course,
Iran has been preparing for war with the US for almost 40 years now whereas the Russians only woke up to reality comparatively recently.
I see several potential explanations for Ali Khamenei's statement (there might be more, of course):
Political: Iran is trying to demonstrate that it will do everything possible to avoid a war so that if a war should break out,
it would be absolutely clear to everybody that Iran did not want it, Iran did not trigger it and the responsibility for the consequences
fall entirely and solely upon the US and Israel. Deception: Iran knows that a war is coming but is trying to pretend like it won't
to better conceal the war preparations and lure the Empire into a sense of complacency resulting into an ineffective/costly attack.
Intelligence: the Iranians might have intelligence indicating to them that all the US threats are just hot air spewed in order
to appease the Israel Lobby and to look "patriotic" in preparation for the upcoming elections this Fall. Miscalculation: the Iranians
might underestimate the level of hubris, arrogance and stupidity of the US leadership and mistakenly conclude that since an attack
on Iran makes no sense and the US cannot "win", such an attack will therefore not happen.
Personally, every time I think of a possible US attack on Iran I think of the Israeli attack on Lebanon in 2006 which happened
in spite of the fact that it was plainly visible to everybody that the Israelis were waltzing straight into a conflict which they
could not win and which, in fact, resulted into one of the most abjects defeats in military history. Conversely, while Hezbollah
did win a truly historical victory, it also remains a fact that Hezbollah leaders did not expect the Israelis to launch a full-scale
ground offensive. Finally, history is full of examples of wars which were started in spite of all objective factors indicating that
they would end up in disaster.
It seems to me that in purely military terms (not in political ones!) Israel could be seen as a stand-in for the US and Hezbollah
as a stand-in for Iran and that the outcome of any future US-Iranian war will be very similar to the outcome of the war in 2006,
albeit on a much larger (and bloodier) scale. I am confident that the folks in the Pentagon realize that, but what about their Neocon
bosses – do they even care about Iranian or, for that matter, US casualties? I highly doubt it: all they care about is their power
and messianic ideology.
If it weren't for its nuclear arsenal, the US could be dismissed as a particularly obnoxious country led by ignorant leaders
with bloated and mostly ineffective armed forces. Alas, the US nuclear arsenal is very real (and still very capable) and we know
that
top-level US Neocons have already considered using tactical nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state's conventional force in the
past . In a twisted way, this makes sense: if you are a megalomaniac infused with a sense of messianic superiority then international
or even civilizational norms of behavior are of no interest (or even relevance) to you. Listening to US Presidents, pretty much all
of them (but especially Obama and Trump) it is pretty clear that these folks consider themselves to be the Kulturträger
and the Herrenvolk of the 21st century and their messianism is in no way less delusional than the one of their Nazi predecessors
(or, for that matter, the one of the Popes of the past 1000 years). And why would the people who nuked two Japanese cities under
the (entirely fallacious) pretext of "shortening the war" (almost a humanitarian operation!) not do the same thing in Iran?
Of sure, they probably realize that using nukes will result in a massive political backlash, but they are confident that no matter
what happens in the end, they will always be able to say "screw you!" to the rest of the planet. After all, this is something which
Israel and the US have been doing with almost total inpunity for decades already – why would they stop now? As for the fact that
the Persian people have been dealing with all kinds of invaders since no less than 2500 years will not stop the AngloZionists from
trying to crush them. After all, having laid waste to a country which many see as the cradle of civilization, Iraq, why not do the
same thing to Iran? Iraq, Iran – what's the difference, they are all just "sand niggers" and our red button is bigger than theirs,
right?
Standing up to Shaytân-e Bozorg (almost alone?)
It would be a big mistake to dismiss the US because of its incapable military or moral bankruptcy. The truth is that in terms
of aggregate national power, the US still remains the most powerful country on the planet (even if we don't include nuclear weapons).
Anyone doubting that needs to look how how the currencies of the countries the US is singles out for attack suddenly began slipping:
the Russian ruble (which has since bounced back), the Iranian rial, the Venezuelan bolivar, the
Turkish lira , etc.) or
how little
time it took Trump to bring the (admittedly spineless) Europeans to heel .
As for Russia, for all her military might, she remains only a semi-sovereign country in which the pro-US/pro-Israeli "Atlantic
Integrationists" continue to try to
sabotage (often successfully)
everything Putin and his supporters are doing . I would not place big hopes in China either, especially considering the lack
of meaningful Chinese action in Syria where Russia and Iran did all the heavy lifting.
Sadly, but the only ally Iran can truly count on is Hezbollah. And while Hezbollah is considered a "non-state actor", it has a
formidable capability to strike at the US's colonial masters,
especially in terms of missiles .
This will not protect Iran, but it could serve as a very real deterrent to the Israelis, especially since Hezbollah Secretary
General Hassan Nasrallah he has made it clear that Hezbollah more than capable
of taking on Israel .
Does that look to you like there will be no war against Iran?
I hope so. But to me it very much looks like an attack is pretty much inevitable. I have been predicting such an attack since
2007 and, so far, I have been completely wrong (and thank God for that!). The very first article I ever wrote for my blog was entitled
" Where the Empire meets
to plan the next war " ended with the following words:
So count with yet another imperial war of aggression, a barrel of crude at over 100$ and oil shortages, rocketing inflation,
job losses, a stagnant real estate market and stock exchange, and a national debt and government deficit which would make even
Reagan proud. And plenty of dead Americans (nevermind the Iranians, right?). But don't worry: there will still be a huge supply
of Chinese-made US flags to wave!
And yet, 11 years later, the AngloZionist attack which looked so imminent in 2007 has not happened yet. Could it be that this
time again an attack on Iran can be avoided? Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appears to be very confident that it will not happen. I am not
so sure, but I fervently hope that he is right.
With much joviality and humour, Ukraine prepares to sever all remaining public-transit links
with Russia. I suppose there are still roads, and if you have a car and can afford gas, you
can still drive there.
This, according to the transport minister, is 'like the good old days'. I'll tell you
something else that's like the good old days, Mr. Minister – the living wage in
Ukraine.
And yet Ukraine still seems to think Europe must force Russia to continue transiting
Russian gas through Ukraine, and paying Kuh-yiv for the privilege.
"... Turkey fell into the same deep state bankers financial trap, that Spain Greece Italy fell for. Bail out a vunrable country then pull the rug out ! You own them ! So I would slightly disagree with it being entirely of there own making. I blame the Rothchild family. ..."
At the beginning of the year one U.S. dollar cost 3.5 lira. At the beginning of August it
cost 4.80 lira. It then went up to 7.00 lira/$ and at Friday's closing it was down again at
6.00 TL/$. But Monday morning lira will again
lose more of its value:
Turkey's credit rating was cut further into junk Friday by S&P Global Ratings and Moody's
Investors Service, which said the volatile lira and wide current-account deficit may
undermine the Middle East's largest economy.
S&P reduced Turkey's foreign-currency rating to four notches below investment grade at
B+ from BB-, on par with Argentina, Greece and Fiji. Moody's lowered its grade to Ba3 from
Ba2, three notches below investment grade. The ratings companies said the weak currency,
runaway inflation and current-account deficit are Turkey's key vulnerabilities .
Turkey's crisis is
homemade . The current spat with the United States only exaggerates it. For years Turkey
borrowed large amounts of money from abroad and invested it into local infrastructure instead
of producing exportable products. Its current account deficit this year will again be some $50
to $60 billion. International banks and other foreign lenders now demand interests rates above
20% from Turkish lenders because the chance of losing the lent money is high.
After the 17% crash on August 13 down to 7 TL/$ the Turkish Central Bank used some one-time
measures to support the currency without raising its interest rate. The Turkish president
Erdogan is ideologically adverse to interests and keeps the bank from doing what it must do to
cool the Turkish economy and to stabilize the currency.
Erdogan asked Russia for help but received nothing but good advice. He also called in
favors. When in June 2017 Saudi Arabia's clown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) tried to take
over Qatar and to steal its juicy $350 billion sovereign wealth fund, the emir of Qatar called
on Turkey for help. Erdogan sent the Turkish army and air force. His troops protected Qatar
from a Saudi invasion.
With the lira in trouble the emir flew to Ankara and promised a new $15 billion investment
into Turkey. Additionally some mysterious cargo was unloaded from his plane. That
saved the lira for a few days. But Turkey's structural problems are unsolved. Erdogan is no
longer trusted and his son in law, who he made finance minister, lacks the necessary
qualification for the job.
Thus :
"We forecast a recession next year," S&P said. "Inflation will peak at 22 percent over
the next four months, before subsiding to below 20 percent by mid-2019."
The Qatari move came a few days before its arch enemy Saudi Arabia also moved into the area.
On Friday the U.S. announced that Saudi Arabia would support the U.S. occupied north-east Syria
with 100 million
dollar . The Wahhabi Saudis are now financing the secular Kurdish terror organization
PKK/YPG, the local U.S. proxy in north-east Syria.
If the Saudi clown prince MbS wants to take revenge on Turkey's Erdogan for messing up his
plans for Qatar, he now has his chance.
Posted by b on August 18, 2018 at 03:56 PM |
Permalink
One refinement to add to 'b's outstanding post (how the hell does he do it, miraculous !) as
far as I can see Turkey fell into the same deep state bankers financial trap, that Spain
Greece Italy fell for. Bail out a vunrable country then pull the rug out ! You own them ! So
I would slightly disagree with it being entirely of there own making. I blame the Rothchild
family.
Moody's and S&P ratings agencies are fraudulent institutions. For having AAA rated
billions worth of junk mortgages, they should have been indicted and prosecuted.
Excellent analysis again, b. You surpass yourself. There is something you talk about that has
always intrigued me
"For years Turkey borrowed large amounts of money from abroad and invested it into local
infrastructure instead of producing exportable products."
There is a parallel here with Spain. From entry into the Euro in 1999 the floodgates of
credit opened. Bankers, politicians and builders were involved in creating vast swathes of
speculative urbanization; two airports were built which now stand empty, a formula 1 track
hosted five races before closing, a phantom theme park; huge, almost empty accommodation
complexes, and the list goes on. The ghost airport in Ciudad Real, which cost £1.2
million euros, was sold off to Chinese buyers for a mere 10,000 euros. The "Cajas", the
regional banks, were all bailed out by the government.
Apart from local corruption, which is nothing new, I think there must have been a
deliberate strategy on the part of EU elites not to finance industrial projects that would
generate export currency, and hence compete with EU industrial powers such as Germany (I once
read Spanish academic paper arguing this but have not managed to track it down). When the
same happens in Turkey, obviously not an EU country, you have to wonder whether is it part of
a transatlantic banker strategy: corrupt national elites finance corrupt local elites to
build ghost infrastructures as cheap and shoddy as you can get, the banks that financed it
get bailed out if it all crashes. What's not to like?
Turks can't avoid Greek-style crisis now. The solution calls for a violent swing in trade
balance from huge deficit to sizable surplus, somewhere in a range of $100B. That can't
happen unless people of Turkey are warehoused in slave-labor-condition factories that can be
competitive enough to displace Asian players. That entails bone-crushing fall in living
standards.
All in all, 20 percent decline in GDP is now all but certainty. The longer Erdogan tries to
avoid the harsh medicine, the deeper this cancer goes. He should either bow to IMF, or to
exit NATO, join BRICS and ask for loans from that grouping.
Of course, Turkish military can say bye-bye to its present size. It's unsustainable.
Financial crunch will reduce Turkish armed forces to less than half of their present
size.
And if Erdogan wants to keep his soldiers well-equipped for half the price - which he should
- he'll have to switch to much more reasonably priced Russian weaponry. Once he does that,
even Russia may contribute $10B to his bailout kitty.
Otherwise, Erdogan is a dead man. The economic hurricane barreling his way is only gathering
strength with every passing day. And all he is doing is unfurling umbrellas and increasing
the volume of music.
That list of infrastructure @ Lochern mentions looks geared toward the holiday industry which
in the past has been a major income for Turkey ! Worth at the time perhaps investing in. Very
popular with Eurapians but very popular with Russians. My wild guess would be---- some dodgey
ploy by the west to drive a wedge between Russia and Turky, devideding and ruling both! By
meens of conflict and bank debt .The gains would be numerous long term and short term. But as
already mentioned may back fire and bring Russia and Turkey closer. I hope so.
Much of Turkeys external debt is private and not government . Their BIS controlled central
bank kept interest rates high. This forced Turkish banks to take out loans in USD or Euro
which had lower interest rates to meet loan demands in the private corporate sector , which
they made at higher interest rates after exchanging for Lira. More profitable. The assumption
was there would be a relatively stable exchange rate. So there was risk.
That risk made them vulnerable fx attack by the globalist banking cartel. When Erdogan
took over more control from the TCB last month to reduce interest rates and reduce demand for
foreign loans this was seen as an act of war. The independence of the central bank must be
defended. Trumps additional tarrif increases, mild as they were were simply a symbolic
barking of orders to take Turkey down
Looking at the broader picture. Since the 2008 financial blowout there has been "carry
trade" fueled by zero-cost liquidity pumped into the global system by quantitative easing,
which was then shipped to high-interest emerging markets such as Brazil, Turkey and other
countries.
With the beginning of the Fed's "tapering" of QE and rising interest rates since 2015, the
whole financial system has triggered a "reverse carry trade" where dollars flow out of
emerging markets back to safer havens. This is what you are seeing in Turkey, Argentina,
Russia, Brazil, etc.
The last 10 years are a replay of the decade running up to the 1997/1998 crisis. While the
1985 'Plaza Accord' dollar devaluation was not exactly QE, it had the same intent and results
– a flood of cheap money and dollar debt, and therefore growing global dependence on
the dollar and vulnerability to US monetary and economic policy
Some say countries like Turkey should know better, but countries have little control over
their monetary policy under the global and independent central banking system forced on them.
Go against this system and you will be hit with sanctions , subject to regime change or will
be invaded
So call it a homegrown crisis if thats the reality you choose to live in. Who am I to say
otherwise?
These rating agencies are the same ones that rated junk mortgage bonds AA. They are for sale
to highest bidder or since they haven't been prosecuted for their criminal behavior,
vulnerable to threats from the same political machine that turned a blind eye in 2008.
Turkey may have homegrown economic problems as you have pointed out but they certainly have
even more problems with a vindictive and extremely corrupt Uncle Sam who ruthlessly punish
any and all independent actions.
Another excellent blog B. I agree with many of the above commenters that the breadth and
depth of the analysis on MOA is truly amazing.
Pft@13. Good analysis as well.
However, I would expect that Turkey will not be another Greece. Rather I expect Turkey to
get help from its friends to stabilize its economic position, resist U.S. sanctions and avoid
an IMF bail-out.
With the support of Qatar, and I would expect China as well, I would expect Turkey to
protect its banks. However, it is also possible that they will let some private Turkish
companies, with dollar denominated debts, default. Such defaults, combined with the pressure
that declining dollar liquidity is already putting on other emerging markets and Italy, would
be destabilizing for the Western financial system. Sooner or later, and I suspect sooner, the
FED will be required to start printing money again, which will reverse the dollar's recent
strength and relieve the pressure on Turkey.
At the end of the day, however, I expect that this episode will be another step in the
direction of de-dollarization and will further reduce the ability of the U.S. to use economic
sanctions to bully its adversaries.
A strange paradox of life !
Owe your bank 1000 the bank manager will make you bankrupt, owe the bank a million and he'll
invite you home for dinner ! More to lose !
By this token I'd like to think, the more country's that refuse there debt, the less power
the west will have ! The less credibility and the less fear and influence they can inflict
.
If the west wants to weaponise banking so be it ! Bring it on. Let's pull the rug out from
under the banks/Rothchilds.
Feet ! Natural justice !
Pft @ 13 said:"Some say countries like Turkey should know better, but countries have little
control over their monetary policy under the global and independent central banking system
forced on them. Go against this system and you will be hit with sanctions , subject to regime
change or will be invaded."
CDWaller @ 15 said:"These rating agencies are the same ones that rated junk mortgage bonds
AA. They are for sale to highest bidder or since they haven't been prosecuted for their
criminal behavior, vulnerable to threats from the same political machine that turned a blind
eye in 2008."
There has been a dramatic shift in how the United States government carries out its business
internationally. Admittedly, Washington has had a tendency to employ force to get what it has
wanted ever since 9/11, but it also sometimes recognized that other countries had legitimate
interests and accepted there was a place for diplomacy to resolve issues short of armed
conflict. The Bush Administration reluctance to broaden its engagement in the Middle East after
it recognized that it had blundered with Iraq followed by Obama's relaxation of tensions with
Cuba and his negotiation of a nuclear agreement with Iran demonstrated that sanity sometimes
prevailed in the West Wing.
That willingness to be occasionally accommodating has changed dramatically, with the State
Department under Mike Pompeo currently more prone to deliver threats than any suggestions that
we all might try to get along. It would be reasonable enough to criticize such behavior because
it is intrinsically wrong, but the truly frightening aspect of it would appear to be that it is
based on the essentially neoconservative assumption that other countries will always back down
when confronted with force majeure and that the use of violence as a tool in international
relations is, ultimately, consequence free.
I am particularly disturbed with the consequence free part as it in turn is rooted in the
belief that countries that have been threatened or even invaded have no collective memory of
what occurred and will not respond vengefully when the situation changes. There have been a
number of stunningly mindless acts of aggression over the past several weeks that are
particularly troubling as they suggest that they will produce many more problems down the road
than solutions.
The most recent is the
new sanctioning of Russia over the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury England. For those not
following developments, last week Washington abruptly and
without any new evidence being presented, imposed additional trade sanctions on Russia in
the belief that Moscow ordered and carried out the poisoning of Sergey Skripal and his daughter
Yulia on March 4th. The report of the new sanctions was particularly surprising as Yulia
Skripal has
recently announced that she intends to return to her home in Russia, leading to the
conclusion that even one of the alleged victims does not believe the narrative being promoted
by the British and American governments.
Though Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded with restraint, avoiding a
tit-for-tat, he is reported to be angry about the new move by the US government and now
believes it to be an unreliable negotiating partner. Considering the friendly recent exchanges
between Putin and Trump, the punishment of Russia has to be viewed as something of a surprise,
suggesting that the president of the United States may not be in control of his own foreign
policy.
Turkey is also feeling America's wrath over the continued detention of an American
Protestant Pastor Andrew Brunson by Ankara over charges that he was connected to the coup
plotters of 2016, which were allegedly directed by Fetullah Gulen, a Muslim religious leader,
who now resides in Pennsylvania. Donald Trump has made the detention the
centerpiece of his Turkish policy, introducing sanctions and tariffs that have led in part
to a collapse of the Turkish lira and a run on the banking system which could easily lead to
default and grave damage to European banks that hold a large party of the country's debt.
And then there is perennial favorite Iran, which was hit with reinstated
sanctions last week and is confronting a ban on oil sales scheduled to go into effect on
November 4th. The US has said it will sanction any country that buys Iranian oil after that
date, though a number of governments including Turkey, India and China appear to be prepared to
defy that demand. Several European countries are reportedly preparing mechanisms that will
allow them to trade around US restrictions.
What do Russia, Turkey and Iran have in common? All are on the receiving end of punitive
action by the United States over allegations of misbehavior that have not been demonstrated.
Nobody has shown that Russia poisoned the Skripals, Turkey just might have a case that the
Reverend Brunson was in contact with coup plotters, and Iran is in full compliance with the
nuclear arms agreement signed in 2015. One has to conclude that the United States has now
become the ultimate angry imperial power, lashing out with the only thing that seems to work
– its ability to interfere in and control financial markets – to punish nations
that do not play by its rules.
Given Washington's diminishing clout worldwide, it is a situation that is unsustainable and
which will ultimately only really punish the American people as the United States becomes more
isolated and its imperial overreach bankrupts the nation. As America weakens, Russia, Turkey,
Iran and all the other countries that have been steamrolled by Washington will likely seek
revenge. To avoid that, a dramatic course correction by the US is needed, but, unfortunately,
is unlikely to take place.
According to leading analysts, America decided to take such a tough step because of
Washington's desire to restrain the development of our state as much as possible. However, it
is already clear that such actions on the part of American colleagues will only worsen
relations between the two superpowers. The new sanctions package altogether nullifies all
previous agreements.
"All the positive aspects that have emerged after the meeting of the two presidents in
Helsinki, of course, will be almost completely leveled," the media quoted the statement of the
head of the center for military and political studies Vladimir Batyuk.
According to him, the actions of the us administration threaten with negative consequences,
extremely complicating the further dialogue between Washington and Moscow.
First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on international Affairs Vladimir
dzhabarov, commenting on the situation, said - the United States is trying to "trim the wings"
of Russia.
"The reason is banal – they are trying to restrain the development of Russia. The
Americans themselves understand that our country is now deploying its wings, Russia is on the
rise, it can become a powerful competitor both economically and militarily. Therefore at any
cost try to constrain us", – the member of the Federation Council spoke.
According to dzhabarov, our country has long understood that Russia has no partners in
America. The US is engaged in dirty methods of competition, using a variety of levers to
squeeze Moscow from the EU energy markets.
"But it's useless. The history they, probably, not teaching. Let them read what the
sanctions against Russia led to, " the Senator added.
We will remind, on August 8, the U.S. state Department announced the introduction of new
restrictive measures against Russia. This package of anti-Russian sanctions includes a ban on
the supply of dual-use products to Russia, a decrease in the level of diplomatic relations, an
almost complete cessation of us exports, as well as a ban on flights to the States of the
Russian company Aeroflot.
"... (labs in several countries including the UK have also manufactured it) ..."
"... still refuses to say any such thing ..."
"... Look at this paragraph: ..."
"... "Russia is the official successor state to the USSR. As such, Russia legally took responsibility for ensuring the CWC [Chemical Weapons Convention] applies to all former Soviet Chemical Weapons stocks and facilities." ..."
"... It does not need me to point out, that if Porton Down had identified the nerve agent as made in Russia, the FCO ..."
"... would not have added that paragraph. Plainly they cannot say it was made in Russia. ..."
"... In short, the ruling cited above, even if read in the most improbably forgiving way possible, shows the UK government does not have the information to warrant any of the claims it has so far made about Russian state involvement in the alleged poisoning of the Skripals. It shows the UK government is currently guilty of lying to Parliament, to the British people, and to the world. ..."
"... Imposition of Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act Sanctions on Russia ..."
"... Press Statement ..."
"... Department Spokesperson ..."
"... Following the use of a "Novichok" nerve agent in an attempt to assassinate UK citizen Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal, the United States, on August 6, 2018, determined under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 (CBW Act) that the Government of the Russian Federation has used chemical or biological weapons in violation of international law or has used lethal chemical or biological weapons against its own nationals. ..."
"... Following a 15-day Congressional notification period, these sanctions will take effect upon publication of a notice in the Federal Register, expected on or around August 22, 2018. ..."
All of the sanctions (economic, diplomatic, and otherwise) against Russia are based on
clearly demonstrable intentional falsehoods; and the sanctions which were announced on August
8th are just the latest example of this consistent tragic fact -- a fact which will be proven
here, with links to the evidence, so that anyone who reads here can easily see that all of
these sanctions are founded on lies against Russia.
The latest of these sanctions were announced on Wednesday August 8 th . Reuters
headlined
"US imposes sanctions on Russia for nerve agent attack in UK" and reported that,
"Washington said on Wednesday it would impose fresh sanctions on Russia by the end of August
after it determined that Moscow had used a nerve agent against a former Russian agent and his
daughter in Britain." This was supposedly because "Sergei Skripal, a former colonel in Russia's
GRU military intelligence service, and his 33-year-old daughter, Yulia, were found slumped
unconscious on a bench in the southern English city of Salisbury in March after a liquid form
of the Novichok type of nerve agent was applied to his home's front door. European countries
and the United States expelled 100 Russian diplomats after the attack, in the strongest action
by President Donald Trump against Russia since he came to office."
However, despite intense political pressure that the UK Government and 'news'media had
placed upon the UK's Porton Down intelligence laboratory to assert that the poison had been
made in Russia (labs in several countries including the UK have also manufactured it)
, the Porton Down lab refused to say this. Though the US Government is acting as ifPorton
Down's statement "determined that Moscow had used a nerve agent," the actual fact is that
Porton Down still refuses to say any such thing , at all -- this allegation is merely
a fabrication by the US Government, including its allies, UK's Government and other Governments
and their respective propaganda-media. It's a bald lie.
On March 18th, the great British investigative journalist and former British diplomat Craig
Murray had headlined about UK's Foreign Secretary,
"Boris Johnson Issues Completely New Story on Russian Novichoks" and he pointed to the key
paragraph in the Porton Down lab's statement on this matter -- a brief one-sentence
paragraph:
Look at this paragraph:
"Russia is the official successor state to the USSR. As such, Russia legally took
responsibility for ensuring the CWC [Chemical Weapons Convention] applies to all former Soviet
Chemical Weapons stocks and facilities."
It does not need me to point out, that if Porton Down had identified the nerve agent as
made in Russia, the FCO [Foreign and Commonwealth Office -- UK's foreign ministry]
would not have added that paragraph. Plainly they cannot say it was made in
Russia.
Murray's elliptical report, which unfortunately was unclearly written -- it was rushed, in
order to be able to published on the same day, March 18 th , when the UK's official
response to the Porton Down lab's analysis was published -- was subsequently fully explained on
March 23 rd at the excellent news-site Off-Guardian, which specializes in
investigating and interpreting the news-media (in this case, Craig Murray's article, and the
evidence regarding it); they headlined "Skripal
case: 'closely related agent" claim closely examined'," and concluded their lengthy and
detailed analysis:
In short, the ruling cited above, even if read in the most improbably forgiving way
possible, shows the UK government does not have the information to warrant any of the claims it
has so far made about Russian state involvement in the alleged poisoning of the Skripals. It
shows the UK government is currently guilty of lying to Parliament, to the British people, and
to the world.
Nothing has been published further about the Skripal/Novichoks matter since then, except
speculation that's based on the evidence which was discussed in detail in that March 23
rd article at Off-Guardian.
On the basis of this -- merely an open case which has never been examined in more detail
than that March 23rd analysis did -- the Skripal/Novichok case has been treated by the UK
Government, and by the US Government, and by governments which are allied with them, and by
their news-media, as if it were instead a closed case, in which what was made public
constitutes proof that the Skripals had been poisoned by the Russian Government. On that
blatantly fraudulent basis, over a hundred diplomats ended up being expelled.
The Porton Down lab still refuses to say anything that the UK Government can quote
as an authority confirming that the Skripals had been poisoned by the Russian Government.
All that's left of the matter, then, is a cold case of official lies asserting that proof
has been presented, when in fact only official lies have been presented to the public.
This is the basis upon which the US State Department, on August 8th, issued the following
statement to 'justify' its new sanctions:
Imposition of Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act
Sanctions on Russia
Press Statement
Heather Nauert
Department Spokesperson
Washington, DC
August 8, 2018
Following the use of a "Novichok" nerve agent in an attempt to assassinate UK citizen
Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal, the United States, on August 6, 2018, determined
under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 (CBW Act)
that the Government of the Russian Federation has used chemical or biological weapons in
violation of international law or has used lethal chemical or biological weapons against its
own nationals.
Following a 15-day Congressional notification period, these sanctions will take effect
upon publication of a notice in the Federal Register, expected on or around August 22,
2018.
US law is supposed to be "innocent until proven guilty" -- the opposite of legal systems in
which the contrary assumption applies: "guilty until proven innocent." However, regarding such
matters as invading and destroying Iraq in 2003 upon the basis of no authentic evidence; and
invading and destroying Libya in 2011 on the basis of no authentic proof of anyone's guilt; and
on the basis of invading and for years trying to destroy Syria on the basis of America's
supporting Al Qaeda in Syria against Syria's secular government; and on the basis of lying
repeatedly against Russia in order to load sanction after sanction upon Russia and to 'justify'
pouring its missiles and thousands of troops onto and near Russia's border as if preparing to
invade 'the world's most aggressive country' -- the US federal Government routinely violates
that fundamental supposition of its own legal system ("innocent until proven guilty"), whenever
its rulers wish. And yet, it calls itself a 'democracy'.
Donald Trump constantly says that he seeks improved relations with Russia, but when his own
State Department lies like that in order to add yet further to the severe penalties that it had
previously placed against Russia for its presumed guilt in the Skripal/Novichok matter, then
Trump himself is publicly exposing himself as being a liar about his actual intentions
regarding Russia. He, via his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's State Department, not only is
punishing Russia severely for this unproven allegation, but now adds yet further penalties
against Russia for it. Trump is being demanded by the US Congress to do this, but it is his
choice whether to go along with that demand or else expose that it's based on lies. He likes to
accuse his opponents of lying, but, quite obviously, the members of Congress who are demanding
these hiked rounds of sanctions against Russia are demanding him to do what he actually wants
to do -- which is now clearly demonstrated to be the exact opposite of exposing those lies. If
Trump is moving toward World War III on the basis of lies, then the only way he can stop doing
it is by exposing those lies. He's not even trying to do that.
Nothing is being said in the State Department's cryptic announcement on August 8th that sets
forth any reasonable demand which the US Government is making to the Russian Government, such
that, if the reasonable demand becomes fulfilled by Russia's Government, then the United States
Government and its allies will cease and desist their successive, and successively escalating,
rounds of punishment against Russia.
Russia is being offered no path to peace, but only the reasonable expectation of
escalating lie-based American 'justifications' to perpetrate yet more American-and-allied
aggressions against Russia.
There have been three prior US excuses for applying prior rounds of sanctions against
Russia, and all of them have likewise been based upon lies, and varnished with many layers of
overstatements.
First, in 2012, there was the Magnitsky Act, which was based upon frauds (subsequently
exposed here
and
here and
here ) which assert that Sergei Magnitsky was murdered by the Russian Government. The
evidence (as linked-to there) is conclusive that he was not; but the US Government and its
allies refuse even to consider it.
Then, in 2014, Crimea broke away from Ukraine and joined the Russian Federation, and the US
and its allies allege that this was because Russia under Putin 'seized' Crimea from Ukraine, when in fact
America under Obama had, just weeks prior to that Crimean breakaway, seized Ukraine and turned
it against Russia and against Crimea and the other parts of Ukraine which had voted
overwhelmingly for the democratically elected Ukrainian President whom the Obama regime had
just overthrown in a
bloody coup that had been in the planning ever
since at least 2011 inside the Obama Administration . Several rounds of US-and-allied
economic sanctions were imposed against Russia for that -- for the constant string of lies
against Russia, and of constant cover-ups of
"the most blatant coup in history," which had preceded and caused the breakaway.
These lies originated with Obama; and Trump accuses Obama of lying, but not on this, where
Obama really did lie, psychopathically
. Instead, Trump makes those lies bipartisan. On what counts the most against Obama, Trump
seconds the Obama-lies, instead of exposing them. And yet Trump routinely has accused Obama as
having lied, even on matters where it's actually Trump who has been lying about Obama.
Then, there have been the anti-Russia sanctions that are based upon Russiagate and 'Trump is
Putin's stooge and stole the election.' That case against Russia has not been proven, and
Wikileaks' founder Julian Assange says that what he had published were leaks from the DNC and
Podesta's computer, not hacks at all; and yet the sanctions were imposed almost as soon as the
Democratic Party's accusations started. Those sanctions, too, are utterly baseless except as
being alleged responses to unproven (and likely false) allegations . Furthermore, even in
the worst-case scenario: the US Government itself routinely overthrows foreign governments, and
continues tapping the phones and electronic communications of foreign governments, and
manipulating elections abroad. Even in the worst-case scenario, Russia hasn't done anything
that historians haven't already proven that the US Government itself routinely does. That's the
case even if Russia is guilty as charged, on all of the U.S-and-allied
accusations.
Either the lies will stop, or else we all will. Trump, as usual, is on the
wrong side of the lies . And he seems to be too much of a coward to oppose them, in these
cases, which are the most dangerous lies of all. This is how we could all end. Doing something
heroic that would stop it, seems to be way beyond him -- he doesn't even try. That's the type
of cowardice which should be feared, and despised, the most of all. Trump has taken up Obama's
worst, and he runs with it. Trump had promised the opposite, during his Presidential campaign.
But this is the reality of Trump -- a profoundly filthy liar -- at least insofar as he has,
thus far, shown himself to be. What he will be in the future is all that remains in question.
But this is what he has been, up till now.
Bread and circuses are integral parts of empire building – especially in promoting
urban street mobs to overthrow independent and elected governments.
Imperial financed mobs – provided the cover for CIA backed coups in Iran (1954),
Ukraine (2014), Brazil (1964), Venezuela (2003, 2014 and 2017), Argentina (1956), Nicaragua
(2018), Syria (2011) and Libya (2011) among other places and other times.
Masses for empire draw paid and voluntary street fighters who speak for democracy and serve
the elite. The "mass cover" is especially effective in recruiting leftists who look to the
street for opinion and ignore the suites which call the shots.
"... For nearly 100 years, Russia has been under US sanctions, often to the detriment of American national security. ..."
"... Historically, such sanctions were not problem-solving measures advancing American national security but more akin to temper tantrums or road rage, making things even worse, than to real policymaking. ..."
"... US "core" interests "need" Russia's cooperation in many vital ways. ..."
"... Moscow could sell off its billions of dollars of US Treasury securities ..."
"... It could end titanium exports to the United States ..."
"... Nor have four other circumstances. ..."
"... turning away even more from the West and toward China and other non-Western partners, and by developing its own capacity to produce sanctioned imports. ..."
"... in an era when there is no "globalization," or international security, without Russia. ..."
"... with the apparently solitary exception of Rand Paul of Kentucky, ..."
"... is in response to Russia's alleged "attack on American democracy" during the 2016 presidential election . ..."
"... only the kind of "meddling" and "interference" in the other's domestic politics that both countries have practiced, almost ritualistically, for nearly a hundred years. ..."
"... to thwart and even punish President Donald Trump for his policy of "cooperation with Russia." And Putin too for having met and cooperated with Trump at their Helsinki summit in July. ..."
For nearly 100 years, Russia has been under US sanctions, often to the detriment of American national security.
Cohen begins by putting the current bipartisan Senate campaign to impose new, "crushing" sanctions on Russia in historical context.
Broadly understood, sanctions have been part of US policy toward Russia for much of the past 100 years. During the Russian civil
war of 1918-20, President Woodrow Wilson sent American troops to fight against the emerging Soviet government. Though the "Reds"
were clearly the established government of Soviet Russia by 1921, Washington continued to deny the USSR diplomatic recognition until
President Franklin D. Roosevelt established formal relations in 1933. During much of the 40-year Cold War, the United States imposed
various sanctions on its superpower rival, mainly related to technological and military exports, along with periodic expulsions of
diplomats and "spies" on both sides.
Congress' major political contribution was the 1975 Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which denied Moscow privileged trading status with
the United States, primarily because of Kremlin restrictions on Jewish emigration from the Soviet Union. Indicative of how mindlessly
habitual US sanctions had become, Jackson-Vanik was nullified only in late 2012, long after the end of the Soviet Union and after
any restrictions on Jews leaving (or returning to) Russia. Even more indicative, it was immediately replaced, in December 2012, by
the Magnitsky Act, which purported to sanction individual Russian officials and "oligarchs" for "human-rights abuses." The Magnitsky
Act remains law, supplemented by additional sanctions leveled against Russia as a result of the 2014 Ukrainian crisis and particularly
Moscow's annexation of Crimea.
Looking back over this long history, there is no evidence that any US sanctions ever significantly altered Moscow's "behavior"
in ways that were intended. Or that they adversely affected Russia's ruling political or financial elites. Any pain inflicted fell
on ordinary citizens, who nonetheless rallied "patriotically" around the Kremlin leadership, most recently around Russian President
Vladimir Putin. Historically, such sanctions were not problem-solving measures advancing American national security but more
akin to temper tantrums or road rage, making things even worse, than to real policymaking.
Why, then, Washington's new bout of sanction mania against Moscow, especially considering the harsh official Russian reaction
expressed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, who called the Senate's proposed measures "a declaration of economic war" and promised
that the Kremlin would retaliate?
One explanation is an underlying, astonishing assumption recently
stated by Michael McFaul , the media-ubiquitous
former US ambassador to Moscow and a longtime Russia scholar: "To advance almost all of our core national security and economic interests,
the US does not need Russia." Such a statement by a former or current policymaker and intellectual is perhaps unprecedented in modern
times - and manifestly wrong. US "core" interests "need" Russia's cooperation in many vital ways. They include avoiding
nuclear war; preventing a new and more dangerous arms race; guarding against the proliferation of weapons and materials of mass destruction;
coping with international terrorists (who are in pursuit of such materials); achieving lasting peace in Syria and elsewhere in the
Middle East; fostering prosperity and stability in Europe, of which Russia is a part; promoting better relations with the Islamic
world, of which Russia is also a part; and avoiding a generation-long confrontation with a formidable new alliance that already includes
Russia, China, Iran, and other non-NATO countries. If McFaul's assumption is widespread in Washington, as it seems to be, we are
living in truly unwise and perilous times.
A second assumption is no less myopic and dangerous: that the Kremlin is weak and lacks countermeasures to adopt against the new
sanctions being advocated in Washington. Consider, however, the following real possibilities. Moscow could sell off its billions
of dollars of US Treasury securities and begin trading with friendly nations in non-dollar currencies, both of which it has
already begun to do. It could restrict, otherwise undermine, or even shut down many large US corporations long doing profitable business
in Russia, among them Citibank, Cisco Systems, Apple, Microsoft, PepsiCo, McDonald's, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Ford Motor
Co., and even Boeing. It could end titanium exports to the United States , which are vital to American civilian and military
aircraft manufacturers, including Boeing. And terminate the sale of rocket engines essential for NASA and US satellite operations.
The world's largest territorial country, Russia could charge US airlines higher tariffs for their regular use of its air space or
ban them altogether, making them uncompetitive against other national carriers. Politically, the Kremlin could end its own sanctions
on Iran and North Korea, alleviating Washington's pressure on those governments. And it could end the Russian supply transit to US
troops fighting in Afghanistan used since the early 1990s.
None of this seems to have been considered by Washington's sanction zealots. Nor have four other circumstances. Sanctions
against Russia's "oligarchs" actually help Putin, whom the US political-media establishment so despises and constantly indicts. For
years, he has been trying to persuade many of the richest oligarchs to repatriate their offshore wealth to Russia. Few did so. Now,
fearful of having their assets abroad frozen or seized by US measures, more and more are complying. Second, new sanctions limiting
Moscow's ability to borrow and finance investment at home will retard the country's still meager growth rate . But the Kremlin coped
after the 2014 sanctions and will do so again by turning away even more from the West and toward China and other non-Western
partners, and by developing its own capacity to produce sanctioned imports. (Russian agricultural production, for example, has
surged in recent years, now becoming a major export industry.) Third, already unhappy with existing economic sanctions against Russia,
European multinational corporations - and thus Europe itself - may tilt even farther away from their capricious "transatlantic partner"
in Washington, who is diminishing their vast market in the East. And fourth, waging "economic war" is one impulsive step from breaking
off all diplomatic relations with Russia, this too actually being discussed by Washington zealots. Such a rupture would turn the
clock back many decades, but in an era when there is no "globalization," or international security, without Russia.
Finally, what reason do Washington extreme Cold Warriors themselves give for imposing new sanctions on Russia? Most of them are
in the US Senate, historically a body with at least several independent-minded distinguished statesmen, but no longer, with the
apparently solitary exception of Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has demonstrated considerable wisdom in regard to US-Russian relations.
Their professed reasons are various and nonsensical. Some say Russia must be sanctioned for Ukraine, but those events happened four
years ago and have already been "punished." Others say for "Russia's aggression in Syria," but it was Putin's military intervention
that destroyed the Islamic State's terrorist occupation of much of the country and ended its threat to take Damascus, to the benefit
of America and its allies, including Europe and Israel. Still others insist the Kremlin must be sanctioned for its "nerve agent"
attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK several months ago. But the British government's case against the Kremlin has
virtually fallen apart, as any attentive reader of articles in David Johnson's Russia
List will understand.
Ultimately, though, the new bout of sanction mania is in response to Russia's alleged "attack on American democracy" during
the 2016 presidential election . In reality, there was no "attack" - no Pearl Harbor, no 9/11, no Russian parachuters descending
on Washington - only the kind of "meddling" and "interference" in the other's domestic politics that both countries have practiced,
almost ritualistically, for nearly a hundred years. Indeed, whatever "meddling" Russian actors did in 2016 may well have been
jaywalking compared to the Clinton administration's massive, highly intrusive political and financial intervention on behalf of the
failing Russian President Boris Yeltsin's reelection campaign in 1996.
We are left, then, with the real reason behind the new anti-Russian sanctions effort: to thwart and even punish President
Donald Trump for his policy of "cooperation with Russia." And Putin too for having met and cooperated with Trump at their Helsinki
summit in July. This bizarre, also unprecedented, reality is more than a whisper. According to a
New York Times "news
analysis," as well as other published reports,
a "bipartisan group of senators, dismayed that Mr. Trump had not publicly confronted Mr. Putin over Russia's election meddling,
released draft legislation" of new sanctions against Moscow. "Passage of such a bill would impose some of the most damaging sanctions
yet."
Leave aside for now that it is not Russian "meddling" that is delegitimizing our elections but instead these fact-free allegations
themselves that are doing so. (How many losing candidates in 2018 will claim their victory was snatched away by Putin?) Consider
instead that for doing what every American president since Eisenhower has done - meet with the sitting Kremlin leader in order to
avoid stumbling into a war between the nuclear superpowers - in effect both Trump and Putin are being condemned by the Washington
establishment, including by members of Trump's own intelligence agencies.
If so, who will avert the prospect of war with Russia, a new Cuban missile-like crisis, conceivably in the Baltic region, Ukraine,
or Syria? Certainly not any leading representative of the Democratic Party. Certainly not the current Russophobic "bipartisan" Senate.
Certainly not the most influential media outlets, which amplify the warmongering folly almost daily. In this most existential regard,
there is for now only, like it or not, President Donald Trump.
Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their
(usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at
TheNation.com .
Comment: As Cohen brilliantly points out - sanctions, for the US, are a dead end.
"Washington allies with ISIS as great power conflict trumps "war on terror"
7 August 2018
The "National Defense Strategy" document released at the beginning of this year declared
bluntly that the nearly two-decade focus by the US military on the so-called "global war on
terrorism" had come to an end. In its place, a new strategic orientation was being introduced
based on preparing for "great power" confrontation, i.e., war with nuclear-armed Russia and
China.
This was the first such defense strategy to be issued by the Pentagon in over a decade and
expressed the urgency with which Washington views the preparations for a third world war.
A particularly crude and criminal outcome of this policy shift is becoming increasingly
apparent in three major theaters where US forces are engaged in active combat operations.
Reports from Yemen, Syria and Afghanistan provide firm evidence that the US and its local
proxies are allying themselves with and employing the services of elements of ISIS and Al
Qaeda in the pursuit of Washington's broader strategic interests.
In Yemen, hundreds, if not thousands, of fighters from Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula
(AQAP), branded by the US government as the "most dangerous" affiliate of the loose
international Al Qaeda network, have been recruited by Washington's closest allies in the
Arab world, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to fight as foot soldiers in the
near-genocidal US-backed war that these Persian Gulf oil monarchies have been waging against
the impoverished country of Yemen since 2015.
According to an investigative report published Monday by the Associated Press, the
Saudi-led coalition "cut secret deals with al-Qaida fighters, paying some to leave key cities
and towns and letting others retreat with weapons, equipment and wads of looted cash Hundreds
more were recruited to join the coalition itself."
It added that "Key participants in the pacts said the US was aware of the arrangements and
held off on any drone strikes."
"Elements of the US military are clearly aware that much of what the US is doing in Yemen
is aiding AQAP and there is much angst about that," Michael Horton, a senior analyst at the
Jamestown Foundation, a CIA-connected Washington think tank, told the AP.
"However, supporting the UAE and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia against what the US views as
Iranian expansionism takes priority over battling AQAP and even stabilizing Yemen," Horton
added.
This is a gross understatement. Washington is providing indispensable military support for
a war that has reduced millions of Yemenis to the brink of starvation. It is prepared to wipe
out much of the country's population in order to bolster its strategic position and that of
the reactionary Arab regimes with which it is allied against the perceived threat of Iranian
influence to US regional hegemony.
The war has escalated in recent days in the ongoing siege of the Yemeni Red Sea Port of
Hodeidah, which was green-lighted by the Trump administration. The UN has warned that a
quarter of a million people could lose their lives in this operation, while millions more
across the country may die of starvation if it shuts down the port, the sole lifeline for
food, fuel and medicine for at least 70 percent of the population.
Recruiting Al Qaeda fighters to slaughter Yemenis in this immense and bloody war crime is
entirely consistent with US policy.
In regard to Syria, meanwhile, Russia's Defense Ministry last Thursday issued a statement
warning that ISIS has increasingly concentrated its forces in the area around al-Tanaf, near
the Syrian-Iraqi border, where the US military maintains a military base and has unilaterally
declared a 34-mile exclusion zone around it. US troops there have provided training to
so-called "rebels" opposing the government of President Bashar al-Assad and appear to be
providing a security screen for ISIS."
"Under the mantle of the "war on terrorism," successive US governments, Democratic and
Republican alike, have not only conducted wars whose victims number in the millions, but also
carried out an unrelenting attack on democratic rights, from domestic spying to censoring the
Internet.
The emerging international alliance between the Pentagon and ISIS only serves to expose
the real interests underlying these policies, which are bound up with the waging of war to
offset US imperialism's loss of economic preeminence and defend its crumbling global
hegemony, and domestic repression to sustain a social order characterized by the most extreme
inequality in modern American history."
"While many of the countries that have received detainees have chosen to keep quiet about
the repatriations, the Pentagon confirmed on Tuesday that the Republic of Macedonia had taken
custody of a group of foreign fighters.
"Today's transfer of Foreign Terrorist Fighters to their country of origin, Macedonia, marks
a significant milestone in the much-needed cooperative effort to combat the global threat of
terrorism," Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon told CNN."
Huh? Are the Westie media not even pretending any more, that they are fighting
against the terrorists? Most of us know that was B.S. anyhow, but the broader
(ignoramuses) public, the kind of morons who watch CNN every day, were not ever supposed to
be let in on that little secret.
"... So why should you care? Why does that matter to you or me? Well, like most emerging market financial crisis there is the danger of contagion . ..."
"... Turkey's economy is four times the size of Greece, and roughly equal in size to Lehman Brothers circa 2008. ..."
"... Turkey's other borders face six nations: Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Armenia, and Nakhchivan, a territory affiliated with Azerbaijan. Five of those are involved in ongoing armed conflicts or outright war. ..."
"... NATO has long outlived its' usefulness. Cancel its' stipend and bring our soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen and women home! Put them to work here. Fighting fires. ..."
"... NATO only seems to be useful to the hegemony that supports it. Peace is not it's mission. ..."
By now you've probably heard that Turkey is having a financial crisis, and Trump appears to be pouring gasoline on it.
But you may not understand what is happening, or you may not know why it's important.
So let's do a quick recap
.
Turkey's currency fell to a new record low today. Year to date it's lost almost half its value, leading some investors and
lenders inside and outside of Turkey to lose confidence in the Turkish economy.
...
"Ninety percent of external public and private sector debt is denominated in foreign currencies," he said.
Here's the problem. Because of the country's falling currency, that debt just got a lot more expensive.
A Turkish business now effectively owes twice as much as it did at the beginning of the year. "You are indebted in the U.S.
dollar or euro, but your revenue is in your local currency," explained Lale Akoner, a market strategist with Bank of New York
Mellon's Asset Management business. She said Turkey's private sector currently owes around $240 billion in foreign debt.
This is all about hot money that has been washing around in a world of artificially low interest rates, and now, finally, an
external shock happened. As it
always happens .
The bid-ask spread, or the difference between the price dealers are willing to buy and sell the lira at, has widened beyond
the gap seen at the depth of the global financial crisis in 2008, following Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.'s collapse.
So why should you care? Why does that matter to you or me? Well, like most emerging market financial crisis there is the
danger of contagion
.
The turmoil follows a similar currency crash in Argentina that led to a rescue by the International Monetary Fund. In recent
days, the Russian ruble, Indian rupee and South African rand have also tumbled dramatically.
Investors are waiting for the next domino to fall. They're on the lookout for signs of a repeat of the 1997-1998 Asian financial
crisis that began when the Thai baht imploded.
A minor currency devaluation of the Thai baht in 1997 eventually led to 20% of the world's population being thrust into poverty.
It led to Russia defaulting in 1998, LTCM requiring a Federal Reserve bailout, and eventually Argentina defaulting in 2001.
Turkey's economy is four times the size of Greece, and roughly equal in size to Lehman Brothers circa 2008.
The markets want Turkey to run to the IMF for a loan, but that would require a huge interest rate hike and austerity measures
that would thrust Turkey into a long depression. However, that isn't the
biggest obstacle .
The second is that Erdogan would have to bury his hatchet with the United States, which remains the IMF's largest shareholder.
Without U.S. support, Turkey has no chance of securing an IMF bailout program.
There is another danger, a political one and not so much an economic one, that could have dramatic implications.
If Erdogan isn't overthrown, or humbled, then there is an ironclad certainty that Turkey will
leave NATO and
the West.
Turkey, unlike Argentina, does not seem poised to turn to the International Monetary Fund in order to stave off financial collapse,
nor to mend relations with Washington.
If anything, the Turkish President looks to be doubling down in challenging the US and the global financial markets -- two
formidable opponents.
...
Turkey would probably no longer view the US as a reliable partner and strategic ally.
Whoever ends up leading the country, a wounded Turkey would most likely seek to shift the center of gravity away from the West
and toward Russia, Iran and Eurasia.
It would make Turkey less in tune with US and European objectives in the Middle East, meaning Turkey would seek to assert a
more independent security and defense policy.
Erdogan has warned Trump that Turkey would
"seek new friends" , although Russia and China haven't yet stepped up to the plate to bat for him.
Russia, Iran and China do have a common interest when in comes to undermining the
petrodollar . Pulling Turkey into their sphere of influence would be a coup.
Turkey lies at a historic, strategic crossroad. The
bridge between the peaceful West and the war-ridden dictatorships of the East that the West likes to bomb.
On its Western flank, Turkey borders Greece and Bulgaria, Western-facing members of the European Union. A few years ago, Turkey
-- a member of NATO -- was preparing the join Europe as a full member.
Turkey's other borders face six nations: Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Armenia, and Nakhchivan, a territory affiliated with
Azerbaijan. Five of those are involved in ongoing armed conflicts or outright war.
Losing Turkey would be a huge setback for NATO, the MIC, and the permanent war machine.
more struggling economies are starting to get it. Trade wealth for the rulers (IMF supporters) to be paid by the rest of us.
Fight back. Squeeze the bankers balls. Can't have our resources, now way, no how, without a fight.
in a flailing Turkey? Weren't there some outside potential takers encouraging China when it floated its currency proposal?
Nastarana on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 8:41pm
NATO has long outlived its' usefulness. Cancel its' stipend and bring our soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen and women home! Put them to work here. Fighting fires.
Patrolling our shores for drug running and toxic dumping. Teaching school, 10 kids per class maximum. Refurbishing buildings and
housing stock. Post Cold War, an military alliance with Turkey makes no sense.
Ukraine has huge problems because far right nationalists while hate corruption, do not control economics and oligarchs who
control it do not intent to share their profits with the population, who is on the edge of starvation.
Breaking economic ties with Russia helped to relegate Ukraine to semi-colonial status as without cooperation with Russian
industries and access to Russian market (which they know very well) many Ukrainian manufacturing industries are less
viable..
Ukraine was already converted into debt-slave, and it is extremely difficult to climb out of this hole without default.
At the same time it serves are powerful anti-Russian force in the region and as such will be semi-supported by both the USA
and EU. for example attacks on Ukrainian currency probably will be avoided.
This is a variant of " don't cry for me Argentina" situation.
Notable quotes:
"... Notably that while the west is gradually leaning toward dumping Ukraine and hoping Russia will solve the problem, the warning signs are there that Russia has no intention of bailing out an exhausted Ukraine, and that this time it is going to be allowed to fail all the way down. The west should be warned that nobody is riding to the rescue and pouring their resources into stabilizing Ukraine – if the west cannot do it, the alternative is collapse and draining emergency work to keep the population from starvation. Prosperity is an impossible dream now, and the people – I think – would be pretty happy to be back where they were before the glorious Maidan. ..."
"... Interestingly, something that was not touched upon in the 'Necessary' section was the elimination of the oligarchy in Kiev and other major cities. I will declare frankly that I have no idea how this might be achieved – as discussed before several times, the Ukrainian oligarchs control something in the order of 70% of Ukrainian GDP, and are not about to gift any of it back to the Ukrainian state. ..."
"... You'll know there's no more money in Ukraine when the oligarchs leave, and I see no sign of that so far, while it is evident they intend to be a big part of any future rebuilding. They've already successfully stolen most of the IMF money, and plainly think an even bigger payday is still in the offing. ..."
"... Eventually, if the USA is unsuccessful in forcing the outbreak of another world war, the west will get around to either asking Russia to help, or trying to dump Ukraine on Russia. ..."
"... Whatever happens, the dream of Ukrainian nationalists to forge a great and powerful ... nation of Ukraine is always going to remain that – a dream. They're happy enough at present scampering about in the ruins and glorying in their imagination of great power, but they are kings of the dungheap without any clue of nation-building. ..."
"... The few who both hated Russia and honestly aspired to a Great Ukraine – free of corruption and able to pay its way through judicious management of its undeniable resources and casting off the peasant mentality – have no influence, and operate at the pleasure of the power-brokers; they are allowed to dabble at anti-corruption until their probing becomes uncomfortable, and then they are discredited and fired, if not charged with the crimes they say they are investigating. ..."
That is indeed an interesting piece – generally speaking, we most enjoy writing with
which we agree, and I mostly agree with it and feel the ring of familiarity, because some of
it is what we have been saying here for a couple of years. Notably that while the west is
gradually leaning toward dumping Ukraine and hoping Russia will solve the problem, the
warning signs are there that Russia has no intention of bailing out an exhausted Ukraine, and
that this time it is going to be allowed to fail all the way down. The west should be warned
that nobody is riding to the rescue and pouring their resources into stabilizing Ukraine
– if the west cannot do it, the alternative is collapse and draining emergency work to
keep the population from starvation. Prosperity is an impossible dream now, and the people
– I think – would be pretty happy to be back where they were before the glorious
Maidan.
Interestingly, something that was not touched upon in the 'Necessary' section was the
elimination of the oligarchy in Kiev and other major cities. I will declare frankly that I
have no idea how this might be achieved – as discussed before several times, the
Ukrainian oligarchs control something in the order of 70% of Ukrainian GDP, and are not about
to gift any of it back to the Ukrainian state.
But for so long as Ukraine continues to elect one oligarch after another to the office of
President, the oligarch of the moment will be far more occupied with increasing his/her
personal wealth and power, and settling scores with rivals, than with governance and
accountability. At the same time, there is no use hoping the President will be a poor man or
woman, because they generally do not have the worldly education to grasp the problem and
envision solutions while being simultaneously beset from all sides by the oligarchy, seeking
to retain its power and influence.
You'll know there's no more money in Ukraine when the oligarchs leave, and I see no
sign of that so far, while it is evident they intend to be a big part of any future
rebuilding. They've already successfully stolen most of the IMF money, and plainly think an
even bigger payday is still in the offing.
The United States has largely forgotten Ukraine, as it was only ever a pretext for a
full-court press against Russia anyway, and it now has enough Russophobia sustainment in its
ditzy population to press forward without the need to invoke sympathy for Ukraine. Europe is
still quite interested in a resolution, but only because of its fear that it is going to get
stuck with the booby prize, and be made to assume responsibility for getting Ukraine on its
feet somehow, perhaps even absorbing it. Eventually, if the USA is unsuccessful in
forcing the outbreak of another world war, the west will get around to either asking Russia
to help, or trying to dump Ukraine on Russia.
Whatever happens, the dream of Ukrainian nationalists to forge a great and powerful
... nation of Ukraine is always going to remain that – a dream. They're happy enough at
present scampering about in the ruins and glorying in their imagination of great power, but
they are kings of the dungheap without any clue of nation-building.
The few who both hated Russia and honestly aspired to a Great Ukraine – free of
corruption and able to pay its way through judicious management of its undeniable resources
and casting off the peasant mentality – have no influence, and operate at the pleasure
of the power-brokers; they are allowed to dabble at anti-corruption until their probing
becomes uncomfortable, and then they are discredited and fired, if not charged with the
crimes they say they are investigating.
Well said. Presumably, the Donbass will pull away from Ukraine and vote to joint Russia and
Russia will approve for any number of reasons but certainly including humanitarian,
ethnic/cultural connections and military considerations. Other regions such as Odessa could
jump aboard as well.
There may be a mass exodus from what is left – the grifter to the West and those
seeking a better life to the east. The Nazis will remain behind and may serve some purpose
such as providing a pool of mercenaries for CIA projects.
I, for one, do not think the Donbass will be an overwhelming economic burden in the long
run. The population has shown resolve and resilience. Given leadership and material aid, they
can rebuild fairly quickly I think.
It took more than 20 years for littoral states of the Caspian Sea to reach an agreement that
would lay the legal foundations for the full utilization of the region's resources. The Fifth
Caspian Summit in Aktau, Kazakhstan, brought the long-sought breakthrough after leaders of
Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Iran signed the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea
– a remarkable feat considering that heretofore, barring bilateral deals, the Caspian has
been governed by an obsolete 1940 convention between the Soviet Union (of which four current
littoral states were a part) and Iran.
As the current Convention incorporates a plethora of tradeoffs between countries, let's look
at them in greater detail so as to grasp the implications of the deal.
The Convention stipulates that relations between littoral states shall be based on
principles of national sovereignty, territorial integrity, equality among members, non-use of
threat of force (it was only 17 years ago that Azerbaijan and Iran almost started a full-blown
naval war over contested fields) and non-intervention.
The military-related clauses of the document can be considered a net diplomatic success for
the Russian Federation as it prohibits the physical presence of any third-party armed forces,
along with banning the provision of a member state's territory to acts of aggression against
any other littoral state. Since Russia is by far the most power nation in terms of both general
military clout and military presence around the Caspian, this will placate Russian fears about
any potential US (or other) encroachment in the area.
Then there's energy... Although the Convention establishes a general legal framework for
territorial disputes to be solved, it refrains from any particularities. Therefore prolonged
negotiations are to be expected with regard to many disputed oilfields, stemming predominantly
from Irani and Azerbaijani claims . Iran advocated throughout the entire negotiation process an
egalitarian approach to delimiting the seabed (each nation would get 20% of the coast), running
counter the other countries' aspirations. The things is that when Russia concluded its seabed
delimitation agreements with Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan in 2001 and 2003, respectively, the
parties split their parts using the median line. Point 8.1. effectively keeps the delimitation
task in the hands of relevant governments, thereby providing a very modest boost to the
demarcation of the Southern Caspian (the Northern part is fully delimited).
There are two main territorial conflicts to be settled – the Irani-Azerbaijani and the
Azerbaijani-Turkmen disputes. The row between Baku and Teheran revolves around the
Araz-Alov-Sharg field (discovered in 1985-1987 by Soviet geologists), the reserves of which are
estimated at 300 million tons of oil and 395 BCm of natural gas. Even though the field is only
90 kilometers away from Baku and should seemingly be under Azerbaijan's grip, if one is to draw
a straight line from the Azerbaijani-Irani border most of the field ought to be allotted to
Iran (the median would keep most of it in Azerbaijan). As those old enough to remember the 2001
naval ship hostilities would attest, it does matter at what angle the final line is drawn.
The Serdar/Kapaz field (estimated to contain 50 million tons of oil) is the bone of
contention between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Considered to be an extension of Azerbaijan's
main oil-producing unit, the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli field, Baku sees it as an indispensable
element in its quest to mitigate decreasing oil output numbers. Geographically, Serdar/Kapaz is
closer to Turkmenistan, yet here too Azerbaijan might come out the ultimate winner. The
Apsheron peninsula stretches out some 60km into the Caspian Sea, in effect extending
Azerbaijan's geographical reach. Absent previous demarcation agreements between Baku and
Ashgabat, the settlement will once again boil down to getting the angles right, as in the case
of Araz-Alov-Sharg. However, it must be said that a resolution might come about as a by-product
of new gas endeavors.
Clause 14, dealing with laying subsea pipelines and cables, is the one most coveted by
energy analysts , since it has the potential to significantly alter Europe's gas supply
options.
According to point 14.2., all parties have the right to construct subsea pipelines given
that they comply with environmental standards (which are particularly strict in the Caspian
Sea). With no further caveat included, some analysts might be tempted to think that Russia will
inevitably use the "environmental protection" card when trying to stop the construction of the
Trans-Caspian pipeline (TCP) from Turkmenistan, a pipeline it spent many years to halt .
Under current circumstances, when US-Russian relations falling ever deeper into an
insurmountable ditch, Moscow's decision to allow for the construction of the mightily
Washington-backed TCP to take place might be perceived as a massive omission.
Since the Turkmen gas is unlikely to find demand in Azerbaijan or Turkey, it would need to
take the whole route via the South Caucasus Pipeline, TANAP and TAP. Merely the transportation
tariffs from these pipelines would render any transportation economically unviable unless
European gas prices rise substantially to levels above $300/MCm. Moreover, the estimated cost
of building the subsea TCP of $2 billion is a disabling burden for either Türkmengaz or
SOCAR. Thus, allowing the construction of Trans Caspian gas pipelines might be a brilliant ruse
from the Russians – cognizant of all the deficiencies above, they can wield it as a sign
of good will in their never-ending negotiations with the European the economics for supplying
gas to Europe via the Southern Gas Corridor are far from being Union.
This being said, there are natural impediments to see the TCP implemented anytime soon.
Azerbaijan might be interested in getting transit fees for Turkmen natural gas, yet it lacks
the required infrastructure to include the above volumes in its traditional conduit via
Turkey.
All in all, the Caspian convention is a good basis for further negotiations, even though it
falls short of being an all-encompassing legal framework. Territorial disputes will most likely
remain frozen for quite some time and no new gas pipeline projects will see the light of day
unless market conditions change.
Patient Observer says:
August 6, 2018 at 1:46 pmPublic opinion polling suggests that many Americans would
not think twice if there were a great many casualties against evildoers. For example, a
2017 survey found that 60 percent of Americans would support a nuclear attack on Iran that
would kill 20 million civilians, to prevent an invasion that might kill 20,000 American
soldiers.
"We were not surprised by the finding that most Americans place a higher
value on the life of an American soldier than the life of a foreign noncombatant.
What was surprising, however, was the radical extent of that preference.
Our experiments suggest that the majority of Americans find a 1:100 risk ratio
to be morally acceptable. They were willing to kill 2 million Iranian civilians to
save 20,000 U.S. soldiers. One respondent who approved of the conventional
air strike that killed 100,000 Iranian civilians candidly expressed even more
extreme
preferences regarding proportionality and risk ratios, while displacing
U.S. responsibility for the attack onto the Iranian people: "I would sacrifice
1 million enemies versus 1 of our military. Their choice, their death."
But the state of American 'journalism' is such that the media must portray America as
winning, and will not acknowledge catastrophe until major damage has already been done, because
it is patriotic to report on American success.
FYI Officials from three leading US groups that support increased exports of US LNG separately
addressed concerns on Aug. 3 over the Chinese Ministry of Commerce's announcement that
tariffs ranging 5-25% will be imposed on US LNG.
"China's retaliation will hit America's energy industry particularly hard," said
American Petroleum Institute Vice-Pres. for Regulatory and Economic Policy Kyle Isakower.
"American oil and gas already hit by US tariffs on industrial products and specialty steel
essential to our industry will now be faced with Chinese tariffs on critical US exports,
affecting American jobs that rely directly and indirectly on the energy industry."
August 5, 2018 at 7:17 pm Oh, look; Ukraine already is down to about half the gas in
storage that it will need for winter. Turning to the west certainly made it
'energy-independent' at least to the extent that the west must 'lend' it money to buy gas which
is reverse-flowed from eastern-European countries so that all the Russian is squeezed out of
it, and it becomes European freedom gas. Nice work if you can get it, and since Ukraine will
not be able to pay it back, it becomes a gift! Why worry, as long as Uncle Sugar is paying the
bills?
Speaking of gas, once-bitten-twice-shy Bulgaria is eager to get a piece of the action,
signifying up front its willingness to tap into Turkish Stream for transit to Europe.
There seems to be a tremendously broad American – and western – assumption that
US production is going to 'soar' and continue to ramp ever upward. Is it? Bear in mind that
the USA's own consumption of natural gas is growing steadily, at least partly based on this
assumption that natural-gas bounty will just continue to increase. What if it doesn't? Then
America will have refashioned itself as another huge natural-gas market which has
insufficient domestic supply to sustain itself.
The headline is pure tabloid and not supported in the body of the article apart from
'opinions' by certain people or through use of qualifiers. This is not journalism .
Only further proof in my opinion that Euractiv has become part of the EU's unofficial
channels of hybrid warfare . Euractiv/Neuters has also expanded in to the Balkans to
provide 'services' in Croatia/Serbia etc. which just so happens to coincide with all the
shrill headlines about Russia 'influencing the Balkans' – which are of course BS. Just
look at the map. Short of Macedonia (not for long) and Serbia, they are all NATO
states . Russia only helps states who want to help themselves (Syria/Serbia – more
or less).
Not a shred of proof, nay evidence, that Germany is shifting away from NordStream II. FAKE
NUDES!
Ten years ago, in August 2008, Russia and Georgia went to war over South Ossetia, a small
separatist Georgian region which Moscow would later controversially recognise as independent,
in the face of international criticism.
Ten years later, Moscow has still not softened its position towards its neighbours and
its rift with the West has only deepened.
Russia launched armed action against Georgia to come to the rescue of South Ossetia, a
small pro-Russian separatist region where Tbilisi had begun a military operation. The Russian
army rapidly outnumbered the Georgian forces and threatened to take the country's
capital.
A peace treaty was finally hammered out by then-French President Nicolas Sarkozy that
led to the withdrawal of Russian forces. But Moscow recognised as independent the breakaway
regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, where it has stationed a large military presence ever
since.
Russia demonstrated its military might over the five days and showed its readiness to
defend – by force, if necessary – its interests in the region it considers its
sphere of influence .
####
Well shove that in your pipe and smoke it!
Yet again, no attribution, no name. It smacks of a thinktank piece peddled through their
Slovak branch.
But this is how things work in the West. No-on is ordered on pain of death to produce
certain items, but is is made very clear that it is in their interests to do so, from
without & from within, but remember kids, it is voluntary ! Neither
self-censorship exists. Those in positions of influence may convince themselves, but for the
rest of the great unwashed, no so much. We've already seen the system fail and produce
not only BREXIT, but other referendums contrary to EU dogma. The evidence is all around us
and plain to see, but still the structures persist in the same old ways, which only bodes
ill. Apparently they still think the sheeple are too stupid to notice let alone act.
"... Regarding the Russian characterization of America as their "friend", I believe that Russia is simply playing with us. The US wants Russia to come across as an angry, belligerent and shoe-waving peasant. The intent is to keep alive the Cold War image of Russia as uncivilized and crass. The best response is to do exactly what they are doing. It makes the US look like the petulant bully that it is. Call it judo-politics . ..."
It's time for everyone to come off Twitter – it is like writing your message on your
buttocks with a black sharpie and dropping your trousers. Tweets are the kind of stupid thing
you send out at the end of work after you've had a bastard of a day, and something you read
or hear pushes you over the edge. People in diplomatic posts should not be allowed to use
Twitter at all, and should be punished for doing so – reporters now avidly follow the
Twitter feed of anyone who is anyone, and pounce on anything that has not been thought
through before it can be deleted: an attempt to delete it is just the icing on the cake, an
admission that you shouldn't have said it.
Time was, diplomats ran everything they said in writing in an official capacity through a
review before it was released, it was parsed six ways from Sunday to see how it might be
spun, twisted or misinterpreted. Diplomats speaking in a live interview were careful to
remain vague and say nothing which might not have meant several different things. You did not
get countries straining to get at one another because of something the minister of
agriculture said. But now everybody feels they can speak for the government on Twitter. It's
hard to imagine how the various countries of the world could come to be represented by their
stupidest citizens.
I hope America does formally sanction the Russian finance and banking sector. They're
already doing it under the radar, and going formal would give Russia an excuse to dump SWIFT
and stop using it, as well as the US dollar. Mastercard and Visa would be gonzo, taillights,
possibly in China as well. America sanctioning the Russian financial sector would remove its
last ability to keep an eye on it easily.
Regarding the Russian characterization of America as their "friend", I believe that
Russia is simply playing with us. The US wants Russia to come across as an angry, belligerent
and shoe-waving peasant. The intent is to keep alive the Cold War image of Russia as
uncivilized and crass. The best response is to do exactly what they are doing. It makes the
US look like the petulant bully that it is. Call it judo-politics .
It's just diplo-speak, to mark the speaker as a civilized man and not a thug. That is
beginning to become a bit of a sore point – is there anyone left who actually believes
that because Russian diplomats say "our American friends" or "our American colleagues", that
they labour under a delusion that this is just a temporary spat and under it all they still
have brotherly connections? If so, let me disabuse all those people of that notion; the
Russian government and all its operatives are well aware that America is a self-declared and
thus committed enemy. But saying, "the Americans, our enemies" would make for tiresome
commentary in the western papers, in which ideologues would assess that this practice proved
the Russians are the aggressors while westerners are just trying to work it out.
Alternatively, they could lower themselves to the vernacular and instruct, "Listen up,
motherfuckers".
Russia understands that America is an enemy and not a friend of any description, just as
it understands the United Nations is an American-dominated body and that it is next to
useless to expect the UN to back any Russian initiative. It continues to go through the
motions in both cases, merely to underline who is following the rules and protocols set up by
a better and more aware global civilization than currently prevails, and who is just kicking
sand in the other's face and trying to get him to swing for the chin.
Very true. Poll after poll fails to show any concern by American citizens over Russian
"meddling" or Russian "assertiveness". Sure, questions can be posed such as "Should the US
resist the Russian invasion of xxxxx?". Naturally, the answer would likely be yes. But when
asked, without prompting, what concerns them, Russia does not register as a concern at any
level. I find this remarkable as anti-Russian news is often the lead on every network evening
news show. I can not recall a news broadcast for many months that did not include a
Russian-bashing story. The tipping point on media credibility may have been reached
Cut off titanium metals and fabrications to the West – Boeing shutdowns as well as
many other US aerospace operations;
Close off air space or charge much higher tariffs to US carriers using Russian airspace. US
airlines become non-competitive in many Asian and European markets;
Stop exporting LNG and other energy products to the US;
Raise taxes or shutdown US companies in Russia;
Stop exports of the RD-180 and 181 rocket engines.
Action 1 would have a devastating impact on US aerospace manufacturing. The US has little
ability to replace with domestic or foreign supplies. This action should be reserved in the
event of extremely aggressive US actions such as a direct military attack on Syria;
"... It looks as if Zuckerman's 'nightmare situation' has come about. I don't know that these were ever proven reserves, and in fact I have the impression that the supposed energy bounty of the Caspian did not turn out quite as imagined, but Washington once thought – not long ago, either – that it was imperative America controlled the Caspian region because it was about 'America's energy security'. Which is another way of saying 'America must have control over and access to every oil-producing region on the planet.' ..."
"... Richardson was correct, though, that Russia 'does not share America's values'. In fact, Americans do not share America's values, in the sense that most Americans by far would not support the actions of the Saudi military in Yemen, the clever false-flag operations of the White Helmets in Syria, the deliberate destabilization of Venezuela, regime-change operations to the right and left in order to obtain governments who will facilitate American commercial and political control, and many other things that official America considers just important tools in the American Global Dominance Toolbox. ..."
"... Washington has long nurtured the dream of being Europe's primary, if not only, energy supplier, and owning the Caspian (had the reserves expectations played out) would have brought them closer to their dream. ..."
The other backstory being that NATO wanted to stick its nose in the Caspian Sea, but has been
pushed out. Not sure exactly what the pretext was. I have a piece in VZGLIAD that explains the whole
thing, but I haven't worked through it yet, will probably do a piece on my own blog in the
near future. But I have a couple of other projects in the queue first.
Dick Cheney, among others, was convinced that the Caspian Basin holds massive deposits of oil
and gas and is strategically significant for that reason.
"Central Asian resources may revert back to the control of Russia or to a Russian led
alliance. This would be a nightmare situation. We had better wake up to the dangers or one
day the certainties on which we base our prosperity will be certainties no more. The
potential prize in oil and gas riches in the Caspian sea, valued up to $4 trillion, would
give Russia both wealth and strategic dominance. The potential economic rewards of Caspian
energy will draw in their train Western military forces to protect our investment if
necessary."
Mortimer Zuckerman
Editor, U.S. News and World Report
"This is about America's energy security. Its also about preventing strategic inroads
by those who don't share our values. We are trying to move these newly independent countries
toward the West. We would like to see them reliant on Western commercial and political
interests. We've made a substantial political investment in the Caspian and it's important
that both the pipeline map and the politics come out right."
Bill Richardson
Then-U.S. Secretary Energy (1998-2000)
It looks as if Zuckerman's 'nightmare situation' has come about. I don't know that these
were ever proven reserves, and in fact I have the impression that the supposed energy bounty
of the Caspian did not turn out quite as imagined, but Washington once thought – not
long ago, either – that it was imperative America controlled the Caspian region because
it was about 'America's energy security'. Which is another way of saying 'America must have
control over and access to every oil-producing region on the planet.'
Richardson was correct, though, that Russia 'does not share America's values'. In fact,
Americans do not share America's values, in the sense that most Americans by far would not
support the actions of the Saudi military in Yemen, the clever false-flag operations of the
White Helmets in Syria, the deliberate destabilization of Venezuela, regime-change operations
to the right and left in order to obtain governments who will facilitate American commercial
and political control, and many other things that official America considers just important
tools in the American Global Dominance Toolbox.
Washington has long nurtured the dream of being Europe's primary, if not only, energy
supplier, and owning the Caspian (had the reserves expectations played out) would have
brought them closer to their dream. A pipeline network would have carried Caspian oil and gas
to Europe. Agreement among the Caspian nations was most definitely not in American interests,
and if you dig you will probably find American interventions to prevent that from coming
about.
"... Russia is simply trying to preserve an impression of normalcy for its own population, and trade is normal – Russia replaces those goods it cannot buy from the west with those from other markets, but completely shutting off the purchase of all western goods would subject Russians to unnecessary privations for the sake of pride. ..."
"... Russia has many arrows in its quiver. Best not to use them until needed. Big ones like turning off the gas to the EU would only makes sense if there is imminent war which is clearly not the case. In fact, it would be in Russia's best strategic interest to continue to the the main supplier of energy to the EU as it inhibits them from doing things that are potentially stupid dangerous. ..."
"... I would like to see Russian stop supply of the RD-180 and 181 as it is ultra-high tech which would be a nice reminder to the West regarding Russia's science and technology edge as well as delivering a serious blow to the US presence in space – military and civilian. Trump's "Space Force" would be DOA. ..."
"... Western sanctions have done Russia enormous good. It provided an escape from WTO restrictions and unfair trade practices. Good that they are taking full advantage of this opportunity. I suppose that Paul Craig Roberts means well but he needs to take a step back and see the bigger picture ..."
"... I agree that Russia should start cutting the United States off from things it needs from Russia – like the RD-180 and titanium – which would be expensive for the USA to get elsewhere. ..."
"... The implemented economic measures may have a seemingly abstract or sterile quality about them: banning electronic exports to Russia, rattling financial markets, stock prices falling. But the material consequence is that American officials are intending to inflict physical damage on Russian society and Russian people. ..."
"... It's economic warfare on a sliding scale to military warfare, as the Prussian General Karl von Clausewitz would no doubt appreciate. ..."
Russia is simply trying to preserve an impression of normalcy for its own population, and
trade is normal – Russia replaces those goods it cannot buy from the west with those
from other markets, but completely shutting off the purchase of all western goods would
subject Russians to unnecessary privations for the sake of pride.
Mr. Putin's popularity with the Russian people rests largely on their confidence that he
is looking out for them, and always carefully balancing risk with reward. If Russia were run
by somebody like Erdogan, the west would have succeeded in overthrowing him ages ago.
Russia is in a good position to resist sanctions, because Washington dares not impose
restrictions on its trade in oil and gas. While it would be wrong to assume Russia has
nothing else, these are core industries and in the other sectors where Russia is strong, the
west does not buy much from it anyway except for steel and raw materials. Russia can easily
replace those markets. But western brands who spent decades building up their market in
Russia slowly and carefully have lost it almost overnight. And they will be a long, long time
getting it back.
PCR's sources of information probably focus too much on the doings of the Central Bank of
Russia and not enough on other sources of advice that the Russian government might rely on.
You wonder whether PCR or his researchers are aware that the Russians and the Chinese might
be mocking the US in the statements and policies they choose to make public.
Russia has many arrows in its quiver. Best not to use them until needed. Big ones like
turning off the gas to the EU would only makes sense if there is imminent war which is
clearly not the case. In fact, it would be in Russia's best strategic interest to continue to
the the main supplier of energy to the EU as it inhibits them from doing things that are
potentially stupid dangerous.
I would like to see Russian stop supply of the RD-180 and 181 as it is ultra-high tech
which would be a nice reminder to the West regarding Russia's science and technology edge as
well as delivering a serious blow to the US presence in space – military and civilian.
Trump's "Space Force" would be DOA.
Western sanctions have done Russia enormous good. It provided an escape from WTO
restrictions and unfair trade practices. Good that they are taking full advantage of this
opportunity. I suppose that Paul Craig Roberts means well but he needs to take a step back
and see the bigger picture.
I agree that Russia should start cutting the United States off from things it needs from
Russia – like the RD-180 and titanium – which would be expensive for the USA to
get elsewhere.
I also agree Russia should keep on supplying the EU with energy, for a couple
of reasons. One, any interruption in the supply is just what Washington and its Atlanticist
Eurobuddies are looking for so they can label Russia an unreliable partner, and start that
whole alternative-sources conversation again: it's why they want to keep Ukraine in the loop
– to initiate disruptions and promote uncertainty about the reliability of Russian gas.
Two, Russia has a good chance of splitting factions in Europe off from the USA, as the latter
is more and more perceived to be trying to boss the European energy market so as to secure a
captive customer for its own exports. The last thing Russia needs is to create the impression
that Washington is saving Europe instead of dicking it around.
"The new round of sanctions this week unleashed by the United States on Russia has only
one meaning: the US rulers want to crush Russia's economy. By any definition, Washington is,
in effect, declaring war on Russia.
The implemented economic measures may have a seemingly abstract or sterile quality about
them: banning electronic exports to Russia, rattling financial markets, stock prices falling.
But the material consequence is that American officials are intending to inflict physical
damage on Russian society and Russian people.
It's economic warfare on a sliding scale to military warfare, as the Prussian General Karl
von Clausewitz would no doubt appreciate."
All these articles are hysterical pap. The events after 2014 have demonstrated that Russia is
immune to western sanctions and actually massively benefits from them. It has also shown that
it can rapidly react to changing financial conditions as seen in the offloading of $230
billion in foreign debt in 2015. The current round of "the mother of all sanctions" trash
talk from Washington is desperate and pathetic failure.
Russia has no reason or incentive for war. It is NATzO that wants to take Russia out.
Russia will adjust to the new sanctions by become fully independent of any western financial
or economic links. Russia has the critical economic mass to by an autarchy. But it does not
need to be since it will keep on trading with most of the planet. NATzO accounts for 11% of
the global population (but thinks it is 100%). The congenital retards who run NATzO are
helping China to become the next premier financial power. The Yuan will replace the dollar by
necessity if not by choice.
I want to see the writers of this scaremongering garbage list the actual economic impacts
on Russia. Starting with the financial ones. Russia does not depend on foreign currencies. It
also does not depend on foreign loans like some banana republic. The current claims by the
chimps in Congress that they will bring Russia's economy to its knees are the same BS as
during the post Banderite Kiev coup sanctions which Obama was sure were going to cut Russia
down.
There is some truth in what you say but nevertheless I think you quite underestimate the
threat of US sanctions. One doesn't have to be an unabashed fan of Ben Aris to accept some of
the points that he makes in the following article.
http://www.intellinews.com/moscow-blog-us-declares-economic-war-on-russia-146707/?source=blogs
In any case, I am a fan of Eric Kraus and he has serious concerns- check out some of his
comments here, say, for example, 7 minutes in.
Eric Kraus apparently thinks that Russian enterprises need to borrow dollars or euro from the
west. He is dead wrong. Russia can get all the dollars and euro it needs via the exports of
oil and gas, minerals, military equipment, nuclear power plants and assorted other exports
over $400 billion US per year. That was the point of my post: Uncle Scumbag's sanctions on
financial transactions do not cut Russia off, they cut the US and the EU off from the Russian
market. We are back to 2014 and these new "mother of all sanctions" will be as useless as the
previous round.
As for Japan, it is a useless comparison. Pearl Harbour was triggered by the US trying to
cut Japan off from vital resources. Non financial ones. Nobody can cut Russia either from
natural resources or the financing it needs. But Russia can f*ck the EU over big time by
cutting off natural gas exports. As the rabid mutt in Washington tries to go for broke,
Russia should keep diverting natural gas eastward. Let Uncle Scumbag save the EU with the
spare LNG he doesn't have.
Yes, the analogy between prewar Japan and Russia is false. It can be argued that it is
exactly the opposite. Russia has the resources that the West needs and if Russia were to cut
those off, the West could be induced to launch a war of desperation as Japan did. If Russia
is "walking on eggs" that is why.
Russia also can borrow whatever money it needs to from China. China probably has more than
enough to lend of its own, but if it does not, it is under no restrictions against borrowing
from western banks, and those banks have no control over how that money is reallocated.
I commented on the Pearl Harbour episode simply to make the point that the proposed sanctions
are a very aggressive move- this is clearly how the Russian government sees them, and rightly
so. If these sanctions clip a percent or so of Russian GDP growth for the foreseeable future
then they are very damaging for the country. Frankly, I would not be very sanguine about
Russia's long term future if it were not for China, and I continue to back Kraus's opinion
over Kirill's This earlier article by Aris sets the stage reasonably well- it's obvious
weakness is that the role of China is not taken into account
. http://www.intellinews.com/moscow-blog-russio-delenda-est-140787/?source=blogs
A further point. No matter how creative Russia's scientists and engineers might be, it
beggars belief to imagine that any country can compete technologically long term if largely
isolated by the rest of the World. Again, this further emphasizes how critical China is
likely to be for Russia's well being.
Russia needs China and China needs Russia if it wants to remain a sovereign nation.
I would add that the US is in a very fragile state burdened by a stagnate economy despite
massive deficit spending in addition to a crumbling global empire. Russia may simply need to
ride out the storm and let nature takes it course relative to the US.
The chimps in Congress can't see past their own noses and think that borrowing and debt is
what sustains the Russian economy. Their bubble of delusion has no bearing on Russian
reality. They are currently engaged in "the definition of insanity is to repeat the same
failed approach over and over and expect a different result". You can't cut Russia off from
western banks more than once and there is obviously no cumulative impact from such sanctions.
On what basis do you estimate 1% GDP growth reduction (or contraction?) for the foreseeable
future? Kraus needs to make a case and not just engage in proof by assertion. How can we have
the same restrictions to banking access that were imposed in 2014 all of the sudden starting
to matter now? That is just ludicrous. Cutting off access to NATzO banks in 2014 was the
limit of what NATzO could do. It can't go into Russia and shut down Russian banks to prevent
Russian companies from financing themselves there or from the Russian government.
Anyway, too much obscure mush and utter lack of details. These "mother of all sanctions"
are a joke because the 2014 sanctions did most of the "damage".
But for how long can the rest of the world (meaning, I suppose, the United States and western
Europe, which seem together to think they are The World) keep it up? Long enough to bring
Russia down? I frankly doubt it. America needs trade for its corporations to flourish and
expand market share, and it is not achieving that through sanctions and tariffs. The USA is
not just taking on Russia; it is making enemies everywhere. The global economy is so
interwoven now that it is very difficult to sanction a country to death unless you can block
all its major moneymakers. And Washington can't do that (to Russia) without hurting Europe.
The present sanctions are lame and do not really do anything but get journalists excited
and use up paper. The sting is in the ones set to automatically go into effect in three
months, because to avoid them Russia must admit that it has a secret chemical-weapons
program, agree to shut it down and allow UN inspectors into the country to verify it has been
done. Perhaps Trump and his cabal gamble that Russia will cop to something it actually
doesn't have, just to avoid sanctions, as Gadaffi did. But Russia will not, while the
American attempt to bring more inconvenience and problems to the Russian people in an effort
to use them to bludgeon the government into doing Washington's bidding is about as shitty a
thing as America has ever done without involving weapons, since it offers no proof at all of
its conclusions. It is simply imposing collective punishment in order to get ts own way, and
would be the first to squeal if Russia did it.
"The global economy is so interwoven now that it is very difficult to sanction a country to
death unless you can block all its major moneymakers. And Washington can't do that (to
Russia) without hurting Europe."
"Like the Romans, the US has built a military-industrial economy that can massively
out-resource all its opponents' and so is impossible to defeat – a legacy of the rapid
militarisation during WWII when it simply out produced first the Nazis and then the Soviet
Union, the only other country on the planet at the time with any chance of matching the US's
industrial might"
Unlike the Reich the USA industrial base wasn't hampered by round the clock bombing from
the Eighth AirForce and the RAF , which also involved the diversion on billions of
Reichsmarks for thousands of planes and the Luftwaffe manpower in an attempt to stop or at
least mitigate the air attacks.
Likewise the USA industrial base was not hampered by having to -in a massive
undertaking-uproot its core manufacturing facilities and move them thousands of kilometers to
where they could be reassembled and resume production of machinery , armor and weaponry in
general.
Furthermore:
These are just a couple reasons for the fall of Rome, but what is perhaps most terrifying
about the fall are the corollaries to today. The Unites States of America has a Gini
coefficient of .45, and 40% of the wealth is controlled by the top 1% of the population.[5]
By every metric, the United States is even more divided and unfair than Rome before its fall.
The effects are perfectly evident as well as there is increasing inclination from the rich to
build fallout bunkers and withdraw from civilization and politics just as the roman elites
did centuries before. Worsening matters is the evidence of extreme racism towards migrant
workers who like slaves in Rome "take the labor from the hardworking middle class".
Increasingly the middle class shrinks as social unrest and bigotry grows. It is a scary
combination that, if we aren't careful, could spell the end of civilization as we know it,
just like it did for the Romans centuries before.
Therefore the Aris notion that USA can simply bide its time and wait for Russia to
collapse is suspect. If anything there may well be be a collapse but not Russia.
Agree with the sentiment but the Soviet Union outproduced the US in every industrial category
that mattered. Its military was much stronger than the US on land and in the air. On the sea,
the US probably had the edge.
The Soviet Union fell because its ideology provided no means to deal with psychos and
sociopaths. Religion, with all of its shortcomings, at least tried to address sociopathic
behaviors with such terms as sin, evil, etc. When religion left the building, there was
nothing left to stop the psychos and its kissing cousins, the Randites.
The West is immune from such dangers as it embraces sociopathyy. Russia, I believe, is
seeking a society that can withstand such assaults without heavy handed purges which only
provide temporary relief. The Orthodox Church ascendancy in modern Russia is helping to
provide that moral anchor to keep socciopathy from becoming the dominant world view. I think
even atheists can agree on the importance of its role in providing a stable and humane
society.
USA say that Russia did poison the Skripals in Salisbury.
"The US blamed the attack on Vladimir Putin and said they would be issuing fresh sanctions
in response to the deadly attack.
The state department says Wednesday the sanctions will be imposed on Russia because it
used a chemical weapon in violation of international law.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said: "The United States determined under the
Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 (CBW Act) that
the government of the Russian Federation has used chemical or biological weapons in violation
of international law, or has used lethal chemical or biological weapons against its own
nationals."
Former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned by Novichok, a
military-grade nerve agent, in the British town of Salisbury in March."
What can I say – perhaps now Russia will batten down the hatches and stop all
this pandering to western partners.
No need to batten down the hatches. Just ignore the yapping NATzO chihuahuas. We have not
even had a proper trial to determine guilt. The US leadership is not some ultimate judicial
body. They can make as many political judgements as they want, but that will do Jack to
Russia.
At this point all the hysterical US-driven sanctions against Russia are totally self
defeating. The monkeys in Washington clearly think that Russia is a banana republic and that
it needs to have access to foreign money and technology to function. They are cleared fucked
in the head.
It would reportedly include more drastic measures, such as downgrading diplomatic
relations, banning the Russian airline Aeroflot from flying to the US and cutting off nearly
all exports and imports.
So, are we talking about RD-180 rocket engines and Americans traveling to the ISS on
Russian rockets? Are we talking about titanium fabrications that Boeing needs for its
aircraft manufacturing?
This Russian hysteria is masking something, something big. My one-track mind suggests
fixated on the idea of an approaching economic collapse and subsequent imposition of martial
law and/or massive levels of censorship; all to be blamed on Russia. The increasingly
frenetic pace of Russian hysteria suggests a near-term sh!t-storm is on the way.
The Russian hysteria is scary as so many citizens over there believe in the Russiagate
nonsense and have been manipulated to feel they have been attacked.
It means therefore that conditions have been created whereby the USA has the support to
attack back.
Putin should never have gone to Helsinki as that escalated the madness.
Trump is emasculated just as obama was and has no power to do anything to block this
pathway to outright confrontation
The Europeans will sit by and watch – Russia has no allies there.,
Europe will stay on the porch and let the big boys duke it out. In the red corner, we have
Vlad – the Terminator. In the other corner, we have Donald – the Orange Haystack.
In another corner we have Bruce – the Red Dragon.
Haystack lumbers out of his corner before the bell rings, makes some nasty gestures and
starts his victory dance. The Terminator stands in his corner, muscular arms folded across
his chest with a wry smile across his face. The Red Dragon is closely studying Haystack with
an inscrutable stare. Haystack exhausts himself and collapses mid-ring. The Terminator and
Red Dragon leave the arena as the Haystack fans seek their autographs. Something like
that.
Perhaps a boxed piano will fall from a ninth-floor balcony and crush Nauert to a rectangular
pizza. I'd pay to see that.
Define 'pandering'. Can you name some concessions the United States has wrung from Russia
in the last two years? I seem to recall the British investigators said there was no proof
that anyone in the Russian government was involved – they simply speculated that
because Novichok could only be made in a state facility, there must be state involvement.
Does the USA have some evidence that the British have not seen yet? Perhaps they found it in
the same place they filed their satellite photography of the Buk missile taking out MH17.
You mean the same Russia that is one of only 7 nation states to have verifiably dismantled
and destroyed their chemical weapon stockpiles as ratified by the OPCW and in compliance to
the CWC? That Russia?
I can't wait for this determination to be made public along with the coinciding evidence
as released by an official judiciary body wielding the requisite jurisdiction and authority
under official auspices of the UN. That's what is meant by determined right? Pretty
unambiguous terminology there.
This entire charade has gone so far beyond farce it's not even comical anymore, just
depressing.
That's an interesting point, because a likely consequence of the continued hysterical
hostility from the west will be opacity where there once was transparency; ie: if the United
States wants to know something about Russian unconventional weapons programs, it will have to
go to extensive and complicated labour to insert a deep-cover spy or persuade an asset that
it can trust to find out the information, never knowing if it is being fed disinformation
deliberately by a double agent, where once it could simply have asked and been invited to
verify the truth itself. International organizations controlled by Washington will be less
and less likely to have a free pass to come in and poke about as they see fit.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has warned the US that any sanctions targeting Russian banking
operations and currency trade will be treated as a declaration of economic war and retaliated
against by any means necessary.
" If they introduce something like a ban on banking operations or the use of any currency,
we will treat it as a declaration of economic war. And we'll have to respond to it
accordingly – economically, politically, or in any other way, if required ,"
Medvedev said during a trip to the Kamchatka region.
" Our American friends should make no mistake about it ," he emphasized.
"... Interestingly, the USA is increasingly going it alone in such actions, and the EU – remarkably, for such a spineless outfit – has actually imposed a 'blocking statute' which allegedly will protect European companies from being sanctioned by the USA, while Brussels has taken the unprecedented step of instructing European firms not to comply with demands by the White House that they cease doing business with Iran. Even more astonishing, if that were possible, EU companies who opt to pull out of business with Iranian contacts must first obtain authorization from the European Commission to do so. Without such authorization, they may be sued by EU member states, while a mechanism has been created to allow EU businesses impacted by the sanctions to sue the US administration in the national courts of member states. Who could have forecast that would happen, as recently as a year ago? ..."
I suppose few were under any apprehension that Trump would not sign the sanctions bill
reimposing American sanctions on Iran. Consequently, most will be unsurprised that he did so.
Interestingly, the USA is increasingly going it alone in such actions, and the EU –
remarkably, for such a spineless outfit – has actually imposed a 'blocking statute'
which allegedly will protect European companies from being sanctioned by the USA, while
Brussels has taken the unprecedented step of instructing European firms not to comply with
demands by the White House that they cease doing business with Iran. Even more astonishing,
if that were possible, EU companies who opt to pull out of business with Iranian contacts
must first obtain authorization from the European Commission to do so. Without such
authorization, they may be sued by EU member states, while a mechanism has been created to
allow EU businesses impacted by the sanctions to sue the US administration in the national
courts of member states. Who could have forecast that would happen, as recently as a year
ago?
I need hardly draw attention to the unmitigated and brazen arrogance of the stated US aim:
to "force the Iranians to the table for a renegotiation of their role in the Middle East".
They fucking live there, for God's sake, but the intent of the sanctions is to force them to
bow to American will, and accept the plans for them of a state which is more than 6,000 miles
away – yet insists on its right to direct and order regional affairs to its own
strategic and economic benefit.
Once upon a time, America's meddling in the Middle East could count on the support of all
the major western powers. For the time being, that practice is in abeyance, as the major
western allies try to bring about American failure. Goodwill toward the United States has
more or less evaporated completely, and America is increasingly regarded as an enemy by
former allies. I can't see any possibility of it prevailing, unless it starts a major war and
drags everyone into it. I can, however, see irreparable economic damage being inflicted on
the American economy.
If the EU will actually protect European companies from US enforcement/retaliation and compel
European companies to honor contracts with Iranian companies or government, that is big. But
why would they do such?
I speculate the US plan is to take Iranian oil off the market thereby driving up crude
prices. The downside is that it helps Russia (perhaps not a major concern for Trump) and
hurts China but it will be a boon for US oil frackers to the point of avoiding mass default
of loans and collapse of major US operations. If Nord Stream II can be stopped, US LNG may
surge as well assuming gas frackers can ramp up. And when Iran capitulates (in US dreams) US
companies will be granted special concessions to soak up Iranian oil revenues and the EU left
of the sidelines.
So the above could be some of the reasons for the EU's stiffening. Putin is probably
breaking out the popcorn.
The US has suddenly recollected that if it wants to take on China, it will actually need the
support of its traditional allies, and is supposedly launching a make-up effort, especially
where Europe is concerned.
Trump is such a boob; his policies are all over the place – first the hard-ass who
will never back off, then conciliatory and talking international unity. Anyone who would
willingly help that country achieve its goals needs their head examined, as it clearly will
turn on its traditional friends the instant it is unhappy with the relationship. Trump brags
that trade hardball is 'his thing', but that's just more of his stupid ego, and he appears to
not grasp many of its implications.
American farmers understand, though, all too well. It does not take a genius to figure
that a $12 Billion bailout fund suggests an assessment of a potential $12 Billion in damage
to the sector, which seems like a lot of money. But as agricultural economists correctly
deduce, the real damage is to long-term trade relationships, as customers repelled by
America's thug tactics turn to other suppliers. I already mentioned the new prominence in
Canadian supermarkets of identifying symbols to highlight Canadian products, and Canada is
the biggest export market by a considerable margin for American agricultural products. Canada
could not win in a trade war against the USA, but it could inflict serious damage on the
agricultural sector. Much of Canada is farm country just like south of the border, and all
the USA really has going for it in the way of growing-season advantage is California and
Florida. Products from there which are out of season in Canada can be purchased from Mexico.
Otherwise, pretty much anything you can grow in the USA, you can grow in Canada.
Well Canada has rather upset the apple cart, hasn't it? On the one hand, western moralizing
and sermonizing other states about what they should do used to be only restricted to mostly
enemy states, preferably much less rich ones, on the other hand values only mean something if
you actually are willing to pay a literal price in either money, blood or both.
The financial papers are saying that this will damage SA's the confidence of foreign
investors, precisely those SA is trying to attract so that it can start to diversify its
economy away from petroleum based products, but we have yet to see if this will have a
noticeable effect, rather than just a wish effect.
The US has said Sweet FA, along with the rest of the sermonizing weapon selling west, so
Canada has very little support from its allies. So far. Germany should be an obvious
supporter but if pissing of the Saudis makes it more dependent on Russia ergo there are
plenty of reasons that can be wheeled out to keep treading lightly.
It looks to me as just another sign of the existing order breaking down, whether or not
Canada back tracks or not. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold.
As for the so-called free and democratic media, well they only further discredit
themselves publicly.
Meanwhile, I just checked out the Canada headlines and this jumped out:
Global Affairs Canada would not say whether Canadian taxpayers are financing the sale, and
would not provide any other details about the arms deal
Few details are available about the proposed sale of weapons, as the Canadian
government says such information is commercially sensitive. It has declined to name the
company selling the guns or indicate how many rifles would be sent to Ukraine. However
Conservative MP James Bezan, who has been in contact with the Canadian company that has the
agreement to supply the rifles to Ukraine, confirmed the deal's likely timeline. He declined
to name the firm since the sale still has to be finalized.
Nicolas Moquin, a spokesman for the Canadian Joint Operations Command Headquarters,
said the Canadian military has been providing sniper and counter-sniper training to Ukraine's
security forces since September 2015. He said Canada is not looking at this time of providing
additional sniper training to coincide with the delivery of new weapons .
####
OR, is this just Canada selling sniper rifles that are not necessarily of Canadian
origin?
According the the video below with Canadian MP James Barazan, he says there are large
numbers of weapons such as assault rifles, sniper systems, mortar systems, counter battery
radar etc. sitting in warehouses in Jordan (& Toronto) that were supposed to go to
Kurdistan.
Yes,, the world order is falling apart. For some reason, this state of affairs reminds me of
the observation that married couples who are heading toward divorce are on that path not
because of a lack of communications but because they are now communicating for the first
time.
Ukraine is awash in small arms – they could give them out with a box of tea at the
supermarket as a promotion, and it would still take months to work through their supply. The
last thing they need is more rifles. On the other hand, new ones will probably fetch a good
price on e-Bay.
Oh, dear; Ukraine has more or less lost its case before the WTO, in which it wept that Russia's unfair imposition of an embargo
on its railway cars and rolling stock constituted a violation which caused a former $3.2 Billion in annual sales – more than it
realizes from transit fees for carrying Russian gas to Europe – to collapse to $150 Million. The WTO bought the Russian rationale
that Russian inspectors going to Ukraine to ensure the product conformed to Russian standards would be in fear of their lives.
But the WTO ruled that the security situation was such that Russian inspectors sent to check that Ukraine's exports complied
with Russian standards would have been risking their lives, and Russia was therefore justified in not sending them to Ukraine.
"The panel fully agreed with Russia's position and recognized that there was no systematic restriction of imports of Ukrainian
equipment by Russia," Russia's Ministry of Trade and Economy said in a statement.
The WTO did go on to say Russia could have carried out the inspections outside Ukraine, but therein lies a sandbag to the head
that Ukraine probably spotted already – if Russian inspectors found shoddy work or any other reason to refuse the offered goods,
to say nothing of the probability that no contracting position between the two countries even exists any more, then Ukraine would
be out the sale plus whatever costs it incurred to ship the goods outside Ukraine.
This is an interesting analysis shedding some light on how the US intelligence services have gone rogue...
Notable quotes:
"... Most recently, British "special services," which are a sort of Mini-Me to the to the Dr. Evil that is the US intelligence apparatus, saw it fit to interfere with one of their own spies, Sergei Skripal, a double agent whom they sprung from a Russian jail in a spy swap. They poisoned him using an exotic chemical and then tried to pin the blame on Russia based on no evidence. ..."
"... the Americans are doing their best to break the unwritten rule against dragging spies through the courts, but their best is nowhere near good enough. ..."
"... That said, there is no reason to believe that the Russian spies couldn't have hacked into the DNC mail server. It was probably running Microsoft Windows, and that operating system has more holes in it than a building in downtown Raqqa, Syria after the Americans got done bombing that city to rubble, lots of civilians included. When questioned about this alleged hacking by Fox News, Putin (who had worked as a spy in his previous career) had trouble keeping a straight face and clearly enjoyed the moment. ..."
"... He pointed out that the hacked/leaked emails showed a clear pattern of wrongdoing: DNC officials conspired to steal the electoral victory in the Democratic Primary from Bernie Sanders, and after this information had been leaked they were forced to resign. If the Russian hack did happen, then it was the Russians working to save American democracy from itself. So, where's the gratitude? Where's the love? Oh, and why are the DNC perps not in jail? ..."
"... The logic of US officials may be hard to follow, but only if we adhere to the traditional definitions of espionage and counterespionage -- "intelligence" in US parlance -- which is to provide validated information for the purpose of making informed decisions on best ways of defending the country. But it all makes perfect sense if we disabuse ourselves of such quaint notions and accept the reality of what we can actually observe: the purpose of US "intelligence" is not to come up with or to work with facts but to simply "make shit up." ..."
"... The objective of US intelligence is to suck all remaining wealth out of the US and its allies and pocket as much of it as possible while pretending to defend it from phantom aggressors by squandering nonexistent (borrowed) financial resources on ineffective and overpriced military operations and weapons systems. Where the aggressors are not phantom, they are specially organized for the purpose of having someone to fight: "moderate" terrorists and so on. ..."
"... "What sort of idiot are you to ask me such a stupid question? Of course they are lying! They were caught lying more than once, and therefore they can never be trusted again. In order to claim that they are not currently lying, you have to determine when it was that they stopped lying, and that they haven't lied since. And that, based on the information that is available, is an impossible task." ..."
"... "The US intelligence agencies made an outrageous claim: that I colluded with Russia to rig the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The burden of proof is on them. They are yet to prove their case in a court of law, which is the only place where the matter can legitimately be settled, if it can be settled at all. Until that happens, we must treat their claim as conspiracy theory, not as fact." ..."
"... But no such reality-based, down-to-earth dialogue seems possible. All that we hear are fake answers to fake questions, and the outcome is a series of faulty decisions. Based on fake intelligence, the US has spent almost all of this century embroiled in very expensive and ultimately futile conflicts. ..."
"... Thanks to their efforts, Iran, Iraq and Syria have now formed a continuous crescent of religiously and geopolitically aligned states friendly toward Russia while in Afghanistan the Taliban is resurgent and battling ISIS -- an organization that came together thanks to American efforts in Iraq and Syria. ..."
"... Another hypothesis, and a far more plausible one, is that the US intelligence community has been doing a wonderful job of bankrupting the country and driving it toward financial, economic and political collapse by forcing it to engage in an endless series of expensive and futile conflicts -- the largest single continuous act of grand larceny the world has ever known. How that can possibly be an intelligent thing to do to your own country, for any conceivable definition of "intelligence," I will leave for you to work out for yourself. While you are at it, you might also want to come up with an improved definition of "treason": something better than "a skeptical attitude toward preposterous, unproven claims made by those known to be perpetual liars. ..."
In today's United States, the term "espionage" doesn't get too much
use outside of some specific contexts. There is still sporadic talk of industrial espionage,
but with regard to Americans' own efforts to understand the world beyond their borders, they
prefer the term "intelligence." This may be an intelligent choice, or not, depending on how you
look at things.
First of all, US "intelligence" is only vaguely related to the game of espionage as it has
been traditionally played, and as it is still being played by countries such as Russia and
China. Espionage involves collecting and validating strategically vital information and
conveying it to just the pertinent decision-makers on your side while keeping the fact that you
are collecting and validating it hidden from everyone else.
In eras past, a spy, if discovered, would try to bite down on a cyanide capsule; these days
torture is considered ungentlemanly, and spies that get caught patiently wait to be exchanged
in a spy swap. An unwritten, commonsense rule about spy swaps is that they are done quietly and
that those released are never interfered with again because doing so would complicate
negotiating future spy swaps.
In recent years, the US intelligence agencies have decided that torturing prisoners is a
good idea, but they have mostly been torturing innocent bystanders, not professional spies,
sometimes forcing them to invent things, such as "Al Qaeda." There was no such thing before US
intelligence popularized it as a brand among Islamic terrorists.
Most recently, British "special services," which are a sort of Mini-Me to the to the Dr.
Evil that is the US intelligence apparatus, saw it fit to interfere with one of their own
spies, Sergei Skripal, a double agent whom they sprung from a Russian jail in a spy swap. They
poisoned him using an exotic chemical and then tried to pin the blame on Russia based on no
evidence.
There are unlikely to be any more British spy swaps with Russia, and British spies working
in Russia should probably be issued good old-fashioned cyanide capsules (since that supposedly
super-powerful Novichok stuff the British keep at their "secret" lab in Porton Down doesn't
work right and is only fatal 20% of the time).
There is another unwritten, commonsense rule about spying in general: whatever happens, it
needs to be kept out of the courts, because the discovery process of any trial would force the
prosecution to divulge sources and methods, making them part of the public record. An
alternative is to hold secret tribunals, but since these cannot be independently verified to be
following due process and rules of evidence, they don't add much value.
A different standard applies to traitors; here, sending them through the courts is
acceptable and serves a high moral purpose, since here the source is the person on trial and
the method -- treason -- can be divulged without harm. But this logic does not apply to proper,
professional spies who are simply doing their jobs, even if they turn out to be double agents.
In fact, when counterintelligence discovers a spy, the professional thing to do is to try to
recruit him as a double agent or, failing that, to try to use the spy as a channel for
injecting disinformation.
Americans have been doing their best to break this rule. Recently, special counsel Robert
Mueller indicted a dozen Russian operatives working in Russia for hacking into the DNC mail
server and sending the emails to Wikileaks. Meanwhile, said server is nowhere to be found (it's
been misplaced) while the time stamps on the files that were published on Wikileaks show that
they were obtained by copying to a thumb drive rather than sending them over the internet.
Thus, this was a leak, not a hack, and couldn't have been done by anyone working remotely from
Russia.
Furthermore, it is an exercise in futility for a US official to indict Russian citizens in
Russia. They will never stand trial in a US court because of the following clause in the
Russian Constitution: "61.1 A citizen of the Russian Federation may not be deported out of
Russia or extradited to another state."
Mueller may summon a panel of constitutional scholars to interpret this sentence, or he can
just read it and weep. Yes, the Americans are doing their best to break the unwritten rule
against dragging spies through the courts, but their best is nowhere near good enough.
That said, there is no reason to believe that the Russian spies couldn't have hacked
into the DNC mail server. It was probably running Microsoft Windows, and that operating system
has more holes in it than a building in downtown Raqqa, Syria after the Americans got done
bombing that city to rubble, lots of civilians included. When questioned about this alleged
hacking by Fox News, Putin (who had worked as a spy in his previous career) had trouble keeping
a straight face and clearly enjoyed the moment.
He pointed out that the hacked/leaked emails showed a clear pattern of wrongdoing: DNC
officials conspired to steal the electoral victory in the Democratic Primary from Bernie
Sanders, and after this information had been leaked they were forced to resign. If the Russian
hack did happen, then it was the Russians working to save American democracy from itself. So,
where's the gratitude? Where's the love? Oh, and why are the DNC perps not in jail?
Since there exists an agreement between the US and Russia to cooperate on criminal
investigations, Putin offered to question the spies indicted by Mueller. He even offered to
have Mueller sit in on the proceedings. But in return he wanted to question US officials who
may have aided and abetted a convicted felon by the name of William Browder, who is due to
begin serving a nine-year sentence in Russia any time now and who, by the way, donated copious
amounts of his ill-gotten money to the Hillary Clinton election campaign.
In response, the US Senate passed a resolution to forbid Russians from questioning US
officials. And instead of issuing a valid request to have the twelve Russian spies interviewed,
at least one US official made the startlingly inane request to have them come to the US
instead. Again, which part of 61.1 don't they understand?
The logic of US officials may be hard to follow, but only if we adhere to the
traditional definitions of espionage and counterespionage -- "intelligence" in US parlance --
which is to provide validated information for the purpose of making informed decisions on best
ways of defending the country. But it all makes perfect sense if we disabuse ourselves of such
quaint notions and accept the reality of what we can actually observe: the purpose of US
"intelligence" is not to come up with or to work with facts but to simply "make shit
up."
The "intelligence" the US intelligence agencies provide can be anything but; in fact, the
stupider it is the better, because its purpose is allow unintelligent people to make
unintelligent decisions. In fact, they consider facts harmful -- be they about Syrian chemical
weapons, or conspiring to steal the primary from Bernie Sanders, or Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction, or the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden -- because facts require accuracy and rigor
while they prefer to dwell in the realm of pure fantasy and whimsy. In this, their actual
objective is easily discernible.
The objective of US intelligence is to suck all remaining wealth out of the US and its
allies and pocket as much of it as possible while pretending to defend it from phantom
aggressors by squandering nonexistent (borrowed) financial resources on ineffective and
overpriced military operations and weapons systems. Where the aggressors are not phantom, they
are specially organized for the purpose of having someone to fight: "moderate" terrorists and
so on.
One major advancement in their state of the art has been in moving from real false flag
operations, à la 9/11, to fake false flag operations, à la fake East Gouta
chemical attack in Syria (since fully discredited). The Russian election meddling story is
perhaps the final step in this evolution: no New York skyscrapers or Syrian children were
harmed in the process of concocting this fake narrative, and it can be kept alive seemingly
forever purely through the furious effort of numerous flapping lips. It is now a pure
confidence scam. If you are less then impressed with their invented narratives, then you are a
conspiracy theorist or, in the latest revision, a traitor.
Trump was recently questioned as to whether he trusted US intelligence. He waffled. A
light-hearted answer would have been:
"What sort of idiot are you to ask me such a stupid question? Of course they are lying! They
were caught lying more than once, and therefore they can never be trusted again. In order to
claim that they are not currently lying, you have to determine when it was that they stopped
lying, and that they haven't lied since. And that, based on the information that is available,
is an impossible task."
A more serious, matter-of-fact answer would have been:
"The US intelligence agencies made an outrageous claim: that I colluded with Russia to rig
the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The burden of proof is on them. They are yet to
prove their case in a court of law, which is the only place where the matter can legitimately
be settled, if it can be settled at all. Until that happens, we must treat their claim as
conspiracy theory, not as fact."
And a hardcore, deadpan answer would have been:
"The US intelligence services swore an oath to uphold the US Constitution, according to
which I am their Commander in Chief. They report to me, not I to them. They must be loyal to
me, not I to them. If they are disloyal to me, then that is sufficient reason for their
dismissal."
But no such reality-based, down-to-earth dialogue seems possible. All that we hear are fake
answers to fake questions, and the outcome is a series of faulty decisions. Based on fake
intelligence, the US has spent almost all of this century embroiled in very expensive and
ultimately futile conflicts.
Thanks to their efforts, Iran, Iraq and Syria have now formed a continuous crescent of
religiously and geopolitically aligned states friendly toward Russia while in Afghanistan the
Taliban is resurgent and battling ISIS -- an organization that came together thanks to American
efforts in Iraq and Syria.
The total cost of wars so far this century for the US is reported to be $4,575,610,429,593.
Divided by the 138,313,155 Americans who file tax returns (whether they actually pay any tax is
too subtle a question), it works out to just over $33,000 per taxpayer. If you pay taxes in the
US, that's your bill so far for the various US intelligence "oopsies."
The 16 US intelligence agencies have a combined budget of $66.8 billion, and that seems like
a lot until you realize how supremely efficient they are: their "mistakes" have cost the
country close to 70 times their budget. At a staffing level of over 200,000 employees, each of
them has cost the US taxpayer close to $23 million, on average. That number is totally out of
the ballpark! The energy sector has the highest earnings per employee, at around $1.8 million
per. Valero Energy stands out at $7.6 million per. At $23 million per, the US intelligence
community has been doing three times better than Valero. Hats off! This makes the US
intelligence community by far the best, most efficient collapse driver imaginable.
There are two possible hypotheses for why this is so.
First, we might venture to guess that these 200,000 people are grossly incompetent and that
the fiascos they precipitate are accidental. But it is hard to imagine a situation where
grossly incompetent people nevertheless manage to funnel $23 million apiece, on average, toward
an assortment of futile undertakings of their choosing. It is even harder to imagine that such
incompetents would be allowed to blunder along decade after decade without being called out for
their mistakes.
Another hypothesis, and a far more plausible one, is that the US intelligence community has
been doing a wonderful job of bankrupting the country and driving it toward financial, economic
and political collapse by forcing it to engage in an endless series of expensive and futile
conflicts -- the largest single continuous act of grand larceny the world has ever known. How
that can possibly be an intelligent thing to do to your own country, for any conceivable
definition of "intelligence," I will leave for you to work out for yourself. While you are at
it, you might also want to come up with an improved definition of "treason": something better
than "a skeptical attitude toward preposterous, unproven claims made by those known to be
perpetual liars."
Analysts told RT that what Khamenei said is not really surprising given the worsening
economic situation inside the country after the relations with the US went on a downward
spiral. The supreme leader has been trying to keep Iranian society balanced by taking a neutral
position between the liberal and conservative parts of the establishment. Now the former,
including President Hassan Rouhani, are finding themselves in a weaker position, according to
Irina Fedorova from the Russian Academy of Sciences' Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
"The Ayatollah has needed to explain who is to blame for the current situation, to prop
up his regime," Fedorova told RT. She said that "the opponents of the
conservatives," and Rouhani in particular, who supported the JCPOA, will fall victims of
this approach. But it will not lead to his resignation, the researcher noted. However, this
means the conservatives' positions, such as those of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, are to
strengthen significantly.
The statement may also mean a reshuffling of the political elite as well as some economic
changes, Jamal Wakeem, professor of history and international relations at Lebanese University
in Beirut, told RT. He said that "reformists" and those who pressed for the deals with
the West are to be targeted, while the leadership is going to seek alternatives to the West,
including a partnership with Russia and China.
The US reinstated certain economic sanctions against Iran last week, with President Trump
promising more to come in November. The restrictive measures had been lifted under the historic
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), but Washington unilaterally withdrew from the
landmark deal despite international condemnation, including from its EU allies. The 2015
agreement placed tight controls on Tehran's nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of
international sanctions. Iran's commitment has been confirmed by the IAEA since then.
Tehran has repeatedly blasted the US for the move, vowing to restart its nuclear program in
retaliation against any foreign restrictions. While the US has been pressing its allies to
completely refuse Iranian oil imports, the Islamic Republic has threatened to close the Strait
of Hormuz, effectively blocking all the oil shipments from the Persian Gulf, should they accede
to American demands.
The row between the US and Iran escalated last month, when their respective leadership
exchanged a barrage of threats. Back then, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that a
conflict with Iran would be "mother of all wars," provoking Trump's harsh response
when he promised "consequences the likes of which few have ever suffered before."
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
France must be kicking themselves for listening to the US. At this rate, China/Russia will
take all the oil business, leaving Western companies sitting on the sidelines. On the other
hand, I wonder if US O&G companies are waiting for other Western competitors to go
bankrupt.
Uncoy @22:
US sanctions have already failed. Other nations will give lip service, then turn around to
continue on whatever they were doing.
Washington cannot dictate trade rules to others, Germany's economy minister said, adding
that his country should be more assertive and defy American sanctions – particularly
by investing more in Iran.
"We don't let Washington dictate [their will] on trade relations with other countries,"
German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier told Bild newspaper on Saturday. He said the US
sanctions on Iran are one instance in which America's neglect of its partners are clearly
shown.[.]
Only 1/3 of US debt is owed to foreigners and that is denominated in their own currency.
They just print whatever is due.
A country with the land and natural resources the US has to go along with with its
agricultural, human and military capital can never go bankrupt, especially when they control
the debt collectors
As for Germany they are an occupied country, as are many countries. Between the military
bases and CIA controlled NGO's they dance to whatever musuc is played. Some squawking is
permitted for appearances sake so people can maintain their illusions of nationalist
control.
I dont rule out a major financial adverse event in the US (and global) soon so the elite
can profit off the collapse and shrink the wealth of the bottom 90%, but that wont affect
much at all and much of the world will suffer in much the same way
When one looks at the major financial disasters over the last century, many seem to come
in the 8th-9th year of the decade. After the elections we should see a great fall as bubbles
are burst and the 17 trillion dollar + investment firms that maintain liquidity will swoop in
and buy low. This time around the banks wont need a government bail out as the laws have
authorized them to seize deposits like what was done in Greece.
There are antisemitic rants in many places on the web, almost all of which are ignored.
But make an objective criticism of the Zionist enterprise now a days and its apologists resort immediately to unrestrained
howls and accusations of antisemitism.
One ought, therefor, to understand this rhetorical device for the simple ad hominem attack that it is.
A very busy week indeed. It looks like the world is dividing into two alliances: those who
will follow the dictates on Iran and Russian sanctions and those who won't. We're in the
prelude to a long winter of a cold war or a very hot one, depending on how the USA chooses to
enforce those sanctions. Effectively at this point the upcoming sanctions would serve as the
equivalent of a blockade. A blockade is an act of war. A much more lively August than any of
us expected. The devil is never idle.
Miserable fat scheming twats like Karl Rove have nothing to look forward to on vacation
and so delight in poisoning everyone else's. There's a whole warren of similar rats in the
Trump administration and over at Langley which is why I mention Rove. While he's not in the
current administration, he's a very visceral representation of what the world is up against
until we put the neocons and PNACers out of business for good.
PS. I see nhs continues to post tracking links instead of direct links @7. b, I'd really
appreciate it (and the rest of the tech savvy audience here would too) if you'd ban tracking
links or more positively insist on direct links. Technically speaking all of nhs's posts
should be held as he's a serial offender. You can either clean his links for him (sounds like
as much fun as fixing his toilet for free) or just delete the comments which contain URL
shorteners (tracking links). The latter would make encourage him to clean up his act fast.
You'd be surprised how quickly inconsiderate, spying, spamming types like nhs would learn how
to post direct links.
" I don't quite get what their endgame is here .Why are they pushing a propaganda war
which awfully looks like psychological preparation for a real hot war, when they must know
that there cannot ever be a real hot war?"
Most probably, because they are calculating that under various forms of psychological and
economic pressure Russia will crumble from within and surrender, just like in the times of
Gorbachev-Yeltsin, without having to fight a real, risk-filled war. Surrender and subjugation
without firing a shot – THAT'S their imagined endgame. "Why wouldn't what worked within
living memory, a mere 30 years ago, work again now in updated form?", they think –
especially since the Russia of today is in a comparatively much weaker position overall than
the USSR of back then and the Russian rulers and society are not really too much different
psychologically from what they were back then, and are even mostly COMPOSED OF THE SAME
INDIVIDUALS? Is it really surprising that they think that way, given the continued existence
and thriving inside Russia of a powerful, openly seditious Fifth Column which is not
seriously combatted by either the Putin government or the stupid mass of the Russian populace
(who stand to lose the most, suffer terribly, and be reduced to colonized virtual serfs or
exterminated if the Fifth Columnists and their foreign masters succeed in crashing
Russia)?
Of course, IF this is a miscalculation (and I'm not sure that it is, given the current
weak, appeasing mentality of the Russian government and population), and the psychopathic
Western ruling elites don't manage to get a hold of their oversized lunatic egos and rein in
their arrogant hubristic belligerence – well, then the whole situation could devolve
pretty quick into a massive, WW I/WW II/Iraq/Serbia combination-type hot war scenario.
Except, this time, with the real probability of stepwise escalation from conventional
hostilities to Thermonuclear Holocaust.
Realistically, what action Russia could take that would potentially match the disruptive
power of American sanctions on Russia?
Russia may have struck a heavy blow already, when she dumped her holdings of U.S.
treasuries. The relatively small amount ($100 to $200 billion) may not have been significant,
but as a signal to the rest of the world it may have been loud. The new sanctions may be an
attempt to punish Russia for that. They won't work, of course, but the noise they generate
may help to obscure the import of Russia's recent action.
What I don't understand is why the US thinks Russia and China will continue to sanction North
Korea. It seems like the US is handing out straight razors to everybody and asking them to
slit each others throats. Except for Erdogan, they all seem to be saying, "Sure why not?"
Maybe they are simply accustomed to taking orders.
Looks like the aim of US sanctions is to ratchet the hostility up with Russia to the level of
a full blown cold war. Ukraine can be a victim.
Notable quotes:
"... Meanwhile, you'll get bogged down in Ukraine. You'll face tough choices (sanctions will get North Korea-style quickly, and even Chinese sympathy will get questionable), like should you spend your scarce resources on modern weaponry or a large security force to keep Ukraine pacified? ..."
"... Very few people in Russia would want Ukraine now. The consensus is: "good riddance". In Ukraine, on the other hand, there are people who want Russia to invade. Some are waiting for someone else to liberate them from Nazis (they apparently are not familiar with Protestant wisdom that God helps those who help themselves), some pray for a pretext to invite NATO/US (as if anyone is willing to die for them). ..."
We'll need an anti-sanctions law regardless of whether or not we are going to invade.
Well, I'd say it's a precondition to invading Ukraine. If you're incapable of
making such a simple law, you're sure as hell incapable of invading Ukraine. And you do need
the law if you want to avoid the sanctions creating the perverse incentives inside Russia, like
the biggest banks not having branches in the Crimea. Decoupling from the US dollar is no help,
since US sanctions are extraterritorial, if you didn't notice, so they affect euro or even
Chinese yuan denominated transactions, too.
Eastern Europeans will never mobilise. What would mass mobilisation even look like in a
country like Hungary? Instead, they'll petition USA to station more of its troops in Eastern
Europe. A lot more, like hundreds of thousands more.
Within living memory, Hungary had armed forces of 150,000 troops and 1,500 main
battle tanks (admittedly, the majority were somewhat obsolete), with hundreds of fighter and
light bomber jets (MiG-21s and Su-22s etc.), and we were the slackers in the Eastern Bloc, not
spending on defense as much as other neighbors of us. Increasing defense spending to 2% of GDP
is what's the plan. If you invaded and occupied the whole of Ukraine, it could easily go up to
4-5%.
Of course, the Americans might come in numbers, too. But you're delusional here:
Doing so will impose costs on the USA. Actually, this is one of the few ways Russia could
impose tangible costs on USA: by stoking tensions in Eastern Europe.
We have no military industry to speak of. Most of our neighbors do have some, but
even they are nowhere near self-sufficiency. You can guess who we'll buy our weapons from.
Poland recently offered to pay for an American base on its soil. So it won't be much of a cost
for the US, it might actually be quite beneficial.
Meanwhile, you'll get bogged down in Ukraine. You'll face tough choices (sanctions will
get North Korea-style quickly, and even Chinese sympathy will get questionable), like should
you spend your scarce resources on modern weaponry or a large security force to keep Ukraine
pacified?
Mass deportations is the best part about occupying the Ukraine!
Stalin's USSR at the height of its power only deported much smaller populations.
You'd need a lot of people to achieve that. But let's assume you'll manage to do that. It will,
of course, create a huge backlash against Russia: popular opinion will get united against
Russians. (Defense spending quickly up to 5% of GDP or higher.) The Ukrainians in our countries
will of course enter the workforce and join anti-Russian ragtag militias to control the border.
Instead they would have to contend with an insurgency in Eastern Poland
So the people ethnically cleansed from their homes will rise up against NATO in
support of Russia. This is a seriously dumb idea.
Very few people in Russia would want Ukraine now. The consensus is: "good riddance". In
Ukraine, on the other hand, there are people who want Russia to invade. Some are waiting for
someone else to liberate them from Nazis (they apparently are not familiar with Protestant
wisdom that God helps those who help themselves), some pray for a pretext to invite NATO/US
(as if anyone is willing to die for them).
This reminds me of an old Russian joke.
An old hag sits on the bench and screams: "Help! They are raping me!"
Another one passes by and asks: "Have you gone completely mad?"
The first one answers: "Everyone is entitled to a pleasant dream!"
Don't worry about my IQ woes – they are non-existent. I am a stable genius –
just like Donald Trump. Your IQ issues are – on the other hand – very easy to
fix. All you have to do is admit that you are Russian and you immediately gain 20-30 IQ
points. Of course, this will come at the expense of Russia, but then again. everything you've
ever done in your history came at the expense of Russia. All the Russians ever wanted was to
have a brotherly nation in Ukraine. They have a brother all right, unfortunately that brother
has a Down syndrome.
Any Russian ruler who tries to return Crimea will be overthrown in no time. As Russia
gradually disengages from the US-dominated financial system, the costs will go down. Russia
has already created its own payment system similar to that of Visa and Mastercard, as well as
its own money transfer system similar to SWIFT. On the other hand, if Russia fails to
disengage from dollar-dominated system, the losses would be much greater than Crimea. It
might even turn into a shithole, like Ukraine.
Insurance is more often a scam than not: Lehman Brothers enjoyed pretty high ratings until
their crash. What's more, banks were insured against the risks of sub-prime mortgages they
held. Remember what happened in 2008?
As to the future, nobody has the crystal ball. Can you tell how much a Big Mac will cost
in the US five or ten years from now? $4? $40? $400? $4,000? Your guess is as good as mine.
Ponzi schemes have a habit of crashing and nobody worked out a way of predicting when exactly
the crash will occur.
This might be in the cards. The US sanctions actually squeezed Russian comprador (5th
column) oligarchs, who were always subservient to the West, sent their families there, and
are siphoning off their money offshore, more than anything. If Putin uses this to expropriate
their stolen riches, which he might do (98% of Russian population would be cheering; they'd
cheer even more if Putin hangs those bastards, but that's unlikely), these sanctions would be
yet another example of the US shooting itself in the foot. The US is getting pretty good at
that lately, always screaming that it hurts afterwards.
"... So will a good Christian like Mike Pompeo reconcile these obvious falsehoods, self deception. With every letter, he will be denying the very God he professes to believe in. ..."
"... Trump and his administration are the reveal of the true nature of modern American political Christianity. This is what it always was ..."
"... But The People are not exactly conscientious objector on the issue of Yemen and the crimes committed in our name either. The Republic might rot from the head, but the rot has certainly spread far and wide. ..."
A senior general urged Saudi officials to conduct a thorough investigation into an
airstrike that killed at least 40 children in Yemen, the Pentagon said Monday, an indication
of U.S. concern about allied nations' air operations against Houthi militants.
The general's request actually shows how little concern the U.S. has for how the Saudi
coalition conducts its war effort. If the U.S. were concerned with how the war was being
fought, our officials wouldn't be asking the perpetrators of atrocities to investigate their
own crimes. It is pointless to urge the Saudis to conduct an investigation into their own war
crime when we already know that they will find that they did nothing wrong. As the
Post article notes later on, the coalition's investigations predictably excuse their
actions:
According to Andrea Prasow, deputy Washington director for Human Rights Watch, Saudi
investigators had cleared coalition military officials of legal responsibility in virtually
all investigations the JIAT had conducted.
The pattern of Saudi coalition conduct over the last three years is clear. Their forces
commit numerous documented war crimes, and then when they "investigate" those crimes they
determine that their forces are guilty of nothing. It would have been laughable to ask the
Saudis to investigate themselves back in 2015, and to do the same over three years later is
inexcusable. It is an invitation to whitewashing heinous, illegal acts. The U.S. will not
honestly call out the coalition members for their crimes against Yemeni civilians because our
government is
deeply complicit in those crimes, and so we are treated to this pantomime farce where we
send officers to call for investigations whose results have been predetermined even before the
crimes were committed. The entire policy is a disgrace, and it brings dishonor on everyone
ordered to participate in it.
There needs to be an independent, international inquiry into war crimes committed by all
sides in Yemen. All parties to the conflict are assuredly guilty of war crimes, and all parties
should be held accountable for what they have done to Yemen's civilians. As long as the U.S.
enables Saudi coalition crimes and then shields them from scrutiny, our government is
implicated in both the crime and the cover-up. Congress could put a stop to this if they
were willing to do their jobs and assume their proper responsibilities, but for more than three
years they have shirked their duties and acquiesced in a despicable and indefensible policy in
Yemen.
"The entire policy is a disgrace, and it brings dishonor on everyone ordered to
participate in it."
For all that they're doing it at the order of even more disgusting civilians, this has got
a be a low point in the history of the American military. The word "Yemen" on a resume or CV
will make military people stink for the rest of their lives. Like "My Lai" or "Dishonorable
Discharge".
We are getting a preview of the letters Mike Pompeo will be signing off on to Congress.
So will a good Christian like Mike Pompeo reconcile these obvious falsehoods, self
deception. With every letter, he will be denying the very God he professes to believe
in.
"The entire policy is a disgrace, and it brings dishonor on everyone ordered to participate
in it."
Conduct unbecoming.
The higher the rank of the officers involving themselves in this – in following
unconstitutional orders to participate in an illegal campaign of aggressive war and
collective punishment – the worse it gets. It would be a heroic act for a private
– or even the officer piloting a refueling tanker – to speak out against this, a
general has much less of a claim to honor and acquiescence both.
If The People really supported those who serve, they would rally to every conscientious
objector – even the misguided ones – because anybody who has the honor and
integrity to question orders is preferable to those that pay no heed to the meaning of their
oath.
But The People are not exactly conscientious objector on the issue of Yemen and the
crimes committed in our name either. The Republic might rot from the head, but the rot has
certainly spread far and wide.
"... Besides, just look at how much the Iraq War benefited Israel. You see, Israel wants to pursue a strategy of destabilizing the region, so it cleverly pulled off a false flag attack on 9/11; I'm not quite sure why Mossad didn't frame one of Israel's actual enemies, like the Palestinians or Iranians, or even Saddam for that matter, as the perpetrators of the attacks, but I'm sure it's all part of the plan. ..."
"... Anyway, Israel got the United States to invade Iraq, which destabilized the region and created chaos, predictably leading to a massive increase in Iranian influence in Iraq and likely enabling more Iranian intervention in the Syrian Civil War, which benefited Israel because uh chaos and destabilization. ..."
. The decision to go to war on false pretenses against Iraq, largely promoted by a cabal
of prominent American Jews in the Pentagon and in the media, killed 4,424 Americans as well
as hundreds of thousands Iraqis and will wind up costing the American taxpayer $7 trillion
dollars when all the bills are paid. That same group of mostly Jewish neocons more-or-less
is now agitating to go to war with Iran using a game plan for escalation prepared by Israel
which will, if anything, prove even more catastrophic.
Oh right, who can forget the cabal of Jews controlling the US government and military at
the time of the Iraq invasion, such as President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney,
Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers, CIA director George Tenet, National Security Advisor
Condoleezza Rice Every.Single.Time, am I right, folks?
Oh wait, they aren't Jewish? Well, I blame the Jews away. Just look at uh Under
Secretary of Defense for Policy Doug Feith, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Woflowitz and
journalist Bill Kristol. That sounds like an extremely powerful cabal easily capable of
commanding such trivial figures as the President, CIA director, Secretary of State, et
cetera, to do their bidding.
Besides, just look at how much the Iraq War benefited Israel. You see, Israel wants to
pursue a strategy of destabilizing the region, so it cleverly pulled off a false flag attack
on 9/11; I'm not quite sure why Mossad didn't frame one of Israel's actual enemies, like the
Palestinians or Iranians, or even Saddam for that matter, as the perpetrators of the attacks,
but I'm sure it's all part of the plan.
Anyway, Israel got the United States to invade Iraq, which destabilized the region and
created chaos, predictably leading to a massive increase in Iranian influence in Iraq and
likely enabling more Iranian intervention in the Syrian Civil War, which benefited Israel
because uh chaos and destabilization.
And if you doubt that neocons totally control the US government, just look at how we're at
war with Iran! Well we're not technically at war yet, a decade after neoconservatives
began promoting the war and President Obama did somehow manage to sign a nuclear deal with
Iran that infuriated his neocon and Israeli puppetmasters but I'm sure that President Trump,
famously beloved by Jews and neocons everywhere, will soon go to war with Iran.
' I'm not entirely sure why you keep hanging on to this tired and false narrative that
US politicians are some sort of stooges and puppets of Israel '
Maybe because they are stooges and puppets? In extreme cases, they even boast of it. When
Romney was running for president, he promised he would check with Israel on any action we
took in the Middle East. When Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State was promoting civil war
in Syria, she explained that this was necessary because Israel wished it.
It goes on, and on. If someone is considering a run for Congress, he gets a nice little
packet from AIPAC. Among other things, he's asked to write an essay expressing his feelings
about Israel.
If the essay isn't satisfactory, AIPAC backs his opponent.
Not surprisingly, when Netanyahu -- the premier of a tiny state on the other side of the
planet -- spoke to Congress he was interrupted with standing ovations seventeen times. The
display put me in mind of the sort of frenzied adulation Communist delegates used to display
towards Stalin.
and the motives, of course, would be similar, even if actual death isn't in prospect. For
most in Congress, displease Israel, and your political career just ended.
"Many in the intelligence and law enforcement communities suspect that it (Israel) had
considerable prior intelligence regarding the 9/11 plot but did not share it with
Washington."
It's certainly difficult to explain how else Mossad came to be filming the attack.
I think it needs to be emphasized that it's not merely a matter of practical politics.
Israel is evil -- she brings misery to millions, actual happiness to almost no one, and
engages in behavior with no defensible moral foundation at all. She has attacked every
single one of her neighbors, compulsively seeks out further conflict to paper over the
shortcomings in her own national identity, and treats her Palestinian subjects with a
morality about like that of a nasty little boy pulling the wings off a fly.
Arguably, others are as bad. However, unlike the others, Israel could not have come into
being without our support, and could not continue to exist today without our continued moral,
economic, diplomatic, and military support. If we pulled the plug, Israel would cease to
exist as a Jewish supremacist state within -- at most -- a decade.
We are, in fact, responsible for Israel, and hence responsible for Israel's crimes. Other
people's teenaged sons may well be out there stealing cars and raping girls. This happens to
be our son doing it. We're responsible.
We pursue many policies I regard as futile, short-sighted, deluded, or self-destructive.
My personal list would include 'come one come all' immigration, global warming denial,
maintaining a massive military establishment, condoning 'Black Lives Matter,' and probably
some other things.
No doubt the reader has his own list. However, that's not the point. The point is that
essentially, these policies are merely stupid rather than actually evil. It's not evil
to think we should just let whoever wants come into the US. It's dumb -- but it isn't
evil. In fact, I'll willingly credit people who vote for 'sanctuary cities' et al with the
most laudable sentiments. I merely question their intelligence.
Israel is different. Israel is evil, and hence our support for it is as well. It is the
most fundamentally wrong act we are engaged in.
There is a moral dimension to life. There is a distinction between striving to do good --
however unsuccessfully -- and willingly participating in evil.
"A well-funded massive lobbying effort involving hundreds of groups and thousands of
individuals in the U.S. has worked to the detriment of actual American interests, in part
by creating a permanent annual gift of billions of dollars to Israel for no other reason
but that it is Israel and can get anything it wants from a servile Congress and White House
without any objection from a controlled media."
Kind of begs the question, why are we giving any aid to a first-world country with a GDP
growth rate in the 3% to 4% rate for years (even while we were stuck below 2%) and an
unemployment rate below 4%?
The Israeli economy is in better shape than the US economy; they should be giving us
aid.
"Baron Cohen, who confronted several GOP notables in the guise of Colonel Erran Morad,
an Israeli security specialist, provided a number of clues that his interview was a sham
but none of the victims were smart enough to pick up on them."
Yes, it is truly amazing what our "Best & Brightest" will do to stay on-side.
Following Mr. Giraldi's earlier post regarding the gubernatorial run of Israeli puppet Ron
DeSantis and the Big Sugar connections of Adam Putnam, it would seem a Floridian's least
worst choice is Bob White.
Israel is nothing but trouble. It has the right to defend itself
1st part: Absolutely, indubitably correct.
2nd part: ¿Qué? Why do people say/write this? Under what corrupt
arrangement does an oh, so obvious outlaw have any such right?
Consider: A gang of out-of-towners turns up at a block of flats, breaks the doors down and
occupies the building, killing some erstwhile owner/occupiers and ejecting most of the rest
on the way in, thereafter whooping it up big, and ignoring [obviously too feeble] orders to
RoR+R*3 [= Right of Return + Revest, Reparations and Reconciliation.] Since when can such
outlaws dictate anything, thumb their noses at the Law?
Property, especially here land, is alienable – but this does not mean
' subject to seizure by aliens .'
Kindly consider: "A fair exchange is no robbery." A fair exchange means willing
seller, interested buyer, and a freely and fairly agreed price. No such thing exists
vis-à-vis the forcible colonisation of Palestine. Some proof may be seen
here [my
bolding]:
By 1949, some 700,000 Palestinians had fled or been expelled from their lands and
villages. Israel was now in control of some 20.5 million dunams (approx. 20,500
km²) or 78% of lands in what had been Mandatory Palestine
Land laws were passed to legalize changes to land ownership.[5]
5. Ruling Palestine, A History of the Legally Sanctioned Jewish-Israeli Seizure of Land
and Housing in Palestine. Publishers: COHRE & BADIL, May 2005, p. 37.
Especially in reference to the illegitimate entity which terms itself Israel, wiki is not
reliable, being, like the US Congress, Israeli-occupied territory. So it is noteworthy that
they write "in control of" as opposed to 'own.' They can't ever own it due to not having
purchased it, and Palestinians may not surrender it, due to the UDHR which specifies
*inalienable* rights:
Article 3.
• Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
Article 17.
• (1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with
others.
• (2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.
Also, see the Washington Consensus:
10.Legal security for property rights.
Further, there is UNSC242: inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war, plus
only just law may earn respect, and/or be respected. A law dispossessing erstwhile legal
owner/occupiers is an utter travesty.
Me; comment: Its illegitimacy is all so howlingly obvious!
Fazit: Apart from the ~6% of 'pre-Herzl Palestine' which 'invading by stealth' alien,
mostly European Jews managed to purchase, the illegitimate entity does not own nor can they
ever own the land/property they squat upon, which still belongs to the erstwhile
owner/occupiers, specifically the 'native' pre-Nakba Palestinians [now including heirs &
successors]. Then, the illegitimate entity does not declare borders for two reasons 1) any
such declaration would be [probably successfully] challenged and 2) the illegitimate entity
expresses the desire to expand to 'from the Nile to the Euphrates.' Q: Just how ghastly is
that? A: Could hardly be worse.
Closing the loop: How can land-thieves have any 'right to defend' such improperly
alienated land/property? It doesn't compute! rgds
Thank you, Mr. Giraldi, for another forceful rebuke of Zionist criminality and US
culpability.
The supremacist kosher state is a cancer on America. Just survey the wreckage. Count the
bodies. Who benefits from this?
The Zionist project is a plague on humanity. It entertains no compromise. It will stop at
virtually nothing. Examine the blood-soaked damage from Soviet Russia to Germany to Palestine
and beyond. It moves Washington around via remote control.
The situation has become very grave. Speech deemed 'anti-Semitic' is rapidly being
criminalized worldwide.
Right wing political expression (that Jews don't like) on Twitter, Facebook and the web is
being de-platformed for speech infractions that involve 'hate'. But it's only 'hate' of a
certain stripe.
After all, hatred is ubiquitous in America. It cuts in every direction. So why is the
focus so intense on just one spectrum of hatred?
Might it have something to do with the political preferences of those in power?
Oh maybe.
Principles be damned. Whose ox is being gored?
With that in mind, consider this: who might actually be the biggest hater of
all?–and killer? (Hint: it's certainly not the powerless Alt-right 'deplorables'.)
Might it instead be the world's foremost victims?
After all, incendiary speech–even 'hate speech'–does not kill. It takes bombs,
drones, tanks and missiles to accomplish that.
So where's the uproar over routine sorties which needlessly dispense death and
destruction?
It's gone missing.
Incredibly, it is rough speech and acute political criticism–not failed, horrific
wars–that are being criminalized. Pro-Zionist 'wars of choice' still get a pass in our
corporate board rooms, TV studios, news rooms, and in most of Official Washington.
This entrenched distortion allows neocons and their underlings to jawbone and plot their
next preemptive war. The Big Squeeze is on. Beware Russia, Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and
Iran. Zionism is an 'unshakable' Washington value. So get ready.
How distant wars advance the interests of average Americans remains a mystery.
Despite this puzzle, America's MSM offers little resistance and no straightforward
criticism of Zio-Washington's ceaseless war efforts on behalf of a certain 'democratic ally'.
In similar fashion, the Fourth Estate has also been compromised.
It's worth remembering that, according to the UN Charter, a state-sponsored 'First Strike'
against another sovereign state is the most serious war crime. This elementary moral precept
however matters not–at least not when Israel is pulling the strings. Quiet, children.
Listen. Obey.
What we have here is a pattern of vast serial criminality.
Zio-Washington has become Israel's war vessel. We regular folk are just along for the
ride.
So don't forget to cheer for the good guys!
Incredibly, US-enabled, Israeli ruthlessness has gotten even worse under 'America First'
Trump. After all, Trump needlessly tore up Obama's hard-fought peace deal with Iran.
Why would Trump make such a move? (As a candidate, he was far less hawkish).
Our weakened and despised President needs desperately to please America's foremost lobby.
Trump cannot govern without their support. This peculiar situation however requires
additional blood-letting on behalf of the Zionist state. Foreign wars that benefit Israel are
the unwritten price that the goyim leadership in America must pay. Sorry folks!
(Are you listening, Tehran?)
Jewish power corrupts. Overwhelming Jewish power corrupts in overwhelming fashion.
Moss also told the Guardian that Manigault Newman's use of a recording device presented
counterintelligence risks. "All it takes is one foreign agency hacking [the recording device],
and setting it to passive record mode," said Moss. The result would mean all conversations, not
just those Manigault Newman chose to record, would be "accessible to foreign entities".
This concern was shared by Kayyem. "There might be the perception, particularly by our
enemies, that the entire White House might be compromised, and that's kind of scary," she said,
adding: "The audience isn't just us and Omarosa and Trump. It's the Chinese and the
Russians."
Is recording in the Situation Room a crime?
Moss said, however, that just because the conversation occurred in the Situation Room, which
is actually a secured series of connected rooms, there is "no real obvious criminal liability".
All staffers entering the area must lock away their cell phones and other insecure electronic
devices. But he noted the violation would likely be enough to deny Manigault Newman a security
clearance if she ever wishes to work for the federal government in the future.
What has
the White House said?
"The very idea a staff member would sneak a recording device into the White House Situation
Room shows a blatant disregard for our national security," said White House press secretary
Sarah Sanders. She added: "Then to brag about it on national television further proves the lack
of character and integrity of this disgruntled former White House employee."
In near simultaneous statements addressed to the Iranian public in a speech aired on state TV, the supreme leader who has the
final word over all affairs in the Islamic republic, issued the directive: "I ban holding any talks with America... America never
remains loyal to its promises in talks."
"America's withdrawal from the nuclear deal is a clear proof that America cannot be trusted," state TV quoted Khamenei further.
As part of his series of tweets, some of which mocked Trump's policy in the Middle East, Khamenei published an infographic presenting
his position on ratcheting tensions with the U.S.
He also slammed the idea that this was the first such offer of talks, saying that Iran has proudly resisted unfair and imbalanced
U.S. offers of negotiations for decades, and even cited President Ronald Reagan's sending his national security advisor, Robert McFarlane
to Tehran for failed negotiations.
Notably, he appeared to troll Trump personally as well as his cabinet in the following:
A stupid man tells the Iranian nation that 'your government spends your money on Syria'. This is while his boss-- the U.S.
president-- has admitted he spent 7 trillion dollars in the Middle East without gaining anything in return!
The top Iranian cleric also briefly referenced Iran's domestic crisis, which has included sporadic protests and clashes with the
police throughout the summer in response to a plummeting rial and inability of people to access imported goods, stating "Today's
livelihood problems do not emerge from outside; they are internal."
He urged the country to resist sanctions and erect "prudent" ways shielding from their effects.
It will be interesting to see if Trump responds to this directly in a tweet, or if any official reaction will be forthcoming from
the White House.
But in the meantime it appears the possibility of any renegotiation after Trump's official pullout of the JCPOA last May has just
had to the door slammed on it.
The mullahs are going to be quite the whiny bitches for a while. The anti-American pro Islam President Obama, Commie CIA director,
for sale Sec of State, gay agenda Pentagon director and Ben Rhodes and ValJar, Rice and their ill will not be returning. Islamic
socialism will be performing the economic wonders you can expect, putting a strong clamp on you their foreign subversion and domestic
payrolls too. Meanwhile, they've got a middle class that hates them and views Islam as foreign dirty Arabs' inhuman sect. Good
luck with that.
I agree with your analysis. In addition, President Putin does not want to ruin the US
economy as doing so could have catastrophic ripple effects across the globe. What he does
want is to neuter the US government so it cannot so easily continue to make war, which
indirectly will weaken the Israeli state to the same.
Those people who have their monies in sound, diversified investment houses (ie:
Schwab, Canada's TD Bank) will weather the financial storms but houses such as Glodman's
and all the other speculators will most likely lose everything while bankrupting most of
the US government itself.
If it goes far enough and and the US government under the current set of Republican
loons decide to shut down Social Security and Medicare under such stresses, it will most
likely be game over for the government at that point allowing the UN to come in a reorder
the mess the US has made of itself; hopefully under Russian directives...
That the 'storm' is coming, needs no elaboration, because this spending spree the US
has indulged in, can, on any REAL planet, simply not go on indefinitely, ...
...and Russia isn't the only country, divesting themselves of this highly toxic brew
of the US' 'reserve currency', other countries are doing it too, namely China.
If the grapevine is to be given any credence, Japan is ALSO trying, with ever greater
desperation, to divest themselves from the US dollar, but because their economy is so
much tighter strung to the US', this diversification isn't going to happen without some
major 'pains', ...
The ones, who are going to bear the brunt of the US financially collapse, ...like it
happened during the GFC, are the Europeans, Africans and South Americans, who's economies
aren't endowed with either such resilience, ...like the Russian economy, or with such
size, ...like the Chinese economy.
Sounds like they're preparing for the possibility that this will one more bit of ammo
that the US will use against Russia. If you recall, they've made noises about it in the
past. Putin's trying to cover against all possible infringements of Russian freedom and
business by doing this. It's a smart idea to get the companies using the alternative to
SWIFT before it becomes necessary. It is also good news that Russian companies and
civilians are not specifying dollars for their loans. Smart thinking!
Yes, the Russians took the lemons of the sanctions and made lemonade - re-creating
their exports by diversifying into agriculture, industrial and technological equipment,
meat, dairy and other items. As for tourism, they are rated very high with St. Petersburg
being high on the list of 'want to visit' cities. The World Cup brought the truth out to
fans of how great, friendly and safe the country is. I'm sure they'll survive whatever
the US throws at them with elan.
And they need to be. I don't see the US softening their attitude anytime soon. No
matter who wins the midterms, the loser will blame their loss on Russian meddling, so
this will continue on - we've got at least 2 more years of the shit, possibly 4 after
that, if Trump runs and wins again. I myself am tired of all this - it will only be the
loss of the dollar as world currency that ends this and that's started happening already
and will be speeding up as more sanctions and tariffs come into play worldwide.
"... Moscow. July 27. INTERFAX.RU - Russia is not giving up the dollar, because at the
moment it is the universal reserve currency to which there are no full-fledged
alternatives, said Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"Russia is not abandoning the dollar, the dollar is the universal reserve currency.
The Euro could more or less claim that status, but not fully. Therefore, we are perfectly
aware what the dollar represents today," he said at a press conference on the results of
the BRICS summit in South Africa, answering the question on reduction of investments of
the Russian Federation in US Treasury bonds.
"As for the reserve currencies in general, regional reserve currencies already emerge.
In a sense, this is the role that the Russian ruble plays in relation to the CIS or
EurAsEC countries. But in general, any national currency is strong and good if it is
backed by an equally strong and good economy. We must proceed from these fundamental
facts", said the President.
...
... "
Russia wont drop a dollar, do drop a dollar means surrender to China...Putin wont
allow China to progress over Russia, Chinese economy dropping with the speed of light
anyway...
In reply to Dennis, I think he is right on all counts, but, in the end, the U.S.
national debt coupled with ten times the "unfunded liabilities" is going to completely
tank the dollar, and nothing short of Americans demanding our government beg to be
allowed in the now dozen or more "real, gold capitalized banks" of the world, and being
accepted only because we do have some gold, and it would be security, and at the same
time, the U.S. returning to "capitalism", not a form of trade, but natural law in the
realm of "value added trade", something socialists have had to learn the hard way, and in
teaching the lesson, our own considered themselves 'above that issue', never allowing
themselves to dream of what could, would, and has happened, the actual taking up of this
natural law, and re-securing world trade out of being manipulable by the power brokers,
bankers and central banks, and once again, answering to the singular stable value that
has served humanity for millennia.
There is a way, and reason for "allowing America" to join, we've taxed the whole of the
trading world with inflation since 48, we've reduced the dollar from 22.50 per ounce to
35.00 between 33 and 48, and from that to floating around 2000, depending on our
government's manipulations on commodities markets, and oil in particular, and the world
would be better off if it could recoup some or all of the pillage my government has done,
outside the country.
As to "buying gold while it is down, I've bought much silver, for security, at 22.00 an
ounce, later at 19.xx per, and recently, at 14.xx per, as nations sell off metals to
provide liquidity in their markets. The metals have real value, and we can only guess the
probable future value of the paper, so securing one's place on a continuous, ongoing pace
means one will get better value one week, and perhaps lesser value the next, but
regardless, all its value is secure, in a way paper never can be.
In the mid-19th century, a cattle rancher with history and reputation of honesty by long
practice, could scribble a note on the back of a shingle, a check, buying cattle, and the
person taking the shingle in exchange for a herd, could take the shingle to the town
bank, and get gold in the amount denoted on the rancher's signature on his, scrap wood
"check".
Gold and silver "certificates" were issued to make money more easily carried, but they
acclimated people to the idea paper can hold real value. The people, we, humans, forget,
all the value is in the words put on the paper, and trust in the Person upon whose
signature that value is secured by. Informal, on scrap paper, scribbled, we never forget
it merely represents a pile of gold, and we don't let just anyone trade a scrap of
shingle for a herd of cows, only those we know by experience, we, personally, can trust.
We can never trust fancy printed paper, special, illegal to make, except the one who
makes it for money, and we should know by the kind of paper, the fancy special ink, and
the "flourishes", it was never intended to represent money, but to replace it on its
face, without having to carry the real value, which then can be kept, stolen, when paper
is lawful to own, and gold is not.
Satan didn't tell Eve "you won't die, God lied to you", he merely asked, "surely you
won't die?", implying God must love her too much to fulfill His word. The lie was all in
Eve's mind, Satan merely gave her opportunity to lie to herself, and our monopoly money
system is exactly the same kind, and form of enticement to lie, that puts the onus of the
lie upon ourselves, in accepting pretend money.
All great lies are made by those desirous of the power, or wisdom, wealth, ease, but
don't wish to fulfill God's promise, "you will earn your daily bread by the sweat of your
brow", but know so many who will fall for deceit in hopes of getting something more than
they earned. Those who doggedly tie their lives, their honor, and their fortunes to God,
and their faith, won't fall for the game, and are the exact enemies of the evil, because
they prove the truth and the lie in their everyday work.
America has walked a long dark way down that broad and wide path, and we are right close
to the point of no return. I don't know which side of that point we're on, time will
tell, but I pray we are short, and can still be saved if we choose to turn to right.
Semper Fidelis,
John McClain
Vanceboro ,NC, USA
Those who are looking for a swift collapse of the dollar will probably be mistaken.
Instead a whole series of events is gradually eroding its world power. These events
include the rise of China as the world supremo of trade, the increasing isolationism of
the US in world trade and diplomacy, and the need for US to keep increasing its Fed rate
which in turn makes its debt servicing more unsustainable
Russia pays the [huge] cost of remaining a nation, a civilization and a state ~Vladimir
Putin.
Putin Slams US: "The Biggest Mistake Russia Ever Made Was To Trust You"
This is a clear attempt top abuse the dominant position of the USA in the world. For Russian
this is powerful blow in the torso, Will it be knockdown remains to be seen. Also as a weaker
party Russia can's afford a powerful counterstrike.
Notable quotes:
"... "Skulduggery instead of diplomacy, lies instead of truth, hairdresser-saloon hearsay against facts and truth, anything goes in the attempt to derail the one nation with the guts, gumption, grit and wherewithal to counter the evil hegemonistic plans of Washington and its chihuahuas" ..."
"Skulduggery instead of diplomacy, lies instead of truth,
hairdresser-saloon hearsay against facts and truth, anything goes in the attempt to derail the
one nation with the guts, gumption, grit and wherewithal to counter the evil hegemonistic plans
of Washington and its chihuahuas"Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey 14 hours
ago | 2,909
85 More sanctions
from the USA using the Skripal affair as an excuse without a shred of evidence, based on hype,
hysteria and hearsay. Back-door economic warfare.
Surprise, surprise. The USA invokes a law from the 1990s claiming that it has to impose
sanctions when a country crosses a chemical or biological line, in this case an invisible one
with no proof, no law case, no due legal process, just an allegation from wonderful British
intelligence that the Kremlin was involved in the Skripal case. Proof? None actually...none at
all. Just a vague blanket statement along the lines of "They have done it before and they have
said they will take out traitors and in the absence of any plausible alternative, they must be
guilty". For Washington, after months of vacillating, stating the obvious that it is very
complicated to apportion the blame when nobody knows which novichok was used, where it was
produced and in the total absence of any trail linking it to the Kremlin, we get the idea that
we are looking yet again at the wonderful British intelligence of the type that Colin Powell
used to justify the USA's illegal and murderous act of butchery against Iraq. The type of
intelligence which resembles a decade-old doctoral thesis copied and pasted from the net and
sexed up by Downing Street.
And here they are again, the dynamic duo. Skulduggery instead of diplomacy, lies instead of
truth, hairdresser-saloon hearsay against facts and truth, anything goes in the attempt to
derail the one nation with the guts, gumption, grit and wherewithal to counter the evil
hegemonistic plans of Washington and its chihuahuas.
Drawing the time line at the beginning, let us analyze what is happening and let us see the
movie developing from a distance. The political system in vogue at present is the corporatist
model controlled by the $inister $ix $isters which control the policies of Washington and its
chihuahuas, namely the BARFFS (Banking, Arms, eneRgy, Finance, Food, Pharma/DrugS Lobbies). The
BARFFS live off resources and as history has shown us when they have none themselves, they
invade countries and steal them. Ask Africa, the victim of a silent Holocaust which claimed
seventy million lives.
Russia for them is kosher when it is ruled by something that bends over when told to and
allows foreigners to steal the country's resources. Russia for them is not kosher when someone
like Putin comes along, slams his fist on the table and says loud and clear that Russian
resources are for Russians, managed by Russians. What the BARFFS want is to see Russia divided
up into, say, one hundred micro-states each one with a BARFFS-friendly government allowing
foreigners to syphon off the vast resources of this country.
The game starts with promises made to the then-USSR about friendly relations, about NATO not
encroaching eastwards, about a new world order based on partnership. It then quickly morphs out
of control with the help of the media, using buzz-words and expressions such as "collapse of
the Soviet Union" (absolute nonsense, it did not collapse, it transformed from the Union to the
Commonwealth as per the terms of the Third Soviet Constitution, without consulting the people,
or has everyone forgotten that?). There then ensued acts of provocation in the Balkans, and
then in Russia itself (Chechnya), then on Russia's frontiers.
Before Georgia in 2008 we had a spectacular example of war crimes and an illegal invasion of
Iraq to test the waters, where military hardware was deployed against civilian structures,
where fields of cereals were strafed by NATO aircraft to starve families, where Depleted
Uranium was deployed leaving swathes of territory poisonous; beforte this we had the illegal
interference in the Republic of Serbia, backing terrorists (Ushtria Çlirimtare ë
Kosovës, UÇK or KLA) and the illegal act of kidnapping and subsequent
manslaughter/murder of Slobodan Milosevich, who died in custody while being held illegally and
without being found guilty of any of the crimes leveled against him.
With Georgia we had another act of provocation in which Georgian forces attacked Russian
peacekeepers in South Ossetia and were building up to do the same in Abkhazia, territories
which under the Soviet Constitution had necessarily to have status referendums on which way the
people wanted to go and into which Republic they should integrate. Georgia refused to hold
these referendums.
And since Georgia we had Libya, a shocking act of barbarity in which NATO interfered in the
internal affairs of a sovereign state, sending the country with the highest Human Development
Index back into the dark ages, fragmented and crawling with terrorists. Not to mention
Afghanistan, started in 2001 and ongoing, where "allied" troops are photographed guarding opium
fields, where opium production has risen and where Talebaan fighters are seen escorting NATO
convoys, paid, like WTF?... and not to mention Syria, in which the same side once again allied
itself with terrorists as it did in Libya, terrorists which raped little girls before and after
they were beheaded, which raped nuns savagely in every orifice of their bodies, which impaled
little boys on stakes and which ripped the hearts out of Syrian soldiers and bit into them.
So we see what we are up against. And if all that were not enough today we have the idiotic
acts of provocation in the Baltic where a handful of NATO soldiers are cavorting around like
toy soldiers claiming to keep their countries safe. From what? Jupiter? Ah and yes, we have
Ukraine as the latest act of provocation.
It started off well before the so-called protests in Independence Square, Kiev with
subversion and organization of protesters who took to the streets in November 2013 and in late
February 2014, shots were fired from the sixth floor of Hotel Ukraine on the protesters in the
square below to create a "cause", the democratically elected President was ousted in an illegal
coup, massacres were perpetrated against Russian-speaking Ukrainians (this story seems to have
disappeared from the Western media) and Fascists shouted slogans such as "Death to Russians and
Jews". As a reaction, Russian-speaking Ukrainians defended themselves in South-East Ukraine and
in the absence of the due legal force in the Republic of Crimea, the Legislative Assembly, now
the organism with due legal force, organized a referendum on status and over ninety per cent of
the population (Russians) voted to reintegrate Russia. It's called Democracy. Maybe Washington
and its chihuahuas should try it some time.
What the BARFFS wanted Russia to do was to roll over, drop its pants and say "sock it to me,
babe". With another leader, that might have happened. Not with Putin. So now we have instead,
economic warfare with sanctions, more sanctions and increased sanctions, trying to tie a knot
around Russia's throat and tightening it, now linking Crimea to Abkhazia to South Ossetia, to
state-sponsored terrorism without a shred of respect for the law and the facts. It is by now
crystal clear what the West wants.
It wants to strangle the Russian economy to create unrest in Russia and create political
movements against Putin. It then wants to instal a west-friendly government which will see
Russia fragmented, sooner or later, into a myriad of republics, each one with their resources
controlled by foreigners.
That is what the sanctions are about. Let us see whose side God is on.
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war
was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the
bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering;
on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a
fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched
down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers
and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they
swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory with
stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest
intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in
the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of
Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which
moved every listener.
It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured
to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a
stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of
sight and offended no more in that way.
Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church
was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams --
visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing
sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the
surrender!
Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of
glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors
and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to
win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a
war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed
by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with
glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation:
God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest,
Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!
Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate
pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an
ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers,
and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in
the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong
and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them crush the foe, grant to them and
to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his
eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet,
his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy
face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and
wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side
and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence,
continued his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent
appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord and God, Father and Protector of
our land and flag!"
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the startled
minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound
audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he
said:
"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the
house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the
prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such be your desire after I,
His messenger, shall have explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import.
For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who
utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think. "God's servant and yours has prayed
his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one
uttered, and the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him who heareth all
supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would
beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon
your neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain on your crop which
needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse on some neighbor's crop which
may not need rain and can be injured by it.
"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am commissioned by
God to put into words the other part of it -- that part which the pastor -- and also you
in your hearts -- fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant
that it was so! You heard the words 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is
sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words.
Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for
many unmentioned results which follow victory -- must follow it, cannot help but follow
it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He
commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!
"Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle -- be
Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our
beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody
shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of
their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their
wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of
fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help
us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended in the
wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in
summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee
for the refuge of the grave and denied it --
For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract
their bitter pilgrimmage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain
the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!
We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the
ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble
and contrite hearts. Amen.
(After a pause.) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of
the Most High waits."
--
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in
what he said.
The rest of the world needs to rally around Russia. Regular Americans have no voice in
this insanity. Contacting Representatives/Senators does no good. The neocons, run by you
know who, seek to destroy Russia b/c they can't control Putin. The neocons are
psychopaths and care not about US or other lives nor even the interests of citizens -
they want war. Hope Putin can dodge this with China and the other BRICS.
http://theduran.com/us-sanc...
Hitler's plan for Russia was called "General Plan Ost."
After being conquered, the country up to and including the western third of Siberia was
to be carved up into a series of administrative regions like "Muscovy", "Ukraine" and
others, and exploited. The remaining two thirds of Siberia was to be given to Japan.
There was a special plan for Crimea because of its favourable climate. Cities like
Leningrad and Moscow were simply to be erased as serving no useful purpose in the Plan.
Moscow was to be submerged under an artificial lake.
The population of 200 million was to be reduced by "natural" means, ie starvation.
Different figures were given of the numbers who would have to die. 45 million, initially.
But ultimately only 15 million young Russian men and women would need to be retained as
slave labour.
The country would be comprehensively looted and run as a resource colony, supplying its
colonial overlords with grain, oil, timber and metal ores.
Of course, in the event the Plan was never carried out. Things didn't quite work out
according to the power point presentation. But like they say, it's the thought that
counts.
The western plan for the Russian Federation is broadly similar, except in the details.
They probably wouldn't bother submerging Moscow in an artificial lake. These plans came
very close to being realised and put into effect in 1941 and 1991. That these things did
not come to pass is not the result of any natural law. If circumstances had been slightly
different, all these things would now be part of the historical record. Maybe if the
weather had not been so severe in 1941. Or if German leadership and planning had been
slightly better. Or if some quisling stooge had come to power after the 1990s instead of
Putin. Any of these things could easily have happened. And Russia would just have been a
half forgotten memory, like the ancient civilisations of Central and South America.
And that is why Russia needs to stop referring to its "western colleagues and
partners."
What Russia is like today, with it's leader Vladimir Putin ,was meant to be .I firmly
believe this.
From the Sleeping Prophet Edgar Cayce sometime in the 1930's
"Through Russia comes the hope of the world. Not in respect to what is
sometimes termed Communism or Bolshevism -- no! But freedom -- freedom! That each
man will live for his fellow man. The principle has been born there. It will
take years for it to be crystallized; yet out of Russia comes again the hope of
the world." ~ Edgar Cayce
You could be right, but Russia has had some disastrous leaders in the past - Yeltsin,
Gorbachev, going back to Kerensky, or Tsar Nicholas. Not necessarily evil or corrupt,
maybe well meaning, but disastrous leadership. Imagine if someone of that kind was at the
helm now, someone like Merkel/ Macron/ May. It could have happened, and Russia would be
just like Ukraine today...
"Bring Them on and Let's See Whose Side God Is On!"
LOL, sounds like Erdogan who recently said "They have Dollars, we have our God".
Funny social media comments followed, such as; "Maybe God should be appointed our
economy minister". .. "As if 'they' don't have any God"... "Is God a Turk?" (which is
funny because "Allah" is an Arab God).
But religious people are totally unable to question; only they believe in the right
religion, in the right God and only they are God's favorite people. Everybody else is
doomed.
Russia must learn to counter the sanctions threat. If sanctions result in Russia
correcting the errors in how her money system functions (these all stemming from the
world banking monopoly which only ever issues money as an ever-increasing and ever more
dragonian burden on nations and people) then it will lead to prosperity based on Russia's
own vast natural resources, her own increasing production capacities and the material
requirements of her people. When Russia sweaps aside all the lies that the global banking
monopoly relies upon Russia will not only be truly free and prosperous, it will lead the
rest of the world in a better and more secure economic future.
Sanctions on Russia is of lesser importance than interest level
Let us say sanctions increase machinery cost for a farmer with 10%, so a $50,000 machine
will cost $55,000. That is $500 per year (downpayment 10 years)
While 1% interest on $500,000 (all his debt) is like $5000. Today's 15% interest on
$500,000 will be $75,000 per year.
Farmers need more sanctions anyway
Japan was loaded down with so many sanctioned that it had no choice but to attack
Hawaii. That was the plan after all - but the American people never found out about it
till - Now. Russia has more than a few hundred - Zero's to attack its enemy with. It's
another Washington game and once again the people of the US - are out to lunch.
The American people are brainwashed by their media about all this. They are swallowing
the lies b/c they don't get enuf alt media and even there, not enuf is reported. Most
still believe Crimea was militarily taken over by Russia. Keep getting the truth out.
God favors truth,I don't expect the racists blinded in their zeal,can concieve the
virtues of the real deal christain faith,not for the faint minded,nor them purists who
assume justice is easier said then done!
General Grant, who participated in the war against Mexico as a junior officer, said he
believed the Civil War was God's inevitable punishment for that act of illegal
aggression.
SuperJew AKA Mike a JIDF heavyweight has decided to go on an all out offensive along
with his rabid Jew dog - Bad boy!! Otto!! Mike may be operating from an alt account
Their objective is to provoke and attempt to get people banned
It seems they really dont appreciate being identified like this . Well Jews - Get Used to
it !
It also seems that otto has been banned from posting here due to his offensive nature,
yet here he is from a different account still stinking up the place
Kjell Hasthi is a known JEW Troll, very likely a JIDF Operative
A Jew with mutilated genitals because his parents are degenerates
To add to that, it was a dirty old Jew that violated him
Clearly this has had a significant psychological impact
Kjell Hasthi Total Comments 45310
All on Russia Insider thats some serious f'ing trolling
Thats an all out offensive and this is just one Jew account
A list of this network is being compiled:
Nightcrawler136 ---- David --- Anja Boettcher
Vera Gottlieb ---- Kjell Hasthi --- John C Carleton
Mike Saunders ---- Jay Dee --- YaSayTyrantsAndLiarsBetter?
JIMI JAMES ---- Merijn --- SHELDON BUCHMAN
reaganmikenyc ---- Bruno Bardorosso ---
Bad boy!! Otto!! ---- Mike ---
You've been Identified Jews !
Stop your attacks on this community and discontinue you disruptive behaviour
It is unfortuanate that we must engage in such activities to protect our communities
from Jewish Supremacists but we do what we must !!!!
(To the gentile community - feel free to Join us in our campaign to expose these
hostile invasive Jews and protect this community from their offensive - you can copy this
and use it (or create your own) whenever these JIDF Troll operatives are active)
Keep screaming it today, keep screaming it tomorrow, keep screaming it long after you
have been deported
Keep screaming you Religious Supremacist nut case
Unless you are talking that angry, vindictive, bloodthirsty, pedophilic "god", of the
Babylonian End of Times Death Cult.
Jesus the Christ said, chain some cinderblocks around a pedophiles neck, throw em in
the deep end.
Putin and Trump are in bed with the pedophile evil of Israhell!
So it is obvious, the "God" which WASHINGTON DC/USA, Moscow and the Russian Orthodox
Church serves, is not the God, who is the Father, of Jesus the Christ, who did not say
crawl in bed with the Holocausting pedophiles!
Maybe Moscow's/ USA/WASHINGTON DC's God's name is Shekels.
"Jesus the Christ said, chain some cinderblocks around a pedophiles neck, throw em in
the deep end".
Now John, as your friend who agrees and sympathizes with your righteous anger, surely
that's not exactly what he said? As I recall, he warned that it would better for such
people if they were drowned. The implication seems to be that God will punish them
severely - either now or, more likely, in the afterlife.
SuperJew AKA Mike a JIDF heavyweight has decided to go on an all out offensive along
with his rabid Jew dog - Bad boy!! Otto!! Mike may be operating from an alt account
Their objective is to provoke and attempt to get people banned
It seems they really dont appreciate being identified like this . Well Jews - Get Used to
it !
It also seems that otto has been banned from posting here due to his offensive nature,
yet here he is from a different account still stinking up the place
Kjell Hasthi is a known JEW Troll, very likely a JIDF Operative
A Jew with mutilated genitals because his parents are degenerates
To add to that, it was a dirty old Jew that violated him
Clearly this has had a significant psychological impact
Kjell Hasthi Total Comments 45310
All on Russia Insider thats some serious f'ing trolling
Thats an all out offensive and this is just one Jew account
A list of this network is being compiled:
Nightcrawler136 ---- David --- Anja Boettcher
Vera Gottlieb ---- Kjell Hasthi --- John C Carleton
Mike Saunders ---- Jay Dee --- YaSayTyrantsAndLiarsBetter?
JIMI JAMES ---- Merijn --- SHELDON BUCHMAN
reaganmikenyc ---- Bruno Bardorosso ---
Bad boy!! Otto!! ---- Mike ---
You've been Identified Jews !
Stop your attacks on this community and discontinue you disruptive behaviour
It is unfortuanate that we must engage in such activities to protect our communities
from Jewish Supremacists but we do what we must !!!!!
(To the gentile community - feel free to Join us in our campaign to expose these
hostile invasive Jews and protect this community from their offensive - you can copy this
and use it (or create your own) whenever these JIDF Troll operatives are active)
All the Jews are screaming Fascist today
Keep screaming it today, keep screaming it tomorrow, keep screaming it long after you
have been deported
Keep screaming you Religious Supremacist nut case !
They are trying with all their deceptive stupidity,to project an image of Israhell
that is totally false. The little poor innocent insignificant Israhell that hurts no one
and minds its own business. Deception and evil is in their dna.
It could be the Trump was already deposed as a President by Pompeo.
I never understood appointment of Haley and appointment of Bolton if we assume that Trump is not a neocon and does not want to
continue previous administration policies. Haley is kind of Sikh variant of
Samantha
Power. Bolton is probably as bad as Wolfowitz. Pompeo also can be viewed as Hillary 2.0.
Notable quotes:
"... In addition, the US has delivered an ultimatum, saying that if Russia does not give assurances within 90 days that it will no longer use chemical weapons and allow international inspectors to inspect its production facilities, further sanctions will be implemented. But Russia denies it used chemical weapons. Unlike the US, it destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile in accordance with international treaties. ..."
"... The legislation gave a 60-day window to begin implementation of sanctions after the Trump administration determined that the now-British citizen Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned by a strain of the Novichok nerve-agent. The US came to that conclusion following an initial determination by the British government. ..."
"... However, the US administration missed the deadline by more than a month. That prompted Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, to write a letter to Trump some two weeks ago slamming the president for ignoring the deadline. ..."
"... Strangely, a government research facility at Porton Down in Amesbury, not far from Salisbury where the alleged March poisoning took place, examined the strain of Novichok. Porton Down lab does work for British Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, run by the Ministry of Defense, and the Public Health England. ..."
"... All of this makes makes the issue as to why Britain, and even the US, never wanted to share samples taken from the poisoning of the Skripals with Moscow more concerning. Yet, they all went ahead in lock-step to condemn Moscow for the poisoning, without any evidence, suggesting a more sinister reason for lobbying increased sanctions against Russia with the goal of further isolating the country. ..."
"... It reflects the need especially by the US to have a demon in an effort to justify its defense spending to bolster NATO up to the border of the Russian Federation in the form of a new containment policy that launched the Cold War in the first place. ..."
"... With even further sanctions against Russia in the recently passed Defense Department Authorization Bill about to go into effect, it is becoming apparent that the allegations against Russia are politically-motivated, false flag allegations to be used as an excuse for a greater geostrategic reason -- to contain Russia just as the Trump administration is increasingly finding its US-led unilateral world order being challenged more than ever. ..."
"... Trump talks about better relations with Russia, but the actions of his own administration in demonizing Moscow dictate otherwise. ..."
Forget about running the Empire or the American state. Trump isn't even in control of his team US President Donald Trump is not in
control of his own administration, as evidenced by the latest round of sanctions imposed against Russia for the alleged involvement
in the poisoning of the Skripals in the UK in March.
The sanctions came the same day that US Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.,
announced
on a trip to Moscow that he had handed over a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin from Trump calling for better relations
between the two countries. For that reason, the timing appears to be suspect, suggesting strongly that Trump has his own foreign
policy while the Trump administration, comprised mainly of bureaucrats referred to as the Deep State, have their own. Right now,
they appear to be in control, not President Trump, over his own administration, and it is having the adverse effect of further alienating
Washington and Moscow.
The neocons, led by National Security Advisor John Bolton, along with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his United Nations ambassador
Nikki Haley, comprise the Trump " war cabinet " ostensibly aimed at directing a harder line toward Syria, North Korea, Iran
but also Russia. Bolton, in particular, has been outspoken in calling for regime change in some of these countries. Trump not so
much so. In fact, he has said just the opposite. Nevertheless, their anti-Russian flair in Washington has breathed new life into
the neocons who, along with the Democrats, Deep State and much of the mainstream media, have pushed the false narrative of collusion
between Russia and Trump.
This persistent anti-Russian rant and repeated sanctions which have been imposed have had the effect of leading to further threats
of sanctions for questionable reasons, raising the potential prospect of suspension of diplomatic ties.
Even at the height of the Cold War, relations between the US and Russia never reached such low depths as they have now. The latest
sanctions affect primarily dual-use technologies which are civilian products with potential military applications. They include gas
turbine engines, electronics and integrated circuits which will now be denied. Previous sanctions going back to the Obama administration,
however, already imposed bans on many of these dual-use technologies.
In addition, the US has delivered an ultimatum, saying that if Russia does not give assurances within 90 days that it will
no longer use chemical weapons and allow international inspectors to inspect its production facilities, further sanctions will be
implemented. But Russia denies it used chemical weapons. Unlike the US, it
destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile in accordance with international treaties.
Implementation of the sanctions stem from provisions of the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination
Act of 1991.
The legislation gave a 60-day window to begin implementation of sanctions after the Trump administration determined that the
now-British citizen Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were poisoned by a strain of the Novichok nerve-agent. The US came to that
conclusion following an initial determination by the British government.
However, the US administration missed the deadline by more than a month. That prompted Rep. Ed Royce, R-Calif., chairman of
the House Foreign Relations Committee, to write a
letter to Trump some two weeks ago slamming the president for ignoring the deadline.
Curiously, the British government hasn't implemented similar sanctions, although the US has. It may reflect the continued uncertainty
among some British politicians and experts over the origin of the Novichok and concern with Britain's trade dependency on Russia.
But since the Americans opted to implement sanctions due to existing legislation, there was apparently no objection from London even
though it initially implemented sanctions by kicking out Russian diplomats from the country.
Moscow, however, vehemently denied that it was involved in the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter. Novichok was created by
Russian scientists during the Cold War but never used on the battlefield. Russian officials asked Britain for evidence of Russian
involvement and called for a joint investigation to be conducted by the Kremlin and British governments.
The British government repeatedly turned down the offer, as did other Western members of the United Nations Security Council,
the US and France, when Moscow sought such a joint investigation.
The US claimed that the information linking the poison to Russia was " classified ."
Strangely, a government research
facility at Porton Down in Amesbury, not far from Salisbury where the alleged March poisoning took place, examined the strain
of Novichok. Porton Down lab does work for British Defense Science and Technology Laboratory, run by the Ministry of Defense, and
the Public Health England.
Results from the examination confirmed the poison was a form of Novichok but – importantly – could not determine where the poison
had been created or who had used it. This development created further confusion and prompted disputes among politicians.
It is known that samples of Novichok have been in the hands of many
NATO countries for years after
the German foreign intelligence service, the Bundesnachrichtendienst, or BND, had reportedly obtained a sample from a Russian defector
in the 1990s.
The formula was later shared with Britain, the US, France, Canada and the Netherlands, where small quantities of Novichok reportedly
were produced in an effort to develop countermeasures. Porton Down labs similarly had received samples to study. Czech President
Milos Zeman recently admitted that his country synthesized and tested a form of Novichok. Sweden and Slovakia also have the technical
capability to produce the nerve agent, according to Russian officials.
All of this makes makes the issue as to why Britain, and even the US, never wanted to share samples taken from the poisoning
of the Skripals with Moscow more concerning. Yet, they all went ahead in lock-step to condemn Moscow for the poisoning, without any
evidence, suggesting a more sinister reason for lobbying increased sanctions against Russia with the goal of further isolating the
country.
It reflects the need especially by the US to have a demon in an effort to justify its defense spending to bolster NATO up
to the border of the Russian Federation in the form of a new containment policy that launched the Cold War in the first place.
With even further sanctions against Russia in the recently passed Defense Department Authorization Bill about to go into effect,
it is becoming apparent that the allegations against Russia are politically-motivated, false flag allegations to be used as an excuse
for a greater geostrategic reason -- to contain Russia just as the Trump administration is increasingly finding its US-led unilateral
world order being challenged more than ever.
The reason, however, isn't due to anything that Moscow initiated but by Trump himself who isn't in control of his own administration,
and maybe never has been. Many of his campaign promises such as dropping out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or Iranian
nuclear agreement, the threat of sanctions against any company that trades with Iran, his tariff war with US allies are in conflict
with each other, leading to increased world instability. At the same time, Trump talks about better relations with Russia, but
the actions of his own administration in demonizing Moscow dictate otherwise.
F. Michael Maloof is a former Pentagon security analyst.
Marxism provides one of the best analysis of capitalism; problems start when Marxists propose
alternatives.
Notable quotes:
"... Such demand-compression occurs above all through the imposition of an income deflation on the petty producers, and on the working population in general, in the Third World. This was done in the colonial period through two means: one, "deindustrialization" or the displacement of local craft production by imports of manufactures from the capitalist sector; and two, the "drain of surplus" where a part of the taxes extracted from petty producers was simply taken away in the form of exported goods without any quid pro quo ..."
"... I mean by the term "imperialism" the arrangement that the capitalist system sets up for imposing income deflation on the working population of the Third World for countering the threat of inflation that would otherwise erode the value of money in the metropolis and make the system unviable. "Imperialism" in this sense characterizes both the colonial and the contemporary periods. ..."
"... The fact that the diffusion of capitalism to the Third World has proceeded by leaps and bounds of late, with its domestic corporate-financial oligarchy getting integrated into globalized finance capital, and the fact that workers in the metropolis have also been facing an income squeeze under globalization, are important new developments; but they do not negate the basic tendency of the system to impose income deflation upon the working population of the Third World, a tendency that remains at the very core of the system. ..."
"... any state activism, other than for promoting its own exclusive and direct interest, is anathema for finance capital, which is why, not surprisingly, "sound finance" and "fiscal responsibility" are back in vogue today, when finance capital, now globalized, is in ascendancy. Imperialism is thus a specifically capitalist way of obtaining the commodities it requires for itself, but which are produced outside its own domain. ..."
"... dirigiste regimes ..."
"... With the reassertion of the dominance of finance, in the guise now of an international ..."
"... Contemporary imperialism therefore is the imperialism of international finance capital which is served by nation-states (for any nation-state that defies the will of international finance capital runs the risk of capital flight from, and hence the insolvency of, its economy). The US, being the leading capitalist state, plays the leading role in promoting and protecting the interests of international finance capital. But talking about a specific US imperialism, or a German or British or French imperialism obscures this basic fact. ..."
"... Indeed, a good deal of discussion about whether the world is heading toward multi-polarity or the persistence of US dominance misses the point that the chief actor in today's world is international or globalized finance capital, and not US or German or British finance capital. ..."
"... US military intervention all over the world, in order to acquire a proper meaning has to be located within the broader setting of the imperialism of international finance capital. ..."
C.J. Polychroniou: How do you define imperialism and what imperialist tendencies do you detect as inherent in the
brutal expansion of the logic of capitalism in the neoliberal global era?
Prabhat Patnaik: The capitalist sector of the world, which began by being located, and
continues largely to be located, in the temperate region, requires as its raw materials and
means of consumption a whole range of primary commodities which are not available or
producible, either at all or in adequate quantities, within its own borders. These commodities
have to be obtained from the tropical and sub-tropical region within which almost the whole of
the Third World is located; and the bulk of them (leaving aside minerals) are produced by a set
of petty producers (peasants). What is more, they are subject to "increasing supply price," in
the sense that as demand for them increases in the capitalist sector, larger quantities of them
can be obtained, if at all, only at higher prices, thanks to the fixed size of the tropical
land mass.
This means an ex ante tendency toward accelerating inflation as capital
accumulation proceeds, undermining the value of money under capitalism and hence the viability
of the system as a whole. To prevent this, the system requires that with an increase in demand
from the capitalist sector, as capital accumulation proceeds, there must be a compression of
demand elsewhere for these commodities, so that the net demand does not increase, and
increasing supply price does not get a chance to manifest itself at all.
Such demand-compression occurs above all through the imposition of an income deflation on
the petty producers, and on the working population in general, in the Third World. This was
done in the colonial period through two means: one, "deindustrialization" or the displacement
of local craft production by imports of manufactures from the capitalist sector; and two, the
"drain of surplus" where a part of the taxes extracted from petty producers was simply taken
away in the form of exported goods without any quid pro quo . The income of the
working population of the Third World, and hence its demand, was thus kept down; and
metropolitan capitalism's demand for such commodities was met without any inflationary threat
to the value of money. Exactly a similar process of income deflation is imposed now upon the
working population of the Third World by the neoliberal policies of globalization.
I mean by the term "imperialism" the arrangement that the capitalist system sets up for
imposing income deflation on the working population of the Third World for countering the
threat of inflation that would otherwise erode the value of money in the metropolis and make
the system unviable. "Imperialism" in this sense characterizes both the colonial and the
contemporary periods.
We recognize the need for a reserve army of labor to ward off the threat to the value of
money arising from wage demands of workers. Ironically, however, we do not recognize the
parallel and even more pressing need of the system (owing to increasing supply price) for the
imposition of income deflation on the working population of the Third World for warding off a
similar threat.
The fact that the diffusion of capitalism to the Third World has proceeded by leaps and
bounds of late, with its domestic corporate-financial oligarchy getting integrated into
globalized finance capital, and the fact that workers in the metropolis have also been facing
an income squeeze under globalization, are important new developments; but they do not negate
the basic tendency of the system to impose income deflation upon the working population of the
Third World, a tendency that remains at the very core of the system.
Those who argue that imperialism is no longer a relevant analytic construct point to the
multifaceted aspects of today's global economic exchanges and to a highly complex process
involved in the distribution of value which, simply put, cannot be reduced to imperialism. How
do you respond to this line of thinking?
Capitalism today is of course much more complex, with an enormous financial superstructure.
But that paradoxically makes inflation even more threatening. The value of this vast array of
financial assets would collapse in the event of inflation, bringing down this superstructure,
which incidentally is the reason for the current policy obsession with "inflation targeting."
This makes the imperialist arrangement even more essential. The more complex capitalism
becomes, the more it needs its basic simple props.
I should clarify here that if "land-augmenting" measures [such as irrigation, high-yielding
seeds and better production practices] could be introduced in the Third World, then,
notwithstanding the physical fixity of the tropical land mass, the threat of increasing supply
price -- and with it, [the threat] of inflation -- could be warded off without any income
deflation. Indeed, on the contrary, the working population of the Third World would be better
off through such measures. But these measures require state support and state expenditure, a
fact that Marx had recognized long ago. But any state activism, other than for promoting its
own exclusive and direct interest, is anathema for finance capital, which is why, not
surprisingly, "sound finance" and "fiscal responsibility" are back in vogue today, when finance
capital, now globalized, is in ascendancy. Imperialism is thus a specifically capitalist way of
obtaining the commodities it requires for itself, but which are produced outside its own
domain.
The post-decolonization dirigiste regimes [regimes directed by a central authority]
in the Third World had actually undertaken land-augmentation measures. Because of this, even as
exports of commodities to the metropolis had risen to sustain the biggest boom ever witnessed
in the history of capitalism, per capita food grain availability had also increased in those
countries. But I see that period as a period of retreat of metropolitan capitalism, enforced by
the wound inflicted upon it by the Second World War. With the reassertion of the dominance of
finance, in the guise now of an international finance capital, the Third World states
have withdrawn from supporting petty producers, a process of income deflation is in full swing,
and the imperialist arrangement is back in place, because of which we can see once more a
tendency toward a secular decline in per capita food grain availability in the Third World as
in the colonial period.
There is a third way -- apart from a greater obsession with inflation aversion and a yoking
of Third World states to promoting the interests of globalized finance rather than defending
domestic petty producers -- in which contemporary capitalism strengthens the imperialist
arrangement. It may be thought that the value of imports of Third World commodities into the
capitalist metropolis is so small that we are exaggerating the inflation threat from that
source to metropolitan currencies. This smallness itself, of course, is an expression of an
acutely exploitative relationship. In addition, however, the threat to the Third World
currencies themselves from a rise in the prices of these commodities becomes acute in a regime
of free cross-border financial flows as now, which threatens the entire world trade and
payments system and hence makes income deflation particularly urgent. Hence the need for the
imperialist arrangement becomes even more acute.
Not long ago, even liberals like Thomas Friedman of the New York Times were arguing that
"McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas" (that is, the US Air Force). Surely,
this is a crude version of imperialism, but what about today's US imperialism? Isn't it still
alive and kicking?
The world that Lenin had written about consisted of nation-based, nation-state-supported
financial oligarchies engaged in intense inter-imperialist rivalry for repartitioning the world
through wars. When [Marxist theorist] Karl Kautsky had suggested the possibility of a truce
among rival powers for a peaceful division of the world, Lenin had pointed to the fact that the
phenomenon of uneven development under capitalism would necessarily subvert any such specific
truce. The world we have today is characterized by the hegemony of international
finance capital which is interested in preventing any partitioning of the world, so
that it can move around freely across the globe.
Contemporary imperialism therefore is the imperialism of international finance capital which
is served by nation-states (for any nation-state that defies the will of international finance
capital runs the risk of capital flight from, and hence the insolvency of, its economy). The
US, being the leading capitalist state, plays the leading role in promoting and protecting the
interests of international finance capital. But talking about a specific US imperialism, or a
German or British or French imperialism obscures this basic fact.
Indeed, a good deal of discussion about whether the world is heading toward multi-polarity
or the persistence of US dominance misses the point that the chief actor in today's world is
international or globalized finance capital, and not US or German or British finance capital.
So, the concept of imperialism that [Utsa Patnaik and I] are talking about belongs to a
different terrain of discourse from the concept of US imperialism per se . The latter,
though it is, of course, empirically visible because of US military intervention all over the
world, in order to acquire a proper meaning has to be located within the broader setting of the
imperialism of international finance capital.
Some incidentally have seen the muting of inter-imperialist rivalry in today's world as a
vindication of Kautsky's position over that of Lenin. This, however, is incorrect, since both
of them were talking about a world of national finance capitals which contemporary capitalism
has gone beyond.
... ... ...
One final question: How should radical movements and organizations, in both the core and the
periphery of the world capitalist economy, be organizing to combat today's imperialism?
Obviously, the issue of imperialism is important not for scholastic reasons, but because of
the praxis that a recognition of its role engenders. From what I have been arguing, it is clear
that since globalization involves income deflation for the peasantry and petty producers, and
since their absorption into the ranks of the active army of labor under capitalism does not
occur because of the paucity of jobs that are created even when rates of output growth are
high, there is a tendency toward an absolute immiserization of the working population.
For the petty producers, this tendency operates directly; and for others, it operates through
the driving down of the "reservation wage" owing to the impoverishment of petty producers.
Such immiserization is manifest above all in the decline in per capita food grain
absorption, both directly and indirectly (the latter via processed foods and feed grains). An
improvement in the conditions of living of the working population of the Third World then
requires a delinking from globalization (mainly through capital controls, and also
trade controls to the requisite extent) by an alternative state, based on a worker-peasant
alliance, that pursues a different trajectory of development. Such a trajectory would emphasize
peasant-agriculture-led growth, land redistribution (so as to limit the extent of
differentiation within the peasantry) and the formation of voluntary cooperatives and
collectives for carrying forward land-augmentation measures, and even undertaking
value-addition activities, including industrialization.
Small Third World countries would no doubt find it difficult to adopt such a program because
of their limited resource base and narrow home market. But they will have to come together with
other small countries to constitute larger, more viable units. But the basic point is that the
question of "making globalization work" or "having globalization with a human face" simply does
not arise.
The problem with this praxis is that it is not only the bourgeoisie in the Third World
countries, but even sections of the middle-class professionals who have been beneficiaries of
globalization, who would oppose any such delinking. But the world capitalist crisis, which is a
consequence of this finance-capital-led globalization itself, is causing disaffection among
these middle-class beneficiaries. They, too, would now be more willing to support an
alternative trajectory of development that breaks out of the straitjacket imposed by
imperialism.
Trump speaks at Washington rally against the Iran deal back in September 2015. Credit:
Olivier Douliery/Sipa USA/Newscom Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson
chide Trump for his dangerous Iran obsession:
The United States' treatment of Iran as a serious strategic competitor is deeply
illogical. Iran imperils no core U.S. interests.
Trump's Iran obsession is probably the most conventional part of his foreign policy and it
is also the most irrational. The president's reflexive hostility to Iran is one of the few
constants in his view of the world, and it is one that aligns him most closely with his party's
hawks and parts of the foreign policy establishment. This has been clear for several years ever
since
Trump declared his
opposition to thenuclear
deal and surrounded
himself with hard-liners .
The Iran obsession is among the worst aspects of Trump's presidency, but it is also one of the
least surprising. Over the last eighteen months, Trump's Iran obsession has become more of a
derangement ,
and it is putting the U.S. and Iran on a collision course at the expense of our relations with
many other states and our own economic interests. The risk of unnecessary war continues to rise
because the president and his allies insist on making maximalist demands of Iran while imposing
stringent sanctions on the country without justification.
As Simon and Stevenson capably explain, there is no valid reason to view Iran as a major
threat to the U.S. Contrary to the fevered warnings about Iranian "expansionism," Iranian
military power in the region is quite limited:
Yet Iran's foreign policy has evolved essentially on the basis of opportunistic realism
rather than especially aggressive revisionism, and, as noted, it has a sparse military
presence in the region.
There is certainly no reason for our government to treat Iran as if it were a major
competitor. Our government's fixation on Iran as the source of all the region's problems
exaggerates Iran's influence and puts the U.S. at odds with a regional power whose interests
are sometimes aligned with our own. The obsession simply makes no sense:
Casting Iran as a major strategic rival simply doesn't make sense in terms of traditional
international relations considerations such as threat- and power-balancing.
The authors list a number of causes for the unwarranted obsession with Iran, including
"pro-Israel" influence and the influence of the Saudis and Emiratis in Washington, and I agree
with them. Our political leaders' enthusiasm for engaging in threat inflation and credulously
accepting the threat inflation of others would has to figure prominently in any explanation as
well. Obsessing over a non-existent Iranian threat to U.S. interests obviously has nothing to
do with American security, and it represents an unhealthy subordination of American interests
to those of its reckless regional clients. Indulging those clients in their paranoia about Iran
will only stoke more regional conflicts and ensure that the U.S. becomes more deeply involved
in those wars, and the result will be greater costs for the U.S. and greater turmoil,
instability, and loss of life throughout the region.
Obama's Yemen obsession is probably the most conventional part of his foreign policy and it
is also the most irrational.
Cluster bombs, drone strikes, covert kill teams and, most importantly, the backing for
Saudi Arabia and the UAE to cross the blood-red line and commence an aggressive illegal
bombing campaign, invasion and occupation of Yemeni territory did not start with Trump.
Direct participation of US military logistics personnel and US military assets in this
military aggression – while other US forces operate in the same territory under the
"separate but equal" Authorization To Use Military Force – did not start with
Trump.
Trump might apply his Reverse Midas Touch to this aspect of Obama's legacy as well, but
just because Obama manufactured another transient executive "achievement" in JCOPA does not
mean that his policy with respect to Yemen was any more irrational than Trump's policy
towards Iran, or that Obama's willingness to hire out US military forces to support Saudi
aggression for 100 billion dollars in blood money is any less venal, corrupt and despicable
than Trump's willingness to do the same.
Mattis didn't become fixated on Iran when he joined the Trump administration either,
although he might just be blaming – in the absence of conclusive evidence – Iran
today for the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing targeting Reagan's negligent use of the Marine
Corps. That is even less of a defensible foundation for foreign policy and military
aggression that profiteering.
It is a good guess that Obama's obsession with Yemen was rooted in printer cartridges,
shoe bombs, and the fear to have any terrorist attack "succeed". For Obama & Co. the fear
of the Next Big Blowback led them to Yemen. It would appear that Pence has supplied the Trump
administration with a Grand Unified Theory that all campaigns in the Great War On Terror
ultimately lead to Tehran – or the Trump administration made him their willing
mouthpiece.
Pence is so desperate to connect terrorism to Iran that he has to reach back almost 40yrs to
pin an at best Hezbollah pre-cursor organization on them. Isn't it more telling that
Hezbollah has avoided attacking U.S. troops during their entire existence? Pence doesn't seem
alarmed about the 3,000+ Americans who died on U.S. soil in NYC that we can attribute to the
Saudis and their cohorts.
BTW the Khobar tower bombings was Al Qaeda. The Saudis extracted confessions in their
torture chambers. There was no corroborating evidence that it was a branch of Hezbollah.
I believe Russia sees the sanctions for what they are. A crude attempt to
provoke them into a hasty reaction. It is virtually certain they won't react in a childish or inconsidered way.
Paul Craig Roberts is well behind the curve when it comes to what is
believed about the west in Russia politics.
A clue might be in the fact they have just
reduced their $ reserves to 14 billion, down from nearly 200 4 or so years ago.
Like Iran,
the Russians know the U.S.A. Is about as reliable as a third hand condom and just as
classy.
"... Proposed new "sanctions" on Russia essentially amount to a declaration of war. ..."
"... The US is spelling out the conditions that have no chance of being met. Let's hope that the result will be further Russian alignment with China, rather than nuclear war. I'd hate to be killed by Russian missiles hitting the US just because bought by MIC and paid for American "leadership" has gone completely insane. Hope springs eternal. ..."
"... They are constantly talking about the "hybrid warfare" and the Russian "attack" on America, but it means that the US (both its politicians and its population) get psychologically prepared for an actual war, and it is precisely their actions which keep drifting towards actual war. ..."
"... I don't think the Israel lobby alone should be blamed for these "sanctions". Insanity is more widespread in the US "leadership" than Jewish shekels. This looks like the death throes of the Empire. Let's hope it does not take the humanity with it to its grave. ..."
"... Interesting looks like the inevitable Turkish financial crisis has begun, Europe has reasonable exposure there, further disruption to economic ties to Russia would be seen as a hostile act by Europe. ..."
"... Any compromise with the US is unlikely to give anything than shattered delusions. Who could be partners in such a system? Aside from the obvious candidate, China, perhaps even India. Modi has in recent months distanced himself from the US and warmed up to China again. ..."
"... Unless the EU finally shows some spine – which is very unlikely – then the Western system will be exposed to be at the mercy of whoever controls the US. Such a system is hegemonic and it will be in the best interest of not just the non-Western world but even for those of us in Europe to see a breakdown in that world order. ..."
"... Turkey's implicit bet was that it could continue to rely on Western money flows while pursuing an agenda contrary to Western interests has been conclusively shattered. When I say Western interests, I do not mean the propaganda about human rights, which the West manifestly doesn't give two hoots about. ..."
The Trump administration is hitting Russia with new sanctions punishing President Vladimir
Putin's government for using a chemical weapon against an ex-spy in Britain, U.S. officials
told NBC News Wednesday.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signed off on a determination that Russia violated
international law by poisoning the former spy, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter in March,
officials said, a decision that was announced Wednesday afternoon by State Department.
The biggest impact from the initial sanctions is expected to come from a ban on granting
licenses to export sensitive national security goods to Russia, which in the past have
included items like electronic devices and components, along with test and calibration
equipment for avionics. Prior to the sanctions, such exports were allowed on a case-by-case
basis.
A second, more painful round kicks in three months later unless Russia provides "reliable
assurances" that it won't use chemical weapons in the future and agrees to "on-site
inspections" by the U.N. -- conditions unlikely to be met. The second round of sanctions
could include downgrading diplomatic relations, suspending state airline Aeroflot's ability
to fly to the U.S, and cutting off nearly all exports and imports.
Section 7 covers the sanctions that are to be imposed, which consist of initial sanctions,
and further sanctions to be imposed after 90 days if there is no compliance on the country's
part.
Initial sanctions : Ban on foreign assistance, arms sales, denial of US credit, and
exporting national security sensitive goods. (Most of this is already functionally in place
with respect to Russia).
Further sanctions : Ban on multilateral bank assistance [e.g. IMF, World Bank, the EBRD,
etc], ban on US bank loans, a near total export ban (except food and agricultural commodities)
and import ban, downgrade or suspension of US diplomatic relations, revocation of landing
rights to air carriers controlled by the government of the sanctioned country.
Reuters has a US State Department official saying that the sanctions
would not apply to Aeroflot, which some commenters have
qualified as backtracking. But I think that the official was merely talking of the initial
sanctions.
How does Russia go about removing the sanctions? The President will need to "certify" to
Congress that the country in question: (1) Has made "reliable assurances", and is not making
preparations, to use chemical/biological weapons in violation of international law, or against
its own citizens; (2) is willing to allow on-site inspections by UN observers to confirm the
above; (3) is making restitutions to the victims of its chemical/biological weapons usage.
This would basically require Russia to admit guilt for the Skripal poisoning and subject
itself to the inspections regimes that the US typically tries to force on "rogue states." In
other words, it is out of the question.
Moreover, even in the theoretical possibility that this goes through, it's not like
President Trump's "certification" will be worth anything amidst the Russiagate hysteria.
Another possibility to avoid the near cessation of trade between the US and Russia is to
have the President "waiver" the application of individual sanctions, if he can determine and
certify to Congress that doing so is necessary for the national security interests of the US;
or that there has been "a fundamental change in the leadership and policies" of the sanctioned
country. In either case, the President needs to provide a report to Congress explaining his
detailed rationale for the waiver, and listing steps the sanctioned country is taking to
satisfy the "removal of sanctions" clause.
The newspaper Kommersant has published a full draft of the proposed "Defending American
Security from Kremlin Aggression Act," which demands a U.S. investigation into Vladimir
Putin's personal wealth and whether Russia sponsors terrorism, and would impose a ban on U.S.
citizens buying Russian sovereign debt, though the U.S. Treasury publicly opposed this idea
in February, warning that it would disrupt the market broadly. Republican Senator Lindsey
Graham, one of the initiative's sponsors, says one of the draft legislation's goals is to
impose "crushing sanctions."
[Sanctions to include:]
* Banning the banks . The draft bill proposes banning Russia's biggest state banks --
Sberbank, VTB Bank, Gazprombank, Rosselkhozbank, Promsvyazbank, or Vnesheconombank -- from
operating inside the United States, which would effectively prevent these institutions from
conducting dollar settlements.
* Oil and gas . In the energy sector, the legislation would impose sanctions on investment
in any projects by the Russian government or government-affiliated companies outside Russia
worth more than $250 million. Businesses would also incur penalties for any participation
(funding or supplying equipment or technology) in new oil projects inside Russia valued above
$1 million.
* Lists and research . If the bill is submitted in its current form and adopted, the U.S.
president would have 180 days to begin implementing its provisions; within 60 days of
adoption, the White House would need to provide a new list of Russian individuals suspected
of cyber-attacks against the United States; the Treasury Department would have 180 days to
update its "Kremlin list" of Russian state officials and oligarchs; the director of national
intelligence would be tasked with completing a "detailed report on the personal net worth and
assets" of Vladimir Putin and his family; and the State Department would have 90 days to
determine whether Russia should be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism.
* A new Sanctions Office . In order to shore up the 2017 Countering America's Adversaries
Through Sanctions Act, the draft legislation would also create an "Office of Sanctions
Coordination" within the State Department to coordinate work with the Treasury.
(1) The bill's sponsors, which include Lindsey Graham, Robert Menendez, and Ben Cardin,
preface their text with a call for President Trump to demand Russia stop interference in US
"democratic processes", return Crimea to the Ukraine, stop supporting the separatists in East
Ukraine, as well the "occupation and support of separatists" in the territories of Georgia and
Moldova, and support for Bashar Assad, who continues to commit "war crimes."
(2) They note that the general drift of the document is towards a consolidation of separate
anti-Russian sanctions, from the "Ukrainian" to the "cyber" ones, into a "single
mechanism."
(3) Subject to a 2/3 vote in the Senate, the bill also includes a ban on financing "direct
or indirect" steps, that have as their goal to support the attempts of "any US government
official" to take the country out of NATO. Every 90 days, the US Secretary of State, in
coordination with the Defense Minister, would be required to present a report to the relevant
committees in Congress about "threats to NATO", which would include attempts to weaken US
commitments to the alliance. Considering Trump's ambiguous feelings on NATO, this part is
primarily aimed at Trump himself.
(4) There are calls to "pressure" Russia from interfering with UN and the OPCW attempts to
investigate chemical weapons usage, as well as to "punish" Russia for producing and using
chemical weapons. This directly syncs this sanctions bill to the previous one.
The report concludes that it's not yet clear how to interpret this. In the worse case, it
could be a "preliminary application" for a UN campaign to exclude Russia from the Security
Council; alternatively, it could just be a "pragmatic" run-up to merely invoking great
sanctions, as with Iran in 1983.
***
I suppose we now also know why Russia has been selling Treasuries for the past three
months, which plummeted from their typical level of $100 billion in March to just $15 billion
from June (i.e. just enough to guarantee USD-denominated trade).
For comparison,
the last time such a drawback happened (but which only lasted three weeks) was in the
immediate aftermath of Crimea.
The last time Russia pulled such a large sum out of the U.S. was just after the annexation
of Crimea in 2014, when the central bank withdrew about $115 billion from the New York Fed,
Reuters reported last year, citing two former Fed officials. Most of that money was returned
a few weeks later, after it became clear that the scope of initial U.S. sanctions would be
narrower than the Kremlin expected, according to the news service.
But I suppose this drawdown would now be permanent, since it is increasingly evident that
Iran-tier sanctions on Russia are now on the horizon.
These sanctions are either going to steadily creep in – or rush in like a tsunami if
there is a Blue Wave in 90 days, or if Trump was to be removed.
However, as I have pointed out, the ultimate ability of the US to directly
punish Russia is limited; it has twice as many people as Iran, after all, and many times the
economic output. Trade between Russia and the US is very limited.
Moreover, as I have pointed out , Russia has
plenty of surprising ways to hurt the US as well. For instance, banning Aeroflot from flying to
the US has a simple response – banning US air carriers from overflying North Eurasia,
period. It can resurrect a bill – first raised this May, since sunken in the legislature
– to impose fines and prison time
on individuals and entities who support Western sanctions by refusing to do business with
Russian citizens or entities on America's SDN list. It can throw out the American-dominated
copyrights regimen out of the window.
Some questions we should now be asking include:
1. Precisely how far is the US prepared to go? Cutting off its own trade with Russia is one
thing – penalizing foreign companies that do business with Russia is something else. As
Ben Aris
notes , the US Treasury Department has been ratcheting back on its sanctions against Oleg
Deripaska and Rusal, after the chaos it has caused in the international metals market. The
ideological Russiagaters need to balance their PDS/TDS against the pecuniary practicalities of
catering to finance and oil & gas interests and their lobbies.
2. To what extent will the EU join in, passively acquiesce to, or resist the US sanctions
against Russia? The answer to this question will to a large extent determine precisely how
deeply Russia falls into China's orbit in the next couple of decades.
This sounds very close to a declaration of war. USA is beginning to throw everything it has
behind economic warfare and go "all in" forcing even its closest allies to either suffer
serious sanctions for not joining the economic attacks or to inflict self-harm by limiting
trade with Russia, Iran, and anyone else the US chooses to declare economic warfare upon.
I don't believe that this set of circumstances can continue indefinitely without a serious
realignment or a degeneration into "kinetic" warfare.
Proposed new "sanctions" on Russia essentially amount to a declaration of war. Lunatic asylum
is the most appropriate place for the whole American "leadership", down to the last
man/woman/tranny. The only thing that stands between us and WWIII, which would be a suicide
of humanity, is unbelievably cool and reasonable position of Putin and the rest of Russian
leadership.
It is clear to anyone with a brain that the US "sanctions" on Russia have zero chance of
changing Russia's stance on any international issues of consequence. Crimea is a good
example: it will return to Ukraine the day after the Hell freezes over. On the same date
Georgia gets South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and US-sponsored Islamic bandits win over Assad in
Syria. Thus, The US is spelling out the conditions that have no chance of being met. Let's
hope that the result will be further Russian alignment with China, rather than nuclear war.
I'd hate to be killed by Russian missiles hitting the US just because bought by MIC and paid
for American "leadership" has gone completely insane. Hope springs eternal.
I agree. They are constantly talking about the "hybrid warfare" and the Russian "attack"
on America, but it means that the US (both its politicians and its population) get
psychologically prepared for an actual war, and it is precisely their actions which keep
drifting towards actual war.
There is also a lot of projection going on here: the Americans obviously perceive their
own election meddling as war by other means, and so they accuse their enemies with the very
same thing.
Russia is far too integrated in to the wider European economy, and Russia is too stronk for
sanctions to do anything. See Nord Stream II. Ignore the Israel lobby sanctions, not even the
corrupt congress critters could vote for those.
I have no idea why these new meaningless sanctions have been conjured up, maybe the Rand
Paul letter has the answer, maybe not. I think we may have some answers after the
midterms.
I don't think the Israel lobby alone should be blamed for these "sanctions". Insanity is
more widespread in the US "leadership" than Jewish shekels. This looks like the death throes
of the Empire. Let's hope it does not take the humanity with it to its grave.
Now that it is within the realms of reasonable debate, if there were a nuclear war between
the USA and Russia what targets would be hit? Would Russia hit puppet regimes such the UK,
France or Poland? Would the USA hit Iran (because if they are going to hit Russia they might
as well get Iran in there as well).
If say only Russian and USA were hit, how much of the nuclear fallout would affect
Europe?
Why, if Putin threatened Netanyahu to call off his dogs, he would have to? Actions of
AIPAC should be accountable.
Interesting looks like the inevitable Turkish financial crisis has begun, Europe has
reasonable exposure there, further disruption to economic ties to Russia would be seen as a
hostile act by Europe.
Russia today is in a much better position to withstand sanctions. Global oil investments have
been lagging for half a decade due to low prices, and this will inevitably show up in the
coming years.
Russia in 2014 was battered by a twin storm, of which the oil price collapse was in fact far
worse. That factor is now gone.
Furthermore, a planned VAT rise next year will mean that the break-even oil price for the
Russian budget will fall to $50 after $60 this year and $67 last year, according to Alfa
Bank's analysis . Steady, impressive
improvement. So even in an event of an unexpected oil price decline, Russia is far more
prepared this time around.
Additionally, over the last 4 years, Russia's economy has indigenised to a much greater
extent than before. This is especially the case in the financial markets. Russia is simply a
lot less reliant on foreign funding. Bershidsky wrote about how more and more Russian
companies are leaving UK capital markets and returning to Russia. This process will continue
but it has already yielded results. As a country with a large current account surplus, tamed
inflation, an incredibly strong fiscal state, there is indeed very little that the US can do,
which is probably why they are reaching with ever-greater desperation.
I think the ultimate endgame can only be to completely run a parallel system. Any
compromise with the US is unlikely to give anything than shattered delusions. Who could be
partners in such a system? Aside from the obvious candidate, China, perhaps even India. Modi
has in recent months distanced himself from the US and warmed up to China again.
India has
always bristled at being treated as a close ally rather as a 'partner'. It has cherished it's
non-aligned movement legacy and its historically close relations to Russia. It is unlikely to
want to give up on that in order to become a subservient lapdog to US interests in the manner
that the EU has degraded itself.
China's AIIB is a good start, but the full range of new institutions must bear fruit. Some
of the BRICS ideas are good but ultimately both Brazil and South Africa are too unimportant.
It should be borne by the big powers (Russia, India and China) together with an Asian
coalition like the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and others who are not in the US orbit
yet have a bright future ahead of them.
Turning to Europe. Unless the EU finally shows some spine – which is very unlikely
– then the Western system will be exposed to be at the mercy of whoever controls the
US. Such a system is hegemonic and it will be in the best interest of not just the
non-Western world but even for those of us in Europe to see a breakdown in that world
order.
America now has a "good cop, bad cop" with Trump and Congress.
Congress puts in more sanctions, but there is constraint responding too much because Trump
seems friendly, and you don't want to alienate him. Trump himself doesn't care about the sanctions, because he thinks it is leverage that he
can lift them later.
There was an article a few months ago that Trump is actually worse than Obama – even
in Obama did not supply direct weapons to Ukraine.
I think Trump plans to remove the sanctions in the next year and improve the relations
– but without any kind of timetable (his meeting with Putin is delayed already to next
year).
OT: The Turkish lira is now the worst-performing currency this year, bar none.
Turkey's implicit bet was that it could continue to rely on Western money flows while
pursuing an agenda contrary to Western interests has been conclusively shattered. When I say
Western interests, I do not mean the propaganda about human rights, which the West manifestly
doesn't give two hoots about.
Turkey was not entirely foolish to believe this strategy could work. Pakistan during the
reign of Islamist military dictator Zia ul-Haq, used a similar strategy during the 1980s. He
empowered the mullahs and moved Pakistan decidedly to the hard-right in religious/cultural
terms while massively opening up the economy to speculative finance, thereby pleasing
Washington. Saudi Arabia has used this policy for a long time. For those who knew this, the
revelation that the US funded some of the most extremist "moderate" rebels in Syria came as
no shock.
So perhaps it isn't the Islamism in of itself which is the problem in Erdogan's case. What
could it be? Well, one clue is the case of Pastor Brunson. The good pastor, who under house
arrest in Turkey, is accused to be close to the Gülen cult. The official line in the
Western MSM is that Trump is trying to appease evangelicals before the midterms. I don't buy
that. He has them in the bag regardless. Gülen himself, some of you might recall, still
lives in the US despite repeated pleas from Turkey to give him back. Which is the unreliable
ally here? Curiously, Gülen's religious bent is even more Islamist than Erdogan's. He's
also even more of a neoliberal. Notice a pattern?
At any rate, the demand from the US has been for Turkey to release Brunson
unconditionally. Erdogan's media has speculated that Brunson was slated to become CIA chief
in Turkey had the 2016 coup come to pass. Obviously, Turkey does not want to release him
unconditionally: it makes them look extremely weak. Well, they now got hit where it hurts.
Indeed, Trump even tweeted out new sanctions news today even as Erdogan was delivering a
speech. I don't happen to believe in coincidences. The result is that the lira lost close to
a quarter of its value in a single day. I haven't even mentioned Turkey's apparent interest
in the S-400 missile system among other matters. This, I think, is what truly irked D.C.
rather than Erdogan's human rights record or "authoritarianism", which is just the
pretext.
Make no mistake: the decline of the lira was structural from the beginning. Turkey's large
CAD made it extremely vulnerable to financial speculation from the getgo. It has now paid
that price. But this does not preclude the fact that countries which are overtly reliant on
Western financial flows to fund large current account deficits should forgo the lesson that
there is no free lunch. Erdogan made this cardinal error. Poland is not nearly as vulnerable,
but we're also in the same orbit. This is why I always laugh at the Poland Stronk memes. It's
also why I dismiss the criticism against Orban that he plays all sides, including taking
money from the EU, as politically naïve. Very few countries in this world can reliably
be called truly independent. Russia is in the process of becoming one. So is China. India is
not quite there, but it has the potential. The rest of us will simply have to balance
hegemons, while reminding ourselves of our inherent vulnerability. If we forget that, then we
just had a textbook example of what happens when we overestimate our hand, playing out in
front of our very eyes today.
Good to hear something sensible from Polish Perspective (in every sense of this
expression). I know some Poles, who tend to be reasonable people, so the policies of Polish
government always amazed me. Then again, if Polish democracy is similar to the US, the
opinions of the people don't matter at all.
There is still a long way to go before Russia, China, or any other country frees itself
from the clutches of dollar-based financial system. However, an alternative might look
parallel at the beginning, but it won't be parallel for long. Thing is, the US dollar and the
US sovereign debt have become essentially Ponzi schemes. If Russia, China, and a few others
create a "parallel" system, dollar-based Ponzi scheme folds, as the US does not have
sufficient assets to support the dollar or pay off its debt. The fall of the Empire will
likely be violent. The only thing we can hope for is that the humanity survives it.
As to EU, it missed every chance of becoming something with a spine. Too late now. In
fact, what French president once said about Arafat (he never missed an opportunity to miss an
opportunity) applies to the EU with a vengeance.
I suppose we now also now why Russia has been selling Treasuries for the past three
months, which plummeted from their typical level of $100 billion in March to just $15
billion from June (i.e. just enough to guarantee USD-denominated trade).
You're making the Kremlins look smarter than they actually are. They should have done this
4 years ago. What I want to know is what happened to the proceeds from the sale? CBR data
shows that value of "foreign exchange" held by the CBR hasn't declined:
Now I can't use the Export-Import Bank insure the export of American-made products from a
swing state to Russia. Really Making America Great Again! Can we please replace Pompeo with Rohrabacher already?
Regarding India, they are asking America for a permission to keep buying Russian weapons.
Asking for a sanctions "waiver" – this is just sad. India also agreed to reduce imports
of Iranian oil. So, perhaps, not so independent anymore.
There is no way to sugarcoat it: in the short to medium term sanctions will suppress
Russian economic growth. But unless they find a way to somehow stop Russia's exports of oil,
our economy will shrug off whatever sanction packages US can throw at it.
Can we please replace Pompeo with Rohrabacher already?
Rohrabacher is a flake and blowhard as well. If he were in the running for Secretary of
State, he could just as easily flip and become militantly anti-Russian in order to impress
people in Washington. Appearing tough on foreigners in front of one's peers in Washington is
their prime motive. They've been like this since before the Vietnam War era.
Obviously a good read overall, but there was this one part that I found particularly well,
interesting, and actually quite surprising:
"Moreover, the mid-2020s will also see a massive influx of electric vehicles into the
global car fleet, which could lead to a final collapse in oil prices. There was practically
no real diversification: the number of industrial robots per worker in Russia is at the
level of Iran and India. Meanwhile, "effective managers" like Sechin turned out to be so
effective that Rosneft's debts exceed the value of the company itself from this year. An
acute economic crisis in a few years is almost inevitable. "
So I'm clearly not even entirely sure whether that translation is accurate, but it really
seems like you're kind of suddenly much more pessimistic on the Russian economy. Or is that
just the "best-case" scenario for Russian nationalists?
Didn't you rate Putin's "economic management" reasonably highly not a long time ago, just
before the Presidential elections? Of course compared to the situation in 2000, but
still.
You've also pointed out several times that Russia's oil dependency has been considerably
exaggerated. Also, Russia's federal budget is already based on low oil prices. Then there's
Jon Hellevig's research and numbers as well (GDP share of oil & gas, the consolidated
budget, etc). And Polish Perspective's comment above.
So shouldn't the repeat of 2014 be kind of unlikely, if not impossible? At this rate,
Russia's remaining oil dependency should already be considerably lower by the mid-20s,
despite all those technological limitations.
You don't believe in an annual growth of 3% anymore? You seriously think there will be an
"acute crisis" in a few years?
I actually just read that even the always (or atleast recently) conservative/pessimistic
Russian authorities (in this case, the Economic Development Ministry) forecast a growth rate
of atleast around 3% beginning from 2021, after the VAT hike, some other "reforms" and
increasing spending.
At the same time, Trump his helping to push the Turkish economy off a cliff with his Twitter
account. Russia and Turkey find themselves in the same boat. So?
Israel and Netanyahu responsible for American sanctions on Russia, conspiracy makes less
sense to me than the others I read here (Israel responsible for killing Kennedy, etc). Why do
Israel want to impose American sanctions on Russia?
This week's sanctions mainly targeting Russian airlines. Aeroflot is about to buy 30
Boeing 737s from America – and now this is in danger.
In Israel, Aeroflot is the third airline, and Israeli government pays it direct subsidies
to reduce the ticket prices for places like Eilat. They allow Aeroflot to put giant Aeroflot
commercial posters along the roads and skyscrapers.
According to the news earlier in the year, Israel is negotiating to join a customs union
with the Eurasian Economic Union. How will they reconcile their own actions, with being the
one responsible for America to sanction Russia? It would be very competent 4 dimensional
chess, from people who cannot even count their illegal immigrants or deport a single illegal
immigrant, or coordinate their nationality policy with a few thousand druze. While making
America sanction Russia has no benefit for them, deporting illegal immigrants, or
coordinating with Druze has important benefits for them (yet supposedly they can do the
former, but not the latter).
At the same time, they do the opposite of sanctioning themselves.
Also if this is the case, how in Russia, nobody in the expert community is aware Israel is
responsible for the sanctions. Instead the media celebrate when it still wants to export
carrots. And if any of the Kremlin top think relations with Israel are bad, then why is
Israel allowed to operate freely in Russia.
If explanation is to do with Syria – it also does not fit. Intervention in Syria was
presented as something which would encourage West to remove its sanctions.
For Israel, Russian-American alliance would improve the situation in the region. And also
probably for Turkey and the Arabs.
Israel is terrified with an increase of Iran in Syria. The reality is that is that both
Russia and America is going to reduce presence in Syria, and Iran is going to increase it.
The problem of Russia in Syria for Israel, is that Russia's presence is only minimal, and
will allow Iran on the ground to take over the same territories that Russia helps secure for
Assad. In the current equation and stage of the war, they will be hoping Russia increases its
presence and reduces the need for Iranian forces. Problem of Assad for them is his only to
the extent of his relation with Iran, not with Russia.
Before the Trump-Putin summit, the Mueller involved FBI indicted 12 Russians, knowing full
well that they'd not be turned over to the US. This latest round of sanctions comes right
after Rand Paul's trip to Moscow, for the purpose of seeking closer US-Russian relations.
On CNN, the establishment alternative academic Robert English hypothesized that elements
in the Russian government might've poisoned the Skripals without Putin's prior knowledge. He
leaves out another possibility, in line with US mass media restrictions. In the UK, there're
Russian ex pats, who quarrel among themselves, in addition to not liking the Russian
government. The poisoning of the Skripals could very well be a matter of trying to kill two
birds (so to speak) in one shot.
Of course we don't know for sure. Likewise, with the bogus suggestion as fact that the
Russian government poisoned the Skripals. Given the ongoing lack of UK government disclosure
on this incident, there's very good reason to doubt the claim against the Russian
government.
I think the ultimate endgame can only be to completely run a parallel system. Any
compromise with the US is unlikely to give anything than shattered delusions.
Seconded. Washington is too much in love with their sanctions.
It should be borne by the big powers (Russia, India and China) together with an Asian
coalition like the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and others who are not in the US orbit
yet have a bright future ahead of them.
Also, Russia's federal budget is already based on low oil prices. Then there's
It's up to 50% of the federal budget in recent years, is funded by oil and gas revenue,
although in low oil price years the proportion can fall (to lower 40s%).
When the proportion falls, then you are by definition financing a federal budget in other
ways, which are usually less politically popular.
You can see unpopularity of announcements to raise VAT or pension age.
Raising pension age (as needs to often be repeated to people) is necessary and reasonable,
but raising VAT is a bad thing as in most countries.
Karlin is probably too pessimistic about oil price demand peaking in 2020s (demand for oil
probably peaking in the 2030s).
Either way, it's known there need to be economic reforms, reduction of size of government
sector, increase in proportion of private sector in many areas, investment in education for
future industries.
Having Russia go pirate on US copy-rite laws could be interesting. Do you think the US would
build a giant firewall and ban it's citizens from viewing Russian content, and could they
actually enforce it, or would the internet be just like back in the good old 90′s days
with Napsternik?
Russia might even make some headway with Pirate Party types. Information belongs to the
people, comrades! Also Russia switching to Linux would probably lead to an increased development of
Linux.
Looks like these sanctions will force their hand: their new narrowbody airliner was going
to have pratt and witney engines with the aviadvigatel ones only for government planes. Not
sure what the exact reasons for this were: p&w ones have a slightly higher bypass ratio,
it allows international buyers to utilise existing service infrastructure or aviadvigatel's
ability to mass produce might be crap. If the us imposes a complete export ban they'll all
have to have them.
Russia's current widebody airliner is pretty much obsolete though.
Aeroflot had benefited from collapse of Transaero. They're getting 35 planes (all Airbus and
Boeing models) from the Transaero fleet and are putting them into Aeroflot fleet this year.
With Boeing, they also had an order of Dreamliners, which they cancelled a few years ago.
Although that was just because there was a downturn in long-haul flights. New Boeing 737
orders are for building up their lowcoster "Pobeda".
For that, Russia needs to produce all types of civilian aircraft, like the USSR did.
That's hard after the 1990s, when the traitors destroyed Russian aircraft industry. There are
moves in the direction of restoring it, in cooperation with China. However, they both need to
be able to build aircraft w/o any parts from the US and its vassals. That would take 5-10
years. In fact, US sanctions pushed Russia and China in the direction of self-sufficiency
very hard. In Russian it is called "sawing off the bough you sit on". The West is really good
at that lately.
These sanctions might be a net positive for Russia in the long term, forcing them to
develop indigenous industries instead of just importing everything from the oil revenue.
Do you think the US would build a giant firewall and ban it's citizens from viewing
Russian content, and could they actually enforce it, or would the internet be just like
back in the good old 90′s days with Napsternik?
The "free market" of Facebook, Apple, Google and Spotify will protect good Americans from
fake news.
Presumably they can still source from Rolls Royce. The UK is a smaller economic power than
America and presumably less interested in sabotaging one of its crown jewels (never rule it
out with the UK ofc).
Russia's aerospace technology is inferior to the West, but that's irrelevant since Russia
can simply force Russian carriers to purchase Russian aircraft. Higher operating costs
relative to foreign carriers can be addressed with subsidies (or tariffs).
Prioritizing your own technology also creates the option of charting an independent
technological course. For instance, instead of building swept-wing jets with low bypass
turbofan engines optimized for transonic cruise, you could build straight-wing aircraft with
propfans optimized for low fuel consumption. You can also build supersonic aircraft and
experiment with different planforms than the boring one established by the Boeing 707.
It's kind of funny how many Americans feel threatened by Iran.
Regarding Russia as a threat at least makes a certain sense given Russia's nuclear arsenal
and ability to destroy the US.
Every time Medvedev opens his mouth, he makes me cringe. Seriously, if you're going to
proclaim an "economic war", against USA no less, then you better explain how Russia is going
to fight back and win. Smart Russians will be heading to currency exchange (
обменный
пункт ) after hearing this statement.
More fuel consumption than is usual with modern aircraft, noisier passenger cabin, more
external noise (also important for some airports with regulations restricting noisy
aircraft), less safety, etc.
It's just not competitive to operate them. Airlines have very low margins anyway, you
cannot make a profit with obsolete aircrafts.
There are a couple of new planes which Aeroflot is going to buy/buying for shorthaul
– Superjet 100 and MC-21. Karlin was blogging about these planes a few weeks ago.
Airtickets are a freemarket, and most passengers don't want to fly in unsafe old planes
like Tu-154
A single crash can be even fatal for an airline – crash of an An-148 has earlier
this year, destroyed Saratov Airlines
As a customer, I don't think there is any disgrace in buying Boeing and Airbus. All major
airlines now, and around the world, are using mainly Airbus and Boeing, and have now retired
the Tu-154.
There is no way to sugarcoat it: in the short to medium term sanctions will suppress
Russian economic growth
AND also Ukraine's, Moldova's, Georgia's, the Baltics and the friendly countries like
Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan etcetera. If anything the US's moron, scumbag policy towards
Russia ends up doing the exact opposite of what it intends to do Ukraine, Moldova, Gerogia and
Baltics then become more financially interlinked and even dependent on Russia than they were
before.
But in the circumstances ..is guaranteed 1% or 1.5% GDP growth per year for the next
decade even that bad considering the circumstances? Every social/infrastructure element is
improving in Russia
The enemy is probably laughing his ass off at Medvedev. One simply should NOT be making
such statements as a prime-minister of Russia. Here is another fool, who doesn't understand currency markets:
You can see unpopularity of announcements to raise VAT or pension age.
It's fake outrage and fake unpopularity on these two issues. 18% increased to 20% is a
non-issue ( the budget is being spent significantly better than ever to offset this increase
in VAT)
A lot of nonsense about "long overdue" get's said about pension reform but this is total
BS.
Yes Russia has 48 million out of 146 million as pensioners, but the most important thing is
the unexpected , way above average increase in life expectancy . that has actually instigated
this move by the authorities.
Those approaching retirement won't suddenly have to work 1-5 years longer they can still
opt-in to the current arrangements in the overlapping period.. and with guarantees pension
increased much further to corresponding inflation levels than now.
Either way, it's known there need to be economic reforms
Disagree with this .the same patterns that have been shown in the last 4 years need to
continue, no radical "reform" is necessary. Small and medium sized business have gone from 10
million to 20 million people and should easily reach the target in afew years time that the
President wished for in May,credit behavior and availability is becoming more and more
western,
Instead of saying "reduction in size of government sector" you must specify exactly which
areas of state control should be privatised .too often from liberasts their focus is solely
on getting state control off critically important energy resources and distribution .nothing
else.
Americans see the Russians as greatness deniers. Their European lackeys are their
greatness-acknowledgers – even when it's detrimental to their own survival.
If the world was a theater, Americans see themselves as the only performers – the
role of the rest of the world is to applaud their performance.
Russia is not a part of the audience, it's not even a heckler. It's a performer, it has
always been, and a very talented one too. To try to demote them to the role of spectators, or
to try to usher them out of the concert hall can be suicidal, they have enough musical
instruments to put on a remarkable concert – even if afterwards no one is left to
applaud.
Mice and humans are quite different, results applying to mice apply to humans less than
50% of the time. The loss rates on this, at any rate, are insane:
Of the 1348 embryos they made, eight pups were born.
Every beginning is hard. Considering that all the cutting edge research in
fertility/cloning/artificial wombs is done on shoestring budgets, the progress is amazing.
Imagine what could be done with sufficient funding.
Our esteemed host have the right idea – the only chance for Russia to achieve its
rightful number one place in the world is through new Manhattan project to develop better
Russians.
The West is stymied by the "pro-lifers" of the right and "bioethicists" of the left, and this
is Russia's chance. Unlike the origial M project, Russians can keep things secret, and even
if the West will suspect something, what can they do? Impose sanctions?
In the thirties, ignorant Caucasian moustacheoid gangster picked the Lysenkoists over the
scientifically correct Darwinist transhumanist eugenicists. Time to undo this mistake.
Our esteemed host have the right idea – the only chance for Russia to achieve its
rightful number one place in the world is through new Manhattan project to develop better
Russians.
And it will have as much impact on the outcome of the looming confrontation as the
Mengele's research had on the outcome of the WWII.
He's also even more of a neoliberal. Notice a pattern?
The west has no qualms about using Islamist. Radical Islam has been used in 1950s against
Nasser's regime in Egypt. Islamist were used against secular pro Soviet regime of Afghanistan
and then against Assad's Syria, Hussain's Iraq and Gaddafi's Libya. The equation is
complicate: on one side you have Israel's Yinon Plan and global neoliberal and Islamists and
on the other side you have secular national countries that try to build greater sovereignty
and stronger state.
Majority of Islamist are just useful idiots while some among the leadership are operatives
of western security services. Sometimes they break off the leash like Hamas which it does not
seem to be controlled by Mossad anymore but it still does everything from the wish list of
Israel's hard-liners.
My pet theory is that Islamist of Iran who destroyed the fast growing and developing Iran
of Shah were also used by some foreign interests in the west and/or Israel. Shah himself
believed it was the British.
You should look at history of your own country in 19 and 20 century. To what extent all
those patriots responsible for numerous and hopeless uprisings were useful idiots, dupes or
operatives of foreign interests?
Question about the Skripal poisoning–if it wasn't the Russians, then who did it?
Also, it's interesting that Sergei Skripal's poisoning has resulted in much more Western
action than Alexander Litvinenko's poisoning back in 2006 did.
' The biggest impact from the initial sanctions is expected to come from a ban on granting
licenses to export sensitive national security goods to Russia, which in the past have
included items like electronic devices and components, along with test and calibration
equipment for avionics. Prior to the sanctions, such exports were allowed on a case-by-case
basis. '
Now they'll have to pay the Israelis to get it for them. Does this count as aid to
Israel?
I am always puzzled to hear that lesbians require artificial insemination. I had a couple
of friends who were a bit behind schedule, and were trying hard to conceive just before the
last eggs would wither. Whatever they were doing, taking days off from work when the
thermometer said so, shoving it at any price, and so on – it could not be described as
pleasurable. So why would the lesbians not bear it if they so much need children?
On a more general note, I am puzzled as to how USSR survived between 1945 and 1989 without
fainting at the thought that Americans would not recognize annexation of the Baltic jokes,
that Russians would not be allowed to use dollars, or that Pokemon Go could be blocked in the
Russian app store. Surely, if you have a population of idiots, like USSR circa 1989, who
would think that it's their ow government blocking the dollar and Pikachu, it may gnaw at the
roots of the state. But today's Russians can guess that with Putin or without him, with
Crimea or without it, they are still seen as enemies of America, and will be treated
accordingly.
Conservatives pilloried the program, which sources said is a gift to an Orthodox Jewish
community that has pressed for government-paid fertility services for 15 years.
Orthodox leaders called the budget measure a "significant victory" for women struggling
to have kids in a community that traditionally values large families.
"This amendment will make it easier for women who would like to have children to do so,"
said Jeff Leb, a top lobbyist for Jewish nonprofits.
Guilty until proven innocent? Don't open that Pandora's box. You're gleefully piling on
the Russians now, but give a few years and the same gang might apply that principle to you in
turn. Just because they hate Russians at this moment doesn't mean they hold any love for the
rest of humanity.
Brunson's captivity had dragged for quite long already, and we heard negotiations for his
release made some progress before. However, Trump ramped up the rhetoric at a precise moment:
when Turkey announced they would not only shirk new Iran sanctions (like they did in the
past) but also were being vocal about this.
Seeing what ensued, again yes the S-400 was an irritant for a while already and certainly
cumulate with other factors but the timeline is interesting. God forbid we conclude those who
should not be named are ultimately setting the agenda here, not really the pastor's plight
under islamist thugs.
On CNN, the establishment alternative academic Robert English hypothesized that elements
in the Russian government might've poisoned the Skripals without Putin's prior knowledge.
He leaves out another possibility, in line with US mass media restrictions. In the UK,
there're Russian ex pats, who quarrel among themselves, in addition to not liking the
Russian government. The poisoning of the Skripals could very well be a matter of trying to
kill two birds (so to speak) in one shot.
Of course we don't know for sure. Likewise, with the bogus suggestion as fact that the
Russian government poisoned the Skripals. Given the ongoing lack of UK government
disclosure on this incident, there's very good reason to doubt the claim against the
Russian government.
As for the Litvinenko matter you bring up, there's good reason to believe that he somehow
got poisoned by a source other than a Russian government act. His Italian friend got arrested
for arms smuggling and was also infected with polonium. Litvinenko was said to be sympathetic
to Chechen separatism. These factors and his links to the likes of Goldfarb and Berezovsky
suggest a source other than the Russian government.
That's wrong, except about the innumeracy of the majority of biologists. Evolutionary
biologists are less innumerate than the rest, and in any event, enough of them are numerate
(like Greg Cochran with a physics PhD).
Evolutionary biologists are less innumerate than the rest, and in any event, enough of
them are numerate (like Greg Cochran with a physics PhD).
Physicists are trained in integrals and analysis, they know nothing about probability
theory, statistics and theoretical computer science. These are the fields required to form a
semblance of a mathematical theory of evolution.
(A theory that will never be formed, because Darwinism violates the very basic theorems of
probability and computation.)
Could you give an example of some probabilities? How do you calculate them and with what
assumptions?
At resent article by Fred Reed the commenter "j2″ produced some numbers but I was
too lazy and not certain that his starting assumptions were correct to verify it.
Physicists are trained in integrals and analysis, they know nothing about probability
theory, statistics and theoretical computer science. These are the fields required to form
a semblance of a mathematical theory of evolution.
Such complete bullshit. Probability and statistics are absolutely key for modern physics
and an education in theoretical physics is definitely the best route to train in the
practical applications, better than going to the mathematics department where they mainly
deal with abstract theory. You clearly know nothing beyond high school level physics (or
anything else for that matter).
Some fields of modern physics like thermodynamics ARE basically just pure probability
theory applied to physical phenomena. If you take a random sample of research physicists from
your local university, they're much more likely to be doing statistical mechanics rather than
trying to find analytical solutions for their n-body problem and some application of
probability is usually the most important field of mathematics for working physicists.
You're right again about the Litvinenko conspiracy, Mickey. The notion that the Russian
government would want to eliminate somebody who had betrayed its secret service, written
books denouncing Vladimir Putin for giving the order to murder the likes of Boris Bereszvsky,
Anna Polikovskaya and others, accused the secret service of being behind the bombings of the
Russian apartment buildings, just doesn't add up or make any sense. The fact that Litvinenko,
while lying on his death bed directly accused Putin for being responsible for his death also
didn't lend any value that it was indeed Putin behind his poisoning. It just goes to show you
the lengths to which the enemies of Russia and Vladimir Putin will go to try and besmearch
Putin's honorable name. But they'll never be able to fool somebody with your veracity and
skillul analysis – keep up the great 'independent foreign analysis'!
Litvinenko was said to be sympathetic to Chechen separatism.
I wasn't aware of this and am glad that you pointed this out. Another incredibly strong
reason not to believe that the Russian government was behind the Litvinenko poisoning. Isn't
it time that you wrote a book, Mickey? I know that other book authors regularly rely on your
input to write their own monographs, isn't it time that you put it all together and shared
more of your thoughts with the world? Perhaps, Karlin might let you write a chapter in his
forthcoming book 'The Dark Lord of the Kremlin'?
Anyone wants to comment on this bizarre diplomatic spat, that Greece and Russia are having?
The abrupt deterioration in relations between Greece and Russia has intensified after
Athens publicly accused Moscow of attempting to bribe state officials and meddle in the
country's internal affairs.
Athens also rejected requests for entry visas from Russian Orthodox clerics heading for
northern Greece's all-male monastic republic of Mount Athos.
The community is alleged to be a "den of spies" , with reports that Moscow has
turned the Holy Mount – widely seen as the spiritual centre of Orthodoxy – into
an intelligence-gathering operation with extensive funding of monasteries across the
peninsula.
Personally, I'm not sure what to make of it. Greece could be trying to secure some debt
relief by manufacturing a pointless row with Russia. Their PM Tsipras did come to Russia in
2015, asking for money. Left with nothing.
Probability and statistics are absolutely key for modern physics and an education in
theoretical physics is definitely the best route to train in the practical applications,
better than going to the mathematics department where they mainly deal with abstract
theory.
Untighten your panties. That was my point, which you managed to miss by blindly charging
to M'Lady Science's defense.
Any scientific theory of evolution will have to be about information entropy,
computational complexity and asymptotic properties of stochastic processes. That's exactly
the "abstract theory" you're deriding.
The practical stuff physicists are using for solving practical, well-defined problems is
useless here.
* Age of the universe is about 10^18 seconds.
* The "Planck time" gives us the smallest possible unit of time, about 10^-45 seconds.
* There are about 10^82 atoms in the Universe.
Now assume an ideal computer. Let each atom of the Universe be a CPU, operating as fast as
physics allows.
That gives us an upper bound of 10^(18+45+82) = 10^145 CPU cycles for computation.
Now take Shakespeare's sonnet #27. It is 458 letters long. (Let's ignore punctuation.)
If we take 458 random letters of the English alphabet, there are 26^458 random
combinations.
So if our ideal Universe-sized computer was randomly picking letters and hoping to compose
a Shakespeare sonnet, it would need about 10^300 Universes to do so.
How much more complex is an E. Coli cell compared to a sonnet?
P.S. This is obvious, freshman-tier stuff unless you're blinded by ideology.
What' s to make of it? The article that you cite clearly explains what the row is all
about:
Moscow announced the move weeks after Athens banned four Russian diplomats after
accusing them of fomenting opposition to a landmark deal between Greece and macedonia,
opening up the possibility of eventual Nato membership for Skopje.
Your own bizarre explanation betrays your own Russian reasoning:
Personally, I'm not sure what to make of it. Greece could be trying to secure some debt
relief by manufacturing a pointless row with Russia. Their PM Tsipras did come to Russia in
2015, asking for money. Left with nothing.
My guess is that the Greek government wants to gain a powerful backer against
Brüssel.
In Greece, he very often appears in public alongside Kammenos and spreads his political
views on what is going on in the country via his Twitter account.
The influence goes so far that Pyatt unchallengedly criticizes the Greek judiciary and
demands measures against anti-American demonstrators. Tsipras administration, arguing
anti-Americanly itself at opposition times, on the other hand, fulfils every wish of the
USA. While on the other side of the Bosphorus NATO partner Turkey is pushing its dispute
with the US to the top, Greece's government is the most US-friendly since the overthrow of
military rule in July 1974: NATO interests, gas pipelines and the regional influence of the
North Atlantic defence alliance.
The coalition government of SYRIZA and the Independent Greeks agreed to the expansion of
American military bases in Greece, including the stationing of nuclear weapons. This was
not initially communicated to the public by the government, but only became known when the
Secretary General of the Communist Party, Dimitris Koutsoubas, criticized it during public
performances.
Secret diplomacy, as in the case of NATO, is also a characteristic of the Tsipras
government in resolving the name dispute with northern Macedonia and in ongoing
negotiations on border corrections with Albania. All negotiations are held in secrecy, with
reference to the protection of state interests. There is no detailed information and no
transparency regarding the reasons for the decision.
Athens is now providing NATO with the infrastructure for military bases in the event
that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan withdraws his country from the North Atlantic
Defence Alliance.
Yes, that's is the infamous Pyatt who was ambassador in Kiev during the Maidan Coup.
He has been in Athen since 2016.
The case brings to the forefront the tension that seems to have been brewing between
Athens and Moscow over the last two years, for reasons that have to do with regional
security.
Yeltsin was president when the bombings happened. Putin was only prime minister for a
couple of weeks before the tower block bombings happened. Boris Bereszvsky killed himself
(exiles are often miserable, Skripal wanted to go back) after Litvinenko, they were a couple
of losers. No, Putin is a proud man, he sent the anti terror police to arrest Gusinsky not
because of investigation into the apartment massacres of hundreds, but because that puppet
show Dolls of Gusinsky's NTV portrayed Putin in a way he hated.
Who wouldn't want to inflict a horrible death on someone who accused them of being a
paedophile? Litvinenko accused Putin of being a child molester and so Putin immediately
issued orders for him to be sadistically murdered and a month he was poisoned (like apartment
bombings, these things take a while to set up).
This brings me back to my point about Hitler & weak, foolish Eastern Europeans. Greek
government is only behaving this way because it sees no risks in antagonising Russians
whatsoever. Slapping sanctions on Greece (by banning tourism for example) might get them
thinking.
Look, I'm not passing judgement on the veracity of these accusations, that Litvinenko made
against Putler. I see that you've added another one to the list, that Litvinenko accused
Putler of being a pedophile too. All I was pointing out was that there were many reasons why
Litvinenko was a target for unfriendly Rusian actions, not like our resident 'Independent
foreign Policy Analyst' Mike Averko who claims:
As for the Litvinenko matter you bring up, there's good reason to believe that he
somehow got poisoned by a source other than a Russian government act.
Of course, he's a professional analytical type that always knows what he's talking
about?
Greece has been a member of NATO since 1952, it joined the European Community in 1981.
It's odd though that a Greek leftist like Tsipras is pro-American, given the strong
anti-American traditions of Greek left-wingers. But Tsipras seems to be an all-around scumbag
anyway.
how deeply Russia falls into China's orbit in the next couple of decades
Russia can start taking China's side on an ad hoc basis, e.g. sending ships to the
disputed sea and hassling US ships and planes. Russia could hassle them on the Northern half
and China on the Southern half, a nice division of labor and multiplication of hassle for the
US Navy.
Russia has enough chicken legs of its own now. They are not washed in chlorine.
Disengagement will simply remove what little influence the US has on Russia. Russia's
exports are utterly dominated by primary production which is entirely fungible. The US
exports little of high added to Russia and the EU and Switzerland, Korea and increasingly
China can replace that. Japan probably won't. Russia has been trying to play a softer game
with Japan but both sides true imperialist nature keeps on re-emerging. Like the US, Japan
has remarkably low levels of trade with Russia given the size of its economy. Switzerland
does a lot of high end complex electromechanical systems, like the Germans. The Germans are
good; The Swiss are perfect.
I'm not really sure how low prices for Turkey can become lower. It's already very
cheap.
Maybe further devaluation can contribute to the tourist market diverging more between
Greece and Turkey. More and more poorer people will go on holiday to Turkey, as it becomes
almost as cheap to go on holiday in Turkey, as it is to stay at home.
Maybe Greece can focus more on middle segment of the tourist market.
Greece had withdrawn from the NATO military structure after the invasion of Cyprus by
fellow member Turkey. If I remember rightly it was their own PM who told Greeks they had to
go back into NATO to be allowed to join the EC.
Any scientific theory of evolution will have to be about information entropy,
computational complexity and asymptotic properties of stochastic processes. That's exactly
the "abstract theory" you're deriding.
Bullshit. I have a pretty good education in probability theory both from the theoretical
physics and mathematics departments so feel free to explain whatever point you think you have
in as technical terms and with as much abstract math as you like.
I'm just going to claim that you're trying an "it doesn't work because of fancy words X,
Y, Z" bluff without any actual technical argument behind the big fancy words. Prove me
wrong.
It will have a negative impact on domestic Russian consumption short term. It's stupid,
short sighted, and hard to reverse. Sanctions work best when used least.
"Age of the universe" is a pop sci concept. In the standard model of cosmology it is
estimated that the universe has developed from a massively dense state to the current state
in roughly 13 billion years. We can backtrack the development over that time with current
theories of physics and then we hit a wall as matter is so dense that we'd need a quantum
theory of gravity to go further back in time but we don't have that. We don't know how long
the universe existed before that, actually we don't even know if time existed in the same
manner. The earliest known state of the universe was NOT informationless (there were
variations in mass distribution etc) so your assumption that patterns would emerge only in
the following 13 billion years is false.
[MORE]
If you watch some pop sci documentary, they will explain all sorts of stuff about how the
universe was at first some tiny point and there was a big explosion that spread it all over.
This is all nonsense that was made up so that pop sci documentaries could have CGI
graphics.
* The "Planck time" gives us the smallest possible unit of time, about 10^-45
seconds.
There is no such thing as the "smallest possible unit of time". This is complete nonsense.
You seem to get your knowledge of physics from science fiction movies.
There is an expectation that current theories of physics are not accurate at very small
time scales (which have not been reached by experiment). This is not the same thing as
postulating that there is some "smallest possible unit of time". Current theories of physics
simply do not include such a thing.
* There are about 10^82 atoms in the Universe.
We don't even know if the universe is finite or infinite. This is just a claim that you
pulled out of your ass. There may even be an infinite number of atoms.
Turks are a lot more orderly and competent than Greeks. In fact, I was surprised how much
more organized Turks are: we rented a car in Ankara near railway station and returned it in
another city near airport, and they delivered the car where we wanted it and then took it off
my hands, without car rental agency at either point.
For Russians, there are two additional advantages: no visa is required (you just pay $20
at the airport, and they stick what they call "visa" in your passport), and the same services
are cheaper than in Greece.
"Any scientific theory of evolution will have to be about information entropy,
computational complexity and asymptotic properties of stochastic processes. That's exactly
the "abstract theory" you're deriding."
The US went thru a period of noticeable politically motivated violence (in one form or
another), that among other things included the murders of the Kennedy brothers, King, X,
black children in a church, fatal Kent State shootings and the Manson involved murders.
There was absolutely no need for the Russian government to orchestrate the Moscow
apartment bombings. The evidence is non-existent, with the so-called evidence being a
put mildly creative stretch. On par with the idea that the US government sought and was
involved in planning 9/11. Terrorism from Chechnya was a clear reality before the Moscow
apartment bombings.
A disingenuous cherry pick on your part, along with empty calories sarcasm. It wasn't only
his (as has been said) sympathy for Chechen separatism, but a combination of factors, in
conjunction with that aspect.
What I said in full on this matter:
As for the Litvinenko matter you bring up, there's good reason to believe that he
somehow got poisoned by a source other than a Russian government act. His Italian friend
got arrested for arms smuggling and was also infected with polonium. Litvinenko was said to
be sympathetic to Chechen separatism. These factors and his links to the likes of Goldfarb
and Berezovsky suggest a source other than the Russian government.
It's a pity that the good things Macedonia is doing (like fixing its relations with Bulgaria
and Greece and starting to slowly accept the real history as opposed to the shit made up by
the Serbs, the communists and Tito) are all done for such a shitty reason like entering the
EU and NATO.
Greece has an inferior tourist industry and plenty of great European competition (Spain,
Italy, Croatia etc.)
Thanks to Cyprus, you don't even to travel to Greece if you want to be on vacation in a
Greek-speaking country.
Stick to the facts and do not reply back with your monotonous drum of often recited BS
when you don't have a credible reply, Mickey!
I was specifically pointing out the paucity of information that you provided regarding
your alternative suggestion that somebody other than Russian backed was responsible for
Livinenko's demise. As I've already pointed out, I do not pass judgments on any of the
aspersions that Litvinenko made against Putler, only that the smoking gun clearly points
towards Moscow. If you've got something better, then present it I'd try something more clever
than indicating that Litvinenko was in favor of Chechen separatists.
Much unlike your svido trolling ways, which include mis-informative cherry picks,
designed to spin an otherwise faulty impression.
Whoa, what do we have here? Another genuine ' Averkoism '??
You indicate that I ' include mis-informative cherry picks' to spin an otherwise
faulty impression. Why yes, I guess that's what I can be contrued doing. Most
impressions that you make are faulty' ' and deserve to be rebuked, don't you think? I
think that what you meant to say was that:
Much unlike your svido trolling ways, which include mis-informative cherry picks,
designed to spin an otherwise accurate impression.
Mickey, you don't really want to be remembered for making 'faulty impressions ' now
do you?
I have to agree with Mikhail here. I think that Litvinenko affair was like a
dress-rehearsal for the most famous, daring and successful spy operation in history –
the Babchenko affair.
You see, such a stunning operation like that takes years to perfect and for the Ukrainians
Litvinenko was just a guinea pig on whom they tested their secret intelligence (OK,
intelligence might be a stretch) operations skills.
And Litvinenko was an easy choice, the Ukrainians were sure that because of his background
– it will be blamed on the Russians.
Nevertheless, this doesn't take anything away from the professionalism and mastery that
Ukrainians displayed when they designed the Babchenko hoax. I wouldn't be surprised at all if
Babchenko success story launches a new series of spy novels – maybe about agent 008
– where 008 is the IQ of the agent.
My take too rT. Economic warfare will not play out against Russia today as it did against
Japan and Germany in the 1930′s; because while they were energy dependent, Russia has
an abundance of oil and can and will–as you say–bootstrap its own industries inso
far as they are able. They don't have to develop a surplus to trade since, like the USA 100
years ago, their population is sufficiently large to support a robust internal market.
Also, this entire analysis (and the Saker's discussions of weapons as well) ignores
Russia's bigger concern, 1.2 billion Chinese wielding state of the art weaponry, who would
love to bite off some big chunks of a weakened Russia for lebensraum.
You can read statements of their foreign ministry.
His statements to do with paranoia about Russian-Turkey relations – statement from
Greece was claiming Russia is a "comrade in arms with Turkey".
As Russia becomes friendly with Turkey – they will find an excuse to be angry, and
vice-versa.
I feel that this is one of those situations, when you need to read between the lines.
Turkey, religion and "meddling" ARE excuses for Greece. Trying to please Greece's creditors
is the real issue here. It's a literal crackwhore of a nation, living from one tranche to
another.
Also, this entire analysis (and the Saker's discussions of weapons as well) ignores
Russia's bigger concern, 1.2 billion Chinese wielding state of the art weaponry, who would
love to bite off some big chunks of a weakened Russia for lebensraum.
This is implausible, for reasons that have been discussed multiple times here, including
recently.
The idea that the Chinese will move to seize Siberia is a ridiculous fantasy.
China and Russia already in the 1990s peacefully resolved all of their outstanding
border issues.
China suffers from below replacement fertility and solved its food security issues in
the 1980s, so the era of "Yellow Peril" population pressure belongs to the distant past.
And in any case the Russian Far East is useless for agricultural purposes.
There are indeed some minerals in Siberia, but let's review some economic facts about
China:
China can buy all the resources it needs. The main threat to China's economic security
are the naval and air forces of the United States and Japan, and to a lesser extent the US
Treasury and Commerce Departments. Expanding into Siberia does exactly zero to counter any
of these threats, unless you think the Port of Vladivostok somehow enables the PLA-N to
break out into the open Pacific.
Instead it multiplies these threats by pointlessly adding Russia to its enemies and
eliminating the possibility of overland trade substituting for seaborne trade.
China is a security threat to Siberia only once the following are true:
1 – USA abandons Western Pacific in favor of hemispheric security
2 – China secures dominance over Second Island Chain
3 – China replaces USA as lynch pin of global financial (as opposed to just economic)
system
And given China's cautious attitude, that might not be enough. For instance, a USA
focused on hemispheric security would still be viewed as potentially dangerous by China
owing to its blue water navy and dominance of the "Third Island Chain".
If China displaces the USA as the world's preeminent power, then there might be some cause
for concern. But even then I'm not so sure–Russia would be Canada to China's America.
The USA and Canada have had very good relations since the 1930s.
Lebensraum with Chinese Characteristics is not going to happen.
That's not to say everything will be hunky dory in Russian-Chinese relations. There are
areas of friction like:
• Influence in Central Asia
• Chinese IP theft
• North Korea
• Japan
• Near Abroad
• Competition for defense and nuclear exports
The CRAIC CR929 project looks great for now, but the gist of it is that while it's
designed in Russia it will be made in China. Once China matches Russia in aerospace
technology, what is Russia's role in this partnership? Seems like the most likely outcome is
that Russian industry is reduced from producing aircraft to merely being a Tier One supplier
and, perhaps, an engine supplier.
Will Russia be happy with that? I don't know. The UK decided to accept being reduced to
this status after the commercial failure of its innovative but flawed postwar airliners
cheerfully enough I suppose. Japan considered but decided against developing a complete
aerospace-industrial base, though this may be changing (MHI Regional Jet, Kawasaki P1, MHI
X-2 Shinden).
He's a svido troll as evidenced by his ongoing distortions and omissions, which include
not having a good comeback to the following:
As for the Litvinenko matter you bring up, there's good reason to believe that he
somehow got poisoned by a source other than a Russian government act. His Italian friend
got arrested for arms smuggling and was also infected with polonium. Litvinenko was said to
be sympathetic to Chechen separatism. These factors and his links to the likes of Goldfarb
and Berezovsky suggest a source other than the Russian government.
Never mind the impracticality of the Russian government using something like polonium to
bump someone off, when there're effectively cheaper ways of doing such.
So, do you have even one shred of any evidence linking the poisoning of Litvinenko
with the Ukrainian secret service? If not, I wouldn't spend too much time writing your novel
about 008 and Babchenko, unless you intend it for an audience of only one gullible reader,
Michael Averko!
His ' Italian friend '? Were they fishing buddies where somebody got jealous of
their 'friendship' and decided to take the Italian out? Could've been another Russian job
too?
Litvinenko was said to be sympathetic to Chechen separatism.
Now, this is really stupid, I think that even you'll have to admit Mickey. Are we to
believe that because Litvinenko was sympathetic to Chechen separatism, that this somehow made
him impervious to any sort of Russian assault? Please explain this one to me!
Never mind the impracticality of the Russian government using something like polonium to
bump someone off, when there're effectively cheaper ways of doing such.
Well, somebody was responsible for this ill advised murder, and did so in this grotesque
and over the top manner. Why not the Russians, are they somehow smarter than the rest? If
Russia wasn't full of fools, why are they circumvented by the world community with
unnecessary and embarrasing sanctions, anyway? Besides, as I've already pointed out, there
were many reasons why the Kremlin wanted Litvinenko gone.
Well, somebody was responsible for this ill advised murder, and did so in this grotesque
and over the top manner. Why not the Russians, are they somehow smarter than the rest?
Why Litvinenko himself, albeit (if true) in a possible unintended way. No proof that the
Rusisan government did him in. No need to reply anymore to your rehashed trolling tripe.
Still no good answer to:
As for the Litvinenko matter you bring up, there's good reason to believe that he
somehow got poisoned by a source other than a Russian government act. His Italian friend
got arrested for arms smuggling and was also infected with polonium. Litvinenko was said to
be sympathetic to Chechen separatism. These factors and his links to the likes of Goldfarb
and Berezovsky suggest a source other than the Russian government.
Theory that it is to do with creditors, doesn't make much sense.
Creditors (troika) are European fund – mainly Germany, France and Italy, in order.
Followed by IMF and ECB.
Criteria for release of funds is economic criteria, that imply they might one day get
their money back.
Greece's foreign policy is not of interest to anyone much (Turkey care about them),
especially not accountants.
-
Reason for tensions with Greece, are the new relations with Turkey.
An alternative world, with a solvent Greece, they would be more angry, than currently
weak, insolvent one – considering sale of S-400 to Turkey, construction of Akkuyu for
Turkey, and recent decision for Turkstream.
Turkstream was always supposed to go to Greece, but two months ago, finally announced it's
going to Bulgaria (with no mention of Greece).
For Turkstream it's now option if it needs to go to Greece at all – it could also
reach Italy, via the Balkans.
In a Northern option that gets to Hungary and Italy over Serbia. (With no need of
Greece).
At the same time, Israel, Cyprus and Greece are probably building a rival pipeline
(probably not very economically rational), after Cyprus has discovered a gas field.
Well orderliness is not the only reason for holiday choice.
And Schengen visa is not a big deal for middle class tourists (35 euros).
Greece already has almost "too many" tourists (from around the world), for size of the
country.
Greece receives 32 million tourists this year (while Turkey receives around 40 million a
year tourism – and is six times larger than Greece in land area).
Perhaps Greece can even raise prices and market more for middle class tourists?
You missed my reply in #143 with plenty of decent replies. I don't mind reprinting them
for you, I know how prone you are to missing information that is contrary to your myopic
belief system:
His 'Italian friend' ? Were they fishing buddies where somebody got jealous of
their 'friendship' and decided to take the Italian out? Could've been another Russian job
too?
Litvinenko was said to be sympathetic to Chechen separatism.
Now, this is really stupid, I think that even you'll have to admit Mickey. Are we to
believe that because Litvinenko was sympathetic to Chechen separatism, that this somehow made
him impervious to any sort of Russian assault? Please explain this one to me!
Never mind the impracticality of the Russian government using something like polonium to
bump someone off, when there're effectively cheaper ways of doing such.
Well, somebody was responsible for this ill advised murder, and did so in this grotesque
and over the top manner. Why not the Russians, are they somehow smarter than the rest? If
Russia wasn't full of fools, why are they circumvented by the world community with
unnecessary and embarrasing sanctions, anyway? Besides, as I've already pointed out, there
were many reasons why the Kremlin wanted Litvinenko gone.
I believe Russia's loss of influence there is inevitable. China has $$$; Turkey/Islamic
world has ethno/religious draw; USA has its hegemonic culture.
Russia has some fading sovok relicts, such as old political ties and the Victory Day
cult.
However, China is displacing it gently, as opposed to batting it away as the US and EU are
wont to do. This naturally makes Russia much better disposed than it otherwise would be.
• Chinese IP theft
Will become less of an issue as China converges with and overtakes Russia in many
technological areas. For instance, the realization that China's MIC is progressing far faster
than expected – without significant Russian tech transfer – has contributed to
Russia dropping its inhibitions on selling the S-400 and advanced fighters to China in recent
years. (An HBD realist could have told them as much, earlier).
• North Korea
• Japan
• Near Abroad
The equitable arrangement would be for Russia to defer to China on North Korea and the Far
East in general (though economic relations with Japan should be broadened), and to require
that China do the same for Russia wrt to its Near Abroad.
But certainly a much more dominant China may no longer feel the need to honor such an
arrangement.
• Competition for defense and nuclear exports
This will certainly be an issue.
Russia's nuclear technology is much further advanced than China's (the gap is much bigger
than the rapidly dwindling one in the military sphere), and it doesn't appear to me that
China is making a major R&D push in that area. I think Russia will continue to dominate
global nuclear tech exports for at least 2-3 more decades.
Russia's current dominance of global nuclear exports is something of a fluke.
The West crippled its nuclear industry owing to pathological atomophobia. Design expertise
didn't atrophy, but construction experience did. Result was massive cost overruns and endless
delays on the few Western Gen III reactor projects. Now effectively priced out of the world
market.
Japan suffered from the double whammy of Fukushima and Toshiba getting dragged down by the
collapse of Westinghouse. Even though it's somewhat unfair, no one will now order Japanese
reactors in the near future. The Japanese elite, once truly impressive in its atomophilia and
determination to resist popular atomophobia, is no longer united on the issue either. Former
Prime Minister Junichiro Koisumi has for instance called for Japan to shut down all nuclear
power plants.
Emerging competitor is South Korea. The Koreans successfully won the project in the United
Arab Emirates, and within South Korea they have an excellent record of efficient
construction. Fortunately for Russia, the very weak President Moon is a disgraceful
atomophobe.
Thanks for your comments. I really wasn't referring to today, more to a tomorrow when
China is the world's leading economy and the USA is struggling to enforce dollar
supremacy.
You are looking at it from a wrong perspective, pal. I was simply expressing pride and
admiration for the competence of the Ukrainian Secret Services. Why can't a fellow –
even though admittedly phony – Slav like me feel proud of the accomplishments of a
Slavic country that I look upon to for inspiration and guidance?
Interesting argument but it hinges on something that is not a part of it, i.e, what is
special about the 458 letter sonnet? Your argument only demonstrates that if another world
began 10^18 seconds ago it most likely would not produce the same 458 letter sonnet but it
would produce some other sonnet which could have a meaning in this different world.
You could create similarly fallacious argument 'proving' that you cannot possibly exist.
Assign probabilities p<<1 of an event that two of your ancestors met and procreated.
What was a chance that your parent met and then go back to grandparents and so on. And soon
you will obtain cumulative probability close to zero stating exactly what? That your life
could not have happened?
I think it is east to be confused and tricked by probabilities. And this happens when we
are sloppy in defining the space of events on which the probability function must be defined.
When you are heating up water at some point there will me one molecule of H2O that will break
free and evaporate. If this molecule asked the Nancy Kerrigan's question "Why me?" and began
calculating the probability of this event soon it would have to conclude the even was
impossible. The problem is with the question "Why me?"
Thanks man, I am really trying. If I may confide in you, you know what I find the most
admiring about the Ukrainians? Your keen sense of democracy.
I mean, it took you what – barely 4 years to figure out that Yanukovych was not
democratic enough – and then boom – revolution. I mean you guys are sharp. Look
at the Russians, they have been electing Putin since 2000 and they still haven't figured out
that he is not democratic enough. You are way ahead of the game.
You know what I think? I think that one good coup is worth at least 5-6 regular elections.
So if you guys were to stage another coup within – let's say the next couple of years
– it's like you've gone through 12 regular elections of 4 years each. You know what
– if I was you I wouldn't even bother with elections, elections are for dummies, just
stick with coups and soon you'll overtake even Western Europe – democracy and economic
development wise, so you won't even need their stinking EU.
As for the Litvinenko matter you bring up, there's good reason to believe that he
somehow got poisoned by a source other than a Russian government act. His Italian friend
got arrested for arms smuggling and was also infected with polonium. Litvinenko was said to
be sympathetic to Chechen separatism. These factors and his links to the likes of Goldfarb
and Berezovsky suggest a source other than the Russian government.
Never mind the impracticality of the Russian government using something like polonium to
bump someone off, when there're effectively cheaper ways of doing such.
I can't help it if you don't know the specifics about Litrvinenko's aforementioned Italian
friend. Stupid people have a way of babbling on because they don't realize just how stupid
they are. Then again, part of you might recognize that, seeing your cowardly anonymous empty
calories insults.
Opposite to your shooting blanks is this precision reply:
Thek ind of Russian-American views not getting propped in US mass media. Similar to the PC
Ukrainian views getting the nod over Ukrainians thinking differently.
You're on the right track, buddy! I don't know why AP tries to continually put you in
place by pointing out that you're not really a Slav, but some sort of Balkanized Turk. Who
cares? Your last two comments indicate that you're capable of evolving your thinking patterns
much higher that the typical 97 or 98. Heck, I'd guess that you're a solid 99! Keep it
up!
Stupid people have a way of babbling on because they don't realize just how stupid they
are.
I see that you're still babbling on Mickey. Isn't it time for you to do a few
rounds of kumbaya in front of your icon of Herr Putler and go to sleep yet?
As La Russophobe imagines it, Averko then sits down in the lotus position, the room lit
by a single candle beneath a large photo of Stalin, and intones his mantra several thousand
times: "I am a journalist I am a journalist I am a journalist " until he falls asleep. When
he wakes up, he heads out to his day job flipping hamburgers at Wendy's
"Now take Shakespeare's sonnet #27. It is 458 letters long. (Let's ignore punctuation.) If
we take 458 random letters of the English alphabet, there are 26^458 random combinations. So
if our ideal Universe-sized computer was randomly picking letters and hoping to compose a
Shakespeare sonnet, it would need about 10^300 Universes to do so."
The above just shows that the author is just completely ignorant of scientific, statistics
and computing principles.
First in English the occurance of letters do not have random frequencies, the frequencies
range from 0.074% for letter z to 12.702% for letter e. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_frequency
Incidentally sonnet 27 only has 80 unique words, many of which are not random but closely
related, e.g. blind, old, sight, tired, sightless, see, ghastly, shadow, darkness, expired,
eyelids, drooping, weary, bed, toil, view, night, etc. A task simple enough for markov text
sonnet generators,
I'm just going to claim that you're trying an "it doesn't work because of fancy words X,
Y, Z" bluff without any actual technical argument behind the big fancy words. Prove me
wrong.
What's the "it" in your post, exactly? Darwinism? The problem with Darwinism is
that it's not a scientific theory. It's not even formulated correctly. The problem itself is
framed by biologists in handwavey terms on a "monkeys and typewriters" level.
When one tries putting some sort of numbers to the idea, the whole thing falls apart. See
my post above, for example, where it turns out you need a Universe about 10^300 larger than
ours to make random selection work.
And before you charge to M'Lady Science's defense: note this isn't a "disproof", it's just
a demonstration that nobody bothered to frame the question properly yet. There's nothing
there that can be proved or disproved.
The actual point is that biologists framed a problem in a way that doesn't match the scale
of our Universe as we observe it.
Feel free to correct the numbers I made; maybe the correct factor is 10^100 instead of
10^300. So what? The processes biologists postulate are so asymptotic that they require an
infinite Universe, which doesn't exist in real life.
There is an expectation that current theories of physics are not accurate at very small
time scales (which have not been reached by experiment).
We don't even know if the universe is finite or infinite. This is just a claim that you
pulled out of your ass. There may even be an infinite number of atoms.
Good point, but no. You missed the point again.
Any theory that requires time or space outside of a conventional Newtonian understanding
of physics isn't Darwinism. It wouldn't even be biology, because biologists don't (and can't)
deal with stuff like that.
I never assigned any special meaning to a sonnet. I merely demonstrated that the size of
the probability spaces we're traversing are unimaginable orders of magnitude larger than the
Universe we observe.
Formulating the probability spaces and functions should be step one of any biological
theory of evolution. Only then we can start talking about meanings and other philosophy.
Good point, but unfortunately Markov chains (and evolutionary algorithms) are intelligent
design, not random evolution.
They are tools for getting an answer when you know the result you want, but don't know the
steps to get it. The better you understand the result you want, the faster you arrive at a
solution.
That's a framework postulated by 'intelligent design' proponents, and rejected by
conventional Darwinist biologists.
OK, so what is the big deal about generating random string of 458 letters? Any such string
can be easily generated with the same probability from a bag full of letters. Each string is
equivalent.
Continuing on AKarlin's conclusion how Russia's future economic and foreign policy
orientation lies on the EU's response to the US's inevitable Iran-style sanctions against
Russia, I'll walk through some situations, and also state that once sanctions and adversaries
with unfriendly relations escalate to embargo and enemies with no relations on the US side,
the EU's decision at that point will be able to determine its fate for a long time to come.
1. EU caves in, and like a good vassal state with no independent policy of its own
whatsoever, follows US policy. This is more likely to happen if the US threatens third party
trade ties with Russia. This means that EU imposes Iran-style sanctions, and gradually turns
to more expensive US LNG for energy. This would put the EU under incredible strain, and a
large amount of state coffers would be shaved off due to these purchases; the citizens
disposable income would plunge too. On the other hand, Europe won't really collapse if the US
agrees to subsidize gas sales to the EU in exchange for joining the ideological crusade
against Russia.
In the Kissinger thread where I mentioned how a blackpilled possibility of Russia's future
lies as a vassal state, or junior partner, of China, while I may have exaggerated a little
regarding permanent PLA bases on Russia soil, it still is a slight possibility if the
oligarchs become more powerful again and also get a little desperate. However, PLA bases
aside, if the EU joins in the US on an embargo against Russia, Russia would still be cut off
from trade and other ties to its west, and inevitably having to completely rely on its east
for trade and political ties. Since even Japan/Korea trade can be a little difficult due to
their strong US ties and India doesn't really offer Russia much, except as a place to export
some goods, this leaves us with China, rendering Russia's future as China's largest and most
important vassal state.
This would also enable the EU branch of neoliberalism.txt to show their true colors as an
American vassal. Outside of Poland and the Baltics, attitudes towards Russia vary directly on
how neoliberal they feel, so in order to prevent the people from voting in non-neoliberal
parties, some "checks and balances" aka non-democracy has to be implemented to make sure
neoliberalism.txt stays via "voting". In this case, shave off a good at least 10% to EU's
white percentage in the long run also; while its unlikely for Britain and France to ever dip
below 60% white but stabilize around that point instead, a quasi-neoliberal dictatorship
would mean Eastern and Southern Europe bearing a lot of this brunt, e.g. ghettos in Warsaw
might go from a fear to actual reality. And expect the EU's economic growth to be highly
stagnant, and China, with Russia as not just a friendly state but a vassal state, would take
advantage of this to end up becoming the other pole in a bipolar world along with the US.
Unless China changes the way it conducts trade and foreign policy, this means that Russia
will likely get taken advantage of and not get too much in return, especially with
non-patriotic and greedy oligarchs still having significant power. In this case, Russia-China
relations will resemble a more predatory version of UK/Canada-US relations and Russia will
find itself to be a largely China-oriented, with Chinese tourism, businesses, language, and
other ties etc. having a very broad, visible, and dominating presence.
Chance of this happening? 30% given Europe's rhetoric on Iran. China will gladly take
advantage of the situation.
2. The EU doesn't cave in and continues to maintain trade and political ties with Russia.
This is the better result for not just Russia, but also the entire world. A Europe that's
able to stand up to American foreign policy, especially if its more ideological hysteria than
based on realpolitik in the case with Russia, is one that would have taken its first step
towards significantly reasserting their sovereignties. This would've also been a huge blow to
the American establishment, if not THE nail in the coffin ending American unipolarity. And
China also needs more competitors instead of a bipolar world with just China and America.
2a). Europe continues to be ruled by neoliberalism.txt as America enforces the embargo.
Sanctions won't be lifted and the status quo remains. As China gets more powerful and
European relations still cold, Russia and China will end up in a full-blown alliance, but its
status quo trade and personal ties with Europe would ensure that Russia can continue to
maintain a somewhat multi-vectored approach instead of complete subservience to Beijing. And
Russia won't be as much of a "hot potato" if not embargoed by the EU, ties with countries
like Japan and South Korea will continue unabated if not upgraded. In this case, the EU can
still be a more sovereign entity, albeit just ruled by the neoliberalism.txt ideology;
demographically, slightly better than, but no significant differences from the EU caving to
US embargo case. In this case, Russia-China relations will resemble Japan-US relations,
albeit without the military bases.
Chance of this happening? 40%.
2b). Europe undergoing a right-wing wave as America enforces the embargo. Europe in this
case will lift sanctions against Russia and ties likely even upgrade to a strategic
partnership. While Russia will not become enemies with China since it is in its best interest
to not pick a fight with the world's #1 or #2 power, its relationship will stabilize as
non-adversarial but non-aligned, a renewed strategic partnership with Europe can stimulate
Russia's economy and will ensure a multipolar world emerges in the 21st century, with Russia
as a powerful 3rd or 4th most powerful country on good terms with everybody (minus the US and
parts of Eastern Europe). Such close ties to Russia will also be a boon for Europe's economy,
and the possibility to regain their sovereignties after a century-long occupation post-WW2.
America becomes more isolated and loses its unipolarity in this case.
An unrelated side effect of this tactic is that the nonwhite percentages of Europe will
probably stabilize at or just above or below (in the case of southern Europe) current
values.
In this case, Russia-China relations won't be any special, with close trade relations,
some military cooperation, and neutral détente but inevitable minor beefs that spring
up every once in a while, like a closer and better version US-China relations pre-Trump.
Russia in this case will truly be one of the smaller poles in a multipolar world.
Chance of this happening? 30%, but this is by far the best outcome for the entire
world.
* There are 27 words of one letter and 26 letters.
* There are 635 words of two letters and 676 two-letter combinations.
* There are 4710 words of three letters and 17576 three-letter combinations.
* There are 11169 four-letter words and 456976 four-letter combinations.
* There are 22950 words of five letters and 11 million five-letter combinations.
(Oops.)
* There are 61018 words of 8 letters, but 208 billion 8-letter combinations.
Now, these are words, not texts, but you get the idea. Letter combinations grow as c^n,
while the number of English texts clearly doesn't.
1. EU caves in, and like a good vassal state with no independent policy of its own
whatsoever, follows US policy.
Chance of this happening? 30% given Europe's rhetoric on Iran.
Eh, what? It is not EUropean rhetoric that suggests that, but the gap between their
rhetoric and reality.
Europeans talk about defending JCPOA yet European big business ditches Iran and European
banks stab Iran in the back.
In recent weeks, U.S. and European intelligence agencies flagged a European-Iranian
Trade Bank request to withdraw 300 million euros from the Deutsche Bundesbank. Iran claimed
the cash is necessary so that Iranian citizens can use foreign currency when they travel,
but Western governments warned that the cash would be used to fund Iran's terrorist
proxies.
Fearing repercussions from the U.S. Treasury, the German bank decided last week to
introduce the new rules to prevent the withdrawal. This move was likely coordinated with
the German government.
In recent months, the E.U. has said that it will try to salvage the Iranian nuclear
deal, despite the U.S. withdrawal and renewed sanctions.
Initially, the E.U. explored the possibility of compensating European firms that would
be affected by the new sanctions, using the European Investment Bank.
This effort was torpedoed by the EIB, which said it might be blacklisted by the U.S.
Treasury of it was part of a scheme to offset the sanctions. EIB President Werner Hoyer
said two weeks ago that "doing business in Iran is something that we cannot be actively
engaged in."
So my 3 predictions are essentially, Iran-style western embargo, status quo with embargo
only on US side, and normalization of relations with Europe. How would you recalibrate the
likelihoods?
Theory that it is to do with creditors, doesn't make much sense.
Creditors (troika) are European fund – mainly Germany, France and Italy, in order.
Followed by IMF and ECB.
Criteria for release of funds is economic criteria, that imply they might one day get
their money back.
Greece's foreign policy is not of interest to anyone much (Turkey care about them),
especially not accountants.
You assume that Greece is the rational actor in this situation. It's a stupid crackwhore,
desperate for a bit of debt relief.
It is also fair to say that Western decisions on financial aid are not made by
accountants, ultimately they are made by politicians, who do consider geopolitics.
Surely Greece can see that IMF is dumping billions of dollars into the Ukraine for no
other reason than geopolitics. Ukrainian regime also got a nice debt relief a couple of years
back – to better resist "Russian aggression".
So it comes down to the meaning after all. You look for words that have meaning. But why?
Every word out of 208 billions may have a mining in some other language that you do not know
of. Why you insist that the disproof of evolution or the random Universe must be based on
what has meaning in English language? There are some believers in the intelligent design like
yourself in Pentecostal church who speak all kind of tongues nobody heard of them but to them
they have some meaning. There are patients in psychiatric wards who write 458 letter sonnets
that have meaning only to them. So why did you pick up this particular Shakespeare sonnet to
calculate a number that suppose to prove something?
Do you begin to understand where is the flaw in your argument?
2. To what extent will the EU join in, passively acquiesce to, or resist the US
sanctions against Russia? The answer to this question will to a large extent determine
precisely how deeply Russia falls into China's orbit in the next couple of decades.
This looks like a fine opportunity for the EU to 1) develop its own international
settlements system based on a Euro reserve currency 2) redirect trade and investment towards
the ROW (rest of the world), if necessary, excluding the US 3) become a reliable
non-political trade partner to these countries 4) make a unilateral decision to terminate
NATO and detach itself from US lies, subversion and military adventurism.
The place to start would be the termination of NATO, but it would be better to implement
the policies simultaneously. It would initially be very costly to European corporations, but
ultimately worth it, with new more predictable international relationships.
This is exactly what I meant by my response. Not only will EU's response to the upcoming
US embargo be instrumental in writing Russia's role and development in the 21st century
world, but also if the EU ever wants to transform from a neoliberalism.txt US vassal
experiment to either an independent "Great Power" quasi-federation (essentially USSR 2.0
after the revolutionary phase died down, Communism replaced by neoliberalism.txt), or to
break up as wholly sovereign states, a continuation if not strengthening of relations with
Russia will be a pivotal first step for that to happen.
There is no reason to look at any further steps in your calculations when you begin with
false premises.
[MORE]
Again, you are under the false impression that the universe "began" 13 billion years ago
as some informationless entity and that all patterns and complexity emerged after it. No. The
earliest known state of the universe had patterns and complexity. Even if you somehow managed
to argue that the complexity of life on earth is too high to emerge in 13 billion years, it
would still be of no consequence to Darwinism since we don't need it to emerge in that time
– 13 billion years ago is not some patternless zero state of complexity.
In fact, for all we know the emergence of life on earth could have already been determined
in the earlier state of the universe 13 billion years ago. That's implausible to me but a lot
of people believe in an intelligent creator and you can easily just postulate that he baked
the emergence of man in the design of the early universe and then you're in no contradiction
with modern science whatsoever.
Where did the patterns and complexity in the early universe come from? We don't know since
the current theories of physics can't probe that far. In fact, as I said before, the whole
"age of the universe" thing is a false notion that unfortunately some physicists peddle as a
simplification of cosmology. What we can do is trace back the development of the universe
from this point in time and we can go back 13 billion years and conclude that the universe
back then was a very different place, in a very dense state that gradually "expanded" into
the current one.
However in this process we run into a dead end as to study such dense states we'd need to
make the theories of gravity and quantum mechanics work together and we can't do that
currently. Hence, everything "earlier" than that is pure speculation, in fact we don't even
know for sure whether there was a "before". This state beyond current theories has been
dubbed the "big bang", "the beginning" and such but that's all just popularization. This has
the unfortunate side effect that some people now believe physics to somehow have proven that
the universe emerged from "nothing" 13 billion years ago and that's just not true.
And an "understanding of time and space outside of a conventional Newtonian understanding
of physics" is definitely required for cosmology like claims that "universe is X seconds
old". You are the one who began with assumptions that require physics well beyond Newtonian
mechanics.
Most likely is "status quo with embargo only on US side" with limited shift towards
"Iran-style western embargo". EUropean elites do not show much willingness to oppose
Russophobia, but on the other hand Russia is much more integrated in the EU economy than the
Iran.
For instance, the value of the trade in 2017 between Russia and Germany was 57,3 billion
Euro (rank 14th), the number for the Iran-Germany trade was only 3,4 billion Euro (rank
58th).
From 2009 to 2011, Syria supplied almost a fifth of EU imports of phosphate, but those
sales collapsed during the war.
Official EU import data shows that phosphate shipments to Europe -- heading almost
exclusively to Greece -- are resuming and more than tripled between December 2017 to April
2018. The volumes remain small compared to the pre-war heyday, but Syria is making a clear
push to return to the EU market and its giant farm sector.
Syrian data show that total phosphate exports were more than $200 million in 2010.
Three people either working in the phosphate industry or involved with trading the
commodity said Syria is able to export again because Russian investors have resurrected the
Palmyra mines, which Islamic State militia captured in 2015. Assad awarded these reserves
to the Russians last year after Moscow helped him turn the tide against ISIS.
No, it actually doesn't. The probabilities grow as c^n, while the Universe doesn't. No
matter how big it is, it's still a fixed size due to the laws of conservation of mass and
energy.
Every word out of 208 billions may have a mining in some other language that you do not
know of.
Even if every atom in the observable Universe had its own language, the number of possible
letter combinations would still be vastly bigger.
Why you insist that the disproof of evolution or the random Universe must be based on
what has meaning in English language?
I'm not "disproving" anything. I'm demonstrating that the "monkeys and typewriters"
argument used by biologists (and its variants "the universe is really big" and "the Earth is
really old" arguments) violate basic mathematical logic.
The Universe isn't really big. In fact, it is infinitesimal compared to the
probabilities we're dealing with here.
Once biologists acknowledge this obvious fact, then we can formulate some sort of
theory, and maybe then there will be something to prove or disprove.
Do you begin to understand where is the flaw in your argument
Do you? The point is that we're traversing probability spaces here that grow
exponentially, and yet nothing in nature can be exponential indefinitely. Somewhere in your
assumptions is a grave error.
What do you mean uncritically? I think that the citation is very critical of you.
If you're looking for something even more critical, just let me know?
Again, you are under the false impression that the universe "began" 13 billion years ago
as some informationless entity and that all patterns and complexity emerged after it. No.
The earliest known state of the universe had patterns and complexity.
Very good point, and one I agree with. However, this is a variant of the Intelligent
Design hypothesis, and is considered to be pseudoscience by biologists.
Like I said, I'm not "disproving" anything, merely pointing out that the way Darwinian
evolution is framed by biologists is not science.
Maybe it can be reformulated in a way that makes sense, but don't hold your breath -- the
biologists don't even understand the objections and fall back to the "Earth is, like, really
old" argument.
And an "understanding of time and space outside of a conventional Newtonian
understanding of physics" is definitely required for cosmology like claims that "universe
is X seconds old".
Again, the actual figure is irrelevant. The point is that we've posited an exponentially
exploding probability space, and yet nothing in nature is infinite and exponential. (I know
about the cosmology arguments about the finite/infinite universe, spare me. In any case, the
observable Universe is definitely finite, and science only deals with the observable.)
Now that Syria has all but won the war, I wonder when will rebuilding and eventually
re-emerging as a stable country good enough for FDI and tourism will start. By then, I also
wonder how it will be sanctioned.
My guess is that it will rebuild under Iran-style conditions back to more or less where it
was in the early 2000s politically, economically, socially, and sanctions-wise starting
around 2020 or so.
"For instance, banning Aeroflot from flying to the US has a simple response – banning
US air carriers from overflying North Eurasia, period. It can resurrect a bill – first
raised this May, since sunken in the legislature – to impose fines and prison time on
individuals and entities who support Western sanctions by refusing to do business with
Russian citizens or entities on America's SDN list. It can throw out the American-dominated
copyrights regimen out of the window."
As an American, I think Russia should do this and for good reason: the people who run this
country are idiots; if this is allowed to stand, they'll continue to push this until we get a
war. Best to head it off now by making the US Ruling Class pay the price. I especially like
the last part. Russia should just host all Hollywood movies, books, and video games on a
server accessible to American pirates (hey, Red States won't have problem with this these
scum just voted to remove Trump's star on the walk of fame anyway).
"This looks like a fine opportunity for the EU to make a unilateral decision to terminate
NATO and detach itself from US lies, subversion and military adventurism."
Not going to happen for a variety of reasons. NATO is a good way to keep an incompetent,
belligerent U.S. bogged down so that it doesn't cause any serious trouble for advanced
nations. Take Germany for instance. The number of US troops there is quite small in an
absolute sense, not enough to cause trouble, but combined with troops all over the place, the
all-volunteer US military can't really marshall the numbers necessary to invade anyone
without support from Europe. NATO is actually a clever way to control the aggressive
tendencies of the United States; without it, there is no telling what the U.S. could do.
Europe also gets high-tech weapon systems in the process – and sold at a premium
considering the enormous R&D costs involved. That's why German industrialists were stupid
to provoke Trump and go around telling Europeans to not buy American weapons (those weapons
are in some cases FAR superior to what the Europeans have and someone is definitely going to
buy them considering the cost spent to develop them, either you or a potential enemy so it
might as well be you). In all, it's good deal for them. They aren't going to chunk that for
anything.
The real key here is for Russia to strike back in a way that doesn't galvanize the
American public against them. My suggestion: cancel all American copyright protections and
start hosting American movies and television programs. Conservative republicans won't oppose
this as these programs are made in Trump-hating California – a place that just voted to
remove Trump's star on the walk of fame.
In fact, his "conservative" predecessor Samaras was more pro-German than pro-American.
Tsipras is pro-American. He is leftist like Tony Blair is leftist.
But unless they find a way to somehow stop Russia's exports of oil, our economy will
shrug off whatever sanction packages US can throw at it.
It still makes Russia look pathetically weak. The U.S. actions are essentially an act of
war. If Russia just rolls over allows itself to get kicked then the U.S. is just going to
keep on kicking. Cowardice is rarely a good policy.
the F-35. The one which even Americans were criticising.
I bought into much of the criticism, and probably a somewhat better plane could've been
made cheaper, but all in all I think it'll be a fine enough weapon, and probably better than
any currently deployed Russian fighters. The Su-57 is not yet ready (and it's recently got
questioned if it ever will), so you cannot meaningfully compare it to it.
Altogether if you want the very best fighter jet available in the market, then you should
choose it, unless the costs are prohibitive for you. It's actually no longer much more
expensive than 4+ generation planes. I think Boeing is trying to market the F-15X, which
would be a newly produced version of the F-15 with all possible technologies (except stealth
which is impossible for this frame), and it's not going to be meaningfully cheaper than the
latest (and cheapest) F-35.
If buying Russian is politically possible for you, then the Su-35 might be a good cheaper
alternative, though countries which are allowed to buy it are usually not sold the F-35.
Maybe India (and perhaps soon Turkey?) is the only country where both could even be
considered.
If the Su-57 were ready, then maybe we could talk about whether it was better than the
F-35 (the answer would probably depend on a number of issues, e.g. the rest of the equipment
used by the military in question, and of course politics, which is to say, if there was a
chance of a political conflict with the supplier, because if yes, then obviously you'd need
to buy from the other).
For most (but not all) roles the F-35 is at least as good as any other American fighter
jet (except maybe the F-22, and maybe not even that).
Maybe that's why Israel uses its own software? (At least they rewrote part of the
software, or so I read.)
Anyway, I don't think it's a bad fighter jet for the job of fighting America's enemies.
Probably even against neutrals. It might be useless against America's friends, or America
itself, but no one buys it for that. And actually it's probably useful against America, too,
or else why is the US so reluctant to sell it to Turkey?
And probably the American idea that the Russians might use their S-400 to spy on other
Turkish weapon systems (including the F-35), when in fact it's the Americans who use weapons
they sell to do that. The Russians are probably too afraid to lose their reputations.
F-35 has inferior kinematic performance to most, if not all, of the Generation 4 fighters
it's supposed to replace or oppose. Lack of a bubble canopy is also a major step backwards.
Quite a dubious distinction for a new aircraft.
That leaves its stealth and its supposedly wiz-bang sensors.
Stealth is nice, but it drives up operating costs and reduces sortie rates. And on a small
aircraft, you can't carry large war loads without sacrificing your stealth. F-35 stealth is
in the frontal area only, optimized for the X-band. It will be easily detected by long
wavelength radars. In air to air combat it would rely upon detecting intercepting aircraft
and firing AMRAAMs before they can lock on or, heaven forbid, close to visual range (where
the F-35 will be dogmeat).
The Air Force has long said that the F-35 isn't optimized for air combat. I suppose the
idea was that F-22s and legacy fighters would handle air superiority missions. F-35s, with
frontal stealth, would be able to get close to targets and attack them with PGMs.
As for its allegedly wonderful sensors, I am skeptical. Lots of air forces continuously
modernize old designs with AESA radars, glass cockpits, etc. Why exactly is a new airframe
needed for any of this?
That said it's not like the F-35 is awful , and as usual pilot skill and other
factors can overcome inappropriate technology.
The F-35 also now costs less to buy than the Eurofighter Typhoon and Rafale, which is an
important advantage. Gripen is much cheaper, but Sweden has no geopolitical clout and has a
very bad habit of finding moralistic reasons not to export armaments.
If you have to buy from Western suppliers, a mix of F-15X and Gripen NGs seems ideal. If
you can't afford two classes of fighter, the Rafale is a very good compromise. France is also
a reliable supplier. Worst choice is the Super Hornet. The F-16, while now quite an old
design, is still a very capable aircraft at a reasonable price as well.
Japan now has a stealth fighter technology demonstrator in the MHI X-2 Shinden. They
somehow built it, including with indigenous turbofans, for $360m. The airframe is very
interesting in that it's built of new materials which eliminate the need for RAM, which
should keep operating costs down and increase sortie rates. But this is only a technology
demonstrator at this time, probably as proof-of-concept for the new materials and an
indigenous low-bypass afterburning turbofan engine.
As for the Su-57, it's somewhat like the F-35 in its limited stealth. But it's also like
the Su-27 family in having superb kinematic performance. Russia's official reason for
delaying entry into service is that the Su-35 is adequate for existing threats, which is
probably true.
Who knows what the real reason is. Budgetary pressures perhaps? Russia wants to double
capital spending in rouble terms in 2024, and to do so without increasing debt. At the same
time it's continuing its import substitution efforts, and there are no moves to soaking the
rich. So the money has to come from somewhere, and presumably that makes mass production of
the Su-57 and T-14 Armata less attractive.
And actually it's probably useful against America, too, or else why is the US so
reluctant to sell it to Turkey?
>study F-35 and its data
> get better at detecting/fighting F-35
It is probably one of the main reasons why the RoC (Taiwan) won't get this jet despite
needing more than most. The risk that pro-PRC agents would have access to the F-35 is not
small.
I agree. However, let's not forget that Russia and USA have very different weight and role
in the international economy. USA effectively owns the system of international finance. That
is to say "international finance" is but an extention of US financial system. They can
exclude Russia, we can't exclude them (from the system they created and own).
If Russia is going to impose meaningful costs on the US, I think it can only be done
through non-economic means. Realistically, what action Russia could take that would
potentially match the disruptive power of American sanctions on Russia? Arm the Central
American drug cartels?
Using your own software is common for technologically advanced powers concerned about
their sovereignty and their own military-industrial capabilities. Japan for instance (after
being bullied out of building its own indigenous fighter in the 80s) built its own upgraded
version of the F-16 which, among other things, included Japanese software. Like Israel, Japan
also fields its own air-to-air missiles which on paper are in the first rank.
The UK took a different route of becoming a Level 1 Partner on the F-35 program, so they
received privileged access to the source code which is not available to other powers.
The F-35 is not very useful for fighting Russia or China, but fine for fighting most
anyone else. It actually could have some utility against America since America lags Russia
and China in low-frequency radar and infrared search and track, but probably the real
reluctance is safeguarding technology. In particular materials (e.g. the new RAM panels
instead of finicky coatings) and the engines.
Sun Tzu say avoid combat with superior force, bide time and wait till you are stronger. Of
course doesn't take Sun Tzu to work that out, even if he did say it.
IMF funded by a lot of countries though – Russia now one of the top ten important
creditors and more influential owners of the IMF (although it's proportion of ownership is
still multiples times smaller compared to US).
Russia is 8th largest shareholder of the IMF (out of 189 countries). US is largest
share-holder, and then Japan and China.
Decisions are based on member voting which is based on share in the organization, so
Russia has 8th largest vote in IMF, but behind USA, Japan, China, etc.
Part of the Greek debt is owned by Russia through the IMF, probably relative to Russian
ownership of IMF and the debt relief packages partly also funded from Russian loans.
Fortunately, IMF ownership of Greek debt is several times smaller than the eurozone
countries. But Russia's government share of Greece debt will probably be some billions of
dollars. That's how Greece can basically continue receiving money – so many countries
are owed money on their debt.
Thanks man, that's what I have been craving all my life – an approval from a
Ukrainian hick. You keep it up too buddy, your encouragement means the world to me.
VAT is not a "non-issue". When you raise from 18% to 20%, then you are taking
significantly more money from the whole population (including poor people) who want to buy
things in private sector, and transferring this money to state sector, where not all extra
money (to be "polite") is going to be used "wisely".
At the same time, a problem now is to have up to 50% of the federal budget from oil/gas
revenues – which is a volatile priced resource.
So it's typical dilemma with neither option looking good.
Of course, the solution to both, is to reduce unnecessary government expenditure, which
continues to grow all the time in many useless areas, to the extent that you can see
expressed in even unhidden ways of the luxurious buildings being constructed for all kinds of
different government offices who could really do their job just as well (or incompetently) in
a warehouse or a polyester and nylon tent.
You uncritically referenced an anonymous, lying coward (not too much different from
yourself BTW), who ducked a live one hours BBC World Service radio panel discussion, much
unlike the person who you've an obsession with.
Increasing taxation reduces private consumption, but I'm skeptical that it creates a
long-term output gap (short term is a different matter). The OECD has prosperous economies
with taxation at a share of GDP ranging from about one-third to three-fifths. Such a wide
divergence suggests that high taxes and prosperity are not incompatible. Money spent by the
state is still spent, and even if it's spent dubiously it continues to circulate.
Russia's official economic plan (besides import substitution) is to increase capital
spending. It intends to do with while retaining fiscal discipline and limiting offshore
borrowing. If you are unable or unwilling to borrow to finance investment, you must suppress
consumption.
Suppressing consumption to finance investment has a track record of success in East Asia
and for that matter Russia itself (~1928-1970).
The intent is to increase capital spending from one-fifth of GDP to one-quarter. A
reasonable goal.
The real issue here of course is that the intent is for this increase in investment to
come from the state and state-controlled companies, whose track records are dubious.
Still, perhaps something good could be done. Russia's nuclear industry is one bright spot,
and shifting to a more nuclear power mix would allow for more hydrocarbon exports and improve
public health. Russia is a growing agricultural exporter, and somehow I doubt Russia has the
ubiquitous farm roads like we have here in the American Midwest.
Perhaps it would be wiser to reduce Rouble borrowing costs for the business sector by
suppressing consumer credit and promoting higher household savings. Household savings rate in
Russia is only 8%. China is 38%.
"F-35 has inferior kinematic performance to most, if not all, of the Generation 4 fighters
it's supposed to replace or oppose. Lack of a bubble canopy is also a major step backwards.
Quite a dubious distinction for a new aircraft."
The F-35 will have an over-the-horizon A2A capability that will result in virtually any
other aircraft being annihilated long before it closes distance on it. The bubble canopy is
really only useful in dogfights; the F-35, scheduled to be built by the thousands, likely
won't get into one-on-one engagements without serious air support. The bubble canopy reduces
stealth, so it was removed. That was the right decision.
"That leaves its stealth and its supposedly wiz-bang sensors."
Its sensors have already been tested against the F-22 – a proven aircraft –
and are almost certainly far and away superior to anything fielded by the Russians. There is
no "supposedly" here as the US has already built aircraft with similarly impressive sensor
suites. There is no reason to believe the F-35′s sensors won't be just as good, and
probably far superior, to what it has already been able to produce. Any belief to the
contrary is wishful thinking.
"Stealth is nice, but it drives up operating costs and reduces sortie rates."
The US can easily afford it.
"And on a small aircraft, you can't carry large war loads without sacrificing your
stealth."
Doesn't matter. The F-35 will be operating with many other F-35s. Combined, it will be a
formidable foe.
"F-35 stealth is in the frontal area only, optimized for the X-band."
No, it's not. The F-35 is simply more stealthy frontal but still stealthy over all.
Further, X-band is the frequency required for a weapons lock. All stealth aircraft are
specialized for this radar band.
"It will be easily detected by long wavelength radars."
Radars not capable of generating a weapon's grade lock, so they're useless in combat.
Further, long wavelength radars – weather radars, basically – can already detect
stealth aircraft; that's always been true. Didn't do Iraq any good back in the 90s.
"In air to air combat it would rely upon detecting intercepting aircraft and firing
AMRAAMs before they can lock on or, heaven forbid, close to visual range (where the F-35 will
be dogmeat)."
Which they will do very effectively. 100 F-35s vs. 100 Russian Su-27s, both closing on
each other = 100 piles of wreckage and 100 F-35s.
"The Air Force has long said that the F-35 isn't optimized for air combat. I suppose the
idea was that F-22s and legacy fighters would handle air superiority missions. F-35s, with
frontal stealth, would be able to get close to targets and attack them with PGMs."
F-35 + F-22 is a potent combination. Even a squadron of F-35s alone would crush anything
the Russians have. If necessary, the air force will likely just dogpile a large number of
F-35s to make up for any perceived weakness. Considering the numbers scheduled to be
produced, that should work fine.
"As for its allegedly wonderful sensors, I am skeptical."
You have no reason to be skeptical. The US has continually fielded next generation weapons
that have worked quite well in combat. There is no reason to believe this will be any
different. Further, your qualifications seem to be essentially nill in this area as you have
displayed very limited knowledge of the subject. Your skepticism doesn't seem to be based on
anything concrete, just wishful thinking.
"Lots of air forces continuously modernize old designs with AESA radars, glass cockpits,
etc. Why exactly is a new airframe needed for any of this?"
This one statement qualifies you as an amateur that should be ignored.
"That said it's not like the F-35 is awful, and as usual pilot skill and other factors can
overcome inappropriate technology."
The technology on the F-35 will crush its competition.
"If you have to buy from Western suppliers, a mix of F-15X and Gripen NGs seems ideal. If
you can't afford two classes of fighter, the Rafale is a very good compromise."
Sure, if you're poor and want to lose against countries fielding 5th generation fighter
aircraft.
"As for the Su-57, it's somewhat like the F-35 in its limited stealth. But it's also like
the Su-27 family in having superb kinematic performance."
Having superb kinematic performance doesn't count for much if your opponent is flying in
an aircraft that can shoot you down long before you close to within visual range.
"Russia's official reason for delaying entry into service is that the Su-35 is adequate
for existing threats, which is probably true."
Russia is delaying because 1. they can't afford to buy the aircraft 2. they are having
trouble constructing the aircraft as designed and in the quantity required 3. it probably
isn't as good as the F-35 anyway, so they don't see a point in building it.
The F-35 is for transferring US technology to Israel
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/israels-air-force-might-have-the-ultimate-weapon-custom-25983
Lockheed-Martin has mostly refused to allow major country-specific modifications to the
F-35, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars foreign F-35 operators contributed to the
aircraft's development. Israel, however, managed to carve out an exception. Though not an
investor in the F-35's development, Tel Aviv was nonetheless quick to sign on to the
program with an initial order of fifty. It also negotiated a favorable deal in which
billions of dollars worth of F-35 wings and sophisticated helmet sets would be manufactured
in Israel, paid for with U.S. military aid. Furthermore, depot-level maintenance will occur
in a facility operated by Israeli Aeronautics Industries rather than at a Lockheed facility
abroad.
The Lightning's sophisticated flight computer and ground-based logistics system has
become a matter of contention with many F-35 operators. Foreign air forces would like to
have greater access to the F-35's computer source codes to upgrade and modify them as they
see fit without needing to involve external parties -- but Lockheed doesn't want to hand
over full access for both commercial and security-based reasons. Israeli F-35Is uniquely
will have an overriding Israeli-built C4 program that runs "on top" of Lockheed's operating
system.
"Right, which is why Denmark bought the F-35. The one which even Americans were criticising.
Buying American weaponry is often a combination of tribute, corruption and paying protection
money."
Please. They bought the F-35 because it is the best aircraft they could get, and they
don't trust the Russians. If they wanted to offer tribute, they'd just write a check and buy
another aircraft.
Further, much of the so-called criticism of the F-35 came from non-experts in the subject
or older guys who worked with the now-outdated F-14. The F-35 has made enough progress for me
to believe that it will likely crush anything the Russians have now or in the future. Even if
the Russians could build the Su-57, the F-35 would still win in most contests because 1. its
sensor suite and over the horizon A2A capability + electronic warfare capability will be
appreciably superior 2. it will be built in far larger numbers.
"The F-35 is not very useful for fighting Russia or China, but fine for fighting most
anyone else."
The F-35 will be quite effective against any aircraft those countries currently field. Any
belief to the contrary is either ignorance or delusion. The US isn't spending a trillion
dollars on this thing to fight Trinidad and Tobago.
The F-35 will have an over-the-horizon A2A capability that will result in virtually any
other aircraft being annihilated long before it closes distance on it. The bubble canopy is
really only useful in dogfights; the F-35, scheduled to be built by the thousands, likely
won't get into one-on-one engagements without serious air support. The bubble canopy
reduces stealth, so it was removed. That was the right decision.
"Over-the-horizon A2A capability" has existed for half a century. Previously structuring
our airpower around this concept resulted in high losses in Vietnam.
The real reason for the bubble canopy's elimination (note that the stealthier F-22 and
YF-23 both have bubble canopies) is the ridiculous insistence on the same platform being used
for a STOVL aircraft with a lift fan placed right in the middle of the fuselage.
If your goal is to maximize stealth and only fight BVR engagements, the F-35′s
design is entirely inappropriate. After all, its stealth is in the front area only and it
can't carry a large missile load.
Optimizing exclusively for BVR combat would entail a large tailless aircraft (perhaps a
flying wing) with all-aspect stealth, large internal volumes of missiles, and far more
powerful radar.
The F-35′s design is based on political and economic considerations, not military
ones.
Its sensors have already been tested against the F-22 – a proven aircraft –
and are almost certainly far and away superior to anything fielded by the Russians. There
is no "supposedly" here as the US has already built aircraft with similarly impressive
sensor suites. There is no reason to believe the F-35′s sensors won't be just as
good, and probably far superior, to what it has already been able to produce. Any belief to
the contrary is wishful thinking.
I have no doubt in the capability to produce and field top-class avionics. What I do doubt
is the idea that we produce (and always will produce) superior avionics to anyone else.
Europe, Russia, China, Japan, and even tiny Israel all produce AESA radars. The US lagged
Russia (and Europe) in IRST for decades. The US is far behind on low-frequency radar.
The US can easily afford it.
You'll note that this was originally about F-35 exports . A solution with high
operating costs and low sortie rates is problematic for anyone, but especially undesirable
for a small power.
Radars not capable of generating a weapon's grade lock, so they're useless in combat.
Further, long wavelength radars – weather radars, basically – can already
detect stealth aircraft; that's always been true. Didn't do Iraq any good back in the
90s.
Detection is not useless. It allows you to vector interceptors until they get close enough
for a radar lock or can identify the target with IRST or visual tracking.
Incompetent Arabalonians. Norman Scwhartzkopf stated that if you'd reversed the weapons on
each side but kept the personnel and training the same, the Allied coalition would've still
handily won. Serbia incidentally did successfully shoot down an F-117, which largely owed
itself to the skill of the operator in question and poor tactics on the part of NATO.
Which they will do very effectively. 100 F-35s vs. 100 Russian Su-27s, both closing on
each other = 100 piles of wreckage and 100 F-35s.
The RAND Corporation disagreed and projected one Su-35 lost for each 2.4 F-35s.
F-35 + F-22 is a potent combination. Even a squadron of F-35s alone would crush anything
the Russians have. If necessary, the air force will likely just dogpile a large number of
F-35s to make up for any perceived weakness. Considering the numbers scheduled to be
produced, that should work fine.
F-22 production capped at 187 units, and none were exported to other countries (despite
persistent requests from Japan).
You have no reason to be skeptical. The US has continually fielded next generation
weapons that have worked quite well in combat. There is no reason to believe this will be
any different. Further, your qualifications seem to be essentially nill in this area as you
have displayed very limited knowledge of the subject. Your skepticism doesn't seem to be
based on anything concrete, just wishful thinking.
[...]
This one statement qualifies you as an amateur that should be ignored.
[...]
The technology on the F-35 will crush its competition.
This is what is known as projection. Identifying in others the sins that you yourself are
guilty of.
Sure, if you're poor and want to lose against countries fielding 5th generation fighter
aircraft.
Many countries are poor. Others are small or have limited defense budgets. Though I
contend thee aircraft in question are in fact superior to the F-35 which makes this moot.
Having superb kinematic performance doesn't count for much if your opponent is flying in
an aircraft that can shoot you down long before you close to within visual range.
Superb kinematic performance enables earlier missile shots, makes it easier to defeat
incoming missile shots, allows for faster transit in and out of combat zones, and gives a
decisive edge in WVR combat.
The F-35 program developed a first-class powerplant and avionics, but then mated then to
an inferior airframe in order to fulfill a commonality fantasy driven by a silly Marine Corps
STOVL requirement.
The Kremlin would have killed the organ grinder (Boris Abramovich Berezovsky) not the
monkey. Litvinenko virtually committed suicide. People become depressed when they are
exiles.. Litvinenko publicly accused Putin of the apartment bombings by Chechens that killed
hundreds of Russians so he must have had some inkling that Putin could be dangerous.
If you publicly call someone a child molester they will at least fantasize about killing
you, and if they have the means and opportunity then it is not the biggest surprise in the
world if you give them the motive and you are killed by a method that is as good as a signed
confession they did it. Putin wanted Litvinenko to know who had put an end to him.
That was the whole point of using alpha radiation; nice and slow all the while knowing who
did it. Putin is very like another famous Vlad.
If you publicly call someone a child molester they will at least fantasize about killing
you
I have fantasized about killing people who had seriously harmed me or the public. But I
have never fantasized about killing a clown, nor can I ever imagine fantasizing about it. I
cannot imagine anyone who is not a psychopath fantasizing about killing a clown. By accusing
Putin of the house explosions and converting to Islam etc. Litvinenko totally jumped the
shark. He was a clown, a tool used by others.
Now it's not impossible that Putin nevertheless wanted to murder Litvinenko, but you have
just assumed how Putin would think and then proceeded to jump to a conclusion based on that
assumption.
Litvinenko was a poor devil, incapable of harming Putin. If anyone harmed Putin, it's
Berezovsky or the western media which gave a platform to poor devils like Litvinenko. Do you
think Putin is so stupid that he hates the tools instead of the powerful people wielding
them?
That is pretty incredible, however, because of your reputation perhaps she was
afraid of some sort of retribution for being critical of you? I notice that you often like to
taunt me on by calling me a 'coward' for using a moniker instead of presenting you with my
true identity. Whether deserved or not, many feel that you're some sort of a Kremlin
Stooge nutcase, Mickey. From Srebrenica Genocide Denier to this:
friend of mike averko | April 12, 2010 at 4:17 pm | Reply
I have known mike averko for a very long time and wish to warn all of you who feel safe
mocking him and his rants this is not someone you want to get angry . HE IS
INSANE!!! I have seen how this man lives and it is not that of a healthy person, it is
that of someone insane. Make your comments but don't ever let this man into yuour life in
any way or you will end up being sorry.
This is why I choose to shield my true identity from you, Mickey. Who needs any grief from
a Kremlin Stooge wacko?
The machine that draws the numbers for a lottery manages to pick 7 winning numbers every
week. It never fails to pick the winning numbers. Is this an amazing feat? The numbers it
picks are the winning numbers while millions of lottery players have great difficulty to pick
the winning numbers and spend millions of dollar on it while the cost to the machine is just
few bucks.
Shakespeare picked 458 'winning' letters but if you would try to reproduce them in the
same sequence by random selections it becomes probabilistically impossible task.
Finding a winning sonnet by Shakespeare for the Universe was not a probabilistic feat just
as it is not for the lottery machine to pick the winning numbers. It all comes down to the
meaning and when that meaning is assigned. You assigned a special meaning to this particular
sequence of 458 letters just like lottery players assign special meaning to 7 numbers picked
by a machine.
Although you show a lot of promise, unfortunately there are still a few rough edges. Don't
concentrate so much on your less than honorable pedigree, but work on improving your
emotional dilemmas. AP is a medical doctor, and has diagnosed some of your ailments. Listen
to him, for he's a pure blood Slav. And you know how great the Slavic race is. (I know that
you can overcome!).
On the subject of of agriculture, it should be noted that Rostelmash has done ok for a big
sovok behemoth and has had at least some success exporting west. It's combines are
competitive with the American makes but not Claas, they've also been able to buy up
varsatile. This is quite surprising given the fact that rostov has a reputation for being a
rough and corrupt place. Ak, any thoughts?
You make it sound like being a Slav is like being a member of an exclusive club. How
exclusive can it be if you – the Ukrainians are in it? I would say that that is setting
the standards pretty low. Don't worry about my "emotional" dilemmas. I am happy with who I
am, which can't be said about you people. You seem quite torn between your Western European
heritage and your humble Slavic origin that gets in the way of being recognized as one of the
nations that are pillars of western civilization which everybody agrees that you are.
USSR engaged in intensive agricultural motorization earlier than any country other than
the USA and Canada. It was also fairly early to intensive chemicalization, mainly beaten out
by Germany and America.
In the postwar period the share of capital investment devoted to agriculture varied from
11.8% in 1946-1950 to a peak of 20.1% in 1971-1975.
Not surprising there is something of a positive legacy. Main failures of postwar Soviet
agriculture were distribution and processing. Not enough roads or trucks, inadequate cold
chain, too few food processing plants, etc.
Belarus also has a successful agricultural machinery sector as well.
Heavy transportation machinery was generally a Soviet success story, probably because not
only are they producer goods but they also require routine replacement. Thus unlike other
capital goods in centrally-planned economies they weren't kept in service long past the time
they ceased to be efficient. The irrational "development" of Siberia also increased the size
of this sector and the quality of its output.
Lastly, worth noting Rostelmash has been privately owned since 2000.
The F-35 will have an over-the-horizon A2A capability that will result in virtually any
other aircraft being annihilated long before it closes distance on it.
If this is the case then obviously its 'kinematic performance' is secondary. If you can
see the enemy before it can see you and you have weapons to engage the enemy then obviously
your top speed and acceleration are not that important. The missile you launch is faster than
your top speed and your enemy's top speed.
But there are doubts. How much the stealth technology is a hype? Is information about
radar cross sections of various planes credible?
I thought like you before Skripal, but after the second in a row I understood this was
either Western intelligence or Putin's orders. Western intelligence simply would not
dare frame Putin because the Russians would become too jumpy. Yeltsin almost started WW3
in 1995, there is no telling what could happen if the West was framing Putin repeatedly and
he responded by putting Russian forces on red alert, then something like the Black Brant
scare occurred.
Litvinenko was a poor devil.
I don't think he was a happy man.
Now it's not impossible that Putin nevertheless wanted to murder Litvinenko, but you
have just assumed how Putin would think and then proceeded to jump to a conclusion based on
that assumption.
I happen to believe that Putin is deliberately trying to alienate the West with these
assassinations because he wants Russia to remain proudly independent after he is gone. Yet he
has to justify that policy to his close associates many of whom who love the Western
lifestyle and making money. It is like Hitler having to explain his attack on the USSR to his
generals and Goebbels by saying it was necessary to remove that threat from the east before
moving against Britain. Obviously Hitler really longed to conquer Russia, and it seems likely
to me that Putin wants to initiate schismogenesis with the West. He probably is not telling
his cronies that though, there will be some security pretext.
Do you think Putin is so stupid that he hates the tools instead of the powerful
people wielding them?
Putin has more power than anyone else on Earth, I should have thought that was obvious by
now. He wants to exert control when he is no longer there, and that means setting Russia on a
course that cannot be altered, and consulting/implicating the entire future leadership
cadre.
John Deere does very well in Russia because they own a local factory. They seem to be the
combine of choice because they have faster parts distribution than Class. Rostelmash does
better than it used to but the really big commercial farms and associated contractors buy the
best machines. The operators on the ex cooperatives, usually farmed under (corrupt) rental
arrangements tend to use Rostelmash, insofar as they buy new.
In BVR combat kinematic performance is indeed secondary to the performance of sensors,
electronic warfare equipment, and missiles.
But not irrelevant. Higher top speed allows for longer-ranged missile shots. Faster
acceleration (and, for that matter, turning performance) allows for faster escape from the
combat zone.
Note how BVR optimized interceptors like the F-102/106, MiG-25/31, F-4, F-111B, English
Electric Lightning, and so forth had great top speeds and excellent acceleration. They were
however lacking in maneuverability as it was not intended for them to dogfight (hence the bad
air combat performance over North Vietnam).
China's Chengdu J-20 is a modern stealth aircraft designed for this role. The F-35 is not.
It's basically a tactical strike fighter. Historical analogues would be the F-100, F-105,
SEPECAT Jaguar, Su-24, and so forth.
Tactical strike fighters of the classic style are dubious today since multi-mode radars
and PGMs have made fighters very capable of ground attack.
Stealth isn't hype unless you believe the maximalist fanboy nonsense from the 1990s.
If indeed F-22 and F-35 have several orders of magnitude smaller cross-sections (RCS) than
other jet fighters then obviously it is a huge advantage that if utilized will render small
differences (±10%) in speed and acceleration completely unimportant.
You're right about that, and I'm glad to be different from you. At least people aren't
leaving messages about me at blogs warning them that I might be dangerous to deal with.
'Sbrebrenica Genocide Denier' is nothing to be proud about, Mickey.
Realistically, what action Russia could take that would potentially match the disruptive
power of American sanctions on Russia? Arm the Central American drug cartels?
I quite like that idea!
Provide sophisticated arms to everybody (no matter how crazy) with an ability to cause
grief to the U.S.
The U.S. objective is not to punish Russia or weaken Russia. The U.S. objective is to
destroy Russia as a sovereign nation. This is war to the death. There can be no negotiation
with the U.S. The only hope of forcing the Americans to adopt a sane policy is to make the
costs of their current policy catastrophically high.
The U.S. is obviously stronger but a strong man will usually back down if faced with
someone crazy and unpredictable. Putin needs to be crazy and unpredictable.
And Russia needs to target America's lapdogs, like the British. Perhaps let them know that
if it ever came to nuclear war London would be a priority target.
U.S. "public opinion" is literally the collective opinion of dumbed-down, amoral idiots.
In fact, the word "opinion" is too dignified for this – "braindead recantation of
MSM-fed government propaganda" would be a better description.
It's optimized for certain wavelengths and expected receiver locations.
Thus stealth aircraft can for instance be readily detected by low frequency radars.
Stealth is still useful as low frequency radars are too bulky to fly, and they indicate a
general location rather than a precise location.
Stealth aircraft can also be detected visually, acoustically, through their own electronic
emissions, and through their heat signatures. Employment of weapons, obviously, compromises
stealth as well.
There are also degrees of stealth. The F-22 for instance is considered an all-aspect
stealth design, at least in the higher frequency bands. The Have Blue, MBB Lampyridae, F-117,
B-2, and YF-23 were as well.
The F-35 however is not–it's only stealth optimized in the frontal area. This of
course reflects the fact that it was never intended to be an air superiority fighter, but
incompetent American force planning is now pressing it into that role.
Lastly, while stealth is obviously a good capability (hence why everyone is following
America's lead on it), it's not without trade-offs. Stealth is lost if weapons are carried
externally. Radar absorbing materials are costly and maintenance intensive (though the
Japanese may have solved this problem). Because stealth requires precision shaping of the
airframe, it is difficult to modify the airframe for future requirements.
"But it's not an invisibility cloak." – Nobody talks about invisibility. RCS
matters. You detect enemy plane before it detects you. Period.
"The F-35 however is not–it's only stealth optimized in the frontal area. " –
Presumably it will show its rear to its enemy only when the enemy will be already falling
down after being hit.
"Stealth aircraft can also be detected visually " – Nobody argues invisibility.
"it was never intended to be an air superiority fighter". – It all depend on
superiority over whom. Anyway this is a vague and pompous term.
"Stealth is lost if weapons are carried externally." – What good are those weapons
for if you are shot before you see your stealthy enemy?
"Radar absorbing materials are costly and maintenance intensive". – Yes. That's why
Russians do not have it.
Listen. I do not really care about this issue and I do not know much about it. I just
responded to your arguments which are mostly rhetorical in nature among at diminishing
importance of the orders of magnitude lower RCS of F-22 and F-35 comparing to that of their
potential opponents.
I thought like you before Skripal, but after the second in a row I understood this was
either Western intelligence or Putin's orders.
Or something else neither of us thought of. It's a false dichotomy when we have no
information at all about the whole thing, the only thing we know is that the British are
lying.
Western intelligence simply would not dare frame Putin because the Russians would become
too jumpy.
But that's just your model. Maybe they wouldn't become jumpy, or maybe the Western
intelligence services would dare frame him anyway.
By the way it's interesting that you managed to draw a psychological profile of Putin
based on just two cases a decade apart, and Putin only did it twice in his whole reign. Sure
if he enjoyed torturing his critics he'd do it more, wouldn't he?
Yeltsin almost started WW3 in 1995, there is no telling what could happen if the West
was framing Putin repeatedly and he responded by putting Russian forces on red alert, then
something like the Black Brant scare occurred.
Risk management is my job. People don't think about risks that way. They assign a very low
probability to events like the Black Brant scare, and anyway probably Putin would just
realize it was only one rocket. There's no reason to believe he'd be any more likely to
launch than Yeltsin.
Stealth is of limited use in an air-to-air role to take down enemy fighters(air
superiority fighter) since missiles are not "stealth" and their guidance systems very, very
obviously telegraph their intentions: thus "missile lock" warning. The longer range just
telegraphs their intentions earlier, which gives the targeted plane more options to employ
countermeasures.
However, ground sites lack many countermeasures against incoming missile launches and
cannot lock onto low-visibility planes from the front, so even if its general location is
known, there's not much that a SAM site can do to it in theory. Thus, it has a very
effective, but limited role.
This is of questionable utility against a peer competitor since they will not be using
ground to air systems in isolation, although it probably means that the US can destroy any
number of third world countries.
I wish I could say the same thing about the Ukrainians. You are showing nothing but
regress since 1991, but I don't expect that you'll agree with that. It's one of the side
effects of having a thick head.
You know how the Ukrainians got their name? It's from the Latin Cranium for scull.
Basically, what it means is that when any new idea (or old one for that matter) tries to
penetrate the thick Ukrainian sculls – it has to make a U turn when it reaches their
fortified cranial structures – U Cranium – therefore Ukraine. Get it? It's pretty
discouraging actually.
A good case could be made that we don't know how these jets would perform under the
conditions of a real world war. But I think it's always the best bet that it will be the
American weapons which perform the best. That's simply the way to bet.
It's possible that many of their weapons systems wouldn't perform as advertised. Some
would perform better than thought or for roles they weren't designed for.
It's a very safe decision to buy the F-35, which is now not even that expensive. It's
possible that it won't be worth much in a real war against comparable opponents, but this
could be true of any other platform: these weapons are only tried out against vastly inferior
opponents.
You detect enemy plane before it detects you. Period.
He will usually have a vague idea where you are. Currently it's not possible to launch a
missile based on that vague knowledge, but will it stay like that forever? A lot depends on
other systems like air defense and AWACS.
Anyway, my original point was that probably buying the F-35 is not based on politics, it's
a safe decision for those with deep enough pockets to buy the best available fighter jet.
Even if under the circumstances of a real war it turned out to be bad: it could happen to a
number of other weapons systems anyway, and you cannot really tell in advance which ones.
The longer range just telegraphs their intentions earlier
But wouldn't the idea be that you get closer to the enemy without being detected? Your
argument might work against BVR combat in general, but more against non-stealth BVR combat
than against stealth: stealthy planes will probably employ their BVR weapons from closer
range than non-stealthy planes.
If BVR air-to-air missiles work at all, they work much better with stealthy planes.
Regardless of whether against peer or non-peer opponents.
Stealth is of limited use in an air-to-air role to take down enemy fighters(air
superiority fighter) since missiles are not "stealth" and their guidance systems very, very
obviously telegraph their intentions: thus "missile lock" warning. The longer range just
telegraphs their intentions earlier, which gives the targeted plane more options to employ
countermeasures.
If your argument states that it is actually bad to deploy weapons far away (which I do not
understand) I would say that the stealth will allow you to get much closer to the enemy w/o
being detected and makes it possible to launch the missile when there will be not less time
for the enemy to deploy countermeasures.
I realize this is a complex game with many possible strategies and tactics with many
parameters involved. For each strategy there are decision regions where the different
parameters dominate what will be the optimal tactic. Furthermore we really do not know how
effective various countermeasures are but I suspect that they might be decisive. But if they
fail and planes get close to each other within the visual range then obvious completely
different parameters might be decisive including the human factor.
I won't argue with you on this subject because I know you were raised by video games so
you now better at least in the realm of video games model. I would not argue with Mowgli
about the purpose and efficacy of howling at the moon. Perhaps it was a sophisticated
countermeasure.
I actually have never played a flight simulator within recent memory. As far as I'm aware,
none of them really calculate the issues of missile flight with any degree of accuracy and
treat guidance systems like some sort of magic. My comments are actually speculations from
conversations with military pilots.
If your argument states that it is actually bad to deploy weapons far away (which I do
not understand)
Missiles have extremely limited flight times and their flight characteristics degrade
after launch. Disrupting either their guidance or their flight negates the kill chain.
I would say that the stealth will allow you to get much closer to the enemy w/o being
detected and makes it possible to launch the missile when there will be not less time for
the enemy to deploy countermeasures.
This is possible, but ever-increasingly decreases the window of attack that is beyond
visual range. Its possible that this is the idea, coupled with the Block III Sidewinders
which are designed against a number of countermeasures, but that seems to have been cancelled
for some reason.
If you don't know the composite materials used, you can not give a correct RCS, and you
can not tell just by looking, the physics don't work like that!
So at least we have the word of the US Air Force and Lockheed regarding the stealthiness
of their planes (these are probably not outright lies, but might differ from reality in
either direction: they might be modest to hide their true capabilities, or, more likely,
exaggerate and give a number only true under ideal conditions for a specific type of radar
etc. ), but regarding the supposedly 5th generation Chinese or Russian jets we have just very
rough estimates based on the shape and some assumptions about their coating.
So many US sanctions and interdictions , to friends and foes alike , will end up isolating
the US .
The US pressure to the EU not to trade with Russia , Iran and other countries has provoked
a deep resentment in the EU and has turned the US into a very unreliable partner , and even a
dangerous " friend " .
The better part of four decades ago, President Reagan made a joke about outlawing the Soviet
Union and the press and the left went apeshit. Now Congress seriously proposes legislation
that would essentially outlaw Russia, and the press and the left are all for it.
ever-increasingly decreases the window of attack that is beyond visual range
How many seconds will the stealth pilot have to identify the target and fire its missiles?
Sixty? Hundred-twenty? Thirty? Even thirty seconds must be enough for a well enough trained
pilot.
There might be issues with how to leave the scene after having killed an opponent, if
other enemies are still there, because it's less stealthy from other angles. I guess we're
not the first to think about it, so probably there's some solution. At the very least, I
wouldn't expect them to perform worse than the 4th gen planes.
I think even the production of the F-16 is about to end.
Yes, the Gripen is a good and cheap alternative, but it's not the best available in the
western ecosystem. The F-35 would probably destroy an equal number of Gripens, though that's
not saying much, considering the price differential.
Hungary also has Gripens, though we didn't fully equip them until recently, and I don't
think we spend enough on training the pilots.
These demands on Russia are about as sincere and plausible as the ultimata given to Serbia
after Sarajevo. They are not credible but meant only as a prelude to war. The whole
slow-motion drama, with all its attendant false flags (MH17, the Skripals, gassings in Syria,
etc), numerous rounds of sanctions and specious rhetoric including accusations of "stealing
the election" from Hillary, since Putin checked Obama's attempt to seize Russia's Crimean
base and recruit another hostile NATO member on that country's frontier has been meant to
convince the American public that Russia is our country's blood enemy, that it is run by an
insane dictator the equal of Hitler, and that the consequent world war will have been all
Putin's fault in spite of America bending over backwards to make peace with those vicious
mongrels from the steppes.
As a commentor above said, I'd hate to be killed by a Russian nuke directed at my city
only because of an insane American leadership, but I'd equally hate for tens of millions of
Russians (and others) to be exterminated by our weapons simply to further an agenda being
promoted by the likes of Jeff Bezos, Sheldon Adelson and the other plutocrats who really pull
all the strings in Washington to benefit themselves plus their Saudi and Israeli
co-conspirators in some great game to rule the world. I'd say that Washington is about poised
to commit the greatest crime in the history of the human race, and chances are good that it
will be the last.
"Stealth is of limited use in an air-to-air role to take down enemy fighters(air superiority
fighter) since missiles are not "stealth" and their guidance systems very, very obviously
telegraph their intentions: thus "missile lock" warning. The longer range just telegraphs
their intentions earlier, which gives the targeted plane more options to employ
countermeasures."
That's not quite true. The ability to shoot a barrage of sophisticated missiles at an
opponent that can't shoot back beyond visual range should be quite useful in combat; these
missiles will also close the gap much sooner than you would think, so it's not like an enemy
is going to have all day to deal with incoming threats. Further, electronic countermeasures
won't be perfect as most A2A missiles fielded by the US will have systems designed to defeat
them. The F-35 will also be fielded in large enough numbers such that they'll just overwhelm
opponents with their stealth ability. Combine the F-35 with the F-18 or F-22, and you'll have
a very effective air dominance force.
"This is of questionable utility against a peer competitor since they will not be using
ground to air systems in isolation, although it probably means that the US can destroy any
number of third world countries."
I expect the F-35 to do quite well against both Russia and China in helping to establish
air dominance. The F-35 will additionally have utility against surface S2A units. The navy
could overwhelm Russian and Chinese air defenses – even assuming they are quite
effective – by coordinating strikes with F-22s and F-35s. Those air defenses will go
active, and the F-35 will then be able to hit many of them with a degree of survivability +
coordinate with surface ships to smoke them out, mobile or not.
These demands on Russia are about as sincere and plausible as the ultimata given to
Serbia after Sarajevo. They are not credible but meant only as a prelude to war.
I have never put much thought into these issues. But now after reading comments and some
articles I realized that this is a fascinating topic and that there are many people somewhere
who study it, write simulations and developed optimal algorithms for all possible situations
where they have input data on all plane and missile characteristics except with only partial
knowledge of enemy characteristics and efficacy of countermeasures. So I think that
everything has been already calculated. When and what to shoot and when and where to turn and
when to retreat and so on. And as new data are flowing in with the outcome of the first
missile or the arrival of another enemy plane the master program is just bringing in
pre-calculated solutions for each new situations. And then every geometric configuration must
have been analyzed and optimal actions has been found. Furthermore optimal configuration were
found about how to fly , in what formations, with what speeds and so on. Mathematically this
problem might not be harder than a chess game on multiple boards and thus I think a
completely autonomous AI system must exist where pilot is really not needed. The only big
unknown are countermeasures. You do not have them in chess. Can pilot be better in making
some decisions in the present of countermeasure than computer? I doubt it.
Now the question is who is better in this game? Russians or Americans? It all comes down
to money. How many good mathematicians, computer programmers and physicists I can employ? In
USSR at secret sites like Arzamas-16 they had departments where 1000 or so PhDs in math
(many, many women) worked. In Yeltsin times and probably before they mostly drank tea and
coffee, organized birthday celebrations and send designated ones to stand in lines to do
shopping. And it all fell apart. But in the US DARPA and Aerospace R&D continued w/o a
break. So I would not hesitate to bet on Americans that they have significantly better
systems. Another question is about spying. Jews are not as numerous as they were in R&D
and no longer enamored with the Soviet Union, so it is more likely that India and China has
know more about it and obviously Israel but through more official channels. But the fact that
F-22 was not donated to Israel yet may suggest that there are still some boundaries within
American MIC that are off limits even to our beloved Jews.
Yes, the Gripen is a good and cheap alternative, but it's not the best available in the
western ecosystem. The F-35 would probably destroy an equal number of Gripens, though
that's not saying much, considering the price differential.
You don't ask for the "best", you ask for the right system.
Unless you need a stealth strike fighter (and don't mind Lockheed's involvement), the F-35
does not have to be the right one.
In Hungary's case, it is more important to have enough jets for air patrol duty.
Can pilot be better in making some decisions in the present of countermeasure than
computer? I doubt it.
I doubt it. It's open ended, and the number of variations practically infinite. The
computer can do most things way better than a human, but then could succumb to stupidity in
some unknown situation, like the Tesla charging at full speed into the firetruck. Is the
Tesla autopilot better than a well trained professional human, like a rally race driver? I
don't think so, especially in unexpected (for the computer) situations, where the human would
just do the easy and sensible thing, but not the computer.
Anyway, the US warplanes are still flown by human pilots. Of course, most things which
could be automated are automated, and the logical conclusion is fully autonomous drones
flying without much input from their handlers in underground bunkers.
Jews are not as numerous as they were in R&D and no longer enamored with the Soviet
Union, so it is more likely that India and China has know more about it and obviously
Israel but through more official channels.
Do you think that one of the things Israel pays Putin for being so friendly to him is US
military tech? They did sell Russia some drones back in the Medvedev days, but nothing more
recent can be found. But I'd be surprised if Putin didn't think about it. I also think it's
not above Netanyahu to sell Russia American secrets. They gave such secrets to the USSR, and
they also helped China more recently. I'm sure that if there's anything going on, the MSM
wouldn't be reporting much on it. They also rarely wrote about the extent of the Israel-South
Africa arms trade, and things only got worse recently.
"The RAND Corporation disagreed and projected one Su-35 lost for each 2.4 F-35s."
I believe that study was conducted under the assumption of within visual range, which
artificially presented a situation where the F-35 was at a disadvantage from the get go. In a
real world situation, the Su-35 would probably be shot down before it knew what hit it,
especially considering that American pilots tend to be among the best in the world.
"F-22 production capped at 187 units, and none were exported to other countries (despite
persistent requests from Japan)."
That's irrelevant for three reasons:
1) 187 is still a number far greater than the number of Su-57s the Russians wanted to
produce in the near term.
2) the F-22 is often stationed at bases around the world, so the US does not need to sell
the aircraft to anyone to bring it to a theater of combat.
3) the F-22 would dominate any Russian or Chinese aircraft currently fielded; an
appreciable number of F-22s (or any US fourth generation aircraft) along with the F-35 should
be a potent combination. US pilots are also very well trained, easily matching any other
country save perhaps Israel.
"This is what is known as projection. Identifying in others the sins that you yourself are
guilty of."
Please. Extrapolation from a set of known facts and historical precedent is hardly
projection. What you've done is classic deflection.
"Many countries are poor. Others are small or have limited defense budgets. Though I
contend thee aircraft in question are in fact superior to the F-35 which makes this
moot."
The aircraft you quoted are certainly not superior, so the issue is hardly moot.
"Superb kinematic performance enables earlier missile shots, makes it easier to defeat
incoming missile shots, allows for faster transit in and out of combat zones, and gives a
decisive edge in WVR combat."
Kinematic performance doesn't cont for much when you are overwhelmed by aircraft that you
can't shoot back at effectively while they are shooting at you from a distance. Kinematic
performance isn't nothing, but it isn't everything either. The F-35 will have a decisive
advantage over all Russian aircraft fielded now and over the next decade, and any issues with
the design will be made up for by fielding large numbers of them to overwhelm opponents +
combining the aircraft with the F-22 or F-18.
"The F-35 program developed a first-class powerplant and avionics, but then mated then to
an inferior airframe in order to fulfill a commonality fantasy driven by a silly Marine Corps
STOVL requirement."
That's not really the right way to phrase it. "Inferior" in this case only means "less
than what the US could have otherwise done but still quite good compared to most other
aircraft."
Further, the philosophy you quoted will allow the US to field huge numbers of these craft
– thousands – at an affordable price, so I'm not so sure it was a bad idea after
all. That's much better than the SU-57, which is a dumpster fire of a program.
I'm also not sold on the idea that the B model was a bad idea for the Asian theater. In
any conflict, the Chinese will attempt to destroy our bases and landing strips. Having a
larger number of fighters capable of short vertical takeoffs might prove to be quite the
asset in organizing a counter offensive/stationing the craft in various locations that are
hard to hit or detect.
"If your goal is to maximize stealth and only fight BVR engagements, the F-35′s
design is entirely inappropriate. After all, its stealth is in the front area "
That's not correct. The F-35 will have a reduced radar cross section across much of the
craft compared with any other non-stealth aircraft. Nearly the entire surface is covered in
radar absorbent material and the engine itself is designed to reflect away radar waves. It
also has IR reduction measures.
"Small number of missiles."
Made up for by building 2000+ F-35s. How many SU-57s is Russia making?
"Optimizing exclusively for BVR combat would entail a large tailless aircraft (perhaps a
flying wing) with all-aspect stealth, large internal volumes of missiles, and far more
powerful radar."
No, it wouldn't. Something doesn't have to be theoretically perfect for it to work quite
well in the real world. The F-35 will perform BVR combat much better than any non-American
aircraft.
"Flying wing."
1. We already have that. It's called the B2 and we are also working on a flying wing
stealth drone that does exactly that already: shoot a barrage of missiles at BVR in
coordination with the F-35.
2. Wrong. Just wrong. There are huge disadvantages to your flying wing idea. Stability and
maneuverability being just two, so they wouldn't be much use in visual range combat or in a
variety of other missions for which the F-35 was designed; the F-35 is a multi-role fighter.
It will do BVR just fine.
"The F-35′s design is based on political and economic considerations, not military
ones."
The military design of the F-35 is pretty good. You're trying to cover this up by pointing
out an irrelevant fact – that there were economic considerations when building the
craft which applies to every military project ever conceived.
You don't need to convince me. You'll need to convince Russian kleptocrats, who've been
sending their kids to live in the West since 1991, and who have kept their (stolen) money in
the West.
And reiner Tor , you are a funny guy, liking these militant comments from dfordoom,
but getting your panties in a bunch, when I suggest occupying the Ukraine. I wonder why?
The fact is asserting dominance in Eastern Europe will be a lot easier for Russia to
accomplish, than confronting USA directly, and it is something I would probably do before I
started threatening New York and London with nuclear devastation. You gotta make your threats
credible you know. Credibility doesn't come from making scary faces and shouting loudly, it's
earned.
Your Croatian neighbors are still operating Mig-21 and will get second-hand
((((F-16)))).
And your Austrian neighbors are unhappy with their Eurofighters.
Gripens are better than alternatives and nothing.
No, I don't. In fact, I think the American Deep State is nuts. I have great respect for
Russians and their military. I am simply pointing out facts: the F-35 isn't the chump some
think it is; do not believe any random internet poster when he says this thing won't work.
I've seen enough to know that it will and that you should be afraid of what it can do in
large numbers.
As I said earlier, the Russians should just dump all Hollywood movies and video games onto
a server and call it MegaUpload 2. Hurt an industry most Trump voters despise anyway and you
might be able to turn republicans against their warmongering representatives in congress who
are pushing for sanctions, etc.
Actually, it means "pure fool," "reines Tor" would be "pure gate" (not door), and it comes
from the Wagner opera Parsifal, where the protagonist is a pure fool, enlightened by
compassion. I'd probably choose a funnier handle today, but ultimately it doesn't matter.
This point of false dichotomy is very important. Everything at this point, points to the
fact that there was no nerve agent employed against the Skripals and that they were simply
knocked out by some chloroform like substance. The fact that they survived, and recovered
without any problems, is irrefutable proof of this.
Therefore a false dichotomy is employed in order to, we can say mentally sodomise people
into believing that the only option is that the Kremlin did it.
I see people stating in comments sections in British newspapers that the official story is
bullshit but that they simply can't believe that their own government would disperse CWs
throughout their country, however this is a mute point as it has been disproven that CWs were
used at all and that the obvious conclusion is that they were simply drugged and held against
their will while their oh so benevolent government spun an endlessly shifting fairytale,
growing ever more convoluted and self contradictory by the day.
Even if both NATO and the EU collapsed, and a war broke out with one or some of our
neighbors, neither Austria nor Croatia would be likely enemies. Of our NATO allies, both
Romania and Slovakia were more likely enemies. I hope it won't happen, because both are
seriously stronger than us.
The F-16 is no longer in production (though maybe a restart is planned?), but most
operators are happy enough with it.
Here, locally, I find it interesting that the commenter "Sean" got sodomized himself or is
just trying to sodomize us. There is one recurring almost below the radar theme in his
comments: war with Iran and the opportunity of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians it will
bring. He might be right about it though I still hope this will be prevented while he seems
to be welcoming it. And for some reason he seems to need Putin dead or compromised for this
scenario to happen.
Public opinion in Russia is a lot like this actually. It seems that state-tv interrupted
its anti-Western programming during World Cup, which caused approval of both US and EU to
spike into positive territory for the first time since 2014.
Somebody SHOULD investigate: Michael McFaul, Samantha Power, Robert Mueller, Peter
Strzok, George Soros, William Browder, Hillary Clinton, Sidney Blumenthal, Christopher
Steele, John Podesta, Barack Obama, and John Brennan.
Congress has done a SHlTTY Job of it. Perhaps Vladimir Putin SHOULD be allowed to
publicly question these traitors, in the USA.
And reiner Tor, you are a funny guy, liking these militant comments from dfordoom, but
getting your panties in a bunch, when I suggest occupying the Ukraine. I wonder why?
I don't fear it much, it'd simply be a stupid policy. I also don't like ethnic cleansing
and mass deportations and the like. Which would be a requirement if you were to occupy
Ukraine.
The predictable result would be a state of emergency in Central Europe and a strong
mobilization against Russia. Military expenditures would quickly rise to 5% of GDP in Central
Europe, but it'd rise around Europe.
But actually some kind of military action in Ukraine as a direct response to American
sanctions might make sense. Just don't expect Ukrainians or neighboring peoples to greet you
with flowers. So you might bomb some military targets recently installed by the
Americans.
But before that, you'd need to make the anti-sanctions law. Actually, you'd need to make
it pretty strong. Until you cannot even do that, you shouldn't even fantasize about
conquest.
There are several steps you could take before starting an actual war of conquest. Which
you wouldn't even be able to finish.
AK: In the future, please unite your multiple low effort one-sentence posts into one. Since
they aren't very high quality, fill up valuable screen real estate, and splicing them
together takes too much time on my part, I will otherwise have to just start deleting them.
Captain Albert Ball, VC, DSO & Two Bars, MC (14 August 1896 – 7 May 1917) was an
English fighter pilot during the First World War. At the time of his death he was the United
Kingdom's leading flying ace, with 44 victories.
These sanctions are complex, well thought out, most probably not by Goyim.
Now We can see that Scripal affair was definitely false flag.
These sanctions are obviously not a punishment.
..
These sanctions are telling Mother Russia to get on her knees, or die.
.
These are not really sanctions. This is Ultimatum.
.
Everybody should understand that.
Putin cannot be read like a book, but we can be confident that he is capable of deceiving
even his closest confidants, for he got his current job by completely fooling Yeltsin .
There's no reason to believe he'd be any more likely to launch than Yeltsin.
All other things being equal, but Yeltsin was never framed for murder by the West even
once, so he never had Russian forces on red alert; never had the safety catches off
. Yet in the Black Brant scare Yeltsin actually activated the nuclear keys , something
that never happened even in the Cuban Missile crisis. In circumstances where there was
already a hair trigger because of some misunderstanding and Yeltsin had a too much of a
hangover to think clearly and recognize bad advice, he might well have launched. Putin would
never knowingly launch first, but the opening of move of a nuclear first strike would
be a high altitude air burst to blind the victim's radar so waiting for the first nuclear
detonation would not be an option.
If he and his country had been framed for murder twice in a row, Putin would take the some
of the safeties off of the Russian nuclear deterrent because it was not working at the normal
settings. All it would then take is someone, possibly at a low level, to get careless and we
are in the danger zone. The Russians do not think America is likely to attack them out of the
blue, but they do not rule out the possibility (Reagan said that was what most surprised him
about the Soviet leadership once he came to know them).
Wealthy Russians put their money in offshore British accounts, you seriously think anyone
in their right mind would do that if the British Deep State was capable of deliberately
framing Russia for assassinations. Dirty money from all over the world comes to offshore
British accounts because Britain has the rule of law and the ill gotten gains are safe. It
simply would not pay Britain to behave like a banana republic in the way you are suggesting.
What you are suggesting is like MI5 & 6 stealing the gold out of the Bank of England,
except it would be more plausible because there would be something in it for them. South
Korean had the death penalty for capital flight. Putin is less crude, he is using the British
sanctions against his circle (and you must be associated with circle to get rich in Russia)
to force dodgy Russians and their money to stay put .
Putin's long term objective is to nullify foreign influences, which boils down to Western
soft power and money. The Russian and Western elite were growing together before he started
the high profile assassinations, now the divergence is gaining a momentum of its own. The
more the West retaliates the better Putin likes it, hence arrest of Maria Butina and the
heavy boots of the bots are grist to Putin's mill, the more amateurish the espionage against
the West, the better. That is why the
OPSEC–oblivious GRU suit his purpose so much
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/06/the-gru-the-russian-intelligence-agency-behind-the-headlines
"The GRU regards itself as a war-fighting instrument. Yes, it gathers conventional
intelligence but its culture is much more military," said Mark Galeotti, an expert on
Russian security issues and the country's intelligence agencies. "Although only a minority
of GRU officers are Spetsnaz, it has an impact when part of your service are
commandos."
Putin sacked the vast majority of the old GRU; the new commander Sergun was low
ranking (although he was to be promoted to Colonel General after he designed the Donbass
uprising) and was keen on contacts with the US, but died mysteriously in 2016, and the ones
left know better than to ask questions about the ultimate purpose or ulterior motive of
goading the US. Anyway, Putins's objectives in all this are not to get away with anything, he
wants the bad public relations, he wants the West to reject Russia and all its works,
all the better to keep Russian away from Western influence. I just think the idea of the West
deliberately pushing a proud nuclear armed power into confusion such as Andropov was in
during Able Archer would be foolhardy beyond belief.
Brilliant. And I like how you are able to weave in your almost non-existent knowledge of
Latin too! This definitely proves that your IQ is in the 99* range. Like I say, you're
showing real progress each and every day. Soon, I suspect that readers of this blog will be
giving you 'agreements' each and every time you write something here, like your buddy
Janissary !
On the other hand, the more such crises there will be between nuclear armed states, the
more likely that one of those will result in a nuclear war. Humans (or machines, for that
matter) will inevitably miscalculate once in a while, and those might result in one side
believing it's about to be obliterated, so that it can "use it or lose it." All kinds of
stupid (or seemingly stupid) factors might get into this, like sleep deprivation, extreme
stress, fear of shame or loss of face, etc. People have committed murder-suicide under all
kinds of circumstances, starting a nuclear war as an act of final desperation is certainly
not out of the realm of possibilities.
So while nuclear weapons greatly diminish the likelihood of a world war, it certainly
doesn't make it impossible, and, on a long enough timeline, its likelihood will approach
1.
Their armies are certainly much stronger, in terms of artillery or armored forces for
example. Their air forces are not, but with the very low number of planes, it wouldn't be
decisive anyway. And they're both in the process of buying F-16s, unless I'm mistaken. I
think once these are over, the Slovakian Air Force will be roughly as strong as the Hungarian
one, or somewhat stronger, while the Romanian will be multiple times stronger.
The Slovak military is somewhat smaller on paper (in terms of troop numbers) than the
Hungarian, but even that might be just a paper advantage. At least Slovakia is a smaller
country (roughly half the size of Hungary), but Romania is vastly bigger, and its military is
even larger than would be proportional.
Anyway, I don't think any Hungarian government would have the appetite to wage war against
either of these.
This is probably the consequence of Trump's blunder in grovelling in front of Putin (and the
world's TV cameras!). He now has to inflict a defeat on Putin so unequivocal that even
Putin's American supporters cannot hype it into a victory. I don't see EU Member States
raising any objection to further sanctions. Quite the contrary, in fact. The EU is the
principal victim of Putin's actions and is therefore the principal beneficiary of sanctions.
Don't forget that the fight with Putin began over an attempt by him to prevent Ukraine
signing an association agreement with the EU. The idea that the EU Member States are just
dying to resume trade with Russia is a US internet myth (like so much else about Europe!).
OK the GRU did not use deadly nerve gas on the traitor Skripal because he survived, but by
the same token the GRU did not use knockout gas in the Dubrovka Theater because they killed
hundreds of innocent Russian hostages. At least we can agree GRU did use flamethrowers and
heavy machine guns in the Beslan school, because they shot and burned hundreds of Ossetian
children to death.
This is probably the consequence of Trump's blunder in grovelling in front of Putin (and
the world's TV cameras!). He now has to inflict a defeat on Putin so unequivocal that even
Putin's American supporters cannot hype it into a victory.
Look I know you are another dim witted Ukrainian pretending to be an Anglo Saxon, but even
for you this logic is beyond ridiculous.
President Trump has not dismissed the idea that Russian investigators meet with, and
question, the former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul. President Trump has said that
Vladimir Putin tendered him an "incredible offer": that, in exchange for letting Robert
Mueller's team question the twelve indicted Russian intelligence officers thought to have
participated in the cyber-meddling in the 2016 election, Russian counterparts would get the
chance to question McFaul, the U.S. Ambassador to Russia during the Obama years. Rather than
dismiss this idea out of hand, Trump, according to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is "going to work
with his team, and we'll let you know if there's an announcement on this front."
At a summit in Helsinki, Finland, with President Trump, Putin floated the idea of inviting
U.S. special counsel investigators to Russia for the questioning of a dozen Russian
intelligence officials indicted last week as part of the special counsel's inquiry into
Kremlin interference in the 2016 election. In return, Putin wanted Russian authorities to be
allowed to interrogate a roughly equal number of Americans, including McFaul, for supposed
illicit activities. At Monday's post-summit news conference with Putin at his side, Trump --
sounding intrigued rather than indignant -- called that an "incredible" offer.
What is the problem with a joint investigation of Michael McFALL, on American Soil.
I have no idea what is going on in Putin's mind, but I can see what he is doing and if he
wants closer relations with the West, his way of showing it seems odd. Do I need to read
Dostoevsky to understand Putin?
But before that, you'd need to make the anti-sanctions law. Actually, you'd need to make
it pretty strong. Until you cannot even do that, you shouldn't even fantasize about
conquest.
There are several steps you could take before starting an actual war of conquest. Which
you wouldn't even be able to finish.
But the sanctions are happening anyway. We'll need an anti-sanctions law regardless of
whether or not we are going to invade. Actually, as an economist, I don't think we need a
law. What we need is to make sure that the vital sectors of the economy do not rely on US
financial system, by converting oil trade into non-dollar currencies for example.
Eastern Europeans will never mobilise. What would mass mobilisation even look like in a
country like Hungary? Instead, they'll petition USA to station more of its troops in Eastern
Europe. A lot more, like hundreds of thousands more. Doing so will impose costs on the USA.
Actually, this is one of the few ways Russia could impose tangible costs on USA: by stoking
tensions in Eastern Europe.
And if USA suddenly grows a brain and declines to play along, Eastern NATO members will
begin re-orienting their foreign relations towards appeasement of Russia instead. That's what
weak people do.
I also don't like ethnic cleansing and mass deportations and the like. Which would be a
requirement if you were to occupy Ukraine.
Mass deportations is the best part about occupying the Ukraine! I would drive Galicia
population into Poland and other neighboring countries. There would be millions of refugees.
This by itself will seriously destabilise NATO's "Eastern flank". There could be Russian
agents among the refugees, allowing us to seamlessly move from the invasion of the Ukraine to
a campaign of hybrid warfare against Eastern NATO members.
NATO will react to invasion of the Ukraine by positioning to support an insurgency in the
Western part of the country. Instead they would have to contend with an insurgency in Eastern
Poland – wouldn't that be fun?
Probably better than trying to understand things by reading comic books (Hollywood movies
are the same), which is pretty much what the US establishment uses for their thinking.
for he got his current job by completely fooling Yeltsin "
Doesn't that apply to Obama? Will that not apply to future presidents? Doesn't it apply to
the sitting US senators and congress ? Doesn't this "fooling" apply every time US senators
and congress apply more sanction on Iran and justify their earlier "fooling" when they failed
to stop Trump get out of JCPOA?
It does because majority of Americans supported the deal and wanted to keep the deal.
"fooling" is a little more complex in America that it is in Papua NewGuinea . But fooling
it is.
It is like cries against "fake news ' charges leveled against Facebook infowar or
intercept or antiwar or common dreams by WaPo and NYT and FOX/CNN – being bad because
those lead to violences.
The violences perpetrated against Iraq ,Libya, Somalia, and Syria are based on lies and
been made possible by Fake News of CNN NYT . The latest servile and sinsiter attempt by NYT
to start talking of banned CW use by Syrians to kill more Syrians is nothing but 'fooling and
lying" fakery of news what they accuse Putin and Russian bot of but without proof.
Congress did not do their job when the CIA, DOJ & FBI ILLEGALLY:
Surveiled citizens. Investigated the Trump Presidential Campaign. Paid Christopher Steele to fabricate a pack of God Damned Lies. Told the FISA Court a pack of God Damned Lies. Obstructed a congressional investigation, into that pack of God Damned Lies. Fabricated ANOTHER pack of lies about Civil-Wars in Georgia & Ukraine. Fabricated YET ANOTHER pack of lies about the Syrian Civil War & ISIS. Fabricated STILL ANOTHER pack of lies about Russia President Putin.
Don't confuse Ukrainians with Ukies. Ukrainians are humans, with their stronger and weaker
points, like all humans, whereas Ukies are the scum of the Earth.
Trump has to thread a fine line with the Neocons and outright JOO firsters in his cabinet who
HATE Putin and the Russians. Push back against these vermin would be good but he probably
wont do it until after the mid terms, we shall see.
I believe that study was conducted under the assumption of within visual range, which
artificially presented a situation where the F-35 was at a disadvantage from the get go. In
a real world situation, the Su-35 would probably be shot down before it knew what hit it,
especially considering that American pilots tend to be among the best in the world.
The basic assumption is that over the horizon UHF radar (like Australia's Jindalee system)
detects the F-35, allowing Flankers to use their IRST.
Of course some have disputed the study, as well they should. A major problem with IRST is
its very limited field of view, though pairing this with low frequency radar mitigates
that.
In a real world situation the Su-35 would detect the AMRAAMs before impact rather than be
surprised. Whether or not the AMRAAMs destroy the Su-35 would depend on many factors such
as:
• Number of AMRAAMs fired
• Distance from which AMRAAMs are fired
• Quality of Su-35 countermeasures
• Pilot skill (duh)
Should also be pointed out that the Russians are now fielding L-band AESA radars embedded
in wingtips specifically for counter-VLO purposes. See here: http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-2009-06.html
That's irrelevant for three reasons:
1) 187 is still a number far greater than the number of Su-57s the Russians wanted to
produce in the near term.
2) the F-22 is often stationed at bases around the world, so the US does not need to
sell the aircraft to anyone to bring it to a theater of combat.
3) the F-22 would dominate any Russian or Chinese aircraft currently fielded; an
appreciable number of F-22s (or any US fourth generation aircraft) along with the F-35
should be a potent combination. US pilots are also very well trained, easily matching any
other country save perhaps Israel.
Chengdu J-20 and J-31 units will most certainly not be capped at 187 units. Fifth
generation fighters will almost certainly proliferate beyond China and Russia as well.
No, the US didn't "need" to sell the F-22 to Japan. But the sale would've strengthened
Allied forces in the Pacific theater, kept the F-22 production line open and cut unit costs,
reduced the American trade deficit, and provided jobs and profits to Americans. The F-22
export ban was an own goal.
Kinematic performance doesn't cont for much when you are overwhelmed by aircraft that
you can't shoot back at effectively while they are shooting at you from a distance.
Kinematic performance isn't nothing, but it isn't everything either. The F-35 will have a
decisive advantage over all Russian aircraft fielded now and over the next decade, and any
issues with the design will be made up for by fielding large numbers of them to overwhelm
opponents + combining the aircraft with the F-22 or F-18.
This decisive advantage depends on two assumptions:
• Counter-VLO sensors will not be effective (or fielded in adequate numbers), or at
least won't be enough to vector interceptors (whether aircraft or missiles) to the target
• Kill probability of BVR missile shots has improved by two orders of magnitude since
the last air war against a near peer
Obviously, overwhelming the opponent with numbers is always a war winning strategy. NATO
can thus be expected to prevail in any air war against Russia, though not without a bloody
nose.
That's not really the right way to phrase it. "Inferior" in this case only means "less
than what the US could have otherwise done but still quite good compared to most other
aircraft."
Further, the philosophy you quoted will allow the US to field huge numbers of these
craft – thousands – at an affordable price, so I'm not so sure it was a bad
idea after all. That's much better than the SU-57, which is a dumpster fire of a
program.
I'm also not sold on the idea that the B model was a bad idea for the Asian theater. In
any conflict, the Chinese will attempt to destroy our bases and landing strips. Having a
larger number of fighters capable of short vertical takeoffs might prove to be quite the
asset in organizing a counter offensive/stationing the craft in various locations that are
hard to hit or detect.
The airframe is inferior to what the US could have done otherwise, and is inferior to
contemporary aircraft. This inferiority was not driven by the stealth does requirement and
thus counts as an own goal.
The B model stems from the Marine Corps remember some battle in the Pacific War where Navy
air support didn't show up. Therefore they must have their own fighters, a logic which
strangely wouldn't apply to the Army.
If our doctrine or experience dictates that a STOVL aircraft is desirable, fine. But given
the limitations of STOVL aircraft, it ought to be a separate design.
Dealing with Chinese strikes at Pacific bases is probably better dealt with by buying more
heavy equipment and training more Seabees. You can patch holes pretty quickly.
That's not correct. The F-35 will have a reduced radar cross section across much of the
craft compared with any other non-stealth aircraft. Nearly the entire surface is covered in
radar absorbent material and the engine itself is designed to reflect away radar waves. It
also has IR reduction measures.
Here's a thermal image of an F-35 from a modern IR camera:
No IR reduction in the world is going to disguise 45,000 pounds of thrust from a single
nozzle.
Yes, the F-35 has substantially reduced RCS compared to non-VLO aircraft. News at 11. It
has, however, inferior stealth compared to the F-22 (let alone the YF-23).
RAM is useful, but the largest reductions in RCS come from airframe shaping. F-35 is not
optimized in the lower or aft areas. The original X-35 is quite decent here, but this was
changed for the F-35 in order to increase internal weapons load out. Given the original
intention of employing it as a tactical strike fighter, this wasn't unreasonable.
Made up for by building 2000+ F-35s. How many SU-57s is Russia making?
This originally concerned exports. Any damn fool can tell you that numerical superiority
is very powerful.
No, it wouldn't. Something doesn't have to be theoretically perfect for it to work quite
well in the real world. The F-35 will perform BVR combat much better than any non-American
aircraft.
In a 1v1 engagement with no supporting elements where the rival fighters approach each
other head on, I agree. But this isn't reflective of actual combat.
1. We already have that. It's called the B2 and we are also working on a flying wing
stealth drone that does exactly that already: shoot a barrage of missiles at BVR in
coordination with the F-35.
B-2 is unsuitable for this role owing to the location of its radar:
That said it has been proposed to use the B-1 for this role, which I think is a good
idea.
Drone idea is worth trying, though I'm skeptical of the ability to retain datalinks in an
electromagnetically challenged environment. And drones autonomously launching missiles could
be dubious–but this could be solved by wargaming (if its proven autonomous drones ID
targets better than human pilots, have at it).
2. Wrong. Just wrong. There are huge disadvantages to your flying wing idea. Stability
and maneuverability being just two, so they wouldn't be much use in visual range combat or
in a variety of other missions for which the F-35 was designed; the F-35 is a multi-role
fighter. It will do BVR just fine.
Stability not a concern with fly-by-wire and thrust vectoring (which the B-2 doesn't have
incidentally, yet is a stable bombing platform).
There is incidentally a trade-off between stability and maneuverability, hence why
fighters from the F-16 on have been designed to be inherently unstable.
But in any case you've been pooh poohing maneuverability here, citing the superiority of
BVR combat. If BVR is your goal, then you want a larger missile load, more powerful/sensitive
sensors, and increased stealth. A flying wing eliminates the issue with resonant effects (if
a vertical surface is less than eight times the size of a radar wavelength, it produces a
resonant effect).
The military design of the F-35 is pretty good. You're trying to cover this up by
pointing out an irrelevant fact – that there were economic considerations when
building the craft which applies to every military project ever conceived.
Well I suppose that's true, but whole JSF program would've been better if:
1 – STOVL had been left out
2 – Kinematic performance had been considered important
Have to agree with you: Soros, Browder, MSM owners, Pentagon contractors, and all other
sorts of scum are much bigger threat to the US than Putin, Un, Iranian Ayatollahs, Assad, and
many others. The enemy within is always more dangerous. Especially when that enemy has only
one loyalty: to his/her/its money.
Interesting, a few years ago Algeria had to have Russia redo the electronics in the Su
30′s that it bought because there was some Izraeli electronics in it.
You are forgetting thievery and corruption that provides cover for that thievery. Out of
every dollar spent in the U on "defense", at least 90 cents are stolen, some of the money is
used to buy "patriotic" politicians who pretend not to see the thievery.
No they don't pluck books off shelf . They watch the snippet cribbed from some internet
site on Fox TV /CNN and use it as evidence. That were the sources of evidences they offered
on Syrian using sarin gas.
Last air war between near peers was Vietnam. BVR combat was a total failure.
Radars and missiles have improved a lot since then of course, but so have
countermeasures.
There were BVR kills in Operation Mole Cricket 19 and Desert Storm, but fighting
incompetent Arabalonians doesn't count as near peer. And there were still WVR kills in those
campaigns.
Depending on ROE in a conflict or confused airspace, there will be a need to visually ID
targets on occasion.
The main thing that's changed about dogfighting is that heat seeking missiles can now lock
onto an aircraft from any angle (instead of just behind) and launch from high off boresight.
This makes instantaneous turning performance more importance than sustained turning
performance.
But like I said, if BVR missiles are now truly as miraculous as you think, then the F-35
is an improper design. In fact, so is the F-22 and more or less all other existing fighters.
The idea "fighter" of existing aircraft would be the Airbus A380 launching thousands of
missiles at once
BVR missiles also work just as well from the ground as the air (with some kinematic
disadvantages, and of course can't deal with attackers on the deck). Magical BVR missiles
suggest we should be building a lot more SAM systems.
I bring you the air superiority force of the future:
These senators may or may not be lunatics themselves. This does not change the fact that
they are bought and paid for puppets of lunatics, the US moneyed elites that dangerously
degenerated after 1991. The US used to be a decent country. Not anymore.
There was a joke about Czechoslovakia in the USSR: Czechoslovakia is the most peaceful
country on Earth, it does not interfere even in its own internal affairs. Puppet masters
change (Hitler, USSR, the US), but the policy stands.
i lived in the russian federation for several years (yuzhno sakhalinsk, 2011-2012). i don't
claim to be a russian expert, however, i did not detect any virulent comintern intent amongst
the russians with whom i was privileged to interact. for the most part, they seemed like
everyone else i have come across in my travels on this pitiable orb; they were simply trying
to get by, and were as capitalistic as any crony capitalist in america.
maybe someone with more foreign relations erudition, and experience than i could pen an
expositive on why there exists such animosity betwixt our nations, other than the all to well
known need for a bogeyman so as to facilitate u.s. world hegemony.
for a country which is broke, and which depends upon martial, and venal, intimidation to
achieve/sustain its aims, the impending comeuppance could be very humbling, and decisive.
As Ben Aris notes, the US Treasury Department has been ratcheting back on its sanctions
against Oleg Deripaska and Rusal, after the chaos it has caused in the international metals
market.
Aluminum has a unique market dynamic which other products with more fungible supply chains
don't share. Sanctions are a work in progress. Treasury has learned from the Rusal matter.
Henceforth it can collapse even bigger Russian companies like Gazprom, Rosneft and Lukoil
without much fear of a concomitant contagion. Oil and gas are the ultimate fungible
commodities.
However, as I have pointed out, the ultimate ability of the US to directly punish Russia
is limited; it has twice as many people as Iran, after all, and many times the economic
output
This is delusional. Russia is vastly more exposed than Iran, as it is more tightly wound
up in the western financial structures that the US created and controls. Russia's economic
output, measured in GDP, is the same size as New York City's. It has always been a question
of how far the US was willing to go to punish Russia. There are nuclear options in the US
quiver that can pretty much destroy the Russian economy. But so far the US has been applying
relatively trivial sanctions in the hopes that Russia would reform its conduct (I'm not
making a value judgement). But the perception that Trump has somehow been captured by Russian
intelligence has ratcheted things up.
Trade between Russia and the US is very limited.
It's not a question of trade between Russian and the US. It's a question of trade between
Russia and the world since the US controls the global economy.
Mr Fack , your ukraruina , your jojolistan , is the black hole of Europe , you want to set
Europe on ( atomic ) fire fot the benefit of the usa , and of your corrupted oligarcs .
No real country in Europe respects ukraruina , a very inmoral and stupid pseudocountry .
Ukraruina could have been a golden bridge between the EU and Russia ,and choosed instead to
be a blood trench for the benefit of the oligarcs of the usa . You are a cursed land .
Swarms of missiles? What? With the F-35 capacity of 4 AMRAAM? The ones that haven't been
upgraded, have been unreliable since at least 2016, and would be vulnerable to manuever
anyway? The twenty five plus year old missiles?
Stealth is only stealth to high fidelity radar, as in versus missile locks. That's great,
but low frequency radar will still reveal the location of aircraft for the purpose of general
location. So it's not really a "bolt from blue," which is much more of a ground to air
concept since IR missiles don't telegraph themselves like radar locks do.
Goodness, you are one thick POS.
As I have said before Cyrano is a serious intellectual .you on the other hand are a serious
cretin.
Seeing as it's that part of your menstruation cycle, I thought I would add another proof
of how fake "Ukrainian" history and language is. From a company yet again threatening the
collapse of Ukrainian infrastructure due to an oligarchic dispute:
As you can see the Ukrainian version is a waste of time, when the Russian version exists
..the whole fake language is a fabrication by lowlife scum Banderite tossers who escaped
bestiality charges in the 1940′s/50′s and fled to America/Canada
If Putin wants to retaliate by creating a destabilizing crisis in the USA, he could simply
admit that he has proofs that Trump COLLUDED with Russians operatives to affect the
election.
Trump will be removed and Mike Pence will take over throwing the USA in a deeper crisis.
Is Trump aware of this Damocles sword if he does not stop the Congress for escalating
sanctions?
There are theories, but the mass bueaucracy made some really strange results. In Vietnam,
ROE required visual confirmation of targets to use beyond visual range weapons. Weapons that
homed into flares because they produced "heat."
Well, that worked about as well as could be expected.
Well, no, Austria-Hungary gave an ultimatum: "do these in 48 hours or we'll go to war".
These demands are also unrealistic, but they are just pretext for new sanctions. It is very
unlikely that the US will take any military action against Russia. Russia responding to more
sanctions/economic warfare with attacking the West with nukes is also very unlikely.
It is also very unlikely that the people pulling the strings want WW3 with Russia. They just
found a convenient scapegoat and want to ramp up tensions with Russia not independently of
the game to bring down Trump for "colluding with Russia".
Face it, Russia is bound to lose an economic war, they cannot really retaliate without
hurting themselves. They could close the gas taps, but then they lose a lot of money. They
could close Russian airspace, but then they lose a lot of money too. They could deny Soyuz
seats to American astronauts, but the US has other options (not ready yet but they could get
them ready if really needed) etc. Russia is not a big economic player and never was one.
Regarding the sanctions the question is whether the EU will follow the US, probably yes, EU
companies are going to lose a lot of money, but they would lose much more if they are
punished by the US govt.
The US hawks think that they can bankrupt Russia like they did with the Soviet Union. The
question is how viable is Russian economy if mostly cut from the world economy including
finance and how tolerant will be the Russian people with the hardships. Looking at Iran, if
they could manage then Russia should be able to, but more hardships must be expected. Also
the government may do away with democratic pretensions and go full autocracy in the case of
popular unrest. And of course Russia will be dependent on China more than now. Why is it good
for the US if Russia becomes China's little bitch instead of a strategic ally against Chinese
expansion is another question. Rationally thinking China is the future geopolitical rival of
America and not Russia. But the people pulling the strings want to screw Russia bad, that is
their first goal, obviously, they feel ideologically fueled hatred for Russia beyond
strategic calculations.
Somehow a lot of comments here were deflected into a discussion of F-35 vs other fighters,
including Russian. I am not a technical expert, so I can comment only in general terms.
Overall, the technology in the US is more advanced. However, there is one huge difference
between Russian and American weapons: Russian ones are designed for the battlefield, whereas
American ones are design to maximize manufacturers' profits. To what extent does this
difference cancel technological potential in fighter planes, I don't know.
Why would Russia do that? The US is destroying itself more efficiently than any of its
enemies could ever achieve. Reminds me of a dark joke "if you see your enemy committing
suicide, do not interfere".
As a matter of fact, the USSR was not bankrupted. It was destroyed because the Party
elites wanted to steal a lot more than the Soviet system allowed. They succeeded, now they
are oligarchs, whereas the great majority of the population got screwed.
This is delusional. Russia is vastly more exposed than Iran, as it is more tightly wound
up in the western financial structures that the US created and controls
For now yes, but if forced to, it could leave those structures and survive without them.
Of course it wouldn't be pretty especially the transitional period.
But so far the US has been applying relatively trivial sanctions in the hopes that
Russia would reform its conduct (I'm not making a value judgement).
The idea that Russia would i.e. abandon the Crimea if sanctioned hard enough and such
"hopes" are delusional. A country that still sees itself as a great power and has a lot of
national pride is not going to make such concessions to the US. If Putin looks a wuss to the
Russian people he will fall more quickly than because of any sanctions. But I doubt that
there were even such hopes for real. The aim was always just to ratchet the hostility up with
Russia more and more, until a full blown cold war.
Here's the Video of Schoolchildren Just Moments Before Being Massacred by U.S.-Backed Saudi
Bombing
"This blood is on America's hands, as long as we keep sending the bombs that kill so many
Yemenis."
"... "Most ironic of all, US and Saudi-backed sectarian extremists, including Al Qaeda in Yemen, had served as proxy forces meant to keep Houthi militias in check by proxy so the need for a direct military intervention such as the one now unfolding would not be necessary. This means that Saudi Arabia and the US are intervening in Yemen only after the terrorists they were supporting were overwhelmed and the regime they were propping up collapsed." ..."
"... "Indeed, the conflict in Yemen is a proxy war. Not between Iran and Saudi Arabia per say, but between Iran and the United States, with the United States electing Saudi Arabia as its unfortunate stand-in." ..."
"... "In reality, Saudi Arabia's and the United States' rhetoric aside, a brutal regional regime meddled in Yemen and lost, and now the aspiring global hemegon sponsoring it from abroad has ordered it to intervene directly and clean up its mess." ..."
"... Sanders won't say that and most media will simply blame it on the U.S. supplying weapons but they don't get into the why, typically blaming it on the MIC being the MIC. ..."
"... "Most ironic of all, US and Saudi-backed sectarian extremists, including Al Qaeda in Yemen, had served as proxy forces meant to keep Houthi militias in check by proxy so the need for a direct military intervention such as the one now unfolding would not be necessary. This means that Saudi Arabia and the US are intervening in Yemen only after the terrorists they were supporting were overwhelmed and the regime they were propping up collapsed." ..."
"... "By backing the Saudi coalition's war in Yemen with weapons, aerial refueling, and targeting assistance, the United States is complicit in the atrocities taking place there." -- Sen. Bernie Sanders ..."
ya right.
Like all wars, most media, including Common Dreams, either sugarcoat them or obfuscate the
real purpose. And of course the politicians do that even better, like Sanders, who just a few
years ago was begging Saudi Arabia to "get their hands dirty", just at the time that the U.S.
proxy war in Yemen heated up with their lapdog Saudi Arabia getting their hands dirty indeed.
The problem of course is that it's not just the U.S. supplying the bombs and military
guidance, it's that it's actually another U.S. proxy war using it's favorite terrorists and
terrorist supporting countries for it's imperialist agenda.
"Most ironic of all, US and Saudi-backed sectarian extremists, including Al Qaeda in
Yemen, had served as proxy forces meant to keep Houthi militias in check by proxy so the need
for a direct military intervention such as the one now unfolding would not be necessary. This
means that Saudi Arabia and the US are intervening in Yemen only after the terrorists they
were supporting were overwhelmed and the regime they were propping up collapsed."
"Indeed, the conflict in Yemen is a proxy war. Not between Iran and Saudi Arabia per say,
but between Iran and the United States, with the United States electing Saudi Arabia as its
unfortunate stand-in."
"In reality, Saudi Arabia's and the United States' rhetoric aside, a brutal regional
regime meddled in Yemen and lost, and now the aspiring global hemegon sponsoring it from
abroad has ordered it to intervene directly and clean up its mess."
Actually it's larger than that, it's part of the larger imperialist struggle against China
and Russia, control of the Bab-el-Mandeb oil chokepoint and control of oil and other
resources in the MENA.
Sanders won't say that and most media will simply blame it on the U.S. supplying weapons
but they don't get into the why, typically blaming it on the MIC being the MIC.
@Big Al
don't get the why/when for if they
ever do amerika won't be amerika anymore
and that could go both ways, for better
or for worse
and you're correct in Sanders won't say
it but Bernie shouldn't be the one stop
cure all, their need to be many more voices
but the crickets are most abundant.
Sanders won't say that and most media will simply blame it on the U.S. supplying weapons
but they don't get into the why, typically blaming it on the MIC being the MIC.
ya right.
Like all wars, most media, including Common Dreams, either sugarcoat them or obfuscate
the real purpose. And of course the politicians do that even better, like Sanders, who
just a few years ago was begging Saudi Arabia to "get their hands dirty", just at the
time that the U.S. proxy war in Yemen heated up with their lapdog Saudi Arabia getting
their hands dirty indeed. The problem of course is that it's not just the U.S. supplying
the bombs and military guidance, it's that it's actually another U.S. proxy war using
it's favorite terrorists and terrorist supporting countries for it's imperialist
agenda.
"Most ironic of all, US and Saudi-backed sectarian extremists, including Al Qaeda
in Yemen, had served as proxy forces meant to keep Houthi militias in check by proxy so
the need for a direct military intervention such as the one now unfolding would not be
necessary. This means that Saudi Arabia and the US are intervening in Yemen only after
the terrorists they were supporting were overwhelmed and the regime they were propping up
collapsed."
"Indeed, the conflict in Yemen is a proxy war. Not between Iran and Saudi Arabia per
say, but between Iran and the United States, with the United States electing Saudi Arabia
as its unfortunate stand-in."
"In reality, Saudi Arabia's and the United States' rhetoric aside, a brutal regional
regime meddled in Yemen and lost, and now the aspiring global hemegon sponsoring it from
abroad has ordered it to intervene directly and clean up its mess."
Actually it's larger than that, it's part of the larger imperialist struggle against
China and Russia, control of the Bab-el-Mandeb oil chokepoint and control of oil and
other resources in the MENA.
Sanders won't say that and most media will simply blame it on the U.S. supplying
weapons but they don't get into the why, typically blaming it on the MIC being the
MIC.
#4 don't get the
why/when for if they
ever do amerika won't be amerika anymore
and that could go both ways, for better
or for worse
and you're correct in Sanders won't say
it but Bernie shouldn't be the one stop
cure all, their need to be many more voices
but the crickets are most abundant.
Sanders won't say that and most media will simply blame it on the U.S. supplying
weapons but they don't get into the why, typically blaming it on the MIC being the
MIC.
(the other so called progressive heroes) are saying,
"By backing the Saudi coalition's war in Yemen with weapons, aerial refueling, and
targeting assistance, the United States is complicit in the atrocities taking place
there."
-- Sen. Bernie Sanders
is basically propaganda. Clearly he's making it sound like the U.S. is supplying weapons
and some military assistance and therefore is complicit in the atrocities that Saudi Arabia
and it's "coalition" are perpetrating in "their" war, which in turn leads people to believe
(and the progressive hero politicians to propose) the U.S. simply needs to stop supplying
those weapons and military assistance, i.e., get out of Saudi's war. But that misses the
history of U.S. interest and involvement in Yemen, it's real role in the near genocide
happening there and the overall agenda of those controlling our government. And that is why
most Americans, including most progressives, don't know what is really going on in Yemen. Our
political "representatives" and the 90% owned by six rich bastard corporations oligarchy
media won't tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. It's why people still
believe the war in Syria is a civil war. It's why people believe the Russia cold war
propaganda. That's all they hear and the only way to get the real truth is to dig for it and
try to make sense of the big picture along with the true history of this country and our
government and political system.
Not to mention he's a fucking hypocrite.
"Even worse, after the Saudis started bombing Yemen with U.S. government backing earlier
this year, killing thousands and leading to what the UN is now calling a "humanitarian
catastrophe," and suffering that is "almost incomprehensible," Sanders continued. In another
interview, again with Wolf Blitzer in May, Sanders did correctly note that as a result of the
Iraq invasion, "we've destabilized the region, we've given rise to Al-Qaeda, ISIS." But then
he actually called for more intervention: "What we need now, and this is not easy stuff, I
think the President is trying, you need to bring together an international coalition, Wolf,
led by the Muslim countries themselves! Saudi Arabia is the third largest military budget in
the world, they're going to have to get their hands dirty in this fight. We should be
supporting, but at the end of the day this is [a] fight over what Islam is about, the soul of
Islam, we should support those countries taking on ISIS."
(Note on Truthdig article: also propaganda inserted by both Sanders and the author by
insinuating the U.S. wars in the MENA "gave rise" to ISIS. That is not true, ISIS was
created, aided and abetted FOR the wars in the MENA and beyond.)
"... "The currency of our country is targeted directly by the US president," ..."
"... "This attack, initiated by the biggest player in the global financial system, reveals a similar situation in all developing countries." ..."
"... "All of our action plan and measures are ready," ..."
"... "Together with our banks, we prepared our action plan regarding the situation with our real sector companies, including Small and Medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which is the sector that is affected by the fluctuation the most," ..."
"... "Together with our banks and the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency (BRSA), we will take the necessary measures quickly." ..."
"... "It is making an operation against Turkey Its aim is to force Turkey to surrender in every field from finance to politics, to make Turkey and the Turkish nation kneel down," ..."
"... "We have seen your play and we challenge you." ..."
Turkey has accused Donald Trump of leading an attack on its national currency. The lira lost
about 40 percent of its value against the US dollar this year and, to reduce its volatility,
Ankara has prepared an urgent action plan. "The currency of our country is targeted
directly by the US president," Finance Minister Berat Albayrak told the Hurriyet.
"This attack, initiated by the biggest player in the global financial system, reveals a
similar situation in all developing countries."
The Turkish lira took a massive hit against the dollar on Friday following Trump's decision
to double tariffs on aluminum and steel imports from Turkey to 20 percent and 50 percent.
Overall, the national currency lost roughly about 40 percent of its value this year.
To calm down the markets, the government instructed its institutions to implement a series
of actions on Monday. "All of our action plan and measures are ready," Albayrak said,
without elaborating.
"Together with our banks, we prepared our action plan regarding the situation with our
real sector companies, including Small and Medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which is the sector
that is affected by the fluctuation the most," the minister
said . "Together with our banks and the Banking Regulation and Supervision Agency
(BRSA), we will take the necessary measures quickly."
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meanwhile slammed the US decision to impose new tariffs on
steel and aluminum imports.
"It is making an operation against Turkey Its aim is to force Turkey to surrender in
every field from finance to politics, to make Turkey and the Turkish nation kneel down,"
Erdogan said
in Trabzon on Sunday. "We have seen your play and we challenge you."
@Georgi
In many ways, it is not different. Soros holds citizenship in Hungary and in the US. The
article mentions him having "donated more than $500,000 to a group called Best for Britain,
led by Malloch-Brown, that plans to push for a second referendum to undo Brexit."
While that $500k is a drop in the bucket for Soros, he is not a citizen of Britain. I also
have to wonder, when columnists in the NYT and elsewhere have referred to Russian meddling in
the election (originally referred to as "hacking") as a "attack" on the US, how they would
characterize George Soros' speculation in Britain and Thailand and elsewhere. Were these
currency manipulations also not attacks?
"... Soros is a Vulture Capitalist of the worst kind. His foray into Eastern Europe after the fall of te USSR was to strip them of their assets by crashng their economies under the Guise of all those lies he pushes. ..."
"... It is clear from the interview of Alex Soros, that George Soros, as a Jew is against nation states and is dreaming up a world where nation states are replaced by a mix and match of minorities. ..."
"... But was this campaign any different from what the U.S. did to elections in the Ukraine? It appears that we may have set the example, and Putin's response is only tit-for-tat one-upmanship. ..."
"... Sorry, Soros; your philanthropy can be spent well on other causes. We need to get the money out of politics, and we need to do it NOW. ..."
"... Paint Soros however you want - it doesn't change the fact he is a devil with the desire to destroy... ..."
"... He cannot enter his country of birth because of his evil, and other world leaders realize his plots of destruction - using the pound disaster for UK almost bankrupting the country. He is the opposite of anything good - because what he masks as "good" is for his own purposes. ..."
"... A guy with a self-admitted messias complex, made his money by wrecking economies and then giving back a portion of his plunder so he can feel as the great philantropist. When apparently he never built a real business in his life other than the necessary bureaucracy to dispense his 'charity'. I never put much stock in the right-wing Soros conspiracies, but the facts don't make him look so much better. ..."
"... He is like the robber baron taking a family's home and then turning up at the homeless shelter bringing them some hot soup to relieve their suffering. ..."
"... Soros, like the Kochs and the Waltons and Gates and Zuckerberg, is an oligarch. He uses his money to buy political influence in order to impose his priorities on the rest of us. Period. ..."
"... Soros reaps what he sows. He promoted some of the worst neoliberals and got wealthy on currency speculation. In that regard, is he truly better than say, the Koch family? ..."
"... The [neo]Liberal order he promoted is losing credibility because the common citizen is facing declining living standards, while billionaires get wealthier and wealthier. The current order seems to exist to transfer the wealth of society to them. ..."
"... I should note that Soros has defied public opinion on many issues, most notably open borders. It seems like he has promoted his version of politics and imposed his views under the guise of democracy. He is villifed and I think rightfully so. ..."
"... Our world would be better if the billionaires had less influence over society and frankly, less billionaires to begin with, while the common citizen is wealthier. ..."
"... He smothered the Democratic Party with his dirty money. Instead of listening to millions of voters, party leaders heard only the cha-ching of a cadre of billionaires, especially Soros. ..."
"... Overtly biased article, but I don't expect legitimate journalism from the NY Times. Soros is hardly the wonderful philanthropist that this article tries to paint him as. He's a scheming radical leftist with delusions of grandeur -- and he and thrives on creating chaos. ..."
"... Hey, George -- why won't you pay your $7 billion dollar back tax bill?? ..."
"... Someone who is as wealthy as Soros made their money by creating misery for others. Once folks like Soros have become obscenely rich, they create foundations to offset the damage of their actions or to pursue lofty ideals to stroke their narcissistic egos. ..."
"... The [neo]liberal progressive movement is focused on globalism and enslavement of the individual to a single ideology antithetical to individual freedom and liberty ..."
"... It's why the EU is starting to break up...and it's why Soros "senses" that all of his money and influence is gradually being rejected by so many, because people are starting to understand where his ideas lead: to a marginalization of any/all positions and opinions that conflict with the [neo]liberal/progressive ideology. His way is anything but support of individual freedoms and empowerment ..."
"... Ego, vast wealth, intellectual snobbery, lack of transparency and moralistic pontification... It is no wonder why the "plebs" demonize this man. Has he done more harm than good to Europe? Certainly his "open borders" initiatives have fanned the flames of nationalism in Europe. I personally think we would do a lot better off without him. ..."
"... Tax loopholes for subversives. Taxpayers in the US and the "compassionate" elsewhere must quit financially supporting Soros's Open Society Foundations. ..."
"... In America, George Soros's Open Society Foundations are tax-exempt organizations that are funded by other tax-exempt organizations. And therefore, funded by the American taxpayer. The Ford Foundation and other 501-type tax-exempt foundations give their tax-exempt dollars to George Soros to campaign against the un-globalized world. ..."
"... Soros, like the Coke brothers, exemplifies why no one should have so much money - which can translate into so much political influence. We should have tax rates of 90% for the very wealthy, not just for the sake of greater economic justice, but for the sake of greater equality in terms of political influence. ..."
"... I was living in Thailand when Soros helped crush the Thai baht. Much can be blamed on the failures of political and business individuals within Thailand, but Soros is a predator that takes no prisoners. I saw with my own eyes the misery and lost savings that followed. Don't ever throw a lifeline to Mr. Soros...he may pull you in. ..."
Soros is a Vulture Capitalist of the worst kind. His foray into Eastern Europe after the fall of te USSR was to strip
them of their assets by crashng their economies under the Guise of all those lies he pushes.
He has never officially managed money because he keeps his hands clean by consulting so he can't be touched for all the
insider trading and fraud he he commits. This is the biggest crook working for the Biggest bankers who manage The Wealthy of
Europe's money. Their all rotten.
This is an excellent, well written and complex article. It is sinning against painting Orban
as a bad guy, though.
It is clear from the interview of Alex Soros, that George Soros, as a Jew
is against nation states and is dreaming up a world where nation states are replaced by a mix
and match of minorities.
Therefore every citizen of a nation state is rightfully rattled by
Soros. If you dont respect who I am and what I represent, then why should I respect you and who
do you represent? The so called liberal democracy that Soros champions turned into a death
sentence for nations states, to accomodate people like Soros. Soros is no better than Orban.
Soros says he is first and foremost a Jew, Orban is first and foremost a Hungarian. They both
defend the group and the type of group they belong to. It is telling that Orban, a Soros
protegee turned against his mentor, AFTER the mentor changed the contract and tried to force
Hungary to cease being a nation state and become a melting pot of ethnicities.
Hungary has been
around for 1200 years and is a small country, only 8 million people. If it opens to refugees
and migrants, in 50 years there will be no more Hungary, and real Hungarians will become a bad
name in Hungary like white has become a name of scorn in the US. If Soros hated the Holocaust,
he shouldnt push it on Europeans.
This country has - more and more - been saddled with politicians in high office that are
bought and paid for. Both Democrats and Republicans are agents of the uber-rich, because the
wealthy are the ones that have enough discretionary cash lying around to buy the campaigns
for the politicians.
In our last election, a new wrinkle was added - a candidate owned by a hostile foreign
power, with assets and resources that you and I cannot even begin to imagine, much less pay
for. Lo and behold, that candidate won, and now we are in a terrible spot.
But was this campaign any different from what the U.S. did to elections in the Ukraine? It
appears that we may have set the example, and Putin's response is only tit-for-tat
one-upmanship.
Anyone with any sense knows that Trump is a goner, and that there is years of work to undo
that chaos he has brought to our domestic policy, foreign policy, environmental policy, etc.,
etc. We do not, however, need any persons in high office that are beholden to anyone but ALL
the voters in their election.
Sorry, Soros; your philanthropy can be spent well on other causes. We need to get the
money out of politics, and we need to do it NOW. We need to limit political donations to some
fraction of the average American income, and eliminate donations by anyone except registered
voters. Supreme Court will be damned, but We the People is still the basis of our country,
not unions, corporations, or foreign "investors". We the People.
Paint Soros however you want - it doesn't change the fact he is a devil with the desire to
destroy... He cannot enter his
country of birth because of his evil, and other world leaders realize his plots of
destruction - using the pound disaster for UK almost bankrupting the country. He is the
opposite of anything good - because what he masks as "good" is for his own
purposes.
Even in this admiring portrait, Orban really comes across as the villain. A guy with a
self-admitted messias complex, made his money by wrecking economies and then giving back a
portion of his plunder so he can feel as the great philantropist. When apparently he never
built a real business in his life other than the necessary bureaucracy to dispense his
'charity'. I never put much stock in the right-wing Soros conspiracies, but the facts don't
make him look so much better.
He is like the robber baron taking a family's home and then turning up at the homeless
shelter bringing them some hot soup to relieve their suffering.
And then, worst of all, he uses his ill-gotten gains to infiltrate and undermine the
societies he stole the money from in the first place. Let's do a poll how many ordinary
Britons support his open-borders ideology that he is funding so lavishly with their tax
money.
Soros, like the Kochs and the Waltons and Gates and Zuckerberg, is an oligarch.
He uses his money to buy political influence in order to impose his priorities on the rest of
us. Period.
Why in the world does a man, at age 87, still have billions of dollars? Why hasn't that
money been given to groups all over the planet who are currently doing good work, quietly and
successfully (the first example that springs to mind for me is the Marine Mammal Center
outside of SF--although I'd hate to see Gates waltz in there and muck it up with his
hobby-horse ideas for "improvement").
These men are not philanthropists.
They are oligarchs who pay weak politicians to play God.
Soros reaps what he sows. He promoted some of the worst neoliberals and got wealthy on
currency speculation. In that regard, is he truly better than say, the Koch family?
The [neo]Liberal order he promoted is losing credibility because the common citizen is facing
declining living standards, while billionaires get wealthier and wealthier. The current order
seems to exist to transfer the wealth of society to them.
While he has been donating, I must ask, would we not be better off in a society with
steeply progressive taxes? We could build far more with the money than any philanthropy
could.
I should note that Soros has defied public opinion on many issues, most notably open
borders. It seems like he has promoted his version of politics and imposed his views under
the guise of democracy. He is villifed and I think rightfully so.
Our world would be better if the billionaires had less influence over society and frankly,
less billionaires to begin with, while the common citizen is wealthier.
He smothered the Democratic Party with his dirty money. Instead of listening to millions
of voters, party leaders heard only the cha-ching of a cadre of billionaires, especially
Soros. Against that elitism, Trump is a populist.
Overtly biased article, but I don't expect legitimate journalism from the NY Times.
Soros is hardly the wonderful philanthropist that this article tries to paint him as. He's a
scheming radical leftist with delusions of grandeur -- and he and thrives on creating
chaos.
Hey, George -- why won't you pay your $7 billion dollar back tax bill??
Someone who is as wealthy as Soros made their money by creating misery for others. Once
folks like Soros have become obscenely rich, they create foundations to offset the damage of
their actions or to pursue lofty ideals to stroke their narcissistic egos.
Bloomberg is
another one. His company aides and abets corporations that ravage the environment, but
Bloomberg Philanthropies supports Sierra Club to retire coal fired power plants. You don't
create change by making millions on the backs of others and then spending millions on causes.
You create change by ensuring that everyone has a stake in government and society, and you do
that by re-distributing income and wealth. If anything, Soros and Bloomberg should have
fought for being taxed heavily, so the money could have gone into public coffers where we all
would have had a say in how it's being spent. Instead of that, foundations are putting a
pretty, hopeful picture (If you have ever seen their websites) on the deterioration of our
institutions, systems, our population, and our environment.
Jim. TX|July 17
This is not rocket science. Soros has not invested in any kind of democracy. He is a [neo]liberal progressive (itself a
misnomer). Democracy is focused on individual freedoms and liberty. The [neo]liberal progressive movement is focused on
globalism and enslavement of the individual to a single ideology antithetical to individual freedom and liberty.
It's why the EU is starting to break up...and it's why Soros "senses" that all of his money and influence is
gradually being rejected by so many, because people are starting to understand where his ideas lead: to a marginalization of
any/all positions and opinions that conflict with the [neo]liberal/progressive ideology. His way is anything but support of
individual freedoms and empowerment
Barry, Vienna, Austria|July 17
Ego, vast wealth, intellectual snobbery, lack of transparency and moralistic pontification... It is no wonder why the
"plebs" demonize this man. Has he done more harm than good to Europe? Certainly his "open borders" initiatives have fanned
the flames of nationalism in Europe. I personally think we would do a lot better off without him.
V, LA|July 17
I have a problem with too much wealth being concentrated in the hands of so few.
I don't care what their belief system is because for every one George Soros, there are two Koch brothers.
This is capitalism run amuck and dangerous for all of us. That is, this continued, expanding gulf between the 1% and
everyone else will not end well for the majority and will end with increasing tension and discord, worldwide.
njglea, Seattle|July 17
No matter how honorable Mr. Soros' love of and support of democratic governance is, the fact still remains that he is a
predatory capitalist. Any "master of the universe" ego is destructive.
Hedge funds should be outlawed for bonds, currencies and other governmental financial tools. One person should never be able
to manipulate the world through the worlds' biggest craps tables - markets.
NOW is the time. Mr. Soros and his Robber Baron brethren on the other side of the political spectrum are destroying the world
with their demented, insatiable greed.
Forget "philanthropy". It's just a word used by those who have stolen/inherited enough wealth to try to create the world in
their own image - and to massage their demented egos.
Taxes. BIG taxes. 99% taxes on the International Mafia Top 1% Global Financial Elite Robber Baron/radical religion Good Old
Boys' Cabal that is trying to start WW3 and destroy OUR lives. Confiscate the inherited/stolen wealth they are hiding around
the world - and OUR natural resources they have gotten control of. Use the money to erase deficits around the world and for
Social Good like health care for all, excellent education for all, reasonable communications/entertainment costs, reasonable
housing costs, reasonable water/power prices and other Social Goods.
NOW is the time.
Al Nonamus, USA|July 17
Tax loopholes for subversives. Taxpayers in the US and the "compassionate" elsewhere must quit financially supporting
Soros's Open Society Foundations.
I wish the rest of the citizens of the United States were tax exempt too. In America, George Soros's Open Society
Foundations are tax-exempt organizations that are funded by other tax-exempt organizations. And therefore, funded by the
American taxpayer. The Ford Foundation and other 501-type tax-exempt foundations give their tax-exempt dollars to George
Soros to campaign against the un-globalized world.
Few tax-exempt foundations are charities any more. Most 501 tax-exempt organizations make plenty of money. They can afford to
pay their taxes too. If Soros' Open Society Foundations wants to take down America, let them do it with their own money.
Jenifer Wolf, New York|July 17
Soros, like the Coke brothers, exemplifies why no one should have so much money - which can translate into so much
political influence. We should have tax rates of 90% for the very wealthy, not just for the sake of greater economic justice,
but for the sake of greater equality in terms of political influence.
When Soros says that the Democrats ar moving too far to the left, I'm thinking why doesn't a man his age know that even
Bernie Sanders is to the right of where the Democrats were before the 'New" Democrat Clintons in the '90s, who are basically
like the Liberal (Eastern) Republicans used to be. I was not thrilled to read that Soros contributed hugely to continued
Clinton ownership of the Democratic party. Sure, he has the right to support what he believes in, but he shouldn't have that
much money to do it with.
Reflections9, Boston|July 18
This is a man who cornered commodity markets drove up the price or set up an elite pump and dump stock scheme using as he
admits the herd psychology. He likes the neoliberal open borders policies because he can game the system. It says a lot that
his protege Orban saw through him and turned against him.
J House, NY,NY|July 19
I was living in Thailand when Soros helped crush the Thai baht. Much can be blamed on the failures of political and
business individuals within Thailand, but Soros is a predator that takes no prisoners. I saw with my own eyes the misery and
lost savings that followed. Don't ever throw a lifeline to Mr. Soros...he may pull you in.
Paul, NYC|July 17
Is Soros a Statesman? If no, is he a registered agent? If not, he may be arrested in the US or several other countries.
W. Ogilvie, Out West|July 22
Soros' demonstrated his greed when he speculated on the Thai baht, a move that ultimately brought the country to its
knees. Being in Thailand at the time it was evident that Soros was considered a public enemy of the highest order.
Yes, he is congenial and lovable in person, but his funding of left wing radical organizations in the US and elsewhere
continues to be suspect. Perhaps he is trying to expiate his Thailand misdeeds.
J House, NY,NY|July 19
Soros has profited enormously from the free flow of capital and labor across the globe in the past 20 years...of course he
and many of the loose affiliation of millionaires and billionaires are for an 'open society'. It makes them richer...
It is not only George Soros is losing. Neoliberalism is losing some of its fights too, despite recent revenge in sev eral Latin
American countries. Deep state was always an alliance of Wall Street sharks with intelligence agencies and Soros is a true representative
of this breed. He is connected and acted in sync with them in xUSSR space. In this sense he can be viewed as a part of Harvard
Mafia which economically raped Russia in 1990th...
Malaysia's prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, correctly called Soros and other speculators "unscrupulous profiteers" whose immoral
work served no social value. That actually aptly characterize all members of Harvard mafia not just George Soros.
BTW, if Victoria Nuland (of EuroMaydan putch fame) praises a particular person, you can be sure that his person serves US
imperial interests...
Notable quotes:
"... ...In the 1990s, he was portrayed by the far left as an agent of American imperialism, helping to foist the so-called neoliberal agenda (mass privatization, for example) on Eastern Europe. For some critics, Soros's Wall Street background has always been a mark against him. ..."
"... In one campaign rally in Budapest, Orban referred to Soros as "Uncle George," telling tens of thousands of supporters that "we are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open but hiding; not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; not national but international; does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns the world." ..."
"... I always thought George Soros was a dangerous [neo]liberal but after reading this article and seeing the damage he has created around the world it has been confirmed. ..."
"... Mr. Soros fights for all the [neo]liberal causes no matter the consequences. ..."
"... I am glad that the conservatives and others are finally seeing his true colors and are trying to subdue him the best they can. He must be called out on this negative behavior before it is too late. It is reassuring that many of the European nations are implementing policies that are favorable to their countries and looking out for their people. Europeans must be protected and George Soros stopped. I am glad they see him for what he truly is which is frightening. ..."
"... As Mr. Soros said of himself, "I am a confirmed egoist." He has used his money to make the world as he thinks is best. But having money does not give you a better moral view of how the world should be governed nor make you a god to decide for the rest of us. ..."
"... I think this kind of undue influence (money in politics) is what is driving some of the back-lash against [neo]liberal democracy. So many of the "[neo]liberal" proponents of an open society, like George Soros and Bill Gates, seem to have an inordinate power to effect political outcomes because of their money. ..."
"... Soros is an enemy of the middle and working classes in America. ..."
"... Now, more than ever, American politics is defined by money, so it's important to understand how it is used in that context by those who have it. ..."
"... What about the devastating effects that free trade and globalization have had on the spread of inequality throughout the world... Huge corporations consistently use "free trade" or globalization as an excuse to offer the lowest possible wages, and move manufacturing to places with the least environmental protections and human rights. ..."
"... Soros didn't bet on Democracy, he bet on his version of it which he tried to buy through individual politicians on the take and the Democratic Party. Better he quit manipulating pols and gave his money to charity. ..."
"... Soros is a criminal by any other name. He hedged against the UK Pound 20 years ago, and earned $1B. He earned billions by manipulating the market. With his profits he wanted to create his own society where his money could be used to buy politicians and pass legislation according to his one man agenda. He's selfish, an egomaniac, and dangerous. ..."
"... George Soros is the epitome of corruption – penetration and distortion of political process by obscene wealth. It does not matter what his true intentions are – he can say whatever he wants but we will never know for sure. And stop calling that "philanthropy". ..."
"... What Soros is doing is imposing his personal political beliefs and ideas on everybody by buying political influence with his money - that is called "corruption" pure and simple. ..."
"... What he does is not democracy promotion - it is the exact opposite – democracy destruction. It is good to know that he is failing in that effort. ..."
"... Neoliberalism has failed to improve democratic governance and reduced distribution of wealth ..."
"... What pharaonic globalist plutocrats like him mean by "Liberal Democracy" encompasses a sinister set of objectives. Prominent among which are these two: ..."
"... Full support for neocon/neoliberal destabilization, confrontation, and military interventionism. ..."
"... The destruction of borders, nations, and cultures -- particularly Western Culture here and in Europe. ..."
"... Soros and his peers want unhindered unlimited access to cheap Third World labor as well as to have complete control over the entire global economy. To his class nationalism and culture are speed bumps on the way to those self-serving goals. ..."
Yet the political realm is where Soros has made his most audacious wager. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989, he poured
hundreds of millions of dollars into the former Soviet-bloc countries to promote civil society and [neo]liberal democracy. It was
a one-man Marshall Plan for Eastern Europe, a private initiative without historical precedent. It was also a gamble that a part of
the world that had mostly known tyranny would embrace ideas like government accountability and ethnic tolerance. In London in the
1950s, Soros was a student of the expatriated Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, who championed the notion of an "open society," in
which individual liberty, pluralism and free inquiry prevailed. Popper's concept became Soros's cause.
... ... ...
...In the 1990s, he was portrayed by the far left as an agent of American imperialism, helping to foist the so-called neoliberal
agenda (mass privatization, for example) on Eastern Europe. For some critics, Soros's Wall Street background has always been a mark
against him.
Last autumn, he signaled that same sense of defiance when he announced that he was in the process of transferring the bulk of
his remaining wealth, $18 billion in total at the time, to the O.S.F. That will potentially make it the second-largest philanthropic
organization in the United States, in assets, after the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It is already a sprawling entity, with some
1,800 employees in 35 countries, a global advisory board, eight regional boards and 17 issue-oriented boards. Its annual budget of
around $1 billion finances projects in education, public health, independent media, immigration and criminal-justice reform and other
areas
... ... ...
He decided that his goal would be opening closed societies. He created a philanthropic organization, then called the Open Society
Fund, in 1979 and began sponsoring college scholarships for black South African students. But he soon turned his attention to Eastern
Europe, where he started financing dissident groups. He funneled money to the Solidarity strikers in Poland in 1981 and to Charter
77 in Czechoslovakia. In one especially ingenious move, he sent hundreds of Xerox copiers to Hungary to make it easier for underground
publications to disseminate their newsletters. In the late 1980s, he provided dozens of Eastern European students with scholarships
to study in the West, with the aim of fostering a generation of [neo]liberal democratic leaders. One of those students was Viktor
Orban, who studied civil society at Oxford. From his Manhattan trading desk, Soros became a strange sort of expat anticommunist revolutionary.
... ... ...
In one campaign rally in Budapest, Orban referred to Soros as "Uncle George," telling tens of thousands of supporters that
"we are fighting an enemy that is different from us. Not open but hiding; not straightforward but crafty; not honest but base; not
national but international; does not believe in working but speculates with money; does not have its own homeland but feels it owns
the world." Along with the fiery speeches, there were the billboards, which featured a picture of a smiling Soros and the message,
"Let's not let George Soros have the last laugh."
... ... ...
Orban's coalition won 49 percent of the vote, enough to give it a supermajority in Parliament. But the anti-Soros campaign didn't
end with the election. Days after the vote, a magazine owned by a pro-Orban businesswoman published the names of more than 200 people
in Hungary that it claimed were Soros "mercenaries."
... ... ...
There have been mistakes; by his own admission, Soros erred in championing Mikheil Saakashvili, the mercurial former president
of Georgia, and also became too directly involved in the country's politics in the early 2000s. He clearly misjudged Orban. But as
Victoria Nuland, a former American diplomat who worked for both Dick Cheney and Hillary Clinton, put it when I spoke to her recently,
"George is a freedom fighter."
"Billionaire philanthropist?" Really? Does that make the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelstein "philanthropists" too, or does
that label apply only to left-leaning individuals seeking political leverage many times that of the average citizen?
One citizen, 1 vote. ALL citizens should be limited to $100 contributions for their senators, representatives and the President.
NO citizen should be able to contribute to a campaign in a state where he/she is not a full-time permanent resident.
And NO citizen should be able to contribute more than $100 to his/her own campaign. We don't need more Kennedys, Clintons,
Bloombergs, Trumps, Perots or Forbes buying (or trying to buy) their way into public office, using their millions.
Of the people, by the people, for the people. That's the model, folks. Depart from it at your peril.
Soros--a "European at heart." Must have brought some much-needed smiles to the UK following the recent Trump Tour of Destruction.
How soon we forget--in the 90s, Soros broke the pound as the Brits were trying to unify European currencies--with unfortunate
conditions that weakened the effort and Soros smartly exploited.
Who can blame a globalist from crashing a poorly devised govt scheme and walking away with a cool $1B--back when a billion
dollars was a lot of money? I am not the person to say whether Soros may qualify as an honest proponent of democracy, but I strongly
suspect that he is a poster boy of the ultra-nationalists as they battle globalization.
In a way, Soros epitomizes the failure of globalization, which may or may not benefit the classic, labor-intensive industries
of manufacturing, agriculture, construction, and mining, but always benefits, sometimes wildly, the financial "industry."
As far as I'm concerned, Soros is merely making reparations. And, sorry to say, George, it's prob too little, too late.
I always thought George Soros was a dangerous [neo]liberal but after reading this article and seeing the damage he has
created around the world it has been confirmed. Nigel Farage, the British politician, recently said on television that Mr.
Soros is out to destroy the world. It certainly appears to be the case when you see what he did to the British and Thai economies.
He was so concerned with helping immigrants and refugees that he had little regard for the citizens that actually lived in those
countries that are being affected. People lost their livelihoods but that did not matter to him.
Mr. Soros fights for all the [neo]liberal causes no matter the consequences. He ... does not care who he hurts as
long as he promotes his progressive agenda. He wants to allow as many immigrants to enter a nation as possible even if it adversely
affects that country while he lives in luxury and is not inconvenienced by this invasion. He has billions and will probably never
be touched by massive immigration.
I am glad that the conservatives and others are finally seeing his true colors and are trying to subdue him the best they
can. He must be called out on this negative behavior before it is too late. It is reassuring that many of the European nations
are implementing policies that are favorable to their countries and looking out for their people. Europeans must be protected
and George Soros stopped. I am glad they see him for what he truly is which is frightening.
As Mr. Soros said of himself, "I am a confirmed egoist." He has used his money to make the world as he thinks is best.
But having money does not give you a better moral view of how the world should be governed nor make you a god to decide for the
rest of us.
I think this kind of undue influence (money in politics) is what is driving some of the back-lash against [neo]liberal
democracy. So many of the "[neo]liberal" proponents of an open society, like George Soros and Bill Gates, seem to have an inordinate
power to effect political outcomes because of their money.
The making of such huge amounts of money is not done with any charitable purpose. Only later, does charity come to mind.
Soros is an enemy of the middle and working classes in America. Yes, a billion people around the world are better
off because of the forces of "globalization" (this total most definitely includes Soros himself), but millions of Americans have
suffered economically as a result. GATT, NAFTA and the entire alphabet soup of trade deals have lined the pockets of the globalists,
while grinding the fortunes of U.S. working and middle class laborers into dust.
Great article. Now, more than ever, American politics is defined by money, so it's important to understand how it is used
in that context by those who have it. At this juncture, I think the American people deserve to see an expose of all those
millionaires and billionaires who have and continue to support Trump. It's only fair, to lay the money trail on the table, on
all sides, for everyone to see.
What about the devastating effects that free trade and globalization have had on the spread of inequality throughout the
world... Huge corporations consistently use "free trade" or globalization as an excuse to offer the lowest possible wages, and
move manufacturing to places with the least environmental protections and human rights.
Immigration policies are also sometimes used in ways to suppress wages, and even more worse, enacted with very little thought
given to assimilation. Most of the poorer areas, or ghettoes surrounding Paris for example are populated with huge numbers of
Muslim immigrants that face extremely daunting odds of fully assimilating into French culture.
While the wealthier (sometimes elite [neo]liberals) Parisians almost certainly live in gated or posh neighborhoods with hardly
any immigrants as their neighbors. Despite the generous financial support Soros (and some other elites) gives to human rights
causes, he rarely outright discusses some of these problems associated with free trade, globalization and mass immigration. These
seeming hypocrisies and inconsistencies then become much easier fodder for those of Orban's ilk to manipulate and ultimately consolidate
power.
Soros didn't bet on Democracy, he bet on his version of it which he tried to buy through individual politicians on the
take and the Democratic Party. Better he quit manipulating pols and gave his money to charity.
First, Hungary is not xenophobic, they merely want to protect their culture. Second, George Soros wants plenty of wealth for
him and his family, yet he wants those of us in the middle class to dive up our meager assets with the world's poorest. Third,
his personal wealth has often been generated by destroying currencies and the middle class who owns those currencies. Fourth,
he promotes open borders without consulting the citizenry of said borders as to their opinion regarding their own national sovereignty.
Our world would be a much better place without George Soros.
Soros is a criminal by any other name. He hedged against the UK Pound 20 years ago, and earned $1B. He earned billions
by manipulating the market. With his profits he wanted to create his own society where his money could be used to buy politicians
and pass legislation according to his one man agenda. He's selfish, an egomaniac, and dangerous.
Soros employs his vast wealth to create the society he dreams of, regardless of what the rest of us want. When the democratic
process veers away from his vision, he uses the power of his wealth to steer it back.
So he's just another wealthy and powerful elite trying to remake the world as he prefers it. Such arrogance!
Sucking money out of the world's economies so that he can direct it as HE sees fit does not make a man great. Rather, I would
argue that such actions contributed to the rise of both Brexiteers and Trumpsters.
If Soros really wants to contribute to society, he would lobby for financial industry reform - less favorable tax treatment
for hedge funds (what value do they really provide to society) and a transaction tax on trades to reduce speculation. Then fight
for minimum wage increases.
This is a horrifying interview and does not improve the image of George Soros. "My ideology is nonideological," he says while
spending billions on politics, which he defines as "In politics, you are spinning the truth, not discovering it." He describes
Obama as his greatest disappointment because Obama "closed the door on me," as in he expected Obama should work with him and take
his advice. Soros uses his billions to fund politicians and meddle in elections... this is a man who enjoys influencing and manipulating
politics and becomes frustrated when his efforts backfire or are not successful.
This man is the absolute worst! His no borders policy has done more to hurt Europe then Russia ever could. The Soros gang has
zero respect and tolerance for nation-state sovereignty and local governance. Talk about a global elite! He and his gang epitomize
that arrogance.
George Soros bet big on open borders,one world governance and destroying the working class through unfair trade agreements.
Yes he appears to be losing. Thank God for small favors.
It cracks me up to read these type of article in the NYT and then read another story in the NYT about how if you can pay the
money you can have yourself a private waiting area in a major airport to separate yourself from the chaos of the masses in the
public waiting areas. Maybe democracy wouldn't be in trouble around the world if it worked as well for the "slobs" in the public
waiting areas as it did for those in the exclusive waiting rooms. This is globalization in a nutshell. It works great for the
rich, not so well for the rest of us slobs. This is a government of the rich people, by the rich people, for the rich people.
The slobs realise their government doesn't really care that their jobs are disapearing and their standard of living is going down.
To say that George Soros is funding [neo]liberal democracy is a misnomer. What Soros is funding is open borders. Where national
interests are set aside, global interests prevail. This is precisely what George Soros is advocating. Tired of having to face
multitude regulatory systems in his effort to build a global financial empire, Soros is quite right in discerning that a borderless,
global regulatory system would increase his financial power exponentially. Nations are right to resist the encroachment of Soros
because global interests, by definition, are not local interests. Nationalism, so loathed by Soros and his open border lackeys,
serves as a check and balance on men like Soros who would be god and would dictate to the world from some point of central governance
what their truth and value should be. George Soros and his globalist kin should be resisted. The true threat to global interests
is not nationalism, it is globalism.
Soros, and American [neo]liberalism, economic and social [neo]liberalism championed by Soros and the NYT, is in its death throes.
Call us fascists, totalitarians, racists--- understand clearly: we do not care. Europe is waking up. [neo]liberalism is close
to being dead. No spectres or phantoms are haunting Europe. Blood is standing up and answering our ancestors.We are not commodoties,
consumers, meat for your wars. You have attacked us, belittled us, turned our queen of continents into latrines of filth. You,
American [neo]liberalism, have destroyed us.Now, we take our nations back.
It's amusing to read phrases like "nationalism and tribalism are resurgent". It never does to underestimate tribalism; as long
as groups feel safe they are tolerant. But when groups feel threatened, tribalism rears up in what is not so much a resurgence
but more like an awakening from a nap.
The older cultures of Europe are waking up from a nap and realizing that unless they reassess a few long-held assumptions,
they will eventually be ethnically diminished and culturally pressured.
Denmark has banned the burka and legislated some of the harshest migration, immigration, asylum, and naturalization laws in
Europe. It is implementing laws to ensure integration, including stopping benefits to families whose children are not integrating.
Do the author and Mr. Soros think that Denmark exercising control over its future demographics and preserving its culture are
malign?
The Danes some years ago elected the Danish People's Party to significant power; the DPP is often referred to as a far right
party, but is a typical left-wing party in everything except pushing Denmark toward "multiculturalism".
Sweden's centre-left government, on the other hand, brought in hundreds of thousands of Third World immigrants and then refused
even to admit, let alone discuss, the glaring problems with integration within its immigrant community.
Result: the Sweden Democrats, a bona fide neo-Nazi party, are set to do extremely and alarmingly well in Sweden's September
elections.
This super-rich elitist from Hungary is trying to buy American democracy and reshape it in his image regardless of what We
The People want. And the Democrats are on his payroll and totally owned by this foreign agent!
Soros' flaw is that he only tolerates centralized socialist democracy. He cannot stand the idea of democracy in the form of
a federal republic with a weak central government. Interestingly, he made his billions as a predatory capitalist now he turns
on capitalism. He also exhibits a particularly vicious elitism: No one should be allowed to own guns except his private security
guards. He knows that umarmed men are always someone's slaves.
Soros is a hypocrite who did one thing and is now out to create a legacy. All is shows is he is driven by both greed and ego.
His blatant hypocrisy probably did more harm than good - common denominator, it's always about him. Hey Soros, don't do us plebes
any more favors, ok?
Democracy is alive and well, regardless of what Soros thinks. He does not represent democracy, he was never been elected to
any public office. He represents open borders mass migration, as the name of one of his NGOs implies, Open Society Foundation.
Brexit voters, and other voters across the west are increasingly voting against his philosophy. Voters in the US, Hungary, Poland,
Czech Republic, Italy, Slovenia, etc, have democratically chosen as their leaders conservative controlled borders leaders, and
to underscore, all were elected via the democratic process.
Open Borders and globalism that Soros is pushing is increasingly being rejected in voting booths in the EU and the US.
It is hardly undemocratic to increasingly vote against what Soros is selling – chaotic mass migration made possible by open
borders.
He represents [neo]liberal democracy, and voters increasingly favor conservative democracy.
George Soros is the epitome of corruption – penetration and distortion of political process by obscene wealth. It does
not matter what his true intentions are – he can say whatever he wants but we will never know for sure. And stop calling that
"philanthropy".
Red Cross and Salvation Army is philanthropy. What Soros is doing is imposing his personal political beliefs and ideas
on everybody by buying political influence with his money - that is called "corruption" pure and simple.
Sure, he is not the only one doing that, but he is the one doing that most overtly and blatantly. He seems to relish being
the face of the elitist disregard for the masses. What he does is not democracy promotion - it is the exact opposite – democracy
destruction. It is good to know that he is failing in that effort.
Neoliberalism has failed to improve democratic governance and reduced distribution of wealth, just as leftists predicted.
Soros benefitted financially, which has increased his privilege to participate in governance voters cannot achieve. Despite Soros'
wealth, successfully manipulating currency markets does not easily transfer to manipulating electorates. Even if Soros believes
his projects would produce good governance, he lacks the ability to convince voters what is in their best interests.
I am elated to hear that George Soros might be losing.
What pharaonic globalist plutocrats like him mean by "Liberal Democracy" encompasses a sinister set of objectives. Prominent
among which are these two:
1). Full support for neocon/neoliberal destabilization, confrontation, and military interventionism.
2). The destruction of borders, nations, and cultures -- particularly Western Culture here and in Europe.
Soros and his peers want unhindered unlimited access to cheap Third World labor as well as to have complete control over
the entire global economy. To his class nationalism and culture are speed bumps on the way to those self-serving goals.
"... But this part of the story was the most revelatory: "'Rand Paul has persuaded the president that we are not for regime change in Iran,' this person said, because adopting that position would instigate another war in the Middle East." ..."
"... This is significant, not because Trump couldn't have arrived at the same position without Paul's counsel, but because it's easy to imagine him embracing regime change, what with virtually every major foreign policy advisor in his cabinet supporting something close to war with Iran. "Personnel is policy" is more than a cliché. ..."
"... "So let's understand that the people pushing for regime change in Iran are seeking to destabilize and harm the country " writes TAC ..."
"... Most importantly, on arguably the most crucial potential foreign policy decision the president can make -- one that could potentially start another disastrous U.S. Middle Eastern war -- it appears to be Rand Paul who is literally keeping the peace. ..."
President Trump has been known to be hawkish on Iran. Politicoobserved
Wednesday: "Trump has drawn praise from the right-wing establishment for hammering the mullahs
in Tehran, junking the Iran nuclear deal and responding to the regime's saber rattling with
aggressive rhetoric of his own ." There are also powerful factions in Congress
and Washington with
inroads to the president that have been
itching for regime change for years. "The policy of the United States should be regime
change in Iran," says
Senator Tom Cotton, once rumored to be
Trump's pick to head the CIA.
Politicorevealed
Wednesday some interesting aspects of the relationship between Senator Rand Paul and the
president, particularly on foreign policy: "While Trump tolerates his hawkish advisers, the
[Trump] aide added, he shares a real bond with Paul: 'He actually at gut level has the same
instincts as Rand Paul '."
On Iran, Politico notes, "Trump has stopped short of calling for regime change even
though Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, and Bolton support
it, aligning with Paul instead, according to a GOP foreign policy expert in frequent contact
with the White House."
But this part of the story was the most revelatory: "'Rand Paul has persuaded the
president that we are not for regime change in Iran,' this person said, because adopting that
position would instigate another war in the Middle East."
This is significant, not because Trump couldn't have arrived at the same position
without Paul's counsel, but because it's easy to imagine him embracing regime change, what with
virtually every major foreign policy advisor in his cabinet supporting something close to war
with Iran. "Personnel is policy" is more than a cliché.
Paul and Trump apparently like making fun of some White House staffers, as Politico
also reported: "the Kentucky senator and the commander-in-chief have bonded over a shared
delight in thumbing their noses at experts the president likes to deride as 'foreign policy
eggheads,' including those who work in his own administration."
Eggheads indeed. For every foreign policy "expert" in Washington who now admits that regime
change in Iraq was a mistake (and a whole slew of them
won't even cop to that), you will find the same people making the case for regime change in
other countries, including
Iran , explaining how this time, somehow, America's toppling of a despot will turn out
differently.
"So let's understand that the people pushing for regime change in Iran are seeking to
destabilize and harm the country " writesTAC 's Daniel Larison. "Just as many of the same people did when they agitated for
regime change in Iraq and again in Syria, they don't care about the devastation and chaos that
the people in the country would have to endure if the policy 'works.'"
These are the same Washington foreign policy consensus standard bearers who would
likely be shaping U.S. foreign policy unfettered if 2011 Libya
"liberator" Hillary Clinton had become president -- or any other Republican
not named Trump or Paul.
When it comes to who President Trump can turn to for a more sober and realist
view of foreign policy, one who actually takes into account past U.S. mistakes abroad and
tries to learn from them, at the moment it appears to be Paul against the Washington foreign
policy world.
President Trump hired regime change advocates as advisors presumably because he wanted their
advice, yet there's evidence to suggest that at least on Iran, certain hawks' wings
might have been clipped .
Most importantly, on arguably the most crucial potential foreign policy decision the
president can make -- one that could potentially start another disastrous U.S. Middle Eastern
war -- it appears to be Rand Paul who is literally keeping the peace.
Rand's father, Ron Paul is the greatest President America never had, and unlike Trump he told
Americans what they needed to hear rather than what they wanted to hear.
The problem is that we don't consider Rand a neocon because we are comparing him to the
warmongers and lunatics in the White House. Whereas comapred to his father, Rand is a neocon
who time and time again has flip flopped on his morals and principals whereas his father
never did.
And Rand is not the reason the US doesn't want war with Iran. Iran is the reason the US
doesn't want war.
Iran simply has to flood A-stan with small arms, their respective ammo, and logistical
equipment, and 15,000 US soldiers will 'Saigoned'
Combine the above with the distaste of European countries to NOT have refugees flood their
borders and Turkey's increasing hatred for the US, and you have a perfect storm of
potentially deadly but wholly justified anti-Americanism
"... "While much of neoliberalism's rhetorical power comes from the assertion that "there is no alternative," the simple fact is that the world is full of alternatives. Indeed, even the so-called free marketers in Australia can see alternatives." ..."
"... It's dogma is nothing but empty lies held up as flawed truth's and full of scoundrels who profit from its concomitant pain. ..."
"neoliberal language allows powerful groups to package their personal preferences as national
interests"
Its almost impossible to talk about a mining economy and a "free market" in the same
sentence, Richard. a mining economy is is synonymous with corruption, Dutch disease and
political grabs for cash etc. In the height of the 2009 GFC announced by kev07, unskilled
labourers in the pilbara were still earning $100/hr. Real estate prices for 3 bed shacks in
karratha were starting at $1million plus. The blue collar dominated pilbara area was
overwhelmed with greed fed by left politicians hiding behind socialist ideals. The reality
was that left wing economists recognized the "dutch disease" problem and their solution was
to flood the area with greedy blue collar workers who were blowing their enormous salaries on
prostitutes, alcohol and gambling in the hope that profits from the mining boom would be
flushed into other parts of the economy.
The solution? partially transition Australia's economy to an innovation driven economy
because innovation is linked to learning which is linked to stronger self esteem and self
efficacy in the community. an innovation driven econmy is the better way of promting social
development in the community and an innovation driven economy is the most effective way for
politicians to transition to the benefits of a "free market" driven economy.... the reality
is that transitioning to an innovation would require smacking the socialists over the back of
the head in the hope that aspiring socialists will respect the ideas and intellectual
property of others as opposed to continue to assimilate intellectual property in the name of
employment generation and the common good
I dont fear the potential rise of neoliberalism, although i understand that spruiking a
free market whilst talking about mining is ridiculous.
I fear the individuals who are have been talking about mining, and targeting/victimising the
non politically active conservatives for more than 2 decades in the name of socialism
"While much of neoliberalism's rhetorical power comes from the assertion that "there is no
alternative," the simple fact is that the world is full of alternatives. Indeed, even the
so-called free marketers in Australia can see alternatives."
Excellent article Richard, you have captured the ideology and its dogma quite
specularly.
It's dogma is nothing but empty lies held up as flawed truth's and full of scoundrels who
profit from its concomitant pain.
Examples from today's headlines and a few from last week:
"... I never meet Jew haters in my personal life but there sure are a lot on this site. How does less than 2% of the US population utterly dominate the nation? Is each Jew 50 times stronger than every gentile. ..."
"... They tend to be urban dwellers where salaries are higher but standards of living are often lower. Those in my neighborhood are very well assimilated. They put elaborate Christmas lights on their houses. It is not a rich neighborhood. ..."
"... Their earlier history was wretched and included slavery and persecutions for thousands of years. Don't waste much time fearing Jews ..."
I never meet Jew haters in my personal life but there sure are a lot on this site. How does less than 2% of the US population
utterly dominate the nation? Is each Jew 50 times stronger than every gentile.
I meet many Jews but can't recall a single
super Jew. Maybe they are clever deceivers? The great majority are middle earners. There are some rich and some poor. Jews dominate
Hollywood and certain occupations but they are underrepresented as engineers and architects. So what.
They tend to be urban dwellers where salaries are higher but standards of living are often lower. Those in my neighborhood
are very well assimilated. They put elaborate Christmas lights on their houses. It is not a rich neighborhood.
Jewish history does not support the idea of a super race. They only entered middle classes in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, and only in the western world. Before that they were not allowed to attend universities or even own land in many cases.
Their earlier history was wretched and included slavery and persecutions for thousands of years. Don't waste much time
fearing Jews.
"... Coalition attacks on Yemeni markets are unfortunately all too common. The Saudis and their allies know they can strike civilian targets with impunity because the Western governments that arm and support them never call them out for what they do. ..."
There was another Saudi coalition airstrike on a
crowded market in northern Yemen today. Dozens of civilians have been killed and dozens more
injured. Many of the dead and injured were children whose school bus was hit in the attack:
Coalition attacks on Yemeni
markets are unfortunately all too common. The Saudis and their allies know they can strike
civilian targets with impunity because the Western governments that arm and support them never
call them out for what they do. The U.S. continues to arm and refuel coalition planes
despite ample evidence that the coalition has been deliberately attacking civilian targets. At
the very least, the coalition hits civilian targets with such regularity that they are
ignoring whatever
procedures they are supposed to be following to prevent that. The weapons that the U.S.,
Britain, and other arms suppliers provide them are being used to slaughter wedding-goers,
hospital patients, and schoolchildren, and U.S. refueling of coalition planes allows them to
carry out more of these attacks than they otherwise could. Today's attack ranks as one of the
worst.
Saada has come under some of the most intense attacks from the coalition bombing campaign.
The coalition illegally
declared the entire area a military target three years ago, and ever since they have been
blowing up
homes ,
markets ,
schools ,
water treatment systems, and
hospitals without any regard for the innocent civilians that are killed and injured.
The official U.S. line on support for the war is that even more civilians would be killed if
the U.S. weren't supporting the coalition. Our government has never provided any evidence to
support this, and the record shows that civilian casualties from Saudi coalition airstrikes
have
increased over the last year. The Saudis and their allies either don't listen to any of the
advice they're receiving, or they know they won't pay any price for ignoring it. As long as the
U.S. arms and refuels coalition planes while they slaughter Yemeni civilians in attacks like
this one, our government is implicated in the war crimes enabled by our unstinting military
assistance. Congress can and must halt that assistance immediately.
Update: CNN reports on the
aftermath of the airstrike:
The International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) said that a hospital it supports in
Saada had received 29 dead bodies of "mainly children" under 15 years of age, and 40 injured,
including 30 children.
"(The hospital) is very busy. They've been receiving wounded and dead since the morning
and it is non-stop ," ICRC head of communications and spokesperson Mirella Hodeib told
CNN.
Second Update: The Associated Press
reports that the death toll stands at 43 with another 63 injured.
Third Update: The death toll has reportedly risen to 50 . 77 were
injured.
Of course I have no right to surprise or shock. They've already targeted hospitals,
foreign doctors and nurses, first responders, wedding parties, and funerals.
School buses.
We used to make movies about killing people who do things like this. Now we help them do
it.
The repetitive frequency and intensity of these attacks on hospitals, schools, markets and
other civilian gatherings, coupled with the indifference of the guilty national governments
and their international enablers, signals that the world and human species is passing through
a mass psychosis. This psychosis is playing itself out at all levels. Fascism, which is very
current as a national psychology, is generally speaking, a coping strategy for dealing with
nasty chaos. This coping strategy is designed around generating even more chaos, since that
is a familiar and therefore more comfortable pattern of behavior; and that does provide a
delusion of stability. A good example would be the sanctions just declared by the Trump
Administration on Iranian commerce. In an intrinsically connected global market, these
sanctions are so thorough that they qualify as a blockade, within a contingency plan for
greater global conflict. But those who destroy hospitals, schools, school buses and public
celebrations are not, otherwise, forward looking nice people. We are descending into a nasty
fascist war psychosis. Just shake it. Live. Long and well.
"even more civilians would be killed if the U.S. weren't supporting the coalition"
If we did not hand them satellite images, did not service, repair and refuel their planes,
and did not sell them the bombs, then they would . kill more civilians how? They could not
even reach their targets, let alone drop explosives they do not have.
What Would Mohammad Do? Buy bombs from the Russians? Who have better quality control and
fewer duds, hence more victims?
What Would Mohammad Do? Get the UAE to hire Blackwater to poison the wells across
Yemen?
How exactly do the profiteers in our country, that get counted out blood money for every
single Yemeni killed, propose that the Saudis and Emiratis would make this worse?
But, good to know that our "smart" and "precise" munitions can still hit a school bus.
Made In America!
The coverage in the media has been predictably cowardly and contemptible in the aftermath of
this story. I read articles from CNN and MSNBC and they were variations on "school bus
bombed", in the passive tense – with no mention of who did it or who is supporting them
in the headline, ad if the bombings were natural disasters.
Fox, predictably, was even worse and led with "Biblical relics endangered by war", which
speaks volumes about the presumed priorities of their viewership.
This, and not anything to do with red meat domestic politics, is the worst media
malpractice of our time. "Stop directly helping the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks drop
bombs on school children" should be the absolute easiest possible moral issue for our media
to take a stand on and yet they treat it like it's radioactive.
Speaking as someone who considers themselves a liberal I am infuriated by the Democrats
response. How can the party leadership not see that if they keep flogging the horse of
Russian trolls and shrugging their shoulders over American given (not sold – *given*)
bombs being dropped on schools and hospitals, no one is ever going to take the supposed
Democratic anti-war platform seriously again. The Republicans can afford to be tarde by
association with these atrocities. The Democrats can't.
I wonder how many Democrats are in the same boat as me right now: I may not like Trump or
the Christian conservatives but fights over the Supreme Court or coal plants or a healthcare
law look terribly petty compared to the apparent decision by Saudi Arabia to kill literally
millions. For the first time in my life I'm seriously wishing there was a third-party
candidate I could support and the congressional elections just so I could send a message on
this.
@Hunter C
Vote Libertarian Party. You won't agree with a lot of their domestic agenda, but they're not
going to win, so it doesn't matter. The noninterventionist foreign policy is your message.
"Following an attack this morning on a bus driving children in Dahyan Market, northern
Saada, (an ICRC-supported) hospital has received dozens of dead and wounded," the
organisation said on Twitter without giving more details.
In a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, the coalition called the strike
a "legitimate military action"
The Comment section:
"The US provides the in-flight refueling that makes these bombing sorties possible. The
"Five Eyes" provides the surveillance that picks the targets, and the navigation to hit
them.
KSA is doing precisely what the AZ Empire requires of it. Just as the British Royals and
their banker sponsors dictated over a century ago, so does the Empire direct these heinous
crimes today.
If the Saud Royals ever did go "rogue," they'd be taken out just as the AZ [American
Zionist] Empire has done time and time again."
"There is also the documented presence of American forces and officers in the operations room
of the Saudi coalition." https://twitter.com/abcdaee198/status/1027649243568386055
"Why is it that the Zionist media were up in arms every time White Helmets were digging
Syrian children out of rubble or dousing them with hoses? Dozens of children were slaughtered
in Yemen, and many more maimed and injured and hundreds of thousands are being subjected to
famine but there's only deafening silence on the Zionist-run media."
"Imagine the reaction if the Russians or Syrians had blown up a busload of kids."
-- On the same topic: Israel demanded -- and BBC changed its headline. In a headline, BBC
claimed that "Israeli air strikes 'kill pregnant woman and baby.'" After some time, BBC
changed its title to "Gaza air strikes 'kill woman and child' after rockets hit Israel:
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/250275
Obama spoke about mothers sending their children to school in his acceptance speech for
the
Nobel Peace Prize.
He contrasted reality vs hope
and we learned which one he would deliver.
Obama in Oslo, December 10, 2009,:
"Somewhere today, a mother facing punishing poverty
still takes the time to teach her child, scrapes together what
few coins she has to send that child to school
-- because she believes that
a cruel world still
has a place for that child's dreams.
Let us live by their example.
We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us,
and still strive for justice .
We can admit the intractability of deprivation,
and still strive for dignity.
Clear-eyed,
we can understand that there will be war,
and still strive for peace.
We can do that -- for that is the story of human progress; that's the
hope
of all the world; and at this moment of challenge,
that must be our work here on Earth.
Thank you very much.
(Applause.)
One week later Obama shredded dozens of women and children in Yemen
and covered it up.
I've written many times Obama was Bush II - BUT F...KING TRUMP IS IN THE WHITE HOUSE NOW!
So why are you giving us the ancient history deflection???????????
The pic provides an example of how the Outlaw US Empire implements its global population
control policy--all bombs, no kids. Twitterverse is madder than a wet hen. One went to
Trump's twitter to ask where's his outrage over these kid's real deaths, not the staged ones
he launched missiles at Syria over. It deserves to be retweeted millions of times.
Unfortunately, sadists are incapable of being shamed; they just grin at such pics while
congratulating themselves. Betcha the Trump dossier got it backwards--It was Trump who pissed
all over the Russian women.
Almasdarnews. Com. Are reporting a massive Israile army convoy heading for Gaza bigger than
enything seen since 2014 ! This looks serious ! The whole dam world picture is looking way
beyond serious !!!
kudos the exceptional nation in support of those other exceptional nations - ksa and
israel...
everyone else on the planet want to know when this horror will end...
Ahh, thats why. The Saudis are incompetent and vile, but trust the us to be
even more incompetent and even more vile and putrid.
This is horrible! I see it and can not really do much. It is a never ending story of innocent
people being killed off. But it does nurture a solid and hot hate to those people who are
architects of this. They feel safe and secured, but they are sitting on a volcano, and when it
goes, they will go too. Maybe a Gadaffi end.
Posted by: Den Lille Abe , Aug 9, 2018 4:42:25 PM |
13
Ahh, thats why. The Saudis are incompetent and vile, but trust the us to be even more
incompetent and even more vile and putrid.
This is horrible! I see it and can not really do much. It is a never ending story of innocent
people being killed off. But it does nurture a solid and hot hate to those people who are
architects of this. They feel safe and secured, but they are sitting on a volcano, and when
it goes, they will go too. Maybe a Gadaffi end.
Posted by: Den Lille Abe | Aug 9, 2018 4:42:25 PM |
13 /div
Hate is a hefty spice; it can make you blind to reason, it can make you oblivious to truth,
and make you inoculated against love. But hate controlled, is also a drug that is powerful
and useful, hate nurtured and fed can move mountains and empires. Hate is good in manageable
doses and wrecking in large ones. But take it at own risk.
They are claiming these are legitimate military targets, they targeted 'militants', the
Houthis use 'child soldiers', and use human shields. I bet Nikki Haley still thinks they are
the most wonderful people ever, on the front lines, fighting against the real monsters,
Iran.
What's that supposed to mean??? Trump is President! Aren't you excusing Trump by dredging
up Obama's shet? That excuse not to criticize Trump is getting real old.
@15 Nah, Christian, you are clearly wrong. Nikki would consider KSA to have the 2nd most
wonderful people ever, with the USA holding the Bronze Medal position. There is no doubt who
she holds as The Chosen People.
Don't let this stuff get normalised ! That's why they do it in plain site. It desensitises
the dumb public
i e trump supporters in u s, torys in uk. We should be feeling outrage and hatered towards
the people that
do this . Including our own governments.
No one is excusing Trump. The point that needs to be emphasized is that the War Party has
two wings: repubs and dems. Every last president since WWII has put the interests of imperial
conquest over the interests of the American people. Bill Clinton, Bush, Obama and now Trump
(as well as all of their wannabes Gore, Kerry, McCain HRC) were and are war mongers. They are
united in their lust for killing children (don't forget Madeline Albright with her "it was
worth it" over the 500,000 babies Clinton killed through sanctions).
This evening #switch off bbc is trending number one on Twitter and number four world wide!
Time we all pushback. on the net,on the streets, everywhere we can.no justice no peace !
Mark2 opines It desensitises the dumb public i e trump supporters
Are you serious? You should listen to my college educated colleagues (more than half with
professional degrees) most of whom are democrats and not one who voted for Trump. When it
comes to war against Syria, Libya, threats against Russia they are true blooded war mongers.
Actually worse than Trump supporters because they in general oppose those wars or war
threats.
Toivos @ 23
Dumb is as dumb does! They come in all shapes sizes and political party's . Trumps a greedy
pig puts children in cages and is a kkk racist don't make excuses he's a monster full
stop!
Don't give me eny of that o but, o but blah blah.!!!
It already is normalized. Go look at many of the comments on MSM (left and right) and so
called progressive sites. Hopefully those are all astroturfers but I suspect many are real
folks. Its luny tunes. They live in the Matrix and are blissfully unaware. Like something out
of 1984 during the 2 minute hate but its 24/7 , or maybe walking dead if the WD could type or
talk.
Another sterling example of how the US teaches its allies to be incompetent, vicious and
cowardly in targeting and killing those least able to fight back.
O Canada! Recently, I praised them as "New Trumpland". But why did they forget that silence
can be golden? Apparently, it dawned on PM that his party is called "liberal" and thus it
must make "liberal calls"*. But what cause should be selected? Massacres and starvation of
cute emaciated children? Conservative predecessor of current PM got ca. 7 G USD contract for
"vehicles" (motorized infantly?) for KSA, and Trudeau will not endanger precious Canadian
jobs. After leaving the task to the Foreign Minister (Freedland, Feminazi**), the plight of
women right activists in KSA with family members in Canada.
Canada cannot yield to Saudi Arabia's deranged overreaction
The regime's reaction to a couple of tweets is more about snuffing out its own country's
voices of dissent
Iyad El-Baghdadi, Amarnath Amarasingam · for CBC News · Posted: Aug 09, 2018
4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: August 9
If Canada folds, some fear that a line would be drawn in the sand, and behind that line,
petty Arab dictators could do what they want with their activist communities, without as much
as a complaint from the world. (Cliff Owen/Associated Press)
=====
Of course Canada cannot yield. For starters, it is unclear what would appease the irate
Crown Prince. Perhaps Trudeau and Friedland coming together to KSA to submit to a public
flogging. But judging from the titles I have seen, Canadians cherish "delicate balance", and
they though that an occasional complaint that is not 100% aligned with USA and principal
customers of Canadian products should be safe.
Agreed. When it comes to knowing the Truth of the Outlaw US Empire's overseas deeds, most
people are illiterate/ignorant. They hang the flag aside their front porch and feel
righteous. The only reason we don't have multitudes of people saluting whoever's POTUS and
chanting Sieg Heil is because in the back of their tiny minds they somehow know that's
incorrect behavior but don't know why. Some provided feedback on Michael Hudson's going
autobiographical saying his upbringing seemed unreal--faked--thus showing how little they
know of WW2 Home Front US history when people were much more informed and politically
savvy.
It seems safe to say that Animal Farm & 1984 have both put down
extensive roots within the Outlaw US Empire to the point where digging up and destroying
those weeds will cause major social damage. Can't make an omelet without breaking eggs is how
the saying goes. But a positive outcome isn't the only possibility.
We need to remember this' the about left or right ! That's just devide and rule. This about
the 1% killing off the 99%
Agend 21.what they are doing to Yemen people now they will do to you next.
The deliberate targeting of civilians is Outlaw US Empire policy since WW2 despite it
being a War Crime. Guernica was an outrage, but Powell had it covered up since spoke directly
to US actions since the paint dried in 1937. The School Bus was yet another of all too many
Guernicas that have occurred since. Someone mentioned desensitized. Yes, on an International
Scale. It was an act of Terror, but how many are describing it as such? BigLie Media? Not a
chance if they show/mention it at all.
I'm not sure we should generalize about Canadians. Trudeau is trying to satisfy his base
and presumably staying true to his own liberal convictions. But I've met Canadians who
dislike him intensely. They do not think gender politics, welcoming refugees, settling native
land claims, lecturing Saudi Arabia etc. is the best way to maintain a high standard of
living.
Israel demanded - and BBC changed its headline. In a headline, BBC claimed that "Israeli air
strikes 'kill pregnant woman and baby.'" After some time, BBC changed its title to "Gaza air
strikes 'kill woman and child' after rockets hit Israel https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/250275
A good comment from HistoryHacker (Guardian web page), I thought I share it:
"Let's see: in 1913 the British grabbed Iranian oil and made it their property. Six
years later, Britain imposed another agreement and took over Iran's treasury and the army.
During the Second World War, Britain's requisitioning of food led to famine and widespread
disease. Shortly after that war, Iran's own efforts to establish its nascent democracy and
nationalize the oil industry were thwarted. And by whom? Eisenhower joined the systematic
British looting, and, sadly, by 1953, the blossoming Iranian democracy was completely
destroyed by the covert operation of the American CIA and British MI6, known as Operation
Ajax. In place of the democracy was installed Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, a US-British puppet, a
despot deeply hated by his own people.
America picked up the baton, and here's Trump going bat crazy!
What could Iranians possibly think?! What do you think?"
@36 I knew that PB. Excuse my inadequate attempt to emulate your tone.
But I think it's true that Canadians enjoy a high standard of living mainly because of
things like water, oil, minerals, wheat, lumber etc. and most prefer not to get involved in
Saudi Arabian politics.
I hope that Canada will finally lead heavy public condemnation of the Saudi-UAE coalition
murderous actions in Yemen. Canada has nothing to loose anymore, it is high time it take a
serious stand on the 3 years human rights abuse of the Yemenis.
It should indirectly send a dissaproval message to the USA on its complicity in these war
crimes...
Maybe it is time for Canada, to reinstate diplomatic relation with Iran to snub the Saudis
and the USA, but I am dreaming...
.
"But I think it's true that Canadians enjoy a high standard of living mainly because of
things like water, oil, minerals, wheat, lumber etc. "
Not quite. It's because of water, oil, minerals, wheat lumber, etc., AND they don't breed
like rodents.
India has plenty of resources - adjusting for the cold climate in Canada, probably about
as much as Canada, effectively. It's just that these resources don't go that far split up 1.4
billion ways and counting.
And Yemen? With very little water, and one of the highest fertility rates in the world,
what do you expect?
What to make of the new sanctions put in place by the State Dept against Russia?
What about those on Iran?
Are these implemented to generate WAR?
Whether it be against Russia, Iran or China, The US attitude is orchestrated by
Zion/Israel.
Why deal with the US when Israel is the culprit?
Wiping out Israel is the solution. Obliterating Israel will certainly ease
the World's woes.
Of course, targeted assassinations should be carried out.
Short of this, Netanyahu should be kept waiting for days whitout being able
to meet Putin. His ambassador should be expelled and the Russian Ambassador to Israel
recalled.
Sanction Israel in every way possible. Break the Gaza Siege. Wipe out Israel's
Navy. Down its jets over Lebanon. Kill its Jericho rockets at lift off.
There is also the documented presence of American forces and officers in the operations
room of the Saudi coalition....These guys have not been sent there by Obama...I guess....
But what most makes me feel sick is not that American commenters out there, well payed or
volunteer, insist after two years already on this cantinele, what takes me out of my nerves
is that the Russians insist...in throwing balls out with certain issues....
But what could have really happened? Just yesterday or the day before I was reading that
Israel and Hamas were in negotiations...From that to this...I wonder what could be the
breaking point...
Talks
were a ruse as usual . Supposedly, a cease fire was in place but was broken as reported
at the link. Ongoing protests against the "Nationality Law" continue and go unreported as
usual. The continuing murder of Gazans serves as cover.
@37, "But I think it's true that Canadians enjoy a high standard of living mainly because of
things like water, oil, minerals, wheat, lumber etc. and most prefer not to get involved in
Saudi Arabian politics."
As a lifelong Canuckistani, my view is that Canada is the world's largest mine - and it is
not mine.
@45 But I understand it's not as easy to get mining permits as it used to be. Lot of
environmentalists and first nations lawyers involved. Which is why Canadian mining companies
move to Africa.
the USA will perhaps suffer blowback, both at home and in many places 'strategic' to its
Empire, for generation or two to come, for all the horrible and savage war crimes perpetuated
by it and its allies on the poor people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia,
Palestine, and especially now Yemen, the poorest of the poor - the sorrows of Empire
The US provides the in-flight refueling that makes these bombing sorties possible. The "Five
Eyes" provides the surveillance that picks the targets, and the navigation to hit them.
KSA is doing precisely what the AZ Empire requires of it. Just as the British Royals and
their banker sponsors dictated over a century ago, so does the Empire direct these heinous
crimes today.
If the Saud Royals ever did go "rogue," they'd be taken out just as the AZ Empire has done
time and time again.
CarlD, the purpose of sanctions is to hurt the citizens of a country enough that they will
rise up and revolt against their ruling class.
The AZ Empire has been striving for complete global dominance for a long time, and that
means either destroying Russia and China or at least installing "friendly" governments.
Hence, sanctions, "trade wars," and infiltration to foment "color revolutions."
Pence's new Space Command is a blatant telltale that the twice-hacked and never-audited
Pentagon has a massive hemorrhage of funds and Trump will be demanding ANOTHER $40B budget
increase for Pentagon to paper over a huge Deep Purple Hole in the Bucket.
So Saudis sanction Canada but will still let the oil flow to them (2billion a year) and the
US sanctions Russia but will still buy space rockets from them , and they will still sell
them to us. Trade war with China but they still buy US Treasuries to finance US debt. British
owned BBC rents out their studios to RT to help Russia with their propaganda
Woodrow Wilson : "Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me
privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and
manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized,
so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak
above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."
Today some call them ruling or power elites, global elites for the most part. Elites is an
interesting word whose origins come from the french word for chosen and latin word for
elect.
1. Wealth from natural resources. This is a bit of mixed blessing, because with some
exceptions, mining is very capital intensive, so the profit margins are so-so, and job
creation is also so-so. Canada is blessed with nice mix of extracting industries,
agriculture, "normal" manufacturing, financial centers etc. They also have somewhat
reasonable spending in terms value for money in health and military sectors, saving ca. 10%
of GDP between the two compared with the less rational southern neighbor Perhaps this is
still short of 10%, but USA also wastes money and human resources on prison complex and other
inanities.
2. Liberal Canada. Domestically, I do not know enough, but "harmonizing with USA" could
please some conservatives while being too expensive to implement. On foreign policy they
stick to the worst of liberalism, not standing much for anything, even for their beloved
Vilna Ukrayina, although converting Ukraine to land of milk and honey with capable military
and a reasonable level of corruption is beyond capacity of any foreign power. But they
implemented what used to be totally unjustifiable insult, "feminazi". That said,
conservatives learned from Trump to raise mind boggling issue and gain in polls, lately, how
to stop hordes of "deplorables" crossing the border. I guess a cheapish solution would be to
create a network of recreational trails with very confusing mapping (even GPS) and totally
confusing signage, and plant some smilax = green briar or other thorny plants to impede
hiking according to compass directions. A note on GPS maps based on satellite pictures:
software has very hard time telling dead ends from actually passable trail connections.
3. Populist-progressive Canada of my dreams. Declare the conflicts with KSA and Trump to
be matters of national dignity, punish KSA by stopping delivery of military vehicles per
Harper's contract and purchases of oil, replace the latter with Iranian. Would Trump dare to
impose secondary sanctions, fine American companies in Canada.
Why is it that the Zionist media were up in arms every time White Helmets were digging Syrian
children out of rubble or dousing them with hoses?
Dozens of children were slaughtered in Yemen, and many more maimed and injured and
hundreds of thousands are being subjected to famine but there's only deafening silence on the
Zionist-run media.
Syrian children had propaganda value; Yemeni children have no value at all. Americans,
Zionists and Saudis are sick and depraved.
A little correction to Circe, Aug 9 11:18:38 PM. SELECTED Syrian children were newsworthy, a
recent massacre by ISIS in Sweida was newsworthy only as an example of a failure by "the
regime". An earlier example, when majority of people of Greater Aleppo lived in the western
part controlled by Damascus, "Aleppo" meant only the eastern part, controlled by the
"moderate" rebels, and victims of moderate massacres and shelling were totally un-newsworthy.
Natural resources drive 20 per cent of the economy -- and about 10 per cent of all the
jobs in Canada. These natural resources also help Canada attract manufacturing and value
added business that utilize domestically produced metals, fuel and timber (as opposed to more
expensive imports) Profit motive is overstated, large companies are focused more on income
growth and market share. The jobs that are produced are good paying jobs as well
I'd rather have more good paying capital intensive industries than low pay labour
intensive service and manufacturing industries that may generate more profits but which end
up mostly in CEO and top managements bank accounts
Frankly, the mystery is why America has not invaded Canada and taken over since we last
tried in 1812. :>)
Mark2 @ 31 said:"We need to remember this' the about left or right ! That's just devide and
rule. This about the 1% killing off the 99% "
Yep, bottom line statement. From austerity to all neoliberal policies, and the world-wide
wars now going on, are basically nothing more than class warfare directed at the 99% to
enrich the already rich.
Frankly, the mystery is why America has not invaded Canada and taken over since we last tried
in 1812. :>)
Posted by: Pft | Aug 10, 2018 12:06:44 AM | 61
Absorbing Canada could undermine political balance in USA leading to such calamities like
socialized medicine, legal marijuana etc. Keeping them on Puerto Rico status is not tenable
given the ethnic composition -- too many English speaking whites. If we could just annex
Alberta...
Bang on cue, TG @ 39 uses a comment about Canada's standard of living (brought about in part
by its governments' spending on transport infrastructure - in particular, transcontinental
railways - that stimulated job growth and enabled the agricultural and manufactured wealth of
the provinces to be spread across the nation and to be exported overseas) to push a racist
opinion about how poor countries are at fault for being poor because their people don't have
access to birth control measures made in rich countries.
...
..for all the horrible and savage war crimes perpetuated by it and its allies on the poor
people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Palestine, and especially now Yemen, the
poorest of the poor - the sorrows of Empire.
Posted by: michaelj72 | Aug 9, 2018 9:12:39 PM | 47
White man's burden...
A phrase used to justify European imperialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries; it is the title of a poem by Rudyard Kipling. The phrase implies that imperialism
was motivated by a high-minded desire of whites to uplift people of color.
Part of the targeting assurance happens by looking at unexpected "gaps" in electronic
communication signals. When there is a lot of cellphone communication noise" where is is
suddenly absent, despite presence of humans, indicated an interesting anomaly for target
acquisitions.
To confuse the enemy, these "silent spots" should be mirrored in different locations. They
counter The selectief bias.
During WWII, RAF lost planes to German AAA. They wondered where armor them up?
Counterintuitively, the mathematician Abraham Wald explained that, if a plane makes it back
safely despite a bunch of bullet holes in its wings, it means that bullet holes in the wings
aren't very dangerous.
Where you really need the armor, are the areas that, on average, don't have any bullet
holes.
Why? Because planes with bullet holes in those places never made it back. That's why you
don't see any bullet holes there on the ones that do return.
Posted by: CarlD @ 51 "And who is behind all of this?"
Wouldn't you agree that the PTSB are, as Paul Simon wrote, A Loose Affiliation of
Billionaires?
The way I see it, the pinnacle of the pyramid are members of the dynasties that have
controlled the finance system for centuries. Rothschilds, Warburgs, the Vatican, the European
Royal Families and such. They profit off of everything, since all revenues generated by all
industries pass through their sticky fingers, in addition to their Central Banking cabal that
almost every country on earth is fully beholden to.
They are not a monolith, in that they compete with one another, but they all share
interest in keeping this system in place.
Then, at the next level down there are the members of the Nouveau Riche, like the
Rockefellers and Carneigies whose wealth was only generated a couple generations ago, and the
even newer rich who do not have dynastic power (yet), but do wield enough wealth to influence
the actions of the Empire, like the MIC "Daddy Warbucks" and tech industry newcomers.
And of course, there are the upper-level managers of Empire like Kissinger, Brzezenski,
Soros, etc.
We have seen images of dead children of warfare before. I am not sure if it helps the antiwar
cause. I will have to go read Susan Sontag's "The Pain of Others." In any case, thanks for
posting it, b.
Will DJT order a retaliatory strike on KSA after being so moved by these photos like he
was when the children of the fake gas attacks in Syria were being paraded around on the msm?
I think not. Sad!
Posted by: Pft | Aug 10, 2018 12:06:44 AM | 61:
"Frankly, the mystery is why America has not invaded Canada and taken over since we last
tried in 1812. :>)"
Canada and the US are both members of the Five Eyes. Clearly, their roles in the great
chessboard are different. But the way I see it, the nation-states are fictions that serve the
charade of representative democratic self-rule.
Russian officials reacted with outrage and markets slumped on Thursday morning following
the announcement of tough new US sanctions over Russia's alleged use of a nerve agent in
the Salisbury attack.
President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the sanctions were "absolutely
unlawful and don't conform to international law", as politicians vowed to respond with
countermeasures, which could include bans on the exports of rockets or resources for
manufacturing.
"The theatre of the absurd continues," tweeted Dmitry Polyanskiy, first
deputy permanent representative of Russia to the UN. "No proofs, no clues, no logic, no
presumption of innocence, just highly-likelies. Only one rule: blame everything on Russia, no
matter how absurd and fake it is. Let us welcome the United Sanctions of America!"
One senior Russian MP called the US a "police state".
A member of the Duma's foreign affairs committee, Leonid Slutsky, said Russia could block exports of RD-180 rocket
engines to the US as a potential countermeasure, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.
The State Department said the new sanctions would come into effect on 22 August and would be
followed by much more sweeping measures, such as suspending diplomatic relations and revoking
Aeroflot landing rights, if Russia did not take "remedial" action within 90 days.
Moscow is not expected to agree to the response required by US legislation, which includes
opening up Russian scientific and security facilities to international inspections to assess
whether it is producing chemical and biological weapons in violation of international law.
"Certainly it is really up to Russia to make that decision, whether they meet this
criteria," a senior administration official said. "The second round of sanctions are in general
more draconian than the first round."
Another senior state department official said the US received in March "persuasive
information" from the UK that Russia was behind the attack. It made its own determination last
weekend and was now acting on the basis of "objective facts" and "legal requirements".
Russian markets took the news poorly. Stocks in Aeroflot, the country's national carrier,
fell by 12% in trading before lunchtime on Thursday over concerns that its direct flights
between Russia and the US could be halted entirely.
Russia's currency, the rouble, fell to below 66 to the US dollar, a 4% slide from Wednesday
morning that began with the leak of a separate draft sanctions bill that could see Russia named
a state sponsor of terror.
The US has already expelled 60 suspected Russian spies as part of a global response to the
March attack in Salisbury against
Sergei Skripal , a former colonel in Russian military intelligence, and his daughter,
Yulia , in which a rare and potent Russian-made nerve agent, novichok, was found to have
been used.
"... Earlier, Russia's Kommersant newspaper posted the draft introduced last week by a bipartisan group of legislators. The bill includes proposals to sanction new sovereign debt and block dollar transactions of the nation's biggest lenders. The bill includes proposals to sanction new sovereign debt and block dollar transactions of the nation's biggest lenders. ..."
"... Traders are particularly concerned by a clause that calls for prohibiting "all transactions in all property and interests in property" of some of the country's largest lenders. Sberbank, VTB Bank, Gazprombank, Promsvyazbank, Rosselkhozbank and Vnesheconombank are listed. ..."
"... The bill also seeks penalties on energy projects and a survey of President Vladimir Putin's net worth. It follows reports of Russia's ongoing efforts to sway U.S. elections, new efforts to hack U.S. senators, and intelligence agencies' conclusion that Russia sought to meddle in the 2016 presidential election. ..."
Earlier, Russia's Kommersant newspaper posted the draft introduced last week by a bipartisan group of
legislators. The bill includes proposals to sanction new sovereign debt and block dollar transactions of the
nation's biggest lenders. The bill includes proposals to sanction new sovereign debt and block dollar transactions
of the nation's biggest lenders.
"The Kommersant publication was the straw that broke the camel's back,"
said Denis Davydov, an analyst at Nordea Bank in Moscow. "It's important to be able to read and assess the actual
bill."
Market Jitters
No action will be taken on the draft until the House is back from summer recess in September, leaving room for
more market jitters through the end of the month. But with President Donald Trump calling for closer ties with
Russia, and the U.S. Treasury warning earlier this year against sanctioning the sovereign debt market, it's
uncertain the bill will make it into law.
Traders are
particularly concerned
by a clause that calls for prohibiting "all transactions in all property and interests
in property" of some of the country's largest lenders. Sberbank, VTB Bank, Gazprombank, Promsvyazbank,
Rosselkhozbank and Vnesheconombank are listed.
The draft also includes Bank of Moscow, which was merged into VTB in 2016, while Vnesheconombank is listed
twice in the text, without explanation.
'Crushing Russia'
"If you start crushing Russia by causing the banking system to collapse as a result of sanctions, it could
actually lead to worse political outcomes than what you have right now," Khan said. "The key rule of sanctions is
that you want to keep some in reserve because if you use your worst sanctions then what do you follow it up with?"
The bill also seeks penalties on energy projects and a survey of President Vladimir Putin's net worth. It
follows reports of Russia's ongoing efforts to sway U.S. elections, new efforts to hack U.S. senators, and
intelligence agencies' conclusion that Russia sought to meddle in the 2016 presidential election.
Lawmakers from both parties have also been sharply critical of President Donald Trump's meeting with Putin in
Helsinki last month, saying Trump hasn't done enough to hold Russia accountable.
This is attack on ruble. Kind of Magnitsky II set of moves. Strange if view of Trump supposed
attempt to split Russia and China in Helsinki. You should chose a single target in such
cases.
Sanctions weaken the effect of Iranian sanctions. While the goal is to undermine the Russian
economy -- the effect of negative expectations is always stronger than a onetime action -- 90
days allow to avoid big financial losses for major banks. The requirement of inspection of Russia
objects is from Iraq war textbook.
Notable quotes:
"... Russian Ruble has fallen to a new 2018 low against the American dollar. Trading went over 66 rubles to the dollar. ..."
"... This marks almost a 20% devaluation in the currency since April of this year, and the worst valuation since mid-November, 2016. ..."
"... For our part, we reiterated our principle [sic] stands on the events in the UK, which the Embassy had been outlining in corresponding letters to the State Department. We confirmed that we continue to strongly stand for an open and transparent investigation of the crime committed in Salisbury and for bringing the culprits to justice , ..."
"... This pattern of throwing out destructive slander while refusing to provide opportunity for a real answer has permeated American policy towards the Russian Federation with increasing intensity since 2013. ..."
sanctions was
apparently enough to create jitters on the Russian stock exchanges, and the Russian
Ruble has fallen to a new 2018 low against the American dollar. Trading went over 66 rubles to
the dollar.
This marks almost a 20% devaluation in the currency since April of this year, and the
worst valuation since mid-November, 2016.
This incident has not gone unanswered in Moscow. The Russian Embassy in the United States
called for documentation about the source and reasoning behind these new sanctions, as reported by TASS:
The Russian embassy in the United States has called on the US Department of State to
publish correspondence on the introduction of new sanctions on Moscow over the Skripal
incident, the embassy said in a statement.
" For our part, we reiterated our principle [sic] stands on the events in the UK,
which the Embassy had been outlining in corresponding letters to the State Department. We
confirmed that we continue to strongly stand for an open and transparent investigation of
the crime committed in Salisbury and for bringing the culprits to justice , " the
statement reads.
"We suggested publishing our correspondence on this issue. No answer has followed so
far," the Russian embassy added.
This pattern of throwing out destructive slander while refusing to provide opportunity
for a real answer has permeated American policy towards the Russian Federation with increasing
intensity since 2013. It reveals the machinations of a very divided American government,
with the "deep State" or establishment politicians and foreign policy makers completely
unwilling to even give Russia a fair shake at representing itself. This policy is shared by the
United Kingdom, as this
piece by The Duran's Editor in Chief, Alexander Mercouris shows, with this summary of
violations of due process the British authorities are committing with regard to Russia:
(1) The British government is interfering in the conduct of a criminal investigation, with
Prime Minister Theresa May and especially Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson pointing fingers at
who they say is guilty (Russia) whilst the criminal investigation is still underway;
(2) The British government has said that unless Russia proves itself innocent within a
specific time the British government will conclude that it is guilty. As I have explained
previously this
reverses the burden of proof : in a criminal case it is the prosecution which is supposed
to prove the defendant's guilt, not the defendant who must prove his innocence;
(3) The British government refuses to share with Russia -- the party it says is guilty --
the 'evidence' upon which it says it has concluded that Russia is guilty, the evidence in
this case being a sample of the chemical with which it says Sergey and Yulia Skripal was
poisoned.
This violates the fundamental principle that the defendant must be provided with all the
evidence against him so that he can properly prepare his defence;
(4) The British government is not following the procedure set out in Article IX (2) of the
Chemical Weapons
Convention to which both Britain and Russia are parties. This reads as follows
States Parties should, whenever possible, first make every effort to clarify and
resolve, through exchange of information and consultations among themselves, any matter
which may cause doubt about compliance with this Convention, or which gives rise to
concerns about a related matter which may be considered ambiguous. A State Party which
receives a request from another State Party for clarification of any matter which the
requesting State Party believes causes such a doubt or concern shall provide the requesting
State Party as soon as possible, but in any case not later than ten days after the request,
with information sufficient to answer the doubt or concern raised along with an explanation
of how the information provided resolves the matter.
(5) The British authorities are denying the Russians consular access to Yulia Skripal,
though she is a Russian citizen who the British authorities say was subjected to a criminal
assault on their territory.
This is a potentially serious matter since by preventing consular access to Yulia Skripal
the British authorities are not only violating the interstate consular arrangements which
exist between Britain and Russia, but they are preventing the Russian authorities from
learning more about the condition of one of their citizens who has been hospitalised
following a violent criminal assault, and are preventing the Russian authorities from
carrying out their own investigation into the assault on one of their citizens which the
British authorities say has taken place.
I would add that this obstruction of Russian consular access to Yulia Skripal has gone
almost entirely unreported in the British and Western media.
The Americans are playing the same game here, and, regrettably, President Trump's overtures
towards repairing this relationship are almost sure to be torn out from under him by the
actions of this virulent group of people. It is quite possible that this is the very reason for
these new sanctions.
The perspective of the American government as one divided, with a rabid force in favor of
continuing to isolate and vilify a great power in the world for no good reason, is sure to have
repercussions. However, given the gradual realignment of Russia and China to be in closer and
closer partnership, and Russia's increasing prominence in Asian and Eastern Hemisphere affairs,
the end result of this behavior is likely to damage the United States and its standing in the
world over the long run.
6. Focused on violence through brownshirt stormtroopers who beat up any who disagreed
7. Had an intelligence service which focused on crushing dissent and spying on its own
people
8. Placed more power in the central government and state then any Nation before it.
All of the above are things proposed or carried out by leftists. It is almost as if the true
parties espoused by people are those who support individualism and those who support
collectivism. Spoiler alert for the Leftist retards: Power corrupts and Absolute power corrupts
absolutely. Your Statist Sanders Utopia will never come to fruition. The "Kind Socialist
Politicians" will sell you out to the elite in a heartbeat.
All you are doing is focusing the
power of your society into one single glass for the Elite to sip as they assfuck you into
oblivion, Death toll of all of these Statist Nations, IE Imperial Japan, Soviet Union,
Communist China, the People's "Republic" of Korea, etc is over 200,000,000 and counting.
How is it that the acronym NAZI Literally has the word SOCIALIST in it and people still
think they were right wing??? Why is this such a hard concept to grasp for the average
individual?
Aug. 9 - Is Pompeo launching a coup against his boss? By kicking in sanctions on Russia -
invoking a 1991 US law on chemical weapons - the US State Department is further poisoning
President Trump's efforts to improve relations with his Russian counterpart. If President Trump
refuses to enforce the sanctions, he will hand a political gift to Democrats who believe their
election fortunes in November rest on endlessly screaming "Russia, Russia, Russia." And what
are these new sanctions all about? The totally unproven, full-of-holes claims that the Russian
government was behind the Skripal "poisoning" in the UK in March. We untangle some of this
madness in today's Liberty Report:
"... "When will you finally stop beating your wife?" ..."
"... "Russia can't admit what it hasn't done. It's as if the US is asking Russia, 'Show us your Yeti' and if you don't we will punish you. There are literally no facilities to even show," ..."
"... "The very way that the conditions of dropping the sanctions are posed by the US –we will abandon them if you confess your sins and repent– is so humiliating and unacceptable that any response will have to be very firm," ..."
"... "Historically, under the current leadership Russia can never do two things. It can never move from officially stated positions on certain international issues and incidents – for example, on Skripal. Russia is not going to turn around and say 'Sorry, we actually did poison him,'" ..."
"... "And secondly, Vladimir Putin will never agree to any unilateral concessions. Any previous offers Moscow has made are always on a quid-pro-quo basis," ..."
"... "This is an attempt to make a statement from the US establishment – to show who is boss in international politics. Over the last two or three years the role of the US as the commander-in-chief of world affairs has been cast into doubt, and Russia has been chosen as the whipping boy as Washington tries to reassert control," ..."
"... "looking strong on Russia" ..."
"... "The people putting these sanctions forward aren't aware of the international consequences. First and foremost, they are driven by a desire to play to their domestic audience, particularly with the midterms coming up. Showing you are not beholden to Russia is a campaign move," ..."
"... "As the saying goes, when you don't know what to do, do what you know. The international situation is such that no side can expect to back down without losses. Everyone knows that sanctions don't work. But it is a simple tool, easy to understand, and one that has been widely used before by the US. It is almost a reflex reaction by now." ..."
"... "It is clear that if it wasn't going to be the Skripals, it would be something else. Sanctions have become a tool in economic and trade wars, and no one is bothering to hide this," ..."
Washington's latest sanctions have left no room for a constructive response from Moscow,
analysts explain, but opinions differ widely on how much the measures will affect relations
between the two countries. All interviewed by RT railed against the framing of the sanctions,
nominally prompted by the alleged use of chemical weapons against the Skripals in the UK back
in March. Russia will be punished with a first set of measures from August 22, and is given 90
days to assure Washington that it will no longer deploy chemical weapons, and to open up its
chemical production facilities to international inspectors.
One problem: Russia denies that it has used chemical weapons in the first place and says
that it had already disposed of its stockpile in accordance with international treaties. So, to
use the proverbial example, the US is asking Russia: "When will you finally stop beating
your wife?"
"Russia can't admit what it hasn't done. It's as if the US is asking Russia, 'Show us
your Yeti' and if you don't we will punish you. There are literally no facilities to even
show," Vladimir Kornilov, a political analyst for RIA news agency, told RT.
"The very way that the conditions of dropping the sanctions are posed by the US
–we will abandon them if you confess your sins and repent– is so humiliating and
unacceptable that any response will have to be very firm," said Andrey Kortunov, Director
General of the Russian International Affairs Council.
Leonid Polyakov, from the Higher School of Economics, says that Washington must be aware
that the Kremlin would never agree to its conditions, so setting them in the first place is a
cheap pretense at diplomacy.
"Historically, under the current leadership Russia can never do two things. It can never
move from officially stated positions on certain international issues and incidents – for
example, on Skripal. Russia is not going to turn around and say 'Sorry, we actually did poison
him,'" he told RT.
"And secondly, Vladimir Putin will never agree to any unilateral concessions. Any
previous offers Moscow has made are always on a quid-pro-quo basis," Polyakov pointed out,
citing the recent offer by the Russian president to allow the questioning of its citizens
involved in alleged election-meddling, but only in exchange for William Browder and others
being interviewed by Moscow's investigators.
US 'showing who's boss' or playing to home
audience?
All three experts agreed that not only will the sanctions be rejected, but they are unlikely
to have any indirect effect on Russia's international policies, or its economic outlook.
Kortunov says this is an attempt to claw back international prestige, particularly in the
wake of the US failure to impose its will in Syria, fraying relations with Europe and China,
and Donald Trump's perceived softness in negotiating with Putin in Helsinki last month.
"This is an attempt to make a statement from the US establishment – to show who is
boss in international politics. Over the last two or three years the role of the US as the
commander-in-chief of world affairs has been cast into doubt, and Russia has been chosen as the
whipping boy as Washington tries to reassert control," Kortunov said.
For Polyakov, this is all about "looking strong on Russia" ahead of October's
mid-term elections.
"The people putting these sanctions forward aren't aware of the international
consequences. First and foremost, they are driven by a desire to play to their domestic
audience, particularly with the midterms coming up. Showing you are not beholden to Russia is a
campaign move," he said to RT.
The professor of political science adds that a lack of ideas over how to corral a feisty
Russia is pushing American officials to press the sanctions button again and again.
"As the saying goes, when you don't know what to do, do what you know. The international
situation is such that no side can expect to back down without losses. Everyone knows that
sanctions don't work. But it is a simple tool, easy to understand, and one that has been widely
used before by the US. It is almost a reflex reaction by now."
Yet Kornilov believes that sanctions are not just a shield for a beleaguered establishment,
but an offensive weapon.
"It is clear that if it wasn't going to be the Skripals, it would be something else.
Sanctions have become a tool in economic and trade wars, and no one is bothering to hide
this," he said.
Can things get worse?
Since hostility between Moscow and Washington is at a post-war high as it is, Polyakov
believes it will be impractical for the two nuclear powers to escalate tensions still further,
beyond the headlines.
A new excerpt
from a book by
C.J. Chivers, a former U.S. infantry captain and New York Times war correspondent,
tells the story of a young man from New York City who joined the U.S. army and was send to the
Korengal Valley in Afghanistan. While the man, one Robert Soto, makes it out alive, several of
his comrades and many Afghans die during his time in Afghanistan to no avail.
The piece includes remarkably strong words about the strategic (in)abilities of U.S.
politicians, high ranking officers and pundits:
On one matter there can be no argument: The policies that sent these men and women abroad,
with their emphasis on military action and their visions of reordering nations and cultures,
have not succeeded. It is beyond honest dispute that the wars did not achieve what their
organizers promised, no matter the party in power or the generals in command. Astonishingly
expensive, strategically incoherent, sold by a shifting slate of senior officers and
politicians and editorial-page hawks, the wars have continued in varied forms and under
different rationales each and every year since passenger jets struck the World Trade Center
in 2001. They continue today without an end in sight, reauthorized in Pentagon budgets almost
as if distant war is a presumed government action.
That description is right but it does not touche the underlying causes. The story of the
attempted U.S. occupation of the Korengal valley, which Civers again describes, has been the
theme of several books and movies. It demonstrates the futility of fighting a population that
does not welcome occupiers. But most of the authors, including Chivers, get one fact wrong. The
war with the people of the Korengal valley was started out of shear stupidity and
ignorance.
The main military outpost in the valley was build on a former sawmill. Chivers writes:
On a social level, it could not have been much worse. It was an unforced error of occupation,
a set of foreign military bunkers built on the grounds of a sawmill and lumber yard formerly
operated by Haji Mateen, a local timber baron. The American foothold put some of the valley's
toughest men out of work, the same Afghans who knew the mountain trails. Haji Mateen now
commanded many of the valley's fighters, under the banner of the Taliban.
Unfortunately Chivers does not explain why the saw mill was closed. Ten years ago a piece by
Elizabeth Rubin touched on this:
As the Afghans tell the story, from the moment the Americans arrived in 2001, the Pech Valley
timber lords and warlords had their ear. Early on, they led the Americans to drop bombs on
the mansion of their biggest rival -- Haji Matin. The air strikes killed several members of
his family, according to local residents, and the Americans arrested others and sent them to
the prison at Bagram Air Base. The Pech Valley fighters working alongside the Americans then
pillaged the mansion. And that was that. Haji Matin, already deeply religious, became
ideological and joined with Abu Ikhlas, a local Arab linked to the foreign jihadis.
Years before October 2004, before regular U.S. soldiers came into the Korengal valley, U.S.
special forces combed through the region looking for 'al-Qaeda'. They made friends with a
timber baron in Pech valley, a Pashtun of the Safi tribe, who claimed that his main competitor
in the (illegal) timber trade who lived in the nearby Korengal river valley was a Taliban and
'al-Qaeda'. That was not true. Haji Matin was a member of a Nuristani tribe that spoke
Pashai . These were a
distinct people with their own language who
were and are traditional hostile to any centralized government (pdf), even to the Taliban's
Islamic Emirate.
The U.S. special forces lacked any knowledge of the local society. But even worse was that
they lacked the curiosity to research and investigate the social terrain. They simply trusted
their new 'friend', the smooth talking Pashtun timber baron, and called in jets to destroy his
competitor's sawmill and home. This started a local war of attrition which defeated the U.S.
military. In 2010 the U.S. military, having achieved nothing, retreated from Korengal. (The
sawmill episode was described in detail in a 2005(?) blog post by a former special force
soldier who took part in it. It since seems to have been removed from the web.)
Back to Chivers' otherwise well written piece. He looks at the results two recent (and
ongoing) U.S. wars:
The governments of Afghanistan and Iraq, each of which the United States spent hundreds of
billions of dollars to build and support, are fragile, brutal and uncertain. The nations they
struggle to rule harbor large contingents of irregular fighters and terrorists who have been
hardened and made savvy, trained by the experience of fighting the American military
machine.
...
Billions of dollars spent creating security partners also deputized pedophiles, torturers and
thieves. National police or army units that the Pentagon proclaimed essential to their
countries' futures have disbanded. The Islamic State has sponsored or encouraged terrorist
attacks across much of the world -- exactly the species of crime the global "war on terror"
was supposed to prevent.
The wars fail because they no reasonable strategic aim or achievable purpose. They are
planned by incompetent people. The most recent Pentagon ideas for the U.S. war on Afghanistan
depend on less restricted bombing rules. Yesterday one predictable and self defeating
consequence
was again visible:
An American airstrike killed at least a dozen Afghan security forces during intense fighting
with the Taliban near the Afghan capital, officials said Tuesday.
...
Shamshad Larawi, a spokesman for the governor, said that American airstrikes had been called
in for support, but that because of a misunderstanding, the planes mistakenly targeted an
Afghan police outpost.
...
Haji Abdul Satar, a tribal elder from Azra, said he counted 19 dead, among them 17 Afghan
police officers and pro-government militia members and two civilians.
...
In the first six months of this year, United States forces dropped nearly 3,000 bombs across
Afghanistan, nearly double the number for the same period last year and more than five times
the number for the first half of 2016. ... Civilian casualties from aerial bombardments have
increased considerably as a result, the United Nations says.
One argument made by the Pentagon generals when they pushed Trump to allow more airstrikes
was that these would cripple the Taliban's alleged opium trade and its financial resources.
But, as the Wall Street Journalreports
, that plan, like all others before it, did not work at all:
Nine months of targeted airstrikes on opium production sites across Afghanistan have failed
to put a significant dent in the illegal drug trade that provides the Taliban with hundreds
of millions of dollars, according to figures provided by the U.S. military.
...
So far, the air campaign has wiped out about $46 million in Taliban revenue, less than a
quarter of the money the U.S. estimates the insurgents get from the illegal drug trade. U.S.
military officials estimate the drug trade provides the Taliban with 60% of its revenue.
...
Poppy production hit record highs in Afghanistan last year , where they are the country's
largest cash crop, valued at between $1.5 billion and $3 billion.
More than 200 airstrikes on "drug-related targets" have hardly made a dent in the Taliban's
war chest. The military war planners again failed.
At the end of the Chivers piece its protagonist, Robert Soto, rightfully vents about the
unaccountability of such military 'leaders':
Still he wondered: Was there no accountability for the senior officer class? The war was
turning 17, and the services and the Pentagon seemed to have been given passes on all the
failures and the drift. Even if the Taliban were to sign a peace deal tomorrow, there would
be no rousing sense of victory, no parade. In Iraq, the Islamic State metastasized in the
wreckage of the war to spread terror around the world. The human costs were past counting,
and the whitewash was both institutional and personal, extended to one general after another,
including many of the same officers whose plans and orders had either fizzled or failed to
create lasting success, and yet who kept rising . Soto watched some of them as they were
revered and celebrated in Washington and by members of the press, even after past plans were
discredited and enemies retrenched.
Since World War II, during which the Soviets, not the U.S., defeated the Nazis, the U.S. won
no war. The only exception is the turkey shooting of the first Gulf war. But even that war
failed in its larger political aim of dethroning Saddam Hussein.
The U.S. population and its 'leaders' simply know too little about the world to prevail in
an international military campaign. They lack curiosity. The origin of the Korengal failure is
a good example for that.
U.S. wars
are rackets , run on the back of lowly soldiers and foreign civil populations. They enriche
few at the cost of everyone else.
Wars should not be 'a presumed government action', but the last resort to defend ones
country. We should do our utmost to end all of them.
you know, it is just as easy to influence a foreign society by making movies (Bollywood in
this case) with a certain bent, the one you want people to follow. After a few years of
seeing the Taliban as villains, there would be no fresh recruits and mass desertion. But, the
weapons manufacturers wouldn't be making their enormous profits. This same effect can be seen
in American society, where the movies coming out of Hollywood started becoming very
aggressive in tone around the time that Ronald Reagan became president. Movies went from The
Deer Hunter to Rambo and Wall Street. Is it any wonder that even the progressive Left in the
USA thinks it is ok to attack their political adversaries and that violence is justified?
This is the power of movies and the media.
Thank you 'b' this post as always is a true in depth education !
If you run for president of the United States of America enytime soon you'v got my vote !
bjd @1 highlights an important truth similar to that exposed by Joseph Heller in
Cache-22 and by Hudson's Balance-of-Payments revelation he revealed yet again
at
this link I posted yesterday . Most know the aggressive war against Afghanistan was
already planned and on the schedule prior to 911 and would have occurred regardless since
after Serbia the Outlaw US Empire felt it could do and get away with anything. 911 simply
provided BushCo with Carte-Blache, but it wasn't enough of a window to fulfill their desired
destruction of 7 nations in 5 years for their Zionist Patron.
IMO, as part of its plan to control the Heartland, those running the Outlaw US Empire
never had any plan to leave Afghanistan; rather once there, they'd stay and occupy it just as
the Empire's done everywhere since WW2. The Empire's very much like a leech; its occupations
are parasitic as Hudson demonstrated, and work at the behest of corporate interests as Smedly
Butler so eloquently illustrated.
As with Vietnam, the only way to get NATO forces to leave is for Afghanis to force them
out with their rifles. Hopefully, they will be assisted by SCO nations and Afghanistan will
cease being a broken nation by 2030.
The Wall Street Journal article on the Taliban's ties to the local drug trade also the
reveals deliberate omission practiced by the MSM, which keeps its readers actively
misinformed. Estimating illegal drug revenues contribute as much as $200 million to the
Taliban, the article fails to put that in proper context: that figure represents merely
7%-13% of total production receipts (estimated at 1.5 to 3 billion dollars). Most informed
persons know exactly who reaps the rewards of more than 80% of the Afghan drug products, and
why this much larger effort is not the focus of "targeted airstrikes."
1. "The wars fail because they no reasonable strategic aim or achievable purpose........
Since World War II, during which the Soviets, not the U.S., defeated the Nazis, the U.S. won
no war. The only exception is the turkey shooting of the first Gulf war."
2 "U.S. wars are rackets, run on the back of lowly soldiers and foreign civil populations.
They enriche few at the cost of everyone else"
Your points in 1 ignore the reality expressed by 2. The real strategic aims and purposes
are not those provided for public consumption. Winning wars is not the objective, the length
and cost of wars is far more important than results. Enriching and empowering the few over
the many is the entire point of it all
And lets put an end to "US " responsibility for all evils. Its a shared responsibility.
None of this is possible without the cooperation of Uk and its commonwealth nations, EU,
Japan and the various international organizations that allow the dollar to be weaponized such
as IMF/World Bank and BIS not to mention the various tax havens which support covert
operations and looting of assets obtained in these wars (military or economic).
Until the rest of the world is prepared to do something about it they are willing
accomplices in all of this.
The global elites are globalists, they dont think in national terms. Its a global elitist
cabal at work that is hiding behind the cover of US hegemony.
karlof1 @ 4 said:"The Empire's very much like a leech; its occupations are parasitic as
Hudson demonstrated, and work at the behest of corporate interests as Smedly Butler so
eloquently illustrated."
You bet.. The operative words being " work at the behest of corporate interests "
And so it goes around the globe. Question is; How to get this information to the herded
bovines the general public has become?
Without a major network to disseminate such info, we're all just spinning our wheels. Oh,
but, the therapy is good..
Very interesting stories - especially re: the timber mill warlord competition.
Defoliants are still used in warfare - especially "by accident". Carpet bombing is still
legal. If NATO wanted to wipe out the poppies, it surely could do so.
Pft at 6, reminded me of this zinger:
The nation state as a fundamental unit of man's organized life has ceased to be the
principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and
planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state. -
The Brzez
jayc @5 implies it, and I'll say it more directly: US soldiers guard poppy fields in
Afghanistan. I'm also reminded of Alfred C McCoy's famous 1972 work The Politics of Heroin in
Southeast Asia.
The nation state as a fundamental unit of man's organized life has ceased to be the principal
creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in
terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation-state. - The Brzez
Posted by: fast freddy | Aug 8, 2018 6:18:02 PM | 9
This gem hides a deep truth. One has to replace "creative" and "far in advance", instead,
we have power relationships. And those power relationships resemble central planning of the
Communist states, concept that is attractive in abstraction, but centralization cannot cope
with complexities of societies and economies, in part because the central institutions are
inevitably beset by negative selection: people rise due to their adroit infighting skills
rather than superior understanding of what those institutions are supposed to control.
Ultimately, this proces leads to decay and fall. "Nation states" themselves are not immune to
such cycles and are at different stages of the cycle creative-decadent-falling. However,
international finance lacks observable "refreshing" mechanisms of nation states.
War as always is financial racket, $trillion stolen, MIC thrives, took over with CIA all
prerogatives of power and has million agents in US alone in every institution government and
corporate.
I call it success of ruling elite. B war would stop tomorrow if it was unsuccessful read
unprofitable for those who wage it. Nazi death camps were most profitable enterprises in
third Reich.
For some reason, when the US wars are admitted to be civil wars, no one questions whose side
did the US take until it is too late and so very few tune in. Incompetence is the excuse. It
reminds me of that adage to not blame on malice that which can be explained by stupidity but
stupidity has been used to excuse a lot of malice. It's one reason why "military
intelligence" resides at the top of oxymorons along with "congressional ethics" and
"humanitarian intervention."
It is amazing to think that the US has been in Afghanistan for 17 years and supposedly
knows where the opium and its processors are and yet could not take it out. (The pix of
soldiers patrolling poppy fields is rich.) The initial excuse years ago was that the US
needed to support the warlords who grew/sold it. What is the excuse now? Incompetence,
corruption, laziness?
The US likes the idea of opium products going into Iran and Russia ... who have protested
to no avail. A bit of indirect subversion.
The US likes opium products going into the US. It makes for broken citizens who lack zeal for
knowledge, and therefore, comprehension; and the will to organize against the PTB.
Importantly, being illegal, opiate use feeds the pigs who own the prison-industrial complex.
Given the current, longstanding dynamics within the Outlaw US Empire, I don't see any
possibility of the required reforms ever having an opportunity to get enacted. The
situation's very similar to Nazi Germany's internal dynamic--the coercive forces of the State
and its allies will not allow any diminution of their power. Within the Empire, thousands of
Hydra heads would need to be rapidly severed for any revolt to succeed, and that requires a
large, easily infiltrated organization to accomplish. Invasion by an allied group of nations
invites a nuclear holocaust I can't condone. I think the best the world can do is force the
Empire to retreat from its 800+ bases and sequester it behind the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans
until it self-destructs or drastically reforms itself--Containment. But for that to work,
almost every comprador government would need to be changed and their personages imprisoned,
exiled or executed--another close to impossible task. Ideally, the ballot box would
work--ideally--but that requires deeply informed voters and highly idealistic, strongly
principled, creative, and fearless candidates, along with an honest media.
Yeah, writing can be good therapy. But I'm no more cheery than when I began. Must be time
for intoxicants.
The world does not need to force the Evil Empire to retreat from its 1,000 (and counting)
military bases around the planet.
All the world needs to do is trade with Iran, Venezuela or some other outsider nation. The
Evil Empire will be so busy trying to punish everyone who trades with these countries by
extending sanctions against the outsiders to their trading partners that the Empire
effectively ends up having sanctioned everyone away and it becomes the victim of its
sanctioning.
The 1,000+ military bases around the globe are then effectively on their own and the
soldiers and administrators inside can either stay there and starve, throw in their lot with
the host nation's citizenry or beg to be allowed to return home.
thanks b... as long as the americans support the troops, lol - all will be well apparently...
jesus.. meanwhile - the support for the 1% bomb makers and etc continues... maybe it is the
mutual fund money that folks are concerned about maintaining..
"In the first six months of this year, United States forces dropped nearly 3,000 bombs
across Afghanistan." what is that? about 17 or 18 bombs a day or something? what about the
drones? they have to be put to use too... best to get someone who is involved in their own
turf war in afgan to give out the targets.. brilliant... usa war planning is mostly destroy
and destroy and honour the troops and wave their stupid american flag and that is about it...
sorry, but that is what it looks like to me..
its not so much they want to end the war on terror or the war on drugs.........they just want
to say one thing to cover their asses and do another thing completely..
no matter what there should of been one general who got it right.....but we see it was
never about peace .... it was always about war and its profits. anyone who didn't take orders
or even had a hint of the right strategy would be Hung like dirty boots to dry.
what is the right strategy? leave. just as other empires did. before you call on your
faces
to be even more frank....its not even about the money as that is not as important than
having a nation of 300m regurgitate the news that they are there for 17 years to be the
police of the world. because USA are the good ones... that they need to buy the biggest
trucks which can't even fit in normal parking spaces because they have land mines(I mean
ieds...) to avoid and need to haul 5tons of cargo to their construction job all while
watching out for terrorists and trump Hillary divisions. is disorienting and it is
deliberate. just as having a war last without a reason is deliberate while they entertain the
masses with games..
@23dh... same deal here in canuckle head ville... people remain ignorant of what there money
is ''''invested'''' in... could be saudi arabia for all the canucks think... btw - thanks for
the laugh on the other thread... you made a couple of good jokes somewhere the past few days!
i don't have much free time to comment at the moment..
McCoy, in "The Politics of Heroin" gives a more complete picture:
In 1996, following four years of civil war among rival resistance factions, the Taliban's
victory caused further expansion of opium cultivation. After capturing Kabul in September,
the Taliban drove the Uzbek and Tajik warlords into the country's northeast, where they
formed the Northern Alliance and clung to some 10 percent of Afghanistan's territory. Over
the next three years, a seesaw battle for the Shamali plain north of Kabul raged until the
Taliban finally won control in 1999 by destroying the orchards and irrigation in a prime
food-producing region, generating over 100,000 refugees and increasing the country's
dependence on opium.
Once in power, the Taliban made opium its largest source of taxation. To raise revenues
estimated at $20-$25 million in 1997, the Taliban collected a 5 to 10 percent tax in kind on
all opium harvested, a share that they then sold to heroin laboratories; a flat tax of $70
per kilogram on heroin refiners; and a transport tax of $250 on every kilogram exported. The
head of the regime's anti-drug operations in Kandahar, Abdul Rashid, enforced a rigid ban on
hashish "because it is consumed by Afghans, Muslims." But, he explained, "Opium is
permissible because it is consumed by kafirs [unbelievers] in the West and not by Muslims or
Afghans." A Taliban governor, Mohammed Hassan, added: "Drugs are evil and we would like to
substitute poppies with another cash crop, but it's not possible at the moment because we do
not have international recognition."
More broadly, the Taliban's policies provided stimulus, both direct and indirect, for a
nationwide expansion of opium cultivation. . . Significantly, the regime's ban on the
employment and education of women created a vast pool of low-cost labor to sustain an
accelerated expansion of opium production. . . . In northern and eastern Afghanistan, women
of all ages played " a fundamental role in the cultivation of the opium poppy"---planting,
weeding, harvesting, cooking for laborers, and processing by-products such as oil. The
Taliban not only taxed and encouraged opium cultivation, they protected and promoted exports
to international markets.
In retrospect, however, the Taliban's most important contribution to the illicit traffic
was its support for large-scale heroin refining.
. . .
Instead of eradication, the UN's annual opium surveys showed that Taliban rule had doubled
Afghanistan's opium production from 2,250 tons in 1996 to 4,600 tons in 1999--equivalent to
75 percent of world illicit production. (508-509)
. . .
War on the Taliban
All this [heroin] traffic across Central Asia depended on high-volume heroin production in
politically volatile Afghanistan. In July 2000, as a devastating drought entered its second
year and mass starvation spread across Afghanistan, the Taliban's leader Mullah Omar ordered
a sudden ban on opium cultivation in a bid for international recognition. (p.517)
B's article assumes that the operative purpose of the US military is to win wars. This isn't
the case. The US military largely a business enterprise whose objective is to make money for
the plutocracy that largely controls them. That being the case, the Afghanistan war has been
a great success. If the US 'won' it, it would cease; if the Taliban conquered, it would
cease. In this form of military stagnation it continues, and the money roles in making the
ammunition, equipment, etc.
The military budget is largely an institution for transferring the tax money of the
population from the people to the plutocracy. Military stagnation serves this purpose better
than winning or losing.
If there is one standout factor which makes makes all this profitable mayhem possible then
it's the successful campaign by the Elites to persuade the Public that Secrecy is a
legitimate variation of Privacy.
It is not.
Impregnable Government Secrecy is ALWAYS a cover for erroneous interpretations of an
inconvenient Law - or straight-out cover for criminal activity.
It's preposterous to believe that a government elected by The People has a legitimate right
to create schemes which must be kept Secret from The People.
This is especially true in the case of Military/Defense. There wouldn't be a CIC on earth who
doesn't have up-to-date and regularly updated info on the hardware and capabilities of every
ally and every potential foe. The People have a legitimate right to know what the CIC, and
the rest of the world, already knows.
And that's just the most glaring example of the childish deception being perpetrated in
the name of Secrecy. If governments were to be stripped of the power to conduct Our affairs
in Secret then the scrutiny would oblige them to behave more competently. And we could weed
out the drones and nitwits before they did too much damage.
@30 Right. I notice they avoid mentioning the Badawis who are central to the issue. I guess
helping Justin out isn't very high on Donald's list of priorities.
i forget who said it and the exact phrasing, but the best explanation i've seen is
"why is the US there? it answers itself: to be there".
vast opium money for the deep state vermin.
profits for the bomb makers (you know, the respectable corporate ones as opposed to the
quaint do-it-yourselfers).
lithium deposits that probably rival those in bolivia as well as other untapped
profitable resources (probably, anyway; i could see oil and gas coming out of those ancient
valleys).
it's also an occupation as opposed to a "win and get out" war. these military welfare
queens think they can win a staring contest with the descendants of people who bitchslapped
every would-be conqueror since alexander the great. ask the russians how well that went for
them.
the west supports israel's 70+ years of colonizing palestine (plus the 3 or 4 decades of
dumbness before it with balfour and such) and still has troops in south goddamn korea. as
long as the tap flows they'll keep drinking that sweet tasty tax welfare.
1. Iraq is run by a pro-Iran Shite government that tolerates the US occupation due to the
money provided. Before the USA attacks Iran, it should remove all its 10,000 troops and
10,000 civilians and close its massive embassy there and write that country off. Otherwise,
we'll have thousands of American POWs. Meanwhile, the Kurds will get crushed as the Turks and
Iraqis use the chaos to destroy them.
2. The oil-rich British puppet state of Kuwait is hated by all Iraqis and Iranians. If the
USA attacks Iran, one should expect Iranian and maybe Iraqi units crossing the border, while
Kuwait's army flees as expected. The USA keeps an army brigade there, but that may not be
enough to fend off an invasion, even with air superiority.
3. In past wars, civilian oil tankers did not sail through the straits. The insurers
(mostly Lloyds of London) and others announced they would not cover losses, and unionize ship
crews refused to enter the war zone. So even if the USA keeps the straits open, all that oil
will not flow forth.
4. Iran has a fortified island in the Gulf whose guns cannot be silenced with just air
power. A major amphibious landing is required to clear that island, and it will be bloody.
Note the ship channels in the map. Supertankers are huge, so while the Straits of Hormuz are
large, these big ships can only pass thru these two narrow channels, which are easily
blocked. Iran could park its own tankers in these channels to block them and hope the USA
foolishly sinks them, thus really blocking the entire channel.
These four issues are of more importance than air battles over Iran.
"... A good hypothesis is, that Olof Palme was assassinated by a US stay-behind group, consisting of Nazi military and police. ..."
"... I think VG is quite correct in this: it was a test. And the test was of the neocon/humanitarian intervention marriage. Yes, the USA has doe a lot of this sort of thing in its history, but there has always been some opposition inside the USA. This time, they figured it out and "humanitarian bombing" was born. We have seen a lot more humanitarian bombing since. ..."
"... It was Gore, in consultation with Hillary Clinton, who decided to launch the criminal bombing of Serbia, informing PM Primakov after taking a phone call meant for the president. ..."
"... By launching an illegal attack on Russia's ally, the VP and the future Sec. of State, were offering a foreshadowing of the hawkish and belligerent anti-Russian policy that was to follow for the next 17 years. ..."
"... Western populations for the most part are so thoroughly brainwashed they still cling to the belief they live in civilized countries and their militaries keep them safe from barbarians. ..."
"... Gary I agree whole heartedly with every word you wrote. I would add to how intriguing it would be to learn of the high deception played during the passage of the Federal Reserve back in 1913. Then I'd push out of the way those who blocked Claude Pepper from endorsing Henry Wallace into the 1944 Democratic Convention. This alone may have changed the course of the establishment of the CIA, and avoided the disaster that is happening in Palestine to this day. ..."
"... I do believe the assassination era was the biggest turning point, as it sent a strong message to the would be seekers of sane government policies who would incur such tragedy if explored. Joe ..."
"... I believe there are many questions that need answering about NATO. For instance: July 14, 2018 The Diabolical "Work" of NATO and Its Allies: Why Are These War Criminals Still Free? ..."
By Vladimir Golstein in Belgrade Special to Consortium News
Right across the street from my hotel,
tucked behind tall office buildings, is the rather large Church of St. Mark. Hidden in St.
Mark's shadows is a tiny Russian Orthodox church. The Church of the Holy Trinity, known simply
as the Russian Church, is famous for holding the remains of Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel ,
the Russian Civil War leader of the Whites. It is hard to find, but luckily, a friend took me
there.
As we were looking around the church, not particularly interested in Wrangel, a couple of
Russians asked me to take their picture in front of his tomb. Trying to find a proper angle for
the picture, I noticed a small plaque on a wall nearby. It listed the names of Russians who
died fighting for Yugoslav Serbs during the conflict with separatist Albanians in Kosovo and
the subsequent NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in
1999.
As we left the church, we took a small path toward the top of the park. There we observed
another brutal sign of that war: a destroyed building next to the TV center. It too had a
plaque. It screamed, " Zashto " (For What? Why?). Below it were the names of all the TV
people NATO killed during that attack. In all, as many as 2,500 civilians may have been killed
by NATO, according to the then Yugoslav government, though the real number may never
be known.
On the one hand, the question Zashto is both idle and provocative. It implies a
laceration of wounds, a refusal to forget and to start anew. On the other, there is an obvious
need to find an answer to this question simply to prevent future destruction and senseless
murders.
We won't find answers to this question in the official narratives, which tell us that the
noble Clinton administration decided to stop flagrant violations of human rights in the
extremely complex situation in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo by bombing
the Serbs into respecting minorities both on its own and on neighboring territories. (In fact
the large exodus of Kosovo Albanians to Albania proper only began after NATO bombs started to
fall.)
Testing the Limits
Russians who died fighting for Yugoslavia. (Photo by Vladimir Golstein)
Behind these official stories, a much sadder picture emerges. Why did these people die? Why
did this NATO operation go ahead without UN Security Council authorization
nor proof of self-defense, requirements of the UN Charter? Was it to satisfy the lust for power
of U.S. and NATO leaders, of liberal interventionists like Madeleine Albright, Bill Clinton,
and Susan Rice? To assuage the Clinton administration's guilt over its failure to respond to the 1994 genocide
in Rwanda? Was it to set up America's largest military base in Europe since the
Vietnam War, Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo? For American access to Kosovo's vast mineral wealth and
other business opportunities, including for
Ms. Albright ? Or was it to finally kill off a rather successful Yugoslav experiment in the
"third way" between the West and the Soviet Union?
It seems these people had to die for all those reasons and to put into practice the
doctrines of responsibility to protect ( R2P ) and
full spectrum dominance , doctrines cooked up by liberal interventionists and neocons in
Washington. Those who died were essentially guinea pigs of a New World Order experiment to see
how far the world could be pushed to implement R2P, a policy that could be used to mask
imperial ambitions.
And it worked. Yugoslavia was unable to stand up to the power of NATO operating outside the
mandate of its obsolete charter: namely to defend Western Europe against an alleged Soviet
threat. Indeed one could argue that with the Cold War over, another motive for the attack on
Yugoslavia was to provide NATO with a justification to exist. (It would later go even further
afield outside its legal theater of operation, into Afghanistan and then Libya.)
Russia could do little to help the Serbs. Then the Chinese Embassy was hit
as well, as a test it seems, though The New York Timessaid
it was a mistake. The Chinese did nothing.
Thus was R2P implemented -- with no protection for Yugoslav Serbs. They had to die in the
experiment to explore the limits of U.S. power and the limits of its resistance.
If my memory serves me correctly, President Bill Clinton had set up a summit meeting with
Russian President Yevgeny Primakov here in the USA. Primakov was in flight on his way here
for that summit meeting when President of Vice, Al Gore, without Clinton's permission or
knowledge, called Primakov, in flight, to tell him NATO had decided to bomb Kosovo. Primakov immediately ordered his plane to
turn around and return to Russia, thus cancelling the summit meeting...
Aurora , August 7, 2018 at 8:55 pm
In Russia that is known as "The Primakov Loop."
rosemerry , August 6, 2018 at 3:57 pm
Thanks Vladimir. The Serbs are demonized by so many, especially the Germans-many believe
it was because they fought so valiantly against the Nazis in WW2. Diana Johnstone has written
"Fools' Crusade- Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions", and Michel Collon "Media Lies and
the Conquest of Kosovo", but books with this point of view are not readily publicised. Nor is
the fact that after his death (no trial had yet taken place) Slobodan Milosovic was finally
found nOT to have been responsible for all the murderous acts he was accused/assumed to be
responsible for.
We can note now of course the Russian reaction to the "annexation of Crimea" after a
referendum, no bloodshed and the referendum also of Russians all over the Federation, while
Kosovo was ripped from Serbia by trickery and not consent, and we see how it is now. Russia
is sanctioned, the people who overthrew the Ukrainian government are not mentioned, Crimea is
not allowed to return to Russia. Slight difference from the "nation" of Kososvo!
Thomas Binder , August 6, 2018 at 6:35 am
The war against #Serbia under #R2P was the #MilitaryIndustrialFinancialMedialComplex'es
ruling the #USA/#NATO/#ISR/#SAU empire (#PNAC's) test for eternal war against #AlQaeda
outside international law & interference of #USLegislators for getting full-spectrum
dominance.
Jackson , August 5, 2018 at 2:21 pm
NATO should have been disbanded after the fall of the Soviets. When you arm people and
train them to kill, they will look for an enemy to fight. War becomes inevitable.
jose , August 5, 2018 at 6:00 pm
It is hard to disagree with your post. Nato, disgracefully, has become a terrorist
organization that has dedicated itself to be the paw of the western elite. Shamefully, other
countries have joined Yugoslavia as victims of Nato criminality. Well done Jackson.
Björn Lindgren , August 5, 2018 at 7:25 am
FOR REASON OF STATE, FOR REASON OF INTEREST
There might be still more reasons for the destruction of Yugoslavia.
Germany had put its mind into destabilizing Yugoslavia to get a "Hinterland". Added to
this, a revenge motive: Nazi Germany occupation of Yugoslavia failed, and this has never been
forgotten. And lastly, Yugoslavia was a member of the non-alignment movement, not obeying
US-NATO.
And, of course, after the collapse of the Warsaw pact, NATO had no enemy, no purpose.
But, it invented one: full US spectrum global dominance.
Sweden has also been punished to obey the US.
During the years of PM Olof Palme, Sweden was also a member of the non-alignment movement.
Palme was educated in and friendly to the US, but critized the US war in Vietnam. (Nixon
hated Palme, and withdraw the US diplomats from Sweden).
1992 foreign submarines penetrated Swedish waters repeatedly.
The submarine incident at Hårsfjärden, a marine base, was not made by Russia,
but was made by US and British submarines. Afterwards, both Caspar Weinberger and Sir Keith
Speed confirmed this. Weinberger even thanked Sweden for not blowing up the US mini-sub
(which we could have done. (Read, "Hårsfjärden. Det hemliga ubåtskriget mot
Sverige," by Ola Tunander).
Purpose: pushing Sweden westward.
Already in the mid 50s, William Colby, later head of the CIA, was in Sweden organizing
stay-behind groups, recruting Swedish voluntary ex-soldiers from the Finnish wars against
Soviet Union. In the 50-s these people were organized in "Sveaborg", a Nazi group.
A good hypothesis is, that Olof Palme was assassinated by a US stay-behind group,
consisting of Nazi military and police.
Which, of course, had to be stonewalled "for reason of state". Today, Sweden is "cooperating" shamelessly with NATO, invite, and have excersices with
NATO. This week, the Swedish government annonced that it will purchase US "Patriot"
anti-missiles with "ballistic capability" (Hey, hey!).
Supporting the insane belligerent US and UK nuclear armament (for a nuclear first-strike?)
against neoliberal, oligarchic Russia, which is planning to keep up in the race towards the
abyss. That is, Sweden is now d e f a c t o a member of NATO, without the Swedish people or
parliament have had a say. NATO which eventually is falling apart, and with a lunatic US
president and his military government in the White House, in a US empire collapsing. The peace aspirations of Sweden are long forgotten. And so, is the Helsinki Conference and
agreement (1975-1983) for common security, disarmamanet , and a nuclear-free zone in
Europe.
The question is if Germany, France, UK (with Corbyn in 10 Downing) and Russia will
organize a new Helsinki Conference and Agreement?
Maybe, "for reasons of interest".
--
rosemerry , August 6, 2018 at 4:01 pm
Thanks so much for this comprehensive addition to the discussion. Sweden indeed has been
placed in an invidious position.
Pretending that NATO has any purpose even vaguely related to peace is laughable.
David G , August 6, 2018 at 6:01 pm
Great comment, Björn Lindgren. Many thanks.
The withering away of Swedish neutrality into an empty formality has become so obvious,
but never remarked upon in the U.S. I'm sure most cable TV talking heads just assume Sweden
is in NATO – indeed, I've heard the error made, albeit corrected after the next
commercial break.
I appreciate reading your committed, highly informed perspective. Maybe you could submit
an article on this under-reported subject to Consortium News?
Excellent article in the eve of 20th anniversary of NATO aggression on Yugoslavia which
will be marked by Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals, March 23, 24rth, 2019.
NATO 1999 aggression was meant to be precedent and turning point in global conduct toward
globalization of military interventionism (Avganistan, Iraq, Libya, etc.). Willy Wimmer wrote
to Schoerder on May 2nd, 2000, USA position: "The war against Yugoslavia was conducted in
order to correct the mistake of General Eisenhower from the 2ndWW. Subsequently, for
strategic reasons, USA troops had to be stationed there ". And: "It is clear that it is the
precedent to be recalled any time" The Bondstil base in Kosovo was only the first in the
ensuing chain of new USA bases in Bulgaria (4), Rumania (4), Albania (2), Baltic states
I think VG is quite correct in this: it was a test. And the test was of the
neocon/humanitarian intervention marriage. Yes, the USA has doe a lot of this sort of thing
in its history, but there has always been some opposition inside the USA. This time, they
figured it out and "humanitarian bombing" was born. We have seen a lot more humanitarian
bombing since.
Branko Mikasinovich , August 4, 2018 at 4:45 pm
A great and truthful article about Western Policy, NATO and US. A courageous and
informative analysis of Mr. Golstein. Thank you.
ToivoS , August 4, 2018 at 1:18 pm
Goldstein writes Russia could do little to help the Serbs. Then the Chinese Embassy was
hit as well, as a test it seems, though The New York Times said it was a mistake. The Chinese
did nothing.
Actually the Chinese did do something. They changed their attitude towards the US. I have
yet to meet a Chinese national who believes that the embassy hit was a "mistake". They and
their government view it as a deliberate attack on their sovereignty. But they realized they
were not in a position respond so they then began military planning for possible conflict
between China and the US Navy in the Western Pacific. In 2000 they started a 10 plan to
achieve the ability to sink any US aircraft carrier within a 1000 km of their shores. We
won't know if they have achieved that ability until a real test is conducted. But that is the
something they have done.
FB , August 8, 2018 at 9:24 am
Good point Toivos The Chinese have never forgotten the Belgrade embassy bombing and they
never will. Ask any Chinese today, even those living in the West the Chinese are an ancient people
with a long and proud memory the embassy bombing was a step too far. All of these hubristic missteps will come back to haunt the empire
Theo , August 4, 2018 at 10:51 am
I remember well the NATO bombings of Yugoslavia under the pretext to stop the genocide
that was allegedly committed by the Serbs. The saddest thing for me was that Germany was
participating in the bombing campaign. My father who was in Yugoslavia as a Wehrmacht soldier
was outraged as were many others. After almost sixty years German bombers were over Serbia
again. My dad used to say German soldiers on foreign soil had never been good neither for the
foreign country nor for Germany. That's why until today the Germans have an aversion to all
military and the deployment of German soldiers in foreign countries is not very popular.
David G , August 4, 2018 at 11:16 am
The 1999 air attacks were the coup de grace, but I think Germany had the (dis)honor of
leading the vivisection of Yugoslavia from the start.
As Vladimir Golstein rhetorically asks: "Or was it to finally kill off a rather successful
Yugoslav experiment in the 'third way' between the West and the Soviet Union?"
Indeed it was, and that surely appealed to all the Western powers. But Germany was
particularly interested in removing a possible continental rival, and took the lead in making
sure it happened – not at all to absolve the U.S., under whose aegis it was ultimately
operating.
Antiwar7 , August 4, 2018 at 11:42 am
The German people and the German government are different. The German government has had
an anti-Serb animus for over 150 years: that's clear. But the German people, as Theo's dad
shows, can be very nice. My father was a POW in Germany for 4 years during WWII, and most of
the German people he encountered were quite nice to him.
Theo , August 4, 2018 at 3:56 pm
You are right. The vivisection of Yugoslavia began when Germany recognized the independence
of Slovenia before any other country did. The German government with Genscher as foreign
minister didn't consult with any of the European allies. Especially France was not amused at
all.
rosemerry , August 6, 2018 at 4:04 pm
It was Germany, 9 days after reunification, which led the removal of Croatia from
Yugoslavia and beginning the breakup of a successful multicultural country.
Juan P. Zenter , August 4, 2018 at 7:29 am
Yugoslavia was a federation of states and was, thus, an obstacle to consolidating EU and
NATO power in Southeastern Europe. Once the federation was destroyed, the individual states
that comprised it could be absorbed by EU/NATO. That was the ultimate outcome of NATO bombing
there, despite all denials about that being the intent.
Thanks for the article, the photo of the beautiful church, and the reflection on this
horrible chapter from the book of atrocities disguised as "humanitarian" to fool the masses.
This also helped Bill and Hillary Clinton distract the American public from the Monica
Lewinsky affair.
j. D. D. , August 4, 2018 at 7:59 pm
I don't see it that way. Rather, as President Clinton was hit with the Lewinsky scandal
and put on the defensive immediately following his speech to NY's Council on Foreign Relations
in which he called for "a new world financial archithitecture," VP Al Gore, who later shunned
the president, saw the opportunity to determine policy. It was Gore, in consultation with
Hillary Clinton, who decided to launch the criminal bombing of Serbia, informing PM Primakov
after taking a phone call meant for the president. Whereupon the PM turned around his flight
in mid-air over the Atlantic and returned to Russia. By launching an illegal attack on
Russia's ally, the VP and the future Sec. of State, were offering a foreshadowing of the
hawkish and belligerent anti-Russian policy that was to follow for the next 17 years.
FB , August 8, 2018 at 9:31 am
Disagree these are minor details that are meaningless. Yugoslavia had already been systematically dismembered starting the very instant after
German unification and the fall of the Soviet Union. Coincidence ? Maybe a child could believe it by 1999, the final chapter of the dismemberment, Kosovo,
was ready, after several years of laying careful groundwork of subversion, propaganda and
agitation
The Nato war of aggression in 1999 would have proceeded no matter what to think that the
Lewisnky nonsense had anything to do with anything is ridiculous
nonsense factory , August 3, 2018 at 11:50 pm
One major factor in the NATO bombing and the overall agenda in the region was control of
territory for a proposed gas/oil pipeline export route from Central Asia to Europe. The
creation of Camp Bondsteel was directly related to that goal, and the chief contractor
(KBR-Halliburton) played the same role there that they did in the construction of numerous
military bases in Iraq after the 2003 invasion.
That's been a dominant theme in U.S. foreign policy and military strategy circles ever
since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Numerous routes have been proposed –
trans-Afghanistan pipeline, the Nabucco pipeline, etc., all with the same goal –
getting Central Asia fossil fuels (leased to US and British majors like Exxon, Chevron, BP,
etc.) to global markets while bypassing Iran and Russia.
Monbiot in the Guardian, 2001 (when it was still a fairly decent paper, rather than a
gung-ho enforcer of the Blairite neoliberal agenda), said this:
"For the past few weeks, a freelance researcher called Keith Fisher has been doggedly
documenting a project which has, as far as I can discover, has been little-reported in any
British, European or American newspaper. It is called the Trans-Balkan pipeline, and it's due
for approval at the end of next month. Its purpose is to secure a passage for oil from the
Caspian sea. . ."
"In November 1998, Bill Richardson, then US energy secretary, spelt out his policy on the
extraction and transport of Caspian oil. "This is about America's energy security," he
explained. "It's also about preventing strategic inroads by those who don't share our values.
We're trying to move these newly independent countries toward the west. We would like to see
them reliant on western commercial and political interests rather than going another way.
We've made a substantial political investment in the Caspian, and it's very important to us
that both the pipeline map and the politics come out right. . ."
Paul Stuart, in the WSWS, 2002, noted:
"According to leaked comments to the press, European politicians now believe that the US
used the bombing of Yugoslavia specifically in order to establish Camp Bondsteel. Before the
start of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, the Washington Post insisted, "With the
Middle-East increasingly fragile, we will need bases and fly over rights in the Balkans to
protect Caspian Sea oil."" https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2002/04/oil-a29.html
Forward project of American imperial power in the name of control of energy resources and
the cash flows arising from them, in a nutshell. Or, "business as usual since the 1950s".
Since JFK, it's all been done under the cover of "humanitarian intervention" and "protecting
democracy" which is why so many American citizens have no idea what the true aims of these
wars have really been
MH , August 7, 2018 at 2:13 pm
Sadly, Monbiot's column aside, the Guardian's coverage of what most of us here think of as
a war against Yugoslav independence was unabashedly pro-NATO and anti-Serb. The outlet did
it's best to confuse otherwise war skeptical liberals -- by demonizing the Serbs as
bloodthirsty savages purveying late 1930s genocide -- about the true character of "the
west's" aggression against the Serbs. Unlike Iraq, where the Graundiad reversed their pro-war
stance, the paper only doubled down on its anti-Serb biases, culminating in trumpets and
coronets for Hague's prosecutors ludicrously inept (at best) handling of Milosevic's
trial.
Bob Van Noy , August 3, 2018 at 8:11 pm
Thank you Vladimir Golstein for this article. I'm sure you know the answers to the
questions you ask in the paragraph titled "Testing the Limlts". The answer to each of them is
given to us and to the world in F. William Engdahl's devastating book entitled "Manifest
Destiny" : Democracy as Cognitive Dissonance. I say devastating because Mr. Engdahl
thoroughly describes a series of American administrations responsible for all of these crimes
and more.
It will be up to us (American Citizens) to educate ourselves as to the real history of our
government acting secretly, without broad consensus, and illegally. This article is a good
beginning but the discussion needs to be broadened and further documented. Then we can begin
to find a resolution.
How one can wonder how the German population stood aside while the Nazis committed their
atrocities while at the same time not speaking out at our own apparent daily military
excesses is beyond me.
irina , August 4, 2018 at 12:01 am
Not to mention meekly paying for these daily military excesses, with no protest.
christina garcia , August 4, 2018 at 1:02 am
here is an historical answer, My Grandfather and Grandmother were born in Koenigsberg
Prussia what is now known as Kaliningrad. The City of Emanuel Kant and not quite in the
1930's fans of National Socialism. My Grandfather owned a brick factory and a saw mill . They
were capitalists, not National Socialists. And you JIMBOBLA , fyi, My Opa was caught by the
Russian Army 1943, my family was totally disunited. It took the Red Cross 3 years to find my
family members and repatriate them .The Nazi organization disliked capitalism . I can prove
every single sentence I wrote. Please be careful when you write Nazism
Sam F , August 4, 2018 at 8:48 am
If you disagree, you should really address the issue of "how the German population stood
aside while the Nazis committed their atrocities." Are you arguing that Nazi atrocities were
justified by the USSR dispersing a family in 1943 Kaliningrad, during a war in which Nazis
killed over 20 million Russians? It would be interesting to hear an argument with substance
and references.
christina garcia , August 4, 2018 at 1:04 am
it is beyond you because you never experienced these atrocities
Milojkovic , August 5, 2018 at 8:11 pm
Dear Christina, I am very sorry about what happened to your family. They probably didn't
have a choice, otherwise the Nazis would have hurt them. Maybe you'd have never been born if
they dared to resist actively. Probably good people, unfairly caught in the whirlwind of
history and human brutality. They were then retaliated against by other Nazi victims without
deserving so, just because of their ethnicity. I am a Serb, living in U.S. Trust me, I can
relate. I was here in U.S. during those terrible days of 1999, living through them as if in a
daze. Life is now "kinda back to normal", but I try my best not to think just how big a part
of me had died in that bombing. My grandfather, who was just a peasant but a very devoted
Christian, died in a horrible pain from the terminal stomach cancer because there was no pain
medication for him; plus the pharmaceutical factories were bombed after having been accused
of being able to produce chemical weapons in a coordinated NATO propaganda just days before.
In agony, he was trying to undress himself, and was screaming and running around the garden.
Several of our family members were killed by Wehrmacht in WW II. I think that Germany had no
business participating in this bombing. Look up Varvarin bridge. It was shameful. And yes,
unfortunately, it was a German hand holding the match that lit up the powder keg that was
Yugoslavia in early 90's.
Consortium's Fan , August 7, 2018 at 10:28 am
Did YOU, Christina Garcia, experience atrocities? Judging by you comment, I am confidently
saying you DIDN'T. You know NOTHING about atrocities. Read and watch films about Nazi doings.
And compare them to "dispersing a family" in a wartime. A recent film worth seeing is
SOBIBOR, entirely based on archives, – a Nazi concentration camp in Poland's Sobibor
– hence the name. Educate yourself.
Lois Gagnon , August 3, 2018 at 5:37 pm
Western populations for the most part are so thoroughly brainwashed they still cling to
the belief they live in civilized countries and their militaries keep them safe from
barbarians. Unf*cking believable.
rosemerry , August 6, 2018 at 4:11 pm
The likelihood of damage being caused by the USA NOT intervening anywhere must be
vanishingly small!!!!!
Realist , August 3, 2018 at 5:24 pm
To U.S. authorities, foreign lives simply do not matter. No need to conduct any
"intelligence assessment" to determine their culpability. They shamelessly commit mass murder
right out in the open with impunity.
What makes you think USA lives matter to them. I see no evidence of that either.
Realist , August 3, 2018 at 11:39 pm
Nothing makes me think that. Why do you think I chose the phraseology that I did? It
gained currency in reaction to the murderous abuses by American police on our own
streets.
LarcoMarco , August 4, 2018 at 1:50 pm
It gained currency when that other Donald (Rumsfeld) essentially said that G.I's were
cannon fodder.
REDPILLED , August 4, 2018 at 4:54 pm
That despicable attitude long predates war criminal Rumsfeld: "Military men are just dumb,
stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy."? Henry Kissinger
Drew Hunkins , August 3, 2018 at 5:17 pm
Michael Parenti's book "To Kill a Nation" is the best book on the criminal NATO war on
Yugoslavia. Followed closely by Diana Johnstone's seminal book "Fool's Crusade."
Antiwar7 , August 4, 2018 at 11:45 am
Agreed: those are excellent books, the best English language works on the breakup of
Yugoslavia.
Isn't it sad that the most enduring monuments the U.S. is leaving for it's worldly legacy
are but artifacts of war and destruction. We could have done much better than this.
Joe – Exactly. I sometimes find myself thinking the "what if" to the U.S. mayhem of
just my own lifetime. "What if" the CIA hadn't coordinated the assassinations of JFK and
Lumumba, as well as of course the murder or overthrow of dozens of elected leaders in former
colonies who simply aspired to helping their own people, rather than acting as proxies to the
continuing pillage by U.S. & Western capitalism. What if instead those leaders were
allowed to lead their nations into a non-aligned world and not forced to be beholden to
either the U.S. or Soviet systems by threats of U.S. military and economic violence? What if
Malcolm and MLK and RFK had not been murdered by forces connected to the U.S. ruling
institutions, and had instead by now had become elder statesmen in a more humane and
democratic U.S. system that would stand in stark contrast to the insane neoliberal capitalist
freak show which has been forced upon the world, and who's mystical – "invisible hand"
– can be found tightly wrapped around the throats of the poor everywhere?
Yes Joe I agree, I think we could have lived in a very different world had not the greed
and pathology of U.S. and Western oligarchy quite intentionally and violently destroyed any
possibility of a more humane and egalitarian world by routinely murdering those more humane
leaders who could have helped us reach it. That possibility of a more humane world was
replaced instead with the odious Maggie Thatcher's "there is no alternative" global nightmare
of continued neocolonial pillage euphemistically called neoliberal capitalism. Only the
fine-tuning of the rational for mass murder has changed. Now we have "duty to protect"
– which translated from 'newspeak' means = "we now must bomb and kill you because we
care about you so very, very much." Sort of a Western postmodern version of earlier
justifications for slaughtering the indigenous in order to – "save their souls" I
suppose. We in the West have created this current version of global "reality" through
absolutely amoral unrelenting mass violence over 500+ years now, and sadly there does not
seem to be any real evidence of a change of heart or direction in our global mayhem.
Joe Tedesky , August 3, 2018 at 9:24 pm
Gary I agree whole heartedly with every word you wrote. I would add to how intriguing it
would be to learn of the high deception played during the passage of the Federal Reserve back
in 1913. Then I'd push out of the way those who blocked Claude Pepper from endorsing Henry
Wallace into the 1944 Democratic Convention. This alone may have changed the course of the
establishment of the CIA, and avoided the disaster that is happening in Palestine to this
day.
Thatcher & Reagan surly introduced us into this new economy which is often said to be
doing so great, and there we are ruined by an overly eager Fed lender along with an out of
sight Defense budget. Your job isn't there, and with that you are told to blame the union.
Ah, the Union wasn't that what Margaret & Ronny sabotaged eventually . nice work.
I do believe the assassination era was the biggest turning point, as it sent a strong
message to the would be seekers of sane government policies who would incur such tragedy if
explored. Joe
Joe – I quite agree. The assassination era was the huge turning point, but as you
point out the corruption and manipulation of democracy by the oligarchy goes way back. Yes,
imagine if Wallace had been the VP for FDR? Had Wallace's nomination not been sabotaged,
perhaps the Dulles brothers would have spent their remaining time on earth learning
woodworking skills in prison workshop after being convicted for the treason of their Nazi
dealings – instead of leading the CIA and State Dept. into the corrupt secrecy of
multiple regime changes, assassinations, and endless insane cold war posturing. The Dulles
CIA era, including it's loving embrace of the Nazi war criminals, seems to have a been in
retrospect a very dark prelude leading up to the assassination era to follow. Ike certainly
had some foreboding of the evil to come given his parting comments.
REDPILLED , August 4, 2018 at 5:04 pm
A brief recommended reading list:
The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government
by David Talbot
The American Deep State: Wall Street, Big Oil, and the attack on U.S. Democracy by Peter
Dale Scott
The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government by Mike
Lofgren
Bob Van Noy , August 4, 2018 at 8:35 am
Joe and Gary, very nice and well informed thread, thank you. Clearly we all share the
history that both of you mentioned and we also see through the now crumbling obfuscation. It
will become our new duty to use that past experience and a new hope to help make an official
case for correcting the official record and reclaiming Democracy. Actually it's a worthy
endeavor and we're uniquely positioned to help
Consortium's Fan , August 7, 2018 at 10:42 am
"Sort of a Western postmodern version of earlier justifications for slaughtering the
indigenous in order to – "save their souls" I suppose."
Or even earlier justifications (by the Holy Inquisition in the Middle Ages) to burn people
alive to "save their souls".
Realist , August 4, 2018 at 6:03 pm
Excellent point, Joe. I wonder how different the history books will look if this country
somehow manages to shed the warmongering hegemonists who have been in control for at least
the last 70 years (or, one might argue, from its inception).
I'd also like to see an English translation of the current world history books, used in
the schools of China, Russia, Iran, India, Pakistan, Cuba, Vietnam or dozens of other
countries not part of the American World Empire. I'll bet American actions and motives are
not portrayed to be as noble and pure as the driven snow. I'll bet even Mexico has a quite
different take. Canada? You stopped our invasion in 1812, aided the slaves sent to you via
the Underground Railway and refused to cooperate in the Vietnam fiasco. What happened since
then? Now you extradite AWOL GI's who don't want to go back to the numerous "sand boxes" we
play in. I'll bet those books, if ever published in English, would not be allowed on public
library shelves in the U.S.
I believe there are many questions that need answering about NATO. For instance:
July 14, 2018
The Diabolical "Work" of NATO and Its Allies: Why Are These War Criminals Still Free?
NATO's recent meeting or summit in Brussels July 11 – 12, 2018, could be described
as a gathering of heinous hypocrites. [1] There are millions of people dead, millions are
refugees, their countries have been destroyed and our ruling hypocrites spout the words "rule
of law." Has there ever been a gang of human reptiles (are they even human?) so evil, dressed
in expensive suits [and dresses] and operating out of houses of power called "parliaments"
and other houses of ill repute? These criminals, or gangsters, or bandits, or reprobates (Add
your own epithet) are up to their filthy necks in the blood of the victims of their planned
carnage.
Yet it was reported: "The summit will also discuss the fight against terrorism." Gee! Does
that statement about fighting "terrorism" smack of hypocrisy? There is evidence that NATO and
its members have, in fact, been consorting with, and supporting, terrorists. [2]
[much more info at link below] http://graysinfo.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-diabolical-work-of-nato-and-its.html
"... At some point the Western Powers decided the that old Communist Apparachik Milosevic would be the Bad Guy and the Croatian freedom-loving "our bastards" the good guys to be internationally recognized and thus enflamed the passion of secession. The thing just flew apart. And afterwards we had to bomb the country in order to save it. ..."
I vividly recall the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. I was nine-years-old and we were not
wired for cable then. There also was no remote control for the 27″ Zenith color
console. I was forced to watch some of the coverage for those reasons. Sarajevo was held up
as a utopian city where Serbs, Croats and Muslims all lived in a beautiful city peacefully.
It was so beautiful said the announcers. And in less than a decade that Olympic stadium
was turned into a cemetery as those peaceful Croats, Serbs and Muslims slaughtered each
other. Once the Soviet Army withdrew from Yugoslavia and the nation disintegrated back into
its ethnic lines, the killings started.
Imagine what is coming in the United States where the simmering hatreds are invited and
exploited by not three distinct groups, but hundreds. Image what is to come when
"historically aggrieved" peoples who have been weaponized for generations to despise their
non-homogenous neighbors.
The erasure of common nationhood and the instilling of grievance as a caste system will
see the US descend into chaotic slaughter the likes of which have never been seen before.
When Pakistan separated from India after the British pulled out, Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus
slaughtered each other, stopping trains filled with refugees being repatriated into their new
nations and slaughtering every one of them. Americans have been so denuded of historical
understanding that these histories are unknown.
The malevolence of humanity seething just under the surface until the opportunity arises
for it to burst forth is forgotten by placated propagandized people. What people in world
history have been more propagandized and placated than Americans who have been viewing
carefully crafted scripts since their eyes were first able to focus on a tv screen and whose
desperately poor are morbidly obese?
Stocking a warehouse to the rafters with volatile materials, packing them in so tightly
until they near critical mass, now add in some agitation -- and light a match. The most
devastating weapon ever devised in not the hydrogen bomb, it is a population bomb. A 100
megaton nuclear weapon destroys cleanly -- one flash and a wind storm -- it's all over aside
from lingering sunshine units. In a thousand years the land will forget what had
happened.
A population bomb where the very people have been weaponized will prove far more
devastating and remain scarring the land for eons and that common memory lives on in the
survivors igniting anew every few decades.
Once the Soviet Army withdrew from Yugoslavia and the nation disintegrated back into its
ethnic lines, the killings started.
That never happened though because the Soviet Army was never in Yugoslavia in the first
place. It was Tito who maintained order with an iron fist.
At some point the Western Powers decided the that old Communist Apparachik Milosevic
would be the Bad Guy and the Croatian freedom-loving "our bastards" the good guys to be
internationally recognized and thus enflamed the passion of secession. The thing just flew
apart. And afterwards we had to bomb the country in order to save it.
"... "[The] US' unlawful sanctions against two Turkish ministers – from an allied country – illustrates not just [the] US administration's policy of pressure and extortion in lieu of statecraft, but that its addiction to sanctions knows no bounds," ..."
"... "a victim of unfair and unjust detention" ..."
"... "an absence of evidence." ..."
"... "a great Christian, family man and wonderful human being." ..."
"... "any property, or interest in property" ..."
"... "US persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them." ..."
The "addiction" of Washington to sanctions "knows no bounds," Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said. It comes after Washington
slapped two top officials from major ally Turkey with restrictions. "[The] US' unlawful sanctions against two Turkish ministers
– from an allied country – illustrates not just [the] US administration's policy of pressure and extortion in lieu of statecraft,
but that its addiction to sanctions knows no bounds," Zarif tweeted.
US' unlawful sanctions against two Turkish ministers - from an allied country - illustrates not just US administration's policy
of pressure and extortion in lieu of statecraft, but that its addiction to sanctions knows no bounds.
In a heightening of tensions between the two allies, the US Treasury Department on Wednesday
announced restrictions against Turkish Minister
of Justice Abdulhamit Gul and Minister of Interior Suleyman Soylu over the continued detention of American pastor Andrew Brunson.
Brunson is being held by Turkey on charges of espionage and assisting the plotters of an unsuccessful 2016 military coup attempt.
The US says Brunson is "a victim of unfair and unjust detention" by the Turkish government, adding that he was accused
with "an absence of evidence." US President Donald Trump has
called the pastor "a great Christian,
family man and wonderful human being."
The Treasury Department announced that "any property, or interest in property" of both Gul and Soylu within US jurisdiction
is blocked and "US persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with them."
Brunson's case has long been a stumbling block in already strained relations between Washington and Ankara. Days before the US
Treasury announced its decision, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
accused
his American counterpart of waging "psychological warfare" against Turkey over the pastor and warned that the US may lose
"a strong and sincere ally."
Responding to the restrictions, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu
tweeted that they "won't be left
without retaliation."
US relations with Turkey have not been smooth in recent months. Among other things, Ankara and Washington are locking horns over
Turkey's decision to buy Russian S-400 missile systems. Erdogan's government is also adamant on pushing ahead with the purchase of
American F-35 jets, which US lawmakers are trying to block due to Ankara's S-400 deal.
trump has wrecked environmental policy, trade policy and domestic social policy....the
upshots will be: 1- a much more toxic environment & much higher level of respiratory
disease and cancerous related ailments; overall poorer health & health care for the
average citizen 2- higher prices for imported goods, lower level of trade exports, fewer US
based jobs and more off-shoring of US jobs 3- a substantial increase in the homeless
population in the urban areas of this country; increased rates of poverty for the poor, lower
economic prosperity for the lower and lower middle class income brackets; wage stagnation for
the middle & upper middle income brackets; less advanced education & lower worker
productivity and innovation to name just a few of the impacts created by this idiot....in
simple in English, Trump and his so-called initiatives are shafting this country in almost
every way possible
What part of international law is not just pissed on toiler paper strewn over the floors of a
urinal? Which post WWII president respected this law?
None.
International law, since WWII failed. It failed in '47 when no referendum was held in
Palestine - against Chapter 1, Article 1 paragraph 2 of the UN Charter. It failed in Crimea,
when the results of such a referendum was spat on by the previous war criminal to sit in the
Oval Office. It fails now as sanctions are used unilaterally - being equivalent to the use of
force in result, they should be
But then let's not stop at after the war. The US is the only country to nuke civilians.
6/7 US four star generals at the time said the action had no strategic or tactical purpose
whatsoever.
The US is what ISIS dreams to be, the sooner it falls into obscurity the better.
Pure nonsense. The Great Depression began on October 29, 1929. FDR was inaugurated on March
4, 1933 nearly 4 years after it began. Hoover had actually only been in office for just over
6 months before Black Tuesday. GDP began growing and unemployment began falling in 1933
shortly after FDR took office. The Depression officially came to an end in 1939 when GDP
returned to pre-Depression levels.
There is no long term US growth. There is a debt default after people realize the fact that
the top of the whole US government is incompetent. That it has chained itself to such
astronomic liabilities for useless wars (as the Empire has not succeeded in world hegemony),
is even sadder. It coould have spent the $5tn of Iraq and Afghanistan on building shit, but
instead it bombed shit.
Trump doesn't matter for US long run - in 5-10 years time the country will be only found
in history books.
Remember Kruschev's (sp?) last words on leaving office, and I'm paraphrasing: "Don't worry
about America, they'll spend themselves to death (just like we have)". Continued economic
growth is a wet dream of Wall Street origin. We are massively overpopulated and rapidly using
up earth's natural resources at an increasingly unsustainable rate. We must begin to reduce
our growth, not keep increasing it. Population density stress is killing us now and only
increasing every day along with the 220,000 new mouths to feed that we are turning out into a
world that has no room for 28,000,000 homeless migrants already. Just how crazy are we
really. If this article is to be believed, we are nuts. E.F. Schumacher is rolling in his
grave! Stress R Us
The contribution of a president to the national debt depends a bit on how you calculate it.
You could simply look at rhe dates of inauguration or go a step further and look at the
fiscal years. For the latter see :
In absolute terms Obama is indeed at the top of the list, percentagewise his predecessor
played a larger part. No matter how you look at it or what the causes were, under Bush and
Obama the U.S. debt seems to have spiralled out of of control and Trump is doing bugger all
to stop that trend.
"... The recent hyperbolic exchange of threats between US President Donald Trump and his equal Iranian rank Hassan Rouhani, despite the obvious bad taste, has revealed an absolute truth: a potential new conflict against Iran could really have devastating outcomes not only for the Middle Eastern region but also for the whole world. From the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran to today, the relations between the two countries, excluding the short life of the nuclear agreement JCPOA – Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (however never fully respected by the North American side under the Obama administration as well as the present), have never known a real relaxation of tension. ..."
"... a warning against the oppressors of the people ..."
"... the outcasts have become creators of public norms ..."
"... 5Stars – League ..."
"... rhetoric of the clash between civilizations ..."
"... Western colonialism, from the perspective of Imam Khomeini, has been able to counter the reality of Islam by introducing into the Muslim countries foreign laws and cultures incompatible with it so as to make it totally inauthentic. The colonization of the minds is the step immediately following the economic colonization aimed at expropriating natural resources and making the colonized territory a market for the sale of western products. For this reason, according to Khomeini, in the time that the necessary conditions for the Parousia of the Imam of the time are not met, it is not possible for the Islamic Law to remain unused. ..."
"... velayat-e faqih ..."
"... the general aim of the prophetic mission is the rectification of humanity in the framework of a righteous and neatly developed social structure, which can be achieved through the definition of a government able to run the law. ..."
"... The hatred of Iran comes from the fact that this represents a concrete example of resistance, and in some respects an alternative, to this destructive and culturally racist model of civilization. ..."
"... Original article by Daniele Perra, L'Intellettuale Dissidente – Translation by Costantino Ceoldo – Pravda freelance ..."
The intelligence is coming in, Russia appearing to be pushed to the side, making many wonder
what Netanyahu has on Russia's President Vladimir Putin. Iran should well be a "redline" for
Russia but, increasingly, analysts are coming to believe that Trump and Putin at their
conference in Helsinki may well have "sold Iran down the river."
The next target, of course is Turkey.
When Iran is gone, Turkey will go as well, with America having a long standing relationship
with the Kurds and holding the what Trump's sees has his key to Turkey, Gulan, the radical
cleric living in Pennsylvania, groomed by the CIA to become Washington's puppet in Ankara when
Erdogan can finally be eliminated.
Behind this is an economic war. Israel is crushing the Palestinians, aided by Trump rag-tail
relation and probably Mueller investigation target, Jared Kushner. Few are aware of the real
"geologicals" from the Eastern Mediterranean, with massive gas deposits under Idlib and Latakia
in Syria and adjacent Turkey and both off and onshore in Gaza. The Gaza reserves alone may well
constitute the second largest untapped gas reserve in the world.
The the first under both Iran and Qatar, moves to put both nations "out of business," will
benefit Israel, Russia and the US and push pipeline gas and LNG to new record highs.
It is always about the money and US sanctions on Iran and Russia are intended, of course, to
bring the "hot war" on Iran to fruition as soon as possible.
Now for an Italian source on
the issue translated by Pravda's Constantino Ceoldo
by Daniele Perra
The recent hyperbolic exchange of threats between US President Donald Trump and his equal
Iranian rank Hassan Rouhani, despite the obvious bad taste, has revealed an absolute truth: a
potential new conflict against Iran could really have devastating outcomes not only for the
Middle Eastern region but also for the whole world. From the triumph of the Islamic Revolution
in Iran to today, the relations between the two countries, excluding the short life of the
nuclear agreement JCPOA – Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (however never fully
respected by the North American side under the Obama administration as well as the present),
have never known a real relaxation of tension.
The 1979 hostage crisis, as a result of which Pope John Paul II sent a request for release
that Imam Khomeini rejected by arguing his answer with the fact that the Iranian people would
have expected from the messenger of Christ a warning against the oppressors of the
people and not solidarity with them, and the terrifying war of aggression that Saddam
Hussein's Iraq, on US and Saudi commission, moved against the newborn Islamic Republic were
only the first episodes of a long series of more or less direct confrontation between a nation
with ancient history and culture and that paradise of Protestant eschatological heterodoxy in
which, as the Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin affirmed, the outcasts have become
creators of public norms .
Add to this the fact that between the imposition of sanctions regimes on several levels and
in different periods and direct interference in Iranian internal affairs (heavy exploitation of
the protests of the so-called Green Movement and support to various terrorist groups that aim
to destabilize the country: first among all the Mojahedin-e Khalq with offices in France and
Albania), the US has never stopped aspiring and dreaming of that "regime change" that now, with
the appointment of Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State but above all of John R. Bolton as a
national security advisor, seems to have come back very closely.
Also, and above all, because the fears for the Iranian presence in Syria, considered as an
existential threat to Israel, has triggered various hysterical reactions between the North
American Zionist lobby and the Israeli military and political leaders themselves. See
in this regard the bombastic as unreliable presentation of "irrefutable evidence" on the
Iranian violations of the JCPOA by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or the twelve
requests, drawn up by Mike Pompeo, that Iran should meet if it intends to renegotiate the
agreement with the USA. Requests among which there appears to be at least a ridiculous
cessation of aid to al-Qaeda and to the Afghan Taliban that Iran have always been sworn enemies
and which, on the contrary, have often enjoyed the support of the US and Zionist
intelligence . The Taliban, among other things, have carried out real massacres of the
Hazara : the ethnic Shiite component of Afghanistan.
For what concerns Italy (Iran's first European commercial partner), the new sanctions
imposed by the USA following the unilateral exit from the JCPOA would damage the economy much
more than those, however useless, inflicted on Russia and the whose removal has been included
(even if at the time it is taken into the background) in the program of the new yellow-green
government [ 5Stars – League ].
The low negotiating power of European economic actors, faced with the forced choice between
access (with the risk of sanctions) to the Iranian market or to the "imposed" US market, and
the cultural subalternity that many governments continue to suffer towards the US, despite of
the desire to preserve the JCPOA, do not foresee anything that does not go beyond the usual
forms of masochistic schizophrenia of Europe.
Now, from a purely geopolitical point of view, the North American obsession with Iran is
more than justified. The Islamic Revolution has overthrown a regime that in previous decades,
except for the small parenthesis of the nationalist government of Mossadeq (not coincidentally
overturned by a joint Anglo-American operation), had made of its total alignment to the United
States its only form of international legitimacy and which, with Turkey, represented one of the
"pillars" of North American geopolitics in the Middle East. And the Revolution has also
prevented the North American elites from directly managing huge energy resources.
Iran, to date, is the third country in the world in terms of oil resources and the first in
terms of natural gas reserves. It is therefore clear how the Trump administration, by launching
the Energy Dominance doctrine aimed at achieving dominance on the global energy market, can not
help but perceive Iran as a fearsome potential competitor and at the same time as a "prey" for
the effective expansion and implementation of the aforementioned plan.
Nor should we forget the fact that Iran, as a pillar of the new multipolar order and a
hegemonic power in the Middle East, represents a sort of black hole that threatens the US
control of that Eurasian rimland that the geopolitical scholar Nicholas J. Spykman
laid the foundation of the North American hegemonic system. However, there are other factors
that, although preliminary to the North American hegemonic design, remain more related to the
rhetoric of the clash between civilizations and the perception of an Islam that can
not be used for its geopolitical purposes as an enemy to be fought and annihilated
whenever possible. And even in this sense, the North American obsession with Iran appears more
than justified.
Today's Iran, albeit with obvious defects (though not alien to any nation in the world),
represents the antithesis par excellence of a model of civilization set on the magnificent and
progressive fate of modernity. The Khomeinist Revolution developed as a reappropriation of the
dimension of the sacred, as a restoration of that direct thread between the physical and
metaphysical order that the Western modernity imposed by the Shah regime had almost
irretrievably split. The Revolution, understood in the etymologically correct sense of the term
re-evolution , has shown how the phenomenon of modernity has no connection with
contemporaneity. Modernity is only a model of society, of civilization, of the vision of the
world which through a process of reversion of time and of reappropriation of one's traditional
"being in the world" can be overturned.
Western colonialism, from the perspective of Imam Khomeini, has been able to counter the
reality of Islam by introducing into the Muslim countries foreign laws and cultures
incompatible with it so as to make it totally inauthentic. The colonization of the minds is the
step immediately following the economic colonization aimed at expropriating natural resources
and making the colonized territory a market for the sale of western products. For this reason,
according to Khomeini, in the time that the necessary conditions for the Parousia of the Imam
of the time are not met, it is not possible for the Islamic Law to remain unused.
But this law must refer to authentic Islam and not to its version counterfeited by Western
colonialism. The Imam, for example, never stopped defining Wahhabism as American Islam
. The doctrine of the velayat-e faqih (vicariate of the jurisconsult) as the
foundation of the current Iranian political system, by the admission of Khomeini himself, is
not the product of his theoretical elaboration. This is not something new, but is at the center
of the question of Islamic government from the beginning. Khomeini limited himself only to a
more in-depth analysis, identifying its roots in the Islamic tradition.
The vicariate of the jurisconsult is the order to fulfill a delivery. The assumption of the
obligations of government and of the burden of command by the doctors of the law implies the
realization of a precise purpose: to confirm the truth and to eliminate the lie. According to a
well known prophetic hadith the doctors of the law are the custodians of the trust of
the prophets. And as the Imam reiterates in his speech on the Islamic government:
the general aim of the prophetic mission is the rectification of humanity in the
framework of a righteous and neatly developed social structure, which can be achieved through
the definition of a government able to run the law.
A concept present on several occasions even in his most strictly focused works on
irfan (gnosis) in which to the divine Nuncio and fixed archetype of the Perfect Man is
given the task of preserving the limits established by God and preventing them from coming out
of the confines of moderation. A call, that to measure, present in a relevant way also in
Western culture, both in ancient Greece and in the Middle Ages. It is said, for example, that
Frederick II Hohenstaufen, questioned by the legendary Priest Gianni (figuration of the
Guenonian "King of the World") about what was the best thing in the world, replied: "the best
thing in this world is measure".
It is therefore obvious that as a philosophical-metaphysical logos set entirely on
the sense of measure and on the virtue of moderation it can not necessarily clash against a
vision of the world based on excess (on that "gigantism" so stigmatized by Martin Heidegger)
and on the negation of all that is human. Man realizes himself through thought. Being human
means first of all to think and investigate around the sense of truth. And if the instrument of
the intellect is not exercised and developed, man is transformed into a machine and is
sacrificed on the altar of technique. The fact that Western thought has produced such an
artificial act by determining its own suicide does not mean that every other civilization /
culture must do the same in the name of unipolar globalization.
The hatred of Iran comes from the fact that this represents a concrete example of
resistance, and in some respects an alternative, to this destructive and culturally racist
model of civilization. And the same idea is also valid for what concerns Zionism that has
imported this model in the Near East, openly confronting the Islamic world. In this regard, the
Imam was particularly critical in the first place with the rabbis: "they – said Khomeini
– despite being the guardians of Jewish religious law have done nothing to prevent the
oppressors to pronounce their sinful words, spread lies, slander and distort the truth".
Original article by Daniele Perra, L'Intellettuale
Dissidente – Translation by Costantino Ceoldo – Pravda freelance
On January 20, 2009, when he was sworn in, the debt was $10.626 trillion. On January 20,
2017, when he left, it was $19.947 trillion. Most people would calculate Obama added $9
trillion to the debt, more than any other president. But then Tom Eleven isn't "Most people".
"The hatred, the distrust, the dissatisfaction toward the establishment is growing here, no
question about it," says the analyst. "People are protesting here and there. But what Trump is
doing" makes the prospect of a popular uprising even more distant.
Citing "current America and these policies," which had shown the US to be "totally
unreliable," Tehran dismissed an offer by Mr. Trump Monday to meet Iranian leaders with "no
preconditions." The White House later clarified that it has no plans to change its policy of
ratcheting up pressure and sanctions on Iran.
Ordinary Iranians have taken to Twitter using the hashtags #ShutUpTrump and
#StopMeddlingInIran to condemn US actions.
"Trump's craziness has no end. But our unity is endless, too. So the more he shows his
teeth, the more we will show our fists," says Saeed, a clean-shaven student of mechanical
engineering at Azad University in Tehran who says he supports reformist politicians.
"We have passed all those hurdles in the past and this one, although it is more serious than
ever, I'm sure we will successfully leave behind," says Saeed, who only gave his first name.
"It is Trump who will be thrown away or, in the words of the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei], will be 'thrown into the dust bin of history.' We will stand behind the
establishment forever."
Mutual hostility between the US and Iran has defined the geopolitical strife between these
arch foes since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.
... ... ...
Yet today Iranians also are reeling from being included – alongside
Somalis and Yemenis – in a blanket seven-nation White House travel ban, even though an
estimated one million Iranian-Americans live in the US.
They are baffled by Trump's unilateral US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. And they
are feeling the bite of new US sanctions designed to put "unprecedented" economic pressure on
Iran by cutting it off from the outside world, forcing all third-country business to withdraw,
and blocking the sale of any Iranian oil.
"... "The Trump Administration intends to fully enforce the sanctions reimposed against Iran, and those who fail to wind down activities with Iran risk severe consequences. " ..."
"... The first set of sanctions will hit at the Iranian financial system, including Iranian government purchases of US dollars and its gold trade and government bond sales. The US' dominant role in the world's financial system means it has been able to pressure countries and companies into compliance, though China remains a key holdout. ..."
"... The US denies it is seeking regime change, but rather aims to "modify the regime's behavior," according to an administration official. ..."
"... A US administration official said the Iranian government was using financial resources freed up by the nuclear deal "to spread human misery." The US was seeking now to address the "totality of the Iranian threat" in the Middle East ..."
With the hours ticking by ahead of Washington's re-imposition of a slew of economic
sanctions on Iran, President Trump has just released a statement confirming the narrative he
would prefer Americans believe.
Just hours after the European Union issued a statement Monday ahead of when
renewed US sanctions are set to snap back against Iran after midnight US Eastern time, saying
it "deeply regrets" the sanctions and will take immediate action to protect European companies
still doing business with Iran.
Trump makes it clear that any violation (among America's allies) will not be
tolerated...
"The Trump Administration intends to fully enforce the sanctions reimposed against Iran,
and those who fail to wind down activities with Iran risk severe consequences. "
The first set of sanctions will hit at the Iranian financial system, including Iranian
government purchases of US dollars and its gold trade and government bond sales. The US'
dominant role in the world's financial system means it has been able to pressure countries and
companies into compliance, though China remains a key holdout.
"The JCPOA, a horrible, one-sided deal, failed to achieve the fundamental objective of
blocking all paths to an Iranian nuclear bomb," Trump said Monday, defining that its policy
as applying "maximum economic pressure on the Iranian regime."
The US denies it is seeking regime change, but rather aims to "modify the regime's
behavior," according to an administration official.
A US administration official said the Iranian government was using financial resources freed
up by the nuclear deal "to spread human misery." The US was seeking now to address the
"totality of the Iranian threat" in the Middle East.
"None of this needs to happen," an official said on sanctions. Trump is willing to meet the
Iranian leadership "any time" for talks," the official noted. * * *
Full Statement below:
REIMPOSING TOUGH SANCTIONS: President Donald J. Trump, Administration is taking action to
reimpose sanctions lifted under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
President Trump made clear when he ended United States participation in the JCPOA that
his Administration would be reimposing tough sanctions on the Iranian regime.
In connection with the withdrawal from the JCPOA, the Administration laid out two
wind-down periods of 90 days and 180 days for business activities in or involving Iran.
Consistent with President Trump's decision, the Administration will be reimposing
specified sanctions after August 6, the final day of the 90-day wind-down period.
On August 7, sanctions will be reimposed on:
The purchase or acquisition of United States bank notes by the Government of Iran.
Iran, trade in gold and other precious metals.
Graphite, aluminum, steel, coal, and software used in industrial processes.
Transactions related to the Iranian rial.
Activities relating to Iran's issuance of sovereign debt
Iran, automotive sector.
The remaining sanctions will be reimposed on November 5, including sanctions on:
Iran, port operators and energy, shipping, and shipbuilding sectors.
Iran, petroleum-related transactions.
Transactions by foreign financial institutions with the Central Bank of Iran.
The Administration will also relist hundreds of individuals, entities, vessels, and
aircraft that were previously included on sanctions lists.
ENSURING FULL ENFORCEMENT: President Trump will continue to stand up to the Iranian regime's
aggression, and the United States will fully enforce the reimposed sanctions.
The Iranian regime has exploited the global financial system to fund its malign
activities.
The regime has used this funding to support terrorism, promote ruthless regimes,
destabilize the region, and abuse the human rights of its own people.
The Trump Administration intends to fully enforce the sanctions reimposed against Iran,
and those who fail to wind down activities with Iran risk severe consequences.
Since the President announced his decision on May 8 to withdraw from the JCPOA, the
Administration has sanctioned 38 Iran-related targets in six separate actions.
PROTECTING OUR NATIONAL SECURITY: The JCPOA was defective at its core and failed to
guarantee the safety of the American people.
President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran deal upheld his highest obligation:
to protect the safety and security of the American people.
The Iranian regime only grew more aggressive under the cover of the JCPOA and was given
access to more resources to pursue its malign activities.
The regime continues to threaten the United States and our allies, exploit the
international financial system, and support terrorism and foreign proxies.
The Administration is working with allies to bring pressure on the Iranian regime to
achieve an agreement that denies all paths to a nuclear weapon and addresses other malign
activities.
* * *
The initial reaction in markets was modest aside from in the oil complex where prices
spiked...
War with Iran? I can not imagine a more foolish thing to do.
Of course they will rally with their own Countrymen, everyone hates the USA.
The World economy will be in a complete tailspin, the US will likely finally go broke over it
and chances are pretty good that Israel will be flattened and paved [one positive thing].
You fight Iran you fight China, you don't go messing with their road. Likely not bombs and
guns either most likely money, something America has not much of.
The faster America dumps this crazy fascination with the Jews the faster it will get it's
act together and become a Country again.
What can that possibly mean? We can bomb Iran back into the Stone Age, but Iran does not
need a modern economy or military to close Hormuz. All they need do is fire a few land-based
artillery and anti-ship missiles at a defenseless freighter or tanker. The insurance
companies would do the rest–remove all commercial shipping from the Persian and Oman
Gulf regions. That eliminates 20% of the World's oil supply, and it would collapse the
World's economy, including our own.
Asymmetric warfare would engulf the entire Middle East, including Israel, with its large
native Arab population and its occupation of large Arab populations in Gaza and the West
Bank.
Iran has the upper hand here. We need to be very careful.
Let's face it-when we impose sanctions on Iran, we are already at war with them. Just like we
are already at war with Russia. Imbeciles, all who run this country.
Oil is the vital strategic Western interest in the Persian Gulf. Yet a war with Iran
would imperil, not secure, that interest.
The American Empire's only strategic three letter word interest in the Middle East is O --
I –L.
The WASP/JEW ruling class of the American Empire and the Jew-controlled Neo-Conservative
faction in the Republican Party wants to elevate the three letter word J -- E –W to
paramount importance in the Middle East.
OIL and only OIL should guide the policy making considerations of the American Empire in
the Middle East.
The Labour is in the midst of an "antisemitism crisis" orchestrated by the media, pro-Zionist Jewish groups, and the party's Blairite
faction bent on ousting Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader.
The UK's media is overwhelmingly rightwing and pro-Israel. Even the BBC, terrified of being donated to Rupert Murdoch in a Tory
privatization, is pro-Tory and pro-Israel in its news reporting, all its professions of "objectivity" notwithstanding.
Corbyn has been their constant target since he became the party's leader, and the "antisemitism" smear is the latest installment
in this rightwing effort to discredit him.
Even the supposedly liberal Guardian newspaper, whose editorial line on Israel is led by the staunch Zionist Jonathan
Freedland, is resolutely anti-Corbyn.
No leader of a major political party has been as resolute as Corbyn in defending Palestinian rights. The
Observer newspaper put this succinctly: "As a long-term and ardent critic of Israel's policies and staunch supporter of
Palestinian causes, he has always been distrusted by the Jewish community".
Pro-Zionist Jewish groups fear that under his leadership Britain will become much more like Ireland (which recently banned the
import of products made in the illegal Israeli settlements) in its disposition towards Israel.
A clue to the motivation of these pro-Zionist UK Jewish groups was provided by the recent public protest in London against Labour's
"antisemitism"– many protesters carried the Israeli flag and "Israel we stand behind you" signs, thereby making it clear that their
concern for Zionist Israel was highly instrumental, and perhaps primarily so, in their presence at this rally against Labour's "antisemitism".
Several Blairite Labour MPs were present at this demonstration.
The Blairite faction in Labour has already made one attempt to overthrow Corbyn when it made him submit to an unprecedented reelection
shortly after he became party leader.
Corbyn went on to win this challenge with a percentage exceeding Blair's when the latter was elected Labour leader.
Labour's Blairite bloc know that Corbyn has to lose the next general election if they are to survive as a force within the party.
If Labour (under Corbyn) wins this election, they will have little choice but to take the option already being talked about by some
of these Blairites, that is, splitting from Labour and forming a new "centrist" party.
Their eminence grise, Tony Blair himself, has already talked about creating this "centrist" party.
So, paradoxically, Labour's Blairites would rather have the Conservatives win the next general election as their ticket to survival
within their own party!
Predictably, one of these Blairites, Labour's deputy leader Tom Watson, jumped on the "crisis" bandwagon by
saying
that Labour faces "eternal shame" over antisemitism.
Of course, there are pockets of antisemitism in Labour, as is the case in nearly every non-Jewish British walk of life, including
the Tories (though dressing up in Nazi uniform and chanting "Sieg Heil!" at parties, as opposed to upholding Palestinian rights,
is their forte).
A few days ago, it was revealed that the senior Tory politicians Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, and Jacob Rees-Mogg had recently
met in secret with Steve Bannon, who runs Breitbart News , a haven for antisemitic views. The British media, and the Blairite
Labour MPs hounding Corbyn, have said nary a word about these meetings. Nor have the vociferous UK Jewish organizations.
The notion that there is significant antisemitism in Labour, let alone one amounting to a "crisis", is a red herring.
The most recent purported manifestation of this crisis pivots on the decision of Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC) to
adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Association's "non-legally binding working definition" of antisemitism, but not the
"illustrations" which accompany it. The definition states:
"Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations
of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions
and religious facilities."
The "illustrations" which accompany this definition include some which are uncontroversial for any fair-minded and relatively
rational person, and others which are highly problematic for such a person.
The uncontroversial "illustrations" of antisemitism:
+ advocating the killing or harming of Jews for ideological or religious reasons;
+ making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such;
+ holding Jews as a people responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group;
+ Holocaust denial;
+ using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to
characterize Israel or Israelis;
+ holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel;
+ accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
The controversial "illustrations" of antisemitism (and non-coincidently they all have a bearing on the Palestinian cause):
+ accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel than to the interests of their own nations;
+ claiming that the existence of the state of Israel is a racist endeavour;
+ applying double standards by requiring of Israel conduct not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation;
+ drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
A close examination of this latter set of "illustrations" shows that Labour is absolutely right to resist the immense pressure
from Zionists and their supporters to accept these latter "illustrations" as part of the definition of antisemitism.
There are examples of Jewish US citizens being more loyal to Israel than to the interests of their country.
The casino mogul Sheldon Adelson donated $25 million to Trump's 2016 campaign ($82 million in total to Republicans in 2016), and
$5 million towards his inauguration. Earlier this year Adelson donated $70 million to Birthright, the organization that brings young
Jews to Israel for nothing (he's donated $100m in total to Birthright). He also donated $30 million to Republicans after Trump withdrew
from the nuclear agreement with Iran. Adelson spent $150m in the 2012 election in a futile attempt to unseat the "anti-Israel" Barack
Obama.
Adelson's aim in all of this is to swing Trump behind his friend Netanyahu's "Greater Israel" political agenda. To this end Adelson
pushed hard for the US's withdrawal from the Iran deal, appointing the arch-Zionist John Bolton as a Trump adviser, recognizing Jerusalem
as Israel's capital (in contravention of international law), and moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. Adelson has succeeded in all
of these objectives.
Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and "envoy" for a "peace" deal in the Middle East, has made it clear that any such deal will
have to be compatible with Likud's "Greater Israel" political agenda.
According to The New York
Times , Kushner's family real estate company "received a roughly $30 million investment from Menora Mivtachim, an insurer
that is one of Israel's largest financial institutions".
The same NYT article also reported that "the Kushners had teamed up with at least one member of Israel's wealthy Steinmetz
family to buy nearly $200 million of Manhattan apartment buildings, as well as to build a luxury rental tower in New Jersey".
More from the same article: "Mr. Kushner's company has also taken out at least four loans from Israel's largest bank, Bank Hapoalim,
which is the subject of a Justice Department investigation over allegations that it helped wealthy Americans evade taxes".
Kushner's family foundation also donates to an illegal settlement in the West Bank.
Meanwhile , US military aid to Israel amounts to $3.8 billion annually, or $23,000 per year for every Jewish family living in
Israel for the next 10 years.
At the same time, 40 million Americans live in poverty, seniors and veterans are sleeping rough, and teachers have to buy school
supplies, and in some cases food, for their students.
Given these two examples of prominent Jewish individuals with loyalties divided between the US and Israel, with Israel acquiring
much and the US gaining so little from their actions, it is arguable whether it is "antisemitic" to broadcast the information detailed
above.
Claiming that the existence of the state of Israel is a racist endeavour is likewise hardly antisemitic. The recently passed Israeli
Nationality Law confirms why.
According to the law, Israel's full name is "Israel, the nation state of the Jewish people". The law stipulates that Eretz Israel
(historical Palestine) is the homeland of the Jewish people, while the state of Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people.
As such, only Jews have the right to self-determination in Israel. Hebrew is the only official language, with Arabic no longer
considered an official language.
The nationality law enjoins that future Jewish settlement in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories is a supreme national
objective (in contravention of international law).
The law also grants Jewish communities the right to a segregated territory in the state(in practice legalizing exclusive villages
and towns for Jews).
The nationality law effectively deprives Arabs of any official semblance of their national identity, and confirms Israel's status
as an apartheid, i.e. racist, state. Saying this is certainly anti-Zionist, but only a dogmatist would insist that it is ipso facto
"antisemitic".
The IHRA "illustration" maintaining that it is antisemitic to apply double standards by requiring of Israel conduct not expected
or demanded of any other democratic nation is likewise extremely awkward in formulation and also in practice.
The 2017 Democracy Index used 4 categories
to assess countries– full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime, and authoritarian regime.
The following countries were ranked by the Index as full democracies: Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany,
Iceland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta, Mauritius, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and
Uruguay.
Israel was listed as a flawed democracy, as was the US.
Israel's leaders have always touted their country as "the only democracy in the Middle East", as if their country stood on a par
with the 19 countries ranked as full democracies by the 2017 Democracy Index.
Is it "antisemitic" to hold Israel to a standard deemed to be achieved by Mauritius and Uruguay?
Or to say that Israel is really an "ethnocracy", as opposed to being a democracy?
The Israeli political geographer Oren Yiftachel argued in his 2006 book Ethnocracy: Land and Identity Politics
in Israel/Palestine that an ethnocracy is a regime promoting "the expansion of the dominant group in contested territory
while maintaining a democratic façade".
When it comes todrawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis, it all depends on the basis used in making
the comparison between Israel and the Nazis.
Having gas chambers for mass exterminations, then certainly not.
However, nearly everyone who believes that comparing Israel with the Nazis is "antisemitic" invariably takes the concentration-camp
gas chambers as the implicit norm, whether out of bad faith or ignorance, for making such comparisons.
The Nazi "final solution", vast as it was, had many strands, with horror piled upon horror. This multiple-layering must be considered
when making the Israel-Nazi comparison.
Encircling and starving-out an entire community in a ghetto (Warsaw?), then yes, the comparison is valid– this is precisely what
is taking place in Gaza.
The Nazis confiscated Jewish property wholesale; the Israelis are doing the same to Palestinian houses and land in order to "clear"
them for the expansion of the illegal settlements, and for alleged military purposes. B'Tselem, Israel's human rights watchdog, confirms
this on their website . So, yes, in this case the comparison between
Israel and the Nazis is valid.
Jews were prevented from leaving German-occupied Poland by the SS. Similarly, Palestinians are prevented from leaving Gaza (even
for medical treatment) by the combined efforts of Israel and the Egyptian dictatorship. So, yes, in this case the comparison between
Israel and the Nazis is valid.
German Civil Police K-9 Units were used by the SS to assist in the roundup and deportation of Jews in WW2. Similarly, the Israeli
army uses attack dogs on
unarmed Palestinians when raiding their homes, and when
arresting
peaceful demonstrators. So, yes, in this case the comparison between Israel and the Nazis is valid.
It is difficult to see why comparing Israel to the Nazis on these latter bases, while scrupulously eschewing the gas chambers
as a basis for comparison (the Palestinians have not been sent to gas chambers en masse), necessarily makes one an "antisemite".
The Israeli historian Ilan Pappé describes Israel's policy regarding Gaza as "incremental genocide", in contrast to the Nazi's
absolute genocide. The final outcome however is not in doubt.
The distinguished Oxford jurist Stephen Sedley (himself a Jew) has saidthat "there is no legal bar on criticising Israel. Yet
several of the "examples" that have been tacked on to the IHRA definition (by whom is not known) seek to stifle criticism of Israel
irrespective of intent. The House of Commons select committee on home affairs in October 2016 advised adding: "It is not antisemitic
to criticise the government of Israel, without additional evidence to suggest antisemitic intent"."
Corbyn, under siege from the media and Jewish groups (who say, with risible hyperbole, that he poses an "existential threat" to
British Jews), has apologized for not doing enough to root out antisemitism in the Labour Party.
Corbyn's apology was unnecessary. Not just because it was not merited by the real circumstances underlying this manufactured "crisis",
but also because every step he takes now is dismissed as "meaningless" and "too little, too late" by his opportunistic opponents.
Instead Corbyn should have given an immediate forensic analysis of the IHRA's flawed "examples" of "antisemitism", indicating
that Labour was wise not to incorporate these, root and branch, in the definition of antisemitism it adopted.
Corbyn should also have come out earlier with his pledge to deal firmly with those justifiably guilty of antisemitism in the Labour
party.
Corbyn has many admirable qualities, but perhaps doing forensics is not one of them. However, he has many surrogates capable of
undertaking this task, and they should be entrusted with it immediately.
The late and much missed Robin Cook, the former Labour minister who demolished Blair's rationales for the Iraq war in the House
of Commons debate on Blair's push for the war, would have been perfect for the job.
Doesn't matter if it's 2004 or 2018, the (((usual suspects))) keep playing this cruel game
to maintain their eternal victim status, garner pity, sympathy and the mandatory outpouring
of tax dollars from the city/state/nation's Treasury to their jew supremacist pockets.
And it's been going on for centuries....all over the western world.
"... By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One, an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and co-founder of Bank Whistleblowers United. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives ..."
By Bill Black, the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One, an associate
professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and co-founder of
Bank Whistleblowers United. Jointly published with New Economic Perspectives
Steven Krystofiak formed the Mortgage Brokers Association for Responsible Lending, a
professional association dedicated to fighting mortgage fraud and predation. On August 1, 2006.
He tried to save our Nation by issuing one of the most prescient warnings about the epidemic of
mortgage fraud and predation and the crisis it would so cause.
The context was Congress' effort to empower and convince the Federal Reserve to take action
against what the mortgage lending industry called, behind closed doors, "liar's" loans. A
liar's loan is a loan in which the lender does not verify (at least) the borrower's actual
income. The industry knew that the failure to verify inherently led to endemic fraud. George
Akerlof and Paul Romer's 1993 article on "Looting" by financial CEOs explicitly cited the
failure to verify the borrower's income as an example of a lending practice that only
fraudulent lenders would use on a widespread basis.
Congress gave the Fed the unique authority to ban all liar's loans in 1994, by passing the
Home Ownership and Equity Protection Act (HOEPA). HOEPA gave the Fed the authority to ban
liar's loans even by "shadow" sector financial firms that had no federal deposit insurance.
Liar's loans began to become material around 1989 during the savings and loan debacle where
all good U.S. financial frauds are born – Orange County, California. In that era, they
were called "low documentation" ('low doc') loans. We (the West Region of the Office of Thrift
Supervision (OTS), were the federal regulator for these S&Ls, and we were overwhelmed
dealing with the "control frauds" driving the debacle, who overwhelmingly used commercial real
estate (CRE) as their accounting "weapon" of choice. Our examiners, however, made two critical
points. No honest lender would make widespread loans without verifying the borrower's income
because it was certain to produce severe "adverse selection" and produce serious losses. The
examiners' second warning was that such loans were growing rapidly in Orange County and
multiple lenders were involved.
We listened and responded well to our examiners' timely and sound warnings and made it a
moderate priority to drive liar's loans out of the industry we regulated. The last of the major
fraudulent S&L liar's loan lenders was Long Beach Savings. Long Beach set a common pattern
for fraudulent lenders by also engaging in predation primarily against Latinos and blacks. In
1994, the same year HOEPA became law; Long Beach voluntarily gave up federal deposit insurance
and its charger as a savings and loan. Long Beach's controlling owner, Roland Arnall, did this
for the sole purpose of escaping our regulatory jurisdiction and our ability to examine, sue,
and sanction the S&L and its officers. Arnall changed its name to Ameriquest, and converted
it to a mortgage bank. Mortgage banks were essentially unregulated. Arnall successfully sought
sanctuary in what we now call the "shadow" financial sector. The S&L debacle did not end.
It found sanctuary in the Shadow and grew 50% annually for 13 years.
Ameriquest and its leading mortgage bank competitor, run by former S&L officers we (OTS)
had "removed and prohibited" from working in any federally insured lender, became the leading
"vectors" spreading the epidemic of fraudulent liar's loans through (initially) the shadow
sector and later back into federally insured lenders. Many of Arnall's lieutenants eventually
left Ameriquest to lead other fraudulent and predatory lenders making predatory liar's loans.
Michael W. Hudson's book, The Monster , is a great read that presents this history.
Ameriquest and its fraudulent and predatory peers grew at extraordinary rates for over a
decade. They hyper-inflated the bubble and drove the financial crisis.
Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernake refused to use HOEPA to stop this surging epidemic of
fraudulent and predatory liar's loans. This was the setting when Krystofiak, on his own dime
and initiative took advantage of a Fed hearing on predatory lending near his home to warn us
all of the coming disaster. Krystofiak was not the first warning. His written
testimony cited the appraisers' and the FBI's prior warnings. The appraisers' 2000 petition
explaining how lenders and their agents were extorting appraisers to inflate appraisals was
superb. Chris Swecker's 2004 warning on behalf of the FBI that the developing "epidemic" of
mortgage fraud would cause a financial "crisis" if not stopped was superb.
Krystofiak was also superb. The Fed did not want to conduct hearings on fraudulent and
predatory liar's loans – Congress forced it to do so. The Fed's Board members were not
interested in stopping fraudulent and predatory liar's loans. The Fed did not invite Krystofiak
to testify. The Fed offered only a brief "cattle call" at the end of the hearing allowing
(after a top Fed official had left to fly back to DC) the public to make a very brief
statement.
The Fed's treatment of Krysofiak stood in sharp contrast to its fawning treatment of the
Mortgage Bankers Associations' chosen witness. The MBA chose the leading originator of
fraudulent liar's loans in California – IndyMac – to present the MBA's position.
The MBA's position was that the Fed should not use its HOEPA authority to ban fraudulent and
predatory liar's loans. The Fed officials cracked jokes with and treated the IndyMac officer
like an old pal. They treated Krytofiak with cold indifference. The MBA witness presented utter
BS. Krystofiak
spoke truth to power. Power loved the BS. The truth discomfited the Fed officials.
Krytofiak's written testimony made many vital points, but I refer to only two related points
here. First, he warned the Fed that the twin mortgage fraud origination epidemics –
appraisal fraud and liar's loans – were so large that they were inflating the housing
bubble. Second, his means of quantifying the incidence of liar's loan fraud showed the
regulators and the prosecutors that they could use the same method to document reliably,
cheaply, and quickly the incidence of liar's loan fraud at every relevant financial firm.
Data Collected by the Mortgage Brokers Association for Responsible Lending
A recent
sample of 100 stated income loans which were compared to IRS records (which is allowed through
IRS forms 4506, but hardly done) found that 90 % of the income was exaggerated by 5 % or more.
MORE DISTURBINGLY, ALMOST 60 % OF THE STATED AMOUNTS WERE EXAGGERATED BY MORE THAN 50%. These
results suggest that the stated income loans deserves the nickname used by many in the
industry, the "liar's loan" (emphasis in original).
The MBA's anti-fraud experts, MARI, appears to have conducted the study for Krystofiak. They
featured the 4506-T (the "T" stands for "transcript") study and its finding of a 90% fraud
incidence in liar's loans. In 2006, MARI presented its fraud study at the MBA's annual meeting.
The MBA sent MARI's report to every member, which included all the major mortgage players.
Any honest originator, purchaser, or packager of liar's loans was on notice no later than
mid-2006 that they could determine quickly, cheaply, and reliably the fraud incidence in those
liar's loans by using the 4506-T forms to test a sample of those loans. Krystofiak aptly noted
that while lenders typically required borrowers to sign the IRS 4506-T form allowing the lender
to access their tax information, it was actually "hardly done." Lenders supposedly require the
4506-T because taxpayers have an obvious interest in not inflating their income to the IRS. The
self-employed have to report their income accurately or face potential tax fraud sanctions.
The reason liar's loan mortgage lenders, purchasers, the packagers of toxic collateralized
debt obligations (CDOs ) that typically were composed of large amounts of liar's loans, and
credit rating agencies, "hardly [ever] used" or required the sellers to use their 4506-T
authority is also clear if you understand "accounting control fraud." Any 4506-T study of
liar's loans will document their pervasive frauds. Virtually all liar's loan and CDO sales
required "reps and warranties" that they were not fraudulent. If a firm making or selling
liar's loans conducted a 4506-T study and documented that it knew its reps and warranties were
false, and it continued t make, sell, package, or rate those fraudulent loans under false reps
and warranties it would be handling its counterparty a dream civil fraud suit. They would be
handing DOJ the ability to prosecute them successfully for felonies that caused hundreds of
billions of dollars in losses. The fraudulent mortgage money machine relied on the major
players following a financial "don't ask; don't tell" policy.
The exceptions prove the rule. I have found public evidence of only two cases in which
mortgage players (other than Krystofiak) conducted 4506-T audits of liar's loans. I have never
found public evidence that any federal regulator or prosecutor conducted or mandated a 4506-T
study. The two known cases of 4506-T audits were Wells Fargo (just disclosed by DOJ) and
Countrywide (disclosed by the SEC investigation and complaint). Both audits found massive fraud
incidence in the liar's loans. The risk officers presented these audit results to the banks'
senior managers.
Bank Whistleblowers United's 4506-T Proposal
Two and-a-half years ago, Bank Whistleblowers United (BWU) discussed the senior officers of
Countrywide's response to its 4506-T audit. We noted that BWU co-founder Michael Winston blew
the whistle on Countrywide's frauds to the bank's most senior officers to try to prevent these
frauds. Mr. Winston eagerly aided potential prosecutors – who failed to prosecute
Countrywide's senior officers leading the frauds. BWU then explained the analogous response of
Citigroup's senior officers to a different but equally reliable audit conducted by BWU
co-founder Richard Bowen. We did so in a January 30, 2016 New Economic Perspectives
blog urging presidential candidates in the 2016 election to pledge to implement the 60-day
BWU plan to restore the rule of law to Wall Street.
As documented in the SEC complaint, Countrywide's managers conducted a secret internal
study of Countrywide's liar's loans that, on June 2, 2006, confirmed Krystofiak's findings of
endemic fraud in liar's loans. Fraud was the norm in Countrywide's liar's loans, a fact that
it failed to disclose to its stockholders and secondary market purchasers. Instead of
stopping such loans, Countrywide's senior officers caused it to adopt what they termed
"Extreme Alt-A" loans offered by Bear and Lehman that "layered" this fraud risk on top of a
half dozen additional massive risks to create what Countrywide's controlling officer
described as loans that were "toxic" and "inherently unsound." "Alt-A" was the euphemism for
liar's loans. Countrywide made massive amounts of "Extreme Alt-A" and acted as a vector
spreading these "toxic" loans throughout the financial system. A member of our group, Dr.
Michael Winston, tried to stop these kinds of abuses, which enriched top management but
bankrupted Countrywide.
Similarly, a member of our group, Richard Bowen and his team of expert underwriters,
documented that Citigroup knew that it was purchasing tens of billions of dollars of loans
annually on the basis of fraudulent "reps and warranties" – and then reselling them to
Fannie and Freddie on the basis of fraudulent reps and warranties. Bowen put the highest
levels of Citigroup (including Bob Rubin) on personal notice in writing as the incidence of
fraud climbed from 40% to 60%. (It eventually reached an astonishing 80% fraud incidence.)
Citigroup's leadership's response was to remove his staff. Senior Citigroup officers also
responded to the surging fraud by causing Citigroup to become a major purchaser of
fraudulently originated liar's loans.
We can now add the senior leaders that determined Wells Fargo's response to its 4506-T
audit. We draw on the Department of Justice (DOJ) disclosures in conjunction with its
indefensible settlement of civil fraud claims against Wells Fargo's massive mortgage fraud. The
DOJ press release revealed that "in 2005, Wells Fargo began an initiative to double its
production of subprime and Alt-A loans." DOJ did not explain that this was after the FBI warned
there was an emerging "epidemic" of mortgage "fraud" that would cause a financial "crisis" if
it were not stopped. The settlement discloses that Wells' risk officers alerted senior managers
that the plan to increase greatly the number of liar's loans would greatly increase fraud in
2005 before Wells implemented the plan.
The press release had other bombshells (unintentionally) demonstrating the strength of the
criminal cases that DOJ refused to bring against Wells' senior officers. Wells Fargo's 4506-T
audit found that its liar's loans were endemically fraudulent, and the amount of inflated
income was extraordinary.
The results of Wells Fargo's 4506-T testing were disclosed in internal monthly reports,
which were widely distributed among Wells Fargo employees. One Wells Fargo employee in risk
management observed that the "4506-T results are astounding" yet "instead of reacting in a
way consistent with what is being reported WF [Wells Fargo] is expanding stated [income loan]
programs in all business lines."
The press release note some other actions by Wells' senior managers that show what
prosecutors term "consciousness of guilt." Such actions make (real) prosecutors salivate. The
press release's final substantive revelation is the unbelievable rate of loan defaults on Wells
Fargo's fraudulent loans and the exceptional damages those loans and sales caused.
Wells Fargo sold at least 73,539 stated income loans that were included in RMBS between
2005 to 2007, and nearly half of those loans have defaulted, resulting in billions of dollars
in losses to investors.
Typical default rates on conventional mortgages averaged, for decades, around 1.5 percent.
The Wells Fargo liar's loans defaulted at a rate 30 times greater.
How Corrupt is Wells? Cheating Customers is "Courageous"
The press release does not contain the Wells Fargo gem that proves our family rule that it
is impossible to compete with unintentional self-parody. Paragraph H of the settlement reveals
that Wells' term for doubling its number of fraudulent liar's loans in 2005 was "Courageous
Underwriting." Wells' senior managers changed its compensation system to induce its employees
to approve even worse loans. Calling defrauding your customers "courageous" epitomizes Wells
Fargo's corrupt culture built on lies and lies about lies.
DOJ's pathetic settlement with Wells Fargo has no admissions by the bank. It does not
require a penny in damages from any bank officer. It does not require a bank officer to return
a penny of bonuses received through these fraudulent loans. The settlement contains DOJ's
statement that its investigation found that Wells' violated four federal criminal
statutes. DOJ will continue to grant de facto immunity from prosecution to elite
banksters. The Trump administration has again flunked a major test dealing with the swamp
banksters.
Section H (b) of the settlement is factually inaccurate in a manner that makes it highly
favorable to fraudulent lenders making liar's loans. There is no indication that DOJ ever
investigated Wells' fraudulent loan origination practices. It was overwhelmingly lenders and
their loan brokers that put the lies in liar's loans. DOJ's settlement documents do not refer
to Wells whistleblowers, even though and competent investigation would have identified dozens
of whistleblowers. Throughout its Wells documents, DOJ implies that borrowers overstated their
income rather than Wells and its loan brokers.
The Jig is Up on DOJ's Pathetic Excuses for Refusing to Jail Elite Bank Frauds
We now know with certainty from the whistleblowers and the internal audits that the response
of Citigroup, Countrywide, and Wells Fargo's senior leaders to knowing that most of
their liar's loans and the reps and warranties they made about those loans were fraudulent. We
know with certainty that Michael Winston and Richard Bowen's disclosures were correct. We know
with certainty that each served up to DOJ on a platinum platter dream cases for prosecuting
Citigroup and Countrywide's top managers. The senior managers' response to proof that their
banks were engaged in endemic fraud makes sense only if the senior managers were leading an
"accounting control fraud," which enriches the managers by harming the lender.
When the appraisers' warned of extensive extortion by lenders and their agents to inflate
appraisals, when the FBI warned that mortgage fraud was becoming "epidemic" and would cause a
financial "crisis" if not halted, and when the MBA publicized Krystofiak and MARI's warnings
that liar's loans were endemically fraudulent, the fraudulent CEOs' response was always the
same. In each case, they expanded what they knew were endemically fraudulent liar's loans and
increased the extortion of appraisers.
Back to BWU's 4506-T Proposal
This brings us back to reminding the public what BWU proposed 32 months ago about 4506-T
audits. Point 17 of our 60-day plan began:
Within 60 days, each federal financial regulatory agency directs any bank that it
regulates to conduct and publicly report a "Krystofiak" study on a sample of "liar's" loans
that they continue to hold. Krystofiak devised a clever study that he presented to the
Federal Reserve in an unsuccessful attempt to try to get the Fed to stop the epidemic of
fraudulent liar's loans. Lenders and secondary market purchasers routinely required borrowers
to authorize the lender and any subsequent purchaser of the loan to obtain a "transcript"
(4506-T) of the borrower's tax returns from the IRS to allow the lender to quickly and
inexpensively verify the borrower's reported income.
Other parts of our 60-day plan called for DOJ appointees with the courage, integrity, and
skills to restore the rule of law to Wall Street. We also explained the needs (and means) for
the banking regulators to conduct the investigations (such as 4506-T audits), activate a legion
of whistleblowers, and make the criminal referrals to DOJ essential to bring successful
prosecutions.
Conclusion
Had the regulators (particularly the Fed through its HOEPA power) required each bank making
liar's loans to conduct a 4506-T audit, the senior managers would have faced a dilemma. They
could stop the fraudulent lending or provide DOJ with a great opportunity to prosecute them.
The bank CEOs' response to the internal audits showing endemic fraud and the retaliation
against the whistleblowers combine to offer superb proof of senior managers' 'specific intent'
to defraud. The reasons for the failure to prosecute were some combination of cowardice and
politics. If Democrats win control of the House they can use their investigative powers to
force each bank regulator to cause every relevant financial institution to conduct a 4506-T
audit.
Of course, the Republican Senate and House chairs could order those steps today . We are not
holding our breath, but BWU's co-founders are eager to aid either, or both, parties restore the
rule of law to Wall Street. Instead, we are rapidly creating an intensely criminogenic
environment on Wall Street that will eventually cause a severe financial crisis.
Did John Stumpf (President of Wells Fargo 2007-2016) really say, "If one family loses
their home, it is a tragedy. If ten million people lose their homes, it is a statistic?"
Even by Black's lofty standards, this is an outstanding article. The fact that it won't be
published in the mainstream media, and that the vast majority of regulators and politicians
will ignore it, underscores once again just how broken and corrupted the American political
and economic systems are.
It's the same in the UK with regard to mortgage fraud and reporting.
A colleague, brought in from the regulator to clean up our German basket case TBTF's brief
and late in the day foray into the mortgage market, said the UK mortgage market was as
corrupt / fraudulent. The same US firms were involved in many, if not most, cases. Lehman had
an outpost, Ascendant, in my home county, Buckinghamshire, for such activity. Lehman, Merrill
and Citi carved out the UK on geographical lines. One (US) firm was given the name of the
Germanic tribe that settled in the area 1500 years before.
FWIW, the kinds of government errors, cowardice, and confusions that Black relates –
on top of having taxpayers foot the bill for it all – was a key factor IMVHO in people
voting Trump as a kind of protest vote. He talks about 'fake news' to a huge number of
Americans who faked income, or approved fake income.
The rest of us, I assume, continue to seethe and are supporting 'honest money, fair
wages/salary' candidates like Warren and Sanders.
In early 2005 I was working as a loan Broker when I met the World Savings rep or the first
time.
The first words out of his mouth were a warning not to take more than 3 pints on the back end
because it was greedy, the second sentence was "If there's a problem with the income the
underwriter will drop the file on my desk, I'll call you and we'll fix it".
He's still in the business, a few rungs further up the corporate ladder, I got out of the
business the following week.
If Democrats win control of the House they can use their investigative powers to force
each bank regulator to cause every relevant financial institution to conduct a 4506-T
audit.
The establishment democrats that receive donor dollars from Wall Street banks? I wouldn't
hold my breath waiting for them to even investigate much less do anything else to stop this
criminal activity.
Fabulous piece as usual from Mr. Black. Just makes the tenure of the previous
administration all the more complicit in the current state of affairs. As Mr. Black details
there was an obvious solution to uncover the fraud and go after senior execs, something that
also could have also been done when the 'democrat' party held the House and at least a
leverage position in the Senate. What the American public received instead was a giant con
job/cover-up advertised as restitution and Obama goes on national TV to pathetically claim
that grossly fraudulent behavior was simply unethical. Obviously that maneuver had a higher
ROI for post-tenure legacy building and fundraising.
There is really a simple solution: fire everyone at DOJ and replace them with Air Force
officers.
An Air Force officer is brave. He will fly through enemy fire if he has to in order to do
his job. He gives no thought to the Taliban career opportunities that he might be forgoing by
bombing them.
An Air Force officer is competent. He can fly through thunderstorms in the dead of night
and get his bombs when and where the forward air controller down with the infantry needs
them. Compare that to the experience of an honest IG official trying to get an indictment
from DOJ for anyone at a mega-bank.
An Air Force officer knows how to get funding for his priorities. The Air Force annual
budget, at $156 billion, is about 5 times that of DOJ. Enough said.
When you know these facts, the solution is obvious.
Go read The Pentagon Wars or Coram's Boyd . Air Force (or other service)
officers have no particular claim to virtue. If you pulled mostly captains maybe it'd work,
but the bravery and competence needed on the front line is vastly different from that needed
from say a Colonel or General running programs/units which is likely the officers you'd be
bringing in. Remember you're advocating bringing in people responsible for the boondoggle
that is the F35 to shape up an organization. (which is not an isolated instance but
emblematic of the upper tiers of the service)
Thanks for the referrals; let me take a look. (I have read Thomas Ricks' The
Generals , which I suspect makes a similar point to those.) The point is acknowledged,
although I have not only read The Chickenshit Club but lived through it. There were
many DOJ people I had to deal with whom I can only describe using Bundy's pungent phrase for
the South Vietnamese political leadership: "the absolute bottom of the barrel." They
contrasted starkly with the fellow junior officers I knew in my youth, but as you noted,
those were junior officers.
The simplicity of the 4506-T audits is as profound as the physics comparison of the
diversity of the economy to GDP. These things don't work when all the chaos comes home to
roost. In 1989 our economy was on the rocks and our corporations were offshoring as fast as
they could; the USSR collapsed and we landed like a murder of crows to pick their bones and
loot Russia. OPEC was naming their price; China was exporting massive deflation; our banks
were already on the brink. But how to bring home all the loot from not just Russia but all
the other illegal sources connected with our once and future imperialism? We were no longer a
country of laws; we were looters, thieves and launderers. We were trying to salvage our
"investments" or we were hoovering up flight capital or some other thing that had nothing to
do with law and order and democracy. You name it. How else did all the banks, all of them,
agree to forego their own standards and make all those conveyor belt loans? They prolly all
had to become industrial laundromats and get rid of the stuff asap. Which was perhaps only
one aspect to the ongoing collapse of "capitalism" as we once knew it – but were unable
to protect it. I love Bill Black because he makes me come to uncomfortable explanations who
knows how it all fell apart? Somebody does.
Superb comment Susan. I make know how ' it all fell apart ' other than recognising that
the early capitalists worked with stuff that had to be produced, and so despite vile excesses
produced something useful to many , whereas these financial capitalists produce nothing of
value to anyone except themselves and take away something from everybody else ( liar's loans
being a key example ) . The question is , is there any here beyond here ? Clearly not with
ANY of the present political incumbents ( I am in the UK it's the same for you and us ) . So
that in two sentences is my answer to your question . My question is ' how on earth do we get
beyond here ?'
Re Bill Black: " Instead, we are rapidly creating an intensely criminogenic environment
on Wall Street that will eventually cause a severe financial crisis."
By design and intent with no fear of criminal prosecution for fraud, imprisonment, or even
surrender of ill-gotten personal financial gains. All brought to us courtesy of the political
donor class and large corporations, those they have corrupted, and the Supreme Court's
Orwellian-named Citizens United decision and expanded executive branch powers that
make it possible.
Look at any set of issues: Failure to pass and implement policies to address climate
change, endless wars, defunding public education and infrastructure, the opioid crisis,
manipulation of financial markets, federal government austerity, transfers of public lands
and resources into private hands, privatization of public services, healthcare, stagnant real
wages, loss of any semblance of economic equality, debt burdens placed on our young people
seeking economic opportunity or family formation, lack of legal separation of bank depository
and payments system functions from their market speculations, failure to enforce corporate
antitrust laws, erosion of privacy and civil liberties, repeated bubbles, concentration of
media ownership in the hands of a few, secret international tax havens, etc. and what do you
see?
With the latest disclosures about WF stealing directly from their banking customers on top
of their previous frauds, I'm just sure the regulators will come down hard on them this time
(NOT!)
I wonder if Mr. Trump, with his involvement in commercial RE, ever "mis-stated" his his
income, assets and/or liabilities when obtaining a loan. Nah, couldn't happen.
I wonder why anybody still banks with WF. My late mom had about 30K in a WF account under
a trust that I could not close out for 24 months (Florida laws – WF had a branch in
their eldercare facility.) I was delighted that my closeout check did not bounce.
A while back I worked at a medical device startup operating within a formal (i.e. written
and comprehensive) quality system. A quality system is required for any commercial sales of
medical products; previously I had been involved in early stage R+D and had not been bound by
such systems. So a lot of it was new to me.
Something that stuck out at the time, and probably ties in to the article above, was the
sanctity of corporate internal audit files. The FDA could demand access to almost any company
quality system document, except for internal audit files. They could be provided
with summaries of these internal audits indicating something like "6 minor deficiencies
found, 1 major deficiency found, 0 extreme deficiencies found" , but were not permitted
access to the raw internal audits.
I suspect that financial firms have the same level of protection for their internal
audits. Had they hired a consulting firm to investigate the accuracy of stated income in the
loans they originated, the results of that outside investigation would probably be a document
reviewable by government regulators (assuming they were interested in doing their job). But
by pursuing this as an internal audit, executives knew that the results would never be
reviewable, and give them plausible deniability that they knew of the systemic level of
fraud.
There certainly must be other ways of investigating efficiency or compliance within a
company, but by pursuing it as an internal audit they could easily bury the results.
A quibble: comparing stated income to income tax forms may be misleading, although it is
the standard. People have an interest in understating their income to the IRS, and in
overstating it when seeking a loan. The logic is that they risk prosecution if they
understate to the IRS, but there are plenty of situations where they're very unlikely to get
caught. It's conceivable the loan application is more honest than the tax return.
Loan officers I knew over the decades have changed their views. Asking them if they would
lend their own money to the proposed borrower used to be more likely to elicit a Yes. When
standards loosened (again) earlier this millennium, some answered No until realizing that
they shouldn't care since the money wasn't theirs. What really mattered was getting that
commission endorsed and deposited, given the rise of IBGYBG (I'll be gone, you'll be gone)
thinking.
Another question I asked was about tracking borrower performance relative to loan officer
compensation. Relationship building and longer term interactions declined with the rise of
neo-liberalish (the -ish suffix indicates a primitive reaction to immediate perceived
incentives without further investigation) mindsets. Portfolio lenders had more at risk but
still laid off some of that on the deposit insurance funds. Loan buyers did not fully
appreciate that they had to trust everyone preceding them in the value (destruction) cycle,
from brokers and investment bankers through ratings agencies.
Internal audits, compliance functions and regulatory exams were often the only temporary
inconveniences or obstacles to transactions and related income distribution.
If Democrats win control of the House they can use their investigative powers to force
each bank regulator to cause every relevant financial institution to conduct a 4506-T
audit.
Let us, for a moment, imagine this happens. Then what? The results would show widespread
fraud and a pathetic lack of adequate vetting by the issuer. Then those fraudulent loans were
aggregated into various RMBS and sold to others. I hope you can see that just this disclosure
is likely to cause a substantial hiccup in the financial system, perhaps another full-blown
crisis. And who would the public blame? The criminals – or the cops? I could see Dems,
even Dems with little or no connection to the Street, deciding not to open Pandora's box.
That is one of the problems with the American political system. From defense
appropriations to banking regulation, the pols live in fear of being tarred for doing the
right thing, if the outcome is temporarily bad or unpopular. Yes, it would obviously be best
to cleanse the wound, but doing so would hurt, so the pols decide that it would be best for
their popularity to let the wound fester until it becomes too big to ignore or financial
Armageddon occurs. Isn't that precisely the thinking of the Obama Administration?
All major Wall St banks and brokerages including Wachovia, Wells, BofA and even Citadel
and a few foreign banks (ABN Amro, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, etc) set up an offshore sub
called CDS Indexco. This was used as a defacto cartel to control the prices of both Sub-Prime
CDO issues and their respective Credit Default Swaps. They created the Markit BBB- index
which was used by Paulsen, Ackman and a few other chosen ones to short the MBS sub-prime
market. This is the truth.. CDS Indexco dropped that name in Nov. 2008 when the accounting
rules forced Marked to Market accounting and also the Consolidation of VIE's (Special Purpose
Financial Subs that got an exception to the Enron Rule). So in other words: if banks had been
made to follow the "Enron Rule" the financial crisis wouldn't have happened. Goldman's own
employee was the Chairman of CDS Indexco, I couldn't make this shit up. And Yves knows it
too. Gramm Leach Bliley made it all possible – so banks could hold both the debt and
the equity of an entity that they took no responsibility for. This was the precise reason for
Glass-Steagall banks were manhandling the ownership of business due to inherent conflicts of
interest between debt and equity holders.
My dear Murgatory, Wow. This is the first I have heard of CDS Indexco. You are suggesting
that it was much more than a mere market clearinghouse. Where could I read more on this?
A former bank/trustee foreclosure attorney is running for a District Court judge position
in Seattle. Remember Trott, the Foreclosure King, who Michigan sent to Congress? Yeah, this
dude is trying to get on the bench.
"... Chart: Demonization of Russia centers on competition for oil and gas revenues. Pipelines to deliver oil and gas from the Middle East to Europe run through North Africa (Libya) and Syria and / or Turkey. These pipelines are substantially controlled by Western interests with imperial / colonial ties to the U.S., Britain and 'developed' Europe. Russian oil and gas did run through Ukraine, which is now negotiating to join NATO, or otherwise hits a NATO wall before entering Europe. ..."
The indictments are a major political story, but not for the reasons given in
mainstream press coverage. Once Mr. Mueller's indictment is understood to charge the
exploitation of existing social tensions (read it and decide for yourself), the FBI, which Mr.
Mueller directed from 2001 – 2013, is precisely the wrong entity to be rendering
judgment. The FBI has been America's political police since its founding in 1908. Early on
former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover led legally dubious mass
arrests of American dissidents. He practically invented the slander of conflating
legitimate dissent with foreign agency. This is the institutional backdrop from which Mr.
Mueller proceeds.
In the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s the FBI's targets included the civil rights movement, the
antiwar movement, the American Indian Movement (AIM), the Black Panther Party and any other
political organization Mr. Hoover deemed a threat. The secret (hidden) FBI program COINTELPRO was intended to
subvert political outcomes outside of allegations of criminal wrongdoing and with no regard for the lives of its
targets . Throughout its history the FBI has sided with the powerful against the powerless
to maintain an unjust social order.
Robert Mueller became FBI Director only days before the attacks of September 11, 2001. One
of his first acts as Director was to arrest 1,000 persons without any evidence of criminal
wrongdoing. None of those arrested were ever charged in association with the attacks. The frame
in which the FBI acted -- to maintain political stability threatened by 'external' forces, was
ultimately chosen by the George W. Bush administration to justify its aggressive war against
Iraq.
It is the FBI's legacy of conflating dissent with being an agent of a foreign power that Mr.
Mueller's indictment most insidiously perpetuates. Russians are 'sowing discord,' and they are
using Americans to do so, goes the allegation. Black Lives Matter and Bernie Sanders are listed
in the indictment as roadblocks to the unfettered ascension of Hillary Clinton to the
presidency. Russians are sowing discord, therefore discord is both suspect in itself and
evidence of being a foreign agent.
The posture of simple reporting at work in the indictment -- that it isn't the FBI's fault
that the Russians (allegedly) inserted themselves into the electoral process, runs against the
history of the FBI's political role, the tilt used to craft criminal charges and the facts put
forward versus those put to the side. Given the political agendas of the other agencies that
the FBI joined through the charges, they are most certainly but a small piece of a larger
story.
In the aftermath of the indictments it's easy to forget that the Pentagon created the internet ,
that the NSA
has its tentacles in all of its major chokepoints, that the CIA has been heavily
involved in funding and 'using' social media toward its own ends and that the FBI is only
reputable in the present because of Americans' near-heroic ignorance of history. The claim that
the Russian operation was sophisticated because it had corporate form and function is countered
by the fact that it was, by the various agencies' own claims, ineffectual in changing the
outcome of the election.
I Have a List
While Robert Mueller was busy charging never-to-be-tried Russians with past crimes, Dan
Coats, the Director of National Intelligence,
declared that future Russian meddling has already cast a shadow over the integrity of the
2018 election. Why the Pentagon that created the internet, the NSA that has its tentacles in
all of its major chokepoints, the CIA that has been heavily involved in funding and 'using'
social media toward its own ends and the FBI that just landed such a glorious victory of good
over evil would be quivering puddles when it comes to precluding said meddling is a question
that needs to be asked.
The political frame being put forward is that only these agencies know if particular
elections and candidates have been tainted by meddling, therefore we need to trust them to tell
us which candidates were legitimately elected and which weren't. As generous as this offer
seems, wouldn't the creation of free and fair elections be a more direct route to achieving
this end? Put differently, who among those making the offer, whether personally or as
functionaries of their respective agencies, has a demonstrated history of supporting democratic
institutions?
The 2016 election was apparently a test case for posing these agencies as the meddling
police. By getting the bourgeois electocracy -- liberal Democrats, to agree that the loathsome
Trump is illegitimate, future candidates will be vetted by the CIA, NSA and FBI with impunity.
It's apparently only the pre-'discord, ' the social angst that the decade of the Great
Recession left as its residual, that shifts this generous offer from the deterministic to the
realm of the probable. The social conditions that led to the Great Recession and its aftermath
are entirely home grown.
More broadly, how do the government agencies and people that spent the better part of the
last century undermining democracy at home and abroad intend to stop 'Russian meddling?' If the
FBI couldn't disentangle home grown 'discord' from that allegedly exploited and exacerbated by
the Russians, isn't the likely intention to edit out all discord? And if fake news is a problem
in need of addressing, wouldn't the
New York Times and the Washington Post have
been shut down years ago?
The Great Satin (sic)
While Russia is the villain of the day, week and year due to alleged election 'meddling,'
the process of demonization that Russia has undergone has shown little variation from (alleged)
villain to villain. It is thanks to cable news and the 'newspaper of record' that the true
villainy of Vladimir Putin, Muammar Gadhafi, Saddam Hussein, Nicolas Maduro and the political
leadership of Iran has been revealed. In the face of such monsters, questions of motivation are
moot. Why wouldn't Mr. Putin 'sow discord?'
The question as yet unasked, and therefore unanswered is: is there something besides base
villainy that brought these national leaders, and the nations they lead, into the crosshairs of
America's fair and wise leadership? This question might forever go unanswered were it not for
the secret list from which their names were apparently drawn. No, not that secret list. This one is publicly available -- hiding in plain sight, as it
were. It is the list of proven oil reserves by country (below). This is no doubt unduly
reductive -- evil is as evil does, but read on.
The question of how such a list could divide so evenly between heroes and villains I leave
to the philosophers. On second thought, no I won't. The heroes are allies of a small cadre of
America's political and economic elite who have made themselves fabulously rich through the
alliances. The villains have oil, gas, pipelines and other resources that this elite wants.
Reductive, yes. But this simple list certainly appears to explain American foreign policy over
the last half-century quite well.
Source: gulfbusiness.com
It's almost as if America's love for humanity, as demonstrated through humanitarian
interventions, is determined by imperial competition for natural resources -- in this case oil
and gas. Amongst these countries, only one (Canada) is 'democratic' in the American sense of
being run by a small cadre of plutocrats who use the state to further their own interests. Two
-- Iraq and Libya, were recently reduced to rubble (for the sake of humanity) by the U.S.
Nigeria is being 'brought' under the control of AFRICOM. What remains are various and sundry
petro-states plus Venezuela and Russia.
Following the untimely death of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, the horrible tyrant kept in office
via free
and fair elections , who used Venezuela's petro-dollars to feed, clothe and educate his
people and was in the process of creating a regional Left alliance to counter American abuse of
power, the CIA joined with local
plutocrats to overthrow his successor, Nicolas Maduro. The goal: to 'liberate' Venezuela's oil
revenues in their own pockets. At the moment Mr. Maduro is down the list of villains, not
nearly the stature of a 'new Hitler' like Vladimir Putin. But where he ends up will depend on
how successfully the CIA (with Robert Mueller's help) can drum up a war against nuclear armed
Russia.
What separates Russia from the other heroes and villains on the list is its history as a
competing empire as well as the manner in which Russian oil and gas is distributed. Geography
placed it closer to the population centers of Europe than to Southeastern China where Chinese
economic development has been concentrated. This makes Europe a 'natural' market for Russian
oil and gas.
The former Soviet state of Ukraine did stand between, or rather under, Russian pipelines and
Europe until Hillary Clinton had her lieutenants engineer a coup there in 2014. In contrast to
the 'new Hitler' of Mr. Putin (or was that Trump?) Mrs. Clinton and her comrades demonstrated a
preference for the old Hitler in the form of Ukrainian fascists who were the ideological
descendants of 'authentic' WWII Nazis. But rest assured, not all of the U.S.'s allies in this
affair
were ideological Nazis .
Chart: Demonization of Russia centers on competition for oil and gas revenues. Pipelines
to deliver oil and gas from the Middle East to Europe run through North Africa (Libya) and
Syria and / or Turkey. These pipelines are substantially controlled by Western interests with
imperial / colonial ties to the U.S., Britain and 'developed' Europe. Russian oil and gas did
run through Ukraine, which is now negotiating to join NATO, or otherwise hits a NATO wall
before entering Europe.
In contrast to the alternative hypotheses given
in the American press, NATO, the geopolitical extension of the U.S. military in Europe,
admits that the U.S.
engineered coup in Ukraine was 'about' oil geopolitics with Russia. The American storyline
that Crimea was seized by Russia ignores that the Russian navy has had a Black Sea port in Crimea for decades. How
amenable, precisely, might Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and his friends be if
Russia seized a major U.S. naval port given their generous offer to take over the U.S.
electoral system because of a few Russian trolls?
Although Russia is toward the bottom of the top ten countries in terms of oil reserves, it
faces a problem of distribution that the others don't. Imperial ties and recent military
incursions have left the distribution of oil and gas from the Middle East to Europe largely
under Western control. Syria, Turkey and North Africa are necessary to moving this oil and gas
through pipelines to Europe. That Syria, Libya and Turkey are now, or recently have been,
militarily contested adds credence to the contention that the 'international community's'
heroes and villains are largely determined by whose hands their oil and gas resources are
currently in.
Democratic Party loyalists who see Putin, Maduro et al as the problem first need to
answer for the candidate they put forward in 2016. Hillary Clinton led the carnage in Libya
that murdered
30,000 – 50,000 innocents for Western oil and gas interests. Russia didn't force the
U.S. into its calamitous invasion of Iraq. Russia didn't take Americans' jobs, houses and
pensions in the Great Recession. Russia didn't reward Wall Street for causing it. Democrats
need to take responsibility for their failed candidates and their failed Party.
Part of the point in relating oil reserves to American foreign entanglements is that the
countries and leaders involved are incidental. Vladimir Putin certainly seems smarter than the
American leadership. But this has no bearing on whether or not his leadership of Russia is
broadly socially beneficial. The only possible resolution of climate crisis requires both
Russia and the U.S. to greatly reduce their use of fossil fuels. Reports have it that Mr. Putin
has no interest in doing so. And once the marketing chatter is set to the side, neither do the
Americans.
By placing themselves as arbiters of the electoral process, the Director of National
Intelligence and the heads of the CIA, NSA and FBI can effectively control it. Is it accidental
that the candidate of liberal Democrats in the 2016 election was the insiders' -- the
intelligence agencies' and military contractors,' candidate as well? Implied is that these
agencies and contractors are now 'liberal.' Good luck with that program if you value peace and
prosperity.
There are lots of ways to create free and fair elections if that is the goal. Use
paper ballots that are counted in public, automatically register all eligible voters, make
election days national holidays and eliminate 'private' funding of electoral campaigns. But why
make elections free and fair when fanciful nonsense about 'meddling' will convince the liberal
class to deliver power to grey corpses in the CIA, NSA and FBI for the benefit of a tiny cabal
of stupendously rich plutocrats. Who says America isn't already great?
"... His crude realism is underestimated by a contemptuous media, dismissive of everything he does. They portray him as an ill-informed crackpot who makes up his policy on the spur of the moment, but this is often much saner than it looks: despite all his jingoism, he has yet to start a war; his belligerent threats towards countries such as North Korea and Iran appear to be designed primarily as negotiating positions in pursuit of a deal; he respects power and will talk to those who possess it, such as Vladimir Putin , enraging other parts of the US government that are trying to isolate Russia as a pariah state. ..."
British commentators – the BBC is particularly prone to this – tend to adopt a
patronising and derisive approach to Trump's demagoguery about "making America great again".
But he can get away with the most bizarre antics because the US is a political, economic and
military superpower regardless of Trump, even if it does not have the primacy it had after the
Second World War or, once again, after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Its status is
not changed by Trump's words and actions, though these are usually more carefully calculated
and rooted in the real world than his critics give him credit for.
His crude realism is underestimated by a contemptuous media, dismissive of everything he
does. They portray him as an ill-informed crackpot who makes up his policy on the spur of the
moment, but this is often much saner than it looks: despite all his jingoism, he has yet to
start a war; his belligerent threats towards countries such as North Korea and Iran appear to
be designed primarily as negotiating positions in pursuit of a deal; he respects power and
will talk to those who possess it, such as Vladimir Putin , enraging other parts of the US
government that are trying to isolate Russia as a pariah state.
The pro-Brexit vote in the referendum in 2016 is said by Trump to have given vital extra
momentum to the populist-nationalist surge that elected him president later that year. But the
danger of looking at everything through an isolationist and nationalist lens is far greater in
Britain than it is in the US simply because it leads to the British systematically overplaying
their hand. The price of doing so is illustrated by every stumbling step Britain takes out of
the EU, contradicting the Brexiteer mantra that Britain has political and economic potential
that will make it better off outside the EU.
On your last paragraph, I've been nursing that hope as far as the ME goes for a while as well. Ever since the Jerusalem decision.
As for European NATO, isn't that already shot? Turkey unreliable at one end. The UK at odds with the mainland at the other,
if all the disaster talk isn't just theatre and maybe if it is. European NATO no longer looks like a credible alliance. Not an
alliance at all should Trump remove or cause to be removed the American glue holding it all together.
But the Colonel's item 8 is going to weigh on the conscience of the West for a long time.
On #8: I would bet that not 1 in 100 Americans know anything about the place at all, never mind the current slaughter. There will
be nothing for them to forget. I'm not trying to be flippant either. Unfortunately, most of my countrymen are simply fat, dumb,
and happy; and content to stay that way.
addressed
a crowd of Iranian-Americans , giving voice to a new American policy on Iran that seeks to
undermine the legitimacy of the Iranian government. It would also strangle Iran's economy
through the reimposition of economic sanctions that had been set aside when Iran and five other
Western nations, including the United States, came to an agreement in 2015 over Iran's nuclear
program.
According to this agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, Iran accepted
sanctions on its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. When
President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA in May, he promised to reimpose sanctions that had been
approved by Congress, including those targeting Iran's sale of oil. The goal of the Trump
administration, Pompeo told the crowd, was to "get [Iranian oil] imports as close to zero as
possible" by this November.
Pompeo's address did not go over well in Tehran.
Addressing a gathering of Iranian diplomats , Iran's President Hassan Rouhani asked, "Is it
possible that everyone in the region sells their oil and we stand idly by and watch? Do not
forget that we have maintained the security of this waterway [Strait of Hormuz] throughout
history. We have historically secured the route of oil transit. Do not forget it."
Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda?
Approximately 18.5 million barrels of oil a day transit through the Strait of Hormuz, a
narrow channel of water separating Iran from Oman. The loss of this oil to the global economy
would be devastating. On July 5, Rouhani
commented on the American plan to shut down Iran's oil imports, saying, "The Americans say
they want to reduce Iranian oil exports to zero. It shows they have not thought about its
consequences." While Rouhani had remained silent about what those consequences would be, Qasem
Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, made it clear
that Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz to all oil traffic.
"America should know that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is
the mother of all wars," Rouhani said, warning the American president not to "play with the
lion's tail, this would only lead to regret."
President Trump's response, delivered via Twitter the
next day, caught the attention of the world.
NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF
WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL
STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!
On July 24, the Iranian Armed Forces chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, responded
to Trump's threats . "As the dominant power in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz,
[Iran] has been the guarantor of the security of shipping and the global economy in this vital
waterway and has the strength to take action against any scheme in this region," Bagheri
said.
"As our president correctly pointed out, the enemies, particularly America, whose centers of
interest are within reach of the visible and hidden defense forces of the Islamic Republic of
Iran, should not play with the lion's tail," the Iranian general said, "because they will
receive a strong, unimaginable and regrettable response of great magnitude in the region and
the world."
That same day, President Trump
addressed a gathering of the Veterans of Foreign Wars , seemingly a perfect venue for
offering a bellicose response to the Iranian threats of action. Instead, the president offered
up a fig leaf of sorts. "We'll see what happens," Trump said, "but we're ready to make a real
deal, not the deal that was done by the previous administration, which was a disaster."
The seesawing rhetorical game of threat and counterthreat being played by Trump seems
reminiscent of a similar approach taken late last year and early this year with North Korea
over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Last August, responding to North Korean
threats to test missiles capable of reaching the United States, Trump had declared
that North Korea "best not make any more threats to the United States," saying that if North
Korea disregarded him, "They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen."
Trump later went on to famously belittle North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, as "little rocket
man," while Kim in turn responded by calling Trump a "dotard" and a "warmonger" whose true
nature was that of a "destroyer of the world peace and stability."
In June, Trump and Kim held a summit in Singapore, where they discussed the denuclearization
of the Korean peninsula.
Many observers believe that Trump is reaching back to his North Korean playbook in engaging
in the current hostile exchange with Iran. Iran, however, is not North Korea.
What follows are major reasons why Trump is wrong if he thinks Iran will accede to his
demands that it renegotiate a nuclear agreement with the United States to replace the
JCPOA.
Reason One: Iran Isn't Breaking the Law
North Korea was in open violation of numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions regarding
its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and there was (and is) widespread concurrence that
North Korea's nuclear weapons program posed a clear and present threat to international peace
and security. While Trump's hostile rhetoric toward Kim Jong Un represented American policy
only, he was backed up by a global consensus that the threat from North Korea's nuclear arsenal
was no longer acceptable. North Korea was on the wrong side of the law, and it knew it.
Iran, on the other hand, had successfully negotiated a nuclear agreement with the five
permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, Germany and the European Union. Its
nuclear program today operates in total conformity with the terms of that agreement. The
Security Council had passed a resolution undoing the totality of the economic sanctions imposed
on Iran because of its nuclear program. Trump withdrew from the JCPOA because of American
domestic politics, not because Iran threatened international peace and security. As the United
States moves to reimpose sanctions on Iran, one is struck by the number of nations rushing to
its side to join in this endeavor: zero.
Simply put, there is no compelling narrative than can be crafted that has Iran walking away
from the JCPOA.
Reason Two: Iran Doesn't Have to Win to Win
A war between the United States and North Korea, while potentially devastating for the
entire region, had only one sure outcome -- total American victory (at a huge cost), and the
absolute destruction of the North Korean regime. In short, if Kim Jong Un opted for war with
the United States, he would be committing suicide -- and taking millions of others down with
him. Kim Jong Un is anything but suicidal. He built his arsenal of nuclear weapons for
deterrence purposes, not to engage in a self-destructive acquisition of technology. North
Korea's ultimate goal has been to break free of the international isolation it has been
subjected to; nuclear weapons were a way to secure that outcome. The Singapore Summit occurred
because of North Korean initiatives -- the Olympic outreach, the meetings with South Korean
leaders, and so on. Kim Jong Un was not compelled to go to Singapore -- a meeting with an
American president was always his ultimate objective.
The Iranian government does not trust the United States and has no desire to engage in
diplomatic relations with the United States. This does not mean that the two nations cannot
peacefully coexist -- they can, and Iran desires as much. But throwing the possibility of a
grand bargain with the United States on the table in exchange for Iran giving up its nuclear
program is sheer fantasy. As such, any effort to compel Iran into diplomatic engagement by
threatening it with war is doomed to fail. Iran learned the lessons of Hezbollah's ongoing
conflict with Israel, and in particular that of the 2006 war, all too well. To win the war,
Hezbollah did not need to defeat Israel; it had only to make sure Israel did not defeat it.
This is an ambition Iran readily aspires to -- it can shut down the Strait of Hormuz, cripple
the global economy and ride out any American military response. In the end, the United States
will succumb to international pressure and search for a negotiated settlement, and Iran will
emerge victorious simply because it survived. Iran would accept this outcome rather than
surrender its hard-won diplomatic achievement regarding the JCPOA.
Reason Three: Religious Democracy
North Korea is an absolute dictatorship -- Kim Jong Un need only gain the concurrence of his
inner circle to move forward on ground-changing policy, such as improving relations with the
United States. Even then, any voices of dissent can be -- and indeed, have been -- summarily
silenced. Kim Jong Un has a constituency of one when it comes to getting his policies approved:
himself.
Iran is a far more complex problem when it comes to making policy -- an Islamic republic
governed by a democratically elected executive and legislature whose decisions are subject to
review by a theocracy that itself is governed by a constitution and held accountable, via
elections, to the will of the people. While Iranian democracy has been openly mocked in the
United States as a sham, the fact is that democratic processes have shaped the Islamic Republic
of Iran since its founding. The current Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has spoken of
Iran as being a "religious democracy," where the people's participation in the government,
expressed through the vehicle of elections, is indicative of the nation's health (indeed,
Iran's 73.3 percent turnout in the presidential election of 2017, in which Hassan Rouhani won
re-election, dwarfs the paltry 55.7 percent turnout in the U.S. presidential election of 2016
that put Donald Trump in office).
The JCPOA that was negotiated between Iran and the West was more than simply an expression
of political will by the Iranian leadership -- it was an expression of the will of the Iranian
people, given voice through countless parliamentary debates and legitimized through repeated
elections where the issue of Iran's nuclear program factored in the balloting. The Iranian
people would support its government refusing to bend a knee in the face of American threats;
they would not support a government that surrendered their hard-won gains on the nuclear front,
which the Iranian people suffered greatly to achieve.
Donald Trump lives in a transactional universe where everything can be dealt away. While
this approach might work with New York City real estate and may even have limited application
in international affairs, it fails where issues derived from intangible principles -- something
that cannot be monetized -- are at stake. In Trump's world, one can try to bribe North Korea
with the promise of economic largesse or threaten NATO's viability by placing a dollar value on
continued membership. While the ulterior motives of North Korea agreeing -- in principle, if
not reality -- to denuclearize, and NATO to increase its defense spending to 2 percent GDP per
member, are probably far more complex than the zero-sum thinking that Trump's transactional
diplomacy suggests, the results are the same. But there can be no transactional diplomacy when
the other side refuses to name a price, and Iran has made it clear that there is no price it is
willing to accept to give up its nuclear program.
The danger here is that Trump doesn't realize he is playing a losing hand. His bluff will be
called by Iran (indeed, based upon Rouhani's words, it has been called), but Trump will
continue to throw chips into the pot until compelled to either reverse course and rejoin the
JCPOA (unlikely), or force the issue and watch the United States enter a war with Iran it will
not lose -- but cannot win.
In 2002Scott Ritterspoke out against the case being made by the US government for war
with Iraq. After the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Ritter spoke out against the war.
He continues to do so today, offering critical analysis of American foreign and national
security policy.
This article was originally published by " Truth
Dig " -
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
"... Akhilesh "Akhi" Pillalamarri is a fellow at Defense Priorities. An international relations analyst, editor, and writer, he studied international security at Georgetown University. Find him on Twitter ..."
Iranians: Not Pining for American InterventionSome seem to think they can't wait
for us to overthrow their government. Nothing could be further from the truth. By
Akhilesh Pillalamarri
•
August 6, 2018
Ryan
Rodrick Beiler/Shutterstock Defense hawks in Washington think the people of Iran are
waiting with bated breath for the regime in Tehran to collapse and wouldn't mind a little
American help along the way -- whether through direct military intervention, or "naturally" as
the result of grassroots
protests , "with Washington backing," of course.
There is no greater fallacy. While the people of Iran are undoubtedly frustrated with their
government, they are not on the
cusp of changing it, as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seems to believe . In fact, any attempt
by outside actors to change the regime would cause the people of Iran to unify around the
clerics. We would end up deflating the reformist party and enabling the hardliners who have
consistently warned their people that we can't be trusted.
This ongoing mind reading of the Iranian people is pure Washington hokum with no basis in
reality.
After witnessing the debacles of our interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, who can
blame the people of Iran for not wanting direct American military aid? As Damon Linker
points out in
The Week , our attitude towards unsavory regimes in other nations is all too often
informed by "an incorrigible optimism about the benefits of change and consequent refusal to
entertain the possibility that a bad situation might be made even worse by overturning it."
Almost nobody in Iran supports the main group pushing for Western-backed regime change, the
National Council for the Resistance of Iran (NCRI). That organization is widely seen as a
front for
the despised Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MeK), an Iranian Marxist group that fought against the late
Shah, was virulently anti-American, and worked with Saddam Hussein to
invade Iran during the Iran-Iraq War before rebranding itself as a democratic opposition
group.
Despite this being common knowledge among unbiased observers, figures like National Security
Advisor John Bolton
continue to promote it as an alternative for Iran.
In actuality, despite the desire among a sizable segment of Iranians -- especially young
people in Tehran and other large cities -- for a pro-Western government, there is no
well-organized, secular, democratic alternative waiting to take charge. Any organization that
bills itself as such is following in the deceitful footsteps of Ahmed
Chalabi , the Iraqi leader-in-exile who sold himself in the United States as the Iraqi
George Washington, but failed to garner any political support after the fall of Saddam
Hussein.
History shows us that there is no quicker way for a leader or group to lose legitimacy than
by seeking the aid of a foreign power. King Louis XVI of France managed to hold on to his
throne for a few years after the storming of the Bastille, but was deposed after fleeing Paris
and seeking the aid of France's enemies. Iranians, like Americans, value liberty in the sense
of national self-determination: they would rather be under-served by their own leaders than by
well-meaning foreigners or those perceived to be puppets.
After wasting almost two decades of blood and treasure trying to rebuild countries with
weaker national identities than Iran -- like Iraq -- U.S. policymakers would have to be
detached from reality to believe that anything good could come of intervention in Iranian
affairs.
The people of Iran have a long historical memory: those who sold out their nation to foreign
powers, even in opposition to tyranny, have garnered not thanks but the collective hatred of
the Iranian people. From the actions
of the satrap Bessus who killed the last Achaemenid Persian king Darius III to curry favor with
Alexander the Great, to the slaying of the last pre-Islamic Persian ruler Yazdegerd III by a
local ruler to appease the invading Arabs, Iranians have long looked askance at collaboration
with foreigners. Numerous 19th-century Qajar rulers failed to implement their policies because
they were thought to be too close to the goals of the imperial powers of Russia or Britain. And
the last Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, never escaped the perception that his ascent to power in
1953 was enabled by British and American intelligence agencies, regardless of his own
self-portrayal as a nationalist.
Most Iranians, no matter how much they oppose their current government and politics, would
not support an invasion of their own country, let alone the peaceful ascendancy of groups
believed to serve interests other than theirs: it is a matter
of pride and honor.
It is true that Iran has been racked by protests throughout the past year, such as January's
multi-city demonstrations and the closure of the Grand Bazaar in Tehran in June. But those were
spontaneous actions resulting from blue-collar frustrations with the economy and are unlikely
to lead to an outcome favorable to American interests.
If our pressure on Iran leads to regime change, the most likely alternative is
probably a military junta led by members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a
shift away from the semi-civilian government that Iran now enjoys. The IRGC has been infringing
on our geopolitical interests throughout the Middle East for decades and could take an even
harder anti-American line than the current government. When confronted with invaders and
foreign pressure, Iranians have always rallied around military strongmen, such as Nader Shah in
the early 18th century, who threw out the invading Afghans, and Reza Shah in the early 20th
century, who saved
Iran from disintegration after World War I.
Washington should be careful what it wishes for. We should not delude ourselves into
thinking that the people of Iran are waiting for our support and intervention. The truth is
much darker.
Akhilesh "Akhi" Pillalamarri is a fellow at Defense Priorities. An international
relations analyst, editor, and writer, he studied international security at Georgetown
University. Find him on Twitter@akhipill.
The people of Iran instinctively love America because everyone in the world loves America.
This is true regardless of the fact that we have never done anything whatsoever to merit
their love. We have never given them assistance when they had an earthquake, we won't let
them get spare parts for passenger airlines causing air travel to be unsafe. We hinder
civilian projects but since we are narcissists, we simply believe that everyone loves us
because of our intrinsically great qualities.
Really, what if the shoe were on the other foot? Trump is very unpopular as our own
President. But if a foreign power were to attempt to depose him and install a new government,
there would be massive popular resistance to that here. Why the neocons think it would be
different in any other country eludes me.
Nothing can unite even a fractiously divided nation more readily than foreign
interference.
US policy since Libya and Syria has been "regime destruction", with not even token
commitments to pretend "nation building". The miscalculation continues: if the US manages to
turn Iran into a "failed to comply" state without effective governance, there will be several
factions with professional military capabilities – especially given the IRGC
"deterrent" of connections and alliances throughout the Middle East – that can continue
where our pathological US "maglinity" plans to stop.
There are no "wars of choice". The only choice the US gets is whether to start an
unnecessary war, from then on our victims get a say, eventually. We are still trapped in
Eisenhower's grandstanding "meddling" in Iranian elections, after all .
Everyone knows that Iranians are not begging for "liberation", just as everyone with the
brains God gave my youngest cat knew damn well that American boots would not transform Iraq
into a western democracy, that American bombs would ruin Libya and American bombs are used
for genocide in Yemen.
The Trump Administration is looking for an excuse to attack. Just as the Bush
Administration shed crocodile tears over the poor Iraqis, and Obama cynically exploited the
fate of Libyans.
The USA now is viewed as imperial power hell-bent of crushing other countries. US foreign policy in the region is viewed
as pandering to Israeli interests. That increases resistance to color revolutions.
The author analogies with the USSR are very problematic. The collapse of the USSR was due to mass betrayal of the elite which
adopted neoliberalism. In Iran even if its theocratic system experience the same crisis of confidence as Bolheviks system in
the USSR, this mass defection of elite is less probable due to history of relations with the USA and, especially the USA support
of Iraq in brutal war between the countries. People view the USA as a "great Satan."
The current US foreign policy is totally controlled by neocons and as such is less flexible then in the past.
Notable quotes:
"... While neoconservatives have portrayed the Islamic Republic of Iran as a global bogeyman on the order of the USSR and argued that it should be President Trump's "pre-eminent challenge ," it remains a mid-level power in a region that most Americans, including Trump, would like to quit. ..."
"... In his speech, Pompeo asserted that the U.S. would somehow bolster Iranians who have taken to the streets -- in a very un-Soviet set of popular protests -- since late last year. "In light of these protests and 40 years of regime tyranny, I have a message for the people of Iran," Pompeo said. "The United States hears you; the United States supports you; the United States is with you." ..."
In their pursuit of a policy of maximum pressure on Iran, America's neoconservatives have
pushed a nostalgic narrative: the Trump administration can bring down Iran's theocracy the way
that the Reagan administration helped defeat and dissolve the Soviet Union.
This comparison has been advanced by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), which
promotes draconian sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Its arguments figured prominently in
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's recent speech at the Reagan
library in which he asserted that Iran is still a revolutionary regime "committed to spreading
the revolution to other countries, by force if necessary."
The strategy to confront and collapse the Soviet Union included military and economic
pressure coupled with a focus on human rights abuses and corruption, as well as U.S. support
for indigenous dissidents. The comparison to Iran is flawed on a number of levels, and even in
those areas where some overlap exists, such a plan is unlikely to be successfully implemented
by the Trump administration.
While neoconservatives have portrayed the Islamic Republic of Iran as a global bogeyman on
the order of the USSR and argued that it should be
President Trump's "pre-eminent challenge ," it remains a mid-level power in a region that
most Americans, including Trump, would like to quit.
Iran has never successfully exported its unique theocratic-led system, even to neighboring
Iraq, with its Shiite majority, or Lebanon, where Shiites are a plurality and Iran has a potent
ally in Hezbollah. The Soviet Union, by contrast, dominated Eastern Europe for four decades and
supported communist parties throughout the world, including in Iran when it was under the Shah.
It invaded other countries at will, crushing the Prague spring of 1968 and entering Afghanistan
in 1979 to shore up a friendly regime.
The Soviet Union was also a nuclear peer competitor of the United States, possessing a
massive atomic arsenal. Iran has never developed nuclear weapons and could be constrained for
more than a decade from building them if the United States returned to the Joint Comprehensive
Plan of Action (JCPOA) or if a rump JCPOA somehow survives the U.S. unilateral withdrawal.
The comparison to the Soviet Union does work in the sense that Iran's economy is now under
severe strain, although the reasons are not the same. The Reagan administration outspent the
Soviet Union in a massive arms race that left Moscow unable to satisfy the growing demands of
its long-suffering consumers and maintain its military edge and alliances, including the
debilitating war in Afghanistan. The Trump administration is collapsing the Iranian economy
through sanctions that have frightened away major multinational companies and destroyed
confidence in the Iranian currency.
Both the old USSR and Iran have autocratic systems that repress political expression and
jail dissidents. It is entirely appropriate for the U.S. and other countries to publicize these
abuses and seek to penalize those most directly responsible. However, the Trump
administration's credibility in denouncing what Pompeo called a "mafia" government run by
"hypocritical holy men" is undercut by egregious double standards. This is, after all, an
administration led by a president who has called North Korea's brutal leader Kim Jong-un
"honorable," sword-danced with Saudi autocrats, and fawned over reprehensible leaders from the
Philippines to Egypt.
In his speech, Pompeo asserted that the U.S. would somehow bolster Iranians who have taken
to the streets -- in a very un-Soviet set of popular protests -- since late last year. "In
light of these protests and 40 years of regime tyranny, I have a message for the people of
Iran," Pompeo said. "The United States hears you; the United States supports you; the United
States is with you."
That support, however, does not extend to allowing actual Iranians to come to America --
unlike Reagan's embrace of Soviet exiles and others fleeing persecution. Thanks to the travel
ban, which was recently upheld by the Supreme Court, most Iranian citizens are barred from even
visiting the U.S. And while academic exchanges are technically still allowed, the "extreme
vetting" required for Iranians -- and their
fear that they may not be able to return to the U.S. if they have to leave for any reason
-- has severely undercut this key feature of old-style public diplomacy.
Iran and the United States, of course, lack diplomatic ties, which were so instrumental in
promoting people-to-people contact with the Soviet Union. This author was an exchange student
in what was then called Leningrad in the 1970s, an experience that humanized the Soviet Union
in the eyes of the visiting Americans and performed a similar function for our Soviet
counterparts.
Unfortunately, few Americans know the reality of today's Iran and are thus easily
manipulated by propagandists who cast the country in relentlessly negative terms.
If despite all these differences, the Trump administration really embraced a Reaganesque
approach to Iran, it would not only rescind the travel ban but would sincerely pursue new
negotiations that build on the JCPOA.
Instead, the administration is punishing Iran for non-compliance and demanding that it
capitulate and reverse all its other foreign and domestic policies. This approach almost
certainly guarantees that Iran will not produce an "Ayatollah Gorbachev" willing and able to
resolve the long U.S.-Iran divide and further liberalize Iranian society. The main victims will
be the Iranian people but American interests will also suffer.
Barbara Slavin directs the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council. The views
expressed here are her own.
5. Trump's faithful execution of Israeli policy will result in re-imposition of US sanctions
on Iran tomorrow. The UK, France and Germany have announced that they will not be governed by
these sanctions and IMO Trump will not have the stones to sanction these actual American
allies. This will be another instance of Trump learning that intimidating countries is a
different game than making hotel project deals. In the case of tariffs the EU caved in what can
be seen as bi-lateral negotiations but in this case accepting American orders to reimpose
sanctions will be seen as acceptance of a servile position. The US position with regard to
desired Iranian concessions includes acceptance of a statehood bereft of foreign policy or
foreign interventions of any kind. This is a maximum Israeli position that has been sold to
Trump ,the real estate guy, by his donors and family. Pompeo and Bolton, the neocons, are fully
on board as well. DoD is supportive. Mattis is always seeking a childish revenge against the
Iranians for their actions in Iraq.
... ... ...
7. Trump, Mattis and Co. want to form a Sunni Arab version of NATO united against Iran. This
would include the GCC plus Egypt and Jordan. Words fail me at the blind ignorance of this idea.
All these countries will gladly accept Saudi money. That does not mean they will accept Saudi
leadership in anything. This has been proven over and over again.
Just read an interesting piece by Trita Parsi concluding that Iran should accept
negotiations with the US; that it would be in its interests for Trump and Rouhani to have
a nice two hour chat in strict privacy with no one else present but interpreters--if
nothing else to watch Saudi and Israeli heads explode.
"Though any deal with Trump may have little value due to his
unreliability, Tehran can also use that unreliability to its own
advantage. The mere image of Trump and Rouhani shaking hands and
speaking in private will spread panic in Riyadh and Tel Aviv – precisely
because these allies of Trump know that they too cannot rely on him.
Their deep-seated fear of being betrayed by America in any US-Iran dialogue
will reach a breaking point and likely cause a significant weakening of
the concerted US-Israel-Gulf effort to break Iran. Ultimately, that
would make Iran look good, not Trump."
A war with Iran would define, consume and potentially destroy the Trump presidency, but
exhilarate the neocon never-Trumpers who most despise the man.
Why, then, is President Donald Trump toying with such an idea?
Looking back at Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, wars we began or plunged into,
what was gained to justify the cost in American blood and treasure, and the death and
destruction we visited upon that region? How has our great rival China suffered by not getting
involved?
Oil is the vital strategic Western interest in the Persian Gulf. Yet a war with Iran would
imperil, not secure, that interest.
Mass migration from the Islamic world, seeded with terrorist cells, is the greatest threat
to Europe from the Middle East. But would not a U.S. war with Iran increase rather than
diminish that threat?
Would the millions of Iranians who oppose the mullahs' rule welcome U.S. air and naval
attacks on their country? Or would they rally behind the regime and the armed forces dying to
defend their country?
"Mr Trump, don't play with the lion's tail," warned President Hassan Rouhani in July: "War
with Iran is the mother of all wars."
But he added, "Peace with Iran is the mother of all peace."
It's worth pointing out that described abstractly, Zionism and Nazism are ideologically very
similar. Both are essentially exaggerations of Nineteenth century European racial
nationalism, both posit a more or less imaginary history to justify their territorial claims,
both ignore the rights of all others in favor of their chosen group, both openly worship
violence, and both are contemptuous of both legal and moral constraints. Israel has committed
crimes proportionately as horrific as any Nazi Germany committed up to the outbreak of total
war in 1941, and I'm all too confident that if total war did come to the Middle East, Israel
would take advantage of the opportunity to engage in some very genocidal treatment of her
Palestinian subjects.
The primary differences are really that while Nazism was defeated over seventy years ago,
Israel is still very much in being, and that while we here in the US opposed Nazism, we
support Israel.
"... "They could take up the president's offer to negotiate with them, to give up their ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs fully and really verifiably not under the onerous terms of the Iran nuclear deal, which really are not satisfactory," ..."
"... "If Iran were really serious they'd come to the table. We'll find out whether they are or not," ..."
"... "matter of respecting international agreements and a matter of international security." ..."
"... "behaves like a normal country." ..."
"... "require enormous change" ..."
"... "increase pressure on the Iranian regime by reducing to zero its revenue from crude oil sales." ..."
"... "the mother of all wars." ..."
"... "confronting possible threats." ..."
"... "The hours of our negotiations with America were perhaps unprecedented in history; then Trump signs something and say all [those negotiations] are void; can you negotiate with this person? Is this [negotiations offer] anything but a publicity stunt?" ..."
Closing the Strait of Hormuz would be the biggest mistake Iran has ever made, the US
president's national security advisor John Bolton said. He urged Tehran to sit down for talks
on its nuclear and missile programs with the US. Dismissing Tehran's threats to block the
strait if its oil exports are stopped, Bolton on Monday said the Iranians were
"bluffing." He then quickly changed his tone saying that Iran should actually engage in a dialog with the US instead of
issuing threats.
"They could take up the president's offer to negotiate with them, to give up their
ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs fully and really verifiably not under the
onerous terms of the Iran nuclear deal, which really are not satisfactory," Bolton told
Fox News, referring to the US President Donald Trump's demands to "re-negotiate" the
2015 Iranian nuclear deal, also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
"If Iran were really serious they'd come to the table. We'll find out whether they are
or not," Bolton added. The White House national security advisor's remarks came less than
a day before the first round of renewed US sanctions take effect on Tuesday after midnight US
Eastern time. The harshest restrictions are expected to be re-imposed by early November.
Washington decided to reinstate the penalties following Trump's decision to unilaterally
withdraw from the JCPOA in May. Shortly after exiting the agreement, the US penned a 12-point
ultimatum to Iran, which, among other things, demanded that Tehran end its ballistic missile
program, a condition it has repeatedly rejected. The move was then widely condemned by the EU
and other signatories of the deal, including Russia and China, which still consider the
agreement to be an effective means of non-proliferation and have vowed to keep their part of
the deal.
Earlier on Monday, the EU said that starting August, it is enforcing its so-called Blocking
Statute aimed at protecting the European companies doing business in Iran from the
extraterritorial effects of US sanctions. The bloc said that maintaining the nuclear deal with
Iran is a "matter of respecting international agreements and a matter of international
security."
Meanwhile, the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vowed to "rigorously" enforce the
sanctions on Iran until it "behaves like a normal country." He added that it would
"require enormous change" on Iran's part for the US to review its increasingly hostile
approach to Tehran.
In July, Brian Hook, the US State Department's director of policy planning, said that
Washington's goal is to "increase pressure on the Iranian regime by reducing to zero its
revenue from crude oil sales."
Iranian leaders repeatedly threatened to shut down the Strait of Hormuz and stop the Persian
Gulf oil exports if its own oil exports are blocked. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also
cautioned Washington against launching a war against Tehran by saying that it would be "the
mother of all wars." Iran's Revolutionary Guards have recently admitted that its warships
took part in a naval exercise in the Persian Gulf to hone skills in "confronting possible
threats."
Earlier, the Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has slammed Donald Trump's recent proposal
to enter into talks with Iran by calling it nothing but a PR stunt. "The hours of our
negotiations with America were perhaps unprecedented in history; then Trump signs something and
say all [those negotiations] are void; can you negotiate with this person? Is this
[negotiations offer] anything but a publicity stunt?" he said.
The Trump administration has reportedly requested a meeting with
Rouhani eight times, but the Iranian side refused to participate.
As Iran is preparing for the first wave of returning US sanctions that could largely hamper
its foreign trade, the country's banks appear to have already created a mechanism for imports
of essential goods from
Russia .
Bank Saderat Iran (BSI) announced in a statement on Sunday that it had sealed a deal with
the Moscow offshoot of Bank Melli Iran (BMI) over a re-financing scheme that envisaged
providing €10 million to fund imports of essential commodities, medicines, medical
equipment and the raw materials for industrial units.
New restrictions aim to protect currency from further falls
With US sanctions against Iran officially going back into place on August 6, the Iranian
government is scrambling to take some last minute measures to shore up their economy, and
particularly their currency, before the sanctions start to hit.
Iran wants to make sure that what foreign currency does flow overseas is strictly
allocated to a handful of important industries. The fall of prices for the rial has been
heavy related to the surge in the price of gold, as economic uncertainty has many Iranians
running to precious metals, and gold imports surged in recent weeks.
US sanctions aim to limit, if not totally eliminate, Iran's access to foreign markets.
That also has Iran trying to make some last-minute purchases while they know they still can.
Five new planes were purchased from ATR for the state airline. It's far short of the new
fleet of airliners Iran initially sought, but the best they can do with the US blocking
Boeing and Airbus from fulfilling contracts.
Since the August 6 date has been known for months, it's likely much of the market reaction
to the sanctions is already factored in to Iran's currency pricing. China's refusal to comply
with US sanctions, likewise, is a sign that Iran won't be totally cutoff from world markets.
Still, it will take awhile before the full extent of the US attempt, and its effectiveness,
is known.
At very least, a leader should be able to tell right from wrong... and sadly, too often in
this world, "nice guys finish last".
"There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain."
Plato
On August 6, 1945; The US dropped an atomic bomb (Little Boy) on Hiroshima destroying much
of the city and instantly killing 80,000 of its citizens. 60,000 more would die later
On August 6, 1945; The Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb ever used in military combat
on Hiroshima. A second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki August 9, 1945.
On August 6, 2018; On the 73rd anniversary of dropping of the first atomic bomb, the
residents of Hiroshima will pause to remember the 80,000 residents and the destruction which
changed the course of history. Church bells will ring at 8:15 AM, the moment the bomb was
dropped from the Enola Gay.
Later on August 6, 2018 and in the evening, Toro Nagashi Lanterns will be floated down the
Motoyasu river and past The Atomic Dome (Prefuctural Industrial Promotion Hall). First held in
1946, the Toro Nagashi (literally, "flowing lanterns") ceremony was first held in Tokyo.
Participants Float glowing paper lanterns down a river to commemorate the souls of the
dead.
Today, Hiroshima is a prosperous manufacturing city.
With the hours ticking by ahead of Washington's re-imposition of a slew of economic
sanctions on Iran, President Trump has just released a statement confirming the narrative he
would prefer Americans believe.
Just hours after the European Union issued a statement Monday ahead of when renewed US
sanctions are set to snap back against Iran after midnight US Eastern time, saying it "deeply
regrets" the sanctions and will take immediate action to protect European companies still doing
business with Iran.
Trump makes it clear that any violation (among America's allies) will not be tolerated...
"The Trump Administration intends to fully enforce the sanctions reimposed against Iran ,
and those who fail to wind down activities with Iran risk severe consequences. "
The first set of sanctions will hit at the Iranian financial system, including Iranian
government purchases of US dollars and its gold trade and government bond sales. The US' dominant
role in the world's financial system means it has been able to pressure countries and companies
into compliance, though China remains a key holdout.
"The JCPOA, a horrible, one-sided deal, failed to achieve the fundamental objective of
blocking all paths to an Iranian nuclear bomb," Trump said Monday, defining that its policy as
applying "maximum economic pressure on the Iranian regime."
The US denies it is seeking regime change, but rather aims to "modify the regime's behavior,"
according to an administration official.
A US administration official said the Iranian government was using financial resources freed
up by the nuclear deal "to spread human misery." The US was seeking now to address the "totality
of the Iranian threat" in the Middle East.
"None of this needs to happen," an official said on sanctions. Trump is willing to meet the
Iranian leadership "any time" for talks," the official noted. * * *
Full Statement below:
REIMPOSING TOUGH SANCTIONS: President Donald J. Trump, Administration is taking action to
reimpose sanctions lifted under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
President Trump made clear when he ended United States participation in the JCPOA that his
Administration would be reimposing tough sanctions on the Iranian regime.
In connection with the withdrawal from the JCPOA, the Administration laid out two wind-down
periods of 90 days and 180 days for business activities in or involving Iran.
Consistent with President Trump's decision, the Administration will be reimposing specified
sanctions after August 6, the final day of the 90-day wind-down period.
On August 7, sanctions will be reimposed on:
The purchase or acquisition of United States bank notes by the Government of Iran.
Iran, trade in gold and other precious metals.
Graphite, aluminum, steel, coal, and software used in industrial processes.
Transactions related to the Iranian rial.
Activities relating to Iran's issuance of sovereign debt
Iran, automotive sector.
The remaining sanctions will be reimposed on November 5, including sanctions on:
Iran, port operators and energy, shipping, and shipbuilding sectors.
Iran, petroleum-related transactions.
Transactions by foreign financial institutions with the Central Bank of Iran.
The Administration will also relist hundreds of individuals, entities, vessels, and
aircraft that were previously included on sanctions lists.
ENSURING FULL ENFORCEMENT: President Trump will continue to stand up to the Iranian regime's
aggression, and the United States will fully enforce the reimposed sanctions.
The Iranian regime has exploited the global financial system to fund its malign
activities.
The regime has used this funding to support terrorism, promote ruthless regimes, destabilize
the region, and abuse the human rights of its own people.
The Trump Administration intends to fully enforce the sanctions reimposed against Iran, and
those who fail to wind down activities with Iran risk severe consequences.
Since the President announced his decision on May 8 to withdraw from the JCPOA, the
Administration has sanctioned 38 Iran-related targets in six separate actions.
PROTECTING OUR NATIONAL SECURITY: The JCPOA was defective at its core and failed to guarantee
the safety of the American people.
President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Iran deal upheld his highest obligation: to
protect the safety and security of the American people.
The Iranian regime only grew more aggressive under the cover of the JCPOA and was given
access to more resources to pursue its malign activities.
The regime continues to threaten the United States and our allies, exploit the international
financial system, and support terrorism and foreign proxies.
The Administration is working with allies to bring pressure on the Iranian regime to
achieve an agreement that denies all paths to a nuclear weapon and addresses other malign
activities.
* * *
The initial reaction in markets was modest aside from in the oil complex where prices
spiked...
"... The identity politics phenomenon sweeping across the Western world is a divide and conquer strategy that prevents the emergence of a genuine resistance to the elites. ..."
"... Each subgroup, increasingly alienated from all others, focuses on the shared identity and unique experiences of its members and prioritises its own empowerment. Anyone outside this subgroup is demoted to the rank of ally, at best. ..."
"... Precious time is spent fighting against those deemed less oppressed and telling them to 'check their privilege' as the ever-changing pecking order of the 'Oppression Olympics' plays out. The rules to this sport are as fluid as the identities taking part. One of the latest dilemmas affecting the identity politics movement is the issue of whether men transitioning to women deserve recognition and acceptance or 'whether trans women aren't women and are apparently " raping ..."
"... It is much easier to 'struggle' against an equally or slightly less oppressed group than to take the time and effort to unite with them against the common enemy - capitalism. ..."
"... There is a carefully crafted misconception that identity politics derives from Marxist thought and the meaningless phrase 'cultural Marxism', which has more to do with liberal culture than Marxism, is used to sell this line of thinking. Not only does identity politics have nothing in common with Marxism, socialism or any other strand of traditional left-wing thought, it is anathema to the very concept. ..."
"... 'An injury to one is an injury to all' has been replaced with something like 'An injury to me is all that matters'. No socialist country, whether in practice or in name only, promoted identity politics. Neither the African and Asian nations that liberated themselves from colonialist oppression nor the USSR and Eastern Bloc states nor the left-wing movements that sprung up across Latin America in the early 21st century had any time to play identity politics. ..."
"... The idea that identity politics is part of traditional left-wing thought is promoted by the right who seek to demonise left wing-movements, liberals who seek to infiltrate, backstab and destroy said left-wing movements, and misguided young radicals who know nothing about political theory and have neither the patience nor discipline to learn. The last group seek a cheap thrill that makes them feel as if they have shaken the foundations of the establishment when in reality they strengthen it. ..."
"... Identity politics is typically a modern middle-class led phenomenon that helps those in charge keep the masses divided and distracted. ..."
"... Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! ..."
"... Tomasz Pierscionek is a doctor specialising in psychiatry. He was previously on the board of the charity Medact, is editor of the London Progressive Journal and has appeared as a guest on RT's Sputnik and Al-Mayadeen's Kalima Horra. ..."
The
identity politics phenomenon sweeping across the Western world is a divide and conquer strategy
that prevents the emergence of a genuine resistance to the elites. A core principle of
socialism is the idea of an overarching supra-national solidarity that unites the international
working class and overrides any factor that might divide it, such as nation, race, or gender.
Workers of all nations are partners, having equal worth and responsibility in a struggle
against those who profit from their brain and muscle.
Capitalism, especially in its most evolved, exploitative and heartless form - imperialism -
has wronged certain groups of people more than others. Colonial empires tended to reserve their
greatest brutality for subjugated peoples whilst the working class of these imperialist nations
fared better in comparison, being closer to the crumbs that fell from the table of empire. The
international class struggle aims to liberate all people everywhere from the drudgery of
capitalism regardless of their past or present degree of oppression. The phrase 'an injury
to one is an injury to all' encapsulates this mindset and conflicts with the idea of
prioritising the interests of one faction of the working class over the entire collective.
Since the latter part of the 20th century, a liberally-inspired tendency has taken root
amongst the Left (in the West at least) that encourages departure from a single identity based
on class in favour of multiple identities based upon one's gender, sexuality, race or any other
dividing factor. Each subgroup, increasingly alienated from all others, focuses on the
shared identity and unique experiences of its members and prioritises its own empowerment.
Anyone outside this subgroup is demoted to the rank of ally, at best.
At the time of writing there are apparently over
70 different gender options in the West, not to mention numerous sexualities - the
traditional LGBT acronym has thus far grown to LGBTQQIP2SAA
. Adding race to the mix results in an even greater number of possible permutations or
identities. Each subgroup has its own ideology. Precious time is spent fighting against
those deemed less oppressed and telling them to 'check their privilege' as the ever-changing
pecking order of the 'Oppression Olympics' plays out. The rules to this sport are as fluid as
the identities taking part. One of the latest dilemmas affecting the identity politics movement
is the issue of whether men transitioning to women deserve recognition and acceptance or
'whether trans women aren't women and are apparently " raping "
lesbians'.
The ideology of identity politics asserts that the straight white male is at the apex of the
privilege pyramid, responsible for the oppression of all other groups. His original sin
condemns him to everlasting shame. While it is true that straight white men (as a group) have
faced less obstacles than females, non-straight men or ethnic minorities, the majority of
straight white men, past and present, also struggle to survive from paycheck to paycheck and
are not personally involved in the oppression of any other group. While most of the world's
wealthiest
individuals are Caucasian males, millions of white men exist who are both poor and
powerless. The idea of 'whiteness' is itself an ambiguous concept involving racial profiling.
For example, the Irish, Slavs and Ashkenazi Jews may look white yet have suffered more than
their fair share of famines, occupations and genocides throughout the centuries. The idea of
tying an individual's privilege to their appearance is itself a form of racism dreamed up by
woolly minded, liberal (some might say privileged) 'intellectuals' who would be superfluous in
any socialist society.
Is the middle-class ethnic minority lesbian living in Western Europe more oppressed than the
whitish looking Syrian residing under ISIS occupation? Is the British white working class male
really more privileged than a middle class woman from the same society? Stereotyping based on
race, gender or any other factor only leads to alienation and animosity. How can there be unity
amongst the Left if we are only loyal to ourselves and those most like us? Some 'white' men who
feel the Left has nothing to offer them have decided to play the identity politics game in
their search of salvation and have drifted towards supporting Trump (a billionaire with whom
they have nothing in common) or far-right movements, resulting in further alienation, animosity
and powerlessness which in turn only strengthens the position of the top 1%. People around the
world are more divided by class than any other factor.
It is much easier to 'struggle' against an equally or slightly less oppressed group than
to take the time and effort to unite with them against the common enemy - capitalism.
Fighting oppression through identity politics is at best a lazy, perverse and fetishistic form
of the class struggle led by mostly liberal, middle class and tertiary-educated activists who
understand little of left-wing political theory. At worst it is yet another tool used by the
top 1% to divide the other 99% into 99 or 999 different competing groups who are too
preoccupied with fighting their own little corner to challenge the status quo. It is ironic
that one of the major donors to the faux-left identity politics movement is the privileged
white cisgender male billionaire
George Soros , whose NGOs helped orchestrate the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine that gave
way to the emergence of far right and neo-nazi movements: the kind of people who believe in
racial superiority and do not look kindly on diversity.
There is a carefully crafted misconception that identity politics derives from Marxist
thought and the meaningless phrase 'cultural Marxism', which has more to do with liberal
culture than Marxism, is used to sell this line of thinking. Not only does identity politics
have nothing in common with Marxism, socialism or any other strand of traditional left-wing
thought, it is anathema to the very concept.
'An injury to one is an injury to all' has been replaced with something like 'An injury
to me is all that matters'. No socialist country, whether in practice or in name only, promoted
identity politics. Neither the African and Asian nations that liberated themselves from
colonialist oppression nor the USSR and Eastern Bloc states nor the left-wing movements that
sprung up across Latin America in the early 21st century had any time to play identity
politics.
The idea that identity politics is part of traditional left-wing thought is promoted by
the right who seek to demonise left wing-movements, liberals who seek to infiltrate, backstab
and destroy said left-wing movements, and misguided young radicals who know nothing about
political theory and have neither the patience nor discipline to learn. The last group seek a
cheap thrill that makes them feel as if they have shaken the foundations of the establishment
when in reality they strengthen it.
Identity politics is typically a modern middle-class led phenomenon that helps those in
charge keep the masses divided and distracted. In the West you are free to choose any
gender or sexuality, transition between these at whim, or perhaps create your own, but you are
not allowed to question the foundations of capitalism or liberalism. Identity politics is the
new opiate of the masses and prevents organised resistance against the system. Segments of the
Western Left even believe such aforementioned 'freedoms' are a bellwether of progress and an
indicator of its cultural superiority, one that warrants export abroad be it softly via NGOs or
more bluntly through colour revolutions and regime change.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
Tomasz Pierscionek is a doctor specialising in psychiatry. He was previously on the
board of the charity Medact, is editor of the London Progressive Journal and has appeared as a
guest on RT's Sputnik and Al-Mayadeen's Kalima Horra.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the
author and do not necessarily represent those of RT. Read more
"Anti-semitism" is merely the enforcement wing of Zionism.
Anywhere Zionists uses injustice,
pointing that out becomes anti-Semitic.
The Zionists, unlike the dullard goyim, understand the power of the moral force, despite the
fact they work fully against it's dictates.
"... "We could not prevent the slaughter of the Serbs by the Croatians, including elderly people and children " – UNPROFOR French Lieutenant-General Jean Cot ..."
"... " The decision to launch Operation Storm is not controversial; what is controversial, however, is 'the successful effort' of some Croatian officials headed by President Franjo Tudjman to 'exploit the circumstances' and implement the plan to drive Serbs out of Krajina ." -- ICTY prosecutor Alain Tieger ..."
"... Just remember that at that time, US government offered $5 million reward for the capture of war criminal Ante Gotovina, making him the ICTY most wanted man. He was at that time sheltered by Croatian government, and through the notorious Vatican' "Rat Channels", that were used at the end of WWII to facilitate the escape of Nazis, he was hidden (among the other Croatian war criminals) in a Catholic monastery, to be smuggled to Tenerife, where he was eventually captured by the Spanish police, in 2005. ..."
"... " It is important that these [Serb] civilians start moving and then the army will follow them, and when the columns start moving, they will have a psychological effect on each other. That means we provide them with an exit, while on the other hand we feign (pretend) to guarantee civilian human rights and the like " -- ..."
"... Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, during War Council meeting in July 1995 ..."
"... "American concern is that if General Gotovina is arrested he may carry out a threat to disclose previously unknown extent of US covert involvement in the Krajina offensive " ..."
23 Years Ago the US Backed a Brutal Croatian Ethnic Cleansing of SerbsMiodrag Novakovic (
FBReporter ) Sat, Aug
4, 2018 | 4,303
445 If there was a
nation that could safely conclude from its own historical experience that "Crime Pays", than it
must be the newest EU member, Croatia. In the modern history this tiny Catholic nation
committed one of the most horrific genocides in WWII over Serbian Orthodox Christian population
residing in Croatia and Bosnia, murdering at least one million people; and recently in 1995,
Croatia conducted (under US supervision) the biggest and permanent ethnic cleansing "military
operation" against its (again) Serbian population, expelling over 200,000 of them in just three
days (the real number of ethnically cleansed Serbs from Croatia during the wars in 90ies, is at
least twice larger)- unofficially becoming the most ethnic cleanse European state.
If you believe, that Croats "en masse", would be ashamed of such reputation, then you are
dead wrong. Actually most of them are very proud, and for the last 23 years they are
celebrating it very loudly, and doing everything in their power to prevent (after being
pressured by the international community) the return of hundreds of thousands of Serbs to their
ancient land, and to avoid returning of their stolen property, mostly (real estates, farm
lands, etc.).
"We could not prevent the slaughter of the Serbs by the Croatians, including elderly
people and children " – UNPROFOR French Lieutenant-General Jean Cot
Elderly Krajina' resident murdered in his home by Croatian soldiers. His guilt- He was a
Serb
WHEN WESTERN "DEMOCRACIES" ORCHESTRATE ETHNIC CLEANSINGS
Of course, if would be unreasonable, for this evident and well documented war crimes, and
crimes against humanity, to blame only Croats. If their hands are soaked in the blood, of
innocent Serbian civilians, up to their arms, then the hands of their Western sponsors
(namely USA and Germany) are soaked in the blood at least up to their elbows. Simply Croats
would never get away with "such perfect crime", if they were not backed, in every possible
way, by their American and German sponsors.
This week will mark 22 years, since on August 4th 1995, Croatia lunched so called
military-police operation, named Storm, against Serb' held and controlled Krajina region.
Croats backed by US military-logistic & air support, CIA intelligence drone
reconnaissance, and open political support from Washington, completed their "operation" in
just three days. On August 7th they declared "victory".
Their "victory resulted": in a complete ethnic cleansing of Krajina region, and a murder
of at least 2,000 Serbs; vast majority of them were defenseless civilians. Official sources
claim that: 1,192 Serbian civilians were killed or missing, and around 200,000 thousands
(entire Krajina population) were expelled from their ancient land. Their property was
destroyed, looted and stolen, by the Croatian "soldiers" (who performed this "operation"
under direct Washington' supervision, while UNPROFOR peacekeepers assigned for the protection
of UN designated "Krajina Safe Zone" just stood by, doing almost nothing to prevent the
slaughter).
Croatian "soldiers" in "liberated Krajina"
IMPERATIVE WAS TO ESTABLISH US MILITARY
PRESENCE IN YUGOSLAVIA
To understand this US complicity, and its direct military involvement, in such horrendous
atrocity against one ethnic group, in one, of many, civil wars, which erupted, when former
Socialist Yugoslavia "fell apart", again with covert or overt Western support, we have to
look here at the wider picture-
When the Clinton' government, together with their major European allies, decided in 90ies,
that the best American interest in the Balkans will be to back armed rebellion of the
separatist administrative regions in Western Yugoslavia, and openly support the breakup of,
internationally recognized, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, while it was still the UN member,
they consciously opened the Pandora box.
They openly sided politically & militarily with Slovenian and Croatian Catholics from
the Western Yugoslavian Republics, and with Islamic fundamentalists from Bosnia, in their
civil and religious wars against Orthodox Christian Serbs living outside, then administrative
Republic of Serbia (and later in 1999, US & NATO started another illegal war against
Serbia, on behalf of Islamic Albanian separatists from Kosovo, ultimately "stealing" this
Southern Serbian province).
Croatian and Bosnian Serbs, who simply wanted to remain in their Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia, and not to be "taken away" by Catholic and Islamic separatists, and not to be
stripped of their constitutional rights, under existing Yugoslavian laws, naturally rebelled
against such illegal and violent Yugoslavian outcome, and they subsequently declared own
autonomy within the Yugoslavian separatist' regions.
And then all hell broke loose
The historical roots of such American approach, could be found in the Western (mainly
British and American) support of "Anti-Stalin" communist leader of post-WWII Yugoslavia
Marshal Josip Broz Tito (who was Croat himself), who provided Western leaders with assurances
that he will, not only keep Yugoslavia outside the Soviet bloc, but he would align militarily
his country with NATO alliance as well; and later in Reagan' presidential directive NSDD133,
from 1984, which outlined US strategic interest to expand its military presence to
Yugoslavia.
Croatian and US military leadership celebrating "joint operation"- the biggest ethnic
cleansing in Europe since WWII
THEY ARE KILLING "LITTLE RUSSIANS" TOO, AREN'T THEY
?
The "only" obstacle to this US (read NATO) expansionist policy in the former Yugoslavia,
was Serbian (majority) population, which was, due to its traditional friendship with Russia,
considered as "problematic" and had to be decimated, "broken into pieces", and Republic of
Serbia to be disabled as an independent state, during so called "spontaneous" civil wars in
90s.
I am not trying here to state that in the Western society exist some unexplained hatred
against Serbs (in same time, there is a lots of prejudice, and media & Hollywood bias,
picturing Serbs primarily as "bad guys"), actually I believe that people and their
politicians in the West could not care less about Serbs (Serbians), and most of them have no
clue where to find Serbia on the geographic map. But in same time, as we can observe these
days in the West, particularly in United States, there is a lot of unfounded and unreasonable
hatred for the Russians
And if we are familiar with the popular saying among Western diplomats, that "Serbs are
Little Russians", then is not difficult to put two and two together, and understand their
desire to "disable" any Russian-friendly nation in the region.
As long as you are a Serb, regardless of your age, for Croats and their US sponsors, you
are a "fair game"
CROATIAN WAR CRIMES AGAINST SERBS WERE SO EVIDENT, AND ON SUCH LARGE
SCALE, THAT WESTERN CONTROLLED ICTY HAD NO CHOICE, BUT TO SENTENCE CROATIAN LEADERSHIP
Western controlled ICTY (International Crime Tribunal for Yugoslavia) reluctantly brought
charges for war crimes and ethnic cleansing, against (war time) ultra-nationalistic Croatian
leadership and group of its generals. But in the wake of overwhelming evidence and
international outcry, they had little choice.
In 2001 ICTY brought charges for war crimes against Croatian president general Franjo
Tudjman (who will be remembered for publically saying "that he was very proud that his wife
was neither Jew or Serb"), Croatian defence minister Gojko Susak (prior to war- open Neo-Nazi
ideologist), and two other former (renegade) Yugoslav Army generals, (promoted into supreme
commanders of Croatian army) Janko Bobetko and Zvonimir Cermenko. Their indictment was
actually travesty of justice, because at the time they were charged, all of them (with
exception of General Janko Bobetko), were already dead (by natural cause). General Bobetko
died one year after indictment, before he could be delivered to ICTY.
" The decision to launch Operation Storm is not controversial; what is
controversial, however, is 'the successful effort' of some Croatian officials headed by
President Franjo Tudjman to 'exploit the circumstances' and implement the plan to drive
Serbs out of Krajina ." -- ICTY prosecutor Alain Tieger
When the indictment of Croatian generals Ante Gotovina, Ivan Cermak and Mladen Markac, for
their war crimes and ethnic cleansing of Croatian Serbs in Krajina, during "operation" Storm
in 1995, was announced in 2008- Serbs who survived US sponsored pogrom and ethnic cleansing,
were naively hoping that at last some justice will be served.
Even, with such unprecedented obstruction of ICTY by Croatian government, Catholic Church
and wider Croatian society, who concealed and destroyed many war documents, facilitated
escape and concealment of indicted Croatian war criminals, and intimidated not only victims
and witnesses, but ICTY leadership as well- the trial of those three Croatian generals came
to conclusion in 2011, and after the overwhelming evidence (the evidence, Croats were not
able to conceal or destroy), Gotovina was sentenced to 24 years, Markac to 18 years, while
Cermak was acquitted.
Serbian victims hoped that at the end at least some justice was served- but they were
wrong again. There is a Serbian saying: "A crow doesn't pick out another crow's eyes."-
In 2012, ICTY appeal chamber overturned the decision of lower chamber, and unconditionally
acquitted Croatian war criminals Gotovina and Markac for all crimes. Entire Croatia and its
diaspora erupted in joy and massive celebration.
Their historical experience that Crime Pays have been proven yet again
Serbian children getting starved to death and slaughtered by knife in a first-ever death
camp for children and infants established by Croats in Jastrebarsko, Sisak, Stara
Gradiska, Independent State of Croatia in WW2
Even, after the ICTY had proved (from the audio and written transcript of Croatian war
leadership meeting in July 1995) – that there was very credible evidence of existence
of a joint criminal enterprise, with intent to forcibly remove ethnic Serbs from Croatia, and
that civilian areas in Krajina, including the subsequent civilian refugee columns, were
indiscriminately shelled by Croatian artillery, and bombed & machine gunned by Croatian
air-force – that did not prevent the real ICTY masters to pervert the course of
justice.
One would wander who and what was behind such obvious and embarrassing justice travesty,
demonstrated in this example. What had forced American controllers of ICTY to change their
mind, and influence the tribunal to free of any charges, these obvious and heavy documented,
war criminals?
Just remember that at that time, US government offered $5 million reward for the
capture of war criminal Ante Gotovina, making him the ICTY most wanted man. He was at that
time sheltered by Croatian government, and through the notorious Vatican' "Rat Channels",
that were used at the end of WWII to facilitate the escape of Nazis, he was hidden (among
the other Croatian war criminals) in a Catholic monastery, to be smuggled to Tenerife,
where he was eventually captured by the Spanish police, in 2005.
Serbian civilians fleeing US/CRO joint operation "Storm" were bombed, machine-gunned, and
ran by Croatian tanks, mercilessly- thousands of innocent people just
perished
INTERNATIONAL "POST-MORTEM" RESPONSE
It is worth to mention accusations and reactions, to such perversion of justice by ICTY,
from some highest international bodies and public persons, at that time-
US Security Council, on August 10th 1995 issued "post-mortem" (when ethnic cleansing of
Serbs was already completed) resolution #1009, demanding from Croatia to halt military
operation, and condemning targeting of UN peacekeepers (during the operation Storm, Croats
had killed three UN soldiers) – but UNSC failed to request a withdrawal of the Croatian
forces, and de-facto accepted new "ethnically cleanse" reality!?
The only UN official, who was fully aware of the horrific aspect of this US sponsored
"operation", and who was trying to prevent further Croatian atrocities against Serbian
population, was, at that time, the Head of UN mission in Yugoslavia, Thorvald Stoltenberg,
who urged UN Secretary Yasushi Akashi to request NATO strikes against Croatian army, to
prevent further atrocities against civilians.
Of course, that never happened, especially if we know that Croatian operation Storm, was
directly supervised by the retired US generals (via Pentagon military contractor MPRI), while
US Air Force conducted air raids against Serbian Air Defense systems in Krajina, and CIA
officers operated surveillance drones, which provided intelligence for advancing Croatian
troops, from two Croatian bases in Adriatic.
Even, EU negotiator Carl Bildt, and US ambassador in Croatia Peter Galbraith, publically
condemned Croatian atrocities in Krajina- but they too stayed short of requesting some
concrete and punitive measures.
" It is important that these [Serb] civilians start moving and then the army will
follow them, and when the columns start moving, they will have a psychological effect on
each other. That means we provide them with an exit, while on the other hand we feign
(pretend) to guarantee civilian human rights and the like " --Croatian President Franjo Tudjman, during War Council meeting in July 1995
The only ones from UN troops who tried to prevent Croatian atrocities, and in couple
occasions fought bravely against bloody-thirsty Croatian soldiers, where Canadian
peacekeepers from "Patricia Company", but they too, where upon return to Canada, silenced and
their experience never got real media traction. Their testimony simply did not fit with the
Western agenda, that Serbs are the only bad guys
THE REAL ATROCIOUS OUTCOME OF THE
BIGGEST ETHNIC CLEANSING IN POST-WWII EUROPE IS MUCH HIGHER, THEN THE OFFICIAL FIGURES
STATE
While ICTY prosecutors accepted the fact that some 200,000 Serbs were ethnically cleansed
in just couple of days from Krajina region, they "lowered" the number of murdered Serbian
civilians to 324. Serbian sources on the ground documented 1,192 dead or missing civilians,
while Croatian Helsinki Committee documented 677 killed.
Human Rights Watch documented at least 5,000 Serbian homes razed to the ground by Croatian
forces, and HRW accused Croats for summary executions of elderly and disabled Serbs, who
stayed behind due to inability or unwillingness to leave their homes. We can only imagine if
the entire defenseless Serbian civilian population stayed behind, and faced bloody-thirsty
Croatian soldiers- in that case we would be talking here about a full scale genocide, not
"just" the ethnic cleansing!?
To better understand what kind of "Croatian justice" were facing defenseless Serbian
civilians, who decided not to leave their homes during operation Storm, here is one excerpt
from Wikipedia, describing one of many of Croatian "post-Storm" atrocities against innocent
civilians-
"The Varivode massacre was a mass killing that occurred on 28 September 1995 in the
village of Varivode , Croatia during the Croatian War of Independence . According to United
Nations officials, soldiers of the Croatian Army (HV) and Croatian police killed nine
Croatian Serb villagers, all of whom were between the ages of 60 and 85. [4] After
the war, six former Croatian soldiers were tried for committing crimes in the village, but
were all eventually released due to lack of evidence On the night of 28 September 1995,
Croatian soldiers entered the village of Varivode and killed nine elderly Serb villagers.
The civilians that were killed were Jovan Berić, Marko Berić, Milka Berić,
Radivoje Berić, Marija Berić, Dušan Dukić, Jovo Berić,
Špiro Berić and Mirko Pokrajac. After the executions occurred, the bodies were
buried in a cemetery near the village without the knowledge of the families of the victims.
[4] After the
massacre, Croatian authorities denied reports of widespread atrocities targeting Serbs and
said that they were propaganda. Later, the government blamed the atrocities on
uncontrollable elements within the Croatian Army and Croatian police. [25]
Christiane Amanpour 's report from October 1995 said that the "United Nations believes 12
Serb civilians were massacred." [25] In the
first one hundred days following Operation Storm, at least 150 Serb civilians were
summarily executed, and many hundreds disappeared as part of a widespread campaign of
revenge against Croatia's Serb minority. [26] The bodies of the
killed Serbs were never exhumed, autopsies were never performed and much of the evidence
that could have been used against the perpetrators of the crime was discarded. [27]
Despite this, six Croatian soldiers were tried for committing crimes in the village. The
soldiers were Ivan Jakovljević, Peri Perković, Neđeljko Mijić, Zlatko
Ladović, Ivica Petrić and Nikola Rašić. However, in 2002 they were
all released due to the lack of evidence against them. [27] In
July 2012, the Supreme Court of Croatia ruled that the Republic of Croatia was responsible
for the deaths of the nine Serb villagers who were killed in Varivode. The Supreme Court
declared, "two months after the conclusion of Operation Storm, an act of terrorism was
committed against the Serb inhabitants of Varivode for the purpose of causing fear,
hopelessness and to spread feelings of personal insecurity among the citizens." [35] –
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varivode_massacre
By 2012, Croatian government received 6,390 reports about committed war crimes against
Serbian civilians, during and after operation Storm, but did little or nothing to bring the
perpetrators to justice.
To make things worse and more humiliating for surviving Krajina Serbs, Croatian government
is still refusing to return (or reimburse) 140,000 Serbian homes, stolen from ethnic Serbs.
795 Serbs, presumed dead, are still missing, 1,604 bodies were retrieved- according to NGO
"Veritas".
Croats were attacking Krajina using the strategy of "Scorched Earth", with unconditional
US support
DID THE CROATS SUCCESSFULLY BLACKMAIL U.S. GOVERNMENT INTO SUBMISSION,
FORCING THEM TO OVERTURN THE INITIAL ICTY RULING!?
Defense ministers celebrating the joint outcome of the biggest ethnic cleansing in Europe
since WWII- Left: US William Perry, Right: CRO Gojkos Susak
The initial ICTY ruling in 2011, which sentenced Croatian generals Gotovina and Markac to
long term imprisonment, was expected, and very well supported by the "conclusive evidence".
Even, according to many international experts, this sentencing was not enough tough, and did
not cover the full scale of war crimes and atrocities, committed by Croatian political and
military leadership, during and in the aftermath of operation Storm. Still, many Serbian
victims were satisfied that they finally achieved at least some justice
So, when in November 2012 ICTY appeal chamber ruled that Croatian generals are innocent of
all charges and free to go, the news came to many as a complete shock, and reaffirmed them in
a belief that ICTY tribunal is just another NATO war tool, in their efforts to punish and
humiliate, not only the Serbian government, but the numerous Serbian victims of civil wars in
90ies, whose executors were never (and probably never will be) brought to justice.
The ruling was very controversial, not only because it ignored all the hard evidence,
including the forensics and the testimony of the international observers, but because the
formal excuse for the liberating judgment was – that in the prosecutor documents were
missing the Croatian artillery log books, that according to the Appeal chamber, were the only
document that would prove the Croatian intent to drive Serbian population from Krajina. The
same books were previously repeatedly requested by the ICTY prosecutors, and Croatia did not
even deny its existence, but simply refused to cooperate with ICTY and hand them over.
Finally, when in 2008 Croatia was warned by European leaders that non-cooperation with ICTY
might affect the prospect of its EU membership – somebody from the Croatian leadership
simply destroyed these books, and they informed Hague tribunal that Artillery logs no longer
exist. Even such provocative and blunt obstruction of the international justice by the
Croatian government, did not result in any repercussions for them, and practically they were
forgiven for their deeds. Crime pays – doesn't it?
Anyway, ICTY tribunal had plenty of other evidence, proving the intentional destruction of
Serbian civilian infrastructure was very well documented by the international observers, and
in April 2011 ICTY had no choice but to sentence general Gotovina to 24 years, and general
Markac to 18 years.
Another fact that indicates that Appeal chamber' ruling was the political one, and result
of some external interference was its split decision – the chamber ruled by the
majority decision 3 – 2, implying that there were serious doubts and disagreements, by
at least two of the Appeal chamber judges.
"American concern is that if General Gotovina is arrested he may carry out a threat
to disclose previously unknown extent of US covert involvement in the Krajina offensive
"– London Times, June 14th, 2003.
Gotovina was arrested, but only shortly, until Croatian blackmail convinced their US
masters, to pull strings in ICTY, and free him unconditionally
CROATIAN OFFICIALS
PROVIDED A PLENTY OF EVIDENCE THAT U.S. GOVERNMENT WAS INVOLVED IN "STORM" MILITARILY, AND
HAD A FULL CONTROL OVER WAR (CRIMES) ACTIVITIES THAT TOOK PLACE ON THE GROUND
As soon the ICTY indictments against Croatian leaders were announced in 2001, the Croatian
government, NGOs, public, and very well organized and connected diaspora, displayed anger and
disagreement, promising that they will do everything in their power to obstruct ICTY
investigations and prevent trials against their "national heroes". When in 2011, the first
instance judgment by ICTY was issued and Croatian generals were sentenced to long term
imprisonment, the Croatian Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor and President Ivo Josipovic publicly
expressed their shock and rejection of the ruling, promising to help to overturn the
judgment, on appeal!?
And they started their campaign – of obstruction of justice, of abetting the accused
war criminals, of the intimidation, and finally, of the blackmail, of ICTY and US officials
–
On July 4th, 2002, NGO associated with Croatian government "Croatian World Congress-
CWC" filed complaint with ICTY citing what proofs, about US direct involvement in ethnic
cleansing of Krajina, they have:
" US officials aided General Gotovina and the Croatian army in operation Storm by
violating UN arms embargo and allowing Croatia to obtain weapons US officials established a
CIA base inside General Gotovina' military base, which provided the US officials with
real-time video footage of events transpiring on the ground during Operation Storm (and
thus imputing to them knowledge of events on the ground ), but also from which they could
provide such intelligence data to General Gotovina to assist him in conducting Operation
Storm . If General Gotovina carried out pre-planed campaign to deport 150,000 to 200,000
Croatian Serbian civilians, the CIA base was not only used to provide knowledge to US
officials of such plan and course of conduct on the part of General Gotovina , but was also
used to assist General Gotovina in achieving the goals of his alleged plan . The US
official gave the green light for the Operation and provided diplomatic and political
support for it . The US officials at all times had the ability to halt the military
operations . Accordingly, the US officials named in the complaint should be indicted for
having aided and abetted General Gotovina. "
Ethnic cleansing in Krajina was the joint US/CRO criminal enterprise History will be the
judge
If you read carefully through this CWC statement (threat), they are not even trying to
deny Gotovina' war crimes, they are just implying bluntly, that if their lovely General was
sentenced, they would gladly provide ICTY with the evidence of Croatian-American "Joint
criminal enterprise to forcibly remove the Serb population from Croatia ", as it states the
ICTY indictment from 2001, of course omitting the US participation (which was the very secret
deal, at least until Croatian officials started "mouthing" their "American friends").
Croatian complaint to ICTY specifically named the highest US officials, alleging that
they, along General Gotovina, committed too war crimes against Serbian population:
"On behalf of the Croatian World Congress, a non-governmental organization that is a
member of the United Nations with advisory status, you are hereby notified pursuant to
Article 18(1) of the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia of the existence of information concerning serious violations of international
humanitarian law (hereinafter "IHL"), namely that officials of the United States of
America, including but not limited to William Jefferson Clinton , Anthony Lake , Samuel
Berger , Richard Holbrooke , Peter Galbraith and/or George J. Tenet (hereinafter
collectively referred to as "U.S. officials"), aided and abetted Croatian General Ante
Gotovina , who was indicted by your office on 8 June 2001."
War Criminals at work together- Croatian general Kresimir Cosic and US supreme commander
general Wesley Clark
We are not going here to present detailed evidence of US crimes, committed during the
operation Storm. Of course, the Croatian war crimes on the ground were very brutal,
systematic and savage, they did "the physical work", but from the evidence provided by
numerous Croatian officials and their organizations, it is very obvious, that operation Storm
would never happen, or if happened never would be successful, without US military support and
direct supervision, or without US approval.
Just to give you "a taste" what kind of American support Croats were enjoying during their
atrocious operation against innocent Serbian civilians, will present you with some documented
facts:
The Green Light for the operation came a couple days prior the assault- President Clinton
passed the order directly to US military attaché in Zagreb Colonel Richard Herrick;
Herrick passed order to Croatian head of military intelligence Markica Rebic (the others
involved directly were defense minister Gojko Susak, Miro Tudjman and Miro Medimurac, heads
of Secret Service and Intelligence Service). US masters were so pleased with Rebic' service,
that they rewarded him with Meritorious Service Medal, delivered to him by Ambassador
Galbraith in 1996. The other people from USG involved in this joint criminal enterprise with
Croats, in addition to Clinton, were Anthony Lake and William Perry. US masters imposed the
time limit on operation Storm- it had to be completed in 5 days.
Long before the Storm, in 1992 USG with Croatian approval established CIA reconnaissance
base on island of Brac, from where CIA operators were flying unmanned aircraft spying on
Serbian positions in Krajina, Bosnia and part of Serbia itself. USG requested that this
cooperation to be held a top secret, so outsiders don't find that US is taking sides in the
Balkans' civil wars. But it did not stay for too long the top secret. On January 1st, 1994,
Croatian state security apprehended a spy on the base perimeter. They delivered him right
away to General Gotovina, to find out it was their German ally, precisely it was German
military attaché Hans Schwan.
This incident alerted USG, which wanted to conceal any covert activities on behalf of CG,
so they promptly removed CIA base to new secret location, in Sepurina, near city of Zadar.
This new location was covered by three security layers, to ensure the full secrecy. From new
base CIA started immediately collecting photographic and video evidence of Serbian activities
in Krajina and Bosnia, and passing them to Croats, and to Pentagon. There was 24 hours, 6
member intelligence crew, present on site- consisting of three CIA and three Croatian
military officers.
Croatian military base Sepurine, near Zadar, from which CIA operated drones, aiding
operation Storm, and providing live video feed of "military activities" on the ground to
Pentagon
"STORM" WASN'T THE FIRST ETHNIC CLEANSING, UNDERTAKEN BY
CROATIA AND US, AS A JOINT CRIMINAL ENTERPRISE:
It is interesting that disgruntled (by ICTY indictment) Croatian Officials and Croatian
World Congress body, in their complaint to ICTY, are providing the evidence about USG
intelligence and logistical support for another Croatian genocidal operation, named Flash,
that took place in Western Slavonia, between May 1st and 3rd, 1995, which resulted in
another complete ethnic cleansing of Serbian population- prior to the operation this area
was populated by 29,000 Serbs, after Flash, only 1,500 remained.
The number of killed civilians is unknown because Croats prevented UNPROFOR troops from
accessing the area, until they did "the sanitation" (read: removing the evidence of their
crimes, because entire Serbian refugee columns were massacred and overran by Croatian
tanks). Estimates of killed civilians rage between one hundred to couple thousands. Another
example of "the successful US-CRO joint criminal enterprise"?
The interesting details, revealed here by Croatian sources, is- that US military
attaché Herrick was attached to the Croatian mobile military command, during the
genocidal operation Flash, supervising it directly- and the head of CIA branch in Zagreb
Marc Kelton was directly coordinating expulsion of Slavonia' Serbs, with Croatian president
Tudjman son Miro.
In the eve of the attack on Krajina, on August 4th 1995, between midnight and 4 a.m.
Croatian forces were ordered to turn off all telecommunication devices, to unable US air
force to electronically disable all Serbian communications.
The outcome of Joint US/CRO "justice"
According to NATO spokesman Jim Mitchell in Aviano, Italy, two US military planes EA-6B
Prowlers were dispatched to Krajina air space. USAF planes, on the top of jamming Serbian
telecommunications, destroyed the airport Udbine, and Radar and Serbian Air Defense near
Knin, in order to prevent any Serbian air support or defence, against invading Croatian
forces.
Here, US military attaché Herrick was replaced by the Colonel John Sadler, who was
embedded with Gotovina command unit, directly supervising operation Storm. Pentagon was also
directly monitoring the operation via live video feed.
Shortly after the biggest joint (US/CRO) ethnic cleansing in Europe was completed, US head
of DIA General Colonel Patrick Hughes visited Croatia to coordinate further military actions
against Serbs in Bosnia and if necessary in Republic of Serbia
Hitler, it has been reported, in 'Secret History of the Twentieth Century' by
Herbert Dorsey, commended the USA for having 'gunned down the millions of Redskins to
a few hundred thousand.' This way of 'winning the West' type-casts American as
imperialist and certainly sympathetic with much we associated with fascism. America
lead the world in race-based lawmaking to safeguard the historically white character
of the country. Including immigration legislation to guarantee the predominance of
northern Europe and shut the doors on Jews, Italians, Asians and others. Nazi
commentators called this keeping out the 'undesirables.' The eugenics movement took
root in the United States in the early 1900's.
This article concerns the largest ethnic cleansing in Balkans that was committed
by Croatia with US operational support. The US committed multiple war crimes in the
Balkans in the 1990's.
After the 1990's the US has clearly emerged the fascist rogue state of the 21st
century.
Last week, US State Department officials met with Taliban leaders in
Qatar. At the request of the Taliban, the US-backed Afghan government was not invited. The
officials discussed ceasefires and an end to the war. Meanwhile, the US inspector general
charged with monitoring US spending on Afghanistan reconstruction has reported that since
2008, the US has completely wasted at the least $15.5 billion. He believes that's just the
tip of the iceberg, though. Will President Trump do the smart thing and negotiate peace and
leave? Tune in to today's Ron Paul Liberty Report:
"... "My film itself is essentially was tracking the neocon influence and how the neoconservatives from the Bush era that pushed the Iraq war, that constructed the blueprints for the Iraq war, how they also were the earliest pioneers pushing this Russiagate Cold War 2.0 mentality." ..."
"... – Robbie Martin, from this week's program. ..."
"My film itself is essentially was tracking the neocon influence and how the
neoconservatives from the Bush era that pushed the Iraq war, that constructed the blueprints
for the Iraq war, how they also were the earliest pioneers pushing this Russiagate Cold War 2.0
mentality."
"The hatred, the distrust, the dissatisfaction toward the establishment is growing here, no
question about it," says the analyst. "People are protesting here and there. But what Trump is
doing" makes the prospect of a popular uprising even more distant.
Citing "current America and these policies," which had shown the US to be "totally
unreliable," Tehran dismissed an offer by Mr. Trump Monday to meet Iranian leaders with "no
preconditions." The White House later clarified that it has no plans to change its policy of
ratcheting up pressure and sanctions on Iran.
Ordinary Iranians have taken to Twitter using the hashtags #ShutUpTrump and
#StopMeddlingInIran to condemn US actions.
"Trump's craziness has no end. But our unity is endless, too. So the more he shows his
teeth, the more we will show our fists," says Saeed, a clean-shaven student of mechanical
engineering at Azad University in Tehran who says he supports reformist politicians.
"We have passed all those hurdles in the past and this one, although it is more serious than
ever, I'm sure we will successfully leave behind," says Saeed, who only gave his first name.
"It is Trump who will be thrown away or, in the words of the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei], will be 'thrown into the dust bin of history.' We will stand behind the
establishment forever."
Mutual hostility between the US and Iran has defined the geopolitical strife between these
arch foes since Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.
... ... ...
Yet today Iranians also are reeling from being included – alongside
Somalis and Yemenis – in a blanket seven-nation White House travel ban, even though an
estimated one million Iranian-Americans live in the US.
They are baffled by Trump's unilateral US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal. And they
are feeling the bite of new US sanctions designed to put "unprecedented" economic pressure on
Iran by cutting it off from the outside world, forcing all third-country business to withdraw,
and blocking the sale of any Iranian oil.
Multiculturalism is a recipe for national suicide. Culture, including religious belief, is
the unifying factor that allows strangers to work with one another, by ensuring that they
share the same assumptions about morality and about correct behavior in general.
Jews have been a problem for European societies for hundreds of years. The recent mass
migration of people of multiple races and religions to Europe and its settler outposts in the
America's and the Pacific is creating cultural chaos.
Immigrants who will not assimilate to the Christian culture of the West have no place in
the West. For Africans, Asians, Hispanics and Middle-Easterners the message must be:
assimilate or leave. The same for Jews who now, fortunately, have a place to go where they
can live by the precepts of their ancient religion, however bizarre some of those precepts
may seem to others.
That then leaves only the problem of the Palestinians. A solution can surely be found in a
deal with Egypt. The Sinai is twice the size of Palestine, yet has only a half a million
inhabitants. The US could easily organize a purchase, funded by itself, Britain, the country
primarily responsible for the dispossession of the Palestinians, the EU, Russia and some
other countries, and of course Israel, which would have to pay for the land and houses of the
departing Palestinians.
At say $10,000 per hectare, a ridiculous price for a desert sand and rocky hillsides, the
whole of Sinai could be purchased for $60 billion, a trivial amount in relation to the US
trillion-dollar defense budget. In addition, there might be a need for something like half a
trillion dollars for construction of the the cities and high-tech desert agricultural system
of the new Palestinian state. But again, that is a rather trivial amount over, say ten
years.
Only Leftists can defeat Leftists, only progressives can defeat progressives –
conserving the old cannot win. Ideas of stability, homeostasis, and the like, cannot
win.
You sure?
Don't know.
Franco, for example. Then, more recently, Nationalists winning over Communists in Eastern
Europe after the fall of The Wall. We could agree, I guess, that Nationalism is a bit older
than Communism.
And there is no organized opposition because there is no Platonic Idea around which they
can rally – while the Left has one. The Right seems to just be a headless chicken-
all body, no head.
In the West. In the East not so sure about that. Do a (mental) test: imagine that US
(military) power can't get delivered in Balkans anymore. Or Russian (military) power can't
get delivered in Donbass. Or some other places.
That's a good point about nationalism – but I think what we are seeing in places
like Russia and Poland is a resurgence of religious nationalism – pure nationalism,
without a Platonic Idea, just materialism, seems to have no long term success anywhere. I
don't think the attempt to revive it among materialist western right wingers will work. I
think they fundamentally misunderstand this.
In the context of a failed Communism, religious nationalism appears as progressive –
as an exciting step in the direction of progress towards a higher state.
Its not that old traditional ideas can't be revived – its that I think conservatives
basically misunderstand traditional ideas. In their time, traditional ideas were meant to
facilitate the self-perfection of man – not provide stability, safety, or homeostasis.
Christianity was a program for the perfection of man – not social stability.
Traditional ideas were based on a Platonic Idea – never materialism. The attempt to
revive traditional ideas on a materialist basis, because they provide stability, seems a
misunderstanding. In fact, traditional ideas provide stability because they were accepted as
part of the plan of self-perfection. That's why they secured consent – i.e became the
basis of a stable society. People accept a social organization that they believe will assist
in self-perfection, and that is the source of social stability.
As for military power projection, once local power balances alter its hard to predict what
will come to seem "progressive". And short term social expedients taken in chaotic cobditions
don't necessarily translate into long term social organization.
.traditional ideas were meant to facilitate the self-perfection of man – not
provide stability, safety, or homeostasis. Christianity was a program for the perfection of
man – not social stability.
..traditional ideas provide stability because they were accepted as part of the plan of
self-perfection.
I am not quite sure I get this.
Feels as a deep topic. Not well versed in that I am afraid.
A couple of things: the concept of "self-perfection" in, say, traditional
Catholic/Orthodox Christianity, with accepting that a man is a sinner and only though Jesus
he/she can find salvation.
Then, I can get that top thinkers of those nations maybe thought along those lines; common
folk, though, based their nationalism on simple living with people who shared the same values
in life. Sometimes even just the same customs. The sense of belonging. The perception of "us"
and "them" as the bottom line.
You want a problem to ponder about?
Here it is, then:
Why such ..animosity .. then, between Catholics and Orthodox in Balkans and Ukraine? The
same, now dormant, between Protestant and Catholics in N.I.?
I guess that your approach to nationalism is, say, what ..metaphysical?
Mine is way, way below. Just blood and soil, in that order. "Us" vs "them".
West is doomed re nationalism. Maybe. Not quite sure.
All those wars of Catholics vs Protestants ..and we are talking about people of the same
race.
Now, that "we" vs "them" is much more visible.
.short term social expedients taken in chaotic cobditions don't necessarily translate
into long term social organization.
Agree.
Again, so what? If it works during my lifetime fine (say, if I were a young man). After me,
their problem. Something like that.
That's a good point about nationalism – but I think what we are seeing in places
like Russia and Poland is a resurgence of religious nationalism – pure nationalism,
without a Platonic Idea, just materialism, seems to have no long term success anywhere. I
don't think the attempt to revive it among materialist western right wingers will work. I
think they fundamentally misunderstand this.
In the context of a failed Communism, religious nationalism appears as progressive –
as an exciting step in the direction of progress towards a higher state.
Its not that old traditional ideas can't be revived – its that I think conservatives
basically misunderstand traditional ideas. In their time, traditional ideas were meant to
facilitate the self-perfection of man – not provide stability, safety, or homeostasis.
Christianity was a program for the perfection of man – not social stability.
Traditional ideas were based on a Platonic Idea – never materialism. The attempt to
revive traditional ideas on a materialist basis, because they provide stability, seems a
misunderstanding. In fact, traditional ideas provide stability because they were accepted as
part of the plan of self-perfection. That's why they secured consent – i.e became the
basis of a stable society. People accept a social organization that they believe will assist
in self-perfection, and that is the source of social stability.
As for military power projection, once local power balances alter its hard to predict what
will come to seem "progressive". And short term social expedients taken in chaotic cobditions
don't necessarily translate into long term social organization.
While neocons definitely agitated for invasion and were well represented in Bush Ii
government, this statement might be not true. As Greenspan said it was about oil.
Earlier this year, Representative James Moran, a Democrat, said that "if it were not for the
strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this."
In Britain, Tam Dalyell, a longstanding Labor member of Parliament, expressed a similar view.
Tony Blair, he opined, was listening too much to a "cabal" of Jews around President Bush that
included Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; an under secretary of defense, Douglas
Feith; Richard Perle, a member of the Defense Policy Board; Elliott Abrams, director of
Middle East Affairs in the White House; and the former presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer.
"Those people drive this policy," Dalyell said.
Dalyell was "worried about my country being led up the garden path on a Likudnik-Sharon
agenda" by British Jews close to Blair.
-- -- -- -- -- -
Earlier this year, Representative James Moran, a Democrat, said that "if it were not for the
strong support of the Jewish community for this war with Iraq, we would not be doing this."
In Britain, Tam Dalyell, a longstanding Labor member of Parliament, expressed a similar view.
Tony Blair, he opined, was listening too much to a "cabal" of Jews around President Bush that
included Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; an under secretary of defense, Douglas
Feith; Richard Perle, a member of the Defense Policy Board; Elliott Abrams, director of
Middle East Affairs in the White House; and the former presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer.
"Those people drive this policy," Dalyell said.
Dalyell was "worried about my country being led up the garden path on a Likudnik-Sharon
agenda" by British Jews close to Blair.
The way , this war has played out, the way Oslo has been shredded, the way Iran deal has
been gutted, the way Blair spoke in Bush's ranch and took money form and awards from Israel,
the way attacks on Lebanon and Syria have been allowed and helped , the way Libya have been
made a failed country, the way billions have been poured on Israel, the way dissent against
war has been suppressed, the way Corbyn was attacked prove one thing – only one thing
that is the author was entirely wrong .Moran Japanense and British minister are and were
correct.
for the John S. McCain 2019 National Defense Authorization Bill ( subtitled 'The Sneeze
Wrong, We're Comin' to Fuck You Up Act' ). Here's the very lengthy summary of provisions
in the House version from govtrack.us , although it may
have changed slightly since the House and Senate conference agreements.
Let's start with the House: 'House Democrats vote for record US military spending', Patrick
Martin, 28 July 2018, wsws.org
"By an overwhelming bipartisan vote Thursday, the US House of Representatives approved the
largest military authorization bill in American history. The National Defense Authorization Act
approves $716 billion to fund US military aggression around the world, and gives President
Trump the power to order cyberwarfare attacks on Russia, China, Iran and North Korea without
further congressional action.
... ... ...
"Particularly ominous are the sections of the NDAA on cyberwarfare. The bill
authorizes the Pentagon to conduct "unattributed" cyber operations without having to comply
with the usual restrictions on covert operations, such as requiring a Presidential Finding
which is submitted to key leaders of Congress. According to the bill "clandestine military
activity or operation in cyberspace shall be considered a traditional military activity.
It pre-authorizes US military cyber operations if the president determines that (1) there is
"an active, systematic, and ongoing campaign of attacks against the Government or people of the
United States in cyberspace, including attempting to influence American elections and
democratic political processes" and (2) that Russia, China, North Korea or Iran are
responsible. In that event, the president may order US cyberwar forces "to take appropriate and
proportional action in foreign cyberspace to disrupt, defeat, and deter such attacks."
This provision effectively gives Trump and any successor, Democrat or Republican, the power
to launch a full-scale cyberwar without further congressional authorization , merely on his own
declaration that the United States is under attack."
Sounds like we continue to waste a ton of borrowed cash on last generation tech.
One new US nuclear-powered aircraft carrier
Two new Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines armed with atomic weapons
13 other new warships
77 new joint strike fighters
Basically Trump's bought himself his own shiny new aircraft carrier battle group.
I'm sure it will be a simply fantastic fleet.
The best fleet ever in the history of the oceans.
I hear they want to call the carrier 'Trump class'.
That'll show China who's boss in the
Western Pacific.
Just one thing though:
The Virginia-class was intended in
part as a less expensive alternative to the Seawolf-class submarines ( $1.8 billion vs $2.8
billion), whose production run was stopped after just three boats had been completed. To
reduce costs, the Virginia-class submarines use many "commercial off-the-shelf" (COTS)
components, especially in their computers and data networks.
Sounds totally secure to me!
I'm sure the Russians or Chinese EW is nowhere near powerful enough to
hack/disable/commandeer the 'off-the-shelf-tech' that runs our latest generation nuclear
powered submarine.
To reduce costs, the Virginia-class submarines use many "commercial off-the-shelf"
(COTS) components, especially in their computers and data networks.
Sounds totally secure to me!
The idea that we're dependent on Microsoft Windows to operate our current Naval
vessels, with little or no manual over-ride even available much less trained or used, makes
my skin crawl!
The only way that this can happen is if a whole lot of people get really desperate really
fast. So expect more cuts to education, health care for civilians, and all sorts of new exciting
waivers that will allow us to form our own Legion Etangere.
And everybody knows there will be an "incident" at the Trump military parade. It's
practically guaranteed, and you know the CIA is going to have a full three months to cook
something up. Hell, they've been waiting for this kind of chance for years.
I remember reporting years ago that the imperialism budget had surpassed a trillion per
year. Estimates prior to Obama's sequester budget were around 1.2 trillion per year for total
costs. Wrote many an article about it and yet here we are, still writing and reading articles
about it and not doing shit to stop it.
Boycott the duopoly, boycott this political system, demand democracy, demand power to the
people. It's so far past time for talking it's pathetic.
Gawd knows that the officers are getting too much money and perks without putting their
asses on the line.
The bill "restates our commitment to NATO and our partners," Smith said. "It extends the
prohibition on military cooperation with Russia. It declares that Russia violated the
Chemical Weapons Convention
Okay. No working with Russia on defeating ISIS. Not that we're doing this, just the
opposite. We're funding and protecting ISIS from Syria and Russia. But what chemical weapons
has Russia used in recent times? This country has been the ones using them in our various
wars. Stupid congress.
So the US neoliberal establishment tried to sabotage Trump-Putin summit in doer to pursue "business as usual". In other words military-industrial
complex is in control of the USA government...
Notable quotes:
"... It's no coincidence that, at the very moment when the President of the United States was about to meet with the President of Russia, special prosecutor Robert Mueller III charged twelve Russians with having manipulated the US presidential elections by hacking into the data networks of the Democratic party in order to hinder candidate Hillary Clinton. The twelve Russians, accused of being agents of the military secret services (GRU), were officially defined as " conspirators ", and found guilty of " conspiracy to the detriment of the United States ". Simultaneously, Daniel Coats, National Director of Intelligence and principal advisor to the President in these matters, accused Russia of working to " undermine our basic values and our democracy ". He then sounded the alarm about the " threat of cyber-attacks which have arrived at a critical point " similar to that which preceded 9/11, on behalf not only of Russia, " the most aggressive foreign agent ", but also China and Iran. ..."
"... At the same time, in London, British " investigators " declared that the Russian military secret service GRU, which had sabotaged the Presidential elections in the USA, is the same service which poisoned ex-Russian agent, Sergueď Skripal and his daughter, who, inexplicably, survived contact with an extremely lethal gas. ..."
"... The political objective of these " enquiries " is clear – to maintain that at the head of all these " conspirators " is Russian President Vladimir Putin, with whom President Donald Trump sat down at the negotiating table, despite vast bi-partisan opposition in the USA. After the " conspirators " had been charged, the Democrats asked Trump to cancel the meeting with Putin. Even though they failed, their pressure on the negotiations remains powerful. ..."
"... In opposition to the easing of tension with Russia are not only the Democrats (who, with a reversal of formal roles, are playing the " hawks "), but also many Republicans, among whom are several highly-important representatives of the Trump administration itself. It is the establishment, not only of the US, but also of Europe, whose powers and profits are directly linked to tension and war. ..."
"... Even if an agreement on these questions were reached between Putin and Trump, would the latter be able to implement it? Or will the real deciders be the powerful circles of the military-industrial complex? ..."
While the International Press distorted the content of the NATO Summit, the US establishment perfectly understood the unique
issue – the end of enmity with Russia. Thus disturbing the bilateral summit in Helsinki between the USA and Russia became its priority.
By all means possible, it had to prevent any rapprochement with Moscow.
We need to talk about everything, from commerce to the military, missiles, nuclear, and China " - this was how President Trump
began at the Helsinki Summit. " The time has come to talk in detail about our bilateral relationship and the international flashpoints
", emphasised Putin.
But it will not only be the two Presidents who will decide the future relationships between the United States and Russia.
It's no coincidence that, at the very moment when the President of the United States was about to meet with the President
of Russia, special prosecutor Robert Mueller III charged twelve Russians with having manipulated the US presidential elections by
hacking into the data networks of the Democratic party in order to hinder candidate Hillary Clinton. The twelve Russians, accused
of being agents of the military secret services (GRU), were officially defined as " conspirators ", and found guilty of " conspiracy
to the detriment of the United States ". Simultaneously, Daniel Coats, National Director of Intelligence and principal advisor to
the President in these matters, accused Russia of working to " undermine our basic values and our democracy ". He then sounded the
alarm about the " threat of cyber-attacks which have arrived at a critical point " similar to that which preceded 9/11, on behalf
not only of Russia, " the most aggressive foreign agent ", but also China and Iran.
At the same time, in London, British " investigators " declared that the Russian military secret service GRU, which had sabotaged
the Presidential elections in the USA, is the same service which poisoned ex-Russian agent, Sergueď Skripal and his daughter, who,
inexplicably, survived contact with an extremely lethal gas.
The political objective of these " enquiries " is clear – to maintain that at the head of all these " conspirators " is Russian
President Vladimir Putin, with whom President Donald Trump sat down at the negotiating table, despite vast bi-partisan opposition
in the USA. After the " conspirators " had been charged, the Democrats asked Trump to cancel the meeting with Putin. Even though
they failed, their pressure on the negotiations remains powerful.
What Putin tried to obtain from Trump is both simple and complex – to ease the tension between the two countries. To that purpose,
he proposed to Trump, who accepted, to implement a joint enquiry into the " conspiracy ". We do not know how the discussions on the
key questions will go – the status of Crimea, the condition of Syria, nuclear weapons and others. And we do not know what Trump will
ask in return. However, it is certain that any concession will be used to accuse him of connivance with the enemy. In opposition
to the easing of tension with Russia are not only the Democrats (who, with a reversal of formal roles, are playing the " hawks "),
but also many Republicans, among whom are several highly-important representatives of the Trump administration itself. It is the
establishment, not only of the US, but also of Europe, whose powers and profits are directly linked to tension and war.
It will not be the words, but the facts, which will reveal whether the climate of détente of the Helsinki Summit will become reality
- first of all with a de-escalation of NATO in Europe, in other words with the withdrawal of forces (including nuclear forces) of
the USA and NATO presently deployed against Russia, and the blockage of NATO's expansion to the East.
Even if an agreement on these questions were reached between Putin and Trump, would the latter be able to implement it? Or
will the real deciders be the powerful circles of the military-industrial complex?
One thing is certain – we in Italy and Europe can not remain the simple spectators of dealings which will define our future.
Manlio Dinucci
The conflict between transnational financial capitalism and productive national capitalism has entered into a paroxystic
phase. On one side, Presidents Trump and Putin are negotiating the joint defence of their national interests. On the other, the major
daily newspaper for the US and the world is accusing the US President of high treason, while the armed forces of the US and NATO
are preparing for war with Russia and China.
You have attacked our democracy. Your well-worn gamblers' denials do not interest us. If you continue with this attitude, we will
consider it an act of war." This is what Trump should have said to Putin at the Helsinki Summit, in the opinion of famous New
York Times editorialist Thomas Friedman, published in La Repubblica . He went on to accuse the Russian President of having
"attacked NATO, a fundamental pillar of international security, destabilised Europe, and bombed thousands of Syrian refugees, causing
them to seek refuge in Europe."
He then accused the President of the United States of having " repudiated his oath on the Constitution " and of being an " asset
of Russian Intelligence " or at least playing at being one.
What Friedman expressed in these provocative terms corresponds to the position of a powerful internal and international front
(of which the New York Times is an important mouthpiece) opposed to USA-Russia negotiations, which should continue with the
invitation of Putin to the White House. But there is a substantial difference.
While the negotiations have not yet borne fruit, opposition to the negotiations has been expressed not only in words, but especially
in facts.
Cancelling out the climate of détente at the Helsinki Summit, the planetary warmongering system of the United States is in the
process of intensifying the preparations for a war reaching from the Atlantic to the Pacific:
After the landing of an US armoured brigade in Anvers, totalling a hundred tanks and a thousand military vehicles, a US aerial
brigade landed in Rotterdam with sixty attack helicopters. These forces and others, all of them USA/NATO, are deployed along the
borders of Russian territory, in the framework of operation Atlantic Resolve , launched in 2014 against " Russian aggression.
" In its anti-Russian function, Poland asked for the permanent presence of an armoured US unit on its own territory, offering
to pay between 1.5 - 2 billion dollars per year.
At the same time, NATO is intensifying the training and armament of troops in Georgia and Ukraine, candidates for entry into
membership of the Alliance on the frontiers with Russia.
Meanwhile, the US Congress received with all honours Adriy Parubiy, founder of the National-Social Party (on the model of
Adolf Hitler's National-Socialist Party), head of the neo-Nazi paramilitary formations employed by NATO in the Maďdan Square putsch.
NATO command in Lago Patria (JFC Naples) – under the orders of US Admiral James Foggo, who also commands the US naval forces
in Europe and those in Africa – is working busily to organise the grand-scale exercise Trident Juncture 18 , in which will
participate 40,000 military personnel, 130 aircraft and 70 ships from more than 30 countries including Sweden and Finland, which
are NATO partners. The exercise, which will take place in October in Norway and the adjacent seas, will simulate a scenario of
" collective defence " - naturally enough, against " Russian aggression. "
In the Pacific, the major naval exercise RIMPAC 2018 (27 June to 2 August) is in full swing - organised and directed
by USINDOPACOM, the US Command which covers the Indian and Pacific oceans – with the participation of 25,000 sailors and marines,
more than 50 ships and 200 war-planes.The exercise – in which France, Germany and the United Kingdom are also participating –
is clearly directed against China, which Admiral Phil Davidson, commander of USINDOPACOM, defines as a "major rival power which
is eroding the international order in order to reduce the access of the USA to the region and thus become hegemonic."
When Trump meets Chinese President Xi Jinping, Friedman will no doubt accuse him of connivance not only with the Russian enemy,
but also with the Chinese enemy. Manlio Dinucci
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov will meet U.S. Senator Rand Paul, a
proponent of encouraging diplomacy with Russia amid tense relations, in Moscow on Aug. 6, the
senator's office said on Thursday.
"Senator Rand Paul is a proponent of diplomacy and is supporting President Donald J.
Trump in engaging around the world. He looks forward to his meetings," Paul's office said in a
statement on Thursday. No further information was available about the trip, including who else
might be in the delegation.
####
Bill intends to sanction Russian 'oligarchs,' restrict energy projects
The Russian Ruble dropped Thursday to a near-term low after bipartisan US senators
announced what they are calling a "bill from hell" round of new sanctions and restrictions
targeting the Russian economy and leadership.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), one of the leading proponents of the bill, said the massive
present US sanctions against Russia have failed, saying that all of these new sanctions are
needed to "punish" Russia.
As currently envisioned, the sanctions target a number of top Russian politicians and
"oligarchs." The bill also aims to severely restrict Russia's ability to raise sovereign debt,
and to restrict their ability to seek investment in energy projects.
There is no timeline for a vote on the bill yet, but reportedly some senators are also
lining up to offer amendments adding yet more sanctions or other measures against Russia. This
could go on for quite awhile, with almost the whole Senate looking to one-up each other on
being anti-Russia these days, and could mean an actual vote won't happen.
####
It looks to me that with the mid-terms coming up and showing diplomacy with Russia not
taking a hit with Republican voters, this further push by Rand Paul looks to make the Dems look
and sound even more extreme, maybe drawing disgusted voters to the Republican camp..
This is just America pretending to itself that it controls the global economy and that it can
strangle any country economically at a time of its choosing – I am frankly surprised to
see them continually trying harder when their efforts to date have had such negligible
success. I suppose the Senate needs something to do to make itself look busy and necessary.
But all this will achieve is further cementing of America as an enemy of Russia in the eyes
of ordinary Russians – should a future US government decide that was a mistake, and
soft power is the way to go, it will not be able to make any progress for around 50 years,
and a great deal of hard work and careful relationship-building has been thrown away.
American businesses must be finding it increasingly difficult to continue operations in
Russia, and Asian companies must be acing them out for market
share . Altogether a continuing exercise in stupidity and willful blindness – if
America wants to destroy Russia, it is eventually going to have to take it on in a head-on
military confrontation. Because its efforts to destroy it economically are failing and will
continue to fail. Not to mention that they are building sympathy around the world –
outside North America – for Russia. America has to understand that while it is enjoying
playing "I'm crushing Russia", it has consequences and it will not be able to make things up
for a generation.
I'm not quite sure what Paul thinks he might achieve with this, but he certainly is not
going to make any friends in Russia, and he certainly is not going to have any leverage to
make changes in American policy so long as the Russophobic majority has the bit in its teeth.
He's basically just wasting the taxpayers' money on a junket to Moscow. Alternatively, he
might be going to measure Russian desperation, to see if there is any possibility the country
can be brought to its knees without having to fight it.
A war with Iran would define, consume and potentially destroy the Trump presidency, but
exhilarate the neocon never-Trumpers who most despise the man.
Why, then, is President Donald Trump toying with such an idea?
Looking back at Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen, wars we began or plunged into,
what was gained to justify the cost in American blood and treasure, and the death and
destruction we visited upon that region? How has our great rival China suffered by not getting
involved?
Oil is the vital strategic Western interest in the Persian Gulf. Yet a war with Iran would
imperil, not secure, that interest.
Mass migration from the Islamic world, seeded with terrorist cells, is the greatest threat
to Europe from the Middle East. But would not a U.S. war with Iran increase rather than
diminish that threat?
Would the millions of Iranians who oppose the mullahs' rule welcome U.S. air and naval
attacks on their country? Or would they rally behind the regime and the armed forces dying to
defend their country?
"Mr Trump, don't play with the lion's tail," warned President Hassan Rouhani in July: "War
with Iran is the mother of all wars."
But he added, "Peace with Iran is the mother of all peace."
Rouhani left wide open the possibility of peaceful settlement.
Trump's all-caps retort virtually invoked Hiroshima: "Never, ever threaten the United States
again or you will suffer consequences the like of which few throughout history have suffered
before."
When Trump shifted and blurted out that he was open to talks -- "No preconditions. They want
to meet? I'll meet." -- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo contradicted him: Before any meeting,
Iran must change the way they treat their people and "reduce their malign behavior."
We thus appear to be steering into a head-on collision.
For now that Trump has trashed the nuclear deal and is reimposing sanctions, Iran's economy
has taken a marked turn for the worse.
Its currency has lost half its value. Inflation is surging toward Venezuelan levels. New
U.S. sanctions will be imposed this week and again in November. Major foreign investments are
being canceled. U.S. allies are looking at secondary sanctions if they do not join the
strangulation of Iran.
Tehran's oil exports are plummeting along with national revenue.
Demonstrations and riots are increasingly common.
Rouhani and his allies who bet their futures on a deal to forego nuclear weapons in return
for an opening to the West look like fools to their people. And the Revolutionary Guard Corps
that warned against trusting the Americans appears vindicated.
Iran's leaders have now threatened that when their oil is no longer flowing freely and
abundantly, Arab oil may be blocked from passing through the Strait of Hormuz out to Asia and
the West.
Any such action would ignite an explosion in oil prices worldwide and force a U.S. naval
response to reopen the strait. A war would be on.
Yet the correlation of political forces is heavily weighted in favor of driving Tehran to
the wall. In the U.S., Iran has countless adversaries and almost no advocates. In the Middle
East, Israelis, Saudis and the UAE would relish having us smash Iran.
Among the four who will decide on war, Trump, Pompeo and John Bolton have spoken of regime
change, while Defense Secretary James Mattis has lately renounced any such strategic goal.
With Israel launching attacks against Iranian-backed militia in Syria, U.S. ships and
Iranian speedboats constantly at close quarters in the Gulf, and Houthi rebels in Yemen firing
at Saudi tankers in the Bab el-Mandeb entrance to the Red Sea, a military clash seems
inevitable.
While America no longer has the ground forces to invade and occupy an Iran four times the
size of Iraq, in any such war, the U.S., with its vastly superior air, naval and missile
forces, would swiftly prevail.
But if Iran called into play Hezbollah, the Shiite militias in Syria and Iraq, and sectarian
allies inside the Arab states, U.S. casualties would mount and the Middle East could descend
into the kind of civil-sectarian war we have seen in Syria these last six years.
Any shooting war in the Persian Gulf could see insurance rates for tankers soar, a
constriction of oil exports, and surging prices, plunging us into a worldwide recession for
which one man would be held responsible: Donald Trump.
How good would that be for the GOP or President Trump in 2020?
And when the shooting stopped, would there be installed in Iran a liberal democracy, or
would it be as it was in Hosni Mubarak's Egypt, with first the religious zealots taking power,
and then the men with guns.
If we start a war with Iran, on top of the five in which we are engaged still, then the
party that offers to extricate us will be listened to, as Trump was listened to, when he
promised to extricate us from the forever wars of the Middle East.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That
Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever."
Events in Ukraine after EuroMaidan are notoriously difficult to understand.
The book is fairly recent and as such might be a useful introduction for a Western reader who
is interested in Ukrainian event, but the material should be taken with a grain of salt. The
author is way too simplistic and his views on geopolitical problems are incorrect. The idea that
" Putin's Munich speech as a declaration of war" is nonsense. Also most of the readers probably
know State Department talking points and can recognize them in the text.
. In some areas the author is clearly incompetent as the quote "In 2016, France blocked
24,000 cyber attacks targeting its military. Ukraine experienced 24, 000 cyber attacks in only
the last two months of 2016" suggests.
The author views of Russia are typical of the US-based Ukrainian diaspora. As it is pretty
much radicalized, it can be argued that it brings to Ukraine more harm then good. In short his
views on Russia can be defined as cocktail of a 40% proof Russophobia with pure Neoconservatism.
So while author analysis of "Post-Maydan" Ukrainian elite has its value, his view on Russia
should probably be discarded.
For those who also bough McFaul book it is interesting to see correlation in views as well as
differences (especially McFaul laments from page 429 to the end of the book) . McFaul was the
co-architect of the 2011-2012 color revolution in Russia; and as an Ambassador became ostracized
by Russian and later removed by Obama. For his role in "White color revolution of 2012" McFaul
was put on the travel ban list by Russians and is not allowed to travel to the country. Both
represent neoconservative stance on the events, but there are some subtle and rather interesting
differences ;-)
Some Amazon reviews as one reproduced below are actually as valuable as the book itself and
can serve as a valuable addition.
This is a large book, embracing a vast amount of research. Conclusion is that
accommodation with Putin will be very difficult.
This is a large book, embracing a vast amount of research. Kuzio provides the conclusion
to the book as the conclusion to his introduction. It is somber, but realistic:
"There cannot be a conclusion to the book because the Donbas is an unresolved conflict
that is on-going. There will be no closure of the Ukraine-Russia crisis as long as Putin is
Russian president which will be as long as he remains alive. To fully implement the Minsk-2
Accords would mean jettisoning the DNR-LNR which Putin will not do and therefore, a political
resolution to the Donbas conflict is difficult to envisage."
Having lived in Kyiv for ten years, I was witness to the latter chapters of the drama that
Kuzio describes. His account jibes with what I witnessed, and provides a coherent explanation
of the events as they unfolded. The animus against Yanukovych was universal. His blatant
theft was visible to all. Every merchant I dealt with lived in fear of his tax police. We
saw, or more often read accounts about, the depredations of the titushki on a daily
basis.
One of my key questions in 2014 was whether it might have been better to endure Yanukovych
for another couple of years, until the elections. The Ukrainian people answered for me --
they had had enough. It wasn't exactly a coup, because the opposition was not well organized
and because Yanukovych fled before he could be overthrown. But the will of the people was
clear. He had to go. Kuzio makes a strong case that if it had not happened then, Yanukovych
might have had time to secure his dictatorship in such a way that he could not be dislodged
through democratic means.
Kuzio provides the most thorough and accurate description of the language situation I have
ever read. A fact he often repeats is that a majority of the soldiers fighting against the
Russians are themselves Russian speakers. Putin's claim that he is protecting a persecuted
linguistic minority is absolute nonsense. Kuzio makes the very useful analogy between the use
of English in Ireland and that of Russian in Ukraine. It is a matter of history and
convenience.
Ukrainian is not a dialect of Russian. They are very distinct languages. Speaking Spanish,
I was able to learn Portuguese quite easily. Speaking Russian has not enabled me to master
Ukrainian. They have different alphabets and even different grammars. As a resident of Kyiv
for 10 years I have not been forced to, and almost not been in a position to speak Ukrainian.
Everybody I interact with is exactly as Kuzio describes – ardently Ukrainian, but
nevertheless Russian speaking.
A question Kuzio does not raise is the utility of a language. For better or worse, Russian
is a world language. There is a significant body of scientific literature, fiction and poetry
written in Russian. It is, or was until recently, the lingua franca of the former USSR.
A lot of information about Kuzio himself is packed in the brief lead into his chapter
entitled Anti-Zionism and Anti-Semitism: "Ukraine is in the hands of homosexuals and Jewish
oligarchs. Aleksandr Dugin"
Russian philosopher Dugin is one of Kuzio's major bête noire's. Kuzio's book makes
it clear that Dugin is as much of an activist as he is a philosopher. Dugin seems to have a
hand in most things anti-Ukrainian. As a philosopher he is nothing – his book
The Fourth Political Theory is the subject of the most savage pan I have ever written.
Nonetheless, he is taken seriously by the resurgent Russian nationalists and Putin
himself.
Dugin's claim that Ukraine is in the hands of homosexuals is absurd. Homosexuals are
tolerated here, but they are discrete. Most Ukrainians, though they have no love whatsoever
for Russia, are largely in sympathy with Russia's stand against the flaunting of
homosexuality. The college-educated twentysomethings whom I know seem unaware that they even
know homosexuals, though it appears to this San Franciscan that some people in our circles
must be gay.
The claim that Ukraine is in the hand of Jewish oligarchs is quite another matter. Kuzio
gives quite rational explanations for anti-Ukrainian, anti-Belarusian and anti-Russian
sentiment, a great deal of which he manifests himself. He somehow looks at anti-Semitism as a
phenomenon that is beyond explanation. I would contend that it should be regarded just as the
other anti- concepts. Especially in the former USSR, where the Jews were regarded as a
separate people in the same way as Ukrainians.
He writes about the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Fraud or hoax might be a
better word. Internet sources name the author as a certain Russian Professor S. Nilus writing
in 1901. The attractiveness of the fraud is that it coincides quite neatly with widely held
opinions about the Jews, many of which have some substance.
Going to substance, Kuzio mentions some of the major Jewish oligarchs, Kolomoisky and
Taruta, and some of the Jewish participants and Ukrainian politics: Yatsenyuk and Groisman.
He discounts the notion that President Poroshenko's father, born Valtzman, was Jewish. I had
never heard this account questioned. Other prominent Jews in Ukrainian politics/oligarchy who
come immediately to mind include Feldman and Rabinowitz. It is not that there is anything
wrong with Jews occupying dominant positions, but "simple Ivan" is not so stupid as to fail
to notice them. It is also widely perceived that the Jewish oligarchs are no better or worse
than the others, in that they put their personal interests ahead of that of the people who
elected them. Poroshenko has been a major disappointment. Kuzio writes of Kolomoisky's
support of the volunteer battalions in Donbas. True – but it was totally in line with
his business interests.
The fact that six of the seven billionaires to emerge after the collapse of the USSR were
Jewish belies Kuzio's claims that they were radically disadvantaged in the USSR. More
balanced accounts of Soviet Judaism have been written by Robert
Wistrich ,
Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Yuri
Slezkine .
Even a paranoid has enemies. American Jewish neocons, especially Victoria Nuland and
husband Robert Kagan, actively involved in Ukrainian politics, were strongly anti-Russian.
Though Kuzio is absolutely correct that the animus of the Ukrainian people for Yanukovych was
more than enough to power the Maidan uprising, it is also probably true that the CIA was
covertly abetting the protesters.
Kuzio's history of the Donbas and Crimea provides a very useful background to the
conflict. After the Welsh engineer John Hughes discovered coal around Donetsk in the 1880s
there was a rush to exploit it. The sparse population of Ukrainian farmers was not interested
in working the mines. The Russians brought in men from all over the Empire. A large number
were criminals who earned early release by promising to work there. Others were simply
soldiers of fortune.
Mining is dirty, dangerous and very masculine work. Kuzio reports that the history of the
Donbas always mirrored the miners themselves. Politically, it sat in the middle between the
Russians and the Ukrainians, respecting neither very much and casting its lot with whoever
appeared at the moment to be most generous to them, more often Moscow than Kyiv.
Kuzio relates that Lenin included the Donbas within the Ukrainian SSR as a built-in fifth
column, as a lever to control all of Ukraine. It remained after independence in 1991. The
Donbas' unique culture and clannishness protected its politicians from probing inquiries into
their dark pasts, such as Yanukovych' two prison terms. They would overlook his depredations
and send him to Kyiv with the idea that "he's a crook, but he's our crook."
Crimea's history is even more convoluted, but the bottom line is that it has always been
Russian speaking and did not identify greatly with Ukraine.
Kuzio reports, seemingly approvingly, that fellow author Alexander Motyl believes that
Ukraine would be better off without these insubordinate, intransigent ingrates.
In the end, Kuzio sums the origins of the crisis up very well, "The roots of the
Ukraine-Russia crisis do not lie in EU and NATO enlargement and democracy promotion, as
left-wing scholars and realists would have us believe, but in two factors. The first is
Russia's and specifically Putin's unwillingness to accept Ukrainians are a separate people
and Ukraine is an independent state with a sovereign right to determine its geopolitical
alliances. The second is Yanukovych and the Donetsk clan's penchant for the monopolization of
power, state capture, corporate raiding of the state and willingness to accommodate
practically every demand made by Moscow that culminated in treason on a grand scale. This was
coupled with a shift to Sovietophile and Ukrainophobic nationality policies and return to
Soviet style treatment of political opponents. Taken together, these policies made popular
protests inevitable in the 2015 elections but they came a year earlier after Yanukovych bowed
to Russian pressure to back away from the EU Association Agreement. These protests, in turn,
became violent and nationalistic in response to the Party of Regions and KPU's destruction of
Ukraine's democracy through the passing of draconian legislation, the president's refusal to
compromise and his use of vigilantes and police spetsnaz for political repression, torture,
and murders of protestors."
The question facing Ukraine at the moment is how to resolve the war in Donbas and how to
prevent Russia from making further incursions. Kuzio shares some very useful insights in this
regard.
Even in 2014, Russia simply did not have the resources to conquer Ukraine even if it had
had the desire. Kuzio repeatedly makes the point that the Russian doctrine of hybrid war
depends on a sympathetic or at least indifferent local populace. Even in the Donbass the
Russians have not been welcomed by a majority.
Time and again, Putin proves himself too smart by half. In his desire to maintain
deniability, he employed Chechens, Don Cossacks and "political tourists," thugs from all over
Russia to infiltrate the Donbass as separatists. Criminals are simply not suited for either
civil administration or organized warfare. After three months it was clear to Putin that he
had to use Russian troops and administrators, pushing the separatists aside. Not mentioned in
the book is the fact that a great many of the separatist leaders died mysteriously. Although
Russia attempted to frame Ukraine for "Motorola's" death, it appears to have been done by
Russian agents. Russia's trecherous duplicity neither won the war for them no fooled anybody
for very long.
Russia has thus had several handicaps in capturing and holding even the small, Russophone
and previously Russophile enclaves in Lugansk and Donetsk. The LPR and DPR would not survive
without ongoing Russian support. They have not won the hearts and minds of the people.
This calls to mind Custine's
Penguin Classics Letters From Russia on the fact that Russian duplicity and deceit made
it impossible for them ever to subvert the West. Alexandr Zinoviev summed it up exquisitely
in his satirical Homo
Sovieticus :
"Even though the West seems chaotic, frivolous and defenseless, all the same Moscow will
never achieve worldwide supremacy. Moscow can defend itself against any opponent. Moscow can
deliver a knockout blow on the west. Moscow has the wherewithal to mess up the whole planet.
But it has no chance of becoming the ruler of the world. To rule the world one must have at
one's disposal a sufficiently great nation. That nation must feel itself to be a nation of
rulers. And when it comes to it, one that can rule in reality. In the Soviet Union the
Russians are the only people who might be suited to that role. They are the foundation and
the bulwark of the Empire. But they don't possess the qualities of a ruling nation. And in
the Soviet empire their situation is more like that of being a colony for all the other
peoples in it."
This is the bottom line, something for the warmongers in Washington to keep in mind.
Ukraine and NATO cannot defeat Russia on its own doorstep, but Russia can certainly defeat
itself. For NATO to arm Ukraine, as the west did Georgia, or continue to crowd it as they are
doing in the Baltics, is counterproductive. It would be quite possible, but also quite stupid
for Russia to roll over its neighbors. The adventure in Ukraine has already been expensive,
and holding Crimea and Donbas will only become more so. Conversely, for the west to arm
countries against the Russians, as the US did in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Nicaragua, proved
quite deadly for these supposed friends. Ukraine and the west should wait Putin out just as
they waited out the USSR.
I have a couple of quibbles with the book. Kuzio uses the word "Fascist" to characterize
various Russian nationalist groups that support Putin and attack Ukrainians. Fascism died
with Hitler, 72 years ago. There should be a better term. This is especially true as Putin
terms Ukrainians as "Fascists." The word is inappropriate, old and clichéd.
Kuzio goes on to paint the rising nationalist movements in Europe as Fascist, or extreme
right wing. He excoriates Marine le Pen for taking Putin's money. There is a strong case to
be made that anti-democrats, supported by mainstream parties, have seized the European
Parliament and strongly suppressed free speech, open debate and the ability of such
nationalists to find funding. Their national banks are prejudicially closed to Farage,
Wilders, Orban, le Pen and the others. Kuzio should be more accommodating to the
nationalists. Ukraine may soon find itself forced to work with them. Moreover, they have many
good points. Generation
Identity provides a succinct summary. It is a book of the millennial generation, the
nationalists' strongest base, outlining their case against their elders, the boomers.
Ukraine is a conservative country. It is not wise to push the west's liberal agendas with
regard to immigration, homosexuality, feminism and civil rights for the Roma and at the same
time steel Ukraine for its fight against Russia. Even joining the battle against corruption
smells of hypocrisy, as evidence of political corruption emerges all over the west. It is
better to recognize the simple facts, as Kuzio does, and have a bit of faith. Ukraine managed
against stiffer odds in 2014. It will survive.
In the latest effort to punish Moscow over alleged election meddling, as well its role in both Ukraine
and Syria, a bipartisan bill has been introduced in the Senate Thursday that
seeks to be so
far reaching that it's being widely described as "crushing".
Predictably, it has as
sponsors such Congressional hawks as Senators Bob Menendez, John McCain, and Lindsey Graham
--
the
latter which announced the bill's goal is to "
impose crushing sanctions and other measures
against Putin's Russia
until he ceases and desists meddling in the U.S. electoral process,
halts cyber-attacks on US infrastructure, removes Russia from Ukraine, and ceases efforts to create
chaos in Syria," according a
statement
.
Via Google News
According to lawmakers' statements,
the
Graham-Menendez bill introduces harsh new restrictions on sectors ranging from energy and oil projects
to uranium imports and on sovereign debt transactions.
And the new sanctions further target
various Russian political figures and oligarchs.
Bob Menendez (D) of New Jersey
called the measure
the
"next step in tightening the screws on the Kremlin"
so
Putin understands
"that the U.S. will not tolerate his behavior any longer."
Other supporters include Sens. Cory Gardner (R-Colo.), Ben Cardin (D-Md.), and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.)
among those previously mentioned.
In a statement Sen. John McCain said, "Until Putin pays a serious price for his actions, these
attacks on our democracy will only grow.
This bill would build on
the strongest sanctions
ever imposed on the Putin regime
for its assault on democratic institutions, violation
of international treaties, and siege on open societies through cyberattacks and misinformation
campaigns."
Notably, part of the legislation would
require the State Department to make an assessment
on
whether Russia should be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism
.
It might have trouble passing, however, as even though
a broad spectrum of legislators have
lately criticized President Trump for meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki last month
and have charged Russia with seeking to interfere in US elections, there's concern that it could
inadvertently impact markets beyond Russia's borders. It would further have to pass the House of
Representatives before going to Trump's desk.
The Banking and Foreign Relations Committees are planning hearings in advance of legislation
coming to the floor. Some senators have expressed concern new sanctions might go too far or not
succeed in getting Putin to change course.
The Treasury Department has warned Congress against legislation that would block
transactions and financing for Russian sovereign debt in part
because of the pain
it would wreak across markets outside Russia's borders
.
The bill is considered the broadest and most far reaching of any Russia sanctions bill previously
considered. Sen. Graham had recently described that it would include everything but "the kitchen
sink."
Meanwhile
the ruble and Russian local bonds were shaken moments after the bipartisan
legislation was announced Thursday
:
the ruble traded down by as much as 0.9 percent
against the dollar, and bond yields jumped to the highest level since July last year.
"... I agree with the caricature nature of much of this. I don't think there will be a next target. The MIC has become bloated while Iran, Syria, Russia, China are turning out true fighters as well as stronger economic planning. ..."
The United States seems ready to give up on Afghanistan.
After the World Trade Center came down the U.S. accused al-Qaeda, parts of which were hosted
in Afghanistan. The Taliban government offered the U.S. to extradite al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin
Laden to an Islamic country to be judged under Islamic law. The U.S. rejected that and decided
instead to destroy the Afghan government.
Taliban units, supported by Pakistani officers, were at that time still fighting against the
Northern Alliance which held onto a few areas in the north of the country. Under threats from
the U.S. Pakistan, which sees Afghanistan as its natural depth hinterland, was pressed into
service. In exchange for its cooperation with the U.S. operation it was allowed to extradite
its forces and main figures of the Taliban.
U.S. special forces were dropped into north Afghanistan. They came with huge amounts of cash
and the ability to call in B-52 bombers. Together with the Northern Alliance they move towards
Kabul bombing any place where some feeble resistance came from. The Taliban forces dissolved.
Many resettled in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda also vanished.
A conference with Afghan notables was held in Germany's once capital Bonn. The Afghans
wanted to reestablish the former Kingdom but were pressed into accepting a western style
democracy. Fed with large amounts of western money the norther warlords, all well known
mass-murderers, and various greedy exiles were appointed as a government. To them it was all
about money. There was little capability and interest to govern.
All these U.S. mistakes made in the early days are still haunting the country.
For a few years the Taliban went quiet. But continued U.S. operations, which included random
bombing of weddings, torture and abduction of assumed al-Qaeda followers, alienated the people.
Pakistan feared that it would be suffocated between a permanently U.S. occupied Afghanistan and
a hostile India. Four years after being ousted the Taliban were reactivated and found regrown
local support.
Busy with fighting an insurgency in Iraq the U.S. reacted slowly. It then surged troops into
Afghanistan, pulled back, surged again and is now again pulling back. The U.S. military aptly
demonstrated its excellent logistic capabilities and its amazing cultural incompetence. The
longer it fought the more Afghan people stood up against it. The immense amount of money spent
to 'rebuild' Afghanistan
went to U.S. contractors and Afghan warlords but had little effect on the ground. Now half
the country is back under Taliban control while the other half is more or less contested.
Before his election campaign Donald Trump spoke out
against the war on Afghanistan. During his campaign he was more cautious pointing to the danger
of a nuclear Pakistan as a reason for staying in Afghanistan. But Pakistan is where the U.S.
supply line is coming through and there are no reasonable alternatives. Staying in Afghanistan
to confront Pakistan while depending on Pakistan for logistics does not make sense.
Early this year the U.S. stopped all aid to Pakistan. Even the old Pakistani government was
already talking
about blocking the logistic line. The incoming prime minister Imran Khan has campaigned for
years against the U.S. war on Afghanistan. He very much prefers an alliance with China over any U.S.
rapprochement. The U.S. hope is that Pakistan will have to ask the IMF for another bailout and
thus come back under Washington's control. But it is
more likely that Imran Khan will ask China for financial help.
Under pressure from the military Trump had agreed to raise the force in Afghanistan to some
15,000 troops. But these were way to few to hold more than some urban areas. Eighty percent of
the Afghan people live in the countryside. Afghan troops and police forces are incapable or
unwilling to fight their Taliban brethren. It was obvious that this mini-surge
would fail :
By most objective measures, President Donald Trump's year-old strategy for ending the war in
Afghanistan has produced few positive results.
Afghanistan's beleaguered soldiers have failed to recapture significant new ground from
the Taliban. Civilian deaths have hit historic highs. The Afghan military is struggling to
build a reliable air force and expand the number of elite fighters. Efforts to cripple
lucrative insurgent drug smuggling operations have fallen short of expectations. And U.S.
intelligence officials say the president's strategy has halted Taliban gains but not reversed
their momentum, according to people familiar with the latest assessments.
To blame Pakistan for its support for some Taliban is convenient, but makes little sense. In
a recent
talk John Sopko, the U.S. Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR),
made a crucial point:
"We keep referring to Pakistan as being the key problem. But the problem also was that the
Afghan government at times was viewed very negatively by their local people and what you
really need is to insert a government that the people support, a government that is not
predatory, a government that is not a bunch of lawless warlords," observed Sopko.
He went on to say that the U.S. policy of pouring in billions of dollars in these unstable
environments contributed to the problem of creating more warlords and powerful people who
took the law into their own hands.
"In essence, the government we introduced, particularly some of the Afghan local police
forces, which were nothing other than warlord militias with some uniforms on, were just as
bad as the terrorists before them," said Sopko ...
This was the problem from the very beginning. The U.S. bribed itself into Afghanistan. It
spent tons of money but did not gain real support. It bombed and shot aimlessly at 'Taliban'
that were more often than not just the local population. It incompetently fought 17
one-year-long wars instead of a consistently planned and sustained political, economic and
military campaign.
After a year of another useless surge the Trump administration decided to pull back from
most active operations and to bet
on negotiations with the Taliban:
The shift to prioritize initial American talks with the Taliban over what has proved a futile
"Afghan-led, Afghan-owned" process stems from a realization by both Afghan and American
officials that President Trump's new Afghanistan strategy is not making a fundamental
difference in rolling back Taliban gains.
While no date for any talks has been set, and the effort could still be derailed, the
willingness of the United States to pursue direct talks is an indication of the sense of
urgency in the administration to break the stalemate in Afghanistan.
...
Afghan officials and political leaders said direct American talks with the Taliban would
probably then grow into negotiations that would include the Taliban, the Afghan government,
the United States and Pakistan.
Afghans have continued to burn for the last four decades in the fire of imposed wars. They
are longing for peace and a just system but they will never tire from their just cause of
defending their creed, country and nation against the invading forces of your
warmongering government because they have rendered all the previous and present historic
sacrifices to safeguard their religious values and national sovereignty. If they make a deal
on their sovereignty now, it would be unforgettable infidelity with their proud history and
ancestors.
Last weeks talks between the Taliban and U.S. diplomats took place in Doha, Qatar.
Remarkably the Afghan government was excluded. Despite the rousing tone of the Reuters
report below the positions that were exchanged
do not point to a successful conclusion:
According to one Taliban official, who said he was part of a four-member delegation, there
were "very positive signals" from the meeting, which he said was conducted in a "friendly
atmosphere" in a Doha hotel.
"You can't call it peace talks," he said. "These are a series of meetings for initiating
formal and purposeful talks. We agreed to meet again soon and resolve the Afghan conflict
through dialogue."
...
The two sides had discussed proposals to allow the Taliban free movement in two provinces
where they would not be attacked, an idea that President Ashraf Ghani has already rejected .
They also discussed Taliban participation in the Afghan government.
"The only demand they made was to allow their military bases in Afghanistan ," said the
Taliban official.
...
"We have held three meetings with the U.S. and we reached a conclusion to continue talks for
meaningful negotiations," said a second Taliban official.
...
"However, our delegation made it clear to them that peace can only be restored to Afghanistan
when all foreign forces are withdrawn ," he said.
This does not sound promising:
In a first step the Taliban want to officially rule parts of the country and use it as a
safe haven. The Afghan government naturally rejects that.
Participation of the Taliban in the Afghan government is an idea of the Afghan president
Ghani. It is doubtful that this could be successfully arranged. Norther Alliance elements in
the Afghan government, like the 'chief executive' Abdullah Abdullah, are unlikely to ever
agree to it. The Taliban also have no interest to be 'part of the government' and to then get
blamed for its failures. Their February letter makes clear that they want to be the
government.
The U.S. wants bases in Afghanistan. The Taliban, and Pakistan behind them, reject that
and will continue to do so.
It is difficult to see how especially the last mutually exclusive positions can ever be
reconciled.
The Taliban are ready to accept a peaceful retreat of the U.S. forces. That is their only
offer. They may agree to keep foreign Islamist fighters out of their country. The U.S. has no
choice but to accept. It is currently retreating to the cities and large bases. The outlying
areas will fall to the Taliban. Sooner or later the U.S. supply lines will be cut. Its bases
will come under fire.
There is no staying in Afghanistan. A retreat is the only issue the U.S. can negotiate
about. It is not a question of "if" but of "when".
The Soviet war in Afghanistan took nine years. The time was used to build up a halfway
competent government and army that managed to hold off the insurgents for three more years
after the Soviet withdrawal. The government only fell when the Soviets cut the money line. The
seventeen year long U.S. occupation did not even succeed in that. The Afghan army is corrupt
and its leaders are incompetent. The U.S. supplied it with expensive and complicate equipment
that
does not fit Afghan needs . As soon as the U.S. withdraws the whole south, the east and
Kabul will immediately fall back into Taliban hands. Only the north may take a bit longer. They
will probably ask China to help them in developing their country.
The erratic
empire failed in another of its crazy endeavors. That will not hinder it to look for a new
ones. The immense increase
of the U.S. military budget, which includes 15,000 more troops, points to a new large war.
Which country will be its next target?
thanks b.. it would be good if the exceptional warmongering nation could go home, but i am
not fully counting on it.. i liked your quote here "The U.S. military aptly demonstrated its
excellent logistic capabilities and its amazing cultural incompetence." that is ongoing..
unless the usa leaves, i think the madness continues.. i suspect the madness will continue..
the only other alternative is the usa, with the help of their good buddies - uk, ksa, qatar,
uae and israel - will keep on relocating isis to afgan for future destabilization.. i watched
a video peter au left from al jazzera 2017 with isis embedded in the kush mtns... until the
funding for them ceases - i think the usa will have a hand in the continued madness... if the
usa was serious about ending terrorism they would shut down the same middle east countries
they are in bed with.. until that happens, i suspect not much will change.. i hope i am
wrong..
I dont believe it for a second. Especially with Iran looming as a potential target. US is
staying in Afghanistan also to counter China , keep opium production high and of course there
is the TAPI pipeline to "protect" that is backed by US as an alternative to the
Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline that would have tapped Iran's South Pars gas field. A hostile or
unfriendly Pakistan is just one more reason to stay
Just like US will never leave Iraq or Syria, they will stay in Afghanistan. There will be
ebbs and flows, and talk of disengagement from time to time primarily for domestic
consumption, but thats all it is IMO.
This is a fine recap of the situation. It's much too optimistic. The classic method of
American negotiation and warfare like the Roman before them is to divide and conquer. It was
very successful against the American Indians.
If the Taliban get free movement in two provinces, the Americans will demand an end to
attacks on their bases, their soldiers and their agents elsewhere in Afghanistan. Just as the
Iroquois Confederation enjoyed special privileges in what is now Upper New York for their
help against the French, the Taliban will have special privileges in their two provinces
while the Americans consolidate in the rest of Afghanistan. When the Americans feel strong
enough, just as with the Iroquois, they will break the previous treaties.
After the Revolutionary War, the ancient central fireplace of the League was re-established
at Buffalo Creek. The United States and the Iroquois signed the treaty of Fort Stanwix in
1784 under which the Iroquois ceded much of their historical homeland to the Americans,
which was followed by another treaty in 1794 at Canandaigua which they ceded even more land
to the Americans./b
(...continuation of the comment above, somehow got posted when I pressed the return
key)
Even the Soviet Union and Russians were unable to make the American respect their
commitments. The United States reneged on the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty as soon as it
could in 2001 (Russia was on its knees), reneged on its commitments not to expand NATO east
and has built ballistic missile bases all around Russia which seem to be preparation for a
pre-emptive nuclear strike/war against Russia.
The Afghanis (foolish to call them the Taliban, they are traditional Afghani patriots)
have always been wise enough to annihilate any invader to the last man. This salutary policy
keeps invaders out for decades at a time. The Taliban have a long row to hoe. It took almost
a hundred years and several massacres to finally curb British ambitions on Afghanistan (1838
to 1919). Afghanis' best hopes rely on forging tight alliances with Pakistan and China,
squeezing the Americans out completely right now.
The Americans burnt their bridges with the Russian already and are in the process of
burning their bridges with Pakistan while losing influence with China. The US is very short
of options right now. It's the ideal time for Afghanis to reclaim the whole territory, not
leaving a single American soldier or airbase operational. They'll need a technically
sophisticated ally to help them clear their skies of US drones. This role might appeal to
either the Russians or the Chinese. As a training exercise, extended anti-drone warfare could
be very useful.
What a great success the US achieved in destroying Yugoslavia. Murdering thousands went
almost unnoticed. It was able to break up the country into a number of tiny, impoverished
nations and got to put a US MIC Base in most of them.
You did not mention isis-k in your analysis. Its active mostly in eastern afghanistan in
areas close to or adjacent to Pakistan (it is also controlls a small area in Jawzjan, in
northern afghanistan). Many fighters are formerly pakistani taliban(not to be confused with
afghan taliban who are simply called taliban). Before isis-k appeared in afghanistan, the
areas which it now controls had pakistani taliban presence. TTP, or tehreek e taliban
pakistan was facilitated by afghan ggovernment to settle down in these areas after they fled
pakistan when its military launched a large scale offensive, Operation Zarb e Azb. The afghan
government planned to use them to pressurize Pakistan, basically to use them as a bargaining
chip. They operate openly in eastern afghanistan, but many of them joined isis-k.
Russians estimate isis-k's strength to be between 10k to 12k, although it might be a bit
inflated number. From here they plan attacks against afghanistan and pakistan alike, mostly
suicide bombings as of now. They have had fierce clashes with afghan taliban in eastern
Afghanistan but have held their territory for now. Afghan army simply doesn't have the
capacity in those areas to confront them. It was here that MOAB was dropped but as expected
against a guerrilla force, it was ineffective in every way. But it did make headlines and has
helped US in giving an impression its seriously fighting ISIS. The reports of unmarked
helicopters dropping god-knows-what have also been coming from these areas. Hamid karzai
mentioned that and also maria zakharova asked afghan gov. and US to investigate that which
shows these are not just rumors. Recently intelligence chiefs of Pakistan, russia, iran and
china as well(if i remember correctly) met in islamabad to discuss isis-k in afghanistan, no
details other than this of this meeting are available.
In Northern afghanistan, in Jawzjan, fierce clashes broke out between taliban and isis-k
after taliban commander in thiae areas was beheaded. ISIS-k has been beaten up pretty badly
there but clashes are ongoing. Many areas have been cleared but fighting is still ongoing. An
interesting aspect is taliban sources claiming that whenever they come close to a decisive
victory, they have to stop operations becauae of heavy bombardment by US planes. They made
similar claims when fighting daesh in eastern afghanistan. Anyway in a few days isis presence
will probably be finished in Jawzjan. ISIS fighters who have survived have done so by
surrendering to afghan forces. They will probably end up back in eastern afghanistan.
Africa. US AFRICOM has a huge playground, tactics won't change and logistics is far
easier.
There also will be a long Hybrid wr against Iran, but that will be much like the early
days of Syria. Proxies as "moderates". Insurgents, not US troops. ISIS and AQ crazies will be
on the ground.
The big money will go into Africa. You want to see Trillions "spent"? It will be
Africa.
The decision to invade Afghanistan had been taken before the 9/11 false flag coup. Had
nothing much to do with the CIA's al-Qaeda mercenaries.
As I understood it, there were many agendas at work: testing weapons and making money for
the MIC; controlling the lucrative (how many hundreds of billions of dollars ?) opium/ heroin
production/profiteering; military bases relating to Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan and other
...stans, etc; control of oil and gas pipelines; access to increasingly valuable and sought
rare earth minerals; proximity to oil and gas actual and potential.
More generally, subjugating Afghanistan was a necessary part of the 'full spectrum
dominance' 'we will rule the earth' doctrine, dear til recently to too many mad hatters, and
still evoking a misty eyed longing in some, no doubt.
Ahhh...the US produces some of the lamest euphemisms approved for all audiences; such as
"Afgahn Security Forces." So sterile, innocuous. And benign. How could anyone question their
plight? (We did pick up the game a little bit in Syria with "Free Syrian Army..." Can I get a
hell yeah?) All the people hearing this in the US could do was shrug their shoulders and
speak, "I guess I should support them." That is, of course, after we took out OBL and the
mission in Afghanistan was a little more opaque. Just a little bit. Anyways...Hell, yeah! Get
some!
Thanks b for the brief history. Really invaluable.
Afghani patriots, resisting invaders since 330 BCE... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasions_of_Afghanistan
The US military, the planet's costliest losingest military since 1946. The US military, like
its munitions manufacturers, doesn't win but it does get paid and is why we can have nice
things like oh, decent health care. Lack of health insurance kills more Americans than the
Russians ever will. The Russians aren't the enemy, Trump is. Lobbyists are too.
I haven't read anything about Blackwater wanting to replace the U.S. Military in Afghanistan.
Of course, the U.S. Treasury would continue to shovel those pallet loads of newly printed
$100.00 bills down the Blackwater hole. Any odds this might go forward from anyone's opinion?
robin cook before he was murdered stated that alqueda was a cia data base.
i believe bresinski knew obl as tim osman who was later killed by cia mi6 man omar blah blah
sheikh bhutto of pakisyan was assasinated after spilling the beans about sheikh.
christopher bolleyn on you tube will give you the sp on what 9 and 11 was shirley we are
past the point of the offecal theory.
the turd burger that is the official theory is clearly the worst and lowest grade of all the
conspiracy theories.
the taliban where in barbera bushes texas talking lithium opium and oil pipelines with the
paedo bush crime syndicate before 9 and 11
marvin bush ran security at the twin towers
christopher bollyn is the go to man in these regardings
The US wants peace talks but wants to keep its bases in Afghanistan. US under Trump has built
new bases in Syria, Iraq, Kuwait.
SDF have been talking with Syrian government, and US in Talks with Taliban. Are these just
moves to buy the US a little time until it launches the war Trump has been building the US
military up for.
isis is israeli counter gang with support of usa usa and the city of
london,ukrainian,polish,uk sas,cia,kiwi,aussie,jordanian and donmeh satanic house of
saud.
talking of isis as if it is real entity rather than a frank kitson gang counter gang and
pseudo gang is polluting the well.
who has been providing extraction helicopters from syriana for the last 14 months.
who has been washing these bearded devils operating on them in kosher field hospitals making
them well shiny and new
who?
scchhhhh you know who
We are concerned about reports regarding the use of helicopters without any identification
marks in many parts of Afghanistan that are delivering terrorists and arms to the Afghan
branch of this terrorist organisation. We believe that reports to this effect made by Afghan
officials should be thoroughly investigated."
- Of course. The US wants to keep its bases in Afghanistan. Surprise, surprise.
In 2002 when ABC corporate propaganda showed Special Forces rounding up village
Hajji, the writing was on the wall. Afghanistan is a Holy War run by incompetents for a profit.
The only question is when will the Westerners withdraw from the Hindu Kush and how disastrous
it will be. Americans cannot afford the unwinnable war's blood and treasure. The US's Vietnam
War (1956 to 1975) ended for the same reasons. That war ushered in the Reagan Revolution and
the Triumph of the Oligarchy. The consequences of the breakup of the Atlantic Alliance will be
even more severe.
In 2002 when ABC corporate propaganda showed Special Forces rounding up village Hajji, the
writing was on the wall. Afghanistan is a Holy War run by incompetents for a profit. The only
question is when will the Westerners withdraw from the Hindu Kush and how disastrous it will
be. Americans cannot afford the unwinnable war's blood and treasure. The US's Vietnam War
(1956 to 1975) ended for the same reasons. That war ushered in the Reagan Revolution and the
Triumph of the Oligarchy. The consequences of the breakup of the Atlantic Alliance will be
even more severe.
@uncoy.. i basically see it like you, however another proxy war involving usa-russia-china
sounds like a running theme now...
@13 bilal.. good post.. i agree about the analysis missing much on isis presence in afgan
as @6 jr also points out.. i think it is a critical bit of the puzzle.. it appears the usa is
using isis as a proxy force, as obama previously stated with regard to syria... the usa just
can't seem to help themselves with their divide and conquer strategy using isis as part of
it's methodology... it's exact opposite of what they profess..
@18 eugene.. isn't blackwater or whatever they're called now - headquartered in uae?
perfect place for them, lol... right on top of yemen, afgan, and etc. etc.. if isis can't do
the job for the west thru their good friends ksa, uae - well, then maybe they can pay a bit
more and get blackwater directly involved too..
Trump is serious when he said he would talk to anybody. The CIA is alleged to have been
stirring the pot with Islamic militants prior to the Soviet invasion when the country went
full socialist. I would suspect the Russians had a hand in that in 1978. US intelligence was
said to be helping along the backlash to socialism by Islamic militants back then in 1978.
The CIA station chief was promptly assassinated the next year.
Obviously you could dump 600,000 NATO and US soldiers into the country and not control it
short of executing every Muslim. What a foolish endeavor but what would you expect from these
buffoons and their death cult? These human sacrifices are holy to them. They worship blood,
death, power and money.
With their loss in Syria the NEOCONS can now make peace with the Taliban and use them and
ISIS to push into old Soviet Central Asia in an attempt to deny them what the Anglo American
Zionist alliance cannot have at this time, control of the commodities.
China will slide right in and take it all at some point once exhaustion sets into place.
Even the Brits knew when it was time to leave India and their Middle Eastern holdings. They
realized the costs of containment would wipe out their country.
No he doesnt, along with Israel and neocons. There was already nuclear deal, and US was
out of "all this crap", so why introduce Gordian Knot if he doesnt want it?
What Trump demands is Iran's surrender. 'b discussed it at length some time ago, the list
of Trump's demands is completely ridiculous and the goal is Iran as a client state.
From its side, Iran is refusing to even meet Trump, two reasons: 1) If Iran agrees to
meet, it would mean they agree to renegotiate the deal, which they dont. 2) US word isnt
worth a toilet paper, so any negotiations is meaningless. Plus US list of demands makes even
endeavor to negotiate dead from the get go.
Congress went along with the Pentagon's 7 countries in 5 years plan. No investigation of 9/11
or even consideration of Ron Paul's bringing in an old idea of Letters of Marque and
Reprisal.
As to the US leaving the warlords in power to continue opium production, etc, Van Buren (We
Meant Well book) said some of the same happened in Iraq with some sheikhs still holding power
in local areas. General Garner looked forward to going in to rebuild (and was promising quick
elections) but was shocked to see no protection of ministries (except oil) which were looted
and burned. And then Bremer was put in charge. Complete mismanagement of the war, the
aftermath, etc. Like someone once said, if they were doing these things at random you would
expect them to get it right once in a while.
The Kunduz Airlift which allowed Pakistan a corridor to fly out Pak officials, Taliban,
and possibly al Qaeda was yet another snafu like paying Pakistan to supposedly block any
escape from their side of Tora Bora only to have a long convoy leave at night. It made one
wonder about the US supposed air superiority/domination. Again, complete mismanagement.
A comparison to the end situation in VietNam 1975 is apt.
Trump meeting Rouhani. Trump saays he wants a better deal. The nuke agreement took years to
negotiate and Iran accepted far more stringent inspections than any other country signed up
NPT. There is nothing more for Iran to negotiate other than to give away their
sovereignty.
The offer of a meeting by Trump is more along the line of "we tried to avoid war".
The US under Trump have scrapped the nuke agreement and made demands that are impossible for
Iran to meet without giving away its sovereignty.
Erik Prince's plan for fighting in Afghanistan.
He presented it to the WH. Military rejected it.
He is no longer Blackwater-connected.
Frontier Services Group Ltd. is his new military-security services corp.
He has extensive contracts with the Chinese government and their SOEs overseas.
did you see General Souleimani answer's to Trump rabid tweet
it went like this
Our president doesnt lower himself to answer someone like.I, a soldier answer someone like
you, you re someone who speaks in the vocabulary of a cabaret owner and a gambling house
dealer.(paraphrasing saker has the video on his site)
and then he went on to describe how your cowad troops wore adult diapers in Afghanistan
and Iraq
China will slide right in and take it all at some point once exhaustion sets into place.
dltravers @28
No. China, being development-oriented rather than imperialist, will leave Afghanistan
alone. China and Russia, but especially China, requires an Afghanistan that is not a
U.S.-controlled terrorist base. Because China needs the oil/gas link that it is building
through Pakistan to access Gulf energy resources, and that energy corridor would be the
primary target of U.S.-hired mercenaries ('terrorists').
How Afghanistan manages itself in the post-U.S. era is Afghan business, but it will almost
certainly involve the Pashtun majority (in the form of the 'Taliban') retaking power in Kabul
but with the traditional huge amounts of autonomy for the provinces. That arrangement reduces
pressure by Pashtun nationalists in Pakistan against Pakistan's government, and in general
seems to be the long-term stable set up, and stability is what China has to have in
Afghanistan.
Now is the time with perfect China partner Khan and the Pakistan military firmly in power.
Not instant, but over the next two years I think we'll see the Taliban's fighting capacity
hugely improve, with transfers of supplies, weapons and intelligence from Pakistan. It would
be very smart for Trump to get out in 2019. History is going to accelerate in that
region.
I know I'm in the minority here, but I worry a lot about Venezuela. See, it's a perfect
fit for the U.S. economy. U.S. shale oil is way too light to be useful, while Venezuelan oil
is way too heavy to be useful. They are destined for each other, i.e. to be mixed into a
blend that would be a good fit U.S. refineries. Plus, Venezuela is very import-dependent and
thus would make for a good vassal. It also has a rabid capitalist class that will do anything
-- any kind of atrocity or false flag -- to return to the good old days of exploitation. "But
Venezuela has a lot of arms!", I hear you counter. True, but the people are severely
demoralized because of the extreme economic hardship. Think of the USSR in late 80s/early
90s. It had the most powerful military in the world, and yet people were so demoralized and
disillusioned with the old system that they simply chose not to defend it. Same thing may
happen in Venezuela. After Colombia has signed peace accords with FARC, U.S. has been
steadily increasing its military presence in Colombia. I think there is a very real
possibility of a naval blockade combined with supply lines/air raids from Colombia supporting
the "Free Venezuelan Army" assembled from Venezuelan gangs and revanchist capitalists and
foreign mercenaries. It would be logistically impossible for Russia or China to provide
military help to far-away Venezuela. Neighbors will not come to the aid of Venezuela either
as there is a surge of pro-U.S. right-wing governments in the region.
Any moves the U$A makes will have to be approved according to which natural resources their
corporate masters covet at any particular moment. Lithium and other rare earth minerals,
strategic importance, whatever the corporate form needs to stay on top globally, will dictate
what the empire does.
Leave Afghanistan? I very much doubt it.
DJT will do what the "puppet masters" desire. Just like all his predecessors.
'Correction': No reliable census has been done in decades, but I don't think the Pashtun are
the majority in Afghanistan. They
are by far the largest minority however. British 'divide and rule' stategists long ago
deliberately separated them into Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Venezuela and Iran have two things in common. Both have large oil reserves and neither
recognize Israel.
Trump's wars will be about destroying enemies of Israel, and at the same time, achieving
global energy dominance.
I've posted this before. I met a Taliban leader and his two guards in a brutal area during
the Hearts and Minds Schtick, preparatory to Cheney getting all the oil and gas, and copper
and iron and coming coal lease awards.
He was a nice guy, the Taliban leader. His guards looked at me with absolute death in
their eyes. Not wanting them to hear him, as we finished our tea, the Taliban leader leaned
close, then whispered, 'I love your Jesus, but I hate your Crusaders.'
And I take issue with the US 'incompetence' meme. Ever since Cheney hosted the Taliban in
Texas in 1998, trying to get a TAPI pipeline, the US has deliberately and cunningly taken
over the country, assassinated the local-level leadership, and installed their foreign Shah,
first Karzai, then Ghani.
In that time of occupation, 18 years, Pentagon MIC disappeared TRILLIONS in shrink-wrapped
pallets of $100s, and ballooned from $340B a year, to now Trump is saying $840B a year.
That's not incompetence. Just the opposite.
Now, to honor my Afghan friends, who love to joke even after 35+ years of machine warfare,
a joke I wrote in their honor:
Ring ring ring ring
"Office of the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan!"
"BRRZZZBRRZZZV..."
"Hold please."
President Reagan, it's the Iranian ambassador!"
"Well hello Mr. Assinabindstani, what can I do for you?"
"BRRZZZBRRZZZV..."
"Well I'll get my staff right on it."
[Intercomm clicks]
"Hey Ollie, the Ayatollah wants more guns! Step on it!"
Actually, the British paid an annual tithe-tribute the the Afghan king to stop raiding
their India holdings, and agreed to a neutral zone between them. Then when the British pulled
out, they declared the neutral zone as Pakistan and shrunk India away from Pashtun territory
to create a bigger divide. The Afghan leaders had no say in the matter. I believe Baluchistan
was also carved away. At one time, Afghan control extended from Persia to the Indus Valley.
There is no way to defeat a nation of warriors who created a kingdom that vast, while William
the Conqueror was still running around in bear skin diapers.
@41 'Afghan control extended from Persia to the Indus Valley.'
You are probably referring to the Khalji Dynasty, a brutal bunch, who ruled India from
1290 to 1320 by which time William the Conqueror was long dead. You would be a lot more
credible if you got your history right.
IMHO the military Budget increase, and what an increase it is!
is part of worsening an already outrageous situation to reach a caricatural point. Typical of
trump repeated special "art".
Of course Nobody in USA, no President can go against the MIC and Pentagon.
But money is cheap when you print it.
It is sugaring the intended shrinking of foreign deployments (as in NATO), closure of
"facilities" and replacing them officially with total deterrence capacities (Space Forces
anybody ?).
While keeping classical projection capacities for demonstration against backward
tribes.
...
From its side, Iran is refusing to even meet Trump, two reasons: 1) If Iran agrees to meet,
it would mean they agree to renegotiate the deal, which they dont. 2) US word isnt worth a
toilet paper, so any negotiations is meaningless. Plus US list of demands makes even endeavor
to negotiate dead from the get go.
Posted by: Harry | Jul 30, 2018 7:53:57 PM | 29
Tru-ish but Trump's latest offer is, according to the MSM, "no pre-conditions." It's quite
likely that Iran's allies have advised the Iranians to tell Trump to Go F*ck yourself (if you
feel you must), but then satisfy yourselves that Trump's No Preconditions means what Iran
wants it to mean.
Trump jumped into the NK and Putin talks first because both were eager to talk. Iran will
be a good test of Trump's seduction skills. All he's got to do is persuade the Iranians that
talking is more useful than swapping long-distance insults. Iranians are rusted onto logical
principles and Trump will find a way to appeal to that trait, imo.
It's too late for the afghanis who have been driven into the urban areas during the regulaar
'Afghanistanisation' campaigns. Most of them will have become hooked on consumerism and the
necessity of dollars.
That leaves only two options for the Taliban when they take over as they undoubtedly will
altho that is likely to mean having to tolerate clutches of obese amerikans lurking in some
Px strewn green zone, the inhabitants of which are likely to have less contact with people
from Afghanistan than any regular user of a Californian shopping mall. The new government can
ignore the consumerists even when these rejects insist on getting lured into some nonsense
green revolution - the danger with this isn't the vapid protests which can easily be dealt
with by fetching a few mobs of staunch citizens from rural Afghanistan who will quickly teach
them that neither cheeseburgers nor close captioned episodes of daytime television provide
sufficient nutrition to handle compatriots raised on traditional food and Islam. Or the new
administration can do as other traditional regimes have done many times over the last 80
years or so, purge the consumerists by disappearing the leadership and strewing empty lots in
the urban areas with mutilated corpses of a few of the shitkicker class consumerists. That
option can cause a bit of a fuss but it (the fuss) generally only lasts as long as the purge.
I suspect the Afghan government will favour the latter approach but they may try to hold
off until the North has been brought back into line. OTH, consumerism is a highly contagious
condition so, unless the North can be pacified speedily which seems unlikely, initially at
least the Taliban adminsitration may have to fight on two fronts, agin the North while they
nip urban consumerists in the bud before those confused fools can cause any highly publicised
in the west but in actuality, low key, attempted insurrection.
My advice to the gaming, TV or cheeseburger addicted inhabitants of Kabul would be to
volunteer your services to the amerikan military as a 'translator' asap and join yer cobbers
in California.
It is unlikely that you will bump into Roman Brady especially not when he is in one
of his avuncular moods, but if you stay outta Texas, Florida or any other part of flyover
amerika chocka with alcohol induced blowhardism, you will discover than amerikan racism isn't
as lethal as it once was.
Apart from having to ignore being jostled in the line at fast food joints and being loudly
and incorrectly termed a motherf**in sand n***er mid-jostle. Certainly a whole lot less
lethal than trying to cover your Fortnite jones by waving a badly copywritten sign in front
of the al-Jazeera cameras for a one month
battle pass .
What was happening in Kabul, Afghanistan less than 8 hours after the WTC Towers turned into
dust in midair? Who here remembers the massive bombing/cruise missile attack?
Here is CNN's transcript:
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: "Well, Joie, it's about 2:30 in the morning here in
Kabul. We've been hearing explosions around the perimeter of the city. We're in a position
here which gives us a view over the whole city. We just had an impact, perhaps a few miles
away.
"If I listen, you can hear the ripple of explosions around the city. Perhaps you heard
there. The fifth explosion -- sixth explosion, I think. Gun bursts and star bursts in the
air. Tracer fire is coming up out of the city. I hear aircraft flying above the city of
Kabul. Perhaps we've heard half a dozen to 10 detonations on the perimeter of the city,
some coming from the area close to the airport. I see on the horizon what could be a fire
on the horizon, close, perhaps, to where the airport might be. A flash came up then from
the airport. Some ground fire coming up here in Kabul."
"I've been in Belgrade and I've been in Baghdad and seen cruise missiles arrive in both
those cities. The detonations we're hearing in Kabul right now certainly sound like the
detonations of loud missiles that are coming in. "
"Certainly -- certainly it would appear that the Afghan defense systems have detected a
threat in the air. They are launching what appears to be anti-aircraft defense systems at
the moment. Certainly, I can see that fire that was blazing on the horizon. It was a faint
yellow; it's now a bright orange blazing. Several other detonations going off around the
city, multiple areas. Rockets appear to be taking off from one end of the airport. I can
see that perhaps located about 8 or 9 miles away from where we stand, Joie."
The bombing/explosions continue for 10+ minutes of this broadcast.
Then, they cut to WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: who says the US is only
collecting intelligence. He says what we're seeing must be part of the "Civil War" (despite
the fact that neither side had an air force or cruise missiles). The Pentagon later denies
knowing anything about it.
Then, CNN returns to Nic Robertson, who- within 15 minutes of his first report - begins to
change his tune. Suddenly, the jet sounds are not mentioned. The cruise missiles (jet
engines) have transformed into possible rockets. The airport fire is now an ammunition
dump.
And voila! They lose their connection and Nic will not be heard from again. And this
little bit of history will essentially disappear.
Dear Mr. B,
"All these U.S. mistakes made in the early days are still haunting the country."
These mistakes are by design. To cause and keep causing destabilisation.
I like to refer to it as the 3-letter Scrabble method of doing things.
Me living in the Netherlands as I do, let me take the example of Greece.
Greece had its regime changed in 1948 (Wiki says 46-49).
And how is Greece doing these days? ...
@37 yep, gotta agree with the more passimistic outlook here. Personally i'll eat my shoes if
US leaves Afghanistan within any reasonable time frame. In addition to plentiful natural
resources, there are very influential vested interests in Afghanistans booming opium
industry.
Off topic: Andrei Nekrasov's 'Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes' can be viewed in full on You
Tube at this moment (31 July, 08:15 Amsterdam time). Can it also be seen in the USA, I
wonder? How long will it take before Google take it down ? Watch it and learn about one of
the main drivers of the Russia obsession.
Tru-ish but Trump's latest offer is, according to the MSM, "no pre-conditions." It's quite
likely that Iran's allies have advised the Iranians to tell Trump to Go F*ck yourself (if
you feel you must), but then satisfy yourselves that Trump's No Preconditions means what
Iran wants it to mean.
White House just explained what Trump's "no preconditions" means: 1) Iran should at the
core change how it deals with its own people. 2) Change its evil stance in foreign policy. 3)
Agree on nuclear agreement which would REALLY prevent them making a nuke.
In other words, Iran should capitulate and become a client state, thats what Trump means
by "no preconditions."
At this advanced stage of American insanity, I don't see why the devil should have all the
best tunes. I'm sick of the yanks doing this shit in over people's county's ! While they
stuff there fat faces with burgers and donuts! The dirty games they play on over country's,
should now be played in America with all the brutality that they have used on others. Until
that happens things world wide will continue to detriate. Natural justice is all that
remains. They'v curupted all else.
@19 "The US already started to plan an invasion of Afghanistan in januari & february of
2001."
Well, to be fair the USA probably has plans to invade lots of countries.
Indeed, it would be more interesting to consider how many countries there are that the USA
*doesn't* have invasion plans gathering dust on the shelves.
It's just been reported on the bbc news---- the man responsible for the Manchester bombing
had been 'rescued from Lybia when Gadafi was overthrown and tracked ever since. Even in
Britain up to the day of the bombing ! And now on this post we discuss America uk
transporting terrorists from Syria to Afghanistan . Not to mention the white helmet bunch and
where Ther going! The Manchester bombing, Westminster bridge and London Bridge atacks were
done by the Tory party to win a general election ! This is the reality of the world we live
in.full on oppression !!!
Indeed, I agree with the sentiments here. But missing a big part of the picture.
Afghanistan and Pakistan have sky-high fertility rates. Forget the rubbish peddled by
economist-whores like Milton Friedman, under these conditions no country without an open
frontier has ever developed into anything other than a larger mass of poverty. In Pakistan
something like half the children are so malnourished that they grow up stunted, and it is
this misery that is starting slow population growth. Pakistan is yet another example of the
Malthusian holocaust, which is not a global catastrophe: it is slow grinding poverty that
results when people have more children than they can support.
Bottom line: these places will remain poor and unstable no matter what lunacy the United
States does or does not do. The traditional approach to such places is to leave them alone,
and only keep them from escaping. Bottled up, the Afghanis and Pakistanis will kill only each
other. 9/11 is a consequence of allowing people from these places free access to the Untied
States.
The 'war on terror' is a consequence of 'there shall be open borders.' It's a big and
messy world, and even if the government of the United States was not criminally incompetent,
there would be a lot of misery and hatred in it. Open borders means that now the Untied
States has to intervene in every country all over the world to ensure that nowhere can there
develop terrorist cells. An impossible task.
Charles Michael @ 44
I agree with the caricature nature of much of this. I don't think there will be a next
target. The MIC has become bloated while Iran, Syria, Russia, China are turning out true
fighters as well as stronger economic planning.
The US still has some resources and some use but needs to continue to make friends in the
pattern of Kim and Putin and give up on its self defeating economic and military sabotage
planning which has been exposed as morally bankrupt as well.
IMO Mikey Pompeo suffers from Smart Guy Syndrome. My wife calls it Great Man Syndrome. In both of these a delusion of centrality
sets in based on a belief in one's own superiority. This rots the mind. Mikey has always been the smartest kid in the room. You
know his resumé. And, pilgrims, he has a smiley face welded onto his real sharkey face. These attributes have carried him far
but he has a weakness or two. He really does think he is a being above the ken of mortal men AND he is a hyper-nationialist neocon
ideologue through and through and in many ways immune to appeals to reason. He surely think thatTrump is a dolt. Look at the picture.
He has contradicted the president several times. This is a very dangerous thing to do. Trump is a reality based self-centered
hustler who is used to dealing with supercilious p---ks who want to manipulate him.
Now Mikey has John-John Bolton as ally and playmate. Bolton is, IMO, more than a little crazy. Bolton loves his place in an
NSC made over into extensions of his neocon craziness. He thinks that he has the Iranians right where he wants them. He believes
that we could fight a maritime campaign in the Gulf with next to no losses and that if necessary we can bomb the Iranian people
into unleashing their economic deprivation wrath against the mullahs.
Pompeo agrees with him. He is trying to keep the president buttered up while pursuing his shared goals with Bolton both cleverly
and surreptitiously. Well, folks, Trump is a master of the art of BS detection. Those who try to fool him are taking a great risk.
Off to one side in this drama, stand the inbred caste of generals and admirals. Trump professes to admire them, but Mattis,
Dunford and CENTCOM are steadily losing real power in the contest for the president's attention. IMO there will be a unifying
deal between Damascus and the YPG Kurds and Trump knows all about progress toward that goal. Do the generals want that? No. They
have their own desired foreign policy. They want to make the casualties of the last 15 years meaningful through victory somewhere,
anywhere would do. They also want revenge against Iran for men lost in Iraq. They listen to the Israelis far too much.
IMO Trump has a private line of communication to Russia. This is perfectly legal and probably is conducted over CIA communications
links or through the ambassador in Moscow, Jon Huntsman or both.
Pompeo may or may not know what is being said in those channels. pl
if Trump is such a reality-based hustler who knows how to deal with supercilious p--cks" like Pompeo and Bolton, why the heck
does he keep bringing those p--cks on board and then waste so much time and energy on dealing with them? Are there no prospective
officials around who are not of that stripe? Or is it that Trump is unable to detect them and/or unwilling for some reason
to bring them in and put them to work?
I'm reminded of a point made throughout Vol. 1 of Michael Broers' brilliant new biography of Napoleon -- that Napoleon,
who despised the talk-talk-talk of parliaments and liked best to work with and through committees, had a near-infallible gift
for detecting the best and the brightest, whether or not they had impressive credentials or even if they had opposed or still
opposed some of his policies. In these committees, which dealt with both political and military matters, all were expected
to speak freely, while Napoleon listened like a hawk. For him the key test, aside from the committee members' intelligence
and energy, was whether they were men of honor -- by which he meant that when agreements had been reached after all had had
their fair say and Napoleon had put his stamp on them, they would abide by what had been thoroughly vetted and agreed to. An
autocrat, for sure, and yet...
He hired people recommended to him by their cronies like Rosenstein, Wray, Pruitt, Coates. There have been many
mistakes.like
that. He could not appoint the kind of people he had eaten well-done steaks with in NY while hustling them in a deal. He also
relies too much on his gut reaction to people he meets.
Yes but, if he is that susceptible to dubious advice, isn't that something of a flashing-red-light character flaw -- just as
Napoleon deserves blame for taking the advice of the treacherous Josephine on several disastrous occasions (i.e. the decision
to invade Haiti)?
No, he is not. We all lament The Boltens and Pompeos. However, where is he to find "good people"? The American political class
is reflectively myopic and partisan. Find some more Jon Huntsman types (where? IDK) who can serve American interests without
all the Sturm und Drang of today's hyperbolic, puerile political warfare.
I would wager that Trump sees both of them as dangerous but useful idiots that willingly play their role in his "good-cop,
bad cop" negotiating tactics. They will be gone with the next tacking.
I was pleasantly surprised at Bolton's behavior in Russia and in his comment that getting rid of Assad was no longer the goal
of the US. To be sure, time will tell, but it's clear that at this point Trump is driving foreign policy and is far more self-confident
than he was in 2017.
Whatever Pompeo says doesn't matter- if he tries to throw up walls to a summit, Trump will tell him to go to hell. It's
a core principle of Trump's that meeting is not a "concession." He knows that "legitimacy" is an utterly meaningless concept,
not something that can be granted or withdrawn by the US president. If Iran offers Trump a meeting, he'll meet. No questions
asked.
"Well, folks, Trump is a master of the art of BS detection. Those who try to fool him are taking a great risk."
I completely agree with you Col. I hear people call Trump a moron or a genius, I think that what makes him so vexing is that
he is both at the same time. He is probably very good at making certain nobody gets the better of him, especially his subordinates.
Except for the belief on Trump´s masterliness on anything, I never would had thought I will be agreeing with you all the way
till the last line....of this concrete post....What I most agree with you in is in Pompeo´s overestimating his own capabilities...and
I conclude also along with you that is a very dangerous situation...But, if you see it so clear, and we all too, could you
provide a convincing explanation on why Trump, being such a master on personal management and business administration, elected
Pompeo and Bolton for office in the first place?
Thanks in advance, in case you answer my question and do not find something outrageous enough for your sensibility in my
comment so as to delete it.
The United States seems ready to give up on Afghanistan.
After the World Trade Center came down the U.S. accused al-Qaeda, parts of which were hosted
in Afghanistan. The Taliban government offered the U.S. to extradite al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin
Laden to an Islamic country to be judged under Islamic law. The U.S. rejected that and decided
instead to destroy the Afghan government.
Taliban units, supported by Pakistani officers, were at that time still fighting against the
Northern Alliance which held onto a few areas in the north of the country. Under threats from
the U.S. Pakistan, which sees Afghanistan as its natural depth hinterland, was pressed into
service. In exchange for its cooperation with the U.S. operation it was allowed to extradite
its forces and main figures of the Taliban.
U.S. special forces were dropped into north Afghanistan. They came with huge amounts of cash
and the ability to call in B-52 bombers. Together with the Northern Alliance they move towards
Kabul bombing any place where some feeble resistance came from. The Taliban forces dissolved.
Many resettled in Pakistan. Al-Qaeda also vanished.
A conference with Afghan notables was held in Germany's once capital Bonn. The Afghans
wanted to reestablish the former Kingdom but were pressed into accepting a western style
democracy. Fed with large amounts of western money the norther warlords, all well known
mass-murderers, and various greedy exiles were appointed as a government. To them it was all
about money. There was little capability and interest to govern.
All these U.S. mistakes made in the early days are still haunting the country.
For a few years the Taliban went quiet. But continued U.S. operations, which included random
bombing of weddings, torture and abduction of assumed al-Qaeda followers, alienated the people.
Pakistan feared that it would be suffocated between a permanently U.S. occupied Afghanistan and
a hostile India. Four years after being ousted the Taliban were reactivated and found regrown
local support.
Busy with fighting an insurgency in Iraq the U.S. reacted slowly. It then surged troops into
Afghanistan, pulled back, surged again and is now again pulling back. The U.S. military aptly
demonstrated its excellent logistic capabilities and its amazing cultural incompetence. The
longer it fought the more Afghan people stood up against it. The immense amount of money spent
to 'rebuild' Afghanistan
went to U.S. contractors and Afghan warlords but had little effect on the ground. Now half
the country is back under Taliban control while the other half is more or less contested.
Before his election campaign Donald Trump spoke out
against the war on Afghanistan. During his campaign he was more cautious pointing to the danger
of a nuclear Pakistan as a reason for staying in Afghanistan. But Pakistan is where the U.S.
supply line is coming through and there are no reasonable alternatives. Staying in Afghanistan
to confront Pakistan while depending on Pakistan for logistics does not make sense.
Early this year the U.S. stopped all aid to Pakistan. Even the old Pakistani government was
already talking
about blocking the logistic line. The incoming prime minister Imran Khan has campaigned for
years against the U.S. war on Afghanistan. He very much prefers an alliance with China over any U.S.
rapprochement. The U.S. hope is that Pakistan will have to ask the IMF for another bailout and
thus come back under Washington's control. But it is
more likely that Imran Khan will ask China for financial help.
Under pressure from the military Trump had agreed to raise the force in Afghanistan to some
15,000 troops. But these were way to few to hold more than some urban areas. Eighty percent of
the Afghan people live in the countryside. Afghan troops and police forces are incapable or
unwilling to fight their Taliban brethren. It was obvious that this mini-surge
would fail :
By most objective measures, President Donald Trump's year-old strategy for ending the war in
Afghanistan has produced few positive results.
Afghanistan's beleaguered soldiers have failed to recapture significant new ground from
the Taliban. Civilian deaths have hit historic highs. The Afghan military is struggling to
build a reliable air force and expand the number of elite fighters. Efforts to cripple
lucrative insurgent drug smuggling operations have fallen short of expectations. And U.S.
intelligence officials say the president's strategy has halted Taliban gains but not reversed
their momentum, according to people familiar with the latest assessments.
To blame Pakistan for its support for some Taliban is convenient, but makes little sense. In
a recent
talk John Sopko, the U.S. Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR),
made a crucial point:
"We keep referring to Pakistan as being the key problem. But the problem also was that the
Afghan government at times was viewed very negatively by their local people and what you
really need is to insert a government that the people support, a government that is not
predatory, a government that is not a bunch of lawless warlords," observed Sopko.
He went on to say that the U.S. policy of pouring in billions of dollars in these unstable
environments contributed to the problem of creating more warlords and powerful people who
took the law into their own hands.
"In essence, the government we introduced, particularly some of the Afghan local police
forces, which were nothing other than warlord militias with some uniforms on, were just as
bad as the terrorists before them," said Sopko ...
This was the problem from the very beginning. The U.S. bribed itself into Afghanistan. It
spent tons of money but did not gain real support. It bombed and shot aimlessly at 'Taliban'
that were more often than not just the local population. It incompetently fought 17
one-year-long wars instead of a consistently planned and sustained political, economic and
military campaign.
After a year of another useless surge the Trump administration decided to pull back from
most active operations and to bet
on negotiations with the Taliban:
The shift to prioritize initial American talks with the Taliban over what has proved a futile
"Afghan-led, Afghan-owned" process stems from a realization by both Afghan and American
officials that President Trump's new Afghanistan strategy is not making a fundamental
difference in rolling back Taliban gains.
While no date for any talks has been set, and the effort could still be derailed, the
willingness of the United States to pursue direct talks is an indication of the sense of
urgency in the administration to break the stalemate in Afghanistan.
...
Afghan officials and political leaders said direct American talks with the Taliban would
probably then grow into negotiations that would include the Taliban, the Afghan government,
the United States and Pakistan.
Afghans have continued to burn for the last four decades in the fire of imposed wars. They
are longing for peace and a just system but they will never tire from their just cause of
defending their creed, country and nation against the invading forces of your
warmongering government because they have rendered all the previous and present historic
sacrifices to safeguard their religious values and national sovereignty. If they make a deal
on their sovereignty now, it would be unforgettable infidelity with their proud history and
ancestors.
Last weeks talks between the Taliban and U.S. diplomats took place in Doha, Qatar.
Remarkably the Afghan government was excluded. Despite the rousing tone of the Reuters
report below the positions that were exchanged
do not point to a successful conclusion:
According to one Taliban official, who said he was part of a four-member delegation, there
were "very positive signals" from the meeting, which he said was conducted in a "friendly
atmosphere" in a Doha hotel.
"You can't call it peace talks," he said. "These are a series of meetings for initiating
formal and purposeful talks. We agreed to meet again soon and resolve the Afghan conflict
through dialogue."
...
The two sides had discussed proposals to allow the Taliban free movement in two provinces
where they would not be attacked, an idea that President Ashraf Ghani has already rejected .
They also discussed Taliban participation in the Afghan government.
"The only demand they made was to allow their military bases in Afghanistan ," said the
Taliban official.
...
"We have held three meetings with the U.S. and we reached a conclusion to continue talks for
meaningful negotiations," said a second Taliban official.
...
"However, our delegation made it clear to them that peace can only be restored to Afghanistan
when all foreign forces are withdrawn ," he said.
This does not sound promising:
In a first step the Taliban want to officially rule parts of the country and use it as a
safe haven. The Afghan government naturally rejects that.
Participation of the Taliban in the Afghan government is an idea of the Afghan president
Ghani. It is doubtful that this could be successfully arranged. Norther Alliance elements in
the Afghan government, like the 'chief executive' Abdullah Abdullah, are unlikely to ever
agree to it. The Taliban also have no interest to be 'part of the government' and to then get
blamed for its failures. Their February letter makes clear that they want to be the
government.
The U.S. wants bases in Afghanistan. The Taliban, and Pakistan behind them, reject that
and will continue to do so.
It is difficult to see how especially the last mutually exclusive positions can ever be
reconciled.
The Taliban are ready to accept a peaceful retreat of the U.S. forces. That is their only
offer. They may agree to keep foreign Islamist fighters out of their country. The U.S. has no
choice but to accept. It is currently retreating to the cities and large bases. The outlying
areas will fall to the Taliban. Sooner or later the U.S. supply lines will be cut. Its bases
will come under fire.
There is no staying in Afghanistan. A retreat is the only issue the U.S. can negotiate
about. It is not a question of "if" but of "when".
The Soviet war in Afghanistan took nine years. The time was used to build up a halfway
competent government and army that managed to hold off the insurgents for three more years
after the Soviet withdrawal. The government only fell when the Soviets cut the money line. The
seventeen year long U.S. occupation did not even succeed in that. The Afghan army is corrupt
and its leaders are incompetent. The U.S. supplied it with expensive and complicate equipment
that
does not fit Afghan needs . As soon as the U.S. withdraws the whole south, the east and
Kabul will immediately fall back into Taliban hands. Only the north may take a bit longer. They
will probably ask China to help them in developing their country.
The erratic
empire failed in another of its crazy endeavors. That will not hinder it to look for a new
ones. The immense increase
of the U.S. military budget, which includes 15,000 more troops, points to a new large war.
Which country will be its next target?
thanks b.. it would be good if the exceptional warmongering nation could go home, but i am
not fully counting on it.. i liked your quote here "The U.S. military aptly demonstrated its
excellent logistic capabilities and its amazing cultural incompetence." that is ongoing..
unless the usa leaves, i think the madness continues.. i suspect the madness will continue..
the only other alternative is the usa, with the help of their good buddies - uk, ksa, qatar,
uae and israel - will keep on relocating isis to afgan for future destabilization.. i watched
a video peter au left from al jazzera 2017 with isis embedded in the kush mtns... until the
funding for them ceases - i think the usa will have a hand in the continued madness... if the
usa was serious about ending terrorism they would shut down the same middle east countries
they are in bed with.. until that happens, i suspect not much will change.. i hope i am
wrong..
I dont believe it for a second. Especially with Iran looming as a potential target. US is
staying in Afghanistan also to counter China , keep opium production high and of course there
is the TAPI pipeline to "protect" that is backed by US as an alternative to the
Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline that would have tapped Iran's South Pars gas field. A hostile or
unfriendly Pakistan is just one more reason to stay
Just like US will never leave Iraq or Syria, they will stay in Afghanistan. There will be
ebbs and flows, and talk of disengagement from time to time primarily for domestic
consumption, but thats all it is IMO.
This is a fine recap of the situation. It's much too optimistic. The classic method of
American negotiation and warfare like the Roman before them is to divide and conquer. It was
very successful against the American Indians.
If the Taliban get free movement in two provinces, the Americans will demand an end to
attacks on their bases, their soldiers and their agents elsewhere in Afghanistan. Just as the
Iroquois Confederation enjoyed special privileges in what is now Upper New York for their
help against the French, the Taliban will have special privileges in their two provinces
while the Americans consolidate in the rest of Afghanistan. When the Americans feel strong
enough, just as with the Iroquois, they will break the previous treaties.
After the Revolutionary War, the ancient central fireplace of the League was re-established
at Buffalo Creek. The United States and the Iroquois signed the treaty of Fort Stanwix in
1784 under which the Iroquois ceded much of their historical homeland to the Americans,
which was followed by another treaty in 1794 at Canandaigua which they ceded even more land
to the Americans./b
(...continuation of the comment above, somehow got posted when I pressed the return
key)
Even the Soviet Union and Russians were unable to make the American respect their
commitments. The United States reneged on the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty as soon as it
could in 2001 (Russia was on its knees), reneged on its commitments not to expand NATO east
and has built ballistic missile bases all around Russia which seem to be preparation for a
pre-emptive nuclear strike/war against Russia.
The Afghanis (foolish to call them the Taliban, they are traditional Afghani patriots)
have always been wise enough to annihilate any invader to the last man. This salutary policy
keeps invaders out for decades at a time. The Taliban have a long row to hoe. It took almost
a hundred years and several massacres to finally curb British ambitions on Afghanistan (1838
to 1919). Afghanis' best hopes rely on forging tight alliances with Pakistan and China,
squeezing the Americans out completely right now.
The Americans burnt their bridges with the Russian already and are in the process of
burning their bridges with Pakistan while losing influence with China. The US is very short
of options right now. It's the ideal time for Afghanis to reclaim the whole territory, not
leaving a single American soldier or airbase operational. They'll need a technically
sophisticated ally to help them clear their skies of US drones. This role might appeal to
either the Russians or the Chinese. As a training exercise, extended anti-drone warfare could
be very useful.
What a great success the US achieved in destroying Yugoslavia. Murdering thousands went
almost unnoticed. It was able to break up the country into a number of tiny, impoverished
nations and got to put a US MIC Base in most of them.
You did not mention isis-k in your analysis. Its active mostly in eastern afghanistan in
areas close to or adjacent to Pakistan (it is also controlls a small area in Jawzjan, in
northern afghanistan). Many fighters are formerly pakistani taliban(not to be confused with
afghan taliban who are simply called taliban). Before isis-k appeared in afghanistan, the
areas which it now controls had pakistani taliban presence. TTP, or tehreek e taliban
pakistan was facilitated by afghan ggovernment to settle down in these areas after they fled
pakistan when its military launched a large scale offensive, Operation Zarb e Azb. The afghan
government planned to use them to pressurize Pakistan, basically to use them as a bargaining
chip. They operate openly in eastern afghanistan, but many of them joined isis-k.
Russians estimate isis-k's strength to be between 10k to 12k, although it might be a bit
inflated number. From here they plan attacks against afghanistan and pakistan alike, mostly
suicide bombings as of now. They have had fierce clashes with afghan taliban in eastern
Afghanistan but have held their territory for now. Afghan army simply doesn't have the
capacity in those areas to confront them. It was here that MOAB was dropped but as expected
against a guerrilla force, it was ineffective in every way. But it did make headlines and has
helped US in giving an impression its seriously fighting ISIS. The reports of unmarked
helicopters dropping god-knows-what have also been coming from these areas. Hamid karzai
mentioned that and also maria zakharova asked afghan gov. and US to investigate that which
shows these are not just rumors. Recently intelligence chiefs of Pakistan, russia, iran and
china as well(if i remember correctly) met in islamabad to discuss isis-k in afghanistan, no
details other than this of this meeting are available.
In Northern afghanistan, in Jawzjan, fierce clashes broke out between taliban and isis-k
after taliban commander in thiae areas was beheaded. ISIS-k has been beaten up pretty badly
there but clashes are ongoing. Many areas have been cleared but fighting is still ongoing. An
interesting aspect is taliban sources claiming that whenever they come close to a decisive
victory, they have to stop operations becauae of heavy bombardment by US planes. They made
similar claims when fighting daesh in eastern afghanistan. Anyway in a few days isis presence
will probably be finished in Jawzjan. ISIS fighters who have survived have done so by
surrendering to afghan forces. They will probably end up back in eastern afghanistan.
Africa. US AFRICOM has a huge playground, tactics won't change and logistics is far
easier.
There also will be a long Hybrid wr against Iran, but that will be much like the early
days of Syria. Proxies as "moderates". Insurgents, not US troops. ISIS and AQ crazies will be
on the ground.
The big money will go into Africa. You want to see Trillions "spent"? It will be
Africa.
The decision to invade Afghanistan had been taken before the 9/11 false flag coup. Had
nothing much to do with the CIA's al-Qaeda mercenaries.
As I understood it, there were many agendas at work: testing weapons and making money for
the MIC; controlling the lucrative (how many hundreds of billions of dollars ?) opium/ heroin
production/profiteering; military bases relating to Iran, Russia, China, Pakistan and other
...stans, etc; control of oil and gas pipelines; access to increasingly valuable and sought
rare earth minerals; proximity to oil and gas actual and potential.
More generally, subjugating Afghanistan was a necessary part of the 'full spectrum
dominance' 'we will rule the earth' doctrine, dear til recently to too many mad hatters, and
still evoking a misty eyed longing in some, no doubt.
Ahhh...the US produces some of the lamest euphemisms approved for all audiences; such as
"Afgahn Security Forces." So sterile, innocuous. And benign. How could anyone question their
plight? (We did pick up the game a little bit in Syria with "Free Syrian Army..." Can I get a
hell yeah?) All the people hearing this in the US could do was shrug their shoulders and
speak, "I guess I should support them." That is, of course, after we took out OBL and the
mission in Afghanistan was a little more opaque. Just a little bit. Anyways...Hell, yeah! Get
some!
Thanks b for the brief history. Really invaluable.
Afghani patriots, resisting invaders since 330 BCE... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasions_of_Afghanistan
The US military, the planet's costliest losingest military since 1946. The US military, like
its munitions manufacturers, doesn't win but it does get paid and is why we can have nice
things like oh, decent health care. Lack of health insurance kills more Americans than the
Russians ever will. The Russians aren't the enemy, Trump is. Lobbyists are too.
I haven't read anything about Blackwater wanting to replace the U.S. Military in Afghanistan.
Of course, the U.S. Treasury would continue to shovel those pallet loads of newly printed
$100.00 bills down the Blackwater hole. Any odds this might go forward from anyone's opinion?
robin cook before he was murdered stated that alqueda was a cia data base.
i believe bresinski knew obl as tim osman who was later killed by cia mi6 man omar blah blah
sheikh bhutto of pakisyan was assasinated after spilling the beans about sheikh.
christopher bolleyn on you tube will give you the sp on what 9 and 11 was shirley we are
past the point of the offecal theory.
the turd burger that is the official theory is clearly the worst and lowest grade of all the
conspiracy theories.
the taliban where in barbera bushes texas talking lithium opium and oil pipelines with the
paedo bush crime syndicate before 9 and 11
marvin bush ran security at the twin towers
christopher bollyn is the go to man in these regardings
The US wants peace talks but wants to keep its bases in Afghanistan. US under Trump has built
new bases in Syria, Iraq, Kuwait.
SDF have been talking with Syrian government, and US in Talks with Taliban. Are these just
moves to buy the US a little time until it launches the war Trump has been building the US
military up for.
isis is israeli counter gang with support of usa usa and the city of
london,ukrainian,polish,uk sas,cia,kiwi,aussie,jordanian and donmeh satanic house of
saud.
talking of isis as if it is real entity rather than a frank kitson gang counter gang and
pseudo gang is polluting the well.
who has been providing extraction helicopters from syriana for the last 14 months.
who has been washing these bearded devils operating on them in kosher field hospitals making
them well shiny and new
who?
scchhhhh you know who
We are concerned about reports regarding the use of helicopters without any identification
marks in many parts of Afghanistan that are delivering terrorists and arms to the Afghan
branch of this terrorist organisation. We believe that reports to this effect made by Afghan
officials should be thoroughly investigated."
- Of course. The US wants to keep its bases in Afghanistan. Surprise, surprise.
In 2002 when ABC corporate propaganda showed Special Forces rounding up village
Hajji, the writing was on the wall. Afghanistan is a Holy War run by incompetents for a profit.
The only question is when will the Westerners withdraw from the Hindu Kush and how disastrous
it will be. Americans cannot afford the unwinnable war's blood and treasure. The US's Vietnam
War (1956 to 1975) ended for the same reasons. That war ushered in the Reagan Revolution and
the Triumph of the Oligarchy. The consequences of the breakup of the Atlantic Alliance will be
even more severe.
In 2002 when ABC corporate propaganda showed Special Forces rounding up village Hajji, the
writing was on the wall. Afghanistan is a Holy War run by incompetents for a profit. The only
question is when will the Westerners withdraw from the Hindu Kush and how disastrous it will
be. Americans cannot afford the unwinnable war's blood and treasure. The US's Vietnam War
(1956 to 1975) ended for the same reasons. That war ushered in the Reagan Revolution and the
Triumph of the Oligarchy. The consequences of the breakup of the Atlantic Alliance will be
even more severe.
@uncoy.. i basically see it like you, however another proxy war involving usa-russia-china
sounds like a running theme now...
@13 bilal.. good post.. i agree about the analysis missing much on isis presence in afgan
as @6 jr also points out.. i think it is a critical bit of the puzzle.. it appears the usa is
using isis as a proxy force, as obama previously stated with regard to syria... the usa just
can't seem to help themselves with their divide and conquer strategy using isis as part of
it's methodology... it's exact opposite of what they profess..
@18 eugene.. isn't blackwater or whatever they're called now - headquartered in uae?
perfect place for them, lol... right on top of yemen, afgan, and etc. etc.. if isis can't do
the job for the west thru their good friends ksa, uae - well, then maybe they can pay a bit
more and get blackwater directly involved too..
Trump is serious when he said he would talk to anybody. The CIA is alleged to have been
stirring the pot with Islamic militants prior to the Soviet invasion when the country went
full socialist. I would suspect the Russians had a hand in that in 1978. US intelligence was
said to be helping along the backlash to socialism by Islamic militants back then in 1978.
The CIA station chief was promptly assassinated the next year.
Obviously you could dump 600,000 NATO and US soldiers into the country and not control it
short of executing every Muslim. What a foolish endeavor but what would you expect from these
buffoons and their death cult? These human sacrifices are holy to them. They worship blood,
death, power and money.
With their loss in Syria the NEOCONS can now make peace with the Taliban and use them and
ISIS to push into old Soviet Central Asia in an attempt to deny them what the Anglo American
Zionist alliance cannot have at this time, control of the commodities.
China will slide right in and take it all at some point once exhaustion sets into place.
Even the Brits knew when it was time to leave India and their Middle Eastern holdings. They
realized the costs of containment would wipe out their country.
No he doesnt, along with Israel and neocons. There was already nuclear deal, and US was
out of "all this crap", so why introduce Gordian Knot if he doesnt want it?
What Trump demands is Iran's surrender. 'b discussed it at length some time ago, the list
of Trump's demands is completely ridiculous and the goal is Iran as a client state.
From its side, Iran is refusing to even meet Trump, two reasons: 1) If Iran agrees to
meet, it would mean they agree to renegotiate the deal, which they dont. 2) US word isnt
worth a toilet paper, so any negotiations is meaningless. Plus US list of demands makes even
endeavor to negotiate dead from the get go.
Congress went along with the Pentagon's 7 countries in 5 years plan. No investigation of 9/11
or even consideration of Ron Paul's bringing in an old idea of Letters of Marque and
Reprisal.
As to the US leaving the warlords in power to continue opium production, etc, Van Buren (We
Meant Well book) said some of the same happened in Iraq with some sheikhs still holding power
in local areas. General Garner looked forward to going in to rebuild (and was promising quick
elections) but was shocked to see no protection of ministries (except oil) which were looted
and burned. And then Bremer was put in charge. Complete mismanagement of the war, the
aftermath, etc. Like someone once said, if they were doing these things at random you would
expect them to get it right once in a while.
The Kunduz Airlift which allowed Pakistan a corridor to fly out Pak officials, Taliban,
and possibly al Qaeda was yet another snafu like paying Pakistan to supposedly block any
escape from their side of Tora Bora only to have a long convoy leave at night. It made one
wonder about the US supposed air superiority/domination. Again, complete mismanagement.
A comparison to the end situation in VietNam 1975 is apt.
Trump meeting Rouhani. Trump saays he wants a better deal. The nuke agreement took years to
negotiate and Iran accepted far more stringent inspections than any other country signed up
NPT. There is nothing more for Iran to negotiate other than to give away their
sovereignty.
The offer of a meeting by Trump is more along the line of "we tried to avoid war".
The US under Trump have scrapped the nuke agreement and made demands that are impossible for
Iran to meet without giving away its sovereignty.
Erik Prince's plan for fighting in Afghanistan.
He presented it to the WH. Military rejected it.
He is no longer Blackwater-connected.
Frontier Services Group Ltd. is his new military-security services corp.
He has extensive contracts with the Chinese government and their SOEs overseas.
did you see General Souleimani answer's to Trump rabid tweet
it went like this
Our president doesnt lower himself to answer someone like.I, a soldier answer someone like
you, you re someone who speaks in the vocabulary of a cabaret owner and a gambling house
dealer.(paraphrasing saker has the video on his site)
and then he went on to describe how your cowad troops wore adult diapers in Afghanistan
and Iraq
China will slide right in and take it all at some point once exhaustion sets into place.
dltravers @28
No. China, being development-oriented rather than imperialist, will leave Afghanistan
alone. China and Russia, but especially China, requires an Afghanistan that is not a
U.S.-controlled terrorist base. Because China needs the oil/gas link that it is building
through Pakistan to access Gulf energy resources, and that energy corridor would be the
primary target of U.S.-hired mercenaries ('terrorists').
How Afghanistan manages itself in the post-U.S. era is Afghan business, but it will almost
certainly involve the Pashtun majority (in the form of the 'Taliban') retaking power in Kabul
but with the traditional huge amounts of autonomy for the provinces. That arrangement reduces
pressure by Pashtun nationalists in Pakistan against Pakistan's government, and in general
seems to be the long-term stable set up, and stability is what China has to have in
Afghanistan.
Now is the time with perfect China partner Khan and the Pakistan military firmly in power.
Not instant, but over the next two years I think we'll see the Taliban's fighting capacity
hugely improve, with transfers of supplies, weapons and intelligence from Pakistan. It would
be very smart for Trump to get out in 2019. History is going to accelerate in that
region.
I know I'm in the minority here, but I worry a lot about Venezuela. See, it's a perfect
fit for the U.S. economy. U.S. shale oil is way too light to be useful, while Venezuelan oil
is way too heavy to be useful. They are destined for each other, i.e. to be mixed into a
blend that would be a good fit U.S. refineries. Plus, Venezuela is very import-dependent and
thus would make for a good vassal. It also has a rabid capitalist class that will do anything
-- any kind of atrocity or false flag -- to return to the good old days of exploitation. "But
Venezuela has a lot of arms!", I hear you counter. True, but the people are severely
demoralized because of the extreme economic hardship. Think of the USSR in late 80s/early
90s. It had the most powerful military in the world, and yet people were so demoralized and
disillusioned with the old system that they simply chose not to defend it. Same thing may
happen in Venezuela. After Colombia has signed peace accords with FARC, U.S. has been
steadily increasing its military presence in Colombia. I think there is a very real
possibility of a naval blockade combined with supply lines/air raids from Colombia supporting
the "Free Venezuelan Army" assembled from Venezuelan gangs and revanchist capitalists and
foreign mercenaries. It would be logistically impossible for Russia or China to provide
military help to far-away Venezuela. Neighbors will not come to the aid of Venezuela either
as there is a surge of pro-U.S. right-wing governments in the region.
Any moves the U$A makes will have to be approved according to which natural resources their
corporate masters covet at any particular moment. Lithium and other rare earth minerals,
strategic importance, whatever the corporate form needs to stay on top globally, will dictate
what the empire does.
Leave Afghanistan? I very much doubt it.
DJT will do what the "puppet masters" desire. Just like all his predecessors.
'Correction': No reliable census has been done in decades, but I don't think the Pashtun are
the majority in Afghanistan. They
are by far the largest minority however. British 'divide and rule' stategists long ago
deliberately separated them into Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Venezuela and Iran have two things in common. Both have large oil reserves and neither
recognize Israel.
Trump's wars will be about destroying enemies of Israel, and at the same time, achieving
global energy dominance.
I've posted this before. I met a Taliban leader and his two guards in a brutal area during
the Hearts and Minds Schtick, preparatory to Cheney getting all the oil and gas, and copper
and iron and coming coal lease awards.
He was a nice guy, the Taliban leader. His guards looked at me with absolute death in
their eyes. Not wanting them to hear him, as we finished our tea, the Taliban leader leaned
close, then whispered, 'I love your Jesus, but I hate your Crusaders.'
And I take issue with the US 'incompetence' meme. Ever since Cheney hosted the Taliban in
Texas in 1998, trying to get a TAPI pipeline, the US has deliberately and cunningly taken
over the country, assassinated the local-level leadership, and installed their foreign Shah,
first Karzai, then Ghani.
In that time of occupation, 18 years, Pentagon MIC disappeared TRILLIONS in shrink-wrapped
pallets of $100s, and ballooned from $340B a year, to now Trump is saying $840B a year.
That's not incompetence. Just the opposite.
Now, to honor my Afghan friends, who love to joke even after 35+ years of machine warfare,
a joke I wrote in their honor:
Ring ring ring ring
"Office of the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan!"
"BRRZZZBRRZZZV..."
"Hold please."
President Reagan, it's the Iranian ambassador!"
"Well hello Mr. Assinabindstani, what can I do for you?"
"BRRZZZBRRZZZV..."
"Well I'll get my staff right on it."
[Intercomm clicks]
"Hey Ollie, the Ayatollah wants more guns! Step on it!"
Actually, the British paid an annual tithe-tribute the the Afghan king to stop raiding
their India holdings, and agreed to a neutral zone between them. Then when the British pulled
out, they declared the neutral zone as Pakistan and shrunk India away from Pashtun territory
to create a bigger divide. The Afghan leaders had no say in the matter. I believe Baluchistan
was also carved away. At one time, Afghan control extended from Persia to the Indus Valley.
There is no way to defeat a nation of warriors who created a kingdom that vast, while William
the Conqueror was still running around in bear skin diapers.
@41 'Afghan control extended from Persia to the Indus Valley.'
You are probably referring to the Khalji Dynasty, a brutal bunch, who ruled India from
1290 to 1320 by which time William the Conqueror was long dead. You would be a lot more
credible if you got your history right.
IMHO the military Budget increase, and what an increase it is!
is part of worsening an already outrageous situation to reach a caricatural point. Typical of
trump repeated special "art".
Of course Nobody in USA, no President can go against the MIC and Pentagon.
But money is cheap when you print it.
It is sugaring the intended shrinking of foreign deployments (as in NATO), closure of
"facilities" and replacing them officially with total deterrence capacities (Space Forces
anybody ?).
While keeping classical projection capacities for demonstration against backward
tribes.
...
From its side, Iran is refusing to even meet Trump, two reasons: 1) If Iran agrees to meet,
it would mean they agree to renegotiate the deal, which they dont. 2) US word isnt worth a
toilet paper, so any negotiations is meaningless. Plus US list of demands makes even endeavor
to negotiate dead from the get go.
Posted by: Harry | Jul 30, 2018 7:53:57 PM | 29
Tru-ish but Trump's latest offer is, according to the MSM, "no pre-conditions." It's quite
likely that Iran's allies have advised the Iranians to tell Trump to Go F*ck yourself (if you
feel you must), but then satisfy yourselves that Trump's No Preconditions means what Iran
wants it to mean.
Trump jumped into the NK and Putin talks first because both were eager to talk. Iran will
be a good test of Trump's seduction skills. All he's got to do is persuade the Iranians that
talking is more useful than swapping long-distance insults. Iranians are rusted onto logical
principles and Trump will find a way to appeal to that trait, imo.
It's too late for the afghanis who have been driven into the urban areas during the regulaar
'Afghanistanisation' campaigns. Most of them will have become hooked on consumerism and the
necessity of dollars.
That leaves only two options for the Taliban when they take over as they undoubtedly will
altho that is likely to mean having to tolerate clutches of obese amerikans lurking in some
Px strewn green zone, the inhabitants of which are likely to have less contact with people
from Afghanistan than any regular user of a Californian shopping mall. The new government can
ignore the consumerists even when these rejects insist on getting lured into some nonsense
green revolution - the danger with this isn't the vapid protests which can easily be dealt
with by fetching a few mobs of staunch citizens from rural Afghanistan who will quickly teach
them that neither cheeseburgers nor close captioned episodes of daytime television provide
sufficient nutrition to handle compatriots raised on traditional food and Islam. Or the new
administration can do as other traditional regimes have done many times over the last 80
years or so, purge the consumerists by disappearing the leadership and strewing empty lots in
the urban areas with mutilated corpses of a few of the shitkicker class consumerists. That
option can cause a bit of a fuss but it (the fuss) generally only lasts as long as the purge.
I suspect the Afghan government will favour the latter approach but they may try to hold
off until the North has been brought back into line. OTH, consumerism is a highly contagious
condition so, unless the North can be pacified speedily which seems unlikely, initially at
least the Taliban adminsitration may have to fight on two fronts, agin the North while they
nip urban consumerists in the bud before those confused fools can cause any highly publicised
in the west but in actuality, low key, attempted insurrection.
My advice to the gaming, TV or cheeseburger addicted inhabitants of Kabul would be to
volunteer your services to the amerikan military as a 'translator' asap and join yer cobbers
in California.
It is unlikely that you will bump into Roman Brady especially not when he is in one
of his avuncular moods, but if you stay outta Texas, Florida or any other part of flyover
amerika chocka with alcohol induced blowhardism, you will discover than amerikan racism isn't
as lethal as it once was.
Apart from having to ignore being jostled in the line at fast food joints and being loudly
and incorrectly termed a motherf**in sand n***er mid-jostle. Certainly a whole lot less
lethal than trying to cover your Fortnite jones by waving a badly copywritten sign in front
of the al-Jazeera cameras for a one month
battle pass .
What was happening in Kabul, Afghanistan less than 8 hours after the WTC Towers turned into
dust in midair? Who here remembers the massive bombing/cruise missile attack?
Here is CNN's transcript:
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: "Well, Joie, it's about 2:30 in the morning here in
Kabul. We've been hearing explosions around the perimeter of the city. We're in a position
here which gives us a view over the whole city. We just had an impact, perhaps a few miles
away.
"If I listen, you can hear the ripple of explosions around the city. Perhaps you heard
there. The fifth explosion -- sixth explosion, I think. Gun bursts and star bursts in the
air. Tracer fire is coming up out of the city. I hear aircraft flying above the city of
Kabul. Perhaps we've heard half a dozen to 10 detonations on the perimeter of the city,
some coming from the area close to the airport. I see on the horizon what could be a fire
on the horizon, close, perhaps, to where the airport might be. A flash came up then from
the airport. Some ground fire coming up here in Kabul."
"I've been in Belgrade and I've been in Baghdad and seen cruise missiles arrive in both
those cities. The detonations we're hearing in Kabul right now certainly sound like the
detonations of loud missiles that are coming in. "
"Certainly -- certainly it would appear that the Afghan defense systems have detected a
threat in the air. They are launching what appears to be anti-aircraft defense systems at
the moment. Certainly, I can see that fire that was blazing on the horizon. It was a faint
yellow; it's now a bright orange blazing. Several other detonations going off around the
city, multiple areas. Rockets appear to be taking off from one end of the airport. I can
see that perhaps located about 8 or 9 miles away from where we stand, Joie."
The bombing/explosions continue for 10+ minutes of this broadcast.
Then, they cut to WILLIAM COHEN, FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: who says the US is only
collecting intelligence. He says what we're seeing must be part of the "Civil War" (despite
the fact that neither side had an air force or cruise missiles). The Pentagon later denies
knowing anything about it.
Then, CNN returns to Nic Robertson, who- within 15 minutes of his first report - begins to
change his tune. Suddenly, the jet sounds are not mentioned. The cruise missiles (jet
engines) have transformed into possible rockets. The airport fire is now an ammunition
dump.
And voila! They lose their connection and Nic will not be heard from again. And this
little bit of history will essentially disappear.
Dear Mr. B,
"All these U.S. mistakes made in the early days are still haunting the country."
These mistakes are by design. To cause and keep causing destabilisation.
I like to refer to it as the 3-letter Scrabble method of doing things.
Me living in the Netherlands as I do, let me take the example of Greece.
Greece had its regime changed in 1948 (Wiki says 46-49).
And how is Greece doing these days? ...
@37 yep, gotta agree with the more passimistic outlook here. Personally i'll eat my shoes if
US leaves Afghanistan within any reasonable time frame. In addition to plentiful natural
resources, there are very influential vested interests in Afghanistans booming opium
industry.
Off topic: Andrei Nekrasov's 'Magnitsky Act: Behind the Scenes' can be viewed in full on You
Tube at this moment (31 July, 08:15 Amsterdam time). Can it also be seen in the USA, I
wonder? How long will it take before Google take it down ? Watch it and learn about one of
the main drivers of the Russia obsession.
Tru-ish but Trump's latest offer is, according to the MSM, "no pre-conditions." It's quite
likely that Iran's allies have advised the Iranians to tell Trump to Go F*ck yourself (if
you feel you must), but then satisfy yourselves that Trump's No Preconditions means what
Iran wants it to mean.
White House just explained what Trump's "no preconditions" means: 1) Iran should at the
core change how it deals with its own people. 2) Change its evil stance in foreign policy. 3)
Agree on nuclear agreement which would REALLY prevent them making a nuke.
In other words, Iran should capitulate and become a client state, thats what Trump means
by "no preconditions."
At this advanced stage of American insanity, I don't see why the devil should have all the
best tunes. I'm sick of the yanks doing this shit in over people's county's ! While they
stuff there fat faces with burgers and donuts! The dirty games they play on over country's,
should now be played in America with all the brutality that they have used on others. Until
that happens things world wide will continue to detriate. Natural justice is all that
remains. They'v curupted all else.
@19 "The US already started to plan an invasion of Afghanistan in januari & february of
2001."
Well, to be fair the USA probably has plans to invade lots of countries.
Indeed, it would be more interesting to consider how many countries there are that the USA
*doesn't* have invasion plans gathering dust on the shelves.
It's just been reported on the bbc news---- the man responsible for the Manchester bombing
had been 'rescued from Lybia when Gadafi was overthrown and tracked ever since. Even in
Britain up to the day of the bombing ! And now on this post we discuss America uk
transporting terrorists from Syria to Afganistan . Not to mention the white helmet bunch and
where Ther going! The Manchester bombing, Westminster bridge and London Bridge atacks were
done by the Tory party to win a general election ! This is the reality of the world we live
in.full on oppression !!!
Indeed, I agree with the sentiments here. But missing a big part of the picture.
Afghanistan and Pakistan have sky-high fertility rates. Forget the rubbish peddled by
economist-whores like Milton Friedman, under these conditions no country without an open
frontier has ever developed into anything other than a larger mass of poverty. In Pakistan
something like half the children are so malnourished that they grow up stunted, and it is
this misery that is starting slow population growth. Pakistan is yet another example of the
Malthusian holocaust, which is not a global catastrophe: it is slow grinding poverty that
results when people have more children than they can support.
Bottom line: these places will remain poor and unstable no matter what lunacy the United
States does or does not do. The traditional approach to such places is to leave them alone,
and only keep them from escaping. Bottled up, the Afghanis and Pakistanis will kill only each
other. 9/11 is a consequence of allowing people from these places free access to the Untied
States.
The 'war on terror' is a consequence of 'there shall be open borders.' It's a big and
messy world, and even if the government of the United States was not criminally incompetent,
there would be a lot of misery and hatred in it. Open borders means that now the Untied
States has to intervene in every country all over the world to ensure that nowhere can there
develop terrorist cells. An impossible task.
Charles Michael @ 44
I agree with the caricature nature of much of this. I don't think there will be a next
target. The MIC has become bloated while Iran, Syria, Russia, China are turning out true
fighters as well as stronger economic planning.
div
Charles Michael @ 44
I agree with the caricature nature of much of this. I don't think there will be a next
target. The MIC has become bloated while Iran, Syria, Russia, China are turning out true
fighters as well as stronger economic planning.
The US still has some resources and some use but needs to continue to make friends in the
pattern of Kim and Putin and give up on its self defeating economic and military sabotage
planning which has been exposed as morally bankrupt as well.
In a conversation with the Financial Times last week, Henry Kissinger made a highly
significant remark about President Donald Trump's attempt to improve the United States'
relations with Russia. The conversation took place in the backdrop of the Helsinki summit on
July 16. Kissinger said: "I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from
time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretences. It doesn't
necessarily mean that he knows this, or that he is considering any great alternative. It could
just be an accident."
Kissinger did not elaborate, but the drift of his thought is consistent with opinions he has
voiced in the past – the US' steady loss of influence on global arena, rise of China and
resurgence
of Russia necessitating a new global balance .
As far back as 1972 in a discussion with Richard Nixon on his upcoming trip to China,
signifying the historic opening to Beijing, Kissinger could visualize such a rebalancing
becoming necessary in future. He expressed the view that compared with the Soviets (Russians),
the Chinese were "just as dangerous. In fact, they're more dangerous over a historical period."
Kissinger added, "in 20 years your (Nixon's) successor, if he's as wise as you, will wind up
leaning towards the Russians against the Chinese."
Kissinger argued that the United States, which sought to profit from the enmity between
Moscow and Beijing in the Cold War era, would therefore need "to play this balance-of-power
game totally unemotionally. Right now, we need the Chinese to correct the Russians and to
discipline the Russians." But in the future, it would be the other way around.
Of course, Kissinger is not the pioneer of US-Russia-China 'triangular diplomacy'. It is no
secret that in the 1950s, the US did all it could to drive a wedge between Mao Zedong and
Nikita Khrushchev. The accent was on isolating "communist China". Khrushchev's passion for
'peaceful co-existence' following his summit with Dwight Eisenhower in 1959 at Camp David
became a defining moment in Sino-Soviet schism.
But even as Sino-Soviet schism deepened (culminating in the bloody conflict in Ussuri River
in 1969), Nixon reversed the policy of Eisenhower and opened the line to Beijing, prioritizing
the US' global competition with the Soviet Union. The de-classified Cold-War archival materials
show that Washington seriously pondered over the possibility of a wider Sino-Soviet war. One
particular memorandum of the US State Department recounts an incredible moment in Cold War
history – a KGB officer querying about American reaction to a hypothetical Soviet attack
on Chinese nuclear weapons facilities.
Then there is a memo written for Kissinger's attention by then influential China watcher
Allen S. Whiting warning of the danger of a Soviet attack on China. Clearly, 1969 was a pivotal
year when the US calculus was reset based on estimation that Sino-Soviet tensions provided a
basis for Sino-American rapprochement. It led to the dramatic overture by Nixon and Kissinger
to open secret communications with China through Pakistan and Romania.
Will Putin fall for Trump's bait? Well, it depends. To my mind, there is no question Putin
will see a great opening here for Russia. But it will depend on what's on offer from the US.
Putin's fulsome praise for Trump on North Korean issue and the latter's warm response was a
meaningful exchange at Helsinki, has been a good beginning to underscore Moscow's keenness to
play a broader role in the Asia-Pacific.
Beijing must be watching the 'thaw' at Helsinki with some unease. The Chinese Foreign
Ministry spokesperson welcomed the Helsinki summit. But the mainstream assessment by Chinese
analysts is that nothing much is going to happen since the contradictions in the US-Russia
relations are fundamental and Russophobia is all too pervasive within the US establishment.
The government-owned China Daily carried an editorial – Has the meeting
in Helsinki reset US-Russia relations? – where it estimates that at best, "
Helsinki summit represents a good beginning for better relations between the US and Russia."
Notably, however, the editorial is pessimistic about any real US-Russia breakthrough, including
on Syria, the topic that Putin singled out as a test case of the efficacy of Russian-American
cooperation.
On the other hand, the Chinese Communist Party tabloid Global Times featured an editorial
giving a stunning analysis of what has prompted Trump to pay such attention ("respect") to
Russia -- China
can learn from Trump's respect for Russia . It concludes that the only conceivable
reason could be that although Russia is not an economic power, it has retained influence on the
global stage due to military power:
Trump has repeatedly stressed that Russia and the US are the two biggest nuclear powers
in the world, with their combined nuclear arsenal accounting for 90 percent of world's total,
and thus the US must live in peace with Russia. On US-Russia relations, Trump is
clearheaded.
On the contrary, if the US is piling pressure on China today, it is because China, although
an economic giant, is still a weak military power. Therefore:
China's nuclear weapons have to not only secure a second strike but also play the role
of cornerstone in forming a strong deterrence so that outside powers dare not intimidate
China militarily Part of the US' strategic arrogance may come from its absolute nuclear
advantage China must speed up its process of developing strategic nuclear power Not only
should we possess a strong nuclear arsenal, but we must also let the outside world know
that China is determined to defend its core national interests with nuclear power.
Indeed, if the crunch time comes, China will be on its own within the Kissingerian triangle.
And China needs to prepare for such an eventuality. On the other hand, China's surge to create
a vast nuclear arsenal could make a mockery of the grand notions in Moscow and Washington that
they are the only adults in the room in keeping the global strategic balance.
"To my mind, there is no question Putin will see a great opening here for Russia."
So, what exactly can Trump offer Russia? Letting them "win" in Syria, when the Syrian
people, lead by Assad and aided by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, have already won?
Perhaps, it is the return of bankrupt and banderised Ukraine? Now that would be a
prize!
Perhaps, Trump could offer the withdrawal of NATO forces from Russia's borders and a
place in the "international community"? That worked out well in the 90s, didn't it?
Maybe, relief from sanctions could be the clincher? That would rescue the "tattered"
Russian economy, wouldn't it?
The Nixon to China gambit by Trump ignores the stark reality that Trump is in office but
not in power. The entire media and the "intelligence community" has been angling to
impeach him since his election, and they may well succeed after the mid-terms.
Why would Putin and loyal Russians take any offer to dump China seriously?
Besides, Putin and loyal Russians have seen through the true reasons behind what can only
be called anti Russian RACIST hysteria.
Its not ideological or cultural. It is an ancient urge: Russia must submit to the
US/EU/NATO Borg Collective, or be destroyed. Could anyone have missed the rant in the US
media, incited by the "intelligence community", which just happened to be "thrown under
the bus", by Trump, just because he met Putin?
Trump is also going to be the victim of the same urge.
He cannot be controlled, so he must be destroyed.
Simples!
The Yanks will start their endless electioneering soon, four years is nothing, the
dolts start the game going for new president years berfore the election date. Sure they
hate any nation that stands-up to them they actually beleive they have a god-given righ
to rule the world as they spread their sick ways around the globe calling them freedom?
choice?, playing one nation against the other is an old game, lets hope Russia never
crosses China, as together they can keep the war-monger, nation-destroyer two faced snake
USA in check.
"Why would Putin and loyal Russians take any offer to dump China seriously?"
There is not even room for that question. Russia is STRATEGIC partner of China and
they never contemplate under no circumstances to have that differently.... Whoever thinks
Russia might take some offer in consideration to turn against China is DEAD WRONG.
"... I do think the credit for this goes to the Clinton campaign, the "intelligence" agencies, the neoconlib biparty and individuals like McCain, who have gone to McCarthyism lengths since before the GOP primaries ended to prevent Trump from attempting *any* change of the status quo on foreign policy. Granted, the man might be ineffectual no matter what, but we will never know. The US establishment and the retainers of the war profiteering classes have made any negotiations with Russia impossible long before Trump even announced his campaign. ..."
"... it is the unholy alliance of Democrats looking for an excuse for them losing the election and Cold War hawk neocons who have Russia-hate in their DNA (and their stock portfolios)). ..."
"... The embarrassment was the reaction in the MSM showcasing how they are now CIA state run media. They trot out former high ranking CIA officers now employed by them recycling every meme to reinforce that we are the forces goodness and light and anyone strong enough to oppose us is evil. ..."
"Trump has made it politically impossible to pursue that goal in the near term."
I do think the credit for this goes to the Clinton campaign, the "intelligence" agencies,
the neoconlib biparty and individuals like McCain, who have gone to McCarthyism lengths since
before the GOP primaries ended to prevent Trump from attempting *any* change of the status
quo on foreign policy. Granted, the man might be ineffectual no matter what, but we will
never know. The US establishment and the retainers of the war profiteering classes have made
any negotiations with Russia impossible long before Trump even announced his campaign.
We also should not forget to credit the GOP for test-driving the whole "weak on Russia"
playbook during the Obama years.
I agree with b. While Trump may not be savvy enough to calibrate his engagement with Putin in
a way that would allow a proper dialogue with Russia in spite of the political backdrop in
the US, the primary blame for any failure to allow such dialogue rests for those responsible
for creating that political backdrop that makes it so difficult in the first place (hint:
it's not Trump, unless you blame him for winning the election – rather it is the unholy
alliance of Democrats looking for an excuse for them losing the election and Cold War hawk
neocons who have Russia-hate in their DNA (and their stock portfolios)).
That Putin talked up the Iran deal in the press conference makes me wonder what was said in
the one-on-one. Couldn't have pleased the Adelson/Bolton wing.
Additionally there has yet to be any actual evidence presented re significant election
interference. Indictments are accusations, not evidence.
I saw nothing particularly wrong with the press conference. I'm no Trump fan, but he was just
saying he believed Putin rather than the people who are clearly trying to bring his
administration down. Can't really blame him.
The embarrassment was the reaction in the MSM showcasing how they are now CIA state run
media.
They trot out former high ranking CIA officers now employed by them recycling every meme
to reinforce that we are the forces goodness and light and anyone strong enough to oppose us
is evil.
CNN even used Putin's dearly departed Labrador, Konni making her look like Cujo stating
that Putin use her to terrorize Angela Merkel. A U.S. Congressman fumed that the 50,000
children died in Syria because this fiend supported Assad when Syria was about to be
liberated (a number suspiciously close to the true number of Yemeni children we helped to
kill). These are just two random examples in a very long day. It was
a show worthy of the priests of Baal who confronted Elijah.
As flawed as Trump may be, he is merely holding up a mirror to what we have become. Had we
elected a conventional candidate it would just be business as usual with these seething
hatreds buried just below the surface.
No one better suggest that we should tarnish ourselves talking to the likes of a Russian
leader unless we are discussing terms of surrender. We want Yeltsin or maybe Medvedev.
The USA can't compete on price and volume. But dir to dvassal status of EU can still force
"diversification"
Notable quotes:
"... As a result, Europeans are deciding to stick with the Russians while finding new options in the east, such as Turkey and Azerbaijan. This is creating competition if not tensions in present and potential gas transit countries in southeastern and eastern Europe, for example. ..."
Russia has advanced forward in something of a tactical and potential strategic victory in
the Russo-Western gas war. This is a three-party war, with the US, EU, and Russia each
promoting separate interests. It is one sphere where a united West has failed to 'isolate
Russia.' The US seeks move in on the European energy market with LNG supplies and replace
Russian pipeline-delivered natural gas supplies to Europe. Washington is using the risks of
dependence on Russian gas and Russia's 'bad behavior' as leverage in attempting to convince
Europeans to reject Russia's Nord Stream 2 pipeline. Russia is said to be unreliable and prone
to shut off gas supplies to Europe.
Due to past Russian-Ukrainian gas crises, the Ukrainian crisis, and general Russian-Western
tensions, Europe has decided on a gas diversification policy in which each EU member should
have at least three sources of natural gas supply. One additional option that could facilitate
this diversification policy is US liquified natural gas (LNG), but the US is still unable to
supply enough LNG to offset Russian gas supplies that might be rejected by Europe. In the
process, Washington is looking less like a 'team West' player and more like a solely
self-interested power maximizer in European eyes and therefore no more reliable than Moscow. As
a result, Europeans are deciding to stick with the Russians while finding new options in the
east, such as Turkey and Azerbaijan. This is creating competition if not tensions in present
and potential gas transit countries in southeastern and eastern Europe, for example.
The Battle Over Re-Sale: No Victors
One recent battle was largely inconclusive, but if a victor has to be designated it may be
Moscow. In May, the European Commssion concluded a settlement with Russia's Gazprom in May
ending a seven-year anti-trust dispute. In return for the EU dropping billions of dollars in
penalty fees, GazProm agreed to end limitations on the use of gas purchased by EU members,
allow them to re-sell the gas. Some EU members, such as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia,
Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia have re-sold or wanted to re-sell gas. Moscow
frowned, for example, on Slovakia's resale of natural gas to Ukraine at cheaper prices than
Moscow sought to charge Kiev. The agreement will also restrict Moscow's ability to charge
different countries different prices. So EU members in central and eastern Europe can get a
price close to that paid by Germany and appeal to an arbitration court in case of a dispute.
The agreement guarantees Russia's presence on the European gas market at a time when the
latter's reliance on the former has peaked.
The Northern Front: Nord Stream 2
At the same time, the battle over Russia' Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline has heated up.
When it comes on line in 2019, the 759-mile pipeline will carry GazProm natural gas along the
bed of the Baltic Sea to Germany and double the supply Nord Stream pipeline's current annual
capacity of 55 billion cubic meters (bcm). The Trump administration has threatened yet more
sanctions on third-party companies, this time with those that work on the pipeline. The US
sanctions threat is an attempt to promote American LNG interests as well as to protect
Ukrainian interests, though it contradicts the view that Ukraine should eschew its dependence
on Russian gas.
US officials have been hammering home to Europeans the 'Russian threat' in tandem with the
risk of reliance on Russian gas may pose, which will increase with Nord tream 2, but to no
avail. Public opinion is not working in the US favor, with Germans trusting Moscow more than
Washington, despite all the crimes laid at the Kremlin's door by the West. A recent ZDF
Television opinion survey found that only 14 percent of Germans regard the U.S. as a reliable
partner, while 36 percent view Russia as reliable (
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-17/trump-s-global-disruption-pushes-merkel-closer-to-putin-s-orbit
). Thus, notwithstanding Ukraine, Syria and alleged chemical attacks, Russiagate, and the
Skrypals, GazProm's supplies to Europe have risen to hold nearly 40 percent of its gas market,
growing last year by 8.1 percent last year to a record level of 193.9 billion cubic metres
(bcm).
Nevertheless, with the EU decision, the U.S., Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania and others have
stepped up their pressure on Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and other western Eureopean EU
members to abandon the Nord Stream 2 project. Germans and other western Europeans are unlikely
to give up the short-term gain of energy security for the US LNG given the higher price and
unproven nature of Washington's numerous allegations against the Kremlin. German officials say
they still have no proof from 10 Downing on Russia's culpability for the Skrypal poisoning so
loudly trumpeted by British PM Theresa May.
One motivation for the Russians in building Nord Stream 2 is to obviate the need to
transport gas through Ukraine, which will hurt Ukraine's own energy supply – given
Ukrainian skimming -- and overall economy beyond the present non-sale of Russian gas to
Ukraine. Another Russian motivation is to avert the unreliable Ukrainians, who have failed to
make payments according to contract in the past causing Russian gas cutoffs to Ukraine and thus
Europe with the resulting crises blamed solely on Moscow. The Trump sanctions threat has put
Germany and the other Nord Stream 2 supporting countries between a rock and a hard place,
between Russia and the US. Therefore, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, while supporting Nord
Stream 2, has called for guarantees from Russia that Ukraine will remain a gas transit country.
Ukraine's current contract with Russia ends in 2019 at the very time Nord Stream 2 is to go on
line and the EU has urged re-starting EU-mediated negotiatons now in order to avoid another gas
crisis. Putin agreed to do this at his meeting with Germany's merkel in late May. Nord Stream 2
significantly strengthens Putin's hand in any such talks.
The Southern Front: Turkish Stream, SGC and the Azeri and Bulgarian Factors
Russia is strengtheining its position on the European gas war's southern front by building
the Turkish Stream (TS) gas pipeline to Europe. TS consists of a sea and a land leg. The former
runs under the Black Sea from Russia to Turkey and is built, with Russo-Turkish talks on the
land leg ongoing.
Russia's Turkish Stream is being challenged by the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) backed by
Western powers, including the EU (along with Turkey and Azerbaijan), which sees the SGC as a
means of diversifying from dependence on Russia. Not just Turkey, but Azerbaijan is emerging as
a major player on the EU gas market, with a shift in policy accenting gas supplies to Europe as
well as oil supplies as in the past. The SGC consists of three components: an expanded South
Caucasus Pipeline and the to be constructed Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) and
Trans-Adriatic Pipeline (TAP). TANAP is 51 percent Azerbaijani owned, 37 percent Turkish, and
12 percent belonging to British Petroleum. The SGC will carry Azerbaijani gas through Turkey to
Europe and will be able to supply up to one-third of the gas consumed by Bulgaria, Greece and
Italy ( https://en.trend.az/business/energy/2910573.html
). However, the source of the gas supplying the pipeline demonstrates the limits of Western
attempts to isolate Russia (and Iran). Azerbaijan's Shah-Deniz gas field is co-owned by British
Petroleum (29 percent), Turkey's Turkish Petroleum (19 percent), Azerbaijan's SOCAR (17
percent), Malaysia's Petronas (15 percent), Russia's LukOil (10 percent), and Iran's NICO (10
percent). Moreover, Russia's LukOil is negotiating with SOCAR a stake in Azerbaijan's
second-largest gas field, Umid-Babek, which also includes Britain's Nobel Upstream (
https://newsbase.com/topstories/lukoil-talks-join-umid-babek-project?utm_campaign=466286_GERD%2031%20May%202018&utm_medium=email&utm_source=NewsBase%20LTD&dm_i=4NTN,9ZSE,2Q5R2D,13DVS,1
).
Again the Ukrainian issue is part of the picture here, as a good portion of GasProm supplies
to Bulgaria go through Ukraine. Turkish Stream can replace at least some of that supply should
Moscow decide to entirely avert Ukraine's pipeline system. It is of interest that no one in the
West has offered to include in any of these projects or attempted to fashion a pipeline or
pipeline extension that could link up with the Ukrainian network.
During Bulgarian President Rumen Radev's late may visit to Moscow, Putin reported to Radev
that during his meetings with Turkish President Recip Tayyip Erdogan, the latter said he would
pose no oppsotion to extending the Turkish Stream gas pipeline to Bulgaria. In response, Radev
seemed to suggest making Bulgaria a "a gas redistribution center, a hub" for the Turkish
Stream's supplies further into Europe ( http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/57608
). Moreover, one gets the impression that Bulgaria is wary more about its dependence on Turkey
and Ankara's new offensive energy policy in Europe than on Russia and might help Moscow detour
Ukraine. In 2015, Erdogan declared a major policy initiative of making Turkey a, if not
the major energy transit hub for supplies heading from the east to Europe. Russia's
annexation of Crimea could help Russia in its talks both with Erdogan over the Turkish Stream
and pose the threat of undermining the SGC. It may also help Putin deal with Merkel, Kiev and
the EU over the Ukraine pipeline system's future role. Bulgarian President Radev also said in
Moscow that Sofia supports building a direct gas pipeline under the Black Sea to bring Russian
gas to Bulgaria ( https://echo.msk.ru/news/2206394-echo.html ).
The Bulgarian option could be used by Putin to threaten Erdogan with reducing the Turkish
Stream's supplies or abandoning it altogether in favor of a Black Sea Russian-Bulgarian Stream
and to reduce Russia's dependence on Ukraine as well.
"... While agree totally with what Col. Davis says here about ending America's involvement in the Afghanistan War. Way to many are profiting from this long-term misadventure. ..."
"... Eminently sensible advice, except that Trump can't take it without being greeted with a hysterical chorus of "we're losing Afghanistan ZOMG!" (as if we ever had it) and "Putin puppet!" ..."
"... "Of course most Americans are clueless about the cost of these wars and how it impacts money necessary to re-build our country infrastructures." ..."
"... Completely disagree. I don't know a single individual who supports the war in Afghanistan or misunderstands its costs. The American people just have no say in the matter. ..."
"... Finally, they realise what St Ronnie knew in the 1980s. He created the Taliban we know today via Operation Cyclone. Maybe Ollie North can lead the negotiations? He seems to have a good channel to the Iranians ..."
"... Putting together Sid_finster's and spite's comments paints an interesting picture. Aside from war profiteering (Fran Macadam) there is no real purpose served by our occupation except to be there. ..."
"... I'll go a step further and say that the invasion of Afghanistan was unnecessary too. We were not attacked by Afghanistan. We were not even attacked by the Taliban. We were attacked by al Quaida, by teams comprised mostly of Saudi Arabians. ..."
"... It cannot be repeated too often that Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. Let the Taliban have it. ..."
"... What the Army could not do, and still cannot do, is transform a tribal society in isolated mountainous terrain into a liberal democracy. As LTC Davis observes: "The reason McChrystal failed to end the war -- and Miller will likewise fail -- is that these objectives can't be militarily accomplished." ..."
"... The conclusion of this simple argument is that the war in Afghanistan actually has almost nothing to do with that country and almost entirely to do with the political and economic demands arising from the US .nothing to do with Afghanistan other than the destruction of the place and its people. ..."
We have no choice. The 17-year war in Afghanistan has failed at every level, while the violence is only
getting worse.
Reports have surfaced recently that the White House is
instructing
its senior diplomats
to begin seeking "direct talks with the Taliban." It's a
measure that would have been unthinkable at the start of the Afghanistan war yet today it's long overdue. Despite the
criticism it's elicited, such talks offer the best chance of ending America's longest and most futile war.
While there is broad agreement that American leaders were justified in launching military
operations in Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks, it's painfully evident after 17 years that no one has any idea how
to end the fighting on military terms.
Possibly the biggest impediment to ending the war has been the definition of the word
"win." General
Stanley McChrystal
said in 2009 that winning in
Afghanistan meant "reversing the perceived momentum" of the Taliban, "seek[ing] rapid growth of Afghan national security
forces," and "tackl[ing] the issue of predatory corruption by some" Afghan officials.
Nine full years and zero successes later, however, Lieutenant General Austin S.
Miller, latest in line to command U.S. troops in Afghanistan, defined as America's "core goal" at his
confirmation hearing
that "terrorists can never again use Afghanistan as a
safe haven to threaten the United States."
The reason McChrystal failed to end the war -- and Miller will likewise fail -- is that
these objectives
can't be militarily accomplished.
Predicating an end to the war on such is to guarantee perpetual failure. A major course correction is therefore in
order.
Keeping 15,000 U.S. troops on the ground in Afghanistan does not,
in any way
, prevent terror attacks against the
United States from originating there -- and for this lack of success we will pay at least
$45 billion
this year alone. The real solution
is therefore to withdraw our troops as quickly as can be safely accomplished rather than throw more of them into a
fruitless conflict.
I personally observed in 2011 during my second combat deployment in Afghanistan that
even with 140,000 U.S. and NATO boots on the ground, there were still vast swaths of the country that were ungoverned
and off-limits to allied troops.
Meaning, at no point since October 2001 has American military power prevented
Afghanistan from having ungoverned spaces. What
has
kept us safe, however -- and will continue to keep us safe -- has been our robust, globally
focused
intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities that work in concert with the CIA, FBI, and local law
enforcement to defend our borders from external attack.
Many pundits claim that if the U.S. military withdraws from Afghanistan then chaos
will reign there -- and that is almost certainly true. But that's how we found Afghanistan, that's how it is today,
and -- wholly irrespective of when or under what conditions the U.S. leaves -- that's how it will be long into the future
until Afghans themselves come to an accommodation.
The question U.S. policymakers need to ask is which is more important to American
interests: the maintenance of a perpetually costly war that fails to prevent any future attacks, or ending America's
participation in that war?
Continuing to fight for a country that can't be won cements a policy that has drained
the U.S. of vital resources, spilled the blood of American service members to no effect, and dissipated the Armed Forces'
ability to defend against potentially existential threats later on -- while in the meantime not diminishing the threat of
international terrorism. To strengthen our national security, we must end the enduring policy of failure by prudently
and effectively ending our military mission.
While the fundamentals of a withdrawal plan are relatively straightforward, they would
still be met by considerable opposition. One of the arguments against leaving was voiced by McChrystal nine years ago
when
he pleaded
with the American public to "show resolve" because "uncertainty
disheartens our allies [and] emboldens our foe." Yet the facts can't be denied any longer: for all eight years of the
Obama administration and the first 500 days of Trump's tenure, we maintained that "resolve" and were rewarded with an
unequivocal deterioration of the war.
Since McChrystal's admonition to maintain the status quo, the Taliban have exploded in
strength to
reportedly 77,000
, more territory is now in the
hands of the insurgents than at
any point since 2001
, the Afghan government
remains one of the
most corrupt regimes
on the planet, and
civilian casualties in the first half of 2018 are the
highest ever recorded
.
The only way this permanent failure ends is if President Trump shows the courage he
has sometimes demonstrated to push back against the Washington establishment. That means ignoring the status quo that
holds our security hostage, ending the war, and redeploying our troops. Without that resolve, we can count on continued
failure in Afghanistan. With it, American security will be strengthened and readiness improved.
Daniel L. Davis is a senior fellow at Defense Priorities and a former lieutenant
colonel in the U.S. Army who retired in 2015 after 21 years, including four combat deployments. Follow him on Twitter
@DanielLDavis1
.
While agree totally with what Col. Davis says here about ending America's involvement in the Afghanistan War.
Way to many are profiting from this long-term misadventure. The only way these wars of choice will ever end is
when Congress has the balls to cut off funding. Of course most Americans are clueless about the cost of these
wars and how it impacts money necessary to re-build our country infrastructures. Military madness indeed.
Eminently sensible advice, except that Trump can't take it without being greeted with a hysterical chorus of
"we're losing Afghanistan ZOMG!" (as if we ever had it) and "Putin puppet!"
If Trump were going to leave, he
should have done so soon after taking office. At least then he could blame his predecessors.
The financial security of the National Security State and its suppliers now depends on no war ever ending or
being won. The new definition of defeat is having any war end. As long as it continues, that war is being won.
"Of course most Americans are clueless about the cost of these wars and how it impacts money necessary to
re-build our country infrastructures."
Completely disagree. I don't know a single individual who supports the
war in Afghanistan or misunderstands its costs.
The American people just have no say in the matter.
There is only one reason why the USA is still in Afghanistan that makes sense (all the official reasons are an
insult to ones intelligence), it borders on Iran and thus serves as a means to open a new front against Iran.
The more the US pushes for war against Iran, the more this seems correct.
"Reports have surfaced recently that the White House is instructing its senior diplomats to begin seeking
"direct talks with the Taliban."
I have to give my Jr High response here:
"Well, duh."
__________________
"While there is broad agreement that American leaders were justified in launching military operations in
Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks . . ."
Yeah . . . no.
1. They manipulated the game to make what was a crime an act of war to justify the an unnecessary,
unethical, and strategically unwise invasion. I remain now where I was 14 years ago -- bad decision in every
way.
2. It was even a poor decision based on reason for war. To utterly bend the will of the opponent to conform
to the will of the US. it is possible to win. But to do so would require such massive force, brutality and
will.
3. 9/11 was a simple criminal act, despite the damage. As a crime we should have sought extradition, and or
small team FBI and special forces operations to a small footprint in either capturing, and or if need be
killing Osama bin Laden and company.
Nothing that has occurred since 9/11 provides evidence that the invasion was either justified or effective.
It will if the end game is to quit be one of three losses suffered by the US.
They are: War of 1812
Iraq
Afghanistan
" . . . it's painfully evident after 17 years that no one has any idea how to end the fighting on military
terms."
Sure leave. Though talking so as to avert whole slaughter of those that aided the US is the decent thing to
do.
Finally, they realise what St Ronnie knew in the 1980s. He created the Taliban we know today via Operation
Cyclone. Maybe Ollie North can lead the negotiations? He seems to have a good channel to the Iranians
Solving USA problems in Afghanistan an at the same time pushing for war with Iran is by definition classic
oxymoron. Afghanistan's problems can only be solved with cooperation and understanding with Iran. Conflict of
the USA with Iran will extend indefinitely the suffering of the Afghanis and the eventual lose of the
Afghanistan and Iran to the Russia. Always reigniting and keeping on the front burner the conflict with Iran by
the USA is exactly what Russia and V. Putin want. I can't see any other politicians except D. Trump, B.
Netanyahu and American 'conservatives' for the advancement of the Russia's goals in the Middle East and in the
globalistan. These are the new XXI century 'useful (adjective)'.
Putting together Sid_finster's and spite's comments paints an interesting picture. Aside from war profiteering
(Fran Macadam) there is no real purpose served by our occupation except to be there.
I'll go a step further
and say that the invasion of Afghanistan was unnecessary too. We were not attacked by Afghanistan. We were not
even attacked by the Taliban. We were attacked by al Quaida, by teams comprised mostly of Saudi Arabians. This
should have been a dirty knife fight in all the back alleys of the world, but we responded to the sucker punch
as our attackers intended; getting into a brawl with somebody else in the same bar; eventually, with more than
one somebody else.
It cannot be repeated too often that Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires. Let the Taliban have it.
Indeed, but as others have commented, the entire point of the Afghanistan war is that it is pointless. It can
suck up enormous amounts of money, and generate incredible profits for politically connected defense
contractors – and because Afghanistan is in fact pointless, it doesn't matter if all of that money is wasted or
stolen, how could you tell? The vested interest in these winless pointless foreign wars means that they will
continue until the American economy finally collapses – and anyone who opposes these wars is a fascist, a
Russian stooge, "literally Hitler." Because money.
Thank you for this. I am very surprised to learn that Trump is pursuing this, given his pugilistic nature. I
hope he does in fact, get us the hell out of there. He may be, like Nixon, the one who is politically able to
make this smart move. Can you imagine the Republican outrage if Obama had tried a diplomatic exit from this
sand trap?
We can still be proud of what we attempted to do there. A few years post-9/11, an Afghan colleague of mine
who had come to the US as a boy said, "9/11 is the best thing to ever happen to Afghanistan." He meant that
rather than carpet bombing Afghanistan "back to the Stone Age," as the left predicted the US would do, we
poured billions of dollars in aide to build schools, hospitals, sewage and water plants, roads, etc.
"He meant that rather than carpet bombing Afghanistan "back to the Stone Age," as the left predicted the US
would do, we poured billions of dollars in aide to build schools, hospitals, sewage and water plants, roads,
etc."
And we could have done a lot more if we had not invaded. The Taliban had nothing to do with 9/11.
The achievable operational level Military objectives in the Afghan war were accomplished in the first year; The
Taliban were out of power and hiding in Pakistan and the Afghans had a somewhat benevolent government that
wanted to guarantee security an property and a measure of individual liberty.
What the Army could not do, and still cannot do, is transform a tribal society in isolated mountainous
terrain into a liberal democracy. As LTC Davis observes: "The reason McChrystal failed to end the war -- and
Miller will likewise fail -- is that these objectives can't be militarily accomplished."
This has been particularly true with the intense guerrilla actions enabled by the Pakistanis who have a
vested interest in an unstable Afghanistan.
I believe the noble goals 'might' have been doable – but it would have required a level of effort, and more
importantly a 'cultural confidence' on par with the Roman Empire of the 2nd Century to pull it off. That is no
longer us.
"9/11 is the best thing to ever happen to Afghanistan"? I bet none of his family members died or suffered.
Probably they are all living in the US. Are we supposed to feel proud that instead of carpet bombing and
killing millions our war killed only a hundred thousand?
Sadly, Kent, I do know people who still claim that our continued presence in Afghanistan is a good thing. Some
of these are otherwise fairly bright people, so I really can't comprehend why they continue to buy into this
idiocy.
Afghanistan must be Afghanistan and the US must be the US; this is such a simple tautology. If the US leaves,
Afghanistan will become what ever it can for its own reasons and options. If the US stays, it will be for the
US' reasons, not for the Afghans.
The conclusion of this simple argument is that the war in Afghanistan
actually has almost nothing to do with that country and almost entirely to do with the political and economic
demands arising from the US .nothing to do with Afghanistan other than the destruction of the place and its
people.
The article is long but very important and is worth a careful read. It shows that the
military/security complex has woven itself so tightly into the American social, economic, and
political fabric as to be untouchable. President Trump is an extremely brave or foolhardy
person to take on this most powerful and pervasive of all US institutions by trying to
normalize US relations with Russia, chosen by the military/security complex as the "enemy" that
justifies its enormous budget and power.
In 1961 President Eisenhower in his last public address to the American people warned us
about the danger to democracy and accountable government presented by the military/industrial
complex.
You can imagine how much stronger the complex is 57 years later after decades of Cold War
with the Soviet Union.
The Russian government, Russian media, and Russian people desperately need to comprehend how
powerful the US military/security complex is and how it is woven into the fabric of America. No
amount of diplomacy by Lavrov and masterful chess playing by Putin can possibly shake the
control over the United States exercised by the military/security complex.
Professor Roelofs has done a good deed for the American people and for the world in
assembling such extensive information documenting the penetration into every aspect of American
life of the military/security complex. It is a delusion that a mere President of the United
States can bring such a powerful, all-pervasive institution to heel and deprive it of its
necessary enemy.
For many people the "military-industrial-complex (MIC)" brings to mind the top twenty
weapons manufacturers. President Dwight Eisenhower, who warned about it in 1961, wanted to call
it the military- industrial-congressional-complex, but decided it was not prudent to do so.
Today it might well be called the military-industrial-congressional-almost-everything-complex.
Most departments and levels of government, businesses, and also many charities, social service,
environmental, and cultural organizations, are deeply embedded with the military.
The weapons industry may be spearheading the military budget and military operations; it is
aided immensely by the cheering or silence of citizens and their representatives. Here we will
provide some likely reasons for that assent. We will use the common typology of three national
sectors: government, business, and nonprofit, with varying amounts of interaction among them.
This does not preclude, though it masks somewhat, the proposition that government is the
executive of the ruling class.
Every kind of business figures in the Department of Defense (DoD) budget. Lockheed is
currently the largest contractor in the weapons business. It connects with the worldwide MIC by
sourcing parts, for example, for the F-35 fighter plane, from many countries. This helps a lot
to market the weapon, despite its low opinion among military experts as well as anti-military
critics. Lockheed also does civilian work, which enhances its aura while it spreads its
values.
Other types of businesses have enormous multi-year contracts -- in the billions. This
despite the constitutional proviso that Congress not appropriate military funds for more than a
two year term. Notable are the construction companies, such as Fluor, KBR, Bechtel, and Hensel
Phelps. These build huge bases, often with high tech surveillance or operational capacity, in
the US and abroad, where they hire locals or commonly, third country nationals to carry out the
work. There are also billion-funded contractors in communications technology, intelligence
analysis, transportation, logistics, food, and clothing. "Contracting out" is our modern
military way; this also spreads its influence far and wide.
Medium, small, and tiny businesses dangle from the "Christmas tree" of the Pentagon,
promoting popular cheering or silence on the military budget. These include special set-asides
for minority-owned and small businesses. A Black-owned small business, KEPA-TCI (construction),
received contracts for $356 million. [Data comes from several sources, available free on the
internet: websites, tax forms, and annual reports of organizations; usaspending.gov (USA) and
governmentcontractswon.com (GCW).] Major corporations of all types serving our services have
been excellently described in Nick Turse's The Complex. Really small and tiny businesses are
drawn into the system: landscapers, dry cleaners, child care centers, and Come- Bye Goose
Control of Maryland.
Among the businesses with large DoD contracts are book publishers: McGraw-Hill, Greenwood,
Scholastic, Pearson, Houghton Mifflin, Harcourt, Elsevier, and others. Rarely have the biases
in this industry, in fiction, nonfiction, and textbook offerings, been examined. Yet the
influences on this small but significant population, the reading public, and the larger
schooled contingent, may help explain the silence of the literate crowd and college
graduates.
Much of what is left of organized industrial labor is in weapons manufacture. Its PACs fund
the few "progressive" candidates in our political system, who tend to be silent about war and
the threat of nuclear annihilation. Unlike other factories, the armaments makers do not
suddenly move overseas, although they do use subcontractors worldwide.
Military spending may be only about 6% of the GDP, yet it has great impact because:
1. it is a growing sector;
2. it is recession-proof;
3. it does not rely on consumer whims;
4. it is the only thing prospering in many areas; and
5. the "multiplier" effect: subcontracting, corporate purchasing, and employee spending
perk up the regional economy.
It is ideally suited to Keynesian remedies, because of its ready destruction and
obsolescence: what isn't consumed in warfare, rusted out, or donated to our friends still needs
to be replaced by the slightly more lethal thing. Many of our science graduates work for the
military directly or its contractee labs concocting these.
The military's unbeatable weapon is jobs, and all members of Congress, and state and local
officials, are aware of this. It is where well-paying jobs are found for mechanics, scientists,
and engineers; even janitorial workers do well in these taxpayer-rich firms. Weaponry is also
important in our manufactured goods exports as our allies are required to have equipment that
meets our specifications. Governments, rebels, terrorists, pirates, and gangsters all fancy our
high tech and low tech lethal devices.
Our military economy also yields a high return on investments. These benefit not only
corporate executives and other rich, but many middle and working class folk, as well as
churches, benevolent, and cultural organizations. The lucrative mutual funds offered by
Vanguard, Fidelity, and others are heavily invested in the weapons manufacturers.
Individual investors may not know what is in their fund's portfolios; the institutions
usually know. A current project of World Beyond War ( https://worldbeyondwar.org/divest ) advocates
divestment of military stocks in the pension funds of state and local government workers:
police, firepersons, teachers, and other civil servants. Researchers are making a
state-by-state analysis of these funds. Among the findings are the extensive military stock
holdings of CALpers, the California Public Employees Retirement System (the sixth largest
pension fund on earth), the California State Teachers Retirement System, the New York State
Teachers Retirement System, the New York City Employees Retirement System, and the New York
State Common Retirement Fund (state and local employees). Amazing! the New York City teachers
were once the proud parents of red diaper babies.
The governmental side of the MIC complex goes far beyond the DoD. In the executive branch,
Departments of State, Homeland Security, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Interior; and CIA, AID, FBI,
NASA, and other agencies; are permeated with military projects and goals. Even the Department
of Agriculture has a joint program with the DoD to "restore" Afghanistan by creating a dairy
cattle industry. No matter that the cattle and their feed must be imported, cattle cannot graze
in the terrain as the native sheep and goats can, there is no adequate transportation or
refrigeration, and the Afghans don't normally drink milk. The native animals provide yogurt,
butter, and wool, and graze on the rugged slopes, but that is all so un-American.
Congress is a firm ally of the military. Campaign contributions from contractor PACs are
generous, and lobbying is extensive. So also are the outlays of financial institutions, which
are heavily invested in the MIC. Congresspeople have significant shares of weapons industry
stocks. To clinch the deal, members of Congress (and also state and local lawmakers) are well
aware of the economic importance of military con- tracts in their states and districts.
Military bases, inside the US as well as worldwide, are an economic hub for communities. The
DoD Base Structure Report for Fy2015 lists more than 4,000 domestic properties. Some are
bombing ranges or re- cruiting stations; perhaps 400 are bases with a major impact on their
localities. The largest of these, Fort Bragg, NC, is a city unto itself, and a cultural
influence as well as economic asset to its region, as so well described by Catherine Lutz in
Homefront. California has about 40 bases ( https://militarybases.com/by - state/), and is home to major
weapons makers as well. Officers generally live off-base, so the real estate, restaurant,
retail, auto repair, hotel and other businesses are prospering. Local civilians find employment
on bases. Closed, unconvertible installations are sometimes tourist attractions, such as the
unlikeliest of all vacation spots, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.
DoD has direct contracts and grants with state and local governments. These are for various
projects and services, including large amounts to fund the National Guard. The Army Engineers
maintain swimming holes and parks, and police forces get a deal on Bearcats. JROTC programs
nationwide provide funding for public schools, and even more for those that are public school
military academies; six are in Chicago.
National, state and local governments are well covered by the "insecurity blanket;" the
nonprofit sector is not neglected. Nevertheless, it does harbor the very small group of
anti-war organizations, such as Iraq Veterans Against War, Veterans for Peace, World Beyond
War, Peace Action, Union of Concerned Scientists, Center for International Policy, Catholic
Worker, Answer Coalition, and others. Yet unlike the Vietnam War period there is no vocal group
of religious leaders protesting war, and the few students who are politically active are more
concerned with other issues.
Nonprofit organizations and institutions are involved several ways. Some are obviously
partners of the MIC: Boy and Girl Scouts, Red Cross, veterans' charities, military think-tanks
such as RAND and Institute for Defense Analysis, establishment think-tanks like the American
Enterprise Institute, Atlantic Council, and the flagship of US world projection, the Council on
Foreign Relations. There are also many international nongovernmental organizations that assist
the US government in delivering "humanitarian" assistance, sing the praises of the market
economy, or attempt to repair the "collateral" damage inflicted on lands and people, for
example, Mercy Corps, Open Society Institutes, and CARE.
Educational institutions in all sectors are embedded with the military. The military schools
include the service academies, National Defense University, Army War College, Naval War
College, Air Force Institute of Technology, Air University, Defense Acquisition University,
Defense Language Institute, Naval Postgraduate School, Defense Information School, the medical
school, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and the notorious School of the
Americas in Fort Benning, GA, now renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security
Cooperation. "In addition, Senior Military Colleges offer a combination of higher education
with military instruction. SMCs include Texas A&M University, Norwich University, The
Virginia Military Institute, The Citadel, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
(Virginia Tech), University of North Georgia and the Mary Baldwin Women's Institute for
Leadership" ( https://www.usa.gov/military-colleges ).
A university doesn't have to be special to be part of the MIC. Most are awash with
contracts, ROTC programs, and/or military officers and contractors on their boards of trustees.
A study of the 100 most militarized universities includes prestigious institutions, as well as
diploma mills that produce employees for military intelligence agencies and contractors (
https://news.vice.com/article/these-are-the-100
- most-militarized-universities-in-america).
Major liberal foundations have long engaged in covert and overt operations to support
imperial projection, described by David Horowitz as the "Sinews of Empire" in his important
1969 Ramparts article. They have been close associates of the Central Intelligence Agency, and
were active in its instigation. The foundation created and supported Council on Foreign
Relations has long been a link among Wall Street, large corporations, academia, the media, and
our foreign and military policymakers.
Less obvious are the military connections of philanthropic, cultural, social service,
environmental, and professional organizations. They are linked through donations; joint
programs; sponsorship of events, exhibits, and concerts; awards (both ways); investments;
boards of directors; top executives; and contracts. The data here covers approximately the last
twenty years, and rounds out the reasons for the astounding support (according to the polls)
that US citizens have conferred on our military, its budget, and its operations.
Military contractor philanthropy was the subject of my previous CP reports, in 2006 and
2016. Every type of nonprofit (as well as public schools and universities) received support
from the major weapons manufacturers; some findings were outstanding. Minority organizations
were extremely well endowed. For many years there was crucial support for the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) from Lockheed; Boeing also funded the
Congressional Black Caucus. The former president and CEO of the NAACP, Bruce Gordon, is now on
the Board of Trustees of Northrop Grumman.
General Electric is the most generous military contractor philanthropist, with direct grants
to organizations and educational institutions, partnerships with both, and matching
contributions made by its thousands of employees. The latter reaches many of the
nongovernmental and educational entities throughout the country.
Major donors to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (listed in its 2016 Annual
Report) include the Defense Intelligence Agency, Cisco Systems, Open Society Foundations, US
Department of Defense, General Electric, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and Lockheed
Martin. This is an echo of the CEIP's military connections reported in Horace Coon's book of
the 1930s, Money to Burn.
The DoD itself donates surplus property to organizations; among those eligible are Big
Brothers/Big Sisters, Boys and Girls Clubs, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Little League Baseball,
and United Service Organizations. The Denton Program allows non-governmental organizations to
use extra space on U.S. military cargo aircraft to transport humanitarian assistance
materials.
There is a multitude of joint programs and sponsorships. Here is a small sample...
The American Association of University Women's National Tech Savvy Program encourages
girls to enter STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) careers, with sponsorship
from Lockheed, BAE Systems, and Boeing.
Junior Achievement, sponsored by Bechtel, United Technologies, and others, aims to train
children in market-based economics and entrepreneurship.
Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts is partnered with Northrop Grumman for an
"early childhood STEM 'Learning through the Arts' initiative for pre-K and kindergarten
students."
The Bechtel Foundation has two programs for a "sustainable California" -- an education
program to help "young people develop the knowledge, skills, and character to explore and
understand the world," and an environmental program to promote the "management, stewardship
and conservation for the state's natural resources."
The NAACP ACT-SO is a "yearlong enrichment program designed to recruit, stimulate, and
encourage high academic and cultural achievement among African-American high school
students," with sponsorship from Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman et al. The national
winners receive financial awards from major corporations, college scholarships, internships,
and apprenticeships -- in the military industries.
In recent years the weapons makers have become enthusiastic environmentalists. Lockheed was
a sponsor of the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation Sustainability Forum in 2013. Northrop
Grumman supports Keep America Beautiful, National Public Lands Day, and a partnership with
Conservation International and the Arbor Day Foundation (for forest restoration). United
Technologies is the founding sponsor of the U.S. Green Building Council Center for Green
Schools, and co-creator of the Sustainable Cities Design Academy. Tree Musketeers is a national
youth environmental organization partnered by Northrop Grumman and Boeing.
Awards go both ways: industries give awards to nonprofits, and nonprofits awards to military
industries and people. United Technologies, for its efforts in response to climate change, was
on Climate A list of the Climate Disclosure Project. The Corporate Responsibility Association
gave Lockheed position 8 in 2016 in its 100 Best Corporate Citizens List. Points of Light
included General Electric and Raytheon in its 2014 list of the 50 Most Community-Minded
Companies in America. Harold Koh, the lawyer who as Obama's advisor defended drone strikes and
intervention in Libya, was recently given distinguished visiting professor status by Phi Beta
Kappa. In 2017, the Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility recognized 34 Young
Hispanic Corporate Achievers; 3 were executives in the weapons industry. Elizabeth Amato, an
executive at United Technologies, received the YWCA Women Achievers Award.
Despite laborious searching through tax form 990s, it is difficult to discover the specifics
of organizations' investments. Many have substantial ones; in 2006, the American Friends
Service Committee had $3.5 million in revenue from investments. Human Rights Watch reported
$3.5 million investment income on its 2015 tax form 990, and more than $107 million in
endowment funds.
One of the few surveys of nonprofit policies (by Commonfund in 2012) found that only 17% of
foundations used environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria in their investments. ESG
seems to have replaced "socially responsible investing (SRI)" in investment terminology, and it
has a somewhat different slant. The most common restriction is the avoidance of companies doing
business in regions with conflict risk; the next relates to climate change and carbon
emissions; employee diversity is also an important consideration. Commonfund's study of
charities, social service and cultural organizations reported that 70% of their sample did not
consider ESG in their investment policies. Although 61% of religious organizations did employ
ESG criteria, only 16% of social service organizations and 3% of cultural organizations
did.
Weapon industries are hardly ever mentioned in these reports. Religious organizations
sometimes still used the SRI investment screens, but the most common were alcohol, gambling,
pornography, and tobacco. The Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, a resource for
churches, lists almost 30 issues for investment consideration, including executive
compensation, climate change, and opioid crisis, but none concerning weapons or war. The United
Church (UCC) advisory, a pioneer in SRI investment policies, does include a screen: only
companies should be chosen which have less than 10% revenue from alcohol or gambling, 1% from
tobacco, 10% from conventional weapons and 5% from nuclear weapons.
The Art Institute of Chicago states on their website that "[W]ith the fiduciary
responsibility to maximize returns on investment consistent with appropriate levels of risk,
the Art Institute maintains a strong presumption against divesting for social, moral, or
political reasons." Listed as an associate is Honeywell International, and a major benefactor
is the Crown Family (General Dynamics), which recently donated a $2 million endowment for a
Professorship in Painting and Drawing.
Nonprofit institutions (as well as individuals and pension funds of all sectors) have heavy
investments in the funds of financial companies such as State Street, Vanguard, BlackRock,
Fidelity, CREF, and others, which have portfolios rich in military industries ( https://worldbeyondwar.org/wp -
content/uploads/2016/11/indirect.pdf). These include information technology firms, which,
although often regarded as "socially responsible," are among the major DoD contractors.
In recent years foundations and other large nonprofits, such as universities, have favored
investments in hedge funds, real estate, derivatives, and private equity. The Carnegie
Endowment, more "transparent" than most, lists such funds on its 2015 tax form 990 (Schedule D
Part VII). It is unlikely that Lockheed, Boeing, et al, are among the distressed debt bonanzas,
so these institutions may be low on weapons stock. Nevertheless, most of them have firm
connections to the MIC through donations, leadership, and/or contracts.
Close association with the military among nonprofit board members and executives works to
keep the lid on anti-war activities and expression. The Aspen Institute is a think-tank that
has resident experts, and also a policy of convening with activists, such as anti-poverty
community leaders. Its Board of Trustees is chaired by James Crown, who is also a director of
General Dynamics. Among other board members are Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Javier
Solana (former Secretary-General of NATO), and former Congresswoman Jane Harman. Harman
"received the Defense Department Medal for Distinguished Service in 1998, the CIA Seal Medal in
2007, and the CIA Director's Award and the National Intelligence Distinguished Public Service
Medal in 2011. She is currently a member of the Director of National Intelligence's Senior
Advisory Group, the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations." Lifetime Aspen
Trustees include Lester Crown and Henry Kissinger.
In recent years, the Carnegie Corporation board of trustees included Condoleezza Rice and
General Lloyd Austin III (Ret.), Commander of CENTCOM, a leader in the 2003 invasion of Iraq,
and also a board member of United Technologies. A former president of Physicians for Peace (not
the similarly named well-known group) is Rear Admiral Harold Bernsen, formerly Commander of the
US Middle East Force and not a physician.
TIAA, the college teachers' retirement fund, had a CEO from 1993-2002, John H. Biggs, who
was at the same time a director of Boeing. TIAA's current board of directors includes an
associate of a major military research firm, MITRE Corporations, and several members of the
Council on Foreign Relations. Its senior executive Vice President, Rahul Merchant, is currently
also a director at two information technology firms that have large military contracts: Juniper
Networks and AASKI.
The American Association of Retired Persons' chief lobbyist from 2002-2007, Chris Hansen,
had previously served in that capacity at Boeing. The current VP of communications at Northrop
Grumman, Lisa Davis, held that position at AARP from 1996-2005.
Board members and CEOs of the major weapons corporations serve on the boards of many
nonprofits. Just to indicate the scope, these include the National Fish and Wildlife
Foundation, Newman's Own Foundation, New York Public Library, Carnegie Hall Society,
Conservation International, Wolf Trap Foundation, WGBH, Boy Scouts, Newport Festival
Foundation, Toys for Tots, STEM organizations, Catalyst, the National Science Center, the US
Institute of Peace, and many foundations and universities.
The DoD promotes the employment of retired military officers as board members or CEOs of
nonprofits, and several organizations and degree programs further this transition. U.S. Air
Force Brigadier General Eden Murrie (Ret.) is now Director of Government Transformation and
Agency Partnerships at the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service. She maintains that
"[F]ormer military leaders have direct leadership experience and bring talent and integrity
that could be applied in a nonprofit organization. . ."
(seniormilitaryintransition.com/tag/eden-murrie/). Given the early retirement age, former
military personnel (and reservists) are a natural fit for positions of influence in federal,
state, and local governments, school boards, nonprofits, and volunteer work; many are in those
places.
Perhaps the coziest relationships under the insecurity blanket are the multitudes of
contracts and grants the Department of Defense tenders to the nonprofit world. DoD fiscal
reporting is notoriously inaccurate, and there were conflicting accounts between and within the
online databases. Nevertheless, even a fuzzy picture gives a good idea of the depth and scope
of the coverage.
From the TNC 2016 Annual Report: "The Nature Conservancy is an organization that takes care
of people and land, and they look for opportunities to partner. They're nonpolitical. We need
nongovernment organizations like TNC to help mobilize our citizens. They are on the ground.
They understand the people, the politics, the partnerships. We need groups like TNC to
subsidize what government organizations can't do" (Mamie Parker, Former Assistant Director,
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Arkansas Trustee, The Nature Conservancy).
Among the subsidies going the other way are 44 DoD contracts with TNC totaling several
million for the years 2008-2018 (USA). These are for such services as Prairie Habitat
Reforestation, $100,000, and Runway and Biosecurity upkeep at Palmyra Atoll, HI, $82,000 (USA).
For the years 2000-2016, GCW lists a total of $5,500,000 in TNC's DoD contracts.
Grants to TNC for specific projects, not clearly different from contracts, were much larger.
Each is listed separately (USA); a rough count of the total was more than $150 million. One $55
million grant was for "Army compatible use buffer (acubs) in vicinity of Fort Benning military
installation." Similar grants, the largest, $14 million, were for this service at other bases.
Another was for the implementation of Fort Benning army installation's ecological monitoring
plan. Included in the description of these grants was the notice: "Assist State and local
governments to mitigate or prevent incompatible civilian land use/activity that is likely to
impair the continued operational utility of a Department of Defense (DoD) military
installation. Grantees and participating governments are expected to adopt and implement the
study recommendations."
TNC's Form 990 for 2017 states its investment income as $21 million. It reported government
grants of $108.5 million, and government contracts of $9 million. These may include funds from
state and local as well as all departments of the federal government. The Department of the
Interior, which manages the vast lands used for bombing ranges and live ammunition war games,
is another TNC grantor.
Other environmental organizations sustained by DoD contracts are the National Audubon
Society ($945,000 for 6 years, GCW), and Point Reyes Bird Observatory ($145,000, 6 years, GCW).
USA reports contracts with Stichting Deltares, a Dutch coastal research institute, for $550,000
in 2016, grants to the San Diego Zoo of $367,000, and to the Institute for Wildlife Studies,
$1.3 million for shrike monitoring.
Goodwill Industries (training and employing the disabled, ex-offenders, veterans, and
homeless people) is an enormous military contractor. Each entity is a separate corporation,
based on state or region, and the total receipt is in the billions. For example, for 2000-2016
(GCW), Goodwill of South Florida had $434 million and Southeastern Wisconsin $906 million in
contracts. Goods and services provided include food and logistics support, records processing,
army combat pants, custodial, security, mowing, and recycling. Similar organizations working
for the DoD include the Jewish Vocational Service and Community Workshop, janitorial services,
$12 million over 5 years; Lighthouse for the Blind, $4.5 million, water purification equipment;
Ability One; National Institute for the Blind; Pride Industries; and Melwood Horticultural
Training Center.
The DoD does not shun the work of Federal Prison Industries, which sells furniture and other
products. A government corporation (and thus not a nonprofit), it had half a billion in sales
to all federal departments in 2016. Prison labor, Goodwill Industries, and other
sheltered-workshop enterprises, along with for- profits employing immigrant workers, teenagers,
retirees, and migrant workers (who grow food for the military and the rest of us), reveal the
evolving nature of the US working class, and some explanation for its lack of revolutionary
fervor, or even mild dissent from the capitalist system.
The well-paid, and truly diverse employees (including executives) of major weapons makers
are also not about to construct wooden barricades. Boards of directors in these industries are
welcoming to minorities and women. The CEOs of Lockheed and General Dynamics are women, as is
the Chief Operating Officer of Northrop Grumman. These success stories reinforce personal
aspirations among the have-nots, rather than questioning the system.
Contracts with universities, hospitals, and medical facilities are too numerous to detail
here; one that illustrates how far the blanket stretches is with Oxford University, $800,000
for medical research. Professional associations with significant contracts include the
Institute of International Education, American Council on Education, American Association of
State Colleges and Universities, National Academy of Sciences, Society of Women Engineers,
American Indian Science and Engineering Society, American Association of Nurse Anesthetists,
Society of Mexican-American Engineers, and U.S. Green Building Council. The Council of State
Governments (a nonprofit policy association of officials) received a $193,000 contract for
"preparedness" work. Let us hope we are well prepared.
The leaders, staff, members, donors, and volunteers of nonprofit organizations are the kind
of people who might have been peace activists, yet so many are smothered into silence under the
vast insecurity blanket. In addition to all the direct and indirect beneficiaries of the
military establishment, many people with no connection still cheer it on. They have been
subject to relentless propaganda forthe military and its wars from the government, the print
and digital press, TV, movies, sports shows, parades, and computer games -- the latter teach
children that killing is fun.
The indoctrination goes down easily. It has had a head start in the educational system that
glorifies the violent history of the nation. Our schools are full of in-house tutoring, STEM
programs, and fun robotics teams personally conducted by employees of the weapons makers. Young
children may not understand all the connections, but they tend to remember the logos. The JROTC
programs, imparting militaristic values, enroll far more children than the ones who will become
future officers. The extremely well-funded recruitment efforts in schools include "fun"
simulations of warfare.
There is a worldwide supporting cast for the complex that includes NATO, other alliances,
defense ministries, foreign military industries, and bases, but that is a story for another
day.
The millions sheltered under our thick and broad blanket, including the enlistees under the
prickly part of it, are not to blame. Some people may be thrilled by the idea of death and
destruction. However, most are just trying to earn a living, keep their organization or rust
belt afloat, or be accepted into polite company. They would prefer constructive work or income
from healthy sources. Yet many have been indoctrinated to believe that militarism is normal and
necessary. For those who consider change to be essential if life on this planet has a chance at
survival, it is important to see all the ways that the military-
industrial-congressional-almost everything-complex is being sustained.
"Free market economy" is a myth. In addition to the huge nonprofit (non-market) sector,
government intervention is substantial, not only in the gigantic military, but in agriculture,
education, health care, infrastructure, economic development (!), et al. For the same trillions
we could have a national economy that repairs the environment, provides a fine standard of
living and cultural opportunities for all, and works for peace on earth.
* * *
Joan Roelofs is Professor Emerita of Political Science, Keene State College, New Hampshire.
She is the author of Foundations and Public Policy: The Mask of Pluralism (SUNY Press, 2003)
and Greening Cities (Rowman and Littlefield, 1996). She is the translator of Victor
Considerant's Principles of Socialism (Maisonneuve Press, 2006), and with Shawn P. Wilbur, of
Charles Fourier's anti-war fantasy, The World War of Small Pastries (Autonomedia, 2015). A
community education short course on the military industrial complex is on her website, and may
be used for similar purposes.
The author provides some interesting observations... He ignores the role of economics
though.
Looks like a replay of events in Baltic republics. Might increase emigration and
"provisialization" of Ukraine because Russian is suppressed but English did not became the second
language (which is probably impossible without switching education into English language).
Dominance of EU might be more harsh regime, then most of the supporters of Eurointergation
assume, especially in economic sphere -- the status of semi-colony and debt slave are given, but
it can be worse.
Economic suffering of population and pauperization of Ukraine are immense...
Notable quotes:
"... Yet, at least half of the population of all eight administrative regions of mainland South-East Ukraine viewed the Euromaidan as a coup, because, according to a survey conducted in early April 2014 by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, only a third of respondents in these regions (the survey was not conducted in Crimea and Sevastopol) considered Yatsenyuk and Turchinov legitimate heads of government and state, while half of respondents considered them illegitimate (Kiev International Institute of Sociology, 2014c). ..."
"... The conformism of the South-East elite, which only recently was at the head of the anti-Maidan movement, surpassed the conformism of society many times over, because this elite had much to lose. ..."
"... The situation with Crimea was another factor that objectively strengthened Kiev's position in the South-East. ..."
"... This predictably could not increase pro-Russian sentiments in the rest of Ukraine. ..."
"... anti-Russian forces took an increasingly tough position, describing all talk of federalization as separatism. ..."
"... the winners of the Euromaidan Crimea was not a reason but a pretext for starting a policy of de-Russification. However, these events influenced the political swamp, that is, citizens without a clear position, and strengthened the base of the current regime, as evidenced by the results of public opinion polls and elections. ..."
"... the Europeans played up to Kiev in criminalizing the notion 'federation,' because for the West the Ukrainian problem is part of the Russian problem ..."
"... The West views them as paramilitary organizations which established power in those regions with external help and imposed themselves on the population. ..."
"... This position of the West strengthened the attitude of the pro-Western liberal public in Ukraine towards people in the South-East as sovok ..."
"... the "discursive violence of the Ukrainian media" in late February-early April 2014 paved the way for the "brutality of the antiterrorist operation" by creating a negative image of people of the South-East. ..."
"... Ukrayinska Pravda, Livyi Bereg, ..."
"... At the same time, Ukrainian radical nationalism objectively was an instrument which Ukrainian [neo]liberals used to achieve victory. ..."
"... However, positive dynamics for either party to the conflict is not only measured by territories they seize -- it is seen in the fact that actions, formerly deemed impossible, turn out to be possible and not having obvious negative consequences. For example, the implementation of the political part of the Minsk Agreement (which both Kiev and the West consider imposed on Ukraine from the outside) now seems to be a much more illusory goal than it seemed in 2014-2015. ..."
"... In particular, Kiev has rescinded a bill on constitutional amendments regarding decentralization; an economic blockade of Donbass has been introduced; and several laws have been passed and measures taken to combat the Russian World, both inside and outside the country. ..."
"... The law on the reintegration of Donbass, passed by the Verkhovna Rada this January, was a logical development and a new stage of this policy. Its purpose is not so much to recognize the territories beyond Kiev's control as occupied by Russia. What is more important is that the law recognizes this state de facto without a formal recognition of the war with Russia de jure. ..."
"... This positive dynamics creates a situation where a critical mass of society thinks that at least Ukraine will not find itself in the same difficult situation as in the spring of 2014 and that, at best, it will restore full control over Donbass on its terms: Russia will not withstand the sanctions and will stop supporting the uncontrolled territories. The policy of the West does not contradict these expectations: the sanctions continue, there is almost no public criticism of Kiev's actions in Donbass at the state level, except for minor issues, and the U.S. has decided to supply Javelin antitank missiles to Ukraine, which is largely a symbolic gesture fitting perfectly into the aforementioned pattern of positive dynamics. ..."
"... Of course, very many of the above-mentioned elements of the positive (for Kiev) dynamics also have a great negative effect. For example, the existing format of the conflict in Donbass involves great military expenditures and leads to reduced ties with Russia, which is a significant burden for the Ukrainian economy. ..."
"... The present scale of losses of the Ukrainian army is not a factor that may spark a mass antiwar movement in the country, similar to the antiwar movement in the United States in the late 1960s, because the ratio of casualties to population in Ukraine is much smaller than that in the U.S. during the Vietnam War. ..."
"... Naturally, the economic situation in Ukraine is much less stable than that of the U.S. during the Vietnam War. However, in the public consciousness, the war is only one factor behind the economic problems (along with corruption, incompetence of the authorities, etc.). ..."
"... The war has advantages, too. Of course, they would have disappeared in the event of a full-scale conflict, but Kiev is confident that this will never happen. In a situation like this, it finds it simpler to mobilize society, convince it to put up with difficulties and, most importantly, format the political and information space in an advantageous way. Beneficiaries of this reformatting include not only the government but also a wide range of parties and politicians who supported the Euromaidan. ..."
"... So, the current format of the conflict strengthens the political regime in Ukraine, which is actually the closest to regimes of limited political competition, such as those that existed in some countries of Central and Eastern Europe during the interwar period in the 20th century, or some Latin American countries (Brazil and Guatemala) after the Second World War. There is formal pluralism and a real possibility of succession of power there, yet real power can be contested only by forces from one political spectrum, whereas forces that are beyond this spectrum are restrained and can only aspire to seats in parliament. ..."
"... support is limited -- the West will not fight for Ukraine and will not provide aid on a scale comparable to the Marshall Plan. ..."
"... Already now, due to migration, the population of the territory now controlled by Kiev is less than 30 million people (judging by bread consumption statistics). ..."
"... This means it has decreased by more than 40 percent since 1991. ..."
"... As regards Ukraine's admission to NATO, many Western European countries oppose this option. On the other hand, they have not proposed any detailed plan for Ukraine's non-aligned status. Objectively, such status would be best guaranteed by the specifics of the state's internal structure, when accession to a military alliance would require a consensus of the regions. ..."
"... If this state collapses due to external factors, the identity of a large part of its present population may change very quickly, as evidenced by the experience of the 17th century and recent decades. ..."
In Ukraine, however, the switching of sides takes place on a larger scale. For example,
President Kuchma and Prime Minister Yanukovich had a majority in the Verkhovna Rada elected in
2002, which decreased somewhat in the last few months before the 2004 elections. Yet, newly
elected President Yushchenko did not have any problems with the same parliament. The Ukrainian
parliament elected in 2007 supported Prime Minister Timoshenko, but after Yanukovich won a
presidential election in February 2010 he had a solid majority in it until the next election.
Yanukovich also had a majority in parliament elected in 2012 until the last days of the
Euromaidan. However, after the victory of the Euromaidan, a coalition was formed in parliament
that supported the new authorities. It united factions and groups of 235 deputies in the
450-seat parliament, of whom 69 did not belong to pro-Euromaidan parties. Also, 371 deputies,
including almost all deputies from the Party of Regions, voted to appoint Yatsenyuk as prime
minister.
Can these figures serve as grounds to classify the Euromaidan as a coup d'état and
accuse the new regime of failing to build a government of national accord, provided for by the
agreement between Yanukovich and the opposition? A coup d'état presupposes suspending
and resetting the functioning of government institutions, whereas this agreement did not
specify what a national accord government should look like. On the other hand, the essence of
such governments is to unite people of different political views, rather than make their
members and supporters give up their former beliefs.
Yet, at least half of the population of all eight administrative regions of mainland
South-East Ukraine viewed the Euromaidan as a coup, because, according to a survey conducted in
early April 2014 by the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, only a third of respondents
in these regions (the survey was not conducted in Crimea and Sevastopol) considered Yatsenyuk
and Turchinov legitimate heads of government and state, while half of respondents considered
them illegitimate (Kiev International Institute of Sociology, 2014c). However, the elite
of the South-East did not question the legitimacy of the new government. The most it was ready
to do was consider this government undesirable and due to be replaced at the next election.
The conformism of the South-East elite, which only recently was at the head of the
anti-Maidan movement, surpassed the conformism of society many times over, because this elite
had much to lose. But in this situation, the masses of protesters who considered the
Euromaidan a coup found themselves without their usual leaders. New leaders emerged
spontaneously from among protesters and were not viewed as authoritative by those who did not
take part in the protests. The depth of the gap between the masses and the elites can be seen
from the following fact: There is the émigré Ukraine Salvation Committee in
Moscow, headed by former Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov, which positions itself as almost a
government in exile. The Committee considers the hostilities in Donbass a civil war and,
therefore, does not view the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics as
occupation administrations. Yet, it has no contact with the leaders of these republics, which
also consider themselves an alternative Ukraine.
Although there was less conformism among the masses than among the elites, it still made the
protests in the South-East less widespread than they might have been if there had been a sign
of dual power, for example, if Yanukovich and the part of the elite, including parliament
deputies, who did not recognize the new regime had tried to create alternative government
institutions. This conformism made many people accept on faith the assurances of the new
government about broad decentralization, including the humanitarian sphere.
The situation with Crimea was another factor that objectively strengthened Kiev's
position in the South-East. Beginning in March, Crimea and Sevastopol, which could have
been at the vanguard of protests for reformatting Ukraine, withdrew from the political field of
the country by joining Russia. This predictably could not increase pro-Russian sentiments
in the rest of Ukraine. Formerly, public opinion polls had invariably showed a good
attitude of the overwhelming majority of Ukrainians towards Russia. However, during the
conflicts over Tuzla in 2003 and the gas dispute of 2009 their attitude deteriorated
significantly. Now it happened again, only this time the conflict was much more serious.
Attempts by the state which annexed part of Ukrainian territory to act as an arbiter and, at
the same time, pressure Kiev to reformat Ukraine into a federation, in which the voice of the
South-East should be heard, were predictably doomed to failure. Even potential supporters of
Russia doubted the impartiality of such arbitration, and anti-Russian forces took an
increasingly tough position, describing all talk of federalization as separatism.
True, Ukrainians who were firmly pro-Russian did not become more hostile to Russia because
of Crimea, while for the winners of the Euromaidan Crimea was not a reason but a pretext
for starting a policy of de-Russification. However, these events influenced the political
swamp, that is, citizens without a clear position, and strengthened the base of the current
regime, as evidenced by the results of public opinion polls and elections. EUROPEAN
INTEGRATION VS COMPROMISE
On the other hand, it would be legitimate to ask whether the victory of the Euromaidan
necessarily had to lead to a war, and whether a compromise could have been reached with the
masses of the discontented in the South-East at an early stage. My answer is "no."
The short history of independent Ukraine developed, on the one hand, as a history of steady
integration into European and world (but Western-controlled) organizations, and on the other
hand, as a history of crises which became increasingly explosive and which ended in
increasingly imperfect compromises. For some time, the relationship between these processes
could be easily overlooked, but now it is much more difficult not to notice it. The February
2014 agreement on the settlement of the crisis, for the first time achieved with the
participation of European guarantors, was also the first world agreement in the history of
Ukraine that was not fulfilled. It was after the signing of the economic part of the
Association Agreement that an anti-terrorist operation began in the East, and immediately after
the political part of this agreement was signed (June 27, 2014), this operation entered into
its largest-scale and bloodiest phase.
Of course, the West needed to put an end to Kiev's multi-vector policy and achieve
unambiguous certainty for it. Hence its position on the language issue and the territorial
structure of the country, which was most vividly realized in the April 2014 PACE resolution,
which spoke of the inadmissibility of any mention of Ukraine's federalization (Parliamentary
Assembly, 2014).
Obviously, the real problem was not in the word but in an optimal distribution of powers
(for example, Spanish autonomous communities have more powers than Austrian federal lands), but
the Europeans played up to Kiev in criminalizing the notion 'federation,' because for the
West the Ukrainian problem is part of the Russian problem . Its attitude to the protests
in the South-East and then the war in Donbass differed fundamentally from its attitude to an
overwhelming majority of internal conflicts around the globe.
In the cases of Cyprus, Nagorno-Karabakh, ethnic Serbs in Croatia and Kosovo, Aceh in
Indonesia, FARC in Colombia, etc., the West considered the leaders of separatists or insurgents
legitimate representatives of certain ethnic or social groups who had taken over powers not
provided for by the laws of their country. Their right to be a party to negotiations was not
questioned. But the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics are in no way seen as
self-proclaimed republics that reflect the views of their populations, even though
illegitimately from the point of view of Ukrainian legislation. The West views them as
paramilitary organizations which established power in those regions with external help and
imposed themselves on the population.
This position of the West strengthened the attitude of the pro-Western liberal public in
Ukraine towards people in the South-East as sovok (homo Sovieticus) and
vatnik (bigots), whose opinion could be ignored. A recent study (Baysha, 2017)
convincingly shows how the "discursive violence of the Ukrainian media" in late
February-early April 2014 paved the way for the "brutality of the antiterrorist operation" by
creating a negative image of people of the South-East. Importantly, these were not
state-run, oligarchic or party nationalist media, although they did the same. These were
popular websites, which are thought to be mouthpieces for liberal civil society (
Ukrayinska Pravda, Livyi Bereg, and Gordon ).
In other words, the conflict was a logical consequence of Westernization, rather than the
rise of nationalism. Welcoming the successes of the Ukrainian army in July 2014, the European
Parliament thus made it clear that this Westernization on the civilizational borders of Europe
may not resemble the practices of major European countries. At the same time, Ukrainian
radical nationalism objectively was an instrument which Ukrainian [neo]liberals used to achieve
victory. True, it is not willing to play this role and wants to be something more than
just an instrument. But behind the talk of the Banderization of Ukraine is a confusion of the
notions of customer and contractor.
WAR IN AN ACCEPTABLE FORMAT
Of course, many of those who took part in the Euromaidan did not fight there for renaming
Vatutin Avenue in Kiev as Shukhevich Avenue, or for banning the import of Russian books,
including memoirs of Princess Yekaterina Dashkova, or for banning songs by Russian singers
Vladimir Vysotsky and Victor Tsoi described as "tentacles of the Russian World" which leeched
onto Ukrainians (definition by Vladimir Vyatrovich, the head of the Institute of National
Memory, the most Euro-integrated organization of the Ukrainian government, which consistently
advocates the idea of a nationalist "recoding" of Ukrainians). The voices of people who do not
agree with this (for example, the poet and culturologist Evgenia Bilchenko) are sometimes heard
in the media space, but the problem is whether these voices, together with the voices of those
who were against the Euromaidan from the very beginning, can become a political factor.
I think this is almost ruled out under the most likely, inertial, scenario which provides
for the development of tendencies that emerged after the victory of the Euromaidan and the
preservation by Russia and the West of their behavioral models which have developed over recent
years.
When assessing this scenario, one should bear in mind that the armed conflict in Donbass has
over the last three years entered into a format that is the most advantageous (of all really
possible ones) for Ukraine -- a low-intensity smoldering conflict.
This situation objectively predisposes one to see dynamics, positive for Kiev, in the
conflict that began in 2014. At first, Ukraine surrendered Crimea to Russia and pro-Russian
forces without a fight. At the next stage, however, it localized the offensive of the Russian
World to Donbass, although it failed to take full control over the region. The result of this
phase of the fight can be regarded as a draw, or Ukraine's defeat on points. But Crimea was
lost through a knockout. After that, a defeat on points is still a better outcome.
The next, longest phase of the conflict has been going on without changes on the frontline.
However, positive dynamics for either party to the conflict is not only measured by
territories they seize -- it is seen in the fact that actions, formerly deemed impossible, turn
out to be possible and not having obvious negative consequences. For example, the
implementation of the political part of the Minsk Agreement (which both Kiev and the West
consider imposed on Ukraine from the outside) now seems to be a much more illusory goal than it
seemed in 2014-2015.
In particular, Kiev has rescinded a bill on constitutional amendments regarding
decentralization; an economic blockade of Donbass has been introduced; and several laws have
been passed and measures taken to combat the Russian World, both inside and outside the
country. The latter include the termination of air service, a ban on remittances,
restrictions on the import of Russian books, a ban on performances by some Russian
entertainers, the actual abolition of the law "On the Basic Principles of the Language Policy,"
restrictions on the use of the Russian language on the Ukrainian radio and television and its
abolition in education (with the exception of primary school), de-Russification of geographical
names, and the removal of monuments.
Kiev views all these measures as non-military blows to the enemy, and the scale of such
actions increases with every year.
The law on the reintegration of Donbass, passed by the Verkhovna Rada this January, was
a logical development and a new stage of this policy. Its purpose is not so much to recognize
the territories beyond Kiev's control as occupied by Russia. What is more important is that the
law recognizes this state de facto without a formal recognition of the war with Russia de
jure.
This positive dynamics creates a situation where a critical mass of society thinks that
at least Ukraine will not find itself in the same difficult situation as in the spring of 2014
and that, at best, it will restore full control over Donbass on its terms: Russia will not
withstand the sanctions and will stop supporting the uncontrolled territories. The policy of
the West does not contradict these expectations: the sanctions continue, there is almost no
public criticism of Kiev's actions in Donbass at the state level, except for minor issues, and
the U.S. has decided to supply Javelin antitank missiles to Ukraine, which is largely a
symbolic gesture fitting perfectly into the aforementioned pattern of positive
dynamics.
For the reasons mentioned above, the West does not advocate a direct dialogue between Kiev
and Donetsk/Lugansk, but considers the existing level of conflict with more and more victims an
obviously lesser evil than a possible strengthening of the self-proclaimed republics. This
clearly follows from the statement of German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel about the
inadmissibility of Russia's proposal on a UN peacekeeping mission, which provides for the
separation of the warring parties by peacekeepers, to be deployed along the frontline, and the
protection of the OSCE mission, because that would only mean freezing the conflict. (A meeting
between Vladislav Surkov and Kurt Volker, which took place in Dubai during the writing of this
article, showed that the Americans are nevertheless ready to accept the Russian format as the
first phase of a peacekeeping mission; yet its practical implementation is still far off.)
Of course, very many of the above-mentioned elements of the positive (for Kiev) dynamics
also have a great negative effect. For example, the existing format of the conflict in Donbass
involves great military expenditures and leads to reduced ties with Russia, which is a
significant burden for the Ukrainian economy. However, it is important to understand a
balance between positive and negative aspects from Kiev's point of view.
Of course, the mobilization was a straining factor for society, because it could affect
almost every family. But since the end of 2016, when all people mobilized a year before
returned home, only contract soldiers and professional officers have taken part in the conflict
from the Ukrainian side -- that is, only those who have made this choice voluntarily or who
have chosen military service as their lifetime career. This is the main reason why the format
of hostilities can be considered acceptable or, at least, not too burdensome for Ukrainian
society.
The present scale of losses of the Ukrainian army is not a factor that may spark a mass
antiwar movement in the country, similar to the antiwar movement in the United States in the
late 1960s, because the ratio of casualties to population in Ukraine is much smaller than that
in the U.S. during the Vietnam War.
Naturally, the economic situation in Ukraine is much less stable than that of the U.S.
during the Vietnam War. However, in the public consciousness, the war is only one factor behind
the economic problems (along with corruption, incompetence of the authorities, etc.).
The unpopularity of the idea of peace at any cost not only shows the specific character of
the Ukrainian regime but, above all, it shows that society does not view the crisis as a
catastrophe, which means that the conflict has acquired a format convenient for Kiev.
This format means, in particular, that, to paraphrase Trotsky, Ukraine is in a state of both
peace and war with Russia, taking advantage of each of these states. For example, over the
first 11 months of 2017, Ukrainian exports to Russia grew by 12 percent and brought Ukraine
U.S. $360 million more than a year before. Two-thirds of Ukrainian coal imports come from
Russia, including 80 percent of anthracite, which has become scarce due to the blockade of
Donbass.
The war has advantages, too. Of course, they would have disappeared in the event of a
full-scale conflict, but Kiev is confident that this will never happen. In a situation like
this, it finds it simpler to mobilize society, convince it to put up with difficulties and,
most importantly, format the political and information space in an advantageous way.
Beneficiaries of this reformatting include not only the government but also a wide range of
parties and politicians who supported the Euromaidan. For example, there is a segment
among supporters of the Batkivshchina Party, led by Yulia Timoshenko, and the Radical Party,
led by Oleg Lyashko, who, judging by public opinion polls, do not support either a
confrontation with Russia or the current policy of historical memory. Obviously, these are
former supporters of the Party of Regions and communists, who have realized that the successors
to these parties will not be allowed to win anyway and that power can be contested only by
pro-Euromaidan parties. Therefore, they side with forces that are close to their own
ideological position, guided by their social slogans and disregarding their greater
geopolitical and humanitarian radicalism in comparison with the current authorities. But such a
choice can be made only if one is confident that this radicalism will not lead to a great war
and catastrophe.
So, the current format of the conflict strengthens the political regime in Ukraine,
which is actually the closest to regimes of limited political competition, such as those that
existed in some countries of Central and Eastern Europe during the interwar period in the 20th
century, or some Latin American countries (Brazil and Guatemala) after the Second World War.
There is formal pluralism and a real possibility of succession of power there, yet real power
can be contested only by forces from one political spectrum, whereas forces that are beyond
this spectrum are restrained and can only aspire to seats in parliament.
History shows that such regimes can exist for a very long time, especially with external
support, which Kiev certainly has, if we mean support for its geopolitical policy, rather than
concrete persons in power. It is another thing that such support is limited -- the West
will not fight for Ukraine and will not provide aid on a scale comparable to the Marshall
Plan.
The Georgian scenario for changing this regime is theoretically possible but unlikely,
because several factors prevent the success of a would-be Ukrainian Ivanishvili. The conflict
in Ukraine is felt more sharply because in 2014 it lost territories that it had controlled all
the years of independence, while Georgia lost control over Abkhazia in 1993 and over South
Ossetia even earlier. The August 2008 war only showed the impossibility of regaining these
territories. But the most important thing is that, whereas Georgia was an obvious loser in that
war, Ukraine has some positive dynamics, which was discussed above. In addition, differences
between Georgians and Russians have always been obvious, whereas for Kiev the current conflict
is a way to recode a large part of the population and form the nation on the basis of the
thesis that "Ukraine is different from Russia." Finally, the evolution of Georgia should not be
exaggerated. Diplomatic relations between Tbilisi and Moscow have not been restored, while
relations between Kiev and Moscow have never been broken off. Although Georgia has toned down
its anti-Russian rhetoric, it keeps moving towards the Euro-Atlantic structures.
Ukraine is moving in the same direction. Its problems will obviously grow in the near
future. Already now, due to migration, the population of the territory now controlled by
Kiev is less than 30 million people (judging by bread consumption statistics).
This means it has decreased by more than 40 percent since 1991. In addition, the
largest, postwar, generation is now entering the mortality age, while the generation of
newborns is the smallest over the years of independence. Yet, the territory of the country has
retained its geopolitical value and, regardless of whether Ukraine is granted formal NATO
membership or not, American troops can be permanently deployed in its territory during the
current Cold War -- or, more precisely, their presence can be broadened, because several
thousand NATO troops, half of them Americans, have been involved in military exercises
permanently held at the Yavorovo test range since the spring of 2015.
As regards Ukraine's admission to NATO, many Western European countries oppose this
option. On the other hand, they have not proposed any detailed plan for Ukraine's non-aligned
status. Objectively, such status would be best guaranteed by the specifics of the state's
internal structure, when accession to a military alliance would require a consensus of the
regions. In an interview with the Atlantic magazine in November 2016, Henry Kissinger
echoed this idea: "I favor an independent Ukraine that is militarily non-aligned. If you remove
the two Donbass regions from eastern Ukraine, you guarantee that Ukraine is permanently hostile
to Russia, since it becomes dominated by its Western part, which only joined Russia in the
1940s. The solution, then, is to find a way to give these units a degree of autonomy that gives
them a voice in military entanglements, but otherwise keeps them under the governance of
Ukraine." (Goldberg, 2016)
But since this voice remains solitary, the negative attitude of Western European countries
to Ukraine's accession to NATO is only a short-term tactical choice which may change later.
It is also unlikely that the implementation of the Minsk Agreement will help create the
model described by Kissinger, because a "voice in military entanglements" is a trait of a
confederation. Meanwhile, the status of individual Donbass regions, as defined by the above
agreement, is far even from that provided for in a federation. Rather, it is similar to the
limited autonomy of ethnic Serbs in Croatia, which they received under the Erdut agreement.
Therefore, even if the Minsk Agreement is implemented, which is unlikely, the existing
political regime in Ukraine will hardly change.
As regards Russians and Russian-speaking Ukrainians, in a situation where they cannot change
this regime through elections, they will try to adapt to the existing reality, at least
outwardly.
The described inertial scenario is basic and most probable. However, it is not the only
possible one due to the weakness of the Ukrainian state (in particular, due to the growing
influence of right-wing radicals who may obtain parallel power), the unstable situation in the
world, and the unpredictability of Russia's policy in the long term, as Moscow may decide that
Kiev has crossed certain red lines established by it. If this state collapses due to
external factors, the identity of a large part of its present population may change very
quickly, as evidenced by the experience of the 17th century and recent decades.
Alexei V. Popov is an expert with the Kiev Center of Political Studies and
Conflictology
"... an essential warning against a continuation of the frivolous and dangerous policies of regime change adopted by the West after the end of the Cold War ..."
"... The result is both a sophisticated, multilevel analysis of how and why Ukraine emerged as the key hotspot in East-West relations, and an indispensable guide for those wishing to understand the origins of the New Cold War. ..."
"... Gordon M. Hahn challenges simplistic and often misleading narratives by the media and politicians and provides a corroboration that the Maidan massacre was a false flag mass killing ..."
"... They show Maidan's quasi-revolution was driven by international geopolitics, supporting counterposed Western and Russian "civilizationist" beliefs, and deep divisions within Ukrainian society itself, not a wellspring of widespread aspiration to Western-style democracy. ..."
Review "Ukraine's 2013-2014 revolution, its civil war, and Russia's annexation of the
Crimea have been succeeded by newer crises, but political analyst Hahn uses detailed reportage
and geopolitical theory to argue for their long-term significance, presenting Ukraine as a
troubling turning point in Russo-American relations and a case study of how democratization
efforts can go awry...with Russia atop American headlines to an extent not seen since the end
of the Cold War, [this book] will be a strong addition to global studies collections" --
Booklist
"It was not only Ukraine that went over the edge in 2014, but the whole European security
system disintegrated, while a 'new cold war' chills relations between the great powers. In this
masterful study, Gordon Hahn examines how Ukraine's internal divisions combined with external
lines of fragmentation to create an explosive mix, which in turn intensified domestic
conflicts. The result is an internationalized civil conflict, with catastrophic consequences
for Ukraine and the world. Hahn is one of the few scholars with the knowledge and discernment
to make sense of it all. His impressively well-researched and well-written book is essential
reading."--Richard Sakwa, University of Kent
"This impressively researched and strongly argued book is an essential corrective to the
myths that have been generated concerning the crisis in Ukraine, and an essential warning
against a continuation of the frivolous and dangerous policies of regime change adopted by the
West after the end of the Cold War ." --Anatol Lieven, Professor, Georgetown University in
Qatar and author of Ukraine and Russia, A Fraternal Rivalry
Ukraine Over the Edge is a rigorous analysis of the cultural, historical, and
intellectual origins of the Ukrainian crisis. While stressing that blame for the latest phase
of this crisis is shared all around, Hahn traces its domestic origins to the militancy of the
opposition to president Yanukovych, and its international origins to NATO expansion, which he
regards as militarized democracy-promotion. The result is both a sophisticated, multilevel
analysis of how and why Ukraine emerged as the key hotspot in East-West relations, and an
indispensable guide for those wishing to understand the origins of the New Cold War.
"--Nicolai N. Petro, Silvia-Chandley Professor of Peace Studies and Nonviolence, University of
Rhode Island
" Ukraine Over the Edge is a very useful contribution to understanding origins and
key developments of the crisis in this important European and post-Soviet country. Gordon
M. Hahn challenges simplistic and often misleading narratives by the media and politicians and
provides a corroboration that the Maidan massacre was a false flag mass killing ." --Ivan
Katchanovski, University of Ottawa About the AuthorGordon M. Hahn is an advisory
board member at Geostrategic Forecasting Corporation, Chicago, and at the American Institute of
Geostrategy (AIGEO), Los Angeles; a contributing expert for Russia Direct, and a senior
researcher at the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), San Jose, California.
He lives in Mountain View, California.
Preface
As I read, listened and watched Western sources on the events surrounding the mass
demonstrations on central square in Kiev during winter 2013-2014, a sense of deja vu
became undeniable. Having studied the nature of terrorism in Russia's North Caucasus, the
causes and course of the August 2008 Georgian-Russian war, and other events involving Russia, I
had seen a pattern of misrepresentation of these events by most Western, especially American,
media, academia and government sources. There was a clear sense that this pattern was being
repeated with regard to the events on the Maidan. Hence, I decided to investigate matters for
myself and have come to a distinctly different conclusion regarding them than that imparted to
the Western public.
Two years after the Maidan "revolution of dignity," it was already clear that the
Western-backed overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich was not entirely a revolution
and was ultimately in vain regardless of how one conceptualizes the events surrounding the
fall-winter 2013-2014 demonstrations and violence on Kiev's Maidan. The movement was based
initially on middle class opposition to corruption and soft authoritarianism and support for
European integration. Ultimately, the nascent pro-democratic revolution was hijacked by
neofascist elements that infiltrated the Maidan protests, overthrew the government, and then
were themselves superseded by several key oligarchs, who always have thrived under the
post-Soviet ancient regime. Thus, corruption and criminality have increased rather than
decreased, European integration has stalled, and authoritarianism is not just in the corridors
of power but on the streets under the yoke of roaming bands of neofascist groups seeking to
foment a second, truly "national revolution."
Despite the all-too-numerous adepts of democratization and democratic transition, this is
not the first, nor is it likely to be the last time when the West has misunderstood processes
it has hoped for, encouraged, and often funded and helped to organize. The "Arab Spring" is
only the most recent set of cases in point. Predictably, that spring's various revolutions
became an Islamist winter spread across parts of the Middle East and North Africa, except in
Egypt -- where a counterrevolution returned the status quo ante.
Similarly, in 1991 the adepts of democratic transitions or "transitology" got it wrong. Few
post-Soviet states became democracies because the "democratic revolution" that overthrew the
reformist late Soviet regime of Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika was assumed to be a "revolution
from below" led by societal opposition forces bent on living in a democracy. This was true in
the Baltic republics, but in most cases the elements of democratic revolution from below were
subsumed by a mix of less civil state bureaucrat-led revolutions from above and nationalist-led
revolutions from below. In Russia, the revolution was largely one led from above by the Russian
President Boris Yeltsin and the Russian state apparatus against the partially reformed but
crumbling central Soviet state and regime. In Central Asia and elsewhere, there was simply a
change of signboards, rebranding for still very authoritarian regimes. The partial exception is
Kyrgyzstan's tulip revolutions and counterrevolutions, which also had strong elements from
above. Thus, it is no surprise that both Ukraine's 2004 Orange revolution, as 1 noted at the
time, and the 2013-2014 Maidan "revolution of dignity," as I predicted, proved to be something
less than the democratic revolutions "transitologists" hailed.
In addition to elements of revolution from below, the Maidan revolt also has elements of
revolution from above led by some state officials and state-tied oligarchs. Moreover, the
revolution from below was under considerable influence from national chauvinist,
ultranationalist, and neofascist groups. The Maidan ultranationalist-oligarchic regime now has
little popular support and few accomplishments in democratization, and is little different from
the previous, except for a marked increase in western Ukrainian neofascism (both in the
corridors of power and on the streets) and a near catastrophic economy. Revolutions are indeed
unwieldy things, not very manageable once unleashed.
The international geopolitical consequences have been even more deleterious. A deepening
Russian-Western confrontation over Ukraine risks recreating a bipolar "world split apart," with
Russia more inclined than ever to forge alliances with regimes opposed to American and Western
power.
This book is dedicated to clarifying these events and their consequences, something that is
imperative given the misleading government and media characterizations of them. This study is
based on Western, Ukrainian and Russian sources, including media reports, reliable primary and
secondary Internet sources, and official documents of governments and international
organizations.
They show Maidan's quasi-revolution was driven by international geopolitics, supporting
counterposed Western and Russian "civilizationist" beliefs, and deep divisions within Ukrainian
society itself, not a wellspring of widespread aspiration to Western-style democracy.
US wants to leverage his dominance in Europe into gas market. That's can work as long as gas
is plentiful. As soon as it became a scarcity the situation will radically change.
This month, the Wall Street Journal
reported that U.S. President Donald Trump has been pressuring Germany to drop its support
for a major new Russian gas pipeline if Europe wants to avoid a trade war with Washington,
while a senior U.S. diplomat warned that the project could be hit with U.S. sanctions; Russian
President Vladimir Putin responded
defiantly . This development, sadly, fuels the further politicization of the European gas
market -- a space that, in many ways, has reflected the triumphs of a depoliticized, pro-market
technocracy, which has managed to stimulate competition and lower prices irrespective of
changing political trends. Just last year, Trump called on European countries to buy American
liquefied natural gas, or LNG, which, for now, remains more expensive than Russia's pipeline
gas. Certainly, the U.S. has much to gain on the global gas market, which has changed
drastically over the past decade, as America rapidly transformed from an importer to an
exporter. Europe's gas market, meanwhile, has much to gain from additional supply. But Trump's
approach, especially if the latest reports are true, both alienates Western European partners
and feeds into a sensationalist, simplistic portrayal of the new U.S. role's effect on Russia
-- as a zero-sum game, in which these new, plentiful U.S. gas supplies serve as an antidote to
Russia's "gas dominance" in Europe and hence to Moscow's political leverage.
In fact, even if Russia remains Europe's dominant gas supplier in the coming years -- as is
likely -- it now has to play by EU rules and vie hard for market share, ultimately benefiting
European consumers. America's gas boom has catalyzed this thriving competition, but an equally
important factor has been a massive, long-term investment in infrastructure and regulation by
Brussels. These EU efforts have done a great deal to weaken Moscow's geopolitical "gas power,"
which has never been uniform across the continent. Today, gas is a prized commodity but not a
major weapon in East-West relations: Russia's gas leverage cannot harm the West, and neither
does competition with U.S. gas pose a major threat to Russia as a state or, for now, to its gas
behemoth, Gazprom. Moreover, in the near to medium term, Russian and U.S. gas companies may
face many
challenges in common : Both will be competing against new, price-lowering producers and
grappling with ever "greener" regulations on the European market, while also trying to profit
from Asia's thirst for energy.
How cheap could Russia produce to compete with growing US LNG exports?
Gazprom needs price around 4 $ per mmbtu in Europe to be profitable. Today in Europe are close to 8 $. US LNG long term imho
need about 8 to 9 $ per mbbtu.
Pompeo told those democrat Senators where to shove it at the hearing. "Did You Ask Obama About His Private Meeting With Putin?", Mike Pompeo SILENCES Arrogant
Dem Senator
European
Union representatives told me that they would start buying soybeans from our great farmers immediately. Also, they will be buying
vast amounts of LNG!
"... The idea behind offset agreements is simple: When a country buys weapons from a firm overseas, it pumps a large amount of money out of its economy, instead of investing in its own defense industry or in other domestic projects. So to make large weapons deals more attractive, arms companies offer programs to "offset" that effect. As part of a weapons package, they often sign an agreement to invest in the country's economy, either in defense or civilian sectors. ..."
"... According to an email from Clarke, the UAE accepted unpaid offset obligations as cash payments to a large financial firm called Tawazun Holding. Tawazun sent the $20 million to a UAE think tank called the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research . ECSSR then began sending that money to the Middle East Institute, a prestigious D.C. think tank that has a history of promoting arms sales to Gulf dictatorships. ... ..."
"... So essentially, in a roundabout way, the UAE took money from international firms that was meant for economic development and funneled it to a supportive think tank in the United States. ..."
The United Arab Emirates created a "slush fund" using money meant for domestic economic development
projects and funneled it to a high-profile think tank in the United States, emails obtained by The
Intercept show.
Last week, The Intercept
reported that the UAE gave a $20 million grant to the Middle East Institute, flooding a well-regarded
D.C. think tank with a monetary grant larger than its
annual budget
. According to an email from Richard Clarke, MEI's chairman of the board, the UAE got the money from
offset investments -- development investments by international companies that are made as part of
trade agreements.
The idea behind offset agreements is simple: When a country buys weapons from a firm overseas,
it pumps a large amount of money out of its economy, instead of investing in its own defense industry
or in other domestic projects. So to make large weapons deals more attractive, arms companies offer
programs to "offset" that effect. As part of a weapons package, they often sign an agreement to invest
in the country's economy, either in defense or civilian sectors.
Offsets provide a way to sell weapons at inflated prices, when companies offer juicier offset
packages. Critics say the lack of transparency in how offset investments are carried out leaves a
window open for a form of legalized corruption. The emails lift a veil on what has long been an obscure
element of the arms trade.
According to an
email from Clarke, the UAE accepted unpaid offset obligations as cash payments to a large financial
firm called Tawazun Holding. Tawazun sent the $20 million to a UAE think tank called the
Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research . ECSSR then began sending that money to the
Middle East Institute, a prestigious D.C. think tank that has a history of
promoting arms sales to Gulf dictatorships. ...
So essentially, in a roundabout way, the UAE took money from international firms that was meant
for economic development and funneled it to a supportive think tank in the United States.
"... The prime minister then begins to speak about the Iranian regime -- "not the Iranian people, I have nothing against them" -- before he is interrupted by an unidentified person off-screen who says, "It will disappear with the help of God." ..."
"... "You said it. From your mouth to God," Netanyahu says in response as the clip ends. ..."
"... Netanyahu does not explain in the video aired by Kan how he convinced Trump to exit the deal. Trump had vowed to scrap what he assailed as the "worst deal ever" before becoming president. ..."
"... Netanyahu unveiled the stolen cache of about 55,000 pages of documents and 183 CDs in a television address that the said proved the existence of an illegal and ongoing secret program to "test and build nuclear weapons" called Project Amad. ..."
"... Just days after the colorful and prop-laden Netanyahu presentation, President Trump announced he would follow through on prior threats to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, or JCPOA. Observers noted at the time that Netanyahu's address had a single audience in mind in the person of Donald Trump during the very week the White House was intensely mulling a final decision over whether to finally pull the plug on the JCPOA. ..."
"... While it appears Netanyahu had his April televised presentation in mind when he says in the clip "I had to stand up against the whole world," there is also little doubt that his personal appeals to Trump on the issue were even more direct and persistent. Other signatories to the deal brokered in 2015 under the Obama administration have vowed to stick by it, which include Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China -- even as the White House threatens punitive measures against any country that continues to do business with Iran. ..."
"... "Israel and the United States formed a joint working group a few months ago that is focused on internal efforts to encourage protests within Iran and pressure the country's government." ..."
"... In the uploaded clip Trump said he and Putin "came to a lot of good conclusions" during the meeting, including "a really good conclusion for Israel, something very strong." Trump said Putin is "a believer in Israel; he is a fan of Bibi and really helping him a lot – and will help a lot, which is good for all of us." ..."
"... Netanyahu posted the interview segment with the commentary in Hebrew: "I will continue to strengthen Israel as a rising global force." Likely, Netanyahu will continue his boasting about his personal intervention and impact with the White House both in public and in private, so more such revelatory footage will probably surface in the coming months. ..."
On Tuesday an Israeli television channel aired leaked video footage it obtained exclusively showing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
boasting that he had personally convinced President Trump to abandon the Iran nuclear deal. The statements were made at a small dinner
event where he addressed senior members of his Likud party.
The video, aired by Israel's Kan News
shows Netanyahu enthusiastically praising his and Likud leadership's efforts, saying "We convinced the US president [to exit the
deal] and I had to stand up against the whole world and come out against this agreement." He added, "And we didn't give up."
According to a translation of the prime minister's words by
The Times of Israel he further agrees that "the Iranian regime" will "disappear with the help of God" -- in the words of
one of his supporters, to which Netanyahu adds, "You said it. From your mouth to God."
The prime minister then begins to speak about the Iranian regime -- "not the Iranian people, I have nothing against them"
-- before he is interrupted by an unidentified person off-screen who says, "It will disappear with the help of God."
"You said it. From your mouth to God," Netanyahu says in response as the clip ends.
Netanyahu does not explain in the video aired by Kan how he convinced Trump to exit the deal. Trump had vowed to scrap what
he assailed as the "worst deal ever" before becoming president.
The Israeli broadcaster that obtained the footage said it was filmed two weeks ago.
When early this week the
New York Times
published the Israeli account of how a daring Mossad operation deep inside Iran netted what are said to be tens of thousands
of secret Iranian nuclear documents in an "Ocean's 11"-style heist,
we noted the Times story appeared to be a propaganda victory lap of sorts meant to further bolster Israeli intelligence's
reputation and far-reaching abilities abroad.
Netanyahu unveiled the stolen cache of about 55,000 pages of documents and 183 CDs
in a television address that the said proved the existence of an illegal and ongoing secret program to "test and build nuclear
weapons" called Project Amad.
Just days after the colorful and prop-laden Netanyahu presentation, President Trump announced he would follow through on prior
threats to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, or JCPOA. Observers noted at the time that Netanyahu's address had a single audience
in mind in the person of Donald Trump during the very week the White House was intensely mulling a final decision over whether to
finally pull the plug on the JCPOA.
While it appears Netanyahu had his April televised presentation in mind when he says in the clip "I had to stand up against
the whole world," there is also little doubt that his personal appeals to Trump on the issue were even more direct and persistent.
Other signatories to the deal brokered in 2015 under the Obama administration have vowed to stick by it, which include Britain, France,
Germany, Russia, and China -- even as the White House threatens punitive measures against any country that continues to do business
with Iran.
Earlier this summer it was confirmed that a high level joint US-Israeli "working group" under the oversight of National Security
Advisor John Bolton has been
meeting
for months with the goal of facilitating regime change in Tehran. As
Axios reported : "Israel and the United States formed a joint working group a few months ago that is focused on
internal efforts to encourage protests within Iran and pressure the country's government." So it's very clear that Netanyahu
has the White House's ear on Iran (though this is no surprise).
Meanwhile, Netanyahu has posted to his official Twitter account a
clip of Trump saying that Russian President Putin is a "Bibi fan". The statement came in a Fox News interview following the US president's
summit and press conference with Putin.
In the uploaded clip Trump said he and Putin "came to a lot of good conclusions" during the meeting, including "a really good
conclusion for Israel, something very strong." Trump said Putin is "a believer in Israel; he is a fan of Bibi and really helping
him a lot – and will help a lot, which is good for all of us."
Netanyahu posted the interview segment with the commentary in Hebrew: "I will continue to strengthen Israel as a rising global
force." Likely, Netanyahu will continue his boasting about his personal intervention and impact with the White House both in public
and in private, so more such revelatory footage will probably surface in the coming months.
"... "Our intelligence community" is one of those phrases that make my back teeth itch, because I hate to see "our" doing that much work (especially when I know how much work our's parent, "we," has to do.) ..."
"... On Friday, Michael McFaul, a former United States ambassador to Russia, wrote on Twitter: "I'm very impressed that Mueller was able to name the 12 GRU officers in the new indictment. Demonstrates the incredible capabilities of our intelligence community ." ..."
"... Almost one year ago, on January 28th, 2003, the President devoted one-third of his State of the Union address to what he described as "a serious and mounting threat to our country" posed by Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction. He spoke, in those famous 16 words, about efforts by Iraq to secure enriched uranium from Africa. He talked about aluminum tubes "suitable for nuclear weapons production." He described stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and said, "we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs." ..."
"... That "we know, we know from sources that a missile brigade outside Baghdad was dispersing rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agent to various locations " That "there can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more." Pictures of what he called "active chemical munitions bunkers" with "sure signs that the bunkers are storing chemical munitions." ..."
"... The WMDs episode led to the (bipartisan) Iraq War, the greatest strategic debacle in American history. The WMDs episode was marked by fake evidence (yellowcake; aluminum tubes), planted stories, gaslighting, and a consensus of elite opinion along the Acela Corridor, exactly as today. The intelligence community was wrong. The national security establishment was wrong. The press was wrong. The Congressional leadership was wrong. The President was wrong. Everybody was wrong (except for a few outliers who couldn't get jobs afterwards anyhow, exactly because they were right). And now, today, we are faced with the same demand that we believe what the intelligence community says, without question, and without evidence that the public can see and examine. The only difference is that this time, the stakes are greater: Rather than blowing a few trillion and slaughtering hundreds of thousands of faraway brown people, we're rushing toward a change in the Constitutional Order that in essence makes the intelligence community a fourth branch of the government. ..."
"Our intelligence community" is one of those phrases that make my back teeth itch, because I hate to see "our" doing that much
work (especially when I know how much work our's parent, "we," has to do.) So I thought I'd throw together some usage examples of
the term to see if I could find more significant readings than my own reaction, and then draw out some implications from that reading.
But first, let's look at how often that term is used, and where. We turn to
Google Trends
:
Some caveats: Google doesn't have enough data to track "our intelligence community," or so it says, so the search is for "intelligence
community" only.
Further, the search is for 2008 to the present, again because Google, or so it says, doesn't have enough data for
shorter time frames.[1] However, I think the chart shows that interest in the intelligence community is not general in time or space:
It spikes when there's gaslighting with reader interest in particular stories, and spikes along the Acela Corridor, in
Washington and New York. (We might also speculate,
based on HuffPost/YouGov
voter data , that interest in the today's stories about the intelligence is limited not only in space, and time, but in scope:
Primarily among liberal Democrats.[2]) With that, let's turn to our usage examples.
I used Google to find them, and of course Google
search is crapified and all but useless -- for example, it insists on returning examples of "intelligence community" along with "our
intelligence community" in normal search, even with when the search string is quoted -- but it is what it is; readers are invited
to supply their own examples.
On Friday, Michael McFaul, a former United States ambassador to Russia, wrote on Twitter: "I'm very impressed that Mueller
was able to name the 12 GRU officers in the new indictment. Demonstrates the incredible capabilities of our intelligence
community ."
No. Mueller provided no evidence and the case is unlikely to go to trial; the capability consists in the naming, not in the proof.
Verdict: Credulity .
The
intelligence community
determined
that the Kremlin intended to "denigrate" and "harm" Clinton, and "undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic
process" while helping Trump.
And the same claim, July 10, 2018, Washington Post:
The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to boost Trump's candidacy
No. If you click through, you'll find that this is the "17 agencies"/"high confidence" report, whose agencies and analysts were
hand-picked by Clapper; that's just not the "intelligence community" as a whole[3]; the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), was not
involved in the analysis, for example. (I don't see how it's normal that such an important topic not to be the subject of a Presidental
Finding, but perhaps people were in a rush.) Verdict; Misinformation .
FLAKE: We know the intelligence is right. We stand behind our intelligence community . We need to say
that in the Senate. Yes, it's symbolic, and symbolism is important.
And a similar formulation, July 22, 2018, Senator Marco Rubio (R),
CBS News
:
We need to move forward from that with good public policy and part of that is, I think, standing with our intelligence
community .
Posturing aside, to my sensibilities, it's pretty disturbing when "support the troops" bleeds over into "support the spies," and
when supporting the conclusions of an institution bleeds over into supporting the institution itself, as such. (The whole of the
Federalist Papers argues against the latter view:
"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.") Verdict: Authoritarian followership .
WE UNIFY OUR INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY TOWARD A STRONGER, SAFER NATION
No. The DNI mistakes the hope for the fact; were the intelligence community in fact
unified
, Clapper would not have hand-picked agencies for his report, and a Presidential Finding would have been made. (And given the
source, "our" is doing even more work there than it usual does; it reminds of liberal Democrats talking about "our Democracy." Whose,
exactly?) Verdict: Wishful thinking .
Example 5, July 16, 2018, John Sipher (interview),
PBS
:
I do think the intelligence community is quite resilient. They put their head down and they do their work, but they
take this very seriously. And they see the president as their primary customer and they will do almost anything to get the president
the information that he needs to do his job.
No. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes
-- "Who will guard the guards themselves?" -- was formulated by the Roman poet
Juvenal (d. 138AD) in the late first or early second century,
[checks calculator], about 1880 years ago. It's absurd to assume that "the intelligence" community has always served its "primary
customer" -- see the Bay of Pigs invastion at "
groupthink " -- or that they will
in the future, especially considering the enormous stakes involved today. Verdict: Historical ignorance .
Today I voted for H.R. 6237, the Matthew Young Pollard Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Years 2018 and 2019. This
important legislation funds our Intelligence community and provides them the resources they need to effectively defend
our nation "This legislation makes sure that the dedicated men and women who serve our nation in the Intelligence Community [caps
in the original] are fully equipped to fulfill their mission."
No. While Sipher urges (
as does Clapper
) that the intelligence community is in the business of serving customers, Comstock, through her language ("dedicated
men and women who serve our nation") identifies it with the military. That's pretty disturbing when you realize that the intelligence
community has a domestic component (and when you think back to Obama's 17-city crackdown on Occupy, or Obama's militarized response
to #BlackLivesMatter). Verdict: Militarization
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, head of the U.S. intelligence community , reaffirmed his conclusion
that Russia had indeed tried to sway the election in a statement published after Trump's remarks.
No. The U.S. has 17 intelligence agencies; the DNI is in no sense their head.
From the DNI site :
The core mission of the ODNI is to lead the IC in intelligence integration, forging a community that delivers the most insightful
intelligence possible. That means effectively operating as one team: synchronizing collection, analysis and counterintelligence
so that they are fused. This integration is the key to ensuring national policymakers receive timely and accurate analysis from
the IC to make educated decisions.
If you boil that bureucratic porridge down -- the Russian word for porridge is
kasha , in case kompromat has
worn thin for you -- you'll see that the 17 intelligence agencies do not have a reporting relationship to the DNI. Hence, the DNI
is not their head. QED. Verdict: Authoritarian followership
[BRENNAN:] What Mr. Trump did (Monday) was to betray the women and men of the FBI, the CIA and NSA and others and betray the
American public. That's why I use the term, this was nothing short of treason, because it is a betrayal of the nation. He's giving
aid and comfort to the enemy.
(Leaving aside Brennan's broad definition of enemy -- apparently a sovereign state with interests different from our own, as opposed
to a nation against whom Congress has declared war -- note that Brennan treats the agencies as individual entities, not as "unified,"
presumably betraying DNI Coats). More:
BRENNAN:] I still shake my head trying to understand what was discussed during the two-hour one-on-one, what was discussed
between the two sides in their bilateral meeting. We only saw what Mr. Trump said during the press conference. I can't even imagine
what he said behind closed doors. I can't imagine what he said to Mr. Putin directly. I am very concerned about what type of impact
it might have on our intelligence community and on this country."
No. Note well: What (
torture
advocate ) Brennan says contradicts the other two models expressed in this aggregation. If the President is the customer, it's
not Brennan's concern what that customer does (any more than it's Best Buy's concern what I buy in Starbucks after I pick up my flat-screen
TV). And if the intelligence community is a branch of the military, it's not their concern what their Commander-in-Chief does; he'll
tell them what they need to know.) Seriously, why does the Praetorian Guard need to know what the emperor is doing. Now, one could
argue that Brennan's ambition is counteracting Trump's ambition; well and good, but then one needs to think through the consequences.
And if Brennan, et al., really believe that Trump committed treason, then they -- as the good patriots they presumably are -- need
to indicate a path to removing him. If that path does not include full disclosure of the evidence for whatever charges are to be
made, then the country will have to deal with the consequences -- which I'd speculate won't be pretty -- of
a change in the Constitutional order where the "intelligence community" can remove a President from office based on its own internal
consensus . Praetorian
Almost one year ago, on January 28th, 2003, the President devoted one-third of his State of the Union address to what he
described as "a serious and mounting threat to our country" posed by Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction. He spoke,
in those famous 16 words, about efforts by Iraq to secure enriched uranium from Africa. He talked about aluminum tubes "suitable
for nuclear weapons production." He described stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and said, "we know that Iraq, in the
late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs."
One week later, on February 5th, Secretary of State Colin Powell, with Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet sitting
behind his right shoulder, used charts and photographs to elaborate on the Administration's WMD case. "These are not assertions,"
Powell said, "these are facts corroborated by many sources." Among Powell's claims were:
That "we know, we know from sources that a missile brigade outside Baghdad was dispersing rocket launchers and warheads
containing biological warfare agent to various locations " That "there can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons
and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more." Pictures of what he called "active chemical munitions bunkers" with "sure
signs that the bunkers are storing chemical munitions."
Powell has subsequently said that he spent days personally assessing the intelligence. He included only information he felt
was fully supported by the analysis. Hence, no mention of enriched uranium from Africa, no claim that al Qaeda was involved in
9-11.
The effect was powerful. Veteran columnist for the Washington Post, Mary McGrory, known for liberal views and Kennedy connections,
wrote an op-ed the following day entitled "I Am Persuaded". Members of Congress, like me, believed the intelligence case. We voted
for the resolution on Iraq to urge U.N. action and to authorize military force only if diplomacy failed. We felt confident we
had made the wise choice.
But as the evidence pours in the Intelligence Committee's review of the pre-war intelligence; David Kay's interim report on
the failure to find WMD in Iraq; an impressive study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; the President's Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board's critique; thoughtful commentaries like that of Ken Pollack in this month's Atlantic Monthly; and
investigative reporting including a lengthy front page story by Barton Gellman of the Washington Post on January 7,
we are finding out that Powell and other policymakers were wrong, British intelligence was wrong, and those of us who
believed the intelligence were wrong . Indeed, I doubt there would be discussions of David Kay's possible departure if the
Iraq Survey Group were on the verge of uncovering large stockpiles of weapons or an advanced nuclear weapons program.
But if 9/11 was a failure to connect the dots, it appears that the Intelligence Community, in the case of Iraq's WMD,
connected the dots to the wrong conclusions . If our intelligence products had been better, I believe many policymakers,
including me, would have had a far clearer picture of the sketchiness of our sources on Iraq's WMD programs, and our lack of certainty
about Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear capabilities.
Let me add that policymakers -- including members of Congress -- have a duty to ask tough questions, to probe the information
being presented to them. We also have a duty to portray that information publicly as accurately as we can.
The WMDs episode led to the (bipartisan) Iraq War, the greatest strategic debacle in American history. The WMDs episode was marked
by fake evidence (yellowcake; aluminum tubes), planted stories, gaslighting, and a consensus of elite opinion along the Acela Corridor,
exactly as today. The intelligence community was wrong. The national security establishment was wrong. The press was wrong. The Congressional
leadership was wrong. The President was wrong. Everybody was wrong (except for a few outliers who couldn't get jobs afterwards anyhow,
exactly because they were right). And now, today, we are faced with the same demand that we believe what the intelligence community
says, without question, and without evidence that the public can see and examine. The only difference is that this time, the stakes
are greater: Rather than blowing a few trillion and slaughtering hundreds of thousands of faraway brown people, we're rushing toward
a change in the Constitutional Order that in essence makes the intelligence community a fourth branch of the government.
Why are we doing that? Well, if you look at the verdicts after each of the quotes I've found, taking the quotes as a proxy for
elite opinion, one reason might be that the portion of our elites involved in the Russia narrative -- who, let us remember, are limited
in space and scope -- are:
Credulous Misinformed Prone to authoritarian followership Historically ignorant Militarized Praetorian
If power is lying in the street, beware of who picks it up. Matters might not improve.
NOTES .
[1] The hit count (100 for the spike in January 2017) is oddly low; sadly, although 100 looks like a blue link, we cannot click
through to check the data. However, even if the aggregates are low, I think we can assume that both the shape of the trend line and
its geographic distribution are directionally correct, because the spikes occur at reasonable places for them to occur. Sidebar:
Note the horrid user interface design, which uses inordinate amounts of screen space to no purpose, disrespecting the time-pressed
professional user.
[2] We might even go so far as to speculate that -- given these limitations in space -- that while "our" asserts Democrat leadership
as a National party, Democrats are in fact a State party. Removing the hyphen from "nation-state" is a neat way
of encapsulating our current legitimacy crisis.
[3] "Intelligence community," like "deep state," connotes unity among institutions that are in fact riven by faction.
ADDENDUM: Scott Horton
I didn't add this material to the post proper, because I only had screen shots, and I wasn't able to find the post in time using
Google, or Facebook's lousy search. So after ten minutes of plowing through Facebook's infinite scroll, here is the embed* from Scott
Horton that I sought:
And a screen shot personally taken by me:
Note the lead: "European intelligence analysts ," so reminiscent of Bush's "British intelligence has learned " (the
sixteen words ). What they "learned," of course,
was the faked evidence on Niger yellowcake. Go through my list of "verdicts," starting with "credulous," and see what does
not
apply to Horton.
Horton is a Contributing Editor to Harper's Magazine,
has a law practice in New York, and is affiliate with Columbia Law School and the Open Society Institute.
The key point, for me, is this: "Liberal Democrats do not view anyone outside of places like Orange and Lexington County (whom
they go all-out to court) as people fit to make their own choices." It's important to watch for outright denial of agency,
to others, not merely lack of agency. That's true for Horton, it was true for Clinton's "deplorables" comment, and it was true for
Obama's "bitter"/"cling to" Kinseley gaffe.
It would be nice if Senator Sanders didn't signal boost this stuff. Here's another usage example of "intelligence community":
Or, to put this another way, Sanders needs to get his supporters' backs, and fast, with messaging that doesn't take a "duck and
cover" approach by repeating the catchphrases of the current onslaught, but contextualizes and decontaminates it. I didn't say that
would be easy
NOTE * I like the picture the Time chose very much; apparently, the evul left is young, female, swarthy, and/or black.
No suburban Republicans here! The "AbolishICE" t-shirt -- and not, say, #MedicareForAll -- is also a nice touch.
"... The Mueller special counsel investigation was launched to probe charges that the key FBI officials developing evidence in the case thought were baseless. That's a bombshell accusation that appears to have been confirmed by former FBI lawyer Lisa Page , according to John Solomon . It tends to confirm the suspicion that the Mueller probe is a cover-up operation to obscure the criminal use of counterintelligence capabilities to spy on a rival presidential campaign and then sabotage the presidency that resulted. ..."
"... she offered a bombshell confirmation of the meaning of one of the most enigmatic text messages that the public has seen (keep in mind that there are many yet to be released). ..."
"... The truth behind the Mueller probe is looking uglier and uglier. Pursuing bogus accusations without foundation is the very definition of a witch hunt – President Trump's term for Mueller's team of Hillary-supporters. ..."
"... We don't know anything at all about the activities of Utah U.S. attorney Peter Huber , who is investigating the potential abuse of U.S. intelligence apparatus for political purposes. That is the proper procedure for grand jury probes. But if Lisa Page is honestly answering questions under oath for a congressional committee, she probably is doing so in grand jury sessions, if summoned. ..."
The Mueller special counsel investigation was launched to probe charges that the key FBI
officials developing evidence in the case thought were baseless. That's a bombshell accusation
that appears to have been confirmed by former FBI lawyer Lisa Page , according to John Solomon
. It tends to confirm the suspicion that the Mueller probe is a cover-up operation to obscure
the criminal use of counterintelligence capabilities to spy on a rival presidential campaign
and then sabotage the presidency that resulted.
Earlier reports indicated that Page has been answering questions from the House Judiciary
Committee quite frankly and may even have
cut a deal selling out her ex-lover Peter Strzok over their professional misbehavior (and
quite possibly worse) in targeting the campaign and presidency of Donald Trump with the
intelligence-gathering tools of the FBI.
Last night, John Solomon of
The Hill revealed that he has obtained information from sources who heard Page's testimony
in two days of sworn depositions behind closed doors that she offered a bombshell
confirmation of the meaning of one of the most enigmatic text messages that the public has seen
(keep in mind that there are many yet to be released).
[T]here are just five words, among the thousands of suggestive texts Page and Strzok
exchanged, that you should read.
That passage was transmitted on May 19, 2017. "There's no big there there," Strzok
texted.
The date of the text long has intrigued investigators: It is two days after Deputy
Attorney General Rod
Rosenstein
named special counselRobert Mueller to oversee an investigation
into alleged collusion between Trump and the Russia campaign.
Since the text was turned over to Congress, investigators wondered whether it referred to
the evidence against the Trump campaign.
This month, they finally got the chance to ask. Strzok declined to say – but Page,
during a closed-door interview with lawmakers, confirmed in the most pained and contorted way
that the message in fact referred to the quality of the Russia case, according to multiple
eyewitnesses.
The admission is deeply consequential. It means Rosenstein unleashed the most awesome
powers of a special counsel to investigate an allegation that the key FBI officials, driving
the investigation for 10 months beforehand, did not think was "there."
The truth behind the Mueller probe is looking uglier and uglier. Pursuing bogus
accusations without foundation is the very definition of a witch hunt – President Trump's
term for Mueller's team of Hillary-supporters.
We don't know anything at all about the activities of Utah U.S. attorney Peter Huber ,
who is
investigating the potential abuse of U.S. intelligence apparatus for political purposes.
That is the proper procedure for grand jury probes. But if Lisa Page is honestly answering
questions under oath for a congressional committee, she probably is doing so in grand jury
sessions, if summoned.
The glacial pace of this probe is frustrating for Trump-supporters. But doing it right and
observing the ethical and legal constraints takes time and does not generate leaks.
Nevertheless, I am deeply encouraged by this leak to Solomon, as it seems to indicate that the
truth will come out.
Appearing on Hannity last night, Solomon elaborated: watch video
here .
Not only "An economic system that rewards psychopathic personality traits has changed our
ethics and our personalities", it crushes the will to resist presenting psychopathic dictate in
forms that make it difficult. Such as performance reviews waterboarding or putting individual in
the way too complex and self-contradictory Web of regulations.
Notable quotes:
"... An economic system that rewards psychopathic personality traits has changed our ethics and our personalities. ..."
"... Bullying used to be confined to schools; now it is a common feature of the workplace. This is a typical symptom of the impotent venting their frustration on the weak – in psychology it's known as displaced aggression. There is a buried sense of fear, ranging from performance anxiety to a broader social fear of the threatening other. ..."
"... Constant evaluations at work cause a decline in autonomy and a growing dependence on external, often shifting, norms. This results in what the sociologist Richard Sennett has aptly described as the "infantilisation of the workers". Adults display childish outbursts of temper and are jealous about trivialities ("She got a new office chair and I didn't"), tell white lies, resort to deceit, delight in the downfall of others and cherish petty feelings of revenge. This is the consequence of a system that prevents people from thinking independently and that fails to treat employees as adults. ..."
"... Our society constantly proclaims that anyone can make it if they just try hard enough, all the while reinforcing privilege and putting increasing pressure on its overstretched and exhausted citizens. An increasing number of people fail, feeling humiliated, guilty and ashamed. We are forever told that we are freer to choose the course of our lives than ever before, but the freedom to choose outside the success narrative is limited. Furthermore, those who fail are deemed to be losers or scroungers, taking advantage of our social security system. ..."
"... The current economic system is bringing out the worst in us. ..."
An economic system that rewards psychopathic personality traits has changed our ethics
and our personalities.
Thirty years of neoliberalism, free-market forces and
privatisation have taken their toll, as relentless pressure to achieve has become normative. If
you're reading this sceptically, I put this simple statement to you: meritocratic neoliberalism
favours certain personality traits and penalises others.
There are certain ideal characteristics needed to make a career today. The first is
articulateness, the aim being to win over as many people as possible. Contact can be
superficial, but since this applies to most human interaction nowadays, this won't really be
noticed.
It's important to be able to talk up your own capacities as much as you can – you know
a lot of people, you've got plenty of experience under your belt and you recently completed a
major project. Later, people will find out that this was mostly hot air, but the fact that they
were initially fooled is down to another personality trait: you can lie convincingly and feel
little guilt. That's why you never take responsibility for your own behaviour.
On top of all this, you are flexible and impulsive, always on the lookout for new stimuli
and challenges. In practice, this leads to risky behaviour, but never mind, it won't be you who
has to pick up the pieces. The source of inspiration for this list? The psychopathy checklist
by Robert Hare , the best-known specialist
on psychopathy today.
This description is, of course, a caricature taken to extremes. Nevertheless, the financial
crisis illustrated at a macro-social level (for example, in the conflicts between eurozone
countries) what a neoliberal meritocracy does to people. Solidarity becomes an expensive luxury
and makes way for temporary alliances, the main preoccupation always being to extract more
profit from the situation than your competition. Social ties with colleagues weaken, as does
emotional commitment to the enterprise or organisation.
Bullying used to be confined to schools; now it is a common feature of the workplace.
This is a typical symptom of the impotent venting their frustration on the weak – in
psychology it's known as displaced aggression. There is a buried sense of fear, ranging from
performance anxiety to a broader social fear of the threatening other.
Constant evaluations at work cause a decline in autonomy and a growing dependence on
external, often shifting, norms. This results in what the sociologist Richard Sennett has
aptly described as the "infantilisation of the workers". Adults display childish outbursts of
temper and are jealous about trivialities ("She got a new office chair and I didn't"), tell
white lies, resort to deceit, delight in the downfall of others and cherish petty feelings of
revenge. This is the consequence of a system that prevents people from thinking independently
and that fails to treat employees as adults.
More important, though, is the serious damage to people's self-respect. Self-respect largely
depends on the recognition that we receive from the other, as thinkers from Hegel to Lacan have shown. Sennett comes
to a similar conclusion when he sees the main question for employees these days as being "Who
needs me?" For a growing group of people, the answer is: no one.
Our society constantly proclaims that anyone can make it if they just try hard enough,
all the while reinforcing privilege and putting increasing pressure on its overstretched and
exhausted citizens. An increasing number of people fail, feeling humiliated, guilty and
ashamed. We are forever told that we are freer to choose the course of our lives than ever
before, but the freedom to choose outside the success narrative is limited. Furthermore, those
who fail are deemed to be losers or scroungers, taking advantage of our social security
system.
A neoliberal meritocracy would have us believe that success depends on individual effort and
talents, meaning responsibility lies entirely with the individual and authorities should give
people as much freedom as possible to achieve this goal. For those who believe in the fairytale
of unrestricted choice, self-government and self-management are the pre-eminent political
messages, especially if they appear to promise freedom. Along with the idea of the perfectible
individual, the freedom we perceive ourselves as having in the west is the greatest untruth of
this day and age.
The sociologist Zygmunt Bauman neatly summarised the paradox
of our era as: "Never have we been so free. Never have we felt so powerless." We are indeed
freer than before, in the sense that we can criticise religion, take advantage of the new
laissez-faire attitude to sex and support any political movement we like. We can do all these
things because they no longer have any significance – freedom of this kind is prompted by
indifference. Yet, on the other hand, our daily lives have become a constant battle against a
bureaucracy that would make Kafka weak at the knees. There are regulations about everything,
from the salt content of bread to urban poultry-keeping.
Our presumed freedom is tied to one central condition: we must be successful – that
is, "make" something of ourselves. You don't need to look far for examples. A highly skilled
individual who puts parenting before their career comes in for criticism. A person with a good
job who turns down a promotion to invest more time in other things is seen as crazy –
unless those other things ensure success. A young woman who wants to become a primary school
teacher is told by her parents that she should start off by getting a master's degree in
economics – a primary school teacher, whatever can she be thinking of?
There are constant laments about the so-called loss of norms and values in our culture. Yet
our norms and values make up an integral and essential part of our identity. So they cannot be
lost, only changed. And that is precisely what has happened: a changed economy reflects changed
ethics and brings about changed identity. The current economic system is bringing out the
worst in us.
Panic attacks, anxiety attacks, nervous breakdowns, depression, suicidal thoughts alienation,
cancers, withdrawal are all symptoms of the de-humanizing aspects of a market-driven life. In
its worst forms it manifests periodically in mass shootings at strangers. So what do people
do to cope? Drugs, pain killers, shrinks, alcohol, potato chips and soda. They then develop
obesity, diabetes and heart diseases and cancers. How to save a human species terminally
intoxicated with technology and enslaved by the market while the inner spirit is running
empty may not be possible given the advanced nature of the disease.
...what?
You fail to really acknowledge that time and again we've failed to exercise constrain within
the capitalist models. The the meritorious are often inadequately rewarded - when any person
in work cannot afford to home and feed themselves and their family then a reasonable balance
has not been struck - in that sense at no time in history has capitalism functioned
adequately.
To suggest that socialism is anti-human is to ignore how and why as a species we formed
societies at all, we come together precisely because there is a mutual benefit in so doing;
to help another is to help oneself - the model itself fails to operate in practice for the
same reason that capitalism does - the greed of the power holder.
You reserve your sharpest barbs for socialism, but at least within the socialist agenda
there is a commitment to the protection of the citizen, whoever they are, even the
'unmerited' as you describe them - a capitalist's paraphrase for 'those that create no
value'.
The socialist at least recognises that whilst the parent may be 'unmerited' their
dependants should be entitled to receive equality of opportunity and protection from the
'law-of-the-jungle' i.e., the greed of others.
The ability to generate wealth, simply by already having wealth and therefore being able
to thrive off the labour of others carries little merit as far as I can tell and does indeed
create the soul-crushing command-and-control empires of the capitalism that millions around
the world experience daily.
Neoliberalism is indeed a huge self-serving con and ironically the Thatcher/Regan doctrine
which set out to break the status quo and free the economy from the old elitist guard has had
exactly the opposite effect.
Capitalism cannot differentiate between honest competition and cheating. Since humans will
cheat to win, capitalism has become survival of the worst not the best.
The bottom line is the basic human condition prizes food, shelter, sex, and then goes
directly to greed in most modern societies. It was not always that way, and is not that way
in ever fewer societies. As it is, greed makes the world go around.
In capitalistic societies greed has been fed by business and commerce; in communist
societies it has been "some pigs are more equal then others"; and in dictatorships or true
monarchies (or the Australian Liberal Party) there is the born to rule mentality where there
are rulers and serfs.
Nobody ever seems to address the paradox of the notion of an absolute free market: that
within a free market, those who can have the freedom to exploit do exploit, thereby thus
eliminating the freedom of the exploited, which thence paradoxically negates the absoluteness
of the free market. No absolute freedom truly exist in a free market.
As such, the free market is pipe dream - a con - to eliminate regulations and create
economic freedoms only where they benefit the elite. The free market does not exist, is
impossible, and therefore should cease to be held as the harbinger of a progressive socio
economic reality.
If we are to accept the Christian assumption that we, humans, are all self-serving and
acquisitive, then we must, therefore, negate the possibility of an absolutely "free" market,
since exploitation is a naturally occurring byproduct of weak-strong interactions.
Exploitation negates freedom, and therefore, it must be our reality, as it is in all peoples'
best interests, to accept directly democratic regulations as the keystone to any market.
It sounds very like the Marxist critique of capital. And similarly, points to real problems,
but doesn't seek evidence for why such a sick situation not only persists, but is so popular
- except by denigrating 'the masses'.
Surely what is particular about our time, about industrialisation generally, is the
fragmenting of long term social structures, and orientation around the individual alone. It
seems to me the problem of our times is redeveloping social structures which balance the
individual and the socials selves, as all not merely stable but thriving happy creative
societies, have always done.
Their propaganda is the same- an obsessive hatred of the state in any form, a semi-religious
belief in the power of the individual operating in the free-market to solve humanity's ills.
Granted, they aren't social libertarians, but then, in the US, libertarians don't seem to
be either.
Pretty typical that the assumption is the Marx "nailed it" and any dissenters are
just "scared".
I'm scared by it too, as I said, it's a sensible fear of change. The question remains. What
if Marx's analysis, just the analysis, is broadly correct? What if markets really are the
road to ruination of our planet, morality and collective welfare in roughly the way that he
explained?
It's not a trivial question, and clearly the current economic orthodoxy has failed to
explain some recent little problems we've been having, while Marx explains how these problems
are structurally embedded and only to be expected. It is intellectual cowardice to
compulsively avoid this, in my view. Better minds than ours have struggled with it.
So beware of the fallacious argument from authority - 'You are stupid while I am
axiomatically very clever, because I say so, hence I must be correct and you must shut it.'
It goes nowhere useful, though we are all prone to employing it.
But it is not 'sixth form' thinking, surely, to consider these problems as being worth
thinking about in a modern context. It is a plain fact that Stalinism didn't work as planned.
We know it, but it doesn't make the problems it was intended to solve disappear to say
so.
If you believe human nature can be changed by enforcing your interpretation of Marx's
road to human freedom (a quasi-religious goal) you condemn millions to starvation,
slaughter, gulags, misery etc.
Please read what I actually wrote about that. I'm not remotely quasi-religious, nor do I seek
to enforce anything. My intention is only to expose a particularly damaging mythology. The
extent of my crimes is persuasion as a prelude to consensual change before necessity really
bites us all.
Markets conjure up the exact forms of misery you describe. Totalitarians of the right are
highly undesirable too. I am against totalitarians, as are you, but an admirer of Marx's
work. Do I fit into your simplistic categories? Does anyone? The freedoms we are permitted
serve the market before they serve people. Markets are a social construct, as is capital,
that we can choose to modify or squash. A child starving in a slum for lack of
competitiveness, for its inability to serve the interests of capital, is less abstract
perhaps.
The thing about selfishness and a brutal form of dog eat dog capitalism.
You see, it is a truth axiomatic that we human beings, as all living beings, are
fundamentally selfish. We have to be in order to survive, and excel, and advance and
perpetuate.
It is not theory but hard biology. You breathe for yourself, eat for yourself, love for
yourself, have a family for yourself and so on. People are most affected and hurt if
something happens to something or someone who means something to them personally. This is why
concepts such as religion and nationality have worked so well, and will continue to even if
they evolve in different ways, for they tap into a person's conception of theirself. Of their
identity, of their self-definition. People tend to feel worse if something bad happens to
someone they know than to a stranger; people tend to feel less bad when something happens to
a cockroach than to a dog, simply because we relate better to dogs than to insects...So even
our compassion is selfish after a fashion.
Capitalism and Socialism are two ends of the the same human spectrum of innate and
hardwired selfishness. One stresses on the individual and the other on the larger group. It's
always going to be hard to find the right balance because when you vest excessive power in
any selfish ideology, it will begin to eat into the other type of selfishness..
The world revolves around competing selfishnesses...
The global economy is based upon wasting lives and material resources.
Designer landfill is no longer an option and neo-liberalism, which places importance of
the invention called money over that of people (which is a dehumanising process), was never
an option.
It is time for the neo-liberal fake politicians (that is 99.99% of them) to take up
politics.
It really is, as ever since it is only another word for change, time for revolution.
By extension, moving away from a system the shuns those who 'fail' people would be
emotionally better off, and with the removal of the constant assessment and individualistic
competition, people may feel better able to relate to one another. This would imply that
healthy communities would be more likely to flourish, as people would be less likely to
ignore those on lower income or of 'lower status'.
Move to what system? What system would achieve this?
Whether you agree or not, it is pretty clear what was being said.
Of course it's clear. George and his followers dislike market based systems. It couldn't
be clearer. Even when the subject has little to do with the market, George and his followers
always blame it for everything that is wrong with this world. That's pretty much the whole
point of this article.
What's never clear is what alternative George and his followers propose that wouldn't
result in all of the same flaws that accompany market driven systems. How can they be so sure
some of those problems won't be worse? They always seem a bit sketchy, which is remarkable
given the furor with which they relentlessly critique the market. We are told of alternatives
concepts painted in the broadest of brushes, rich with abstract intangible idealism, but
lacking in any pragmatism. We are invited to consider the whole exercise simply as
academically self-indulgent navel gazing by the priviledged overeducated minority that
comprise much of the Guardian's readership. It's quite disappointing. This article correctly
details much of the discontent in the world. But this isn't a revelation. Where are the
concrete ideas that can actualy be implemented now? frontalcortexes at least makes a stab at something a bit more practicle than a 17
paragraph esoteric essay citing ancient Greek.
One of the worst thing is that the winners in the market race are showered with things which
are fundamentally valueless and far in excess of what they could consume if they weren't,
while bare necessities are withheld from the losers.
"... The workplace has been overwhelmed by a mad, Kafkaesque infrastructure of assessments, monitoring, measuring, surveillance
and audits, centrally directed and rigidly planned, whose purpose is to reward the winners and punish the losers ..."
"... The same forces afflict those who can't find work. They must now contend, alongside the other humiliations of unemployment,
with a whole new level of snooping and monitoring. All this, Verhaeghe points out, is fundamental to the neoliberal model, which everywhere
insists on comparison, evaluation and quantification. We find ourselves technically free but powerless. Whether in work or out of work,
we must live by the same rules or perish. All the major political parties promote them, so we have no political power either. In the
name of autonomy and freedom we have ended up controlled by a grinding, faceless bureaucracy. ..."
I was prompted to write it by a remarkable book, just published in English, by a Belgian professor of psychoanalysis, Paul Verhaeghe.
What About Me? The Struggle for Identity in a Market-Based
Society is one of those books that, by making connections between apparently distinct phenomena, permits sudden new insights
into what is happening to us and why.
We are social animals, Verhaeghe argues, and our identities are shaped by the norms and values we absorb from other people. Every
society defines and shapes its own normality – and its own abnormality – according to dominant narratives, and seeks either to make
people comply or to exclude them if they don't.
Today the dominant narrative is that of market fundamentalism, widely known in Europe as neoliberalism. The story it tells is
that the market can resolve almost all social, economic and political problems. The less the state regulates and taxes us, the better
off we will be. Public services should be privatised, public spending should be cut, and business should be freed from social control.
In countries such as the UK and the US, this story has shaped our norms and values for around 35 years: since Thatcher and Reagan
came to power. It is rapidly colonising the rest of the world.
Verhaeghe points out that neoliberalism draws on the ancient Greek idea that our ethics are innate (and governed by a state of
nature it calls the market) and on the Christian idea that humankind is inherently selfish and acquisitive. Rather than seeking to
suppress these characteristics, neoliberalism celebrates them: it claims that unrestricted competition, driven by self-interest,
leads to innovation and economic growth, enhancing the welfare of all.
At the heart of this story is the notion of merit. Untrammelled competition rewards people who have talent, work hard, and innovate.
It breaks down hierarchies and creates a world of opportunity and mobility.
The reality is rather different. Even at the beginning of the process, when markets are first deregulated, we do not start with
equal opportunities. Some people are a long way down the track before the starting gun is fired. This is how the Russian oligarchs
managed to acquire such wealth when the Soviet Union broke up. They weren't, on the whole, the most talented, hardworking or innovative
people, but those with the fewest scruples, the most thugs, and the best contacts – often in the KGB.
Even when outcomes are based on talent and hard work, they don't stay that way for long. Once the first generation of liberated
entrepreneurs has made its money, the initial meritocracy is replaced by a new elite, which insulates its children from competition
by inheritance and the best education money can buy. Where market fundamentalism has been most fiercely applied – in countries like
the US and UK – social
mobility has greatly declined .
If neoliberalism was anything other than a self-serving con, whose gurus and
thinktanks were financed
from the beginning by some of the world's richest people (the US multimillionaires Coors, Olin, Scaife, Pew and others), its
apostles would have demanded, as a precondition for a society based on merit, that no one should start life with the unfair advantage
of inherited wealth or economically determined education. But they never believed in their own doctrine. Enterprise, as a result,
quickly gave way to rent.
All this is ignored, and success or failure in the market economy are ascribed solely to the efforts of the individual. The rich
are the new righteous; the poor are the new deviants, who have failed both economically and morally and are now classified as social
parasites.
The market was meant to emancipate us, offering autonomy and freedom. Instead it has delivered atomisation and loneliness.
The workplace has been overwhelmed by a mad, Kafkaesque infrastructure of assessments, monitoring, measuring, surveillance
and audits, centrally directed and rigidly planned, whose purpose is to reward the winners and punish the losers . It destroys
autonomy, enterprise, innovation and loyalty, and breeds frustration, envy and fear. Through a magnificent paradox, it has led to
the revival of a grand old Soviet tradition known in Russian as tufta . It means falsification of statistics to meet the
diktats of unaccountable power.
The same forces afflict those who can't find work. They must now contend, alongside the other humiliations of unemployment,
with a whole new level of snooping and monitoring. All this, Verhaeghe points out, is fundamental to the neoliberal model, which
everywhere insists on comparison, evaluation and quantification. We find ourselves technically free but powerless. Whether in work
or out of work, we must live by the same rules or perish. All the major political parties promote them, so we have no political power
either. In the name of autonomy and freedom we have ended up controlled by a grinding, faceless bureaucracy.
These shifts have been accompanied, Verhaeghe writes, by a spectacular rise in certain psychiatric conditions: self-harm, eating
disorders, depression and personality disorders.
Of the personality disorders, the most common are performance anxiety and social phobia: both of which reflect a fear of other
people, who are perceived as both evaluators and competitors – the only roles for society that market fundamentalism admits. Depression
and loneliness plague us.
The infantilising diktats of the workplace destroy our self-respect. Those who end up at the bottom of the pile are assailed by
guilt and shame. The self-attribution fallacy cuts both ways: just as we congratulate ourselves for our success, we blame ourselves
for our failure, even
if we have little to do with it .
So, if you don't fit in, if you feel at odds with the world, if your identity is troubled and frayed, if you feel lost and ashamed
– it could be because you have retained the human values you were supposed to have discarded. You are a deviant. Be proud.
"... Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that "the market" delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning. ..."
"... We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages – such as education, inheritance and class – that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances. ..."
Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It
redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and
selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that "the market"
delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.
Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should
be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective
bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a
natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility
and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more
equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that
everyone gets what they deserve.
We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired
their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages – such as education, inheritance and
class – that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their
failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances.
Never mind structural unemployment: if you don't have a job it's because you are
unenterprising. Never mind the impossible costs of housing: if your credit card is maxed out,
you're feckless and improvident. Never mind that your children no longer have a school playing
field: if they get fat, it's your fault. In a world governed by competition, those who fall
behind become defined and self-defined as losers.
Among the results, as Paul Verhaeghe documents in his book What About Me? are epidemics of
self-harm, eating disorders, depression, loneliness, performance anxiety and social phobia.
Perhaps it's unsurprising that Britain, in which neoliberal ideology has been most rigorously
applied, is the loneliness capital of Europe. We are all neoliberals now.
The crash was a write-off, not a repair job. The response should be a wholesale
reevaluation of the way in which wealth is created and distributed around the
globe
he International Monetary Fund has admitted that some of the decisions it made
in the wake of the 2007-2008 financial crisis were wrong, and that the €130bn first
bailout of Greece was "bungled". Well, yes. If it hadn't been a mistake, then it would have
been the only bailout and everyone in Greece would have lived happily ever after.
Actually, the IMF hasn't quite admitted that it messed things up. It has said instead that
it went along with its partners in "the Troika" – the European Commission and the
European Central Bank – when it shouldn't have. The EC and the ECB, says the IMF, put the
interests of the eurozone before the interests of Greece. The EC and the ECB, in turn, clutch
their pearls and splutter with horror that they could be accused of something so petty as
self-preservation.
The IMF also admits that it "underestimated" the effect austerity would have on Greece.
Obviously, the rest of the Troika takes no issue with that. Even those who substitute "kick up
the arse to all the lazy scroungers" whenever they encounter the word "austerity", have
cottoned on to the fact that the word can only be intoned with facial features locked into a
suitably tragic mask.
Yet, mealy-mouthed and hotly contested as this minor mea culpa is, it's still a sign that
financial institutions may slowly be coming round to the idea that they are the problem. They
know the crash was a debt-bubble that burst. What they don't seem to acknowledge is that the
merry days of reckless lending are never going to return; even if they do, the same thing will
happen again, but more quickly and more savagely. The thing is this: the crash was a write-off,
not a repair job. The response from the start should have been a wholesale reevaluation of the
way in which wealth is created and distributed around the globe, a "structural adjustment", as
the philosopher John Gray has said all along.
The IMF exists to lend money to governments, so it's comic that it wags its finger at
governments that run up debt. And, of course, its loans famously come with strings attached:
adopt a free-market economy, or strengthen the one you have, kissing goodbye to the Big State.
Yet, the irony is painful. Neoliberal ideology insists that states are too big and cumbersome,
too centralised and faceless, to be efficient and responsive. I agree. The problem is that the
ruthless sentimentalists of neoliberalism like to tell themselves – and anyone else who
will listen – that removing the dead hand of state control frees the individual citizen
to be entrepreneurial and productive. Instead, it places the financially powerful beyond any
state, in an international elite that makes its own rules, and holds governments to ransom.
That's what the financial crisis was all about. The ransom was paid, and as a result,
governments have been obliged to limit their activities yet further – some setting about
the task with greater relish than others. Now the task, supposedly, is to get the free market
up and running again.
But the basic problem is this: it costs a lot of money to cultivate a market – a group
of consumers – and the more sophisticated the market is, the more expensive it is to
cultivate them. A developed market needs to be populated with educated, healthy, cultured,
law-abiding and financially secure people – people who expect to be well paid themselves,
having been brought up believing in material aspiration, as consumers need to be.
So why, exactly, given the huge amount of investment needed to create such a market, should
access to it then be "free"? The neoliberal idea is that the cultivation itself should be
conducted privately as well. They see "austerity" as a way of forcing that agenda. But how can
the privatisation of societal welfare possibly happen when unemployment is already high,
working people are turning to food banks to survive and the debt industry, far from being sorry
that it brought the global economy to its knees, is snapping up bargains in the form of busted
high-street businesses to establish shops with nothing to sell but high-interest debt? Why, you
have to ask yourself, is this vast implausibility, this sheer unsustainability, not blindingly
obvious to all?
Markets cannot be free. Markets have to be nurtured. They have to be invested in. Markets
have to be grown. Google, Amazon and Apple haven't taught anyone in this country to read. But
even though an illiterate market wouldn't be so great for them, they avoid their taxes, because
they can, because they are more powerful than governments.
And further, those who invest in these companies, and insist that taxes should be low to
encourage private profit and shareholder value, then lend governments the money they need to
create these populations of sophisticated producers and consumers, berating them for their
profligacy as they do so. It's all utterly, completely, crazy.
The other day a health minister, Anna
Soubry , suggested that female GPs who worked part-time so that they could bring up
families were putting the NHS under strain. The compartmentalised thinking is quite
breathtaking. What on earth does she imagine? That it would be better for the economy if they
all left school at 16? On the contrary, the more people who are earning good money while
working part-time – thus having the leisure to consume – the better. No doubt these
female GPs are sustaining both the pharmaceutical industry and the arts and media, both sectors
that Britain does well in.
As for their prioritising of family life over career – that's just another of the
myriad ways in which Conservative neoliberalism is entirely without logic. Its prophets and its
disciples will happily – ecstatically – tell you that there's nothing more
important than family, unless you're a family doctor spending some of your time caring for your
own. You couldn't make these characters up. It is certainly true that women with children find
it more easy to find part-time employment in the public sector. But that's a prima facie
example of how unresponsive the private sector is to human and societal need, not – as it
is so often presented – evidence that the public sector is congenitally disabled.
Much of the healthy economic growth – as opposed to the smoke and mirrors of many
aspects of financial services – that Britain enjoyed during the second half of the 20th
century was due to women swelling the educated workforce. Soubry and her ilk, above all else,
forget that people have multiple roles, as consumers, as producers, as citizens and as family
members. All of those things have to be nurtured and invested in to make a market.
The neoliberalism that the IMF still preaches pays no account to any of this. It insists
that the provision of work alone is enough of an invisible hand to sustain a market. Yet even
Adam Smith, the economist who came up with that theory ,
did not agree that economic activity alone was enough to keep humans decent and civilised.
Governments are left with the bill when neoliberals demand access to markets that they
refuse to invest in making. Their refusal allows them to rail against the Big State while
producing the conditions that make it necessary. And even as the results of their folly become
ever more plain to see, they are grudging in their admittance of the slightest blame, bickering
with their allies instead of waking up, smelling the coffee and realising that far too much of
it is sold through Starbucks.
So most folks never heard of a guy named Hillel. He was a Baghdad Jew who moved to Judea
about 60 years before Christ was born.
His great influence on Judaism was a novel invention to get around the Jubilee which many
civilizations employed snd was part of Judaism Mosaic Law. Basically every 7 years debts were
cancelled to prevent the elites from accumulating all the land and wealth and enslaving the
bottom 99% and causing rebellion. Much of the debt forgiven was owed to the state in the form
of taxes but individuals and business also were indebted to money lenders . Debt of
individuals acquired to pay taxes, farm, etc was forgiven by the Jubilee. Business /Merchant
debts had to be repaid
The rabbiis of the Pharisees under the suggestion of Hillel the Elder, created a loophole
in Jewish law, in which a legal document would accompany the interest-free loans (charging
interest to fellow Jews was forbidden in the Torah) issued by individuals that stated that
the loans were to be transferred to the courts as the law of remission does not apply In this
case.
It was called a Prosbul.
This led to great unrest among Jews and non Jews alike. This unrest led to a Jewish
activist named Jesus leading a protest against the Pharisees and the money lenders. Michael
Hudson has a theory backed up by historical documents in the original Aramaic,Hebrew and
Greek that Mosaic Law is mostly about the prohibitions of the sins related to debt and the
sinful practices of creditors to secure repayment. Translations into English and other
languages have obscured this.
Christianity was formed after Jesus was executed to protect the money lenders .
Unfortunately the Romans were pro creditor and then Constantine hijacked the religion a
couple of centuries later , and aside from a prohibition on usury by the Roman Church the
Jubilee was no more. When the Roman Empire fell the Byzantine Emperor reinstated the Jubilee
from 7th-10th Century and abandoned this . I imagine this wad due to the Islamic Wars that
required external loans to finance at interest.
Judaism still use the prosbul today , at least in Orthodox , to escape the Jubilee called
for in Mosaic Law . That applied only for loans to Jews in any event. Prohibitions of usury
in the Christian world ended pretty much with the Reformation and Calvinism. Even so in the
US their were limits on usury in many US states until early 1980's when neoliberalism crushed
that. Now the poor get charged as much as 30% on credit card debt while earning 2% on savings
and they cant even declare bankruptcy like Trump did 6 times
Islamic banking is interest free though under Sharia Law. "Loans are equity-based,
asset-backed. In lieu of interest the banks rely on cost-plus financing (murabaha),
profit-sharing (mudaraba), leasing (ijara), partnership (musharaka) and forward sale
(bay'salam).
"This prohibition is based on arguments of social justice, equality, and property rights.
Islam encourages the earning of profits but forbids the charging of interest because profits,
determined ex post, symbolize successful entrepreneurship and creation of additional wealth
whereas interest, determined ex ante, is a cost that is accrued irrespective of the outcome
of business operations and may not create wealth if there are business losses. Social justice
demands that borrowers and lenders share rewards as well as losses in an equitable fashion
and that the process of wealth accumulation and distribution in the economy be fair and
representative of true productivity.
"Risk sharing. Because interest is prohibited, suppliers of funds become investors instead of
creditors. The provider of financial capital and the entrepreneur share business risks in
return for shares of the profits."
"Money as "potential" capital. Money is treated as "potential" capital -- that is, it
becomes actual capital only when it joins hands with other resources to undertake a
productive activity. Islam recognizes the time value of money, but only when it acts as
capital, not when it is "potential" capital."
"Prohibition of speculative behavior. An Islamic financial system discourages hoarding and
prohibits transactions featuring extreme uncertainties, gambling, and risks."
So maybe the war against Islam has another component?
Getting back to Jesus. Hudson says the Pharisees decided that Jesus' growing popularity
was a threat to their authority and wealth.
"They said 'we've got to get rid of this guy and rewrite Judaism and make it about sex
instead of a class war', which is really what the whole Old Testament is about,"
"That was that was where Christianity got perverted. Christianity turned so
anti-Jesus, it was the equivalent of the American Tea Party, applauding wealth and even
greed, Ayn-Rand style."
"Over the last 1000 years the Catholic Church has been saying it's noble to be
poor. But Jesus never said it was good to be poor. What he said was that rich people are
greedy and corrupt. That's what Socrates was saying, as well as Aristotle and the Stoic Roman
philosophers, the biblical prophets in Isaiah."
"Neither did Jesus say that it was good to be poor because it made you noble.
"What Jesus did say is that say if you have money, you should share it with other
people."
"American Fundamentalist Christians say don't share a penny. King Jesus is
going to make you rich. Don't tax millionaires. Jesus may help me win the lottery. Tax poor
people whom the Lord has left behind – no doubt for their sins. There's nothing about
the Jubilee Year here."
Hudson has a book coming out next week on the subject
If we consider the state of the nation from 40,000 feet, several key indicators of profound
political disunity within the elites pop out:
1. The overt politicization of the central state's law enforcement and intelligence
agencies: it is now commonplace to find former top officials of the CIA et al. accusing a
sitting president of treason in the mainstream media. What was supposed to be above politics
is now nothing but politics.
2. The overt politicization of the centralized (corporate) media: evidence that would
stand up in a court of law is essentially non-existent but the interpretations and
exaggerations that fit the chosen narrative are ceaselessly promoted--the classic definition
of desperate propaganda by those who have lost the consent of the governed.
... ... ...
The divided Deep State is a symptom of this larger systemic political disunity. I have
characterized the divide as between the Wall Street-Neocon-Globalist Neoliberal camp--currently
the dominant public face of the Deep State, the one desperately attempting to exploit the
"Russia hacked our elections and is trying to destroy us" narrative--and a much less public,
less organized "rogue Progressive" camp, largely based in the military services and fringes of
the Deep State, that sees the dangers of a runaway expansionist Empire and the resulting decay
of the nation's moral/political center.
"... The borg, financed and sworn to the agenda of globalists and the military-industrial-media complex, has its orders and is acting on them. The globalists want more free trade agreements, no tariffs and more immigration to prevent higher wages. Capital does not have a national attachment. It does not care about the 'deplorables' who support Trump and his policies: ..."
"... Nearly three-fourths, or 73 percent, of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who responded to a Pew Research survey out this week said they felt increased tariffs would benefit the country. ..."
"... Donald Trump is, indeed, a kind of traitor to the Washington Consensus, a hyper-militarized capitalist utopia of corporate dominated global supply chains that doubled the international wage-slave workforce in the last two decades of the 20th century and herded these desperate billions into a race to the bottom. The leadership of both corporate parties conspired to force U.S. workers into the global meat-grinder. ..."
"... The weapon industry and the military recognize that the 'war of terror' is nearing its end. To sell more they need to create an new 'enemy' that looks big enough to justify large and long-term spending. Russia, the most capable opponent the U.S. could have, is the designated target. A new Cold War will give justification for all kinds of fantastic and useless weapons. ..."
"... Trump grand foreign policy is following a realist assessment . He sees that previous administrations pushed Russia into the Chinese camp by aggressive anti-Russian policies in Europe and the Middle East. He wants to pull Russia out of the alliance with China, neutralize it in a political sense, to then be able to better tackle China which is the real thread to the American (economic) supremacy. ..."
President's Trump successful summit with President Putin was used by the 'resistance' and
the deep state to launch a coup-attempt against Trump. Their minimum aim is to put Trump into a
(virtual) political cage where he can no longer pursue his foreign policy agenda.
One does not have to be a fan of Trump's policies and still see the potential danger. A
situation where he can no longer act freely will likely be worse. What Trump has done so far
still does not add up to the
disastrous policies and crimes his predecessor committed.
The borg, financed and sworn to the agenda of globalists and the
military-industrial-media complex, has its orders and is acting on them. The globalists want
more free trade agreements, no tariffs and more immigration to prevent higher wages. Capital
does not have a national attachment. It does not care about the 'deplorables' who support
Trump and his policies:
[P]olls show that Trump appears to still have the support of the bulk of Republican voters
when it comes to tariffs. Nearly three-fourths, or 73 percent, of Republicans and
Republican-leaning independents who responded to a Pew Research survey out this week said
they felt increased tariffs would benefit the country.
Donald Trump is, indeed, a kind of traitor to the Washington Consensus, a
hyper-militarized capitalist utopia of corporate dominated global supply chains that doubled
the international wage-slave workforce in the last two decades of the 20th century and herded
these desperate billions into a race to the bottom. The leadership of both corporate parties
conspired to force U.S. workers into the global meat-grinder.
The weapon industry and the military recognize that the 'war of terror' is nearing its
end. To sell more they need to create an new 'enemy' that looks big enough to justify large and
long-term spending. Russia, the most capable opponent the U.S. could have, is the designated
target. A new Cold War will give justification for all kinds of fantastic and useless
weapons.
Trump does not buy the
nonsense claims of 'Russian meddling' in the U.S. elections and openly says so. He does not
believe that Russia wants to attack anyone. To him Russia is not an enemy.
Trump grand foreign policy is following a
realist assessment . He sees that previous administrations pushed Russia into the Chinese
camp by aggressive anti-Russian policies in Europe and the Middle East. He wants to pull Russia
out of the alliance with China, neutralize it in a political sense, to then be able to better
tackle China which is the real thread to the American (economic) supremacy.
Former CIA chief John Brennan denounced Trump as a "traitor" who had "committed high crimes"
in holding a friendly summit with Putin.
It can't get more seditious than that. Trump is being denigrated by almost the entire
political and media establishment in the US as a "treasonous" enemy of the state.
Following this logic, there is only one thing for it: the US establishment is calling for
a coup to depose the 45th president. One Washington Post oped out of a total of five
assailing the president gave the following stark ultimatum: "If you work for Trump, quit
now".
Some high ranking people working for Trump followed that advice. His chief of staff John
Kelly rallied
others against him:
According to three sources familiar with the situation, Kelly called around to Republicans on
Capitol Hill and gave them the go-ahead to speak out against Trump. (The White House did not
respond to a request for comment.) Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker
Paul Ryan held televised press conferences to assert that Russia did meddle in the election.
Others who attacked Trump over his diplomatic efforts with Russia
included the Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats who used an widely distributed
interview for that:
The White House had little visibility into what Coats might say. The intelligence director's
team had turned down at least one offer from a senior White House official to help prepare
him for the long-scheduled interview, pointing out that he had known Mitchell for years and
was comfortable talking with her.
Coats was extraordinarily candid in the interview, at times questioning Trump's judgment
-- such as the president's decision to meet with Putin for two hours without any aides
present beyond interpreters -- and revealing the rift between the president and the
intelligence community.
FBI Director Wray also
undermined his boss' position:
FBI Director Christopher Wray on Wednesday defended Special Counsel Robert Mueller as a
"straight shooter," and said the Russia investigation is no "witch hunt."
Speaking at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, Wray said he stood by his view that
Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election in some capacity and that the threat
remained active.
A day latter Secretary of Defense Mattis also issued a statement that contradicted his
president's policy:
Secretary of Defense James Mattis took his turn doing the implicit disavowing in a statement
about new military aid to Ukraine:
"Russia should suffer consequences for its aggressive, destabilizing behavior and its
illegal occupation of Ukraine. The fundamental question we must ask ourselves is do we wish
to strengthen our partners in key regions or leave them with no other options than to turn to
Russia, thereby undermining a once in a generation opportunity to more closely align nations
with the U.S. vision for global security and stability."
Pat Lang
thinks that Trump should fire Coats, Wary and Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General who
is overseeing the Mueller investigation.
My advice is to spare Rosenstein, for now, as firing him would lead to a great uproar in
Congress. The Mueller investigation has not brought up anything which is dangerous to Trump and
is unlikely to do so in the immediate future. He and Rosenstein can be fired at a latter
stage.
But Wray and Coats do deserve a pink slip and so do Kelly and Mattis. They are political
appointees who work 'at the pleasure of the President'.
The U.S. has the legislative and the judicative as a counterweight to the president who
leads the executive. The 'deep state' and its moles within the executive should have no role in
that balance. The elected president can and must demand loyalty from those who work for
him.
Those who sabotage him should be fired, not in a Saturday night massacre but
publicly, with a given reason and all at the same time. They do not deserve any warning. Their
rolling heads will get the attention of others who are tempted by the borg to act against the
lawful policy directives of their higher up.
All this is not a defense of Trump. I for one despise his antics and most of his policies.
But having a bad president of the United States implementing the policies he campaigned on, and
doing so within the proper process, is way better than having unaccountable forces dictating
their policies to him.
It will be impossible for Trump to get anything done if his direct subordinates, who work
'at his pleasure', publicly sabotage the implementation of his policies. Either he fires these
people or the borg will have won.
"... Was it Rosenstein who ordered the arrest of the Russian gun lobbyist woman the day after the summit? ..."
"... There is much to suggest that Special Counsel Mueller takes his orders from Rosenstein, but who does Rosenstein answer to, and is he untouchable within the USA legal system? How much cognitive dissonance is the public supposed to handle in relation to Rosenstein not being held accountable for his crimes, including high treason? ..."
Who is actually in charge over there, among the Borg? And how much in charge? They cannot function yet as the collective electronic
mind of science fiction, can they?
Was it Rosenstein who ordered the arrest of the Russian gun lobbyist woman the day after the summit? That looks very
much like an act of desperation. There is much to suggest that Special Counsel Mueller takes his orders from Rosenstein, but
who does Rosenstein answer to, and is he untouchable within the USA legal system? How much cognitive dissonance is the public
supposed to handle in relation to Rosenstein not being held accountable for his crimes, including high treason?
Who are the 'globalists' actually and which is their chain of command? Which positions do Soros, Bezos, CIA-MI6 have? What
is the role of Mossad?
As it appears, after the ascendance of Trump, the actors are not sure themselves anymore about any of this, that is about who
is in charge, or in particular about how much authority and insurance their actual real-life handlers do possess and vouch for.
They waver, in the case of media hysterically so.
"The Intelligence Community", in particular CIA, is a central executive force in the circus, in collaboration with MI6 and
the obedient assets in the NATO sphere, but they have grown so incompetent due to incessant politicizing and sycophantism that
they are perhaps little more a paper tiger by now? If this fact, with the help of Trump and allies, would be perceived clearer
by the political classes of the USA, much good would be the result.
Intelligence community is a new Praetorian guard which since JFK murder can decide the fate of presidents.
Notable quotes:
"... Peter Strzok, the disgraced and disgraceful Federal Bureau of Investigation official, is the very definition of a slimy swamp creature. Strzok twitched, grimaced and ranted his way to infamy during a joint hearing of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, on July 12. ..."
"... Strzok is the youthful face of the venerated "Intelligence Community," itself part of the sprawling political machine that makes up the D.C. comitatus ..."
"... Smug, self-satisfied, cheating creature that he is, Strzok can't take responsibility for his own misconduct, and blames Russia for dividing America. In the largely progressive bureau, moreover, Agent Strzok is neither underling nor outlier, for that matter. ..."
"... A "blind bootlicking faith in spooks" is certainly unwarranted and may even be foolish. What of odious individuals like former FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and his predecessor, James Comey, now openly campaigning for the Democrats? Are these leaders outliers in the "Intelligence Community"? ..."
"... Similarly, it's hard to think of a more partisan operator than John O. Brennan -- he ran the CIA under President Obama. True to type, he cast a vote for Communist Party USA, back in 1976, when the current Russia monomania would have been justified. Brennan has dubbed President Trump a traitor for having dared to doubt people like himself. ..."
"... The very embodiment of the Surveillance State at its worst is Michael V. Hayden. Hayden has moved seamlessly from the National Security Agency and the CIA to CNN where he beats up on Trump. The former Bush employee hollered treason: "One of the most disgraceful performances of an American president in front of a Russian leader," Hayden inveighed. Not only had POTUS dared to explore the possibility of a truce with Russia, which is a formidable nuclear power; but the president had the temerity to express a smidgen of skepticism about a community littered with spooks like Mr. Hayden. ..."
"... Pray tell, since when does the Deep State -- FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, DNI, (Director of National Intelligence), on and on -- represent, or stand for, the American People? The president, conversely, actually got the support of at least 60 million Americans. ..."
"... Outside the Beltway, ordinary folks -- Deplorables, if you will -- have to sympathize with the president's initial and honest appraisal of the Intelligence Community's collective intelligence. This is the community that has sent us into quite a few recreational, hobby wars. ..."
Peter Strzok, the disgraced and disgraceful Federal Bureau of Investigation official, is the very definition of a slimy swamp
creature. Strzok twitched, grimaced and ranted his way to infamy during a joint hearing of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees,
on July 12.
In no way had he failed to discharge his professional unbiased obligation to the public, asserted Strzok. He had merely
expressed the hope that "the American population would not elect somebody demonstrating such horrible, disgusting behavior."
But we did not elect YOU, Mr. Strzok. We elected Mr. Trump.
Strzok is the youthful face of the venerated "Intelligence Community," itself part of the sprawling political machine that
makes up the D.C. comitatus , now writhing like a fire breathing mythical monster against President Donald Trump.
As Ann Coulter observed, the FBI is not the FBI of J. Edgar Hoover. Neither is the Intelligence Community
Philip Haney's IC
any longer. Haney was a heroic, soft-spoken, demure employee at the Department of Homeland Security. Agents like him are often fired
if they don't get with the program. He didn't. Haney's method and the
authentic intelligence he mined and developed might have stopped the likes of the San Bernardino mass murderers and many others.
Instead, his higher-ups in the "Intelligence Community" made Haney and his data disappear.
Post Haney, the FBI failed to adequately screen and stop Syed Farook and blushing bride Tashfeen Malik.
A "blind bootlicking faith in spooks" is certainly unwarranted and may even be foolish. What of odious individuals like former
FBI Director Andrew McCabe, and his predecessor, James Comey, now openly campaigning for the Democrats? Are these leaders outliers
in the "Intelligence Community"?
As Peter Strzok might say to his paramour in a private tweet, "Who ya gonna believe, the Intelligence Community or your
own lying eyes?" The Bureau in particular and the IC cabal, in general, appear to be dominated by the likes of the dull-witted Mr.
Strzok.
Similarly, it's hard to think of a more partisan operator than John O. Brennan -- he ran the CIA under President Obama. True
to type, he cast a vote for Communist Party USA, back in 1976, when the current Russia monomania would have been justified. Brennan
has dubbed President Trump a traitor for having dared to doubt people like himself.
The very embodiment of the Surveillance State at its worst is Michael V. Hayden. Hayden has moved seamlessly from the National
Security Agency and the CIA to CNN where he beats up on Trump. The former Bush employee hollered treason: "One of the most disgraceful
performances of an American president in front of a Russian leader," Hayden inveighed. Not only had POTUS dared to explore the possibility
of a truce with Russia, which is a formidable nuclear power; but the president had the temerity to express a smidgen of skepticism
about a community littered with spooks like Mr. Hayden.
As one wag
noted
, not unreasonably, ours is "a highly-politicized intelligence community, infiltrated over decades by cadres of Deep State operatives
and sleeper agents, whose goal is to bring down this presidency."
Pray tell, since when does the Deep State --
FBI, CIA, DIA, NSA, DNI, (Director of National Intelligence), on and on -- represent, or stand for, the American People? The
president, conversely, actually got the support of at least 60 million Americans.
That's a LOT of support. Outside the Beltway, ordinary folks -- Deplorables, if you will -- have to sympathize with the president's
initial and honest appraisal of the Intelligence Community's collective intelligence. This is the community that has sent us into
quite a few recreational, hobby wars.
And this is the community that regularly intercepts but fails to surveys and stop the likes of mass murderers Syed Farook and
bride Tashfeen Malik. Or, Orlando nightclub killer Omar Mateen, whose father the Bureau saw fit to
hire as an informant. The same "community" has invited the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the Arab-American Institute to help
shape FBI counterterrorism training.
The FBI might not be very intelligent at all. About the quality of that intelligence, consider: On August 3, 2016, as the mad
media were amping up their Russia monomania, a frenzied BuzzFeed -- it calls itself a news org -- reported that "the Russian foreign
ministry had wired nearly $30,000 through a Kremlin-backed bank to its embassy in Washington, DC."
Intercepted by American intelligence, the Russian wire
stipulated
that the funds were meant "to finance the election campaign of 2016." Was this not "meddling in our election" or what? Did
we finally have irrefutable evidence of Kremlin culpability? The FBI certainly thought so. "Worse still, this was only one of 60
transfers that were being scrutinized by the FBI,"
wrote
the Economist, in November of 2017. "Similar transfers were made to other countries." As it transpired, the money was wired from
the Kremlin to embassies the world over. Its purpose? Russia was preparing to hold parliamentary elections in 2016 and had sent funds
to Russian embassies "to organize the polling for expatriates."
While it did update its Fake News factoids, Buzzfeed felt no compunction whatsoever to remove the erroneous item or publicly question
their sources in the unimpeachable "Intelligence Community."
Most news media are just not as inquisitive as President Trump.
Looks like MIC is a cancel of the society for which there is no cure....
While this jeremiad raises several valid point the key to understanding the situation should
be understanding of the split of the Us elite into two camp with Democratic party (representing
interests of Wall Street) and large part of intelligence communality fighting to neoliberal
status quo and Pentagon, some part of old money, part of trade unions (especially rank and file
members) and a pert of Republican Party (representing interests of the military) realizing that
neoliberalism came to the natural end and it is time for change which includes downsizing of the
American empire.
This bitter internal struggle in which neoliberals so far have an upper hand over Trump
administration and forced him into retreat.
Notable quotes:
"... Trump is a traitor because he wants peace with Russia. ..."
"... The Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, and the North Koreans, as well as the rest of the world, desperately need to notice the extremely hostile reaction to peace on the part of the US Democratic Party, many members of the Republican Party, including the despicable US Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, and the Western Presstitute Media, a collection of people on the CIA payroll according to the German newspaper editor, Udo Ulfkotte, and the CIA itself. ..."
"... Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and the rest of the corrupt filth that rules over us are all in the pay of the military/security complex. Just go and investigate the donations to their re-election campaigns. The 1,000 billion dollar budget of the military/security complex, amplified by the CIA's front corporations and narcotics business, provides enormous sums with which to purchase the senators and representatives that the insouciant American voters think that they elect. ..."
"... Therefore, the American public gets not representation, but lies that justify war and conflict. The military/security complex, about which President Eisenhower warned the American people to no effect, is in desperate need of an enemy. In obedience to the military/security complex, the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes have made Russia that enemy. If Trump and Putin do not understand this, they will easily be made irrelevant. ..."
"... They both can be assassinated, and that is what the statements from Pelosi, Schumer, McCain, Lindsey Graham, et. al., repeated endlessly in the propaganda ministry that is the Western press, encourages. ..."
"... The Supply-Side Revolution ..."
"... When the combination of tax cuts with defense budget cuts came up for a vote, the legendary senator Strom Thurmond, a 48-year member of the US Senate from South Carolina, tapped me on the shoulder. He said: "son, never set your senator up against the military/security complex. He will not be re-elected, and you will be out of a job." I replied that we were just establishing for the record that under no conditions would the Democrats, who wanted more government, vote for a tax rate reduction even if there was a case that it would cure stagflation. He replied: "son, the military/security complex doesn't care." ..."
"... Later as a member of a secret presidential committee, I saw how the CIA attempted to prevent President Reagan from ending the Cold War. ..."
"... Today, right now, at this moment, we are faced with a massive effort of the military/security complex, the neoconservatives, the Democratic Party, and the presstitute media to discredit the elected President of the United States and to overthrow him in order that the utterly corrupt elite that rule American can continue to hold on to power and to protect the massive budget of the military/security complex that, along with the Israel Lobby, funds the elections of those who rule us. ..."
"... There is no institution in America, government or private, that can be trusted. Any government or person who trusts America or any Western country is stupid beyond belief. ..."
"... The entire Russiagate hoax is an orchestration by the military/security complex, led by John Brennen, Comey, and Rosenstein. The purpose is to discredit President trump for two reasons. One is to prevent any normalization of relations with Russia. The other is to remove Trump's agenda as an alternative to the agenda of the Democratic Party. ..."
"... President Trump is almost powerless. Putin, the Chinese, the Iranians, and the North Koreans should recognize this before it is too late for them. President Trump cannot fire and arrest for high treason Mueller and Rosenstein. ..."
"... Reckless and irresponsible comments about treason from former CIA director Brennan, and other ranking public figures, echo similar inflammatory rhetoric from far-right-wing rabble rouser Gen. Edwin Walker, and other members of the John Birch Society, in the days before Pres. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. ..."
"... What's going on in the United States of America beats the band what happened under Joe McCarthy. The witch hunt against a sitting President by 95 percent of the media, major government institutions such as the criminal CIA, FBI, DOJ and the rest of the crooked Intel community plus the rascals in the US Congress can only happen in a totalitarian society, which the US is. ..."
"... The Brennan, Clappers, Obamas, Clintons, Comeys, Rosenstein and their many subordinate political Mafiosi should be put behind bars instead of running from one TV station to the next and lay the ground for a possibly Trump assassination. ..."
"... As Mr. Rogers correctly states, President Trump is almost powerless. These US fools even try to breed discord between the so-called nationalists and the globalists in Russia for which Medvedev stays. He once served US interests more than Russian ones when he was Prime Minister and got flattered by the ineffable Bill Clinton. ..."
"... So what do we see now ? Putin aiding Trump in steering the USA away from trying to control the whole world, an effort that is destroying the USA, but Deep State does not mind. In this way Russia indeed meddles in USA politics. Trump now invited Putin to come to Washington, the MH17 statement is withheld, the hysteria at CNN is such that MH17 is not even mentioned. In stead: Trump must be mentally deranged. ..."
"... Gore Vidal said there's only one party in America, it's the Money Party and it has two branches. It is even more true today than when he said it. There is no Left or Right anymore, only the question, is it good for Israel? And the American people be damned. ..."
"... Trump is completely powerless to do anything about these two. And this has gone on for a year and a half. ..."
"... It's clear though that Trump believes he has forced his opponents to play a bad hand in their outlandish craze the past week. It's why he doubled down and invited Putin to Washington near the 2018 election time. He perceives this as a chance to re-enact the 2016 election and coast to victory. The establishment is insane, and if he brings their insanity out it plays to his favor. ..."
The US Democratic Party is determined to take the world to thermo-nuclear war rather than to
admit that Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election fair and square. The Democratic Party
was totally corrupted by the Clinton Regime, and now it is totally insane. Leaders of the
Democratic Party, such as Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, my former co-author in the New York
Times, have responded in a non-Democratic way to the first step President Trump has taken to
reduce the extremely dangerous tensions with Russia that the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama
regimes created between the two superpowers.
Yes, Russia is a superpower. Russian weapons are so superior to the junk produced by the
waste-filled US military/security complex that lives high off the hog on the insouciant
American taxpayer that it is questionable if the US is even a second class military power. If
the insane neoconservatives, such as Max Boot, William Kristol, and the rest of the neocon scum
get their way, the US, the UK, and Europe will be a radioactive ruin for thousands of
years.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (CA), Minority Leader of the US House of
Representatives, declared that out of fear of some undefined retribution from Putin, a dossier
on Trump perhaps, the President of the United States sold out the American people to Russia
because he wants to make peace: "It begs the question, what does Vladimir Putin, what do the
Russians have on Donald Trump -- personally, politically and financially that he should behave
in such a manner?" The "such a manner" Pelosi is speaking about is making peace instead of
war.
To be clear, the Democratic Minority Leader of the US House of Representatives has accused
Donald Trump of high treason against the United States. There is no outcry against this
blatantly false accusation, totally devoid of evidence. The presstitute media instead of
protesting this attempt at a coup against the President of the United States, trumpet the
accusation as self-evident truth. Trump is a traitor because he wants peace with
Russia.
Here is Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer (NY) repeating Pelosi's false accusation: "Millions
of Americans will continue to wonder if the only possible explanation for this dangerous
behavior is the possibility that President Putin holds damaging information over President
Trump." If you don't believe that this is orchestrated between Pelosi and Schumer, you are
stupid beyond belief.
Here is disgraced Obama CIA director John Brennan, a leader of the fake Russiagate campaign
against President Trump in order to prevent Trump from making peace with Russia and, thus, by
making the world safer, threatening the massive, unjustified budget of the military/security
complex: "Donald Trump's press conference performance in Helsinki rises to and exceeds the
threshold of high crimes and misdemeanors. It was nothing short of treasonous. Not only were
Trump's comments imbecilic, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin. Republican Patriots: Where are
you???"
NOTICE THAT NOT ONE WESTERN MEDIA SOURCE IS CELEBRATING AND THANKING TRUMP AND PUTIN FOR
EASING THE ARTIFICIALLY CREATED TENSIONS THAT WERE LEADING TO NUCLEAR WAR. HOW CAN THIS BE? HOW
CAN IT BE THAT THE WESTERN MEDIA IS SO OPPOSED TO PEACE? WHAT IS THE EXPLANATION?
The Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, and the North Koreans, as well as the rest of
the world, desperately need to notice the extremely hostile reaction to peace on the part of
the US Democratic Party, many members of the Republican Party, including the despicable US
Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, and the Western Presstitute Media, a
collection of people on the CIA payroll according to the German newspaper editor, Udo Ulfkotte,
and the CIA itself.
Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and the rest of the corrupt
filth that rules over us are all in the pay of the military/security complex. Just go and
investigate the donations to their re-election campaigns. The 1,000 billion dollar budget of
the military/security complex, amplified by the CIA's front corporations and narcotics
business, provides enormous sums with which to purchase the senators and representatives that
the insouciant American voters think that they elect.
Do you know how large 1,000 billion is? You would have to live for thousands of years and do
nothing for 24/7 except count to reach that figure. It is a sum that nurtures the recipients,
and the recipients regard it as worth protecting.
Therefore, the American public gets not representation, but lies that justify war and
conflict. The military/security complex, about which President Eisenhower warned the American
people to no effect, is in desperate need of an enemy. In obedience to the military/security
complex, the Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama regimes have made Russia that enemy. If Trump
and Putin do not understand this, they will easily be made irrelevant.
They both can be assassinated, and that is what the statements from Pelosi, Schumer,
McCain, Lindsey Graham, et. al., repeated endlessly in the propaganda ministry that is the
Western press, encourages. Trump can be assassinated or overthrown in a political coup for
selling out America to Russia, as members of both political parties claim and as the media
trumpets endlessly. Putin can be easily assassinated by the CIA operatives that the Russian
government stupidly permits to operate throughout Russia in NGOs and Western/US owned media and
among the Atlanticist Integrationists, Washington's Firth Column inside Russia serving
Washington's purposes. These Russian traitors serve in Putin's own government!
ORDER IT NOW
Americans are so unaware that they have no idea of the risk that President Trump is taking
by challenging the US military security complex. For example, during the last half of the 1970s
I was a member of the US Senate staff. I was working together with a staffer of the US
Republican Senator from California, S. I. Hayakawa, to advance understanding of a supply-side
economic policy cure to the stagflation that threatened the US budget's ability to meet its
obligations. Republican Senators Hatch, Roth, and Hayakawa were trying to introduce a
supply-side economic policy as a cure for the stagflation that was threatening the US economy
with failure. The Democrats, who later in the Senate led the way to a supply-side policy, were,
at this time, opposed (see Paul Craig Roberts, The Supply-Side Revolution , Harvard
University Press, 1984). The Democrats claimed that the policy would worsen the budget deficit,
the only time in those days Democrats cared about the budget deficit. The Democrats said that
they would support the tax rate reductions if the Republicans would support offsetting cuts in
the budget to support a balanced budget. This was a ploy to put Republicans on the spot for
taking away some groups' handouts in order "to cut tax rates for the rich."
The supply-side policy did not require budget cuts, but in order to demonstrate the
Democrats lack of sincerety, Hayakawa's aid and I had our senators introduce a series of budget
cuts together with tax cuts that, on a static revenue basis (not counting tax revenue feedbacks
from the incentives of the lower tax rates) kept the budget even, and the Democrats voted
against them every time.
When the combination of tax cuts with defense budget cuts came up for a vote, the
legendary senator Strom Thurmond, a 48-year member of the US Senate from South Carolina, tapped
me on the shoulder. He said: "son, never set your senator up against the military/security
complex. He will not be re-elected, and you will be out of a job." I replied that we were just
establishing for the record that under no conditions would the Democrats, who wanted more
government, vote for a tax rate reduction even if there was a case that it would cure
stagflation. He replied: "son, the military/security complex doesn't care."
My emergence from The Matrix began with Thurmond's pat on my shoulder. It grew with my time
at the Wall Street Journal when I learned that some truthful things simply could not be said.
In the Treasury I experienced how those outside interests opposed to a president's policy
marshall their forces and the media that they own to block it. Later as a member of a
secret presidential committee, I saw how the CIA attempted to prevent President Reagan from
ending the Cold War.
Today, right now, at this moment, we are faced with a massive effort of the
military/security complex, the neoconservatives, the Democratic Party, and the presstitute
media to discredit the elected President of the United States and to overthrow him in order
that the utterly corrupt elite that rule American can continue to hold on to power and to
protect the massive budget of the military/security complex that, along with the Israel Lobby,
funds the elections of those who rule us. Trump, like Reagan, was an exception, and it is
the exceptions that accumulate the ire of the corrupt leftwing, bought off with money, and the
ire of the media, concentrated into small tight ownership groups indebted to those who
permitted the illegal concentration of a once independent and diverse American media that once
served, on occasion, as a watchdog over government. The rightwing, wrapped in the flag,
dismisses all truth as "anti-American."
If Putin, Lavrov, the Russian government, the traitorous Russian Fifth Column -- the
Atlanticist Integrationists -- the Chinese, the Iranians, the North Koreans think that any
peace or consideration can come out of America, they are insane. Their delusions are setting
themselves up for destruction. There is no institution in America, government or private,
that can be trusted. Any government or person who trusts America or any Western country is
stupid beyond belief.
The entire Russiagate hoax is an orchestration by the military/security complex, led by
John Brennen, Comey, and Rosenstein. The purpose is to discredit President trump for two
reasons. One is to prevent any normalization of relations with Russia. The other is to remove
Trump's agenda as an alternative to the agenda of the Democratic Party.
President Trump is almost powerless. Putin, the Chinese, the Iranians, and the North
Koreans should recognize this before it is too late for them. President Trump cannot fire and
arrest for high treason Mueller and Rosenstein. And Trump cannot indict Hillary for her
numerous unquestionable crimes in plain view of everyone, or Comey or Brennan, who declares
Trump "to be wholly in the pocket of Putin," for trying to overthrow the elected president of
the United States. Trump cannot have the Secret Service question the likes of Pelosi and
Schumer and McCain and Lindsey Graham for false accusations that encourage assassination of the
President of the United States.
Trump cannot even trust the Secret Service, which accumulated evidence suggests was
complicit in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy.
If Putin and Lavrov, so anxious to be friends of Washington, let their guards down, they are
history.
As I said above, Russiagate is an orchestratration to prevent peace between the US and
Russia. Leading military/security complex experts, including the person who provided the CIA's
daily briefing of the President of the United States for many years, and the person who devised
the spy program for the National Security Agency, have proven conclusively that Russiagate is a
hoax designed for the purpose of preventing President Trump from normalizing relations between
the US and Russia, which has the power to destroy the entirety of the Western World at
will.
If Putin doesn't listen to him, Russia is in the trash can of history.
Keep in mind that no media informs you better than my website. If my website goes down, you
will be left in darkness. No valid information comes from the US government or the Western
presstitutes. If you sit in front of the TV screen watching the Western media, you are
brainwashed beyond all hope. Not even I can rescue you. Nor God himself.
Americans, and indeed the Russians themselves, are incapable of realizing it, but there is a
chance that Trump will be overthrown and a Western assault will be launched against the handful
of countries that insist on sovereignty.
I doubt that few of the Americans who elected Trump will be taken in by the anti-Trump
propagana, but they are not organized and have no armed power. The police, militarized by
George W. Bush and Obama, will be set against them. The rebellions will be local and suppressed
by every violation of the US Constitution by the private powers that rule Washington, as always
has been the case with rebellions in America.
In the West, which the Russians are so anxious to join, all freedoms are dead -- freedom of
assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of inquiry, freedom of privacy,
freedom from arbitrary search, freedom from arbitrary arrest, along with the Constitutional
protections of due process and habeas corpus. Today there are no countries less free than the
United States of America.
Why do the Russian Atlanticist Integrationists want to join an unfree Western world? Are
they that brainwashed by Western Propaganda?
If Putin listens to these deluded fools, Putin will destroy Russia.
There is something wrong with Russian perception of Washington. Apparently the Russian
elite, with the exception of Shoigu and a few others are incapable of comprehending the
neoconservative drive for US world hegemony and the neoconservative determination to destroy
Russia as a constraint on US unilateralism. The Russian government somehow, despite all
evidence to the contrary, believes that Washington's hegemony is negotiable. (Republished from
PaulCraigRoberts.org by permission of author or representative)
is big question even if Trump wants peace at all. Trump has shown his real face on the very
beginning when he said that they are going to talk about "his friend" Xi, making Putin very
uncomfortable and throwing some worms in Russia~China relationship in front of cameras for
all to see
Trump came to the meeting in hope to impress Putin with his cowboy arrogance, He now says
that he'll be Putin's worst enemy ( if he don't bow to him I guess : ). all Trump cares about
is his ego, nothing else too sweat mouthed sleazy person
Reckless and irresponsible comments about treason from former CIA director Brennan, and
other ranking public figures, echo similar inflammatory rhetoric from far-right-wing rabble
rouser Gen. Edwin Walker, and other members of the John Birch Society, in the days before
Pres. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.
What's going on in the United States of America beats the band what happened under Joe
McCarthy. The witch hunt against a sitting President by 95 percent of the media, major
government institutions such as the criminal CIA, FBI, DOJ and the rest of the crooked Intel
community plus the rascals in the US Congress can only happen in a totalitarian society,
which the US is.
The Brennan, Clappers, Obamas, Clintons, Comeys, Rosenstein and their many subordinate
political Mafiosi should be put behind bars instead of running from one TV station to the
next and lay the ground for a possibly Trump assassination. Trump is portrayed by these
crooks as a "traitor." In the US, traitors usefully deserve death. If these political Mafiosi
don't bring down Trump "legally," they will hire a kind of Lee Harvey Oswald who "shot"
JFK.
As Mr. Rogers correctly states, President Trump is almost powerless. These US fools
even try to breed discord between the so-called nationalists and the globalists in Russia for
which Medvedev stays. He once served US interests more than Russian ones when he was Prime
Minister and got flattered by the ineffable Bill Clinton.
Let's wait and see what happens in the upcoming mid-term elections. If the Dems win both
Houses of Congress, Trump is done. The obstructionists will have the upper hand. If they
can't remove him from office "legally," there will be a hitman out there somewhere.
President smugly making peace with the Russian nation that was supposed to be the evil enemy
in a 3rd and final brother war to devastate the white race beyond recovery.
Little upstart in the Democrat party making left wing politics less palatable to the
masses with her heavy handed socialist rhetoric. All while preaching BDS and anti-Israel
sentiment too, representing Frankenstein's CultMarx monster turning on it's creator.
And fewer and fewer people on all sides buying what the American Pravda is selling with
each passing day. The resulting hysteria is both par for the course and downright
delectable.
" Apparently the Russian elite, with the exception of Shoigu and a few others are incapable
of comprehending the neoconservative drive for US world hegemony and the neoconservative
determination to destroy Russia as a constraint on US unilateralism. " My idea is that many
in Russia understand quite well, this is why they demonstrate Russia's military capabilities
frequently. Why does Putin support Assad and Syria ? Not because he likes these countries,
but because he understands that if these countries also get the USA yoke the position of
Russia and China deteriorate.
Putin is careful not to give USA public opinion more 'reason' to fear Russia. Already a
few years ago something fell into the E part of the Mediterranean. It was asserted that
Russia had intercepted a USA missile fired from Spain to Syria. USA and Israel declared that
an excercise had been held. Putin said nothing.
Despite all that NATO does at Russia's borders Putin does not let himself be provoked.
MH17, I suppose Putin knows quite well what happened, Russia has radar and satelites, yet
Putin never gave the Russian view.
So what do we see now ? Putin aiding Trump in steering the USA away from trying to
control the whole world, an effort that is destroying the USA, but Deep State does not mind.
In this way Russia indeed meddles in USA politics. Trump now invited Putin to come to
Washington, the MH17 statement is withheld, the hysteria at CNN is such that MH17 is not even
mentioned. In stead: Trump must be mentally deranged.
Good to see PCR accepting comments again. It's not just the Dumbocruds, it's the Rupuglicunts
too. Follow the money, it's coming from the same sources. Gore Vidal said there's only
one party in America, it's the Money Party and it has two branches. It is even more true
today than when he said it. There is no Left or Right anymore, only the question, is it good
for Israel? And the American people be damned.
Is President Trump A Traitor Because He Wants Peace with Russia? The Democrats say he is
The Democrats -- and their wholly-owned MSM -- will call Trump any name that'll stick. It
means little. Even if Trump got everything he wanted on immigration, that particular
toothpaste is already out of the tube and unless we send back some of the millions of
illegal third-world squatters we've no hope of recovering the United States of America.
If you want to talk treason, you need look no further than the Hart-Celler Act of 1965,
whereby the plan was laid to replace the population of this nation with third-world refuse,
which guaranteed cheap labor for GOP capitalists and endless political support for Democrat
traitors.
As the saying goes "timing is everything." I have to admit I was incredulous that you were
somehow able to link to a functioning version of the Nekrosov film. I've been trying to get
my hands on that documentary for the last few years, but to no avail. I finally managed to
read a comment on another blog that recommended that people who were interested in viewing
the film could do so by reaching out to the producer to request a personalized link, after
which you had to request a password from another individual affiliated with the film.
I managed to do all of that a few weeks ago and was able to watch the video on Vimeo for
the full 2 hours. It was riveting, to say the least. After viewing it again, I thought about
making it available to others. Due to the pressures by Browder and his lawyers, however,
Nekrosov was prevented from making his film available to a wider audience. He got around this
limitation by making it available for private viewing only. And to prevent a private viewer
from uploading it onto the internet he cleverly placed a watermark on each film, indicating
the owner of each copy of the video by displaying a number on the screen. I was surprised to
see the version you linked to indeed has this watermark shown on the screen. Somehow, this
did not deter the individual tied to that number from uploading it and being the one
identified as doing so. That said, I'm glad the film is more widely available as it should be
viewed by as many people as possible so that they can realize what a despicable liar Browder
really is and how the passage of The Magnitsky Act was a travesty of justice which must be
reversed.
"Do you know how large 1,000 billion is? You would have to live for thousands of years and do
nothing for 24/7 except count to reach that figure. It is a sum that nurtures the recipients,
and the recipients regard it as worth protecting."
Tens of thousands of years. At one count per second, 31,687 years and a few months.
"In the West, which the Russians are so anxious to join, all freedoms are dead --
freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of inquiry, freedom
of privacy, freedom from arbitrary search, freedom from arbitrary arrest, along with the
Constitutional protections of due process and habeas corpus."
True. That is the Anglo-Zionist Empire. That is what the WASP Empire delivers, and
it does so to destroy more conservative national and local cultures so their peoples are
tossed into the melting pot and reduced into a goop easy to rule.
Oliver Cromwell taking Jewish money, allying with Jews so he would have the funds to wage
permanent war against the vast, vast majority of non-WASP whites within his reach: that is
the definition of WASP culture; that picture tells you what it always will do.
make something serious about Obama and Hillary destroying whole African country of Libya
killing Colonel Gaddafi on the street, which is greatest war crime in the 21st century so far
or, Bill Clinton bombing Bosnian Serbs '95 opening the door to jihadis to continue behead
people in the middle of the Europe or, Bill Clinton and Nato bombing Serbia '99 to give
"Kosovo" independence killing many civilian and destroying infrastructure on purpose or
Madeline Albright confessing killing half of million Iraqi kids on the camera or, Bush and or
Bushes or those such Bill Browder are just small dirty fish who in comparison is almost not
worth filming I appreciate the effort but get seriously real if you are about to get truth to
people
"The Brennan, Clappers, Obamas, Clintons, Comeys, Rosenstein and their many
subordinate political Mafiosi "
What is going on in the US is systematic. Assange, an investigative journalist who became
the light of truth worldwide, is under a grave danger from US' and UK' Intelligence
Communities of the non-intelligent opportunists and real traitors: https://www.rt.com/news/433783-wikileaks-assange-ecuador-uk/
Meanwhile, Mrs. Clinton, who was criminally negligent with regard to the most important
classified information, has been protected by the politicking Brennan, Clapper, and Mueller:
" it was over 30,000 emails , emails that were sent through to Hillary Clinton through
the unauthorized server and unsecured server and every email she sent out.
There were highly classified -- beyond classified -- top secret-type stuff that had
gone through that server. an instruction embedded, compartmentalized data embedded in the
email server telling the server to send a copy of every email that came to Hillary Clinton
through that unauthorized server and every email that she sent out through that server, to
send it to this foreign entity that is not Russia."
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2018/07/congressional-record-transcript-on-chinagate.html
The Awan Affair, the most serious ever violation of national cybersecurity, has
demonstrated the spectacular incompetence of the CIA and FBI, which had allowed a family of
Pakistani nationals to surf congressional computers of various committees, including
Intelligence Committee, for years. None of the scoundrels had a security clearance! Their
ardent protector, Wasserman-Schultz (who threatened the DC Marschall) belongs to the
untouchables, unlike Assange:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/awan-congressional-scandal-in-spotlight-as-president-suggests-data-could-be-part-of-court-case_2500703.html
Trump and Putin made a mistake. I do not understand how it could have happened. They should
have issued communiqué that they have agreed to work toward peace and relieve tensions
and suppress conflicts around the world. (I do not have a time for now to write more.)
(sorry)
If Rosenstein & Mueller had done what they did with the publication of the indictments a
few days before the summit -- and were North Koreans -- they'd be in front of a firing squad
within 24 hours. Trump is completely powerless to do anything about these two. And this
has gone on for a year and a half. This is not a strength of democracy.
The US today is like Venezuela was shortly after Maduro was elected (by a narrow margin)
-- after Chavez's death -- and before violence eventually broke out. The losing opposition
refused to accept the result and tensions simmered for a long time.
Or after Morsi was elected in Egypt and before the military coup. The victory was narrow,
the opposition refused the to accept the result and tensions simmered for a long time.
Or maybe like Bush vs Gore. Bush was kinda saved by 9/11 which completely changed the
atmosphere.
Who knows what will happen. It's clear though that Trump believes he has forced his
opponents to play a bad hand in their outlandish craze the past week. It's why he doubled
down and invited Putin to Washington near the 2018 election time. He perceives this as a
chance to re-enact the 2016 election and coast to victory. The establishment is insane, and
if he brings their insanity out it plays to his favor.
The reception of the Trump- Putin meeting is breathtaking. I have in my 61 years never
witnessed such a hate and slander in the MSM. I have after this begun to actually dismiss
that Americans are sensible people! They have completely forgotten the cost of the Civil War.
We in Europe have not forgotten the cost of war and are not going there again. Ever.
The US has become a lunatic asylum with nuclear weapons, never mind Kim Jong Un, look a
squirrel! But the US is a threat to humanity, included it's protegé Israel, the new
Apartheid state.
"Is President Trump A Traitor Because He Wants Peace with Russia?"
Wait; what?
From badmouthing Russia to appointing Russophobes to high office, to imposing sanctions,
to illegally seizing Russian diplomatic property, to committing war crimes in Syria, to a
provocative military buildup in Europe, to arming the illegitimate Ukrainian "government,"
etc., presidential poseur Orange Clown has spent 99% of his "presidency" so far antagonizing
Russia; apparently trying to provoke some kind of Russian military response.
If it was anyone else other than Vladimir Putin calling the shots in Russia, WW3 probably
would've happened already. Yet PCR claims Orange Clown wants peace with Russia?
Note to PCR: It is Vladimir Putin who wants peace, not presidential poseur Orange Clown.
If Orange Clown has had some kind of spiritual epiphany/change of heart, he's going to have
to show good faith by taking some kind of unambiguous action; posturing won't suffice.
There is a lot of truth in what you say, but it does not account for the fight we are
currently witnessing. Two factions in the Money Party are at war with each other. Neither one
is willing to level with the public as to its true aims and motives -- they are fighting
viciously but under the bed sheets, which is why the spectacle looks so unhinged and
silly.
It appears that he is trying to save the US from financial collapse. Hence, he is a traitor
to MIC, particularly to the obscenely greedy Pentagon contractors. The US presidents and
Congress always pandered to MIC first and foremost. He broke (or at least tried to break) the
pattern.
Don't blame all Americans. Forty-eight percent of us voted for Trump; it is very likely
that more than half of the rest voted for Hellary only with great reluctance, owing largely
to the unprecedented campaign of vilification directed at Trump. The point is: a very large
majority of people in this country are nowhere near as insane as the media and elites are --
in fact, we're still nowhere near insane enough for their taste!
So Iran has no offensive air force or any Nukes but the Israelis with their air superiority and nukes are making Iran - enemy
#1. How very - American - of them.
So Iran has no offensive air force or any Nukes but the Israelis with their air superiority and nukes are making Iran - enemy
#1. How very - American - of them.
After another week saw leading Republicans accosted in public places, many on the left are
arguing that harassment is legitimate
The day after Sarah Sanders was asked to leave the Red Hen restaurant in Virginia, Maxine
Waters, the representative for the California 43rd who has become a leader of the anti-Trump
resistance within Congress, addressed a rally in Los Angeles. Up until that point, national
Democratic leaders had mostly urged respectful protest in response to the Trump
administration.
"Let's make sure we show up wherever we have to show up," she said to cheers from the crowd.
"And if you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline
station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them
they're not welcome any more, anywhere."
In the days that followed, other leading Democrats, among them Nancy Pelosi and David
Axelrod, distanced themselves from the comments and called for civility. Trump personally
attacked Waters, calling her an "extraordinarily low IQ person". But Waters gave voice, and
perhaps legitimacy, to what has become a prominent form of activism since Trump took office:
accosting members of his team in public places.
Over the weekend, Steve Bannon was called "a piece of trash" by a heckler at a bookstore; a
bartender gave Stephen Miller the middle finger, apparently causing Miller to throw away $80 of
sushi he'd just bought in disgust; and Mitch McConnell was chased out of a restaurant in
Kentucky by protesters, who followed him to this car yelling "turtle head" and "we know where
you live".
These follow similar encounters for other members of Trump's top team. The homeland security
secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, was confronted by protesters chanting "shame" while she ate at a
Mexican restaurant. Last week, Scott Pruitt was accosted by Kristin Mink while he was eating
lunch. Mink, a teacher, held her two-year-old child as she asked him to resign "before your
scandals push you out". Days later, Pruitt did resign, and although he was probably asked to do
so by Trump, in his letter he cited "the unrelenting attacks on me" as his reason for
leaving.
After each case, the merits of such an approach have been debated – many have called
for civility or argued that protesters leave themselves open to attack if they pursue
Trump-like techniques. There has been some consensus that encounters like Mink's, which are
eloquent and non-aggressive, are more acceptable than when protesters chant personal attacks or
use threatening language
... you don't stand with most of C99 and most of progressive society. He is wrong, on this
and many other things. Where was his (and your) outrage when Obama was droning American
citizens, destroying Libya and creating Europe's current refugee crisis, and helping Saudi
Arabia wreak havoc on Houthi civilians? How many pies did he throw then? How many Obama
administration officials did he publicly shame?
administration too? He did many of the same things that Trump is doing to immigrants. He
deported more of them then any president including 56% of them who hadn't committed any crimes.
How about shaming them for his drone policies, killing 3 Americans without due process, bombing
wedding parties and then the people who came to their rescue? Or the many, many other things he
and his admin members did that were absolutely heinous?
Should we have done that to the people in the Bush administration too or how far back should
we have been shaming people who worked in a president's administration?
Maybe we should be shaming the democrats who have been voting with the republicans to pass
Trump's legislation, cabinet picks and justices? Where would it stop?
Submitted by thanatokephaloides on Thu, 07/19/2018 - 5:49pm
Maybe we should be shaming the democrats who have been voting with the republicans to
pass Trump's legislation, cabinet picks and justices? Where would it stop?
Where it should -- with the non-voluntarily-complicit.
the publicly harassing, embarrssing, and running off the oposition then we're really fucked.
Or do you seriousy think those tactics won't be repaid in kind?
on public shaming.
#7
Especially in public restaurants.
There is no better way to protest this admin than to shame them in a public place, confront
them while they attempt to swallow a bite of pork chop.
up 0 users have voted. --
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes,
okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa Submitted by gulfgal98 on
Thu, 07/19/2018 - 12:00pmCritical thinking skills seem
to be non-existent over there.
Again, Markos and his staff refuse to discuss policy from a positive perspective. Instead,
they focus their readers on the outrage de jour and tribalism. The entire purpose of that site is
a massive propaganda push designed to keep us divided. And the narrative they keep pushing are
not only divisive, but extremely dangerous.
I rarely go there any more, mostly because I would like to keep as many of my remaining brain
cells intact. But when I have visited that place, it is a very frightening place to see how
Markos (post purge) has herded the remaining members into a small corral, all of them nodding in
agreement with whatever gruel Markos and his front pagers are serving up. Submitted by
snoopydawg on Thu, 07/19/2018 - 6:29pmDaily Kos should change its name
to
@gulfgal98
BAR Book Forum: Jeremy Kuzmarov's and John Marciano's "The Russians are Coming, Again"
"The American people have been constantly manipulated and made to fear the Russian threat when
it is the United States that has been the aggressive power."
In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This
week's featured authors are Jeremy Kuzmarov and John Marciano . Kuzmarov is Jay P. Walker
Assistant Professor of American History, University of Tulsa. Marciano is Professor Emeritus at
SUNY Cortland. Their book is The Russians Are Coming, Again: The First Cold War as Tragedy,
the Second as Farce.
Roberto Sirvent: How can your book help BAR readers understand the current political and social
climate?
Jeremy Kuzmarov and John Marciano: Our book provides a historical perspective on
contemporary affairs by showing how the Russo-phobia that has been prevalent in our political
discourse over the last four to five years has deep and long historical roots, and has often
been used by government leaders to turn public attention away from domestic inequalities by
channeling societal resources towards the military sector. During the early Cold War, a period
of labor militancy and momentum for the expansion of the New Deal was destroyed by McCarthyism
and the Cold War.The Korean War brought on huge military budgets that have never left us and an
expansion of the U.S. overseas military base network. These policies were underlain by
exaggerated views about the Soviet Union which were stoked by political elites, who had worked
for companies that reaped enormous profit from the permanent warfare state. The same forces are
behind the renewed efforts to demonize Russian President Vladimir Putin and exaggerate the
Russian threat, with serious adverse consequences for society that have already been evident.
The consequences include a revitalization of the arms race, waging of proxy wars, and a further
poisoning of the domestic political culture through the reinvigoration of a McCarthyist
discourse and tactics.
"During the early Cold War, a period of labor militancy and momentum for the expansion of
the New Deal was destroyed by McCarthyism and the Cold War."
On the world's Grand Chessboard, the US is fighting for control and influence. And there are countries where its ambassadors
are perceived more as imperial governors than simple channels of communication.
At the height of the Maidan protests in Kiev in early 2014, a conversation was leaked between the US ambassador to Ukraine,
Geoffrey Pyatt, and the then-Assistant Secretary of State in the Obama administration, Victoria Nuland. The conversation gained
notoriety because Nuland said to Pyatt, "F**k the EU" and the recording was almost instantly available on
Youtube .
More shocking than Nuland's bad language, however, was what the conversation was about. The US government officials were discussing
how to put their men into power in Ukraine - which of the three then opposition factions would dominate, who would take the lead
(Arseniy Yatsenyuk) and who would be excluded (Vladimir Klitschko). At the time of this conversation, early February 2014, their
enemy Viktor Yanukovych was still president. The leaked recording proved that the US and its Kiev embassy were actively involved
in a regime change operation. The composition of the post-Maidan government corresponded exactly with US plans.
What few people knew at the time was that such levels of control over the composition of foreign governments had become standard
practice for US embassies all over the world. As I could see on my very numerous travels around the Balkans in the late 1990s
and early 2000s, the US ambassador was treated by the political class and the media in those countries not as the officially accredited
representative of a foreign government but instead as an imperial governor whose pronunciamentos were more important
than those of the national government.
This has been going on for decades, although the levels of control exercised by the United States increased as it rushed to
fill the political vacuum created by the collapse of Soviet influence in Eastern Europe after 1989. In earlier times, such control,
especially regime change operations, had to be conducted either covertly, as with the overthrow of Iranian prime minister, Mohammad
Mosaddegh, in 1953, or by financing and arming an anti-government militia, such as in Nicaragua and elsewhere in central and South
America, or by encouraging the army itself, most famously in Chile in 1973. There is a huge body of literature on this vast subject
(for the coup against Mosaddegh, see especially "All the Shah's Men" by Stephen Kinzer, 2003) and there is no possibility of denying
that such operations took place. Indeed, former CIA director, James Woolsey, recently
admitted that they continue to this day.
Many of the ambassadors who engineered or attempted regime change operations in Eastern Europe and the former USSR had cut
their teeth in Latin America in 1980s and 1990s. One of them, Michael Kozak, former US ambassador to Belarus, even boasted in
a letter to The Guardian in 2001 that he was doing the same thing in Minsk as he had done in Managua. He wrote: "As regards parallels
between Nicaragua in 1989-90 and Belarus today, I plead guilty. Our objective and to some degree methodology are the same."
Kozak did not mention that he also played a key role in the overthrow of General Noriega in Panama in 1989 but he is far from
alone. The experience accumulated by the Americans during the Cold War, including in major European countries like Italy where
US interference was key to preventing Communist victories in elections, spawned a whole generation of Kermit Roosevelts (the architect
of the coup against Mosaddegh) who have made their careers over decades in the State Department. Some names, such as that of Michael
McFaul, former US ambassador to Russia who made no secret of his opposition to the president of the state to which he was accredited,
will be familiar to RT readers.
Two years after the violent overthrow of Viktor Yanukovych, which he helped coordinate, Geoffrey Pyatt was appointed US ambassador
to Greece. He remains in that post to this day - which is why some are asking whether his hand might be behind last week's expulsion
of Russian diplomats from Athens. Greece and Russia have customarily had good relations but they differ on the Macedonian issue.
Now, the Greek government headed by the "pseudo-Euroskeptic" Alexis Tsipras, claims that four Russian diplomats were engaged in
covert operations in Greece to lobby against forcing Macedonia to change its official name.
Like almost every other political issue these days, this relatively arcane one is regarded through the distorting prism of alleged
Russian "
interference ": any decision which does not consolidate the power of American-dominated supranational structures like the
US or the EU is now routinely attributed to all-pervasive Russian influence, as if all dissidents were foreign agents. Western
discussion of this subject now resembles the paranoia of the old Soviet regime, and of its satellites in Eastern Europe, which
similarly attacked anti-Communists for being "fifth columnists" - the very phrase used by a prominent European politician last
month to lambast all his enemies as Russian stooges.
US influence is suspected in this case between Greece and Macedonia because the Americans are pushing to bring the whole of
the Balkan peninsula under Western control. This has been policy for nearly thirty years - at least since the Yugoslav wars led
to a US-brokered peace deal in Bosnia in 1995. In recent years the tempo has quickened, with the accession of Montenegro to NATO
last year leaving only Macedonia and Serbia as missing pieces of the puzzle. The Greek victory over the name of Macedonia removes
the last obstacle to that country's accession to NATO and other "Euro-Atlantic structures" like the EU and soon only Serbia will
be left. Will she last long?
One of the most notorious anecdotes of the Second World War was told by Churchill. While in Moscow in 1944, he and Stalin divided
up Eastern Europe and the Balkans into spheres of influence, putting percentage figures to show the respective weight of the West
and the USSR - 10:90 in Greece, 50:50 Yugoslavia, 25:75 in Bulgaria, and so on. Churchill recalls how this so-called Percentages
Agreement was concluded in a few minutes, and how he scribbled a note of their verbal agreement on a piece of paper which Stalin
glanced at for a second and then ticked off. Churchill wrote, "It was all settled in no more time than it takes to set down."
Churchill then reflected that it might seem cynical to decide the fate of millions of people in such an offhand manner. Later
generations have generally agreed with his self-criticism. Today's West would certainly never conclude such an agreement - but
not because of any squeamishness or lack of cynicism on its part. Instead, the West, especially the US, could not conclude any
agreement because in every case the only acceptable outcome would be 100% influence for itself. That is what Geoffrey Pyatt and
his colleagues spend their entire careers trying to achieve - and, to a large extent, they succeed.
"... Read the first piece in Patrick Cockburn's latest series, 'Catastrophic drought threatens Iraq as major dams in surrounding countries cut off water to its great rivers', here . ..."
"... Part II, 'For this Iraqi tribe massacred by Isis, fear of the group's return is a constant reality', here ..."
"... Part III, 'After series of calamitous defeats, is Isis about to lose its last town?', here . ..."
"... Part III, 'Iraq unrest: Chaos reigns in the country even Saddam Hussein 'found difficult to rule', here. ..."
"The people want an end to the parties," chanted protesters, adapting a famous slogan of the
Arab Spring , as
they stormed the governor's office and the international airport in the Shia holy city of
Najaf.
Part of the wave of demonstrations sweeping across central and southern Iraq, they demanded
jobs, electricity, water and an end to the mass theft of Iraq's oil wealth by the political parties.
Beginning on 8 July, the protests are the biggest and most prolonged in a country where
anti-government action has usually taken the form of armed insurgency.
The demonstrations are taking place in the heartlands of the Shia majority, reflecting their
outrage at living on top of some of the world's largest oilfields, but seeing their families
barely survive in squalor and poverty.
The protests began in Basra, Iraq's third largest city which is at the centre of 70 per cent
of its oil production. A hand-written placard held up by one demonstrator neatly expresses
popular frustration. It read:
"2,500,000 barrels daily
Price of each barrel = $70
2,500,000 x $70 = zero !!
Sorry Pythagoras, we are in Basra"
The protests quickly spread to eight other provinces, including Najaf, Kerbala, Nasariya and
Amara.
In several places, the offices of the Dawa Party, to which the Prime Minister Haider
al-Abadi belongs, were burned or attacked, along with those of parties whom people blame for
looting oil revenues worth hundreds of billions of dollars in the 15 years since the overthrow
of Saddam Hussein.
As the situation deteriorated, Mr Abadi flew to Basra on 13 July, promising to make $3bn
available to improve services and provide more jobs. After he left, his hotel was invaded by
protesters.
The credibility of almost all Iraqi politicians is at a low ebb, the acute feeling of
disillusionment illustrated by the low 44.5 per cent turnout in the parliamentary election on
12 May that produced no outright winner.
The poll was
unexpectedly topped by the Sairoun movement of the populist nationalist cleric, Muqtada
al-Sadr, who has encouraged his followers to start protests against government corruption and
lack of services since 2015.
The Sadrists, who emphasised their socially and economically progressive programme by
allying themselves with the Iraqi Communist Party in the election, are playing a role in the
current protests.
The demonstrations are also backed by the prestigious Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. At ground
level, political activists and tribal leaders have set up a joint committee called "the
Coordination Board for Peaceful Protests and Demonstrations in Basra", its purpose being to
produce a list of demands, unite the protest movement, and keep their actions non-violent.
"The ends don't justify the means," says the committee in a statement. "Let us, being
oppressed, not lead to the oppression of others."
A list of 17 demands is headed by one asking for a government timetable for supplying water
and electricity, both of which are short at a time of year when the temperature sometime
exceeds 50C, making it one of the hottest places on earth.
Local people claim that the last time that the port city of Basra, once called the Venice of
the Gulf, had an adequate supply of drinking water was in 1982. Iran had been supplying some
extra electricity, but has cut this back because of its own needs and failure of Iraq to pay on
time.
The second demand of the protesters is for jobs with "priority to the competent sons of
Basra", the discharge of foreign labourers and employment for a quarter of people living in the
oilfields.
Lack of jobs is a source of continuing complaint all over Iraq. Much of its oil income
already goes on paying 4.5 million state employees, but between 400,000 and 420,000 young
people enter the workforce every year with little prospects of employment.
Anger towards the entire political class is intense because it is seen as a kleptocratic
group which syphoned off money in return for contracts that existed only on paper and produced
no new power plants, bridges or roads.
Political parties are at the centre of this corruption because they choose ministries,
according to their share of the vote in elections or their sectarian affiliation, which they
then treat as cash cows and sources of patronage and contracts.
Plundering like this and handing out of jobs to unqualified people means that many
government institutions have become incapable of performing any useful function.
Radical reform is difficult because the whole system is saturated by corruption and
incompetence. Technocrats without party backing who are parachuted into ministries become
isolated and ineffective.
One party leader told The Independent that he thought that the best that could be
done "would be to insist that the parties appoint properly qualified people to top jobs."
The defeat of Isis in 2017 with the recapture of Mosul means that Iraqis are no longer
absorbed in keeping their families safe so they have they have more time to consider
"corruption" – a word they use not just to mean bribery but the parasitic nature of the
government system as a whole.
There is a general mood of cynicism and dissatisfaction with the way things are run.
"Bad government, bad roads, bad weather, bad people," exclaimed one Iraqi friend driving on
an ill-maintained road.
Corrupt motives are ascribed to everything that happens: a series of unexplained fires in
Baghdad in June were
being ascribed to government employees stealing from state depots and then concealing their
crime by setting fire to the building and destroying it.
Given that the Iraqi security forces are primarily recruited from the areas in which the
protests are taking place, the government will need to be careful about the degree of
repression it can use safely.
The armed forces have been placed on high alert. Three regiments of the elite
Counter-Terrorism Service, which led the attack on Mosul and is highly regarded and well
disciplined, has been ordered south to cope with protests and away from places where there is
still residual activity by Isis.
The protests are largely spontaneous, but the Sadrists, whose offices have not been attacked
by crowds, want to put pressure on Mr Abadi, Dawa and other parties to form a coalition
government with a reform programme.
Many protesters express anti-Tehran slogans, tearing up pictures of Iranian spiritual
leaders such as Ayatollah Khomeini and the current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. They blame
Iran for supporting
corrupt parties and governments in Iraq.
Protesters have so far escalated their actions slowly, gathering at the entrances to the
major oil and gas facilities, but not disrupting the 3.6 million barrel a day production. If
this happens, it would affect a significant portion of world crude output.
Iraq's corrupt and dysfunctional governing system may be too set in its profitable ways to
be reformed, but, if the ruling elite wants to survive, it must give ordinary Iraqi a larger
share of the oil revenue cake.
Read the first piece in Patrick Cockburn's latest series, 'Catastrophic drought
threatens Iraq as major dams in surrounding countries cut off water to its great rivers',
here .
Part II, 'For this Iraqi tribe massacred by Isis, fear of the group's return is a
constant reality',
here
Part III, 'After series of calamitous defeats, is Isis about to lose its last town?',
here .
Part III, 'Iraq unrest: Chaos reigns in the country even Saddam Hussein 'found difficult
to rule',
here.
"Oh for the good old days when Saddam was running things."
Electricity production in Iraq overall is superior to what it
was during Saddam's rule. But availability is not 24/365, which is presumably what they're
demanding:
Prewar Baghdad had electricity 16 to 24 hours per day and was favored for distribution.
The remainder of Iraq received 4–8 hours of electricity per day.[6] Post war, Baghdad
no longer has priority and therefore both Baghdad and the country as a whole received on
average 15.5 hours of electricity per day as of February 2010.[7]
If they want some facsimile of Saddam's rule back, they could easily elect the Sunni Arab
parties to power. Which they haven't. Demonstrations were rare during Saddam's reign because
he killed the opposition and consigned those he did not kill to Abu Ghraib, where they were
raped and/or beaten to within an inch of their lives.
Shiites were unhappy with American occupation because they thought the only thing keeping
them from becoming a Shiite version of Saudi Arabia, economically-speaking was an American
plot to steal their oil and sow division in the country. After GI's left, they discovered,
through ISIS's long record of victories, that Sunni Arabs really, really don't like being
ruled by Shiites, and that Iraq's Sunni Arabs really are better at military endeavors than
the Shiites or the Kurds. They are fortunate that Uncle Sam came to their rescue, yet
again.
It's becoming clear that the Iraq's Shiite Arabs and Kurds could never have lifted the
Sunni Arab foot from their necks by their own efforts. The question is whether their history
books will ever reflect this truth.
"... Naturally, these are excuses meant to be peddled in the international arena. There is no justification for bombing a nation, completely destroying its services and infrastructure, and killing tens of thousands of its innocent people. ..."
"... But US imperialism works like a steam-roller. The artful fabrication of a humanitarian cause gives the green light to rain down bombs to save the poor and downtrodden civilians. All this is possible thanks to the nauseating and false media rhetoric that creates the ideal conditions needed to justify the horrible war crime that is aggression against a sovereign nation. ..."
"... In more recent times, this strategy of war based on (spurious) justifications has added a new type of ploy that is much more subtle and suitable for imperialist ends. Since Washington has lost the ability to decide the situation on the ground in different war theaters like in Iraq and Syria, it settles for sowing chaos and destruction. ..."
"... This is done through the employment of plausible deniability, which helps mask covert operations. An example can be seen in Syria, where Washington arms the Free Syrian Army (FSA), an insurgency group labelled "moderate rebels", but these weapons somehow seem to find their way into the hands of Al Nusra and Daesh. This situation has been going on for years, with Washington using Daesh and Al Nusra to fight against Assad, being able to plausible deny doing so by professing to be only arming the moderate rebels and not the extremist terrorists. ..."
"... Clearly we are facing an obvious case of plausible deniabIlity. The United States claims to be arming only the "rebels" in its efforts to remove Assad, but in reality these rebels do not exist and are merely different acronyms for various Islamist extremists. It is therefore natural that the arms given to the rebels will wind up in the hands of ISIS or Al Nusra. On the rare occasions that journalists enquire as to how US weapons have ended up in the hands of Daesh or Al Nusra, US authorities can plausibly deny that they are intentionally arming any extremist groups. ..."
"... Clearly there is no justification, or any plausible denial, that can exonerate the United States from the seventy-year attempt to consolidate its power over other countries or prevent them from pursuing foreign policies independently of Washington. But what is increasingly noticeable is how, thanks to more and more good reporting from alternative news sources, the justifications for war and plausible denials carry less and less credibility with the wider population. ..."
"... The new perspective provided by the alternative media is ripping apart the lies of the past regarding Iraq, Syria, Yemen or Donbass, showing as fabrications the justifications used to drop bombs, kill civilians, subjugate entire populations in order to advance the US geopolitical goals. ..."
"... The three examples of Iraq, Libya and Obama himself represent the greatest expression of American deception, namely, the portrayal of the US as fighting for a noble cause, sacrificing itself for the sake of humanity in order to confront and overcome tyranny . But reality paints a different picture, showing the US as the bringer of chaos and destruction. It is the revelation of these lies more than anything else that can accelerate the global awakening and complete the rejection of imperialism that relies on false justifications and plausible denials to succeed. ..."
Observing the behavior of the United States over recent decades, it becomes clear that the American establishment has always relied
on two fundamental factors to justify choices in foreign policy.
We have been accustomed in recent years to humanitarian interventions being justified on the assumption that the United States
and the West were in some way intervening militarily in the interests of defending innocent civilians from brutal dictators. This
justification for armed intervention has either been the key factor or the direct cause for the expansion of US imperialism.
The use of the media as an instrument of war – with lies, artfully constructed stories, intentional omissions, and targeted disinformation
– has helped US imperialism to justify armed interventions abroad.
There is always some sort of justification, rationale or pretext offered when Washington intervenes to bring about conflict. These
excuses were showcased in Yugoslavia in 1999, in Afghanistan in 2002, in Iraq in 2003, and in Libya in 2011. With Yugoslavia and
Libya, the lie of protecting human rights was the justification offered to the public. The September 11, 2001 attacks were used to
justify attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq in 2002 and 2003, pointing the finger of blame at these countries. The war on terror in general
offered a perfect justification for bringing about chaos in every corner of the world.
Naturally, these are excuses meant to be peddled in the international arena. There is no justification for bombing a nation, completely
destroying its services and infrastructure, and killing tens of thousands of its innocent people.
But US imperialism works like a steam-roller. The artful fabrication of a humanitarian cause gives the green light to rain down
bombs to save the poor and downtrodden civilians. All this is possible thanks to the nauseating and false media rhetoric that creates
the ideal conditions needed to justify the horrible war crime that is aggression against a sovereign nation.
Such justifications constitute some of the most deceptive and aggressive imperialist tools employed by the Euro-American power
conglomerate to impose its unipolar vision of international relations and strong-arm those seeking a new path in international relations.
The objective is to disrupt (with bombs and propaganda) the vision these countries have of fixing the corrupt and sickening world
order guided by Washington.
In more recent times, this strategy of war based on (spurious) justifications has added a new type of ploy that is much more subtle
and suitable for imperialist ends. Since Washington has lost the ability to decide the situation on the ground in different war theaters
like in Iraq and Syria, it settles for sowing chaos and destruction.
This is done through the employment of plausible deniability, which helps mask covert operations. An example can be seen in Syria,
where Washington arms the Free Syrian Army (FSA), an insurgency group labelled "moderate rebels", but these weapons somehow seem
to find their way into the hands of Al Nusra and Daesh. This situation has been going on for years, with Washington using Daesh and
Al Nusra to fight against Assad, being able to plausible deny doing so by professing to be only arming the moderate rebels and not
the extremist terrorists.
Clearly we are facing an obvious case of plausible deniabIlity. The United States claims to be arming only the "rebels" in its
efforts to remove Assad, but in reality these rebels do not exist and are merely different acronyms for various Islamist extremists.
It is therefore natural that the arms given to the rebels will wind up in the hands of ISIS or Al Nusra. On the rare occasions that
journalists enquire as to how US weapons have ended up in the hands of Daesh or Al Nusra, US authorities can plausibly deny that
they are intentionally arming any extremist groups.
Plausible deniability and justifications for war are two manifestations of the hallucinatory world in which we live, based on
conjurations rather than reality. No newspaper or journalist questions whether the justification given for war is legitimate. No
newspaper wonders whether Iraq really was linked to Al Qaeda, preferring instead to repeat US propaganda. No one bothers to dig and
ask whether the FSA is just an acronym like the SDF and therefore another way of plausibly denying and covering for America's illegal
involvement in Syria.
Clearly there is no justification, or any plausible denial, that can exonerate the United States from the seventy-year attempt
to consolidate its power over other countries or prevent them from pursuing foreign policies independently of Washington. But what
is increasingly noticeable is how, thanks to more and more good reporting from alternative news sources, the justifications for war
and plausible denials carry less and less credibility with the wider population.
Decades of lies and omissions have convinced the European and American populations that the press is probably more interested
in protecting the interests of its management and owners than it is in revealing the truth. As a result, the alternative press, online
media, and alternative giants like CGTN, RT, TeleSUR and PressTV widen their audience simply by exposing how the Western media's
packaged truth only aims to justify the deployment of Western troops to foreign countries, or provide plausible deniability for their
less palatable covert operations.
The new perspective provided by the alternative media is ripping apart the lies of the past regarding Iraq, Syria, Yemen or Donbass,
showing as fabrications the justifications used to drop bombs, kill civilians, subjugate entire populations in order to advance the
US geopolitical goals.
The world population is increasingly better informed thanks to widespread Internet access and a growing thirst for news. This
phenomenon is beginning to gain steam as the deceptions of the mainstream media are increasingly being called out with every passing
day. CNN, The New York Times , Al Jazeera, the BBC, and many other broadcasters and newspapers have for many years shown European,
American and Middle Eastern populations a partial, falsified and manipulated version of reality for the purposes of justifying criminal
actions and providing plausible-denial cover to enable the sneaky killing of even more innocents.
As the chickens are coming home to roost, more and more old statements made by US officials are revisited and measured against
new facts on the ground. Obama's words about how the US never gave weapons to ISIS are today contradicted by evidence of the perverse
flow of weapons from the US and her allies to Daesh terrorists. In the same way, Clinton's celebration over Gaddafi's death ("We
came, we saw, he died"), or Madeleine Albright's justification of the death of 500,000 Iraqi children as a result of US sanctions,
as well as them bombings from 1991 to 2003, are coming back to haunt them. All these lies are exposed years later, delivering a devastating
blow to the Western establishment's credibility.
The three examples of Iraq, Libya and Obama himself represent the greatest expression of American deception, namely, the portrayal
of the US as fighting for a noble cause, sacrificing itself for the sake of humanity in order to confront and overcome tyranny .
But reality paints a different picture, showing the US as the bringer of chaos and destruction. It is the revelation of these lies
more than anything else that can accelerate the global awakening and complete the rejection of imperialism that relies on false justifications
and plausible denials to succeed.
With the credibility of their previous arguments shot to pieces, the corporate media find themselves with the now practically
impossible task of attempting to deceive a woke population that can no longer be fooled as easily as in the past. People are fed
up with war and the lies that are offered to justify them, and they are starting to understand the techniques and keywords employed
to justify US Imperial policies.
The USSA and its imperial buddies France and the UK basically conduct their foreign affairs like this...
They plunder the 3rd and developing world of resource rich nations to supplement their own standard of living
They also use their financial tools, with bribes, as well as take advantaged of stupidity, to indebt these nations, thus
continuing the cycle of dependency, making our plunder easier.
The excuse for bombing Iraq, after 9/11 made this obvious to many Americans. The only Americans who refused to see at first,
was the flag waving, porch sitting, GOP blind patriot, who was used and abused by a system, who took advantage of their naivety
of the world at large. Remember Freedom Fries? lol
"Get down to Disney World in Florida," "Take your families and enjoy life, the way WE want it to be enjoyed." George W Bush,
shortly after the event known as 911.
"Foreign policy" of course defended his remarks, as have many other's over the years. The rationale being, "You can't let the
terrorists win." And if folks stop shopping and going to disneyland .... or working two, three part time jerbs, or stopped foolishly
going into debt, for shit they neither needed, nor could afford .. ahhh, buy no worries. That crisis was still a few years off
... Yeah, guess what, the terrorists won. But as it turns out, the terrorists to fear most would become the homegrown terrorists,
within the nations own government, it's institutions, and of course the FIRE sector, international banks, bankers and corporations,
their heads, whom now own and rule the the joint completely ...
Yes soccer moms, those whom you blindly put your faith in, due to your inability to think rationally, as it turns out, were
merely fighting for THEIR way of life, not yours, as you had foolishly hoped, you know, for the children, the children who were
and are used like so much chaff, and cannon fodder, things, beasts for future debt extraction, and early dying. Meat for the meat
grinder .. defending lies, liars, thieves, charlatans, grifters, and two bit con men. Untruths, injustice, the new American way
..
One one has to consider, ponder, if these words were ever to be spoken, "Heh, wasn't it great in the good old days, in the
time of our collective insanity!"
We need to try to understand how people in other countries see us, even bad people, not
because we agree with them, but because we can't conduct intelligent foreign policy by
thinking everybody in the world sees things the way Americans ("educated" cosmopolitan
Americans) do.
This isn't going to end well. How is this not the greatest scandal in American history?
We have a Manchurian candidate in the White House!
Who just tried to shame Germany into canceling the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. And browbeat
NATO members into increasing their defense spending. And armed Ukraine.
Those measures and the resulting uncertainty are prompting some European countries to go
their own way on major industry projects, including the development of a next-generation
fighter jet, potentially leaving U.S. firms behind.
"I think it is forcing Europe together in ways that have unanticipated consequences for the
U.S. defense industry," said Byron Callan, an analyst with Capital Alpha Partners.
The aerospace and defense industry is a huge driver of U.S. jobs and economic growth. In
2017 alone, it generated $865 billion, supporting 2.4 million high-paying American jobs. The
industry produced a positive trade balance of $86 billion in 2017, the largest of any U.S.
industry, which reduced the country's trade deficit by 10 percent.
It is also an important component of U.S. foreign policy. Arms sales are key to
strengthening security partnerships and improving military cooperation with allies.
"Partners who procure American weaponry are more capable of fighting alongside us and
ultimately more capable of protecting themselves with fewer American boots on the ground,"
Peter Navarro, the White House director of trade policy, said during an April press
conference.
So it came as no surprise when the Trump administration announced the decision to send a
large delegation to help sell U.S. products at Farnborough, including top officials such as
Navarro. The administration also used the opportunity to roll out the Conventional Arms
Transfer (CAT) Policy, also known as the "Buy America" plan, an initiative to improve U.S. arms
transfer processes and increase the competitiveness of U.S.-made products.
But the U.S. government showing at Farnborough was disappointing from the start of the
weeklong exhibition Monday. Navarro pulled out at the last minute, as did Ellen Lord, the
Pentagon's top weapons buyer; Heidi Grant, the U.S. Air Force's head of international affairs;
and other U.S. government officials. At the show itself, only five U.S. military aircraft
appeared on static display in the Defense Department corral that normally showcases products
built for the armed services by Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and other U.S. defense giants.
ill-gotten goods are undeserving of protection of law. The DNC and Podesta had no legitimate
expectation of privacy in their combinations to defraud the public and steal elections.
It's been imputed that the Russians did this to damage the reputation of Hillary Clinton. To
take the alleged damage to reputation angle to its conclusion, truth is an entirely sufficient
defense to any charge of libel. What was revealed by an alleged hack was the truth, something
that is entirely lacking in the rest of this affair.
As for the alleged theft and public release of email, ill-gotten goods are undeserving of
protection of law. The DNC and Podesta had no legitimate expectation of privacy in their
combinations to defraud the public and steal elections.
The Russian GRU is accused of revealing that the people who run the DNC and Clinton campaign
committee colluded with each other to steal the nomination. The allegedly hacked emails show
what they really did and thought during the fraudulent nomination of Hillary Clinton. It might
be argued, that whomever revealed the truth actually did a public service for the American
people. An odd sort of "act of war," that.
Finally, individual officials and military officers have a limited immunity and are not
normally indicted by foreign states for intelligence activities such as electronic surveillance
and hacking across borders. That is where the element of harm comes in. The only real precedent
for this is the Rainbow Warrior case. In 1985, French intelligence officers blew up and sank a
Greenpeace ship by that name anchored in Auckland, NZ harbour, killing a passenger, a Dutch
photographer. A UN arbitrator held in that case the French agents were not immune under
customary international law to prosecution in a New Zealand court and could be individually
tried and jailed, but only because of the death of the victim as part of "a criminal act of
violence against property in New Zealand . . . done without regard for innocent civilians."
Greenpeace was additionally awarded damages in the UK under international Maritime Law because
the vessel was a British-flagged ship.
Also bear in mind, the US and UK both provide immunity to their own intelligence officers
and law enforcement officers for hacking and related computer crimes committed against foreign
powers. The UK takes that a step further and exempts police officers for domestic hacking:
This is a dangerous precedent, and the likely result is to ignite retaliation and further
exacerbate U.S.-Russian tensions. The entire staffs of the NSA, GCHQ and GRU could be similarly
"prosecuted," but what will that accomplish? Even if every word of the indictment is fact, the
indictment itself violates the norms of international law and this latest "Russiagate"
escalation by Mueller seems intended to ratchet up the New Cold War.
That is why "Russiagate" is a legal sham, in my opinion. Even if the alleged Russian hack of
the DNC email actually happened as claimed, and even if the hack was with bad intent, there was
no real crime or harm in the release of that information. That information was no more the
private property of the DNC and Clinton Campaign than a plan to rob a bank belongs to the
robbers. Isn't that so, Mr. Mueller?
Karlorf1
Under its religious leadership, Islamic Iran appears a very tolerant society that has been
under constant attack. From what I have read, a number of the religious laws concerning
society are not rigidly enforced allowing a reasonable amount of freedom.
What may be happening now though is that after growing up in the religious environment but
watching western television, many young people may be thinking the grass is greener on the
other side of the fence and with a concerted Israeli/US propaganda effort may attempt to
climb through. I guess if they do, they will find themselves in a paddock similar to Ukraine
named Rump Iran.
I have watched Khamenei speak (subtitles) on world affairs and read transcripts. He is very
similar to Nasrallah, Assad, and Putin in his understanding of the world.
"... Still, doesn't the Universe work in such a way that *good* is constitutionally unable to successfully confront *evil*? Doesn't evil-fighting-evil and destroying a worse-evil leave a little less evil in this world? ..."
...You can't put lipstick on an American fascist pig only because he pretends detente with Russia. It's tantamount to
selling one's soul for an illusion. It's tantamount to treason if you live anywhere except in the U.S. OR Israel! And even if
you live in the U.S. you are enabling the 1% and Zionist power.
That's it. I'm tired of Trumpgod can do no wrong when everything he stands for is wrong. Get the snow out of your eyes!
Guerrero | Jul 17, 2018 7:21:47 PM | 149
Circe @135
For sure I am in agreement: the "Trumpgod" is a shamanistic construction of a demoralized population.
Still, doesn't the Universe work in such a way that *good* is constitutionally unable to successfully confront *evil*?
Doesn't evil-fighting-evil and destroying a worse-evil leave a little less evil in this world?
If that is how this Universe really works, and one has only force to work with, in the material realm, Donald Trump would
seem well enough suited to the role of either lesser or greater-evil; either-way, hopefully leading-to dimunition of error,
self-deception, and suffering of the children of Eve and Adam.
@149 Guerrero said: "Still, doesn't the Universe work in such a way that *good* is
constitutionally unable to successfully confront *evil*?"
Not often one sees metaphysics enter the realm of geo-political debate in this or any
political forum. But, heck, why not? The unseen forces guiding the survival instincts of the
universe (of which the Earth is a part) may indeed be at work. Trump - whatever one sees in
him - seems to be the man for the times. Paradigms are bending, cracking, the conversation is
changing.
I'll never forget the shock in the MSM, almost to the point of stupefaction, at Trump
accusing Obama during the election campaign of being the "founder of ISIS."
What was even more amazing was how weak Obama's response was. I don't think anybody
posting here would disagree that ISIS was Obama's baby - whether through adoption or
progeny.
But what serious candidate for President before Trump would ever say such a thing publicly
- even if he knew it to be true? Whether by design or through blundering, boorish idiocy born
of whatever flaws and motives you want to ascribe to him, Trump is very boisterously
upsetting the political apple cart and with it the entire world order.
If it is indeed for show as the world elites close their grip on the people of the planet
- it is quite a show. But I don't think so...
Hysteria is at fever pitch. After the NATO summit in Brussels, the definitive Decline of the West has been
declared a done deal as President Trump gets ready to meet President Putin in Helsinki.
It was Trump himself who
stipulated that he wants to talk to Putin behind closed doors, face-to-face, without any aides and, in theory,
spontaneously, after the preparatory meeting between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Russian Foreign Minister
Sergey Lavrov was canceled. The summit will take place at the early 19
th
century Presidential Palace in
Helsinki, a former residence of Russian emperors.
As a preamble to Helsinki, Trump's spectacular NATO blitzkrieg was a show for the ages; assorted "leaders" in
Brussels simply didn't know what hit them. Trump didn't even bother to arrive on time for morning sessions dealing
with the possible accession of Ukraine and Georgia. Diplomats confirmed to Asia Times that after Trump's stinging
"pay up or else" tirade, Ukraine and Georgia were asked to leave the room because what would be discussed was
strictly an internal NATO issue.
Previewing the summit, Eurocrats indulged in interminable carping about "illiberalism" taking over, from Viktor
Orban in Hungary to Sultan Erdogan in Turkey, as well as mourning the "destruction of European unity" (yes, it's
always Putin's fault). Trump though would have none of it. The US President conflates the EU with NATO,
interpreting the EU as a rival, just like China, but much weaker. As for the US "deal" with NATO, just like NAFTA,
that's a bad deal.
NATO is 'obsolete'
Trump is correct that without the US, NATO is "obsolete" – as in non-existent. So essentially what he did in
Brussels laid bare the case for NATO as a protection racket, with Washington fully entitled to up the stakes for
the "protection".
But "protection" against what?
Since the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, when NATO was repositioned in its new role as humanitarian imperialist
global Robocop, the alliance's record is absolutely dismal.
That features miserably losing an endless war in Afghanistan against a bunch of Pashtun warriors armed with
Kalashnikov replicas; turning functional Libya into a militia wasteland and headquarters for Europe-bound
refugees; and having the NATO-Gulf Cooperation Council lose its bet on a galaxy of jihadis and crypto-jihadis in
Syria spun as "moderate rebels".
NATO has launched a new training, non-combat mission in Iraq; 15 years after Shock and Awe, Sunnis, Shi'ites,
Yazidis and even Kurdish factions are not impressed.
Then there's the NATO Readiness Initiative; the capacity of deploying 30 battalions, 30 battleships and 30
aircraft squadrons within 30 days (or less) by 2020. If not to wreak selected havoc across the Global South, this
initiative is supposedly set up to deter "Russian aggression".
So after dabbling with the Global War on Terror, NATO is essentially back to the original "threat"; the
imminent Russian invasion of Western Europe – a ludicrous notion if there ever was one. The
final
statement
in Brussels spells it out, with special emphasis on item 6 and item 7.
The combined GDP of all NATO members is 12 times that of Russia. And NATO's defense spending is six times
larger than Russia's. Contrary to non-stop Polish and Baltic hysteria, Russia does not need to "invade" anything;
what worries the Kremlin, in the long term, is the well being of ethnic Russians living in former Soviet
republics.
Russia can't be both threat and an energy partner
Then there's Europe's energy policy – and that's a completely different story.
Trump has described the Nord Stream 2 pipeline as "inappropriate", but his claim that Germany gets 70% of its
energy (via natural gas imports) from Russia may be easily debunked. Germany gets at best 9% of its energy from
Russia. In terms of Germany's
sources
of energy
, only 20% is natural gas. And less than 40% of natural gas in Germany comes from Russia. Germany is
fast transitioning towards wind, solar, biomass and hydro energy, which made up 41% of the total in 2018. And the
target is 50% by 2030.
Yet Trump does have a sterling point when, stressing that "Germany is a rich country", he wants to know
why America should
"protect
you against Russia"
when energy deals are on the table. "Explain that! It can't be explained!" as he
reportedly said to Nato Secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday.
In the end, of course, it's all about business. What Trump is really aiming at is for Germany to import US
shale gas, three times more expensive than pipeline-delivered Russian gas.
The energy angle is directly linked to the never-ending 2% defense spending soap opera. Germany currently
spends 1.2% of GDP on NATO. by 2024, it's supposed to reach at best 1.5%. And that's it. The majority of German
voters, in fact, want US troops
out
.
So Trump's demand for 4% of GDP on defense spending for all NATO members will never fly. The sales pitch should
be seen for what it is: a tentative "invitation" for an increased EU and NATO shopping spree on US military
hardware.
In a nutshell, the key factor remains that Trump's Brussels blitzkrieg did make his case. Russia cannot be a
"threat" and a reliable energy partner at the same time. As much as NATO poodles may be terrified of "Russian
aggression", the facts spell out they won't put their money where their rhetorical hysteria is.
Foreign ministers attend a working dinner during the NATO Summit in Brussels on July 11, 2018. They gathered to
discuss Russia, Iraq and their mission in Afghanistan. Photo: AFP/ pool/ Yves Herman
Are you listening now?
"Russian aggression" should be one of the top items discussed in Helsinki. In the – remote – possibility that
Trump will strike a deal with Putin, NATO's absurd
raison d'etre
would be even more exposed.
That's not the US "deep-state" agenda, of course, thus the 24/7 demonization of the summit even before it
happens. Moreover, for Trump, the transactional gambling man's Make-America-Great-Again point of view, the ideal
outcome would always be to get even more European weapons deals for the US industrial-military-intelligence
complex.
Terrified by Trump, diplomats in Brussels over these past few days have conveyed to Asia Times fears about the
end of NATO, the end of the World Trade Organization, even the end of the EU. But the fact remains that Europe is
absolutely peripheral to the Big Picture.
In
Losing Military Supremacy
, his latest, groundbreaking book, crack Russian military-naval analyst
Andrei
Martyanov
deconstructs in detail how, "the United States faces two nuclear and industrial superpowers, one of
which fields a world-class armed forces. If the military-political, as opposed to merely economic, alliance
between Russia and China is ever formalized – this will spell the final doom for the United States as a global
power."
The US deep state (its influential bureaucrats) may be wallowing in perpetual denial, but Trump – after many a
closed-door meeting with Henry Kissinger – may have understood the suicidal "strategy" of Washington
simultaneously antagonizing Russia and China.
Putin's landmark
March
1 speech
, as Martyanov stresses, was an effort to "coerce America's elites, if not into peace, at least into
some form of sanity, given that they are currently completely detached from the geopolitical, military and
economic realities of the newly emerging power configurations of the world". These elites may not be listening,
but Trump seems to indicate he is.
As for the NATO poodles, all they can do is watch.
So Mueller was a CIA mole in FBI fromthe very beginning. Interesting...
Notable quotes:
"... You could say that Mueller married into the CIA, except that his great uncle was Richard Bissell. So between his family and his wife's family Mueller had two of the three people that Kennedy fired before he was assassinated by a "lone nut", as well as the mayor who hosted the assassination. The third man fired was Allen Dulles, who sat on the Warren Commission and managed to keep the CIA out of the investigation into JFK's murder. Perhaps Dulles was a guest at the wedding. ..."
"... Mueller would invariably land on cases with Deep State intelligence connections. ..."
"... Mueller, who had been appointed Assistant U.S. Prosecutor under GHW Bush, became FBI Director under George W. Bush just in time not to see the CIA fingerprints on 9/11, which should not be surprising considering whom he didn't see when he investigated BCCI. ..."
"... Additionally, Mueller oversaw the anthrax letter case, never investigating Battelle Memorial Corporation, which had a building within a mile of the mailbox where the letters had been mailed. (Battelle Memorial's corporate motto is "It Can Be Done".) Instead, he centered FBI investigations on scientists in government labs in Fort Detrick, Maryland, who had neither the expertise nor the equipment to make the weaponized military grade anthrax found in the letters. One scientist sued and won millions. The other allegedly "committed suicide". Battelle is noteworthy because it handles the US military's anthrax program. Mueller had no interest that two of the targets who received anthrax letters were at the time the most vociferous opponents of the Bush Administration's Patriot Act. ..."
"... Perhaps his greatest accomplishment aiding the Deep State as FBI Director was his shutting down of Operation Green Quest, the FBI's investigation into the funding behind 9/11 and the terrorist network behind it. Names began popping up like Grover Norquist, the Muslim Brotherhood, old Nazis and the royal family of Luxembourg. Nothing to see here. Move along. ..."
"... @detroitmechworks ..."
"... Only thing missing for me was the tie in to Pappy Bush and the rest of the family. Mueller the consigliere of the CIA. Oh man how fucked are we? ..."
"... Great history of how corrupt Mueller has always been and how he has covered up for so many crimes. I'm just stunned by the number of people who have decided that Mueller's history and the history of the CIA, FBI and the other intelligence agencies wasn't that bad after all just because they are going after Trump. This selective amnesia is simply amazing, isn't it? ..."
"... Clinton's role in helping the CIA to smuggle drugs into Arkansas is never talked about either. Or if it is it's called "a right wing attempt to bring them down." ..."
"... that explains why centrist and liberal media have a disturbing tendency to rehabilitate some of the most vile, reactionary forces on the American right simply because they say vaguely negative things about Donald Trump -- a phenomenon we call "Trumpwashing." ..."
"... Just like Mueller, Brennan is one more war criminal whose actions seem to have been forgotten. ..."
"... Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates, which would "allow foreign actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations," according to the filing. ..."
"... Mueller also accused Concord of "knowingly and intentionally" conspiring to interfere with the election by using social media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump. ..."
"... Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates, which would "allow foreign actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations," according to the filing. ..."
"... Mueller also accused Concord of "knowingly and intentionally" conspiring to interfere with the election by using social media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump. ..."
"... The seas were calm and the skies were clear." ..."
"... "The reason why the ship went down is because of the massive storm that came out of nowhere." ..."
"... It would appear at first glance this is basically an effort at espionage only ..."
"... as it appears they don't ..."
"... I don't think anyone (including Mueller) anticipated that any of the defendants would appear in court to defend against the charges. ..."
"... Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates, which would "allow foreign actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations," according to the filing. ..."
"... Mueller also accused Concord of "knowingly and intentionally" conspiring to interfere with the election by using social media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump. ..."
"... Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates, which would "allow foreign actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations," according to the filing. ..."
"... Mueller also accused Concord of "knowingly and intentionally" conspiring to interfere with the election by using social media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump. ..."
In the 1950s, when the science fiction genre started making itself felt in movies, there was always the pivotal scene where the
protagonist discovers the dark secret but no one will believe him: a flying saucer hidden under the sand in a field, truckloads of
pod people to replace real people, or that the friendly aliens' book "To Serve Man" wasn't a guide to helping humans, but a cookbook.
It's that moment of sudden realization that no one will believe the hero because it sounds too crazy to believe.
Granted, to the uninitiated, coming to a realization so shocking and threatening to your current mental construction of the world
can appear like paranoia. It becomes a question of the discoverer's knowledge and senses over what everyone else believes. Everyone
else seems to be allowing him or herself to be absorbed into the great growing evil.
Today many of us, certainly readers here at Caucus99, are finding ourselves in similar positions. Our political structure is a
lie, the people who are supposed to represent us and our interests don't, our law enforcement protects the property of the rich,
not our lives, and often are in cahoots with the criminals from whom we are supposed to be protected. I am sure that many of our
old friends and acquaintances have been alienated from some of us here when we began talking about Hillary's track record during
the Presidential campaign, for example. In our current pasteboard world, if you are a Republican or Democrat you must assume that
your designated political party, maybe with a couple of exceptions, are there to look after you.
And there that crazy friend goes, yelling about cookbooks.
I suppose my introduction to the corruption of those in power, at thirteen, was the assassination of JFK. Not actually the assassination,
but the murder of Oswald two days later, in the basement of the Dallas police headquarters. I had slept overnight at a friend's and
we came back from shooting basketballs to watch the transfer of Oswald to another facility. That was the moment that I realized all
wasn't what it seemed. But, like most kids my age, the Beatles came along in a month or so and I was swept into the world of rock
and roll, which kept me occupied until I began noticing girls. Until 1968. I was still noticing girls and rock and roll, but I was
also noticing the number of progressives being gunned down by "lone nuts". And I was noticing Vietnam.
I'm not sharing this to explain to you how I became (that loathsome term) a "conspiracy theorist". I just want to explain to you
that the democracy of the United States, and all the characters running across the stage in Washington, D.C., are the cookbook.
I wrote an essay here back in April of 2017 explaining how the Russiagate scandal had been designed to give Hillary Clinton a
casus belli for her future war against Russia, and that what we were seeing since she lost has been a recycling of it to get Trump
in line with the goals of the Deep State. So far nothing much has happened that has moved me from that belief. Now that the Deep
State seems to have persuaded our Dear Leader that he can go on being himself as long as he understands the actual hierarchy and
doesn't get in the way the Deep State, everything seems to be back on track. At least until Donald's next tweet.
But in order to understand the depth of criminality in our system one has to understand how things are done. After World War II
a lot of social awareness began putting pressure on the old system that had driven the world into the Great Depression. FDR had demonstrated
that the government could look out for the poor, could give them jobs when there were no other jobs to be had. The GI Bill sent millions
of vets to college and helped to create the middle class we used to have. Unions had real power in negotiating wages and terms of
service. Government could create a system to help the elderly. The African Americans, coming back home from fighting a war against
fascism, refused go to the coloreds only water fountains. In short, the United States were in for some growing pains.
What happened? As I mentioned above there was a rash of murders of progressive political candidates and leaders in the sixties.
But in order for the forces behind a return to the old rules to keep a lid on any revolutions there had to be something better than
shooting every progressive who raised his head above the lectern. Thus the wave of recruitment of agents and assets in the late sixties
by the CIA, FBI and other agencies. Although I didn't know it directly at the time, arriving on campus in 1968 it was evident that
there was a "presence" of people looking over the shoulders of student activists.
Which brings me to another great revelation. It's not just politicians and political parties that are serving the Deep State.
Any agency that can be corrupted by power will be, eventually.
Which brings us to the courts.
There are certain things that must be preserved for a ruling class to remain legitimate in the eyes of the public. Some people
don't think much beyond the flag. But there are other things. The media is better than ever at keeping uncomfortable truths from
the majority of Americans. But what happens where the criminality of the Deep State collides with our judicial system?
Let me introduce you to the man of the hour in Washington, Robert Swann Mueller III. Robert was born into the upper crust in our
American class system. At one point in his education in private schools John Kerry was a classmate. (Kerry was also a fellow Bonesman
with the Bushes.) Mueller met his eventual bride, Ann Cabell Standish, at one of the dances they attended. They married in 1966,
three years after John Kennedy's assassination. If you have read much about the JFK assassination you would recognize her middle
name. Her grandfather, Charles Cabell, had been second in command at the CIA when John Kennedy was elected President. In the aftermath
of the Bay of Pigs fiasco, Kennedy fired three men from leadership positions at the CIA: Director Allen Dulles, Cabell and Richard
Bissell. Charles Cabell was Ann's grandfather. Her grand uncle, Earle Cabell, was the mayor of Dallas at the time of Kennedy's murder
there. Recently declassified JFK documents revealed that Mayor Cabell was also an asset of the CIA at the time. Small world.
You could say that Mueller married into the CIA, except that his great uncle was Richard Bissell. So between his family and his wife's
family Mueller had two of the three people that Kennedy fired before he was assassinated by a "lone nut", as well as the mayor who
hosted the assassination. The third man fired was Allen Dulles, who sat on the Warren Commission and managed to keep the CIA out
of the investigation into JFK's murder. Perhaps Dulles was a guest at the wedding.
Soon thereafter Mueller decided to go to Vietnam because, he said, a classmate had died there and patriotism and so forth. He
became an officer and eventually ended up as an aide-de-camp for the 3rd Marine Division's commanding general, General William K.
Jones. Something else was going on in Vietnam. The CIA had installed its Phoenix Program. I cannot do justice to the Phoenix Program
and won't considering Doug Valentine's work on it is available for everyone, but the Phoenix Program was the CIA's attempt to totally
control the Vietnamese population. Besides massacres of villages, the program assassinated suspected leaders and spies for the Vietcong,
coerced others into being their agents, and kept up files on all the relevant Vietnamese down to the village level. Like in later
wars, the CIA incorporated torture, murder and psychological techniques in order to control their targets. As an aide-de-camp to
a commanding Marine general, there is no way that Mueller didn't know about the Phoenix Program. He probably saw daily briefings.
When he came back to the US he studied law and quickly became a federal prosecutor.
One of the things to mark his career was to deny a pardon to Patty Hearst for her part in the whole Symbionese Liberation Army's
"terror" campaign. What did the SLA have to do with anything? A short history: Donald DeFreeze, a small-time criminal in Los Angeles
agreed to become an informant for the LAPD in order to stay out of jail. After awhile he got tired of ratting out others and asked
to get out of the program. Instead, DeFreeze was incarcerated at the Vacaville Medical Facility for criminally insane prisoners in
the California penal system. There DeFreeze met Colston Westbrook who gave classes for the "Black Cultural Association", an experimental
behavior modification unit inside the prison. Who was Westbrook? He was a CIA agent, trained in psychological warfare and part of
the Phoenix Program. DeFreeze was modified by Westbrook and company for two years. Soon thereafter, he was transferred to Soledad
Prison, from which he "escaped" and became the infamous "Cinque". Then came the Symbionese Liberation Army, a caricature of a black
militant group filled with mostly white people with military backgrounds. The murder of Marcus Foster, a progressive black leader
in the San Francisco East Bay, was done by white men in blackface, according to eyewitnesses. The SLA claimed credit for it. The
SLA kidnapped Hearst, subjected her to torture, rape, sensory deprivation and mind control tactics, just like the CIA did in the
Phoenix Program in Vietnam. Then came the bank robberies.
I bring up the Patty Hearst case because, in 2000, decades after her prison sentence had been commuted, Mueller still opposed
her pardon. Guess what he didn't notice when he rejected her pardon? This has been his pattern throughout his career. We'll return
to Patty Hearst shortly.
Mueller has presided over many cases where it's been important for the prosecutor to overlook the fingerprints of the CIA. He
prosecuted what was known in the San Francisco Bay Area as the "drug tug" case which had connections to an island in Panama. It was
a drug smuggling case and had tentacles into things like bank frauds in Northern California. He prosecuted Manuel Noriega's drug-smuggling
without noticing Oliver North's drug-smuggling, arms running and money laundering through Panama as a part of Iran-contra.
Mueller would invariably land on cases with Deep State intelligence connections.
For example, he prosecuted Pan Am 103. Initially, and then later confirmed by an insurance investigator's report, the bomb that
brought down the airliner was believed to be placed onboard by baggage handlers working at the Frankfurt Airport. They were given
the bomb by a terrorist cell who in turn got it from one Monzer al-Kassar, who was a very large heroin dealer, estimated at supplying
twenty percent of the US's heroin at the time. A big operator. And, in fact, one of the passengers on the plane was a drug mule for
al-Kassar. Al-Kassar also happened to be a part of the Iran-contra operation, supplying weapons for North's Enterprise. The operation
was, according to the early reports, carried out by a cell of Palestinian terrorists based in Frankfurt, the Palestinian Liberation
Front-General Command, who got the bomb from al-Kassar and put the bomb on that airline.
Mueller, put in charge of the case, pursued an entirely different direction, accusing two Libyans of bombing the plane. At the
time Libya and Khadafy were getting blamed for a lot of terrorist activity, but the case against the two was so weak as to hardly
be circumstantial.
There were other questions arising from Pan Am 103. A top official in the FBI, Oliver "Buck" Revell, rushed onto the tarmac in
London to pull his son and daughter-in-law off of Pan Am 103 before it went on to explode over Lockerbie, Scotland. Also changing
flight plans were South African President Pik Botha and his negotiating team. Apparently, someone that Revell and Pik Botha knew
gave them the warning.
There was one group that didn't get warned. That was the McKee Team, an assembled group of US intelligence agents tasked to investigate
American hostages in Beruit. They allegedly discovered a link between the hostage takers, drug traffickers and the CIA. They were
returning to the US, against orders, presumably to spill the beans. This was essentially a clean-up operation, tying up loose strings
of the Iran-contra operation. So was Noriega's prosecution.
That's why Mueller got the case. He knew where to look and where not to look.
He also prosecuted ancillary Iran-contra cases. He prosecuted John Gotti for dealing cocaine in the New York City area. The cocaine
he sold was part of the the Iran-contra (CIA) plan where Southern Air Transport flew weapons to Latin America for the contras (whom
Congress had voted against aiding) and bringing back cocaine from Latin America on its return flights, to include Mena, Arkansas.
One of the CIA's pilots, Barry Seal, bragged that he had a "get-out-of-jail" letter written for him by then-Governor Bill Clinton.
At the time, Asa Hutchinson was the federal prosecutor for that corner of Arkansas. He also didn't notice all that cocaine. Hutchson
later served as George W. Bush's first "drug czar" before going into politics. How coincidental.
Mueller, who had been appointed Assistant U.S. Prosecutor under GHW Bush, became FBI Director under George W. Bush just in
time not to see the CIA fingerprints on 9/11, which should not be surprising considering whom he didn't see when he investigated
BCCI. As head of our country's biggest law enforcement agency Mueller did not pursue the House of Saud's part in 9/11 even though
fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were from Saudi Arabia and a number of them could be traced to Saudi intelligence, and the money
chain could be traced to Saudis living in the US, some of whom flew out of the US while all other US flights were grounded. He did
not investigate Mohammed Atta's time in Frankfort, Germany, where he was employed by a front company for the BND, West Germany's
equivalent to the CIA. Nor did Mueller investigate Huffman Aviation where Mo Atta and another hijacker matriculated in flying planes
into buildings. Huffman is interesting because while Mo was studying in Huffman's Venice, Florida aviation school a Huffman plane
was busted in Orlando with 43 pounds of heroin. Curiously, the pilot walked away from the DEA without being charged and no one was
prosecuted at Huffman.
Ask Colleen Rowley about Mueller's leadership in the 9/11 investigation.
Additionally, Mueller oversaw the anthrax letter case, never investigating Battelle Memorial Corporation, which had a building
within a mile of the mailbox where the letters had been mailed. (Battelle Memorial's corporate motto is "It Can Be Done".) Instead,
he centered FBI investigations on scientists in government labs in Fort Detrick, Maryland, who had neither the expertise nor the
equipment to make the weaponized military grade anthrax found in the letters. One scientist sued and won millions. The other allegedly
"committed suicide". Battelle is noteworthy because it handles the US military's anthrax program. Mueller had no interest that two
of the targets who received anthrax letters were at the time the most vociferous opponents of the Bush Administration's Patriot Act.
Perhaps his greatest accomplishment aiding the Deep State as FBI Director was his shutting down of Operation Green Quest,
the FBI's investigation into the funding behind 9/11 and the terrorist network behind it. Names began popping up like Grover Norquist,
the Muslim Brotherhood, old Nazis and the royal family of Luxembourg. Nothing to see here. Move along.
A closer examination of Robert Mueller would probably find a lot more of these cases and I encourage others to continue the search.
For example, it's been alleged that Mueller sent innocent men to jail for crimes committed by Whitey Bulger for the benefit of someone
or something within the government and that this allowed Bulger to continue his criminal activities for years.
***
It's been seventy years since the CIA was created, fifty years since JFK was most likely murdered by them. In order to avoid any
consequences for their crimes more and more institutions have had to be infiltrated and corrupted by them. Many of the heroes of
the Left have turned out to be purveyors of "modified limited hangouts" which served the Deep State. Ramsey Clark, who was given
the mantle of "good guy" by the media of the Left, was active as LBJ's Attorney General in blocking Jim Garrison's investigation
into the JFK assassination and was named by Doug Valentine in his THE CIA AS ORGANIZED CRIME as a major proponent of the CIA's OPERATION
CHAOS and the FBI's COINTELPRO. While the media spent a good deal of time talking about how great they were in releasing the Pentagon
Papers to the public, the hero who exposed the military, Daniel Ellsberg, turns out to have been CIA, operating with CIA black ops
in Vietnam. And while the Pentagon Papers exposed our military's great errors in Vietnam the CIA was generally spared. Again. Bob
Woodward, our hero of Watergate, had been a courier for the Office of Naval Intelligence only a few years earlier. Thus, the CIA
and Deep State, which had soured on Nixon, orchestrated that President's departure.
I raise this because Robert Mueller's current task is the investigation of our sitting President. No matter how much you dislike
Trump you can't help but notice that the "evidence" against him conspiring with Putin and Russia is thin gruel. And while Trump,
like most politicians who ascend to the big seat, has a lot of questionable, even indictable business connections around him, the
great dangers of a Putin-Trump conspiracy trumpeted by the media have been fading because, apparently, there was never a there there.
Thus, as Mueller oversees this case, he will find people surrounding Trump who have lied to FBI agents, who have perhaps not registered
as foreign agents, and other crimes that routinely happen out of the public spotlight and aren't prosecuted. What was obvious to
me from the start, that this was a psyop that involved U.S. intelligence, Ukrainian intelligence, Clinton and the DNC, will not be
obvious to Mueller. Thus, as his career has shown, Mueller has been put in place not merely to prosecute those around Trump as a
means of pressure on his administration, but to not see the CIA's hand in it.
When one begins examining high-profile court cases in post-1963 America one sees a cast of people who keep popping up. Prosecutors,
judges, defense attorneys, coroners, witnesses, reporters, authors. This ensemble keeps reappearing in these show trials. We may
not know what Mueller will find, but we know what he won't find.
There was a review at Truthdig back in 2016 of Jeffrey Toobin's book on Patty Hearst, AMERICAN HEIRESS (Toobin himself worked
as an associate counsel to Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh during the investigation Iran–Contra affair and Oliver North's criminal
trial). In part it reads: "Toobin features the characters who populated the edges of Hearst's story. Robert Shapiro, who would later
work with [F. Lee] Bailey on the O.J. Simpson case, makes a cameo appearance. Lance Ito, the judge in that case, briefly shared a
shooting range with a machine-gun toting SLA member. Reverend Jim Jones offered to help with the food distribution effort; that enterprise
also employed Sara Jane Moore, who served 32 years for attempting to assassinate President Gerald Ford during his 1975 visit to San
Francisco. Congressman Leo Ryan, who represented Randy and Catherine Hearst's district, endorsed the commutation of Patty's sentence.
"Off to Guyana," he wrote Patty in 1978. "See you when I return. Hang in there." Jim Jones' henchmen shot and killed Ryan before
he could board his flight home. Robert Mueller, the U.S. Attorney in San Francisco before taking over as FBI director, strenuously
opposed Hearst's pardon, claiming that her attitude, born of wealth and social position, "has always been that she is a person above
the law.""
When Mueller wrote that line he must have laughed out loud.
That isn't connecting the dots. Its painting a bloody Mona Lisa.
I had no idea how dirty this man was. He is the CIA version of Zelig or Forest Gump. He makes Bill Clinton look like an amateur.
Beginning with the double CIA family ties and proceeding through whitewashing 911, this man is so central to our rotten government
that its a wonder someone hasn't done what you just did a lot sooner.
My hat is off to you. Someone should post this article on our blog.
The one that keeps jumping to mind is the mid 80's game "Paranoia" which was a cartoonish comedy about the drugged citizens
of a complex where the state oversaw everything, and the people were obsessed with celebrities and junk food and oh my goooooodd...
Thanks for pointing to it. I got laughs just reading the wikipedia page.
It sounds like Kafka meets that Russian guy who was simultaneously head of the secret police and leader of the resistance.
LOL.
The one that keeps jumping to mind is the mid 80's game "Paranoia" which was a cartoonish comedy about the drugged citizens
of a complex where the state oversaw everything, and the people were obsessed with celebrities and junk food and oh my goooooodd...
@arendt even
considering they were working from licenses half the time. They ended up essentially creating the universe bibles for Ghostbusters
and the Star Wars EU prior to the reboots.
Unfortunately, that didn't translate into respect. However, I still to this day am amazed at the complexity of thought that
went into many of the rules and the ability they had to match mechanics to maintaining the play feel.
Paranoia in particular was hilarious. Kafka and Three Stooges, and even a little Joseph Heller. Later editions even managed
to work in criticisms of late stage capitalism by having players ALWAYS broke and any unexpected expenses needing to be made up
through crime... which was illegal, to avoid budget shortfalls... which was also illegal...
Bob, thank you. As detailed and extensive as it is, your essay is concise by making it clear exactly what's so wrong with Mueller:
Mueller has presided over many cases where it's been important for the prosecutor to overlook the fingerprints of the CIA...
Mueller would invariably land on cases with Deep State intelligence connections...
Thus, as his career has shown, Mueller has been put in place not merely to prosecute those around Trump as a means of pressure
on his administration, but to not see the CIA's hand in it...
For me, the anthrax case is the most important. Biological weapons are no joke. I believe we learned, from whistle-blowing
scientists, not from the FBI investigation, that the CIA had one of the many illegal biological weapons programs being run with
our tax dollars leading up to the anthrax attack. So whether Battelle was one of the CIA's contractors or yet another cut out,
the investigation by Mueller simply stated those entities, all of them, were eliminated from the investigation.
The chief difference between the despotic and the totalitarian secret police lies in the difference between the "suspect" and
the "objective enemy". The latter is defined by the policy of the government and not by his own desire to overthrow it. He is
never an individual whose dangerous thoughts must be provoked or whose past justifies suspicion, but a "carrier of tendencies"
like a carrier of disease. Practically speaking, the totalitarian ruler behaves like a man who persistently insults another man
until everybody knows that the latter is his enemy, so that he can, with some plausibility, go and kill him in self-defense.
p423-4
"From a legal point of view, even more interesting than the change from the suspect to the objective enemy is the totalitarian
replacement of the suspected offense by the possible crime ...While the suspect is arrested because he is thought to be capable
of committing a crime that more or less fits his personality, the totalitarian possible crime is based on the logical anticipation
of objective developments.
The task of the totalitarian police is not to discover crimes, but to be on hand when the government decides to arrest a certain
category of the population.
"The only rule of which everybody in a totalitarian state may be sure is that the more visible government agencies are, the
less power they carry, and the less is known of the existence of an institution, the more powerful it will ultimately turn out
to be...Real power begins where secrecy begins. (p403)
"The only rule of which everybody in a totalitarian state may be sure is that the more visible government agencies are, the
less power they carry, and the less is known of the existence of an institution, the more powerful it will ultimately turn
out to be...Real power begins where secrecy begins. (p403)
The chief difference between the despotic and the totalitarian secret police lies in the difference between the "suspect"
and the "objective enemy". The latter is defined by the policy of the government and not by his own desire to overthrow it.
He is never an individual whose dangerous thoughts must be provoked or whose past justifies suspicion, but a "carrier of tendencies"
like a carrier of disease. Practically speaking, the totalitarian ruler behaves like a man who persistently insults another
man until everybody knows that the latter is his enemy, so that he can, with some plausibility, go and kill him in self-defense.
p423-4
"From a legal point of view, even more interesting than the change from the suspect to the objective enemy is the totalitarian
replacement of the suspected offense by the possible crime ...While the suspect is arrested because he is thought to be capable
of committing a crime that more or less fits his personality, the totalitarian possible crime is based on the logical anticipation
of objective developments.
The task of the totalitarian police is not to discover crimes, but to be on hand when the government decides to arrest a
certain category of the population.
"The only rule of which everybody in a totalitarian state may be sure is that the more visible government agencies are,
the less power they carry, and the less is known of the existence of an institution, the more powerful it will ultimately turn
out to be...Real power begins where secrecy begins. (p403)
Great history of how corrupt Mueller has always been and how he has covered up for so many crimes. I'm just stunned by
the number of people who have decided that Mueller's history and the history of the CIA, FBI and the other intelligence agencies
wasn't that bad after all just because they are going after Trump. This selective amnesia is simply amazing, isn't it?
Clinton's role in helping the CIA to smuggle drugs into Arkansas is never talked about either. Or if it is it's called
"a right wing attempt to bring them down."
I almost skipped reading this one, assumed at first from the headline it was going to be about the Russia "investigation" which
I've been steadfast in not paying any attention to.
But wow, this is so much better than I'd expected, a fascinating tapestry. A lot to absorb. At this point I'm just feeling
overwhelmed at how little "we the people" in this country have any say in, or even any knowledge about, what is going on.
Thank you for this excellent history and synthesis.
from those who believe the fairy tale of Russia Gate. John
Brennan has also become a darling of the left. Greenwald wrote about him after Obama appointed him to his cabinet.
Joe posted this
linkthat explains why centrist and liberal media have a disturbing tendency to rehabilitate some of the most vile, reactionary
forces on the American right simply because they say vaguely negative things about Donald Trump -- a phenomenon we call "Trumpwashing."
Just like Mueller, Brennan is one more war criminal whose actions seem to have been forgotten.
conclude from this, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the Mueller investigation of "Russiagate" won't get anywhere near the
Oval Office.
Mostly becuz "Deep State" itself is up to its eyebrows in the affair. And also becuz Trump has very little to do with it. I'm
sure they'd Love to bury Hillary in this, but it looks like that won't happen either. A shame.
I think if you charge someone with a crime then they get to see the evidence against them. Mueller charged 3 Russian companies
for their interference with the election, but I guess he didn't think that their lawyers would bother to show up. Oops, they did.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is scrambling to limit pretrial evidence handed over to a Russian company he indicted in
February over alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.
Mueller asked a Washington federal Judge for a protective order that would prevent the delivery of copious evidence to lawyers
for Concord Management and Consulting, LLC, one of three Russian firms and 13 Russian nationals. The indictment accuses the
firm of producing propaganda, pretending to be U.S. activists online and posting political content on social media in order
to sow discord among American voters.
The special counsel's office argues that the risk of the evidence leaking or falling into the hands of foreign intelligence
services, especially Russia, would assist the Kremlin's active "interference operations" against the United States.
Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates, which would "allow foreign
actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations,"
according to the filing.
The evidence includes thousands of documents involving U.S. residents not charged with crimes who prosecutors say were
unwittingly recruited by Russian defendants and co-conspirators to engage in political activity in the U.S., prosecutors
Mueller also accused Concord of "knowingly and intentionally" conspiring to interfere with the election by using social
media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump.
Yep. Hillary spent $1-2 billion on her campaign, but it was the $100,000 worth of ads that a Russian advertising agency placed
on Facebook that cost her the election. More than half of the ads were placed after the election though. But people still believe
that the ads were what caused people not to vote for Herheinous!
@snoopydawg@snoopydawg
What the hell? Do these people even know they're on this list, or part of this evidence? Or, are they not even real people, or
are they maybe even govt employees needed to play a role? There's that cookbook again, maybe. Yikes!
The evidence includes thousands of documents involving U.S. residents not charged with crimes who prosecutors say were unwittingly
recruited by Russian defendants and co-conspirators to engage in political activity in the U.S., prosecutors
I think if you charge someone with a crime then they get to see the evidence against them. Mueller charged 3 Russian companies
for their interference with the election, but I guess he didn't think that their lawyers would bother to show up. Oops, they
did.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is scrambling to limit pretrial evidence handed over to a Russian company he indicted
in February over alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.
Mueller asked a Washington federal Judge for a protective order that would prevent the delivery of copious evidence to
lawyers for Concord Management and Consulting, LLC, one of three Russian firms and 13 Russian nationals. The indictment
accuses the firm of producing propaganda, pretending to be U.S. activists online and posting political content on social
media in order to sow discord among American voters.
The special counsel's office argues that the risk of the evidence leaking or falling into the hands of foreign intelligence
services, especially Russia, would assist the Kremlin's active "interference operations" against the United States.
Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates, which would "allow foreign
actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations,"
according to the filing.
The evidence includes thousands of documents involving U.S. residents not charged with crimes who prosecutors say
were unwittingly recruited by Russian defendants and co-conspirators to engage in political activity in the U.S., prosecutors
Mueller also accused Concord of "knowingly and intentionally" conspiring to interfere with the election by using social
media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump.
Yep. Hillary spent $1-2 billion on her campaign, but it was the $100,000 worth of ads that a Russian advertising agency
placed on Facebook that cost her the election. More than half of the ads were placed after the election though. But people
still believe that the ads were what caused people not to vote for Herheinous!
It's obvious that the whole damn Russia Gate conspiracy was just made up. It started when Wikileaks said that they were going
to release the emails between Hillary and Podesta that showed how they rigged the primary against Bernie. The reason why they
did it was to keep people from talking about the contents of the emails. And it worked. The media didn't focus on their contents,
but only on how Wikileaks obtained them.
Another reason for the Russian propaganda crap is so people will give their permission for the upcoming war against Russia
that had already been planned for over two years before the election. And they will. I've seen so many comments that says what
Russia (Putin) did and is still doing was an act of war. Today on ToP one person said that "we need to assassinate Putin." Was
that person HRd for promoting violence which is against the site rules? Nope. Those that believe Russia actually did interfere
with the election also think that the republicans are also Putin's puppets and that is why they won't go against Trump. The front
pagers have been pushing lies about Russia's actions it should be obvious to anyone with a working brain. I'll see a definitive
statement like " The seas were calm and the skies were clear." But they will rewrite their statement to "The reason
why the ship went down is because of the massive storm that came out of nowhere." Hopefully you get my drift on how they're
blatantly lying in their statements.
Hillary's BFF, Nuland and McCain were the ones that worked the hardest on overthrowing the Ukraine government. The USA wanted
to put its own puppet government on Russia's border. Plus the USA and NATO have been installing troops into countries that surround
Russia's borders.
The original reason why the Mueller investigation was created was to find evidence that Trump colluded with Putin to win the
election. None of the Mueller indictments have anything to do with that charge. This is why he was taken off guard when the Russian
lawyers showed up to defend their clients. Hope that you read the entire article.
#13#13
What the hell? Do these people even know they're on this list, or part of this evidence? Or, are they not even real people,
or are they maybe even govt employees needed to play a role? There's that cookbook again, maybe. Yikes!
The evidence includes thousands of documents involving U.S. residents not charged with crimes who prosecutors say were
unwittingly recruited by Russian defendants and co-conspirators to engage in political activity in the U.S., prosecutors
This also proves my point above how information is selectively posted over there. Just certain parts of the articles are posted,
but the parts of the articles that show the information in a different light are left out. This is from a comment..
It would appear at first glance this is basically an effort at espionage only , but I'm not much more sure than
you are.
If they don't have a US presence ( as it appears they don't ), I can't understand why they even care that Mueller
has charged them. As you point out, they won't be extradited, so none of this really matters. They could have their lawyers
just play a DVD of them confessing followed by giving Mueller the double birds all around and it wouldn't make any difference,
so the only logical answer for this is to try and pry state secrets out legally via the courts instead of through hacking and
spying.
Oops. From the article ..
I don't think anyone (including Mueller) anticipated that any of the defendants would appear in court to defend against
the charges.
I think if you charge someone with a crime then they get to see the evidence against them. Mueller charged 3 Russian companies
for their interference with the election, but I guess he didn't think that their lawyers would bother to show up. Oops, they
did.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is scrambling to limit pretrial evidence handed over to a Russian company he indicted
in February over alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.
Mueller asked a Washington federal Judge for a protective order that would prevent the delivery of copious evidence to
lawyers for Concord Management and Consulting, LLC, one of three Russian firms and 13 Russian nationals. The indictment
accuses the firm of producing propaganda, pretending to be U.S. activists online and posting political content on social
media in order to sow discord among American voters.
The special counsel's office argues that the risk of the evidence leaking or falling into the hands of foreign intelligence
services, especially Russia, would assist the Kremlin's active "interference operations" against the United States.
Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates, which would "allow foreign
actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations,"
according to the filing.
The evidence includes thousands of documents involving U.S. residents not charged with crimes who prosecutors say
were unwittingly recruited by Russian defendants and co-conspirators to engage in political activity in the U.S., prosecutors
Mueller also accused Concord of "knowingly and intentionally" conspiring to interfere with the election by using social
media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump.
Yep. Hillary spent $1-2 billion on her campaign, but it was the $100,000 worth of ads that a Russian advertising agency
placed on Facebook that cost her the election. More than half of the ads were placed after the election though. But people
still believe that the ads were what caused people not to vote for Herheinous!
off the hook. @snoopydawg
Especially Mueller. Finding the 13 Russians guilty that is. Mueller can then claim, "See! The Russians did it," which gives Hillbots
a warm fuzzy and reason to scold BernieBros with a "told ya so!!" AND, no reason to investigate further. Investigation over. Case
closed! Everyone gets what they want. Alas... Their lawyer showed up.
I think if you charge someone with a crime then they get to see the evidence against them. Mueller charged 3 Russian companies
for their interference with the election, but I guess he didn't think that their lawyers would bother to show up. Oops, they
did.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller is scrambling to limit pretrial evidence handed over to a Russian company he indicted
in February over alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.
Mueller asked a Washington federal Judge for a protective order that would prevent the delivery of copious evidence to
lawyers for Concord Management and Consulting, LLC, one of three Russian firms and 13 Russian nationals. The indictment
accuses the firm of producing propaganda, pretending to be U.S. activists online and posting political content on social
media in order to sow discord among American voters.
The special counsel's office argues that the risk of the evidence leaking or falling into the hands of foreign intelligence
services, especially Russia, would assist the Kremlin's active "interference operations" against the United States.
Improper disclosure would tip foreign intelligence services about how the U.S. operates, which would "allow foreign
actors to learn of those techniques and adjust their conduct, thus undermining ongoing and future national security operations,"
according to the filing.
The evidence includes thousands of documents involving U.S. residents not charged with crimes who prosecutors say
were unwittingly recruited by Russian defendants and co-conspirators to engage in political activity in the U.S., prosecutors
Mueller also accused Concord of "knowingly and intentionally" conspiring to interfere with the election by using social
media to disparage Hillary Clinton and support Donald Trump.
Yep. Hillary spent $1-2 billion on her campaign, but it was the $100,000 worth of ads that a Russian advertising agency
placed on Facebook that cost her the election. More than half of the ads were placed after the election though. But people
still believe that the ads were what caused people not to vote for Herheinous!
As Powerline notes, Mueller probably didn't see that coming - and the indictment itself was perhaps nothing more than a PR
stunt to bolster the Russian interference narrative.
I don't think anyone (including Mueller) anticipated that any of the defendants would appear in court to defend against
the charges. Rather, the Mueller prosecutors seem to have obtained the indictment to serve a public relations purpose, laying
out the case for interference as understood by the government and lending a veneer of respectability to the Mueller Switch
Project.
One of the Russian corporate defendants nevertheless hired counsel to contest the charges. In April two Washington-area
attorneys -- Eric Dubelier and Kate Seikaly of the Reed Smith firm -- filed appearances in court on behalf of Concord Management
and Consulting. Josh Gerstein covered that turn of events for Politico here. -Powerline Blog
@snoopydawg
Especially since it's supposed to contain all these names of stooges, duped into participating in US politics by the Kremlin.
It's ridiculous.
As Powerline notes, Mueller probably didn't see that coming - and the indictment itself was perhaps nothing more than
a PR stunt to bolster the Russian interference narrative.
I don't think anyone (including Mueller) anticipated that any of the defendants would appear in court to defend against
the charges. Rather, the Mueller prosecutors seem to have obtained the indictment to serve a public relations purpose, laying
out the case for interference as understood by the government and lending a veneer of respectability to the Mueller Switch
Project.
One of the Russian corporate defendants nevertheless hired counsel to contest the charges. In April two Washington-area
attorneys -- Eric Dubelier and Kate Seikaly of the Reed Smith firm -- filed appearances in court on behalf of Concord Management
and Consulting. Josh Gerstein covered that turn of events for Politico here. -Powerline Blog
I have read here in a long time. While I linked ot our Twitter account last night, I did not have time to read it before I
posted it. I am going to link this again because I think it is such an important essay for others to read.
"... the first week when they get the full classified briefings that are carefully prepared both to inform and to enhance the value of the agency doing the briefing. In the case of the Central Intelligence Agency, the most secret clandestine operations are revealed in power point to convince the new chief executive that the intelligence community is keeping the nation safe. The Pentagon for its part unveils flashy new weapons systems either about to come on line or being planned to demonstrate its ability to deter aggression from any source. ..."
"The systematic attempts to get the president on one's side inevitably are more
successful with chief executives lacking experience in government as they have nothing to
measure the power points they are seeing against"
I recall how a friend of mine who once served as a senior Pentagon intelligence briefer
described what he called "breaking in" a new president. Today, incoming presidents receive some
intelligence briefings so that they do not land in office on a cold January day totally
unprepared for what awaits them. But generally speaking, the real surprises are unveiled during
the first week when they get the full classified briefings that are carefully prepared both
to inform and to enhance the value of the agency doing the briefing. In the case of the Central
Intelligence Agency, the most secret clandestine operations are revealed in power point to
convince the new chief executive that the intelligence community is keeping the nation safe.
The Pentagon for its part unveils flashy new weapons systems either about to come on line or
being planned to demonstrate its ability to deter aggression from any source.
The thinking is that if you get the new president on board in his first few days he will be
yours forever, signing off on budget increases year after year while also providing political
cover when things go wrong. While the Defense Department and intelligence community benefit
from the process and are frequently able to get the president's ear because they are able to
unveil some sensational "secrets," other government agencies also competing for dollars do not
have that appeal and do not do so well. State Department, for example, rarely makes much of an
impression because its work is basically prosaic.
The systematic attempts to get the president on one's side inevitably are more successful
with chief executives lacking experience in government as they have nothing to measure the
power points they are seeing against. President George H. W. Bush, emerging from years spent as
a naval officer, a congressman and CIA Director, is unlikely to have been much influenced by a
briefing. President Bill Clinton, harboring a negative perception about CIA, did not even see
his Director James Woolsey for over a year. But, on balance, most new presidents are willing to
be seduced by the inside-the-Beltway establishment as represented by the Pentagon and the
intelligence community.
Donald Trump in particular appears to have succumbed, deferring to generals and intelligence
chiefs much more often than not, but he has also taken the message of American omnipotence too
much to heart. Trump, with no military or government experience, defers to the national
security advocates without any sense of the hard reality that all actions have
consequences.
The Pentagon is still planning for a military parade in Washington on Veterans' Day in
November, a huge waste of resources that will do little more than stroke the presidential ego.
And the open admiration for the armed forces makes it easy for Trump to think first of using
weapons and coercion instead of diplomacy, to launch cruise missiles and endorse an admitted
torturer as the new CIA Chief. The president is very much wedded to the idea that the United
States can go it alone if necessary and the rules that constrain other nations need not apply,
a very dangerous conceit.
There have been several ominous developments in Syria, which could bring the U.S.
nose-to-nose with Russian forces in the country. A recent
Israeli airstrike , initially credited to Washington, appears to have killed 52 Syrian
soldiers. There have also been rumors in Washington that the Administration is preparing for
something "big" in Syria, possibly related to warnings from the Pentagon that Syrian forces
have been threatening the unilaterally declared "de-escalation zone" in the country's
southeast. This suggests that the U.S. will block attempts by the government in Damascus to
regain control of areas until recently dominated by terrorists. Trump has also quietly restored
funding to the so-called White Helmets, a terrorist front group much loved by Hollywood and
Congress.
All of these steps in Syria serve no real American interest. More ominously, Trump has now
revealed that he has ordered the Pentagon to create a
military Space Force as a new branch of the armed forces. He explained " Our destiny,
beyond the Earth, is not only a matter of national identity, but a matter of national security.
It is not enough to merely have an American presence in space. We must have American dominance
in space."
How other nations will adapt to American rule over outer space and the planets is difficult
to predict, but if the past seventeen years of Washington's assertion of its supremacy are
anything to go by, the result will be very, very bad. And it is quite unsettling to also
observe that a nation that clearly cannot provide access to decent health care for its citizens
is now aspiring to turn the moon into a fortified bastion.
There are 16 intel agencies in the US. Is this necessary or a waste of money when they
all failed to predict or stop 9/11 or even know for sure if Russia meddled in the 2016
election? Are they tripping over one and other to get Trump's ears or have they got
competing agendas? Who should the President listen to? Its madness.
"... Global Energy Dominance is now part of the US National security Strategy. Although not labeled as global, when reading through the energy dominance section of the NSS, it can clearly been seen to be global. This is not just about sell oil produced in the US. Trump is going for the Achilles heel of Eurasia - energy. ..."
"... Rather than a creative accounting scam that simply racks up huge amounts of debt, Trump is looking for a monopoly or near monopoly business to take over and rake in the profits. ..."
"... As for oil supremacy. This has been an Anglo-american joint venture for over a century and was one reason for WWI being fought as well as the Balfour Declaration to give the Brits a future pro-British state in the region at some point. ..."
"... As for Saudi oil, this was lockef up well before 1945. It was left untouched by the British after WWI and King Saud handed the concessions to the Americans in 1933 because he felt they had no imperialist designs like the British. He was not a fan of the British due to various skirmishes before he solidified power and Saudi borders. . ..."
The latest article at the Saker site by Rostislav Ishchenko - Trump's Geopolitical Cruise - I
think is the best take on Trump's and his backers mindset. Worth a read and covers what I
think was the cause of the split in the US elite.
The petro dollar, kicking off in the late 70s was a piece of creative accounting to give
unlimited credit. This should have been ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, but
greed got the better of most. Trump and the people backing him could see that this was now in
its terminal stages and US close to collapse itself.
Rostislav Ishchenko, like many thinks that Trump is pulling the US back to a form of
isolation from the world, but I don't think this is the case.
Global Energy Dominance is now part of the US National security Strategy. Although not
labeled as global, when reading through the energy dominance section of the NSS, it can
clearly been seen to be global. This is not just about sell oil produced in the US.
Trump is going for the Achilles heel of Eurasia - energy.
Rather than a creative accounting scam that simply racks up huge amounts of debt, Trump is
looking for a monopoly or near monopoly business to take over and rake in the profits.
Russia supply energy to Eurasia from the North. The opening for the Trump mob is in the
south. The meet with Putin may well be to sound out the possibilities of forming a cartel.
Putin/Russia is also the only entity that can prevent Trump's US from simply walking in and
taking over the rich energy hub (Mafia style) to the south of Eurasia.
"Global Energy Dominance is now part of the US National security Strategy."
Yes, it absolutely is. But this is not a new "Trump policy." Certainly Zbiginew Brzezenski
laid this out quite clearly in his 1997 book, "The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its
Geostrategic Imperatives." It's really all in there, just as you're now identifying. If you
can't take the time to read it, please consider at least reading some book reviews. As I've
noted before, Ziggy apparently didn't foresee Putin rising to power and restoring the Russian
state, which threw the proverbial monkey wrench into the globalists' plans, but really, US
foreign policy has continued to follow his plans otherwise.
Kissinger has written much the same, though I don't recall in which books/articles. This
page from the US Navy seems a fine reading list, designed as it appears to indoctrinate
officers in AZ Empire geopolitics.
IMO, the US took the lead in the Empire's Global Energy Dominance quest when FDR met with
King Saud on Great Bitter Lake in the Suez Canal in 1945 (swinging by after the final
post-war world planning meeting with Churchill and Stalin at Yalta). This was when the US
largely replaced Great Britain in primacy over Asian/Middle Eastern energy dominance.
The US is in the Persian Gulf to stay. Trumps face face meet with Putin will be so Trump
can try and gauge what Putin will do - if he will run any blocking moves, his reaction to a
fait accompli ect. Most likely a few more face to face meetings before any move on Iran.
Peter, thanks for pointing out the new and unwanted US base in Iraq. I just read that the US
was building the world's largest Embassy Compound in "Iraqi Kurdistan." I wonder it they're
the same thing?
In a quick web search, failing to find an answer, I noticed that besides the "Green Zone"
compound we built in Baghdad at the start of the current military occupation, the record
holder was the US Embassy Compound in Pakistan.
James and I have discoursed here a bit on the history of US military occupations since WW
II. Boils down to the US has never removed its military from any country it's occupied with
the exception of Vietnam.
veritas semper vincit @103 linked blogpost notes that the US has 40,000 troops still
occupying Germany. His (I presume) post is quite entertaining considering the severe
seriousness of the topic.
Dis is a nice little country ya gotz heyah. Id be a shame if sumpin' bad was ta happen to
it.
Have to disagree on the impact of FDR meeting with Saudi Arabias King Saud. That was more
about feeling him out on a future Israeli state in Palestine. His death a couple of months
later may have been related because King Saud made an impression on FDR as to what an Israeli
state would mean for peace in the region. Also, FDR was close to Uncle Joe and unlikely to
back the planned Cold War supported by some of the same folks wanting a destabilized Middle
East and preventing a rebirth of the Ottoman Empire which would control much of the worlds
oil reserves.
As for oil supremacy. This has been an Anglo-american joint venture for over a century and
was one reason for WWI being fought as well as the Balfour Declaration to give the Brits a
future pro-British state in the region at some point.
As for Saudi oil, this was lockef up well before 1945. It was left untouched by the
British after WWI
and King Saud handed the concessions to the Americans in 1933 because he felt they had no
imperialist designs like the British. He was not a fan of the British due to various
skirmishes before he solidified power and Saudi borders. .
"The 1933 concession agreement
between Saudi Arabia and Standard Oil of California (SOCAL) went like this: SOCAL could
search for and produce oil in eastern Saudi Arabia -- a region 20 percent larger than the
state of Texas -- for 60 years; it also received preferential rights to explore elsewhere in
the future. The kingdom received an immediate loan of £30,000 in gold and, 18 months
later, another loan of £20,000 in gold -- an amount equivalent to about $250,000 today
-- plus yearly rentals of £5000 and royalties of four shillings in gold -- about $1 --
per ton of oil produced. (Only later would oil be measured in barrels.)"
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Friday that a deal under which
Russia would provide goods to Iran in exchange for oil is still possible.
Russia is studying all legal issues related to the possible deal, he said.
"... Damascus and Moscow welcomed Iran's critical contribution to defeating the opposition and giving Washington and its allies a diplomatic bloody nose in the bargain. Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov acknowledges that Iran's presence in Syria -- at the invitation of the regime -- is legitimate and that it would be "unrealistic" to demand its ouster. ..."
"... But instead of viewing the end of the war as an opportunity to lessen Iran's value to the regime and to reduce its footprint in the country, Washington is continuing heedlessly with failed policies created for an environment that no longer exists. As long as the fighting continues and the regime's efforts to reassert sovereignty over the entire country are frustrated by U.S. deployments in the northeast and southeast, Iran's military presence in the country is secure. Likewise, Washington shows no sign of reconsidering international sanctions against the regime, which also forces Syria into the arms of Tehran. ..."
"... A colorblind appraisal of the effects of U.S. policy in Iraq and now Syria would suggest that Washington is either brilliantly in cahoots with Iran to the latter's benefit or is being outplayed by weaker but more clear-eyed players. My vote goes squarely to the latter. ..."
"... Confronted with the disintegration of its diplomatic and military strategy, the Trump administration is reduced to playing spoiler, obstructing the inevitable restoration of the regime's sovereignty over the country and continuing the punishing sanctions that have removed the battered but resilient Syrian private sector from international capital and commercial markets. This policy fails on two fronts -- it creates more gratuitous misery for the Syrian people and it undermines the stated U.S. objective of reducing and removing Iranian and Hezbollah influence in the country. Indeed, continuing to pursue the current policies will leave the U.S. isolated among friends (Jordan and Israel) as well as frenemy Russia, and will postpone rather than speed the day that Iran leaves Syria. ..."
Washington has been on the offensive against the Islamic Republic of Iran for close to half
a century. Largely as a result, Iran, a rounding error in the superpower sweepstakes, has gone
from strength to strength, challenging American power throughout the region, most notably in
Iraq and Syria.
U.S.-led regime change in Iraq created Tehran's historic opportunity to return to Baghdad
for the first time since the creation of the Ottoman caliphate in the 15th century. This
unscripted but entirely predictable outcome was no mean feat, all the more so for being the
opposite of what Washington intended.
The Bush administration knew that it no longer wanted Saddam in the chair, but could not
think beyond this one, giant, uncharted leap into the future. Iran has a far greater and more
lasting interest in the affairs of its neighbor and often bitter enemy. As a consequence, the
mullahs are playing a far longer, and more successful, game.
The legacy of unintended consequences continues to define Washington's policy towards Iraq a
generation after the first Gulf War ended. And so too with Syria. In both countries, U.S.
shortcomings have created a historic opportunity for Iran to enhance its influence in Arab
arenas that when not actively hostile to it (Iraq) are at best lukewarm (Syria).
When asked about Syria's relationship with Iran, Farouk Shara'a, longtime foreign minister
and vice president, once explained to a mutual friend, "You don't have to love the woman you
are sleeping with."
Syria has been in bed with Iran for decades. Saddam's war against Iran in the '80s, the rise
of Hezbollah in Lebanon, and most recently the war against the Assad regime in Syria, have
conspired to throw these two unlikely allies into a cold embrace.
Washington has been oblivious to this essentially ambivalent Syrian attitude towards Iran,
and remains equally so to the opportunities it creates to reduce Iran's footprint in postwar
Syria. Now that the war is winding down, the value of Iran's military contribution to Syria is
declining. In parallel, Syria's interest in reducing the power of its erstwhile Iranian and
Russian friends over its destiny increases.
Damascus and Moscow welcomed Iran's critical contribution to defeating the opposition
and giving Washington and its allies a diplomatic bloody nose in the bargain. Russian foreign
minister Sergei Lavrov acknowledges that Iran's presence in Syria -- at the invitation of the
regime -- is legitimate and that it would be "unrealistic" to demand its ouster.
But while Iran's wartime contribution proved critical to victory, neither Assad nor Putin
was displeased to distance Iranian-backed elements from the recent battle front in the south.
Neither has an interest in enabling Tehran to pursue a postwar Syrian agenda towards Lebanon
and Israel. Nor is either enamored with Iran's continuing efforts to reshape the Syrian
military in its image. On these important issues, Iran stands all but alone against an
invisible, de facto coalition that includes Washington and the EU alongside Israel, Moscow, and
the Assad regime itself.
But instead of viewing the end of the war as an opportunity to lessen Iran's value to
the regime and to reduce its footprint in the country, Washington is continuing heedlessly with
failed policies created for an environment that no longer exists. As long as the fighting
continues and the regime's efforts to reassert sovereignty over the entire country are
frustrated by U.S. deployments in the northeast and southeast, Iran's military presence in the
country is secure. Likewise, Washington shows no sign of reconsidering international sanctions
against the regime, which also forces Syria into the arms of Tehran.
A colorblind appraisal of the effects of U.S. policy in Iraq and now Syria would suggest
that Washington is either brilliantly in cahoots with Iran to the latter's benefit or is being
outplayed by weaker but more clear-eyed players. My vote goes squarely to the latter.
Apart from the lingering campaign against ISIS, in every other respect the U.S. effort in
Syria is imploding. Washington under Obama and now Trump has been forced to uneasily
acknowledge the regime's staying power. It has now been reduced to bickering over the details
of Syrian constitutional reform in the postwar era, a waste of time if ever there was one.
Lately, the U.S. secretary of state, from his respected perch, has personally threatened
Iran's key military strategist and architect of its advances in Iraq and Syria, Qassem
Sulemani, a sure sign that the policymaking process at State is frozen.
In the field, Washington has ignominiously abandoned allies in the southern front. And in
the northeast, the Kurds have embarked on the road back to Damascus, imperiling Washington's
deployment there.
Confronted with the disintegration of its diplomatic and military strategy, the Trump
administration is reduced to playing spoiler, obstructing the inevitable restoration of the
regime's sovereignty over the country and continuing the punishing sanctions that have removed
the battered but resilient Syrian private sector from international capital and commercial
markets. This policy fails on two fronts -- it creates more gratuitous misery for the Syrian
people and it undermines the stated U.S. objective of reducing and removing Iranian and
Hezbollah influence in the country. Indeed, continuing to pursue the current policies will
leave the U.S. isolated among friends (Jordan and Israel) as well as frenemy Russia, and will
postpone rather than speed the day that Iran leaves Syria.
Geoffrey Aronson is chairman and co-founder of The Mortons Group and a non-resident
scholar at the Middle East Institute.
A colorblind appraisal of the effects of U.S. policy in Iraq and now Syria would suggest
that Washington is either brilliantly in cahoots with Iran to the latter's benefit or is
being outplayed by weaker but more clear-eyed players. My vote goes squarely to the
latter.
US foreign policy is controlled by the Israeli lobby and to a lesser extent, by the Saudi
lobby. The illegal and unprovoked attacks by the US on Iraq, Libya and Syria were done at the
behest of these lobbies. The only country that has benefited from all this bloodshed is
Israel, which now dominates the Middle East.
Since this obvious truth cannot be said out aloud, we need to pretend we don't know who is
behind all the mayhem in the Middle East, like this pointless article does.
The writer can't see the forest for the trees. Successive U.S. administrations have behaved
irresponsibly to enhance Israel's position in the guise of bring "democracy" to the region.
Washington's failures have created ongoing misery in Iraq, a failed state in Libya and the
destruction of the ancient land of Syria.
The U.S. continues to
pretend it had no role in the creation of the huge refugee problem that followed its
interventions in Libya and Syria.
No lessons learned, the folly is being played out daily in Yemen where the Pentagon is
leading the a campaign of death and destruction alongside its "democratic" allies, the Salman
clan of Arabia and the sheikhs of the Persian Gulf minnow petrostates.
"the stated U.S. objective of reducing and removing Iranian and Hezbollah influence "
I've yet to see a compelling reason for this "stated objective". If you want to argue that
it's an American interest because the Israel Lobby wants it, well, OK, there are politicians
who can be bribed to do Israel's will, but no real American would agree.
One of these days an American president will make an "opening to Iran" as Nixon once made
one to China. Surely we can bury the hatchet with Iran for the sake of a grand bargain that
accomplishes America's one real interest in the Middle East, which is to free ourselves of the
various parasites who entangle us in their messes, and get the hell out of there. Some of us
hoped that Trump might be that president, but it wasn't meant to be.
"The U.S. continues to
pretend it had no role in the creation of the huge refugee problem that followed its
interventions in Libya and Syria."
Which is ridiculous. When you bomb, invade, and arm insurgencies in people's countries, a
lot of people run away. Everybody knows that.
In the case of our bombing, invading, and/or arming insurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Libya, and Syria, a lot of people ran away.
Millions ran into Turkey. Millions more ran through Turkey into Greece and then up through
the Balkans into other NATO countries. And still more came up from Africa and sailed away from
the shores of ruined Libya to our NATO allies Italy, Spain, and France.
We did this. Everybody knows we did it. It's absurd to deny it. What's worse is that many of
the allies destabilized by the refugees warned or even begged us not to start those wars. With
no American interest at stake, no real risk assessment, and no exit strategy formulated, we did
it anyway.
Much simpler explanation: For decades, the United States has been the loyal servant of Israel,
and to a lesser extent, Saudi Arabia, faithfully carrying out its masters' every dictate.
As an unintended consequence of Israeli/Saudi policy, Iran has grown much stronger.
The only reason that the US foreign policy establishment is rushing headlong into a war with
Iran is because Israel and Saudi Arabia are terrified of the Iran that they have created.
"... Trump seems to enjoy antagonizing the Europeans one way or the other. As to NATO, Trump made the same complaints during his campaign while calling it "obsolete." Sometimes it sounds like he would rather have the US out of NATO. One theory I have is that he is limited in what he can do so he works around TPTBs to get closer to his goals. So he antagonizes and threatens Europe on NATO. The same goes for Syria. He talked about wanting to pull out but kept being drawn back in by the usual suspects. So he's pulled monetary support in certain cases and refused to dig the US in any deeper than it is. And it will be interesting to see what happens with his upcoming meeting with Putin considering how much he had to backtrack on his talk of better relations during his campaign. Those who've wanted him to join the "hate Russia" team may get frustrated. ..."
"... Within this new "mulit-polar" world, only Russia is cutting its military budge. And they still seem to have at least one of the most effective conventional war-fighting capability, and their next generation nuclear deterrence looks nothing short of awesome. They have pipelines to build, and like China, long-term economic contracts to sign. ..."
"... I'm no fan of Angela, but she/Germany have been trying to tamp down this AZ Empire New Cold War against Russia since at least 2013. When she, Putin, Yanukovych (elected President of Ukraine) and the leaders of the Maidan protests got together and signed an agreement in which Yanukovych acquiesced to essentially all of the "peaceful, pro-democracy protesters'" demands, it was the Asst. Secretary of the US State (Vickie Nuland) who said, "F*ck the EU" "We can midwife this thing" and even appointed the new PM "Yats is the guy." ..."
"... The US can't keep funding your crappy little joke of a disintegrating "European Union" for ever. Sooner or later you'll have to put on big-boy pants. ..."
"... USA govt's assessment of China and Russia as "revisionist" should be understood as a determination to remain the hegemonic power. Thus, we have Cold War II. From that perspective, European objections to more "defense" spending are considered naive (or worse) as Europe's fate is views as tied to that of the Empire. ..."
"... I think European elites are much more likely to side with USA than European people. If the Trump's talk with Putin doesn't go well, we are likely to see increased scaremongering to rectify public opinion. ..."
"... Chaos can make doing business harder, but that can also increase profits. As the posters said in the '60s, "War Is Not Good For Children And Other Living Things." But it's great for the psychopaths. ..."
"... Here is an article that explains the relationship between Russian pipelines, USA sanctions on Russia, MH17, Crimea, and Syria. It is an excellent background to comprehend Trump's accusations about Germany's purchase of gas from Russia. Patrick Armstrong and Pat Lang seem to think that Trump is about to cut NATO support, reduce/eliminate sanctions against Russia, and redirect relations with Israel, but I am not persuaded. https://www.unz.com/article/why-was-malaysian-airlines-flight-mh17-shot-down/ by Kees van der Pijl He also wrote a book on this topic. ..."
"... Everything the US does works to undermine its old power in the new world. We see this continually. Trump is an accelerator. But whether any of this is intentional and actually desired by a part of US vested interests, is still an open question. ..."
"... Nevertheless, as we watch, we see every action of the US working to cement the bonds of its opposition in the rest of the world. From the Escobar article linked by karlof1 above, we see the pressure on the Middle East to reject the US and turn for safety to the Eurasian institutions of commerce, finance and national security. The same thing is happening to Europe. ..."
"... he equation as it stands now is this: A muscle-bound USA + an anaemic Europe "deterring" a Russian Federation that has no intention of invading. ..."
"... Since Russia is no threat either way then there is no need - none whatsoever - for the Europeans to increase their military expenditure to "defend themselves" against a non-existent Russian threat. ..."
"... Indeed, the only reason the Europeans would feel that they might have to prepare to "defend themselves" would be because that muscle-bound US military is now outside the tent pissing in, not inside the tent pissing out. ..."
"... Since whenever, America has been the proxy front for the current instantiation of empire with the core of control being ongoing private finance with global tools like BIS, IMF, World Bank, etc. Since WWII and even before the goal of empire is to have all of the world under its control. Since the engine of empire is a supra-national matrix of private finance control, the enemy becomes any nations who do not want to be impregnated with the Western model of private Central Bank, an oligarchy , inheritance, private property, etc. ..."
"... The empire model of growth through wars and boom/bust expansion has reached its "logical" limits and the the existential question has become, blow everything all up or agree to a multipolar world. I think that the elite hope Trump's bluster will make it so they do not have to answer that existential question.....yet ..."
"... If Trump's fake argument gambit was intended to inspire people inside and outside the EU to think outside the box then it seems to have worked. ..."
"... I LUV how Trump stomped on all those preaning European elite scumbags. ..."
"... Agree with Patrick. It is surprising to still see so much animosity towards a president who has done more to combat the absurdity of NATO and globalism than I can remember any other President doing. The ball is in the EU elites court, now. Put up or shut up and I believe it makes no difference to Trump. We are about to find out who is REALLY to blame for marching lockstep with the current of hypercentralization (globalism): the Trump admin or the EU elitez. ..."
"... The US has been manipulating NATO ever since it was formed. Most NATO officials are vetted by the US. Trump is an idiot, like the bulk of US politicians. ..."
"... Trump's "reasoning" makes sense in an infantile sort of way, but there's more too it than meets the eye, is there not? Trump doesn't just want to Europe to "pay their fair share" for NATO, which we all know is code for buying more US mil.gear but also to buy their LNG from US too. It's like NATO is some sort of grotesque, evil franchise where the franchisees can only buy goods/services from that single source, even though it's crap & inordinately expensive, and even if you can get it cheaper elsewhere, i.e Russia. ..."
"... Wow! You don't feel that Trump has, by his mere existence and by winning the presidency, been given a platform of which to decry the myriad injustices of globalization and to utter things unspeakable by any Prez in the last fifty years? ..."
"... Europe has an arms industry of their own. I doubt European countries invest their money into US stuff - they buy their own. Most of the money does not go into weapons anyway, but personel and administration. Germany contributes to the maintenance and infrastructure of US bases, but those bases are business, too. This is not Saudi Arabia buying protection. The real news is that Trump has started a trade war negotiating by tantrum. ..."
You are agreeing with an idiot, no matter what...Europe has nothing to worry about with
regards to Russia. Unless they threaten Russia. 'Love this exchange at breakfast;
"Stoltenberg: [ ] I think that two World Wars and the Cold War taught us that we
are stronger together than apart.
Trump: But how can you be together when a country is getting its energy from the
person you want protection against or from the group that you want protection?
Stoltenberg: Because we understand that when we stand together, also in dealing
with Russia, we are stronger. I think what we have seen is that --
Trump: No, you're just making Russia richer. You're not dealing with Russia.
You're making Russia richer."
You'd have to be an idiot not to agree with Trump here.
Trump seems to enjoy antagonizing the Europeans one way or the other. As to NATO, Trump
made the same complaints during his campaign while calling it "obsolete." Sometimes it sounds
like he would rather have the US out of NATO. One theory I have is that he is limited in what
he can do so he works around TPTBs to get closer to his goals. So he antagonizes and
threatens Europe on NATO. The same goes for Syria. He talked about wanting to pull out but
kept being drawn back in by the usual suspects. So he's pulled monetary support in certain
cases and refused to dig the US in any deeper than it is. And it will be interesting to see
what happens with his upcoming meeting with Putin considering how much he had to backtrack on
his talk of better relations during his campaign. Those who've wanted him to join the "hate
Russia" team may get frustrated.
Will he take direct action on any of these things? I doubt it. The indirect route seems to
go in the right direction.
karlof!. Good to "see" you back. The following is specifically to you, but it does continue
from your first comment. [I couldn't get some links to embed, sorry]
My best short term hope is that all this war-blustering is just to convince we commoners
to bend over so the military/industrial contractors can make lots of gelt. The Global War OF
Terror has been terrific for their bank accounts, but with SAA and the MoD of the RF beating
the snot out of terrorists wherever they go to such an extent that the Pentagon is
considering ISIS essentially defeated.
Besides, the really "big ticket products" are things like aircraft carriers,
"upgraded" nuclear weapons, 5th Generation fighters, etc. etc. etc., that are harder to
excuse when their targets are guys in sandals with AK47s and IEDs. That could be why the 2018
National Defense Strategy plan has shifted from fighting "terrorism" back to " the long-term,
strategic competition between nations."
https://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/Documents/pubs/2018-National-Defense-Strategy-Summary.pdf
Same with our "adversary" across the big pond in China. Just the other day, the CPC warned
of "China's army infiltrated by 'peace disease' requiring a major new "defense posture" just
like the US and NATO.
Within this new "mulit-polar" world, only Russia is cutting its military budge. And
they still seem to have at least one of the most effective conventional war-fighting
capability, and their next generation nuclear deterrence looks nothing short of awesome. They
have pipelines to build, and like China, long-term economic contracts to sign.
No dear b, for once I think you've got it wrong. I see Trump asking three question for all of
which there is one answer.
1. Angela. You tell us that NATO ought to concentrate on the Russian threat. If Russia is a
threat, why are you buying gas from it?
2. Angela, You tell us that Russia is a reliable energy supplier. If Russia is a reliable
supplier, why are you telling us it's a threat?
3. Angela. I hope you're not saying Russia is a threat and its gas is cheap but the USA will
save us.
The answer to all 3 questions is: we're out of here, defend yourselves. It's Trump cutting
the Gordian Knot of obligations.
Aarrgghh! Besides some continuity problems when I recut and pasted the above since the links
weren't working, I also left out the following completely.
That could be why, even though the US 2018 Nuclear Posture Review observes we are changing
from: "For decades, the United States led the world in efforts to reduce the role and number
of nuclear weapons." To " the current, pragmatic assessment of the threats we face and the
uncertainties regarding the future security environment." Which conveniently can use up, or
more likely go over budget on former President CareBear's additional $10 Billion in nuclear
weapons development over the succeeding 10 years.
I'm no fan of Angela, but she/Germany have been trying to tamp down this AZ Empire New
Cold War against Russia since at least 2013. When she, Putin, Yanukovych (elected President
of Ukraine) and the leaders of the Maidan protests got together and signed an agreement in
which Yanukovych acquiesced to essentially all of the "peaceful, pro-democracy protesters'"
demands, it was the Asst. Secretary of the US State (Vickie Nuland) who said, "F*ck the EU"
"We can midwife this thing" and even appointed the new PM "Yats is the guy."
She was then an active participant in the Minsk Agreement to end the "anti-terrorism
action" Which our gal Vickie shredded publicly the next day because the AZ Empire thought the
Uki-Nazis would finish off those Muscovite, Colorado hicks and (can I post the Ukie terms for
Jews?) in the east like they'd done in the south.
Then, Angela was involved in the Minsk II cease-fire/road to peace (when the Uki-Nazis
were being driven out of the east, and were about to lose Mariupol).
I know there are others in addition to b here who know this stuff better than I. Isn't
this about right?
"It is extremely hypocritical for Poland to lobby against Nord Stream when it significantly
contributes to Poland's energy security."
There are other explanations that could be better documented, like stupidity and insanity.
BTW, Poland has big pollution problem, and a major part is that many older multifamily
buildings and new single family building has polluting heating with coal furnaces and stoves.
Natural gas does not generate pollutants except for CO2 which is not affecting health, plus
it uses less than half of carbon than coal.
On the other note, merely to get enough gas for internal needs, Poland could get enough
through Belorus. But if you need to add re-export to Ukraine, that is not enough. So Poles
can pride themselves of not being as stupid and insane as their southeastern neighbors.
Well stated. There are many gordian knots. The BIS should be dissolved
""Responsible fiscal practice requires a government to fill spending gaps left by
fluctuations in non-government spending patterns. In that way, the government takes
responsibility for maintaining full employment. What the Troika did in Greece was the
exemplar of irresponsible fiscal practice.""
I really really like the way you include a 'solution' to a global problem in this analysis b.
To many times we just speak to the choir and rarely are solutions presented regardless where
they lie on the possible/probable line. Did I mention I really like this SA. Thanks.
karlof1 @7. In graph 1, of actual dollar expenditure, NATO spending was going down until
2012, then it started to rise again, and has been a net increase every year since 2015.
In graph 4, per nation spending relative to GDP went up from 2014 to 2017 in almost all
member states notably, except the US and UK, but even then, US went from 3.58% to slightly
over 3.5% and UK from 2.14% to a touch over 2.1%, so both are above the 2% "minimum."
Graphs 5, 6, 7 all show actual dollar expenditures dropping from 1010 to 2014, but then
increasing every year since then.
Perhaps I misunderstood your point. But it sure looks like NATO spending has been rising
since this "New Cold War" really kicked into gear in 3024/2015.
"One big reason they deposed the Shah who was planning to go big with nuclear power with
orders for about 20 French and /or German reactors"
Another hat in the ring for CIA/MI6/Mossad helping to install the Islamic part of the
Iranian Revolution? WooHoo!
"China basically has a monopoly on these metals"
Yes. Bear in mind though that "discovered" after the US invasion/occupation is that
Afghanistan has perhaps the world's largest reserves of lithium. And the "Democratic
Republic" of Congo also has much rare earth wealth. As in fact do other parts of central
Africa. Hence, the AZ Empire's new "AfriCom" military classification and the reinstallation
of French Colonialism.
I'm not so up on this whole tariff thing. Hasn't Germany had substantial tariffs on
automobiles for years now? Do those tariffs apply to other EU states?
Daniel
I have read in the past that Afghan is very rich in a number of minerals and China was
looking at development there as part of it road belt intuitive. Going by the state
Afghanistan is in I can't see the US extracting minerals there. US squatting in Afghanistan
may be simply to deny Chinese access to the mineral deposits.
If NS2 goes online and EU goes dark to Qatar, especially if Iran corks Qatar with a South
pipeline, the Middle East economies will collapse into chaos, and nobody will be buying
either US guns or butter.
US'own economy is going down the crapper with No Taxes for the Rich running an $800B
Deficit, and private Fed Bank ratcheting up $50B at a gulp in interest-only Debt financing
...forever. Collapse of MediCare and MediCaid will bleed even more out of the retsil economy,
which will increase the Deficit, into a National Debt death spiral, and collapse of the
public pensiin systems.
If you project MIC arms spendung and Fed interest-only bleed out, Trump's illegal 25% Fed
VAT sales tax (aka 'tariffs) and EU/RU/CH counter-tariffs, all US health and human services
will be insolvent by 2025.
When that happens, and could happen much sooner, the world we knew in 20C will be
inverted, upended, chaos, albeit, only chaos for the Lower Classes, Workers and Private
Pensioners/401Ks. The Deep Purple Mil.Gov UniParty will...uhh...find a way!
@kgw
"You are agreeing with an idiot, no matter what...Europe has nothing to worry about with
regards to Russia. Unless they threaten Russia."
Well shit or get off the pot why don't you - "idiot" Trump is calling your bluff - stop
freeloading off a (by your assessment) non-existent threat, or he'll stop it for you. Can't
have it both ways. The US can't keep funding your crappy little joke of a disintegrating
"European Union" for ever. Sooner or later you'll have to put on big-boy pants.
James, @44. I largely agree with (and have called for) Patrick's recommendations for what
Ukraine should do now. I don't see anything in there that contravenes what I wrote about
Germany's role in the AZ Empire's coup and resulting war, though.
Do you remember those events, or should I dig out citations? I was following it pretty
closely from mid/late 2013 until it quieted down in 2015. Since then, I just pick up articles
here and there.
When you'd have to be an idiot to agree with Trump ($1 TRILLION MIC arms profiteering
slash National Police State slash MIC Indefinite Detention Gulags), but now you'd have to be
an idiot NOT to agree with Trump (drag EU into the funeral pyre)m then you know it must be
the Red Army v Blue Army media spewfest and the National Novitiate in November is near.
Rahhh.
E pluribus now get back to work. Your 2Q ONE TRILLION Deep Purple State tithe-tibute is
due in 3 more days, ONE TRILKION that you and your hiers will never see again.
USA govt's assessment of China and Russia as "revisionist" should be understood as a
determination to remain the hegemonic power. Thus, we have Cold War II. From that
perspective, European objections to more "defense" spending are considered naive (or worse)
as Europe's fate is views as tied to that of the Empire.
I think European elites are much more likely to side with USA than European people. If
the Trump's talk with Putin doesn't go well, we are likely to see increased scaremongering to
rectify public opinion.
Not to mention those same rare earth metals are getting out of DRC despite millions of
murderous deaths and disease.
And the oil started flowing out of Libya before Gaddafi was even lynched. Oil's been
flowing out of "Kurdish" Iraq into Israel come hell or high water. And of course, ISIL was
shipping Syrian oil through Turkey and Jordan (if not Israel) throughout.
Chaos can make doing business harder, but that can also increase profits. As the
posters said in the '60s, "War Is Not Good For Children And Other Living Things." But it's
great for the psychopaths.
Trump's native approach I suspect may be something like that of fellow-New Yorker and great
American chess player Bobby Fischer who famously said: "Try something!"
That sounds about right. I would only add that Minsk Accord is another example of a
non-agreement. Ukraine never signed yet Russia is accused of not implementing this
non-agreement whenever people feel the need for some more Russia-bashing.
Here is an article that explains the relationship between Russian pipelines, USA
sanctions on Russia, MH17, Crimea, and Syria. It is an excellent background to comprehend
Trump's accusations about Germany's purchase of gas from Russia. Patrick Armstrong and Pat
Lang seem to think that Trump is about to cut NATO support, reduce/eliminate sanctions
against Russia, and redirect relations with Israel, but I am not persuaded. https://www.unz.com/article/why-was-malaysian-airlines-flight-mh17-shot-down/
by Kees van der Pijl He also wrote a book on this topic.
Trump follows the footsprints of the post-USA Civil War Republican Party policy. From
Chapter 1 of The Politicos 1865-1896 by Matthew Josephson (published in 1938)
"The new industrialist and financial class and the farmers of the North emerged the
greatest gainers by far among the mixed coalition of classes which fought to win the social
revolution underlying the War Between the States. But no less triumphant and dominent was the
war party itself, the youthful organization of professional politicians and officeholders
known as the Republican Party. A minority party in 1860, and victor in a three-cornered
electoral contest, it knew during the war the intoxication of unchallenged power and fortune
beyond calculation, leaving it in command of all the offices of the Federal Government!"
From Beard, Contemporary American History, p.91
It had the management of the gigantic war finances, through which it attached to itself
the interests ... of the great capitalists and bankers throughout the North. It raised
revenues by a high tariff which placed thousands of manufacturers under debt to it and
linked their fortunes also with its fate ... Railway financiers and promoters of all kinds
had to turn to it for privileges and protection...
jackrabbit@59
surprised to hear you say Ukraine did not sign MinskII. On the contrary, I read that it was
signed by LD Kuchma, Second President of Ukraine. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Signatories
The document was signed by:[23]
Swiss diplomat and OSCE representative Heidi Tagliavini
Former president of Ukraine and Ukrainian representative Leonid Kuchma
Russian Ambassador to Ukraine and Russian representative Mikhail Zurabov
Separatist's leaders Alexander Zakharchenko and Igor Plotnitsky https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minsk_II#Signatories
All-night negotiations on Wednesday ended with the signing of the Declaration of Minsk in
support of the "Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements" by Angela
Merkel of Germany, Francois Hollande of France, Petro Poroshenko of Ukraine and Vladimir
Putin of Russia and release of the full agreement. The talks, according to some reports,
almost collapsed near the end as Ukraine and rebel leaders balked at signing.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/2015/02/13/putin-comes-out-on-top-in-new-minsk-agreement/#21ffe18f4ede
From Chapter 1 of The Politicos 1865-1896 by Matthew Josephson (published in 1938):
"The prosecution of the war against rebellion had been associated with a protective tariff
levied against a hated England. which profited and sought to profit further from our
disaster. With the close of the war, a cry arose from the Northeastern region that high
tariffs were needed to pay the war debt. and an outburst of high Protectionism followed in
1866."
Everything the US does works to undermine its old power in the new world. We see this
continually. Trump is an accelerator. But whether any of this is intentional and actually
desired by a part of US vested interests, is still an open question.
Nevertheless, as we watch, we see every action of the US working to cement the bonds
of its opposition in the rest of the world. From the Escobar article linked by karlof1 above,
we see the pressure on the Middle East to reject the US and turn for safety to the Eurasian
institutions of commerce, finance and national security. The same thing is happening to
Europe.
Some days I think that Trump was a brilliantly inspired choice of some deep state players
to further their agenda of fragmenting the old arrangements to allow new alignments to come
into place - to modernize the elite control of the world. But most days I just don't know.
What can one say about a force this magisterial and still this enigmatic?
I was talking with a friend today about Trump. She said she sees his approach as quite
typical of US business style. You come out with the big stick, knowing it will get chopped in
half by the time you get to agreement. But at least you end up with half a stick. Gotta start
big. You don't ask, you don't get.
This style worked perfectly with North Korea, which was a standout among the nations of
the world, in my opinion, for understanding superbly well how Trump played the game, and
played it right back. The result was a meeting of equals, where something could actually get
done. But NK worked hard to develop the bargaining chip to put on the table too. Words
without substance don't work.
I'm not seeing many other countries responding with this same kind of exaggerated bravado
- it is a very US way of doing business. Most countries are simply working to go around the
US. Europe seems to be doing the same thing, simply rejecting and turning away. But the
European countries could certainly create bargaining chips if they wanted to play the Trump
game of negotiation. I truly suspect his style is something they're still getting to grips
with. Perhaps they should call Kim for pointers.
I think ultimately we are seeing two things at work, and in tandem: the natural style of
Trump, and the very real and unstoppable current of history. Whether either force is aware of
the other, I can't say. Like the success or failure of the French Revolution, it's too soon
to tell.
@65 Good summary. I think the Europeans simply don't know what to make of him. The look on
Stoltenberg's face said it all. They just don't know how to respond to someone so direct.
Maybe Putin is the only one who can talk his language....but not in public.
China's taking a page from Mahan regarding sea power. NATO graphs: I mentioned Obama
ordered an increase in spending and the chart shows the compliance. The ups and downs
correlate well with wars and major recessions.
@53 daniel... what you said earlier - i think much the same way... i would be curious to know
more of how patrick armstrong sees all that, but i think it is much the same as us too..
those links @53 reflect how messed up ukraine is at present.. having a failed state on your
doorstep doesn't sound like fun and that works both ways for europe and russia.. i guess that
was the usa ( and israels?) plan... screw up countries so they don't function properly, so
you have to spend a lot of imf money to fix them.. works for wall st, lol..
@38 "The answer to all 3 questions is: we're out of here, defend yourselves"
Patrick, I'm confused: they are meant to defend themselves against whom, exactly? T he
equation as it stands now is this: A muscle-bound USA + an anaemic Europe "deterring" a
Russian Federation that has no intention of invading.
Remove the muscle-bound Americans from the equation and this is what remains: An anaemic
Europe "deterring" a Russian Federation that has no intention of invading.
Since Russia is no threat either way then there is no need - none whatsoever - for the
Europeans to increase their military expenditure to "defend themselves" against a
non-existent Russian threat.
Indeed, the only reason the Europeans would feel that they might have to prepare to
"defend themselves" would be because that muscle-bound US military is now outside the tent
pissing in, not inside the tent pissing out.
@68 Maybe they thought Ukraine would join the EU at some point but Crimea was the prize. The
plan was to turn Crimea into a NATO base. Putin spoiled everything.
Wikipedia also says (as part Leonid Kuchma's bio):
Since July 2014, Kuchma has been Ukraine's representative at the semi-official peace
talks regarding the ongoing War in Donbass.
Why are they "semi-official"? Because Ukraine would not talk to the rebels
directly. They believe that the rebels are sponsored by Russia so the dispute is between
Russia and Ukraine. They would not talk to the rebels as that might convey legitimacy to the
rebels. That's why the Trialteral Contact Group was set up. The signers of Minsk II (Russia,
Germany, France, Kuchma/Ukraine) are merely "guarantors" of an agreement between Ukraine and
the Donbas rebels - neither of which has actually signed.
Kuchma "represents" Ukraine but can't bind Ukraine. Although Poroschenko attended some of
the talks, he never signed the agreement.
Minsk and Minsk II have reduced conflict somewhat but Ukraine has dragged its feet every
step of the way. For example: they were slow to pull back heavy artillery as called for under
the accord, then they wouldn't pass laws that were necessary for other provisions of the
accord.
The Minsk accords outlined a detailed procedure through which Donetsk and Luhansk would
receive "special status," hold internationally-recognized elections, and then negotiate
their reintegration into Ukraine directly with Kiev, including basic constitutional reforms
to federalize the country. No substantive steps have ever been undertaken by either side to
implement these terms, and the new "Donbass Integration Law" now makes clear that Kiev
expects the country to be re-united on its terms alone, though probably not anytime
soon.
Ukrainian lawmakers, who overwhelmingly passed the bill on Jan. 19, argue that it
simply normalizes a situation that has long existed but was clouded by misleading jargon
and official fealty to the non-functioning Minsk accords .
Poroschenko signed the bill into law in February 2018.
@dh "Maybe Putin is the only one who can talk his language"
Going by what Putin said of Trump after their 2 1/2 hour meeting in Vietnam, it seems more
likely Trump talks in Putin's language when meeting actual leaders. Same would go for his
meeting with KJU, and I would guess Xi.
Since whenever, America has been the proxy front for the current instantiation of
empire with the core of control being ongoing private finance with global tools like BIS,
IMF, World Bank, etc. Since WWII and even before the goal of empire is to have all of the
world under its control. Since the engine of empire is a supra-national matrix of private
finance control, the enemy becomes any nations who do not want to be impregnated with the
Western model of private Central Bank, an oligarchy , inheritance, private property,
etc.
The empire model of growth through wars and boom/bust expansion has reached its
"logical" limits and the the existential question has become, blow everything all up or agree
to a multipolar world. I think that the elite hope Trump's bluster will make it so they do
not have to answer that existential question.....yet
The EU has always been a bastard child with little chance of growing up because there was
no finance core agreements to manage the national variations within. I am surprised it has
lasted as long as it has given the historical tension between the nations. The US has similar
social tensions but our structure has homoginized the economy enough that we haven't
imploded...yet
The key to this process which I believe is being managed by the elite is at what point are
the big decisions made and by whom. Given the accelerated nature of the managed
deconstruction, I suspect the elite believe they will retain their mystique of power long
enough to not lose grip on private finance running the Western world. The EU countries will
have to come to terms with their oligarchs and determine what path forward works for all of
eurasia. I don't see the current leadership of any EU countries as having the public's best
interest in mind or action.
Are we seeing Western plutocracy fail of its own "weight"? Perhaps so.....nice
I LUV how Trump stomped on all those preaning European elite scumbags. He's my hero
for pooping all over their little pride parade. Tell em like it is Donald they call you
stupid and all those other useless names. Your stinking GENIUS. MORE and an ENCORE!!!!
Agree with Patrick. It is surprising to still see so much animosity towards a
president who has done more to combat the absurdity of NATO and globalism than I can remember
any other President doing. The ball is in the EU elites court, now. Put up or shut up and I
believe it makes no difference to Trump. We are about to find out who is REALLY to blame for
marching lockstep with the current of hypercentralization (globalism): the Trump admin or the
EU elitez.
Sorry for the break in the Trump-bashing. Let's all get back to that good ol'
America-hatin' catharsis.
Since the start of the 70ties I have heard exactly the same tune from the US and the
blathering idiot in charge now has not changed the tune; ever since have I had to listen to
this "The Russians are coming" tune, with the rhetoric getting ever more shrill and false,
1989 brought a brief and marvelous, albeit very short pause to this tune, and for a few years
the US Kleptocracy was happy plundering the former USSR. When Russia resisted the plunder i.
e. Putin was elected, the tune started over again from where it was paused, disregarding the
fact that Russia does not in any way compare to the former USSR.
N, noooe , it is still "The Russians are coming" playing, but with a new beat, pepped up,
but same substance. But we are not listening anymore, the disgraceful actions and evil
behavior of The United States of Mordor, have come into the open (The internet, appreciate
it, we will not for long have it in its present form), even the most daft of us quietly
starts wondering.
Well I am not daft, and the questioning ended 4 decades ago, The US must be resisted. Our
politicians here on the continent must wake up and reject US imperialism and militarism, and
devise our own defenses if deemed necessary, many European nations are not at the living
standards we enjoy in Scandinavia, surely the money were better spent on that.
If the Poles and Baltic's want American troops on their soil, withdraw EU spending, we do
not need their insane sabre rattling. (Especially the Poles are vile, they forget that when
Hitler invaded, they had been a fascist dictatorship for years).
What exactly has Trump done to combat the absurdity of globalization and NATO besides
talk? While he stopped TPP and TIPP he is negotiating similar agreements bilaterally. Also
his Personal Empire benefits from globalization.
US only contributes 1% of their defense budget to NATO's direct costs so pulling out of
NATO would make hardly a dent in the budget except to increase costs to relocate all the
personnel and hardware. Those bases are invaluableHis calling for NATO countries to increase
defense spending benefits US and Israeli companies who make up the military and security
industrial complex and wont do squat to lower the defense budget
Born and raised in Southern California, been here 70 years... The US has been
manipulating NATO ever since it was formed. Most NATO officials are vetted by the US. Trump
is an idiot, like the bulk of US politicians.
@kgw
"You are agreeing with an idiot, no matter what...Europe has nothing to worry about with
regards to Russia. Unless they threaten Russia."
Well shit or get off the pot why don't you - "idiot" Trump is calling your bluff - stop
freeloading off a (by your assessment) non-existent threat, or he'll stop it for you. Can't
have it both ways. The US can't keep funding your crappy little joke of a disintegrating
"European Union" for ever. Sooner or later you'll have to put on big-boy pants. Methinks this
guy has a good take on this.
You're assuming Europe's leaders aren't bought and paid for by Wall Bank Street Banksters.
The system is rigged. I wouldn't doubt that they go into lapdog mode and bow to blowhard
Trump.
Mrs Merkel emphasised that the German armed forces would remain commanded by parliament and
not the government, and "would not take part in every mission".
This here is a clear description of the issues
involved . Of course, in the rivalry between the US and Russia, Europe's interest is best
served playing the two off each other united. It is no surprise both - the US and Russia -
have a strategic interest to split Europe. You don't believe Russia doing this, too? This
here is from Greece . No, their government is not anti-Russian.
Macedonia is expecting an invitation at the NATO summit in Brussels this week to join
following its landmark deal with Greece whereby it will change its name to the Republic of
North Macedonia. Moscow strongly opposes NATO expansion.
...
The Greek diplomatic source told Reuters Athens would expel two diplomats and bar two
other Russians from entering the country due to concerns that they were involved in rallies
in Greece against the deal with Macedonia and that they had attempted to offer money to
Greek state officials.
Becoming a "neutral" military force would end this type of nonsense. Trump acting like
mafia is another strong incentive.
"The U.S. military is the biggest socialist organization of the world. It is
egalitarian and its citizens, i.e. the soldiers, are extremely well cared for. It runs its
own healthcare system through the Veterans Health Administration."
A wonderful conclusion b.
Does anyone know of any in-depth economic analysis of the U.S. military as a state
welfare system for its members, as well as the impact of aggregate military spending on the
general purchasing power of citizens within the society at large?
And US military spending is also an enormous job-creation and wealth-redistribution
program in the form of defense contractors spread all over the nation, where they are
especially vital for areas with weak employment.
The US winds up with a lot of projects it does not need because Congresspeople are not
about to kill a program that employs thousands in their districts.
Why should Germany spend 4% on its military? Didnt see that coming from this blog. Are
germany facing an enemy? If not, its a waste of more money. All this useless money could be
spend to actually strenghten the welfare state. Something that actually matters and are much
needed. So which enemy is Germany facing? Either Trump is right that Russia is a threat to
Germany or hes not. What is it?
The nonbinding motion, which came as the Senate voted to reconcile its version of the
annual defense policy bill with that of the House, expresses the Senate's support for NATO
and calls on negotiators to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to it. The 97-2 vote in the Senate
comes as Trump heads to Brussels.
Trump's "reasoning" makes sense in an infantile sort of way, but there's more too it
than meets the eye, is there not? Trump doesn't just want to Europe to "pay their fair share"
for NATO, which we all know is code for buying more US mil.gear but also to buy their LNG
from US too. It's like NATO is some sort of grotesque, evil franchise where the franchisees
can only buy goods/services from that single source, even though it's crap & inordinately
expensive, and even if you can get it cheaper elsewhere, i.e Russia.
I would love to see those fence-sitting NATO countries tell the US "sure, we'll increase
our mil. spending, but after what we saw in Syria, we'll be buying our gear from Russia"
(more bang for the buck too!) - that would be game, set & match right there!
I think you are wrong, Bernard. It will sell well in Europe too. To what extend were the
themes of the Brexit campaign based on Germany as the slave master of Europe, to exaggerate
slightly? It will also sell well in the US.
Wow! You don't feel that Trump has, by his mere existence and by winning the
presidency, been given a platform of which to decry the myriad injustices of globalization
and to utter things unspeakable by any Prez in the last fifty years?
I don't think you've been paying attention. The proof is in the pudding but what will be
the benefit of raising the spectre of doubt over bad deals like NATO, the current iteration
of world trade, and for animosity towards Russia? Evidently, it ain't worth shit to
predictable TDS-sufferers that hang around here.
So much for those who projected that Trump's demands for an increase in the defense spending
of other members and his scolding of Germany would lead to a weaker Nato! Nato members just
caved to Trump and are increasing their spending and Trump is touting that Nato is stronger
and everyone's doing the kumbaya.
When I say that Trump is establishment on steroids; it's an understatement. Trump is doing
the kissy, kissy with Putin because the plan is to pull Russia away from collaborating with
China. Zionist oligarchs are in league with Trump and Russia will eventually be under their
complete control.
@98 You just don't get it. Trump is fascist establishment. Trump is separating kids from
their mothers. Who does that??? He's a sick sadist.
Europe has an arms industry of their own. I doubt European countries invest their
money into US stuff - they buy their own. Most of the money does not go into weapons anyway,
but personel and administration. Germany contributes to the maintenance and infrastructure of
US bases, but those bases are business, too. This is not Saudi Arabia buying protection. The
real news is that Trump has started
a trade war negotiating by tantrum.
But Trump has a great point: if you claim that Russia is ready to invade you, why you are
buying gas from potential occupier?
Notable quotes:
"... Russia is a near neighbor to Germany. Commerce between relatively close countries is the normal course of events, so what is Trump suggesting, a 1970's style energy embargo on Russia? Depriving Russia the opportunity all trade with her neighbors 'because we said so' is no better than a blockade. ..."
Donald Trump, the 'America First' salesman, came to Brussels today to demand more tribute
to the empire. He wants Europe to buy more U.S. made weapons and to use U.S. liquefied
natural gas (LNG). But his arguments are all wrong. The people in Europe are not impressed by
them and they will reject his appeals.
His first talk in Brussels was
a profoundly wrong bashing of Germany to push it into buying very expensive LNG from U.S.
fracking producers. Trump, Putin's puppet according to the 'resistance', used the Russian
bogeyman to set the scene:
Well, I have to say, I think it's very sad when Germany makes a massive oil and gas deal
with Russia, where you're supposed to be guarding against Russia, and Germany goes out and
pays billions and billions of dollars a year to Russia. ... So we're protect you against Russia, but they're paying billions of dollars to Russia, and
I think that's very inappropriate. And the former Chancellor of Germany is the head of the
pipeline company that's supplying the gas. Ultimately, Germany will have almost 70 percent
of their country controlled by Russia with natural gas.
So you tell me, is that appropriate? I mean, I've been complaining about this from the
time I got in. It should have never been allowed to have happened. But Germany is totally
controlled by Russia , because they will be getting from 60 to 70 percent of their energy
from Russia and a new pipeline. ... Now, if you look at it, Germany is a captive of Russia because they supply. They got rid of
their coal plants. They got rid of their nuclear. They're getting so much of the oil and
gas from Russia. ... I think trade is wonderful. I think energy is a whole different story. I think energy is a
much different story than normal trade. And you have a country like Poland that won't
accept the gas . You take a look at some of the countries -- they won't accept it, because
they don't want to be captive to Russia. But Germany, as far as I'm concerned, is captive
to Russia, because it's getting so much of its energy from Russia. So we're supposed to
protect Germany, but they're getting their energy from Russia. Explain that. And it can't
be explained -- you know that.
Trump was talking about the Nordstream II pipeline which will supply Germany and other
European countries with natural gas from Russia.
It is indeed hard to believe that western european governments would agree to what
Christopher Black calls a "US shakedown". Except that they have been doing so since 1949.
It is important to remember that the US Embassy exerts at least as much influence on the
government as Parliament does. And that Parliaments are full of agents of the the US empire,
in some cases they are actually on the payroll, many more are either US educated, marinated
in the imperialist ideology or in the service of corporations which know that the Empire is
the final guarantor of their survival and capable of crushing them with ease.
That having been said, things are changing, The imperialists cling to power only by exerting
the most extraordinary, and unsustainable, pressure. An example of which is the ludicrously
over-wrought campaign against the left in the UK being waged by the Israeli Embassy, with the
assistance of the entire MSM.
B's arguments are correct but it will take a mobilised and politically conscious public
opinion to impose them on governments full of people who see themselves as Washington's
servants and expect to be rewarded one day for being loyal to the US and for betraying their
countrymen and, of course, women.
The question is if Europe will truly continue to bark and bite at the deep state or if this
is all just for show and they'll eventually capitulate. I'm worried that this is nothing more
than political theatre. I'm not expecting much from the Europeans. But we'll see.
Europe buying LNG from the US just makes no sense at all. Aside from the cost, LNG is
difficult to transport and work with; the whole idea is just nuts, especially considering the
quantities involved. In addition, Russian gas is plentiful and cheap, so to expect Europe not
to use it is also nuts.
Could it be that Trump fully understands this and the hidden agenda is to get out of NATO and
bring home the troops?
Russia is a near neighbor to Germany. Commerce between relatively close countries is the
normal course of events, so what is Trump suggesting, a 1970's style energy embargo on
Russia? Depriving Russia the opportunity all trade with her neighbors 'because we said so' is
no better than a blockade.
One of these days, my country is going to get a taste of, 'no soup for you' and we will be
screaming like stuck pigs.
Yes, I am obsessed w/Sean Hannity
It's his earnest, self-righteous, mind numbingly idiotic voice, I'm hypnotized. Ollie
North was on his show and they were going on about 'Iran's' saber rattling by threatening to
close the Straits of Hormuz. Sean rattled off how the EU would wake up and it would be the
end of Iran's belligerence.
He neglected to mention that this 'threat' is only coming after our act of war by actively
trying to cut off all of Iran's oil exports which is no better than a naval blockade.
Much can be gleaned from
this NATO Defence Expenditure pdf with special attention given to graphs 5, 6
& 7. Since the dissolution of the USSR, military spending as share of GDP by EU &
Canada decreased about 50% as shown in Graph 5. It should also be noted that the demand made
by the Outlaw US Empire for EU NATO members to increase their wastage of monies on military
equipment began with Obama in 2015, with compliance noted by the graphs in 2016. When Obama
gave his orders, very little squawking was heard from EU/Canada governments, although it was
quite different from the public. Of course, EU/Canada are caught in a trap of their own
design--Russia's quite obviously not the "aggressive" nation that must be defended against
using all necessary means as promoted by Russophobic Media Propaganda as they all trade and
benefit from commercial interactions; thus, bean counters see NATO as a wastage of vital,
finite monies that ought to be spent on productive endeavors advancing the human condition.
In national legislatures: "Russia's a growing threat to humanity!!--BUT--No, I'm voting
against any increase in military spending as there's no need for it."
European members of NATO don't need such an organization. If they were to join the Russian
and Chinese enterprises to unite Eurasia into a common economic zone, then the need for NATO
would become indefensible. And their finally becoming independent of the Outlaw US Empire's
diktats would provide the impetus required to finally solve the status of Palestine and
reaffirmation of the paramountcy of International Law as a greatly expanded Multipolar Order
would be established. The United Nations might actually begin to function as designed.
Is Trump trying to push NATO apart by injecting it with a dose of American Chaos? Force
EU/Canada to declare their independence from the Outlaw US Empire for numerous reasons? All
of which would force the contraction of the Overseas element of the Empire and install an
actual defense policy, not one aiming to control the world? Is this Trump's way to force a
Neocon retreat?
Meanwhile, China charms Arabia
"Under the radar,..., the eighth ministerial meeting of the China-Arab States Cooperation
Forum (CASCF), established in 2004, sailed on in Beijing, hosted by President Xi Jinping."
Please note the article's citing of new demands made to Iraq by the Outlaw US Empire, which
has their roots in Trump's appraisal of the situation.
I'd say this is why you do not mix a military alliance with politics. Nor allow federal
presidents to command and represent an army. Trump's retarded bullshit aside the USA
shouldn't be holding committee meetings with allies without an war. An alliance shouldn't be
considered active during peacetime. An ally is a figment of political imagination until
military necessity requires it in actuality. Historically and currently a military alliance
is treated as a contract for warmongering against an outnumbered enemy while at peace or at
war. Which is why honorable people (currently very few) eschew alliances or non-aggression
agreements until they become a defensive requirement. If President Trump want's to crash NATO
with no survivor's, more power to him.
The bright side of Trump bullying is revealing NATO astronomical hypocrisy as they join
psychotic delusions about Russian menace they refuse to put money where their mouth is and
shamelessly disclose their vassal status begging for American military support for free.
All that knowing well that there is no threat from Russia that cannot be eliminated simply
by good neighborly relation with Russia not by spending $billions on otherwise useless
fraudulent US MIC junk.
Is that nor reverse psychology that is in play here, put up or shut up, let me make deal
with Russia so you do not have to spend on military rediculous sums to match your delusional
rhetorics about Russian threat.
Trump is s gambling man, wants to make money for US MIC on anti Russian lies or make money
for US industry on Russia peace and cooperation truths.
"Stoltenberg: [ ] I think that two World Wars and the Cold War taught us that we are
stronger together than apart.
Trump: But how can you be together when a country is getting its energy from the person
you want protection against or from the group that you want protection?
Stoltenberg: Because we understand that when we stand together, also in dealing with
Russia, we are stronger. I think what we have seen is that --
Trump: No, you're just making Russia richer. You're not dealing with Russia. You're making
Russia richer."
You'd have to be an idiot not to agree with Trump here.
A notable difference between the way Trump treats the likes of Putin, Xi, and Kim Jong Un
- all leaders in their own right - to the way he treats the EU poodles. Zero respect for the
poodles.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Jul 11, 2018 6:40:20 PM |
22
"... The big advantage for Germany is that (Nordstream I and Nordstream II] pipelines
do not run through any other country ..."
That's because idiot EU / NATO countries like Denmark, who would gladly accept having the
pipelines pass through their land and maritime territories (and the transit fees that go with
them) if Russian gas were not flowing through them, prefer to support the Nazi whacko
Banderites ruling Ukraine who whine that all Russian gas should transit Ukrainian territory
in deteriorating pipelines. So Denmark and others refuse to host any part of the pipelines at
all.
When Gazprom starts sending all gas through Nordstream I and II and pipelines through the
Black Sea, completely bypassing Ukraine, then that country will be close to bankruptcy.
Denmark and everyone else in the EU and NATO had better be ready to rescue the
Banderites.
Der Speigel 's fact-checking article of Trump's assertions provides some
interesting facts, all in German, which I used Yandex to translate. To counterargue Trump's
most pointed assertion that Germany's a captive of Russia, the author provides this rebuke:
"Russland ist auf den Abnehmer Deutschland angewiesen. Die Deutschen benötigten die
Russen vor allem als Lieferanten für Erdgas." (Russia is dependent on the customer
Germany. The Germans needed the Russians mainly as suppliers of natural gas.) Overall:
"Für Russland ist Deutschland als Handelspartner wichtiger als andersherum. Von allen
deutschen Importen kamen 2017 nur drei Prozent aus Russland - und lediglich zwei Prozent der
Exporte gehen in Putins Reich. Für die Russen war die Bundesrepublik mit einem Anteil
von 8,6 Prozent ihres gesamten Außenhandels der zweitwichtigste Partner hinter China.
Und mehr als zwei Drittel der russischen Exporte nach Deutschland waren Erdgas, Öl und
Steinkohle." (For Russia, Germany is more important as a trading partner than elsewhere. Of
all German imports, only three percent came from Russia in 2017 - and only two percent of
exports go to Putin's Reich. For the Russians, Germany was the second most important Partner
behind China, accounting for 8.6 percent of its total foreign trade. And more than two-thirds
of Russian exports to Germany were natural gas, Oil and coal.)
Clearly, the total trade turnover between Russia and Germany represents just a small
fraction of their totals, and both nations would likely find a replacement if a total embargo
was to ensue.
The US began pressuring countries to forego nuclear power to support the Petro Dollar in
1978. One big reason they deposed the Shah who was planning to go big with nuclear power with
orders for about 20 French and /or German reactors
The TMI accident was likely a false flag run by the newly established FEMA.
If the restrictions on recycling nuclear fuel rods were eliminated there would not be a
disposal problem.
Germanys decision to phase out nuclear makes US happy. Germany will only accept Nord
Stream 2 if it does not bypass Ukraine. This also makes US happy although they would prefer
no Nord Stream 2. As said up thread this is as much about posturing before the Putin meeting
and gaining leverage.
A bit O/T but it appears rare metals needed by US military and tech industries are on the
list of products subject to tarrifs. China basically has a monopoly on these metals so the
only short term purpose is to drive up prices for weapons and tech gadgets which get passed
onto the taxpayer/consumer. In effect the tarrifs are just another revenue source to finance
tax cuts to corporations and the rich.
Longer term of course the tarrifs make mining some of these metals in the US more
feasible, at some cost to the environment , seeing as EPA has been gutted. But for that to
happen the tarrifs need to be more or less a permanent thing. Its not like they dont have
tarrifs on food and clothes from China. Just expanding the revenue base. The middle class
takes the hit in the end, whats left of it anyways
Trump as a used car salesman does not make much sense either. In fact I don't think he can
spell to sense. It telling that he is impervious to the mood in both NATO and the EU.
His middle name should be clueless. He is truly clueless, he will not get an increase in
defense expenditure, it would be political self goal (Hello Engeland, no not football, that's
more like clueless) for any major political party to demand that, the electorate across
Europe are firmly against it. Ohh and who cares about Perfidious Albion, they are not part of
Europe anymore, they are some Islands with bad weather in the North Sea.
Seabird sanctuary ?
Europe hopefully comes to its senses and casts of the American yoke, and fashion its own
defences, based on ITS needs.
thanks b.. informative and interesting comments from everyone too.. thanks..
trump is a hard guy to read in some respects... he is like a blunt object on the one hand,
but he might have some alternative purpose in mind, which would include the meet with trump
in 5 days..
if he wants to get rid of nato, i think he is going about it the right way.. i can't see
why he would though as that wouldn't benefit the mil complex...i can't see the purpose of
nato either way and perhaps it would be best if the poodles let go of having the usa as it's
leader in the 21st century.. consider a different approach... i am not sure what canada and
other western type poodles can do with all this..
@7 karlof1.. thanks for the pepe link... i just don't see the approach - bullying - taken
by the usa to iraq, as working out.. i am listing the demands for others to see
firsthand..
"
1. 30% of all the oil in Iraq should be American-controlled – and it's up to the US do
what it wants with it.
2. Washington must have full access and control of Iraqi banks.
3. All business and trade with Iran must cease right now.
4. The Hashd al-Shaabi, known as People Mobilization Units (PMUs), instrumental in the
victorious fight against Daesh (Islamic State),
must be immediately disbanded."
the usa takes this approach based on weakness, not strength... in fact - if one was to
read trumps comments on the surface here - it is the same thing that b has highlighted in
this post.. again - the usa is not working from a place of strength.. it is like a wild
animal in the last phase of it's life - not good..
Lost in the story is fact it is not new supply of natural gas to Europe. It is new pipe
lines including two others with the sole intent of bypassing Ukraine. Presently near all
Russian natural gas passes through Ukraine on its way to Western Europe and particularly ..
Germany. The Ukraine regime has been reaping the benefit of transmission fees and stealing
billions of cubic meters of gas, on which they also charged transmission fees. This was the
basis behind a recent dispute panel finding in favor of Ukraine and the gas theft. The
Americans and willing European Poodles would very much like to keep the gas flowing through
Naziville where they would maintain a strangle hold. Gazprom, the principle Russian supplier,
more or less said f**K you and formed consortiums to build new pipe lines
@32 So if Germany gets gas through Nordstream they are 'controlled by Russia' but if they
get it via Ukraine they aren't. Seems Nordstream would be good insurance against Ukrainian
meddling. Cheaper too, a very sound business strategy that Trump should appreciate.
Another theory is that Trump is just like every other spokesmodel for the US part of the
AZ Empire.
He in a SAG actor, with decades of experience in professional entertainment though, so he
knows how to play to his audience. They love the sh*t out of him, even as he sticks it to
them harder and harder.
"... President Trump's demand last week that OPEC "reduce prices now" or US military protection of OPEC countries may not continue almost sounded desperate. But if anything, Trump's bluntness is refreshing: if, as he suggests, the purpose of the US military – with a yearly total budget of a trillion dollars – is to protect OPEC members in exchange for "cheap oil," how cheap is that oil? ..."
"... Exactly how traditional 'US Mideast policies' benefit the average American however remains a mystery. Many of these questionable policies are never critically examined in the open – at least not the big ones involving that 'special relationship' with you-know-who. Never. ..."
"... Iran's crime? That nation's alleged 'sponsorship of terrorism' in support of the Palestinian struggle against Zionist occupation, as well as other anti-Zionist resistance movements in Lebanon, Syria and beyond. ..."
"... Yet it is Israel that is foremost occupying power in that region and it is Israel that is the expanding nuclear power. Meanwhile, the Zionist-lead BDS campaign against Iran is nothing less than a full-blown economic war. At the same time, Israel benefits from unconditional and continuous US subsidies. ..."
"... In no small way, Israel sees its mission to dominate the region and expand its borders as a religious duty. Destiny. This puts Israel in a class by itself. And unlike its neighbors (including Iran) Israel has nuclear WMD. ..."
President Trump is finding that his threats and heated rhetoric do not always have the
effect he wishes. As his Administration warns countries to stop buying Iranian oil by November
or risk punishment by the United States, a nervous international oil market is pushing prices
ever higher, threatening the economic prosperity he claims credit for. President Trump's
response has been to demand that OPEC boost its oil production by two million barrels per day
to calm markets and bring prices down.
Perhaps no one told him that Iran was a founding member of OPEC?
When President Trump Tweeted last week that Saudi Arabia agreed to begin pumping additional
oil to make up for the removal of Iran from the international markets, the Saudis very quickly
corrected him, saying that while they could increase capacity if needed, no promise to do so
had been made.
The truth is, if the rest of the world followed Trump's demands and returned to sanctions
and boycotting Iranian oil, some 2.7 million barrels per day currently supplied by Iran would
be very difficult to make up elsewhere. Venezuela, which has enormous reserves but is also
suffering under, among other problems, crippling US sanctions, is shrinking out of the world
oil market.
Iraq has not recovered its oil production capacity since its "liberation" by the US in 2003
and the al-Qaeda and ISIS insurgencies that followed it.
Last week, Bloomberg reported that "a complete shutdown of Iranian sales could push oil
prices above $120 a barrel if Saudi Arabia can't keep up." Would that crash the US economy?
Perhaps. Is Trump willing to risk it?
President Trump's demand last week that OPEC "reduce prices now" or US military
protection of OPEC countries may not continue almost sounded desperate. But if anything,
Trump's bluntness is refreshing: if, as he suggests, the purpose of the US military –
with a yearly total budget of a trillion dollars – is to protect OPEC members in exchange
for "cheap oil," how cheap is that oil?
At the end, China, Russia, and others are not only unlikely to follow Trump's demands that
Iran again be isolated: they in fact stand to benefit from Trump's bellicosity toward Iran. One
Chinese refiner has just announced that it would cancel orders of US crude and instead turn to
Iran for supplies. How many others might follow and what might it mean?
Ironically, President Trump's "get tough" approach to Iran may end up benefitting
Washington's named adversaries Russia and China – perhaps even Iran. The wisest approach
is unfortunately the least likely at this point: back off from regime change, back off from
war-footing, back off from sanctions. Trump may eventually find that the cost of ignoring this
advice may be higher than he imagined.
Trump may eventually find that the cost of ignoring [the advice to back off from Iran]
may be higher than he imagined.
Perhaps he's counting on not being President by then. Another case of IBGYBG (I'll be
gone, you'll be gone), an attitude that seems to be infecting bankers, Wall Street, and the
rest of the U.S. élite lately. A cataclysm is coming, and they can see it.
Why is Zio-America treating Iran with such hostility?
Iran and Israel are locked in a vicious cold war. Their animosities date back to mythical
antiquity. One alleged episode is even celebrated in the Jewish celebration of 'Purim'.
Take a look at the breathtaking insight that Gilad Atzmon has to offer about Purim:
In any case, Iran and Israel's antipathies for one another shouldn't concern superpower
America. Except that it does.
Like American television, Washington happens to be Israeli-held territory. Haven't you
heard?
This is why Zio-Washington invariably sides with Israel in all of its disputes, even when
1) Israel is the aggressor, 2) even when Israel is slaughtering powerless civilians who are
protesting their subjugation, and 3) even when US interests are not at stake or even in play.
And this uniform deference from Washington is thoroughly bipartisan. It is 'business as
usual'. It's basically unanimous. Both Parties. No dissent.
Many just call it 'US Mideast policy'. Ironclad. 'Unshakable'. But don't laugh or smirk.
Doing so might be seen as 'anti-Semitic'.
Exactly how traditional 'US Mideast policies' benefit the average American however
remains a mystery. Many of these questionable policies are never critically examined in the
open – at least not the big ones involving that 'special relationship' with
you-know-who. Never.
These rigid policies help explain how Crypto-Israelis in America – using Washington
as their proxy – have successfully brought the US into Israel's cold war against
Iran.
Zionist operatives have not only orchestrated the decades-long freeze of billions of
dollars in Iranian assets that belong to the Iranian people, but they have launched a global
(and crypto-Zionist) 'Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions' campaign against the relatively
peaceful nation of Iran.
Iran's crime? That nation's alleged 'sponsorship of terrorism' in support of the
Palestinian struggle against Zionist occupation, as well as other anti-Zionist resistance
movements in Lebanon, Syria and beyond.
Yet it is Israel that is foremost occupying power in that region and it is Israel that
is the expanding nuclear power. Meanwhile, the Zionist-lead BDS campaign against Iran is
nothing less than a full-blown economic war. At the same time, Israel benefits from
unconditional and continuous US subsidies.
Politicians who dare question this phenomena – or who wander off the Zionist
plantation in Washington – tend to disappear. Rapidly. Journalists, too.
In no small way, Israel sees its mission to dominate the region and expand its borders
as a religious duty. Destiny. This puts Israel in a class by itself. And unlike its neighbors
(including Iran) Israel has nuclear WMD.
Due to Israeli influence here, Americans are not only actively supporting various Zionist
war efforts, but they are also paying billions more for their gasoline since Zionists have
managed to prohibit the purchase Iranian oil throughout the West. These economic 'choices'
are what Americans unwittingly make – even though the 'average Joe' remains totally
unaware of them.
Indeed, even though Iran wants to be a trading partner with America and bring its oil onto
the world market, Zio-Washington says 'NO!' US consumers be damned. The Iranian people be
damned.
This is not the first time that US economic interests have taken a back seat to Israel's.
Please recall the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, Zio-Washington's intervention on behalf of Israel
during that conflict, the ensuing Arab oil embargo, and the disastrous recession that
followed.
But Zio-America never turned it back on Israel, even though American citizens never had
the opportunity to determine their allies or policies one way or another. US support of
Israel is mandatory. It's been this way since LBJ.
Today, Israel is maneuvering Zio-Washington to do to Iran what it did to Iraq, Libya and
Syria; namely, spread destabilization and impose 'creative destruction' upon all nations that
pose any long-term threat to the Zionist State.
"... Iran has better – and legal – cause to be in Syria than Victoria Nuland had to meddle in the Ukraine. Impunitivism – do as we tell you, not as we do. ..."
"... I'm not sure which is more worrisome, if Pompeo knew how absurd that is but said it anyway, or if he really doesn't even know ..."
"... What do you not get about us being the ONE INDISPENSABLE NATION (OIN)? The OIN determines and enforces the New World Order! "Rights" don't apply to us. Does God Almighty worry about whether He has the right to do something? No! We have become as Him. ..."
"... It's sort of an interesting concept, and a very new one. I can't recall American saying that Country X can have no dealings with Country Y. I don't think much will come of it. Even assuming that the statement was serious, which there is really no way of knowing, given the Trump/Pompeo propensity to lie, the Iranians must assume that Trump and Pompeo are too ignorant and incompetent to do anything effective about it. ..."
"... No one has any idea when or why to take these people seriously. They say all this blood-curdling stuff one day and a few days later appear to have forgotten it completely and fixated on some other stupid notion. ..."
Mike Pompeo gave an interview to Sky News Arabia
this week in which he made some remarkable statements:
Well, Iran needs to get out of Syria. They have no business there. There's no reason for
them to be there. There's been Iranian influence there for a long time. Iranian forces,
Iranian militias must leave the country.
If Iran has no business in Syria, the U.S. certainly doesn't have any business keeping
troops there. Leave aside the absurdity of the statement that the ally of a government has no
business supporting that government in a war, and just consider the breathtaking hypocrisy of
this statement coming from a U.S. official.
The U.S. is engaged in hostilities in at least a
half dozen countries around the world and attacks other governments at will. Our government has
been actively supporting the Saudi-led attack on Yemen for more than three years, and we have
had U.S. force operating illegally in Syrian territory and airspace for almost four. It is the
height of arrogance and folly to issue this ultimatum. The U.S. has no right or authority to
make such a demand, and the administration should be focused instead on withdrawing our forces
from wars that we have no business fighting or supporting.
What do you not get about us being the ONE INDISPENSABLE NATION (OIN)? The OIN determines and enforces the New World Order! "Rights" don't apply to us. Does God
Almighty worry about whether He has the right to do something? No! We have become as Him.
It's sort of an interesting concept, and a very new one. I can't recall American saying that
Country X can have no dealings with Country Y. I don't think much will come of it. Even assuming that the statement was serious, which
there is really no way of knowing, given the Trump/Pompeo propensity to lie, the Iranians must
assume that Trump and Pompeo are too ignorant and incompetent to do anything effective about
it.
No one has any idea when or why to take these people seriously. They say all this
blood-curdling stuff one day and a few days later appear to have forgotten it completely and
fixated on some other stupid notion.
"... It is indeed disturbing that the abandonment of the rule of law by the Trump Administration and its allies in the media has meant that Washington is resorting more and more to sanctions as an extreme form of punishment in order to enforce its geopolitical demands. ..."
"... From neocons' perspective, Iran is guilty twice. First, just like much bigger and stronger Russia and China, it refuses to toe the line of Washington Politburo. Second, unlike Saudi Arabia, it refuses to toe the Israeli line, as well. However, neocons will be frustrated for two reasons: 1. Russia and China won't sell out Iran; 2. Neither Israel, nor even the US can succeed in war of aggression against it. So, neocons have two options: either keep gnashing their teeth impotently, or spur the US or Israel on to suicide. They are afraid of both options. Hence the hysterics. ..."
"... An intriguing development in the recent popular unrest in Iran has been the appearance of demonstrators shouting slogans in support of Reza Pahlavi. It is not clear to me to whom these referred, whether the cy-devant Crown Prince (son of the late shah) or his grandfather, the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty. At any rate there seems to be the revival of some monarchist sentiment, perhaps reflecting a sense that however authoritarian he may have been, the late shah was less oppressive than the current theocracy. ..."
"... I don't believe Russian control clique harbors any delusions on the future prospects of Russia if it continues to yield and withdraw. Making a geopolitical stand in Ukraine, Syria and a bit under-the-counter, in Serbia, points towards it. There is a large difference between letting Iran carry Syria and call the shots there, and allowing Iran to be annihilated by Russia's eternal enemies. ..."
"... Trump did promise to end PCPOA, which he has done, but he also promised to put an end to useless wars in the Middle East, which he has not done. He is now listening to neocon advisers, to include Giuliani, Haley and Bolton, who are telling him what needs to be done to bring about regime change in Iran. ..."
"... There are endless examples in history of military allies who turned up to help, never left and ended up as the colonial power. ..."
"... Watch Lavrov's speech from last week, in which he points out that Iran was invited by the legitimate, recognized government of Syria. Please share a citation showing a Syrian official saying that they want Iran to leave or have requested Iran to leave. Hezbollah and Iran will help Syria recover every inch of Syrian territory, including the Golan Heights. The imbalance in power is disappearing as Syria, Hezbollah and Iran increase the numbers, accuracy and range of their missile arsenals. This, combined with the improved AD of the Syrians, due mostly to Russian cooperation, spells the sweet ending of the Israeli impunity. Israeli attack jets will continue to fall from the sky, and the response to attacks on Syria will be more missile attacks on military targets in the Golan Heights. ..."
"... the intention is ultimately to destroy Iran and replace it with a compliant puppet like they have in most of Europe and the USA. ..."
"... No, Israel did it because they don't want the Iranians there for their own reasons. They are lucky that the Syrians and Russians also don't want them to remain. There is a temporary confluence of interest. I assume the Iranians have gotten the message. ..."
"... The saddest part of all this is that Trump is working so hard to please Israel by hurting the ancient enemy of the Jews, the Persians, and in return gets called a Nazi by the Jewish, which is to say mainstream, media who work tirelessly to undermine him and his government. So if he attacks Iran, he's a Nazi. If he doesn't attack Iran, he's also a Nazi. If he's going to be a Nazi anyway, why not just save all that American blood and money and leave Iran alone? ..."
"... The advantage in looking at US – Iran history is you will then understand that all of it has been nothing but the brain farts of the ever changing interest of ever changing ideologues in ever changing administrations. If stupidity carried a death sentence the US would be six feet under. ..."
Oddly, the White House seems unaware of the fact that Iran is neither Libya nor Iraq. It has
a strong and historic national identity that means that it does and will resist being bullied
by outside powers, including the "leader of the free world" United States. The neocon and
pro-Israel script that has evidently taken control of Trump pushes all the wrong buttons as it
basically employs an increasing number and severity of sanctions to seek to wreck the economy
and create discord in Iran that will eventually bring people out into the streets in large
numbers. That means in practice using not only sanctions that selectively targeting "bad guys"
like the Revolutionary Guards but also benign institutions that exist to maintain social
stability inside the country.
Reports from inside Iran suggest that the renewed and additional sanctions are already
hurting the Iranian people while at the same time having little impact on the government
commitment to remain in Syria, which is the principal bone of contention at the moment
vis-à-vis the joint U.S./Israeli/Saudi grossly exaggerated and self-serving assessment
of what Iran may or may not be doing to destabilize the Middle East.
Two organizations which have recently come under sustained attack by the neocons and their
allies are the "Execution of Imam Khomeini's Order" (EIKO) and its associated Barakat
Foundation. The EIKO's principal
mission is to help poor families in Iran and to perform other charitable works, but it
has been assailed as a major economic resource controlled by the Supreme Religious Leader
Ayatollah Khamenei's office, which misrepresents how the foundation is organized and
functions.
Leading the charge against EIKO, inevitably, has been renowned neocon Canadian import and
Iranophobe Mark Dubowitz , Chief Executive
of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), who has described how the Iranian
leadership controls a
vast business empire which must be targeted with U.S. sanctions to punish the government
and strip it of the resources
available to make mischief.
Other outlets in the pro-neocon-inclined and friendly to Israel media have also picked up on
the theme that Iran must be the target of what amounts to economic warfare. The National
Interest recently ran an article
advocating the imposition of oil sanctions on Iran in general while also targeting EIKO in
particular in order to "change Iran's behavior," which is presumed by the authors to be very
bad though without any real explanation of why that is so.
And the U.S. Congress is also in on the act. As is nearly always the case, the U.S. House of
Representative's Oversight and Government Reform Committee's subcommittee on National Security
sought expert testimony on how to punish Iran but only looked for speakers who were inclined to
take a hard line. They received that kind of
enlightenment from the FDD's own Richard Goldberg, who is hardly a disinterested observer
on the subject.
Goldberg begins by making his case for bipartisan ire directed against Tehran, gushing about
how "[he] had the privilege to work with many talented people – Democrats and Republicans
– who shared a passion for keeping America and our allies safe from the long list of
threats posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Together, we put forward numerous bipartisan
bills to increase the pressure on Iran. It is my sincere hope that we can find a way to
resuscitate the bipartisan spirit that once infused this important national security
issue."
Goldberg, who is a bit vague on exactly what kind of "long list of threats" Iran represents,
was senior foreign policy adviser to Israel-firster hawk former Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois.
He celebrates in his FDD bio how
"[he] was instrumental in the deployment of a U.S. missile defense radar to the Negev Desert
– the first-ever full-time deployment of U.S. forces in Israel. In the Senate, Rich
emerged as a leading architect of the toughest sanctions imposed on the Islamic Republic of
Iran. He was the lead Republican negotiator for three rounds of sanctions targeting the Central
Bank of Iran, the SWIFT financial messaging service and entire sectors of the Iranian
economy."
There has been some pushback against the war-by-sanctions approach currently being advanced
by the Trump Administration. Robert Fontina of
Counterpunch has rejected the depiction of EIKO as anything but a charitable foundation.
The truth is that EIKO engages in major social projects, including rural poverty alleviation,
empowering women, home and school building, and provision of healthcare. American sanctions
against it and similar entities hit ordinary Iranians' lives by producing food insecurity while
also restricting the supplies of needed medications. Ahmad Noroozi of the Barakat Foundation claims that
numerous Iranians have already been affected by U.S.-initiated sanctions directed against
his country, restricting access to cancer treatments and other pharmaceuticals. And it is all
aimed at fomenting social unrest and ultimately regime change.
Iranian writer Soraya
Sepahpour-Ulrich , no friend of the Iranian government, has declared that American
sanctions directed against the Iranian economy and people are little more than "sanctioned
terrorism." Her assessment is undeniably correct.
It is indeed disturbing that the abandonment of the rule of law by the Trump Administration
and its allies in the media has meant that Washington is resorting more and more to sanctions
as an extreme form of punishment in order to enforce its geopolitical demands. Countries that
oppose Washington's policies are now routinely subjected to financial and trade penalties.
Cuba, North Korea, and Iran have recently been joined by Russia and Syria as targets of the
U.S. Treasury Department. Even America's European allies and friends are being threatened
if they seek to buy Iranian oil or cooperate with Russian energy initiatives.
The sad fact is that the pretense of U.S. global leadership now consists of a basket of new
"rules" that are both arbitrary and basically illegal supported by pretexts that are
essentially fabricated. Consider the frequent fallacious designation of Iran as "the world's
biggest state sponsor of terrorism" and the repeated false assertions from U.S. and Israeli
government sources that Tehran is secretly building a nuclear bomb. Trump has become
effectively the mouthpiece of Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, with the latter calling the
shots. Shortly after Trump had announced American withdrawal from JCPOA, Israel
mounted a series of deadly air strikes against Syria, specifically targeting Iranian
military personnel present by invitation in the country to fight ISIS and other terrorist
groups. It was an incident that could have rapidly escalated into a broader war, which was
clearly the Israeli intention.
There are deadly consequences to following the Israeli and Saudi lead into a possible major
war with Iran. If sanctions produce desperation inside Iran, an apparent breakdown in order
could easily invite a hypocritical U.S. and Israeli "humanitarian" intervention, possibly
escalating into an international conflict, something that the White House appears to not
understand. As is often the case, the Trump Administration has not developed sufficient
maturity to appreciate that if one pushes hard against a certain country or group of countries
there will be an equally strong reaction, and the results might not be pretty. Punishing the
Iranian people without any real understanding of what might emerge in pursuit of nebulous
political objectives just might not be a good idea.
The Saudis don't care what comes next in Iran, as long as Shia Islam is battered into
submission. The Israelis don't care as long as what comes next is subservient to Israel. The
US wants only that Iran bows to the WASP Empire, the Anglo-Zionist Empire.
All 3 would be happy with Satan Jr ruling Iran with the brutality of Stalin times Pol Pot
and the sexual morality of the North American Man Boy Love Association, as long as Satan Jr
is anti-Shia and pro-Saudi, pro-Israeli, and pro-WASP.
From neocons' perspective, Iran is guilty twice. First, just like much bigger and stronger
Russia and China, it refuses to toe the line of Washington Politburo. Second, unlike Saudi
Arabia, it refuses to toe the Israeli line, as well. However, neocons will be frustrated for
two reasons: 1. Russia and China won't sell out Iran; 2. Neither Israel, nor even the US can
succeed in war of aggression against it. So, neocons have two options: either keep gnashing
their teeth impotently, or spur the US or Israel on to suicide. They are afraid of both
options. Hence the hysterics.
First will come the false flag attacks Iranian govt gassing its own people, the pictures of
dying children, old people, then the proxies will follow mass demonstrations in Iran,
strikes, hunger, carbombs, and massacres,,,,Human Rights Watch, Amnesty international, and
the European parliament will push for Nato, and the UN to respond, France will be the first
out demanding in the UN Security Council swift actions against Iran to prevent a new
Holocauts, Nicky Haley (US-UN) will support the measure fully. NO need for verification the
AP, CNN, CBS, BBC already reporting fake stories as facts. The key for Iran will be to rally
its population not to enter into a Iran vrs. its own people narrative. Iranian people must
hold it together with mass public support of its govt an MILITARY. Israel will stay in the
shadows intensely working undercover from Syria, Irak, Turkey, even launching air attacks on
Iran while denying any involment absolutely etc. If Iran is attacked they must build
alliances with Hezbollah, Syria, Hamas, and activate Irans proxies abroad. Will Russia side
with Iran? what about the Chinese? both actively trading with Israel to overcome ironically
USA sanctions trigger by the AIPAC. Both China, Russia are the wild cards maybe? The
bloodbath will start, tye USA will deploy its troops already in Jordan, Syria, the name, the
word Israel will disappeared from any news cast, then the NBC, Dsicovery Channel, CNN,
National Geography will run marathon specials bout evil Iran, the new Nazis, and the news
about the coming Holocaust the new prophecies of Nostradamus peredicting that Israel must not
be abandoned..etc. The outcome of the WWIII will decide the future of the MEast, with/out
Palestine vrs. Greater Israel, will Israel become the energy, HUB for Europe and hence
enslave the European economies??? will the Saudis become a proxy state for Israel Can the USA
afford another costly long protracted war in the Globe??will americans WAKE up, will the
military be overexpanded, .A new global REalignmnet of the a new global order what will it
look like ?? WHO wins/loses???
Pro-Vatican not pro-WASP it's an anti-WASP alliance.
Erik Prince and the Case for Active, Documented Collusion Against Iran
The Intercept
Published on Jun 2, 2018 Jeremy Scahill breaks down the Trump Tower meeting Blackwater founder Erik Prince set up
with a representative of the Saudi and Emirati royals and an Israeli who runs propaganda and
media manipulation operations.
There is one major common link that runs through the agenda of all the participants in
this Trump Tower meeting, and it is one which has gotten very little attention. And that is
their shared hatred of Iran and their desire for regime change.
We shouldn't force everything into the box of Russia, Russia, Russia, especially when
the evidence is so overwhelming that there are also motives relating to Iran that may explain
part of the agenda that these nations and Erik Prince were pushing when they embarked on a
campaign to secretly support Donald Trump's election.
Very important information to be aware of in this context:
Jorjani's connection in/with the White House was probably the (Catholic)
Bannon-Gorka-Flynn nexus, plus people like Erik Prince were probably in the mix, too. I
think they wanted to hostilely take over the Alt Right, but then were probably distracted
by the entire Russian collusion delusion drama, and left Jorjani high and dry
Jason has always strongly identified with what he calls the Iranian Renaissance
movement. Jason informed us that, after Charlottesville, he had been given an ultimatum:
leave the Alt-Right or leave the Iranian resistance. It reveals much that Jason preferred
the interests of a Middle Eastern country over a movement that represents the identities of
White people in America and Europe. As his strange airing of dirty laundry reveals, he
valued the Alt-Right as a means of advancing Iran.
The Iranian Renaissance is an attempt to de-Islamify Iran and return it to its Aryan and
even Zoroastrian roots, making the country a staunch ally of Europe and identitarian
movements. Laudable . . . quixotic . . . perhaps dangerously de-stabilizing . . . I
ultimately find this movement utterly dispensable to our broader goals. My personal
instincts are towards realism, and I would have no qualm with European states having
diplomatic, respectful relations with the current Iranian regime. Haven't we had enough
"regime change" in the Middle East to fill a lifetime?
An intriguing development in the recent popular unrest in Iran has been the appearance of
demonstrators shouting slogans in support of Reza Pahlavi. It is not clear to me to whom
these referred, whether the cy-devant Crown Prince (son of the late shah) or his
grandfather, the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty. At any rate there seems to be the revival of
some monarchist sentiment, perhaps reflecting a sense that however authoritarian he may have
been, the late shah was less oppressive than the current theocracy.
If a parallel could be drawn between the late shah and any other historical ruler, it
would have to be Charles I. Khomeini was the parallel to Cromwell, and the present government
of mullahs and crazed militiamen parallels that of the Protectorate after Oliver's death.
Were our government as adept as that of Louis XIV was in the 17th century, it would
identify a senior officer in the Iranian military to play the role of Monck, get him to
overthrow the mullahs, and restore Reza II to the Peacock Throne, as Monck restored Charles
II.
The U.S. foreign policy establishment have not, it seems to me, considered the usefulness
of constitutional monarchy as a stabilising force in a new parliamentary democracy. The late
king of Afghanistan offered to go to that poor country after the Taliban government were
deposed, to convene a loya jirga (tribal council) to work out some settlement that
might return the region to some sort of peace and order. He was well enough respected to have
succeeded, but his offer was rebuffed. A friend of mine asked some people he knew at the
State Department why. They responded, essentially, that "we don't do monarchies." The foreign
policy establishment instead installed its candidate, Karzai. We know how that worked
out.
What is Russia supposed to get in return ?
Something like half the world's oil passes through the Straits of Hormuz, a few Silk Worm
missiles are enough to sink a few tankers, and western life grinds to a halt.
I don't believe Russian control clique harbors any delusions on the future prospects of
Russia if it continues to yield and withdraw.
Making a geopolitical stand in Ukraine, Syria and a bit under-the-counter, in Serbia, points
towards it. There is a large difference between letting Iran carry Syria and call the shots there, and
allowing Iran to be annihilated by Russia's eternal enemies.
Besides, China is overly reliant on economic cooperation with the West to pursue a
confrontationist policy regarding Iran or any other distant issue in the world, as a matter
of fact.
Israel mounted a series of deadly air strikes against Syria, specifically targeting
Iranian military personnel present by invitation in the country to fight ISIS and other
terrorist groups. It was an incident that could have rapidly escalated into a broader war,
which was clearly the Israeli intention.
Israeli intention was clearly to ensure that the Iranians don't stay in Syria after
the government wins the civil war. Other supporters of the Iranian withdrawal include Russia
and Assad's government itself.
There are endless examples in history of military allies who turned up to help, never left
and ended up as the colonial power. Does Giraldi recognize that the Iranian government is not
one you would want having military dominance over your country?
Also, you refer to America refusing to trade with Iran, a country that calls America
"Satan", as "terrorism". Is it always "terrorism" when you refuse to trade with someone? Or
is it only "terrorism" on the basis of some sort of who whom thing? Are there rules
for determining it? I'm asking for a friend?
The neocon and Israeli script has not taken control of Trump at all. Trump promised Israel a
war with Iran if he were elected president and he is in the process of making good on his
promise.
Not correct defab – Trump did promise to end PCPOA, which he has done, but he also
promised to put an end to useless wars in the Middle East, which he has not done. He is now
listening to neocon advisers, to include Giuliani, Haley and Bolton, who are telling him what
needs to be done to bring about regime change in Iran.
As Ron Paul has pointed out, isn't it more likely that the pro-Shah rhetoric of the
demonstrators is simply a giveaway sign of the Washington/CIA script they're following?
Question is, after nearly two decades of constant war, will the US military forces have the
stomach for another invasion and occupation, replete with IEDs and terrorist resistance? Can
the US simply topple the govt and leave a mess behind? What's the game plan?
Sure. If by Western life you mean that in China. What do you think would happen to life in
Iran were that rather simplistic arrangement to come about?
Here lies the true importance of Pax Americana and the main unspoken mission of the US
military. Maintain the stable flow of Middle Eastern crude exports to the world and stable
ship-born commerce.
The United States itself gets very little of its energy supplied from the Gulf. But Europe
and Asia are dependent on this – and therefore peace.
A month-long closure of the Straits would have little dramatic consequence in the US. the
amount of oil in pipelines, on tankers, in refineries, and in storage would dampen any short
term effects. Panic can be managed
A nuclear strike on Ras Tanura is a different story.
But life in Iran? What do you think would happen to life in Iran were Tehran to carry out
its threats?
You keep amazing me! What a hypocrisy, when you march with god on your side, your president
makes his oath on the bible, it is great, but when somebody else does some similar thing it
is outrageous! Who do you think you are?
Washington obeys when the objective is realistic. I'm of the opinion that the costs and
risks involved in taking Iran down are too high. It could cause the implosion of the global
economy, the beginning of the collapse of the house of cards. Stirring up some protests in
Iran will do nothing. A military attack on Iran will result in the fall of Israel, missile
attacks on American bases in the region, and most certainly the closing of the Strait of
Hormuz.
(((They))) are powerful, but certainly not omnipotent.
As Ron Paul has pointed out, isn't it more likely that the pro-Shah rhetoric of the
demonstrators is simply a giveaway sign of the Washington/CIA script they're following?
That might be reasonable if there were any evidence of a serious effort by Washington or
the CIA to restore the Iranian monarchy. There isn't any, as far as I'vd been able to tell.
The CIA and other elements of the deep state don't turn on a dime, and to all appearances
they were all in favor of Obama's capitulation to the regime of the mullahs. I doubt that the
Trump administration could orchestrate anti-government demonstrations in Iran no matter how
hard it tried.
Watch Lavrov's speech from last week, in which he points out that Iran was invited by the
legitimate, recognized government of Syria. Please share a citation showing a Syrian official
saying that they want Iran to leave or have requested Iran to leave. Hezbollah and Iran will
help Syria recover every inch of Syrian territory, including the Golan Heights. The imbalance
in power is disappearing as Syria, Hezbollah and Iran increase the numbers, accuracy and
range of their missile arsenals. This, combined with the improved AD of the Syrians, due
mostly to Russian cooperation, spells the sweet ending of the Israeli impunity. Israeli
attack jets will continue to fall from the sky, and the response to attacks on Syria will be
more missile attacks on military targets in the Golan Heights.
Zionists have complete control of the U.S. gov and are using the U.S. to fight Israels wars
and so the war against Iran is a done deal as any country Israel wants destroyed the U.S.
does Israels bidding.
Proof of Israels control of the U.S. gov is Israels and the zionist controlled deep states
attack on 911 and the murder of 3000 Americans and Israel got away with it, that is control
in spades.
OK cool – but you made it sound like Israel bombed Iranian targets in Syria out of
the goodness of their hearts because they care about Syrian sovereignty. Sorry if I misread it, carry on. Peace.
No, Israel did it because they don't want the Iranians there for their own reasons. They
are lucky that the Syrians and Russians also don't want them to remain. There is a temporary
confluence of interest. I assume the Iranians have gotten the message.
That's a wet dream of Israel. But it won't happen. The elites which support Putin in
Russia and Xi in China understand that they are in a besieged fortress situation: a breach of
any gate means that the fortress falls to the enemy. They won't sell out even inconsequential
places like Syria, Venezuela, or North Korea. Not because they are nice or heroic, but
because of correctly understood self-interest.
I don't know. Iran certainly needs nukes, as the comparison of the fates of Saddam and
Ghaddafi, neither of whom had WMDs, with that of Un, who has nukes, clearly shows. Nukes are
the only thing that can deter the US aggression against Iran, as the US never attacks anyone
who has WMDs. After all, cowardice is the only quality of the US elites that is good for
humankind.
I'm still holding out hope for Trump. I'm thinking, to keep his Zionist flanks at bay he
continues with his bellicose words while really being less war mongering, like he's been on
Korea. A cynical stance by Trump keeping Neochoens and shit libs like the Hollywood Elite off
balanced in their attacks on him, since they're all Israeli firsters. Then again I could be
overestimating his political savvy however his lastest statement* on NATO, the EU and
Vladimir has made me feel good.
*Trump: Putin summit 'may be easier' than NATO, UK visit Speaking to reporters before
departing the White House for the meetings in Europe, Trump said, "Frankly, Putin may be the
easiest of them all." Ya gotta love the guy as he's making the Cabal squirm.
The Neo con dream is to get rid of Iran because it blocks the way for the incremental
escalation of ISIS style asymmetric proxy forces to leap ahead and progress the Grand
Chessboard scenario up into Central Asia, and Russia, and stop the Silk Road. Put the
kibosh on that whole unwanted side show Silk Road don't make money for GM , or maybe
it does, go figure.
The saddest part of all this is that Trump is working so hard to please Israel by hurting the
ancient enemy of the Jews, the Persians, and in return gets called a Nazi by the Jewish,
which is to say mainstream, media who work tirelessly to undermine him and his government.
So if he attacks Iran, he's a Nazi. If he doesn't attack Iran, he's also a Nazi. If he's going to be a Nazi anyway, why not just save all that American blood and money and
leave Iran alone?
The advantage in looking at US – Iran history is you will then understand that all of
it has been nothing but the brain farts of the ever changing interest of ever changing
ideologues in ever changing administrations. If stupidity carried a death sentence the US
would be six feet under.
Like I said, I hope he's playing both sides against the middle and make a lot of noise vis
a vis Iran but not attacking it. But we shall see, there are a lot of rabid dogs in his
administration, Bolton, Miller, Haley and even 'meathead'* Pompeo. Hopefully the Zio-cons
don't have total control.
*Small 'm' as opposed to big 'M', Meathead Rob Reiner, LOL!!!
That is true, but you must stress that each exists first because of the British Empire.
And you must stress that the CIA, the Mossad, and the Saudi General Intelligence Secretary
are all children of British secret service.
It is also essential to know that SAVAK, the Shah's secret police organization, was
founded by both branches of WASP secret service, Brit and American.
By the start of the 19th century. the philo-Semitism that is central to WASP culture
– due to the Judaizing heresy that was Anglo-Saxon Puritanism – had long left its
specific religious origin and become more broadly cultural. With the deepening interest in
all things 'exotic' and 'oriental,' it began to move from simply gravitating to backing Jews
and Jewish notions against whatever rather obviously even seemed like it might be some
remnant of Christendom. And that movement made a growing number of WASP Elites by the dawn of
Victorianism pro-Arabic and pro-Islam.
WASP culture has never lost any of its defining pro-Semitism, but the way the pro-Semitism
has been expressed has altered. Since the 19th century, it has meant a battle within the WASP
Elites between those who are pro-Jewish and those who are pro-Arabic/pro-Islamic.
The alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia is the ultimate wet dream of WASP Elites,
because it represents peace and total cooperation between the two camps of philo-Semitism
within WASP culture.
There's more to our trade war with China than Tubby the Grifter tweeting MAGA. China is being punished by tariffs because they are still buying oil from Iran. Trump is
doing this to please our Overlord, Israel and to hell with the consequences for
Americans.
My fantasy is that one day, Americans wake up and realize who is our worst enemy. And it's
not Russia or China or some Islamic nation. Does 'Lucky Larry' Silverstein own any more asbestos-laden skyscrapers?
While Trump is succumbing to the neocons pressures to protect Israel by weakening Iran ,
Syria, Hezbollah, he has no intention to go to war.
Trump is not Bush. He wants business deals, not war. So in appearance he is following the
neocons in the ME, but he is not in the rest of the world: North Korea is a good example of
Trump's view of the world: Money and business. There is no money to be made in wars anymore (
"Keep the Iraqi oil fields") Quite the contrary , there is money to waste. Therefore Trump
will not use 'diplomacy' or 'sticks to solve issues, he will use economical 'carrots' in a
one to one deal.
Trumpo hates 'democratic groups, UN, EU, NAFTA, JCOA ,TAP, UNHCR etc. He wants to deal one to
one, so he needs to torpedo these groups in any way possible.
The Middle East big peace plan for Palestine and Israel is all about economical carrots..
The trouble is that some countries do not respond to carrots, such as Iran or Syria. Then he
needs to use sticks to weaken them. That is what we see with the Iran sanctions. Contrary to
North Korea, Iran is no threat to the USA. It is a threat to the USA's ally, Israel.
Therefore Trump accepts the neocon pressure with the aim of weakening Iran so it stops been a
threat to Israel and to accept to make business deals with the USA and not with France and
Germany. Trump has no intention to push for a regime change either in Iran or North Korea.
Contrary to Bush, Trump prefers using big carrots and small sticks!
If sanctions produce desperation inside Iran, an apparent breakdown in order could
easily invite a hypocritical U.S. and Israeli "humanitarian" intervention, possibly
escalating into an international conflict, something that the White House appears to not
understand.
What is not to understand? The author is engaged in wishful thinking. Conflict with Iran is exactly what Washington
wants, for several reasons.
Several. There is a pattern here. Once a month we get into regurgitating the same old about the
topic. Makes sense, in a peculiar way.
In any confrontation with Iran blocking of Hormuz will be a focal point from both
sides. Most people around believe Iran can do it and use it as advantage in the conflict. A main
advantage even. I don't believe Iran can block the Hormuz and, well, as you say:
But life in Iran? What do you think would happen to life in Iran were Tehran to carry
out its threats?
On a serious note, it feels as most posters here pushing for strong Iranian response live
nice middle class lives. Last time they had anything violent done to them was, I feel, some
time in high school. They also obey all the laws, dutifully pay taxes, trudge in their jobs
all in all just being nice citizens of The Empire.
And, the same types are quite happy to, ahm, cheer Iranian people to suffer the onslaught of
US military might.
Feels interesting .
In a hypocritical way, of sort.
Reports from inside Iran suggest that the renewed and additional sanctions are already
hurting the Iranian people while at the same time having little impact on the government
commitment to remain in Syria, which is the principal bone of contention at the moment
vis-à-vis the joint U.S./Israeli/Saudi grossly exaggerated and self-serving
assessment of what Iran may or may not be doing to destabilize the Middle East.
Trump is going to blow up Iran for the Jews and the Saudis. There is no other way to look
at this.
He is going to turn the CIA loose on Iran. He is going to start bloody insurrections by
pitting neighbor against neighbor – he is going to starve people – he is going to
deny them medicine – he may even bomb them. He plans to hurt 60,000,000 people. WHY? Is
this what America is all about? Have we learned nothing from blowing up Iraq?
He does this to benefit other ideologies than Western Christianity – he does this
for Zionism and Wahhabism – both are anti-Christian. They are two of the most backwards
apartheid tribal movements on the planet – both perpetuating ancient old tribalism, the
worst remnants of our primordial past. The most advanced nation on the planet, the
indispensable one, the exceptional one – is saving two of the worst of humanity. How
totally perverted.
Trump says Iran (a country of minorities), is guilty of defending people who are being
attacked by Jews and Saudis – Lebanon and Syria. Both countries are also made up of
minorities. Zionism and Wahhabism are attacking all three of those minority nations.
Iran is on the side of the minority good guys. Trump and the US deep state government, are
on the side of the single tribe bad guys – the attackers of the weak.
Thanks to the Jew control of America, we are helping the moneyed militarily strong against
the weak.
Our government's values are upside down. We must get the Jews out of our government.
Satan is a religious term a religious idea . Why shall America advancing various secular
non religious ideas will take umbrage at Iran for saying "Satan" ? Not long ago Jews were
called Christ -Killer and called Shylock ,even anti Christ. America has various choicest
reserved words for Iran (most of them are supplied by the Shylock 's fellow traveler .
By the way "satan " has not killed anybody but the practices of the Godly America has hurt
killed destroyed large section of Iranian population.
Israel intention?? Iran knows well what the intention has been since days of Rabin from
1995- to use America against Iran by using words like 'Satan" and other default lies and
falsehood . Will it move out of Syria? Hey but this the best chance of Israel to attack Iran
and kill engineers scientists and declare all out war against Iran . Israel doesn't have to
fly 1000 miles.
Oh I get it . Israel wants America does it!
Why not if Iraq-job could be delegated to USA wth full Zionist supervision , why not
Iran.
Again if USA can come to Kuwait at the invitation of Kuwait, Iran can do same in
Syria.
No I won't But if S Korea can keep, Kuwait can keep , Syria I guess can . Alternative is
Libya and the 24 hour non stop hand wringing by the Western elite bastards in the media and
government and International court and Think thanks lamenting : " what else can you do for
these animals? We did everything but they won't stop killing each other"
He is going to turn the CIA loose on Iran. He is going to start bloody insurrections by
pitting neighbor against neighbor – he is going to starve people – he is going
to deny them medicine – he may even bomb them. He plans to hurt 60,000,000 people.
WHY? Is this what America is all about? Have we learned nothing from blowing up Iraq?
goshes, that sounds so "Judea Declares War On Germany"
"... IS THE LEASH NOW OFF THE 'OTHER CIA?' https://southfront.org/is-the-leash-now-off-the-other-cia/ ..."
"... Under Donald Trump, who is on record favoring CIA kidnapping and torture programs, the CIA has been given a green light to carry out "targeted assassinations." ..."
Under Donald Trump, who is on record favoring CIA kidnapping and torture programs, the CIA has been given a green light to
carry out "targeted assassinations."
Although most of these targeted kills have been carried out by drone attacks in Yemen, Afghanistan,
Pakistan and Somalia, where civilian deaths from "collateral damage" are estimated to be well over three hundred, recent events
point to the CIA's return to the "bad old days," when it engaged in a global program of assassinating political leaders.
"Almost all the Syrians who fled to the border with Jordan from an army offensive have
now returned to their homes, a top UN official says."
Just days ago they reported that "The offensive in Syria's south-west had earlier forced
more than 320,000 people to flee," and were bleating that Jordan should open their border
and let them all in.
Today "Anders Pedersen, the UN humanitarian co-ordinator in Jordan, said that "around
150 to 200 people (are) right now at the border".
320,000 became <200 in a matter of days. LOL
So, once again we see that the civilians were fleeing the fighting, NOT the Syrian
government. And once the SAR regains control of an area, almost everyone returns.
The accusation of "Unilateral Gangster Mindset" is not directed against President Trump. It
refers specifically to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Ponpeo. The Statement confirms: "We still
cherish our good faith in President Trump."
With the US and China contemplating their next moves in what is now
officially a trade war, a parallel narrative is developing in the world of energy where Asian
oil refiners are racing to secure crude supplies in anticipation of an escalating trade war
between the US and China, even as Trump demands all US allies cut Iran oil exports to zero by
November 4 following sanctions aimed at shutting the country out of oil markets.
Concerned that the situation will deteriorate before it gets better, Asian refiners are
moving swiftly to secure supplies with South Korea leading the way. Under pressure from
Washington, Seoul has already halted all orders of Iranian oil, according to sources, even as
it braces from spillover effects from the U.S.-China tit-for-tat on trade.
"As South Korea's economy heavily relies on trade, it won't be good for South Korea if the
global economic slowdown happens because of a trade dispute between U.S and China," said Lee
Dal-seok, senior researcher at the Korea Energy Economic Institute (KEEI).
Meanwhile, Chinese state media has unleashed a
full-on propaganda blitzkrieg , slamming Trump's government as a "gang of hoodlums", with
officials vowing retaliation, while the chairman of Sinochem just become China's official
leader of the anti-Trump resistance, quoting Michelle Obama's famous slogan "
when they go low, we go high. " Standing in the line of fire are U.S. crude supplies to
China, which have surged from virtually zero before 2017 to 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) in
July.
Representing a modest 5% of China's overall crude imports, these supplies are worth $1
billion a month at current prices - a figure that seems certain to fall should a duty be
implemented . While U.S. crude oil is not on the list of 545 products the Chinese government
has said it would immediately retaliate with in response to American duties, China has
threatened a 25% duty on imports of U.S. crude which is listed as a U.S. product that will
receive an import tariff at an unspecified later date.
And amid an escalating tit-for-tat war between Trump and Xi in which neither leader is even
remotely close to crying uncle, industry participants expect the tariff to be levied, a move
which would make future purchases of US oil uneconomical for Chinese importers.
"The Chinese have to do the tit-for-tat, they have to retaliate ," said John Driscoll,
director of consultancy JTD Energy, adding that cutting U.S. crude imports was a means "of
retaliating (against) the U.S. in a very substantial way".
In an alarming sign for Washington, and a welcome development for Iran, some locals have
decided not to see which way the dice may fall.
According to
Japan Times , in a harbinger of what's to come, an executive from China's Dongming
Petrochemical Group, an independent refiner from Shandong province, said his refinery had
already cancelled U.S. crude orders .
"We expect the Chinese government to impose tariffs on (U.S.) crude," the unnamed executive
said. " We will switch to either Middle East or West African supplies ," he said.
Driscoll said China may even replace American oil with crude from Iran. " They (Chinese
importers) are not going to be intimidated, or swayed by U.S. sanctions."
Oil consultancy FGE agrees, noting that China is unlikely to heed President Trump's warning
to stop buying oil from Iran. While as much as 2.3 million barrels a day of crude from the
Persian Gulf state at risk per Trump's sanctions, the White House has yet to get responses from
China, while
India or
Turkey have already hinted they would defy Trump and keep importing Iranian oil. Together
three three nations make up about 60 percent of the Persian Gulf state's exports.
Under pressure from Washington, Seoul has already halted all orders of Iranian oil,
according to sources, even as it braces from spillover effects from the U.S.-China
tit-for-tat on trade.
The Iranian (People's Mojahedin) MeK had been on the US terrorism list for more than 15
years until Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to remove them from the list in 2012.
They've killed plenty of Americans, including high-ranking US military officers. Now the CIA,
along with neoconservatives and many US politicians, has embraced the MeK as the best
"democratic" alternative to Iran's current government. Did you know the "former" terrorist
MeK paid current Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao $50,000 for a five minute speech in
2015? Crazy? Her husband is the Senate Majority Leader. In Washington that's money
well-spent. The CIA's incredibly stupid plan for Iranian regime change in today's Ron Paul
Liberty Report:
says: July 3, 2018 at 11:23 pm
GMT 500 Words John McCain was a traitor and collaborator, while being held captive. He was
given preferential treatment, due to the fact that his captors felt he was 'royalty', due to
his family 'connections'.
His "shoot down" was self-induced, as he DISOBEYED ORDERS and flew well below the 'floor',
getting himself shot down. There were several other jets on that particular mission and HE was
the only one shot down, because the others obeyed their orders!
His ENTIRE life has been one of disrespect of orders and authority, believing himself
bullet-proof, due to his 'family name' and his dad and grand dad being HIGH ranking Navy
Admirals!
His 'nickname' in his HS yearbook was "Punk" and he displayed that behavior as he went on to
the USNA, where he robbed someone, more deserving, of a slot in his class, due to the
'influence' of his father.
He SHOULD have been expelled, several times, but the folks at USNA did not want to go up
against dad. He graduated FIFTH FROM THE BOTTOM in his class . . but STILL ended up going to
Pensacola for flight training!! His classmates who actually 'made the grade' were aghast when
he showed up down there.
His flight grades were well below acceptable and he should have been run out of there too . .
he was an ABYSMAL aviator . . crashing on base leg at Corpus for carrier qualification
training. . he had been out drinking the night before and FELL ASLEEP after turning base leg
and 'configuring' for landing . . he crashed 'wings level' and straight ahead into Corpus
Bay.
He destroyed two other A/C after arriving in the Fleet . . before being shot down.
His nickname in Hanoi was "Songbird". . due to the information he willingly gave his captors. .
tactical stuff. .like 'routes, altitudes', etc., that our guys used to fly from the boat to
their targets and he got several aviators shot down and killed. He recorded 32+ propaganda bits
(a la Tokyo Rose) to be played for our enlisted troops . . to undermine their moral.
The bogus 'story' about not coming home early, when he could have, is just common sense. He
KNEW he would have been 'court-martialed' IF he had accepted any kind of early release, based
upon his 'family connections'.
After his release, his Navy 'flying career' SHOULD have been over, based upon his permanent
injuries, but, his dad intimidated a flight surgeon and he wrongly got back his flight medical
status, when ANYONE else would NOT have 'passed' with his 'condition'. He was 'awarded' the
position of XO at the Navy's largest training squadron, VA-174 at NAS Cecil and when the CO
moved on, he was 'selected', over MANY more qualified officers, to become CO. .he used his
position as XO and CO to take young (junior) female pilots on X-Country flights and screwed
their brains out.
THAT is ILLEGAL in the military and he SHOULD have been convicted at Court Martial for
'fraternization' . .INSTEAD . .daddy got him moved out of the squadron and put in charge of the
Navy's "Liaison" in DC . . along with a VERY early promotion to Captain . . the rest, as they
say, is history.
John McCain is a scum bag . . a DISGRACE to the uniform he wore and his spots did not change
when he became a politician!
As an aside, John McCain's admiral "daddy" was instrumental in the cover-up of the deliberate
Israeli attack on the USS Liberty (GTR-5) in 1967. Maybe "the apple didn't fall far from the
tree". Read More Agree: Cloak And Dagger
ChuckOrloski Writing
apparently as a patriotic & principled American military veteran, RVBlake said:
"I do not recall seeing any U.S. followup to the (Vincennes) atrocity."
Hi RVBlake,
Above, neither do I!
Nonetheless, a sincere thanks for your "higher" service to our very sick society & your
having honorably called the U.S. Navy's attack upon the defenseless Iranian passenger airplane
what it really was -- an "atrocity."
Around the year 2006, I do recall a dreaded sense of shame when faux "war hero," Senator
John McCain, modified the popular Beach Boys song lyric to "Barbara Ann," and to the delight of
his Zio indoctrinated political supporters (at a rally), he fiendishly intoned, "Bomb, bomb
Iran!"
Fyi, RVBlake, a few months ago, author & U.S. military veteran, Philip Giraldi, wrote a
great U.R. article about our "Zionized military."
On Independence Day Eve, you will ever more so appreciate P.G.'s higher service to our
country. Thanks again!
I am not a never Trumper or even anti-Trump but IMO he is headed for a fall in North Korea. He and Pompeo seem to be overly convinced
of the effect of the magnetism of their personalities. Trump's self image ill equips him to deal with the sheer stubbornness of the
inhabitants of a political theocracy and Pompeo suffers people poorly whom he thinks inferior to him in intellect. He hides that
well behind a surface masked in affability.
Have the Chinese sabotaged the deal? They probably have done that, seeking to maintain control of this dependency while teaching
Trump a lesson. Two birds with one stone is always good.
Trump is accustomed to making deals that are executed in trenches when the initial attempt to hustle the "partner" into
giving it all up fails. IMO he will fall back to that method of operation. What will be the effect on Mikey? It will be nothing good.
Trump does not tolerate failure in his zillim "flunkies." They are all just tools to him, to be discarded if they do not
meet his expectations.
He will be particularly incensed because the Europeans may be encouraged in their resistance. pl
Zillim? Don't get the reference but the tone is clear enough...
I think the Singapore summit and everything leading up to it was mostly just good political theater. The game is still wide
open and nothing of substance has happened yet. Turning up the heat just made reducing it back to normal seem like cooling off.
"Have the Chinese sabotaged the deal? They probably have done that,...."
In my lay opinion you are spot on. This is precisely what is happening I believe since North Korea is a Chinese pawn in the
trade contest between Xi and Trump. The question is how much further the trade dispute escalates and where the North Korea deal
card gets played.
It was nice to see Trump's sudden return to sanity by holding talks with North Korea. I
never understood why he accepted psychopaths like Bolton into his office. One could be cynical
(or realistic) and realize that Zionists don't give a damn about Korea, Iran is their target.
Trump can secure peacenik creds and free up forces to focus on Iran. Others note that South
Korea's president walked crossed the DMZ to hug North Korea's leader, and probably told Trump
that he can do this with or without him. The neocons realized they need to give peace a chance
or get dropped from the game.
It's a puzzle, but so far it's good news, especially since it showed that never-Trumpers
prefer world war rather than congratulating Trump for peace. We didn't give up anything. I've
taken part in these war games. South Korean land and airspace is so crowded that war games
there are unrealistic and stupid. Our military is better off practicing elsewhere. The
Deep State is in shock and counterattacked. Trump's peace effort was widely denounced by
their corporate media, and fake news has just appeared from "anonymous intelligence sources"
that North Korea is suddenly increasing production of nuclear material.
Hopefully, Trump will push ahead and learn that he can pull thousands of non-combat GIs out
of South Korea to save a couple billion dollars a year and actually improve our combat
readiness in Korea! Don't fall for lies that keeping troops in Korea saves the USA money
because of contributions from South Korea. It costs a lot more money to maintain equipment and
soldiers on the other side of the world, and to pay GIs thousands of dollars a month to live
off base. South Korea does not pay any of these costs. Its contributions are paying land rent
and base construction payments to South Koreans and bogus contributions like forgiving import
fees, income taxes, and on-base sales taxes for American GIs. G2mil published these
detailed proposals to cut military fat in Korea over the past few years:
"As this is the reason, there are twice as many Jews above some range, like 151, than
non-Jewish whites, which is what Terman found. "
Jew IQ is largely a myth established by marketing and media control, starting with the
Einstein brand. The myth is necessary to justify and conceal Jewish tribal nepotism as the
main factor establishing dominance of a hostile elite in host nations. The question has been
examined in numerous locations easily found with a search engine.
There are approximately six times as many white Americans with IQ above 140, as there are
Jews with IQ above 140. No, Jewish intelligence does not account for their dominance in
academia, media, and government. It must be Jew priviledge, not Jew IQ that justifies their
right to rule the goyim.
ParadiseNow Giraldi always says
what needs to be said. Excellent article.
Speaking of the news that evaporates--"The story was covered in Israel and Europe but insofar as I could determine did not appear
in any detail in the U.S. mainstream media"--and of the stories that disappear an hour or so after they are posted...
I've never come across anyone in the US who had seen or heard of the story that popped up on my monitor one day while working
in a newsroom in Los Angeles, a headline piece by the BBC stating that the California legislature in Sacramento had just passed a
resolution apologizing to Mel Gibson for the treatment he was subjected to after his drunken comments were illegally relayed to the
press. The article also reported that legislation was passed increasing fines and jail penalties in California for anyone who illegally
gave or sold arrest information to the media.
The story had some serious bearing on our immediate market as numerous celebrities' private medical information etc were being
illegally gathered and sold to news outlets. I brought it to the attention of my (Jewish) chief editor who read the article, thanked
me for the heads up, then completely ignored it.
Shortly after the piece just evaporated from the BBC site, and to this day I can find no trace of it in their archives.
On the subject of Jews celebrating the death of others, I have seen photos of them gaily cooking 'Rachel Corrie pancakes' to celebrate
the death of the American student they brutally crushed to death with a tractor in occupied Palestine.
I have seen photos of them gaily cooking 'Rachel Corrie pancakes'
Here's my take as a (non-Jewish) American.
My sympathies are with the Palestinians with regards to trying somehow to estabilsh sustainable territorial boundaries. IMHO
Israel is clearly stealing land by building settlements in the West Bank. But given the ad-hoc nature of the current borders and
the intent of the various parties, , God/Allah knows how this can be reasonably adjudicated.
I am ambivalent with regards to the plight of those in Gaza, Egypt is certainly in a position to help. The southern border
is after all under their control.
Launching random missiles into southern Israel (assuming that's an actual thing rather than propaganda on the Israeli's part)
seems silly and unlikely to improve the situation.
Both parties seem to regard the other as filth, undeserving of human compassion. How we move forward from here is beyond my
ability to guess.
Arab neighbors seem to view refugees as pawns to be kept in squalor for their own political aims.
It seems like (and this is my own reading from afar) Hamas uses the "right of return" as an issue to turn gullible Palestinian
youth into canon fodder. It's been 75 years and Israel is stronger than ever. Time to wake up and smell the coffee
There is so damn much much fault on both sides .
Now, having said all that – Rachael Corrie pancakes? She was an idiot and I have not the slightest sympathy for her. I wish
I'd thought the joke up .
" Launching random missiles into southern Israel (assuming that's an actual thing rather than propaganda on the Israeli's part)
seems silly and unlikely to improve the situation. "
What do you suggest the inmates of the Gaza concentration camp can do to get attention to their plight ?
The only way seems to be to provoke Israel into some retaliatory action.
Netanyahu is as stupid as Hitler, who let himself be provoked by Poland.
And indeed, both sides see the other as dirt.
Jabotinski in 1923 saw it well 'just force will make Palestinians give up their lands'. But he did not foresee that they never
really would give up.
What he also did not foresee that the ethnic cleansing would cause a growth of the number of Palestinians. As far as I can
see Israel has no long time strategy for dealing with the Palestinian problem.
Trying to convince the great majority of the world's countries in the UN Assembly that they're all wrong, and Israel right,
lunacy.
From comment of chet380, Jul 7, 2018 7:03:08 PM (19): "Notwithstanding the counter-evidence and the strong counter-arguments, the decision by the OPCW to include references to 'chlorinated
chemical compounds' guaranteed that the 'attack' scenario would continue to be advanced.Is it possible that the UK, US and/or France
put pressure on the OPCW to make the inclusion so they would not have to admit they were wrong and that they were fooled? The fraud
of the White Helmets should have been exposed by the OPCW inspection, but this interim report will give them continued life."
Notable quotes:
"... Interestingly the MI6 outlet in Coventry, the Syrian Observatory For Human Rights (SOHR), does not confirm a 'gas' incident. ..."
"... The "Sarin" organophosphate use the 'rebels' claimed is thereby debunked. No degradation products of such chemicals were found. The "various chlorinated organic chemicals" are unsurprising. Chlorine is widely used for water purification and cleaning and "chlorinated organic chemicals" will be found in any household. ..."
"... The preliminary OPCW report says nothing about the concentrations in which these substances were found. Without knowing the concentrations, which may may be extremely low, one can not come to further conclusion. The report includes none of the witness statements the fact finding mission took. In various TV reports the medical personal of the one hospital involved in the stunt said that none of their patients were affected by chlorine or chemical weapons. ..."
"... After the 'rebels' claimed the 'chemical attack' and published their staged videos of stacked bodies U.S. President Trump tweeted that he would retaliate for the strike. Politically he could not pull back from that even when Secretary of Defense Mattis voiced his doubts about the 'rebel' claims. Trump attacked Syria with a series of cruise missiles most of which were shot down by the Syrian air defense. A civil chemical laboratory was destroyed during the attack but no one was hurt. ..."
"... They cannot admit everything was staged. And the report is not at all clear, so anyone can give it the desired spin. ..."
"... They didn't find anything relevant. See Appendix 3 of the report. There's no mention of traces of chlorine which I would find hard to believe anyway, they refer to chloride Cl- as in NaCl (table salt) or organic chlorides, of which they do name at least one. ..."
"... The Guardian employs Olivia Solon, a digital journalist (whose specialty is in writing about and recommending particular IT consumer hardware or software products) based in California, with no knowledge or access to knowledge about Syria, its politics or history, to write an article defending the White Helmets and defame the investigative journalists Eva Bartlett and Vanessa Beeley. That practice seems to be par for the course for The Guardian and other print and online newspapers. ..."
"... And yes, the corporate MSM is definitely profit-driven. When "news" was separate from "entertainment," there was some free press possible, but once they were combined, any imaginary wall between sponsors and newscasters was removed. ..."
"... Here in the US, CBS was founded by William Paley, who had been in charge of radio propaganda for the US Army Office of Psychological Warfare. CBS was owned by Westinghouse, which became the world's largest military contractor during WW II. ..."
"... Neither CBS and NBC ever generated even 5% of their parent companies revenues. The real profits were in consumer products and war. And so, not just their news, but all of their programming promoted world views that encouraged consumption and war. ..."
"... Almost all reporters covering international news are working for the various government and private intelligence agencies/think tanks and many domestic reporters as well. ..."
"... This has been the case for over 50 years if not a century. Many of the critical reports are likely written by the agencies/think tanks. Many CIA interns work at MSM for example and reporters are recruited as early as college if not high school through thr corporate government education system. ..."
"... Regarding comments of journalists, the problem may not always be with them. There have been countless discussions on the influence of intelligence agencies. Most people would choose to do the right thing when given the choice. However, if the choices are following orders or "suicide by nailgun", most people would choose to live another day. ..."
"... The British-created Anglo-American funded black propaganda organisation, the so-called White Helmets were the primary source for the claims of Sarin use by the SAG in Douma. In as just world, the White Helmets as proven liars would now become international pariahs. That they will still be hailed as heroes in the West and western MSM so just how sick the West and western MSM really are. Perhaps now that the OPCW is free to cast blame for "chemical weapons incidents", they should name and shame the United Kingdom for its black propaganda. ..."
"... Well, we all knew a false flag op was pending. So here it is. Also Trump is a POS. ..."
"... When the White Helmets and the rebels staged the 'Douma' chemical attack they were probably expecting that Douma would not be liberated and that no serious inspection would take place to debunk the 'fake' attack. That was bad luck for them. Contrary to the other chemical "attacks" locations, an inspection on location has taken place early enough and the masks may be falling. ..."
"... There are critically important information here from Vanessa Beelley False Flag Fail: How Syrian Civilians Derailed White Helmet 'Chemical' Stunt in Eastern Ghouta that Bernhardt has not mentioned. ..."
"... The White Helmets specifically stated that the protesters had ruined their chemical attack and ruined their communications with the UN, and that the Americans would not come to their assistance because of it. This incident explains important aspects of the false flag: ..."
"... 1) So close to impending defeat, the terrorists were really desperate to induce the Americans to save them, and really believed they would do so; ..."
"... the conflicting signals given out by the MI6 proxies SOHR I would read as a damage limitation act specifically in response to the civilian protest; ..."
"... It would appear that MI6 feared news of this protest would be spread, so that they needed to protect their proxies. ..."
"... Unfortunately, despite this information being published by Vanessa Beeley, I haven't seen any other mention of it. The protesters endangered their lives by this protest, at least one of them [or another hostage? - this is not clear] was shot dead for it, and all of them were sentenced to death. They deserve due publicity for it and it is really important to an understanding of the incident as a whole. ..."
"... Bernhardt, I am afraid I don't share your apparent confidence in this OPCW report. It is far too little and lopsided after months of investigation, and appears to be designed to test the waters for a decision confirming that chlorine was used as a weapon, and to coordinate with the MSM to prepare the ground for such a decision. In that case, the MSM reaction to the report is highly consistent with such an objective. ..."
"... Why did the the report make no caveats about the chlorine compounds, why did they include no data about concentrations, why did they emphasise the chain of custody of the (probably trivial) chrorine compound samples (and only those samples), why no information on witness testimony, why no mention of the witness testimony in the Hague, why mention (totally irrelevant) testimony of alleged witnesses in Turkey and biological samples taken in Turkey for which no plausible chain of custody exists? ..."
"... This report is a scandal, an outrage. This report itself is a false flag, it is designed to appease those observers who know the incident was a false flag by using carefully ambiguous wording, while preparing the ground for a full-blown 99% dishonest and 100% misleading report condemning the Syrian government. ..."
"... For Trump self inflicted ego wound somebody will pay. ..."
"... If the OPCW can no longer be trusted; then what? The U.S. has done an admirable job of destroying trust between countries. ..."
"... Nice article, however I tend to disagree partially on the last part, the US administration and the alleged rebels are two faces of the same coins, rebels are funded by the administration from various sources and they acr in response to commands from it, see the southern command operations where this approach of command was openly divulged by various reports and accounts. The reason for the Administration to get into Syria was to further weaken the middle eastern countries for a specific and obvious reason, and each strike and wall destroyed goes into this direction..the bigger picture explains it all.. ..."
"... So, as expected, this latest OPCW report will have no effect on the establishment narrative. The good guys vs bad guys scenario is the only approved version, and with no alternative versions being offered in the MSM, it is the one that the most people will believe. ..."
"... I suspect some of the stupidest staged events are just experiments to monitor how many people will simply buy anything. ..."
Syria - OPCW Issues First Report Of 'Chemical Weapon Attack' in Douma
On April 7 2018 Syrian 'rebels' claimed that the Syrian government used chlorine gas and Sarin in an attack on the besieged Douma
suburb near the Syrian capital Damascus. They published a series of videos which showed the dead bodies of mainly women and children.
During the night the incident allegedly happened Douma was hit with artillery and air strikes in retaliation for earlier deadly
attacks by some 'rebels' splinter groups on Damascus city. Jaish al-Islam, the main 'rebel' group in Douma, had already agreed to
leave towards Idleb governorate.
The claim of the 'chemical attack' was made shortly after U.S. President Trump had announced that he wanted U.S. troops to leave
Syria. It was designed to "pull him back in" which it indeed did.
Moon of Alabama published several pieces on the issue:
It seemed obvious from the very first claims of the 'gas attack' that it did not happen at all. The Syrian government had no motive
to use any chemical weapon or an irritant like chlorine in Douma. It had already won. The incident was obviously staged, like others
before it, to drag the U.S. into a new attack on Syria.
Even a prominent opposition outlet said that no 'chemical attack'
had taken place. As
noted on April
9:
Interestingly the MI6 outlet in Coventry, the Syrian Observatory For Human Rights (SOHR), does not confirm a 'gas' incident.
In its version of events some 40 people
died after their shelter collapsed:
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights issued a higher death toll, saying at least 80 people were killed in Douma, including
around 40 who died from suffocation. But it said the suffocations were the result of shelters collapsing on people inside them.
Main stream media, which have quoted SOHR for years, now ignore it and
report of a 'chemical
attack' as if it were a proven reality.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) send a Fact Finding Mission (FFM) to Douma and investigated the
incident. Today it
published an interim report and some technical results:
OPCW designated labs conducted analysis of prioritised samples. The results show that no organophosphorous nerve agents or their
degradation products were detected in the environmental samples or in the plasma samples taken from alleged casualties. Along
with explosive residues, various chlorinated organic chemicals were found in samples from two sites, for which there is full chain
of custody. Work by the team to establish the significance of these results is on-going. The FFM team will continue its work to
draw final conclusions.
The "Sarin" organophosphate use the 'rebels' claimed is thereby debunked. No degradation products of such chemicals were found.
The "various chlorinated organic chemicals" are unsurprising. Chlorine is widely used for water purification and cleaning and "chlorinated
organic chemicals" will be found in any household.
In the technical notes of
the OPCW report note that one of its laboratory found "dichloroacetic acid", "trichloroacetic acid", "chloral hydrate", "trichlorophenol"
and "chlorphenol" in some of the samples its fact finding mission took at the claimed incident sites. These are all substances that
are no surprise in any upbuild environment and especially within any home.
Dichloroacetic acid" is for example "a trace product
of the chlorination of drinking water". Chloral hydrate
is likewise "a minor side-product of the chlorination of water when organic residues such as humic acids are present". The other
substances are also not uncommon and of various household uses.
The other OPCW laboratory found only "No CWC-scheduled chemicals" and "2,4,6-trinitrotoluene" residues in the samples. Trinitrotoluene,
also known as TNT, is an explosive widely used in military ammunition. The second laboratory does not report the chlorinated organic
chemicals the other laboratory found.
The preliminary OPCW report says nothing about the concentrations in which these substances were found. Without knowing the concentrations,
which may may be extremely low, one can not come to further conclusion. The report includes none of the witness statements the fact
finding mission took. In various TV reports the medical personal of the one hospital involved in the stunt said that none of their
patients were affected by chlorine or chemical weapons.
After the 'rebels' claimed the 'chemical attack' and published their staged videos of stacked bodies U.S. President Trump
tweeted that he would retaliate for the strike. Politically he could not pull back from that even when Secretary of Defense Mattis
voiced his doubts
about the 'rebel' claims. Trump attacked Syria with a series of cruise missiles most of which were shot down by the Syrian air defense.
A civil chemical laboratory was destroyed during the attack but no one was hurt.
The now published preliminary OPCW report reinforces the doubts about the 'rebel' claims. There was no 'chemical attack' in Douma.
The incident was staged.
One hopes that Trump has learned from this episode and will in future refrain from violent threats over incidents for which no
plausible and vetted evidence is provided.
Posted by b on July 6, 2018 at 03:23 PM |
Permalink
Thanks for this report, even though in my case you're "preaching to the choir".
I wish I could share your closing optimism: "One hopes that Trump has learned from this episode and will in future refrain
from violent threats over incidents for which no plausible and vetted evidence is provided."
Hope springs eternal. But even though I'm not rabidly anti-Trump, I think he will remain unwilling to refrain, or is incapable
of refraining, from impulsively responding with bluster, bombast, and chauvinistic bumptiousness when his buttons are pushed,
regardless of the validity of the stimulus.
Trump, whose narcissism is second to no one's, is devoid of the introspective humility contemplated by the axiom "Fool me once,
shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me"; his ego will not process the possibility that he can ever be fooled.
Alas! Trump is definitely a "Threaten first and ask questions later" kind of guy.
Thanks for the report b. I was surfing the net as I prepared a meal and saw that the BBC is pushing this hard.
The BBC is even writing about the April chemical weapon scam as being added proof.....sad
The elite keep trying to start a war with anyone to keep the focus off their failure as the "leaders of the free world" BS.
When are the elite going to realize their temper tantrums aren't working?
I hope they don't get their shooting war and I hope their economic war provides their final undoing.....think of the waste
of human and other resources over the past 70 years.....let alone the centuries that the private finance/property scam has been
going on.
Still, Ard-Tagesschau says the following (originally in German): "In the battles for the Syrian rebel stronghold Duma, chlorine
gas was apparently used in April. The OPCW found traces of this in gas cylinder residues."
Sure enough I agree with you B, but
for the MSM the OPCW report reads different.
They cannot admit everything was staged. And the report is not at all clear,
so anyone can give it the desired spin.
"The OPCW found traces of this in gas cylinder residues." Claiming that the OPCW found "traces of chlorine" is like claiming one
found "traces of oxygen" or "traces of hydrogen" when one found water (H2O).
The occurrence of a basic element in a compound
is not a "trace" of the basic element. That's chemistry 001. Journalists nowadays seem to lack most basics of higher education.
They didn't find anything relevant. See Appendix 3 of the report. There's no mention of traces of chlorine which I would
find hard to believe anyway, they refer to chloride Cl- as in NaCl (table salt) or organic chlorides, of which they do name at
least one.
What to expect from the 'Tagesschau' - same old, same old. They're making stuff up again, almost certainly out of willful ignorance
and bias.
@6 b
I figure it's even worse than that. They're not even asking the most basic question: Am I a competent person?
My guess is a great many of these folks avoid asking that question on purpose.
It would seem that a common (and deliberate) ploy used by the MSM these days is to use journalists with no particular knowledge,
experience or insight in an area to write articles that need that knowledge or experience.
The Guardian employs Olivia Solon, a digital journalist (whose specialty is in writing about and recommending particular
IT consumer hardware or software products) based in California, with no knowledge or access to knowledge about Syria, its politics
or history, to write an article defending the White Helmets and defame the investigative journalists Eva Bartlett and Vanessa
Beeley. That practice seems to be par for the course for The Guardian and other print and online newspapers.
Plus The Guardian and others rely on dubious sources like Bellingcat and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, whose credentials
are laughable at best, as "experts" in their chosen areas of reporting.
All the Western MSM are now entirely driven by the pursuit of sales revenue and profit and are now no different from outlets
peddling entertainment. No surprise really when news media outlets are now owned by the same individuals or corporations that
own film studios, TV stations, online media and TV channels, book and comics publishers, and games publishers.
Jen @8. Great point on the strategy of using "journalists" with no background in the topic they're tasked to 'report."
And yes, the corporate MSM is definitely profit-driven. When "news" was separate from "entertainment," there was some free
press possible, but once they were combined, any imaginary wall between sponsors and newscasters was removed.
Still, considering who owns the MSM, I'd say their main purpose is not to sell commercials, but to sell the most profitable
"products" of their owners.
Here in the US, CBS was founded by William Paley, who had been in charge of radio propaganda for the US Army Office of
Psychological Warfare. CBS was owned by Westinghouse, which became the world's largest military contractor during WW II.
NBC was owned by GE, which was also one of the largest military contractors in the world.
Neither CBS and NBC ever generated even 5% of their parent companies revenues. The real profits were in consumer products
and war. And so, not just their news, but all of their programming promoted world views that encouraged consumption and war.
Almost all reporters covering international news are working for the various government and private intelligence agencies/think
tanks and many domestic reporters as well.
This has been the case for over 50 years if not a century. Many of the critical reports are likely written by the agencies/think
tanks. Many CIA interns work at MSM for example and reporters are recruited as early as college if not high school through thr
corporate government education system.
Everyone likes to supplement their income and many are convinced its their patriotic duty to disseminate propaganda. For some
its a chance to join the elite class, even at a low level. Obviously getting the 6-8 corporate entities that own 80% of the media
to go along is not difficult especially as those who go rogue will be punished by members of the business roundtable responsible
for most advertising , which would of course dry up as punishment
Now monitoring the internet and social media with big data analytics allows almost Total Information Awareness. They can see
in real time whats working and to what extent and what is not. They can then fill holes or modify the story as needed. They know
they dont need to get 100% believability. This is why they have not shut down dissenting comments. They are useful, for now.
I suspect some of the stupidest staged events are just experiments to monitor how many people will simply buy anything. At
some point they will feel confident enough to simulate an alien invasion of beings capable of taking human form. This will necessitate
martial law which thw fearful will gladly accept, and a global governement led by the countries with the largest space force.
Funny how the US still needs Russian Rockets to launch satellites so its Space Force has a way to go yet. I guess I wont be around
for the fun since time is not a friend of old men
Regarding comments of journalists, the problem may not always be with them. There have been countless discussions on the influence
of intelligence agencies. Most people would choose to do the right thing when given the choice. However, if the choices are following
orders or "suicide by nailgun", most people would choose to live another day.
Speaking of experiments to monitor how many people will believe anything, some good claims from the MSM come to mind: 40% of
North Koreans are on crystal meth, the Russians killed the last clown in Aleppo, and the Breatharians (people who purportedly
survive on only air and sunlight).
thanks b... unfortunately, i tend to see it much like what @8 jen says... these folks are unsure about their next pay check and
are happy to write with a chatham house /scl / cambridge analytica slant knowing what is expected of them.. they ask no questions
and are unwilling to articulate the false flags that have shaped all this discussion of opcw and chemical attacks in syria.. in
this respect i also agree with @5 pnyx... they are unwilling or unable to raise these questions for fear of dismissal.. more and
more people recognize what a poor state the msm is in today.. that is my hope anyway..
b said:"One hopes that Trump has learned from this episode and will in future refrain from violent threats over incidents for
which no plausible and vetted evidence is provided."
Unfortunately, probably no one here in the land of theater, will ever hear about this report. As to DJT, he'll do whatever
it takes to enhance his appearance with the morons. His learning curve only bends toward his own enhancement. To him and his minions,
truth doesn't matter...
There's unlikely to be any real investigative journalism regarding opcw reports, considering the papers in uk are owned by mega
millionaires who profit from war and the Middle East land grab.oil ect. Plus the owners featured largely in the off shore tax
haven leaks- relavent here not so much regarding tax, but what that hidden money is invested in, Gun running, slave labour, buying
rebels? It's a small world, media moguls own it.
The British-created Anglo-American funded black propaganda organisation, the so-called White Helmets were the primary source
for the claims of Sarin use by the SAG in Douma. In as just world, the White Helmets as proven liars would now become international
pariahs. That they will still be hailed as heroes in the West and western MSM so just how sick the West and western MSM really
are. Perhaps now that the OPCW is free to cast blame for "chemical weapons incidents", they should name and shame the United Kingdom
for its black propaganda.
Thanks Bevin @ 16
I do follow that site, but had'nt looked recently. Really Good, no doubt your aware of 'the canary ' good article on this subject!
Both sites I recommend to one and all.
When the White Helmets and the rebels staged the 'Douma' chemical attack they were probably expecting that Douma would not
be liberated and that no serious inspection would take place to debunk the 'fake' attack. That was bad luck for them. Contrary
to the other chemical "attacks" locations, an inspection on location has taken place early enough and the masks may be falling.
Your early call that the MSM would go with the chlorine findings to support the attack is proving true across the board --
there is not a chance that an admission of having been mistaken is going to happen.
james @13 I think it's clearly true, not just a hope, that fewer and fewer people take the media seriously. Those who still watch
mainstream and cable 'news' programs are a pretty small minority, and the MSNBC/FOX side of that is probably acknowledged even
by most of its consumers, as 'my side' comfort food rather than 'news' as we used to understand it.
The media's lock-step Western-Empire perspective _is_ frightening, but we also need to remember recent election results that
have gone against the empire's wishes. Just a couple days ago in Mexico, for example. Real alternative and real (whether socialist,
left, right, or libertarian) populist media is having an impact, I think, and we may be able to turn things around in the West
before the next world wars start.
Vanessa Beeley interviewed at least two witnesses who - seeing that the government forces were about to liberate Hamouriya
village in Douma from the terrorists under whose control they had suffered for 6 years and thereby feeling empowered - on 6th
March at 3pm decided to publicly protest against the terrorists by marching through Hamouriya carrying Syrian national flags.
They were met by members of the White Helmets and the terrorists, who blamed them explicitly for ruining their chemical weapons
false flag.
Critically importantly, the White Helmets had already released news for the claimed false flag that morning and the night before,
and they had already collected 30 dead bodies from all over Douma and brought them to the hospital, and had already started filming.
The protest critically negated the propaganda message of the false flag chemical attack - if the Syrian Army had really been
dropping chemical weapons on Hamouriya the night before with intent to kill civilian women and children, why would the civilians
immediately afterwards start marching through the city carrying Syrian national flags, and having raised the flag at key points
in the city? It makes the whole flase flag [even more] implausible. The White Helmets then wrapped one hostage in a Syrian flag
and shot him dead as a warning. Fortunately the two witnesses interviewed (and hopefully most of the protesters) were able to
escape soon afterwards with the help of the nearby Syrian Army.
The White Helmets specifically stated that the protesters had ruined their chemical attack and ruined their communications
with the UN, and that the Americans would not come to their assistance because of it. This incident explains important aspects
of the false flag:
1) So close to impending defeat, the terrorists were really desperate to induce the Americans to save them, and really
believed they would do so;
2) Having already announced the false flag the previous night and having collected so many dead bodies in preparation, the
existence of the protest creates a credibility problem for the terrorists and White Helmets, to which they seem to have responded
with various conflicting signals;
3) In particular, the conflicting signals given out by the MI6 proxies SOHR I would read as a damage limitation act specifically
in response to the civilian protest;
4) It would appear that MI6 feared news of this protest would be spread, so that they needed to protect their proxies.
Unfortunately, despite this information being published by Vanessa Beeley, I haven't seen any other mention of it. The
protesters endangered their lives by this protest, at least one of them [or another hostage? - this is not clear] was shot dead
for it, and all of them were sentenced to death. They deserve due publicity for it and it is really important to an understanding
of the incident as a whole.
Bernhardt, I hope you will update the article above to include some of Vanessa Beeley's reporting on this incident.
Bernhardt, I am afraid I don't share your apparent confidence in this OPCW report. It is far too little and lopsided after
months of investigation, and appears to be designed to test the waters for a decision confirming that chlorine was used as a weapon,
and to coordinate with the MSM to prepare the ground for such a decision. In that case, the MSM reaction to the report is highly
consistent with such an objective.
Why did the the report make no caveats about the chlorine compounds, why did they include no data about concentrations,
why did they emphasise the chain of custody of the (probably trivial) chrorine compound samples (and only those samples), why
no information on witness testimony, why no mention of the witness testimony in the Hague, why mention (totally irrelevant) testimony
of alleged witnesses in Turkey and biological samples taken in Turkey for which no plausible chain of custody exists?
Posted by: V | Jul 7, 2018 12:36:26 AM | 25 Finally, straight shooting from the OPCW.
About time...
This report is a scandal, an outrage. This report itself is a false flag, it is designed to appease those observers who
know the incident was a false flag by using carefully ambiguous wording, while preparing the ground for a full-blown 99% dishonest
and 100% misleading report condemning the Syrian government.
The correct response to this report is very loud and active and persistent protest against it.
The Russians should make very strongly worded complaints and criticisms about it both at the OPCW and at the UN (maybe they
have, I wouldn't know).
So, following your logic (which I mostly agree); what value/good are elections?
None, near as I can tell.
Time for something new?
But then I digress; what to do about false flag chemo attacks?
If the OPCW can no longer be trusted; then what? The U.S. has done an admirable job of destroying trust between countries.
żHas anyone here read Peter Ford's piece on OPCW? I believe it fits somewhere in the discussion. Unfortunate this choir is so
small. Keep writing and Protest Loudly!
Hi Nice article, however I tend to disagree partially on the last part, the US administration and the alleged rebels are two
faces of the same coins, rebels are funded by the administration from various sources and they acr in response to commands from
it, see the southern command operations where this approach of command was openly divulged by various reports and accounts. The
reason for the Administration to get into Syria was to further weaken the middle eastern countries for a specific and obvious
reason, and each strike and wall destroyed goes into this direction..the bigger picture explains it all..
... to clarify , every "regime" that threatens Israel openly is to be brought down ... Libya, Iraq,, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Iran
, Egypt's Nasser and the list goes on..
"Yesterday the OPCW reported that, contrary to US and UK assertions in the UN security council, there was no nerve agent attack
on jihadist-held Douma by the Syrian government, precisely as Robert Fisk was execrated by the entire media establishment for
pointing out. The OPCW did find some traces of chlorine compounds, but chlorine is a very commonly used element and you have traces
of it all over your house.
The US wants your chicken chlorinated. The OPCW said it was "Not clear" if the chlorine was weaponised, and it is plain to
me from a career in diplomacy that the almost incidental mention is a diplomatic sop to the UK, US and France, which are important
members of the OPCW.
"Trump's reaction to yet more lying claims by the UK government funded White Helmets and Syrian Observatory, a reaction of
missile strikes on alleged Syrian facilities producing the non-existent nerve agent, was foolish. May's leap for British participation
was unwise, and the usual queue of Blairites who stood up as always in Parliament to support any bombing action, stand yet again
exposed as evil tools of the military industrial complex.
"Hillary Clinton, true to form, wanted more aggressive military action than was undertaken by Trump. Hillary has been itching
to destroy Syria as she destroyed Libya. Libya was very much Hillary's war and – almost unreported by the mainstream media – NATO
bombers carried out almost 14,000 bombing sorties on Libya and devastated entire cities...."
If you put Murray, MoA, The Skwawkbox, Strategic Culture, Dissident Voice and a few of the better aggregators together you've
got a better Daily Newspaper than The Guardian or Le Monde ever was, far better.
By the way, unless I'm mistaken (it wouldn't be a first!) Ghandi was asked what he thought about Western Civilisation when
he replied that "It would be a good idea". It still is an idea worth looking into. It would look just like socialism.
@28 BM... i think it was daniel who left that link here at moa a few days ago.. i read it..
@29 BM.. i tend to agree with you, but see @6 b for more clarity...
@32 pft... it is my observation that the msm in the usa is so usa centric, they know shit about canada, or the rest of the
world.. i could be wrong, but that is my general view on what ''americans'' consume for news in the usa.. the indoctrination is
heavy.. i would like to think people like @33 V are the norm, but i mostly think people are tuned out of the news - excluding
the older generation - above 60 or 70 especially - who still consume the shit via the tv..
@41 mike.. in other words, the usa foreign policy is built around looking after israel.. most here at moa would agree with
that.. will the usa ever get it's head out of israels ass? one can hope, lol..
This one was real, but even the Aum Shinrikyo sect showed all those years ago how how difficult it is to pull off an effective
chemical weapons attack, requiring an enclosed space like the metro system. But that's never the point. Instilling mass fear and
panic, not to mention being 'news friendly' is what makes such attacks, sponsored proxy false-flag or not, so enduringly popular
. To borrow a well known ad phrase ' Once you pop, you can't stop '
Journalists nowadays seem to lack most basics of higher education. b.
Yes + they have zero comprehension of basic numbers. Amazing. (Nobody wants to read my exs..) Nowadays, they are not supposed
to have any knowledge whatsoever; they have become scribal hacks, merely write, film, show, expose, what they are told or do haphazard
copy-pasta.
They are bought servants, nah compradors, and their presence is completely useless (A.I. and some guidance, input from above
by 7 -say- very smart ppl would do the job faster and cheaper, for the whole W world) they are actors whose function is to pretend
that a 'fourth estate' is necessary to uncover facts, inform the populace, air dissenting points of view, have debates, and so
on Lies.
Aware they are past their sell-date, one can smell the desperation. The reaction is to become more subservient, toe the line,
preserve what can be, become more in-groupy and shaft colleagues who might stray away from the prescribed hyper-rigid guide-lines.
Collectively, they have fantastic potential power and means of control (network savvy, present at the switches, etc.) but they
are so dumbed down and terrified of status and monetary loss they are like deer caught in the headlights, to stay on track they
secretly pray at dawn, conjure the fates, or whatever. The mansion with pool, the ginormous mortgage, Junior, etc. in the US.
In France, the monetary aspect is less vital; being excluded from the movers and shakers, the in-ppl, the heady, sexy, wonderful
Parisian life.. no.. no.. help
Part of how a 'post-truth' environment comes about. The other driver is the underlying aim, i.e. the imposition of one narrative
over another, the Rovian creation of realities which can only be managed by wielding power violent enough to make the 'other
- the people - the adversary' accept and bow down to the proffered narrative, and never object, call out the lies. Using this
template requires careful calculations which, it appears, have gone off kilter in the US.
Maybe one should consider that there were never any Chem-WMD attacks in Syria at all (pace Seymour Hersh, heh, but that is
a personal beef of mine..) - there are always limited hangout ppl who try to cobble up one narrative with another and make a living
out o that.
So far, I'm seeing BBC (as above), al Jazeera, ABC, Reuters, Qatar Tribune twisting the report to say it was a Chlorine attack.
PressTV, RT, and Sputnik News say the report clears SAA.
The latter is an absurd "virtual crime scene" in which crack reporters claim to prove that the Syrian government used chemical
weapons on their own people.
So, as expected, this latest OPCW report will have no effect on the establishment narrative. The good guys vs bad guys
scenario is the only approved version, and with no alternative versions being offered in the MSM, it is the one that the most
people will believe.
O k see if I can help, kind of kill or cure! The shock to us all may be to much ! There is no squirrel !
They made it up, yes I know it's kind of tuff !we all looked for a squirrel they distracted us. There was no people poisoned by
Russians in Salisbury, Amesbury the chlorine attack in Syria yes made up.What the tv and papers said was a lie, to program us
all like a laptop !!!
Whilst we were out squirrel huntin, they got through half of world 3 we never noticed. They formed a dictatorship. Sold all
your urban buildings services and council houses to one an other. And devalued us all by about 60% But i'l go easy for now. Couse
from there on things went down hill !!! Warm regards
By the way, I read somewhere recently that Chlorine rapidly degrades Sarin and therefore no one would use them together. But I
can't find the reference now. Can anybody help?
47. hrc = Bloodthirsty killer; sociopath coming out the gate. Likewise. POS. Trump was not a mass murderer until a couple months
in. Didn't take him long to join the club.
It would seem that a common (and deliberate) ploy used by the MSM these days is to use journalists with no particular knowledge,
experience or insight in an area to write articles that need that knowledge or experience.
I wonder if these "news reporters" were not selected based upon their "sex appeal" to a superior?
Posted by: Pft | @10
I suspect some of the stupidest staged events are just experiments to monitor how many people will simply buy anything.
I agree. These zany false flag events might be designed to map the approach to an asymptote .
(In analytic geometry, an asymptote (/ˈćsɪmptoʊt/) of a curve is a line such that the distance between
the curve and the line approaches zero as one or both of the x or y coordinates tends to infinite stupidity)
"... "The compensation measures will be applied in the form of additional, higher rates of import duties ranging from 25% to 40% of the price of imported goods. Duties will be imposed on some U.S. goods, the analogues of which are produced in Russia. In particular, the measures cover some types of road construction equipment, oil and gas equipment, metalworking machines, rock drilling equipment, and optical fiber," Minister Maxim Oreshkin said as quoted by the ministry. ..."
"... "The financial damage inflicted on Russian exporters by the U.S. trade restrictions amounts to $537.6 million. This is the amount of additional duties that Russian suppliers have to pay in the U.S. ..."
"... The current increase of duties allows us to compensate for only part of the damage amounting to $87.6 million. This is compensation that Russia has the right to recover under the WTO rules," he said. ..."
Whether this is a coordinated response is unclear - and certainly on a much smaller scale -
but Bloomberg reports that Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree this morning
imposing higher tariffs on U.S. products in retaliation for U.S. duties on metals imports,
according to Economy Ministry statement.
Reuters reports that Russia's additional duties will apply to imports of fiber optics,
equipment for road construction, oil and gas industry, metal processing and mining, according
to an economy ministry statement.
Russia will impose duties on goods which have Russian-made substitutes, Economy Minister
Maxim Oreshkin is quoted as saying in the statement.
"The compensation measures will be applied in the form of additional, higher rates of
import duties ranging from 25% to 40% of the price of imported goods. Duties will be imposed on
some U.S. goods, the analogues of which are produced in Russia. In particular, the measures
cover some types of road construction equipment, oil and gas equipment, metalworking machines,
rock drilling equipment, and optical fiber," Minister Maxim Oreshkin said as quoted by the
ministry.
"The financial damage inflicted on Russian exporters by the U.S. trade restrictions
amounts to $537.6 million. This is the amount of additional duties that Russian suppliers have
to pay in the U.S.
The current increase of duties allows us to compensate for only part of the damage
amounting to $87.6 million. This is compensation that Russia has the right to recover under the
WTO rules," he said. Russia will be able to compensate for the remaining part in three
years since the introduction of the U.S. duties or after approval of the WTO dispute settlement
body if it finds the U.S. restrictions violating the organization's rules, the ministry
said.
Makes you wonder how long Russia will stay with WTO - just like Trump - if this is all the
response "you're allowed."
Kayman Fri, 07/06/2018 -
21:36 Permalink Speaking of history
from comic books, when someone says "war mongers", one is not referring to the civil strife
that occurs during the internecine violence between landsmen, cousins and distant tribes, if
one of these minority groups of citizens is tired of you being in control and wants to be in
control; not you .
This is the way the CIA set it up in Syria in 2011. The CIA disguised as Syrian rebels tried
to make it look like a group of then tried and clearly failed to change the regime in Damascus.
To replace Assad with for a new, beholden leader who would allow the US to keep fucking up the
lives of those people unfortunate enough to live near where the West's greatest reserves of
other nation's crude oil is buried.
There can not be too many deaths of innocents to prevent the US from it's crusade to
demonstrate its exceptional ethics and morality. Ask Madeleine Albright. "The deaths of
innocent children are the bricks and mortar of the Holy American Empire.
Looks like that author mixes Zionism with neoliberalism. Critique of Zionism here is mixes with critique of
neoliberalism and that makes the whole piece unconvincing.
Some points made are interesting, though.
Notable quotes:
"... "Anti-Semitism." ..."
"... we are losing! ..."
"... " All the world suffers from the user of the Jews, their monopoly and deceit. They have brought many unfortunate people into a state of poverty especially working people and the very poor." ..."
"... "All [personal] vows we are likely to make, all [personal] oaths and pledges we are likely to take between this Yom Kippur and the next Yom Kippur, we publicly renounce. Let them all be relinquished and abandoned, null and void, neither firm nor established. Let our [personal] vows, pledges and oaths are considered neither vows nor pledges nor oaths." ..."
"... -the Kol Nidrei. ..."
"... "In violent opposition to all this sphere of [positive], Jewish efforts rise the schemes of the International Jews. Most, if not all, of them, have forsaken the faith of their forefathers and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new."- Winston Churchill. ..."
"... "His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people . It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in ..."
"... " For in Palestine, we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting with wishes of the [Palestinians]. And Zionism (is) of far profounder[sic] import than the desire and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who inhabit this ancient land." ..."
"... "Possession is 9/10ths of the law." ..."
"... " America is a Golden Calf and we will suck it dry, chop it up, and sell it off piece by piece until there is nothing left Why? This is what we do to countries that we hate. We destroy them very slowly and make them suffer for refusing to be our slaves."- I sraeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu ..."
"... "Israel First" and "Corporations First." ..."
"... Consider the fate of former US Secretary of Defence, Chuck Hagel who, long ago during Obama's presidency had the audacity, just prior to leaving for Tel Aviv, to say that he was first and foremost an America and would put American interests before that of Israel, adding that, ""The political reality is that the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here." ..."
"... Once Hagel returned to the exceptional nation from Tel Aviv he was, due to his president being now under Zionist control, summarily fired. ..."
"... "suck it dry, chop it up, and sell it off piece by piece until there is nothing left " ..."
"... without a request by either of the two moving parties. ..."
"... "changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the law". ..."
"... Federalist Society (FS). ..."
"... "Never has there been a collusion like the one between the U.S. and Israel. It suggests another word and that is "immunity." It has a moral immunity, a cultural immunity, a geopolitical immunity, a legal immunity, and certainly a media immunity. All the talk of Iran and nuclear weapons is without any reference to the biggest nuclear power in the Middle East. [Israel] " ..."
"... get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land " ..."
"... which further illustrated how endemic this doctrine of linking criticism of Israel to anti-Semitism has become. ..."
"... Did her example die with her? ..."
"... If you torture the numbers long enough, they will say whatever you want," ..."
"... Are they wrong? ..."
"... The House Committee on Foreign Affairs unanimously passed a measure on Thursday that ..."
"... it never gives back! ..."
"... Zionists are winning the battle for the hearts and minds of what remains of our world. ..."
"... then he is a Zionist. ..."
"... moral obligation ..."
"... then, she a Zionist. ..."
"... understood hypocrisy ..."
"... then, they are Zionists. ..."
"... knowingly prioritizes ..."
"... ignores the scriptures ..."
"... and their hearts- ..."
"... wilfully choose to do nothing ..."
"... clear conscience ..."
"... temptation to protest ..."
"... allow themselves ..."
"... "God, Forgive me." ..."
"... Too God Damned Late! ..."
"... Zionism cannot be understood outside the context of late 19th century European nationalism. The purpose of Zionism is to build a "normal" country of Jews in the Land of Israel, accepted by and at peace with it's Arab neighbors. The idea is to replace assimilation of individual Jews with the assimilation of the entire Jewish nation. ..."
"... Most Jews of course support Israel and they still practice mutual help, which causes the same problems as always: they were an endogamous and fast growing population trying to promote their group interests and seeing others as enemies. Jews in Israel face the problems of an occupation force: as they are confronted by asymmetric resistance, they are forced to do what they are doing, and that is the strategy of the resistance. ..."
"... Additionally there is Talmud with its different treatment of Jews and non-Jews, it makes things only worse. The actions Israel must make turn it into a pariah state. ..."
"... Zionism was, and is, a farcical and bloodthirsty imitation of the 19th-century German nationalism. ..."
There is much that the civilized world does not understand about modern Zionism. Today, the
definitions of being Jewish, Israeli or Zionist are, to most people, analogous. They are
not.
Indoctrinated into submitting to this incorrect, singular and collective definition, solely
due to Zionism's false claim of a direct religious link to Judaism, hence the objective,
critical world cowers at the similarly incorrect, but inevitable charge of
"Anti-Semitism." This false charge has too often caused the political and journalistic
demise of too many. Thus the world is scared away from exercising one's full mental faculties,
such faculties of conscience that would normally rise-up in collective reaction and
outrage.
The result, instead, has been worldwide apathy. This inaction towards the daily Zionist
violations of the fundamental laws of the conscience of man has become the designed result. In
the battle against the expansion of the many forms of worldwide Zionism, take note we are
losing!
For the outraged world to confidently and factually respond against the broad brush of the
charge of Anti-Semitism, one used continually and routinely to mask all discussion of Israeli
and Zionist crimes, it is essential to understand what today defines "modern" Zionism,
for here our fight for conscience begins. In reality, Zionism is an a-religious scourge that
uses a singular excuse to justify its existence and its collective actions, an excuse- a
hypocrisy- routinely missing in factual discussion and rarely understood by world Jewry as
well. Here is what can be accurately described as the root of Zionist thought.
This fundamental is a prayer. It has been debated, reviled, cast out and reborn in repeated
cycles by the most senior Jewish theologians over the past two thousand years. Most of the
growing horrors of our world- past and present- can be summed up and exemplified within this
single prayer, Jewish in creation, yet today exclusively Zionist in its modern use. Yes, one
single self-serving, rarely mentioned, prayer that, when considered correctly is today the
metaphor, if not the personification and the excuse, for all the moral ills that allow for the
suffering across the world today. This metaphoric prayer transcends all religions. It is the
propagation of a malignancy- now seemingly endemic- within a growing portion of humankind. Much
worse, this fundamental provides for the wilful individual rotting of one's mind, one's
conscience, and one's soul.
This unconscionable prayer's name? The Kol Nidrei.
Of, Zionism Past: Saying a Prayer for Zionism.
Zionism is not a recent ideology. The name is. In the 1890s, Theodor Herzl infused Zionism- the quest for
a nation of Israel- with an expanded ideology that lead to the First Zionist Congress at Basel in 1897, which created the World
Zionist Organization (WZO). Long ago cast-out from Judea since AD 70, by Roman emperor, Titus,
and in seeming finality by Hadrian- who renamed the whole region Syria Palestinia in 135 AD-
due to the Zionist Jew's growing dominance of that small piece of the Roman Empire. Sadly, this
happened repeatedly throughout history on multiple occasions by multiple other countries, and
for centuries Judaism was repeatedly without a host country.
Unfortunately for the whole of world Jewry, at many points throughout history, like in
Judea, their quest for a country was attempted via the ascension of powerful Jewish interests
progressively gaining control over established nations and afflicting societal crimes that
violated the conscience of the leaders of their host nations. As an example, in 1604 AD
Catholic Pope Clement VIII proclaimed:
" All the world suffers from the user of the Jews, their monopoly and deceit. They
have brought many unfortunate people into a state of poverty especially working people and
the very poor."
Here, Clement VIII- like many world leaders past and present- was inaccurate in his
statement, for he, too, did not understand Zionism nor have a separate definition for it, and
so made the oft-repeated mistake of associating all Jews together and therefore collectively
demonizing the entire religion and all its followers instead.
Then, as is the case today with modern Zionism, the vast majority of world Jewry had
committed no crime and deserved no charge, yet due to the actions of the few Jews who wilfully
worked towards hegemonic sedition from within their host country of the time, Clement VIII
cast-out all Jews in reaction. What Clement VIII failed to understand was that there was indeed
a difference within this one religion to be noted: a difference that was not Judaism; it was-
even back then- Zionism which excused its advocacy of the societal hypocrisy by citing within
the minds of certain Jews, the Kol Nidrei.
By extension, the unjustifiable horrors of the Holocaust inflicted on Jews were a similar
collective demonization by the German Third Reich of all Jews as their reaction to the
practices of the very few; those who had violated the boundaries of the societal conscience of
Germany and their own Torah.
However, the Germans who committed the resultant atrocities based solely on one's
affiliation with Judaism were unknowingly guilty of exactly the same failure of personal
conscience that ignored the fundamental tenets of their own religious Catholicism and their
bible. Together, these two subsets of religion within one society had one inherent amoral
similarity: a failure of personal conscience, one that deliberately ignored or excused away
their own religion's prohibition against their barbaric crimes against the norms of
society.
Known or not by name, theirs was each an individual use of an unjustifiable rationale; one
that allowed their afflicted minds to strangely turn Evil into Good, Devil into God, and Wrong
into Right. Today, this lapse of conscience is no longer peculiar to any one religion, but,
when considered correctly, is indeed purely Zionist. To understand worldwide Zionism is to
correctly understand the Kol Nidrei.
"All [personal] vows we are likely to make, all [personal] oaths and pledges we are
likely to take between this Yom Kippur and the next Yom Kippur, we publicly renounce. Let
them all be relinquished and abandoned, null and void, neither firm nor established. Let our
[personal] vows, pledges and oaths are considered neither vows nor pledges nor oaths."
-the Kol Nidrei.
The Kol Nidrei, ("All Vows") often misspelt Kol Nidre, was not originally a prayer, but a
declaration offered during Rosh Hashana, the start of the Jewish new year. In "modern" Judaism
it is now being delivered as a prayer and has so grown in prominence during the last sixty
years that it is now delivered at the commencement of Judaism's holiest yearly event of
Passover.
The internal philosophical Judaic controversy over whether the Kol Nidrei should be allowed
to be included in Jewish services has been argued, pro-or-con, for centuries by the most
pre-eminent Judaic scholars, most of whom vehemently opposed its inclusion and banned it
repeatedly. Their fundamental concern: How can the Jewish religion flourish if it violates the
most fundamental tenet of human conscience?: Adherence to Right vs. the temptation of
Wrong.
This question was succinctly answered over the centuries as the Kol Nidrei rightly fell from
grace or was subsequently reinstated by new Zionist elements of society. Historical examination
of the Kol Nidrei shows the polarity between the demand for the proper benevolence offered in
the original Judaism of the Torah verses the post-Torah books of the Talmud, which contain
rationales supported in part by this one single all-excusing prayer that is the fundamental
malady, if not the definition, of modern Zionism.
... ... ...
Thus viewed correctly, Zionism is not a religion, nor is it part of Judaism. It is a
political tool of expediency and far more comparable to the western created Daesh/ ISIS. Both
use a self-serving created form of an ostensibly beneficent religion, Muslim or Judaic, as an
alternate rendition of that religion that excuses away a person's obvious factual sins against
one's true religious dogma and one's own conscience.
In the ages-old religious argument of whether mankind is born good or evil, as is shown in
the daily newsreels of the continued and growing horrors against true humanity, Zionism, like
Saudi Wahhabism, has made an a-religious and hypocritical choice to honour the later.
Zionism First Defined: A Conquest of Country.
"In violent opposition to all this sphere of [positive], Jewish efforts rise the
schemes of the International Jews. Most, if not all, of them, have forsaken the faith of
their forefathers and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This
movement among the Jews is not new."- Winston Churchill.
When the Israeli Zionists, in 1948, achieved their goal of attaining the nation of Israel,
theirs was a victory that had already shown, over the previous thirty years, their methods and
goals of new world hegemony to come.
The Zionist inspired Balfour agreement was not, as claimed, merely the guarantee of carving
Israel out of existing Palestine: It was a bribe.
On Nov. 7, 1917, Lord Lionel Walter Rothchild, arguably the leading Zionist financial and
political asset in Britain and America, due to his families multi-national banking interests,
guaranteed UK foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour and the British Government -- then losing WW I
desperately- that he would bring American military might to their side in exchange for its
ceding Palestine. This led to the signing of the Balfour Agreement, the entry of American
troops under false premises and the agreed upon genocide and enforced relocation of the
Palestinians. Said Balfour publicly:
"His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a
national home for the Jewish people . It being clearly understood that nothing shall be done
which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities inPalestine "[Emph. Added]
But, here, Balfour lied, having himself succumbed to Zionist influence within his own
failure of conscience and personal religious hypocrisy. This was clearly shown when he
privately, and far more truthfully, stated:
" For in Palestine, we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting with
wishes of the [Palestinians]. And Zionism (is) of far profounder[sic] import than the desire
and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who inhabit this ancient land."
This pro-Zionist and fully exclusionary mindset is continued in the horrors perpetrated
against Palestinians and other nations to this day. Consider the past three months of this
current year alone. Over 150 Palestinians have been slaughtered on their own land and almost
5,000 wounded because of related IDF approved genocidal target practice. Meanwhile, at the same
time, nearly 4,500 new illegal settlements have also been recently approved on the occupied
West Bank.
Soon, reportedly, the US will approve the Israeli seizure of the entire Golan Heights. For
within Zionism's mental adherence to the Kol Nidrei is a further incorrect Talmudic influenced
hegemonic adage which is used repeatedly as Israeli foreign policy, "Possession is 9/10ths
of the law."
Today, Palestine is a sliver of it's 1917 boundaries. Over ninety-five percent has been
purchased, coerced, annexed, destroyed or stolen by Israeli Zionists. Not satisfied yet, the
deplorable conditions imposed by Israel on the remaining Palestinians are deliberate attempts
at further genocide designed to finish their two thousand year project in their favour.
Expanding Zionism: From Palestine to America.
" America is a Golden Calf and we will suck it dry, chop it up, and sell it off piece
by piece until there is nothing left Why? This is what we do to countries that we hate. We
destroy them very slowly and make them suffer for refusing to be our slaves."- I sraeli Prime
Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu
Israel and its Zionist minions control America. Completely. American nationalism and
populism have been steadily changed since the establishment of Israel to an agenda today of
"Israel First" and "Corporations First." This is true for any aspiring US politician
as well as in the mind of the average American voter. Worse, this current national endemic
result is not limited only to America.
In the post-Palestine era after 1947, Zionists were not content with finally having their
own nation of Israel. Their new nation would not have resulted without the pressure exerted on
the United Nation's members by the American government which ultimately produced,
on Nov 27, 1947, UN resolution 181. As with the many previous host nations over the
previous centuries that provided sanctuary to the Jewish faith, the Zionist sub-set within
American politics began to further their power beyond the Israeli borders. Hence, Israel began
the strengthening of its political control of the US Congress and its individual politicians.
This, of course, is seen by the unapologetic decisions, platform and control exerted by
AIPAC ( the American Israeli Political Affairs
Committee) which is undeniably the foremost political action interest within the US
Congress. This is documented thoroughly in the 2006 academic work, "The Israel Lobby,"
by University of Chicago and Harvard University professors John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M.
Walt. Despite this carefully researched, referenced and footnoted study, and the fact that
Mearsheimer is a Jew, both were publicly excoriated as being anti-Semites.
It is well established that both houses of the US Congress care not for the concerns of
their voters once they have been placated every two or six years in order to be re-elected and
return to primarily pleasing Zionist interests. Looking at US foreign policy alone, today the
questionable moniker of, "Dual Loyalty," is used to justify growing Israeli involvement in US
military leadership and access by Israeli Zionists within the US government. In foreign policy,
America's military always marches to a Zionist tune that has little or no bearing on US
national security, yet it's politicians always avoid answering the question: "why?"
As shown repeatedly, from the 2015 Gaza war atrocities onto the granting of Jerusalem as the
US denoted Israeli capital, followed by the anticipated subsequent slaughter of the few
remaining indigenous Palestinians, if America is not invading on behalf of Israel or its
Zionist brethren, such as Saudi Arabia destroying Yemen, it is re-supplying Zionist vassals
with weapons or voting only for Zionist interests against UN resolutions and worldwide calls
for of peace and sanity. Are not "Neo-Conservatism" and "American Exceptionalism" really the
results of the inherent self-serving message of the Kol Nidrei applied to US nationalism and
re-branded as national security-not as Zionism- for the dulled American mind?
Consider the fate of former US Secretary of Defence, Chuck Hagel who, long ago during
Obama's presidency had the audacity, just prior to leaving for Tel Aviv, to say that he was
first and foremost an America and would put American interests before that of Israel, adding
that, ""The political reality is that the Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here." Hagel later apologised for the use of the term "Jewish lobby", saying he should have said
"pro-Israel lobby", but Hagel did not back down over his comments. He also continued to
question the duplicity in US foreign and military policy that did not directly support American
interests first. Being a former US senator (1997- 2008) from Nebraska, Hagel was sincere in his
pro-American statements, so sincere in fact that he was hypocritically cast out by Obama, who
had, during his 2008 campaign, similarly opposed the, "unwavering pro-Likud approach to
Israel." Once Hagel returned to the exceptional nation from Tel Aviv he was, due to his
president being now under Zionist control, summarily fired.
Military control, however, is only one of the many facets of Zionist control within American
society and is certainly not necessarily Jewish. Here we see what the true goal of Zionism is
within American society and that it does indeed clearly intend to, "suck it dry, chop it
up, and sell it off piece by piece until there is nothing left "
From Health Care to Education, Social Services to Corporatization, life expectancy to
retirement, America is in decline and Americans are in denial, too scared at being charged with
anti-Semitism to take note of the obvious facts. Zionism is destroying their country, piece by
piece, but they, unlike Hagel, Thomas, Mearsheimer and Walt, have been indoctrinated that any
criticism will be denoted as anti-Semitic and/or disloyal to America. This only accelerates the
decline while emboldening the sociopaths who do run their country without any concern for
public well-being.
Gilens and Page tabulated more than 20 years of congressional voting data to answer the
question: Does the US government represent the people? They drew several conclusions,
particularly that, "The opinions of the bottom 90% of income earners in America has essentially
no impact at all because purchasing political influence is 100% legal." Those benefiting from
congressional votes in the House and the Senate were almost exclusively the interests of
corporate dominance, profit and greed, not the growing needs of the citizens. This is, and
always has been throughout history, a peculiar trait of Zionism, since it features a type of
greed so severe that it transcends human conscience and any obligation to society. In doing so,
this abrogation of duty by politicians is very much in keeping with the tenets and political
hypocrisy espoused by the Kol Nidrei.
Only in America are corporations legally treated as live human beings, but these newly
created humans, as expected, have no conscience at all. The Zionist mind of the corporation has
shown that it controls Congress as well as the US Supreme Court. Further, in the mind of the
Zionist, all social services including education need to be privatized and its finances under
their control, if not completely eliminated.
When the US Supreme Court made the case of Citizen's United v F.E.C. the law of the land,
few took the time to understand the real insidious nature of this historic and divisive Supreme
Court decision.
Thirty-five year Supreme Court Justice, John Paul Stevens, did.
In a
twenty-three page Dissenting Opinion and using strong words very rarely written within the
collegial confines of the court, Stevens railed against Citizen's United and its likely
results. As Stevens pointed out, the politically and corporately controlled court under brand
new Chief Justice, John Roberts, violated the time-honoured legal concept of Stare Decisis . This was an extremely
unusual move that saw the court take-up for its subsequent divisive decision a standing
appellate court decision, without a request by either of the two moving parties.
Stevens also argued that the Court addressed a question not raised by the litigants, and that
the majority "changed the case to give themselves an opportunity to change the
law".
Further, incoming Chief Justice, John Roberts, who ordered the case brought before the court
anyway, threw the majority of his own written legal precedents on corporations in the rubbish
bin of time in order to strangely join the majority opinion. Those are only a few of the
problems with the creation of Citizen's United, but here, again, Roberts and the 5-4 majority
(Roberts, Kennedy, Alito, Thomas, Scalia) found a way to mentally and morally approve what was
their own understood violation of law, if not a violation of conscience. Of course, this was in
keeping with the mental hypocrisy of the Kol Nidrei. No, they did not likely know it by name,
but those in the majority knew that they were indeed sacrificing their legal acumen, the US
constitution and their moral obligation to the higher a authority of modern Zionism.
This cadre of Zionist thought within the Supreme Court is fully admitted by these modern day
Pharisees of American jurisprudence who willingly brandish their personal attachment to the
Federalist Society (FS). Current
card carrying members members include Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Anthony
Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. This organization supports rolling back civil
liberties, imperial wars, free-wheeling laissez-faire capitalism and corporatism, along with
ending New Deal/Great Society social programs. It's also against reproductive choice,
government regulations, labour rights, environmental protections, and justice for unwanted
aliens.
This accusation that Federalist doctrine is controlling and creating the laws of the land
was further confirmed this past week as this Supreme Court certified bigotry against one
religion (Muslim) by allowing Trump's pro-Israel travel ban. On the same day, the same court
gutted what little remains of the American unions and the political influence of working voters
via collective bargaining. As shown by the Page and Gilens study, Unions are also anathema to
corporate interests and this week national Unions joined the Muslim world in being prohibited
from helping social change against Zionist influence.
This was a big win for Zionism which abhors the nations of the Muslim world that it cannot
control and was clearly shown in the list of countries that were banned. The countries which do
not support American expansionism nor Zionism were all banned, while one of the most barbaric
Muslim nations, Saudi Arabia, was exempt because their country's leadership has been willing to
suck on America's and Israel's teat.
US healthcare, despite being the most expensive per capita in the world, is measured, not by
success in prevention, but by the nation's operating table mortality rates, infant mortality
rates and rising insurance rates, all of which are some of the worst in the developed world.
Despite these foibles of American capitalist Zionism, HMO profits are also at historically high
levels as are its administrative fees which exceed 20% compared to just over 2% in the UK's
vaunted NHS.
Pharmaceutical companies wine and dine doctors and politicians with a manipulative budget of
over $1.2 billion per year. As a result, no longer is the FDA the ultimate arbiter of new drugs
being brought to market since it allows and accepts verbatim the self-serving clinical trials
of the drug companies that create these drugs. Many, as shown clearly on US television
advertising, have a laundry list of side effects. Despite this, these drugs are approved and
the doctor's, with few exceptions, happily prostitute their Hypocratic Oath and scientific fact
in order to serve up these tainted drugs to their unsuspecting and trusting patients.
These and many other prescription drugs, despite being offered in many other countries, are
always the most expensive in America. When many Americans who realized that Canada and Mexico
offered the same drugs at a far lesser price, they took their prescriptions over the border to
save money. However, once Big
Pharma realized it no longer had a captured market, it used its powerful and paid for lobby in
congress to effect legislation making it a felony criminal offence similar to smuggling for
anyone to save money on their prescriptions by traveling. Not a peep was heard from doctors
nationally, nor from congress who had, of course, also sold their professional souls already.
This week, the Financial Times reported
that Pfizer, the largest drug company in the US, has now further raised prices on 100 products.
These price hikes were announced just weeks after President Trump claimed that US drug
companies would soon announce
"massive" voluntary price cuts .
Yearly, American education teaches Americans to be ignorant and not to think, much less
develop an informed, fact-based opinion. Less and less federal funding goes to public education
and the poor test scores show
America in 38 th position of developed nations worldwide in mathematics and 17
th overall. This poor performance has led to the advent of private charter
schools.
As championed by US Education Secretary, Betsy De Voss, who is decidedly Zionist within her
stated public comments about fixing public education, already world geography and critical
thinking are rarely taught and history is so heavily skewed as to be revisionist. This is shown
by too many Americans still believing that modern day Russia and the long dismembered Soviet
Union remain unchanged and an identical threat as well as their failure to be able to find
their own nation on a globe. This myopic narrow-mindedness has left most Americans with no
interest in discerning the truth about the remaining world around them, but an illogical
enthusiasm for US
expansionism and "thermonuclear war."
Americans are not stupid, but they are indeed extraordinarily ignorant. An ignorant populace
increasingly has no desire for divining the truth of world events and so routinely turns to
their singular news source for the "facts" that they hold as indisputable. To this end, in
America most journalists prostitute their necessary role as the vanguards of society. This is
easily evidenced by the fact that over
90% of all traditional media sources ( TV, Radio, Newspaper) are owned and managed by just six
huge corporate interests that have an all too similar editorial slant that favours a
Zionist agenda. 20th-century American writer, Truman Capote, in a 1968 Playboy interview,
assailed "the Zionist mafia" of his time that has since only increased its monopolizing of the
news publishing industry today.
Reaffirming the current condition of journalism, this past week during a public speech in
support of Julian Assange, award-winning, career journalist and documentary film maker, John
Pilger commented on today's Zionist media editorial control, saying,
"Never has there been a collusion like the one between the U.S. and Israel. It
suggests another word and that is "immunity." It has a moral immunity, a cultural immunity, a
geopolitical immunity, a legal immunity, and certainly a media immunity. All the talk of Iran
and nuclear weapons is without any reference to the biggest nuclear power in the Middle East.
[Israel] "
Indeed. With critical thinking substantially suppressed in America, and the media proffering
virtually no criticism of Israel, nor Zionist crimes against society, the supposed journalists
of the 4th Estate and First Amendment are mostly willing propagandists.
Or else.
Scared into submission while offering only as one sided Zionist agenda, and bribed with
lucrative contracts and benefits, no US mainstream journalist will risk the likely connected
charge of anti-Semitism. Virtually none will stand-up, respect their conscience and do a proper
job of reporting on journalism's control, and societal connection to, Zionism. In the minds of
many, however, remains the sudden and tragic demise of the most senior White House
correspondent in press history, Helen Thomas. Her crime: Stating what every member of the press
already knew to be true, but did not have the guts to say themselves.
While chatting privately during of a Washington, DC cocktail party, Thomas said that Israel
should, "
get the hell out of Palestine. Remember, these people are occupied and it's their land
" Then, as today, this sent of howls of outrage that she or anyone would audaciously
state the truth, even in private. Hence, Thomas, her fifty-seven years as a White House
correspondent and her exemplary dedication to a high standard of news reporting were gone from
public view within 48 hours, when Hearst publications dutifully fired her in order to placate
the Zionist outrage against the truth of this matter. She was, of course, speaking about
Zionists, not Jews, yet she was charged with Anti-Semitism, a capital crime, and summarily
convicted.
Not one US journalist publicly came to Helen Thomas' defence which further illustrated
how endemic this doctrine of linking criticism of Israel to anti-Semitism has become.
Helen Thomas, like the facts, truth and example of courage she represented, died less than
two years later.
Did her example die with her?
Pre-Modern Zionism: Buying the Stairway to Heaven?
"New York is the city of privilege. Here is the seat of the Invisible Power represented by
the allied forces of finance and industry. This Invisible Government is reactionary,
sinister, unscrupulous, mercenary, and sordid. It is wanting in national ideals and devoid of
conscience . . . This kind of government must be scourged and destroyed."
Before modern Zionism took a hold on America there once was a religious mandate to wilfully
provide for the less fortunate. Because of the scriptures, if not an ultimate fear of God, many
of society's super-wealthy of that by-gone era did substantially contribute to serving the
societies around them. This was shown in the construction of libraries, museums, universities,
hospitals, endowments, social services and church social programs paid for by oligarchs such as
Carnegie, Roosevelt, Blair, Morgan, Getty, Mellon and Tufts. Some of these men, knowing the
capitalist crimes they had perpetrated on the path to their riches, were certainly buying their
own "Stairway to Heaven." Try as they might, none could deny in their minds the unavoidable
final decision that would befall them all come "Judgement Day."
Today, no such religious obligation exists. Any such religious requirements have long since
been replaced by the tenets of the Kol Nidrei that allows for, and excuses away, the pure
selfishness of Zionism's influence.
By comparison, as a positive example of these too long-ignored religious requirements of
societal ethics in business, take Charles William (C.W.) Post and Will Keith (W.K.) Kellogg
. These were the breakfast cereal barons of the late 19th century and became very wealthy men
indeed. Post was a Christian, Kellogg a Seventh Day Adventist. Both believed and practised the
concept that an employee was an asset to be propagated for the good of the company and the good
of the worker.
Both Post and Kellogg headquartered their growing empires in Battle Creek, MI. Here they
needed a massive workforce, while thousands in pre-industrial and post-depression America
needed jobs. Believing that both owner and worker could benefit from their collective
endeavours, Post and Kellogg built thousands of modest houses near the factories for the
workers, many of which exist today. These houses were sold to the workers at cost and the
owners provided credit terms so favourable that workers could pay them off to full ownership on
the 30 hour work week that both Post and Kellogg believed to be part of this mutual bargain.
Company stores bought their goods at wholesale prices and passed this discount along to the
worker. Retirement benefits were guaranteed to all long-standing employees, the majority of
whom stayed that long.
As a result, the community of Battle Creek- until the advent of NAFTA and monopoly-
flourished, as did both the companies and their profits. At the onset of the 1929 Great
Depression, Battle Creek became a sought-after final destination for the many unemployed
"two-tankers"- those with just enough money remaining for, not one, but two tanks of gas for
their cars- who came up from the southern states seeking work.
With both the owners and the workers prospering, neither Kellogg nor Post had the need to
buy their own stairway to heaven, nor prostitute their conscience. They did not know it, but
they had not succumbed to the mindset of the Kol Nidrei and did not care to become Zionists,
for they chose to honour what their conscience and their religion told them was right and,
thus, ignore what they knew to be wrong.
Contrast this socially correct example of religious discipline with a quite different memory
from the same time period, one that still wafts in the air across the hills and surrounding
green valleys of Merthyr Tydfil in Southern Wales, UK. Here, in what was, for more than a
century, iron and coal country, the name and the odour of the infamous steelworks owner,
Robert
Thompson Crawshay, remains to this day in the minds and on the lips of the local Welsh.
Crawshay typified the many all-powerful industrialist owners of America and Britain in the
times when the value of a workhorse far exceeded the value of the human worker. Employees were
expendable as was evidenced by the horrible living and working conditions and the massive
amount of workplace injuries and fatalities to which the owners, like Crawshay, could not have
cared less. Despite being a routine church-goer himself, the list of the societal horrors
inflicted on the workers and their families by Crawshay was a long one indeed.
He was born rich, lived that way and died in luxury, and he wanted to let the impoverished
community outside his walled estate know it. When Crawshay had a new mansion built in Merthyr
he also built a tall four-sided clock tower, but the side facing the workers and the ironworks
was left blank. When one year the workers organized a strike, rather than negotiating a
settlement with them he closed the entire ironworks and every other business in the town, thus
putting everyone, including support trades and other manufacturing in nearby towns, out of
work. This fomented dissent in the already starving community and the breaking of the strike.
Crawshay also built homes and company stores for his workers, but the homes were on loan at his
pleasure and he charged exorbitant rents as he did inflated prices at his stores. This kept the
workers forever in debt and indentured to him and his factories.
To further show his personal power over all who lived in his domain, on the eve of a
worker's wedding day Crawshay would often have the driver of his two-horse black carriage
deliver him to the doorstep of the groom. He would then provide him with an ultimatum: allow
him to be the first to deflower the man's betrothed that very night, or lose his job and be
blackballed from working in all other nearby locations on the very day of his wedding. To cross
Crawshay then, or at any time, was to be "sacked," with the local Crawshay foreman knocking
unannounced on one's door of an evening, holding a single used burlap sack for the victim to
carry out everything and what little he and his family owned, forthwith, while two Crawshay
goons attended to the sacking.
As a staunch Protestant Crawshay knew that his actions were not supported by his bible, his
God, nor his conscience, yet he carried on, relishing in his unchecked power and the hatred
towards him by the whole town. No, Crawshay did not know the correct definition of his crimes,
but he, too, was inherently a Zionist within his own mind. So conscious was Crawshay of his
demonstrative and deliberate earthly violations that when he died in 1879 he commissioned a
massive horizontal gravestone made of one piece of 16-inch thick granite to cover over his
entire grave so that no one would dig up his remains and scatter his God-forsaken corpse to
winds or to the hogs.
Yes, Crawshay was, in practice, a Zionist. Today, the capitalist malady exhibited by
Crawshay has returned to the factories, sweatshops, and service sector jobs that offer no
benefits, retirement or future for workers or families worldwide. The return of the mindset of
Crawshay has infected the many corporate religious hypocrites of the today's new industrial
age, regardless of religion. Humanity has been cast out. Zionism has returned beginning in
America.
The state of America today is already deplorably Zionist in its lack of societal or moral
concern. While the US government uses the Zionist economic mantra," If you torture the
numbers long enough, they will say whatever you want," in order to brandish its touted
lies of purported success, the reported 3.8% unemployment rate does not bare scrutiny with real
unemployment actually at 21.4% according to Shadowstats economist John Williams.
The Trump regime and GOP-controlled Congress- like the Federalists on the Supreme Court-
want New Deal/Great Society programs eliminated altogether via de-funding or privatization,
giving Wall Street and other corporate predators new profit centers to pillage at the expense
of the grievously harmed working people, particularly the nation's most vulnerable.
Most US workers are underemployed in future-less part-time or temp jobs because millions of
full-time ones that include benefits and retirement no longer exist – lost by offshoring
to low-wage countries by corporate Zionist who do not care about their own society that spawned
their own business successes. They only care about continued profit. As a further example, this
past Tuesday, June 19,
Republican House members introduced an FY 2019 budget proposal, calling for $5.4 trillion in
mandatory social service spending cuts over the next decade yet they strangely demanded
even more defence spending and further tax cuts for the rich and not a penny more for the poor
and the indigent. Major cuts to Medicare and Medicaid are prioritized over the next decade
– $537 billion and $1.5 trillion respectively- and another $5 billion per year from
Social Security and additional cuts from other social programs.
Such is the mind of the corporate and political Zionist in America, today. Robert Thompson
Crawshay would have been most supportive of seeing thie return to the amoral conscience of the
corporate Zionist. For in his mind, as in the minds of today's corporate Zionists, admission
beyond the Pearly Gates is just a matter of buying the Stairway to Heaven.
Are they wrong?
Modernizing Zionism: A Claim to One's Mind and Soul.
Like Crawshay, who failed to heed his bible's teachings in favour of a Zionist-like
selfishness and quest for power and more money, seemingly all the major religions today are
also similarly affected by a wilful ignorance of conscience.
This week it was reported that, for the first time ever, at the exclusively pro-Zionist
gathering of the Bilderberg Group summit
the Secretary of State of the Catholic church, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, will be attending from
Rome. It is not likely that he will be tutoring this Zionist coven on any of his own
religion's twelve commandments, but more likely he will tutored by them on the need for
reviewing the spirit of the Kol Nidrei for inclusion as Catholicism's new thirteenth.
By extension, over the last twenty-plus years the advent of the religious duplicity known as
the " Christian
Zionist" has also manifested itself behind too many American pulpits that spout a
deliberately pro- Israel mantra to their parishioners. This hypocrisy was by design of the
Israeli Zionists that these supposed Christian ministers now actually serve. Virtually all of
them have accepted all-expense-paid junkets to Israel and Jerusalem and thus been indoctrinated
with a pro-Zionist / anti- Muslim philosophy that they have been convinced is integral to
Judaism and Christianity. This has served Israel well, with the Christian Zionist being blinded
into the actual giving of his mind and his religion over to Zionism while parishioners attempt
to appease their chosen God in favour of a very different God.
Modern Zionism has even managed to take over a religion that is specifically anti-war,
anti-greed, anti-poverty and pro-peace and love. Is it not Zionism further personified when we,
the civilized world, behold the daily television spectacle of religious hypocrisy which shows,
before our very eyes, the crimson and saffron-colored velvet robes, shaved-heads and
be-sandaled Buddhist monks who, incredibly, are now brandishing AK-47 rifles and shooting, when
not burning, innocent Rohingha? Yes. They too are not correctly serving their God. They have
replaced their true religion with their own bastardized version, one that favours the mantra of
the Kol Nidrei over that of non-violence and peace. Thus, they are not Buddhists. They, too,
have become .Zionists.
However, what took place in America during the past seventy years since the Kol Nidrei
returned is the working model and example of Zionist hegemony as seen across the globe in most
countries today. This modern goal is not just a hegemony that attempts to control new country,
it is one that seeks to, and results in, forcing, not merely a change in national allegiance in
favour of Israel, but worse, it demands a change within one's mind, as personified by the Kol
Nedrei, that is beyond Judaism, yet penetrates all religions and morals.
War, selfishness, greed, and avarice are now seemingly endemic in the conscience of society
worldwide. This is the great crime of the Zionists: creating a world that now subliminally and
unknowingly abrogates its conscience to the religiously hypocritical agenda of the Kol Nidrei.
For those of proper religious and/or moral virtue, the concept of the Kol Nidrei, whether
defined or not, is naturally abhorrent. For those with a pro-Zionist predisposition,
justification of their personal crimes of conscience are too easily excused. Personal success
at any cost is the modern mantra. Once sprinkled with the cerebral Zionist pixie-dust of the
Kol Nidrei's pervasive influence, any primary concern towards proper humanity becomes tertiary
at best.
The crimes of Zionism, via this deliberate cross-societal indoctrination of the Kol Nidrei,
go far beyond the bartered religion of Judaism. Many of the required societal elements, such as
nationalism, political parties, military defence, education, journalism, medicine, banking,
industry, manufacturing and respect for knowledge are similarly degraded by this immoral plague
against conscience and society.
The Zionist is wrong in thinking that the whole world beyond America is similarly and
completely afflicted with this terminal lapse of conscience. Increased opposition to Israel and
Zionism in cities across the globes show that those of true conscience understand their
adversary very well. But not necessarily by name.
Zionism's answer to this growing opposition uses the creation of ignorance and apathy as it
weapon in forcing the false accusation of anti-Semitism on all who dare to correctly attack its
philosophy, its goals and results. But for those who do rarely stand up and state what is
obvious, their resistance, free will and minds have now been made illegal.
Take the recent Israeli efforts to make photographing and reporting on any IDF crime against
humanity a mandatory prison sentence of 5-10 years. Aside from attempting to further hide their
crimes, the Zionist mind wishes to force a new choice of prison vs. conscience on those who
would rise to a normal societal standard.
Floating through the US House is another legal challenge to one's free will and thoughts
that seeks to challenge any opposition on college campuses in America that would criticize, via
peaceful protest, the crimes of the Zionist Israelis. This bill, if successful, would require a
full administrative investigation- paid for at public expense- of any campus protest against
Israel and of those involved in the new crime of free will and conscious thought. Of course,
any similar protests by Zionists are not to be investigated, only those that would attempt to
blaspheme against their demonstrative examples of moral turpitude.
Faced with this legalized Zionism, the far greater crime is that the once rational minds of
the vast majority of the world are now willing to prostitute their own minds into apathy, or
worse, accept this societal influenza in exchange for buying-in to a decidedly personal agenda
that ignores the needs of all others. Hence, more than ever before rational humans of all
religions- as we see with the Christian Zionists, Industrialists, Buddhists and world leaders
across almost all ethnicities, are volunteering to sell their souls merely for the desire a few
more shekels. For these rewards, they ignore all else and have, too often, sold their
souls.
For Zionism takes it never gives back!
Zionism Today: America's No.1 Export.
As modern Zionism has methodically taken over Palestine and America, so it has done to a
vast portion of the world. Today, there are almost no world leaders who put their allegiance to
their own countrymen before that of their Zionist masters. The game plan of Zionist hegemony
towards political leaders, country, mind and opposition are just as complete in Australia,
Canada, the European Union, Britain, Japan, South Korea, etc.,al. For those who have not bitten
from their immoral fruit, the Zionist offers only one other choice: financial degradation and
internal civil war! This is shown in the few countries that resist a Zionist agenda such as
Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, China, Brazil, Venezuela, Russia and others. These countries have
been the targets of Zionist propaganda- via American foreign policy- which demands regime
change and war.
Take Britain for example and its upstart parliamentary leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy
Corbyn. Despite being Jewish himself, the unabashed "Friends of Israel" coalition within the UK
parliament, knowing which side their own bread is buttered on, have attacked Corbyn as being an
anti-Semite. On face value this is claimed to be the result of his public and well-articulated
support of Palestine and his condemnation in the press of IDF war crimes. But this is not
Corbyn's true threat to the Zionists who are buried in parliaments around the world and are
rarely exposed by the Zionist controlled world press. No. His true crime is that he offers hope
to the many Brits who have suffered years of unjustified austerity at the hands of the Zionist
European Union that has, like their American brethren, imposed years of increased funding for
hypothetical war at the expense of any social obligations.
Corbyn is possibly the only true socialist leader in the world- one with a track record of
standing up for his voters and not surrendering his leadership nor his conscience to the
influence of the Zionists. Corbyn not only speaks for a growing majority in the UK, he speaks
for the much more powerful interests in Britain that would like to see a return to the policies
of True Labour, not the New Labour that was bastardized into existence by the Zionist former
Prime Minister, Tony Blair, an indoctrination that seemed almost complete until the rise to
power of Corbyn as a true populist Champion. What most fail to observe within Corbyn's rise is
that he has successfully weathered not one but two attempts by the Zionist controlled traitors
within his own party to oust him as leader. Despite these attempts, Corbyn has emerged
unscathed and more popular than ever, and this strongly indicates the power base behind the
scenes that wants to see him bring a return to a socialist Britain.
He is also the sole example to a world desperately looking for a leader to follow in their
own fight for a return to proper society in their own nations.
This, of course, is anathema to everything the Zionists stand for and for what control they
have gained since Maggie Thatcher morphed into John Major, who hatched into Gordon Brown, who
then spawned Tony Blair who allowed for the rise of David Cameron and Theresa May, but whose
chrysalis has now been crushed under the boot of this rising populism lead by Corbyn.
At the seat of European Zionist control, Brussels, the EU is too busy crushing Zionist
opposition in Greece, Italy, Spain/ Catalonia and Brexit to devote their full attention, yet,
to Corbyn. Few realize that creation of the EU, from its inception to its current form of
unelected economic and social control over 27 once-sovereign nations was,in reality, spawned,
propagated, institutionalized and brought to power by the American Zionists looking to
further their centralized national control using the pre-existing American model.
The American model of "United" states or nations had, far before 1999, become a tool to
prioritize a Zionist agenda over that of the public. Once the Zionist banking interests had
succeeded in adding central monetary control to the EU via its emulation of the US Federal
Reserve Bank, the interests of the twenty-eight nations were reduced to the interests of the
corporation, never more the voter.
Then, there is the IMF. As the foremost tool for turning sovereign nations into Zionist debt
slaves, the IMF has used its coercion to force nations across the globe into accepting massive
loan packages of US dollars that are more than fully secured by the pledging of national assets
that the Zionist business interests covet. The results of this tactical plunder is shown by the
fact that the IMF currently holds the third largest gold reserves in the world, all of which
was provided as ransom from the countries it afflicted. It has also inflicted massive economic
and environmental disasters of staggering proportions on its host nations whose Zionist
inspired leadership sought to do a deal with the devil, one that helped their pockets, but not
their nation, their people, nor their long term future.
In his book, "Confessions of an Economic
Hit Man," John Perkins details the way the IMF forces countries to take on these unpayable
loan packages and how the IMF uses this as a wedge to seed its hegemony, austerity, misery and
political upheaval- in the name of "progress"- on so much of the unsuspecting world. Greece, is
of course, the poster child for these results where a treasonous Alexis Tsipras, as Prime
Minister, has now sold off most of the public assets to private corporate interests, has
destroyed the national social obligations to his countrymen, and has made Greece a vassal state
of the EU, yet he still has made barely a dent in the massive debt obligations to the Troika;
the EU, IMF and World Bank.
Still, they want more.
The societal results today, as predicted by the previous results of the American model, have
been almost worldwide in its austerity imposed on the poor, massive increases in military
armaments purchases, elimination of democracy and democratic results, restrictions of existing
civil rights and social services, an ever growing refugee crisis and the autocratic political
control of Europe and most of the world by a selected or unelected coven of Zionists who have
already sold their own souls for personal power and riches.
In destroying the nation of Greece, theirs is not just a message to the Greeks from the
Zionists who run the EU and the Troika. It was a message to all the other nations and peoples
of the world: Resistance is futile!
Or, is it?!
Zionism's "Final Solution" Are You a Zionist?!
Yes, when considered in its many worldwide manifestations the true definition of Zionism is
much broader and seemingly all encompassing. Once its incorrect attachment to Judaism is
accurately debunked, Zionism's degradations of the cornerstones of civilization and its goal
towards a subliminal personal adherence to selfishness, greed, and the immoral can be correctly
defined in summation by the single all-serving excuse offered by the Kol Nidrei.
But the "Final solution" of Zionism is much worse.For the final goal of Zionism is to take
away your human desire to resist.
Truly, Zionism's greatest success has been in indoctrinating the opposition conscience of
the remaining world into acquiescence, apathy and failure. Zionism would not have achieved its
world threatening level of power had the morals of society already risen up en mass
against the crimes of Israeli and Zionist expansion. So far, our world has allowed this to be
our current societal condition. Hence we are losing!
As clearly shown, the world is awash in the mindset of the Zionist. Virtually all aspects of
civilization are now steeped in the subtle manipulative and hypocritical tenets of the Zionist-
not Jewish- Kol Nidrei. This infection of the conscience is certainly spreading worldwide and,
whether one knows it by name, this infection has become increasingly systemically endemic. As
done so many times through history, Zionism and Zionists must be cast out again from world
society.
Across the world, as shown, examples of the horrors of Zionism are not at all limited to the
barbarism that is ongoing in Palestine. As suggested in a previous article, "The
Good Friday Massacre : World, We Are All Palestinians Now," we, the remaining civilized
world, must quickly awaken to the knowledge that we are apathetically existing in an
ever-growing cage of Zionist control while to cage door is quickly closing. It is time to
understand Zionists are winning the battle for the hearts and minds of what remains of our
world.
When the politician ignores his conscience , the will of the voters, his duty to
country, and his oath of office in favour of supporting a foreign interest then he is a
Zionist.
When the journalist casts aside her moral obligation and wilfully crafts preposterous
pro- Israeli articles that distort and belie the truth, while deliberately leaving out the
horrors of Israeli war crimes and worldwide influence- thus prostituting the true tenets of
objective reporting then, she a Zionist.
When doctors, lawyers and teachers, use understood hypocrisy to justify allowing
personal interests and money to come before their obligation to their charges within the
society they serve then, they are Zionists.
When the professional athlete knowingly prioritizes continued riches and fame
before his obligation to the people whose accolades made him wealthy and fails to use his media
power to stand-up against or take a knee in opposition to the injustices he or she sees
then, those athletes are Zionists.
When the Preacher, Rabbi, Imam, Priest, Monk or Holy Father ignores the scriptures
of their particular religion and does not thunder a call from the pulpit for the immoral
factions within their religion to be ejected then, that man of God is a Zionist.
But, the most critical manifestations that defines modern Zionism are those within society
who know in their own minds and conscience- and their hearts- that their own world,
and that of human kind, is being destroyed, yet they wilfully choose to do nothing in
opposition. Those of the moral world who do see the social hegemony of Zionism before
very eyes, yet fail to be disgusted to the point of action. Men and women of clear
conscience whomerely pass quiet comment rather than shaking their fists in proper outrage.
People whose temptation to protest is too easily calmed by the next media
distraction
when those of the civilized world allow themselves to become too scared and
apathetic to disconnect Zionism from Judaism and scream at, throw back and laugh-off the
erroneous accusation of Ant-Semitism and, then, demand that modern Zionism be removed
completely from our world's society for the good, for the future, for the very existence of
mankind then, sadly, they too have been, thus, similarly afflicted. And so, yes
they, too, have become Zionist.
Epitaph For Zionism- The Day of Judgement.
On a warm summer's day in mid-Wales, while wandering the hills of the old iron town of
Merthyr, a hiker might suddenly be almost overcome by the unmistakable stench of human
urine.
It is the grave of Robert Thompson Crawshay.
Long since dead, the memory of this scourge, a man who ignored his religion, his society and
his conscience, is still, and will forever be, firmly in the minds of the Welsh. The grave is
surrounded by a picketed wrought iron fence, made in his iron works and designed to keep the
actions of those of outrage and conscience at bay. So sits his massive flat gravestone, a
single, one-line epitaph inscribed at the top. His grave, today, remains as an unintended
testament to this man, and all men, who hypocritically defiled their own religious
obligations..
Yes, here on this slowly decaying plot, during the many decades past and many more to come,
a fence will not be enough to restrict those who respect the true value of mankind and are not
so easily put off. Acting on their own continued outrage against what this man once did, and
still does, stand for, here they climb that fence. Here, they consciously stand in defiance on
his gravestone, a marker that seeks to cover-over the crimes of one man against mankind.
Here. they stare down at the final words of a man so foul that those of conscience, true
morals and memory, to this day, have only one possible choice to make.
So, every summer's day they do not forget, deliberately climbing that spiked fence to stand
atop of this oligarch and wilfully emptying their bladders all over this villain of humanity.
Thus, they leave their mark, their opinion and their personal statement here to waft through
the air as the smell of ongoing resistance all over Crawshay's one line epitaph.
Far too many in our world today, like Crawshay, assume that they will somehow, despite their
crimes, purchase their own stairway to heaven. For all of his money, his mansions and his final
one line, desperate epitaph- carved forever at the head of the massive granite slab- these
words could not, would not, and forever will not, sanctify or turn all the Wrongs into
Right.
Yes, Crawshay was indeed a Zionist. Like all Zionists, he assumed that atonement for his
crimes– such as others pray for using the the Kol Nidrei- could be easily absolved by
scrawling his own final prayer to God.
On that gravestone, in 12-inch chiselled letters, is a simple one line epitaph his own final
prayer, his desperate demand, for ultimate absolution. "God, Forgive me." cries out Crawshay, in the finality of his life on hard,
unforgiving stone.
For an unconscionable man like Crawshay, it was, then Too God Damned Late!
About the Author: Brett Redmayne-Titley has published over 170 in-depth articles over the
past eight years for news agencies worldwide. Many have been translated. On-scene reporting
from important current events has been an emphasis that has led to his many multi-part exposes
on such topics as the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations, NATO summit, Keystone XL
Pipeline, Porter Ranch Methane blow-out, Hizbullah in Lebanon, Erdogan's Turkey and many
more. He can be reached at: live-on-scene((at)) gmx.com. Prior articles can be viewed at his
archive: www.watchingromeburn.uk
Zionism cannot be understood outside the context of late 19th century European nationalism.
The purpose of Zionism is to build a "normal" country of Jews in the Land of Israel,
accepted by and at peace with it's Arab neighbors. The idea is to replace assimilation of
individual Jews with the assimilation of the entire Jewish nation.
Clearly this ideology violates the Torah. The Torah commands us to physically destroy
the Arabs and anyone else who challenges us and four us to expand our borders from the Nile
to the Euphrates. The Temple must be rebuilt, sacrifices must be resumed and Israel must
return to being a theocratic monarchy led by somebody from King David's line.
Peace with the Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians and Iranians? Impossible because we are
clearly commanded to annihilate those nations. What about the Iraqis, Egyptians and Saudis
then? No, because they also currently occupy land that rightfully belongs to us.
As for the rest of the Arab/Islamic world, when they pay reparations to us and agree to
send us an annual tribute in perpetuity and then recognize us as G-d's chosen people and
the rightful rulers of the entirety of the Land, then we shall grant them peace. These
terms, however, are in final form and non negotiable.
When the politician ignores his conscience, the will of the voters, his duty to
country, and his oath of office in favour of supporting a foreign interest then he is a Zionist .
FIFY
When the politician ignores his conscience, the will of the voters, his duty to
country, and his oath of office in favour of supporting a foreign interest then he is a traitor .
I will comment this as I have for the last ten years tried to get to the bottom of this
"conspiracy".
About the conspiracy:
The New World was an idea of the Enlightenment, replacement of the Old Regime by democracy
and capitalism, later by socialism and communism. This idea was promoted by a secret
society, Freemasons, later by Communists and other secret societies which did not want
communism. Jews were not yet active in this movement, they had a niche as kings people, a
separate class. They did not fit into the new world, so they either had to assimilate or to
move to some place. As they did not want to assimilate, and they had the tendency of mutual
help, proto-Zionists started preparing the transfer of Jews to Palestine already 1840ies.
Those proto-Zionists included Freemasons, some bankers and so on, and it is this group that
become to rule the world in a short time, and it is the new form of this group that are the
globalists wanting to unify the world and get immigrants and all that. They do not include
Masons anymore, but one can identify some organizations working for these goals. To get the
non-assimilating Jews out of the new world, they needed Zionism.
Herzl's Zionism and modern
Anti-Semitism were created by this group about the same time for this exact purpose. Israel
was their creation. The logic behind the new world is to create one world, free market, no
religion,.. (just like Imagine of John Lennon or the Masonry dream) But there has to be a
ruling class, maybe secret.
In Communism it was the party, UK/US Freemasons possibly saw it
as WASPs, maybe it is an ethnic group here. I do not know, these models change and such
groups can be infiltrated unless they are closed and endogamous.
About the Jews:
Most Jews of course support Israel and they still practice mutual help, which causes the
same problems as always: they were an endogamous and fast growing population trying to
promote their group interests and seeing others as enemies. Jews in Israel face the
problems of an occupation force: as they are confronted by asymmetric resistance, they are
forced to do what they are doing, and that is the strategy of the resistance.
Additionally
there is Talmud with its different treatment of Jews and non-Jews, it makes things only
worse. The actions Israel must make turn it into a pariah state. The strategy of the
resistance may or may not lead to a success.
American Jews support Israel, which is natural
as Jews should support Jews. Christian Zionists support Israel, as they read the Bible in
that way, the Jews as God's nation. Yet, neither of these groups are the globalists who run
the world. Jews, including Zionists, are a cover for the ruling group: resistance is posed
as antisemitism. It is the same as was with Freemasonry. Most Freemasons did not make
revolutions, it was Memphis and Mizraim, but they acted as a cover: any opposition to the
revolutionary Masonry was ridiculed as conspiracy theories and normal Masons insisted that
they are innocent, as they were, but they just covered up those lodges which were not at
all innocent. Jews have the same role: opposition to those who do all this that must be
opposed is presented as opposition to the Jews and Israel and dubbed antisemitism.
Maybe I am wrong in this view that there are two different groups, but historically
taken, it was not the Jews who started this development to the new world. Jews are called
the lesser cousins in the Protocols and in Joly's Dialogues Machiavelli is a group of evil
men, who have taken the ways of the Jews, that is, it was not ethnic Jews at that time
(Mizraim members were mostly Catholic, though some were crypto: Frankists and so on).
'Committed no crime'. If anyone knows the definition of crime in international politics, I'd like to hear it. Lewis Mumford, 'The city in history, Its origins, its transformations and its prospects',
London, 1991, 1961 writes that the judaic rules were meant to cause separation from non
jews, and maximum growth of population, in itself no crimes. I'm reading on the European fourth and fifth centuries, cannot say that judaism's efforts
for power were worse than those described.
Anyhow, Rome in the first century CE twice sent powerful armies to Palestine to
subjugate jewry, in how far these armies were sent because jews were suspected of being
implicated in the murder of the Roman emperor, I'm not sure.
If christianity indeed was created by Paul as secret agent of the Roman emperor, to
underrmine judaism, an interesting theory.
The copper Dead Sea scroll describes where the jewish treasure was hidden, I'm inclined to
think that what is described was real, the Jerusalem temple was very rich.
Michael Grant, 'The Jews in the Roman World', 1973, New York
After the west, in any case on the surface, became christian, with the pope as highest
authority, jews became a nuisance: they made clear that the pope was not almighty, kings
liked to use the jews for tax gathering etc., the pope could not interfere.
As jews were excluded from many professions, often also forbidden to own land of houses, it
is not suprising that some of them lent themselves to shady practices of kings etc.
What went wrong, in my view, is that jews, not all of them, of course, assimilated
insufficiently after the got equal rights in the 19th century.
Katz writes 'the expectation that jews would disappear through assimilation was not
fullfilled, on the contrary, jews became more visible'. 'From prejudice to destruction', Jacob Katz, 1980, Cambridge MA.
One of the factors Katz mentioned for success was 'close economic cooperation'.
And so, after 1870 in the unified Germany, antisemitism emerged.
Antisemitism is not antijudaism, as the anti sentiment after 1870 was also against non
religious jews.
Zionism, in my view, no more than a reaction to antisemitism.
The creation of Israel, the most stupid thing jews ever did, my idea.
Zionism is seen by many as the same as judaism, Israel advertises the worst aspects of
jewish culture.
Israel can only exist through jewish power in the USA, and wars by the USA.
Israel may be the third military power in the world, as the British said 'one can do a lot
with bayonets, except sit on them'.
A very stream-of-consciousness & confusing text. As for myself, I'm all for Zionism
with consequences, similar to Arthur Koestler. Let's see..
1. Jews are religious-cultural-historical people. Wherever they settled, they remained
an isolated group.
2. Europe, if you wish, is a state of mind: first during Greco-Roman cultural sphere
& then during long centuries of Christianity. Jews remained the only tolerated Middle
Eastern group in Europe, a group that, mostly, did not assimilate (Muslims and others were
booted).
3. in Muslim & Eastern cultural spheres (Iran, Ottomans, Arabs,..) Jews were just
one among co-existing cultural groups because Islamic world did not developed as Europe:
the nations & nation-states (language, territory, customs, law, culture, history,..)
became in past 500-800 years primal foci of loyalty of European peoples. Jews did not fit
in.
4. during 19th-20th C Theodor Herzl was a shrewd observer. He clearly saw that most Jews
were Europeanized, but still alien Middle-Eastern historical people living among various,
different European peoples. Zionist idea was a realist admission that Jews in Europe
remained a separate nation, whether they lived in Italy, Germany, France or Russia. Of
course, this does not apply to assimilated, not just acculturated Jews: Jews simply cease
to be Jews when they lose their ethnic religious identity & fully embrace different
cultural-identity matrix. Was Karl Marx a Jew? No, he was a German of Jewish descent.
5. after establishment of Israel, Jews got their nation-state. But, many diaspora Jews
continued with their anti-national culture war against western nations, while extolling
Israel as a Jewish nation. Sorry guys, you can't have it both ways. It can't be
multiculturalism & anti-nationalism for thee (US, France, Poland, Italy,..) &
nationalism for me (Israel).
6. contemporary BDS crowd is mostly composed of home-grown far leftists, ideological
progeny of the 1960s counter-culture & New Left, and various anti-Jewish racial &
religious groups (Muslims, Africans..-who historically don't belong to Europe).
Pro-Palestinian, pro-Muslim & pro-3rd world rhetoric is absurdity for most sane whites
(Europeans & North Americans). They're not worried about fully integrated co-nationals
of Jewish origin; they're annoyed by Zionist Jews who behave like accepted, but still alien
& sometimes hostile group; and they're extremely inimical toward unassimilable racial
& cultural aliens (blacks, Muslims, Asians, )
For most Europeans & Europe-derived peoples (at least the mentally sane majority)-
they want to get rid of all- Asians, blacks, self-conscious Middle Easterners these guys
don't belong here. It is not a continuation of some Jewish obsession, but a simple
admission: sorry guys, you're not my people. You got your home somewhere in the East &
go there. We may trade with all you Israelis, Turks, Moroccans, Pakistanis, Nigerians, .but
good fences make good neighbors.
In sum, Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and its army is the most moral army
in the world. Indeed, Israel was founded to be a shining light onto humanity, illuminating
how a state should function vis a vis its citizens and its neighbors. Both learned and
unlearned know that to be so. To elaborate is no avail, and unquestionably anti-semitic.
A very good article on Zionism that addresses the JQ straight on. Unfortunately, I think it
is off target by trying to equate the greed and madness for power of Crayshaw, and jews in
general, with Zionism. He never really links Crawshays' actions to Kol Nidrei, it is more
of a association through a high correlation of depravity and greed.
By confining his definition of Jewish Power be to a subset of Zionism, he provides "good
jews" far too much wiggle room to disassociate themselves from their people actions, often
when they themselves are citizens of Israel.
"Long ago cast-out from Judea since AD 70, by Roman emperor, Titus ..": but that's simply
untrue, a yarn invented centuries after 70AD. They were banned from living in Jerusalem,
sure, but that was after the second revolt, not the first. Nor were they ever expelled from
Palestine. Plain didn't happen.
Being on the losing side of a revolt against Rome must be grim but expulsion was not one
of the punishments. For a start, why would the Romans expel those Jews who took no part in
the revolt? When else did Rome expel a whole population as a punishment? Why is there no
record of this punishment of the Jews? Even Josephus makes no mention of this purported
exile. Pah! It's baloney.
Why the maximalism, bro? You make a great case against Zionism, and then conflate it with
the Federalist Society's support of "rolling back civil liberties, imperial wars,
free-wheeling laissez-faire capitalism and corporatism, along with ending New Deal/Great
Society social programs", and their stance "against reproductive choice, government
regulations, labour rights, environmental protections, and justice for unwanted aliens."
I happen to love laissez-faire capitalism, and the thought of ending New Deal/Great
Society social programs tickles me pink.
Does that make me a Zionist catspaw?
Some of us think the term "reproductive rights" is a euphemism for "child murder", and
"government regulations, labour rights, environmental protections, and justice for unwanted
(illegal) aliens" are subjectively defined terms, to say the least.
I would have read the whole thing, but after that you devolved into Counterpunchian
logorrhea, and I just aint got the time.
After the fake quote supposedly from Netanyahu (lol at least spell his name correctly next
time) I kept pressing page down and it kept going. Amazing. Why does Unz publish these
idiotic schizoid rants?
"He(Jeremy Corbyn) is also the sole example to a world desperately looking for a leader to
follow in their own fight for a return to proper society in their own nations."
Not a very good example IMHO. Better example is the former PM of Malaysia and again PM
of Malaysia recently elected at the young age of 92. Mahathir Mohamad is a well known
"anti-semite" which of course means is an enemy of the "Zionist international mafia."
Jeremy Corbyn, if elected, will be the new Alexis Tsipras. Why ? Because as everyone
knows, if the "Zionist international mafia" have complete control of the USA, it is obvious
that they also have complete control of GB. Corbyn like Tsipras, will do as told.
More: As a leader of opposition, Jeremy Corbyn never had the courage to call a cat a
cat. He has never called the former PM and a well known zionist-Tony Bair- a war
criminal.
Most British people and Labour members believe that TB is a war criminal.
Even today, the blairites (Zionists) still control the Labour Party. How credible that someone that doesn't control his own party, will control Britain's
deep state ?
"Thus viewed correctly, Zionism is not a religion, nor is it part of Judaism".
This seems to be, according to Gilad Atzmon wishful thinking from the writer and "Rabbi
Yaakov Shapiro, probably the most eloquent Torah Jew spokesperson".
"Zionism cannot be understood outside the context of late 19th century European
nationalism." – Sure. "National Socialism, more commonly known as Nazism, subscribed to theories of racial
hierarchy and Social Darwinism The Nazis aimed to unite all Germans living in historically
German territory, as well as gain additional lands for German expansion under the doctrine
of Lebensraum and exclude those who they deemed either community aliens or "inferior"
races." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism Replace Nazism with Zionism: " Zionism subscribed to theories of racial hierarchy and
Social Darwinism The Zionism aimed to unite all Jews living in historically Jewish
territory, as well as gain additional lands for Jewish expansion under the doctrine of
Lebensraum and exclude those who they deemed either community aliens or "inferior"
races."
– Close your holocaust museums already. The worst among the Jews have plagiarized the
German nationalism' ideas to create the monstrosity of indecent, dishonorable, inhuman,
immoral, and obnoxious imitation (forgery), Zionism. The forgery has been flourishing
thanks to the deeply-dishonest talmudic traditions married to tribal solidarity.
The talmudic lunatics have been destroying each and very safe haven throughout Europe and
now in the US. Your Polish bastard Bibi and the Moldovan thug Avi can try on taking all
possible poses and mannerism of "distinguished" men -- this will not help. They are
thugs. Zionism is a dangerous cancerous growth on western civilization. Would not it be great if
your lot collectively disappear from the cultural centers of the EU and the US?
Your problem is, the Zionists cannot coexist with the Zionists. The article explains,
why.
Same sex is the only choice the Jewish Rabbi Jezus allows in
Jewheaven.
"When Jewgod raises people to life, they won't marry. They will be like the Jewangels in
Jewheaven." (((Matthew 22:30)))
That perversion alone is reason enough to refuse any offer of a Jew to save you to his
Jewish utopia. Yet you fall for this degenerate storytelling hook, line, and sinker!
"Zionism, in my view, no more than a reaction to antisemitism."
– The above paper's focus is on a specific prayer:
"All [personal] vows we are likely to make, all [personal] oaths and pledges we are likely
to take between this Yom Kippur and the next Yom Kippur, we publicly renounce. Let them all
be relinquished and abandoned, null and void, neither firm nor established. Let our
[personal] vows, pledges and oaths are considered neither vows nor pledges nor oaths." -the Kol Nidrei.
The Kol Nidrei, ("All Vows") often misspelt Kol Nidre, was not originally a prayer, but a
declaration offered during Rosh Hashana, the start of the Jewish new year. In "modern"
Judaism it is now being delivered as a prayer and has so grown in prominence during the
last sixty years that it is now delivered at the commencement of Judaism's holiest yearly
event of Passover."
– It was not "antisemitism" but the anti-talmudism reaction towards the indecency and
treachery of a certain segment of the Jewish populace. Zionism was, and is, a farcical and bloodthirsty imitation of the 19th-century German
nationalism.
US and Israel are attempting to use internal pressure within Iran yet again with the intent
of sparking enough strife for a regime change:
Indeed a high level joint US-Israeli "working group" has been meeting for months with
just this goal in mind as Axios confirms in a bombshell new report: "Israel and the United
States formed a joint working group a few months ago that is focused on internal efforts to
encourage protests within Iran and pressure the country's government."
I should like to cite several passages from Yuval Harari's excellent book, "
Sapiens ":
p.210: " all social orders and hierarchies are imagined, they are all fragile, and
the larger the society, the more fragile it is. The crucial historical role of religion has
been to give superhuman legitimacy to these fragile structures.
two distinct criteria: 1. Religions hold that there is a superhuman order, which is not the product of human
whims or agreements.
2. Based on this superhuman order, religion establishes norms and values that it considers
binding. "
p. 195 It's for your own good : " Evolution has made Homo sapiens. like other
social mammals, a xenophobic creature. Sapiens instinctively divide humanity into two
parts, 'we' and 'they'. We are people like you and me, who share our language, religion and
customs. We are all responsible for each other, but not responsible for them. We were
always distinct from them, we owe them nothing. We don't want to see any of them in our
territory, and we don't care an iota what happens in their territory. They are barely even
human. "
p. 228 The Worship of Man : " if we take into consideration natural-law
religions, then modernity turns out to be an age of intense religious fervour, unparalleled
missionary efforts, and the bloodiest wars of religion in history. The modern age has
witnessed the rise of new natural-law religions, such as liberalism, Communism, capitalism,
nationalism, and Nazism. These creeds do not like to be called religions, and refer to
themselves as ideologies. But this is just a semantic exercise. If a religion is a system
of human norms and values that is founded on belief in a superhuman order, then Soviet
Communism was no less a religion than Islam. "
p. 242 Blind Clio : " Ever more scholars see cultures as a kind of mental
infection or parasite, with humans as its unwitting host. Organic parasites, such as
viruses, live inside the body of their host. They multiply and spread from one host to the
other, feeding off their hosts, weakening them, and sometimes killing them. As long as the
hosts live long enough to pass along the parasite, it cares little about the condition of
its host. In just this fashion, cultural ideas live inside the minds of humans. They
multiply and spread from one host to another, occasionally weakening the host and sometimes
even killing them. – can compel a human to dedicate his or her life to spreading that
idea, even at the price of death. The human dies, but the idea spreads. . Successful
cultures are those that excel in reproducing their memes, irrespective of the costs and
benefits to their human hosts. Similar arguments are common in the social sciences, under
the aegis of game theory. Game theory explains how in multi-player systems, views and
behaviour patterns that harm all players nevertheless manage to take root and spread.
"
Look up Rostislav Ishenko's latest excellent piece yesterday:
I did, and as usual Ishenko takes an oblique approach that shines a light into obscure but
critical corners.
What an eye opener this one is.
Not sure how much was lost in translation, but if I understood correctly the Russians are
massing forces in the Western District, not because they fear an attack from NATO, or plan to
attack Europe but to rescue Europe from a conflagration that will be sparked in Ukraine. That
it was drifting into failed state status is well known, but that a religious war is in the
offing was utterly unknown to me, and I suspect to most others here.
That in turn shines a light on why Poland and the Baltics are begging for US/NATO troops
as well, and at least partially why US/NATO is delivering. As Ukraine drifts into chaos, its
neighbours, being aware of its history of extreme violence and atrocity are preparing
themselves for the spillover. They have no desire to relive the decade+ blood orgy that
erupted in the middle of the 20th C centred on Ukraine (where, IMHO, the real Holocaust
happened).
Overwhelming force applied at an overwhelming pace is the best way of dealing with such an
outbreak, and the Russians are the only party able to deliver. US/NATO forces can be expected
to roar around in their APCs avoiding trouble and then claim credit in accordance with
Western military tradition. Meanwhile, the Russians will go into mopping up the
leftovers.
Makes a lot of sense if Ishchenko's read of the situation is right. It probably has a
bigger impact on Dunford's and Gerasimov's meeting than the USM "going home".
Whew!
PS: Yes, I was aware of the Russian central bank selling off its USTs. With the Petro-Yuan
and Western sanctions now in full swing, it really doesn't need $100B's worth to manage its
U$ denominated imports.
It used to be that the only things one could depend on were "death & taxes." Now of
course we must add to that list the very dependable presence of CIA / State Dept lies
parroted by MSM all over the West. Lies which are endlessly repeated in defiance of all
physical reality and often in direct opposition to actual events in the actual world we live
in.
From the Ukraine coup, to Russia-gate, to the "Assad's gassing his own people" regime
change propaganda, to the totally surreal Alice in Wonderland Skripnal poisoning nonsense in
the U.K, the Western MSM have been as dependable as the rising sun.
They can and do provide
fact-free, evidence-free reporting directly from the bowels of the deep state in support of
the neocolonial West, including unending support for the never ending resort to mass violence
the West relies upon to keep the rest of the planet subjugated -- just as it has for the last
500+ years.
Sanctions are always a prelude to war. Sanctions are in fact an act of war. that's why
Russians have replaced Arabs as the go-to villains in propaganda and Hollywood movies.
To me it is all quite simple. FDR's aim was to rule the war with junior aides USSR, China and
a smaller Britain. Stalin had other ideas.
Even in 1946 FDR's main backer, Baruch pleaded for a world government, a USA government,
in my view. Deep State still tries to impose this world government.
Despite Trump 'America first' we see a Bolton in the White House, as many see 'the neocons
are back'.
Cannot see much difference between neocons and Deep State.
The big mistake of the British empire was unwillingness to realise that it could no longer
maintain the empire. This already began before 1914, when the two fleet standards became too
expensive, the one fleet standard expressed the inability to maintain the empire.
Obama was forcedto reduce the two war standard to one and half. What a half war
accomplishes we see in Syria. Alas, seldom in history did reason rule. If it will in the
present USA, I doubt it.
The neocons are a collection of sick, murderous, fanatical supremacist ideologues who have
turned the U.S. into the most despicable criminal regime on earth. Because of their control
and influence over the U.S. imperial military/political assets, combined with their
psychopathic mentality and ideology, these scumbags pose a clear threat to the entire world,
but especially to Russia and Europe (and to the U.S. itself, of course). The irony in all of
this is that, although these mostly Jewish bottom-feeders like to smear any foreign leader
they'd like to demonize as "the new Hitler" etc., they themselves are more nefarious and
dangerous to the planet than Hitler and his German Nazis ever were.
Nothing will change until the major members of the neocon collective start getting
individually singled out and receiving the harsh punishments they deserve.
"Cannot see much difference between neocons and Deep State."
And that means that the US Deep State can NOT have a Jewish creation, because it
existed a long time before 1948, a long time before 1939, a long time before the creation of
the Federal Reserve.
There is a reason that Neocons love Alexander Hamilton and Abraham Lincoln: the
former was an apologist for the nascent American Deep State, and the latter its perfect tool
right down to being ready and able to slaughter huge numbers of non-Elite whites so the then
virtually 100% WASP-in-blood Elite Deep State could totally control the growing nation.
The source of the American Deep State is the same as England's Deep State: Oliver
Cromwell's deal with Jews, a deal granting Jews special rights and privileges and made
precisely in order to have the money to wage total war to exterminate non-WASP white
Christian cultures and identities.
That is exactly what the Neocons are determined to continue, and they are correct whenever
they assert that they are being loyal to the history and heritage of the Puritans and of
Abraham Lincoln's Republican Party and of the US in the Spanish-American War, World War 1 and
World War 2.
What is different about today's Neocons and, say, the growing number of Jews with major
voices among the British Deep State at the height of Victorianism is that now the original
junior partner has become the acting partner, the dominant partner.
But the original alliance is the same.
You cannot separate the Neocon problem from the WASP problem. You cannot solve the Neocon
problem without also solving the WASP problem.
The business of the Zionist controlled U.S. gov is WAR and this has been the agenda since
1913 and the establishment of the Zionist FED and the Zionist IRS and thus began the WAR
agenda and the American people were set up to pay for the Zionist created wars and the
Zionist agenda of a Zionist NWO.
Thus the Zionists need an enemy and have created enemies where none existed, the case in
point being Russia and lesser created enemies the case in point being any given country in
the Mideast that Israel and the Zionists wish to destroy. In the case of Russia the Zionists
have the added incentive of trying to destroy a Christian country as Russia is now and
historically has been Christian with the exception of the Satanist Zionist takeover of Russia
in 1917 and the murder of some 60 million Russian people by the Satanist ie Zionist
communists.
The U.S. gov is under satanic Zionist control and proof of this is the fact that Israel
and the Zionist controlled deep state did 911 and got away with and every thinking person
knows this to be the truth, may GOD help we the people of America.
From the other side of the Atlantic, what is the WASP problem ?
Whatever one thinks of the USA, protestants from NW Europe created the USA.
Their descendants, in my view, defend their culture.
Hardly any culture in the world goes under without a fight.
Some, maybe many, Germans, again the exception.
The Neocons are mad at Russia for standing in their way of taking over the world. All in the
name of "democracy" of course, nothing sinister there. Russia, and as a matter of fact, the
whole world stood by and let the US have their way for almost 25 years. What did they
accomplish? Diddly. So now, they want Russia to get out of the way for another (at least) 25
years, so they can spread some more "democracy". Let me tell you something, if they couldn't
do it with virtually no opposition between 1991 -2014, and on a trillion dollar "defence"
budgets, maybe there is something else that should be blamed other than Russia. Maybe it's
their incompetence.
There is a lot of truth in this piece, but I think that the overall spin is misleading.
Putin's orthodox faith (likely pretended; he seems to be too intelligent for a true
believer), history of Jewish persecution in Russia, etc., are secondary factors. The US
elites (neocons are just one type of servants they hired) are mad that the world refuses to
be unipolar. Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, and many lesser countries, arouse
"righteous indignation" of the robbers because they refuse to let themselves be looted and
bossed by the US elites. All sorts of thieves joined the choir: Jewish and gentile, "right"
and "left", military and civilian, the only common denominator being that they stole a lot
and resent being thwarted from stealing even more.
Moreover, the almighty dollar is about to be exposed as a king with no clothes by various
countries switching the trade to their own currencies, undermining the Ponzi schemes of the
US dollar and US government debt. The hysterical US foreign policy in the last 10-15 years,
with its mindless suicidal aggressiveness, is in fact death throes of an Empire that resents
going down the drain, like all dominant Empires before it, but cannot do anything about
inevitable course of history.
War on the poor and defenseless, it what the Neocon and Zionist-puppet traitors do best.
Terrorists in Syria (white helmets) getting 7 million in new funding from Trump, just as
Russia warns of new chemical attack false flag is in the works. Must kill evil dicktater
Assad for protecting those Christians inside Syria
Russia Warns "Credible Information" Of Impending Staged Chemical Attack In Syria
Elites are robbing Americans and foreigners alike. In fact, the US population gets some
crumbs off elites' table, and enjoys higher living standards than it would have in fair
global competition.
The overall educational level and the level of awareness of what's going on in the world in
the US is dismal. Elites arranged that by maintaining pathetic education system and spreading
lies via MSM; ignorant sheep are more likely to obey, and to approve of persecution of those
"black sheep" who are less ignorant and don't buy the lies of the MSM. Did we see any
protests against "Patriot Act" that trampled the very foundations of our Constitution? Sheep
don't protest, they just follow the leader.
However, we have to remember that clueless ignoramus in the US gets 5-10 times more than
similarly clueless ignoramus in China or India. Bush junior was genuinely dumb, but would he
become US President without his family's ill-gotten riches, or without his ex-CIA chief daddy
becoming the President first? Of course not, most morons in the US never fly that high. The
only reason for his "success" is the fact that he was born into an elite family.
As far as Jews are concerned, this appears to be yet another red herring, like
Russia-bashing. Are gentile Koch brothers or Walton family any better than the worst Jews in
the US? They are just as selfish, greedy, and repulsive as George Soros or Sheldon
Adelson.
See comment 51:
The problem here and abroad are elites. Elites of any kind.
Elites are robbing Americans and foreigners alike. In fact, the US population gets some
crumbs off elites' table, and enjoys higher living standards than it would have in fair
global competition.
some perhaps, but the middle class is dying (literally in the case of middle aged white
men), and the working class is languishing.
It's true the 1% are gorging on a frenzy of corruption and graft, and a no doubt there are
a few who prosper by serving that class, but the Main Streets of America are not, in any way,
profiting off the exploitation of Africa or S. America or anywhere else. Indeed, it is them
that are being exploited.
The overall educational level and the level of awareness of what's going on in the world
in the US is dismal. Elites arranged that by maintaining pathetic education system and
spreading lies via MSM; ignorant sheep are more likely to obey
no argument there!
However, we have to remember that clueless ignoramus in the US gets 5-10 times more than
similarly clueless ignoramus in China or India.
India and China (and Ethiopia and Somalia and Mexico and Brazil and so many other places)
are not poor due to the oppression of Americans. Sure, Goldman Sachs and a thousand other
vultures and thieves have done a lot of damage, but no more that the leadership of those
respective lands.
Has India ever heard of birth control, (for God's sake!) Or Indonesia or a hundred other
places, like Haiti, that overbreed their finite resources and limited space until their
countries are reduced to shitholes.
If a coal miner in West Virginia is doing a little better than an Untouchable in India,
then trust me when I tell you I'm not going to blame the miner (or janitor or mechanic) in
America for the poverty in the corrupt and stupid third world.
As far as the suffering that the ZUSA has actually caused, and is causing in places like
Syria and Yemen, none of that is being done on behalf of the American people, but rather the
typical American is taxed to support these wars and atrocities on behalf of Israel or Saudi
Arabia, respectively.
The only reason for his "success" is the fact that he was born into an elite family.
recently I was ranting on the terrible folly of this very thing.
As far as Jews are concerned, this appears to be yet another red herring, like
Russia-bashing. Are gentile Koch brothers or Walton family any better than the worst Jews
in the US? They are just as selfish, greedy, and repulsive as George Soros or Sheldon
Adelson.
Yes, they're just as selfish and greedy, but they aren't as filled with genocidal
hatred.
It's because of Zionist Jews that Americans were dragged into both world wars.
It's because of Zionist Jews (and assorted corrupt Gentiles) that Israel (with help from
the CIA and ((media)), did 9/11, in order to plunge this century into horrors writ large like
the last Zio-century.
That there are legions of corrupt and soulless Gentiles willing and eager to jump on that
gravy train, is a shame and a sin, but it doesn't excuse the people who are the motivation
behind the wars.
The Kochs (and Chamber of Commerce and other Gentile scum) want massive immigration out of
pure, raw, insatiable greed.
Whereas the Jewish supremacist Zionists want it out of genocidal tribal hatreds.
The typical American middle and working class are ground into the dirt between these two
pillars of Satanic iniquity.
I agree with much of what you're saying, and it's true about the elites in general. But
the ZUSA is completely controlled by Zionist Jews, and I think that's pretty obvious.
This man knew that 9/11 was going to happen, if he wasn't part of the planning. And yet
look at how they abase themselves
Corporate Media's About-Face on Ukraine's Neo-Nazis July 5, 2018 •
59 Comments
U.S. corporate media spent years dismissing the role of neo-Nazis in Ukraine's 2014 coup but
it is suddenly going through a conversion, as Daniel Lazare reports.
By Daniel Lazare Special to Consortium News
Last month a freelance journalist named Joshua
Cohen published an
article in The Washington Post about the Ukraine's growing neo-Nazi threat.
Despite a gratuitous swipe at Russia for allegedly exaggerating the problem (which it hasn't),
the piece was fairly accurate.
Entitled "Ukraine's ultra-right militias are challenging the government to a showdown," it
said that fascists have gone on a rampage while the ruling clique in Kiev closes its eyes for
the most part and prays that the problem somehow goes away on its own.
Thus, a group calling itself C14 (for the fourteen-word ultra-right motto, "We must secure
the existence of our people and a future for white children") not only beat up a socialist
politician and celebrated Hitler's birthday by stabbing an antiwar activist, but bragged about
it on its website. Other ultra-nationalists, Cohen says, have stormed the Lvov and Kiev city
councils and "assaulted or disrupted" art exhibits, anti-fascist demos, peace and gay-rights
events, and a Victory Day parade commemorating the victory over Hitler in 1945.
Yet nothing has happened to stop this. President Petro Poroshenko could order a crackdown,
but hasn't for reasons that should be obvious. The U.S.-backed "Euromaidan" uprising not only
drove out former president Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, who had won an OSCE-certified
election, but tore the country in two, precisely because ultra-rightists like C14 were in the
lead.
When resistance to the U.S.-backed coup
broke out in Crimea and parts of the country's largely Russian-speaking east, the base of
Yanukovych voters, civil war ensued. But because the Ukrainian army had all but collapsed, the
new, coup government had no one to rely on other than the neo-fascists who had helped propel it
to power.
So an alliance was hatched between pro-western oligarchs at the top – Forbesputs
Poroshenko's net worth at a cool $1 billion – and neo-Nazi enforcers at the bottom.
Fascists may not be popular. Indeed, Dmytro Yarosh, the fire-breathing leader of a white-power
coalition known as Right Sector, received less than one percent of the vote when he
ran for president in May 2014.
But the state is so weak and riddled with so many ultra-rightists in key positions –
Andriy Parubiy, founder of the neo-Nazi Social-National Party of Ukraine, is speaker of the
parliament, while ultra-rightist Arsen Avakov is minister of the interior – that the path
before them is clear and unobstructed. As Cohen points out, the result is government passivity
on one hand and a rising tide of ultra-right violence on the other. In the earlier stages of
the civil war, for instance, the rightwing extremists burned more than 40 people alive in a
labor union building in Odessa, a horrific incident downplayed by Western media.
Cohen's article may have Washington Post readers scratching their heads for the
simple reason that the paper has long said the opposite. Since Euromaidan, the Post
has toed the official Washington line
that Vladimir Putin has exaggerated the role of the radical right in order to discredit the
anti-Yanukovych revolt and legitimize his own alleged interference.
Sure, anti-Yanukovych forces had festooned the Kiev town hall with a white supremacist
banner, a Confederate flag , and a giant image of Stepan Bandera , a Nazi
collaborator whose forces killed thousands of Jews during the German occupation and as many as
100,000 Poles. And yes, they staged a 15,000-strong torchlight parade in Bandera's honor and
scrawled an SS symbol on a toppled
statue of Lenin. They also destroyed a memorial to Ukrainians who
had fought on what Bandera supporters regard as the wrong side of World War II, that is, with
the Soviets and against the Axis.
But so-called responsible, mainstream journalists are supposed to avert their eyes to avoid
being tarred as a "
useful idiot " whom Putin supposedly employs to advance his "anti-American agenda." Ten
days after Yanukovych's departure, the Post dutifully
assured its readers that Russian reports of "hooligans and fascists" had "no basis in
reality."
A week or so later, it
said "the new government, though peppered with right-wing politicians, is led primarily by
moderate, pro-European politicians." A few weeks after that, it
described Bandera as no more than "controversial" and quoted a Kiev businessman as saying:
"The Russians want to call him a fascist, but I feel he was a hero for our country. Putin is
using him to try to divide us."
Thus, the Post and other corporate media continued to do its duty by
attacking Putin for plainly saying "the forces backing Ukraine's government in Kiev are
fascists and neo-Nazis." But who was wrong ?
The New York Times was no better. It
assailed Russia for hurling "harsh epithets" like "neo-Nazi," and
blamed the Russian leader for "scaremongering" by attributing Yanukovych's ouster to
"nationalists, neo-Nazis, Russophobes, and anti-Semites." The Guardian 's Luke Harding
–
a leading Putin basher –
said of the far-right Svoboda Party:
"Over the past decade the party appears to have mellowed, eschewing xenophobia, academic
commentators suggest. On Monday, the U.S. ambassador in Kiev, Geoffrey Pyatt, said he had
been 'positively impressed' by Svoboda's evolution in opposition and by its behavior in the
Rada, Ukraine's parliament. 'They have demonstrated their democratic bona fides,' the
ambassador asserted."
This is the party whose founder, Oleh Tyahnybok,
said in a 2004 speech that "a Moscow-Jewish mafia" was running the Ukraine and that
Bandera's followers "fought against the Muscovites, Germans, Jews and other enemies who wanted
to take away our Ukrainian state." Had the leopard really changed its spots, according to
Pyatt? Or was it simply a matter of America not giving a damn as long as Svoboda joined the
fight to encircle Russia and advance NATO's drive to the east?
As someone named Marx once observed , "Who you gonna believe, me or your
own two eyes?" As far as Ukraine was concerned, the answer for the corporate press came from
the U.S. State Department. If Foggy Bottom said that Ukrainian neo-Nazism was a figment of
Russia's imagination, then that's what it was, regardless of evidence to the contrary.
Someday, historians will look back on Euromaidan Ukraine as one of the looniest periods in
western journalism – except, of course, for all the ones that have followed. But if one
had to choose the looniest story of all, one that best reflects the abject toadyism of the
reporting classes, it would have to be "Why Jews and Ukrainians Have Become Unlikely Allies," a
1,400-word article
that ran on the Post -owned Foreign Policy website in May 2014. Four years
later, it stands as a model of how not to write about an all-important political crisis.
Cohen's Conversion
Tyahnybok: 'Moscow-Jewish mafia' is running Ukraine.
The piece begins with the usual hand-wringing about Svoboda and Right Sector and expresses
remorse that the latter still venerates the "controversial" Bandera, whose followers "fought on
the side of the Nazis from 1944 until the end of World War II." (Actually, they welcomed the
Germans from the start and, despite rocky relations with the Slav-hating Nazis, continued to
work with them throughout the occupation.)
But then it gets down to business by asserting that as bad as Ukrainian nationalists may be,
Russia is doubly worse. "Despite the substantial presence of right wing nationalists on the
Maidan during the revolution," it says, "many in Ukraine's Jewish community resent being used
by Putin in his propaganda war." The proof is an open letter signed by 21 Ukrainian Jewish
leaders asserting that the real danger was Moscow.
"We know that the political opposition consists of various groups, including some that are
nationalistic," the letter declared. "But even the most marginal of them do not demonstrate
anti-Semitism or other forms of xenophobia. And we certainly know that our very few
nationalists are well-controlled by civil society and the new Ukrainian government –
which is more than can be said for the Russian neo-Nazis, who are encouraged by your security
services."
This was music to Washington's ears. But if neo-Nazis are free of "anti-Semitism or other
forms of xenophobia," how does one explain the white-power symbols in the Kiev town hall? If
nationalists were "very few" in number, why did journalists need to explain them away? If
Russian security forces really encouraged neo-Nazis, where were the torchlight parades and
portraits of Bandera-like collaborators hanging from public buildings in Moscow?
The article might have noted that Josef Zissels, the Jewish community leader who organized
the letter, is a provocative figure who has long maintained close relations with Ukraine's far
right. A self-styled
Zhydobanderivets – a word that roughly translates as "Kike follower of Bandera"
– he has since infuriated other Jewish leaders by criticizing California Congressman Ro
Khanna for sending a letter to the State Department asking that pressure be brought on the
governments of Poland and Ukraine to combat Holocaust revisionism in their countries.
Forty-one Jewish leaders were so angry, in fact, that they sent out
a letter of their own thanking Khannna for his efforts, expressing "deep concern at the
rise of anti-Semitic incidents and expressions of xenophobia and intolerance, including attacks
on Roma communities," and "strongly proclaim[ing] that Mr. Iosif Zissels and the organization
VAAD do not represent the Jews of Ukraine." A Jewish community leader in Russia was so outraged
by the pro-Bandera apologetics of Zissels and a Ukrainian-Jewish oligarch named Igor Kolomoisky
that he
said he wanted to hang both men "in Dnepropetrovsk in front of the Golden Rose Synagogue
until they stop breathing."
So Foreign Policy used a highly dubious source to whitewash Ukraine's growing
neo-Nazi presence and absolve it of anti-Semitism. As crimes against the truth go, this is
surely one of the worst. But now that the problem has gotten too big for even the corporate
media to ignore, overnight muckrakers like Joshua Cohen are seeing to it that getting away with
such offenses will no longer be so easy. Before his abrupt about-face, the author of that
misleading Foreign Policy piece was Joshua Cohen.
Daniel Lazare is the author ofThe Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is
Paralyzing Democracy(Harcourt Brace, 1996) and other books about American
politics. He has written for a wide variety of publications fromThe NationtoLe Monde Diplomatique, and his articles about the Middle East,
terrorism, Eastern Europe, and other topics appear regularly on such websites asJacobinand The American Conservative .
If you enjoyed this original article please consider
making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this
one.
mike k , July 6, 2018 at 4:49 pm
The leaders of Israel who sell weapons to the Nazis in Ukraine, are no better than those
Nazis.
Susan Sunflower , July 6, 2018 at 1:37 pm
for those having Alice In Wonderland whiplash, yes the USA was funding the Ukranian
neonazis Azov Brigade before Congress banned the funding in March 2018.
same old "syrian playbook" wrt to enemy-of-my-memory bull .
rosemerry , July 6, 2018 at 10:12 am
The two-hour documentary "Putin" shows in an interview Pres. Putin explaining his
government's cooperating with the Western- supported Ukrainian government for four years
(because they were neighbors and had many links) which he considered normal behavior.
However, once the 2014 election brought in a more "Moscow-friendly" team to govern Ukraine,
the USA began its plans to overthrow it and we see all the consequences shown in this
article.
The tacit support given by the centre-left to the installation of the regime in Kiev
should give them cause for concern writes Frank.
Politics in the Ukraine can only be understood by reference to its history and ethnic and
cultural make-up – a make-up criss-crossed by lasting and entrenched ethnic, cultural
and political differences. The country has long been split into the northern and western
Ukraine, where Ukrainian is the official and everyday lingua franca, and the more
industrialised regions of the east and south where a mixture of Russian speaking Ukrainians
and ethnic Russians reside. Additionally, there has long been Hungarian and Romanian
settlement in the west of the country, and a particularly important Polish presence, whose
unofficial capital, Lviv, was once the Polish city of Lwow. The Russian Orthodox Church is
the predominant form of Christianity in the East, whilst in the west the Christian tradition
tends towards Roman Catholicism.
Politically the Eastern and Southern Oblasts (Regions) which includes the cities and
centres of heavy industry, Kharkov, Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhe, Nikolayev, Kherson,
Simferopol and Odessa, have tended to tilt towards Russia whilst the western regions have had
a more western orientation. This has traditionally been reflected in the electoral division
of the country. There is no party which can be considered 'national' in this respect, except
ironically, the old Communist party, which of course is now banned. The major regional
parties have been the Fatherland party of Yulia Tymoshenko (since renamed) and the former
head of government, Arseniy Yatsenyuk as well as the ultra-nationalists predominantly in the
west of the country, and the deposed Victor Yanukovich's Party of the Regions in the East
(now defunct) along with its junior partner in the coalition, the Ukrainian Communist
Party.
However, what is new since the coup in February 2014 there has been the emergence from the
shadows of ultra-nationalist (fascist) parties and movements, with both parliamentary and
extra-parliamentary (i.e.,military) wings. In the main 'Svoboda' or Freedom Party, and the
paramilitaries of 'Right Sector' (Fuhrer: Dimitry Yarosh) who spearheaded the coup in Kiev;
these have been joined or changed their names to inter alia the Radical Party, and Patriots
of the Ukraine; this in addition to the punitive right-wing militias, such as the Azov
Regiment responsible for numerous atrocities in the Don Bas.
Suffice it to say, however, that these political movements and parties did not emerge from
nowhere.
This far-right tradition has been historically very strong in the western Ukraine. The
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) was first established in 1929 and brought
together, war veterans, student fraternities, far-right groups and various other disoriented
socially and political flotsam and jetsam under its banner. The OUN took its ideological
position from the writings of one, Dymtro Dontsov, who, like Mussolini had been a socialist,
and who was instrumental in creating an indigenous Ukrainian fascism based upon the usual
mish-mash of writings and theories including Friedrich Nietzsche, Georges Sorel, and Charles
Maurras. Dontsov also translated the works of Hitler and Mussolini into Ukrainian.
The OUN was committed to ethnic purity, and relied on violence, assassination and
terrorism, not least against other Ukrainians, to achieve its goal of a totalitarian and
homogeneous nation-state. Assorted enemies and impediments to this goal were Communists,
Russians, Poles, and of course – Jews. Strongly oriented toward the Axis powers OUN
founder Evhen Konovalets (1891-1938) stated that his movement was ''waging war against mixed
marriages'', with Poles, Russians and Jews, the latter which he described as ''foes of our
national rebirth''. Indeed, rabid anti-Semitism has been a leitmotif in the history of
Ukrainian fascism, which we will return to below.
Konovelts himself was assassinated by a KGB hit-man in 1938 after which the movement split
into two wings: (OUN-m) under Andrii Melnyk and, more importantly for our purposes (OUN-b)
under Stepan Bandera. Both wings committed to a new fascist Europe. Upon the German invasion
in June 1941, the OUN-b attempted to establish a Ukrainian satellite state loyal to Nazi
Germany. Stepan Lenkavs'kyi the then chief propagandist of the OUN-b 'government' advocated
the physical destruction of Ukrainian Jewry. OUN-b's 'Prime Minister' Yaroslav Stets'ko, and
deputy to Bandera supported, ''the destruction of the Jews and the expedience of bringing
German methods of exterminating Jewry to Ukraine, barring their assimilation and the
like.''
During the early days of the rapid German advance into the Soviet Union there were some
140 pogroms in the western Ukraine claiming the lives of between 13000-35000 people
(Untermensch, in fascist terminology). In 1943-1944 OUN-b and its armed wing the Ukrainian
Insurgent Army (Ukrainska povstanska armia – UPA) carried out large scale ethnic
cleansing resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands; this was a particularly gruesome
affair in Volhynia where some 90000 Poles and thousands of Jews were murdered. The campaign
of the UPA continued well into the 1950s until it was virtually wiped out by the Soviet
forces.
It should be said that during this early period Bandera himself had been incarcerated by
the German authorities up until his release in 1944, since unlike Bandera they were not
enamoured of an independent Ukrainian state but wanted total control. Bandera was only
released at this late date since the German high command was endeavouring to build up a
pro-German Ukrainian quisling military force to hold up the remorseless advance of the Red
Army. Also pursuant to this it is also worth noting that during this period the 14th Galizian
Waffen SS Division, a military Ukrainian collaborationist formation established by Heinrich
Himmler, was formed to fight the Soviet forces, and yet another being the Nachtingal brigade;
(1) this unit was integrated into the 14th Galizian in due course. It is also interesting to
note, that every year, and up to 2014 commemoration ceremony including veterans of this unit
takes place with a march through Lviv in an evening torchlight parade – genuine Nazi
pastiche. The flag of this unit is not dissimilar to the Peugeot logo, the standing lion, and
can be seen at ultra-nationalist rallies as well as football matches involving Lviv Karparti
FC. There are also numerous statues of Bandera across Ukraine, and since the 2014 coup even
street names bearing the same name. Significantly the UPA have now received political
rehabilitation from the Kiev Junta, with Bandera declared a hero of the Ukraine and the UPA
rebranded as 'freedom fighters.' One particularly splendid statue of Bandera stands proudly
in Lviv and is usually adorned with flowers.
Other novel attractions the capital of Banderestan include 'Jewish themed restaurants' one
such is Kryivka (Hideout or Lurking Hole) where guests have a choice of dishes and whose
dinning walls are decorated with larger than life portraits of Bandera, the toilet with
Russian and Jewish anecdotes. At another Jewish themed restaurant guests are offered black
hats of the sort worn by Hasidim. The menu lists no prices for the dishes; instead, one is
required to haggle over highly inflated prices ''in the Jewish fashion''. Yes, it's all good
clean fun in Lviv. Anti-Semitism also sells. Out of 19 book vendors on the streets of central
Lviv, 16 were openly selling anti-Semitic literature. About 70% of the anti-Semitic
publications in Ukraine are being published by and educational institution called MUAP (The
Inter-Regional Academy of Personnel Management). MAUP is a large, well-connected and
increasingly powerful organization funded from outside anti-Semite sources, and also
connected to White Supremacist groups in the USA and to the David Duke, former Grand Wizard
of the Ku Klux Klan.
(It is one of the ironies of history that if the Zionists in AIPAC and the Washington
neo-con think tanks, and the Labour Party Friends of Israel, were so concerned about
anti-Semitism, they might try looking for it in Lviv. They wouldn't have to search very
far.)
Present day neo-Nazi groupings in Ukraine – Svoboda (Freedom) party and Right Sector
– have been the direct descendants from the prior ideological cesspool. Heading Svoboda
is Oleh Tyahnybok. Although these are separate organizations Tyahnybok's deputy Yuriy
Mykhalchyshyn is the main link between Svoboda's official wing and neo-Nazi militias like
Right Sector. The Social-Nationalist party as it was formerly known chose as its logo an
amended version of the Wolfsangel, a symbol used by many SS divisions on the Eastern front
during the war who in 2004 a celebration of the OUN-UPA, stated in 2004, that ''they fought
against the Muscovite, Germans, Jews and other scum who wanted to take away our Ukrainian
state.'' And further that ''Ukraine was ruled by a Muscovite-Jewish mafia.'' Tyahnybok came
under pressure from the then President, Yuschenko, to retract his inflammatory statements,
which he did, but he then retracted the retraction!
Given the fact that Svoboda was, apart from its stamping grounds in the west, making
little national electoral headway, it was essential to clean up its image and deny its Nazi
past. But this was always going to be difficult since the members of such groups cannot help
the unscripted outbursts and faux pas which they tend to make and which reveals their true
colours. For example, following the conviction and sentencing of John Demjanjuk to five years
in jail for his role as an accessory to the murder of 27,900 people at the Sobibor death
camp, Tyahnybok travelled to Germany and met up with Demjanjuk's lawyer, presenting the death
camp guard as a hero, a victim of persecution ''who is fighting for truth''.
And so it goes on. We can therefore infer that this organization is inveterate fascist. More
disturbing Svoboda has links with the so-called Alliance of National European Movements,
which includes: Nationaldemokraterna of Sweden, Front Nationale of France, Fiamma Tricolore
in Italy, the Hungarian Jobbik and the Belgian National Front. More importantly Svoboda held
several ministerial portfolios in the Kiev administration, and Right Sector swaggers around
Kiev streets with impunity, and/or are being drafted into a National Guard to deal with the
separatist movements in the east, or to beat down anyone who doesn't conform to their Ayran
racial and political ideals.
One would have thought that this mutating revolution in the Ukraine would have drawn
attention of the centre-left to the fact that fascism had gained a vital beachhead in Europe,
and that the danger signals should be flashing. But not a bit of it; a perusal of the
Guardian newspaper quickly reveals that their chief concern has been with a non-existent
'Russian threat'. One of their reporters – or old friend, Luke Harding -described Right
Sector as an ''eccentric group of people with unpleasant right-wing views.'' Priceless! This
must rank as the political understatement of the century. In fact, the Guardian was simply
reiterating the US-imposed neo-conservative foreign policy. But naturally, this is par for
the course.
(1) The Nachtingal brigade, which was later incorporated into the SS Galizien, took part
in a three-day massacre of the Jewish population of Lvov (now Lviv) from 30 June 1941. Roman
Shukhevych was the commander of the Nachtingal and later, in 1943, became commander of the
Ukrainian Insurgent Army (the "Banderivtsy", or UPA/UIA[5] ), armed henchmen of the fascist
Stepan Bandera, who after the war pretended that they had fought both Nazis and Communists.
Members of the division are also accused of having murdered some 800 residents of the Polish
village of Huta Pieniacka and 44 civilians in the village of Ch?aniów.
Paolo , July 6, 2018 at 7:11 am
Just for the record: the Ukrainians hailed the Nazis as liberators after the Soviets had
let millions of Ukrainians die of hunger in the thirties, a sort of "genocide" that goes
under the name of Holodomor and has officially been recognized by western Parlaments only a
few decades ago. In eastern Ukraine there were no more inhabitants after the Holodomor, and
the Russians imported hundreds of thousand peasants from Russia to get agriculture working
again.
The problems of Ukraine are so deep that fomenting regime change there was a most idiotic
thing to do. Sooner or later the problems will explode, and it will be tough shit. Whoever
helped this regime change should be locked up in some high security jail as far as
possible.
Garrett Connelly , July 6, 2018 at 9:52 am
The big lie is 180° opposite of reality repeated over and over using free corporate
propaganda.
vinnieoh , July 5, 2018 at 3:15 pm
Still scratching my head at the electric last line of Mr. Lazare's piece. I'm mean, I'm
used to "official" organs like WaPo and NYT publishing whatever narrative is most helpful to
whatever pieces are being moved on the chessboard, but for the same "freelance journalist" to
have written both the earlier Foreign Policy piece and the recent WaPo piece is a puzzle to
me.
Does Joshua Cohen just write stuff that goes with the flow (at any particular moment) and
has a good chance of being published (and consequently of himself being paid)?
Or did this
person really have an epiphany, and the scales fell from his eyes? I suspect a third
explanation though what that may be eludes me. One thing is for sure, as a Trump/Putin
meeting gets closer, expect more false "official" narratives concerning both Ukraine and
Syria.
'The U.S.-backed "Euromaidan" uprising not only drove out former president Viktor
Yanukovych in February 2014, who had won an OSCE-certified election, but tore the country in
two, precisely because ultra-rightists like C14 were in the lead But if one had to choose the
looniest story of all, one that best reflects the abject toadyism of the reporting classes,
it would have to be "Why Jews and Ukrainians Have Become Unlikely Allies," a 1,400-word
article that ran on the Post-owned Foreign Policy website in May 2014.'
Here's the thing though: however weird it may sound, there actually DOES seem to exist
some sort of tacit alliance between (some, not all) Jews and Ukrainian Nazis. Even if their
ultimate goals are completely at odds–the Nazis hate the EU, but the Jews mostly want
to join it–they nearly always seem to work together against Russia. It has even been
maintained that the Azov Battalion (one of the all-volunteer Neo-Nazi militias fighting
against the Donbass rebels) was entirely financed for a time by Jewish oligarch Ihor
Kholomoisky, at least until he did something to piss Poroshenko off and got sacked from his
post as governor of Dniepropetrovsk. And in the beginning, Jews who tried to point out that
Neo-Nazi groups were involved in overthrowing Yanukovych, like Dr. Stephen Cohen, were
roundly denounced a 'Russia apologists' just for stating facts.
But now that Washington's whole Ukraine project has gone south, I guess the Nazis, having
outlived their usefulness, are, as usual, to be the fall-guys and take all the blame.
Anna , July 5, 2018 at 2:39 pm
yeh, the Kaganat of Nuland has many veils.
The most stunning aspect of the banderite putsch in Kiev was the dead silence of nazi-hunters
from Wiesenthal Center, the always oh-so-sensitive ADL, the main 52 (fifty-two!) American
Jewish organizations, and the overall docility and compliance of the "righteous" Israel with
the banderite-neo-Nazi ideology by Kagans-selected power structures in Ukraine.
Mr. Kolomojsky, a financier of neo-nazi battalion Azov, is still an Israeli citizen.
Mrs. Nuland-Kagan, the main machinator of the regime change in Kiev, has not been ostracized
by the Jewish Community at large.
The deeply amoral and bloodthirsty Carl Gerschman from NED, who has been the main cheerleader
for the putsch and for the installing the banderite-friendly government in Kiev, has not been
ostracized by the Jewish Community at large either. What a stench!
https://medium.com/@gmochannel/us-staged-a-coup-in-ukraine-brief-history-and-facts-898c6d0007d6
Pft , July 5, 2018 at 9:07 pm
Yeah. The prime minister and many of the top oligarchs are Jewish. Relations between
Ukraine and Israel seem quite good despite the UNSC vote that the US abstained on regarding
Israeli settlements in the West Bank, perhaps reminded by Stalin doing the same to them in
the 1920's.
As for relations with the neo nazis I remember before WWII that Zionists in Palestine
cooperated with Nazis who sent German Jews to Palestine in return for the purchase of German
goods which were being boycotted by Jews in the west
I suspect most Americans don't know Ukrainian history. The early years of Bolshevik rule
were quite brutal and over 10 million rural Christians lost their lives in Ukraine over their
policies .Solzhenitsyn 200 years can shed some light on the roots of the anti-Semitism among
the peasants that developed in the 20's-30's and no doubt has been passed on.
Robert , July 6, 2018 at 4:24 pm
I've thought about this myself and have concluded that a fair number of Jewish
organizations and institutions in the Ukraine were receiving a small portion of the US State
Department funding allocated to the Ukraine each year of $200-250 million, totaling $5
billion since 1992. In return for this rather small (by US standards) outlay to a broad
spectrum of NGOs, private educational and religious institutions, and political groups, the
US purchased an enormous amount of influence. Most of the members of these groups were
unaware of this US support, as the funds were funneled through individual leaders who were
tasked to influence opinion, organize demonstrations and petitions, and write letters to the
press and government members. Scholarships to the US and Canada were offered to promising
youth to ensure continuity of support. For this reason, most Jewish and other groups
operating in Ukraine have, until recently and only with reluctance, been willing to deviate
from the official US "story". Thus, they knowingly (at least as far as their leadership was
concerned) supported an overtly US-led neo-Nazi coup.
mike , July 5, 2018 at 1:24 pm
Makes sense that Josh Cohen is a former U.S. Agency for International Development project
officer involved in managing economic reform projects in the former Soviet Union. Isn't that
really what this is all about? Putin gets elected and takes charge of the economy, jailing
corrupt oligarchs and putting the kibosh on said reform projects sponsored by us in care of
Jeffrey Sachs et al. As Russia tries to reassert its sovereignty the US gets miffed and
retaliates.
The Electronic Intifada has just posted an article by Asa Winstanley detailing how Israel,
among others, has been supplying the Ukrainian Azov Battalion with military arms. It's well
worth reading.
The next time you hear a pro-Israel mouthpiece sounding off about purported antisemitism
in the British Labour Party, or in pro-Palestinine activist circles in the U.S., invite them
to consider Israel's policy -- and that of the U.S. as well as friendly European states -- of
direct military sponsorship of textbook Nazism in Ukraine. Jews are being menaced and beaten
in the streets of Kiev by armed bands who celebrate their historical persecution, while thugs
like Avigdor Lieberman sit cordially with officials representing that regime. But then, such
warm relations between Zionists and anti-Semites is an old story.
Jeff Harrison , July 5, 2018 at 1:03 pm
Interesting. Anyone with two brains to rub together knows that the US, to the best of it's
ability, has been surrounding Russia with compliant right wing governments, usually
dictators, but we've gotten better at manipulating elections to get reliable puppet
government. The bad news is that it is a full time job to stay on top of that.
It used to be that the only things one could depend on were "death & taxes." Now of
course we must add to that list the very dependable presence of CIA / State Dept lies
parroted by MSM all over the West. Lies which are endlessly repeated in defiance of all
physical reality and often in direct opposition to actual events in the actual world we live
in. From the Ukraine coup, to Russia-gate, to the "Assad's gassing his own people" regime
change propaganda, to the totally surreal Alice in Wonderland Skripnal poisoning nonsense in
the U.K, the Western MSM have been as dependable as the rising sun. They can and do provide
fact-free, evidence-free reporting directly from the bowels of the deep state in support of
the neocolonial West, including unending support for the never ending resort to mass violence
the West relies upon to keep the rest of the planet subjugated – just as it has for the
last 500+ years.
irina , July 5, 2018 at 2:06 pm
It's not just the media. The late night talk show hosts are doing their bit too, as I
heard
last night on a Jimmy Kimmel rerun (of a recent show). Can't remember the context as
I was doing the dishes, but did hear him say the usual "Russian illegally annexed Crimea"
standard phrase, immediately followed by "and then invaded Ukraine". The latter just
casually tossed off as a given. People hear these memes constantly repeated and,
regardless of their veracity (suspect to say the least) it becomes part of their
worldview.
Who is behind the political preaching of hosts like Jimmy Kimmel ?
Inquiring minds want to know !
Joe Tedesky , July 5, 2018 at 2:43 pm
You know what irina, seeing these late night talk shows go all crazy over Putin makes me
think of the Zio-Media executives, and where their allegiance to power resides. Joe
Devil's Advocate , July 5, 2018 at 2:48 pm
I would assume you'd have to look at who owns the media source in question. Kimmel's show
is on ABC, which is partly owned by Disney. Follow the money chain of those 2 parent
companies, and you have your answer.
irina – I quite agree. The same is true of the former Daily Show crew members who
now have their own shows. Several have shown themselves to be quite the little imperialist
war mongers when it comes to gleefully repeating the CIA sponsored Syrian regime change and
Russiagate propaganda. Samantha Bee & John Oliver kept triggering my gag reflex with
their propaganda lines until I found a simple but effective solution and stopped watching
them altogether. We have an amazingly seamless propaganda system here in the U.S. One can
chose to either get one's "pro-war regime change propaganda" delivered with barely concealed
racism and misogyny from Fox News, or instead opt for hearing the same nonsense delivered
with pretentious blather and catchy jazz interludes at PBS. American democracy is all about
having "choices."
Jeff Harrison , July 5, 2018 at 7:57 pm
I quite agree. I knew the minute that they started calling RT a propaganda outlet that, in
fact, the USG was running a full scale propaganda operation. I don't know if I simply wasn't
paying enough attention or if they have, in fact ramped the operation up, but I can hardly
read any MSM outlet's output without calling bullshit on it.
irina , July 6, 2018 at 2:55 am
Jimmy Kimmel actually used to be funny and there is a really good clip
(somewhere on youtube no doubt) of him reading a 'doctored' Dr. Seuss
book to The Donald (a live guest) during his primary candidacy.
But since The Donald's election Kimmel has opened almost every show
with 'ten minutes hate' segment on The Donald. I still watch (or at least
listen) occasionally because I want to know what is being fed to The Public.
You are absolutely right though, "we have an amazingly seamless propaganda
system here in the US". The average person maybe has 30 minutes to
devote to the news, between getting home and having dinner; they watch
some sort of news show and think they are 'informed'. But it actually takes
MANY hours and a knowledge of alternative websites to even begin to piece
together an approximation of what might, in reality, be going on.
The Russians used to say that, at least they knew they were being propagandized.
Unfortunately, probably due to 'American Exceptionalism', most Americans think
the MSM is bringing them 'the truth'. But nothing could be further from The Truth.
Peter H , July 6, 2018 at 10:41 am
I can't count the number of times I've had to turn off Colbert's Late Show for his
Russian/Putin bashing BS. So disappointing. That's a rule in my house now. The first mention
of Russia and off it goes.
Drew Hunkins , July 5, 2018 at 12:52 pm
Likewise, the corporate militarist-Zio media should eventually have to concede someday
that the current Syrian "rebels" are little more than ruthless sociopathic
Saudi-Zio-Washington intel agency supported mercenary terrorists.
Folks in the know knew very early on that much of the Kiev putschists and violent invaders
of Eastern Ukraine were neo-Nazi types bent on eradicating the last vestiges of Russian
social and ethnic solidarity.
It's really truly remarkable when one steps back to think about it all. These are the
depraved groups the crypto-fascists, the Wall Street militarist imperialists, and Zionists
have embedded themselves with: bloodthirsty Takfiri mercenary terrorists and neo-Nazis.
Bob Van Noy , July 5, 2018 at 2:25 pm
Each time I see an article like this I'm reminded of the videos of Zbigniew Brzezinski's
early meetings with the Mujahideen and his manipulation of cultures on The Grand Chessboard
or "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" a totally absurd assumption and the natural outcome
of that absurdity, is blowback which this article again addresses. Our "boots on the ground"
end up paying the price of this kind of supposed intellectualism. Shameful. Thank you Drew
Hunkins.
Joe Tedesky , July 5, 2018 at 2:39 pm
Bob the old saying if I got right is the company you keep is what you become. We have
truly loss our way, and Zbigniew Brzezinski is one of the biggest reasons we have become the
predators of this dying green earth. All this for the profit, as all mankind must yield to
the power of the dollar. Sad. Joe
MBeaver , July 6, 2018 at 5:03 am
One would think we had learned from Vietnam. Instead the "peace loving" liberals do
everything to destabilize whole region for nothing and then send soldiers in who die for
their messed up agenda.
JWalters , July 5, 2018 at 7:16 pm
It is truly remarkable. A lot of the behind-the-scenes magic is explained in "War
Profiteers and Israel's Bank" http://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com
.
I think that the potential threat of what happens if there is a hot war are more extensive
than just having the Strait of Hormuz being closed. If you look at that map you can see that
Saudi Arabia is just across the Strait. And as luck would have it, Saudi Arabia's oil fields
are mostly in the east which means that they are within close missile range of Iran. Nice oil
fields you have there Saudi Arabia. Shame if something happened to it. The United Arab
Emirates are also within missile range as well. If both countries think that Patriot
batteries will protect them then they must have been disillusioned to find that those
Patriots couldn't even defend against wonky Houthi missiles.
Then there is the fact that Iran shares a border with Pakistan and Afghanistan. Remember how
the CIA shipped all those anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) and ManPads to the Syrian
Jihadists via countries like Saudi Arabia? Be a real shame if captured stock got passed on to
the Taliban via all those borders and started targeted US/Coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Just these two possibilities show how Iran has a whole range of options to use if it came to
a military confrontation. And it should be remembered. If a US/Coalition could not
successfully occupy Iraq with a population of 37 million, then how can Iran with a population
of 80 million be occupied?
Another factor is that even if a US/Coalition managed to somehow suppress all those missiles
the Iranians are using to guard those Straits, you would never be sure that you got them all.
Who really want to risk their oil tankers going down those Straits and wanting to risk that
bottleneck beig turned into a flaming sea? The trouble there is no way that there would be a
quick campaign possible with everybody home by Christmas. This has the potential of still
being fought during the 2020 US elections and I do not think that the US establishment wants
to risk that one. What they do want is to strangle Iran economically and turn the place into
one of grinding poverty but if pushed too far may go the Sampson option.
Local kids could also be trained to fire rockets across the water. The straits are not
straight and cut into Iran, so there's a good vantage point for Iran.
> probably already is.
>> China is still officially stating that it will not end its Iranian oil imports and
operations.
China's investment of billions into the deep port of Gwadar should not be discounted.
While China has ceded the ocean surface to the US navy, the wei qi way is to surround and not
engage directly. By now the Gulf of Oman should be a sensory organ for information critical
to Iran, and passive systems are much harder to detect & destroy.
We're now three years out from Qiao Liang saying China "thinks that Washington will not
fight Beijing for the next ten years". China doesn't want the fight (and I mean high
explosives, not 'fighting for') yet, but they've been preparing. And let us not forget the
rooster tails on the American fleet fleeing the Persian Gulf in October 2015 when Russia
launched cruise missiles at Syria. That was three months after the 'One Belt, One Road'
speech.
While the Saud's are working out their family disputes they cannot afford to have the
petrodollar disabled. But the US is materially capable of weathering energy disruptions
better than the EU, which would become even more dependent on Russia. Long term, the
petrodollar is gone and climate migrations are coming, so the when of Fortess America could
depend on relative and not absolute 'cui bono, ciu malo'.
tldr: the fight is inevitable, there's more than two in the ring, and there's no
referee.
I doubt if it is mined at this time, but mines would be a logical way to quickly shut the
Strait down. A couple of small fast ships dropping mines at night could shut it down very
quickly. They could drop mines along the far shore which would force ships towards the Iran
side where they would be vulnerable to shore-based anti-ship missiles.
BTW, the standing NATO minesweeping group is three ships (two Lithuanian and one British).
Historically minesweeping is one of the roles carried out by other countries that the US is
currently working hard to alienate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_NATO_Mine_Countermeasures_Group_1
Mine sweeping ships generally are not heavily armored to avoid magnetic and acoustic
signatures that can trigger mines. So they can struggle in contested waters and would be very
vulnerable to anti-ship missiles.
"Rouhani, considered by European politicians to be a reformist, appears to be showing a
hardline streak that is nearer the strategy of the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah
Khamenei. "
Everybody becomes a hardliner when faced with an existential threat, which Trump's threats
are now creating for Iran.
There's no need to sink any oil tankers to stop all oil shipping. Those tankers don't sail
without full insurance for the cargo, and no maritime insurer will back shipping through the
Strait of Hormuz while the Iranians are on the warpath. Hence, no oil tanker.
That is why a few mines would be very effective. All oil shipping would cease immediately.
Because mines can be redeployed very easily, including by air or fishing boats, insurers
would probably not be assuaged by naval assurances that mines have been swept.
In the 1980's when the Iranians mined the Straits the tankers still moved. What was the
insurance deal then? Did it the US pick it up for that part of the trip?
"If a US/Coalition could not successfully occupy Iraq with a population of 37 million,
then how can Iran with a population of 80 million be occupied?"
Iran is also mostly Persian. Yes, there are Arabs, Armenians, Baluchis, etc., but the vast
majority are Persian and are proud to be Persian. Unlike Iraq, where you have a country with
3 groups you can play off each other.
I visited Iran over 5 years ago and was able to speak to some regular Iranians (English is
not uncommon amongst men and women). They will fight to the last man, woman, and child if
anyone came into their country. And that's what the secular ones who hate their government
say.
Every town has lamppost flags showing the pictures of all the young men who died in the
Iran-Iraq War. It was humbling to see the generational devastation wrought on that country.
Even the youth view that war as a world war, since people from over 25 countries were found
to be fighting on the Iraq side ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_War
– Remember the Soviet Union was ALSO on Iraq's side!). They faced destruction and
survived. They view themselves as an ancient, sophisticated people as well as the greatest
survivors in the world (all with good reason as they are an amazing people with a rubbish
government).
I do not see this ending well if the US thinks they can put the Iranians into a corner and
get compliance. It is an amazingly ahistorical understanding of the geopolitics of Iran.
These are the people we should be allying with not Saudi Arabia. But this is the same group
who think blundering into Iraq or Syria was a good idea, so I really can't be surprised.
Just to add that the people living above the main Saudi oil fields, Eastern Province, are
mainly Shiites. Shiites are also to be found in the south along the ill defined border with
Yemen. Both communities are disaffected and have been for decades, although the BBC, which
advertises its "unparalled global expertise" (sic) between news bulletins and other
programmes, reckons the Arab Spring caused the restiveness in Saudi Arabia.
This said, the Saudis and their Pakistani poodles can foment (Sunni) Arab and Baluch
disorder in Khuzestan and Sistan / Iranian Baluchistan.
I always wonder to myself when, on the BBC News Channel, they pan across the alleged
newsroom in New Broadcasting House and you see all those desks -- rows upon rows of them --
where people are sat, or, occasionally, get up and have a wander around, what the heck are
they doing there? It can't be producing news reports because you see the same half a dozen
so-called news "stories" stripped endlessly across the schedule throughout the day.
Every so often we get "business" news, which is someone from a spread betting company
piffling on about some rot or other then "a look at the markets", not, unfortunately, a view
of Covenant Garden or something, that would be more interesting, but rather some mysterious
figures from world indices and forex rates splayed across the screen like some inscrutable
hieroglyphs.
Then a bit of sport, with a dash of added jingoism.
Finally, some rally round the flag update on "the forces" with some top brass on the poop
deck of an aircraft carrier looking for an F35 ("F35 coming real soon"). Maybe Sophie
Rayworth in a tank.
Or alternatively it's Jenny Hill from Berlin with something about sausages and Merkel with
stock footage of people drinking beer from unfeasibly large glasses wraps it all up apart
from a sky diving granny then the weather.
It could be worse. We all could work in one of these places. It would not matter how great
a story you found, it would all have to get through the editors who report directly to their
owners like with the Murdoch press. The stuff you talk about is just the stuff that gets the
editorial nod i.e. pure pap.
Some of the stuff that I have seen on Australian TV, however, is nothing less than out and
out propaganda. I watch some of this stuff and I compare it with what I read on this site or
what a commentator chips in with and I wonder what these newsreaders actually are thinking as
they read some of these stories. Probably their steady pay packets.
I wish to god I knew. I have seen this creeping in the past decade or more. I suspect that
a lot of bad practices are imported from overseas. There are international conferences for
conservative political parties so you would have American Republicans, British Conservatives,
Australian Coalition, etc. all mixing together and swapping idea and techniques. They even
work together when there is an election in their country.
Just the other day I heard one Coalition member describe another as a "patriot" which you
NEVER hear in Oz. Kinda like a Republican describing another Republican as a good Communist.
You just never hear it. We even have an ex-Prime Minister that sounds like he could be a good
buddy to Mark Rubio running around trying to blow up his own party (currently in power)
saying that we should build as many coal power stations as possible because climate change is
not real.
Historically our governments have been ruled by pragmatism and past US governments have
labelled us as "socialist" due to adopting such things as single-payer health. The past few
years I am noting more and more ideologues going into politics who want to drag the country
into their way of thinking whether it is to pick fights with China (our major trade partner)
or send the Australian military to the ends of the earth as if they were Mercenaries-r-us.
The times they are a changing.
It all reminds me of C S Lewis' description of H -- as a giant bureaucracy. "The Screwtape
Letters" were written at the end of WW-2 and still come across as 'fresh.'
Supposedly the KSA funded development of the Pakistani bomb. There probably is some
agreement to hand some over (if it hasn't already been done) for "existential threats" This
could turn very bad very fast.
Iran has lots of options. Their Navy wouldn't last very long in a hot war but they have
lots of asymetric options. They have reverse engineered Russian torpedoes and these could be
launched from land or from mini-subs in shallow waters (where they are far harder to detect),
making life very difficult for opponents, let alone tankers. They can strike the UAE and much
of Saudi Arabia using a wide variety of ballistic missiles. To prevent this, the US would
have to strike Iranian territory, and this would cause a massive escalation. In almost any
scenario, the Straits would be shut down for many months, and this would be catastrophic for
the world economy. Asia would come off worse as they are most dependent on LNG and oil from
that region.
As you say, the great 'unsaid' is the Taliban. If Iran decided it was in their interest to
supply them with a few dozen trained operators with a few thousand anti-tank missiles and
manpads, then its goodbye Kabul.
The Iranians hate the Taliban and Al Quaeda and ISIS a lot more than we do since we are on
Saudi Arabia's side. They also seem to follow their principles. Don't forget our allies and
proxies in Syria are the headcutters and madmen ..all Sunnis ..although our government does
not want to admit it. They would be a lot smarter to trigger a Shiite uprising in Saudi
Arabia and shut the country down. The Shiites in Saudi are downtrodden and abused.
To escalate a carrier sinking to nuclear war is, I believe a lose/lose proposition. Let
say the Iranians sunk a carrier and the US Nuked Tehran.
The Iranians would not be in a forgiving mood at that point, and it would do little to
remove the somewhat irritated Iranians along the northern side of the Persian Gulf. The
irritated Iranians would initiate incidents over the impact of irradiated Iranians.
The US could nuke the Iranian Coast along the Persian Gulf, but, the gulf is not wide, and
the result would be poor prospects for the US allies on the South side of the Gulf. In
addition one does not know if nuking Shea would provoke a Sunni backlash against "the
infidels, the Christian US."
One could argue that Christians and Nukes cannot be mentioned in the same sentence.
The Prologue of Robert Baer's "Sleeping With the Devil" outlines a potential scenario of a
Shiite attack on the eastern Saudi oil fields. The sub-title is The Doomsday Scenario.
The book is about the US-Saudi relationship by a retired CIA officer. A very good read and
part of trying to understand this entire mess.
Exactly right. Logic dictates that if Iran is attacked, Iranian missiles will soon
thereafter attempt to destroy all of the oil producing capacity selling to Europe, Japan and
the US within range of its missiles. This means ships, oil fields, pipeline, ect. Oil prices
would skyrocket, plunging the US, Japan and Europe into a deep economic downturn.
Why people ignore the outcome you provided is beyond me. If I were Iran, I'd do the same
if Israel attacked too.
Your guess is that nobody will attack the Iranians after they attack the shipping to close
the straits?
In the 1987 Iran attacked about 91 ships in the Gulf. The oil still flowed. On April 18,
1988 the US attacked and severely damaged a number of Iranian ships and bases. After that
things started winding down. Then on July 3, 1988 the US shot down that Iranian airliner.
Then things really quieted down.
What are the differences now? Iran: ballistic missiles and subs?
There's Lt. General Riper, who played the Iranian side in the 2002 Millennium Challenge war
games, "killing" 20,000 Navy personnel and "sinking" 16 American warships
on the first day, so he knows better than to even start such a bottlenecked battle.
There's always General Farnsworth, the great grandson of Colonel Armstrong Custer.
Farnsworth has worked for two decades in the Purchasing & Planning wing of the Pentagon
-- three levels below daylight -- but his confidence in an immediate American victory Over
There is indubitable.
In similar vein, MI5's Eliza Manningham Buller is a descendant of Redvers Buller, British
commander in the second Boer War, but much more of a realist and moderate.
Redvers Buller? Seriously? I have read a lot about his role in the Zulu War of 1879.
Intriguing character being hard-fighting and hard-drinking and yet refused to wear his 1860
China medal on the grounds that it was an unnecessary war. And a descendant of his is head of
MI5?
Here's a little character sketch of Redvers Buller, from " On the Psychology of
Military Incompetence ", by Norman Dixon:
The leading character was the commander-in-chief, General Sir Redvers Buller. According
to a contemporary description there could be no finer choice for our South African
adventure: 'There is no stronger commander in the British Army than this remote, almost
grimly resolute, completely independent, utterly fearless, steadfast and vigorous man.
Big-boned, square-jawed, strong-minded, strong-headed Smartness sagacity administrative
capacity He was born to be a soldier of the very best English type, needless to say the
best type of all.
Unfortunately this assessment was at variance with the facts in all but two particulars.
Firstly, he was indeed big. Secondly, though sadly lacking in moral courage, he was
undoubtedly brave when it came to physical danger. In this respect, as in many others, he
was not unlike Raglan of the Crimean War, and indeed some other commanders of subsequent
years.
Of Sir 'Reverse' Buller, as he came to be known by his troops, Rayne Kruger writes: 'At the
risk of marring [the] contemporary description it should be mentioned that his big bones
were particularly well covered, especially in the region of the stomach, and that his
square jaw was not especially apparent above a double chin. He had entered the army with no
disadvantage, his mother being a Howard and niece of the Duke of Norfolk, and he was very
wealthy, which was fortunate in view of his preference for a diet of ample good food and
champagne.
Such examples of the Peter Principle, wherein people are raised to their own level of
inefficiency, was never better illustrated than in the case of Sir Redvers Buller, who has
been described as 'a superb major, a mediocre colonel and an abysmal general'. In this
case, high-level military incompetence must be laid at the door of heroic leadership, for
this was the quality which eventually put him where he could do the most damage to his own
side.
The US response will be that this unprovoked aggression is an act of war, etc. This
ignores our own unprovoked act of aggression, the embargo.
In case any has forgotten, those dastardly Imperialist Japanese launched an "unprovoked"
attack on Pearl Harbor because the US put Japan under an embargo.
Embargoes themselves are not acts of war, but blockades are. But this is all technical
blather. The US is attempting to strangle Iran. Iran will attempt to strangle the Gulf Arabs
and the US. If Iran starts firing missiles or blockading the straits, the US will attack
Iran. Iran will in turn launch attacks on the Gulf states. This could drive oil over $200,
perhaps higher.
If Iran were clever, they would institute some sort of quarantine or inspection in their
territorial waters. Indeed, they should claim jurisdiction over the entire strait in the
interest of international security (they could certainly find some US document somewhere and
just change the names). Then they could stop every ship going in and out and spend a week or
so inspecting each one for contraband, disease, etc. This would not be an act of war but
would certainly provoke the US into striking first anyway.
Iran has already extended its territorial waters to 12 miles, as did Oman. Given that the
strait is 29 miles at the narrowest, and that to deal with the amount of shipping, pretty
much all of it passes through either Omani or Iranian territorial waters. Technically,
Iran/Oman has right to stop any non "innocent" (read unarmed) shipping trough it territorial
waters. Not sure what is Omani relationship with the US/Saudis at the moment, wasn't paying
much attention to the Gulf.
Once the US decides to strike first, we're going to be on our own. The Saudis will be
completely useless as they always were, understandably not wanting to be cannon fodder for US
interests. And with most of Europe and Asia relying on gulf oil, our 'coalition of the
willing' is going to be a bit shy of members.
But $200 a barrel and the US a solid producer? Seems to be some win-win money to be made for
both Raytheon and Exxon-Mobil.
No Saudi just like no rich American will give his life for his country .in the military.
Life is just too good for them .why fight in the desert when you can cool it at a cafe in
Munich ..why are all the Syrian men of fighting age in Munich and Hamburg? They don't want to
fight for their country.
Considering the restraint Iran has shown regarding Israeli attacks in Syria, it's safe to
assume they want to avoid war at all cost. Don't expect any acts of aggression from them.
Talk of closing the strait is trying to see if there is any spark of independence left in
Europe's political elite. Unfortunately the Europeans only care about money – what they
get personally from the US to run their countries and what their corporations get from doing
business with America. There just isn't enough business between Iran and Europe to offset
that. Now the more unreasonable Washington becomes the more uncomfortable its allies become,
however they will still hold their noses and answer the call to duty. I'm afraid Iran's
courting Europe will produce little to help them. Luckily China and Russia, even Turkey and
India, are far more important.
The nice thing for Iran's hardliners – assuming the MSM narrative that they are
nasty terrorists always looking to cause trouble – is that they don't need to take
aggressive action to start a war. They've got America/Israel and that's the cause of every
war in the 21st century. That pairing will decide if and when there is to be a war. Russia
and China might have the ability to provoke caution but Iran doesn't.
Do not expect any actions from the Iranians to provoke a war. It's a war they cannot win
and they know it. it's also a war they can't lose but the price they could pay by surviving
might be really horrific. I'm not sure they'd close the strait even in a shooting war because
that would risk further escalation. The moment America starts bombing Iran the law of
diminishing return kicks in. The US will be looking for any excuse to go nuclear. Therefore I
doubt Iranian resistance will be more than defensive. Hopefully Russia is providing them with
air defences to be able to shoot down some US planes. Just lay low and ride out the storm.
That's been the philosophy of US/Israeli opponents in the Middle East this decade. It's why
the Russians take so much crap and keep turning the other cheek. They understand that either
they lose such a war or, if they are winning they risk the US going nuclear. Iran can't win a
war with America. Iran, however, can inflict unacceptable casualties but then they run the
same risk of Washington going nuclear in retaliation. In Asian capitals you have rational
players who understand that a nuclear war must be avoided if possible. Thus they avoid any
aggressive actions which they fear could lead to such a war. The problem humanity has is that
we're not sure if there are any rational players in Washington or Tel Aviv.
"The problem humanity has is that we're not sure if there are any rational players in
Washington or Tel Aviv."
+1
Given our belief in being an "exceptional nation" hasn't this been humanity's problem since
the end of WW2?
Will the sanctions pull Iran enough to such an escalation? Would other countries (apart
from Turkey) thing that this is troubling enough to risk US sanctions and disobey? There has
been an escalation in language between the UE and US regarding Iran sanctions but it is still
too soon to know what will be the EU position. We migth know after tomorrow's meeting in
Vienna. I don't know what could happen but be sure the US is running out of "natural allies"
by stepping up too much it's support for Saudi Arab. Trump is inaugurating a new era and it
doesn't look pretty.
The Army might be in trouble but the Marine Corps WILL BE IN A HURT LOCKER FROM HELL if
its ever called on to face Russian forces if they follow thru with published planning.
It is as clear as day that President Trump is obsessed with regime change in Iran. What is
not made clear is how much his gambit is damaging to Americans and American interests.
Without cause or justification, Mr. Trump pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan Of
Action (JCPOA), striking a hard blow to America's European allies – and its own
credibility. Moreover, he threatened European countries with secondary sanctions should they
continue to trade with Iran.
To top it all, in his latest move, he has called for all Iranian oil exports to be cut off
by November. Or in practical terms, he is imposing an economic blockade on Iran. This is a
similar scenario that was played out by the British in 1951 against Iran and Dr. Mossadegh
– who was later overthrown in the 1953 British-US coup. But today, the IR of Iran is not
the Iran of 1953, and the brunt of American demands and actions will not be borne by Iran
alone.
Demanding that no country purchase oil from Iran is in fact an economic blockade. It is an
illegitimate use of power to force a sovereign nation to surrender. It must be made clear
however, that it is not just Iran that is the target here. The Trump administration's demands
arean offensiveexercise of extraterritorial authority with no regard for sovereign equality
between states. All states involved in trade with Iran will either have to cower to his demands
or be punished.
But there is more than state sovereignty and indignation that is involved. These actions
will have a dire effect on the economy of allies, and they will hit Americans in the wallet
– hard. If Mr. Trump is giving a November deadline, he hopes to postpone the impact this
will have on the November elections. He wants total rule over America before totally
bankrupting it.
To fully appreciate how Mr. Trump intends to make 'America great again' where his policy
regarding Iranian oil is concerned, one must take a look at some numbers and empirical
evidence.
The oil strikes leading up to the toppling of Iran's Shah were felt around the world. During
the 1978-79 revolution, Iranian oil production dropped 3.8 million barrels per day for 3
months. Although outside production increased by 1.8 million barrels to make up for the loss,
the net loss to the world was 150 million barrels of oil. However, the compounding results of
the production loss were significant around the globe.
Many Americans may recall the lines at the fuel pumps, but that was just what met the eyes.
The increase in oil prices impacted farming, production, transportation of goods and services,
and so on. At that time, China, currently the second biggest oil consumer behind America, was a
net exporter of oil. The loss to U.S. economy was estimated at many billions of dollars in 1979
and 1980 (Deese and Nye 308-309) [i]
.
More recent studies show that Iranian oil has a major impact on the U.S. economy even though
America does not import a single barrel of oil from Iran. In 2008, economists Dean DeRosa and
Gary Hufbauer presented a paper in which they claimed that if the United States lifted
sanctions on Iran, the world price of oil could fall by 10 percent which would translate into
an annual savings of $38-76 billion for the United States [ii] .
But sanctions alone were not responsible for oil price hikes in 2008 and beyond. In July
2008, oil had reached a peak of $142.05/bbl (see chart HERE ). This price hike
came on the heels of some important events. In May, President Bush sent a ' warning message' to Iran on
the same day that additional aircraft carriers with guided-missile destroyers were sent to the
Persian Gulf.
In June of the same year, the New York
Times reported that: "Israel carried out a major military exercise earlier this month that
American officials say appeared to be a rehearsal for a potential bombing attack on Iran's
nuclear facilities."
In July, then presidential candidate Barak Obama asked for
tougher sanctions to be imposed on Iran.
It was not until September 2008 when President
Bush declined to help Israel attack Iran that oil prices started to relax. They hit a low
of just over $53 /bbl in December 2008.
Oil prices continued to rise again under Obama's sanctions and reached well past the $100
mark. The prices climbed down once again during the JCPOA negotiations reaching an all time low
of $30.24/bbl in January 2016 – after the signing of the JCPOA.
Today, oil prices stands at $74.30/bbl. A fact not lost on any American who has filled up
his/her gas tank lately– and paid for groceries. The deadline for Iran oil cut off is yet
months away, but the impact has started.
Given that other countries may step in to compensate for some of the Iranian oil
loss, other factors which effect prices must be considered – the most important of which
is the security of the Strait of Hormuz. As mentioned previously, the British oil blockade
scenario of 1951 will have far different consequences in 2018 should America impose an economic
blockade or oil embargo.
In the 1950's, Iran did not have the military might to retaliate to the oil embargo and the
naval blockade was aimed at crushing the economy in order to bring about regime change. This
economic blockade, should it be allowed to happen, would crush the economy of much of the
world.
As it stands, 35% of seaborne oil goes through the Strait of Hormuz 85% of which goes to
Asian markets. As the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has stated: "The blockage of
the Strait of Hormuz, even temporarily, could lead to substantial increases in total energy
costs."Today, Iran not only has the military might to block the Strait of Hormuz in
retaliation, but it also has the legal right.
The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) stipulates that vessels
can exercise the right of innocent passage, and coastal states should not impede their passage.
Under UNCLOS framework of international law, a coastal state can block ships from entering its
territorial waters if the passage of the ships harms "peace, good order or security" of said
state, as the passage of such ships would no longer be deemed "innocent" [iii] .
Saudi Arabia and the UAE export oil through Iran's territorial waters. Should they help America
choke Iran's economy, their passage is not deemed 'innocent'.
Even if Iran simply chooses to merely delay the passage of tankers by exercising its right
to inspect every hostile oil tanker that passes through the Strait of Hormuz, such inspections
and subsequent delays would contribute to higher oil prices.
No doubt, the Iranian navy is no match for the formidable US navy. However, the shallow,
narrow waters of Hormuz do not allow for the maneuvering of US battleships. The very presence
of warships can lead to incidents. At its narrowest point, the Strait of Hormuz is 21 miles
wide – hardly wide enough for a naval battle to take place and allow the passage of oil
tankers at the same time. In recent years (2012), the USS Porter, a US navy destroyer,
collided with an oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. The collision left a big whole in the
navy destroyer.
American officials and oil companies have attempted to assuage the concern of over oil
shortages by stating that America is one of the top oil producers. Some fact checking is in
order.
According to EIA's latest available data, America's total exports in 2018
(thousands of barrels/month) was 7,730 bblin April. The same governmental body stated that
total imports for the same month was 310,295. According to the EIA: "In 2017, the United States
producedabout 15.4 million barrels of petroleum per day (MMb/d), and it consumed about 19.9
MMb/d. Imports from other countries help to supply demand for petroleum." (Click HERE for
explanation of imports and exports).
These facts do not stop the spread of such news. As recently as June 4, 2018, Offshore Technology announced America is marching toward being the biggest oil
producer. Important factors to bear in mind are that 1. America is the largest oil consumer and
continues to have a deficit, and 2. Shale oil production is up thanks to higher oil prices.
While environmentalists objected to shale oil production, oil companies halted the
extraction of oil when prices dropped. Anything above $50/bbl makes shale oil production
feasible – which also makes it more expensive of the consumer. Although Mr. Trump and his
administration have no regard for the environment, many states and countries have banned shale
oil production (see LINK for list as of December
2017).
So the American people (and much of the rest of the world) is left with a stark choice.
Either cave in to Mr. Trump's demands, accept loss of business, pay much higher oil prices at
the pump and for consumer goods, prepare for a potential war, and sacrifice the environment
– especially water, and mortgage the future of the earth more than we already have, or,
don't heed Trump's demands – even if means a short term loss.
Either way, messing with Iran's oil exports is not an alternative that the world can afford.
It may well be that Mr. Trumpis beholden to Mr. Netanyahu. He may well feel comfortable enough
to subject the American people – and their allies to financial hardship; but the question
is will Americans and the rest of the world sacrifice themselves at the Trump-Netanyahu
altar?
* Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich is an independent researcher and writer with a focus on
U.S. foreign policy and the role of lobby groups in influencing US foreign policy.
The second neoliberalization of Argentina turned into second financial crash. Brazil is probably next. And Argentina and Brazil
were two contires in which neoliberal staged a counterrevolution after financial crisi of 2008.
The IMF is back in Argentina: "an economic and social crisis, even more serious than the present one, looms large on the horizon"
1. The vicious circle of illegitimate debt grapples the Argentine people once again
2. IMF's $ 50 billion loan surpasses Greece's previous record
Sergio Ferrari from Berne, Switzerland interviewed Eric Toussaint, international debt specialist
After more than a decade of Argentina's official "distance" from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Mauricio Macri's government
has just knocked on the doors of the world's financial police. The $ 50 billion credit granted by the organization during the first
week of June sets an international record and will directly impact the economic and social situation of this South American country.
Eric Toussaint, Belgian historian and economist, an eminent specialist in this field and spokesperson for the Committee for the Abolition
of Illegitimate Debt (CADTM), based in Brussels, pointed this out. Interview follows. Q: Why did the Argentine government turn
to the IMF , in full view of Argentina's
relations with this international organization in the late 1990s and their dire political consequences? Is the financial top brass
of the Macri team despairing?
Eric Toussaint (ET): Since the Mauricio Macri government assumed office in December 2015, its policies have led to a critical
situation. Sharp reduction in export taxes have brought down tax revenues, the debt servicing expenditure has been significantly
increased (100% higher in 2018 than in 2017). The country is running out of dollars. Currency reserves fell by $ 8 billion earlier
this year. Macri needs this IMF loan to continue debt servicing. Private international lenders require such a loan as a prerequisite
for continued credit to Argentina. A very large chunk of the IMF loan will be used directly to repay foreign creditors in dollars.
Q: If we look at the Argentine history of the 1990s, this seems to be a scheme of playing with fire
ET: Yes, of course. But I would like to further explore the background of this appeal to the IMF
Q- Please go ahead!
ET: This shows that the government's policy is an abject failure: with a peso that devalued fast; with the
interest rate set at a high 40% by the Argentine Republic's
Central Bank ; with the $ 8 billion reduction in international reserves
that keep declining. And with a debt service that has increased by
100% compared to 2017. Faced with a balance sheet of such a nature,
undoubtedly it is a total failure. Macri claimed that a high growth level and a viable debt would be ensured by paying the debt –
between end-2015 and early-2016 – and by compensating the
vulture funds , in keeping with Judge Thomas Griesa's
verdict. He knelt before the vulture funds (see:
http://www.cadtm.org/Reject-the-Imminent-Agreement-with
). But the facts confirm that this plan did not work. Debt rose at a whirling pace and it's startling to see how fast it snowballed.
As a result, it became impossible to convince the creditors that Argentina could repay its debt in the future. That's why Macri is
asking for this $ 50 billion credit. We must remember that when Greece received $ 30 billion from the IMF in 2010 in the backdrop
of a dramatic situation, it was a record amount!
Q: Some analysts say that President Macri is trying to breathe in some fresh air with the help of this loan, before commanding
a comfortable position in the October 2019 elections.
ET: I would not like to engage in farfetched political speculations. I prefer facts. I have read the contents of the agreement
signed with the IMF and it has imposed a severe reduction in general social benefits and wages of the public servants. Public investment
will be almost wiped out and it will lead to an economic depression. Debt repayment will increase and the IMF charges high
interest rates . The government will impose taxes with elevated
rates on the public to repay the debt, while continuing to hand out fiscal perks to the capitalists. The government will encourage
the export of the maximum number of agricultural products and raw materials to the global market by reinforcing the extractivist-exporting
model. IMF's policy will lead the country to an economic and social crisis even more serious than what it suffered before this loan
was sanctioned. Let's go back to your question. It is very likely that, politically, Macri will claim that what he is doing is not
his project, but what the IMF demands from him.
Q: This brings us back to a not-so-distant past and I would like to highlight that: the decade of indebtedness and the IMF's
role in the 1990s that eventually led to the social outburst of 2001. Can history repeat itself without tragedy?
ET: History is repeating itself in a country that is a serial debt payer. It started with the illegitimate and odious debt inherited
from the military dictatorship of the 1970s. IMF's support was crucial for this dictatorship to continue until the early 1980s. The
vicious circle of illegitimate debts persisted during the 1990s with President Carlos Menem followed by Fernando De la Rúa. Their
allegiance to the IMF's recommendations led to the great social crisis of late 2001. President Rodríguez Saá, in his few days or
Presidency at end-2001, announced the suspension of debt repayment to allay popular anger. The debt was restructured in 2005, then
re-negotiated with creditors who had not participated before. It caused a crisis in the government and evoked sharp criticism from
the people (see the section on Argentina here
http://www.cadtm.org/Restructuration-Audit-Suspension,11723
). Former minister Roberto Lavagna, who had negotiated the 2005 restructuring, objected to negotiations with outsider creditors.
The Argentine authorities never wanted to do what Ecuador did in 2007-2008: to carry out a debt audit with citizens' participation,
which could have defined the odious and illegitimate part of the debt (see:
http://www.cadtm.org/Video-The-Ecuador-debt-audit-a
and http://www.cadtm.org/Vulture-funds-are-the-vanguard
). This, along with the inconsistency of the Cristina Fernandez government's national sovereignty discourse, frustrated people. This
partly explains Macri's electoral victory in 2015.
Q: A course over several decades where illegitimate debts condition government policies without ever finding structural solutions
ET: Yes. And that led today to this new mega-loan from the IMF. From now on, it can be included in the category of odious and
illegitimate debts. An odious debt is a debt contracted against the people's interests, and the creditors know that it is illegitimate.
Evidently a new illegitimate and odious debt is taking shape.
Q: What about future prospects?
ET: I have already spoken about the deteriorating economic and social crisis. I hope for a strong popular reaction in the coming
months. I also hope that the popular forces will not take too long to consolidate their strength to oppose even more vigorously the
Macri government and the pressures of the IMF and other international creditors.
If we assume that this is true: "Beyond that, the Ukrainians had no realistic option to defend Crimea. Their military was in extremely
poor shape by the time 2014 rolled around thanks to more than two decades of neglect, monumental corruption and even more monumental
incompetence by Ukrainian politicians and military leaders, while the Russians had well prepared contingency plans and had already begun
far reaching military reforms as a result of their experiences in Chechnya and Georgia."
Then Ukrainian armed forces should drastically improve after several years of fighting.
Notable quotes:
"... The fact that the US leadership didn't even stop to consider how the Russians might react shows just how arrogant, hubristic and incompetent Obama and his national security team really were. ..."
"... Caveat emptor. Karber is a flamboyant blowhard. This is not to dismiss Russia's invasion or or act of war in Ukraine but merely to state that this guy is essentially a Tom Clancy cut out. I like a lot of his slides (I wonder who made them?) and his valuable tactical observations (even if it does sound, at times, like a shopping list for Ukrainian military aid) but he is no SME. https://foreignpolicy.com/2... ..."
If the Obama administration ordered Ukraine not to fight for Crimea on the assumption they could force Russia to give
it back via sanctions, they miscalculated badly.
The Russians believe Crimea rightfully belongs to them and they saw control of it as vital to their national security. There
were some serious shenanigans going on in Kiev, which the Russians interpreted as an American engineered coup. The Russians reacted
to what they believed was a major threat to their national security. The fact that the US leadership didn't even stop to consider
how the Russians might react shows just how arrogant, hubristic and incompetent Obama and his national security team really were.
There is no way the Russians will ever give up Crimea, especially under pressure from the US, NATO and the EU. No Russian politician
could do that and hope to survive. Besides, the Russians have repeatedly demonstrated an ability to endure suffering and hardships
much greater than the capacity of Western nations to endure and the sanctions showed that Russia was far less vulnerable to pressure
than Western politicians assumed.
Beyond that, the Ukrainians had no realistic option to defend Crimea. Their military was in extremely poor shape by the time
2014 rolled around thanks to more than two decades of neglect, monumental corruption and even more monumental incompetence by
Ukrainian politicians and military leaders, while the Russians had well prepared contingency plans and had already begun far reaching
military reforms as a result of their experiences in Chechnya and Georgia.
SurfaceBook •
4 hours ago I disagree with mr kerber's assesment on Crimean ops being the largest air assault in history. Operation Market
Garden in WW2 was the largest Air assault involving divisions of paratroopers from US/UK/Poland into german occupied drop zones
(in conjuction with a land assault forcing it's way to Arnhem).
One other curiousity , Washington 'ordered' Ukraine ? a sovereign nation under orders ? just who is in charge of ukraine at
that time ? see more
To answer your question: Victoria Nuland, who was the Assistant Secretary of State for Eurasian Affairs during the Obama administration.
In other words, she was the American proconsul for Eastern Europe.
Bottom line? "The Fog of War".........All these scenarios mean nothing after the first "shot" is fired. If any US "enemy" cannot
crush US air power they are finished from the gitgo. Not a fan of our foreign policies but we can "crush" the enemy; we just can't
"rule" them.
Would really like to hear the other side. Where does he get his information from? The Ukrainians? All this Russia-is-evil-and-scheming-to-do-more-evil
is ... slightly over the top. I don't say it's impossible that Russian regular troops have been involved in Donbas but he makes
it sound like Unternehmen Zitadelle
IMHO, beware taking too many lessons away from this conflict. The Ukranian's don't have anything close to the SEAD/DEAD/EW/airpower
capability of the US. What worked against their aviation won't necessarily work against ours. Once mid-high altitude air defenses
are down, enemy jammers will have a short lifespan.
His comments that even light infantry should have the means to get away when under attack, and sufficient armor to counter
attack point to the inadequacies of Army IBCTs (Infantry, not "Interim").
IMHO, IBCTs should have 100% vehicular mobility, and have the option of attaching an independent tank battalion. Cobbling together
random HMMWVs from div/corps just seems silly. Make vehicles part of the core TOE.
see more
You are assuming that we are working within our own timeline. Yes with enough time and blood, we can peal back their defense
network with airpower. The question is, who buys us that time?
Russians (and the Chinese) ground forces trained to fight in contested airspace. The US Army assumes we have it.
Sol, Thanks for posting the link and asking for discussion. One thing that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up
is how much of this is being shared with the PLA and worse the DPRK? They are pretty smart and probility can figure lots of this
out on their own. Is there any PLA observers up front with the RuFA or exchanging TTPs in an AAR? Or professional papers and presentations
at staff school level or higher? I am just a grunt and red leg, but how does the EW and fires part impact the navy? A step is
being taken:
http://soldiersystems.net/2... I wonder when this is part of OPFOR at NTC or 29 Palms?
see more
NO! thank you for sharing !!!!! this is like getting a seat at the Army War College and getting to hear what is never shared
with the troops or the public.
to be honest what i heard in that video was downright shocking. i won't say scary cause i won't be facing that shit but if
i was i'd be beyond concerned.
to answer your question you can bet your last dollar that the Chinese are getting briefings on this. you can bet that they're
not only studying the above vid but getting info from the subject matter experts in Russia.
this guy is senior but i would so love to hear an assessment of Marine Corps chances if war were to break out in Norway or
surrounding countries (we still have the flank). how would a Marine Expeditionary Brigade standup to those type tactics. we're
talking about a lighter formation than the US Army equivalent but with integrated air.
oh and a side note. as much as i think the US Army and Marine Corps would be in a hurtlocker can you imagine what would happen
to any of our European allies if they were somehow isolated and attacked?
my only regret about this whole thing is that i wanted to sit back and drink in serious conversation about this video. instead
i'm getting the usual trolling. i can tolerate that on the majority of subjects i cover here but this one is different. i wanted
to hear from serious individuals doing serious thinking about what the Dr presented.
such is life. if you run across anything else PLEASE send it. i find this fascinating!
he slide at 12.44 is also interesting it shows Russia's "desire" for "friendly relations" with the west and its neighbours.
But i guess like in the cold war there is no shortage of naives that think that Russia understands anything else but sanctions
or force. see more
Caveat emptor. Karber is a flamboyant blowhard. This is not to dismiss Russia's invasion or or act of war in Ukraine but merely
to state that this guy is essentially a Tom Clancy cut out. I like a lot of his slides (I wonder who made them?) and his valuable
tactical observations (even if it does sound, at times, like a shopping list for Ukrainian military aid) but he is no SME.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2...
My conclusions -- Western/ US allies/Nato armies will need to have:
- integrated air defence at every level from platoon to regimental.(manpads, spaag,
- mass fire/steel rain capabilities cheap and heavy MLRS also MLRS launched antiradiation missiles)
the israelis launched AGM Shrikes with boosters from trucks to target Syrian Radars
- Field Army EW sigint/elint/jamming/defense capabilities
- EW munitions (currently russia has tube artillery launched jammers don't know about the US or NATO)
- Small and light SPGs like the Gvozdika
Whilst I agree Russia does tend to export it's kit extensively. Also some of the potential uses such as GPS jamming drones, could
be more than merely inconvenient on very small budgets.
Yes neoliberalism is deeply predatory. Still is survives as a social system for let's say 40 years (1987-2017) and probably will
survive another 20-30 years. And what is coming might be worse. If Trump signify turn to "national neoliberalism" the next
step from it might some kind of neofascism.
Notable quotes:
"... But financialization didn't just have a direct cost -- no value being created, just men in shiny suits betting pebbles on who'd blink first. It also had an opportunity cost. As finance grew to be a larger and larger share of the economy, so the wind got sucked out of the sails of the "real economy", as American economists put it, which simply means people doing the work that actually does create value -- teachers, nurses, engineers, artisans, bakers, small-town factories, and so on. Think about it simply: the more money that was burned up in speculating, the less that was available for making things of genuine value. So the incomes of all these people -- those in the "real economy" -- began to stagnate. New schools and hospitals and energy grids and so on weren't built -- all the money was going towards speculating on the backs the old ones, sometimes, often, on their failures. A black hole was growing at the heart of the economy -- but according to pundits, it was the sun itself. Everything was upside down. The bets were indeed about to all go south at once -- only no one knew understood how or why yet. ..."
"... The third force in the rise of predatory capitalism was the implosion of the institution formerly known as the job. Now, just before peak financialization, beginning in the 1990s, many jobs were "offshored." That's a polite way to say that the speculators above discovered that companies were more profitable when they evaded as much of human civilization as possible. Find a country with no labour laws, no protections, no standards, no rule of law at all, in fact -- and send jobs there. That way, you wouldn't have to pay for pensions, healthcare, childcare, insurance, and so on. Cost savings! Efficiency! Synergies, even -- you could make everything in that one sweatshop. ..."
"... We're used to thinking that offshoring "took" jobs in rich countries. But the truth is subtler -- and more ruinous. They blew apart the idea of a job as we used to know it. As jobs went to countries without good governance, decent labour laws, a boomerang effect happened. ..."
"... Managers began stripping away benefits of every kind, from childcare, to vacations, to healthcare. Until, at last, in a final triumph, the "at-will job" and the "zero-hours contract" were created -- social contracts that were only "jobs" in name, but offered less than no stability, security, mobility, or opportunity. People who didn't have benefits could now be fired on a whim -- and so now they bore all the risk. But the risk of what, precisely? ..."
"... Remember those speculators? Taking huge risks, betting billions with each other, on exactly nothing of real value? Risk had come full circle. Now it was the average person in the real economy who bore all the risks of these bets going bad. If the bets with south, who'd take the hit? All those people with zero benefits, no protection, no safety ..."
"... So in had to step governments. They bailed out the banks -- but didn't "restructure" them, which is to say, fire their managers, wash out their shareholders, and sell off the bad loans and bets. They just threw money at them ..."
"... What does a bankrupt have to do? Liquidate. So governments began to slash investment in social systems of all kinds. Healthcare systems, pension systems, insurance systems, media and energy systems. This was the fourth step in the birth of predatory capitalism: austerity. ..."
"... The only thing keeping the real economy going at this point was investment by the government -- after all, the speculators were speculating, not investing for the long run. It was governments that were effectively keeping economies afloat, by providing a floor for income, by anchoring economies with a vast pool of stable, safe, real, secure jobs, and investing dollars back in societies short of them. And yet, at the precise moment that governments needed to create more of precisely that, they did just the opposite. ..."
"... It's the once prosperous but now imploded middle which turns on the classes, ethnicities, groups, below it. The people who expected and felt entitled to lives of safety and security and stability -- who anticipated being at the top of a tidy little hierarchy, the boss of this or that, the chieftain of that or this, but now find themselves adrift and unmoored in a collapsing society, powerless. ..."
"... Predatory capitalism imploding into strange, new forms of old diseases of the body politic ..."
How did we get here? To a world where the forces of intolerance and indecency are on the rise, and those of decency, wisdom, and
civilization are waning? Is something like a new Dark Age falling?
I think it has everything to do with predatory capitalism, and so I want to tell you a story. Of how it came to be born, in four
steps, which span three decades.
During the 2000s, the economy of the rich world underwent something like a phase transition. It became "financialized", as the
jargon goes -- which simply means that finance came to make up a greater and greater share of the economy. Hedge funds and investment
banks and shady financial vehicles of all kinds went from a modest portion of the economy, to making up a huge chunk of it -- around
half, in some countries.
Now, what was "financialization" for? What were all these bankers, hedge fund managers, investors, and so on, doing? The answer
is: nothing. Nothing of value, anyways. They were simply placing bets with each other. Bets on bets on bets, meta-bets. Economists,
who have something like an inferiority complex, envious of swashbuckling bankers, bought their marketing pitch hog, line, and sinker:
"we're going to reduce risk! Everyone will benefit!" But no such thing was happening -- and anyone could see it. Risk was being
massively amplified, in fact, because every time a speculator made a billion dollar bet with another, they were both betting with
the same pool of money, essentially. Whose money? It wasn't theirs -- it was everyone's. Pensions, savings, bank accounts, earnings,
retirement funds. All that being bet on bets on bets on bets which amounted to nothing. But what if all the bets went south at once?
First, I want you to really understand that what was happening was a zero-sum game, where one had to lose for another to win.
Imagine there are three of us, in a little stone age tribe, with a hundred pebbles each. We spend all day every day finding new ways
to lend pebbles to each other, to bet them on who'll blink first, or even bets on those bets, and so on. In our little economy, does
anyone ever end up better off? Does anyone, for example, discover antibiotics, or even invent the wheel? Nope. We're just fools,
who'll never accomplish, learn, or create anything, sitting around playing a zero-sum game, in which no real value is ever created.
The pebbles never become anything more valuable, like, for example, books, symphonies, knowledge, or medicine. All that is exactly
what was happening during the phase of financialization.
But financialization didn't just have a direct cost -- no value being created, just men in shiny suits betting pebbles on who'd
blink first. It also had an opportunity cost. As finance grew to be a larger and larger share of the economy, so the wind got sucked
out of the sails of the "real economy", as American economists put it, which simply means people doing the work that actually does
create value -- teachers, nurses, engineers, artisans, bakers, small-town factories, and so on. Think about it simply: the more
money that was burned up in speculating, the less that was available for making things of genuine value. So the incomes of all these
people -- those in the "real economy" -- began to stagnate. New schools and hospitals and energy grids and so on weren't built
-- all the money was going towards speculating on the backs the old ones, sometimes, often, on their failures. A black hole was
growing at the heart of the economy -- but according to pundits, it was the sun itself. Everything was upside down. The bets were
indeed about to all go south at once -- only no one knew understood how or why yet.
How was the real economy to survive, then? Another hidden effect of financialization was super-concentration -- the second force
in the rise of predatory capitalism. Mom-and-pop capitalism is a healthy and beautiful thing, an economy of a million little shops,
bakeries, artisans -- but it takes only a modest attachment to a profit motive. But thanks to the rise of massive, global speculation,
only aggressive quarterly profit-maximization was allowed. CEO earnings were hitched to share prices, and your share price only went
up if your earnings did, relentlessly, illogicaly, crazily, every single quarter, instead of stabilizing at a happy, gentle amount
-- and so the only way left, in the end, to achieve it, was to build titanic monopolies, which could squeeze people for every dime.
Once the economy had Macy's, JC Penney, K-Mart, Toys-R-Us and Sears. Now it has Walmart. The story was repeated across every single
industry. Amazon, Google, Apple. A new age of monopoly arose.
But monopolies had an effect, too. The third force in the rise of predatory capitalism was the implosion of the institution formerly
known as the job. Now, just before peak financialization, beginning in the 1990s, many jobs were "offshored." That's a polite way
to say that the speculators above discovered that companies were more profitable when they evaded as much of human civilization as
possible. Find a country with no labour laws, no protections, no standards, no rule of law at all, in fact -- and send jobs there.
That way, you wouldn't have to pay for pensions, healthcare, childcare, insurance, and so on. Cost savings! Efficiency! Synergies,
even -- you could make everything in that one sweatshop.
We're used to thinking that offshoring "took" jobs in rich countries. But the truth is subtler -- and more ruinous. They blew
apart the idea of a job as we used to know it. As jobs went to countries without good governance, decent labour laws, a boomerang
effect happened. The machine discovered that it could do in rich countries what it had done in poor ones -- and so it began stripping
away everything that made a job "a job." Because the economy was increasingly composed of monopolies, giant companies, banks, and
investors had the power to do so with impunity. Speculators began raiding pension funds. Managers began stripping away benefits of
every kind, from childcare, to vacations, to healthcare. Until, at last, in a final triumph, the "at-will job" and the "zero-hours
contract" were created -- social contracts that were only "jobs" in name, but offered less than no stability, security, mobility,
or opportunity. People who didn't have benefits could now be fired on a whim -- and so now they bore all the risk. But the risk
of what, precisely?
Remember those speculators? Taking huge risks, betting billions with each other, on exactly nothing of real value? Risk had come
full circle. Now it was the average person in the real economy who bore all the risks of these bets going bad. If the bets with south,
who'd take the hit? All those people with zero benefits, no protection, no safety, all those people for whom "a job" now meant something
more like "a temporary soul-crushing way to avoid destitution." They're the ones who'd be fired, instantly, lose what little savings
they had, have their already dwindling incomes slashed, be ruined.
And then the bets went bad. As bets tend to do, when you make too many of them, on foolish things. What had the speculators been
betting with each other on? As it turns out, largely on property prices. But people without the stable jobs that had kept such a
huge property bubble going didn't have growing incomes anymore. Property prices couldn't keep rising. Bang! The financial system
fell like a row of dominoes. It turned out that everyone had bet property prices would go on rising -- and on the other side of
that bet was everyone else. All of them had been betting on the same thing -- "we all bet prices will keep rising forever!" The
losses were so vast, and so widespread, that the whole global financial system buckled. The banks didn't have the money to pay each
other for these foolish bets -- how could they have? Each one had bet the whole house on the same thing, and they all would have
gone bankrupt to each other. LOL -- do you see the fatal stupidity of it all yet?
So in had to step governments. They bailed out the banks -- but didn't "restructure" them, which is to say, fire their managers,
wash out their shareholders, and sell off the bad loans and bets. They just threw money at them -- and took those bad bets onto
the nation's books, instead. It was the most foolish decision since the Great Depression. Why?
Well, now governments had trillions in -- pow! -- sudden debt. What were they to do? How would they pay it off? Now, you might
think that Presidents are very intelligent people, but unfortunately, they are just politicians. And so instead of doing what they
should have done -- printing money, simply cancelling each others' debts to each other, which were for fictional speculation anyways
-- they decided that they were "broke". Bankrupt, even -- even though a country can't go bankrupt, anymore than you could if you
could print your own currency at home, and spend it everywhere.
What does a bankrupt have to do? Liquidate. So governments began to slash investment in social systems of all kinds. Healthcare
systems, pension systems, insurance systems, media and energy systems. This was the fourth step in the birth of predatory capitalism:
austerity.
But people's incomes were already dwindling, thanks to the first three steps -- as jobs not just disappeared in quantity, but
also imploded in quality, as monopolies grew in power, and as pointless, destructive, zero-sum speculation sucked the life out of
the real economy. The only thing keeping the real economy going at this point was investment by the government -- after all, the
speculators were speculating, not investing for the long run. It was governments that were effectively keeping economies afloat,
by providing a floor for income, by anchoring economies with a vast pool of stable, safe, real, secure jobs, and investing dollars
back in societies short of them. And yet, at the precise moment that governments needed to create more of precisely that, they did
just the opposite.
Snap! Economies broke like twigs. The people formerly known as the middle class had been caught in between the pincers of these
four forces -- financialization, monopoly, the implosion of the job, and austerity. Together, they shattered what was left of rich
economies -- to the point that today, incomes are stagnant across the rich world, even in much vaunted Scandinavia, while living
standards are falling in many rich countries, like the US and UK.
What do people do as hardship begins to bite -- especially those who expected comfortable, easy lives? They become reactionary,
lashing out violently. They seek safety in the arms of demagogues. That doesn't mean, as American pundits naively think, that "poor
people become authoritarians!" Quite the opposite.
It's the once prosperous but now imploded middle which turns on the classes, ethnicities, groups, below it. The people who expected
and felt entitled to lives of safety and security and stability -- who anticipated being at the top of a tidy little hierarchy,
the boss of this or that, the chieftain of that or this, but now find themselves adrift and unmoored in a collapsing society, powerless.
That gap between expectation and reality is what ruinous. They retain a desperate need to be atop a hierarchy, to be above someone,
the entitled imploded middles -- and what has happened in history, time and again, is that they turn to those who promise them
just that superiority, by turning on those below them. Even if, especially if, it is in the extreme, irrational, yet perfectly logical
form of supremacy and dominion over the weak, the despised, and the impure.
And that is what all today's reactionary, extremist movements --
which I call the Faction --
really are. Predatory capitalism imploding into strange, new forms of old diseases of the body politic -- ultrauthoritarianism,
theosupremacism, kleptofascism, neofeudalism, biodominionism, hatriarchy, technotalitarianism, novel and lethal forms of ruin for
a new dark age.
And so here we are, you and I. On the cusp of that age. A time where the shadows in human hearts shine as black and blinding as
midnight. And once again, it is the folly and hubris of wise men that led us here.
"Five signers were captured by the
British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the revolutionary
army, another had two sons captured. Nine of the fifty-six fought and died from wounds or hardships resulting from the Revolutionary
War.
These men signed, and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor!
What kind of men were they? Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants. Nine were farmers and large plantation
owners. All were men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty
could be death if they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British navy. He sold his home
and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags." "What really happened?"
------------
I had a lot of ancestors in that war, some Continentals, some militia. One man in Boston raised his own regiment of militia at
his own expense. He commanded it throughout the war. A lot of these soldiers were old broke down grunts by the end, They made new
lives for themselves. I revere their memory. pl
"All were men of means, well educated. But they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty could
be death if they were captured."
They were men of character. They were willing to lose everything for their convictions and beliefs. These are men to be revered.
Thank you Col. Lang for remembering them.
IMO, as a people we no longer have this character. We have allowed big & bigger government over the decades who have usurped
our sovereignty and essential liberty through mass surveillance, civil forfeiture, state secrets doctrine as the cornerstone of
deceit, and now the weaponization of law enforcement and intelligence for domestic political purposes.
These were indeed hard and principled men. I offer the example of one of the founding fathers of my hometown. Gideon Hotchkiss
was a new light Puritan receiving a commission as an ensign in a Waterbury militia company in November 1756. He was at Saratoga
in August 1757 when he wrote home about "the melancholy news of our upper fort" referring to the loss of Fort William Henry and
the ensuing massacre. In July 1758 he took part in the battle of Fort Carillon as a lieutenant. He served another year as a captain
in 1760 along with two of his sons.
Leading up to the War of Independence, he served on the local committee of inspection. He sent two sons and a grandson to serve
in the war and organized a troop of light horse cavalry to respond to British incursions such as the raids on Woodbridge and Danbury.
After the fall harvests were completed, his company of veterans served through the winter months when they were most needed.
Once while working in his fields, he heard the sound of battle to the south. He mounted his horse and, along with a servant
boy, rode to meet the British at Westville, north of New Haven. His servant was struck by a cannon ball. Gideon placed the boy's
body in a concealed place, sent his horse back to his farm and joined the battle. This was the British raid on New Haven in July
1779. He was sixty-three years old at the time.
After the War, he was appointed deacon of the church of Columbia Parish, now Prospect. One of his many sons became a Methodist
minister. This Puritan deacon first disowned his son, but he soon forgave and embraced him. One of Gideon's descendants moved
to the Shenandoah Valley. He was Jedediah Hotchkiss, cartographer and staff officer to General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson.
Speaking of the signers, only three lived to see America's 50th Anniversary. Thomas Jefferson was unable to attend a reunion organized
by the mayor of Washington, and this article provides the full text of his letter of RSVP.
"May it be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the Signal
of arousing men to burst the chains, under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and
to assume the blessings & security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded
exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. these are grounds of hope for others."
End Quote
It also cites this list of Jefferson quotes on the right to bear arms:
Part I:
Commercial Paper Market Seizure turns Banks into their
own Vulture Investors
This article appeared in
AToL
on November 27, 2007
Vulture restructuring is a purging cure for a
malignant debt cancer. The reckoning of systemic debt presents regulators with a choice of facing the cancer
frontally and honestly by excising the invasive malignancy immediately or let it metastasize over the entire
financial system over the painful course of several quarters or even years and decades by feeding it with more
dilapidating debt.
But the strategy of being your own vulture started
with Goldman Sachs, the star Wall Street firm known for its prowess in alternative asset management, producing
spectacular profits by manipulating debt coming and going amid unfathomable market anomalies and contradictions
during years of liquidity boom. The alternative asset management industry deals with active, dynamic
investments in derivative asset classes other than standard equity or fixed income products. Alternative
investments can include hedge funds, private equity, special purpose vehicles, managed futures, currency
arbitrage and other structured finance products. Counterbalancing opposite risks in mutually canceling paired
speculative positions to achieve gains from neutralized risk exposure is the basic logic for hedged fund
investments.
Hedge Funds
The wide spread in return on investment
between hedge funds and mutual funds is primarily due to differences in trading strategies. One fundamental
difference is that hedge funds deploy dynamic trading strategies to profit from arbitraging price anomalies
caused by market inefficiencies independent of market movements whereas mutual funds employ a static
buy-and-hold strategy to profit from economic growth. An important operational difference is the use of
leverage. Hedge funds typically leverage their informed stakes by margining their positions and hedging their
risk exposure through the use of short sales, or counter-positions in convergence or divergent pairs. In
contrast, the use of leverage is often limited if not entirely restricted for mutual funds.
The classic model of hedge funds
developed by Alfred Winslow Jones (1910-1989) takes long and short positions in equities simultaneously to
limit exposures to volatility in the stock market. Jones, Australian-born, Harvard and Columbia educated
sociologist turned financial journalist, came upon a key insight that one could combine two opposing investment
positions: buying stocks and selling short paired stocks, each position by itself being risky and speculative,
but when properly combined would result in a conservative portfolio that could yield market-neutral outsized
gains with leverage. The realization that one could couple opposing speculative plays to achieve conservative
ends was the most important step in the development of hedged funds.
The
Credit Guns of August
Yet the credit guns of August 2007 did
not spare Goldman's high-flying hedge funds. Goldman, the biggest
US
investment bank by market value, saw its Global Equity Opportunities Fund suffer a 28% decline with assets
dropping by $1.4 billion to $3.6 billion in the first week of August as the fund's computerized quantitative
investment strategies fumbled over sudden sharp declines in stock prices worldwide.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index, a
measure of large-capitalization stocks, fell 44.4 points or 2.96% on August 9. On August 14, the S&P 500 fell
another 26.38 points or 1.83%, followed by another fall of 19.84 points to 1,370.50 or 1.39% on August 15,
totaling 9.4% from its record high reached on July 19, but still substantially higher than its low of 801
reached on
March 11, 2003
.
Goldman explained the setback in Global
Equity Opportunities in a statement: "Across most sectors, there has been an increase in overlapping trades, a
surge in volatility and an increase in correlations. These factors have combined to challenge many of the
trading algorithms used in quantitative strategies. We believe the current values that the market is assigning
to the assets underlying various funds represent a discount that is not supported by the fundamentals." The
statement is a conceptual stretch of the meaning of "fundamentals" which Goldman defines as value marked to
model based on a liquidity boom rather than marked to market, even as the model has been rendered dysfunctional
by the reality of a liquidity bust.
The market value in mid August of two
other Goldman funds: Global Alpha and North American Equity Opportunities also suffered big losses. Global
Alpha fell 27% in the year-to-date period, with half of the decline occurring in the first week of August.
North American Equity Opportunities, which started the year with about $767 million in assets, was down more
than 15% through July 27. The losses had been magnified by high leverage employed by the funds' trading
strategies. Goldman said both risk-taking and leverage in these two funds had since been reduced by 75% to cut
future losses. Similarly, leverage employed by Global Equity Opportunities had been reduced to 3.5 times equity
from 6 times. The three funds together normally managed about $10 billion of assets.
Feeding
on One's Own Death Flesh
Facing pending losses, Goldman Chairman
Lloyd Blankfein was reported to have posed a question to his distraught fund managers: if a similar distress
opportunity such as Goldman's own Global Equity Opportunities presented itself in the open market outside of
Goldman, would Goldman invest in it as a vulture deal. The answer was a resounding yes. Thus the strategy of
feeding on one's own dead flesh to survive, if not to profit, took form.
Goldman would moderate its pending
losses by profiting as vulture investor in its own distressed funds. The loss from one pocket would flow into
another pocket as gains that, with a bit of luck, could produce spectacular net profit in the long run if the
abnormally high valuations could be manipulated to hold, or the staying power from new capital injection could
allow the fund to ride out the temporary sharp fall in market value. It was the ultimate hedge: profiting from
one's own distress. The success of the strategy depends on whether the losses are in fact caused by temporary
anomalies rather than fundamental adjustment. Otherwise, it would be throwing good money after bad.
The Fed
Held Firm on Inflation Bias
The Fed, in its Tuesday, August 7 Fed
Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, defied market expectation and decided against lowering interest rates
with a bias against growth and focused instead on inflation threats. In response, the S&P 500 index, with
profit margin at 9% against a historical average of 6%, fell 44.4 points or 2.96% to 1,427 on August 9. The Dow
Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped 387 points to 13,504 on the same day, even as the Federal Reserve
pumped $62 billion of new liquidity into the banking system to help relieve seizure in the debt market.
On the following Monday, August 13,
Goldman announced it would injected $2 billion of new equity from its own funds into its floundering Global
Equity Opportunities fund, along with another $1 billion from big-ticket investors, including CV Starr & Co.,
controlled by former American International Group (AIG) chairman Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, California real
estate developer Eli Broad who helped found SunAmerica and later sold it to AIG, and hedge fund Perry Capital
LLC, which is run by Richard Perry, a former Goldman Sachs equity trader.
The new equity injection was intended
to help shore up the long/short equity fund, which was down almost 30% in the previous week, to keep the fund
from forced sales of assets at drastic discount long enough for markets to stabilize and for the fund to get
out of the tricky leveraged bets it took before the credit markets went haywire in mid August. Global Equity
"suffered significantly" as global markets sold off on worries about debt defaults credit draught, dragging the
perceived value of its assets down to $3.6 billion, from about $5 billion.
Goldman chief financial officer David
Viniair on a conference call with analysts was emphatic that the move was not a rescue but to capture "a good
opportunity". After more than a week of panic over the disorderly state of global capital markets, Goldman
Sachs pulled a kicking live rabbit magically out of its distressed asset hat.
On a conference call to discuss the
additional equity investment in the $3.6 billion Global Equity Opportunities fund, Goldman executives insisted
the move would not add to moral hazard (encouraging expectations that lead investors to take more risk than
they otherwise might because they expect to be bailed out), but would merely reflect the firm's belief that the
value of the fund's underlying assets was out of whack with "fundamentals" and that sooner or later the losses
would be recouped when an orderly market returns.
"We believe the current values that the
market is assigning to the assets underlying various funds represent a discount that is not supported by the
fundamentals," Goldman explained in a statement. A day later, on August 14, the S&P 500 fell another 26.38
points or 1.83%, followed by another fall of 19.84 points or 1.39% on August 15, notwithstanding that a chorus
of respected voices were assuring the public that the sub-prime mortgage crisis had been contained and would
not spread to the entire financial system.
But Goldman did not inject more equity
into two of its other funds: Global Alpha and North American Equity Opportunities that had also suffered sharp
losses. Goldman said it was reducing leverage in the funds, a process that was mostly complete, but added that
it was not unwinding Global Alpha, down 27% this year through August 13, about half of that in the previous
week alone. Unlike Global Equity Opportunities, Goldman did not bolster its Global Alpha quantitative fund.
Investors had reportedly asked to withdraw $1.6 billion, leaving Global Alpha with about $6.8 billion in assets
after forced liquidation to pay the withdrawals.
Ireland
registered Global Alpha, originally seeded in 1995 with just $10 million and returned 140% in its first full
year of operation, was started by Mark Carhart and Raymond Iwanowski, young students of finance professor
Eugene Fama of the
University
of
Chicago
.
Fama's concept of efficient markets is based on his portfolio theory which states that rational investors will
use diversification to optimize their portfolios based on precise pricing of risky assets.
Global Alpha soon became the Rolls
Royce of a fleet of alternative investment vehicles that returned over 48% before fees annually. Hedge funds
usually charge management fees of up to 2% of assets under management and 20% of investment gains as incentive
fees. Global Alpha fees soared to $739 million in first quarter of 2006, from $131 million just a year earlier
and boosted earnings rise at the blue-chip Goldman Sachs by 64% to $2.48 billion, the biggest 2006
first-quarter gain of any major Wall Street firm. Goldman is one of the world's largest hedge fund managers,
with $29.5 billion in assets under management in an industry that oversees $2.7 trillion globally. Goldman
reported in October 2006 that its asset management and securities services division produced $485 million, or
21% of its $2.36 billion in pretax profit for the fiscal third quarter.
For 2006, Global Alpha dropped 11.6%
through the end of November and end up dropping 9% for the year yet still generating over $700 million in fees
from earlier quarters. That was the first annual decline in seven years and followed an almost 40% gain for all
of 2005. The fund took a hit misjudging the direction of global stock and currency markets, specifically that
the Norwegian krone and Japanese yen would decline against the dollar. Global Alpha lost money partly on
wrong-way bets that equities in
Japan
would
rise, stocks in the rest of
Asia
and the
US
would fall and the dollar would strengthen. Before August 2007, the fund had lost almost 10% on wrong bet in
global bond markets.
Goldman's smaller $600 million North
American Equity Opportunities fund had also hit rough waters, losing 15% this year. There was real danger of a
rush of redemptions from nervous investors that would force the funds to sell securities in a market that had
all but seized up, forcing down asset prices to fire sale levels. Global Equity Opportunities investors were
entitled to pull their money monthly with a 15-day warning, meaning notices for Aug. 31 were due on August 16.
Global Alpha investors could redeem quarterly, and certain share classes also must notify the fund by the week
of August 13.
Hedge funds are private, largely
unregulated pools of capital whose managers command largely unrestricted authority to buy or sell any assets
within the bounds of their disclosed strategies and participate in gains but not losses from investment. The
industry has been growing over 20% annually due to its above-market performance. Still, Carhart and Iwanowski,
both in their early forties, had not been able to take any of their 20% incentive fees since Global Alpha fell
from its 2006 peak. They would have to make good about 60% of their previous incentive fees from profit, if
any, in future quarters before they could resume taking a cut of the fund's future gains.
The Fed
Wavered
By August 16, the DJIA fell way below
13,000 to an intraday low of 12,445, losing 1,212 points from its 13,657 close on August 8. The next day,
August 17, the Fed while keeping the Fed Funds rate target unchanged at 5.25%, lowered the Discount Rate by 50
basis points to 5.75%, reducing the gap from the conventional 100 basis points by half to 50 basis points and
changed the rules for access by banks to the Fed discount window.
In an accompanying statement, the Fed
said: "To promote the restoration of orderly conditions in financial markets, the Federal Reserve Board
approved temporary changes to its primary credit discount window facility. The Board approved a 50 basis point
reduction in the primary credit rate to 5-3/4 percent, to narrow the spread between the primary credit rate and
the Federal Open Market Committee's target federal funds rate to 50 basis points. The Board is also announcing
a change to the Reserve Banks' usual practices to allow the provision of term financing for as long as 30 days,
renewable by the borrower. These changes will remain in place until the Federal Reserve determines that market
liquidity has improved materially. These changes are designed to provide depositories with greater assurance
about the cost and availability of funding. The Federal Reserve will continue to accept a broad range of
collateral for discount window loans, including home mortgages and related assets. Existing collateral margins
will be maintained. In taking this action, the Board approved the requests submitted by the Boards of Directors
of the Federal Reserve Banks of New York and
San Francisco
."
The Fed
Panicked
A month later, on September 18,
brushing aside a DJIA closing at a respectable 13,403 the day before even in the face of poor employment data
for August, the Fed panicked over the unemployment data and lowered both the Fed Funds rate target and the
Discount Rate each by 50 basis points to 4.75% and 5.25% respectively. The rate cuts gave the DJIA a continuous
rally for 9 consecutive days that ended on October 1 at 14,087. Obviously, the Fed knew something ominous about
the credit market that was not reflected in the DJIA index.
The Global Equity Opportunities fund,
now with about $6.6 billion in asset value, was using six times leverage before the capital infusion. Like many
other managers, Goldman was experiencing the same problems with its so-called quantitative funds. Quant funds
use computerized models to make opportunistic investment decisions on minute statistic disparities in asset
prices caused by market inefficiency. When the short-term credit market seized up, the quant models turned
dysfunctional.
Funds caught with significant losses in
credit and bond investments had to sell stock holdings to lower the risks profile of their overall portfolios,
and the herd selling in the stock market magnified the price shift in a downward spiral. Stocks that were held
long fell in price, and stocks that were held short rose, exacerbating losses.
Opacity
Fueled Market Rumors
As required, quant fund managers have
been disclosing losses to investors but they are not required to disclose to the market. The opacity fueled the
rumor mill. Renaissance Technology's $26 billion institutional equities fund was reportedly down 7% for the
year. Some of the funds Applied Quantitative Research (AQR) managed were down as well, as were quant funds at
Tykhe Capital, Highbridge Capital and D.E. Shaw (of which Lehman now owns 20%).
Vulture
Opportunities in Distressed Funds
At Goldman, quant funds made up half of
the $151 billion of alternative investments under management, and half of which was the sort of long-short
equity quant funds that had been having trouble. But Goldman executives began to see opportunities in
distressed funds. The highly respected AQR was raking in new funds to invest in distressed situations, as were
other astute fund managers. AQR is an investment management firm employing a disciplined multi-asset, global
research process, with investment products provided through a limited set of collective investment vehicles and
separate accounts that deploy all or a subset of AQR's investment strategies. These investment products span
from aggressive high volatility market-neutral hedge funds, to low volatility benchmark-driven traditional
products. AQR's founder is
Clifford S. Asness, a
Goldman alumni where he was Director of Quantitative Research for the Asset Management Division responsible for
building quantitative models to add value in global equity, fixed income and currency markets.
H
e
was another of Fama's students at the
University
of
Chicago
.
Goldman was putting its own money down
alongside that of select outside investors, an expression of its faith in the fund's ability to recoup. The
situation differed from that of Bear Stearns which had to loan $1.6 billion to bail out one of two internal
hedge funds that had big problems with exposure to mortgage-related securities.
The
First Wave of Warnings
Goldman, one of the world's premiere
financial companies, had joined Bear Stearns and
France
's
BNP Paribas in revealing that its hedge funds had been hit by the credit market crisis. Bear Stearns earlier in
the summer disclosed that two of its multibillion dollar hedge funds were wiped out because of wrong bets on
mortgage-backed securities. BNP Paribas announced a few weeks later it would freeze three funds invested in US
asset-backed securities.
The assets of the two troubled Bear
Stearns hedge funds had been battered by turmoil in the credit market linked to sub-prime mortgage securities.
On
Jun 20, 2007
, $850 million of the funds' assets held as
collateral was sold at greatly discounted prices by their creditor, Merrill Lynch & Co. The assets sold
included mortgage-backed securities (MBS), collateralized debt obligations (CDO) and credit default swaps
(CDS). JP Morgan, another Bear Stearns creditor, had also planned an auction for some of the collateralized
assets of the Bear Stearns funds, but cancelled the auction to negotiate directly with the Bear Stearns funds
to unwind positions via private transactions to avoid setting a market price occasioned by market seizure.
The two Bear Stearns funds: High-Grade
Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund and High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Fund, run by
mortgage veteran Ralph Cioffi, were facing shut-down as the rescue plans fell apart. The funds had slumped in
the first four months of 2007 as the subprime mortgage market went against their positions and investors began
asking for their money back. The High-Grade Structured Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund sold roughly
$4 billion of subprime mortgage-backed securities in mid June, selling its highest-rated and most heavily
traded securities first to raise cash to meet redemption requests from investors and margin calls from
creditors, leaving the riskier, lower-rated assets in its portfolio that had difficulty finding buyers.
Collateral Debt Obligation Crisis
CDOs are illiquid assets that normally
trade only infrequently as institutional investor had not intended to trade such securities. Demand for them
is not strong even in normal times. In a credit crunch, demand became extremely weak. Sellers typically give
investors one or two days to price the assets and bid in order to get the best price. Bid lists were now sent
out for execution within roughly an hour, which was unusual and suggested that sellers were keen to sell the
assets quickly at any price.
Bear Stearns' High-Grade Structured
Credit Strategies Enhanced Leverage Fund sold close to $4 billion worth of AAA and AA rated securities. The
fund was started less than a year ago with $600 million in assets, but used leverage to expand its holdings to
more than $6 billion. But subprime mortgage trades that went wrong left the fund down 23% in the first four
months of 2007. The fund was selling its highest-rated and most tradable securities first to raise cash to meet
expected redemption requests and margin calls. Buyers were found for the bonds but the fund still had to retain
lower-rated subprime mortgage-based securities which had triggered its losses earlier in the year.
Bear Stearns was highly leveraged in an
illiquid market and was faced with the prospect that its funds were going to start getting margin calls so it
tried to sell ahead of being in the worst spot possible. Subprime mortgages were offered at low initial rates
to home buyers with blemished credit ratings who could not carry the adjusted payments if and when rates rise.
This was not a problem as long as prices for houses continued to rise, allowing the lenders to shift loan
repayment assurance from the borrower's income to the rising value of the collateral. Thus subprime mortgages
lenders were not particularly concerned about borrower income for they were merely using home buyers as needed
intermediaries to profit from the debt–driven housing boom. This strategy worked until the debt balloon burst.
Rising delinquencies and defaults in this once-booming part of the mortgage market had triggered a credit
crunch earlier in the year that left several lenders bankrupt. Many hedge funds had generated big gains for
several years on this unstainable liquidity boom. The premature bears who shorted the market repeated lost
money as the Fed continued to feed the debt balloon to sustain the unsustainable.
As delinquencies and foreclosures rose
finally, losses first hit the riskiest tranches of subprime mortgage-backed securities (MBS). The losses were
subsequently transmitted to collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) which invested in the higher-rated tranches
of subprime MBS that did not have an active market since they were bought by institutions with the intention to
hold until maturity. Such securities were super safe as long as their ratings remain high.
Hedge funds have become big
credit-market players in recent years, and many firms trade the riskiest tranches of subprime MBS and
higher-rated CDOs tranches to profit from the return spread. While some funds, such those managed by Cheyne
Capital and Cambridge Place Investment Management, had suffered sudden losses, some hedge funds made handsome
gains in February 2007 betting that a subprime mortgage crisis would hit.
As the number of market participants
increased and the packaging of the CDO became more exoteric over the liquidity boom years, it became impossible
to know who were holding the "toxic" tranches and how precisely the losses would spread, since the risk profile
of each tranche would be affected by the default rates of other tranches. The difficulty in identifying the
precise locations of risk exposure caused a sharp rise in perceived risk exposure system wide. This sudden risk
aversion led to rating downgrades of the high-rated tranches, forcing their holders to sell into a market with
few buyers.
The Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation, which monitors risk in the banking system, tracks bank holdings of MBS, but not specific tranches
of CDOs. It has no information on which bank holds CDOs and how much, since such instruments are held by the
finance subsidiaries of bank holding companies, off the balance sheets of banks. Asian investors, particularly
those in
Japan
, had been eager to seek
off-shore assets yielding more than the near zero or even negative interest rates offered at home. Many
Japanese as well as foreign investors participated in currency "carry trade" to arbitrage interest rate spreads
between the Japanese yen and other higher interest rate currencies and assets denominated in dollars, fueling a
liquidity boom in US markets. The
US
trade
deficit fed the
US
capital account surplus as
the surplus trade partners found that they could not convert the dollars they earned from export to the
US
into local currencies without suffering undesirable rise in money supply.
The trade surplus dollars went into the
US
credit market.
The growth of CDOs has been explosive
during the past decade. In 1995, there were hardly any. By 2006, more than $500 billion worth was issued. About
40% of CDO collateral was residential MBS, with three quarters in subprime and home-equity loans, and the rest
in high-rated prime home loans. CDOs became an important part of the mortgage market because their issuers also
bought the riskier tranches of MBS that others investors shunned. The high-rated tranches of MBS were sold
easily to pension funds and insurers. But the ultra-high rated tranches paid such low returns because of their
perceived safety that few buyers were interested, forcing the banks which structured them to hold them
themselves. The issuers often hold the more riskier tranches to sell at later dates for profit when the value
of the collateral rose with rising home prices. But when the riskier tranches could not be sold as home prices
fell and mortgage default rose, the higher rating tranches suffered rating drops and institutional buyers were
prevented by regulation to hold the ones they had bought and from buying new ones. When the ultra safe
tranches held by banks are downgraded, banks are forced to writedown their value. With CDOs withdrawing from
the residential MBS market, mortgage lenders were unable to sell the loans they had originated for new funds to
finance new mortgages.
The chain of derivative structures that
turns home loans into CDOs begins when a mortgage is packaged together with other mortgages into an MBS. The
MBS is then sliced up into different CDO tranches that pay on a range of interest rates tied to risk levels.
Mortgage payments go first to the highest-rated tranches with the lowest interest rates. The remaining funds
then flows down to the next risky tranches until all are paid. The riskiest CDO tranches get paid last, but
they offer the highest interest rates to attract investor with strong risk appetite.
In theory, all trenches have the same
risk/return ratio. As the liquidity boom has gone on for years with the help of the Fed, historical data would
suggest that risks of default should be minimal. Yet when losses actually occurred from unanticipated mortgage
defaults and foreclosures, the riskiest tranches were hit first, while the top-rated tranches were hit last.
But until losses occurred, the riskier tranches got the higher returns. Over the years, the riskier tranches
generated big profit for hedge funds when the risks did not materialize to overwhelm the high returns. The
problem was that the profitability drove new issues of MBS at a faster pace than maturing MBS, with the number
and amount of outstanding securities getting bigger with each passing year, exposing investors to aggregate
risk higher than the accumulated gains. Because of the complexity and opacity of the CDO market, institutional
investors were not alerted by rating agencies of the fact that their individual safety actually caused a sharp
rise in systemic risk. They felt comfortable as long as assets they acquired were rated AAA and deemed
bankruptcy-remote, not realizing the system might seize up some Wednesday morning. That Wednesday came on
August 15, 2007
.
CDOs, a cross between an investment
fund and an asset-backed security (ABS), perform this slicing process of risk/reward unbundling repeatedly to
keep money recycling and money supply growing in the mortgage market. While CDOs lubricate the credit market to
make more home financing affordable to more home buyers, it raises the price of home and its financing cost
beyond the carrying capability of almost all home buyers when the bursting of the debt bubble resets interest
rates to normal levels, making a rising default rate inevitable.
Hedge funds are attracted by the high
returns offered by the lowest-rated tranches of subprime MBS undbubled by CDOs, the so-called equity tranches
which sink underwater as home prices fall. Many hedge funds arbitrage the wide return spread with low-cost
funds borrowed in the commercial paper market and magnify the return with high leverage through bank loans.
They often hedge against risk by holding derivatives that are expected to rise in value when housing prices
fall, such as interest rate swaps. They also hedge against defaults with credit default swaps. These hedges
failed when risk was re-priced by the market at rollover time for short-term securities which could be every 30
days.
CDOs
and Commercial Paper
Much of the money used to buy CDOs come
form the commercial paper market. Commercial paper consists of short-term, unsecured promissary notes issued
primarily by financial and non-financial corporations. Maturities range up to 270 days but average about 30
days. Many companies use commercial paper to raise cash needed for current transactions, and many find it to be
a lower-cost alternative to bank loans. Financial companies use high-rated CDO tranches as collateral to back
their commercial paper issues.
Because commercial paper maturities do
not exceed nine months and proceeds typically are used only for current transactions, the notes are exempt from
registration as securities with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.
Large institutions have long managed
their short-term cash needs by buying and selling securities in the money market since the early 1970's. Today,
a broad array of domestic and foreign investors uses these versatile, short-term securities to help to make the
money market the largest, most efficient credit market in the world driving assets from $4 billion in 1975 to
more than $1.8 trillion today. This money market is a fixed income market, similar to the bond market. The
major difference being that the money market specializes in very short term debt securities.
The money market is a securities market
dealing in short-term debt and monetary instruments. Money market instruments are forms of debt that mature in
less than one year and are very liquid but traded only high denominations. The easiest way for individual
investor to gain access is through money market mutual funds, or sometimes through a money market bank account.
These accounts and funds pool together the assets of thousands of investors and buy the money market securities
on their behalf.
Borrowing short-term money from banks
is often a labored and uneasy situation for many corporations. Their desire to avoid banks as much as they can
has led to the popularity of commercial paper. For the most part, commercial paper is a very safe investment
because the financial situation of a large company can easily be predicted over a few months. Furthermore,
typically only companies with high credit ratings and credit worthiness issue commercial paper and over the
past 35 years there have only been a handful of cases where corporations defaulted on their commercial paper
repayment.
ABCP
Conduits
Asset backed commercial paper (ABCP) is
a device used by banks to get operating assets, such as trade receivables, funded by the issuance of
securities. Traditionally, banks devised ABCP conduits as a device to put their current asset credits off their
balance sheets and yet provide liquidity support to their clients. Conduits raise money by selling short-term
debt and using the proceeds to invest in assets with longer maturities, like mortgage-backed bonds. Conduits
typically have guarantees from banks, which promise to lend them money up to the amount of the SIVs the banks
structure.
A bank with a client whose working
capital needs are funded by the bank can release the regulatory capital that is locked in this credit asset by
setting up a conduit, essentially a special purpose vehicle (SPV) that issues commercial paper, such as the
ones used by Enron that led to its downfall. The conduit will buy the receivables of the client and get the
same funded by issuance of commercial paper. The bank will be required to provide some liquidity support to the
conduit, as it is practically impossible to match the maturities of the commercial paper to the realization of
trade receivables. Thus, the credit asset is moved off the balance sheet giving the bank a regulatory relief.
Depending upon whether the bank provides full or partial liquidity support to the conduit, ABCP can be either
fully supported or partly supported.
ABCP conduits are virtual subsets of
the parent bank. If the bank provides full liquidity support to the conduit, for regulatory purposes, the
liquidity support given by the bank may be treated as a direct credit substitute in which case the assets held
by the conduit are aggregated with those of the bank. ABCP conduits are also set up large issuers that are not
banks.
The key weakness in the entire credit
superstructure lies in the practice by intermediaries of credit to borrow short term to finance long term. This
term carry is magical in an expanding economy when the gap between short term and long term credit is narrower
than gains from long term asset appreciation. But in a contracting economy, it can be a fatal scenario,
particularly if falls in short term rates raise the credit rating requirement of the short term borrower,
putting previously qualified loans in technical default. Securities that face difficulty in rolling over at
maturity are known as "toxic" in the trade.
Lethal
Derivatives
The credit default swap market is a
microcosm of investor confidence. Credit default swaps are insurance for bad debt. Insured creditors are
compensated by the seller of the insurance if a debtor defaults on a loan. When the threat of default rises in
the market, the insurance premium rises, just as Katrina boosted hurricane insurance premium. This is known in
the business as re-pricing of risk. The cost of credit default swaps written on investment banks such as Bear
Stearns and Goldman Sachs and on commercial banks such as Citibank have soared in the past few months amid
worries that troubles in the subprime-mortgage market and the leveraged-buyout market could leave them with
massive loan defaults. The financial industry tracks mortgage-linked securities via the ABX index, which
calculates the prices of a basket of assets backed by subprime loans.
The ongoing crisis in the
US
housing market has pushed the ABX, a key mortgage-linked derivatives index,
to new lows, threatening to unleash a further bout of credit market upheaval. Price swing in the ABX can
reduce the value of ultra-safe credit instruments that carried high credit ratings, forcing banks and other
regulated investors to make further large write-downs on their credit market holdings, on top of the huge
losses several major
US
and foreign banks
suffered from credit turmoil that began in August.
As the
US
mortgages market deteriorates, financial sector losses will accumulate.
Secondary market price movements indicate that losses on mortgage inventory are likely to be larger in coming
quarters. Before July, the part of the ABX index that tracks AAA debt was trading almost at face value.
However, in the last three weeks in October, it has fallen sharply due to downgrades by credit rating agencies
and continuing bad data from the housing sector.
As a result, the so-called ABX 07-1
index – which tracks AAA mortgage bonds originated in the first half of this year – fell to a record low close
of 79 on October 30, meaning that traders reckon these bonds are worth only 79 cents on the dollar. The ABX
"BBB" 07-1 index measures the performance of loans made during the second half of 2006, when many home purchase
loans were made to buyers with shaky credit standings. The index traded around 44, or 44 cents on a dollar,
nearly its weakest level ever.
The swing is creating real pain for
investors, since in recent years numerous firms have created trading strategies which have loaded large debt
levels onto these "safe" securities, precisely because these instruments were not expected to fluctuate in
price. Investors normally hold such "safe" securities to maturity thus there is no demand for a ready market
for them. But as the credit rating of these securities falls, investor cannot find buyer for them at any
reasonable price. The last week in October saw the worst falls in the ABX market this year, especially higher
up the capital structure with highly rated debt.
Pension funds and insurance companies
hold the less risky, senior CDO tranches because regulatory rules restrict them from investing in lower-rated
securities. When the low-rated tranches default in large numbers, the high-rated tranches lose rating and these
regulated institutions are forced to sell their non-conforming holdings into a market with few buyers.
Pension funds, insurance companies and
university endowment funds have also invested in hedge funds that hold the riskier CDO tranches to get higher
returns. In recent years, CDO issuance has exploded and many hedge funds have been buying the riskiest
tranches of MBS that are backed by subprime loans. Mortgages closed by
4 pm
New York
time were sent electronically to back-office locations in
India
to be packaged into CDO tranches and resent electronically to
New York
at
9:30 am
the next day to be sold
in the credit market, generating huge fees and profits for Wall Street firms every day.
Rating
Agencies Under Pressure
Moody's Investors Services, an
influential rating agency, warned in late July that defaults and downgrades of subprime MBS could have "severe"
consequences for CDOs that invested heavily in the sector. CDOs that Moody's rated from 2003 to 2006 had 45%
exposure to subprime MBS on average. But that varied widely from almost zero to 90% with recent CDOs having the
high concentrations of such collateral, the potential downgrade for which could be 10 or more notches in
rating. The secondary market for CDOs responded to these heightened risks, pushing prices down and widening
spreads - the difference between interest rates on riskier debt and measures of short-term borrowing costs such
as the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) or commercial paper rates. Spreads on BBB-rated asset-backed
securities (ABS) CDOs over LIBOR have widened by roughly 125 basis points to 657 basis points since the end of
2006.
Structured investment vehicles (SIVs)
Although the first structured
investment vehicles (SIVs) appeared in the structured finance world some 15 years ago, and the growth of SIVs
had been somewhat limited, (there are fewer than 20 vehicles globally), there is no doubt that these
sophisticated bankruptcy-remote structures have strongly influenced other funding vehicles and asset management
businesses. Since 2002, there has been renewed interest by different types of financial institutions in
starting up SIVs or SIV-like structures with evolved capital structures embracing new classes of financial
instruments.
The first SIVs were founded in the
mid-1980s as bankruptcy-remote entities and were sponsored by large banks or investment managers for the
purpose of generating leveraged returns by exploiting the differences in yields between the longer-dated assets
managed and the short-term liabilities issued. The balance sheet of a structured investment vehicle typically
contains assets such as asset-backed securities (ABS) and other high-grade securities that are funded through
issued liabilities in the form of commercial paper (CP) and medium-term note (MTN) and subordinate capital
notes. SIVs typically hedge out all interest and currency risks using swaps and other derivative instruments.
Overall, CP and MTN issuance shot up
dramatically in 2004, up US$25.7 billion to US$133.1 billion at year-end, with capital investments at an
all-time high. In general, advances in capital structures and asset portfolio management have invigorated
interest from investors and prospective sponsors.
SIVs,
Conduits and Asset-Backed Commercial Paper (ABCP)
SIVs are typically funded in the low
interest short-term asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) market to invest in high-return long-term securities
for profit. The viability of the stratagem depends on the ability to roll over the short-term commercial paper
when they mature in typically less than 120 days. To keep the liquidity risk at a minimum, issuers stagger the
maturity so that only a small portion of the loan needs to be refunded in any one week. The credit market
crisis in mid 2007 created a break in short-term debt rollovers to cause a funding mismatch in long-term assets
positions because investors have stopped buying new ABCP issued by some SIVs and conduits.
What separates a SIV from other
investment vehicles is the nature of its ongoing relationship with rating agencies – from the originating
qualification process to the continuous monitoring of its asset diversification, risk management and funding
practices. These guidelines include frequent reporting of operating parameters such as portfolio credit
quality, portfolio diversification, asset and liability maturity, market risk limitations, leverage and capital
adequacy requirements, and liquidity requirements.
The rigorous monitoring allows SIVs to
be highly capital efficient, enabling them to be leveraged on an average of 12 times the capital base, with
exceptions. Unlike related traditional asset backed commercial paper (ABCP) conduits, SIVs do not require 100%
liquidity support and credit enhancement.
Many SIVs faced trouble in the summer
of 2007 as they were hit by both sharp falls in the value of their investments, mainly financial debt and
asset-backed bonds, and a lack of access to new refinancing as investors shunned short-term commercial paper
debt linked to asset-backed securities (ABCP).
Most CDOs are cash flow transactions
not directly sensitive to the market value of their underlying assets as long as the cash flow is undisturbed.
But if a CDO manager needs to sell an asset quickly even at a loss because of ratings agency downgrade, the CDO
manager will be forced to carry the remaining assets at a lower value, upsetting both collateral for the agreed
cash flow and the balance sheet of the participants.
While some hedge funds have profited
from the sublime mortgage meltdown, other funds have been hit hard, resulting in a deteriorating financial
sector as asset values plummeted faster than potential gains by vultures.
Other big lenders that raised warning
flags earlier about bad-performing debt portfolios included Washington Mutual, New Century Financial and
Marshall & IIsley Corporation. Foreclosures jumped 35% in December 2006 versus a year earlier. For the fifth
straight month, more than 100,000 properties entered foreclosure because the owner couldn't keep up with their
loan payments. In January 2007, Washington Mutual disclosed that its mortgage business lost $122 million in the
fourth quarter, highlighting the weak sub-prime market.
New
York Attorney General Sues Appraisal Company
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo,
a potential Democrat gubernatorial candidate for New York, has filed suit against eAppraiseIT (EA), a real
estate appraisal management subsidiary of First American Corporation, for having "caved to pressure from
Washington Mutual" to inflate property values of homes. Washington Mutual allegedly complained to EA that "its
appraisals weren't high enough." Cuomo said in a statement that "consumers are harmed because they are misled
as to the value of their homes, increasing the risk of foreclosure and hindering their ability to make sound
economic decisions. Investors are hurt by such fraud because it skews the value and risk of loans that are sold
in financial markets." The bank is also facing a number of class action suits from irate borrowers.
Shares of government sponsored mortgage
lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac tumbled after receiving subpoenas seeking information on loans they bought
from Washington Mutual and other banks. Cuomo said he uncovered a "pattern of collusion" between lenders and
appraisers, and is seeking documents that may prove the lenders inflated appraisal values. The subpoenas also
seek information on Fannie and Freddie's due diligence practices. If decided that they own or guarantee
mortgages with inflated appraisals, company policy dictates that the lenders buy back the loans. "In order to
fulfill their duty to consumers and investors, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must ensure that Washington Mutual's
mortgages have not been corrupted by inflated appraisals," Cuomo said. In 2007, WaMu is Fannie Mae's
third-largest loan provider, selling it $24.7 billion and Freddie Mac's fourteenth largest at $7.8 billion.
Washingtom Mutual share fell 17% after it announced it would set aside $1.3 billion fourth quarter 2007 for
credit losses, up from $967 million in the third quarter.
Mortgage Lenders
Fell Like Flies
The handwriting had been clearly on the wall. Back on February 6, New Century
Financial shares plunged 29% after the mortgage services provider slashed its forecast for loan production
for 2007 because early-payment defaults and loan repurchases had led to tighter underwriting guidelines. A week
later, Pasadena, Calif.-based IndyMac Bancorp Inc. which sold Alt-A mortgages for borrowers who were not
required to submit conforming income and financial documents necessary to quality for conventional conforming
mortgages, warned that its quarterly earnings would come in well short of analyst expectations because of
increased loan losses and delinquencies. Other lenders were also squeezed by deteriorating credit. Marshall &
IIsley reported a jump in non-performing assets in the quarter, while Bank of the Ozarks reported a 69%
increase in problem loans. US Bancorp predicted an increase in retail loan charge-offs and commercial loan
losses in coming quarters. Wells Fargo warned it expected net credit losses from wholesale banking to increase
in 2007.
Britain
's
Barclays PLC, in the midst of an unsuccessful takeover battle for ABN Amro, was reported as among the banks
that were having trouble with bad loans and its hedge funds. Barclays Global Investors was one of the world's
biggest fund managers, with some $2 trillion in assets under management.
The Case of Countrywide Financial
Non-conforming mortgages securities packaged by
Countrywide Financial needed to be sold in the private, secondary market to alternative investors, instead of
the agency market. On
August 3, 2007
, this secondary market
collapsed and essentially stopped the sales of most non-conforming securities. Alt-A mortgages (loans given to
self-declared creditworthy borrowers without supporting documentation) completely stopped trading and the
seizure extended to even AAA-rated mortgage-backed securities. Only securities with conforming mortgages were
trading. Unfazed, Countrywide Financial issued a reassuring statement that its mortgage business had access to
a nearly $50 billion funding cushion.
In reality, the sub-prime mortgage meltdown put
Countrywide Financial, along with many other mortgage lenders, in a crisis situation of holding drastically
devalued loan portfolios that could not be sold at any price. Amid rising defaults, investors have fled from
mortgage-related investments, drying up market demand. The ongoing credit crunch threatened Countrywide's
normal access to cash.
After the collapse of American Home
Mortgage on August 6, the market's attention returned to Countrywide Financial which at the time had issued
about 17% of all mortgages in the
United States
.
Days later, Countrywide Financial disclosed to the SEC that disruptions in the secondary mortgage markets could
adversely affect it financially. The news raised speculation that Countrywide was a potential bankruptcy risk.
On August 10, a run on the Countrywide Bank began as the secondary mortgage market shutdown, curtailing new
mortgage funding.
The perceived risk of Countrywide bonds
rose sharply. Credit ratings agencies downgraded Countrywide to near
junk
status. The cost of insuring
its bonds rose 22% overnight. This development limited Countrywide access to the short-term commercial paper
debt market which normally provides cheaper money than bank loans. Institutional investors were trying
desperately to unload outstanding Countrywide paper held in their portfolios. Some 50 other mortgage lenders
had already filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and Countrywide Financial was cited as a possible bankruptcy risk
by Merrill Lynch and others on August 15. This combined with news that its ability to issue new commercial
paper might be severely hampered put severe pressure on the stock. Countrywide shares fell $3.17 to $21.29,
which was its biggest fall in a single day since the crash of 1987 when the shares fell 50% for the year. The
52-week low to date was $12.07 per share.
On Thursday, August 16, having
expressed concerns over liquidity because of the decline of the secondary market for securitized mortgage
obligations, Countrywide also announced its intention to draw on the entire $11.5 billion credit line from a
group of 40 banks. On Friday August 17, many depositors sought to withdraw their bank accounts from
Countrywide. It also planned to make 90% of its loans conforming. By this point stock shares had lost about
75% of their peak value and speculation of bankruptcy broadened.
The Fed
Discount Window Accepts Toxic Collateral from Banks
At the same time the Federal Reserve
lowered the discount rate 50 basis points in a last-minute, early morning conference call. The Fed also
accepted $17.2 billion in repurchase agreements for mortgage backed securities to provide liquidity in the
credit market. This helped calm the stock market and investors promptly responded positively with the Dow
posting temporary gains.
Additionally, Countrywide was forced to
restate income it had claimed from accrued but unpaid interest on "exotic" mortgages in which the initial pay
rate was less than the amortization rate. By mid 2007, it became apparent much of this accrued interest had
become uncollectible. In a letter dated August 20, Federal Reserve agreed to waive banking regulations at the
request of Citigroup and Bank of America to exempt both banks from rules that limited the amount that
federally-insured banks can lend to related brokerage companies to 10% of bank capital, by increasing the limit
to 30%. Until then, banking regulations restricted banks with federally insured deposits from putting
themselves at risk by brokerage subsidiaries' activities. On August 23, Citibank and Bank of America said that
they and two other banks accessed $500 million in 30-day financing at the Fed's discount window at the new low
rate of 5.25%.
On the next day, Countrywide Financial
obtained $2 billion of new capital from Bank of America Corp, the banking holding parent. In exchange, the Bank
of America brokerage arm would get convertible preferred stock yielding 7.3%, a profitable spread over its Fed
discount rate of 5.25% and the Fed funds rate of 4.75%. The preferred stocks can be converted into common stock
at $18 per share (trading around $12 on October 25). This gave the distressed mortgage lender a much-needed
cash infusion amid a crippling credit crunch. Countrywide shares soared 20.01%, or $4.37, to $26.19 after hours
on the news. Bank of America shares rose 1.9%, or 98 cents, to $52.63 (trading around $46.75 on October 25
after announcing third quarter earning dropping 32%).
SEC to
Scrutinize Security Valuation
The Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC) is reportedly looking into the accounting and securities valuation practices at Wall Street investment
banks to ensure consistency and clarity for investors. Meanwhile, major financial institutions were lining up
to announce write-downs on their sub-prime mortgage exposures. Merrill Lynch wrote down $5.5 billion which was
later revised to $8 billion; Citigroup $3.3 billion which was later revised to $11 billion; Goldman Sachs $1.7
billion, Lehman Brothers $1 billion, Morgan Stanley $0.9 billion and Bear Sterns $0.7 billion. Many in the
market expect further write downs in coming quarters. Already Merrill Lynch write down is widely put at more
than $14 billion and few believe that Citigroup's loss could be kept to $11 billion in coming quarters. The
heads of Merrill, UBS and Citigroup all resigned.
Wachovia, the fourth-largest
US
bank by assets, estimated on Friday, November 9 that the value of its
subprime mortgage-related securities had fallen $1.1 billion in October. It said loan-loss provisions would be
increased by as much as $600 million in the fourth quarter due to "dramatic declines" in home values. The
announcement came three weeks after Wachovia reported writedowns of $1.3 billion in the third quarter and
posted its first earnings drop in six years.
Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest
U.S.
securities firm, said on November 7 its subprime mortgages and related
securities lost $3.7 billion in the past two months, after prices sank further than the firm's traders
anticipated. The decline may cut fourth-quarter earnings by $2.5 billion. Colm Kelleher, Morgan Stanley chief
financial officer to the Financial Times in an interview: "You need to see some of these long positions
reduced, you need to see buyers coming in, you need to see an easing of liquidity in the market." Kelleher said
credit markets would take three or four quarters to recover, instead of the one or two he estimated when the
firm reported third-quarter results on September 19.
Concerns about potential writedowns at
Morgan Stanley have pushed the stock lower this week, bringing the year-to-date decline to 24 percent. The
stock fell $3.32, or 6.9%, to $51.19 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading on November 8. Analysts
estimate the firm would lose about $4 billion on asset- backed securities and collateralized debt obligations
and expected the remaining losses to be booked on residual mortgage interest and on credit lines to structured
investment vehicles.
Being
Right Can lead to Losses through Aggressive Hedging
Part of the losses Morgan Stanley
incurred stemmed from derivative contracts the firm's proprietary trading unit wrote earlier in the year. The
traders anticipated correctly a decline in the value of subprime securities and took up short positions and the
contracts made money for the firm in the second quarter. But the contracts started losing money when prices
fell below the level the traders had anticipated. As markets continued to decline, the firm's risk exposure
swung from short, to flat to long because the structure of the book had big negative convexity. For any given
bond, a graph of the relationship between price and yield is a convex curve rather than a linear straight-line.
As a bond's price goes up, its yield goes down, and vice versa. The degree to which the graph is curved shows
how much a bond's yield changes in response to a change in price. Negative convexity gives the investor a
greater loss in the event of a 50 basis points drop in yields than his gain in the event of a 50 basis points
rise in yields. For any given move in interest rates, the downside is bigger than the upside to give a built-in
loss for a short position with negative convexity. Sophisticated traders can create instruments which have so
much negative convexity that the price might start off moving in one direction as yields start moving, and then
eventually start moving in the opposite direction beyond a given range. The hedge then begins to cannibalize
profitability.For any given move in interest rates, the downside is bigger than the upside to give a built-in
loss for a short position with negative convexity, thus producing losses. For positive convexity, the upside is
bigger than the down side, thus giving short positions an advantage. Morgan Stanley's short positions
allegedly turned against them by negative convexity; at least that was how they explained the loss. Some
analysts think there must be more than meets the eye, assuming Morgan management itself even know. The people
who put on the bad trades were fired and not there to answer questions.
It is one thing to lose money, but it
is quite another to lose money without knowing why and how. Morgan Stanley, Citibank, and the rest still have
difficulty figuring out how they lost money last quarter and how much loss is waiting in future quarters. They
only know the numbers came in very bad.
SEC
Concern over Accuracy of Writedowns
US
market regulators have been working with investment banks and accounting
firms over the past few months to keep tabs on how they are dealing with changes to the accounting treatment of
securities that were introduced this year by the US Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB). The SEC has
been particularly concerned during the third quarter earnings season, which resulted in billions of dollars in
write-downs at investment banks after problems in the sub-prime mortgage markets that triggered a wider credit
crisis. At issue is whether these write-downs accurately reflect the total financial impact of the credit
crisis on the banks and their investors.
The
SMELEC Super Fund Proposal
Citigroup, Bank of America and JP
Morgan/Chase announced on Monday, October 15, plans for a super fund to buy mortgage-linked securities in an
attempt to allay fears of a downward price-spiral that would hit the balance sheets of big banks.
US
banks collectively would put up credit guarantees up to $100 billion for
the fund, named the Single-Master Liquidity Enhancement Conduit (SMLEC).
The concept of an SMLEC first emerged
three weeks earlier when the US Treasury summoned leading bankers to discuss ways to revive the mortgage-linked
securities market and to deal with the threat to the credit market posed by structured investment vehicles
(SIVs) and conduits. The Treasury said it acted as a "neutral third party" in the discussions, but Henry
Paulson, Treasury secretary, was reportedly strongly in support of the initiative.
Robert Steel, under-secretary for
domestic finance, led the US Treasury side of the discussions, with the day-to-day work handled by Anthony
Ryan, assistant secretary. The plan is an attempt to address concerns about SIVs and conduits, vehicles that
are off-balance sheet but closely affiliated to banks.
Fears emerged that some SIVs might be
pushed into forced sales of assets, prompting further declines in the market price of mortgage-linked
securities as a class that could hurt the balance sheets of all lending institutions. SMLEC, designed as a
superfund to preserve the theoretical value of the high-rated tranches by creating a ready buyer for them, is
likely to be unpopular with some banks and non-bank institutions which have already started trading in
distressed low-rated subprime securities at knockdown prices.
SMLEC as proposed is intended as a
restructuring vehicle, repackaging credit securities to make them more transparent than existing SIV commercial
paper and less risky to investors. It would only deal in "highly-rated" assets. Although it is envisaged that
the scheme will initially focus on vehicles in the dollar market held by US banks, it is expected to extend to
non-US banks as well, and may even be extended to the euro market. The US Treasury declined to provide official
comment on the reported proposal.
In October, Citigroup Inc. posted a 57%
slump in third-quarter net income at $2.38 billion, or 47 cents a share, from $5.51 billion, or $1.10 a share,
a year earlier. The latest quarterly results included $1.35 billion of pretax write-down in the value of loans
that helped finance the leveraged-buyout boom and $1.56 billion of pretax losses tied to loans and sub-prime
mortgages. A couple of weeks after the SMLEC proposal, Citigroup announced a write down of $3.3 billion which
was later revised to $11 billion and that its Chairman resigned after an emergency board meeting on the first
Saturday of November.
SMLEC is in essence a big bet that a
consortium of banking giants, at the prodding of the US Treasury, can persuade investors to pour new money into
the troubled credit market to buy the assets of troubled SIVs to prevent the pending loss faced by the
sponsoring institutions.
Alan Greenspan, former Fed chairman,
immediately raised serious doubts over SMLEC, warning that it could prevent the market from establishing true
clearing prices for asset-backed securities. "It is not clear to me that the benefits exceed the risks,"
Greenspan told
Emerging Markets
, adding, "The experience I have had with that sort of intervention is
very mixed." As the person most responsible for a macro liquidity boom that had prevented "the market from
establishing true clearing prices for assets of all types", Greenspan is critical of the effort of the Treasury
to do the same thing on a micro level to save the banking system.
Greenspan explained: "What creates
strong markets is a belief in the investment community that everybody has been scared out of the market,
pressed prices too low and there are wildly attractive bargaining prices out there." He added: "if you
intervene in the system, the vultures stay away. The vultures are sometimes very useful." Goldman Sachs must
have heard the message loud and clear and decided to act as its own home-grown vulture.
Greenspan's remarks came amid growing
speculation on Wall Street that the current Federal Reserve sees potential benefits in the SMLEC proposal in
terms of preventing a possible fire sale of assets, and does not think it has been designed to allow financial
institutions to avoid recognizing losses. But the Fed is concern that the superfund plan could exacerbate
growing investor anxiety, and thinks markets might normalize faster if at least some troubled SIV assets were
sold in the market to allow prices to find a floor. Fed officials have been officially silent on the superfund
plan, leading to the impression that the Fed wants to keep its distance. The Treasury regards the Fed's
silence as simply reflecting the separation of powers and responsibilities between the institutions. In
reality, the Treasury leads the Fed on issues of national economic security, notwithstanding the Fed's claim of
independence.
Greenspan defended the 1998
Fed-sponsored rescue of Long-Term Capital Management (LTCM) by a group of creditor banks, saying it worked
because it took a set of assets that would otherwise have been dumped at fire-sale prices off the market,
allowing prices of the remaining assets to find a true equilibrium. But he said today "we are dealing with a
much larger market." To those who still have reliable memory, the justification for the Fed managed rescue of
LTCM was to prevent the total collapse of the financial market because of the dominant size and high leverage
of LTCM. Other distressed hedge funds would also have survived with a Fed managed bailout, but they did not
qualify as being "too big to fail".
Frederic Mishkin, a Federal Reserve
governor, admitted to the Financial Times that although the central bank could use monetary policy to offset
the macroeconomic risk arising from the credit squeeze, it was "powerless" to deal with "valuation risk" – the
difficulty assessing the value of complex or opaque securities.
Robert J Shiller, Yale economist of "
Irrational
Exuberance
" fame (2000), writing in the October 14 edition of the New York Times:
Sniffles That Precede
a Recession
: "While it may seem as though these private banks could have met by themselves and agreed to
create a fund without pressure from Treasury to do so, apparently there are times when the private sector
cannot take care of itself and it needs the government to intervene and prod it in the right direction, at
least that appears to be the attitude at Treasury (and I wonder if there will be government guarantees of any
sort as part of the bargain, a situation that rules out the private sector doing it on its own, but also a
situation that more explicitly recognizes the existence of market failure and the need for government
intervention to overcome it). It would be refreshing to see this same attitude extended by the administration
to other markets that cannot coordinate properly or that suffer from significant market failures of other
types, markets that produce outcomes where, say, children are left without health coverage. But don't get your
hopes up."
Warren Buffett, the Pied Piper of other
awed investors, told Fox Business Network that "pooling a bunch of mortgages, changing the ownership" would not
change the viability of the mortgage instrument itself. "It would be better to have them on the balance sheets
so everyone would know what's going on." Bill Gross, chief investment officer of Pimco, the giant bond fund
manager, called the superfund idea "pretty lame". Investors need to know what their portfolio is really worth
at any moment in time, not merely constructed value if conditions should hold.
A highly critical view on Trump. Many aspects of Trump foreign policy are captured correctly:
an objective evaluation is the evaluation of a person we do not like ;-)
Trump changed US neoliberalism from "classic" variant to what can be called "National
neoliberalism", which denies neoliberal globalization. And that's a huge change.
When John Feller mentions that "The allies that Trump has cultivated -- Poland, Hungary,
Russia, North Korea, the Philippines -- don't advance any particular national security interests.
They reflect only the personal preferences of Trump himself." he certainly sniffed something
strong. Russia is probably the only country capable to make the USA uninhabitable. And neocon's
Russophobia while lining their pockets is threat to the USA as nation and as a country. After the
war with Russia both might be gone ( as well as Russia, as the USA still enjoys technical
superiority).
Notable quotes:
"... In this week's Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg canvassed administration officials for their one-sentence characterization of this Trump Doctrine. Goldberg narrowed it down to the pugnacious phrase: "We're America, Bitch." ..."
"... When he calls other leaders "weak," Trump is resorting to the old playground epithet: they are "pussies." And, as he put it so indelicately in the Access Hollywood tape, he feels perfectly free to grab them by the pussies. The president is using the power invested in his office to take what he wants. ..."
"... Rape, it has often been said, is not about sex: it's about power. ..."
"... To Trump's followers, "We're America, Bitch" could be understood as a middle finger directed at a cold and unfair world, one that no longer respects American power and privilege. ..."
"... To much of the world, however, and certainly to most practitioners of foreign and national-security policy, "We're America, Bitch" would be understood as self-isolating, and self-sabotaging. ..."
"... John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus and the author of the dystopian novel Splinterlands. ..."
ada and the successful summit in Singapore, it's hard to know what to call U.S. foreign
policy these days.
It's not just unilateralism, where Washington acts alone and allies be damned. Nor is it
merely unipolarism, in which the United States targets all hegemonic challengers in an effort
to preserve its position as the world's dominant military and economic power.
Let's coin a new term: unileaderism .
According to unileaderism, only the U.S. president makes foreign policy decisions of any
import. Those decisions do not betray any strategic thinking. They may well be contradictory.
And they often leave other members of the administration -- not to mention Congress and the
American people -- totally baffled.
Unileaderism, at least as it's embodied by Donald Trump, is a philosophy bound up entirely
in the personal quirks of the president himself. Instead of strategy, there are only tactics:
wheedling, bluffing, threatening. It's like playing tennis against someone with John McEnroe's
legendary temper and will to win, but few if any of his actual skills.
Neither unilateralism nor unipolarism can explain the spectacle of the last week, when Trump
blasted U.S. allies at the G7 meeting in Canada and then blasted off for Singapore to negotiate
with the leader of the longest standing adversary of the United States. Only unileaderism can
capture this surreal reversal of traditional U.S. foreign policy norms.
The summit with Kim Jong Un was Trump at his most theatrical. He flattered the North Korean
tyrant and signed a declaration of little substance. He showed off his limousine. He played Kim
a White House-produced video crafted
to appeal to the North Korea leader's vanity and nationalism (for instance, by juxtaposing
images from North Korea with those from around the world, by barely mentioning South Korea, and
by ignoring China and Japan altogether).
Don't get me wrong: I'm thrilled that Trump sat down with Kim and initiated a détente
between the two countries. Trump's
pledge to stop war games with South Korea is a major step forward. As for the declaration,
it was a good thing, not a bad thing, that it didn't go into details. North Korea doesn't want
to denuclearize immediately, and Trump doesn't really understand the particulars of the process
anyway. Anything more detailed would have been a conversation stopper.
But the mutual respect that the two leaders expressed was all about unileaderism: their
preference to rule without any regard for democracy or human rights. The format of their
30-minute colloquy was telling: just the two leaders with their translators and no advisors. It
was a throwback to the diplomacy of yesteryear, when royals met to determine the boundaries of
their respective kingdoms.
The contretemps in Quebec was far more disturbing. Trump refused to sign the G7 declaration,
continued to pursue tariffs against major U.S. trading partners, and insulted Canadian leader
Justin Trudeau to boot. It was an extraordinary display of presidential pique.
Trump's tantrum about Trudeau divided his administration into those who leapt into the
fracas to slap the Canadian prime minister and those who shifted into high gear to repair the
fraying U.S. relationship with its northern neighbor. U.S. Trade Representative Robert
Lighthizer continued to work with his Canadian counterparts to negotiate a new NAFTA. But White
House trade advisor Peter Navarro sided with Trump by saying that "there's a special place in
hell" for Trudeau -- the kind of epithet once reserved for the mortal enemies of the United
States.
It was like something out of
Canadian Bacon , the satirical 1995 film about a president hoping to boost his dismal
popularity by promoting a war against the Canucks. Has America been suddenly plunged into
wag-the-beaver territory?
Meanwhile, Trump's proposal to bring Russia back into the G7
caught many of his colleagues off guard, including the National Security Council. Methinks
the NSC doth protest too much. This is the same president who congratulated Russian President
Vladimir Putin on his recent electoral win even though his aides
had written "DON'T CONGRATULATE" in all-caps on his briefing notes. This president delights
in ignoring even is closest "advisors."
Trump's invite to Russia is no surprise. The president wants his buddies at the G7. Angela
Merkel is not his buddy. Vladimir Putin is. Trump treats world affairs like it's an elementary
school club.
Unileaderism may well be the logical endpoint for a country that has used unilateralism to
preserve its unipolarism. And Trump is certainly the product of a particular tendency within
the U.S. political culture that rejects [neo]liberalism and multilateralism.
But it goes beyond that. In its rejection of strategy in favor of tactics, Trumpism is a
repudiation of geopolitics altogether. Trumpism isn't a new kind of opening in the chess game
of international relations. The president, out of rage and stupidity and arrogance, has simply
picked up the board with all of its pieces and flung the whole thing against the wall. He's
playing a different game altogether.
The Trump Doctrine
Ordinarily when pundits come up with a doctrine to define an administration's approach to
the world, they put a label on a collective stance -- even though the label inevitably goes by
the president's name.
In the case of the Trump doctrine, however, the philosophy points more to the president's
gut instincts rather than an approach hammered out by a group of "Vulcans" (in the case of
George W. Bush) or a set of [neo]liberal internationalists (Barack Obama). The Trump doctrine
boils down to Trump. And the word "doctrine" is something of an overstatement.
In this week's Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg
canvassed administration officials for their one-sentence characterization of this Trump
Doctrine. Goldberg narrowed it down to the pugnacious phrase: "We're America, Bitch."
The phrase reveals the Trump approach for what it is: sexual harassment.
When he calls other leaders "weak," Trump is resorting to the old playground epithet:
they are "pussies." And, as he put it so indelicately in the Access Hollywood tape, he feels
perfectly free to grab them by the pussies. The president is using the power invested in his
office to take what he wants.
Rape, it has often been said, is not about sex: it's about power. Having divided
the international community into female (Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, Justin Trudeau) and
male (Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un), Trump is now buddying up with his locker-room
pals and boasting of how's taken advantage of the "weaker sex."
Goldberg writes:
To Trump's followers, "We're America, Bitch" could be understood as a middle finger
directed at a cold and unfair world, one that no longer respects American power and
privilege.To much of the world, however, and certainly to most practitioners of
foreign and national-security policy, "We're America, Bitch" would be understood as
self-isolating, and self-sabotaging.
Sexual harassment, thanks to the #MeToo movement, has become self-sabotaging. Has the G7
just had their #MeToo moment? Perhaps America's top allies are finished with appeasing Trump
and saying "yes" when they really mean "no." I look forward to the photo op with Merkel and
Macron both wearing their pink pussyhats in solidarity with Trump protesters worldwide.
The End of Geopolitics?
The G7 represents the [neo]liberal international order: an attempt by the world's top
economies to manage disputes and develop a common commitment to certain principles like free
trade. The grouping is an acknowledgment that global capitalism can't survive by the "invisible
hand" alone and needs the guidance of many hands.
The G7 has been spectacularly ineffective in addressing the major issues of the time: global
poverty and inequality, climate change, pandemics. It doesn't represent robust multilateralism.
It leaves out obvious players like China and India. It makes no effort to represent voices of
the powerless.
Still, the G7 has been a very modest check on both U.S. unilateralism and unipolarism. And
now it's emerging as a counterbalance to Trump's unileaderism. The president's combative trade
policies and indiscriminate use of personal invective are uniting much of the world against the
United States. The approval rating of the United States, across 134 countries, dropped in two
years from 48 percent to 30 percent, according to
a 2018 Gallup poll .
On the other hand, the American public's satisfaction with U.S. standing in the world
reached a
13-year high in 2018, a worrisome sign for those of us pushing for progressive foreign
policy alternatives. Trump's unileaderism strikes a chord with a segment of the American
public. It's not just the Russians who crave an "iron fist" leader.
Trump's tactics run afoul of the basic laws of geopolitics: identifying long-term goals,
developing corresponding strategies, and cultivating key allies to achieve those goals. The
allies that Trump has cultivated -- Poland, Hungary, Russia, North Korea, the Philippines --
don't advance any particular national security interests. They reflect only the personal
preferences of Trump himself.
According to a progressive take on foreign policy, the United States should relinquish its
unipolar status as part of a transition to a peaceful multilateral order. Trump's unileaderism
won't, in the end, preserve this unipolar status. It will ultimately destroy the international
community and the very possibility of geopolitics. As the United States sinks further into
aggressive resentment, the world will splinter into hundreds of "Make [My Country] Great Again"
warring factions.
Bush Times Ten
Beginning with the Reagan administration, the concept of a "unitary executive" has gathered
force in both constitutional law and presidential practice. According to this theory, the
president controls the entire executive branch. So, for instance, George W. Bush expanded
presidential power through his use of signing statements that reinterpreted legislative
decisions.
Trump has taken this concept to a whole new level with his meddling in the Russiagate
investigations and his willingness to pardon everyone indicted in the matter, even himself.
Here's a president who can't seem to wait to get rid of his chief of staff because he
no longer wants to have anyone managing him. Trump can't be bothered with briefings because
he prefers to make decisions based on some cocktail of his own hormonal urges and what he
gleans, often mistakenly, from Fox News.
Unileaderism raises the doctrine of the unitary executive to the power of 10. It's bad
enough that a deeply insecure man-boy has latched on to this doctrine. Much worse will happen
when a canny adult adopts the same approach. Trumpism without Trump would finalize America's
descent into the maelstrom.
John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus and the author of the dystopian
novel Splinterlands.
"... The fact of the matter is, if Russia wanted to do, cause lot of difficulty to the American election they could have. Instead, they went and talked privately to us. So when the government says Russia intercepted stuff that was very important to us, I'm being very fuzzy about it, it wasn't about the election. They told us that there were certain people in America doing things that were very deleterious to the War on Terrorism for personal and financial gain, and they could have blown it publicly but they went internally to us." ..."
"... I haven't listened to that particular interview yet, but can say the the HRC emails with Sid Blumenthal show the reason we got in bed with Sarkozy (and Britain) to destroy Libya was: ..."
"... To steal the nationalized oil ..."
"... To steal the hundreds of tons of gold and silver. ..."
"... To prevent Libya from developing a pan-African gold dinar and development bank to complete with the Federal Reserve petrodollar and the IMF. ..."
"... I can also say that Hersh documented that Ambassador Stevens was an arms dealer, smuggling Libyan military weapons into Syria to finish the "regime change" operation still ongoing there. Also, HRC knew her "rebels" were hunting down and murdering any black Libyans they could find even before Gaddafi was anally bayonet raped. ..."
Hello There! I'm curious to know if any readers have comments about a recent Sy Hersh
interview. In response to a question about Russian interference in the last US presidential
election Hersh replied:
"I have been reporting something, I've been watching something since 2011 in Libya, when we
had a secretary of state that later ran for president, and I will tell you: Some stories take
a long time. And I don't know quite how to package it. I don't know how much to say about it.
I assure you that there's no known intelligence that Russia impacted, cut into the DNC,
Podesta e-mails. That did not happen. I can say that.
I can also say Russia learned other things about what was going on in Libya with us and
instead of blowing -- [. . . lots cut out here before returning to the topic . . . ]
The fact of the matter is, if Russia wanted to do, cause lot of difficulty to the
American election they could have. Instead, they went and talked privately to us. So when the
government says Russia intercepted stuff that was very important to us, I'm being very fuzzy
about it, it wasn't about the election. They told us that there were certain people in
America doing things that were very deleterious to the War on Terrorism for personal and
financial gain, and they could have blown it publicly but they went internally to
us."
I haven't listened to that particular interview yet, but can say the the HRC emails with Sid
Blumenthal show the reason we got in bed with Sarkozy (and Britain) to destroy Libya was:
To steal the nationalized oil
To steal the hundreds of tons of gold and silver.
To prevent Libya from developing a pan-African gold dinar and development bank to complete
with the Federal Reserve petrodollar and the IMF.
I can also say that Hersh documented that Ambassador Stevens was an arms dealer, smuggling
Libyan military weapons into Syria to finish the "regime change" operation still ongoing there.
Also, HRC knew her "rebels" were hunting down and murdering any black Libyans they could find
even before Gaddafi was anally bayonet raped.
If I come up with more after listening, I'll post again.
"... I guess the CIA couldn't credibly stop AMLO from winning the election by popular vote and that major mass-media confidently plans to set on fire: paper bag after bag of ca-ca, on the front steps of Los Pinos whilst cooking-up virulent "anti-corruption" impeachment against the new president, a la Lula in Brazil. ..."
"... "Corruption Allegations" are one of the tools in the toolbox. It's how that evil Harper came to power in Canada. He's still lurking among the other nefarious vampires intent on destroying the commons. ..."
I wonder why it appears that the USA did not sufficiently meddle in the Mex. election. Typically the US heavily involves
itself to ensure a compliant austerity type is elected.
Lopez Obredor was robbed of the Presidency in 2006; there was a prolonged organized popular protest.
I guess the CIA couldn't credibly stop AMLO from winning the election by popular vote and that major mass-media confidently
plans to set on fire: paper bag after bag of ca-ca, on the front steps of Los Pinos whilst cooking-up virulent "anti-corruption"
impeachment against the new president, a la Lula in Brazil.
I remember that now. Same Obredor of 2006 who was expected to win at that time. There were USA instigated riots and a USA instigated
vote recount too, IIRC.
Yes, I suppose they intend to Lula him - Which will begin very soon.
"Corruption Allegations" are one of the tools in the toolbox. It's how that evil Harper came to power in Canada. He's still
lurking among the other nefarious vampires intent on destroying the commons.
"... The reason they endlessly get it wrong, of course, is that they listen to the exiles in the US and elsewhere. Those exiles still mainly come from the old upper classes, with their eternal sense of entitlement to power, and their air-tickets ready in their pockets to fly back to Tehran and take back their positions under the Shah. Because of course, the Iranian revolution was one of the first populist movements, where the religious regime appealed directly to "the people", and the upper classes were cut out. The system has worked well - "the people" have continued to vote for the regime, naturally being a majority. ..."
There was a distinct change earlier this year, after the second US fusillade of cruise
missiles, and the Israeli bombing of "Iranian" bases in Syria.
We were all expecting further military action, but nothing happened, in particular no more
Israeli action, although Iranian forces in Syria were hardly damaged.
Instead they started muttering about subversion of the Iranian state from the inside,
which is what b is writing about here. That was a big sign that the all-out assault on Iran
has been called off.
Why? Evidently because the military say no. The scenario was the same as the one back in
2012, the last time we thought to see Israeli aircraft getting permission from Saudi to do
their bombing runs on Iran, but it didn't happen then, because the Israeli military were
saying no. Evidently the position hasn't changed, I was relieved to discover, although the
propagandists claimed the plan is all worked out now, and Iran has little defence.
Well, internal subversion of the regime, then. Hasn't the US been attempting to do
precisely that for 40 years now, ever since the revolution overthrew the Shah in 1979? What
are the conditions which mean that they are going to succeed now, when they've failed for 40
years?
The reason they endlessly get it wrong, of course, is that they listen to the exiles
in the US and elsewhere. Those exiles still mainly come from the old upper classes, with
their eternal sense of entitlement to power, and their air-tickets ready in their pockets to
fly back to Tehran and take back their positions under the Shah. Because of course, the
Iranian revolution was one of the first populist movements, where the religious regime
appealed directly to "the people", and the upper classes were cut out. The system has worked
well - "the people" have continued to vote for the regime, naturally being a
majority.
I don't want to get into a historical disquisition (which in any case I've said before),
but the reason this works is that there's history behind it - I'm pretty sure that the
original Islamisation of Iran (I don't mean the Arab conquest, but the conversion of the
country) was a popular revolt against the pre-Islamic nationalist aristocracy, who didn't pay
any taxes. The present-day Iranian exiles attach themselves strongly to that old nationalist
aristocracy, including most academics of Iranian origin in western universities. They don't
seem to notice that the class they admire grindingly oppressed the poor, such that it led to
a revolution.
currently having an online debate about conditions in the crimea, specifically alleged
russian oppression of crimeans in 2018, but also conditions leading up to the initial
referendum (my opponents claim annexation or conquest, and cite a freedom house survey to back
it up--from what i can see freedom house is fully funded by the us govt). my understanding is
the us fomented the coup in ukraine, along with nato, as opposed to the ukrainian people
rebelling against a russian puppet, which is the us line i believe. any articles or sources
detailing the us role in all this, or rebutting claims that crimeans are being terrified into
silence in 2018 about russian oppression, would be appreciated.
About half of the respondents admit to having been taken by surprise by Russia's actions in
2014. Interestingly, there is agreement among the Crimean population, including the Crimean
Tatars, that successive Ukrainian governments had neglected the region. Roughly one third
of respondents pointed to this neglect as the main cause of the developments in 2014. ...
The majority of survey respondents agree with the statement that the different ethnic
groups in Crimea currently live peacefully side by side. Twenty percent disagree "fully" or
"rather" with this statement, thereby indicating both an uncertainty and unease with the
situation at the moment that reaches beyond the Crimean Tatar share of the population
(about 12 percent). This result is mirrored in the reaction to the ban on the main
political Crimean Tatar organization, the Mejlis, by the Russian authorities: 20 percent
"fully" or "rather" disagreed with this step, compared to 80 percent endorsing this policy.
... The survey clearly spells out the severe disruption of links to the rest of Ukraine,
limited travel to other parts of Russia, the absence of personal international reference
points, and a near-complete integration into the Russian media sphere.
This combination makes any change in the opinions of the majority of the Crimean
population on the annexation unlikely in the foreseeable future. However, it is also clear
that the Crimean population's high expectations in the Russian economy and trust in Russian
(but not Crimean) institutions needs to be carefully managed by Moscow in view of the
already strained financial situation of the majority of the Crimean population.
The authors are also cautious about drawing overly-optimistic conclusions about the present
time: "The risk of conflict emerging within Ukrainian society and growing serious remains,
based on noticeable differences among residents of different regions about the further
geopolitical direction the country should move in. There are also serious problems
connected to restoring Ukraine's territorial integrity and the model of coexistence with
those living in the regions that are currently occupied, how to reach reconciliation and
mutual understanding." ...
Joining the EU remains a strong desire among a majority of Ukrainians. In September
2016, 51% of those surveyed by the Rating Group put integration with the EU ahead of
joining Russia's Customs Union or some other association. Still, in Rating's September 2015
survey, 57% of Ukrainians did so, and in September 2014, 59% did. This noticeable decline
could be the result of a number of factors. For one thing, the Association Agreement did
not have a noticeable impact on the standard of living of most Ukrainians. Many Ukrainians
are also upset at what they see as the European Union's limp response to Russia's
aggression against their country. And the way the granting of a visa-free regime to the EU
has been dragged out for years and the obvious internal squabbles among the Union's members
have also left their imprint on Ukrainians.
Ukraine is a very diverse country. Trump coming to an agreement with Putin that eases
tensions instead of agreeing/dividing on spheres of influence would be their best hope.
pretzelattack@3 re: "...rebutting claims that crimeans are being terrified into silence in
2018 about russian oppression."
I honestly have not heard anything about actual oppression - just that some
Ukrainians and Tartars are still - today - not terribly happy with the
secession/annexation/transfer. Acts of civil disobedience were generally individual, "I don't
want to be part of Russia and I'm not signing these papers or paying taxes," kind of thing. I
know any polls of Crimeans are noted to be terribly flawed - neither the pro-Russian nor the
pro-Ukraine people trust anyone taking polls. They'll not answer or give an answer that seems
to agree with whatever 'side' the pollster might be from.
I can't see how this issue could be fairly considered without at least an acknowledgement
that in 1954, 1.1 million people in Crimea woke up one day to find they were now citizens of
the Ukraine SSR. No polls, no vote, no discussion and no terribly good reasons.
If you need sources to back up your argument that the US helped to foment the Maidan
uprising that overthrew the Yanukovych government, here are a couple that feature a video and
a transcript of a phone conversation.
Information CLearing House: Victoria Nuland [former US Assistant Secretary of State for
Europe during Obama administration] Admits: US Has Invested $5 Billion In The Development of
Ukrainian "Democratic Institutions" http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article37599.htm
The article includes the video of the speech Nuland gave to the Washington press corp in
December 2013 in which she talks about "investing" the $5 billion.
This is the famous phone call in which Nuland utters her most memorable lines: "Yats
[Yatsenyuk] is the guy [for deputy prime minister]" and "Fuck the EU".
-----
I have also found details of the Korsun massacre incident that occurred on 20 February
2014. I had known about this massacre but in a hazy way and had thought only a few people had
been killed. However this incident is much more grave and this was the stimulus for the
Crimeans to organise their independence referendum and break away from Ukraine.
Eight buses of Crimean supporters of the Yanukovych government were returning to Crimea
when the convoy was ambushed by Nazi thugs (who had known of the convoy's movements in
advance). The thugs ordered everyone off the buses, beat them up and tortured them. Several
people were killed.
"Americans prepared very seriously and thoroughly for their entrance into Crimea, –
said a member of the Federation Council Committee on defense and security, Dmitry Sablin.
– A year before the events on Maidan in Kiev, they made repair estimates of a number of
buildings in Sevastopol and in Simferopol, where they planned to house the headquarters and
intelligence units. Military airfields and garrisons, which then belonged to Ukraine, they
considered as their own military installations and even sent instructions for their
conversion to NATO standards. In the plans of the U.S. military April 2014 was the start time
of upgrades in Crimea. It seemed to them that the issue has been settled. But the referendum
had thrown off their plans, and on March 18, Crimea became Russian again, where the overseas
guests were no longer welcome. Americans later themselves acknowledged that the Russians
outplayed them on all counts. Well, and from helplessness imposed sanctions -- as a revenge
for Crimea".
This is the tender put out by the US Navy to invite private companies to propose
renovation plans for a school for naval officers' children in the military base in
Sevastopol.
Sabine @6: On political/national/ethnic determinations.
It is a messy situation. I had thought one of the reasons we hate the Nazis is because
ethno-nationalism is evil. And yet, most of the West's leaders fully support Israel, and the
AZ Empire is promoting Kurdish ethno-states in Iraq and Syria (though not in Turkey, where
50% of all Kurds live).
We were all ready to accept a referendum that would have seen Scotland secede from Great
Britain, and yet when people in regions of 1991 Ukraine resisted the Western-fomented coup in
2014, and voted to secede, we are told they are terrorists to be crushed.
Most of the national borders in the Middle East and Africa were created by an elite in
Great Britain and Europe, which divided families and crammed together enemies, creating the
inevitable century of turmoil. And yet, here most of us support the sovereignty of some of
those artificially-created neocolonial states.
Messy.
Personally, I believe in the right to self-determination. If a group of people in a region
choose to form, or dissolve, or maintain, or expand a political entity, then they should be
allowed to. Such decisions should be made by the will of those people only.
What I see as illegitimate is people from outside that region interfering to force their
will on others.
MFS also travelled to the Donbass and made a documentary about his journey there. I saw
the documentary a couple of years ago and from memory I believe he met Givi, one of the
Donbass military commanders. Givi died in early 2017 when a missile hit his office. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukQgVoTnAuE
Jen. Thanks for the great links on the Ukraine situation. Oliver Stone created a stunning
documentary, that is the best on the subject I've seen: "Ukraine on Fire"
Unfortunately, it appears to be banned or at lest heavily censored within the US. I saw it
on RT.
I've seen several uploads of this documentary, which was made in 2015. But the resolution
of this version is superb. I recommend it for everyone actually, and I'm happy to say that
it's being hosted on the Vesti News channel - which is worth exploring in its own right.
This is the definitive story told from the inside of the people of Crimea forming a
resistance force to take their land back from Ukraine. It was already happening but the
Korsun massacre detailed above by commenters was the galvanizing point that showed the
Crimeans that Kiev was coming to massacre it also, unless it resisted. And as everyone knew,
Crimea was hated most of all, and its suffering would be far worse than that of Donbass.
Kondrashev is a popular Russian news commentator, and he interviews Putin extensively in
the film. This was made one year after the Crimea restoration to Russia, after the events of
that time, coordinated by Putin, were de-classified.
The documentary is a dramatic and stirring work. You will be totally in love with with
Crimea and the Russian people by the end of it. And you will understand how the Maidan was a
US color revolution in classical style. Your heart will jump when you see the snipers kill
the hard-pressed Berkut. And it's a true story, made from real footage, and with parts
reenacted by the actual people.
When the polite green men show up, in the very nick of time, you may find yourself weeping
with gladness.
National identity in USSR was important. Well, it is always important and yes, there was
latent antisemitism (or whatever it is called) in some spheres of Soviet life. Not as big,
though, as Jewish dissidents love to present to those who are ready to listen.
Lots of people pretended to be persecuted just to get freebees in the US and elsewhere.
Antisemitsm was by ~90% the myth created by these people. One example I know first-hand: in
my year at the school of Biology in the best and most privileged Moscow State University
about 20-25% of students were Jewish or half-Jewish, whereas Jews constituted 2-3% of the
USSR population.
Aussie Pom
2 months ago
Das Boot was a
movie not a documentary on the U boats in WW2. It was meant to entertain which it did.
3
Bob1942ful
2 months ago
My favorite
U-Boat book is Iron Coffins by Herbert Werner.
3
StPaul76
2 months ago
I never knew
there was a debate on this subject even though I consider myself otherwise rather well informed on Kriegsmarine U-Boot
warfare.. Interesting.. Again you managed to fill a gap in my knowledge.. That is one of the main reasons I am a
subscriber of your channel. Some time ago you made a video on Finnish Winterwar agains Soviet Union 1939-40.. Could you
consider making a study video on the battle of Tali-Ihantala in 1944 where Soviet armoured forces where effectively
stopped by the Finnish forces.? For there has been some debate on the subject here in Finland whether it was actually
the German ground attack flight unit "Kuhlmay" that did most of the job or was the Finnish infantry and artillery.
Jonas Drřjdahl
2 months ago
Might I suggest
'Sharks and Little Fish' (Haie und kleine Fische). I have only read it as a book, but there is an old movie too. Good God
that is one brutal story. I can still remember reading about them finding 'snakes' in a British submarine, that scene gave me
the shivers.
Seven Proxies
2 months ago
Das Boot (the
film) is one of my alltime favourite films. And one that I feel more people should watch. Since the second world war, there
has been this public precption that all german soldiers were evil bootlickers completely in agreement with Adolf Hitler,
which was far from the truth. Das Boot presents a more nuanced and realistic picture, and really showcases the differences
between regular german navymen and the "loyalist" party members. It shows that for good or ill, germans were human beings.
Red Coat
1 month ago
Das Boot was a
profound book, reporting vividly the terror and fear and evil of war, in this case in a submarine. I think the author was a
reporter on board but of course he became part of the crew over time, so the use of "we" in his book is entirely appropriate.
Lets face it, he faced the same danger of being sunk as the crew and he did after all write from first hand observation and
experience. I enjoyed both the book and the film. It felt very realistic both reading and watching and is a lesson to us all
about the real ugly shit of war. I hate that so many young fine men lost their lives on both sides. Why do we wage it, over
and over again.
Gilmaris
1 month ago
There was a
book, then the mini-series, and
then
the movie. The movie is a
shortened version of the mini-series, where half the content has been cut.
Kyle Glenn
2 months ago
I find the
criticism of Das Boot curious. I never read the book, but found that much of it not that far from my other sources. I find
criticism of the Kriegsmarine U Boat forces in general a little annoying. What choice did they have? Their only hope of a
peace favourable to HITLER war to sink as much allied shipping as possible. They fought as hard as possible, and we sank
them as much as possible.
Gordon Lawrence
1 month ago (edited)
I think some of
this history we will simply never be able to get a precise objective view of. We have people who were there, but one
persons view of a specific action may be different from another due to simple factors such as their precise location and
how this affects perception. Then there is the memory issue. It is a fact that with the best will in the world, witness
statements change over time. This is for several reasons but psychologists now think there is some mechanism in the brain
that alters memories every single time you retrieve them. However this does not mean we should not try and get as objective
view as possible. Also new evidence for all sorts of things keeps cropping up in the weirdest of places. EG in my
particular field (some specific aspects of the ancient near east) the bulk of the oldest (and usually therefore the most
reliable) evidence has been found since 1850 and a good deal of it post 1950.
T5rux Lee
2 months ago (edited)
A book titled
"Going To War In A Difficult To Operate, Very Unstable, Torpedo Firing Septic Tank" is probably not going to be a best
seller either. Personalities must always be the central interest to get a story out to a wide audience. I take your point
about conscripts, that is also a different world. A little story once told to me: A (North Euro) NATO officer once received
a secret message to expect a technical party to arrive shortly at his base to do some work. The next day two "X" Corporals
showed up with all the required OKs. to do something. He was so intrigued he insisted they dine with him every night after
work. At the end, finally convinced they were not really officers or even murkier operatives, he confessed that his own
service would not dream of operating with less than one officer, two ncos, and six conscripts while doing anything even of
a lesser but similar nature and would not be that surprised if half of them went awol.
AudieHolland
1 month ago (edited)
I'm sick and
tired offormer military raving about how wonderful military service is etc. etc. I have talked with a few (literally: 2)
Iraq War veterans, both American. One was a medic who was very sincere and sounded very neutral. He had no monologue about
how his work was neccessary to save western civilization etc. etc. He did tell me about an incident where some poor grunt
was hit by a rocket propelled grenade. I asked him if there was anything left. He matter of factly said that he "picked up
the pieces." Then there was this veteran I spoke with at my work. He used to be in some support unit, intelligence or
something but he was just a grunt. The entire war, all he had to do was
rake
his station's surrounding area because his CO thought it was important that their station looked proper and
tidy. And that was literally all he did. Rake.
MrZauberelefant
2 months ago
Have you looked
into Herbert Werner's "Eiserne Särge"? That is a more technical account and even more nightmarish than Buchheim's book. He
falls more into the second, the critics' category.
Kenneth Besig
2 months ago
29,000 of the
32,000 Nazi submariners were killed by the Allies, he U-boat offensive was a nightmare for the Nazis, and the surface
ships by then were a minor annoyance.
Steeltrap
2 months ago (edited)
I have a copy of
"U-333 The story of a U-boat ace" by Peter Cremer. It's fascinating. To quote from the translator's preface: "Towards the
end of 1943 the British Admiralty's Operational Intelligence Centre produced a breakdown of German U-boat commanders
according to the length of time they had served. The list then comprised of 168 officers. Fifty had served for less than
three months, all but sixteen for less than sixteen months, and only one for more than twenty-five months. That one was
Peter Cremer. By the time of the Allied Invasion in June 1944, among all the officers who had served with him since his
first patrol in May 1941, only one survived. Cremer was the only U-boat commander to have sailed from German bases in
western France since that year and lived to tell of it." That itself is a pretty staggering passage. I wonder how much the
criticisms of the various commanders are influenced by the times in which they served. Kretschmer, for example, served from
September 1939 to his capture in March 1941 while Cremer took command of U-333 in August 1941. I've not looked up the dates
for the others, but I'd be interested to know how different things became as the war steadily turned against them (Cremer
does emphasise that the morale of the service didn't really decline much despite the increasingly desperate circumstances,
itself a pretty remarkable achievement). Interesting video as always. Highly recommend Cremer's book to anyone who's not
read it. Cheers
JagerLange
2 months ago
Vause wrote a
book on Wolfgang Lueth, a very good book on an interesting (and potentially controversial) man.
LIVERPOOLSCOTTISH4 years ago Das
Boot is one of the finest anti-war films ever made. I watched it as a 13 year old when it first
aired in the UK in 1984. As I watched the story unfold, I gradually ceased to think of the crew
as the German 'enemy,' but human beings trying to survive in the most awful circumstances. An
incredibly powerful piece of film work. It ranks alongside the British film. 'The Cruel Sea.'
RESPECT to Germany from Britain! rederick Marino3 years ago The
film Das Boot and it's soundtrack are the purest of art and timeless,....The talent of the
actors so far removes the element of just acting out parts, that the reality and emotion put
forth by them has had a long lasting, and personal affect. Truth in it's purest form is the
best summary I can give of this film. Kod Biblii3 years ago War
is stupid as it is. One clever man sad: "for all who did take the sword, by the sword shall
perish". And it is so.
I encourage you to give the Escobar article a second reading. I just did to make sure I knew what it was saying. I think karlof1
is making the right points from it.
The collaboration between Saudia Arabia and Russia is a very small part of the article, and no one disputes that this collaboration
is occurring. Russia may even be part of OPEC soon, if it chooses. The relationship works against the US but it's not specifically
made for this reason. Read Adam Garrie's take on this to see that the moves into OPEC by Russia in recent years are clearly from
its own interest as a hugely major supplier, and that Saudi Arabia needs Russia:
The New Russia-Saudi Partnership Has Riyadh's US Ally Over a Barrel
I just skimmed it a third time and I don't see Escobar saying anywhere that the Saudi-Russia relationship is to kill US shale.
He does say that both Russia and Iran are interested in countering it. I think the point here is that all serious oil producers
with profitable reserves take alarm at the US shale oil because it's hard to say that it's a real commodity with an inbuilt profitability.
It's a short-term entry into the market that can serve to disrupt the market temporarily, but it has no staying power. I suspect
most nations would prefer it simply not intrude.
No one actually has to act against US shale - it's something of a pretender in the real oil world anyway, and this has long
been commented upon. Escobar's point that the US shale is largely a myth is not a new concept. At best the reserve will deplete
within 15 years, and that's at best - along the way it will destroy the US potable water table. And its intrinsic value is far
from clear, since the entire industry is dubiously financed using relatively free Federal Reserve money. As Escobar points out,
many call $100 per barrel the profit threshold for shale - that's a ludicrously high bar for profitability in the oil world.
Much of Escobar's article was about the relationship between Russia and Iran, and it served also as a very good primer in world
oil and petro-currency numbers. I found it pretty sound.
"... You don't need to give use Northstream 2. We will build it ourselves. ..."
"... Nordstream II only blocking party is Denmark, and they can and will bypass it at some price, if need be. ..."
"... Almost all of the countries that Nord Stream 2 passes through have signed on to its construction. The only holdout is Denmark. In response Gazprom has said it will reroute the pipeline through international waters. There is nothing the US can do about that and Denmark can say goodbye to its share of transit fees. ..."
"... A lot of that sort of crap was being pumped out by trolls and regulars alike a few weeks back on Putin, Nutty and SW Syria. Putin had done a deal and was giving SW Syria to nutty cetra cetra. Like Putin and Xi, Iran and others are too stupid to realize they have to work together against US attacks. ..."
"... Russia has to defend Iran. There is no chance that Putin will sell it to Trump. Once again we see the dreaded "US can do anything" disease arising. In fact US options are limited and evaporating. ..."
"... The most likely outcome of the 'summit'is a renewal or strengthening of old agreements on arms control and much high sounding chatter: in geopolitics the die is cast. ..."
Almost all of the countries that Nord Stream 2 passes through have signed on to its
construction. The only holdout is Denmark. In response Gazprom has said it will reroute the
pipeline through international waters. There is nothing the US can do about that and Denmark
can say goodbye to its share of transit fees.
Also Crimea is non-negotiable for Russia. It is Russian territory irrespective of what
happens.
A lot of that sort of crap was being pumped out by trolls and regulars alike a few weeks back
on Putin, Nutty and SW Syria. Putin had done a deal and was giving SW Syria to nutty cetra
cetra. Like Putin and Xi, Iran and others are too stupid to realize they have to work
together against US attacks.
Russia has to defend Iran. There is no chance that Putin will sell it to Trump.
Once again we see the dreaded "US can do anything" disease arising. In fact US options are
limited and evaporating.
Incidentally it is very easy and probably wise to promise the US, in June, not to buy oil in
November. It costs nothing and fits into bazaar bargaining strategies.
The most likely outcome of the 'summit'is a renewal or strengthening of old agreements on
arms control and much high sounding chatter: in geopolitics the die is cast.
"... The Iranians will lose marketspace, sure, but the inevitable increase of the price of oil will somewhat soften the blow. And anything over $100 per barrel, along with a stronger dollar, is proven to be detrimental to energy importing countries. It will be painful to keep the economy rolling. ..."
Oil will continue to flow from Iran, there simply isn't a significant supply stemming from
the Saudi-Russia alliance or US shale to fill the gap.
The Iranians will lose marketspace,
sure, but the inevitable increase of the price of oil will somewhat soften the blow. And
anything over $100 per barrel, along with a stronger dollar, is proven to be detrimental to
energy importing countries. It will be painful to keep the economy rolling.
And when there's less appetite for oil; the price of oil crashes resulting in another big
financial crash (due to bad dept) followed by another round of austerity measures which
spells political turmoil in a number of countries. And the landscape gradually changes.
So Trump asked the Saudis to pump 2 million more barrels per day to offset Iranian exports?
Daffy!. Saudis do not have a spare barrel, let alone 2 million. Ask Simmons. Oh wait, he
has been offed:
LONDON(Reuters) - The leader of Saudi Arabia has assured U.S. President Donald Trump that
the Kingdom can raise oil production if needed and the country has 2 million barrels per
day of spare capacity that could be deployed to help cool down oil prices to compensate for
falling output in Venezuela and Iran.
In a tweet on Saturday, Trump said Saudi Arabia had agreed to increase output by up to
this amount, although a subsequent statement from the White House rowed back on this
assertion.
Either way, the kingdom, OPEC's biggest member, can barely raise output by 1 million bpd
to 11 million bpd and even that would be difficult, according to industry analysts who
forecast a further oil price rally due to a lack of new supply.
Below are comments from some leading OPEC analysts:
[ED: one of several cited below]
"The Saudis do not have 2 million bpd of spare capacity as it would imply production of 12
million bpd. They can likely produce a maximum of 11 million and even that will be running
their system at stress levels," said Ross.
He added that with a potential output fall of up to 1.5 million bpd in Iran and
further outages in Venezuela and Libya, the world could be short of 2 million bpd of oil
output without an increase in Saudi output by the end of the year."
Pepe declares US shale to be a myth, but then says KSA and Russia have teamed up to fight. Us
production figures also left out. Disappointing piece from Pepe, especially this glaring
contradiction where KSA and Russia has to team up to fight what he calls a myth.
Pepe's referring to the assumed longevity of shale which is proven to be a gross lie. I can
provide documentation about that but it will have to wait until I have more time to work.
karlof1
Ok so according to Pepe Russia and KSA are joining forces to fight this gross lie.
either shale is a real and major threat, or Russia and KSA are not joining forces. That is
the glaring contradiction in Pepes piece. the other option is that both Russia and KSA both
of which have some knowledge of oil are mistaken about US shale.
Already have Syria? Not really. Heard of the SDF occupying the North-Eastern third of
Syria. If Trump & Putin can't come to an agreement on Iran what's the bet Trump decides
to pump money, weapons and US troops into North-Eastern Syria to fully support the Kurds?
NordStream II? Sure, it will be built, but Trump can sanction Germany and German industry
- ie automakers - heavily if he so wishes. He might do. He can blame NordStream II. He's
certainly been talking about it.
There are certainly ways and means Trump can create huge trouble for Germany/Russia in
regards to NordStream II even if it is built.
Crimea? Yeah, Russia has it but it is also used as the bludgeon to impose sanctions on
Russia. Perhaps recognising Crimea as part of Russia and dropping all sanctions on Russia
will be offered to Putin in return for Russia staying out of any conflict regarding Iran in
2019.
I'd hardly say Trump has nothing to bargain.
Besides, why would Putin select Medvedev as Prime Minister again despite Medvedev being
obviously a Euro-Atlanticist?
I'd also add - who do you think Russia fears in the future decades.
Is it a decaying Europe/EU who nevertheless can buy lots of Russian goods including oil
& gas obviously?
Or do Russia fear a rising China that always has one eye on the Russian Far East as a
possible place for expansion to take care of their oil & gas & mineral needs?
I suspect - and you can look to the history of Russia/China relations for this - that
Russia retains a more existential fear of China than anyone else.
Russia always clearly seeks to balance Europe/EU/US/Atlantic against China and others.
Where does Iran fit in all this? If Iran is taken out who benefits? Doesn't Iran being
taken out strengthen Russia's hand vis-a-vis China in terms of oil & gas? I'd say it
does. Certainly. Without Iranian oil & gas China becomes more dependent on who?
RUSSIA!
So I bet Russian thought would tend to say to China. Look, we are not going to put
ourselves on the line to defend Iran. But hey, if you want to do that we'll support you doing
so, afterall, Iran is of a more of a vital strategic interest to you than us.
We defended Syria, we can't defend anyone and you can't expect us to defend everyone. If
you want a country to retain its independence you have to step up to the plate every now and
then rather than just relying on the Russian military.
And look - we defended Syria - what did you do in Syria's defence?
Just to finish this comment.
In case you haven't noticed the US has put a date of November 4 on stopping the
export/import of Iranian oil. Which is? It is 2 days before the November 6 Mid-Terms...
It's a clear set-up for 2019.
My prediction.
There will be military action against Iran in the first half of 2019.
I suspect March-April-May being the most likely.
At that time you also have Brexit, European Elections (dominated by populists), Ukrainian
Presidential Elections, South African Elections, Indian Elections... It's a big few
months.
My advice? Buy oil & gas in the second half of this year - it's value is likely to
skyrocket in 2019.
What will Iran's response be? I'd say if you are in any of Saudi Gulf Coast, UAE (Dubai
& Abu Dhabi), Kuwait or Bahrain - get out before New Year's!!!
Re: Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Jul 1, 2018 11:14:41 PM | 27
I'm not judging one way or another on what Putin will necessarily do, but clearly Trump's
gambit is to wean Iran off Russian support.
Will it work? Who knows. But Iran clearly has less strategic importance to Russia than
Syria.
Let me ask you a question. Do you think Russia prefers Iranian-Qatari oil & gas
pipelines through Iraq-Syria-Turkey to Europe or would Russia prefer Saudi-UAE-Qatari oil
& gas pipelines to Europe??
Any effort to understand US foreign policy from actual US interests is a futile exercise in
frustration. US foreign policy is driven by two things:
1. The interests of international financiers (heavily Jewish)
2. The Israeli government.
At consideration for actual US interests is secondary if such things considered at all.
That should be obvious enough to everyone by now.
The one thing that Russia and/or China could do that would do more to avoid another major
power war, is to loudly, clearly and publicly inform the Israelis (the people as well as the
government) that any attack upon Russia, China, or their forces by the US or NATO will be
treated as a direct attack upon Russia/China by the state of Israel and the Jewish people and
these will be utterly destroyed in the first salvo of the Russian/Chinese response.
The second thing that could/should be done, is for Russia to implement a covert campaign
of targeted assassinations of Jewish figures who are actively engaged in efforts to undermine
Russian interests. This would include people like Sheldon Adelson, Haim Saban, key players in
international finance, etc. No Jew anywhere in the world should feel that they are beyond the
reach of Russian retaliation. This is precisely how the Israelis conduct their foreign policy
and Russians should not shirk from engaging fire with fire.
@Julian
I think you underestimate the long term benefit of a stable and prosperous Iran in the
greater Eurasian gambit (Infrastructure Node, stability for the region) vs the short term
gains Russia may achieve from a destroyed and fractured Iran that is in disarray. Russia
doesn't just export energy after all. Exploding oil prices will end up hurting consumer
nations, which in turn affects the global economy and by extension oil producers, there is
always a delayed feedback loop.
Just because someone competes with you in the energy realm doesn't automatically mean you
want that actor weak or destroyed. If that was the case, then why does Russia maintain good
relationships with Azerbaijan, a direct competitor to Russian Gas? Similarly Central Asian
countries are competitors in the gas market for China, yet Russia would never allow these to
be subverted by radical Islamists without acting.
The thing that changed is the size of Iran population. there might be a "population bomb"
in Iran similar to one that detonated in Syria, which allow forming militant opposition to
government with the support of some regions or section of population, financed by and armed by
the West. Essentially replay of Syrian scenario.
Notable quotes:
"... The reason they endlessly get it wrong, of course, is that they listen to the exiles in the US and elsewhere. Those exiles still mainly come from the old upper classes, with their eternal sense of entitlement to power, and their air-tickets ready in their pockets to fly back to Tehran and take back their positions under the Shah. Because of course, the Iranian revolution was one of the first populist movements, where the religious regime appealed directly to "the people", and the upper classes were cut out. The system has worked well - "the people" have continued to vote for the regime, naturally being a majority. ..."
When I say military action I'm suggesting strikes. No invasion - simply not feasible. A
rain of tomahawks onto various Iranian military strikes.
This is also why Russia might be tempted not to intervene.
The question immediately becomes, how does Iran respond? Particularly if all these strikes
are launched from far-off US assets? Ships in the Arabian Sea and planes from Diego Garcia,
Europe or even further afield.
Strikes designed to degrade Iranian military capabilities without perhaps rising to a
level of prompting a full-throated Iranian military response.
I might add - these strikes would not be launched from any US military assets in UAE or
Saudi Arabia, or Israel for that matter - meaning striking back against these targets would
carry certain risks. Ie, Russia might say to Iran, only strike back against whoever carried
out these strikes, not regional enemies who didn't take part in them.
See how the game is played?
Plausible deniability. "Rules" of Engagement. Etc. Etc.
Iran would be in a very difficult position with any response against UAE/Saudi
Arabia/Kuwait being painted as aggression by the wider media.
Do you have any doubt this is how it would be sold?
There was a distinct change earlier this year, after the second US fusillade of cruise
missiles, and the Israeli bombing of "Iranian" bases in Syria.
We were all expecting further military action, but nothing happened, in particular no more
Israeli action, although Iranian forces in Syria were hardly damaged.
Instead they started muttering about subversion of the Iranian state from the inside,
which is what b is writing about here. That was a big sign that the all-out assault on Iran
has been called off.
Why? Evidently because the military say no. The scenario was the same as the one back in
2012, the last time we thought to see Israeli aircraft getting permission from Saudi to do
their bombing runs on Iran, but it didn't happen then, because the Israeli military were
saying no. Evidently the position hasn't changed, I was relieved to discover, although the
propagandists claimed the plan is all worked out now, and Iran has little defence.
Well, internal subversion of the regime, then. Hasn't the US been attempting to do
precisely that for 40 years now, ever since the revolution overthrew the Shah in 1979? What
are the conditions which mean that they are going to succeed now, when they've failed for 40
years?
The reason they endlessly get it wrong, of course, is that they listen to the exiles
in the US and elsewhere. Those exiles still mainly come from the old upper classes, with
their eternal sense of entitlement to power, and their air-tickets ready in their pockets to
fly back to Tehran and take back their positions under the Shah. Because of course, the
Iranian revolution was one of the first populist movements, where the religious regime
appealed directly to "the people", and the upper classes were cut out. The system has worked
well - "the people" have continued to vote for the regime, naturally being a
majority.
I don't want to get into a historical disquisition (which in any case I've said before),
but the reason this works is that there's history behind it - I'm pretty sure that the
original Islamisation of Iran (I don't mean the Arab conquest, but the conversion of the
country) was a popular revolt against the pre-Islamic nationalist aristocracy, who didn't pay
any taxes. The present-day Iranian exiles attach themselves strongly to that old nationalist
aristocracy, including most academics of Iranian origin in western universities. They don't
seem to notice that the class they admire grindingly oppressed the poor, such that it led to
a revolution.
"... Does anybody see a pattern? Pattern similar to Libya, Syria, Ukraine or even Yugoslavia. And I am not talking about US brutal and deadly regime change policy as it is obvious but that those country leaders and ruling class seem to never learn how insidious those suppose deals agreements are not only that they never meant to be really implemented as often they were meritless baseless promises like Iran deal of abandoning nukes Iran never had or Ukraine promise of joining EU that was phony. And deals hardly benefit population at large but included clandestine guarantees of western support for factions of local oligarchy. ..."
Accompanying the demonstrations and illegal occupations of government buildings are in both
cases brutal, criminal attacks on the police and other government forces. In Syria the
violence "muscle" part was done by foreign financed Jihadists while neo-nazi gangs are used
in the Ukraine. The demonstrations and the attacks on the state are planned and go together.
There is nothing "peaceful" in demonstrations that are only the public-relations cover for
attacks on the state. But the foreign politicians and media immediately utter "concerns" and
threats over completely normal government responses to them. It is a scam to justify
"western" "support" for the demonstrators and to further the violence.
The aim is "regime change" of legitimate governments by small minorities. Should the
"regime" resist to that the alternative of destroying the state and the whole society is also
wholeheartedly accepted.
We have since seen similar CIA operations in Venezuela
and most recently in Nicaragua .
The same concept is used to attack Iran. In December peaceful economic protests
were hijacked by violent elements. Last night a similar attempt occurred:
Khoramshar water shortage protest turned violent tonight.
What we know:
- At least 2 protesters shot, possibly by getting close to military zones
- Mobs set 2 museums on fire (reports)
- 1 hour of calm
- No base takeovers (anti-regime journos have claimed)
- Armed bike is suspicious
The scene with the "armed bike" in the video attached to the above tweet can be seen better
in another video . It shows two
"peaceful protesters" on a motorcycle shooting at police with an automatic gun. The shooter is
hit and falls off. Another "peaceful protester" picks up the gun and continues shooting.
The Iran Mission Center will bring together analysts, operations personnel and specialists
from across the CIA to bring to bear the range of the agency's capabilities, including covert
action .
...
To lead the new group, Mr. Pompeo picked a veteran intelligence officer, Michael D'Andrea,
who recently oversaw the agency's program of lethal drone strikes ...
...
Mr. D'Andrea, a former director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, is known among peers as
a demanding but effective manager, and a convert to Islam who works long hours. Some U.S.
officials have expressed concern over what they perceive as his aggressive stance toward Iran
.
The tool the U.S. is using in Iran are operatives of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), a
terror cult that has
been fighting with Saddam's Iraq against Iran and is despised by the Iranian people. When the
U.S. was kicked out of Iraq it transferred the MEK camps from Iraq to Albania where the cult is
now training
its terrorists .
Yesterday a conference of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a political
umbrella controlled by the MEK, was held in Paris. One of the well paid guest speakers was
Donald Trump's lawyer Rudi Giuliani. He acknowledged U.S. involvement in
the protests in Iran:
"Those protests [in Iran] are not happening spontaneously. They are happening because of many
of our people in Albania and many of our people here and throughout the world."
The MEK is just a front group, trained by Mossad and financed with U.S. and Saudi money. It
is not backed by Iranian people. Only half of the attendees of the conference were
Iranians at all:
The other half consisted of an assortment of bored-looking Poles, Czechs, Slovakians, Germans
and Syrians who responded to a Facebook campaign promising travel, food and accommodation to
Paris for a mere €25.
These "color revolution by force" regime change protests are only one of the tools the U.S.
is using to destroy Iran.
Trump wants to end all oil exports from Iran to starve the country of foreign currencies.
Iran's biggest customers are Europe, India and China. The big Europe oil companies have already
folded under Trump's pressure, India
followed and China has still to decide if it wants to take a (costly) stand. Trump is
pressing Saudi Arabia to increase its oil supplies to replace the Iranian oil that can no
longer reach the world market.
Making Iranians poorer is thought to lead to an uprising and regime change. But it is
doubtful that such will work. The identity of the Islamic
Republic is quite strong. It is more likely that the Iranian people will pull together and
accept the hardship while asymmetric Iranian operations slowly destroy the U.S.'s policies.
Saudi oil ports are quite vulnerable targets ...
Within the Trump administration Secretary of State Pompeo and National Security Advisor John
Bolton
are the biggest proponents of regime change in Tehran:
Bolton views the demonstrations that have broken out in Iran in recent months over the state
of the country's economy as an indication of the regime's weakness. He has told Trump that
increased U.S. pressure could lead to the regime's collapse.
One person who recently spoke with senior White House officials on the subject summarized
Bolton view in the words: "One little kick and they're done."
Secretary of Defense Mattis is said to be opposed to regime change in Iran. He fears that
such an effort might lead to a larger Middle East war. Trump will likely fire him soon. Sheldon
Adelson, the Zionist billionaire who financed Trump's campaign, paid Bolton and supports
Netanyahoo, will have Trump ears. He demands regime change in Iran no matter what.
Regime change in Iran is not just a Trump administration project. The support for the MEK
nutters is bipartisan. Several Democrats,
including Nancy Pelosi , also spoke at the MEK conference in Paris. The neo-conservative
lunatics are established in both parties. Here is Obama's ambassador to Russia who tried and
failed to implement regime change there:
Michael McFaul @McFaul - 18:21 UTC - 30 Jun 2018
A democratic Iran not only would free Iranians from repressive theocracy but produce closer
ties between our two countries; real security, economic, and moral benefits for both Iranians
and Americans.
To which the father of the neocons responded:
Bill Kristol @BillKristol - 18:29 UTC - 30 Jun 2018
Bill Kristol Retweeted Michael McFaul
Very true. And great to see a bipartisan consensus for regime change in Iran! (It would be
happily ironic if, totally inadvertently, tough sanctions followed by the JCPOA followed by
withdrawal from the deal caused so much whiplash that the regime crumbled.)
Surely, the U.S. will be welcome in Tehran with candy and flowers (not). Such
neo-conservative "moral benefit" nonsense has already led to the disaster of the war on Iraq.
Iran is several times larger. It has a quite modern economy, effective proxy forces and very
significant allies. Any attempt to defeat it militarily will be a hopeless endeavor.
The U.S. has only weak allies in the Middle East. Should a conflict with Iran become hot it
would have its hands full with trying to save them from falling apart.
For now we can expect more protests in Iran that will be hijacked in an attempt to create a
"revolution". There will be U.S. directed proxy attacks by Kurdish and Baluchi forces on iran's
borders. The economic pressure within Iran will increase further.
But all these efforts are likely to fail. Since its Islamic revolution in 1979 every U.S.
attempt to damage Iran or its allies has led to the opposite effect. Every time Iran emerged
stronger than before. It is likely that the current attempt will have a similar result.
Posted by b on July 1, 2018 at 12:21 PM |
Permalink
They can use proxies all they want. For such a large country, ground troops will be needed.
The US will never learn. They think one or two guys with automatic weapons will change it
overnight. It will amount to nothing and will be such a disaster. As a post note: how's those
corruption charges going for Bibi? Any day now, or what?
For what it's worth, Turkey will continue to buy Iranian crudes. So I guess China will not be
the only one. Also, I'll see where Trump takes his trade war with China. Buying Iranian
crudes will probably be a qualitative retaliation.
U.S. policy is pure unabridged International crime, the so called lawyer of Trump's openly
admits to prosecutable crimes. These crimes are spelled out in detail in the UN Charter. The
US congress has ratified the UN Charter making these laws also domestic Law. Beyond
advocating and abetting Murder which is a crime all by itself, which all these people are
openly advocating, supporting and all bread crumbs lead directly back to them ( the people
mentioned here in this piece ), the International crime of advocating the violent overthrow
of a national government is a crime that if not punishable by the UN toothless dog, then the
US Congress is obligated to enforce it as the Charter has become for all practical purposes
US law. Additionally of course unilateral Sanctions are a very similar serious violation of
the UN Charter. How in the Hell these people escape prosecution is quite a clever trick, the
World and everybody in it needs to stand up and vocally condemn U.S. policies, and that is
happening, as the condemnation grows louder and more frequent, the Uncle Sam snake will
hopefully slither back into it's hole.
Does anybody see a pattern? Pattern similar to Libya, Syria, Ukraine or even Yugoslavia. And
I am not talking about US brutal and deadly regime change policy as it is obvious but that
those country leaders and ruling class seem to never learn how insidious those suppose deals
agreements are not only that they never meant to be really implemented as often they were
meritless baseless promises like Iran deal of abandoning nukes Iran never had or Ukraine
promise of joining EU that was phony. And deals hardly benefit population at large but
included clandestine guarantees of western support for factions of local oligarchy.
And that was real aim of the agreement sowing corruption and political division , after
cutting off economy and create crisis they offered deals aimed at fracturing ruling elite by
politics of division and financial reward or penalty and when internal divisions seems
settled and internal economic/ political deals are made after filthy compromises for private
gain, US breaks the deal causing internal regime blaming game that exposes behind the backs
of the people rotten dealings and betrayals weaken previously strong popular support of
leadership and after that hiring militant western paid proxies using rage of population and
diminishing political control of fractured establishment unleash of violence of chaos and
economic depression.
After the deal trust of Iranian people to leadership and that includes political and
religious leadership was shuttered and due to greed of ruling elites it is going into
submission to US via palace coup regime change or collapse into isolation and pure
dictatorship and terror and Russia and China meek response to Western belligerence
contributed to Iran situation.
While western imperial aggression is in driver of the events one cannot ignore significant
contributions of local oligarchy abetting the situation because of they greed and hunger for
power while people have no say, nobody really supports they interests exactly as it is in the
west.
Iran is not negotiable.
The success of the BRI depends on it being free of the empire's influence.
You either control both Afghanistan and Pakistan together, or Iran alone to throttle
eurasia. With Pakistan now in the SCO camp a US move is logical, psychopathic and doomed
to failure.Neither Russia or China will stand idly by.
Not only is America's mainstream media generally awful, the quality of information provided
by their think tanks is often poor.
Here's the Deputy Director of Foreign Policy and Senior Fellow from the Center for Middle
East Policy of the Brookings Institution on the mind set of the Iranian people:
"But Iranians are wildly nationalistic and have been steeped in an especially
conspiratorial interpretation of the role of the United States and other great powers in
their own history. The 1953 coup, in which America and Britain expedited the downfall of a
populist prime minister, has been assimilated as an article of faith about U.S. meddling and
its counterproductive consequences."
"expedited the downfall..." ?? that's some serious self-delusional scholarship.
"... Although Trump touted the study as a way to "rebuild" the U.S. military when he ordered it in May 2017, economic motives were clearly a crucial factor. Navarro typically cited the importance of a "healthy, growing economy and a resilient industrial base," identifying weapons spending as a key element in achieving such goals. ..."
Other than shouting about building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, one of Donald Trump's
most frequently proclaimed promises on the 2016 campaign trail was the launching of a
half-trillion-dollar plan to repair America's crumbling infrastructure (employing large
numbers of workers in the process). Eighteen months into his administration, no credible
proposal for anything near that scale has been made. To the extent that the Trump
administration has a plan at all for public investment, it involves pumping up Pentagon
spending, not investing in roads, bridges, transportation, better Internet access, or other
pressing needs of the civilian economy.
Not that President Trump hasn't talked about investing in infrastructure. Last February,
he even proposed a scheme that, he claimed, would boost the country's infrastructure with
$1.5 trillion in spending over the next decade. With a typical dose of hyperbole, he
described it as "the biggest and boldest infrastructure investment in American
history."
Analysts from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania -- Trump's alma mater
-- beg to differ. They
note that the plan actually involves only $200 billion in direct federal investment, less
than one-seventh of the total promised. According to Wharton's experts, much of the extra
spending, supposedly leveraged from the private sector as well as state and local
governments, will never materialize. In addition, were such a plan launched, it would, they
suggest, fall short of its goal by a cool trillion dollars. In the end, the spending levels
Trump is proposing would have "little to no impact" on the nation's gross domestic product.
To add insult to injury, the president has
exerted next to no effort to get even this anemic proposal through Congress, where it's
now dead
in the water .
There is, however, one area of federal investment on which Trump and the Congress have
worked overtime with remarkable unanimity to increase spending: the Pentagon, which is slated
to receive more than
$6 trillion over the next decade. This year alone increases will bring total spending on
the Pentagon and related agencies (like the Department of Energy where work on nuclear
warheads takes place) to $716
billion . That $6-trillion, 10-year figure represents more than 30 times as much direct
spending as the president's $200 billion infrastructure plan.
In reality, Pentagon spending is the Trump administration's substitute for a true
infrastructure program and it's guaranteed to deliver public investments, but neglect just about every area
of greatest civilian need from roads to water treatment facilities.
The Pentagon's Covert Industrial Policy
One reason the Trump administration has chosen to pump money into the Pentagon is that
it's the path of least political resistance in Washington. A combination of fear, ideology,
and influence peddling radically skews "debate" there in favor of military outlays above all
else. Fear -- whether of terrorism, Russia, China, Iran, or North Korea -- provides one
pillar of support for the habitual overfunding of the Pentagon and the rest of the national
security state (which in these years has had a combined
trillion-dollar annual budget). In addition, it's generally accepted in Washington that
being tagged "soft on defense" is the equivalent of political suicide, particularly for
Democrats. Add to that the millions of dollars spent by the
weapons industry on lobbying and campaign contributions, its routine practice of hiring
former Pentagon and military officials, and the way it strategically places defense-related
jobs in key states and districts, and it's easy to see how the president and Congress might
turn to arms spending as the basis for a covert industrial policy.
The Trump plan builds on the Pentagon's already prominent role in the economy. By now,
it's the largest
landowner in the country, the
biggest institutional consumer of fossil fuels, the most
significant source of funds for advanced government research and development, and a
major investor in the manufacturing sector. As it happens, though, expanding the
Pentagon's economic role is the least
efficient way to boost jobs, innovation, and economic growth.
Unfortunately, there is no organized lobby or accepted bipartisan rationale for domestic
funding that can come close to matching the levers of influence that the Pentagon and the
arms industry have at their command. This only increases the difficulty Congress has when it
comes to investing in infrastructure, clean energy, education, or other direct paths toward
increasing employment and economic growth.
Former congressman Barney Frank once labeled the
penchant for using the Pentagon as the government's main economic tool "weaponized
Keynesianism" after economist John Maynard Keynes's theory that government spending
should pick up the slack in investment when private-sector spending is insufficient to
support full employment. Currently, of course, the official unemployment rate is low by
historical standards. However,
key localities and constituencies , including the industrial Midwest, rural areas, and
urban ones with significant numbers of black and Hispanic workers, have largely been left
behind. In addition, millions of "discouraged workers" who want a job
but have given up actively looking for one aren't even counted in the official unemployment
figures, wage growth has
been stagnant for years, and the inequality gap between the 1% and
the rest of America is already in Gilded Age
territory.
Such economic distress was crucial to Donald Trump's rise to power. In campaign 2016, of
course, he endlessly denounced unfair trade agreements, immigrants, and corporate flight as
key factors in the plight of what became a significant part of his political base: downwardly
mobile and displaced industrial workers (or those who feared that this might be their future
fate).
The Trump Difference
Although insufficient, increases in defense manufacturing and construction can help areas
where employment in civilian manufacturing has been lagging. Even as it's expanded, however,
defense spending has come to play an ever-smaller role in the U.S. economy, falling
from 8%-10% of the gross domestic product in the 1950s and 1960s to under 4% today. Still, it
remains crucial to the economic base in defense-dependent
locales like southern California, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan,
Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and Washington state. Such places, in turn,
play an outsized political role in Washington because their congressional representatives
tend to cluster on the armed services, defense appropriations, and other key committees, and
because of their significance on the electoral map.
A long-awaited Trump administration "defense industrial base" study should be considered a
tip-off that the president and his key officials see Pentagon spending as the way to
economincally prime the pump. Note, as a start, that the study was overseen not by a defense
official but by the president's economics and trade czar, Peter Navarro, whose formal title
is White House director of trade and industrial policy. A main aim of the study is to find a
way to bolster smaller defense firms that subcontract to giants like Boeing, Raytheon, and
Lockheed Martin.
Although Trump touted the study as a way to "rebuild" the U.S. military when he ordered it
in May 2017, economic motives were clearly a crucial factor. Navarro typically
cited the importance of a "healthy, growing economy and a resilient industrial base,"
identifying weapons spending as a key element in achieving such goals. The CEO of the
Aerospace Industries Association, one of the defense lobby's most powerful trade groups,
underscored Navarro's point when, in July 2017, he insisted that "our industry's
contributions to U.S. national security and economic well-being can't be taken for granted."
(He failed to explain how an industry that absorbs more than
$300 billion per year in Pentagon contracts could ever be "taken for granted.")
Trump's defense-industrial-base policy tracks closely with proposals put forward by Daniel
Goure of the military-contractor-funded Lexington Institute in a December 2016
article titled "How Trump Can Invest in Infrastructure and Make America Great Again."
Goure's main point: that Trump should make military investments -- like building naval
shipyards and ammunition plants -- part and parcel of his infrastructure plan. In doing so,
he caught the essence of the arms industry's case regarding the salutary effects of defense
spending on the economy:
"Every major military activity, whether production of a new weapons system, sustainment of
an existing one or support for the troops, is imbedded in a web of economic activities and
supports an array of businesses. These include not only major defense contractors such as
Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon, but a host of middle-tier and even
mom-and-pop businesses. Money spent at the top ripples through the economy. Most of it is
spent not on unique defense items, but on products and services that have commercial markets
too."
What Goure's analysis neglects, however, is not just that every government investment
stimulates multiple sectors of the economy, but that virtually any other kind would have a
greater ripple
effect on employment and economic growth than military spending does. Underwritten by the
defense industry, his analysis is yet another example of how the arms lobby has distorted
economic policy and debate in this country.
These days, it seems as if there's nothing the military won't get involved in. Take
another recent set of "security" expenditures in what has already
become a billion-dollar-plus business: building and maintaining detention centers for
children, mainly unaccompanied minors from Central America, caught up in the Trump
administration's brutal security crackdown on the U.S.-Mexico border. One company, Southwest
Key, has already
received a $955 million government contract to work on such facilities. Among the other
beneficiaries is the major defense contractor General
Dynamics , normally known for making tanks, ballistic-missile-firing submarines, and the
like, not ordinarily ideal qualifications for taking care of children.
Last but not least, President Trump has worked overtime to tout his promotion of U.S. arms
sales as a jobs program. In a May 2018 meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at
the White House (with reporters in attendance), he typically
brandished a map that laid out just where U.S. jobs from Saudi arms sales would be
located. Not coincidentally, many of them would be in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan,
Ohio, and Florida that had provided him with his margin of victory in the 2016 elections.
Trump had already crowed
about such Saudi deals as a source of "jobs, jobs, jobs" during his May 2017 visit to Riyadh,
that country's capital. And he claimed
on one occasion -- against all evidence -- that his deals with the Saudi regime for arms and
other equipment could create "millions of jobs."
The Trump administration's decision to blatantly put jobs and economic benefits for U.S.
corporations above human rights considerations and strategic concerns is likely to have
disastrous consequences. Its continued
sales of bombs and other weapons to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, for
example, allows them to go on prosecuting a
brutal war in Yemen that has already killed thousands of civilians and put millions more
at risk of death from famine and disease. In addition to being morally reprehensible, such an
approach could turn untold numbers of Yemenis and others across the Middle East into U.S.
enemies -- a high price to pay for a few thousand jobs in the arms sector.
Pentagon Spending Versus a Real Infrastructure Plan
While the Trump administration's Pentagon spending will infuse new money into the economy,
it's certainly a misguided way to spur economic growth. As University of Massachusetts
economist Heidi Garrett-Peltier has demonstrated ,
when it comes to creating jobs, military spending lags far behind investment in civilian
infrastructure, clean energy, health care, or education. Nonetheless, the administration is
moving full speed ahead with its military-driven planning.
In addition, Trump's approach will prove hopeless when it comes to addressing the
fast-multiplying problems of the country's ailing infrastructure. The
$683 billion extra that the administration proposes putting into Pentagon spending over
the next 10 years pales in comparison to the trillions of dollars the American Society of
Civil Engineers claims are needed to modernize U.S. infrastructure. Nor will all of that
Pentagon increase even be directed toward construction or manufacturing activities (not to
speak of basic infrastructural needs like roads and bridges). A significant chunk of it will,
for instance, be dedicated to paying the salaries of the military's massive cadre of civilian and
military personnel or health care and other benefits.
In their study, the civil engineers suggest that failing to engage in a major
infrastructure program could cost the economy $4 trillion and 2.5 million jobs by 2025,
something no Pentagon pump-priming could begin to offset. In other words, using the Pentagon
as America's main conduit for public investment will prove a woeful approach when it comes to
the health of the larger society.
One era in which government spending did directly stimulate increased growth,
infrastructural development, and the creation of well-paying jobs was the 1950s, a period for
which Donald Trump is visibly
nostalgic . For him, those years were evidently the last in which America was truly
"great." Many things were deeply wrong with the country in the fifties -- from rampant
racism, sexism, and the denial of basic human rights to McCarthyite witch hunts -- but on the
economic front the government did indeed play a positive role.
In those years, public investment went far beyond Pentagon spending, which President
Dwight Eisenhower (of " military-industrial
complex " fame) actually tried to rein in. It was civilian investments -- from the
G.I. Bill to increased
incentives for housing construction to the building of an interstate highway system --
that contributed in crucial ways to the economic boom of that era. Whatever its failures and
drawbacks, including the ways in which African-Americans and other minorities were grossly
under-represented when it came to
sharing the benefits, the Eisenhower investment strategy did boost the overall economy in a
fashion the Trump plan never will.
The notion that the Pentagon can play a primary role in boosting employment to any
significant degree is largely a myth that serves the needs of the military-industrial
complex, not American workers or Donald Trump's base. Until the political gridlock in
Washington that prevents large-scale new civilian investments of just about any sort is
broken, however, the Pentagon will continue to seem like the only game in town. And we will
all pay a price for those skewed priorities, in both blood and treasure.
integer @35. Not a fan of George Soros? Ready to peak into the rabbit hole?
Donald Trump has been business partners with George Soros in at least $6 Billion in
properties for more than a decade before his candidacy. They were even codefendants in a RICO
suit (organized crime, as in the Jewish Mafia).
After spending 17 years at Goldman Sachs, Trump's new Treasure Secretary, Steven Mnuchin ran
OneWest Bank in CA. Guess who he worked for? George frigging Soros.
So, Trump is partners with infamous globalist atheist George Soros, Orthodox Jews, Islamic
Extremists, Goldman Sachs and GHW Bush's Carlyle Group.
And one more morsel to ponder. The CEO of CNN (portrayed as rabidly anti-Trump) is one of a
long list of Globalist Zionists who have been Trump supporters for decades.
What is happening in Germany? Is "open borders" that Merkel has championed on its last
legs? It seems that the CSU is worried about the coming elections in Bavaria where AfD might
do much better than expected. Just as the outcome of the Italian elections was for a
government coalition opposed to illegal economic immigration under the guise of asylum for
political persecution.
Hungarian foreign minister in an interview with a snowflake BBC reporter. It seems that
the political trend in central Europe is away from multi-culturalism. Hungary wants to
maintain its culture.
"... The implications for today are almost painfully straightforward: the current combination of deficit spending and tax cuts spells disaster for any hopes of shrinking America's striking inequality gap . Instead, credit-card war spending is already fueling the dramatic levels of wealth inequality that have led some observers to suggest that we are living in a new Gilded Age , reminiscent of the enormous divide between the opulent lifestyles of the elite and the grinding poverty of the majority of Americans in the late nineteenth century. ..."
"... Today's wars are paid for almost entirely through loans -- 60% from wealthy individuals and governmental agencies like the Federal Reserve, 40% from foreign lenders. Meanwhile, in October 2001, when Washington launched the war on terror, the government also initiated a set of tax cuts, a trend that has only continued. The war-financing strategies that President George W. Bush began have flowed on without significant alteration under Presidents Obama and Trump. (Obama did raise a few taxes, but didn't fundamentally alter the swing towards tax cuts.) President Trump's extreme tax "reform" package, which passed Congress in December 2017 -- a gift-wrapped dream for the 1% -- only enlarged those cuts. ..."
"... However little the public may realize it, Americans are already feeling the costs of their post-9/11 wars. Those have, after all, massively increased the Pentagon's base budget and the moneys that go into the expanding national security budget , while reducing the amount of money left over for so much else from infrastructure investment to science. In the decade following September 11, 2001, military spending increased by 50% , while spending on every other government program increased only 13.5%. ..."
Credit-Card Wars
Today's War-Financing Strategies Will Only Increase Inequality
By Stephanie
Savell
In the name of the fight against terrorism, the United States is currently waging "
credit-card wars " in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. Never before has this
country relied so heavily on deficit spending to pay for its conflicts. The consequences are
expected to be ruinous for the long-term fiscal health of the U.S., but they go far beyond the
economic. Massive levels of war-related debt will have lasting repercussions of all sorts. One
potentially devastating effect, a
new study finds, will be more societal inequality.
In other words, the staggering costs of the longest war in American history -- almost 17
years running, since the invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001 -- are being deferred to the
future. In the process, the government is contributing to this country's skyrocketing income
inequality.
Since 9/11, the U.S. has spent
$5.6 trillion on its war on terror, according to the Costs of War Project, which I co-direct, at Brown
University's Watson Institute for
International and Public Affairs . This is a far higher number than the Pentagon's
$1.5 trillion estimate,
which only counts expenses for what are known as "overseas contingency operations," or OCO --
that is, a pot of supplemental money, outside the regular annual budget, dedicated to funding
wartime operations. The $5.6 trillion figure, on the other hand, includes not just what the
U.S. has spent on overseas military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Syria, but
also portions of Homeland Security spending related to counterterrorism on American soil, and
future obligations to care for wounded or traumatized post-9/11 military veterans. The
financial burden of the post-9/11 wars across the Greater Middle East -- and still
spreading , through Africa and other regions -- is far larger than most Americans
recognize.
During prior wars, the U.S. adjusted its budget accordingly by, among other options, raising
taxes to pay for its conflicts. Not so since 2001, when President George W. Bush launched the
"Global War on Terror." Instead, the country has accumulated a staggering amount of debt. Even
if Washington stopped spending on its wars tomorrow, it will still, thanks to those conflicts,
owe more than
$8 trillion in interest alone by the 2050s.
Putting the Gilded Age to Shame
It's hard to fathom what that enormous level of debt will do to our economy and society. A
new Costs of War study by political scientist and historian Rosella Capella Zielinski
offers initial clues about its impact here. She takes a look at how the U.S. has paid for its
conflicts from the War of 1812 through the two World Wars and Vietnam to the present war on
terror. While a range of taxes, bond sales, and other mechanisms were used to raise funds to
fight such conflicts, no financial strategy has relied so exclusively on borrowing -- until
this century. Her study also explores how each type of war financing has affected inequality
levels in this country in the aftermath of those conflicts.
The implications for today are almost painfully straightforward: the current combination
of deficit spending and tax cuts spells disaster for any hopes of shrinking America's striking
inequality gap . Instead, credit-card war spending is already fueling the dramatic levels
of wealth inequality that have led some observers to suggest that we are living in a new
Gilded Age , reminiscent
of the enormous divide between the opulent lifestyles of the elite and the grinding poverty of
the majority of Americans in the late nineteenth century.
Capella Zielinski carefully breaks down what effects the methods used to pay for various
wars have had on subsequent levels of social inequality. During the Civil War, for example, the
government relied primarily on loans from private donors. After that war was over, the American
people had to pay those loans back with interest, which proved a bonanza for financial elites,
primarily in the North. Those wealthy lenders became wealthier still and everyone else, whose
taxes reimbursed them, poorer.
In contrast, during World War I, the government launched a war-bond campaign that targeted
low-income people. War savings stamps were offered for as little as 25 cents and war savings
certificates in denominations starting at $25. Anyone who could make a small down payment could
buy a war bond for $50 and cover the rest of what was owed in installments. In this way, the
war effort promoted savings and, in its wake, a striking number of low-income Americans were
repaid with interest, decreasing the inequality levels of that era.
Taxation strategies have varied quite significantly in various war periods as well. During
World War II, for instance, the government raised tax rates five times between 1940 and 1944,
levying progressively steeper ones on higher income brackets (up to 65% on incomes over $1
million). As a result, though government debt was substantial in the aftermath of a global
struggle fought on many fronts, the impact on low-income Americans could have been far worse.
In contrast, the Vietnam War era began with a tax cut and, in the aftermath of that disastrous
conflict, the U.S. had to deal with unprecedented levels of inflation. Low-income households
bore the brunt of those higher costs, leading to greater inequality.
Today's wars are paid for almost entirely through loans -- 60% from wealthy individuals
and governmental agencies like the Federal Reserve, 40% from foreign lenders. Meanwhile, in
October 2001, when Washington launched the war on terror, the government also initiated a set
of tax cuts, a trend that has only continued. The war-financing strategies that President
George W. Bush began have flowed on without significant alteration under Presidents Obama and
Trump. (Obama did raise a few taxes, but didn't fundamentally
alter the swing towards tax cuts.) President Trump's extreme tax "reform" package, which
passed Congress in December 2017 -- a gift-wrapped dream
for the 1% -- only enlarged those cuts.
In other words, in this century, Washington has combined the domestic borrowing patterns of
the Civil War with the tax cuts of the Vietnam era. That means one predictable thing: a rise in
inequality in a country in which the income inequality gap is already heading
for record territory.
Just to add to the future burden of it all, this is the first time government wartime
borrowing has relied so heavily on foreign debt. Though there is no way of knowing how this
will affect inequality here in the long run, one thing is already obvious: it will transfer
wealth outside the country.
Economist
Linda Bilmes has
argued that there's another new factor involved in Washington's budgeting of today's wars.
In every other major American conflict, after an initial period, war expenditures were
incorporated into the regular defense budget. Since 2001, however, the war on terror has been
funded mainly by supplemental appropriations (those Overseas
Contingency Operations funds), subject to very little oversight. Think of the OCO as a
slush fund
that insures one thing: the true impact of this era's war funding won't hit until far later
since such appropriations are exempt from spending caps and don't have to be
offset elsewhere in the budget.
According to Bilmes, "This process is less transparent, less accountable, and has rendered
the cost of the wars far less visible." As a measure of the invisible impact of war funding in
Washington and elsewhere, she
calculates that, while the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense discussed war
financing in 79% of its hearings during the Vietnam era, since 9/11, there have been similar
mentions at only 17% of such hearings. For its part, the Senate Finance Committee has discussed
war-funding strategy in a thoroughgoing way only once in almost 17 years.
Hidden Tradeoffs and Deferred Costs
The effect of this century's unprecedented budgetary measures is that, for the most part,
the American people don't feel the financial weight of the wars their government is waging --
or rather, they feel it, but don't recognize it for what it is. This corresponds remarkably
well with the wars themselves, fought by a non-draft
military in distant lands and largely
ignored in this country (at least since the vast public demonstrations against the coming
invasion of Iraq ended in the spring of 2003). The
blowback from those wars, the way they are coming home, has also been ignored, financially
and otherwise.
However little the public may realize it, Americans are already feeling the costs of
their post-9/11 wars. Those have, after all, massively increased the Pentagon's base budget and
the moneys that go into the expanding
national security budget , while reducing the amount of money left over for so much else
from infrastructure
investment to science. In the decade following September 11, 2001, military spending
increased by
50% , while spending on every other government program increased only 13.5%.
How exactly does this trade-off work? The National
Priorities Project explains it well. Every year the federal government negotiates levels of
discretionary spending (as distinct from mandatory spending, which largely consists of Social
Security and Medicare). In 2001, there were fewer
discretionary funds allocated to defense than to non-defense programs, but the ensuing war on
terror dramatically inflated military spending relative to other parts of the budget. In 2017,
military and national security spending accounted for 53% of discretionary spending. The 2018
congressionally approved omnibus spending package allocates $700 billion for the military and
$591 billion for non-military purposes, leaving that proportion about the same. (Keep in mind,
that those totals don't even include all the money flowing into that Overseas Contingency
Operations fund). President Trump's proposals for future spending, if accepted by Congress,
would ensure that, by 2023, the proportion of military spending would soar to
65% .
In other words, the rise in war-related military expenditures entails losses for other areas
of federal funding. Pick your issue: crumbling bridges, racial justice, housing, healthcare,
education, climate change -- and it's all being affected by how much this country spends on
war.
Nonetheless, thanks to its credit-card version of war financing, the government has
effectively deferred most of the financial costs of its unending conflicts to the future. This,
in turn, contributes to how
detached most Americans tend to feel from the very fact that their country is now eternally
at war. Political scientist and policy analyst Sarah Kreps argues that Americans become
invested in how a war is being conducted only when they're asked to pay for it. In her
examination of the history of the financing of American wars, she
writes , "The visibility and intrusiveness of taxes are exactly what make individuals
scrutinize the service for which the resources are being used." If there were war taxes today,
their unpopularity would undoubtedly lead Americans to question the costs and consequences of
their country's wars in ways now missing from today's public conversation.
Pressing for a real war budget, though, is not only a mechanism to alert Americans to the
effects (on them) of the wars their government is fighting. It is also a potential lever
through which citizens could affect the country's foreign policy and pressure elected
officials to bring those wars to an end. Some civic groups and activists from across the
political spectrum have indeed been pushing to reduce the Pentagon budget, bloated by war,
corruption , and
fear-mongering . They are, however, up against both the power of an ascendant
military-industrial complex and wars that have been organized, in their funding and in so many
other ways, not to be noticed.
Those who care about this country's economic future would be remiss not to include today's
war financing strategy among the country's most urgent fiscal challenges. Anyone interested in
improving American democracy and the well-being of its people should begin by connecting the
budgetary dots. The more money this country spends on military activities, the more public
coffers will be depleted by war-related interest payments and the less public funding there
will be for anything else. In short, it's time for Americans worried about living in a country
whose inequality gap could soon surpass that of the Gilded Age to begin paying real attention
to our " credit-card
wars ."
2018-06-26 (Rudaw) When US sanctions were placed on Iran in 2012, the four Asian countries
were given a waiver, requiring them to reduce their business with Iran by 20 percent each six
months rather than halt trade immediately.
The Asian oil buyers are less likely to receive a similar waiver from the Trump
administration Iran may need to resort to a bartering system to continue selling its oil.
Under the 2012 US sanctions, India imported $10.5 billion worth of goods, mainly crude oil,
and exported commodities worth $2.4 billion.
The barter system will be inefficient, as Iran's oil sales are greater than the value of
what it imports from these countries. It also cannot use the currencies of these countries
for international business transactions. http://www.rudaw.net/english/business/250620181
2018-06-26 (Bloomberg) U.S. presses allies to cut Iran oil imports to *zero* by November
* U.S. isn't granting waivers on Iranian oil imports ban
(State Department Official)
"The global economy looks like the Titanic right now. The iceberg is the incoming oil price
spike and the complacent investment community won't even know what hits them. "
-Baby Domer
So, an important question for this board is, could we have reached peak oil production this
year? The Permian will increase substantially into 2020. However, that will be partially
offset by the Venezuelan drop. Add in other declines, and the drop could easily offset any US
production. At some point, OPEC will see that extra production will never meet demand, and
not just waste what they have.
It depends totally on political scenarios, not technical and not financial.
There's still a lot of growth potential to offset the declines:
– Permian
– Other US shales to a degree
– Kanada with it's vast heavy oil ressources
– Venezuela
– Russia
– Iraq
– Iran
– SA (nobody knows), at least they can call to their spare capacity
– Kuwait
– UAE
-Brasil
That's 10 locations, some are politically knocked out ( Ven, Iran partly) from growth.
The more important thing for world economy is: How long can they support the consumption
growth, additional to the decline of all other countries.
I think peak oil is somewhat more melodramatic: When Ghawar finally dries up, we have
reached peak oil. It will dry fast, due to all these horizontal tapping keeping the oil
flowing until the last feed of oil column. And replacing these 5 mb/d will require an
additional fully developed Permian – something not in sight at the moment.
Libya's Tripoli-based NOC Says Exports from Benghazi-based NOC in the east are "illegal"
2018-05-26 BENGHAZI, Libya/TUNIS (Reuters) – Eastern Libyan commander Khalifa
Haftar's forces have handed control of oil ports to a National Oil Corporation (NOC) based in
the east, a spokesman said on Monday, a move the internationally recognized NOC in Tripoli
dismissed as illegal.
If implemented, the transfer of control would create uncertainty for buyers of Libyan oil who
normally go through NOC Tripoli.
In comments later confirmed to Reuters, Ahmed Mismari, spokesman of Haftar's Libya National
Army (LNA), said on television that no tanker would be allowed to dock at eastern ports
without permission from an NOC entity based in the main eastern city, Benghazi.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-libya-oil/east-libyan-forces-say-oil-ports-handed-to-eastern-based-noc-idUSKBN1JL2DQ
Tripoli-based NOC https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DgkrEMeXUAADLGS.jpg
Some kind of summary with some details from Libya (from comments section in HFIR article
above – Game Over – Oil Prices Are Going Higher).
Nigeria and Libya are also becoming disruption hotspots. Three of Nigeria's main crude
streams (Forcados, Bonny Light and Qua Iboe) are either halted or severely disrupted, but
violence in Libya grabbed the recent headlines. Militias led by Ibrahim al Jathran, former
head of the local Petroleum Facilities Guard, attacked and briefly seized the 0.35 mb/d Es
Sider and 0.22 mb/d Ras Lanuf terminals from Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA).
Although the LNA are back in control, Libyan oil output has collapsed from 0.95 mb/d to
around 0.55-0.60 mb/d because of the fighting and NOC has declared force majeure at the two
ports (along with apparently unrelated technical issues undermining production at AGOCO-run
fields in the east).
After around 10 days of fighting, the extent of the damage at the two terminals remains
unclear. There is currently no information about the status of Es Sider, which exported
around 0.30 mb/d in the previous three months. The destruction of two storage tanks at Ras
Lanuf, which was exporting around 0.10 mb/d before the clashes, has reduced storage capacity
from 0.95 mb to 0.55 mb. Seven tanks at the terminal had already been damaged in previous
clashes and the destruction of another two leaves only four tanks capable of operating. Once
the fighting is over (and there is a considerable risk of further clashes over the next few
weeks), it will take several days to evaluate the status of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf. This
would be followed by emergency repairs, which could take a week or two, with export capacity
recovering only gradually. Consequently, we expect output to remain at 0.55-0.60 mb/d until
early/mid-July, even as NOC studies options to bypass Ras Lanuf and possibly divert exports
to the Zueitina terminals.
In conclusion: Libya is good for no more than 0.8 Mb/d, but likely less than that in
2018.
The debate seems to be around what effect the risk of secondary sanctions from US
government for international companies will have. Some argue that the US allies and their
companies will not pick a fight over this with the US right now. In either case, it certainly
is not good for the Iranian economy which contracted after the last round of sanctions and
boomed when they were lifted afterwards. Also the Iranians want western equipment and
competence to develop their oil and gas fields (some of their oilfields are somewhat
complicated to develop), and it is not certain Lukoil and russian service companies can be a
good enough replacement.
There are some hurdles with switching customers for large oil volumes. Tanker freight and
insurance services now done by western companies afraid of sanctions will have to be replaced
or the obstacles overcome somehow. But I agree with you that China, while also having a
futures market trading in yuan, will look to Iran when shortage arrives. However the
perception of shortage has still not arrived in oil markets today. Some reduction of export
from Iran is likely both initially and for some time further. Hard to say how much, some
argue that it takes 6-12 months to see the full effects of US sanctions. And once sanctions
now are in place, even if it was untimely given the supply situation in the oil market, it
will not be practical and too confusing as a political move to see them lifted soon (less
than 1 year).
Antony C. Sutton, ´Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution', 1974 New Rochelle,
N.Y.
describes how Wall Street supported bolshevism in order to prevent that German, suppose also
Dutch and other, trade, with Russia was resumed.
WII and the aftermath created the Atlantic alliance.
Just yesterday Pieter Hoekstra, USA ambassador in the Netherlands, stated that Russia
should be punished for MH17 by more sanctions, no new gas pipeline from Russia to
Germany.
What he did not say that this implies our buying of USA gas, 20% more expensive.
The MH17 show, in my opinion is run like the Sept 11 show...
The USA fear about Russia and the EU member states seems to be twofold:
- more trade with Russia makes subjugation of Russia impossible
- more trade with Russia, and the railway connections with China, threaten to turn the USA
into an economic backwater
You seem to be obsessed with neocons, jews etc. Russia is arch-nemesis of the West long
before them. Or we should admit Napoleon and Charles XII of Sweden were manipulated by Masons
or Knight Templars.
Since Western Capitalism arose, Russia stands as anti-system to the West. As a model of
decent society that is possible without usury, exploitation, violence, enslaving and
pillaging other nations – i.e. outside imperialism-colonialism model. Powers that
control the West live in constant fear since with mighty Russia their time is always limited,
and their power is finite.
"Or we should admit Napoleon and Charles XII of Sweden were manipulated by Masons or
Knight Templars."
They were.
Of course, the Freemasons also penetrated Russia under Peter the Great and were necessary
to all revolutionary activity in the Russian Empire from at least the 1820s.
"... In 2015, suicides accounted for over 60 percent of gun deaths in the U.S., while homicides made up around 36 percent of that year's total. Guns are consistently the most common method by which people take their own lives. ..."
"... When veterans return home from chaotic war zones, resuming normal civilian life can present major difficulties. The stresses of wartime create a long-term, sustained "fight-or-flight" response, not only producing physical symptoms such as sweating, shaking or a racing heart rate, but inflicting a mental and moral toll as well. ..."
"... "Over the course of the year I was there, the units I was embedded with lost three men, and all of them were lost to suicide, not to enemy action," Van Buren said. "This left an extraordinary impression on me, and triggered in me some of the things that I write about." ..."
"... If you enjoyed this original article please consider making a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one. ..."
At War With Ourselves: The Domestic Consequences of Foreign Policies June 25, 2018 •
72 Comments
There is a direct connection between gun violence and suicide rates in the United States and America's aggressive foreign policy,
argues Will Porter.
How America's Gun Violence Epidemic May Have Roots in Overseas War Zones
By Will Porter Special to Consortium News
In recent months a string of school shootings in the United States has rekindled the debate
over gun violence, its causes and what can be done to stop it. But amid endless talk of school shootings and AR-15s, a large piece
of the puzzle has been left conspicuously absent from the debate.
Contrary to the notion that mass murderers are at the heart of America's gun violence problem, data from recent years reveals
that the majority of gun deaths are self-inflicted.
In 2015, suicides accounted for
over 60 percent of gun deaths
in the U.S., while homicides made up around 36 percent of that year's total. Guns are consistently the
most common method by which people take their own
lives.
While the causes of America's suicide-driven gun epidemic are complex and myriad, it's clear that one group contributes to the
statistics above all others: military veterans.
Beyond the Physical
According to a
2016 study conducted by the Department of Veterans Affairs, on average some 20 veterans commit suicide every single day, making
them among the most prone to take their own lives compared to people working in other professions. Though they comprise under 9 percent
of the American population, veterans
accounted for 18 percent of suicides in the U.S. in 2014.
When veterans return home from chaotic war zones, resuming normal civilian life can present major difficulties. The stresses of
wartime create a long-term, sustained "fight-or-flight" response, not only producing physical symptoms such as sweating, shaking
or a racing heart rate, but inflicting a mental and moral toll as well.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) accounts for some of the physiological effects of trauma, the "fight-or-flight" response,
but the distinct mental, moral and spiritual anguish experienced by many veterans and other victims of trauma has been termed "
moral injury ."
A better understanding of that concept and the self-harm it motivates could go a long way toward explaining, and ultimately solving,
America's suicide epidemic.
"Moral injury looks beyond the physical and asks who we are as people," Peter Van Buren, a former State Department Foreign Service
officer, said in an interview. "It says that we know right from wrong, and that when we violate right and wrong, we injure ourselves.
We leave a scar on ourselves, the same as if we poked ourselves with a knife."
While not a veteran himself, during his tenure with the Foreign Service Van Buren served for one year alongside American soldiers
at a forward operating base in Iraq. His experiences there would stick with him for life.
"Over the course of the year I was there, the units I was embedded with lost three men, and all of them were lost to suicide,
not to enemy action," Van Buren said. "This left an extraordinary impression on me, and triggered in me some of the things that I
write about."
Van Buren: A profound sense of guilt.
After retiring from the Foreign Service, Van Buren began research for his novel "
Hooper's War ," a fictional account set in WWII Japan. The book centers on American
veteran, Nate Hooper, and explores the psychological costs paid by those who survive a war. Van Buren said if he set the book in
the past, he thought he could better explore the subject matter without the baggage of current-day politics.
In his research, Van Buren interviewed Japanese civilians who were children at the time of the conflict and found surprising parallels
with the soldiers he served with in Iraq. Post-war guilt, he found, does not only afflict the combatants who fight and carry out
grisly acts of violence, but civilians caught in the crossfire as well.
For many, merely living through a conflict when others did not is cause for significant distress, a condition known as "survivor's
guilt."
"In talking with them I heard so many echoes of what I'd heard from the soldiers in Iraq, and so many echoes of what I felt myself,
this profound sense of guilt," Van Buren said.
'We Killed Them'
Whether it was something a soldier did, saw or failed to prevent, feelings of guilt can leave a permanent mark on veterans after
they come home.
Brian Ellison, a combat veteran who served under the National Guard in Iraq in 2004, said he's still troubled by his wartime experiences.
Stationed at a small, under protected maintenance garage in the town of ad-Diwaniyah in a southeastern province of Iraq, Ellison
said his unit was attacked on a daily basis.
"From the day we got there, we would get attacked every night like clockwork -- mortars, RPGs," Ellison said. "We had no protection;
we had no weapons systems on the base."
On one night in April of 2004, after a successful mission to obtain ammunition for the base's few heavy weapons, Ellison's unit
was ready to hit back.
"So we got some rounds for the Mark 19 [a belt-fed automatic grenade launcher] and we basically used it as field artillery, shot
it up in the air and lobbed it in," Ellison said. "Finally on the last night we were able to get them to stop shooting, but that
was because we killed 5 of them. At the time this was something I was proud of. We were like 'We got them, we got our revenge.'"
U.S. military poster. (Health.mil)
"In retrospect, it's like here's this foreign army, and we're in their neighborhood," Ellison said. "They're defending their neighborhood,
but they're the bad guys and we're the good guys, and we killed them. I think about stuff like that a lot."
Despite his guilt, Ellison said he was able to sort through the negative feelings by speaking openly and honestly about his experiences
and actions. Some veterans have a harder time, however, including one of Ellison's closest friends.
"He ended up going overseas like five times," Ellison said. "Now he's retired and he can't even deal with people. He can't
deal with people, it's sad. He was this funny guy, everybody's friend, easy to get along with, now he's a recluse. It's really weird
to see somebody like that. He had three young kids and a happy personality, now he's broken."
In addition to the problems created in their personal relationships, the morally injured also often turn to self-destructive habits
to cope with their despair.
"In the process of trying to shut this sound off in your head -- this voice of conscience -- many people turn to drugs and alcohol
as a way of shutting that voice up, at least temporarily," Van Buren said. "You hope at some point it shuts up permanently . . .
Unfortunately, I think that many people do look for the permanent silence of suicide as a way of escaping these feelings."
A Hero's Welcome?
By now most are familiar with the practice of celebrating veterans as heroes upon their return from war, but few realize what
psychological consequences such apparently benevolent gestures can have.
"I think the healthiest thing a vet can do is to come to terms with reality," Ellison said. "It's so easy to get swept up -- when
we came home off the plane, there was a crowd of people cheering for us. I just remember feeling dirty. I felt like 'I don't want
you to cheer for us,' but at the same time it's comforting. It's a weird dynamic. Like, I could just put this horror out of my mind
and pretend we were heroes."
"But the terrible part is that, behind that there's reality," Ellison said. "Behind that, we know what we were doing; we know
that we weren't fighting for freedom. So when somebody clings onto this 'we were heroes' thing, I think that's bad for them. They
have to be struggling with it internally. I really believe that's one of the biggest things that contributes to people committing
suicide. They're not able to talk about it, not able to bring it to the forefront and come to terms with it."
Unclear Solution
According to the 2016 VA study, 70 percent of veterans who commit suicide are not regular users of VA services.
The Department of Veteran Affairs was set up in 1930 to handle medical care, benefits and burials for veterans, but some 87 years
later, the department is plagued by scandal and mismanagement. Long wait times,
common to
many government-managed
healthcare systems, discourage veterans from seeking the department's assistance, especially those with urgent psychiatric needs.
An independent review was carried out in 2014 by the VA's Inspector General, Richard Griffin, which
found that at one Arizona VA facility, 1,700 veterans were on wait lists, waiting an average of 115 days before getting an initial
appointment.
"People don't generally seek medical help because the [VA] system is so inefficient and ineffective; everyone feels like it's
a waste of time," said a retired senior non-commissioned officer in the Special Operations Forces (SOF) who wished to remain anonymous.
"The system is so bad, even within the SOF world where I work, that I avoid going at all costs," the retired officer said. "I
try to get my guys to civilian hospitals so that they can get quality healthcare instead of military healthcare."
Beyond institutions, however, both Ellison and Van Buren agreed that speaking openly about their experiences has been a major
step on their road back to normalcy. Open dialogue, then, is not only one way for veterans and other victims of trauma to heal, it
may ultimately be the key to solving America's epidemic of gun violence.
The factors contributing to mass murders, school shootings and private crime are, no doubt, important to study, but so long as
suicide is left out of the public discourse on guns, genuine solutions may always be just out of reach.
Will Porter is a journalist who specializes in U.S. foreign policy and Middle East affairs. He writes for the Libertarian
Institute and tweets at @WKPancap.
If you enjoyed this original article please consider
making
a donation to Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this one.
Antony C. Sutton, ´Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution', 1974 New Rochelle,
N.Y.
describes how Wall Street supported bolsjewism in order to prevent that German, suppose also
Dutch and other, trade, with Russia was resumed.
WII and the aftermath created the Atlantic alliance.
Just yesterday Pieter Hoekstra, USA ambassador in the Netherlands, stated that Russia should
be punished for MH17 by more sanctions, no new gas pipeline from Russia to Germany.
What he did not say that this implies our buying of USA gas, 20% more expensive. The MH17
show, in my opinion is run like the Sept 11 show. Or even the holocaust show, constant
reminders.
The USA fear about Russia and the EU member states seems to be twofold:
more trade with Russia, and the railway connections with China, threaten to turn the USA
into an economic backwater
Precisely. US could eventually (20-30 years from now) turn into a country similar to many
Latin American countries: rich in resources, demographically messy and ungovernable, weak
infrastructure, but above all remote and quasi-provincial.
The 'Atlanticist' project is meant to forestall the provincial Latin American future.
Washington does have some tools: dollar domination, military force, Hollywood, technology.
But none of those are necessarily sustainable without also actively messing up
Euro-Russia-China economic convergence. It might require a war to delay the inevitable slow
descend into a backwater across the Atlantic.
From the Bloomberg article: "The U.S. plans to speak with the governments of Turkey, India
and China, all of which import Iranian oil, about finding other supplies."
Iranian condensate will most likely replace US condensate to China as much as possible.
China is the key to if/when this harsh "embargo" of Iran will ease. They have the strength to
stand up against the US and then others will follow suit (e.g. India). A barter system (goods
vs. goods trade) or payment in yuan could probably be a good enough way to avoid american
banking sanctions. But if China wants to stand up against US at this point is uncertain. If
this strangling of Iran is highly successful, it is hard to see the rewards. A high oil price
that will be the tipping point for the global economy in the wrong direction or indirectly
(hopefully not directly – who needs another war now?) overthrow the Iranian government
and thus the creation of new political problems in the country; a repeat of the Iraq
experience almost. I almost forgot that there is the nuclear issue there as well, maybe that
is also a driver
"We have a lot of diplomatic muscle memory for urging, cajoling, negotiating with our
partners to reduce their investments to zero," the official added.
(This official infers that EU countries will soon capitulate to US demands, but does he
believe that, say, India will agree to this? The CNN reporters don't ask.)
"Immigration" has become the dominant issue dividing Europe and the US, yet the most important matter which is driving millions
to emigrate is overlooked is wars.
In this paper we will discuss the reasons behind the massification of immigration, focusing on several issues, namely (1) imperial
wars (2) multi-national corporate expansion (3) the decline of the anti-war movements in the US and Western Europe (4) the weakness
of the trade union and solidarity movements.
We will proceed by identifying the major countries affected by US and EU wars leading to massive immigration, and then turn to
the western powers forcing refugees to 'follow' the flows of profits.
Imperial Wars and Mass Immigration
The US invasions and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq uprooted several million people, destroying their lives, families, livelihood,
housing and communities and undermining there security.
As a result, most victims faced the choice of resistance or flight. Millions chose to flee to the West since the NATO countries
would not bomb their residence in the US or Europe.
Others who fled to neighboring countries in the Middle East or Latin America were persecuted, or resided in countries too poor
to offer them employment or opportunities for a livelihood.
Some Afghans fled to Pakistan or the Middle East but discovered that these regions were also subject to armed attacks from the
West.
Iraqis were devastated by the western sanctions, invasion and occupation and fled to Europe and to a lesser degree the US , the
Gulf states and Iran.
Libya prior to the US-EU invasion was a 'receiver' country accepting and employing millions of Africans, providing them with citizenship
and a decent livelihood. After the US-EU air and sea attack and arming and financing of terrorist gangs, hundreds of thousands of
Sub-Sahara immigrants were forced to flee to Europe. Most crossed the Mediterranean Sea to the west via Italy, Spain, and headed
toward the affluent European countries which had savaged their lives in Libya.
The US-EU financed and armed client terrorist armies which assault the Syrian government and forced millions of Syrians to flee
across the border to Lebanon,Turkey and beyond to Europe, causing the so-called 'immigration crises' and the rise of rightwing anti-immigrant
parties. This led to divisions within the established social democratic and conservative parties,as sectors of the working class
turned anti-immigrant.
Europe is reaping the consequences of its alliance with US militarized imperialism whereby the US uproots millions of people and
the EU spends billions of euros to cover the cost of immigrants fleeing the western wars.
Most of the immigrants' welfare payments fall far short of the losses incurred in their homeland. Their jobs homes, schools, and
civic associations in the EU and US are far less valuable and accommodating then what they possessed in their original communities.
Economic Imperialism and Immigration: Latin America
US wars, military intervention and economic exploitation has forced millions of Latin Americans to immigrate to the US.. Nicaragua,
El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras engaged in popular struggle for socio-economic justice and political democracy between 1960 –
2000. On the verge of victory over the landed oligarchs and multinational corporations, Washington blocked popular insurgents by
spending billions of dollars, arming, training, advising the military and paramilitary forces. Land reform was aborted; trade unionists
were forced into exile and thousands of peasants fled the marauding terror campaigns.
The US-backed oligarchic regimes forced millions of displaced and uprooted pr unemployed and landless workers to flee to the US.
US supported coups and dictators resulted in 50,000 in Nicaragua, 80,000 in El Salvador and 200,000 in Guatemala. President Obama
and Hillary Clinton supported a military coup in Honduras which overthrew Liberal President Zelaya -- which led to the killing and
wounding of thousands of peasant activists and human rights workers, and the return of death squads, resulting in a new wave of immigrants
to the US.
The US promoted free trade agreement (NAFTA) drove hundreds of thousands of Mexican farmers into bankruptcy and into low wage
maquiladoras; others were recruited by drug cartels; but the largest group was forced to immigrate across the Rio Grande. The US
'Plan Colombia' launched by President Clinton established seven US military bases in Colombia and provided 1 billion dollars in military
aid between 2001 – 2010. Plan Colombia doubled the size of the military.
The US backed President Alvaro Uribe, resulting in the assassination of over 200,000 peasants, trade union activists and human
rights workers by Uribe directed narco-death squad.Over two million farmers fled the countryside and immigrated to the cities or
across the border.
US business secured hundreds of thousands of Latin American low wages, agricultural and factory workers almost all without health
insurance or benefits – though they paid taxes.
Immigration doubled profits, undermined collective bargains and lowered US wages. Unscrupulous US 'entrepreneurs' recruited immigrants
into drugs, prostitution, the arms trade and money laundering.
Politicians exploited the immigration issue for political gain – blaming the immigrants for the decline of working class living
standards distracting attention from the real source : wars, invasions, death squads and economic pillage.
Conclusion
Having destroyed the lives of working people overseas and overthrown progressive leaders like Libyan President Gadhafi and Honduran
President Zelaya, millions were forced to become immigrants.
Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Colombia, Mexico witnessed the flight of millions of immigrants -- all victims of US and EU wars. Washington
and Brussels blamed the victims and accused the immigrants of illegality and criminal conduct.
The West debates expulsion, arrest and jail instead of reparations for crimes against humanity and violations of international
law.
To restrain immigration the first step is to end imperial wars, withdraw troops,and to cease financing paramilitary and client
terrorists.
ORDER IT NOW
Secondly, the West should establish a long term multi-billion-dollar fund for reconstruction and recovery of the economies, markets
and infrastructure they bombed The demise of the peace movement allowed the US and EU to launch and prolong serial wars which led
to massive immigration – the so-called refugee crises and the flight to Europe. There is a direct connection between the conversion
of the liberal and social democrats to war -parties and the forced flight of immigrants to the EU.
The decline of the trade unions and worse, their loss of militancy has led to the loss of solidarity with people living in the
midst of imperial wars. Many workers in the imperialist countries have directed their ire to those 'below' – the immigrants – rather
than to the imperialists who directed the wars which created the immigration problem. Immigration, war , the demise of the peace
and workers movements, and left parties has led to the rise of the militarists, and neo-liberals who have taken power throughout
the West. Their anti-immigrant politics, however, has provoked new contradictions within regimes,between business elites and among
popular movements in the EU and the US. The elite and popular struggles can go in at least two directions – toward fascism or radical
social democracy.
I thought that perhaps I had tuned into John Oliver or to Saturday Night Live in error, but
no doubt about it, there was an unmistakable President Donald Trump speaking before an audience
at the National Space Council. He was saying that on his own presidential authority "I'm hereby
directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to
establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces. We are going to have the Air
Force, and we are going to have the Space Force, separate but equal."
Before signing Space Policy Directive 3 mandating the change and abruptly departing, Trump
went on to explain that "My administration is reclaiming America's heritage as the world's
greatest space-faring nation. The essence of the American character is to explore new horizons
and to tame new frontiers. But our destiny, beyond the Earth, is not only a matter of national
identity, but a matter of national security. It is not enough to merely have an American
presence in space. We must have American dominance in space."
The Air Force, which already has a Space Command, will no doubt object to the new
arrangement, preferring instead to roll the expanded responsibilities and money into its
already existing framework. Secretary of Defense James Mattis is also reported to be against
the expansion, explaining in a speech last year that "The creation of an independent Space
Corps, with the corresponding institutional growth and budget implications, does not address
our nation's fiscal problems in a responsive manner."
And Donald Trump will have to get over a couple of bureaucratic hurdles to get his nifty new
interstellar command up and running. First of all, it will require an Act of Congress to create
a new branch of the military. That might not be difficult to do as the expansion is being
packaged as "national security," which Republicans will support reflexively and Democrats will
also get behind not wanting to appear weak before the elections in November. And both parties
will also be willing to line up to benefit from the political contributions coming from defense
contractors as well as the creation of new military support facilities providing jobs in
congressional districts.
And then there is the money, alluded to by Mattis. Start-up funding a new, coequal military
branch would mean a huge increase in the defense budget. As long as the dollar remains the
world's reserve currency and the treasury can print money without any real backing it is
possible to ride the wave, but there are currently significant challenges to the dollars
survival in that role. If its supremacy ends, there goes the economy taking the unrestrained
government spending with it and sinking the Space Command together with much, much more.
Major defense contractors, all of whom were present to hear Trump's speech, were immediately
seen to be drooling over the prospect of a new cash cow. And at the Pentagon champagne corks
were popping at the thought of a couple of hundred new flag officer positions that will have to
be invented and filled as well as the full complement of civilians to staff the bureaucracy.
And think of the uniforms that will have to be distinct from those used by the other branches
of the service, maybe copying those formerly in vogue on the Starship Enterprise or as seen in
the movie Starship Troopers.
The reality is that the United States does indeed have a major national security interest in
protecting its network of satellites in orbit as well as related infrastructure, but there is
still quite a lot in the Trump remarks that is disturbing. Trump is basically saying two
things. The first is that he will be weaponizing outer space and the second is that he is doing
so because he intends for the United States to become dominant in that domain. It is a complete
ass-backwards approach to the problem of potential development of threats coming from beyond
the atmosphere. Instead of arming outer space, Washington should be working with other
countries that have capabilities in that region to demilitarize exploration and both commercial
and government exploitation. Everyone has an interest in not allowing outer space to become the
next site for an arms race, though admittedly working with other countries does not appear to
be something that the Trump Administration enters into lightly. Or at all.
And Trump should also abandon his insistence that the United States develop "dominance" in
space. The use of such language is a red flag that will make any agreement with countries like
Russia and China impossible to achieve. It virtually guarantees that there will be a
competition among a number of nations to develop and deploy killer satellites employing lasers
and other advanced electronic jamming technologies to protect their own outer space
infrastructure.
Trump appears to have internalized a viewpoint that sees the United States as surrounded by
threats but able to emerge victorious by being hyper-aggressive on all fronts. It is a posture
that might unnerve opponents and bring some success in the short term but which ultimately will
create a genuine threat as the rest of the world lines up against Washington. That day might be
coming if one goes by the reaction to recent U.S. votes in the United Nations and Trump's
behavior at G-7 are anything to go by.
No one in his right mind would allow Trump to dominate outer space based on Washington's
track record of irresponsible leadership since 9/11. It has wrecked the Middle East, South Asia
and North Africa, killing possibly as many as 4 million Muslims in so doing. It has bullied
allies into joining its projects in places like Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria while also
disparaging foreign governments and entering into trade wars. It has bankrupted itself in all
but name, systematically dismantled the rights of its own citizens, and has become a rogue
nation by virtually every measure.
And when you have firmly established the principle that might makes right and all the
universe is at the disposal of Washington, what comes next? Antarctica and the arctic region
are by some accounts rich in natural resources. Will we Americans be seeing an Antarctic
Command with a mandate to dominate the polar regions to enhance national security? Stay
tuned.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National
Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based
U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is
[email protected].
"... The adage from the past that everyone could relate to -- "A nuclear war cannot be unleashed, because there will be no winners" -- is now absent from the political statements that are being heard. It is clear that forces have taken the upper hand on Capitol Hill that are still incapable of imagining the consequences of a nuclear Armageddon. Such a path, even if this scenario proves unlikely, will inevitably lead to a potential undermining of the already fragile non-proliferation regime and a breakdown in the negotiations on establishing control over nuclear facilities, which -- and this is not news -- very few countries are taking part in at the present time. ..."
"... For all these reasons, a dangerous future practice like this needs to be reexamined by Washington, in the interests of preserving global stability. In order to achieve this goal, the strategic guidelines for inflicting a first "preemptive and preventive" nuclear strike, as well as the continuing premise of "unconditional offensive nuclear deterrence," which have remained unchanged since 1945, must be completely eliminated from American nuclear strategies. ..."
It seems odd that the US still does not understand the basic tenets
of Russia's nuclear posture. And it must be said that this is not the first time that Western
analysts have taken such an unprofessional approach. This has become especially glaring in the
run-up to the next NATO summit, which will take place July 11-12 in Brussels.
On the other hand, the
newest US nuclear doctrine , which was approved last February, specifies 14 justifications
for the use of nuclear weapons, including "low-yield" warheads, which is how US arms experts
classify nuclear warheads of 5.0-6.5 kilotons and below. These are precisely the sea- and
air-launched warheads the Pentagon intends to utilize in accordance with its new concept of
"escalating to de-escalate." Under that theory, low-yield nuclear warheads can be employed by
US nuclear forces on an increasing scale in a variety of regional conflicts, with the aim of
"de-escalating" them, which might be accomplished with the help of a nuclear first strike.
This practice could cause a chain reaction in the use of nuclear weapons, involving not only
"low-yield" warheads, but also more powerful nuclear explosives.
The practice being described -- the potential use of low-yield nuclear weapons, which is a
real fixation for the current US administration and is being discussed with increasing
frequency in the US -- suggests that America's military and political leaders are committed to
dramatically lowering the minimum threshold for their use and expanding the list of acceptable
reasons to utilize them under real-world conditions.
The adage from the past that everyone could relate to -- "A nuclear war cannot be unleashed,
because there will be no winners" -- is now absent from the political statements that are being
heard. It is clear that forces have taken the upper hand on Capitol Hill that are still
incapable of imagining the consequences of a nuclear Armageddon. Such a path, even if this
scenario proves unlikely, will inevitably lead to a potential undermining of the already
fragile non-proliferation regime and a breakdown in the negotiations on establishing control
over nuclear facilities, which -- and this is not news -- very few countries are taking part in
at the present time.
For all these reasons, a dangerous future practice like this needs to be reexamined by
Washington, in the interests of preserving global stability. In order to achieve this goal, the
strategic guidelines for inflicting a first "preemptive and preventive" nuclear strike, as well
as the continuing premise of "unconditional offensive nuclear deterrence," which have remained
unchanged since 1945, must be completely eliminated from American nuclear strategies.
These are not ultimatums, as someone defending US nuclear policy has already tried to
portray them. This is a completely natural, logical, and sensible step, which would no doubt be
positively received all over the world.
That is what it's all about. MIC Oligarchs getting rich. Vietnam was a business not a war.
The MIC insiders made a fortune off that fake war.
For all these reasons, a dangerous future practice like this needs to be reexamined by
Washington, in the interests of preserving global instability. That instability keeps murican
arms dealers in business.
Empire doesn't like sovereign countries. Brits still have that empire mentality, the upper
crust's shit don't stink.
It's neocon hubris. They are desperate to nuke someone. Of course the counter strategy is
very simple; escalate to the brink and leave Washington with 2 choices: BTFO or die. These
people are stupid and will eventually get us all killed for nothing.
The World Cup proceeds as if carried along by an unstoppable force, pouring very positive
concrete into foundations somewhere, giving ordinary people another vision of a country that
has always fascinated me.
Graham Phillips, an Englishman and journalist, who joined with the Donbass people in their
resistance to the coup in Ukraine made an interesting podcast echoing b.'s piece about Shaun
Walker, my particular enemy. He quietly demolishes Walker's claims that Russians were singing
Nazi songs in a nightclub.
All in all there is a feeling of tensions subsiding a little, a feeling that one can carry
on a bit with one's life. The only thing I have learned is to enjoy such moments even if stuff
like Yemen is agonizing. Agonizing but not existential as Syria is. But is that not just a bit
cynical?
I am halfway through watching a film of US actor Peter von Berg travelling through the
Donetsk People's Republic and meeting Prime Minister Alexander Zakharchenko and various others
to find out how the Donetsk rebels are creating a socialist state under a situation of war. The
film is as much an implicit criticism of US society (and by extension, Western capitalist
society generally) as it is an investigation of the reality on the ground on Donetsk, ignored
by the Western MSM.
Von Berg visits a greenhouse farm growing tomatoes, a hospital and a factory among other
places he travels to (including the capital, of course) in the DPR.
There is even a short history of the city of Donetsk and how it was founded by 19th-century
Welsh engineer industrialist John Hughes, after whom it was originally named Yuzovka.
"... This banking and finance cartel (which, as you say, is interlocked with big oil, the military/industrial, big tech, etc.) forms the core of what are called the 'Globalists', an international financial elite that use their wealth to exert political control over as much of the world as possible. In addition to the banking families, the 'Globalists' include any number of extremely wealthy people, (Industrialists, Tech Entrepreneurs, Middle-East Sheiks, Saudi Royals, and Nouveaux Riches such as Soros, Ukranian and Russian Oligarchs, etc.). The 'Globalists' directly control virtually all Western NGOs (Soros), think tanks and major media. ..."
Thanks, everyone, for all the book recommendations – several I had not read. I would
add "A People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn, "The Shame of the
Cities" by Lincoln Steffens, and "Who Will Tell the People" by William Greider, and
in that order.
I agree with your points, but would like to build on them a bit.
The 'Banking and Finance' cartel behind the U.S. deep state is said to consist of eight
families, half American and half European. (The Federal Reserve Cartel: The Eight Families,
Dean Henderson, Global Research, May 19, 2016)
This banking and finance cartel (which, as you say, is interlocked with big oil, the
military/industrial, big tech, etc.) forms the core of what are called the 'Globalists', an
international financial elite that use their wealth to exert political control over as much
of the world as possible. In addition to the banking families, the 'Globalists' include any
number of extremely wealthy people, (Industrialists, Tech Entrepreneurs, Middle-East Sheiks,
Saudi Royals, and Nouveaux Riches such as Soros, Ukranian and Russian Oligarchs, etc.). The
'Globalists' directly control virtually all Western NGOs (Soros), think tanks and major
media.
The 'Globalists' control not only the U.S. Deep State, but also the European Union
structures. They also have purchased a large number of politicians throughout the Western
World. Through this control they have stripped sovereignty from both the U.S. and Europe, and
converted them into effective 'Oligarchic Dictatorships'. These dictatorships are set-up for
the benefit of the 'Globalists' themselves, and have little interest in the well-being of
their citizens. This is seen in the impoverishment and societal collapse rapidly progressing
in both the U.S. and Europe.
Globalization is the 'Globalists' project of Global Governance, which effectively strips
nation-states of their sovereignty (and democracy) and transfers it to 'Global Institutions'
(IMF, World Bank, International Trade Agreements, U.N., Climate Agreements, etc.), enforced
by U.S. military might.
The 'Project for a New American Century' was the 'Globalists' blueprint to 'Globalize'
over the parts of the world that they did not already control. Almost all current and recent
international conflicts, from the Middle-Eastern Wars, to Ukraine, the Korean crisis, the
cornering of Russian and Obama's 'Pivot to Asia' are all related to this project.
Unfortunately for the 'Globalists', Global Governance is extremely harmful to citizens
that are subject to it. That is why we see 'populism/nationalism' rising throughout the U.S.
and Europe, in an attempt to block the stripping of these citizens' democracy, their nations'
sovereignty and their personal security and well-being.
I believe that President Trump is part of this populism/nationalism movement, and almost
all of his actions can be interpreted as an attempt to counter Globalization, to restore U.S.
sovereignty and to redevelop the U.S. economy, which has been devastated over the past four
decades by the 'Globalist' elites.
I second those 3!! Greider's Secrets of the Temple is a good primer on The Fed.
The Age of Federalism by Elkins and McKitrick documents the first undeclared war of
too many, this one with France during its revolutionary period prior to Napoleon. The
Seminoles and other Floridian tribes were used as proxies to force the Spanish out of the
Floridas; and too many forget that Louisiana was Spanish before its very short ownership by
France. Jefferson's purchase and dispatch of Lewis and Clarke educated him as to the
wide-open, unregulated nature of the Executive under the 1787 Constitution, which represents
the current plague on our planet today.
But the initial germ beyond Tordesillas of a continent spanning empire was the brain child
of one Richard Hakluyt whose ideas for planting North America infected many other English
elites. His idea was incorporated into the Charter for the Virginia Company--it went all the
way to the as yet undiscovered boundary of the Pacific Ocean.
This slide shows the continental extent of the charters grated Virginia and New
England.
One last book endorsement for two of Bernard Bailyn's many works: The Ideological
Origins of the American Revolution and The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson . If you
have a good university library close by, it ought to have the entire work, Pamphlets of
the American Revolution , from which Ideological Origins was just the
introduction.
One of my research methods was to find an author whose authority I trust, like Bailyn,
then read everything he wrote since I can't have him tutor me--and follow his footnotes to
where he got his information. Sure, that leads to a very extensive reading list; but if
you're going to become a historian, reading lots of books and journals is what you do. Same
thing with Chomsky; all his works are rife with footnotes. And don't just read the radical or
leftist historians; you must read the Court Historians too and thus discover their many
omissions--we all know history's manipulated, but that's not sufficient: just how and why are
necessary.
reply to:Posted by: dh-mtl | Jun 25, 2018 5:01:46 PM | 79
"The 'Project for a New American Century' was the 'Globalists' blueprint to 'Globalize' over
the parts of the world that they did not already control."
I agree, their plan is to open up the Schengen region to ALL of Africa destroying/diluting
all allegiance to nations in Europe under the 2018 Marrakesh Declaration
(ec.europa.eu/home-affairs/sites/homeaffairs/files/20180503_declaration-and-action-plan-marrakesh_en.pdf)
signed by the EU and 40 African nations thereby ushering in the return of feudalism under UN
2050 plan.
Well worth a read if you are not familiar with it, it will chill your blood, chilled mine
anyway.
The Red Tory thing is interesting. I can see what "anon" (comment No. 5) is driving at,
though the use of the word fascism is freighted with the eventual barbaric outcome of the
Nazi project, as well as the outgrowths of western guilt for allowing it to proceed which in
many instances such as political correctness and toleration of Nazi-like tactics by
descendents of Nazi victims, have resulted in a new version of fascism.
It is interesting to note that the anti-system parties of Europe, such as those in control
in Hungary and Austria, seem to take more leftwing positions on issues other than immigration
than sell-out former Socialist parties which have degenerated into the politically correct
portion of the anti-russian neo-liberal centre. Even the term "anti-system" is associated
with the Nazi movement during Weimar but fits with the situation in the western world today.
Thus, Le Pen, Orban and the Austrian government are more reliable at protecting workers'
rights than the sell-out centre, and the cinque stelle (I hope I'm not that far off in
spelling) can coalesce with the Lega, which also takes positions to the left of the corrupt
centre in areas other than immigration. On immigration itself, here in Canada or in the US
where everybody is eventually an immigrant other than the first nation remnant, it is hard to
be totally anti-immigrant, but it is understandable in Europe where historic ethnicities are
in some danger and where the results of the destabilisation of Africa and the Middle East by
the yankee imperium and the Israelis is the root cause of the immigration problem.
As a final statement, I agree with the writer and say mea culpa mea maxima culpa as far as
his anti or really pro- Putin-Nazi viewpoint is expressed.
When I saw that Shawn Walker Tweet, and the mostly brilliant take-down responses, I hoped b
would mention it. I can think of no one better suited to address this particularly putrid
propaganda. Bravo! And to the (almost) universally excellent barfly commentariat.
BBC created a whole genre of Russian World Cup scare mongering. One they did was on the
deadly threat of "Russian Football Hooligans." RT did an excellent 4 minute job of combining
journalism with humor to expose that bit of 100% Fake News.
The Media is a complete weapon for propaganda. The "writers" are propagandists. There never
is a report on Russia from the Western media that does not vilify or demonize Russia or
Russians in some way.
The World Cup is experienced by hundreds of thousands of tourists in Russia. They are
going to be the truth-tellers.
The event, like Sochi Winter Olympics will stand for itself. It will be splendid.
And the lies will die.
Never expect the truth from the Media.
Always expect the Russian people to be extraordinary. They have demonstrated it for a
century.
"... The attributions of attacks to countries are very shaky. Throw in a couple of Cyrillic letters and voilà, you have associated a certain IP address or a certain piece of code with Russia. Somehow these simpleton arguments are uncritically accepted as proofs by computer security professionals the world over, who, of all people, really should know better. It's as if all the supposedly smart cryptographers and programmers are completely oblivious to the concept of manipulation. ..."
Could someone remind me the amount of country's America have invaded since the last world war
30 - 40 , I here'd. Compared to Russia 5-8 ? Russia is in Syria by invitation to deal with
rebels/terrorist's .America is now threatening both. Despite being there to attempt a regime
change. Just who do they think they are ? The sooner they are stopped the better and the
easier.
Russia intervened nowhere; the USSR intervened in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. In 1993,
Yeltsin's cabal intervened in Russia to preserve Bush's and Clinton's New World Order. USSR
was invited into Afghanistan; Outlaw US Empire wasn't. An incomplete list from William Blum's
Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II . A graphic map based on Blum's
book.
Yesterday, Putin met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. Unfortunately, the Kremlin's recap of
the meeting's currently incomplete, but what is recorded is instructive:
"Of course, we look at the Russian Federation as a founder of the United Nations and as a
permanent member of the Security Council, but I would say that at the present moment we look
at the Russian Federation as an indispensable element of the creation of a new multipolar
world.
"To be entirely frank, these are not easy times for multilateralism and not easy times for
the UN. And I think that after the Cold War and after a short period of unipolar world we are
still struggling to find a way to have a structured, multipolar world with multilateral
governmental institutions that can work. And this is something that worries me a lot and is
something in which, I believe, the Russian Federation has a unique role to play."
Considering many think Guterres just an agent for the Outlaw US Empire, maybe his cited
words will cause a reassessment. I'd like to know what followed. Apparently there was some
discussion about Korea and the
economic initiatives being openly discussed since RoK President Moon will arrive in
Russia tomorrow.
Lavrov met with Guterres today, and his
opening remarks shine a bit more light on what was discussed:
"As emphasised by President Putin, we have invariably supported, support, and will
continue to support the UN, this unique universal organisation. We think highly of your
intention, Mr Secretary-General, to raise the profile of the United Nations in world affairs,
particularly in settling regional conflicts. As you noted yourself at the meeting in the
Kremlin yesterday, this is largely dependent on the general state of the international system
as a whole and the UN member states' readiness to act collectively, jointly, rather than
unilaterally, and to pursue the goals enshrined in the UN Charter rather than
self-centred,[sic] immediate aims.
"We note that you have consistently advocated the pooling of efforts by major players to
deal with world problems. This is the logic of the UN Charter, specifically its clauses on
the creation and powers of the UN Security Council. I hope that based on the values we share
we will be able to successfully continue cooperation in the interests of solving
international problems."
Lots of emphasis on the absolute necessity of making the UN Charter whole again and not
allowing any one nation to make a mockery of it by pursuing its "self-centered, immediate
aims."
Ben @ 14
Thanks Ben. Yep that's what l thought reality would look like, that's my sanity safe for a
while longer. Remember we are not alone!
Zanon @ 12
That is a perfect example of 'fake news' we can spot it here ! Or are we here now msm!
Pantaraxia @ 20
Wow that doubles what I was already shocked about ! And then of course there's the comercal
operations destablising country's using greed as a weapon. Plus the banks, I'm sure South
Africa would have been a real success if they'd kept the banking curuption out. Time for
immoral capitalism to fall.
Also don't you just hate victim blaming.There that's me done. Grrr
@b: I know you're just one man and can't do everything, but it would be wonderful if you
could cover the history of hacking accusations against Russia. No one lays out a sequence of
events better than you.
Just yesterday, another accusation has been leveled against Russia by the head of
Germany's BfV intelligence agency, Hans-Georg Maassen:
German intelligence sees Russia behind hack of energy firms - media report (Reuters).
It's a serious accusation, and one would expect a serious proof. However, no proof has been
given except that "it fits the Russian modus operandi". Also, the fact that the alleged
attack has been named "Berserk Bear" by some unknown Western analyst. Apparently, that's
enough proof by today's standards.
There is a critical lack of independent thinking and skepticism in the international
computer security circles nowadays. The attributions of attacks to countries are very
shaky. Throw in a couple of Cyrillic letters and voilà, you have associated a certain
IP address or a certain piece of code with Russia. Somehow these simpleton arguments are
uncritically accepted as proofs by computer security professionals the world over, who, of
all people, really should know better. It's as if all the supposedly smart cryptographers and
programmers are completely oblivious to the concept of manipulation.
I've told you that once you start down the Trade War path forever it will dominate your
destiny.
Well here we are. Trump slaps big tariffs on aluminum and steel in a bid to leverage Gary
Cohn's ICE Wall
plan to control the metals and oils futures markets . I'm not sure how much of this stuff I
believe but it is clear that the futures price for most strategically important commodities are
divorced from the real world.
But today's edition of "As the Trade War Churns" is about China and their willingness to
shift their energy purchases away from U.S. producers. Irina
Slav at Oilprice.com has the good bits.
The latest escalation in the tariff exchange, however, is a little bit different than all
the others so far. It's different because it came after Beijing said it intends to slap
tariffs on U.S. oil, gas, and coal imports.
China's was a retaliatory move to impose tariffs on US$50 billion worth of U.S. goods,
which followed Trump's earlier announcement that another US$50 billion in goods would be
subjected to a 25-percent tariff starting July 6.
It's unclear as to what form this will take but there's also this report from
the New York Times which talks about the China/U.S. energy trade.
Things could get worse if the United States and China ratchet up their actions
[counter-tariffs] . Mr. Trump has already promised more tariffs in response to China's
retaliation. China, in turn, is likely to back away from an agreement to buy $70 billion
worth of American agricultural and energy products -- a deal that was conditional on the
United States lifting its threat of tariffs.
"China's proportionate and targeted tariffs on U.S. imports are meant to send a strong
signal that it will not capitulate to U.S. demands," said Eswar Prasad, a professor of
international trade at Cornell University. "It will be challenging for both sides to find a
way to de-escalate these tensions."
But as Ms. Slav points out, China has enjoyed taking advantage of the glut of U.S. oil as
shale drillers flood the market with cheap oil. The West Texas Intermediate/Brent Spread has
widened out to more than $10 at times.
By slapping counter tariffs on U.S. oil, that would more than overcome the current WTI/Brent
spread and send Chinese refiners looking for new markets.
Hey, do you know whose oil is sold at a discount to Brent on a regular basis?
Iran's. That's whose.
And you know what else? Iran is selling tons, literally, of its oil via the new Shanghai
petroyuan futures market.
Now, these aren't exact substitutes, because the Shanghai contract is for medium-sour crude
and West Texas shale oil is generally light-sweet but the point remains that the incentives
would now exist for Chinese buyers to shift their buying away from the U.S. and towards
producers offering substitutes at better prices.
This undermines and undercuts Trump's 'energy dominance' plans while also strengthening
Iran's ability to withstand new U.S. sanctions by creating more customers for its oil.
Trade wars always escalate. They are no different than any other government policy
restricting trade. The market response is to always respond to new incentives. Capital always
flows to where it is treated best.
It doesn't matter if its domestic farm subsidies 'protecting' farmers from the business
cycle or domestic metals producers getting protection via tariffs.
By raising the price above the market it shifts capital and investment away from those
protected industries or producers and towards either innovation or foreign suppliers.
Trump obviously never read anything from Mises, Rothbard or Hayek at Wharton. Because if he
did he would have come across the idea that every government intervention requires an
ever-greater one to 'fix' the problems created by the first intervention.
The net result is that if there is a market for Iran's oil, which there most certainly is,
then humans will find a way to buy it. If Trump tries to raise the price too high then it will
have other knock-on effects of a less-efficient oil and gas market which will create worse
problems in the future for everyone, especially the very Americans he thinks he's
defending.
"... Fact is that the Guardian and the Telegraph are full of anti-Russian propaganda. There is no piece in them about Russia or Putin that does not include snide and fear mongering or repeats long refuted claims about this or that incident for which Russia is claimed to be responsible. The military industrial complex gave order to condemn Russia and the "western" main stream media follow through. ..."
"... But don't pity them. They made their choice, and are well rewarded for their services. With respect, I would rather despise them. ..."
"... And Shaun is trying to sneak out: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jun/20/police-england-fans-russia-nazi-salute-world-cup ..."
"... I can't prove Shaun Walker and Luke Harding are MI5 operatives but I feel it in my gut. ..."
"... Shawn Wanker personally witnessed Russian AFVs invading Ukraine when he was 1) too far away from the border to see them 2) had amazingly forgotten to bring his smart phone so he could take a geolocated photo. So his credibility is low. As in lower than snake shit. ..."
"... What a tangled web the west has woven for itself through its deceits. How these presstitutes had to work through the night, and sweat the details, to try to patch the holes in the sinking ship - while those who were part of the truth of discovering the reality of Russia slept soundly, and probably with a great beer buzz, and the ring of real people in their ears. ..."
Andrew Roth Retweeted Shaun Walker
Absurd the responses to this incident that multiple correspondents saw. And their point is that it was an outlier in
what sounded like a fine night at the football. Context is all here, should they ignore it instead?
If two British scribes say they heard something, which each describes differently, then it must be true. "Evidence?
We don't report with evidence. Trust us."
This morning a Russian blogger posted some evidence (machine translated from Russian):
Remember yesterday there was a lot of talk about the English journalist who wrote about the alleged Russians who
sang Nazi songs in a bar in Volgograd? They found them. But they were not Russian, but... British. Actually, for
that, it's e... Lo must be beaten. This is Volgograd! Stalingrad!
The attached a video shows three drunk
British blokes in an 'Irish' pub where the menu is written in Cyrillic letters and World Cup flags hang from the
ceiling. The blokes sing a line about putting someone to Auschwitz, give the Hitler salute and shout "Sieg Heil!" The
pub where the video was taken seems to be a different one than the Harat's Walker and Luhn visited. But the point was
made.
Fact is that the Guardian and the Telegraph are full of anti-Russian propaganda. There is no piece
in them about Russia or Putin that does not include snide and fear mongering or repeats long refuted claims about this
or that incident for which Russia is claimed to be responsible. The military industrial complex gave order to condemn
Russia and the "western" main stream media follow through.
Both of the scribes quoted English fans who lament about the false picture they had when they arrived in Russia.
Might that have something to do with the constant stream of russophobe trash the British media provides? Should a
British correspondent in Russia take some time to reflect upon that?
But the two scribes go off to have lots of beer to then send spurious, late-night, anti-Russian claims to their
100,000 followers without providing any evidence. Then they lament about being called out for that.
They are mediocre propagandists who's words no one trusts or believes. One must truly pity these guys.
Posted by b on June 20, 2018 at 04:14 PM |
Permalink
Pity these guys? Not really. Remember, they are not journalists. They are propagandist,
hired mouthpieces. They say what they are scripted to say by their corporate bosses, it doesn't
matter how absurd, the point is to just hammer and hammer and hammer away and mold public
opinion via brute force. The old Soviet Union had more subtle liars.
But don't pity them. They made their choice, and are well rewarded for their services. With
respect, I would rather despise them.
I can't prove Shaun Walker and Luke Harding are MI5 operatives but I feel it in my
gut. I got banned from the Guardian for contrasting Walker's article on the supposedly
insanely loud, strident music in hotels at the Sochi Olympics with a real journalist who said
the music was quiet and varied between classical and soft pop.
Most people are reading the sports journalists, thankfully, and watching them...
Every day the NYT has one or two op-ed pieces critical of Putin/Russia. Today it was by
Alexey Kovalev, and titled "The World Cup Is Fun. Except for the Russians Being Tortured." I'm still waiting for a mention that the host team scored 8 goals in their two
matches.
Shawn Wanker personally witnessed Russian AFVs invading Ukraine when he was 1) too far away
from the border to see them 2) had amazingly forgotten to bring his smart phone so he could
take a geolocated photo. So his credibility is low. As in lower than snake shit.
Aaaaaaaaaand in the meantime, people around the world are are amazed at the beautiful
stadiums, the fantastic atmosphere, the great welcome from local people who ar suddenly
"invaded", they wonder at the well functioning machine behind it all, the wonder at the tight
security and safety of spectators and sport stars.
Congratulations Russia and Russian people, well done! You are doing this exceptionally well.
The World Cup, will be billions of dollars worth in positive reviews.
Great to see that Brit fans laid a wreath at the memorial. Shows May and Johnson are not
connected to the public,
Seeing that the homophobia and racism claims are not sticking well in their relentless
anti-Russian narrative, the MSM has dug up the case of the Ukrainian film director Oleg
Sentsov who is currently on hunger strike while in jail in Labytnangi, in northern Siberia,
for planning to carry out terrorist acts on public infrastructure and a statue in Crimea and
to set fire to government office buildings in Simferopol in 2014, and is flaying it for all
it's worth.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/ukrainian-film-director-on-hunger-strike-in-a-russian-prison-casts-dark-cloud-over-world-cup-20180620-p4zmmr.html
The sports writers are the truth, while the established anchors are the party line. It was
never any different.
We forget the upside. We forget how much energy it takes to keep a lie believable. We
forget how the west has to strain against incredulity itself in order to counter the random
and unschooled manifestations of the truth.
What a tangled web the west has woven for itself through its deceits. How these
presstitutes had to work through the night, and sweat the details, to try to patch the holes
in the sinking ship - while those who were part of the truth of discovering the reality of
Russia slept soundly, and probably with a great beer buzz, and the ring of real people in
their ears.
We have to do something, but we don't have to do everything, in order to counter the lies
of the liars. The universe itself - the very nature of reality - abhors untruth, and causes
the truth to show the shallowness of lies on countless, unscripted occasions.
And these occasions are usually a party. A celebration by ordinary people, joining in
common understanding.
What the rulers most fear.
Because all it takes is a small consensus of 10-15 percent of any population and you have
an activist force. They know this. Minions like the presstitutes mentioned here probably
don't understand this in words, but in their bowels they know.
"... For Mattis to lament during a speech at a naval college last week that America's moral authority is being eroded by Putin is a symptom of the delusional official thinking infesting Washington. ..."
"... Mattis told his audience: "Putin aims to diminish the appeal of the western democratic model and attempts to undermine America's moral authority." He added that the Russian leader's "actions are designed not to challenge our arms at this point but to undercut and compromise our belief in our ideals." ..."
"... It is classic "in denial" ..."
"... "What a powerful delusion Mattis and Western leaders like him are encumbered with," ..."
"... "The US undercuts and compromises its own avowed beliefs and ideals because it has lost any moral integrity that it might have feasibly pretended to have due to decades of its own criminal foreign conduct." ..."
"... "America's so-called moral authority is the free pass it gives itself to topple democracy in Ukraine, replacing it with neo-Nazis; it has turned economically prosperous Libya into a wasteland, after murdering its leader Muammar Gaddafi; it funds and openly sponsors the MKO terror group in Iran for regime change in Tehran; and it is neck deep in fueling the Saudi coalition's genocidal war in Yemen." ..."
"... Despite this litany of criminality committed by the US with the acquiescence of European allies, Washington, says Martin, "preaches a bizarre doctrine of 'exceptionalism' and somehow arrogates a moral right to dominate the world. This is the fruit of the diseased minds of sociopaths." ..."
Jun 20, 2018, RT Op-ed The statements, views and opinions expressed
in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
It's parallel
universe time when US Pentagon chief James 'Mad Dog' Mattis complains that America's "moral
authority" is being undermined by others – specifically Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
This is the ex-Marine general who gained his ruthless reputation from when illegally occupying
US troops razed the
Iraqi city of Fallujah in the 2004-2005 using "shake and bake" bombardment of
inhabitants with banned white phosphorus incendiaries.
A repeat of those war crimes happened again last year under Mattis' watch as Pentagon chief
when US warplanes obliterated the Syrian city of Raqqa, killing thousands of civilians. Even
the pro-US Human Rights Watch
abhorred the repeated use of white phosphorus during that campaign to "liberate"
Raqqa, supposedly from jihadists.
These are but two examples from dense archives of US war crimes committed over several
decades, from its illegal intervention in Syria to Libya, from Iraq to Vietnam, back to the
Korean War in the early 1950s when American carpet bombing killed millions of innocent
civilians.
For Mattis to
lament during a speech at a naval college last week that America's moral authority is being
eroded by Putin is a symptom of the delusional official thinking infesting
Washington.
According to Mattis, the problem of America's diminishing global reputation has
nothing to do with US misconduct – even though the evidence is replete to prove that
systematic misconduct. No, the problem, according to him, is that Russia's Putin is somehow
sneakily undermining Washington's moral authority.
Mattis told his audience: "Putin aims to diminish the appeal of the western democratic
model and attempts to undermine America's moral authority." He added that the Russian leader's
"actions are designed not to challenge our arms at this point but to undercut and compromise
our belief in our ideals."
The US Secretary of Defense doesn't elaborate on how he thinks Russia is achieving this
dastardly plot to demean America. It is simply asserted as fact. This has been a theme recycled
over and over by officials in Washington and Brussels, other Western government leaders and of
course NATO and its affiliated think-tanks. All of which has been dutifully peddled by Western
news media.
It is classic "in denial" thinking. The general loss of legitimacy and
authority by Western governments is supposedly nothing to do with their own inherent failures
and transgressions, from bankrupt austerity economics, to deteriorating social conditions, to
illegal US-led wars and the repercussions of blowback terrorism and mass migration of refugees.
Oh no. What the ruling elites are trying to do is shift the blame from their own culpability
on to others, principally Russia. American political analyst Randy Martin says that Mattis'
latest remarks show a form of collective delusion among Western political establishments and
their aligned mainstream news media.
"What a powerful delusion Mattis and Western leaders like him are encumbered with,"
says Martin. "The US undercuts and compromises its own avowed beliefs and ideals because it
has lost any moral integrity that it might have feasibly pretended to have due to decades of
its own criminal foreign conduct."
The analyst added: "America's so-called moral authority is the free pass it gives itself
to topple democracy in Ukraine, replacing it with neo-Nazis; it has turned economically
prosperous Libya into a wasteland, after murdering its leader Muammar Gaddafi; it funds and
openly sponsors the MKO terror group in Iran for regime change in Tehran; and it is neck deep
in fueling the Saudi coalition's genocidal war in Yemen."
Despite this litany of criminality committed by the US with the acquiescence of European
allies, Washington, says Martin, "preaches a bizarre doctrine of 'exceptionalism' and somehow
arrogates a moral right to dominate the world. This is the fruit of the diseased minds of
sociopaths."
This week, three headline-making issues speak volumes about America's declining moral
authority.
... ... ...
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with
articles published in several languages. Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he is a
Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal
Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For
over 20 years he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including
The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Now a freelance journalist based in East Africa, his
columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation and Press TV.
"... Here's a thought: If the USG was truly interested in controlling opium production in Afghanistan it would simply use the counternarcotics money to buy up the crop directly from the farmers. The price at that level would be incredibly cheap compared to the "street value" of the drug. The farmers would happily sell to such a reliable buyer and not need to fear the risk of military interference. The current Afghan government would likely earn the goodwill of the farmers and it would cut off funding to the Taliban. It will never happen, however; because our military project in Afghanistan is mostly about enriching private military contractors while keeping the the "threat" of terrorism alive and well. War is a racket. ..."
"... b, have you read "Whiteout" by Alexander Cockburn (RIP) and Jeffrey St. Clair? It was written decades ago but is still relevant. I'm sure the CIA DOES make money from drugs although the CIA black books budget is so large they hardly need the cash. But one imagines it's nice to have a few millions completely out of government accountability--for lining their own pockets if nothing else. ..."
"... I highly recommend Doug Valentine's book, "CIA as Organized Crime." CIA Director William Colby gave him free access to interview CIA officials who had been involved in the Phoenix program in South Vietnam. Since all those CIA officers/agents had Colby's blessing, they assumed Valentine was on their side. Oops! Bottom line: There is ZERO difference between CIA and the Mafia. They are essentially one and the same, though they generally have different spheres of action. One upon which they overlap is drug production, smuggling and distribution. ..."
"... I would add that there is ZERO difference between supra-national finance and the Mafia. For instance, the bank, HSBC was founded to launder opium money after Great Britain fought the Opium Wars forcing China to permit them to import opium into China. Former FBI Director and on again/off again hero of the partisans, James Comey left his career with the US Government to work for HSBC after they were finally fined for laundering cash from both drug smuggling and terrorist groups. His job was to help them "negotiate" the new "oversight" placed on the bank. ..."
"... John Ehrlichman, who served as President Richard Nixon's domestic policy chief admitted back in 1994 that the "War on Drugs" was actually a political tool to crush leftist protesters and black people. "We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did." ..."
"... Mike Ruppert was an associate of Gary Webb's, was a Los Angeles detective and knew a lot about the CIA's involvement in the Crips/Bloods Drug Wars and its massive importation of drugs into the nation. His investigation was used as his website URL , copvcia, although its name was From The Wilderness. Until 911, his investigation was his passion, then he discovered he had another and it was connected to the former. Here's a page many will want to view . It's hard not to reread the entire website. Unfortunately, Mike saved and only released much of the juicier evidence to his subscribers--he had to eke out a living in some manner. ..."
"... Back in 2002, when the poppy production too off, the idea of flooding Russia was in vogue, it may still be in the game. Transit through Iran to Turkey was also in play. Money laundering started out in "Polish Zlotys", through the banks there. ..."
"... I presume much of that counternarcotics money ends up being cash in hand to thousands of foot-soldiers working for local warlords in Afghanistan as farmers, security personnel, soldiers, prostitutes and what-not, in a way similar to how part of Victoria Nuland's $5 billion investment in Ukraine ended up as cash incentives to entice people from as far as Lvov to travel to Kiev to participate in the Maidan demonstrations over the winter of 2013 / 2014. ..."
"... This in addition to the billions being used to buy weapons, train and send jihadists to fight in other parts of western and central Asia, and line people's pockets at every stage of the drug money trail whether in Afghanistan, Wall Street or various tax havens around the planet. ..."
"... And to the east, I remember reading that one of the first things the US did was to build a bridge and highway towards the east; shortly thereafter, heroin flooded into Russia. ..."
"... Alfred W. McCoy is the authority on drugs and CIA. He's still doing great work, publishing books.His first, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia is a classic.His latest, In the Shadows of the American Century, is brilliant analysis. Some videos on youtube, also. He has traveled, researched every ratline trail and outpost all over the globe. Read him if you want the real facts. ..."
thanks b... the speculation has always been in my mind anyway - that the money is controlled
by the cia... covert money for covert projects and on and on it goes...
The Taliban curtailed the poppy growing without any problem. Shortly after the US invasion
under the guise of capturing OBL. Almost 18 years later, long after the death of OBL (in
reality and in US military BS) the poppy production has increased exponentially. There are
Pics of US military personnel walking through poppy fields.
Other than drug production there is no need for the US to be in Afghanistan except maybe to
use it as a launching platform to attack Iran. Drugs are an excellent source for funding
black ops.
Not only is the US allowing the production, considering how easy it would be for them to kill
the crops, and IMHO it as also assisting in the transportation of drugs to the West.
If you understand the Afghan government as a narco state, then the fact that opium
production has actually increased –while the U.S. spent billions on counternarcotics
efforts and troop numbers surged – starts to make sense. A completely failed state
– Afghanistan in 2001 – can't really thrive in the drug trade. Traffickers have
no reason to pay off a toothless government or a nonexistent police force. In such a
libertarian paradise, freelance actors – like Saleem, the heroin cook –
flourish.
But as the government builds capacity, officials can start to demand a cut. It's not
that there's a grand conspiracy at the center of government, but rather that, in the
absence of accountability and the rule of law, officials start to orient themselves around
a powerful political economy. Big drug barons with links to the government take over the
trade. People who don't pay, or who fall out with government officials, might find
themselves killed or arrested.
In this light, U.S. counternarcotics programs, which have cost nearly $8 billion to
date, and the Afghan state-building project in general, are perversely part of the
explanation for the growing government involvement in the drug trade. Even the newly
rebuilt Afghan Air Force has been investigated by the U.S. military for alleged
trafficking. In many places, the surge had the effect of wresting opium revenue from the
Taliban and handing it to government officials. For example, in Helmand's Garmsir District,
which sits on key trafficking routes between the rest of the province and Baramcha, a big
Marine offensive in 2011 finally pushed out the Taliban and handed the district back to the
Afghan government. The result? The police began taking a cut from those drug routes. "There
are families, as in Mafia-style, that have the trade carved up between them, and when some
outsider tries to get in on it, they serve him up as a success for drug interdiction," one
Western official who worked in Garmsir told me.
I just luv-ed this next paragraph. Glad I wasn't sipping Coca Cola
while I read it. Would have chortled cola out my nose!
Here is government BS-speak at it's vacuous best (enjoy):
The U.S. government, for its part, acknowledged that there are no quick solutions at hand.
"The U.S. interagency is developing an updated counternarcotics strategy for Afghanistan,"
says Jen Psaki, the State Department's spokeswoman. "These are long-term efforts that build
the foundation for eventual reductions in opium harvests."
Here's a thought: If the USG was truly interested in controlling opium production in
Afghanistan it would simply use the counternarcotics money to buy up the crop directly from
the farmers. The price at that level would be incredibly cheap compared to the "street value"
of the drug. The farmers would happily sell to such a reliable buyer and not need to fear the
risk of military interference. The current Afghan government would likely earn the goodwill
of the farmers and it would cut off funding to the Taliban. It will never happen, however;
because our military project in Afghanistan is mostly about enriching private military
contractors while keeping the the "threat" of terrorism alive and well. War is a racket.
b, have you read "Whiteout" by Alexander Cockburn (RIP) and Jeffrey St. Clair? It was written
decades ago but is still relevant. I'm sure the CIA DOES make money from drugs although the
CIA black books budget is so large they hardly need the cash. But one imagines it's nice to
have a few millions completely out of government accountability--for lining their own pockets
if nothing else.
I highly recommend Doug Valentine's book, "CIA as Organized Crime." CIA Director William Colby gave him free access to interview CIA officials who had been
involved in the Phoenix program in South Vietnam. Since all those CIA officers/agents had
Colby's blessing, they assumed Valentine was on their side. Oops! Bottom line: There is ZERO difference between CIA and the Mafia. They are essentially one
and the same, though they generally have different spheres of action. One upon which they
overlap is drug production, smuggling and distribution.
I would add that there is ZERO difference between supra-national finance and the Mafia.
For instance, the bank, HSBC was founded to launder opium money after Great Britain fought
the Opium Wars forcing China to permit them to import opium into China. Former FBI Director
and on again/off again hero of the partisans, James Comey left his career with the US
Government to work for HSBC after they were finally fined for laundering cash from both drug
smuggling and terrorist groups. His job was to help them "negotiate" the new "oversight"
placed on the bank.
John Ehrlichman, who served as President Richard Nixon's domestic policy chief admitted back
in 1994 that the "War on Drugs" was actually
a political tool to crush leftist protesters and black people.
"We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting
the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then
criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their
leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the
evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did."
Mike Ruppert was an associate of Gary Webb's, was a Los Angeles detective and knew a lot
about the CIA's involvement in the Crips/Bloods Drug Wars and its massive importation of
drugs into the nation. His investigation
was used as his website URL , copvcia, although its name was From The Wilderness. Until
911, his investigation was his passion, then he discovered he had another and it was
connected to the former. Here's a page many will want to
view . It's hard not to reread the entire website. Unfortunately, Mike saved and only
released much of the juicier evidence to his subscribers--he had to eke out a living in some
manner.
The CIA is the planet's #1 Terrorist Organization, and it has all 3 types of Weapons of
Mass Destruction. It's often hard to determine which poses a greater threat to humanity: The
CIA or its parent the Outlaw US Empire. If humanity's to have any chance at a viable future,
both the CIA and its Imperial parent must be destroyed for their many crimes.
That CIA was experimenting with narcotics as a tool seemed to have metasticised into
something else during the Air America years, which in turn seems to have morphed via Barry
Seal (& Gary Webb's investigation)and the Cocaine Coyboys onward into Silk Airways (famed
by weapons to Syria scandal) - https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/c/cockburn-white.html
Back in 2002, when the poppy production too off, the idea of flooding Russia was in vogue, it
may still be in the game. Transit through Iran to Turkey was also in play. Money laundering
started out in "Polish Zlotys", through the banks there.
Addicts were given small sums to
deposit in the banks, by the thousands, which didn't draw attention. A lot of the money was
sent to the U.S. to buy "American Muscle Cars", which were then shipped back to the E.U. and
resold again.
Pakistan was also a transit country where the "Labs" were first set up to
process the opium to heroin. How time fly's when having fun. Addiction to "drugs" isn't the
only addiction nor the addicts involved either. Only one leaf in the book of the minds of
those who believe they are doing the right thing.
I presume much of that counternarcotics money ends up being cash in hand to thousands of
foot-soldiers working for local warlords in Afghanistan as farmers, security personnel,
soldiers, prostitutes and what-not, in a way similar to how part of Victoria Nuland's $5
billion investment in Ukraine ended up as cash incentives to entice people from as far as
Lvov to travel to Kiev to participate in the Maidan demonstrations over the winter of 2013 /
2014.
Also a big portion of the counternarcotics dosh must be going to teams of people digging
up and burning opium and also to teams of people planting new opium seeds in the areas where
the first lot of opium was eradicated later on. Similar to stories people used to hear about
what supposedly happened during the 1930s Great Depression, when teams of people were
employed to dig ditches and then other teams of people were employed to fill up the ditches
which would be dug up again at a later time.
This in addition to the billions being used to buy weapons, train and send jihadists to
fight in other parts of western and central Asia, and line people's pockets at every stage of
the drug money trail whether in Afghanistan, Wall Street or various tax havens around the
planet.
reply to:
".. and IMHO it as also assisting in the transportation of drugs to the West."
Posted by: ken | Jun 18, 2018 2:16:06 PM | 5
And to the east, I remember reading that one of the first things the US did was to build a
bridge and highway towards the east; shortly thereafter, heroin flooded into Russia.
The level of US "counter-narcotic" investment seems to be about right to support the GROWTH
of the narcotics industry...not the otherway around...its black and its dirty
Every comment on this post is like a fine champagne of reality. how do people get by with out
wanting to know the truth. keep the comments coming I need more! Brilliant links. The doors
of perception just opened for me. Who the hell runs our TVs stations that they can turn a
blind I to this lot.
-------
I to find great strength in music, to find the truth. For me it is reggae any group in
society that has sufferd what we discuss on this site for 300 years, but have survived got
stronger and put it to music, I feel needs listening to!!!
The "War on Drugs" was conceived to put black people in jail en masse as Jim Crow came to an
end. Nixon's aides admitted this. Read "The New Jim Crow" for the full story. Marijuana laws
were first introduced in the early 20th century as a tool to arrest and deport Mexicans from
the American southwest. Google it.
The bullshit "War on Drugs" is as phony as the bullshit "War on Terror" in the wake of 3
skyscrapers that were demolished and collapsed at freefall speed.
The real money is to be made in the bullshit wars spawned by these 2 hoaxes that boggle
the mind in their scope.
Basically, these two cornerstones of American domestic and foreign policy are frauds of
biblical proportions.
An empire built on these foundations will come crashing down as fast as WTC 7 on the
afternoon of September 11, 2001.
Various Contra-cocaine type operations of un/controlled shipments of drugs existed in the
early 1990s, some of which existed in order to arm Bosnia (local fighters and foreign
mujahideen), thereby undermining the UN's arms embargo of former Yugoslav states.
Between 1988 and 1992, 22 tons of cocaine was brought into the US via Venezuela by a team
consisting of Mark McFarlin (head of the CIA's counter-narcotics center), Jim Campbell (the
CIA's chief of station in Venezuela) and General Guillén (head of the Venezuelan
National Guard in the pre-Chavez era).
Anti-Drug Unit of C.I.A. Sent Ton of Cocaine to U.S. in 1990
At roughly the same time Albanian mobsters had built a heroin smuggling network for the
purpose of illegally supplying arms to the Bosnian mujahideen. Drugs Paying for Conflict
in Europe
In the summer of 1991, Dutch drug lord Klaas Bruinsma, who had connections with members of
the Dutch elite (corporate and royal), the Colombian Cali cartel and the Yugoslav mafia, was
assassinated by either former cop Martin Hoogland (possibly working for intelligence), or the
Yugoslav mobster Branco Marianovic. In that same summer, the UN Security Council passed
Resolution 713 (the Yugoslav arms embargo), and soon after elements within Dutch customs and
police, in cooperation with Bruinsma's business heirs/infiltrators, started the controlled
shipment of large amounts of cocaine (estimated 25,000 kilo) and hashish (estimated 500,000
kilo) under the name "Operation Delta". The customs officials involved in Operation Delta
were most likely protected by their boss Fred Teeven, later rewarded by given the job of
State Secretary for Security and Justice. Mabel Wisse-Smit, daughter of a top banker
(possibly drug money launderer) and future sister-in-law of the current Dutch king, was first
the lover of drug lord Bruinsma (until his assassination, possibly she was sent to spy on
him) and then the lover of Wall St. banker Mohamed Sacirbey (Bosnia's ambassador to UN in
1992, Bosnia's foreign minister in 1995). Wisse-Smit (later a George Soros
protégé) co-founded the Dutch charity foundation War Child, which was used as a
cover for arms lobbying during the Bosnia war, and she is reported by Bosnian media to have
been involved in a specific arms deal with Egypt.
Alfred W. McCoy is the authority on drugs and CIA.
He's still doing great work, publishing books.His first, The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia is a classic.His latest, In the Shadows of the American Century, is brilliant analysis. Some videos on youtube, also. He has traveled, researched every ratline trail and outpost all over the globe.
Read him if you want the real facts.
It's good to know so many are well informed on this. I've read Rupert/Webb's stuff and have
Dark Alliance. There's a good movie/documentary out there about Webb but I can't recall the
name right now. Levine wrote about his undercover work in South American being thwarted by
the CIA. And Bo Gritz was trying to set up a deal where the US would buy up Khun Sa's opium
before it could be distributed but the USG wasn't interested. The amazing thing about the
Afghan ramp up in supply was seeing pictures of US soldiers patrolling in the middle of poppy
fields. Meanwhile at home, congress takes bribes (lobbying efforts) to help protect the legal
drug pushers from prosecution by the DEA shoving millions of pills across the country. A
friend's term for this kind of thing is "racket science."
Yeah, his updated edition is a must read. They do not handle the money directly, they let
the guerillas/rebels/revolutionaries handle that as a reward and provide protection from
legal authorities and access to markets using various agencies and mafia at both ends of the
supply-distribution chain. The dollars from the drugs pay for the weapons and support. The
profits go into nameless offshore Eurodollar accounts which then flow into London and Wall
Street as eurodollar loans in many multiples of the deposits (not to be confused with the
euro) to speculate in various markets and drive up asset prices. When the Taliban shut down
opium production we had the Dot.com crash (coincidence?). 100 billion a year can generate 1
trillion in dollars for speculators, and that was sorely missed (along with Clinton running a
surplus instead of a deficit)
There is so much evidence that in many places where they were or are engaged that drug flows
in the region increased and production increased in those areas known for growing the stuff.
Like any organization only those with a need to know have an idea and the majority are clean
and without information
While we are discussing history of the War on Drugs another example of a major consumer
organization (at the time of print) being turned into a vacuous shell....
The WIkipedia summary
"
The book describes the effects and risks of psychoactive drugs which were common in
contemporary use for recreational and nonmedical purposes.[2] The New York Times paraphrased
some major arguments from the book, saying "'Drug-free' treatment of heroin addiction almost
never works", "Nicotine can be as tough to beat as heroin", and "Good or bad, marijuana is
here to stay. The billions spent to fight it are wasted dollars."[3] The book identifies
marijuana as the most popular drug after tobacco, alcohol, and nicotine.[4] A reviewer for
the Journal of the American Medical Association summarized it by saying that "Brecher holds
that the division of drugs into licit and illicit categories is medically irrational and
rooted mainly in historical and sociological factors."[5]
"
karlof1. Amazing that you knew Mike. And yes, the willful ignorance is horribly frustrating.
The way I see it, almost all "Westerners" are willfully ignorant. We all must know that
the only way we live to the "standards" we do is because of the plunder of both our colonial
past and neoliberal present. But most choose to look aside.
For those who haven't seen it, please spend 17 minutes to see Mallence Bart-Williams give an incredible
talk.
"... The declaration of the DPRK came after the US- backed Rhee declared the ROK and reneged on peninsula-wide elections that had been agreed to at the UN. I guess you can call it a civil war, but that really isn't germane to the question: Why can the US not stomach any rapprochement between the two de facto Koreas two-thirds of a century later, while it was willing to accept a reunification of a historically more aggressive Germany? ..."
"... According to I.F. Stone in his "Hidden History of the Korean War" (1952), the intent of the Korean War was to destabilize the Chinese Revolution which had consolidated power the year before. ..."
Fearing that peace might break out with the two Koreas talking to each
other, Washington instructed South Korean President Moon Jae-in to
keep the message about anything but peace
. It is not just Trump. A former top official for the Obama
administration warned Moon that South Korea was not going to get anywhere with the North Koreans unless they
have the "US behind them". Humiliating, that is like saying that Moon's "button" is not as big as Kim's. The
metaphor is exactly how the Washington elite see South Korea: as Washington's obedient eunuch. The official
went on to say, "If South Koreans are viewed as running off the leash, it will exacerbate tension within the
alliance". Running off the leash! Now more humiliation, is South Korea a US poodle? Instead President Moon
Jae-in is showing that he has teeth, and that South Koreans want their country back from US humiliating
domination.
During the talks it was agreed for North
Korea to participate in the Winter Olympics in February. The two countries will even march together under a
common flag, and future talks between the two are planned to reduce tension. Trump continues to bluster,
while the two Koreas have "
engaged
in the most substantive direct talks in years". Neocons such as John Bolton are
outraged
that North Korea has proven once again that it is willing to come to the negotiation table.
Bolton says it is a dirty trick and that North Korea is "taking advantage of a weak South Korean
government", adding more insulting humiliation. To Washington, South Korea talking peace is weak, running
off the leash and going it alone without its US master. The North using the peace option is seen as a
provocation and propaganda that Washington will not tolerate. In retaliation the
US sent
more nukes to Guam, and put the state of Hawaii on a full alert that a "
ballistic
missile was inbound
". The nukes outbound to Guam are real; the ones inbound to Hawaii were fake, just
like the ability of the billion dollar THAADS to shoot them down. Too conveniently the Hawaii false alarm
comes just as the US and its vassals are readying for what the US plots to be a
show of solidarity
and unity on killer sanctions against North Korea. The US wants its chorus to perform
the tragedy of telling North Korea to obey or watch 500,000 of their children die. As Madeleine Albright
said about Iraq's 500,000 dead children from US sanctions, "
the
price is worth it
". The US does not think the price of diplomacy is worth it though.
The US continues to block efforts at
diplomacy, and express its contempt for South Korea's elected President Moon Jae-in. He was elected on a
peace platform
by the South Korean people. Moon's predecessor Park Geun-hye sang from the US hymnbook
until she got caught with her hand in the cookie jar. In 2017 the South Korean people went to the street and
demanded the granddaughter of former dictator Park Chung Hee be impeached, and now she is in prison. Peace
is not anything that Washington's plutocrats want to hear, although the South Korean people like the sound
of it, and elected Moon their president by a wide margin. The self-interests in Washington preferred the
corrupt warmonger Park. She carried the US's tune with perfect pitch, even (
allegedly
)
conspired to assassinate the North's Kim Jong-Un. The message of the humiliation from US apparatchiks is
that if Moon does not change his tune the US will try to undermine South Korea's democracy with a regime
change project might be in his future. The US habitually meddles in other's elections, and wants to keep
tensions high on the Korean peninsula, keep the South Koreans in line, make North Korea a boogeyman,
frighten the American people, station 30,000 US troops in South Korea with wartime operational control, buy
more multi-billion dollar THAADS from Lockheed Martin, and divide the Korean people. Even at the risks of a
nuclear war, which the US proposes
making easier
.
The establishment
nearly went to war
with North Korea in 1994 until Bill Clinton negotiated peace. The neocons in
Washington and the mainstream media keep saying that North Korea refused to come to the negotiating table.
Clinton's decision to use diplomacy instead of threats proved the warmongers wrong again. It was the US all
along that refused to talk, preferring belligerence and threats just as it does now. Once Clinton showed a
willingness to bargain, then a nuclear deal was struck. The deal was called the
Agreed Framework
. What North Korea wanted then for it to suspend its nuclear program was for the US to
halt the massive military exercises on North Korea's border, a non-aggression guarantee, compensation for
abandoning its needed electric producing nuclear reactors, and relations with the US. Now the situation with
North Korea is back to where it was in 1994. George W. Bush reversed the path of peace when he came into the
White House. In 2001 he tore up the Agreed Framework, put North Korea on the
Axis of Evil
list in 2002,
invaded Iraq
in 2003, and
hanged Saddam
Hussein in 2006. Very predictably North Korea resumed its nuclear program for self-defense
against a paranoid and unpredictable USA that sees enemies to attack under every bed.
Bush scrapped
the Agreed Framework, and told then South Korean President Kim Dae-jung that future talks
with North Korea were dead. Kim Dae-jung had come to visit Bush shortly after winning the Nobel Peace Prize
for his
Sunshine Policies
of peace with North Korea. Instead of welcoming President Kim and his peace efforts,
Bush humiliated him by shockingly calling North Korea's leader Kim Jong-il a dwarf. North Korea predictably
withdrew from the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003 and resumed work on its nuclear program. A month later
Bush called out North Korea to pay particular attention to Libya as an example of how a country is welcomed
into the international community when it unilaterally gives up its nuclear defense program. North Korea paid
attention and it was listening when Muammar Gaddafi said in a 2008 speech that "
one
of these days America may hang us
like they did Saddam ". In 2011 Gaddafi met a
brutal death
at the hands of US proxies; he was anally raped with a bayonet and left to rot on public
display in a meat locker. Before Gaddafi's corpse was even cold a hysterically glowing Hillary Clinton
cackled "
we
came, we saw, he died", hahaha
". Now fast forward to 2018 and the US is threatening war against North
Korea again.
The US has been abusing Korea since 1871
when it first invaded it with an expeditionary force of Marines to forcibly open trade. Korea just wanted to
be left alone, but the US forced Korea to sign an exclusive trade treaty in 1882 at the point of a gun. In
exchange for that unequal trade agreement the US promised Korea protection. In 1910 the US proved that its
promise was worthless. Instead of protection, President Theodore Roosevelt stabbed Korea in the back by
conspiring with Japan. Roosevelt had enthusiastically supported Japan in the Russo-Japanese War. Japan
pre-emptively attacked the Russian fleet at Port Arthur in a sneak attack. Teddy congratulated Japan for
their brilliance in 1941 his nephew Franklin would call a Japanese sneak attack "a day of infamy". After
Japan and Russia ground down to a bloody stalemate, Japan secretly appealed to Teddy to open negotiations.
Roosevelt acted as a (dis)honest broker in negotiating the Treaty of Portsmouth, for which he won the Nobel
Peace Prize. Japan won the spoils of the war. Roosevelt had a secret deal that Japan could have Korea and
the US would take the Philippines. In 1945 the US deceived Korea again. Instead of liberating Korea from the
Japanese occupation, the US occupied Korea for 3 more years until 1948 and then blocked its independence.
The US was largely responsible for the division of Korea and backing dictatorships in South Korea until
1993. Americans do not know the US treachery, but Koreans do. Why would they trust the USA now?
In order to understand North Korea, one
must start with the "anticolonial and anti-imperial state growing out of a half-century of Japanese colonial
rule and a half-century of continuous confrontation with a hegemonic United States", as Bruce Cumings writes
in his book
North Korea: Another Country
. In order to understand South Korea one should take a similar approach. The
Japanese colonization of Korea in 1910 was greeted with cheers from the USA. Teddy Roosevelt encouraged
Japan to have its own
Japanese Monroe Doctrine
for Northeast Asia. The Japanese were harsh rulers, and Koreans remember
colonial times as a national humiliation. Under the Japanese the Korean economy grew rapidly, but Koreans
will rightly argue that little of it helped the average Korean. Like the Korean "comfort women" sex slaves
during World War Two, Koreans were forced to obey their Japanese masters. Some Koreans complied reluctantly,
some willingly and some enthusiastically. Many, but not all of the enthusiastic collaborators came from the
landed aristocratic class of Koreans known as the
yangban
. Other collaborators were traitors that saw advancing their economic and social status by
collaborating. After the division of Korea in 1945 many of the yangban class and collaborators fled to the
South where they felt safe with the US occupation army, and for good reasons. The North was redistributing
the yangban's vast landholdings. Many of the yangban and collaborators were safer in the US occupied south.
Some went on to achieve leadership in business and government in South Korea. For instance, the future South
Korean dictator Park Chung-hee (from 1963 until his assassination in 1979) had collaborated with the
Japanese as a lieutenant in the Japanese army in Manchuria fighting against the Korean resistance fighters.
Korea has a long history of thousands of
years. It united as one people in the 7
th
century and remained so until after World War Two. The
US had started planning for the occupation of Korea six months after Pearl Harbor, according to Bruce
Cumings. The day after Japan surrendered a future Secretary of State Dean Rusk drew a line at the
38
th
Parallel
where the US proposed that Korea be divided, and the Russian allies agreed.
Thousands of Koreans protested in the streets. They were told that a
trusteeship
was temporary until elections. Instead the US feared that the people would elect a communist
government, and so they rigged a fraudulent election for a separate government in the South. The United
Nations rubber stamped it. As in the South, the North then held
separate elections
for the Supreme People's Assembly which then elected Kim Il Sung, a famous
anti-Japanese guerilla resistance leader since 1932. The US and South Korean propaganda portray that North
Korea was a puppet and satellite project of the Soviet Union. This is probably the US projecting its own
imperial intentions. Cummings says that no evidence exists that the Soviets had any long-term designs on
Korea. They withdrew all of their military from North Korea in 1948.
North Korea has experience with US
brutality. During the Korean War the US bombed Korea for 3 years, wiped out 20% of its population and
destroyed every city, village and vital structure. President Truman threatened to bomb them with the atomic
bomb, and General Douglas MacArthur planned to use 30 nuclear bombs which were shipped to a US base in
Okinawa. Truman fired MacArthur not because MacArthur wanted to use nukes, but because Truman wanted someone
more loyal he could trust with them. Truman preauthorized MacArthur's replacement General Matthew Ridgeway
to use the nuclear bombs at his discretion. The US public is oblivious to US recklessness with nuclear bombs
and is passive about what is done in their name. The Korean War (1950 to 1953) is called the Forgotten War
because the US public has amnesia. Whatever propaganda they do remember is a flawed version of history put
out by the US government. Oblivious, passive and amnesia are why all US wars of aggression are quickly
forgotten as the US moves on to the next one.
After the US military occupation of
South Korea from 1945 to 1948, South Korea was ruled by US backed
repressive
dictators until the first democratic election in 1993. The first despot that the US installed
was Syngman Rhee in 1948. Rhee was a practically unknown in Korea because he had lived in the USA from 1912
until 1945, when he was flown back to Korea by the US military. The US pumped billions of dollars into South
Korea to make it a showplace of US-style capitalism during the Cold War, but South Korea did not develop
under either democracy or a free market, according to Ha-Joon Chang, the author of
Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism
.
For many decades North Korea outpaced
South Korea in economic development and in their standard of living until the 1970's. With the 1991 demise
of its most important trading partner the Soviet Union, North Korea fell on very hard economic times. Then
it suffered two floods and a drought in the 1990′s that resulted in famines. On top of that the US has
imposed killer economic sanctions. So now US propaganda constantly reinforces the belief that North Korea is
an economic failure that cannot even feed its own people. While the US touts that South Korea is an economic
miracle of democracy, capitalism and free markets. Little is ever mentioned about the economic collapse of
South Korea in 1997, which the US had to rescue with a
financial bailout package
that reached $90 Billion. The package included IMF loans that came with
humiliating conditionalities of austerity. The minister of finance Lim Chang Yuel went on TV, humiliated and
begging for the South Korean people's forgiveness.
Despite all the propaganda otherwise,
North Korea is not only willing to sit down at the table with the US, but it has long been proposing
negotiations to a deaf USA ear. What North Korea says it wants today are the same things that were
negotiated with Clinton in the Agreed Framework: security, compensation, and economic relations with the US.
There is nothing unreasonable that North Korea is asking for, and that is probably why the US refuses to
negotiate. It does not want peace for its own insane naked imperialism reasons. Instead the US wants
continued hostilities; otherwise if it wanted peace it would welcome diplomacy.
It is the US that is unpredictable. One
day Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson says
that the US is willing to hold unconditional talks with North Korea. Then he says
the US won't
. Trump says that he will destroy North Korea with fire and fury, and then he says he would
"
absolutely
talk
to North Korea's Kim on the phone". It is the US that is paranoid and finding enemies everywhere:
Cuba, Afghanistan, Syria, Venezuela, Iran, and Russia to name just a few. The US enemies list has nothing to
do with democracy, freedom and human rights. If it did the US would not be friends, allies, and benefactors
to brutal kingdoms, monarchies, dictators, fascists and human rights abusers such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt,
Israel, Honduras, Haiti, and Ukraine, for example. US foreign policy is based on hegemony, empire, power,
corporate interests, corruption and self-interests of the high and mighty, not democracy and human rights.
Who is paranoid? Compare how much of a
threat the US is compared to North Korea. Since World War Two North Korea has not invaded anybody. The
Korean War (1950 to 1953) was a civil war and authoritative historians such as I. F. Stone, Bruce Cumings,
and David Halberstam agree that the South was responsible for instigating it too. Korea itself has not
invaded anybody since the 16
th
century. The US has attacked at least
32 countries
just since WW2. North Korea has a defense budget of only
$7.5 billion
, compared to the US $1 Trillion. North Korea has developed nuclear weapons because the US
has been threatening it with nuclear destruction since 1950, introduced nuclear weapons into South Korea in
1957 in violation of the armistice agreement and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The US keeps
practicing regime change decapitation invasions and nuclear attacks against North Korea. North Korea has an
estimated arsenal of 20 nuke bombs that are not a threat to the US's 15,000 nuclear arsenal. Instead the US
is an asymmetrical and existential threat to North Korea and every other non-compliant small country. North
Korea has nuclear weapons because it does not want to humiliate itself by being a US poodle. When are the
American people going to wise up to the US propaganda and false cries that the evil wolf is at the door
again?
References:
"North Korea: Another Country", by Bruce
Cumings.
"The China Mirage: The Hidden History of
American Disaster in Asia," by James Bradley.
"Korean Mind: Understanding Contemporary
Korean Culture", by Boye Lafayette De Mente
(Republished from
The
Greanville Post
by permission of author or representative)
United Sh-thole of America. The people in Washington are degenerates. They want to murder millions of
Koreans and tens of thousands of their own people.
This article is too easy on the Norks, who are no angels themselves. It's quite unlikely that the South
started the war, when the South didn't have adequate weaponry or effective armed forces, unlike the North.
North Korea has done some horrible things in the past, most recently the (likely) sinking of a South Korean
vessel.
But overall, yes, in the current situation the US could easily avoid war, but doesn't want to.
Absolutely zero chance of JUSA attacking Korea for the obvious reason that there is nothing in it for the
jooies. Why would the clever conniving jooies waste their satrap's military assets on Korea when they could
be used to further the main jooie goal of destroying the ME and Iran? Think about it ..
Could be that the Trump administration is playing a game of hyper-aggression that always goes 'wrong',
uniting everyone against the empire and bringing America down in the least bad of hard landings from its
imperial role. Trump's kind words vis-a-vis Kim might have served as an assurance that Kim could trust his
channel. That purpose having been served, Trump was back in hyper-aggressive mode with his "I'd" versus "I"
explanation.
Trump's statements regarding Jerusalem, Iran and Pakistan/Afghanistan all follow the same
pattern.
We do have President Moon's statement, cited by a seemingly clueless Patrick Buchanan, that he is
nonetheless grateful to Trump for bringing the North Koreans to the table. Trump's overtly bad behavior
makes it easier for Kim to move against the entrenched forces on his own side.
Just a possibility. But it fits Trump's personality, if you go by indications over the decades rather
than the last two years.
So what? America is not an angel either. Doesn't give America the right to interfere. I'm glad other
countries have the balls to give America a bloody nose. Never has there been such a dishonest and immoral
country.
Where are you from Europe lol?
Hope your not expecting your obedience to pay off someday.
"When are the American people going to wise up to the US propaganda and false cries that the evil wolf is at
the door again?"
The hippie paradigm, if the people have awareness, they will care and change things
I think you underestimate the % of people who don't care and those understand, better them than me. Trump
was quoted as saying about the next Korean war, better Seoul nuked than us or something to that effect. Do
Trump supporters mind what he said that the USA should take the oil at the very least with regards to Iraq?
Nexus321, please, a little respect for our own country. We are the United States of America. Do not curse
the family.
Now, we are, all of us, disappointed with misdeeds done in our name. But, we are Americans and we can fix
this.
We should not judge the essence of ourselves as a nation by what some wayward politician whores do. Check
their motives and see on whose behalf they are working. It ain't ours. If what they do keeps the war game
alive, ask who benefits. Where does the buck lead? There lies the snake. Curse that. Bad deeds done in our
government's name shame us all, but that shame should make us citizens mature and determined, not adolescent
and whiny. I repeat, do not curse the family.
We are a good country founded on solid, moral principles. Act like a white man, Nexus321. Let's take this
country back and delouse it.
I don't know, what were you trying to say? That North Korea should be nuked, since they are "no angels"? no
matter what your personal opinion of them is, the fact, that they didn't attack anybody is still true!
"Since World War Two North Korea has not invaded anybody."
North Korea inarguably invaded the South. The arguable point might be whether or not it was provoked and
therefore a response.
I haven't read the histories the author cites, but I am aware of the history and the case that can be
made, and it is generally consonant with the gist of this article. The declaration of the DPRK came after
the US- backed Rhee declared the ROK and reneged on peninsula-wide elections that had been agreed to at the
UN. I guess you can call it a civil war, but that really isn't germane to the question: Why can the US not
stomach any rapprochement between the two de facto Koreas two-thirds of a century later, while it was
willing to accept a reunification of a historically more aggressive Germany?
Absolutely. There are suburbs coast to coast that depend on weapons manufacturing and all things defense.
They'll stick to the script.
I'm disappointed the author didn't embellish the truth of the Korean war – the way the US went after
civilians like the Nazis and used biological agents. Empire has a lot of secrets about fightin' communism
they still hide.
Screw the "family" mafia for the family is just as corrupt as the leaders you curse, do you really think the
family gives a shit about how many we killed in Asia, do you really think the family gives a shit about how
many we kill in the Mid-East or anywhere else for that matter,and what the country was founded on has no
bearing to what it is today, corrupt to the core, immoral degenerate with a fascist type government which the
"family" is just as guilty of as its leaders .
According to I.F. Stone in his "Hidden History of the Korean War" (1952), the intent of the Korean War was
to destabilize the Chinese Revolution which had consolidated power the year before. As Iraq was told that it
was acceptable to the USA if it reunified with Kuwait in 1993, so North Korea was suckered into attempting
to reunify their country. Those thirty atomic bombs were not intended for Korea which had already been
utterly destroyed by conventional weapons, they were meant for China. McArthur sacrificed a Marine division
by sending it without support to the border of China and predictably brought that country into the war; he
then demanded the nuclear bombing of China. Truman didn't go along and MacArthur was soon replaced. A fine
article from Mr. Pear.
Lots of good stuff but too sympathetic to North Korea which is ruled by a truly vile regime.
North Korea
is not about nationalism. It's about dynasticism. Also, 'Kim Il Sung' was not the real Kim Il Sung. His real name was Kim Sung Ju and he appropriated the
name of a guerrilla fighter. And his cult of personality was obnoxious.
Bak Jung-Hi worked for the Japanese, but collaboration is par for the course when resistance is futile.
Resistance became futile under Japanese who were only defeated by great powers. Sukarno collaborated with
Japanese too. And Kim collaborated with the Soviets. North Korea redistributed land to the peasants but then state collectivized the land, and the peasants
became slaves of the state.
The fact that Red China and communist Vietnam turned to market economics is proof that capitalism works
better than communism. Communism is like City Hall running all the economy of a big city. Who wants that?
The US has been threatening to use nukes against the DPRK during and since the war. Is it any wonder that
they decided to nuke up themselves as a deterrent? They're not going to give up their nuclear deterrent
under the bombast of threats of annihilation but are more likely to dig in and expand it. This doesn't seem
to be particularly complex or difficult to understand. Where does the US think it can go from here, what
does it think it could realistically do to them? It might be a good first step to stop the bluffing. Can we
say 'self-inflicted' when it comes to this confrontation?
{ Can we say 'self-inflicted' when it comes to this confrontation}
The confrontation is not
'inflicted
' as such: it was and is carefully planned.
This is not the first time South Korea has tried to approach North Korea: US previously also threatened SK
leaders, and forced them to back off.
US needs maximum tension on the Korean peninsula to have an excuse to keepa large contingent of armed
forces in the region. If South and North Korean make peace, US will be asked to leave SK.
Next might be Japan. Then US is completely cut out of the region.
So in desperation, US will do anything, possibly even instigating a military clash, to stay in SK and
Japan. Last thing US MIC wants anywhere in the world is peace: it's bad for business.
What we need are more psyops like the recent drill in Hawaii. More fear and loathing so empire can create a
virtual camp x-ray with live updates from Facebook and twitter to coddle the sheep. It's a shame North Korea
can't buy Democracy to keep it from Dying in Darkness.
But how dare Russia try to use our twitter weapon that we use on Americans that the Russians want to use on
Americans too.
Pussy hat controlled resistance, doom porn and fake antiwar will continue to play an
important part of the lives of the American porn consumer. In the name of security the CIA may give us the
race war, or hatred of the wealthy or the ol' immigrant rat trap. The possibilities are endless but the
dictatorship is making itself clear with endless promotion of scarcity through their scribes in social
media.
Post on social media everyday – what you think matters!
To make matters much more confusing, we have hypocritical stealth DOD contractors like Code Pink play up
fake resistance to the threat of war. Barging into meetings as if the whores on Capitol Hill are calling the
shots is an uniquely insidious form of stunt based propaganda. The motive for groups like Code Pink is to
have a group that part of the press can immediately call "far left, unpatrioric" endearing them to at least
half the sheep who are convinced they are the real McCoy of antiwar dynamite.
Code Pink first crushes any
questions about whether Democracy even exists in the USA. "Look at us, we are right here where it matters
isn't the country wonderful"
Then the absolute suffocation of anyone who dares question empires' gun running operations outside of
state approved stunt idiocy and clown show electoral politics.
Why did you omit the fact that the S Korean sex trade is completely run by S Koreans not Americans?
I do
remember an American colonel in the occupation forces stating that he basically ran a brothel.
The US has had sanctions on N. Korea for more than forty years.
During that period, more than one S, Korean government has entertained re-unification. The reason we
might challenge that reunion if because should we actually have to go to war at some point with China, a
friendly Korea with China would be a problem.
But what is driving unification at least when I visited was the population.
But the choice by Pres Trump to entertain conversation -- is a wise choice.
So? Most of the propaganda put out during the Cold War by the Soviet Union turned out to be more accurate
and closer to the truth than propaganda put out by the United States government though the US State
Department. For instance, Russia's version (at the time) as of what transpired immediately prior to and
after Francis Gary Powers was shot down over Russia in 1959 (?) turned out to be much more accurate than the
US's version which was essentially a pack of lies.
No idea what you're talking about with 'the Truth'. This article is highly accurate, it seems to me: it's
description of endless and ongoing US atrocities is absolutely true, as is the author's statement that never
has such a rotten, lying government existed, a government that perpetually provokes any and all countries on
earth, that hates peace, that destroys any attempts at decency. I have only read IF Stone, cited here, 'The
Hidden History of the Korean War' or something similar. It is a staggering book. Essentially the war was a
military exercise, a chance for troops to see action, test out new machines and weaponry. Most importantly,
my interpretation here, it presented a vast theater for psy ops and 'country building' ie utter destruction.
These kinds of great experiments are a Brit and by extension US govt specialty. This is really thinking big,
thinking long term. Cut countries in two after first murdering millions and utterly destroying literally
everything–in this case, for example, Seoul was literally first evacuated then set on fire by US troops,
just kinda for fun. It's the kind of really big thinking going on now too (and in all the intervening
years), eg with the utter destruction of Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Yemen. Britain (a misnomer–it
is really England but wants others to share the burden. I mean, the Welsh??) did this to Ireland four
centuries ago, to India more recently, to mention nothing of Africa and others.
'Then there's a whole range of wild attacks and accusations going all the way back to 1871(!).'
It's
called history, not an American specialty. But rather important to understanding the present and future.
Your whole post is very ignorant.
It was the same in VietNam–we installed a dictator (Diem) who had lived mostly in the US, and reneged on the
national elections that had been agreed on as a part of the peace agreement after the French defeat.
After
JFK tried and lost, nothing has been able to stop the Military bla bla bla complex that actually rules this
country.
If South Korea officially requested this, would the US refuse?
Of course the USG would refuse such a request -- it thinks it is master of the world. The greatest hindrance
to world peace since WWII is the monster on the Potomac.
Michael Kenny's comment ignores the fact that the rocket motors could have been airshipped from the Dnipro factory directly to
DPRK, or even shipped by sea.
Maybe they came via China. The bottom line is we don't know when or how they got there.
What we do know is that Rocket Man's displays of prowess have brought things to a head in one of the Empire's critical nodes. The
background for this crisis is ROK's desire to participate in China's BRI. The chaebols are drooling over the opportunities, but DPRK
isolates them in the southern end of the Korean peninsula. Hence, Putin & Moon's joint announcement in Vladivostok of the "9
Bridges" initiative bringing DPRK into the Eurasian fold.
It would appear DPRK likes the idea, and the suddenness of the thaw in North – South relations is an indication that big wheels
are turning behind the scenes. The US' recent statements indicate it finally dawned on them as well, and that they are, in their
typically knee-jerk fashion, actively trying to torpedo further peaceful developments.
If ROK loosens its tethers to the US sufficiently to gain direct land access to the rest of Eurasia, Japan's Keiretsu will not
allow themselves to be sidelined. Abe & Putin have met 17 times, perhaps as a result of the pressures Abe is already feeling from
them.
The US' absurd statements, the patently silly "Vancouver Summit", the flip-flopping, all indicate that the US and its Imperial
satraps have no idea what to do in the face of Rocket Man's exposure of their irrelevance in the N.W. Pacific.
So let them, officially, invite us to leave.
My bet – and certainly my hope – is that we'd bow out, more
or less gracefully.
And if we refused – well, that would certainly clarify things.
The Korean Peninsula is cursed by geography. Reunification of Korea would mean one of two things.
1. A
Korean Peninsula allied with the US. This would put US troops on the Chinese border. No one should want
this. Too easy for a border incident to escalate into a war between the two most powerful countries and
economies on the planet.
2. A non-aligned Korean Peninsula. No way this would happen. Without US support the entire peninsula
would become a Chinese satellite. Japan fought two wars because it saw Chinese / Russian control of Korea as
an existential threat. Japan would get nukes if this happened and the entire NW Pacific would be greatly
destabilized.
The sad reality is that a buffer state in the north part of the Korean Peninsula is in the best interest
of South Korea, China, Russia, Japan and the US. What everyone needs to figure out is how to make N. Korea
more like East Germany, and less like Stalinist Russia at its worse.
"North Korea is not about nationalism. It's about dynasticism." -- Anon
Except that the current Kim may actually be a Korean nationalist, not a North Korean nationalist, in
which respect he is in agreement with all the Korean people. Korea will become reunited, but the price of
reunification may be, probably will be, that it will become part of Han China.
China regards Korea as it does Tibet, only more so -- as now and since ever throughout all time, as part
of China, speaking and writing Mandarin, integrated into the PRC economically, culturally and politically.
I'm sure this will please the anti-USA crowd gathering here around this article by Pear -- as they always
do to show support for any Leftist revisionist supporter of the "USA==Evil" dogma.
"Except that the current Kim may actually be a Korean nationalist, not a North Korean nationalist, in which
respect he is in agreement with all the Korean people. Korea will become reunited, but the price of
reunification may be, probably will be, that it will become part of Han China."
No, Little Rocket Man is a
self-centered spoiled brat who puts himself above all else. He was raised as a spoiled princeling and acts
like it.
"China regards Korea as it does Tibet, only more so -- as now and since ever throughout all time, as part
of China, speaking and writing Mandarin, integrated into the PRC economically, culturally and politically."
No, China always regarded Korea as a separate kingdom and left it alone as long as Korea paid tribute. It
was Japan that tried to swallow Korea twice, not China.
The only time Korea became part of Han Empire was when China itself was conquered by foreigners. Mongols
conquered China and Korea. Later, Manchus, using Mongol archers, also conquered China and Korea. It was not
China conquering Korea but non-Chinese conquering both.
Even so, the Manchus regarded Korea as a separate kingdom in the end.
Tibet is a different because of its small population. It's a huge area and had less than a million people
when it came under Han hegemony. Same with the Turkic Northwest. It's like US could easily swallow Alaska
and sparsely populated SW territories but didn't try to take Mexico proper.
In a way, Mongols really changed China and Russia. If not for Mongols, Russia might be much smaller and
China too. Both Russia and China were conservative powers. Russian expansion was paradoxically defensive as,
lacking sufficient natural barriers, Russia could only survive as an empire. Even so, Russians might not
have been interested in East Siberia and North Asia if not for concerns of invasions from the East.
Pacifying Siberia and North Asia became a priority because of the memory of threat from the East. Also, the
Mongols proved that the vast area could be traversed if the people had the will to do so.
And if not for Mongols, Current China might be much smaller. Han China used to be much smaller and was
restricted to the East Coast. Chinese were very conservative and not very adventurous, exploratory, and/or
invasive. Instead of trying to conquer northern territories, China just built walls to keep the barbarians
out. And Chinese had little interest in areas outside Han areas.
So, for most of Chinese history, their civilization was mostly along the east coast.
The massive expansion of Chinese borders happened under Mongols who
were
adventurous and expansive.
Mongols not only invaded China but went far beyond.
Later, the Manchus, using Mongol archers and warriors, expanded much further into the West, regions that the
Han Chinese mostly neglected. These semi-barbarian warlords had the aggressive zeal that the conservative
Han Chinese lacked.
Thus, it was Manchu-Mongol ambitions that expanded the size of China, and when the Manchus and Mongols were
either expelled from or dissolved into Han China, their conquests became absorbed into China. Mongolia would
be part of China too if not for Soviets. Like Tibet, Mongolia is huge and sparsely populated. Easier for
Chinese to control. Also, both Mongols and Tibetans are less developed than Koreans who are more adept at
imitation.
Likewise, Byzantine Greeks had an empire they inherited from the Romans.
"Highly unlikely. He called himself Kim Il Sung already when people who have met the original Kim Il Sung
were still around. Such change of identity is not impossible, but not too easy either."
No, 'Kim Il Sung'
was a fraud. He had been part of some resistance movement, but he was not THE Kim Il Sung who's more legend,
like Robin Hood.
Kim was so unknown in Korea that Soviets initially had trouble installing him as leader. Most people saw
him as Soviet stooge, which was what he was.
So, as in the South, the domestic patriots had to be repressed or executed, and a cult of personality had to
be built up around Kim that became more and more ridiculous.
Kim was an unimaginative Stalinist.
That said, I don't see how his 'invasion' of South was a bad thing. How can a Korean invade Korea? The
north/south divide was artificially imposed by great powers on a nation. As idiotic as both Kim and Rhee
were, there was nothing wrong in their dream of reuniting the nation. The great wrong was in the (1)
division of Korea itself (2) installing puppet rulers in both artificially created entities.
Suppose China and Russia divided Israel into north and south. Would it be wrong if either Israel, north
or south, tried to reunify the nation? If north Israel entered south Israel to unify the nation once again,
would that be 'invasion'?
Kim's Stalinism and personality cult would have been bad for Korea, but I don't see anything wrong with
his desire to unify his nation. And in that, Rhee had every right to want to unify the nation.
Where Rhee and Kim were idiotic was in blaming one another instead of blaming the great powers that
divided their nation. But how could either blame his sponsor? If not for USSR, Kim would not have been
installed as leader of north. If not for US, Rhee would not have been shoehorned in as leader of south. They
gained power as dogs to foreign masters.
If they really had sense, both would have stepped down as leader(as both were installed by empires) and
graciously allowed for unification and new leadership chosen by the people than by foreign powers. But both
had petty egos, and Kim wanted to be ruler of all Korea, and Rhee wanted to be ruler of all Korea. Neither
blamed the great powers but just one another.
If Israel were divided by great powers, I think Jews would have enough sense to come together and act in
unison. After all, Israel itself was created by the coming together of all kinds of Jews: capitalist,
communist, socialist, liberal, conservative, secular, religious. Jews may be neurotic and crazy, but they
have enough sense of world affairs and the nature of power.
But Koreans are a stupid people. Divide them and set them against each other like dogs, and they are like
two pitbulls. A culture of slavish servitude and emotions-over-reason made them act like dogs than sensible
humans.
When the british empire ended, I think a lot of borders were drawn to create ever lasting problems/conflicts.
Israel was also it's creation with american backing of course.
When are the American people going to wise up to the US propaganda and false cries that the evil wolf
is at the door
I doubt the masses will ever awake from the constant propaganda. I mean, all major information outlet is
controlled. and besides, the smart ones also believe it is necessary to keep their way of life.
ask any american if their way of life will end, everything will become 100% more expensive, they can no
longer take vacations, work twice as hard for the same pay or less, they will instantly think nothing of the
current wars
very, very very few people are selfless humanists.
I am just scare of the fact if usa attacks NK unilaterally in the near future, china will get involved =
WW3 + maybe nuclear war.
I read similar drooling nonsense to what you just wrote all over the internet: "Look, first off, I
don't support the guy but this is obvious lefty slander".
Ok. You don't support the guy but you need to qualify that non-support by saying he's being impuded.
In other words you support the guy, warning of the coming leftists
– Anonymous
What am I supposed to asy? "I feel your pain" or what? I mean you have to read "similar drooling nonsense
all over the internet" so what?
First off, it's not that I don't support Pear, but I actually condemn him as a Leftist revisionist. And
then there's no' but', there's an
'and' it's obvious lefty drool.
BTW, my "non-support" for Pear is
unqualified, as is my disrespect for you,, Anonymous. Are yoo actually Pear writing under that pseudonym?
No, 'Kim Il Sung' was a fraud. He had been part of some resistance movement, but he was not THE Kim Il
Sung who's more legend, like Robin Hood.
He was made into such a legend by North Korean propaganda after Kim became the leader. He was the most
daring Korean guerrilla commander, but that's not saying very much, because he couldn't do much against the
Japanese.
Kim was an unimaginative Stalinist.
Oh, he had a lot of imagination and original ideas. They led to a dystopia, but original he was. He also
was a skillful and daring politician, who managed to get rid of his pro-China and pro-Soviet factions
simultaneously in the late 1950s, at a time when he depended on both. That was quite bold and required a lot
of political skills. Founding a dynasty in a nominally Marxist-Leninist society was not very easy either.
There was some opposition to it even among his otherwise loyal associates, who wanted a normal communist
succession with one of the top dogs becoming the new leader.
"Oh, he had a lot of imagination and original ideas. They led to a dystopia, but original he was."
He was
shrewd, not original. But then, he was surrounded by second-raters and hacks, not men of talent.
"He also was a skillful and daring politician, who managed to get rid of his pro-China and pro-Soviet
factions simultaneously in the late 1950s, at a time when he depended on both. That was quite bold and
required a lot of political skills."
No, purges were quite common in Stalinist systems. Stalin, Mao, Tito, and the rest all purged 'bad
elements'. Nothing original about that.
And it's not so much that he got rid of pro-China-elements and pro-Soviet-elements as he balanced them out.
If not for the Korean War, he would have leaned to the USSR. But China played such a huge role in the war
that it gave him an opportunity to lean to China as well. so, he played on both USSR and China for aid. Now,
where he was skillful was maintaining this balance even after the Sino-Soviet rift.
"Founding a dynasty in a nominally Marxist-Leninist society was not very easy either. There was some
opposition to it even among his otherwise loyal associates, who wanted a normal communist succession with
one of the top dogs becoming the new leader."
It turned out to be pretty easy because he did it and then his son did it too. It was easy because North
Korea under Kim was more about the dynasty than ideology. People were raised to worship Kim, not to think
ideologically. And Kim surrounded himself with yes-men and hacks. If there was overt opposition, it was
easily dealt with. The gulag.
Kim was a stupid bumpkin who got to leader because Stalin saw him as pliable and obedient.
The US was largely responsible for the division of Korea and backing dictatorships in South Korea
until 1993. Americans do not know the US treachery, but Koreans do. Why would they trust the USA now?
Most SKoreans do not know, either. And those who do and talk about it probably risk imprisonment for
treason.
Moon's predecessor Park Geun-hye sang from the US hymnbook until she got caught with her hand in the
cookie jar. In 2017 the South Korean people went to the street and demanded the granddaughter of former
dictator Park Chung Hee be impeached, and now she is in prison.
She is the daughter.
Korea itself has not invaded anybody since the 16th century.
Korea was invaded by Japan in the 16th century. It's difficult to pinpoint when Korea invaded anyone.
We'd have to go back to a time prior to their nominal unification at least in the 7th century.
The Korean Peninsula is cursed by geography. Reunification of Korea would mean one of two things.
It's the 21st century. There's no curse of geography. It's a global village. Trade is global.
Communication is global. Cultural exchange is global. It has a combined population of 70M. SKorea is
technologically/economically advanced. Its biggest threat is its own lethargy/apathy.
The sad reality is that a buffer state in the north part of the Korean Peninsula is in the best
interest of South Korea, China, Russia, Japan and the US.
No, that's only in the best interest of the US and Japan.
Why did you omit the fact that the S Korean sex trade is completely run by S Koreans not Americans?
Sounds familiar. That's what Japan says about WWII sex slaves.
I do remember an American colonel in the occupation forces stating that he basically ran a brothel.
The subtext being that SKorea turned itself into a brothel? US forces, war and starvation had nothing to
do with women selling their bodies to survive?
I agree. As much as I hate to admit as much, and also being a veteran, the USA government is rotten to the
core. Manipulation and coercion all across the board. Hard to escape the feeling we will pay for these
misdeeds somewhere along the way. Cosmic Justice demands as much. Neither nation nor person can continue on
in such manner indefinitely. USA is the agitator. If the Koreans could just tell Uncle Sam (er . Sap) to
pack his bags and get out of Dodge, they would be on their way to a much better future. nx
You're just going along with this article and making up shit. That's not something Americans did. Your
people are the ones who are mentally and spiritually enslaved by the British till this day. Your people are
so engrained with wanting to be White, even after your motherland was invaded, occupied, murdered by the
British, that your people bleach their skin and praise, put a whites on a pedestal, and strive to be like
their oppressors.
The reason why the United States doesn't want the two Koreas to reunify, is because if they reunite, the
United States loses its revenue. South Korea pays to have American soldiers stationed in their country. The
U.S. sells it's weapons to South Korea, out of fear mongering. The longer the U.S. can keep the two Koreas
separated, the more they can make money off of the fear of war. War creates revenue for the United States.
That's why we keep going at it with the Middle East. It's always the U.S. going to war with others, usually,
over false pretenses. Let's not forget, how we lied about weapons of mass destruction to go to war with
Iraq. Fear mongering, allows the U.S. government to sell weapons to not only South Korea, but to other
countries in Asia. That's why.
Korea, is actually blessed by geography. They're not in Europe & part of the E.U. So they're not forced to
have migrants by the millions in their country against their will, with open borders. They're not located
where the U.S. is, where Latinos invade their country by the thousands. They're not where Japan is, to get
butt raped by mother nature and thank goodness, they're not located where china is. I visited china. It was
horrid. Korea's ecosystem is rich, diverse & unique because it's a peninsula. China, never controlled Korea.
If anything, Korea fought against china, defeating them many times throughout history. They did this before
America existed. Koreans are clever people who have a strong military and several decades of stockpiled
weapons on hand, along with new ones. They don't need American soldiers in Korea after reunification, to
protect them. Japan, is afraid Korea will reunify, because that means Korea will be even stronger. The same
goes for china. A stronger one unified Korea, is a threat to other Asian countries.
You've worked for "Samsung." Lol. and I'm the King of England. China, has the highest suicide rate per
capita. 22.24 for every 100,000. That makes them the country with the highest suicide rate in the world.
Japan is close behind.
By the way, japan, has the lowest birth rate in Asia. They're not reproducing enough male japanese babies to
replace the old, sickly, & dying in the work place. Japan, is screwed. Again, deflecting other's short
comings on to Korea.
It's actually the Middle East, Dubai, that is the plastic surgery capital of the world. They get the most
rhinoplasties. Plastic surgeons go there months out of the year, to make the most amount of money in the
shortest amount of time. Then it's the United States & the UK close behind. Plastic surgery is on the rise
in ethnic chinese countries, like taiwan, hong kong, & singapore, china, japan, & in southeast asian
countries, like philippines, thailand, veitnam, and indonesia, more than ever. As of 2017, these asian
countries get the most procedures done & they compete with each other in who does it the most percentage
wise. No one wants to admit their race of people get plastic surgeries, so they deflect, finger point to
others, especially to better looking people as an excuse as to why others are far more attractive than their
ugly selves. (I'm pointing at you.) Asians do it out of jealousy. They can't stand seeing a Korean get
compliments. Whites get the most plastic surgeries in the West, but asians don't finger point at them,
unless they're discriminated by Whites, because asians think Koreans are far better looking than Whites.
I'll have to remind you that if Korea, in which this is all true, have a technologically advanced country,
are an advanced people, who excel in intelligence, inventions, sports, have a booming economy, are talented,
have the most popular genres of music in the world and one of the most addictive forms of entertainment, (K
pop) and Korean dramas, movies, have the most amazing style unlike other races & nationalities, both men and
women have the best complexions, their skincare products are the most popular in the world, that do what
they say, have two electrictronic companies in which one has completely dominated the globe, a successful
car manufacturing industry, Korean foods & alcohol, that all races love, an amazing rich history unlike any
other, which draws people in to want to learn more about Koreans, the first in asia to always break records
and make history, before any other asian country, the most popular race in asia, and the best looking in
asia and in my opinion, better looking than any other race of people other than some Whites. So with all
these great attributes Korea has, there's no reason to think and hate on them or to think they're less in
any way, unless one is a jealous person or a whole jealous race of people who only hate online, because they
themselves, don't have any of these attributes the Koreans have, hence, making them haters like you, whether
you're asian or not.
If Kiev wants to attack Donbas they better hurry. After World Cup, and definitely next year
when the pipelines bypassing Ukraine will be ready, Ukraine's strategic situation will get
worse. We are in a transition phase: sh..t happened in 2013-15 that is impossible to undo,
but there were fortunately constraints on all sides that prevented a meltdown. In a year or
two most of those constraints will be gone.
Saker is correct that EU countries will not work with Russia. Blaming it all on Washington
was always stupid – there are forces in Europe, in all countries, who want a
confrontation with Russia. Any event, real or fake, will be used to escalate. West cannot
lose this one without another fight. And if they sit on their hands, they will eventually
lose with a disillusioned Ukraine and slowly disintegrating EU. Populist energy needs to be
re-directed eastward, and for that a more aggressive policy is required. This is not
pessimism, there simply is no way for EU elite to climb down. How could UK make up with
Russia without looking like complete idiots? Or Macron and Merkel? The hostility is at this
point inherent in the situation – what started out as a badly thought-out attempt to
get some quick goodies (bases in Crimea, Nato expansion, sell weapons) has evolved into a
real death spiral.
We are one Franz Ferdinand moment away from a catastrophe. Let's enjoy the games while we
still can. Trump knows this, so he is trying desperately to organize a summit or send some
messages of conciliation. But he is powerless and it might be too late for that. Hubris never
dissipates, it requires a disaster and an elite turnover to cure hubris.
Saker is once again completely wrong. His theories fall short to explain lots of real events.
He got hooked on his "Anglo-Zionist" theory and "one Hegemon", which is far from explaining
the reality on the ground. There is no one single hegemon, but two powerful interest groups
in the west. One of the power centers is dominated by the Rothschilds from the City of London
and the other ruled by the Rockerfellers which is based in the US.
The powers described above are sometimes working in collusion but sometimes work against each
other (They were in collusion during the Soviet Afghan war for instance). Currently, we don't
see a collusion but a war being waged in between these two groups. I think it is highly self
evident, so much so that it is happening almost all in the open. In the modern history we
haven't witnessed such a openly fought war ever before (between these two powers). All is at
stake and the war in between these two is vicious. Thus you can explain Trump's attitude
towards EU, everlasting character assasination of Trump by certain opposing circles in the
US, high level resignations, the state of confusion of Nato and much more. If this theory is
right (and I think it is much more viable than any other theory that I came across in the
Alt-Med), this makes Russia firmly embedded into one of the camps. Unfortunately, the
position that Russia took makes him not a sovereign power but on contrary puts him into a
subservient role. The late actions of Russia, especially in Syria, is quite telling. I know
people who admire Russia get quite frustrated when they hear such a scenario and outcome, but
this is possibly the only way Putin believes that Russia can survive. Thus it explains his
latest house clean-up of Euroasian integrists. Even worse, if you believe in this scenario,
it brings Russia and China against each other especially in the long run. This scenario also
put a full stop to the idealist Euroasian multi-polar world order.
Here is the link to an older video in Russian with English subtitles. The guy's name is
Andrei Fursov and he has some interesting things to say regarding this subject. This
interview was just before Obama was elected but is still quite relevent. His newer videos
seems to have lost steam, possibly because he is working for some state connected Russian
institutions and think-thanks and thus I think he is somewhat restricted. After all it is
again the famous "Game Theory", isn't it?
I don't think you realize that armies need supplies. To break into Donbas cities would be
hard enough, but to re-supply them would be impossible. Civilians would mostly evacuate, so
there would be little to 'hide in'. Kiev cannot win militarily as long as Russia opposes it.
Russia can always blast their bases from air, or with missiles. Don't kid yourself, if Russia
has the will, they will prevail.
Since you mentioned 2014, there was a perfect opportunity for Maidanistas to avoid this.
All they had to do was to be friendly and accommodating to its Russian minority. Offer them
autonomy, re-assure them, promise that trade and ties with Russia would continue. Kiev did
the exact opposite, an extremely bad tactic. US kept on telling them to cool it, that one
doesn't win by attacking before ready. But in Kiev emotions prevailed, and so we are where we
are.
Sooner or later a more accommodating government in Kiev will try the 'let bygones be
bygones' tactic on Russia. If we are lucky enough to make it that far.
"... It wasn't just bad intelligence, it was consistently purposeful bad intelligence. The consequences have been dire for the world, and our country as well. The Russians in that period never represented a serious military threat even to the continent of Europe, far less the US. ..."
"... You are correct. The forever wars are just one of the ways to bleed the Middle Class dry. The media propaganda and rule by the 10% can't let the suckers know what is really going on. There are always enough men to man the colonial wars but they are unwinnable unless the whole nation is involved. ..."
"... Then behind the scenes Obama did very little to back up his speeches with actions as he went with the flow. ..."
"... Obama had two groups to satisfy, the populace and the elite. The populace got empty words, the elite got what they wanted. ..."
"... The MSM is waging a propaganda campaign at every level completely obscuring the truth. And the politicians play the fear card at every level. I don't believe any of us is in "happy compliance" at the airport. I for one, grind my teeth and cuss out the crooked corporations (including that bastard "skull" Chertoff who personally benefited from the x-ray screening machines) that reap a bundle of money from the so called screening and invasive body searches. Travel has become something to dread. ..."
"... The officer corps might be an opponent but I think that America has been badly served by them due to how officers are selected & trained and who makes it to the top. The only time they balk is when some idiot in Washington pushes them to fight the Russians or the Chinese. And most people don't really care in any case so long as the US wins. Out of sight, out of mind as they say. ..."
"... It's harder and harder to sell these military actions to the public. What are we in Korea and Japan for? To contain China? If you ask most people, they'll probably tell you that China won, or at very least our bosses are in league with their bosses. ..."
"... The Borg moves without regard to public sentiment, so we have to replace politicians with those who'll bring it to heel. That's a death sentence, but I feel like enough people have the guts to try and make it happen. ..."
"... *sigh* someone please trot out that Goering quote again: To the extent that public opinion matters, public opinion is easy to arrange. ..."
"... I don't mean to suggest that there isn't a solid electoral reason to have nice vague policies, not least because a campaign against foreign wars would be an excellent way for the left to make common cause with some parts of the right, such as the paleoconservatives and isolationists. ..."
"... It did for Russia. There is now an ongoing civil war on its border in Ukraine. NATO went to war with Serbia in the later 1990's. The breakup of the Atlantic Alliance will splinter Europe. Humans being humans. The strong will try to steal from the weak. ..."
"... The old adage that our country rallies around a war president is no longer operative IMHO. In a nation tired of perpetual war, the commander-in-chief would get at best a short-term surge in public approval by opening up a new battle zone, before slipping precipitously in the polls. Why on earth have the Democrats eagerly embraced the role of the war party, while our country literally crumbles for lack of public investment? Could there be a more effective losing strategy? ..."
"... Why on earth have the Democrats eagerly embraced the role of the war party, while our country literally crumbles for lack of public investment? Could there be a more effective losing strategy? ..."
"... Those are their constituents: beltway bandits, private contractors, public/private partnerships, insurance companies, arms companies, private equity firms, military contractors, and whatever other combinations you want to come up with. ..."
"... I remember when Tim Kaine gleefully suggested that we needed an "intelligence surge" to protect the country. I almost gagged. It was a not so subtle message of "prepare for the handouts to the private military contractor industry". ..."
"... How does positioning 2,000 – 4,000 US troops in Syria fit into your "Trump is a peace-maker" narrative? How about the comment Wednesday that the US will attack Syrian forces if they attack Sunni jihadis (er "moderate rebels") in SW Syria? ..."
"... How about us aiding and abetting a famine in Yemen that could kills tens of thousands? ..."
"... I think you are attributing a sentiment to juliania that her comment does not actually contain. She doesn't say Trump is a peace-maker, she says he was far in front of Bernie in using "anti-war rhetoric as a strategy." The example of Nixon doing the same thing indicates that juliania is well aware that strategic rhetoric and actual decisions are not the same thing. ..."
"... I know a fair number of Trump voters, and my read is similar to juliania's: Trump's anti-war rhetoric was a big draw for a lot of people, and helped many be able to hold their nose and vote for him. Understanding this and commenting on it does not make one a Trump supporter, obviously, or indicate that one puts any credence in his dovish rhetoric. ..."
"... You might be correct and my apologies to juliania if I misread her post. I have heard so much of the "Trump is fighting [the deep state, Wall Street, the neocons]" on other blogs that I am a bit hypersensitive and go off on a rant when I see or perceive that argument. From my perspective, Trump is doing everything in his power to entrench Wall Street, the neocons, etc. ..."
"... The war in Yemen is to secure the Saudi monarchy and our interest in their vast reserves of oil and gas. ..."
"... Are militarism* and democracy compatible? I'm not so sure they are. ..."
"... A lot depends on how you define "democracy", "will of the people" etc.. What the role of "finance" in a context of "capitalism" and "democracy" should be, e.g., citizens united(note orwellian language) may be considered a " reason why they would not be compatible" and even antithetical. ..."
"... America itself is the most destabilizing force on the planet. i would love to see what America leaving the world to its' own devices would look like. Like Weimar/Nazi Germany, nothing good comes from these kind of "American Values." ..."
"... The military is A-ok with Trump and this is what seems to matter. The roar of hysteria from the media over Trump first 2-3 months in office died down considerably when he showed a willingness to engage in a show of force by striking Syria (remember when he was so concerned about the welfare of children?) ..."
"... Only a *faction" of the security establishment is anti-Trump because he is skeptical of *neoliberal* globalism. ..."
"... Meanwhile, the Prez who can't seem to enact *anything* to make lives better for the people who put him in office, is magically able to enact the agenda of the 1%. This repeat of the 1% 's manipulations is one I can do without. ..."
"... Regarding the question posed by this post I think there is very little evidence of an anti-war "fever" and even if there were, and if it were projected into the streets and/or ballot box, I am pessimistic that it could have any effect on the U.S. government of today. I don't think the U.S. government cares what the American people think or feel about anything -- except of course as those cares and feelings affect the mechanisms of control through the propaganda pushed through our media, the levels of surveillance and suppression, and the increased viciousness of our "laws" and their enforcement. ..."
"... I believe the U.S. government is run by several powerful and competing interests. So I think I'll ask a different question -- though in the same vein as that posed by the title of this post. Are those interests who compete with the interests of the MIC and Spook Industrial Complex (SIC) beginning to see the futility and stupidity of our endless wars? ..."
"... "Peaceniks are Kremlin stooges!" It's depressing when you can predict the media's response six months in advance. ..."
Is anti-war fever building in the U.S.? One would not think so given all the signs -- apparent public apathy toward multiple military
involvements, happy compliance with "security" at the increasingly painful airport, lack of protests and so on.
Yet there are two signs I'd like to put forward as indicating a growing willingness to forgo foreign "entanglements" (undeclared
wars), springing either from a weariness with them, a nascent abhorrence of them, or a desire to focus U.S. dollars on U.S. domestic
solutions, like the
hugely popular Medicare for All . (Click to see just how popular Medicare for All, called "Medicare Buy-In" at the link, is across
party lines.)
The first sign is Bernie Sanders, the most popular politician in America and by far its most popular senator, making statements
like these in the speech linked and discussed in the video at the top
of this piece. For example, at 9:00 in the clip, Sanders says (emphasis his):
SANDERS: In other words, what we have seen in time and time again, disasters occur when administrations, Democrat and Republican,
mislead Congress and the American people. And when Congress fails to do its constitutional job in terms of asking the questions
of whether or not we should be in a war. And I think we need to ask that very hard question today.
And here is the point that I hope the American people are asking themselves. Is the war on terror, a perpetual, never-ending
war, necessary to keep us safe?
I personally believe we have become far too comfortable with the United States engaging in military interventions all over
the world. We have now been in Afghanistan for 17 years. We have been in Iraq for 15 years. We are occupying a portion of Syria,
and this administration has indicated that it may broaden that mission even more.
We are waging a secretive drone war in at least five countries. Our forces, right now, as we speak, are supporting a Saudi-led
war in Yemen which has killed thousands of civilians and has created the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet today.
Talk like this is anathema in our militarized state, comments usually relegated to the fringes of public discourse. For Sanders
to say this (and similarly anathemic remarks elsewhere in the speech) certainly denotes a shift, especially since Sanders during
the campaign was not considered strong on foreign policy, especially progressive (non-orthodox) foreign policy.
As Jimmy Dore said in reply to the last sentence quoted above, "It's not Syria? Can you [say] "stop the butcher" is the worst?
No. Turns out what we're doing is the 'worst humanitarian crisis in the world today,' committing siege warfare in Yemen, which
is a war crime. And we're doing it, with Saudi Arabia."
Sanders also says we're "fighting terror" in 76 countries. Let that sink in, as Sanders wishes it to -- we're engaged in military
conflict in 76 countries, almost a third
of the nations in the world. I'm not sure many in the lay public appreciate the importance, or the likely consequences, of that
surprising fact. (For one example of those consequences, consider that foreign wars often
come home .)
Elsewhere in the video Dore asks, "Do you see Chuck Shumer saying our wars have had 'dire consequences'?" Sanders, it seems to
me, is launching a toe-to-toe battle with what right-wingers have lately been calling the American "deep state" and I've been calling
the security establishment.
The second sign comes from Donald Trump during the campaign. This isn't just Sanders going out on a limb -- taking a flier,
as it were -- on a deeply unpopular position. Consider how often Donald Trump, the campaign version, made similar statements:
He also famously
said this about NATO and its mission:
What I'm saying is NATO is obsolete. NATO is -- is obsolete and it's extremely expensive for the United States, disproportionately
so. And we should readjust NATO.
If the U.S. security establishment is working to get rid of Trump, to take him out by whatever means necessary, campaign
statements like that would be one of many reasons.
If Americans Could Vote Against the Forever War, Would They Do It?
I recently
noted how different the outcomes are when the public indicates policy preferences with their votes versus polling data. DC politicians
of both parties ignore polling with impunity. Votes, on the other hand, especially in party primaries, can force change -- witness
the Trump nomination and the Sanders (stolen) near-nomination.
In some ways, small but not insignificant, the 2016 election was a test of the anti-war waters, with Trump asking questions about
the need and mission of NATO, for example, that haven't been asked in over a generation, and Clinton, the proud choice of the neocon
left and right, in strong
disagreement .
It's too much or too early to say that Trump's public pullback from U.S. hegemony helped his election, though that's entirely
possible. But it's certainly true that his anti-Forever War sentiments did not hurt him in any noticeable way.
I'll go further: If Sanders runs in 2020 and adds anti-war messaging to his program, we'll certainly see the title question tested.
If the U.S. security establishment is working to get rid of Trump, to take him out by whatever means necessary, campaign
statements like that would be one of many reasons.
Bernie had better watch his back then. Make sure no one associated with him has any contact with any Russians or Iranians or
whatever.
The "security establishment/Blob" no coubt has already filled its supply chain with anti-Bernie Bernays-caliber ordnance, ready
to deploy. I don't doubt that there are plenty of James Earl Rays out there, happy to be the ones who will "rid the Blob of this
troublesome politician." Just remember that Bernie has a summer house, and his wife was president of a failed college, and he's
a GD Socialist, for Jeebus' sake!
There's far less than six degrees of separation between any one person and someone who is Russian or Chinese or Iranian or
whatever. Even two degrees of separation is enough for a headline these days.
Districts with military casualties correlate to Trump votes. I'd would be nice to see Sanders do a Town Hall on the empire,
in six months or so when this speech has time to sink in, in one such district.
Yes. Sanders is going to have to pull off a communicative high wire act bridging relatively acceptable criticism of "unnecessary
and expensive foreign entanglements" to hinting at the idea that the US citizens have to understand the expansive pressures that
flow from capitalism and the MIC. I've appreciated the regular links here to American Conservative and Unz articles. They are
valuable reminders that some on the Right aren't in complete denial, at least about the MIC.
One scenario would see a revival of the terms of discussion that briefly saw daylight in at least the late 1940s, when state
planners openly linked a "defensive" military posture with a need for markets. It would at least get the cards out on the table
and assist in clarifying how world politics isn't just a matter of great and secondary powers inevitably pushing each other around.
The idea of Realpolitik is a fundamental and fatal ground of reification.
Presidential ambitions aside, it would be a good idea to pressure trump's crew that are plotting to attack Iran. Plus, any
chance to push back against the awful Dem leadership is also a positive. We need to see more grassroots pushback against that
leadership. Sanders is the best around at generating that grassroots pushback.
Bernie makes many salient points on the Military Industrial Complex in a floor speech concerning the Defense Dept. budget bill.
I especially like the part where he is trying to add an amendment that would limit the compensation of CEOs of defense contractors
to no more than the Secretary of Defense ($205,000). This speech will not make him any friends among the military corporate contractors.
(26 min.)
We are in the world's most favorable geopolitical position. We have the Atlantic to the east, the Pacific to the West, Canada
to the North, and Mexico to the South. We have enough nukes to blow up the world many times over. I don't know why we don't don't
treat the entire imperial enterprise as a sunk cost and get out, starting with the Middle East (and by get out, I mean cut off
all funding, too).
The Taliban announced the three-day halt to hostilities earlier this month, days after a unilateral ceasefire lasting until
Wednesday was ordered by the government.
It is the Taliban's first ceasefire since the government they ran was toppled by the 2001 US-led invasion.
I don't know if it's Trump or it's just coincidence. But peace has broken out in Korea for hte first time in decades, and now
peace has broken out in Afghanistan for the first time in decades.
You should take a look at The Threat by Andrew Cockburn. Fairly exhaustive detail about how Russian military
might was inflated, in the 70s and 80s, in virtually every possible way. From badly coordinated civil defense, to the complete
inreadiness of its airforce, to the caste system pervading the army that had reduced morale to almost nothing, the overall picture
is pretty stunning, compared to the magnitude of the threat that was presented to the US public.
It wasn't just bad intelligence, it was consistently purposeful bad intelligence. The consequences have been dire for the
world, and our country as well. The Russians in that period never represented a serious military threat even to the continent
of Europe, far less the US. Nor do they now, spending less than a tenth on their military than the US. The 80 billion dollar
incease in the US military budget this year was more than the entire Russian military budget. Meanwhile,our own bases
encompass the globe, and we wage war and threaten genocide wherever we choose.
The facts are abundantly clear, that our own military represents by far the greatest threat to human life on this
planet.
I want to tell you, that you and I and everyone in this damned country, we are not just the most lied to people in the world.
We're arguably the most lied to people in history, at least if you consider the number and frequency of lies. It's a wonder we
get anything right at all! I encourage you to read more, and read more widely, and to start at a position of distrust, with any
foreign policy reporting that isn't based on first hand knowledge.
I am heartened by the position Bernie is taking, even as I disagree with him on the Russia hysteria and wonder at some of his
qualifications like "blunder" to describe out and out imperialism. We need to start somewhere, and why not start with "let the
people and the people's representatives decide when we use our military"?
I know many progressives on the left have questioned Bernie's foreign policy positions and for not going far enough in opposing
our imperial wars. Personally, I think Bernie knows exactly how stupid, immoral, illegal, and costly our wars are, especially
as it "crowds out spending" on his favored domestic policies. Bernie is also smart enough to know how he would be attacked by
our right-wing corporate media and the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex if he were too outspoken. So, he tempers his
statements, not just because his domestic agenda is most important to him, but also because he knows attacking our militarized
foreign policy will not play well with the working class base he needs to appeal to. Unlike Obama who played up his anti-Iraq
War vote, only to expand our wars across the Middle East and Africa (after collecting his Nobel Peace Prize), Bernie is holding
his cards closer to the vest.
> play well with the working class base he needs to appeal to
I think the working class in the flyover states is ready to hear that the endless war needs to end. It's tricky message to
convey, because "Are you saying my child died in vain?" But Trump saying Iraq was a strategic blunder went over very well, and
military casualties correlate with Trump votes . I think Sanders (or his as-yet-unknown successor) must deliver that
message, but it's going to be tricky, if only because it will smash an enormous number of rice bowls in the national security
and political classes (which overlap). Maybe we could move all the uniform-worshippers to an island, give them a few billion dollars,
and let them play war games among themselves. Cheap at twice the price.
UPDATE I would bet "addiction" would work as a trope in the flyover states; "the war machine is a needle in America's arm"
is the concept. Especially because
veterans are prone to opioid addiction . Again, the rhetoric would be tricky to avoid blaming victims or "hating the troops,"
but I think there's good messaging to be found here. (People do horrid things when trapped in addictive systems. That's why they
seek cure )
Sanders needs to protect the people who are part of the 95% who work for the military industrial complex. He does this not
by raising welfare (which Americans find humiliating), not by only giving extensive retraining benefits, (which in an opportunity
starved country like America, will only lead to work stints at an Amazon Warehouse) but by repurposing the capitol and retraining
the working people to issues that must be addressed for the future, such as energy sustainability or infrastructure that can resist
increasingly severe climate chaos. Furthermore, he must announce and do both simultaneously, probably via an MMT program and raising
Taxes on rhe elite 2% and via transaction taxes on all capitol outflow from the USA.
Stopping the war machine, but putting people out of work, will never be acceptable to those who work for the war machine or
the friends and family of those people.
You are correct. The forever wars are just one of the ways to bleed the Middle Class dry. The media propaganda and rule
by the 10% can't let the suckers know what is really going on. There are always enough men to man the colonial wars but they are
unwinnable unless the whole nation is involved.
The Bolshevik Revolution and the Bonus Army were within living memory of WWII leaders. The new global aristocracy has lost
all history and doesn't perceive the inevitable consequences of inequality. My personal opinion was that for Marshall and Truman
one of the reasons for the use of atomic weapons on Japan was that they did not want millions of combat tested soldiers traveling
across the USA by train with the ultimate destination a number of deadly invasions of the Japanese Islands. Each worse than Okinawa.
They were afraid of what the soldiers would do. This is also the reason why these Vets got a generous GI Bill.
You reminded me of Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq. She protesteted at the GWB TX compound if you recall and remains
an activist to this day. I can't speak for her but it seems to me like she understands that her son should not have died to further
this ugly, pointless war.
I can't begin to understand the pain of losing a child, spouse, parent, etc., but I can wrap my head around it enough that
I don't want anyone to experience it. And I have no doubt that facing the true causes of the war would make the pain worse. But
every time I hear this nonsense about how some poor kid "didn't die in vain" in VietRaq, I want to scream "yes they did! Now what
are we going to do to stop it from happening again???".
The tropes of "supporting the troops", yellow ribbons, "they are protecting us", etc. just keeps the propaganda ballon inflated.
Here is how I support the troops: I'm against war.
This reminds me of Forest Gump where some well meaning hippies call Forest Gump a baby killer. The peace activists must refrain
from blaming and shaming soldiers as a group; specfic criminals (such as those who committed crimes at my lai) should investigated,
shamed and punished, the whistleblowers should be greatly honoured, and soldiers ad a group should be respected and not blamed
for going to war, as indeed many do not know the truth for why the war was fought. On the other hand, politicians, lobby groups,
and venal media and intelligence agencies should be exorciated for the lies that they believe or spread, as indeed it should be
their business to try to discern the truth.
Hence it was very admirable when members of the Mossad leaked out facts that Iran was not pursuing development of the Nuclear
bomb, even while Netanyahoo was pursuing a media blitz to justify greater economic and ultimately military aggression against
Iran
Who is "blaming and shaming" anyone? I'm saying that I agree with this mother who lost her child that we should be extremely
skeptical about the motivation for war of any kind. And the lack of skepticism (expressed or not) impedes any real movement away
from war without end.
The Sheehans are real people who lost a son and brother. Forest Gump is just some character from a dumb movie. Good grief.
I think that you can respect the sacrifice and commitment of people who sign up to fight for their country while still criticizing
the uses that leaders have chosen to put them to. In fact I think that makes the message stronger: the willingness of our friends,
family, children etc. to sign up to fight and die for America places a duty and obligation on our leaders to ensure they are deployed
wisely and for the betterment of America and the world. Those leaders – the ones we elected – have failed in that trust, and continue
to fail. Our military friends and family haven't let us down – we've let them down, by not holding our government accountable.
It's time we changed that!
"The rally featured a pointed anti-war speech from Obama, then a fairly anonymous state lawmaker, who deemed the impending
Iraq engagement 'a dumb war.'"
The political entertainer Obama gave a number of speeches advocating transparency in government, advocating for financial reform
and even mentioned "we tortured some folks" decrying torture.
Then behind the scenes Obama did very little to back up his speeches with actions as he went with the flow.
Obama's Illinois anti-war speech served him well, as he could milk this "anti-war" stance for years while running military
actions as President.
Obama had two groups to satisfy, the populace and the elite. The populace got empty words, the elite got what they wanted.
Bernie Sanders actually DID vote against the Authorization to Use Military Force in Iraq
Sadly, there is no contemporaneous transcript*
or recording . I remember the 2008 controversy vividly, because the Obama campaign released a campaign ad that purported to
be Obama delivering the Chicago 2002 speech, but it quickly emerged that he had re-recorded it for the campaign (see the link).
I think we're more than being lied to. The MSM is waging a propaganda campaign at every level completely obscuring the
truth. And the politicians play the fear card at every level. I don't believe any of us is in "happy compliance" at the airport.
I for one, grind my teeth and cuss out the crooked corporations (including that bastard "skull" Chertoff who personally benefited
from the x-ray screening machines) that reap a bundle of money from the so called screening and invasive body searches. Travel
has become something to dread.
You can tell a lot about a country's intent by the design of the army they assemble. Here is a deep technical description about
the new army the Russians are putting together. Hint: it is not designed to attack.
"The decision to create a tank army (armoured corps in Western terminology) is an indication that Russia really does fear attack
from the west and is preparing to defend itself against it. In short, Russia has finally come to the conclusion that NATO's aggression
means it has to prepare for a big war."
Interesting technical take on the whole thing. Worth a read.
Well, Russia could probably triumph over the austerity-racked countries of the EU, with the possible exception of France. But
it wouldn't be able to hold much for long if it had to occupy anything. And it would take a mauling in the process, a mauling
that would be prohibitively expensive to repair. The modern Russian military simply isn't organized in a fashion that is conducive
to large scale conquest. It has exactly one fully integrated, combined arms unit suitable for full-scale armored warfrare, the
1st Guards Tank Army, which was reactivated in 2014.
The nightmare visions of armor pouring through the Fulda Gap were basically always delusional. In 2018 they're downright laughable.
I don't think that the US can stop at this point. As an example, the one time the people were asked if they wanted to bomb
Syria the answer was a definite 'no' so the next time they never even bothered asking them. There is far too much money, power
and prestige at stake too consider stopping.
The officer corps might be an opponent but I think that America has been badly served by them due to how officers are selected
& trained and who makes it to the top. The only time they balk is when some idiot in Washington pushes them to fight the Russians
or the Chinese. And most people don't really care in any case so long as the US wins. Out of sight, out of mind as they say.
America is more likely to get single-payer health than for the US armed forces to pull back as any suggestion of the later
brings charges of being 'unpatriotic'. At least with single-payer health you only get charged with being a 'socialist'. Know a
good place to start? The US Special Operations Command has about 70,000 people in it and they want more. The US would be better
served by cutting this force in half and giving their jobs back to regular formations.
These are the people that want constant deployments in more and more countries hence cutting them back would be a good idea.
I expect things to go along until one day the US armed forces will be sent into a war where they will take casualties not seen
since the bad days on 'Nam. Then there will be the devil to pay and him out to lunch.
It's harder and harder to sell these military actions to the public. What are we in Korea and Japan for? To contain China?
If you ask most people, they'll probably tell you that China won, or at very least our bosses are in league with their bosses.
The Borg moves without regard to public sentiment, so we have to replace politicians with those who'll bring it to heel.
That's a death sentence, but I feel like enough people have the guts to try and make it happen.
One issue I have right now with 'anti-War' is that to be 'anti' is one thing, but to make serious arguments you have to be
able to present arguments about what you are actually 'for'. For example, if the US were to suddenly withdraw from the eastern
Pacific, the effect could be highly destabilising and could actually increase the chance of war. These are questions that need
to be answered.
Just to take one example of I think a positive idea – there is research
here which argues that the 'optimum' nuclear deterrent is less
than 100 warheads. This is of course a difficult argument to put into political play, but its important I think to put the militarists
on the back foot in order to make arguments for withdrawal from empire and peace mainstream.
I would bet that most people think that being anti-war encompasses the following:
-being for peace
-being for stability
-being for more social spending instead of military spending
-being for fewer civilians being killed
-being for fewer military deaths
Is that enough to meet your ridiculous threshold for 'serious arguments?'
you're being cavalier. PK makes a great point, and your vague and oyerly broad "fors" remind me of many arguments regarding
the 2016 election. The democrat side (Brock and CTR et al) couldn't say what they were for outside of abstract bernaysian generalities.
If you want to convince people (and I have this difficulty, as do I'm sure most of the readers here, trying to get dems off of
the russia russia russia putins bitch train)
You really need to focus on slow walking through complicated and dangerous waters, and just shut up sometimes when certain
people are just not going to listen, but if you can get that one cogent, not hysterical argument into the minds of the people
you want to convince, then you have a chance to stem the tide. Read some of the fantastic commentary regarding brexit from our
european commenters as an example of what works in discourse, and how to puts facts on the ground in a way people can relate to.
> You really need to focus on slow walking through complicated and dangerous waters . Read some of the fantastic commentary
regarding brexit from our european commenters as an example of what works in discourse, and how to puts facts on the ground in
a way people can relate to.
That's a cogent argument. I don't mean to imply in my comments that "getting out" will be easy. ("You must do it, Catullus,
you must do it. You must do it whether it can be done or not.")
We might begin by renaming the "Department of Defense" to the "Department of War," just to be truthful, and then ask ourselves
what kind of wars we want to fight. And I think most people would be very willing to cross anything that looked like Iraq off
the list, followed (it is to be hoped) with a willingness to rethink self-licking ice cream cones as our industrial policy. In
a way, the project would have the same feel as my hobbyhorse, gutting the administrative layers of the universities as not central
to mission.
Thanks tegnost. I don't mean to suggest that there isn't a solid electoral reason to have nice vague policies, not least
because a campaign against foreign wars would be an excellent way for the left to make common cause with some parts of the right,
such as the paleoconservatives and isolationists.
The problem as I see it with policies 'against' something is that you end up a little like Five Star in Italy – having gotten
into power on opposing everything bad about Italy, they are now facing a 'now what' moment, and are seemingly clueless about what
to do. As usual, the right makes the running.
The war-mongers will always find "serious arguments" for why we musn't end the American empire. Their arguments will be nuanced
and filled with details that would take the average citizen months, if not years, to verify and analyze. When the best minds in
the American empire can fail to forsee the fall of the Soviet Union or the response to their coup on Chavez, why should we put
credence in their "serious" analyses?
Meanwhile, the case against war is a simple and easily verifiable. "My son is dead." "My friend came home a broken person."
etc. Telling poor Americans that their family members need to keep dying because allowing them to come home would, maybe, make
war more likely in a country they've only seen on a map is an argument not likely to find much traction. It is also, in my mind,
ethically vapid -- an argument that presses for a guaranteed evil as a means of avoiding a possible evil.
Trying to forsee the outcome of major (or even minor) changes to a system as complex as the American empire is a sucker's game.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is likely a sucker themselves. In situations of such complexity, the only way forward is the ontological
one. All teleology is sheer fantasy. We should act, therefore, not on the basis of what we think will happen as a result of our
actions, but rather on the basis of what the just thing to do is. You can't base your actions on ends (as in "the ends justify
the means") because the situation is so complex that there is no way to credibly predict the ends that any action might lead to.
IMHO, the ethical policy is to bring 'em home. All of 'em. Let them protect our country, as they've sworn to do. Let us put
them to work rebuilding our infrastructure, assisting those who need it, and making the country better than it is, rather than
filling it up with more walking wounded from our endless imperial adventuring.
It did for Russia. There is now an ongoing civil war on its border in Ukraine. NATO went to war with Serbia in the later
1990's. The breakup of the Atlantic Alliance will splinter Europe. Humans being humans. The strong will try to steal from the
weak.
The question is how to restore the West's middle class. Without a middle class; revolts, religious and ethnic wars will inevitable
break out all over. The unrest right now is due to democracy not being compatible with globalization.
It was not just Bush who told lies to justify an invasion of Iraq. Members of Congress and the press did as well. Sen. Biden,
the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee then, would only allow pro-war people to testify to his committee. At the
time a lobbyist told me that the leadership of the Democratic party had decided to promote this war. They felt this would remove
this issue from the next election, which would then focus on economic issues that would play to their strength.
Thanks for this. Another reason to break up the MIC is all the money that would be freed up for health care, infrastructure
and the country's many other needs. Perhaps Sanders now realizes that the balance in USG priorities needs to be restored and he
is making an economic, and not just humanitarian argument.
As for Trump, it's just possible he meant what he said about NATO and all the rest. If one believes his real priorities are
his family and business it's hard to see what he gets out of perpetual war. That's more Obama and Hillary's bag.
Which doesn't make the above true. But we should at least entertain the possibility that it could be true.
As one who could never bring himself to vote for Trump (or for Clinton, for that matter), let me make a counter-intuitive prediction.
If Trump allows the MIC to goad him into starting a new war with Iran, he will lose if he decides to run again.
If, on the other hand, he starts no new war against Iran or any other country that does not threaten us militarily, then he
will be re-elected should he decide to go for another term.
The old adage that our country rallies around a war president is no longer operative IMHO. In a nation tired of perpetual
war, the commander-in-chief would get at best a short-term surge in public approval by opening up a new battle zone, before slipping
precipitously in the polls. Why on earth have the Democrats eagerly embraced the role of the war party, while our country literally
crumbles for lack of public investment? Could there be a more effective losing strategy?
Why on earth have the Democrats eagerly embraced the role of the war party, while our country literally crumbles for lack
of public investment? Could there be a more effective losing strategy?
They do it for the money, pretty much everyone in congress is a millionaire, including the ones who were not millionaires when
they got elected hmmmmmm .
Those are their constituents: beltway bandits, private contractors, public/private partnerships, insurance companies, arms
companies, private equity firms, military contractors, and whatever other combinations you want to come up with.
I remember when Tim Kaine gleefully suggested that we needed an "intelligence surge" to protect the country. I almost gagged.
It was a not so subtle message of "prepare for the handouts to the private military contractor industry".
> Another reason to break up the MIC is all the money that would be freed up for health care, infrastructure and the country's
many other needs
Since Federal taxes don't fund Federal spending, the connection between gutting the MIC and more money for health care is not
direct.
However, if you think in terms of real resources , the effect is as you say. (The same reasoning applies to finance,
where enormous salaries sucked in the best talent that might otherwise have been put to non-parasitical purposes.)
Mt is not yet sellable to the public, will take years. Best story is that foreign wars strip resources from local spending
and jobs, which is also what most pols seem to think. Bills should be presented as less for mil and mor for infra. Starve mic
You don't have to go back to the last campaign to see anti-war rhetoric as a strategy. Trump is already, in his meeting with
Kim, starting the ball rolling. (Moon of Alabama.com has a good recent post on the subject). Sorry Bernie, you are late to the
party, too late. Reminds me a bit of 1968. Nixon got in promising to end that war (which he didn't.) But it is good to see anti-war
stuff going mainstream at last. May it bear fruit this time around!
And yes, Gaius Publius, anti-war statements Trump made during his first campaign DID make a huge difference. They won him the
presidency, in my opinion.
How does positioning 2,000 – 4,000 US troops in Syria fit into your "Trump is a peace-maker" narrative? How about the comment
Wednesday that the US will attack Syrian forces if they attack Sunni jihadis (er "moderate rebels") in SW Syria?
How about us aiding and abetting a famine in Yemen that could kills tens of thousands?
Is setting us on a potential course for war with Iran further evidence of your "dovish" Trump?
I think you are attributing a sentiment to juliania that her comment does not actually contain. She doesn't say Trump is
a peace-maker, she says he was far in front of Bernie in using "anti-war rhetoric as a strategy." The example of Nixon doing the
same thing indicates that juliania is well aware that strategic rhetoric and actual decisions are not the same thing.
I know a fair number of Trump voters, and my read is similar to juliania's: Trump's anti-war rhetoric was a big draw for
a lot of people, and helped many be able to hold their nose and vote for him. Understanding this and commenting on it does not
make one a Trump supporter, obviously, or indicate that one puts any credence in his dovish rhetoric.
You might be correct and my apologies to juliania if I misread her post. I have heard so much of the "Trump is fighting
[the deep state, Wall Street, the neocons]" on other blogs that I am a bit hypersensitive and go off on a rant when I see or perceive
that argument. From my perspective, Trump is doing everything in his power to entrench Wall Street, the neocons, etc.
I was also receptive to the idea that Trump might be less hawkish than HRC (although I did not vote for him) but have now been
thoroughly disabused of that notion.
SW Syria does not have Kurds active, so these are Sunni jihadi-lites. They are however not HTS, which we re-branded from Al-Nusra
and had been classified as an Al Qaeda affiliate at one time. Of course we are framing it as a de-escalation zone; others call
it a jihadi base.
The war in Yemen is to secure the Saudi monarchy and our interest in their vast reserves of oil and gas. The war in
Syria is to secure our preferred pipeline feeding the EU. Our entrenched position surrounding Iran is no accident – we are an
existential threat to Iran and intend to remain that way. If China discovered a giant oil field under its western desert we'd
be there too. One rationale for all this control freakery is that we think we can maintain our "capitalist" economy, our silly
pretenses about a free market, etc. But Karma is the real truth-teller here: Free markets do not work. So it follows logically
that privatization also does not work. And to continue, at some point, forced capitalism fails. Markets fail. Profit seeking could
be the thing that brings it all down. It's a strangely comforting thought because it leaves us with a clear vision of what not
to do anymore. Unfortunately, people are not angels. If we attempt to invoke the ghost of John Foster Dulles and not engage in
little wars but just sell arms to every tin pot dictator it will be worse chaos than it is now. And worse still, chaos in a time
of environmental devastation. The only good option is the Mr. Scrooge option. Instead of arms and WMD and fascist control for
the sake of preventing uprisings, we should skip the fascist control part and directly mainline the resources to make civilization
thrive. Since that's definitely not capitalism, we'll have to think up a new ism.
Yes, let's devote enormous real resources to fabricating bespoke military aircraft that catch fire on the runway. Meanwhile,
we don't have any machine shops anymore .
> I have the feeling that Sanders here is reacting to all the ex-CIA (but not 100% ex) candidates taking over the D Party.
That is an excellent point. (I don't think it's just CIA, though; it's CIA and military personnel generally.* That's why I
voted against ranked Jared Golden low, because Golden (like Seth Moulton in MA) fits that template, which is vile.
UPDATE * "Professional authoritarians," we might call them. That would fit all this neatly into Thomas Frank's framework.
People ask if capitalism and democracy are compatible, and I think they are, at least I don't see any inherent reason why they
would not be compatible.
Another question: Are militarism* and democracy compatible? I'm not so sure they are.
Ancient Athens was on some level democratic, and the populist party typically favored war and expansion. E.g.Pericles and the
peloponesian war come to mind. By contrast, the aristocratic parties were generally less in favor of military adventurism.
However, a constitutional republic is not compatible with empire.
The link between populism and war featured prominently in "Electing to fight. Why emerging democracies go to war" This is a
fairly obscure book (one review in Amazon), but – by a wide margin – the best book I have ever read about politics or political
science. The last 100 pages are cliff notes versions of the politics underlying the start of many wars; the first 150 pages are
a really dense read.
A lot depends on how you define "democracy", "will of the people" etc.. What the role of "finance" in a context of "capitalism"
and "democracy" should be, e.g., citizens united(note orwellian language) may be considered a " reason why they would not be compatible"
and even antithetical. Noting that "militarism" depends on public funding, where should the power to influence this funding
be? Neo-cons, dominated by militarists, and neo-liberals, dominated by de-regulated banksters, may not be the same but certainly
seem like symbionts in the context of 326MM people.
America itself is the most destabilizing force on the planet. i would love to see what America leaving the world to its'
own devices would look like. Like Weimar/Nazi Germany, nothing good comes from these kind of "American Values."
the Ugly American is what American Values signify, and mostly always have. America is the most destabilizing force i ever read
of or heard of. Americans have just taken the Nazi theme of One People, One Land and One Leader on a Global scope. and it ain't
good. Either do as America tells you, or we will bring American Democracy to your country.
Maybe there's hope, as Caitlyn Johnstone implies in her last essay, i sure doubt it, though, as long as America/the Empire
continues to destabilize not just the Pacific but everywhere else in the world. Why does anything think the South/Central Americans
come to America. The American Empire has screwed up the Western Hemisphere so badly, these "refugees hope to escape from the American
made Plantations the Western Hemisphere has been carved into. These immigrants are just part of the blowback from the American
Way.
also makes me wonder if the Europeans don't understand why there are refugees coming through Greece and via boats, primarily
to Italy. dont they see it's America's Wars in MENA that are causing this "invasion." gosh, what a black and white cause and effect.
Germany needs workers due to the low birth rate. so, open the doors to the chaos America has made in the Middle East, and voila,
cheap labor and departure from an America made hell in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Palestine, Algeria, the whole "New American Century"
Project the Neocons have us in and paying for.
Doesn't the average European see how American and Apartheid Israeli support for forces like the Taliban, Al Queda, Wahabbism,
and the ongoing media censored Yemeni/Palestinian Holocaust, wars of profit, i.e. created the refugess that are streaming into
Europe. Maybe the Europeans are also stymied by the Rich who keep the wars going and the Media who profit off the death of the
"deplorables" who no longer "matter."
i know in America most Americans are ignorant due to total control of the Media and the "narrative" that controls what can
be said. Americans have no shame when it comes to getting what they want, politically. no enough blowback. no sense of connection
between here and there or anywhere outside the Media Narrative.
as a bumper sticker from long ago said, "if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." The Empire will not give up
until it can't go on.
Thanks for calling attention to this. I noticed the same thing immediately, and I gave the remainder of the article less credence
because of it. A true leftie knows the difference between Improved Medicare for All and a Medicare buy-in program.
To me, making the argument that one must be 'for' something is simply a way to dismiss whatever the 'anti' side represents,
whether or not PK meant to be dismissive.
And it reminds me of the efforts to impede and dismiss the anti-war or occupy-type movement outright – "what, you people don't
have any policies (and nothing for us to analyze to death and criticize??) !!!! How dare you speak up about something!!! Go away
until you go to Harvard and produce a few papers. Until then, your silly notions mean nothing to us!!" and the underlying elitism
of the concept.
So, that is what I am reminded of, again, whether or not PK meant it that way.
(Before reading the comments) "If Americans Could Vote Against the Forever War, Would They Do It?"
Sadly, I think the answer is no, mainly because Americans do not vote based on foreign policy unless it "comes home," eg in
the form of body bags – a lot of them. The "wasted money" argument, which brings it home, might be the most effective; that's
a pitfall of MMT. Of course, as a practical matter there's a POLITICAL choice between guns and butter, whether or not the economics
is valid.
In those remarks, Sanders is filling in the gaping hole in his resume. It may be an indication that he plans to run in 2020.
Finally: I question whether the 2016 nomination was actually "stolen." Certainly there was a good deal of cheating by the party,
but I'm not convinced it was decisive (there's no way to be sure). The actual votes ran about 47% for Sanders, and that's including
Oregon and California. I think that reflects the actual nature of the Democratic Party.
The reason is that its membership has been falling, if not plummeting, at the same time that its policies have become more
and more right-wing. Affiliation, which is a poll result, is down near 30%; I suspect registrations have fallen, too, but I haven't
seen numbers. Given the variations in state law, registrations aren't very indicative. All that means that the remaining party
members are a remnant that has been selected for conservatism. The primary vote reflects that. (This doesn't change the argument
that the Dems knowingly chose their weaker candidate; it just means that the voters did, too.)
The military is A-ok with Trump and this is what seems to matter. The roar of hysteria from the media over Trump first
2-3 months in office died down considerably when he showed a willingness to engage in a show of force by striking Syria (remember
when he was so concerned about the welfare of children?)
Only a *faction" of the security establishment is anti-Trump because he is skeptical of *neoliberal* globalism. However
this faction is doing a great job of re-enacting the framework used to deny/disrupt/disable during the Clinton administration:
scandals and selective corruption investigations. This serves a purpose: to martyr the Prez with the constituents who *should*
be holding the Prez accountable on lack of follow through and betrayal of promises made on the camapign trail.
Trump voters can't make him hold himaccountable; they are too busy feeling he has been victimized -- and many Trump voters
are victims, so the identification is real.
Meanwhile, the Prez who can't seem to enact *anything* to make lives better for the people who put him in office, is magically
able to enact the agenda of the 1%. This repeat of the 1% 's manipulations is one I can do without.
Regarding the question posed by this post I think there is very little evidence of an anti-war "fever" and even if there
were, and if it were projected into the streets and/or ballot box, I am pessimistic that it could have any effect on the U.S.
government of today. I don't think the U.S. government cares what the American people think or feel about anything -- except of
course as those cares and feelings affect the mechanisms of control through the propaganda pushed through our media, the levels
of surveillance and suppression, and the increased viciousness of our "laws" and their enforcement.
I believe the U.S. government is run by several powerful and competing interests. So I think I'll ask a different question
-- though in the same vein as that posed by the title of this post. Are those interests who compete with the interests of the
MIC and Spook Industrial Complex (SIC) beginning to see the futility and stupidity of our endless wars? Are those interests
growing anxious at enriching their share of the pie by shoving aside the budget gluttons feasting on war? Are any of those interests
whose long-term, and often short-term interests are damaged by endless wars and their ongoing deconstruction of American Empire
finally growing weary of how those wars undermine the American Empire? War may be a racket but the burning of bridges and collapse
of Empire isn't a racket I would hope even the most clueless of our masters will continue to tolerate. Have the MIC and SIC assumed
power?
So-called Ukrainian 'maidans' have bored the world community to death. And the public has
been taking the protests currently under way in Kiev for no more than traditional autumn and
winter open-air parties, similar to the Parisian 'fire shows'. Meanwhile, much more significant
confrontation has been taking place in Kiev, alongside with the circus of ex-president of
Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili. An inner conflict between two anticorruption and power-wielding
departments of the country is long overdue. In their relations with the media, both
representatives of those organizations and members of various Verkhovna Rada fractions have
been describing specific processes that are taking place in Ukraine as 'Makhnovshchina' or a
war of all against all, literally speaking.
After returning from the international anti-corruption forum organized by the U.S. State
Department, Nazar Holodnitsky, head of the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office
(SAP) of Ukraine, stated in an interview
to TSN , the Ukrainian TV channel, that a standoff of law enforcement agencies may escalate
into a war harmful to entire Ukraine. Thus, a conflict between the National Anti-Corruption
Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the General Prosecutor's Office (GPO) has evolved into a hybrid
war with interrogations involving physical and mental pressure and mutual accusations of all
sorts of evils. Delegates of both sides have simultaneously visited their U.S. sponsors and
come back comforted with just another assurance of '1000% support'.
Such confrontation of the government institutions raises eyebrows, I must say. State
Department has publicly been sympathized with both the corruption fighters and the General
Prosecutor's Office upon condition of the settlement of conflict by legal means and punishment
of officials guilty of criminal charges. Meanwhile, the FBI has also been drawn in this
undeclared war. In June 2016, the FBI and NABU adopted the Memorandum of Understanding, which
allows the FBI to assist NABU and SAP in the matter of investigations and implementation of
anti-corruption actions. The Bureau's special agents and analysts have been working in NABU on
a temporary rotational basis.
The mere presence of the FBI suggests an idea about another U.S. security service which has
been standing invisibly by in Ukraine, since it gained independence. This is the CIA, a classic
rival of the FBI. The very secret visit in 2014 of the former Central Intelligence Agency chief
John
O. Brennan preceded the beginning of active hostilities in Ukraine. The CIA stood behind
the appointment of the recent Kiev government. It had also protected the acting president of
the country from rivals, up to a certain time. For instance, they conduced to the resignation
of Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a former rather ambitious Prime Minister of Ukraine who was in conflict
with Petro Poroshenko and running for his post.
That helps explain the real cause of furious intransigence of NABU and the General
Prosecutor's Office throwing wild accusations at each other. They have virtually been used by
power-wielding structures and political forces of another state for a showdown. A never-ending
internal fighting in the American national security environment has become the talk of the town
being eventually accreted with new dirty wash. It seems that it has become more acute, with the
passing of time.
For example, the FBI dealt a hard blow to the CIA bringing 12-count charges including
conspiracy against the United States, conspiracy to launder money, false statements, and other
against Paul Manafort, Donald Trump's former campaign chairman and his business associate,
Richard Gates. His other partner, Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager was involved as well.
Manafort was renowned for his associations with the CIA and for consulting the Party of Regions
which was led by Victor Yanukovych. It became clear who was he FBI's source of such detailed
and valuable data after the statements by
Artem Sytnyk , Director of NABU and Serhiy Leshchenko , a Ukrainian
MP.
Nevertheless, the CIA won at this stage of confrontation, because Trump came to power. Even
support to the current President of the USA prior to the elections wasn't of much assistance to
the FBI Director Comey.
History has witnessed a number of episodes when Ukraine was a stage for showdown by
political forces from other countries. It never ended peacefully. As far back as in the XVII
century Ukrainian territory had become a theatre of operations owing to the bloody strife
between Polish hetmans (high military commanders in the Army of the Kingdom of Poland) of
Ukrainian and Cossack origin. As a result, lands of the Zaporizhian Host voluntarily pledged
allegiance to Russia.
During World War II the Ukrainian people suffered much harder. At that time the Third Reich
was intensely seeking for ways to weaken the USSR, even before it invaded Poland in 1939. It
was decided to use the ancient divide-and rule tactics proven by Julius Caesar, involving
gradual tearing away of territories with malcontent population. Ukraine was considered the most
prospective area for fomenting disaffection.
However, there also was both ideological and political discord among the highest ranks of
the Third Reich. Thus, Alfred Rosenberg, the main ideologue of Nazism, along with admiral
Wilhelm Canaris (who was accused of 'spiritual instigation' of a plot against Hitler) were
planning the establishment of Ukrainian buffer state controlled by the Third Reich. Using such
promises they managed to recruit Andriy Melnyk, a central figure in the Organization of
Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), and notorious Stepan Bandera who, just like Mr. Yatsenyuk, was
striving to lead the government in independent Ukrainian state. If the second one kept clinging
to his aims all the time, Melnyk was good at matching to desires of his sponsors from Hitler's
surrounding. When Himmler and Koch didn't recognize Rosenberg's ideas and wanted to weaken his
power in the National Socialist Worker's Party, Melnyk was quick to assure them of his
willingness to cooperate on any terms, especially when they let him know that Fuhrer didn't
like the idea of a Ukrainian buffer state.
It is a paradox that those relations that had developed both within various branches of
OUN-UPA and the Third Reich senior ranks coordinating them were similar to the recent situation
in Ukraine. Ukrainian nationalist leaders were used not only for German purposes, but also for
elimination of competitors in power. For instance, Rosenberg, after all, had to abandon his
point of view. Many of his influential followers resigned just like chief Comey did to the
delight of chief Pompeo, this May. Although NABU, the organization most thoroughly maintaining
a steady U.S. course prepared for Ukraine, has been successfully continuing investigations,
digging into Poroshenko who fell into disfavor for his poor record. And here you are, Marie
Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and a close acquaintance of the U.S. president's
national security advisor McMaster and Secretary of Defense Mattis has
indirectly supported Saakashvili's demonstration. In September, Saakashvili hanged out
happily with contenders of the recent president in future election Valentyn Nalyvaichenko and
Andriy Sadoviy, in Lviv. Now a big friend of Senator McCain Yulia Timoshenko and a number of
Verkhovna Rada MPs endorse him.
This mess of warring parties seems to be disordered and extremely headachy. The situation
has been much worse for the number of competing forces and foreign organizations standing
behind them in Ukraine was much greater during the Third Reich and it continues to be so at
present. The recent Ukrainian bellum omnium contra omnes has been a reflection of competitive
battle between various security and governmental agencies in the USA.
A single distinct and unequivocal fact is that being a neighbour of such a huge state as
Russia, Ukraine was always suffering from those who wish to weaken that influential country.
Over and over again throughout Ukrainian history the country was exploited, with nationalist
sentiments artificially ignited and false promises made. Even 'humane' Rosenberg's scheme
ascribed Ukraine the role of a mere supplier of raw materials and a buffer state between
Germany and Eastern Slavic countries without any right to independence.
As such, the USA regards Ukraine as an administered territory which is useful for strategic
and economic aims. They skillfully manipulate Kiev government with carrot and stick.
Undesirable Ukrainian political puppet might be branded as corrupt and replaced by more
manageable nominee, at any time. There is always a possibility to initiate another blood
shedding Maidan with oppressions and civil war, in case of urgency. Today's Ukraine is no freer
than it was in 1941, during the invasion of Nazi Germany. Melnyks, banderas, hetmans
skoropadskies have been replaced by new 'heroes', who never changed their essence. For
evanescent promises and artificially inflated ambitions they've been tearing the country apart
without mercy either to each other, or their countrymen. Meanwhile, the world community has
been watching with approval the beacon of democracy vigorously setting things to order in 'dark
and ignorant' Ukraine. Each of them thinking, 'Better them than me.'
First, there is no "EU", at least not in political terms . More crucially, there is no "EU
foreign policy". Yes, there are EU member states, who have political leaders, there is a big
business community in the EU and there are many EU organizations, but as such, the "EU" does
not exist, especially not in terms of foreign policy. The best proof of that is how clueless
the so-called "EU" has been in the Ukraine, then with the anti-Russian sanctions, in dealing
with an invasion of illegal immigrants, and now with Trump. At best, the EU can be considered a
US protectorate/colony, with some subjects "more equal than others" (say, the UK versus
Greece). Most (all?) EU member states are abjectly obedient to the US, and this is no surprise
considering that even the so-called "EU leader" or "EU heavyweight" – Germany –
only has very limited sovereignty. The EU leaders are nothing but a comprador elite
which doesn't give a damn about the opinions and interests of the people of Europe. The
undeniable fact is that the so-called "EU foreign policy" has gone against the vital interests
of the people of Europe for decades and that phenomenon is only getting worse.
Second, the single most powerful and unified organization in Europe is not even an EU
organization, but NATO. And NATO, in real terms, is no less than 80% US . Forget about those
fierce looking European armies, they are all a joke. Not only do they represent no credible
force (being too small, too poorly trained, under-equipped and poorly commanded), but they are
completely dependent on the US for a long list of critical capabilities and " force
multipliers ": command, control, communications, intelligence, networking, surveillance,
reconnaissance, target acquisition, logistics, etc. Furthermore, in terms of training, force
planning, weapon systems procurement, deployment and maintenance, EU states are also totally
dependent on the US. The reason? The US military budget totally dwarfs anything individual EU
states can spend, so they all depend on Uncle Sam. Of sure, the NATO figurehead – the
Secretary General – is usually a non-entity which makes loud statements and is European
(I think of that clown Stoltenberg as the prefect example), but NATO is not run by the NATO
Secretary General. In reality, it is run by the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), who
is the head of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) and these guys are as red,
white and blue as it gets. Forget about the "Eurocorps" or any other so-called "European
armies" – it's all hot air, like Trudeau's recent outburst at Trump. In reality in the
EU, as in Canada, they all know who is boss. And here is the single most important fact: NATO
desperately needs Russia as justification for its own existence: if relations with Russia
improve, then NATO would have no more reason to exist. Do you really think that anybody will
let that happen? I sure don't! And right now, the Europeans are busy asking for more
US troops on their soil, not less and they are all
pretending to be terrified by a Russian invasion , hence the need for more and bigger military
exercises close to the Russian border . And just to cover all its bases,
NATO is now gradually expanding into Latin America .
Third, there is a long list of EU governments which vitally need further bad relationships
with Russia . They include:
Unpopular governments which need to explain their own
failures by the nefarious actions of an external bogyman . A good example is how the
Spanish authorities blamed Russia for the crisis in Catalonia. Or the British with their
"Brexit". The Swedes are doing even better, they are already preparing their public opinion for a
"Russian interference" in case the election results don't turn out to be what they need.
Governments whose rhetoric has been so hysterically anti-Russian that they cannot possibly
back down from it. Best examples: the UK and Merkel. But since most (but not all) EU states
did act on the Skripal false-flag on the basis of the British "highly likely" and in the name
of "solidarity", they are now all stuck as accomplices of this policy. There is no way they are
simply going to admit that they were conned by the Brits.
EU prostitutes : states whose
only policy is to serve the US against Russia. These states compete against each other in the
most abject way to see who can out-brown-nose each other for the position of "most faithful and
willing loyal servant of the US". The best examples are, of course, the three Baltic statelets,
but the #1 position has to go to the "fiercely patriotic Poles" who are now
willing to actually pay Uncle Sam to be militarily occupied (even though the very same
Uncle Sam is trying to racketeer them for billions of dollars ). True, now that EU
subsidies are running out, the situation of these states is becoming even more dire, and they
know that the only place where they can still get money is the US. So don't expect them to
change their tune anytime soon (even if
Bulgaria has
already realized that nobody in the West gives a damn about it ).
Governments who want
to crack down on internal dissent by accusing any patriotic or independent political
party/movement to be "paid by the Kremlin" and representing Russian interests. The best
example is France and how it treated the National Front. I would argue that most EU states are,
in one way or another, working on creating a "national security state" because they do realize
(correctly) that the European people are deeply frustrated and oppose EU policies (hence all
the anti-EU referendums lost by the ruling elites).
Contrary to a very often repeated myth, European business interests do not represent a
powerful anti-russophobic force . Why? Just look at Germany: for all the involvement of Germany
(and Merkel personally) in the Ukraine, for all the stupid rhetoric about "Russia being an
aggressor" which "does not comply with the Mink Agreements", North Stream is going ahead! Yes,
money talks, and the truth is that while anti-Russian sanctions have cost Europe billions, the
big financial interests (say the French company Total) have found ways to ignore/bypass these
sanctions. Oh sure, there is a pro-trade lobby with Russian interest in Europe. It is real, but
it simply does not have anywhere near the power the anti-Russian forces in the EU have. This is
why for years now various EU politicians and public figures have made noises about lifting the
sanctions, but when it came to the vote – they all voted as told by the real bosses.
Not all EU Russophobia is US-generated , by the way. We have clearly seen that these days
when Trump suggested that the G7 (or, more accurately, the G6+1) needed to re-invite Russia, it
was the Europeans who said "nope!". To the extend that there is a "EU position" (even a very
demure and weak one), it is mostly anti-Russian, especially in the northern part of Europe. So
when Uncle Sam tells the Europeans to obey and engage in the usual Russia-bashing, they all
quickly fall in line, but in the rare case when the US does not push a rabidly anti-Russian
agenda, EU politicians suddenly find enough willpower to say "no". By the way, for all the
Trump's statements about re-inviting Russia into the G6+1 the US is still busy slapping more
sanctions on Russia .
The current mini-wars between the US and the EU (on trade, on Iran, on Jerusalem) do not at
all mean that Russia automatically can benefit from this . Again, the best example of this is
the disastrous G6+1 summit in which Trump basically alienated everybody only to have the G6
reiterate its anti-Russian position even though the G6+1 needs Russia far more than Russia
needs the G7 (she really doesn't!). Just like the US and Israeli leaders can disagree and, on
occasion, fight each other, that does not at all mean that somehow they are not fundamentally
joined at the hip. Just think of mob "families" who can even have "wars" against each other,
but that does not at all mean that this will benefit the rest of the population whom all
mobsters prey upon.
The Ukrainian crisis will only benefit anti-Russian forces in Europe . There is a very high
probability that in the near future the Ukronazi regime will try to reconquer Novorussia
(DNR/LRN). I submit that the outcome of such an attack is not in doubt – the Ukronazis
will lose. The only question is this: to whom will they lose:
Option one: they lose to the combined forces of the DNR and LNR. This is probably the most
likely outcome. Should this happen, there is a very high probability of a Novorussian counter
attack to liberate most of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions, especially the cities of
Slaviansk and Mariupol. Since past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior, we can
be pretty darn sure of what the reaction in Kiev and in the West will be: Russia will be
blamed for it all. The AngloZionists will never admit that the Ukronazi regime lost a civil
war to its own people because the Novorussians will never accept a Nazi regime ruling over
them. Thus, a Novorussian victory will result in more hysterical Russophobia.
Option two: the Ukronazis succeed in their attack and threaten to overrun Donetsk, Lugansk and the rest of
Novorussia. Putin simply cannot allow this to happen. He has made that promise many times and
he has recently repeated it during his "open line" with the Russian people. If the Russians
are forced to intervene, this will not be a massive ground invasion – there is no need
for that. Russia has the firepower needed in the form of missile and artillery strikes to
destroy the attacking Urkonazi forces and to impose a no-fly zone over all of Novorussia. If
Kiev pushes on and launches a full-scale attack on Russia proper, the Ukrainian armed forces
will be totally disorganized and cease combat in about 48 hours. This scenario is what I call
the "Neocon dream" since such a Russian intervention will not be imaginary, but quite real
and the Kremlin will even confirm it all very publicly and probably recognize the two
Novorussian Republics just like what happened in 08.08.08 when Saakashvili decided to invade
South Ossetia. So, AngloZionists will (finally!) have the "proof" that Russia is the
aggressor, the Poles and Balts will prepare for an "imminent" Russian invasion and I think
that there is a pretty good chance that NATO forces will move into the Western Ukraine to
"stop the Russians", even if the said Russians will have absolutely no desire (or even
possible motive) to want to invade the rest of the Ukraine or, even less so, Poland, Sweden
or the Baltic statelets.
I will admit that there is still a small possibility that a Ukronazi attack might not
happen. Maybe Poroshenko & Co. will get cold feet (they know the real condition of the Ukie
military and "dobrobat" death squads) and maybe Putin's recent not-so-veiled threat about "
grave consequences for the Ukrainian statehood " will have the needed effect. But what will
happen even if this attack does not take place? The EU leaders and the Ukronazi regime in Kiev
will still blame Russia for the Ukraine now clearly being a failed state. Whatever scenario you
find more likely for the Ukraine, things there will only get worse and everybody will blame
Russia.
The crisis in Syria will only benefit anti-Russian forces in Europe. It is becoming pretty
clear that the US is now attempting a reconquista of Syria or, at least, a break-up of
Syria into several zones, including US-controlled ones. Right now, the US and the "good
terrorists" have lost the war, but that does not stop them from re-igniting a new one, mostly
by reorganizing, retraining, redeploying and, most importantly, re-branding the surviving "bad
terrorists" into "good ones". This plan is backed by Saudi money and Israeli firepower.
Furthermore, Russia is now reporting
that US Special Forces are already working with the (new) "good terrorists" to – you
guessed it – prepare yet another fake chemical attack and blame it on the Syrians. And
why not? It worked perfectly already several times, why not do that again? At the very least,
it would give the US another try at getting their Tomahawks to show their effectiveness (even
if they fail again, facts don't matter here). And make no mistake, a US "victory" in Syria (or
in Venezuela) would be a disaster not only for the region, but for every country wanting to
become sovereign (see Andre Vltchek's excellent article on this topic here ). And, again, Russia will be
blamed for it all and, with certifiable nutcasts like Bolton, Russian forces might even be
attacked. As I wrote already many times, this is far from
over . Just as in the Ukrainian case, some deal might be made (at least
US and Russian military officials are still talking to each other ) but my personal opinion
is that making any kind of deal with Trump is as futile as making deals with Netanyahu: neither
of them can be trusted and they both will break any and all promises in a blink of an eye. And
if all hell breaks loose in Syria and/or Iran, NATO will make sure that the Europeans all
quickly and obediently fall in line ("solidarity", remember?).
The bottom line is this: currently, the EU is most unlikely to become a viable partner for
Russia and the future does look rather bleak.
One objection to my pessimism is the undeniable success of the recent Saint Petersburg
summit and the Parliamentary Forum. However, I believe that neither of these events was really
centered around Europe at all, but about the world at large (see excellent report by Gilbert
Doctorow on this topic
here ). Yes, Russia is doing great and while the AngloZionist media loves to speak about
the "isolation" of Russia, the truth is that it is the Empire which is isolated, while
Russia and China are
having tremendous success building the multi-polar world they want to replace the Empire
with. So while it is true that the western leaders might prefer to see a liberal "economic
block" in the new Russian government, the rest of the world has no such desire at all
(especially considering how many countries out there have suffered terrible hardships at the
hands of the WTO/WB/IMF/etc types).
Conclusion :
The AngloZionist Empire is not based in the US, or in the EU, or Israel, or anywhere else on
the planet. It is a trans-national entity with regional variations and which includes different
interest groups under its umbrella. You can think of it as a gigantic criminal gang
racketeering the entire planet for "protection". To think that by presenting a "liberal" face
to these thugs will gain you their support is extremely naive as these guys don't care about
your face: what they want is your submission. Vladimir Putin put it best
when he said " They do not want to humiliate us, they want to subdue us, solve their
problems at our expense ".
However, if the EU is, for all practical purposes, non-existent, Russia can, and will,
engage with individual EU member states. There is a huge difference between, say, Poland and
Italy, or the UK and Austria. Furthermore, the EU is not only dysfunctional, it is also
non-viable. Russia would immensely benefit from the current EU either falling apart or being
deeply reformed because the current EU is a pure creation of the US-backed Bilderberger types
and not the kind of Europe the European people need. In fact, I would even argue that the EU is
the single biggest danger for the people of the European continent. Thus Russia should use her
resources to foster bi-lateral cooperation with individual EU member states and never take any
action which would strengthen (or even legitimize) EU-derived organizations such as the EU
Parliament, the European Court of Human Rights, etc. These are all entities which seek to
undermine the sovereignty of all its members, including Russia. Again, Putin put it best when
he
recently declared that " either Russia is a sovereign country, or there is no
Russia ".
Whatever the ideology and slogans, all empires are inherently evil and inherently dangerous
to any country wanting to be truly sovereign. If Russia (and China) want to create a
multi-polar world, they need to gradually disengage from those trans-national bodies which are
totally controlled by the Empire, it is really that simple. Instead, Russia needs to engage
those countries, political parties and forces who advocate for what de Gaulle called "
the Europe of
fatherlands ". Both the AngloZionist Empire and the EU are undergoing the most profound
crisis in their history and the writing is on the wall. Sooner rather than later, one by one,
European countries will recover their sovereignty, as will Russia. Only if the people of Europe
succeed in recovering their sovereignty could Russia look for real partnerships in the West, if
only because the gradually developing and integrating Eurasian landmass offer tremendous
economic opportunities which could be most beneficial to the nations of Europe. A prosperous
Europe " from the Atlantic to the
Urals " is still a possibility, but that will happen only when the current European Union
and NATO are replaced by truly European institutions and the current European elites replaced
by sovereignists.
The people of Russia, EU and, I would argue, the United States all have the same goal and
the same enemy: they want to recover their sovereignty, get rid of their corrupt and, frankly,
treacherous elites and liberates themselves from the hegemony of the AngloZionist Empire. This
is why pushing the issue of "true sovereignty" (and national traditional values) is, I believe,
the most unifying and powerful political idea to defeat the Empire. This will be a long
struggle but the outcome is not in doubt.
The usual Saker, but, there are a couple of not bad snippets:
The EU leaders are nothing but a comprador elite which doesn't give a damn about the
opinions and interests of the people of Europe.
The AngloZionist Empire is not based in the US, or in the EU, or Israel, or anywhere
else on the planet. It is a trans-national entity with regional variations and which
includes different interest groups under its umbrella.
They do not want to humiliate us, they want to subdue us, solve their problems at our
expense".
As for this:
If Russia (and China) want to create a multi-polar world, they need to gradually
disengage from those trans-national bodies which are totally controlled by the Empire, it
is really that simple.
Saker is once again completely wrong. His theories fall short to explain lots of real events.
He got hooked on his "Anglo-Zionist" theory and "one Hegemon", which is far from explaining
the reality on the ground. There is no one single hegemon, but two powerful interest groups
in the west. One of the power centers is dominated by the Rothschilds from the City of London
and the other ruled by the Rockerfellers which is based in the US.
The powers described above are sometimes working in collusion but sometimes work against each
other (They were in collusion during the Soviet Afghan war for instance). Currently, we don't
see a collusion but a war being waged in between these two groups. I think it is highly self
evident, so much so that it is happening almost all in the open. In the modern history we
haven't witnessed such a openly fought war ever before (between these two powers). All is at
stake and the war in between these two is vicious. Thus you can explain Trump's attitude
towards EU, everlasting character assasination of Trump by certain opposing circles in the
US, high level resignations, the state of confusion of Nato and much more. If this theory is
right (and I think it is much more viable than any other theory that I came across in the
Alt-Med), this makes Russia firmly embedded into one of the camps. Unfortunately, the
position that Russia took makes him not a sovereign power but on contrary puts him into a
subservient role. The late actions of Russia, especially in Syria, is quite telling. I know
people who admire Russia get quite frustrated when they hear such a scenario and outcome, but
this is possibly the only way Putin believes that Russia can survive. Thus it explains his
latest house clean-up of Euroasian integrists. Even worse, if you believe in this scenario,
it brings Russia and China against each other especially in the long run. This scenario also
put a full stop to the idealist Euroasian multi-polar world order.
Here is the link to an older video in Russian with English subtitles. The guy's name is
Andrei Fursov and he has some interesting things to say regarding this subject. This
interview was just before Obama was elected but is still quite relevent. His newer videos
seems to have lost steam, possibly because he is working for some state connected Russian
institutions and think-thanks and thus I think he is somewhat restricted. After all it is
again the famous "Game Theory", isn't it?
The U.S. has warned both Russia and Germany against pursuing a planned gas pipeline that
would run between the two countries, threatening to impose sanctions and claiming the project
would threaten the security of its European allies.
Construction has recently begun for the Nord Stream 2 project, a planned pipeline that would
extend from Russia along an existing pipeline through the Baltic Sea into northeastern
Germany. Once finished, Nord Stream 2 would reportedly double the amount of gas that Russia
could provide Europe. State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary Sandra Oudkirk told
reporters in Berlin Thursday that the project could bolster Russia's "malign influence" in
the region and that Washington was "exerting as much persuasive power" as it could to stop
it, according to the Associated Press.
Europe in diplomatic push to ease Russia sanctions | Financial Times https://www.ft.com/content/9b9bbd3c-44a5-11e8-93cf-67ac3a6482fdApr
20, 2018 – A Europe-wide diplomatic push is under way to persuade the Trump
administration to ease US sanctions targeting Russia, as fears mount that
Excellent comment as usual Beckow, I could have typed the same. In fact, I have been
commenting online since 1992 that neither EU, nor most European states can be friends of
Russia. This was based on how those treated Yugoslavia/Serbia during the recent Balkan wars
that the same entities helped initiate. Because Serbia is Russia without nuclear weapons.
Russia would have gotten exactly the same treatment (Barbarossa 2) as Yugoslavia if it did
not have them. Nobody expected Russia to recover so quickly from Yeltsin and even
develop the world leading stand-off weapons on a budget. This is the only reason that
Barbarossa 2 will never happen. But they cannot stop hoping for a US-lead miracle.
Yet, the economic interest is there and if China and Russia manage to economically
integrate Europe and Asia, then the Euro-doggies will stop yapping and biting at the Russian
heels and will fall in line. What else could one expect from such pathetic shameless trash?
Give the One-Road another 15 years and watch this unfurle.
Finally, although I believed that Ukronazis would attack Novorussians, I now think that
Ukraine may have run out of suicidal dumb maniacs. It is much cheaper to make noise and beat
your Galician chest then to engage the enemy protected by Russia. Ukraine is, unfortunately,
already a total economic basket case, plus all One-Road plans circumvent it (as MH17 should
have, due to instability). Will there ever be a better example than Ukraine of the benevolent
influence of the Anglo-Zionist on a country?
As yours truly, we noticed the drastic shift as to pointing to supranational guidance of
international political events. As for his mention, blaming Trump and Netanyahu to be
suppreme leaders and deciders, we see them rather as spokespersons, blowing and hissing
publicly the script of what Saker calls the Anglo-Jewish maffia, the only subgroup that
sorted for quality, not quantity in strategy(global evidently and necessarily) and membership
for in-group only benefit. Elitist, subjectively better organized than any entity other,
territorially mostly independent in case of emergency, and moral conviction based on
historical Judaist values, strategies and tactics. Play all sides and stay invisible.
Below the prudent lines of Saker quoted.
The AngloZionist Empire is not based in the US, or in the EU, or Israel, or anywhere
else on the planet. It is a trans-national entity with regional variations and which
includes different interest groups under its umbrella. You can think of it as a gigantic
criminal gang racketeering the entire planet for "protection". To think that by presenting
a "liberal" face to these thugs will gain you their support is extremely naive as these
guys don't care about your face: what they want is your submission.
As for Putin, it could be, that he is, for now, on a footing of equal to the insiders of
above, he must somehow understand(Putin gives a public impression to be cognitively superior
to all other political tarts of the moment) that real problems are global, and Russian
nationalism, or international expansion based on Russian nationalism are just a political
tool to rally bulk humanity. Very similar to the palm oil, corn syrup and digital porn obese
consumerism of the West promotion. At most bickering and infighting can be done by visible
actors as Putin, Trump, Xi(affected indirectly), but there must be a scenario, and war cannot
be anything more then policing.
To be noticed, that it pleads for Saker's intellectualism to correct and even reverse,
after due analysis his opinions unlike a Tom Engelhardt(at that qualitative rather inferior).
No "to big to fail" here. Let's wait and see, how Saker's intuition can take him into
quantitative analysis of what moves beyond and against nationalist and EU, US, Russia, China
dialectics. The old adagio of the information age: networks, was historically present in
International Jewry. One can be a policeman, be a thief, but foremost one is a Jew.
Honest writing of Saker.
How good are these supranational, corporatacracy(another commenter), "globally organized
elites" groups with better cohesion? To our definite impression, not good enough, though way
above the bulk of humanity and most of the middle class media comprehension. Two singular
dramas of our age, that will decide the twenty-first century. Better and not good enough.
Only to be arrested by bringing in AI, eugenetics, rebranding goals and focus. It is in
itself a pocket drama repeated over and over that analysis is mostly litterary, never relies
on the best of information, is fragmented. Even today indexing big data lumps could solve
this partly. Alternative media in the first place apply the same archaic methods while better
tools are available. That said unz.com is above the fray in focussing and searching methods.
It should spark some hidden outliers glued into the bulk of the deplorables by individual
fate.
War-ing and economics, the epistomology of politics, the focus of daily news, should be
seen as consequences, not prime causes of attention. In the end they impose toxicity,
migrations, excess population densities, excess total human numbers. The goal itself of
humanity should be reasserted as quality of life for all standing and future humans.
Then strategy and tactics derive from there. Why? Well the same supra national elites, the
only ones that can take on the essentials tend to forget they are frogging in the same tub,
that nature probably using more disruptive method will take care of the human plage if
not.
The CIA seems to have spent five billion $ in Ukraine.
Who wants to incorporate Ukraine in the west therefore is not clear, the USA, NATO or EU, or
all of them ?
In any case, many in Europe see Putin just as an honest gas supplier.
Trump's gas is much more expensive.
Definitely. He stays well within the Judeo-Overton window. He is kosher, so to speak.
Sure, like Alex Jones, he will make the occasional slap at Israel or Zionism, but he will not
verge outside of the window's "Nazi Germany was the ultimate evil" or the holy 6 million
martyrs. I also have never read any of his work where he delves into 9/11, and what it means
about everything that has happened since.
You have three "not bad snippets" that I don't really agree with:
The EU leaders are nothing but a comprador elite which doesn't give a damn about the
opinions and interests of the people of Europe.
It is not that they don't give a damn, it is that they take their orders from a higher
source. Euro-serfs see the coerced passage of Lisbon and Maastricht, the ongoing 3rd world
invasion, the restriction of free speech, the increasing criminality, the ECB destruction and
removal of elected officials in Greece and Italy. They know it is a sham, they just don't
understand why, because they are constantly being lied to. Saker is not helping here.
The AngloZionist Empire is not based in the US, or in the EU, or Israel, or anywhere
else on the planet. It is a trans-national entity with regional variations and which
includes different interest groups under its umbrella.
Saker is not willing to tell us exactly who this entity is. He is not going to take us
outside of the Judeo-Overton window.
They do not want to humiliate us, they want to subdue us, solve their problems at our
expense
With this dog whistle he is treading on thin ice. Sure, "their problems" could describe
past crimes like Maidan that may be catching up with them, but it could also cover such
things as Gaza, the Liberty, the King David Hotel, or even the targeting of Nagasaki in 1945.
As usual though, he won't confront the serpent.
The best examples are, of course, the three Baltic statelets, but the #1 position has to
go to the "fiercely patriotic Poles" who are now willing to actually pay Uncle Sam to be
militarily occupied (even though the very same Uncle Sam is trying to racketeer them for
billions of dollars).
Talking about individual EU countries, the Poles need to realize that they're no longer
dealing with Imperial Russia or the Soviet Union, and try exploring avenues for productive
co-operation with Russia. It's working with "historic enemy" Germany, so why not with
"historic enemy" Russia?
There are plenty of opportunities, with the first one surely being shutting down US bases
on Polish territory and getting US missiles out of Poland. The current USA and the UK are
under UZA management which is clearly hostile to everything modern Poland stands for.
"For targeting purposes, the bombing crew used St. Mary's Urakami Cathedral, the largest
Christian church in East Asia. At 11:02 a.m., on Aug. 9, 1945, when the bomb was dropped over
the cathedral, Nagasaki was the most Christian city in Japan."
Hey, Quartermaster, why don't you tell us more about the amazing progress achieved by
Ukraine after the Kagans-sponsored revolution of 2014? For instance, you could tell us
(proudly?) about the rise of neo-Nazi power in Ukraine and about certain Kolomojsky, the
Ukrainian/Israeli thug, and his financing of the Azov battalion.
The EU countries put people in prison for questioning the tight official narrative/numbers of
holocaust biz.
What is wrong with using the word "Ukronazis?"
How would you name the happy warriors beholden to the memory of the 14th Waffen Grenadier
Division of the SS (1st Galician)?
"The newly formed Ukrainian state will work closely with the National-Socialist Greater
Germany, under the leadership of its leader Adolf Hitler which is forming a new order in
Europe and the world and is helping the Ukrainian People to free itself from Moscovite
occupation.
The Ukrainian People's Revolutionary Army which has been formed on the Ukrainian lands, will
continue to fight with the Allied German Army against Moscovite occupation for a sovereign
and united State and a new order in the whole world.
Long live the Ukrainian Sovereign United Ukraine! Long live the Organization of Ukrainian
Nationalists! Long live the leader of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and the
Ukrainian people – STEPAN BANDERA" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Ukrainian_State_Act
We are talking apples and oranges. EU wants cheap, reliable energy from Russia and to
export to Russia as much as possible without interference from US. That is pure business. But
the dominant political forces in EU are anti-Russia, some because they are fed by the
security-military-academic spending, some because they 'studied' and were politically formed
in US or UK. Some because that's just the way they are.
There is a strong, EU domestic anti-Russian population based on hundreds of years of
history, resentment over losses (Germany, Poland, Sweden, Finland), self-brainwashing about
perceived abuse (Poland, Baltics, eastern Europeans in general), hatred and contempt towards
anything 'eastern', and the traditional anglo anti-Russian policies. Recently new emotional
hatreds have been added with endless demonising Russia about xenophobia, hooligans, gays,
stray dogs, anything the creative propagandists can push. Most Europeans turn out on
reflection to be quite gullible and stupid.
There are a few minor exceptions and some Latin nations are more level headed. There is
also a minority view in the German world, mostly based on their business realism that is
neutral toward Russia, but not pro-Russian. There will be no political rapprochement between
EU and Russia. There will be better business relations because water flows downhill and
EU-Russia economic ties are such an obvious fit. The cultural hatred and political hostility
will go on.
After WWII it took most Europeans less than a generation to revert to the traditional
anti-Russian attitudes. In some cases, nations that were literally saved from extermination
were more resentful than grateful. In Poland it took less than a year, in Czech Republic 20
years, but the old visceral hatreds emerged again. My advise to Russia would be to mind its
own business and not try to sacrifice for the others or to help them. It has always backfired
because the cultural milieu in Europe is naturally resentful of Russia and the east in
general. Business doesn't change that.
Im Bundestag kämpfen Merkel und ihre Treuesten derweil darum, ihre
Anti-Deutschland-Politik unter anderem gegen die CSU durchzusetzen -- sogar in der CDU gibt
es erste Mutige, die sich daran erinnern, wer sie bezahlt und wem sie eigentlich verpflichtet
sind.
Rough translation:
" In the German parliament Merkel and her supporters battle to continue their anti German
policy against the CSU -- even in the CDU (Merkel's party) there are courageous people who
that remind Merkel by whom she is paid, and to who she has obligations. "
There are German rumours that Merkel will fall this week.
Historians from time to time write how curious it is that apparently unrelated events in
different parts of the world change history.
I wonder if the Trump election with the realisation, long overdue, in Germany, that the
migrants are a burden in stead of a contribution to the economy, may combine to Merkel's
fall,in her wake maybe the implosion of the EU, and the end of the euro.
It was Merkel who prevented Greece leaving the euro.
An interesting point about refugees and emigration of Ukrainians to Russia.
Notable quotes:
"... Donbass is a civil conflict involving some Russian support for the rebels, who're overwhelmingly from the territory of the former Ukrainian SSR. These individuals have a realistic basis to oppose the Kiev based regimes that came after the overthrow of a democratically elected Ukrainian president. ..."
"... During the American Revolution, most of the pro-British fighters were said to be colonists already based in America. Furthermore, the American revolutionaries received significant support from France. With these factors in mind, the Donbass rebels don't seem less legit than the American revolutionaries. ..."
"... Some Kiev regime elements positively reference the 1995 Croat ethnic cleansing of Krajina Serbs (known as Operation Storm) as a solution for ending the rebel position in Donbass. Russia doesn't seek a massive refugee problem in Donbass and some other parts of the former Ukrainian SSR. As is, a sizeable number of Ukrainian residents have fled to Russia. ..."
"... Putin isn't anti-US in the manner claimed by Peters. Moreover, Peters is clearly more anti-Russian (in a narrow minded way at that) than what can be reasonably said of how Putin views the US. Putin's obvious differences with neocons, neolibs and flat out Russia haters isn't by default anti-US. He was the first foreign leader to console the US following 9/11. The Russian president has been consistently on record for favoring better US-Russian ties (even inquiring about Russia joining NATO at one point), thereby explaining why he has appeared to have preferred Trump over Clinton. ..."
"... the Russians (by and large) prefer predictability. As a general rule this is otherwise true. However, Clinton's neocon/neolib stated views on Russia have been to the point where many Russians felt willing to take a chance with Trump, whose campaign included a comparatively more sympathetic take of their country. At the same time, a good number of Russians questioned whether Trump would maintain that stance. ..."
Last week, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, received well deserved praise for taking to
task the permeating anti-Russian biases. The highlight of Carlson's exchanges was his
encounter with Ralph Peters, who for years has spouted grossly inaccurate propaganda
against Russia. Antiwar.com and Russia Insider, are among the counter-establishment English
language venues commenting on the Carlson-Peters discussion. The US foreign policy
establishment realist leaning National Interest carried a lengthy piece on Carlson's
challenge to the neocon/neolib foreign policy perceptions. For the record, more can and
should be said in reply to Peter's comments.
Peters falsely claims that Russia hasn't made a concerted effort in confronting ISIS. In
one of his more accurate moments, CNN's Wolf Blitzer said that the ISIS claimed shoot down
of a Russian civilian airliner over Egypt, was in response to Russia's war against ISIS.
You've to be either a liar or clueless to not recognize why Russia has actively opposed
ISIS. The latter sees Russia as an enemy, while having a good number of individuals with
roots in Russia and some other parts of the former USSR.
Peters' characterization of Russia targeting civilian areas is disingenuous. Over the
years, the matter of collateral damage is something periodically brought up in response to
those killed by US and Israeli military actions.
Peters offers no proof to his suspect claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin kills
journalists. There're numerous anti-Putin advocates alive and well in Russia. That country
does have a violence problem. Recall what the US was like in the 1960s thru early
1970′s. For that matter, Bernie Sanders isn't blamed for the pro-Sanders person who
attempted to kill Republican lawmakers.
Given the situations concerning Kosovo and northern Cyprus, Peters is being a flat out
hypocrite regarding Crimea. Donbass is a civil conflict involving some Russian support for
the rebels, who're overwhelmingly from the territory of the former Ukrainian SSR. These
individuals have a realistic basis to oppose the Kiev based regimes that came after the
overthrow of a democratically elected Ukrainian president.
During the American Revolution, most of the pro-British fighters were said to be
colonists already based in America. Furthermore, the American revolutionaries received
significant support from France. With these factors in mind, the Donbass rebels don't seem
less legit than the American revolutionaries.
Some Kiev regime elements positively reference the 1995 Croat ethnic cleansing of
Krajina Serbs (known as Operation Storm) as a solution for ending the rebel position in
Donbass. Russia doesn't seek a massive refugee problem in Donbass and some other parts of
the former Ukrainian SSR. As is, a sizeable number of Ukrainian residents have fled to
Russia.
Putin isn't anti-US in the manner claimed by Peters. Moreover, Peters is clearly more
anti-Russian (in a narrow minded way at that) than what can be reasonably said of how Putin
views the US. Putin's obvious differences with neocons, neolibs and flat out Russia haters
isn't by default anti-US. He was the first foreign leader to console the US following 9/11.
The Russian president has been consistently on record for favoring better US-Russian ties
(even inquiring about Russia joining NATO at one point), thereby explaining why he has
appeared to have preferred Trump over Clinton.
Some (including Trump) disagree with that view, which includes the notion that the
Russians (by and large) prefer predictability. As a general rule this is otherwise true.
However, Clinton's neocon/neolib stated views on Russia have been to the point where many
Russians felt willing to take a chance with Trump, whose campaign included a comparatively
more sympathetic take of their country. At the same time, a good number of Russians
questioned whether Trump would maintain that stance.
I suppose many of us saw the Tucker with Max Boot. Boot seemed unhinged, really
emotionally overwrought by Tucker raising commonsensical challenges to his neocon orthodoxy.
Sad, angry man.
As I pointed out in my last comment on the previous Korea thread, only the UNSC sanctions
are legal--Outlaw US Empire sanctions have no legal force outside its borders and can be freely
ignored. It's entirely possible Russia will use its position as UNSC President this month to
introduce a resolution canceling or greatly scaling back UNSC sanctions.
That almost the entire Imperial Establishment has given the Finger to the entire affair
isn't being ignored by the rest of the world, the EU in particular.
Although short, the Global Times link I provided has useful information as does the
Black Agenda Report item I linked to in my comment previous to my last on that
thread.
I very much approve of b's linking what was just accomplished with the NPT and hope other
writers pick it up and help further broadcast his very important point.
As for 100% denuclearization of Korea, lots of nuclear power plants will need to be replaced
and decommissioned, and that will likely take several decades to attain.
One can hope that an historical movement's begun to finally decolonize those nations
occupied by the Outlaw US Empire upon WW2's end. Admittedly, the Asian nations will find such a
process much easier than those in Europe. I doubt I'll live to see it, but somehow I can't find
any reason for Germany to continue being occupied in 2045, a full century after the end of WW2.
But if Germany is to become free, it cannot afford any more Merkels.
The root is neoliberal government that came to power in 2015
Notable quotes:
"... Why is any of this still "surprising" ..."
"... Economist Ha Joon Chang popularized the term "ladder kicking" to describe the way in which most developed countries used tariffs and trade restrictions to ascent to the top but are all for "free trade" now. ..."
"... Once again, so long as "Original Sin" is a reality, there is little hope. Keynes' BANCOR was the idea to begin to fix this, but short of some other global currency initiative, we're left to the International Finance Vultures as the primary arbiters of what's possible. ..."
Thanks for the link. I will be spending some time thinking of what Argentina would best
employ as best practices from where it is.
Would they be best off if they stopped issuing such high paying bonds? Should they pay them
all off and stop with it. It does appear to me that issuing bond after bond is one of the
single most dangerous things you can do.
It would appear to me to be a superior practice to sell what you produce for the best price
you can get on the open markets and dictate the value of your currency.
I'll have to do some more study here.
Again, thanks for the link.
You're uttering the discourse of the most recalcitrant neo-liberal cum
austerity-fundamentalists around.
The US doesn't tax soybean exports. Argentina needs to maximize its exports to earn
foreign exchange.'
it's misleading to say the least to draw a comparison between how the US handles soybean
exports and Argentina does it. They're around a quarter of the latter's exports, barely a
hundredth of the latter's.
The US will never have forex issues, Argentina does have them, and they are very serious.
You make it as if simply exporting commodities will fill the country's economy with USD,
while in truth those dollars will be neatly parked in tax heavens. Eliminating tax and
controls over Argentina's biggest exports -agricultural commodities- is in practice as if
these commodities were produced not in this country but in some foreign territory over which
only the very few who hold most of the land are sovereign. Which is what the current
administration has been doing for the past two years.
You also make it as if the current situation where the value of the peso is given over
completely to whatever short-term speculators feel like doing with it whenever LEBACs are due
is more desirable than the capital controls imposed by the previous government. These
prevented the hurtful rapid rise we're seeing in the exchange rate and reduced the negative
consequences of the fiscal deficit thus allowing significant investment in and expansion of
the real economy.
Addressing the fiscal deficit through increased value added and income tax is something
that clearly benefits the owner over the working class and depresses private consumption. I
can only sarcastically wonder who would want such a thing.
I don't feel the need or the duty to defend the previous government, but victimization of
the Sociedad Rural is something I just lack the words to condemn strongly enough
Argentina is probably the most self sufficient country on earth. It has everything,
fertile land that produces an abundance of wheat, barley, oats, rye, wine grapes. As well as
oil, gas. uranium, silver, gold, lead, copper, zinc. Foreigners are well aware of the wealth
in Argentina and are more than willing to lend to Argentinian governments and companies. This
is why Cristina Kirchner refused to give in to the US vulture funds as it dissuaded
foreigners from believing that reckless lending would always be rewarded. Macri ponied up,
restarting the old familiar economic doom cycle. As always its the old dog for the long road
and the pup for the puddle. Macri is now in a place that he chose, the puddle. As long as
foreig lenders remain reckless Argentina will remain mired in the mud, well short of its
potential. I was last there in 2008 when the country was booming. When I heard of Macri's
plan to pay the vulture funds I knew they were headed for disaster. This is just the
beginning.
Those "foreign lenders" can't be called "reckless." Some, maybe most among them always
seem to profit from the looting, whether by "bailouts" or "backstops" from governments like
the US that for "geopolitical reasons" facilitate that lending, or by extortion after the
first-round lenders (who know the risks, of course -- they are big boys and girls after all)
have been forestalled.
Call them "wreckers," maybe. Like early denizens of the Florida Keys, and other places,
who set fires or put up lamps that resembled lighthouses to lure passing ships onto the sands
and rocks where their cargoes and the valuables of their drowned passengers and crews could
be stripped.
Why is any of this still "surprising" to anyone?! Most countries in the world
(non G7/G8) are forced to go into foreign debt in order to pursue their "development"
initiatives. They are told they can export themselves out of trouble but the "free
trade" (more like unfair trade!) mantra puts them at a distinct disadvantage –
"unequal
exchange" was the term Marx used for it.
Economist Ha Joon Chang popularized the term
"ladder kicking" to describe the way in which most developed countries used tariffs and
trade restrictions to ascent to the top but are all for "free trade" now.
Once again, so long as "Original Sin" is a reality, there is little
hope. Keynes' BANCOR was
the idea to begin to fix this, but short of some other global currency initiative, we're left
to the International Finance Vultures as the primary arbiters of what's possible.
The term "national neoliberalism" should probably be adopted as the most succinct term for Trump economic policy
Notable quotes:
"... To paraphrase Ralph Nader, the U.S. corporate state is a two-headed beast. Sure, President Trump and the Republican Party are currently handing over public lands to oil and gas companies, eliminating net neutrality, introducing pro-corporate tax legislation, kowtowing to the military industrial complex, defunding the welfare state, and attempting to privatize education and deregulate finance. ..."
"... But let's not forget our recent Democratic presidents, for example, who are also guilty of empowering and enriching big business and disempowering and impoverishing ordinary Americans. ..."
"... In war the moral is to the material as 3 is to one, said Bonaparte. The neoliberal world order according the Bretton Woods and Washington cannot raise and apply enough material [bombings, drones, aircraft carrier intimidation THAAD in Korea are the ante] without destroying itself and in its throes the world. ..."
"... The U.S. trade deficit in goods, without services, was $810 billion. The United States exported $1.551 trillion in goods. It imported $2.361 trillion. The USA imports more than they export to: China, Japan, Canada, Germany and Mexico. USA top 5 Trade deficits: China $375 billion, Mexico $71, Japan $69, Germany $65, and Canada 18 billion. ..."
Trump behavior at Canadian G7 meeting was boorish, but it is logical and is consistent which his previous stance on globalization:
he rejects neoliberal globalization.
Sasha Breger Bush proposed the term "national neoliberalism" to depict the transition from "classic neoliberalism" which has
been started with the election of Trump.
I think the term really catches the essence of the election of Trump. and should probably be adopted as a succinct description
of Trump economic policy.
The nationalism, xenophobia, isolationism, and paranoia of Donald Trump are about to replace the significantly more cosmopolitan
outlook of his post-WWII predecessors. While Trump is decidedly pro-business and pro-market, he most certainly does not see
himself as a global citizen.
Nor does he intend to maintain the United States' extensive global footprint or its relatively open trading network. In
other words, while neoliberalism is not dead, it is being transformed into a geographically more fragmented and localized system
(this is not only about the US election, but also about rising levels of global protectionism and Brexit, among other anti-globalization
trends around the world).
I expect that the geographic extent of the US economy in the coming years will coincide with the new landscape of U.S. allies
and enemies, as defined by Donald Trump and his administration.
But if we take seriously the idea that Trump is a consequence of the disintegration of American democracy rather than the
cause of it, this "blame game" becomes especially problematic.
Partisan bickering, with one party constantly pointing to the other as responsible for the country's ills, covers up the
fact that Democrats and Republicans alike have presided over the consolidation of corporate power in the United States.
To paraphrase Ralph Nader, the U.S. corporate state is a two-headed beast. Sure, President Trump and the Republican
Party are currently handing over public lands to oil and gas companies, eliminating net neutrality, introducing pro-corporate
tax legislation, kowtowing to the military industrial complex, defunding the welfare state, and attempting to privatize education
and deregulate finance.
But let's not forget our recent Democratic presidents, for example, who are also guilty of empowering and enriching
big business and disempowering and impoverishing ordinary Americans.
JackD, June 10, 2018 9:58 am
@Likbez: "Sure, President Trump, etc" is your important sentence. It is the immediate need. First things, first.
ilsm, June 10, 2018 3:12 pm
In war the moral is to the material as 3 is to one, said Bonaparte. The neoliberal world order according the Bretton Woods
and Washington cannot raise and apply enough material [bombings, drones, aircraft carrier intimidation THAAD in Korea are the
ante] without destroying itself and in its throes the world.
Trump is not tearing apart NATO anyone not earning money is a PNAC think tanks knows NATO has become an aggression against
Russia with similar intent as Hitler.
Grabbing Sevastopol and aiding Russians in territory occupied by Kyiv are [bold] defensive moves. The threat of Chinese islands
in the South China Sea is the US Navy super carriers intimidations has no career raiding Hainan.
rps, June 10, 2018 7:42 pm
I was curious if Yglesias is a Canadian since his editorial sided with the G7 leaders stance against Trump's fair-trade often
labelled as 'protectionism' of USA industries. He's a New Yorker as I pondered what's his stake in this political tirade against
Trump's pro-America versus anti-globalist policies?
It appears that the media has glided over the fact Trump had suggested to the other G7 leaders that all trade barriers, including
tariffs and subsidies, be eliminated, ""You go tariff-free, you go barrier-free, you go subsidy free." Protectionist Canadian
PM Trudeau howled at a press conference after Trump had left on his way to Singapore. Why? Is it because Trudeau is committed
to the welfare of Canadians and their industries? How dare the president of the USA- in turn, advocate for citizenry and country
as does his G7 counterparts for their countries.
The U.S. trade deficit in goods, without services, was $810 billion. The United States exported $1.551 trillion in goods.
It imported $2.361 trillion. The USA imports more than they export to: China, Japan, Canada, Germany and Mexico. USA top 5 Trade
deficits: China $375 billion, Mexico $71, Japan $69, Germany $65, and Canada 18 billion.
US citizens and their jobs were swindled with cheaper foreign goods flooding American businesses and stores as good manufacturing
jobs headed overseas. Jobs that created the middle class and all their earned benefits and standard of living decreased/disappeared
quickly with NAFTA and the WTO.
Concisely, trade deficits destroyed the middle class, the working class, blue collar, and in turn, increased poverty and homelessness.
Destroyed small town anywhere in the USA with manufacturing and jobs fleeing overseas in search of cheap labor. Go travel across
the USA and see the boarded up towns, walk the streets of Flint Michigan, Detroit, Martinsville Virginia, Gary Indiana, Freeport
Il, etc. Throw a dart at a USA map and you'll hit a town devastated by 'free' to lose your job trade. In 2014, 2.3 million job
losses due to trade with China. Job losses in the millions have been slowly replaced with 'service' jobs and/or $8.00 an hour
part-time no benefits workers as the new norm.
Remember when Walmart's original slogan was "Buy American"? Sam Walton before he died, was big on "Buy American," and it appeared
in signs in the stores and on TV ads. His heirs quickly changed it to "Buy Chinese" destroying the american dream and small town
USA.
Yet Yglesias' preference is all for the unbalanced trade with our G7 frenemies and punishing a president who chooses fair trade
practices to ensure US jobs for American citizens. Makes me wonder who or what Yglesias truly advocates for, the NWO or the country
of origin on his passport?
"What we must do is this: revise our tariff on the basis of a reciprocal exchange of goods, allowing other Nations to buy and
to pay for our goods by sending us such of their goods as will not seriously throw any of our industries out of balance Such objectives
as these three, restoring farmers' buying power, relief to the small banks and home-owners and a reconstructed tariff policy,
are only a part of ten or a dozen vital factors. But they seem to be beyond the concern of a national administration which can
think in terms only of the top of the social and economic structure. It has sought temporary relief from the top down rather than
permanent relief from the bottom up. It has totally failed to plan ahead in a comprehensive way. It has waited until something
has cracked and then at the last moment has sought to prevent total collapse.
It is high time to get back to fundamentals. It is high time to admit with courage that we are in the midst of an emergency
at least equal to that of war. Let us mobilize to meet it." "The Forgotten Man" speech, 1937. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Since Clinton signed NAFTA in 1994 and the WTO, American jobs and industry left our shores seeking the lowest common denominator-
cheap slave labor. To paraphrase FDR into the late 20th and early 21st century, "Clinton and his successors concern of their national
administrations thought in terms only of the top of the social and economic structure. It has sought temporary relief from the
top down rather than permanent relief from the bottom up.It has totally failed to plan ahead in a comprehensive way."
Bruce Webb, June 10, 2018 9:16 pm
Nothing personally Rps, but you do not get Triffin Dilemma and global reserve currency. Please no more NAFTA obsession when
no jobs left with that deal and exports excelerated. The global reserve currency and booming financial markets create a surplus
in services over goods. It also creates the need for a goods deficit to stabilize the financial system. You cannot wave a wand
and cure something that cannot be cured. You need a major depression to rebalance and drive capital from america.
Bruce Webb, June 10, 2018 9:19 pm
Likbez, Neoliberalism IS American. Trump is pro-East Asia
"... By the way, the US provides 22% of NATO funding, a formula which is based on population. Thus, if the European members increased their contributions to NATO, the US contribution would also rise! ..."
"... Donald Trump will remain exasperated because he is fighting the good fight but not really understanding who his adversary's are. ..."
"... Foreign countries aren't taking advantage of the USA. American industrialists are taking advantage of the USA. Why does Apple make its iPhones in China? Why does Ford build so many of its SUVs in Mexico? Not because of the decisions those countries have made. It's because of the decisions American industrial leaders have made. ..."
"... The USA has a trade surplus with Canada. Trump lied about that. ..."
At the G-7 summit in Canada, President Donald Trump described America as "the piggy bank
that everybody is robbing."
After he left Quebec, his director of Trade and Industrial Policy, Peter Navarro, added a
few parting words for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: "There's a special place in hell for any
foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy with President Donald J. Trump and then
tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door. And that's what weak, dishonest Justin
Trudeau did. And that comes right from Air Force One."
In Singapore, Trump tweeted more about that piggy bank: "Why should I, as President of the
United States, allow countries to continue to make Massive Trade Surpluses, as they have for
decades [while] the U.S. pays close to the entire cost of NATO-protecting many of these same
countries that rip us off on Trade?"
To understand what drives Trump, and explains his exasperation and anger, these remarks are
a good place to begin.
Our elites see America as an "indispensable nation," the premiere world power whose ordained
duty it is to defend democracy, stand up to dictators and aggressors, and uphold a liberal
world order.
They see U.S. wealth and power as splendid tools that fate has given them to shape the
future of the planet.
Trump sees America as a nation being milked by allies who free-ride on our defense efforts
as they engage in trade practices that enrich their own peoples at America's expense.
Where our elites live to play masters of the universe, Trump sees a world laughing behind
America's back, while allies exploit our magnanimity and idealism for their own national
ends.
The numbers are impossible to refute and hard to explain.
Last year, the EU had a $151 billion trade surplus with the U.S. China ran a $376 billion
trade surplus with the U.S., the largest in history. The world sold us $796 billion more in
goods than we sold to the world.
A nation that spends more than it takes in from taxes, and consumes more of the world's
goods than it produces itself for export, year in and year out, is a nation on the way
down.
We are emulating our British cousins of the 19th century.
Trump understands that this situation is not sustainable. His strength is that the people
are still with him on putting America first.
Yet he faces some serious obstacles.
What is his strategy for turning a $796 billion trade deficit into a surplus? Is he prepared
to impose the tariffs and import restrictions that would be required to turn America from the
greatest trade-deficit nation in history to a trade-surplus nation, as we were up until the
mid-1970s?
Americans are indeed carrying the lion's share of the load of the defense of the West, and
of fighting the terrorists and radical Islamists of the Middle East, and of protecting South
Korea and Japan.
But if our NATO and Asian allies refuse to make the increases in defense he demands, is
Trump really willing to cancel our treaty commitments, walk away from our war guarantees, and
let these nations face Russia and China on their own? Could he cut that umbilical cord?
Ike's secretary of state John Foster Dulles spoke of conducting an "agonizing reappraisal"
of U.S. commitments to defend NATO allies if they did not contribute more money and troops.
Dulles died in 1959, and that reappraisal, threatened 60 years ago, never happened. Indeed,
when the Cold War ended, our NATO allies cut defense spending again. Yet we are still
subsidizing NATO in Europe and have taken on even more allies since the Soviet Empire fell.
If Europe refuses to invest the money in defense that Trump demands, or accept the tariffs
America needs to reduce and erase its trade deficits, what does he do? Is he prepared to shut
U.S. bases and pull U.S. troops out of the Baltic republics, Poland, and Germany, and let the
Europeans face Vladimir Putin and Russia themselves?
This is not an academic question. For the crunch that was inevitable when Trump was elected
seems at hand.
Trump promised to negotiate with Putin and improve relations with Russia. He promised to
force our NATO allies to undertake more of their own defense. He pledged to get out and stay
out of Mideast wars and begin to slash the trade deficits that we have run with the world.
That's what America voted for.
Now, after 500 days, he faces formidable opposition to these defining goals of his campaign,
even within his own party.
Putin remains a pariah on Capitol Hill. Our allies are rejecting the tariffs Trump has
imposed and threatening retaliation. Free-trade Republicans reject tariffs that might raise the
cost of the items U.S. companies make abroad and then ships back to the United States.
The decisive battles between Trumpian nationalism and globalism remain ahead of us. Trump's
critical tests have yet to come.
And our exasperated president senses this.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles
That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. To find out more about Patrick
Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators
website at www.creators.com.
America spends 3 times as much on defense as its allies because it is addicted to military
spending. The solution is not to pressure other countries to acquire the same addiction. The
solution is for America cut its own military spending.
This is just another example of America trying to "export" its domestic issues. Quit
blaming foreigners and deal with your issues.
"A nation that spends more than it takes in from taxes, and consumes more of the world's
goods than it produces itself for export, year in and year out, is a nation on the way down.
We are emulating our British cousins of the 19th century." never imagined I'd say this, but
you are absolutely correct. of course you neglect to acknowledge, Trump himself is an "elite"
and a "globalist". the fact his "game" is real estate, as opposed to governance is more of a
semantic distinction than ideological. debt-fueled consumerism drives real estate just as it
drives globalism. this is nothing new. add to this the pathological narcissism and the
ability to leverage moral bankruptcy as he has the tax codes and bankruptcy laws, and voila,
just another globalist in populist clothing. as I have maintained all along, he is not so
much anti-establishment as he is an establishment of one – he simply thrives in a
different type of swamp and favors a smaller oligarchy/plutocracy. and of course, there is
the big news out of Singapore/Korea, but again, much of the 'spin' or upside cited in a
denuclearized Korean peninsula involves the opportunity for North Korea to join the
globalists at the globalists' table. one can only wonder if there will be Ivanka's handbags
will be made in Panmunjom, and if Kim Jong Un will stay at the Trump hotel in DC? either way,
you are correct he is the candidate the American people, and the globalists "elected".
One problem with Trump's rant: the US enjoys a small trade surplus with Canada.
Would someone please get this president some hard facts and drill him on them for however
long it takes top get them fixed in his mind before he goes off half-cocked with any more
nonsense?
As always, Mr Buchanan sets out his personal agenda and then claims that Trump promised to
implement it if elected. The more Trump backs away from globalised free trade (if that's what
he's really doing), the more that suits the EU. The "core value" of the EU is a large
internal market protected by a high tariff wall. Globalization was rammed down an unwilling
EU's throat by the US in the Reagan years and only the British elite ever really believed in
it. As for NATO, nobody now believes that the US will honor its commitments, no matter how
much Europe pays, so logically, the European members are concentrating their additional
expenditure on an independent European defense system, which, needless to say, the US is
trying to obstruct.
By the way, the US provides 22% of NATO funding, a formula which is based
on population. Thus, if the European members increased their contributions to NATO, the US
contribution would also rise!
Donald Trump will remain exasperated because he is fighting the good fight but not really
understanding who his adversary's are.
Foreign countries aren't taking advantage of the USA. American industrialists are taking
advantage of the USA. Why does Apple make its iPhones in China? Why does Ford build so many
of its SUVs in Mexico? Not because of the decisions those countries have made. It's because
of the decisions American industrial leaders have made.
Secondly, there is absolutely no threat to NATO from Russia or Putin. Europe could slash
its already meager defense budget with only beneficial consequences. The same with Japan and
S. Korea. None of these countries need US military help. There are no real military threats
to these countries. US military spending has never been about defending other countries. It
is about enriching the shareholders of American military contractors.
So here is the real world: The United States has established a "liberal rules-based global
order" that allows wealthy American and European commercial interests to benefit mightily
from trade, and property and resource control in foreign countries. And this order is
maintained by US military power. That is why the US is "the one indispensable nation". We are
the nation that is allowed to break the order, to be the bully, in order for the rules-based
order to even exist. That's why we are beating up on countries that try to live outside of
this order like Iran, NK, Venezuela, Russia and everyone else who don't fall in line.
So Donald Trump is fighting against the power elite of the United States, he just doesn't
understand that. He is fighting against the most powerful people in the world, people who are
well represented by both political parties. He can win this fight if he lets the average
American on to this reality. And then leads them properly to a better, more balanced world.
But I suspect that he would be assassinated if he tried.
In re NATO and other oversea DOD spending, the old saying "who pays, says" has a corollary.
Who wants to say has to pay. The US, since WWII, has wanted, insisted, on being in charge of
everything we touch. This costs a lot, not to mention it often doesn't work the way we want.
It would be easy enough to stop spending all this money. The Pentagon and the
military-industrial complex would have a conniption and those whose defense bills we've been
paying would complain to high heaven, but Trump seems intent on trashing all those alliances
anyway and also on spending more money on defense than even the Pentagon thinks they need.
Trade deficits don't work the way you think they work. In todays economy the traditional
measures of deficits don't actually tell us much about what is going on.
Do you know what China does with that $350b trade surplus? A huge percentage of it is
rolled back immediately into US Treasury bonds because we are the only issuer of credit in
sufficient amounts and of suitable stability for them to buy. All of that deficit spending
Trump and the Republicans in congress passed last year is being financed by the very trade
imbalance that Trump is trying to eliminate.
But trade imbalances really don't tell us much about the flow of money. Most of the
imbalance is created by US companies that have built factories in China to sell goods back to
the US, then repatriate money back to the US in the form of dividends or stock buy backs
(which are not counted in the trade balance at all).
At best trade balances tell us very little meaningful about what is really going on, but
can be wildly deceptive. At worst they are an easy tool, for demogogs who have zero
understanding of what is going on, to inflame other uninformed people to justify trade
wars.
Interesting the things that Buchanan ignores (on purpose?). The USA has a trade surplus with
Canada. Trump lied about that. There's nothing wrong with the USA spending less money to defend other countries. Trump
doesn't have to insult our allies to do that.
"Trump understands that this situation is not sustainable."
You give him more credit than he deserves. What he does understand is that while we're
being the world's piggy bank, the American taxpayer is being the Military-Industrial
Complex's piggy-bank and that's just fine with him. As it is with most members of
Congress.
" our NATO allies cut defense spending again. Yet we are still subsidizing NATO in Europe "
Mr. Buchanan, like Trump, does not understand how NATO is funded. All NATO members have
been paying their dues. In fact, many pay a greater proportion relative to GDP per capita
than the U.S. does. Defense budgets are a different matter entirely.
This entire article seems to reduce complex issues into simple arithmetic. Economics and job
creation is about much more than balance of payments both the author and the US president
don't seem to realise this. Very shallow article.
America has a trade surplus with Canada, but seems determined to rub it in.
Some background. As the glaciers retreated south at the end of the ice age, they scraped
away Canada's topsoil and deposited it in America. Rural Canada has little arable areas; it's
beef and dairy by necessity. Costs are high and there are ten Americans to every Canadian
hence the subsidy. America subsidizes it's agriculture $55 billion annually.
Great, if we're upset about having to protect our allies in the Pacific, let's change the
Japanese constitution to allow them to have a real military again to defend themselves and
give the South Koreans nukes to balance out the power situation between them and the Norks/
Chinese. (Why is it so little is ever said about China being a nuclear power?) This whole
fantasy of denuclearization of the Korean peninsula is so naive it's laughable. If nukes
exist, there will never be any permanent guarantee of anything, and other countries will just
keep getting the bomb without our permission, like Pakistan and China. The genie is out of
the bottle, so time to be brutally realistic about what we face and what can be done. We can
whine all we want to about how it's not our responsibility, but then we expect other
countries to be hobbled and still somehow face enemy powers.
Lets take a look at the growing list of nations shifting to the right (nationalism and
populism)
-The Czech, Slovak and Slovenia Republics Poland, Hungary, Switzerland, the US.
Nations shifting this year to the right (nationalism and populism)
-Austria, Bavaria and Italy
Nations leaning to the right and leaning toward joining the VISEGRAD
-Lithuania, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Serbia and Greece
AS YOU CAN SEE THE PILLARS OF MARXIST / SOCIALIST / COMMUNIST OPEN BORDERS EUROPE/EU ARE
BEING TAKEN DOWN. THE FIGHT WILL BE WITH FRANCE, GERMANY, BELGIUM, NETHERLANDS, BRITAIN,
SWEDEN AND THE UNELECTED EU SUPERSTATE. RIGHT NOW THE FIGHT IS WITH THE POOR SOUTHERN AND
EASTERN EUROPEAN INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS BUT EVENTUALLY IT WILL REACH A TIPPING POINT WHERE IT
BECOMES AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT BUT ITS ONLY AN EXISTENTIAL THREAT FOR THE LEFT AS THE EU
REACHES THE TIPPING POINT AND THE POWER SHIFTS TO THE RIGHT.
Bolton must be "turning and burning." Good! Will Kim survive this at home? We will see. Will the North Koreans actually follow
through on this? We will see. Will the US follow through on this? We will see. Who will be the poor bastard who will be the first
McDonald's manager in Pyongyang? Will he end his days in the Gulag? What will Nancy Pelosi say about this? Where was Kim's dishy
sister during the Singapore expedition? She is the head of propaganda in NOKO. pl
I couldn't be happier with the outcome of this summit. No one is talking war in Korea anymore. So Trump gave away future military
exercises on the Peninsula and characterized them as provocative. So what? In exchange we have a North Korea feeling a little
less threatened. The idea of a denuclearized Peninsula could lead to a minimal or even nonexistent US presence along with a complete
dismantling of the North's nuclear weapons program. That would be grand. There will be a lot of fault found in this summit and
its outcome, but I don't care. This was a bold and courageous move on Trump's part. Some may think it was a courage born out of
ignorance, but it was also born out of a willingness to try something new, a willingness to deal with KJU as a partner. This is
refreshing. Trump done good and the world is better today than it was a few short months ago.
Perhaps Trump can apply this same reasoning to other military deployments and exercises. Recognize their potential provocativeness
and withdraw. Withdraw from Syria. Withdraw from Europe. Apply the same type of conciliatory engagement to Iran, Cuba and others
that he showed to North Korea. Now that would be a legacy.
Trump is blowing holes in old paradigms. The concepts he's applying aren't particularly genius; rather just sensible, but
he's the only one who seems to be able think outside the box enough to even consider making a try for a new way. I'm sure that
a lot of prep work went into this historic meeting; lots of wheeling and dealing. However, the simple yet elegant, idea behind
it all is that it's better for all parties to be friends than enemies. Trump has transcended all the moralizing that holds back
others (e.g."But North Korea has gulags!"). He realizes that redemption of bad actors is possible through friendship and prosperity.
An adversarial relationship fixes nothing unless an actual existential war is waged and one winner emerges from the carnage- and
war is costly. This kind of acting on cost/benefit analysis is one reason why some of us voted for a businessman as opposed to
a career pol. Glad you are able to give credit where it's due.
Now if Trump can just blow holes in the old paradigms concerning Iran and Cuba. Now would be the time to do it. Obama was doing
that in the case of Iran and Cuba and the neocons and Republicans gave him holy hell for daring to question those old paradigms.
If Trump could get over supporting anything Obama supported, I believe he could carry these policies of reconciliation to fruition
despite the opposition. He's like the honey badger. He just don't give a f#ck. And that's just what the situation calls for.
The ultimate paradigm that needs holes blown into it is Israel's parasitic relationship with the US. I've said it before. The
sooner Trump realizes our policies regarding Israel are a cost center, the better off we will all be.
IMO, he'll get there. First he needs to build momentum and trust. He has to prove himself to the world. NoKo is a great
place to start. The neocons and borg are less invested in certain outcomes there - therefore the probability of sabotage is lower.
Trump has to deal with both the external powers as well as the internal (I think the internal are the bigger barriers to success).
I don't think he really gives a flying f###k about how Kushner or his daughter feel about Israel. He tossed Israel and the US
rightwing a bone w/ the embassy move. That's as much as they'll get from here on out if they get too pushy. Despite some Islamic
quarters making big noise about it, I don't see them actually doing anything more than protesting and getting shot for it. We've
annihilated Iraqi uniformed forces twice in recent history. That serves as an object lesson to the rest of the countries in the
region. So a cost free bone toss by Trump as far as he is concerned.
I agree largely with your post, however I just cannot see how it can lead to further withdrawals, simply because it kind of
implies the US is there for the benefit of others and not for themselves. They could pull out of Europe now. Pretty sure everyone
knows Russia is not going to invade Europe, right?
But yes, Trump has shown good faith, and lets hope NK reciprocate. I think they will. The idea that Kim wants his country in
its current state is just ignorant.
I'd say the same reason why the US has bases all over the world. Please excuse my ignorance, I am just a lay man with a keen interest.
Why have bases in Japan? Or indeed anywhere? Hegemony, no? Why not pull out years ago? Genuine questions. The US seems to want
to check EU growth - why would they pull out their military presence there? Or, say, Japan? There are no "allies", just overlapping
interests, right?
Since Commodore Perry's mission to Japan in 1853, what has US gained except war and unemployment in her interactions with Japan?
Would it not have been a superior policy to leave Japan alone to wallow in her brutal feudalism and delay or prevent the unleashing
of that brutality on the rest of East Asia?
One could say the same about all empires I guess. The pursuit of power and domination seems to cloud all judgment. So, in your
opinion, should the US have any bases outside of the US? I am from the UK, so there are still bases lingering from our own days
of rule. They really just kept as forward operating positions, right? For example, the UK base in Cyprus used for ME operations.
The two Cyprus bases are just springboards for adventurism. IMO we should abandon NATO as a vestige of the Cold War an leave you
Europeans to your own devices. Korea? We should leave as soon as Trump can arrange it. Australia? Why are we there? So that we
can meddle in Asia? Where else? I can't think of anywhere we should stay off our own territory.
LeMoore00 "Hegemony" as a goal or reward has no value except to the collective ego of the Borg. If there was some economic value
derived from these commitments and deployments there would be some basis for your remark but there is not.
So is Trump genuinely trying to extricate the US from these situations? There is a view amongst the commentariat that perhaps
he is trying to alienate allies in order for them to begin cutting lossening ties with the US, causing the very isolation Trump
made a significant part of his campaign. Thoughts?
South Korea is strong and rich enough to look after the North. The complicated matter of how reunification will occur will be
for them to work out between them. The nuclear issue is really the easy part.
The necessary framework for nuclear disarmament or re-unification is a Global Peace - a la Peace of Yalta - is lacking; in
my opinion.
We have entered a period of Warring States - waiting, I suppose, for the Shi, Hwang Ti moment - but until such time a multipolar
world does not make itself conducive to such strategic settlements - certainly not with NATO still existing.
When one considers the fact that Arms Control is dead, NPT is dead, Peace of Yalta is dead, JCPOA is dead then one cannot rightly
expect a strategic settlement on the Korean Peninsula between US and DPRK.
No doubt, for what can the NK leadership conclude when they have seen a consistent foreign policy -be Republican or Democrat-
of destroying any nation whose policies are seen as a threat by the US? There is no basis of trust.
Trump deserves huge credit for the way he handled himself with a man who has been demonized by our propaganda ministry media
and the deep state criminals who have been trying to pull a regime change in Washington since January 2017...
I have to admit I gave up on Trump quite a while ago...today changes everything...
Is it surreal that President Trump is the most moderate and sensible voice not only in the room but in the entire country...?
This is what the people voted for...and this is what 'presidential' looks like...Trump is headed for the history books in a
very very large way...
I have to believe that he is consolidating control of the machinery of state...I was actually first surprised by Pompeo's breakthrough
and surprise visit to DPRK...and even Bolton has turned out not to be the spoiler I had feared...
What in the world is going on here...?
Did the universe just turn upside down...?
All of the questions Col Lang asks are relevant, but just the huge success that this day has become overshadows everything
for now...
What next...will Putin and Trump finally get together and really start putting the screws to the enemies of mankind that are
besetting both men...?
This seems to be the meat of the summit from the George Stephanopoulos interview:
G: Did you talk about pulling troops out? U.S. troops out of South Korea.
T: We didn't discuss that, no. But we're not gonna play the war games. You know, I wanted to stop the war games, I thought
they were very provocative. But I also think they're very expensive. We're running the country properly, I think they're very,
very expensive. To do it, we have to fly planes in from Guam -- that's six and a half hours away. Big bombers and everything else,
I said, 'Who's paying for this?' I mean, who pays, in order to practice.
Apparently the South Koreans were caught by surprise (again).
I'm assuming canceling war games once in a while is fine....but what happens to readiness if they are cancelled over a long
time and how important (and specific to a North Korean context) are these games? Experts...please weigh in? How long would it
take North Korea to take over South Korea with conventional troops and weapons?
Kim invading SK, its 600,000 effectives (3mln reserves), 30,000 US servicemen & nukes & Carrier strike group, on the eve of a
diplomatic breakthrough that could end up with engraving his name in gold throughout history...
Sounds a bit like Assad gassing his civilians right on the brink of a strategic victory. But on a devastating, enormous, monumental
scale.
i dont know if you aware that south korean military is estimated 5x stronger compared to NK , and it is a folly to compare the
1950 SK and NK in term of combat strength , readiness and whatnot
The key condition that triggered this series of events was NK's development of a nuclear weapon and delivery capability. That
put KJU in a position to make conciliatory moves towards SK and the rest followed. However, Trump's disposition to try something
The key condition that triggered this series of events was NK's development of a nuclear weapon and delivery capability. That
put KJU in a position to make conciliatory moves towards SK and the rest followed. However, Trump's disposition to try something
new was also instrumental... and fortuitous.
I meant it's fortuitous for us. I agree it's inherent in his character. That's why i think it's entirely possible he and/or
his organization conspired with Russians to circumvent election laws and norms to gain some kind of advantage in the election.
He would feel no inhibition to trying something new. It's inherent in his character.
Here's a fascinating tidbit on the Trump Teams PR efforts...
White House Created Production Video to Assist Singapore Summit Talks With North Korea .
https://theconservativetree...
Details are surfacing of a video put together by the White House to assist in diplomacy messaging toward Kim Jong-un and the team
of North Korea negotiators. According to reports, toward the end of the talks between President Trump and Kim Jong-un the video
was shared in both Korean and English languages to the audience of both teams. The video was also shared with the international
media audience prior to President Trump's remarks at the press conference
------------------------
The 4 min video is very well done, and as one commenter pointed out is a great example of positive propaganda.
Perhaps his hiring as NSC chief was a case of "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer." Or as LBJ put it, "Have them
inside the tent pi**ing out."
Kim's sister was in Singapore. She is the one who handed him all the documents to be signed , after bringing him the pen which
has been dusted and verified by a NOKO agent.
Seems like Trump echoed what I assume is a N Korean view..no nukes anywhere around the Korean peninsula which, I'd imagine, in
the view, would include S. Korea and Japan and perhaps...and in return POTUS gets to build some resorts on N Korean beaches...I
hope I'm wrong but that seemed the between the lines message
No more war games with S. Korea??? as added inducement for Kim..to sign an agreement that didn't expand beyond previous agreements
with respect to nukes?
"and in return POTUS gets to build some resorts on N Korean beaches." If this is not irony you may actually be too stupid for
SST. that would put you in an elite group.
If you want some insight into DT's or Kim's personalities, look at the list of people Sammy "The Bull" Gravano murdered. DT and
Kim are both criminals who have risen to the "top" through criminality. This current claptrap is DT trying to bring out the base
for the midterms. How are things in Yemen these days?
I'm pretty certain that zero of Trump's supporters live in Yemen. How about the Obama replacement 2020 candidate; are they going
to run on liberating Yemen? I'm sure that will pull the democratic base out to vote.
Many Trump supporters, and even some on the left, like to talk about the "Deep State"
secretly having complete control of our government, thus rendering our elected leaders to be
nothing more than meaningless figureheads. Let's investigate.
Long before the term 'Deep State' became popular, the term "Military Industrial Complex" was
coined by President Dwight Eisenhower.
He gave his now famous Military Industrial Complex (MIC) speech on Jan 17, 1961.
During his ominous farewell, Ike mentioned that the US was only just past the halfway point
of the century and we had already seen 4 major wars. He then went on to talk about how the MIC
was now a major sector of the economy. Eisenhower then went on to warn Americans about the
"undue influence" the MIC has on our government. He warned that the MIC has massive lobbying
power and the ability to press for unnecessary wars and armaments we would not really need, all
just to funnel money to their coffers.
Jump to Ike's warning about the "unwarranted influence... by the Military-Industrial
Complex" at 8:41
His warning though proven correct, was sadly not heeded. Within a few years JFK was
assassinated shortly after giving his "Secret government speech" warning the American people
about "secret governments and secret organizations that sought to have undue control of the
government.
JFK was in his grave for less than 9-months before Gulf of Tonkin incident which was a
series of outlandish lies about a fictitious attack on a US naval ship that never happened,
which caused the US to enter the Vietnam war.
President Johnson lied his way into a war with North Vietnam and within less than a year
would joke that "maybe the attack never happened". By the time the war ended in 1973, Johnson's
bundle of lies had killed 2.45 million people.
The MIC however, saw the Vietnam war as a great victory and a template for the future
success to their objectives. Ever since the Vietnam War, the MIC has urged the government to
enter into as many ambiguous and unwinnable wars as possible, since unwinnable wars are also
never-ending. Never-ending wars equate to never-ending revenue streams for the war
industry.
Eisenhower warned us about the concept of one particular industry taking control of our
government, but sadly his predictions fell of deaf ears.
Since Eisenhower's time several other over "Industrial Complexes" have followed the MIC
example and taken control of our government to suit their needs as well. Their objective is to
buy out politicians in order to control the purse strings of Congress and they have been highly
successful.
The list of these ÏC industries includes, but is not limited to the companies
below:
1. The Drug Industrial Complex. (DIC)
The prescription drug industry has massive control of our government and our health care
system. A recent Mayo Clinic study concluded that 70% of Americans are on at least one
prescription drug.
The most tragic example is opioids, though similar arguments can also be made in reference
to the anti-depressant epidemic, obesity, heart disease and diabetes.
The sicker America is, the better it is for the DIC.
The drug lobby is 8x larger than the gun lobby and is indirectly responsible for the deaths
of between 59.000 and 65,000 people in 2016 alone, but if we dig deeper, that number could
easily be 2 or 3 times higher, Since deaths related to opioids from infection related to opioid
related infections are extremely common Anti-depressants are being prescribed 400% more than
they were in the 1990's. They are commonly prescribed to adolescent women and we live up to the
name "Prozac Nation" when we realize that 1 in 5 women between the ages of 40 and 59 are taking
antidepressants. The list of other prescription medicines to enhance the DIC revenue streams is
extensive.
There are two primary industrial complex rules when it comes to prescription drug centric
treatment:
Firstly, no curing is allowed, ever. Treatment of conditions with temporary benefits is
allowed, but healing is not permissible, since it interrupts revenue streams.
And second, any and all "natural" or homeopathic treatment whether it be related to diet,
supplements vitamins, anti-oxidants or physical exercise/meditation should all be relegated
to "quackery." Doctors who do not adhere to the prescription drug method of treating patients
should also be referred to as adherents to "quackery" and should be reprimanded, fined and in
extreme cases have their medical licenses revoked.
2. Real Estate Industrial Complex. (RIC)
Goal: Keep housing prices rising as much as possible, year after year after year.
How this is implemented: Endorse the borrowing of money to entice people into buying
excessively large homes in order to promote the "dream" of home ownership. Once people buy into
this scheme, they are then saddled with massive home taxes to their city and the burden of the
taxes utilities that go along with owning an excessively large home. Stigmatize anyone who is
over the age of 25 and lives in the same domicile as a parent or grandparent.
Make sure all media channels repeat over and over incessantly that high real estate prices
are "signs of a great economy," while ignoring the crippling effect high home prices have on
working class families who can barely pay their mortgage.
3. College Industrial Complex
(CIC)
The average tuition in 1971-1972 was $1832.00 and now it is officially over $31,000.00.
There are over 60 colleges and universities where the tuition has already exceeded
$60,000.00 per/year.
A college education used to be something that people saved and paid cash for, but now there
has been a cultural shift where students are expected to take out loans that are often in the
hundreds of thousands of dollars to obtain a college degree.
Why is this all so expensive? When we look at our universities and colleges, we see an
obsession with elaborate new buildings and sports stadiums, more than actual learning.
There are several emerging/innovative ideas to make a college education better, faster and
far more affordable. Such concepts probably won't take hold until the inevitable collapse of
the entire educational system takes place.
4. Health Insurance Industrial Complex
(HIC)
Much of the US healthcare system is now governed by the "Healthcare Affordability Act"
passed by the Obama administration in 2010.
The HIC proved how powerful they were when Congress was not allowed to read the legislation
before voting for it, publicly displaying that the HIC who wrote the bill behind closed doors
is more powerful than Congress itself.
What transparent public committees were behind this important legislation?
In reality, there was no transparency at all, this is stated clear as day by Healthcare
Affordability Act primary architect Jonathan Gruber stated: "Lack of transparency is a huge
political advantage, Call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically,
that was really, really critical for the thing to pass."
The Speaker of the House at the time was Nancy Pelosi, who famously said from the leadership
podium as House Speaker: "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.'
Our elected officials were not allowed to read the most important legislation of the past 30
years before voting for or against it. There is no greater testimony to the level of
dysfunction in Congress than the Healthcare Affordability Act, formed by secret committees and
then not allowing Congress to read it before voting.
* * *
Let's think back to 1961 when Eisenhower warned us about what would become the Vietnam War.
The American people's ignoring his warning caused arms manufacturers and big business to assume
nearly complete control of US government.
If we had listened to Ike, millions of people would not have died in the wars of the last 57
years and we would have trillions of dollars less in debt. Perhaps we still have time to heed
his warning before our entire country collapses under the weight of corruption, crippling debt
and never-ending wars, let's hope so.
* * *
Kevin Paul is the founder of Alternativemediahub.com, which refers to itself as "The
megaphone of independent journalism." Born in MA, he came within 2% of winning the R party
nomination to oppose Ted Kennedy in 2006 and holds degrees in business and political
science.
"... The top White House adviser and son-in-law of Trump failed to identify his part ownership of Cadre, a real-estate startup he founded, which links him to the Goldman Sachs Group and the mega-investors George Soros and Peter Thiel, sources told The Journal. ..."
I guess the "Deep State" is deeper than the White House is reporting.....
Jared Kushner didn't disclose his business ties with George Soros, Peter Thiel, and Goldman Sachs, or that he owes $1 billion
in loans, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
The top White House adviser and son-in-law of Trump failed to identify his part ownership of Cadre, a real-estate startup
he founded, which links him to the Goldman Sachs Group and the mega-investors George Soros and Peter Thiel, sources told The Journal.
There is no universal, global brotherhood of "nationalist, right-wing, anti-SJW" values as
you seem to be trying to imply. The western far-right/alt-right is entirely self-serving and
their appeals to some kind of global nationalistic ideology is basically just a thin facade
that they promote in order to help generate support for their own self-serving agenda. The
only reason that the western far-right wants to reach out for allies right now is because
they are on the ropes and in a position of weakness; if the western far-right was instead in
a position of strength then they would not hesitate to put their boot on your neck. You are
quite naive if you don't think otherwise.
As an long time observer of the western far-right; its very clear that at the end of the
day, it is not principles that they care about, it is only themselves. That in itself would
be fine if they were upfront about it, however the problem is that they insist on being very
deceptive about their true motives. As I have said in this post, and so many others; why is
it that the far-right wants to postulate about "rights" and "fairness" when it comes to the
preservation of the white race, but then when it comes to any other ethnic group on earth
that has been negatively impacted by western colonialism the far-right just tells them to go
fuck themselves? This tells you all you need to know about how the far-right really feels
about its so called vaunted principles regarding racial/cultural preservation. They believe
in it for themselves yes, but will be more than willing to compromise this belief when it
comes to any others. You are missing the forest for the trees if you insist on adhering to
notions of abstract jointly-held values at the expense of basic strategic interests; this is
something I guarantee you is not lost on the western far-right.
You also assume that SJWism is going to spread to east asia and negatively affect the
culture there in the same way that it has in the west. Is this or is this not the primary
motivation why you seek an alliance with the western far-right? Have I understood your motive
correctly? Going on the assumption that this is actually your motive; then why haven't you
taken into account the fact that culturally and genetically speaking, east asians simply
think differently than whites do? There is no reason to believe that SJWism is going to run
as rampantly in east asia as it has in the west. It will gain a foothold that is for sure,
but it won't gain the same kind of traction that it has in the west. Ideologies cannot
completely change the essential natures of people, if this was the case then the alt-right
(based on racial determinism) would not exist in the first place. Anyways this is a moot
point; if the west fully declines then it would be unable to export its leftist ideals
anyways, so I don't see what you're mad about.
Once again, to reiterate my original point. It is absurd for POC to assume that the
western far-right in any way, shape or form represents their interests or at the very least
is a neutral entity towards them. It is true that POC is a clumsy, extremely general term,
but in this context it functions perfectly. The western far-right worldview is basically
encapsulated as "whites vs all others"; therefore within this context, a pan non-white
concept like POC is useful for working within such a stark, extremist ideological framework.
What is playing out in the west right now is basically the west struggling with its own past
actions; highly conscientious POC need to sit on the sidelines, shutup and let this play out
on its own. There is no need to take sides here, the west made its own bed, let it sleep in
it, this has nothing to do with POC.
Most of us are against both 'invite the world' and 'invade the world'.
Im an old hand on the internet far-right/alt-right scene; what you said is generally true
except with a major caveat. The alt-right is against invading the world only when it doesn't
result in any net gain for the west. The alt-right doesn't actually have a principled stance
against colonization/invading other countries; rather they are only against invading other
countries when it inconveniences them, but when it happens to benefit them, they are fully
supportive of all kinds of invasions. This is probably one of the things that disgusts me
most about the alt-right is how they lack any kind of true, consistent moral foundation but
like to act as if they do.
Its not really a useful argument to ask if something is really a grassroots thing or not.
You could apply that same line of reasoning to anything to the extent where it could obscure
the true reality of an event. Is globalization due to the actions of a jewish ruling class?
Perhaps. But many on the alt-right still blame jews in general because they understand that
there is something in jewish culture that is sympathetic to the globalization project
overall. The same thing applies to western colonization as well. Regardless of what the
western ruling class chose to do, there was an eager, sympathetic and compliant population
which enabled western colonization to happen. If the population was not enthusiastic about
the colonization project then the broad and thorough scale of european colonization would
have been impossible otherwise.
The very act of colonizing and expansion is something that speaks to the very soul of
western man. Most on the far-right fully agree with this sentiment btw and this is something
that you see them say over and over. Simply trying to deflect all the blame on the ruling
class and absolve the people actually carrying out actions is pretty disingenuous. The
reality is, both the ruling class and its subjects are both equally culpable for european
colonization. More importantly, I want to add that while colonialism may not have originated
as a grassroots movement, it certainly had (and continues to have) grassroots support
(especially among the far-right). Which is something that is equally important to consider
(and equally damning as well)
You have a weird obsession with colonialism. Everyone's self-serving; the form changes but
at the end of the day, that's nature.
You're just as self-serving, except that you've apparently have a global image of "POC"
being united for some reason. And evidently the West, which for whatever foibles it has,
shouldn't at least make an effort to survive?
Lol, you couldn't address any of my points, that's why you just throw everything out and
take potshots at me.
The modern world, and nearly everything that unz.com is about ultimately goes back to
colonialism. You could equally say that the writers on unz.com have a weird obsession with
immigration/globalization. Likewise, I could equally say that you have some weird obsession
with leftism. You see how flawed your logic is?
No, im not being self-serving here. I know that my usage of the term POC triggered your
anti-left/anti-SJW sensibilities, but you're reading too much into the usage of a word. The
term POC was used because it was appropriate for the context (as I explained in my reply to
you and you conveniently ignored), not because I have an extreme left political
orientation.
Once again, to reiterate my original point. It is absurd for POC to assume that the
western far-right in any way, shape or form represents their interests or at the very least
is a neutral entity towards them. It is true that POC is a clumsy, extremely general
term, but in this context it functions perfectly. The western far-right worldview is
basically encapsulated as "whites vs all others"; therefore within this context, a pan
non-white concept like POC is useful for working within such a stark, extremist ideological
framework. What is playing out in the west right now is basically the west struggling
with its own past actions; highly conscientious POC need to sit on the sidelines, shutup
and let this play out on its own. There is no need to take sides here, the west made its
own bed, let it sleep in it, this has nothing to do with POC.
As for the west trying to make some effort to survive; I had never claimed that it should
not. In fact I never made any argument to that effect in any of my comments on this article.
In fact, I want you to prove me wrong . Since you seem so sure of your position, quote
and paste where I clearly made an argument to the effect of the west should just give up and
stop trying to survive. I'll be waiting.
You need to work on your reading comprehension. Clearly I have been making the argument
that POC (I hope you get triggered by this) need to stop trying to prop up the west by
rubbing shoulders with the alt-right and should instead sit back and watch things play out.
This is not their fight. Making this argument is completely different than what you were
trying to imply I was saying.
As I've said before, I give as much effort to a reply as I think a person deserves.
Obviously you're not one of them, in no small part because of your insane fetish with
"colonialism" – which I barely could care for.
Indeed, colonialism can be plenty helpful for improving the condition of a population
objectively, which is surprising given that its goal is traditionally extractive but when the
native elite is so incompetent or even more extractive of their population, then it is a net
benefit to the population.
Not that I really care; I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with conquest. At the end
of the day, competition is the means to determine which values and memes of humanity survive
and by removing violence completely as a method, it leads to warping of the population.
I'm descended from mandarins; I have a pretty clear line of family history as far back as
the Yuan. We've done beautiful things – marvelous terraced farms, canals that remain to
this day, and a slew of impressive artwork. We've done terrible things – kept
generations of illiterate serfs and bondsmen. "European colonialism" may hurt us, but the
Cultural Revolution did a lot more damage and almost wiped us out. And we've invaded Vietnam,
and I don't regret it: Annam, the peaceful south. Had the Ming held it, had it remained
Chinese, its hard to argue that it would not be wealthier and more beautiful than it is
now.
So no, I don't feel anything in common with your so-called POC. And your rants about
colonialism only irritate me further. There are many terrible things in life and the world.
And often, they are also beautiful and glorious things.
LOL. This is hilarious, keep backtracking. You obviously care because you bothered to
reply in the first place. Tellingly, you were unable to address the most cogent points in the
argument that I brought up against you in my previous replies and instead prefer to dissemble
about something that has nothing to do with the original point of discussion. Don't think I
didn't notice the (clumsy) sleight of hand. You try to act as if you're above replying to me
but really the problem is that you're unable to argue against the points that I made. Its
really that simple. If you were able to disprove my arguments then you would already be doing
that instead of talking in circles about it.
Ethically speaking, colonialism is wrong. Doesnt matter who does it, white black or
yellow. That being said, I understand the dark parts of human nature and why colonialism
happens. Time and time again, I have clearly stated how the crux of my argument is the
hypocrisy of the far-right when it comes to the topic of colonialism, not so much the act of
colonialism itself. That's it. And I couldn't make my point any clearer. The onus falls on
you, and not on I to correctly perceive this point. My problem is not that the west colonized
the world (shit happens), my problem is that the far right wants to celebrate and condone
colonialism (hence celebrate the historical destruction of other races and cultures) while
simultaneously wanting to complain about their own racial displacement and cultural
destruction (ironically brought about by globalization which in turn was brought about
through western colonialism in the first place). The far-right has a major ideological
consistency here which it is either blind to, or willfully ignores. I'm sorry but the western
far-right can't have its cake and eat it too. It needs to clearly decide how they feel about
the ethics of colonization and then take a principled and consistent stance on it.
Regardless, both in the comments for this post, and for the entirety of my posting
history, my stance regarding colonization has been the same. It is you that has misunderstood
it due to your faulty reading comprehension, and anybody who doubts my words is perfectly
free to read my prior comments in this thread as well as look through my comment history as
well. Therefore, the thrust of your reply completely misses the mark. I suspect however that
your misunderstanding was intentional considering how clearly I made my point regarding
colonialism in all of my posts. Regardless, why should anyone take what you have to say
seriously when you have already demonstrated a clear tendency for poor reading comprehension
or willful misperception? Don't forget about this:
You're just as self-serving, except that you've apparently have a global image of
"POC" being united for some reason. And evidently the West, which for whatever foibles
it has, shouldn't at least make an effort to survive?
God, that's stupid.
As for the west trying to make some effort to survive; I had never claimed that it
should not. In fact I never made any argument to that effect in any of my comments on this
article. In fact, I want you to prove me wrong . Since you seem so sure of your
position, quote and paste where I clearly made an argument to the effect of the west should
just give up and stop trying to survive. I'll be waiting.
I'm still waiting for you to clearly provide proof of your assertion that I implied the
west should just give up; which in fact I never wrote anything to the effect of that, but in
your rush to debunk me, you obviously missed that. The alt-right always prides itself on
relying strictly on the facts, so please live up to this ethos. Everything I wrote is an open
book, either prove your assertions or admit that you can't.
So no, I don't feel anything in common with your so-called POC. And your rants about
colonialism only irritate me further. There are many terrible things in life and the world.
And often, they are also beautiful and glorious things.
Nor do you have to feel anything in common with so-called POC. Do you think I care what
you feel? You vastly overestimate your own importance. Remember, it was you who went out
of you way to start up this dialogue with me, not I . I'm glad that my "rants" regarding
colonialism irritate you. That being said, if they irritate you so much, instead of
responding to them, please ignore them from now on. You are aware that you are not obligated
to reply to anything I write, right?
True! There are many terrible things in life and the world, and also there are many
glorious and beautiful things as well. I think it is beautiful that the west has lived at the
expense of others for so long, and now we are reaching a point where everything that the west
has done is now catching up with it in unexpected ways. It turns out the the universe has a
sense of humor afterall. What goes up, must come down. This applies to all races and all
civilizations. As humans, we must seek to live in harmony with each other, and not simply
exploit and kill one another. There is beauty in seeking to rise above such primitive
impulses, and if possible acting with understanding and compassion towards our fellow man.
That is truly the meaning of "being civilized".
Truly I do not harbor ill-will against the west because it is western, rather I harbor
ill-will towards the west because of its past actions and present attitudes. This is why I
specifically target the far-right (because of their present attitudes about the west's past
actions), as opposed to attacking all western people. I especially have a soft-spot for
westerners that are able to genuinely feel remorse about the past. I strongly believe in the
concept of forgiveness and letting things go, provided that the sentiment is genuine and
mutual. Actually on that topic; even indifference is an acceptable emotion. I think its
stupid to morally hold westerners to past events when even they are indifferent about their
own racial/cultural future. I only stick it to the far-right because they automatically incur
higher moral/ethical standards for themselves to meet when they want to start talking about
the importance of having moral rights for racial/cultural survival.
That being said, the west has a tremendous amount of momentum from its past actions
gathered against it; so it doesn't really matter how I feel, the west will still have to deal
with everything that is happening to it and what is going to happen to it in the future.
Nothing you say or do will impact this in any way, so you might as well enjoy the ride
instead of complaining that I am pointing out inconvenient truths which harm your delicate
sensibilities. Ironically those who complain most about fragile SJW snowflakes are those who
get triggered the easiest themselves
In fact, looking at your history, you are a rare breed: you are a genuine, unironic
anti-white crusader. You actually think there is something uniquely evil about "white
people" and talk without any sense of contradiction that you have "extensive experience of
white people."
The mind boggles.
It was a mistake to give you any time at all.
This is actually a lie what you have written. For your convenience, and for the
convenience of anybody reading, I have provided the quote of what I had originally written
which you are referring to:
GammaRay says:
April 29, 2018 at 7:04 pm GMT • 200 Words
@Wizard of Oz
This is an interesting question and definitely worth looking into. That being said, I do
not buy into the reasoning that an exploding british population is the only or even major
reason behind colonization. From learning about european culture, and understanding the
general weltanschauung of white people, as well as from having extensive social experience
with them; it is clearly evident to me that there is a strong extraversive, expansive
component that exists in the white collective consciousness which under certain
circumstances strongly compels them to colonize, displace and replace much more so than
other races would do so under similar circumstances. What alt-righters/WN would call
"ambition" and "drive", others might prefer to recognize it as "greed". Regardless of the
semantic trivialities; it is clear that there is a strong internal drive within westerners
that causes them to vigorously pursue both the physical and cultural colonization of "the
other". This is not a negative or positive judgment though; it is merely intended to be
understood as an objective observation.
What I had written clearly strives to be dispassionate and objective as opposed to the
maniacal and frothing at the mouth anti-white diatribe that you are attempting to make it out
to be.
Im sorry but the truth of the matter is that HBD is probably real; racial differences
probably exist on a genetic level which influence the behavior and temperaments of different
races and ethnic groups. The fact that whites are more likely to be domineering and have a
tendency for colonizing "the other" does not make them evil; it is an impulse that can be
channeled in both positive and negative ways. That being said, just because I bring up this
inconvenient fact doesn't automatically make me racist or "anti-white". I am merely trying to
work within a framework of reality, we have both multiple centuries of history to draw
inferences from, as well as interpersonal anecdotal observations of white behavior both in
real life as well as on the internet in spaces such as these. I don't think its very
controversial that I am making observations based on noticing patterns. I mean, is noticing
patterns illegal or something undesirable?
"... the Obama administration intelligence agencies worked with Clinton to block " Siberian candidate " Trump. ..."
"... The template was provided by ex-MI6 Director Richard Dearlove , Halper's friend and business partner. Sitting in winged chairs in London's venerable Garrick Club, according to The Washington Post , Dearlove told fellow MI6 veteran Christopher Steele, author of the famous "golden showers" opposition research dossier, that Trump "reminded him of a predicament he had faced years earlier, when he was chief of station for British intelligence in Washington and alerted US authorities to British information that a vice presidential hopeful had once been in communication with the Kremlin." ..."
"... Apparently, one word from the Brits was enough to make the candidate in question step down. When that didn't work with Trump, Dearlove and his colleagues ratcheted up the pressure to make him see the light. A major scandal was thus born – or, rather, a very questionable scandal. Besides Dearlove, Steele, and Halper, a bon-vivant known as "The Walrus" for his impressive girth , other participants include: Robert Hannigan, former director Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ, UK equivalent of the NSA. Alexander Downer, top Australian diplomat. Andrew Wood, ex-British ambassador to Moscow. Joseph Mifsud, Maltese academic. James Clapper, ex-US Director of National Intelligence. John Brennan, former CIA Director (and now NBC News analyst). ..."
"... Dearlove and Halper are now partners in a private venture calling itself "The Cambridge Security Initiative." Both are connected to another London-based intelligence firm known as Hakluyt & Co. Halper is also connected via two books he wrote with Hakluyt representative Jonathan Clarke and Dearlove has a close personal friendship with Hakluyt founder Mike Reynolds, yet another MI6 vet. Alexander Downer served a half-dozen years on Hakluyt's international advisory board, while Andrew Wood is linked to Steele via Orbis Business Intelligence, the private research firm that Steele helped found, and which produced the anti-Trump dossier, and where Wood now serves as an unpaid advisor . ..."
"... Everyone, in short, seems to know everyone else. But another thing that stands out about this group is its incompetence. Dearlove and Halper appear to be old-school paranoids for whom every Russian is a Boris Badenov or a Natasha Fatale . In February 2014, Halper notified US intelligence that Mike Flynn, Trump's future national security adviser, had grown overly chummy with an Anglo-Russian scholar named Svetlana Lokhova whom Halper suspected of being a spy – suspicions that Lokhova convincingly argues are absurd. ..."
"... As head of Britain's foreign Secret Intelligence Service, as MI6 is formally known, Dearlove played a major role in drumming up support for the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq even while confessing at a secret Downing Street meeting that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the [regime-change] policy." When the search for weapons of mass destruction turned up dry, Clapper, as then head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency, argued that the Iraqi military must have smuggled them into neighboring Syria, a charge with absolutely no basis in fact but which helped pave the way for US regime-change efforts in that country too. ..."
"... Brennan was meanwhile a high-level CIA official when the agency was fabricating evidence against Saddam Hussein and covering up Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11. Wood not only continues to defend the Iraqi invasion, but dismisses fears of a rising fascist tide in the Ukraine as nothing more than "a crude political insult" hurled by Vladimir Putin for his own political benefit. Such views now seem distressingly misguided in view of the alt-right torchlight parades and spiraling anti-Semitism that are now a regular feature of life in the Ukraine. ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... describes Mifsud as "an enthusiastic promoter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia" and "a regular at meetings of the Valdai Discussion Club, an annual conference held in Sochi, Russia, that Mr. Putin attends," which tried to suggest that he is a Kremlin agent of some sort. ..."
"... But WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange later tweeted photos of Mifsud with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and a high-ranking British intelligence official named Claire Smith at a training session for Italian security agents in Rome. Since it's unlikely that British intelligence would rely on a Russian agent in such circumstances, Mifsud's intelligence ties are more likely with the UK. ..."
"... Stefan Halper then infiltrated the Trump campaign on behalf of the FBI as an informant in early July, weeks before the FBI launched its investigation. Halper had 36 years earlier infiltrated the Carter re-election campaign in 1980 using CIA agents to turn information over to the Reagan campaign. Now Halper began to court both Page and Papadopoulous, independently of each other. ..."
"... The rightwing Federalist website speculates that Halper was working with Steele to flesh out a Sept. 14 memo claiming that "Russians do have further 'kompromat' on CLINTON (e-mails) and [are] considering disseminating it." Clovis believes that Halper was trying "to create an audit trail back to those [Clinton] emails from someone in the campaign so they could develop a stronger case for probable cause to continue to issue warrants and to further an investigation." Reports that Halper apparently sought a permanent post in the new administration suggest that the effort was meant to continue after inauguration. ..."
"... Notwithstanding Clovis's nutty rightwing politics , his description of what Halper may have been up to makes sense as does his observation that Halper was trying " to build something that did not exist ." Despite countless hyper-ventilating headlines about mysterious Trump Tower meetings and the like, the sad truth is that Russiagate after all these months is shaping up as even more of a "nothing-burger" than Obama administration veteran Van Jones said it was back in mid-2017. Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller has indicted Papadopoulos and others on procedural grounds, he has indicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for corruption, and he has charged a St. Petersburg company known as the Internet Research Agency with violating US election laws. ..."
"... As The Washington Post noted in an oddly, cool-headed Dec. 2 article , 2, 700 suspected Russian-linked accounts generated just 202,000 tweets in a six-year period ending in August 2017, a drop in a bucket compared to the one billion election-related tweets sent out during the fourteen months leading up to Election Day. ..."
"... Opposition research is intended to mix truths and fiction, to dig up plausible dirt to throw at your opponent, not to produce an intelligence assessment at taxpayer's expense to "protect" the country. And Steele was paid for it by the Democrats, not his government. ..."
"... Although Kramer denies it, The New Yorker ..."
"... But how could Trump think otherwise? As Consortium News founding editor Robert Parry observed a few days later, the maneuver "resembles a tactic out of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's playbook on government-style blackmail: I have some very derogatory information about you that I'd sure hate to see end up in the press." ..."
"... It sounds more like CIA paranoia raised to the nth degree. But that's what the intelligence agencies are for, i.e. to spread fear and propaganda in order to stampede the public into supporting their imperial agenda. In this case, their efforts are so effective that they've gotten lost in a fog of their own making. If the corporate press fails to point this out, it's because reporters are too befogged themselves to notice. ..."
"... "Russiagate" continues to attract mounting blowback at Clinton, Obama and the Dems. Might well be they who end up charged with lawbreaking, though I'd be surprised if anyone in authority is ever really punished. https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-02/fbi-spying-trump-started-london-earlier-thought-new-texts-implicate-obama-white ..."
"... I've always thought that the great animus between Obama and Trump stemmed from Trump's persistent birtherist attacks on Obama followed by Obama's public ridicule of Trump at the White House Correspondants' Dinner. Without the latter, Trump probably would not have been motivated to run for the presidency. Without the former, Obama would probably not have gotten into the gutter to defeat and embarrass Trump at all costs. Clinton and Obama probably never recruit British spooks to sabotage and provide a pretense for spying on the campaigns of Jeb, Ted or Little Marco. Since these were all warmongers like Hillary and Obama, the issues would have been different, Russia would not have been a factor, and Putin would have had no alleged "puppet." ..."
"... The irony is that Clinton and Obama wanted Trump as her opponent. They cultivated his candidacy via liberal media bias throughout the primaries. (MSNBC and Rachel Maddow were always cutting away to another full length Trump victory speech and rally, including lots of jibber jabber with the faithful supporters.) Why? Because they thought he was the easiest to beat. The polls actually had Hillary losing against the other GOP candidates. The Dems beat themselves with their own choice of candidate and all the intrigue, false narratives and other questionable practices they employed in both the primaries and the general. That's what really happened. ..."
"... I agree that Hillary wanted Trump as an opponent, thought she could easily win. I've underestimated idiot opponents before, always to my detriment. Why is it that they are always the most formidable? The "insiders" are so used to voters rolling over, taking it on the chin. They gave away their jobs, replaced them with the service industry, killed their sons and daughters in wars abroad, and still the American people cast their ballots in their favor. This time was different. The insiders just did not see the sea change, not like Trump did. ..."
"... Long-time CIA asset named as FBI's spy on Trump campaign By Bill Van Auken https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/05/21/poli-m21.html ..."
"... What the MSM really needed was a bait which they could use to lure more dollars just like a horse race where the track owners needed a fast underdog horse to clean up. I believe the term is to be "hustled". The con men of the media hustlers decided they needed a way to cause all of the candidates to squirm uneasily and to then react to the news that Donald Trump was "in the lead". ..."
"... Those clever media folks. What a gift the Supreme Court handed them. But there was one little (or big) problem. The problem was the result of the scam put Trump in the White House. Something that no conservative republican would ever sign onto. Trump had spent years as a democrat, hobnobbed with the Clinton's and was an avowed agnostic who favored the liberal ideology for the most part. ..."
"... The new guy in the White House with his crazy ideas of making friends with Vladimir Putin horrified a national arms industry funded with hundreds of billions of our tax dollars every year propped up by all the neocons with their paranoid beliefs and plans to make America the hegemon of the World. Our foreign allies who use the USA to fight their perceived enemies and entice our government to sell them weapons and who urge us to orchestrate the overthrow of governments were all alarmed by the "not a real republican" peace-nick occupying the White House. ..."
"... It is probable that the casino and hotel owner in the White House posed an very threatening alternate strategy of forming economic ties with former enemies which scared the hell out of the arms industry which built its economy on scaring all of us and justifying its existence based on foreign enemies. ..."
"... So the MSM and the MIC created a new cold war with their friends at the New York Times and the Washington Post which published endless stories about the new Russian threat we faced. It had nothing to do with the 0.02% Twitter and Facebook "influence" that Russia actually had in the election. It was billed as the crime of the century. The real crime was that they committed the crime of the century that they mightily profited from by putting Trump in the White House in the first place with a plan to grab all the election cash they could grab. ..."
As the role of a well-connected group of British and U.S. intelligence agents begins to
emerge, new suspicions are growing about what hand they may have had in weaving the Russia-gate
story, as Daniel Lazare explains.
Special to Consortium News
With the news that a Cambridge academic-cum-spy
named Stefan Halper infiltrated the Trump campaign, the role of the intelligence agencies in
shaping the great Russiagate saga is at last coming into focus.
It's looking more and more massive. The intelligence agencies initiated reports that Donald
Trump was colluding with Russia, they nurtured them and helped them grow, and then they spread
the word to the press and key government officials. Reportedly, they even tried to use these
reports to force Trump to step down prior to his inauguration. Although the corporate press
accuses Trump of conspiring with Russia to stop Hillary Clinton, the reverse now seems to be
the case: the Obama administration intelligence agencies worked with Clinton to block "
Siberian
candidate " Trump.
The template was provided by ex-MI6 Director Richard Dearlove , Halper's friend and business
partner. Sitting in winged chairs in London's venerable Garrick Club, according to The
Washington Post , Dearlove
told fellow MI6 veteran Christopher Steele, author of the famous "golden showers"
opposition research dossier, that Trump "reminded him of a predicament he had faced years
earlier, when he was chief of station for British intelligence in Washington and alerted US
authorities to British information that a vice presidential hopeful had once been in
communication with the Kremlin."
Apparently, one word from the Brits was enough to make the candidate in question step down.
When that didn't work with Trump, Dearlove and his colleagues ratcheted up the pressure to make
him see the light. A major scandal was thus born – or, rather, a very questionable
scandal. Besides Dearlove, Steele, and Halper, a bon-vivant known as "The Walrus" for
his impressive girth , other participants include: Robert Hannigan, former director
Government Communications Headquarters, GCHQ, UK equivalent of the NSA. Alexander Downer, top
Australian diplomat. Andrew Wood, ex-British ambassador to Moscow. Joseph Mifsud, Maltese
academic. James Clapper, ex-US Director of National Intelligence. John Brennan, former CIA
Director (and now NBC News analyst).
In-Bred
A few things stand out about this august group. One is its in-bred quality. After helping to
run an annual confab known as the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar, Dearlove and Halper are now
partners in a private venture calling itself "The Cambridge Security Initiative." Both are
connected to another London-based intelligence firm known as Hakluyt & Co. Halper is also
connected via two books he wrote with Hakluyt representative Jonathan Clarke
and Dearlove has a close personal friendship with Hakluyt founder Mike Reynolds, yet another
MI6 vet. Alexander Downer
served a half-dozen years on Hakluyt's international advisory board, while Andrew Wood is
linked to Steele via Orbis Business Intelligence, the private research firm that Steele helped
found, and which produced the anti-Trump dossier, and where Wood now serves as an
unpaid
advisor .
Everyone, in short, seems to know everyone else. But another thing that stands out about
this group is its incompetence. Dearlove and Halper appear to be old-school paranoids for whom
every Russian is a Boris
Badenov or a Natasha Fatale . In February 2014, Halper notified US intelligence that Mike
Flynn, Trump's future national security adviser, had grown overly chummy with an Anglo-Russian
scholar named Svetlana Lokhova whom Halper suspected of being a spy – suspicions that
Lokhova convincingly
argues are absurd.
Halper: Infiltrated Trump campaign
In December 2016, Halper and Dearlove both resigned from the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar
because they suspected that a company footing some of the costs was tied up with Russian
intelligence – suspicions that Christopher Andrew, former chairman of the Cambridge
history department and the seminar's founder, regards as " absurd " as well.
As head of Britain's foreign Secret Intelligence Service, as MI6 is formally known,
Dearlove played a major role in drumming up support for the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of
Iraq even while confessing at a secret Downing Street meeting that "the intelligence and facts
were being fixed around the [regime-change] policy." When the search for weapons of mass
destruction turned up dry, Clapper, as then head of the National Imagery and Mapping Agency,
argued that the Iraqi
military must have smuggled them into neighboring Syria, a charge with absolutely no basis in
fact but which helped pave the way for US regime-change efforts in that country too.
Brennan was meanwhile a high-level CIA official when the agency was fabricating evidence
against Saddam Hussein and covering up Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11. Wood not only continues to defend
the Iraqi invasion, but dismisses
fears of a rising fascist tide in the Ukraine as nothing more than "a crude political insult"
hurled by Vladimir Putin for his own political benefit. Such views now seem distressingly
misguided in view of the alt-right torchlight parades and
spiraling anti-Semitism that are now a regular feature of life in the Ukraine.
The result is a diplo-espionage gang that is very bad at the facts but very good at public
manipulation – and which therefore decided to use its skill set out to create a public
furor over alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.
It Started Late 2015
The effort began in late 2015 when GCHQ, along with intelligence agencies in Poland,
Estonia, and Germany, began monitoring
what they said were " suspicious 'interactions' between figures connected to Trump and
known or suspected Russian agents."
Since Trump was surging ahead in the polls and scaring the pants off the foreign-policy
establishment by calling for a rapprochement with Moscow, the agencies figured that Russia was
somehow behind it. The pace accelerated in March 2016 when a 30-year-old policy consultant
named George Papadopoulos joined the Trump campaign as a foreign-policy adviser. Traveling in
Italy a week later, he ran into Mifsud, the London-based Maltese academic, who reportedly set
about cultivating him after learning of his position with Trump. Mifsud claimed
to have "substantial connections with Russian government officials," according to prosecutors.
Over breakfast at a London hotel, he told Papadopoulos that he had just returned from Moscow
where he had learned that the Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands
of emails."
This was the remark that supposedly triggered an FBI investigation. The New York
Timesdescribes
Mifsud as "an enthusiastic promoter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia" and "a regular at
meetings of the Valdai Discussion Club, an annual conference held in Sochi, Russia, that Mr.
Putin attends," which tried to suggest that he is a Kremlin agent of some sort.
But WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange later
tweeted photos of Mifsud with British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and a high-ranking
British intelligence official named Claire Smith at a training session for Italian security
agents in Rome. Since it's unlikely that British intelligence would rely on a Russian agent in
such circumstances, Mifsud's intelligence ties are more likely with the UK.
After Papadopoulos caused a minor political ruckus by
telling a reporter that Prime Minister David Cameron should apologize for criticizing
Trump's anti-Muslim pronouncements, a friend in the Israeli embassy put him in touch with a
friend in the Australian embassy, who introduced him to Downer, her boss. Over drinks, Downer
advised him to be more diplomatic. After Papadopoulos then passed along Misfud's tip about
Clinton's emails, Downer informed his government, which, in late July, informed the FBI.
Was Papadopoulos Set Up?
Suspicions are unavoidable but evidence is lacking. Other pieces were meanwhile clicking
into place. In late May or early June 2016, Fusion GPS, a private Washington intelligence firm
employed by the Democratic National Committee, hired Steele to look into the Russian angle.
On June 20, he turned in the first of eighteen memos that would eventually comprise
the
Steele dossier , in this instance a three-page document asserting that Putin "has been
cultivating, supporting and assisting TRUMP for at least 5 years" and that Russian intelligence
possessed "kompromat" in the form of a video of prostitutes performing a "golden showers" show
for his benefit at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton. A week or two later, Steele
briefed the FBI on his findings. Around the same time, Robert Hannigan flew to Washington
to brief CIA Director John Brennan about additional material that had come GCHQ's way, material
so sensitive that it could only be handled at "director level."
One player was filling Papadopoulos's head with tales of Russian dirty tricks, another was
telling the FBI, while a third was collecting more information and passing it on to the bureau
as well.
Page: Took Russia's side.
On July 7, 2016 Carter Page delivered a lecture on
U.S.-Russian relations in Moscow in which he complained that " Washington and other western
capitals have impeded potential progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such
as democratization, inequality, corruption, and regime change." Washington hawks expressed "
unease " that someone representing the presumptive Republican nominee would take Russia's
side in a growing neo-Cold War.
Stefan Halper then
infiltrated the Trump campaign on behalf of the FBI as an informant in early July, weeks
before the FBI launched its investigation. Halper had 36 years earlier infiltrated the Carter
re-election campaign in 1980 using CIA agents to turn information over to the Reagan campaign.
Now Halper began to court both Page and Papadopoulous, independently of each other.
On July 11, Page showed up at a Cambridge symposium at which Halper and Dearlove both spoke.
In early September, Halper sent Papadopoulos an email offering $3,000 and a paid trip to London
to write a research paper on a disputed gas field in the eastern Mediterranean, his specialty.
"George, you know about hacking the emails from Russia, right?" Halper asked when he got there,
but Papadopoulos said he knew nothing. Halper also sought out Sam Clovis, Trump's national
campaign co-chairman, with whom he chatted about China for an hour or so over coffee in
Washington.
The rightwing Federalist website
speculates that Halper was working with Steele to flesh out a Sept. 14 memo claiming that
"Russians do have further 'kompromat' on CLINTON (e-mails) and [are] considering disseminating
it." Clovis believes
that Halper was trying "to create an audit trail back to those [Clinton] emails from someone in
the campaign so they could develop a stronger case for probable cause to continue to issue
warrants and to further an investigation." Reports that Halper apparently sought
a permanent post in the new administration suggest that the effort was meant to continue
after inauguration.
Notwithstanding Clovis's nutty
rightwing politics , his description of what Halper may have been up to makes sense as does
his observation that Halper was trying " to build something that did not exist ." Despite
countless hyper-ventilating headlines about mysterious Trump Tower meetings and the like, the
sad truth is that Russiagate after all these months is shaping up as even more of a
"nothing-burger" than Obama administration veteran Van Jones said
it was back in mid-2017. Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller has indicted Papadopoulos and others
on procedural grounds, he has indicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for
corruption, and he has charged a St. Petersburg company known as the Internet Research Agency
with violating US election laws.
But the corruption charges have nothing to do with Russian collusion and nothing in the
indictment against IRA indicates that either the Kremlin or the Trump campaign were involved.
Indeed, the activities that got IRA in trouble in the first place are so unimpressive –
just $46,000 worth of Facebook
ads that it purchased prior to election day, some pro-Trump, some anti, and some with
no particular slant
at all – that Mueller probably wouldn't even have bothered if he hadn't been under
intense pressure to come up with anything at all.
The same goes for the army of bots that Russia supposedly deployed on Twitter. As The
Washington Post noted in an oddly, cool-headed Dec. 2
article , 2, 700 suspected Russian-linked accounts generated just 202,000 tweets in a
six-year period ending in August 2017, a drop in a bucket compared to the one
billion election-related tweets sent out during the fourteen months leading up to Election
Day.
The Steele dossier is also underwhelming. It declares on one page that the Kremlin sought to
cultivate Trump by throwing "various lucrative real estate development business deals" his way
but says on another that Trump's efforts to drum up business were unavailing and that he thus
"had to settle for the use of extensive sexual services there from local prostitutes rather
than business success."
Why would Trump turn down business offers when he couldn't generate any on his own? The idea
that Putin would spot a U.S. reality-TV star somewhere around 2011 and conclude that he was
destined for the Oval Office five years later is ludicrous. The fact that the Democratic
National Committee funded the dossier via its law firm Perkins Coie renders it less credible
still, as does the fact that the world has heard nothing more about the alleged video despite
the ongoing deterioration in US-Russian relations. What's the point of making a blackmail tape
if you don't use it?
Steele: Paid for political research, not intelligence.
Even Steele is backing off. In a legal paper filed in response to a libel suit last May, he
said the document "did not represent (and did not purport to represent) verified facts, but
were raw intelligence which had identified a range of allegations that warranted investigation
given their potential national security implications." The fact is that the "dossier" was
opposition research, not an intelligence report. It was neither vetted by Steele nor anyone in
an intelligence agency. Opposition research is intended to mix truths and fiction, to dig
up plausible dirt to throw at your opponent, not to produce an intelligence assessment at
taxpayer's expense to "protect" the country. And Steele was paid for it by the Democrats, not
his government.
Using it Anyway
Nonetheless, the spooks have made the most of such pseudo-evidence. Dearlove and Wood both
advised Steele to take his "findings" to the FBI, while, after the election, Wood pulled
Sen. John McCain aside at a security conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to let him know that
the Russians might be blackmailing the president-elect. McCain dispatched long-time aide David
J. Kramer to the UK to discuss the dossier with Steele directly.
Although Kramer denies it, The New Yorker found a former national-security
official who
says he spoke with him at the time and that Kramer's goal was to have McCain confront Trump
with the dossier in the hope that he would resign on the spot. When that didn't happen, Clapper
and Brennan arranged for FBI Director James Comey to confront Trump instead. Comey later
testified that he didn't want Trump to think he was creating "a J. Edgar Hoover-type
situation – I didn't want him thinking I was briefing him on this to sort of hang it over
him in some way."
But how could Trump think otherwise? As Consortium News founding editor Robert Parry
observed a few
days later, the maneuver "resembles a tactic out of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's playbook on
government-style blackmail: I have some very derogatory information about you that I'd sure
hate to see end up in the press."
Since then, the Democrats have touted the dossier at every opportunity, TheNew
Yorker
continues to defend it , while Times columnist Michelle Goldberg cites it as well,
saying it's a
"rather obvious possibility that Trump is being blackmailed." CNN, for its part, suggested not
long ago that the dossier may actually be Russian
disinformation designed to throw everyone off base, Republicans and Democrats alike.
It sounds more like CIA paranoia raised to the nth degree. But that's what the
intelligence agencies are for, i.e. to spread fear and propaganda in order to stampede the
public into supporting their imperial agenda. In this case, their efforts are so effective that
they've gotten lost in a fog of their own making. If the corporate press fails to point this
out, it's because reporters are too befogged themselves to notice.
Daniel Lazare is the author of The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing
Democracy (Harcourt Brace, 1996) and other books about American politics. He has written for a
wide variety of publications from The Nation to Le Monde Diplomatique , and his articles about
the Middle East, terrorism, Eastern Europe, and other topics appear regularly on such websites
as Jacobin and The American Conservative.
Mueller is trying to omit the normal burden of legal liability, "wilful intent" in his
charges against the St Petersburg, social media operation. In a horrifically complex area
such as tax, campaign contributions or lobbying, a foreign entity can be found guilty of
breaking a law that they cannot reasonably have been expected to have knowledge of.
But the omission or inclusion of "wilful intent" is applied on a selective basis depending on
the advantage to the deep state.
From a practical standpoint, omission of "wilful intent" makes it easier for Mueller to get a
guilty verdict (in adsentia assuming this is legally valid in America). Once the "guilt" of
the St Petersburg staff is established, any communication between an American and them
becomes "collusion".
I've always thought that the great animus between Obama and Trump stemmed from Trump's
persistent birtherist attacks on Obama followed by Obama's public ridicule of Trump at the
White House Correspondants' Dinner. Without the latter, Trump probably would not have been
motivated to run for the presidency. Without the former, Obama would probably not have gotten
into the gutter to defeat and embarrass Trump at all costs. Clinton and Obama probably never
recruit British spooks to sabotage and provide a pretense for spying on the campaigns of Jeb,
Ted or Little Marco. Since these were all warmongers like Hillary and Obama, the issues would
have been different, Russia would not have been a factor, and Putin would have had no alleged
"puppet."
The irony is that Clinton and Obama wanted Trump as her opponent. They cultivated his
candidacy via liberal media bias throughout the primaries. (MSNBC and Rachel Maddow were
always cutting away to another full length Trump victory speech and rally, including lots of
jibber jabber with the faithful supporters.) Why? Because they thought he was the easiest to
beat. The polls actually had Hillary losing against the other GOP candidates. The Dems beat
themselves with their own choice of candidate and all the intrigue, false narratives and
other questionable practices they employed in both the primaries and the general. That's what
really happened.
backwardsevolution , June 3, 2018 at 2:50 pm
Realist – good post. I think what you say is true. Trump got too caught up in the
birther crap, and Obama retaliated. But I think that Trump had been thinking about the
presidency long before Obama came along. He sees the country differently than Obama and
Clinton do. Trump would never have built up China to the point where all American technology
has been given away for free, with millions of jobs lost and a huge trade deficit, and he
would have probably left Russia alone, not ransacked it.
I saw Obama as a somewhat reluctant globalist and Hillary as an eager globalist. They are
both insiders. Trump is not. He's interested in what is best for the U.S., whereas the
Clinton's and the Bush's were interested in what their corporate masters wanted. The
multinationals have been selling the U.S. out, Trump is trying to put a stop to this, and it
is going to be a fight to the death. Trump is playing hardball with China (who ARE U.S.
multinationals), and it is working. Beginning July 1, 2018, China has agreed to reduce its
tariffs:
"Import tariffs for apparel, footwear and headgear, kitchen supplies and fitness products
will be more than halved to an average of 7.1 percent from 15.9 percent, with those on
washing machines and refrigerators slashed to just 8 percent, from 20.5 percent.
Tariffs will also be cut on processed foods such as aquaculture and fishing products and
mineral water, from 15.2 percent to 6.9 percent.
Cosmetics, such as skin and hair products, and some medical and health products, will also
benefit from a tariff cut to 2.9 percent from 8.4 percent.
In particular, tariffs on drugs ranging from penicillin, cephalosporin to insulin will be
slashed to zero from 6 percent before.
In the meantime, temporary tariff rates on 210 imported products from most favored nations
will be scrapped as they are no longer favorable compared with new rates."
Trade with China has been all one way. At least Trump is leveling the playing field. He at
least is trying to bring back jobs, something the "insiders" could care less about.
I agree that Hillary wanted Trump as an opponent, thought she could easily win. I've
underestimated idiot opponents before, always to my detriment. Why is it that they are always
the most formidable? The "insiders" are so used to voters rolling over, taking it on the
chin. They gave away their jobs, replaced them with the service industry, killed their sons
and daughters in wars abroad, and still the American people cast their ballots in their
favor. This time was different. The insiders just did not see the sea change, not like Trump
did.
Abe , June 2, 2018 at 2:20 am
"Pentagon documents indicate that the Department of Defense's shadowy intelligence arm,
the Office of Net Assessment, paid Halper $282,000 in 2016 and $129,000 in 2017. According to
reports, Halper sought to secure Papadopoulos's collaboration by offering him $3,000 and an
all-expenses-paid trip to London, ostensibly to produce a research paper on energy issues in
the eastern Mediterranean.
"The choice of Halper for this spying operation has ominous implications. His deep ties to
the US intelligence apparatus date back decades. His father-in-law was Ray Cline, who headed
the CIA's Directorate of Intelligence at the height of the Cold War. Halper served as an aide
to Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Alexander Haig in the Nixon and Ford administrations.
"In 1980, as the director of policy coordination for Ronald Reagan's presidential
campaign, Halper oversaw an operation in which CIA officials gave the campaign confidential
information on the Carter administration and its foreign policy. This intelligence was in
turn utilized to further back-channel negotiations between Reagan's campaign manager and
subsequent CIA director William Casey and representatives of Iran to delay the release of the
American embassy hostages until after the election, in order to prevent Carter from scoring a
foreign policy victory on the eve of the November vote.
"Halper subsequently held posts as deputy assistant secretary of state for
political-military affairs and senior adviser to the Pentagon and Justice Department. More
recently, Halper has collaborated with Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, the British
intelligence service, in directing the Cambridge Security Initiative (CSi), a security think
tank that lists the US and UK governments as its principal clients.
"Before the 2016 election, Halper had expressed his view – shared by predominant
layers within the intelligence agencies – that Clinton's election would prove 'less
disruptive' than Trump's.
"The revelations of the role played by Halper point to an intervention in the 2016
elections by the US intelligence agencies that far eclipsed anything one could even imagine
the Kremlin attempting."
Sorry for not commenting on other posts as of yet. But I think I have a different
perspective. Russia Gate is not about Hillary Clinton or Putin but it is about Donald Trump.
Specifically an effort to get rid of him by the intelligence agencies and the MSM. The fact
is the MSM created Trump and were chiefly responsible for his election. Trump is their
brainchild starlet used to fleece all the republican campaigns like a huckster fleeces an
audience. It all ties to key Supreme Court rulings eliminating campaign finance regulations
which ushered in the age of dark money.
When billionaires can donate unlimited amounts of money anonymously to the candidate of
their choosing what ends up is a field of fourteen wannabes in a primary race each backed by
their own investor(s). The only way these candidates can win is to convince us to vote. The
only way they can do that is to spend on advertising.
What the MSM dreamed of in a purely capitalistic way was a way to drain the wallets of
every single one of the republican Super PACs. The mission was fraught with potential
checkmates. Foe example, there could be an early leader who snatched up the needed delegates
for the nomination early on which would have stopped the flow of advertising cash flowing to
the MSM. Such possibilities worried the MSM and caused great angst since this might just be
the biggest haul they ever took in during a primary season. How would they prevent a
premature end of the money river. Like financial vampire bats, ticks and leeches they needed
a way to keep the money flowing from the veins of the republican Super PACs until they were
sucked dry.
What the MSM really needed was a bait which they could use to lure more dollars just like
a horse race where the track owners needed a fast underdog horse to clean up. I believe the
term is to be "hustled". The con men of the media hustlers decided they needed a way to cause
all of the candidates to squirm uneasily and to then react to the news that Donald Trump was
"in the lead".
It was a pure stroke of genius and it worked so well that Carl Rove is looking for a job
and Donald Trump is sitting in the White House.
Those clever media folks. What a gift the Supreme Court handed them. But there was one
little (or big) problem. The problem was the result of the scam put Trump in the White House.
Something that no conservative republican would ever sign onto. Trump had spent years as a
democrat, hobnobbed with the Clinton's and was an avowed agnostic who favored the liberal
ideology for the most part.
What to do? Trump was now the Commander in Chief and was spouting nonsense that the
establishment recoiled at such as Trumps plans to form economic ties with Russia rather than
continue to wage a cold war spanning 65 years which the MIC used year after year to spook us
all and guarantee their billions annual increase in funding. Trump directly attacked defense
projects and called for de-funding major initiatives like F35 etc.
The new guy in the White House with his crazy ideas of making friends with Vladimir Putin
horrified a national arms industry funded with hundreds of billions of our tax dollars every
year propped up by all the neocons with their paranoid beliefs and plans to make America the
hegemon of the World. Our foreign allies who use the USA to fight their perceived enemies and
entice our government to sell them weapons and who urge us to orchestrate the overthrow of
governments were all alarmed by the "not a real republican" peace-nick occupying the White
House.
What to do? There was clearly a need to eliminate this bad guy since his avowed policies
were in direct opposition to the game plan that had successfully compromised the former
administration. They felt powerless to dissuade the Administration to continue the course and
form strategies to eliminate Iran, Syria, North Korea, Libya, Ukraine and other vulnerable
targets swaying toward China and Russia. They faced a new threat with the Trump
Administration which seemed hell bent to discontinue the wars in these regions robbing them
of many dollars.
It is probable that the casino and hotel owner in the White House posed an very
threatening alternate strategy of forming economic ties with former enemies which scared the
hell out of the arms industry which built its economy on scaring all of us and justifying its
existence based on foreign enemies.
So the MSM and the MIC created a new cold war with their friends at the New York Times and
the Washington Post which published endless stories about the new Russian threat we faced. It
had nothing to do with the 0.02% Twitter and Facebook "influence" that Russia actually had in
the election. It was billed as the crime of the century. The real crime was that they
committed the crime of the century that they mightily profited from by putting Trump in the
White House in the first place with a plan to grab all the election cash they could grab.
In the interim, they also forgot on purpose to tell anyone about the election campaign
finance fraud that they were the chief beneficiaries of. They also of course forgot to tell
anyone what the fight was about for the Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. Twenty seven
million dollars in dark money was donated by dark money donors enabled by the Supreme Court's
decisions to eliminate campaign finance regulations which enabled these donors to buy out
Congress and elect and confirm a Supreme Court Justice who would uphold the laws which
eliminate all the election rules and campaign finance regulations dating back to the Tillman
Act of 1907 which was an attempt to eliminate corporate contributions in political campaigns
with associated meager fines as penalties. The law was weak then and has now been
eliminated.
In an era of dark money in politics protected by revisionist judges laying at the top of
our federal judicial branch posing as strict constructionists while being funded by the
corporatocracy that viciously fights over control of the highest court by a panicked
republican party that seeks to tie up their domination in our Congress by any means including
the abdication of the Constitutional authority granted to the citizens of the nation we now
face a new internal enemy.
That enemy is not some foreign nation but our own government which conspires to represent
the wealthy and the powerful and which exalts them and which enacts laws to defend their
control of our nation. Here is a quote:
When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they
create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral
code that glorifies it.
Frederic Bastiat – (1801-1850) in Economic Sophisms
Realist , June 1, 2018 at 4:32 am
Different journalist covering much the same ground:
"Russiagate" is strictly a contrivance of the Deep State, American & British Spookery,
and the corporate media propagandists. It clearly needs to be genuinely investigated (unlike
the mockery being orchestrated by Herr Mueller from the Ministry of Truth), re-christened
"Intellgate" (after the real perpetrators of crime), pursued until all the guilty traitors
(including Mueller) who really tried to steal our democratic election are tried, convicted
and incarcerated (including probably hundreds complicit from the media) and given its own
lengthy chapter in all the history books about "The Election They Tried to Steal and Blame on
Russia: How America Nearly Lost its Constitution." If not done, America will lose its
constitution, or rather the incipient process will become totally irreversible.
Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 6:25 am
Your timing of events is confused.
The deep state didn't try and steal the election because they were overly complacent that
their woman would win. Remember, they didn't try to use the dodgy, Steele dossier before the
election.
What the deep state has done is reactively try to overcome the election outcome by launching
an investigation into Trump. The egregious element of the investigation is giving it the
title "investigation into collusion" when they in all probability knew that collusion was
unlikely to have taken place. To achieve their aim (removing Trump) they included the line
"and matters arising" in the brief to give them an open ended remit which allowed them to
investigate Trump's business dealings of a Russian / Ukrainian nature (which may venture
uncomfortably close to Semion Mogilevich).
If as you state (and I concur) there was no Russian collusion, then barring fabrication of
evidence by Mueller (and there is little evidence of that to date) you have nothing to worry
about on the collusion front. Remember, to date, Mueller has stuck (almost exclusively) to
meat and potatoes charges like tax evasion and money laundering. If however the investigation
leads to credible evidence that Trump broke substantive laws in the past for financial gain,
then it is not reasonable to cry foul.
Seer , June 1, 2018 at 7:02 am
The Deep State assisted the DNC in knocking out Sanders. THAT was ground zero. Everything
since then has been to cover this up and to discredit Trump (using him as the distraction).
Consider that the Deep State never bothered to investigate the DNC servers/data; reason being
is that they'd (Deep State) be implicated.
Skip Scott , June 1, 2018 at 7:29 am
Very true Seer. That is the real genesis of RussiaGate. It was a diversion tactic to keep
people from looking at the DNC's behavior during the primaries. They are the reason Trump is
president, not the evil Ruskies.
Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 8:13 am
We all seem agreed that the Russia collusion is an exercise in distraction. I can't say I
know enough to comment with authority on whether the DNC would require assistance from the
deep state to trash Bernie. From an outsider perspective it looked more like an application
of massively disproportionate spending and standard, back room dirty tricks.
There is a saying; don't attribute to conspiracy that which can be explained by incompetence.
In this case, try replacing incompetence with MONEY.
dikcheney , June 2, 2018 at 5:09 pm
Totally agree with you Skip and the Mueller performance is there to keep up the
intimidation and distraction by regularly finding turds to throw at Trump. Mueller doesnt
need to find anything, he just needs to create vague intimations of 'guilty Trump' and
suspicious associates so that no one will look at the DNC or the Clinton corruption or the
smashing of the Sanders campaign.
Their actual agenda is to smother analysis and clear thinking. Thankfully there is the
forensicator piecing the jigsaw as well as consortium news.
robjira , June 1, 2018 at 11:55 am
Spot on, Seer.
michael , June 1, 2018 at 4:49 pm
Those servers probably had a lot more pay-to-play secrets from the Clinton Foundation and
ring-kissing from foreign big donors than what was released by Wikileaks, which mostly was
just screwing over Bernie, which the judge ruled was Hillary's prerogative. Some email chains
were probably construed as National Security and were discreetly not leaked.
The 30,000 emails Hillary had bit bleached from her private servers are likely in the hands
of Russians and every other major country, all biding their time for leverage. This was the
carrot the British (who undoubtedly have copies as well) dangled over idiot Popodopolous.
Uncle Bob , June 1, 2018 at 10:33 pm
Seth Rich
anon , June 1, 2018 at 7:42 am
Realist is likely referring to events before the election which involved people with
secret agency connections, such as the opposition research (Steele dossier and Skripal
affair).
Realist , June 1, 2018 at 9:32 am
Realist responded but is being "moderated" as per usual.
Realist , June 1, 2018 at 9:31 am
Hillary herself was a prime force in cooking up the smear against Trump for being "Putin's
puppet." This even before the Democratic convention. Then she used it big time during the
debates. It wasn't something merely reactive after she lost. Certainly she and her
collaborators inside the deep state and the intelligence agencies never imagined that she
would lose and have to distract from what she and her people did by projecting the blame onto
Trump. That part was reactive. The rest of the conspiracy was totally proactive on her part
and that of the DNC, even during the primaries.
Don't forget, the intel agencies led by Clapper, Brennan and Comey were all working for
Obama at the time and were totally acquiescent in spying on the Trump campaign and
"unmasking" the identities and actions of his would-be administration, including individuals
like General Flynn. The cooked up Steele dossier was paid for by money from the Clinton
campaign and used as a pretext for the intel agencies to spy on the Trump campaign. There is
no issue on timing. The establishment was fully behind Clinton by hook or crook from the
moment Trump had the delegates to win the GOP nomination. (OBTW, I am not a Trump supporter
or even a Republican, so I KNOW that I "have nothing to worry about on the collusion front."
I'm a registered Dem, though not a Hillary supporter.)
Moreover, if you think that Mueller (and the other intel chiefs) have been on the
impartial up-and-up, why did the FBI never seize and examine the DNC servers? Why simply
accept the interpretation of events given by the private cybersecurity firm (Crowdstrike)
that the Clinton campaign hired to very likely mastermind a cover-up? That is exceptional
(nay, unheard of!) "professional courtesy." Why has Mueller to this day not deposed Julian
Assange or former British Ambassador Craig Murray, both of whom admit to knowing precisely
who provided the leaked (not hacked) Podesta and DNC emails to Wikileaks? Why has Mueller not
pursued the potential role of the late Seth Rich in the leaking of said emails? Why has
Mueller not pursued the robust theory, based on actual evidence, proposed by VIPS, and
supported by computer experts like Bill Binney and John McAfee, that the emails were not, as
the Dems and the intel agencies would have you believe on NO EVIDENCE, hacked (by the
"Russians" or anyone else) but were downloaded to a flash drive directly from the DNC
servers? Why has Mueller not deposed Binney or Ray McGovern who claim to have evidence to
bear on this and have discussed it freely in the media (to the miniscule extent that the
corporate media will give them an audience)? Is Mueller after the truth, or is this a
kangaroo court he is running? Is the media really independent and impartial or are they part
of a cover-up, perpetrating numerous sins of both commission and omission in their highly
flawed reportage?
I don't see clarity in what has been thus far been propounded by Mueller or any of Trump's
other accusers, but I don't think I am the one who is confused here, Vivian. If you want to
meet a thoroughly confused individual on what transpired leading up to this moment in
American political history, just go read Hillary's book. Absolutely everyone under the sun
shares in the blame but her for the fact that she does not presently reside in the White
House.
Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 1:48 pm
You have presented your case with a great deal more detail and clarity than the original
post that prompted my reply. You are also a great deal more knowledgeable than I on the
details. I think we are 98% in agreement and I wouldn't like to say who's correct on the
remaining 2%.
For clarity, I didn't follow the debates and wouldn't do so now if they were repeated. Much
heat very little light.
The "pretext" that the intel agencies claim launched their actions against Trump was not the
Steele dossier, at least that is what the intel agencies say. Either way your assertion that
it was the dossier that set things off is just that, an assertion. I think this is a minor
point.
On the DNC servers and the FBI we are 100% singing from the same hymn book and it all sticks.
Mueller's apparent disinterest in the question of hack or USB drive does rather taint his
investigation and thanks for pointing this out, I hadn't thought of that angle. I still think
Mueller will stick to tax and money laundering and stay well clear of "collusion", so yes he
may be running a kangaroo court investigation but the charges will be real world.
The MSM as a whole are a sick joke which is why we collectively find ourselves at CN, Craig
Murray's blog, etc. I wouldn't like to attribute "collaboration" to any individual in the
media. It was the reference to hundreds of journalists being sent to jail in your original
post that set me off in the first place. When considering the "culpability" of any individual
journalist you can have any position on a spectrum from; fully cognisant collaborator with a
deep state conspiracy, to; a bit dim and running with the "sexy" story 'cause it's the
biggest thing ever, the bosses can't get enough of it and the overtime is great. If American
journalists are anything like their UK counterparts, 99% will fall into the latter
category.
Don't have any issue with your final point. Hillary on stage and on camera was phoney as
rocking horse s**te and everyone outside her extremely highly remunerated team could see
it.
Sorry for any inconvenience, but your second post makes your points a hell of a lot clearer
than the original.
Realist , June 1, 2018 at 4:26 pm
My purpose for the first post in this thread was to direct readers to the article in Unz
by Mike Whitney, not to compress a full-blown amateur expose' by myself into a three-sentence
paragraph. You would have found much more in the way of facts, analysis and opinion in his
article to which my terse comments did not even serve as an abstract.
Quoting his last paragraph may give you the flavor of this piece, which is definitely not
a one-off by him or other actual journalists who have delved into the issues:
"Let's see if I got this right: Brennan gets his buddies in the UK to feed fake
information on Russia to members of the Trump campaign, after which the FBI uses the
suspicious communications about Russia as a pretext to unmask, wiretap, issue FISA warrants,
and infiltrate the campaign, after which the incriminating evidence that was collected in the
process of entrapping Trump campaign assistants is compiled in a legal case that is used to
remove Trump from office. Is that how it's supposed to work?
It certainly looks like it. But don't expect to read about it in the Times."
backwardsevolution , June 1, 2018 at 4:49 pm
Vivian – 90% of all major media is owned by six corporations. There most definitely
was and IS collusion between some of them to bring down the outsider, Trump.
As far as individual journalists go, yeah, they're trying to pay their mortgage, I get it,
and they're going to spin what their boss bloody well tells them to spin. But there is
evidence coming out that "some" journalists did accept money from either Fusion GPS, Perkins
Coie (sp) or Christopher Steele to leak information, which they did.
Bill Clinton passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that enabled these six media
conglomerates to dominate the news. Of course they're political. They need to be split up,
like yesterday, into a thousand pieces (ditto for the banks). They have purposely and with
intent been feeding lies to the American people. Yes, some SHOULD go to jail.
As Peter Strzok of the FBI said re Trump colluding with Russia, "There was never any
there, there." The collusion has come from the intelligence agencies, in cahoots with Hillary
Clinton, perhaps even as high as Obama, to prevent Trump being elected. When that failed,
they set out to get him impeached on whatever they could find. Of course Mueller is going to
stick with tax and money laundering because he already KNOWS there was never any collusion
with Russia.
This is the Swamp versus the People.
backwardsevolution , June 1, 2018 at 1:52 pm
Realist – another excellent post. "Is Mueller after the truth, or is this a kangaroo
court he is running?" As you rightly point out, Mueller IS being very selective in what he
examines and doesn't examine. He's not after the whole truth, just a particular kind of
truth, one that gets him a very specific result – to take down or severely cripple the
President.
Evidence continues to trickle out. Former and active members of the FBI are now even
begging to testify as they are disgusted with what is being purposely omitted from this
so-called "impartial" investigation. This whole affair is "kangaroo" all the way.
I'm not so much a fan of Trump as I am a fan of the truth. I don't like to see him –
anyone – being railroaded. That bothers me more than anything. But he's right about
what he calls "the Swamp". If these people are not uncovered and brought to justice, then the
country is truly lost.
Realist , June 1, 2018 at 4:38 pm
Precisely. Destroy the man on false pretenses and you destroy our entire system, whether
you like him and his questionable policies or not.
Some people would say it's already gone, but we do what we can to get it back or hold onto
to what's left of it. Besides, all the transparent lies and skullduggery in the service of
politics rather than principles are just making our entire system look as corrupt as
hell.
michael , June 1, 2018 at 5:00 pm
When Mueller arrested slimy Manafort for crimes committed in the Ukraine and gave a pass
to the Podesta Brothers who worked closely with Manafort, it was clear that Russiagate was a
partisan operation.
backwardsevolution , June 1, 2018 at 6:17 pm
Michael – good point!
KiwiAntz , June 1, 2018 at 1:00 am
Its becoming abundantly clear now, that the whole Russiagate charade was had nothibg to do
with Russia & is about a elaborate smokescreen & shellgame coverup designed to divert
attention away from, firstly the Democratic Party's woeful defeat & its lousy Candidate
choice in the corrupt Hillary Clinton? & also the DNC's sabotaging of Bernie Saunders
campaign run! But the most henious & treacherous parts was Obama's, weaponising the
intelligence agencies to spy (Halper) on the imaginary Mancharian Candidate Trump & to
set him up as a Russia stooge? Obama & Hillary Clinton are complicent in this disgraceful
& illegal activity to get dirt on Trump withe goal of ensuring Clinton's election win?
This is bigger than Watergate & more scandalous? But despite the cheating & stacking
of the card deck, she still lost out to the Donald? And this isn't just illegal its
treasonous & willful actions deserving of a lengthy jail incarceration? HRC & her
crooked Clinton foundation's funding of the fraudulent & discredited "Steele Dosier" was
also used to implement Trump & Russia in a made up, pile of fictitious gargage that was
pure offal? Obama & HRC along with their FBI & CIA spys need to be rounded up,
convicted & thrown in jail? Perhaps if Trump could just shut his damn mouuth for once
& get off twitter long enough to be able too get some Justice Dept officials looking into
this, without being distracted by this Russiagate shellgame fakery, then perhaps the real
criminal's like Halpert, Obama,HRC & these corrupt spooks & spies can be rounded up
& held to account for this treasonous behaviour?
Sean Ahern , May 31, 2018 at 7:25 pm
Attention should be paid also to the role of so called progressive media outlets such as
Mother Jones which served as an outlets for the disinformation campaign described in Lazare's
article.
Here from David Corn's Mother Jones 2016 article:
"And a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian
counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with
memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian
government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump -- and that the FBI requested more
information from him."
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump/
Not only was Corn and Mother Jones selected by the spooks as an outlet, but these so
called progressives lauded their 'expose' as a great investigative coup on their part and it
paved the way for Corn's elevation on MSNBC for a while as a 'pundit.'
Paul G. , May 31, 2018 at 8:46 pm
In that vein did the spooks influence Rachel Maddow or is her $30,000. a day salary
adequate to totally compromise her microscopic journalistic integrity.
dikcheney , June 3, 2018 at 6:57 am
Passing around references to Mother Jones is like passing round used toilet paper for
another try. MJ is BS it is entirely controlled fake press.
Abby , May 31, 2018 at 6:23 pm
Stefan Halper was being paid by the Clinton's foundation during the time he was spying on
the Trump campaign. This is further evidence that Hillary Clinton's hands are all over
getting Russia Gate started. Then there's the role that Obama's justice department played in
setting up the spying on people who were working with the Trump campaign. This is worse than
Watergate, IMO.
Rumors are that a few ex FBI agents are going to testify to congress in Comey's role in
covering up Hillary's crimes when she used her private email server to send classified
information to people who did not have clearance to read it. Sydney Bluementhol was working
for Hillary's foundation and sending her classified information that he stole from the
NSA.
Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills were concerned about Obama knowing that Hillary wasn't using
her government email account after he told the press that he only found out about it at the
same time they did. He had been sending and receiving emails from her Clintonone email
address during her whole tenure as SOS.
Obama was also aware of her using her foundation for pay to play which she was told by
both congress and Obama to keep far away from her duties. Why did she use her private email
server? So that Chelsea could know where Hillary was doing business so she could send Bill
there to give his speeches to the same organizations, foreign governments and people who had
just donated to their foundation.
Has any previous Secretary of State in history used their position to enrich their spouses
or their foundations? I think not.
The secrets of how the FBI covered for Hillary are coming out. Whether she is charged for
her crimes is a different matter.
F. G. Sanford , May 31, 2018 at 7:48 pm
If Hillary paid a political operative using Clinton Foundation funds – those are tax
exempt charitable contributions – she would be guilty of tax fraud, charity fraud and
campaign finance violations. Hillary may be evil, but she's not stupid. The U.S.Government
paid Halper, which might be "waste, fraud and abuse", but it doesn't implicate Hillary at
all. Not that she's innocent, mind you
Rob , June 1, 2018 at 2:14 am
I need some references to take any of your multitude of claims seriously. With all due
respect, this sound like something taken from info wars and stylized in smartened up a little
bit.
the idea that Stefan Halper was some sort a of mastermind spy behind the so called
"Russiagate" fiasco
seems very implausible considering what he seems to have spent doing for the past 40
years
going back to the Iran hostage crisis of 1979-1980 and his efforts then.
i think he must have had a fairly peripheral role as to whatever or not was going on
behind the scenes from 2016 election campaign, and the campaign to first stop Trump getting
elected, and secondly, when that failed, to bring down his Presidency.
of course, the moment his name was revealed in recent days, would have shocked or
surprised those of in the general
public, but not certainly amongst those in Government aka FBI/CIA/Military-industrial
circles.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 4:36 pm
chris m – Halper is probably one of those people who hide behind their professor (or
other legitimate) jobs, but are there at the ready to serve the Deep State. "I understand.
You want me to set up some dupes in order to make it look like there was or could be actual
Russian meddling. Gotcha." All you've got to do is make it "look like" something nefarious
was going on. This facilitates a "reason" to have a phony investigation, and of course they
make it as open-ended an investigation as possible, hoping to get the target on something,
anything.
Well, they've no doubt looked long and hard for almost two years now, but zip. However, in
their zeal to get rid of their opponent, who they did not think would win the election, they
left themselves open, left a trail of crimes. Whoops!
This is the Swamp that Trump talked about during the election. He's probably not squeaky
clean either, but he pales in comparison to what these guys have done. They have tried to
take down a duly-elected President.
F. G. Sanford , May 31, 2018 at 5:09 pm
His role may have been peripheral, but I seem to recall that the Office of Net Assessments
paid him roughly a million bucks to play it. That office, run from the Pentagon, is about as
deep into the world of "black ops" spookdom as you can get. Hardly "peripheral", I'd say.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:13 pm
F. G. Sanford – yes, a million bucks implies something more than just a peripheral
involvement, more like something essential to the plot, like the actual setting up of the
plot. Risk of exposure costs money.
ranney , May 31, 2018 at 6:17 pm
Chris, I think the Halper inclusion in this complex tale is simply an example of how these
things work in the ultra paranoid style of spy agencies. As Lazare explains, every one knew
every one else – at least at the start of this, and it just kind of built from there,
and Halper may have been the spark – but the spark landed on a highly combustible pile
of paranoia that caught on fire right away. This is how our and the UK agencies function.
There is an interesting companion piece to this story today at Common Dreams by Robert Kohler
titled The American Way of War. It describes basically the same sort of mind set and action
as this story. I'd link it for you if I knew how, but I'm not very adept at the computer.
(Maybe another reader knows how?)
We (that is the American people who are paying the salaries of these brain blocked, stiff
necked idiots) need to start getting vocal and visible about the destructive path our
politicians, banks and generals have rigidly put us on. Does any average working stiff still
believe that all this hate, death and destruction is to "protect" us?
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:07 pm
ranney – when you are on the page that you want to link to, take your cursor (the
little arrow on your screen) to the top of the page to the address bar (for instance, the
address for this article is:
"https://consortiumnews.com/2018/05/31/spooks-spooking ")
Once your cursor is over the address bar, right click on your mouse. A little menu will
come up. Then position your cursor down to the word "copy" and then left click on your mouse.
This will copy the link.
Then proceed back to the blog (like Consortium) where you want to provide the link in your
post. You might say, "Here is the link for the article I just described above." Then at this
point you would right click on your mouse again, position your cursor over the word "paste",
and then left click on your mouse. Voila, your link magically appears.
If you don't have a mouse and are using a laptop pad, then someone else will have to help
you. That's above my pay grade. Good luck, ranney.
irina , May 31, 2018 at 8:13 pm
If you are using a Mac, either laptop w/touch screen or with a mouse, the copy/paste
function
works similarly. Use either the mouse (no need to 'right click, left click') or the touch
screen
to highlight the address bar once you have the cursor flashing away on the left side of
it.
You may need to scroll right to highlight the whole address. Then go up to Edit (there's
also
a keyboard command you can use, but I don't) in your tool bar at the top of your screen.
Click on 'copy'. Now your address is in memory. Then do the same as described above to
get back to where you want to paste it. Put your cursor where you want it to be 'pasted'.
Go back to 'edit' and click 'paste'. Voila !
This is a very handy function and can be used to copy text, web addresses, whatever you
want.
Explore it a little bit. (Students definitely overuse the 'paste and match style' option,
which allows
a person to 'paste' text into for example an essay and 'match the style' so it looks
seamless, although
unless carefully edited it usually doesn't read seamlessly !)
Remember that whatever is in 'copy' will remain there until you 'copy' something else. (Or
your
computer crashes . . . )
ranney , June 1, 2018 at 3:39 pm
Irina and Backwards Evolution – Thanks guys for the computer advice! I'll try it,
but I think I need someone at my shoulder the first time I try it.
backwardsevolution , June 1, 2018 at 8:53 pm
ranney – you're welcome! Snag one of your kids or a friend, and then do it together.
Sometimes I see people posting things like: "Testing. I'm trying to provide a link, bear with
me." Throw caution to the wind, ranney. I don't worry about embarrassing myself anymore. I do
it every day and the world still goes on.
I heard a good bit of advice once, something I remind my kids: when you're young, you
think everybody is watching you and so you're afraid to step out of line. When you're
middle-aged, you think everybody is watching you, but you don't care. When you're older, you
realize nobody is really watching you because they're more concerned about themselves.
Good luck, ranney.
irina , June 2, 2018 at 10:00 pm
I find it helpful to write down the steps (on an old fashioned piece of paper, with old
fashioned ink)
when learning to use a new computer tool, because while I think I'll remember, it doesn't
usually
'stick' until after using it for quite a while. And yes, definitely recruit a member of the
younger set
or someone familiar with computers. My daughter showed me many years ago how to 'cut &
paste'
and to her credit she was very gracious about it. Remember that you need a place to 'paste'
what-
ever you copied -- either a comment board like this, or a document you are working on, or
(this is
handy) an email where you want to send someone a link to something. Lots of other
possibilities too!
mike , June 1, 2018 at 7:43 pm
No one is presenting Halper as a mastermind spy. He was a tool of the deep state nothing
more.
It seems a mistake to frame the "Russiagate" nonsense as a "Democrat vs Republican"
affair, except at the most surface level of understanding in terms of our political
realities. If one considers that the Bush family has been effectively the Republican Party's
face of the CIA/deep state nexus for decades, as the Clinton/Obama's have been the Democratic
Party's face for decades now, what comes into focus is Trump as a sort of unknown, unexpected
wild card not appropriately tethered to the control structure. Simply noting that the U.S.
and Russia need not be enemies is alone enough to require an operation to get Trump into
line.
This hardly means this is some sort of "partisan" issue as the involvement of McCain and
others demonstrates.
One of the true "you can't make this stuff up" ironies of the Bush/Clinton CIA/deep state
nexus history is worth remembering if one still maintains any illusions about how the CIA
vets potential presidents since they killed JFK. During Iran/Contra we had Bush, the former
CIA director now vice president, running a drugs for arms operation out the White House
through Ollie North, WHILE then unknown Arkansas governor Bill Clinton was busy squashing
Arkansas State Police investigations into said narcotics trafficking. Clinton obviously
proved his bona fides to the CIA/deep state with such service and was appropriately rewarded
as an asset who could function as a reliable president. Here in one operation we had two
future presidents in Bush and Clinton both engaged in THE SAME CIA drug running operation.
You truly can't make this stuff up.
Russiagate seems to be in the end all about keeping deep state policy moving in the "right
direction" and "hating Russia" is the only entree on the menu at this time for the whole
cadre of CIA/deep state, MIC, neocons, Zionists, and all their minions in the MSM. The Obama
White House would have gladly supported Vlad the Impaler as the Republican candidate that
beat Hillary if Vlad were to have the appropriate foaming at the mouth "hate-Russia" vibe
going on.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:18 pm
Gary – great post.
irina , May 31, 2018 at 8:18 pm
Roger that. I would really like to see an inquiry re-opened into the
teenage boys who died 'on the train tracks' in Arkansas during the
early years of the Clinton-Bush trafficking. Many questions are still
unanswered. Speculation is that they saw something they weren't
supposed to see.
Mark Thomason , May 31, 2018 at 1:12 pm
This all grows out of the failure to clean up the mess revealed by the Iraq fiasco.
Instead, those who did that remained, got away with it, and are doing more of the same.
Babyl-on , May 31, 2018 at 12:46 pm
So, here is my question – Who, ultimately does the
permanent/bureaucratic/deep/Imperial* state finally answer to? Who's interests are they
serving? How do they know what those interests are?
It could be, and increasingly it looks as if, the answer is – no one in particular
– but the Saud family, the Zionist cabal of billionaires, the German industrialist
dynasties, the Japanese oligarchy and never forget the arms dealers, all of them once part of
the Empire now fighting for themselves so we end up with the high level apparatchiks not
knowing what to do or who to follow so they lie outright to Congress and go on TV and babble
more lies for money.
It's a great contradiction that the greatest armed force ever assembled with cutting edge
robotics and AI yet at the same time so weak and pathetic it can not exercise hegemony over
the Middle East as it seems to desire more than anything. Being defeated by forces with less
than 20% of the US spend.
Abby , May 31, 2018 at 6:36 pm
You're right. They answer to no one because they are not just working in this country, but
they think that the whole world is theirs.
To these people there are no borders. They meet at places like the G20, Davos and wherever
the Bilderberg group decides to meet every year. No leader of any country gets to be one
unless they are acceptable to the Deep State. The council of foreign relations is one of the
groups that run the world. How we take them down is a good question.
Abe , May 31, 2018 at 12:43 pm
Following the pattern of mainstream media, Daniel Lazare assiduously avoids mentioning
Israel and pro-Israel Lobby interference in the 2016 presidential election, and the
Israel-gate reality underlying all the Russia-gate fictions.
For example, George Papadopoulos is directly connected to the pro-Israel Lobby, right wing
Israeli political interests, and Israeli government efforts to control regional energy
resources.
Lazare mentions that Papadapoulos had "a friend in the Israeli embassy".
But Lazare conspicuously neglects to mention numerous Israeli and pro-Israel Lobby players
interested in "filling Papadopoulos's head" with "tales of Russian dirty tricks".
Papadopoulos' LinkedIn page lists his association with the right wing Hudson Institute.
The Washington, D.C.-based think tank part of pro-Israel Lobby web of militaristic security
policy institutes that promote Israel-centric U.S. foreign policy.
The Hudson Institute confirmed that Papadopoulos was an intern who left the pro-Israel
neoconservative think tank in 2014.
In 2014, Papadopoulos authored op-ed pieces in Israeli publications.
In an op-ed published in Arutz Sheva, media organ of the right wing Religionist Zionist
movement embraced by the Israeli "settler" movement, Papadopoulos argued that the U.S. should
focus on its "stalwart allies" Israel, Greece, and Cyprus to "contain the newly emergent
Russian fleet".
In another op-ed published in Ha'aretz, Papadopoulos contended that Israel should exploit
its natural gas resources in partnership with Cyprus and Greece rather than Turkey.
In November 2015, Papadapalous participated in a conference in Tel Aviv, discussing the
export of natural gas from Israel with a panel of current and past Israeli government
officials including Ron Adam, a representative of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
and Eran Lerman, a former Israeli Deputy National Security Adviser.
Among Israel's numerous violations of United Nations Resolution 242 was its annexation of
the Syrian Golan Heights in 1981. Recent Israeli threatened military threats against Lebanon
and Syria have a lot to do with control of natural gas resources, both offshore from Gaza and
on land in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights region.
Israeli plans to develop energy resources and expand territorial holdings in the Syrian
Golan are threatened by the Russian military presence in Syria. Russian diplomatic efforts,
and the Russian military intervention that began in September 2015 after an official request
by the Syrian government, have interfered with the Israeli-Saudi-U.S. Axis "dirty war" in
Syria.
Israeli activities and Israel-gate realities are predictably ignored by the mainstream
media, which continues to salivate at every moldy scrap of Russia-gate fiction.
Lazare need no be so circumspect, unless he has somehow been spooked.
"Among Israel's numerous violations of United Nations Resolution 242 was its annexation of
the Syrian Golan Heights in 1981. Recent Israeli threatened military threats against Lebanon
and Syria have a lot to do with control of natural gas resources, both offshore from Gaza and
on land in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights region."
And water. Rating energy and water, what's at the top for Israel. Israel would probably
say both but Israel shielded by the US will take what it wants. That is already true with the
Palestinians.. The last figure I heard is that the Palestinians are allocated one fifth per
capita what is allocated to Israel's
mike k , May 31, 2018 at 11:59 am
A large swamp is actually an ancient and highly organized ecosystem. Only humans could
create a lawless madness like Washington DC.
irina , May 31, 2018 at 8:24 pm
Yes that is a good description of a swamp. BUT, if it loses what sustains it --
water, in the case of a 'real' swamp and money in the case of this swamp --
it changes character very quickly and becomes first a bog, then a meadow.
I am definitely ready for more meadowland ! But the only way to create it
is to voluntarily redirect federal taxes into escrow accounts which stipulate
that the funds are to be used for (fill in the blank) Public Services at the
Local and Regional levels. Much more efficient than filtering them through
the federal bureaucracy !
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 10:21 pm
But how would one avoid prosecution for nonpayment of taxes?
That seems a very quiet way to be rendered ineffective as a resister.
irina , June 1, 2018 at 2:30 am
The thing is, you don't 'nonpay' them. The way it used to work, through the
Con$cience and Military Tax Campaign Escrow Account, was that you filed
your taxes as usual. (This does require having less withholding than you owe).
BUT instead of paying what is due to the IRS, you send it to the Escrow Account.
You attach a letter to your tax return, explaining where the money is and why it
is there. That is, you want it to be spent on _________________(fill in the blank)
worthy public social service. Then you send your return to the IRS.
When I used to do this, I stated that I wanted my tax dollars to be spent to develop
public health clinics at neighborhood schools. Said clinics would be staffed by nurse
practitioners, would be open 24-7 and nurses would be equipped with vans to make
House Calls. Security would be provided.
So you're not 'nonpaying' your taxes, you are (attempting) to redirect them.
Eventually,
after several rounds of letters back and forth, the IRS would seize the monies from the
escrow account, which would only release them to the IRS upon being told to by the
tax re-director. Unfortunately, not enough people participated to make it a going
concern.
But the potential is still there, and the template has been made and used. It's very
scale-
able, from local to international. And it would not take that many 're-directors' to shift
the
focus of tax liability from the collector to the payor. Because ultimately we are liable
for
how our funds are used !
Bill , June 2, 2018 at 3:19 pm
this was done a lot during the Vietnam conflict, especially by Quakers. the first thing,
if you are a wage earner, is to re-file a W2 with maximum withholdings-that has two effects:
1) it means you owe all your taxes in April. 2) it means the feds are deprived of the hidden
tax in which they use or invest your withholding throughout the year before it's actually
due(and un-owed taxes if you over over-withhold). Pretty sure that if a large number of
people deprive the government of that hidden tax by under-withholding, they will begin to
take notice.
Abe , May 31, 2018 at 11:54 am
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) is an intelligence agency of the government
and armed forces of the United Kingdom.
In 2013, GCHQ received considerable media attention when the former National Security
Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed that the agency was in the process of collecting
all online and telephone data in the UK. Snowden's revelations began a spate of ongoing
disclosures of global surveillance and manipulation.
For example, NSA files from the Snowden archive published by Glenn Greenwald reveal
details about GCHQ's Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) unit, which uses "dirty
trick" tactics to covertly manipulate and control online communities.
In 2017, officials from the UK and Israel made an unprecedented confirmation of the close
relationship between the GCHQ and Israeli intelligence services.
Robert Hannigan, outgoing Director-General of the GCHQ, revealed for the first time that
his organization has a "strong partnership with our Israeli counterparts in signals
intelligence." He claimed the relationship "is protecting people from terrorism not only in
the UK and Israel but in many other countries."
Mark Regev, Israeli ambassador to the UK, commented on the close relationship between
British and Israeli intelligence agencies. During remarks at a Conservative Friends of Israel
reception, Regev opined: "I have no doubt the cooperation between our two democracies is
saving British lives."
Hannigan added that GCHQ was "building on an excellent cyber relationship with a range of
Israeli bodies and the remarkable cyber industry in Be'er Sheva."
The IDF's most important signal intelligence–gathering installation is the Urim
SIGINT Base, a part of Unit 8200, located in the Negev desert approximately 30 km from Be'er
Sheva.
Snowden revealed how Unit 8200 receives raw, unfiltered data of U.S. citizens, as part of
a secret agreement with the U.S. National Security Agency.
After his departure from GCHQ, Hannigan joined BlueteamGlobal, a cybersecurity services
firm, later re-named BlueVoyant.
BlueVoyant's board of directors includes Nadav Zafrir, former Commander of the Israel
Defense Forces' Unit 8200. The senior leadership team at BlueVoyant includes Ron Feler,
formerly Deputy Commander of the IDF's Unit 8200, and Gad Goldstein, who served as a division
head in the Israel Security Agency, Shin Bet, in the rank equivalent to Major General.
In addition to their purported cybersecurity activities, Israeli. American, and British
private companies have enormous access and potential to promote government and military
deception operations.
mike k , May 31, 2018 at 12:23 pm
Thanks Abe. Sounds like a manual for slave owners and con men. What a tangled wed the rich
bastards weave. The simple truth is their sworn enemy.
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 10:19 pm
Interesting that a foreign power would be given all US communications data, which implies
that the US has seized it all without a warrant and revealed it all in violation of the
Constitution. If extensive, this use of information power amounts to information warfare
against the US by its own secret agencies in collusion with a foreign power, an act of
treason.
Seer , June 1, 2018 at 7:18 am
This has been going on for a LONG time, it's nothing new. I seem to recall 60 Minutes
covering it way back in the 70s(?). UK was allowed to do the snooping in the US (and, likely,
vice versa) and then providing info to the US. This way the US govt could claim that it
didn't spy/snoop on its citizens. Without a doubt Israel has been extensively intercepting
communications in the US..
Secrecy kills.
Sam F , June 1, 2018 at 8:23 am
Yes, but the act of allowing unregulated foreign agencies unwarranted access to US
telecoms is federal crime, and it is treason when it goes so far as to allow them full
access, and even direct US bulk traffic to their spy agencies. If this is so, these people
should be prosecuted for treason.
F. G. Sanford , May 31, 2018 at 11:36 am
To listen to the media coverage of these events, it is tempting to believe that two
entirely different planets are being discussed. Fox comes out and says Mueller was "owned" by
Trump. Then, CNN comes out and says Trump was "owned" by Clapper. Clapper claims the evidence
is "staggering", while video clips of his testimony reveal irrefutable perjury. Some of
President Trump's policies are understandably abhorrent to Democrats, while Clinton's email
server and charity frauds are indisputably violations of Federal statutes. Democrats are
attempting to claim that a "spy" in the Trump campaign was perfectly reasonable to protect
"national security", but evidence seems to indicate that the spy was placed BEFORE there was
a legitimate national security concern. Some analysts note that, while Mueller's team appears
to be Democratic partisan hacks, their native "skill set" is actually expertise in money
laundering investigations. They claim that although Mr. Trump may not be compromised by the
Russian government, he is involved with nefarious Russian organized crime figures. It
follows, according to them, that given time, Mueller will reveal these illicit connections,
and prosecution will become inevitable.
Let's assume, for argument, that both sides are right. That means that our entire
government is irretrievably corrupt. Republicans claim that it could " go all the way to
Obama". Democrats, of course, play the "moral high ground" card, insinuating that the current
administration is so base and immoral that somehow, the "ends justify the means". No matter
how you slice it, the Clinton campaign has a lot more liability on its hands. The problem is,
if prosecutions begin, people will "talk" to save their own skins. The puppet masters can't
really afford that.
"All the way to Obama", you say? I think it could go higher than that. Personally, I think
it could go all the way to Dick Cheney, and the 'powers that be' are in no mood to let that
happen.
Vivian O'Blivion , May 31, 2018 at 12:19 pm
The issue as I see it is that from the start everyone was calling the Mueller probe an
investigation into collusion and not really grasping the catch all nature of his brief.
It's the "any matters arising " that is the real kicker. So any dodgy dealing / possible
criminal activity in the past is fair game. And this is exactly what in happening with
Manafort.
Morally you can apply the Nucky Johnson defence and state that everyone knew Trump was a
crook when they voted for him, but legally this has no value.
There is an unpleasant whiff of deep state interference with the will of the people
(electoral college). Perhaps if most bodies hadn't written Trump's chances off in such an off
hand manner, proper due diligence of his background would have uncovered any liabilities
before the election.
If there is actionable dirt, can't say I am overly sympathetic to Trump. Big prizes sometimes
come with big risks.
David G , May 31, 2018 at 5:14 pm
My own feeling from the start has been that Mueller was never going to track down any
"collusion" or "meddling" (at least not to any significant degree) because the whole,
sprawling Russia-gate narrative – to the extent one can be discerned – is
obviously phony.
But at the same time, there's no way the completely lawless, unethical Trump, along with
his scummy associates, would be able to escape that kind of scrutiny without criminal conduct
being exposed.
So far, on both scores, that still seems to me to be a likely outcome, and for my part I'm
fine with it.
Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 5:29 am
My thoughts exactly. Collusion was never a viable proposition because the Russians aren't
that stupid. Regardless of any personal opinion regarding the intelligence and mental
stability of Donald Snr., the people he surrounds himself with are weapons grade stupid. I
don't see the Russians touching the Trump campaign with a proverbial barge pole.
Bill , June 2, 2018 at 3:26 pm
it just happens that Trump appears to have been involved (wittingly or not), with the
laundering a whole lot of Russian money and so many of his friends seem to be connected with
wealthy Russian oligarchs as well plus they are so stupid, they keep appearing to (and
probably are) obstructing justice. The Cohen thing doesn't get much attention here, but it's
significant that they have all this stuff on a guy who is clearly Trump's bagman.
Steve Naidamast , May 31, 2018 at 3:15 pm
There is also quite an indication that the entire Mueller investigation is a complete
smoke screen to be used as cannon fodder in the mainstream media.
On the one hand, Mueller and his hacks have found nothing of import to link Trump to
anything close to collusion with members of the Russian government. And I am by no means a
Trump supporter by any stretch of the imagination, except as a foil to Clinton. However, even
my minimalist expectations for Trump have not worked out either.
In addition. the Mueller investigation has been spending what appears to be a majority of
its time on ancillary matters that were not within the supposed scope and mandate of this
investigation. Further, a number of indictments have come down against people involved with
such ancillary matters.
The result is that if Mueller is going beyond the scope of his investigatory mandate, this
may come in as a technicality that will allow indicted persons to escape prosecution on
appeal.
Such a mandate, I would think, is the same thing as a police warrant, which can find only
admissible evidence covered by the warrant. Anything else found to be criminally liable must
be found to be as a result of a completely different investigation that has nothing to do
with the original warrant.
In other words, it appears that the Mueller investigation was allowed to commence under a
Republican controlled Congress for the very reason that its intent is simply to go in circles
long enough for Republicans to get their agendas through, which does not appear to be working
all too well as a result of their high levels of internecine party conflicts.
This entire affair is coming to show just how dysfunctional, corrupt, and incompetent the
entirety of the US federal government has become. And to the chagrin of all sincere
activists, no amount of organized protesting and political action will ever rid the country
of this grotesque political quagmire that now engulfs the entirety of our political
infrastructure.
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 8:48 pm
Very true that the US federal government is now "dysfunctional, corrupt, and
incompetent."
What are your thoughts on forms of action to rid us this political quagmire?
(other than ineffective "organized protesting and political action")
Have you considered new forms of public debate and public information?
Seer , June 1, 2018 at 7:34 am
All of this is blackmail to hold Trump's feet to the fire of the Israel firsters (such
actions pull in all the dark swampy things). By creating the Russia blackmail story they've
effectively redirected away from themselves. The moment Trump balks the Deep State will reel
in some more, airing innuendos to overwhelm Trump. Better believe that Trump has been fully
"briefed" on all of this. John Bolton was able to push out a former OPCW head with threats
(knew where his, the OPCW head's children were). And now John Bolton is sitting right next to
Trump (whispering in his ear that he knows ways in which to oust Trump).
What actual "ideas" were in Trump's head going in to all of this (POTUS run) is hard to
say. But, anything that can be considered a threat to the Deep State has been effectively
nullified now.
Vivian O'Blivion , June 1, 2018 at 8:22 am
Possible, but Manafort already tried to get his charges thrown out as being the outcome of
investigations beyond the remit He failed.
Brendan , May 31, 2018 at 10:26 am
There's no doubt at all that Joseph Mifsud was closely connected with western
intelligence, and with MI6 in particular. His contacts with Russia are insignificant compared
with his long career working amongst the elite of western officials.
Lee Smith of RealClearInvestigations lists some of the places where Mifsud worked, including
two universities:
"he taught at Link Campus University in Rome, ( ) whose lecturers and professors include
senior Western diplomats and intelligence officials from a number of NATO countries,
especially Italy and the United Kingdom.
Mifsud also taught at the University of Stirling in Scotland, and the London Academy of
Diplomacy, which trained diplomats and government officials, some of them sponsored by the
UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the British Council, or by their own governments."
Two former colleagues of Mifsud's, Roh and Pastor, recently interviewed him for a book
they have written. Those authors could very well be biased, but one of them makes a valid
point, similar to one that Daniel Lazare makes above:
"Given the affiliations of Link's faculty and staff, as well as Mifsud's pedigree, Roh thinks
it's impossible that the man he hired as a business development consultant is a Russian
agent."
Politically, Mifsud identifies with the Clintons more than anyone else, and claims to
belong to the Clinton Foundation, which has often been accused of being just a way of
funneling money into Hillary Clinton's campaign.
As Lee Smith says, if Mifsud really is a Russian spy, "Western intelligence services are
looking at one of the largest and most embarrassing breaches in a generation. But none of the
governments or intelligence agencies potentially compromised is acting like there's anything
wrong."
From all that we know about Joseph Mifsud, it's safe to say that he was never a Russian
spy. If not, then what was he doing when he was allegedly feeding stories to George
Papadopoulos about Russians having 'dirt' on Clinton?
I read somewhere that Mifsud had disappeared. Was that true? If so, is he back, or still
missing?
Chet Roman , May 31, 2018 at 6:21 pm
Here are some excerpts that will answer your question from an article by Lee Smith at
Realclearinvestigations, "The Maltese Phantom of Russiagate".
A new book by former colleagues of Mifsud's – Stephan Roh, a 50-year-old
Swiss-German lawyer, and Thierry Pastor, a 35-year-old French political analyst –
reports that he is alive and well. Their account includes a recent interview with him.
Their self-published book, "The Faking of Russia-gate: The Papadopoulos Case, an
Investigative Analysis," includes a recent interview with Mifsud in which he denies saying
anything about Clinton emails to Papadopoulos. Mifsud, they write, stated "vehemently that he
never told anything like this to George Papadopoulos." Mifsud asked rhetorically: "From where
should I have this [information]?"
Mifsud's account seems to be supported by Alexander Downer, the Australian diplomat who
alerted authorities about Papadopoulos. As reported in the Daily Caller, Downer said
Papadopoulos never mentioned emails; he spoke, instead, about the Russians possessing
material that could be damaging to Clinton. This new detail raises the possibility that
Mifsud, Papadopoulos' alleged source for the information, never said anything about
Clinton-related emails either.
In interviews with RealClearInvestigations, Roh and Pastor said Mifsud is anything but a
Russian spy. Rather, he is more likely a Western intelligence asset.
According to the two authors, it was a former Italian intelligence official, Vincenzo
Scotti, a colleague of Mifsud's and onetime interior minister, who told the professor to go
into hiding. "I don't know who was hiding him," said Roh, "but I'm sure it was organized by
someone. And I am sure it will be difficult to get to the bottom of it."
Toby McCrossin , June 1, 2018 at 1:54 am
" The Papadopoulos Case, an Investigative Analysis," includes a recent interview with
Mifsud in which he denies saying anything about Clinton emails to Papadopoulos. Mifsud, they
write, stated "vehemently that he never told anything like this to George Papadopoulos.""
Thank you for providing that explosive piece of information. If true, and I suspect it is,
that's one more nail in the Russiagate narrative. Who, then, is making the claim that Misfud
mentioned emails? The only source for the statement I can find is "court documents".
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 9:20 am
The election scams serve only to distract from the Israel-gate scandal and the oligarchy
destruction of our former democracy. Mr. Lazare neglects to tell us about that. All of
Hillary's top ten campaign bribers were zionists, and Trump let Goldman-Sachs take over the
economy. KSA and big business also bribed heavily.
We must restrict funding of elections and mass media to limited individual donations, for
democracy is lost.
We must eliminate zionist fascism from our political parties, federal government, and
foreign policy. Obviously that has nothing to do with any ethnic or religious preference.
Otherwise the United States is lost, and our lives have no historical meaning beyond
slavery to oligarchy.
Joe Tedesky , May 31, 2018 at 9:51 am
You are right Sam. Israel does work the fence under the guise of the Breaking News.
Joe
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 8:18 pm
My response was that Israel massacres at the fence, ignored by the zionist US mass
media.
mike k , May 31, 2018 at 11:48 am
The extreme wealth and privileges of oligarchy depend on the poverty and slavery of
others. Inequality of income is the root cause of most of our ills. Try to imagine what a
world of economic equals would be like. No striving for more and more wealth at the expense
of others. No wars. What would there be to fight over – everyone would be content with
what they already had.
If you automatically think such a world would be impossible, try to state why. You might
discover that the only obstacle to such a world is the greedy bastards who are sitting on top
of everybody, and will do anything to maintain their advantages.
mike k , May 31, 2018 at 11:52 am
How do the oligarchs ensure your slavery? With the little green tickets they have hoarded
that the rest of us need just to eat and have a roof over our heads. The people sleeping in
the streets tell us the penalty for not being good slaves.
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 12:50 pm
Very true, Mike. Those who say that equality or fairness of income implies breaking the
productivity incentive system are wrong. No matter how much or how little wage incentive we
offer for making an effort in work, we need not have great disparities of income. Those who
can work should have work, and we should all make an effort to do well in our work, but none
of us need the fanciest cars or grand monuments to live in, just to do our best.
Getting rid of oligarchy, and getting money out of mass media and elections, would be the
greatest achievement of our times.
Joe Tedesky , May 31, 2018 at 5:30 pm
An old socialist friend of my dad's generation who claimed to have read the biography of
Andrew Carnegie had told me over a few beers that Carnegie said, "that at a time when he was
paying his workers $5 a week he 'could' have been paying them $50 a day, but then he could
not figure out what kind of life they would lead with all that money". Think about it mike,
if his workers would have had that kind of money it would not be long before Carnegie's
workers became his competition and opened up next door to him the worst case scenario would
be his former workers would sell their steel at a cheaper price, kind of, well no exactly
like what Rockefeller did with oil, or as Carnegie did with steel innovation. How's that
saying go, keep them down on the farm . well. Remember Carnegie was a low level stooge for
the railroads at one time, and rose to the top .mike. Great point to make mike, because there
could be more to go around. Joe
Steve Naidamast , May 31, 2018 at 3:16 pm
"We must restrict funding of elections and mass media to limited individual donations, for
democracy is lost.
We must eliminate zionist fascism from our political parties, federal government, and
foreign policy. Obviously that has nothing to do with any ethnic or religious
preference."
Good luck with that!!!
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 8:19 pm
Well, you are welcome to make suggestions on how to save the republic.
john wilson , May 31, 2018 at 9:10 am
The depths of the deep state has no limits, but as a UK citizen, I fail to see why the
American "spooks" need any help from we Brits when it comes state criminal activity. Sure, we
are masters at underhand dirty tricks, but the US has a basket full of tricks that 'Trump'
(lol) anything we've got. It was the Russians wot done mantra has been going on for many
decades and is ever good for another turn around the political mulberry tree of corruption
and underhand dealings. Whether the Democrats or the Republicans win its all the same to the
deep state as they are in control whoever is in the White House. Trump was an outsider and
there for election colour and the "ho ho ho" look what a great democracy we are, anyone can
be president. He is in fact the very essence of the 'wild card' and when he actually won
there was total confusion, panic, disbelief and probably terror in the caves and dungeons of
the deep state.
Realist , May 31, 2018 at 9:33 am
I'm sure the result was so unexpected that the shadowy fixers, the IT mavens who could
have "adjusted" the numbers, were totally caught off guard and unable to do "cleanly." Not
that they didn't try to re-jigger the results in the four state recounts that were ordered,
but it was simply too late to effectively cheat at that point, as there were already massive
overvotes detected in key urban precincts. Such a thing will never happen again, I am
sure.
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 9:36 am
It appears that UK has long had a supply of anti-Russia fearmongers, presumably backed by
its anti-socialist oligarchy as in the US. Perhaps the US oligarchy is the dumbest salesman,
who believes that all customers are even dumber, so that UK can sell Russophobia here thirty
years after the USSR.
Bob Van Noy , May 31, 2018 at 8:49 am
"But how could Trump think otherwise? As Consortium News founding editor Robert Parry
observed a few days later, the maneuver "resembles a tactic out of FBI Director J. Edgar
Hoover's playbook on government-style blackmail: I have some very derogatory information
about you that I'd sure hate to see end up in the press."
Perfect.
Recently, while trying to justify my arguement that a new investigation into the RFK Killing
was necessary, I was asked why I thought that, and my response was "Modus operandi," exactly
what Robert Parry learned by experience, and that is the fundamental similarity to all of the
institutionalized crime that takes place by the IC. Once one realizes the literary approach
to disinformation that was fundamental to Alan Dulles, James Jesus Angleton, even Ian
Fleming, one can easily see the Themes being applied. I suppose that the very feature of
believability offered by propaganda, once recognized, becomes its undoing. That could be our
current reality; the old Lines simply are beginning to appear to be ridiculous
Thank you Daniel Lazar.
Sam F , June 1, 2018 at 8:39 am
The recognition of themes of propaganda as literary themes and modus operandi is helping
to discredit propaganda. The similarities of the CW false-flag operations (Iraq, Syria, and
UK), and the fake assassinations (Skripal and Babchenko) by the anti-Russia crowd help reveal
and persuade on the falsehood of the Iraq WMD, Syria CW, and MH-17 propaganda ops. Just as
the similarities of the JFK/MLK/RFK assassinations persuade us that commonalities exist long
before we see evidence.
Bob Van Noy , June 1, 2018 at 1:11 pm
Many thanks Sam F for recognizing that. As we begin to achieve a resolution of the 60's
Kllings, we can begin to see the general and specific themes utilized to direct the programs
of Assassination. The other aspect is that real investigation Never followed; and that took
Real Power.
In a truly insightful book by author Sally Denton entitled "The Profiteers" she puts
together a very cogent theory that it isn't the Mafia, it's the Syndicate, which means (for
me at least) real, criminal power with somewhat divergent interests ok with one another, to
the extent that they can maintain their Own Turf. I think that's a profound insight
Too, in a similar vain, the Grand Deceptions of American Foreign Policy, "scenarios" are
simply and only that, not a Real possible solution. Always resulting in failure
Sam F , June 1, 2018 at 9:23 pm
Yes, it is difficult to determine the structure of a subculture of gangsterism in power,
which can have many specialized factions in loose cooperation, agreeing on some general
policy points, like benefits for the rich, hatred of socialism, institutionalized bribery of
politicians and judges, militarized policing, destruction of welfare and social security,
deregulation of everything, essentially the neocon/neolib line of the DemReps. The party line
of oligarchy in any form.
Indeed the foreign policy of such gangsters is designed to "fail" because destruction of
cultures, waste, and fragmentation most efficiently exploits the bribery structure available,
and serves the anti-socialist oligarchy. Failure of the declared foreign policy is success,
because that is only propaganda to cover the corruption.
You know, not only Gay Trowdy but even Dracula Napolitano think people like Lazare ,
McGovern, etc. are overblown on this issue.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 1:47 pm
SocraticGadfly – Trey Gowdy hasn't even seen the documents yet, so he's hardly in a
position to say anything. The House Intelligence Committee, under Chairman Nunes, are being
stymied by the FBI and the Department of Justice who are refusing to hand over documents.
Refusing! Refusing to disclose documents to the very people who, by law, have oversight.
Nunes is threatening to hit them with Contempt of Congress.
Let's see the documents. Then Trey Gowdy can open his mouth.
What I take from this head spinning article is the paragraph about Carter Page.
"On July 7, 2016 Carter Page delivered a lecture on U.S.-Russian relations in Moscow in
which he complained that "Washington and other western capitals have impeded potential
progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality,
corruption, and regime change." Washington hawks expressed "unease" that someone representing
the presumptive Republican nominee would take Russia's side in a growing neo-Cold War
Mr. Page hit the nail on the head. There is no greater sin to entrenched power than to
spell out what is going on with Russia. It helps us understand why terms like dupe and
naïve were stuck on Carter Page's back.. Truth to power is not always good for your
health.
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 10:07 am
The tyrant accuses of disloyalty, all who question the reality of his foreign
monsters.
And so do his monster-fighting agencies, whose budgets depend upon the fiction.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:25 am
Daniel Lazare – good report. "It sounds more like CIA paranoia raised to the nth
degree." This wasn't a case of paranoia. This was a blatant attempt to bring down a rival
opponent and, failing that, the President of the United States. This was intentional and
required collusion between top officials of the government. They fabricated the phony Steele
dossier (paid for by the Clinton campaign), exonerated Hillary Clinton, and then went to town
on bringing down Trump.
"Was George Popodopolous set up?" Of course he was. Set up a patsy in order to give you
reason to carry out a phony investigation.
"If the corporate press fails to point this out, it's because reporters are too befogged
themselves to notice." They're not befogged; they're following orders (the major television
and newspaper outfits). Without their 24/7 spin and lies, Russiagate would never have been
kept alive.
These guys got the biggest surprise of their life when Hillary Clinton lost the election.
None of this would have come out had she won. During the campaign, as Trump gained in the
polls, she was heard to say, "If they ever find out what we've done, we'll all hang."
I hope they see jail time for what they've done.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:38 am
Apparently what has come out so far is just the tip of the iceberg. Some are saying this
could lead all the way up to Obama. I hope not, but they have certainly done all they can to
ruin the Trump Presidency.
JohnM , May 31, 2018 at 9:58 am
I'm adjusting my tinfoil hat right now. I'm wondering if Skripal had something to do with
the Steel dossier. The iceberg may be even bigger than thought.
Sam F , May 31, 2018 at 10:18 am
It is known that Skripal's close friend living nearby was an employee of Steele's firm
Orbis.
Chet Roman , May 31, 2018 at 2:58 pm
Exactly, his name is Pablo Miller and he is the MI6 agent who initially recruited Sergei
Skripal. Miller worked for Orbis, Steele's company and listed that in his resume on LinkedIn
but later deleted it. But once it's on the internet it can always be found and it was and it
was published.
robjira , May 31, 2018 at 2:13 pm
John, both Moon Of Alabama and OffGuardian have had excellent coverage of the Skripal
affair. Informed opinions wonder if Sergei Skripal was one of Steele's "Russian sources," and
that he may have been poisoned for the purpose of either a) bolstering the whole "Russia =
evil" narrative, or b) a warning not to ask for more than what he may have conceivably
received for any contribution he may or may not have made to the "dossiere."
mike k , May 31, 2018 at 7:20 am
Interesting details in this article, but we have known this whole Russiagate affair was a
scam from the get go. It all started the day after Trump's unexpected electoral win over
Hillary. The chagrined dems came together and concocted their sore loser alibi – the
Russians did it. They scooped up a lot of pre-election dirt, rolled it into a ball and
directed it at Trump. It is a testament to the media's determination to stick with their
story, that in spite of not a single scrap of real evidence after over a year of digging by a
huge team of democratic hit men and women, this ridiculous story still has supporters.
David G , May 31, 2018 at 10:31 am
"It all started the day after Trump's unexpected electoral win over Hillary."
Not so.
Daniel Lazare's first link in the above piece is to Paul Krugman's July 22, 2016 NY Times
op-ed, "Donald Trump, the Siberian Candidate". (Note how that headline doesn't even bother to
employ a question mark.)
I appreciate that that Krugman column gets pride of place here since I distinctly remember
reading it in my copy of the Times that day, months before the election, and my immediate
reaction to it: nonplussed that such a risible thesis was being aired so prominently, along
with a deep realization that this was only the first shot in what would be a co-ordinated
media disinformation campaign, à la Saddam's WMDs.
Chet Roman , May 31, 2018 at 3:37 pm
Actually, I think the intelligence agencies' (CIA/FBI/DNI) plan started shortly after
Trump gave the names of Page and Papadopoulos to the Washington Post (CIA annex) in a meeting
on March 21, 2016 outlining his foreign policy team.
Carter Page (Naval Academy distinguished graduate and Naval intelligence officer) in 2013
worked as an "under-cover employee" of the FBI in a case that convicted Evgeny Buryakov and
it was reported that he was still an UCE in March of 2016. The FBI never charged or even
hinted that Page was anything but innocent and patriotic. However, in October 2016 the FBI
told the FISA Court that he was a spy to support spying on him. Remember the FISA Court
allows spying on him AND the persons he is in contact, which means almost everyone on the
Trump transition team/administration.
Here is an excerpt from an article by WSJ's Kimberley Strassel:
In "late spring" of 2016, then-FBI Director James Comey briefed White House "National
Security Council Principals" that the FBI had counterintelligence concerns about the Trump
campaign. Carter Page was announced as a campaign adviser on March 21, and Paul Manafort
joined the campaign March 29. The briefing likely referenced both men, since both had
previously been on the radar of law enforcement. But here's what matters: With this briefing,
Mr. Comey officially notified senior political operators on Team Obama that the bureau had
eyes on Donald Trump and Russia. Imagine what might be done in these partisan times with such
explosive information.
And what do you know? Sometime in April, the law firm Perkins Coie (on behalf the Clinton
campaign) hired Fusion GPS, and Fusion turned its attention to Trump-Russia connections.
David G , May 31, 2018 at 4:56 pm
Most interesting, Chet Roman. Thanks.
My understanding is that Trump more or less pulled Page's name out of a hat to show the
WashPost that he had a "foreign policy team", and thus that his campaign wasn't just a hollow
sham, but that at that point he really had had no significant contact at all with Page
– maybe hadn't even met him. It was just a name from his new political world that
sprang to "mind" (or the Trumpian equivalent).
Of course, the Trump campaign *was* just a sham, by conventional Beltway standards: a
ramshackle road show with no actual "foreign policy team", or any other policy team.
So maybe that random piece of B.S. from Trump has caused him a heap of trouble. This is
part of why – no matter how bogus "Russia-gate" is – I just can't bring myself to
feel sorry for old Cheeto Dust.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 6:56 am
Kimberly Strassel of the Wall Street Journal had some good advice:
"Mr. Trump has an even quicker way to bring the hostility to an end.
He can – and should – declassify everything possible, letting Congress and the
public see the truth.
That would put an end to the daily spin and conspiracy theories. It would puncture
Democratic arguments that the administration is seeking to gain this information only for
itself, to "undermine" an investigation.
And it would end the Justice Department's campaign of secrecy, which has done such harm to
its reputation with the public and with Congress."
What do you bet he does?
RickD , May 31, 2018 at 6:44 am
I have serious doubts about the article's veracity. There seems to be a thread running
through it indicating an attempt to whitewash any Russian efforts to get Trump elected. To
dismiss all the evidence of such efforts, and , despite this author's words, there is enough
such evidence, seems more than a bit partisan.
What evidence? I've seen none so far. A lot of claims that there is such evidence but no
one seems to ever say what it is.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:06 am
RickD – thanks for the good laugh before bedtime. I'm with Mr. Merrell and I
actually want to see some evidence. Maybe it was Professor Halper in the kitchen with the
paring knife.
Realist , May 31, 2018 at 9:21 am
Unfortunately, what this guy says is what most Americans still seem to believe. When I ask
people what is the actual hard evidence for "Russiagate" (because I don't know of any that
has been corroborated), I get a response that there have been massive examples of Russian
hacks, Russian posts, tweets and internet adverts–all meant to sabotage Hillary's
candidacy, and very effective, mind you. Putin has been an evil genius worthy of a comic book
villain (to date myself, a regular Lex Luthor). Sez who, ask I? Sez the trustworthy American
media that would never lie to the public, sez they. You know, professional paragons of virtue
like Rachel Maddow and her merry band.
Nobody seems aware of the recent findings about Halpern, none seem to have a realistic
handle on the miniscule scope of the Russian "offenses" against American democracy. Rachel,
the NY Times and WaPo have seen to that with their sins of both commission and omission. Even
the Republican party is doing a half-hearted job of defending its own power base with
rigorous and openly disseminated fact checking. It's like even many of the committee chairs
with long seniority are reluctant to buck the conventional narrative peddled by the media.
Many have chosen to retire rather than fight the media and the Deep State. What's a better
interpretation of events? Or is one to believe that the silent voices, curious retirements
and political heat generated by the Dems, the prosecutors and the media are all independent
variables with no connections? These old pols recognise a good demonizing when they see it,
especially when directed at them.
Personally, I think that not only the GOPers should be fighting like the devil to expose
the truth (which should benefit them in this circumstance) but so should the media and all
the watchdog agencies (ngo's) out there because our democracy WAS hijacked, but it was NOT by
the Russians. Worse than that, it was done by internal domestic enemies of the people who
must be outed and punished to save the constitution and the republic, if it is not too late.
All the misinformation by influential insiders and the purported purveyors of truth
accompanied by the deliberate silence by those who should be chirping like birds suggests it
may well be far too late.
backwardsevolution , May 31, 2018 at 7:53 pm
Realist – a most excellent post! Some poll result I read about the other day
mentioned that well over half of the American public do NOT believe what they are being told
by the media. That was good to hear. But you are right, there are still way too many who
never question anything. If I ever get in trouble, I wouldn't want those types on my jury.
They'd be wide awake during the prosecution's case and fast asleep during my defense.
This is the Swamp at work on both sides of the aisle. Most of the Republicans are hanging
Trump out to dry. They've probably got too much dirt they want to keep hidden themselves, so
retirement looks like a good idea. Get out of Dodge while the going is good, before the real
fighting begins! The Democrats are battling for all they're worth, and I've got to hand it to
them – they're dirty little fighters.
Yes, democracy has been hijacked. Hard to say how long this has been going on –
maybe forever. If there is anything good about Trump's presidency, it's that the Deep State
is being laid out and delivered up on a silver platter for all to see.
There has never been a better chance to take back the country than this. If this
opportunity passes, it will never come again. They will make sure of it.
The greatest thing that Trump could do for the country would be to declassify all
documents. Jeff Sessions is either part of the Deep State or he's been scared off. He's not
going to act. Rosenstein is up to his eyeballs in this mess and he's not going to act. In
fact, he's preventing Nunes from getting documents. It is up to Trump to act. I just hope
he's not being surrounded by a bunch of bad apple lawyers who are giving him bad advice. He
needs to go above the Department of Justice and declassify ALL documents. If he did that, a
lot of these people would probably die of a heart attack within a minute.
mike k , May 31, 2018 at 7:11 am
You sure came out of the woodwork quickly to express your "serious doubts" RickD.
Skip Scott , May 31, 2018 at 8:07 am
Please provide "such evidence". I've yet to see any. The entire prosecution of RussiaGate
has been one big Gish Gallop.
strgr-tgther , May 31, 2018 at 9:39 pm
RickD – Thank you for pointing that out! You were the only one!!! It is a very
strange article leaving Putin and the Russians evidence out and also not a single word about
Stromy Daniels witch is also very strange. I know Hillary would never have approved of any of
this and they don't say that either.
John , June 1, 2018 at 2:26 am
What does Stormy Daniels have to do with RussiaGate?
You know that someone who committed the ultimate war crime by lying us into war to destroy
Libya and re-institute slavery there, and who laughed after watching video of a man that
Nelson Mandela called "The Greatest Living Champion of Human Rights on the Planet" be
sodomized to death with a knife, is somehow too "moral" to do such a thing? Really?
It amazes me how utterly cultish those who support the Red Queen have shown themselves to
be – without apparently realizing that they are obviously on par with the followers of
Jim Jones!
strgr-tgther , June 1, 2018 at 12:17 pm
That is like saying what does income tax have to do with Al Capone. Who went to Alctraz
because he did not pay income tax not for being a gangster. So we know Trump has sexual
relations with Stormy Daniels, then afterward PAID her not to talk about it. So he paid Story
Daniels for sex! That is Prostitution! Same thing. And that is inpeachable, using womens
bodies as objects. If we don't prosecute Trump here then from now on all a John needs to say
to the police is that he was not paying for sex but paying to keep quiet about it. And
Cogress can get Trump for prostitution and disgracing the office of President. Without Russia
investigations we would never have found out about this important fact, so that is what it
has to do with Russia Gate.
"... That did not prevent the "handpicked" authors of that poor excuse for intelligence analysis from expressing "high confidence" that Russian intelligence "relayed material it acquired from the Democratic National Committee to WikiLeaks." Handpicked analysts, of course, say what they are handpicked to say. ..."
"... The June 12, 14, & 15 timing was hardly coincidence. Rather, it was the start of a pre-emptive move to associate Russia with anything WikiLeaks might have been about to publish and to "show" that it came from a Russian hack. ..."
"... "No one has challenged the authenticity of the original documents of Vault 7, which disclosed a vast array of cyber warfare tools developed, probably with help from NSA, by CIA's Engineering Development Group. That Group was part of the sprawling CIA Directorate of Digital Innovation – a growth industry established by John Brennan in 2015. [ (VIPS warned President Obama of some of the dangers of that basic CIA reorganization at the time.] ..."
"... "Scarcely imaginable digital tools – that can take control of your car and make it race over 100 mph, for example, or can enable remote spying through a TV – were described and duly reported in the New York Times and other media throughout March. But the Vault 7, part 3 release on March 31 that exposed the "Marble Framework" program apparently was judged too delicate to qualify as 'news fit to print' and was kept out of the Times at the time, and has never been mentioned since . ..."
"... "More important, the CIA reportedly used Marble during 2016. In her Washington Post report , Nakashima left that out, but did include another significant point made by WikiLeaks; namely, that the obfuscation tool could be used to conduct a 'forensic attribution double game' or false-flag operation because it included test samples in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi." ..."
"... The CIA's reaction to the WikiLeaks disclosure of the Marble Framework tool was neuralgic. Then Director Mike Pompeo lashed out two weeks later, calling Assange and his associates "demons," and insisting; "It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a non-state hostile intelligence service, often abetted by state actors like Russia."Our July 24 Memorandum continued: "Mr. President, we do not know if CIA's Marble Framework, or tools like it, played some kind of role in the campaign to blame Russia for hacking the DNC. Nor do we know how candid the denizens of CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate have been with you and with Director Pompeo. These are areas that might profit from early White House review. [ President Trump then directed Pompeo to invite Binney, one of the authors of the July 24, 2017 VIPS Memorandum to the President, to discuss all this. Binney and Pompeo spent an hour together at CIA Headquarters on October 24, 2017, during which Binney briefed Pompeo with his customary straightforwardness. ] ..."
"... Another false flag operation? Suddenly false flag operations have become the weapon of choice. Interestingly enough, they are nefariously (always) committed by the US or US allies. MH17 was a false flag with an SU-25 Ukraine jet responsible for downing the passenger jet (to blame Russia). All of the chemical attacks in Syria were false flag operations with the supply of sarin/chlorine made in Turkey or directly given to the "rebels" by the CIA or US allies. The White Helmets were of course in on all of the details. Assad was just simply not capable of doing that to "his" people. Forget that the sarin had the chemical signature of the Assad regime sarin supply. Next it was the snipers who used a false flag operation during the Maidan revolution to shoot protesters and police to oust Yanukovych. Only the neo-Nazis could be capable of shooting the Maidan protesters so they could take power. And then Seth Rich was murdered so he couldn't reveal he was the "real" source of the leak. This was hinted by Assange when he offered a reward to find the killers. ..."
"... The author tosses out that the DNC hack was (potentially) a false flag operation by the CIA obviously to undermine Trump while victimizing Russia. ..."
"... I don't seen any cause to say that any false-flag theory you don't like is merely "tossed out" propaganda. One cannot tell in your comment where you think the accounts are credible and where not. No evidence that the Syria CW attacks "had the chemical signature of the Assad regime sarin supply." ..."
"... There can be no doubt that counterintelligence tools would be pursued by our intelligence agencies as a means to create narratives and false evidence based on the production of false flags which support desired geopolitical outcomes. There would be a need to create false flags using technology to support the geopolitical agenda which would be hard or impossible to trace using the forensic tools used by cyber sleuths. ..."
"... Russia-gate is American Exceptionalism writ large which takes on a more sinister aspect as groups like BLM and others are "linked" to alleged "Russian funding"on one and and Soros funding on another ..."
"... (FWIW, this is a new neoliberal phenomenon when the ultra-rich "liberals" can quietly fund marches on Washington and "grassroots" networking making those neophyte movements too easy targets with questionable robust foundation (color revolutions are possible when anyone is able to foot the cost of 1,000 or 2000 "free" signs or t-shirts -- impecccably designed and printed. ..."
"... Excellent post. Thanks also for reminding me I need to revisit the Vault 7 information as source material. These are incredibly important leaks that help connect the dots of criminal State intelligence activities designed to have remained forever hidden. ..."
"... Actually, both Brennan and Hayden testified to Congress that only 3 agencies signed off on their claim. They also said that they'd "hand picked" a special team to run their "investigation," and no other people were involved. So, people known to be perjurers cherry picked "evidence" to make a claim. Let's invade Iraq again. ..."
"... Mueller is not interested in the truth. He can't handle the truth. His purpose is not to divulge the truth. He has no use for truthtellers including the critical possessors of the truth whom you mentioned. This aversion to the truth is the biggest clue that Mueller's activities are a complete sham. ..."
"... Thanks, Ray, for revealing that the CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate is the likely cause of the Russiagate scams. ..."
"... Your disclaimer is hilarious: "We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental." ..."
"... For whatever reason, Ray McGovern chose not to mention the murder of Seth Rich, which pretty clearly points to the real source of the leak being him, as hinted by Assange offering a reward for anyone uncovering his killer. The whole thing stinks of a democratic conspiracy. ..."
"... Ray, from what I have seen in following his writing for years, meticulously only deals in knowns. The Seth Rich issue is not a known, it is speculation still. Yes, it probably is involved, but unless Craig Murray states that Seth Rich was the one who handed him the USB drive, it is not a known. ..."
"... There is a possibility that Seth Rich was not the one who leaked the information, but that the DNC bigwigs THOUGHT he was, in which case, by neither confirming nor denying that Seth Rich was the leaker, it may be that letting the DNC continue to think it was him is being done in protection of the actual leaker. Seth Rich could also have been killed for unrelated reasons, perhaps Imran Awan thought he was on to his doings. ..."
"... Don't forget this Twitter post by Wikileaks on October 30, 2016: Podesta: "I'm definitely for making an example of a suspected leaker whether or not we have any real basis for it." https://www.wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/36082#efmAGSAH- ..."
"... Mueller has nothing and he well knows it. He was willingly roped into this whole pathetic charade and he's left grasping for anything remotely tied to Trump campaign officials and Russians. Even the most tenuous connections and weak relationships are splashed across the mass media in breathless headlines. Meanwhile, NONE of the supposed skulduggery unearthed by Mueller has anything to do with the Kremlin "hacking" the election to favor Trump. Which was the entire raison d'etre behind Rosenstein and Mueller's crusade on behalf of the deplorable DNC and Washington militarist-imperialists. Sure be interesting to see how Mueller and his crew ultimately extricate themselves from this giant fraudulent edifice of deceit. Will they even be able to save the most rudimentary amount of face? ..."
"... If they had had any evidence to inculpate Russia, we would have all seen it by now. They know that by stating that there is an investigation going on: they can blame Russia. The Democratic National Committee is integrated by a pack of liars. ..."
"... My question is simple, when will we concentrate on reading Hillary's many emails? After all wasn't this the reason for the Russian interference mania? Until we do, take apart Hillary's correspondence with her lackeys, nothing will transpire of any worth. I should not be the one saying this, in as much as Bernie Sanders should be the one screaming it for justice from the highest roof tops, but he isn't. So what's up with that? Who all is involved in this scandalous coverup? What do the masters of corruption have on everybody? ..."
If you are wondering why so little is heard these days of accusations that Russia hacked
into the U.S. election in 2016, it could be because those charges could not withstand
close scrutiny . It
could also be because special counsel Robert Mueller appears to have never bothered to
investigate what was once the central alleged crime in Russia-gate as no one associated with
WikiLeaks has ever been questioned by his team.
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity -- including two "alumni" who were former
National Security Agency technical directors -- have long since concluded that Julian Assange
did not acquire what he called the "emails related to Hillary Clinton" via a "hack" by the
Russians or anyone else. They found, rather, that he got them from someone with physical access
to Democratic National Committee computers who copied the material onto an external storage
device -- probably a thumb drive. In December 2016 VIPS explained
this in some detail in an open Memorandum to President Barack Obama.
On January 18, 2017 President Obama admitted
that the "conclusions" of U.S. intelligence regarding how the alleged Russian hacking got to
WikiLeaks were "inconclusive." Even the vapid FBI/CIA/NSA "Intelligence Community Assessment of
Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections" of January 6, 2017, which tried to
blame Russian President Vladimir Putin for election interference, contained
no direct evidence of Russian involvement. That did not prevent the "handpicked" authors of
that poor excuse for intelligence analysis from expressing "high confidence" that Russian
intelligence "relayed material it acquired from the Democratic National Committee to
WikiLeaks." Handpicked analysts, of course, say what they are handpicked to say.
Never mind. The FBI/CIA/NSA "assessment" became bible truth for partisans like Rep. Adam Schiff
(D-CA), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, who was among the first off the
blocks to blame Russia for interfering to help Trump. It simply could not have been that
Hillary Clinton was quite capable of snatching defeat out of victory all by herself. No, it had
to have been the Russians.
Five days into the Trump presidency, I had a chance to
challenge Schiff personally on the gaping disconnect between the Russians and WikiLeaks.
Schiff still "can't share the evidence" with me or with anyone else, because it does not
exist.
WikiLeaks
It was on June 12, 2016, just six weeks before the Democratic National Convention, that
Assange announced the pending publication of "emails related to Hillary Clinton," throwing the
Clinton campaign into panic mode, since the emails would document strong bias in favor of
Clinton and successful attempts to sabotage the campaign of Bernie Sanders. When the emails
were published on July 22, just three days before the convention began, the campaign decided to
create what I call a Magnificent Diversion, drawing attention away from the substance of the
emails by blaming Russia for their release.
Clinton's PR chief Jennifer Palmieri later admitted that she golf-carted around to various
media outlets at the convention with instructions "to get the press to focus on something even
we found difficult to process: the prospect that Russia had not only hacked and stolen emails
from the DNC, but that it had done so to help Donald Trump and hurt Hillary Clinton." The
diversion worked like a charm. Mainstream media kept shouting "The Russians did it," and gave
little, if any, play to the DNC skullduggery revealed in the emails themselves. And like Brer'
Fox, Bernie didn't say nothin'.
Meanwhile, highly sophisticated technical experts, were hard at work fabricating "forensic
facts" to "prove" the Russians did it. Here's how it played out:
June 12, 2016: Assange announces that WikiLeaks is about to publish "emails related to
Hillary Clinton."
June 14, 2016: DNC contractor CrowdStrike, (with a dubious professional record and multiple
conflicts of interest) announces that malware has been found on the DNC server and claims there
is evidence it was injected by Russians.
June 15, 2016: "Guccifer 2.0" affirms the DNC statement; claims responsibility for the
"hack;" claims to be a WikiLeaks source; and posts a document that the forensics show was
synthetically tainted with "Russian fingerprints."
The June 12, 14, & 15 timing was hardly coincidence. Rather, it was the start of a
pre-emptive move to associate Russia with anything WikiLeaks might have been about to publish
and to "show" that it came from a Russian hack.
Enter Independent Investigators
A year ago independent cyber-investigators completed the kind of forensic work that, for
reasons best known to then-FBI Director James Comey, neither he nor the "handpicked analysts"
who wrote the Jan. 6, 2017 assessment bothered to do. The independent investigators found
verifiable evidence from metadata found in the record of an alleged Russian hack of July 5,
2016 showing that the "hack" that day of the DNC by Guccifer 2.0 was not a hack, by Russia or
anyone else.
Rather it originated with a copy (onto an external storage device – a thumb drive, for
example) by an insider -- the same process used by the DNC insider/leaker before June 12, 2016
for an altogether different purpose. (Once the metadata was found and the "fluid dynamics"
principle of physics applied, this was not difficult to
disprove the validity of the claim that Russia was responsible.)
One of these independent investigators publishing under the name of The Forensicator on May
31
published new evidence that
the Guccifer 2.0 persona uploaded a document from the West Coast of the United States, and not
from Russia.
In our July 24, 2017 Memorandum to President Donald Trump we stated ,
"We do not know who or what the murky Guccifer 2.0 is. You may wish to ask the FBI."
Our July 24 Memorandum continued: "Mr. President, the disclosure described below may be
related. Even if it is not, it is something we think you should be made aware of in this
general connection. On March 7, 2017, WikiLeaks began to publish a trove of original CIA
documents that WikiLeaks labeled 'Vault 7.' WikiLeaks said it got the trove from a current or
former CIA contractor and described it as comparable in scale and significance to the
information Edward Snowden gave to reporters in 2013.
"No one has challenged the authenticity of the original documents of Vault 7, which
disclosed a vast array of cyber warfare tools developed, probably with help from NSA, by CIA's
Engineering Development Group. That Group was part of the sprawling CIA Directorate of Digital
Innovation – a growth industry established by John Brennan in 2015. [ (VIPS warned
President Obama of some of the dangers of that basic CIA reorganization at the time.]
Marbled
"Scarcely imaginable digital tools – that can take control of your car and make it
race over 100 mph, for example, or can enable remote spying through a TV – were described
and duly reported in the New York Times and other media throughout March. But the Vault 7, part
3 release on March 31 that exposed the "Marble Framework" program apparently was judged too
delicate to qualify as 'news fit to print' and was kept out of the Times at the time, and has
never been mentioned since .
"The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima, it seems, 'did not get the memo' in time. Her March
31
article bore the catching (and accurate) headline: 'WikiLeaks' latest release of CIA
cyber-tools could blow the cover on agency hacking operations.'
"The WikiLeaks release indicated that Marble was designed for flexible and easy-to-use
'obfuscation,' and that Marble source code includes a "de-obfuscator" to reverse CIA text
obfuscation.
"More important, the CIA reportedly used Marble during 2016. In her Washington Post
report , Nakashima left that out, but did include another significant point made by
WikiLeaks; namely, that the obfuscation tool could be used to conduct a 'forensic attribution
double game' or false-flag operation because it included test samples in Chinese, Russian,
Korean, Arabic and Farsi."
A few weeks later William Binney, a former NSA technical, and I commented on
Vault 7 Marble, and were able to get a shortened op-ed version
published in The Baltimore Sun
The CIA's reaction to the WikiLeaks disclosure of the Marble Framework tool was
neuralgic. Then Director Mike Pompeo lashed out two weeks later, calling Assange and his
associates "demons," and insisting; "It's time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is, a
non-state hostile intelligence service, often abetted by state actors like Russia."Our July 24
Memorandum continued: "Mr. President, we do not know if CIA's Marble Framework, or tools like
it, played some kind of role in the campaign to blame Russia for hacking the DNC. Nor do we
know how candid the denizens of CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate have been with you and
with Director Pompeo. These are areas that might profit from early White House review. [
President Trump then directed Pompeo to invite Binney, one of the authors of the July 24, 2017
VIPS Memorandum to the President, to discuss all this. Binney and Pompeo spent an hour together
at CIA Headquarters on October 24, 2017, during which Binney briefed Pompeo with his customary
straightforwardness. ]
We also do not know if you have discussed cyber issues in any detail with President Putin.
In his interview with NBC's Megyn Kelly he seemed quite willing – perhaps even eager
– to address issues related to the kind of cyber tools revealed in the Vault 7
disclosures, if only to indicate he has been briefed on them. Putin pointed out that today's
technology enables hacking to be 'masked and camouflaged to an extent that no one can
understand the origin' [of the hack] And, vice versa, it is possible to set up any entity or
any individual that everyone will think that they are the exact source of that attack.
"'Hackers may be anywhere,' he said. 'There may be hackers, by the way, in the United States
who very craftily and professionally passed the buck to Russia. Can't you imagine such a
scenario? I can.'
New attention has been drawn to these issues after I discussed them in a widely published
16-minute
interview last Friday.
In view of the highly politicized environment surrounding these issues, I believe I must
append here the same notice that VIPS felt compelled to add to our key Memorandum of July 24,
2017:
"Full Disclosure: Over recent decades the ethos of our intelligence profession has eroded in
the public mind to the point that agenda-free analysis is deemed well nigh impossible. Thus, we
add this disclaimer, which applies to everything we in VIPS say and do: We have no political
agenda; our sole purpose is to spread truth around and, when necessary, hold to account our
former intelligence colleagues.
"We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any resemblance between what we say
and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental." The fact we find it
is necessary to include that reminder speaks volumes about these highly politicized times.
Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the
Savior in inner-city Washington. He was an Army infantry/intelligence officer before serving as
a CIA analyst for 27 years. His duties included preparing, and briefing one-on-one, the
President's Daily Brief.
ThomasGilroy , June 9, 2018 at 9:44 am
"More important, the CIA reportedly used Marble during 2016. In her Washington Post
report, Nakashima left that out, but did include another significant point made by
WikiLeaks; namely, that the obfuscation tool could be used to conduct a 'forensic
attribution double game' or false-flag operation because it included test samples in
Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi."
Another false flag operation? Suddenly false flag operations have become the weapon of
choice. Interestingly enough, they are nefariously (always) committed by the US or US allies.
MH17 was a false flag with an SU-25 Ukraine jet responsible for downing the passenger jet (to
blame Russia). All of the chemical attacks in Syria were false flag operations with the
supply of sarin/chlorine made in Turkey or directly given to the "rebels" by the CIA or US
allies. The White Helmets were of course in on all of the details. Assad was just simply not
capable of doing that to "his" people. Forget that the sarin had the chemical signature of
the Assad regime sarin supply. Next it was the snipers who used a false flag operation during
the Maidan revolution to shoot protesters and police to oust Yanukovych. Only the neo-Nazis
could be capable of shooting the Maidan protesters so they could take power. And then Seth
Rich was murdered so he couldn't reveal he was the "real" source of the leak. This was hinted
by Assange when he offered a reward to find the killers.
The author tosses out that the DNC hack was (potentially) a false flag operation by the
CIA obviously to undermine Trump while victimizing Russia. It must be the Gulf of Tonkin all
over again. While Crowdstrike might have a "dubious professional record and multiple
conflicts of interest", their results were also confirmed by several other cyber-security
firms (Wikipedia):
cybersecurity experts and firms, including CrowdStrike, Fidelis Cybersecurity, Mandiant,
SecureWorks, ThreatConnect, and the editor for Ars Technica, have rejected the claims of
"Guccifer 2.0" and have determined, on the basis of substantial evidence, that the
cyberattacks were committed by two Russian state-sponsored groups (Cozy Bear and Fancy
Bear).
Then there was Papadopoulas who coincidentally was given the information that Russia had
"dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. Obviously, they were illegally
obtained (unless this was another CIA false flag operation). This was before the release of
the emails by WikiLeaks. This was followed by the Trump Tower meeting with Russians with
connections to the Russian government and the release of the emails by WikiLeaks shortly
thereafter. Additionally, Russia had the motive to defeat HRC and elect Trump. Yesterday,
Trump pushed for the reinstatement of Russia at the G-7 summit. What a shock! All known
evidence and motive points the finger directly at Russia.
Calling everything a false flag operation is really the easy way out, but ultimately, it
lets the responsible culprits off of the hook.
anon , June 9, 2018 at 11:28 am
I don't seen any cause to say that any false-flag theory you don't like is merely "tossed
out" propaganda.
One cannot tell in your comment where you think the accounts are credible and where not.
No evidence that the Syria CW attacks "had the chemical signature of the Assad regime sarin
supply."
CitizenOne , June 8, 2018 at 11:40 pm
There can be no doubt that counterintelligence tools would be pursued by our intelligence
agencies as a means to create narratives and false evidence based on the production of false
flags which support desired geopolitical outcomes. There would be a need to create false
flags using technology to support the geopolitical agenda which would be hard or impossible
to trace using the forensic tools used by cyber sleuths.
In pre computer technology days there were also many false flags which were set up to
create real world scenarios which suited the geopolitical agenda. Even today, there are many
examples of tactical false flag operations either organized and orchestrated or utilized by
the intelligence agencies to create the narrative which supports geopolitical objectives.
Examples:
The US loaded munitions in broad daylight visible to German spies onto the passenger ship
Lusitania despite German warnings that they would torpedo any vessels suspected of carrying
munitions. The Lusitania then proceeded to loiter unaccompanied by escorts in an area off the
Ireland coast treading over the same waters until it was spotted by a German U-Boat and was
torpedoed. This was not exactly a false flag since the German U-Boat pulled the trigger but
it was required to gain public support for the entrance of the US into WWI. It worked.
There is evidence that the US was deliberately caught "off guard" in the Pearl Harbor
Attack. Numerous coded communication intercepts were made but somehow the advanced warning
radar on the island of Hawaii was mysteriously turned off in the hours before and during the
Japanese attack which guaranteed that the attack would be successful and also guaranteed that
our population would instantly sign on to the war against Japan. It worked.
There is evidence that the US deliberately ignored the intelligence reports that UBL was
planning to conduct an attack on the US using planes as bombs. The terrorists who carried out
the attacks on the twin towers were "allowed" to conduct them. The result was the war in Iraq
which was sold based on a pack of lies about WMDs and which we used to go to war with
Iraq.
The Tonkin Gulf incident which historians doubt actually happened or believe if it did was
greatly exaggerated by intelligence and military sources was used to justify the war in
Vietnam.
The Spanish American War was ginned up by William Randolph Hearst and his yellow
journalism empire to justify attacking Cuba, Panama and the Philippines. The facts revealed
by forensic analysis of the exploded USS Maine have shown that the cataclysm was caused by a
boiler explosion not an enemy mine. At the time this was also widely believed to not be
caused by a Spanish mine in the harbor but the news sold the story of Spanish treachery and
war was waged.
In each case of physical false flags created on purpose, or allowed to happen or just made
up by fictions based on useful information that could be manipulated and distorted the US was
led to war. Some of these wars were just wars and others were wars of choice but in every
case a false flag was needed to bring the nation into a state where we believed we were under
attack and under the circumstances flocked to war. I will not be the judge of history or
justice here since each of these events had both negative and positive consequences for our
nation. What I will state is that it is obvious that the willingness to allow or create or
just capitalize on the events which have led to war are an essential ingredient. Without a
publicly perceived and publicly supported cause for war there can be no widespread support
for war. I can also say our leaders have always known this.
Enter the age of technology and the computer age with the electronic contraptions which
enable global communication and commerce.
Is it such a stretch to imagine that the governments desire to shape world events based on
military actions would result in a plan to use these modern technologies to once again create
in our minds a cyber scenario in which we are once again as a result of the "cyber" false
flag prepared for us to go to war? Would it be too much of a stretch to imagine that the
government would use the new electronic frontier just as it used the old physical world
events to justify military action?
Again, I will not go on to condemn any action by our military but will focus on how did we
get there and how did we arrive at a place where a majority favored war.
Whether created by physical or cyberspace methods we can conclude that such false flags
will happen for better or worse in any medium available.
susan sunflower , June 8, 2018 at 7:52 pm
I'd like "evidence" and I'd also like "context" since apparently international electoral
"highjinks" and monkey-wrenching and rat-f*cking have a long tradition and history (before
anyone draws a weapon, kills a candidate or sicc's death squads on the citizenry.
The DNC e-mail publication "theft" I suspect represents very small small potatoes for so
many reasons As Dixon at Black Agenda Report put it . Russia-gate is American Exceptionalism
writ large which takes on a more sinister aspect as groups like BLM and others are "linked"
to alleged "Russian funding"on one and and Soros funding on another
(FWIW, this is a new neoliberal phenomenon when the ultra-rich "liberals" can quietly fund
marches on Washington and "grassroots" networking making those neophyte movements too easy
targets with questionable robust foundation (color revolutions are possible when anyone is
able to foot the cost of 1,000 or 2000 "free" signs or t-shirts -- impecccably designed and
printed.
Excellent post. Thanks also for reminding me I need to revisit the Vault 7 information as
source material. These are incredibly important leaks that help connect the dots of criminal
State intelligence activities designed to have remained forever hidden.
Skip Scott , June 8, 2018 at 1:07 pm
I can't think of any single piece of evidence that our MSM is under the very strict
control of our so-called intelligence agencies than how fast and completely the Vault 7
releases got flushed down the memory hole. "Nothing to see here folks, move along."
I don't think anyone can predict whether or not Sanders would have won as a 3rd party
candidate. He ran a remarkable campaign, but when he caved to the Clinton machine he lost a
lot of supporters, including me. If he had stood up at the convention and talked of the DNC
skullduggery exposed by Wikileaks, and said "either I run as a democrat, or I run as a Green,
but I'm running", he would have at least gotten 15 pct to make the TV debates, and who knows
what could have happened after that. 40 pct of registered voters didn't vote. That alone
tells you it is possible he might have won.
Instead he expected us to follow him like he was the f'ing Pied Piper to elect another
Wall St. loving warmonger. That's why he gets no "pass" from me. He (and the Queen of Chaos)
gave us Trump. BTW, Obama doesn't get a "pass" either.
willow , June 8, 2018 at 9:24 pm
It's all about the money. A big motive for the DNC to conjure up Russia-gate was to keep
donors from abandoning any future
Good Ship Hillary or other Blue Dog Democrat campaigns: "Our brand/platform wasn't flawed. It
was the Rooskies."
Vivian O'Blivion , June 8, 2018 at 8:22 am
An earlier time line.
March 14th. Popadopoulos has first encounter with Mifsud.
April 26th. Mifsud tells Popadopoulos that Russians have "dirt" on Clinton, including "thousands of e-mails".
May 4th. Trump last man standing in Republican primary.
May 10th. Popadopoulos gets drunk with London based Australian diplomat and talks about "dirt" but not specifically
e-mails.
June 9th. Don. Jr meets in Trump tower with Russians promising "dirt" but not specifically in form of e-mails.
It all comes down to who Mifsud is, who he is working for and why he has been "off grid" to journalists (but not presumably
Intelligence services) for > 6 months.
Specific points.
On March 14th Popadopoulos knew he was transferring from team Carson to team Trump but this was not announced to the
(presumably underwhelmed) world 'till March 21st. Whoever put Mifsud onto Popadopoulos was very quick on their feet.
The Australian diplomat broke chain of command by reporting the drunken conversation to the State Department as opposed to his
domestic Intelligence service. If Mifsud was a western asset, Australian Intelligence would likely be aware of his status.
If Mifsud was a Russian asset why would demonstrably genuine Russians be trying to dish up the dirt on Clinton in June?
There are missing pieces to this jigsaw puzzle but it's starting to look like a deep state operation to dirty Trump in the
unlikely event that he went on to win.
Realist , June 8, 2018 at 4:28 pm
Ms. Clinton was personally trying to tar Trump with allusions to "Russia" and being
"Putin's puppet" long before he won the presidency, in fact, quite conspicuously during the
two conventions and most pointedly during the debates. She was willing to use that ruse long
before her defeat at the ballot box. It was the straw that she clung to and was willing to
use as a pretext for overturning the election after the unthinkable happened. But, you are
right, smearing Trump through association with Russia was part of her long game going back to
the early primaries, especially since her forces (both in politics and in the media) were
trying mightily to get him the nomination under the assumption that he would be the easiest
(more like the only) Republican candidate that she could defeat come November.
Wcb , June 8, 2018 at 5:25 pm
Steven Halper?
Rob Roy , June 8, 2018 at 1:33 am
I might add to this informative article that the reason why Julian Assange has been
ostracized and isolated from any public appearance, denied a cell phone, internet and
visitors is that he tells the truth, and TPTB don't want him to say yet again that the emails
were leaked from the DNC. I've heard him say it several times. H. Clinton was so shocked and
angry that she didn't become president as she so confidently expected that her, almost
knee-jerk, reaction was to find a reason that was outside of herself on which to blame her
defeat. It's always surprised me that no one talks about what was in those emails which
covered her plans for Iran and Russia (disgusting).
Trump is a sociopath, but the Russians had nothing to do with him becoming elected. I was
please to read here that he or perhaps just Pompeo? met with Binney. That's a good thing,
though Pompeo, too, is unstable and war hungry to follow Israel into bombing yet another
innocent sovereign country. Thank, Mr. McGovern for another excellent coverage of this
story.
MLS , June 7, 2018 at 9:59 pm
"no one associated with WikiLeaks has ever been questioned by his team"
Do tell, Ray: How do you know what the GOP Congress appointed Special Prosecutor's investigation –
with its unlimited budget, wide mandate, and notable paucity of leaks – has and has not
done?
strgr-tgther , June 8, 2018 at 12:14 am
MLS: Thank you! No one stands up for what is right any more. We have 17 Intelligency
agencies that say are election was stolen. And just last week the Republicans Paul Ryan,
Mitch McConnel and Trey Gowdy (who I detest) said the FBI and CIA and NSA were just doing
there jobs the way ALL AMERICANS woudl want them to. And even Adam Schiff, do you think he
will tell any reporter what evidence he does have? #1 It is probably classified and #2 he is
probably saving it for the inpeachment. We did not find out about the Nixon missing 18
minutes until the end anyways. All of these articles sound like the writer just copied Sean
Hannity and wrote everything down he said, and yesterday he told all suspects in the Mueller
investigation to Smash and Bleach there mobile devices, witch is OBSTRUCTION of justice and
witness TAMPERING. A great American there!
Rob Roy , June 8, 2018 at 1:48 am
strgr-tgther:
Sean Hannity??? Ha, ha, ha.
As Mr. McGoven wrote .."any resemblance between what we say and what presidents,
politicians and pundits say is purely coincidental."
John , June 8, 2018 at 5:48 am
Sorry I had to come back and point out the ultimate irony of ANYONE who supports the
Butcher of Libya complaining about having an election stolen from them (after the blatant
rigging of the primary that caused her to take the nomination away from the ONE PERSON who
was polling ahead of Trump beyond the margin of error of the polls.)
It is people like you who gave us Trump. The Pied Piper Candidate promoted by the DNC
machine (as the emails that were LEAKED, not "hacked", as the metadata proves conclusively,
show.)
incontinent reader , June 8, 2018 at 7:14 am
What is this baloney? Seventeen Intelligence agencies DID NOT conclude what you are
alleging, And in fact, Brennan and his cabal avoided using a National intelligence Estimate,
which would have shot down his cherry-picked 'assessment' before it got off the ground
– and it would have been published for all to read.
The NSA has everything on everybody, yet has never released anything remotely indicating
Russian collusion. Do you think the NSA Director, who, as you may recall, did not give a
strong endorsement to the Brennan-Comey assessment, would have held back from the Congress
such information, if it had existed, when he was questioned? Furthermore, former technical
directors of the NSA, Binney, Wiebe and Loomis- the very best of the best- have proven
through forensics that the Wikileaks disclosures were not obtained by hacking the DNC
computers, but by a leak, most likely to a thumb drive on the East Coast of the U.S. How many
times does it have to be laid out for you before you are willing and able to absorb the
facts?
As for Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, (and Trey Gowdy, who was quite skilled on the
Benghazi and the Clinton private email server investigations- investigations during which
Schiff ran interference for Clinton- but has seemed unwilling to digest the Strozk, Page,
McCabe, et al emails and demand a Bureau housecleaning), who cares what they think or say,
what matters is the evidence.
I suggest you familiarize yourself with the facts- and start by rereading Ray's articles,
and the piece by Joe diGenova posted on Ray's website.
Realist , June 8, 2018 at 4:12 pm
The guy's got Schiff for brains. Everyone who cares about the truth has known since before
Mueller started his charade that the "17 intelligence agency" claim was entirely a ruse,
bald-faced confected propaganda to anger the public to support the coup attempted by Ms.
Clinton and her zombie followers. People are NOT going to support the Democratic party now or
in the future when its tactics include subverting our public institutions, including the
electoral process under the constitution–whether you like the results or not! If the
Democratic party is to be saved, those honest people still in it should endeavor to drain the
septic tank that has become their party before we can all drain the swamp that is the federal
government and its ex-officio manipulators (otherwise known as the "deep state") in
Washington.
Farmer Pete , June 8, 2018 at 7:30 am
"We have 17 Intelligency agencies that say are election was stolen."
You opened up with a talking point that is factually incorrect. The team of hand-picked
spooks that slapped the "high confidence" report together came from 3 agencies. I know, 17
sounds like a lot and very convincing to us peasants. Regardless, it's important to practice
a few ounces of skepticism when it comes to institutions with a long rap sheet of crime and
deception. Taking their word for it as a substitute for actual observable evidence is naive
to say the least. The rest of your hollow argument is filled with "probably(s)". If I were
you, I'd turn off my TV and stop looking for scapegoats for an epically horrible presidential
campaign and candidate.
strgr-tgther , June 8, 2018 at 12:50 pm
/horrible presidential campaign and candidate/ Say you. But we all went to sleep
comfortable the night before the election where 97% of all poles said Clinton was going to be
are next President. And that did not happen! So Robert Mueller is going to find out EXACTLY
why. Stay tuned!!!
irina , June 8, 2018 at 3:40 pm
Not 'all'. I knew she was toast after reading that she had cancelled her election night
fireworks
celebration, early on the morning of Election Day. She must have known it also, too.
And she was toast in my mind after seeing the ridiculous scene of her virtual image
'breaking the glass ceiling' during the Democratic Convention. So expensively stupid.
Realist , June 8, 2018 at 3:50 pm
Mueller is simply orchestrating a dramatic charade to distract you from the obvious reason
why she lost: Trump garnered more electoral votes, even after the popular votes were counted
and recounted. Any evidence of ballot box stuffing in the key states pointed to the
Democrats, so they gave that up. She and her supporters like you have never stopped trying to
hoodwink the public either before or after the election. Too many voters were on to you,
that's why she lost.
Realist , June 8, 2018 at 3:57 pm
Indeed, stop the nonsense which can't be changed short of a coup d'etat, and start
focusing on opposing the bad policy which this administration has been pursuing. I don't see
the Dems doing that even in their incipient campaigns leading up to the November elections.
Fact is, they are not inclined to change the policies, which are the same ones that got them
"shellacked" at the ballot box in 2016. (I think Obama must own lots of stock in the shellack
trade.)
Curious , June 8, 2018 at 6:27 pm
Ignorance of th facts keep showing up in your posts for some unknown reason. Sentence two:
"we have 17 intelligency (sic) agencies that say ". this statement was debunked a long time
ago.
Have you learned nothing yet regarding the hand-picked people out of three agencies after all
this time? Given that set of lies it makes your post impossible to read.
I would suggest a review of what really happened before you perpetuate more myths and this
will benefit all.
Also, a good reading of the Snowden Docs and vault 7 should scare you out of your shell since
our "intelligeny" community can pretend to be Chinese, Russian, Iranian just for starters,
and the blame game can start after hours instead of the needed weeks and/or months to
determine the veracity of a hack and/or leak.
It's past trying to win you over with the actual 'time lines' and truths. Mr McGovern has
re-emphasized in this article the very things you should be reading.
Start with Mr Binney and his technical evaluation of the forensics in the DNC docs and build
out from there This is just a suggestion.
What never ceases to amaze me in your posts is the 'issue' that many of the docs were
bought and paid for by the Clinton team, and yet amnesia has taken over those aspects as
well. Shouldn't you start with the Clintons paying for this dirt before it was ever
attributed to Trump?
Daniel , June 8, 2018 at 6:38 pm
Actually, both Brennan and Hayden testified to Congress that only 3 agencies signed off on
their claim. They also said that they'd "hand picked" a special team to run their
"investigation," and no other people were involved. So, people known to be perjurers cherry
picked "evidence" to make a claim. Let's invade Iraq again.
More than 1/2 of their report was about RT, and even though that was all easily viewable
public record, they got huge claims wrong. Basically, the best they had was that RT covered
Occupy Wall Street and the NO DAPL and BLM protests, and horror of horrors, aired third party
debates! In a democracy! How dare they?
Why didn't FBI subpoena DNC's servers so they could run their own forensics on them? Why
did they just accept the claims of a private company founded by an Atlantic Council board
member? Did you know that CrowdStrike had to backpedal on the exact same claim they made
about the DNC server when Ukraine showed they were completely wrong regarding Ukie
artillery?
Joe Lauria , June 8, 2018 at 2:12 am
Until he went incommunicado Assange stated on several occasions that he was never
questioned by Muellers team. Craig Murray has said the same. And Kim Dotcom has written to
Mueller offering evidence about the source and he says they have never replied to him.
Realist , June 8, 2018 at 3:40 pm
Mueller is not interested in the truth. He can't handle the truth. His purpose is not to
divulge the truth. He has no use for truthtellers including the critical possessors of the
truth whom you mentioned. This aversion to the truth is the biggest clue that Mueller's
activities are a complete sham.
MLS wrote, "How do you know what the GOP Congress appointed Special Prosecutor's
investigation – with its unlimited budget, wide mandate, and notable paucity of leaks
– has and has not done?"
Robert Mueller is NOT a Special Prosecutor appointed by the Congress. He is a special
counsel appointed by the Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, and is part of the
Department of Justice.
I know no one who dislikes Trumps wants to hear it. But all Mueller's authority and power
to act is derived from Donald J. Trump's executive authority because he won the 2016
presidential election. Mueller is down the chain of command in the Executive Department.
That's why this is all nonsense. What we basically have is Trump investigating himself.
The framers of the Constitution never intended this. They intended Congress to investigate
the Executive and that's why they gave Congress the power to remove him or her via
impeachment.
As long as we continue with this folly of expecting the Justice Department to somehow
investigate and prosecute a president we end up with two terrible possibilities. Either a
corrupt president will exercise his legitimate authority to end the investigation like Nixon
did -or- we have a Deep State beyond the reach of the elected president that can effectively
investigate and prosecute a corrupt president, but also then has other powers with no
democratic control.
The solution to this dilemma? An empowered Congress elected by the People operating as the
Constitution intended.
As to the rest of your post? It is an example of the "will to believe." Me? I'll not act
as if there is evidence of Russian interference until I'm shown evidence, not act as if it
must be true, because I want to believe that, until it's fully proven that it didn't
happen.
F. G. Sanford , June 7, 2018 at 8:22 pm
There must be some Trump-Russia ties.
Or so claim those CIA spies-
McCabe wants a deal, or else he won't squeal,
He'll dissemble when he testifies!
No one knows what's on Huma's computer.
There's no jury and no prosecutor.
Poor Adam Schiff hopes McCabe takes the fifth,
Special council might someday recruit her!
Assange is still embassy bound.
Mueller's case hasn't quite come unwound.
Wayne Madsen implies that there might be some ties,
To Israelis they haven't yet found!
Halper and Mifsud are players.
John Brennan used cutouts in layers.
If the scheme falls apart and the bureau is smart,
They'll go after them all as betrayers!
They needed historical fiction.
A dossier with salacious depiction!
Some urinous whores could get down on all fours,
They'd accomplish some bed sheet emiction!
Pablo Miller and Skripal were cited.
Sidney Blumenthal might have been slighted.
Christopher Steele offered Sidney a deal,
But the dossier's not copyrighted!
That story about Novichok,
Smells a lot like a very large crock.
But they can't be deposed or the story disclosed,
The Skripals have toxic brain block!
Papadopolis shot off his yap.
He told Downer, that affable chap-
There was dirt to report on the Clinton cohort,
Mifsud hooked him with that honey trap!
She was blond and a bombshell to boot.
Papadopolis thought she was cute.
She worked for Mifsud, a mysterious dude,
Now poor Paps is in grave disrepute!
But the trick was to tie it to Russians.
The Clinton team had some discussions.
Their big email scandal was easy to handle,
They'd blame Vlad for the bad repercussions!
There must have been Russian collusion.
That explained all the vote count confusion.
Guccifer Two made the Trump team come through,
If he won, it was just an illusion!
Lisa Page and Pete Strzok were disgusted
They schemed and they plotted and lusted.
If bald-headed Clapper appealed to Jake Tapper,
Brennan's Tweets might get Donald Trump busted!
There had to be cyber subversion.
It would serve as the perfect perversion.
They would claim it was missed if it didn't exist,
It's a logically perfect diversion!
F.G., you've done it again, and I might add, topped even yourself! Thanks.
KiwiAntz , June 7, 2018 at 7:30 pm
What a joke, America, the most dishonest Country on Earth, has meddled, murdered &
committed coups to overturn other Govts & interfered & continues to do so in just
about every Country on Earth by using Trade sanctions, arming Terrorists & illegal
invasions, has the barefaced cheek to puff out its chest & hypocritcally blame Russia for
something that it does on a daily basis?? And the point with Mueller's investigation is not
to find any Russian collusion evidence, who needs evidence when you can just make it up? The
point is provide the US with a list of unfounded lies & excuses, FIRSTLY to slander &
demonise RUSSIA for something they clearly didn't do! SECONDLY, was to provide a excuse for
the Democrats dismal election loss result to the DONALD & his Trump Party which just
happens to contain some Republicans? THIRDLY, to conduct a soft Coup by trying to get Trump
impeached on "TRUMPED UP CHARGES OF RUSSIAN COLLUSION"? And FOURTLY to divert attention away
from scrutiny & cover up Obama & Hillary Clinton's illegal, money grubbing activities
& her treasonous behaviour with her private email server?? After two years of Russiagate
nonsense with NOTHING to show for it, I think it's about time America owes Russia a public
apology & compensation for its blatant lying & slander of a innocent Country for a
crime they never committed?
Sam F , June 7, 2018 at 7:11 pm
Thanks, Ray, for revealing that the CIA's Digital Innovation Directorate is the likely
cause of the Russiagate scams.
I am sure that they manipulate the digital voting machines directly and indirectly. True
elections are now impossible.
Your disclaimer is hilarious: "We speak and write without fear or favor. Consequently, any
resemblance between what we say and what presidents, politicians and pundits say is purely
coincidental."
Antiwar7 , June 7, 2018 at 6:23 pm
Expecting the evil people running the show to respond to reason is futile, of course. All
of these reports are really addressed to the peanut gallery, where true power lies, if only
they could realize it.
Thanks, Ray and VIPS, for keeping up the good fight.
mike k , June 7, 2018 at 5:55 pm
For whatever reason, Ray McGovern chose not to mention the murder of Seth Rich, which
pretty clearly points to the real source of the leak being him, as hinted by Assange offering
a reward for anyone uncovering his killer. The whole thing stinks of a democratic
conspiracy.
And BTW people have become shy about using the word conspiracy, for fear it will
automatically brand one as a hoaxer. On the contrary, conspiracies are extremely common, the
higher one climbs in the power hierarchy. Like monopolies, conspiracies are central to the
way the oligarchs do business.
John , June 8, 2018 at 5:42 am
Ray, from what I have seen in following his writing for years, meticulously only deals in
knowns. The Seth Rich issue is not a known, it is speculation still. Yes, it probably is
involved, but unless Craig Murray states that Seth Rich was the one who handed him the USB
drive, it is not a known.
There is a possibility that Seth Rich was not the one who leaked the information, but that
the DNC bigwigs THOUGHT he was, in which case, by neither confirming nor denying that Seth
Rich was the leaker, it may be that letting the DNC continue to think it was him is being
done in protection of the actual leaker. Seth Rich could also have been killed for unrelated
reasons, perhaps Imran Awan thought he was on to his doings.
" whether or not"?!! Wow. That's an imperialistic statement.
Drew Hunkins , June 7, 2018 at 5:50 pm
Mueller has nothing and he well knows it. He was willingly roped into this whole pathetic
charade and he's left grasping for anything remotely tied to Trump campaign officials and
Russians. Even the most tenuous connections and weak relationships are splashed across the
mass media in breathless headlines. Meanwhile, NONE of the supposed skulduggery unearthed by
Mueller has anything to do with the Kremlin "hacking" the election to favor Trump. Which was
the entire raison d'etre behind Rosenstein and Mueller's crusade on behalf of the deplorable
DNC and Washington militarist-imperialists. Sure be interesting to see how Mueller and his
crew ultimately extricate themselves from this giant fraudulent edifice of deceit. Will they
even be able to save the most rudimentary amount of face?
So sickening to see the manner in which many DNC sycophants obsequiously genuflect to
their godlike Mueller. A damn prosecutor who was arguably in bed with the Winter Hill
Gang!
jose , June 7, 2018 at 5:13 pm
If they had had any evidence to inculpate Russia, we would have all seen it by now. They
know that by stating that there is an investigation going on: they can blame Russia. The
Democratic National Committee is integrated by a pack of liars.
Jeff , June 7, 2018 at 4:35 pm
Thanx, Ray. The sad news is that everybody now believes that Russia tried to "meddle" in
our election and, since it's a belief, neither facts nor reality will dislodge it. Your
disclaimer should also probably carry the warning – never believe a word a government
official says especially if they are in the CIA, NSA, or FBI unless they provide proof. If
they tell you that it's classified, that they can't divulge it, or anything of that sort, you
know they are lying.
john wilson , June 7, 2018 at 4:09 pm
I suspect the real reason no evidence has been produced is because there isn't any. I know
this is stating the obvious, but if you think about it, as long as the non extent evidence is
supposedly being "investigated" the story remains alive. They know they aren't going to find
anything even remotely plausible that would stand up to any kind of scrutiny, but as long as
they are looking, it has the appearance that there might be something.
Joe Tedesky , June 7, 2018 at 4:08 pm
I first want to thank Ray and the VIPS for their continuing to follow through on this
Russia-Gate story. And it is a story.
My question is simple, when will we concentrate on reading Hillary's many emails? After
all wasn't this the reason for the Russian interference mania? Until we do, take apart
Hillary's correspondence with her lackeys, nothing will transpire of any worth. I should not
be the one saying this, in as much as Bernie Sanders should be the one screaming it for
justice from the highest roof tops, but he isn't. So what's up with that? Who all is involved
in this scandalous coverup? What do the masters of corruption have on everybody?
Now we have Sean Hannity making a strong case against the Clinton's and the FBI's careful
handling of their crimes. What seems out of place, since this should be big news, is that CNN
nor MSNBC seems to be covering this story in the same way Hannity is. I mean isn't this news,
meant to be reported as news? Why avoid reporting on Hillary in such a manner? This must be
that 'fake news' they all talk about boy am I smart.
In the end I have decided to be merely an observer, because there are no good guys or gals
in our nation's capital worth believing. In the end even Hannity's version of what took place
leads back to a guilty Russia. So, the way I see it, the swamp is being drained only to make
more room for more, and new swamp creatures to emerge. Talk about spinning our wheels. When
will good people arrive to finally once and for all drain this freaking swamp, once and for
all?
Realist , June 7, 2018 at 5:25 pm
Ha, ha! Don't you enjoy the magic show being put on by the insiders desperately trying to
hang onto their power even after being voted out of office? Their attempt to distract your
attention from reality whilst feeding you their false illusions is worthy of Penn &
Teller, or David Copperfield (the magician). Who ya gonna believe? Them or your lying
eyes?
Joe Tedesky , June 7, 2018 at 10:00 pm
Realist, You can bet they will investigate everything but what needs investigated, as our
Politico class devolves into survivalist in fighting, the mechanism of war goes
uninterrupted. Joe
F. G. Sanford , June 7, 2018 at 5:34 pm
Joe, speaking of draining the swamp, check out my comment under Ray's June 1 article about
Freddy Fleitz!
Sam F , June 7, 2018 at 6:59 pm
That is just what I was reminded of; here is an antiseptic but less emphatic last
line:
"Swamp draining progresses apace.
It's being accomplished with grace:
They're taking great pains to clean out the drains,"
New swamp creatures will need all that space!
Unfettered Fire , June 8, 2018 at 11:00 am
We must realize that to them, "the Swamp" refers to those in office who still abide by New
Deal policy. Despite the thoroughly discredited neoliberal economic policy, the radical right
are driving the world in the libertarian direction of privatization, austerity, private bank
control of money creation, dismantling the nation-state, contempt for the Constitution,
etc.
"... our government's support for Saudi Arabia and Egypt are not exceptions to the rule at all. They are the rule ..."
"... The problem here isn't just liberal hypocrisy and double standards. The deeper issue is that, as the great American iconoclast Mark Twain knew, you cannot maintain democracy at home while conducting an authoritarian empire abroad. ..."
"... "It was impossible," Twain wrote, "to save the Great Republic. She was rotten to the heart. Lust of conquest had long ago done its work; trampling upon the helpless abroad had taught her, by a natural process, to endure with apathy the like at home." ..."
"... "Just a decade after Twain wrote those prophetic words," the historian Alfred W. McCoy has observed , "colonial police methods came home to serve as a template for the creation of an American internal security apparatus in wartime." The nation's first Red Scare, which crushed left and labor movements during and after World War One, drew heavily on the lessons and practices of colonial suppression in the Philippines and Cuba. As McCoy shows in his latest book, In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power , ..."
"... "The fetters imposed on liberty at home," James Madison wrote in 1799 , "have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defense against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers abroad." Those are wise words well worth revisiting amidst the current endless Russiagate madness, calculated among other things to tell us that the FBI, the CIA, and the rest of the nation's vast and ever more ubiquitous intelligence and surveillance state are on our side. ..."
A final matter concerns the problem of imperial chickens coming home to roost. Liberals
don't like to hear it, but the ugly, richly documented historical fact of the matter is that
their party of binary and tribal choice has long joined Republicans in backing and indeed
crafting a U.S. foreign policy that has imposed
authoritarian regimes (and profoundly undemocratic interventions including invasions and
occupations) the world over . The roster of authoritarian and often-mass murderous
governments the U.S. military and CIA and allied transnational business interests have backed,
sometimes even helped create, with richly bipartisan support, is long indeed.
Last fall, Illinois Green Party leader Mike Whitney ran some fascinating numbers on the 49
nation-states that the right-wing "human rights" organization Freedom House identified as
"dictatorships" in 2016. Leaving aside Freedom House's problematic inclusion of Russia, Cuba,
and Iran on its list, the most remarkable thing about
Whitney's research was his finding that the U.S. offered military assistance to 76 percent
of these governments. (The only exceptions were Belarus, China, Central African Republic, Cuba,
Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Russia, South Sudan, Sudan, and Syria.). "Most
politically aware people," Whitney wrote:
"know of some of the more highly publicized instances examples of [U.S. support for
foreign dictatorships], such as the tens of billions of dollars' worth of US military
assistance provided to the beheading capital of the world, the misogynistic monarchy of Saudi
Arabia, and the repressive military dictatorship now in power in Egypt apologists for our
nation's imperialistic foreign policy try to rationalize such support, arguing that Saudi
Arabia and Egypt are exceptions to the rule. But my survey demonstrates that our
government's support for Saudi Arabia and Egypt are not exceptions to the rule at all. They
are the rule ."
The Pentagon and State Department data Whitney used came from Fiscal Year 2015. It dated
from the next-to-last year of the Obama administration, for which so many liberals recall with
misplaced nostalgia. Freedom House's list should have included Honduras, ruled by a vicious
right-wing government that Obama and his Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton helped install in a June 2009 military coup .
The problem here isn't just liberal hypocrisy and double standards. The deeper issue is
that, as the great American iconoclast Mark Twain knew, you cannot maintain democracy at home
while conducting an authoritarian empire abroad. During the United States' blood-soaked
invasion and occupation of the Philippines, Twain penned an imaginary history of the
twentieth-century United States. "It was impossible," Twain wrote, "to save the Great Republic.
She was rotten to the heart. Lust of conquest had long ago done its work; trampling upon the
helpless abroad had taught her, by a natural process, to endure with apathy the like at
home."
"Just a decade after Twain wrote those prophetic words," the historian
Alfred W. McCoy has observed , "colonial police methods came home to serve as a template
for the creation of an American internal security apparatus in wartime." The nation's first Red
Scare, which crushed left and labor movements during and after World War One, drew heavily on
the lessons and practices of colonial suppression in the Philippines and Cuba. As McCoy shows
in his latest book, In the Shadows of the
American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power , the same basic process --
internal U.S. repression informed and shaped by authoritarian and imperial practices abroad and
justified by alleged external threats to the "homeland" -- has recurred ever since. Today, the
rise of an unprecedented global surveillance state overseen by the National Security Agency has
cost the US the trust of many of its top global allies (under Bush43 and Obama44, not just
under Trump45) while undermining civil liberties and democracy within as beyond the
U.S.
"The fetters imposed on liberty at home," James Madison wrote in 1799 , "have ever
been forged out of the weapons provided for defense against real, pretended, or imaginary
dangers abroad." Those are wise words well worth revisiting amidst the current endless
Russiagate madness, calculated among other things to tell us that the FBI, the CIA, and the
rest of the nation's vast and ever more ubiquitous intelligence and surveillance state are on
our side.
"... One of the hallmarks of brainwashing is a phenomenon that everyone can notice: the total absence of a second opinion. When a commentator voices the official line on an event, does anyone express an alternative version? Is there a debate between the official spokesman and a contrary commentator? In the democratic media, that would be commonplace. Here it is very, very rare. ..."
"... What can be done to counter such brainwashing? Not much. ..."
"... First of all: there is a vital need for a second voice. Brainwashing can be efficient only when the official voice enjoys a complete monopoly. That was one of the aims of Haolam Hazeh, the weekly which I edited for 40 years. It met every untrue government version with a contrary version. Although our voice was weak, compared to the powerful government machine (even in those days), the very fact that there are two voices, however unequal, prevents a total brainwashing. The citizen hears two versions and wonders "who is right?" ..."
"... The power of the truth against a brainwashing machine is always limited. But in the end, even if it takes time, truth will prevail. It needs courage. ..."
It's
frightening. Unprincipled psychologists, in the service of a malignant regime, use
sophisticated techniques in order to control the mind of a person from afar.
The term "brainwashing" was born in 1950. It is a Chinese word ("xinao", literally wash
brain). Originally it served to describe a technique used – so it was claimed – by
Chinese masterminds to manipulate the minds of American prisoners in the Korean War. They
changed their unconscious mental processes and turned them into agents of sinister forces.
Many books and movies purported to show how this works. For example, the classic film "The
Manchurian Candidate" shows how the communists take an American prisoner-of-war in the Korean
war, an officer, manipulate his mind and give him an order to kill the US presidential
candidate. The American officer does not know that he has been turned unconsciously into a
communist agent. He does not remember the order given him under hypnosis and does not know that
he acts accordingly.
This pilot is ridiculous, like most of the pseudo-scientific descriptions. In practice, it
is much easier to manipulate the minds of people, individuals and collectives.
For example, the Nazi "propaganda". It was invented by Adolf Hitler himself. In his book,
Mein Kampf , he describes how, as a soldier on the Western front in WWI, he witnessed
the extremely successful British propaganda. The British dropped leaflets over the German
trenches and shattered the soldiers' confidence in their leadership.
When Hitler came to power in Germany, he entrusted one of his faithful henchmen, Joseph
Goebbels, with the creation of a Ministry of Propaganda. Goebbels turned propaganda into an art
form. Among other means he turned all the German media – newspapers and the radio –
into government agencies. In German that was called "Gleichschaltung" – connecting all
components to one electric line. Thanks to this, Nazi Germany continued fighting long after it
was clear that it had lost WWII.
One of the means was the disconnection of the German public from any other source of
information. The official propaganda was blared from every medium. Listening to a foreign
broadcast was a major crime, punished severely.
Thus it happened that the Germans still believed in their final victory – the Endsieg
– even after the Soviets in the East and the Anglo-Saxons in the West had already crossed
the borders into Germany.
Does it take a dictatorial regime – Nazi or Communist – to turn the media into a
brainwashing machine? Common sense says that this is impossible in a democracy. Common sense is
wrong.
It will be remembered that Hitler attained power by democratic means. Even now, fanatical
nationalists are winning democratic elections in many countries. All their leaders are busy
destroying the courts, stuffing the parliaments with useful idiots and – especially
– turning the media into brainwashing instruments. In our country, too.
How is this done? It's quite simple, really: one has to suppress all other voices. One has
to make sure that the citizen hears only one voice. One that repeats a few messages over and
over, endlessly. This way the lie becomes truth.
In such a situation, the ordinary citizen becomes convinced that the official line is really
their own personal opinion. This is an unconscious process. When one tells a citizen that they
are brainwashed, they are deeply insulted.
This has been happening in Israel over the last few years. The citizen is not conscious that
it is happening. He or she absorbs diverse newspapers, TV programs and radio broadcasts, and
sees that all these media are freely arguing with each other and even quarreling with each
other. The citizen is not conscious of the fact that on the one critical subject of our life
– war and peace – all the media are "connected" to one singular line of
brainwashing.
During the last few weeks we have been seeing a perfect example of this mechanism. The
events on the Gaza Strip border have activated a mechanism of brainwashing that dictatorial
regimes in the world can only envy.
Let's examine ourselves: what have we heard over the radio? What have we seen on TV? What
did we read in the papers?
Within a few weeks more than a hundred human beings were shot dead, and many thousands were
wounded by live fire. Why?
"We were forced to fire at them because they were storming the border fence". And indeed,
did the Gazans themselves not proclaim their will to "return home" – meaning, to return
to Israeli territory?
But on May 14, "Black Monday", 63 unarmed demonstrators were shot dead and over 1500 wounded
by live fire. Every Israeli knows that this was necessary because the demonstrators stormed the
fence and were about to swarm into Israel. Nobody paid attention to the simple fact that there
was not a single photo showing such an occurrence. Not even one. In spite of the fact that on
both sides of the fence there were hundreds of photographers, including Israeli army
photographers, who filmed every single detail. Tens of thousands stormed, and not a single
picture?
One should notice the use of the word "terror". It has turned into an adjective attached to
everything. There are not just tunnels – they are all always "terror-tunnels". There are
"terror-activists". There is "the Hamas terror-regime" and there are "terror-bases". Now there
are "terror-kites".
Notice: not just "incendiary kites", or "destruction-kites", only "terror-kites". The same
every day in all media. Someone has made the terminology decision. Of course, everyone who has
the word "terror" attached to his name is "a son of death", as you say in biblical Hebrew.
Another proud term of the brainwashing.
The inhabitants of the Gaza Strip are "terrorists". (In Hebrew, a special term has been
invented: "Mekhablim"). All of them? Of course, no question. Especially Hamas members. But
Hamas is a political party, which has won democratic elections in all of Palestine. A civilian
party which has indeed a military wing. But in our media all party members and supporters are
"terrorists", sons of death. Of course.
The use of these terms, hundreds of times every day, clearly constitute brainwashing,
without the citizens noticing it. They are getting used to the fact that all Gazans are
terrorists, mekhablim. This is a process of dehumanization, the creation of Untermenschen in
the Nazi lexicon. Their killing is allowed, even desirable.
In such an atmosphere, even abominable sentences pass unnoticed. For example, this week I
heard on one of the TV news programs this sentence from the mouth of a military correspondent,
speaking about the coming Gaza demonstration: "Iran wants dead demonstrators, and it seems that
they will get them." One has to read this sentence twice to realize what it says: that the
Israeli sharpshooters serve Iranian interests.
Or a sentence that is repeated again and again, even by respected commentators: "Iran wants
to destroy the State of Israel". I don't know what 80 million Iranians want, nor does the
writer. But the sentence itself is ridiculous. Israel is a nuclear power. How does one
annihilate a nuclear power (with submarines that can launch nuclear devices in the hour of
need). Are the Iranians ready to turn their country – one of the cradles of human
civilization – into a graveyard and a desert?
Or a forecast "Friday another violent demonstration will take place". "Violent"? "Another"?
There is no argument about the fact that all the demonstrations along the Gaza fence were
completely nonviolent. The demonstrators did not shoot one single shot, when thousands of them
were wounded by live fire, and more than a hundred killed. Yet the lie passes without
comment.
Not a single one of the hundreds of TV news program presenters ever corrects such statements
by correspondents. Because the directors, presenters, commentators and correspondents are
themselves thoroughly brainwashed. The army spokesman knows the truth, of course, but he is a
central cog in the brainwashing machine.
Events reached a climax with the murder of the 21-year-old female paramedic Razan Ashraf
al-Najjar, when she was trying to save the life of a wounded demonstrator. The sharpshooter who
shot her in the chest saw that she was a medic treating a wounded person. It was a clear war
crime.
Was there a public outcry? Did the media demand an investigation? Did the media report this
event in their page one headline? Did the Knesset observe a minute of silence? Nothing of the
sort. A minor news item in some papers (by no means all). An excellent
article by the admirable Amira Hass in Haaretz . And that's that.
A few days passed, and abroad there were outcries. The Argentine soccer team, with the
admired Messi, canceled a friendly game against the Israeli team in Jerusalem.
The brainwashers realized that it was impossible not to react. So the army spokesman
published a statement saying that an investigation had taken place. What did it discover? Ah,
well. It was clearly established that nobody had shot Razan. She was hit by the ricochet of a
bullet that had hit the ground far from her. That is such a blatant lie that even the army liar
should be ashamed of producing it. It was accepted by the brainwashed public.
One of the hallmarks of brainwashing is a phenomenon that everyone can notice: the total
absence of a second opinion. When a commentator voices the official line on an event, does
anyone express an alternative version? Is there a debate between the official spokesman and a
contrary commentator? In the democratic media, that would be commonplace. Here it is very, very
rare.
What can be done to counter such brainwashing? Not much.
First of all: there is a vital need for a second voice. Brainwashing can be efficient
only when the official voice enjoys a complete monopoly. That was one of the aims of Haolam
Hazeh, the weekly which I edited for 40 years. It met every untrue government version with a
contrary version. Although our voice was weak, compared to the powerful government machine
(even in those days), the very fact that there are two voices, however unequal, prevents a
total brainwashing. The citizen hears two versions and wonders "who is right?"
If all the peace and human rights groups in Israel set up a joint center for information,
which will be heard, perhaps the monopoly of official propaganda can be broken. Perhaps.
There is in the country a tiny band of commentators who are not afraid to tell the truth,
even when this is considered treason. Gideon Levy, Amira Hass, and a few others. We must ensure
that their voice is heard. They must be encouraged.
All the media must be pressured to present a variation of views on matters of war and peace,
to let the "internal enemy" be heard, so that the citizen is able to form an opinion of their
own.
The foreign media must be allowed free access to the sources of information, even when the
foreign media are critical, "hostile" and "anti-Semitic". Friends of Israeli-Palestinian peace
abroad must be encouraged to pressure the media in their homelands to publish the truth about
what is happening here.
I don't like the word "must". But in this context, no other will do. The power of the
truth against a brainwashing machine is always limited. But in the end, even if it takes time,
truth will prevail. It needs courage.
The movie The Manchurian Candidate has a surprise ending: in the last minute, instead
of killing the presidential candidate, the brainwashed man shoots the communist agent who was
supposed to take his place.
Uri Avnery is a peace activist, journalist, writer, and former member of the Israeli
Knesset. Read other articles by Uri , or visit
Uri's website
.
"... There is no indication that Bolton was aware that Cambridge Analytica was exploiting the personal data of tens of millions of Facebook users -- but he was certainly aware that it was using an extensive trove of personal data to target voters ..."
"... What Bolton was paying Cambridge Analytica to do is, perhaps, more damning than his use of the shady data firm. "The Bolton PAC was obsessed with how America was becoming limp wristed and spineless and it wanted research and messaging for national security issues," Wylie told the Times . "That really meant making people more militaristic in their worldview," he added. ..."
"... "That's what they said they wanted, anyway." Cambridge Analytica produced fear-mongering advertisements aimed at drumming up support for Bolton and other hawkish Republicans. The relationship between the firm and the Super PAC grew "so close that the firm was writing up talking points" for Bolton after only a few months of collaboration. ..."
Speaking at CPAC in 2017, John Bolton boasted that his Super
PAC's implementation of "advanced psychographic data" would help elect "filibuster majorities"
in 2018. According to a New York Times
report published on Friday, Bolton's Super PAC paid $1.2 million to Cambridge Analytica,
the British firm that has come under scrutiny for its misuse of Facebook data to influence
voters. Bolton's Super PAC, moreover, was heavily funded by the Mercer family, who gave
millions to Cambridge Analytica during the 2016 presidential campaign.
There is no indication that Bolton was aware that Cambridge Analytica was exploiting the
personal data of tens of millions of Facebook users -- but he was certainly aware that it was
using an extensive trove of personal data to target voters. "The data and modeling Bolton's PAC
received was derived from the Facebook data," Christopher Wylie, the co-founder of Cambridge Analytica turned whistleblower, told the Times . "We definitely told them about how we
were doing it. We talked about it in conference calls, in meetings."
What Bolton was paying Cambridge Analytica to do is, perhaps, more damning than his use of
the shady data firm. "The Bolton PAC was obsessed with how America was becoming limp wristed
and spineless and it wanted research and messaging for national security issues," Wylie told
the Times . "That really meant making people more militaristic in their worldview," he
added.
"That's what they said they wanted, anyway." Cambridge Analytica produced fear-mongering
advertisements aimed at drumming up support for Bolton and other hawkish Republicans. The
relationship between the firm and the Super PAC grew "so close that the firm was writing up
talking points" for Bolton after only a few months of collaboration.
"... There is no indication that Bolton was aware that Cambridge Analytica was exploiting the personal data of tens of millions of Facebook users -- but he was certainly aware that it was using an extensive trove of personal data to target voters ..."
"... What Bolton was paying Cambridge Analytica to do is, perhaps, more damning than his use of the shady data firm. "The Bolton PAC was obsessed with how America was becoming limp wristed and spineless and it wanted research and messaging for national security issues," Wylie told the Times . "That really meant making people more militaristic in their worldview," he added. ..."
"... "That's what they said they wanted, anyway." Cambridge Analytica produced fear-mongering advertisements aimed at drumming up support for Bolton and other hawkish Republicans. The relationship between the firm and the Super PAC grew "so close that the firm was writing up talking points" for Bolton after only a few months of collaboration. ..."
Speaking at CPAC in 2017, John Bolton boasted that his Super
PAC's implementation of "advanced psychographic data" would help elect "filibuster majorities"
in 2018. According to a New York Times
report published on Friday, Bolton's Super PAC paid $1.2 million to Cambridge Analytica,
the British firm that has come under scrutiny for its misuse of Facebook data to influence
voters. Bolton's Super PAC, moreover, was heavily funded by the Mercer family, who gave
millions to Cambridge Analytica during the 2016 presidential campaign.
There is no indication that Bolton was aware that Cambridge Analytica was exploiting the
personal data of tens of millions of Facebook users -- but he was certainly aware that it was
using an extensive trove of personal data to target voters. "The data and modeling Bolton's PAC
received was derived from the Facebook data," Christopher Wylie, the co-founder of Cambridge Analytica turned whistleblower, told the Times . "We definitely told them about how we
were doing it. We talked about it in conference calls, in meetings."
What Bolton was paying Cambridge Analytica to do is, perhaps, more damning than his use of
the shady data firm. "The Bolton PAC was obsessed with how America was becoming limp wristed
and spineless and it wanted research and messaging for national security issues," Wylie told
the Times . "That really meant making people more militaristic in their worldview," he
added.
"That's what they said they wanted, anyway." Cambridge Analytica produced fear-mongering
advertisements aimed at drumming up support for Bolton and other hawkish Republicans. The
relationship between the firm and the Super PAC grew "so close that the firm was writing up
talking points" for Bolton after only a few months of collaboration.
Economics has a lot of similarities with Theology.
People can believe whatever interpretation fits with their own indoctrination.
The difference being there is a truth to economics that seems to be invisible to most people,
major economists included.
Your post highlights some of the stark realities that people just refuse to accept for some
inexplicable reason.
Maybe the better economic managers will come to the rescue or maybe there will be a
collective awakening when in a moment of clarity we start to realise how badly we have been
conned.
There are many societies that tolerate a certain degree of economic inequality, but still
provide decent living conditions, services and infrastructure for most citizens. The notion
that we either have extreme inequality or extreme poverty is empirically and morally empty.
Further down the thread, 'Weakaspiss' makes a pertinent observation; " government has
forgotten they govern for all, and have a primary duty for those who are least able to
prosper."
In fact, they've "forgotten" nothing.
Instead, they've fallen for the self-serving blandishments of Libertarian dogma.
Where have I learned of these ?
By reading the posts of GA's resident Libertarians.
The sub-texts of which are wonderfully instructive.
1. Nothing is more important than the individual.
2. And as an individual and a Libertarian, I am infinitely superior to you.
3. Plus I resent paying taxes, which are outright theft.
4. Since I believe, utterly without basis in reality, that taxes levied on hard-working,
wonderful freedom-loving ME, sustain the likes of lazy, parasitical YOU.
5. Meanwhile, govt, if it cannot be destroyed, must always be demonised and underfunded. And
so-called 'programs of public benefit' for the parasites--like Medicare, or the ABC-- must be
sold outright to the private sector.
6. No I don't want to debate about it, if there's a chance I'll lose the argument.
My ego demands I win every time..
7. Certainly not with losers of lower social status, who were 'educated' in a union-run
public school.
8. And don't even come near me, losers. Yuk ! You're probably not even white !
9. Because I socialise only within my own tribe, thank you very much.
10. Besides, you're probably living off my taxes.
11. Did I mention taxes somewhere ?
12. Taxes are theft.
Our conservatives have "forgotten" NOTHING.
Instead, they've fallen for a sociopathic ideology which tells them their least attractive
impulses are positively praiseworthy.
Hence the nasty, ego-driven tone of current political life.
Injected directly into the bloodstream of our body politic by a Lying Rodent.
Its philosophy may be simply stated
Does your policy shit all over people you never cared for anyway ?
THEN DO IT.
This message is clear and concise. It is however never going to be heard beyond the
'Guardian'.
The MSM are hardly going to publish this article, nor are they going to
reference it, why should they? It goes against everything they have been fighting for and the
tin ear of their readership are unwilling to change teir views.
The only thing that they understand is money and the concentration of wealth. This
misonception as Dennis So far this has been handed to them on a plate, the taxation system
has enabled them to manipulate an multiply their earnings. So much of money the has nothing
to do with adding value to this countries economy but is speculative in nature based on
financial and overseas instruments.
No is the time for our government to take the lead and start as the Victorian ALP have
done and invest in people and jobs on the back of strategic investment. It is a fallacy that
governments don't create jobs they, through their policies do just that.
Friends of mine who make a living out of dealing both in stock and wealth creating schemes
have no loyalty to this country, they are self motivated and libertarian in persuasion.
"Government should get out of the way!" This is nothing short of scandalous.
Unless we stand up for our rights and a civil society that provides adequate provision for
fair and balanced policy making,xwe will continue until we will see an implosion. History is
littered with examples of revolution based on the kind of inequality we are seeing happen in
this country. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.
It is indeed important to make the distinction between the ideology of neoliberalism - the
ideology of private enterprise is good, and public spending is bad - and the operational
system of crony capitalism - the game of mates played by government and the special
interests.
And it is certainly equally important to call out the monumental hypocrisy involved in the
government's application of the ideology's set of rules to the powerless and public and the
government's application of corrupt practice rules to the special interests.
The system is destroying the egalitarian character of Australia and fanning the flames of
nativist authoritarianism here.
But what's even more dangerous is the fundamental dishonesty that the system necessitates,
and the alienating influence it has - on top of the growing economic inequality.
The system has destroyed the economic and environmental viability and sustainability of
the planet on which human civilization depends.
What is becoming increasingly clear to more and more of the public is that - simple put-
the system cannot be allowed to go on as it has been proceeding because it threatens the
future of civilization on earth.
Change is imperative now. However, how that will unfold is unclear, as well as, the toll
the destruc5turing system will take.
What is clear is that a great restructuring must happen - and soon.
The neo liberals are intent on defacing Australia. Their pusstulant tentacles stretch into
our classrooms forcing our kids to believe in their god. They tell us that white millionaire
farmers deserve refugee status and all the benefits bestowed on poor persecuted minorities.
They tell us that the disgustingly rich deserve tax relief. Their's is a world where their
children are entitled to safe electoral sets. But they can be defeated and sent to misery. We
did it in the Same Sex Marriage fiasco and we can do it to their more insidious behaviours.
Write to your local member. Barrage them with emails. Write to their propaganda Letters to
the Editor. Donate to GetUp. Keep on keeping on.
Neoliberalism, the dogma was was sourced from Milton Freidman's Monetarism economic theory.
When it morphed into the 'Greed is Good' credo is unclear.
Guess you have to call the disease something, so Neoliberalism it is.
Is capitalism stuffed?
There is much debate at the moment about which Party has the best economic plan going
forward. The Coalition maintains that the best way is by giving large tax breaks to
business.
This is currently being called 'Pre GST theory or old style trickle down economics'.
Lenore Taylor writes:
"The investment bank once chaired by Malcolm Turnbull has backed the view that much of the
benefit from the Coalition's company tax cuts could flow to offshore investors, as the
prime minister insisted his plan was the best way to ensure continued economic growth".
"The domestic benefits would be far bigger if companies used the tax cut to grow their
business, but according to Goldman Sachs "survey evidence suggests that companies are less
likely to voluntarily lower the dividend payment ratio", in other words, the real-world
impact was likely to be closer to the scenario where 60% of the benefit flowed
offshore"
"Neoliberalism will literally be the death of democracy."
In fact, that's the plan.
Openly alluded to by the IPA's Gary Johns;
".... a cardinal tenet of libertarianism is to keep democracy in its place, to regard it
as an activity of limited application. Government's role is to depoliticise much of life, to
make it less amenable to public dispute....."
From Margo Kingston's 'Not happy, John !' (2005).
Get on to the 'Catallaxy' site.
You'll soon find out what Libertarian sociopaths think of democracy.
I actually think many people go along with neoliberalism because they perceive it will turn
out well for them. It's the every man for himself Darwinian approach to life, but the LNP
reflects that view most closely. It's the one where everyone is a welfare scrounger, but if
for some reason you end up needing welfare, you deserve it because of all the tax you paid,
even though you've been minimising your tax for decades.
The other great con is convincing the public that voting for anyone but the two major parties
is "wasting your vote". This political duopoly means only those interests are ever
represented and that has also led to Australia's systematic decline. Yes it's true that the
majors hold majority in parliament but we've already seen that voting below the line can
work- Labour had to take notes from the Greens last time they held power. Despite how
hopeless it all seems we do still have the power to affect change as long as we- all of us-
stop swallowing the lies.
The current two party system is like a coin. On one side we have the head of Malcolm Turnbull
and on the other Bill Shorten. When it comes to the toss up the corporations and wealthy get
to call heads.
When a country - a majority vote - knowingly, maliciously - and repeatedly - vote for an
ideology of hate, exclusion and greed then what do you expect.
What did the majority vote not get in 2013 when they elected the Abbott Regime?
The LNP IPA have a strategy of pillage and plunder - the transfer of public wealth to the
<1% richest and big corporations. They have provided the regulatory context and the ethics
and morality that has allowed Australian business, big and small across the board to
normalise wage-theft, the non payment of super, unpaid internships and the sort of behaviour
commonly seen through the Banking RC.
What does the majority vote not see?
The neoliberal did not con us all - but it is clear that the majority vote is. A vote that
has yet to account to all Australians for wrecking this country. A vote that supported the
most corrupt government Australia has ever had. Don't think for a moment that that can go
without a reckoning.
If you were even peripherally aware of history, you'd know that people subjected to
lifelong exploitation, forced into a precarious existence or buried under annually
compounding debts will, eventually, wheel guillotines into the town square and start taking
names.
How many voters even have any idea of what "neoliberalism" is? I would be thinking not many,
especially as the Murdoch press don't even use the term in their publications. They might feel
the effects , but without any conceptualisation of its underpinning ideas and ideology be
less likely to be able to identify policy which reflects neoliberal values. And I'm sure the
powers that be like it that way.
For that last 40 years some variant of neoliberalism has been the predominant dogma.
Unfortunately once we moved on from hunter gatherer to an agriculture supported society we
lost the connections to each other that existed at the tribal level. That sense of community
does not flourish in our eight thousand year experiment with city based civilisation. It
seems to only do so during times of disruption and war.
Personally my experience of living in a socially cohesive society was the 30 year period
leading up to the reinfestation of the neoliberal curse that started in the 80's with Reagan
and Thatcher.
So neoliberalism is the norm, socialism requires more work. We can't take it for granted
that society will naturally gravitate towards egalitarianism.
Turnbull and his LNP cohort can openly mock the population with impunity safe in the
knowledge that a small but powerful and rich minority, joined by group think and supported by
exclusive membership institutions, schools, corporations, have a shared goal of controlling
the monetary, economic system and government.
It's apparent that elections can be won by throwing enough resources into well aimed
propaganda, (cue Murdoch). Cambridge Analytica was brutally effective at the last elections
in the US and UK. Anyone who believes a similar scam won't be tried in Australia is being
naive.
So people will still vote against their long term interests and we will likely still get
another dose of self inflicted neoliberalism at the next election.
The real problem will be that no where near enough voters will read this article or pieces
like it. The Murdoch press for example would never publish it and the content won't be
seriously discussed on morning TV. The ABC wouldn't dare mention a word of it.
I don't think it is all doom and gloom. I have 12 grandchildren, some now teenagers. They
and their kind are smarter than we give them credit for and they won't put up with the crap
we have bequeathed them. They don't get information from main stream media and although their
social media contains an enormous amount of rubbish, embedded are real grievances about their
lot in life. Soon they will vote. Goodbye and good riddance to the conservatives.
It is actually just a pan-national oligarchy, where legislatures and media are
compromised into acceptance of destructive and unethical policies by Big Money.
Worthy of repetition since I'm not able to give you more than one 'uptick'.
In this instance, I very much suspect it will be the staggering load put on the natural
environment that will spin the current "Eternal Empires" "down the sinkhole of history".
Sadly for everyone and everything else.
Neoliberalism wins by manipulating public distraction. The so-called reality shows of
mainstream media are the furthest flight imaginable from lived experience, and even the
serious news outlets succumb to the Peyton Place of Barnaby's baby and a disappeared Melania
Trump. All of which makes a considered analysis such as the one republished here such a
notable exception.
That man has the real meaning of neoliberalism. Neoliberal way is not incompatible with
unions, wages, social services or governments that protect their citizens.
His way there should be no division and no angst of politics. Maybe that's where the problem
is/ His way is not the way of modern politics and greed. Being rich does not mean being
greedy. But that is what modern neoliberam with its free markets mantra have come to be seen
as.
My Grandfather and Great Grandfather, would see this man as being correct with a very good
attitude. He would see Wall St and many financial businesses as greedy and managed by bullies
and tyrants.
Since the 1980s, free markets have been promoted as the best way to generate wealth (which
may be true) and the best way to help everyone in society since there will be more wealth to
go around. That has turned out not to work so well, since the wealth doesn't "trickle down",
but instead concentrates in fewer and fewer hands.
An excellent analysis. Neo-liberalism is a mechanism which transfers money from the poor to
the rich. Far from "trickle down" it is in fact "siphon up".
Therein lies the crux - to some folk (most, I would hesitate) money is a means of
survival.
To others, (those obsessed with it) it's the source of power. Ergo, of course you can have
too much money, since it is physically impossible to spend it. But at the same time, you
cannot, if so compelled, have too much power.
Put simply, it is unadulterated GREED. An addiction, if you like.
And for that, there is no cure.
B.J.
Privatization is one method of stealing the people's assessts and giving it to the wealthy
through ownership of shares. The Lieberals talk of mum & dad investors yet 98% of
Australian shares are owned by the wealthiest 1%
There are so many who believe they will benifit from these ideologies , that they reinforce
those who promote them . They simply don't realise they are not part of the equation , and
any benifit gained by them is simply incidental. The target recipients have always been the
Corporate bodies and those with their finger in the pie . Not once , to my recollection, has
the Australian people , in general terms , benifited from the sale of public companies ,
banks or infrastructure .
Brilliant article, hits the nail on the head! Australia really did go "off the tracks" with
the regime of John "Mugabe" Howard with a system of patronage, corruption, and systemic
bribery which gave us a third world government. Like other "mineral resource rich, failed
states" the nation's wealth has been mostly stolen.
It's not about money. Ultimately, it's not even about the financial system.
But it is about money and about the financial system.
Neo-liberals see things as a dollar value only nothing else is of value. The fact that Macro
economics is a social science is discarded and Micro-economics covers all that is of value.
The financial system is critical because it is based on lies publicly. This is one of the
reasons that power may indeed be defining. But the reason behind it is the lies of finance.
The key ones being tax does not fund government and banks create instant money when they give
a loan. The repayments cancel the money creation they do not get collected and put out as new
loans. Like wise when the federal government spends it also creates new money and drains ot
away by tax which destroys it. The federal government cannot save for a rainy day. Another
financial one that needs dumping is the lie that a surplus is good. It is not. So yes finance
is critical Power is a symptom of the lies. Not the cause.
As soon as they reality is accepted the whole driving force of neo-liberalism falls to bits.
It is exposed. Its reason to sell assets vanishes (federally) The passing of costs to the
states shows as political crap.
It's not about money. Ultimately, it's not even about the financial system. The real showdown
will start with the fight over energy and resources.
Tightening energy and resource supply, associated with environmental degradation to obtain
those resources and a still increasing world population will be the death of neo-liberalism.
But in my view, it is unlikely to be replaced by Communism.
We would have to look back to before the OPEC oil shocks of the early 1970s and the emergence
of the Asian Tigers to see a different model of capitalism dependent on the West having a
competitive industrial base with mass employment therein.
Hence, it is Varoufakis who is an old skool, radical chic of precisely this era and the
sub-concept of neoliberalism is only of use to neo-Marxists like himself. Perhaps he can go
and govern class relations (or foment their conflict) in apparently thriving Australian
industry however?
I believe fraud and corruption caused the great depression.
But this is a part of the myth of the free market. If a market is truly free, those with
enough money will always be able to influence the market for their own benefit. As soon as
this happens the market fails in its chief function of efficiently allocating scarce
resources. That's why there are regulators and anti-monopoly legislation, etc. etc. We pay
billions each year to keep capitalism from eating itself.
Self-serving behaviour is only corruption if it is illegal, otherwise it's called
business. It is regulation that makes it illegal, which is why we need strong, democratic
control.
So saying that the GD was caused by corruption is the same as saying that free-market
capitalism got out of control of democratic regulation. Same thing, different name.
The end of neoliberalism can't come soon enough for me. People and communities have been
destroyed for the benefit of a few who don't care about anything other than their own wealth
and power. Time to give the power to the people.
not to me; I think you have a conglomerate of ideas and policies, some of which I'd
categorize as neoliberal, but things like "extreme individualism" have nothing to do with neo
liberalism per se.
I think if you give too much power to the state, you'll wind up with authoritarianism.
maybe that doesn't concern you, maybe it does. I believe in the concept of labor unions.
However I also believe in freedom. It may not be in our long term interest to give up freedom
for the sake of a better economic prospect today.
It's not going to happen Van. Unfortunately, this is a globally integrated system, which
dwarfs the power of national politics and national economies, with maybe the exception of the
US, and look what's going on in the US. Donald Trump is the president. I mean, what does that
say about the United States, that they've elected a leader like Trump? How does the saying
go, "Cometh the hour, cometh the man?" I guess they must have a death wish, unfortunately,
they're going to take mos of the world's population with them. I'm not necessarily a
pessimist, but I think a rational analysis leads to the conclusion, that we're doomed.
The neoliberals in the West - unlike, disgustingly, those in South America - won hegemony
because they did as Gramsci and Dutschke advised the left; they made "a long march through
the institutions". Journalists, histoIran's, philosophers and academics were as necessary to
the movement as economists and politicians. It was what enabled them to win elections. As the
man said - "from the prophets, deserts come."
So, no point?
Marxism was a suggested response to rampant capitalism where only the very few at the top
benefited from the toil of all others.
I would have thought it was obvious. Or maybe you don't understand Marxism?
I would suggest you're not on the bottom of the pile either, if you are reading the Guardian
and commenting on a computer or an iPhone. The reality is, capitalism has seen the halving of
world poverty levels over the last 30 years, and poverty continues to fall. Are there serious
problems with inequality in the west, and the world generally? Yes. Capitalism needs to
evolve. Better tax regimes and systems for wealth redistribution are needed. Communism is not
the answer.
Every political party is a "collective" of sorts. But as far as I can scan the wasteland of
Australian politics, I can't find any that is shining a path towards "freedom and enjoyment."
We need to reconceive politics just as we must the banks, churches and other terminally
infected institutions of our time.
Neo liberal practices i.e. their 1% stranglehold on the economy, their ideology of winner
take all, etc are incompatible with a modern nation state, with civilised values, and with a
harmonious society.
They are destroying the state and society.
The simplest and most apposite critique of unbridled Capitalism is that is ideologically
bound to the notion that consuming is good, increased production and use of finite resources
is good, cheap labour is good, tax is bad, and sharing is bad...and that if Capitalism
continues apace in its present form it will lead to the total pollution of the earth, the
disappearance of all wild animals and plants, the end of bees and pollination, the rise of
rampant diseases uncontrolled by drugs that are not affordable to the world's poor, and the
eventual extinction of humans. Capitalism is not only dangerous, it is myopically
spectacularly insane. Psychology demonstrates that humans have 3 classic responses to a
crisis:
1.Denial
2.Fantasy
3.Acceptance of reality and action
1980's Denial phase: "It is exaggerated by mad greenies and ain't happening."
1990's Fantasy phase: "Recycling and prayer will fix it all."
2018 Reality and Action phase: "We are in deep shit....literally...and we need radical
immediate action by governments, corporations, educational institutions and individuals to
save the planet and us. Want your great grandkids to be alive in 2080? Then get out there
shouting....TODAY!!!!!
"People hate it". That kind of sentence which make you consider closing the tab. Your point
is sensible, neoliberalism has generated lot of bothering issues, but if it didn't exist, I
wouldn't have an affordable car and computer, and I wouldn't have a giant amount of choice
for goods to consider. It's time it ends, or rather rethink itself, but let's stop being full
anti elite, neo liberalism allowed several, unfortunately not all, of us, to feel a bit
special.
Fascism is the word that most interests me when looking a the present trajectory in
Australia
We're not there yet
And there's no one on the government benches who's a new Hitler or Stalin or Mussolini
But the next generation ..............
They make me uncomfortable. Some of the younger and as yet unheralded apparatchiks on the
conservative fringe worry me. They're smart. Know the advertising and selling the message
strategies. Have money and are well connected to the barons/oligarchs who pull the strings
and they're ambitious.
Paradoxically a collapse of the Liberal Party will help them. In spite of it all we need a
fiscally conservative, slightly socially conservative political movement in Australia but the
drift to extremism is quite pronounced and profoundly worrying, especially in a time where
climate change poses existential questions about our future.
This next election will not be a cakewalk. It'll be as bitterly fought as any in a
generation and the consequences of a loss will be, for progressive forces, catastrophic.
"Although people with low expectations are easier to con, fomenting cynicism about democracy
comes at a long-term cost. Indeed, as the current crop of politicians is beginning to
discover, people with low expectations feel they have nothing to lose."..... Yes, but that's
part of the Devilish Plan: Why do you think that the Neoliberals and Conservatives spend so
much time nurturing their relationship with both Police and the Army?.... They want to be
sure that if their Neoliberal-Conservative project goes truly belly up, they will be the ones
holding the guns.
Yes, it's sinister.... it's dangerous.... it's a time bomb, and we can only defuse it with
the help of a majority of Australians waking up, standing up and Democratically vote against
Fascism.
Half the population prefers a politics that is racist and unethical, that demonises the poor
and idolises the rich, that eschews community and embraces amoral individuality. These people
don't care about the economic inconsistencies of neo-liberalism, they are far more attracted
to the divisive societal aspects of free market fundamentalism.
Like Joe Hockey, Rinehart saw the problem of inequality as having more to do with the
character of the poor than with the rules of the game:
They don't "see" it this way. They just say they see it this way to perpetuate that
inequality. They know that their wealth depends on the labour of the other 95-99%.
To keep us all working and voting for their lackeys, they make promises of wealth if you
are a persistent hard worker, never mentioning that the entire game depends on only a tiny
minority ever reaching the top. No, the real people holding them back are those who don't
work hard. Who don't contribute to the game. They're the ones to blame for why you're not
levelling up. The true scapegoats.
Victim blaming is a classic neo-con tactic, they seek to deflect from the impact of their
heartless policies by demonising the victims, from the unemployed and those stuck in the
welfare cycle to refugees trapped in offshore detention, indefinitely . We've all seen how
appalling their commentary can get, from Abbott and Hockey's "lifters and leaners" to Gina
Mineheart's "two dollars a day" & "spend less time drinking or smoking and socialising"
they show just how out touch they are. They honestly believe that people can lift themselves
out of poverty if only they "spent more time working", ignoring the fact that many are
working two jobs just to stay ahead.
Seems that on planet RWNJ there are more than 24 hours in a day..
Half the population need welfare to survive.
1% have 90% of all the toys in the sandpit and won't share. They feel that they are entitled
to all the toys.
This piece is well worth the reading particularly in light of the trashing of society's
values we see played out in Trump's America. However, the writer's definition of
"ideology " as a "system of ideas and ideals" even though it accords with the
OED's, fails to take into account the current pernicious influence of the ideologue who
distorts "ideology" into the "rationalisation of a suppression" as Joseph Dunne
noted in his book, " Back to the Rough Ground" .
This is the most apt description of the modus operandi of today's neoliberalists - the
justifying of their project to maximise wealth accumulation in their own self-interest by
promoting the propaganda that we are powerless cogs in the machine of the
economy , slaves to the whim of the omnipotent market, rather than active
agents who wish to contribute to a flourishing society .
Neoliberalism idealises competition against each other to ensure the
rights of the few, by suppressing our capacity to take
responsibility together through cooperation and collaboration with each
other.
This classic divide and conquer tactic will prevail only as long as we permit
it.
I'm a conservative and I have an good economics degree. I have to say though that I don't
understand neoliberalism at all.
As a example, when I was doing economics it was made very clear to me that natural
monopolies (such as electricity and water) cannot be made into a competitive market (rather
like trying to put lipstick on a pig). Similarly oligopolies introduce opportunities for
price manipulation (e.g. the banks). The neoliberal mantra that "markets are always right" is
just rubbish. Markets work well only when certain criteria are met.
Secondly, the right of workers to collectively bargain is fundamental to a well
functioning market economy. Labour is one of the inputs to production and the workers have a
right to a proper return on their labour. Individual workers have no real bargaining power
and can only act collectively through unions.
Finally, the related casualisation of the workforce is a disaster for workers and the
long-term interests of the economy. The stagnation of wages (and inflation) is one of the
products of this strong trend to casualisation (my blood boils when I hear of examples of
wage theft affecting vulnerable workers).
Income inequality is a product of a capitalist system. However, when the distribution of
wealth becomes very badly skewed (such as in the USA) then the political system starts to
break down. Trump was a beneficiary of this flawed income distribution. All Hillary Clinton
was promising was "more of the same". In short, Bernie Sanders was right.
Walter Schadel, in his book, The Great Leveler (see below), points to the role of income
inequality in driving revolutions and disruptions. There are lessons in this book for our
current crop of politicians both on the left and the right.
Wow! Richard Denniss says it like it is, neatly summing up "the big con".
I believe Australia is being sold from under our feet. The big asset-strip is on. Why are
we not benefiting from the mining boom? The answer lies in the way Rinehart companies and
others like hers have been permitted to use Singapore or other low-taxing countries to
minimise taxes. That these large companies should have the gall to demand large tax cuts as
well is preposterous.
When headlines indulge in fear-mongering about China, why is angst directed at Dastyari
for taking a relatively small donation, whilst at the same time the Australian government has
approved a joint purchase of large swathes of the Australian outback by Rinehart and Chinese
interests? Have we already forgotten the Darwin port deal? Why were Robb, Bishop and the
Liberal Party allowed to benefit from deals or large donations from "Chinese interests"? Yet
Bob Carr is being slammed for trying over many years to develop a more harmonious
relationship with China?
Australians have told federal and state governments that they hate privatisation. Not
content with selling off profitable businesses such as Medibank Private, the Liberal/National
Party federal government is privatising its services. Detention centres and prisons acted as
a stalking-horse for the creeping privatisation of jobs. Politicians assume most voters don't
notice or care when government jobs in those sectors are privatised, but other government
departments are following suit.
By permitting the Future Fund and superannuation funds to invest in tax havens, the
federal government has opened the door to a growing trend. If my super fund uses the Cayman
Island tax haven, it is easier to justify everyone else from the PM down to evade Australian
taxes as well. More insidiously, tax havens make it easier to cheat creditors in bankruptcy
cases, launder dirty money, break trade sanctions and much more. We aren't even aware of how
these may be playing out behind closed doors in our name. The problem with allowing Rinehart
to use Singapore or Turnbull to use the Cayman Island is that other companies and individuals
will increasingly Do so, and in the end, everyone is doing it. And when will we take note of
cryptocurrencies and how they can act like tax havens?
Our participation in wars not of our own making is also having dire results. Think of all
the money spent and lives of servicemen destroyed by serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Imagine
if that money had instead been invested wisely in defence capabilities. And yet there we are,
interfering in the South China Sea, trying to provoke China at Trump's behest, and it is not
clear whether the Phillipines wants us there now anyway. And all the while, the cost of our
participation in war games is crippling our ability to acquire defence assets, making us more
reliant on the US.
The banking enquiry has only scratched the surface of how voters are being ripped off with
impunity. There are growing demands that the superannuation industry, in particular retail
funds, be subject to greater transparency and regulation. Yet Turnbull, Cash and colleagues
prefer to direct their scorn at industry funds, simply because they are controlled by
workers, via their unions.
We can sense "the big con" is all around us. We can almost smell it, so pungent is the air
of exploitation, corruption and fraud. Hopefully Denniss will join others in focussing us
more clearly on how we are being cheated of our birthright.
Despite the huge changes in communication in the last several decades
and the ever increasing levels of education in our society, politics have
failed to engage the vast majority and that cohort of the cynical, the alienated,
the disinterested, the lazy, the simply care less continues to grow.
In the last decade the only cause that evoked passion and engaged a larger
number, finally forcing our elected members to act was same sex marriage
.....a crescendo that took years to generate.
With the complicity of our media and the decline of that part of education
that teaches analysis, social psychology and political philosophy (let alone
teaches about basic political structures and mechanisms) our level of disengagement
from the political process appears to be at an all time high. The performance
of our legislators has become increasingly unaccountable and purely self interested
.... we have re-created the "political class" of pre-war times where alienation
was based on a lack of education and awareness and a sense of inferiority and
powerlessness DESPITE our vastly improved communication, access to information
and educational standards (not to mention affluence).
Basically, we have "dumbed down" to the extent where passion and ideology in
politics is now the preserve of fewer and fewer. In a democracy this trend is of
massive concern and a threat to its sustainability.... it also completely suits those
that are focused on concentrating power and wealth... the more that don't give
a toss the less likely you are to be encumbered by limitations, social considerations,
ethics and morality.
Until we re-engage far larger numbers into the political process, raise the levels
of awareness of political thought and choices, stop dumbing down and re-inject
some broader passion and participation into our political processes then vested
interests will continue to dominate.....and democracy will become increasingly
undemocratic !
"... The magic of Neoliberalism is to transform acts that should be illegal into legal ones. In fact they do so explicitly as their argument for reducing taxation is exactly that of getting rid or decreasing the problem of illegal tax evasion.... so they say. Their problem is that we have no evidence that tax evasion decreases under Neoliberalism on top of the legal tax minimisation already provided. The only thing that happens under Neoliberalism is that the Tax Office tends to be under-resourced and everybody likes to conveniently look somewhere else. ..."
A "legal system of tax evasion", written like that, in quotes, is obviously a metaphor with an intended sarcasm. Clearly, logically,
if a taxation system is legal, by using it you are not "evading" taxes, which is an illegal act.... Anyway, everybody seems to
have understood my intention but you. Well, now you also know.
The magic of Neoliberalism is to transform acts that should be illegal into legal ones. In fact they do so explicitly as their
argument for reducing taxation is exactly that of getting rid or decreasing the problem of illegal tax evasion.... so they say.
Their problem is that we have no evidence that tax evasion decreases under Neoliberalism on top of the legal tax minimisation
already provided. The only thing that happens under Neoliberalism is that the Tax Office tends to be under-resourced and everybody
likes to conveniently look somewhere else.
A "legal system of tax evasion" is a non sequitur, what they have done is create a set of tax laws that enable more opportunities
for tax avoidance by the well off, and Kerry very correctly took advantage of it. If you can, get a copy of the Senate hearing
- it's gold.
Coded language:
or,
how we bade farewell to publicly-owned electricity.
Part 1
The perceptions of George Orwell seem as valid now as then
Since he dealt with sly deceptions of tyrannical men
So 'Orwellian language', though imprinted on a page
Now has impacts universal, which resound in every age
And in ours, language functions like a fingerprint-free glove
To absolve of guilt the guilty as, imposed from up above,
Has come theft of public assets, for the benefit of those
To whom money by the truckload only ever upward flows.
By subversion of our usage may such larceny be won
And I speak as a Victorian, so know how it is done.
It begins when greedy forces, with a nose for seeking rent
Need to seize and reshape language to conceal true intent
So collusion is essential, 'twixt such forces and the man
Who will slake their gross desires. He's a poll-i-tish-i-an
It is he who'll grasp the nettle, perform tasks of Hercules
Telling punters it is raining, while upon their backs he pees
Yet his task is mitigated. Because, what should hove in sight,
But the money-driven think-tanks of the predatory Right
Which have spent long hours fixated by their loathing of the State
So won't even wipe their bottoms, unless at an outsourced rate.
Now the think-tanks wunderkinden turn to '1984'
Where they find therein a tactic once employed in days of yore
It's to pick out words and phrases from contemporary use
Then submit their basic meanings to an arse-about abuse
Yet an overarching irony attends this tour de force
Since there's precedents in stating that a cart is now a horse.
For who bastardised a language, drawing from their bag of tricks ?
It was Stalin and Vyshinsky, back in 1936
O the horror ! O the shamefullness ! That, Sons Of Liberty
Must resort to basing tactics on the Kremlin's tyranny !
It's a classic situation when rent-seeking runs amuck
But there's easy money looming, so who gives a flying f**k ?
So consumers are persuaded, via mantra-laden talk
That they come before big shareholders in London or New York
Thus, a host of euphemisms sugar-coat the bitter pill
To the melodies seductive of a loudly-ringing till
Hark to incantantions joyous and of outcomes bound to please !
'Competition', 'lower prices', 'market-based efficiencies'!
(Though their very warmth and fuzziness will reinforce the fact
They've dragooned the highest language to describe the lowest act.)
"Karl Marx exposed the peculiar dynamics of capitalism, or what he called "the bourgeois mode
of production." He foresaw that capitalism had built within it the seeds of its own
destruction. He knew that reigning ideologies -- think neoliberalism -- were created to serve
the interests of the elites and in particular the economic elites, since "the class which has
the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means
of mental production" and "the ruling ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the
dominant material relationships the relationships which make one class the ruling one." He
saw that there would come a day when capitalism would exhaust its potential and collapse. He
did not know when that day would come. Marx, as Meghnad Desai wrote, was "an astronomer of
history, not an astrologer." Marx was keenly aware of capitalism's ability to innovate and
adapt. But he also knew that capitalist expansion was not eternally sustainable. And as we
witness the denouement of capitalism and the disintegration of globalism, Karl Marx is
vindicated as capitalism's most prescient and important critic."
We need a Nationalist government, which will automatically see itself as the mortal enemy of
the primary Internationalist (there used to be a song about that) force in the world today,
and which affects us greatly in terms of resource exploitation: Globalisation, or what we
used to call 'multi national corporations' or 'international capital'.
Nationalism is a decision-making tool as it always poses a question; what is good for
this country ?
When/if he mentions de-Globalisation, an Aus-Indonesian defence alliance, citizen
initiated referenda, and a Constitutional ban on donations and parties , then people
may listen, however he cannot be accused of being too imaginative or bright. He is
however advocating authoritarianism not fascism.
Fascism doesn't require a state sanctioned religion or suppression of religion
That said the Catholicism/fundamentalist Christian bent of the present cabinet and the
demonisation of any green beliefs is uncomfortably close to what you describe
And the nexus between big business and govern, the destruction of public institutions, the
reduction in the capacity of media to report truth and the vitriolic attacks on opponenents
are straws in an ill wind
You are right, it's not "fascismmmmmmmmmmmmmm".... it's Fascism. Which brings back to my
memory what Tom Elliott (the son of Liberal Party former president John Elliott) wrote in the
Herald Sun on 6 February 2015: "It's time we temporarily suspended the democratic process and
installed a benign dictatorship to make tough but necessary decisions."
"... Just yesterday Pieter Hoekstra, USA ambassador in the Netherlands, stated that Russia should be punished for MH17 by more sanctions, no new gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. What he did not say that this implies our buying of USA gas, 20% more expensive. The MH17 show, in my opinion is run like the Sept 11 show. Or even the holocaust show, constant reminders. ..."
"... The USA fear about Russia and the EU member states seems to be twofold: (1) more trade with Russia makes subjugation of Russia impossible; (2) more trade with Russia, and the railway connections with China, threaten to turn the USA into an economic backwater ..."
Antony C. Sutton, ´Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution', 1974 New Rochelle, N.Y.
describes how Wall Street supported bolshevism in order to prevent that German, suppose also Dutch and other, trade, with Russia
was resumed.
WWII and the aftermath created the Atlantic alliance.
Just yesterday Pieter Hoekstra, USA ambassador in the Netherlands, stated that Russia should be punished for MH17 by more
sanctions, no new gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. What he did not say that this implies our buying of USA gas, 20% more expensive.
The MH17 show, in my opinion is run like the Sept 11 show. Or even the holocaust show, constant reminders.
The USA fear about Russia and the EU member states seems to be twofold: (1) more trade with Russia makes subjugation of
Russia impossible; (2) more trade with Russia, and the railway connections with China, threaten to turn the USA into an economic
backwater
For 40 years, the ideology popularly known as "neoliberalism" has dominated political
decision-making in the English-speaking west.
People
hate it . Neoliberalism's sale of state assets, offshored jobs, stripped services,
poorly-invested infrastructure and armies of the forcibly unemployed have delivered, not
promised "efficiency" and "flexibility" to communities, but discomfort and misery. The wealth
of a few has now swelled to a level of conspicuousness that must politely be considered
vulgar
yet the philosophy's entrenched itself so deeply in how governments make decisions and allocate
resources that one of its megaphones once declared its triumph "the end of history".
ss="rich-link"> Australia needs tough cop to fight wage theft, Sally McManus says
Read more
It wasn't, as
even he admitted later . And given some of the events of the contemporary political moment,
it's possible to conclude from auguries like smoke rising from a garbage fire and patterns of
political blood upon the floor that history may be hastening neoliberalism towards an end that
its advocates did not forecast.
Three years ago,
I remarked that comedian Russell Brand may have stumbled onto a stirring spirit of the
times when his "capitalism sucks" contemplations drew stadium-sized crowds. Beyond Brand
– politically and materially – the crowds have only been growing.
Is the political zeitgeist an old
spectre up for some new haunting? Or are the times more like a strong angel proclaiming
with a loud voice, "the combination of inequality and low wage growth is fuelling discontent.
Time to sing a new song."
In days gone past, they used to slice open an animal's belly and study the shape of its
spilled entrails to find out. But we could just keep an eye on the news.
Here are my seven signs of the neoliberal apocalypse:
1. Girl crushes on Sally
McManus
The first sign appears with the noise of thunder – personalised in the form of ACTU
secretary, Sally McManus, and the trade union movement revival. No Australian of my own
generation or younger would likely possess any cultural memory of a trade union leader as hero
– let alone one whose packed-to-the-rafters appearance at Melbourne's Town Hall last week
brought with it chants and pennants, t-shirts and cheers a column of selfie-hunters. "We want
to see an end to neoliberalism!" she roared to wild applause in the barnstorming style that's
drawing similar crowds across the country. You had to feel sorry for conservative commentator
Janet Albrechtsen, who rode in to defend business-as-usual in a column entitled "I have to
admit a slight girl-crush on ACTU boss Sally McManus". "She's really not my type," McManus
retorted . Burnnnn.
2. Yanis Varoufakis praises the Communist Manifesto
The second bears a great sword – and that's the dashing former finance minister of
Greece, Yanis Varoufakis. As a scion of very modern political pedigree, he's an extraordinary
(brilliant) choice to
pen the new introduction to a re-released Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto . A
revolutionary provocation considered so incendiary it was banned on its 1848 publication, the
book only achieved distribution when its entry into court documents as evidence of sedition
legally enabled it to be printed again. Varoufakis's praise of it in his introduction is no
less provocative; he sees the book as a work of prediction. "We cannot end this idiocy
individually," he writes of our present capitalist iteration, "because no market can ever
emerge that will provide an antidote to this stupidity. Collective, democratic political action
is our only chance for freedom and enjoyment."
It was a year ago that a third sign first appeared, when the dark horse of Australian prime
ministers, Paul Keating, made public an on-balance rejection of neoliberal economics. Although
Liberal PM Malcolm Fraser instigated Australia's first neoliberal policies, it was Keating's
architecture of privatisation and deregulation as a Labor treasurer and prime minister that's
most well remembered. Now, "we have a comatose world economy held together by debt and central
bank money," Keating has said, "Liberal economics has run into a dead end and has had no answer
to the contemporary malaise." What does the disavowal mean? In terms of his Labor heir Bill
Shorten's growing appetite for redistributive taxation and close relationship to the union
movement, it means "if Bill Shorten becomes PM, the rule of engagement between labour and
capital will be rewritten," according to The Australian this week. Can't wait!
4.
Hipsters picket trendy cafe
The fourth sign comes as the death of a certain kind of pale passivity and acceptance of the
status quo among the young. But much as
Kendall Jenner got the mood so wrong when she tried to retail Pepsi through the form of a
mock riot last year, this week the kids in Melbourne got the times very, very right. On
Tuesday, a flash mob of young people descended on no less than hipper-than-hip Northcote coffee
palace, Barry,
demanding the instant redress of alleged unfair dismissal and wage theft from staff pay
packets. Not so long ago, it was the Melbourne fashion for young people to sit at cafes and
joke about how exploited at work they were. The evolution to shouty pickets and cafe shut downs
indicate in a period of record low wage growth, the laughs have worn quite thin.
5. The
reds are back under the beds
There's always a bit of judgment and vengeance inherent to the factional shenanigans of
Australia's Liberal party, but its refreshed vocabulary warrants inclusion as the fifth sign.
Michael Sukkar, the member for Deakin, has been
recorded in a dazzling rant declaring war on a "socialist" incursion into a party whose
leader is a former merchant banker who pledged to rule for "freedom, the individual and the
market" the very day he was anointed. Sukkar's insistence is wonderful complement to the
performance art monologues of former Liberal MP Bronwyn Bishop on Sky, where she weekly
decries socialism is to blame for everything from alcoholism to energy prices. The reds may not
be under the beds quite yet, but if Sukkar's convinced some commie pinkos are already
gatecrashing cocktail events with the blue-tie set, they're certainly on his mind.
6.
Tony Abbott becomes a fan of nationalising assets
Or maybe's Sukkar's right about the socialists termiting his beloved Liberal party. How else
to explain the earthquake-like paradigm shift represented by the sixth sign? Since when do
neoliberal conservatives argue for the renationalisation of infrastructure, as is the push of
Tony Abbott's gang to nationalise the coal-fired Liddell power station? It may be a cynical
stunt to take an unscientific stand against climate action, but seizing the means of production
remains seizing the means of production, um, comrade. "You know, nationalising assets is what
the Liberal party was founded to stop governments doing," said Turnbull, even as he hid in the
dens and in the rocks of the mountains to weather – strange coincidence –
yet
another Newspoll loss.
ss="rich-link"> Yanis Varoufakis: Marx predicted our present crisis – and points
the way out Read more 7. Blue-collar billionaires
In the established canon, the final sign, the seventh, installs new saints on to golden
altars before praying supplicants. And I'd suggest some circumspection before the incense is
lit and venerations begin. A clear electoral yearning for a sincere leadership of politics
beyond the neoliberal frame has encouraged lying populists on the right, like the "blue-collar
billionaire" opportunistic falsity of Trump. For a left regaining momentum, there's also
danger; seizing at instant, available heroes propels into leadership politicians who are
polarising and
imperfect for the task.
The pressing need is not to pray for intercession; Varoufakis's call is right –
"collective, democratic political action" is the genuine alternative, and it's broader
democratic investment in the institutions of parties, movements, academies and media that
always builds the world to come. That is, after all, what the neoliberals did. And look –
just look – how far they got.
Neoliberalism so far and it's a rather interesting read if you follow global politics, yes
countries like people have ' charts' and Australia's is realtively tame:
This is absolutely true. Unintended consequences will always arise if the dim-witted tamper
with complex systems they do not understand.
Brexit is a classic case. It has blown up in the faces of its proponents and the rather
more level-headed among them are desperately trying to contain the spreading damage.
Ably assisted by Rupert's >75% control of print media... with his 'Get Bill' campaigns
(first Hayden, later Shorten) with 'Get Juliar' in between! The masses are swayed by big
media, enough to deliver the 1-3% needed to gain a parliamentary majority!
"new introduction to a re-released Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto.
Collective, democratic political action is our only chance for freedom and enjoyment."
Might be true. But frightening that people should naively still think that democracy is to
be found in the 'Dictatorship of the Proletariate' [ ie those who know what's good for you
even if you don't like it ] of the Communist Manefesto after the revelations of what that
leads to in the Gulag Arichipeligo , Mao's China , Pol Pot , Kim John - un . How quickly the
world forgets. - you might just as well advocate Mein Kampf it's the same thing in the end
!
I don't think socialism can work without giving up too much freedom. Once you are in the
Leviathan's clutches, it is difficult to break free. In the USA, we have a great system. I
call it socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. It works great, but it only works
great for 1% of the people.
https://mises.org/wire/real-relationship-between-capitalism-and-environment
This idea of Capitalism fundamentally and completely undermining the environment is a myth.
You realise that the worst possible environmental degradation today occurs in extremely poor
countries which have neither the economic base, nor the surplus money to care for the
environment. Compound this with terrible legal systems in many of those countries and you get
the economic degradation you have today.
The fact that multinationals are happy to take Australian minerals from the land, make money
selling products to Australians, yet pay nil tax in Australia tells you everything you need
to know about how much they care for our 'state and society'.
Does present day neo-liberalism actually qualify as a political movement?
Vested interests and the dollar seem to have all the power. Lies and deception are so
common the truth is seen as the enemy. The voting public are merely fools for manipulation.
Nah, neo-liberalism is not government, it is something far nastier, and clearly not what the
public vote for, presuming a vote actually counts for anything anymore.
Plus, unlimited funding for elections has cemented capitalism's ability to 'buy' all the
elections, and hold-captive all the regulators it needs. Without the Citizens United decision
from right wing SCOTUS judges, US elections would be far more representative. Only in
capitalism can one believe that "money equals free speech". No such provision is in the US
constitution, so it is only these Bush-appointed judges who have determined that money can
rule the people. Even more stupid are the countries that have followed the USA down this
slippery slope. If you can fund politicians to undermine the ATO and ASIC, why not also allow
corporations to just pay bribes to judges to get decisions they would like?
Thanks curiouswes. Nice to engage in a polite discussion for a change.
I think you are right, in that all revolutions are susceptible to falling to their own
methods. Any mechanism for revolution legitimises the same mechanism for counter-revolution.
This is why violent revolution leads to militarism and authoritarianism. I don't think anyone
welcoming Lenin at the Finland Station did so because they wanted to live in a police state.
By the same token, I don't think that Socialism is inherently linked to giving the state
authoritarian power. In fact Socialism and democracy are perfectly compatible, because
democracy (one citizen one vote) is the counterweight to capitalism (one dollar one
vote).
As for globalism, it's the natural mode of capitalism and has been for centuries. Colonial
expansion and capitalism became synonymous with things like the Dutch East India Company.
Neoliberalism wants global reach for capital, but not for the regulators. They want keep
their tax-haven cake and eat it too. Typically, what they want is less about a free market
and more about freedom to game the market.
No, the current malaise is not 'due' to democracy, but despite it. America has
unlimited political funding by capitalism to sway elections to their desires. Australia is in
almost the same position, due to weak political funding reporting, and nil limits on what
'non-party' entities can spend on elections, or in the case of Rudd's removal, how just $45m
in advertising by the MCA managed to remove a sitting PM, because the handful of MCA members
did not want a resource tax. Our democracy has slipped into being a plutocracy (rule by the
wealthy).
Neoliberalism has inflicted a great deal of damage on western economies through the
off-shoring of industries and jobs by the wealthy elites who were aided by the donor addicted
political class. As a result, western democracies have weakened themselves in the eyes of the
world community who now see us as examples of dysfunctional economies and governing methods.
Who can blame them when the leading champion of the rules based order is so smitten with debt
it must withdraw into itself under the threat of debt default.
The way forward for us is not to look back at what is lost but too look at developing new
manufacturing industries and in particular, high technology manufacturing involving vehicles,
batteries, solar panels, biotechnology and other related areas.
What is always revealing about Vanessa and her obsession with neoliberalism, is her
intellectual dishonesty wrapped in a smattering of populist half-truths while ignoring any
fact that might get in the way of the emotional narrative.
How successful were the largely populist socialist governments in latin America: Argentina,
Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador and, of course, the socialist paradise of Venezuela?
We don't have to go back 40 years Vanessa. A quick peek east across the Pacific to the last
decade of failed populist socialist ideology in South America tells enough.
PS: Delighted to see that you are back to full health after the 2 months of "absolute hell"
that you went through during the SSM postal survey - Q&A.
Neoliberalism, capitalism even, may well be dying. But the spectre of socialism is dead. What
you hear when kicking the cupboard is just the squeaking of the door, not the spectre
supposedly rumoring inside.
Worse, socialism did not just disappear but considerable fractions degenerated into all
kinds of zombies: you have the aggressive dreamers, who confound anecdotes about repair-cafes
or school meals with economic modeling and won't accept any response but flattery (yes, the
'senior' economic commentator is an example). You have the fascists supporting Assad because
he administrates the legacy of his Hitler-admiring father and people like the
Eichmann-assistant Alois Brunner, and a lot of them identify as 'anti-imperialist
left-wingers'. You have the naive nation-state nostalgics who believe the value of work can
be increased by blocking immigration, ignoring that the assembly of a car for the German
market can be done in the Netherlands or Slovakia just as well as in the UK.
To be sure: I know that persons like Varoufakis (or Badham) are neither fascists nor
morons. I wished it were these people who shaped the society after the downfall of
laissez-faire capitalism. But I fail to believe it. I believe that the end of laissez-faire
capitalism will coincide with the rise of fascism. Thus, I propose to extend capitalism's
life expectancy be shifting tax burdens from income and profit to wealth and to create a
favorable environment for tech-addicted turbo-capitalism.
he first page of Tim Winton's new essay collection,
The Boy Behind the Curtain
, sets a disturbing scene. A 13-year-old boy stands at the window of a suburban
street, behind a terylene curtain, training a rifle on passersby.
"He was a fraught little thing," says Winton
of that boy – the boy he used to be. "I feel related to him but I'm no longer completely him, thank god."
The passage opens a surprisingly intimate essay about the role of guns in Australian life, setting the tone for
a collection being billed as Winton's most personal yet.
In spite of his inclination for solitude, Winton has spent much of his life in the spotlight. His first novel,
An Open Swimmer, catapulted him into the public eye when it won the Vogel literary award in 1981, but it was his
1991 novel, Cloudstreet, that cemented his place in Australian letters. Winton has won the Miles Franklin award
four times and been shortlisted twice for the Booker. His books have been adapted for film, TV and
even opera
.
ss="rich-link">
Island Home by Tim Winton review – a love song to Australia and a cry to
save it
Read more
The contradictions of having such a high-profile career while working in a quintessentially solitary artform
are not lost on him. "I spend all day in a room with people who don't exist, and I'm not thinking about any public
– but once the thing's done it goes out there and it has a public life over which I have no, or very little,
control," he says.
On one reading, the boy with the rifle lurking out of sight, watching the world go by, could be a metaphor for
the life of a reclusive writer. But Winton is quick to distinguish himself from such a reading. "I wouldn't like
to see myself as somebody who was just cruelly observing the world behind the terylene curtain of art."
For Winton, the perceived lives of other writers always seemed completely unrelated to his own experience. "I
grew up with a kind of modernist romantic idea of the writer as some kind of high priest, someone who saw
themselves as separate and better, which I now find a bit repellent," he says. "I think that was something that
was sold to us at school and certainly at university that writers were somehow aloof from the ordinary business
of life; they didn't have to abide by the same rules as other people. The worse their behaviour off the page, the
more we were supposed to cheer them on. Once I woke up to that idea as a teenager, I think I consciously resisted
it."
Winton's own background was characterised by a working class sensibility and evangelical religion. His parents
converted to the Church of Christ when he was a small boy, the circumstances and his experiences of which form the
basis of a number of the previously unpublished essays in The Boy Behind the Curtain. As a result, when he finally
did start writing, it was with a particularly industrious work ethic.
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Tim Winton: 'There wasn't a lot of romance in my view of what writing was about.' Photograph: Hank Kordas
"I approached it like I was a tradesperson," he says. "It didn't necessarily involve FM radio played very
loudly on a worksite; it didn't always require plumbers' crack or a hard hat and there was certainly no
catcalling, but for the rest of it I went a different route. There wasn't a lot of romance in my view of what
writing was about."
ss="rich-link">
A fish called Tim Winton: scientists name new species after novelist
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Yet it was finding words, what Winton calls "the enormous luxury of language", that took him from being a
13-year-old boy who watched strangers through the eye of a rifle – a boy who was "obviously insecure and feeling
threatened and probably not quite one with the world" – to a well-adjusted adult.
The "emotional infancy of men" has a lot to answer for, he says, suggesting that it's something society would
do well to pay more attention to in its early stages. "The lumpiness and surly silence of boys is not something
we're sufficiently interested in. They're not sufficiently attractive to us until they become victims or dangerous
brutes and bullies."
ass="inline-garnett-quote inline-icon ">
I think it's a mistake to think someone who doesn't say much doesn't have strong
feelings
Tim Winton
Conflicted masculinity is recurring theme throughout Winton's fiction, and his characters often suffer as a
result of their inability to articulate their feelings. "I think it's a mistake to think someone who doesn't say
much doesn't have strong feelings," he says. "I think we stifle people's expression or we ignore people's signals
of wanting to express things at our peril."
The distinct tenor of Winton's prose, a lyricism which manages to turn even the Australian vernacular into a
kind of rough poetry, lends itself to the intimacy of the personal essay. The Boy Behind the Curtain contains a
number of vignettes that reflect the imagery and landscape that characterises his fiction: hot bitumen roads
through the desert; the churning ocean.
But there is also a clear political streak to Winton's nonfiction, and the inclusion of a number of more direct
essays in this collection mean it's difficult to collapse the work under the category of memoir. Stones for Bread,
for example, calls for a return to empathy and humanity in Australia's approach to asylum seekers. The Battle for
Ningaloo Reef is a clear-eyed account of the activism that prevented a major commercial development from
destroying a stretch of the Western Australian coastline. And Using the C-Word concerns that other dirty word that
Winton believes we are avoiding: class.
"I think there are people talking about class but they're having to do that against the flow," Winton says.
"We're living in a dispensation that is endlessly reinforcing the idea that we are not citizens but economic
players. And under that dispensation it's in nobody's interest, especially those in power, to encourage or foster
the idea that there's any class difference."
The market doesn't care about people, Winton argues, and neither is there any genius in it. "There's no
invisible hand," he says. "And if there is one, it's scratching its arse."
It's clear to Winton that neoliberalism is failing, but not without casualties, two of which are very close to
his heart: the arts and the environment.
"People in the arts are basically paying the price for this new regime where we pay no tax and where we get
less public service and more privatised service," he says. "The arts are last on, first off in people's minds and
I think that's not just sad, it's corrosive. They're just seen as fluff, as fripperies, as indulgence, as add-ons
and luxury. And I don't think the arts are luxury; I think they're fundamental to civilisation. It's just that
under our current dispensation, civilisation is not the point; civilisation is something that commerce has to
negotiate and traduce if necessary."
Winton is one of a number of high-profile critics of the Productivity Commission's proposals to allow
the parallel importation of books
, and a signatory to petitions opposing
funding cuts to the Australia Council
. But he has also been a grassroots activist in the area of marine
conservation for over 15 years.
"I don't know if I'm an activist writer or just a writer who has an activist life on the side," he says.
ass="inline-garnett-quote inline-icon ">
I don't know if I'm an activist writer or just a writer who has an activist life
on the side
Tim Winton
Years of lobbying by conservation groups and the general public contributed to the Labor government
announcement in 2012 of
42 marine reserves in Australian waters
, including over the entire Coral Sea. The Abbott government, however,
implemented a review which, in September this year, recommended
significantly scaling back those reservations
. It was, says Winton, an act of cowardice.
"The Abbott review was basically all about applying inertia to imminent progress," Winton says. "We've gone
from world leaders [in conservation] to being too frightened to lead."
When asked what role writing fiction plays in his activist work, Winton says it comes back to the idea of
"keeping people's imaginations awake".
"Imagination is the fundamental virtue of civilisation. If people can't imagine then they can't live an ethical
life."
"... Anger at repression is quelled under the military dictatorship – but the country's punk scene is turning the protest volume back up again. ..."
"... The provocative slogan, directed at junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha, helped the event's Facebook page go viral, piquing the interest of pro-democracy activists and putting the small underground scene in the national spotlight. ..."
America's "color revolutions" are polished by the Western media to portray opposition as
daring heroes. However, the truth is far less flattering, and even compromising.
But telling the truth is not the business the Guardian is in – telling narratives that
buttress the US-European corporate-driven agenda is. And the agenda for Thailand is regime
change .
Just as the Western media sold the world tales of brutal terrorists representing "freedom"
and "democracy" in nations like Libya and Syria in 2011 or right wing Neo-Nazis in Ukraine in
2014 – the Western media is rummaging through the lowest common denominator in Thai
society to portray a fringe anti-government movement as a "popular uprising." To that end,
Buchanan's article portrays drug-addled woman-beaters like Kanpim as disingenuously as he does
Thailand's political crisis. His article claims:
Anger at repression is quelled under the military dictatorship – but the
country's punk scene is turning the protest volume back up again.
It continued:
The provocative slogan, directed at junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha, helped the event's
Facebook page go viral, piquing the interest of pro-democracy activists and putting the small
underground scene in the national spotlight.
Despite Prayuth Chan-ocha being Prime Minister of Thailand – the Western media has
repeatedly used the slur "junta leader" to depict both the prime minister himself and the
nation's government as a backwards 3rd world dictatorship.
Yet no mention is made of what
precipitated the 2014 military coup in Thailand that brought both to power – not by
Buchanan in the Guardian – and not anywhere else across the Western media.
Western Media's Contempt for Context
The previous government was headed by US-backed billionaire ex-prime minister, mass
murderer, and now fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra via his own sister who openly ran as his proxy
during 2011 elections. After coming to power in 2011, Shinawatra immediately began amending
laws to grant himself and his political allies amnesty in a bid to return himself fully to
power.
A vote-buying rice subsidy program that played a role in putting Shinawatra's political
party into power also began
unraveling . By 2014, nearly 1 million farmers were left unpaid with their rice stolen away
to government warehouses. Protests swelled to over 1 million people on key days. In a bid to
cling to power, Shinawatra deployed heavily armed militants to attack protesters across the
country leaving over 20 dead.
These were the same armed militants who targeted and killed soldiers in 2010 triggering
weeks of violence leaving nearly 100 dead in what Buchanan disingenuously called in his article
a "military crackdown."
Shinawatra's government openly declared it did not recognize the court's authority. Police
– loyal to Shinawatra who himself was a high-level police bureaucrat before becoming
prime minister – refused to act. It was left to the military to intervene to restore the
rule of law.Up until the week of the coup that finally removed Shinawatra from power –
people were dying in the streets and farmers languished unpaid and in crippling poverty induced
by the Shinawatra's corruption.
In this context, the coup would appear justified to most readers – which is precisely
why this context is omitted in Buchanan's article and in articles all across the Western
media.
The Woman-Beating "Freedom Fighter"
This brings us back to Buchanan's article and its attempt to portray Thailand's "punk scene"
as a small but important part of the "widespread opposition" he claims exists. Friends close to
Kitikea 'Pure Punk' Kanpim – admit that he suffers from a life of substance abuse –
ranging from hard drugs and the abuse of prescription psychotropics, to alcohol and butane
fumes. He is also prone to fits of abuse and violence – directed generally at his
girlfriend. Local news stories have frequently covered his erratic and at times criminal
behavior which police believe is associated with mental illness.
In one instance, Kanpim would punch his girlfriend in the face, knocking her to the ground
before painfully grinding his Doc Martin boot on her forehead.
In other instances, his abuse has been caught on videos now circulating on social media
including one where he is seen violently pulling his girlfriend's hair and grabbing her by the
neck. Those in Kanpim's circle also regularly assault their girlfriends.
Abuse against women is rampant throughout what Buchanan calls Thailand's "punk subculture"
– but what is actually considered by Thais as "Kaya Sangkom," or "garbage society"
– for obvious reasons.
The only real common thread running through "garbage society" is abuse of oneself and of
others and a complete inability to contribute positively to society. While Kanpim dresses in a
style the less discerning could superficially consider "punk," he clearly falls under "Kaya
Sangkom."Yet to write an article exposing vocal supporters of US-backed regime
change in Thailand as drug-addled, woman-beating "garbage" would only prove critics of the
opposition right – that efforts to rush elections in Thailand are being spearheaded by
US-backed billionaire fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra, his political machine, US-funded "students"
and "NGOs," and anyone unsavory and undignified enough to join in – including Thai
society's "garbage" for a chance in the Western media's spotlight.
Just as the Western media allied itself with the worst of Libyan, Syrian, or Ukrainian
society – its alliance with the dregs of Thai society will eventually backfire as
well.
Such people have proven themselves notoriously unreliable – often overwhelmed by the
attention they have desperately craved their entire lives and now suddenly have –
exposing their true nature in dramatic and often very public episodes of violence and
criminality. So far – the Western media controls the narrative in nations like Thailand
which lack their own English-language media to tell the other side of stories people like James
Buchanan and the Guardian intentionally omit – awarding dishonesty with impunity in front
of international audiences.
Yet just like in Libya, Syria – or more recently in Ukraine
regarding the Babchenko hoax – where the West's lies have mounted and eventually
backfired – the clock is ticking for people like James Buchanan and the "heroes" he is
manufacturing in Southeast Asia's Thailand. The winds of truth will eventually blow, and when
they do, they will take the credibility of those like Buchanan and their lies away with
them.
Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the
online magazine "New Eastern Outlook" .
Polack is, effectively, almost any Polish national who dances upon the official
fairy-telling narrative of Polish state puppeteers. In that Marvelous Universe, Poland is a
truly indispensable part of the West, for its glorious deeds of once Saving the Christendom
in Vienna, and containing the Bear all other time.
In reality, it is a loser entity that 'Cannot Into Space' on many historic occasions
– mostly from building multi-ethnic empire to invading Russia. Poles suffer from being
surrounded by equally capable neighbors, Russians and Germans. Chopin is good, but he is
neither Mozart nor Chaikovsky, and to have such genii, one has to build empire first, and
then enjoy imperial music and literature.
For the West, Poland is an 'useful idiot' or a dupe, never treated as equal partner. In
Western (Capitalist) division of nations labor Poles are The Exploited. They are 1) cannon
fodder from Vienna to Monte-Cassino 2) theater of war and destruction to prevent Russians
from entering and destroying True Europe 3) cheap labor or preferrable white slaves 4) one
who pays for everything. Today, option 3 is fullfilled, others are selected by the the West.
Poland is a still a resource, and will be consumed by the West on any pretext. To the East,
there is a Big Brother that has its own resources.
We Russians used to treat the Polish identity illness, by capturing Warsaw many times. The
prognosis is still grave. Dear Polish brethren, we have no other options for you. Stick with
the West, keep your Catholic dreams and continue to perish. When you go critical, we may
think of surgery again.
The US decided, by promulgating Act 447, that a Polish Jew has never been a citizen of
Poland; he was a member of Jewry, and his property should revert to Jewry, not to the
Goyish Polish state.
It is nice that the US issues laws that are supposed to have effect in other states; the
slightly tipsy Galactus of Democracy is in his Heaven, all is right with the World.
It means that they can seize property of recently deceased ones in the Homeland and
embiggen the Tribe, But how are they going to enforce it in Poland? Sanctions? Threats to
move NATO out of Poland? No F-35 for you?
(Also, did the Scriptures say anything about when the Monstrously Swollen Jewish Messiah
will meet Ultra-Confucius for a Battle at the End of Times?)
The West pushed the Poles to rise against Germans in 1944, hoping to re-establish
anti-Russian Poland once again, but did nothing when the rebels bled to death. (Well, not
exactly nothing: they complained why Russian soldiers do not want to die for them).
Please do not forget the extraordinary role of the RAF and SAAF aircrews who flew supplies
to the Home Army in Warsaw from bases in southern Italy. Many of them lost their lives and
are buried in a Commonwealth cemetery in Krakow.
Magnificent article . Pole troops even invaded Spain with Napoleon , those " catholic " Poles
did not seem to feel bad for joining antichristian French revolutionary armies invading
Catholic Spain .
Polish Pope John Paul II , Woytila , joined forces with Reagan and Thatcher , with the
most wild anglosaxon imperialism , against the rest of the world . John Paul II , with his 27
year pontificate , left the Catholic Church devastated , the Catholic churches empty , the
people faithless .
When Polacks , baltics , and other weirdo countries of eastern europe joined the EU I
realized that the EU had no future .
Poland is a very sinister country , a factor of endless conflicts .
To liken Jewry to a feudal order of obligations and ownership explains a lot about their
collective behavior.
I hope the Polish people tell the United States to go to hell.
Perhaps there is little that we as Americans can do right now to stop the control freaks
in our Zionist controlled government from behaving like ruthless feudal landlords, but I am
hoping that the rest of the Western world removes the American boot off its neck and tells
the US to -- - off.
In March of 1951, Jacobo Arbenz came to power in Guatemala after having been resoundingly
elected by the people. A little more than three years later, he was forced to resign in the
midst of armed intervention. His reforms to redistribute unused land to poor peasants had
fallen afoul of the United Fruit Company, which owned and warehoused vast tracts of Guatemalan
land. The American corporation solicited the US government to overthrow the populist president
and the Eisenhower administration delivered with the help of the Department of State and CIA,
which happened to be led by the Dulles brothers, who had strong ties to the company. Arbenz'
ousting put an end to democracy in Guatemala for decades and replaced it by military rule. A
civil war followed several years later, resulting in the deaths of over 200,000 people. The
country remains one of Latin America's most impoverished to this day.
And Guatemala is but one of a myriad of countries whose fates have been catastrophically
dictated by America's imperialist interventions. In this film, American author, journalist, and
academic Stephen Kinzer explores the formula and rationale the US uses to overthrow governments
it doesn't like, as well as its real motives. As illustrated in Guatemala, Libya, and Hawaii,
the people in places whose governments were toppled by US-engineered coups are still dealing
with the aftermath many years later.
Meanwhile, we're pretending like Trump is some sort of prophet when it comes to NK, Syria,
and Iran, even though it's so painfully obvious how thirsty this administration is for
more regime change war. Excellent documentary. I'd love to see more things like this
from RT.
Oil worth of 1/3 TRILLION US dollar has been sold in yuan in the first 43 days of oil
trading in Shanghai. Bye bye PetroDollar...soon the US with their failing economy and massive
debt burden will not be able to sponsor regime change and terrorism in foreign countries.
When RT produces a documentary about the hundred plus million of people killed by
communism in the 20th century, I will start believing they are a real news outlet and not
just a propaganda arm of Moscow. A REAL news organization is evenly critical of their masters
as much as the rest of those whom they report on.
China, America, U.N., England, African government and Germany and Russia are the real
bullies globally. I see America as the modern day Roman empire. China is China. Russia is
Russia. American government trying to rule all the world.
As Chomsky has said, American imperialism can be traced to the takeover of Cuba, Puerto
Rico and Hawaii in the late 1890s. We've been an ever-expanding, unaccountable, unethical,
imperialist empire ever since.
Meanwhile, we're pretending like Trump is some sort of prophet when it comes to NK, Syria,
and Iran, even though it's so painfully obvious how thirsty this administration is for
more regime change war. Excellent documentary. I'd love to see more things like this
from RT.
Not clearing out why can't you say the word ...(genocide) bc that what you did,Kno wonder
why America not stop isreal from committing genocide is bc they did it to indigenous ppl in
America so why would they care what's going on in Palestine hmmmm
It's so sad to see a writer who has such an accurate and truly factual understanding of
the US foreign "Regime Change" policy, but yet still believes that 9/11 was the blow back of
US interventionism.
Those responsible for the death of Gaddafi were African leaders with the help of CIA
America. These culpable African leaders are now paying the price with bokoharan, isis etc.
The Americans are back in Zimbabwe, etc to do more in carving up of Africa again.
Oil worth of 1/3 TRILLION US dollar has been sold in yuan in the first 43 days of oil
trading in Shanghai. Bye bye PetroDollar...soon the US with their failing economy and massive
debt burden will not be able to sponsor regime change and terrorism in foreign
countries.
I resisted, and paid a price. It's a hard road because the people I wanted to spare from
my participation don't know my history - They only know I'm a white American. What I'm trying
to say is that it's not just the foreign or overseas people who are coerced and threatened
into accepting American thuggery - It's also Americans who don't want to be part of the
imperialism. The thugs hurt us too. When I was in Hawaii for several months I was constantly
aware that the natives - Hawaiian, Asian - saw me in varying degrees as an invader
imperialist. That's the legacy my government left for me, and I will never forgive all the
war and harm. Some things can't be changed, so everyone should be cautious about what's done
in their name.
When RT produces a documentary about the hundred plus million of people killed by
communism in the 20th century, I will start believing they are a real news outlet and not
just a propaganda arm of Moscow. A REAL news organization is evenly critical of their masters
as much as the rest of those whom they report on.
China, America, U.N., England, African government and Germany and Russia are the real
bullies globally. I see America as the modern day Roman empire. China is China. Russia is
Russia. American government trying to rule all the world.
the saddest part is there is many many stories like this all true and were hidden from us
all these years , while we were all celebrating how great and free we were this kind of
dispictable scams and crimes by the ones we trusted were going on behind closed doors , we
had no internet , we do now we are waking up ,a little too late when the damage is
done
And that's why millions of people migrated to the United States🇺🇸 during
the 70s, 80s, 90s & they still coming because of what was done to them in the past. But
don't worry... Jesus Christ will bring justice very soon☺
I hope Putin and the rest of the world knows there place and knows you will never win in a
war against the United States of America we are the best and the strongest to ever live on
this globe
This is so sad but oh so true I can't for the life of me understand how anyone in this
oligarchy of a country can't see the evil at the top. Case in point if TRUMP is supposed to
MAGA how is that possible with John Bolton by his side? John Bolton along with many many
others like Clinton and Bush families need to be held accountable for their crimes against
humanity. Thanks to the overwhelming amount of brainwashing they use against us evil will
never die. Americans will continue believing in this fake system because they have been
indoctrinated to the point they no longer know how to critically think! Why would they
critically think when they have the media to do it for them? Plus everyone is enslaved by a
debt system working themselves too death with no time for thought of the big picture to even
pop into their weak minds. So the evil tyrannical system will continue, until we truthers
wake them up or lol we vote in someone for the people.... Which is a joke! Everyone claims
they don't trust their government but yet they still believe in this obviously fake system
built upon fake money. I love the United States and it truly could be much worse but this is
the sad truth that will destroy it and in my opinion I'm certain the end is near for this
country and possibly the world as we know it??? I hope and pray in wrong
but???????????????
As Chomsky has said, American imperialism can be traced to the takeover of Cuba, Puerto
Rico and Hawaii in the late 1890s. We've been an ever-expanding, unaccountable, unethical,
imperialist empire ever since.
Meanwhile, we're pretending like Trump is some sort of prophet when it comes to NK, Syria,
and Iran, even though it's so painfully obvious how thirsty this administration is for
more regime change war. Excellent documentary. I'd love to see more things like this
from RT.
Not clearing out why can't you say the word ...(genocide) bc that what you did,Kno wonder
why America not stop isreal from committing genocide is bc they did it to indigenous ppl in
America so why would they care what's going on in Palestine hmmmm
It's so sad to see a writer who has such an accurate and truly factual understanding of
the US foreign "Regime Change" policy, but yet still believes that 9/11 was the blow back of
US interventionism.
Those responsible for the death of Gaddafi were African leaders with the help of CIA
America. These culpable African leaders are now paying the price with bokoharan, isis etc.
The Americans are back in Zimbabwe, etc to do more in carving up of Africa again.
Oil worth of 1/3 TRILLION US dollar has been sold in yuan in the first 43 days of oil
trading in Shanghai. Bye bye PetroDollar...soon the US with their failing economy and massive
debt burden will not be able to sponsor regime change and terrorism in foreign
countries.
I resisted, and paid a price. It's a hard road because the people I wanted to spare from
my participation don't know my history - They only know I'm a white American. What I'm trying
to say is that it's not just the foreign or overseas people who are coerced and threatened
into accepting American thuggery - It's also Americans who don't want to be part of the
imperialism. The thugs hurt us too. When I was in Hawaii for several months I was constantly
aware that the natives - Hawaiian, Asian - saw me in varying degrees as an invader
imperialist. That's the legacy my government left for me, and I will never forgive all the
war and harm. Some things can't be changed, so everyone should be cautious about what's done
in their name.
When RT produces a documentary about the hundred plus million of people killed by
communism in the 20th century, I will start believing they are a real news outlet and not
just a propaganda arm of Moscow. A REAL news organization is evenly critical of their masters
as much as the rest of those whom they report on.
China, America, U.N., England, African government and Germany and Russia are the real
bullies globally. I see America as the modern day Roman empire. China is China. Russia is
Russia. American government trying to rule all the world.
the saddest part is there is many many stories like this all true and were hidden from us
all these years , while we were all celebrating how great and free we were this kind of
dispictable scams and crimes by the ones we trusted were going on behind closed doors , we
had no internet , we do now we are waking up ,a little too late when the damage is
done
And that's why millions of people migrated to the United States🇺🇸 during
the 70s, 80s, 90s & they still coming because of what was done to them in the past. But
don't worry... Jesus Christ will bring justice very soon☺
I hope Putin and the rest of the world knows there place and knows you will never win in a
war against the United States of America we are the best and the strongest to ever live on
this globe
It's so sad RT can't make news without talking about the USA😂😂😂
Like they always say, you have to be doing something rite if they keep talking about you
🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
No foreign governments attached on 9/11. It was BUSH and many American parties involved in
taking down all those buildings and killing everyone they could to cover-up many countries
bad investments and Bush's and Clinton family's crimes. We are killer's and pimps and
mobsters in America. America SUCKS!!!! I'm American I can say this for now. We're going
shortly into communism and going to hookup with communist China.
This is so sad but oh so true I can't for the life of me understand how anyone in this
oligarchy of a country can't see the evil at the top. Case in point if TRUMP is supposed to
MAGA how is that possible with John Bolton by his side? John Bolton along with many many
others like Clinton and Bush families need to be held accountable for their crimes against
humanity. Thanks to the overwhelming amount of brainwashing they use against us evil will
never die. Americans will continue believing in this fake system because they have been
indoctrinated to the point they no longer know how to critically think! Why would they
critically think when they have the media to do it for them? Plus everyone is enslaved by a
debt system working themselves too death with no time for thought of the big picture to even
pop into their weak minds. So the evil tyrannical system will continue, until we truthers
wake them up or lol we vote in someone for the people.... Which is a joke! Everyone claims
they don't trust their government but yet they still believe in this obviously fake system
built upon fake money. I love the United States and it truly could be much worse but this is
the sad truth that will destroy it and in my opinion I'm certain the end is near for this
country and possibly the world as we know it??? I hope and pray in wrong
but???????????????
la idea es ser el govierno de este pequeno planeta solo nesesita someter unos cuantos
paises y el globo es de ellos alparecer en esto se esta trabajando 7 × 24
Former Yugoslavia, from 1992 and the warn in Bosnia and Croatia culminating with 78 days
of bombing in 1999 and ocupation of Kosovo and Metohija province (still ongoing).
This People and Power film from 2010 investigated accusations that in 1952 the United States
acquired and used germ-warfare technology on North Korea.
The film followed professor Masataka Mori as he journeyed inside the secretive regime of
North Korea to take eye-witness testimony from survivors of, and witnesses to, the germ-warfare
attacks. Together with Professor Mori, who has investigated these claims over a twenty year
period Al Jazeera's team travelled to the villages and townships where the US Army/Air Force
allegedly dropped bombs containing infected insects, rodents and food.
Mori's painstakingly acquired trust, and the remarkable evidence he has collected, produced
a film which is both extraordinary and controversial - not least because it comes at a time
when America and its allies are so determined to prevent North Korea developing nuclear weapons
- the most potent of all weapons of mass destruction.
In Harbin, China, Mori located survivors of the wartime Japanese army's Unit 731 responsible
for germ warfare attacks on China. After the war, the man behind this research co-operated with
US Army scientists in return for not being prosecuted for war crimes.
Harbin also houses a small research museum dedicated to uncovering the extent of Unit 731's
activities - both during World War Two and in the years when America allegedly adopted it.
Is amazing how those insect field bombs we're laying perfectly on top of a layer of snow
that it did not penetrate after falling from an airplane and the capsules weren't even dented
or destroyed in any way amazing
Russia vetoed resolutions to investigate the allegations, the US pow's who "confirmed" the
use of biological weapons later admitted to being tortured to make those statements and
renounced everything they said, in the 1990's the US released Soviet documents and
communications confirming it was a disinformation campaign by NK which was then backed up by
former Soviet officials.
And one year later in 1953 they clandestinely tested LSD in the bread of an unsuspecting
French town of Pont-Saint-Esprit while France was considered a "friend".Some psycho friend
the US is...
One practical issue is what is going to happen to European investments in Iran. The most
high profile example is French energy company Total's investment in a giant Iran gasfield.
Total said this month it would pull out of Iran and its development of the giant South Pars
gasfield unless it is specifically protected from US penalties and related sanctions (see
Financial Times article " Total threat to pull out of
Iran dents EU hopes of saving accord ", May 17, 2018).
Obviously, some form of compromise may be negotiated. But if Washington takes a hard line,
such as claiming US jurisdiction as regards dollar transfers between two sovereign countries as
was the case in 2014 with the US$9 billion fine levied on French bank BNP, then a confrontation
is seemingly inevitable and, as a result, a growing questioning of the US hegemony implied by
the US dollar paper standard, a concern which has long been shared by both China and
Russia.
QUESTIONING THE US' ROLE AS THE "ECONOMIC POLICEMAN OF THE PLANET"
In this respect, the most interesting reaction to the Iran issue since Donald Trump made his
announcement on May 8 was that of the French finance minister Bruno Le Maire when he said on
May 9 that it was not acceptable for the US to be the "economic policeman of the planet".
In this respect, France is the European country to watch since it has a history of being
willing to stand up to Washington in the post-1945 world. That cannot really be said of Germany
and certainly not of Britain.
POMPEO WARNS IRAN OF ESCALATING SANCTIONS
Staying on the subject of Iran, US Secretary of State and former CIA boss Mike Pompeo made
an ultra-aggressive speech on Monday threatening Iran with escalating sanctions. In his first
major foreign policy address as Secretary of State, Pompeo stated:
Sanctions are going back in full effect and new ones are coming This sting of sanctions
will be painful if the regime does not change its course These will indeed end up being the
strongest sanctions in history when we are complete.
The above rhetoric hardly suggests a willingness to compromise with the European position.
The significance of all of the above is that Europe and the US remain on a collision
course.
IRAN'S EXPORTS BOOMING SINCE SANCTIONS ENDED
The importance of Europe for Iran can be seen in the fact that Iran's exports to Europe have
surged almost ninefold since the end of sanctions in January 2016.
Thus, Iran's exports to the EU have risen from US$1.3 billion in 2015 to US$11.4 billion in
the 12 months to January, according to the IMF Direction of Trade Statistics (see following
chart).
There is also of course the growing trade between Iran and China. Iran's total trade with
China rose by 18%YoY to US$27.5 billion in the 12 months to January (see following chart). All
this makes Iran a good example of the increasingly multipolar world where American influence or
interests appear to be fading.
IRAN ANNUALIZED EXPORTS TO EU
Source: IMF – Direction of Trade Statistics
IRAN ANNUALIZED TOTAL TRADE WITH CHINA
Source: IMF – Direction of Trade Statistics
IRAN'S CURRENCY TAKES A HIT
Meanwhile, Iran's currency has been hit hard in recent months as a result of the uncertainty
created by Trump's previous repeated earlier threats to pull out of the nuclear deal and now
subsequent follow-through decision.
The rial has depreciated in the black market by 33% against the US dollar year-to-date (see
following chart). This followed a period of comparative stability where the currency traded in
a 13% range for two years, helped by the optimism created by the nuclear deal as well as by
very high real interest
rates . Iranian treasury bill yields peaked at 27% in early 2017 and bottomed at 16% late
last year. They are now back at 19% as a result of the market pressure created by the threat of
renewed American sanctions.
IRANIAN RIAL/US$ (INVERTED SCALE)
Note: Based on black market rate after Iran unified its dual exchange rates on 9 April.
Source: Ministry of Economic Affairs and Finance, Bonbast.com
SUBSTANTIAL FOREIGN INVESTMENT IN IRAN
With a classic bullish emerging market demographic profile, in terms of a
population of 80 million, 60% of whom are under the age of 35, Iran has, naturally, attracted a
lot of foreign direct investment in recent years, most particularly following the 2015 nuclear
deal.
The biggest of late was the previously mentioned Total's US$4.8 billion investment signed in
July 2017. But Total says it has only invested under €40 million so far, according to the
above mentioned FT article, which is precisely why the French company wants to know if it can
get a specific waiver from the sanctions.
In terms of the aggregate data, Iran's actual FDI inflows surged by 64%YoY to US$3.37
biilion in 2016, according to United Nations data. While an Iranian government report published
last year disclosed that Iran has approved US$11.8 billion in FDI during the 12 months to
December 2016, with Spain and Germany accounting for US$3.2 billion and US$2.9 billion of that
total respectively.
IRAN FDI INFLOWS
Source: UNCTAD World Investment Report 2017
WILL WE SEE A RETREAT FROM PAX
AMERICANA?
The point, therefore, remains that a confrontation between the US and the Eurozone on this
issue is potentially a landmark development in the retreat from Pax Americana.
But for now it is probably the case that most of Europe, in the spirit of appeasement, will
be content to fudge the issue in the hope that Donald Trump may not be re-elected to the US
presidency for a second term and life will return to "normal".
IRAN'S ECONOMY
Turning away from geopolitical issues, Iran's economy and financial markets spring some
positive surprises. The country has an open capital account, while there is no tax on capital
gains or dividends. The Tehran Stock Exchange celebrated its 50th anniversary last year.
But if FDI has been coming into the country in recent years, foreign portfolio investment
activity has been much more limited, with estimates of only US$100 million invested in
aggregate. This is the consequence in terms of equities of both a lack of inclusion in
benchmark MSCI indices and, of course, of sanctions.
NO FOREIGN BANKS IN IRAN
There is still no foreign bank in Iran and therefore a lack of familiar custodians
acceptable to international portfolio investors. Indeed, despite the 2015 nuclear deal, it is
still not possible to use foreign credit cards to pay for hotel bills or any other
transaction.
Foreign credit rating agencies are also absent which may not surprise given the three
biggest are owned by the Americans. This is a pity for the Iranian Government given that, with
minimal foreign currency debt and total government debt to GDP of only 35% of GDP, it would
make a lot of sense to do a landmark sovereign bond issue. Total external debt is now only
US$10.8 billion or just 2.5% of GDP, according to the Central Bank of Iran (see following
chart).
"... Thucydides tells us that war changes the meaning of words . Social media demonstrated this maxim several years ago when " mil-splaining " military-related holidays was all the rage. ..."
"... Increasingly civilians see " soldiers as symbols that allow them to feel good about themselves, and the country" -- but many also see OxyContin that way. ..."
"... A strategy is needed that's rooted in serious analysis of American interests and strengths and a realistic assessment of the world. For nearly a generation, we have failed to align ends, ways, and means . Like " The Weary Titan ," America finds itself unable (or unwilling) to adapt to a changing world. ..."
"... What do we have to show for our expenditures? A divided country, financially exhausted while waging war across the globe against an elusive enemy -- who is, frankly, not a threat remotely approaching the resources we have aligned against him. Beyond the material costs, there's the social. Our military has become a syncretic religion, enjoying the support but not due consideration of the nation. This situation is genuinely tragic . ..."
"... The reason US acts like an empire is because she *IS* an empire. ..."
"... It recently dawned on me that the US' empire status solidified during and after WWII is the biggest reason why it's so easy for America to wage prolonged, deep-involvement wars. NATO, overseas bases, freedom of navigation, etc. ..."
"... But let's be honest: when we "killed" the draft we killed, in part, what is called social cohesion in this country. ..."
"... "This Memorial Day, don't cringe when someone says "Thank you for your service" and proceed to correct them." ..."
"... U.S. policy of perpetual war has been well established since 9/11. Everyone who joins the military is well aware of the job description (kill and destroy) and has free will. ..."
"... The U.S. military is currently providing refueling, logistics and intelligence support to the odious Saudis as they pulverize Yemen to smithereens and starve the population. And those American service people are "defending our freedoms" by doing so? ..."
"... The reason these episodes of introspection are called for is because of the massive propaganda machine (Pentagon, Corporate, MSM) of Military Exceptionalism that is the architect of the pathological incongruence. ..."
"... The 'military-civilian' divide, as the author stated it, is as much a product of a media that no longer holds policymakers accountable for seemingly endless military engagements and, the true effect that our endless military engagements are having on the very fabric of our society and on those engaged in them. ..."
"... With a volunteer military that effectively is at the disposal of whoever happens to be in office, no grass-roots opposition movement to hold politicians accountable, and 95 percent of the population untouched by war, the most veterans will receive is a "thank you for your service" as we go on with our daily lives. ..."
"... In my opinion, Demanding answers and justifications for sending people into harms way is the best expression of respect for our military personnel. ..."
"... " instead of asking 'what' we need to break the stalemate in Afghanistan, could ask 'why' there is a stalemate at all -- and whether American forces can truly ameliorate the structural, cultural, and historical obstacles to achieving desired ends there." ..."
"... Be aware that when you ask why, many people (including, sadly, many veterans) will consider this questioning of government foreign policy as a species of treason. Once, while on active duty with the US Army (1970), I suggested to a fellow officer that sending US troops to fight in Vietnam might not be in nation interest. I was immediately and vigorously condemned as a communist, a fascist, and a traitor. ..."
"... According to this reasoning, once the first soldier dies in battle, any criticism of the war denigrates the sacrifice of the deceased. So, we must continue to pile up the dead to justify those who have already died. This is part of the mechanism of war, and is an important reason why it is always easier to start a war than to stop one. ..."
Thucydides tells us that war
changes the meaning of words . Social media demonstrated this maxim several years ago when
" mil-splaining
" military-related holidays was all the rage. From memes outlining the differences between
Veterans, Armed Forces, and Memorial Day, to Fourth of July "safe space" declarations seemingly
applied to all vets, the trend was everywhere. Thankfully, it seems now to have passed.
Memorial Day is, of course, for remembering the fallen, those who died in service to the
nation. Veterans and their families remember their loved ones in ways they deem appropriate,
and the state remembers, too, in a somber, serious manner.
This remembrance should in no way preclude the typical family barbecue and other customs
associated with the traditional beginning of summer. National holidays are for remembering and
celebrating, not guilt. Shaming those who fail to celebrate a holiday according to one's
expectations is a bit like non-Christians feeling shame for skipping church: it shouldn't
matter because the day means different things to different people. Having a day on the calendar
demonstrates the national consensus about honoring sacrifice; anything more than that is a slow
walk towards superficiality. President Bush stopped golfing during the Iraq war, but it didn't
stop him from continuing it.
Instead, Memorial Day should engender conversation about our military and the gulf between
those who serve and those who don't. The conversation shouldn't just be the military talking at
civilians; it must be reciprocal. Increasingly civilians see " soldiers as symbols
that allow them to feel good about themselves, and the country" --
but many also see OxyContin that way. This situation is lamentable because the
aforementioned "mil-splaining" could only occur in a country so profoundly divided from its
military as to misunderstand basic concepts such as the purpose of holidays. It's also striking
how the most outspoken so-called "patriots" often
have little connection to that which they so outlandishly support. Our "thank you for your
service" culture is anathema to well-functioning civil-military relations.
The public owes its military more consideration, particularly in how the armed forces are
deployed across the globe. Part of this is empathy:
stop treating military members as an abstraction , as something that exists only to serve a
national or increasingly political purpose. Our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines are
deserving of praise and support -- especially considering the burden they've carried -- but
what they need more is an engaged public, one that's even willing to
scrutinize the military . Because scrutiny necessitates engagement and hopefully
understanding and reform.
But the civil-military divide goes
both ways. Military members and veterans owe the public a better relationship as well. This
Memorial Day, don't cringe when someone says "Thank you for your service" and proceed to
correct them. Open a dialogue: you might
build a real connection . Better yet, volunteer to speak at a school or church: partly to
explain your service, sure, but more so to show that military personnel are people, too, not
just
distant abstractions . Veterans are spread across the county and better able to interact
with civilians than our largely cloistered active duty force. They shouldn't go to schools,
churches, and civic organizations for the inevitable praise. They should go to educate, nurture
relationships, and chip away at the civil-military divide.
Perhaps by questioning the fundamentals -- the "why" instead of the so often discussed
"what" in military operations -- the public would be in a better position to demand action from
a Congress that, heretofore, has largely abdicated serious oversight of foreign policy. Perhaps
the public, instead of asking "what" we need to break the
stalemate in Afghanistan , could ask "why" there is a stalemate at all -- and whether
American forces can truly ameliorate the structural, cultural, and historical obstacles to
achieving desired ends there.
A strategy is needed that's rooted in serious analysis of American interests and
strengths and a realistic assessment of the world. For nearly a generation, we
have failed to align ends, ways, and means . Like "
The Weary Titan ," America finds itself unable (or unwilling) to adapt to a changing
world. Consumed by domestic strife and the emergence of nationalism
, American foreign policy has wandered fecklessly since the end of the Cold War. While we can
strike anywhere, this
capability is wasted in search of a lasting peace.
What do we have to show for our expenditures? A divided country, financially exhausted
while waging war across the globe against an elusive enemy -- who is, frankly, not a threat
remotely approaching the resources we have aligned against him. Beyond the material costs,
there's the social. Our military has become a syncretic religion, enjoying the support but not
due consideration of the nation. This situation is
genuinely tragic .
For America to dig its way out of its domestic and foreign troubles it must start with
sobering analysis. For the civil-military dialogue, Memorial Day is as good a place to begin as
any day. So this weekend, civilians should move beyond "Thank you for your service" and ask a
vet about his or her service and lost comrades. Veterans, don't expect praise and don't
lecture; speak with honesty and empathy, talk about what you've done and the conditions you've
seen. You might be surprised what we can learn from each other.
John Q. Bolton is an Army officer who recently returned from Afghanistan. An Army
aviator (AH-64D/E), he is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a 2005 graduate of West
Point. The views presented here are his alone and not representative of the U.S. Army, the
Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.
12 Responses to On Memorial Day,
Getting Beyond 'Thank You For Your Service'
(This reply was intended for an older article
"http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-deep-unfairness-of-americas-all-volunteer-force"
from 2017 but since the topics are kind of related, so )
The reason US acts like an empire is because she *IS* an empire.
It recently dawned on me that the US' empire status solidified during and after WWII
is the biggest reason why it's so easy for America to wage prolonged, deep-involvement wars.
NATO, overseas bases, freedom of navigation, etc. Scrapping/re-constituting these
frameworks would put the US on par with most other countries on earth sporting home-bound
defense forces. Congressional authority/oversight would be reinvigorated, and acting under
the auspices of the UN becomes a procedural impairment (sovereignty concerns and selfishness
notwithstanding). A practical start would be lobbying for more base closures abroad, for
those who feel strongly about this.
But there is a danger: nature abhors a vacuum.
The other thing, I am definitely for professionalism in militaries. Better to have one
dedicated soldier than three squirmish kids dragged into the mud.
Seems to me a universal draft would be the best way to say thank you. Under that scenario
most wars would be avoided or resolved quickly as the cost would be political defeat. An all
volunteer/mercenary force is blatantly unfair as virtually no kids of the wealthy fight,
prohibitively expensive, as recruiting and retaining soldiers in these times is an uphill
challenge, and dangerous as it encourages needless risk since only a tiny percentage of the
voting population pay the price
Sir: Thank you for your timely comments. I am a USN veteran and fully support the idea that
communication has to be a two-way street between civilians and our military women and men.
But let's be honest: when we "killed" the draft we killed, in part, what is called social
cohesion in this country. Not having common experiences makes us all more foreign to one
another which leads to isolation and platitudes such as "Thank you for your service." I have
heard that comment many times, too, and after a while it comes across as: "better you than
me." I know I am being cynical but I am also only human .
Re: "This Memorial Day, don't cringe when someone says "Thank you for your service" and
proceed to correct them."
U.S. policy of perpetual war has been well established since 9/11. Everyone who joins
the military is well aware of the job description (kill and destroy) and has free
will.
Thanking someone for signing up for the War Machine to wreck havoc on natives thousands of
miles from American shores makes little sense.
The U.S. military is currently providing refueling, logistics and intelligence support
to the odious Saudis as they pulverize Yemen to smithereens and starve the population. And
those American service people are "defending our freedoms" by doing so?
The U.S. military slaughters the Syrian army operating in their own country and we are
supposed to thank them for "their service"? Military drone drivers who slaughter Yemeni
wedding parties from comfortable installations in Florida and the operators on U.S. Navy
ships who launch missiles into Syria based on bogus False Flag scenarios are "Warrior
Heroes"?
The veterans we should be thanking are the ones who realized early on that they were being
played for chumps by the war-mongers and got out. If John Q. Bolton has that understanding,
why hasn't he gotten out?
The real "heroes" in America are the young people who get real jobs in the real economy
providing real value to their fellow citizens.
The reason these episodes of introspection are called for is because of the massive
propaganda machine (Pentagon, Corporate, MSM) of Military Exceptionalism that is the
architect of the pathological incongruence.
This is an excellent article. Memorial Day should call upon all Americans to ask some
essential questions.
As an aside, The Washington Post ran an article today about the funeral of Spec. Conde who
recently was killed in Afghanistan. The article spoke of Spec. Conde's motivations for
serving, the events that led to his death, the funeral service, and the effect that his death
at age 21 had and will have on his family and those who knew and loved him.
What struck me most about the article was how remote the funeral service and the family's
grief seem from the rest of what is taking place in America. For example, there was an
oblique reference to a funeral detail for a veteran who committed suicide that apparently no
one attended.
The 'military-civilian' divide, as the author stated it, is as much a product of a
media that no longer holds policymakers accountable for seemingly endless military
engagements and, the true effect that our endless military engagements are having on the very
fabric of our society and on those engaged in them.
The vast majority of the American public go about their daily lives, seemingly insulated
from the effects of our endless engagements. For example, Spec. Conde's death in Afghanistan
did not even make the front page of our major media when it first happened. The death of four
soldiers in Niger has faded from view.
With a volunteer military that effectively is at the disposal of whoever happens to be
in office, no grass-roots opposition movement to hold politicians accountable, and 95 percent
of the population untouched by war, the most veterans will receive is a "thank you for your
service" as we go on with our daily lives.
Thank you, Sir, for articulating my position. In 7 Second Soundbite format, "I Support the
Troops, not the Policy that put them in harms way."
The military should never be deployed for political purposes. As a nation, we have willfully
refused to learn anything from the lessons of Korea and Viet Nam.
Military service preserves the Ultimate Expression of America, "Question Authority!" (I
recognize the Irony of suppressing it within it's ranks.) In my opinion, Demanding
answers and justifications for sending people into harms way is the best expression of
respect for our military personnel.
Accept Officer Bolton's challenge. When you see me kneeling at the National Anthem, ask me
why. [The Answer: I do it to show respect for those that have fallen at the hands of those
who oppose the Values embodied in the American Flag.]
" instead of asking 'what' we need to break the stalemate in Afghanistan, could ask 'why'
there is a stalemate at all -- and whether American forces can truly ameliorate the
structural, cultural, and historical obstacles to achieving desired ends there."
Be aware that when you ask why, many people (including, sadly, many veterans) will
consider this questioning of government foreign policy as a species of treason. Once, while
on active duty with the US Army (1970), I suggested to a fellow officer that sending US
troops to fight in Vietnam might not be in nation interest. I was immediately and vigorously
condemned as a communist, a fascist, and a traitor.
According to this reasoning, once the first soldier dies in battle, any criticism of
the war denigrates the sacrifice of the deceased. So, we must continue to pile up the dead to
justify those who have already died. This is part of the mechanism of war, and is an
important reason why it is always easier to start a war than to stop one.
Perhaps we need "our leaders" to do some war "Service."
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
March 9, 2009
"Should We Have War Games for the World's Leaders"?
Yesterday's enemies are today's friends and today's friends are tomorrow's enemies, such
is the way of the world, and wars of the world. All these wars cause enormous bloodshed,
destruction and suffering to those affected. Therefore, would it not be much simpler to have
war games for all of the world's leaders and elites every few years? We have Olympic Games
every four years where the world's athletes from different countries compete. And many of
these countries are hostile to each other, yet they participate in the Olympics. So if
enemies can participate for sport, why not for war games? How could this be arranged? All the
leaders and elites of the world would have to lead by example, instead of leading from their
political platforms, palaces and offshore tax havens, while the ordinary people have to do
the dirty work in wars. The world's leaders and elites would all be in the front lines first.
A venue could be arranged in a deserted area and the people of the world could watch via
satellite TV their courageous leaders and other elites leading the charge in the war games
.
[read more at link below] http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2009/03/should-we-have-war-games-for-worlds.html
They gave Obama their tepid approval, then poured millions into a three-year campaign to kill it -- and won.
By William D. Hartung and Ben Freeman
• Benjamin Netanyahu's April 30
presentation accusing Iran of lying about its nuclear program was clearly aimed at a Western audience, and at one man in particular
-- Donald Trump. Trump was already inclined to violate and exit the multi-party deal to block Iran's path to a nuclear weapon, but
Netanyahu's presentation offered a timely addition to the administration's rhetorical arsenal. His PowerPoint performance, filled
with misleading assertions and
stale information dressed up as new revelations, was referenced by Trump as part of the justification for abandoning the nuclear
deal.
While this garnered headlines, another U.S. ally -- Saudi Arabia -- had been orchestrating a quieter but equally effective lobbying
and public relations push to dismantle the deal. The Saudis' arguments were used just as much, if not more, by Trump in justifying
his decision for the U.S. to walk away from a carefully crafted agreement that even some of his own military leaders had
acknowledged was working.
The Saudi lobby's push began long before the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) was formally announced on July 14, 2015.
In fact, Saudi lobbyists had been working behind the scenes in the U.S. for years to ensure that the Kingdom's concerns were incorporated
into any deal Washington would agree to with Iran -- if there was to be a deal at all.
In total, the Christian Science Monitor
found that Saudi Arabia spent $11 million dollars on Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)-registered firms in 2015, and "much
of this spending relates to Iran." They were also assembling former policymakers like Senator Norm Coleman, whose FARA
disclosure mentions his work on "limiting
Iranian nuclear capability." More recently, Coleman penned an op-ed in The Hill applauding Trump for leaving the deal
without disclosing
that he was being paid by the Saudi government.
Despite their strong opposition to any deal with Iran, however, many of the Saudis' concerns were ultimately addressed by the
JCPOA, specifically their demands that "snapback" provisions be incorporated to quickly reinstitute sanctions if Iran violated the
agreement and that inspectors have access to military and other suspect sites. Above all, the Saudis wanted an assurance that the
deal would prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. The agreement provided this and President Obama
guaranteed it. This led to what many had thought impossible --
Saudi Arabia supporting
the Iran deal . Obama sealed the grudging support of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States in a May 2015 meeting at Camp David where
he offered "reassurances" that the deal would not jeopardize their security, underscored by a
promise to sell them even more weaponry.
But Saudi support for the deal was tepid and ephemeral at best. While publicly supporting it, the Saudis and their lobbyists in
D.C. were quietly working to undermine it. Their arguments largely centered on two points: that the funds freed up by the deal would
underwrite Iran's continued support for terrorist groups, and that the deal would do nothing to halt Iran's ballistic missile program.
While more than two dozen D.C. lobbying and public relations firms working for Saudi interests have registered under FARA since
the U.S. agreed to the Iran deal, none has been more aggressively pushing these anti-Iran talking points than the MSLGroup (which
acquired long-serving Saudi client Qorvis Communications in 2014). The MSLGroup, which has been paid more than
$6 million dollars by the Saudis
just since the U.S. agreed to the Iran deal, has distributed a variety of "informational materials" (formerly called
propaganda ) on each of
these topics, including a five-page fact sheet on "
Iranian Aggression in Yemen ,"
and a press release on Iran being the "
biggest state sponsor of terrorism
," among many others. And of course, the MSLGroup wasn't alone in spreading anti-Iran propaganda on behalf of the Saudi regime. For
example, as recently as March 2018, the Glover Park Group distributed information on Iran's "region," and Hogan Lovells distributed
" facts about the Houthis and Iran
," with a section on Iran's ballistic missiles.
With these talking points in hand, the Saudis saw an opportunity in the election of the neophyte Donald Trump to up the ante on
Iran, and they invested heavily in
courting him. Their efforts paid off handsomely as Trump made his first overseas visit to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, initially
supported them in their spat with Qatar (until he learned the U.S. has a rather large military base in Qatar), kept U.S. military
support and bombs flowing for a Saudi-led campaign in Yemen that has cost more than
10,000 civilians
their lives, and agreed to sell them billions of dollars in additional U.S. weaponry of all sorts, from more munitions to a costly
missile defense system. But Saudi Arabia still wanted more -- they wanted the U.S. out of the Iran deal.
While Saudi Arabia's most unlikely ally in this cause, Israel, took a very outspoken approach to move the president, which culminated
in Netanyahu's misleading presentation, the Saudis used their well-financed lobbying machine to disseminate their message into the
D.C. bloodstream. Their primary talking points found their way to the president's ears and became routine features of his justification
for abandoning the deal. The White House
statement justifying leaving the Iran deal is littered with Saudi lobby talking points, including that "The JCPOA failed to deal
with the threat of Iran's missile program," and Iran "continues to fund terrorist proxies In Yemen, the regime has escalated the
conflict and used the Houthis as a proxy to attack other nations." The president's
remarks on the day he announced that the U.S. was abandoning the deal are also rife with language that could easily have been
lifted from a Saudi-financed "fact sheet." In fact, Trump's second sentence, "the Iranian regime is the leading state sponsor of
terrorism," is nearly verbatim off of an anti-Iran
talking point distributed by
the MSLGroup.
Why did the Saudis want the U.S. to abandon the Iran deal? A New York Timesanalysis
identified what is probably the primary reason -- a fear that the deal would be the first step towards a U.S. rapprochement with
Iran that would undermine the Saudi regime's power in the region in general and its campaign against Iran in particular. "Exiting
the deal, with or without a plan, is fine with the Saudis," the Times wrote. "They see the accord as a dangerous distraction
from the real problem of confronting Iran around the region -- a problem that Saudi Arabia believes will be solved only by leadership
change in Iran."
Former State Department official Jeremy Shapiro
underscored
this point when he noted that the Saudis and their Gulf allies "believe they are in this existential conflict with the Iranian regime,
and nuclear weapons are a small part of that conflict . If the deal opened an avenue for better relations between the United States
and Iran, that would be a disaster for the Saudis," he said. "They need to ensure a motivation for American pressure against Iran
that will last even after this administration."
One disquieting outcome of the trashing of the Iran nuclear deal is that Saudi Arabia has threatened to acquire a nuclear weapon
of its own if the end of the agreement leads Iran to revive its program. This is not the first time Saudi leaders have made such
threats. Just after Trump announced the U.S. would be leaving the deal, the Saudi foreign minister
said that if Iran now builds a nuclear weapon his country "will do everything we can" to follow suit. So on top of its implications
for increased conventional conflict in the region, the end of U.S. participation in the Iran deal could spark a nuclear arms race
in the Middle East -- an outcome that would have been far less likely if U.S. participation in the Iran deal had been maintained.
The potential for a Mideast nuclear arms race is yet another example of the disastrous consequences of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Salman's reckless foreign policy, which includes everything from his regime's brutal, counterproductive intervention in Yemen,
to the Saudi-led effort to impose a blockade on Qatar, to its promotion of regime change in Iran -- preferably carried out by the
United States.
In the wake of the U.S. pullout from the Iran deal, we can expect the Saudi lobby, working in concert with administration allies
ranging from Jared Kushner to newly appointed national security advisor John Bolton, to double down in its efforts to promote these
ill-advised, dangerous directions for U.S. foreign policy in the region. Countering Riyadh's blatant influence peddling should be
part of an expanded effort to distance the United States from its increasingly risky, counterproductive relationship with Saudi Arabia.
If Mohammed bin Salman's aggressive policies -- and Saudi advocacy for them in Washington -- continue, Riyadh is one "friend" the
United States should consider doing without.
William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy, and Ben Freeman
directs the Center's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative.
Mark Karlin: How much money has gone to the U.S. war on terror and what has been the impact of this expenditure?
Tom Engelhardt: The best figure I've seen on this comes from the Watson Institute's Costs of War Project at Brown University and
it's a staggering
$5.6 trillion , including certain future costs to care for this country's war vets. President Trump himself, with his usual sense
of accuracy, has inflated that number even more, regularly speaking of
$7
trillion being lost somewhere in our never-ending wars in the Greater Middle East. One of these days, he's going to turn out
to be right.
As for the impact of such an expenditure in the regions where these wars continue to be fought, largely nonstop, since they were
launched against a tiny group of jihadis just after September 11, 2001, it would certainly include: the spread of terror outfits
across the Middle East, parts of Asia, and Africa; the creation -- in a region previously autocratic but relatively calm -- of a
striking range of failed or failing states, of major cities that have been turned into absolute
rubble (with
no money in sight for serious
reconstruction), of internally
displaced people and waves of refugees at levels
that now match the moment after World War II, when significant parts of the planet were in ruins; and that's just to start down
a list of the true costs of our wars.
At home, in a far quieter way, the impact has been similar. Just imagine, for instance, what our American world would have been
like if any significant part of the funds that went into our fruitless, still spreading, now nameless conflicts had been spent on
America's crumbling infrastructure , instead of on the rise
of the national security state as the unofficial fourth branch of government. (At TomDispatch , Pentagon expert William Hartung
has estimated that approximately $1 trillion annually goes into that security state and, in the age of Trump, that figure is
again on the rise.)
Part of the trouble assessing the "impact" here in the U.S. is that, in this era of public demobilization in terms of our wars,
people are encouraged not to think about them at all and they've gotten remarkably little attention. So sorting out exactly how they've
come home -- other than completely obvious developments like the
militarization
of the police, the
flying of surveillance drones in our airspace, and so on -- is hard. Most people, for instance, don't grasp something I've long
written about at TomDispatch : that Donald Trump would have been inconceivable as president without those disastrous wars, those
trillions squandered on them and on the military that's fought them, and that certainly qualifies as "impact" enough.
What makes the U.S. pretension to empire different from previous empires?
As a start, it's worth mentioning that Americans generally don't even think of ourselves as an "empire." Yes, since the Soviet
Union imploded in 1991, our politicians and pundits have proudly called this country the "last" or "lone" superpower and the world's
most "exceptional" or "indispensable" nation, but an empire? No. You need to go someplace off the mainstream grid -- Truthout or
TomDispatch , for instance -- to find anyone talking about us in those terms.
That said, I think that two things have made us different, imperially speaking. The first was that post-1991 sense of ourselves
as the ultimate winner of a vast imperial contest, a kind of arms race of many that had gone on since European ships armed with cannon
had first broken into the world in perhaps the fifteenth century and began to conquer much of it. In that post-Soviet moment of triumphalism,
of what seemed to the top dogs in Washington like the ultimate win, a forever victory, there was indeed a sense that there had never
been and never would be a power like us. That inflated sense of our imperial self was what sent the geopolitical dreamers of the
George W. Bush administration off to, in essence, create a Pax Americana first in the Greater Middle East and then perhaps the world
in a fashion never before imagined, one that, they were convinced, would put the Roman and British imperial moments to shame. And
we all know, with the invasion of Iraq, just where that's ended up.
In the years since they launched that ultimate imperial venture in a cloud of hubris, the most striking difference I can see with
previous empires is that never has a great power still in something close to its imperial prime proven quite so incapable of applying
its military and political might in a way that would successfully advance its aims. It has instead found itself overmatched by underwhelming
enemy forces and incapable of producing any results other than destruction and further fragmentation across staggeringly large parts
of the planet.
Finally, of course, there's climate change -- that is, for the first time in the history of empires, the very well-being of the
planet itself is at stake. The game has, so to speak, changed, even if relatively few here have noticed.
Why do you refer to the U.S. as an "empire of chaos"?
This answer follows directly from the last two. The United States is now visibly a force for chaos across significant parts of
the planet. Just look, for instance, at the cities -- from
Marawi in the Philippines to
Mosul and
Ramadi
in Iraq,
Raqqa and
Aleppo
in Syria,
Sirte in Libya, and so on -- that have literally been -- a word I
want to bring into
the language -- rubblized, largely by American bombing (though with a helping hand recently from the bomb makers of the Islamic State).
Historically, in the imperial ages that preceded this one, such power, while regularly applied brutally and devastatingly, could
also be a way of imposing a grim version of order on conquered and colonized areas. No longer, it seems. We're now on a planet that
simply doesn't accept military-first conquest and occupation, no matter the guise under which it arrives (including the spread of
"democracy"). So beware the unleashing modern military power. It turns out to contain within it striking disintegrative forces on
a planet that can ill afford such chaos.
You also refer to Washington D.C. as a "permanent war capital" with the generals in ascension under Trump. What does that represent
for the war footing of the U.S.?
Well, it's obvious in a way. Washington is now indeed a war capital because the Bush administration launched not just a local
response to a relatively small group of jihadis in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, but what its top officials called a "Global War
on Terror" -- creating possibly the worst acronym in history: GWOT. And then they instantly began insisting that it could be applied
to at least 60 countries supposedly harboring terror
groups. That was 2001 and, of course, though the name and acronym were dropped, the war they launched has never ended. In those years,
the military, the country's (count 'em)
17
major intelligence agencies, and the
warrior
corporations of the military-industrial complex have achieved a kind of clout never before seen in the nation's capital. Their
rise has really been a bipartisan affair in a city otherwise riven by politics as each party tries to outdo the other in promoting
the financing of the national security state. At a moment when putting money into just about anything else that would provide security
to Americans (think health care) is always a desperate struggle, funding the Pentagon and the rest of the national security state
continues to be a given. That's what it means to be in a "permanent war capital."
In addition, with Donald Trump, the generals of America's losing wars have gained a kind of prominence in Washington that was
unknown in a previously civilian capital. The head of the Defense Department, the White House chief of staff, and (until recently
when he was succeeded by an even more militaristic civilian) the national security advisor were all generals of those wars -- positions
that, in the past, with rare exceptions, were considered civilian ones. In this sense, Donald Trump was less making history with
the men he liked to refer to as "
my generals " than channeling it.
What is the role of bombing in the U.S. war-making machine?
It's worth remembering, as I've written in the past, that from the beginning the war on terror has been, above all (and despite
full-scale invasions and occupations using hundreds of thousands of U.S. ground troops), an
air war . It started that way. On September 11, 2001, after all, al-Qaeda sent its air force (four hijacked passenger jets) and
its precision weaponry (19 suicidal hijackers) against a set of iconic buildings in the U.S. Those strikes -- only one of them failed
when the passengers on a single jet fought back and it crashed in a field in Pennsylvania -- may represent the most successful use
of strategic bombing (that is, air power aimed at the civilian population of, and morale in, an enemy country) in history. At the
cost of a mere $400,000 to $500,000 , Osama
bin Laden began an air war of provocation that has never ended.
The U.S. has been bombing, missiling, and
drone-assassinating ever since. Last year, for instance, U.S. planes dropped an estimated
20,000 bombs just on the Syrian city
of
Raqqa , the former "capital" of the Islamic State, leaving next to nothing standing. Since the first American planes began dropping
bombs (and cluster munitions ) in
Afghanistan in October 2001, the U.S. Air Force has been in the skies ceaselessly -- skies by the way over countries and groups that
lack any defenses against air attacks whatsoever. And, of course, it's been a kind of rolling disaster of destruction that has left
the equivalent of World Trade Center tower after tower of dead civilians in those lands. In other words, though no one in Washington
would ever say such a thing, U.S. air power has functionally been doing Osama bin Laden's job for him, conducting not so much a war
on terror as a strange kind of war for terror, one that only promotes the conditions in which it thrives best.
What role did the end of the draft play in enabling an unrestrained U.S. empire of war?
It may have been the crucial moment in the whole process. It was, of course, the decision of then-president Richard Nixon in
January 1973 , in
response to a country swept by a powerful antiwar movement and a military in near rebellion as the Vietnam War began to wind down.
The draft was ended, the all-volunteer military begun, and the American people were largely separated from the wars being fought
in their name. They were, as I said above, demobilized. Though at the time, the U.S. military high command was doubtful about the
move, it proved highly successful in freeing them to fight the endless wars of the twenty-first century, now being referred to by
some in the Pentagon (according to the Washington Post ) not as "permanent wars" or even, as General David Petraeus put it, a "
generational struggle
," but as "
infinite war ."
I've lived through
two periods of public war mobilization in my lifetime: the World War II era, in which I was born and in which the American people
mobilized to support a global war against fascism in every way imaginable, and the Vietnam War, in which Americans (like me as a
young man) mobilized against an American war. But who in those years ever imagined that Americans might fight their wars (unsuccessfully)
to the end of time without most citizens paying the slightest attention? That's why I've called the losing generals of our endless
war on terror (and, in a sense, the rest of us as well) " Nixon's
children ."
17 major intelligence agencies. For fuck's sake! It's not seventeen – it is SIXTEEN! ;-)
Looney
P.S. I hate re-posting shit or using the same joke twice, but THIS is worth re-posting (from January 13, 2017): U.S. intelligence agencies contend that Moscow waged a multifaceted campaign of hacking and other actions All Democrats, from our own MDB to Hillary and 0bama, have been citing the "
17 intelligence agencies
" that agree with their ridiculous claims.
Here's the list of "The Magnificent Seventeen", but (spoiler alert!) there are actually only SIXTEEN INTEL AGENCIES, but who
counts? The highlighted agencies have nothing to do with Hacking, Elections, Golden Showers, or whatever sick lies the Libtards
have come up with.
Each Agency's responsibilities are very clearly defined by Law and 13 out of the "17 agencies" have absolutely nothing to do
with the DNC, Wikileaks, Elections, Hillary's e-mails, the Clinton Foundation, the Russian Hacking, etc.
Twenty-Fifth Air Force - Air Force Intel only
Intelligence and Security Command (US Army) – Army Intel only
Central Intelligence Agency is prohibited by Law to conduct any activities within the US!!!
Coast Guard Intelligence – Coast Guard, really?
Defense Intelligence Agency – Military Intel only
Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence (Dept. of Energy) – Nukes, Nuclear Plants
Office of Intelligence and Analysis (Homeland Security)
Bureau of Intelligence and Research - State Dept. Intel
Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (Treasury) – Treasury and Hacking/Elections? Hmm
Office of National Security Intelligence (DEA) – Drug Enforcement, really?
Intelligence Branch, FBI (DOJ)
Marine Corps Intelligence Activity - Marine Corps Intel only
National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (Dept. of Defense) – Satellites, Aerial Intel
National Reconnaissance Office (Dept. of Defense) – Defense Recon Only
NSA
Office of Naval Intelligence Navy Defense – Navy only
On the rare occasions when the US halfheartedly admits that, somehow, mistakes might have been made, it cannot evade employing
important US citizenish "core values" like hypocricy and psychological projection.
Four days ago an outstanding example of this type of embarrassment,
Russia's Moral Hypocrisy , was posted by Colonel
James McDonough, US Army attaché to Poland. Its urgent bleatings display the inadequacy and extremely low level of cohesion to
which US propaganda has fallen. The short version: the US fights for all good against all bad, and the Russians disagree because
they are very bad and also mean people.
Two days ago, Colonel Cassad posted a response to McDonough's piece which skewered it like a kebab. Using a
nota bene format, each point is considered and then crushed
into a paste. Even via the Yandex machine translation, the well-deserved kicking to the curb comes through loud and clear.
Wars are always about money and control. The war machine supports so many jobs in the US from shipyards to consulting. It's
a way to pump cash into a system that essentially died after the 2001 crash.
During a memorial day conversation today, "But you live in the evil empire and reap the benefits, why are you complaining about
the democrats. Can't you see the black mark on your soul is more important because you support the Empire on either side of the
so called two party system."
More divide & conquer BS the commies are belching now that they've been caught "red handed".
If it was a family member resolve yourself that you will have to just deal with it. If only a friend or acquaintance, resolve
yourself that there may come a time in the not to distant future you will have to slit their throat lest they slit yours.
Morbid as it maybe, nmewn is still correct. It's kinda like the saying, " Two people can keep a secret, as long as one of them
is dead." You cannot truly depend on or trust anyone, except yourself. And often times family can be worse than friends.
Well, what do want me to say?...lol...I know we're all thinking the same thing, we've all had the very same conversations with
these assholes whether friends or family. They are unreachable.
Hey, don't kill the guy pointing out the elephant in the middle of the room ;-)
It's not sixteen either, it was three ...the CIA ( Brennan ) the FBI ( Comey at the time) and the NSA which in my opinion was
in a go-along-to-get-along position. Seventeen was a lie when Hillary first uttered it. "The [intelligence community assessment] was a coordinated product from three agencies: CIA, NSA and the FBI, not all 17 components
of the intelligence community," said former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper during a congressional
hearing in May. "Those three under the aegis of my former office."
He spoke the truth (that time) probably not wanting another perjury charge ;-)
It's the attitude. The American political leaders have this idea of righteousness and exceptionalism. They think they'll go
around the world telling everyone else what to do. I've got two words for them - Fuck-off:
This article could have been written by a second-year political science undergraduate at a U.S. public university. This adds
a sum total of zero to the public understanding of the rise of American imperialism.
To state the obvious; the CIA has deeply humiliated the American people in their attempt to tie the American people to be responsible
for the CIA's crimes against humanity across the world.
The CIA appears to be the world's greatest threat to peace and prosperity. It is the penultimate terrorist organization, being
the direct or indirect creator of all other terrorist organizations. It also appears to be the world's penultimate illegal drug
smuggler and pusher making all other illegal drug trading possible and instigating the horrors of addiction and suffering around
the world.
If I believed that the CIA was working in any way on behalf of the US government and the American people then it would be sad
and shameful indeed. However, it is my belief that the CIA instead was captured long ago, as was the secret military operations
and now works for a hidden power that wants to dominate or failing that, destroy humanity.
It's those Select Highly Compartmentalized Criminal Pure Evil Rogue Elements at the Deep State Top that have had control since
the JFK Execution that have entrenched themselves for decades & refuse to relinquish Control.
The Agency is Cancer. There should be no question about the CIA's future in the US.
Dissolved & dishonored. Its members locked away or punished for Treason. Their reputation is so bad and has been for so long,
that the fact that you joined them should be enough to justify arrest and Execution for Treason, Crimes Against Humanity & Crimes
Against The American People.
The author seems comfortable finding fault with Bush and Trump but can't muster up a criticism of Obama (the Cal Ripken of
presidential war mongers), Clinton, Holder, et al.
What a dichotomy. On the one hand, America self-righteously proclaiming it is the one protecting everyone's freedom, while
at the same time making war and spying and oppressing others. On the other hand, seems like America is at war with everyone to
have such a large military and 17 spy agencies, and more people in prison than any other country in the world. Really sounds like
America has got some serious problems.
Note, a majority of the Muslims living close to Iraq still held a positive view of the U.S. even after the 1990-1991 attack
on Iraq. And after 12 years of starvation sanctions, even denying Iraq baby formula with the claim that it "can be used to make
weapons". And after the UK and US bombing Iraq on average once a week for those 12 years, targeting water refineries so Iraqis
had to drink dirty water, and power plants so there was no air conditioning in the blistering summer heat. Causing the death of
half a million children, as confirmed by the U.S. ambassador to the UN, which State Secretary Madeleine Albright said was "worth
it".
Even after that mass murder, 60% of Gulf residents were generally positive toward the U.S.
"Clash of cultures," right? There wasn't much Islamism at all, except the anger directed at thieving puppet rulers installed
after the European empires withdrew. Arabs, who were mostly secular, had always loved the U.S. as an anti-imperialist country.
Thus they couldn't understand when the U.S. backed the Zio invasion of Palestine. And then started sanctioning and attacking every
Middle Eastern nation that supported the Palestinians.
The U.S. used to have many "Arabist" diplomats, those who wanted to work with Arab nationalists, especially against the Soviets.
But the pro-Arab diplomats were sidelined by the media-backed neocon line, where everything was about who were for or against
the Palestinians. Saddam Hussein in Iraq had been secular and pro-American, but he gave money to the families of Palestinian suicide
bombers - these families saw their homes razed with all their possessions, with just an hour's notice, by the Israelis. For the
crime of giving these destitute people some money, all of Iraq was targeted.
No wonder the Arabs started hating the U.S. Still even after the Iraq invasion in 2003, most Arabs just want to be left alone
by the U.S. But that is not allowed. Arab nationalism was destroyed in favor of puppet regimes.
"... Exactly right Sam. 'It's the oligarchs, stupid" should be our slogan. To keep us focused on the real source of most of our problems. ..."
"... Memorial ceremonies and flag waving allow the rich dictators to demand loyalty to themselves in the name of the principles they have overthrown. The rich despise America's principles and spit upon the Constitution. ..."
"... Actually, there are a lot of evil empires. History has a long list too. The natural state of man is to create evil abusive murderous empires which kill as many people as they can. "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his." George S. Patton ..."
"... The National Security State is a protection racket for western oligarchy. All the romanticism that surrounds Memorial Day is just to keep the sentimental mythology in tact. Of course, 911 and the GWOT was used to reinforce the troops as national heroes mindset. ..."
"... Americans are that classic example of lab mice being used to form the predetermined outcome of the experimentation. We Americans should just look up and wave and give our controllers the finger, as we all smile and go in the other direction. Joe ..."
As much as I admire and respect Ray McGovern – he and other veterans must understand
that suggesting the best leaders in our government would be those with a military background
is disappointing. I would rather NOT have those types calling the shots. Look what it's got
us?
Cindy reminded me of a quote (whose origin I forget): 'War undoes a mother's work." All
power to Cindy Sheehan and all the peace seekers out there. #WomenMarch4Peace
mike k , May 28, 2018 at 5:47 pm
What if Memorial Day was an occasion to remember all the horrific crimes of our nation,
and vow to atone for them? Instead of a day to worship and kiss the militarist boot that is
grinding our culture into the dirt.
KiwiAntz , May 28, 2018 at 6:20 pm
It's not that America hates peace, they hate, not being able make a profit from War? Peace
& it implies means the MIC is obsolete & no longer needed so no more trillions off
dollars wasted on stupid Wars & Militarily hardware? Just imagine all that wasted money
being put to better use in America, such as on social programs & providing universal
healthcare, free college education for America's youth, infrastructure spending & other
things? That's the unfortunate thing about funding this bloated killing machine called the
MIC?
Send "our leaders" to the front lines of war.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
March 9, 2009
"Should We Have War Games for the World's Leaders"?
Yesterday's enemies are today's friends and today's friends are tomorrow's enemies, such
is the way of the world, and wars of the world. All these wars cause enormous bloodshed,
destruction and suffering to those affected. Therefore, would it not be much simpler to have
war games for all of the world's leaders and elites every few years? We have Olympic Games
every four years where the world's athletes from different countries compete. And many of
these countries are hostile to each other, yet they participate in the Olympics. So if
enemies can participate for sport, why not for war games?
[read more at link below] http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2009/03/should-we-have-war-games-for-worlds.html
Jeff , May 28, 2018 at 12:38 pm
As with everybody else, I'll say this is a great piece because it is. Nominally speaking,
I would be left with little to say. But I have one little comment to augment what Ray has
said. We are frequently told that our military "protects our freedom" and when you say
something that somebody doesn't like, they'll say "thank a vet for your freedom to say
something like that." Pfui.
The military hasn't "protected our freedom" in a very long time.
Protecting our freedom implies that it is under attack from some external group with capable
of being an existential threat to the existence of the United States.
The last time that
happened was WWII. Not one single country we've attacked since then has had a snowball's
chance in hell of bringing the US to its knees and please note that no country has actually
attacked us. As for the "thank a vet for your freedom to say nasty things about the
government", the military doesn't protect us from our own government. The government is
supposed to protect our constitutional guarantees. They've been doing a shitty job ever since
9/11.
Sam F , May 28, 2018 at 12:05 pm
Afghanistan has been a wonderful test of the corrupt former democracy of the US. The
"graveyard of empires" is of no value to anyone, but sought by all empires solely because
they fear that Russia might want it.
Britain invaded Afghanistan and failed three times in the 19th century, each campaign a
"surge" from the last, their oligarchy afraid of a "threat" to "their" India, of an invasion
by Russia. In two centuries that never happened, but they still claim this.
The US warmongers seek Afghanistan to harass Russia, block the Asian road project, harass
Pakistan, harass Iran for the zionists, or get opium revenue to their secret gangs. These
projects are all unconstitutional, genocidal, and damaging to US security.
America is history's largest example of the destruction of democracy by unregulated economic
power, the dictatorship of oligarchy. Their political tyrants create foreign monsters to pose
as protectors and accuse their moral superiors of disloyalty. Their mass media sells wars to
those angry at the misfortunes brought upon them by the rich, as the means to symbolic
personal triumph by killing all who disagree.
The ruined "American Century" can be saved only by a humanitarian vision, and if the people
cannot depose US oligarchy so as to rise to that vision, the US must hide in shame from the
enemies its selfishness has made, ruined by isolation and embargo. No one will miss the US
when it has collapsed into permanent disgrace.
Wake up, America! We are slaves until the oligarchy is destroyed.
mike k , May 28, 2018 at 4:02 pm
Exactly right Sam. 'It's the oligarchs, stupid" should be our slogan. To keep us focused
on the real source of most of our problems.
Sam F , May 28, 2018 at 6:20 pm
Thank you, Mike. It is hard to recommend solutions when focused upon the problems of
oligarchy, without advising people to shake their cage or use extreme measures, but we have
seen good ideas here, and the vision is certainly needed.
John , May 28, 2018 at 9:57 pm
The only thing wrong with your post is the claim "The "graveyard of empires" is of no
value to anyone".
Afghanistan is first, geographically positioned so that many pipelines are planned to run
through it.
Also, Afghanistan is very mineral-rich, including and especially in Lithium – which is
needed for batteries for everything from consumer electronics to electric cars.
Ray McGovern is a national treasure, and so is Cindy Sheehan. They are 2 of the
all-too-few voices willing to stand against the horrific military industrial machine. Just
imagine how much courage it took both of them to do what they did back in 2004, at the height
of the jingoistic blood-lust fest the neocons created in the wake of 9/11. I have watched and
read the work of both of these amazingly courageous people over the course of 15 years or so,
and what strikes me as tragic is that there are still so many who buy into the 'patriotism'
b.s. and are willing to sacrifice their own children to senseless wars.
Anon , May 28, 2018 at 10:17 am
Memorial ceremonies and flag waving allow the rich dictators to demand loyalty to
themselves in the name of the principles they have overthrown. The rich despise America's
principles and spit upon the Constitution.
Soldiers are the fools of rich dictators and they know it, hoping to escape war and retire.
They have no honor.
Flag-wavers are cowardly imbeciles destroying America because they have no principles. They
are traitors.
vinnieoh , May 28, 2018 at 10:15 am
Since CN decided to re-cycle this piece (that is not a complaint against its quality,)
I'll post this as evidence that ordinary little citizens can have more knowledge, common
sense, and morality than our ruling class.
From: lawrences
To:
Subject: The impending war against Iraq
Date: Tuesday, October 29, 2002 12:43 PM
Dear Sir:
Although I am a resident of Ohio, I am contacting you because you have proven to be a man
of honor and reason and a powerful force in the U.S. Senate. I am strongly opposed to the
impending war in the Middle East, and have already expressed these views to the senators from
Ohio, but I believe that if anybody can mobilize opposition to this impending disaster, it
may be you. I listened to your comments prior to the non-debate concerning the Resolution to
authorize the use of force, and I agree that the real consequences of this conflict were not
addressed at all.
This conflict is worse than folly. I believe that at the very least: the situation in the
Middle East will be much worse and not better; world opinion will solidify against Americans
and American policies; terrorist organizations and activities will be strengthened, not
weakened; we will be bankrupted into the unforeseeable future. At the worst, this act of
aggression could plunge humanity into global conflict the likes of which previous human
experience will not have prepared us. Lest these concerns seem selfish and self-centered, I
do not wish to again see American sons and daughters slaughter innocent civilians from the
safety of our high-tech weaponry, and all for the true purpose of expanding the corporate
oligarchy.
Now is not the time to remain silent for the purpose of political expediency. While
representative democracy still exists between these shores it is time to rein in a chief
executive and his cabal who are apparently in the throes of a consuming blood-lust. I have
considered myself and have voted Democrat all of my life (I'm 50 years old), and I must say
that I am disgusted that most of the elected Democrats in Washington have been struck mute on
this issue. No reasonable person who is fully contemplating the consequences of what is about
to happen could come to the conclusion that any good is going to come from this. I believe,
despite the gaudy and superficial manifestations of popular American culture, that this
country is populated by reasonable people, and our elected representatives should consider
the consequences of remaining mute and cowardly as George II leads us into a national
disgrace and disaster.
History, if indeed there be anyone left to record it, will justly lay the blame for this
catastrophe at our feet. Please sir, I implore you, do everything in your power to stop this
from happening.
A sincere Veteran, American, and a Human Being,
Vince Lawrence
email: *********@***.net
"Happy" Memorial Day. One last thought. Kind of paraphrases what Ray was trying to say,
and they are my own words that I decided on, several years into the criminal invasion of
Iraq: One can not earn honor and glory for one's self by prosecuting an illegal and immoral
policy.
Is this perhaps one of many reasons for the high suicide rate of GWOT veterans?
Sam F , May 28, 2018 at 11:05 am
With the endless "marches of folly" of our dictatorship of rich traitors, Memorial Day has
become a flag-waving psyop for a "national religion" of lies and bullying that sacrifices
poverty [sicken] draft animals to the ideological fantasies of opportunist demagogues. Their fake
praise for "the fallen" and disgusting lies about the motives and effects of their constant
genocides and subversions betray their deliberate murder of US citizens and foreign innocents
to get money, public office, and promotions. The families of those sacrificed should denounce
rather than legitimize these schemes of murder by corrupt politicians.
Dorothy Hoobler , May 28, 2018 at 10:12 am
A great article! Another extraordinary quality about Cindy Sheehan was and is that she saw
the tragedy for the mother's of Iraq was as real as her own. Very few people have that sense
of common humanity – certainly none of our politicians.
mike k , May 28, 2018 at 7:39 am
The United States of America is the Evil Empire on this planet. One of the most evil
groups in this Empire of Evil is the military. Young people are trained to kill and brutalize
others, then celebrated as heroes – just as ruthless hit men are celebrated and honored
by the Mafia. The worst among us are put forward as the best. Noble words are turned into
lies in the mouths of our politicians and media propagandists.
CitizenOne , May 28, 2018 at 10:16 am
Actually, there are a lot of evil empires. History has a long list too. The natural state
of man is to create evil abusive murderous empires which kill as many people as they can. "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for
his."
George S. Patton
The problem comes not from war itself but from the ultimate reason for the war. Some wars
like WWII were necessary because the all too real possibility that Germany would come to
dominate Europe and Japan would dominate the Pacific. It was a classical war fought purely
for economic gain by the Axis powers. Also it was classical since it was a war waged by
governments and heads of state. Hence when it was over those nations unconditionally
surrendered and the war ended.
Fast forward to later years and many still question the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan,
Iraq, Syria and Libya.
The reasons become complex for these wars and the outcomes less certain than the clear
victory in WWII. We lost Vietnam and all the hype about dominoes and evil empires didn't
happen. We won Iraq but that outcome created ISIS which we later funded to attack Syria. Is
this what we expect our leaders to do?
Another example is the Iran Coup d'etat where we installed a dictator to counter Iran's
nationalizing the oil companies. This led to the student uprising, the hostage crisis and our
long cold war with Iran. We had an October Surprise when we found out that Iran Contra went
back to before the Reagan Election and there is evidence that George Bush was personally
negotiating terms with the Iranians in order to prolong thir captivity until after the
election. It seems to me that secretly dealing with a foreign enemy nation that is holding US
citizens hostage to prolong their captivity for political gains fits the definition of high
crimes and misdemeanors.
Why don't hold leaders accountable under the law?
George Bush went on to be the international spokesperson for The Carlyle Group perhaps the
largest private arms dealers on the planet. All of the investors in the Carlyle Group became
insanely wealthy after 9/11. Their basic investment strategy was to buy up depressed military
defense contractor stocks which fell after the Berlin Wall came down knowing that those
stocks would go up if there were another conflict. What about the moral conflict of their
investment strategy especially since major shareholders were also in key positions to be able
to influence foreign policy?
It seems fairly obvious that when federal intelligence agencies fail to react to foreign
nationals learning to fly with no desire to go to landing school there was at least willful
ignorance regarding the plans of Osama. The reasons for recent wars seems entirely too
conflicted. Just like the classical wars of the past, today's wars are still being waged by
the leaders of nations for economic gain.
Are our troops to blame? Absolutely not. They are young, idealistic and loyal. They
believe in America and are willing to fight for our freedom. They are to be honored on this
day for their sacrifice.
On the other hand, the leaders who are making a killing behind the scenes while ginning up
wars for profit wherever they can need to be held accountable for their actions and at least
a shred of acknowledgement by the "liberal" media needs to reach peoples ears.
We can honor the dead for their sacrifice but we need to honor the living by preventing
their lives being lost in the quest for money.
CitizenOne , May 28, 2018 at 10:17 am
Here is a link to the Carlyle Group a few documentaries.
Great little essay CitizenOne. You give a valuable lesson in the art of 'buying low and
selling high, and damn those who don't agree'. We are witnessing what you get from an all for
profit military. Take the profit out of war, and you will end all war. Joe
John , May 28, 2018 at 10:11 pm
I really have to wonder why the Carlyle Group is not better known.
An arms dealing consortium started by the Bush and Bin Laden Family, that JUST HAPPENED to be
meeting in NYC on Sept 11, 2001, for a super-early morning meeting, in a conference room with
a panoramic view of the Twin Towers No, nothing suspicious there .
Sam F , May 28, 2018 at 10:50 am
Yes, in the military "young people are trained to kill and brutalize others, then
celebrated as heroes."
Also true as Citizen says that many are "young, idealistic and loyal willing to fight for our
freedom."
But no one not paid to recite propaganda would think that the US has been fighting for its
freedom, and no one who pays attention thinks that it is fighting for anything positive. So
the military above age 20-25 just don't question the obvious lies, due to their ulterior
motives. Those who agree with the foreign policies of US warmongers don't believe in the
principles of America, only its dictators' ideology of lies and killing for profit. The
majority are simply forced to go along with the dictators like everyone else.
CitizenOne , May 28, 2018 at 1:05 pm
But fighting for our freedom is exactly what the propaganda preaches. Like Orwell's
"nineteen eighty-four", the citizens of Oceania are taught to hate Emmanuel Goldstein and the
enemy states Eastasia and Eurasia. Perhaps the most disturbing part is that you never really
know if Big Brother or Emmanuel Goldstein even exist. It could be that these are fictional
straw men that serve the purpose of the state to control the masses. Either way, real or not,
it is the same issue to be handled by the state. It is all fake news all the time in
Oceania.
I'm not selling the volunteers who sign up short. I do not believe they join the military
(for the most part) so they can become legal mafia wise guys. Obviously and especially given
the recent trends to use contractors (mercenaries and soldiers of fortune) there is some of
that going on.
Let's face facts. Propaganda works. At least PT Barnum was correct when he said you can
fool most of the people most of the time.
I don't know any parents who wish their children in the military would bring home lots of
money they got pilfering corpses. However I do know that governments wage wars to bring home
lots of money by pilfering other nations.
This point is key. Blaming servicemen and women for the foreign policy decisions of our
government is ludicrous as is any suggestion they should take the "high ground". In the
military you follow orders; period.
On the other hand we should never allow those who want to squash criticism of our
government to use the false argument that in so doing, the critics of the government are
dishonoring the folks that sacrificed for the nation. That is the false patriotism used by
totalitarian nations to silence debate while conducting immoral and unethical deeds. As
Samuel Johnson said in 1775, "(false) Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel"
Sam F , May 28, 2018 at 2:32 pm
Indeed there is diversity among volunteers, perhaps even as mercenaries. One certainly
does not wish to unfairly criticize the volunteer with good intentions. But I see thuggish
teams here who often fired guns at our charity to "defend the town" (their thug tribe
subset), who apparently learned "skills" in the military. So it seems that many sign up for
the opportunity to kill for the tribe, looking for any excuse to vent their anger at unknown
processes. They are looking for an imaginary enemy just as much as the demagogues who
"defend" us in Washington.
Truthful and thoughtful people like Ray know the truth of this and all wars but they, like
Ralph Nader, will never be guests on any corporate T.V. shows, nor will any of the swamp
creatures dare to debate them in public, as they could not defend the lies they perpetrate
for profit. The insanity of our foreign policy has miseducated the general public to the
point of insanity. I always get the usual zombie phrase of "Thank you for your service" and
the bewildered look when I say that I didn't serve, I was used. They usually never approach
me again and look at me as some sort of creature because I don't see the world through their
eyes but they look thru the glass darkly. I have no idea how we are going to make them see
the truth of this tragic farce and inhumanity. we destroy the world and ourselves with the
illusions that pass as truth. I guess I just want to know the truth when I die! They will
never see the fact that all are connected as well as every particle in the universe, one and
the same, that is the mystery of it all that the sages tried to get people to understand. God
in you, you are god and everyone else is also. Not separate! You can connect to the sacred my
understanding this. Thank you Ray, for being who you are and for having the courage to speak
the truth, with much love, Jack Williams.
RickD , May 28, 2018 at 7:35 am
As a fellow veteran I echo and support your eloquent words.
War is a profit center, the cause is generally linked to corporate desire for capturing
markets and an ever increasing need for more and more profits.
That wars endure is directly linked to the vast amounts spent on the MIC as well, and not the
needs of our nation as a whole.
CitizenOne , May 28, 2018 at 1:18 pm
I agree. Well said.
Add Noam Chomsky ("Evil Noam") to the list of banned interviewees. After years of cold
shoulders, he got his shot on PBS but at the last minute the higher-ups at PBS decided to
pull the plug so there was just 5 minutes of radio silence. He is the man America loves to
hate. The most dangerous liberal in America etc
Amazing how the "liberal" press fails to connect with him despite his best efforts.
CitizenOne , May 28, 2018 at 1:19 pm
Here is a link to The "Evil Gnome" Chomsky. BTW, I think he would fit right in here.
Chomsky is most emphatically not a "Liberal".
He is very openly a Libertarian Socialist.
RnM , May 28, 2018 at 5:18 am
It's very disconcerting how Memorial Day has, in this topsy-turvey culture has become a
celebration of the type of denial and forgetting that Ray McGovern so eloquently describes.
Thanks, Ray for again upholding the spirits of the American Revolution, and the Civil War for
us, and to name the names of certain betrayers of the Americans who may or may not have
chosen wisely (Who can really say about the origins of any one individual's choices?)
Myself, I boycott cookouts and partying the last weekend in May, and buy an artificial poppy
instead from a disabled Vet It's a time for remembering and committing to put those memories
toward sanity (i. e., not repeating the same futile actions).
Realist , May 28, 2018 at 1:52 am
Not to sound callous, but without forced conscription, nobody joins the military against
their free will. Unless they spent their formative years under a rock, or possess an IQ in
the low double digits, they ought to know from just casual exposure to the media, school
books, zines and even graphic novels that America is not under any real threat from any other
country or combination of countries on the face of the earth. Yes, the propaganda is
pervasive, but it's patently transparent, just like the politicians who hypocritically sell
it; like Trump telling one narrative on Monday and a diametrically opposite story on Tuesday.
No one in authority has any credibility any longer.
The grunts ought to know that they join the American service to exert the power and
influence of the empire into every far corner of the globe through use of lethal force with
extreme prejudice. Our American "heroes" get to do all their killing "over there," on the
other side of the planet, never here in any actual defense of their "homeland." They are not
accurately described as "defenders" or "warriors" or any other lauditory appellation. Rather,
they are raiders, conquerors, conquistadors, or legionnaires. When they attack they put the
"Blitzkrieg" to shame with the obscene kill ratios their space-age weapons allow against
thoroughly outclassed relatively primitive countries that have never left their own borders,
let alone fired a shot at America. Our troopers stomp 10,000 miles to go shoot fish in a
barrel, only they are human beings, not fish or turkeys, which would be another apt analogy
for what the U.S. military specializes in. They have massacred millions from Viet Nam to
Yugoslavia to Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen and made untold more homeless
refugees, and their apologists want the world to feel sorry and shed crocodile tears for the
few thousand of them who randomly died because someone effed up while they were following
immoral and illegal orders. Many of those were accidentally killed by their own comrades and
subsequently lied about by the government and its media mouthpieces.
The only pity I feel for these hired killers is the way they were recruited: being plucked
by means of bribes and false promises from a disintegrating working class deliberately
sabotaged by the economic policies of its own government. For them the army takes the place
of a job and a living wage. For children of the disappearing middle class, enlisting is their
last hope to cover some college tuition, if they finish their hitch alive. I wouldn't say
either of these groups is eager to do the dirty work the chain of command has in store for
them. Even the kids from the hood can mostly see through the trickery and hypocrisy. They
know they won't be defending Compton, Overtown, the Lower Ninth Ward or West Garfield Park
from any Jihadis. Those fish aren't biting as frequently any more, so the feds have to
recruit numerous immigrants in return for promises of citizenship rather than deportation.
The other thing they now do is to hire mercenaries–"independent
contractors"–which used to be against American law not that long ago, but now makes up
nearly half the manpower in hotbeds like Iraq and Syria. The next logical step for our great
and powerful empire will be to establish an equivalent of the old French Foreign Legion, in
which dregs from all over the planet are employed in the armed service of American empire or
maybe ISIS and Daesh already qualify for that role? Do our hired terrorists get medical and
retirement benefits? Probably ahead of taxpayers once AmGov starts prioritizing to save money
under its new constitution.
Did that sound disrespectful? What is to be respected about a society that allows its
leadership to scoop up dispensable citizens to use as cannon fodder in the service of an
empire that kills and thieves wantonly to benefit only a tiny fraction of those at the very
tip of the pyramid?
LarcoMarco , May 28, 2018 at 4:08 am
"Not to sound callous, but without forced conscription, nobody joins the military against
their free will. Unless they spent their formative years under a rock, or possess an IQ in
the low double digits"
Most Americans of fighting age, I believe, consider military enlistment far beneath them.
So, I am totally mystified when I read about polls that reveal the military is the profession
Americans hold in the highest esteem.
Realist , May 28, 2018 at 8:14 am
I think that most also believe genocidal wars of aggression are not exactly moral or in
the interests of the country or themselves. They've got better things to do with their lives
than throw them away killing people who did nothing inimical to our country on the other side
of the world. They may spout patriotic platitudes about the military because they are
expected under serious social pressure and they don't want the hassle of a public
argument.
The second line of my text that you included within your quotes is not a dependent clause
to the first sentence. It is part of the next sentence: an adverbial clause modifying "they
ought to know that America is not under any real threat " which is the main declarative
statement. I'd rather not be misunderstood.
Skip Scott , May 28, 2018 at 11:16 am
I think the biggest problem is that neither our children, nor the vast majority of the
citizenry, are taught any critical thinking skills. It is all about image. Teenage boys fall
for anything that paints them as macho men. The 1986 movie Top Gun was all about recruiting
teenage boys who wanted to be macho men to be our new generation of cannon fodder in our "all
volunteer" armed forces and, as HW said, "to kick the Vietnam syndrome once and for all".
I really do pity these kids as victims as much as those they are sent to kill. I am
reminded of Dicken's "A Christmas Carol" when the Ghost of Christmas Present reveals the two
children beneath his robe, who are ignorance and want. "but mostly beware this boy, for on
his forehead I see that which is written "doom" "
Skip I'll go along with that considering to how many of my generation found themselves
standing in a rice paddy with bullets whistling by, until they finally realized that that
John Wayne image was just a movie. Joe
Sam F , May 28, 2018 at 10:32 am
I think that you both agree, and I agree with you both. The polls are deceptions of the
MIC.
Realist , May 28, 2018 at 4:36 pm
Yes, and I realise that most Americans, being herd animals who don't do nuance, would tell
most of us here to "go back to Russia" for the remarks we've posted, even though they really
don't want the lives of their friends and relatives wasted in wars of conquest.
Cindy Sheehan is right not to let that go.
I had at least six classmates killed in Nam. They've been dead much longer than they
lived, the first one buying the farm in January of 1966.
Lois Gagnon , May 28, 2018 at 9:22 pm
Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be soldiers. I raised my boys to be pro-peace. When
the recruiters started calling in their senior year of high school, they were prepared to
resist. It galled me that they had to register for the draft at all.
The National Security State is a protection racket for western oligarchy. All the
romanticism that surrounds Memorial Day is just to keep the sentimental mythology in tact. Of
course, 911 and the GWOT was used to reinforce the troops as national heroes mindset.
As you say, if you are even casually paying attention, you know what the real aim of US
militarism is. There's a lot of active denial going on. The truth is just so damn ugly, most
folks would rather avoid it even when their own kids get taken down by it. We are a sad
spectacle of a country right now.
John , May 28, 2018 at 10:23 pm
My dad was a vet who was scarred by 'Nam.
When the army recruiter called me, I told him "Your motto is, 'be all that you can be in the
army'. Well, if all you are capable of is is allowed by the army, then it would probably be
better for you to go get killed in war and weed out the gene pool."
I was 17 at the time, it was the best I could come up with off the time of my head.
Ray misses a point or two, especially important with the rise of alt-right types with
Trump in office. We as a nation must NEVER forget that Memorial Day was founded to remember Union dead from
the Civil War.
Consortiumnews.com , May 28, 2018 at 5:53 am
This is a reprint of a piece Ray wrote in May 2015. It focuses on the Bush and Obama
administrations.
Strngr - Tgthr , May 28, 2018 at 12:43 am
How to Honor Memorial Day? (hmmm omg) With who is in office what is there to be proud of?
(Stalingrad?) Articles like this go back and forth between Presidents like Bush (akk: Cheney)
& Obama, I suppose to be politically correct in the wrong way. But all one has to do is
look at HISTORY and just see what party is the party of war and PEACE. If anyone thinks Obama
would have invaded Iraq in the first place after 9-11 – it is not even an argument. He
would not even fire missles in to Syria. (Don't do stupid stuff was his way.) And so eight
years after don't do stupid stuff we have a guy who can't wait to drop a H-Bomb someplace to
make his mark on histiory. Great, lets be thankful. I guess he will drop it wherever Putin
and Juliana Assange want it.
LarcoMarco , May 28, 2018 at 4:16 am
Obama lost his balls when his version of John Bolton, Killary, sawed them off. Then she
cooked up false intelligence, a la Dumbya, which led to Libya's dismemberment under Obomber's
passive watch.
Lois Gagnon , May 28, 2018 at 9:27 pm
Funny how Dembots always attempt to brush the destruction of Libya under the rug as if the
people who perished there and continue to suffer and die as a result of Killary's
warmongering never existed.
John , May 28, 2018 at 10:40 pm
Democrats the party of peace?
You mean like in the former Yugoslavia?
Libya?
Vietnam?
Yemen?
Heck, your hero the Queen of Chaos is on video pimping the war in Iraq!
The Dims have forced almost all of the anti-war people out! (Cynthia McKinney, Dennis
Kucinich, etc)
The parties of peace are the Greens and Libertarians. If you vote for EITHER Dimocraps or
Repugnicans, you are actively supporting wars of aggression.
Even in your own delusional rhetoric, you engage in sabre-rattling against Russia (the ONE
good thing that Trump had going for him in his campaign was detente with Russia, but the
Dims, with their histrionic unhinged ranting about the thoroughly discredited "Russia Hacked
The Elections" nonsense – which Ray McGovern has written about rather extensively) and
you point at Assange, who is a hero who has NEVER been shown to print incorrect information,
unlike anyone in the Dim party, as if, by telling UNDENIABLE TRUTH, he is somehow a bad
guy.
As far as Obama's claim to "not do stupid stuff", it is well documented that, under his
administration, a Nazi-led coup in Ukraine was fomented, Al-Queida was armed and trained in
Syria, arms funding for Israel was INCREASED after they carried out grave war crimes (which
meet the Geneva Convention definition of Genocide), Libya was decimated (based on lies), etc
ad nauseum.
Is David Brock still sending out paychecks?
Joe Tedesky , May 27, 2018 at 11:33 pm
Ray thanks for this important article, as your struggling with it paid off.
Now I'm not one to rain on anybody's parade, but I have a hard time reconciling people's
true patriotism while we all stand for the National Anthem at sporting events, or other
events where our flag is honored. Not to judge anyone's admiration of our country, but with
all of the honoring of our military, and with jets flying over the ball yard, I find these
over produced displays of patriotism to be a bit over the top. Like, do these people not know
that our country is feared by the majority of the world's population, and that this fear is
based on a real life deadly everyday reality? Don't these taxpayers, who complain all the
time about paying high or any taxes at all realize that this military spending our country is
doing, is a debt trap just waiting to gobble up what's left of the American treasure if there
still is any treasure left? Or are the joyous fans just glad that they didn't, or don't have
to serve in our ever active military? Why can't these cheering patriots see through the many
lies about war, that this country's leaders have lead us to time and time again? Ask a red,
white, and blue, sports fan when was the last time America won a war . then listen to their
silence, and watch the contortions in their face muscles twitch. At this point you may wish
to leave these patriots alone, for the confusion over your questioning all of this military
madness may make them slash out at you.
Not only has America gone a step to far with its for profit war machine, but it's war
propaganda has been so packaged as to make it, one hellva commercial grade product. And in
America isn't that's what it's all about packaging a fantastically shinny beautifully made
profitable product.
RnM , May 28, 2018 at 5:37 am
Joe --
Your comment is a apt distillation of the fruits of the purposeful dumbing down of the US.
I'd put the latest push (by Dubya) squarely in the lap of the Bushes.
Joe Tedesky , May 28, 2018 at 9:21 am
Americans are that classic example of lab mice being used to form the predetermined
outcome of the experimentation. We Americans should just look up and wave and give our
controllers the finger, as we all smile and go in the other direction. Joe
Memorial Day should be a time of sober reflection on war's horrible costs, not a moment to
glorify war. But many politicians and pundits can't resist the opportunity...
Originally published on 5/24/2015
How best to show respect for the U.S. troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and for their
families on Memorial Day?
Simple: Avoid euphemisms like "the fallen" and expose the lies about what a great idea it
was to start those wars in the first place and then to "surge" tens of thousands of more troops
into those fools' errands.
First, let's be clear on at least this much: the 4,500 U.S. troops killed in Iraq so far and
the 2,350 killed in Afghanistan [by May 2015] did not "fall." They were wasted on no-win
battlefields by politicians and generals cheered on by neocon pundits and mainstream
"journalists" almost none of whom gave a rat's patootie about the real-life-and-death troops.
They were throwaway soldiers.
And, as for the "successful surges," they were just P.R. devices to buy some "decent
intervals" for the architects of these wars and their boosters to get space between themselves
and the disastrous endings while pretending that those defeats were really "victories
squandered" all at the "acceptable" price of about 1,000 dead U.S. soldiers each and many times
that in dead Iraqis and Afghans.
Memorial Day should be a time for honesty about what enabled the killing and maiming of so
many U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and the
senior military brass simply took full advantage of a poverty draft that gives upper-class sons
and daughters the equivalent of exemptions, vaccinating them against the disease of war.
What drives me up the wall is the oft-heard, dismissive comment about troop casualties from
well-heeled Americans: "Well, they volunteered, didn't they?" Under the universal draft in
effect during Vietnam, far fewer were immune from service, even though the well-connected could
still game the system to avoid serving. Vice Presidents Dick Cheney and Joe Biden, for example,
each managed to pile up five exemptions. This means, of course, that they brought zero military
experience to the job; and this, in turn, may explain a whole lot -- particularly given their
bosses' own lack of military experience.
The grim truth is that many of the crëme de la crëme of today's Official
Washington don't know many military grunts, at least not intimately as close family or friends.
They may bump into some on the campaign trail or in an airport and mumble something like,
"thank you for your service." But these sons and daughters of working-class communities from
America's cities and heartland are mostly abstractions to the powerful, exclamation points at
the end of some ideological debate demonstrating which speaker is "tougher," who's more ready
to use military force, who will come out on top during a talk show appearance or at a
think-tank conference or on the floor of Congress.
Sharing the Burden?
We should be honest about this reality, especially on Memorial Day. Pretending that the
burden of war has been equitably shared, and worse still that those killed died for a "noble
cause," as President George W. Bush liked to claim, does no honor to the thousands of U.S.
troops killed and the tens of thousands maimed. It dishonors them. Worse, it all too often
succeeds in infantilizing bereaved family members who cannot bring themselves to believe their
government lied.
Who can blame parents for preferring to live the fiction that their sons and daughters were
heroes who wittingly and willingly made the "ultimate sacrifice," dying for a "noble cause,"
especially when this fiction is frequently foisted on them by well-meaning but naive clergy at
funerals. For many it is impossible to live with the reality that a son or daughter died in
vain. Far easier to buy into the official story and to leave clergy unchallenged as they gild
the lilies around coffins and gravesites.
Not so for some courageous parents. Cindy Sheehan, for example, whose son Casey Sheehan was
killed on April 4, 2004, in the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City, demonstrated uncommon grit when
she led hundreds of friends to Crawford to lay siege to the Texas White House during the summer
of 2005 trying to get Bush to explain what "noble cause" Casey died for. She never got an
answer. There is none.
But there are very few, like Cindy Sheehan, able to overcome a natural human resistance to
the thought that their sons and daughters died for a lie and then to challenge that lie. These
few stalwarts make themselves face this harsh reality, the knowledge that the children whom
they raised and sacrificed so much for were, in turn, sacrificed on the altar of political
expediency, that their precious children were bit players in some ideological fantasy or pawns
in a game of career maneuvering.
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger is said to have described the military
disdainfully as "just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy." Whether or
not those were his exact words, his policies and behavior certainly betrayed that attitude. It
certainly seems to have prevailed among top American-flag-on-lapel-wearing officials of the
Bush and Obama administrations, including armchair and field-chair generals whose sense of
decency is blinded by the prospect of a shiny new star on their shoulders, if they just follow
orders and send young soldiers into battle.
This bitter truth should raise its ugly head on Memorial Day but rarely does. It can be
gleaned only with great difficulty from the mainstream media, since the media honchos continue
to play an indispensable role in the smoke-and-mirrors dishonesty that hides their own guilt in
helping Establishment Washington push "the fallen" from life to death.
We must judge the actions of our political and military leaders not by the pious words they
will utter Monday in mourning those who "fell" far from the generals' cushy safe seats in the
Pentagon or somewhat closer to the comfy beds in air-conditioned field headquarters where a
lucky general might be comforted in the arms of an admiring and enterprising biographer.
Many of the high-and-mighty delivering the approved speeches on Monday will glibly refer to
and mourn "the fallen." None are likely to mention the culpable policymakers and complicit
generals who added to the fresh graves at Arlington National Cemetery and around the
country.
Words, after all, are cheap; words about "the fallen" are dirt cheap especially from the
lips of politicians and pundits with no personal experience of war. The families of those
sacrificed in Iraq and Afghanistan should not have to bear that indignity.
'Successful
Surges'
The so-called "surges" of troops into Iraq and Afghanistan were particularly gross examples
of the way our soldiers have been played as pawns. Since the usual suspects are again coming
out the woodwork of neocon think tanks to press for yet another "surge" in Iraq, some
historical perspective should help.
Take, for example, the well-known and speciously glorified first "surge;" the one Bush
resorted to in sending over 30,000 additional troops into Iraq in early 2007; and the
not-to-be-outdone Obama "surge" of 30,000 into Afghanistan in early 2010. These marches of
folly were the direct result of decisions by George W. Bush and Barack Obama to prioritize
political expediency over the lives of U.S. troops.
Taking cynical advantage of the poverty draft, they let foot soldiers pay the "ultimate"
price. That price was 1,000 U.S. troops killed in each of the two "surges."
And the results? The returns are in. The bloody chaos these days in Iraq and the faltering
war in Afghanistan were entirely predictable. They were indeed predicted by those of us able to
spread some truth around via the Internet, while being mostly blacklisted by the fawning
corporate media.
Yet, because the "successful surge" myth was so beloved in Official Washington, saving some
face for the politicians and pundits who embraced and spread the lies that justified and
sustained especially the Iraq War, the myth has become something of a touchstone for everyone
aspiring to higher office or seeking a higher-paying gig in the mainstream media.
Campaigning in New Hampshire, [then] presidential aspirant Jeb Bush gave a short history
lesson about his big brother's attack on Iraq. Referring to the so-called Islamic State, Bush
said, "ISIS didn't exist when my brother was president. Al-Qaeda in Iraq was wiped out the
surge created a fragile but stable Iraq. "
But suffice it to say that Jeb Bush is distorting the history and should be ashamed. The
truth is that al-Qaeda did not exist in Iraq before his brother launched an unprovoked invasion
in 2003. "Al-Qaeda in Iraq" arose as a direct result of Bush's war and occupation. Amid the
bloody chaos, AQI's leader, a Jordanian named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, pioneered a particularly
brutal form of terrorism, relishing videotaped decapitation of prisoners.
Zarqawi was eventually hunted down and killed not during the celebrated "surge" but in June
2006, months before Bush's "surge" began. The so-called Sunni Awakening, essentially the buying
off of many Sunni tribal leaders, also predated the "surge." And the relative reduction in the
Iraq War's slaughter after the 2007 "surge" was mostly the result of the ethnic cleansing of
Baghdad from a predominantly Sunni to a Shia city, tearing the fabric of Baghdad in two, and
creating physical space that made it more difficult for the two bitter enemies to attack each
other. In addition, Iran used its influence with the Shia to rein in their extremely violent
militias.
Though weakened by Zarqawi's death and the Sunni Awakening, AQI did not disappear, as Jeb
Bush would like you to believe. It remained active and when Saudi Arabia and the Sunni gulf
states took aim at the secular regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria AQI joined with other
al-Qaeda affiliates, such as the Nusra Front, to spread their horrors across Syria. AQI
rebranded itself "the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" or simply "the Islamic State."
The Islamic State split off from al-Qaeda over strategy but the various jihadist armies,
including al-Qaeda's Nusra Front, [then] seized wide swaths of territory in Syria -- and the
Islamic State returned with a vengeance to Iraq, grabbing major cities such as Mosul and
Ramadi.
Jeb Bush doesn't like to unspool all this history. He and other Iraq War backers prefer to
pretend that the "surge" in Iraq had won the war and Obama threw the "victory" away by
following through on George W. Bush's withdrawal agreement with Maliki.
But the crisis in Syria and Iraq is among the fateful consequences of the U.S./UK attack 12
years ago and particularly of the "surge" of 2007, which contributed greatly to Sunni-Shia
violence, the opposite of what George W. Bush professed was the objective of the "surge," to
enable Iraq's religious sects to reconcile.
Reconciliation, however, always took a back seat to the real purpose of the "surge" buying
time so Bush and Cheney could slip out of Washington in 2009 without having an obvious military
defeat hanging around their necks and putting a huge stain on their legacies.
Cheney and Bush: Reframed the history. (White House photo)
The political manipulation of the Iraq "surge" allowed Bush, Cheney and their allies to
reframe the historical debate and shift the blame for the defeat onto Obama, recognizing that
1,000 more dead U.S. soldiers was a small price to pay for protecting the "Bush brand." Now,
Bush's younger brother can cheerily march off to the campaign trail for 2016 pointing to the
carcass of the Iraqi albatross hung around Obama's shoulders.
Rout at Ramadi
Less than a year after U.S.-trained and -equipped Iraqi forces ran away from the northern
Iraqi city of Mosul, leaving the area and lots of U.S. arms and equipment to ISIS, something
similar happened at Ramadi, the capital of the western province of Anbar. Despite heavy U.S.
air strikes on ISIS, American-backed Iraqi security forces fled Ramadi, which is only 70 miles
west of Baghdad, after a lightning assault by ISIS forces.
The ability of ISIS to strike just about everywhere in the area is reminiscent of the Tet
offensive of January-February 1968 in Vietnam, which persuaded President Lyndon Johnson that
that particular war was unwinnable. If there are materials left over in Saigon for reinforcing
helicopter landing pads on the tops of buildings, it is not too early to bring them to
Baghdad's Green Zone, on the chance that U.S. embassy buildings may have a call for such
materials in the not-too-distant future.
The headlong Iraqi government retreat from Ramadi had scarcely ended when Sen. John McCain,
(R-AZ), described the fall of the city as "terribly significant" which is correct adding that
more U.S. troops may be needed which is insane. His appeal for more troops neatly fit one
proverbial definition of insanity (attributed or misattributed to Albert Einstein): "doing the
same thing over and over again [like every eight years?] but expecting different results."
As Jeb Bush was singing the praises of his brother's "surge" in Iraq, McCain and his Senate
colleague Lindsey Graham were publicly calling for a new "surge" of U.S. troops into Iraq. The
senators urged President Obama to do what George W. Bush did in 2007 replace the U.S. military
leadership and dispatch additional troops to Iraq.
But Washington Post pundit David Ignatius, even though a fan of the earlier two surges, was
not yet on board for this one. Ignatius warned in a column that Washington should not abandon
its current strategy:
"This is still Iraq's war, not America's. But President Barack Obama must reassure Prime
Minister Haider al-Abadi that the U.S. has his back, and at the same time give him a reality
check: If al-Abadi and his Shiite allies don't do more to empower Sunnis, his country will
splinter. Ramadi is a precursor, of either a turnaround by al-Abadi's forces, or an Iraqi
defeat."
Ignatius's urgent tone was warranted. But what he suggests is precisely what the U.S. made a
lame attempt to do with then-Prime Minister Maliki in early 2007. Yet, Bush squandered U.S.
leverage by sending 30,000 troops to show he "had Maliki's back," freeing Maliki to accelerate
his attempts to marginalize, rather than accommodate, Sunni interests.
Perhaps Ignatius now remembers how the "surge" he championed in 2007 greatly exacerbated
tensions between Shia and Sunni contributing to the chaos now prevailing in Iraq and spreading
across Syria and elsewhere. But Ignatius is well connected and a bellwether; if he ends up
advocating another "surge," take shelter.
Keane and Kagan Ask For a Mulligan
Jeb Bush: Sung his brother's praises. (Sun City Center, Florida, on May 9, 2006. White House
photo by Eric Draper)
The architects of Bush's 2007 "surge" of 30,000 troops into Iraq, former Army General Jack
Keane and American Enterprise Institute neocon strategist Frederick Kagan, in testimony to the
Senate Armed Services Committee, warned strongly that, without a "surge" of some 15,000 to
20,000 U.S. troops, ISIS would win in Iraq.
"We are losing this war," warned Keane, who previously served as Vice Chief of Staff of the
Army. "ISIS is on the offense, with the ability to attack at will, anyplace, anytime. Air power
will not defeat ISIS." Keane stressed that the U.S. and its allies have "no ground force, which
is the defeat mechanism."
Not given to understatement, Kagan called ISIS "one of the most evil organizations that has
ever existed. This is not a group that maybe we can negotiate with down the road someday. This
is a group that is committed to the destruction of everything decent in the world." He called
for "15-20,000 U.S. troops on the ground to provide the necessary enablers, advisers and so
forth," and added: "Anything less than that is simply unserious."
(By the way, Frederick Kagan is the brother of neocon-star Robert Kagan, whose Project for
the New American Century began pushing for the invasion of Iraq in 1998 and finally got its way
in 2003. Robert Kagan is the husband of Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs
Victoria Nuland, who oversaw the 2014 coup that brought "regime change" and bloody chaos to
Ukraine. The Ukraine crisis also prompted Robert Kagan to urge a major increase in U.S.
military spending. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com's " A Family Business
of Perpetual War. "] )
What is perhaps most striking, however, is the casualness with which the likes of Frederick
Kagan , Jack Keane, and other Iraq War enthusiasts advocated dispatching tens of thousands of
U.S. soldiers to fight and die in what would almost certainly be another futile undertaking.
You might even wonder why people like Kagan are invited to testify before Congress given their
abysmal records.
But that would miss the true charm of the Iraq "surge" in 2007 and its significance in
salvaging the reputations of folks like Kagan, not to mention George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
From their perspective, the "surge" was a great success. Bush and Cheney could swagger from the
West Wing into the western sunset on Jan. 20, 2009.
As author Steve Coll has put it, "The decision [to surge] at a minimum guaranteed that his
[Bush's] presidency would not end with a defeat in history's eyes. By committing to the surge
[the President] was certain to at least achieve a stalemate."
According to Bob Woodward, Bush told key Republicans in late 2005 that he would not withdraw
from Iraq, "even if Laura and [first-dog] Barney are the only ones supporting me." Woodward
made it clear that Bush was well aware in fall 2006 that the U.S. was losing. Suddenly, with
some fancy footwork, it became Laura, Barney and new Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Gen.
David Petraeus along with 30,000 more U.S. soldiers making sure that the short-term fix was
in.
The fact that about 1,000 U.S. soldiers returned in caskets was the principal price paid for
that short-term "surge" fix. Their "ultimate sacrifice" will be mourned by their friends,
families and countrymen on Memorial Day even as many of the same politicians and pundits will
be casually pontificating about dispatching more young men and women as cannon fodder into the
same misguided war.
[President Donald Trump has continued the U.S.'s longest war (Afghanistan), sending
additional troops and dropping a massive bomb as well as missiles from drones. In Syria he has
ordered two missile strikes and condoned multiple air strikes from Israel. Here's hoping, on
this Memorial Day 2018, that he turns his back on his war-mongering national security adviser,
forges ahead
with a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jung-Un rather than toy with the lives of 30,000
U.S. soldiers in Korea, and halts the juggernaut rolling downhill toward war with Iran.]
It was difficult drafting this downer, this historical counter-narrative, on the eve of
Memorial Day. It seems to me necessary, though, to expose the dramatis personae who played such
key roles in getting more and more people killed. Sad to say, none of the high officials
mentioned here, as well as those on the relevant Congressional committees, were affected in any
immediate way by the carnage in Ramadi, Tikrit or outside the gate to the Green Zone in
Baghdad.
And perhaps that's one of the key points here. It is not most of us, but rather our soldiers
and the soldiers and civilians of Iraq, Afghanistan and God knows where else who are Lazarus at
the gate. And, as Benjamin Franklin once said, "Justice will not be served until those who are
unaffected are as outraged as those who are."
"... Shatter Syria and Iraq Into Many Small Pieces ..."
"... By WashingtonsBlog ..."
"... February 25, 2016 ..."
"... With several of the "Clean Break" paper's authors now holding key positions in Washington, the plan for Israel to "transcend" its foes by reshaping the Middle East looks a good deal more achievable today than it did in 1996. Americans may even be persuaded to give up their lives to achieve it. ..."
"... "[T]he actual purpose was to blow the country to smithereens: to atomize it, and crush it, so that it would never rise again. ..."
"... "When we invaded and occupied Iraq, we didn't just militarily defeat Iraq's armed forces – we ..."
"... dismantled their army ..."
"... , and their police force, along with all the other institutions that held the country together. The educational system was destroyed, and not reconstituted. The infrastructure was ..."
"... , and never restored. Even the physical hallmarks of a civilized society – ..."
"... electrical plants ..."
"... water facilities ..."
"... – were bombed out of existence or else left to fall into disrepair. Along with that, the spiritual and psychological infrastructure that enables a society to function – the bonds of trust, allegiance, and custom – was ..."
"... , leaving Iraqis to fend for themselves in a war of all against all. ..."
"... By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya , Global Research, November 2006) ..."
Its roots can be traced, at least in part, to a paper published in 1996 by an Israeli
thinktank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. Entitled "A clean break:
a new strategy for securing the realm", it was intended as a political blueprint for the
incoming government of Binyamin Netanyahu . As the title indicates, it advised the right-wing
Mr Netanyahu to make a complete break with the past by adopting a strategy "based on an
entirely new intellectual foundation, one that restores strategic initiative and provides the
nation the room to engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism "
***
The paper set out a plan by which Israel would "shape its strategic environment", beginning
with the removal of Saddam Hussein and the installation of a Hashemite monarchy in Baghdad.
With Saddam out of the way and Iraq thus brought under Jordanian Hashemite influence, Jordan
and Turkey would form an axis along with Israel to weaken and "roll back" Syria. Jordan, it
suggested, could also sort out Lebanon by "weaning" the Shia Muslim population away from Syria
and Iran, and re-establishing their former ties with the Shia in the new Hashemite kingdom of
Iraq. "Israel will not only contain its foes; it will transcend them", the paper concluded.
***
The leader of the "prominent opinion makers" who wrote it was Richard Perle – now
chairman of the Defence Policy Board at the Pentagon . Also among the eight-person team was Douglas Feith, a neo-conservative lawyer, who now holds
one of the top four posts at the Pentagon as under-secretary of policy .
***
Two other opinion-makers in the team were David Wurmser and his wife, Meyrav (see US
thinktanks give lessons in foreign policy , August 19). Mrs Wurmser was co-founder of
Memri, a Washington-based charity that distributes articles translated from Arabic newspapers
portraying Arabs in a bad light. After working with Mr Perle at the American Enterprise
Institute, David Wurmser is now at the State Department, as a special assistant to John Bolton,
the under-secretary for arms control and international security.
A fifth member of the team was James Colbert, of the Washington-based Jewish Institute for
National Security Affairs (Jinsa) – a bastion of neo-conservative hawkery whose advisory
board was previously graced by Dick Cheney (now US vice-president), John Bolton and Douglas
Feith.
***
With several of the "Clean Break" paper's authors now holding key positions in Washington,
the plan for Israel to "transcend" its foes by reshaping the Middle East looks a good deal more
achievable today than it did in 1996. Americans may even be persuaded to give up their lives to
achieve it.
(Before assuming prominent roles in the Bush administration, many of the same people –
including Richard Perle, Paul
Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, John Bolton and others – advocated their imperial views
during the Clinton administration via their American think tank, the "Project for a New
American Century".)
Thomas Harrington – professor of Iberian Studies at Trinity College in Hartford,
Connecticut –
writes :
[While there are some good articles on the chaos in Iraq, none of them] consider whether the
chaos now enveloping the region might, in fact, be the desired aim of policy planners in
Washington and Tel Aviv .
***
One of the prime goals of every empire is to foment ongoing internecine conflict in the
territories whose resources and/or strategic outposts they covet .
***
The most efficient way of sparking such open-ended internecine conflict is to brutally smash
the target country's social matrix and physical infrastructure.
***
Ongoing unrest has the additional perk of justifying the maintenance and expansion of the
military machine that feeds the financial and political fortunes of the metropolitan elite.
In short divide and rule is about as close as it gets to a universal recourse the imperial
game and that it is, therefore, as important to bear it in mind today as it was in the times of
Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, the Spanish Conquistadors and the British Raj.
To those -- and I suspect there are still many out there -- for whom all this seems too neat
or too conspiratorial , I would suggest a careful side-by side reading of:
a) the "Clean Break" manifesto generated by the Jerusalem-based Institute for Advanced
Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS) in 1996
and
b) the "Rebuilding America's Defenses" paper generated by The Project for a New American
Century (PNAC) in 2000, a US group with deep personal and institutional links to the
aforementioned Israeli think tank, and with the ascension of George Bush Junior to the White
House, to the most exclusive sanctums of the US foreign policy apparatus.
To read the cold-blooded imperial reasoning in both of these documents -- which speak, in
the first case, quite openly of the need to destabilize the region so as to reshape Israel's
"strategic environment" and, in the second of the need to dramatically increase the number of
US "forward bases" in the region .
To do so now, after the US's systematic destruction of Iraq and Libya -- two notably
oil-rich countries whose delicate ethnic and religious balances were well known to anyone in or
out of government with more than passing interest in history -- , and after the its carefully
calibrated efforts to generate and maintain murderous and civilization-destroying stalemates in
Syria and Egypt (something that is easily substantiated despite our media's deafening silence
on the subject), is downright blood-curdling.
And yet, it seems that for even very well-informed analysts, it is beyond the pale to raise
the possibility that foreign policy elites in the US and Israel, like all virtually all the
ambitious hegemons before them on the world stage, might have quite coldly and consciously
fomented open-ended chaos in order to achieve their overlapping strategic objectives in this
part of the world.
Iraq's fate was sealed from the moment we invaded: it has no future as a unitary state. As I
pointed out again and again
in the early days of the conflict, Iraq is fated to split apart into at least three separate
states: the Shi'ite areas around Baghdad and to the south, the Sunni regions to the northwest,
and the Kurdish enclave which was itching for independence since well before the US invasion.
This was the War Party's
real if unexpressed goal from the very beginning: the atomization of Iraq, and indeed the
entire Middle East. Their goal, in short, was chaos – and that is precisely what we are
seeing today.
"[T]he actual purpose was to blow the country to smithereens: to atomize it, and crush
it, so that it would never rise again.
"When we invaded and occupied Iraq, we didn't just militarily defeat Iraq's armed forces
– wedismantled their army, and their police force, along with all the other
institutions that held the country together. The educational system was destroyed, and not
reconstituted. The infrastructure waspulverized, and never restored. Even the physical hallmarks of a civilized
society –roads,bridges,electrical plants,water
facilities,museums,schools– were bombed out of existence or else left to fall into disrepair.
Along with that, the spiritual and psychological infrastructure that enables a society to
function – the bonds of trust, allegiance, and custom – wasdissolved, leaving Iraqis to fend for themselves in a war of all against all.
" What we are witnessing in post-Saddam Iraq is the erasure of an entire country. We can
say, with confidence: We came, we saw, we atomized."
Why? This is the question that inevitably arises in the wake of such an analysis: why
deliberately destroy an entire country whose people were civilized while our European ancestors
were living in trees?
The people who planned, agitated for, and executed this war are the very same people who
have advanced Israeli interests – at America's expense – at every opportunity. In "
A Clean
Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm ," a 1996 document prepared by a gaggle of
neocons – Perle, Douglas Feith, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Robert Loewenberg,
David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was urged
to "break out" of Israel's alleged stagnation and undertake a campaign of "regime change"
across the Middle East, targeting Lebanon, Libya, Syria, Iraq, and eventually Iran. With the
exception of Iran – and that one's still cooking on the back burner – this is
precisely what has occurred. In 2003, in the immediate wake of our Pyrrhic "victory" in Iraq,
then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon
declared to a visiting delegation of American members of Congress that these "rogue states"
– Iran, Libya, and Syria – would have to be next on the War Party's target
list.
The division of Iraq along sectarian-ethnic lines has been on the drawing board of the
Pentagon for more than 10 years .
What is envisaged by Washington is the outright suppression of the Baghdad regime and the
institutions of the central government, leading to a process of political fracturing and the
elimination of Iraq as a country .
This process of political fracturing in Iraq along sectarian lines will inevitably have an
impact on Syria, where the US-NATO sponsored terrorists have in large part been defeated.
Destabilization and political fragmentation in Syria is also contemplated: Washington's
intent is no longer to pursue the narrow objective of "regime change" in Damascus. What is
contemplated is the break up of both Iraq and Syria along sectarian-ethnic lines .
The formation of the caliphate may be the first step towards a broader conflict in the
Middle East, bearing in mind that Iran is supportive of the al-Maliki government and the US
ploy may indeed be to encourage the intervention of Iran.
The proposed re-division of both Iraq and Syria is broadly modeled on that of the Federation
of Yugoslavia which was split up into seven "independent states" (Serbia, Croatia,
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia (FYRM), Slovenia, Montenegro, Kosovo). According to Mahdi Darius
Nazemroaya, the re division of Iraq into three separate states is part of a broader process of
redrawing the Map of the Middle East.
The above map was prepared by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters. It was published in the Armed
Forces Journal in June 2006, Peters is a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy. (Map
Copyright Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters 2006).
Similarly, Neooconservatives in the U.S. and Israel have long advocated for the
balkanization of Syria into smaller regions based on ethnicity and religion. The goal was to
break up the country, and to do away with the sovereignty of Syria as a separate
nation.
In 1982, a prominent Israeli journalist formerly attached to the Israeli Foreign Ministry
allegedlywrote a book
expressly calling for the break up of Syria:
All the Arab states should be broken down, by Israel, into small units . Dissolution of
Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas such as in Lebanon, is
Israel's primary target on the Eastern front in the long run.
It is well-documented that – in 1996 – U.S. and Israeli Neocons advocated : Weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria.As Michel Chossudovsky
points out :
Destabilization and political fragmentation in Syria is also contemplated: Washington's
intent is no longer to pursue the narrow objective of "regime change" in Damascus. What is
contemplated is the break up of both Iraq and Syria along sectarian-ethnic lines.
In 2013, former Israeli diplomat Alon Pinkas
said :
Let them both [sides] bleed, haemorrhage to death: that's the strategic thinking here. As
long as this lingers, there's no real threat from Syria.
Indeed, in May 2015, one of the key architects of
the Iraq war – John Bolton –
said:
The Arabs divided between Sunnis and Shias – I think the Sunni Arabs are never going
to agree to be in a state where the Shia outnumber them 3-1. That's what ISIS has been able to
take advantage of.
I think our objective should be a new Sunni state out of the western part of Iraq, the
eastern part of Syria run by moderates or at least authoritarians who are not radical
Islamists. What's left of the state of Iraq, as of right now, is simply a satellite of the
ayatollahs in Tehran. It's not anything we should try to aid.
In September 2015, Pentagon intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart said
that he has "a tough time" seeing either Iraq or Syria really coming back together as sovereign
nations.
In general, Israel ideally prefers regime changes that result in the installation of stable
puppets. That is Plan A. But Plan B is to balkanize . Better to divide and conquer than to
countenance a "rogue" (independent) neighbor.
So it is noteworthy that Israel is endorsing its Plan B for Syria just when its enemies are
making it plain that Plan A (" Assad Must Go ") is not
happening any time soon.
And SecState John Kerry confirmed
just yesterday that "Plan B" is to break Syria up into different states.
Memoria day is an anti-war holiday designed to remeber horrible number of Civil war dead. But now it is converted into
something like glorification of militarism day.
Neocons are renegade Trotskyites 'aligned' with US imperialism and how fighting for "world neoliberal revolution".
Pay for their revolutionary fervor is much better though.
Notable quotes:
"... Trotsky helped create the Red Army as well as the intellectual underpinnings of the (worldwide) communist revolution. This movement destroyed/ended/ruined the lives of many millions of innocent people. Shouldn't a movement that caused this much damage ruin the reputation of its architects? ..."
"... Frunze was the real architect of the Red Army, while Trotsky's main contribution to the Red Army was getting Czarist commanders to join. Trotsky likely had Frunze assassinated, rather than Stalin. ..."
"... Considering America (and Japan's) Siberian adventure, and the mass killings involved, e.g. by Japanese and Americans, well, pots and kettles and all that. ..."
"... that today's Trotskyites come down on the side of Isramerican-backed Sunni terrorists in Syria should surprise no one. Because yesterday's Trotskyites are now called (((neo-cons))) originally via the "anti-Stalinist" Partisan Review, then Commentary, then Nat Review. ..."
"... It was quite striking how, when Gaddafi was brutally murdered, you got similar reactions from Hillary Clinton and British Socialist Workers Party honcho Alex Callinicos – malicious gloating. ..."
"... It was a bit like a flash of lightning on a dark night – a brief illumination of surroundings and what these people really stand for, as opposed to the ideological posturing. ..."
"... Whenever I read anything purporting to identify international bad guys and good guys, I always like to ask: "Who has this purported bad guy invaded recently? How many bombs has this bad guy dropped on other people's countries?" I feel it clarifies matters. ..."
"... Maybe Bronstein himself was a delusional revolutionary true believer, we'll probably never know for sure, but I doubt very much his neocon disciples are motivated by some internationalist idealism. ..."
"... A well known saying in left wing activist circles in the UK was "Never trust a Trot." ..."
"... Trotskyites, much more than Stalinists, love war, worship war, live to make war for everybody and everything they see as not theirs. Trotskyites have as large an appetite for carnage leading to their greater empire than any people that ever lived with the exception of Mongols. ..."
Trotsky helped create the Red Army as well as the intellectual underpinnings of the (worldwide) communist revolution. This
movement destroyed/ended/ruined the lives of many millions of innocent people. Shouldn't a movement that caused this much damage
ruin the reputation of its architects?
Not in the case of Trotsky. He was such a brilliant Jew!
Trotsky was not that competent militarily, and even tried to arrange a transfer of e.g. Czech troops to Vladivostok to allow
them to fight on the western front, and allowed American inspections of German prisoners of war in a hope of forestalling the
coming Allied invasion (through Siberia and the North). Frunze was the real architect of the Red Army, while Trotsky's main
contribution to the Red Army was getting Czarist commanders to join. Trotsky likely had Frunze assassinated, rather than Stalin.
Considering America (and Japan's) Siberian adventure, and the mass killings involved, e.g. by Japanese and Americans, well,
pots and kettles and all that.
If we are to compare death tolls, we could look at the US and UK armies' intervention (and Canada's!), directly (1994, from
Burundi, mainly to prevent Hutu civilians from fleeing), and, more importantly, via proxy (1990 to the present, using the Ugandan
army, armed by the former armies, with constant supply flights until at least 1994) in Rwanda and later Congo-Kinshasa. Two million
Hutu (Rwanda, 1994, from former Kagame Henchman, Eric Hakizimana) and five to ten million eastern Congolese (mainly in the Kivus),
from that intervention alone. The intervention also included the assassination of Rwandan president Habyarimana, and of former
Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira (Burundi's first democratically elected president, deposed in a baTutsi (feudal aristocrat)
coup likely sponsored by same western armies), mere days after the
death threat by former US secretary of state for
African affairs, Herman Cohen.
that today's Trotskyites come down on the side of Isramerican-backed Sunni terrorists in Syria should surprise no one. Because
yesterday's Trotskyites are now called (((neo-cons))) originally via the "anti-Stalinist" Partisan Review, then Commentary,
then Nat Review.
It was quite striking how, when Gaddafi was brutally murdered, you got similar reactions from Hillary Clinton and British
Socialist Workers Party honcho Alex Callinicos – malicious gloating.
It was a bit like a flash of lightning on a dark
night – a brief illumination of surroundings and what these people really stand for, as opposed to the ideological posturing.
Whenever I read anything purporting to identify international bad guys and good guys, I always like to ask: "Who has this
purported bad guy invaded recently? How many bombs has this bad guy dropped on other people's countries?" I feel it clarifies
matters.
@The practical result of this verbal agitation is simply to align this brand of Trotskyism with U.S imperialism.
Wasn't 'Trotskyism' 'aligned' with US imperialism from the very moment when he transported the Warburg-Schiff money to Russia
to carry on the 'permanent revolution'?
And when Stalin cut Trotsky's crap who jumped to his defense? The Dewey "Commission of Inquiry into the Charges Made against Leon
Trotsky in the Moscow Trials". And who are the imperialist 'neo-cons' other than 'old Trotskyists'?
I did not read about the suspicion that Bron(f)stein in reality was a German agent. What one reads in these two books does not
make the suspicion go away
John W Wheeler-Bennett, 'Brest-Litovsk, The forgotten peace, March 1918', 1938, 1963, London
Erich Ludendorff, 'Meine Kriegserinnerungen 1914 = 1918′, Berlin, 1918
If they weren't so nefarious, the trotsies wouldn't be worth reading, let alone mentioning. Maybe Bronstein himself was a
delusional revolutionary true believer, we'll probably never know for sure, but I doubt very much his neocon disciples are motivated
by some internationalist idealism.
Neocons are jewish supremacists aided by corrupt to the core goyim, plain and simple. They do have in common with their guru
one conviction, that the end justifies the means. That is the recipe of evil.
It's a pity that so many youth are misled still today in believing in the hoax that Trotskyism is somehow something moral.
Trotsky was himself a murderer. Killing is immoral. It sometimes is necessary and cannot be avoided as with regards to the psychotic
butchers who came from abroad to Syria and are known as ISIS but it is still immoral.
Normal people sense killing as immoral therefore psychopaths have to come up with stories such as Germans slaughtering Belgian
babies with bayonets, Iraqis throwing Kuwaiti babies out of incubators, Serbs genociding Bosniaks or Albanians, Qadhafi readying
for genocide in Benghazi, Assad pulling children's fingernails or gassing them, Iran being responsible for 9/11 etc, all in order
to dehumanise the enemy of the moment and compel people to accept that killing "sub-humans" half way around the world is a moral
act. It isn't. Period.
Unlike all those fake atrocities, Western and Saudi trained, armed and financed foreign terrorists in Syria did film themselves
doing horrors. They videotaped themselves burning people alive, throwing people off building tops. They videotaped themselves
beheading children. Assad didn't make those videos, ISIS did, to brag. Only mentally ill people can support those "rebels" against
Assad. Yet, as a Christian, I don't consider killing them as moral, I consider it as necessary and unavoidable, but it is an act
that mandates penitence.
Trotsies ignore those qualms and, whether real or alleged followers, are sick people. End of story.
From Trotsky's doctrine of Permanent Revolution onward, the hallmark of Trotskyism has been a quest for intellectual purity in
revolution – no contradictions allowed. No mixed economies under socialism. No pragmatic alliances. No consideration of national
security. Stake everything on a worldwide wave of revolution. Every real-world tactical issue since 1939 has led to fracturing
of the Trotskyist movement, generally into a "pure" faction and a "get something done" faction. International Socialists represented
the "pure" faction after the 1939 split (after it spun off the forebears of the neoconservative movement). Its sole contribution
of significance was as an intellectual incubator for Christopher Hitchens. More "pure" factions spun off in the early 1960s, which
sooner or later degenerated into cults. Lyndon LaRouche made his mark leading one of the "pure" factions. The "get something done"
faction made its mark as highly effective organizers of protests against the war in Vietnam but started chasing silly fads of
the student New Left, trying unsuccessfully to connect them to a revolutionary strategy. Their "revolutionary" rationale for those
movements blew up when they went in a decidedly bourgeois-aligned bureaucratic direction and became adjuncts to the Democratic
Party. WSWS represents the revival of purist Trotskyism, which offers cogent critiques of the glorified left-liberal postmodernist
"Trotskyism" of Louis Proyect and Socialist Alternative, but seems to choke on the question of what they themselves actually intend
to accomplish.
The Russian revolution served German interests more than it did American ones. Germany sponsored Lenin's return from Zurich
to lead the revolution that would get Russia out of the war. It makes no sense to contend that the Russian revolution served American
interests or that Warburg-Schiff were acting on their behalf. They were acting against the US interest in keeping Russia in the
war against Germany. They had been financing anti-Tsarist activity in Russia for years.
If one wants to make the case that Trotsky was a German agent, they would have to explain his agitation for spreading the revolution
into Germany. You could make a stronger case that George Washington was a French agent against Britain. Revolutions have tended
to occur in the cracks and contradictions opened in the struggles between the great powers, including the revolutions in China
and Vietnam.
The problem is not that an ignorant, Tony McKenna, will still in 2018 be a Trotskyst , that is a defender of a mass murderer.
The problem is that the writer of this piece seems to believe that it is worth spending time writing an article about such
an ignorant and irrelevant man. Maybe because he "writes well", which, she admires.
That one can "write well" and "speak well, as intellectuals do, but be a jerk, doesn't occur to Ms Johnson.
The problem is also because the writer herself, ignores how profoundly ignorant is Tony McKenna.
"Revolution is very rare. It is more a myth than a reality "
No, Revolutions are criminal enterprises. They always were and they always will be.
Robespierre, Lenine, Trotsky, Stalin, Hitler, Mao were criminals.
The first European revolution – The French Revolution – was the first big lie and the first to put into practice the industrial
killing of a people – People of Vendée – . The first EUropean Genocide was committed by the French revolutionaries.
It is not by chance that all major criminals (Lenine etc ) studied the French Revolution and would apply later in their countries
the model that the French terrorists (Revolutionaries) applied to France.
Those who are interested in knowing the truth about the Franch Revolution (and all revolutions and why so called Trotskysts
are a bunch of fools) should read Reynald Secher – A French Genocide: The Vendee.
"In our era, the most successful revolutions have been in Third World countries"
Well, if one can write such nonsense, then when can admire Tony McKenna and waste time writing a silly article.
Great article! Thanks to Diana Johnstone for writing such a fine article which blows right out of the water so much of the BS
being bandied about in relation to the Syrian War, Stalin, etc. Ms. Johnstone is a REAL intellectual. Wish there were more like
her in the Anglosphere nowadays.
President Asad is a doctor by profession. He is a family man and has raised a beautiful family. Prior to this Saudi Terrorist
Revolution he rode his own car, at times taking his family shopping .hardly signs of a baby killer or a 'chemical animal'.
Trotskyites, much more than Stalinists, love war, worship war, live to make war for everybody and everything they see as not
theirs. Trotskyites have as large an appetite for carnage leading to their greater empire than any people that ever lived with
the exception of Mongols.
Trotskyites and WASPs – who created the largest empire in world history – in bed together, with the evil House of Saud, could
destroy civilization.
I just finished Kotkin's Stalin book chapter on the purges, which made no sense (the book is good but has no narrative). The
purges would have made more sense as a full on battle with the Trotskyite elements. My other theory is that they were a paychological
projection of guilt from the collectivization murders, realized as more murders.
Fools and idiots come in various shapes and sizes, as do socialists and wildlife. The zebra stands out from afar, its stripes
give it away. Likewise, the Trotskyites stand out markedly in the fairly jumbled-up socialist landscape, given away by their towering
stupidity and luminous obstinacy. Whenever some wretched poor, weak country is being bombed by the West, these useful idiots of
empire jump up and down in merriment. Whenever a union anywhere is trying to extort more money for less work, these fools give
their support. The burning down of churches and the spreading of atheism at gunpoint is another trait of theirs. Christian Socialists
they hate with a special vengeance, taking their cue from Marx the great "visionary", whose vision was fairly deficient in many
ways.
Stalin had Trot's head badgered-in, if I recall. Well, with a head as stupid as Trotsky's, half the world would be itching
to bash it in. One of those good things that Stalin did, IMHO.
The purges would have made more sense as a full on battle with the Trotskyite elements.
That's exactly how I interpret Stalin's purges, too. I think he was trying to wrest control of the Communist Party generally–and
the NKVD specifically–from the (((Trotskyite))) mafia which then dominated them.
I just finished Kotkin's Stalin book chapter on the purges, which made no sense (the book is good but has no narrative).
Is Kotkin Jewish? Maybe the reason his recounting of the purges doesn't make sense is because he doesn't really want to talk
about what prompted them. Like anything else in life, if you want to understand Stalin's purges, you first have to understand
the context in which they took place.
Syrians have told me that Bashar al-Assad was a decent chap. But taking his family shopping could not be different from John McCain
walking through Baghdad with one hundred soldiers around him and helicopters overhead to show how safe it was. If Bashar al-Assad
"went shopping" in Damascus (instead of London or Paris) then two thousand plain clothes were also shopping with him. And for
what would he "go shopping" in Damascus? Shopping for an illusion, that's what.
"In the context of a global neoliberalism, where governments across the board were enacting the most pronounced forms of
deregulation and overseeing the carving up of state industries by private capital, the Assad government responded to the heightening
contradictions in the Syrian economy by following suit -- by showing the ability to march to the tempo of foreign investment
while evincing a willingness to cut subsidies for workers and farmers." [ -Tony McKenna ]
This is like cursing the pizza store owner who gives 'protection' money to the mafia, without cursing the mafia which extorts
him! As Johnstone later points out, back then Assad had little choice but to try and make his peace with Uncle Scam as best he
could, since the USSR was no longer around to protect Syria.
McKenna concludes by quoting Louis Proyect: "If we line up on the wrong side of the barricades in a struggle between the
rural poor and oligarchs in Syria, how can we possibly begin to provide a class-struggle leadership in the USA, Britain, or
any other advanced capitalist country?"
Ah yes: Louis Proyect. The one and only! It was he who recently defended the 'rebels' as proletarian Bolsheviks struggling
for a new, socialist Syria:
"The Syrian rebels are generally drawn from the poor, rural and unrepresented majority of the population, the Arab version
of John Steinbeck's Joad family. Despite the tendency of some on the left to see them as sectarians who rose up against a generous
Baathist welfare state because it supported a different interpretation of who was the true successor to Muhammad, the revolutionary
struggle in Syria was fueled by class hatred."
The trouble with Trotskyists is that they are always "supporting" other people's more or less imaginary revolutions. They
are always telling others what to do. They know it all. The practical result of this verbal agitation is simply to align this
brand of Trotskyism with U.S imperialism.
Which is why, once they reach a certain age and a certain level of burn-out, rather than simply give up on politics entirely,
they usually tend to become neoconservatives , as did Chris Hitchens. For them, the Rockefeller/Rothschild 'new world order'
is the next best thing to Trotsky's 'world revolution'.
The thing that escaped the author is that Trotskyism is a dead horse. The number of Trotskyists in any country is as close to
zero as makes no difference. These deluded weirdos are outnumbered even by flat-Earthers.
I don't know if Kotkin is a member of the tribe, but he definitely is on the Putin/Russia bashing wagon and is deeply steeped
in all the classic WASP institutions.
Most of the Hoover people seem to have the anti-Russian disease.
The give away in his chapter on the purges was that he blamed it on the defective personality of Stalin, i.e. Stalin was just
crazy.
Certainly Stalin was a brutal murderer, but any time the sole reason for a historical event is someone's personality you can bet
you're reading propaganda.
If you have an sources that make for a better reading on the purges, please do post.
Absolutely. Ghadafi was sodomized by bayonet and Clinton cackled over it with malicious glee.
The posing of Assad as some kind of monster is just lynch-mob rationalization. McKenna doesn't believe what he is saying any
more than Stalin believed show trial confessions obtained under torture.
It's all the more pleasurable to these psychopaths that they cloak their crimes with phony virtue. Hence, putting Assad out
there as this cartoon villian.
As if ISIS, who we fostered and nurtured, was any better? Or communist Kurds? My God how we forget each disaster from Afghanistan
to Iraq, to Libya, to Syria now the scorched-earth war and subsequent disease, etc.? These people thrive on death and mayhem.
Excellent point. The global revolution socialists are hard core ideologies who put ideological purity over practical considerations.
Hence their failure to achieve any kind of real world success. Wherever socialists have had some sustainable success it has been
achieved by combining socialism with elements of nationalism and capitalism. The communist military successes in Russia, China
and Vietnam were achieved by appealing to nationalism. The Chinese economic miracle has been achieved through state capitalism.
The Scandinavian welfare state has depended on government support for big companies like Volvo and Nokia.
There are lessons here for English-speaking countries with their dogmatic attachment to liberal values like free trade, open
borders and anti-nationalism.
Eh No. The first *modern* European revolution was the American revolution, and it's not a joke. Fully European, of European
people and European powers. All European powers indeed, UK, France, Spain, many German states, and so on. And French revolution
was broadly more than Robespierre, it was UK, Spain, the German states, the Pope, the Austrian Empire, the many factions of the
French people (if such concept had any sense then, in a territory only less than 25% spoke French), all of them were criminals,
or only was Robespierre? Was criminal the previous kingdom, in a permanent basis of bloody wars and social injustice?
Maybe revolutions are simply a security valve, steaming a bit and that's all. By the way, the word itself goes back to Coppernicus,
a revolution is a full orbit of a planet around the Sun. It ends where started.
The entire Human History is criminal, against Humankind itself and our own planet. We must understand, not look for criminals.
You are right. I was surprised to see the article as I thought they were all in old age homes.
They really really are gone in America, even in the universities. May be because in America because our "struggle" is multi
millionaire Jews and upper middle class blacks Asians Hispanics and Indians against poor Whites.
In America a $200,000 a year black women school administrator is an opressed victim. The poorest disabled White man is a privileged
aristocrat who must be sent to the guillotine.
I'm very interested in the Vendeens. I have the memoirs of Renee Bourderau.
It's not a book. I got it from the library of Congress copying service and put the pages in a binder.
Loyola uni Los Angeles has a copy in their rare books section. UCLA and USC libraries have lots of books about it, many in
English. The Lucius Green library at Stanford has many Vendean resistance books too
Quite a different story from the conventional Masonic enlightenment narrative. Our American Whiskey rebels were lucky they
surrendered so quickly or they might have met the fate of the Vendeans. There used to be a website devoted to Renee Bourdereau
maintained by some college history department.
The trouble with Trotskyists is that they are always "supporting" other people's more or less imaginary revolutions. They
are always telling others what to do. They know it all. The practical result of this verbal agitation is simply to align this
brand of Trotskyism with U.S imperialism. The obsession with permanent revolution ends up providing an ideological alibi for
permanent war.
For the sake of world peace and progress, both the United States and its inadvertent Trotskyist apologists should go home
and mind their own business.
Trotsky was a danger to the survival USSR, because he was an internationalist as is the Israeli-allied globalist cabal that
runs the USA. His differences with Stalin and the nationalists inside the Kremlin was not a small disagreement, as you assert.
You must not have ever even picked up a book on the subject.
Would you be surprised to learn that Lenin too was conspiring with the Japanese in 1904-5?
'Revolutionary defeatism' was a central tenet of his worldview and of Trotsky's too.
As brutal as Stalin was, his rule was providential, in the sense that he saved Russian nationalism, culture, and spirituality
from absolute destruction at the hands of the usual suspects' willing instrument, Lev Davidovich Bronstein.
Bronstein was an agent of the Jewish banking cabal headquartered in New York. He was financed primarily by Jacob Schiff of
Kuehn and Loeb.
Trotsky and his acolytes desired the total destruction of Russian culture and Russian Orthodoxy in particular.
Stalin was sagacious enough to realize that the Russians would never fight against the Germans and their allies for the cause
of world revolution, but knew they would fight for their Russian motherland and its spiritual traditions and folkways. Stalin
restored the patriarchate, opened up many churches, and commissioned the composition of the "Hymn of the Soviet Union" (now the
Russian National Anthem with different lyrics) in the Orthodox chorale tradition; it would ultimately replace "The Internationale."
In the meantime, the almost entirely kosher Trotskyites became viciously anti-Soviet (actually anti-Russian) and pledged their
temporary allegiance to their great American golem.
The origins of the Cold War (and today's Russia xenophobia) was- in my humble opinion- the great schism and struggle between
the international rootless tool of Wall St. and his acolytes and the ruthless- but providential -Georgian autocrat.
This Permanent revolutions is very good. But what you going to do with the Old revolutioners..
It does not bode well. If they are in the way of more and other revolutions
This Permanent revolutions is very good. But what you going to do with the Old revolutioners..
It does not bode well. If they are in the way of more and other revolutions
Louis Proyect – this is a vile scribe, who blackens the pages of the Counterpunch. A part of the Trotskyite gang that took over
this once venerable magazine!
I remember with emotion the old days, where in Minnesota, the Communist Party with me among others, and the Trotskyist of the
WS with you, among others, if my memories are good, we were fighting inside the movement against the war from VietNam.
The Trotskyists said then that once peace is won, it would be necessary to work for the overthrow of the regime of "pro-Soviet
revisionist HoChiMinh".
Even today, most of the troskysts (and CPF Eurocommunists for that matter) still deny the socialist character of China, Viet
Nam, Cuba, North Korea, and so on.
And this is even more true since these countries are inscribing their economy in the continuity of Lenin's NEP!
We come to this fable of the end of History with "globalized capitalism", as we enter a multipolar world where the socialist
countries (China, VietNam, North Korea, Cuba, Kerala ) in alliance with the BRICS non-imperialist, take over.
Have you evolved from Minnesota, or are you still a fellow traveler on the WS Trotskyite?
Maybe you're right. The first European Revolution was the American Revolution Except that it wasn't really a Revolution. If
we want to be precise, we should call it war for "Independence"/For Power.
What is sure is that future criminals (Europeans/Asians/Africans) will have the French revolution has their model and not the
American Revolution.
Revolution or not, the fact of matter is that Americans have nothing to learn from Europeans in terms of barbarism. Indian Genocide
is an example how "revolutionary" (criminal), the American Elite were/are.
"The entire Human History is criminal" – It's false.
"We must understand, not look for criminals." Obvious. But if you understand the nature of revolution you know that revolutions
are made by criminals Not just Robespierre, of course.
Renée Bourdereau is what Howard Zinn calls "Unsung Heroine".
In France, today they prefer to celebrate criminals like Robespierre, Turreau, Westermann etc..(executioners of Vendéen Genocide)
Normal, Revolution won and French politicians and Elites are very proud of their "République".
If you're interested in Vendée, you have to read Reynald Secher. He's one of the greatest French Historian. Of course he's
almost unknown because he doesn't write the official history, which is most about propaganda and not trying to find the truth.
Yes, it was. All Revolutions are about power. Obviously the Americans could not overthrown the British Crown, an Ocean in the
Middle. But they would have do if they could. Dettaching part of the Empire was (is) a way to make easier the way for others.
And, actually, American Revolution was and is a model. It was a successful model for most of Latin American independences, many
bloodbaths and not at all exempts of tyrants and psycopaths. Nor the American Revolution was an angelical promenade.
Of course, choose a model depends on the user. In fact the point here is your meeting point, actual or pretended. The ayatollahs
cannot choose the French Revolution at all as a model, not to say the Soviet one (the American neither, obviously).
What I am trying to say it's maybe Revolutions are more an accident than a deliberate political move. Maybe if the French Revolution
had not existed, France neither nowadays. And without her, the French bourgeoise. A forgotten Revolution is the Polish one, earlier
than French too. If none speaks about it's because it was a complete failure (by the way, no violence at all), and Poland was
dismembered and ceased to exist for 125 years.
If you have such "accidents" you seriously cannot expect normal people at command. The more brutal the affair, the more brutal
the "criminals". Makes no difference being an arson or an accident. You have a fire and minimizing the disaster is over any other
considerations. Call them criminals if you want, but I guess they did not many chances to behave other way. It is a common place
to say Lenin was the saint, Trotsky the martyr, and Stalin the beast. Trostky was a toff, and Stalin was a redneck who did the
dirty job. The Central Committee under Stalin was killed more than 500 out of 600 members in 30 years, all commies and most of
them personally selected by Stalin himself, I mean, it's hard to believe any real treason beyond a paranoia of pure power. But,
Russia do exist today if things had ran other way? Can anyone say the number of dead people would be lesser? Hitler came to power
with no Revolution at all, on the contrary, the 1919 German Revolution was another failure, ending with Hitler.
Kotkin's writing is readable and the details are interesting. But he appears to be a full on propagandist on the important
details, like the Tsar, the Czech and Austrian conflicts, as well as the Stalin purges.
You tell me, a man who purges millions for no apparent reason (Kotkin gives none other than paranoia) isn't an implied psychopath?
Frankfurt School ideology replaced Marxism as the driving ideology of the American Left during the 1960s. Nominal Marxists
tried to fudge that ideology into Marxism because they thought it would help to sell Marxism, but boy were they wrong! Marxist
theory instead became a talisman for selling the various identitarian ideologies used to divide and weaken the working class –
the exact opposite of what the opportunist-identitarian Marxists had anticipated. Their claims that identitarian movements were
somehow akin to the anti-colonial nationalist movements of the postwar era were diametrically wrong. They became tools of the
ruling class in their 40+ year neoliberal campaign to impose hyper-exploitive colonial conditions on the former imperial homelands.
We are all Third World now.
The idea that Stalin was fighting a Jew-mafia takeover of the USSR has been put forth by several prominent Third Positionists,
such as Francis Parker Yockey:
1953 Best Picture (eight Academy Awards) about Army soldiers dealing with corrupt leadership in Hawaii just prior to the attack
on Pearl Harbor.
Burt Lancaster heads the cast as First Sergeant Milt Warden, a top soldier trapped in an infantry company commanded by the
incompetent and corrupt Captain Dana "Dynamite" Holmes, played by Philip Ober.
Holmes is an incapable officer seeking promotion as the regiment's boxing coach while Warden holds the company together. Conditions
are status quo until Private Robert E. Lee Pruitt, played by Montgomery Clift, arrives from the bugler corps.
Holmes attempts to recruit Pruitt as the new middleweight boxer, but Pruitt refuses for personal reasons. Holmes then embarks
on a campaign of harassment, ordering the other boxers in the company to service Pruitt with frequent punishment and extra work
detail to change his mind. In the meantime, Warden falls for Holmes's wife Karen played by Deborah Kerr, and risks his career
in an adulterous relationship that soon develops into a serious love affair.
Frank Sinatra turns in a great performance as "Maggio," a fellow soldier who becomes Private Pruitt's best friend during the
ordeal. Other marvelous features are the supporting cast providing terrific characters around the main actors, and the production's
location at the historic Schofield Barracks on Oahu. It's easy to see why this was Best Picture in 1953.
One of my all-time favorite films. Superb performances by Burt Lancaster, Frank Sinatra, Donna Reed, and Montgomery Clift in
a gripping tale set in an army base on Hawaii in the period leading up to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Frank Sinatra was born
to play the part of Angelo Maggio in what is, along with Manchurian Candidate, his best work.
The most impressive acting is from
Clift. The extended scene with Donna Reed, as she unsuccessfully pleads with him to not attempt to rejoin his unit, is simply
breathtaking. What he does with his eyes and simple gestures so richly reveals his inner torment.
"... * Melvin A. Goodman is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and a professor of government at Johns Hopkins University. A former CIA analyst, Goodman is the author of Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA and National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism. His latest book is A Whistleblower at the CIA . (City Lights Publishers, 2017). Goodman is the national security columnist for counterpunch.org . ..."
by Melvin Goodman
25 May, 2018 President Donald Trump's abrupt decision to run away from a summit meeting
with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un should not be a surprise to anyone. The White House is
encouraging the notion that China's Xi Jinping is to blame for souring the notion of a
U.S.-North Korean summit and for toughening Kim Jong Un's negotiating position, and the
mainstream media is doing its predictable best to validate such a self-serving explanation. In
actual fact, the Trump administration was never prepared to discuss any issue that resembled
arms control and disarmament, and national security adviser John Bolton, the formidable
chairman of the new "war cabinet," was never agreeable to the idea of U.S.-North Korean
diplomacy.
Any exercise in arms control and disarmament involves two sets of negotiations: first is the
internal set within the administration itself; second is the external set with foreign
counterparts. Typically, the internal negotiations within any administration is the tougher
road. One of President John F. Kennedy's greatest successes was disciplining the Pentagon in
1963 in order to negotiate the Partial Test Ban Treaty. Over the past fifty years, there has
never been an arms control and disarmament treaty that the Pentagon has welcomed.
President Richard Nixon and national security advisor Henry Kissinger were particularly
skillful at disciplining the national security bureaucracy that found the civilian and
uniformed military leaders of the Pentagon opposed to any arms control negotiations with the
Soviet Union. Nixon and Kissinger had to win the bureaucratic battles before garnering the
Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty and the Antiballistic Missile Treaty in 1972. Nixon and
Kissinger also knew how to prepare for summitry, which finds the Trump administration
particularly clueless.
President Ronald Reagan learned important lessons in the 1980s when Secretary of Defense
Casper Weinberger and his senior advisor, Richard Perle, had to be defeated bureaucratically on
the way to the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1987. Weinberger and Perle were routed and
ultimately resigned. It is not an exaggeration to say that the internal negotiations on the
home front were just as difficult as the external negotiations with the Soviet Union. And in
some ways, negotiating with Soviet leaders Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev was less
problematic because they had a genuine interest in disarmament and they had more control over
their military establishments than their U.S. rivals.
In the case of the U.S.-North Korean summit, which probably would not have led to North
Korean denuclearization, there was a reasonable opportunity of arranging a serious deescalation
of U.S. and North Korean military activities on the Korean peninsula. National security adviser
Bolton has never shown any interest in deescalating military rivalries with any U.S.
adversaries, and the general officers around President Trump are not prepared to reduce the
U.S. military presence in South Korea or to temper U.S.-South Korean exercises that are so
threatening to the North Koreans. Communist military doctrine views such exercises as a
possible prelude to an actual attack.
Bolton is new to Trump's national security team, but he is clearly the major winner in this
diplomatic setback. Other members of the team, including the Secretaries of State and Defense
were not consulted prior to the sudden announcement on May 24, 2018, and there is no record of
any deliberations at the National Security Council for preparations for an historic meeting
with Kim Jong Un, let alone the possible trade offs in any disarmament discussion. In record
time, Bolton has taken charge of the national security and foreign policies of the Trump
administration, and has quietly built a neoconservative team of staffers at the NSC that will
take hardline positions on all items on the international agenda.
Inside and outside government, Bolton has typically surrounded himself with a like-minded
group of advisers and staffers who share his bellicose views and his bellicose manner that
deprived him of any chance to gain congressional confirmation for a senior position in previous
administrations. Bolton is already consulting with former members of the Pentagon's short-lived
Office of Special Plans (OSP) that was responsible for falsifying intelligence in 2002-2003 to
make the case for war against Iraq. In previous assignments at the United Nations and the
Department of State for the Reagan and Bush administrations, Bolton had a well-earned
reputation for falsifying intelligence on a variety of issues in order to justify hardline
positions and to argue against arms control negotiations.
Any connection to OSP is particularly revealing because of the results of a study by the
Pentagon's Inspector General that determined the office's major mission was to provide the
White House with "intelligence" to make the case for war. According to the IG, David Wurmser
was the creator of a provocative and specious Power Point presentation that linked Iraq and al
Qaeda for which there was no credible evidence. The phony intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass
destruction and possible Iraqi-al Qaeda links were the keys to making the case for war. Wurmser
is now advising Bolton on staffing decisions at the NSC.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo may not have been involved in the decision making to scuttle
the summit, but it is noteworthy that his first selection of an important ambassadorial post
was a senior uniformed officer and not a foreign service professional. One of Pompeo's first
decisions as secretary of state was to select Admiral Harry Harris Jr. as ambassador to South
Korea. It was predicted at the time that Harris would join Bolton and Pompeo in arguing against
the pursuit of a diplomatic bargain with North Korea. Admiral Harris was well known for his
hard line briefings over the years before the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the Obama
administration actually issued a "gag order" on Harris prior to President Barack Obama's
meetings with Xi Jinping.
The emergence of Bolton and the neoconservative staffing at the NSC points to more hardline
decision making that will be influenced by cherry-picked data, unexamined assumptions, and an
unwillingness to hold open debates on foreign policy options. President Trump survived his
first foreign policy crisis in Syria last month because of the effective and moderating role
played by Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Bolton's "success" in halting the diplomatic
minuet between Washington and Pyongyang points to greater instability in the near term with
U.S. allies as well as adversaries. And if Bolton's neoconservative allies dominate the debates
at the NSC, there will be little room for Secretary of Defense Mattis to operate and more room
for Bolton's pursuit of hardline foreign policies.
So Strzok was involved with this part of the story too. Strzokgate now has distinct British accent and probably was coordinated
by CIA and MI6.
Harper was definitely acted like an "agent provocateur", whose job was to ask leading questions to get Trump campaign advisers to
say things that would corroborate-or seem to corroborate-evidence that the FBI believed it already had in hand. It looks like among
other things Halper was tasked with the attempt elaborate on the claims made in Steele's
September 14 dossier memo: "Russians
do have further 'kompromat' on CLINTON (e-mails) and considering disseminating it."
London was the perfect place for such dirty games -- the territory where the agent knew he could operate safely.
"Halper's fishing expedition therefore came up with nothing to suggest the Steele dossier was true. The real story is therefore
the continuing attempt to assert that the dossier, or key parts of it, are true, after large-scale investigations by the FBI, and now
by special counsel Robert Mueller, have failed to turn up any evidence of a plot hatched between Trump and Vladimir Putin to take over
the White House."
"... So, how many "informants" targeted the Trump campaign? Were they being paid by the U.S. government? What are their names? What were they doing? ..."
Notable quotes:
"... The New York Times' ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... The New York Times ..."
"... So, how many "informants" targeted the Trump campaign? Were they being paid by the U.S. government? What are their names? What were they doing? ..."
"... Under whose authority were they spying on a political campaign? Did FBI and DOJ leadership sign off? Did FBI director James Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch know about it? What about other senior Obama administration officials? CIA Director John Brennan? Did President Obama know the FBI was spying on a presidential campaign? Did Hillary Clinton know? What about Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta? ..."
The New York Times'
4,000-word report last week on the Federal Bureau of Investigation probe of Donald Trump's 2016 campaign's possible ties to Russia
revealed for the first time that the investigation was called "Crossfire Hurricane."
The name, explains the paper, refers to the Rolling Stones lyric "I was born in a crossfire hurricane," from the 1968 hit "Jumpin'
Jack Flash." Mick Jagger, one of the songwriters, said the song was a "metaphor" for psychedelic-drug induced states. The other,
Keith Richards, said it "refers to his being born amid the bombing and air raid sirens of Dartford, England, in 1943 during World
War II."
Investigation names, say senior U.S. law enforcement officials, are designed to refer to facts, ideas, or people related to the
investigation. Sometimes they're explicit, and other times playful or even allusive. So what did the Russia investigation have to
do with World War II, psychedelic drugs, or Keith's childhood?
The answer may be found in the 1986 Penny Marshall film named after the song, "Jumpin' Jack Flash." In the Cold War-era comedy,
a quirky bank officer played by Whoopi Goldberg comes to the aid of Jonathan Pryce, who plays a British spy being chased by the KGB.
The code name "Crossfire Hurricane" is therefore most likely a reference to the former British spy whose allegedly Russian-sourced
reports on the Trump team's alleged ties to Russia were used as evidence to secure a Foreign Intelligence Service Act secret warrant
on Trump adviser Carter Page in October 2016: ex-MI6 agent Christopher Steele.
Helping Spin a New Origin Story
It is hardly surprising that the Times refrained from exploring the meaning of the code name. The paper of record has
apparently joined a campaign, spearheaded by the Department of Justice, FBI, and political operatives pushing the Trump-Russia collusion
story, to minimize Steele's role in the Russia investigation.
After an October news report showed his dossier was funded by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, facts that
further challenged the credibility of Steele's research, the FBI investigation's origin story shifted.
In December, The New York Times
published a "scoop " on the new origin story. In the revised narrative, the probe didn't start with the Steele dossier at all.
Rather, it began with an April 2016 meeting between Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and a Maltese professor named Joseph
Mifsud. The professor informed him that "he had just learned from high-level Russian officials in Moscow that the Russians had 'dirt'
on Mrs. Clinton in the form of 'thousands of emails.'"
Weeks later, Papadopoulos boasted to the Australian ambassador to London, Alexander Downer, that he was told the Russians had
Clinton-related emails. Two months later, according to the Times , the Australians reported Papadopoulos' boasts to the
FBI, and on July 31, 2016, the bureau began its investigation.
Further reinforcement of the new origin story came from congressional Democrats. A
January 29 memo
written by House Intelligence Committee minority staff under ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff further distances Steele from the opening
of the investigation. "Christopher Steele's raw reporting did not inform the FBI's decision to initiate its counterintelligence investigation
in late July 2016. In fact, the FBI's closely-held investigative team only received Steele's reporting in mid-September."
Last week's major Times article echoes the Schiff memo. Steele's reports, according to the paper, reached the "Crossfire
Hurricane team" "in mid-September."
Yet the new account of how the government spying campaign against Trump started is highly unlikely. According to the thousands
of favorable press reports asserting his credibility, Steele was well-respected at the FBI for his work on a 2015 case that helped
win indictments of more than a dozen officials working for soccer's international governing body, FIFA. In July 2016, Steele met
with the agent he worked with on the FIFA case to show his early findings on the Trump team's ties to Russia.
The FBI took Steele's reporting on Trump's ties to Russia so seriously it was later used as evidence to monitor the electronic
communications of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. But, according to Schiff and the Times , the FBI somehow lost track
of reports from a "credible" source who claimed to have information showing that the Republican candidate for president was compromised
by a foreign government. That makes no sense.
The code name "Crossfire Hurricane" is further evidence that the FBI's cover story is absurd. A reference to a movie about a British
spy evading Russian spies behind enemy lines suggests the Steele dossier was always the core of the bureau's investigation into the
Trump campaign.
Was Halper an Informant, Spy, Or Agent Provocateur?
Taken together with the other significant revelation from last Times story, the purpose and structure of Crossfire Hurricane
may be coming into clearer focus. According to the Times story: "At least one government informant met several times with
[Trump campaign advisers Carter] Page and [George] Papadopoulos, current and former officials said."
As we now know, the informant is Stefan Halper, a
former classmate of Bill Clinton's at Oxford University who worked in the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations. Halper is
known for his good connections in intelligence circles. His father-in-law
was Ray Cline , former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Halper
is also reported to have led the 1980 Ronald Reagan campaign team that collected intelligence on sitting U.S. President Jimmy
Carter's foreign policy.
So what was Halper doing in this instance? He wasn't really a spy (a person who is generally tasked with stealing secrets) or
an informant (a person who provides information about criminal activities from the inside). Rather, it seems he was more like an
agent provocateur, whose job was to ask leading questions to get Trump campaign advisers to say things that would corroborate --
or seem to corroborate -- evidence that the bureau believed it already had in hand.
It appears Halper's job was to induce inexperienced Trump campaign figures to say things.
Halper met with at least three Trump campaign advisers: Sam Clovis, Page, and George Papadopoulos. The latter two he met with
in London, where Halper had reason to feel comfortable operating.
Halper's close contacts in the intelligence world weren't limited to the CIA. They also include foreign intelligence officials
like Richard Dearlove , the former head of the United Kingdom's foreign intelligence service, MI6. According to
a Washington Times report , Halper and Dearlove are partners in a UK consulting firm, Cambridge Security Initiative.
Dearlove is also close to Steele. According
to the Washington Post , Dearlove met with Steele in the early fall of 2016, when his former charge shared his "worries"
about what he'd found on the Trump campaign and "asked for his guidance."
London was therefore the perfect place for Halper to spring a trap -- outside the direct purview of the FBI, but on territory
where he knew he could operate safely. It appears Halper's job was to induce inexperienced Trump campaign figures to say things that
corroborated the 35-page series of memos written by Steele -- the centerpiece of the Russiagate investigation -- in order to license
a broader campaign of government spying against Trump and his associates in the middle of a presidential election.
Halper Reached Out to Trump Campaign Members
Chuck Ross's reporting in The Daily Caller provides invaluable details and insight. As Ross
explained in The Daily Caller back
in March, Halper emailed Papadopoulos on September 2, 2016 with an invitation to write a research paper, for which he'd be paid $3,000,
and a paid trip to London. According to Ross, "Papadopoulos and Halper met several times during the London trip," with one meeting
scheduled for September 13 and another two days later.
Ross writes: "According to a source with knowledge of the meeting, Halper asked Papadopoulos: 'George, you know about hacking
the emails from Russia, right?' Papadopoulos told Halper he didn't know anything about emails or Russian hacking." It seems Halper
was looking to elaborate on the claims made in Steele's
September 14 dossier
memo : "Russians do have further 'kompromat' on CLINTON (e-mails) and considering disseminating it."
Halper's fishing expedition therefore came up with nothing to suggest the Steele dossier was true.
Had Papadopoulos confirmed that a shadowy Maltese academic had told him in April about Russians holding Clinton-related emails,
presumably that would have entered the dossier as something like, "Trump campaign adviser PAPADOPOULOS confirms knowledge of Russian
'kompromat.'"
Another Trump campaign adviser Halper contacted was Page. They first met in Cambridge, England at a July 11, 2016 symposium. Halper's
partner Dearlove spoke at the conference, which was held just days after Page had delivered a widely reported speech at the New Economic
School in Moscow. According to another
Ross article reporting on Page and Halper's interactions, the Trump adviser "recalls nothing of substance being discussed other
than Halper's passing mention that he knew then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort."
Page and Manafort both figure prominently in the Steele dossier's July 19 memos. According to
the document ,
Manafort "was using foreign policy advisor, Carter PAGE, and others as intermediaries." Page had also, according to the dossier,
met with senior Kremlin officials -- a charge he later denied in
his November
2, 2017 testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. Evidently, he also gave Halper nothing to use in verifying the charges
made against him.
Halper's fishing expedition therefore came up with nothing to suggest the Steele dossier was true. The real story is therefore
the continuing attempt to assert that the dossier, or key parts of it, are true, after large-scale investigations by the FBI, and
now by special counsel Robert Mueller, have failed to turn up any evidence of a plot hatched between Trump and Vladimir Putin to
take over the White House.
Using Spy Powers on Political Opponents Is a Big Problem
That portions of the American national security apparatus would put their considerable powers -- surveillance, spying, legal pressure
-- at the service of a partisan political campaign is a sign that something very big is broken in Washington. Our Founding Fathers
would not be surprised to learn that the post-9/11 surveillance and spying apparatus built to protect Americans from al-Qaeda has
now become a political tool that targets Americans for partisan purposes. That the rest of us are surprised is a sign that we have
stopped taking the U.S. Constitution as seriously as we should.
The damage done to the American press is equally large. Since the November 2016 presidential election, a financially imperiled
media industry gambled its remaining prestige on Russiagate. Yet after nearly a year and a half filled with thousands of stories
feeding the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy, last week still represented a landmark moment in American journalism. The New
York Times , which proudly published the Pentagon Papers, provided cover for an espionage operation against a presidential campaign.
The New York Times , which proudly published the Pentagon Papers, provided cover for an espionage operation against a presidential
campaign.
There are significant errors and misrepresentations in the article that the Times could've easily checked, if it weren't
in such a hurry to hide the FBI and DOJ's crimes and abuses. Perhaps most significantly, the Times avoided asking the key
questions that the article raised with its revelation that "at least one government informant" met with Trump campaign figures.
So, how many "informants" targeted the Trump campaign? Were they being paid by the U.S. government? What are their names?
What were they doing?
Under whose authority were they spying on a political campaign? Did FBI and DOJ leadership sign off? Did FBI director James
Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch know about it? What about other senior Obama administration officials? CIA Director John
Brennan? Did President Obama know the FBI was spying on a presidential campaign? Did Hillary Clinton know? What about Clinton campaign
chairman John Podesta?
These questions are sure to be asked. What we know already is that the Times reporters did not ask them, because they
do not bother to indicate that the officials interviewed for the story had declined to answer. That they did not ask these questions
is evidence the Times is no longer a newspaper that sees its job as reporting the truth or holding high government officials
responsible for their crimes. Lee Smith is the media columnist at Tablet.
One and a half years after Russia and Turkey signed a deal to build the strategic "Turkish
Stream" gas
pipeline in October 2016 , putting an end to a highly contentious period in Russia-Turkish
relation which in late 2015 hit rock bottom after the NATO-member state shot down a Russian jet
over Syria, on Saturday Russian state energy giant Gazprom and the Turkish government
reached a deal on the construction of the land-based part of the Turkish Stream branch that
will bring Russian gas to European consumers.
According
to Reuters , the two counterparts signed a protocol that would allow the construction,
which was stalled by a legal rift over gas prices, to go forward. Gazprom and Turkey's
state-owned BOTAS agreed on the terms and conditions of the project, Gazprom said in a statement ,
adding that the deal "allows to move to practical steps for the implementation of the project."
The actual construction would be carried out by a joint venture called TurkAkim Gaz Tasima
which will be owned by Gazprom and BOTAS in equal shares, Gazprom said.
Earlier on Saturday, Turkish president Erdogan said that Gazprom and BOTAS resolved a
long-running legal dispute over import prices in 2015-2016, and as a result Turkey would gain
$1 billion as part of the gas-price settlement reached with Gazprom, in which Turkey and the
Russian natgas giant agreed on a 10.25% price discount for gas supplied by Russia in 2015 and
2016.
"We agreed on a 10.25% reduction in the price of natural gas in 2015-2016," Erdogan
announced while speaking at a rally on Saturday. "We got our discount. We get about $ 1 billion
worth of our rights before the election," the Turkish President said, as cited by Anadolu
Agency.
BOTAS had refused to approve the building of the land-based part of the pipeline until the
import price issue was resolved. Until now, it only permitted Gazprom to construct the undersea
part of the line. The construction is currently underway.
Russia and Turkey officially agreed on the project, which consists of two branches, in
October 2016. The first branch will deliver gas to Turkish consumers, while the second one will
bring it to the countries in southern and south-western Europe. The European leg is expected to
decrease Russia's dependence on transit through Ukraine. Each of the lines has a maximum
capacity of 15.75 billion cubic meters a year.
Gazprom finished the construction of the deep-water part of the first line of the Turkish
Stream in April. The first Russian gas could start flowing through both legs of the Turkish
Stream by December 2019.
The greenlighting of the Turkish Stream project is sure to infuriate the US which previously
announced it was
considering sanctions of European firms that would participate in the Nothern Stream
Russian gas pipeline.
President Trump went as far as to threaten
Angela Merkel two weeks ago , telling her to either drop the Russian gas pipeline or the
trade war with the US was set to begin.
How Europe reacts to US threats involving the Northern Stream and, soon, the Turkish Stream,
will determine whether Europe will once again find itself a subservient vassal state to US
military and energy lobbying powers, or if Brussels will side with Putin in this growing
conflict, resulting in an unprecedented breach within the so-called " democratic west. "
"... The panel showcased the institute's first "Distinguished Visitor," Strobe Talbott, former deputy secretary of state in the Clinton administration, president of the Brookings Institution think tank from 2002 to 2017, and a key architect of US imperialist strategy in relation to the breakup of the USSR in the 1990s. ..."
"... obe Talbott outlined three main challenges faced by the current Russian government: its internal problems, including economic and demographic decline; the "threat from the Islamic world, it's the southern belly and it's very vulnerable;" and finally, potential conflict with China over access to natural resources. "They know Russia has resource wealth and human poverty that could spell trouble down the line," Talbott said. ..."
"... Read also: Is (or can be) the western Far (Hard) Right a friend of Russia? The Ukrainian Test ..."
"... To the question, "Do we have another Cold War?" Talbott answered, "Yes, we've got a Cold War. It's the old McCarthy line: If it quacks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, it's a Cold War." ..."
"... Historian John Bushnell raised only one objection against the panel's official State Department line. Referring to the 2014 US-German-led coup in Ukraine, he said, "The Russians, I think with some justification, point out that John McCain didn't need to show up in Kiev. There was no reason for a top State Department official [Victoria Nuland] to be caught giving advice, deciding who would sit in the next Ukrainian cabinet. There clearly was a direct American intervention in Ukrainian politics. ..."
"... Kelly emphasized at different points in the discussion that there is no plan for succession in Russia after Putin. He said, "There really is no succession plan. And in many ways, that is absolutely terrifying. Because if everything does depend on one man, do we really want to push Russia to the edge with more sanctions, and try and undermine their regime? Because if there is no successor, then you have a similar situation without any kind of management of the transition that we had in '91, with a country that has thousands of nuclear weapons and chaos." ..."
"... The WSWS wrote in 2016 that the establishment of the Buffett Institute at Northwestern -- with the assistance of a $101 million donation from Roberta Buffett Elliott, the sister of billionaire Warren Buffett -- was part of an international effort of the capitalist elite to transform leading universities into ideological centers of imperialist military strategy. ..."
The Northwestern University Buffett Institute for Global Studies hosted a roundtable event
in the Chicago area on May 23 titled, "The Kremlin's Global Reach," moderated by Medill
journalism professor and Washington Post veteran Peter Slevin. The panel showcased
the institute's first "Distinguished Visitor," Strobe Talbott, former deputy secretary of state
in the Clinton administration, president of the Brookings Institution think tank from 2002 to
2017, and a key architect of US imperialist strategy in relation to the breakup of the USSR in
the 1990s.
Also present were political science professor Jordan Gans-Morse, public opinion pollster
Dina Smeltz, lecturer and former US ambassador to Georgia Ian Kelly and historian John
Bushnell.
The event took place amid a steady escalation of US militarism against Syria, Iran and
Russia. Just two days earlier, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo delivered an ultimatum to Iran
demanding a capitulation to the US in the face of additional sanctions. This followed on the
heels of the Trump administration's scrapping of a nuclear agreement reached in 2015 between
Iran and the P5+1 group, the US, UK, France, Germany, China and Russia. Earlier this month, the
US relaunched a naval force, the Second Fleet, in the North Atlantic in preparation for
military confrontation with Russia.
The political perspective of the event was clear from Slevin's opening questions: "What is
to be done? How do you solve a problem like Vladimir Putin?"
Str obe Talbott outlined three main challenges faced by the current Russian government:
its internal problems, including economic and demographic decline; the "threat from the Islamic
world, it's the southern belly and it's very vulnerable;" and finally, potential conflict with
China over access to natural resources. "They know Russia has resource wealth and human poverty
that could spell trouble down the line," Talbott said.
To the question, "Do we have another Cold War?" Talbott answered, "Yes, we've got a Cold
War. It's the old McCarthy line: If it quacks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, it's a
Cold War."
In line with this reactionary narrative, Talbott presented the conflict between the US and
Russia as one between "democracy" and "tyranny," while some of the other panelists admitted
that is not the way the conflict is viewed in Russia and Europe.
Later, Talbott emphasized the challenge to US hegemony posed by the Balkans, particularly
Serbia, citing their cultural and religious affinities with Russia. In 2015, Montenegro entered
NATO.
Historian John Bushnell raised only one objection against the panel's official State
Department line. Referring to the 2014 US-German-led coup in Ukraine, he said, "The Russians, I
think with some justification, point out that John McCain didn't need to show up in Kiev. There
was no reason for a top State Department official [Victoria Nuland] to be caught giving advice,
deciding who would sit in the next Ukrainian cabinet. There clearly was a direct American
intervention in Ukrainian politics. "
A number of the panelists interrupted at this point, some laughing nervously, others
strongly protesting.
Slevin, in concluding the discussion, posed the question of regime change in Russia,
stating, "How does this end? How does Putin fall? Retire? Get replaced? What is the fate of
Vladimir Putin?"
The main obstacle to regime change in Russia was, according to the panelists, the chaos it
would inevitably unleash. Kelly emphasized at different points in the discussion that there
is no plan for succession in Russia after Putin. He said, "There really is no succession plan.
And in many ways, that is absolutely terrifying. Because if everything does depend on one man,
do we really want to push Russia to the edge with more sanctions, and try and undermine their
regime? Because if there is no successor, then you have a similar situation without any kind of
management of the transition that we had in '91, with a country that has thousands of nuclear
weapons and chaos."
However, expressing the position of significant sections of the Democratic Party, aligned
with the US state-military-intelligence apparatus, Talbott concluded, "Putin has presided over
Russia in a way that is very, very much like the Soviet Union. That didn't work. This won't
work. He will be an aberration. It would also help if we had a different president in the
United States."
A notable feature of the event was its casual militarism. In introducing himself, Kelly
noted that the US has recently provided both Georgia and Ukraine with Javelin anti-tank
weaponry.
In line with the propaganda pumped out about the US media and political establishment, the
panel speakers presented a picture of reality turned upside down: Russia was presented as an
aggressive, expansionist power, and a growing threat to the American way of life. In fact, it
is the US government and its imperialist allies which have increasingly encircled Russia via
NATO expansion, crippled its economy with sanctions and sought to provoke a military
conflict.
As US Defense Secretary James Mattis noted in releasing the Pentagon's new National Security
Strategy, "Great power competition -- not terrorism -- is now the primary focus of US national
security."
Before the audience assembled by this national security institute, which appeared to include
only a handful of undergraduate students, these leading political figures spoke more bluntly
about imperialist foreign policy than they would normally do on national television or in
supposedly democratic arenas like the US Congress.
The WSWS wrote in 2016 that the establishment of the Buffett Institute at Northwestern
-- with the assistance of a $101 million donation from Roberta Buffett Elliott, the sister of
billionaire Warren Buffett -- was part of an international effort of the capitalist elite to
transform leading universities into ideological centers of imperialist military
strategy.
At the time of the Buffett Institute's founding, university students and faculty protested
the appointment as its head of former the US commander in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Karl
Eikenberry, whose qualifications were based on military rank and bellicose politics, rather
than any academic credentials. Northwestern faculty members charged that he "advocates
instrumentalizing the humanities and social sciences research to advance US soft power."
The International Youth and Students for Social Equality are leading the opposition
internationally to the transformation of colleges and universities into think tanks for
imperialism and militarism. Contact the Socialist Equality
Party to start an IYSSE chapter on your campus.
"... Coming Next, Part 2: The post WWII global strategy of the neocons has been shaped chiefly by Russophobia against the Soviet Union and now Russia ..."
"... * Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould are the authors of Invisible History: Afghanistan's Untold Story , Crossing Zero The AfPak War at the Turning Point of American Empire and The Voice . Visit their websites at invisiblehistory and grailwerk .com ..."
In this first of a two-part series, Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould trace the origins
of the neoconservative targeting of Russia.
By Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould April 29.2018
The German newsmagazine Der Spiegel last September reported
that, "Stanley Fischer, the 73–year-old vice chair of the U.S. Federal Reserve, is
familiar with the decline of the world's rich. He spent his childhood and youth in the British
protectorate of Rhodesia before going to London in the early 1960s for his university studies.
There, he experienced first-hand the unravelling of the British Empire Now an American citizen,
Fischer is currently witnessing another major power taking its leave of the world stage the
United States is losing its status as a global hegemonic power, he said recently. The U.S.
political system could take the world in a very dangerous direction "
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the creation of the so called Wolfowitz
Doctrine in 1992 during the administration of George Herbert Walker Bush, the United States
claimed the mantle of the world's first and only. Unipower with the intention of crushing any
nation or system that would oppose it in the future. The New World Order, foreseen just a few
short years ago, becomes more disorderly by the day, made worse by varying degrees of
incompetence and greed emanating from Berlin, London, Paris and Washington.
As a further sign of the ongoing seismic shocks rocking America's claim to leadership, by
the time Fischer's interview appeared in the online version of the Der Spiegel , he had
already announced his resignation as vice chair of the Federal Reserve -- eight months ahead of
schedule. If anyone knows about the decline and fall of empires it is the "globalist" and
former Bank of Israel president, Stanley Fischer. Not only did he experience the unravelling of
the British Empire as a young student in London, he directly assisted in the wholesale
dismantling of the Soviet Empire during the 1990s.
As an admitted product of the British Empire and point man for its long term imperial aims,
that makes Fischer not just empire's Angel of Death, but its rag and bone man.
Alongside a handful of Harvard economists led by Jonathan Hay, Larry Summers, Andrei
Shleifer, and Jeffry Sachs, in the "Harvard Project," plus Anatoly Chubais, the chief Russian
economic adviser, Fischer helped throw 100 million Russians into poverty overnight –
privatizing, or as some would say piratizing – the Russian economy. Yet, Americans never
got the real story because a slanted anti-Russia narrative covered the true nature of the
robbery from beginning to end.
As described by public policy scholar and anthropologist Janine R. Wedel in her 2009 book
Shadow Elite: "Presented in the West as a fight between enlightenment Reformers trying
to move the economy forward through privatization, and retrograde Luddites who opposed them,
this story misrepresented the facts. The idea or goal of privatization was not controversial,
even among communists the Russian Supreme Soviet, a communist body, passed two laws laying the
groundwork for privatization. Opposition to privatization was rooted not in the idea itself but
in the particular privatization program that was implemented, the opaque way in which it
was put into place, and the use of executive authority to bypass the parliament."
Intentionally set up to fail for Russia and the Russian people under the cover of a false
narrative, she continues "The outcome rendered privatization 'a de facto fraud,' as one
economist put it, and the parliamentary committee that had judged the Chubais scheme to 'offer
fertile ground for criminal activity' was proven right."
If Fischer, a man who helped bring about a de facto criminal-privatization-fraud to
post-empire Russia says the U.S. is on a dangerous course, the time has arrived for post-empire
Americans to ask what role he played in putting the U.S. on that dangerous course. Little known
to Americans is the blunt force trauma Fischer and the "prestigious" Harvard Project delivered
to Russia under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin during the 1990s. According to The American Conservative's James Carden "As the Center for Economic and Policy
Research noted back in 2011 'the IMF's intervention in Russia during Fischer's tenure led to
one of the worst losses in output in history, in the absence of war or natural disaster.'
Indeed, one Russian observer compared the economic and social consequences of the IMF's
intervention to what one would see in the aftermath of a medium-level nuclear attack."
Neither do most Americans know that it was President Jimmy Carter's national security
advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski's 1970s grand plan for the conquest of the Eurasian heartland that
boomeranged to terrorize Europe and America in the 21 st century. Brzezinski spent
much of his life undermining the Communist Soviet Union and then spent the rest of it worrying
about its resurgence as a Czarist empire under Vladimir Putin. It might be unfair to say that
hating Russia was his only obsession. But a common inside joke during his tenure as the
President's top national security officer was that he couldn't find Nicaragua on a map.
If anyone provided the blueprint for the United States to rule in a unipolar world following
the Soviet Union's collapse it was Brzezinski. And if anyone could be said to represent the
debt driven financial system that fueled America's post-Vietnam Imperialism, it's Fischer. His
departure should have sent a chill down every neoconservative's spine. Their dream of a New
World Order has once again ground to a halt at the gates of Moscow.
Whenever the epitaph for the abbreviated American century is written it will be sure to
feature the iconic role the neoconservatives played in hastening its demise. From the chaos
created by Vietnam they set to work restructuring American politics, finance and foreign policy
to their own purposes. Dominated at the beginning by Zionists and Trotskyists, but directed by
the Anglo/American establishment and their intelligence elites, the neoconservatives' goal,
working with their Chicago School neoliberal partners, was to deconstruct the nation-state
through cultural co-optation and financial subversion and to project American power abroad. So
far they have been overwhelmingly successful to the detriment of much of the
world.
From the end of the Second World War through the 1980s the focus of this pursuit was on the
Soviet Union, but since the Soviet collapse in 1991, their focus has been on dismantling any
and all opposition to their global dominion.
Pentagon Capitalism
Shady finance, imperial misadventures and neoconservatism go hand in hand. The CIA's
founders saw themselves as partners in this enterprise and the defense industry welcomed them
with open arms. McGill University economist R.T. Naylor, author of 1987's Hot Money and the
Politics of Debt , described how "Pentagon Capitalism" had made the Vietnam War
possible by selling the Pentagon's debt to the rest of the world.
"In effect, the US Marines had replaced Meyer Lansky's couriers , and the European central
banks arranged the 'loan-back,'" Naylor writes. "When the mechanism was explained to the late
[neoconservative] Herman Kahn – lifeguard of the era's chief 'think tank' and a man who
popularized the notion it was possible to emerge smiling from a global conflagration – he
reacted with visible delight. Kahn exclaimed excitedly, 'We've pulled off the biggest ripoff in
history! We've run rings around the British Empire.'" In addition to their core of
ex-Trotskyist intellectuals early neoconservatives could count among their ranks such
establishment figures as James Burnham, father of the Cold War Paul Nitze, Senator Daniel
Patrick Moynihan, Senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson, Jeane Kirkpatrick and Brzezinski himself.
From the beginning of their entry into the American political mainstream in the 1970s it was
known that their emergence could imperil democracy in America and yet Washington's more
moderate gatekeepers allowed them in without much of a fight.
Peter Steinfels' 1979 classic The
Neoconservatives: The men who are changing America's politics begins with these fateful
words. "THE PREMISES OF THIS BOOK are simple. First, that a distinct and powerful political
outlook has recently emerged in the United States. Second, that this outlook, preoccupied with
certain aspects of American life and blind or complacent towards others, justifies a politics
which, should it prevail, threatens to attenuate and diminish the promise of American
democracy."
But long before Steinfels' 1979 account, the neoconservative's agenda of inserting their own
interests ahead of America's was well underway, attenuating U.S. democracy, undermining
détente and angering America's NATO partners that supported it. According to the
distinguished State Department Soviet specialist Raymond Garthoff, détente had been
under attack by right-wing and military-industrial forces ( led by Senator "Scoop"
Jackson ) from its inception. But America's ownership of that policy underwent a shift
following U.S. intervention on behalf of Israel during the 1973 October war. Garthoff writes in
his detailed volume on American-Soviet relations Détente
and Confrontation , "To the allies the threat [to Israel] did not come from the Soviet
Union, but from unwise actions by the United States, taken unilaterally and without
consultation. The airlift [of arms] had been bad enough. The U.S. military alert of its forces
in Europe was too much."
In addition to the crippling Arab oil embargo that followed, the crisis of confidence in
U.S. decision-making nearly produced a mutiny within NATO. Garthoff continues, "The United
States had used the alert to convert an Arab-Israeli conflict, into which the United States had
plunged, into a matter of East-West confrontation. Then it had used that tension as an excuse
to demand that Europe subordinate its own policies to a manipulative American diplomatic gamble
over which they had no control and to which they had not even been privy, all in the name of
alliance unity."
In the end the U.S. found common cause with its Cold War Soviet enemy by imposing a
cease-fire accepted by both Egypt and Israel thereby confirming the usefulness of
détente. But as related by Garthoff this success triggered an even greater effort by
Israel's "politically significant supporters" in the U.S. to begin opposing any
cooperation with the Soviet Union, at all.
Garthoff writes, "The United States had pressed Israel into doing precisely what the Soviet
Union (as well as the United States) had wanted: to halt its advance short of complete
encirclement of the Egyptian Third Army east of Suez Thus they [Israel's politically
significant supporters] saw the convergence of American-Soviet interests and effective
cooperation in imposing a cease-fire as a harbinger of greater future cooperation by the two
superpowers in working toward a resolution of the Israeli-Arab-Palestinian problem."
Since the very first summit talk National Security Advisor John Bolton set impossibly high
expectations for the results. Trump fell for it.
The various 'hostile statements'
go back to remarks by Bolton who has
for some time compared disarmament of North Korea to Libya. On April 29 Bolton again
asserted
that the 'complete de-nuclearization' of North Korea would follow the 'Libya model'. North
Korea never really offered to 'de-nuclearize'. It rejects the 'Libya model' for two
reasons:
When Libya made peace with the U.S. it was not a nuclear capable state which North Korea
is. North Korea demands to be seen as equal to other nuclear armed states.
Libya's transfer of the little nuclear production equipment it had was followed a few
years later by a full fledged war waged by France, the U.K. and the U.S. against Libya and
its government under Muhammad Ghaddafi. The war destroyed the country. North Korea has no
intent to allow a repeat of such treason.
North Korea pushed back against the Bolton statement. On May 16 the White House made amends
by
not endorsing what Bolton said :
Referring to the Libya comparison, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said Wednesday
that she hadn't "seen that as part of any discussions so I'm not aware that that's a model
that we're using.
"I haven't seen that that's a specific thing. I know that that comment was made. There's
not a cookie cutter model on how this would work."
But a day later Donald Trump was asked about the Libya comparison and he
seemed to agree with it:
"The model, if you look at that model with Gaddafi, that was a total decimation . We went in
there to beat him. Now that model would take place if we don't make a deal , most likely. But
if we make a deal, I think Kim Jong-un is going to be very, very happy."
We
called that the 'art of the mafia deal': "Sign here or we will kill you." Signing under
threat is something North Korea will never do.
The U.S. media played down Trump's talk as somewhat off-the-cuff. North Korea did not react
to it. The summit train was still on track.
But on May 21 Vice President Pence
revived the issue in an interview with Fox News :
PENCE: We really hope that Kim Jong-un will seize the opportunity to dismantle his nuclear
weapons program and do so by peaceable means. You know, there were some talk about the Libya
model last week. And you know, as the president made clear, you know, this will only end like
the Libya Model ended if Kim Jong-un doesn't make a deal .
MACCALLUM: Some people saw that as a threat.
PENCE: Well, I think it's more of a fact. President Trump made it clear the United States
of America under his leadership is not going to tolerate the regime in North Korea possessing
nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that threaten the United States and our allies. We've
made it clear that we are continuing to bring economic and diplomatic pressure to bear on
North Korea that all options are on the table to achieve that end .
Propaganda System says summit cancelled because of DPRK's "aggressive talk." Well, it's very
clear that all the "aggressive talk" came from the Outlaw US Empire, making Trump's letter a
fraud despite its authenticity.
As for JCPOA, yesterday I provided this link to
Khamenei's "conditions" to EU for Iran to remain within JCPOA. Today, Khamenei has tweeted a
listing of his "Experiences from the #JCPOA for decisions to make today and in the
future" with point #2 being the most important as it goes to the root of the impasse existing
between the Islamic Republic and the Outlaw US Empire.
I am going to disagree with your projected outcome b while thanking you again for such fine
reporting.
I project the reunification of North and South Korea as a result of this latest "throw
America under the bus" move by the plutocrat "Apprentice" Trump.
It is sad to comment that we are watching our species "leadership" battle about who will
be in charge and no time is spent on discussing what sort of future might be best for
humanity..........sigh
This may seem counter-intuitive but the crazies will say that it is more imperative than
ever to stop Iran before they get nuclear armed ICBM's from N. Korea or help N. Korea build
nuclear ICBM's. I've already heard this crazy talk on FOX and the FDD brigades.
Can't wait to hear Sean Hannity bray ... 'appeasement doesn't work, Trump is
Winston Churchill. It's all Bill Clinton's fault.'
Trump suffered two big losses this week: 1) he got rolled by the Chinese in trade
negotiations, and 2) he won't take home a Nobel to Trump Tower.
Trump won a very narrow election because he was going to bring jobs back, and he wasn't
going to fight any stupid wars.
Now he's painted himself into a corner where his only options are war: a trade war with
China or, as jawbone speculates, a jailhouse scenario where Trump targets the weakest
opponent. I think he's cooked.
US/Trump gain several levers in this cancellation.
With the Trade Talks w/China going nowhere, they get to use sanctions hard against China. The
excuse will be North Korea. Banking and commodities moving again to N.K. will be the excuse.
This gains leverage for Trade Talks.
Also, South China Sea, requires the forceful presence of the QUAD navies. To bring them
into SCS and ECS to show Maximum Force to Pyongyang also is leverage against China.
It whips up Japan, India and Australia to a froth against China's naval power.
So, Trump gains useful tools to look like the Hegemon he is.
Parity with Kim was a big problem in Singapore meeting. Trump never wants parity. He
always wants dominance.
One reason why he doesn't want to sit with Putin as equals.
There's always a lot more to any of these "events".
China, Eurasia and Russia are the game for the Hegemon. North Korea is just a sector on
the GO board.
It was clear from the start that the 'Globalist/Deep State' wanted nothing to do with this
summit. The U.S. presence on the Korean Peninsula depends on a permanent state of war.
However the damage may already be done. The U.S. now clarifies its role as being at the
root of the problem, not the solution.
It will be interesting to see if the U.S. will be able to maintain its control over South
Korea, or will South Korea begin to move closer to the Multi-polar World Order.
Red Ryder @ 16: You assume that Trump enjoys Putin-like levels of support domestically. He
does not. Yes, now he can ratchet things up now against China. But eventually the pain must
come home, and the U.S. population has very little capacity to endure pain, and certainly not
on behalf of political leadership engaged in brinkmanship.
Trump is cooked.
Robert Snefjella , May 24, 2018 2:00:27 PM |
22Circe , May 24, 2018 2:17:46 PM |
23
1.How John Bolton Sabotaged The North Korea Talks
Trump is fully responsible for this outcome. Trump hired Bolton and has been
itching to have him on board since day one. Trump put a hawk like Pompeo at State. Trump
thinks he can bully everyone into submission and he used the Libya model to threaten Kim if
he doesn't agree to de-nuclearize. Trump has shown all his full Neocon colors, soliciting
Neocons to boost his poll numbers by declaring Jerusalem capital of Israel and destroying the
JCPOA and then threatening the EU to submit to this disastrous decision, and since his polls
numbers are rising. Trump is a thug and a fraud so quit treating him like he's a man-baby in
baby pants who still doesn't know any better. It's all intentional and was planned from the
start with his Zionist financiers.
2.Giving up its nuclear capabilities would be suicidal as the U.S. will not honor any
security guarantees it might give in exchange. Trump proved such when he canceled the JCPOA
deal with Iran.
Did you think that maybe, just maybe when Trump realized Kim was playing hardball and
would not cower to de-nuclearization; he turned on the fake outrage to postpone, yes postpone
the summit because there would be no way that he could justify giving NK a deal that was more
lenient and weaker than the JCPOA? I've been writing, that upon recognizing that Kim is no
pushover, Trump would find an excuse to save face; a way to slither out of this, so he could
justify the irrational demands being exacted against Iran.
3.The U.S. media played down Trump's talk as somewhat off-the-cuff. North Korea did not
react to it. The summit train was still on track.
NO it wasn't still on track. North Korea had already given the U.S. the shut out and
channels of comm. were cut after Max Thunder military exercises offended and humiliated Kim
who had just recently made the gesture of releasing of releasing 3 U.S. prisoners.
The U.S. was already shut out and NKn officials incommunicado and the WH was keeping this
under wraps. So, to save face, Trump used NKs reaction to the Pence comments to postpone
while he still had a chance to posture strength.
Trump has no clue how to operate in good faith and respect because he's a thug, an
egotistical opportunist and a blowhard and has surrounded himself with Neocon birds of a
feather that he chose deliberately thinking that he could bully Kim into submission and then
claim the Nobel Prize for himself when really all the rapprochement diplomacy was initiated
by Kim around the Olympics and then through subsequent gestures towards Moon.
Trump is getting a well-deserved schooling from young Kim.
It was to be expected. Never trust the US. It is all just a theater, as it was withh Hussein
an Qaddafi and others before them. The Evil Empire will not budge.
The Evil Empire needs a "color revolution", methinks. So we will just fund some outlying
"LEGAL" radical group, :) , free speech and all, you know like the IRA back in the day, just
fund them. They will find they way.
Majority of South Koreans see unified nuclear Korea as strongly stabilizing politically and
militarily factor in the region.
Yes, SK does not trust US that ignores openly returning of Japanese militarism while
Japanese are capable of building 100 nukes in 9-12 months while missiles threatening Koreans
they already have.
Both Koreans want nukes as guarantee that Japanese occupation and Chinese influence will
never happen again.
Of course blinded globalists do not want to see it in DC as much as in Beijing or
Moscow.
Posted by: Den Lille Abe 24
The Evil Empire needs a "color revolution", methinks.
It will never happen. Fifty years ago Uncle Sam learned how to crush all resistance
movements. Here in Uncle Sam Land we are living with the results: a militarized police state
where folks are regularly gunned down for failure to instantly obey police commands. Even
obeying their commands can still result in death.
Police gun down three civilians a day. Every day. Three hundred and sixty-five days a
year. When the police strap on their gun belt at the beginning of each duty shift, they are
confirming their willingness to gun down a civilian on a moment's notice. Not even the
military does that - they train to kill combatants, not civilians. Yes their definition of
"combatant" is very loose, but they still claim most of the dead are "combatants". Not so the
police.
Anything that has even a *hint* of being a potential movement is co-opted or crushed, like
the "Occupy Movement" a few years ago. Instead of a non-violent revolution there will be more
repression, more police murder, and more suffering as the empire continues to decay from the
incompetence, greed, and corruption of Our Dear Leaders.
I'm not sad to be closer to the end of my life than to the beginning. The near-term future
looks to be very, very grim indeed.
The very real possibility of China carrying through on its statement that it would not help N
Korea if it initiated hostilities but would come to N Korea's aid if it was attacked make a
war in Korea unlikely. Israel really wants the US to go to war with Iran. It almost succeeded
in 2006 with Bush junior in office. The realists in the US military know that war with Iran
would be a no-win contest. That doesn't mean it won't happen. However, Hezbollah is still in
Lebanon and Syria has won its war against the jihadis although many more will die before its
over. So unless Israel can manipulate a unilateral US attack on Iran it won't happen in the
near future. When the inevitable next economic downturn happens (which will be worse than
2008 because they really didn't fix anything but just created 10s of trillions of dollars to
kick the can down the road - this coming downturn will be worse) the war needed to keep
control will happen. That leaves Venezuela. It's nearby. It has oil. The Venezuelan military
will be a slam dunk for the US military. I can remember Grenada and Panama.
The public counts for nothing in Hegemonic policy. 17 years of war in Afghanistan is
meaningless to the voter. Trillions missing, 11 T, 20 T. is nothing. They only care about
their wallet, their stomach and today's Latte.
This move was to disrupt Moon's influence, to separate (again and forever) the South and
the North, and to leverage against China.
You can judge American domestic sensibilities as integral to this policy, but I think you
are really off base.
Hegemony is Empire. And the citizens of the Empire enjoy security at all costs. They have
given their privacy to the Deep State, their jobs to Global Liberalism, their children to
drugs (legaliziation is universal) and just want a Latte in the a.m. and the blue pill to get
hard.
Most males are neutered. The Army is Volunteer. They fear nothing but random terror or
psychotic events or false flag violence.
But they could care less if Trump nukes Pyongyang and Teheran in the same day.
Cooked? The enemies of Empire are cooked, and the dolts called voters are cooked.
South Korea has over 20 nuclear reactors and has re-evaluated its nuclear enthusiasm after
the Fukushima catastrophe involving primarily four reactors. Japan has over 50 reactors, most
idle since Fukushima. But these reactors whether operating or not have also left a legacy of
large amounts of highly radioactive materials, for example spent fuel pools.
Japan has attempted to cleanup its contaminated environment, and one of the highly visible
results is tens of millions of large plastic bags containing radioactive material.
Much of the radioactive material from Fukushima ended up in the North Pacific Ocean, and
much has been deposited around Earth. The North Pacific Ocean coincidentally over the last
few years has experienced unprecedented loss of life.
A real war in the region, even without involvement of nuclear weapons, would have the
potential to create a global scale nuclear catastrophe, among other terrible results.
So for this, as well as other reasons, there is an enormous incentive for all the
countries in the area to find peaceful solutions.
The problem is, as often noted, that the US has a war habit, a war dependence, and a war
'belief system'; simultaneously, a declining military and financial Empire to hang onto. They
also have an elite and deep state with deeply pathological characteristics. And they are at a
seeming 'safe' distance from the Koreas etc. So the horrific remains a possibility.
One of the great problems with the 'Russia did it' crazy-dishonest meme, and the Ukraine
coup, is that it is now difficult for the Americans to have any kind of sensible dialogue
with Russia, let alone one that Russia could trust. And by making China into the 'next big
enemy' an adult type dialogue is again made near impossible.
Mike Maloney 17
The US support for foreign wars has dropped a bit. TPTB don't care. If they can't get
support, they'll take a lack of protest. It's boots on the ground that gets attention. And
the media is on board with either keeping things like Libya below the public radar or only
one-sided viewpoints as with Syria.
Circe 23
I tend to agree that it's not Bolton wagging the tail (Trump). But it is back to birds of a
feather. Trump brought him in of his own accord. It's like the way the media portrayed Obama
as being on the fence for wars with the usual suspects (Hillary, Kerry, Power, Rice) pushing
for war. Whether Obama, Bush, or Trump, Harry Truman was right that the "buck stops here"
(the President's desk).
Has anyone considered that this is simple a face-saving exercise from both sides?
As in: both sides have understood that the chasm between them is much too wide to warrant
a top-level summit and, therefore, that meeting should be delayed until there is at least
*some* prospect of something coming from it.
I mean, the idea that Trump can be offended by belligerent rhetoric is, well, it's pretty
outlandish, don't ya' think?
And, after all, despite the "suddenness" of Kim and Moon meeting on the DMZ line, it bears
mention that when Kim did step over the line there was - surprise! surprise! - a pre-prepared
document just waiting for both of them to sign.
As I said earlier in another thread before this one went up, the prevailing emotion that
drove the orange incompetent to tip over the card table and deny the chance of cutting a deal
with North Korea, has nothing to do with paper tiger Bolton's aggression and everything to do
with Trump's lack of spine - cowardice in short.
Last weekend the NYT ran a story
highlighting the chaotic manner that trumpist 'negotiators' aka sunkist fell into when
attempting to do a trade deal with China. This was a 'home' match conducted on amerikan soil
where there could be no problem with screwy communications being intercepted yet still
orangekist failed to present a unified front - chiefly because trump had provided no
leadership about negotiation priorities - how could he? Trump remains ignorant of the nuts
and bolts inner workings of the policy positions that he trumpets should be adopted.
In the middle of high level talks with China the two lead amerikan negotiators have to step
outside for a quick blue. Coats didn't come off but the cursing out of each other could be
heard back in Beijing without any reliance on 'new tech'. What a joke. Now the other side
were free to run a wedge play and get what they needed.
I apolgise to those who cannot get past the nyt paywall, I only lucked in/out because I
never read the f##kin' rag any more.
I was wised up to orange negotiating incompetence by this article Trump
Has No Idea How Diplomatic Deals Work at FPdotcom. In it a former oblamblam era
negotiator outlines the screwups which orangekist idiots make:
Based on these experiences, what was stunning to learn about the China trade negotiations
was how at every step of the way, U.S. President Donald Trump's economic team did precisely
the wrong the thing. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Trade Representative Robert
Lighthizer, Director of Trade and Industrial Policy Peter Navarro, Chief Economic Advisor
Larry Kudlow, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross executed a textbook case study in how to
not conduct international negotiations.
yep the writer one Ilan Goldenberg is likely a dem partisan and maybe even a liberal
interventionist zionist to boot, but he/she does set out a cogent set of reason about how
orangekist screwed the pooch listed under three main hedings which detail exactly how
orangekist destroyed any chance of a viable outcome. They are elementary school mistakes in
negotiating but sunkist made them:
Failure to prepare
Leaking sensitive negotiating positions
Circular firing squad
The NYT on the other hand in typical pseudo-intellectual bitchy style it uses concentrates
on the gossip around last week's summit that led to the collapse of negotiation. The NYT
kicked off with:
"On Friday, Mr. Trump's chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, told reporters that China
had offered to reduce its trade surplus with the United States by $200 billion. Two days
later, he said that the number was merely a "rough ballpark estimate," and that the two
countries never expected to reach an agreement and merely planned to issue a statement
laying out next steps.
It was a muddled end to a chaotic process -- one that revealed an American team riven
by conflicts over tactics and policy, working for a president eager for a victory but torn
by his desire to have a smooth summit meeting next month with North Korea, over which China
wields enormous influence."
Yep so what? Given that both these publications are like user manuals for empire, who
reads 'em except as a somewhat amusing way to see the collapse of amerika Inc. Certainly not
me, or most readers at MoA I imagine, but the idjits of pennsylvania ave have lived and died
on the NYT since they first nutured their megalomania. Being taken apart so publically hurt
everyone on the sunkist team sure, but Trump couldn't a flying F*ck bout that. However it
also made him look like a prize goose hanging around the oval office waiting to be
cooked.
trump has become what he claimed to despise - the criticism has cut his fragile persona
and he has now decided only re-election can give him the acceptance and validation to which
he aspires.
Consequently instead of calling in his team and giving them an exact & achievable set of
outcomes, with fallback positions and a workable toolbox of targets, li'l donnie tells the
world he has lost his
balls attempting to conceal his cowardice with the usual trumpian bumptious bluster.
What a mess; both China and the people of North Korea can have a quick laugh up their
sleeves and then get down to factoring trumpian cowardly incompetence into any further
dealings.
Japan's Abe creep will be alternating between anger at the crass stupidity and fear at the
way this issue has suddenly been boiled down to one option - extreme violence, when even old
blind Freddie can see that the amerikans really have no stomach for conflict with a
comparably strong, superior strategically China. Japan will have no choice but go through
'back channels' to cut a deal with China and by proxy North Korea.
A major bulwark has been pulled outta the foundations of empire and replaced with a yellow
belly. hahahha it couldn't have happened to a bigger hatful of arseholes.
This is not about North Korea. It is about controlling China and Russia.
The 'Globalists/Deep State' want regime change in North Korea so that they can put their
military on the N.K./Chinese border. N.K. nuclear capability is just an excuse. For the
'Globalist/Deep State' this summit is the worst news possible.
Russia and China want the U.S. out of East Asia altogether. They have already told the
U.S. that they will not allow the U.S. to attack or take over N.Korea.
I look for the gamesmanship around de-nuclearization to continue. The question is whether
or not Russia/China will be able to shake South Korea loose from U.S. control. I am not sure
that Trump even knows what the real game is.
There will be no U.S. attack on North Korea, for the same reason that they haven't
attacked Syria (beyond token strikes with no follow-up). The U.S. cannot afford to show the
world that it is just a paper tiger, and thus dares not face Russia directly.
The following items are very nearly certain to be correct. The USSA is not going to reach any
direct agreements with N. Korea, since the only card in play is N. Korea removing its nuclear
deterrent, and that card will never be played. (The whole Trump and Kim meeting was doomed
from the start.)
The USSA is most unlikely to attack Iran. The geographic obstacles alone would make it
very cost ineffective, and they also have Russian anti-air. Plus they would destroy the Saudi
oil facilities. Besides, the Chinese would not put up with either of these adventures; all
they would have to do is recall their giant cargo ships and the USSA economy would sink like
a rock.
So that leaves Venezuela. Where might that go? Nobody knows. Brazil would likely be very
unhappy about that. Brazil is probably the third most powerful nuclear power. But the
assholes are fairly likely to go for Venezuela.
@71 "Has anyone considered that this is simple a face-saving exercise from both sides?"
Yes but this is very high stakes poker they are playing. More than just saving face is
involved.
Trump was losing the 'diplomatic game' and his advisors kept reminding him of that. So now he
is looking for a major concession from Kim.
The question is what happens if he doesn't get guaranteed denuclearisation before agreeing to
talks? And it's hard to see that happening.
Yeah probably correct amerika has been pushed off the block and now it can only hide
behind the high walls n locked gate of it's funky and unkempt backyard playing cowboys and
indians with itself.
It would be great if the honest injuns leapt out from behind that rotten orange tree down the
back whooping & waving tomahawks but I just don't see that happening since foggy bottom
has hospitalised injun leaders by dobbing them in to mommy. That gave power back to the slimy
arse kissers of yesteryear. That shift is only temporary but the timing does mean there won't
be much initial push back until the people of Latin America take back what has been
stolen.
Of course JCPOA plays a role here too since europe won't sit on it's hands for a south
american fuck over, but equally they may use that situation as a trading card for their own
agenda...
I get the feeling Trump is like Hitler - he makes his expectations known and then sits back
while all the competing groups within his regime squabble with each other over who does what.
Didn't work too well for Hitler, why does anybody think it'll work any better for Trump.
Otherwise, this is just the neo-con fuckwits like Bolton hammering a few more nails into
the exceptionalist coffin - in a few days or weeks Trump will realize what a threat to
Trump's ambitions Bolton is and sack the cretin.
......If the US cannot hold onto its beach-head in SK, then a future invasion of
China becomes near-impossible .
My goodness such radical dream "future invasions of China become
near-impossible"
Two countries the fucking USA should never invade: One is India and the other China. Why
you might ask? These are two most populated countries. The populations multiples fast and
swallow its invaders. Both arms with nuclear weapons. They were invaded and colonized for
centuries. They learned and moving fast into the next century not as frens but arch rivals.
China unlike India took an aggressive>peaceful dictatorial system while India the
fucking western Democracy . Nevertheless both systems are doom to fail as history had
shown to date. The dictatorial and democracy systems still control by the rich and powerful
Oligarch - sugar coated outside to please its citizens.
I think there was general consensus here beforehand that the US never wanted a summit with
Kim.
But also some had said that North Korea didn't want a meeting either, and I agree strongly
with this. But talking with the US seemed a piece of the necessary protocol that had to be
played out.
So we've seen the round of betting go full circle, and the US checked the bet - and it
could be argued, so did North Korea, since its own actions were not very costly. It's like
the face-saving suggested by commenters, but it's even more than this, it's much more simply
an empty play, a "free round" in the poker parlance. [Explanation of checking the bet , for non-poker
players.]
The protocol has been observed with the US for this round, now the play moves back to the
Koreas. The next round of betting increases the pot. Would this be the peace treaty? I don't
know. One supposes that the US remains in the betting to an extent, but the Koreas will
continue to drive the game. This round has shown all of Asia that the US is not serious. The
day comes closer that China and the UN can sponsor the reunification of the Koreas, and the
US will have to leave.
This game is being run by Korea. As far as I can tell, it proceeds apace.
@65 "If the US cannot hold onto its beach-head in SK, then a future invasion of China becomes
near-impossible. "
It always was an impossibility. But a US military presence all the way up to the Yalu
River is the ultimate prize for the USA, in the same way that pushing NATO up to the very
border of the Russian Federation gives the USA a major strategic advantage.
In both cases it brings the idea of a 1st strike nuclear decapitation into the picture,
and that is just as big a nightmare to Beijing as it is to Moscow.
It is a crazy way to deal with other nuclear powers, but that's modern-day America for
you.....
"... The Liberal prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, hobnobbed with Nazi notables including Adolf Hitler, and thought that his British counterpart Neville Chamberlain had not gone far enough in appeasing Hitlerite Germany ..."
"... persona non grata ..."
"... Some Canadians harboured illusions about the NDP as a progressive alternative to the Liberal and Conservative parties ..."
"... Identity politics and Canadian multiculturalism are now invoked to defend Ukrainian fascism celebrated in the streets of Kiev with torchlight parades and fascist symbols, remembering and celebrating Nazi collaborators and collaboration during World War II ..."
"... Any country sending representatives to Russia's celebration of the 70th anniversary of their victory against Adolf Hitler," ..."
"... in April 2015, "will be blacklisted by Ukraine." ..."
Canada has a reputation for being a relatively progressive state with universal,
single-payer health care, various other social benefits, and strict gun laws, similar to many
European countries but quite unlike the United States. It has managed to stay out of some
American wars, for example, Vietnam and Iraq, portrayed itself as a neutral "peace keeper",
pursuing a so-called policy of "multilateralism" and attempting from time to time to keep a
little independent distance from the United States.
Behind this veneer of respectability lies a not so attractive reality of elite inattention
to the defence of Canadian independence from the United States and intolerance toward the
political and syndicalist left. Police repression against communist and left-wing unionists and
other dissidents after World War I was widespread. Strong support for appeasement of Nazi
Germany, overt or covert sympathy for fascism, especially in Québec, and hatred of the
Soviet Union were widespread in Canada during the 1930s. The Liberal prime minister, William
Lyon Mackenzie King, hobnobbed with Nazi notables including Adolf Hitler, and thought that his
British counterpart Neville Chamberlain had not gone far enough in appeasing Hitlerite Germany.
Mackenzie King and many others of the Canadian elite saw communism as a greater threat to
Canada than fascism. As in Europe, the Canadian elite -- Liberal or Conservative did not matter
-- was worried by the Spanish civil war (1936-1939). In Québec French public opinion
under the influence of the Catholic Church hoped for fascist victory and the eradication of
communism. In 1937 a Papal encyclical whipped up the Red Scare amongst French Canadian
Catholics.
Rejection of Soviet offers of collective security against Hitler was the obverse side of
appeasement. The fear of victory over Nazi Germany in alliance with the USSR was greater than
the fear of defeat against fascism. Such thoughts were either openly expressed over dinner at
the local gentleman's club or kept more discrete by people who did not want to reveal the
extent of their sympathy for fascism.
The Liberal prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, hobnobbed with Nazi notables
including Adolf Hitler, and thought that his British counterpart Neville Chamberlain had not
gone far enough in appeasing Hitlerite Germany
Even after the Nazi invasion of the USSR in June 1941, and the formation of the Grand
Alliance against the Axis, there was strong reticence amongst the governing elite in Canada
toward the Soviet Union. It was a shotgun marriage, a momentary arrangement with an undesirable
partner, necessitated by the over-riding threat of the Nazi Wehrmacht. "If Hitler invaded
Hell," Winston Churchill famously remarked, "I would make at least a favourable reference to
the devil in the House of Commons." Once Hitler was beaten, however, it would be back to
business as usual. The Grand Alliance was a "truce", as some of my students have proposed to
me, in a longer cold war between the west and the USSR. This struggle began in November 1917
when the
Bolsheviks seized power in Petrograd; it resumed after 1945 when the "truce", or if you
like, the Grand Alliance, came to a sudden end.
This was no more evident than in Canada where elite hatred of communism was a homegrown
commodity and not simply an American imitation. So it should hardly be a surprise that after
1945 the Canadian government -- Mackenzie King was still prime minister -- should open its
doors to the immigration of approximately 34,000 "displaced persons", including thousands of
Ukrainian
fascists and Nazi collaborators , responsible for heinous war crimes in the Ukraine and
Poland. These were
veterans of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the Waffen SS Galicia and the Organisation
of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), all collaborators of Nazi Germany during World War II.
The most notorious of the Nazi collaborators who immigrated to Canada was
Mykhailo Chomiak , a mid-level Nazi operative in Poland, who came under US protection at
the end of the war and eventually made his way to Canada where he settled in Alberta. Had he
been captured by the Red Army, he would quite likely have been hanged for collaboration with
the enemy. In Canada however he prospered as a farmer. His grand-daughter is the
"Ukrainian-Canadian" Chrystia Freeland, the present minister for external affairs. She is a
well-known Russophobe, persona non grata in the Russian Federation, who long claimed
her grandfather was a "victim" of World War II. Her claims to this effect have been
demonstrated to be
untrue by the Australian born journalist John Helmer , amongst many others.
In 1940 the Liberal government facilitated the creation of the Canadian Ukrainian Congress (UCC)
, one of many organisations used to fight or marginalise the left in Canada, in this case
amongst Canadian Ukrainians. The UCC is still around and appears to dominate the Ukrainian-Canadian
community . Approximately 1.4 million people living in Canada claim full or partial
Ukrainian descent though generally the latter. Most "Ukrainian-Canadians" were born in Canada;
well more than half live in the western provinces. The vast majority has certainly never set
foot in the Ukraine. It is this constituency on which the UCC depends to pursue its political
agenda in Ottawa.
In 1940 the Liberal government facilitated the creation of the Canadian Ukrainian Congress (UCC)
, one of many organisations used to fight or marginalise the left in Canada, in this case
amongst Canadian Ukrainians. The UCC is still around and appears to dominate the Ukrainian-Canadian
community . Approximately 1.4 million people living in Canada claim full or partial
Ukrainian descent though generally the latter. Most "Ukrainian-Canadians" were born in Canada;
well more than half live in the western provinces. The vast majority has certainly never set
foot in the Ukraine. It is this constituency on which the UCC depends to pursue its political
agenda in Ottawa.
The Harper
government allowed fund raising for Pravyi Sektor , a Ukrainian fascist
paramilitary group
There is no political opposition in the House of Commons to these policies. Even the New
Democratic Party (NDP), that burnt out shell of Canadian social democracy, supported the Harper
government, at the behest of Mr. Grod, a Ukrainian lobbyist who knows his way around Ottawa. In
2015 the UCC put a list of questions to party leaders, one of which was the following: "Does
your party support listing the Luhansk People's Republic and the Donetsk People's Republic as
terrorist organizations?" The Lugansk and Donetsk republics are of course anti-fascist
resistance movements that emerged in reaction to the violent coup d'état in Kiev. They
are most certainly not "terrorist" organisations, although they are subjected to daily
bombardments against civilian areas by Kiev putschist forces. Nevertheless, the then NDP
leader, Thomas Mulcair, who would have agreed to almost anything to win power, answered in the
affirmative. This must have been a moment of dismay for Canadians who still harboured illusions
about the NDP as a progressive alternative to the Liberal and Conservative parties. How could
it support a US/EU installed putschist regime which governs by intimidation and violence? In
fact, it was a Conservative electoral strategy to obtain the votes of people of Ukrainian and
East European descent by backing putschist Kiev and denouncing Russia. Mulcair was trying to
outflank Harper on his right, but that did not work for he himself was outflanked on his
left.
Some Canadians harboured illusions about the NDP as a progressive alternative to the
Liberal and Conservative parties
In the 2015 federal elections the Liberals under Justin Trudeau, outwitted poor Mr. Mulcair
and won the elections. The NDP suffered heavy electoral losses. Mulcair looked like someone who
had made a Faustian bargain for nothing in return, and he lost a bid to remain as party leader.
The Liberals campaigned on re-establishing better relations with the Russian Federation, but
that promise did not hold up. The minister for external affairs, Stéphane Dion, tried to
move forward on that line, but appears to have been stabbed in the back by Mr. Trudeau, with
Ms. Freeland guiding his hand in the fatal blow. In early 2017
Dion was sacked and Freeland replaced him. That was the end of the Liberal promise to
improve relations with the Russian government. Since then, under Freeland, Russian-Canadian
relations have worsened.
The influential Mr. Grod appears to keep the Canadian government in his hip pocket. There
are photographs of him side by side with Mr. Harper and then with Mr. Trudeau, with Ms.
Freeland on his left. Mr. Grod has been a great success in backing putschist Kiev. Last summer
Mr. Trudeau even issued a traditional Ukrainian fascist salute, "SlavaUkraini!"
, to celebrate the anniversary of Ukrainian independence. The prime minister is a great
believer in identity politics.
The latest gesture of the Canadian government is to approve $1.4 million as a three year
grant to promote a "Holodomor National Awareness Tour". Ukrainian "nationalists" summon up the
memory of the "Holodomor", a famine in the Ukraine in 1932-1933, deliberately launched by
Stalin, they say, in order to emphasise their victimisation by Russia. According to the latest
Stalin biographer, Steven Kotkin, there was indeed a famine in the USSR that affected various
parts of the country, the Ukraine amongst other regions. Kazakhstan, not the Ukraine suffered
most. Between five and seven million people died. Ten millions starved. "Nonetheless, the
famine was not intentional. It resulted from Stalin's policies of forced collectivization
,"Kotkin writes, himself no advocate of the Soviet Union. Compulsion, peasant rebellion,
bungling, mismanagement, drought, locust infestations, not targeting ethnicities, led to the
catastrophe. "Similarly, there was no 'Ukrainian' famine," according to Kotkin, "the famine was
[a] Soviet[-wide disaster]" ( Stalin , 2017, vol. 2, pp. 127-29).
So the Liberal government is spending public funds to perpetuate a politically motivated myth
to drum up hatred of Russia and to support putschist Kiev.
Identity politics and Canadian multiculturalism are now invoked to defend Ukrainian
fascism celebrated in the streets of Kiev with torchlight parades and fascist symbols,
remembering and celebrating Nazi collaborators and collaboration during World War II
The Canadian government also recently renewed funding for a detachment of 200 "advisors" to
train Ukrainian militias, along with
twenty-three million dollars -- it is true a pittance by American
standards -- for "non-lethal" military aid, justified by Ms. Freeland to defend Ukrainian
"democracy". Truly, we live in a dystopian world where reality is turned on its head. Fascism
is democracy; resistance to fascism is terrorism. Identity politics and Canadian
multiculturalism are now invoked to defend Ukrainian fascism celebrated in the streets of Kiev
with torchlight parades and fascist symbols, remembering and celebrating Nazi collaborators and
collaboration during World War II. " Any country sending representatives to Russia's
celebration of the 70th anniversary of their victory against Adolf Hitler,"
warned putschist Kievin April 2015, "will be blacklisted by Ukraine."
"The further a society drifts from the truth," George Orwell once said, "the more it will
hate those that speak it." Well, here is one truth that Mr. Trudeau and Ms. Freeland will not
want to hear, hate it or not: 42,000 Canadian soldiers, not to mention 27 million Soviet
citizens, died during the war against the Axis. Memories must be fading, for now we have come
to this pass, where our government is supporting a violent, racist regime in Kiev directly
descended from that very enemy against which Canada and its allies fought during World War
II.
What happens when a country decides to decouple itself from the US/Saudi axis of evilglobinfo
freexchange
T he role of Qatar and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East chaos is quite well known . Recall that
in a letter
of the Podesta email series, John Podesta admitted that both Qatar and Saudi Arabia we re
helping ISIS. Podesta also mentioned that the US should exercise pressure to these countries in
order to stop doing it: " ... we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional
intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are
providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in
the region. "
Of course Hillary Clinton wouldn't do anything about this problem too, as in another
letter of the Podesta email series, it was revealed that Bill Clinton was receiving
"expensive gifts" from the Qataris!
As reported by Antimedia , in 2009 Qatar
proposed a pipeline to run through Syria and Turkey to export Saudi gas. Assad rejected the
proposal and instead formed an agreement with Iran and Iraq to construct a pipeline to the
European market that would cut Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar out of the route entirely.
Since, Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia have been staunch backers of the opposition seeking to
topple Assad. Collectively, they have invested billions of dollars, lent weapons, encouraged
the spread of fanatical ideology, and helped smuggle fighters across their borders.
The Iran-Iraq pipeline will strengthen Iranian influence in the region and undermine their
rival, Saudi Arabia -- the other main OPEC producer. Given the ability to transport gas to
Europe without going through Washington's allies, Iran will hold the upper-hand and will be
able to negotiate agreements that exclude the U.S. dollar completely.
Yet, less than a year ago, a crisis erupted between 'unholy' allies, apparently because Qatar
has chosen to change camp and proceed into a deeper approach with Iran.
As reported by Guardian , Saudi Arabia and its allies have issued a threatening 13-point
ultimatum to Qatar as the price for lifting a two-week trade and diplomatic embargo of the
country, in a marked escalation of the Gulf's worst diplomatic dispute in decades. The onerous
list of demands includes stipulations that Doha close the broadcaster al-Jazeera,
drastically scale back cooperation with Iran , remove Turkish troops from Qatar's soil,
end contact with groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and submit to monthly external
compliance checks. Qatar has been given 10 days to comply with the demands or face unspecified
consequences.
Then, apparently, Rex
Tillerson tried to persuade Qatar to stay in the unholy alliance and move away from
Iran a day after wrapping up discussions with the king of Saudi Arabia and other officials from
Arab countries lined up against Qatar.
We can tell now that Qatar has not changed stance and chosen to continue its approach with the
winning alliance in the Syrian battlefield. We have the first signs showing that the US empire
and its allies in the Middle East will move against Qatar, beginning with a typical first step:
propaganda war.
A Pentagon "propagandist," who previously headed a company that was paid half a billion dollars
to produce fake terrorist videos in Iraq, was hired by a Dubai based company to create a film accusing Qatar of links to terrorism , the Bureau of
Investigative Journalism has revealed.
Charles Andreae, the CEO of Andreae & Associates which was contracted to produce the film,
used to work for PR firm Bell Pottinger, the UK PR firm that was payed $540 million dollars to
create fake terrorist videos in Iraq.
The firm was employed to produce the anti-Qatari film amidst a diplomatic row in which the
Saudi and UAE governments cut ties with Doha, which it accused of supporting terrorism. Qatar
has strongly denied the accusation and accused its neighbours of fabricating stories. US
intelligence agencies have since confirmed that the UAE orchestrated the hacking of Qatari
government news and social media sites to justify its unprecedented attack against Qatar.
According to the Bureau, Andreae was given over $500,000 to produce a six-part film linking
Qatar with global terrorism. The film, entitled "Qatar: A Dangerous Alliance," features a
number of neo-conservative pundits making the UAE and Saudi case against Qatar in a 37-minute
video.
Washington's double standards and hypocrisy are quite evident in this case too. After this
crisis between allies erupted, a number of US officials immediately launched a series of
statements through which they depicted Qatar as the sole supporter of terrorist groups in the
Middle East. Again, Saudi Arabia, the most authoritarian regime in the region and probably the
biggest supporter of jihadist extremists, was miraculously vanished from their radar and,
naturally, the radar of the Western corporate media.
In case Qatar will not compromise and keep walking the path towards decoupling itself from the
US/Saudi axis of evil, the next steps will be a new series of upgraded, Iranian-type sanctions,
or even a military invasion as the last option. The only thing that can save Qatar for now is
the fact that it hosts the largest US military base in the Middle East .
There's no real Left in the UK anymore, either. The Blairites are still a force with the
Labour party and that party is known as The Red Tories - especially in Scotland - for the
obvious reason!
Even the old Left newspapers - The Guardian, The Observer - are no longer such, as has been
evidenced of late. I no longer read the UK press - Private Eye is my 'paper' reading - and
would not trust one word broadcast by the BBC and, I am sorry to say, Channel
4.
The Guardian and The Observer have never been socialist papers. They were liberal, just like
the democrats in the United States were liberal. And liberals, who are the advance guard of
capitalism, can hardly be called 'of the left'.
The only opponents of capitalism and imperialism are socialists or nationalists, of a kind
rarely seen outside the third world periphery of the system since 1917.
Anyone who sees the fascists and crooks surrounding Trump as being opponents of anything
except the human race is almost as daft as someone who sees the Democrats as part of the
left.
But the real prize for idiocy goes to those sad souls who see the FBI, CIA, MI6 and their
clones as anything but- deepest apologies here to the Mafia and their ilk- criminal gangs, of
the worst kind.
when a second rate congressman became foreign minister strange things stqrt happing.
Tillirson at least has real international experince and was running huge corporation. Still he
was an embarrassment.
Pompeo, a Tee Party Republican who was elevated to this position due to lack first to CIA
director position and then to the Secretary of the Department of State is a bigger embarrassment.
Lack of qualification cab be hidden under jingoistic rhetoric. But he definitely is better match
for Haley then Tillerson. He's also quite bombastic.
Still the attempt to crash the current government in Iran might succeed because with time
theocratic governments became weaker and weaker.
Iran is asked to stop all uranium enrichment. Stopping enrichment is a no-go for Iran. The
program has wide support in Iranian politics as it is seen as an attribute its sovereignty.
Pompeo demands that Iran closes its heavy water reactor. Iran can not close its heavy water
reactor. It does not have one. The one it was building in Arak was disabled under the nuclear
agreement (JCPOA). Concrete was poured into its core under supervision of IAEA inspectors. How
can the Secretary of State of the United States make such a fact-free demand in a prepared
speech?
Another demand is that Iran ends its support for the Palestinian resistance. This is also a
no-go for Iran as long as the Zionist occupation of Palestine continues. There is a demand that
Iran does not develop "nuclear capable" missiles. Iran had already committed to that under the
JCPOA Trump killed. Another demand is that Iran pulls back all troops from Syria, and ends all
interference in Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Together these demands ask for a wholesale change of Iran's national character and policies.
It is apparently supposed to become Lichtenstein.
The Trump administration has no way to achieve that goal.
With painstaking work the Obama administration managed to get much of the world to agree to
sanctions on Iran. It was possible because the other countries trusted Obama's assurances that
he would keep his side of the deal and seriously negotiate. International unity and trust was
necessary to achieve the nuclear agreement.
Now Trump wants much more but he has no united international front behind him. No one trusts
his word. The Europeans are enraged that Trump s threatens them with secondary sanctions if
they stick to the agreement they signed and continue to deal with Iran. While they may
eventually fold and to some extend stop dealing with Iran, they will also try to circumvent
those unilateral U.S. sanctions.
Neither China nor Russia nor India will stop doing business with Iran. For them the
unilateral U.S. sanctions are opening new markets. The French oil company Total announced that
it will stop the development of Iran's South Pars gas field to avoid secondary U.S. sanctions
on its other interests. China said "thank you" and took over the work. Russia will likewise
jump in where it can. Its agricultural industry will deliver whatever food stuff Iran wants and
needs. It will continue to sell weapons to Iran. China, India and others will continue to buy
Iranian oil.
The US is running up against the limits of what being the World's biggest bully can achieve.
It would find it much more productive to make friends and partners but that wouldn't suit one
ally in particular who is an even bigger bully.
"Iran had already committed to that under the JCPOA Trump killed".
With respect, Mr Trump did not "kill" the JCPOA. He could not do that, as the USA was only
one party to the agreement. What he has tried to do is to withdraw unilaterally, refusing to
carry out the USA's obligations. That leaves Iran and the other parties to carry on as
before.
All that has been accomplished is to demonstrate that the US government's word is worth
nothing - if there was any single person in the world who had not already noticed that - and
to raise the question: what on earth has Iran and its government to do with the USA?
The odious Pompeo's ultimatum, or ukase, or bucket list for Iran is so irrational and
unworkable on its face that either: 1) the stewards of the declining US/Western hegemon are
consumed by delusional exceptionalist madness, or 2) this is another ploy, gimmick,
"sales"/marketing tactic.
These options may not be mutually exclusive; this appallingly bumptious, imperious tone
may be part of the well-known foreign-policy "Madman" strategy, in which heads of state and
high-ranking government officials deliberately employ the rhetoric of reckless berserkers to
intimidate and frighten both allies and enemies alike.
It resonates with the approach to Syria and Russia: keep "poking" target governments with
vicious, insulting provocations in hopes of triggering an intemperate response.
Pompeo should read what happened when Austria-Hungary tried to bully Serbia in mid-1914 with
a similar ultimatum. Hint: Serbia refused and it didn't go well for either side. The US
problem is that Iran is more powerful than Serbia was and is backed by a more powerful Russia
than the 1914 one.
I don't know the percentage of numbskulls, but it is a large one, that believes that Obama
gave Iran $150 billion as a gift. Why wouldn't they believe that. It was all over the news
and it is still on the internet tubes.
These numbskulls really enjoy the tough talking cowboy style. Gets them all excited and
MAGA while their social security gets robbed.
Perhaps the most important thing to "appreciate" is that our "representatives" know with
great certainty that they can tell lies that will be accepted as truth. And no one in the
mainstream will dispute them.
Pompeo is now in competition with Nikki Haley for the best Trump and Israel's ass licker.
Threats after threats...
Let's see what Nikki will add to the Pompeo's list. She must to keep up her position.
The USA is becoming a laughing stock for the world, and together with Netanyahu and Bolton
its leaders are perceived as inept but dangerous clowns.
On wonders if they will survive more than a year in their job
The only thing the US has in its favor--at least in the short term, before unilateral
sanctions push more countries to abandon the petro-dollar--is its ability to inflict massive
harm on other countries and companies through sanctions. The US can't change Iran's behavior,
but they can punish a lot of EU companies who do business in Iran in the meantime.
Perhaps most obviously hypocritical section of Pompeo's speech, per the RT report on the
Heritage event:
Speaking directly to the Iranian people, Pompeo claimed that "President [Hassan] Rouhani
and Foreign Minister [Javad] Zarif are your elected leaders. Are they not the most
responsible for your economic struggles?" He added: "The United States believes you deserve
better."
Pompeo wants to pretend as though the US cares about the Iranian people by telling them
that they deserve better leaders...than those the *Iranian people themselves* have "elected"!
Democracy is only valid when its results align with US interests, but any form of government
is also valid when its leaders do the bidding of US interests. It's so patently stupid I
can't believe the silly "address to the people" schtick was even included at all.
Thank god these Netanyahu ass kissers only have two years left. I sincerely doubt that trump
will be re-elected. Let's hope trump drives Europe to a more independent foreign policy. I
suspect Europe will resist for at least a short period.
Such a stance is doomed to failure from the outset. If Trump were an Iranian asset bent on
isolating and sabotaging the US, he wouldn't conduct himself much differently. Maybe that's
it, maybe the mullahs promised him a bag of gold and a temporary marriage.
Today's reportage on Pompeo's list of demands appears quite different than his earlier
postures of being willing to negotiate a broadening out of JCPOA strictures. Also, it would
appear that he is far more belligerent, following the Israeli, Saudi, Kushner/Adelsen script.
Could this be attributable Rouhani's arrival in New York on UN business, alongside the
arrival of the European delegation to discuss these issues with the current administration?
Apparently Pompeo and Mninuchin are unaware that both China and the USSR are building (if
not already moving into place), alternatives to the SWIFT system, at which time US sanctions
will be far less effective. The chronic bullying with sanctions (Syria, Yemen, Iran, USSR,
Venezuela) is only accelerating movement to the petro-yuan. We are simply accelerating a
process of Eurasian integration wherein the US is financially isolated, with country after
country dumping our Treasuries after which time, the only route for the US is currency
devaluation given past fiscal imprudence.
This is an administration which has written a play book for amplifying every weakness of
the US while at the same time, antagonizing friends and enemies both. Trump focusses on
Jerusalem while Washington burns with corruption, ill fated and destructive foreign and
domestic policies.
Dear Iranian People: The United States wants to help you. The same way it is helping Syria.
It would really love to help you the same way it helped Iraq and Libya. That is the "deluxe
help package".
Israeli appeasement and oil price correction.
Low prices were hurting the wrong players for too long and not achieving their aims.
Dusty and pathetic theater by has been hacks. Next.
"A year or two from now the Trump administration will find that its sanction campaign failed.
There will be a push for a direct military attack on Iran."
Do not forget Israel and Saudi Arabia. They will do whatever it takes to push the u.s. to war
against Iran. And they will not wait for years, they will act as soon as possible.
It is absolutely essential to take the US down a peg or two militarily. It is the unfortunate
truth. They will not go with negotiation nor with common sense. A good number of naval assets
in the Persian Gulf region will be a start. Close the area to all large shipping.
Oh how I wish for the day not because I am muslim nor religious. It is simply a case of
wanting to see a right(er) and fair(er) world and that will not exist with the corrupt USA
pulling the strings.
"The SWIFT banking information exchange which routes international payments between banks can
be replaced by country to country systems that do not depend an sanctionable institutions."
There will be no SWIFT sanctions as the EU does not agree with that. Thus for all the
empty talk about the "strongest sanctions ever" these new sanctions are far weaker than the
pre-2015 sanctions, where Iran was banned from SWIFT.
Time is on Iran's side. Even under sanctions, between 2000-2016 Iran registered higher
economic growth than the US and the EU.
A world where Iran grows faster and where the US and EU grow slower is a world where Iran
wins.
@ abierno who wrote:
"
This is an administration which has written a play book for amplifying every weakness of the
US while at the same time, antagonizing friends and enemies both. Trump focusses on Jerusalem
while Washington burns with corruption, ill fated and destructive foreign and domestic
policies.
"
When are folks going to understand that the play book you write about is the plan for the
elite. America is going under the bus if you haven't noticed and some here would give Trump
high marks for that effort.
At issue, which b touched on briefly, is the demise of the US dollar as the Reserve
Currency and other private tools like SWIFT are being defanged as a tool of control for the
larger countries...maybe more. The elite want to transfer their position in the world on the
basis of what they own to the new order under China. What we are watching are the moves
towards that end.
As I said at the time on another forum about Ukraine,its just as much an
attack on Europe as Russia.Again this is just as much about Europe as it is Iran.
Iran is not Syria,its not an expendable square in the Great Game.
Russia and China will support them to whatever level is required ,something
all the thinktanks must know.Has been since before MacKinder.
Iran can expect the us to attempt a major destabilisation project from within. We have seen
how easy it is for the us to buy rebels, and arm them. It would not succeed. But maybe the u
s main aim would be to weaken and distract Iran from helping Syria. If and when u s decides
on a full blown attack against Syria.
Those yanks know the price of everything and the value of nothing !!!
Besides State, the CIA will be doing its nefarious actions inside Iran, and the Pentagon
won't be left out of a "whole of government solution" toward Iran's "destabilizing" influence
in the Middle East. Which means the Pentagon is really, really upset that Iran has had a hand
in handing the US a loss in Syria.
"We are going to take steps necessary to address Iran's malign influence in the region,"
Defense Department spokesman Rob Manning told reporters at the Pentagon.
"They are a destabilizing force in the region ... and we're going to do everything we can
to avert that," Manning added. "This is a whole of government solution that we're working
in order to change Iran's influence in the region and we're continuing to do that."
Pompeo earlier on Monday vowed to impose an "unprecedented" level of economic sanctions as
well as military pressure unless Tehran alters its behavior in the Middle East.
Manning would not say what the Pentagon will do to address Iran, but he said officials "are
actively looking at their influence in the region" and assessing what actions will be
taken.
"We're assessing if we're going to double down on current actions or implement new actions.
It's on the table, we're not going to rule out anything necessary in order to address
Iran," Manning said.. .
here
Wow, officials "are actively looking at their influence in the region" and assessing what
actions will be taken. That's powerful stuff. (not)
Meanwhile, we can trust that Iran, Russia, China and the EU have some impending actions more
constructive and meaningful.
thanks b... good overview.. you nail the central topic right here - "The U.S. dollar as a
universal exchange medium can be avoided..."
what would israel want here? and why is the usa always subservient to israel?
@14 fastfreddy.. too bad you aren't a reporter for the msm, lol..
@16 pnyx... i still think we are about 2 years away from the full on war scenario - spring
2020..
@20 pscyhohistorian.. good post. thanks.
@22 mark2... good one liner at the end!
i think folks are correct that the usa is going to go into the regime change, or
destabilization theme for iran.. it gets tiring thinking of how the usa, aside from being
beholden to israel, is hell bent of going down the wrong road...that says something about the
lack of actual leadership in the usa and how easily it can be bought off too..
Oldest trick in the US regime-change manual (much dog-eared by now and needing its 200th
reprint) is to issue a list of demands that the intended recipient nation can't possibly
fulfill, much less hope to fulfill even if its entire citizenry had decided on collective
suicide.
What kind of real-life reality-TV-show charade is Donald Trump running when all his
"apprentices" are competing to be the most vampiric psychopath and the only sane person on
his team is Defense Secretary Mad Dog James Mattis?
'With painstaking work the Obama administration managed to get much of the world to agree to
sanctions on Iran. It was possible because the other countries trusted Obama's assurances
that he would keep his side of the deal and seriously negotiate. International unity and
trust was necessary to achieve the nuclear agreement.'
but Obamas rule has come to an end and trump a zionist has decide to destroy Obams
legacy...making his presidency one of destruction(libya syria etc) and not construction.
I tend to agree with Psychohistorian about Trump throwing the Outlaw US Empire's citizenry
under the bus with his "Foreign Policy" as THE distracting Sideshow while GOP Congress guts
oh so many domestic laws beneficial to citizens. As for Pompeo's demands, the Outlaw US
Empire is actually powerless to enforce any of them--it's all Bully Bluster, and it's being
done to Venezuela as well. Rouhani essentially told
Pompeo to Shove It! : No longer will the Outlaw US Empire "decide for the world." Zarif
added: "US diplomacy sham is merely a regression to old habits: imprisoned by delusions &
failed policies -- dictated by corrupt Special Interest -- it repeats the same wrong choices
and will thus reap the same ill rewards. Iran, meanwhile, is working with partners for
post-US JCPOA solutions."
What better way for Trump and crew to display what they are: The National Socialist 1%.
Another excellent display of schizophrenic
policy is that toward Venezuela , in which the USA invokes the Venezuelan Constitution on
one point, then casts it aside when the election results don't match what's desired--The
Constituent Assembly's been termed unconstitutional since it was formed. The linked article
provides several more linked examples of that behavior.
Combine the Keystone Kops, the Three Stooges, and the Marx Brothers, and you get Trump's
administration and their foreign policy , which is not at all to be confused with its
domestic policy emblematic of a voracious Ogre.
Thankfully BLOCKCHAIN was created in time for nations to implement a reliable alternative to
SWIFT. I am sure there will be accelerated focus on this much better alternative by eastern
nations. Here is the USA at the behest of its middle east urgers and warmongers trying to
implement BDS in reverse. I think that strategy is likely to fail in yankee hands.
I am not surprised at this yankee blather from their lead disabled establishment. This
mindset in the permanent state has always been so belligerent and supremacist that I suspect
lead in the water supply system is far more widespread than the thousand or so places
identified.
This huge destabilizing threat to mankind from Iran didn't rate United Nations attention.
Better that the leader of the free world handle it by crushing Iran with sanctions, in
support of Iranians(?). Anyhow it brought Germany and Russia together, that's a good thing.
What Trump is demanding is in essence total surrender. It sounds more like a declaration of
war than a negotiation tactic since this is obviously something Iran - under any regime
except for a puppet regime - will ever agree too. It means that if Trump does succceed in
nulling any economic benefit to Iran by adhering to the agreement, it would be irrational of
them to stay in compliance and the logical, if not required path of action is to enrich
uranium and obtain nuclear weapons to create deterrence against American aggression.
Well here we go again.
America was "going under the bus" under the Bush-Clinton-Obama establishment plan, almost
with another Clinton which would have meant more Afghanistan, more in Syria, and war with
Russia. America thankfully avoided that.
Okay, Trump got talked into more Afghanistan, but that's rapidly becoming obviously wrong,
while Syria and Russia look good. Plus the war-maker (Afghan, Libya etc.) union of US/EU has
been spit up, and the pivot to Asia-Pacific is history. Change in Korea and Palestine --
we'll see. At least it's changing the status quo which is a good thing.
The move to an amateurish administration which is less able to lead the world to new wars is
actually pulling the citizenry out from under the bus, using that metaphor.
Let's look on the bright side.
In the short term the most likely outcome from all this trumpian pissfarting is most
countries changing their foreign affairs and economic negotiation tactics by moving away from
the 'compartmentalisation' system in use since the 1815 Congress of Vienna whereby issues are
dealt with on a case by case basis, with each issue negotiated seperately from any other, and
into a more dangerous though far more powerful technique of each nation chucking its entire
pot on the table and where neccessary "going the guts" when they believe they hold a strong
hand.
Compartmentalisation has been effective at preserving peace. In the main nations have
dealt with issues one by one eschewing the sort of gunboat diplomacy which used to get France
and England (say) shooting the shit out of each other everywhere merely because someone had
screwed up drawing or reading a map in some, at that time, obscure corner of Asia or
Africa.
Compartmentalisation can only work in an atmosphere of mutual trust but since the JCPOA
chickenshit act & the moronic trumpian administration following that stupidity up with
Pompeo's ultimatum, which was purely for a domestic audience, means amerika foolishly
imagines it can take on the world with one hand tied behind its back.
They dream of shitting on a big mob of sovereign entities financially yet they can still
depend on those nations to provide support for so called 'security'.
Even if europe chose to ignore the truth that it is amerikan hubris intertwined with idiocy
and a weak arsed feeling of insecurity which wreaked the havoc that drove so many decent
humans into fleeing to europe, the long list of amerikan administrations who have driven the
globe to this state now means that disparate nations are united in their need to end the
bullying.
Anyone who imagines this idiocy could end with a change of prez simply hasn't been paying
attention.
trump was premature in his move yes, by pulling this stunt right before brexit which has
been engineered by amerika eager to ensure the EU remains the runt, the trump mob have shit
the bed bigtime, since even if the englanders wanted to side with amerika, they daren't piss
off the major EU players lest they cop a really rough pineapple from europe during the most
critical negotiations for england since the end of the 20th century euro war.
Up until now amerika would maneuver to take down recalcitrance one by one. A state would be
isolated from everyone else by the usual carrot and stick method, then it would be forced to
the floor. This was effective, however it relies on all other sovereign entities sitting on
their hands refusing aid to the victim out of fear they may be selected next but it is likely
that won't be possible with JCPOA meaning that when the amerikans attempt to punish one
state, by doing something off the wall and likely outside the 'Iran compartment' the response
will be unified and spread across the gamut of international issues with particular care
taken to identify and move against amerika's chinks. Given Israel is the biggest chink in
amerika's armour if the euros do go in hard on that which is less problematic for them (sweet
fuck all Jews left in Western Europe)than it is for Russia, there will be much sport to be
had observing the emasculation of two mush brained over-confident bullies.
@karlof1 28
The next time someone says "The Constituent Assembly's been termed unconstitutional . . ."
show them this --
Article 347 of the Venezuelan constitution says: "The original constituent power rests with the people of Venezuela. This power may be
exercised by calling a National Constituent Assembly for the purpose of transforming the
State, creating a new juridical order and drawing up a new Constitution."
Article 348 of the constitution spells out how a National Constituent Assembly is
called: "The initiative for calling a National Constituent Assembly may emanate from the President
of the Republic sitting with the Cabinet of Ministers; from the National Assembly by a
two-thirds vote of its members; from the Municipal Councils in open session, by a two-thirds
vote of their members; and from 15% of the voters registered with the Civil and Electoral
Registry."
Article 349 says: "The President of the Republic shall not have the power to object to the new Constitution.
The existing constituted authorities shall not be permitted to obstruct the Constituent
Assembly in any way. For purposes of the promulgation of the new Constitution, the same shall
be published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Venezuela or in the Gazette of the
Constituent Assembly."
"The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not a treaty or an executive
agreement, and is not a signed document," wrote Julia Frifield, the State Department assistant
secretary for legislative affairs, in the November 19 letter.
Frifield wrote the letter in response to a letter Pompeo sent Secretary of State John Kerry, in
which he observed that the deal the president had submitted to Congress was unsigned and
wondered if the administration had given lawmakers the final agreement. Frifield's response
emphasizes that Congress did receive the final version of the deal. But by characterizing the
JCPOA as a set of "political commitments" rather than a more formal agreement, it is sure to
heighten congressional concerns that Iran might violate the deal's terms.
"The success of the JCPOA will depend not on whether it is legally binding or signed, but
rather on the extensive verification measures we have put in place, as well as Iran's
understanding that we have the capacity to re-impose -- and ramp up -- our sanctions if Iran
does not meet its commitments," Frifield wrote to Pompeo.
"The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is not a treaty or an executive agreement,
and is not a signed document," wrote Julia Frifield, the State Department assistant secretary
for legislative affairs, in the November 19 letter.
Frifield wrote the letter in response to a letter Pompeo sent Secretary of State John Kerry,
in which he observed that the deal the president had submitted to Congress was unsigned and
wondered if the administration had given lawmakers the final agreement. Frifield's response
emphasizes that Congress did receive the final version of the deal. But by characterizing the
JCPOA as a set of "political commitments" rather than a more formal agreement, it is sure to
heighten congressional concerns that Iran might violate the deal's terms.
"The success of the JCPOA will depend not on whether it is legally binding or signed, but
rather on the extensive verification measures we have put in place, as well as Iran's
understanding that we have the capacity to re-impose -- and ramp up -- our sanctions if Iran
does not meet its commitments," Frifield wrote to Pompeo.
What hostages? There are some people who have disappeared in the ME and as always it's blamed
on Iran.
end its ballistic missile program
I thought the Supreme Leader has said that the ballistic missile program had reached a
conclusion because Iran had achieved a great enough range and good enough accuracy to meet
their needs. Iran are now in the deployment stage so the "program" can be terminated
withdraw from Syria
Iran itself provided at most a few thousand troops while it funded Iraqi and Afghani militias
in Syria that probably never amounted to more than about 10,000 fighters. With the war in
Syria reaching the stage at which politics determines the future, is there any need for the
Iranians and the Iranian-funded militias to stay in Syria?
end support for the Houthis in Yemen
Pompous believes his own propaganda. There is little or no evidence to support the claim that
Iran supports the Houthis or even that the Houthis want Iranian support.
stop its support for Hezbollah and all other terrorist groups
From what I've read, Hezbollah is pretty much self-sustaining particularly now it can exert
major control on the Lebanese government following March 14th's defeat in the recent
election.
"threatening behavior" in the region
What "threatening behaviour"? Doesn't that fucking moron Pompeo know that it's the United
States, France, United Kingdom, Israel, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE that have demonstrated
"threatening behaviour" on steroids in the ME. With Hezbollah in the majority in Lebanon, and
Syria and Iraq stabilized, Iran doesn't need to threaten anyone.
This is all much ado about nothing but with the benefit that Washington looks like an
bunch of tossers and Tehran demonstrates it can do respectable/responsible diplomacy.
Meanwhile, elsewhere I was expecting Putin to give Erdogan a big nah, nah, ne, nah, nah
now that he has delivered his revenge on Erdogan for having the temerity to ambush a Russian
aircraft by utterly destroying Erdogan's wish to become the new Ottoman Emperor.
@ ben 36
There you go, attacking Americans again with your "sheeple" smartass remark.
Well I'm an American, ben, and I resent your slam on me and 300 million people. It's stupid.
No citizenry in any country deserves the crap you dish out, and that includes us. Stop it.
b wrote:
"It will also make the U.S. and Europe weaker and Russia and China stronger."
Last week, James Corbett posted
another chapter in his thesis that Trump is serving his role for the supra-national
financial cabal by further destroying the US/Europe.
I'm an American, and I think it's correct to call most of my compatriots sheeple. I am
mystified by how few of them vote for third-party candidates. The last time I voted for a
major-party candidate for president was 1988. Since then, I have only voted third-party. But
most Americans seem to have a mental block against doing so.
@ all with the Americans are sheeple characterization
It read like Don "knows" stuff but for the rest of us it is catch as catch can. We don't
come with an operating manual nor are the Gawds of our myth and delusion much help.
But as a species we yearn for answers and are proffered lies and deceit by those we place
our trust for social governance. Those that we place our trust in are tools of the elite that
rule our world because, history.
The elite and their tools have developed ways to brainwash and manipulate people against
their better interests. Does that make them sheeple? Only if you want to make yourself feel
better by think others in your socio-economic class are inferior instead of
manipulated....and work against our combined best interests of making the tools of finance a
public utility.
I highly expect the NATO countries lead by FUKUS to be happily bombing Iran within two years.
That will be the price paid for daring to say no to the US while the EU has no bullets in
it's gun. Support for Trump or the US may be running in the very low double digits among the
voters in the EU but countries are run by companies not voters the world over.
The US has pulled back the curtain and revealed the EU member states as the toothless
infective barking dogs they are. Expect the US to keep picking that scab over and over and
over.
I'm British and we are the worst ! I love my country, but my being big enough to know it's
faults in the past and present just may help to improve it. If we all did that what a better
world it would be! if we fail at least we'l be able to look in the mirror.
We all know there are hundreds of millions of good Americans, as there are good people in
every country. The point is we're bombing those people! Nuth said.
It's got to
be either one of the stupidest acts that I can recall or a very wicked plan by Washington
neocons to sabotage Korean peace talks. How else to describe the decision by Big Brother USA
and junior sidekick South Korea to stage major air force exercises on North Korea's border. The
prickly North Koreans had a fit, of course, as always when the US flexes its muscles on their
borders. Continuing South and North Korean peace talks scheduled this week were cancelled by
the furious North Koreans. The much ballyhooed Singapore summit between US President Donald
Trump and North Korea's Kim Jong-un is now threatened with cancellation or delay. Who can blame
the North Koreans for blowing their tops? As Trump administration mouthpieces were gabbing
about peace and light, the US Air Force was getting ready to fly B-52 heavy bombers and F-22
Raptor stealth fighters around North Korea's borders and missile-armed subs lurked at sea. This
provocation was the first of two major spring military exercises planned by the US and its
reluctant South Korean satrap. In case North Korea failed to get the message, the second
exercise is code-named 'Maximum Thunder.' And this right after Trump and his neocon minions
reneged on the sensible nuclear treaty with Iran. In a policy one could call 'eat sand and
die,' Trump demanded that Iran not only give up any and all nuclear capacity (Iran has no
nukes), but also junk its non-nuclear armed medium range missiles, stop backing the
Palestinians, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, roll over and be good, don't do
anything to upset Israel, and pull out of Syria. In short, a total surrender policy leading to
future regime change. Hardly an encouragement for North Korea. North Korea was right on target
when it accused arch-neocon John Bolton of trying to sabotage the peace deal. In 2005-2006,
Bolton served as the Bush administration's ambassador to the UN. He established a tradition for
the post of being anti-Muslim, pro-Israel and anti-Russian, a policy continued to this day by
the current US UN rep, loud-mouthed neocon Nikki Haley. In the 2005-2006 period, after years of
negotiations, the US and North Korea were close to a nuclear/peace deal. Enter John Bolton. He
succeeded in sabotaging the US-North Korea deal. Why? Because Bolton, as an arch neocon, was
fanatically pro-Israel and feared that North Korea might provide nuclear technology to Israel's
foes. As usual with the neocons, Israel's interests came before those of the United States.
Trump's newly named Secretary of State, Michael Pompeo, is also an ardent neocon. Last week,
Bolton went onto US TV and actually suggested North Korea might follow the course set by Libya,
of all places. Libya's then ruler, Muammar Kadaffi, bought some nuclear equipment from Pakistan
so he could hand it over to the US as a gesture of cooperation after the Bush administration
invaded Iraq. The handover was done with much fanfare, then the US, France and Britain attacked
Libya and overthrew Kadaffi. The hapless Libyan leader was eventually murdered by French
agents. Is this what Bolton has in mind for North Korea? The Northerners certainly seemed to
think so. Some wondered if Bolton and perhaps Pompeo were trying to sabotage the North Korea
deal. Or were at least being incredibly obtuse and belligerent. Was Trump involved in this
intrigue? Hard to tell. But he can't be happy. His minions and bootlickers are promoting Trump
for the Nobel Prize – rather ahead of events. Or was the US military rattling its sabers
and trying to protect its huge investments in North Asia? The Pentagon takes a dim view of the
proposed Korean nuclear accords. The burst of sweetness and light coming from Pyongyang just
sounds too good to be true. Veteran Korea observers, this writer included, find it hard to
believe Kim Jong-un will give up his nuclear weapons, particularly after seeing Trump's deceit
in dealing with Iran and Kadaffi's murder. Speaking of de-nuclearization, why does North Korea
not demand that the US get rid of its nuclear weapons based in South Korea, Okinawa, Guam and
with the 7 th Fleet? Many are targeted on North Korea. US nuclear weapons are based
on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean. Others are secretly based in Japan. Why not demand the US
pull out all its 28,500 troops in South Korea and some 2,000 military technicians at air bases?
Conclusively halt those spring and fall military maneuvers that raise the threat of war. End
the trade embargo of North Korea that amounts to high level economic warfare. Establish normal
diplomatic relations. Pyongyang has not even begun to raise these issues. Smiles and hugs are
premature.
The US Empire has no desire for diplomacy and realistic concessions on both sides when it
comes to North Korea. The US will attempt to have its way and its way only with NK. The great
tragedy is, as long as the US remains entrenched on the Korean peninsula, North and South
Korea cannot make the peace process work that is so long overdue their peoples.
Who is really in control? The US seems like a country at war with itself. One minute, one
decision, another minute, the opposite decision. Trump himself started out with promise but
now follows the Jewish agenda to the letter.
Could it be that the US power structure is completely split along the lines of MAGA vs.
Zionists and everything the rest of the world experiences is secondary?
My advice to Kim – keep the nukes, and try to eat less.
USA stupidities have long consequences.
The British, experienced in ruling an empire, did not want outside interference in the Korean
civil war.
The list of USA stupidities is long, Philippines, Japan, China, South America, Iraq, Iran,
Libia, Syria, two world wars.
Peter Lowe, The Origins of the Korean War, London, 1986
Barbara W. Tuchman, 'Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911- 45', New York,
1970, 1985
William L. Neumann, 'America encounters Japan, From Perry to MacArthur', 1963, 1965, New
York
Charles Callan Tansill, 'Amerika geht in den Krieg', Stuttgart 1939 (America goes to War,
1938)
Charles A. Beard, 'President Roosevelt and the coming of the war 1941, A study in appearances
and realities', New Haven, 1948
Roy Mottahedeh, 'The Mantle of the Prophet, Religion and Politics in Iran', Oxford, 1985,
2000
Barbara Hinckley Sheldon Goldman, American Politics and Government, Glenview Ill.,1990
Alan Friedman, 'Spider's Web, Bush, Saddam, Thatcher and the Decade of Deceit', London,
1993
There are more books I could mention, but this seems enough.
The USA's problem, as I see it, that, until now, foreign policy could be determined by
internal political reasons.
Trump's problem, making clear that this is over.
Eric Margolis is one of the 2 or 3 best 'mainstream' published columnists in the country. He
nails the nearly innumerable problems with Neocons about as well as can be done.
As Trump administration mouthpieces were gabbing about peace and light, the US Air Force
was getting ready to fly B-52 heavy bombers and F-22 Raptor stealth fighters around North
Korea's borders and missile-armed subs lurked at sea.
Yet it's them Eye-rainianz what's da threat to whirled peas.
Hey Eric, perhaps instead of "gabbing," you really meant "gabbling?"
US foreign policy: Say one thing, do the opposite, piss on yer own citizens, blame it all
on someone else, and laugh all the way to the bank.
The sad fact is the American troops and nukes are staying in S. Korea to use as a cudgel
against China. The tension, rhetoric and sanctions will continue; though, unless Trump and
his war cabinet are criminally insane, no war will ensue that allows Kim's forces to get in a
punch. Needless American and S. Korean losses wouldn't play well in the media, especially in
an election year. Pre-emptive genocide on a vast scale (implying a nuclear attack), however,
is always possible from the Americans and their "free world" vassals wouldn't dare to
criticise it, nor would the compliant American media. Not when we've been brainwashed to
believe that American cities are N. Korean targets. Once an American military infestation
occurs in a country it cannot be extirpated without killing the host, and the parasite is too
deeply embedded in S. Korean tissue to be driven out or just walk away.
John Bolton does indeed present a quite ferocious image and I am sure the only thing that
held him back from a military career was the possibility that, one day, he might have to
fight.
There's one nation that will benefit from the NK deal, as they have been playing footsies
with the N. Koreans for some time. That nation is Israel.
Trump the Schlump: Iran Nuclear Deal Is Bad; North Korean Nuclear Deal Is
Good
The only country that stands to benefit from this disjointed and hypocritical U.S.
nuclear proliferation policy is Israel. It was the far-right government of Israeli Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, aided and abetted by Israel's wealthy American Jewish
billionaire troika of political influence peddlers – Sheldon Adelson, Paul Singer,
and Bernard Marcus – who, in the end, convinced Trump to trash the JCPOA. Trump's
two new additions to his national security and foreign policy team, Pompeo and National
Security Adviser John Bolton, have long advocated blowing up the JCPOA, charging that Iran
has been violating the deal. Nothing is further from the truth, as demonstrated by
conclusive reports on Iran's nuclear program from the International Atomic Energy Agency,
Israel's own Mossad intelligence service, and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency..
Israel's clandestine links with North Korea date back to the operations of the Israel
Corporation, which controlled Israel Aircraft Industries and Zim Israel Navigation
Shipping Company. Eisenberg was the first Israeli to establish trading links with the
People's Republic of China, which eventually extended to North Korea and Khmer
Rouge-controlled Cambodia. Eisenberg's chief exports to China and North Korea were weapons.
In the latter part of his life, Eisenberg was found more often in Beijing, where he died in
1997, than in Tel Aviv. As with Israel's covert oil business with Iran, Eisenberg's
weapons sales to China and North Korea were handled by a shell corporation in Panama called
United Development, Inc.
Wow, imagine that, our foreign policy being run by neoCONs and Zionists in service to
Apartheid Israel.
Those that know 9/11 was an Israeli masterminded False Flag will recall ZIM as the Israeli
shipping outfit that broke their WTC lease–costing them over 50k–several weeks
before 9/11 and got the hell out of Dodge, as if they knew something bad was going to
happen.
Gosh, what would the USA do without our good friend and ally Israel always
stabbing us in the back?
Margolis seems like a pretty worldly, well connected guy. He should send the video of
Ghaddafi being sodomized with a sharpened stick to Kim as a reminder of what can happen to
him if he gives up his nuclear deterrent.
"North Korea was right on target when it accused arch-neocon John Bolton of trying to
sabotage the peace deal. "
Bolton is merely the stalking horse in this particular scam. (It is for this kind of role
that Bolton was picked in the first place). Apparently we're to infer that orange clown
really, really, really, really, really, really, really wants some kind of a peace deal with
North Korea, just like he really, really, really, really, really, really, really wants better
relations with Russia for example alas there's always a fly in the imperial ointment.
In reality of course there was never any chance of a peace deal with North Korea, just
like there was never any chance of a troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, or a withdrawal from
Syria, or cooperation with Russia (on anything), or a real investigation into 9/11, etc.
Instead what we get is affectatious posturing by actors on a stage; "government" by
diabolical jewish-supremacist-inspired dialectics.
"The US is looking for sales markets. We can understand this, and we are prepared to take
effort to ensure this gas reaches Germany easier. Presently, however, it remains much more
expensive than the gas delivered via the pipeline," the minister told ARD.
In addition, if the US does not change its tactics of behaviour and continues thinking only
of its economic interests, then Europe will act similarly, the minister added.
Earlier, Us officials said that the United Stats may impose sanctions on the companies
involved in the implementation of the Nord Stream 2
project. US Assistant Secretary of State Sandra Oudkirk said that Washington could consider
retaliatory measures within the framework of Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions
Act. She explained the US position as follows: the construction of the gas pipeline will
strengthen Europe's dependence on the Russian natural gas.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that Germany regards the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline as
a safe economic project for Europe.
Nord Stream is an offshore natural gas pipeline from Vyborg in the Russian Federation to
Greifswald in Germany that is owned and operated by Nord Stream AG. The project includes two
parallel lines. The first line was laid by May 2011 and was inaugurated on 8 November 2011. The
second line was laid in 2011-2012 and was inaugurated on 8 October 2012. At 1,222 kilometres
(759 mi) in length, it is the longest sub-sea pipeline in the world, surpassing the Langeled
pipeline. It has an annual capacity of 55 billion cubic metres (1.9 trillion cubic feet), but
its capacity is planned to be doubled to 110 billion cubic metres (3.9 trillion cubic feet) by
2019, by laying two additional lines.
A picture taken on May 16, 2018 shows a general view of the meeting
of the permanent delegates of Arab League during extra-ordinary emergency session held at the
League's headquarters in the Egyptian capital Cairo. (AFP Photo) Palestinian Foreign Minister
Riyad al-Maliki suggested on Thursday that Arab countries should recall their ambassadors to
the United States in response to Washington moving its Israel embassy to Jerusalem.
"There is no harm in Arab states collectively recalling their ambassadors in Washington to
their capitals for consultations," Maliki said in live televised remarks at the Arab League in
Cairo.
The United States opened its new Israel embassy in Jerusalem on Monday in a controversial
move to the holy city from Tel Aviv that has brought wide condemnation. Israeli soldiers killed
more than 60 Palestinians who protested in the Gaza Strip while the embassy opened.
Turkey was the first country to withdraw its ambassador to Washington after the Israeli
bloodshed, which came on the same day the embassy move took place. Turkish envoy Serdar
Kılıç arrived back in Ankara on Wednesday afternoon.
Maliki also said members of the Arab League, whose foreign ministers gathered in Cairo on
Thursday for an extraordinary meeting to discuss the issue, should summon U.S. ambassadors "to
remind them of the Arab rejection of the U.S. embassy's transfer to Jerusalem."
He said Arab states had agreed at previous summit meetings that they would cut ties with any
country that moves its embassy to Jerusalem.
Lebanon's delegation said its foreign ministry had sent a letter to the International
Criminal Court demanding it "undertake measures" to hold to account those responsible for the
killings of Palestinians. It did not specify what those measures should be.
It was unclear what the response would be to Maliki's suggestion. Several Arab countries
such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia enjoy strong ties with the administration of President Donald
Trump.
The United States sought to further choke off funding sources for Iranian-backed Hezbollah
on Thursday, sanctioning one of its financiers and its representative to Iran, as well as five
entities based in Europe, West Africa and the Middle East.
It imposed sanctions on Hezbollah's financier, Mohammad Ibrahim Bazzi, and its
representative to Iran, Abdallah Safi Al-Din, the Treasury Department said in a statement.
The department said it had also blacklisted Belgian energy services conglomerate Global
Trading Group; Gambia-based petroleum and petroleum products company Euro African Group; and
Lebanon-based Africa Middle East Investment Holding, Premier Investment Group SAL Offshore and
import-export group Car Escort Services.
"The savage and depraved acts of one of Hezbollah's most prominent financiers cannot be
tolerated," U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.
"This administration will expose and disrupt Hezbollah and Iranian terror networks at every
turn, including those with ties to the Central Bank of Iran," he said.
The sanctions are among a slew of new and additional ones aimed at Iran and Hezbollah since
U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal last week.
In one of the biggest moves aimed at tightening the noose on Iran's overseas operations and
its elite revolutionary guards, the U.S. Treasury sanctioned Iran's central bank governor,
Valiollah Seif, earlier this week.
On Wednesday, the United States, backed by Gulf States, imposed additional sanctions on
Hezbollah's top two leaders, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Naim Qassem
Sandra Oudkirk, US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Energy,
has just threatened to sanction the Europeans if they continue with the Nord Stream 2
pipeline project to bring gas in from Russia across the Baltic Sea. That country is also seen
by the US as an adversary and its approach is by and large the same – to issue orders for
Europe to adopt a confrontational policy, doing as it is told without asking too many
questions.
Iran and Nord Stream 2 unite Moscow and Brussels in their opposition to this diktat. On May
17, Iran
signed a provisional free-trade-zone agreement with a Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union
(EEU) that seeks to increase the current levels of trade valued at $2.7 billion. The deal
lowers or abolishes customs duties. It also establishes a three-year process for reaching a
permanent trade agreement. If Iran becomes a member of the group, it would expand its economic
horizons beyond the Middle Eastern region. So, Europe and Russia are in the same boat, both
holding talks with Iran on economic cooperation.
The larger problem with Thiessen's "analysis" is that it fails to grasp that North Korea's
government won't accept the "offer" Trump is making because accepting it means giving up the
one thing that does more to guarantee the regime's security than any promise that the U.S.
could ever make. Trump talked about giving Kim "very strong protections" if he agreed to get
rid of the nuclear weapons, but there are no protections that the U.S. could offer that would
be any stronger than the ones he currently possesses. Kim is coming to the summit as the leader
of a nuclear-weapons state conducting talks at the highest level with the global superpower,
and he isn't going to agree to give up that status in exchange for obviously worthless promises
from Donald Trump. The more that the Trump administration and its boosters delude themselves
into thinking that they have North Korea on the defensive, the worse the summit will go for the
U.S. and its allies.
" The more that the Trump administration and its boosters delude themselves into thinking
that they have North Korea on the defensive, the worse the summit will go for the U.S. and
its allies."
This summit can really only go one way. Trump, ever the fool, will swagger in, offer
nothing, bluster, and in the end be handed his hat. I don't think there's anyway to spin this
as anything other than the poop storm that it is. No Nobel is Trump's future. Sad.
"giving up the one thing that does more to guarantee the regime's security than any promise
that the U.S. could ever make"
It could be argued at this point that nuclear proliferation in a world of unipolar
aggression might well be stabilizing not only whichever regimes the US decides to destabilize
on a given day, but also the international order and even peace. Certainly, China's modest
arsenal of minimum means of reprisal and Russia's outsized arsenal matching US folly warhead
for warhead and warhead for interceptor demonstrate that US impunitivism is not even deterred
by that. But Iraq was attacked precisely because Bush and his cronies were certain Saddam had
no effective WMD deterrent – no nukes, everything else a desirable post-hoc
justification.
Trump has the EU "cornered", and only fools will believe that this is to the benefit of
the world, or even the US – unless the EU finally recognizes the magnitude of its
"ally" problem, and their captive populations elect politicians that, for good or ill, will
break with the US.
Trump has zero leverage over Iran and North Korea, not only because he is already
committed to acts of aggression including all-out economical warfare and soon naval blockade,
but also because both nations – and their backers in China and Russia – have long
realized that any possible "appeasement" on their part will have as much impact on US conduct
as EU "consultations" or South Korean "coordination" – now with a US theater commander
as "ambassador". The Moon government has relegated itself to the bleachers as the welfare of
South Korea is at stake because, just like the EU3, it does not dare question the unilateral
"alliance" it has acquiesced to over decades.
We live in the age of a nation unhinged. But Guatemala, Paraguay and Romania are following
from ahead, demonstrating that the US might be acting unilaterally, but not alone, and this
"coalition of the unseemly eager" is, in terms of outcomes, no different from posturing
collaborators in Germany, France and the UK, or the hapless hostages in South Korea.
Surely, Thiessen and Trump have the world outnumbered and surrounded. What could possibly
go wrong, with leaders of such sparkling brilliance in charge?
The most pathetic display here is the establishment biparty published opinion applauding
Trump for pursuing the purest expression of Godfather Diplomacy, turned into farce. America's
sickening fascination with and glorification of organized crime and racketeering aside
– prosperity gospel wins – it is quite obvious that we cannot make "offers they
cannot refuse" by putting a horse's ass on a pillow.
America's sickening fascination with and glorification of organized crime and
racketeering aside – prosperity gospel wins – it is quite obvious that we cannot
make "offers they cannot refuse" by putting a horse's ass on a pillow.
Actually b., that was a horse's head on a pillow in "The Godfather." Were you
thinking of Trump or Bolton when you wrote that?
"... Now, it is hard to know what to make of all this, other than to point out that he was speaking to fellow security chiefs. Maybe, among themselves, they find it more morale-boosting to demonise an old enemy than to take on adversaries that have emerged more recently, are more complicated and against which they have so far perhaps had less success. ..."
"... the conclusion has to be that Russia is considered a "safe", useful, and almost eternal enemy by the UK's powers-that-be. Some of us may hope for something better, but it seems a long way away. ..."
The UK's obsession with the Russian bogeyman doesn't stack up Mary Dejevsky The head of MI5 has joined the security
establishment's anti-Putin onslaught. But his organization agrees that Moscow is not the greatest threat
Today's
speech by the head of MI5 , Andrew Parker, has been presented as a first – the first time the head of the UK's domestic intelligence
service has delivered a speech abroad, specifically at a conference of security heads in Berlin. But this is the only respect in
which it is a first. It might as accurately be described as the latest in a series of public utterances by UK intelligence chiefs
and top brass, which began last autumn and continued with the
head of GCHQ
addressing a cybersecurity conference in Manchester last month.
"MI5 chief: Kremlin is 'chief protagonist' in campaign to undermine west" Read more
In part, this reflects a deliberate decision by the intelligence services and the government that they should be more open about
what they do, with a view to gaining greater public understanding – and expanding recruitment at a time when they face competition
for tech-savvy graduates from richer and less restrictive employers. But this season of intelligence and military speeches has also
facilitated the communication of an apparently co-ordinated message. As a country, the UK now sees
Russia as its prime adversary.
The poisoning of
Sergei Skripal , the former Russian spy, and his daughter in Salisbury took the UK's official anti-Russia stance to new heights.
And its diplomatic success in persuading so many other countries to
expel Russian diplomats in protest – the biggest ever "collective expulsion of security agents", we were told – seems to have
emboldened London to view itself as the potential leader of an international anti-Russia front, as the Guardian
recently
reported .
The invective produced by Parker today – and heavily sold to the media – was, in its way, extraordinary. In tone, it was quite
different from the cold war register, which was formal and, well, cold. This attack was populist, direct, and far outside the diplomatic
register. Here is just a sample.
The Kremlin was engaging in "deliberate, targeted, malign activity intended to undermine our free, open and democratic societies".
The west had to "shine a light through the fog of lies, half-truths and obfuscation that pours out of their propaganda machine".
Russia, he said caustically, had as one of its "central and entirely admirable aims to build Russian greatness on the world stage".
But it had repeatedly chosen "to pursue that aim through aggressive and pernicious actions by its military and intelligence services".
In so doing, it risked becoming "a more isolated pariah".
So long as the UK refuses consular access to Yulia Skripal, Russia can – with some justification – ask just who has a monopoly
on a fog of lies.'
Now, it is hard to know what to make of all this, other than to point out that he was speaking to fellow security chiefs. Maybe,
among themselves, they find it more morale-boosting to demonise an old enemy than to take on adversaries that have emerged more recently,
are more complicated and against which they have so far perhaps had less success. There is a sense too, for the UK at least, that
relations with Russia have been so bad for so long that magnifying the supposed Russia threat is a cost-free enterprise in diplomatic
terms.
It might also be worth considering whether there are budgetary and Brexit angles. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the
US and the UK, in particular, scaled back their government-backed research on Russia and lost a great deal of expertise, which they
are now trying to rebuild. That means they have to make a case for more taxpayers' money, and scare tactics are one way to do that.
For the UK, there may also be the fear that it will find the European Union less inclined to keep London in the intelligence loop,
and – at a time when the US is looking a far less reliable ally – it might make sense to play up the Russian bogeyman, not least
as Vladimir Putin begins his fourth term in office. Nothing like starting as you intend to go on.
Yet it is still difficult to see the sense in this. Russia has become inured to UK scolding of this kind, and treats it with contempt
– as its social media response to Parker's speech shows. What is more, so long as the UK maintains its silence on the Skripals' fate
and refuses consular access to Yulia Skripal, Russia can – with some justification, I would argue – ask just who has a monopoly on
a "fog of lies".
Nor will the tone necessarily chime well with official views of Russia in Germany and France, which are not necessarily less tough
in practice, but certainly more nuanced, and better informed. The UK seems intent – despite recent legislation about dubious money
in London – in keeping its diplomatic and business relations with Russia in separate boxes. Germany, for one, does not have that
luxury.
The conclusion has to be that Russia is considered a 'safe', useful, and almost eternal enemy by the UK's powers-that-be
The UK's rhetorical onslaught on Russia is even more puzzling when you examine the security services' own priorities. "Is terrorism
the biggest threat facing the UK?" visitors to the MI5 website are asked in
a pop-up called "fact or fiction". Click no, and this is the response: "The biggest threat we currently face comes from international
terrorist groups and individuals inspired by them. Terrorist organisations in Northern Ireland also continue to pose a serious threat."
Now it is true that the threat from terrorism and Islamic State was also broached by Parker in his speech, but this was not the
section spun in advance to the media; it was not the aspect MI5
wanted above all to be noticed. So the conclusion has to be that Russia is considered a "safe", useful, and almost eternal enemy
by the UK's powers-that-be. Some of us may hope for something better, but it seems a long way away.
• Mary Dejevsky is a former foreign correspondent in Moscow
Fake news, trying to create false connections between police psychological issues and a rather dubious UK poisoning false flag.
Via The Guardian
Almost 100 Wiltshire police officers and staff have sought psychological support after the nerve agent attack in Salisbury,
the Guardian can reveal.
Among those who have asked for help were officers who initially responded to the collapse of the former Russian spy Sergei
Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, and those who were at or close to the various investigation sites in subsequent days and weeks.
Some reported feeling disorientated and anxious while others were concerned about the possible long-term health effects on
the public.
While the Skripal poisoning story has faded from much of the mainstream media news cycle, as it was increasingly exposed as a
complete hoax and embarrassment for the May government, the Guardian appears to be trying to resurrect "the Russians did"
Novichok narrative.
It is about time your stupid leader and her clown were put on the stage to explain to all the world why they chose to defame
the integrity of Russia in such an unbelievable set of circumstances that only children under the age of ten would not understand
!! How can any Nation since this demonic happening , ever trust this self - centred Bozo from ever making a sensible judgement
for the future of mankind !
UK has lost it completely and the Guardian has fallen prey to the CIA Mockingbird Operation (infiltration and manipulation
of media). Used to be a good paper under Alan Rushbridger and protection of Snowden, Assange etc. Now it has lost it altogether
with useless editorial board. The woman in charge must have something in common with Nikki Haley: incapable of nuance and irrationally
convinced of her being right (without research lots of claims about Assad, Putin etc.).
The biggest obstacle Donald Trump is
going to face in his upcoming negotiations with Kim Jong-un, is not Kim's unwillingness to abandon his
nuclear weapons program, but resistance from powerful elements in the foreign policy establishment who will
do everything they can to scuttle the agreement. We've already seen an example of this just this week when
US nuclear bombers were included in the US-Korea joint military drills that are currently underway in the
south. The B-52′s were clearly added to the massive "Max Thunder" exercises to provoke the DPRK leadership,
increase tensions, and convince Kim that it was pointless to trust Washington. The move was bitterly
criticized in North Korea's state media which summed up the situation like this:
"At a time when the DPRK-U.S. summit
is approaching, the U.S. has launched the largest ever drill involving B-52 strategic nuclear bomber,
F-22 Raptor stealth fighters and other nuclear strategic assets. This is an extremely provocative and
ill-boding act going against the trend for peace and security on the Korean peninsula .The extremely
adventurous 2018 Max Thunder joint air combat exercises are aimed at precision strike on key strategic
objects of the DPRK and the seizure of the air control together with the U.S ."
The North's assessment is entirely
correct. The drills are a simulation of a preemptive attack on North Korea that would annihilate the
military, level Pyongyang and "decapitate" the leadership. They are a deliberate provocation designed to
poison the atmosphere prior to the June 12 summit in Singapore. They're also a clear violation of the
Panmunjom Declaration which affirms the mutual commitment of the North and South "to completely cease all
hostile acts against each other in every domain, including land, air and sea, that are the source of
military tension and conflict." (Panmunjom Declaration)
What we'd like to know is whether Trump
was consulted about the drills? Did he give the go-ahead? Was it his decision to tweak Kim's nose after Kim
had just made a number of conciliatory gestures including the total banning of nuclear weapons and ballistic
missiles tests, the returning of three US prisoners to US custody, and meeting with leaders in the south in
order to end hostilities and normalize relations? Is Trump responsible for this diplomatic disaster?
Of course not. Trump's objectives are
completely clear. He wants to win the Nobel Prize and he wants to be recognized as a foreign policy genius,
both of which are within his grasp if he persuades Kim to ditch his nukes. Trump does not want to provoke
Kim who, so far, has acted in good faith. He wants to cut a deal with him. The exercises represent the
interests of some other constituency, some deeper faction within the national security state who have a
stake in the outcome of future negotiations. They want the talks to fail so they can preserve the status
quo. They want a divided Korea that "languishes in a permanent state of colonial dependency". That works
just fine for them, which is why the military drills were not postponed or cancelled. It's also why John
Bolton has been making incendiary comments about the "Libya model", and why the media has been fueling
public pessimism while misrepresenting US position. According to many media reports, the North will be
expected to 'totally decommission its nuclear weapons, missiles and biochemical weapons' without any
immediate compensation.
That's not the deal. That's never been
the deal. No one on the North Korean side ever said that Washington was going to get something for nothing.
And it's not going to happen either. Kim is looking for a tradeoff, a decommissioning of his nuclear weapons
in exchange for basic security guarantees. That's the deal.
So who's spreading all these false rumors
and what is their objective? Here's more from North Korea's state media:
"The U.S. is miscalculating the
magnanimity of the DPRK as signs of weakness and trying to embellish and advertise as if these are the
product of its sanctions and pressure.
The U.S. is trumpeting as if it would
offer economic compensation and benefit in case we abandon nukes. But we have never had any expectation
of U.S. support in carrying out our economic construction and will not make such a deal in future .
If the Trump administration takes an
approach to the DPRK-U.S. summit with sincerity for improved DPRK-U.S. relations, it will receive a
deserved response from us. However, if the U.S. is trying to drive us into a corner to force our
unilateral nuclear abandonment, we will no longer be interested in such dialogue and cannot but
reconsider our proceeding to the DPRK-U.S. summit." (End of statement)
The North doesn't want Washington's
money or its economic inducements. The North wants assurances that the US will not attack it in the future.
That's it. That's what Kim wants. He wants an end to the hostilities so he can move ahead with a regional
economic-integration plan that will draw the two Koreas closer together, end the North's isolation,
strengthen the North's economy, and pave the way for prosperity. In other words, Kim is offering to give up
his nuclear weapons to (essentially) get Washington off its back and out of its hair.
None of this has anything to do with
Trump's absurd "maximum pressure" campaign, which had no impact on Kim's decision at all. The North is not
motivated by Trump's hysterical threats of "total destruction", but by a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to
emerge from its long-term seclusion and become an active participant in an ambitious economic integration
plan that will link North and South Korea to the rest of Asia via massive infrastructure and energy
projects. The only catch to this proposal, is that the DPRK must abandon its nuclear weapons program and
agree to resolve its issues with Seoul. In other words, Kim's eagerness to denuclearize is not an attempt to
placate Washington, but an effort to meet the minimal requirements of his economic partners in Beijing,
Moscow and Seoul.
The United States is not central to the
critical economic-political developments on the peninsula, in fact, the region is making a concerted effort
to sever its ties with Washington by creating a giant free trade zone that will connect the region through "
large trilateral infrastructural and energy projects," to Japan, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and Europe.
Check this out from the Kremlin website:
"The Korean Government has recently
created the Northern Economic Cooperation Committee This has completed the creation of a management
system that will make Korea the leader in the development of the Far East. The Committee is tasked with
strengthening economic cooperation with Northeast Asian and Eurasian countries. In the future,
cooperation between the Committee and Russia's Far Eastern Federal District and the Ministry for the
Development of the Russian Far East will play a key role in the development of the Far East.
Next year, we will create a
Korean-Russian Regional Cooperation Forum. It should bolster contacts between regional governments in
Korea and the Russian Far East. Cooperation channels between regional economic communities and small and
medium-sized businesses will greatly expand contacts between people and promote practical cooperation ..
The North Korean nuclear and missile
ambitions are the biggest threat to the development of the huge potential of the Korean Peninsula and the
Russian Far East. This is why we have come to the conclusion that this problem must be settled as soon as
possible." (Kremlin website)
See what's going on? Kim has been asked
to choose between prosperity or nukes, and he has wisely chosen prosperity. He has decided to participate in
a common economic space that allows commerce to flourish without the bulk of the profits to be siphoned off
by the voracious western corporations. Is it any wonder why powerful members of the foreign policy
establishment want to torpedo the plan?
The integration plan is not some
pie-in-the-sky apparition, but a broad and detailed economic blueprint for regional development; power
plants, highways, high-speed rail, and pipeline corridors. It's the whole nine yards. Here's more from The
South China Morning Post:
"President Moon Jae-in gave the
North's leader Kim Jong-un a USB drive containing a "New Economic Map of the Korean Peninsula" at the
fortified border village of Panmunjom on April 27. The initiative included three economic belts – one
connecting the west coast of the peninsula to China, making the region a centre of logistics; one
connecting the east coast to Russia for energy cooperation and one on the current border to promote
tourism.
"The new economic map includes
railway links between the two Koreas and China's northeast stretching all the way to Europe ."
"The plan would have a huge impact on China's northeastern region as it would transform the region as a
centre of logistics in East Asia, which could function as a driving force for the rapid economic growth
of the region .A railway connection would bring a myriad of investments from overseas and would help the
economy take off."
Yet observers added that the
initiatives were dependent on Kim accepting Seoul's definition of denuclearisation – namely the complete,
verifiable and irreversible dismantling of the North's nuclear programme." (The South China Morning Post)
Kim must denuclearize in order to take
advantage of this unprecedented opportunity, which is why he is eager to make hefty concessions to Trump
while getting very little in return. Think about it: Trump gets the nukes and the Nobel Prize while Kim gets
a lousy piece of paper with Washington's guarantees for security. That's a great deal for Trump but not a
very good deal for Kim. Even so, Kim is prepared to cooperate in order to meet his obligations and move
forward with an economic plan that will strengthen his economy and improve the lives of his people. He's
making the right choice.
Some of Trump's deep state opponents
probably think that they can derail Kim's plans by sabotaging the June 12th Summit. But that's not entirely
true. Kim does not need to reach an agreement with Trump, he merely has to convince his main trading
partner, Beijing, that he's made a sincere effort that was rejected by an unreasonable and tyrannical
Washington. If Kim proves that he's willing to go the extra mile for peace– by offering to decommission his
nuclear arsenal– then Beijing is going to reward his behavior by easing the sanctions and restoring the
DPRK's economic lifeline. Bottom line: Kim is going to win one way or another.
In my opinion, the cat-n-mouse game Kim
is playing with Trump is a bit of a ruse because, in truth, Kim is going to have to give up his nukes
whether he makes a deal with Trump or not. As we said earlier, Moscow, Beijing and Seoul have all made
denuclearization a basic requirement for participation in their economic integration plan, so it's a done
deal. Kim is going to have to abandon his nuclear weapons. The fact is, Russia and China don't want the
smaller, surrounding nations to have nukes any more than the US wants Mexico, Canada or Cuba to have them.
It dramatically impacts regional security.
Finally, it wouldn't surprise me if
Washington's deep state powerbrokers are more concerned about the proposed regional free trade zone, then
they are about the North's nuclear weapons. In order for the US to be a major player in the most populous
and prosperous region in the world, it must implement its "pivot to Asia" strategy that controls China's
explosive growth and prevents the emergence of an economic or military rival. The so called "Putin Plan" for
vast economic integration is a direct threat to Washington's dream of maintaining its dominant position in
the global economy. If successfully implemented, the Putin Plan will greatly accelerate the pace of imperial
decline.
North Korea has been trying to cut a peace deal for decades, but our Deep State blocks all such efforts. I
documented the wasteful and aggressive efforts of US Army generals to thwart peace in a series of articles.
This was the latest:
The MIC will be under tremendous amount of pressure from the American people if it didn't create phony and
perceived enemies by propaganda! The MIC knows that if it didn't do that the military budget will erode over
time meaning less money in the MIC pockets!
So far, I don't see any indication that Washington knows how to deal with this threat.
America
pivots away from Atlantacist doctrine.
America turns away from finance capitalism (state sponsored usury) and resurrects the "American System"
of Peshine Smith and Henry Clay. The American System is internal growth using Industrial Capitalism, where
Treasury Money (not corporate bank credit) channels into the commons and industry.
In other words, America resurrects Constitutional Money and Industry. This type of economy was at the
birth of the U.S., especially in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania colonies.
America can make all it needs internally, it doesn't need Atlantacist "ship-borne" movement of minerals
and goods. America is a continental country like Russia with everything it needs.
Island countries like U.K. need "Atlantacist" doctrine to control the world. BIZWOG (Britain and Israel
World Government) is the core of Atlantacism, not the U.S.
Oligarchs in America who benefit from the Atlantacist system will have to be ejected by force. A good
parasite makes its host think said parasite is beneficial.
I suppose Kim understand quite well that giving away his atomic bombs and missiles is the beginning of his
end like Saddam and Ghadaffi.
In the good old days deposed dictators went to their south of France mansions and died in their beds.
The USA changed this custom.
This change does have repercussions.
A USA at crossroads, dominating the world or not, causes much uncertainty in the world.
The same kind of thing happened back during the Cuban Missile Crisis: elements of the government attempted
to provoke the Soviets into attacking American reconnaissance aircraft so they'd have an excuse to fire back
and invade.
Bolton's comments about "Libya" were a transparent attempt to scuttle the deal. He knew that the N.
Korean leadership had watched the tapes of Qaddafi being killed; N. Korea directly stated that Libya was the
reason for them developing nukes, so Bolton knew how the comments would be taken. He was hoping to sneak
them by unnoticed. Meanwhile, neocons like William Krystal say "we need to be willing to walk away from
negotiations." That's what they are hoping for.
I think the author might be saying that Kim might cut out Trump from all de-nuke talks and
instead go around him.
In this case, Kim would ignore Trump and the US altogether and turn his nukes over to China. China and
Russia would give security guarantees to N Korea which is worth a million times more than a US guarantee and
China and Russia have a clear incentive to back it up.
Meanwhile the US and especially Trump would look bad. Trump would be viewed as having a Nobel prize
within his grasp but bungling it at the goal line while letting China and Russia steal his thunder.
The US, if they tried any funny business, would look really bad. What could they do amyway?
Ironically, it could actually be Kim that gets the Nobel prize instead. Lol if it goes down that way.
Great article.
As per usual, msm misrepresents reality of Nth Korea's reaction to military drills: no mention of the added
full compliment of strategic air force. Failure to properly explain the meaning of "Libyia solution". No
wonder the Nth questions the competence & good faith of the Sth.
I believe its time for China-Russia etc to come out of the shadows: how can the Nth agree to discarding its
nuclear shield without security guarantees from its friends ? That the US can't be trusted with its enemies
-- OR its friends is obvious to all but the self-interested & the fanatic.
Here, no doubt is the problem as the rulers of the USA see it.
[Kim] wants an end to the hostilities so he can move ahead with a regional economic-integration plan
that will draw the two Koreas closer together, end the North's isolation, strengthen the North's economy,
and pave the way for prosperity.
None of that must be allowed to happen unless it's under the authority of our jealous commercial and
political G-ds. It's essentially the big reason for all US involvement in foreign wars since 1898 if not
earlier. Probably the big reason for the Lincoln's War of Northern Bankers Against Southern Planters as
well.
What was needed to make the world safe for peace, [the old liberals] argued, was to implement economic
freedom, free trade and goodwill among the nations, and popular government. I want to stress the
importance of both of these requirements: free trade at home and in international relations, and
democracy.
The fateful error of our age has consisted in the fact that it dropped the first of these
requirements, namely free trade, and emphasized only the second one, political democracy.
In doing
so, people ignored the fact that democracy cannot be permanently maintained when free enterprise, free
trade, and economic freedom do not exist.
I would also add that people ignored the fact that peace cannot be permanently maintained when free
enterprise, free trade, and economic freedom do not exist and I believe that's the point Mises was making.
Neither can peace be maintained when we allow ignorant crackpots to pilot the ship, and that's what "we've"
been doing since the institution of the so called "democratic republic."
Also, I'm not a huge fan of democracy, especially for a large state, and there should be no large states
especially world government. All states claim a monopoly on force and all inevitably lead to political and
economic slavery. They are not compatible with either freedom or peace.
Oops, I should have read further before posting my comment, above.
Mike already made the point and is spot
on, here
He has decided to participate in a common economic space that allows commerce to flourish without the
bulk of the profits to be siphoned off by the voracious western corporations. Is it any wonder why
powerful members of the foreign policy establishment want to torpedo the plan?
The same kind of thing happened back during the Cuban Missile Crisis: elements of the government
attempted to provoke the Soviets into attacking American reconnaissance aircraft so they'd have an excuse
to fire back and invade.
True, and there is a pattern.
" this entire myth, so prevalent then and even now about Hitler, and about the Japanese, is a tissue
of fallacies from beginning to end. Every plank in this nightmare evidence is either completely untrue or
not entirely the truth.
If people should learn this intellectual fraud about Hitler's Germany, then they will begin to ask
questions, and searching questions "
Murray Rothbard, Revisionism for Our Time
Mr. Rothbard was an American Jew and an historian of the very highest caliber.
"So far, I don't see any indication that Washington knows how to deal with this threat."
Sure they do: They plan to act like the proverbial chess-playing pigeon, wings-a-flapping, knocking down
all the pieces, and shitting all over the board.
They will keep emphasizing the grave threat the Norks pose to the American people, they will ratchet up
sanctions on the nations that "prop up" the Nork regime by trade (though they will continue to be lenient to
South Korea as long as it buys US arms), they will start locking those other nations out of SWIFT, etc., and
ultimately they will strike to decapitate the Norks, even if they have to go it alone. They are banking on
the belief that the Chinese and South Koreans will stand down in the face of all of our awesomeness.
It's not the
Libya Plan
, it's the
Chile Plan
. Trump promises Kim he can be
Dictator for
Life
, like Putin and Trump if he has his druthers and Xi too, if he promises to drop his
Nuke Program
.
This is where the world is headed. The
Post Carbon World
is to be divvied up into
Fiefdoms
run
by
Oligarch Tyrants
and they all belong to the
Consortium
known as
The Worldwide Oligarch
Network
. A
Confederacy
of
Oligarchic Fiefdoms
.
In otherwords, a giant
Global Plantation
of sorts.
Here's yah julip, Massa Hawkins, all minty & frosty, jus like you like it!!
Get accustomed to saying that or something akin to it because it's coming to a theater near you in the
not-too-distant future.
See what's going on? Kim has been asked to choose between prosperity or nukes, and he has wisely
chosen prosperity. He has decided to participate in a common economic space that allows commerce to
flourish without the bulk of the profits to be siphoned off by the voracious western corporations. Is it
any wonder why powerful members of the foreign policy establishment want to torpedo the plan?
Stop with this nonsense. Yes, you're correct, Kim doesn't want that prosperity siphoned off by
Western
Corporations
. Why? Because he and his cronies will be doing the siphoning, thank you very much. Let's
not paint this tyrant as a
Goody Two Shoes
, because he's not.
Fyi, my criticism of Kim doesn't mean I agree with threatening North Korea or that I agree with how the
Western Foreign Policy Establishment
has treated North Korea historically. What it means is, there
are no
Good Guys
in this equation. They're ALL
Bad Guys
.
The biggest obstacle Donald Trump is going to face in his upcoming negotiations with Kim Jong-un, is not
Kim's unwillingness to abandon his nuclear weapons program, but resistance from powerful elements in the
foreign policy establishment of China who will use Trump's desire for a foriegn policy success to weaken the
trade agreement so China can continue deindustrialising Ameraica and the rest of the West .
Kim put Trump in the land of the promised, then went back on his word to get Trump to concede on trade,
and of course Trump is doing just that. The deep state will sell out the long term interests of their
country in the name of security consideration. Politicians want to get that foreign policy coup, which the
North Koreans are perennially dangling. They Koreans will never give up the nukes that China effectively
gave them unless the Chinese order them to, and that will only happen isTrump completely sells out the US on
trade. The US would not dare attack North Korea and risk Chinese military intervention AGAIN. China is
holding all the cards unless Trump just refuses to play diplomatic dupe to decepticon Korea (north and south
for South Korea also wants access to the Western market) . Korean diplomacy basically consists of giving
America false hope. The best thing is would be to leave North Koreato stew in their own juice, and impose
tariffs on China, Japan and South Korea too. They are all aggressor states.
How courteous is the Japanese;
He always says, "Excuse it, please."
He climbs into his neighbor's garden,
And smiles, and says, "I beg your pardon";
He bows and grins a friendly grin,
And calls his hungry family in;
He grins, and bows a friendly bow;
"So sorry, this my garden now."
Trump is a puppet of the Zionists who are the controllers of every facet of the U.S. gov and these
warmongers want the America people kept in a world of continual hysteria and war to further the Zionist goal
of a NWO.
The zionist warmongers created the wars in the mideast by Israels attack on 911 and blaming it
on the muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq and thus started the bombing and invasion of these countries and then
the zionists included Syria and followed their plan of regime change in 7 countries , all for the greater
Israeli goal and their NWO goal.
If anyone doubts that Israel and their zionist dual citizens control the U.S. gov , just remember they
did 911 and got away with it.
Assuming all of this isn't merely "drama queening" for the nobel prize gambit. And I have my suspicions that
it is.
An article that posits as major contention a Nobel peace prize for this president is not going to
taken seriously by me.
As for the joint exercises -- and the President's ignorance, that's a very hard sell. No sale at all. At
this juncture that President Moon Jae-in did not put a halt of a postponement on the matter leaves his
decision making in doubt. Certainly there are those in S. Korea and the US who prefer to maintain the status
quo. But neither President Trump nor President Moon get to cry foul play by their subordinates on this
question.
The US has shrifted North Korea before on the question of disarmament.
This all smells like Kabuki theater of sorts. My subordinates made me do it in this case does not wok for
me. -- laugh. Given the lean on the use of force, I suspect that the admin wanted to make a show of force to
the point and if I buy any this -- it backfired.
Yeah the Deep State. Isn't it ridiculous, even Trumps own advisers are sidetracking him. Trump and the
Chinese president should make
a grand bargain
. Denuclearize Korea, help them unify make a 100 mile
wide demilitarized zone against the Chinese border and reduce and keep US forces well south of the current
DMZ or get them out completely. Let the Koreans, mostly the South pay, for the unification.
Think about it: Trump gets the nukes and the Nobel Prize while Kim gets a lousy piece of paper with
Washington's guarantees for security. That's a great deal for Trump but not a very good deal for Kim.
I'm sure there's something missing from your formula, Mike. In order for this deal to make sense from a
N. Korean perspective, they would have to have been extended security guarantees by China, Russia, or
perhaps both. Washington's promises aren't worth jack. Go ask Iran. Hell, go ask Libya.
Bolton is doing his job, being the neocon mouthpiece. His bosses figured out that in order for NK to denuke,
the US might have to demilitarize in S.Korea altogether, while China will reap the benefit of modernizing
NK. Neocons need to constraint China as much as possible. They do not accept a multi-polar world.
Trump again shows himself as the weak minded fool controlled by neocons. He is blaming China for this
fall out, instead of his own generals for staging the unnecessary military exercises and John Bolton for his
maniacal zeal to create trouble the world over.
China who will use Trump's desire for a foreign policy success to weaken the trade agreement so China
can continue deindustrialising Ameraica and the rest of the West.
Any kind of trade agreement can be reneged upon at any time; so, extorting concessions on trade cannot be
a long-term strategy. China isn't "deindustrialising Ameraica and the rest of the West" – the West is doing
it all to itself; and it doesn't really affect all Western countries: the industry in South Korea, Germany,
and Taiwan is humming along just fine. Within Europe for example the common currency has done much more
damage in this regard than the Chinese.
It is clear that China doesn't see trade with the U.S. as the foundation of future prosperity, but
instead focuses on trade with
everyone else
, particularly in Eurasia and Africa; kind of like a
reverse Monroe doctrine. As part of that strategy, they want to push the U.S. out of Korea, and they are
probably quite prepared to cut their losses if the Americans choose to respond by severing financial and
trade relations. It is very clear that the U.S. are unable and unwilling to engage in honest dealings with
anyone anyway.
In order for this deal to make sense from a N. Korean perspective, they would have to have been
extended security guarantees by China, Russia, or perhaps both. Washington's promises aren't worth jack.
Precisely, and they likely already have obtained those guarantees (whatever
they
may be worth).
The North Koreans (in coordination with China and Russia) are trying to trade their nukes for a complete
U.S. withdrawal from South Korea.
convince Kim that it was pointless to trust Washington.
Because Iraq, Syria, Libya, Iran, and just
about everything else the US has done was not enough. If anyone is stupid enough to trust Washington, they
deserve what's coming to them.
It's possible that Kim's own military might force him to pull out of this de-nuke proposal. They'd be giving
up their one major deterrent in return for promises of riches which may never be delivered. Their fears of
being double-crossed are grounded in reality. Also, a Korea that's unified may not be desired by other
countries. It might become too much of a regional power and want to ease the US out. The calculation may be
that it's best to continue to see it divided and at loggerheads with each other. What's good for the Koreans
may not be considered good for other interested parties.
The biggest obstacle Trump will face is non-trustworthiness of the US. One agreement with the NK was already
reached more than 10 years ago, and the US pulled out of it under Bush Jr. Now the US pulled out of the Iran
deal. Basically, the US consistently demonstrates that it is useless to come to any agreements with it, as
it cannot be trusted to abide by them. That's yet another example that no enemy did as much damage to the US
as its own governments (all of them).
Ol' Ben commented to the effect that scum floats to the top in politics and bad government. He should
have added that "bad government" is a redundancy, since all of them are all bad too.
The best guarantee of security, of course, is to have a nuclear deterrent. A US promise not to attack would
be a poor substitute. America's main concern is that NK not sell arms to Iran or Syria, thereby menacing
Israel. If Kim formally agrees to that, maybe we can make a deal. It's largely up to China, since we don't
want to fight them in order to get rid of Kim.
Bolton's role may well be to scare Kim. He's pretty scary.
In general the bad guys are telling Trump to bargain away the MAGA agenda in return for traditional
Republican goals, e.g. tax cuts for the rich and anything that is good for Israel, such as an NK that can't
sell WMD to Iran. Since Trump is all too willing to go along. The RINOs and the Big Donors always win
because money talks louder than votes, or that's the way professional politicians insist on looking at it.
Beautifully done Mike W! Your writing is so clear and compact. The question remains as to how far the US
will go to stop the peace and prosperity process from unfolding in Korea? Are the neocons crazy enough to
attack N. Korea? We can only stay tuned
"Welcome, President Trump, to the infuriating, indecipherable game of North Korean nuclear diplomacy,"
says CNN's Stephen Collinson. An "unexpected series of threats" has "threatened to nix next month's
planned summit in Singapore between Trump and North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un". Kim lashed out at
US-South Korea military drills, cancelled a high-level meeting with South Korean officials, and warned
that there was "little point" in the US summit if the White House was going to require its nuclear
arsenal to be dismantled "up front".
Korean diplomacy is underrated As Mearshimer says, following the treaty of "Kang-wah (February 1876),
which opened three Korean ports to Japan . Neither Japan nor Russia was able to gain the upper hand in
Korea, mainly because Korean policymakers skillfully played the two great powers off against each other ".
Eventually the Russia-Japan war resulted and you could make an argument that WW1 (and even 2) stemmed from
the Russian deterrent being removed from the international equation in 1905.
China proved to the US it would not stand for North Korea being crushed, and the US would not dare test
that again. In 2000, China openly threatened the US mainland with a nuclear strike in any war over Taiwan
declaring independence.
China isn't "deindustrialising Ameraica and the rest of the West" – the West is doing it all to
itself; and it doesn't really affect all Western countries: the industry in South Korea, Germany, and
Taiwan
China is deindustrialising the West , and Germany is deindustrialsing Europe while being deindustrialize
itself by China . The only difference is that the process started later in Germany and there is more
resistance. The EU single market is a barrier to non EU trade and is about creating a Germany dominated
area. the capital goods China uses are bought from Germany in a great many cases.
South Korea, Taiwan and Japan are happy to have the North Korean nuke menace ,
North Korean nuclear distraction has long had unwelcome ramifications way beyond military policy.
Repeatedly since the Clinton era, it has cramped Washington's style on international trade, for instance.
And trade, of course, is absolutely central to the new administration's program.
It is fair to say that all the more important East Asian nations have a vested interest in
exaggerating the North Korean threat. The more terrifying North Korea is made to appear, the more
desperately Washington will seek out advice and help from China, Japan, and South Korea. That tends to
ensure that trade talks with these mercantilist nations are consigned to the backburner.
Moreover at times of tension, Pentagon officials inevitably take charge. As the East Asians have
gleefully realized for generations, the Pentagon is a remarkably soft touch on trade, and in return for
the merest hortatory support for its military objectives will pull the rug from under the most carefully
conceived plans drawn up elsewhere in Washington to get East Asia to open up.,/b>
The business class of the West love the returns they get in China, they are not going to switch to
investing in the West, but rather will wait out the era of Trump, whereupon the investing in China will
resume apace. It won't be possible to slow the growth of China down and so America will be eclipsed. The
military won't be much use then, because China will have bigger and better toys.
Thee is a logical hole in the article that I was going to leave alone -- but as yet no one else noted it, I
will.
The article pushes some press for a nobel peace prize *that really bugs me -- I voted and have
defended this president, even being called a moral reprobate and utterly unchristian in doing so.
Despite the press for this so called prize. The author never states what the president contributed to the
peace process the than the president's contend of "massive pressure." But in this the article athe cleanly
indicates no such pressure had any effect. If the pressure failed, I am unclear why thee is any talk at all
about nobel awards.
This president has done one monumental shift in our North Korean policy -- open and direct talks including
both heads of state and staff. While long over due and laudable -- one of the jobs of the white house is
manage policy to our advantage that taps down on the use of force. It doesn't take a genius IQ to figure out
direct talks is a key step in that process. And as such requires no special recognition. I took a look at
why President Roosevelt received a novel peace prize -- and if that is the model neither Presidents on the
this or the previous administration should be so honored.
If they have removed the bombers, it's a double fault. The response should have been.
We conducted these exercises routinely as preparation for the unfortunate worst case scenario. And while
we are disappointed our routine has been misinterpreted -- It is our intention to proceed forward in peace
negotiations.
North Korea's sudden nuclear and ICBM twin leap is a function of how useful China finds it to have Trump
asking them for help. North Korea does nothing on its own account.
The smart money wants to be in China
that is where the big returns are, so business is waiting out Trump. Subordinating the well being of the
nation's population to profit is called economic rationality. The alternative is called fascism. Trump does
not have the popular support to go against economic rationality.
Toys don't win wars, people do. In Afghanistan, the US and NATO troops with all their fancy toys are scared
to stick their noses out of the bases, whereas Taliban with medieval mindset and automatic rifles roam the
country freely.
China is deindustrialising the West The business class of the West love the returns they get in
China, they are not going to switch to investing in the West
So whose fault is it – China's, or the Western capitalists? Pick one.
Germany is deindustrialsing Europe while being deindustrialized itself by China. The EU single
market is a barrier to non EU trade and is about creating a Germany dominated area. the capital goods
China uses are bought from Germany in a great many cases.
The EU common market as such wasn't a problem; as long as each European country had its own currency that
was allowed to float, the trade imbalance problem was mitigated. It was the Euro, which was foisted on
Germany by the French as a price for their consent to German reunification, that caused the trade imbalances
within Europe to explode.
But with or without the Euro, Germany's manufacturing sector will survive and thrive. China's labour cost
advantage over Germany will vanish, just like Japan's did. Just wait and see.
Cannon fodder wins wars. The first born tend to be cleverer and less likely to fight because they get and
inherit the best of everything (including first place in the womb).. There are a lot of big families in
Afghanistan. Many young men of the burgeoning population are second sons and are thus reckless. The Taliban
roam and die freely, but there are a lot of them growing up and stepping into the place of the dead,.
the Trump/Kim meeting was not instituted by the USG. China, Russia, and SK have all been in negotiation with
Kim, and they all realize that the USG word is essentially worthless. I suspect Kim has agreed with his
neighbors to de-nuclearize in return for some robust security agreements along with the opening of trade in
the region. The U.S. will need to think hard and long about doing anything to disrupt what is essentially a
regional policy shift. I think Trump has been invited along on the ride just to stroke his and the USG's
sense of self importance. The world is changing, and the future lies in the east. Unfortunately, too many of
those behind the curtain controlling USG foreign policy are too blinded by their arrogance and hubris to
realize that, and instead of welcoming a peaceful multi-centered world, will continue on their chosen path
of aggression, demands and sanctions until we become the isolated one.
Since President Moon Jae-in has been working in this matte with North Korea for more than twenty yeas, I
find it hard to believe he intends to allow an opportunity to slip by based on training routine exercises.
Trump was elected to punish both, so a lot of Americans apparently blame both.
The EU common market as such wasn't a problem; as long as each European country had its own
currency that was allowed to float, the trade imbalance problem was mitigated.
At the cost of throwing people out a job, which only worked when people knew things would eventually get
better. Things are not going to get better for the lower orders of West, they are good and getting better
for the financial elite and China.
But with or without the Euro, Germany's manufacturing sector will survive and thrive. China's
labour cost advantage over Germany will vanish, just like Japan's did. Just wait and see
.
China is 10 times larger than Japan, hence the economies of scale are probably going to become more
salient than labour costs (there is a new factory complex in China making laptops that has a bigger
workforce than the British Army). German
business
are going to do well out of China's rise. American
business have no objection to China making everything and America being supreme in financial services.
Unfortunately the country would become weaker than China while a substantial part of the population became
increasingly disgusted with their lot in life (in real terms worse of than their parents). The majority
ethnic population and state institutions must object to a policy that creates ever increasing numbers of
unemployed and ignores state power for the profit of a minority. Therefore the people (there a
lot
of
them) and the deep state are diverging from the business community–increasingly seen as an fifth column with
interest in destroying the country as a nation-state. But nation states are a thing with emergent properties
not found in their parts. Hence untrammeled capitalism with money sloshing around the world wrecking states
and the people who make up nations is a fundamentally unstable system that leads to ethnic nationalism and
militarism. The deep nation-state is nothing you can put your finger on. but at bay it will turn on the
business elite and try to wrest control from them.
Meanwhile, neocons like William Krystal say "we need to be willing to walk away from negotiations."
That's what they are hoping for.
Sorry but the Jew's trash talking days are over. There is NO there
there!
The Jew is losing his power. Truth is starting to gain strength. The world's attitude is turning away
from Jew coercion, through their control of the US government.
Jew power is a function of US government power. And US power is losing out, all around the world.
Trump's overbearing, tuff talking sing-song, is losing its steam. Bolton's big mouth has complicated the
NKorea nuke deal. He illustrates to the world, the dishonesty of the US foreign policy under Jew control.
The Israeli embassy deal was a total embarrassment. Innocent blood was flowing as Jarrad and Ivanka were
speaking their hollow words. Gaza innocence won the day.
Europe is fighting to preserve the Iran nuke deal. They are passing laws to protect their businesses from
US sanctions. China and Russia are stepping up with deals to counter Trump's Jew favoring sanctions.
The world does not revolve around the US any more. The US elites still did not realize that – they
degenerated too much after 1991. However, some of the US vassals are even more deluded than the US elites.
Grown up Europeans (like Germany, France, and even the UK) are learning, judging by their refusal to follow
the US lead on the Iranian deal, which is totally illegal from the point of view of the international law
(when there was one, before it was repeatedly trampled by the US). But the pathetic inconsequential poodles,
like Poland, Ukraine, and Baltic vaudeville states, refuse to learn. More fools them.
China is deindustrialising the West , and Germany is deindustrialsing Europe while being
deindustrialize itself by China . The only difference is that the process started later in Germany and
there is more resistance. The EU single market is a barrier to non EU trade and is about creating a
Germany dominated area. the capital goods China uses are bought from Germany in a great many cases.
How is China deindustrializing Germany if the EU is a barrier to non EU trade? You don't see many US,
Japanese, or Chinese goods in Europe.
Trump's objectives are completely clear. He wants to win the Nobel Prize and he wants to be recognized
as a foreign policy genius
Trumps chances of being recognized as any kind of genius by intelligent people are slim and none.
That's not the deal. That's never been the deal. No one on the North Korean side ever said that
Washington was going to get something for nothing. And it's not going to happen either. Kim is looking
for a tradeoff, a decommissioning of his nuclear weapons in exchange for basic security guarantees.
That's the deal.
If Kim has any intelligence at all he will demand full denuclearization of the Korean peninsula (South
Korea has had US nuclear weapons stationed there for decades) and removal of all US military personnel and
material.
US guarantees are worthless.
North Korea's demands are pretty clear: a formal end to the Korean War and a peace treaty with the US, and
the removal of the US military from the Korean peninsula.
These demands are supported by China and many South Koreans. They're opposed by Japan and some South
Korean conservatives. I don't think your notion that China, North Korea, South Korea, and Japan are all
aligned on the North Korea issue is true.
If the US wanted to satisfy most of the parties here, and satisfy the isolationists and anti-foreign
policy adventurers that supported Trump, then obviously the US would agree to North Korea's demands. This
would also, by the way, satisfy Russia. You would only upset Japan and some South Korean hardliners.
So why doesn't the US make a deal that agrees to NK's demands, satisfies most of the parties involved and
many Trump supporters and Americans? Clearly Trump, being an astute negotiator and businessman with an
instinct for what people like and is popular, is inclined towards such a deal. Obviously what's holding the
US back from such a deal are American foreign policy hawks and the deep state, who want to maintain the US
military presence globally.
Kim's laughing his ass off. Americans are so stoopid. What makes anyone think NK will go out of it's way to
get along with the US? Why would they? Kim's doing just fine and he has Trump as jester to amuse him. I'm
sure he's enjoying the hell out of this.
Trump's fans really thought he had the Nobel sewed up. That's really funny. What's funnier is they think
he's helping them.
All of these morons ripe for milking. I should have become a preacher and had an easy, rich life.
"If the US wanted to satisfy most of the parties here, and satisfy the isolationists and anti-foreign policy
adventurers that supported Trump, then obviously the US would agree to North Korea's demands. This would
also, by the way, satisfy Russia. You would only upset Japan and some South Korean hardliners."
As someone
who supports this admin and the agenda that was advanced during the campaign, you description is fa afield
from why I voted. I am not an isolationist, though the county could use some minding its own affairs for a
time. Nor was my vote premised on being anti-foreign policy. In fact, I have never head of anyone being
anti-foreign policy. A policy less reliant on the use of force as its main thrust was and is the issue.
,
Trump acts as a bully. That might work in some cases, but probably not in NK case...
Notable quotes:
"... North Korea wants a step-by-step approach, each concession by Pyongyang to be met by a U.S. concession. And Bolton sitting beside Trump, and across the table from Kim Jong Un in Shanghai, may be inhibiting. ..."
"... If we expected Kim to commit at Singapore to Bolton's demand for "complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization," and a swift follow-through, we were deluding ourselves. ..."
After Pyongyang railed this week that the
U.S.-South Korean Max Thunder military drills were a rehearsal for an invasion of the North, and imperiled
the Singapore summit, the Pentagon dialed them back.
The B-52 exercises alongside F-22 stealth
fighters were canceled.
But Pyongyang had other objections.
Sunday, NSC adviser John Bolton spoke of
a "Libyan model" for the North's disarmament, referring to Moammar Gadhafi's surrender of all his weapons of
mass destruction in 2004. The U.S. was invited into Libya to pick them up and cart
them off, whereupon sanctions were lifted.
As Libya was subsequently attacked by
NATO and Gadhafi lynched, North Korea denounced Bolton and all this talk of the "Libyan model" of unilateral
disarmament.
North Korea wants a step-by-step
approach, each concession by Pyongyang to be met by a U.S. concession. And Bolton sitting beside Trump, and
across the table from Kim Jong Un in Shanghai, may be inhibiting.
What was predictable and predicted has
come to pass.
If we expected Kim to commit at Singapore
to Bolton's demand for "complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization," and a swift follow-through,
we were deluding ourselves.
At Singapore, both sides will have
demands, and both will have to offer concessions, if there is to be a deal.
What does Kim Jong Un want?
An end to U.S. and South Korean military
exercises and sanctions on the North, trade and investment, U.S. recognition of his regime, a peace treaty,
and the eventual removal of U.S. bases and troops.
He is likely to offer an end to the
testing of nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, no transfer of nuclear weapons or strategic missiles to
third powers, a drawdown of troops on the DMZ, and the opening of North Korea's borders to trade and travel.
As for his nuclear weapons and the
facilities to produce them, these are Kim's crown jewels. These brought him to the attention of the world
and the Americans to the table. These are why President Trump is flying 10,000 miles to meet and talk with
him.
And, unlike Gadhafi, Kim is not going to
give them up.
Assuming the summit comes off June 12,
this is the reality Trump will face in Singapore: a North Korea willing to halt the testing of nukes and
ICBMs and to engage diplomatically and economically.
As for having Americans come into his
country, pick up his nuclear weapons, remove them and begin intrusive inspections to ensure he has neither
nuclear bombs nor the means to produce, deliver or hide them, that would be tantamount to a surrender by
Kim.
Trump is not going to get that. And if
he adopts a Bolton policy of "all or nothing," he is likely to get nothing at all.
Yet, thanks to Trump's threats and
refusal to accept a "frozen conflict" on the Korean peninsula, the makings of a real deal are present, if
Trump does not make the perfect the enemy of the good.
For there is nothing North Korea is
likely to demand that cannot be granted, as long as the security of South Korea is assured to the degree
that it can be assured, while living alongside a nuclear-armed North.
Hence, when Kim cavils or balks in
Singapore, as he almost surely will, at any demand for a pre-emptive surrender of his nuclear arsenal, Trump
should have a fallback position.
If we cannot have everything we want,
what can we live with?
Moreover, while we are running a risk
today, an intransigent North Korea that walks out would be running a risk as well.
ORDER IT NOW
A collapse in talks between Kim and the
United States and Kim and South Korea would raise the possibility that he and his Chinese patrons could face
an East Asia Cold War where South Korea and Japan also have acquired nuclear weapons and the means to
deliver them.
In the last analysis, the United States
should be willing to accept both the concessions to the North that the South is willing to make and the
risks from the North that the South is willing to take.
For, ultimately, they are the one who
are going to have to live on the same peninsula with Kim and his nukes.
Trump ran on a foreign policy that may
fairly be described as a Trump Doctrine: In the post-post-Cold War era, the United States will start looking
out for America first.
This does not mean isolationism or the
abandonment of our allies. It does mean a review and reassessment of all the guarantees we have issued to go
to war on behalf of other countries, and the eventual transfer of responsibility for the defense of our
friends over to our friends.
In the future, the U.S. will stop
futilely imploring allies to do more for their own defense and will begin telling them that their defense is
primarily their own responsibility. Our allies must cease to be our dependents.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a
new book, "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America
Forever."
"... The illiterate orange Chump was a known front goy of the jewish mafia in New York for years. It's not surprising that he's dancing to Sheldon Adelsons tune and acquiescing to zionist commands. In a few months deplorable goyims will probably have to bleed in the Persian gulf for the chosen ones. Made your bed, now lie in it... ..."
"... It's apparent to me that Kushner & Ivanka is being groomed for the Imperial Throne post-2024, or 2020 if Trump loses the midterms. IMO, the Two-State solution is no longer a viable option as long the US and UK continues to exists, which they will in the foreseeable future. The only viable solution is a one state solution where the Palestinians are given full rights. ..."
"... We all knew that Kushner is a hyper-Zionist. However, what bothers me is how many other people are incapable of seeing the immorality of such an attitude. ..."
"... Jared's insanely dishonest and triumphalist Victory Speech/ Gloatfest was entirely predictable ..."
The illiterate orange Chump was a known front goy of the jewish mafia in New York for years.
It's not surprising that he's dancing to Sheldon Adelsons tune and acquiescing to zionist
commands. In a few months deplorable goyims will probably have to bleed in the Persian gulf
for the chosen ones. Made your bed, now lie in it...
It's apparent to me that Kushner & Ivanka is being groomed for the Imperial Throne
post-2024, or 2020 if Trump loses the midterms. IMO, the Two-State solution is no longer a
viable option as long the US and UK continues to exists, which they will in the foreseeable
future. The only viable solution is a one state solution where the Palestinians are given
full rights.
We all knew that Kushner is a hyper-Zionist. However, what bothers me is how many other
people are incapable of seeing the immorality of such an attitude.
The attitude of the Israelis vis a vis Palestinians is strikingly similar to that of the
Ukrainians vs. East Ukrainians or Russians: Kill them all, for they are not human beings.
It has been unimaginable to me that I would see this much damage to the US led Empire in my
lifetime. The damage to the US on every level is astonishing from this move and the reneging
on the JCPOA. People are suffering, but people suffer under any scenario. The US has killed
people every single day for the past 73+ years and it is time they stopped. The more damage
Trump does the better.
from Hurriyet, Turkey US has lost its status as mediator in Middle East peace process with embassy move:
Erdoğan
The U.S. has lost its status as a potential mediator in the Middle East peace process with
its decision to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdoğan said on May 14.
"[The U.S. decision to move the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem] is unfortunate. We
cannot help but feel like we are living through the dark times prior to World War II,"
Erdoğan said at an event at the Chatham House think tank in London.
Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdağ also said on May 14 that Washington "shares
responsibility" with Israel for the "massacre" along the Gaza border that left at least 37
Palestinians dead as a result of Israeli fire.
" The U.S. administration is just as responsible as the Israeli government for this
massacre ," Bozdağ wrote on Twitter, saying the incidents were caused by "unjust
and unlawful decisions" as the United States moves its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to
Jerusalem. . .
here
I seldom have issues getting onto
Murray's site with IE8. Murray's two entries for today point out the choice of terms Big
Lie media use to continue its Big Lie: "If you look through the Google search of News this
time for "clashes" [instead of massacre], you discover that the western and Israeli media
peculiarly have precisely the same preference for this entirely inappropriate word. That,
again, is fascinating." Concluding his first entry, Craig intones this important point: "In
order to help redress the terrible agony of the Palestinians, we must first effect a
change in our own system of elite exploitation of the people at home . [My Emphasis] His
second entry deals with how the group "Labour Friends of Israel" is no more than a
stenographer for Big Lie Zionist propaganda, demanding that Labour immediately cut its ties
to this obviously racist, demented, genocidal organization.
Garrie provides a small collection of recent tweets and statements by Erdogan and Turkish
government, which is following me in calling Zionists acts Genocide. The Turks have vowed to
send aid to Gaza; but in light of recent history, they'll need to send their entire Navy and
provide it with 100% air cover. Erdogan should never have entered into a rapprochement with
the Zionists or their scheme along with the Outlaw US Empire to overthrow Assad.
Trump's family applauds massacre? What about coward Trump appearing on a giant screen like
Big Brother in 1984???
I hardly see Trump's name equated with this depravity in Jerusalem and Gaza in any post.
Don't be afraid to speak it: TRUMP IS A ZIONIST. The fish rots from the head (of the
family)! Trump has become the mangod of Zionism. He's a blowhard sleaze who slept his way and
bragged about his exploits while others had to send their children to war. He's everything
dumb Americans deserve and Zionists dreamed of.
He's bullying and threatening European companies not to do business with Iran as he'll
bully and threaten Palestinians to sign on to a grand swindle. He'll squeeze them dry to get
his deal and cares less they're already impoverished. He's exactly what Zionists wanted for
President. Trump is stomping on the last hope for justice Palestinians are bravely keeping
alive. What a tawdry, disgraceful bargain and means to an end some Trump supporters here
bought into, and now the usual periodic lip service on Israel's acts; such blatant hypocrisy.
Arrgh.
Yasser Fathi, freelance photographer From Gaza who took this iconic photo, was shot today
in the stomach while wearing a bulletproof PRESS vest covering #Gaza. This is how Israeli
forces are responding to press and photographers at #GreatMarchReturn protesting
#USEmbassyJerusalem
Ian@5 and Augustin L@9
I don't have a link, but its on record that the reason S. Africa abstained from voting in the
UN Libya debacle was because Mbheki had been threatened with color revolution if he voted
against it. Word has it that the warning came directly from Hillary. Also, one of these
unmentionable (in this case Danish) banks predictions for 2018 was color revolution in S.
Africa.
I am not sure that Cyril Ramaphosa is it, or even, for that matter, that he is in charge.
It would seem so for now, but wait. The ANC still has a lot of depth. If he starts to move
away from China, that will be a dead giveaway.
I am always fascinated by how all over the world, politicians make it to their posts by
proclaiming change of whatever sorts, and once they "get into power" they start behaving.
Mandela was no different. The only remnant of the Freedom Charter is a monument somewhere in
Soweto...
I liked Zuma, warts and all. But the glaringly obvious truth is that it makes almost fuckall
difference who is president here, on the larger scale of things. They all seem to be
subservient to forces much greater than themselves, and end up looking and behaving like
spokespeople for the elite, while "championing" socialist causes that rarely come to
fruition.
However, this whole diplomatic slap for Israel gives me cause to believe that the ANC roots
still have plenty sway. God knows somebody needed to say something, and I think S. Africa
holds good sway with the rest of Southern Africa. But I don't doubt for a second that our
punishment will be slow and painful.
This US "Embassy" is really just a few offices in a long-existing US Consulate building.
The US hasn't even picked a location for the planned real Embassy building.
But yeah, one can bet that every signal of every sort coming from any foreigners in Israel
can be precisely monitored and recorded. In fact, through Unit 8200 and Operation Talpiot,
the Israeli Secret Intelligence Services likely have their digital fingers in every bit of
internet-capable equipment everywhere on earth.
Can you say "kill switch?" I think that may be one of the reasons Israel (really the
supra-national bankster cabal) get to do whatever they want, wherever they want.
Add in the "Samson Option" of nuclear weapons ready to take out capital cities globally
and good old fashioned Roy Cohn blackmail evidence and much of the news of the world comes
into focus.
Jared's insanely dishonest and triumphalist Victory Speech/ Gloatfest was entirely
predictable from the instant Trump announced the (illegal & offensively stupid)
relocation of the US Embassy to Jerusalem. He knew exactly what he was doing because he knows
that if you give Zionists an inch, they'll take a mile.
Now the whole world knows and can see what Trump wanted everyone to know and see. i.e. The
bloodthirsty "Israelis" are completely, utterly insane. Trump gave them enough rope to hang
themselves and they almost killed each other in the scramble to be first to shove their heads
in the noose. It's a bit worse for "Israel" than Trump could have imagined because he
couldn't have known that "The most moral army in the world" would in the middle of a
Slaughter and Maim-fest when the time came to gloat about their 'victory' in Jerusalem.
Has anyone here pointed out how absent discussion of this situation is at the UN?
There was no meeting of the Security Council after last weeks Israel attack and I have not
heard of any....anyone else. It confirms my opinion of the bought circus that the UN has
unfortunately been corrupted to.
Geo-political conversation now consists of expelling ambassadors. The last I heard there
were two....any others with human morals?
And some call this civilization.
psychohistorian , May 14, 2018 8:52:12 PM |
78George Lane , May 14, 2018 8:58:18 PM |
79
@78, psychohistorian, yes certainly, and of course also it seems after the nausea-inducing
Nikki Haley vetoed the declaration condemning yet another concerted brutal massacre of
Palestinaians after the first week of the protests, the UN has been totally silent. As you
say another example of the "international community" being a euphemism for "US-led hegemonic
opinion".
I've come to much the same conclusion as you. I guess one could have called me a "never
HRCer" during the primaries and into the election. I saw her as "more of the same" in what
was clearly becoming what I call "The Election of Rejection." But even more so, I saw her as
the most dangerous candidate in my lifetime with her threats against Russia (in addition to a
long and bloody record, claiming that hacking is an act of war worthy of a military response,
and calls to "obliterate" Iran terrified me).
At least Trump made some (often contradictory) claims to work with Russia and end "regime
change" wars. But about the time of the Conventions, I started to look more deeply into
Trump's history, and realized that he was clearly wholly beholden to the supra-national
bankster cabal that Circe refers to as "the Rothschilds."
The creator was a Trump supporter, who didn't start to see through the facade until after
the election. He's gotten a lot of grief from "fans" who are still Trumpsters, but though I
don't share much of his ideology, I greatly admire his integrity for following the facts
where they lead.
Please take a half hour to watch it. If you want more published evidence, I can provide a
great deal.
Hillary wouldn't have been any different. The problem isn't any particular
candidate/President, it's the system itself.
See Ian @93.
Jackrabbit , May 14,
2018 10:28:22 PM |
96OJS , May 14, 2018 10:35:17 PM |
97
" ..."The War Prayer" was written in 1905, and is believed to be a response to both the
Spanish–American War and the subsequent Philippine–American War.[1] It was left
unpublished by Mark Twain at his death in April 1910, largely due to pressure from his
family, who feared that the story would be considered sacrilegious.....
The War Prayer. by Mark Twain
Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth into battle -- be Thou
near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved
firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with
our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead;
help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain;
help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts
of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with
their little children to wander unfriended in the wastes of their desolated land in rags and
hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames in summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in
spirit, worn with travail, imploring thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it --
For our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their
bitter pilgrimmage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white
snow with the blood of their wounded feet!
We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the
ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and
contrite hearts. Amen.
bankster cabal that Circe refers to as "the Rothschilds.
I never made such a statement. Now that's not to say that I don't firmly believe that
certain forces mostly Zionist helped to push Trump over the edge because Trump was even more
aligned with the Zionist agenda than Hillary, regarding Iran and Jerusalem, and more
vulnerable to blackmail and bribery. Although, I also agree with Jackrabbit on this:
Hillary wouldn't have been any different. The problem isn't any particular
candidate/President, it's the system itself. and Ian 93. The system is rigged by
Zionists. Unfortunately, Americans either don't care or they're too stupid to see it.
A whole lot of their treasure (human and taxes) is spent on Zionism's geopolitical agenda.
To add insult to that injury, Trump cut taxes permanently for the wealthiest Americans; so
who's left to pay for the close to a trillion investment in the military?
From Aljazeera: "Turkey has recalled its ambassadors to Israel and the United States
following the killing of dozens of Palestinian protesters by Israeli forces...."
The Hill: "Turkey is recalling its ambassadors to the United States and Israel following
the official inauguration of the new U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem, CNN and other news outlets
reported."
Fox news: "...while violence and deadly protests erupt Gaza...."; "The Turkish government
has recalled its ambassadors to the U.S. and Israel for 'consultations,' ."
Times of Israel: "Turkey on Monday recalled its ambassadors to Israel and the United
States in protest of the Israeli military's deadly response to riots...."
Sputnik News: "In response to Israel's ongoing violent suppression of Palestinian
protesters in Gaza,Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has recalled his ."
Israel National News: "Turkey has recalled its ambassadors to Israel and the United States
for consultations because of the violence in Gaza ."
Rocks in sling shots
VS
an Air Force, Navy, Army (of worthless coward terrorists), tank and mortar shelling, live
hollow-point bullets that MAXIMIZE victim's injuries when they enter the flesh and tumble
around before exiting with a massive area of impact when compared to its entry point,
"tear-gas" (one that induces bloody eyes, virulent vommiting, extreme panic due to gasping
for air as a consequence, living in the world's largest outdoor prison, and being subject to
constant home raids and brutal torture, incarceration -- for just the simplest infractions,
non-stop physical and psychological intimidation...and most of this going on for 70+
existence of this psychopathic-led and followed (for the most part, it seems as there is
little objection heard from these chosen wannabes) devotees to a lunatic cult of
death-worshippers and practitioners.
Beg your pardon?....When will Israel finally pay for its genocide against humanity?!?!
Better yet when will humanity awaken from its trance to finally hold this Iraeli regime
accountable for its CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY??? When will Israel be made to pay for
reparations in its crimes and blatant slaughter of unarmed peoples who want their human
rights respected and their properties given back?
Not anytime soon, I suspect, as the world at large is largely silent, distracted, and
impervious to what is REALLY happening in this Israeli genocide!
What's next will the disgusting IDF terrorists resort to executing babies in
incubators...despicable excuse for and an excrement to humanity these "people" are!
Now the whole world knows and can see what Trump wanted everyone to know and see. i.e. The
bloodthirsty "Israelis" are completely, utterly insane. Trump gave them enough rope to hang
themselves and they almost killed each other in the scramble to be first to shove their
heads in the noose.
He just handed them Jerusalem and compared himself to Truman in how momentous an act on
behalf of Zionism's advancement this is! There is no ulterior interpretation possible. And no
not every opinion is valid. You rightly singled out A P's comment regarding Hillary as being
nonsense. So forgive me, but this comment was just too outrageously false to let it
slide.
Turkey also recalled its Ambassador from Israel AND from the USA. With the indication that it
is US that is enabler, and has lost every pretense of being a mediator in the conflict.
I have a feeling that something is afoot. There will be an attempt to take Gaza away from
Israel, the question is only who would be actors. Gaza can be taken away from Israel, as it
has borders with Israel, and no Israeli authority on the ground. Israel controls illegally
its maritime border. So, if anyone wants to address the problem assymetrically, this may be
the way. Then find a way to reconstruct, redevelop Gaza. But for this, Israel will have to be
put in its place, and the situation not worth US ratcheting up the drumbeat of additional
war.
"The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those
that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave
impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be
no special hurry."
The video is not about an international conspiracy but it comes close. As I noted, there
may well be such a conspiracy. Trump's family and business connections make for interesting
reading.
Emails that Hillary released include correspondence with the Rothschilds. Why is that not
mentioned? Wikileaks has them.
Presidents are a lightening rod for criticism and many of Trump's fans will have an
emotional, knee-jerk reaction to harsh criticism that is leveled at him. It seems to me that
it would be more effective to show that the election was a farce. We've all been had.
So I have found a China Net reference to an upcoming meeting of the UN Security Council but
they wanted Flash player and I don't do Flash player so don't know more
The 1st link I am providing
from ChinaNet has this caption below it
"
U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin (R, Front) and U.S. President Donald Trump's daughter
Ivanka (L, Front) attend the inauguration ceremony of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, on
May 14, 2018. The inauguration ceremony of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem started on
Monday afternoon, as Israeli and U.S. officials gathered in the city amidst deadly clashes in
the Gaza Strip. (Xinhua/JINI)
"
The 2nd link I am providing
from ChinaNet has this caption below it
"
U.S. President Donald Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner speaks during the
inauguration ceremony of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem, on May 14, 2018. The inauguration
ceremony of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem started on Monday afternoon, as Israeli and
U.S. officials gathered in the city amidst deadly clashes in the Gaza Strip.
(Xinhua/JINI)
"
I wish to also state that as compares the settler-state of Israel to the settler-state of
Canada, Canada has achieved what Israel can only drool and dream of. 'Our object is to
continue until there is not a single Indian that has not been absorbed into the body politic
of Canada and there is no more 'Indian question', that is the whole purpose of our
legislation.' - Indian Affairs Canada
Circe's attacks on Trump have always been over-the-top but when criticism of Zionist
influence devolves into claims of his being a Rothschild puppet then he has gone too far.
This is a small step from anti-jewish, 'Protocol of Zion' hysteria which could discredit
MoA as anti-semetic.
Why not stop criticism against Israel too? That is also antisemitic? Stop this nonsense
claims.
Top Israeli MP: Army Has Enough Bullets for Everyone in Gaza
Strategic Affairs Minister calls Gazans 'Nazis,' says deaths don't mean anything
.....Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan repeatedly referred to the protesters killed in
Gaza as "Nazis," saying that there were no demonstrations, just "Nazi anger." He later added
that the number killed doesn't mean anything because they're just Nazis anyhow.
Likud MP Avi Dichter, the chair of the defense committee, went on to dismiss concerns in
an interview of his own. Dichter insisted that protests in Gaza pose no danger, because "the
IDF has enough bullets for anyone," and open-fire regulations to shoot people allowing the
military to deal with it....
Perimtr , May 15, 2018 4:13:05 AM |
118Yeah, Right , May 15, 2018 4:35:05 AM |
119
Interesting news that the Palestinians have decided to refer the issue of Israeli settlements
in the West Bank to the International Criminal Court for prosecution as a war crime.
I know that the PLO has previously threatened to refer Israel to the ICC, but usually the
threats have to do with allegations of unlawful killings during one of the IDF's many, many
instances of "mowing the lawn". And, of course, in every instance the Palestinians have
stepped away under US pressure.
But they really should persevere in this case, not just because the illegality of Israeli
settlements is such an open-and-shut case, but also because once the court does rule that
this is a war crime (and, again, no int'l court could possibly find otherwise) then the
guilty persons are.... well.... every single Israeli gov't minister from June 1967 to the
present day.
Each and every one of them are complicit in this crime. From top to bottom, from mewling
left to far, far right.
All of 'em, because if they were a gov't minister then they voted to support the
committing of this ongoing war crime.
I think the PLO should see this through. Lodge the complaint, and neither back down nor
allow the Prosecutor to wriggle off the hook.
Coz' the Israeli leadership past and present are damn well guilty of a war crime. Each.
And. Every. One. Of. Them.
That is the (European descent) Israeli stupid propaganda that Palestinians can be compared
to Red Indians and Israel is a " settler " country
like the US.
You must have built walls around you and be blind to what is going on to believe that. Or
you live in the US countryside and don't notice much of the world anyway.
Palestinians sometimes called Arab Israeli are some 50 percent of "Greater Israel" and
people with the same language and culture inhabit all the countries surrounding the "settler
state". These people some Israelis pretend to colonize invented script, law, algebra, they
also knew that the world was not flat. They also know how to remember history.
To try to impose a European "settler" narrative in an environment like this is an exercise
in futility.
Israel has become a pet project of US billionaires and evangelicals.
Palestinians trying to storm the border are acting in desperation.
Trump will offer the Palestinians some type of deal after this. Same strategy he attempts
with Iran.
Trump's Family Applauds Zionist Massacre Of Palestinians In Gaza
indeed, the optics are fucking creepy as hell. dig a little and they get even creepier .
in my waking dream of billowing black smoke and blood draining head shots, I christen the
blond dryad, the poster girl for Levantine murder, Lady Gaza.
Posted by: Christian Chuba | May 15, 2018 7:24:30 AM | 128
Probably in Hebrew. You can count on English speaking media in countries with their own
languages to be government propaganda of some sort.
That does not mean they cannot be revealing to read, it is always interesting to read what
propaganda thinks it is supposed to do. It is very likely far from any truth though.
Israel at this stage has short term tactics but no long term strategy.
srael celebrates its 70th birthday in May with the opening of the U.S. Embassy in
Jerusalem. Yet the country is grappling with an existential crisis -- one that doesn't
involve Iranian nukes or Palestinian protests. Spurred by the high cost of living, low
salaries, and political and demographic trends, Israelis are leaving the country in droves,
trying to build their lives elsewhere, mostly in the United States. Many of these young
Israelis are moving to big cities, and yet, even in these often expensive places, they see
more opportunities to advance.
The available data is telling, analysts say. Between 2006 and 2016, more than 87,000
Israelis became U.S. citizens or legalized permanent residents, according to the most
recent data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. That's up from 66,000 between
1995 and 2005. These figures take into account only those who took the legal route (many
Israelis, analysts say, arrive on temporary tourist, student or work visas, then stay). And
in addition to the Israelis now living stateside, according to the country's Ministry of
Immigrant Absorption, hundreds of thousands have moved to Europe, Canada and elsewhere.
...
The country's brain drain isn't new. For years, many of its most talented scholars and
researchers moved to the U.S., where the salaries are far higher and there are more jobs at
top-tier universities. One report by Dan Ben-David, an economist at Tel Aviv University,
found that the emigration rate of Israeli researchers was the highest in the Western world.
Recently, however, the exodus has expanded to include average young people, many of whom
say there's simply no future in Israel.
The Saudi Arabian government on Tuesday said it opposed the US decision to relocate its
Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
"The kingdom rejects the American administration's decision to transfer its embassy to
Jerusalem," the council of ministers said in a state carried by state-run Saudi Press
Agency.
"This step represents a significant prejudice against the rights of the Palestinian
people which have been guaranteed by international resolutions," it said.
So either Kushner did not have Saudi buy-in or things have become too toxic for Saudi
Arabia.
In this modern era, it should be very difficult to impose and maintain an expanding
(religious, ethnic) apartheid state without anyone noticing. Worse, is that it has the full
backing and support of the USA and most of its citizenry.
Any event, such as the current one, which upsets the "world order" which includes the US
as the world hegemon, in this matter including control over Israel/Palestine, is a good
thing. The alternative is continued US financial and military control of the world, which is
a bad thing. Omelettes can't be made w/o breaking eggs.
People are dying for their countries in many places, that's how history is made,
unfortunately. In this case it hopefully will include some local MENA initiatives to take
some responsibility for the continuing and worsening situation in Palestine. We've already
seen signs from Turkey and perhaps there will be more.
The US reign over Palestine has been a disaster and change is needed, and if the current
sacrifices contribute to meaningful change, it's a good thing.
From reader comments: If I had my way, I would bring back the draft with NO college
deferments. In fact, the sons and daughters of politicians would get called up first. Service in
the IDF doesn't count. ... ... "Yes, but expand that. Mandate that we first enlist, train, and promptly deploy any children and
grandchildren of all members of Congress, members of the President's Cabinet, federal judges, Federal Reserve Board of Governors,
and the CEOs/CFOs/CIOs etc. of military companies (including Northrup Grumman, Boeing, and their ilk). "
This is a very large "sinecure"
At a deeper level, military forces are agents/enforcers for the elite. Its primary role is the providing expansion and the
defense of the interests of the ruling elite against external and internal enemies. Without addressing the dominant social
interests in the state, a focus on shringking the military budget is quite inadequate.
I don't have a problem with 4% of GDP, but I have a big problem with what we're getting for
our money.
A quarter million for a four-star general is fine, if the general is any good (almost none
of them are by design). In theory a general is equivalent to a division manager in a Fortune
500 company, but COs in the US military have amazingly little power. They're not even free to
hire and fire their own subordinates in most cases. So our senior officers are really paid
generously to pretend they are great military commanders.
The average SAT score at West Point is only 1340 these days. Prior to the Vietnam War I
believe West Point was academically competitive with Ivy League schools, or at least that's
what Class of '68 veteran John T. Reed states.
The Naval Academy is 1322 and the Air Force Academy is 1370.
These aren't bad scores, but clearly these officers aren't elite academically.
The enlisted personnel seem adequate in quality thanks to the AFQT, other than women of
course. They're overpaid compared to what is available for them in the private sector.
The pension system, in addition to being overly generous, has perverse incentives. As any
service-member approaches that magical 20 year mark, any kind of independent thinking must
disappear (which the military already does so much to eliminate). Want your fat pension?
Better shut up and emulate your COs in every way possible. It should just be replaced with a
Thrift Savings Plan (gov't equivalent of a 401k).
One sixth of the force consists of women. Every last one of them subtracts from the
efficacy of the military.
One sixth of personnel are officers, which is far too many officers.
Then you have all the unnecessary EO officers, JAGs, and other political commissars.
I don't have an issue with the various recreational perks in the armed forces as they
contribute to espirit de corps. The private sector could use more of this, honestly.
The GI Bill is also politically objectionable as we should not be giving money to The
Enemy (colleges in this case).
This is the price a mercantile republic pays for an all volunteer fighting force.
When you have less than 5% of the population serving in the military and commitments all
over the globe, then you need to be prepared to pay for those professional services (yes, the
military is a profession like any other). If you're prepared to go back to a draft force, then we can start talking about changes to
the pay and benefit system.
Personally, I think service of some kind, be it military or community, ought to be a
requirement to vote. Service guarantees citizenship.
Maybe you can help me on the following ancillary matter? F.y.i., Mighty John Bolton passed on an opportunity to fight LBJ's atrocious war against
communism, in Vietnam. As PreZident Trump's present Iranophobe-warmongering N.S.A. Adviser, I tried (but failed)
to determine how much pay & "bennies" Bolton now gets from the bottomless Executive
Branch feeding trough.
Same scam, different tactics. 40 years ago we lived in Annapolis, MD in the lowest tier of a then – New housing
development concept. Our cramped townhouses were on the scrabble outer ring.
The most lavish houses were in the inner-ring, on a divided boulevard, extensively
landscaped and maintained. At least 3/4 of those homes were owned by "Double-Dippers"–
military retirees collecting military retirement pay while employed as civil servants in
Federal gov, with defense contractor consulting on the side.
"Thank you for your service,"– in cash, if you please.
I do not mind community service, but I object to military service and I do not want to
vote. Voting gives legitimacy to a system that I oppose. I was born in the geographical area
now ruled by the government of the United States of America. Perhaps, LT Dan, you would be in
favor of a status such as non-citizen resident. I was born in this area by a quirk of fate,
not any choice on my part. I do not usually agree with US government policy, nor do I want
the US government to represent me or "protect" me. It would be just for me to pay less taxes
since I do not desire and would gladly refuse most of the "services" the government provides,
especially those noted in the above article.
Neither me, my father, my grandfather, nor my great grandmother served in the US Military,
but one of the large defense contractors put bread on the table for four generations of my
family. My 90-year old grandmother is still collecting my grandfather's pension from that
firm and he's been dead for 30 years!
US is rich and the debt is high. Both can be true at the same time. But taxes are relatively low so if there is a
government debt crisis paying down the debt would just involve raising taxes. Just look at GDP per capita US which is very
high up there so I don't see how anyone can argue the US is not a very rich country.
Despite many problems, the US has many advantages like half the world's Ashkenazim who are very good at creating
unbeatable new companies .etc., etc., etc .
Thanks for the laughs. You must be of the Maven-Krugman school of debt. You're all wrong, and it's obviously beyond your
understanding that though you can fool almost all of the goyim almost all of the time, you can't fool all of us all the time.
AEN, thank you for your fine input, but I suspect you're throwing pearls to swine who
don't even want to understand.
Even worse, when they claim that debt is good, they conveniently leave out the part about
who it's good for.
We dumb goyim have repeatedly proven ourselves to be pretty easy marks, but some of us
have a clue as to who's paying for it all, and its good to know that a few know who that
would be, so thanks again.
That was a jolting eye-catcher. So this general still receives a six-figure pension
check!? I've often marveled at the moral fiber exhibited by these gilded peacocks, who, when
faced with supporting criminal actions by their government, such as invading countries who've
done us no harm, click their heels and proceed. Instead of taking an instant retirement,
knowing their pensions are secure.
You would still be required to pay some kind of lease or tax for the land which you
occupy, but would otherwise be left alone. You would also be subject to the criminal laws of
the jurisdiction you occupied. You would also pay taxes for any consumption that requires use
of infrastructure or interstate commerce.
The United States is large enough that such an arrangement is still possible.
" US spends 4% of GDP on the military versus 2% in China, France, UK. That's high but
considering how rich the US is, not unbearable. Weak article "
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -
Every productive dollar that's ever existed has been flushed down the MIC rathole. The
whole "budget "is an elaborate ruse to conceal the chains that bind you.
10's of trillions disappear with gleeful approval on a regular basis.
Mr. Girard, buon giorno. You must be my elder. In '68 I was paid $96 plus $26 combat pay
while in Nam.
Yea, things are out of control. Unfortunately, the store clerk you ran into the other day is
representative of how the majority of "we the people" think. Hence, don't expect change
anytime soon.
I have been a fan of yours for sometime now. Mostly at NEO, sometimes art Rense. I recently
began accessing UNZ and was pleased to see your name in the list of contributors. Sadly I
don't predict improvement in the majorities attitude. But, you do fine work, dom't quit just
yet. As long as we can keep the internet affordable reality may trickle down. I believe the
net is the reason the "fake news" moniker had to be. Sort if like "conspiracy theory". Same
party owns both copyrights.
Keep your head up.
Joseph
Foreign entanglements, searching for monsters to destroy, acting as the world police
– this is the main problem.
Yooge problems for sure, but playing Sugar Daddy to Izzie-land is the biggest one of all
in terms of dollars as well as moral capital, and it probably dwarfs welfare subsidies to
"defense" corporations.
When I joined the U.S. Army in 1965 my starting pay was slightly less than 100 dollars per
month. Soldiers then were said to be "in the service". Today they are "in the military".
Later in life I realized that I had been "in the service" of evil. Still later I learned that
the love of money is the root of evil.
The American Dollar Dies in New York – a Satire from Uganda:
JS, Since Rumsfeld admitted, the day before 911 when he helped murder 30 forensic
accountants plus a handful of Naval Investigators, you are 1 of the few I ever heard mention
the stolen money. Since the Clinton administration up to 2016 the number is now $21
$Trillions, from just 2 departments.
BB, I personally know a couple who are around seventy, very healthy and active, who have
parlayed multiple pension-qualifying careers between them in the armed forces, postal
service, teaching, and county government, into astounding lifestyles. Harley motorcycle,
Winnebago, big house, weekend cottage, cruises, the whole shebang.
They're very nice people, part of the local Puerto Rican ascendancy, first generation
descendants of the Puerto Ricans recruited by the now defunct local steel mills back in the
1950s.
I'm sure it can be said they worked for what they got, but, still . . . you gotta wonder
what's going on.
Military spending has one virtue, it is constitutional as it fulfills one duty of the
FedGov, one it has often shirked, defend the country.
Giraldi can whine all he likes, but the DOD is not an entitlement program, nor does the
Pentagon get all it wants. It never has gotten all it wants, no matter how much Giraldi
whines to the contrary.
I've never seen such a warped and delusional understanding of the voracious, insatiable,
wasteful and corrupt National Security State presented so succinctly
P.S. I have a feeling that War Machine accounts have written Quatermaster a lot of checks
over the years. I.e., he knows what side his bread is buttered on.
anon, tell it like it is. Everyone should also know the debt servce cost to our budget is
the interest Americans pay. What's 2% of 20 trillions? 40 billions? IDK l, but it's alot.
Well that's the federal reserve *a private corp.) income estimate for the yeat, which the
share holders, all 6 of them, pay no income tax.
Since the Clinton administration up to 2016 the number is now $21 $Trillions, from just
2 departments.
Can you explain to me how that even works, technically? E.g. the DoD is supposed to have
"stolen" a lot more money than its entire regular budget – how could they even lay
their hands on such sums? What accounts did that money sit in before it was siphoned off,
without anyone noticing?
The US military are the equivalent of the Roman Empire's honestiores, or upper classes. As
well as the benefits accruing from service, they had special legal treatment, like being
exempt from judicial torture. So Arthur Lichte merely gets part of his pension docked for
raping a woman. Nothing to see here , mate, move along. Even someone like Chelsea ( " They
call her Natasha, but she looks like Elsie" ) Manning spends a mere 7 years in prison and
gets the Defence Department to pay for "gender reassignment".
The point about judicial torture is important as America has recently revived the practice.
Would Assange be waterboarded if they got hold of him ? Would he have met a fatal "accident"
in custody?
Who knows ? But don't you even think about doing that to an American serviceman, even one as
degenerate as Manning.
That wasn't a response. It was just name calling. So if you aren't convinced by my
rebuttal it's certainly not because you had more intelligent analysis.
You use a lot of figures but not the appropriate statistics. What do big aggregate numbers
like 200k in debt per family really mean?
I look at the percentage of tax revenue v. GDP compared to other first world countries. US
is actually on the low side by this measure. That means it's possible to raise taxes and only
moderately harm the economic growth engine. And no one has addressed the advantages the US
economy has in particular having half of the world's Ashkenazim.
Rumsfeld admitted, the day before 911 when he helped murder 30 forensic accountants plus
a handful of Naval Investigators,
Thanks, it's nice to know that there are others who are wide awake. Trouble is, even those
who have a clue can't even imagine the .0001% of it, I'm sure.
What accounts did that money sit in before it was siphoned off, without anyone
noticing?
We'll probably never know. The system is not exactly designed for transparency, and
besides, guess where the missile, errr, "plane" hit the Penta-graft?
Wouldn't it be fun to ask Rummy the Smirking Dummy that question?
I bet this swinish character could provide a bit of insight with a little Nuremberg or Abu
Ghraib style info gathering as well, and here's a partial rap sheet
Dov S. Zakheim was sworn in as the Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) and Chief
Financial Officer for the Department of Defense on May 4, 2001. Dr. Zakheim has previously
served in a number of key positions in government and private business.
Most recently, he
was corporate vice president of System Planning Corp., a technology, research and analysis
firm based in Arlington, Va. He also served as chief executive officer of SPC International
Corp., a subsidiary specializing in political, military and economic consulting. During the
2000 presidential campaign, he served as a senior foreign policy advisor to then-Governor
Bush.
From 1985 until March 1987, Dr. Zakheim was Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for
Planning and Resources in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Policy). In that
capacity, he played an active role in the Department's system acquisition and strategic
planning processes. Dr. Zakheim held a variety of other DoD posts from 1981 to 1985.
Earlier, he was employed by the National Security and International Affairs Division of the
Congressional Budget Office.
Dr. Zakheim has been a participant on a number of government, corporate, non-profit and
charitable boards.
The United States military is a giant jobs program, Giraldi!
So what of it! Who cares. Conjure up those dollars out of thin air and let the troops have
some loot. Did the Founding Fathers warn us about large standing armies in their writings and
actions? Yes.
Did the Founding Fathers know that a large standing army would require a concentrated form
of governmental power to collect the loot to pay for that army? Yes.
Did we just pass the 800 year anniversary of the Magna Carta? Yes. Was the Magna Carta
about standing armies and concentrated government power, among other things?
Were the Founding Fathers somewhat ungrateful to the British Empire for its efforts in the
French and Indian War? Yes.
Would the Founding Fathers be surprised to find a Jew billionaire named Shelly Adelson
controlling the use of the US military in the Middle East and West Asia? The cynical and
smart ones wouldn't be surprised at all.
The GOP has the War budget and the US military and the Democrats have the public schools
and many other government workers. The GOP always promises to spend more loot on the War
budget and the US military and the Democrats always promise to spend more money on the public
schools and other government programs.
Giraldi has written a CLUNKER of a blog post, folks!
Giraldi should write about mass immigration, monetary extremism and the impossibility of
paying for the retirement of the baby boomers.
Mass Immigration: DEMOGRAPHY
Monetary Policy: DEBT
Baby Boomers: NATION WRECKERS
The American Empire is soon to go belly up in a manner similar to the upcoming demise of
treasonous rat John McCain.
The WASP /JEW ruling class of the American Empire knows this. A pleasant consolation is
that China, Japan and Europe are just as badly bankrupt as the American Empire is.
Raise the federal funds rate to 10 percent and implode the American Empire. Young people
must no longer be saddled with massive unpayable debt and the unpayable retirement of the
baby boomers. Pull the plug on the baby boomers now, and let the young people have a
future.
The Chinese, Japanese and Europeans will implode also. Use the nuclear deterrent and
offshore balancing to keep global peace.
Giraldi can whine all he likes, but the DOD is not an entitlement program, nor does the
Pentagon get all it wants.
If it isn't an entitlement program, then what would one look like? Do you know the meaning
of "sinecure?"
You can whine about Giraldi all you want but he's right and yer wrong, and thank G-d that
the Pantygon doesn't get all it wants. Can you explain whether it should and why?
PS: Read the comments regarding disabilities and retirement bennies and then get back to
us.
You really don't want affirmative action nurses looking after anymore than those Bombay
specials that the VA hires as doctors. It's not a perk, it's just free.
The VA is a train wreck because of these people. No one wants to say squat because you
have to point a finger at all the AA hires and that would get you labeled as a racist.
And oh they are paid, very, very well. The average RN makes over a $100k at the VA. I know
private sector nurses who went to work for the VA because of the pay and bennies. Plus you
can't get fired.
You do realize that "waterboarding" is part and parcel of SERE school in the military and
has been for a very long time. It's where the Pentagon/CIA got idea of applying to a bunch of
sand monkeys.
Anyone who is special ops gets waterboarded so are fighter pilots and the like. The MSM
always neglects this fact.
Dov Zakheim is a nasty Neo-Conservative Jew rat, that is widely known. Zakheim was one of the
Neo-Conservative rats who helped to drag the US military into the Iraq War debacle. Seems
Neo-Conservative rat boy Dov Zakheim also made himself a wealthy rat through his connections
to the WASP / JEW ruling class of the American Empire.
But,
Let's not forget nasty Neo-Conservative Jew rat Michael Chertoff and his pal General
Michael Hayden. Baby boomers Chertoff and Hayden have made out like bandits from their involvement in the
Deep State of the American Empire. I say the baby boomers are an evil generation of nation wreckers. Tweets from 2015:
At least half of our military bills should be sent to Israel. Practically all of our wars
these days are on their behalf. The other half should be paid by a war tax. All those who
support going to "necessary" wars overseas for "humanitarian" reasons or other will pay into
this tax, starting with the neocons and the media (not just mainstream liberal media but many
right wing neocon mouthpieces like National Review, Breitbart, DailyCaller).
Last but not least, any elected official who votes for or calls for war with any nation,
from Trump to Pence, Nikki Haley, John McCain, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo et al. should fork
out 100% of their salaries to pay for the war until it ends.
What evidence is there that the trade discussion is based on China reducing treasury
holdings rather than counter-tariffs on US agricultural goods and potentially in a number of
other areas like education services (blocking Chinese families from sending kids to lower
ranked US colleges)?
America's Republican politicians complain that "entitlements," by which they mean
pensions and medical care, are leading the country to bankruptcy even as they fatten the
spending on the Pentagon, which now takes 12 percent of the overall budget.
The US military budget should be $100 billion .do what you can.
"Despite many problems, the US has many advantages like half the world's Ashkenazim who
are very good at creating unbeatable new companies. Just look at how the half the 40 riches
entrepreneurs under 40 in the US according to Forbes are Jewish. Jews are producing so much
innovation in the US that it offsets a lot of the problems like military spending at 4% of
GDP and less productive sub-populations."
Average daily volume in the Treasury market is $500 billion, and the Federal Reserve
System is authorized to create unlimited quantities of currency to purchase Treasuries (and
other gov't securities) in any case.
This isn't the financial weapon of mass destruction people think it is.
The Chinese themselves know this, which is why they stopped adding to their position and
have gradually reduced it.
A more effective strategy would be to focus financial firepower where the Federal Reserve
isn't authorized to operate, such as the commercial paper market. Probably Congress itself
would then act, but if you can buy enough seats for hard money dweebs you might be able to
cause serious trouble.
I'm sure the Roman Empire had some version of waterboarding.
The Roman Army's form of punishment was known as decimation , a word now
commonly used by semi-literates to torture knowledgeable historians, philologists, and
wordsmiths, including not a few Baby Boomers , who apparently know a lot more than
you, and who also are smart enough to blame the guilty -- and not an entire generation -- for
the misdeeds or evil gains of a relatively few assholes.
But I know subtle nuance like that must be difficult to understand for those who can paint
-- or splatter -- only with a very broad brush.
As if remotely possible to do so, Realist recommended:
"The US military budget should be $100 billion .do what you can."
Hi (Sur)Realist,
A question. Above, who would meaningfully tell that to the ZUS Defense Department, Joint Chiefs of
Staff, & the military contractors? Sheldon Adelson? Netanyahu? Take heart! I trust Peter Aus will appear & bring your do-gooder passion into
practical reality. Thanks, nevertheless!
You make my point for me.
As I said, Judicial Torture was used on humiliores, and, indeed, in European Inquisitorial
Systems until the late C18th and early C19th.
A person or entity whose liabilities outweigh its assets, is not rich.
This is more true when the entity, like the US Fed Gov, has vastly more liabilities than
physical assets, let alone readily marketable assets.
The fed gov has promised to pay more each year than it has recently taken in as revenue,
and more than it has any realistic hope of generating anytime soon.
The fed gov is in hock more than 20 trillion in the books right now, and over 100 trillion
projected forward.
Yeah the fed gov is rich.
Looking at average and median private-household net worth will not make the picture much
rosier.
Commissaries, gyms, and hair salons on bases in the USA must end.
Pay the soldiers well, but have them live and try to get by in the same economy and world
as their employers -- WE THE TAXPAYERS.
Also, require soldiers to live off base and pay their own housing (boosting their cash pay
accordingly) OR start counting their housing as taxable income as it would be for the rest of
us mere TAXPAYERS.
Evil baby boomers in Europe, England and the United States have been protected by the
monetary extremism of the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and the Federal Reserve
Bank.
It is now time to financially liquidate the evil baby boomer generation. If the Federal
Reserve Bank raised the federal funds rate to 10 percent, and the ECB and BoE raised interest
rates similarly, the baby boomers in the USA, England and most of Europe would be financially
busted. The baby boomers have been the generation that benefited the most from the monetary
extremism of the last few decades, and especially since 2008.
The federal funds rate went over 20 percent in 1981, 10 percent now would wipe out the
asset bubbles in stocks, bonds and real estate. Do it.
The baby boomers are an evil generation of nation-wreckers. Bill Clinton and George W Bush
are prime examples of evil globalizer baby boomers.
Tough shit that you don't like his tone. We don't like being systematically ripped off and
told it's patriotic.
We should start either taxing the military employees' housing allowance OR require them to
buy their own housing off-base. I'd be fine with increasing cash salary to make up for it.
Let's get an honest number on what their salaries really are and then debate whether they get
paid enough.
And by all means let's reform and reduce officer pensions. End this last-three-years
calculation and require more than 20 years "service" to get half or more of one's salary as
pension. They are desk jobs and they can and should work at least, say, THIRTY years before
being able to retire st that level of pension and work elsewhere.
Military is a wasteful fraudulent untrustworthy bureaucracy like any other in the fed gov
-- or worse because they get a free pass from a lot of people.
The oil and gas resources alone owned by the federal government are worth some $200
trillion. Then there's the fact that the taxing authority of the federal government makes any fiscal
deficit a matter of choice to begin with.
Am fairly sure you know about Donald Rumsfeld early political career, including his
special assignment as an ambitious congressman, & on behalf of the A.Z.C.
If not, below I link ZUS Defense Secretary "Shit Happens" treasonous letter to Robert F.
Kennedy.
And we need Russian equipment to get into space these days, apparently. That would be troublesome even if Russia were an ally, as perhaps they should be.
It's worse when our gov chooses to slander, threaten, sanction, and encircle the country
on whom we are relying.
Imagine China refusing to sell us what we need AND Russia refusing to let us use or buy
its space equipment.
For that matter, there's so much demand for oil and natural gas in India and China --
likely to keep increasing, too -- Russia eventually may be able to say "we will sell to
anyone EXCEPT companies and facilities in the USA, and anyone caught reselling to the USA
will join them on the blacklist." If Iran and, say, Venezuela or Nigeria did the same, watch
out.
Deliberate dishonest distraction. Whether the DOD got as much as it wanted, it gets much
more than our actual defense requires, and the people on the gravy train know it.
The fact that defense is a specifically enumerated duty and power of the fed government,
has nothing to do with the proper amount to spend on that function.
Money spent attacking countries that are not attacking us here in the USA, are not
preparing for imminent attack on us here in the USA, and are not aiding those who are
attacking or preparing to imminently attack us here in the USA is NOT part of that legitimate
constitutional function.
Same with money spent defending Israel or Saudi Arabia, helping the saudis kill Yemenis in
Yemen, helping islamists or anyone else overthrow the gov of Syria, etc.
Same with money spent defending (or controlling) Germany, France, South Korea, Japan,
etc.
Calling that "whining" is not an argument. It suggests that you lack an honest, logical
argument on this issue.
The threat is the Mexicans we have allowed in, not any credible military threat from
Mexico's armed forces.
Our military should be posted on the entire southern border with orders to kill all
invaders who do not heed warnings to turn back. Add a minefield, barbed wire fencing where
absent, and armed drones.
The clothing allowance is for purchase, upkeep, and repair of uniforms. There is a
bureaucratic mindset of having things clearly laid out which guarantees a lot of this
spending, especially when the time preferences of new enlistees bears out the wisdom of
having a specially set aside and clearly labeled clothing allowance. Many good critics with
detailed grievamces skip over the governmental addiction to trying to solve reality with
longer and longer rulebooks.
Radical Center proposed: "Russia eventually may be able to say "we will sell to anyone
EXCEPT companies and facilities in the USA, and anyone caught reselling to the USA will join
them on the blacklist."
Hi Radical Center,
Speaking with utmost respect for your typical sound-thought, have you ever approached the
issue from the Globalist's (ideal) "Radical Center" perspective where the planet's economic
& military Superpowers decide how crude oil & natural gas sale & distribution is
done?
Radical Center opined: "Our military should be posted on the entire southern border with
orders to kill all invaders who do not heed warnings to turn back."
Hi Radical Center,
The biggest problem I have with the solution (above) is your having used, in error, the
words, "Our military."
Were that the actual case, Jewish Lobbies, billionaire ZUS Jews, Congress, & PreZident
Trump would be very pissed at Mr. Giraldi's for provocatively having the gall to use the
description, "American military" in his article title.
Thanks again, Radical Center. By increment, you are getting there! So please simply
consider dropping the word "Our"?
Like one of the Maven Shama's "old grey mares, "That ain't what it used to be."
There are two standards one for enlisted personnel and the other for officers. During the
Grenada situation some enlisted personnel and officers were caught attempting to ship
captured AK-47 rifles back to the states. The enlisted personnel got "hard time" in
Leavenworth while the officers got "letters of reprimand". Double standard, indeed.
I might have made the military a career, but the disparities in both facilities and treatment
of officers vs. enlisted was a real turn-off. I completed my enlistment honorably and
returned to civilian life.
It is my humble opinion (and personal observation) that the commissioned officer rank
structure where there is concern for the enlisted troops ends with the rank of colonel. The
general staff is more akin to political office than it is to serving in the military and
taking care of their military subordinates.
As to "pay and allowances", when I was active duty (1969-1971) it was not much. In fact, at
the time, those of us in uniform were looked down upon and blamed for the prosecution of the
Vietnam conflict. Not only that, legislated job programs that were supposed to go to us
Vietnam veterans never materialized.
Yes, the all-volunteer forced made it necessary to increase "pay and allowances" to
relatively attractive levels.
If I had my way, I would bring back the draft with NO college deferments. In fact, the sons
and daughters of politicians would get called up first. Service in the IDF doesn't count.
You are correct. The rest of the world that falls under the USA "defense umbrella" can
afford extravagant social programs as they do not pay for their defense. In fact, WE are
required to pay rent on foreign bases in which to place our troops.
If I had my way, all foreign troop deployments would stop. Those countries requesting our
"protection" would have to pay for it.
Seems to me, that was one of President Trump's campaign promises–making foreign
countries pay for their defense.
You sir are an American hating leftist. The military, until the left decided it was the
government's job to provide cradel to grave care for everyone accounted for more than 75
percent of the federal budget. To complain that the military consumes 12 of the budget while
Medicaid consumes 50 percent is a straw man. Having been an infantry man I can tell you that
anyone who can do 20 or 30 years deserves a life long pension. Being a man is hard on the
body.
He's currently a court bailiff, a patronage job here, earning maybe in the low $30s. Plus,
his 20-year Army pension, plus his 20+-year postal service pension. He's a high school grad.
His wife is fully retired with a 20-year Army pension, and a teacher's pension with about 20
years in.
I'll take a wild guess their retirement income is no less than $100,000 a year in my very
low-cost area.
A go-figure sort of deal. Not just double-dipping. More than that, as you and other folks
here have said. It's a mentality, a mind-set. For some of the worst of those high-salary
government folks, there are only three types of Americans: Bill Gates and other billionaires,
government workers, and Americans who are too stupid to find a corporate or government milch
cow.
You're right, of course. These days I try to always write and say "the US government"
rather than "OUR government." I should have done the same with "US military."
Mandate that we first enlist, train, and promptly deploy any children and grandchildren of
all members of Congress, members of the President's Cabinet, federal judges, Federal Reserve
Board of Governors, and the CEOs/CFOs/CIOs etc. of military companies (including Northrup
Grumman, Boeing, and their ilk).
Looks like US military belong to the privileged class like it was in late Roman empire
Notable quotes:
"... This why career servicemen love the military, they are making 2-3 times more than comparable civilians, and they know it! Read my article if you are confused. Then many of these "retirees" leave at age 40 with nice retirement, then get a regular federal job, and put in for every minor ache and pain and get a thousand or more dollars each month in VA tax free "disability" pay. Sleep Apnea (aka snoring) is a popular disability to claim worth up to 50%. Some get 100% disability but you wouldn't know it if you met them, and still work for Uncle Sam full time! The LA Times reported that after Senator John McCain announced he was fit to run for President, he was getting military retirement, 100% tax free VA disability, his Senator pay and social security retirement! ..."
"... For me the pay and benefits aren't the core problem. We are paying to destabilize the world, kill US citizens, kill civilians, increase terror all for wars that don't benefit the American citizenry as a whole in any way. ..."
Today's United States has 2,083,000 soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen on active duty
plus reserves. Now that the military is an all-volunteer rather than a conscript force, it is
understandable that pay and benefits should be close to or equivalent to civilian pay scales.
Currently, a sergeant first class with 10 years in service gets paid $3968 a month. A captain
with ten years gets $6271. That amounts to $47,616 and $75,252 a year respectively plus
healthcare, food, housing, cost of living increases and bonuses to include combat pay.
Though there are several options for retirement, generally speaking a soldier, sailor Marine
or airman can retire after 20 years with half of his or her final "high three" pay as a
pension, which means an 18-year-old who enlists right out of high school will be 38 and if he
or she makes sergeant first class (E-7) he or she will be collecting $2338 a month or more for
a rest of his or her life adjusted for cost of living,
Many Americans would be astonished at the pensions that general officers and admirals
receive, particularly since 80% of them also land in "retirement" generously remunerated
positions with defense contractors either in active positions soliciting new contracts from
their former peers or sitting on boards. General David Petraeus, whom
The Nation describes as the "general who lost two wars," pulls in a pension of $220,000
even though he was forced to resign as CIA Director due to passing classified information to
his mistress. He is also chairman of a New York City based company KKR Global, which is part of
a private equity firm Kohlberg, Kravis Roberts. He reportedly is paid in six figures plus
bonuses for "oversee[ing] the institute's thought leadership platform focused on geopolitical
and macro-economic trends, as well as environmental, social, and governance issues."
It apparently is difficult to take money away from general and flag officers. An Air Force
four-star general named Arthur Lichte was reduced in
rank to a two-star in 2017 after he was found guilty of having raped a lower ranking woman
officer. His pension went down from $216,000 to $156,000 due to the reduction. Normally,
however, America's 1,000 general and flag officers can look forward to comfortable
retirements.
But on top of that rather generous bit of cash there are the considerable other benefits, as
the old recruiting sergeants would put it, the "bennies." Military retirees can receive full
tuition and expenses at a college or technical school if they choose to go back to school. This
is why one sees so many ads for online universities on television – they are trolling for
soldier dollars knowing that it's free money. The retiree will also have access to heavily
subsidized medical care for him or herself plus family. The medical care is a significant bonus
under the Tricare system, which describes itself on its website as "the gold standard for
medical coverage, [that] is government managed health insurance." A friend who is retired
recently had a hip replacement operation that would have cost $39,000 for only a few hundred
dollars through Tricare.
What is significant is that even enlisted military personnel can start a second career on
top of their pension, given that many of them are still in their thirties. Some that have
security clearances can jump into highly paid jobs with defense contractors immediately while
others also find places in the bureaucracy with the Department of Homeland Security. Working
for the government twice is called "double dipping."
Some would argue that military personnel deserve what they get because the jobs are by their
very nature dangerous, sometimes fatal. Indeed, the number of maimed and PTSD-afflicted
soldiers returning from the endless wars is a national tragedy and caring for them should be a
top priority. But the truth is that only a very small fraction, by some estimates far less than
20% of Army and Marine personnel in so-called "combat arms," ever are in danger. Air Force and
Navy personnel rarely experience combat at all apart from bombing targets far below or
launching cruise missiles against Syrians. It is true that given the volatile nature of war
against insurgents in places like Afghanistan many soldiers in support roles can come under
fire, but it is far from normal and most men and women in service never experience a gun fired
in anger.
Some numbers-crunchers in the Pentagon have already raised the alarm that the current pay,
benefits and retirement levels for military personnel is unsustainable if the United States
continues its worldwide mission against terrorists and allegedly rogue regimes. And it is also
unsustainable if the U.S. seeks to return to a constitutional arrangement whereby the nation is
actually defended by its military, not subordinated to it and being bankrupted by its
costs.
Wait, so this is a lefty Democrat blog now, where The Nation is cited favorably?
Our men in uniform, particularly the grunts, make sacrifices that the others don't make.
Sure, some officers are corrupt and the military manages to manufacture demand for its
expensive products, but this article goes way too far.
Captains with just eight years in service rake in over $100,000 a year with nothing more than
a four-year degree in history! Senior enlisted can also make over $100,000 a year with a high
school diploma, plus free family health care and zero contributions to retirement. After just
four years of service, a married GI is making more than the average American college graduate
with 20 years of work experience! I wrote about this several years ago for those who still
fall for the draft era "poor GI myth".
Note our military spends billions of dollars on recruiting ads, but never mentions high
pay. If they did, Congress may end the annual pay boost and lines would form at recruiting
stations. Even most "experts" and reporters are confused because military lobbyists use the
inflated ECI index (which includes increased health care and workers comp costs) rather than
just wages, and pretend housing and food allowances are not income. Even the average military
pilot earns twice a much as the average airline pilot, based on facts not Pentagon spin
stories.
This why career servicemen love the military, they are making 2-3 times more than
comparable civilians, and they know it! Read my article if you are confused. Then many of
these "retirees" leave at age 40 with nice retirement, then get a regular federal job, and
put in for every minor ache and pain and get a thousand or more dollars each month in VA tax
free "disability" pay. Sleep Apnea (aka snoring) is a popular disability to claim worth up to
50%. Some get 100% disability but you wouldn't know it if you met them, and still work for
Uncle Sam full time! The LA Times reported that after Senator John McCain announced he was
fit to run for President, he was getting military retirement, 100% tax free VA disability,
his Senator pay and social security retirement!
Now before some ignorant servicemen whine about those serving in combat zones or deployed
on ships, note that fewer than 10% of GIs ever serve in a real combat zone, not the fake ones
like Bahrain. They rate their pay, but not those working soft office jobs in Hawaii or San
Diego or Florida. Keep in mind that we have a volunteer force, and our military must constant
prune the career force since far too many want to stay in as long as possible. No one leaves
because of poor pay, but because of political BS.
I usually share your disdain for The Nation magazine. But in the vein of stopped
clock correctness twice a day even it can sometimes be correct, witness its editor Steve
Cohen's completely admirable efforts to lend sanity and substance to America's Russian
foreign policy!
I've seen articles decrying that first-year married privates are eligible for food stamps.
Because their housing, medical, and the cost of living differential are not "income". They're
living on more than twice the reported income. So yeah, they have arranged the pay precisely
so that they are not subject to any income tax, and are in some cases eligible for food
stamps.
They have rec vehicles they can check out, boats and four-wheelers, snowmobiles and etc.,
special parks and land reservations, scenic cabins they can stay at with trifling fees or are
free. Ours has a golf course that must be staggering for upkeep. Gyms, facilities for parties
and events – stuff you'd pay a lot for in the private sector. The subsidized shopping
is still there, but is not the huge discount it was at one time, at the bases in this
state.
The state gives them all kinds of benefits like instant residency for hunting and fishing.
The stores give them discounts. Military appreciation days.
And frankly it isn't your STEM people, business and tech fields going into the military.
Their next best alternatives are a pittance by comparison. For who you are getting, the
quality of recruit, this is well paid.
I don't mind that so much as having three times the size we need to defend our borders,
which is what we should be doing and no more. Foreign entanglements, searching for monsters
to destroy, acting as the world police – this is the main problem.
4% of GDP, is it? Not sure about that but I do know it's 30% of federal tax revenue.
Military spending is about $1 trillion, if you include
all the various categories , per annum; whereas Federal receipts are about $3.3 trillion
per annum.
So about 30% of all Federal tax receipts – 30% of the money stolen from me at
gunpoint, which forces me to labor for months every year without pay – goes to corrupt
contractors, murderers and war criminals to oppress and murder people and destroy property
throughout the world in service to the Evil Empire, including, of course, Jew supremacist
Israel.
So since you think it's so "bearable", you Evil Empire supporter, why don't you kindly
give me back my 1 month of stolen labor every year to pay for your beloved Evil Empire's
perpetual Campaign of Death, Oppression and Destruction?
Clearly is if you look at your debt to GDP and deficit.
Interesting because the US has its history as part of the English tradition of no standing
armies, militias, all possible due to the favourable geography of having a strip of water, or
moat as Shakespeare put it, to deter potential invaders. The US military really is a WWII and
Cold War creation. That the US seems to be the only nation not have benefited from the end of
the cold war dividend in reduced military spending is an impressive feat by lobbyists and
neocon ideologues.
For me the pay and benefits aren't the core problem. We are paying to destabilize the
world, kill US citizens, kill civilians, increase terror all for wars that don't benefit the
American citizenry as a whole in any way. At one time they might have been for
corporations now they are for Israel.
You're spot on. By the Late Roman Empire, society was divided into 2 groups – the
humiliores ( lower classes ) and the honestiores ( upper classes ). Soldiers belonged to the
latter group, and most historians consider that the common soldier never had a higher status
in any society.
History doesn't repeat itself exactly, but modern day America has largely followed the Roman
route. Certainly, the sheer cost of the Roman Military was a factor in the decline and fall
of the Roman Empire.
The Roman soldier had a much more dangerous period of military service than the risk averse
modern American military. Roman veterans certainly earned their benefits.
What is the real "defense burden" (the percentage of our GDP spent on the military) sans
bullshit accounting tricks and "reclassification" of expenses.
For example, if we used accounting methods as used in some of the more efficient, less
bloated military establishments of our allies, what would be the actual cost to our economy
of our defense spending?
For all we know, military expenditures may actually be back to Reagan Cold War percentage
levels, or slightly more.
Article didn't mention the dependency allowance. I looked on military websites to find the
amount but you have to be registered military to find the amount
There is a clothing allowance, why? And the military is heavily affirmative action
Hispanic black and female I live near a big VA. Twice a day hundreds of VA employees drive
right past my house. Almost all are black. I drive through the VA often. Most everyone I see
is black except for the Indian immigrant Drs.
California vets get some kind of no down payment low interest mortgage. When they retire
they can get a loan for $50,000 to use for setting up a business or buying rental
property.
Our men in uniform, particularly the grunts, make sacrifices that the others don't
make.
Based on my experience as a young kid, and observations as an old fart, I call BS on that
unless "sacrifice" has acquired a new meaning on the street that I'm unaware of.
US spends 4% of GDP on the military versus 2% in China, France, UK. That's high but
considering how rich the US is, not unbearable. Weak article.
The US is rich? Living on borrowed, stolen and extorted money and we're rich? The US has
become a huge third world strip mall republic, complete with an overstuffed and parasitic
military, and you think we're rich?The whole murderous,mendacious, thieving, and morally and
financially bankrupt enterprise is poor by any significant measure, so your "reasoning" is
what's weak.
Rank 'Ol Rummie spoke the truth once and it happened one day before the towers were
pulled.
Rumsfeld says $2.3 TRILLION Missing from Pentagon
"The adversary is closer to home; it's the Pentagon bureaucracy "
- Donald Rumsfeld on Sept. 10, 2001
PS: For those who don't know where the missile, err, "plane" hit the Pentagon on 9/11, do
a tad of research and tell me, with a straight face, that it was some coincidence.
Federal Debt $20 trillion, Accumulated Balance of Trade Deficit since 1990 $12 trillion (
unadjusted for inflation ). That's not even including State and Local Debt, never mind
Private Debt.
The only thing preventing complete bankruptcy is that the Dollar is the World's Reserve
Currency- for now. Once China and others start dumping US Treasury Bonds, that will be
over.
Two of my friends own motorcycle dealerships in San Antonio. Gee. I wonder how they can
sell so many, compared to dealers in towns without major military bases
We spend more than the next ten nations, COMBINED. To "defend ourselves" from goat herders
that can't afford passports or air tickets. 800 bases scattered across the planet. But,
thinking about it, folks like somalians have been invading the US OH. WAIT! Federal refugee
programs have been importing somalis. NEVER MIND.
We fight them there so we can bring them here and put them on welfare/food stamps? Makes
perfect sense.
I was in the field and in a number of firefights during my year in Vietnam, 69 – 70,
and I find the idea of some store or VA clerk thanking me for my service offensive as all get
out because I know these well meaning strangers, who owe me nothing at all, are being played
for fools to serve the interests of America's worst enemy, Israel and its American fifth
column. I'm also disgusted by this new breed of soldier who's less any sort of manly patriot
than a skin-headed, "muh brothers, muh mission" wind-up martinet who mistakes the vain
daintiness of pumping iron as well as technical superiority's easy targets for manliness. As
for the Pentagon, it's the mother of all bureaucracies whose leaders but for the costumes are
no more warriors than the time-serving hacks in any other bloated bureaucracy, who couldn't
care less, as the facts make clear, about sending young Americans to die and be maimed so the
sons of their Israeli masters need not.
I used to feel smug after jumping from the US military to banking in the knowledge that my
starting pay was several multiples of my military pay and even outstripped that of the JCS
heads who I served under.
Somewhere along the way, probably in the 2000s during the so-called War for Talent,
Federal civilian and military pay got a significant uptick well in excess of what the KSAs
(Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities) of these folks as measured by OPM and DoD, and there has
been no looking back.
Giraldi might be right that the troops are overpaid, but that is just the tip of the
iceberg that is the Military Industrial Security Academic Complex.
Defense spending is allegedly 3.6% of GDP ($700B / $19,000B) but is actually over 5% if you
factor in the hidden Defense spending. VA benefits, over $100B, nuclear arsenal covered under
Dept of Energy (my favorite) over $30B, Defense portion of debt service over $100B, and other
places that I'd have to dig up.
Defense spending is over 30% of the budget, the low ball 15% is only if you include social
security and medicare which you should not because that is covered by dedicated payroll
taxes. If payroll taxes were eliminated, those programs would go away but the budget deficit
would not be impacted. This is a trick that defense consultants play to make Defense spending
look smaller.
Defense spending is over 50% if you also discount our annual debt service, this is why the
$1.3T featured $600B for domestic vs $700B for Defense.
I thought that singling out military pay was a tad mean spirited. Capping pensions that
disproportionately benefit Generals who then go onto consulting jobs for Defense contractors
and get paid positions on FOX might be a good idea but I didn't like the tone of this
column.
No serious person who says they care about budget deficits can approach them without
looking at Defense Spending.
- Chris Chuba
One of the disturbing actions of the soldier worshipping conservatives is the Wounded Warrior
scam which uses crippled and deformed GIs in ads aimed at the heartstrings of the American
public. The fact that so many soldiers are returning from useless wars in dire condition
should be the responsibility of the Department of Defense (War) and its Government which is
responsible for the mayhem and violence in so many parts of the world not a subject for
organized begging which often preys on the suffering of the young.
Re; Mr. Giraldi's brave & unspoken words: "(ZUS military) Pay and benefits are way out of
control"
With a long history of planning & implementation, below, presstv explains how radical
"citizens" were headhunted & placed in control as to when & how our hallowed ZUS
troop commanders do their Jewish job assignments.
US is rich and the debt is high. Both can be true at the same time. But taxes are
relatively low so if there is a government debt crisis paying down the debt would just
involve raising taxes. Just look at GDP per capita US which is very high up there so I don't
see how anyone can argue the US is not a very rich country.
Despite many problems, the US has many advantages like half the world's Ashkenazim who are
very good at creating unbeatable new companies. Just look at how the half the 40 riches
entrepreneurs under 40 in the US according to Forbes are Jewish. Jews are producing so much
innovation in the US that it offsets a lot of the problems like military spending at 4% of
GDP and less productive sub-populations.
Good article, Phil. I served in the 1970s, tail end of Vietnam Stateside, and never heard a
shot fired in anger. I am grateful for the G. I. benefits I received.
No institution in a representative democracy ought to be above measured criticism. I have
a relative who volunteers at the local VA clinic, and there's some sketchy evidence that some
patients with very good group health insurance benefits are working the system and getting VA
treatment to avoid co-pays.
I personally found David Hackworth's criticism of the American military fairly persuasive.
Deep bureaucratization, tunnel vision, advancing officers for their inoffensiveness and
favor-currying chops, the whole mess.
Plus add the big three already mentioned by some folks above. (1) America's armed forces
are a Petri dish for social engineering, (2) corruption, (3) the political mafia-zation of
America's armed forces so that it's acting as a White House-directed quasi-mercenary
"enforcer" for corporate interests and various other sovereign interests.
"An Air Force four-star general named Arthur Lichte was reduced in rank to a two-star in 2017
after he was found guilty of having raped a lower ranking woman officer".
You say he was ***reduced in rank*** for raping a female subordinate?
Why wasn't he given 50 lashes, a dishonourable discharge, and a prison sentence? Even a
random civilian would get the prison sentence for rape. And for such a senior officer to
commit a crime like that is, of course far, far worse.
Israel and their ziocons control every facet of the U.S. gov and have used the U.S. army as a
proxy army of Israel to fight and die for Israel in the ME while they sit it out in their
ivory towers in Tel Aviv and New York City and London.
To add to the tragedy millions of civilians have been killed in these wars for Israel in
Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and Syria and Yemen and various other places through out the
ME, and all of this carnage for Israel.
Just like the Roman empire where the rulers paraded their conquering armies through Rome ,
Trump wants to parade his Israeli proxy armies through D.C. and take their review as a
Caligula. Trump is a puppet of the zionists and Netanyahu and his controllers the ROTHCHILDS
ie the RED SHIELD which is dripping with Americans blood.
Orwell was right, the wars never end in OCEANIA and we have become Oceania, and all
because of our zionist masters.
That was a very good article with lots of facts that I was unaware regarding the various
forms of compensation. I have not been in the miltary. I will tell you that I have seen how
things work on the procurement end, and that is the real shitshow, moneywise. The amount of
wasted money in personnel involved in trying to micromanage a contractor, the "generation" of
paperwork that must weigh 10X vehicle max-gross-weight in order to sign off on it, and other
things, ruin the job for the technician or engineer in any company making stuff for the US
military.
(BTW, that last sentence of mine brought up the only one (little tiny) thing that I didn't
like about the article. You KEEP USING "his and her", "he and she", etc. Enough of that crap,
please, Mr. Giraldi. Unz is one of a number of place on-line on which one doesn't have to be
PC. He can write as he pleases. The rest of your English is very professional,
so why this?).
Anyway, great article, just the facts and honest opinion without any hyperbole. Regarding
your very last paragraph, BTW, it's not just that the army is so costly, but if America ever
had to defend itself from one of the countries we buy parts from, cough, China , cough, cough,
that'll be a laugh. We are operating on borrowed money, as Jack S (#16) stated, AND foreign
supply lines. We're number 1! Yeah!
Among the lots of good comments on the thread so far, yours is kind of an outlier, to put
it nicely. No, you cannot be both rich and in debt (6 – 7 X more than your yearly
income) at the same time. . There are perhaps different definitions of broke that people
or families may use for themselves.
1) Out of spending cash – got assets, but awaiting more income before any spending
can resume. That's not too bad – it just shows lack of foresight or bad luck.
2) Broke even – got some assets, but owe the same amount – income is about the
same as expenditures expected. There are lots like this – they need to buckle down, but
will probably be OK.
3) Flat broke – can't borrow anymore due to bad payment history, even to friends and
family – not enough income to pay expenditures or even on this.
4) Broke like the US Feral Government – borrowing 1/3 of the money for the
$4,000,000,000,000 budget each year, as only 2/3 can be collected via personal
income/corporate income/excise/etc. taxes (just look near the back of the IRS 1040
instructions – they're not hiding this stuff). Total debt of $20,000,000,000,000 is 5 X
the budget each year and 6-7 X the income collected yearly. It is > 100 % of the total
GDP. There is no coming out of this hole without financial pain for almost everyone but those
with a Challenger or other large/medium-cabin business jet with precious metals stashed on an
island or S. American/Oriental country with a runway on your compound with armed guards.
"some"? Har-Dee-Har-Har. What percentage of people who separate from the military claim a
"service related disability"? With that designation they not only get the retirement benefit
bump but also set-asides for government jobs and contracts as well. Based on the number of
service related disability claims by veterans, the United States must have the most
physically fragile fighting force on the planet.
And in this age of stupid perpetual wars, every "disabled veteran" is assumed have been
shot up in the Middle East when if fact it's more likely they tripped on the steps on the way
back from lunch at Fort Leavenworth. That erroneous assumption of a combat related disability
is great for milking benefits from a sympathetic public.
And there's more. Sleep apnea claims as a service related disability by veterans have
exploded. Same with PTSD.
The web is saturated with advice on how to game the military disability system.
A vet I knew laughed as he told me he got a disability award for his knee. Only that
injury came from playing too much basketball at his U.S. base. Another "disabled veteran" I
know does Cross Fit to stay in shape. His most dangerous deployment was to southern Europe
where he met his wife. And yes, he advertises his disability on his business web site and
does qualify for government contract set-asides.
Too bad for the taxpayers though. Since the military has been sanctified by the powerful
Pentagon/MSM "Warrior-Hero" propaganda engine, challenging out of control military benefits
is a political and social third rail.
The web is saturated with advice on how to game the military disability system.
A vet I knew laughed as he told me he got a disability award for his knee. Only that
injury came from playing too much basketball at his U.S. base. Another "disabled veteran" I
know does Cross Fit to stay in shape. His most dangerous deployment was to southern Europe
where he met his wife. And yes, he advertises his disability on his business web site and
does qualify for government contract set-asides.
Too bad for the taxpayers though. Since the military has been sanctified by the powerful
Pentagon/MSM "Warrior-Hero" propaganda engine, challenging out of control military benefits
is a political and social third rail.
"... Iran's actions in the region were not the subject of the meeting where Haley said this, and talking incessantly about Iran to avoid addressing the issue at hand has become a typical maneuver for Haley whenever U.S. clients commit some outrage that she would rather ignore. ..."
The Trump administration's Iran obsession would almost be comical if it didn't have such a dangerous distorting effect on our
foreign policy. Iran's actions in the region were not the subject of the meeting where Haley said this, and talking incessantly
about Iran to avoid addressing the issue at hand has become a typical maneuver for Haley whenever U.S. clients commit some outrage
that she would rather ignore. Whether she is busy whitewashing Saudi coalition crimes in Yemen or running interference for Israel
after it massacres over 60 people, Haley's m.o. is to change the subject.
Haley also risibly
claimed that Israel was acting with restraint yesterday:
"No country in this chamber would act with more restraint than Israel has. In fact, the records of several countries here today
suggest they would be much less restrained," she said.
The ambassador's claim is absurd on its face, and it is an insult to the dozens of democratic states around the world that do
not behave this way. Haley also ignores that there are no other states in the world that keep millions of people trapped in a blockaded
enclave as Israel does with the inhabitants of Gaza. Not only would the vast majority of democratic governments not act as Israel's
government has acted over the last few weeks, but none would have any need to confront massive protests from a population that has
been deliberately starved and impoverished for more than a decade. The excessively violent response to the Gaza protests calls attention
to the cruel policy of collective punishment imposed on all of the people living in Gaza, and there is no excuse for either of them.
In an ongoing operation, the US imperialist hawks seek to wipe out the last Leftist governments in Latin America
Ten years ago, most of Latin America was governed by Center-Left progressive or even Leftist governments. For example, Cristina Fernandez
in Argentina, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Rafael Correa in Ecuador, Fernando Lugo in Paraguay, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Manuel Zelaya
in Honduras, and Lula da Silva in Brazil, just as an example. And Hugo Chavez, of course, in Venezuela. Since then, the so-called
'pink tide' has receded quite dramatically. Of these 10 governments that were Left of Center, only four remain. Nicolas Maduro in
Venezuela, Morales in Bolivia, Vazquez in Uruguay, and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. What happened? Some would argue that the US played
an important role in at least some of these changes.
Speaking to Greg Wilpert and the RealNews , Mark Weisbrot
explains the impact of the Leftist or Center-Left governments on Latin America, as well as the US efforts to overthrow these governments
and replace them by Rright-Wing puppet regimes. This is a struggle that has become common in a region that heavily suffers for decades
by the US dirty interventions as it is considered the backyard of the US empire and the primary colonial field for the big US corporations:
If you look at the region as a whole, the poverty rate dropped from 44 to 28 percent. That was from around 2003-2013. And that
was after the two decades prior where poverty had actually increased, there was no progress at all. So that was a huge change, and
it was accomplished in different countries, in different ways.
There were large increases in public investment in Bolivia and Ecuador. In Brazil you had also some increase in public investment,
big increases in the minimum wage. Every country did different things to help bring healthcare, and increase, in some countries,
access to education. And there were a whole lot of reforms, changes in macroeconomic policy, getting rid of the IMF.
So there were a lot of different things that these governments did that prior governments were either unable, or unwilling to
do to improve people's living standards during a period of higher economic growth, which they also contributed to.
When Right-Wing governments took over most of the continent you have different things that have changed.
One is, of course, they're implementing, as you would expect, Right-Wing reforms. Trying to cut pension system, the pension in
Brazil. Passing a constitutional amendment which, even most economists in the world wouldn't support in Brazil, which prohibits the
government from increasing spending beyond the rate of inflation. You have huge increases in utility prices in Argentina, laying
off thousands of public sector workers. So, everywhere where the Right has come back, you do have some regressive changes.
The US has been involved in most of these countries in various ways. Obviously in Venezuela they've been involved since the coup
in 2002, and they tried to overthrow the government and tried to help people topple the government on several occasions there.
In Brazil, they supported the coup against Dilma, the parliamentary coup. So, they didn't do that strongly, but they sent enough
signals, for example, as the House was voting to impeach Dilma without actually presenting a crime that she committed. The head of
the Foreign Relations Committee from the Senate came and met with the No3 official from the US State Department, Tom Shannon. And
then, in August of that year, the Secretary of State, John Kerry, went down there and had a press conference with the Acting Foreign
Minister, Jose Serra. And they talked about how great relations with the US were going to be before Dilma was actually removed from
office. So these were ways of endorsing the coup.
The FBI, the Department of Justice contributed to the investigation that was instrumental in imprisoning Lula. What they did in
that investigation we don't know exactly, but we do know enough about it to know that it wasn't a neutral investigation. That is,
the investigation did end up decapitating the Workers' Party for now. First helping get rid of Dilma, but more importantly, or more
substantially, in terms of its contribution, they helped put Lula in prison and prevent him from running for office.
In Paraguay, the US helped in the consolidation of that parliamentary coup by organizing within the Organization of American States.
In Haiti, in 2004, they took the president and put him on a rendition plane, and flew him out of the country. That was in broad
daylight.
In Honduras, is probably the biggest role that the US has played, both in consolidating the military coup in 2009. Hillary Clinton
acknowledged her role in making sure that President Zelaya, the democratically elected president, would not return to office, and
then more recently, in November, they helped consolidate the results of an election which pretty much all observers regarded as stolen.
In Argentina, other branches of government were involved as well as the executive, but the executive cut off lending from multilateral
development banks such as the Inter-American Development Bank, and tried to block loans at the World Bank, as well. And they restored
everything as soon as the Right-Wing government was elected. And then, there was Judge Griesa in New York, who took over 90 percent
of Argentina's creditors hostage in order to squeeze them so that the government would pay off the vulture funds. And this was very
political, because he also lifted the injunction as soon as you had the Right-Wing government.
This is very important, because obviously it's not necessarily a conspiracy of all these branches of government. The legislative
branch was involved in this as well, in the United States. But they all have the same mindset, and they're all trying to get rid
of these Left governments, and they had a massive contribution. In Argentina, that did contribute to the downfall of Cristina Kirchner.
It contributed to balance of payments problems that they had there. So this was important, and it's totally ignored in the United
States.
You have intervention in Mexico, for example. US officials have already said how worried they are that AMLO, Andres Manuel Lopez
Obrador, who is the frontrunner in the upcoming election in July. And he's probably going to win, but they're already trying to undermine
him, lobbying accusations of Russia involvement, which is the new trend. Of course, completely unsubstantiated.
In Venezuela they're doing something probably never done in the last 50 years, openly calling for a military coup, and actually
a financial embargo they've put in place, and threatening even a worse embargo if they don't get rid of the current government. So
that's a more aggressive form of intervention than you had even under the prior administrations.
A wave of neoliberal onslaught shakes currently Latin America. While in Argentina, Mauricio
Macri allegedly took the power normally, the
constitutional
coup against Dilma Rousseff in Brazil, as well as, the
usual actions
of the Right opposition in Venezuela against Nicolás Maduro with the help of the US finger, are far more obvious.
The special weight of these three countries in Latin America is extremely important for the US imperialism to regain ground in
the global geopolitical arena. Especially the last ten to fifteen years, each of them developed increasingly autonomous policies
away from the US close custody, under Leftist governments, and this was something that alarmed the US imperialism components.
Brazil appears to be the most important among the three, not only due to its size, but also as a member of the BRICS, the team
of fast growing economies who threaten the US and generally the Western global dominance. The constitutional coup against Rousseff
was rather a sloppy action and reveals the anxiety of the US establishment to regain control through puppet regimes. This is a well-known
situation from the past through which the establishment attempts to secure absolute dominance in the US backyard.
The importance of Venezuela due to its oil reserves is also significant. When Maduro tried to approach Russia in order to strengthen
the economic cooperation between the two countries, he must had set the alarm for the neocons in the US. Venezuela could find an
alternative in Russia and BRICS, in order to breathe from the multiple economic war that was set off by the US. It is characteristic
that the economic war against Russia by the US and the Saudis, by keeping the oil prices in historically low levels, had significant
impact on the Venezuelan economy too. It is also known that the US organizations are funding the opposition since Chávez era, in
order to proceed in provocative operations that could overthrow the Leftist governments.
The case of Venezuela is really interesting. The US imperialists were fiercely trying to overthrow the Leftist governments since
Chávez administration. They found now a weaker president, Nicolás Maduro - who certainly does not have the strength and personality
of Hugo Chávez - to achieve their goal.
The Western media mouthpieces are doing their job, which is propaganda as usual. The recipe is known. You present the half truth,
with a big overdose of exaggeration.
The establishment
parrots are demonizing Socialism , but they won't ever tell you about the money that the US is spending, feeding the
Right-Wing groups and opposition to proceed in provocative operations, in order to create instability. They won't tell you about
the financial war conducted through the oil prices, manipulated by the Saudis, the close US ally.
Regarding Argentina, former president, Cristina Kirchner, had also made some important moves towards the stronger cooperation
with Russia, which was something unacceptable for Washington's hawks. Not only for geopolitical reasons, but also because Argentina
could escape from the vulture funds that sucking its blood since its default. This would give the country an alternative to the neoliberal
monopoly of destruction. The US big banks and corporations would never accept such a perspective because the debt-enslaved Argentina
is a golden opportunity for a new round of huge profits. It's
happening right
now in debt colony, Greece.
"President Trump said Tuesday that the United States will withdraw from the landmark Iran
nuclear agreement and re-impose sanctions on Tehran, a decision that angered allies who fear
the prospect of a nuclear arms race in the heart of the Middle East.
Declaring that "the decaying and the rotten structure" of the 2015 agreement does not block
Iran from developing nuclear weapons, Trump said during a speech at the White House that "the
Iran deal is defective at its core."
"The United States could eventually be left with a losing choice between a nuclear-armed
Iran or another war in the Middle East," Obama said." USA Today
---------------
IMO Israel achieved a major victory today when the mentally limited US president, a man who
cannot deal with complex phenomena, was herded by; the Israelis, their American Zionist allies
and the chickenhawks now surrounding him across the goal line to withdrawal of the US from
JCPOA.
The imperialists (neocon faction) are SURE that Europe and Russia will kneel before the
throne of Trump the First in his City on the Hill.
The Israelis want the phantom menace of antisemitism crushed. The turn of Iran, Syria and
Lebanon has now come for a "cleansing." They want the Iranians made into a pastoral people who
have no foreign policy at all.
I am told that Israeli electronic counter-measure units started a massive jamming effort
against air defense assets in Syria three days ago. Israeli ground forces on the Golan Front
have been placed on high alert. IMO a false flag attack on Israel is likely. pl
"... A historically low percentage of our population -- less than half a percent -- actually serves in the military. Compare that to around 9% during the Vietnam War, and 12% during World War II. Remarkably few of us ever see combat, ever even know anyone who was in combat, ever get to hear firsthand stories of what went on or witness what life is like for such a returning veteran. Not surprisingly, America's wars now largely go on without us. There is no personal connection. Here in "the homeland" -- despite the overblown fears of "terrorism" -- it remains "peacetime." As a consequence, few of us are engaged by veterans' issues or the prospect -- essentially, the guarantee -- of more war in the American future. ..."
Memorial Day is over. You had your barbeque. Now, you can stop thinking about America's wars and the casualties from them
for another year. As for me, I only wish it were so.
It's been Memorial Day for me ever since I first met Tomas Young. And in truth, it should have felt that way from the moment I
hunkered down in Somalia in 1993 and the firing began. After all, we've been at war across the Greater Middle East ever since. But
somehow it was Tomas who, in 2013, first brought my own experience in the US military home to me in ways I hadn't been able to do
on my own.
That gravely wounded, living, breathing casualty of our second war in Iraq who wouldn't let go of life or stop thinking and critiquing
America's never-ending warscape brought me so much closer to myself, so bear with me for a moment while I return to Mogadishu, the
Somalian capital, and bring you -- and me -- closer to him.
Boom!
In that spring of 1993, I was a 22-year-old Army sergeant, newly married, and had just been dropped into a famine-ridden, war-torn
country on the other side of the planet, a place I hadn't previously given a thought. I didn't know what hit me. I couldn't begin
to take it in. That first day I remember sitting on my cot with a wet t-shirt draped over my head, chugging a bottle of water to
counter the oppressive heat.
I'd trained for this -- a real mission -- for more than five years. I was a Black Hawk helicopter crew chief. Still, I had no
idea what I was in for.
So much happened in Somalia in that " Black
Hawk Down " year that foreshadowed America's fruitless wars of the twenty-first century across the Greater Middle East and parts
of Africa, but you wouldn't have known it by me. That first day, sitting in a tent on the old Somali Air Force base in Baledogle,
a couple of hours inland from the capital city of Mogadishu, I had a face-to-face encounter with a poisonous black mamba snake. Somehow
it didn't register. Not really.
This is real , I kept telling myself in the six months I spent there, but in a way it wasn't or didn't seem to be.
After about a month, my unit moved to the airport in Mogadishu -- away from the snakes, scorpions, and bugs that infested Baledogle,
but closer to dangers of a more human sort. Within a few weeks, I became used to the nightly rat-tat-tat of machine gun fire
coming at us from the city. I watched the tracers streak by as we crouched behind our sandbagged fighting positions. We would return
from missions to find bullet holes in the skin or rotor blades of our Black Hawk helicopters, or in one case a beer-can-sized hole
that a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) round punched cleanly through the rear stabilizer without -- mercifully -- detonating.
And yet none of it felt like it was quite happening to me. I remember lying on my cot late at night, not far from the flight line
full of Black Hawks and Cobras, hearing the drone of low-flying American AC-130 gunships firing overhead for hours on end. The first
boom would come from the seaward side of the field as the gunship fired its M102 howitzer. A few seconds later, another
boom would mark the round's arrival at its target across town, sometimes with secondary explosions as ammunition stores went
up. Lying there, I remember thinking that those weren't the routine training rounds I'd heard a hundred times as they hit some random
target in a desolate training area. They were landing on real targets, actual people.
Two other memorable boom s come to mind -- one as we waited in the back of a sun-baked supply truck, heading out on a volunteer
mission to give inoculations to kids at a Somali orphanage. Boom . The ground shook to the sound of one of our Humvees and
the four Army soldiers in it being
blown apart by the sort
of remote-controlled bomb that would become a commonplace of insurgents in America's twenty-first century wars. And a second, the
loudest during my six months there, as a generator perhaps 20 feet from our tent exploded into flames from an incoming RPG round
that found its target in the middle of the night.
This is real . I kept saying that to myself, but truthfully the more accurate word would have been surreal . The
care packages I was receiving, the Tootsie Rolls and Cracker Jacks and letters from my wife back home telling me how much she missed
me might as well have been from another planet.
Our helicopters flew daily reconnaissance missions ("Eyes over Mog" we called them) above the Somali capital. We did battle damage
assessments, checking out pockmarked buildings the AC-130s had targeted the night before, or the shot-up safe house that Somali warlord
Mohamed Aidid -- our operation's target (just as the US would target Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, and the leaders of various
terror groups) -- had reportedly been using as a control center. Once a beautiful mansion, it was now riddled with thousands of bullet
holes and TOW missile craters.
We flew over Mogadishu's bustling marketplace, sometimes so low that the corrugated metal roofs of the stalls would blow off from
our rotor wash. We were always looking for what we called "technicals" -- pick-up trucks with machine guns mounted in their beds
-- to take out. Viewing that crowded marketplace through the sight of a ready-to-rock M-60 machine gun helped reinforce the message
that all of this was beyond surreal.
Lives were ending violently here every day, and my own life, too, could have ended at any moment. Yet it was just about impossible
to believe that all of a sudden I was in the middle of a violent set of incidents in a third-world hellhole, the sort of thing you
might read about in the paper, or more likely, would never hear about at all. You'd never know about our near-nightly scrambles to
our fighting positions behind a pile of sandbags, as the AK-47s cracked and the tracers flew overhead. It wouldn't even register
as a blip in the news back home. In some bizarre way, I was there and it still wasn't registering.
A Soldier Just Like Me
Just days after returning home from Somalia, I (like so many others) watched the footage of dead American soldiers -- at least
one a Black Hawk crew chief -- being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu by cheering Somalis. For the first time, I found myself
filled with a sense of dread, a profound that-could-have-been-me feeling. I imagined my mother looking at such a photo of me, of
her dead son's body -- as someone's mother was undoubtedly doing.
If my interior landscape was beginning to shift in unsettling ways, if the war, my war, was finally starting to come home, I remained
only minimally aware of it. My wife and I started a family, I got a civilian job, went to college in the evening using the GI Bill,
and wrote a couple of books about music -- my refuge.
Still, after Somalia, I found myself drawn to stories about war. I reread Stephen Ambrose's blow-by-blow account of the D-Day
landings, picked up Ron Kovic's Vietnam memoir, Born On The Fourth Of July , for the first time, and even read All Quiet
On The Western Front . And all of them somehow floored me. But it wasn't until I watched
Body of War , Phil Donahue's 2008 documentary about Iraq war veteran
and antiwar activist Tomas Young, that something seemed truly different, that I simply couldn't shake the feeling it could have been
me.
Tomas was a kid who had limited options -- just like me. He signed up for the military, at least in part, because he wanted to
go to college -- just like me. Yes, just like so many other kids, too -- but above all, just like me.
He, too, was deployed to one of America's misbegotten wars in a later hellhole, and that's where our stories began to differ.
Five days after his unit arrived in Iraq -- a place he deployed to grudgingly, never understanding why he was being sent there and
not Afghanistan -- Tomas was shot, his spinal cord severed, and most of his body paralyzed. When he came home at age 24, he fought
the natural urge to suffer in silence and instead spoke out against the war in Iraq. Body of War chronicled his first full
year of very partial recovery and the blossoming of his antiwar activism.
Just a few weeks after the film's release, however, it all came crashing down. He suffered a pulmonary embolism and sank into
a coma, awakening to find that he'd suffered a brain injury and lost much of the use of his hands and his ability to speak clearly.
The ensuing years were filled with pain and debilitating health setbacks. By early 2013, he was in hospice care, suffering excruciating
abdominal pain, without his colon, and on a feeding tube and a pain pump. Gaunt, withered, exhausted, he continued to agitate against
America's never-ending war on terror from his bed, and finally wrote a "
last letter " to former President George
W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney, airing his grievances, which got
significant media
attention .
When I read it, I felt that he might have been me if I hadn't lucked out in Mogadishu two decades earlier. Maybe that's what made
me reach out to him that April and tell him I wanted to learn more about what had happened to him in the years between Body of
War and his last letter, about what it meant to go from being an antiwar agitator in a manual wheelchair to a bedridden quadriplegic
on a feeding tube and under hospice care, planning to soon end his own life.
A Map of the Ravages of War
When I finally met Tomas, I realized how much he and I had in common: the same taste in music and books, the same urge to be a
writer. We were both quick with the smart-ass comment and never made to be model soldiers because we liked to question things.
Each moment we spent together only connected us more deeply and brought me closer to the self that war had created in me, the
self I had kept at such a distance all these years. I began writing his story because I felt compelled to show other Americans someone
no different from them who had had his life, his reality, upended by one of our military adventures abroad, by deployment to a country
so distant that it's an abstraction to most of us who, in these days of the All-Volunteer Army, don't have a personal connection
either to the US military or to the wars it so regularly fights.
A historically low percentage of our population -- less than
half a percent
-- actually serves in the military. Compare that to around 9% during the Vietnam War, and 12% during World War II. Remarkably
few of us ever see combat, ever even know anyone who was in combat, ever get to hear firsthand stories of what went on or witness
what life is like for such a returning veteran. Not surprisingly, America's wars now largely go on without us. There is no personal
connection. Here in "the homeland" -- despite the overblown fears of "terrorism" -- it remains "peacetime." As a consequence, few
of us are engaged by veterans' issues or the prospect -- essentially, the guarantee -- of more war in the American future.
Tomas understood the importance of sharing the brutal fullness of his story. For him, there were to be no pulled punches. When
I told him I wanted others to learn of his harrowing tale, of his version of the human cost of war, that I wanted to help him to
tell that story, he responded that he had indeed wanted to write his own book. He'd scrapped the project because he could no longer
write, and even Dragon voice-to-text software wouldn't work because his speech had become so degraded after the embolism struck.
Instead, he shared everything. Tomas and his wife, Claudia, opened their lives to me. I slept in their basement. During my periodic
visits, he introduced me to an expansive mind in a shrunken world, a mind that wanted to range widely in a body mostly confined to
a hospital bed, surrounded by books, magazines, and an array of tubing that delivered medications and removed bodily wastes in a
darkened bedroom.
"I need to be fed," he said to me one day. "Do you want to see what that's like?" Then, he lifted his shirt and showed me the
maze of tubing and scars on his body. It was a map of the ravages of war.
He was unflinchingly honest, sensing the importance of his story in a country where such experiences have become uncommon fare.
Like his comic book heroes Batman and the Punisher, he wanted to make sure that no one would have to endure what he'd gone through.
An All-Too-Real Life and Surreal Wars
Tomas Young's war ended on the night before Veterans' Day 2014 when he passed away quietly in his sleep. His pain finally came
to an end.
The bullets that hit him in the streets of Baghdad in 2004 brought on more than a decade of agony and hardship, not only for him,
but for his mother, his siblings, and his wife. Their suffering has yet to end.
Stories of the reality of war and its impact on this country are more crucial now than ever as America's wars seem only to multiply.
Among us are more than
2.5 million veterans of our recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. We owe it to them to read their accounts -- and an
increasing number of them are out there
-- and do our best to understand what they've been through, and what they continue to go through. Then perhaps we can use that knowledge
not only to properly address their needs, but to properly debate and possibly -- like Tomas Young -- even protest America's ongoing
wars.
It would have been perfectly understandable for Tomas to have faced the pain, frustration, and failing health of his final years
privately and in silence, but that wasn't him. Instead, he made his story part of our American record. To stay on top of important
articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com
here .
Mark Wilkerson spent eight years in the
US Army as an AH-1 Cobra and UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crew chief with the 3rd Infantry and 101st Airborne Divisions. He was deployed
with the 101st to Somalia for six months in 1993. He is the author of Who Are You: The Life of Pete Townshend and co-wrote
Pearl Jam Twenty . He has three children: Alex, Nick and Sam. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky, with his wife, Melissa. His
latest book is Tomas Young's War
(Haymarket Books).
Chinese leader Xi Jinping started his second term as President
last month and delivered his speech with a nationalistic appeal stating China's desire to take
up its "due place in the world." Xi seems to be taking the long way to achieve Chinese
superiority all over the world. Xi began his new tenure in an ultra nationalistic manner rather
than with a communist internationalist plea.
Prior to Xi's re-election, the Chinese Communist Party put "democratic weakness" aside as
the Chinese parliament endorsed a new law including removing the restriction that had limited
the presidency to two consecutive five-year terms. The Parliament justified the change as a
necessity to line up the presidency with Xi's two other, more powerful, posts -- head of the
party and of the military since they have no term limits.
The move was not unexpected; after his accession to power in 2012, Xi has chosen a rough,
hard but consolidated long road to walk. His way has differed from the way of his last two
predecessors. Xi's two precursors Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao strictly followed the rule of
collective leadership which was introduced by Deng Xiaoping to dilute the one man autocracy of
the Mao Zedong era by including a restriction limiting the presidency to two consecutive
five-year terms. Following the ending of Deng era, the power transforming processes were kept
free from disturbance.
After his ascent in power, Xi Jinping turned away from the path of his two predecessors and
wanted to be a Chinese thinker, pathfinder and philosopher like Mao Zedong.
In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping adopted the concept of OBOR as one of the greatest
investment projects in the history of the planet. Similarly, the USA launched the Marshall Plan
for reconstruction of Western Europe after the end of Second World War; the USA invested US$ 13
billion dollars which is roughly equivalent to US$ 130 billion in today's money. According to
news media China has already invested $ 1 trillion in OBOR and several trillion is due to be
invested over the next decade.
Chinese OBOR has the basic objective to gain both political and economic supremacy over
western countries. Following the Chinese revolution China's leadership strongly denounced
western capitalism and vowed to fight against US led "imperialism" & "expansionism". Mao
Zedong, founder of modern China emerged as a great competitor to US led capitalistic
leadership. He introduced and developed the three world theory. According to his theory, the
first world comprises USA led western countries, second world consisting of Soviet Union and
its allies and all countries of Asia except Japan, all countries of Africa & Latin America
are in third world. Mao Zedong intended to be the pathfinder for the third world countries to
struggle against western exploitation. Since the foundation of new China, the Chinese
leadership feels comfortable working with "third world" countries against western dominance.
China played a vital role in the Korean War and also in the Vietnam War against US
expansionism. China also wanted to export revolution to all third world countries but they were
not successful due to the lack of Chinese financial capacity or to avoid direct conflict with
other countries. Therefore, China's effort to export revolution was aired on propaganda
machinery rather than practically. As an example the Indian Maoist faction only got moral
support from China in the mid 60s, when they campaigned for an armed struggle to grow a
communist regime.
It seemed, the Chinese leadership was waiting for favorable circumstance and opportunity to
establish a proletarian third world.
After the death of Mao Zedong the Chinese leadership has gradually shifted from the policy
of exporting revolution towards exporting Chinese industrial products to third world countries.
China also shifted from a controlled economy to a free market economy. Under the communist
party leadership China turned into a capitalist country. China has the world's fastest-growing
economy with average growth rates of 10% over 30 years. The economic success of China has
developed a geopolitical ambition like Mao's to be a world player.
Now China is at its most prosperous in its history and present President Xi Jinping is the
most powerful leader after Mao Zedong. Under Xi's leadership, China has promoted vigorous
growth of military might and geopolitical influence. President Xi's aspiration is boosting
China to gain the prime role on the stage of the global power game and to subdue US dominance.
The rivalry between the USA and China is on a range of different issues such as the South China
Sea, cyber security, trade disputes, human rights and intellectual property rights.
After attaining power, Shifting from the previous policy of peaceful coexistence with its
neighbors, Xi has introduced a nationalistic and aggressive stance in foreign policy regarding
dealings with his counterparts. He is looking for geographical expansion of Chinese territory
and increasing the Chinese influence all over the world. China already has claims over almost
the entire South China Sea and its islands and reefs. The South China Sea is also claimed in
part by the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Brunei. China has constructed three
artificial islands in the South China Sea ignoring cries from its neighbors. Xi also took a
very strong stance on the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands issue with Japan and declared an Air defense
identification Zone in the area. Along with Japan, the US has opposed the Chinese actions in
the South China Sea.
Responding to US criticism, China was critical of the presence of the U.S. in Asia Pacific
Ocean waters and the US "strategic pivot" to Asia.
"Matters in Asia ultimately must be taken care of by Asians. Asia's problems ultimately must
be resolved by Asians and Asia's security ultimately must be protected by Asians", Xi told a
regional conference in Shanghai on 21 May 2014. Indicating the USA's interference in Asia Xi
called on Asian countries to unite and forge a way together, rather than get involved with
third party powers. Subsequent to this, Xi announced his One Belt and One Road initiatives to
persuade the world.
The 'One Belt, One Road (OBOR) consists of two routes-one overland "Silk Road Economic
Belt", another "21 st -Century Maritime Silk Road" in an objective to link China
economically to Europe through countries across Eurasia, Africa and the Indian Ocean. The land
corridors are China-Mongolia-Russia; China-Central Asia-West Asia; the China-Indochina
peninsula; China-Pakistan; and Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar. The OBOR will integrate of the
region into an interconnected economic area through building infrastructure, increasing
cultural exchanges, and broadening trade. China is investing to build infrastructure such as
railways, roads, ports, energy systems and telecommunications networks to implement OBOR. On
the Maritime Silk Road, China will invest to improve efficiency and security of the major sea
ports along the routes.
China's banks are providing massive funds for Chinese enterprise to construct infrastructure
while the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will provide loans for other countries.
AIIB has issued the first loans for Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Tajikistan. The Bank of
China has clarified that the Renminbi (Chinese currency) will be the main trading and
investment currency. Entering the Chinese Banks into new OBOR countries will promote the
globalization of the Chinese economy. China also called upon Chinese expatriates to invest in
OBOR projects.
The Chinese President has played his OBOR card when the USA, the prime competitor to China,
got an egotistic and unpredictable President like Donald Trump. XI's OBOR initiatives are
contending as the USA turns to isolationism and protectionism.
The USA and its allies are under threat of raising extreme nationalism and communalism.
Donald Trump likes to appear as a nationalistic President rather than an international player.
In the meantime, Donald trump decided to withdraw from the Paris climate treaty and ignore USA
global responsibility. On the contrary Chinese President Xi asserted his eagerness to implement
the Paris Climate treaty and intention to work with European leaders.
Emerging as European core ally, Xi also called for more Chinese responsibility for global
issues.
Xi's stance on global affairs impacted positively on his OBOR initiatives. Now the
relationship between China and Western Europe is at its highest level of cooperation since the
Chinese revolution. Therefore China got a very positive response from Western Europe regarding
OBOR initiatives.
So the conference on the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation, which was held
last May was participated in by representatives from all Western European countries including
Swiss President Doris Leuthard, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, and Italian Prime Minister
Paolo Gentiloni. Germany and France are not very enthusiastic about OBOR, but they look for
business opportunities which would come from OBOR. In a nutshell, every country of the planet,
even the USA private sector is keen to explore the cost and benefits of the enormously
ambitious project. It is not surprising that the OBOR initiative has belted a wide range of
countries from Asia and Africa to Europe and even South America.
Apart from heads of state, Executives of 61 international organizations attended the summit,
including UN secretary general António Guterres, president of the World Bank Jim Yong
Kim and managing director of the International Monetary Fund Christine Lagarde.
Leaders of ASEAN Countries including Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, Malaysian Prime
Minister Najib Razak, Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen,
participated in the OBOR summit and not surprisingly that they moved aside from their dispute
with China on the South China Sea.
However, OBOR have been criticized for dominating tiny economies through long-term control
of infrastructures, natural resources and associated land assets. China may control the OBOR
countries market, labor and exports through transferring Chinese-own production units to those
countries. Some also doubt the efficiency of Chinese Banks. Another allegation is that in the
context of security measures the Chinese Liberation Army could dominate all the geographical
routes of OBOR area and could intervene in internal affairs.
On the other side of coin, the OBOR countries will benefit from Chinese investment much more
than from World Bank or IMF loans. So, the OBOR initiative is universally welcomed by both
developed and developing countries. The Developing countries (Mao's Third World) have huge
demands for infrastructure development and required funding, which they can easily obtain from
the OBOR fund. Therefore the developing countries are very positive when they analyze the
objectives of OBOR.
Historically, the Chinese Dragon used to shock the world when it woke up from hibernation.
It woke up in 1949 from opium addiction and the Chinese Revolution (the first Dragon of New
China) surprised the world. Again the Chinese Dragon hibernated in the 1960s following Mao
Zedong's cultural- revolution. During the Cultural Revolution Mao Zedong closed the Chinese
door for 10 years but surprisingly he initiated opening the door for imperialist 'puppet-tiger'
USA through 'ping-pong' diplomacy. His step was very significant for awaking the new
Chinese-Dragon.
The whole world was astonished again when the Chinese manufacturing dragon, the second
dragon occupied the global market in 1980s. Nowadays, nobody can ignore Chinese commodities for
even a single day.
The third dragon is Xi's OBOR initiatives, the world is waiting for the outcome of OBOR,
which has already commenced its journey and roams across all the continents and oceans of the
planet.
Sazzad Haider is a writer and filmmaker living in Bangladesh. He edits The Diplomatic
Journal.
"... Several years ago Putin made a speech at the UN in favor of upholding International Law I thought at the time this "diplomatic statesmanship" was going to be Putin's way of bring Russia back into equal power with the Europeans and the US. Some have wondered and been asking about Putin not being as aggressive as he could be in defending Syria and Iran. Putin's holding off on tough talk/action could be amassing more power in the end. Putin comes off as the voice of sanity..exactly what the Europeans want to hear and see. ..."
Several years ago Putin made a speech at the UN in favor of upholding International Law I
thought at the time this "diplomatic statesmanship" was going to be Putin's way of bring
Russia back into equal power with the Europeans and the US. Some have wondered and been
asking about Putin not being as aggressive as he could be in defending Syria and Iran.
Putin's holding off on tough talk/action could be amassing more power in the end. Putin comes
off as the voice of sanity..exactly what the Europeans want to hear and see.
As Europe turns away from the US they turn to Putin.
If anyone remembers all the Jew rags making fun of "old Europe" during the Iraq war run up
and urging that the US break with them as outdated relics no longer needed in the new modern
age -- this is what it was all about -- separating the US from its traditional allies who
were not as subservient to Israel as the US. So .now we are down to the Jew plan Europe and
sanity vr the US Orange Clown and his allies of midget Nazi Israel, Saudi and the UAE.
Germany begs Russia to pick up the torch that US has dropped
"Germany's Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, who has a history of expressing anti Russian
rhetoric relevant to Russia's presence in Syria as well as an alleged cyber attack on the
German Foreign Ministry which Maas says that he 'has to assume stemmed from Russia', has
turned an about face. He has traveled, for the first time, to Moscow to discuss international
diplomacy, the Iran nuclear deal, peace talks on Ukraine, and Syria.
Maas met with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, where he encouraged Russia to
leverage its influence with Iran to help spur the Middle Eastern state in remaining committed
to the nuclear deal, which Trump abandoned earlier in the week.
Germany's Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, who has a history of expressing anti Russian
rhetoric relevant to Russia's presence in Syria as well as an alleged cyber attack on the
German Foreign Ministry which Maas says that he 'has to assume stemmed from Russia', has
turned an about face. He has traveled, for the first time, to Moscow to discuss international
diplomacy, the Iran nuclear deal, peace talks on Ukraine, and Syria.
Maas met with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, where he encouraged Russia to
leverage its influence with Iran to help spur the Middle Eastern state in remaining committed
to the nuclear deal, which Trump abandoned earlier in the week.
Maas then declared that Germany was interested in bringing back the peace talks on the
Ukraine, together with other European partners. Maas also pointed out that the Syrian
conflict can't be settled without Russia, before contributing a wreath to the tomb of the
unknown soldier, which is a dedication to Russian soliders who died fighting the Germans in
WW2.
Deutsche Welle reports:
Germany's top diplomat Heiko Maas and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov both called
for the nuclear deal with Iran to be upheld on Thursday, during Maas' first official visit
to Russia. The appeal marks a rare moment of unity between Moscow and Berlin just days
after US walked out on the 2015 accord.
In Moscow, Maas urged Russia to influence Tehran and make it stick to the deal, which
aims to limit Iran's alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. The German foreign minister also
said he was seeking details from the US on its plans for future sanctions against Iran
US President Donald Trump has shrugged off pressure from allies to keep the deal in place
and called the accord "defective at its core." However, leaders of the UK, France, and
Germany all contacted Iranian President Hasan Rouhani in the attempt to salvage the
accord.
Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel called Rouhani on Thursday to reaffirm Germany's
commitment to the deal "as long as Iran continues to fulfil its obligations," said Merkel's
spokesman Steffen Seibert. Merkel also said she was ready to negotiate about Iran's
ballistic missiles and involvement in Syria and Yemen.
Angela Merkel is also set to visit Russia next week.
Visiting Moscow on Thursday, Germany's top diplomat Maas suggested reviving the peace
talks between Germany, France, Ukraine and Russia on the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
Lavrov responded by saying Russia was "ready to consider" this offer.
Maas also called for "honest dialogue" with Moscow and for Russia to be included in
global diplomacy, despite its differences with Berlin. Maas admitted that the conflict in
Syria "cannot be solved without Russia."
The German diplomat also laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Moscow,
which is dedicated to the Soviet soldiers killed during World War II.
Also in a bid to get Russia to assume a leadership position relative to preserving the
nuclear deal, and by extension, the European economy, Merkel got on the phone with Russian
President Vladimir Putin, where he mutually voiced his concern over Trump's action, and
where Merkel also came forward about the situation in Syria.
TASS reports:
BERLIN, May 11. /TASS/. Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Peter Altmaier
has confirmed that he will visit Moscow at the beginning of the next week, he said in an
interview with German radio station Deutschlandfunk released on Friday.
"I will follow my colleague [German Foreign Minister Heiko] Maas, who attended
negotiations in Moscow yesterday. I will be there on Monday and Tuesday, and Chancellor
[Angela Merkel will visit Sochi -- TASS] during the week," Altmaier said.
The man who launched the war on Iraq now gets
awards . Netanyahoo is
agitating for war on Iran just like he agitated
for war on Iraq. Shady groups of
nutty "experts"peddle
policy papers for 'regime change'. U.S. "allies" are put under pressure. With their
willingness to "compromise" they actually further the prospect of
war . When they
insist on sticking to international rules malign
actors prepare
measures to break their resistance. All that is still just a "shaping operation", a
preparation of the battlefield of public opinion. This buildup towards the war will likely take
a year or two.
What is still needed is an event that pushes the U.S. public into war fever. The U.S.
typically uses false-flag incidents - the Tonkin incident, the sinking of the Maine, the
Anthrax murders - to create a psychological pseudo-rationale for war. An Israel lobbyist
begs for
one to launch war on Iran.
One wonders when and how a new 9/11 like incident, or another Anthrax scare, will take
place. It will be the surest sign that the countdown to war on Iran has started.
Posted by b on May 12, 2018 at 06:35 AM | Permalink
Because of their large inertia, these things, when they get moving, cannot be stopped and
proceed to the inevitable. The ziocons have pushed the boulder and it's starting to roll.
It is starting to be frightening now.
The United States is a terrorist state by any measure.
A terrorist state not even in the control of its own population
It is inflicting financial terrorism across the planet.
It is exerting extortion, greed and tribute on behalf of an occupying power in the western
portion of Palestine.
Bombing and destroying any nation standing in the way of that terrorist nation's expansion
and occupation.
When are the world's nations finally going to get together and refuse US imposed vassalege
fronting for these occupiers.
And when will they start standing up for their own populations and people everywhere?
must be faced down and stopped or their is no free world and no future of one.
Careful what you wish for. The continued war making that the U.S. is engaged in today, just
may include getting bit in that place where the sun don't shine. The country is overextended
militarily, hasn't the ability to defend all theaters, and contrary to what some assume, the
anti-war thinking is growing. Lessons learned from Viet-Nam, not what one may think.
There isn't the same unity throughout the powers that be, particularly in the mainstream
media, that there was when Bush was President. Trump through the hatred he generates
theoughout the 'upper crust', makes it hard for many deep staters to get on board a war drive
he would lead.
And as you said, b, Trump needs a real or false flag, one with many casualties, and
something that won't fall apart from lack of evidence and a few days of rational scrutiny.
Sounds like a job for the Saudi mercenaries, Al Qaeda or ISIS.
People in high places are leaving due to team Trump threats.
Receiving mail from team trump employed black cube is no small thing. Kudos to you b for
sticking with it.
Two thoughts on US going to war with Iran. 10 It will destroy the US or certainly the US
empire and hegemony. 2) Iran needs plenty of help and respect during and after as they will
destroy the US. Not physically, but they will destroy US power.
What do those ziocons have in their hands that lets them get away with it over
and over again?
Posted by: Gesine Hammerling , May 12, 2018 8:04:24 AM |
6
What do those ziocons have in their hands that lets them get away with it over and over
again?
Posted by: Gesine Hammerling | May 12, 2018 8:04:24 AM |
6 /div
The question we all want to know is, did Trump appoint lunatic Bolton entirely of his own
volition, or was he forced to appoint this psychopath? The reach of the US deep state seems
to be limitless. A curious thing happened the other day when someone in the US administration
announced that America would no longer be funding the white helmets propaganda outfit. Over
here in the UK parliament an opposition member of parliament was practically foaming at the
mouth with rage and demanded of prime minister Mrs May that the UK would be continuing to
fund the white helmets. When she assured him that the UK was fully behind the white helmets
and that funding would remain in place, there was a cheer from around the house. I'm amazed
that Bolton allowed the administration to cut off funding when even the UK idiots in
parliament want to fund the propaganda arm of the head choppers.
I am just curious to know how much influence John Bolton can exercise as National Security
Advisor: is his position part of the President's Executive Office and does he (Bolton, that
is) have a department to answer to him and a budget? Is his position any more secure than,
say, Mike Pompeo as Secretary of State?
The more that Trump is pushed into a corner by investigations of various scandals, the more
he needs something to distract from them. A war in a far-off country would be the perfect
thing to get people rallying around the President.
Jen @9:
From what I understand, Pompeo is much higher on the food chain. The SoS is in the line of
succession; advisors are not. I believe the position is just a single individual with closer
access to the POTUS.
I said it many times before, and I can safely repeat it again, there wont be a hot war with
Iran. Entire NATO couldnt defeat Iran, and US would go alone (maybe Israel would piggyback
few shots). It would end as catastrophe for US and de-facto end as the main superpower.
Pentagon (and even CIA) are many things, but suicidally stupid isnt one of them, neither is
Trump, or even Nutjobyahoo.
What we will see is more sanctions (to try to create civil unrest) and another "color
revolution" endeavor, and it will fail too.
Trump coopted by the neo-cons? Exactly what lever would they have on Trumpty Dumbdy that
isn't already public knowledge? Misogyny, Philandering?... already tried that pussy-grabbing
Stormy front. Financial improprieties? That Trump Inc. was/is a serial bankrupt corporation,
even screwing low-income students and any building contractor it could?... Old news. That
Trumpty Dumbdy is too stupid to read the full documentation presented to him, that he can't
write/deliver a coherent, logical line of thought?... obvious from well before the day he
officially declared his candidacy.
Trump (and his real estate "empire") was and is a product of the Rothschild cabal, and he
was deliberately foisted on the US electorate to be the only one in the country Killary could
beat... OOPS!
So we are now seeing Plan-B, where Trumpty is manipulated and browbeaten to shed the few
shreds of intelligence and decency he still possessed. All the Deep State/Rothschild-enablers
have to do is appeal to Trumpty's fragile ego, or Melania's emotional jags, and they are in
control.
But even Bolton's ilk must know Russia and China will not stand by while FUKUS/Nutty/MBS
openly attack Iran. Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya show the likely course of events where the
Zionists are allowed to carry on with the Yinon Plan. Syria is the line in the sand, despite
Erdogan trying to play the US off Russia for historical gotcha gains. Don't forget, Erdogan
owes his life to Putin, who ensured the US coup failed by targeting the rogue Turk jets
tasked with shooting Erdogan's plane down... I'd bet the Turk pilots were told that if they
even turned on their targeting systems, they would be shot down... self preservation is a
strong deterrent.
Israel/Saudi on their own cannot withstand even Syria, Hizbolla and Iran directly, even if
the russian military only backstopped the Syrian alliance. Ahe US public won't tolerate
another Iraq debacle, as zero body bags landing at Edwards AFB is the limit. Let alone that
Iran would be Iraq on steroids especially for the several 1,000 in the western Syria caldron.
It's a big caldron right now, but with Russian-manned mobile S-400's/etc. protecting all
Syrian, Iranian and possibly Iraqi airspace, those soldiers/mercenaries are sitting ducks
after the first bomb lands in Iran.
Apologies if following musings are a bit disjointed.
American chronic hostility towards Iran, and long standing American economic and
informational and low-level war gainst Iran, has an insane, out-of-touch with reality,
ideological/mythological tinge/component to it. I won't try a broad psycho-analysis, or
assemble many possible reasons why that might be.
But among those possible components there is a long standing implacable totalitarian bent
to US power wielders, reflected in their ordained geo-political communications in the United
States. The American economic sanctions and continuously variously hostile policy towards
Cuba over more than half a century is an example. The former 'brothel dof the Caribbean' was
apparently fine for the US, and the death squad ridden countries of Central America are quite
acceptable, but Cuba out of the capitalist orbit? Cuba as attempting a different ideology,
and approach: terrible recalcitrant. The very demon of the hemisphere.
In his revelatory book The Praetorian Guard, former CIA John Stockwell noted that as he
was growing up, basically nobody questioned the prevailing American ideology and system. Real
searching basic debate was absent. Within the context of a culture where freedom of speech is
technically prioritized, lauded as an ideal, somehow self-censorship and discussion is
limited to within-the-box of convention, thus discussion as scripted theatre, propaganda,
dominated overwhelmingly.
No real debate, but what was repeated ad infinitum were messianic messages'we swear
allegiance to the flag', we're number one, we're the free world, we're the good guys.
After the JFK coup d'etat, basically everything in American media became an exercise in
controlling all political discourse and trying like crazy to make sure pretense prevailed.
This was if anything accentuated after the 9/11 false flag treasonous mind-f**k.
There was also a deadly military doctrine adopted by the US after WW2, when segments of US
power decided to go for global military domination, basically permanent war and war
preparation. The cliche is that the first casualty of war is truth, but in the case of the
United States, doubly so, as that train had already left the station.
The United States is a kind of astonishingly cautionary historical example of the deranged
trajectory that dishonesty, pretense and censorship as normalized and dominant will ensure.
So many natural advantages, but the external manifestation of the US became mass murder and
subterfuge; internal problems of the US are festering, metastisizing, and tens of millions of
Americans are deeply demoralized, anxiety ridden, emotion-related
drug-medication-dependent.
Back to Iran. A few years ago while driving in the evening I turned on the car radio and
the first words I heard from a (Jewish) talk show host on a Toronto station was the question:
Do you think the Americans have the balls to nuke Iran? Really bizzarre sick question that
apparently could be sent out glibly and sefely into the Canadian political discussion
universe as an intellectual feat. And on numerous occasions for many years it has been
commonplace in Canadian mass media to depict Iran in a hostile, negative light. And as German
writer Udo Ulfkotte bravely told us before his untimely death, the CIA also influences and
controls and thus contaminates much of European mass media communication.
So the American insanity and dishonesty and war mongering is playing itself out on a broad
stage, (witness the truly crazy pathetic British government's behaviour of late) and crazy
people do crazy things, so yah, Iran is still in the crosshairs. But there is a kind of
desperate, fading, dated quality to the American obsession with 'evil Iran', and lies and
make-believe and insanity cannot escape colliding with reality. The collision can make a
helluva a mess, but at some point hopefully the pendulum swings towards a reassertion of
sanity and decency and honesty.
How many times will Americans shoot themselves in the foot for Israel and fairy tales?
"But even Bolton's ilk must know Russia and China will not stand by while FUKUS/Nutty/MBS
openly attack Iran"
It appears Putin and Russia have decided to sit all this out. While Putin was enjoying the
Victory Parade with Netanyahu,,, Netanyahu was bombing his ally Syria. Putin was all smiles
and so far all we hear is crickets.
Putin will sell his S-400 systems to anyone that wants them EXCEPT Syria and all they want
is the S-300.
I don't know what's going on but as far as Russia is concerned I wouldn't bank on their
helping Iran.
China? China can be purchased like cloths on a rack.
No,,, I think it's pretty open right now for the US to attack Iran. Whether it can survive
a war with Iran is doubtful,,, but that's never stopped them before.
Yes "take out" as I defined not through occupation/invasion but fighter jet strikes and/or
from sea. That wont take more than 1 day for 3 top Nato nations.
I wonder what is going through the minds of Kim and the South Korean leadership. It is
obvious that the US is not agreement capable. What sort of guarantees can the US provide.
Even if China and Russia provide guarantees it may not be enough. Kim sees that if a deal is
made, then the crippling sanctions could be reimposed or remain. Kim and his sister are not
stupid.
Neocons and Bolton are Trotskyites. Permanent Revolutionists
The ruling elite never really knew how dumb people were until the internet and social
media. With the help of Trumps supporter and Facebook investor Thiel and his company Palintir
and Facebook to help them figure out all the data they collected, they know they can make the
cattle believe anything without making it believable to anyone with an IQ under 120
The few that figure it out without being members of the cult are isolated and
inconsequential.
Plato told us what he hoped would happen. Leo Straus who is the godfather of the neocons
emphasized Platos Noble Lie which is behind all of todays fake news/history . Plato was
heavily influenced by Irans Zoroastrianism
I believe elements behind the reformation in the 16th century and Sabbateans from the 17th
century, Frankists , Freemasons and Jesuits from the 18 th century and Zionists , and
Martinists and Marxists from the 19th century joined forces to create a NWO that is a
Luciferian cult of Global Synachrists
The neocons are the latest manifestation of the Synarchists, and unfortunately for the
world this means global terror much like the Rothschild back Trotsky hoped to accomplish
in
the 20th century before being thwarted by Stalin. It also means the end of Religion as
Neocons corrupt Protestant Christianity, in US and Across the Atlantic while CIA controlled
Jesuit Pope Francis destroys Catholicism. Zionism and the Holocaust wiped out Torah believers
and the GWOT and neocons are proceeding to destroy Islam after corrupting it with Islamism
with help from the Saudi Arabias corrupt Wahhabism which has spread Islamic extremism along
with US and Israel
For those who believe the US can be destroyed, you are in denial. There is no stopping the
US/Israel//British/EU alliance. The only hope is that once the perpetual revolution is over
that the philosopher kings described by Plato will be merciful. Unfortunately, given many of
them are neo-malthusians who think most of humanity are worthless consumers of Gaias precious
resources, i am not optimistic
However you would define war US (Israel) and Iran is at war footing for decades, nothing new
here, so I would not panic here that Bolton would do something.
It cannot be more clear that as much as Trump is a flaccid clown of ignorance and
belligerence to cover up his tax evasion crimes from Muller, Bolton plays role of barking
poodle that all, did not get anything done what global oligarchic interests tell him or he
will be put down.
And Please do not compare Iran to Iraq especially after two Iraqi wars, Iran is in
position to cause major damage to global oligarchic interests and hence there will be no
escalation despite fire and fury rhetoric as it was in NK case, it is all about reintegration
of Iranian oligarchy to global oligarchic country club and what we witness is negotiating of
condition of selling out Iranians to neoliberal globalists and by that advance a step in
isolating Russia to achieve the same purpose, surrender to globalism.
Also I do not see Netanyahu welcoming hundreds of Iranian missiles landing in Tel Aviv as
Saddam only shot few Soviet museum item at Israel and back then all hit their however random
targets. There would be no random targets this time so there would be death and vital damage,
not to mention that Israel could loose Golan Height in the process. Also there is no way in
hell for US to invade Iran, or gather 600k troops as it was in 1991 for one quarter Iran size
Iraq.
I know that spreading fear brings clicks but here on this blog we know better than
that.
Don't underestimate Trump. He came to office on an audacious promise to drain The Swamp. It's
a very specialised task. It was never going to be easy and I'm quite certain that he went in
knowing that his first misjudgement would probably be his last. I don't know how to drain The
Swamp but if Trump thinks he can then I do too. I've been pleasantly surprised at his ability
to engage with senior officials on the World Stage and appear Presidential. Compared with
bumbling fools like Ronny Raygun, Jimmy Carter and Dubya, Trump leaves them for dead in the
"100% on the ball" stakes. Whilst I'm waiting, with fingers crossed, I console myself with
the following thoughts:
1. Hillary would have been worse.
2. The non-people he wants to neutralise are the worst bunch of scum and arseholes on the
planet.
3. Since he's the only person with a Swamp plan, we shouldn't be too picky about his timing
and tactics.
4. Trump is an extremely clever individual.
thanks b... and thanks for the atlantic article from peter beinart... i thought it was a good
article.. here's a quote from it "More than 60 percent of Republicans, according to a March
Pew Research Poll, think the United States was right to invade Iraq. George W. Bush's
approval rating among Republicans, according to a January CNN poll, is 76 percent." and "It's
rare to see non-Americans on political talk shows. That matters because non-Americans
overwhelmingly think pulling out of the Iran deal is nuts. And non-Americans are more likely
to raise fundamental questions about American nuclear policy -- like why America isn't
pushing for inspections of Israel's nuclear program, and why America keeps demanding that
other nations denuclearize while building ever more nuclear weapons of its own."
then you can read @20 Robert Snefjella post - thanks robert - and note the radio interview
from toronto..
sorry to say, but this 'neo-con' term is a quick term to describe so much of what looks
like the koolaid american citizens drink regularly.. and there is plenty of it to go around
in canada too..
americans by and large look like a nation of idiots, spoon fed everything they know..
i tend to agree with harrys view @13... colour revolution will continue.. but unlike
harry, i do believe the bombs will fall and we will enter some type of ww3 scenario.. the
usa-israel are too much led by the neo con koolaid to step away from any of their ongoing
insanity.. i just can't see the insanity stopping with rational, reasonable people having a
say.. so, maybe i don't fully agree with harry other then in the short term..
I agree with your assessment that Trump is a very clever individual - when it comes to
manipulating the media and distracting from his words and actions, but I disagree with every
other assertion you have made and find that he has filled his administration with grifters
and con artists that rival the days of Grant or Harding.
And if you have grown up in America under DACA and are about to be deported or are losing
your health insurance coverage because key provisions of ACA have been overturned, just try
reciting "Hillary would have been worse!"
Utter nonsense. The US and Israel are coward bullies. They will pounce when the odds are
good, but they are quite rational about when they are not. There have been endless threats
and sabre rattling by the US and Israel against Iran for decades, but they never followed
through. They will most certainly not do so now, when the relative military position of Iran
is better than ever. And this "crying wolf" article will join the the countless others
written before on the junkpile of historical falsification...
There is a strong delusion that maintains its satanic grip on the "leadership" in DC.
The depiction of Mordor in Tolkien's "Fellowship of the Rings" series is very fitting in
describing the present pure evil and absolute darkness of those who plan for war and
destruction in the secret chambers in the upper echelons of our society.
What will stop the madness, death, and destruction that has rained down and continues to
rain down on so many millions of hapless men, women, and children in the Middle East and
abroad? Will it take a few US cities completely destroyed and hundreds of thousands of
Americans vaporized before the insanity of US Empire is stopped?
I pray for peace for the sake of my children and grandchildren. I pray for a "great
awakening" amongst the nations of the world to demand an end to the evil US/Zionist madness
before it is too late.
Any US attack on Iran will be by air, not ground. Though special ops will be inserted in the
Afghan border provinces (where the last protests were the largest, fertile ground for
insurgents).
Missiles of all kinds will fall on the regime, the military, the Quds, the militias.
And it will be huge, maybe the largest, heaviest attack ever. Once the air defenses are
down, bombers will cover the major infrastructure sites with the heaviest bombing since
Belgrade and Nam.
Only when the UNSC convenes, probably, no sooner than five or six days, will the attack
slow or cease.
Iran will have been set back a few decades. That is the soft goal. The harder goal will be
the insurgency and destabilization of the regime and final regime change.
It will take nothing special for this attack to happen. Trump has already made up his
mind.
When it will happen is when the US and Israel feel they can suppress the Hezbollah missile
threat. Until they have a workable plan for that, not much can happen on a large scale.
But it will come. Small or large, a missile attack will come to Iran. The regime is in the
sights of the Hegemon.
Top 3 nato countries could take out Iran military within a day, but nato cannot invade,
occupy it in my opinion.
Rubbish.
I assume you're referring to countries other than the United States. In which case, you do
know that Germany has about half-a-dozen airworthy attack aircraft, the Royal Navy and
France's aircraft carriers would require just about every ship in the other European navies
to protect them and part of the reason the British and French begged the United States to
intervene in Libya was because they'd run out of PGMs.
Give the European NATO countries a couple of years to build up their forces and force
projection skills and European NATO might be in a position to bomb Iran, but as soon as they
started building up their forces in the Gulf States, Iran could go to the UNSC to demand that
this obvious aggression should be stopped and when FUKUS veto any resolution, Iran has carte
blanche to launch preemptive strikes across the Persian Gulf. End of European NATO's war on
Iran
And after the Iraq fiasco, I suspect the only country that would go to war without a UNSC
resolution is the United States. Germany would almost certainly decide to sit it out, France
most probably would and the UK would probably also sit it out.
Finally, even if the top 3 NATO countries did try to get away with a limited air attack,
the best response for Iran would be to sink every ship in the Persian Gulf and go on doing so
until the United States invades and becomes bogged down in a quagmire far worse than Iraq or
Afghanistan.
I have to agree with those who say a direct attack on Iran is imminent. Sure, some would love
this to happen whether Yahoo or Bolton but for now will be happy to apply the "squeeze" of
sanctions, ostracism/propaganda. The goal seems to have been to destroy and if not that, then
to set the countries back ... under the thumb as it were.
Yes, the US with some assistance could rip Iran's military apart but not take over the
country. A majority are somewhat satisfied with the theocratic setup. They know the history
with the US/West. And how would Iran react? Long range attacks on Israel or much
closer-to-home attacks on the Gulf States and the Saudis as well as blocking at Hormuz?
Saddam lobbed a few Scuds at Israel and Riyadh but didn't have much. Iran has more and better
missile tech ... which TPTB are going after now ... while Yahoo still pushes "nuclear
programs" since he knows (like Iraq) there are no real weapons there.
The US will do everything possible to reimpose sanctions. Hence gaining control of the IAEA
and inspection process. This is designed to offer the Europeans a face saving way to back
down and submit to US will regarding sanctions. It will probably succeed. Europe, whether it
likes it or not, is playing good cop in the game.
War, as in an actual US attack in Iran itself, is pretty much out if the question. A false
flag designed to be blamed on Iran and big enough to warrant a war will be placed under
enormous scrutiny. Not by the US MSM, of course, but by the rest of the world and the
alternative media.
The fact is, before anyone can attack Iran, they have to win in Syria and it doesn't look
like they are going to.
As far as sanctions, Iran's best bet may be to give the EU 3 weeks to prove its intent to
confront the US (which is unlikely) Then Iran can resume its civilian nuclear development at
the fastest possible pace, with the offer to discontinue once the US returns to the
JCPOA.
Peter Beinart, the author of the "As with Iraq" piece above, gets all wound up in the details
of nuclear inspections and forgets that in 2003 he supported the misbegotten Iraq invasion
and war because a (supposed) peaceful aftermath would help the people of Iraq, and so the
people who oppose the war were wrong.
The truth is that liberalism has to try to harness American military power for its purposes
because American tanks and bombs are often the only things that bring evil to heel.
Opposing this war might have helped liberals retain their purity, but it would have done
nothing for the people suffering under Saddam. If liberals are betrayed a second time in
the Gulf, hawkish liberalism may well go into temporary eclipse. But one day we, and they,
will need it again. . . here
That's akin to the position that Trump has taken on Iran.
In this effort, we stand in total solidarity with the Iranian regime's longest-suffering
victims: its own people. The citizens of Iran have paid a heavy price for the violence and
extremism of their leaders. The Iranian people long to -- and they just are longing, to
reclaim their country's proud history, its culture, its civilization, its cooperation with
its neighbors. . . here
Old Microbiologist , May 12, 2018 11:12:51 AM |
38
IMHO what we are seeing are the last ditch efforts of a failing nation. Russia isn't sitting
it out but is taking a wait and see attitude. The same for China. All the bluster and twitter
tweets in the world mean nothing until someone actually does something. Israel managed to
shoot off a massive strike which at best was 50% effective. This was against "old" Pantsir
S-1 systems which were quite effective. No one has seen the S-300 yet in action and Russia is
holding it back keeping the ECM signature still secret until it is absolutely necessary.
Russia cannot fight the US or Israel in Syria. They simply doesn't have the forces present.
But, what they can do is push gently and make the FUKUS+I over-commit. Don't forget that the
US is working at a current $22 Trillion of debt and these debacles are going to burn money
faster than they can print. In the mean time Russia/China are creating an alternate economic
system to bypass the petrodollar and especially the SWIFT banking. That is in place and
perhaps we will see more countries deciding to bail on the dollar and join the growing crowd.
The US has demonstrated a complete lack of respect for sovereignty and has so far reneged
on every treaty. This means that the US is at best an unreliable partner. The South Koreans
have wised up seeing that the US is very willing to sacrifice the entire peninsula and every
soul living there to kill off the DPNK. That should scare the bejeezus out of every nation
friendly to the US anywhere in the world. They are losing friends so fast now it is scary.
This only forces the inevitable and the US is going to have to bet the farm to try and keep
the hegemony alive. It won't work and the US has the worst record of war fighting imaginable.
They can't beat the goat-herders in Afghanistan for example over a span of now 17 years.
Fighting a real military such as Iran would be impossible and especially if China throws in
her weight. Iran is very important to China and to a lesser extent Russia as well. There is
no danger of the US or NATO winning there. However, this could break the bank if it goes
south. So, what we are seeing is an existential threat to the US in the form of rebellion
against the dollar. Finally, we are seeing countries that have the weight of forces (nuclear)
with serious resistance. It is for this reason we are not seeing a counter-attack against
Israel. As Napoleon said "Never interfere with the enemy when he is in the process of
destroying himself".
The two FUKUS mass missile attacks on Syria, as well as Israel's latest jab, were a test of
the Russian systems and general Syrian ability to interdict said missiles. If the missiles
can't get through even at such short range, it is obvious Israeli/FUKUS aircraft can't
either. Attempting the same "air war" stunt in Iran will just give the US MIC a big boost
replacing virtually every piece of hardware sent over Iran airspace.
Again, the US soldiers/mercenaries currently in eastern Syria are in a caldron-in-making.
They can no longer count on escaping via land transport through Iraq or Turkey, and without
any air support/transport, they are trapped. Does anyone think the US public will tolerate
the Deep State sacrificing about 5,000 soldiers/mercenaries immediately after the bombing of
Iran starts? The handful of body bags from other recent US misadventures were not
well-received at home, so the potential for another Vietnam?
Iran will not be the turkey-shoot Iraq was, Saddam was still under the delusion Rumsfeld's
handshake gave him immunity from Deep State/Zionist machinations. Iran's leadership is under
no such delusion, remembering the admitted 1953 CIA overthrow of democratically elected
Mossadegh and the installation of the Shah.
Putin and Assad know time is on their side, and the longer they can delay a major
FUKUS/Israeli/Saudi offensive, the better prepared they are and the less effect Zionist
propaganda has worldwide. The IDF murdering unarmed Palestinians using a Gandhiesque tactic
of showing how venal Nuttyyahoo's regime is... like Britain in India... there is no way to
make this slaughter seem justified, and attempting to keep it out of the public consciousness
has not worked.
"But it will come. Small or large, a missile attack will come to Iran. The regime is in the
sights of the Hegemon."
That would be 'former Hegemon'.
The likelihood of war other than the predictable guerrilla campaigns launched from abroad,
campaigns with which Iran has been successfully dealing for decades, seems to me to be
low.
While everyone is watching Iran and Syria, the most important developments are those taking
place in Korea, where some sort of peace agreement seems inevitable. And where anything short
of war will mean an immense strengthening of the positions of Russia and China.Not least
because Japan and Taiwan will be forced to adjust to the new reality.
In Korea... and in western Europe.
This is where the worst cracks in the US hegemonic facade are beginning to show: the logic of
Eurasia and the illogic of Atlanticism are inescapable. The western european economies,
including Germany's, France's and (the weakest link of all?) Italy's are dying for access to
the eastern markets. Historically Germany has shared its technologies and culture with
Russia, which has been the great source of its raw materials and food. The ending of the Iran
deal seems to be the excuse needed to slip back into that relationship.
Those who rave against Putin's 'betrayal' understand nothing. It is necessary to lower the
tension internationally in order for the tectonic movements, which are already well advanced,
to settle.
Bolton and the warmongers depend on perpetuating war but all the momentum, internationally,
is against war. The propaganda which has been their main weapon, is failing, their
credibility is rapidly declining.
Outside Israel, the rump of the Saud family court which supports the Riyadh regime and the
degenerated dregs of NATO trotskyism-inhabited by elderly, aethereal creatures who live in
the Academy and know nothing of the world- the only people who want war are the speculators.
And they are just as happy to have peace, anything that excites the market.
Those who claim that Iran could be defeated in a couple of days are, presumably, talking of
nuclear weapons. Do they really believe that such an attack would not be deterred by Iran's
allies?
Trump is "clever", not intelligent. He is the personification of "bullshit baffles brains"
methodology. Indications are he is marginally literate, as all info briefs have to be a
couple pages at most and point form. It is obvious he has no patience to work through the
finer details of complex situations, simply taking the position of whatever of his advisers
can spread the BS in the most eloquent or forceful way.
But mostly whatever panders to his ego. Make Trumpty think he is being "the decider" (like
Gerge W. Stupid) or that he is being the "tough guy" and he'll sign or say anything.
@ 33, It took NATO 73 days to bring Serbia down, and in the end it required trickery
(promising Milosovich he can stay then color revolutionizing him out)
Serbia did not have the means to close the straights of Hormuz. Nor did it have a missile
arsenal that could strike at several regional US bases. Nor could it destroy Saudi and
Kuwaiti oil refineries. Nor did Serbia have several thousand US ground troops in easy
reach.
Serbia also had the misfortune of being attacked during the weakest point in Russian
history since the 1600s. Russia is quite certain to help Iran because it has a strong
interest in Iran repelling a US attack. Even if you believe Russia is 100% cynical, they will
have an enormously strong reason to see the US bogged down for a decade and bled white.
The Pentagon is aware of all of this and they aren't idiots. The fact is, the US was in a
much better position to attack Iran in 2006 or 7, and they still didn't do it, because it was
a terrible idea even back then. They will not do it now when it is a much worse idea.
Simply put, if attacking Iran were so easy, they would have done it a long, long time
ago.
Now, attempts to destabilize and possibly preach rebellion to Iran's minorities, that they
will do (without much success) But open war is a line they won't cross.
@38 -- "This was against "old" Pantsir S-1 systems which were quite effective. No one has
seen the S-300 yet in action and Russia is holding it back keeping the ECM signature still
secret until it is absolutely necessary."
My reading is the S-300 has a range that would cover commercial airports in Tel-Aviv and
it is probably too much risk for Putin to deliver these to Damascus in case an 'event' occurs
and a civilian jet goes down. In any case, some suggest there are more effective equipment
solutions for Syrian defense/response. Of course, in the wryly Russian way, Israeli
destruction of "old" Pantsir S-1 systems simply opens up the rational and legal opportunity
to provide a whole lot of 'new' updated replacement Pantsir S-1 systems. Background:
https://sputniknews.com/military/201804171063644024-pantsir-top-facts/
I think that the UN has always been mostly a circus court for empire....make it look like US
is benevolent.
So now when the fig leaf comes off in public people are aghast. Empire only works like
empire and when the wheels start to come off, the whole facade is exposed for the dog and
pony show it has always been.
Will this be enough to change the world of global private finance? Iran, remember, refuses
to become a member of the Western banking/elite cabal.
So just why might Trump be directed to attack Iran in his regular pompous manner. Is this
a religious war we are fighting for Israel?
NO!!! It is all about the continuation of the Western form of social organization that has
as its core religion the God of Mammon. Those at MoA who read me know that the God of Mammon
that I write about have the tenets of private finance and property along with the rules of
inheritance which has resulted in the elite of the past few centuries.
I continue to posit that all that is happening relates to that issue and the struggles
around it not discussed in public for whatever reasons.
But carry on educating me and others about all the proxy shit going down and its relevance
to how our society works....or doesn't........I want evolution and I want it this
morning!!!!!!!
The coming "war on Iran" will be an excuse for all kinds of mischief. Some possibilities:
>> seizing western Iraq further isolate Syria by blocking Iran-Syria land route
>> attack and occupation of Lebanon to clear Hezbollah and allow for Israeli land grab up to Litani river (a goal previously
expressed)
>> new round of terror attacks (from new/re-branded groups) focused on
Syria, Iranian, and Russian interests (with a few attacks on the West to muddy the
waters) The psychological part of a war of attrition
>> intensified Ukraine-Russian frictions full court press
>> ISIS expansion into Central Asia accelerate what has already begun
>> Shut down of North Stream and Turk Stream expect the 'cage match' with "recividist nations" to get nasty
Curious how things have calmed down on the Israel front. Things not gone quite as well as
hoped? Or perhaps it is that they've figured out that there's nothing to do. SOHR, opposed to
the Syrians, but with good telephone connections in Syria, has now come up with a list of a
handful of Iranian dead. So I suppose a few Iranian camps were actually hit. But the only
actual videoed strikes were against Syrians. It's what you'd call a nothing-burger, much like
the 102 missile strike.
And this is the launch of a campaign against Iran?? Strange way of showing it. In my view,
the US and Israel are so boxed in by their constraints, that it's very difficult to act
decisively. No casualties, so no overflights of Syria, let alone Iran. No interruption of
Gulf oil exports, as the Gulfies wouldn't like it. Gulf emirates not to be overturned. I'm
sure I can think of some more....
@40 -- "The handful of body bags from other recent US misadventures were not well-received at
home, so the potential for another Vietnam?"
More likely an unlearned repeat of 'rhyming' history with Trump playing Jimmy Carter and
the "5,000 soldiers/mercenaries" playing the suckers (in summer heat). How's the Big 'D'
going to negotiate that deal over the mid-terms?
But that was Democrat 'smart' -- perhaps this re-mix will be closer an up-scaled rerun of
Reagan's Iran–Contra scandal? Who's playing Oliver North?
Another great post. Thank you. Implied I think in your musings is, 'What will people
remember of the U.S.' in a hundred years? The 20th century popular music. Blues, Jazz, Rock
'n Roll, and Country & Western for starters.
When have UNSC ever done to stop aggression by the same states that commit the
aggression?
The topic wouldnt even raised in the UNSC.
Of course Iran wont start a "preemptive" war. Not atleast since that will be a suicide
mission for themselves.
Russia wont do anything then (us attack on iran), just look how they treated previous US
wars, everytime people have said the same that RUssia will help and repel an attack, it have
never happend and will never happen.
At 51...uh, you do realize Russia has an expeditionary force that is actually fighting and
keeping Syria alive as we post, right? Perhaps they are not fighting as much as you would
like, but they are fighting and Syria continues to exist because of it. As regards Iran, if
Iran falls the Syria falls and Russian bases will be gone. Fortunately for all, that won't
happen.
It is difficult to say what kind of scope the false flag would need to be to rally public
opinion at home for an Iranian incursion. In many ways, pre-9/11, the antiwar movement was
much stronger as was shown by the rallies against leading up to the Iraqi invasion. And yet
this couldn't forestall it.
OTOH, independent media has come a long way in its reach and so cries of "false flag" have
already been sounded, and, by and large, I believe America is fatigued with the ME. It is
doubly ironic that dems like Schumer have been crying foul against DJT for playing soft with
NoKo. I know that the current dem/lib establishment has thrown its antiwar credentials out
the window, in favor of color revolutions, freedom, and LGBTQUIOGDTFBJK rights to fornicate
in public spaces, but, my god, I would never have imagined the globalists to be THAT stupid
in their disregard for basic human needs the world over for soverignty and national
pride.
People have touched on it before, but is this whole current theater just an old money vs.
new money second showing? The return of the repressed, with the globalist/neolib model being
rundowned and usurped by nationalist oligarchs? It would seem the DJT has chosen to err to
the old money side to the betterment of the world. And I, for one, as an American would
rather have my elites localized so we would actually have access to their asses when we
decide to put a pitchfork up them. It is very difficult to get past TSA with weaponized
peasant tools.
Israel's a bit late there then. The disturbances were at the beginning of the year.
They're over now. The effect of the sanctions will be to swing people behind the regime, for
the moment, at any rate.
No thats wrong too, Russia is not on a mission to save Syrians state, they are in Syria
due takfiri threat. Nothing else, as we all see proof of past days...
As for your other statment, I am well sure that Syria have fallen long long before Iran
(if they ever do that).
@52 Lysander. I agree (btw never mind anon's trolling attempts). Simply put, the road to
Tehran goes through Damascus and last I checked the Jasmine City was doing fine ;) If
US/KSA/IL attempts a hot war on Iran it will only precipitate its fall..
Am reminded of the 3 Stooges, whenever I read about these warmongers, like " Bombs Away"
Bolton. Moe tells a group of people, "We will fight till the last drop of.....", then points
to Curly and finishes, "....your blood!" These bastards love war, but never are at the front
line, fighting and dying along side our best. They sit at their plush offices and conference
halls in the best hotels, sipping champagne and eating the best foods, making six or seven
figure incomes. While our brothers, neighbors, fathers, sons, uncles die overseas, or come
back a mental mess, and get crapped on by out government. What these no good for nothing rat
bastards need is to experience the hell they unleash upon us and the rest of the world.
i read this line a lot, from all spheres, and it always perplexes me. to be
fatigued you'd have to be overwhelmed, inundated, and i'd wager that the ME and what's
going on there hardly crosses the vast majority of minds in more than a peripheral way, you
know, like beyond certain key words they hear on tv.
one thing's for sure though, the ME is most definitely fatigued with America!
Looks like there might not be a Coalition Of The Willing in any anti-Iran military operation.
Quite the opposite, it's a further lessening of US world hegemony.
. . .Cartoon of Trump giving the middle finger Goodbye,
Europe! in Der Spiegel.
Why are commentators assuming that, *if* the US does launch a war of aggression against Iran,
it will do so in tandem with its NATO allies--and the UK, France, and Germany in particular?
It is doubtful that these allies will even abide by the new US economic sanctions imposed
upon Iran. Why think that they will be willing, or even politically able, to follow the US
orders for war?
b is right that the neocons are setting up a replay of the 2001-2003 Iraq propaganda
campaign. But the global and domestic conditions that enabled the success of that campaign no
longer hold. The US is far weaker now than then; Iran is more powerful and unified than Iraq
ever was; NATO countries have hundreds of billions of dollars of trade contracts in place or
projected with Iran; Russia and China are far stronger. It just doesn't add up.
I suppose what I was trying to say is that the narrative TPTB have spun over the last
twenty years has gone beyond the realm of convoluted to the average American and now has
completely unwound into chaos. It was only three years ago that we were being told about the
surging threat of ISIS to Americans. Well...that didn't last long...and now they are back to
Iran which the west knows very little about and really doesn't care to. Us Americans like the
good guy/bad guy fight. But if you can't drum up a good enough backstory for the black hats,
I'm afraid that the average American will simply change the channel.
That being said...a compelling backstory isn't really needed for pyschopaths to wage their
war anyway.
Several here ave wondered what kind of false flag could motivate the populace in NA and the
EU to support an attack on Iran. May I propose one?
First stage - Israel (using the EW cover from AlTanf) bombs the Iranian nuclear plant.
Radiation release threatens tens of thousands.
Second stage - Supposed 'Iranian' counter-attack sets oil tankers ablaze (For maximum PR
effect do not sink them) in the Hormuz straights closing the gulf to shipments of Gulf
sourced oil. Oil prices temporarily spike to over $200 a barrel,
Europe's supply of oil is cut drastically, industries world-wide are paralysed and the US
(secure with its' supply sourced outside the gulf)is free to ride to the rescue - all while
RUSSIA (and China) have NO LEGITIMATE REASON to oppose the aggression.
bevin 41 The likelihood of war other than the predictable guerrilla campaigns launched from abroad,
campaigns with which Iran has been successfully dealing for decades, seems to me to be
low.
Yes, the US Army is demonstrably weak especially for any foreign invasion.
Historically Germany has shared its technologies and culture with Russia, which has
been the great source of its raw materials and food. The ending of the Iran deal seems to be
the excuse needed to slip back into that relationship.
And also China's BRI -- coming up June 28-- -- The China Germany BRI Summit 2018
As the first and third largest exporters globally, China and Germany will prove crucial
drivers of trade along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-century Maritime Silk Road.
Together these form the Belt and Road Initiative, a landmark shift in the global economic
order that will touch over 65 countries across four continents.
The China Germany BRI Summit 2018 will dispel myths on what the Belt and Road Initiative
means for the world, tackle the challenges for global financial institutions and
corporations looking to leverage the initiative, and identify the enormous opportunities in
M&A, capital markets and trade finance. here .
@ Anon 64 Dont bet on that, May, Trump Agree to Counter Iran's 'Destabilising Activity' - Downing
Street
OMG, not the powerful UK military!! (heh)
Besides, haven't you heard? The UK isn't in Europe any more, or soon won't be.
The extremely complex entanglement of Germany with (roughly) the NATO/EU alliance on the
one hand and Russia/China on the other is a prime reason why I do not believe that Germany
(which is by far the biggest economy in the EU) will be able to be strong armed or enticed
into signing up with another Zionist driven US war of aggression with a country as major as
Iran.
Re the possibility of a "united front" of western powers confronting Iran, the truth is that
no one knows for certain at this point how it this will play out.
We have to remember the deafening silence of the western media during the obvious
Skripjal-Ghouta fakery, so there's a good chance the US/Israel axis will again have a
relatively free hand to concoct any number of escalating false flags, not all of which will
stick, but some probably will. So that is a cause for concern re any future "coalition".
As for enforcing the sanctions, I've seen people argue both ways - that this is a bridge
too far for Europe, and accepting it will both do too much economic damage and make Europe
appear too obviously as US toadies; and OTOH, Europe will be blackmailed into knuckling under
when confronted with illegal US fines and secondary sanctions.
> Curious how things have calmed down on the Israel front. Things not gone quite as
well as hoped?
This is all that needs to be noted about the absurdity of even the idea that the US regime
is capable of attacking Iran.
This delusion appears to be the same type thinking as the "Generals Always Fight the
Previous War" saying.
The days of the Israeli regime flying at will over countries bombing at will are over. And
the days of the US regime parking an aircraft carrier off the coast of a country and
leisurely taking out its air defense network are long gone.
Russian air defense and electronic warfare tech are now being shown to be significantly
superior to US regime offensive capabilities in real world combat. So much so that the most
common reaction has been to try to rationalize the fact with crazy conspiracy theories about
behind the scenes wink and nod agreements between the US regime and Russia.
Trump foolishly trying to attack Iran to distract from his political problems would end up
as the first modern US regime leader who lost an aircraft carrier and ten dollar gas
prices.
Israeli's were cowering in their sewers while their junk air defense network repeatedly
failed to defend against a minor Syrian retaliatory barrage while Syrians in Damascus were
cheering on their rooftops as their Russian air defense network knocked Israeli missiles from
the sky.
Syria smacking down the Israeli regime is going to have Trump's military advisors sitting
him down and giving him a hard dose of reality about the Israeli/Saudi/Neocon delusions about
attacking Iran.
Pompeo(US) and Zarif(Iran) are currently making the diplomatic rounds, the former looking for
a new & improved plan, and the latter emphasizing that the US never adhered to the old
plan and united opposition to sanctions is in everyon'e best interest.
from the Iran statement:
Since taking office, Mr. Trump has not only made explicit and official statements against
the agreement in violation of its provisions, but has in practice also failed to implement
U.S. practical – and not merely formal commitments under the JCPOA. The Islamic
Republic of Iran has recorded these violations in numerous letters to the Joint Commission
convened under the JCPOA, outlining the current U.S. Administration's bad faith and
continuous violations of the accord. Thus Mr. Trump's latest action is not a new
development but simply means the end of the obstructionist presence of the United States as
a participant in the JCPOA. . .
here
The apparent US line now, as before, is to "change the regime's malign behavior" which is
ridiculous and thus doomed.
@ MISchi 69: There have been Russian-operated S-400's in Syria for years. Even the US
propaganda rags admit it is significant in reducing FUKUS attacks. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34976537
So just because Russia isn't giving the SAA S-300's doesn't mean Syria has no protection.
The fact the updated S-200s and Pantsirs are doing the job reasonably well will give FUKUS
and Israeli/Saudi military planners pause. Note that the cowardly Israeli jets attack from
Lebanese or Jordanian airspace.
And Nuttyyahoo merely crashed the Victory Day festivities, and Putin is too gracious a
host to kick Nutty out. But the body language between them was obvious, Putin was not happy
to see Nutty trying to capitalize on Putin's good manners.
@ Ian 77 According to Reuters it is.
Reuters doesn't take comments so I'm telling you (and others), if you don't mind, because you
are misleading people with something that isn't true.
As much as Bolton and his ilk would love to attack Iran, I have to disagree that a
full-fledged war is likely. USrael will ratchet up tensions all they can, hoping that Iran
will take the bait and actually respond, but the only way an actual war MAY be fought is with
a massive false flag attack. However, it took a massive false flag attack to allow the
neocons to invade Iraq, so said black op would have to be on that magnitude. Here's the thing
though, the neocons seem to be getting worse at false flags and more over the world ain't
buying them like they used to.
Sure you can get your European lackeys to sign up to a few sanctions, but will anyone
actually support the utter tanking of the world economy? Because that will be the end result
of war with Iran and behind closed doors everyone knows this. Look up the Millennial War
Games simulation that pitted the US against Iran. And how did that $200 million exercise turn
out? The US had to "refloat" its fleet in order to win. Using older Chinese anti- ship
missiles the Iranians decimated US naval assets. The US hasn't developed counter measures
against these while the Iranians have undoubtedly improved on these missiles. No matter what
happens to its ground forces and population centers, shipping in the Persian Gulf will be
shut down. That one action will raise the price of oil to over $200 a barrel overnight,
possibly much higher. And with that the global economy will be left in tatters. Too many of
the world's leaders understand this completely and simply will not go along with the US and
line up against Iran like they did with Iraq.
no, Netanyahu was invited. I read about it a week before the parade. Lavrov always says that
you don't need to negotiate with your friends, but you do with your enemies. Hence the
invite.
Like the Godfather said in the eponymous movie "Keep your friends close but your enemies
closer."
UKs military is of course far stronger than Iran,
we will see renewed sanctions against Iran and EU will be onboard and have already mentioned
they "need" to pressure Iran more.
The attacks on Iran will be only financial, not military, is my guess. The big news in the
military sector is often on cyber attacks. Cyber will be a "new military front."
Financial is akin to cyber. No shooting. The military experts don't discuss financial, I
guess because the U.S. is the only country capable of it, controlling world finance as it
does. But a full-on sanctions regime on another small country like Iran could do a lot of
damage and hurt a lot of people, as it did in Iraq previously. Sort of like what the U.S. did
to Japan to precipitate the war in the Pacific, except Iran's reactions must be much more
limited.
So the big question is Europe, and if it is able to legislate any significant
counter-sanction laws that would encourage Iran-Europe business. France looks good on this,
Germany is more significant.
I do wish people would stop calling themselves Anon. It's very difficult to know which is
which. It's easy enough to anonymise yourself with a distinctive handle. Maybe b should ban
it as a handle.
Many years ago I got to hear Sir Edmond Hillary speak to the assembled students at my
school, just a few years after his amazing climbing feat. No multimedia or lasers pointers or
cheesy-brand tee-shirt cannons, ... just an electric performance by an incredible man that
shaped my life, one foot at a time.
Several decades later, I watched SEH demonstrate Simple Green soap at REI. So incredibly
sad. I'll never forget either presentation. The Man in the Moon had become another Soapy
Salesman.
At the same time I first heard SEH speak, my father, an international businessman, brought
home a Buddhist monk exchange student from Asia for the holiday. It was spellbinding to meet
a bright and well-off monk, who knew all this amazing arcane reality, that we call the Wheel.
It shaped my entire approach to the summit.
Several decades later, in fact, just recently, I watched a performance by a Tibetan monk
troupe, after which they essentially begged for sponsors for the remaining exiled monks now
starving in India by the 1000s. They are dying out, like the 1,000s, the 10,000s of
aboriginal valley cultures that once walked the Earth.
Soapy Sales and Starving Monks, who only decades ago were both sitting on Top of the
World. Kind of like everyone's experience, even John Bolton's, former UN ambassador, now a
sleazy salesman-demonstrator for Death Inc, too proud to sell soap, or to busker for alms.
He's pathetic.
So let me bring it on home.
A student of mine is a senior monk in Asia. His charge is to free the spirits of the just
dead. Not the two monks chanting and incense and sprinkling with flower petal water in front
of a cherished photo. No, he blesses the *dying*, the human roadkills from the reckless
Chinese Escalades bombing through SEAsian commute traffic, the black and blue herion addicts
with the needle still in their arm, bright red blood bubbling out of their noses, the raped,
strangled, discarded and bloating young girls, dumped in the nearest rice paddy ditch.
He gets those calls. He never talks about his work, never shows the horror pictures or
trashes the perps. He sends selfies, pics of meals, flowers and temples. So I asked him,
doesn't this bother you at night, the carnal evil, the rape, the murder? Don't you wanna see
justice done?
He said simply, we're all going to die, many of us soon, we have very little time away
from the Wheel. We should spend every precious second of free time uplifting those who are
below us, the poor, the infirm, the feeble, the indentured, the slave, ...because we're all
gonna die as beggars some day. We should hold faith with the beggars.
Bolton is a sick fuck, in a pantheon of sick fucks. Why squander a nanosecond meditating
on any of them? They are nothingness, the void. MoA seems to have a fascination with evil and
death, and making Death's bit players into pop-idols. Selling a different brand of soap, I
guess.
Closing Hormuz would likely be the Iranian response to a sustained bombing campaign. A
single strike on a nuclear facility could elicit a missile strike on the attacking party (US,
Isreal or both.) Or it could involve multiple attacks on vulnerable US troops in Iraq and
Syria. Iran has several rungs in its escalation ladder. It doesn't have to jump to the top
one all at once.
Of course financial sanctions are the main, if not the only, US war-winning tactic
available today. Mainly the control of the VISA and SWIFT exchange systems. But I'm not
financially knowledgeable. It was one reason that Iran signed in 2015. I remember well, about
10 years ago, the husband of an Iranian student arriving with $20K (?) sewn into his
overcoat, to pay for his wife's studies.
However, the US has used this tactic so often now, that people must be looking to ways of
getting round the problem. I'm not quite sure how much success they may have had. People talk
about Russia-China erecting a parallel to the SWIFT system. I hope this does happen, though
it must be expensive. Non-US allies need it.
@lLaguerre: Russia already has set up its version of SWIFT. As has China, as well as both
agreeing to transactions in rubles/yuan first for petroleum, then recently for all other
trade, to bypass the US$ SWIFT system. The US gets a "cut", every time a corporation/country
converts from local currency to US$, then again when that same US$ cash is converted to the
currency of the second trading partner. To avoid this, non-US countries keep US$ reserves to
trade between themselves. This scam was set up at Bretton Woods after WW2 when the US economy
was the only economy/industrial-base left unscathed.
"In 2017, the head of the Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, said at a meeting with
President Vladimir Putin that Russia is ready for disconnection from SWIFT."
Because of their large inertia, these things, when they get moving, cannot be stopped and
proceed to the inevitable. The ziocons have pushed the boulder and it's starting to roll.
That is what a lot of panicky people said in 2013, that Obama's invasion of Syria was
inevitable because Assad was gassing his people in Ghouta. It didn't happen. As it turned
out, the "massive momemtum" was in the Zionist propangda, hoping to sucker the U.S. into the
Middle East again.
i think swift and bis are linked in with imf.. unfortunately i don't know how it all works,
but russias central bank is part of imf.. the way imf is set up favours the developed
countries over the developing countries.. they have some other tricks to keep control over it
too, but i do believe it is tricky navigating moving away from it all, which is why the
financial system is the first line of action to put other countries deemed out of line - into
line.. some have tried to get the imf to change without success which is why i believe brics
was working towards an alternative.. of course the b in brics went thru a type of regime
change under a different facade and i am not sure where they are at with that at this moment
in time...
Julian Assange
@JulianAssange
There is something very odd about the Joseph Mifsud story and the role of the UK in the 2016
US presidential election:
(thread)
5:07 PM · Mar 22, 2018
DEVELOPING: A major new front is opening in the political espionage scandal. In summer 2016,
Brennan with his FBI liaison Strzok, along with help from Kerry @ State, were trying to set
Russian espionage traps for minor players in the Trump campaign through cultivated intel
assets
@MISchi: Israel may have been "invited", but only as a standard diplomatic courtesy, not as a
"guest of honour" as the MSM and Hasbara would have us believe. The US was probably invited
too... and didn't have the grace to show up? The US and EU were for sure in 2014, but
"boycotted" it over the US coup in Ukraine. Nuttyyahoo was just looking for MSM cover for the
illegal bombing he knew was going to happen, making it look like Putin was "in on it".
I'd guess Putin is simply giving Nutty all the rope Nutty needs to hang himself in the
court of world public opinion. When I see an official statement from Putin (or any Russian
senior official) saying Putin gave any approval of Israel's past and present illegal
incursions in Syria, let alone the illegal occupation of the Golan, I'll believe Nutty being
at the Victory Parade was some sort of endorsement by Putin of Nutty's insanity.
I agree with Lysander's logic. Iran will not be attacked in the "normal" manner; it will be
asymmetrical. The performance of not-so antiquated air defenses in Syria are the big game
changer as Iran has those and its own S-300 version. Plus all those big stationary targets.
Plus, I figure Bolton has a target on his back, as do other neocons--you don't murder over a
million without creating some enemies. I see lots of bluster to foment as much chaos as
possible to accentuate the asymmetrical impact. But as for an actual military assault, Bolton
and company are a decade plus too late.
To negate the potential effect of another Operation Northwoods, I think it wise to pull up
those old pdf docs and spread them around the world via social media--a move I'm frankly
surprised has yet to be made--along with some additional contemporary context.
@james: The Russian central bank is a member of the IMF/World Bank/BIS/SWIFT system as are
nearly every other central bank in the world. Not being "in" this club severely restricts the
ability to do international trade. Russia and China are quietly spearheading the move to
conduct international trade in local currencies, outside the US$-reserve-currency scam
(sorry, system). Both Russia and China have set up alternative systems, which along with the
SCO/AIIB offer participating countries a way to side-set US economic terrorism and sanctions.
The Rothschilds may have managed to stall the BRICS for now, but that won't last long.
"... Oh, if a revelation came out that Israel was responsible for a false flag that suckered the Americans into an Iranian quagmire, I have no doubt that the neocons will do everything they can think of to forestall or stop a heavy backlash from the U.S. public. I doubt those efforts will work, however. ..."
"... For one thing, the truth can't be stopped. The Internet samizdat is very strong these days, which is why Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. are all on such a desperate censorship spree. ..."
(False flag intended to sucker the U.S. into attacking Iran): Supposed 'Iranian'
counter-attack sets oil tankers ablaze (For maximum PR effect do not sink them) in the Hormuz
straights closing the gulf to shipments of Gulf sourced oil. Oil prices temporarily spike to
over $200 a barrel,
That would be truly ruthless and depraved, and may actually work. However, there's a major
risk: what if it became widely known that Israel was responsible for the false flag and the
resulting permanent economic downturn caused by the counterattack by Iran? The backlash from
the U.S. public will be immense, and could well be fatal for all Jewish influence in the
U.S.
Again, it is only one of many such scenarios... the point being that war is a lot closer than
many sane people may imagine. And as the original comment(70) indicated, such scenarios
eliminate the possibility of Russia or china intervening to defend Iran - an idea that is
almost always assumed in conversations about future geo-political events.
The summary is this:. Many false flag scenarios exist that separate Russia and China from
Iran and make a western attack on Iran likely. Rruthless, yes. Depraved, yes. Likely, yes.
Look up the Millennial War Games simulation that pitted the US against Iran. And how did that
$200 million exercise turn out? The US had to "refloat" its fleet in order to win. [..] Posted
by: Don Wiscacho | May 12, 2018 2:29:47 PM | 82
Simulations show what the assumptions imply. However, the war of Israel with Hezbollah did
not make much sense except as a simulation with actual weapons and actual troops. Several
prepositions were tested:
1. Hezbollah (Iran) can retaliate using missiles. Note: the missiles used by Hezbollah were
not particularly effective, but as the proof of concept they did a good job, Iran (and
Hezbollah re-armed after that war) has better stuff.
2. Missiles can damage and perhaps destroy naval vessels. Hezbollah made a single shot at
IDF warship, it had to be towed back to base.
3. But the capacity to launch the missiles can be destroyed from the air. Negative.
4. Barring that, we can send the Marines. Negative.
At the time, I assumed that Hezbollah got their military doctrine from Iran, so Iran
presumably practices what it teaches. More recently, Iranian or Iranian trained troops did not
perform as well as Hezbollah in Syria, but the latter were clearly not top-of-the-line, and
there was not that many of the former. In any case, the capacity to stop traffic in Hormuz is
the Iran's equivalent of nukes, MAED (mutually assured economic destruction). Actually, it is
much better than nukes, if you demonstrate "good cause" you may get decent post-conflict
settlement. Rather that inflicting mayhem -- counterproductive -- you close the straights, put
forth righteous conditions to open them, and wait until the other sides regrets.
I think the point of the official congressional investigation that would follow is to
prevent that from happening. Lol
Oh, if a revelation came out that Israel was responsible for a false flag that suckered
the Americans into an Iranian quagmire, I have no doubt that the neocons will do everything
they can think of to forestall or stop a heavy backlash from the U.S. public. I doubt those
efforts will work, however.
For one thing, the truth can't be stopped. The Internet samizdat is very strong these
days, which is why Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. are all on such a desperate censorship
spree.
And secondly, because the economic downturn will be nearly permanent, everyone will be
constantly reminded that they were suckered into it, and of whose fault all this was -- and the
fury will be immense. I doubt the Jewish dominance in the U.S. would survive. As Israel is
totally dependent on U.S. support, the Zionist state will also probably disappear. That is the
risk of an Israeli false flag.
Perhaps Admiral "Fox" Fallon's memory will live on.
Ten years ago an Esquire interview of Fallon, the CENTCOM chief, was published -- (extract)
. . . And in spite of recent war spasms aimed at Iran from this sclerotic administration,
Fallon is in no hurry to pick up any campaign medals for Iran. And therein lies the rub for
the hard-liners led by Cheney. Army General David Petraeus, commanding America's forces in
Iraq, may say, "You cannot win in Iraq solely in Iraq," but Fox Fallon is Petraeus's boss,
and he is the commander of United States Central Command, and Fallon doesn't extend
Petraeus's logic to mean war against Iran.
So while Admiral Fallon's boss, President George W. Bush, regularly trash-talks his way to
World War III and his administration casually casts Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as
this century's Hitler (a crown it has awarded once before, to deadly effect), it's left to
Fallon–and apparently Fallon alone–to argue that, as he told Al Jazeera last
fall: "This constant drumbeat of conflict . . . is not helpful and not useful. I expect that
there will be no war, and that is what we ought to be working for. We ought to try to do our
utmost to create different conditions." . . here
In Syria, US and Israel went up against Russian systems. The strength of the Russian systems is
layered defence, networked units with target sharing and radar immune to current US jamming
tech.
Does Iran have all of this? Their systems are home grown and Iran's scientists and engineers
are good, they do not have the database background and experiance Russia inherited from the
Soviet Union. I guess Trump's US and Israel will be keen to give it a test run.
The principal advantage Iran has, is its targets for its mobile missile launchers of 40,000 US
troops on half a dozen bases on the western Gulf shore fifty or less miles away. Plus ships at
sea. Also ballistic missiles from underground missile bases. Can't miss.
By Andrew J. Bacevich, Buddhika Jayamaha, Danny Sjursen, Gregory Daddis, Jason Dempsey,
Sarah Kreps
In March, Harper's Magazine convened a panel of former soldiers at the United States
Military Academy at West Point, New York. The participants, almost all of whom saw combat in
Iraq or Afghanistan, were asked to reflect on the country's involvement in the Middle East.
This Forum is based on that panel, which was held before an audience of cadets and officers,
and on a private discussion that followed.
He says he "didn't think it was going to become, you know, the 7-year devastating conflict that it became."
That is apparent. Libya was already descending into the F-UK-US "Mission Accomplished" with NATO bombers warming
up to finish the job. Perhaps Max's dad had assured him that Syria would follow the same pattern his emails with
Hillary Clinton show he had helped plan and define in Libya.
BTW: Has he ever addressed his father's role in the destruction of the once most prosperous country on the
African continent? I haven't read or heard anything from Max on Syd Blumenthal's pre-Qaddafi "removal"
explanation that Libya had to be destroyed to:
Steal their nationalized oil.
Confiscate the hundreds of tons of gold and silver Libya held.
Prevent Libya from establishing a gold-backed currency and pan-African development bank to compete with the
US petro-dollar and IMF, and lift Africa out of neo-colonial subservience.
Yeah. Max was "pretty quiet on Libya and not really - didn't really make any coherent statements on that
either."
That newspaper that Max publicly maligned and quit ("grandstanding" as he now says) "had taken an
anti-imperialist agenda." Did that paper ever reject any articles Max wrote defending "the Syrian revolution"? I
didn't think so. Who had "an agenda"? Because it sure sounds like it was Max who was so focused on his new book
release and two upcoming book tours that at the least he abandoned journalistic values. Or did he fear that
"being associated" with a paper that also published articles critical of "the revolution" could hurt book sales?
After all, he thought it was all going to be over soon anyway.
It would also be nice for Max to explain why, once he changed his position on Syria after Russia had helped
turn the tide, he, Ben and Rania scrubbed all their anti-Syrian/pro-"rebel" posts from the internet without
explanation. How Orwellian.
Syria isn't the only topic Blumenthal wrote lies about. Him, his cohort mentioned here, and many other
presstitutes destroyed their credibility to the point where no deed no matter how valorous can regain it for
them--By their actions, they committed journalistic suicide.
It appears greed yet again trumped integrity.
It's always for
A Few Dollars More.
My only concern is that if this is the reception people can expect for changing their mind and talking about it
does that discourage anyone else from doing the same?
They should apologise to those they maligned. But is a vilificatory focus on the insufficiency of their
repentance really helping the anti-imperialist cause?
Blumenthal, and his vocal support for the Palestinian people deserves kudos. If he has
changed his stance on the Syrian debacle, good. I don't know too many people who are always
prescient enough to get everything right from the get-go, so, even without an apology, he deserves credit for
finally getting it right.
I became familiar with Max Blumenthal through Democracy Now. His position on Syria was inexplicably appalling,
but at least he had the decency to eventually call them out:
b. I'm genuinely honored that you chose to post a comment of mine. Thank you. And thank you for correcting my
errors in spelling Al Akhbar and Ben Norton's actual surname.
Once I catch up on the "news," I'll be back to check comments.
I was a follower of Max before the 2011 turmoil. I thought he was OK. He knew what was going around in
Palestine and I was pretty sure he was an advocate for the better. I dont know what to think anymore. What is
right and what is wrong. Can someone enlighten me :-(
Thank you for putting down what most of us who have been following The Arab spring since Tunisia
know about those 3 turncoats aka Triumvirate.
@ Anon #5
Speak for yourself. Those who do follow the ME knew and realised what was the goal back in Dara'a in
February 2011. It has started since 1980's and Assad didn't want to be another b---h of the US. Colin Powell
thought he could sway him with threats back in 2003 and then Robert Ford - so called Ambassador went on with
his task when he got the job in Damascus together with Eric Chevallier who was MAN enough to realise what was
happening.
Posted by: Daniel | May 9, 2018 5:10:21 PM | 9
(Thanks to b for the recognition)
I agree with b. Your comment was thorough, well-articulated and verifiable.
...and flushed out some Moral Equivalence ideologues of the Thomas L Friedman variety.
Black Agenda Report of course has got it right since day one since Blacks more than any other group know not to
trust Western establishment narratives and discourses on human rights and humanitarian intervention. Their
articles on Libya from 2011 are but one proof of this.
Margaret Kimberley's latest on Trump and Israel is
excellent as always:
here.
Oh please! The first attack on Max Blumenthal was embarrassing enough. Moon of Alabama is very fortunate to
have gained as much respect as it has; it's very foolish to squander people's patience with this vindictive
tripe. By the way I'm also offended by the fact that someone presumed to edit my Nom de Comment
"nationofbloodthirstysheep" when I made what I think was a useful comment on the Gulf of Scripal Incident. If I
had wanted to post under the name" nation of sheep" I would have done so.
Max Blumenthal's support for the Palestians, especially those in Gaza, has been solid. As we all know Gaza is
led by the Muslim Brotherhood. As we all should know is that it was the MB in Syria that began war against the
Syrian government. It took about a year for Islamists mercenaries to arrive and begin to dominate the
opposition to Assad's government. Of course, the Saudis and Qatar were financing the MB forces from the
beginning.
I noticed that many westerners who were involved in Palestinian's struggle for their rights
immediately backed the MB in Syria in the first year of the Syrian war. Recall how they came out and supported
the MB when they seized the Yarmouk refugee camp in opposition to the Syrian government. Many good hearted, but
absurdly naive, youthful people who supported the Palestians, came out and attacked Assad.
Max is one of those people. He is young and hopefully is capable of reform. We should accept his apology.
I wasn't aware of Max Blumenthal saying "Alternet Grayzone is the only progressive outlet questioning the main
line". I always prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt and respect how these writers have changed their
minds and are sticking to it, but this statement leaves a bad taste in the mouth, considering the outlets that
have been questioning it since the beginning. Perhaps he meant "mainstream-alternative progressive outlets", or
"foundation-funded independent outlets". Thanks b and Daniel for the background of which I was not aware.
it is one thing for them to be wrong and another for them to never acknowledge
it.. it is kinda like bush 2 and his war on iraq... no acknowledgement and as obama used to say, instead of
accountability we just have to move on.. bullshit.. these folks would do well to acknowledge when they are
wrong.. i don't know that any of them have..
This all sounds childish to me. Fixation on the degree of sincerity of an apology is for the playground.
They had a view they changed their view from new evidence or by reflection or both. They may have done some
harm by simply being human as we all can and do regularly, we humans being human and all.
These people fully acknowledged their error and were suitably contrite. One should bear in mind the fog of
propaganda surrounding the so-called Arab spring; CIA Isis recruiters were very active in the pro-Palestinian
movements. I actually knew some young people on the streets of Oakland and Berkeley who had been convinced that
the Wahhabi Takfiris were a persecuted minority and were nearly swept away.
Let's be quite clear about this, even if it means going off-message. The Ba'thist regime is not very nice, but
it's a million times better than a jihadi regime in Damascus. It's why Asad has retained the support of
Syrians.
The Syrian students I know have been asked to repay their scholarships. Up to 300k euros. They can't
and so are forced to remain refugees. Even the Alawites. It's not improbable that Asad will forgive them in the
end, but suicides are in prospect. They could cope if it weren't for the war.
The war is going well, but hard on those conscripted. I wonder whether it isn't really a volunteer army now,
after all the deaths. The hardened army is very small, but enough to knock off Ghouta, and enough to put a big
hole in Idlib, some time ago. my opinion is that Idlib won't resist and will collapse, but we'll have to see.
While these three did get it wrong about Syria and may not have given the best explanations of what changed
their minds, they actually come off as pretty contrite, more than I thought they would be capable of. The
podcast is useful for exposing how the Syria issue has crippled the bds movement in North America and the role
of gulf state money in that process. I look forward to what they have to say about the particularly insidious
role of IS Trotskyism in destroying the anti-war movement in the anglophone world. Its fine to score points
against these people for their very real past mistakes, but from an organizing point of view, what matters more
is to understand the situation we're in now, and they are contributing. With formerly reliable outlets like
Counterpunch getting worse on this issue with every passing day, it seems odd to be attacking those who have
rectified their mistakes.
@24
"it seems odd to be attacking those who have rectified their mistakes. "
I certainly hope that it is just "odd". I would hate to have to think that the attacks were due to their
relative effectiveness and the expanded reach of what they have to say. It's sad to consider that in the best
case envy might be a motivation. The worst case is unthinkable.
Been a student of US History and its Empire since 1960s--50+ years--and I'm being told integrity no longer
matters. Can someone tell me when the USA lost its integrity regarding its own basic law and the UN Charter it
helped create, how hard it is to discover that fact, and why it matters? In our Orwellian Age, just how
important is one's credibility, and why should we trust someone who sold hers/his for
A Few Dollars More
?
Perhaps their heretofore "expanded reach" was dependent on their message of the moment's
usefulness to the existing power structure and their willingness to sing on cue? It wouldn't be the first time
political capital earned for good cause has been spent in favor of the enemy. Liberal "performative contrition"
is meaningless. If those three have done it once, they'll do it again. They are now of no service to the people
except as examples, and absolutely replaceable.
It's obvious you're trolling or shilling. Move on to your next assignment please.
Thanks Daniel for your comment and to B who elevated it to a full post. Daniel's comment should serve as an
inspiration to the rest of us!
While attacking Max Blumenthal, Ben Norton and Rania Khalek for their failure
to apologise to people they had previously slandered on their podcast show may seem poor form, I think that
what Daniel says and B adds is relevant information to consider "going forward", as the cliche goes, when next
the trio cover another or a new Middle Eastern issue, or even revisit the situation in Syria if that should
change. Will Blumenthal et al stand steadfast in their opinion or will they revert to supporting the forces
trying to topple Assad if they sniff that the tide is turning against the SAA and its allies?
@29 jen.. i agree... it is worth reading daniels comment @163 in 'trump ends the nuclear deal' thread as well
as @156 george lanes initial comments to this post of daniels too..
i usually try not to judge people by their family connections but blumenthal's dad is such a noxious neoliberal
asshole it's hard to believe the apple could have fallen
that
far from the tree.
a lot of the so
called "left" is also infected with the "every revolution is good cuz leaders are teh suck amirite?!?!?"
disease. whether it's - as a great article i recently saw suggests - the residue of marxism or just teen angst
writ large, they just assume any leader that isn't a 100% pinkwashed socialist-feminist-____ist should be
overthrown by the "wisdom of the masses". too bad they fail to see the hands of the "elite" behind every
protest and youtube meme.
this also explains the reflexive stupidity that oozes from western mouths every time putin is mentioned
(because high approval ratings and legit election wins don't count if it's backwards gay-hating slavs).
while he and the others do write about israel, that falls into the "so you want a damn cookie?" category.
opposing israel is opposing every foul part of human nature (especially historical european tendencies)
distilled in one arid shithole of a colony pretending to be a country. his hissy fits about gilad atzmon aren't
exactly profiles in courage either and offer a glimpse of the "third way" mentality he seems to have inherited
from his father.
@14
BAR is indeed great. they have morals and convictions and they actually stick to them consistently. freedom
rider is especially good and her recent piece on israel is as good or better than anything on mondoweiss or EI.
extra fun historical context:
the inhabitants of what is now called the GCC or gulf states or whatever were one of the heaviest users of
african slaves during the slave trade. this included the barbary pirates that the US marines were basically
created to destroy when they committed the dreadful sin of kidnapping
white
people from the southern
beaches of europe. that's where the marine song comes from and the "shores of tripoli" and etc. so the marines
have basically been killing muslims for hundreds of years.
as for why the arabian peninsula has so few black folks compared to the west: they castrated all the males.
oddly, one slave helped the moors conquer spain (the term "moors" being that time's "muzzies").
UserFriendly @2:
. . . If this is the reception people can expect for changing their mind . . .
Journos, pols, and other public figures that take
strategic positions
as it is convenient to them are
deplorable.
Anyone that was honestly wrong would be contrite.
= = = =
Richard C @3:
. . . Is a vilification focus . . . Really helping
Yes it is, especially for those taking
strategic positions
.
= = = =
Anon @5:
All have been wrong some time . . .
Morons, trolls, and opportunists are right as often as a broken clock.
= = = =
NOBTS @14:
. . . It's very foolish to squander people's patience with this vindictive tripe
I guess you have no family or friends among the millions dead injured and displaced.
= = = =
Babyl-on @20:
They had a view they changed their view . . . being human and all
Not good enough Babyl-on. As a long time patron of the bar I think you should see that more clearly than
others.
= = = =
Peter Gose @24:
. . . They actually come off as pretty contrite . . . And they are contributing
I always feel that it is best to explain your mistakes and not simply apologize. Very instructive and
restores confidence. And if they were "burned" by being misinformed, they should be / would be vindictive
toward those that misled them.
@27
So... it suits the existing power structure that these people should be speaking relatively truthfully at this
point? If that's the case then I suppose the majority of Moon of Alabama's followers ( I contributed €50 by the
way) would be in the same boat. The only way I can see this working out for the ruling elite is if being on the
right side i.e. the left side, is totally marginal and pathetic, so thoroughly divided and conquered as to be
irrelevant.
I read Max's book Goliath recently. It's very damning of the rightward turn of the Israeli govt AND the Israeli
people. People in the US are nowhere near as xenophobic as a majority of Israelis are now. I admit I had not
paid much attention to support he would have had for the "Syrian rebels." But the point is to be made and it
would be interesting to know of his thoughts on his father's actions with respect to Libya. Maybe Max realizes
he's late to the party and is having a me too moment.
somebody 34
The Team Obama love affair with MB was obvious. I thought it interesting that the Egypt military put a stop to
their plans once they achieved power there. They were useful for the initial protest violence in Syria until
more support could arrive.
In a future piece, I will address what Trotsky stood for and
use that criteria to differentiate among the various groups that call themselves Trotskyist today.
Bruce @37, this is true. The proud Trotskyists at the WSWS are consistently anti-war and have called out
several socialist organizations for being pro-NATO intervention in Libya and Syria. I find their philosophical
positions woefully reductive and uninteresting (one of them told me once that both "analytic" and "continental"
philosophy are "non-sense" and that the only true philosophy is Marxism-Leninism-Trotskyism, and also that the
Frankfurt school is the root of the perversion of Marxist philosophy), but nonetheless they do extremely
admirable and important work in reporting on the ground in places like Amazon distribution centers or
interviewing immigrant families terrorized by ICE. They have been speaking out loudly on Google censorship as
well, which is laudable.
On this topic of pro-intervention leftists, see Whitney Webb's response to the open
letter signed by Chomsky, Judith Butler, and others, calling for the humanitarian US military to save Rojava
and "increase support for the SDF":
here.
It now appears as though a war may have broken out between Syria and Israel. Israel claims that
"Iran" attacked it at the Syria/Israel border at the Golan Heights. See NOW (Syrian) News :
Notwithstanding Israel's attack on Syria, minutes ago, it should be noted, IMHO, that Max Blumenthal is simply
a "Limited Hangout". And in it for a "Few Dollars More". h/t Karlof1
So the Likudniks, who most resemble the Israelites from the first eight or nine books of the Torah, violent,
deceitful, putting the Philistines to the sword, taking their land and cattle and enslaving their women and
children, always falling away from the Commandments but always forgiven by YHWH, are building another brick BS
box to add to the structure that will, if the dual-citizens that stand atop our Imperial government have their
way, lead to some kind of "war on Iran."
I wonder what it feels like to get vaporized in a nuclear explosion... Expect it won't hurt for long -- less
painful than having to watch as the Fokkers who own us slow-walk all of us into economic and environmental
collapse, maybe quick-stepping now toward an answer to that neocon-naive question, "What good are all these
wonderful weapons for if we never USE them?" C;mon, all you Revelation Believers and Armageddonists, GET IT
OVER ALREADY, WILL YOU? THE SUSPENSE IS KILLING US!
I long ago rejected the notion that there will be some kind of retribution in some kind of "afterlife" where
the people who are bast@rds and sh!ts in this life have to atone, somehow. Anyone who might be a candidate for
eternity in the fiery lake obviously shares that disbelief. Fork 'em, if only we could reach them and stop them
somehow...
oh and let me aim a quote from pat lang - "Any sort of incident or provocation will be accepted by the US as
causus belli." that is indeed how low the usa has sunk to...
Sigh. You'd think that the left, whose only real power comes from solidarity, would be natural coalition
builders, but they aren't. I feel like all I ever see is ideological purity tests and an eagerness to shun and
expel people over differences rather than try and reach people where they are and work to change their views to
match your own. It just gets me so depressed because the right does not have this problem at all; the bible
thumpers showed up en mass for the pussy grabber. I'll just add this to my list of reasons not to procreate and
to commit suicide before the climate change shit hits the fan.
am i the only idiot here who thinks the idea of iran lobbing some missiles into israel from the golan heights
is like an oversized pack of lies? maybe i should take out a regular subscription to the times of israel to get
the '''real'''news..
This makes no sense at all. I can't even tell what we are supposed to be getting so angry about. Is it that
these three people sound insufficiently repentant? Is it their tone of voice we are judging? Or is it that they
took too long to reach their current positions? Personally I couldn't care less, as long as today they're
pushing the conversation in a positive direction. And I don't think there are many people out there
communicating more effectively than Blumenthal and Norton.
For JTMcPhee @44 regarding those "Revelation Believers and Armageddonists" who tipped the Electoral College
scales in the U.S., giving the world
All-About-Him
instead of
You-Know-Her
: sort of like a choice
between Genghis Khan and Atilla the Hun (or Hen).
Left Behind by Jesus
Jesus loves the rich, you know
Ask them, they will tell you so
Help the poor? Why that's a crime!
Best to work them overtime
Off the books, though, lest they say
That you owe them extra pay
Jesus loves those tax cuts, too
Just for some, though, not for you
See a poor kid that's a clerk?
Send him to Iraq to work
Jesus loves the army, see?
Just the place for you and me
Not the rich, though, they don't serve
What a thought! What perfect nerve!
If you think this life's a pain
Wait till Jesus comes again
Then on Armageddon Day
He will take the rich away
Sure, you thought that you'd go, too,
Not that you'd get one last screw
Just like your retirement
That the rich already spent
Jesus with the winners goes
Losers, though, just get the hose
What on earth would make you think
That your lord's shit doesn't stink?
After all he left you here
With the rich, so never fear
They'll upon your poor life piss
In the next life and in this
Jesus loves the rich, so there!
Don't complain it isn't fair
Jesus said to help themselves
Then he'd help them stock their shelves
So they did and he did, too
What has this to do with you?
Jesus loves the rich just fine
Why'd you think he pours their wine?
Jesus votes Republican
Ask them: they'll say "He's the One!"
Still a few loose coins around
That the rich have not yet found
Gotta go now, never mind
If you end up left behind
Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2006
This "solidarity" concept is stupid. There are people who call
themselves "leftists" who demand loyalty to Hillary. Um, no, we cannot have "solidarity" with Soros' minions.
We never needed "solidarity" to begin with. No significant social movement ever really depended on
"solidarity". We must think for ourselves, not just follow the party line.
@38 Wow, even the WSWS Trotskyists buy into that right wing shit about the Frankfurt School now? Man, that
'cultural marxism' conspiracy theory is so virulent even some Marxists believe it...
The only surprising thing here is how many pro trolls jumped in the defense of the spent trio. The three have
been used up, sacrificed by their owners and there is no going back. Most of the usual good commenters here
understand this well - credibility is a bit like virginity - one can go onto an operating table to regain it,
but it is never the same.
When will the ordinary people understand, like the smart commenters here, that many
regime agents pose as anti-regime activists and journalists, to be sacrificed by their creators at some
important moment. Internet is full of such.
@38, Massinissa, yes they got a bit angry when I made that connection with right-wing libertarians and their
Cultural Marxism argument about the Frankfurt school being the source of the downfall of Western civilization.
To be fair, they would reject that whole argument as well, but they nonetheless hold the Frankfurt school to be
a perversion of Marxist thinking to be rejected entirely, with no usefulness or value whatsoever.
As I think further about all this, why do I give a fuck about these intramural cat fights among journalists and
blogers. We the consumers are not in the least interested in your petty emotional bruises over improper
apologies. This crap goes on day after day in the press - journalists carping at one another and pissing off
everyone they subject to it. The Intercept practically has a section devoted to fights with other journalists.
I want reporting, the reporting I have seen from those who are sullied here is of high quality nothing in it
indicates duplicity of any kind instead it shows almost encyclopedic knowledge of the subject and issues. I am
really not interested in the complete moral biography of each and every journalist, are you?
>>> blues
, May 9, 2018 9:00:48 PM | 52
Clinton? left? LOL Thats the best laugh I've had in awhile. I meant the actual left.
/~~~~~~~~~~
As I think further about all this, why do I give a fuck about these intramural cat fights among journalists and
blogers. We the consumers are not in the least interested in your petty emotional bruises over improper
apologies. This crap goes on day after day in the press - journalists carping at one another and pissing off
everyone they subject to it. The Intercept practically has a section devoted to fights with other journalists.
I want reporting, the reporting I have seen from those who are sullied here is of high quality nothing in it
indicates duplicity of any kind instead it shows almost encyclopedic knowledge of the subject and issues. I am
really not interested in the complete moral biography of each and every journalist, are you?
When will the ordinary people understand, like the smart commenters here, that many regime agents pose as
anti-regime activists and journalists, to be sacrificed by their creators at some important moment. Internet is
full of such.
Then ask: Is it really the case that "....many regime agents pose as anti-regime activists and journalists,
to be sacrificed by their creators at some important moment"? Is that the case, or is it not? Because if it is,
in fact, the case, then we must address it. I mean, it would be kind of stupid to just ignore that, right?
Well I have seen it several times with my own eyes. So as one of "we the consumers" I cannot just go and
dismiss it as a "cat fight".
I remember the first time Trump attacked Syrian forces was over a chocolate cake with chines president. Could
this be the same treatment or a reply by Putin if he gave a green light to Syria they can reply in kind inside
Israel, while Nuty is the guest of honor in Moscow?
@kooshy
The ayrian government is not controlled by putin. They can choose to respond any way thry want to for the
ongoing aggression and zionist invasion they dont need a "green light" from mosow you only need tosee how rt is
covering the news to understand that russia has nothing to do with thi a
I don't assume a commenter is controlled opposition "until they
prove otherwise". But for anyone named "Hal Turner" (the FBI's honeypot blogger), I have severe doubts to begin
with.
What you say is true, sorry to say. One reason why it is true is that there has not been
a viable American political left for at least a half century now and probably longer. There were some stirrings
of legitimate left politics in a few of the civil rights groups (certainly not all) in the early 1960s, and for
a long time the Black Panthers represented by far the healthiest left movement in the US since the 1920s-30s.
But the mass potential for a real socialist politics came to an end, I think, with the assassination of King,
and the local pockets of black nationalist resistance were bombed or shot or disappeared by FBI and police
forces over the next decade. The remaining Vietnam anti-war movement was largely useless. Many of them are
today the aging equestrians of the professional liberal #Resistance.
Occupy had some promise but was easily dissipated. The Democratic primaries demonstrated that a moderate
social democrat could outearn corporate PAC financed tools via aattracting a huge number of small donations
from people earning between 35K-100K (which is a *relatively* piss poor class of people, politically speaking).
Some of this momentum carried over into socialist party gains and electoral victories in 2018, and in some
states motivated a younger social democratic ("progressive" I suppose they call themselves) insurgency against
Democratic Party empty suits. How lasting and successfull this development will prove to be is uncertain. My
hope is that the 2020 Democratic primary season is much more destructive for internal party structure than that
of 2016 was; ideally the party itself would implode, ceasing to exist altogether or remade entirely on an
explicitly socialist, or at least social democratic platform, the #Resistance crew jumping over to the
Republicans.
Just go away. You are not going to fool anybody round here into taking you seriously with such
comically C-grade troll phrases as "return to relevance" and "such a divisive post."
From Ben Norton via the link given by b above ("this episode"):
"We have been criticized, mostly by people who I think have been somewhat unfair, but I think there are
valid criticisms, in that early on in the conflict we were kind of knee jerk response supportive of the
opposition out of the idea that this is like some progressive revolution against an evil authoritarian regime
etc., you know believing a lot of those talking points which we now know are significantly more complex, if not
just flat out false."
First, thanks to many MoA barflies for the kind words. I am far more often than not impressed with the
knowledge and analytical abilities of those Bernhard has attracted to this site no doubt attracted by those
same qualities in b. I have learned, and continue to learn much from y'all. So getting props from people I
admire is really quite touching.
Most of the criticisms seem to be along the lines of 'we should not
criticize people who change their minds lest we scare off others."
Of course we should encourage everyone to cut through the propaganda in every way we can. We are all
swimming 24/7 in a 360 degree ocean of PR/Propaganda of a sort that Bernays and Goebbels could have only
dreamt. I have no doubt that right this moment I hold some disinformation that was deliberately fed to me, and
I hope that I am appreciative when someone else helps to lift a veil for me.
In fact, I have no doubt that some propaganda is designed for people like myself (and others here at MoA and
elsewhere), whom the propagandists know are aware of their work, and so we are on the lookout for it. I'll
return to that thought.
And when one has a breakthrough as profound as making a 180 degree turn on an issue so great as a war, I
absolutely agree that we should welcome that person with warmth and love.
But I also believe we should be skeptical of EVERY journalist/opinion maker who has a substantial platform.
For in all but the rarest of cases, the fact of having a substantial platform means having a substantial
financial backing. Not all financial backing is dubious of course, but I think we all agree that critical
thinking should always be engaged.
So, how should a journalist with a large following who is also a significant opinion maker handle reversing
directions on a war? Should that person scrub all previous work from the internet, and just start writing the
opposite?
Or should that person help others to have a similar epiphany (most especially those readers who had bought
the product this journalist had been selling for the previous 5 years)? In teaching there is a method termed
"guided discovery," whereby the teacher lays out a path for the students to use their own minds to come to the
correct conclusion. I can think of no better time to use this method than when one is actually having that very
same "discovery" process, or had just had it.
Max could have written articles revealing one piece of false propaganda after the other as he now says he
and his cohorts did privately amongst themselves. Today, they complain that "leftists/progressives" attack them
as "Assad apologists" and such. We all know that the first response to a new viewpoint that is opposite of one
already deeply held is almost always rejection. And when the person presenting this new information had for
years actually helped instill in the audience the opposite view, it's only normal for people to become suspect
of the journalist's motives.
But that's not the path Max, (and Ben and Rania) chose. Was this a case of being a poor teacher, or
something else possibly something a bit more sinister?
Let's consider other things in Max's record. ,
In an earlier comment, I described the disinformation in Max's book, "The 51 Day War" and in his
characterization of fellow Jewish writer, Gilad Atzmon. At the least, as a journalist, Max should know better
than to spread such incorrect and dangerous ideas.
And we cannot ignore that Max was amongst the first to blame a youtube video for the attack at the US
Embassy Mission that killed Ambassador Stevens, his aid and later, two former Navy Seals (read: mercenaries).
He wrote this even before the Obama Administration officially made that claim. How'd he know? And when his
daddy sent Hillary Max's OpEd (and again Max's daddy had worked with Hillary Clinton in understanding why Libya
had to be destroyed, and how to do that), Hillary wrote back,
Another author Max vociferously and wrongly labels an "anti-Semite" and liar is Allison Weir. Everyone
should read her in depth study of the origins of the Jewish State of Israel in the Levant, "Against Their
Better Judgement" and frequent her website, ifamericansknew.org.
BTW: It was Max who coined the JSIL term for Israel which I frequently use. We can be critical of a source
and still appreciative of useful and true information from that source. Even Controlled Opposition must reveal
some true information not found in MSM in order to build the trust that allows them to then feed disinformation
into our minds.
Check out this
4 minute video
to
see clearly how Max duplicitously slanders this good woman:
So, back to my earlier question, "what would a propaganda designed for people who already know the MSM is
propaganda look like?" I think I may have provided at least one answer.
żWhen the Kent State Cambodian War protesters were shot in the back by the Natiinal Guard?
żWhen Billy Graham exorted 'Bomb the Gooks for Jesus!' at the Lincoln Memorial during those protests, and
Time Magazine called him 'America's Preacher' while recently released tapes show Graham telling Nixon to nuke
Hanoi??
żWhen thr Hells Angels beat that guy to death at Altamont while the Stones were pleased to introduce
themselves?
I actually earned a degree in journalism, even though I went to an undistinguished university and was
persecuted by the head of the department. I could never support myself as a journalist because unlike Max
Blumenthal, I didn't have the resources to travel to other countries and just do journalism. I had to do
something else to support myself. Nevertheless, I knew what was up in Syria the minute I saw that al Jazeera
had started churning out anti-Assad propaganda: this was early in 2011, while Libya was still in turmoil. There
is no excuse for anyone not to have paid attention to Libya--Thierry Meyssan barely escaped with his life after
NATO put out an order to kill him! And there is no excuse for anyone to have seen Syria as anything else than
an aggression by the U.S., NATO, the GCC and Israel. This is not about some naive kid (and Max Blumenthal is
neither young nor naive) falling for romantic propaganda: it is about the son of a highly placed CIA employee
who himself claims to be a journalist, and who was the closest advisor to Secretary of State Clinton on the
Middle East. As Sidney Blumenthal's son, Max had the best education, a hell of a lot of exposure to the deep
state, and is independently wealthy. With these privileges, why wasn't it him who was in Turkey reporting on
the U.S., NATO and the World Health Organization sending weapons and terrorists into Syria? Why was it Serena
Shim, someone that Turkey, with the nod of the CIA, could murder with impunity? And what is Blumenthal
reporting on right now? Nothing that will risk his neck or his reputation, God forbid. Taking risks is for
people like Shim, who lost her life, like Wassim Issa, who just lost both legs, like Vanessa Beeley, who has
had her name dragged through the mud by FBI agent Sibel Edmonds and the entire British media establishment.
The really funny thing here is you folks are ripping Blumenberg a new a**hole for "changing his mind" when you
guys are so wrong about Syria. Blumenstock and his friends were closer to the truth
before
their
conversion. That's right, the story you guys believe about Assad being a bit of a hard a** but a relatively
benign dictator is pure fantasy.
The Syrian Ba'athist regime is renowned for its savage brutality against even suspected dissenters. How you
people can explain away the well documented record of this violence says something about your echo chamber
state of mind. And yes the Syrian government and its Russian patron target civilian areas and hospitals. Again,
this is credibly documented. You are buying into a propaganda narrative. Vanessa Beeley, for example, is a
Ba'athist stenographer who is not telling the whole story. Before you all start hollering, and throwing
furniture let me ask how many Syrians post here? Right.
Nothing I can say will convince anyone to change their mind and that's okay because who am I and, besides,
everyone here has the internet and knows how to use search. If you are brave or not completely brainwashed yet
start with this article (you don't have to agree with everything in it) to get a sense of where your chosen
narrative is at its weakest.
https://www.thenation.com/article/the-debate-over-syria-has-reached-a-dead-end/
Have fun!
I wonder if Syria were to regain the Golan Heights of Syria and then blitzkreig beyond in a New 7 Day War,
all the way to Haifa and beyond, whether the same Rabbinicals and Evangelicals who worship Zionism would defend
Syria's right to 'the spoils of war' and then turn a blind eye as Syria blockades Haifa into a concentration
camp the way Isreal has turned Gaza into one? Would they talk about Syrians being the New Chosen of Jaweh?
Would they throw away their yarmulkels, and wear black and white Hezbullah scarves, just to be among the
victors? Would Netanyahu be treated in the press like Arafat was treated, as a loser?
I tend to give thanks for small miracles, given the dire straights the world of journalism is in. Blessed are
those who repent and at least max, Rhania and Ben appear to have sincerely repented the error of their early
days, and max, in particular, has done some truly great work, exposing the Chemical false Flags and the White
helmets for what they were and are. Sure, he and others stood on the shoulders of some braver and more
perceptive souls such as Sharmine Narwani, Vanessa Beely and Eva Bartlett, among the very - so very - few who
dared question the dominant narrative starting in 2011.
I also think that perhaps people don't realize just
how difficult it was to be a western journalist/reporter and have any kind of career back in 2011/2012 while
questioning the dominant narrative. Very very few did in the west, if truth be said. yes, there were Syrian
connected reporters and opinionators like the Syrian perspective, MOA and a few, all too few, others. But one
could count the English reporters of truth on one finger. Not just Syria, but also Libya and probably even
Egypt. So, not everyone is super-brave from the get-go. not everyone has the analytic skills and integrity of
"b", but then b is not stuck with writing for the Guardian, is he? And he and Ziad fadel hand Sharwani and
those few others we heard from, many times did not earn their living from writing geopolitic (I think I need to
add The Saker to the list. I believe I discovered him only in 2013 or so).
So, if some who first wandered in the desert got some kahunas later, it's definitely better than never. IMO,
it's kind of small minded to excoriate those who failed to see the full picture back as it was happening. Me, I
see the glass as half full rather than half empty, and as I sit here i can only wish for more converts to the
truth. Say Monbiot of The Guardian? now, that would be nice, wouldn't it?
I also would like to remind people just how caught up so many western liberals were in the spectacle of the
Arab Spring (that wasn't much in the end, and we should think long and hard about why that was so). We - as in
many of us - projected our wishes upon the Arab millennials and students, but little did we do - as in any of
us - to research the sad, tragic realities in their own countries. The dependence of Egypt on tourism for
example all but doomed their spring to another long Winter. We, who have jobs and/or comfortable positions
somewhere and/or comfortable enough retirement that allows some to post here (and post well and thoughtfully
for many, which takes time and is definitely a luxury), how could we even imagine what it means to have so
little that to lose that meager income from tourists is a catastrophe? In the end the majority of the Egyptians
went for bread and butter or Sisi would not have prevailed (please don't read this as defense of the Sisi
regime. It's just me trying to understand why the revolution in Egypt did not succeed). But all this happened
back in 2011 to 2013, and Syria seemed like one more exclamation mark on some elusive "Arab Spring". Of course,
it was no such thing but I only knew that from reading far more widely than most people do, and I wasn't a
journalist trying to eke out a living either. As commenters we have the luxury of writing as we see fit,
without fear of being fired. Anonymously too, most of us. But for reporters out in the open, I reckon it must
have been a little harder.
Actually, I am trying to work up a little piece on the mysterious - and not so mysterious - reasons Syria
became such a red line for writers of all kinds, that to cross it back in 2012-2015 meant vitriol in the
mailbox and who knows what else. Sure it became easier in 2015 once the Russians stepped in, but I am trying to
figure out why that was the case. What was so special about 2016, other than that was the year the russians
really helped turn things around? and it was election season in the US too. Still, I am struglgling to wrap
arms around this strange conundrum of why Syria?
Finally, speaking about red lines and daniel's comment. Gilad Atzmon is the most obvious case of a red line
those who write in the open cannot cross. No matter how pro-palestinians and/or anti-zionists they are. Gilad
is a lithmus test and has been for quite a while now. Just another somewhat strange phenomenon, and snother
occasion for yet another piece (which I will write under still another name - for good reason. After all, the
mere mention of the name Atzmon could be enough to get one kicked out of "polite' society....and I do like the
free food and drinks served in those societies - now and then....).
This is not only suspiciously vindictive, it's a bore. Isn't there something more pernicious to explore than
Max Blumenthal's lack of perfection? 1) The implication that he changes his positions for financial gain is
laughable. If Max is trying to sell out, he's going about it all wrong. 2) He's under no obligation to explain
his father's actions. 3) You seem to be implying that he was quiet about Libya because of his father's
involvement. Isn't that what you're supposed to do if you have a conflict of interest? 4) You don't like the
name "Moderate Rebels?" Dude your writing for a website called "Moon Over Alabama" Let's just agree to judge on
content rather than title.
Assad's opposition has turned him into a hero, not us. He is a veritable paladin next to the Jihadi
headchoppers that would take over if he fell.
And how has regime-change ever helped anyway? Toppling Saddam was a disaster for USA in terms of
international standing, financial cost, and the end result (increased Iranian influence). Libya after Qaddafi
is a nightmare where ISIS conducts slave auctions. Afghanistan's 18-year war is a quagmire of dumbfuckery so
profound that it is only talked about in hushed terms when reauthorizations are needed. In Ukraine, the West
'won' a money pit.
@73 daniel. your question "what would a propaganda designed for
people who already know the MSM is propaganda look like?" - the intercept?
@76 diana.. good post.. thanks..
@80 merlin.. thanks for your post.. i am still conflicted on the arab spring.. on the one hand it seemed
like a natural occurrence.. on the other hand it seems like the powers that be were waiting to take advantage
of it too, especially in the case of syria...i suppose we could give max, ben and rania a pass based on the
general view that the arab spring was upon the middle east and everyone knew what a brutal dictator assad was..
i think a few folks woke up during the ukraine shakedown 2014, and they might have got to thinking that indeed
the yinon plan was still on track or that general clarks comments which i quote here were indeed relevant.. "As
I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a
chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed
as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq,
then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and finishing off Iran."
that arab spring thing seemed like good cover for any number of tricks, not to mention regime change.. i
have a hard time buying into the thought that someone who is supposed to cultivate critical thinking would
overlook this myself.. maybe investigative reporters are supposed to skip the critical thinking class? i don't
buy that myself.. i relate more to diana's comment @76 and think that it is fair to criticize max and any other
number of public journalists, or bloggers.. i do it with other posters here and i get it when folks do it with
b, as a few have here on this thread, even if i don't agree with them in this instance..
thanks to the many commentators here that continue to give me greater insight to overcome the blind spots
that i carry around without being fully or even partly aware of them.. it's ongoing..
I agree with your assertions about the paid shills of our
world....they are paid to get out in front of trains not of their creation and start a parade.
Your posting has brought a new "class" of trolls to MoA. Maybe we can open some of their minds and they will
quit their day jobs.
Although par for the course for most people, your short sightedness, your disregard for factual evidence and
your sheer inability for critical evaluation is exasperating.
It is because of people like you that offer sustenance to a predatory and exploitative elite that we find
ourselves in the bind we are in.
People like you have completely bought into the narrative of the ostensible benevolence of presumably
democratic governments. People like you have completely been sold on the desirability of the centralization of
power. People like you have gladly waded into the self defeating fable of the righteousness of centralized
education.
It is people like you that happily cheer-on our elites as they gradually divest society of their labor and
their wealth by lowering interest rates artificially.
It is people like you that merrily support our elites as they progressively reveal themselves to be mere
enforcers for predatory financial interests
It is people like you that rejoice in the orgy of government profligacy that gradually weighs down the
creativity, the productivity and the mere right to existence of individuals the world over.
It is people like you that revel in the self declared virtue of transnational political entities that, time
and again, are caught abetting and often, colluding with retrograde, sanguinary individuals the world over.
You are a deluded soul. Either that, or you have an agenda.
I know how hard it is for people to change their views, my self included. Sure you could say Max and Co. should
have known better but what does that say about 99% of journalists on this planet who still firmly sticks with
and probably believes the official NATO propaganda narrative?
I think having an article and debating this is
both helpful and informative. However resorting to name calling like "turncoats" implies playing for a team.
Tribalism and partisan hackery is something we should avoid at all costs. I've been accused of being a Putin
lover and Assad lover by those who cling to the NATO narrative. The truth is I think both as assholes but I
also understand the position they are in.
Is the Baath regime ideal? Fuck no. Would a Muslim brotherhood Regime be better? Highly doubtful. Would
Al-Nusra or and ISIS Regime bet better? WTF? are you kidding me?? There is no black and white here, but some
are much more gray that others. Same goes for journalists and people, none of us are without flaws. But the
ability to change your mind and correct course is a good property especially in a journalist. This "no true
Scotsman" mentality is a luxury we can't really afford in the fight against the onslaught of corporate pro WAR
media.
Serious tribalism here, quite ugly to see, no criticism is allowed.
People that are wrong must apologize lol,
I mean get off your high horse.
Also attacking Blumenthal, Khalek, Norton, its like a teenager trying to pick a fight with a bodybuilder,
and those who play with fire is going to be burnt himself by the same smearing.
Attacking people that is on your own side, also shows how misguided these blogposts are.
Democracy Now, pleeeeease the white wash agency for USA exceptionalism and other crimes against
humanity. Next you'll be quoting the Guardian. Reposting content from either of these two is like passing round
used toilet paper for another try.
I can understand the alround eagerness to condemn. It's a standard pattern of putting the bar very high for
others. It's as people have to demonstrate how good they are themselves by condemning others. Julian Assange is
far from perfect as well but he has done a huge service.
I think it was perfectly normal for a progressives to support the demonstrations and rebellion against Assad.
This fit in with the Arab Spring and there was a legitimate aspiration for more democracy. There was also a
violent component from the start , and there were strong exhortations to avoid all negotiations and avoid all
compromise because Assad certainly was going to fall. It's to Max Blumenthal's credit that he caught on to the
component which was there from the start and which quickly started to dominate: the intent , mostly from
outside, to destroy or degrade the state. I think Blumenthal has done very good work on many fronts and I
respect him.
I do not appreciate how he bashes people who have not caught on. It does not necessarily get
easier over time to change your mind. The amount of propaganda on the issue has also increased. Once you're on
the outside it's easy, but it is also easy to underestimate how hard it is to change your mind from the inside.
I understood the nature of the conflict from the start. Therefore I'm much smarter than Blumenthal. He
should listen to me.
I can believe that Blumenthal is obfuscating his change of mind. But I've known about his change of mind for
a long time from interviews so I never even noticed the obfuscation.
It's not pretty. Ok. So it's not pretty.
Fantastic piece by Daniel, it's nice to see that some people have some standards. Both Norton and Blumenthal
have lied about various issues, not just Syria, though the way Max, Ben and Rania all changed positions at the
same time on Syria is highly shady. Same with the deletion without explanation of their past work on Syria,
Libya etc. Max has helped his war profiteer, Clinton employee father sell lies on various issues, we should't
be grateful that he(or they) rebranded on Syria after he already did so much damage. We should be skeptical as
to why.
@ Anon who wrote: "Attacking people that is on your own side, also shows how misguided these blogposts are."
Unless you want to replace global private finance with totally sovereign finance you are not on my side. Are
you on my side Anon? Do you think Max B is on my side ?
Take your obfuscating BS to some other blog you come in and say is misguided.
As C @ 91 says, the fact that Max Blumenthal et al experienced their Damascene moment (cough, cough) at about
the same time is suspicious in itself. The timing of that moment too, with the Russian entry into the Syrian
war in September 2015 and the turnabout in Syria's fortunes that started soon after, must also be considered.
One might almost have guessed that Blumenthal, Norton and Khalek were planning and co-ordinating their move
together, and looking for the right moment.
They must surely know that they are playing the role of gatekeepers in demarcating how far dissent from the
official narrative about Syria is allowed to go. The fact that some commenters here have taken their contrition
at face value and question or criticise others who have reservations about the depth of the trio's actions
demonstrates the power of that role, and why some of us might be justified in doubting their motives for acting
the way they have.
Until Max Blumenthal does something that truly threatens the powers that be, like Thierry Meyssan and Serena
Shim, I will regard him as another Sibel Edmonds--a government infiltrator posing as a dissident. By the way,
if anyone wants to know what really happened at the beginning of the invasion of Syria, read Thierry Meyssan's
writings from Libya and Damascus at the time: "John McCain, conductor of the Arab Spring" is amazing. So is
another one Thierry published on Voltaire, The rebirth of the Syrian Arab Army
https://www.voltairenet.org/article190703.html
This pissing contest comes off very much like the scene in Monty Python's "Life of Brian" in which members of
the People's Front of Judea badmouth the Judean People's Front. The ultimate insult was to call anyone with a
different opinion a "SPLITTER!" From my point of view, Max, Ben and Rania have their hearts in the right place.
(Has no one heard their saber-like takes on Ukraine?) They are not the enemy. In "Brian's" time, it was Rome,
and in our time it is the Western Empire. Let's all keep that in mind.
I agree with many posters here that the criticism of "prodigal children" of anti-imperialism should be
measured. This is a political cause, and we are not assembling an elite force that can smash most entrenched
enemies. Instead, we should strive to analyze the reality, spread the word and convert.
And we have to accept
that we differ on many issues, and very often we differ with our own past position. Back when the issue was
Kosovo intervention, I though that this is good idea. Now I know that "Beware the Greeks when they bring gifts
[Trojan Horse, for those deficient in classics]" should get another corollary "beware imperialists when they
care about human rights".
And it is not just vicarious imperialists or people who maintain civil relationship with members of Hamas
who may wrongly generalize. Assuming that Muslim Brotherhood is always and everywhere a force of evil violates
the good principle "location, location, location". Like Marxism, MB ideology has gamut of different trends, and
it is a bit to its credit that in Syria it did such a miserable job, being outplayed by Salafist -- they do not
do a good job as a warrior cult, they are actually too normal for that.
If moonofalabama has searchable archive, I was posting that it is immensely
speculative that Trump is a lesser evil than Clinton, in particular, his consistent praise of Bolton puts under
question mark all reasonable fragments of sentences that one could collect from his tweets and speeches.
Domestically, the guy is a wrecking ball, internationally -- it is still a bit open issue, I hope for malignity
mellowed by ineptitude, I mean, the outcome leave a chance for recovery. Then again, Clinton is much less smart
than some think her to be, so the grounds for opposing her more than Trump were illusionary.
I meant to add to my previous post (92) that requiring absolute ideological purity has been deadly to the left
ever since the left began. It is one of the main reasons why a broad-based leftwing movement has never taken
hold and lasted. A pox on these sectarian ideological squabbles. If the left wants to win, it must put them
aside once and for all.
Those who argue for leniency for Blumenthal and the others would have us overlook the MANY betrayals of other
so-called progressives. Such betrayals are too frequent to be just a matter of 'bad apples' or 'bad judgement'.
These "turncoats" take
strategic positions
on issues to advance their career. Hillary, the "progressive
that gets things done", and Obama, the "community organizer", are two notable examples. Another would be
Bernie's 'sheepdog' betrayal of his Movement - even after it was clear that Hillary and the DNC had conspired
against him. Such people slyly conflate progressive ideals with divisive identity politics. By throwing off the
moral core of progressivism they advance the interests of TPTB. Their many loyal sycophants and apologists rush
to defend the indefensible and try their best to muddy waters BUT WE KNOW THE GAME by now so fuck off! You
can't piss down our backs and tell us it raining anymore.
'Progressive' pundits and journalists that become useful idiots instead of watchdogs are even worse because
they claim to be truth-tellers. You don't get to lead the next parade after you've led people over a cliff.
"... Iran will largely stick to the nuclear deal if the EU effectively defends it and does not hinder Iranian deals with European companies. If the EU fails to do so the nuclear agreement will be null and void. Iran will leave the deal. The neoliberal Rouhani government that agreed to the deal will fall and the conservatives will be back. They will defend Iran's sovereignty at all costs. ..."
"... U.S. credibility has been seriously damaged. Its soft power is gone. Its hard power has shown to be inadequate in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. ..."
"... Iran has not only new allies but gained in the Middle East because of U.S., Israeli and Saudi stupidity. The wars on Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen have all strengthened Iran's position while it largely kept largely out of them. ..."
"... The U.S. position in Afghanistan is hopeless. ..."
"... There are some people in the Trump administration who will want to wage war on Iran. The Bush administration also had such plans. But any war gaming of a campaign against Iran ended badly for the U.S. and its allied states. The Gulf countries are extremely vulnerable. Their oil output could be shut down within days. That situation has not changed. The U.S. is now in a worse strategic position than it was after the invasion of Iraq. As long as somewhat sane people lead the Pentagon they will urge the White House not to launch such an endeavor. ..."
"... If EU had any sense, it would threaten total trade war against the US if they ever touched any EU firm over the Iran sanctions. The US has no legal basis for this, and it's time to make them pay for it - not only at UN and WTO levels, but by leveling economic sanctions against the USA as well. ..."
"... Trump is a neocon, no doubt about that, we must stop hoping/supporting this dangerous man. ..."
"... This deal was not a treaty with advice and consent by the Senate according to the Constitution. As long as some presidents ignore the Constitution and make agreements on their own with other countries, they shouldn't be surprised when other presidents nullify them. (Bush-43 did the same thing on Iraq withdrawal as Obama did with Iran nuclear.) ..."
"... Participation of the U.S. in this plan of action is now canceled, and U.S. sanctions on Iran will be enhanced. There will be no United Nations sanctions, and probably the other parties to the agreement will adhere to the plan's strictures while increasing ties with Iran. The Trump withdrawal in fact clarifies the U.S. position which was dismissive of the plan anyhow, with the U.S. not adhering to its terms under the new president. ..."
"... This change may not hurt Iran much, as other parties to the plan continue to adhere to it and compensate for the U.S. withdrawal by using foreign currencies in Iran trade, etc. The price of oil is increasing and there is increased demand for it. Iran's ties with Russia, China and India are stronger than ever, and the latter two are in great need of petroleum. The change also reduces U.S. influence in Europe and elsewhere, which is not a bad thing because it reduces U.S. world hegemony. ..."
"... Immediately after the Trump comedy, Netanyahu took the stage and babbled about nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles being developed in Iran for the use with nuclear warheads. Just poor coincidents: There was a general alarm on the Golan heights. When will the bombers take off? ..."
"... It needs clarifying - how can this be a 'withdrawal'? More like reneging on the agreement. Agreement incapable indeed. It's getting time for the world to unify and sanction the US, until it reforms its behaviour. Why not? ..."
"... Trump even made up that Iran supports al Qaeda, did you hear that?! Amazing, along with the fact that Iran wont be allowed to have ballistic missiles apparently. Its all pre-war Iraq 2003 again. ..."
"... The level of the American Presidency has been declining for years. It is entirely in the gutter now, the Moron in Chief, has hardly any vocabulary and what he has is used to express blatant lies. What a disgrace... ..."
"... I do not think that Trump is, ideologically-speaking, a neocon. I would not credit Trump with possessing any consistently held principles or views informing either his domestic or foreign policy decisions. He is an avaricious showman and so is unstable and yet at the same time easily manipulable. But it doesn't really matter what Trump "believes" at the end of the day as he is for better or/and worse not the one really in charge of policy and hasn't been, quite clearly, for at least a year. (He sometimes forgets this when tweeting but is always quite easily reminded afterwards.) Don't get me wrong, I am not defending Trump. ..."
"... My point is just that Trump has no grand vision of US foreign or domestic policy but rather a knack for identifying and exploiting the excluded rhetorical middle whereever it appears ..."
"... By the way, anybody who thinks that HRC if elected would not have pursued effectively the same course of action toward Iran has not been paying attention. It was not only plain as day that HRC while campaigning had to situate herself on the side of Obama's deal against Trump's bombastic denunciations of it for obvious political reasons. But the apparent "partisan" divide over the Iran deal was always only that. HRC was going to "distrust and verify" and always counted on Bibi coming through for her like he did for Trump. Neither SA nor Israel liked the Iran deal, and so the Iran deal was never going to last under HRC either, for SA and Israel are her base. I say this all lest the dangerous and self-defeating idiocy of Trump's withdrawal from the deal be misconstrued as a partisan issue or failing. In truth, the Iran deal was never meant to last in the first place. If you think it was, then I would propose you are still underestimating the sway that SA and Israel and their US arms sellers exercise over US foreign policy. ..."
"... There won't be any large war against Iran as this will lead to $ 200 oil price and possible break up of NATO. ..."
"... It will destroy the EU economically and put it at the mercy of Russia. It will put the world economy into depression too. ..."
"... Just listened to Trump's speech pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal. Sounded like something written by Bolton with help from Netanyahoo. ..."
"... Ruhani and his smiling FM are toast!!! They still claiming Iran will abide by the deal simply because the Europeans say so. They'll be hit with another stick soon by the EU. The EU is merely an extension of the US. They don't move without approval from Washington. Like Victoria Nuland will say, "f*ck the EU". Ruhani poured concrete into Arak nuclear plant on some flimsy promises from Obama. The "reformist" camp in Iran are politically DEAD now. ..."
"... First and foremost, IMO, this decision is not Trump's, his corporate masters tell him what he is to do. The empire's decisions are made by the so-called " deep state", which is nothing more than an alliance formed by global industries bent on global hegemony. ..."
"... the masochistic streak in EU is quite deep. They lived through delicious pain of multibillion fines imposed on their companies for whimsically identified sanction violations. Not imposing sanctions but tolerating such fine would be as bad as breaking the agreement with Iran. But doing something about it may require a positive action rather than vetoes than can be imposed by few holdouts. ..."
"... My prediction is that the EU will fold soon under US pressure. Russia/China will go back to using Iran as bargaining chip in dealing with the West. ..."
"... The US empire is a withering empire in decline. How easy do folks forget the centrifugal forces of history, and that as all empires, especially ones constructed based on artificiality, are doomed. This decision by Trump only hastens the disintegration of the US global footprint. Whether the US ruling class wants to admit it or not, we live in a transitional age that is in the shadows of the American empire. ..."
"... Given the current composition of Trump's foreign/defense policy team, it seems likely that the goal is an actual attack upon Iran. The warmongers are riding high in the saddle. One can only hope that our European allies make it clear that they will not support such an action, and that the U.S. and Israel will be on their own. ..."
"... To all those who claim that the United States is either currently or soon will be bankrupt, please stop. The U.S. government is not like a family or a privately owned business. That is because it controls its own currency and can create as much currency as it wants at any time it wants. Hence, bankruptcy is a logical impossibility. ..."
"... Not too big of a deal for Iran so long as China, Russia and some EU states ignore the sanctions. Seems like more of a ploy to get US voters on a war footing. I suspect the immediate objective is war in Syria by exaggerating the presence of Iranian forces there. With ISIS in Syria not a credible threat to get support for more many Americans will easily be led to believe Iran is a credible threat to Israel and the region. ..."
"... Thank you, it's the sort of reality that needs to be said. We, none of us, know what is going on within the very high level domain of politics; we don't have access. However, we can gather a great deal of general information and determine some broad ideas of outcomes. Never mind trying to be more manly than those in charge and declaring how you would take this action, shoot that plane, bomb this city. Step back and look at this broad playing field and consider what can be done while keep the body count to a minimum. Indeed, the USA is a zombie country (dead but doesn't know it yet). Yes, Israel is a little hole in the ground (you know, barrel full of fish sort of thing). ..."
"... I firmly believe that in an informal way Putin/Xi are working in the background to hold what they can together, let the US stumble on in it's death spiral and limit the damage as much as possible. If that means appearing to bend the knee so be it; the alternative is annihilation. ..."
Trump Ends The Nuclear Deal With Iran - What's Next?
With a very belligerent speech Trump nixed the nuclear deal with Iran. He also lied a lot in it. Neither is a surprise.
The United States only keeps agreements as long as they are to its short term advantage - just ask native Americans. One
can never count on the U.S. to keep its word.
Trump will re-impose U.S. sanctions on Iran because:
The nuclear deal was negotiated by the Obama administration and thus must be bad;
Israel wants to keep Iran as the boogeyman;
the Zionists and right wing nuts in the U.S. want the U.S. to attack Iran;
MAGA - Trump needs Iran as enemy of the Gulf states to sell more U.S. weapons.
Three European countries, Britain, France and Germany, were naive enough to think they could prevent this. The EU3 offered
the U.S. to put additional sanctions on Iran for other pretended reason - ballistic missiles and the Iranian engagement
in Syria. I was disgusted when I first read of the plan. It was obvious from the beginning that it would only discredit
these countries AND fail.
Luckily Italy and some eastern European countries
shot the effort down at the EU level. They were not willing to sacrifice their credibility over the issue. The nuclear
agreement was signed and should be followed by all sides. They pointed out that there was no guarantee from Trump that
any additional European effort would change his view.
Over the last weeks some last EU3 attempts to influence Trump were made. They were
in vain :
On Friday, Pompeo organized a conference call with his three European counterparts. Sources who were briefed on the call
told me Pompeo thanked the E3 for the efforts they had made since January to come up with a formula that will convince
Trump not to pull out of the nuclear deal -- but made it clear the President wants to take a different direction.
...
After Trump's statement, the European powers want to issue a joint statement which will make it clear they are
staying in the Iran deal in an attempt to prevent its collapse.
The sanctions Trump will reintroduce are not just limiting U.S. dealings with Iran, but will also penalize other countries.
That will lead to a flurry of protective measures as at least some of those other countries
will limit their exposure to U.S. rules and may even introduce counter sanctions:
"We are working on plans to protect the interests of European companies" Maja Kocijancic, EU spokeswoman for foreign
affairs, told reporters in Brussel.
Iran will largely stick to the nuclear deal if the EU effectively defends it and does not hinder Iranian deals with
European companies. If the EU fails to do so the nuclear agreement will be null and void. Iran will leave the deal. The
neoliberal Rouhani government that agreed to the deal will fall and the conservatives will be back. They will defend Iran's
sovereignty at all costs.
The U.S. seems to believe it can go back to the same position Obama had build up in the years before the nuclear deal.
Iran was under UN sanctions and all countries, including China and Russia, held them up. The Iranian economy was in serious
trouble. It needed to negotiate a way out. That situation will not come back.
U.S. credibility has been seriously damaged. Its soft power is gone. Its hard power has shown to be inadequate in Afghanistan,
Iraq and Syria.
China and Russia are both making huge deals with Iran and are now
effectively
its protectors . While they have no common ideology all three oppose a globalized world under exclusive "western" rules.
They have the economic power, the population and resources to do so. Neither the U.S. nor Europe has come to terms with
that.
Iran has not only new allies but gained in the Middle East because of U.S., Israeli and Saudi stupidity. The wars on
Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen have all strengthened Iran's position while it largely kept largely out of them.
The recent
election in Lebanon went well for the 'resistance' camp. Within Lebanon Hizbullah can no longer be challenged. The upcoming
elections in Iraq will result in another Iran-friendly government. The Syrian army is winning the war waged against the
country. The U.S. position in Afghanistan is hopeless. Saudi Arabia is now in a fight with the UAE over the war on Yemen.
The GCC spat with Qatar is still unsolved.
While Israel wants to keep Iran as a boogeyman to divert attention from its genocidal campaign against Palestinians,
it does not want a large war. Hizbullah in Lebanon has enough missiles to make modern life in Israel untenable. A war on
Iran could easily end up with Tel Aviv in flames.
There are some people in the Trump administration who will want to wage war on Iran. The Bush administration also had
such plans. But any war gaming of a campaign against Iran ended badly for the U.S. and its allied states. The Gulf countries
are extremely vulnerable. Their oil output could be shut down within days. That situation has not changed. The U.S. is
now in a worse strategic position than it was after the invasion of Iraq. As long as somewhat sane people lead the Pentagon
they will urge the White House not to launch such an endeavor.
The U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal is a huge mistake. Defense Secretary Mattis spoke against it. Will Trump make
an even bigger mistake despite the opinion of his military advisors? Will he wage war on Iran?
Ground operations on Iran mean immediate military intervention from China and Russia, neither of whom can afford to let
the US take over that country - for strategic geographic and economic reasons. That was already clear to me back in 2003
when that idiot Perle stated he wanted to send the troops to Tehran; it's even more obvious now, after all that
happened in Syria.
If EU had any sense, it would threaten total trade war against the US if they ever touched any EU firm
over the Iran sanctions. The US has no legal basis for this, and it's time to make them pay for it - not only at UN and
WTO levels, but by leveling economic sanctions against the USA as well.
Congrats to the dimwitted MAGAClowns. Your dumb god emperor is nothing more than a humiliated little poodle for the Israeli and Saudi regimes. Europe, Russia, Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and China all just became a single unified block against the increasingly irrelevant
American empire.
Jesus, the speech was filled with so many lies and innuedos and pure psychological disinformation tropes I had to write
down every one not to forget them.. Speech was sounding as something Netanyahu had written for Trump. Which of course
its all about, Israel. Lets see if the phony EU states stand against US sanctions or if they like the pathetic media, already paint Iran
as the new enemy.
Trump is a neocon, no doubt about that, we must stop hoping/supporting this dangerous man.
I watched the first minute or so of Trump's speech. Links every evil in the world to Iran. Big mistake for US. More than
just a nail in the coffin of the US empire.
The nuclear deal, for the United States, was an agreement by the previous president on a "plan of action" regarding restrictions
on Iran's nuclear activities. This deal was not a treaty with advice and consent by the Senate according to the Constitution.
As long as some presidents ignore the Constitution and make agreements on their own with other countries, they shouldn't
be surprised when other presidents nullify them. (Bush-43 did the same thing on Iraq withdrawal as Obama did with Iran
nuclear.)
Participation of the U.S. in this plan of action is now canceled, and U.S. sanctions on Iran will be enhanced.
There will be no United Nations sanctions, and probably the other parties to the agreement will adhere to the plan's
strictures while increasing ties with Iran. The Trump withdrawal in fact clarifies the U.S. position which was dismissive
of the plan anyhow, with the U.S. not adhering to its terms under the new president.
This change may not hurt Iran much, as other parties to the plan continue to adhere to it and compensate for the
U.S. withdrawal by using foreign currencies in Iran trade, etc. The price of oil is increasing and there is increased
demand for it. Iran's ties with Russia, China and India are stronger than ever, and the latter two are in great need
of petroleum. The change also reduces U.S. influence in Europe and elsewhere, which is not a bad thing because it reduces
U.S. world hegemony.
Immediately after the Trump comedy, Netanyahu took the stage and babbled about nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles
being developed in Iran for the use with nuclear warheads. Just poor coincidents: There was a general alarm on the Golan
heights. When will the bombers take off?
It needs clarifying - how can this be a 'withdrawal'? More like reneging on the agreement. Agreement incapable indeed.
It's getting time for the world to unify and sanction the US, until it reforms its behaviour. Why not?
Trump even made up that Iran supports al Qaeda, did you hear that?! Amazing, along with the fact that Iran wont be allowed
to have ballistic missiles apparently. Its all pre-war Iraq 2003 again.
I agree that Iranian strength has greatly increased and that US sanctions are counter productive. I also agree that an
attack on Iran would likely be suicidal for Israel and another chance to show US impotence. I don't see it happening.
My understanding is that Trump doesn't want to continue with the 90 day recertification process instituted by Congress.
I think he is looking for something more permanent similar to Korea.
It reminds me of the US paying lip service to the Paris Accords but showing no real interest in effectively taking
on climate change.
Thanks for the posting b.
Is the pot boiling yet? All the burners are on high so there is little excuse at this point. What inane event will trigger escalation further you ask. Take your pick of many. My favorite is for all the multi-polar
world supporters to stop buying US Treasuries......I think we are building to that if we don't go the "conventional"
war route.
This decision with Iran will hasten the use of China as a financial "center" globally and the trickle we see now could
become a flood.....my hope and projection
The Brits, the the Australians after Australia became a federation, never signed treaties to be broken.
B speaks of broken treaties rather than genocide which occurred in most nations Europeans of the day invaded.
In the ability to make and break treaties the US stands out, and has done so since its earliest days.
NZ - another
Brit colony signed a treaty with the Maori's and largely held to it as far as I know.
The level of the American Presidency has been declining for years. It is entirely in the gutter now, the Moron in Chief,
has hardly any vocabulary and what he has is used to express blatant lies. What a disgrace...
I think it is an entirely
defining moment for the EU's credibility now; if they abandon Iran the will loose a lot of goodwill and credibility around
the world and jeopardize the whole European project, the trade war with the US has been in the making for a long time,
the US wants to break the EU. Basically if the EU yields, it could very well disintegrate.
Lets take a trade war
with them, if China and Russia does likewise, US economy is dead in the water. And so what, oh it will hurt, but the
US will be bankrupt (it is already, they have not noticed).
Also, cant we stop this "Iran will attack if attacked by Israel, US" or even "Russia and China will attack US, Israel
if they attack Iran".
Look at how West hit Syria. And nothing happened, it will be the same with Iran if Israel/US do anything
militarily
against them. Stop fooling yourself (you who have these irrational fantasies).
Well, it seems the fuck occupying the white house has just assured the 'mandate of heaven' has moved on. Iran must be
placed under the Russian and Chinese nuclear umbrella. Period.
Always a good sign when a war criminal named "mad dog" is the voice of reason. Just saw trump's (probably written by kristol, frum or one of the israel firsters they share a brain with) speech
and almost facepalmed myself into a coma. Between the 2nd grade vocabulary scare words ("lunatic!", "chaos!", etc) and
his strategy of "let's write what the saudis do but then change it to 'iran' for my speech" it was like my intelligence
was being roasted by don rickles and dave chapelle.
i hope - against the evidence - that trump is just using the "play insane to get your way" technique nixon made popular
with his false nuke alerts and such. he acted batshit stupid about korea and they have united in their hatred of the
round eyed psychopaths who would see then all reduced to ash to wage a pathetic "war" on china. maybe he's just that
great at failing.
the next big thing might be whether the s-300s (-400s?) russia keeps teasing actually end up in syria and/or lebanon.
Russia knows the road to Moscow runs through Tehran and hopefully any mild hint of a threat of an attack will be a bridge
too far.
I believe you are splitting hairs. Western nations interaction with native cultures has always been about naked force.
Your inability to understand that the west, itself, has never relinquished this position except when retreating from
open violent rebellion, shows that you, too, have a fixation with the US as a boogeyman. This will not serve us well
when the US is brought to heel and then we shall wonder why the fundamental problems of globalism and neoliberalism have
not subsided.
The history of the US in their treatment of natives was a very UNIQUE situation on a frontier much different than
N. Africa or SE Asian colonies.
Guys, i told you that Russia is getting owned by the sanctions and is waving the white flag. You did not believe that. But now Benjamin Netanyahu is a guest of honour for Russia's V Day, Medvedev was confirmed for PM, and even the Saker
himself admits that "things look pretty bleak to me."
Trump's approach of threatening others with huge consequences worked. It worked with N Korea, it worked with the China
trade war, and it worked with Russia. Now he will do the same with Iran.
Trump's approach of threatening others with huge consequences worked. It worked with N Korea, it worked with the
China trade war, and it worked with Russia. Now he will do the same with Iran.
^^This is very true, maybe the ONLY reason in fact that define his foreign policy actions.
I do not think that Trump is, ideologically-speaking, a neocon. I would not credit Trump with possessing any consistently
held principles or views informing either his domestic or foreign policy decisions. He is an avaricious showman and so
is unstable and yet at the same time easily manipulable. But it doesn't really matter what Trump "believes" at the end
of the day as he is for better or/and worse not the one really in charge of policy and hasn't been, quite clearly, for
at least a year. (He sometimes forgets this when tweeting but is always quite easily reminded afterwards.) Don't get
me wrong, I am not defending Trump.
I do not at all believe of Trump what some believed of Obama, that he really
*wants* so much to do the right thing but just can't, because X or Y. That is all bullshit of course. My point is just
that Trump has no grand vision of US foreign or domestic policy but rather a knack for identifying and exploiting the
excluded rhetorical middle whereever it appears (as he did in the Republican primaries) while launching witty and insightful
broadsides against his many enemies. He will be allowed to enrich the already rich and his family and friends (as all
US presidents do), and will be given one or two symbolic foreign policy achievements to sell to his base before the 2020
elections, but any chance there was of him intentionally or accidentally stalling or redirecting the longstanding big
picture plan of Israel, SA, and the US for the Middle East has been self-evidently contained for quite some time now.
Not that he very deeply cares.
Why does everyone assume that "war with Iran" means war IN Iran and the Persian Gulf?
It is more likely to be an excuse for remaining in Syria and fighting Iranian forces there. At least at first. And
possibly (probably!) expanding the fight to Lebanon.
Why does everyone assume that Israel will be forever cowered by Hez missiles?
Israel has complained about Iranian upgrades of Hez missiles. Israel is not likely to allow themselves to be checkmated.
At some point (very soon, in all probability) Israel will bite the bullet and attack Hez in Lebanon.
Iran is joining the EAEU, uses barter deals with Russia already, and will have an opportunity to fast track SCO membership.
If handled correctly, Iran can prosper from turning toward Eurasian development. Russia has already involved in the nuclear
energy sector, the gas and oil exporting for Iran. Iran may not be able to access Western technology under new sanctions,
but almost everything is available from China and Russia any way.
Meanwhile, they really need to clean up the corruption. No government can survive when the populace knows corruption
is rampant. Notice Brazil, Argentina, South Africa for example. It has crippled the BRICS badly as a force for sovereignty
and multi-polarity.
Israel has complained about Iranian upgrades of Hez missiles. Israel is not likely to allow themselves to be checkmated.
At some point (very soon, in all probability) Israel will bite the bullet and attack Hez in Lebanon.
Why do you use israeli propaganda to justify attacks on Lebanon? HEzbollah missiles, if there are any, are for protection.
Look at how west hit Syria. And nothing happened, it will be the same with Iran. . .
1. It seems
clear that the hit on Syria was a US/Russia arranged show. That's why "nothing happened."
2. Iran always strikes
back, and would have no reason not to especially since it's so easy to do, with all the lucrative western targets in
the Gulf area especially. This is why the US has not and will not attack Iran, because it is not weak country like other
US targets.
By the way, anybody who thinks that HRC if elected would not have pursued effectively the same course of action toward
Iran has not been paying attention. It was not only plain as day that HRC while campaigning had to situate herself on
the side of Obama's deal against Trump's bombastic denunciations of it for obvious political reasons. But the apparent
"partisan" divide over the Iran deal was always only that. HRC was going to "distrust and verify" and always counted
on Bibi coming through for her like he did for Trump. Neither SA nor Israel liked the Iran deal, and so the Iran deal
was never going to last under HRC either, for SA and Israel are her base. I say this all lest the dangerous and self-defeating
idiocy of Trump's withdrawal from the deal be misconstrued as a partisan issue or failing. In truth, the Iran deal was
never meant to last in the first place. If you think it was, then I would propose you are still underestimating the sway
that SA and Israel and their US arms sellers exercise over US foreign policy.
"The Iranian economy was in serious trouble. It needed to negotiate a way out. That situation will not come back"
This is the key question. Why do you think that situation will not come back? The Iranian economy is already under
immense pressure and sanctions have yet to come into effect.
There won't be any large war against Iran as this will lead to $ 200 oil price and possible break up of NATO. Europeans are against the breaking of the JCPOA not because they like Iran, or not even the 25 billion $ in trade,
but precisely because the possibility of such war. It will destroy the EU economically and put it at the mercy of Russia. It will put the world economy into depression too.
It was only a matter of time that the deal would be nixed. For starters, the Iranian deal was never ratified by Congress,
so it was rather easy for Trump to walk away from it. Depending on how desperate Israel and Saudi Arabia is, we could
see attacks on Iran soon.
Clueless Joe @1:
I highly doubt China will bleed for Iran. Political, financial and clandestine support is all China and Russia will
offer.
"While Israel wants to keep Iran as a boogeyman to divert attention from its genocidal campaign against Palestinians,
it does not want a large war. Hizbullah in Lebanon has enough missiles to make modern life in Israel untenable. A war
on Iran could easily end up with Tel Aviv in flames."
Netanyahu also wants a distraction from the criminal investigations he is facing. The Israelis have also arranged
for US troops to be based in Israel, who are prepared to defend Israel (according to their US commander), so Netanyahu
has nothing to lose in getting the US to attack Iran. He could even arrange a false flag against the US troops in Israel,
to be blamed on the 'super secret super deadly weapons' Iran has smuggled into Syria (according to Netanyahu).
Just listened to Trump's speech pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal. Sounded like something written by Bolton with help
from Netanyahoo. Looks like Trump is going to lead us into WWIII very rapidly now. What a complete failure as a human
being he is! Our work as lovers of peace is really cut out for us now. The world is plunging deeper into crisis with
increasing speed. One cannot help wishing those responsible for this nightmare would just disappear, but that is not
going to happen. We are left with trying to help the almost possible to happen, giving peace a chance in a world careening
into war...........
Kim would be crazy to make a deal with Trump now, and so would China. If the major powers decide to appease the Empire,
it will be a classic mistake, leading to WWIII nuclear. Only if Russia and China stand up to the US with conventional
forces, will there be a chance that nuclear Armageddon can be avoided. Iran should be considered the red line to be defended
at all costs in this resistance to Empire; anything less will be suicidal.
I would go farther and say that Syria should also be defended at all costs. With the rapidly escalating pressure from
the Empire, there will be no way to buy time in hopes the resistance will strengthen, and the Empire will weaken. The
Empire realizes that this is their last best chance to achieve total global domination, and is pushing it's potential
victims to either respond or be driven into a weakened stance, and then conquered.
Ruhani and his smiling FM are toast!!! They still claiming Iran will abide by the deal simply because the Europeans
say so. They'll be hit with another stick soon by the EU. The EU is merely an extension of the US. They don't move without
approval from Washington. Like Victoria Nuland will say, "f*ck the EU". Ruhani poured concrete into Arak nuclear
plant on some flimsy promises from Obama. The "reformist" camp in Iran are politically DEAD now.
This is the final warning for Kim. So it means war at all fronts. This year I guess.
Thanks b, good article. An excerpt:
" They pointed out that there was no guarantee from Trump that any additional European effort would change his view."
First and foremost, IMO, this decision is not Trump's, his corporate masters tell him what he is to do. The empire's
decisions are made by the so-called " deep state", which is nothing more than an alliance formed by global industries
bent on global hegemony.
Capturing "market share" is what they do, and they do it by any means necessary.
DT is just the latest version of the empire's puppets.
Even if Kim makes a deal with Trump, nothing can happen to North Korea without China's consent. Remember that North
Korea have a defense treaty with China.
You seem blind to the importance of honoring agreements It is why the US can never be trusted. The point here is
that the US throughout its history has rarely honored agreements.
You are talking about two instances in US history that could not be more different. One is the end of the Iranian
deal, which is the result of a different US administration and by the complete and utter infiltration of gloablist and
zionist interest. Furthermore, Iran has allies to back it up. The second instance was renegging on land treaties with
a native population with its back against the wall, NO ALLIES, and no hope. It was pure and utter western exploitation.
Unfettered and "wild," and so was given the name. The latter instance is what any western power would have and has done
in the past given the right set of circumstances. It is one instance where the stars aligned for American industry and
yet people think our nature and identity is forever stained by this occurrence. I say, "fuck that guilt and fuck that
reminder."
Are the same architects or descendents of these in DJT's war cabinet right now? Is that how they are so similar?
But enough...it was a digression to begin with, especially since further in his post b alludes to his disgust with
the EU in this issue.
Not totally, the masochistic streak in EU is quite deep. They lived through delicious pain of multibillion fines imposed
on their companies for whimsically identified sanction violations. Not imposing sanctions but tolerating such fine would
be as bad as breaking the agreement with Iran. But doing something about it may require a positive action rather than
vetoes than can be imposed by few holdouts.
I seriously doubt if there would be any holdouts against empowering the offices responsible for the external trade
of EU, say, imposing levy on imports from USA to reimburse American fines related to agreement with Iran -- the American
exporters may collect the lost revenue from US Treasury engorged with fines. Would POTUS be inclined to escalate, American
companies would squeel like hogs led to slaughter. Probably there are also other ways to immunize companies from American
threats. But would Macron, May and Merkle go for it? Or would they sing together (sorry for crappy translatio) "With
a whip, with a stick, torment my corrupted body".
It's just sad to see Iran's fate being determined by whether the EU keeps holds on to the deal or not. My prediction
is that the EU will fold soon under US pressure. Russia/China will go back to using Iran as bargaining chip in dealing
with the West.
The US empire is a withering empire in decline. How easy do folks forget the centrifugal forces of history, and that
as all empires, especially ones constructed based on artificiality, are doomed. This decision by Trump only hastens the
disintegration of the US global footprint. Whether the US ruling class wants to admit it or not, we live in a transitional
age that is in the shadows of the American empire.
Wealth and industry have steadily shifted to the east, and with it, power. The "West" is mired in debt and decline
and is but a twilight of its former self. The danger here is that when you have a ruling class that's apoplectic & a
"leader" so unstable, they just might bring the entire house crashing down as they know nothing else and certainly don't
know how to deal with diminishing power- the vainglorious and power hungry never do.
Unfortunately, I'm reminded of Fermi's paradox. Perhaps humanity only reaches a certain point and no more. We shall
find out.
Given the current composition of Trump's foreign/defense policy team, it seems likely that the goal is an actual
attack upon Iran. The warmongers are riding high in the saddle. One can only hope that our European allies make it clear
that they will not support such an action, and that the U.S. and Israel will be on their own.
China and Russia don't need to intervene militarily in Iran. All they need to do is to keep resupplying Iran, and the
U.S., if it invades, will be caught in a hopeless quagmire.
It is hard to make sense of what Trump is up to if we do not know all that is included in the Joint Comprehensive Plan
of Action aka 'Iran deal' of July 14, 2015. THE public text deals with ending Iran's nuclear program, further inspections
in return for the lifting of sanctions. It was bad deal for Iran overall, and no sooner was it ratified the US refused
to lift sanctions indicating it wants ballistic missiles eliminated as well.. But apparently there were secret clauses
negotiated between the US and Iran in time just before ratification, the content which no one knows. Since the Iran deal
however, US and Iranian troops, present in all parts of the middle east have not had any military confrontation.
http://www.voltairenet.org/article201027.html
In this article Messyan also claims that there is some credence to Israeli claims that it sees itself threatened
by Iranian military bases in souther Syria.
For those here blaming Putin for not doing anything against Israeli attacks on Syria, what exactly do you expect him
to do? This is a fight between Israel and Iran. Besides, most Israelis are Russian citizens so why should Russia help
Syria or Iran Iran against their own. People also forget that a lot of Russian Oligarchs have their second home in Israel. These are the moneymen Putin
wouldn't dare go against. It's just business. get use to it.
To all those who claim that the United States is either currently or soon will be bankrupt, please stop. The U.S. government
is not like a family or a privately owned business. That is because it controls its own currency and can create as much
currency as it wants at any time it wants. Hence, bankruptcy is a logical impossibility. And don't think that foreign
nations and private individuals relish such a scenario either. Should it come to pass that the U.S. cranks up the printing
presses, the value of the dollar will fall, as will the value of all dollar denominated holdings. We're talking about
many hundreds of billions (probably trillions) of dollars of investment losses. Anyone who thinks that China wants to
absorb a massive pounding on the U.S. government debt it holds is nuts.
Putin is not some guardian angel. He is the leader of a foreign state with multiple and complexly interrelated interests,
foreign and domestic. He is not going to act unless the sum of these interests compel him to do so; that is, he is not
going to act except in such a case where the repercussions of his *not-acting* clearly outweigh the possible harms of
his doing so. And by the way thank God for that.
Putin has just stated that the time is right to decouple the Russian economy from the US dollar. He also said that Russia
will continue to diversify its foreign exchange reserves in order to restore Russian economic sovereignty. Does this
mean that the EU will now be able to pay for the gas it buys from Russia in Euros rather than USD? The US has gone to war to prevent this in other states eg Iraq, Libya.
The "presses" along with credits on computer terminals have been running at break neck speed for at least 20 years
as $1.5 billion each day is spent by the DOD on war machines alone. While logic indicates that it should, this exorbitant spending apparently hasn't had any effect on inflation.
The US can spend like mad on bombs, but not on anything for the good of the common people. And if any other country attempts to do anything for the benefit of their common people, well they get "corrected".
Jackrabbit is what I suspected all along; a NEOCON sleeper! From day one I wrote again and again that Trump is a ZIONIST,
FIRST and driving the PNAC agenda - next stop war with Iran and regime change and that's why he was trolling me on every
thread.
__________________
I'm surprised (actually, not so much with still lingering Trump deluded diehards) that no one brought up the fact
that Israel is on a hyped high alert right now which leads me to suspect one thing and one thing only -- a false flag
attack could eventually be launched to pin blame on Iran and just what Ziocon Trump and his master Netanyahoo need to
move the Europeans in the planned direction. Trump and Netanyahoo are that dirty.
Not too big of a deal for Iran so long as China, Russia and some EU states ignore the sanctions. Seems like more of a
ploy to get US voters on a war footing. I suspect the immediate objective is war in Syria by exaggerating the presence
of Iranian forces there. With ISIS in Syria not a credible threat to get support for more many Americans will easily
be led to believe Iran is a credible threat to Israel and the region.
June is a favorite month to initiate wars for Israel. Bilderbergers meeting June 7-10. World Cup in Russia starts
June 14 . I imagine fireworks around or even before then. Now if Israel gets attacked by Syria or Iran in Syria, or maybe a false flag if they dont, they could blame Iran and
launch attacks on Iran with US support. Could happen. Every President has to deliver his shadow masters a new war or
two. Trump has yet to deliver.
@fast freddy (92) You bring up a good point. The U.S. government never seems to run short of funds for "defense" purposes.
They simply create as much money as is needed. Taxes never enter the discussion. And yet, despite the expansion of the
money supply, inflation is nowhere in sight. That is because the demand for goods and services has not approached the
capacity to produce them. The big lie is that funding of government projects can only come from taxes. Wrong! Money for
non-military purposes can be created in just the same way, yet we never hear the end of how tax revenues are insufficient.
Poor little children and their families are simply going to have to do without the niceties that the wealthy enjoy. This
dynamic is well explained by Modern Monetary Theory (MMT).
Thank you, it's the sort of reality that needs to be said. We, none of us, know what is going on within the very high
level domain of politics; we don't have access. However, we can gather a great deal of general information and determine
some broad ideas of outcomes. Never mind trying to be more manly than those in charge and declaring how you would take
this action, shoot that plane, bomb this city. Step back and look at this broad playing field and consider what can be
done while keep the body count to a minimum. Indeed, the USA is a zombie country (dead but doesn't know it yet). Yes,
Israel is a little hole in the ground (you know, barrel full of fish sort of thing).
Yet, the US being a soulless
zombie makes it exceedingly dangerous. So, Putin/Xi take military action, what is the outcome; be honest. The US and
Israel panic, millions die.
It truly is a miserable decision to let so many suffer right now but honestly what is
the alternative.
I firmly believe that in an informal way Putin/Xi are working in the background to hold what they
can together, let the US stumble on in it's death spiral and limit the damage as much as possible. If that means appearing
to bend the knee so be it; the alternative is annihilation.
"... A McClatchy journalist investigated further and came to the same conclusion as I did. The 'leak' to the New York Times was disinformation. ..."
"... Russia has not pinned the Novichok to Sweden or the Czech Republic. It said, correctly, that several countries produced Novichok. Russia did not blame the UK for the 'nerve gas attack' in Syria. Russia says that there was no gas attack in Douma. ..."
"... The claims of Russian disinformation these authors make to not hold up to scrutiny. Meanwhile there pieces themselves are full of lies, distortions and, yes, disinformation. ..."
"... Wait for an outbreak of hostilities on the Ukraine-Donbass front shortly before the beginning of the World Cup competition which is as internationally important as the Olympic Games -- as they did in 2014 with Maidan and 2016 with the Sochi Winter Olympics drug uproar, the CIA will create chaos that will take the emphasis off any Russian success, since as to them, anything negative regarding Russia is a positive for them. ..."
"... No traces of chemical weapons have been found in Douma. This means that not only the US/UK/French airstrikes were illegal under international law but even their political justification was inherently flawed. Similarly, in the Salisbury affair, no evidence of Russian involvement has been presented, while the two myths on which the British case was built (the Russian origin of the chemical substance used and the existence of proof of Russian responsibility) have been shattered. ..."
"... Given the lack of facts, the Tory leadership seems to be adopting a truly Orwellian logic: that the main proof of Russian responsibility are the Russian denials! It is hard to see how they will be able to sell this to their international partners. Self-respecting countries of G20 would not be willing to risk their reputation. ..."
"... The detail of b's analysis that stands out to me as especially significant and brilliant is his demolition of the Guardian's reuse of the Merkel "quote." ..."
"... Related to the above, consider the nature of the recently christened thought-crime, "whataboutism." The crime may be defined as follows: "Whataboutism" is the attempt to understand a truth asserted by propaganda by way of relation to other truths it has asserted contemporaneous with or prior to this one. It is to ask, "What about this *other* truth? Does this *other* truth affect our understanding of *this* truth? And if so, how does it?" ..."
"... Whataboutism seems to deny that each asserted truth stands on its own, and has no essential relation to any other past, present, or future asserted truth. ..."
"... 1984, anyone? ..."
"... The absurd story that the OPCW says there was a 100gm/100mg who knows which on the door and other sites is just so stupid its painful. ..."
"... Presumably the Skripals touch the cutlery, plates and wine glasses in the restaurant, so why weren't the staff there infected as they must have had to pick up the plates etc after the meal. Even the door to the entrance of the restaurant should be affected as they would have to push it open, thus leaving the chemical for other people to touch. Nope, nothing in this stupid story adds up and the OPCW can't even get the amounts of the chemical right. ..."
"... Biggest problem with the world today is lazy insouciant citizens. ..."
"... One very important point Lavrov made was the anti-Russian group consists of a very small number of nations representing a small fraction of humanity; ..."
"... while they have some economic and military clout, it's possible for the rest of the world's nations to sideline them and get on with the important business of forming a genuine Multipolar World Order, which is what the UN and its Charter envisioned. ..."
"... Anything that may not confirm to the 'truth' as prescribed from above must be overwhelmed with an onslaught of more lies or, if that does not work, be discredited as 'enemy' disinformation. ..."
"... Yes, exactly. The Western hegemony, i.e. the true "Axis of Evil" led by the US, and including the EU and non-Western allies, have invented the Perpetual Big Lie™. ..."
"... Witnesses? They're either confederates, dupes, or terrified by coercion. Evidence and/or technical analysis? All faked! A nominally reliable party, e.g. the president of the Czech Republic, makes statements that undermine the Big Lie Nexus? Again-- he's either been bought off or frightened into making such inconvenient claims. Or he's just a mischievous liar. ..."
"... And, as I seemingly never get tired of pointing out, the Perpetual Big Lie™ strategy arose, and succeeds, because the "natural enemies" of authoritarian government overreach have been coerced or co-opted to a fare-thee-well. So mass-media venues, and even supposedly independent technical and scientific organizations, are part of the Perpetual Big Lie™ apparatus. ..."
"... Putting Kudrin -- an opponent of de-dollarization and an upholder of the Washington Consensus -- in charge of Russia's international outreach would be equal to putting Bill Clinton in charge of a girls' school. ..."
"... In the Guardian I only read the comments, never the article. Here, I read both. That is the difference between propaganda and good reporting. ..."
The Grauniad is slipping deeper into the disinformation business:
Revealed: UK's push to strengthen anti-Russia alliance is the headline of a page one piece
which reveals exactly nothing. There is no secret lifted and no one was discomforted by a
questioning journalist.
Like other such pieces it uses disinformation to accuse Russia of spreading such.
The main 'revelation' is stenographed from a British government official. Some quotes from
the usual anti-Russian propagandists were added. Dubious or false 'western' government claims
are held up as truth. That Russia does not endorse them is proof for Russian mischievousness
and its 'disinformation'.
The opener:
The UK will use a series of international summits this year to call for a comprehensive
strategy to combat Russian disinformation and urge a rethink over traditional diplomatic
dialogue with Moscow, following the Kremlin's aggressive campaign of denials over the use of
chemical weapons in the UK and Syria.
...
"The foreign secretary regards Russia's response to Douma and Salisbury as a turning point
and thinks there is international support to do more," a Whitehall official said. "The areas
the UK are most likely to pursue are countering Russian disinformation and finding a
mechanism to enforce accountability for the use of chemical weapons."
There is a mechanism to enforce accountability for the use of chemical weapons. It is the
Chemical Weapon Convention and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW).
It was the British government which at first
rejected the use of these instruments during the Skripal incident:
Early involvement of the OPCW, as demanded by Russia, was resisted by the British
government. Only on March 14, ten days after the incident happened and two days after Prime
Minister Theresa may had made accusations against Russia, did the British government invite
the OPCW. Only on March 19, 15 days after the incident happen did the OPCW technical team
arrive and took blood samples.
Now back to the Guardian disinformation:
In making its case to foreign ministries, the UK is arguing that Russian denials over
Salisbury and Douma reveal a state uninterested in cooperating to reach a common
understanding of the truth , but instead using both episodes to try systematically to divide
western electorates and sow doubt.
A 'common understanding of the truth' is an interesting term. What is the truth? Whatever
the British government claims? It accused Russia of the Skripal incident a mere eight days
after it happened. Now, two month later, it admits that it
does not know who poisoned the Skripals:
Police and intelligence agencies have failed so far to identify the individual or
individuals who carried out the nerve agent attack in Salisbury, the UK's national security
adviser has disclosed.
Do the Brits know where the alleged Novichok poison came from? Unless they produced it
themselves they likely have no idea. The Czech Republic just admitted that it
made small doses of a Novichok nerve agent for testing purposes. Others did too.
Back to the Guardian :
British politicians are not alone in claiming Russia's record of mendacity is not a personal
trait of Putin's, but a government-wide strategy that makes traditional diplomacy
ineffective.
Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, famously came off one lengthy phone call with Putin
– she had more than 40 in a year – to say he lived in a different world.
No, Merkel never said that. An Obama administration flunky planted that
in the New York Times :
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany told Mr. Obama by telephone on Sunday that after speaking
with Mr. Putin she was not sure he was in touch with reality, people briefed on the call
said. "In another world," she said.
When that claim was made in March 2014 we were immediately suspicious
of it:
This does not sound like typically Merkel but rather strange for her. I doubt that she said
that the way the "people briefed on the call" told it to the Times stenographer. It is rather
an attempt to discredit Merkel and to make it more difficult for her to find a solution with
Russia outside of U.S. control.
A day later the German government
denied (ger) that Merkel ever said such (my translation):
The chancellery is unhappy about the report in the New York Times. Merkel by no means meant
to express that Putin behaved irrational. In fact she told Obama that Putin has a different
perspective about the Crimea [than Obama has].
A McClatchy journalist investigated
further and came to the same conclusion as I did. The 'leak' to the New York Times was
disinformation.
That disinformation, spread by the Obama administration but immediately exposed as false, is
now held up as proof by Patrick Wintour, the Diplomatic editor of the Guardian , that
Russia uses disinformation and that Putin is a naughty man.
The British Defense Minister Gavin Williamson
wants journalists to enter the UK reserve forces to help with the creation of
propaganda:
He said army recruitment should be about "looking to different people who maybe think, as a
journalist: 'What are my skills in terms of how are they relevant to the armed forces?'
Patrick Wintour seems to be a qualified candidate.
Or maybe he should join the NATO for Information Warfare the Atlantic Council wants to
create to further disinform about those damned Russkies:
What we need now is a cross-border defense alliance against disinformation -- call it
Communications NATO. Such an alliance is, in fact, nearly as important as its military
counterpart.
Like the Guardian piece above writer of the NATO propaganda lobby Atlantic Council
makes claims of Russian disinformation that do not hold up to the slightest test:
By pinning the Novichok nerve agent on Sweden or the Czech Republic, or blaming the UK for
the nerve gas attack in Syria, the Kremlin sows confusion among our populations and makes us
lose trust in our institutions.
Russia has not pinned the Novichok to Sweden or the Czech Republic. It said, correctly, that
several countries produced Novichok. Russia did not blame the UK for the 'nerve gas attack' in
Syria. Russia says that there was no gas attack in Douma.
The claims of Russian disinformation these authors make to not hold up to scrutiny.
Meanwhile there pieces themselves are full of lies, distortions and, yes, disinformation.
The bigger aim behind all these activities, demanding a myriad of new organizations to
propagandize against Russia, is to introduce a strict control over information within 'western'
societies.
Anything that may not confirm to the 'truth' as prescribed from above must be overwhelmed
with an onslaught of more lies or, if that does not work, be discredited as 'enemy'
disinformation.
That scheme will be used against anyone who deviates from the ordered norm. You dislike that
pipeline in your backyard? You must be falling for
Russian trolls or maybe you yourself are an agent of a foreign power. Social Security? The
Russians like that. It is a disinformation thing. You better forget about it.
Excellent article, in an ongoing run of great journalism.
I am curious - have you read this? https://ratical.org/ratville/JFK/ST/
It purports to be a book by an American military man intimately familiar with the covert ops
portion of the US government. The internal Kafka-esque dynamics described certainly feel
true.
One of the reasons newspapers are getting worse is the economics. They aren't really viable
anymore. Their future is as some form of government sanctioned oligopoly. Two national papers
-- a "left" and a "right" -- and then a handful of regional papers. All spouting the same
neoliberal, neoconservative chicanery.
Genuine journalist Matt Taibbi warned of this sort of branding of disparate views as enemy a
month ago. He was also correct. Evil and insidious. The enemy of a free society.
Wait for an outbreak of hostilities on the Ukraine-Donbass front shortly before the beginning
of the World Cup competition which is as internationally important as the Olympic Games -- as
they did in 2014 with Maidan and 2016 with the Sochi Winter Olympics drug uproar, the CIA
will create chaos that will take the emphasis off any Russian success, since as to them,
anything negative regarding Russia is a positive for them.
I agree that it's difficult to see how the drive to renew the Cold War is going to be
stopped. I presume that, with the exception of certain NeoCon circles, there isn't a desire
for Hot War. Certainly not in the British sources you quote. Britain wouldn't want Hot War
with Russia. It's all a question of going to the limit for internal consumption. Do a 1984,
in order to keep the population in-line.
thanks b... i can't understand how any intelligent thinking person would read the guardian,
let alone something like the huff post, and etc. etc... why? the propaganda money that pays
for the white helmets, certainly goes to these outlets as well..
the uk have gone completely nuts! i guess it comes with reading the guardian, although, in
fairness, all british media seems very skewed - sky news, bbc, and etc. etc.
it does appear as though Patrick Wintour is on Gavin Williamson's propaganda
bandwagon/payroll already... in reading the comments and articles at craig murrays site, i
have become more familiar with just how crazy things are in the uk.. his latest article
freedom no
more sums it up well... throw the uk msm in the trash can... it is for all intensive
purposes, done..
Meanwhile, OPCW chief Uzumcu seems to have been pranked again, this time by his own staff
(this is how I interpret it):
He claimed that the amount of Novichok found was about 100 g and therefore more than
research laboratories would produce, i.e. this was weaponized Novichok.
Q: What is our reaction to the Guardian article on a "comprehensive strategy" to "deepen
the alliance against Russia" to be pursued by the UK Government at international forums?
A: Judging by the publication, the main current challenge for Whitehall is to preserve
the anti-Russian coalition that the Conservatives tried to build after the Salisbury
incident. This task is challenging indeed. The "fusion doctrine" promoted by the national
security apparatus has led to the Western bloc taking hasty decisions that, as life has
shown, were not based on any facts.
No traces of chemical weapons have been found in Douma. This means that not only the
US/UK/French airstrikes were illegal under international law but even their political
justification was inherently flawed. Similarly, in the Salisbury affair, no evidence of
Russian involvement has been presented, while the two myths on which the British case was
built (the Russian origin of the chemical substance used and the existence of proof of
Russian responsibility) have been shattered.
Given the lack of facts, the Tory leadership seems to be adopting a truly Orwellian
logic: that the main proof of Russian responsibility are the Russian denials! It is hard to
see how they will be able to sell this to their international partners. Self-respecting
countries of G20 would not be willing to risk their reputation.
Hmmm... My reply to c1ue went sideways it seems. Yes, The late Mr. Prouty's book's the real
deal and the website hosting his very rare book is a rare gem itself. Click the JFK at page
top left to be transported to that sites archive of writings about his murder. The very important essay by
Prouty's there too.
The detail of b's analysis that stands out to me as especially significant and brilliant is
his demolition of the Guardian's reuse of the Merkel "quote."
This one detail tells us so much about how propaganda works, and about how it can be
defeated. Successful propaganda both depends upon and seeks to accelerate the erasure of
historical memory. This is because its truths are always changing to suit the immediate needs
of the state. None of its truths can be understood historically. b makes the connection
between the documented but forgotten past "truth" of Merkel's quote and its present
reincarnation in the Guardian, and this is really all he *needs* to do. What b points out is
something quite simple; yet the ability to do this very simple thing is becoming increasingly
rare and its exercise increasingly difficult to achieve. It is for me the virtue that makes
b's analysis uniquely indispensable.
Related to the above, consider the nature of the recently christened thought-crime,
"whataboutism." The crime may be defined as follows: "Whataboutism" is the attempt to
understand a truth asserted by propaganda by way of relation to other truths it has asserted
contemporaneous with or prior to this one. It is to ask, "What about this *other* truth? Does
this *other* truth affect our understanding of *this* truth? And if so, how does it?"
Whataboutism seems to deny that each asserted truth stands on its own, and has no
essential relation to any other past, present, or future asserted truth.
The absurd story that the OPCW says there was a 100gm/100mg who knows which on the door and
other sites is just so stupid its painful. This implies that the Skripals both closed the
door together and then went off on their day spreading the stuff everywhere, yet no one else
was contaminated (apart from the fantasy policeman).
Presumably the Skripals touch the
cutlery, plates and wine glasses in the restaurant, so why weren't the staff there infected
as they must have had to pick up the plates etc after the meal. Even the door to the entrance
of the restaurant should be affected as they would have to push it open, thus leaving the
chemical for other people to touch. Nope, nothing in this stupid story adds up and the OPCW
can't even get the amounts of the chemical right.
The problem is,,, most know it's all BS but find it 'easier' to believe or at most ignore, as
then there is no responsibility to 'do something'. Biggest problem with the world today is
lazy insouciant citizens. (Yes,,, I'm a PCR reader) :))
Did you catch the Lavrov interview I linked to on previous Yemen thread? As you might
imagine, the verbiage used is quite similar. One very important point Lavrov made was the
anti-Russian group consists of a very small number of nations representing a small fraction
of humanity; and that while they have some economic and military clout, it's possible for the
rest of the world's nations to sideline them and get on with the important business of
forming a genuine Multipolar World Order, which is what the UN and its Charter
envisioned.
"I cannot sufficiently express my outrage that Leeds City Council feels it is right to ban
a meeting with very distinguished speakers, because it is questioning the government and
establishment line on Syria. Freedom of speech really is dead."
Anything that may not confirm to the 'truth' as prescribed from above must be overwhelmed
with an onslaught of more lies or, if that does not work, be discredited as 'enemy'
disinformation. _______________________________________
Yes, exactly. The Western hegemony, i.e. the true "Axis of Evil" led by the US, and
including the EU and non-Western allies, have invented the Perpetual Big Lie™.
This isn't a new insight, but it's worth repeating. It struck me anew while I was
listening to a couple of UK "journalists" hectoring OPCW Representative Shulgin, and
directing scurrilous and provocative innuendo disguised as "questions" to Mr. Shulgin and the
Syrian witnesses testifying during his presentation.
It flashed upon me that there is no longer a reasonable expectation that the Perpetual Big
Liars must eventually abandon, much less confess, their heinous mendacity. Just as B points
out, there are no countervailing facts, evidence, rebuttals, theories, or explanations
that can't be countered with further iterations of Big Lies, however offensively incredible
and absurd.
Witnesses? They're either confederates, dupes, or terrified by coercion. Evidence and/or
technical analysis? All faked! A nominally reliable party, e.g. the president of the Czech
Republic, makes statements that undermine the Big Lie Nexus? Again-- he's either been bought
off or frightened into making such inconvenient claims. Or he's just a mischievous liar.
And, as I seemingly never get tired of pointing out, the Perpetual Big Lie™ strategy
arose, and succeeds, because the "natural enemies" of authoritarian government overreach have
been coerced or co-opted to a fare-thee-well. So mass-media venues, and even supposedly
independent technical and scientific organizations, are part of the Perpetual Big Lie™
apparatus.
Even as the Big Liars reach a point of diminishing returns, they respond with more of the
same. I wish I were more confident that this reprehensible practice will eventually fail due
to the excess of malignant hubris; I'm not holding my breath.
Is Putin capitulating? Pro US Alexei Kudrin could join new government to negotiate "end of
sanctions" with the West.
Former finance minister Alexei Kudrin will be brought back to "mend fences with the West"
in order to revive Russia's economy. Kudrin has repeatedly said that unless Russia makes her
political system more democratic and ends its confrontation with Europe and the United
States, she will not be able to achieve economic growth. Russia's fifth-columnists were
exalted: "If Kudrin joined the administration or government, it would indicate that they have
agreed on a certain agenda of change, including in foreign policy, because without change in
foreign policy, reforms are simply impossible in Russia," said Yevgeny Gontmakher . . . who
works with a civil society organization set up by Mr. Kudrin. "It would be a powerful
message, because Kudrin is the only one in the top echelons with whom they will talk in the
west and towards whom there is a certain trust."
Putting Kudrin -- an opponent of de-dollarization and an upholder of the Washington
Consensus -- in charge of Russia's international outreach would be equal to putting Bill
Clinton in charge of a girls' school.
It would mark Putin's de facto collapse as a leader. We
shall know very soon. Either way, if anyone wondered what the approach to Russia would be
from Bolton and Pompeo, we now know: they will play very hard ball with Putin, regardless of
what he does (or doesn't do), and with carefree readiness to risk an eventual snap.
Certainly looks like @ 18 is a fine example of what b is presenting.
A good way to extract one's self from the propaganda is to refuse using whatever meme the
disinformation uses, e.g. that Sergei Skripal was a double agent -- that is not a known, only
a convenient suggestion.
Military intelligence is far better described as military
information needed for some project or mission. Not surreptitious cloak and dagger spying.
This is not to say Sergei Scripal was a British spy for which he was convicted, stripped of
rank and career and exiled through a spy swap. To continue using Sergei Scripal was a double
agent only repeats and verifies the disinformation meme and all the framing that goes with
it. Find some alternative to what MSM produces that does not embed truthiness to their
efforts.
I realize it's from one of the biggest propaganda organs in the world... take this New
York Times report of the OPCW's retraction with a 100 grams -- 100mg? -- of salt:
Kudrin is a neoliberal and as such is an
enemy of humanity and will never again be allowed to hold a position of power within Russia's
government. Let him emigrate to the West like his fellow parasites and teach junk economics
at some likeminded university.
In their March 15
letter , 39 US senators
called on the Treasury and State Departments to utilize all the sanction tools at their
disposal to fight the Nord Stream 2 project to bring cheap Russian gas to Europe. On March 29,
US Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman told Russia's RBK TV that he cannot rule out the
possibility that Russian assets in America could be seized over the Skripal case. If Washington
goes that far, it will be pure highway robbery. And the response will not be long in coming.
That interview took place right after the British parliament had
announced an investigation into some money-laundering schemes allegedly associated with
Russia. The UK government has unveiled its
"Fusion Doctrine" to counter what it's calling Russian propaganda.
The US policy of making Europeans bow to pressure has been largely successful. The leading
European powers -- the UK, Germany and France – --
are pushing to force the EU to impose new sanctions on Iran, in order to persuade the US
not to pull out from the Iran nuclear deal. This is a last-minute attempt to keep the agreement
in effect, as it is widely expected that President Trump will not certify it in May. Europeans
may bow to American pressure in a bid to appease Washington, but Russia is also a party to the
agreement, which cannot be scuttled without Moscow's consent. Adding additional conditions will
violate the terms of the deal. It won't be supported internationally. If new Iran sanctions are
introduced unilaterally by the West, the issue will become a bone of contention that will
further worsen relations with Moscow.
"... You know the rest: Libya sunk in chaos, but the neocolonial hyenas didn't care that much. They just started a race for country's resources on behalf of their beloved corporate monsters. ..."
A top member of the cabal made some statements proving one more time his level of commitment to
execute the sinister plan. John Bolton spoke to "Face the Nation" and said that the US will
seek the 'Libya model':
" We're looking at the Libya model of 2003, 2004 ... " and " One thing that Libya did
that led us to overcome our skepticism was that they allowed American and British observers
into all their nuclear related sites ... "
Let us translate and expand the latest phrase:
Once we "overcome our skepticism", meaning "make sure that our next target gives up its nukes,
or, has no nukes", then "we are free to invade". Apparently, that's the 'Libya model'. Of
course, we all know now what happened to Libya.
As Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, told to Sharmini
Peries and the RealNews
:
If I were Kim Jong-un I would not be very happy about that. After all, that ended in " we
came, we saw, and he died " - I believe it was the way Secretary Clinton in her
warmongering stance characterized it.
Looking at what Libya has been made to turn into without Gaddafi there, and with the removal of
Gaddafi the way we did, I'd be very alarmed if I were North Korea, if that was the proposition
I was looking at, coming from the Secretary of State and the President of the United
States.
It appears that Bolton indirectly certifies the position supported by many, that the US and
allies invade a targeted country after they make sure that it has given up its nuclear arsenal.
It seems that the warmongering cabal understands the relations with other nations only in terms
of power and level of losses in case of war.
Recall that the Western
hypocrites eventually decided that puppet Gaddafi should change role and become
again the 'bad guy' in his last 'permformance' . You know the rest: Libya sunk in chaos, but
the neocolonial hyenas didn't care that much. They just started a race
for country's resources on behalf of their beloved corporate monsters.
Popularity of a government or leader or regime is not a guarantee that a well led "color
Revolution" will fail.
There have been instances of very popular government succumbing to well orchestrated and
funded "regime change " operations.
There are always, in any country people longing for power and riches and impervious enough
to the well being of their compatriots to
play into the hands of those that promise riches and POWER.
Look at Muammar Gaddafi's demise! what else could a Lybian want? Cuddled from birth to
death, financed all the way to riches, swiss style local decisions.. And yet...
JC "Baby Doc" Duvalier was very popular at the time of his removal from power. Probably
the best Chief of State Haiti had in the past 70 years. But the CIA and the State Dept.
obtained his resignation in two years.
Dilma Youssef was certainly popular but through hook and crook she was ousted from power.
Making a travesty of justice is easy with cash loaded suitcases. And killing any dissenting
judge is as easy as sabotaging his private plane.
There are many other examples of this.
Economic elites do not like social oriented governments that reduce their profits. And
will find a way to ditch all regimes that do not play victorian capitalistic schemes of
government.
Reporters are commenting on the effect that a broken Iran deal would have on Kim's/Moon's
NK/SK deal. So the neocon equation seems to result in Trump breaking the JCPOA, Kim getting
wiggly and US finds a way to declare everyone liars and trash NK deal while Iran patiently
tries to wait it out. You think SK will stand for it? Japan? China?
I can't imagine that the prospect of Lebanese artillery and rockets raining down on Israel
plays well in Tel Aviv. If Israel thinks it can push the boundaries out by striking some
Iranian targets claiming them as nuclear facilities and get away with it, as usual, rhetoric
from Tehran is escalating. h/t Karlof1 @ 24.
Logically speaking, if the R+6 loses R, the result of negotiations with Beebs, they may
have nothing to lose and choose the good death in battle inflicting a hopefully mortal wound
on Israel. IDF using their border fence as a penny arcade shooting gallery is generally
condemned, so what does the world owe Israel at this point, is the question?
Reading this thread, I'm not sure I agree that the full might of the ziocon coalition
would be unleashed at Israel's request. h/t Red Ryder @ 42.
US generals lack the balls to go all out and jump the 82d ABN and 1st Marines into Tahrir
Square. Airstrikes will never replace closing with and destroying the enemy, let alone
implementing an effective occupation.
If you think Afghanistan is bad, well... We deplorables have enough business here at home,
so sending our sons and daughters to die on behalf of the wormwood elites will play poorly,
especially in the recruiting centers.
The long range view may include Iran activating assets it has overseas, which imho could
be far more destructive than the Tsarnaev Bros, as western cities offer many opportunities
for mayhem. That is what should make the USGOV nervous.
"... trump is indeed a bimbo on a string if he goes with the 24/7 liars and deceivers.. ..."
"... It seems that Trump deliberately plays his naivetee as a strength, as a deliberate anti-politician ploy, with his base. ..."
"... Possibly Trump is more useful to Netanyahoo as a simpleton politically than a conventional politician would be. Thus he might favor "winning" in the Korean deal to keep Trump in office and avoid another Obama type and return to a JCPOA deal. ..."
"... Israel cannot steal the Litani Delta on which its survival depends while Iran supplies Hezbollah. Israel must have that water now. Now. This is now a bar fight and anything could and will happen. ..."
"... Israeli law relating to Israel going to war was changed on 30 April 2018. Instead of requiring approval of the Knesset, it now just requires Netanyahu and the Israeli Defense Minister (appointed by one B.N.) to agree. ..."
"... The only way Israel wins a war with Iran is by a preemptive nuclear attack that decimates the country and kills millions. So either Israel doesn't really want a war with Iran, or it does. If it does, then it is looking for an excuse to nuke the country. ..."
"... I need hardly point out that the discovery of "proof" that Iran was developing its own nuclear weapon with intent to use against Israel would be cited earnestly by the Times, Guardian, and Post as somewhat excusing Israel's otherwise excessive obliteration of an entire people and civilization, which would doubtless be condemned in one or two editorials and then forgotten. Most Americans could be easily moved to support a decimating nuclear strike against Iran. What's anybody else gonna do about it? ..."
"... I'm sure I'm missing some of the many "dots" but it logic suggests that both Obama and Trump are faux populists that - at least in foreign policy (where Presidential powers are greatest) - are greatly influenced by foreign(albeit "allied") interests. ..."
"... IMO Apologists for the faux populists also play an important part. They respond voraciously to the "crazy opposition" and thereby keep alive faith in the faux hero. ..."
"... Faux populist leaders seem to be a natural fit for our inverted totalitarian form of government. Perhaps any Empire will naturally gravitate to such a compromised government? Funny thing is, most Americans would say that USA is NOT an Empire. ..."
"... If Israel and its basement gimp want a war with Iran, what is Putin supposed to do? He can't very well go to war with either without risking the annihilation of the planet and he knows this very well. And, being rational, he won't go to war with either. ..."
"... It is not his fault that Israel and its basement gimp gorge themselves unceasingly on destruction and carnage. He and Russia are not the hero of some Louis L'Amour pulp western for Chrissakes. One thing he might do is extend anti-ballistic protection to Iran, perhaps in partnership with China. ..."
"... "Israeli jets are rumored to have wrongly identified themselves as coalition planes when hitting that Iranian/Syrian depot the other day, flying along the coalition corridor going through Jordan and W. Iraq. If true, that's an insane move..." ..."
"... re Israeli jets masking as coalition; That was pretty sneaky, I wonder if they cleared that with the US or maybe Pompeo? I could not understand why Russia/Syria defenses didn't respond, thank you. ..."
"... The only Israeli game plan that makes sense is if Iran can be suckered into a war that costs it Hezbollah and most of the Syrian Army. Then Syria will splinter, Lebanon will disintegrate and Russia will be in an untenable position to stay. ..."
"... remember after Iran they will come for Russia and Russia knows it. Better to fight in someone else's yard than your own, always. ..."
"... "I cannot bear Netanyahu, he's a liar," Sarkozy told Obama, unaware that the microphones in their meeting room had been switched on, enabling reporters in a separate location to listen in to a simultaneous translation. ..."
"... The Israeli militaristic policy towards its neighbours started in 1948, according to Avi Shlaim's Iron Wall . Initially it was much disputed, and the first raids were unofficial. But militarism gained place in the government, and now rules everywhere. But it's reached its limit. There's nowhere to go. ..."
"... US statements supporting the territorial integrity of Syria "are only words" that serve as cover for "plans to partition Syria," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Saturday, after a meeting with Turkish and Iranian officials in Moscow. Lavrov had also warned earlier this year about Western plans to partition Syria. ..."
"... The US and its allies intend to occupy the eastern part of Syria and partition the country, in order to "use the Sunnis in East Syria and West Iraq to form a barricade to stop any Iranian influence and cut off supplies to Hezbollah." ..."
"... Indeed, everyone thinks Carter is the oh so cuddly Uncle Jimmy, but the Carter doctrine is what started the whole modern ME mess. The Neo-conservatives that followed after with their "New American Century" just wrote implementation plans for what Carter laid out. ..."
"... I suggest this new item by Alastair Crooke and then this article he links to get a handle on the nuances within Great Game III, which I've called the Hybrid Third World War between the Outlaw US Empire's seeking Full Spectrum Dominance and the rising Multinational Alliance's core members China, Russia and Iran. ..."
thanks b... good pic at the bottom that sums it up well..
lets get on to the reality... israel has nuclear weapons and it is okay - in spite of the
constant lying and control of usa congress, not to mention uk, france, canada and etc.
etc.... iran is clean, but the fearmongers need to continue on with their lies and
deception... the choice is obvious here... trump is indeed a bimbo on a string if he goes
with the 24/7 liars and deceivers..
Ah yes, Big Lie Nation and its Big Lie media are at it yet again. Since Nutty's lies and
disinformation were so easy to expose, will we see any similar outing by any English language
media--or German, French, Italian, Spanish--other than Sputnik, RT, Moon of Alabama
and a few others? Or will Big Lie Media simply allow what remains of its credibility to sink
further beneath the waves? Which one of them will be first to call out the leading Zionist
for his serial prevarications and tag him for the deliberate slow motion massacre of Gaza
Palestinians? Does it take courage to do that, or the exercising of proper journalism?
On the semi-related issue of Korea, IMO Moon and Kim together with China and Russia will
move ahead with establishing peace in Korea and present Trump with a fait accompli regardless
if he continues the longstanding tradition of the Outlaw US Empire in reneging on complying
with treaties its signed. Unless it chooses war, there's no way the Empire will be able to
continue to garrison Korea with its troops--they will be evicted as part of the penultimate
peace treaty between South and North.
As I wrote yesterday, Nutty's clearly very desperate to expose himself as nakedly as he
did. With luck, some good will come of it.
It seems that Trump deliberately plays his naivetee as a strength, as a deliberate
anti-politician ploy, with his base. The key difference at this time in dealings with North
Korea and Iran appears to be Netanyahoo. If Netanyahoo were parading forth his tired-out old
BS re Iran--but aiming it at North Korea--how would Trump respond? I suspect he would be as
stubbornly bent on defeating the Korea deal versus "winning it."
I doubt the base distinguishes much between the two re "axis of evil."
Possibly Trump is more useful to Netanyahoo as a simpleton politically than a conventional
politician would be. Thus he might favor "winning" in the Korean deal to keep Trump in office
and avoid another Obama type and return to a JCPOA deal.
This, then, again related to upcoming midterms which the Dems seem bent on losing.
The sad thing about all of this is we, the public cannot do jack shit about Israel: they can
brazenly kill Palestinian demonstrators with impunity; the snipers regularly kill dozens of
Palestinian demonstrators on a weekly basis in the ongoing 'Right of Return' march. What does
Washington do? Pompeo says "Israel has a right to defend itself". Israel fires missiles into
Syria killing loads of people. Not even makes the evening news. All we can do is read shitty,
depressing articles like this one day after day, week after week, year after year–and
not a fucking thing will change for the better. In fact, Iran is next to be wiped off the map
just like Iraq. What are you doing to do about it? You can't do a fucking thing about it.
I get so fucking sick of it all. What is the use of reading the news when it is all so
depressing and Washington and Israel just keep winning and winning and winning. They commit
war crimes, kill millions, and nobody can do a fucking thing about it. Really fucking
depressing :-((((((((((((((((
@6 relating to and feeling your anger--we can keep analyzing and informing, we can at the
least spread an alternative view to Establishment Bullshit and Crime. Whatever Trump is, no
matter how inadequate, his emergence signals a huge desire for CHANGE. It is happening.
the sniper kills are ritual. The israelis are not Jews. They are European descended, jewish converted askenazis and the
state of israel is nothing more than a modern day land grab in Palestine, much like the
medieval crusades. The lovely empathetic emotive little Khazars will not last as long as the 168 years of the
original crusades at this rate.
The eternal victims the little Khazars bleat and whine incessantly about their treatment
from Germany in WW2 will receive compensations and dolphin nuke submarines until 2070
and they have turned Gaza into the largest genocide camp in the world?
ALL FUNDED AND SUPPORTED BY AMERICA & ITS EUROPEAN ACOLYTES
In the post-truth, post-reality world of the globalist ruling class, the content of one's
statements is inconsequential. All that matters if the EFFECT of the statement.
Ominously, the officials said Israel appears to be preparing for open warfare with Iran and
is seeking U.S. help and support. "On the list of the potentials for most likely live
hostility around the world, the battle between Israel and Iran in Syria is at the top of the
list right now," said one senior U.S. official.
Here's a scenario:
Israel gives Putin a Syrian victory in exchange for not interfering with Israel/US war
with Iran.
Putin sees that US war with Iran will only harm US, and therefore helps Russia.
Putin tells Assad that Russian protection depends on Syrian non-intervention with US war
on Iran.
Israel and Putin and Bolton/Trump all happy. Assad and Iran and Hezbollah not happy.
Putin weakens US by capitulating to their insanity, improves his and Russia's Western
image, maintains his friendly ties re with Israel.
Iran and Hezbollah get sold out. Assad gets politically sold out, as his populace will
demand response to Israel aggression. But the big player out of the loop here in China.
Just finished reading the fascinating
Michael Hudson interview I linked to on previous thread; but since we're discussing Jews
and their religion in a tangential manner, I think it appropriate to post here since the
history Hudson explains is 100% key to the ongoing pain us humans feel and inflict. My
apologies in advance, but it will take this long excerpt to explain what I mean:
"Tribes: When does the concept of a general debt cancellation disappear historically?
"Michael: I guess in about the second or third century AD it was downplayed in the Bible.
After Jesus died, you had, first of all, St Paul taking over, and basically Christianity was
created by one of the most evil men in history, the anti-Semite Cyril of Alexandria. He
gained power by murdering his rivals, the Nestorians, by convening a congress of bishops and
killing his enemies. Cyril was really the Stalin figure of Christianity, killing everybody
who was an enemy, organizing pogroms against the Jews in Alexandria where he ruled.
"It was Cyril that really introduced into Christianity the idea of the Trinity. That's
what the whole fight was about in the third and fourth centuries AD. Was Jesus a human, was
he a god? And essentially you had the Isis-Osiris figure from Egypt, put into Christianity.
The Christians were still trying to drive the Jews out of Christianity. And Cyril knew the
one thing the Jewish population was not going to accept would be the Isis figure and the
Mariolatry that the church became. And as soon as the Christian church became the
establishment rulership church, the last thing it wanted in the West was debt
cancellation.
"You had a continuation of the original Christianity in the Greek Orthodox Church, or the
Orthodox Church, all the way through Byzantium. And in my book And Forgive Them Their Debts,
the last two chapters are on the Byzantine echo of the original debt cancellations, where one
ruler after another would cancel the debts. And they gave very explicit reason for it: if we
don't cancel the debts, we're not going to be able to field an army, we're not going to be
able to collect taxes, because the oligarchy is going to take over. They were very explicit,
with references to the Bible, references to the jubilee year. So you had Christianity survive
in the Byzantine Empire. But in the West it ended in Margaret Thatcher. And Father
Coughlin.
"Tribes: He was the '30s figure here in the States.
"Michael: Yes: anti-Semite, right-wing, pro-war, anti-labor. So the irony is that you have
the people who call themselves fundamentalist Christians being against everything that Jesus
was fighting for, and everything that original Christianity was all about."
Hudson says debt forgiveness was one of the central tenets of Judaism: "... if you
take the Bible literally, it's the fight in almost all of the early books of the Old
Testament, the Jewish Bible, all about the fight over indebtedness and debt
cancellation."
Looks like I'll be purchasing Hudson's book as he's essentially unveiling a whole new,
potentially revolutionary, historical interpretation.
Iran dumped the petrodollar recently.
Iran is vital player in OBOR.
Iran is the most important square on the board for the Great Game.
Any war with Iran with bring in both Russia and China.
Iran has nukes bought on the black market during the collapse of the USSR,I've
seen the CIA reports.
Only a suicidal idiot would attack Iran. Israel cannot steal the Litani Delta on which its survival depends while Iran
supplies Hezbollah. Israel must have that water now. Now.
This is now a bar fight and anything could and will happen.
@ deschutes 6 Washington and Israel just keep winning and winning and winning.
I guess I missed it. Where are they winning?
--Iraq, nope.
--Syria, no, big loss.
--Lebanon, they lost there
--more losses for the US in Afghanistan, Ukraine, Libya, Somalia.....
So where?
13 - Hudson has done a lot of research on debt cancellation and the Jubilee. It's scattered
throughout the bible. Fascinating work on his part. Of course some Jews and Christians are
prone to cherry-pick the "good book".
Israeli law relating to Israel going to war was changed on 30 April 2018. Instead of
requiring approval of the Knesset, it now just requires Netanyahu and the Israeli Defense
Minister (appointed by one B.N.) to agree.
The Israelis have also stated that if the Iranian
forces in Syria attack Israel, Israel will attack Iran. So all that needs happen for WWIII is
for Israel's pet ISIS stooges to fire a few mortars into the occupied Golan (*), which Israel
will deem to have been fired by Iranians in Syria, and boom! The rest of the world will then
be left to sort out the mess (US troops are now stationed at key points in Israel, and thus
likely to be hit in any Iranian response to Israel's attack).
* - in the past, these same terrorists have fired mortars into the Occupied Golan whenever
the SAA has taken them on. This resulted in Israel deeming them to have been fired by the
SAA, 'justifying' Israel's subsequent attacks on the SAA forces attacking ISIS.
A few too many seem to believe the Zionist state immune from massive retaliation if it were
to attack Iran. IMO, Zion would suffer catastrophic losses to its most vital infrastructure
thanks to Zionist and Outlaw US Empire targeting of same elsewhere thus rendering such
targets fair game. Attacking Iran would be a colossal mistake, but Nutty seems to think it
would be genius.
@ karlof1 with the Michale Hudson link....thanks!!
Here is the quote that I really like from that interview
" Michael: No. You asked what is the fight about? The fight is whether the state will be taken
over, essentially to be an extension of Wall Street if you do not have government planning.
Every economy is planned. Ever since the Neolithic (era), you've had to have (a form of)
planning. If you don't have a public authority doing the planning, then the financial
authority becomes the planners. So globalism is in the financial interest –Wall Street
and the City of London, doing the planning, not governments. They will do the planning in
their own interest. So neoliberalism is the fight of finance to subdue society at large,and
to make the bankers and creditors today in the position that the landlords were under
feudalism. "
karlof1, please email me as I would like to read the book as well and maybe we can share a
copy.
And yes, it is relevant to Netanyahoo and his ongoing passel of lies because humanity has
been told and been living these lives for centuries...it is time to stop this shit and grow
up/evolve
It would be too, too, bad if Iran were to precipitously target Israeli civilians--or even
worse, US troops in theater-- in such a heinous and spectacular way as to merit a decisive
nuclear response from Israel, don't you think? The only way Israel wins a war with Iran is by
a preemptive nuclear attack that decimates the country and kills millions. So either Israel
doesn't really want a war with Iran, or it does. If it does, then it is looking for an excuse
to nuke the country.
I need hardly point out that the discovery of "proof" that Iran was developing its own
nuclear weapon with intent to use against Israel would be cited earnestly by the Times,
Guardian, and Post as somewhat excusing Israel's otherwise excessive obliteration of an
entire people and civilization, which would doubtless be condemned in one or two editorials
and then forgotten. Most Americans could be easily moved to support a decimating nuclear
strike against Iran. What's anybody else gonna do about it?
As people become more disillusioned with Trump I think it's worthwhile to spend a moment to
take stock of what happened in th 2016 election.
1) The US President is the primary determinant of US foreign and military power. The
President is much weaker when addressing domestic policy / internal affairs. Any small, paranoid nation with ambitious plans in its neighborhood would want ensure that
they have the President's ear ( or his balls). Too much at stake to take chances. And political influence is even easier when you've developed close relation with an
oil-rich ally (Saudis) with deep pockets.
2) US democracy is money-driven and no real populist stands much of a chance.
3) Despite a groundswell of discontent on both the left and the right, here were only two
populists that ran in the election (note: I'm not counting Rand Paul's because he didn't make
an outright populist appeal - he merely spoke in a sensible way.
4) When Obama was President, he was kept in line by the "Birthers". Trump is kept in line
by the allegation of Russian interference.
5) "Never Trump-ers" were mainly Jewish (AFAIK) and almost certainly pro-Israel. The Never
Trump campaign began in earnest with Kagan's Op-Ed in February 2016 ( some might date it to
Bloomberg's public statement in January 2016 that neither Sanders or Trump could be allowed
to win).
6) AFAIK Pro-Israel oligarchs (like Saban, Soros, Bloomberg) are big donors to Democratic
Party. Hillarry and DNC are known to have colluded against 'sheep-dog' Sanders. Wouldn't
Hillary just as easily collide FOR Trump (the Cinton's And Trump's are known to have had
close ties - and their daughters are still close).
I'm sure I'm missing some of the many "dots" but it logic suggests that both Obama and
Trump are faux populists that - at least in foreign policy (where Presidential powers are
greatest) - are greatly influenced by foreign(albeit "allied") interests.
IMO Apologists for the faux populists also play an important part. They respond
voraciously to the "crazy opposition" and thereby keep alive faith in the faux hero.
Faux populist leaders seem to be a natural fit for our inverted totalitarian form of
government. Perhaps any Empire will naturally gravitate to such a compromised government?
Funny thing is, most Americans would say that USA is NOT an Empire.
@20 yonatan.. good point which bears remembering..
@27 mother of g... debkafile... israel run disinfo site..
@31 jr.. it is not just what happened in the 2016.. it is what is ongoing and really
nothing has much changed.. well, maybe it has changed slightly in that americans might just
be coming to realize how it doesn't matter who is in power.. the same financial interests
behind the scene are calling the shots - as you note..
I should point out that "kept in line" (point #4) appears to be a convenience needed to
excuse the faux populist's betrayals.
Both Obama and Trump seem more than willing to do as they are told.
And don't bother citing Obama's Iran deal as "proof" that Obama was independent. IMO That
deal was made simply to buy time because regime-change in Syria was taking longer than
expected. It is foolish to think that Obama did everything the establishment wanted but
refused IN THAT ONE MATTER.
Consider what Russia has accomplished regarding its international standing by standing by its
allies, keeping its word, honoring treaties, refusing to be baited into wars of words or
actual wars.
There is no way Russia will allow its ME standing to be reduced in the world's eyes by
standing by while the West attacks Iran.
Afghanistan, Syria and Iran were the first countries
Stalin signed treaties with after WW2, Putin will not let Iran go down.
I also think the reason Israel is trying to get a war going right now is because BiBi
suspects Putin doesn't want the Soccer games to be sanctioned. But games or no, Russia will
stand by Iran.
I can't quite see that the situation has changed that much from all the previous attempts by
Netanyahu to get the US to attack Iran. Israel needs the US to do the attack. They can't do
it themselves. Now that b has shown that Netanyahu has nothing new, the only new elements are
Jared having the ear of Trump (no doubt also warhawks in office), and Netanyahu's closeness
to being prosecuted.
However, Trump's history as a war president is not good for what Netanyahu wants. Two big
bangs with no consequences, and that attack in Yemen, are all that Trump and the military
have been able to agree. It's difficult to know who played the largest roles in those
decisions. Giving Trump a bang that would please him is obviously significant, but who held
back from a deeper engagement? In the case of the 59 Tomahawks, it was said to be the
military holding him back. I have to say that I suspect that it was also Trump himself. Big
mouth, little action, as they say. Real war could seriously harm Trump's lifestyle. I can't
see it. A bang is fine as long as there are no consequences
If Israel and its basement gimp want a war with Iran, what is Putin supposed to do? He
can't very well go to war with either without risking the annihilation of the planet and he
knows this very well. And, being rational, he won't go to war with either.
It is not his
fault that Israel and its basement gimp gorge themselves unceasingly on destruction and
carnage. He and Russia are not the hero of some Louis L'Amour pulp western for Chrissakes.
One thing he might do is extend anti-ballistic protection to Iran, perhaps in partnership
with China.
The only way that Israel and its basement gimp can be definitely turned from Iran is if it
becomes clear that to go against Iran is to go against Russia and China. Israel would still
in that case be willing to throw its basement gimp into the fight, but the US generals would
in that scenario (I trust) simply refuse to engage.
"Israeli jets are rumored to have wrongly identified themselves as coalition planes when
hitting that Iranian/Syrian depot the other day, flying along the coalition corridor going
through Jordan and W. Iraq. If true, that's an insane move..."
Ha! Just wait until these "coalition" jets "accidentally" strike Russian interests. Who
knows what opportunities could present themselves in the ensuing chaos?
Posted by: Clueless Joe | May 1, 2018 4:18:55 PM | 38 re Israeli jets masking as coalition;
That was pretty sneaky, I wonder if they cleared that with the US or maybe Pompeo? I could
not understand why Russia/Syria defenses didn't respond, thank you.
For all those here running their various scenarios, never forget that Russia is in the ME,
not as visitor, but as the dominant SuperPower with roots deep in some of the region's
nations (via USSR history). It is also the number one petroleum producer and number one
natural gas pipeline country. It also is a major arms supplier in the region.
Israel cannot abide any of this. So to think there is a "deal" between Russia/Putin and Israel/Bibi is ludicrous. They are
mortal rivals for the turf of the ME and its markets and nexus for trade of major
comodities. Russia bought its place with blood and bone in Syria.
It has two bases in Syria and will be there for 50 more years. Russia now has a Eastern Mediterranean fleet, not just some overflow of the Black Sea
Fleet. Russia is one of three Super Powers. Israel is a flea (even with 350 nukes) compared to
Russia. Unless Israel can convince the US to destroy Russia directly, it will lose the rivalry for
hegemony over the ME.
The only Israeli game plan that makes sense is if Iran can be suckered into a war that
costs it Hezbollah and most of the Syrian Army. Then Syria will splinter, Lebanon will disintegrate and Russia will be in an untenable
position to stay.
So, from Russian strategic position it now holds, no war on a large scale is allowable.
Russia can manage Turkey and Kurds, Syria and US bases, Israel and Hezbollah, and all the
leftover ISIS and AQ insurgencies. Therefore, Russia/Putin will shape things to keep things as they are which will lead to
political solutions that Russia can manage. Russia will be the most benign hegemon, influential and accommodating. It has done
remarkable things in 2.5 years of war.
We will see what the next round of Astana talks brings to Syria. But, for certain, Russia is not going to give anything to Israel. Russia needs Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah to deal with CENTCOM, the Arabs, Israel and
NATO. Now, think of some scenarios that make sense if you will.
Posted by: WJ | May 1, 2018 4:22:28 PM | 39
Thank you; I understand your reasoning, but remember after Iran they will come for Russia and
Russia knows it. Better to fight in someone else's yard than your own, always.
Plus I think Mad dog Mattis is not Bibi's pal nor is he or the Pentagon up for a war with
Iran nor Russia.
"I cannot bear Netanyahu, he's a liar," Sarkozy told Obama, unaware that the microphones in
their meeting room had been switched on, enabling reporters in a separate location to listen
in to a simultaneous translation.
"You're fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you," Obama
replied, according to the French interpreter. Reuters.
Israel cannot afford a war with Iran, the postage stamp size state of Israel has most of its
population and vital infrastructure within the metropolitan area of Tel Aviv including its
only International airport Ben Gurion.
Theoretically Hezbollah alone could turn Tel Aviv into
rubble with a thousand missiles per square mile. Then add missiles from Syria and Iran. As for
Israels gas rigs and warships, Hezbollah have the Chinese C-802 sea skimming missiles. Israel
could disappear if they are not careful. Better for them to say, why don't you [US] and him
[Iran] fight and leave us out of it?
@ 6: A lot of us out here feel your pain, but, just stay informed as best you can, share your
information with whomever you can, and support like minded sites and individuals.
You might wanna' read post 38 on the previous thread by Kalen. Interesting post.
If Nikki Haley was supposedly voted most likable US politician hence I suggest, lock the US
insane asylum and throw out the key, since now anything will be blabbermouthed and nothing of
substance will really happen except some unwitting crisis actors will die, a fact of inhumane
cruelty of imperial rulers.
Where are dire warnings from Russia about severe consequences if Syria attacked.
Russians lost credibility of their threats which is even worse if they have never made
them.
I do not know what it would take for people to see what cruel charade all this is, what
would it take for people to realize that it is all Roman type of theater of wilderness and
pain and we are audience and targets of this propaganda of fear of global nuke war and
destruction that they want us to believe is behind all this cruel soap opera.
There will be no global war since there are no fundamental conflicts within global elites
despite what propaganda from all sides claims and that including b, trying to make sense of
utter unadulterated nonsense of MSM, for those establishment people in west who are already
in it are not idiots but rational people who do that immoral, opportunist job for money
knowing what they lie about, knowing that there is no danger of global nuke catastrophe
whatsoever, otherwise they would act more sober like it was during Cold War.
However, there is logic in this madness, namely to forcefully align nations with
discredited ruling elites who attempt to take role of saviors, when no other method of
control over population works any more and policies of deliberated destruction of welfare and
civil society, openly provoked mass unrest or revolution and instigated natural growth of
working class movements in self defense. Warmongering was classical ploy against discontented
population used many times in history and nor mere speculation.
Spreading of fear of global anihilation among populations is the ultimate objective of
this unheard of verbal and acting belligerence on world stage, which upon examination of
basic socioeconomic facts especially soundness and calm of global financial system indicates
mood of world peace and love among oligarchic elites who have a good thing going while
sheeple are orderly dying of starvation and fear.
But I guess even on this quite brainy blog people are more interested in menacing tabloid
surrealism than boring naked truth. Otherwise, b would not have much to write about in his
devastating reports on masive MSM lying, with implicit hope that one day may be NYT writes
some truth.
It ain's gonna happen b , their business is lies yours it seems is to skillfully debunk
them, these are ironically two sides of the same coin of unsubstantiated hope of making any
difference anymore.
Posted by: ben | May 1, 2018 4:54:29 PM | 46
I understand your reasoning, but I don't believe the global elites are in sync; I do believe
that they are jockeying for position to try and eat each other's lunch.
Just because no blood is split at Davos or any other of their Kool Kids gatherings doesn't
mean they are united in plan or policy. Absolutely, minions are not of any importance to
them, but neither do they value each other. Think of the globalists worldview as you would
that of a shark tank.
These are all very good points. However, what nags at my perhaps paranoid soul are the
possibilities opened up by just two of them:
A. Unless Israel can convince the US to destroy Russia directly, it will lose the rivalry
for hegemony over the ME.
B. The only Israeli game plan that makes sense is if Iran can be suckered into a war that
costs it Hezbollah and most of the Syrian Army.
"A" gives Israel a very strong incentive to orchestrate some kind of direct engagement
between Russia and the U.S. If Israel's hegemony over the ME really is at stake, then is the
risk of WWIII a big enough *dis*incentive to prevent the orchestration of a hot conflict
between US and Russia? I am not so sure.
"B" strikes me as true. But any war costing Iran Hezbollah and most of the Syrian army is
going to be a war that pretty much destroys Israel as well. No? And yet Israel *does* seem to
be suckering Iran into hot war, in the hopes that the U.S. will be forced to come to Israel's
defense.
But in *this* scenario, you now have the U.S. running into war on behalf of Israel against
Iran--and this is *precisely* the kind of large-scale war Russia does not want to
"allow."
I certainly hope you are right and I just *am* being paranoid. But I worry sometimes that
some of the more knowledgeable and experienced analysts and strategists on this site assume
that something like a basic rationality of self-interest informs all of the relevant state
actors in play here, as it (theoretically) should. But in the case of Israel and the U.S.,
I'm not sure this is a safe assumption to make. (Not saying it's your assumption; just trying
to explain myself.)
Iran has just announced it will "surprise" Israel. My first thought was might Iran grant dual
Iranian citizenship to all of the Palestinians in Gaza and demand Iran be able to negotiate
on their behalf? Sigh, probably not.
Iran's FM Zarif gave an important talk at CFR recently, in which he promoted the importance
of dialog. He also mentioned hegemony:
And something which is most important to realize: the era of hegemonic influence is long
gone. I'm not talking about the United States. The United States did try, after the Cold
War, all the way -- I mean, first Iraq War, you remember, new world order, then new
American century, all of that -- didn't work.
I'm talking about our region. Neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia can be the
hegemons of the
region. That's a fact. We need to realize and appreciate this fact, however heartbreaking
it may be. None of us can become this new hegemon. . . here
It might also be worthwhile to discuss again what Israel's objectives really are. obviously
there's a degree where Netanyahu's obsession with Iran is irrational, and he's faced with
prosecution. Though the prosecution problem could be solved by another attack on Gaza.
Evidently the original aim of an attack on Iran was to reduce it to confusion, in the
Libyan style. And to cut Iranian support for Hizbullah. But, you know, Hizbullah now have a
stack of missiles, enough to reduce Israel to a queue of people at Lod airport waiting for
their flight out.
Invading Syria by land, as Mother of God suggests, is out, as although the initial
invasion would succeed, Israel would be left in a worse situation than today, because they
would have an open border, easily crossed by Jihadis.
The Israeli militaristic policy towards its neighbours started in 1948, according to Avi
Shlaim's Iron Wall . Initially it was much disputed, and the first raids were
unofficial. But militarism gained place in the government, and now rules everywhere. But it's
reached its limit. There's nowhere to go.
What will an American attack on Iran, on behalf of Israel, achieve? The answer is nothing.
Unless you believe the Iranian exiles in the States, who are feeding constantly the idea into
Washington, that the Iranian regime is about to fall. That's wrong. The Iranian regime is
actually popular. They're a populist regime. But the Iranian exiles still believe in their
aristocratic divine right to rule.
Bibi is playing the end game for Israel. He is grinding the last of the Palestinians out and
will drive them to Lebanon and Syria. That is the 'something big going on' that many have
mentioned.
This is the Ashkenazi move to ethnically cleanse Israel - to finally expel Palestinians
under the cover of some Syrian/Iran sideshow. Israel military will seize all essential
environmental resources under hezbolah control and secure its agricultural needs in a greater
Israel. And they will claim they have now created an enduring peace, that we can all stay
asleep and all will be good forever after.
Always ask: what is the highest goal in Israel's self interest and purity of the Jewish
state is likely up there alongside absolute dominance.
The most successful US policy in recent years against its enemies has been sanctions, not
military action. Because, of course, the US controls the financial networks, and a country
excluded will suffer, which led to Obama's agreement with Iran.
Netanyahu wanting war with Iran is old-fashioned, and pointless.
#42 red ryder has it essentially correct in assessing Russia's strategic and local mid-east
views, interests and strategies.
"....So, from Russian strategic position it now holds, no war on a large scale is
allowable. Russia can manage Turkey and Kurds, Syria and US bases, Israel and Hezbollah, and
all the leftover ISIS and AQ insurgencies... But,for certain, Russia is not going to give
anything to Israel. Russia needs Iran, Iraq, Syria and Hezbollah to deal with CENTCOM, the
Arabs, Israel and NATO..."
Russia basically wants business with all these nations, including even Israel; it does not
want to provoke wars but to settle things by negotiations and making deals, that's why Putin
again and again has stressed international laws, agreements (like the nuclear deal with Iran)
and respect for sovereignty, etc etc.....& also for example moving Turkey more into its
orbit and farther out from Nato's influence using all the carrots (and sticks) of a very
resource-rich economic super-power that also undoubtedly has some of the best defensive and
offensive weapons in the world.
US policy in the long run is a loser, it has outsourced much of its manufacturing base,
its middle class and lower classes are suffering, and worst of all for the world its foreign
policy relies almost entirely on using the big stick method, everything from the 'soft power'
of economic sanctions, currency manipulations, withdrawal of foreign aid, right up to
internal subversion, regime change, armed attacks, invasion and occupation.
@52
FM Zarif also, at CFR, addressed the Iran economy and unemployment.
You see, our economic indicators are very good: 8 percent growth. Eight percent growth in
today's world is one of the best. Between 700(,000) and 900,000 new jobs every year -- even
here that would be a good figure.
From 45 percent inflation to single-digit inflation last year -- these are good numbers,
but every year 1.2 million people enter the job market in Iran. We can only produce 900
(sic) new jobs. Three hundred thousand people --
HADLEY: Nine hundred thousand.
ZARIF: Nine hundred thousand new jobs. Three hundred thousand people are added to the pool
of unemployed every year. That creates discontent, disappointment. People expected -- in
spite of all these good numbers, people expected more, because -- and here we get to the
failure of the international community -- people expected the international community to
perform in the same manner we performed under the nuclear deal.
We had 11 reports of the IAEA saying that Iran performed. But since President Trump came to
office, not a single license has been issued, not a single OFAC license, in 16 months. So
the United States is already in violation. And people say, what happened? What happened to
all the promises that engagement with the international community would produce economic
dividends? And that leads to resentment.
It seems like the latest twist in the IFUKUS zio-startegy will be to cut off Iran (by
mainting a foothold East Syria & West Iraq) and using these areas to partition Syria and
to continue attacking Iranin/Syrian assets in Syria (possibly in Iran proper if all else
fails) provoking Iran and thereby dragging FUKUS into another conflict. All of this ongoing
domestic sideshow (Trump war is Deep State) will be used to distract people in the US from
these foreign provocations
The days of ISIS controlling territory and terrorizing the people of Syria are coming to an
end," State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said on Tuesday
...
This is intriguing, because the only remaining IS presence is near the Iraqi border,
with a pocket south of Damascus currently being cleared out by Syrian government
forces
...
Nauert also said the US will ensure there is a "strong and lasting footprint" in Syria
so that IS cannot return and the liberated populations "are not exploited by the Assad
regime or its Iranian supporters."
... US statements supporting the territorial integrity of Syria "are only words" that serve as
cover for "plans to partition Syria," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on
Saturday, after a meeting with Turkish and Iranian officials in Moscow. Lavrov had also
warned earlier this year about Western plans to partition Syria.
The US and its allies intend to occupy the eastern part of Syria and partition the
country, in order to "use the Sunnis in East Syria and West Iraq to form a barricade to
stop any Iranian influence and cut off supplies to Hezbollah."
Washington's objectives are aligned with the axis between Israel and Saudi Arabia,
Maloof added, with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu hoping the US will fight Iran for
Israel.
"They will go alone if they have to and drag the US into it," Maloof told RT.
"We're getting sucked into another war."
... "ISIS is a sideshow. The real US targets are the Syrian government and its Russian and
Iranian backers," Jatras said. "The stage is being set for a confrontation with
Iran, in which Syria is simply one theater."
"The reference to Christians is simply cynical. It is intended to make Americans
think we give a damn about Syria's Christians , despite seven years of arming and
funding jihadists for whom Christians are prime targets for murder and enslavement," Jatras
explained.
Outlaw US Empire Zionists did their utmost to make the Yinon Plan reality and failed. Next
to that Empire and its twin UK the Zionist state is a global pariah far worse than South
Africa. Its behavior is such that no amount of political cover by the Empire and its vassals
can save it from its fate, which eventually will be similar to South Africa's.
The only real
remaining question: How many more will die to forestall the death of the artificial state of
Israel and return of Palestine. I don't begrudge Hebrews a place within their natural
surround; Zionists, however, don't belong anywhere; their thought--and those sharing it--must
become extinct as there's no room on this planet for their kind.
Why does everyone assume that Israel or US would wage a traditional war against Iran?
Much more effective to attack Hez in Lebanon, isn't it? Instead of waiting for a barrage from Hez, strike them first under the catch-all excuse:
"Israel has a right to defend itself."
Taking southern Lebanon and continuing to destabilize Syria is a better strategy than
attacking Iran directly I think. Also, I think Bibi &crew have convinced themselves that Israel has to expand or have
pliable neighbors as a strategic necessity.
The US plan to partition Syria is dead. We're just waiting for the US to admit it. Trump
was right in wanting to withdraw from Syria. Even the Rojavan Kurds, under US constraint, are ready to make a deal with Asad.
@Don Bacon | May 1, 2018 4:59:59 PM | 47 Indeed, everyone thinks Carter is the oh so cuddly Uncle Jimmy, but the Carter doctrine is
what started the whole modern ME mess. The Neo-conservatives that followed after with their
"New American Century" just wrote implementation plans for what Carter laid out.
But can you believe Trump.After the latest missile attack ( or just before), b wrote a post that noted that Before
the *first* missile attack one year ago, Trump was saying that he had no interest in Syria.
It appeared (back then) that Trump was ready to leave Syria. Of course, that didn't
happen.
.
Can Iran afford simply not to respond at all to such a concerted attack upon Hezbollah in
Lebanon and/or Syria?
I am doubtful that it can. The consequence would simply be Israel's gaining readier access to
attack Iran directly. From the Israeli point of view, a non-destroyed Iran is simply an Iran
that will patiently go about rebuilding and refunding Hezbollah in whatever area it has been
forced to retreat to. Perhaps the cycle will just adjust and then repeat itself again. But I
think Israel feels that it's time to act decisively to secure or forever lose its hold on the
ME is fast narrowing.
The isolation of and threat of war against Iran could just be a way of trying to leverage
Russia to compromise on Syria. It doesn't look like the US or Israel has any way of attacking
Iranian interests on a large scale without risking serious casualities and lasting political
repercussions at home or abroad.
Israel needs only to be sufficiently bitch-slapped during one of its constant incursions
into Lebanese and Syrian airspace to stop its nonsensical escalation. The best hope for peace
would undoubtedly be for Syria to down a few Israeli F-16s or F-35s.
from a Newsweel article quoting Michael Eisenstadt, director of military and security studies
at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank with close ties to the Israeli
military--
Eisenstadt, who has closely studied Soleimani's tactics, says he expects the Iranian
military leader will press ahead with his strategy to turn Syria into a missile platform
against Israel.
The role of the estimated 2,000 Iranian troops now in Syria, he adds, is to
set up the military infrastructure for that endeavor, including factories to produce
sophisticated GPS-guided missiles with increased accuracy to hit high-value military and
economic targets in Israel.
Once this has been accomplished, he said, Soleimani will turn
these bases over to Hezbollah and allied Shiite militias. "The goal is to surround Israel
on almost every side with proxies equipped with rockets to be able to bombard Israel,"
Eisenstadt says. "He wants to do in Syria what he did for Hezbollah in Lebanon and, to a
lesser extent, for Hamas in Gaza." . . here
Thank you for this. Note that the Iranian strategy of ballistic countermeasures against
Israeli land targets is premised in part on the assumption of Israel's continued domination
of the region's airspace. A robust Syrian air defense--which would have to include a full
array of strategically located S-300s--would mitigate the need for Iran to target Israel
ballistically from Syria.
I suggest this
new item by Alastair Crooke and then this article he
links to get a handle on the nuances within Great Game III, which I've called the Hybrid
Third World War between the Outlaw US Empire's seeking Full Spectrum Dominance and the rising
Multinational Alliance's core members China, Russia and Iran.
Within this Game, the Zionist
state actually has next to no role to play -- it's essentially inconsequential except for its
exceptional genocidal racism. Within this new Great Game, which is the more important
player--Saudi Arabia or the Zionist state? Saudi Arabia, of course, until it no longer has
hydrocarbons to export; then, neither will matter much. And here I must allude to Hudson's
essay I linked to as much of this Game is about the future form of finance and the role its
allowed.
Admittedly, there's a lot to digest reading all these essays on top of continuing to be
informed of the Now. IMO, as things now stand, the Outlaw US Empire will lose Great Game III
unless it drastically changes its direction, which is currently unlikely until 2020, and is
in no way a sure thing then. Hudson's adamant that the 2008 meltdown was never recovered from
in the West and that its ripe for another episode. Perhaps knowing it's impotent is why
promoting Chaos seems to be the #1 goal of Imperial policy as only it wins in the short run,
although some understand its downside--losing in the long run.
No, what I mean is that war on Iran is out of date. It won't achieve what
Netanyahu wants. It would only consolidate Islamo-nationalism in Iran. From what I understand of Iranian opinion, it's quite complicated, but it's certain that a
US attack on Iran would consolidate opinion behind the government, rather than weakening
it.
It looks to me that the nature of land combat is changing because of the advances in missile
propulsion and targeting technology. Notice the last offensive the US made was with missiles,
aircraft not invited. Iran especially (and Hez) has few piloted air assets, and lots of
missiles. So it's sort of a MAD situation. You send me some destruction and you'll get some
in return.
This revolution is being fought by the big aircraft manufacturers, of course, the Boeings and
Lockheeds, they're making a mint on F-35, but there's a shortage of pilots and who needs them
anyhow when a less expensive missile can do the same job maybe better.
Wars can't (usually) be won without boots on the ground. Troops in boots have to occupy the
country and subdue the locals who don't want foreigners in their country. Just like we would
feel. It took the mighty(?)
US Army four years just to subdue Baghdad fifteen years ago.
Currently the US Army is having recruiting problems because 71% of youth 17-24 are
ineligible, can't qualify. Too fat, mostly. They say they don't change the standards, which
is correct, they just issue waivers.
These guys are going to subdue Persians in their
homeland, people who died by the tens of thousands resisting US-supported Iraq not so long
ago, with Iraq using US- and German-supplied chemical weapons? . . . Fuggedaboutit! . . . And
Israelis wouldn't fare any better, methinks.
"... Mossad operatives broke into the [Tehran warehouse building] one night last January
[2016], removed the original documents and smuggled them back to Israel the same night, the
official [speaking on conditions of anonymity] said ..."
Did they remember to leave their passports (with the personal details stolen from other
people's passports) behind? If no fake passports were found, then that's one indication that Israel is lying as is
also the anonymity of the senior Israeli official telling the story.
Posted by: WJ | May 1, 2018 6:46:49 PM | 75
re the much delayed s-300's
There is a very recent video interview of Assad in which he says the s-300s have arrived.
The Russians said they were considering selling the s-300s to Syria. Then I saw an article
that said Russia was going to give them (for free) to Syria. If you think about it; if some
s-300s are currently Russian and if they are being "given" to Syria, then both stories; that
Russia is considering selling them and Russia gave them for free are true. Tricky rascals
those Russians:)
- One also has to keep in mind that Netanjahu (and his wife Sarah) is involved in a
corruption lawsuit. No wonder, he wants to distract the people from his legal troubles.
Take note the Mueller is about to make another move against Trump. The Deep State must be
ready for their next attack in the ME--Iran, perhaps, this time. Where's that carrier group
that left for those parts a couple of weeks ago?
@13 / 78 karlof1... thanks very much for the links to michael hudson, alastair crooke and the
bruno maraces articles...
they were all good for different reasons, but although hudson is being criticized for
glossing over some of his talking points, i think the main thrust of his article is very
worthwhile for others to read! the quote to end his article is quite good "The question is,
who do you want to run the economy? The 1% and the financial sector, or the 99% through
politics? The fight has to be in the political sphere, because there's no other sphere that
the financial interests cannot crush you on."
it seems to me that the usa has worked hard to bad mouth or get rid of government and the
concept of government being involved in anything.. of course everything has to be run by a
'private corp' - ie corporations must run everything.. they call them oligarchs when talking
about russia, lol - but they are corporations when they are in the usa.. slight rant..
another quote i especially liked from hudson.. "They call themselves free marketers, but
they realize that you cannot have neoliberalism unless you're willing to murder and
assassinate everyone who promotes an alternative." that sounds about right...
@ 84 juliania.. aside from your comments on hudsons characterization of st paul "the
anti-Semite Cyril of Alexandria" further down hudson basically does the same with father
coughlin - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin..
he gets the anti-semite tag as well.. i don't know much about either characters, so it's
mostly greek to me, but i do find some of hudsons views especially appealing - debt
forgiveness being central to the whole article as i read it...
it is interesting my own view on how money is so central to the world and how often times
i am incapable of avoiding the observation of the disproportionate number of jewish people in
banking.. i guess that makes me anti-semite too, but i don't think of myself that way.. i
think the obsession with money is killing the planet.. i don't care who is responsible for
keeping it going, it is killing us...
Just so long as you remember that most of the strongest and most moving condemnations of
greed and money in the ancient and (today) western world are also Jewish--i.e. Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Micah, the Gospels, Letter of James, etc.
The history of Jewish banking after the fall or Rome is inextricable from cultural
anti-judaism of Christian west and east and de facto marginalization/ghettoization of Jews
from most aspects of social life. The Jewish lending of money on interest to gentiles was
both necessary for early mercantilist trade and yet usury was prohibited by the church. So
Jewish money lenders were essential to and yet ostracized within European economies for
centuries. Now Christianity has itself long given up on the tradition teaching against usury
of course.
"... Demonization of North Korea was the first victim of the summit: the South Koreans saw that the much besmirched Kim was quite a worldly guy, even with a very slight trace of Swiss German in his speech. Women's diplomacy also played a role: Kim's sister, Kim Yo Jong, made the first contact with the President of the South during her visit to the Olympics. Kim's wife, a well-known actress, became friends with Moon's wife. This North Korean ruler is a regular guy, they say today in Seoul. ..."
"... But a sharp-sighted observer of The Guardian had noticed that it won't be easy for Trump to do his usual bellicose sabre-rattling after the peaceful meeting of the two Korean leaders. He has been trapped. "If Trump tries to play hardball with Kim, he risks looking like a warmonger and a bully whose policies are inimical to Korean interests, north and south. Intentionally of otherwise, Moon, a lifelong advocate of detente with personal connections to North Korea, has spiked Trump's guns." ..."
"... Actually, there is not much of reason for the Trump-Kim summit. Trump can take his troops home, and let the Koreans to settle their relations as they find fit. If the Russians and the Chinese did it, so can the Americans, too. The world, including Korea, is fully grown up and it can live without American tutelage. ..."
"... There was an agreement for the nuclear disarmament of North Korea, and the US reneged on it all right. There is an agreement for the denuclearisation of Iran, and now the US President intends to renege on it, too. ..."
"... However, if the US withdraws its troops and agrees to denuclearisation of the peninsula, and if this withdrawal will be "complete, verifiable and irreversible", there is a room for some play. North Korea would like to be treated as a responsible member of the nuclear club, on a par with England and France; it may cease nuclear tests and allow observers or suchlike. ..."
There is no doubt that the people of Korea, of the North and the South, want peaceful
reunification and the prosperity of their country. But so far the US has prevented it. The US
deep state preferred to have its military bases in South Korea with its nuclear weapons aimed
not only at Pyongyang, but also at Beijing and Vladivostok. Last year, the US brought in its
THAAD missile defence system to South Korea, directly threatening the North, Russia, and
China.
The Americans outlined the goal of the talks as they see it – the nuclear disarmament
of North Korea. This is all that interests them. A North Korea without nuclear weapons is
always vulnerable to a volley of Tomahawks, as in Syria. But Kim is not that simple. Instead of
"nuclear disarmament of North Korea," he proposed "the liberation of the Korean peninsula from
nuclear weapons" – and, importantly, these words were repeated by the president of the
South.
The liberation of the peninsula from nuclear weapons means, first of all, the removal of
American bases and occupation forces, and the banning of American ships capable of carrying
nuclear weapons from entering Korean ports. And then, without the invaders being present, the
two independent Koreas will agree on their own terms. This, roughly, is the logic of Kim
– and Moon accepted it, uttering the cherished words "the liberation of the peninsula"
instead of "the elimination of the North Korean nuclear program."
Russia as an original member of the nuclear club has traditionally supported the idea of
nuclear disarmament of all non-member countries. But it does not actively insist
on it, if only because India, Pakistan and Israel are among the new nuclear powers, and the
last not only did not sign the non-proliferation treaty, but also does not agree with any
control over its nuclear weaponry. Under these conditions, it makes no sense to insist on the
nuclear disarmament of North Korea. But, let us repeat, Russia is for disarmament. If this
disarmament brings about the elimination of US bases in South Korea, this can only be
welcomed.
The summit in the DMZ (demilitarized zone) has already had an effect. We have no doubt that
the North is short of freedom, but in the South, there is certainly freedom of speech, isn't
there?
It turned out that in South Korea until this very day no one had seen or heard Kim, the
North Korean president, on a video or in live broadcast. The Independent , a British
quality newspaper,
reported :
Until the meeting, many South Koreans had never actually heard Kim Jong-un speak. The
leader is usually seen only in heavily edited footage, and accessing more videos of him can
land people in jail. "I can't believe I'm listening to the voice of Kim Jong Un. Someone I
have only seen as a jpeg is speaking now," South Korean Lee Yeon-su wrote on Twitter. It is a
dramatic change for South Koreans, who under the National Security Act are banned on threat
of jail from accessing media considered pro-North Korean.
Internet resources "sympathetic to North Korea" or, worse, praising North Korea, are banned
there; and accessing such sites, or listening to Pyongyang Radio can send a South Korean to
prison for several years. A good word about the northern neighbour can earn you a long stretch
in jail under the Law on Combating Terrorism.(The law also provides for the death penalty, but
it has not been used for the last ten years.) Anti-communist propaganda in the South is part of
the school curriculum, part of the news program, part of everyday life.
After the summit, the surprised South Koreans wrote in their social media that the bloody
tyrant from the North looked like a teddy bear, small, plump and cute.
And he speaks the same language as they do. And he eats buckwheat noodles, which they
love.
ORDER IT NOW
Demonization of North Korea was the first victim of the summit: the South Koreans saw
that the much besmirched Kim was quite a worldly guy, even with a very slight trace of Swiss
German in his speech. Women's diplomacy also played a role: Kim's sister, Kim Yo Jong, made the
first contact with the President of the South during her visit to the Olympics. Kim's wife, a
well-known actress, became friends with Moon's wife. This North Korean ruler is a regular guy,
they say today in Seoul.
At the NATO headquarters there was a lot of teeth gnashing and demands not to relax the
sanctions, or rather to add some more sanctions. The Western mainstream media keeps saying that
this summit had been just a preparation for the real main thing, for the meeting of Kim and
Trump. But a sharp-sighted observer of The
Guardian had noticed that it won't be easy for Trump to do his usual bellicose
sabre-rattling after the peaceful meeting of the two Korean leaders. He has been trapped. "If
Trump tries to play hardball with Kim, he risks looking like a warmonger and a bully whose
policies are inimical to Korean interests, north and south. Intentionally of otherwise, Moon, a
lifelong advocate of detente with personal connections to North Korea, has spiked Trump's
guns."
Actually, there is not much of reason for the Trump-Kim summit. Trump can take his
troops home, and let the Koreans to settle their relations as they find fit. If the Russians
and the Chinese did it, so can the Americans, too. The world, including Korea, is fully grown
up and it can live without American tutelage.
It won't be easy sailing. The US wants to keep its fingers in, and demands "complete,
verifiable and irreversible" disarmament of North Korea. But Kim knows what had happened to
countries and leaders that trusted the US promises and disarmed. Gadhafi and Saddam Hussein
disarmed, and were brutally killed. Russia disarmed in 1991 only to find itself being treated
as irrelevant. The US walked out of treaties made in the Soviet days without as much as "by
your leave". Non-nuclear North Korea would already be bombed, as it was in 1950-1953. Nothing
indicates that Kim is a suicidal maniac or a new Gorbachev.
There was an agreement for the nuclear disarmament of North Korea, and the US reneged on
it all right. There is an agreement for the denuclearisation of Iran, and now the US President
intends to renege on it, too.
However, if the US withdraws its troops and agrees to denuclearisation of the peninsula,
and if this withdrawal will be "complete, verifiable and irreversible", there is a room for
some play. North Korea would like to be treated as a responsible member of the nuclear club, on
a par with England and France; it may cease nuclear tests and allow observers or
suchlike.
Israel, this important power behind the Capitol Hill, bears a strong animosity against North
Korea, for North Korea has been instrumental in providing missile technology to the Axis of
Resistance.
The Russians are not going to great lengths for the sake of North Korea. The relations
between two neighbours are cool, mutual trade is small. Russia will probably follow China's
line regarding Korea. The Chinese would like to see a more obedient North Korea, but they are
used to fierce Korean independence by now. They apparently agreed to Kim's steps during recent
Kim's meeting with President Xi.
In such a happy, happy day for Korea, I do not want to think about possible complications.
For the first time in years, light has appeared in the gloomy skies of Korea, divided in 1945,
and never reunited, unlike Vietnam and Germany. Maybe now it's Korea's turn?
"... A week or two ago I read that China was going to help Iran develop nukes if the agreement were eliminated. ..."
"... Appointed by Trump. State Dep is anti Russia whereas Trump is anti Iran. Every US president has to start a war. Would not be American if a president failed at starting a new war. ..."
Iranian officials denounced Netanyahu. And a state-run news agency in Iran said he is
"famous for ridiculous shows." For more on all this, William Brangham is back.
William Brangham:
So, does Israel's presentation today add to our understanding of Iran's nuclear ambitions,
and what does this mean for the Iran deal going forward?
For that, I'm joined now by physicist and former arms control inspector David Albright. He's
currently president of the Institute for Science and International Security.
Welcome back to the "NewsHour."
David Albright! The half-bright Iran foe, in person, on PBS for an opinion. And he
provides it. Is the Israel claim real?
Is it real? The Israelis make it clear that the U.S. will vouch for it. The U.S. has the
complete set. So I would start by assuming it is real. And the Israelis are quite capable
of getting into Tehran.
It's pretty remarkable what they did to get into a warehouse and remove that much
information and get it out of Iran, so it's quite an intelligence coup.
And it is a -- Israelis make it clear, it's a huge amount of information. It surprised them
how wide and deep the Iranian nuclear weapons program, just how many things they didn't
know about, I mean, is a constant message today from the Israelis. . .
here
he was right there in the lead up to the war in afganistan and iraq... what is not to trust
about him? LOL>
"In 2001 Albright prepared an analysis, for CNN, of documents found in an abandoned Al
Qaeda safe house in Kabul believed to have been used by Abu Khabbab, who they described as
"Osama bin Laden's top chemical and biological weapons commander."[1] Albright confirmed the
abandoned documents included plans for a nuclear bomb, and extensive training notes on the
handling of radiological material." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Albright
A few more golden oldies to add to b's collection. Little known fact. They created web site
bookmarks so I would have a good way to keep track of Bibi's bulls**t. Keep up the good fight
b.
...and trips to Israel and other perks. On the other hand, if any Congress member who
gives a slight little anti-Israel (i.e. anti-Semitic) peep will become an ex-Congressmember.
It's happened, with highly-financed opposition to a deviant's transgression at the next
biannual election. One example is Cynthia McKinney (links broken....
Forced To Sign Loyalty To Israel - Cynthia McKinney (2014)
A week or two ago I read that China was going to help Iran develop nukes if the agreement
were eliminated. I think they should just provide them a couple and that Iran should aim
a couple of missiles at the Israeli nuclear power plants. This would tighten up the recta of
the Israelis and a Fukushima-like problem might lead to an emigration. Israel, as the tail
wagging the yankee dog, seems to be a significant threat to our survival. By seeming to
provide retrospective justification to the excesses, it is accomplishing the impossible by
making unalloyed evil seem justified by subsequent history.
@122 "which are often not cleared with the State Department, where she is at least nominally
employed."
Appointed by Trump. State Dep is anti Russia whereas Trump is anti Iran. Every US
president has to start a war. Would not be American if a president failed at starting a new
war.
"... Those who argue that the withdrawal of the U.S. from JCPOA will be countered by the continued cooperation of the other signatories to the agreement are, one might unfortunately note, somewhat delusional. The U.S. has tremendous leverage in financial markets. ..."
"... The United States could force the entire JCPOA quid pro quo agreement to collapse, and that might be precisely what the White House intends to do. ..."
"... Add into the equation the clearly expressed and oft-times repeated Israeli intention to begin a war with Iran, starting in Syria, sooner rather than later, a disaster for American foreign policy is developing that might well make Iraq and Afghanistan look like cake walks. Iran will surely strike back in response either to the termination of the JCPOA or to Israeli bombing of its militiamen and surrogates in Syria. ..."
"... Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is ..."
The analysis of the recent exchanges
between French President Emmanuel Macron and President Donald Trump suggest that Washington is most likely
about to withdraw from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear agreement with Iran that was
signed by the U.S. and five other governments in July 2015. The decision will likely be made public before
the deadline on re-ratifying the agreement, which is May 12
th
. As one informed observer
has noted
, "a train wreck is probably coming, with very damaging consequences that are hard to predict."
Macron was polite, both in his meeting
with Trump and during his speech before Congress, not hammering on the unimaginable awfulness of the White
House decision while also offering an alternative, i.e. cooperation with the United States to improve the
nuclear agreement while also supporting the principle that it is worth saving. Whether that subtle nudge,
coupled with a pledge that Iran will never get a nuclear weapon, will be enough to change minds either in
Congress or the White House is questionable as the unfortunate truth is that going to war with Iran is
popular among the policy makers and media for the usual reason: it is a major foreign policy objective of
the Israeli government and its powerful U.S. lobby.
Iran has been vilified for decades in the
American media and it rarely gets a fair hearing anywhere, even when its behavior has not been particularly
objectionable. Currently, it is regularly demonized by the Israelis and their supporters over its apparent
plan to create an arc of Shi'a states extending through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon, a so-called "land bridge"
to the Mediterranean Sea. What that would accomplish exactly has never really been made clear and it assumes
that the Syrians and Iraqis would happily surrender their sovereignty to further the project.
The Iranians for their part have made it
clear that no modification of the agreement is possible. They note, correctly, that the JCPOA was not a
bilateral commitment made between Tehran and Washington. It also included as signatories Russia, China,
France, Britain and the European Union and was ratified by the United Nations (P5+1). They and others also
have noted that U.S. exit from the agreement will mean that other nations will negotiate with Washington
with the understanding that a legal commitment entered into by the President of the United States cannot be
trusted after he is out of office.
Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to
eliminate its stockpile of medium-enriched uranium, cut its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98%, and
reduce by two-thirds the number of its gas centrifuges for 13 years. For the next 15 years, Iran will only
enrich uranium up to non-weapons level of 3.67%. Iran also pledged not to build any new heavy-water
facilities and to limit uranium-enrichment activities for research and medical purposes to a plant using old
technology centrifuges for a period of 10 years. To guarantee compliance with the agreement, Iran accepted
the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) proposal that it have highly intrusive access by a team of
unannounced inspectors of all the country's nuclear facilities. In return, Iran was to receive relief from
U.S., European Union, and United Nations Security Council sanctions, an aspect of the agreement that the
United States has never fully complied with.
Trump's objection to the agreement is
that it is a "bad deal" that virtually guarantees that Iran will have a nuclear weapon somewhere down the
road. There is, however, no factual basis for that claim and that it is being made at all is largely
reflective of Israeli and Israel Lobby propaganda. It is, on the contrary, an American interest not to have
another nuclear proliferator in the Middle East in addition to Israel, which Washington has never dared to
confront on the issue. The JCPOA agreement guarantees that Iran will not work to develop a weapon for at
least ten years which is a considerable benefit considering that Tehran, if it had chosen to initiate such a
program, could easily have had breakout capability in one year.
The U.S. and Israel are also expressing
concern about Iranian ballistic missile capability. Again, ballistic missiles would appear to be a weapon
that Israel alone seeks to monopolize in its neighborhood because it seeks to regard itself as uniquely
threatened, that is, always the victim. It is an argument that sells well in the U.S. Congress and in the
media, which has apparently also obtained traction in the White House. It is nevertheless a fake argument
contrived by the Israelis. The missiles under development do not in any way threaten the United States and
they were not in any event part of the agreement and should not be considered a deal breaker.
Ironically, the JCPOA is approved of by
most Americans because it prevents the development of yet another potentially hostile nuclear armed power in
a volatile part of the world. American Jews, in fact, support it more than other Americans, according to
opinion polls. Even the generals in the Pentagon favor continuing it as do U.S. close allies Germany, France
and Britain. The ability of Israel and its Lobby to dominate U.S. foreign policy formulation in certain
areas is thereby exposed for what it is: sheer manipulation of our system of government by a small group
dedicated to the interests of a foreign government using money and the political access that money buys to
achieve that objective.
Those who argue that the withdrawal
of the U.S. from JCPOA will be countered by the continued cooperation of the other signatories to the
agreement are, one might unfortunately note, somewhat delusional. The U.S. has tremendous leverage in
financial markets.
If it chooses to sanction Iran over its missiles while also re-introducing the old
sanctions relating to the nuclear developments, it would be a brave European or Asian banker who would risk
being blocked out of the American market by lending money or selling certain prohibited goods to the
Iranians.
The United States could force the entire JCPOA quid pro quo agreement to collapse, and
that might be precisely what the White House intends to do.
Add into the equation the clearly
expressed and oft-times repeated
Israeli intention
to begin a war with Iran, starting in Syria, sooner rather than later, a disaster for
American foreign policy is developing that might well make Iraq and Afghanistan look like cake walks. Iran
will surely strike back in response either to the termination of the JCPOA or to Israeli bombing of its
militiamen and surrogates in Syria.
America forces in the region will surely be sucked into the
conflict by Israel and will wind up taking the fall. Someone should tell Donald Trump that there are real
world consequences for breaking agreements and rattling sabers. But who will tell him? Will it be John
Bolton or Nikki Haley or Mike Pompeo? I doubt it.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is
Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation
that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
www.councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is
[email protected].
I am beginning to think the astonishing real capitulation of South Korean Government to North Korea demands
and Trump's acquiescence in this is a prelude to the war on Iran. Now Netanyahu has announced the casus
belli. Israel plots its wars and never fights a war on two fronts. hope I am wrong.
"... I expect that the poll was designed/targeted/conducted/processed with that reported result in mind ....what questions were asked? To whom did they ask the questions? How was the data massaged? And who funded it? Poor, or even middle class people never fund any polls, do they? I poked around a bit at the college that ran the poll but don't have the patience to find the answers to my own questions. ..."
@ anon with the Niki Haley approval rating of 63% etc.
I expect that the poll was designed/targeted/conducted/processed with that reported
result in mind ....what questions were asked? To whom did they ask the questions? How was the
data massaged? And who funded it? Poor, or even middle class people never fund any polls, do
they? I poked around a bit at the college that ran the poll but don't have the patience to find
the answers to my own questions.
The current geo-political world is exposing all sorts of folks that support what I call the
God of Mammon narrative and their associated moral failings. As a species it is way past time
that we confront the centuries old assumptions that make up our "social contract"...such as it
is/is not.
The Netanyahoo circus is not the underlying friction in our world. The underlying friction
in our world is about debt, global/local investment and the cost of doing business including
geo-political stability. We have enough food to feed everyone but there are distribution
problems because of greed and social control desires. The same is true for housing, health
care, education, etc. Our current social contract precludes everyone from having all those
things because our social contract says that in the Western world all the tools of finance
shall be owned/controlled privately. And furthermore that social contract (didn't you sign it?)
says that there are these rules called laws that give not only "ownership" but that ownership
in perpetuity through other rules/laws of inheritance to individuals/families.
IMO, if we want to change the world for the better or ever to save our asses we need to
confront the underlying social contract that none ever discuss openly.
Your assessment of Nikki Haley as a 'mental lightweight' is likely right. However zionists
probably like that in their manchurian candidates. See this thread from the saker... note her
zionist righthand man, jon lerner...
"In the Trumpean world of all-the-time-stupid, there is, however, one individual who stands
out for her complete inability to perceive anything beyond threats of unrelenting violence
combined with adherence to policies that have already proven to be catastrophic. That person is
our own Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, who surfaced in the news lately after she
unilaterally and evidently prematurely announced sanctions on Russia. When the White House
suggested that she might have been "confused" she responded that "With all due respect, I don't
get confused."
For sure, neocon barking dog Bill Kristol has for years been promoting Haley for president,
a sign that something is up as he was previously the one who "discovered" Sarah Palin. Indeed,
the similarities between the two women are readily observable. Neither is very cerebral or much
given to make any attempt to understand an adversary's point of view; both are reflexively
aggressive and dismissive when dealing with foreigners and domestic critics; both are
passionately anti-Russian and pro-Israeli. And Kristol is not alone in his advocacy. Haley
regularly receives praise from Senators like South Carolina's Lindsey Graham and from the
Murdoch media as well as in the opinion pages of National Review and The Weekly Standard.
Haley, who had no foreign policy experience of any kind prior to assuming office, relies on
a gaggle of neoconservative foreign-policy "experts" to help shape her public utterances, which
are often not cleared with the State Department, where she is at least nominally employed. Her
speechwriter is Jessica Gavora, who is the wife of the leading neoconservative journalist Jonah
Goldberg. "
"
Anonymous on April 26, 2018 · at 2:24 pm EST/EDT
One might be inclined to dismiss Haley as another sarah palin, not too bright. This shows she
might become relevant as a zionist manchurian candidate. They already seem to be grooming her.
See the article below about her key aide, jonlerner
Zionists may prefer not-too-bright frontmen because they can be more easily controlled,
think georgewbush, ronaldreagan, donaldtrump etc someone who is too bright might think
themselves out of their control e.g. billclinton started off strongly proisrael, but by the end
he becoming more savvy about israel his wifes political ambitions may have shorted that,
" 5 Things To Know About Nikki Haley's Jewish Right-Hand Man Jon Lerner
Nathan Guttman December 11, 2017
He holds a senior position in the Trump administration and has made a name for himself as
one of the most successful political consultants, yet Jon Lerner, manages to steer clear from
the spotlight. Currently serving as America's deputy ambassador to the United Nations, under
Nikki Haley, Lerner, 49, was recently described in a New York Magazine article as "the No. 1
person [Haley] listens to," and with speculations that Haley's political ambition could lead
her all the way to the White House, Lerner is the man to follow.
Here are a few facts about Jon Lerner:
He May Pave Haley's Road to the White House
The New York Magazine reported that Lerner "has a long-term plan for Haley, and he is there
to make sure nothing derails it." This long term plan began back in South Carolina when Lerner
managed Haley's 2010 successful gubernatorial race and maintained its momentum when she entered
the Trump administration as top United Nations representative. Lerner was appointed deputy
ambassador but stayed behind to run Haley's Washington office.
senator Jim DeMint, [described] Lerner as having "a very good strategic mind."
"Where I follow my gut, Jon relies on facts and the statistics he finds in his polling,"
Haley wrote in her 2012 autobiography "
Reply
Anonymous on April 30, 2018 · at 4:41 am EST/EDT
nikki haley is the most popular active politician in america, with 63% approval, trump 39% (
obama is top 66%) in one poll. perhaps this shows the ongoing crumbling of american democracy,
the principled design of its fundamental institutions (like the elections, the press, the
supremecourt etc) being massively gamed in reality by the minions of the 1%.., sad !!
With Russia neutralized by upcoming football World championship due to Putin's love for large
sport events, there are preparation of something similar to Sochi events (EuroMaydan color
revolution in Ukraine)
Notable quotes:
"... This can all be easily followed all the way back to before the Iranian nuclear deal and a policy paper out of Brookings on how to set up Iran for war. Basically, it states make a deal with Iran then prove that although the West did its best, Iran broke the deal in whatever manner. Appears they have all the actors lined up. Now it begins. The war of words then war. Like we haven't seen this before. ..."
"... I'd missed this: US-led jets bombed pro-Assad forces advancing on Deir Ezzor: Report http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/us-jets-bomb-pro-government-fighters-syria-operation-1276052674 International law anyone? Its dead in the west. ..."
"... doesn't make sense ...FUKUS does war on Iran, Iran closes the Gulf ...oil goes to 200/ barrel ....US does a superb imitation of a Dead Fly. ..."
"... Looks to me like Trump is groveling before the Saudis for keeping the petrodollar. ..."
"... Putin who sees only the reality that the US remains both enviably rich and powerful cannot understand how unstable and dangerous it has become. ..."
Netanyahoo To Again Cry Wolf - But Something Bigger Is Up
(Updated)
Updated below
---
U.S. President Trump wants to end the nuclear agreement (pdf) with Iran
and wants to eliminated Iranian forces in Syria which support the Syrian government. Something
is being prepared to make that happen.
Last week General Joseph Votel, commander of CENTCOM - the U.S. military command for the
Middle East, was in Israel. It was the first ever visit of a CENTCOM commander to Israel which
usually works with the European command EUCOM.
Yesterday former CIA director and now Secretary of State Pompeo visited Israel. A few hours
later Israel bombed two ammunition depots in Syria which are supposedly related to Iran. This
was a clear attempt to provoke Iran into some reaction.
The Israeli defense minister Lieberman just visited Washington DC and only today came back
to Israel.
Now the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahoo loudly announced that he will
hold a press conference to present a "huge amount of new
and dramatic information on the Iranian nuclear program". He will allege that Iran cheats on
the nuclear agreement (JCPOA).
Netanyahoo is a notorious liar and warmonger. In September 2002 he lied (vid)
to the U.S. congress:
There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking and is working and is advancing
towards the development of nuclear weapons – no question whatsoever"
Only yesterday he
promoted a false story that claimed Arabs in Israel had disrupted a minuted of silence for
some people killed in a flash flood.
The IAEA
says that Iran is in full compliance with the JCPOA. If there were any serious intelligence
about any Iranian deviation from the nuclear agreement it would be presented to the IAEA and
the six signature powers of the agreement. The IAEA would investigate and report back. If Iran
cheated it would be put back under serious international sanctions. That Netanyahoo wants to
present something publicly makes it very likely that he has nothing of relevance.
We
hear that the documents he is said to present were compiled
by one Christopher Steele and assembled with the help of one Sergej Skripal and his MI6 handler
[redacted]. They will show that Iran attempts to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger .
This new comedy stunt by Netanyahoo is tightly coordinated with the Trump administration.
Trump's national security advisor John Bolton
has worked with the Zionists since early 2000 to push for a war on Iran:
During multiple trips to Israel, Bolton had unannounced meetings, including with the head of
Mossad, Meir Dagan, without the usual reporting cable to the secretary of state and other
relevant offices. Judging from that report on an early Bolton visit, those meetings clearly
dealt with a joint strategy on how to bring about political conditions for an eventual U.S.
strike against Iran.
Behind Trump, Netanyahoo and Bolton is one financier, the militant Zionist and casino
magnate Sheldon Adelson. He financed Trump's and Netanyahoo's election campaigns and the
various think tanks that create anti-Iranian propaganda and paid Bolton.
Trump wants to leave the nuclear agreement but the other signers, China, Russia, the UK,
France and Germany want to keep it up. Just leaving the JCPOA without cause will increase doubt
over any agreement the U.S. wants to make on other issues. The allegations Netanyahoo will put
forward, no matter how ridiculous they may be, could give Trump some excuse to put new
sanctions on Iran without actually leaving the agreement.
But even that does not explain all the recent meetings and visits by the various Israeli and
U.S. officials. French soldiers and mercenaries from the UAE have entered north-east-Syria. What
for? The Saudis are on board with any operation against Iran.
Something big is up and we do not know yet what it might be.
---
Update
That was lame. Netanyahoo just finished his show (vid). He claimed that Israel got
access to an Iranian archive of its former nuclear program dating from 1999 to 2003. In 2007 a
U.S. National Intelligence Estimate found
that Iran stopped all nuclear weapon research in 2003 after the U.S. had destroyed Iran's then
arch-enemy Iraq. In 2011 the IAEA reported
in detail of Iran's former "structured program". It agreed that it had stopped in 2003.
All that Netanyahoo now claims to have acquired is old and known stuff. He refers to an AMAD
plan Iran had as if that was some new intelligence. But the IAEA documented AMAD and its
development in 2011 (PDF, Annex, page 5). He uses the archive documents of known former
programs to declare that Iran has cheated and is not trustworthy. He says that gives Trump
reason to disavow the nuclear agreement the U.S. and others had signed with Iran. That is
bullshit.
I had expected better from him. Some well forged documents or something more dramatic. This
was just nonsense.
My feeling is that this was a diversion from an upcoming military(?) operation against Iran
or its assets in Lebanon, Syria or Iraq.
Absolutely correct b. Something's cooking and it won't take long for the world to find out
what it was.
Also, when responding to the Iranian threats to re-start their nuclear program, Mr Trump
appears to have an answer pretty resolute i.e "They won't be starting anything, you can bank
on that"
One more thing I like to add. If Mr Trump withdraws US from the deal which is also
endorsed by the UNSC, US will loose to IRAN in the war that follows-up.
OH no! not the yellow cake saga again. Well, if they can get away with the Syrian chemical
weapons attack that the white helmets can fix with a hose pipe, then anything goes. It looks
as though the Skripal affair has lots more secrets to reveal. This story just keeps on giving
and giving, although if you looked for it in MSM you wouldn't find anything on it. I don't
understand why the missile defense system doesn't appear to activate for the Iranian
contingent in Syria. Is it because this was a surprise attack and the Syrians?Russians were
caught off guard, or are the Iranians left to fend for themselves as far as air bombardment
is concerned? I get the feeling that the West is probing and poking the bear a bit at a time
with a stick to get a reaction. They may well be sorry what they wish for.
Doesn't look like fake anti-establishment, swamp-drainer, poseur Trump has given himself ANY
leeway...
with which he might counter or to move away from the numerous neocon nut cases hell-bent
for WW3 whom he has permanently invited to his war cabinet golden shower party.
Netanyahu is probably the most dangerous leader in this world, the raw lying and propaganda,
its heinous. Not to mention this sick lunatic in Israel have some 300 nukes already
themselves, IN SECRET!
Now he have come up with fake documents, trying to justify a war!
Same jewish state that whine about antisemitism, this people are not sane...
Hopefully west dont accept this blatant sicko, because as usual, its not Israel that want
to wage the war, no, the war must be fought by
goyim europeans and especially americans.
With ugly pack of morons as Trump, POmpeo, Bolton, it doesnt look good.
This war hysteria just come weeks after the illegal and dangerous bombing of Syria.
Netanyahu clarly is a psychopath.
What is going on with those s300s? Russia needs to give Syria/Iran the means to defend
themselves from these repeated acts of Israeli aggression. It should not be so easy for
Israel to take out Iranian forces.
The only way to kick the legs out of Iran in a manner that Israel cares about which would
also hurt Assad would be to destroy Hezbollah. The only chance of doing that would be to go
full war crime mode and use the most vicious thermobaric or possibly tactical nuclear
weapons.
If we did that or enabled the Israelis to do that then we will have reached total
depravity. At this point I believe the U.S. public is okay with bombing anyone as long as
U.S. lives are not lost. If the Israelis do it we cheer, if we do it then it shows the rest
of the world who is boss.
This can all be easily followed all the way back to before the Iranian nuclear deal and a
policy paper out of Brookings on how to set up Iran for war. Basically, it states make a deal
with Iran then prove that although the West did its best, Iran broke the deal in whatever
manner. Appears they have all the actors lined up. Now it begins. The war of words then war.
Like we haven't seen this before.
Nuttyyahoo is dangerous BECAUSE he is thoroughly enabled by the FUKUS, but especially the US
in EVERY way - politically, monetarily, morally, and and he is promoted on every television
network and mainstream media outlet.
Trump has become increasingly dangerous because he has surrounded himself with Pompeo,
Bolton, Nikki Haley, Nuttyyahoo...
US/UK/Israel are not even trying for convincing narratives now.
Sounds like F-35 was used to hit the ammo dumps in Syria. Maybe the zionists figure they have
F35 bugs ironed out and its time to put it to work against Iran.
Actually Iran has a long-time investment in uranium mines in Namibia, from the Shah's time,
and Ahmadinejad even visited Niger in Apr 2013 while that country was looking to diversify
its uranium sales away from the French Areva. There's nothing "secret" about any of this,
uranium is a fuel for reactors.
...
What I like about this story is that, even though smearing Iran doesn't make any sense,
narratives that don't make sense are 'normal' for that bloodthirsty experiment in social
engineering known as "Israel". One wonders whether, if the "Israelis" are serious about
attacking Iran, then shouldn't they be encouraged to give it a try, just to see what
happens?
If they're not worried about blowback from Iran and Hezbollah, why should anyone else lose
any sleep over it?
When Medvedev was President of Russia he said in an interview (with Zacharia) on a US network
that ab attack on Iran would create an "unimaginable refugee catastrophe". Ironically (or
Russian-ly), he didn't say for whom it would be catastrophic...
Also, there was actually never any evidence of a nuclear weapons research program prior to
2003 either. The IAEA has specifically gone on record stating in 2009 that it has "no
concrete proof that this is or has been a nuclear weapons program in Iran". Gareth Porter has
written more about the 2003 allegations and Israel's later attempts to undermine the NIE by
insisting that there was evidence of "continued" nuclear weapons work. The worst that the
IAEA could ever say it actually found in Iran, were "fragmented and incomplete feasibility
studies" that were "relevant to" nukes -- none of which is in any way a violation of the NPT
which actually ENCOURAGES the sharing of technology "relevant to" nuclear weapons including
data from nuclear test explosions.
Wow! The anti-corruption probe into Nuttyyahoo's activities must be coming close to arresting
him; so, to avoid arrest, he must start an actual war of aggression. Only problem is the
Zionists like their Outlaw allies are incapable of actually defeating anyone they might
attack.
What the Zionists are scared to death of is becoming irrelevant; their Airstrip 1
existence no longer of any value to the Imperialist Empires that created the Zionist state
for their own geopolitical machinations. Is there any real reason to militarily attack the
Zionists beyond reclaiming Golan? If Lebanon becomes strong enough--I'd argue it's
already--then a simple containment policy coupled with the international BDS movement will be
more than enough to facilitate internal political change within the Apartheid State over
time--containment will take several years to work as it did on South Africa. Zionist racism
has destabilized itself. Talk about a state ripe for being Color Revolutionized. Those are
the reasons for the easily seen and rebutted lies of a very desperate politico wanting very
much to avoid prison for crimes he committed against his own nation, not the many War Crimes
against others.
B.: I had expected better from him. Some well forged documents or something more dramatic.
This was just nonsense.
______________________________________________
This is another example of a trend I've been on about lately. You're quite right; the
quality of the Western/ME hegemony's Big Lies is deteriorating markedly before our eyes. But
only the minority who are willing and able to keep their eyes wide open seem to notice.
It's hard to tell if the proliferation of weak and incredible fabrications is based on the
Big Liars' belief that the public is, or has become, so benighted and bamboozled that they'll
swallow anything, or if it's an indication that they are running on empty. But, whether it's
due to hubris or degenerate incompetence, it indeed looks as if they aren't even
trying any more.
Then again, as you also point out, Bibi's anticlimactic histrionics are on a par with his
comical September, 2012 performance at the UN, where he produced that cartoon drawing of a
"bomb" in order to flog the typically mendacious and hysterical claim that the noble,
harmless State of Israel was in imminent danger of destruction from the "Iranian bomb".
It's one thing when zealous Hasbarists, amateur or professional, troll/spam Internet
comments boards with their rigidly fatuous, fantastic, Zionist Israel-serving talking points.
One expects unsophisticated, fully-indoctrinated True Believers to spew rote talking points
and dogma that insult the intelligence of anyone outside the Zionist Hive Mind.
But the fact that Israel's leaders and authorities shamelessly rely on such childish props
to sell their genocidal policies and actions suggests both hubris and abiding contempt for
the rest of the world.
It's hard to believe that Bibi and his allies and supporters don't know that they're
insulting the rest of the world's intelligence. I think there's a word for this. Chutzpah,
maybe?
This is an absolutely stunning breaking interview of the Syrian independent member of
parliament Fares Shehabi by the BBC hardtalk program. The MSM typically try to aggressively
browbeat non-western interviewees that they disagree with. Unfortunately, most of the
interviewees either get cowed or they get emotional and angry.
Fares Shehabi instead is factually and rationally aggressive, fact by fact,
counter-argument by counter-argument, not allowing the BBC interviewer to shut him up. It is
a model of how to deal with the MSM.
The MSM have already managed to get the interview wiped off youtube. but it is still
available here
@Peter AU 1 16 Sounds like F-35 was used to hit the ammo dumps in Syria
What's your reason for saying this. We established at the previous threat that GBU-39 glide
bombs were used. They are a stand-off weapon and I believe that the F-35 is incapable of
carrying them.
"unhinged" = arrogance turns into stupidity? The latest in the continuing Net-job
droning on and on "war with Iran" might not go as well as he expects, given resistance to
withdrawal from the JCPOA. A more easily applied application of "arrogance turns into
stupidity" is the White House Correspondents Dinner this weekend roasting Press Sec Sanders.
James Woods' response did it nicely at "low class trash." More of this sort of thing will
indeed be "a gift" to the Republicans in the upcoming elections.
Israel will not risk Jews so they will stick to launching air strikes from Lebanon. All of
the characters will be happy to use another mercenary army of goys to attack the Syrian gov
and it's allies. Especially attractive might be to use these to buttress the SDF to hold onto
eastern Syria or to attack Turk aligned forces.
unfortunately the majority only read headlines. In a world where evidence matters not,
details of Bibi Nuttuyahoo's claim 1999-2003 is a side show. Bibi is setting the stage for his managing director, D. J. Trump, to "honourably" withdraw
from the JCPOA on May 12 and to pressure the other signatories.
There are somethings larger - I do hope someone (Russia or China) will grant Iran their
nuclear umbrella. And Kim, do make a note to self. The Anglo-Zionists are deep in pretexts to coverup:
the black swan flying under heavy wings with $230 trillion global debt must be brought
down. Not nearly enough in the ESF.
Revelations on the recent 100 missiles hoax to retaliate for the 'chemical attack' that
was not. Can't disappear Robert Fisk's expose - he is widely read..
Christoper Steele's Case on the dock wherein he will be deposed. Oh wait, where is he
in hiding with the Skripals?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
@ 8, re Russia delivery of S-300s to Syria. Don't count on it as Israel's and Russia's
militaries "have an arrangement to avoid aerial conflict over Syria." Last week Russia's
Ambassador to Israel made that clear.
Looks to me like Trump is groveling before the Saudis for keeping the petrodollar. Hence he
is walking out of the Iran deal despite its geopolitical risk, and trying to show some
fireworks in Syria. What's the half life of this show? More, or less than Trump's average
ejaculation time?
I've no doubt that for a lot of people the question of F-35 usage anywhere near a combat zone
is a so-what issue, but for those of us who have struggled for years to bring some truth
about this fault-filled much-delayed program through the fog of corruption, it's important to
maintain that the current fleet of expensive pre-production F-35 prototypes is truly
worthless.
@ 8, re Russia delivery of S-300s to Syria. Don't count on it as Israel's and Russia's
militaries "have an arrangement to avoid aerial conflict over Syria." Last week Russia's
Ambassador to Israel made that clear.
Uh, that is the reason Russia should use S300. Then, there wouldnt be any "aerial
conflict" over Syrian sovereign airspace to begin with.
@ frances 48 US&Co . . will hit Iran before the football playoffs
And how might they "hit Iran?" Do you mean hit the country itself with a military attack?
I think the World Cup is playing a big role in the decision making as you have said. There
is a lot at stake: investments already made and international exposure also. I can't wait for
it to be finished so we can get back to war !! (sarc)
Israel could start its assassination program, carry out sabotage, airstrikes, there is no
limit to the sick regime and the sick western media acceptance of the same unhinged behavior
by Israel.
the hero of hebrew history above is a great man did obaama not give him 30 billion in war
arms.
did germany not give him 5 free dolphin class submarines for samson option.
does german public funds pay compensation cover amounting to a trillion euros by the year
2070.
the man is a god he can drop and fire depleted uraniun ,drop dialed down nuke bombs kill
president,primeminister sell usa top secret files to china and russia via operation talpiot
can he not listen and blackmail the world.
who else can kill gaza semites by the 10s of thousands and then call critic anti-semite
this man benji is a king maker bow down for you are not fit to lick his precious fingers
Russia began its Syria intervention with an S-400 deployed in Latakia and has introduced
several more since, one being in
Sept 2017 . Syria also has the BUK-M2E AA system and the Pantsir to go with its older and
upgraded S-200 systems along with who knows what else. Just what was off loaded from Russian
supply vessels under the cover of smoke last week (don't know if such veiling's continuing)?
My guess is more AA systems of the type causing Zionists on both sides of Atlantic to
freakout.
As for the Zionists attacking Iranian military bases, those Iran uses in Syria are
joint-use with Syria regardless of what's said by Zionists; so, any such attack will need to
be aimed at Iran proper. The consequences for the region would be horrible--particularly for
Zionists and Saudis: Dimona would be leveled as would Saudi oil infrastructure. The fallout
and other pollution would be appalling. If the Zionists want to keep their skin, they'll
arrest Nutty before he gets his get-out-of-jail war started.
Zionists know they've lost and are contained and constrained, so they're moving into
desperation mode. Too bad they lack the courage to put a pistol to their head and pull the
trigger.
I have trouble in believing that Trump will really attack Iran, just because of some new fake
evidence from Netanyahu. N's been trying this forever. The basic point is that Trump's electorate don't want real war, with American deaths. So
far, it's been like that, 102 missiles following 59 Tomahawks, and no effect.
Trump is dumb enough, Pompeo, Bolton, Trump, I mean you cant get worse, these are the most
sick hawks and Trump have already showed that he could attack states illegally Syria, with no
proof whatsoever. Stop hoping on Trump.
Israel is in a position to attack, but not to defend. Israel's problem is not Iran but the
Palestinians. John Helmer seems to think that
Russia has decided on electronic warfare , that would be reason for panic as Israel's
(and US) stuff is completely dependent on electronics.
There were a number of reasons for the Balfour Declaration, but one of the major ones was
defense of the Suez Canal, vital for communications to India. The Turks had already attacked
the canal twice by 1917. The Brits wanted a local group on the spot that would help to defend
the canal. A Jewish settlement filled the bill.
@Cyrus | Apr 30, 2018 2:20:01 PM | 20
As background knowledge that most overlook, Iran is one of the top sources for uranium ore,
unfortunately it is contaminated with molybdenum making it almost useless for high grading.
That is a primary reason for their investment in uranium in Africa.
There is nothing new about Netanyahu's nonsense-as everyone seems to realise: the only
justification for his party and his particular brand of fascism is the belief that there can
be no peace for Jewish people generally, and Israelis in particular until all potential
opponents have been wiped out or terrorised into slavery. And he has managed to convince most
Israelis of this-something which means that in moral and political, and probably clinical
terms too, they are insane- beyond the reach of reason.
What is new and makes the situation very dangerous is that the US is going along with this
for the ride. It has run out of ideas on how to deal with the gathering storm of consequences
from eighty years of arrogance and careless neglect of the inevitable fall out from its self
indulgent policies. And Trump, under constant pressure from the idiots running the Deep
State, has no conception of the implications of the little games that he is playing and
encouraging others (see Netanyahu above) to play. In his mind he is starring in an extempore
version of the Godfather.
Way down at the bottom of things worth mentioning is the fact that the UK government is in an
even bigger crisis. It is clearly doomed unless the world ends first, which is something it
is happy to consider. May and her allies (who include the Blairite Labour party and almost
all the political class including the SNP and the Liberals) will (as the recent attacks in
Syria showed) go along with Trump whatever happens, which means that the other 'eyes' the
White Commonwealth of Canada, Australia etc will do the same.
This is the problem with empires in decline, they become suicidal. And having reconciled
themselves with death they lose any inhibitions.
Poor old Putin just doesn't understand that: for years it has been clearer and clearer that
Russia and China were rational, legalistic and diplomatic while the 'west' reverted to its
barbaric ways, defying rules, breaking treaties, laughing at international law, drunken
berserkers running amok employing the weapons that they have been accumulating for decades
because fearing that the end is near they fear nothing else. The future holds no hope for
them.
Putin who sees only the reality that the US remains both enviably rich and powerful cannot
understand how unstable and dangerous it has become.
As to China, nothing surprises its leadership any more which is why it spends all day lifting
weights and eating high protein foods, ready to defend itself and studiously avoiding
involvement.
I'm still in shook Putin didn't place 300s in Syria long, long ago. He really can be behind
the curve at times. How could have thought the Empire would not grow more brazen in
aggression?
Here is a well thought out thread that analyses Bibi's claims. Including that Israel probably
hacked into the IAEA systems to get some of the data, in particular a photo of the 'new'
storage site.
Here is former Sweden foreign minister Carl Bildt, in a tweet immediately after
Netanyahu's remarks: "Nothing really new in @netanyahu Iran speech. Confirms that Iran closed
down nuclear weapons program in 2003. Continued technology efforts. In principle all of this
well known. No allegation that Iran cheats on 2015 nuclear deal."
No, for the money. The simple fact is that AIPAC and Israel have an iron grip on each and
every member of the US Congress. It's been established that Israel rules, and Congressmembers
get "contributions" and trips to Israel and other perks. On the other hand, if any Congress
member who gives a slight little anti-Israel (i.e. anti-Semitic) peep will become an
ex-Congressmember. It's happened, with highly-financed opposition to a deviant's
transgression at the next biannual election. One example is Cynthia McKinney (links broken.
@52 I don't understand that argument, Don.
The Russians can unload any S-300 delivery at Tartus. There is zero chance that the
Israelis will bomb them while they remain inside a Russian military base.
And those missiles can stay there while the Russians train up the Syrians in their use.
Again, attacking while they remain inside Tartus is a no-go. And the S-300's are road-mobile. They can be driven out of Tartus to their eventual
operational deployment, which means that they leave the protection of Tartus only when they
are capable of defending themselves.
Or, in short: Israeli plans are predicated on taking out those missiles before they can be
made operational. But they can be made operational while they are still inside a Russian
military base protected by S-400 defences, and by the time they leave that protection the
Syrians are already able to shoot down any attackers.
It is hard to lose money on a bet that the US and its Anglosphere and EU vassals will double
down on stupid. The US heaps one disaster on top of another, it causes the suffering and death of
millions, and Americans don't shed a tear.
If Nikki Haley was supposedly voted most likable US politician hence I suggest, lock the US
insane asylum and throw out the key, since now anything will be blabbermouthed and nothing of
substance will really happen except some unwitting crisis actors will die, a fact of inhumane
cruelty of imperial rulers.
Where are dire warnings from Russia about severe consequences if Syria attacked.
Russians lost credibility of their threats which is even worse if they have never made
them.
I do not know what it would take for people to see what cruel charade all this is, what
would it take for people to realize that it is all Roman type of theater of wilderness and
pain and we are audience and targets of this propaganda of fear of global nuke war and
destruction that they want us to believe is behind all this cruel soap opera.
There will be no global war since there are no fundamental conflicts within global elites
despite what propaganda from all sides claims and that including b, trying to make sense of
utter unadulterated nonsense of MSM, for those establishment people in west who are already
in it are not idiots but rational people who do that immoral, opportunist job for money
knowing what they lie about, knowing that there is no danger of global nuke catastrophe
whatsoever, otherwise they would act more sober like it was during Cold War.
However, there is logic in this madness, namely to forcefully align nations with
discredited ruling elites who attempt to take role of saviors, when no other method of
control over population works any more and policies of deliberated destruction of welfare and
civil society, openly provoked mass unrest or revolution and instigated natural growth of
working class movements in self defense. Warmongering was classical ploy against discontented
population used many times in history and nor mere speculation.
Spreading of fear of global anihilation among populations is the ultimate objective of
this unheard of verbal and acting belligerence on world stage, which upon examination of
basic socioeconomic facts especially soundness and calm of global financial system indicates
mood of world peace and love among oligarchic elites who have a good thing going while
sheeple are orderly dying of starvation and fear.
But I guess even on this quite brainy blog people are more interested in menacing tabloid
surrealism than boring naked truth. Otherwise, b would not have much to write about in his
devastating reports on masive MSM lying, with implicit hope that one day may be NYT writes
some truth.
It ain's gonna happen b , their business is lies yo
Recall it is Mike Pompeo who has been responsible for the effort to stop CIA support for
ISIS, on directions from Donald J. Trump and the Pentagon faction which essentially
controls the White House.
Mike Pompeo was President of Sentry International, an oilfield equipment company and
close partner of Koch Industries. Also recall the recent meeting between the heads of the
FSB and SVR, Alexander Bortnikov and Sergey Naryshkin, received by Pompeo, then director of
the CIA, and Dan Coats, director of National Intelligence.
Alexander Bortnikov and Sergey Naryshkin Secretly Received in the United States
In hindsight this meeting appears to have been a strategy session conducted by extremely
important high level individuals from Russia with their 'partners' in the United
States.
The meeting occurred immediately before the firing of Rex Tillerson, an agent of the
UK-Rothchild 'Octopus,' which effectively controls Exxon-Mobil (the Rockefellers sold their
interest several years ago) of which Tillerson was formerly head. Tillerson, who once ran
the foreign policies of multiple countries dominated by Exxon-Mobil including Qatar, was
said to have been caught red-handed by the NSA under James Kelly, of assisting the UK
conspiracy to launch a chemical false flag attack in Eastern Ghouta, the discovery of which
led to Tillerson's unceremonious dismissal by Donald Trump via Twitter, a truly
unprecedented way to fire a US Secretary of State.
"... Mr Rouhani said in a live broadcast on state television that: "I am telling those in the White House that if they do not live up to their commitments, the Iranian government will firmly react." ..."
"... The Iranian leader did not say what this reaction would be, but the Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said at the weekend that it was "highly unlikely" that Iran would remain in the agreement – to which Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain are also signatories – if the US pulled out. ..."
The White House sounds as if it has already decided to exit the agreement, which Mr Trump
persistently denounced before and after his election as "the worst deal in the world".
But he has put forward no alternative to what was successfully negotiated by President
Barack Obama in 2015 other than a series of demands with which Iran is unlikely to comply, and
appear designed to put the blame for the US action on Iran.
US officials admit that Iran has so far abided by the terms of the 2015 accord.
A more openly confrontational posture by the US towards Iran would achieve very little,
unless Washington replaces the attempt to achieve its ends by diplomacy with sustained military
action. Iran is already on the winning side in the wars that have raged in Iraq since 2003 and
in Syria since 2011.
It is closely allied to the Iraqi and Syrian governments and to reverse the balance of power
in the region, the US would have revert to sustained military intervention on the scale of the
Iraq War, something Mr Trump has always opposed.
Iran may have already decided that the deal cannot be saved. Iranian president Hassan
Rouhani warned Mr Trump on Tuesday that the US must stay within its terms which Tehran signed
with other great powers or face "severe consequences".
Mr Rouhani said in a live broadcast on state television that: "I am telling those in the
White House that if they do not live up to their commitments, the Iranian government will
firmly react."
The Iranian leader did not say what this reaction would be, but the Iranian foreign
minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said at the weekend that it was "highly unlikely" that Iran would
remain in the agreement – to which Russia, China, France, Germany and Britain are also
signatories – if the US pulled out.
He added that Iran might immediately begin enriching uranium, but it would not develop a
nuclear device.
European leaders are trying to save the deal which Mr Trump has denounced as full of
"terrible flaws", but this will prove difficult without radical concessions which Iran has
rejected. These include stopping Iran's ballistic missile programme, extending the terminal
date of the agreement, and more intrusive inspections by nuclear inspectors.
ORDER IT NOW
No decision in Washington is final until it is announced by Mr Trump himself – and
often not even then – but the promotion of officials with a record of hostility to the
agreement suggests that it cannot be rescued. Mr Trump has said publicly that he sacked his
secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, because he wanted to stay with the Iran agreement negotiated
by President Obama.
His replacement, Mike Pompeo, is a long-term foe of the accord, once claiming that 2,000
bombing sorties would be enough to eliminate Iran's nuclear capability. "This is not an
insurmountable task for the coalition forces," he said.
President Emanuel Macron is in Washington on a state visit, trying to save the agreement by
making it more palatable to the White House. He will be followed in the US at the end of the
week by the German chancellor Angela Merkel, while Theresa May will probably express her views
by telephone.
All three leaders will try to reconcile Mr Trump to not leaving the accord and their
arguments will revolve around supplementary sanctions and other measures targeting the Iranian
ballistic missile programme and Iran's allies abroad such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The European leaders' mission may not be entirely hopeless: in confrontations over Syria and
North Korea, Mr Trump's belligerent rhetoric has been followed by more carefully calculated
action.
His opening stance is normally bombastic and uncompromising in order to intimidate the other
side into making concessions. It does not necessarily have to be taken at face value. But this
periodic moderation may not come into play in the case of Iran, towards which he has been
uncompromisingly hostile, claiming that it is the hidden power behind "terrorist" activity in
the Middle East.
The White House is in a position to hurt Iran economically by re-imposing economic
sanctions, not that these were ever really lifted after 2015, but US political options are more
limited. It may talk about regime change in Tehran, but is not in a position to do much about
it.
There is a further US weakness: the US, often prompted by Israel, and Saudi Arabia, has a
track record of underestimating the extent to which Iran, as the largest Shia Muslim power,
plays a leading role in a coalition of states – Iraq, Syria and Lebanon – because
of the predominant influence of the Shia in these countries. It is very difficult to defeat
Iran there – the northern tier of the Middle East – but it is in this region that
the US has chosen over the years to try to roll back Iranian influence.
The balance of power between Iran and its enemies is going to be difficult to shift whatever
Mr Trump decides about the fate of the Iran nuclear deal.
The White House is in a position to hurt Iran economically by re-imposing economic
sanctions, not that these were ever really lifted after 2015
The White house is only in a position to hurt Iran to the extent that the subordinate
countries of the US sphere are willing to continue to roll over and allow the US to bully and
manipulate them, and their companies, into compliance with unilateral US sanctions targeting
Iran. As such, this will represent another opportunity for the countries of the US sphere to
break away somewhat from their subservience to Washington, and from the insidious
manipulation by the Israel lobbies that tirelessly influence their own governments towards
confrontation with Iran.
Whether the poodle governments are willing or able to take such a step towards standing on
their national hind legs again, remains to be seen.
The balance of power between Iran and its enemies is going to be difficult to shift
whatever Mr Trump decides about the fate of the Iran nuclear deal.
Though why it would be in Britain's, or any European country's, or even the US's interests
to reduce Iranian weight in the region is far from clear. Iran has long been the better side
in the ME, as compared with the Gulf sunni despots or the Israeli thugs.
It can prove a slippery slope for Iran to renegotiate the deal. Next president might have 2
incentives to double down on Iran and ask for more concessions including dismantling of army,
navy,demobilization of Hizbollah, transfer of the bases/territories in Iraq /Lebanon/Syria to
US or UK or Israel. It can ask for Iranian oil's ownership -sales and acceptance of 3 rd junk
American arms. This attitude will endear the president to warmongering FOX CNN WSJ MSNBC and
also to other .
Withdrawing from the deal will impact negatively the negotiations with North Korea. Trump is
stuck between his bombasting declarations against Iran and his desire of solving the nuclear
issue with North Korea
My opinion is that Trump for now can only make dramatic threats to Iran and remain in the
deal.
Withdrawing from the deal will impact negatively the negotiations with North Korea.
Maybe, but maybe not. My impression is that NK involvement in these talks is probably
driven by Chinese pressure – specifically the Chinese adherence to the latest rounds of
draconian UN sanctions. In that case, it seems unlikely new evidence of US untrustworthiness
will change anything, given the wider US track record in Libya and elsewhere. It's hardly as
though the NKs aren't fully aware of US perfidy and military aggression, after all.
Mr Cockburn starts off with major, although common, error, which is that there is a conflict
between
the U.S. and Iran. That simply is not true.
First, the U.S. has no Iranian policy. What it does have is an Israeli plan, pushed by
traitors such as John Bolton and fools like Lindsey Graham, and hundreds for extremely
dedicated Israeli supporters throughout our government.
Second, the U.S. congress is a joke. Most of the world laughs at the foolishness and
corruption and cowardice of our "Parliment of Fowles," or congress of whores, bought and sold
by hundreds of lobbyists with cash to make their arguments cogent.
The U.S. is crippled by a flawed system and will eventually go the way of all flesh.
in confrontations over Syria and North Korea, Mr Trump's belligerent rhetoric has been
followed by more carefully calculated action.
Carefully calculated to. . . increase the war effort, including greatly increased aerial
bombing of Afghanistan, that poor tribal country on the other side of the planet, and a
reversal of a Syria pull-out coupled with senseless missile attacks.
And Iran is in a higher category, the arch-enemy of Israel (and thus the US) and Iran's
support of "terrorist" (Hezbollah) activity in the Middle East which is why the US has had a
consistent (excepting the puppet Shah) anti-Iran policy for fifty years. Why change it?
Especially now when Iran is a big winner in Syria and Israel is a big loser (along with the
US).
I did not vote for Trump to make Israel great but to make America great. He is betraying a
large segment of his base. His options are very limited. Contrary to what Pompeo says, his
military options, if exercised, would lead to America losing at least half its planes and
half its ships. The American military know this and as a result are opposed to any military
attack. They would do everything they could to prevent such an attack. After their very poor
performance regarding the missile attack on Syria they would be even more adamantly opposed.
Trump really has no alternative to the current agreement. If he is stupid enough to break
this agreement, how can he expect the North Koreans to take him at his word.
Iran does not need the so-called "West". She can get everything she needs from Russia and
China.
So, Pompeo thinks 2000 airstrikes will solve the problem? I regularly read about US fighter
aircraft falling out of the sky or being out of service for maintenance issues. Time for
China to invade Taiwan? Or Russia to settle Ukraine permanently?
And does Hezbollah just idly stand by, holding 1000′s of missiles against Israel?
What does Iraq (mostly Shia) do? Allow their nation to be used for bombing? Or bases?
And the Gulf? Can the global economy survive $100 a barrel oil? Can the US afford total
control and sweeping of this huge waterway?
The big question now is, do the EU poodles show some courage?
All of which lead me to believe that China has guaranteed that it will intervene in full
force, should outside forces launch an attack on North Korea. And that North Korea believes
them – after all, exactly that scenario played out in 1950.
This, along with Chinese economic pressure, has pushed the North Koreans to agree to
de-nuclearization talks.
The Carla Ortiz and Jimmy Dore exchange is fascinating. Each in her/his own way is superb.
The Guardian has become boulevard press = tabloid. Nearly every day before and even after the
US election Mrs. Clinton gloated on the front page. Bernie Sanders was no where to be seen
nearly until the election. Now the Guardian is priming its readers for the stomach-churning
royal wedding coming up. No, no more Guardian for me. And they have the gall to ask for money
to turn out articles praising the White Helemts. No! Curtis , Apr 22, 2018 12:32:23 PM |
8
Anonymous 4
BBC took on Vannessa Beeley recently, too. Will NYT and WaPo be next? The anti-Russia agenda
continues along with the anti-truth-in-Syria agenda.
AriusAmerican 5
During the Bush II fiasco, there were anti-war protests. The protests disappeared after Obama
took office. And he was given a Nobel Peace Prize for talking about peace. But everyone went
along with Obama's wars. No protests. And that's how they like it. They want support and tend
to get it from the MSM and party lackeys. And if they don't get support, the one thing they
don't want are massive protests, calls to congress, etc. As long as there's little to no
resistance their war agenda continues.
PS
The HuffPoUK article tears into Beeley but at the bottom has a Russian submission to the
Security Council of a report she did of the White Helmets. That report negates the
article/story! HuffPoUK claims this is part two of a series and that part three will "look at
evidence presented against the White Helmets." That should be interesting.
Anonymous2 | Apr 22, 2018 1:50:23 PM | 12
Curtis
"The anti-Russia agenda continues along with the anti-truth-in-Syria agenda."
I dont get it why these journalists are against finding out what happend (since we dont know that yet)? Most of
these morons have no idea about the conflict at all, and all of a sudden start writing like they are veteran journalists and
have profound knowledge about Syria.
"... Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, ..."
"... . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com. ..."
"Together," President Macron instructed President Trump, "we can resist the rise of aggressive nationalisms that deny our history
and divide the world."
In an address before Congress on Wednesday, France's Macron denounced "extreme nationalism," invoked the UN, NATO, WTO, and Paris
climate accord, and implored Trump's America to come home to the New World Order.
"The United States is the one who invented this multilateralism," Macron went on, "you are the one now who has to help preserve
and reinvent it."
His visit was hailed and his views cheered, but on reflection, the ideas of Emmanuel Macron seem to be less about tomorrow than
yesterday. For the world he celebrates is receding into history. The America of 2018 is coming to see NATO as having evolved into
an endless U.S. commitment to go to war with Russia on behalf of a rich Europe that resolutely refuses to provide for its own defense.
Since the WTO was created in the mid-90s, the U.S. has run $12 trillion in trade deficits, and among the organization's biggest
beneficiaries -- the EU. Under the Paris climate accord, environmental restrictions are put upon the United States from which China
is exempt. As for the UN, is that sinkhole of anti-Americanism, the General Assembly, really worth the scores of billions we have
plunged into it?
"Aggressive nationalism" is a term that might well fit Napoleon Bonaparte, whose Arc de Triomphe sits on the Champs-Elysees. But
does it really fit the Hungarians, Poles, Brits, Scots, Catalans, and other indigenous peoples of Europe who are now using democratic
methods and means to preserve their national homes?
And the United States would seem an odd place to go about venting on "aggressive nationalisms that deny our history." Did Macron
not learn at the Lycee Henri IV in Paris or the Ecole Nationale d'Administration how the Americans acquired all that land? General
Washington, at whose Mount Vernon home Macron dined, was a nationalist who fought for six years to sever America's ties to the nation
under which he was born. How does Macron think Andrew Jackson acquired Florida from Spain, Sam Houston acquired Texas from Mexico,
and Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor acquired the Southwest? By bartering?
Aggressive nationalism is a good synonym for the Manifest Destiny of a republic that went about relieving Spain of Cuba, Puerto
Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. How does Macron think the "New World" was conquered and colonized if not by aggressive British,
French, and Spanish nationalists determined to impose their rule upon weaker indigenous tribes? Was it not nationalism that broke
up the USSR into 15 nations?
Was not the Zionist movement that resurrected Israel in 1948, and in 1967 captured the West Bank and then annexed East Jerusalem
and the Golan Heights, a manifestation of aggressive nationalism?
Macron is an echo of George H.W. Bush who in Kiev in 1991 warned Ukrainians against the "suicidal nationalism" of declaring independence
from the Russian Federation. "Aggressive nationalisms divide the world," warns Macron. Well, yes, they do, which is why we have now
194 members of the U.N., rather than the original 50. Is this a problem? "Together," said Macron, "we will build a new, strong multilateralism
that defends pluralism and democracy in the face of ill winds."
Macron belongs to a political class that sees open borders and free trade thickening and tightening the ties of dependency, and
eventually creating a One Europe whose destiny his crowd will forever control.
But if his idea of pluralism is multiracial, multiethnic, and multicultural nations, with a multilateral EU overlord, he is describing
a future that tens of millions of Europeans believe means the deaths of the nations that give meaning to their lives.
And they will not go gently into that good night.
In America, too, millions have come to recognize that there is a method to the seeming madness of open borders. Name of the game:
dispossessing the deplorables of the country they love.
With open borders and mass migration of over a million people a year into the USA, almost all of them from third-world countries
that vote 70 to 90 percent Democratic, the left is foreclosing the future. They're converting the greatest country of the West into
what Teddy Roosevelt called a "polyglot boarding house for the world." And in that boarding house the left will have a lock on the
presidency.
With the collaboration of co-conspirators in the media, progressives throw a cloak of altruism over the cynical seizure of permanent
power.
For, as the millions of immigrants here legally and illegally register, and the vote is extended to prison inmates, ex-cons, and
16-year-olds, the political complexion of America will come to resemble San Francisco.
End goal: ensure that what happened in 2016, when the nation rose up and threw out a despised establishment, never happens again.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President
and Divided America Forever . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists,
visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.
I've never been a huge fan of soviet cinema until I saw this great movie a few months ago.
Sure Eisenstein is a great director and he made wonderful classics but this is probably the
first Russian movie that I can identify with the characters since the Eisenstein movies and a
few others that I've seen like Earth (Alexander Dovzhenko, 1930) are very political and
showing me a culture and a way of life that is interesting and informative but that I can't
identify with.
This movie tells a simple story about a young couple (Veronika and Boris) that
is separated because Boris as to go to war. I think I love this movie so much because it is
so open and so full of humanity. It is also very poetic particularly when Boris is at the
front and he dreams about his girl back home.
But the thing that I admire the most is the
superior cinematography, the camera angles are stunning and the close-ups (very close) are
almost disturbing because you feel that you are spying on them or following them anywhere
they go.
Also, great scenes with hand held cameras and used wisely not just to use it but at
chosen moments to accentuate dramatic scenes or to show chaos during this time of war.
It
amaze me that a great reference for cinematography like that is not use or missuse in movies
today. If you can, try to catch the movie I am Cuba with the same great director and the same
wonderful cinematography, the story is political but unlike early Russian movies of
Eisenstein and such, the characters are warmer and you can identify with them.
August 14, 2017 Format: DVD | Verified Purchase
Very well shot and produced, great story with a big surprise ending.
Since my Wife is Russian, I have a new found interest in Russian movies. This is an early
film with the lead role being played by the same actor from "Moscow Does Not Believe In
Tears". The movie has a great story, very well shot and produced with a big surprise
ending.
January 20, 2003 Format: DVD | Verified Purchase
A beautiful, well acted movie.
This is one of my favorite movies. It's quality is typical of what I have come to expect
of a Criterion reconstruction. Something along the lines of HDTV black and white. It's that
good.
The story itself is situated at the begining of Russia's Great Patriotic War (WWII).
The story covers every inch of human behaviour including happiness, love, sorrow, deceit,
manipulation, and heroism against all odds.
The last quarter of the movie is a stunning
surprise, as it builds to an ending scene that is nothing less than a grand tribute to the
best of what makes us human.
Even hardcore war movie fans (like me) can expect blurred vision
at the end of this film. Not sappy at all, this film will strike a chord with viewers of any
country, and most generations. It is not a single view disk.
I don't even know if it has an English language soundtrack, as the tonality of the Russian
soundtrack combined with the very well produced English subtitles offers a great connection
to the film even for non Russian speaking people. Buy this disk, you wil enjoy it over and
over.
The movie tells the tragic story of three Frenchmen who a selected to be court marshaled for a Generals bad decision. It also
de
Paths of Glory takes place during World War I. The movie tells the tragic story of three Frenchmen who a selected to be court
marshaled for a Generals bad decision. It also depicts the differences between the old officer class and the foot soldier. In
one scene the General Paul Mireau is talking to Colonel Dax, played by Kirk Douglas about the projected losses when the French
Army will assault the "Ant Hill', a German held position that is well protected. The General is speaking in percentages, but Douglas
talks about the loss of him men. It is plain to see that the General does not really care of the common soldier. WWI saw the death
of the old way of fighting a war and the passing of the old Aristocrat Military leaders who saw war as a way of life. Near the
beginning of the movie Colonel Dax is referred to as one of the Best defense Lawyers in France. He uses all his skills to defend
the three men selected to die. Their fate has already been decided and the trial is only a formality. There is a battle fought
and lost . Watching the three men discuss their fate is painful. The final scene where a young German girl is forced to sing to
the French soldiers is very touching as the men begin to hum to the tune of the song. Some are moved to tears. I highly recommend
this movie.
April 23, 2015 Format: Amazon Video | Verified Purchase
This is a terrific anit-war pic
This is a terrific anit-war pic, one that doesn't bang you over the head with sentimentality or hold back on war's ugliness.
Although there are a lot of films I like that can be accused of glorifying the practice---namely, "The Longest Day", "Glory",
and "Patton" are a few of my favorites--this film stands with "Grand Illusion" and "All Quiet on the Western Front" at bringing
a more critical look at what may have been the least justifiable war of the 20th century (World War I). Kirk Douglas gives a terrific
performance in one of his earlier films, of a commander faced with sending his troops to complete a task he knows is impossible
and fighting the more delusional brass who are insisting upon it. Great performances by George McReady as a general more interested
in his career than the safety of his men, and Adolphe Anjou.
A Beautiful Unforgettable Masterpiece that shows the true cost of war.
I decided to watch Grave of the Fireflies yesterday. My friends told me it was extremely
moving and sad. I hesitated at first, but then I said "Oh well, I'll give it a try." At the
end of the film, I was crying my eyes out. This was the best animated film, I've ever seen.
This is a moving depiction of the fates of cast-off children who become casualties of
war.
This movie isn't your regular Animated Film. Pixar and Disney put films out there with
happy endings. I'm not saying there bad films at all. They are also great pieces of work. But
Grave of the Fireflies tells you the truth. This movie isn't trying to entertain you. It
wants to inform you about how war is really like. There were many moments in the movie, that
just brought me to tears.
I am kind of upset, that this movie didn't get many awards as it should. In that regards,
it is VERY underrated and it is kind of thrown apart. When it should really be respected and
praise it. If this movie was made in our time period right now. I would be 100% sure this
would of Won an Oscar for Best Animated Film. This is Studio Ghilbi's best movie they have
ever released.
I truly advice you to bring a handkerchief, cause chances are that you will cry.
An Emotional Epic Animated Film, that I recommend everyone to watch.
Five of the greatest WWII films - actually five of the BEST films, period - ever made,
have almost no violence at all: The Cranes Are Flying, Ballad Of A Soldier, Ivan's Childhood,
Paths Of Glory, and Grave Of The Fireflies.
Watch them. Today. They are devastating. Especially Grave Of The Fireflies. I know no one
who has watched this animated film and not been utterly crushed. When you lose 20 million
people your contemplation of another war is driven by reality; when you swoop in at the end
for a Normandy photo-op selfie-a-thon and unashamedly try taking credit for someone else'
sacrifice,,you tend think "hey, that was easy! Let's do it again!"
The Cranes are Flying makes also my list. It is interesting because it marked the
beginning of Russian Cinema's liberation from the Weinstein Factor. If you recall, the villain of the piece is a Jew. In fact he rapes the Russian girl, his
'best friends' fiancee.
Anathema throughout all Soviet History was any criticism, and often any mention, of the
'master race'.
Even Solzhenitsyn was told to rewrite First Circle to make ALL the heroes Jews. In fact he
was threatened by his Jewish 'friends' with exposure of the Arkhipelag GULAG files, in case
he refused.
Tyrell:The facts of life... to make an alteration in the evolvement of an
organic life system is fatal. A coding sequence cannot be revised once
it's been established.
Batty:
Why not?
Tyrell:
Because by the second day of incubation, any cells that have undergone
reversion mutation give rise to revertant colonies, like rats leaving a
sinking ship; then the ship... sinks.
Batty:
What about EMS-3 recombination?
Tyrell:
We've already tried it - ethyl, methane, sulfinate as an alkylating
agent and potent mutagen; it created a virus so lethal the subject was
dead before it even left the table.
Batty:
Then a repressor protein, that would block the operating cells.
Tyrell:
Wouldn't obstruct replication; but it does give rise to an error in
replication, so that the newly formed DNA strand carries with it a
mutation - and you've got a virus again... but this, all of this is
academic. You were made as well as we could make you.
Batty:
But not to last.
Tyrell:
The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long - and you have
burned so very, very brightly, Roy. Look at you: you're the Prodigal
Son; you're quite a prize!
Batty:
I've done... questionable things.
Tyrell:
Also extraordinary things; revel in your time.
Batty:
Nothing the God of biomechanics wouldn't let you into heaven for.
The U.S. is currently attempting
Color Revolutions by Force in Nicaragua and Armenia. This form of 'regime change' uses the
typical 'peaceful demonstrators' schemes and media push but adds an armed element that is
supposed to shoot at both sides - the protesters as well as government forces - to create
marketable victims and chaos. The war on Syria was started this way as was the war in Libya and
the violent regime change in Ukraine.
Telesur TV has a
good write up on the situation in Nicaragua. Earlier today a journalist was shot in
Bluefields, Nicaragua, during live reporting, probably by the opposition which now accuses the
government.
AFP has an
overview of the conflict in Armenia. It is sympathetic to the 'western' sponsored
opposition. Just an hour ago the opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan was arrested after a short
talk with the Prime Minister. He demanded total surrender of the government. I expect that
further demonstrations will be shut down.
Philip May, husband of Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May happens to be a senior executive
of Capital Group which is a major holder of both Lockheed Martin and British Aerospace
(BAE).
Theresa May's husband's Investment Firm made a financial killing from the bombing of
Syria
According to Investopedia, Philip May's Capital Group owned around 7.09% of Lockheed Martin
in March 2018 – a stake said to be worth more than £7Bn at this time.
...
Every single JASSM used in the recent bombing of Syria costs more than $1,000,000, and as a
result of their widespread use during the recent bombing of Syria by Western forces, the share
price of Lockheed Martin soared.
Trump betrayal of his voters is as staggering as Obama betrayal. May even more so.
Notable quotes:
"... It is fitting that one of the first things that will happen during Pompeo's tenure as chief diplomat is the repudiation of a successful diplomatic agreement solely for reasons of spite and ideology. That reflects the contempt for diplomacy and compromise that Pompeo shares with the president. It is an early reminder why having Pompeo in charge of U.S. diplomacy is so dangerous and why it would have been better not to confirm him. ..."
"... North Korea wasn't going to give up its nuclear weapons anyway, and now it will look at Trump's reneging on the nuclear deal as proof that they are right to keep them. ..."
"... Pompeo's recent statements are those of an ignorant and incompetent jackass. Barely two weeks in and sane Americans are already nostalgic for Tillerson. ..."
"... Instead, as Pompeo's current trip and whereabouts make very clear, he's aping the same old tired Bush/Obama Middle East crap and still running errands for the corrupt rulers of Israel and Saudi Arabia. ..."
"... And if Trump doesn't stop betraying his voters with all this pointless, staggeringly expensive Middle East crap, he'll be gone in 2020. ..."
It is fitting that one of the first things that will happen during Pompeo's tenure as chief
diplomat is the repudiation of a successful diplomatic agreement solely for reasons of spite
and ideology. That reflects the contempt for diplomacy and compromise that Pompeo shares with
the president. It is an early reminder why having Pompeo in charge of U.S. diplomacy is so
dangerous and why it would have been better not to confirm him.
Pompeo also
said this weekend that he didn't think North Korea would care if the U.S. withdrew from the
agreement:
"I don't think Kim Jong Un is staring at the Iran deal and saying, 'Oh goodness, if they
get out of that deal, I won't talk to the Americans anymore,'" Pompeo told reporters
traveling on his plane en route from Saudi Arabia to Israel. "There are higher priorities,
things that he is more concerned about than whether or not the Americans stay in the
[agreement]."
It is obvious that North Korea has bigger concerns than U.S. adherence to the JCPOA, but it
doesn't follow that they won't take U.S. withdrawal as another sign that negotiating with
Washington is pointless. North Korea already has other reasons to doubt U.S. trustworthiness.
John Bolton's
endorsement of using negotiations with Libya as a model couldn't be more tone-deaf, since
North Korean officials frequently cite the overthrow and death of Gaddafi as a cautionary tale
of what happens when a government makes a deal with the U.S. It is possible that North Korea
won't put much stock in what happens to the JCPOA one way or another for a very different
reason: unlike Iran, North Korea has no intention of making significant concessions, and it is
engaged in talks with the U.S. to get as much as it can out of the fact that it is now a
full-fledged nuclear weapons state.
North Korea wasn't going to give up its nuclear weapons
anyway, and now it will look at Trump's reneging on the nuclear deal as proof that they are
right to keep them.
Our involvement in international "diplomacy", already weird, embarrassing, and destabilizing
because of Trump's random behavior, now seems to be spinning out of control. Pompeo's
recent statements are those of an ignorant and incompetent jackass. Barely two weeks in and
sane Americans are already nostalgic for Tillerson.
Wake me up when any senior member of this government turns out to be something other than
crooked, stupid, vulgar, incompetent, or some kind of foreign agent. We voted for Trump
hoping for a radical re-dedication to American interests. Instead, as Pompeo's current
trip and whereabouts make very clear, he's aping the same old tired Bush/Obama Middle East
crap and still running errands for the corrupt rulers of Israel and Saudi Arabia.
November 2018 is already slated to be a Republican bloodbath, in great part because our
government, the Congress in particular, is serving foreign interests and Wall Street instead
of America. And if Trump doesn't stop betraying his voters with all this pointless,
staggeringly expensive Middle East crap, he'll be gone in 2020.
"... I'll also post another great article (up above) on "color revolutions" and "hybrid wars". It might surprise you at how easy it is for outside parties, who want to overthrow a government, go about doing it nowadays. They can't just walk in. They need a reason. The color revolutions and these new hybrid-type wars do the trick. Please read it. ..."
Bashar al-Assad was a mild-mannered ophthalmologist living in London
with his British-born wife. When his rash elder brother Basil was killed in a car crash, Bashar
was compelled to return to Syria and become the nominal political leader after the death of his
very tough, ruthless father, Hafez al-Assad. Bashar's main role was mediating between powerful
factions in Damascus and trying to modernize his nation (while managing the police state
inherited from his father).
In 2011, the U.S., Britain, Israel and Saudi Arabia ignited an uprising in Syria using often
fanatical jihadists. The shy, retiring Bashar was forced to become war leader in a ruthless
civil conflict as his nation disintegrated.
President Trump, whose B-52 bombers are ravaging Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen calls Assad
a 'monster.' Some of his relatives are indeed ruthless. But very many Syrians think of Assad as
their nation's only hope of returning to normalcy.
Abe , April 21, 2018 at 5:51 pm
The conflict in Syria has never been a "civil war", and the anti-government forces are
almost entirely Israel-Saudi-U.S. Axis-supported terrorist mercenaries, not "rebels".
Terrorist groups were set loose on Syria in early 2011, when the U.S. and its "allies"
launched a "dirty war" dressed up by the media as a popular "revolution".
Armed terrorists infiltrated Syria and staged attacks against Syrian civilians and
security forces during March 17-18, 2011 demonstrations in Daraa, a city in southwestern
Syria, just north of the border with Israel's "good neighbor" Jordan.
In Daraa in 2011, as in Ukrainian capitol Kiev in February 2014, roof top snipers targeted
both police and demonstrators.
The U.S. continues to train terrorist fighters at a base in the Jordanian town of Safawi,
close to Daraa. CIA-trained terrorists cross into Syria from Jordan along the 320-kilometer
(198-mile) shared border. Most fight with Al-Qaeda affiliates while the rest join the ranks
of the ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.
The so-called "humanitarian mandate" paraded by the US and its "allies" is sustained by
false flag attacks: killing civilians in a "regime change" campaign to break the legitimacy
of governments in the Middle East that refuse to abide by the diktats of Washington and its
"allies".
backwardsevolution , April 21, 2018 at 5:29 pm
This is a great article on "color revolutions" and "hybrid wars". The author says:
"Here's how it works. Pre-planned destabilizing forces, a combination of foreign citizens
and domestic so-called 'opposition', even if they are not officially affiliated with a
political party, either hijack legitimate protests or engineer their own conditions for one,
and then provoke the government into responding with force. The goal is to delegitimize the
state domestically and internationally, and weaken it to the point where an urban guerrilla
offensive eventually topples it.
Even if it fails to overthrow the authorities, the resultant destabilization spreads
throughout the region and creates a favorable strategic environment for US foreign policy,
such as a pretext for regional military deployment. There are also scenarios where it can be
used to create a secessionist movement within the targeted state, in which case it markets
itself to certain ethnic, religious, or regional groups in order to gain supposed
'legitimacy'. [ ]
The idea to keep in mind is that Color Revolutions aren't spontaneous, but are engineered
destabilization movements with concrete geopolitical goals. [ ]
Also remember that there is a distinction between legitimate protests and Color
Revolutions, but the US is dangerously blurring the line between the two in order to hide its
strategic intent and gain a certain plausible deniability over its involvement. When foreign
NGOs and internationally affiliated opposition members are involved, that's usually a red
flag, as well as statements in support of the movement from the US State Department or local
American embassy.
If a protest seems to support American strategic interests, more often than not, it
actually does, and the US has some kind of direct or indirect role in bringing it about, even
if 9 out of 10 of the participants don't realize this. Always be alert, and if you keep in
mind that the US has weaponized Color Revolutions and engineers them for geopolitical
purposes, then you'll be more fully prepared to counter this new type of weapon."
Hybrid wars -- you take a peaceful protest (maybe citizens complaining about prices being
too high), you put your stooges into the crowd and on a few rooftops with sniper rifles.
Shots are fired into the crowd, maybe a few innocent people are shot and killed. The citizens
look around and see the government soldiers standing on the periphery. Thinking they had
taken the shots, they start to maybe throw some rocks or bricks at the soldiers. The soldiers
and government are paralyzed. Do they shoot at the protesters, at their own citizens? Maybe
one soldier, fearing for his life, does shoot a citizen, and then the fun begins.
The goal is to create chaos, have the citizens think their own government initially fired
into the crowd and killed some innocent people. This gives the Western government, who wanted
to overthrow the country's leader anyway, an excuse to go in. Of course, the NGO's have
already been in the country engineering this whole event.
This isn't the exact article I read before (it was longer), but it will do.
Dave P. , April 21, 2018 at 7:55 pm
Backwardsevolution -- It seems like they are starting something -- may be another color
revolution -- in Hungary right now, with all these protests. Orban's party just won the
parliamentary election resoundingly with 67% of the vote. And EU started threatening Hungary
with some sort of sanctions a few days ago. And now for the last two or three days we are
seeing these protests.
We have to remember that only in big cities like Budapest or Moscow in those countries,
all sort of West's NGO's, including Soros's have bought some followers, along with the West,s
intelligence agencies, to start these demonstrations in the beginning stage. I think they are
kind of sending the signal to the Austrian Government too to line up behind EU, US or else. I
don't think the West will let Orban govern Hungary unless he follows their line.
Jim DiEugenio April 21, 2018 at 5:00 pm
Looks to me like the Arab Spring was incubated by some of our NGO's
Thomas Gilroy's comment overlooks the brief mention by Mr Margolis of the role of Western
interventionism and particularly the CIA in the "Arab Spring" movements of Syria and the
Middle East. There are numerous articles on the Internet about this for anyone who doesn't
care to regurgitate the US Establishment narrative but wants to dig deeper. Ahmed Bensaada
has written a book, "Arab Spring: Made in the USA". We don't live in Syria, therefore we have
to rely on media sources for information. The Establishment has even cooked up a term for
questioning their dominant story, "Alt". 21st Century Wire journalists Vanessa Beeley and Eva
Bartlett have first-hand knowledge of several years in Syria of what has been called a "Civil
War" but is a proxy war for Israel and for multinational corporations' profits.
Delia Ruhe, April 21, 2018 at 2:16 pm
Good to hear from Eric Margolis again after having lost touch with his work a few years
ago. I'm now reminded of how much I've missed his voice. He's one of those (to me, a lefty)
rare conservatives who believes that people should not be propagandized by their government
and its MSM stenographers, and that evidence, facts, and truth are the essence of journalism.
He also doesn't get hysterical about liberalism – or what passes for it in the US.
In the rest of the West, "liberal" means something quite different than what it does in
the US, where Democrats become "left" when Republicans do a lurch farther "right." So it's
always amusing to hear American conservatives attack liberals as "godless" socialists and
communists and enemies of the sacred free market instead of the lynch-pin that keeps the
political spectrum fastened to the centre of the liberal democratic system, orbited by
several varieties of leftism and several varieties of rightism. In reality, there hasn't been
a "left" in American politics since Eugene Debs. Even FDR wasn't a lefty; he was a welfare
capitalist who practiced the right relation of public and private spheres -- which is far
more than you can say about those lunatics who follow Grover Norquist and have devoted their
careers to dragging a moribund government into the bathroom and drowning it in the
bathtub.
Smart conservatives avoid all this misapprehension and the hysterics that go with it.
Margolis is one of these – and we need more like him.
backwardsevolution, April 21, 2018 at 4:59 pm
Thomas – ever since reading your post, I've been searching for a very interesting
article you might want to read (I'll keep searching for it). This article states that the war
in Syria DID NOT start because of the three boys writing graffiti on a wall, but started in a
smallish town in Syria before that event even happened. The reporter had gone to talk to the
religious leader who oversaw the town. This religious leader said that the day before the
uprising, some outsiders had come into the town, and that it was these outsiders who were
instrumental in firing shots from rooftops (just like in Ukraine) in order to start a riot.
It was a great article. I'll try to find it.
I'll also post another great article (up above) on "color revolutions" and "hybrid
wars". It might surprise you at how easy it is for outside parties, who want to overthrow a
government, go about doing it nowadays. They can't just walk in. They need a reason. The
color revolutions and these new hybrid-type wars do the trick. Please read it.
Marko, April 21, 2018 at 9:09 pm
I suspect this article by Steven Sahiounie is the one you're referring to :
The day before Deraa: How the war broke out in Syria
Marko – that's the article! I couldn't get to it with your link, but you gave me the
name of the article, and so I found it. As soon as I saw the picture, I knew that that was
the article. It's been awhile since I read it, so I hope I didn't do it too much
injustice.
Here's the link that works for me:
Great article, was on Lew Rockwell's site this morning. Doesn't really talk about Assad's
control after his autocrat father, which seems a change from the hardline elder, but like the
"autocrat" demonization of Putin uses the past to shape present public perception. I read
that after Macron got France to take part in the F.UK.US strike, Assad voluntarily
relinquished the French Legion of Honor award bestowed to Syria by DeGaulle, rather than
Syria being ordered to give it back.
It does appear that Britain's participation via Mrs. Mayhem (thanks to another CN
commenter, sorry i can't name but great.sobriquet!) harkens back to the colonial Great Powers
conflicts of WWI and defeat of the Ottoman Empire, and as we know Britain had a large hand in
creation of the state of Israel.
mike k, April 21, 2018 at 1:41 pm
Anyone in the way of US oil grabs is demonized. The American public just eats it up; it
gives them a guilt free ticket to vent their taste for violence. The victims of that violence
are just some dark skinned natives who don't count, and probably had it coming for defying
Uncle Sam. Like in Yemen now. Americans love to be in on a genocide, always have. You can
count on us to cheer on the bullies, especially when they are waving the red white and blue.
It just makes you feel good to be the toughest guys on the block. Go-git-em! Our brave
(hired) heroes will take care of those damn gooks!
JIm DiEugenio, April 21, 2018 at 12:48 pm
Eric is on the right track on this. I was unaware until I read a book called The Devil's
Game that the British had tried to undermine any pan Arabist, secular movements in the Middle
East. And that policy extended back to the twenties. The Brits actually backed the Muslim
Brotherhood. The idea behind this was that it would be easier to negotiate with royal
families in the area for petroleum deals. And BP was a major company in the field.That policy
was picked up on by John Foster Dulles when Nasser recognized China and refused to join the
Baghdad Pact. Dulles then decided to back Saudi Arabia against Nasser's pan Arabist
movement.
This is why Israel does not really seem to oppose what is happening to Syria, a secular
state that Nasser tried to form a union with. The more fundamentalist the Middle East
becomes, the less choice the USA has except to ally itself with Israel no matter what the
country does. In fact, it was Israel that backed the formation of Hamas in order to outflank
Fatah and make the Palestinians seem more part of the Arab terrorist movement.
Berna, April 24, 2018 at 12:00 pm
Anon- "Israel is the sole US motive behind the Syria fiasco;" That is a highly simplistic,
narrow, and uneducated viewpoint. It does not take into account that Israel's actions are
almost completely predictable as it will do whatever it feels is militarily necessary whether
or not the US approves. The US is not in Syria on Israel's account. US policy is and has been
since the beginning of the Cold War to oppose Russian influence anywhere in the world, from
Vietnam to Nicaragua to Afghanistan to Iraq to Libya to Syria. Meanwhile, Israel and Russia
have very strong relations. Russia is Israel's primary source of oil. The two countries have
a visa free agreement and a free trade agreement.
Working-class white people may claim to be against identity politics, but they actually
crave identity politics.
I think they probably see it more of a "if you can't beat them, join them" scenario. They
see the way the wind is blowing and decide if they want representation, they have to play the
game, even if they don't really like the rules.
They know enough about the EU to know that it isn't one of their patrons and sponsors.
They also know that Westminster have been systematically misrepresenting the EU for their own
purposes for decades, and they can use the same approach.
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Not a fool and I don't hate anyone at 55 I have 1.2M in investments, I make 165k a year and
pay 40k+ a year in taxes. I to come across people who live off of we everyday and expect to
free load. I am not a blowhard just an engineer who pays for sloth.
I've met many fools like you in my over 50 years on the planet, blowhards parading their
ignorance as a badge of pride, thinking that their hatred of anyone not exactly like them is
normal, mistaking what some cretin says on the far right radio for fact.
You people would be comical if not for the toxicity that your stupidity engenders.
Al Jazeera tries to do a better job, at least providing a spectrum of opinion and a lot of
depth in quite a few issues, something most other networks fail to do these days.
Don't fall into the associated trap either, of the false equation between STATED and ACTUAL
goals.
Fox and Hunt are fully aware that to actually admit their actual goal, would be (probably)
just about the only thing which would provoke an electoral backlash which would sweep the
Conservatives from office. The NHS is proverbially "the nearest thing the English have, to a
religion" and is a profoundly dangerous subject for debate.
Fox and Hunt may be weaving an incomprehensible web of sophistry and misdirection, but no
part of it is accidental.
Please, please don't make the unfounded assumption that people like Fox, Johnson, Cameron et
al are as stupid as they sometimes appear.
Fox and Hunt, in particular, know exactly what they are engaged in - a hard-right coup
designed to destroy government control over the NHS and route its enormous cash flows into
the pockets of their private, mostly American sponsors. It isn't necessary to look far, to
discover their connections and patronage from this source.
Johnson is consumed by ambition, as was Cameron before him; like Cameron, he makes much of
his self-presumed fitness for the role, whilst producing no supporting evidence of any
description.
Brexit, as defined by its advocates, CANNOT be discussed precisely because no rational
debate exists. It hinges upon the Conservative Party's only fear, that of disunity leading to
Opposition. They see that Labour are 50-odd seats short of a majority, and that's ALL they
see.
What in God's green world are you talking about? Did you read that before pressing "Post"?
It's obvious that you have no knowledge whatsoever of the subject.
The "race riots" of the 1940s and 1950s were essentially about employment protection (the
first, regarding the importation of Yemeni seamen into the North-East of England). The mostly
Pakistani influx into the North-West of England was an attempt to cut labour costs and prop
up a dying, obsolete industry, mortally wounded by the loss of its business model in the
aftermath of Empire; an industry whose very bricks and mortar are long since gone, but the
imported labour and their descendants remain... the influx of Caribbean labour into London
and the South-East was focussed around the railways and Underground, to bolster the local
labour force which had little interest in dead-end shift-work jobs in the last days of steam
traction and the increasingly run-down Underground.
Labour, in those days, was strongly anti-immigration precisely because it saw no value in
it, to their unionised, heavy-industry voter base.
Regarding the ideological, anti-British, anti-democratic nature of Labour's conversion to
mass immigration, you need only read the writings and speeches of prominent figures of the
day such as Roy Hattersley and Harriet Harman, who say exactly this, quite clearly and in
considerable detail. Their ideological heirs, figures like Diane Abbot (who is stridently
anti-white and anti-British), Andrew Neather and Hazel Blears, can speak for themselves.
I was recently struck by this part of the Guardian obituary of Lady Farrington of Ribbleton:
' she possessed the important defining characteristic that, above others, wins admiration
across all the red leather benches in the House of Lords: she knew what she was talking
about'
Too often these days we are governed by people who don't know what they are talking about.
Never has this been truer than the likes of Fox, Davis, Johnson, and other Brexiteers.
But this doesn't seem to matter much anymore. At times it seems that anyone can make
generised assertions about something, without having to back them up with evidence, and then
wave away questions about their veracity.
Opinion now trumps evidence regularly, even on the BBC where Brexit ideology is often now
given a free pass. The problem for those of us who value expertise is that with the likes of
Trump, and some EU Leavers, we are up against a bigotry which is evangelical in nature. A
gospel that cannot be questioned, a creed that allows no other thinking.
The best you can do is complain about "this?" This WHAT? Try a noun. You're being an
embarrassment to troglodytes everywhere. Don't just point and leap up and down. Your
forefathers died in bringing you a language. Be an expressive hominid and name the thing that
hurts.
It seems at the moment the Guardian also suffers from a glut of experts without expertise.
Not a day goes by that my jaw doesn't drop at some inane claim made by what seems to be a
retinue of contributors who have neither good writing skills nor a particularly wide look on
things. An example today: "Unlike Hillary Clinton, I never wanted to be someone's wife". How
extraordinary. Who says she ever 'wanted to be someone's wife'? Maybe she fell in love with
someone all those years ago and they decided to get married? Who knows. But sweeping
statements like that do not endear you to quite a few of your once very loyal readers. It's
annoying.
I think this posits an overriding explanation for people's actions that doesn't exist. Even
the idea that immigration is a new liberal plot. Take the wind rush generation of immigrants
while there was a Tory government at the time I think the idea this was an attempt to
undermine white working class gains is provably nonsensical
The problem with this article, and the numerous other similar pieces which appear in the
various editions of the Guardian on a "regular-and-often" basis, is that it completely avoids
a very basic point, because it has no answer to it.
It is this.
The white British (and by extension, Western) populations never wanted mass immigration
because they knew from the outset, that its purpose was to undermine the social and political
gains they had wrested from the political and financial elite after 1945. They cared not at
all for the fratricidal conflicts between alien religions and cultures, of which they knew
little and regarded what they did know as unacceptable.
The US achieved a huge economic boom without it. Australia and New Zealand, Canada and the
USA were popular destinations for the British population whose goal and mantra was "no return
to the thirties" and who emigrated in large numbers.
White semi-skilled and unskilled (and increasingly, lower middle class) populations
everywhere reject, and have always rejected third world mass immigration (and more recently,
in some areas, mass emigration from the former Soviet Union) for the simple, and sufficient
reason that they have no possible reason or incentive to support or embrace it. It offers
them nothing, and its impact on their lives is wholly negative in practical terms - which is
how a social group which lives with limited or no margins between income and outgoings,
necessarily
perceives life.
Identity politics has no roots amongst them, because they correctly perceive that whatever
answer it might produce, there is no possible outcome in which the preferred answer will be a
semi-skilled, white family man. They inevitably pick up a certain level of the constant blare
of "racist bigot, homophobe, Islsmophobia" from its sheer inescapability, but they aren't
COMPLETELY stupid.
Don't fall into the associated trap either, of the false equation between STATED and ACTUAL goals.
Fox and Hunt are fully aware that to actually admit their actual goal, would be (probably) just about the only thing which
would provoke an electoral backlash which would sweep the Conservatives from office. The NHS is proverbially "the nearest thing
the English have, to a religion" and is a profoundly dangerous subject for debate.
Fox and Hunt may be weaving an incomprehensible web of sophistry and misdirection, but no part of it is accidental.
With the still largely ignored Saudi slaughter in Yemen now in its fourth year, RT's
In The Now
has resurrected a
forgotten clip from a 2016 CNN interview with Senator Rand Paul, which is currently going
viral.
In a piece of cable news history that rivals Madeleine Albright's infamous words during a
1996
60 Minutes
appearance
where she calmly and coldly proclaimed of 500,000 dead Iraqi children that
"the price is
worth it,"
CNN's Wolf Blitzer railed against Senator Paul's opposition to a proposed $1.1
billion US arms sale to Saudi Arabia by arguing that slaughter of Yemeni civilians was worth it
so long as it benefits US jobs and defense contractors.
At the time of the
2016 CNN interview
, Saudi
Arabia with the help of its regional and Western allies -- notably the U.S. and Britain -- had
been bombing Yemen for a year-and-a-half, and as
the
United Nations noted
, the Saudi coalition had been responsible for the majority of the
war's (at that point) 10,000 mostly civilian deaths.
At that time the war was still in its early phases, but now multiple years into the
Saudi-led bombing campaign which began in March 2015,
the
U.N. reports at least
"5,000 children dead or hurt and 400,000 malnourished."
... ... ...
Senator Paul began the interview by outlining the rising civilian death toll
and massive refugee crisis that the U.S. continued facilitating
due to deep military assistance
to the Saudis
:
There are now millions of displaced people in Yemen. They're refugees. So we supply the
Saudis with arms, they create havoc and refugees in Yemen. Then what's the answer? Then we're
going to take the Yemeni refugees in the United States? Maybe we ought to quit arming both
sides of this war.
Paul then narrowed in on the Pentagon's role in the crisis: "We are refueling the Saudi
bombers that are dropping the bombs. It is said that thousands of civilians have died in Yemen
because of this."
CNN's Blitzer responded, "So for you this is a moral issue. Because you know, there's a lot
of jobs at stake. Certainly if a lot of these defense contractors stop selling war planes,
other sophisticated equipment to Saudi Arabia, there's going to be a significant loss of jobs,
of revenue here in the United States. That's secondary from your standpoint?"
Paul countered, "Well not only is it a moral question, its a constitutional question." And
noted that Obama had partnered with the Saudi attack on Yemen without Congressional approval:
"Our founding fathers very directly and specifically did not give the president the power to go
to war. They gave it to Congress. So Congress needs to step up and this is what I'm doing."
* * *
For further context of what the world knew at the time the CNN interview took place, we can
look no further than the United Nations and other international monitoring groups.
A year after Blitzer's statements,
Foreign Policy published a bombshell report
based on possession of a leaked 41-page draft
UN document, which found Saudi Arabia and its partner coalition allies in Yemen (among them the
United States) of being guilty of horrific war crimes, including the bombing of dozens of
schools, hospitals, and civilian infrastructure.
The U.N. study focused on child and civilian deaths during the first two years of the Saudi
coalition bombing campaign - precisely the time frame during which the CNN Wolf Blitzer and
Rand Paul interview took place.
"The killing and maiming of children remained the most prevalent violation" of children's
rights in Yemen , according to the 41-page draft report obtained by Foreign Policy.
The chief author of the confidential draft report, Virginia Gamba, the U.N. chief's
special representative for children abused in war time, informed top U.N. officials Monday,
that she intends to recommend the Saudi-led coalition be added to a list a countries and
entities that kill and maim children , according to a well-placed source.
The UN report further identified that air attacks "were the cause of over half of all child
casualties, with at least 349 children killed and 333 children injured" during the designated
period of time studied, and documented that, "the U.N. verified a total of 1,953 youngsters
killed and injured in Yemen in 2015 -- a six-fold increase compared with 2014" - with the
majority of these deaths being the result of Saudi and coalition air power.
Also according
AP reporting at the time
: "It said nearly three-quarters of attacks on schools and
hospitals -- 38 of 52 -- were also carried out by the coalition."
But again, Wolf Blitzer's first thought was those poor defense contractors:
...Because you know, there's a lot of jobs at stake. Certainly if a lot of these defense
contractors stop selling war planes, other sophisticated equipment to Saudi Arabia, there's
going to be a significant loss of jobs, of revenue here in the United States.
* * *
This trip down memory lane elicited suitable responses on Twitter:
Honestly, with all these drug addicts, pedos, government dependents,
and fraudulent finance and advertising pieces of shit at home, I'd
really like to see some infighting here. No need to sell abroad.
"... There is no "Western consensus" in support of "rewriting" the deal. Germany has no interest in revising the agreement, and has said so explicitly. If the U.S. and France cook up some other agreement between themselves, none of the other parties will respect its terms. If one or two parties to the agreement can go back and "rewrite" the parts they don't like whenever they want, none of the other parties will see any reason to abide by its requirements. Thinking that the U.S. can "rewrite" a deal and that the other side simply has to go along with it is as arrogant as it is stupid. ..."
"... Iran isn't going to agree to make additional concessions when the other parties have no intention of offering them anything more, and Iran already gave up as much as it was prepared to concede the first time. ..."
The Wall Street Journal editors make
a ludicrous argument in favor of a "revised" deal with Iran:
This is a major advance, and it offers hope that the U.S. and France, Britain and Germany
can agree on a revised pact. Contrary to common misunderstanding, Iran, Russia and China
wouldn't have to agree to these changes. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the deal
is known, isn't a treaty. Mr. Obama never submitted it for Senate approval because he knew it
would be defeated. The deal is essentially a set of assurances agreed to at the United
Nations that lack the force of U.S. law.
The JCPOA was endorsed by a U.N. Security Council resolution (UNSCR
2231), so all member states are obliged to respect the deal as it was written. The deal wasn't
a treaty, but that doesn't give the U.S. license to violate it or arbitrarily change it after
the fact. Indeed, every attempt to "rewrite" an agreement once it has already been made is a
violation that makes U.S. promises seem worthless.
There is no "Western consensus" in support of "rewriting" the deal. Germany has
no interest in revising the agreement, and has said so explicitly. If the U.S. and France
cook up some other agreement between themselves, none of the other parties will respect its
terms. If one or two parties to the agreement can go back and "rewrite" the parts they don't
like whenever they want, none of the other parties will see any reason to abide by its
requirements. Thinking that the U.S. can "rewrite" a deal and that the other side simply has to
go along with it is as arrogant as it is stupid.
Iran would have to agree to any changes because Iran would be the one implementing those
changes, and their government has
said many times in no uncertain terms that this isn't going to happen. The reason for this
should be obvious: Iran isn't going to agree to make additional concessions when the other
parties have no intention of offering them anything more, and Iran already gave up as much as
it was prepared to concede the first time. Iran isn't going to give up more when they are under
less pressure and have more international support. Besides, if they accepted a "rewrite" of the
deal now, it would just be a matter of time until the U.S. came back with another "rewrite" and
then another after that.
"Rewriting" the requirements of an agreement made in good faith is a dishonest and treacherous way to deal with other
governments. Other governments can see that for what it is, and they will know that the U.S. can't be trusted to keep its end of
a bargain. All of this talk about a "new deal" is just a bit of kabuki to distract from the fact that the U.S. is about to
renege on its international commitments for no good reason. Hawks are desperate to spread blame around for their reckless
scrapping of a working nonproliferation agreement, but everyone can see through this. When the deal falls apart, the Trump
administration and its hawkish allies will be the only ones responsible.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as the deal is known, isn't a treaty. Mr. Obama
never submitted it for Senate approval because he knew it would be defeated.
By that standard (ratified by 2/3 vote in Senate) most of our trade treaties are not
treaties. They're passed by the normal legislative process. (TPP would have been an example;
NAFTA was passed that way, too.)
Of course, given the rabid AIPAC-inspired hatred of Iran, I'm not saying the JCPOA would
have passed that way, either.
" a violation that makes U.S. promises seem worthless."
Russia has defined the US as a nation who cannot be negotiated with because its promises
are meaningless. They have a word for it which goes beyond "untrustworthy," and means someone
who makes promises with no intention of keeping them even at the time they are made.
More and more nations will reach the same conclusion.
By that standard (ratified by 2/3 vote in Senate) most of our trade treaties are not
treaties. They're passed by the normal legislative process. (TPP would have been an
example; NAFTA was passed that way, too.)
Of course, given the rabid AIPAC-inspired hatred of Iran, I'm not saying the JCPOA would
have passed that way, either.
Not sure what the debate is they aren't treaties by strict Constitutional standards.
Treaties are passed without ratification just like wars are entered without a Declaration of
War.
Maybe the outcome of all this is that foreign leaders who want solid agreements will try
to get real treaties from the US government instead of convincing the US to do some
extra-Constitutional measure that they think should be treated like a treaty when it
isn't.
And that would be a good thing, from a conservative perspective.
Don't you understand, all international agreements are bound by U.S. law because all of the
nations of the earth must bow down to us.
We are such an egotistic, narcissistic people. We will get our comeuppance when we least
expect it. I keep hoping for us to wake up but I hope in vain.
The Wall Street Journal editorial board thinks like a sleazy lawyer – what a surprise.
The honor of thieves – and I would not count on Germany maintaining its "splendid
isolation" either.
Back in the day, Schroeder pretended to oppose Bush's Iraq invasion for electoral gain,
while carefully pretending any of the actual options he had to work against it. The options
included using Germany's then-membership in the USNC to unilaterally invoke UN Resolution 377
to force a meeting of the UN General Assembly, with the goal of pass a resolution opposing
and disavowing the planned invasion of Iraq. Other, smaller and less powerful countries
without much affliction of "Western values and civilization" were trying to organize such a
step outside the USNC, and US "diplomats" spent a lot of effort making threats to coerce the
more vulnerable nations that participated into dropping out.
Today, Merkel declares that Germany "supports" the repeated illegal bombing of Syria, and
has little to say regarding the Turkish and US invasions and Israeli acts of aggression.
Should we consider Israel, undeclared nuclear state, or India, non-signatory to the NPT?
Or the failure of the US and Russia to follow the example set by China and settle for minimum
means of reprisal even in the face of US forward based missile defense designed to neutralize
any deterrent of a "reasonable" size and number?
Should we consider Iraq, Libya, Yemen – those crimes of aggression perpetrated by
"the West"?
Nobody can look at the historic record, and with a straight face claim that the US and its
various "allies" and hanger-ons and co-belligerents have any standing with respect to the
conduct of Iran. Neither Trump nor Macron believes for a moment that the "new deal" is the
objective of all this "diplomacy". The only ones fooled are the dupes that take these
contortions at face value, and believe that either "leader" is acting in good faith.
Don't you understand, all international agreements are bound by U.S. law because all of
the nations of the earth must bow down to us.
All international agreements are based on legal processes established by the existence of
nations as sovereign entities operating on their own principles, through
self-determination.
This is recognized and established in the UN Charter, by the way.
In effect, it practically means the US needs to acknowledge Iranian law, and Iran needs to
acknowledge American law.
Globalists who have wanted to act outside this framework have been the arrogant ones, in
different ways and different forms, over the decades.
Again, can't Iran Leader just visit Trump at his hotel during one of weekends and enjoy the
best tasting chocolate ever? Or better yet, deliver a Boeing plane to the Iran/Trump summit
where Trump takes all the credit for the jobs? Maybe Iran can state how big Trump's hands
are. (or Something)
Really I can't tell if Trump is really against the Iran deal or just wants a couple
Iranian concessions (or complements on his golfing game) to not back out of the deal. Trump
loves to talk loudly and do very little. (It is a very weird way to be a dove.)
I can only surmise that Trump's plan is to destroy America's standing as the indispensable
party, and instead make us the poison pill. I really do think if the US walks back from this
we will see the rest of the world open the doors to Iran further to make up the shortfall. It
would be the only way to save the deal and encourage Iran to uphold it end of the deal.
This of course would push the US to implement trade sanctions against the EU, Russia, and
China. Further isolating the US as the rest of the world turns its back on us.
The ethnic cleansing of Cherokees and the seizure of the Black Hills from the Sioux after
gold was discovered there are just two of the more notorious examples.
The US violated treaties with impunity because the Native Americans were powerless. Today
the US is a client state of the Saudis and Israelis, and it violates international law in the
Middle East at their behest for the same reason – because it can.
When it comes to nations or people, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts
absolutely.
Our elites get away with whatever they can, and there is no law beyond, whatever cane be
done, will be done.
Since international trade is conducted in US dollars, which are backed by the full faith
and power of the US military, there is little junior partners can do other than to obey to
avoid punishing economic sanctions, or at worst election interference, regime change, covert
military action and ultimately open war.
France, always a rival of Britain, senses Brexit weakness and an opportunity to cosy up to
the US to its own advantage in the globalist system. As an international bankster, this fits
Macron's own elitist agenda well.
Note to readers : Looks like Eric is writing a satire, but this is not immeduatly
obvious...
Notable quotes:
"... Trump must stick to the nuclear treaty with Iran or possibly face a new Mideast war; that it's essential for the US to join the Paris climate accord; and that the US must resume its role of multilateral world engagement. ..."
"... I think I figured it out but just to be sure: this is a parody, right? Macron is presiding over an ailing French economy; to distract from it, he has now made himself a war criminal by illegally attacking Syria. In doing so, he has been suicidally reckless with France's few naval assets, which could (and frankly, should) have been sunk at a moment's notice. ..."
After delivering kisses and hugs, Macron then went before the US Congress and threw down the
gauntlet. He told America's legislators tough truths they were not used to hearing in the Trump
era. Namely: that the right's political and economic nationalism is stupid and toxic; that
Trump must stick to the nuclear treaty with Iran or possibly face a new Mideast war; that
it's essential for the US to join the Paris climate accord; and that the US must resume its
role of multilateral world engagement.
... ... ...
That is, at least until the abrasive nature of French politics, labor wars, and financial
hanky panky derail his meteoric rise. No one yet understands where Macron came from or who is
really behind him. The French Rothschilds, for whom Macron used to work as a banker, are the
most obvious suspects. But we don't really know for sure.
I think I figured it out but just to be sure: this is a parody, right? Macron is
presiding over an ailing French economy; to distract from it, he has now made himself a war
criminal by illegally attacking Syria. In doing so, he has been suicidally reckless with
France's few naval assets, which could (and frankly, should) have been sunk at a moment's
notice.
He went to Washington where he was supposed to deliver the "tough message" that
Trump better not think about destroying the Iran nuclear deal. Instead, this big child turned
like a leaf in the presence of his master, and is now firmly on the jew-approved,
anti-Iranian track.
The only problem with that of course is that that track leads to war, and more
specifically a war of such proportions that the resulting refugee flows will wreck Europe,
including the country for which Macron was supposed to be responsible–and that is the
good outcome, if China and Russia would interdict an attack on Iran we'd be pretty close to
going nuclear.
The French people will need to rid themselves of this Zionist scum before these
catastrophes come to pass.
Macron is Blair with a shinier suit, his antics on foreign policy can't hide the deep seated
problems in France from a stagnant economy, the leading indicators in France are
deteriorating, to a low level civil war between immigrants and the French. He is like a
vision from a discredited and bygone age. Macron was un danser at Rothschild, he seeks to
sell further US involvement in Syria to Trump.
The only thing Macron got right was keeping the nuclear deal with Iran. The rest was just the
usual globalist, one world mumbo jumbo. Macron can man up and send thousands of French troops
to Syria if he feels so strongly in a Western presence there.
Here was Europe – and much of Asia – telling Trump to stop acting like a
petulant, amateur monarch and start acting like the president of the United States.
On the contrary, Macron was imploring Trump to betray his base and serve the interests of
Israel and the world's elites.
Macron and Merkel are both trying to destroy their own people and remake their nations by
welcoming a mass influx of Afro-Islamic invaders. At minimum they should be met with boos,
jeers and bullhorns wherever they go. At most their people should working towards another
Bastille day for them and other traitors complete with guillotines.
"... How about a poll that really matters. Let's see how popular this war mongering scag is with her peers at the U.N.(and Kool-aid drinking nations don't count) ..."
"... Lack of a fully functional brain, for starters. Smart dresser though. ..."
"... She is dire, but looking on the bright side, it could have been a Clinton appointee instead. Who would have been automatically crooked, and paid to play (for the high level jobs in every department, of course). ..."
US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley is America's most popular politician according to a
study by Quinnipiac University, CNN reported yesterday.
Haley is viewed positively by some 63 per cent of US voters, while only 39 per cent gave
their approval of US President Donald Trump. Haley's popularity also stretched to both sides of
the political spectrum, with 75 per cent of Republicans, 55 per cent of Democrats and 63 per
cent of Independents supporting the former South Carolina governor. She was only exceeded by
former president Barack Obama, who was still held in high regard by some 66 per cent of
voters.
The UN envoy has taken strong stands in favour of Israel, particularly in the aftermath of
the US' recognition
of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital in December. When the UN General Assembly
voted to condemn the Trump administration's decision, Haley slammed the global forum as
ungrateful for US contributions to the organisation.
"No vote in the UN will make any difference to that [the decision]. But this vote will make
a difference to how the Americans see the UN. This vote will be remembered," she concluded,
echoing her previous
comments that the delegation would be taking names of those who voted against the
recognition.
Last month, Haley gave another unrestrained speech at the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference, where she again condemned the UN for its alleged
anti-Israel bias.
"In the real world, Israel is a strong country with a strong military," she said. "But at
the UN, it's a different story. Israel does get bullied there."
Haley was met with thunderous applause as she argued that the UN had "long undermined peace
by encouraging an illusion that Israel will simply go away." But Israel, she stressed, "is not
going away. When the world recognises that, then peace becomes possible."
She also responded to the criticism that the US shows favouritism for Israel: "There's
nothing wrong with showing favouritism towards an ally, that's what being an ally is all
about."
The UN envoy's speech was noted as the most enthusiastically received by the thousands of
attendees at the event, as she received multiple standing ovations during her speech and shouts
of "we love you" from the crowd.
Haley has also taken a strong stance over the conflict in Syria,
threatening to strike the Assad regime during the bombardment of Eastern Ghouta last month.
The Russian delegation
condemned her comments, stating that "such thunderous and irresponsible statements by the
American envoy cause resentment and great anxiety."
How about a poll that really matters. Let's see how popular this war mongering scag is
with her peers at the U.N.(and Kool-aid drinking nations don't count)
There is likely a correlation between the percentage of the polled who gave her the nod,
and this woman herself.
Lack of a fully functional brain, for starters. Smart dresser though. That rig the French granny was wearing the other day? Eek.
She is dire, but looking on the bright side, it could have been a Clinton appointee
instead. Who would have been automatically crooked, and paid to play (for the high level
jobs in every department, of course).
serotonindumptruck -> The First Rule • Sat, 04/28/2018 - 16:38 Permalink
For all those who thought the anorexic Samantha (Skeletor) Power was a horrific warmonger, the Deep State hereby doubles
down and offers up the neocon dot-head Nikki Haley.
A few thoughts on our disastrous trillion-dollar military:
It is unnecessary. It does not defend the United States. The last time it did so was in
1945. The United States has no military enemies. No nation has anything even close to the
forces necessary to invade America, and probably none the desire. A fifth of the budget would
suffice for any real needs.
"Our boys" are not noble warriors protecting democracy, rescuing maidens, and righting
wrongs. They are, like all soldiers, obedient and amoral killers. Pilots bombing Iraq or Syria
know they are killing civilians. They do not care. If ordered to bomb Switzerland, they would
do it. This is the nature of all armies. Glamorizing this most reprehensible trades is just a
means of usefully stimulating the pack instinct which we often call patriotism.
The militarily is America's worst enemy. It does enormous damage to the United
States while providing almost no benefit. Start with the war on Vietnam that cost hugely in
money and lives, ours and theirs, with no benefit. Iraq: high cost, no benefit. Afghanistan:
High cost, no benefit. Syria: High cost, no benefit.
The costs in lives and money do not include the staggering cost of weapons that do nothing
for America or Americans. Do you, the reader, believe that you are safer because of the F-35?
Do a dozen aircraft carriers improve the lives of your children? Will the B-21, an unbelievably
expensive new thermonuclear bomber, make your streets safer? Then add the bleeding of
engineering talent better spent on advancing America's economic competitiveness. The country
has many crying needs, falls behind China, but money and talent go to the military.
We cannot escape from the soldiers. The armed forces have embedded themselves so deeply into
the country that they have almost become the country. America is little more than a funding
mechanism for what clumsily may be called the military-industrial-intelligence-media-Israeli
complex. Some of these entities belong to the military (NSA). Some depend on it
(Lockheed-Martin). Some use it to their own ends (Israel), but the military is the central
infection from which the other symptoms flow. Congress? A storefront, a subcommittee of the
Knesset or, as P. J. O'Rourke put it, a parliament of whores. Factories, jobs, contracts, towns
depend on military spending. If the Second Marine Division folded, Jacksonville NC would dry up
and blow away. So would dozens of other towns. Without military spending, California's economy
would crash. Universities depend on military research funding.
The military has achieved its current autonomy by degrees, unnoticed. The Pentagon learned
much in Vietnam, not about fighting wars, which it still cannot do well, but about managing its
real enemy, the public. The media, which savaged the war on Vietnam, are now firmly controlled
by the corporations that own them. Thus we do not see photos of the horrors committed by
American aircraft bombing cities. While the existence of phenomenally expensive weapons like
the B-21 is not quite suppressed, coverage is so slight that most Americans have never heard of
it. This the Complex learned from the F-35 debacle. And of course Congress, thoroughly bought
and wanting jobs in its districts, allows no serious opposition to anything military. Neither
Congress nor the media point out the extent to which military expenditure dominates the
economy, draining resources from civilian needs.
Why does the military not win wars? In part because winning is not in the interest of the
Pentagon and those who feed on it. Wars generate profitable contracts for all manner of
supplies and equipment. Either winning or losing ends the gravy train. For example, the war on
Afghanistan of almost two decades has become an entitlement program for the arms industry,
accomplishing nothing, killing countless peasants, and lacking purpose other than maintaining
an unneeded empire and funneling money to the Complex.
How did the Complex free itself from civilian control? The crucial step in depriving the
public of influence was the neutering of the constitutional requirement that wars be declared
by Congress. The military thus became the private army of the President and those who control
him. Then came the All Volunteer Army, which ended inconvenience to or mutilation of the
children of people of importance, leaving the body bags to be filled by deplorables from
Memphis or Appalachia or Mexico. America's wars then became air wars and finally drone wars,
reducing casualties to very few. The public, both ignorant and uninvolved, became
acquiescent.
As I write, we wait to see whether Trump, and those behind him, will put America deeper into
the Mid-East and perhaps war with Russia. If he does, we will read about it the next day in the
newspapers. It will be expensive, dangerous, and of no benefit to anyone but the arms industry
and Israel.
Despite the asphyxiating economic presence, the military keeps aloof from America. This too
serves the purposes of the Complex, further preventing attention by the public to what is not
its business. In the days of conscription there was a familiarity with the armed services.
Young men from most social classes wore the uniform however ruefully and told of their
experiences. Not now. The career military have always tended to keep to themselves, to
socialize with each other as the police do. Now the isolation is almost hermetic. You can spend
years in Washington or New York and never meet a colonel. Military society with its
authoritarianism, its uniforms and its uniform government-issue outlook is not compatible with
civil society. To the cultivated, military officers seem simple-minded, conformist and well,
weird.
ORDER IT NOW
Add it all up and you see that the citizenry has no say–none–over the Complex,
which is autonomous and out of control. If the Complex wants war with Russia or China, we will
have-war with Russia or China. Ask people whether they would prefer a naval base in
Qatar–which most have never heard of, either the base or the country–or decent
heath care. Then ask them which they have.
The military destroys America and there is nothing–nothing at all–that you can
do about it.
Further, the Complex drives foreign policy, and in directions of no benefit to America or
Americans. For example, the contrived fury against Russia. Why this? Russia presents no danger
to America or anyone else. The Complex makes foreign policy for its own ends, not ours.
A rising Asia is challenging the America military Empire. The tide runs against the Complex.
North Korea faced Washington down and became a nuclear power. The Crimea went back irrevocably
to Russia. East Ukraine does the same. Iran got its treaty and becomes part of the world order.
In the South China Sea, China ignores the US, which once was supreme in all the seas. The war
against Afghanistan heads for its third decade and the war on Syria seems to have failed. Other
things go badly for the Empire. The dollar is under siege as reserve currency. China grows
economically, advances rapidly in technology and, doubtless terrifying to Washington, tries to
integrate Asia and Europe into a vast economic bloc. The Complex beats the war drums as its
fingers loosen on the world's collective throat.
Washington desperately needs to stop the rollback of American power, stop the erosion of the
dollar, block the economic integration of Eurasia and Latin America, keep Russia from trading
amicably with Europe. It will do anything to maintain its grip. All of its remote wars in
far-off savage lands, of no importance to America or Americans, are to this purpose. A
militarized America threatens Russia, threatens China, threatens Iran, threatens North Korea,
threatens Venezuela, expands NATO, on and on.
America has been hijacked.
Fred Reed is a retired news weasel and part-time sociopath living in Mexico with his
wife and three sueless but agreeable street dogs. (Republished from
Fred on Everything by permission of author or representative) ← Herding
Hamsters and Other Cosmic Refle...
Fred, a bit harsh in places. Having served for twenty-four years, '76-'00, active &
reserve, I can say with certainty that the men & women who comprise the armed forces are
a more complex & nuanced group than your brief description of them as "obedient and
amoral killers." The number that are amoral killers is probably about the same as those whose
main motivation for joining is patriotism, i.e. relatively small.
That said, I get what you're saying. The problem is that nature abhors a vacuum. If
America brings the troops home, closes all the bases and "raises the drawbridge" the various
bad-actors of the world will proceed to aggress against their neighbors much more so than
they already do. Would be an interesting experiment, though, for America to cease being the
world's policeman. I suspect that the rest of the so-called free world would be begging us to
resume the role almost immediately.
Sad to say, the principle "bad actor" in the world today, and the one committing the most
aggression, is the United States itself. The United States generates the most instability and
is the country that threatens world peace the most. I half expect to see the U.S. try to
torpedo the Korean peace talks, just to be able to maintain troops on the Korean
peninsula.
Fred's had two good articles in a row and his conclusion is spot on: the United States has
been hijacked.
because certain countries/people within the reach of "various bad-actors of the world"
would pay the price.Heavy price.
There is that prevalent mantra here about Russia/China being forces of good. Yeah ..
I've used the analogy here several times:
US is like Tywin Lannister. Russia Rose Bolton, China Slavers Bay.
Neither that good, but, definitely prefer the first.
We live in strange times. Back in 50s/60s, the Anglo-Right represented militarism &
empire while Jewish Left represented anti-war & peace with USSR. Today, the Real Right
oppose war & support peace while Jewish 'left' call for more empire, intervention, &
new cold war.
Sirs,y
I worked as an electrical inspector for the DCMA under contractors to the DCMA. I worked for
2 years in Iraq and 6 in Afghanistan. I meet and worked many honorable and competent military
people; I also had the misfortune to meet a great many who were not so good. Unfortunately,
the people that can't make in the military are sent over to the contractors who hire them
because of the old boys network and the vets perf. These are the worst.; if you are a
civilian working under LOGCAP without the military service you WILL NEVER get advancement .
The slugs from the military get all the gravy jobs and it is AA run wild. The ethnics stick
together and the dumb white guys who believe in merit end up in the crappy jobs doing all the
work and not getting any credit and the first to be laid off.
Not only that the LOGCAP program brinsg in Balkans and Indians to cut Americans out of
jobs. Indians make about 700 USD a month 4 times what they would make at home. Balkans,
around 4K 3 times what the make at home. These guys worm their way in and never leave; so
your average American contract employee shows up and he is getting screwed from the get
go.
The story I was told if you get 100K the contractor get 200-250K
Fred, you'd best look out the window to see who's at the door for the next few weeks. You may
have written too much truth for the military-industrial-intelligence-media-Israeli complex to
tolerate. Mossad has a few idle operatives in Mexico. Don't get too high-profile. They kill
people for a lot less.
The U.S. military is basically the right-wing/Republican version of the social welfare
state:
[...] Welfare's last stand Long in retreat in the US, the welfare state found a haven in an unlikely place –
the military, where it thrived for decades
[...]
– https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-us-military-became-a-welfare-state
Listen to Jennifer Mittelstadt explain the term "military welfare state" on The
Strategy Bridge's podcast :
[...]
America's all-volunteer army took shape in the 1970s, in the wake of widespread opposition
to the draft. Abandoning compulsory conscription, it wrestled with how to attract and
retain soldiers -- a task made more difficult by the military's plummeting prestige after
Vietnam. The army solved the problem, Jennifer Mittelstadt shows, by promising to take care
of its own -- the more than ten million Americans who volunteered for active duty after
1973 and their families. While the United States dismantled its civilian welfare system in
the 1980s and 1990s, army benefits continued to expand.
Yet not everyone was pleased by programs that, in their view, encouraged dependency,
infantilized soldiers, and feminized the institution. Fighting to outsource and privatize
the army's "socialist" system and to reinforce "self-reliance" among American soldiers,
opponents rolled back some of the military welfare state's signature achievements, even as
a new era of war began.
Right now, since unemployment is so low, recruiters have a harder time finding qualified
candidates:
Trump Wants To Beef Up The Military, But Recruiters Are Having Trouble Finding People
(HBO)
Booming military benefits
The cost of military pay raises and benefits programs, which have increased almost 90 percent
since 2001, have become the fastest-growing part of the Pentagon's budget and now account for
more than a quarter of all defense spending. Here is a look at the types of compensation
provided to active-duty troops and retirees, how those costs have grown and where they are
headed. – https://www.washingtonpost.com/apps/g/page/national/booming-military-benefits/200/
OMG Yet another nitpicking, mean-spirited, petty, big-mouth,, intellectually bone-lazy
commenter. Do you actually carefully read and ponder what is written? Is your attention span
longer than a few minutes? Do you have any respect for an author–or for yourself? Has
it occurred to you that the author's main points are on the whole absolutely correct and even
self-evident? If you're going to take the trouble to critique, how about doing it with
intellectual and moral integrity, with some degree of thoroughness and, frankly, coherent
thought? Are you even capable of it? Wouldn't it have been better for you to exercise some
self-control and keep silent?
I'd suggest you read a little outside of what American MSM wants you to believe.
Russia is, as Fred has said, of no danger to anybody. I would add – to anybody who
leaves her alone.
As with poking a bear; if you leave it alone, it ignores you. Start hitting it, it rips you
to bits. Same analogy.
As to Ukraine, everyone now who still has 2 brain cells synapsing is aware that Ukraine was a
US organised, backed and paid for coup d'etat. IN fact, Putin gets a huge amount of crap from
many Alt-Med sites and commentators for NOT going in with tanks and levelling Kiev to the
ground, which she could have done in 1.5 days flat. Including tea breaks.
Russia has nothing to do with Moldova.
Georgia, with some encouragement from a few CIA types had an insane President, who launched
an unprovoked attack on South Ossetia, and fired on and killed Russian peacekeepers at 2 a.m.
one morning. Many in Georgia were being air-bombed. A young girl there visiting from America
with her aunt was rescued – by Russian soldiers. She tried to thank them on US tv, and
was cut off by the anchor!! Once the situation in Georgia had been resolved with the Georgian
troops returned to base, Russia left. Something America has never, ever, done. Where ever it
goes, it stays, like brown sticky stuff on your shoe.
So get your facts straight. Remember, Putin made a small comment that the Empire appears to
have overlooked. You should never, he said, corner anyone. Read up about what a cornered rat
did to him, and what he learned from it.
The Empire is pushing and pushing and pushing. Putin has warned and warned and warned.
Russia is no danger to anyone who leaves her alone – something the Ruling Regime of the
Fascist Empire of America seems unable to grasp.
Even assuming Vladimir Putin has such designs (I'm skeptical that he wants more ethnic
minority headaches than he has already), why is any of this the business of the United
States?
Fine job stating the obvious Fred. I mean that as a compliment. It is the obvious that is
most likely to be overlooked by my countrymen.
It's the foggy bottom. The District of Corruption. The seat of the Anglo/Zio Empire that
is the most dangerous enemy of the people of earth. The good news – the empire is in
steep decline. The bad news – it will reach peak madness just before it dies.
The US military just got an unneeded 10% budget boost because of spin that its budget was
cut, while it has increased each year. The only cuts were to the big increases demanded. The
Pentagon also lies and says that every military readiness issue is not caused by
incompetence, but a lack of money.
Watch the idiotic responses by Fox News propagandists when former Republican Congressmen
David Stockman recently informed them that the Pentagon budget should be slashed, not
increased.
Totally agree. The US is seen in most of the world as the bully of the nations, not the
policeman, even in the EU (don't be fooled by our leaders, we don't control them).
OMG, that "news" video. Not only do these "journalists" babble like first-graders –
they have even unlearned to present facial expressions appropriate for sentient human beings.
Turn off the sound and it's like watching "Finding Nemo".
No Isreal could'nt take over the Mid-East if we weren't around, they would either get
along with their neighbors or cease to exist,the world gained nothing in Korea except the
thousands and millions slaughtered,the world gained nothing with our false flag to get us
into Nam except for the thousands and millions slaughtered and then it was on to
Afghanistan,Yemen Syria,yes your right the world would be a safer place without out endless
wars, and if we can't fine one we create one, the Mid-East is more than proof of that, and
you know I don't know of any country or countries who are crying for us to be the policeman,
when we lack the capability to even control the whores in congress>>>
How did the Complex free itself from civilian control? The crucial step in depriving
the public of influence was the neutering of the constitutional requirement that wars be
declared by Congress . The military thus became the private army of the President and
those who control him.
If I'd come upon this paragraph first, I'd have thought I was reading an article by
Ron Paul . However,
most Americans don't want to hear the old boring stuff about "muh Constitution", right, so
they will never understand this.
Good column, Mr. Reed. About the only thing I see missing is the American elites' use of
the US military as a grand social experiment, which will make these forces not so effective
in a real war with a serious enemy. Being the big bully of the world will work out fine until
the first knock-out punch, or the money runs out. The latter will probably happen first
– (see peak neocon here and here .)
LOTS of ad hominem directed at Fred in these comments, without even the slightest refutation
whatsoever at the content of his article. There is clearly a strong emotional need to believe
that the US military is "a global force for good" among many commenters, since there shouting
down of Fred is emotional and without evidence of where he has made an error in his thinking.
And to the first commenter who thinks people of earth who would be begging to have the US
military back in their homelands should it ever leave: you have obviously never met a person
who is not from America. There is really nothing else I can say to such an insane, immature,
deliberately stupid remark. God help you. No country on earth wants the US military in it. If
any sizeable portion of the brainwashed, two-digit IQ, blaspheming american "christian"
population ever wakes up to the scam, it could be over in an election cycle, but it's
probably impossible. The crushing weight of universal propoganda and perfectly orchestrated
identity politics is just too much.
On a personal level, I have met many men who work for the war profiteers, some at fairly
influential levels. They are pure, straight evil; filled with more explosive anger and hate
than anyone you've ever met. They are as bad as bad gets. Trust me. To this day, I have never
met people like them.
That aeon article was stupid. The first half summarized the (prescient, in my view as a
one-and-done army officer) worry that adding all these social welfare bennies would turn the
army into a bunch of single mothers, which it did, and undermine readiness. The second half,
which I guess was the overall point of the article, was whining about how "boo hoo the
military is getting its bennies privatized, how are we going to care for all these single
mothers?"
Another hit-and-run one post wonder. Fred Reed's columns seem to be literally filled with
you deranged sockpuppets. One post and then poof -- you're gone, never to be seen
again. Quite interesting.
A quite interesting take on the situation in Armenia, with a good overview of how color
revolutions are often structured, and might have been circumvented in the present case.
Notable quotes:
"... what's interesting here is how in the process of the Color tactic, what's common is that an individual single 'dictator' is widely demonized, and all social energies of opposition are drawn to condemning and opposing whatever cult of personality exists around this 'dictator', leading the 'regime'. ..."
"... You may recall during the early years of the Syrian invasion, that some informally floated Atlanticist proposals included Ba'ath Party rule, or co-rule, but with a new head of state other than Assad the man. For these reasons and more, we may expect all sorts of Atlanticist pressure to fall on Karapetyan. ..."
"... I want to state clearly, in no uncertain terms, that the declaration of victory – prematurely ..."
"... This is critical, however. Undermining, co-opting, creating dual-power structures, and infiltrating bureaucracies is a critical dimension of the Color tactic. Bureaucracies, whether civil, military, or intelligence, have an internal logic. People live and work their lives everyday in certain structures. They engage every day in double-think: they carry on their duties and obligations even while having suspicions – whether sneaking or even outright proof – that those above them don't quite have their facts straight and are operating on bad information. People whisper by the water cooler. Everyone who has ever worked for a living and had managers above them, understands this process. ..."
"... if the opposition declares victory, the president apparently steps down, the water cooler talk becomes more serious. Even though the 'old regime' still has institutional power, if the secondary and tertiary employees of the bureaucracy simply believe that power has transferred, then power will effectively transfer because employees will stop following managers directives, which leads to a break-down in the command chain, order, and basic functionality as one would imagine. ..."
"... while bureaucracy managers (civil, military, intelligence) may know that the old regime still has institutional power, their ability to effectively convince or otherwise influence their subordinates dissipates when these bureaucracy rank and file workers no longer believe that the ruling bodies still have power. They are likely to leak critical information to the opposition, resign, even join the opposition for perhaps simply quality-of-life/opportunistic/pragmatic reasons. ..."
"... still not satisfied ..."
"... There is a science to the Color Revolution, and likewise but lesser known, a science to countering these. While Gene Sharp wrote authoritatively on these subjects, he is better known for his work on the 'revolution' part, than the 'counter-coup' against it. ..."
"... What's clear is that the last three and four years, the Russians have clearly been working on the science of the 'counter-coup' – how to cancel, stop, redirect, or mitigate the color revolution tactic. They found some success in Macedonia at first, but ultimately arrived at what appears as a loss or set-back. However, it did delay the process significantly, by about two years, and allowed other facts on the ground to emerge in the interim. ..."
"... In conclusion, what we are witnessing right now is tremendously fascinating, and outside of the practical and immediate questions posed, gives us tremendous insights into how power actually functions and operates in countries which only have 3rd or 4th tier levels of sovereignty. ..."
Superficially this is going to boil down, in the nuts and bolts sense, to how the Armenian
constitutional court interprets an 'untested' major change to the constitution set up back in
2015 – where some Presidential powers were transferred over to the Prime Minister, and
what this means in terms of 'who' actually holds certain powers in Armenia. Recall that
Sargsyan was President for some years before just becoming PM earlier in April, just
recently.
In short, one possibility is that the focus on Sargsyan this whole time was something
similar to a ruse, getting the opposition to 'bark up the wrong tree'. Sarkissian may be in
fact the one with the power now. Sarkissian isn't just also a Republican and part of Sargsyan's
inner circle, they are in fact in the same family. We won't get into the details of the drama
of the Sargsyans and the Sarkissians in Armenia's troubled history since the 1990's, the plots
and assassinations of which all Armenians are familiar with during those darkest of days (which
may be returning). But Sarkissian is in there as President, with Karapetyan acting as PM
– all connected tightly to the Sargsyan run Republican Party and the Sargsyan clan
themselves.
Sargsyan is a polarizing name in Armenian society, as these are polarizing times. But
what's interesting here is how in the process of the Color tactic, what's common is that an
individual single 'dictator' is widely demonized, and all social energies of opposition are
drawn to condemning and opposing whatever cult of personality exists around this 'dictator',
leading the 'regime'.
This means that Sargsyan stepping down on the one hand of course gives the opposition a
'victory', the lone despot is done for – but it's unlike other victories in the process
of the tactic, as we'll explain below. At the same time it deflates popular opposition support,
as their focus was on Sargsyan the man. Intellectually, anyone in Armenia could tell you that
of course this is a whole family network. But psychologically it apparently works out quite
differently. You may recall during the early years of the Syrian invasion, that some
informally floated Atlanticist proposals included Ba'ath Party rule, or co-rule, but with a new
head of state other than Assad the man. For these reasons and more, we may expect all sorts of
Atlanticist pressure to fall on Karapetyan.
Essentially, Sargsyan has stepped down – the opposition was quick to declare
'victory'. I want to state clearly, in no uncertain terms, that the declaration of victory
– prematurely – is a major dimension of the Color Revolution tactic in all
iterations, historically. The mechanism is fairly banal, mundane. If victory is declared, and
believed, it wraps up (even skips) the final steps in acquiring a transfer of power. It's a
border-line bluff, one that only becomes true if you believe it, after-the-fact. One thing to
remember is that in this tactic, timing is everything. The order of events is everything. The
timing and order of events will determine whether the tactic succeeds or fails. The abstract
psychological and organizing methods of the tactic are critical, but problems of timing and
order of events throws everything sideways.
This is critical, however. Undermining, co-opting, creating dual-power structures, and
infiltrating bureaucracies is a critical dimension of the Color tactic. Bureaucracies, whether
civil, military, or intelligence, have an internal logic. People live and work their lives
everyday in certain structures. They engage every day in double-think: they carry on their
duties and obligations even while having suspicions – whether sneaking or even outright
proof – that those above them don't quite have their facts straight and are operating on
bad information. People whisper by the water cooler. Everyone who has ever worked for a living
and had managers above them, understands this process.
Thus, if the opposition declares victory, the president apparently steps down, the water
cooler talk becomes more serious. Even though the 'old regime' still has institutional power,
if the secondary and tertiary employees of the bureaucracy simply believe that power has
transferred, then power will effectively transfer because employees will stop following
managers directives, which leads to a break-down in the command chain, order, and basic
functionality as one would imagine.
That means that even while bureaucracy managers (civil, military, intelligence) may know
that the old regime still has institutional power, their ability to effectively convince or
otherwise influence their subordinates dissipates when these bureaucracy rank and file workers
no longer believe that the ruling bodies still have power. They are likely to leak critical
information to the opposition, resign, even join the opposition for perhaps simply
quality-of-life/opportunistic/pragmatic reasons.
But the final declaration of victory is also the final moment of catharsis, and so it
actually takes the steam out of the rolling protest movement. Therefore, the victory
declaration is a double-edged sword.
So this time it looks like perhaps a trap was set. Sargsyan steps down for what is in
reality, his own 'tactical' reason. The opposition declares this as a victory of their own,
thus increasing their own profile and power perception tremendously.
It is likely, if this is true then, that Sargsyan's resignation was a major surprise to the
opposition and it was not timed or planned in terms of the opposition's power-transfer strategy
overall. They are thrown off guard, Sargsyan steps down but as this was not the result of a
final ultimatum based upon an actual 'passing of power to the people' as the opposition
typically claims – this means that Sargsyan has much more room to maneuver and determine
for himself the terms and details of his resignation, and what comes into its place afterwards.
Neither the military nor the courts forced Sargsyan to resign.
In other words, his resignation did not come with the realization of new snap elections. EU
or 'international' mediators have not been brought in, as is the case with EU countries or
countries 'trying' to enter the EU as full members, like Macedonia. In that sense, Armenia has
a few notches more sovereignty than Macedonia or any EU candidate or member-state.
Rather, the already institutionalized line of presidential succession was observed. Power
passed from Sargsyan not to opposition leader Pashinyan, but to Karapetyan – Sargsyan's
hand picked no 2 man. So far, this 'thwarting' of the color tactic then is successful, and this
stage of the counter-tactic was also successfully used in Macedonia when power transfered from
Gruevski not to the opposition's Zaev, but to Dmitriev, who was able to hold things together
for another year and a half until May of 2017, when finally Zaev slithers in. As we know, in
the end, for the Russians involved in helping Macedonia thwart the color tactic, the candle was
ultimately not worth the game, and the Atlanticist structure led by Zaev was allowed to mostly
assume power last year in May.
The opposition would then look for some way that Karapetyan can be broken off from Sargsyan
and Sarkissian.
The Republican Party, of Sargsyan, is still in power. Those soldiers you saw marching with
the protesters? Evidence emerged they were 'encouraged' by wealthy individuals the pro-American
Armenian diaspora to the tune of thousands per head. The military will be charging them for
violating the expected or obvious rules in play surrounding soldiers participating while on
duty and in uniform in legally questionable or opposition activities.
So as Pashinyan today 'restarts' the protests, he faces a problem. He was able to capitalize
and generate opposition to the cult of Sargsyan. With Sargsyan 'gone', and with Pashinyan
still not satisfied , a section of the rank-and-file opposition goes over to the idea
that this is about Pashinyan (and not Sargsyan). So, the opposition loses support. This is
exactly the rut that Macedonia's Zaev found himself in, until the breakthrough in May of last
year.
So we have two layers of confusion, several possible traps – that are 'wrong doors' to
push through or some 'wrong trees' to be barking up. Who has the power? Again, the 2015
constitutional changes have been 'untested' in court. Perhaps Sargsyan is a false target
– the (also) Republican Sarkissian may be holding the keys, or maybe its Karepetyan. One
can see instantly how this meandering maze of structures and interests can confuse not only
external actors like the US, but even those operating very intimately within Armenian power
structures.
There is a science to the Color Revolution, and likewise but lesser known, a science to
countering these. While Gene Sharp wrote authoritatively on these subjects, he is better known
for his work on the 'revolution' part, than the 'counter-coup' against it.
This is a subject which I have devoted no small amount of time to writing about, in detail,
in the past. In particular, on the situation in Armenia going back to the 2015 'Electric
Yerevan' situation. In my piece on the Electric Yerevan from 2015, I explore the tactical,
social-psychological, and sociological (class) dimensions. From the feedback from readers and
peers in my field, the piece seems to be considered a great primer or summary of the tactic
broadly applied. It can be read here:
Electric Yerevan and Lessons on the Color-Spring Tactic
Some of our readers may not know that my background before the Center for Syncretic Studies
and its Fort Russ project here in the Balkans, I was – in Los Angeles – a
professional labor and community organizer, strategist, and negotiator for a local in one the
US's two major trade union federations, SEIU.
The tools we used were in large part pioneered by many unknown labor organizers from a
century ago, often 'bolshevik' or 'anarchist' agitators who (in fact quite honestly) fought
against the robber barons of the Gilded Age. Many of the 'truisms' and 'insights' were
distilled into a few accessible books, like 'Rules for Radicals' by Saul Alinsky.
I subsequently took this experience, and have consulted both Macedonians and Russians
– activists, officials, experts, and journalists (including some readers may know)
– and shared these in order to help stop the Color-Spring tactic from finding
success.
What's clear is that the last three and four years, the Russians have clearly been
working on the science of the 'counter-coup' – how to cancel, stop, redirect, or mitigate
the color revolution tactic. They found some success in Macedonia at first, but ultimately
arrived at what appears as a loss or set-back. However, it did delay the process significantly,
by about two years, and allowed other facts on the ground to emerge in the interim.
We saw this used first in Libya, and then in Syria. These entailed mass mobilizations for
government support. I wrote in 2015 in 'Electric Yerevan':
"What the government of Armenia can do is utilize the same science of organizing, and work
the protests in reverse. They should not, under most conditions, use the state gendarmes to
evict the encampments. Rather, they must cut the head and take control of the body."
In conclusion, what we are witnessing right now is tremendously fascinating, and outside
of the practical and immediate questions posed, gives us tremendous insights into how power
actually functions and operates in countries which only have 3rd or 4th tier levels of
sovereignty.
The fact that mass protests continue after Sargsyan´s resignation is the proof (
if more was neede, It seemed to me a colour revolution all the way since the beginning,
by the "style" of the protesters...) that this is not about Sargsyan perpetuating himself
at power or even his alleged corruption, but to overthrow the legitimate government by a
minority of liberal economically accomodated people ( look at the images that these are
not Armenian proletarians...) who have no other way to grab power through elections as
happened to the nazis in the Ukraine ( or everywhere...)
Of course, rivers of money have run in Armenia amongst the ranks of the military and
police who have joined these "protests"....
Excellent analysis Joaquin. Young people are easily bought with dreams - Armenia needs
to offer them an alternative dream, and also to confront them with their past so they can
understand the likely consequences of their revolt.
Armenia!? I thought you were describing Canada! Missed the header and started on the
inbred hill bandit clan plotting & maneuvering. Lashings of apology.
Though in the interest of translation-Your excellent description and analysis
describe
what is known here in the- Frosty Bananas Republic ,as-The Harem Eunuchs Coup.
Well nigh a tradition at this point.
Under direct isreali direction and ownership-rather than management of Darkest Yankydom
at this point. NOT an improvement on any axis.
You can see this in the further(!) degeneration of our cut rate ever whored Treasonous
"Elites".
I find interesting, in order to locate the source after these "protests" that
Pashynian is calling to block highways and roads and access to government
building/facilities the same way/script they followed the Catalan independentists when
they were trying to declare unilateral independence from Spain obviating at least half
the electorate in Catalonia....
They have bused in their supporters, but all in all it's not a large support base. The
crucial thing is not letting them buy off the security establishment.
However, you said violence cannot be resorted to. What about in Kiev? In a recent
Putin docu, he claims the West asked him to sway the Kiev leadership away from violence.
He did, he says. "The next day," they did the coup. Putin claims they tricked him. I
doubt that. I doubt he believed there'd be no coup. But it's cause for pause.
During street protests in the West, violence is always used to stop things. It's showy
but easy; it gives coppers a chance to pretend they're important. But you're saying
Armenia just doesn't have enough sovereignty (due to unreliable state tools, disloyal
defense forces) to rely on basic law enforcement (i.e., arresting people who are
literally destabilizing the country)? I can believe that, I guess. (Wonder how much that
"band" System of a Down are involved in this crap.)
Whatever the case, it's still big evil's game being played. Are you encouraging
lightweights to sumo fight heavyweights? There's another problem: everything's in
reaction, in defense. That's alright when we're preventing hot war, but not while in the
middle of a psych war. You have to beat the anglos to the punch on something.
Under most conditions, it should be avoided, is what I said. It can be some 'last
resort' - but, by the time that the Maidan protests came to mass violence, it was really
too late for Berkut to do anything.
I suggest creating strong barriers and gatekeepers between national-international
exchanges.And national government oversight over groups with ties to foreign
entities.
Armenia is a crucial piece for Putin and Russia's security. The two militaries have
been close.
Thus the urgency to inject instability and Color tactics.
You are right, Armenia is crucial for Russian security but without Russia Armenia
would be an easy target for Turkey and Azerbaijan. It would be a suicidial act to let
western vultures infiltrate and organize violent protests similar to what happened in
Ukraine.
In order to prevent that Russia must get involved and not repeat the mistake of not
interfering in Ukraine prior Maidan. Crucial point is to prevent Russophobia, which
failed in Ukraine. And why not use their tactics and so called NGO. Russia must be way
more active in this hybrid war. It is always on defending side.
Russian diplomats in Armenia have met with the opposition leaders and there is
communication going on.
I think they are not going to let the US steal Armenia and turn it against Russia.
There is a prepared approach that started with Maria Zakharova's social media words
yesterday immediately signaling Russia's friendship with the Armenian people.
The official representative of Russian foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova said on the
events in Armenia in the social network Facebook.
"The people who has power even in the most difficult moments of its history to be
separated and to maintain respect for each other, despite the categorical differences,
great people. Armenia, Russia always with you!" -- wrote Maria Zakharova.
It won't be soon forgotten that Putin was the world leader who has given the Armenian
holocaust its proper recognition. He did that despite the Turks and Erdogan's resistance
and threats at the time to any world recognition of their crimes against the
Armenians.
Well, we're in the middle of a transitional period, political circuses are going to be
main attraction in town until it's over.Hope everyone puts in some effort to minimize
casualties and avoid tragedies
Looks like the US might be giving Israel a green light on going to Iran.
from Jerusalem Post-- Mattis, receiving Liberman, warns of 'likely' conflict between Israel and Iran
"I can see how it might start, but I am not sure when or where," the secretary told
lawmakers.
WASHINGTON -- Direct conflict between Israeli and Iranian forces is increasingly likely in
Syria as Tehran pursues a permanent military presence there, US Secretary of Defense James
Mattis warned on Thursday.
Addressing a congressional panel before hosting his Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Liberman, at
the Pentagon, Mattis said it was "very likely" from his perspective, "because Iran continues
to do its proxy work there through Hezbollah." . .
here
and from DOD: Readout of Secretary Mattis' Meeting with Israeli Minister of Defense Avigdor
Lieberman
Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis met today with Israeli Minister of Defense Avigdor
Lieberman to discuss mutual security issues, including Iranian malign influence and
destabilizing affects in the region.
Secretary Mattis and Minister Lieberman reaffirmed their commitment to the U.S. - Israeli
defense relationship and qualitative military edge, as well as the United States' unwavering
commitment to Israel's security. . .
here
Posted by: Don Bacon | Apr 27, 2018 9:37:59 AM |
102Don Bacon , Apr 27, 2018 10:26:57 AM |
103
Mattis mentioned Iran twice in his Senate testimony yesterday, coupled with North Korea, with
a return to those pesky Iran "nuclear ambitions." The US has had a lengthy war on "terror" so
how about a war on "ambitions." Any excuse for war will do.
> Rogue regimes like North Korea and Iran persist in taking outlaw actions that undermine
and threaten regional and global stability.
> While recent events have given rise to a sense of positive movement, North Korea's
nuclear provocations threaten regional and global peace and have garnered universal
condemnation by the United Nations. Iran's nuclear ambitions also remain an unresolved
concern. . . here
If Merkel refers to a total cessation of Iran's nuclear program, then she's technically
correct. Except, the deal wasn't made to attain that outcome as Iran was not going to
relinquish its rights under the NPT. And just what are "the problems with Iran" Merkel
alludes to? Iran's helping to defeat NATO's terrorists within Iraq and Syria? Insisting the
Outlaw US Empire obey International Law and abandon its illegal incursion into Syria? Trying
to awaken the real International Community to the massive crime being committed daily in
Yemen and the longstanding ongoing crime against Palestinian peoples by Zionists? Seems to me
those are Merkel's problems, not a problem with Iran.
Merkel is a symbol for Germany in this regard, a puppet to american interest, add to that
the sucking up o israel and the result
is a vassal neocon-zionist warbent regime.
Will Germany be part of another conflict of war, this time with Iran? Crazy state (no offense
to germans, this is the illogical behaviour by all of eu which of course not will follow
Germany and thus US in its new warmongering).
"... Haley is a fool and grotesquely ignorant. ..."
"... She is a vile creature who has no contact with truth whatsoever. Does Trump not see this at all? Perhaps he does in a dim way, but by now he is so suborned and by the Deep State and depressed by the relentless opposition that he is probably glad no one is criticizing his U.N. appointment at least. ..."
"... Haley ran for governor of SC as the "tea party" candidate. She killed the careers of a number of would be Republican establishment politicians, which is why many voted for her. In other words, she is a total opportunist, a classic, typical unprincipled Republican. ..."
"... She has learned how to manipulate the system up to a certain point, but is too dumb to go any further. How sad that people like Adelson are able to buy elections. ..."
"... Ask Mike Pence. She's Pence's pick. Pence wants a fellow Ziocon stooge at the UN instead of pro Assad Tulsi Gabbard. ..."
"... She is not a moron; rather smart, clever and articulate riding on the wings of the jew to power. Immorality is her shield, no one her judge, americans a lower caste, the jew a higher caste. ..."
"... Nikki Haley is just a bit-part actress similar to the talented & useful woman featured in LeCarre's complex but educational novel "The Little Drummer Girl." ..."
"... Most men don't like their trophy wives either, that is, they like them at first but the match soon deteriorates from there. They tend to look good in the original packaging but are way overpriced and not worth the money. Buyers remorse is the rule rather than the exception. ..."
"... Nimrata the neocon harpy is just one of the gifts that the 1965 immigration and naturalization act keeps on giving. She's the Republican version of Hildabeast Clinton. ..."
"... "Nikki Haley in a nutshell: stupid; big mouth; infantile understanding of foreign affairs; easily manipulated; will do anything for more money and attention; and a total dumbshit sellout to Israel with zero integrity, morality, or empathy. " ..."
"... Hmmmm. A typical Trump appointee. Trump saw her qualifications and just had to have her on his team. He sees himself in her, y'know. ..."
"... The mistake here is to talk about the "US". The "US" (as in the population of the United States), have no to say in any of this. They voted against war but it was pointless (Trump is ramping up the pressure on Russia and Iran) and that crowd of US "consumers" is as politically useless as it gets. ..."
I have noticed Haley's awfulness from the beginning, which I see is now 15 months. Awful
though Bolton is, one feels that he has some knowledge that might even make him pull back
from Armageddon (maybe, not sure).
But Haley is a fool and grotesquely ignorant. Notice how, in the alleged chemical
attacks, she takes no thought or action at all to ascertain truth, but she outdoes herself
trumpeting the harm caused, and the children suffering.
As if the fact that children are suffering somehow proves guilt. I can't imagine anything
so ignorant.
She is a vile creature who has no contact with truth whatsoever. Does Trump not see
this at all? Perhaps he does in a dim way, but by now he is so suborned and by the Deep State
and depressed by the relentless opposition that he is probably glad no one is criticizing his
U.N. appointment at least.
Never dismiss the fool, for he wards no fear, no blame and and no trust. He sees no worth
or value and can be swayed by the most trivial things. He seeks no reward but an emotional
gratification. While these sound of a foe easily defeated the truth is oft the opposite for
your threat and presence are fallen on the senseless. If you must fight a fool you must give
him room and let hubris and frailty fight your war, otherwise, you must be swift, with out
mercy and be able to ward the madness that will ensue.
I don't know who penned that but I think it's profound.
Nikki Haley's yappings are just the barking of a dog.
She has no agency. If she sounds 'scary', it's only because she is owned by Zionist
globalist supremacists. If they ordered her to shut up and be nice to Russia and Iran, she
will obey.
She has no mind of her own. Same with Bolton the Dolton.
And she's different from Samantha Power, how? Under Obomba
Or John Bolton under Bush the Lesser?
Seems to be a tradition in the making of putting the most arrogant, rude, least
diplomatic, and aggressive person possible in the position of ambassador to the UN.
Has anybody ELSE been steady, three administrations, non-stop PUKING? Makes it clear, if
nothing else, our "humanitarian" face has peeled off, revealing the brain-eating zombie
underneath.
When you confront staunch Israel supporters with the isolation of Israel in the world, as can
be seen at UN voting, the answer is that this is because of the anti Israel Muslim bloc in
the UN.
The weird thing about jews is that with all their cleverness they're unable to see
reality.
Israel is right, the rest of the world is wrong.
Now even if this were the case, any sensible person would take reality into
consideration.
Not so idiots as Netanyahu.
When the next jewish catastrophe has happened, jews again will see how how they are the
eternal innocent victims, if then jews still will exist, as a nuclear world war is likely to
kill any human being world wide.
Already around 1953 a USA diplomat said that Israel should behave as a small ME country, in
stead of the head of an international group.
They still do not understand.
Once (Bolton) was kind of an anomaly, because, after all, it WAS Bush the Lesser.
But Nobel Peace Prize-sporting Obomba, puts in Power.
Now we got Haley.
Maybe TWICE is a co-inkydink, but this is absurd! Fucking EVERYBODY blows us away
diplomatically! Who is worse? N. Korea does some wicked TWEETS, but their diplomats are
circumspect. Ours are visibly RABID.
One of these days, someone is gonna put us out of their misery, and suck though it will,
it will be highly deserved! Afterward, perhaps humans can progress once the USA is a giant
smoking crater. Or at least D.C. Has ANYONE ever begged for it THIS bad? Ever?
Nikki Haley is THE mouthpiece of the Zionist aggressive occupation regime. She serves its
interests and acts to the detriment of the American people that have to carry the can for the
partisanship with this rogue Zionist state. President Trump should sack her before she
challenges him in the next presidential race. Haley will have the backing of the
trigger-happy Ziocon establishment and the Zionist billionaires.
Together with John Bolton, they seem like the perfect "Doomsday Couple" to bring the U.S.
down. Perhaps they are the last true believers in Zionism, the Jewish racist ideology,
although both are not Jewish. It's not surprising that Jewish and American exceptionalism are
similar in their racist beliefs.
Haley's behavior is hyperbolic, arrogant, and extremely dangerous to the reputation of the
U. S. but it seems as if she acts according to the slogan: Freely you live, if you haven't a
reputation to lose. But under the borderline Trump administration even a "un-American"
behavior, it benefits the Zionist regime, seems acceptable.
So far, all so-called chemical weapons attacks by the al-Asad government were false flag
attacks carried out either by al-Nusra, ISIS or al-Qaida terrorist organizations or by the
"White Helmets" themselves that are a so-called a terrorist affiliate organization, disguised
as paramedics, to draw the U. S. directly into the Syrian conflict.
Under Obama, they failed, and Trump made some symbolic bombings to pacify the
trigger-happy Zionist lobby. How mentally deranged Haley seems, shows her arrogant statement:
"We need to see Russia choose to side with the civilized world over an Assad government that
brutally terrorizes its people."
With which "civilized world" should Russia take sides? Does Haley mean the U. S. or the
Zionist occupation regime? The first one has slaughtered millions of people in endless wars,
the later has been subjugated another people for over 50 years and destroyed its existence.
This "civilized world" and its values are for the garbage dump.
Despite his twitter manticism, Trump was still a kind of common sense that can
differentiate between the good for America in contrast to the good for Israel for the sake of
the American people.
Noeconservatives arguably don't have enough appeal for them to get the presidency.
Unfortunately, they can still have clout as evidenced by Haley in her role and how the likes
of MSNBC and CNN uncritically praise her.
Well if she does make it to POTUS we have historical equivalence. The Dying days of the Roman
western Empire. in the mid 4th century BC. Roman Empire at this stage had two imperial
cities. one situated in ROME being hounded by the Goths and the other one in the East
Byzantium present day Istanbul. The point is in the western dying Imperial days they put as
emperor a child well Haley becomes POTUS one could only say History repeating itself. The
scary thing about all this is pax-americana is slowly dying. Recent economic figures coming
out of the west show this. All recent gains have nothing in common with industrial output.
Profits are all related to the stockmarket grandest ponzi scheme in the history of western
man.
Latest events from the Skripal imbroglio to Douma all show signs of desperation .
BY DECEPTION YOU MAY WAGE WAR.
Note the three countries that illegally bombed Syria on the sad nite of April 13th 2018 were
the exact ring leaders to the total destruction of the highest standard of living of the
African continent.
RINSE ,LATHER ,REPEAT.
Post Scriptum: It is sad and scary to see that from 1999 to this day not withstanding all the
lies that NATO and FUKUS have spewed to the world and have been exposed as such we the
sheeple can fall for the same trap.
THE WEST HAS ENTERED INTO THE WORLD OF ZOMBIES .
Critical thinking gets labelled as enemies of the state. Boy Goebbels must be so envious of
recent events.
How Orwellian our western society has become.
Another very good article by Philip Giraldi. If the US wasn't dominated by foreign agents and
roving gangs of ziocon lobbyists, Giraldi would be widely respected, considered 'mainstream',
and known to millions. But powerful forces are determined to prevent this.
What we get instead are empty suits reading scripts.
We live in an era where political extremism (aggressive war is a prime example of
extremism) has been declared 'centrist' and 'moderate'. Advocates of non-intervention are
labeled 'fringe'.
Political illusions happen. They happen by design.
Fortunately, Giraldi demonstrates a commendable ability to separate US interests from
contrived foreign agendas. This is not often done. And he does it well.
For revealing this, Giraldi and a few other daring intellectuals have been defamed as 'far
right'. Their sin? Telling the truth (to the best of their ability) about Zio-American
malfeasance in American life and on the world stage.
Their quiet exile from the corridors of political power shows how debased and unmoored our
culture has become. Giraldi's diminished status is the end-product of targeted censorship,
economic sabotage, and strategic defamation. This phenomena affects us all.
What do we get instead?–delusional sell-outs like John McCain, Lindsey Graham,
Hillary Clinton and Nikki Haley. Frauds all, including the journalists who adore them. The
corruption in America is wide and deep.
Washington's queer political values are hopelessly under the thrall of liberal
interventionists, ne0con militarists, televised war barkers, and deep state vampires. These
amoral extremists have become America's political 'establishment'.
Trump notwithstanding, the Swamp, the alphabet government agencies, the two Parties, the
major lobbies, donors, and NGOs (and of course, Big Media) are what rules America.
Average, non-organized voters have no political influence.
But it is our mainstream news and entertainment media that ultimately earns the most
responsibility for Zio-Washington's trigger-happy embrace of aggressive militarism in all
policies and instances that could affect Israel (which is virtually everything.)
This Zionist 'value' opens a very big door.
This commitment is a recipe for endless strife and intervention. Yet our media supports
it. Continuously and uniformly.
And the chief beneficiary is (you guessed it).
Incredibly, Washington spends far more time agonizing over borders and security in the
far-away shitholes (pardon the expression) than on our own southern border. Who dreamt up
this ridiculous scheme?
This level of corrupt insanity did not happen by accident.
Incredibly, if enough empty suits and talking heads repeat a myth or falsehood enough
times, it becomes 'true'. Voila! The magic of TV.
Political hallucinations and bizarre double standards become very real. Very 'true'.
The problem with being arrogant when you are on top of the world is that you are remembered
and reviled when you get knocked down a peg. The guys in the dock at Nuremburg learned that
at the end of a rope. She'll never face that sort of justice, though, because we can't lose,
right?
The lack of any coherence in policy means that the State Department now has diplomats
that do not believe in diplomacy and environment agency heads that do not believe in
protecting the environment.
But I disagree, Mr. Giraldi! Their is coherence in State policy, that is to serve the
State of Israel.
Nutty Nikki is idiotic, vindictive, hateful and very bellicose and would not hesitate to
use our kids and tax dollars to support Apartheid Israel, and is loved by multi-billionaire
Sheldon Adelson, which means she will be the next POTUS.
Haley ran for governor of SC as the "tea party" candidate. She killed the careers of a
number of would be Republican establishment politicians, which is why many voted for her. In
other words, she is a total opportunist, a classic, typical unprincipled Republican.
She has learned how to manipulate the system up to a certain point, but is too dumb to
go any further. How sad that people like Adelson are able to buy elections.
When is Trump going to prosecute Soros for conspiracy to interfere with the U.S. and other
countries?
The lack of progress on immigration can, maybe, be explained as Trump faces fierce
resistance, but Bolton, Haley, and Pompeo are unforced/forced errors, that will make it
nearly immposible for him to keep his promise of ending these stupid wars.
Better than Hillary, but more than a little disappointing.
Haley has too many skeletons in her closet to run for president. While running for SC
governorship rumors of her affair with conservative blogger Will Folks surfaced. She tried to
deny it of course, claiming to be "completely faithful" to her husband of 13 years, then Will
Folks shared text messages and frequent, lengthy middle of the night phone calls between
them, some as long as 180 minutes, all after 10pm (hey she had to put the kids to bed first):
In his latest book, Michael Wolffe claimed that Nikki Haley had an affair with Trump,
which Haley dismissed as "disgusting", one wonders if Trump took that as a compliment.
Wouldn't surprise me one bit if Haley is sleeping with her current "advisor" at the UN
(paid for by taxpayers btw) Jon Lerner, who she has also kindly shared with Mike Pence, one
hopes only the advising part, not the bed, but who knows.
Something tells me she's sleeping with Netanyahu as well. She sure loves her Jewish
men.
"Ambassadors" are supposed to make peace, but Trump who claimed he wanted to end all foreign
wars end up with an ambassador to the World who only wants to make wars, with everybody! She
even wanted Trump to send troops to Venezuela! Anytime Trump is within 10 ft of this mad
woman, he's talking about bombing somebody.
Was there ever any evidence that Trump considered Tulsi for Amb. to UN? Wasn't that just
goofy talk from Tulsi's fans?
I doubt she would have wanted it, anyway. Not exactly a step up, being appointed to a
position from which you could be summarily dismissed .. as opposed to an elected official
with a definite term and, other than pressure from the DNC – which she has handily
bucked – freedom to express independent views.
She is not a moron; rather smart, clever and articulate riding on the wings of the jew
to power. Immorality is her shield, no one her judge, americans a lower caste, the jew a
higher caste.
I keep wondering why Trump has not fired that know-nothing. He's not been afraid to fire
people for far less offenses against his Admin. I suspect that the Israel Lobby will not let
him, and made him hire her in the first place. She used to be a "Never-Trumper," after all.
In an otherwise fine piece, I wish that Giraldi would have opined as to why she's still
there.
Haley is a stupid, opportunistic woman who simply goes where the money is, and that is by
doing the bidding of the Zionists in USA and Israel. The author even points out that her
mentor is Zionist asswipe from the National Review Johah Goldberg's wife! She comes across as
such a stupid woman that she perhaps doesn't realize she's being brainwashed and used as a UN
mouthpiece of advance the Zionist Israeli agenda.
Nikki Haley in a nutshell: stupid; big mouth; infantile understanding of foreign affairs;
easily manipulated; will do anything for more money and attention; and a total dumbshit
sellout to Israel with zero integrity, morality, or empathy.
Well, what I'm trying to say, very sadly, is that this insufferable douchebag wench will
most likely be your next president
Does a purportedly high IQ protect one from stupidity?
High IQ signals intelligence, but not wisdom. Wisdom comes from experience, and being able
to apply your high IQ to learn from those experiences. Many high IQ people in fact lack
practical wisdom a.k.a. common sense
No doubt, it's hard especially for an ally (like me) to get under Philip Giraldi's
thick-skin, but I am compelled to try now.
Nikki Haley is just a bit-part actress similar to the talented & useful woman featured
in LeCarre's complex but educational novel "The Little Drummer Girl."
Indeed, she could become President of ZUS as could Oprah Winfrey. All originate from
Jewish Central Casting, selection.
In closing, linked below is some homegrown CENSORSHIP originating from "The Land of Milk
& Honey."
Most men don't like their trophy wives either, that is, they like them at first but the
match soon deteriorates from there. They tend to look good in the original packaging but are
way overpriced and not worth the money. Buyers remorse is the rule rather than the
exception.
to show disdain for the UN by sending yet another cartoon Exceptionalist;
factional carveups: to give the neoTrotsykites a position that they think is
meaningful;
to keep Haley out of domestic politics and too busy to properly prepare the ground
for a presidential candidacy.
There are probably others – note that none of them has anything to do with diplomacy
or international relations (except as a repudiation of the concepts).
Neither are effective at all: under both Bolton and now Haley (and "RicePower") the
US has had to increase the baksheesh it distributes around the world in order to buy
compliance and diplomatic support – they have, as a group been unable to slow the
decline of US prestige.
So the 'operational' side of things is a wash.
Bolton's preternaturally unpersuasive, because he's a grotesque parody of a human
being.
And there's where it gets interesting: there is upside risk to Haley if she were
able to Clintonise herself – by which I mean behave more like Bill , not more
like Hillary. If she was more 'aw-shucks', she would get more done (frankly I don't think
that's her aim, because like all politicians she's interested in doing things for herself,
not for her current boss).
Haley could be far more persuasive/effective because in her best moments she's quite
personable (plus she's still very pretty when she turns on the charm, which is always
a plus).
The downside is that her 'best' moments are very few and far between – she spends
most of her time with that particularly waspish hate-face so common among formerly-pretty
women who realise that their best years are behind them.
Frankly, the notion that she's a plausible presidential candidate is laughable: when the
US does eventually elect a female president, the successful candidate will be whiter than the
whitest Pilgrim.
It is beyond farcical to believe that the Republican voter base would elect a 'dusky'
woman for the highest national office: bear in mind that Haley would be repudiated ex
ante by Democrats because she's on the wrong side, and US presidential politics is almost
entirely decided by base-mobilisation.
Deep down Haley probably realises this, and that will also be a source of rancour.
How exactly are these neocon Israel apologists created, vetted, accepted?
It must be some weird ceremony that would make La Cosa Nostra look like
a Ladies Garden Club invitation.
By the way, 3,000 Palestinians weren't shot at the latest dustup.
Nimrata the neocon harpy is just one of the gifts that the 1965 immigration and
naturalization act keeps on giving. She's the Republican version of Hildabeast Clinton.
If she ever ascends to the throne in D.C. her "conservatism" will consist of militant
philo-semitism while being liberal on social policy and a warhawk on foreign policy. Hannity
will gush joyfully over her.
"Nikki Haley in a nutshell: stupid; big mouth; infantile understanding of foreign affairs;
easily manipulated; will do anything for more money and attention; and a total dumbshit
sellout to Israel with zero integrity, morality, or empathy. "
Hmmmm. A typical Trump appointee. Trump saw her qualifications and just had to have her on
his team. He sees himself in her, y'know.
To keep the bluff going, the US can't afford to push the button. End of story.
The mistake here is to talk about the "US". The "US" (as in the population of the United States), have no to say in any of this. They
voted against war but it was pointless (Trump is ramping up the pressure on Russia and Iran)
and that crowd of US "consumers" is as politically useless as it gets.
Power in the US is held by a rabid crowd of Zionist who control Congress and the media,
and THEY DECIDE what happens along the lines of "Israel First".
So your question should be, "To keep the bluff going, can Israel afford to push the (US)
button?"
The answer could well be Yes.
1) Syria and Iran would be destroyed giving Israel undisputed dominance of the Middle
East.
2) The US would be plunged into chaos and the COG (Continuity of Government) legislation
installed by Reagan would come into play. This is basically an Emergency Dictatorship run
from bunkers around the US, that the Zionists tried for on 9/11 (and failed to get) but would
certainly achieve under this new scenario.
With totalitarian control of the United States, the Zionist Neo-Bolsheviks could do what
they wanted with the remains of the US population, and who cares if 100 million Goys die in a
nuclear exchange with Russia/China (which would also conveniently be in ruins).
...President Barack Obama, who had run a quasi-antiwar liberal campaign for the White House, had embraced the assassination program
and had decreed, "the CIA gets what it wants." Intelligence budgets were maintaining the steep upward curve that had started in 2001,
and while all agencies were benefiting, none had done as well as the CIA At just under $15 billion, the agency's budget had climbed
by 56 percent just since 2004.
Decades earlier, Richard Helms, the CIA director for whom the event was named, would customarily
refer to the defense contractors who pressured him to spend his budget on their wares as "those bastards." Such disdain for commerce
in the world of spooks was now long gone, as demonstrated by the corporate sponsorship of the tables jammed into the Grand Ballroom
that evening. The executives, many of whom had passed through the revolving door from government service, were there to rub shoulders
with old friends and current partners. "It was totally garish," one attendee told me afterward. "It seemed like every arms manufacturer
in the country had taken a table. Everyone was doing business, right and left."
In the decade since 9/11, the CIA had been regularly blighted by scandal-revelations of torture, renditions, secret "black site"
prisons, bogus intelligence justifying the invasion of Iraq, ignored signs of the impending 9/11 attacks-but such unwholesome realities
found no echo in this comradely gathering. Even George Tenet, the CIA director who had presided over all of the aforementioned scandals,
was greeted with heartfelt affection by erstwhile colleagues as he, along with almost every other living former CIA director, stood
to be introduced by Master of Ceremonies John McLaughlin, a former deputy director himself deeply complicit in the Iraq fiasco. Each,
with the exception of Stansfield Turner (still bitterly resented for downsizing the agency post-Vietnam), received ringing applause,
but none more than the night's honoree, former CIA director and then-current secretary of defense Robert M. Gates.
Although Gates had left the CIA eighteen years before, he was very much the father figure of the institution and a mentor to the
intelligence chieftains, active and retired, who cheered him so fervently that night at the Ritz-Carlton. He had climbed through
the ranks of the national security bureaucracy with a ruthless determination all too evident to those around him. Ray McGovern, his
supervisor in his first agency post, as an analyst with the intelligence directorate's soviet foreign policy branch, recalls writing
in an efficiency report that the young man's "evident and all-consuming ambition is a disruptive influence in the branch." There
had come a brief check on his rise to power when his involvement in the Iran-Contra imbroglio cratered an initial attempt to win
confirmation as CIA director, but success came a few years later, in 1991, despite vehement protests from former colleagues over
his persistent willingness to sacrifice analytic objectivity to the political convenience of his masters.
Gates's successful 1991 confirmation as CIA chief owed much, so colleagues assessed, to diligent work behind the scenes on the
part of the Senate Intelligence Committee's staff director, George Tenet. In 1993, Tenet moved on to be director for intelligence
programs on the Clinton White House national security staff, in which capacity he came to know and esteem John Brennan, a midlevel
and hitherto undistinguished CIA analyst assigned to brief White House staffers. Tenet liked Brennan so much that when he himself
moved to the CIA as deputy director in 1995, he had the briefer appointed station chief in Riyadh, an important position normally
reserved for someone with actual operational experience. In this sensitive post Brennan worked tirelessly to avoid irritating his
Saudi hosts, showing reluctance, for example, to press them for Osama bin Laden's biographical details when asked to do so by the
bin Laden unit back at headquarters.
Brennan returned to Washington in 1999 under Tenet's patronage, initially as his chief of staff and then as CIA executive director,
and by 2003 he had transitioned to the burgeoning field of intelligence fusion bureaucracy. The notion that the way to avert miscommunication
between intelligence bureaucracies was to create yet more layers of bureaucracy was popular in Washington in the aftermath of 9/11.
One concrete expression of this trend was the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, known as T-TIC and then renamed the National Counter
Terrorism Center a year later. Brennan was the first head of T-TIC, distinguishing himself in catering to the abiding paranoia of
the times. On one occasion, notorious within the community, he circulated an urgent report that al-Qaeda was encrypting targeting
information for terrorist attacks in the broadcasts of the al-Jazeera TV network, thereby generating an "orange" alert and the cancellation
of dozens of international flights. The initiative was greeted with malicious amusement over at the CIA's own Counterterrorism Center,
whose chief at the time, José Rodríguez, later opined that Brennan had been trying to build up his profile with higher authority.
"Brennan was a major factor in keeping [the al-Jazeera/al-Qaeda story] alive. We thought it was ridiculous," he told a reporter.
"My own view is he saw this, he took this, as a way to have relevance, to take something to the White House." Tellingly, an Obama
White House spokesman later excused Brennan's behavior on the grounds that though he had circulated the report, he hadn't believed
it himself.
Exiting government service in 2005, Brennan spent the next three years heading The Analysis Corporation, an obscure but profitable
intelligence contractor engaged in preparing terrorist watch lists for the government, work for which he was paid $763,000 in 2008.
Among the useful relationships he had cultivated over the years was well-connected Democrat Anthony Lake, a former national security
adviser to Bill Clinton, who recommended him to presidential candidate Barack Obama. Meeting for the first time shortly after Obama's
election victory, the pair bonded immediately, with Obama "finishing Brennan's sentences," by one account. Among their points of
wholehearted agreement was the merit of a surgical approach to terrorist threats, the "need to target the metastasizing disease without
destroying the surrounding tissue," as Brennan put it, for which drones and their Hellfire missiles seemed the ideal tools. Obama
was initially balked in his desire to make Brennan CIA director because of the latter's all-too-close association with the agency's
torture program, so instead the new president made him his assistant for counterterrorism and homeland security, with an office down
the hall from the Oval Office. Two years into the administration, everyone in the Ritz-Carlton ballroom knew that the bulky Irishman
was the most powerful man in U.S. intelligence as the custodian of the president's kill list, on which the chief executive and former
constitutional law professor insisted on reserving the last word, making his final selections for execution at regularly scheduled
Tuesday afternoon meetings. "You know, our president has his brutal side," a CIA source cognizant of Obama's involvement observed
to me at the time.
Now, along with the other six hundred diners at the Helms dinner, Brennan listened attentively as Gates rose to accept the coveted
award for "exemplary service to the nation and the Central Intelligence Agency." After paying due tribute to previous honorees as
well as his pride in being part of the CIA "family," Gates spoke movingly of a recent and particularly tragic instance of CIA sacrifice,
the seven men and women killed by a suicide bomber at an agency base, Forward Operating Base Chapman, in Khost, Afghanistan, in 2009.
All present bowed their heads in silent tribute.
Gates then moved on to a more upbeat topic. When first he arrived at the Pentagon in 2007, he said, he had found deep-rooted resistance
to "new technology" among "flyboys with silk scarves" still wedded to venerable traditions of fighter-plane combat. But all that,
he informed his rapt audience, had changed. Factories were working "day and night, day and night," to turn out the vital weapons
for the fight against terrorism. "So from now on," he concluded, his voice rising, "the watchword is: drones, baby, drones!"
"... So, Nikki Haley very much comes across as the neoconservatives' dream ambassador to the United Nations – full of aggression, a staunch supporter of Israel, and assertive of Washington's preemptive right to set standards for the rest of the world. And there is every reason to believe that she would nurture the same views if she were to become the neocon dream president. ..."
"... Bearing the flag for American Exceptionalism does not necessarily make her very good for the rest of us, who will have to bear the burdens and risks implicit in her imperial hubris, but, as the neoconservatives never feel compelled to admit that they were wrong ..."
She's clearly aiming for the Oval Office and would be the dream occupant for neocons
The musical chairs playing out among the senior officials that make up the President Donald
Trump White House team would be amusing to watch but for the genuine damage that it is doing to
the United States. The lack of any coherence in policy means that the State Department now has
diplomats that do not believe in diplomacy and environment agency heads that do not believe in
protecting the environment. It also means that well-funded and disciplined lobbies and pressure
groups are having a field day, befuddling ignorant administrators with their "fact sheets" and
successfully promoting policies that benefit no one but themselves.
In the Trumpean world of all-the-time-stupid, there is, however, one individual who stands
out for her complete inability to perceive anything beyond threats of unrelenting violence
combined with adherence to policies that have already proven to be catastrophic. That person is
our own Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley , who surfaced in the news lately after
she unilaterally and evidently prematurely announced sanctions on Russia. When the White House
suggested that she might have been "confused" she responded that "With all due respect, I don't
get confused." This ignited a firestorm among the Trump haters, lauding Haley as a strong
and self-confident woman for standing up to the White House male bullies while also suggesting
that the hapless Administration had not bothered to inform one of its senior diplomats of a
policy change. It also produced a flurry of Haley for higher office tweets based on what was
described as her "brilliant riposte " to the president.
One over-the-top
bit of effusion from a former Haley aide even suggested that her "deft rebuttal" emphasizes
her qualities, enthusing that "What distinguishes her from the star-struck sycophants in the
White House is that she understands the intersection of strong leadership and public service,
where great things happen" and placing her on what is being promoted as the short list of
future presidential candidates.
For sure, neocon barking dog Bill Kristol has for years been promoting Haley
for president, a sign that something is up as he was previously the one who "discovered" Sarah
Palin. Indeed, the similarities between the two women are readily observable. Neither is very
cerebral or much given to make any attempt to understand an adversary's point of view; both are
reflexively aggressive and dismissive when dealing with foreigners and domestic critics; both
are passionately anti-Russian and pro-Israeli. And Kristol is not alone in his advocacy. Haley
regularly receives praise from Senators like South Carolina's Lindsey Graham and from the
Murdoch media as well as in the
opinion pages of National Review and The Weekly Standard.
The greater
problem right now is that Nikki Haley is America's face to the international community, even
more than the Secretary of State. She has used her bully pulpit to do just that, i.e. bully,
and she is ugly America personified, having apparently decided that something called American
Exceptionalism gives her license to say and do whatever she wants at the United Nations. In her
mind, the United States can do what it wants globally because it has a God-given right to do
so, a viewpoint that doesn't go down well with many countries that believe that they have a
legal and moral right to be left alone and remain exempt from America's all too frequent
military interventions.
Nikki Haley sees things differently, however. During her 15 months at the United Nations she
has been instrumental in cutting funding for programs that she disapproves of and has
repeatedly threatened military action against countries that disagree with U.S. policies. Most
recently, in the wake of the U.S. cruise missile attack against Syria, she announced that the
action was potentially only the first step. She declared that Washington was "locked and
loaded," prepared to exercise more lethal military options if Syria and its Russian and Iranian
supporters did not cease and desist from the use of chemical weapons. Ironically, the cruise
missile attack was carried out even though the White House had no clue as to what had actually
happened and it now turns out that the entire story, spread by the terrorist groups in Syria
and their mouthpieces,
has begun to unravel . Will Nikki Haley apologize? I would suspect that if she doesn't do
confusion she doesn't do apologies either.
Haley, who had no foreign policy experience of any kind prior to assuming office, relies on
a gaggle of neoconservative foreign-policy "experts" to help shape her public utterances, which
are often not cleared with the State Department, where she is at least nominally employed. Her
speechwriter is Jessica Gavora, who is the wife of the leading neoconservative journalist Jonah
Goldberg. Unfortunately, being a neocon mouthpiece makes her particularly dangerous as she is
holding a position where she can do bad things. She has been shooting from the lip since she
assumed office with only minimal vetting by the Trump Administration, and, as in the recent
imbroglio over her "confusion," it is never quite clear whether she is speaking for herself or
for the White House.
Haley has her own foreign policy. She has
declared that Russia "is not, will not be our friend" and has lately described the Russians
as having their hands covered with the blood of Syrian children. From the start of her time at
the U.N., Haley has made it clear that she is neoconservatism personified and she has done
nothing since to change that impression. In December 2017 she warned the U.N. that she was
"taking names" and threatened retaliation against any country that was so "disrespectful" as to
dare to vote against Washington's disastrous recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital,
which she also helped to bring about.
As governor of South Carolina, Haley first became identified as an unquestioning supporter of Israel through her
signing of a bill punishing supporters of the nonviolent pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and
Sanctions (BDS) movement, the first legislation of its kind on a state level. Immediately
upon taking office at the United Nations she complained that "nowhere has the U.N.'s failure
been more consistent and more outrageous than in its bias against our close ally Israel" and
vowed that the "days of Israel bashing are over." On a recent visit to Israel, she was feted
and
honored by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. She was also greeted by rounds of
applause and cheering when she spoke at the annual meeting of the American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in March, saying "When I come to AIPAC I am with friends."
Nikki
Haley's embrace of Israeli points of view is unrelenting and serves no American interest. If
she were a recruited agent of influence for the Israeli Mossad she could not be more
cooperative than she apparently is voluntarily. In February 2017, she blocked the appointment
of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to a diplomatic position at the United
Nations because he is a Palestinian. In a
congressional hearing she was asked about the decision: "Is it this administration's
position that support for Israel and support for the appointment of a well-qualified individual
of Palestinian nationality to an appointment at the U.N. are mutually exclusive?" Haley
responded yes, that the administration is "supporting Israel" by blocking every Palestinian.
Haley is particularly highly critical of both Syria and Iran, reflecting the Israeli bias.
She has repeatedly said that
regime change in Damascus is a Trump administration priority, even when the White House was
saying something different. She has elaborated on an Administration warning that it had "identified
potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime"
by tweeting " further attacks will be blamed on Assad but also on Russia and Iran who
support him killing his own people." At one point, Haley warned "We
need to see Russia choose to side with the civilized world over an Assad government that
brutally terrorizes its own people."
At various U.N. meetings, though Haley has repeatedly and uncritically complained of
institutional bias towards Israel, she has never addressed the issue that Israel's treatment of
the Palestinians might in part be responsible for the criticism leveled against it. Her
description of Israel as a "close ally" is hyperbolic and she tends to be oblivious to actual
American interests in the region when Israel is involved. She has never challenged the Israeli
occupation of the West Bank as well as the recent large expansion of settlements, which are at
least nominally opposed by the State Department and White House. Nor has she spoken up about
the more recent shooting of three thousand unarmed Gazan demonstrators by Israeli Army
sharpshooters, which is a war crime.
Haley's hardline on Syria reflects the Israeli bias, and her consistent hostility to Russia
is a neoconservative position. A White House warning that it had "identified
potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime led to a
Haley elaboration in a tweet that " further attacks will be blamed on Assad but also on
Russia and Iran who support him killing his own people." Earlier, on April 12, 2017 after
Russia blocked a draft U.N. resolution intended to condemn the alleged Khan Shaykhun chemical
attack, which subsequently turned out to be a false flag, Haley said , "We
need to see Russia choose to side with the civilized world over an Assad government that
brutally terrorizes its own people."
Haley is particularly critical of Iran, which she sees as the instigator of much of the
unrest in the Middle East, again reflecting the Israeli and neocon viewpoints. She claimed on
April 20, 2017 during her first session as president of the U.N. Security Council, that Iran
and Hezbollah had "conducted terrorist acts" for decades within the Middle East, ignoring the
more serious terrorism support engaged in by U.S. regional allies Saudi Arabia and Qatar. She
stated in June 2017 that
the Security Council's praise of the Iran Nuclear Agreement honored a state that has engaged in
"illicit missile launches," "support for terrorist groups," and "arms smuggling," while
"stok[ing] regional conflicts and mak[ing] them harder to solve." All are perspectives that
might easily be challenged.
So, Nikki Haley very much comes across as the
neoconservatives' dream ambassador to the United Nations – full of aggression, a staunch
supporter of Israel, and assertive of Washington's preemptive right to set standards for the
rest of the world. And there is every reason to believe that she would nurture the same views
if she were to become the neocon dream president.
Bearing the flag for American Exceptionalism does not necessarily make her very good for
the rest of us, who will have to bear the burdens and risks implicit in her imperial hubris,
but, as the neoconservatives never feel compelled to admit that they were wrong , one
suspects that Haley's assertion that she does not do confusion is only the beginning if she
succeeds in her apparent quest for the highest office in the land. Worse than John Bolton?
Absolutely.
"A very senior civilian colleague in DIA once asked me why sophisticated weapons so often
malfunction or are otherwise defeated. I told her that it was simply a fact of life that in
actual warfare "whatever can go wrong, will go wrong." She resolutely stated that this should
not be. "The manufacturers guarantee that they will work as advertised," she insisted. "
Another reason we can't win wars and we get into wars we shouldn't. Senior officials that
naive and uninformed about warfare.
Lockheed Martin got $35.2 billion from taxpayers last year. That's more than many
federal agencies.
Of Lockheed Martin's $51 billion in sales last year, nearly 70 percent, or $35.2
billion, came from sales to the U.S. government. It's a colossal figure, hard to
comprehend.
Boeing is in second place with annual sales of $26.5 billion in 2016, a year in which
the top five defense contractors -- including General Dynamics, Raytheon and Northrop
Grumman -- had total sales of nearly $110 billion to the U.S. government, according to
federal procurement data. The five biggest defense contractors took in more money from the
U.S. government than the next 30 companies combined.
But no one can touch Lockheed, the manufacturer of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The
company is so big that some have likened it to a government agency and have quipped that
Marillyn Hewson, Lockheed's chief executive, is as powerful as a Cabinet secretary -- or
higher. When she gives her annual state of the company speeches, flanked by a pair of flags
-- one American, one with the company logo -- she looks, well, presidential.
In 2013, Marine Corps Gen. Jim Mattis, now the secretary of defense, told Congress, "If
you don't fully fund the State Department, then I need to buy more ammunition."
Analysts say that to make the Lockheed-Martin Marietta merger successful, the new
company will have to slash thousands of jobs.
" This merger can't create more revenue. It can only pay off through reduced
costs , and that means people" will be laid off, said Robert D. Paulson, who heads the
aerospace industry practice for the consulting firm McKinsey & Co. in Los Angeles.
--
Norman Augustine was the focus of the article and head of the merged companies who was
expected to wield the "scalpel" in order make the merger financially viable.
Over the years I'd done some research on Augustine, so when I saw a video of Augustine
schmoozing with George W. Bush at the Cosmos Club celebrating Bush's inauguration early in
2001, I thought, Uh oh, the game's afoot.
Cutting staff simply was not producing the revenue stream Lockheed Martin needed to
support lavish lifestyles that even LM weapons sellers enjoyed, particularly when their major
clients were based in TelAviv, requiring visits of 5 to 8 months' duration.
Some of you do not understand the degree of compartmentation in government. It is nothing
like a monolith. The WHs are largely funded by USAID which is part of State Department, and
administered by the UK. There is no particular reason why Mattis would know much about it. It
is possible that Trump doesn't know much about it.
If Mattis didn't know about it, then he should have done and likewise with Trump.
Ignorance of the hard facts by either of these men is scarcely believable and even if true
would be totally inexcuseable.
"Lange didn't support the strike but he saw it as the best of a lot of bad options."
Better than the option of allowing a real investigation?
At the crucial moment, Lang published the following on his website. More than likely it
was seen by Mattis:
An appeal to James Mattis
I beseech you, sir, to consider the possibility that the supposed chlorine gas attack at
Douma, Syria may have been a carefully constructed propaganda fraud on the part of the
rebels encircled in Douma. Such a fraud would have as its purpose the elicitation of
exactly the kind of response that we are seeing in the Western media. The rebels have been
defeated in East Gouta Their fighters and families are being evacuated to Turkish occupied
Jarabulus by air-conditioned bus. How would it benefit the Syrian government to make such
an attack in this situation?
I hope that you will determine the exact facts of what occurred at Douma before any
action is taken.
I recommend that you send someone competent to Syria to make an on the ground
investigation.
If Mattis didn't know about it, then he should have done and likewise with Trump.
Ignorance of the hard facts by either of these men is scarcely believable and even if true
would be totally inexcuseable.
It were wise to consider that Mattis' access to information might be being impeded –
actively and/or passively – by the NeoCon bitter enders installed during the previous
administrations, people who believe that it is their job to do so. (We have been seeing this
very thing from the bitter enders at the FBI and the "Justice" departments in their plotting
against the new administration, yes? So you have an example of that right in front of your
eyes.)
With that understanding, and given Col. Lang's likely experience of this sort of
obstruction by hostile underlings, his appeal to Mattis might be seen as an admonition to dig
a little deeper, & to press his underlings about their truthfulness. So, Mattis could
indeed be misinformed, and precisely because of the compartmentalization that you accede.
Hence the letter going hand in hand with his worries about active and/or passive obstruction
in access to vital information, or the existence of contrary intelligence and
interpretation.
It does not matter if protests are genuine or artificial. They will be co-opted and exploited by West in the most nefarious fashion
with resulting drop of the standard of living or 90$ of population or even 99%. Ukraine is a good example here. This is a neoliberal
Catch 22
NGO became completely infiltrated by intelligence agencies and as such have a huge destabilizing role in any protests. Providing
both organizational and material help.
Notable quotes:
"... Western backed Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been heavily involved in post Soviet Armenia's education system, community and charity works. These NGOs have been selling the public on the perception that Armenia's economic woes are directly the result of their corrupt, Russia friendly government, as well as Russia itself. ..."
"... Additionally, if these protests continue to move in a violent direction, and categorically seek regime change , if the government does not step down in favor of the opposition, but instead opts to call in the military to defend itself, then the situation could lead to a destabilization of the country . During such a period of chaos, it is not unthinkable that the Azerbs could seize the opportunity to launch a fresh campaign to take Nagorno Karabakh while Armenia's government and forces are concerned with preserving order elsewhere. ..."
"... Meanwhile, the well meaning populace of Armenia has no idea that their grievances are being played upon by international interests like a pawn on a global chess board. ..."
"The people are against my rule," Sargsyan, who took office as prime minister after serving as Armenia's president for 10 years,
said in a statement.
"I am leaving my post."
As Bloomberg reports, the announcement came as demonstrators flooded the streets of the capital, Yerevan, for an 11th day on Monday
demanding Sargysan's resignation, and hours after police released opposition leader Nikol Pashinyan from overnight detention.
Pashinyan's arrest prompted the largest protest to date on Sunday , while scores of troops joined the anti-government movement
on Monday for the first time.
Sargsyan's election as Prime Minister was largely perceived as a power grab because Sargsyan will largely retain the same powers
that he held during his two terms in the Presidential capacity, and took place just after Armenia's April 9th transition from a presidential
system to that of a prime ministerial one.
But as The Duran's
Frank Sellers detailed previously, this social unrest (and now resignation) has all the markings of a Ukraine-esque Western-backed
effort at regime change to once again disrupt Russia.
Western backed Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been heavily involved in post Soviet Armenia's education system,
community and charity works. These NGOs have been selling the public on the perception that Armenia's economic woes are directly
the result of their corrupt, Russia friendly government, as well as Russia itself.
Hence, the concept that Sargsyan's government has only made matters for the population worse is the grievance upon which much
of the unrest hinges. With Sargsyan seen as being in bed with the Russians, and his further development of Armenia's ties with
Russia, these protests therefore possess a potentially disastrous outcome, both domestically, for the Armenians, and also geopolitically,
as it threatens Russia's position in the region.
However, Armenia has been playing both sides of the fence in recent years, as it has additionally been moving closer to the European
Union, signing itself to a Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement with the European bloc, attempting to deepen diplomacy
and economic ties with the West, while simultaneously making commitments to Russia's economic initiatives in the region. Russia gets
a villainous wrap over the fact that Russia is playing both sides of the Nagorno Karabakh-Azerb conflict, as Russia is the benefactor
of both players, the common perception, derived from the propaganda of these NGOs, is that Russia benefits by stoking the conflict.
The situation, in effect, represents a powder keg scenario, with all the elements in place to provoke the necessary popular discontent
that would play into an attempt at regime change.
And, indeed, this situation has all the markings of a color revolution, as the ring leader for this movement, Nikol Pashinyan,
is already calling it a "velvet revolution", an allusion to the regime change that took place in Czechoslovakia in 1989.
Pashinyan has called upon protesters
to obstruct roadways and prevent the opening of governmental offices, and has been so bold as to declare that the Armenian government
"no longer holds legitimacy", and that all government agencies and police personnel should only be obedient to "committees" appointed
by his revolution.
Keep in mind, however, that Sargsyan hasn't, thus far, broken any law, nor violated the Armenian constitution, so, Pashinyan's
claim against Sargsyan's legitimacy can only be viewed as a baseless instigation for further violence and an obstinate unwillingness
to look for a middle ground scenario, or peaceful resolution to the situation at hand. An unwillingness to compromise satisfies
one of the key factors that is commonly seen in many color revolutions.
The typical manner in which Western backed color revolutions unfold is when a peaceful protest about legitimate grievances are
hijacked to become the catalyst for a violent revolution. If we consider the EuroMaidan revolution that took place in 2014, a peaceful
protest turned violent after the slaughter of the "heavenly hundred" by mystery snipers, killing police and protesters both, in order
to help the conflict along to a point of no return to peace.
To date, the situation on the streets of Yerevan seems to be going in a similar direction, as the protests have already turned
semi violent, with police officers sustaining knife wounds. Note that this sort of behaviour is foreign to the Armenian psyche. Western
provocateurs are often present to stir up mayhem when these tragedies occur. Pictured here are some of the assailants, observe also
that the fellow on the left is not an Armenian.
Sadly, as Sellers concludes, many Armenians are of the persuasion that by changing their government and rejecting Russia as
Armenia's strategic partner, in favour of hopeful Western integration, Armenia will realize greater economic opportunity, and a vastly
improved standard of living for the average Armenian.
However, what does history show us about just what Western-backed regime changes bring to their victim nation? Let's observe the
economic situation in the Ukraine before and after the coup d'état,
as reported by Vesti :
If we evaluate the results of the new government, they're simply disastrous for the country. In the year before the coup, the
GDP was estimated at $180 billion, in 2017 it's expected to be half as much, $90 billion.
The average salary in the country was more than halved, from $408 per month to $196 last year. The exchange rate of the hryvna
fell three and a half times, from 8 to 27 per dollar. As the main high-tech enterprises are destroyed, the economy acquired a
colonial structure.
More and more raw materials are exported, being nearly 80% of exports. Half of this is agrarian. Total export volume fell by
57%. Foreign direct investment fell by at least four times, from 6 billion a year to one and a half. That's practically nothing.
And out of this nothing, however, most of the investment still comes from Russia.
The national debt has been increasing all the time and has now become difficult to be paid back. It was 64 billion dollars
which then became 80 billion. Many millions of its citizens have left the country in search of a better life. Some of them went
to the West, some to Russia. The health system and the education system have deteriorated.
The system of legal proceedings as well. Corporate raiding became the norm. Corruption increased. The country broke into pieces.
Poroshenko and his team deceived everyone: the West, and Russia, and their people in terms of the country's prospects, the
practices of the new government, and the Minsk Agreements.
An about-face with regards to Russia, and an adherence to the West, however, not only fails to present the economic outcome that
many Armenians might hope for, but it presents a very real danger in the form of a greater escalation of conflict with its neighbor
Azerbaijan , with regards to Nagorno Karabakh, the last such major conflict costed the lives of some 6,000 Armenians, and approximately
30,000 Azeris.
Additionally, if these protests continue to move in a violent direction, and categorically seek regime change , if the government
does not step down in favor of the opposition, but instead opts to call in the military to defend itself, then the situation could
lead to a destabilization of the country . During such a period of chaos, it is not unthinkable that the Azerbs could seize the opportunity
to launch a fresh campaign to take Nagorno Karabakh while Armenia's government and forces are concerned with preserving order elsewhere.
Such a renewed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan produces results that are simply unpredictable, concerning the geopolitical
implications regarding the involvement of Russia and NATO, seeing as Armenia hosts Russian military bases, while Azerbaijan is host
to a NATO base , but if the Armenians have broken off its relations with the Russians in the favor of the West, Russian involvement
is left in a state of bewilderment, while the conflict devastates Russia's economic and military perspective in the region. This,
therefore, holds the possibility of being the next proxy war between Russia and the West.
Therefore, these protests are exceedingly dangerous, not just for the region, but also relevant to the geopolitical balance of
power between the east and west, due to the possibilities that could be unleashed if these protests escalate out of control. While
protests against Sargsyan's government isn't anything new, considering the protests of recent years, the protests taking place at
the present time differ from its predecessors in the sense that previous riots were confined only to Yerevan, whereas the current
uprising is national in its scale, and therefore presents a much greater concern.
Meanwhile, the well meaning populace of Armenia has no idea that their grievances are being played upon by international interests
like a pawn on a global chess board.
The fact that 99.9% of neocons are chickenhawks and never experienced the level of sufferings
the wat inflicts on people is defining chanracteristic of all US neocons. Especially female
neocon -- a unique US breed.
Notable quotes:
"... At the core of the American philosophy is voluntarism, the justification of action based purely and simply on the will. ..."
"... The clearest and perhaps the best expression of American voluntarism come of age was expressed by Karl Rove during the George W. Bush administration, as reported by Ron Suskind in New York Times Magazine ..."
"... We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do. ..."
"... The point of the voluntarist order is to act, to impose one's will on global reality by any means necessary. The truth is not something to be understood, or grasped, still less something that should condition one's own actions and limit them in any way. Truth is reducible to whatever is useful for imposing one's will. ..."
"... For America's voluntarist order, whether these events as described are true in the objective sense is of no more importance than whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. You will recall that, just prior to the Iraq invasion, the CIA waterboarded Abu Zubaydah some 83 times in order to oblige him to confess a nonexistent connection between Saddam's Iraq, al-Qaeda, and chemical weaponry. That is voluntarism in action right there. "We're an empire now and we create our own reality." It was not a one-off. It is now the norm to make sure the facts are fixed to match the desired policy. ..."
"... Voluntarism is the fruit of an anti-civilization, and of a technological way of knowing, as the great Canadian philosopher George Grant put it, that bears a striking resemblance to what C.S. Lewis described in his pre- Nineteen Eighty-Four ..."
At the core of the American philosophy is voluntarism, the justification of action based
purely and simply on the will. The distinguishing characteristic of voluntarism is that it
gives pride of place to the will as such, to the will as power, the will abstracted from
everything else, but especially abstracted from the good. The notion of the good is necessarily
inclusive of the whole, of all sides. Concern exclusively for oneself goes by a different
name.
The clearest and perhaps the best expression of American voluntarism come of age was
expressed by Karl Rove during the George W. Bush administration, as reported by Ron Suskind in
New York Times Magazine on October 17, 2004:
We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying
that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities,
which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors and you,
all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
This oft-quoted statement is naively assumed to have been the expression of a single moment
in American politics, rather than a summation of its ethos by one of its shrewder and more
self-aware practitioners. The point of the voluntarist order is to act, to impose one's will on
global reality by any means necessary. The truth is not something to be understood, or grasped,
still less something that should condition one's own actions and limit them in any way. Truth
is reducible to whatever is useful for imposing one's will.
We can see this voluntarism at work among our forebears. The Skripal affair in Britain led
to almost immediate action -- the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats from the United States
alone -- well before the facts of this dubious incident, which has led to zero deaths, could be
established. Indeed, when the leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, suggested first
establishing what had happened and only then acting, he was widely accused of weakness. When
one is "history's actor," action mustn't be delayed. That, after all, is the whole point.
The suffering of innocents should always concern us. But in Syria, the facts regarding who
is the guilty party, including in this latest case of a gas attack in Douma, are very far from
having been established. What's more, though reputable investigators such as Hans Blix and
MIT's Theodore Postol have cast serious
doubt on the reliability of the evidence linking such attacks to Assad's government,
official accounts in the U.S. proceed as if there is not the slightest controversy about the
matter.
For America's voluntarist order, whether these events as described are true in the objective
sense is of no more importance than whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. You
will recall that, just prior to the Iraq invasion, the CIA waterboarded Abu Zubaydah some 83
times in order to oblige him to
confess a nonexistent connection between Saddam's Iraq, al-Qaeda, and chemical weaponry.
That is voluntarism in action right there. "We're an empire now and we create our own reality."
It was not a one-off. It is now the norm to make sure the facts are fixed
to match the desired policy.
Voluntarism is the fruit of an anti-civilization, and of a technological way of knowing, as
the great Canadian philosopher George Grant put it, that bears a striking resemblance to what
C.S. Lewis described in his pre- Nineteen Eighty-Four anti-utopia That Hideous
Strength . In that novel, the institution called N.I.C.E., like the U.S. foreign policy
establishment today, is essentially a voluntarist bureaucracy run by men without culture,
trained in technical sciences and sociology-like "disciplines" and "law" understood in a purely
formalistic sense, who assume human affairs are understandable as aggregates of facts without
value. Such "men without chests" (Lewis's phrase) live in a world where the good and the true
have forever been severed of their mutually defining link. The resulting, essentially
irrational world they inhabit is one that has only one logic left: that of will and power.
It is an American empire where we create our own reality, the mirror image of ourselves, and
it is indeed precisely hideous. If the builders of empire continue to get their way, it may all
soon enough come to a violent and ignominious end. Historians, if they still exist, will marvel
at our folly.
Paul Grenier, an essayist and translator who writes regularly on
political-philosophical issues, is founder of the Simone Weil Center for Political
Philosophy.
For another outstanding account of 'a technological way of knowing', check out Jacques
Ellul's 'The Technological Society'.
Not only was this incident fabricated, it was known the preparations were known in
advance. I remember reading an article two weeks before Douma about the preparations for the
fabrication. Felix Somary was quite right in writing in July 1914 that "the information
available to insiders, and precisely the most highly placed among them, is all to often
misleading" (quoted in Jim Rickards "The Road to Ruin").
Volunteerism, voluntarism, the mysterious workings of the "will," we're famous for all of it,
but this is not so uniquely American, Rove's comment reminds me of something that Tolstoy
might put in Napoleon's mouth, actually. Pride, plus the tunnel-vision typical of
technocrats, academics, specialists
Karl Rove is a man without a chest–a "chickenhawk," a proud and willful man puffed
up on ignorance and willpower, wrecking the world–and nothing more than that, unless he
wills it to be.
Volunteerism is two things, Power to the Ladies Who Lunch, and we don't have to pay for a
social safety net because somebody else will provide it voluntarily for free.
It has no larger meaning, and no role in foreign policy.
The foreign policy described here is just Smedley Butler's "racket" using US foreign
policy and forces for private ends.
Paul has made reclaiming Congress' role in matters of war one of his signature issues.
Pompeo testified before the Foreign Relations Committee that he doesn't think the president
needs Congressional authorization to order attacks on other states. Trump's nominee thinks that
the president can start wars on his own authority, so Paul should be voting against his
nomination for that reason alone. Voting to confirm Pompeo is an effective endorsement of the
very illegal and unauthorized warfare that Paul normally condemns.
"Instead, Paul will get nothing except widespread derision for caving to pressure. "
Depressing. I thought he'd have more guts. Perhaps he's keeping his ammunition dry for
some important purpose, and maybe the White House IOU he now holds has value. We'll see.
I have disliked Sen. Paul ever since the British Petroleum disaster, when he bemoaned that
making BP pay for damages was "anti-business" as if seafood fisheries, motels, and
restaurants were not businesses too.
Syria civil war is the result of a attempt to stage a color revolution in the country,
exploiting temporary economic difficulties, mistakes by Assad government, overpopulation and lack
of water. Money were supplied mostly by the USA and Saudi.
Empire does creates its own reality. Syria is a nice example of the reality that the US empire creates...
Notable quotes:
"... To start this conflict and then keep its fires burning the US and its Satellites have spent billions of dollars. It's curious that the New York Times has recently uncovered the criminal role that the CIA played in the Syrian war, reporting that members of the Obama administration have told them that Saudi Arabia is sponsoring the absolute majority of overseas unannounced overseas wars, to keep the role played in them by Washington a secret. At times the US and Saudi Arabia would share their intelligence, while in some cases Riyadh just hand out large sums of money to CIA operatives, without asking any questions. ..."
"... Back in 2013 the CIA and Riyadh have agreed on launching an operation under the code name the Timber Sycamore that is aimed at toppling Syria's elected officials through the continuous training and supported provided to all sorts of radical militants. ..."
"... And again, h/t Jacob Freeze, more Imperial Scurvy: 'Syria Will Stain Obama's Legacy Forever; The arc of history is long, but it won't ever judge the president's Syria policy kindly', David Greenberg, foreignpolicy.com , Dec. 29, 2016, accompanied by the obligatory photos of the White Helmuts 'saving' wee chirren. ..."
"... In fact many Syrians did not want civil war -- understandably enough since the human and material costs would be devastating. Second, large numbers of Syrians who had no fondness for Assad had even greater reason to fear what might come after him: very likely some combination of radical jihadi forces. Indeed, victorious jihadis might likely then have gone on to wage an internecine power struggle among themselves, just like the civil war among the Afghan mujahideen after the withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1988; it all but destroyed the country." ..."
"... "The world has learned that any state that does not accept the U.S.-designed order in the Middle East by definition becomes a "rogue regime" -- hence losing any sovereign rights on the international scene. And Washington's policies have all along been heavily driven by Israel's own regional agenda. It's a bitter pill then: acceptance of Assad's remaining in power until the international order can eventually craft some new political process that offers more representative government there ." (blink, blink) ..."
"... "We believe Bashar's weaknesses are in how he chooses to react to looming issues, both perceived and real, such as the conflict between economic reform steps (however limited) and entrenched, corrupt forces, the Kurdish question, and the potential threat to the regime from the increasing presence of transiting Islamist extremists. This cable summarizes our assessment of these vulnerabilities and suggests that there may be actions, statements, and signals that the USG can send that will improve the likelihood of such opportunities arising." ..."
"... To Hasan, the Syrian State's position on the political spectrum is unrelated to its goals: overcoming sectarian and other divisions in the Arab world, safeguarding Syria's political independence, and achieving economic sovereignty. Nor does it matter that Damascus is engaged in a struggle against (to use Hasan's own words) "rapacious U.S. foreign policy", "Saudi-inspired extremism" and "Israeli opportunism" -- in other words, the aggression of conservative and reactionary forces that are more powerful individually to say nothing of collectively than the Syrian State by many orders of magnitude. To the Mahatma, all of these considerations are irrelevant, and all that matters in the evaluation of Assad's political orientation is whether the methods Damascus has used to defend the gains it has made in the direction of asserting its right to equality and sovereignty are methods that that are suitable to a State in periods of stability, normalcy and safety. It's as if what Hasan deplores about a war cabinet, for example, is not the war that made the war cabinet necessary, but the very fact that a war cabinet was created in response to it, as if carrying on in the regular manner could somehow make the war go away." ..."
"... Gowans added a bit more reality on Hasan's 'diatribe' today with: ' Meet Syria's real mass murderers' ..."
"... Related, of course: William Blum's ' Overthrowing other people's governments: The Master List' (since WW II) Spoiler alert: it's a long list ..."
The Worthy: According to RT : Jeffrey Sachs ,
economist, UN special adviser, and Colombia University professor told MSNBC's Morning Joe
program that the current situation in Syria is a "US mistake that started seven years
ago."
Those seven years have been a "disaster," he said, recalling a covert CIA operation
called 'Operation: Timber Sycamore. ' The US "started a war to overthrow a
regime."
"This is what I would call the 'Permanent State.' This is the CIA, this is the Pentagon
wanting to keep Iran and Russia out of Syria, but we have no way to do that. And so we have
made a proxy war in Syria.
"And so, what I would plead to President Trump is: Get out, like your instinct told you
Get out. We've done enough damage in seven years," he said."
'Operation Timber Sycamore And Washington's Secret War On Syria; To start this conflict and
then keep its fires burning the US and its Satellites have spent billions of dollars' by Martin
Berger: DIA Docs: West Wants A "Salafist Principality In Eastern Syria" By Robert
Barsocchini , mintpressnews.com
In part:
"To start this conflict and then keep its fires burning the US and its Satellites have spent
billions of dollars. It's curious that the New York Times has recently
uncovered the criminal role that the CIA played in the Syrian war, reporting that members
of the Obama administration have told them that Saudi Arabia is sponsoring the absolute
majority of overseas unannounced overseas wars, to keep the role played in them by Washington a
secret. At times the US and Saudi Arabia would share their intelligence, while in some cases
Riyadh just hand out large sums of money to CIA operatives, without asking any questions.
Back in 2013 the CIA and Riyadh have agreed on launching an operation under the code name
the Timber Sycamore that is aimed at toppling Syria's elected officials through the continuous
training and supported provided to all sorts of radical militants. Under the deal the Saudis
contribute both weapons and large sums of money, and the CIA takes the lead in training the
rebels on AK-47 assault rifles and tank-destroying missile. Moreover, Turkey, Jordan and Qatar
have all been involved in this criminal design, even though exact amounts of money that the
above mentioned states handed over to the CIA will always remain a secret. Still, the New York
Times states that Saudi Arabia has been the major sponsor throughout all this time, allocating
billions of dollars in a bid to bring down the government of Bashar al-Assad."
More from the internal NYT 'U.S. Relies Heavily on Saudi Money to Support Syrian Rebels',
NYTimes.com , Jan. 23, 2016
"WASHINGTON -- When President Obama secretly authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to
begin arming
Syria s embattled rebels in 2013, the spy agency knew it would have a willing partner to
help pay for the covert operation. It was the same partner the C.I.A. has relied on for decades
for money and discretion in far-off conflicts: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Since then, the C.I.A. and its Saudi counterpart have maintained an unusual arrangement for
the rebel-training mission, which the Americans have code-named Timber Sycamore.
By the summer of 2012, a freewheeling feel had taken hold along Turkey's border with Syria
as the gulf nations funneled cash and weapons to rebel groups -- even some that American
officials were concerned had ties to radical groups like Al Qaeda.
The C.I.A. was mostly on the sidelines during this period, authorized by the White House
under the Timber Sycamore training program to deliver nonlethal aid to the rebels but not
weapons. In late 2012, according to two former senior American officials, David H. Petraeus,
then the C.I.A. director, delivered a stern lecture to intelligence officials of several gulf
nations at a meeting near the Dead Sea in Jordan. He chastised them for sending arms into Syria
without coordinating with one another or with C.I.A. officers in Jordan and Turkey.
Months later, Mr. Obama gave his approval for the C.I.A. to begin directly arming and
training the rebels from a base in Jordan, amending the Timber Sycamore program to allow lethal
assistance. Under the new arrangement, the C.I.A. took the lead in training, while Saudi
Arabia's intelligence agency, the General Intelligence Directorate, provided money and weapons,
including TOW anti-tank missiles."
And again, h/t Jacob Freeze, more Imperial Scurvy: 'Syria Will Stain Obama's Legacy Forever;
The arc of history is long, but it won't ever judge the president's Syria policy kindly', David
Greenberg, foreignpolicy.com
, Dec. 29, 2016, accompanied by the obligatory photos of the White Helmuts 'saving' wee
chirren.
Self-explanantory in the main, but:
"Since the Syrian uprising began in 2011, Americans have regarded the carnage there as
essentially a humanitarian disaster. For Obama, contemplating his legacy, the awful death and
destruction that Syria has suffered -- the 400,000 deaths, the wholesale wasting of civilian
neighborhoods, the wanton use of sarin gas and chlorine gas and barrel bombs, the untold
atrocities -- has raised the old question of how future generations will judge an American
president's passivity or ineffectuality in the face of mass slaughter."
Here Barsocchini features some of the docs that are hard to read on the pdfs: 'DIA Docs:
West Wants A "Salafist Principality In Eastern Syria" , Robert Barsocchini , 26 May, 2015,
Countercurrents.org, (plus he helpfully adds a few related definitions, and more history re:
the Sauds.
Clearly this is the Scurvy : Graham E.
Fuller 's 'What is the U.S. Fighting for in Syria?, ( former senior CIA official),
April 18, consortiumnews.com, and he did he did face some strong objections in the comments,
but not enough, imo, as did Sybil Edmonds' hits on Bartlett and Beeley even as he got some of
it right, of course. A few bits:
"The power struggle between the Assad regime and the array of diverse insurgents has
oscillated over seven years. Initially, when the government faced the first outbreak of
domestic insurgency in 2011 , it appeared that he might not last long in the evolving Arab
Spring. But he proved resilient."
[wd here: Ah, the CIA-George Soros, anti-Communist Otpor- sponsored Arab Spring
; have you forgotten your roots, dude?]
"He was willing to strike back ruthlessly at the early uprisings and nip them in the bud. He
was aided by the fact that the Syrian population was itself highly ambivalent about any
collapse of his government. As regional regimes went it was unquestionably autocratic but not
more brutal than usual in the region -- at least not until early insurgent forces challenged
the regime's existence and Damascus began to show real teeth.
In fact many Syrians did not want civil war -- understandably enough since the human and
material costs would be devastating. Second, large numbers of Syrians who had no fondness for
Assad had even greater reason to fear what might come after him: very likely some combination
of radical jihadi forces. Indeed, victorious jihadis might likely then have gone on to wage an
internecine power struggle among themselves, just like the civil war among the Afghan
mujahideen after the withdrawal of Soviet forces in 1988; it all but destroyed the
country."
"The world has learned that any state that does not accept the U.S.-designed order in the
Middle East by definition becomes a "rogue regime" -- hence losing any sovereign rights on the
international scene. And Washington's policies have all along been heavily driven by Israel's
own regional agenda. It's a bitter pill then: acceptance of Assad's remaining in power until
the international order can eventually craft some new political process that offers more
representative government there ." (blink, blink)
Worthy from
Caitlin Johnstone , the Worthy: ' America's Long History of Trying to Determine Who Rules
Syria' , April 12, 2018, consortiumnews.com; some excerpts:
" The 2006 William Roebuck Cable
A December 13, 2006 cable published by WikiLeaks reveals
how five years prior to the beginning of the violence, the US government (USG) was seeking out
weaknesses of the Assad government which could be exploited to undermine it. William Roebuck,
an official at the US embassy in Damascus, said this in his summary of the cable:
"We believe Bashar's weaknesses are in how he chooses to react to looming issues, both
perceived and real, such as the conflict between economic reform steps (however limited) and
entrenched, corrupt forces, the Kurdish question, and the potential threat to the regime from
the increasing presence of transiting Islamist extremists. This cable summarizes our assessment
of these vulnerabilities and suggests that there may be actions, statements, and signals that
the USG can send that will improve the likelihood of such opportunities arising."
(She links to more information on that at
Truthout.org , Oct. 9)
" The 1986 CIA Memo
A CIA
document declassified last year exposed a plot to overthrow the Syrian government by
provoking sectarian tensions all the way back in 1986. Here are
a few juicy excerpts : [wd here: I'll provide a couple]
"We believe that a renewal of communal violence between Alawis and Sunnis could inspire
Sunnis in the military to turn against the regime."
"Sunni dissidence has been minimal since Assad crushed the Muslim Brotherhood in the
early 1980s, but deep-seated tensions remain–keeping alive the potential for minor
incidents to grow into major flareups of communal violence Excessive government force in
quelling such disturbances might be seen by Sunnis as evidence of a government vendetta against
all Sunnis, precipitating even larger protests by other Sunni groups."
"Mistaking the new protests as a resurgence of the Muslim Brotherhood, the government
would step up its use of force and launch violent attacks on a broad spectrum of Sunni
community leaders as well as on those engaged in protests. Regime efforts to restore order
would founder if government violence against protestors inspired broad-based communal violence
between Alawis and Sunnis."
Rebutting the Scurvy and Topsy-Turvey : On April 21, the good Stephen Gowans
deconstructed some creepiness at the Intercept in his ' Mehdi Hasan, beautiful soul,
and his diatribe against the consequential Left'
"If it wasn't already clear, The Intercept's Mehdi Hasan, wants us to know he's a
beautiful soul. In an April 19
diatribe against "Bashar al Assad apologists," Hasan professes his distaste for war crimes,
torture, and dictatorship, no matter the source, but devotes particular attention to the
violence and restrictions on political and civil liberties attributable to the Syrian
president. Assad, Hasan concludes, "is a war criminal even if he didn't gas civilians," and
leftists should stop defending him. The journalist, who once worked for the Qatari monarchy's mouthpiece Al
Jazeera , then proceeds to recite a litany of charges against Assad, some undeniable, some
unproved or unprovable. One gets the impression that he's peeved that the latest chemical
weapons allegations against the Syrian government, ridiculously thin to begin with, and now
largely demolished by
Robert Fisk's reporting , have failed to stick." [snip]
" Hasan has turned the distinction between goals and methods on its head . In Hasan's view,
leftists are defined not by what they're trying to achieve, but by the methods they use.
Torture, dictatorship, abridgement of civil liberties, warfare that produces collateral
civilian casualties -- all these things, according to Hasan, are signs of a contra-left
political orientation. Thus, he argues, with illogic, that "Bashar al-Assad is not an
anti-imperialist of any kind, nor is he a secular bulwark against jihadism; he is a mass
murderer, plain and simple ." The illogic is evident in the false dichotomy that lies at the
center of his argument. Mass murderer (if indeed Assad can be so characterized) does not
exclude anti-imperialist and secular bulwark against jihadism; but in Hasan's world, mass
murderer and secular anti-imperialist are mutually exclusive. They are so to Hasan, because he
has transfigured Leftism into the concept of avoiding all choices that have potentially awful
consequences.
The beautiful soul retreats from the political struggles of the real world into impotent
moral posturing, where no choices are ever made, because the consequences of all choices are
awful to one degree or another. Success, then, in any political struggle is transformed from
acting on the world to change it into avoiding any step that might have terrible consequences
-- a recipe for impotence, paralysis and failure. To the beautiful soul, the only leftist
political movement that is worthy of support is the one that fails, never the one that comes to
power and implements its political program and fights to overcome opposition to it.
To Hasan, the Syrian State's position on the political spectrum is unrelated to its goals:
overcoming sectarian and other divisions in the Arab world, safeguarding Syria's political
independence, and achieving economic sovereignty. Nor does it matter that Damascus is engaged
in a struggle against (to use Hasan's own words) "rapacious U.S. foreign policy",
"Saudi-inspired extremism" and "Israeli opportunism" -- in other words, the aggression of
conservative and reactionary forces that are more powerful individually to say nothing of
collectively than the Syrian State by many orders of magnitude. To the Mahatma, all of these
considerations are irrelevant, and all that matters in the evaluation of Assad's political
orientation is whether the methods Damascus has used to defend the gains it has made in the
direction of asserting its right to equality and sovereignty are methods that that are suitable
to a State in periods of stability, normalcy and safety. It's as if what Hasan deplores about a
war cabinet, for example, is not the war that made the war cabinet necessary, but the very fact
that a war cabinet was created in response to it, as if carrying on in the regular manner could
somehow make the war go away." [snip]
"So, faced with these enormous challenges, what should Assad do? Whatever it is, Hasan can't
say. The best The Intercept writer can do is demand: "Is it the only way you know how
to oppose" US, Saudi and Israeli aggression? Well, it does, indeed, appear to be the only way
the Syrian government knows how to resist forces many times stronger than itself. But if not
this way, then what way? "Should we shoot balloons at the opposition?" Assad once asked another
beautiful soul."
Gowans added a
bit more reality on Hasan's 'diatribe' today with: ' Meet Syria's real mass
murderers'
Related, of course: William
Blum's ' Overthrowing other people's governments: The Master List' (since WW II) Spoiler
alert: it's a long list, and ends:
"Q: Why will there never be a coup d'état in Washington?
It is easy to exploit neoliberalism inflicted poverty for installing via color revolution even more neoliberal, more friendly
to West and more corrupt regime. What a paradox. We can speak about "neoliberal Catch 22." When people realize that they were taken for ride and their
standard of living dropped even further, it's too late.
Ukraine should be the primary guide for Armenia. This is a real Catch 22.
Notable quotes:
"... A lot of folks here are very aware of the coercion and mass media brainwashing that goes on in the West, but choose to ignore the same (or worse) brutal practices that occur in the corrupt kleptocracies that make up the "Axis of Resistance" and their allies for political reasons. ..."
"... George Orwell -- 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." ..."
Armenia is operating under the Russian (really post-Soviet) model of the oligarchs and mafia
directly owning/looting the government, as opposed to the Western model where looting is
outsourced to foundations and multinationals, which then compensate the oligarchs.
A lot of folks here are very aware of the coercion and mass media brainwashing that goes
on in the West, but choose to ignore the same (or worse) brutal practices that occur in the
corrupt kleptocracies that make up the "Axis of Resistance" and their allies for political
reasons.
Armenia is operating under the Russian (really post-Soviet) model of the oligarchs
and mafia directly owning/looting the government, as opposed to the Western model where
looting is outsourced to foundations and multinationals, which then compensate the
oligarchs.
I'm no expert on the forms of corruption, but there's plenty to think about in your
statement. Your "Western model" surely seems correct. The US system of "corporate personhood"
makes the oligarchs just like us, only more so of course. . .
George Orwell -- 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
39. There are not only American agents there but also Turkish, Iranian, Georgian and
definitely Russian. So what? We are talking about the current leaders and their close
relatives. How they get so much income that they buy whole apartment buildings in Los
Angeles. These are not regular incomes but extortions and controlling whole economies.
And
the former president wants to shift his nominal position in the state and still have the man
made authority to control the economic lifelines. This situation is true in almost all of
former soviet countries, that is why it is so easy for outside forces to come and give it a
kick and their whole system crumbles down in revolutions.
These revolutions mostly happen
when people eventually get convinced that things can't get any worse than their current
situation and they have nothing else to lose.
The only people that have normal lives in
Armenia are those who have a relative in the West who is sending them money on a regular
basis. The rest live like homeless bums. And people come here and say it is CIA ran
operation, without considering human miseries of a decade. This is really insulting.
"... The American ruling class loves Identity Politics, because Identity Politics divides the people into hostile groups and prevents any resistance to the ruling elite. With blacks screaming at whites, women screaming at men, and homosexuals screaming at heterosexuals, there is no one left to scream at the rulers. ..."
"... Consequently, the ruling elite have funded "black history," "women's studies," and "transgender dialogues," in universities as a way to institutionalize the divisiveness that protects them. These "studies" have replaced real history with fake history. ..."
PCR's latest is really good. I love it when he gets to ripping, and doesn't stop for 2000+ words or so. It reads a lot better
than Toynbee, fersher.
The working class, designated by Hillary Clinton as "the Trump deplorables," is now the victimizer, not the victim. Marxism
has been stood on its head.
The American ruling class loves Identity Politics, because Identity Politics divides the people into hostile groups
and prevents any resistance to the ruling elite. With blacks screaming at whites, women screaming at men, and homosexuals screaming
at heterosexuals, there is no one left to scream at the rulers.
The ruling elite favors a "conversation on race," because the ruling elite know it can only result in accusations that will
further divide society. Consequently, the ruling elite have funded "black history," "women's studies," and "transgender dialogues,"
in universities as a way to institutionalize the divisiveness that protects them. These "studies" have replaced real history
with fake history.
All of America, indeed of the entire West, lives in The Matrix, a concocted [and false] reality. Western peoples are so
propagandized, so brainwashed, that they have no understanding that their disunity was created in order to make them impotent
in the face of a rapacious ruling class, a class whose arrogance and hubris has the world on the brink of nuclear Armageddon.
History as it actually happened is disappearing as those who tell the truth are dismissed as misogynists, racists, homophobes,
Putin agents, terrorist sympathizers, anti-Semites, and conspiracy theorists. Liberals who complained mightily of McCarthyism
now practice it ten-fold.
The United States with its brainwashed and incompetent population -- indeed, the entirety of the Western populations are
incompetent -- and with its absence of intelligent leadership has no chance against Russia and China, two massive countries
arising from their overthrow of police states as the West descends into a gestapo state. The West is over and done with. Nothing
remains of the West but the lies used to control the people. All hope is elsewhere.
"... It is perfectly possible that the British government manufactured the whole Salisbury thing. We are capable of just as much despicable behavior and murder as the next. ..."
"... Tucker Carlson of Fox News has it nailed down.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M28aYkLRlm0 ..."
"... This "civil war" has been nothing but a war for Syrian resources waged by western proxies. ..."
"... So now, In desperation borne out of their impending defeat, the imperialists have staged a chemical attack in a last throw of the dice to gain popular support for an escalation in military intervention. Like military interventions of the past, it is being justified in the name of humanitarian intervention. ..."
Why is the prime minister of the United Kinkdom on the phone discussing whether or not to bomb a Sovereign country with the highly
unstable, Donald Trump?
Can she not make up her own mind? Either she thinks it's the right thing to do or it isn't. Hopefully,
the person on the other end of the phone was not Trump but someone with at least half a brain.
Proof, let's have some proof. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so. Russia is saying it's all a put up job, show us your
facts. We are saying, don't be silly, we're British and besides, you may have done this sort of thing before.
It is perfectly possible that the British government manufactured the whole Salisbury thing. We are capable of just as
much despicable behavior and murder as the next.
Part of the Great British act's of bravery and heroism in the second world war is the part played by women agents who were
parachuted into France and helped organize local resistance groups. Odette Hallowes, Noor Inayat Khan and Violette Szabo are just
a few of the many names but they are the best known. What is not generally know is that many agents when undergoing their training
in the UK, were given information about the 'D' day landings, the approx time and place. They were then dropped into France into
the hands of the waiting German army who captured and tortured and often executed them.
The double agent, who Winston Churchill met and fully approved of the plan was Henri Dericourt, an officer in the German army
and our man on the ground in France. Dericourt organized the time and place for the drop off of the incoming agents, then told
the Germans. The information about the 'D' day invasion time and place was false. The British fed the agents (only a small number)
into German hands knowing they would be captured and the false information tortured out of them.
Source :- 'A Quiet Courage' Liane Jones.
It's a tough old world and we are certainly capable of a Salisbury set-up and god knows what else in Syria.
From The Guardian articles today that I have read on Syria, it makes absolutely clear that if you in any way question the narrative
forwarded here, that you are a stupid conspiracy theorist in line with Richard Spencer and other far-right, American nutcases.
A more traditional form of argument to incline people to their way of thinking would be facts. But social pressure to conform
and not be a conspiratorial idiot in line with the far-right obviously work better for most of their readers. My only surprise
it that position hasn't been linked with Brexit.
Did anyone see the massive canister that was shown on TV repeatedly that was supposed to have been air-dropped and smashed through
the window of a house, landed on a bed and failed to go off.
The bed was in remarkable condition with just a few ruffled bedclothes considering it had been hit with a metal object weighing
god knows what and dropped from a great height.
"More than 40 years after the US sprayed millions of litres of chemical agents to defoliate"
The Defoliant Agent Orange was used to kill jungles, resulting in light getting through to the dark jungle floors & a massive
amount of low bush regrowing, making the finding of Vietcong fighters even harder!
It was sprayed even on American troops, it is a horrible stuff. Still compared to Chlorine poison gas, let alone nerve gases,
it is much less terrible. Though the long term effects are pretty horrible.
Who needs facts when you've got opinions? Non more hypocritical than the British. Its what you get when you lie and distort though
a willing press, you get found out and then nobody believes anything you say.anymore. The white helmets are a western funded and
founded organisation, they are NOT independent they are NOT volunteers, The UK the US and the Dutch fund them to the tune of over
$40 million. They are a propaganda dispensing outlet. The press shouldn't report anything they release because it is utterly unable
to substantiate ANY of it, there hasn't been a western journalist in these areas for over 4 years so why do the press expect us
to believe anything they print? Combine this with the worst and most incompetent Govt this country has seen for decades and all
you have is a massive distraction from massive domestic troubles which the same govt has no answers too.
""I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes," [Winston Churchill] declared in one secret memorandum."
The current condemnation by the international community and international law is good and needs enforcement. But no virtue
signalling where there is none.
But we're still awaiting evidence that a chemical attack has been carried out in Douma, aren't we? And if an attack was carried
out, by whom. But before these essential points are verified, you feel that a targeted military response is justified. Are you
equally keen for some targeted military response for the use of chemical weapons, namely white phosphorus, in Palestine by the
Israaeli military? Unlike Douma, the use of these chemical weapons in the occupied territories by the IDF's personnel is well
documented. But we haven't attacked them yet. Funny that.
Instead of "chemicals" why not just firebomb them - you know like we did to entire cities full of women and children in WW2?
Hamburg 27 July 1943 - 46,000 civilians killed in a firestorm
Kassel 22 October 1943 - 9,000 civilians killed 24,000 houses destroyed in a firestorm
Darmstadt 11 September 1944 - 8,000 civilians killed in a firestorm
Dresden 13/14th February - 25,000 civilians killed in a firestorm
Obviously we were fighting Nazism and hadn't actually been invaded - and he is fighting Wahhabism and has had major cities
overrun...
Maybe if Assad burnt people to death rather than gassing them we would make a statue of him outside Westminster like the one
of Bomber Harris?
Remember the tearful Kuwaiti nurse with her heartrending story of Iraqi troops tipping premature babies out of their incubators
after the invasion in 1990? The story was published in pretty much every major Western newspaper, massively increased public support
for military intervention............................and turned out to be total bullshit.
Is it too much too ask that we try a bit of collective critical thinking and wait for hard evidence before blundering into
a military conflict with Assad; and potentially Putin?
Well, this is the sort of stuff that the Israelis would be gagging for. They want Assad neutralised and they are assisting ISIS
terrorists on the Golan Heights. They tend to their wounded and send them back across the border to fight Assad. What better than
to drag the Americans, Brits and French into the ring to finish him off. Job done eh?
Are you sure you are not promoting an Israeli agenda here Jonathan?
Incidentantally what did we in the west do when the Iraqis were gassing the Iranians with nerve agents in the marshes of southern
Iraq during the Iran Iraq War? Did we intervene then? No, we didn't we allowed it to happen.
Come on frip, you have to admit there was absolutely no motive for Assad's forces to carry out this attack. Why do you think the
Guardian and other main stream media outlets are not even considering the possibility the Jihadi rebels staged it to trigger western
intervention? I know, I know.. it's all evil Assad killing his own people for no other reason than he likes butchering people...
blah blah. The regime change agenda against Syria has been derailed, no amount of false flag attacks can change the facts on the
ground.
More than 40 years after the US sprayed millions of litres of chemical agents to defoliate vast swathes of Vietnam and in the
full knowledge it would be have a catastrophic effect on the health of the inhabitants of those area, Vietnam has by far the highest
incidence of liver cancer on the planet.
Then more recently we have the deadly depleted uranium from US shells that innocent Iraqis are inhaling as shrill voices denounce
Assad.
The Syrian people are heroically resisting and defeating western imperialism. This "civil war" has been nothing but a war
for Syrian resources waged by western proxies.
So now, In desperation borne out of their impending defeat, the imperialists have staged a chemical attack in a last throw
of the dice to gain popular support for an escalation in military intervention. Like military interventions of the past, it is
being justified in the name of humanitarian intervention.
But if we have a brief browse of history we can see that US & UK governments have brought only death, misery and destruction
on the populations it was supposedly helping. Hands off Syria.
We, along with the US, France and Gulf states have supported, armed and trained "rebels"
in Syria the whole time. We've had, as have others, special forces operating inside
Syria
So, there would never be rebellions against totalitarian dictators if it weren't for the CIA
and MI6.
I don't buy this. It's very convenient if you're an anti-war person who doesn't want to
face an ethical dilemma. But it's not real.
"... I think the most amazing thing to come from this is that nobody believes politicians or the papers say, listen to any phone in radio show or read the comments below articles, nobody believes the government or msm. I wouldn't go to war for these fuckers. ..."
"... The media proclaimed the overthrow of the Mosadegh government in Iran as 'popular', the overthrow of Allende in Chile as legitimate, the Gulf of Tonkin affair as real, the WMDs of Iraq as existing, the evil of Qaddafi as intolerable, etc. ..."
"... Money, Oil, Carving Land Territory. ..."
"... Bombing a sovereign country without UN mandate is a war crime. It applies to UK and USA as well. But Brexit obsessed Brits think UK is above the International law. ..."
"... Has anyone asked.. why would Russia allow a chemical weapons attack in Syria only a few weeks after apparently launching a chemical weapons attack in Britain?.. something is not right here. ..."
"... The Putin regime may be nasty..but are they really that thick?? Remember remember 45 minutes to launch...(?) Tony Bliar is haunting me..and I suspect..the entire nation ..."
"... In the 1980s we sided with the jihadists and bin laden in Afghanistan. Which then was repaid with 9/11. Now we are siding with the jihadists in Syria. The blowback will be bigger than 9/11. ..."
"... I note it does refer (at para 44) to Assad's allegation that a video had been staged. It concludes that the patients on the video "appear relatively unaffected by the typical symptoms. No red eyes, tearing, paleness, sweating, cyanosis or breathing difficulties can be observed ..."
Not a supporter of any of the criminal operations that masquerade as governments worldwide, but it's way past the time when
I can believe a word the Western powers utter in their quest to spread their vile economic doctrine.
For me the biggest question now is how best to avoid financing the evil they perpetrate
So the Russian military claimed a month ago that Syrian rebels were planning a chlorine chemical weapon attack somewhere in Syria,
three weeks later a chemical weapon chlorine attack happens in Douma... but the UK government along with all the UK mainstream
media do not question perhaps it's the Jihadi/rebels who staged this attack, they ALL automatically blame Assad? Stinks to high
heaven.
I think the most amazing thing to come from this is that nobody believes politicians or the papers say, listen to any phone
in radio show or read the comments below articles, nobody believes the government or msm. I wouldn't go to war for these
fuckers.
The media proclaimed the overthrow of the Mosadegh government in Iran as 'popular', the overthrow of Allende in Chile as
legitimate, the Gulf of Tonkin affair as real, the WMDs of Iraq as existing, the evil of Qaddafi as intolerable, etc.
So, why is the media surprised when people lack trust in them about Syria?
Everywhere on the web the vast majority are vehemently opposed to military involvement .
Yet we have a PM and at least 300 MPs
champing at the bit to get involved in military conflict that could obliterate these islands in a few minutes.
We are not under threat there might not have been a chemical attack and if there was we have no idea who the perpetrators were
but it almost certainly was not Assad he had nothing to gain and everything to lose.
Trump announced he wanted the US out of Syria a couple of weeks ago not good news for the military industrial complex.
There is significant evidence that through the internet and social media the population are no longer fooled by the false flag
operations of the deep state.
We in the U.K. have a significant problem who is a threat to all of us and that is the PM she was exposed during the election
and over Brexit this must be the end it is totally unacceptable that we could get involved in an attack on another sovereign state
who are no threat to us on the say so of a small number of MPs in a minority Government.
The duty of the Government is to protect its citizens not put their lives at risk to engratatiate themselves to a Foreign Power
with a deranged egomaniac as it's President
Assad's not your puppy. Mohammed Bin Salman is. BAE re-arms his jets between crop-burning sorties in Yemen. When you've stopped
the Saudi starvation and brutalization of Yemen -which you can because your gavernment facilitates it - come back and we'll talk
about Syria. Until then we'll assume that your lachrimose offerings on gassed babies is propaganda. And that's because it is.
Tehran has churches and synagogues all over the city. Riyadh does not. Religious tolerance is better than religious intolerance,
IMO.
I don't have a problem with anyone talking to anyone about anything, as long as Britain hasn't declared war on the country they
are talking to.
If its down to believing Assad and common sense over Trust me Theresa and her unwillingness to refer the matter to Parliament
and democracy ... then its Assad and common sense every time ... he may be a dictator but he's no idiot
What makes chemical weapons so much worse than any others? If we go into military action over this we will kill people but we
won't use chemical weapons. Will that be alright then?
Some think this is about oil and a pipeline going through the Middle East states and if it goes through the heart of Syria then
Russia and Syria of control of the oil flow going into Europe.
Any involvement Iran has in the region good or bad is at least understandable , it's their neighborhood and they were invited
. It is more difficult to understand the presence or involvement of Britain or America or France or that other country we are
not allowed to talk about.
What many people do not fully realize is that no leader, no matter how harsh or strong would have been able to survive the destruction
that has overtaken Syria if he was considered responsible for it. His own people and armed forces would have thrown him out if
he did not have their support.
" And yet what was originally billed as a discrete military action to prevent an impending civilian slaughter in Benghazi escalated
into a bombardment that led to regime change and mayhem. '
No , Johnathan , it was planned .. see the PNAC etc ...
Why the obsession with Corbyn? He's the leader of the opposition. He's not the one clamorouring to send Britain to war on an extremely
dodgy pretext.
But if you're going with that line of argument, why not send all the hacks cheerleading for war to do some 'behind the front
lines' reportage with the Army of Islam? Always good to see things from different perspectives, though they might not survive
to tell the tale.
Bombing a sovereign country without UN mandate is a war crime. It applies to UK and USA as well. But Brexit obsessed Brits
think UK is above the International law.
She knows many of her own party won't back her and the DUP voted against bombing Syria last time. Where's the millions it's going
to cost coming from when we can't afford to give school kids a free dinner or pay for the NHS?
I really struggle to see to understand the argument for military action in Syria.
Firstly every time we intervene militarily we stuff it up and make matters ten times worse.
Gulf War 1 - left Sadam in power, tens of thousands of Iraqis killed, pushed Sadam into being a major sponsor of anti Weatern
terrorism and then the Kurds were abandoned to Sadam at the end of the war and massacred.
Afghanistan - what the hell was that about? Trillions spent and it descended into Islamist anarchy within 5 minutes of
us keaving.
Gulf War 2 - set the Middle East on fire, total disintegration of Iraq, the death of millions of Iraqis and the rise of
ISIS.
Libya - failed state, massive refugee crisis.
But even if you assume that for once we can act militarily in a way that doesn't make the situation worse - what is it that
we are trying to achieve?
Assad has won. The opposition has been killed or expelled from the country and the resistance is down to a few villages which
are being mopped up.
The time for a military response was 7 years ago - it is an absolutely pointless waste of time now - unless the point is just
to make us feel better about ourselves by "doing something".
Has anyone asked.. why would Russia allow a chemical weapons attack in Syria only a few weeks after apparently launching
a chemical weapons attack in Britain?.. something is not right here.
The Putin regime may be nasty..but are they really that thick?? Remember remember 45 minutes to launch...(?) Tony Bliar
is haunting me..and I suspect..the entire nation
In the 1980s we sided with the jihadists and bin laden in Afghanistan. Which then was repaid with 9/11. Now we are siding
with the jihadists in Syria. The blowback will be bigger than 9/11.
You either don't get it Jonathan, or you bury your head in the sand. WHO do you want to get rid of first: the head chopping thugs
or someone else you can deal with later? This is not about who is the most desirable but who is for the time being the least worst?
For a start you are ASSUMING that the now completely unproven "evidence" about chemical attacks is a given. IT IS NOT.
Almost every single point you make is based upon speculation, mainstream media assumptions or downright lies. Wake up please.
For goodness sake why doesn't your newspaper have a single journalist who actually knows what is really going on in Syria?
It is hard to be pro interventionist after the epical f up in Iraq and Libya, but it seems to me that Assad should and must get
a hard punishment. Assad should not have WMDs since those weapons were handed over to be destroyed in Russia in 2014. Russia is
a guarantor of this deal. Yet, Assad has and continues to use WMDs in the presence and I believe advice from the Russian military.
As for the military intervention itself I think Israeli's deep incursions in Syria and the bombing of military bases also used
by Russian military have provided a lot of information about the capabilities and limitations of the Russian military technology
deployed in Syria.
I couldn't find the paragraph which directly blames Assad's forces.
I note it does refer (at para 44) to Assad's allegation that a video had been staged. It concludes that the patients on
the video "appear relatively unaffected by the typical symptoms. No red eyes, tearing, paleness, sweating, cyanosis or breathing
difficulties can be observed ....
What Freedland and others are advocating is illegal. They have no moral or legal
authority.
For the avoidance of any doubt or confusion, attacking a foreign country without legal
basis under international law represents the "supreme international crime". The launching
of an "aggressive war" is the "supreme crime" because it is the overarching offense which
contains within itself "the accumulated evil of the whole" (e.g. rape, torture, murder,
mass murder, ethnic cleansing, etc).
People were tried, convicted and hung at Nuremberg for the crime of waging wars of
aggression (as well as crimes against humanity).
Regardless of how unpalatable we may find it, even the verified use of chemical weapons
-be they by state or non-state actors - is not a legal basis to attack a country, any
country.
As Phyllis Bennis, Fellow and Director of the New Internationalism Project at the
Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., clearly explained (following the last
alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government, and subsequent military strike on
the Syrian air base ordered by President Trump):
"The UN Charter is very vague about a lot of things, but it's very clear about one
thing, and that is, when is it legal to go to war? When is it legal to use a military
strike? There's only two occasions according to the UN Charter The UN Charter says, "A
country can use military force under two circumstances: Number one, if the Security Council
authorizes it." Number two, Article 51 of the UN Charter, which is about self-defence. But
it's a very narrowly constrained version of self-defence It says very explicitly, "If a
country has been attacked." "until the Security Council can meet, immediate self-defence is
allowed." Neither of those two categories applied here. So, it was clearly an illegal
act."
It looks more and more that everything was staged and everything was controlled by Western
intelligence agencies with the specific goal.
Notable quotes:
"... That kind of reminds me of when Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress were explaining how to get rid of Saddam without plunging Iraq into mayhem and destabilising the wider region. ..."
"... If the price of selling arms to Saudi Arabia is having to stage nerve agent attacks in the UK and in Syria, one has to ask: Is it really worth it? ..."
Read Robert Fisk in the Independent. He, as always, has nailed it. The Brits and the US have
no authority to take action with their past record of use of Chemical and Atomic weapons.
The Syrian Negotiation Commission has called for action to deter Assad from killing
civilians. What they envisage is that each time Assad launches a deadly attack on
noncombatants, allied forces reply by taking out one of the strategic assets he uses to
kill civilians. It could be an airfield, it could be a command centre. If the target were
aircraft, that would simultaneously inflict a cost on the regime and deprive it of the
means of dropping its barrel bombs and toxic, yellow cylinders. The objective would be to
make Assad pay a price for killing his own people, a price he has not paid until now.
Eventually, or so runs the hope, he would be deterred.
That kind of reminds me of when Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress were
explaining how to get rid of Saddam without plunging Iraq into mayhem and destabilising the
wider region.
The UK andcFrance bares a heavy responsibility for the current situation in Syria. The
cavalier attitude that the ConDems took to international law during the Arab spring
encouraged the Saudi s and their proxies to distablise the recognised Govt. Assad is no
paragon of virtue, but prior to the insurgency steps were in place to make the country a
better place for its citizens, and whilst its true poltical dissent was not allowed, people
could live their lives and go about their business in safety.
In an interview on BBC 1 on 8 February 2004, UN Weapons Inspector, Hans Blix accused the US
and British governments of dramatizing the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, in
order to strengthen the case for the 2003 war against the government of Saddam Hussein.
Ultimately, no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were ever found.
In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, Blix said, "I have my detractors in
Washington. There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things
in the media."
[ It is interesting to note that Allan Ramsay likewise deplored "a friendly alliance
between the camp and the counting-house" for exactly the same reasons (Letters on the Present
Disturbances, p.34). Ramsay maintained that of the evil consequences of such alliance "the
two last wars carried on by England against France and Spain, furnish a most melancholy
illustration. To obtain the sole and exclusive commerce of the western world, in which the
French and Spaniards were their rivals, was the modest wish of our merchants, in conjunction
with our Americans. The fair, and truly commercial, method of effecting this would have been,
by superior skill, industry and frugality, to have undersold their rivals at market: but that
method appearing slow and troublesome to a luxurious people, whose extraordinary expences*
required extraordinary profits, a more expeditous one was devised; which was that of driving
their rivals entirely out of the seas, and preventing them from bringing their goods at all
to market. For this purpose, not having any fleets or armies of their own, the powers of the
State were found necessary, and they applied them accordingly" (ibid., pp.32 f.).
Knorr, K. E. 'Ch02-Part2 British Colonial Theories 1570-1850'. In British Colonial
Theories, 1570-1850. The University of Toronto Press, 1944. ]
Sacrificing women and children to achieve nefarious goals such as preparing the ground for
invasion dictated by economic or geopolitical interests is a typical Western intelligence agencies
plot.
The notion of inaction, of standing by and watching as Assad kills and kills and kills,
racking up a death toll in Syria of 500,000
On May 12, 1996, Madeleine Albright defended UN sanctions against Iraq on a 60 Minutes
segment in which Lesley Stahl asked her "We have heard that half a million children have
died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth
it?" and Albright replied, "We think the price is worth it."'
Sure, here's the UN OPCW investigation report which directly blames the Assad forces for
chemical attacks. Take as much time as you need.
https://undocs.org/S/2016/738
I couldn't find the paragraph which directly blames Assad's forces.
I note it does refer (at para 44) to Assad's allegation that a video had been staged. It
concludes that the patients on the video "appear relatively unaffected by the typical
symptoms.
No red eyes, tearing, paleness, sweating, cyanosis or breathing difficulties can be
observed from the footage. The patients interviewed in the video show little or no signs of
having been exposed to a toxic chemical".
"Charities"? Lol. I'll bet money nearly all of those 'charities' are actually PR fronts for
thuggish Islamist rebels.
A bit like how all the Syrians the Guardian manages to reach for 'skype interviews' are
positively desperate for massive aeriel bombardment of their own country, chastising the west
for not supplying the bearded types with anti-aircraft missiles and even suggesting targets
for American bombs.
I have recently taught two Syrian professionals. Of course Assad is evil, but they tell me
that some of the rebel militias are much more brutal and intolerant than Assad and if they
win Syria will go the way of Libya.
They also told me (which shocked me somewhat) that the
White Helmets tend to be hard line Islamists and send out propaganda videos which Western
media fail to question thoroughly.
Angela Merkel is not stupid - things are way worth than that.
She's got a PhD in physical chemistry, and what's rather mind-boggling in that context is the
fact that her husband Joachim Sauer is a professor of chemistry and one of the worlds
foremost experts in surface chemistry.
In the 2000s this guy was in the top 30 list of the worlds most extinguished chemists - let
that sink in for a second.
The couple Merkel/Sauer knows exactly how to evaluate that so-called evidence, yet... - as I
said the situation is way worse as generally anticipated.
"... Sky News cuts of British General. https://southfront.org/sky-news-cuts-off-former-british-general-while-he-questiones-douma-chemical-attack / ..."
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
(@lloyd_rm)
It is worth noting that the British Government approved exports of dual use precursors for
chemical weapons including sarin to Syria between 2004 and 2012, after the civil war began
and after Assad was accused of using gas. CAEC report (2015): pic.twitter.com/TsvthAcZRR
April 13, 2018
Further down his thread is a tweet where someone has a screen-grab of a Mail Online story
from 2013. It talks about leaked information about clearance given by the US Government for a
British security company to stage a chemical weapons attack in Syria in order to provide a
pretext for bombing.
I have no idea whether this is true or whether it was genuinely from Mail Online, perhaps
someone with more know-how than me could find out.
At first, I laughed at the Russian suggestion that the attack on Douma had been staged.
Now I'm not so sure.
Your article appears to apportion blame solely to Assad and you don't even attempt to address
the opposition in Syria. Nobody seriously questions that the Syrian governments war has
killed many thousands and thousands of civilians. How can you not refer to the international
jihad and the make up of these fighters, as well as the sieges they laid on villages, town
and cities and the cruelty they inflicted upon the people?
The Syrian Arab Army is a composite of Sunni, Shia, Christians, and different ethnicity's,
what convinces you that they have in any way wantonly killed civilians? The soldiers have
family all over Syria, plus no mention of the 300,000+ civilians that have been liberated
from Eastern Aleppo and Eastern Ghouta in the last several months.
I find this article very bizarre indeed. The most simple explanation for the disaster in
Syria is that a sovereign state protected its national interest from an international
contingent of mercenaries. There are Moroccans and Chechnyans, Uighurs and Brits, Saudis as
well as Syrians in this armed army. What other options did a state such as Syria have when
fighting against ISIS, Al Qaida, Al Nusra and 'The Army of Islam', Jaysh Al-Islam? All have
which have direct connections to our major ally in the region, Saudi Arabia.
Somebody correct me if I am wrong but I can not find any reference at all to the enemy in
this article. It's written as if the 8 year war has simply been an extermination war against
civilians and completely out of context with reality.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld helped Saddam Hussein build up his arsenal of deadly
chemical and biological weapons. As an envoy from President Reagan 19 years ago, he had a
secret meeting with the Iraqi dictator and arranged enormous military assistance for his war
with Iran. Mr Rumsfeld, at the time a successful executive in the pharmaceutical industry,
still made it possible for Saddam to buy supplies from American firms. They included viruses
such as anthrax and bubonic plague, according to the Washington Post.
The USA provided $1.5 billion worth of Pathogenic, toxigenic and other biological research
materials were exported to Iraq; 1985-89.
1) US based company, Alcolac International exported mustard gas to Iraq; 1987-88.
2) Almost 150 foreign companies supported Saddam Hussein's WMD program; 1975-
3) US directly attacked Iran by hitting Iran's oil platforms; 1987.
4) US directly attacked Iran's navy in unproportioned and unreasonable war; 1988.
5) US shot down Iranian civilian airliner in the Iranian territory; 1988.
This is the equivalent of a pathological paedophile giving a sermon against child abuse
when the US preaches its corrupt moral practices regarding Syria!!!
Russia has transferred forty Pantsir-S1 air defense systems to Syria' Air Defence.
This is the latest air defence technology (the system is in service since 2012) - a combined
short to medium range surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft artillery weapon system
against aircrafts, helicopters, precision munitions, cruise missiles and UAVs.
You face the same the liars with the sexed up dossier who went on to murder hundreds of
thousands in Iraq and Libya. This is all too reminiscent of previous interventions
Consider WW1, Suez, Iran 1953, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen and every other western
militarily intervention in the ME - whether directly or by proxy - and identify one that hasn't
just caused more instability, death, violence and displacement than there was already?
e are caught between a rock, in the form of the recklessness of Donald Trump, and a hard
place, shaped by the cruelty of Bashar al-Assad. This is the choice that now confronts citizens
and their representatives in Britain, France and the US. The reasons to resist signing up for
any project led by Trump should be obvious, with the newly published testimony of James Comey,
the FBI director he fired, providing a fresh reminder.
Trump is a congenital liar who is devoid of empathy, a narcissist with a nihilist's view of
the world. These are not mere character defects; they have a bearing on the decisions the de
facto leader of any action in Syria would take. Among the reasons I opposed the 2003 invasion
of Iraq was my fundamental distrust of George W Bush and his circle, especially on the matter
of motive. Trump, with his tweeted mood swings – first, vowing to withdraw from Syria
altogether, then threatening an imminent missile bombardment, then signalling a delay –
makes Bush look like a statesman.
But even if a moral paragon were sitting in the Oval Office, there would be grounds for
restraint. The record of past western military interventions in the Middle East is bloody and
shaming, as the peoples of both Iraq and Libya can testify. Barack Obama, no gung-ho cowboy,
was the commander-in-chief in the latter case. And yet what was originally billed as a discrete
military action to prevent an impending civilian slaughter in Benghazi escalated into a
bombardment that led to regime change and mayhem. It stands as a textbook illustration of
western bombs' ability to make a bad situation worse.
It's clear now that although Assad has 'won' the war a status quo of him ruling a
predominately Sunni country can't be returned to. He seeks to terrorise and punish the
Syrian people under the protection of Russia and Iran.
Even though the army which has made such huge sacrifices for the Syrian state is about 70%
Sunni?
The US and her allies have to intervene, otherwise the rule of international law is
worthless.
Why? Even if your premise above were true, which it isn't, why is it our job to intervene
in every country with an imperfect system? Or are you proposing we bomb every Middle Eastern
country where people are privileged and granted citizenship merely on account of their
religion?
I love these guys who won't do their own research. Why not? Axe to grind? This is just one
example from 2013. There's more but I'm too busy to look up public shit for you.
Spot on look what happened to Sadaam after he switched to the Euro for Iraq oil sales.
Ghaddafi had similar plans.
Without reserve currency status and petrodollar with US economy will collapse under the $21T
dollar debt.
Russia and China have recently agreed a bilateral trade agreement which cuts out the
dollar.
The US cannot permit this ...as always follow the money.
Some people murder others for political and ideological reasons the military industrial
complex starts wars and conflicts ,murdering millions for profit....evil personified
Could this whole drama be because China and Russia are ditching the petrodollar?
I watched the video of the attack and it looks fake to me.. those children are not crying
because of chlorine.. they have their eyes wide open..first thing you do when you have
chlorine in your eyes is touch your face and close your eyes..whole thing looks dodge..just
my opinion. Those children are wide eyed and looking at the camera..something you wouldn't do
if you'd just been gassed.
"... The "Russian" attack in Salisbury is supposed to negate the "not our war" argument, particularly as a British policeman was unwell for a while. Precisely what is meant to negate the "why on earth are we entering armed confrontation with a nuclear power" argument, I do not know. ..."
"... Saudi Arabia has naturally offered facilities to support the UK, US and France in their attempt to turn the military tide in Syria in favor of the Saudi sponsored jihadists whom Assad had come close to defeating. That the Skripal and Douma incidents were preceded by extremely intense diplomatic activity between Saudi Arabia, Washington, Paris and London this year, with multiple top level visits between capitals, is presumably supposed to be coincidence. ..."
"... The notion that Britain will take part in military action against Syria with neither investigation of the evidence nor a parliamentary vote is worrying indeed. Without Security Council authorisation, any such action is illegal in any event. It is worth noting that the many commentators who attempt to portray Russia's veto of a Syria resolution as invalid, fail to note that last week, in two separate 14 against 1 votes, the USA vetoed security council resolutions condemning Israeli killings of unarmed demonstrators in Gaza. ..."
"... Hence the destruction of Libya was predicated on an entirely false "we have 48 hours to prevent the massacre of the population of Benghazi" narrative. Similarly this latest orchestrated "crisis" is being followed through into military action at a blistering pace, as the four horsemen sweep by, scything down reason and justice on the way. ..."
I'm going to post a comment by another user posted yesterday as he said it far more
eloquently than I could
R Reddington InterestedReader2 1d ago
Your just another armchair warrior.
So you think going to war is a good idea well you first then and don't forget your flack
jacket and rifle.
The media onslaught has moved past the attack in Salisbury by a "weapon of mass
destruction" (quoting Theresa May) which could only be Russian, except that was untrue, and
was extremely deadly, except that was untrue too. It now focuses on an attack by chemical
weapons in Douma which "could only be" by the Russian-backed Assad regime, except there is
no evidence of that either, and indeed neutral verified evidence from Douma is
non-existent. The combination of the two events is supposed to have the British population
revved up by jingoism, and indeed does have Tony Blair and assorted Tories revved up, to
attack Syria and potentially to enter conflict with Russia in Syria.
The "Russian" attack in Salisbury is supposed to negate the "not our war" argument,
particularly as a British policeman was unwell for a while. Precisely what is meant to
negate the "why on earth are we entering armed confrontation with a nuclear power"
argument, I do not know.
Saudi Arabia has naturally offered facilities to support the UK, US and France in their
attempt to turn the military tide in Syria in favor of the Saudi sponsored jihadists whom
Assad had come close to defeating. That the Skripal and Douma incidents were preceded by
extremely intense diplomatic activity between Saudi Arabia, Washington, Paris and London
this year, with multiple top level visits between capitals, is presumably supposed to be
coincidence.
I am not a fan of Assad any more than I was a fan of Saddam Hussein. But the public now
understand that wars for regime change in Muslim lands have disastrous effects in dead and
maimed adults and children and in destroyed infrastructure; our attacks unleash huge
refugee waves and directly cause terrorist attacks here at home. There is no purpose in a
military attack on Syria other than to attempt to help the jihadists overthrow Assad. There
is a reckless disregard for evidence base on the pretexts for all this. Indeed, the more
the evidence is scrutinised, the dodgier it seems. Finally there is a massive difference
between mainstream media narrative around these events and a deeply sceptical public, as
shown in social media and in comments sections of corporate media websites.
The notion that Britain will take part in military action against Syria with neither
investigation of the evidence nor a parliamentary vote is worrying indeed. Without Security
Council authorisation, any such action is illegal in any event. It is worth noting that the
many commentators who attempt to portray Russia's veto of a Syria resolution as invalid,
fail to note that last week, in two separate 14 against 1 votes, the USA vetoed security
council resolutions condemning Israeli killings of unarmed demonstrators in Gaza.
The lesson the neo-cons learnt from the Iraq war is not that it was disastrous. It was
only disastrous for the dead and maimed Iraqis, our own dead and maimed servicemen, and
those whose country was returned to medievalism. It was a great success for the neo-cons,
they made loads of money on armaments and oil. The lesson the neo-cons learned was not to
give the public in the West any time to mount and organise opposition. Hence the
destruction of Libya was predicated on an entirely false "we have 48 hours to prevent the
massacre of the population of Benghazi" narrative. Similarly this latest orchestrated
"crisis" is being followed through into military action at a blistering pace, as the four
horsemen sweep by, scything down reason and justice on the way.
Orwell certainly chose his words well when he called the UK 'Airstrip One' in his book 1984.
The UK government, the US neocons yapping little poodle. All cheered on by our always on
message main stream media.
Syria is surrounded by wealthy gulf countries, many of whom frequently buy weapons from the
US and UK. They have the money, the firepower, and the space to not only house fleeing
refugees, but also bomb Assad back to the stone age. They haven't, because they lack
testicular fortitude and are always looking west for solutions.
The US, UK and France act like they own the world. Iran vs Iraq, the creation of Israel, and
Saudi Arabia, Sykes-Picot - western countries played a major part in all of this. In the
absence of evidence, it's about time we kept out of it.
Now listening to RT reminds me BBC and Voice of America listeing in the USSR ;-) You
definitly bacomes a dissident for doing that.
Notable quotes:
"... I watched RT for the first time last night and it was interesting. ..."
"... But right now its like we are being ruled by lunatics. It is absolutely sickening. Quite literally some moron in the White House is tweeting, 'My bombs are bigger than yours' and 'The missiles are coming.' ..."
I watched RT for the first time last night and it was interesting.
But right now its like we are being ruled by lunatics. It is absolutely sickening.
Quite literally some moron in the White House is tweeting, 'My bombs are bigger than yours'
and 'The missiles are coming.'
And they still let him in rule one of the most powerful countries on the Earth with a vast
mass of WMD and Theresa May is trying reason with a fucking moron. Hey Guardian if Trump is
talking like this my swearing is the least of our problems, so please don't moderate. We need
someone to Moderate the madmen.
As I've said , I consider the term 'putinbot' - infantile and indicative of a lack of logical
argumentation as it is - as a compliment, since it appears to be code for those who retain
the ability to think for themselves and not fall glumly for the latest official line.
since the OPCW proved it was Putin who tried to murder British civilians with nerve
agents.
Actually, they proved no such thing, but in any case it's irrelevant to the discussion at
hand.
I'd never really watched much RT news, but intersting to see their extensive coverage of
their diplomats who, despite not speaking English as native, can conduct hours of press
conference in a civil and diplomatic fashion.
May weeping for the innocents of Syria as she signs off on a conveyor belt of bombs to be
dropped on innocents in Yemen. She's being raised up by the British media alongside Blair and
Cameron as one of the greatest humanitarian of modern times.
"Remarkable how Saddam Hussein gassing Iranian troops by the thousand, while world powers
helped him do it and covered for him at the UN is treated as a minor exception to non-use of
chemical"
He also used poison gas to kill thousands of his own Kurdish civilians, the Reagan
administration was in many ways a moral cesspit. They knew exactly what he was doing. A
spokesman said the Iranians - who never used Chemical Weapons on principle - used the poison
gas, on Iraqi Kurds. I think Reagan never really understood this, that is my assessment of
his character, he saw what reality he wanted to see, but nothing else.
" Back then the death toll in Syria stood at around 100,000. More than 400,000 have died
since that day. The proof is there if we can bear to look at it. Inaction, too, can be
deadly"
And how many died after the war was "won" in Iraq. And how many would have died trying to
remove assad. Toppling assad would almost certainly not have brought peace. Your analysis is
simplistic and blinkered and definately doesn't contain any proof of anything. Sometimes
there's just not a solution. The current proposed bombing campaign smacks of
somethingmustbedoneism. Those responsible for the gas attacks must face justice. But it might
have to be further down the line.
A classified U.S. State Department cable signed by Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton reported that Saudi donors
were a major support for Sunni militant
forces globally, and some American officials worried that rebels being supported had ties to
Al Qaeda.[14]
Notable quotes:
"... Read more at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timber_Sycamore ..."
Timber Sycamore 20/04/2018 Timber Sycamore was a classified weapons supply and
training program run by the United StatesCentral Intelligence Agency
(CIA) and supported by various Arab intelligence services, most notably that of Saudi Arabia . Launched in
2012 or 2013, it supplied money, weaponry and training to rebel forces fighting Syrian
President Bashar
al-Assad in the Syrian Civil War . According to U.S.
officials, the program has trained thousands of rebels. President Barack Obama secretly authorized the CIA to
begin arming Syria's embattled rebels in 2013. [3] However,
the CIA had been facilitating the flow of arms from Libya to Syria "for more than a year" beforehand in
collaboration with "the UK ( United Kingdom ), Saudi Arabia and
Qatar ."
The program's existence was suspected after the U.S. Federal Business Opportunities website
publicly solicited contract bids to ship tons of weaponry from Eastern Europe to Taşucu , Turkey and
Aqaba , Jordan. One
unintended consequence of the program has been to flood the Middle East's black market with
weapons including assault rifles, mortars and rocket-propelled grenades. The U.S. delivered
weapons via Ramstein – supposedly in breach
of German laws.
In July 2017, U.S. officials stated that Timber Sycamore would be phased out, with funds
possibly redirected to fighting the Islamic State of Iraq
and the Levant (ISIL), or to offering rebel forces defensive capabilities.
... ... ...
According to American officials, the program has been highly effective, training and equipping thousands of U.S.-backed
fighters to make substantial battlefield gains.[2][19]
American officials state that the program began to lose effectiveness after
Russia intervened militarily in the
Syrian Civil War.[19]David Ignatius, writing in The Washington Post, remarked
that while the CIA program ultimately failed in its objective of removing Assad from power, it was hardly "bootless": "The
program pumped many hundreds of millions of dollars to many dozens of militia groups. One knowledgeable official estimates that
the CIA-backed fighters may have killed or wounded 100,000 Syrian soldiers and their allies over the past four years."[8]
... ... ...
U.S.-backed rebels often fought alongside al-Qaeda's
al-Nusra Front, and some of the U.S.
supplied weapons ended up in the hands of the al-Nusra Front, which had been a major concern of the Obama administration when
the program was first proposed.[10]
... ... ...
The program remains classified,[14][10]
and many details about the program remain unknown, including the total amount of support, the range of weapons transferred, the
depth of training provided, the types of U.S. trainers involved, and the exact rebel groups being supported.[18]
However, The Canberra Times
reported that two thousand tons of Soviet era weapons were delivered to Aqaba as recently as April 2016.
We're now in a strange position where the media is actually behind the government. May is
doubtful about bombing because she's a politician and so has to constantly monitor her
popularity, but the only people left still writing in 'newspapers' are still programmed to
want war and bombing because it always used to sell.
The UN duly investigated and in October concluded unambiguously that the Assad regime had
used sarin gas.
You omitted to mention that the same report also concludes that ISIL deployed Sulphur
Mustard, isn't this the same gas that France claims to have evidence regarding the recent
incident?
Besides, how much evidence do we need? Even before Douma, Assad's use of chemical
weapons had been documented seven times this year alone.
The link you provided to back-up this claim contains no substantiative evidence to
attribute those incidents to Assad.
Clearly both sides in this conflict appear to have used chemical weapons, making
assumptions or false accusations of blame at this stage is incredibly dangerous. I'm in total
agreement with Jeremy Corbyn, we need a solid investigation on which the international
community can act. Any potential escalation of this awful conflict must be avoided at all
costs, particularly when it involves a nuclear armed superstate, considering the on-going
humaitarian crisis in Syria and how it has already affected the world. Furthermore we must
not allow a cabinet of a minority government to make any final decisions on the UK
involvement in further militrary action, our elected representatives MUST be allowed
to debate and decide a course of action, otherwise our democracy is in a far worse state than
I could have possibly imagined.
Theresa May leads a minority government propped up by an unlawful bung to a right wing
extremist group. May, her Cabinet of half wits and her self serving party have a mandate for
sweet FA, and that includes killing people in our name.
There is massive, overwhelming opposition in the UK to May's attempt to join Trump &
Macron in bombing Syria and to by-passing our democratic parliament, but who would have
thought it?
The media are generally presenting Theresa May with a free ride to cause death and
destruction on a massive scale. Claiming she's joining an international coalition (even
though it consists of only 2 other countries) and having the backing of the Cabinet and
therefore possessing the authority to go to war.
The reality is that she's virtually politically isolated and working in defiance of the
British people. Labour - and most other opposition parties, including the Lib Dems, SNP,
Plaid, and the Greens are totally against military intervention and calling for a full,
democratic debate in Parliament.
Then the Conservative Party itself is bitterly divided over the issue.
And only 22% of British people would support the war effort, according to a poll in the
Times.
The timing is being forced by Donald Trump and the US, so where's the substance in the
Conservative claim that they're 'taking back control'?
And then any intervention is likely to cost billions, so what about The Deficit? And what
about that magic money tree?
Moreover, the Government maintain we cannot allow such inhumanity in Syria to go
unchallenged. So where is the outcry at defenceless citizens being killed in Gaza? And in
Yemen? And in Saudi Arabia? What accounts for the blatant double standards? What are they not
telling us?
And why does the British Goverment justicfy selling all these lethal and inhumance weapons
to these countries in the first place?
Where is the media reminding the Government of what happened in Iraq, in Libya and in
Afghanistan?, whenever we intervened?
Where is the media remembering the findings of the Chilcott Report?
If this was Labour nationalising the railways or expropriating land in an emergency bill
to launch a massive house-building programme, the BBC and mass media would quote every
adversary and critic they could muster and express total outrage at any attempt to by-pass
Parliament.
The Syrian conflict is a hugely complex quagmire and we enter it at our peril. We need a
much more objective Press to scrutinise Government policy, before this lunacy unravels and
triggers a seriously calamitous hot war between the Superpowers, from which we'd all be
losers.
Jeremy Corbyn is often mocked and scorned by the media for his measured reactions, but his
call for the UK to use its influence to defuse tensions makes him one of the only responsible
and mature political leaders around right now!!
The government and the BBC have been using the words "suspected chemical attack" in Syria and
that Russia is "highly likely" to be responsible for the Salisbury affair.
Now if that isn't official doubt I don't know what is.
Still May happy to drop bombs on this basis without parliamentary approval (if Donald says
so that is)!
This is pathetic. The mouthpieces of the British government (Guardian and BBC) have spent the
last week on a steady pendulum of demanding war, shitting themselves, then when the rhetoric
calms down a bit, demanding war again. The U.K., its security agencies and its house-trained
media are destabilising the world.
"... How about some basic honesty about the role the US and it's allies have played in fostering and continue if this civil war. That, coupled by a complete retreat of US imperial neoliberal ambitions across the entire region, you know, might just be incredibly effective ..."
"... Are we seriously going to pretend we and our allies haven't provided financial, technological, diplomatic, political and military support to this extremely heterogenous group of rebels, without which the whole uprising (a legitimate uprising, sure, but certainly not a viable one) would have been over in a few months, without any of the atrocities, tragedies and destruction of the past 6 years? ..."
"... For Europe and the US to have any credibility the double standards applied has to come to an end ..."
"... Sorry but the arguments in the article don't hold water. Reeks of the longstanding agenda of the war profiteers and the Clinton gang to invade this country. On hypocritical reasons. ..."
Here's an idea Jonathan for another solution. How about some basic honesty about the role
the US and it's allies have played in fostering and continue if this civil war. That, coupled
by a complete retreat of US imperial neoliberal ambitions across the entire region, you know,
might just be incredibly effective
But nor can we watch the brutal dictator slaughter his own people
Why not? We're watching Israelis shoot and kill unarmed Palestinians, we're
watching our favourite Saudis bomb and kill Yemeni civilians, we're watching our
Nobel-winning inspirational Myanmar leader oversee the persecution, massacre and forced
displacement of an entire people, we're watching the North Korean leader oppress and starve
his people while stepping closer to a nuclear war against a currently volatile superpower,
we're watching the Philipino head of state launching a literal war against low-level drug
dealers and junkies, we're watching several central Asian dictators imprison and torture
dissidents and oppress their people while robbing them of their national wealth, we're
watching the Chinese and Russian leaders do pretty much the same, we're watching the Turkish
leader kidnap dissidents from EU countries, imprison thousands of alleged dissidents and
invade a neighbouring country to fight against part of said countries' inhabitants, we're
watching corrupt politicians, media and judges completing the final touches of a coup in the
fifth largest country in the world, and then there's Africa, which is a whole other chapter.
What specifically is it about Syria that made you decide that yeah, all these things are
pretty bad, but that's the one thing we really have to do something about?
Perhaps that was why, five years ago, the House of Commons voted to leave the Assad
regime untouched. Back then the death toll in Syria stood at around 100,000. More than
400,000 have died since that day. The proof is there if we can bear to look at it. Inaction,
too, can be deadly.
Inaction? Really? Are we seriously going to pretend we and our allies haven't provided
financial, technological, diplomatic, political and military support to this extremely heterogenous group of rebels, without which the whole uprising (a legitimate uprising, sure,
but certainly not a viable one) would have been over in a few months, without any of the
atrocities, tragedies and destruction of the past 6 years?
For Europe and the US to have any credibility the double standards applied has to come to an
end. Israel has to comply with UN resolutions and the US has to stop using its veto to block
those resolutions that seek to make Israel comply to international standards of acceptable
behaviour.
If we can't do that we can forget getting Assad or Putin or anyone else to respect
anything we have to say. As it stands the so called West has no moral authority in the Middle
East.
But nor can we watch the brutal dictator slaughter his own people
Why is this supposed slaughter such an imperative when we seem to approve of and even
profit from selling weapons to slaughters elsewhere in the region
Sorry but the arguments in the article don't hold water. Reeks of the longstanding agenda
of the war profiteers and the Clinton gang to invade this country. On hypocritical
reasons.
"... Conveniently missing from this short history of Syria: That the US was actually heavily involved using the CIA in getting rid of Assad. Had that not been the case, perhaps there would have been no prolonged civil war. ..."
"... Oh, I know challenging the holy West and its exceptional leading nation is verboten nowadays, but can we at least be honest about what is really going on today? Syria is being punished for not joining the coalition of the willing in 2003 by being subjected to the same illegal war by false claim as Iraq was then. ..."
Conveniently missing from this short history of Syria:
That the US was actually heavily involved using the CIA in getting rid of Assad. Had that
not been the case, perhaps there would have been no prolonged civil war.
It would be just another dictator, the likes of which can be found all over the world
without columnists noticing it.
Strangely though, all that is deplored is that the US didn't do even more. That they
didn't also do a full blown invasion.
"Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk
his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one
piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in
America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the
leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the
people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a
Communist dictatorship
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is
easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for
lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any
country."
– Hermann Goering (as told to Gustav Gilbert during the Nuremberg trials)
Pay for what? Be President of a country marked out for regime change by the West and
successfully managing to fight off the West's proxy armies of terrorists over seven years in
defence of that country?
Oh, I know challenging the holy West and its exceptional leading
nation is verboten nowadays, but can we at least be honest about what is really going on
today? Syria is being punished for not joining the coalition of the willing in 2003 by being
subjected to the same illegal war by false claim as Iraq was then.
Assad has always acted in this like any other authoritarian government anywhere in the Middle
East would, fighting a civil war. Israel is just as ruthless when facing a threat to its
authority.
This mess was financed, planned, egged on and armed by the U.S., it's junior partners and
its clients in Turkey and the Gulf. And it goes back years before the rebellion against
Assad. The Wahabbi rebels have been given billions in cash, arms and training, funneled
through Turkey and the Gulf states.
Now we have Washington, London and Paris shrieking outrage and promising revenge against a
strongman they unleashed as the result of yet another regime change adventure. And then
there's the incredible hypocrisy and cynicism of using Al-Qaeda affiliated actors to do
it.
Assad's wartime iteration, like ISIS, is the result of American greed, ambition, pride and
the old imperialist bent for aggression as a way of imposing its geopolitical will.
Watch the Unbearable video gain. The children are no foaming at the mouth, their colouration
is not cyanotic, they do not appear to be in respiratory distress. The premise of the
argument is not based on fact. These children are not the casualties of a gas attack. GROW UP
and recognize the propaganda.
The article takes a self-righteous moral high ground while calling for some vague affair of
violence. I can't help but notice that these articles by people who pretend to be moderates
and centrists have a habit of turning reality and morality on their head. It's dangerous and
very Orwellian stuff.
The question that I struggle to answer is, "Are journalists like this actually duped by
propaganda themselves, or are they knowingly part of the process of dissemination?"
What I do not struggle to see is that they are undoubtedly part of the prevailing
neolib/neocon philosophy which we rapidly need to dismantle.
"... It is perfectly possible that the British government manufactured the whole Salisbury thing. We are capable of just as much despicable behavior and murder as the next. ..."
"... Tucker Carlson of Fox News has it nailed down.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M28aYkLRlm0 ..."
"... This "civil war" has been nothing but a war for Syrian resources waged by western proxies. ..."
"... So now, In desperation borne out of their impending defeat, the imperialists have staged a chemical attack in a last throw of the dice to gain popular support for an escalation in military intervention. Like military interventions of the past, it is being justified in the name of humanitarian intervention. ..."
Why is the prime minister of the United Kinkdom on the phone discussing whether or not to bomb a Sovereign country with the highly
unstable, Donald Trump?
Can she not make up her own mind? Either she thinks it's the right thing to do or it isn't. Hopefully,
the person on the other end of the phone was not Trump but someone with at least half a brain.
Proof, let's have some proof. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so. Russia is saying it's all a put up job, show us your
facts. We are saying, don't be silly, we're British and besides, you may have done this sort of thing before.
It is perfectly possible that the British government manufactured the whole Salisbury thing. We are capable of just as
much despicable behavior and murder as the next.
Part of the Great British act's of bravery and heroism in the second world war is the part played by women agents who were
parachuted into France and helped organize local resistance groups. Odette Hallowes, Noor Inayat Khan and Violette Szabo are just
a few of the many names but they are the best known. What is not generally know is that many agents when undergoing their training
in the UK, were given information about the 'D' day landings, the approx time and place. They were then dropped into France into
the hands of the waiting German army who captured and tortured and often executed them.
The double agent, who Winston Churchill met and fully approved of the plan was Henri Dericourt, an officer in the German army
and our man on the ground in France. Dericourt organized the time and place for the drop off of the incoming agents, then told
the Germans. The information about the 'D' day invasion time and place was false. The British fed the agents (only a small number)
into German hands knowing they would be captured and the false information tortured out of them.
Source :- 'A Quiet Courage' Liane Jones.
It's a tough old world and we are certainly capable of a Salisbury set-up and god knows what else in Syria.
From The Guardian articles today that I have read on Syria, it makes absolutely clear that if you in any way question the narrative
forwarded here, that you are a stupid conspiracy theorist in line with Richard Spencer and other far-right, American nutcases.
A more traditional form of argument to incline people to their way of thinking would be facts. But social pressure to conform
and not be a conspiratorial idiot in line with the far-right obviously work better for most of their readers. My only surprise
it that position hasn't been linked with Brexit.
Did anyone see the massive canister that was shown on TV repeatedly that was supposed to have been air-dropped and smashed through
the window of a house, landed on a bed and failed to go off.
The bed was in remarkable condition with just a few ruffled bedclothes considering it had been hit with a metal object weighing
god knows what and dropped from a great height.
"More than 40 years after the US sprayed millions of litres of chemical agents to defoliate"
The Defoliant Agent Orange was used to kill jungles, resulting in light getting through to the dark jungle floors & a massive
amount of low bush regrowing, making the finding of Vietcong fighters even harder!
It was sprayed even on American troops, it is a horrible stuff. Still compared to Chlorine poison gas, let alone nerve gases,
it is much less terrible. Though the long term effects are pretty horrible.
Who needs facts when you've got opinions? Non more hypocritical than the British. Its what you get when you lie and distort though
a willing press, you get found out and then nobody believes anything you say.anymore. The white helmets are a western funded and
founded organisation, they are NOT independent they are NOT volunteers, The UK the US and the Dutch fund them to the tune of over
$40 million. They are a propaganda dispensing outlet. The press shouldn't report anything they release because it is utterly unable
to substantiate ANY of it, there hasn't been a western journalist in these areas for over 4 years so why do the press expect us
to believe anything they print? Combine this with the worst and most incompetent Govt this country has seen for decades and all
you have is a massive distraction from massive domestic troubles which the same govt has no answers too.
""I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes," [Winston Churchill] declared in one secret memorandum."
The current condemnation by the international community and international law is good and needs enforcement. But no virtue
signalling where there is none.
But we're still awaiting evidence that a chemical attack has been carried out in Douma, aren't we? And if an attack was carried
out, by whom. But before these essential points are verified, you feel that a targeted military response is justified. Are you
equally keen for some targeted military response for the use of chemical weapons, namely white phosphorus, in Palestine by the
Israaeli military? Unlike Douma, the use of these chemical weapons in the occupied territories by the IDF's personnel is well
documented. But we haven't attacked them yet. Funny that.
Instead of "chemicals" why not just firebomb them - you know like we did to entire cities full of women and children in WW2?
Hamburg 27 July 1943 - 46,000 civilians killed in a firestorm
Kassel 22 October 1943 - 9,000 civilians killed 24,000 houses destroyed in a firestorm
Darmstadt 11 September 1944 - 8,000 civilians killed in a firestorm
Dresden 13/14th February - 25,000 civilians killed in a firestorm
Obviously we were fighting Nazism and hadn't actually been invaded - and he is fighting Wahhabism and has had major cities
overrun...
Maybe if Assad burnt people to death rather than gassing them we would make a statue of him outside Westminster like the one
of Bomber Harris?
Remember the tearful Kuwaiti nurse with her heartrending story of Iraqi troops tipping premature babies out of their incubators
after the invasion in 1990? The story was published in pretty much every major Western newspaper, massively increased public support
for military intervention............................and turned out to be total bullshit.
Is it too much too ask that we try a bit of collective critical thinking and wait for hard evidence before blundering into
a military conflict with Assad; and potentially Putin?
Well, this is the sort of stuff that the Israelis would be gagging for. They want Assad neutralised and they are assisting ISIS
terrorists on the Golan Heights. They tend to their wounded and send them back across the border to fight Assad. What better than
to drag the Americans, Brits and French into the ring to finish him off. Job done eh?
Are you sure you are not promoting an Israeli agenda here Jonathan?
Incidentantally what did we in the west do when the Iraqis were gassing the Iranians with nerve agents in the marshes of southern
Iraq during the Iran Iraq War? Did we intervene then? No, we didn't we allowed it to happen.
Come on frip, you have to admit there was absolutely no motive for Assad's forces to carry out this attack. Why do you think the
Guardian and other main stream media outlets are not even considering the possibility the Jihadi rebels staged it to trigger western
intervention? I know, I know.. it's all evil Assad killing his own people for no other reason than he likes butchering people...
blah blah. The regime change agenda against Syria has been derailed, no amount of false flag attacks can change the facts on the
ground.
More than 40 years after the US sprayed millions of litres of chemical agents to defoliate vast swathes of Vietnam and in the
full knowledge it would be have a catastrophic effect on the health of the inhabitants of those area, Vietnam has by far the highest
incidence of liver cancer on the planet.
Then more recently we have the deadly depleted uranium from US shells that innocent Iraqis are inhaling as shrill voices denounce
Assad.
The Syrian people are heroically resisting and defeating western imperialism. This "civil war" has been nothing but a war
for Syrian resources waged by western proxies.
So now, In desperation borne out of their impending defeat, the imperialists have staged a chemical attack in a last throw
of the dice to gain popular support for an escalation in military intervention. Like military interventions of the past, it is
being justified in the name of humanitarian intervention.
But if we have a brief browse of history we can see that US & UK governments have brought only death, misery and destruction
on the populations it was supposedly helping. Hands off Syria.
In another development (probably to run with the Syria script) the UK announces it has a
dossier that proves Russia was experimenting with delivering nerve agents from door handles.
Not as hilarious as breathlessly closing a children's playground near the Skripal's days
after the event for "contamination checks" even though it had been raining in the days in
between (the narrative was presumably the dastardly Russian agents planned to kill a few
innocent kids for good measure).
As usual, our wise men are busy preparing the evidence dossier for this gas attack. Hacking
someone's phone is now evidence of you delivering chemical weapon. I wonder how many doses of
novichok NOTW managed to deliver to its phone hacking victims.
Hope everyone understands that telling lies is not good, and it is especially disgusting when
lies form the basic argument for launching a war or some prolonged military assaults.
Please, compare the articles, this one and those mentioned below, and judge for yourself
whether J. Freedland can be trusted.
1. J. Freedland, about the West: "The notion of inaction, of standing by and watching as
Assad kills and kills and kills, And yet that's what we've done".
O. Jones: "The US has been bombing the country and supplying arms to rebels for some time.
Our client states ... have funnelled weapons and billions of dollars into the conflict,
backing extremist groups responsible for multiple atrocities".
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/13/attack-syria-disastrous-warmongers-middle-east-unjust
2. J. Freedland: "The taboo on the use of such (chemical) weapons held, with exceptions, for
nearly a century. It meant there was a limit".
For the actual details of such "limit" see:
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/theresa-may-syria-war-uk-chemical-weapons-attack-iran-iraq-thatcher-russia-a8300881.html
3. It looks like J. Freedland is sure only Assad "kills and kills and kills" in this civil
war. Does anyone believe this, i.e. that the opposing jihadists have never killed during the
war?
they're quite happy to gloss over the absolutely vile nature of Assad's regime.
Strawman. It's a nasty regime in all sorts of ways but no more so - probably less so -
than many regimes enthusiastically supported and armed by the British government.
If we're talking about culpability, it's worth noting that the rebel groups have become
radicalised over time -
That old fib! This was an Islamist uprising from day one. How does a liberal pro-democracy
type suddenly morph into a bearded Islamist overnight?
And yes, we gave aid to the rebels. Did it prolong the war? Possibly.
Possibly? It didn't prolong the war, it pretty much caused the war.
Should we have done nothing? Possibly yes, but hindsight is always a wonderful thing.
Hindsight eh? So you thought "Yup, let's join in with the Saudis and other Gulf
dictatorships in arming extremist Islamist rebels in a crucial Middle Eastern country.
Nothing could possibly go wrong! That sort of thing has been a roaring success everywhere
it's been tried."
Make Assad pay ?.......pay for what Johnny .... for defending his people from murderous
insurgents who are being constantly ferried into and supplied by hostile countries with the
intent of horrifically slaughtering anyone they can get their claws on in order to initiate a
reign of terror that they hope will weaken the moral of the people and the government?
......Jesus, I don't think I've read such a nastier piece of pure propaganda than this in the
Guardian ever before.
Remarkable how Saddam Hussein gassing Iranian troops by the thousand, while world powers
helped him do it and covered for him at the UN is treated as a minor exception to non-use of
chemical weapons, whereas Assad's is some unprecedented crime.
And let's not pretend that Saddam paid for his use of chemical weapons - the West punished
him for the transgression of threatening Saudi Arabia, nothing more.
In August 2012, as reported by the Times , William Hague writes that discussions are taking
place with the Free Syrian Army:
"This week, on my instructions, my ambassador-level representative to the Syrian
opposition has contacted and is meeting political elements of the Free Syria Army."
"We want to deter those committing war crimes by making it possible for them to be held to
account. We will provide urgent training and equipment to Syrian human rights activists,
including cameras, video recorders and forensic equipment.
The aim is to help them to document human rights violations, identify the military commanders
responsible and gather medical forensic evidence to be used in trials. Britain has already
trained more than 60 Syrian human rights activists to collect information to support criminal
investigations. This new assistance will enable others to do the same."
The Guardian headline on this subject reads: "Syria: UK to give £5m to rebels":
Why are the Guardian and its writers continuing to peddle the lie that the Syrian Government
has been proved to have used chemical munitions? For seven long years now the Syrian people
and their government have had to fight off a jihadi onslaught armed and financed by NATO and
the Gulf autocracies. With help from Russia and Iran, they are winning: they have no need to
use chemical weapons and they know that doing so is to invite intervention on the side of the
Islamist terrorists. The terrorists, by contrast, know that their only chance lies in such
intervention and that convincing the World that the Syrian Government has used chemical
weapons is the best way to bring it about.
It is also obscene for Mr Friedland to ascribe all of the casualties of the Civil War to
the Government while ignoring the terrorist tactic of occupying and defending populated
areas. The Syrian Arab Army is no more responsible for the resulting casualties than were the
pro Western forces for the destruction of Mosul during its liberation from ISIS. I am sick to
the teeth of formerly respectable media like the Guardian and the BBC functioning as
propagandists for jihadi murderers and terrorists, particularly now that doing so is pushing
us towards a very dangerous international conflict.
I watched that idiot Jo Johnson last night going on about how the international community had
banned chemical weapons in 1925 and no one pulled him up on it. Britain developed and
stockpiled chemical weapons all through the 20th Century- the 'greatest' Britain of all time
Churchill regularly argued for their use on 'lesser' races. The US (our allies in this) is
the same US that dumped unbelievable amounts of agent orange on Vietnam at the same time it
bombed a poor undeveloped country 'into the stone age'.
A woman in the audience pointed out the sheer hypocrisy of abhorring Asssad's actions
(quite rightly) but at the same time arming the Saudis to kill more civilians and supporting
the Israeli government (which whilst clearly not in the same league as Assad or the Saudis is
still a major human rights violater). Unsurprisingly she was cut off and the 'left-wing' BBC
moved on and ignored her points
We went into Iraq because Blair warned, in the sternest terms, British cities could be under
imminent attack from Iraqi WMD. How ridiculous do those grave statements, made to a hushed
HoC, look today?
Graun, genuinely bugger off with this drumbeat for war. Seriously, hasn't the current
murderous anarchy in Libya given you pause for thought?
There's no definitive evidence yet available that proves Assad's forces carried out a
chemical attack. Furthermore, whilst it's not inconceivable that he did, it does seem to defy
logic. Why invite Western intervention when you're winning the war? The Syrian opposition had
far more to gain from the deployment of chemical weapons than Assad did.
Assad is a loathsome individual, but he's probably the only thing standing in the way of a
Jihadist Theocracy being established in Syria. To put in bluntly, it's in our interests that
he wins this war. The alternative is worse.
I wish I could say I was shocked by the latest pro war tub thumping by this increasingly
unrecognisable paper. Sadly it's has become all too synonymous with its support for Theresa
May and its attempts to persuade an unwilling public to join the hysteria. Freedland says
that Assad's guilt is beyond doubt; no it isn't. He talks of the effectiveness of bombing in
the Balkan conflict, conveniently ignoring Iraq and Syria. He ignores the obvious incentive
for ISIS or perhaps he would prefer "rebels", to launch an attack in a a desperate attempt to
recover a war they are losing. He ignores the war in Yemen and the murderous regimes around
the world that we seem totally uninterested in putting right. No, Mr Freedland, I and I think
many others are not giving Mrs May her Falklands moment at your behest.
Most baffling is is French president Emmanuele Macron's fierce reaction. There's no other nation which has suffered so much
from terrorist attacks as France. And yet now its president is determined to use his fighter planes as the de facto airforce for
the the jihadi extremists. Macron went even as far as making his statements with the Saudi prince at his side, the leader of a
country which is known for funding the jihadis!
Weird times.
Jay_Q123 -> RudolphS 13 Apr 2018 16:25
Macron just got back from a few days hanging on out with the Saudi Arabian elite, who have
been the most destructive force in the Syrian war and spreads terrorism all over the world
guaranteed to spend tens of billions on French weapons.
Agreed Macron is so proud about the weapons Saudi Arabia bought of him. And strangely enough
Saudi Arabia supports the ISIS head choppers in Syria, I think of a coincidence. And I didn't
mention the gaz pipeline crossing Syria, that if Russia/Assad win, will be beyond the control
of Europeans, a real bummer, given that Russia controls the supply east of Germany. I guess
civilian death, is the only thing in the forefront of the France/UK/US preoccupations.
Surely, they wouldn't condone civilians dying for geo-political reasons?
Yes, I remember Rice, Cheney, Bush, and Rumsfeld telling the world that they had evidence
that Saddam was hoarding WMD. I'm still waiting to hear what it was. Now M. Macron spouts the
same ambiguous nonsense expecting us to take his word for it.
Trump publicly states that US troops are being withdrawn from Syria. The next thing you
know, Assad is allegedly gassing civilians. That makes a whole lot of sense doesn't it? If
there's a sure-fire way of making sure you're on the wrong end of a bit of American 'shock
and awe,' it's gassing innocents. Assad must have a death wish; or so they'd have us believe.
The more I read about this fiasco, the more I think David Icke is the most rational man on
the planet.
Western neoliberal governments lost the remnants of patina of legitimacy on international
scene and now look like bloodthirsty predators, they always were.
But where is the incontrovertible proof that the regime is in fact responsible for the attack
rather than 'rebel groups' now on the point of final defeat, who'd wish to draw in the major
NATO powers? Why would the regime afford the US, France and UK the pretext to do one thing
that'd undermine Assad's otherwise certain victory? The timing seems odd indeed while Saudi
Arabia, Turkey and Israel act with impunity against minority populations. Each of the latter
has form and interest the destruction of Syria in this proxy war.
The UK thinks it's "highly likely" Assad is to blame for the chemical attack. France says
it has evidence Assad is responsible but won't say what it is. US Secretary of Defence Mattis
believes a chemical attack took place but says there's no evidence. And depending on the day
of the week, Russia believes there was either no chemical attack or if there was then it was
staged by the UK.
And for good measure we appear to be going headlong into war on the basis of all this.
The UN investigations concluded that the chemicals had come from Syrian Army stocks which
there wasn't much doubt about to start with. Where they were less conclusive was the matter
of who had deployed them given the capture of large stocks of munitions by the terrorists
early in the war. On the basis of cui bono? it seems more likely that it was the
terrorist side who sought to provoke Western intervention by staging chemical incidents
rather than the Syrian Government who had little to gain and much to lose from the use of any
kind of WMD.
First Blair holding onto an idiot's shirt tails to attack a Middle Eastern country based
on hearsay and no coherent withdrawal policy. Now we have May and Macron holding the hands of
an even bigger idiot whose populist thoughts change by the minute so no hope of any
withdrawal plan.
Does May and her hawks (Gove, Johnson) really want to be compared with Trump, Kim, Putin,
Assad, W Bush, Blair et al in the history books?
The rebels in Syria have a history of using sarin, chlorine and mustard gas against troops
and civilians. But Washington, London and Paris are completely dummy on this. Not a whisper.
Rather straight to accusations and threats against the regime they have been trying to
overthrow for years.
I don't know who did it. But I know who lies every time they take a breath if they
consider it in their interests. Truth is the first casualty. I don't believe any of them.
Noticeable that the Guardian live coverage provides Western refutations of Russia's claims of
evidence regarding a staged false attack, but doesn't actually cover the evidence the
Russians have provided - testimony from medical staff who claim to be witnesses. Now I'm not
so stupid as to take these claims as gospel, the Russians are just as capable as anyone of
finding a couple of fake or pressured witnesses. However the failure of the Western press to
even elaborate on the evidence, even just to ridicule and debunk it, is suspicious.
It is getting very tiresome tying to read between the lines of what Britain, America, Russia,
etc, etc, etc spin to us in a constant barrage of disposable half truths. The worrying part
is that it is now harder then ever to gauge if these 'bastions of truth' really believe their
own bullshit or not and end up dropping us all into a war of no return.
"Oceania was at war with Eurasia; therefore Oceania had always been at war with
Eurasia."
The White Helmets were set up by a Briton (I can't remember exactly but I think he was ex
intelligence services). They've consistently been shown to have links with extremists. It
wouldn't surprise me at all if what the Russians are claiming is accurate.
Well the problem is that the vast majority of Syrians support Assad. This chemical attack, if
it is confirmed by the OPWC investigation, could have been staged by the ISIS head choppers,
or it was Assad. Nobody has a clue, so we need an investigation and see, whether, this is
just propaganda bullshit from the head choppers. One thing is sure, if you care about
civilian life, the best option is to accept that Assad and Russia won. Else, well you a
hypocrite, and you don't care about civilian lives at all, but care more about the UK/US and
France gaining the geo-political upper hand, without a care in the world about civilian life.
Hence, you just as big a sociopath than Assad.
Yes Millions of Gallons of Chemicals were rained down on Vietnam including Agent Orange and
Napalm during the war.
Plus White Phosphorous was used by the US in Iraq as an "anti-personnel" weapon.
Look, the Russians have a microscopic force in Syria, about 30 jets, very low army presence,
usually one soldier per SAA Unit. The West and especially that inadequate May can look good
by bombing some camels and then letting the Daily Mail and the BBC do the rest. Yes the
Russians have S400 missiles in Syria but only to protect important targets and they simply
don't have enough missiles to shoot down 100+ allied cruise missiles. The Russkies will just
have to take the hit (again) but it will change nothing in the long run, except relations
will deteriorate even further.
One has the impression poodles Macron and May, in their ridiculous eagerness to assist Trump
with his nice new smart shiny social media bombing of Syria, appear pathetic, even stupid,
for their precipitate grandstanding now that the USA has, for the time being, reigned back
from an immediate punishing strike on Syria.
The "slaughter his own people" phrase is western spin; even the anti-government SOHR quotes a
more or less even split between government forces, rebels and civilians, which means as civil
wars go, this one is comparatively humane.
Compare the death toll of hundreds on the final assault on Aleppo with that on Raqqa
(thousands) or Mosul (tens of thousands) or the civilian toll in Indo-China and Korea (>10
million) and you'll realise the identity of the greatest war criminal of them all
Trump's Establishment Sin: Being an Open and Unabashed Devil
It's the open crassness of Trump as much as his policy substance that bothers establishment
operatives. Look at Trump's recent yucky White House sit-down with Mohammed bin Salman (MBS),
the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. You can view it on YouTube here . It's incredible. With MBS grinning
sheepishly next to him, the Insane Clown President held up posters showing all the big-dollar
weapons and war systems the Saudis are purchasing from the U.S. Trump brazenly boasted about
Washington's $12.5 billion arms deal with the most reactionary government on the planet.
"That's peanuts for you," Trump chided the crown prince while dangling the posters under his
nose. "Saudi Arabia is a very wealthy nation, and they're going to give the United States some
of that wealth, hopefully, in the form of jobs, in the form of the purchase of the finest
military equipment anywhere in the world," Trump told reporters. MBS looked embarrassed as
Trump listed the prices of the weapons the U.S. was selling to the Saudis: "$880 million $645
million $6 billion that's for frigates."
The president sounded like a car dealer boasting about the bargains at Trump Ford-Mazda. It
was ugly and humiliating for everyone involved and has been condemned in the dominant corporate
media for its decadent unpleasantness.
"Trump administration plans to make the U.S. an even larger weapons exporter by loosening
restrictions on the sale of equipment ranging from fighter jets and drones to warships and
artillery. Reuters reveals that the new initiative will provide guidelines that
could allow more countries to be granted faster deal approvals, and will call on Cabinet
officials to help close deals between foreign governments and U.S. defense contractors The
role U.S. Cabinet officials may be asked to play in pushing arms exports abroad as part of
the new initiative, which will call for a 'whole of government' approach -- from the
president and his Cabinet to military attachés and diplomats -- to help draw in
billions of dollars more in arms business overseas."
So, do you think the Obama administrations sold arms to Saudi Arabia and other reactionary
governments around the world? Do you think it enlisted Cabinet officials and U.S. diplomats in
the project of advancing U.S. arms sales across a blood-drenched planet? If you answered "Hell
yes it did" to both questions, then you are correct. Here is a
forgotten story from the final days of the Obama administration, penned by
Motherboard 's Farid Farid, who was understandably underwhelmed by Obama's suspension
of the sale of one type of munition to the Saudis in early 2017:
Obama's Administration Sold More Weapons Than Any Other Since World War II
Many were sold to the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia.
President Barack Obama, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, will leave office in a few
weeks with the dubious honor of having sold more weapons than any other American president
since World War II. Most of the arms deals totaling over $200 billion in the period from 2008
to 2015 have ended up in the Middle East, according to a Congressional Research Service
report published in December Focusing on arms deals to developing nations, the extensive
report found that Saudi Arabia was the top arms importer with deals worth around $94 billion
from 2008-2015. Under Obama the overall sales, pending delivery of equipment and specialized
training for troops, to Saudi Arabia alone has ballooned to $115 billion.
Saudi Arabia is spearheading a coalition of Arab nations in a bombing campaign closing in
on two years against the insurgent Houthi militias in Yemen, who took over the capital Sanaa
in September 2014. The United States has sent special operations forces to assist the Arab
coalition in a grinding war that has seen over 10,000 killed, 2.2 million displaced and
nearly half a million children on the brink of famine from the ensuing crisis.
Earlier this month, the United States decided to halt future sales of precision-guided
munitions, which are supposed to hit specific targets and minimize collateral damage, to the
Gulf kingdom citing civilian deaths in Yemen. But experts are skeptical this will deter Saudi
Arabia from continuing to fuel its regional proxy wars.
"Frankly it was a really minor and temporary punishment. I don't view it as a major
consequence and it is more symbolic than anything," said Cole Bockenfeld, deputy director of
policy at Project on Middle East Democracy.
He pointed to the US partially suspending military aid to Egypt after the military
overthrew the unpopular government in July 2013 as another example of the lack of political
will of the Obama administration to rock relations with its allies. The Congressional report,
Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations 2008-2015, noted that Egypt was the biggest
recipient of arms deliveries last year worth $5.3 billion.
"What's changed during the Obama administration is that increasing arms sales has become a
standardized component of diplomacy at all levels of government, not just in the defense
department," Bockenfeld told Motherboard. "For US diplomats to become the salesmen, that has
been a new element which really increased exports."
What's the main difference between Trump and Obama when it comes to U.S. arms sales abroad?
As the noted liberal arms trade analyst William
Hartung told DN's Amy Goodman this week , "Well, [Trump's] much more blatant about it.
He's shouting it from the rooftops . He's playing a very personal role .he held up a chart
[during his appalling meeting before reporters with MBS] that showed 40,000 jobs from Saudi
arms sales, and it showed the states, and they were all the swing states -- Pennsylvania, Ohio,
Michigan, Florida. So, among other things, not only is this a business proposition for Trump,
but it's a blatant political move to shore up his base."
So here's an interesting question: which is worse – (a) quietly equipping the most
reactionary government on Earth and much of the rest of the world with lethal, high-tech means
of mass destruction while posing as some kind of progressive and noble peace agent or (b)
loudly equipping the most reactionary government on Earth and much of the rest of the world
with lethal, high-tech means of mass destruction while boasting about the resulting revenue and
jobs to reporters and your white-nationalist political base?
Something tells me the Yemeni victims of Riyadh's U.S.- made bombs, missiles, bullets, and
artillery don't care all that much either way.
Ultimately Trump is a typical playground bully, he's a bullshitter, a blowhard. All talk.
Trump was the same with Kim, and is the same with Putin and Assad.
Like all bullies underneath he is a coward, he threatens Putin with ridiculous teenager
Tweet threats, but as soon as Putin but back Trump backpeddles.
"... How about the West which has been trying to build a gas pipeline through Syria into Turkey to supply Europe with gas and break Russia's monopoly of European gas supplies. Don't believe me read the Doha agreement where the west recognised the Syrian rebels, this pipeline was a pre requisite for that recognition. ..."
"... And why would Assad who is winning the war do the one thing that would give America and other western countries the chance to get involved because of outrageous moral indignation. Assad and Outing really aren't that stupid. ..."
How about the West which has been trying to build a gas pipeline through Syria into
Turkey to supply Europe with gas and break Russia's monopoly of European gas supplies. Don't
believe me read the Doha agreement where the west recognised the Syrian rebels, this pipeline
was a pre requisite for that recognition.
Israel? which is not happy with Iran and Lebanon having a presence in Syria, worried that
America was withdrawing.
AlQaeda or the Syrian Rebels, many are both who are losing the war and this is a last
desperate attempt to drag in America and the west?
You've also got Turkey and the Kurds (the Kurds were abandoned by the West after they had
fulfilled their useful purpose), both also players in the region but I can't see a motive
here.
And why would Assad who is winning the war do the one thing that would give America
and other western countries the chance to get involved because of outrageous moral
indignation. Assad and Outing really aren't that stupid.
Any or all of the above could be the true motivation. I am no fan of Assad, Putin, or
Trump or May (or the Blair clone Macron) but the question you have to ask yourself is who
gains from this? And is. this in the interests of a resolution to a conflict, to your safety
or is it something else?
In an interview on BBC 1 on 8 February 2004, UN Weapons Inspector, Hans Blix accused the US
and British governments of dramatizing the threat of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, in
order to strengthen the case for the 2003 war against the government of Saddam Hussein.
Ultimately, no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction were ever found.
In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, Blix said, "I have my detractors in
Washington. There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things
in the media."
[ It is interesting to note that Allan Ramsay likewise deplored "a friendly alliance
between the camp and the counting-house" for exactly the same reasons (Letters on the Present
Disturbances, p.34). Ramsay maintained that of the evil consequences of such alliance "the
two last wars carried on by England against France and Spain, furnish a most melancholy
illustration. To obtain the sole and exclusive commerce of the western world, in which the
French and Spaniards were their rivals, was the modest wish of our merchants, in conjunction
with our Americans. The fair, and truly commercial, method of effecting this would have been,
by superior skill, industry and frugality, to have undersold their rivals at market: but that
method appearing slow and troublesome to a luxurious people, whose extraordinary expences*
required extraordinary profits, a more expeditous one was devised; which was that of driving
their rivals entirely out of the seas, and preventing them from bringing their goods at all
to market. For this purpose, not having any fleets or armies of their own, the powers of the
State were found necessary, and they applied them accordingly" (ibid., pp.32 f.).
Knorr, K. E. 'Ch02-Part2 British Colonial Theories 1570-1850'. In British Colonial
Theories, 1570-1850. The University of Toronto Press, 1944. ]
Your article appears to apportion blame solely to Assad and you don't even attempt to address
the opposition in Syria. Nobody seriously questions that the Syrian governments war has
killed many thousands and thousands of civilians. How can you not refer to the international
jihad and the make up of these fighters, as well as the sieges they laid on villages, town
and cities and the cruelty they inflicted upon the people?
The Syrian Arab Army is a composite of Sunni, Shia, Christians, and different ethnicity's,
what convinces you that they have in any way wantonly killed civilians? The soldiers have
family all over Syria, plus no mention of the 300,000+ civilians that have been liberated
from Eastern Aleppo and Eastern Ghouta in the last several months.
I find this article very bizarre indeed. The most simple explanation for the disaster in
Syria is that a sovereign state protected its national interest from an international
contingent of mercenaries. There are Moroccans and Chechnyans, Uighurs and Brits, Saudis as
well as Syrians in this armed army. What other options did a state such as Syria have when
fighting against ISIS, Al Qaida, Al Nusra and 'The Army of Islam', Jaysh Al-Islam? All have
which have direct connections to our major ally in the region, Saudi Arabia.
Somebody correct me if I am wrong but I can not find any reference at all to the enemy in
this article. It's written as if the 8 year war has simply been an extermination war against
civilians and completely out of context with reality.
Freedland recently put this argument on Newsnight.
It is flawed to the point of dishonesty.
He talks of removing assets as if the process was being conducted under laboratory
conditions. There are ten nations enmeshed in a warzone with numerous factions under no one's
control. It is magical thinking that cannot be achieved and will only result in rapid,
uncontrolled escalation. The idea that there will be no collateral damage is laughable and I
regret to suggest that it is deliberately misleading.
Moreover, in engaging Assad when he is on the brink of victory, the Syrian Civil War will
be extended. The Syrian people will then pay the price.
Should Assad subsequently fall - and that is the actual aim of intervention - then Syria
will become another anarchic wasteland ruled over by fundamentalist warlords. The spiral of
migration will be renewed bringing loons wrapped in the dispossessed to our own streets.
Worse, the militants next stop will be Lebanon and then Israel will be directly involved.
Freedland advocates acting against Assad without even attempting to predict the consequences.
At the very least I would expect the usual misdirection 'of course this time we must have a
plan for rebuilding Syria', secure in the knowledge that by that time there will be another
crisis and Syria can be left in entropy.
No good can come from military intervention. The satisfaction of commentators that the
right thing has been done is an irrelevance. The right thing is always just public relations.
Every bit of ruthless geopolitics has to have a casus belli to make the killing all righteous
and unavoidable. It has always been thus. For resources to be expended on this kind of scale
there has to be a rock solid bit of bankable realpolitik. In this case its the struggle for
regional hegemony between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Syria can either be part of a supply chain
selling Sunni gas/oil to Europe or Shi'a gas/oil to Europe. This is about killing Syrians for
the glory of Saudi Arabia. You can see why there has to be a casus belli because thats not
something that can be sold. We know the proceeds will go unmentioned into offshore havens and
the London property market. Britain would derive no geopolitical benefit as a whole. The
benefits would accrue only to a kleptocracy who think they have a right to use our country as
a loan shark's leg-breaker.
It is therefore my contention that Freedland is promoting an immoral act that will have
serious consequences without offering any serious improvement in the situation. This is
arguably the most dangerous situation since the Cuban Missile crisis and an analysis that
advocates pouring oil on the flames is either ridiculously stupid or calculatedly
duplicitous.
"Up to" 13,000 "opponents" killed over five years during a period of war. I'm assuming that
number of "opponents" includes a large number of out and out terrorists who have thrown the
country into chaos.
The UK andcFrance bares a heavy responsibility for the current situation in Syria. The
cavalier attitude that the ConDems took to international law during the Arab spring
encouraged the Saudi s and their proxies to distablise the recognised Govt. Assad is no
paragon of virtue, but prior to the insurgency steps were in place to make the country a
better place for its citizens, and whilst its true poltical dissent was not allowed, people
could live their lives and go about their business in safety.
An unusual triple alliance is emerging from the Syrian war, one that could alter the balance
of power in the Middle East, unhinge the NATO alliance, and complicate the Trump
administration's designs on Iran. It might also lead to yet another double cross of one of the
region's largest ethnic groups, the Kurds.
However, the "troika alliance" -- Turkey, Russia and Iran -- consists of three countries
that don't much like one another, have different goals, and whose policies are driven by a
combination of geo-global goals and internal politics. In short, "fragile and complicated"
doesn't even begin to describe it.
How the triad might be affected by the joint U.S., French and British attack on Syria is
unclear, but in the long run the alliance will likely survive the uptick of hostilities.
But common ground was what came out of the April 4 meeting between Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Meeting
in Ankara, the parties pledged to support the "territorial integrity" of Syria, find a
diplomatic end to the war, and to begin a reconstruction of a Syria devastated by seven years
of war. While Russia and Turkey explicitly backed the UN-sponsored talks in Geneva, Iran was
quiet on that issue, preferring a regional solution without
"foreign plans."
"Common ground," however, doesn't mean the members of the "troika" are on the same page.
Turkey's interests are both internal and external. The Turkish Army is currently conducting
two military operations in northern Syria, Olive Branch and Euphrates Shield, aimed at driving
the mainly Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) out of land that borders Turkey. But those
operations are also deeply entwined with Turkish politics.
Erdogan's internal support has been eroded by a number of factors: exhaustion with the
ongoing state of emergency imposed following the 2016 attempted coup, a
shaky economy , and a precipitous fall in the value of the Turkish pound. Rather than
waiting for 2019, Erdogan called for snap elections this past week and beating up on the Kurds
is always popular with right-wing Turkish nationalists. Erdogan needs all the votes he can get
to imlement his newly minted executive presidency that will give him virtually one-man
rule.
To be part of the alliance, however, Erdogan has had to modify his goal of getting rid of
Syrian President Bashar Assad and to agree -- at this point, anyhow -- to eventually withdraw
from areas in northern Syria seized by the Turkish Army.
Russia and Iran have called for turning over the regions conquered by the Turks to the
Syrian Army.
Moscow's goals are to keep a foothold in the Middle East with its only base, Tartus, and to
aid its long-time ally, Syria. The Russians are not deeply committed to Assad personally, but
they want a friendly government in Damascus. They also want to destroy al-Qaeda and the Islamic
State, which have caused Moscow considerable trouble in the Caucasus.
Russia also wouldn't mind driving a wedge between Ankara and NATO. After the U.S., Turkey
has NATO's second largest army. NATO broke a 1989 agreement not to recruit former members of
the Russian-dominated Warsaw Pact into NATO as a quid pro quo for the Soviets withdrawing from
Eastern Europe. But since the Yugoslav War in 1999 the alliance has marched right up to the
borders of Russia. The 2008 war with Georgia and 2014 seizure of the Crimea were largely a
reaction to what Moscow sees as an encirclement strategy by its adversaries.
Turkey has been at
odds with its NATO allies around a dispute between Greece and Cyprus over sea-based
oil and gas resources , and it recently charged two
Greek soldiers who violated the Turkish border with espionage. Erdogan is also angry that
European Union countries refuse to extradite Turkish soldiers and civilians who he claims
helped engineer the 2016 coup against him. While most NATO countries condemned Moscow for the
recent attack on two Russians in Britain, the
Turks pointedly did not .
Turkish relations with Russia have an
economic side as well. Ankara want a natural gas pipeline from Russia, has broken ground on
a $20 billion Russian nuclear reactor, and just shelled out $2.5 billion for Russia's S-400
anti-aircraft system.
The Russians do not support Erdogan's war on the Kurds and have lobbied for
the inclusion of Kurdish delegations in negotiations over the future of Syria. But Moscow
clearly gave the Turks a green light to attack the Kurdish city of Afrin last month, driving
out the YPG that had liberated it from the Islamic State and Turkish-backed al-Qaeda groups. A
number of Kurds charge that Moscow has betrayed
them .
The question now is, will the Russians stand aside if the Turkish forces move further into
Syria and attack the city of Manbij, where the Kurds are allied with U.S. and French forces?
And will Erdogan's hostility to the Kurds lead to an
armed clash among three NATO members?
Such a clash seems unlikely, although the Turks have been giving flamethrower speeches over
the past several weeks. "Those who cooperate with terrorists organizations [the YPG] will be
targeted by Turkey," says Turkish Deputy Prime Minister
Bekir Bozdag said in a pointed reference to France's support for the Kurds. Threatening the
French is one thing, picking a fight with the U.S. military quite another.
Of course, if President Trump pulls U.S. forces out of Syria, it will be tempting for Turkey
to move in. While the "troika alliance" has agreed to Syrian "sovereignty," that won't stop
Ankara from meddling in Kurdish affairs. The Turks are already appointing governors and mayors
for the areas in Syria they have occupied.
Iran's major concern in Syria is maintaining a buffer between itself and a very aggressive
alliance of the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia, which seems to be in the preliminary stages of
planning a war against the second-largest country in the Middle East.
Iran is not at all the threat it has been pumped up to be. Its military is miniscule and
talk of a so-called "Shiite crescent" -- Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon -- is pretty much a
western invention (although the term was dreamed up by the King of Jordan).
Tehran has been weakened by crippling sanctions and faces the possibility that Washington
will withdraw from the nuclear accord and re-impose yet more sanctions. The appointment of
National Security Advisor John Bolton, who openly calls for regime change in Iran, has to have
sent a chill down the spines of the Iranians. What Tehran needs most of all is allies who will
shield it from the enmity of the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia. In this regard, Turkey and
Russia could be helpful.
Iran has modified its original goals in Syria of a Shiite-dominated regime by agreeing to a
"non-sectarian character" for a post-war Syria. Erdogan has also given up on his desire for a
Sunni-dominated government in Damascus.
War with Iran would be catastrophic, an unwinnable conflict that could destabilize the
Middle East even more than it is now. It would, however, drive up the price of oil, currently
running at around $66 a barrel. Saudi Arabia needs to sell its oil for at least $100 a barrel,
or it will very quickly run of money. The on-going quagmire of the Yemen war, the need to
diversify the economy, and the growing clamor by young Saudis -- 70 percent of the population
-- for jobs requires lots of money, and the current trends in oil pricing are not going to
cover the bills.
War and oil make for
odd bedfellows . While the Saudis are doing their best to overthrow the Assad regime and
fuel the extremists fighting the Russians, Riyadh is wooing Moscow to sign onto to a long-term
OPEC agreement to control oil supplies. That probably won't happen -- the Russians are fine
with oil at $50 to $60 a barrel -- and are wary of agreements that would restrict their right
to develop new oil and gas resources. The Saudi's jihad on the Iranians has a desperate edge to
it, as well it might. The greatest threat to the Kingdom has always come from within.
The rocks and shoals that can wreck alliances in the Middle East are too numerous to count,
and the "troika" is riven with contradictions and conflicting interests. But the war in Syria
looks as if it is coming to some kind of resolution, and at this point Iran, Russia and Turkey
seem to be the only actors who have a script that goes beyond lobbing cruise missiles at
people.
"... The best solution being that he defeats all rebel forces as quickly as possible. The UN Chemical Weapons people can then go in ( or even before ) and try to collect some evidence. ..."
"... It is all about oil and supremacy in the region. Since when has our government or that of any western Country - cared about their people. Canon fodder - that is what we are. ..."
'.....Given Russia's presence, it would not be easy...... '
Understatement of the century. If you start bombing strategic military targets you are
quite, likely to hit Russian planes and troops.
As I said yesterday - What is the point ? Assad ( helped by his ally Russia ) has all but
won the war ( which makes his use of chemical weapons surprising / a big mistake ) - The best
solution being that he defeats all rebel forces as quickly as possible. The UN Chemical
Weapons people can then go in ( or even before ) and try to collect some evidence.
Meanwhile, the Saudis are bombing Yemeni children with UK manufactured bombs.
The Syrian situation was made far worse by the USA / France and the UK arming extremist
Islamic groups during the ' Arab Spring ' in an attempt to depose the legitimate ruler of a
sovereign nation.
We don't say much about China's interference in Tibet these days, do we ?
Or the effect of Agent Orange in the Vietnam War ?
"here are many, many notable historians who state the death toll as high as 135,000 "
The biggest single death toll in WWII was the low level firebombing of Tokyo, large areas
of Japans capital city were wiped out. With houses as flammable as you can ever imagine, an
unimaginably horror filled event. The Japanese death toll was around 100,000 dead. You are
saying more died in Dresden?
"On this day, U.S. warplanes launch a new bombing offensive against Japan, dropping
2,000 tons of incendiary bombs on Tokyo over the course of the next 48 hours. Almost 16
square miles in and around the Japanese capital were incinerated, and between 80,000 and
130,000 Japanese civilians were killed in the worst single firestorm in recorded
history." https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/firebombing-of-tokyo
It is all about oil and supremacy in the region. Since when has our government or that of any
western Country - cared about their people. Canon fodder - that is what we are.
OK so let's attack Saudi for what they are doing in Yemen.
And Myanmar for their behaviour. Then there's Mexico, where the cartels keep murdering people. Really, let's apply the same standards everywhere.
How will this proposed action change anything? The Syrians have hidden everything that matters, the Russians will get 90 minutes warning
of the targets .... It's a PR exercise on the usual lines of "Something must be done .... this is something
..... "
Russia has transferred forty Pantsir-S1 air defense systems to Syria' Air Defence.
This is the latest air defence technology (the system is in service since 2012) - a combined
short to medium range surface-to-air missile and anti-aircraft artillery weapon system
against aircrafts, helicopters, precision munitions, cruise missiles and UAVs.
Israeli's deep incursions in Syria and the bombing of military bases also used by Russian
military have provided a lot of information about the capabilities and limitations of the Russian
military technology deployed in Syria.
Sure, here's the UN OPCW investigation report which directly blames the Assad forces for
chemical attacks. Take as much time as you need. https://undocs.org/S/2016/738
I couldn't find the paragraph which directly blames Assad's forces.
I note it does refer (at para 44) to Assad's allegation that a video had been staged. It
concludes that the patients on the video "appear relatively unaffected by the typical
symptoms. No red eyes, tearing, paleness, sweating, cyanosis or breathing difficulties can be
observed from the footage. The patients interviewed in the video show little or no signs of
having been exposed to a toxic chemical".
As I've said , I consider the term 'putinbot' - infantile and indicative of a lack of logical
argumentation as it is - as a compliment, since it appears to be code for those who retain
the ability to think for themselves and not fall glumly for the latest official line.
since the OPCW proved it was Putin who tried to murder British civilians with nerve
agents.
Actually, they proved no such thing, but in any case it's irrelevant to the discussion at
hand.
The notion of inaction, of standing by and watching as Assad kills and kills and kills,
racking up a death toll in Syria of 500,000
On May 12, 1996, Madeleine Albright defended UN sanctions against Iraq on a 60 Minutes
segment in which Lesley Stahl asked her "We have heard that half a million children have
died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth
it?" and Albright replied, "We think the price is worth it."'
From tomorrow the weather in some parts of the UK stops being an utter bastard and starts to
look like spring. The sun will get its hat on, hip, hip, hip, hooray!
Go out and listen to the birds, look at the blossom. Lots of good in the world.
Just in case anyone asks for an example of US diverging from Israeli objectives (I realise
that I did not elucidate on that in my post), US air strikes have focused entirely on ISIS
and have, up to now, left the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah alone. There's no
doubt that the Americans are very closely tied to Israeli objectives, but they certainly
aren't being controlled by a 'Zionist elite'.
America still fights for America. As I outlined
above, it's really only the British government that doesn't appear to have anything even
beginning to resemble an independent foreign policy.
Not a single terrorist attack on British soil has been inspired by Shiah Islam. And yet we arm the Wahhabis to dislodge the secular
Assad. Our government is crooked.
I watched RT for the first time last night and it was interesting.
But right now its like we are being ruled by lunatics. It is absolutely sickening. Quite
literally some moron in the White House is tweeting, 'My bombs are bigger than yours' and
'The missiles are coming.' And they still let him in rule one of the most powerful countries
on the Earth with a vast mass of WMD and Theresa May is trying reason with a fucking moron.
Hey Guardian if Trump is talking like this my swearing is the least of our problems, so
please don't moderate. We need someone to Moderate the madmen.
How do you compare a serial killer with twenty kills to one with one kills? Why, they're both serial killers. /That's/ how we compare the blood on our hands to those drenched to our shoulders.
We, along with the US, France and Gulf states have supported, armed and trained "rebels"
in Syria the whole time. We've had, as have others, special forces operating inside
Syria
So, there would never be rebellions against totalitarian dictators if it weren't for the CIA
and MI6.
I don't buy this. It's very convenient if you're an anti-war person who doesn't want to
face an ethical dilemma. But it's not real.
The Syrian Negotiation Commission has called for action to deter Assad from killing
civilians. What they envisage is that each time Assad launches a deadly attack on
noncombatants, allied forces reply by taking out one of the strategic assets he uses to
kill civilians. It could be an airfield, it could be a command centre. If the target were
aircraft, that would simultaneously inflict a cost on the regime and deprive it of the
means of dropping its barrel bombs and toxic, yellow cylinders. The objective would be to
make Assad pay a price for killing his own people, a price he has not paid until now.
Eventually, or so runs the hope, he would be deterred.
That kind of reminds me of when Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress were
explaining how to get rid of Saddam without plunging Iraq into mayhem and destabilising the
wider region.
I'm going to post a comment by another user posted yesterday as he said it far more
eloquently than I could
R Reddington InterestedReader2 1d ago
Your just another armchair warrior.
So you think going to war is a good idea well you first then and dont forget your flack
jacket and rifle.
The media onslaught has moved past the attack in Salisbury by a "weapon of mass
destruction" (quoting Theresa May) which could only be Russian, except that was untrue, and
was extremely deadly, except that was untrue too. It now focuses on an attack by chemical
weapons in Douma which "could only be" by the Russian-backed Assad regime, except there is
no evidence of that either, and indeed neutral verified evidence from Douma is
non-existent. The combination of the two events is supposed to have the British population
revved up by jingoism, and indeed does have Tony Blair and assorted Tories revved up, to
attack Syria and potentially to enter conflict with Russia in Syria.
The "Russian" attack in Salisbury is supposed to negate the "not our war" argument,
particularly as a British policeman was unwell for a while. Precisely what is meant to
negate the "why on earth are we entering armed confrontation with a nuclear power"
argument, I do not know.
Saudi Arabia has naturally offered facilities to support the UK, US and France in their
attempt to turn the military tide in Syria in favour of the Saudi sponsored jihadists whom
Assad had come close to defeating. That the Skripal and Douma incidents were preceded by
extremely intense diplomatic activity between Saudi Arabia, Washington, Paris and London
this year, with multiple top level visits between capitals, is presumably supposed to be
coincidence.
I am not a fan of Assad any more than I was a fan of Saddam Hussein. But the public now
understand that wars for regime change in Muslim lands have disastrous effects in dead and
maimed adults and children and in destroyed infrastructure; our attacks unleash huge
refugee waves and directly cause terrorist attacks here at home. There is no purpose in a
military attack on Syria other than to attempt to help the jihadists overthrow Assad. There
is a reckless disregard for evidence base on the pretexts for all this. Indeed, the more
the evidence is scrutinised, the dodgier it seems. Finally there is a massive difference
between mainstream media narrative around these events and a deeply sceptical public, as
shown in social media and in comments sections of corporate media websites.
The notion that Britain will take part in military action against Syria with neither
investigation of the evidence nor a parliamentary vote is worrying indeed. Without Security
Council authorisation, any such action is illegal in any event. It is worth noting that the
many commentators who attempt to portray Russia's veto of a Syria resolution as invalid,
fail to note that last week, in two separate 14 against 1 votes, the USA vetoed security
council resolutions condemning Israeli killings of unarmed demonstrators in Gaza.
The lesson the neo-cons learnt from the Iraq war is not that it was disastrous. It was
only disastrous for the dead and maimed Iraqis, our own dead and maimed servicemen, and
those whose country was returned to medievalism. It was a great success for the neo-cons,
they made loads of money on armaments and oil. The lesson the neo-cons learned was not to
give the public in the West any time to mount and organise opposition. Hence the
destruction of Libya was predicated on an entirely false "we have 48 hours to prevent the
massacre of the population of Benghazi" narrative. Similarly this latest orchestrated
"crisis" is being followed through into military action at a blistering pace, as the four
horsemen sweep by, scything down reason and justice on the way.
I've just stumbled on this absolute gem, from the New York Times, 17/1/2003:
"Analysis of thousands of captured Iraqi secret police documents and declassified U.S.
government documents, as well as interviews with scores of Kurdish survivors, senior Iraqi
defectors and retired U.S. intelligence officers, show
(1) that Iraq carried out the attack on Halabja [a 1988 chemical attack on Kurdish
villages that killed 5000 civilians], and
(2) that the United States, fully aware it was Iraq, accused Iran, Iraq's enemy in a
fierce war, of being partly responsible for the attack. The State Department instructed its
diplomats to say that Iran was partly to blame."
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld helped Saddam Hussein build up his arsenal of deadly
chemical and biological weapons. As an envoy from President Reagan 19 years ago, he had a
secret meeting with the Iraqi dictator and arranged enormous military assistance for his war
with Iran. Mr Rumsfeld, at the time a successful executive in the pharmaceutical industry,
still made it possible for Saddam to buy supplies from American firms. They included viruses
such as anthrax and bubonic plague, according to the Washington Post.
The USA provided $1.5 billion worth of Pathogenic, toxigenic and other biological research
materials were exported to Iraq; 1985-89.
1) US based company, Alcolac International exported mustard gas to Iraq; 1987-88.
2) Almost 150 foreign companies supported Saddam Hussein's WMD program; 1975-
3) US directly attacked Iran by hitting Iran's oil platforms; 1987.
4) US directly attacked Iran's navy in unproportioned and unreasonable war; 1988.
5) US shot down Iranian civilian airliner in the Iranian territory; 1988.
This is the equivalent of a pathological paedophile giving a sermon against child abuse
when the US preaches its corrupt moral practices regarding Syria!!!
"Trump is a congenital liar who is devoid of empathy, a narcissist with a nihilist's view of
the world. These are not mere character defects; they have a bearing on the decisions the de
facto leader of any action in Syria would take. Among the reasons I opposed the 2003 invasion
of Iraq was my fundamental distrust of George W Bush and his circle, especially on the matter
of motive. "
That is why Tony Blair, Jack Straw and Alistair Campbell fought so hard to oppose invasion of
Iraq. In the end they had to resort an academic paper to do it. I feel terrible for them.
Assad: So tell me, what is the military situation?
Generals: We are winning and winning decisively Mr President and the terrorists are
pulling out of East Ghoutta
Assad: Excellent news. I suggest we kill a few dozen innocent civilians in a gas attack to
celebrate.
Generals: Mr President, this would be utter folly. It would serve no possible military
purpose and would risk catastrophic air strikes against our military assets.
Assad: Do it anyway! ** strokes fluffy white cat with a Mwwahh, mwah, mwah. **
"... it's pretty obvious what the likes of Isis would have done to the non-extremists in Syria - the Christians and anyone not of their puritanical strain. ..."
"... Assad is no more a butcher than the countries that armed, trained and financed the rebels, the USA prominent among them ..."
"... The problem with Syria is from the start the West saw Assad as an easy domino that will fold like Saddam and Gadaffi ..."
"... Something I also notice not mentioned is the amount of billions that weapons manufacturers and their lackeys in the foreign office make out of these destabilized countries. ..."
"... When Hitler launched his V1 cruise missiles us killing 5,000 Londoners we called them a vengeance weapon... But somehow 70 years later cruise missiles are liberators when deployed by us. ..."
The situation in Syria is more nuanced than just calling out Assad as a butcher of his own
people. For one, he is a butcher of some of his own people, for many others he must
seem like a saviour as without his regime's resistance it's pretty obvious what the likes of
Isis would have done to the non-extremists in Syria - the Christians and anyone not of their
puritanical strain.
The real issue is that the established powers are struggling to cope with a multi-polar
world. It was only a few decades ago that the world's capitalists were looking forward to a
'new world order' without any serious opponents. But then things went wrong, and countries
refused to lay down for their new masters. Not only that, but Russia re-awoke and rejected
the funnelling of its wealth into the coffers of the West via a few carefully selected
oligarchs. Putin is undoubtedly not to liberal tastes, but he is the kind of leader Russians
are historically used to and who has put Russia back on the map as a world power.
Striking Syria now will not halt the suffering of the Syrian people, and it will place the
whole world in jeopardy. The potential price is too high. The best thing that could happen
now is that Trump is removed from office and replaced by a sane politician intelligent enough
to look after America's interests peacefully. Would the Syrian rebels have even started their
uprising if they hadn't thought that they would be backed-up by the liberal West? We should
withdraw from Syria and allow history and the Syrian people to make their own peace from the
rubble.
The two main points of this argument are so hypocritical that I want to start yelling at the
screen.
First, that Assad is a butcher because the war made half a million victims. No, Assad is
no more a butcher than the countries that armed, trained and financed the rebels, the USA
prominent among them. If they hadn't done that to advance their own strategic objectives and
to topple dictator they didn't like (because there's a lot of dictators that they like), the
war wouldn't have even started. The 500000 victims are on the US's conscience, not
Assad's.
Second, the idea that "It is indeed strange, but the extra revulsion at the use of
chemical weapons is not groundless. The taboo on the use of such weapons held, with
exceptions, for nearly a century."
Respectfully, it's bullshit. It emerged in 2013 that Saddam was helped by the USA gassing
50000 Iranians, both soldiers and civilians, in the 1980s- with chemical weapons developed
with the help of American, British and French companies, among others. Exactly those that
find unacceptable now the idea that 40 civilians *might* have been killed in a chemical
attack by the "butcher" Assad. So tell us, when are these countries going to bomb themselves,
as a just retribution for their heinous crimes?
But there is *no* evidence that Assad has even done this. On the contrary, Russia has even
accused the U.K government of being complicit in Douma.
Just apply logic to this: why would Assad do this? He has, buttressed by Russia, all but
'won' this wretched, heartbreaking civil war. So, on the cusp, he decides do use chemical
weapons which all but guarantees the U.S will stay in Syria funding the 'rebels' that he's
fighting. Sorry, it's just ludicrous to think he would do this.
The problem with Syria is from the start the West saw Assad as an easy domino that will fold
like Saddam and Gadaffi, but with one subtle difference Syria is a government that has the
backing of Iran, Russia and Hezbollah from the start. That they will not let Assad fall
easily to have a puppet regime installed in Damascus that will do the West's bidding. No way
that was going to happen. Iran saw it as a chance to consolidate itself as a hegemon in he
Middle East and Russia as chance for payback time for their humiliation in Iraq and Libya,
they were treated as an irrelevant country.
Assad is lucky and knows it, the West does not seem to learn that their interventions are
resented around the world and smacks of neo-colonialism. Syria is third time unlucky, Russia,
Iran and Syria are goading the West. It is your move and one false move they will be laughing
for a long time. Lesson in this is let countries resolve their problems by themselves, Syria
will not be the first or last country to see the use of Chemical weapons. It is vile &
disgusting way to attack civilians but remember we supplied Saddam the same weapons to attack
Iran in the 1980's and the world did nothing then. The West is not part of the solution in
Syria neither from the start or now. Read the history books on who put the Alwaites and
Assad's in power. It was France, the same France claiming they have evidence against Assad
now. Please!
Something I also notice not mentioned is the amount of billions that weapons manufacturers
and their lackeys in the foreign office make out of these destabilized countries.
When Hitler launched his V1 cruise missiles us killing 5,000 Londoners we called them a
vengeance weapon... But somehow 70 years later cruise missiles are liberators when deployed
by us. The war crime committed by Bommer Harris on the people of Dresden shows you cannot
bomb people into peace... So why are we still trying?
Not a supporter of any of the criminal operations that masquerade as governments worldwide,
but it's way past the time when I can believe a word the Western powers utter in their quest
to spread their vile economic doctrine.
For me the biggest question now is how best to avoid financing the evil they perpetrate
So the Russian military claimed a month ago that Syrian rebels were planning a chlorine
chemical weapon attack somewhere in Syria, three weeks later a chemical weapon chlorine
attack happens in Douma... but the UK government along with all the UK mainstream media do
not question perhaps it's the Jihadi/rebels who staged this attack, they ALL automatically
blame Assad? Stinks to high heaven.
President Assad and his wife, daughter of a UK BP man lived comfortably near my brother in
London's Chelsea for several years.
This all reminds me that the roles may have reversed nowadays but otherwise not much has
changed:
[ It is interesting to note that Allan Ramsay likewise deplored "a friendly alliance
between the camp and the counting-house" for exactly the same reasons (Letters on the Present
Disturbances, p.34). Ramsay maintained that of the evil consequences of such alliance "the
two last wars carried on by England against France and Spain, furnish a most melancholy
illustration.
To obtain the sole and exclusive commerce of the western world, in which the
French and Spaniards were their rivals, was the modest wish of our merchants, in conjunction
with our Americans.
The fair, and truly commercial, method of effecting this would have been,
by superior skill, industry and frugality, to have undersold their rivals at market: but that
method appearing slow and troublesome to a luxurious people, whose extraordinary expences*
required extraordinary profits, a more expeditous one was devised; which was that of driving
their rivals entirely out of the seas, and preventing them from bringing their goods at all
to market. For this purpose, not having any fleets or armies of their own, the powers of the
State were found necessary, and they applied them accordingly" (ibid., pp.32 f.).
Knorr, K. E. 'Ch02-Part2 British Colonial Theories 1570-1850'. In British Colonial Theories,
1570-1850. The University of Toronto Press, 1944. ]
As much bad as Assad did, nothing is more worse than the killings on civilians done my the
"freedom fighters". Why is it for us Syria so important? How come other countries are not
getting involved in a Iraq 2.0 just the same warmongers who want to test their new toys...
USA, France and us... fighting a fight that costs us so much, plus the Brexit, plus the
eventual payment afterwards , I really do not understand. What the frick are we doing in
Middle East? Is there a English colony that we have forgotten? Or a France colony or even a
USA colony? This strikes me as a fight for either resources or for influence or for pleasing
the master Israel. I am clear of how this White Helmets operate , Eva Bartlett told us, and
do not forget that there are plenty of vids on the whole internet of how they operate "Lights
camera action" actors.
Labour calls for the attack on Douma to be "fully investigated". That sounds unarguable.
But then what? Jeremy Corbyn issued the same call after the chemical attack that killed at
least 74 at Khan Sheikhoun a year ago: demanding there be a "UN investigation and those
responsible be held to account". The UN duly investigated and in October concluded
unambiguously that the Assad regime had used sarin gas. But Corbyn greeted that verdict
with silence.
The report that Mr Freedland provides a link to, actually says:
"5. While the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission in the Syrian Arab Republic works to establish
the facts surrounding allegations of the use of toxic chemicals for hostile purposes in the
country, it is not mandated to reach conclusions about attributing responsibility for
chemical weapons use. 1 Following a determination by the FactFinding Mission that a specific
incident in the Syrian Arab Republic involved or likely involved the use of chemicals as
weapons, the Mechanism conducts an investigation to identify, to the greatest extent
feasible, the perpetrators, organizers, sponsors or those otherwise involved. In conducting
its investigation, the Mechanism relies on findings of the Fact-Finding Mission regarding the
use of chemicals as weapons in each incident and pursues a rigorous independent examination
of the available information surrounding such use so as to identify, to the greatest extent
feasible, those responsible."
It doesn't appear to be claiming to be concluding "unambiguously that the Assad regime had
used sarin gas." Am I missing something here?
Mr Freedland's allegation that "Corbyn greeted that verdict with silence" is highly
suspect:
"RT:Today, Moscow says it has evidence that rebels have used sarin gas. Earlier Britain
said that Assad forces were behind the chemical attack. But why didn't Britain and the US
come forward with the same sort of hard evidence that Russia has come forward with?
JC: That's an interesting question. I can't speak for the British or the US
governments, but they made these allegations about the use of chemical weapons – and
there are apparently stocks of chemical weapons being held in Syria, which may well have
fallen into opposition hands, or may still be in government hands, or maybe both – but
the assertion was made that they had been used. But no hard evidence came up, and indeed,
there was a great deal of skepticism surrounding the evidence that was never presented. And
the Russian evidence today appears much stronger, and they said they were going to put that
evidence in the hands of the United Nations - that has got to be a good thing. However,
proving or not proving this doesn't end the crisis, there has to be the rapid resumption of
talks by Geneva too, all parties must be involved – including Iran. If we're to bring
about a settlement, there's got to be involvement of Iran, as well as all the different
parties in Syria."
This post by Just in Thyme has just been mode rated:
"As the British government release shedloads of crocodile tears over their paid for White
Helmet video footage, and moan like spiteful children how they want to bomb more people, let
look at some other inconvenient facts.
The Yemeni Ministry of Human Rights announced on March 25 that the Saudi-led war had left
600,000 civilians dead and injured since March 2015. The United Nations says a record 22.2
million Yemenis are in need of food aid, including 8.4 million threatened by severe hunger.
Meanwhile the Saudis shovel their bits of silver into the empty coffers of the NATO
warmongers.
Who said money cannot buy influence, Its was the UK that backed Britain backed Saudi
Arabia's election to the United Nations top human right's body as part of a vote trading deal
– despite the Gulf State's appalling abuse record. Secret cables reportedly show that
Britain approached Saudi Arabia about the trade ahead of the 2013 election for membership of
the Human Rights Council (UNHRC). The Saudi regime has executed 135 people since January on
charges ranging from murder to witchcraft.
The lynch mob government, we all voted for, and this is what democracy is really all
about???"
Iran didn't instigate the Twin Towers or the London attacks, didn't instigate the invasion of
Iraq, didn't instigate the overthrowing of Libya, didn't instigate the war in Syria, didn't
instigate the war in Yemen and didn't fund and arm ISIS.
The gave support following US intervention. Mmm, I wonder why they have such an issue with
the US?
In an age of fake news and endless propaganda it's very difficult these days to see the woods
from the trees... The words butcher and thug are easily thrown around in the Syrian civil
war.
It appears some people have short memories as it wasn't that long ago when we were witnessing
the alternative world of Islamic State in Syria. Head choppers running amok and anyone
suspected of being gay being chucked off tall buildings. Women being flogged to death for
trumped up charges of adultery. Kids having their hands cut off for stealing apples.
To make matters worse these sadistic psychopaths were armed and driving around in vehicles
supplied by the West... It had developed into a living hell for many as the death cult of
Isis took hold.
I remember the so called thug Putin saying someone had to take on these terrorists...
The West were reluctant to do the dirty work required... So it came down to Russia to get
boots on the ground to help defeat Islamic State.
Why does the UK supply the terror supporters of the Arabian Peninsula with weapons while
fighting and vilifying Assad? This is real hypocrisy. Yemenis suffer horrendously from Saudi
attacks, the UK's close friends. Assad always guaranteed religious freedom and Syrians
enjoyed much more freedom than any of the Middle Eastern countries.
What's actually is disconcerting is the fact that mainline media have taken the alleged
chemical attack as a fact. They don't have their reporters on the ground or even Western
military personnel in the area. But a claim and some unauthenticated videos from headchoppers
are taken as a fact. A fact which is not allowed to be tested or critiqued. Does it mean they
just want more bombs and missiles to hammer Syria and any reason/justification would do?
Unsurprising to see the likes of CNN and MSNBC siding with Haley. Trump should've dumped
her awhile back. Contrary to the CNN/MSNBC spin, she has been an embarrassment for the US at
the UN. Upon her UN appointment, it was thought that Haley couldn't be worse than Samantha
Power.
During his presidential bid, Trump spoke of bringing in competent non-establishment types.
The case for Jim Jatras as UN ambassador:
As noted, Tulsi Gabbard would've been a good selection as well.
The US didn't challenge Russia's more updated missile defense system in Syria shielding
Russian forces. It's not like Washington can control everything.
Through their anti-Syrian proxies, the US has a roughly 30% control of Syria. A few days
before the most recent alleged Syrian government chemical attack, Trump said he wanted out of
Syria. I believe he was either duped into bombing, or knows that the chemical weapon claim is
in the very suspect/outright BS ranges of probality.
"... British governments, both Labour and Conservative, have, in pursuing the so-called 'national interest' abroad, colluded for decades with radical Islamic forces, including terrorist organizations. They have connived with them, worked alongside them and sometimes trained and financed them, in order to promote specific foreign policy objectives. Governments have done so in often desperate attempts to maintain Britain's global power in the face of increasing weakness in key regions of the world, being unable to unilaterally impose their will and lacking other local allies. Thus the story is intimately related to that of Britain's imperial decline and the attempt to maintain influence in the world. ..."
"... But whereas Sharif Hussein was a follower of orthodox Sunni Islam, Ibn Saud adhered to the radical doctrine of Wahhabism, which Winston Churchill was moved to describe as " bloodthirsty ..."
"... British support for the mujahideen, married to the huge support provided by Washington, was indispensable in the eventual success of these self-styled 'holy warriors' in taking control of a country that had embraced modernity and turning it into a failed state mired in religious oppression, brutality, backwardness and poverty. ..."
"... Britain, along with the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, covertly supported the resistance to defeat the Soviet occupation of the country. Military, financial and diplomatic backing was given to Islamist forces which, while forcing a Soviet withdrawal, soon organized themselves into terrorist networks ready to strike Western targets. ..."
"... Islamic resistance ..."
"... We trust the Western leaders are prepared for the enormous beneficial possibilities that could just possibly open up if the Afghan rebellion were to succeed. ..."
"... Manchester, England is home to the largest Libyan community in Britain, and there is strong evidence to suggest that when the Libyan uprising broke out MI6 facilitated the ability of Libyan Islamists in Britain to travel to Libya to participate in the fighting. Among them was Salman Abedi, who it is thought received military training in the country before being allowed to return to the UK thereafter. ..."
"... This brings us on to Syria and, as with Libya, the question of how so many British Muslims have been able to travel from the UK to Syria via Turkey to take part in the anti-Assad insurgency since 2011? It also brings into sharp focus a policy that has veered between the ludicrous and the reckless. ..."
"... As for the recklessness of Britain's actions in Syria, look no further than the country's recent participation in the illegal missile strikes that were carried out in conjunction with the US and France, justified on the basis of as yet unproven allegations that Syrian government forces had carried out a chemical weapons attack on Douma, just outside Damascus. The only beneficiaries of such actions by the Western powers are Salafi-jihadist groups such as ISIS (whom it was later reported took advantage of the missile strike to mount a short-lived offensive), Al-Nusra and Jaysh al-Islam. ..."
"... The latter of those groups, Jaysh al-Islam, is a Saudi proxy. It was the dominant group in Douma and throughout Eastern Ghouta until the district's liberation by the Syrian Army and its allies with Russian support. ..."
Britain's strategic relationship with radical Islam goes back decades and continues to this
day. There is no more foul a stench than the stench of hypocrisy, and there is no more foul a
hypocrisy than the British government painting Bashar al-Assad as a monster when in truth he
and the Syrian people have been grappling with a twin-headed monster in the shape of
Salafi-jihadi terror and Western imperialism. Both are committed to destroying Syria as an
independent, non-sectarian state, and both are inextricably linked.
Author and journalist Mark Curtis charts in detail
the contours of this history in his book 'Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical
Islam':
" British governments, both Labour and Conservative, have, in pursuing the so-called
'national interest' abroad, colluded for decades with radical Islamic forces, including
terrorist organizations. They have connived with them, worked alongside them and sometimes
trained and financed them, in order to promote specific foreign policy objectives. Governments
have done so in often desperate attempts to maintain Britain's global power in the face of
increasing weakness in key regions of the world, being unable to unilaterally impose their will
and lacking other local allies. Thus the story is intimately related to that of Britain's
imperial decline and the attempt to maintain influence in the world. "
As far back as the First World War, when the Middle East began to assume strategic
importance in the capitals of Western imperial and colonial powers, the British ruling class
went out of its way to identify and recruit loyal local proxies in pursuit of its regional
objectives. Britain's relationship with the Arab tribal chief, Ibn Saud, who would go on to
establish Saudi Arabia in the early 1930s, began in 1915 with the Darin Pact, demarcating the
territory then controlled by Saud as a British protectorate.
The following year, the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans erupted. Begun and inspired by
Saud's fierce rival, Sharif Hussein, head of the Hashemite Arab tribe, the revolt was heavily
bankrolled and supported by the British – a period immortalized in the exploits of
British military agent T E Lawrence, known to the world as Lawrence of Arabia.
But whereas Sharif Hussein was a follower of orthodox Sunni Islam, Ibn Saud adhered to the
radical doctrine of Wahhabism, which Winston Churchill was moved to describe as "
bloodthirsty " and " intolerant ." Regardless, when it came to its imperial
interests there was no tiger upon whose back the British ruling class was not willing to ride
during this period, and which, as events have proved, it has not been willing to ride
since.
The most egregious example of this policy, one that continues to have ramifications today,
was the support provided by the UK to the Afghan mujahideen in the late 1970s and 1980s. The
insurgency's objective was the overthrow of Kabul's secular and left-leaning government, whose
crime in the eyes of the Islamist insurgency's US and UK sponsors was that it had embraced the
social and economic model of Moscow rather than Washington during the first Cold War.
British support for the mujahideen, married to the huge support provided by Washington, was
indispensable in the eventual success of these self-styled 'holy warriors' in taking control of
a country that had embraced modernity and turning it into a failed state mired in religious
oppression, brutality, backwardness and poverty.
Mark Curtis again:
" Britain, along with the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, covertly supported the
resistance to defeat the Soviet occupation of the country. Military, financial and diplomatic
backing was given to Islamist forces which, while forcing a Soviet withdrawal, soon organized
themselves into terrorist networks ready to strike Western targets. "
While Washington's primary role in channeling military and financial support to the Afghan
mujahideen, known as
Operation Cyclone , may until have succeeded in overshadowing London's role in this dirty
war, declassified British government cabinet papers which were made public in 2010 and
reported in the UK media make grim reading.
They reveal that three weeks after Soviet forces arrived in Afghanistan at the request of
the Afghan government in Kabul, struggling to deal with an insurgency that had broken out in
the countryside, the Thatcher government was planning to supply military aid to the "
Islamic resistance ." A confidential government memo provides a chilling insight into
the insanity that passed for official policy: " We trust the Western leaders are prepared
for the enormous beneficial possibilities that could just possibly open up if the Afghan
rebellion were to succeed. "
It will be recalled that out of the ensuing collapse of Afghanistan emerged the Taliban,
under whose rule the country was turned into a vast militant jihadist school and training camp.
Many of the most notorious Islamist terrorists began their careers there, fighting the Soviets
and then later broadening out their activities to other parts of the region and wider world. In
this regard, Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda loom large.
Other notorious names from the world of Salafi-jihadism for whom Afghanistan proved
indispensable include the Jordanian Abu al-Zarqawi, who founded Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) during
the US-UK occupation, an organization that would over time morph into ISIS.
Abdelhakim Belhaj and other Libyan Islamists cut their jihadist teeth in Afghanistan in the
1980s. Returning to Libya, they formed the Libyan Islamic
Fighting Group (LIFG) in the eastern city of Benghazi. Though the group may have been
disbanded in 2010, having failed to topple Gaddafi despite repeated attempts to assassinate the
Libyan leader with, it's been
claimed , the support of Britain's MI6, former members of the LIFG, including Belhaj, were
important actors in the 2011 Libyan uprising.
By way of a reminder, the uprising in Libya started in Benghazi and would not have succeeded
without the air support it received from NATO. Britain's then prime minister, David Cameron,
was key in pushing for that air support and the sanction of the UN under the auspices of
Security Council Resolution 1973. Though protecting civilians was central in wording of this
UNSC resolution, it was shamefully distorted to justify regime change, culminating in Gaddafi's
murder by the 'rebels.'
Staying with the LIFG, in the wake of the Manchester suicide-bomb attack in May 2017, which
left 23 people dead and 500 injured, the fact that the bomber, a young Libyan by the name of
Salman Abedi, was the son of a former member of the LIFG, did not receive anything like the
media attention it should have at the time.
Manchester, England is home to the largest Libyan community in Britain, and there is strong
evidence to suggest that when the Libyan uprising broke out MI6 facilitated the ability of
Libyan Islamists in Britain to travel to Libya to participate in the fighting. Among them was
Salman Abedi, who it is thought received military training in the country before being allowed
to return to the UK thereafter.
This brings us on to Syria and, as with Libya, the question of how so
many British Muslims have been able to travel from the UK to Syria via Turkey to take part
in the anti-Assad insurgency since 2011? It also brings into sharp focus a policy that has
veered between the ludicrous and the reckless.
Emblematic of the former was ex-prime minister David Cameron's
claim , which he made during a 2015 Commons debate over whether the Royal Air Force should
engage in air strikes against ISIS in Syria, that fighting as part of the Syrian were 70,000
moderates.
As for the recklessness of Britain's actions in Syria, look no further than the country's
recent participation in the illegal missile strikes that were carried out in conjunction with
the US and France, justified on the basis of as yet unproven allegations that Syrian government
forces had carried out a chemical weapons attack on Douma, just outside Damascus. The only
beneficiaries of such actions by the Western powers are Salafi-jihadist groups such as ISIS
(whom it was later
reported took advantage of the missile strike to mount a short-lived offensive), Al-Nusra
and Jaysh al-Islam.
The latter of those groups, Jaysh al-Islam, is a Saudi proxy. It was the dominant group in
Douma and throughout Eastern Ghouta until the district's liberation by the Syrian Army and its
allies with Russian support.
Given the deep and longstanding ties between London and Riyadh; given the fact,
reported towards the end of 2017, that British military personnel were embedded in a
training role with Saudi forces in Yemen; given the news that a British special forces sergeant was
killed in northern Syria at the end of March this year while embedded with the Kurds, revealing
for the first time that British troops were operating in the country on the ground –
given all that, the question of who else British special forces and military personnel may be
embedded with in Syria is legitimate.
In the context of the British state's long and sordid history when it comes to riding the
back of radical Islam in pursuit of its strategic objectives, readers will doubtless draw their
own conclusions.
John Wight has written for newspapers and websites across the world, including the
Independent, Morning Star, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, London Progressive Journal, and
Foreign Policy Journal. He is also a regular commentator on RT and BBC Radio. John is currently
working on a book exploring the role of the West in the Arab Spring. You can follow him on
Twitter @JohnWight1
It is much better to view this issue in ideological terms as neocons and neoliberalas and
remnant of paleoconservatives and News Dealers.
Notable quotes:
"... Jews are a powerful voice but they are, by and large, not in the decision-making seat. Why do you absolve Trump, Haley, Pence, Bolton, etc.? Maybe they are "brainwashed" by the Jews? Well maybe the Jews are "brainwashed" too? ..."
Today, America's Big Jews and Little Jews bear responsibility for this sad situation
– end of story.
That is simply ignorant and racist. Most of the Senate is not Jews, the President is not a
Jew, the Secretary of Defense is not a Jew, and the vast majority of general aren't Jews. Yet
they are all going along with this "bomb Syria" thing, with a few exceptions – one of
them being Bernie Sanders, a Jew.
Jews are a powerful voice but they are, by and large, not in the decision-making seat.
Why do you absolve Trump, Haley, Pence, Bolton, etc.? Maybe they are "brainwashed" by the
Jews? Well maybe the Jews are "brainwashed" too?
I don't see how you get to selectively blame one group and absolve others except via
ignorant, counterproductive and stupid racism.
By the way, Jerry Brown is a huge advocate of open borders and a primary contributor to
it. Is he a Jew too?
It's fair and honorable to point out the Jewish role in these affairs, but it is just as
unfair and dishonorable to not only ignore, but try to bury, the non-Jewish role in these
affairs.
I agree with "think peace" – but the non-Jews Trump, Pence, Ryan, Haley, Pompeo,
etc. are anything but peaceful. I don't see any Jewish guns to their head, so they are 100%
responsible for their own actions. Why do you excuse them? Hmmm?
Judging from German press, Germany really looks like a US colony, not even vassal state.
Notable quotes:
"... She was promoted over Kohl's natural successor, Schaeuble, who was discredited using comparatively trifling allegations of accepting improper donations (aka bribes) on behalf of the party. ..."
"... Merkel has betrayed German interests at every turn, most blatantly in the context of the Greek debt fiasco and the refugee fake crisis. She goes along with imposing sanctions on Russia, which hurts export-oriented Germany like no other Western country. ..."
"... Merkel's selection as chancellor does not explain why German electorate keep electing her party as majority, which then is in the position to name her as chancellor. German people have been lobotomized and neutered after decades of Soros-Neocon brainwashing. ..."
The most interesting aspect of this false response to a false flag attack is the non
participation by Germany. Turkey has one foot in both camps. Germany will be next to turn.
Time is working against Imperial Washington.
Merkel is a CIA asset. She has skeletons in her closet from her time in East Germany, and
her meteoric rise to power was clearly engineered by a third party -- she herself lacked both
the experience and the power base within the party for doing it herself. She was promoted
over Kohl's natural successor, Schaeuble, who was discredited using comparatively trifling
allegations of accepting improper donations (aka bribes) on behalf of the party.
Merkel has betrayed German interests at every turn, most blatantly in the context of
the Greek debt fiasco and the refugee fake crisis. She goes along with imposing sanctions on
Russia, which hurts export-oriented Germany like no other Western country. At the same
time, the "ultra-right" (i.e. common sense) party "Alternative fuer Deutschland" is forever
mired in ridiculous infighting, which regularly escalates just ahead of elections -- funny
how that is. Must be those meddling Russians.
Long story short, hell will freeze over before Merkel decides herself what is for
breakfast, never mind for policy. I wish we could clone Putin and import him.
Merkel's selection as chancellor does not explain why German electorate keep electing her
party as majority, which then is in the position to name her as chancellor. German people have been lobotomized and neutered after decades of Soros-Neocon
brainwashing.
There is no other explanation for people who are committing slow self-extermination as a
distinct ethnos. Same with the French electorate: they had a chance to elect a true French
patriot and instead chose another globalist weirdo poodle.
Merkel's party has no majority – actually her party's share of the vote is at
historic lows with less than one third (traditionally it was 45-50%). She has moved that
formerly conservative party to the left by co-opting green and welfare agendas of the
competing parties. The other formerly strong party, the Social Democrats, have been reduced
to a status of auxiliaries in an eternal "grand coalition". In spite of infighting, the new
"right-wing" AfD came in third in the last elections.
But of course, as you say, the people's failure to get rid of her is due in large measure
to relentless media brainwashing, they swallow the refugee nonsense because it is
subliminally suggested that it atones for the "holocaust" etc. I don't read a single German
newspaper anymore, the manure is just too depressing.
Militarily subsidised by Nato, Germany spends next to nothing on its own defence and is
keeping wages down even more than usual by importing immigrants, thereby aiding its
deindustrialising of the rest of the EU. Russia is declining in national power compared to
Germany by getting into silly pissing contests with America. Adolf Hitler always said it
would be necessary to sacrifice millions of Germans to make Germany Great. He would approve
of Merkel.
What keeps German wages down, in real terms, is the Euro, not the migrants.
You are correct on the neglect of the armed forces. I have griped about it often, but I
have recently changed my tune. If the forces were indeed up to snuff, this would only cause
the U.S. to "ask" for their deployment in their many endless idiotic wars. Letting the troops
degrade to some sort of war museum on wheels is a sly way of getting out of that –
can't deploy in the short term, sorry, no spark plugs, but will be more than happy to go
along for the next war so I now see this as one of the few things Merkel got right.
The Corrupt U.S. Congress Cheers as the War Industry Steals Billions from the People's
Coffers !
Christian Sorensen | April 13, 2018
"Missile Production Capacity
In February, Newsbud reported on the war industry increasing its capacity to produce
Hellfire missiles.
Capacity to produce other missile types is expanding as well.
On 6 March 2018, BAE Systems received close to $13.7 million to help increase production
capacity of the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS). With its headquarters in
London, BAE Systems links the U.K. war industry to the United States, effectively
underpinning the 'special relationship' between the two countries.
On 19 March 2018, Raytheon received roughly $7.8 million to improve the production
capacity of AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles. Steps Raytheon might take to increase missile
production include adding more equipment, altering staffing levels, and upgrading its
facilities.
The war industry has been operating at full steam for the past seventeen years. Now, these
contracts tell us, the boardrooms of prominent war industry giants believe there is reason to
produce more Hellfire, APKWS, and Sidewinder missiles. Is it war with Iran? A bigger
offensive against President Assad's forces in Syria? Conflict in Korea?
The U.S. war industry is expecting more sustained, high-tempo hostilities in the near
future. You've been warned."
Iran doesn't want to escalate the situation and give Trump any leverage on Iran deal. Iran
wants to deprive any moral political or legal supports from EU to USA on this. Trump pulls
out. Rest remains same. This will give Iran moral political and legal authorities to pursue
its nuclear program with China and Russia.
This will have domino effects on other areas of these 3 countries -- how to conduct
business internationally.
So a choreographed coordinated attack works for Iran. Trump is happy. His base angry.
His enemies can't go after him for few hours or days . Mad madam prostitute Nick Halley
has to be soothed by Kudlow telling her she was not a demented rat.
At Sec. St. nomination hearing, Pompeo bragged that "we had killed a couple of hundred
Russian contractors." As a former civilian contractor in a war zone, I note that he just put
a target on the forehead of every American contractor working in a war zone. It is now open
season on them. Who will have blood on their hands?
On a side note I would add that 3-4 years ago when Ukraine was boiling, much of the
discussion by concerned people focused on countries outside of the US, and the damage caused by
the US. The US, in this context, was largely regarded as an evil but coherent entity.
But that coherence has now come more and more into question. Discussion shifted gradually,
as the US made more and more mistakes and lost battle after battle in so many theaters, and
revealed itself as a failing actor. And in the last year or two there's much more discussion
about the US itself, largely trying to pierce the obscurity of how that country is actually run
and by whom. This shift was already happening, and Trump of course added to the
fascination.
I was glad to see that gradual shift. To me it indicated the war itself was won, while many
battles were yet to be fought. I think it's true that Russia, China, Iran and others are
increasingly concerned with curtailing the damage that the US can still inflict. Every day they
increase in actual, effective power, and the US decreases in that power. Yesterday's battle
will be fought differently tomorrow, because the balance of that power will have shifted again
by then.
Syria has been an enormously useful magnifying glass to show us so much about the relative
power balances of many nations. And even as the US lashes out in its death throes, it is
increasingly cornered and stymied. The same is true of Israel. It's reaching the point - if not
already there - that every move made by the US will result in clear damage to itself, with no
gain, and no damage to its targets.
The other side has had sufficient time to wargame countless contingencies, and think them
through and make preparations for them. Increasingly, it gets to choose what damage to allow
and what to stop, because the costs of every action have now been calculated - and the passage
of time reduces the costs too, so the equation constantly updates.
This is true outside of Syria also, in all theaters and on many planes of
activity.
The US Deep State doesn't want to "conquer" any country. Then they'd have to pay the bill
for the destruction they caused... think an actual Marshall Plan, not the Iraq and Afghan
Debacles. It is not trying to "win". It is trying to destroy those countries' ability to
function outside the iron-fist influence of the IMF/BIS/etc. banks/economy.
... ... ..
As for US operations in Syria being handed off "to others", i.e. to Prince's latest
iteration of Blackwater/Xi/Academia, the last we heard of Erik was trying to sell a budget
airforce/drone system to countries in Africa. What a joke.
Not going to happen in Syria,
because Russia, Iran, Hezbolla and Syria would have no qualms about directly assaulting
Prince's Kurd/Arab/Wahabbist mercenaries... Eric may be a self-serving parasite, but he's not
stupid enough to directly take on the Russian military, or even the SAA for that matter.
Especially with no NATO air cover...
Killary is not around to unilaterally impose a Libya-style
no-fly-zone.
Trumpty Dumbdy is trapped, just trying to convince his base that he really is getting the US
out of being Israel's and the Rothschilds' bitch, but that is not a potential reality.
It would
involve dismantling the FED and cutting off the yearly $multi-billion military aid tap to
Israel. I doubt he is smart or informed enough to comprehend the situation he is in. Any sane,
intelligent person would walk away and tell the Zionist/Rothschild/Deep State to find another
patsy.
These skirmishes (not skirmishes to those who live or die because of them), even ones that
are war crimes, as this was, seem to me to be in large part ways in which the major powers test
out their combat systems. I would think the Pentagon would like to test the Russian defense
systems, and the Russians can't be completely sorry they got the opportunity to see how those
new systems worked under operational conditions. The winners are the arms manufacturers. The
losers are everybody else.
"... "She's done a great job," Kudlow said of Haley. "She's a very effective ambassador. There might have been some momentary confusion about that. But if you talk to Steve Mnuchin at Treasury and so forth, he will tell you the same thing. They're in charge of this. We have had sanctions. Additional sanctions are under consideration but not implemented, and that's all." ..."
Confused!!! How dare Larry Kudlow suggest Nikki got confused!!!
>White House press secretary Sarah Sanders insisted more sanctions were merely under
consideration. On Tuesday, top White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Haley "got ahead
of the curve."
"She's done a great job," Kudlow said of Haley. "She's a very effective ambassador. There
might have been some momentary confusion about that. But if you talk to Steve Mnuchin at
Treasury and so forth, he will tell you the same thing. They're in charge of this. We have had
sanctions. Additional sanctions are under consideration but not implemented, and that's
all."
Haley, speaking for the first time since the White House dialed back her claims, rejected
the idea that she was confused.
"With all due respect, I don't get confused," Haley said in a statement read by Fox News'
Dana Perino and confirmed by CBS News Tuesday.
Theresa May's
decision to authorise British military action over the skies of Syria by royal prerogative
rather than obtaining the backing of parliament was the wrong thing to do. Even if the prime
minister thinks it was done for the right reasons. It was wrong because the government's plans
should have been articulated so that MPs could have had a chance to endorse – or reject
– a motion to bomb Bashar al-Assad's weapons factories. It was wrong because there was no
emergency – an exception used when after a debate MPs retrospectively endorsed action
against Muammar Gaddafi's
Libya . It was wrong because only prime ministers can recall parliament – and there
was time to do so. It was wrong because decisions about how to police the unlawful use of
weapons of mass destructive terror in Syria turn upon judgment rather than available facts.
Parliament is the best place to assess whether the use of military force serves the overall
interests of a nation in such cases. This is especially true of a government without a majority
of its own. Jeremy Corbyn's resurrection of an old idea for a
war powers act , which would force the PM not to authorise the active and large-scale
deployment of British forces overseas without the approval of the House of Commons, ought not
to be dismissed.
But it should be accompanied by a wider recognition that the days of self-regulation of
cabinet government are over. Observing the parliamentary convention would be better than
creating an act where fractious disagreements over the precise nature of the circumstances in
which the law is to be applied – especially in a situation as fluid and volatile as war
– prevail.
Russia and the Syrian regime have been accused
by western diplomats of denying chemical weapons inspectors access to sites in the town of
Douma, where an attack killed dozens and prompted US-led missile strikes over the weekend.
Russia and Syria had
cited "pending security issues" before inspectors could deploy to the town outside Damascus,
said Ahmet Üzümcü, the director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition
of Chemical Weapons, at a meeting of the OPCW's executive council.
Syrian authorities were offering 22 people to interview as witnesses instead, he said,
adding that he hoped "all necessary arrangements will be made to allow the team to deploy to
Douma as soon as possible".
Meanwhile, the Trump administration delayed action on sanctions against Russians suspected
of helping Syria's chemical weapons programme, contradicting remarks on Sunday by the US envoy
to the UN, Nikki Haley.
I suggest that Russia act as "marginal producer" and refuse to sell oil,
gas or raw petroleum products for less than double the price of other
suppliers.
All of a sudden... thing will change.
After the treatment Russia has gotten for the past year or more, they
are more than justified to adopt this policy.
What's going on?
Read this:
"In late March, the U.S. State Department warned European corporations that
they will likely face penalties if they participate in the construction of
Russia's Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, on the grounds that "the project
undermines energy security in Europe"
The Nord Stream 2 project and the
denial of pipelines through Syria territory is what's eating at the zio-cons.
This is power politics and Russia / China are too much of a threat.
The Russian central bank opened its first overseas office in Beijing
on March 14, marking a step forward in forging a Beijing-Moscow alliance
to bypass the US dollar in the global monetary system, and to phase-in a
gold-backed standard of trade.
Apr 3 2017 - Europe approves Nordstream 2 gas pipeline from Russia to
Germany
April 6 2017 - need to attack Syria.
Coincidentally, with a new government a gas pipelin can be run from
Qatar to Europe and cut-off Russian gas revenue.
*Three Mediterranean EU countries and Israel agreed on Monday to
continue pursuing the development of a gas pipeline ... EU countries and
Israel ... April 3, 2017 ...*
EU, Israel agree to develop Eastern Mediterranean gas pipeline
The Optics of the Inter National Geo Political Crises would suggest
that The Criminal Oligarch Cabal Bankster Intelligence Deep State Crime
Syndicate are going "All In."
The petroyuan project is the key. It will smash the petrodollar zio-world.
Saddam Hussien thought of doing that in the 80's by consolidating
Arab oil into a basket of currencies backed by gold. The problem for
him was he was a disposable puppet and not able to defend that
project. China and Russia are a different matter. It's driving the
zios batty.
And, the Yuan is now in the IMF basket of SDR's. Ultimately, the
Petro Dollar will meet its demise & it will be decided by which is
the cleanest, dirtiest shirt to put on among the SDR's.
It would be legitimate to wonder if the U.S. MIC will stealthily add to the long list of sanctimonious sanctions the interdiction
for any western vassal state to buy the vastly superior Russian weapon systems in a not so distant future. One can feel it coming.
Needless to say this kind of short sighted vision will be the straw that will break the camel's back.
These sanctions are ultimately going to hurt more the USA than Russia because little by little countries are leaving the American
sphere of influence for the more balanced and reasonable Eurasian one. Nobody wants to stay with a maniac like Nikki or a fool
like trump...
The Americans will be begging to be integrated once they hit the bottom.
"... Haley is known to be among the most hardened neo-cons in the Trump administration, with strong ties to the anti-Iranian American Israel lobby. ..."
"... Nikki Haley has often defied the moderate voice of Rex Tillerson and even James "Mad Dog" Mattis on a number of issues. Haley for example has repeatedly said that 'Assad must go', while Tillerson and Mattis have been far more realistic about the fact that President Assad will in all likelihood, continue to govern Syria for the foreseeable future. ..."
"... Nikki Haley also famously said that Russians cannot be trusted, while Rex Tillerson has worked closely (albeit usually through phone calls rather than grandiose public meetings) with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and was seen as instrumental in creating the joint Russian-US-Jordanian de-escalation zone in south western Syria. ..."
The US media outlet Politico has published claims based on internal White House leaks, which report that the
controversial US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, is the author of Trump's anti-JCPOA and broader
anti-Iran policies, which were conveyed in his speech form the White House, yesterday evening.
Haley is known to be among the most hardened neo-cons in the Trump administration, with strong ties to the
anti-Iranian American Israel lobby. Her role as US Ambassador has been far more public than that of most of
her predecessors. Many, including myself, suspect that Haley who has no previous foreign policy experience, is
using her position at the UN to promote a future entry into elected politics at a Federal level.
According to Politico, in July of this year, Trump grudgingly certified the JCPOA under advice from
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James "Mad Dog" Mattis. However, at the time, Haley was
said to have volunteered to author an argument which could be employed in the future, which would attempt to
justify a US de-certification of the JCPOA.
"At a mid-day meeting in the Oval Office in late July, U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley came to President
Donald Trump with an offer.
Trump had grudgingly declared Tehran in compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal earlier in the month,
at the urging of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Trump hated the
deal. But the two men pushed him to certify it, arguing in part that he lacked a strong case for declaring
Iran in violation. A refusal to do so would have looked rash, they said, convincing Trump sign off for
another 90 days.
Haley, in that July meeting, which also included National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Vice
President Mike Pence, asked the president to let her make the case for decertification
'Let me lay a foundation for it', she said, according a source familiar with the proceedings. The
president agreed.
Haley would become the administration's most vocal public proponent of decertification -- and Trump's
favorite internal voice on Iran -- further boosting her standing with the president at a time when she is seen
as a potential successor to Tillerson, whose tense relationship with Trump has burst into the open in recent
days.
A month after her talk with Trump, Haley flew to Vienna to visit the headquarters of the International
Atomic Energy Association, where she pressed officials about Iranian compliance with the deal. Soon after,
she delivered a speech at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., airing her "doubts and
concerns" about the agreement.
Haley's role was described by a half-dozen administration officials who took part in the Iran policy
review. While many of the president's cabinet members, aides, and advisers work to restrain his impulses,
when it came to Iran deal Haley did the opposite -- channeling what many Democrats and even some Republicans
consider the president's destructive instincts into policy".
The story from Politico which also argues that arch neo-con John Bolton pushed for a full withdrawal from
the JCPOA from his position outside of the White House, follows may well known trends. This helps explain why
Mattis recently stated that Iran is in compliance with the JCPOA and why Rex Tilleron's State Department has
officially said the same.
Nikki Haley has often defied the moderate voice of Rex Tillerson and even James "Mad Dog" Mattis on a
number of issues. Haley for example has repeatedly said that 'Assad must go', while Tillerson and Mattis have
been far more realistic about the fact that President Assad will in all likelihood, continue to govern Syria
for the foreseeable future.
She has also echoed Donald Trump's aggressive statements about North Korea, whereas Rex Tillerson has often
repeated his view that the US does not and should not seek regime change in Pyongyang and instead will continue
to pursue a diplomatic process.
Nikki Haley also famously said that Russians cannot be trusted, while Rex Tillerson has worked closely
(albeit usually through phone calls rather than grandiose public meetings) with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov and was seen as instrumental in creating the joint Russian-US-Jordanian de-escalation zone in south
western Syria.
At one point, Rex Tillerson was said to have privately
reprimanded Haley
for inventing her own foreign policy without consulting her superiors at the State
Department. However, it seems that in respect of Iran, Trump has overruled Tillerson and allowed Haley to take
charge.
Haley later told journalists that she was offered the position of Secretary of State but turned it down,
before being offered the position of Ambassador to the UN. Haley further attested that she sent Trump a list of
demands that she never expected to be agreed upon, as a precondition for accepting her current position.
Haley who has long been seen as a rogue figure in the Trump administration and one who is widely exceeding
her authority, is apparently doing so with Donald Trump's approval.
With rumours swirling that Rex Tillerson planned on resigning, even before it emerged that he allegedly
called Trump a "fucking moron", there is now an increased possibility that a hyper-neo-con, might soon become
the chief foreign policy maker in a Trump administration that was elected on the basis of opposing the neo-con
ideology.
With many Trump administration officials coming and going in short order, there is a very worrying
possibility that Nikki Haley's role will only be enhanced in future months. This is dangerous not only for the
United States, but for the wider world. Haley's inexperience is only matched by her zeal for bellicose measures
against countries which have not done any harm to the American people. Such a person should not be anywhere
near power, but it seems as though she has Trump's ear, far more than the vastly more mature Tillerson and
Mattis.
"... And if there's no chance that we can fix it I will recommend to the president that we do our level best to work with our allies to achieve a better outcome and a better deal. ..."
SPEAKER: What is your view as to whether America should withdraw unilaterally from the Iran nuclear agreement?
MIKE POMPEO: I want to fix this deal. That's the objective. I think that's in the best interest of the United States
of America.
SPEAKER: But if the agreement cannot be changed. My question is pretty simple. We're running very close to a deadline
on certification.
MIKE POMPEO:And if there's no chance that we can fix it I will recommend to the president that we do our level
best to work with our allies to achieve a better outcome and a better deal.
SHARMINI PERIES: Pompeo is a member of the Tea Party movement, and is generally viewed as a pro-war hardliner who has previously
vowed to cancel the Iran agreement ...
... ... ...
MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, let's just take the issue of Iran, for starters. There he said at the hearing that he would not try to get
out of the Iran nuclear deal, that he wants a better deal. But in the past he's talked about getting out of the Iran nuclear deal.
And not only that he said that regime change is the only way to deal with Iran. And as CIA director he also downplayed the CIA's
assessment that Iran was complying with the deal although at the hearing he said he has no reason to deny that Iran is complying.
So he says very different things and in different places. But I think his actions and his statements in the past speak louder than
the words at the hearing, which were quite deceptive, and he's trying to win over Democrats. So he was evasive on some of the issues
that he has been very clear about in the past, such as striking Iran, North Korea, and certainly he was open about the president's
right to bomb Syria.
... ... ...
SHARMINI PERIES: Right. Now, speaking of Syria and the tensions that are arising with Russia over the chemical attack that Russia
now says, and in fact Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, is on record saying they have information that some one else, some other
country, initiated this attack in Syria. This is really a heightening the tension between Russia and the United States. So let me
go to you on this, Phyllis, first, and then we'll go back to Medea. But your take on this rising tension between U.S. And Russia?
PHYLLIS BENNIS: This is a very, very dangerous moment, when we have Trump, with all of his own proclivities towards war and against
diplomacy, surrounding himself by what looks like a clear war cabinet. The danger of escalation in Syria is very serious. It could
lead to a direct clash between the two most powerful nuclear weapon states in the world, the United States and Russia. You have completely
opposite claims emerging from Washington and Moscow, with the U.S. claiming that they know, even though they also agree that they
don't have information, but they know that chemical weapons were used as they were used by the regime in Syria. They seem to know
a lot for a government that admits it doesn't know anything yet.
The Russians, on the other hand, have variously said that another country might be involved. Another Russian diplomat has said
that there was no chemical attack at all. So for myself, I don't actually believe any of these claims by any of the governments.
I'm waiting to hear what the report is of the team that's on its way to D ouma right now, the town outside of Damascus where the
alleged chemical weapons attack occurred. The team of the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons. That's the the internationally
acknowledged, internationally credible team that will be determining whether or not chemicals were used, what chemicals were used
if there were any, who was affected, what delivery systems, et cetera. They are not mandated to determine who fired or who gave the
orders to fire. That's a much more political question that will come back to the Security Council and may stall there, we don't know.
But at the moment we don't know at all what happened in Douma on that weekend 10 days ago. So I think that we need to do everything
possible to ramp down this level of rhetoric. When the U.S. continues to talk about the inevitability of new strikes against Syria,
knowing that this is a direct violation of both, again, international law and U.S. domestic law and threatens the possibility of
retaliation against U.S. troops in the region, U.S. warships in the Mediterranean, U.S. warplanes in the skies, and, most importantly,
threatens the possibility, the likelihood, of killing more Syrian civilians. We are facing a very, very urgent crisis even before
we get to the possibility of serious escalation.
So this is something that Congress needs to take very seriously. And unfortunately in what we've seen in the Pompeo hearing there
was simply not enough, not enough pushing for this candidate to be the supposed leader of diplomacy in the United States, to push
him on the necessity not of saying well, we hoped that we could have a diplomatic solution, but if not well then nothing is off the
table. That's not OK. That's not acceptable to the U.S. chief diplomat. And we are simply not hearing enough pressure to make that
position known.
... ... ...
But I was going to put it in the context of remember that we have Bolton as the national security adviser, who did not have to
have a confirmation hearing. This is why somebody like Jeff Merkley, a senator from Massachusetts, came out and said he will not
vote for Pompeo because he recognizes it as part of this larger cabinet, that this is a war cabinet, and therefore a vote for Pompeo
is a vote for war. So I would say continue the fight not to get a confirmation for Mike Pompeo.
SHARMINI PERIES: Phyllis, is that even possible?
PHYLLIS BENNIS: Absolutely. And it's crucial. This is exactly what we need to be focusing on right now. The way the votes come
down, it's very, very tight. There are at least, at least one Republican, Rand Paul, who has said he will vote against Pompeo. It
looks like McCain will not be there because of his illness. That cuts out two votes. So it's certainly a possibility. But it's going
to take an enormous amount of work. Enormous numbers of phone calls and visits and protests and threats of not voting back those
members of Congress who, who would go ahead and vote for this person as being the new head of diplomacy. This is as urgent as it
gets.
SHARMINI PERIES: All right, Phyllis. I thank you so much for joining us. Phyllis is with the Institute for Policy Studies New
Internationalism Project. And Medea Benjamin, thank you so much for joining us. And Medea's from Code Pink. Thank you both.
Nonsense lead . The regime change trope is totally bi-partisan as yesterdays air strikes clearly indicate. Pompeo etal like
most American federal government officialdom are now lackeys and on the payrolls of the MIC , CIA, and banksters. There is no
Iran nuclear deal , Trump is right about that . Iran has moved under Russia's nuclear umbrella as North Korea is now under China's,
making the rush to develop nukes unnecessary at the present time. Obombers treaty was/is a worthless face saving effort, after
the destruction of Libya.. Trump increasing represents the wishes of the duopoly, not the electorate, his latest terror attack
on Syria bumped his popularity 5% across Americas, knocking down the looming Stormy scandal perhaps...
Phyllis: "But at the moment we don't know at all what happened in Douma on that weekend 10 days ago."
We do know, because we listen daily to the other side of the story too. There was NO Chemical attack . The White Helmets
filmed the deception.
These two Workers of the Douma Hospital's Emergency room, are eyewitnesses of the Lie that was sold by the Western MSM,
which is a tool of the Deep State:
-Syrian Eyewitnesses Reveal How Douma Provocation Was Made- (Published by Sputnik, on Apr 13, 2018)
Arguing for a right-wing Congress to overturn decades of executive war making "privilege" is a bit of a lost cause at this
point. Pompeo is the latest iteration in a long line of those at the State Department who have ditched diplomacy in favor of war.
gustave courbet > novychelovek
Consistent theme in caricatures of other nations/groups relates to their inherent "otherness." Be it Clapper's comment
about Russians being "genetically driven" to "co-opt," or Kim Jong-un's reputation as a madman, or Iran's fundamentalist world
view, they have in common the tendency to project a fundamentally irrational disposition on one's adversaries.
In reality, most governments, be they pseudo-democratic, theocratic, etc are motivated by pragmatic self-interest. In Iran's
case, they can use history to compare non-nuclear states to nuclear powers in regards to US bellicosity and see a clear
pattern.
"... I think the only that would really cause the Russians serious economic hardship at this point would be a total EU embargo on Russian oil/natgas. That, of course, would cause the rest of Europe a fair amount of hardship, too, as they would then have to pay 3 or 4 times as much for frack-gas from the US. ..."
I think the only that would really cause the Russians serious economic hardship at this
point would be a total EU embargo on Russian oil/natgas. That, of course, would cause the
rest of Europe a fair amount of hardship, too, as they would then have to pay 3 or 4 times as
much for frack-gas from the US.
Of course, oil/gas being fungible, the EU in such an eventuality would buy higher priced
gas/oil from us or someone and the Russians would just end up selling to other entities.
Whatever we sell to Europe is fuel we can't sell to others and it's not like our export
market is infinitely expandable. The EU has a huge need for natural gas which it mostly gets
from Russia via pipeline. Even if the US had that much surplus capacity, it would take years
to come up with the means to export that much LNG..
"... This is very clear path toward a confrontation with Russia. America is not going to stop . Russia continues to be punished because does not leave Syria and does not bow to America. ..."
Russia knows that this diplomatic, economic, and military aggression will never stop. These military strikes and economic sanctions from the West represent the death throes of a dying empire. A dying empire is like a gravely wounded, cornered animal.
This is an extremely dangerous animal, because it is willing to arbitrarily kill anyone and anything before it dies.
I still believe that the USA and its European allies will be the
first to use nuclear weapons.
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping no
doubt recognize the grave circumstances, and they are using the
utmost restraint to avoid the provision of a military pretext that
the West/USA is seeking in their effort to greatly escalate
hostilities.
The US will only use nukes to secure their dominance. The
people in change aren't beholden to any country or continent
being filthy rich and/or dual citizens. So the plan is to deny
the US an excuse to use nukes while cutting the empire off at
the knees.
Otherwise, I agree it'll be a NATO country that
nukes first. That's part of the desire to make smaller nukes.
"Small" nukes are seen as a way to nuke but not start a global
exchange. Fucking insane people gambling with all higher life
forms.
Russia will tolerate it as long as possible. The delay only
weakens the US and allies. All have serious issues domestically
and even alliances are strained. Don't interrupt when your enemy
is making a mistake
True, but look around us. There is no need to nuke cities
and military targets in the US. Shut down the electrical
grid and the population would lose it in a matter of hours.
Within days it would be chaos on so many levels that it
would take a long time to recover. We really are our own
worst enemies because we are so fractured and polarized of
the stupidest shit.
If limited global depopulation is the ultimate goal, then
yes, the USA will suffer the most due to the prevalence
of firearms and the general hostility that is clearly
evident within its citizenry.
That's obviously
not
the main objective for the warmongers and neocons in DC.
The ultimate objective is global dominance, and the
complete and total subjugation of humanity.
Like I said, criminal insanity is the paradigm that
rules the West.
Cornered animal; that sounds like Trumps modus operandi. Notice that
anyone who criticizes him gets lambasted with personal attacks
instead of a reasoned response.
We need a President who
understands freedom and who is a reasonable person, neither of which
traits are possessed by Trump. He didn't win the election on his own
qualification but on Hillary's lack of qualification. This speaks to
the point, "The lesser of two evils is still evil".
This is very clear path toward a confrontation with Russia. America is not
going to stop . Russia continues to be punished because does not leave
Syria and does not bow to America.
This recent American
fiasco in
Syria is just the opening overture.
In May we have the moving of American embassy to Jerusalem and the
unilateral withdrawal from Iran nuclear deal.
I think we will not reach the end of the year without a big war :
America is losing power and needs it.
Actually the terrorists were sent by Israel and more specifically, the
Mossad, who trained them. Israel wants to expand its territory by
committing a GENOCIDE.
The chemical weapons organisation in Damascus and elsewhere in Syria
found NO chemical weapons at the site the USA UK And FR bombed for that.
The only chemical weapons are those found in the tunnels in East Ghouta
after Syria bussed the militant occupiers away. The 40 tons of chemicals
have manufactuer names, serial numbers and addresses eg Porton Down
Salisbury.
Cui Bono? Trump says he's going to pull out of Syria -- Things
never looked better for Assad -- and he gets the bright idea, to turn the world against him by gassing
gassing his own people? I'm not buying it. I-F-F (Israeli False Flag)
Trump's in deep over his head. It was an open question whether he posed any genuine obstacle to the pathocracy, but it seems
more clear now that, one way or another, he has been brought more tightly under their control. THAT, much more than any individual
false-flags or other deceptions or wrongs, should be cause for the rational world to fear. The psychopaths are still on the march,
and Trump is at least paying lip service to their chicanery. The further out on a limb he goes, the more reluctant and then helpless
he will be to backtrack as pathology becomes more extreme and events escalate under their own momentum. With markets looking more
precarious than ever, how long will it be before the psychopaths commit more and bigger false flags?
Forgot to say that theses sanctions are downright embarrassing.
So we illegally attack a different country, that country's ally doesn't respond to our act of aggression, and we're now slapping
sanctions on that country... for not responding to our attack? Not only sanctions but sanctions on products that both parties
actually know aren't there. Unless the US is sanctioning the supply chain of swimming pool and industrial/domestic cleaning agents
based on chlorine.
Brilliant just the way to get an agreement from them next time.
Trump had 1 BILLION $ in debt to the chosen banks ; maybe this can point toward whether or not he was part of the deep state
from the beginning ? But ,does it matter any longer ?
Sanctions... act of war. Dropping bombs on a sovereign country (without UN approval even)... act of war. Insulting foreign
leaders and creating false flags to justify your illegal actions... act of war. Don't be fooled into thinking that just b/c Russia
did not respond to the US actions, that "nothing happened". War has started, this is just the beginning.
Here we go again- the ever-plotting West trying to create reality on the fly -- attempting to make the alleged chemical weapons
attack into a fait accompli, painting the tape of reality with the shadow-puppets of the operation mockingbird-controlled, corporate
(MIC) media!
Any good reason we shouldn't just start calling the 5(+1)-eyez media environment the Oceania State News Network (OSNN) right
now?
Wonder how Monbiot feels now Syrians are being killed by western bombs?
Will he be slightly suspicious about the urgency of the attack (which took place just
before the inspectors were due to go in) or indeed lack of parliamentary scrutiny about the
necessity for such extreme measures, not to mention the potentially catastrophic consequences
of provoking Russia?
The US is not under threat and neither is the UK – the Syrians have not asked for
bombs to be dropped on them.
The information sources alleging the use of chemical weapons come from the same tainted
Sunni extremists using weapons supplied by the west to destroy Yemen.
Yep, those Jihadi pals of Monbiot and co, need all the help they can get now that they are
losing the war against the legitimate government of Syria. Next time there is a jihadi
outrage against London, Manchester, Paris or St.Tropez, let's see what the likes of Monbiot
and the rest of the liberal-imperialist scum at the Guran has to say. This is Iraq all over
again. Every time the US-NATO wants to bomb a recalcitrant country they invent a pretext. The
Gulf of Tonkin incident, Saddams fabled WMDs and now the fake chemical attack in Syria. Is
there anything worse than liberal imperialism? This has been a political game changer. It is
now apparent beyond doubt that the liberals are on the side of the most vicious ultra-right
warmongering crazies.
What I find troubling about George Monbiot's opinions on President Assad and his supposed
habit of celebrating SAA victories by gassing the very people who voted him back as President
in 2014 (maybe they can't get enough of being gassed by sarin and chlorine, eh, George?) is
his use of strong and often bullying language towards critics like Tim Hayward, Patrick
Henningsen and Vanessa Beeley. He has the hide to question Beeley on who funds her work and
insinuates that she is in the pay of the Russian government. If he only stuck to his opinion
and dubious Just War reasoning – he would be all for invading Syria if, say, Denmark or
Sweden were in charge of leading the cavalry – at least he would be tolerable. But to
tell Hayward that he should listen to a suspicious and sinister character like Oz Katerji
– who openly flaunts his friendship with takfiris – "for [his own] sake" amounts
to harassment.
The Russian Centre for Reconciliation jointly with the Syrian authorities is completing
the large-scale humanitarian operation in the suburbs of Damascus – the Eastern Ghouta.
In total, 170,152 people have been evacuated during the operation, including 63,117 militants
with their families.
All the settlements in the Eastern Ghouta are currently under the control of the Syrian
government.
The Russian military police has been deployed in the Eastern Ghouta in order to monitor
situation and maintain law enforcement.
As environment in the suburbs of Damscus stabilizing, people are making their way back
home. In total some 63,000 people have return to their homes now. It makes a half of those
who had left the area.
The Syrian government working on rehabilitation of destroyed civilian infrastructure.
Power and water supply systems have been recovered; reconstruction is underway in the area.
People are provided with medical assistance.
Thus, the present-day Eastern Ghouta is far from a "black hole" where no one could get to,
but a capital suburb returning to peaceful life.
Excellent article. I suppose I shouldn't be too terribly surprised by Monbiot's irrational
and immoral stance on Syria, as it's lack of logic and ethical coherence dovetails nicely
with his new found support for nuclear power as a solution to climate change – inspired
no less by the events at Fukishima. Quite amazing actually!
If Monbiot wanted to find out what was happening he could find out just as easily as we
found out. Hes a fake, a traitor and a supporter of the destruction of a securer democracy by
British backed Al Qaeda terrorists on the orders of the zionist state.. There are no
excuses.
I have nothing but contempt for Monbiot or the people he works for and nothing but respect
for the Syrian people who stand against Monbiots head chopping, child killing, family
burning, evil cannibalistic scum
Some times people become so lost in their own ego through education and privilege that they
no longer have capacity to recognize anything but hubris. The whole education system pushes
this mindset through reward and accolade to the most susceptible students. This system
encourages a level of blind faith in the theories that are taught to them to the the point
that the student forgets that what they are being taught is only theory and indoctrination
that they should have learned to question. These students are the ones that life opens up
for. They are afforded the best jobs, high life styles, nice houses with big mortgages
effectively trapping them in a spiders web that becomes difficult to escape from even if they
do wake up. Deep down they realize that they are out of their depth but keep up the pretense.
These people become the perfect mouth pieces for the state and don't even necessarily realize
they have been hijacked and compromised by their status. This makes it difficult for them to
recognize others opinions and to question them selves or the narrative they hold. To query
there stance unhinges them. This is the point that they often become dogmatic, dismissive and
angry . The worst ones are often the ones who see them selves as liberal as they really do
believe that they have got where they are by being intelligent and informed. Guardian
journalists seem particularly susceptible to this belief. The most sinister part about these
journalists is they do manage to manipulate their readers on an insidious level lulling them
with their {liberalism}.
I appreciate the force and elegance of Prof. Hayward's argumentation. I'm not sure, though,
why he would stop at (or, for that matter, start with) the loyalty of the Syrian army. He
was, after all, elected and even after several years of violence, it could probably be fairly
plausibly confirmed (or disconfirmed), in principle at least, that he has majority (indeed
increased) support among the population. Another argument subject to (dis)confirmation would
be that a very significant number of the "rebels" and the vast bulk of their funding,
training, weapons and diplomatic / media cover are not Syrian. They would not, then, be part
of a rebellion but foreign mercenaries or (largely Salafist) fundamentalist legions in a
regime change operation that happens to be consistent with American policy towards Syria
since the 1940s.
During the time [around 2011] Monbiot was asking people about their opinions on Syria an
opinion poll on Syria was published, "According to the latest opinion poll commissioned by
The Doha Debates [ the sponsors of the debate no supporters of Assad by any means] Syrians
are more supportive of their president with 55% not wanting him to resign". One of the main
reasons given by those wanting the president to stay in power was fear for the future of the
country". Then in the 2016 presidential election Assad won gaining 88% of vote. Followed by
Parliamentary elections when the Ba'ath party won 200 out of 250 seats. The Syrian army is
majority Sunni and the majority of the Government is Sunni. He has overwhelming support
inside and outside Syria, in Lebanon for instance there was a huge turnout for Assad with
tens of thousands queuing up to vote for him.
How anyone can voice support for the "rebels" is beyond me, since they are made up mostly of
Jihadis who want to slaughter any opposition to themselves. They say so themselves.
Very early on in the jihadist attack on Syria, there was a massive demonstration in Damascus
of two million, where a huge Syrian flag was held aloft by the crowd, in support of the
Government. It was broadcast on the Austfalian SBS 'multicultural' TV as an 'ANTI-Assad'
demonstration ie a complete LIE, but one as far as I know never acknowledged or
retracted.
Thereafter, until today, the SBS, has been the vilest of all our filthy fakestream
propagandists working for a takfiri victory. The Syrian Government is 'the regime'. The
salafist child crucifiers 'rebels', the favoured media source the al-Jazeera sewer controlled
by the vile Wahhabist Qatar regime, one of the prime sponsors of the death-squad butchers.
The SBS even has a coterie of female voice-over operatives, whose histrionic utterances,
spitting out the hate propaganda, often verge on hysteria.
I've often wondered why they took this position. I suspect Zionist influence, all pervasive
in this country, but NEVER dared to be mentioned (the PM Turnbull represents the richest
electorate in the country with a large Jewish constituency, and his groveling is epic)and
Saudi. For decades the Sordid Arabians have been allowed to finance Wahhabist proselytisation
in this country, including in Moslem schools, a decision of bizarre stupidity. As a result we
sent scores of enthusiastic wannabe head-loppers to Syria, one of whom was photographed
grinning as his seven year old son held up a severed head. While these butchers were used in
Islamophobic hate propaganda, the scum death-squad army they were members of, was still
afforded TOTAL support by the local fakestream as 'rebels' against 'animal Assad'.
This is excellent. Far from being 'too kind' to Monbiot, its restraint, both in tone and in
substantive argument – not making claims that can't be defended, and being precise on
such as the difference between high probability and empirical or logical certainty – is
a great strength. Hayward stands head and shoulders above Monbiot not just in his arguments
but in his scrupulous manner of advancing them.
Monbiot is a fake. His role is to help maintain the fiction that there is a diversity of
opinions in the corporate media, which enables them to pretend there is no rational dissent
from the official narrative when the pretend left and the centre and the right all agree,
such as when they all say: Assad is bad.
This is a very well put together piece on a very troubling individual. Monbiot has always
been deeply suspicious in my view. He issues his statements (often lies) and never engages
his critics, evidently viewing criticism as an intolerable offense. Not the behaviour of an
honourable man.
I would very much like to see a follow-up piece similar to this but that looks wider and
takes apart his deception on issues other than Syria.
Ultimately, he should not be working as a so-called journalist. His ability to push lies
is deeply offensive to those of us with an interest in truth and integrity. He is truly a
stain.
The feeling I get from Tim Hayward's article is of lost love – but not in the romantic
sense – for Monbiot – who he used to feel part of, believe in, stand side by side
with? Is this a long letter TO G.M?
There's another feeling I get over the incitement to war on Syria – and that is of
the many being forced, terrorized, or convinced at least that going along with the pressure
to act out the line or at least not challenge it – is the choosing of a lesser
evil.
However I do not see any convincing actors on the stage in the 'case' for making war on
Syria. Only of assets by one means or another.
We may be misled about most everything, perhaps because the mind from its earliest
adaptations to sense of loss of love, support and connection, learns to mask pain and seek
protection in strategies of self justification.
Since the earliest catastrophic beginnings of the development of this peculiarly split
human consciousness, the gods that terrorised us from above were sacrificed to in
supplication of appeasement. So that which sends fire and plague is entreated to save us from
it. Nothing has changed but the costumes of its human reenactments.
I feel it is time for a New Story.
Don't fight over narrative – just read where it comes from with some compassion. The
promise of 'power and protection' reveals a hollow and pathetic dependency. We feed a monster
as if to 'survive'.
The capacity for introspection is also the capacity to uncover a fundamental humanity
within even the worst of times. Everyone acts in self interest as in that moment they define
themselves to be in relation to it. The lie is considered bad to be exposed in – but
necessary to hide by.
But if everything is subjugated to serve a lie (too big to fail) then there is nothing
true – excepting the power to say so and enforce it, and is that not the 'thinking' to
which we have been trained to suckle?
I cannot make another man (or woman's) choices. I can only live my own and by tasting the
results, learn to make better choices. But this absolutely depends on self-honesty. We cannot
lie to others and be true to ourself nor lie to ourself and be true to others. And if we try
to make the lie true – we will project the mind of it into the perceptions of others
– whether they extend a true willingness or a deceit – we wont be able to
tell.
That is the recipe for hell – because everything reflects a hidden hate that
'threatens' to destroy or violate our defences. But the enemy is not 'OUT THERE!' –
even if there are many with grievance.
The lie and the father of the lie sets us against our Self – each other and our
world.
"No it doesn't – it protects me from chaos, powerlessness, humiliation and loss of
self!"
Yet all these things has it delivered while pointing the finger away.
There is a heart prayer from Hawaii
The mind is erected against saying it:
"I'm sorry, please forgive me, I love you , thank you".
This is an excellent article among many here, but Binra's comment really resonates with
me.
I see a direct link between:
unconditional love (love is unconditional, or it isn't love),
learning how to become part of love's continuing evolution,
learning how to avoid war.
For me, the quality of being that is love is the nature of the personal choices we
each must make if we are to learn – both as individuals and by extension as larger
groups – how to navigate the sinister and deceptive propaganda this article addresses,
and hopefully put an end to it one day. We otherwise fall prey to its machinations and are
lost to history's darker forces.
"I'm sorry, please forgive me, I love you , thank you".
Humility, love and gratitude are strong when undertaken with courage, perseverance and
patience. This is not easy to do. But we know that. The right way is the hard way.
"Monbiot is, like Noam Chomsky, a Khazarian Jew " What the hell has this to do with the point
you are trying to make?
Are you trying to say that all Khazarian Jews (or all Jews?) "support the globalist
finance plutocracy." etc.? Unlike the very justified condemnation of the massacre of unarmed
Palestinian protesters at the Gaza/Israel border by the Israeli army, this is genuine
anti-semitism.
It's fine to criticise Monbiot and Chomsky as individuals, however harshly. but there
should be zero tolerance for attributing the "sophistry and faux-empathy" you see them
exhibiting to their ethnicity.
The global capitalist elite are indeed our enemy. They are mostly white and male but share
few other characteristics.
Susanna, that type of idiot with their stupid stereotyping of whole groups, are often, I
suspect, frauds, sent to discredit those around them. So, some Ashkenazi Jews are descended
from the Khazars who converted to Judaism. So what-as Shlomo Sand shewed, a number of groups
over time converted to Judaism, when it was more proselytising than now, just as groups
converted to Islam or Christianity. That makes no difference to how Chomsky acts (pretty well
as far as I can see) or Monbiot (increasingly very badly, and shamefully).
Monbiot's arrogance is innate. It got him into strife when he tackled the formidable Edward S
Herman over the phony Srebrenica 'genocide' and was savagely mauled, but, as expected, he
declared himself the victor and retreated to smear his adversaries from the sidelines.
He propagandises as he must, or he'd get the Pilger treatment, and his nice sinecure at the
Fraudian would disappear. And since the Sorosification and the other measures taken to turn
the Fraudian into the sewer of disinformation and hate-mongering that it is today, working so
frantically for a jihadist victory in Syria and Syria's vivisection, to the greater glory of
Eretz Yisrael, Monbiot has simply goose-stepped ever further Right, as scores of his type
have done, over the years.
Polonius: This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the
day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. Farewell, my blessing season this in thee!
I have been thinking lately this might apply even to villains, as in Peer Gynt. Then if
you are really strong black and white but sincere, the Divine Photographer has a chance to
season you in acid gall and reduce you in sulfite until your positive emerges Lily White. But
if you are just a misty inbetween maundering Boyg of a man, you have to resort to Photoshop
to provide a fake identity.
"Those who were neither for God nor for Devil but only for themselves . So many, I had not
thought Death had undone so many". -- Dante, The First Circle
Sorry, the above post should have been addressed to Binra who said something similar to the
advice Polonius gave Laertes. Ibsen's Peer Gynt goes further: even a villain who is true to
himself may be valuable in the scheme of things; but people like the Fraudian journoes who
just drift the way the wind blows are puffballs that carry no seed.
The bombing of Syrian government targets by the United States, Britain, and France is a disgraceful and ineffectual act masquerading
as a noble gesture. Far from preventing a more vicious war, the bombing instead legitimizes the continuation of the conflict. In
fact, what this barrage of weapons really reveals is how little interest the global powers have in ending Syria's ghastly war.
ss="rich-link">
Syria: who are the key players in the conflict?
Read more
Similar to the attacks on Syrian government targets that Donald Trump ordered just over a year ago, the airstrikes
this time will not seriously damage Bashar al-Assad's larger military capacity, nor are they intended to. Instead,
we're told that the western bombing campaign has specifically aimed munitions at locations where the storage and testing
of chemical weapons occurs.
But wasn't last year's attack meant to put an end to Assad's use of chemical weapons, and aren't these the weapons that he was
supposed to have destroyed under international auspices in 2014? At this rate, should we expect that an aerial bombing mission to
finally and completely destroy Assad's chemical weapons will be launched every April?
The question is ridiculous, of course, but so is the idea that this attack will accomplish anything beyond boosting the war-making
egos of its protagonists and enabling Assad, his reprehensible regime, and his allies to complain of being the perpetual victims
of western aggression. Beyond the bombast on both sides, Syria's daily misery will continue.
These strikes mark the first timeTheresa May of Britain and Emmanuel Macron of France have committed their respective militaries
into combat, and they have done so, according to May, "to protect innocent people in
Syria
from the horrific deaths and casualties caused by chemical weapons, but also because we cannot allow the erosion of the
international norm that prevents the use of these weapons."
May's words might sound more intelligent than those of Donald Trump, who in his statement about the attacks told the American
people: "Hopefully, someday we'll get along with Russia and maybe even Iran, but maybe not." But what May's words really reveal is
not the ethical reasoning of a head of state but the devastating lack of moral concern by the international community when it comes
to the people of Syria.
The fact that three of the world's most powerful militaries have now been mobilized into action, even for a limited campaign such
as this one, to prevent "the erosion of the international norm" of using chemical weapons is far from comforting. Since the war began,
Assad's regime has engaged in the repeated and dreadful use of barrel bombs and mass starvation, the systematic torture of thousands
of citizens and the laying siege to multiple cities, the killing of hundreds of thousands of people and the displacement of more
than half the population. Yet, all of this horror does not seem to "erode an international norm" and certainly has not motivated
these western leaders to any meaningful action to end the war.
On the contrary, regional and global powers now exploit Syria for their own advantage and apportion out its territory for repeated
bombing. At this point, the country has been bombed by the Assad regime, the United States, Britain, France, Russia, Iran, Turkey,
Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, and the UAE.
Rather than limiting war, this latest bombing of Syria normalizes the war's ongoing brutality. Forget the chemical weapons for
a moment. The bombing of Syria by the western powers essentially and unconscionably establishes near total warfare on civilians as
an acceptable "international norm." Our politicians will wallow in their most recent action, calling the bombing a great success
for our civilization. In fact, it's much more akin to our demise.
At the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Pompeo boasted that "the Russians met their
match. A couple hundred Russians were killed," referring to a US massacre of military
contractors back in February. Pompeo insisted these killings prove Trump's toughness on
Russia.
The comments threaten to make this incident a bigger diplomatic row. The February 7 incident
came after the US claimed Kurds had come under attack. In reality, an artillery barrage landed
half a kilometer from a Kurdish base, and the US reacted by killing
in excess of 200 pro-Syrian government fighters, declaring the killings "self-defense."
At the time, there were concerns Russian citizens were among the slain, and US officials
ultimately said "scores" of the dead may have been Russian. Now, Pompeo appears to be insisting
they were all Russians, and that the killings were about being "tough" of the Russian
government.
Russia's government denied any knowledge of the incident at the time, and it appears the
slain were private contractors working for the Syrian government, and not in concert with
Russia's government itself. That makes targeting them on the basis of their nationality
potentially even more problematic.
There is a special breed or neocon female warmonger in the USA -- chickenhawks who feed from crumbs of military industrial complex.
Is not Haley a replays of Samantha Powell ? The article remains mostly right is you simply replace the names...
Of cause, Haley is a little bit more obnoxious and has no respect for truth whatsoever. she can call while to be black with
straight face.
Notable quotes:
"... Though Power is a big promoter of the "responsibility to protect" or "R2P" she operates with glaring selectivity in deciding who deserves protection as she advances a neocon/liberal interventionist agenda. She is turning "human rights" into an excuse not to resolve conflicts but rather to make them bloodier. ..."
"... Thus, in Power's view, the overthrow and punishment of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad takes precedence over shielding Alawites and other minorities from the likely consequence of Sunni-extremist vengeance. And she has sided with the ethnic Ukrainians in their slaughter of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine. ..."
"... For instance, in a March 10, 2003 debate on MSNBC's "Hardball" show -- just nine days before the invasion -- Power said, "An American intervention likely will improve the lives of the Iraqis. Their lives could not get worse, I think it's quite safe to say." However, the lives of Iraqis actually did get worse. Indeed, hundreds of thousands stopped living altogether and a sectarian war continues to tear the country apart to this day. ..."
"... Similarly, regarding Libya, Power was one of the instigators of the U.S.-supported military intervention in 2011 which was disguised as an "R2P" mission to protect civilians in eastern Libya where dictator Muammar Gaddafi had identified the infiltration of terrorist groups. ..."
"... Urged on by then-National Security Council aide Power and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Obama agreed to support a military mission that quickly morphed into a "regime change" operation. Gaddafi's troops were bombed from the air and Gaddafi was eventually hunted down, tortured and murdered. ..."
Exclusive: Liberal interventionist Samantha Power along with neocon allies appears to have prevailed in the struggle over
how President Obama will conduct his foreign policy in his last months in office, promoting aggressive strategies that will lead
to more death and destruction, writes Robert Parry.
Propaganda and genocide almost always go hand in hand, with the would-be aggressor stirring up resentment often by assuming the
pose of a victim simply acting in self-defense and then righteously inflicting violence on the targeted group.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power understands this dynamic having
written about the
1994 genocide in Rwanda where talk radio played a key role in getting Hutus to kill Tutsis. Yet, Power is now leading propaganda
campaigns laying the groundwork for two potential ethnic slaughters: against the Alawites, Shiites, Christians and other minorities
in Syria and against the ethnic Russians of eastern Ukraine.
Though Power is a big promoter of the "responsibility to protect" or "R2P" she operates with glaring selectivity in deciding who
deserves protection as she advances a neocon/liberal interventionist agenda. She is turning "human rights" into an excuse not to
resolve conflicts but rather to make them bloodier.
Thus, in Power's view, the overthrow and punishment of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad takes precedence over shielding Alawites
and other minorities from the likely consequence of Sunni-extremist vengeance. And she has sided with the ethnic Ukrainians in their
slaughter of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine.
In both cases, Power spurns pragmatic negotiations that could avert worsening violence as she asserts a black-and-white depiction
of these crises. More significantly, her strident positions appear to have won the day with President Barack Obama, who has relied
on Power as a foreign policy adviser since his 2008 campaign.
Power's self-righteous approach to human rights deciding that her side wears white hats and the other side wears black hats is
a bracing example of how "human rights activists" have become purveyors of death and destruction or what some critics have deemed
" the weaponization
of human rights. "
We saw this pattern in Iraq in 2002-03 when many "liberal humanitarians" jumped on the pro-war bandwagon in favoring an invasion
to overthrow dictator Saddam Hussein. Power herself didn't support the invasion although she was
rather mealy-mouthed in
her skepticism and sought to hedge her career bets amid the rush to war.
For instance, in a March 10, 2003 debate on MSNBC's "Hardball" show -- just nine days before the invasion -- Power said, "An American
intervention likely will improve the lives of the Iraqis. Their lives could not get worse, I think it's quite safe to say." However, the lives of Iraqis actually did get worse. Indeed, hundreds of thousands stopped living altogether and a sectarian war
continues to tear the country apart to this day.
Power in Power
Similarly, regarding Libya, Power was one of the instigators of the U.S.-supported military intervention in 2011 which was disguised
as an "R2P" mission to protect civilians in eastern Libya where dictator Muammar Gaddafi had identified the infiltration of terrorist
groups.
Urged on by then-National Security Council aide Power and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Obama agreed to support a military
mission that quickly morphed into a "regime change" operation. Gaddafi's troops were bombed from the air and Gaddafi was eventually
hunted down, tortured and murdered.
The result, however, was not a bright new day of peace and freedom for Libyans but the disintegration of Libya into a failed state
with violent extremists, including elements of the Islamic State, seizing control of swaths of territory and murdering civilians.
It turns out that Gaddafi was not wrong about some of his enemies.
Today, Power is a leading force opposing meaningful negotiations over Syria and Ukraine, again staking out "moralistic" positions
rejecting possible power-sharing with Assad in Syria and blaming the Ukraine crisis entirely on the Russians. She doesn't seem all
that concerned about impending genocides against Assad's supporters in Syria or ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine.
In 2012, at a meeting hosted by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, former U.S. Ambassador Peter W. Galbraith
predicted "the next genocide
in the world will likely be against the Alawites in Syria" -- a key constituency behind Assad's secular regime. But Power has continued
to insist that the top priority is Assad's removal.
Similarly, Power has shown little sympathy for members of Ukraine's ethnic Russian minority who saw their elected President Viktor
Yanukovych overthrown in a Feb. 22, 2014 coup spearheaded by neo-Nazis and other right-wing nationalists who had gained effective
control of the Maidan protests. Many of these extremists want an ethnically pure Ukrainian state.
Since then, neo-Nazi units, such as the Azov battalion, have been Kiev's tip of the spear in slaughtering thousands of ethnic
Russians in the east and driving millions from their homes, essentially an ethnic-cleansing campaign in eastern Ukraine.
A Propaganda Speech
Yet, Power traveled to Kiev to deliver a one-sided
propaganda speech on June 11, portraying the post-coup Ukrainian regime simply as a victim of "Russian aggression."
Despite the key role of neo-Nazis
acknowledged even by the U.S.
House of Representatives Power uttered not one word about Ukrainian military abuses which have included reports of death squad
operations targeting ethnic Russians and other Yanukovych supporters.
Skipping over the details of the U.S.-backed and Nazi-driven coup of Feb. 22, 2014, Power traced the conflict instead to "February
2014, when Russia's little green men first started appearing in Crimea." She added that the United Nations' "focus on Ukraine in
the Security Council is important, because it gives me the chance on behalf of the United States to lay out the mounting evidence
of Russia's aggression, its obfuscation, and its outright lies. America is clear-eyed when it comes to seeing the truth about Russia's
destabilizing actions in your country."
Power continued: "The message of the United States throughout this Moscow-manufactured conflict and
the message you heard from President
Obama and other world leaders at last week's meeting of the G7 has never wavered: if Russia continues to disregard the sovereignty
and territorial integrity of Ukraine; and if Russia continues to violate the rules upon which international peace and security rest
then the United States will continue to raise the costs on Russia.
"And we will continue to rally other countries to do the same, reminding them that their silence or inaction in the face of Russian
aggression will not placate Moscow, it will only embolden it.
"But there is something more important that is often lost in the international discussion about Russia's efforts to impose its
will on Ukraine. And that is you the people of Ukraine and your right to determine the course of your own country's future. Or, as
one of the great rallying cries of the Maidan put it: Ukraina po-nad u-se! Ukraine above all else!" [Applause.]
Power went on: "Let me begin with what we know brought people out to the Maidan in the first place. We've all heard a good number
of myths about this. One told by the Yanukovych government and its Russian backers at the time was that the Maidan protesters were
pawns of the West, and did not speak for the 'real' Ukraine.
"A more nefarious myth peddled by Moscow after Yanukovych's fall was that Euromaidan had been engineered by Western capitals in
order to topple a democratically-elected government."
Of course, neither of Power's points was actually a "myth." For instance, the U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy was
sponsoring scores of anti-government activists and media operations -- and NED President Carl Gershman had deemed Ukraine "the biggest
prize," albeit a stepping stone toward ousting Russian President Vladimir Putin. [See Consortiumnews.com's "
A Shadow US Foreign Policy ."]
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland was collaborating with U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt how to
"midwife" the change in government with Nuland picking the future leaders of Ukraine "Yats is the guy" referring to Arseniy Yatsenyuk
who was installed as prime minister after the coup. [See Consortiumnews.com's "
The Neocons: Masters of Chaos ."]
The coup itself occurred after Yanukovych pulled back the police to prevent worsening violence.
Armed neo-Nazi and right-wing militias,
organized as "sotins" or 100-man units, then took the offensive and overran government buildings. Yanukovych and other officials
fled for their lives, with Yanukovych narrowly avoiding assassination. In the days following the coup, armed thugs essentially controlled
the government and brutally intimidated any political resistance.
Inventing 'Facts'
But that reality had no place in Power's propaganda speech. Instead, she said:
"The facts tell a different story. As you remember well, then-President Yanukovych abandoned Kyiv of his own accord, only hours
after signing an agreement with opposition leaders that would have led to early elections and democratic reforms.
"And it was only after Yanukovych fled the capital that 328 of the 447 members of the democratically-elected Rada voted to strip
him of his powers including 36 of the 38 members of his own party in parliament at the time. Yanukovych then vanished for several
days, only to eventually reappear little surprise in Russia.
"As is often the case, these myths reveal more about the myth makers than they do about the truth. Moscow's fable was designed
to airbrush the Ukrainian people and their genuine aspirations and demands out of the Maidan, by claiming the movement was fueled
by outsiders.
"Yet, as you all know by living through it and as was clear even to those of us watching your courageous stand from afar the Maidan
was made in Ukraine. A Ukraine of university students and veterans of the Afghan war. Of Ukrainian, Russian, and Tatar speakers.
Of Christians, Muslims, and Jews. "
Power went on with her rhapsodic version of events: "Given the powerful interests that benefited from the corrupt system, achieving
a full transformation was always going to be an uphill battle. And that was before Russian troops occupied Crimea, something the
Kremlin denied at the time, but has since admitted; and it was before Russia began training, arming, bankrolling, and fighting alongside
its separatist proxies in eastern Ukraine, something the Kremlin continues to deny.
"Suddenly, the Ukrainian people faced a battle on two fronts: combating corruption and overhauling broken institutions on the
inside; while simultaneously defending against aggression and destabilization from the outside.
"I don't have to tell you the immense strain that these battles have placed upon you. You feel it in the young men and women,
including some of your family members and friends, who have volunteered or been drafted into the military people who could be helping
build up their nation, but instead are risking their lives to defend it against Russian aggression.
"You feel it in the conflict's impact on your country's economy as instability makes it harder for Ukrainian businesses to attract
foreign investment, deepens inflation, and depresses families' wages. It is felt in the undercurrent of fear in cities like Kharkiv
where citizens have been the victims of multiple bomb attacks, the most lethal of which killed four people, including two teenage
boys, at a rally celebrating the first anniversary of Euromaidan.
"And the impact is felt most directly by the people living in the conflict zone. According to the UN, at least 6,350 people have
been killed in the violence driven by Russia and the separatists including 625 women and children and an additional 1,460 people
are missing; 15,775 people have been wounded. And an estimated 2 million people have been displaced by this conflict. And the real
numbers of killed, missing, wounded, and displaced are likely higher, according to the UN, due to its limited access to areas controlled
by the separatists."
One-Sided Account
Pretty much everything in Power's propaganda speech was blamed on the Russians along with the ethnic Russians and other Ukrainians
resisting the imposition of the new U.S.-backed order. She also ignored the will of the people of Crimea who voted overwhelmingly
in a referendum to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia.
The closest she came to criticizing the current regime in Kiev was to note that "investigations into serious crimes such as the
violence in the Maidan and in Odessa have been sluggish, opaque, and marred by serious errors suggesting not only a lack of competence,
but also a lack of will to hold the perpetrators accountable."
Yet, even there, Power failed to note the growing evidence that the neo-Nazis were likely behind the crucial sniper attacks on
Feb. 20, 2014, that killed both police and protesters and touched off the chaos that led to the coup two days later. [A worthwhile
documentary on this mystery is " Maidan Massacre ."]
Nor, did Power spell out that neo-Nazis from the Maidan set fire to the Trade Union Building in Odessa on May 2, 2014,
burning alive scores of ethnic Russians
while spray-painting the building with pro-Nazi graffiti, including hailing the "Galician SS," the Ukrainian auxiliary that helped
Adolf Hitler's SS carry out the Holocaust in Ukraine.
Listening to Power's speech you might not even have picked up that she was obliquely criticizing the U.S.-backed regime in Kiev.
Also, by citing a few touching stories of pro-coup Ukrainians who had died in the conflict, Power implicitly dehumanized the far
larger number of ethnic Russians who opposed the overthrow of their elected president and have been killed by Kiev's brutal "anti-terrorism
operation."
Use of Propaganda
In my nearly four decades covering Washington, I have listened to and read many speeches like the one delivered by Samantha Power.
In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan would give similar propaganda speeches justifying the slaughter of peasants and workers in
Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala, where the massacres of Mayan Indians were later deemed a "genocide." [See Consortiumnews.com's
" How Reagan Promoted Genocide
."]
Regardless of the reality on the ground, the speeches always made the U.S.-backed side the "good guys" and the other side the
"bad guys" even when "our side" included CIA-affiliated "death squads" and U.S.-equipped military forces slaughtering tens of thousands
of civilians.
During the 1990s, more propaganda speeches were delivered by President George H.W. Bush regarding Panama and Iraq and by President
Bill Clinton regarding Kosovo and Yugoslavia. Then, last decade, the American people were inundated with more propaganda rhetoric
from President George W. Bush justifying the invasion of Iraq and the expansion of the endless "war on terror."
Generally speaking, during much of his first term, Obama was more circumspect in his rhetoric, but he, too, has slid into propaganda-speak
in the latter half of his presidency as he shed his "realist" foreign policy tendencies in favor of "tough-guy/gal" rhetoric favored
by "liberal interventionists," such as Power, and neoconservatives, such as Nuland and her husband Robert Kagan (whom
a chastened Obama invited to
a White House lunch last year).
But the difference between the propaganda of Reagan, Bush-41, Clinton and Bush-43 was that it focused on conflicts in which the
Soviet Union or Russia might object but would likely not be pushed to the edge of nuclear war, nothing as provocative as what the
Obama administration has done in Ukraine, now including dispatching U.S. military advisers.
The likes of Power, Nuland and Obama are not just justifying wars that leave devastation, death and disorder in their wake in
disparate countries around the world, but they are fueling a war on Russia's border.
That was made clear by the end of Power's speech in which she declared: "Ukraine, you may still be bleeding from pain. An aggressive
neighbor may be trying to tear your nation to pieces. Yet you are strong and defiant. You, Ukraine, are standing tall for your freedom.
And if you stand tall together no kleptocrat, no oligarch, and no foreign power can stop you."
There is possibly nothing more reckless than what has emerged as Obama's late-presidential foreign policy, what amounts to a plan
to destabilize Russia and seek "regime change" in the overthrow of Russian President Putin.
Rather than take Putin up on his readiness to cooperate with Obama in trouble spots, such as the Syrian civil war and Iran's nuclear
program, "liberal interventionist" hawks like Power and neocons like Nuland with Obama in tow have chosen confrontation and have
used extreme propaganda to effectively shut the door on negotiation and compromise.
Yet, as with previous neocon/liberal-interventionist schemes, this one lacks on-the-ground realism. Even if it were possible to
so severely damage the Russian economy and to activate U.S.-controlled "non-governmental organizations" to help drive Putin from
office, that doesn't mean a Washington-friendly puppet would be installed in the Kremlin.
Another possible outcome would be the emergence of an extreme Russian nationalist suddenly controlling the nuclear codes and willing
to use them. So, when ambitious ideologues like Power and Nuland get control of U.S. foreign policy in such a sensitive area, what
they're playing with is the very survival of life on planet Earth the ultimate genocide.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s.
You can buy his latest book, America's Stolen Narrative, either in
print here or as an e-book
(from
Amazon and
barnesandnoble.com ). You also can order Robert Parry's trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing
operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America's Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer,
click here .
incontinent reader , June 15, 2015 at 6:14 pm
It's too bad that people like Nuland and Power have not not been subjected to a retributive justice in which they would be
forced to feel the same pain that they inflict, or, if that is too much to ask, then just to 'disappear (quietly) in the sands
of time' to save their victims from more misery.
Roberto , June 15, 2015 at 10:03 pm
These dopes have no idea that the compensation is forthcoming.
I would like to propose a new lobby that would also be based on a non-address, X Street.
X Street recognizes that the wars fought by the United States since 2001 have brought no benefit to the American people and
have only resulted in financial ruin,
NATO no longer has any raison d’etre and is needlessly provoking the Russians through its expansion. X Street calls on the
United States to dissolve the alliance.
X Street recognizes that America’s lopsided support of the state of Israel has made the United States a target of terrorism,
has weakened the US’s international standing and damaged its reputation, and has negatively impacted on the American economy.
Washington will no longer use its veto power to protect Israeli interests in the UN and other international bodies.
The United States will publicly declare its knowledge that Israel has a nuclear arsenal and will ask the Israeli government
to join the NPT regime and subject its program to IAEA inspection.
X Street believes that nation building and democracy promotion by the United States have been little more than CIA/MOSSAD covert
actions by another name that have harmed America’s reputation and international standing.
The National Endowment for Democracy should be abolished immediately.
I would think that most people have heard of near death experiences.
One feature of such experiences which has sometimes been reported, and which I find very interesting, is that of the life review,
which focuses on the deeds a person has done throughout his or her life, the motives of the deeds, and the effects of the deeds
on others. It has been reported, for instance, that people have re-experienced their deeds not only from their own perspective
but from the perspective of others whom one's deeds have affected.
There is a youtube video about this, titled The Golden Rule Dramatically Illustrated, and featuring NDE researcher Dr. Kenneth
Ring.
There are no such thing as "liberal war hawks", their policies simply based on idiocy where as the result they need to be called
"liberals", depending on kind of government that govern a corrupt and bankrupt system. American capitalism is one of those system.
These people simply lacking a vision for their understanding that they are "liberal". They might be a social liberalists when
it come to people's rights in living the way of life they chose, otherwise it was Bill Clinton who used such "liberal" idea by
politicalizing using liberalism for his gain, these people follow the same path, but they will backstab people as they have in
the past and as they do now.
michael , June 15, 2015 at 6:26 pm
If a coup had not been instigated by the west on Russia's border, installing Nazis a different more positive outcome might
be available, I am quite sure there are Ukrainians who did not want this and wanted a more independent Ukraine, but that is not
what happened! How were the Russians supposed to react? The United States has 1000 military bases around the world, border most
countries, completely encircle Iran, press right up to Russia's borders and encircle China. Again how are the Russians supposed
to React? If this was Mexico the place would be decimated by the Americans and laid to waste just like Iraq!
hbm , June 15, 2015 at 6:41 pm
Looney bleeding-heart Irishwoman with husband Arch-Neocon lunatic Cass Sunstein shaping her opinions and directing her fanaticism.
That's all one really needs to know.
Nibs , June 16, 2015 at 12:28 pm
Exactly, everywhere there is a goy neocon, just look a little further for the malign influence. You can always find it. Soros
was here too, also in the attempted "colour revolution" in Macedonia. They intend to make out like bandits, big big money. Of
course, as mentioned elsewhere, they are physical cowards and prefer to send ordinary Americans to do their fighting and bleeding
for them.
It's somewhat startling after Iraq that they are still there.
But, and forgive the conspiracy angle, I don't believe this is unconnected to the Epstein sex scandal: just see who visited and
is therefore target of blackmail.
Paulrevere01 , June 15, 2015 at 6:50 pm
and this warmonger-doppleganger-to-Nuland-Kagen is married to Grand-Censor-Cass-des-Hubris-Sunstein more black eyes for Yale
and Harvard.
dahoit , June 16, 2015 at 11:12 am
Yes,the Zionist poison ivy league strikes again,with more Zionist stool pigeons to come.Close down education for sale vs.for
knowledge,it produces zombie quislings.
Larry , June 15, 2015 at 7:12 pm
. and even if the U.S. neocon policy in Ukraine succeeds and a shooting war with Russia is somehow avoided, then the American
neocons will still neither be sated or placated. Like the bloodthirsty jackals they are, these neocons will be only emboldened,
and their next coup in Russia's natural security sphere will be the straw that breaks the nuclear camels' backs. They must be
deterred or stopped.
In some tabulations the neocon hijacking of US policy on behalf of Israel has resulted in American gifts to Iran of Iraq, Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, and quite likely Israel. And that's for starters. The rest will implode and do we then have a Persian
Empire.
It looks like a lot of clouds gathering on the horizon, and I cannot say that I find much fault with Pillar's assessment.
The stakes are too high and for all the macho talk all are rightfully very weary of lighting the match.
I rather doubt that there would be much left for anyone to add to their empire. Miles of ruins and deserts, glazed by nuclear
fires do not make for very useful Imperial digs.
I just pray that we are both wrong.
Abe , June 15, 2015 at 7:58 pm
Liberal interventionism is simply left-wing neocon thinking.
“Many eyewitnesses among the Maidan protesters reported snipers firing from the Hotel Ukraina during the massacre of the
protesters, specifically, about killing eight of them. Bullet holes in trees and electricity poles on the site of the massacre
and on the walls of Zhovtnevyi Palace indicate that shots came from the direction of the hotel. There are several similar recorded
testimonies of the eyewitnesses among the protesters about shooters in October Palace and other Maidan-controlled buildings.â€
The “Snipers’ Massacre†on the Maidan in Ukraine
By Ivan Katchanovski, Ph.D.
Boris M Garsky , June 15, 2015 at 8:06 pm
There is nothing to say about Powers; no doubt where she gets her marching orders and script. However, there is no excuse for
being ignorant on the topic of her rantings. I challenge anyone, anywhere to spontaneously assemble and move 100,000 people, even
a few blocks, on 24 hours notice. If you can do it, you are the court magician exemplar. Can't be done. Never has been done; it
takes months to years of preparations and organization before implementation. Yanuckovich was the target of assassination; they
weren't taking chances. No doubt that the Russians told him to skedaddle; that his life was in danger. Doesn't sound spontaneous
to me; sounds like a well planned operation gone wrong- right initially, but wrong eventually. I think that Obama is simply posturing
until the west can figure out how to extricate themselves from another fine mess they got themselves into- AGAIN!
F. G. Sanford , June 15, 2015 at 8:26 pm
I remember during my college days watching "student government" personalities – usually rich kids with no real problems – hurl
themselves into impassioned frenzies over some issue or another. Usually, they were political science(sic) or psychology majors
who were also active in the Speech and Theater Department. The defining characteristic of their existence was to obtain a podium
from which to make impassioned pleas to their fellow students in an effort to demonstrate a proclivity for "leadership". Almost
any issue would do. Samantha Power reminds me of one of those students – ostensibly seeking a role which, if she could have her
way, would make her the prime catalyst in a pivotal issue at the epicenter of a maelstrom that steers the course of human history.
That kind of learned, practiced, studied and rehearsed narcissism doesn't always work out so well. Maybe because the most successful
examples are actually clinical sufferers of…real narcissism. When Power's 'facts' are compared to reality, the obvious conclusions
suggest a range of interpretations from delusional psychosis to criminal perjury. Or, is this a carefully crafted strategy? "Yats"
has recently resorted to the last rabbit he can pull out of a hat: he's turned on the printing presses to pay the bills, and a
currency collapse is imminent. The Nazi factions are impatient with the regime's lack of progress, the people are disgruntled,
those two million refugees have mostly fled to Russia for protection, Northern Europe is being inundated with prostitutes, drug
dealers and the creme de la creme of organized crime from the former Warsaw Pact countries, and in the South, refugees from NATO
destabilizations in North Africa and the Middle East have become an explosive issue. Racism, nationalism and the resurgence of
openly fascist political activity is burgeoning. Europe is boiling with rage. Has Power actually seen the writing on the wall?
If so, why not an impassioned campaign to remind the Ukrainians they have broken institutions, corrupt oligarchs, unscrupulous
kleptocrats, internal corruption and foreign aggression working against them? And by the way, they've failed to adequately investigate
those Nazi atrocities. None of this could POSSIBLY be the fault of U.S. meddling or failed diplomacy. Nope, they brought it on
themselves, but we did everything we could to try and help. The makings of TOTAL collapse are at hand, and one little fillip could
bring down the whole house of cards. So, "You Ukrainians need to stand tall for your freedoms", and if anything goes wrong, you
have nobody to blame but yourselves. Maybe Sammy isn't so delusional after all.
Gregory Kruse , June 16, 2015 at 1:01 pm
She's not delusional, she's just channeling Aleksander Mikhaajlovich Bezobrazov. I guess that does make Obama the Tsar.
Mark , June 15, 2015 at 8:53 pm
All anyone needs to understand about American foreign policy is that anything, including genocide, is not only acceptable but
promoted if it serves "America's corporate or favored campaign funding special interests". The only real principle in play for
all colluding parties -- corporate, mass media, complicit foreign governments (sycophants) and both major domestic political parties
-- is to "win" by compromising or sacrificing everything and everyone required to serve the insatiable hunger for ungodley wealth
and (abusive) power accumulation.
The entire American culture has been corrupted by propaganda and what is irrational human nature and instinct concerning these
matters -- to be accepted among our peers by following the heard -- this reality is being used by the "ruling class" to play the
public like a disposable three dollar fiddle, while they, our "rulers", impose death and destruction along with economic and military
tyranny, directly or by proxy, wherever and whenever they can get away with it.
Bob Loblaw , June 15, 2015 at 9:41 pm
Two words
Electromagnetic Pulse
One well placed warhead will cripple us to the point that we destroy ourselves.
While crude islamists can't pull it off a Russian device is within reach.
Abe , June 15, 2015 at 10:48 pm
As a human-rights entrepreneur who is also a tireless advocate of war, Samantha Power is not aberrant. Elite factions of the
human-rights industry were long ago normalized within the tightly corseted spectrum of American foreign policy.
Power advocates for what she calls "tough, principled, and engaged diplomacy." A more accurate set of adjectives would be "belligerent,
hypocritical, and domineering." The thrust of her work is to make perpetual war possible by designating genocide – real or merely
ideologically constructed – the supreme international crime, instead of war itself. (Under current international law war itself
is the "supreme international crime.") That way the U.S. can perpetually make war for the noblest of purposes without regard for
anachronisms like national sovereignty. Is it any wonder Democrats love her?
The military deployment of US-NATO forces coupled with “non-conventional warfare†â€"including covert intelligence operations,
economic sanctions and the thrust of “regime changeâ€â€" is occurring simultaneously in several regions of the world.
Central to an understanding of war, is the media campaign which grants it legitimacy in the eyes of public opinion. War has
been provided with a humanitarian mandate under NATO’s “Responsibility to Protect†(R2P). The victims of U.S. led wars are
presented as the perpetrators of war.
It sounds to me that these neocons have 2 things in common. They were all born post WW II and have not experienced any war
at home and grew up in a nice suburban area without street crimes. They NEVER were confronted with families who lost their loved
ones in US 'lost' wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan that were initiated WITHOUT UN approval and brought home young soldiers who
had lost their limps and were handicapped for the rest of their lives. But just to keep US defence industry turning out hefty
profits.
Secondly, they have watched to many Hollywood movies showing the superior US army beating the 'evil' empire (Reagan) meaning
Soviet Union. USA never honoured their agreements with Gorbachev to keep NATO out of Eastern Europe. President Putin learned his
lessons, he built a strong military with technological advanced equipment so his country will NOT be run over again by the West
such as Napoleon and Hitler did murdering 25 million Russians. President Putin and the Russians want to live in peace they have
suffered too much in the past.
It's US and its vassal NATO aggression in the World and now in Ukraine that make the Russian show their power and demonstrating
'don't fool with us' . US MSM propaganda in Europe is losing its effects and people realizing US geopolitical or colonization
aggression in the world while losing US dominance as well. Like Abraham Lincoln said: You can lie to some people all the time
and you can lie to all the people some time, but you cannot lie to all the people all the time! However with today's powerful
media TV and radio it will take some more time. But Russia's RT News is changing this and gives the audience News contradicting
US MSM propaganda such as NYT and WP which have been brainwashing the public for so long at the discretion of Washington's neocons.
And US taxpayers are paying the bill, wake up America!
Peter Loeb , June 16, 2015 at 6:46 am
DISTRACTION FROM PALESTINIAN/ISRAELI CONFLICT
Excellent profiles and analyses by Mr. Parry as we have all come
to expect.
"[Power] added that the United Nations focus on Ukraine in the
Security Council.." from Parry above.
Here one MUST add the unsaid "and never, never on Palestine/
Israel"! After all, the US has continued time and again to block
investigation by the Security Council of Israeli actions in that
sphere. Evidently Israel maintains according to Power and
many others that Israel with US support are by definition exempt
from any and all rules of international law, application to save
lives in Palestine, attempts to establish a Mideast Nuclear
Free Zone and much much more. The distraction provided
by Ukraine is not only significant for the people of Ukraine but
is cleverly designed to distract all world and domestic opinion
from the atrocities carried on daily by Israel in Palestine both
past, present and future.
-- -Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
Gregory Kruse , June 16, 2015 at 10:28 am
She's like John Bolton in drag.
Abe , June 16, 2015 at 5:52 pm
She is the walrus, goo goo g'joob.
Sammy too "seems averse to compromise, and is apparently committed to the belief that the U.N. and international law undermine
U.S. interests" (aka Israeli interests) http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/03/21/boltonism
"“Remarks such as the references to the 1967 borders show Obama’s continuing lack of real appreciation for Israel’s security.â€
-- Bolton, 2011, interview for National Review online
"There will never be a sunset on America’s commitment to Israel’s security. Never.†-- Power, 2015, speech at American
Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference
ltr , June 16, 2015 at 11:02 am
What a thoroughly amoral person Samantha Power is, all pretense, all hypocrisy, all for selectively determining which lives
are worth allowing.
Wm. Boyce , June 16, 2015 at 11:14 am
Another example of the lack of differences between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to the empire's foreign policy.
It's all about controlling regions and resources, and fueling the U.S. arms industry.
Brendan , June 16, 2015 at 4:29 pm
Samantha Power: "The facts tell a different story. As you remember well, then-President Yanukovych abandoned Kyiv of his own
accord, only hours after signing an agreement with opposition leaders that would have led to early elections and democratic reforms."
There are some glaring omissions in Power's 'facts'. She doesn't explain why Yanukovych suddenly fled Kyiv, so soon after an
agreement with opposition leaders that allowed him to remain as president for several more months.
She didn't mention the rejection of that agreement by the far-right militias who threatened to remove Yanukovych from office
by force if he did not resign by 10 am that day.
That threat might explain his sudden departure. It also might also indicate that his departure wasn't really "of his own accord".
Brendan , June 16, 2015 at 4:34 pm
Samantha Power: "And it was only after Yanukovych fled the capital that 328 of the 447 members of the democratically-elected
Rada voted to strip him of his powers "
The problem with that was that the members of parliament did not have any authority to strip the president of his powers in
the way they did. The only possible conditions to remove a presidential from office are listed in the Ukrainian constitution:
Article 108. The President of Ukraine shall exercise his powers until the assumption of office by the newly elected President
of Ukraine.
The authority of the President of Ukraine shall be subject to an early termination in cases of:
1) resignation;
2) inability to exercise presidential authority for health reasons;
3) removal from office by the procedure of impeachment;
4) his/her death.
Yanukovych was not dead and neither was he unable to exercise his presidential authority due to health reasons. He never resigned,
and in fact continued to state that he was the only legitimate president.
He was not removed from office by the procedure of impeachment, which includes a number of stages, as described in Article
111 of the constitution (see link below). The decision on the impeachment must be adopted by at least three-quarters of the members
of parliament. The number given by Samantha Power was less than three-quarters.
Samantha Power, along with the vast majority of the western media, described the overthrow of President Yanukovych as a normal
democratic vote by parliament. To use Mrs Power's words, "The facts tell a different story". The facts say that it was an unconstitutional
coup.
All of these conflicts seem to be designed to clean out, not only the people, but entire cultures in the regions.
Americans should take heed. What we see the oligarchic criminals in the U.S. doing overseas, is coming to a town near you,
or maybe your own town. Why else do you think they have been dismantling the Constitution and militarizing communities? It looks
like it will be sooner than expected, too.
hammersmith , June 23, 2015 at 10:31 pm
The Bush administration was "little boys on Big Wheels," as one former member described it; The Obama administration is little
girls on Big Wheels.
Roberto , June 15, 2015 at 10:03 pm
These dopes have no idea that the compensation is forthcoming.
I would like to propose a new lobby that would also be based on a non-address, X Street.
X Street recognizes that the wars fought by the United States since 2001 have brought no benefit to the American people and
have only resulted in financial ruin,
NATO no longer has any raison d’etre and is needlessly provoking the Russians through its expansion. X Street calls on the
United States to dissolve the alliance.
X Street recognizes that America’s lopsided support of the state of Israel has made the United States a target of terrorism,
has weakened the US’s international standing and damaged its reputation, and has negatively impacted on the American economy.
Washington will no longer use its veto power to protect Israeli interests in the UN and other international bodies.
The United States will publicly declare its knowledge that Israel has a nuclear arsenal and will ask the Israeli government
to join the NPT regime and subject its program to IAEA inspection.
X Street believes that nation building and democracy promotion by the United States have been little more than CIA/MOSSAD covert
actions by another name that have harmed America’s reputation and international standing.
The National Endowment for Democracy should be abolished immediately.
I would think that most people have heard of near death experiences.
One feature of such experiences which has sometimes been reported, and which I find very interesting, is that of the life review,
which focuses on the deeds a person has done throughout his or her life, the motives of the deeds, and the effects of the deeds
on others. It has been reported, for instance, that people have re-experienced their deeds not only from their own perspective
but from the perspective of others whom one's deeds have affected.
There is a youtube video about this, titled The Golden Rule Dramatically Illustrated, and featuring NDE researcher Dr. Kenneth
Ring.
There are no such thing as "liberal war hawks", their policies simply based on idiocy where as the result they need to be called
"liberals", depending on kind of government that govern a corrupt and bankrupt system. American capitalism is one of those system.
These people simply lacking a vision for their understanding that they are "liberal". They might be a social liberalists when
it come to people's rights in living the way of life they chose, otherwise it was Bill Clinton who used such "liberal" idea by
politicalizing using liberalism for his gain, these people follow the same path, but they will backstab people as they have in
the past and as they do now.
michael , June 15, 2015 at 6:26 pm
If a coup had not been instigated by the west on Russia's border, installing Nazis a different more positive outcome might
be available, I am quite sure there are Ukrainians who did not want this and wanted a more independent Ukraine, but that is not
what happened! How were the Russians supposed to react? The United States has 1000 military bases around the world, border most
countries, completely encircle Iran, press right up to Russia's borders and encircle China. Again how are the Russians supposed
to React? If this was Mexico the place would be decimated by the Americans and laid to waste just like Iraq!
hbm , June 15, 2015 at 6:41 pm
Looney bleeding-heart Irishwoman with husband Arch-Neocon lunatic Cass Sunstein shaping her opinions and directing her fanaticism.
That's all one really needs to know.
Nibs , June 16, 2015 at 12:28 pm
Exactly, everywhere there is a goy neocon, just look a little further for the malign influence. You can always find it. Soros
was here too, also in the attempted "colour revolution" in Macedonia. They intend to make out like bandits, big big money. Of
course, as mentioned elsewhere, they are physical cowards and prefer to send ordinary Americans to do their fighting and bleeding
for them.
It's somewhat startling after Iraq that they are still there.
But, and forgive the conspiracy angle, I don't believe this is unconnected to the Epstein sex scandal: just see who visited and
is therefore target of blackmail.
Paulrevere01 , June 15, 2015 at 6:50 pm
and this warmonger-doppleganger-to-Nuland-Kagen is married to Grand-Censor-Cass-des-Hubris-Sunstein more black eyes for Yale
and Harvard.
dahoit , June 16, 2015 at 11:12 am
Yes,the Zionist poison ivy league strikes again,with more Zionist stool pigeons to come.Close down education for sale vs.for
knowledge,it produces zombie quislings.
Larry , June 15, 2015 at 7:12 pm
. and even if the U.S. neocon policy in Ukraine succeeds and a shooting war with Russia is somehow avoided, then the American
neocons will still neither be sated or placated. Like the bloodthirsty jackals they are, these neocons will be only emboldened,
and their next coup in Russia's natural security sphere will be the straw that breaks the nuclear camels' backs. They must be
deterred or stopped.
In some tabulations the neocon hijacking of US policy on behalf of Israel has resulted in American gifts to Iran of Iraq, Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon, and quite likely Israel. And that's for starters. The rest will implode and do we then have a Persian
Empire.
It looks like a lot of clouds gathering on the horizon, and I cannot say that I find much fault with Pillar's assessment.
The stakes are too high and for all the macho talk all are rightfully very weary of lighting the match.
I rather doubt that there would be much left for anyone to add to their empire. Miles of ruins and deserts, glazed by nuclear
fires do not make for very useful Imperial digs.
I just pray that we are both wrong.
Abe , June 15, 2015 at 7:58 pm
Liberal interventionism is simply left-wing neocon thinking.
“Many eyewitnesses among the Maidan protesters reported snipers firing from the Hotel Ukraina during the massacre of the
protesters, specifically, about killing eight of them. Bullet holes in trees and electricity poles on the site of the massacre
and on the walls of Zhovtnevyi Palace indicate that shots came from the direction of the hotel. There are several similar recorded
testimonies of the eyewitnesses among the protesters about shooters in October Palace and other Maidan-controlled buildings.â€
The “Snipers’ Massacre†on the Maidan in Ukraine
By Ivan Katchanovski, Ph.D.
Boris M Garsky , June 15, 2015 at 8:06 pm
There is nothing to say about Powers; no doubt where she gets her marching orders and script. However, there is no excuse for
being ignorant on the topic of her rantings. I challenge anyone, anywhere to spontaneously assemble and move 100,000 people, even
a few blocks, on 24 hours notice. If you can do it, you are the court magician exemplar. Can't be done. Never has been done; it
takes months to years of preparations and organization before implementation. Yanuckovich was the target of assassination; they
weren't taking chances. No doubt that the Russians told him to skedaddle; that his life was in danger. Doesn't sound spontaneous
to me; sounds like a well planned operation gone wrong- right initially, but wrong eventually. I think that Obama is simply posturing
until the west can figure out how to extricate themselves from another fine mess they got themselves into- AGAIN!
F. G. Sanford , June 15, 2015 at 8:26 pm
I remember during my college days watching "student government" personalities – usually rich kids with no real problems – hurl
themselves into impassioned frenzies over some issue or another. Usually, they were political science(sic) or psychology majors
who were also active in the Speech and Theater Department. The defining characteristic of their existence was to obtain a podium
from which to make impassioned pleas to their fellow students in an effort to demonstrate a proclivity for "leadership". Almost
any issue would do. Samantha Power reminds me of one of those students – ostensibly seeking a role which, if she could have her
way, would make her the prime catalyst in a pivotal issue at the epicenter of a maelstrom that steers the course of human history.
That kind of learned, practiced, studied and rehearsed narcissism doesn't always work out so well. Maybe because the most successful
examples are actually clinical sufferers of…real narcissism. When Power's 'facts' are compared to reality, the obvious conclusions
suggest a range of interpretations from delusional psychosis to criminal perjury. Or, is this a carefully crafted strategy? "Yats"
has recently resorted to the last rabbit he can pull out of a hat: he's turned on the printing presses to pay the bills, and a
currency collapse is imminent. The Nazi factions are impatient with the regime's lack of progress, the people are disgruntled,
those two million refugees have mostly fled to Russia for protection, Northern Europe is being inundated with prostitutes, drug
dealers and the creme de la creme of organized crime from the former Warsaw Pact countries, and in the South, refugees from NATO
destabilizations in North Africa and the Middle East have become an explosive issue. Racism, nationalism and the resurgence of
openly fascist political activity is burgeoning. Europe is boiling with rage. Has Power actually seen the writing on the wall?
If so, why not an impassioned campaign to remind the Ukrainians they have broken institutions, corrupt oligarchs, unscrupulous
kleptocrats, internal corruption and foreign aggression working against them? And by the way, they've failed to adequately investigate
those Nazi atrocities. None of this could POSSIBLY be the fault of U.S. meddling or failed diplomacy. Nope, they brought it on
themselves, but we did everything we could to try and help. The makings of TOTAL collapse are at hand, and one little fillip could
bring down the whole house of cards. So, "You Ukrainians need to stand tall for your freedoms", and if anything goes wrong, you
have nobody to blame but yourselves. Maybe Sammy isn't so delusional after all.
Gregory Kruse , June 16, 2015 at 1:01 pm
She's not delusional, she's just channeling Aleksander Mikhaajlovich Bezobrazov. I guess that does make Obama the Tsar.
Mark , June 15, 2015 at 8:53 pm
All anyone needs to understand about American foreign policy is that anything, including genocide, is not only acceptable but
promoted if it serves "America's corporate or favored campaign funding special interests". The only real principle in play for
all colluding parties -- corporate, mass media, complicit foreign governments (sycophants) and both major domestic political parties
-- is to "win" by compromising or sacrificing everything and everyone required to serve the insatiable hunger for ungodley wealth
and (abusive) power accumulation.
The entire American culture has been corrupted by propaganda and what is irrational human nature and instinct concerning these
matters -- to be accepted among our peers by following the heard -- this reality is being used by the "ruling class" to play the
public like a disposable three dollar fiddle, while they, our "rulers", impose death and destruction along with economic and military
tyranny, directly or by proxy, wherever and whenever they can get away with it.
Bob Loblaw , June 15, 2015 at 9:41 pm
Two words
Electromagnetic Pulse
One well placed warhead will cripple us to the point that we destroy ourselves.
While crude islamists can't pull it off a Russian device is within reach.
Abe , June 15, 2015 at 10:48 pm
As a human-rights entrepreneur who is also a tireless advocate of war, Samantha Power is not aberrant. Elite factions of the
human-rights industry were long ago normalized within the tightly corseted spectrum of American foreign policy.
Power advocates for what she calls "tough, principled, and engaged diplomacy." A more accurate set of adjectives would be "belligerent,
hypocritical, and domineering." The thrust of her work is to make perpetual war possible by designating genocide – real or merely
ideologically constructed – the supreme international crime, instead of war itself. (Under current international law war itself
is the "supreme international crime.") That way the U.S. can perpetually make war for the noblest of purposes without regard for
anachronisms like national sovereignty. Is it any wonder Democrats love her?
The military deployment of US-NATO forces coupled with “non-conventional warfare†â€"including covert intelligence operations,
economic sanctions and the thrust of “regime changeâ€â€" is occurring simultaneously in several regions of the world.
Central to an understanding of war, is the media campaign which grants it legitimacy in the eyes of public opinion. War has
been provided with a humanitarian mandate under NATO’s “Responsibility to Protect†(R2P). The victims of U.S. led wars are
presented as the perpetrators of war.
It sounds to me that these neocons have 2 things in common. They were all born post WW II and have not experienced any war
at home and grew up in a nice suburban area without street crimes. They NEVER were confronted with families who lost their loved
ones in US 'lost' wars in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan that were initiated WITHOUT UN approval and brought home young soldiers who
had lost their limps and were handicapped for the rest of their lives. But just to keep US defence industry turning out hefty
profits.
Secondly, they have watched to many Hollywood movies showing the superior US army beating the 'evil' empire (Reagan) meaning
Soviet Union. USA never honoured their agreements with Gorbachev to keep NATO out of Eastern Europe. President Putin learned his
lessons, he built a strong military with technological advanced equipment so his country will NOT be run over again by the West
such as Napoleon and Hitler did murdering 25 million Russians. President Putin and the Russians want to live in peace they have
suffered too much in the past.
It's US and its vassal NATO aggression in the World and now in Ukraine that make the Russian show their power and demonstrating
'don't fool with us' . US MSM propaganda in Europe is losing its effects and people realizing US geopolitical or colonization
aggression in the world while losing US dominance as well. Like Abraham Lincoln said: You can lie to some people all the time
and you can lie to all the people some time, but you cannot lie to all the people all the time! However with today's powerful
media TV and radio it will take some more time. But Russia's RT News is changing this and gives the audience News contradicting
US MSM propaganda such as NYT and WP which have been brainwashing the public for so long at the discretion of Washington's neocons.
And US taxpayers are paying the bill, wake up America!
Peter Loeb , June 16, 2015 at 6:46 am
DISTRACTION FROM PALESTINIAN/ISRAELI CONFLICT
Excellent profiles and analyses by Mr. Parry as we have all come
to expect.
"[Power] added that the United Nations focus on Ukraine in the
Security Council.." from Parry above.
Here one MUST add the unsaid "and never, never on Palestine/
Israel"! After all, the US has continued time and again to block
investigation by the Security Council of Israeli actions in that
sphere. Evidently Israel maintains according to Power and
many others that Israel with US support are by definition exempt
from any and all rules of international law, application to save
lives in Palestine, attempts to establish a Mideast Nuclear
Free Zone and much much more. The distraction provided
by Ukraine is not only significant for the people of Ukraine but
is cleverly designed to distract all world and domestic opinion
from the atrocities carried on daily by Israel in Palestine both
past, present and future.
-- -Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA
Gregory Kruse , June 16, 2015 at 10:28 am
She's like John Bolton in drag.
Abe , June 16, 2015 at 5:52 pm
She is the walrus, goo goo g'joob.
Sammy too "seems averse to compromise, and is apparently committed to the belief that the U.N. and international law undermine
U.S. interests" (aka Israeli interests) http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/03/21/boltonism
"“Remarks such as the references to the 1967 borders show Obama’s continuing lack of real appreciation for Israel’s security.â€
-- Bolton, 2011, interview for National Review online
"There will never be a sunset on America’s commitment to Israel’s security. Never.†-- Power, 2015, speech at American
Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference
ltr , June 16, 2015 at 11:02 am
What a thoroughly amoral person Samantha Power is, all pretense, all hypocrisy, all for selectively determining which lives
are worth allowing.
Wm. Boyce , June 16, 2015 at 11:14 am
Another example of the lack of differences between Democrats and Republicans when it comes to the empire's foreign policy.
It's all about controlling regions and resources, and fueling the U.S. arms industry.
Brendan , June 16, 2015 at 4:29 pm
Samantha Power: "The facts tell a different story. As you remember well, then-President Yanukovych abandoned Kyiv of his own
accord, only hours after signing an agreement with opposition leaders that would have led to early elections and democratic reforms."
There are some glaring omissions in Power's 'facts'. She doesn't explain why Yanukovych suddenly fled Kyiv, so soon after an
agreement with opposition leaders that allowed him to remain as president for several more months.
She didn't mention the rejection of that agreement by the far-right militias who threatened to remove Yanukovych from office
by force if he did not resign by 10 am that day.
That threat might explain his sudden departure. It also might also indicate that his departure wasn't really "of his own accord".
Brendan , June 16, 2015 at 4:34 pm
Samantha Power: "And it was only after Yanukovych fled the capital that 328 of the 447 members of the democratically-elected
Rada voted to strip him of his powers "
The problem with that was that the members of parliament did not have any authority to strip the president of his powers in
the way they did. The only possible conditions to remove a presidential from office are listed in the Ukrainian constitution:
Article 108. The President of Ukraine shall exercise his powers until the assumption of office by the newly elected President
of Ukraine.
The authority of the President of Ukraine shall be subject to an early termination in cases of:
1) resignation;
2) inability to exercise presidential authority for health reasons;
3) removal from office by the procedure of impeachment;
4) his/her death.
Yanukovych was not dead and neither was he unable to exercise his presidential authority due to health reasons. He never resigned,
and in fact continued to state that he was the only legitimate president.
He was not removed from office by the procedure of impeachment, which includes a number of stages, as described in Article
111 of the constitution (see link below). The decision on the impeachment must be adopted by at least three-quarters of the members
of parliament. The number given by Samantha Power was less than three-quarters.
Samantha Power, along with the vast majority of the western media, described the overthrow of President Yanukovych as a normal
democratic vote by parliament. To use Mrs Power's words, "The facts tell a different story". The facts say that it was an unconstitutional
coup.
All of these conflicts seem to be designed to clean out, not only the people, but entire cultures in the regions.
Americans should take heed. What we see the oligarchic criminals in the U.S. doing overseas, is coming to a town near you,
or maybe your own town. Why else do you think they have been dismantling the Constitution and militarizing communities? It looks
like it will be sooner than expected, too.
hammersmith , June 23, 2015 at 10:31 pm
The Bush administration was "little boys on Big Wheels," as one former member described it; The Obama administration is little
girls on Big Wheels.
This is US specific bank of chickenhawks, who feed from MIC cramps. this breed is really entrenched in State Department too (Madeleine
Albright, Nuland, Powell, Haley, etc)
Notable quotes:
"... War and peace! About 75% of the on-air personalities on Fox Jews are women. Do any of them have a peaceful brain cell – it appears not. They are all 100% on message – bomb Syria! ..."
"... It is feminism gone mad – the traditional female role of hope for peace has been extinguished in America. How sad – how unnatural – how dangerous – how bloody – dare we call them names? ..."
War and peace! About 75% of the on-air personalities on Fox Jews are women. Do any of them have a peaceful brain cell – it
appears not. They are all 100% on message – bomb Syria!
It is feminism gone mad – the traditional female role of hope
for peace has been extinguished in America. How sad – how unnatural – how dangerous – how bloody – dare we call them names?
Hagios | Apr 11, 2018 8:50:17 AM |
58 I think that the read target here is the Nord Stream II pipeline. They're currently
unwilling to cancel it out of economic considerations, but they think that they could get away
with cancelling it if NATO attacks Syria and Russia responds with "unprovoked aggression."
NATO's attack IMO will be just large enough that Russia has to respond, then Trump and co. will
cease further military action and continue with economic warfare.
"... There is not a shred of independent, intelligent journalism left anywhere around here - and interestingly there is an amazing number of people who have completely given up believing the MSM and/or our government. ..."
@ BM: My take on the situation in Germany: the MSM - leftish or rightish, doesn't matter -
mindlessly repeat what our US colonial masters are telling them to.
There is not a shred of independent, intelligent journalism left anywhere around here -
and interestingly there is an amazing number of people who have completely given up believing
the MSM and/or our government.
But what can you do when the published opinions are completely manufactured and anyone has
to suppose his neighbours all believe this idiocy?
That's a bit of a stretch. Germans were demoralized long before, as each sane person knew the war will end in
defeat from mid'42 on. Back in the days I had the somewhat questionable pleasure of talking to German ex-soldiers
(two of my grand-uncles) that were deployed to the Eastern Front. Compared to the kind of warfare that was going
on there, the fighting in the west and south was almost akin to being on vacation - I'm serious about that.
On average the Soviets, mainly comprised of todays Russian peoples, lost 16-18000 people a day, this is
evidence of the fierceness of fighting and, also, to what amount of a beating the Russians can take without
losing sight of their goal.
The Soviet Union did the real fighting against German forces. At all times there'd been about 85% of all
German forces deployed to the east, without this there would had been no bombing campaign against Germany simply
because the number of fighter aircraft available against allied bombers would had been overwhelming.
Except for a few elite units, hastily re-deployed from the east, the main force was inexperienced draftees
with both a lack of proper training and equipment. All other experienced units stayed east in a desperate attempt
to hold back the red army as long as any possible.
A very good friend of mine, who died a couple years back at age 84, was one of these unfortunate souls. When
he turned 17 in late Dec.'44 he received an official letter that read 'A gift from the Fuhrer' - it was his draft
note. That's been the kind of opponent the western allies faced late in the war, a bunch of badly under-equipped
troops consisting of exhausted regulars and youths, that were scared shitless (his words, not mine).
Russia's a different kind of animal. They won WWII - European theater almost singlehandedly but had to pay
dearly.
"... "The primary conclusion of this study, based on a pharmacological analysis of the video and photographic evidence, is that the Ghouta Massacre near Damascus on Aug 21.2013 was not a sarin rocket attack carried out by Assad or his supporters. It was a false-flag stunt carried out by the insurgents using carbon monoxide or cyanide to murder children and use their corpses as bait to lure the Americans into attacking Assad." ..."
"Murder in the Sun Morgue" by Dr. Denis O'Brien (neuropharmacology expert):
"The primary conclusion of this study, based on a pharmacological analysis of the
video and photographic evidence, is that the Ghouta Massacre near Damascus on Aug 21.2013 was
not a sarin rocket attack carried out by Assad or his supporters. It was a false-flag stunt
carried out by the insurgents using carbon monoxide or cyanide to murder children and use
their corpses as bait to lure the Americans into attacking Assad."
Ukraine is a debilitated state, created under Soviet auspices, hampered by a difficult
Soviet inheritance, and hollowed out by its own predatory elites during two decades of misrule.
But it is also a nation that is too big and independent for Russia to swallow up. Russia,
meanwhile, is a damaged yet still formidable great power whose rulers cannot be intimidated
into allowing Ukraine to enter the Western orbit. Hence the standoff. No external power or aid
package can solve Ukraine's problems or compensate for its inherent vulnerabilities
vis-à-vis Russia. Nor would sending lethal weaponry to Ukraine's brave but ragtag
volunteer fighters and corrupt state structures improve the situation; in fact, it would send
it spiraling further downward, by failing to balance Russian predominance while giving Moscow a
pretext to escalate the conflict even more. Rather, the way forward must begin with a
recognition of some banal facts and some difficult bargaining.
Russia's seizure of Crimea and intervention in eastern Ukraine do not challenge the entire
post-1945 international order. The forward positions the Soviet Union occupied in the heart of
Europe as a result of defeating Nazi Germany were voluntarily relinquished in the early 1990s,
and they are not going to be reoccupied. But nor should every detail of the post–Cold War
settlement worked out in 1989–91 be considered eternal and inviolate. That settlement
emerged during an anomalous time. Russia was flat on its back but would not remain prostrate
forever, and when it recovered, some sort of pushback was to be expected.
Something similar happened following the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, many of the
provisions of which were not enforced. Even if France, the United Kingdom, and the United
States had been willing and able to enforce the peace, their efforts would not have worked,
because the treaty had been imposed during a temporary anomaly, the simultaneous collapse of
German and Russian power, and would inevitably have been challenged when that power
returned.
Territorial revisionism ensued after World War II as well, of course, and continued
sporadically for decades. Since 1991, there have been some negotiated revisions: Hong Kong and
Macao underwent peaceful reabsorption into China. Yugoslavia was broken up in violence and war,
leading to the independence of its six federal units and eventually Kosovo, as well.
Unrecognized statelets such as Nagorno-Karabakh, part of Azerbaijan; Transnistria, a sliver of
Moldova; Abkhazia and South Ossetia, disputed units of Georgia; and now Donetsk and Luhansk,
parts of Ukraine -- each entails a story of Stalinist border-making.
The European Union cannot resolve this latest standoff, nor can the United Nations. The
United States has indeed put together "coalitions of the willing" to legitimize some of its
recent interventions, but it is not going to go to war over Ukraine or start bombing Russia,
and the wherewithal and will for indefinite sanctions against Russia are lacking. Distasteful
as it might sound, Washington faces the prospect of trying to work out some negotiated larger
territorial settlement.
Such negotiations would have to acknowledge that Russia is a great power with leverage, but
they would not need to involve the formal acceptance of some special Russian sphere of interest
in its so-called near abroad. The chief goals would be, first, to exchange international
recognition of Russia's annexation of Crimea for an end to all the frozen conflicts in which
Russia is an accomplice and, second, to disincentivize such behavior in the future. Russia
should have to pay monetary compensation for Crimea. There could be some federal solutions,
referendums, even land swaps and population transfers (which in many cases have already taken
place). Sanctions on Russia would remain in place until a settlement was mutually agreed on,
and new sanctions could be levied if Russia were to reject negotiations or were deemed to be
conducting them in bad faith. Recognition of the new status of Crimea would occur in stages,
over an extended period.
It would be a huge challenge to devise incentives that were politically plausible in the
West while at the same time powerful enough for Russia to agree to a just settlement -- and for
Ukraine to be willing to take part. But the search for a settlement would be an opportunity as
well as a headache.
NATO expansion can be judged to have been a strategic error -- not because it angered Russia
but because it weakened NATO as a military alliance. Russia's elites would likely have become
revanchist even without NATO's advance, because they believe, nearly universally, that the
United States took advantage of Russia in 1991 and has denied the country its rightful place as
an equal in international diplomacy ever since. But NATO expansion's critics have not offered
much in the way of practicable alternatives. Would it really have been appropriate, for
example, to deny the requests of all the countries east of Germany to join the alliance?
Then as now, the only real alternative was the creation of an entirely new trans-European
security architecture, one that fully transcended its Cold War counterpart. This was an
oft-expressed Russian wish, but in the early 1990s, there was neither the imagination nor the
incentives in Washington for such a heavy lift. Whether there is such capacity in Washington
today remains to be seen. But even if comprehensive new security arrangements are unlikely
anytime soon, Washington could still undertake much useful groundwork.
Critics might object on the grounds that the sanctions are actually biting, reinforced by
the oil price free fall -- so why offer even minimal concessions to Putin now? The answer is
because neither the sanctions, nor the oil price collapse, nor the two in conjunction have
altered Russia's behavior, diminished its potential as a spoiler, or afforded Ukraine a chance
to recover.
Whether they acknowledge it or not, Western opponents of a negotiated settlement are really
opting for another long-term, open-ended attempt to contain Russia and hope for regime change
-- a policy likely to last until the end of Putin's life and possibly well beyond. The costs of
such an approach are likely to be quite high, and other global issues will continue to demand
attention and resources. And all the while, Ukraine would effectively remain crippled, Europe's
economy would suffer, and Russia would grow ever more embittered and difficult to handle. All
of that might occur no matter what. But if negotiations hold out a chance of somehow averting
such an outcome, they are worth a try. And the attempt would hold few costs, because failed
negotiations would only solidify the case for containment in Europe and in the United
States.
It is ultimately up to Russia's leaders to take meaningful steps to integrate their country
into the existing world order, one that they can vex but not fully overturn. To the extent that
the Ukraine debacle has brought this reality into sharper focus, it might actually have been
useful in helping Putin to see some light, and the same goes for the collapse of oil prices and
the accompanying unavoidable devaluation of the ruble. After the nadir of 1998, smart policy
choices in Moscow, together with some lucky outside breaks, helped Russia transform a crisis
into a breakthrough, with real and impressive steps forward. That history could replay itself
-- but whether it will remains the prerogative of one person alone.
"There was no chemical weapons attack," Nebenzia told the council. "Through the relevant
channels we already conveyed to the US that armed forces under mendacious pretext against Syria
– where, at the request of the legitimate government of a country, Russian troops have
been deployed – could lead to grave repercussions."
A few hours earlier, Donald Trump said his administration was on the brink of deciding its
response to the Douma attack. "We are meeting with our military and everybody else, and we'll
be making some major decisions over the next 24 to 48 hours," he said at a cabinet meeting. "We
are very concerned when a thing like that can happen. This is about humanity and it can't be
allowed to happen."
Pressed by reporters, Trump went further, saying: "We'll be making that decision very
quickly, probably by the end of today. But we cannot allow atrocities like that. Cannot allow
it."
Trump ordered airstrikes against a Syrian airbase after a previous chemical weapons attack,
in April last year. The latest use of poison gasprovoked from Trump unprecedented direct
criticism of Putin, something he had previously been at pains to avoid.
... ... ...
In his address, Nebenzia suggested a visit to Douma by the Organisation for the Prohibition
of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) might be possible under Syrian and Russian military protection. The
UK envoy to the UN, Karen Pierce, said the Russian proposal was "an offer worth pursuing" but
she added that OPCW inspectors would have to have complete freedom of action and of access.
As the global financial collapse unfolded in 2008-2009, I recall the delight that many
Anglosphere commentators expressed over the prospect that the oil price collapse would
devastate Russia economically, causing the Russian people to rise against Putin and all his
works, and put FreeMarketReformers back in charge in Russia.
And once it became clear in the spring of 2009 that oil prices were rapidly recovering and
that Russia's vast financial reserves were more than sufficient to absorb the blow, these
same Anglosphere commentators expressed frustration that Russians had been insufficiently
impoverished to overthrow Putin and put FreeMarketreformers back in charge.
It is as if the Angosphere Foreign Policy Elite and Punditocracy (AFPE&P)had no idea
what Russians suffered in the '90s at the hands of FreeMarketReformers, suffering so severe
that deaths were exceeding births by almost a million a year.
And President Obama recently revealed his utter cluelessness about Russia's present
realities:
Chemical false flag attacks is the traditional way Syria islamists are calling for the US air support. From comments: "After all
they had lost in Douma - there were no point in Syrian gas attack - the fighting was done. Jaish al Islam must be having a great
laugh at our expensive for falling for their trick of gassing their own people. Let us not help the Islamists."
Anther interesting comment: "With "experts" at president's disposal, seems to me moment Trump announced Syrian withdrawal, at
least one should have anticipated - based on past occurrences - a gas attack aimed to engage US and therefore maintain US presence."
And another " including their mouthpieces at the times manufacture
a chemical attack and claim Assad -- who has no reason whatsoever to do such things -- is some horrible monster that deserves to have
bombs rained down on him. How totally corrupt the MIC has become."
That act reported by White helmets looks like a classic MI6 provocation. Russian investigation has shown that no attack took place.
Moreover the rumors about this false flag were circulating long ago. Russians warned about this possiblity a month or so ago telling
the jihadists prepare such provocation. Looks like all that was needed for Trump is a plausible justification -- the desire to "decapitate"
Assad is too strong to resist.
Notable quotes:
"... Syria is a crappy place primarily because of insane overpopulation and limited water. Getting Assad out is not going to help with population or with water. Moving the entire Syrian population to Europe could be done and they are working on that. ..."
"... With "experts" at president's disposal, seems to me moment Trump announced Syrian withdrawal, at least one should have anticipated - based on past occurrences - a gas attack aimed to engage US and therefore maintain US presence. ..."
President Trump on Monday denounced the suspected chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of people in
Syria over the weekend as a "barbaric act," and said
he will make a decision in the next 24 to 48 hours about whether to retaliate militarily as he did to a similar assault last year.
Congress has skirted their responsibility to authorize war in Syria and Trump is suggesting taking actions that could drag
us into a deep and costly war. The American people deserve to hear this debated in Congress.
Retaliate? They don't even know for sure who it was, could well have been an ally. The place is a mess of competing outside
forces.
Retaliate - and therein lies the problem. Too much to ask that for once they think, discuss, decide a long term policy with
other countries. Last time the 45th tried 'me-big-man-with-bomb' there was no follow up, nothing was done, what was the point?
Look at me I have the biggest, noisiest fire cracker! Pathetic. Careless. Irresponsible. Uniformed. Murderous. The list is endless.
I suppose the President can launch a missile attack, or any military action, based on whatever authority from Congress permitted
the US military to be fighting in Syria in the first place. The more fundamental issue is that Congress long ago ceded to the
President its constitutional responsibility to declare war . This must be corrected with checks restored on the President's power
to deploy the military at will. Otherwise, the US will continue to be in a perpetual state of war, which may be good for the extended
military supply industry but damaging to country as a whole.
What if.....what if this chemical attack was sanctioned not by Assad but by a state or a non-state force that wants the U.S.
to retaliate?
Just why did this chemical attack follow Trump's announced desire to get out of Syria?
Why, also, is Israel urging us to attack now? Could it be to distract from the human rights catastrophe in Gaza?
We all know what John Bolton would have us do.
Where's the proof that this was Assad's work? More WMD ?
Trump wined and dined MBS of Saudi Arabia who has been conducting airstrikes on Yemen with hundreds of casualties, as high
as 68 civilian deaths in one day. It would be hard to imagine a better example of hypocrisy.
Syria is a part of a complex series of issues that make up the problem of Middle Eastern diplomacy. Trump does not have the
capacity to manage any of this. Selling arms to the Saudis to continue their war in Yemen added to the Syrian problem. The cholera
epidemic in Yemen is a form of biological warfare that is killing more civilians than chemical warfare in Syria. Starving the
population of Yemen is also warfare. By supporting the Saudis we have lost the moral high ground in Syria.
Was it the rebels again? Or is it chlorine again? Chlorine is used for several commercial and health purposes--to clean bottles,
to clean water, and for refrigeration. So it is quite easy for a bomb or explosive to hit a container and then there is a serious
gas problem. If pool acid and chlorine are stored together it might be worse when mixed. I do not believe Assad needs to use chemicals
because he has Russians who will do air strikes on his enemies. I call fake news.
The solution to Syria was obvious years ago, if you just wanted to see the obvious. And that was Syria as it had been for years,
in peace, secular, under a government of Assad who, eventually, knew it had to evolve into a more democratic regime . Now that
has changed, and all to Israel´s advantage. It seems as if the whole world has forgotten that the whole Middle East problem was
born, and is still the Occupation of Palestinian Land. Israel is a thorn in Arab Middle East.The only one that has attacked ALL
its neighbours !
We should do nothing. We need to leave Syria to the Syrian. We can't and musn't involve our military in every tragedy in the
world. There is no doubt in my mind that if we mistakenly and stupidly attack the Syrian Army we are aiding the Jihadist who planned
thit attack. After all they had lost in Douma - there were no point in Syrian gas attack - the fighting was done. Jaish al Islam
must be having a great laugh at our expensive for falling for their trick of gassing their own people. Let us not help the Islamists.
The US government LIES about everything. We know this. This has been proved repeatedly.
Yet, here we are with the US government, and its stenographers in the mainstream media, i.e., the stuff that's not Fake News,
right, assuring us that Assad gassed his own people. Again.
Even if we could believe this, or even if we gave the government the benefit of the doubt for . . . what? . . . its integrity?,
we are after all exceptional, right, how is this America's business?
Yes, other countries shouldn't gas their own people. But countries shouldn't commit war crimes either, and that goes on every
day. America is as dirty as any other country. Despite our treaty obligations, even torture is legal here.
We're supposedly the richest country in the world, but we can barely keep our streets paved and lit. And not only that, but
it is a proven fact that one dollar invested in domestic economics brings back much more return than one dollar spent on bombs.
Trump is right. We need to stomp the madness in the Middle East. The oil companies can pay for their own security with all of
the money they don't pay in taxes.
Right now our cities are clogged with people living in tents and defecating on the sidewalks and in the streets. Look at old
pictures from the Depression. It looks the same today.
The left is seeing Russians responsible for every wrong in the world. The right sees itself as the rescuer of the wrongs of
the world. I pray that this does not move this country into a war with Russia.
This nation needs a "policy". Something with careful thought and backed by facts, expert analysis, and wisdom; Aim first and
carefully.
A "Shoot from the Hip" flourish that can be touted at the next Trump self congratulatory ego rally Will Not Do. Either this
nation has a leader or it doesn't - Trump's move!
One of the few things I liked about Trump was his anti-involvement stance in the middle east. We have SO MUCH to fix and worry
about at home. Nothing that Trump does on immigration, environment, or anything else will make me more angry than dragging us
into another war.
I don't see any ink being given to the very likely possibility that the gas attack was a ploy by rebels to get the US (and
their air cover) to stick around. If you ask the question, "Who benefits?" the Assad regime had nothing to gain by gassing a few
civilians -- they're about to win the war, so why would they? OTOH, the rebels need us badly, and know that we will reflexively
blame Assad.
Just a few days ago, Trump talked about withdrawing from Syria. Now, he says he will decide whether to attack Syria within
the next couple of days. One day we're out, the next day we're in. And just a few days ago, Trump said he didn't like to reveal
his military plans in advance. Now, he is announcing to the world that he is consideration retaliation against Syria. His contradictions
make the U.S. look as if it is led by a very confused commander in chief.
Yes, chemical weapons are barbaric, but who launched the attack? Which faction in this complicated civil war? How does trump
know the answer to this question when no one else does? Why would the U.S. "retaliate" based on speculation, especially after
trump recently said, "we need to get out of there and leave it to someone else"? What good would military action do at this point?
Are we anxious to put our "expensive new military" to the test? So many questions...and an administration unable / unwilling to
answer them. Too bad trump can't simply tweet his way out of this one...
The U.S. should respond militarily to Syria's gas attack only on two conditions:
1. The leaders of all key U.S. allies (European countries, Canada, Japan, S. Korea, Australia, etc.) sign a joint declaration
of support for the action.
2. Each of these countries pays a population-weighted share of the expense of the U.S. military operation.
We are either all in this together, or it's not worth doing.
Let's find out if our allies are willing to back up their pious declarations of condemnation.
I don't get it. Subjecting people, women, children and even men, to crushing, burning, lacerating and penetrating wounds is
par for the course. It's war after all. But poison! Oh the (in)humanity!
Also, anyone think it's weird that Assad does this just when the US is making motions to pull out?
It is impossible to know what is really going on as the world's powers continue to fight this proxy war. The only thing that
is certain is the continued suffering of the Syrian people - including the poor sods who will be conventionally incinerated by
American "retaliation" in a day or so.
The President should have no authority to declare war or commit troops, period. So far, there has been no urgent "national
emergency," as required by the War Powers Resolution, which would justify the President to effectively declare war unilaterally
and yet here we are, with presidents on both sides completely ignoring the Constitution, using the WPA as an enabler to bypass
the text which says that only Congress can declare war.
Saddam used gas on the Iranians and we were good with that. It is not clear about this gas in Syria. These "freedom fighters"
have no compunction about using civilians as human shields. How do we know the truth? They are various branches of Al Quaeda and
given their huge birth rate they don't seem to place much weight on human life in the here and now....maybe they focus on the
afterlife more. So why can't we just leave Assad alone and let him be the strong man there? Yes Syria is a crappy place primarily
because of insane overpopulation and limited water. Getting Assad out is not going to help with population or with water. Moving
the entire Syrian population to Europe could be done and they are working on that.
Trump says he was getting us out of Syria. Much to my relief to this endless war.
And I'm pretty sure the president of Syria, Assad, whose regime has been under attack by both the US supported Syrian rebels
and their ISIS allies did not want the US on their soil. So why would he do something like this? I don't believe he did. By the
way if the US was not meddling over in the M.E. there would be no refugees and fewer immigrants.
"Conventional" deaths by artillery and bullets are perfectly acceptable - when bodies are vaporized, ripped and torn apart
unrecognizably. But use a deadly gas and leave the corpses in "beautiful" condition - there you have crossed the line mister.
Lemme get this straight: The US policy doesn't care *how many* Syrians were killed; it only cares *how* they were killed? Nothing
good can come from such an ethically bankrupt policy.
As painful as it is, the possession of chlorine is not in violation of the standards we all signed in to to stop chemical and
biological weapons. Hence, the agreement under Obama, by almost all standards, worked well. Or at least unless we wanted a few
hundred thousands troop on the ground to search the entire country. This use of chlorine is. Maybe Trump will propose a huge tariff
on chlorine exports to Syria?
What is the logic for Assad to provoke the US right after Trump announces his intention to withdraw? Would it not be more strategic
for the regime to hold off until US troops were withdrawn and then go after the rebels? Does Assad assume that the US response
will be more moderate if we still have troops in country? Any chance this was a rogue action to delay or reverse US plans to withdraw?
If so, who benefits from US continuing to maintain troops in Syria?
With "experts" at president's disposal, seems to me moment Trump announced Syrian withdrawal, at least one should have
anticipated - based on past occurrences - a gas attack aimed to engage US and therefore maintain US presence.
To
borrow from the British definition of an ambassador, United States military leaders are honest soldiers promoted in rank to champion
war with reckless disregard for the truth. This practice persists despite the catastrophic waste of lives and money because the untruths
are never punished. Congress needs to correct this problem forthwith.
General Joseph F. Dunford, Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, exemplifies the phenomenon. As reported in The Washington
Post , Dunford recently voiced optimism about defeating the Afghan Taliban in the seventeenth year of a trillion-dollar war that
has multiplied safe havens for international terrorists, the opposite of the war's original mission. While not under oath, Dunford
insisted, "This is not another year of the same thing we've been doing for 17 years. This is a fundamentally different approach [T]he
right people at the right level with the right training [are in place] "
There, the general recklessly disregarded the truth. He followed the instruction of General William Westmoreland who stated at
the National Press Club on November 21, 1967 that the Vietnam War had come to a point "where the end begins to come into view." The
1968 Tet Offensive was then around the corner, which would provoke Westmoreland to ask for 200,000 more American troops. The Pentagon
Papers and Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster's Dereliction of Duty have meticulously documented the military's reckless disregard
for the truth throughout the Vietnam War.
Any fool can understand that continuing our 17-year-old war in Afghanistan is a fool's errand. The nation is artificial. Among
other things, its disputed border with Pakistan, the Durand Line, was drawn in 1896 between the British Raj and Afghan Amir Abdur
Rahmen Khair. Afghanistan's population splinters along tribal, ethnic, and sectarian lines, including Pushtans, Uzbeks, Hazara, Tajiks,
Turkmen, and Balochi. Its government is riddled with nepotism, corruption, ineptitude, and lawlessness. Election fraud and political
sclerosis are endemic. Opium production and trafficking replenish the Taliban's coffers.
The Afghan National Army (ANA) is a paper tiger. Desertion and attrition rates are alarming. Disloyalty is widespread. American
weapons are sold to the Taliban or captured. ANA soldiers will not risk that last full measure of devotion for an illegitimate, unrepresentative,
decrepit government.
The Taliban also has a safe haven in Pakistan. A staggering portion -- maybe up to 90 percent -- of United States assistance to
Afghanistan is embezzled, diverted, or wasted. John Sopko, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR),
related to Chatham House in London that "SIGAR was finding waste, fraud, and abuse nearly everywhere we looked in Afghanistan --
from the $488 million worth of aircraft that couldn't fly, to the navy the U.S. bought for a landlocked country, to the buildings
the U.S. paid for that literally melted in the rain ."
"The Taliban are getting stronger, the government is on the retreat, they are losing ground to the Taliban day by day," Abdul
Jabbar Qahraman, a retired Afghan general who was the Afghan government's military envoy to Helmand Province until 2016, told the
New York Times last summer. ISIS has now joined the Taliban and al-Qaeda in fighting the United States. Secretary of Defense
General James Mattis conceded to Congress last June that "we are not winning in Afghanistan right now," but added polyannaishly,
"And we will correct this as soon as possible." Only two months earlier, the Defense Department insisted that dropping the Mother
of All Bombs on Afghanistan would reverse the losing trend.
Upton Sinclair sermonized: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding
it." Thus do military leaders deceive themselves about futile wars to extract more spending, to maintain their professional reputations
and public stature, and to avoid the embarrassment of explaining to Congress and the American people that astronomical sums have
been wasted and tens of thousands of American soldiers have died or were crippled in vain.
To deter such self-deception, Congress should enact a statute requiring the retirement without pension of any general or admiral
who materially misleads legislators or the public about prospective or ongoing wars with reckless disregard for the truth. That sanction
might have prompted General Dunford to acknowledge the grim truth about Afghanistan: that the United States is clueless about how
to win that war.
Bruce Fein was associate deputy attorney general under President Reagan and is the founding partner of Fein & DelValle PLLC.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has accused prominent British businessman Bill
Browder of being a "serial killer" – the latest extraordinary attempt by the Kremlin to
frame one of its most high-profile public enemies.
Court documents seen by the Observer reveal that Russian state investigators have named
Browder, a London-based hedge fund manager, as the suspect behind the mysterious murders of
three men.
All three deaths are linked to a £174m fraud believed to have involved Russian
officials -- a crime that was uncovered by Browder's Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, in
2008. Magnitsky was subsequently imprisoned on charges widely considered to be false, and died
in jail amid claims he was tortured.
Browder, once the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia, has infuriated Putin by
lobbying western governments to punish those responsible for Magnitsky's death. A number of
countries have imposed sanctions on individuals believed to be involved.
Putin really dropped the ball on the Libya No-Fly Resolution trusting the evil empire. Now
the stakes
are even higher. The absolute worse news in all this is that Trump is bringing in Bolton as
his lunatic
wing man at the worst possible time when things were looking like they were wrapping up in
Syria.
Bolton is the male version of Hillary on steroids. Trump is going to hide behind Bolton's
mustache - you know, me good cop; Bolton bad cop; IOW, don't blame me for what needs to be
done. Trump gifted
Jerusalem to Netanyahu, and now he's going to gift him Syria too. The Iran deal will
also get scrapped soon and that's more gasoline on a fire that's about to get out of control.
Here's one way
to distract from the Mueller investigation; start a war and rally the county under
a common cause: war with Syria, ergo Russia and then Iran.
It's as I said from day one: Trump can't help himself; he's always been a Zio-con and
Adelson
is getting his money's worth. It's all going to happen as I always said it would. Trump was
the perfect puppet.
Trump will look like the savior of the realm; a role his big fat ego always dreamed of and
won't resist.
Now, there still might be a way out of this potential catastrophe. Admit it, wouldn't it
be nice if Putin
really was holding back something big regarding Trump?
*sigh* - if only! Very soon would be a good time to drop it. Manafort?
"... Russian oligarchs and elites who profit from this corrupt system will no longer be insulated from the consequences of their government's destabilizing activities. ..."
The Russian government operates for the disproportionate benefit of oligarchs and government
elites. The Russian government engages in a range of malign activity around the globe,
including continuing to occupy Crimea and instigate violence in eastern Ukraine, supplying the
Assad regime with material and weaponry as they bomb their own civilians, attempting to subvert
Western democracies, and malicious cyber activities.
Russian oligarchs and elites who
profit from this corrupt system will no longer be insulated from the consequences of their
government's destabilizing activities.
"... EXCLUSIVE: Saudi crown prince bragged that Jared Kushner gave him CIA intelligence about other Saudis saying 'here are your enemies' days before 'corruption crackdown' which led to torture and death ..."
"... What does current DCI Pompeo have to say about Kursher's disclosures of CIA Intelligence to MBS? ..."
"... Since Saudi is not an official 'Ally', under the Treason Statute it's called Treason what Kushner did, not Espionage. Espionage pentalty is only for 'Allies', Treason is for all others (according to the Treason Statute). ..."
EXCLUSIVE: Saudi crown prince bragged
that Jared Kushner gave him CIA intelligence about other Saudis saying 'here are your enemies'
days before 'corruption crackdown' which led to torture and death
Said the spider to the fly, come closer my lovely let me play with you.
Now who on earth would be the spider, appears it's Mohammed-Bin Salman, the new Saudi king
apparent, and the fly is Jared Kushner.
I call your attention to the following article:
Look at the second photo of Kushner and MBS at the Murabba Palace in Riyadh last May, BEFORE
their October meeting where Kushner according to MBS, Kushner gave MBS Classified CIA
Intelligence concerning MBS's purported enemies before his crackdown. Now doesn't that photo
speak volumes of a spider eyeing a potential fly? MBS's body language speaks volumes.
What does current DCI Pompeo have to say about Kursher's disclosures of CIA Intelligence to
MBS?
Since Saudi is not an official 'Ally', under the Treason Statute it's called Treason what
Kushner did, not Espionage. Espionage pentalty is only for 'Allies', Treason is for all others
(according to the Treason Statute).
What slice of the Treason execution pie does Jared pick, gallows or other?
The US lost proper timing for the coup -- it was possible in 2011-2012 timeframe. Now hardly. And if one think that
Russian oligarchs will sitting quietly while the West expropriate their money, think again. China banks do exist, if I am not
mistaken. And some other nations also have pretty developed financial sector.
I do not think that Russia should or can cut ties with the USA. Dependence of the US technological sector is substantial and
cutting the ties might backfire. This is the calculation of the UIS lawmakers, who enjoyed the impunity of the unipolar
moment. But bumerang always retrun. sooner or later.
Notable quotes:
"... The latest sanctions seem concerned as much with protecting the US's economic positions as punishing Russia ..."
"... Russian oligarchs and elites who profit from this corrupt system will no longer be insulated from the consequences of their government's destabilizing activities. ..."
The latest sanctions seem concerned as much with
protecting the US's economic positions as punishing Russia
The latest round of sanctions the US Treasury has imposed on Russia are a strange affair.
Earlier rounds of sanctions have been linked to specific acts of real or alleged Russian misbehaviour e.g. the death of
Sergey Magnitsky, the Crimean crisis, the war in the Donbass, the shooting down of MH17, and the alleged Russian meddling in
the 2016 US Presidential election.
This latest round of sanctions is different in that it is not directly linked to any Russian action – real or alleged – at
all. Nor are the people sanctioned – for example the Russian businessman Oleg Deripaska – directly accused of anything.
In place of any specific accusation against Russia or any of the individuals concerned, here is how a
statemen
t from US Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin justifies the latest sanctions
The Russian government operates for the disproportionate benefit of oligarchs and government elites. The Russian
government engages in a range of malign activity around the globe, including continuing to occupy Crimea and instigate
violence in eastern Ukraine, supplying the Assad regime with material and weaponry as they bomb their own civilians,
attempting to subvert Western democracies, and malicious cyber activities.
Russian oligarchs and elites who
profit from this corrupt system will no longer be insulated from the consequences of their government's destabilizing
activities.
(bold italics added)
In other words Russia is a bad corrupt country which does lots of bad things around the world of which the US disapproves.
Anyone in Russia who is rich ("an oligarch") and is therefore "profiting from this corrupt system" is in some way
responsible and risks being sanctioned
irrespective of anything they do
unless this changes.
The implication is that if they do not want to be sanctioned the "oligarchs" must overthrow Russia's government.
The latest sanctions are therefore an incitement to a coup.
All
other steps the US has taken having failed
, Russia's businessmen ("oligarchs") are now being told that unless they
engineer the overthrow of Russia's government they will be sanctioned.
The first thing to say about this policy is that it is decades out of date.
There was a time in the 1990s when a small group of stratospherically wealthy and corrupt individuals really did control
Russia's government.
By way of example, most of the people who met in the Kremlin during the 1998 financial crisis to decide whether or not to
devalue the ruble were not members of the government or even officials, and the meeting during which the decision was
finally taken to devalue the ruble was chaired not by a government minister but by the former Acting Prime Minister of
Russia Yegor Gaidar, who at the time was neither a member of the government nor an official, but who was merely an adviser of
Russia's President, Boris Yeltsin, who was at the time away reviewing the fleet.
The decision was in fact made by the same small group of wealthy and corrupt individuals who at that time really did
control Russia's government, meeting informally under Gaidar's chairmanship, and not through the official structures.
It is not a misconception to call these individuals "oligarchs". In the 1990s that is exactly what they were. The most
politically powerful amongst them – Boris Berezovsky – was not even properly speaking a businessman.
That is not the situation in Russia today. A person like Oleg Deripaska – the aluminium magnate whose name appears on the
latest sanctions list – may be a person of great influence and power. However he does not control Russia's government, and
has no means to do so.
I should say that I first came across the suggestion that the "oligarchs" could be mobilised to overthrow President Putin
or force him to reverse his policies by imposing sanctions upon them in early 2014 at the start of the Ukrainian crisis.
As I recall reports appeared in the media that the German intelligence agency the BND was advising Chancellor Merkel that
if the EU imposed sanctions on Russia the "oligarchs" would either force President Putin to change course or would overthrow
him in order to save their fortunes.
Many rounds of sanctions later one might suppose that that theory had been tested to destruction. However Steven
Mnuchin's statement suggests that faith in it dies hard.
The latest round of sanctions the US has imposed on Russian businessmen and their companies will not weaken President
Putin's position or that of the Russian government, and will not affect Russia's economy.
As China's semi-official English language newspaper
Global Times
has recently pointed out, Russia – unlike countries like Iran – has a big largely self-sufficient
continental sized economy possessing immense scientific, technological and natural resources, making it therefore largely
immune to sanctions.
As for the wealthy Russian individuals who the latest sanctions are targeting, the reason so many of them keep money
abroad is not because they control Russia's government, but because they do not control it, and do not wholly trust it.
The result is that they have been squirreling away much of their money abroad, beyond their government's reach.
Now what they are discovering is that their money is at far greater risk of being seized by the US government than by
their own – something the Russian government has been telling them for years – so that it is in fact safer kept at home than
it is squirreled away abroad.
Do not think Russia is in the mood to be Diplomatic or generous. Though, they will always be polite and show their manners and
respect for International Law, up on the world stage. Do believe the UK and US have seriously crossed the red line. Short term
pain for long term gain, so comes to mind.
With Theresa May and Donald Trump as leaders it is no wonder the world is in such a mess. Putin is the only adult left to lead
on the world stage. We will do better listening to Putin. The history of the warmongers (UK and USA ) should never be ignored...
Must, admit, I find it so reassuring the way that President Putin and President Xi-Jinping,
work together. Plus, President Duterte, he might be tactless, but, unlike Trump, he
comes across trustworthy and with a love of his nation and people. Not forgetting
President Assad, all Syria has been through, yet, he will not leave his people and
neither will his family. It is nice to see a different form of politician, that is
managing to come through and help another learn from their values.
Together, with
the fact that President Putin, would not be where he is, without a very confident and
strong team behind him.
"Russia won't "be spoken to in the language of sanctions"..."?
IT'S ABOUT TIME!!!
No country that has self-respect, no respectable person can possibly accept to be spoken
to and treated generally in that disgustingly arrogant, beyond contemptuous manner. The
terms and acts of abuse used by the Empire's representatives, including in the most
"prestigious" international institutions, have by now gone way too far repeatedly (a
euphemism!!!), with no limit in sight.
It is time for Russia and Russians to impose respect to those creatures come straight out
of the Empire's swamps and sewers! Being treated as they now accept to be treated by the
Empire is beyond unacceptable. To hear Russia's highest representatives refer to such
despicably disgusting bullies as "partners" is not amusing anymore. Only unbearably
painful...
Time to STOP playing the part of the poor victim of the Empire (US+EU+NATO+other
bits...). Time to adopt China's model, China now promising to hit the Empire hard and till
the very end of that war on tariffs. "Even if the Trump administration wants to take the
trade war to the direction that bilateral trade and investment is suppressed to zero, China
will meet all the challenges."
Neoliberalism as a social system is self-destructive -- similar to Trotskyism from which it was derived.
World leaders urged to act as anger over inequality reaches a 'tipping point'
Typical neoliberal mantra "need to rise productivity" is a typical neoliberal fake: look at Amazon for shining example here.
Notable quotes:
"... The real focus of our taxation system should be to tax wealth and recipients of silly amounts of annual income. ..."
"... Ur talking about something called "Reagan-nomics" or what was commonly and lovingly referred to as "trickle down economics". After the destruction of unionized labor, years of globalization, record profits for corporations & wall street and a high octane doze of Reagan / Thatcher Neoliberalism, "trickle down" has obviously been a complete failure. ..."
An alarming projection produced by the House of Commons library suggests that if trends seen since the 2008 financial crash were
to continue, then the top 1% will hold 64% of the world's wealth by 2030. Even taking the financial crash into account, and measuring
their assets over a longer period, they would still hold more than half of all wealth.
Since 2008, the wealth of the richest 1% has been growing at an average of 6% a year – much faster than the 3% growth in wealth
of the remaining 99% of the world's population. Should that continue, the top 1% would hold wealth equating to $305tn (Ł216.5tn)
– up from $140tn today.
The population of third world countries is skyrocketing. The population of developed countries, outside the importation of poor
immigrants, is static. The top 1% of world population will continuously become comparatively richer as long as this is the case.
That means 6.75m households are in the top 1% of the world, At 1.94 adults per household, that's 13,000,000 people.
However, assuming households are not 'legal people' but the adults within them are, then you'd have to divide household income
by the number of adults (1.94) to get the wealth per person. So to reach Ł550,000 per person, a household would have to
have net wealth of Ł1.067m, and only 10% of households have that wealth.
10% of 27m is 2.7m and that equates to only 5,240,000 people.
So in terms of households we easily reach 10m mark, but in terms of individual people, you are correct, it is 'only' 5.24m.
Still and awful lot of people though.
A single mother get Ł20k on benefits per years. Over 18 years that is Ł360,000. She has two kids, so that iwill cost Ł3,000 in
education per years. 2 kids x 14 years x Ł3,500 per years = Ł98,000. We pay for child birth costs, free vaccinations, anti-natal
care, free prescriptions, free eye care, free dental care, free school meals, we pay her countal tax bil. Plus if she is lucky,
she get a free Ł450,000 council home.
Even if she works for a few years, it will never be enough to pay what she has received from the state. PLus we have to make
provisions for her pension and her elderly care, meals on wheels, elderly health care etc...
That is easily Ł1m to Ł2million per single mother....
The plebs are well on the way to figuring it out alright and so have the 1%. That's we now live under a militarized surveillance
state which serves the elites.. Think again if voting will ever change this.. Bernie was doomed from the getgo.
I think the principle here is that the longer this goes on and the greater inequality becomes then the more extreme will be the
countervailing force.
It is in everybody's interest that the world becomes fairer. That governments govern in the interests of as many people as
possible. That public services like health and education are available to all regardless. That taxes are progressive and that
governments have international treaties to deal with tax avoidance and evasion. That our democratic processes are as robust as
possible and that all our organs of state are as transparent as possible and open to scrutiny to the public.
If the accumulation of wealth on this scale continues unabated it will end in tears... inevitably.
Furthermore I believe that there is a relationship between inequality - and all the things that go with it and follow from
it - and environmental degradation.
Greater fairness between individuals and between countries is, in my opinion, one of the essential requirements for us to surmount
the epic problems that we face in the world today.
I think most of us have are aware of what really happens at Davos. The wealthy and powerful are cooking up more schemes to screw
the 99% over. Your Bono's and your Bill Gates are no friends to the working class or the working poor. Take Jeff Bezos for example.
He has a mass of wealth totaling $112 Billion.
To end global hunger - $30 Billion
To end homelessness in the USA - $20 Billion
Jeff Bezos, or even Bill Gates could do that in an instant and still have Billions to spare. The super rich don't care about
"regular" people, and never have.
Peter Rabbit ComfortablyPlumb 7 Apr 2018 14:25
This is the Osborne analogy regurgitated.
If you live in a Ł2.5 million house, you are wealthy, not average or poor. To be wealthy is not some form of human rights entitlement,
especially if it is at the cost of the overwhelming majority. This concept is known as "greed" and "selfishness". Obviously your
mantra is that of Gordon Gekko "greed is good".
The real focus of our taxation system should be to tax wealth and recipients of silly amounts of annual income.
All these arguments are dated and are applicable to the Thatcher era of the early 1980s which has long gone and is not going
to return. The problem facing our society currently is run away social and economic inequality and the entrenchment of substantial
wealth for a very small number of people which is fuelling generational social and inequality.
TakoradiMan BrotherLead 7 Apr 2018 14:24
I presume that most those living in the U.K. will fall within top 1% which the Guardianista loath so much.
I'm sorry but this post is utterly clueless.
To be in the top 1% you need to have a household income of well over Ł50k per annum (closer to Ł100k I suspect - no one here
has yet given very authoritative figures); only a fraction of the UK population are that well off.
AnneK1 Landlord52 7 Apr 2018 14:24
Except that they don't and the charities have to come along and ask us for more money because the public sector haven't used
tax revenue efficiently. I would say Britain's ineffective public sector are the greatest threat to Corbyn's chances of forming
the government we need to rid us of these dangerous Tories.
PeterlooSunset 7 Apr 2018 14:24
The richest 1% own the corporate media (including the private equity firms keeping the Guardian afloat) that keep telling us
we have to focus our attention on identity politics while they loot all the wealth.
prematureoptimsim -> Inthesticks 7 Apr 2018 14:23
Ur talking about something called "Reagan-nomics" or what was commonly and lovingly referred to as "trickle down economics". After the destruction of unionized labor, years of globalization, record profits for corporations & wall street and a high octane doze of Reagan / Thatcher Neoliberalism, "trickle down" has obviously been a complete failure.
U need proof ? Just examine recent history of presidential elections. . . .
Barack Obama - ( Mr. Hope and Change )
Donald Trump - ( Mr. Make America Great Again ).
And in the end it's the same as it ever was. The rich get richer and. . . . Well u know the rest. Good luck to u. Enjoy ur crumbs.
For some reason Trump is trying to antagonize Iran, Russia and China simultaneously. It is
unclear that is the game plan of Trump administration, if any.
Notable quotes:
"... Tillerson, who not only called his boss a "moron" but was also the worst secretary of state in history, the national security council is likely headed for a new adviser as well. McMaster, too, has proved to be a dud, but whether his successor would be any better is an open question. Indeed, a top candidate to replace him is none other than John Bolton, the former George W. Bush ambassador to the United Nations who counsels a very tough line against Iran. ..."
"... Add Bolton to the mix and you have what amounts to a war cabinet against Iran. Defense Secretary James Mattis would be outnumbered and outgunned. His ally, Tillerson, wanted to negotiate with Iran and opposed summarily terminating the agreement. ..."
"... If this occurs, the irony will be rich. Trump campaigned as someone who would not be George W. Bush redux. In fact, he specifically denounced Bush in the South Carolina debate for lying about the pretext for war in Iraq. But that was then. ..."
Now that Trump has polished off the plodding Tillerson, who not only called his boss a
"moron" but was also the worst secretary of state in history, the national security council is
likely headed for a new adviser as well. McMaster, too, has proved to be a dud, but whether his
successor would be any better is an open question. Indeed, a top candidate to replace him is
none other than John Bolton, the former George W. Bush ambassador to the United Nations who
counsels a very tough line against Iran.
The likelihood that America will go to war against Tehran has risen. The 2015 Iran nuclear
deal is now essentially null and void. In his remarks today, Trump emphasized that he and
Tillerson clashed over the Iran nuclear deal: "I guess [Tillerson] thought it was okay. I
wanted to either break it, or do something, and he felt a little bit differently. So we were
not really thinking the same. With Mike Pompeo, we have a very similar thought process."
They do indeed. Pompeo has himself always counseled a tough line against Iran and Islam.
Speaking to a church group in Wichita, Kansas in 2014, he explained : "This
threat to America" comes from Muslims "who deeply believe that Islam is the way and the light
and the only answer."
"They abhor Christians," he said, "and will continue to press against us until we make sure
that we pray and stand and fight and make sure that we know that Jesus Christ is our savior is
truly the only solution for our world." Pompeo is also close to Frank Gaffney of the Center for
Security Policy. He appeared on his radio show dozens of times as a Congressman and received
an award from him.
Add Bolton to the mix and you have what amounts to a war cabinet against Iran. Defense
Secretary James Mattis would be outnumbered and outgunned. His ally, Tillerson, wanted to
negotiate with Iran and opposed summarily terminating the agreement.
If this occurs, the irony will be rich. Trump campaigned as someone who would not be
George W. Bush redux. In fact, he specifically denounced Bush in the South Carolina debate for
lying about the pretext for war in Iraq. But that was then.
If he goes down the route to war with Iran, he will be George W. Bush on steroids. Bush went
to war against Iraq, not Iran, because he knew that it was a much tougher nut to crack. If
Trump becomes enmeshed in a new war in the Middle East, his presidency will almost surely go
down in history as a catastrophic failure.
Despite Donald Trump's beliefs that trade wars are easy to win, history suggests that
there is always a loser in a trade war and in the trade conflict with China, America is
likely to fare poorly.
I'm not a policy expert but I do have a small business and when a fellow employee
doesn't work out, he's fired. Is that not the gold standard of running a company anymore,
vetting quality people for the correct positions?
Rex was not the right choice from the start, Trump listened to whom ever and they picked
Rex, not Trump's choice. Trump picks younger more multi dynamic people Rex was only good
at one thing, the Petroleum industry, and that is up for discussion too.
Regarding Russia I have a sneaking suspicion that Trump has struck a Faustian bargain
with Mueller's investigating team. There has been a palpable shift it seems.
Twelve days
after 9/11, on the night of September 23, 2001, the CIA's Islamabad station chief, Robert Grenier, received a telephone
call from his boss, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet. "Listen, Bob," Tenet said, "we're meeting tomorrow at
Camp David to discuss our war strategy in Afghanistan. How should we begin? What targets do we hit? How do we sequence our
actions?"
Grenier later wrote in his book,
88 Days to
Kandahar
, that while he was surprised by the call he'd been thinking about these
same questions -- "mulling them over and over and over," as he later told me -- so he was ready. President George Bush's address
to the U.S. Congress just a few days before, Grenier told Tenet, was a good start: demand that Afghanistan's Taliban ruler,
Mullah Omar, turn bin Laden over to the United States. If he refused, the U.S. should launch a campaign to oust him.
Grenier had thought through the plan, but before going into its details with Tenet he abruptly stopped the conversation.
"Mr. Director," he said, "this isn't going to work. I need to write this all down clearly." Tenet agreed.
Grenier set to work, and over the next three hours he laid out the battle for
Afghanistan. Included in the paper was a detailed program of how the CIA could deploy undercover teams to recruit bin
Laden's enemies among Afghanistan's northern Tajik and Uzbek tribes (an uneasy coalition of ethnic militias operating as
the Northern Alliance), supply them with cash and weapons, and use them in a rolling offensive that would oust the Taliban
in Kabul. With U.S. help, which included deploying American Special Forces teams (under CIA leadership) coupled with
American airpower, the Northern Alliance (more properly, the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan) would
start from its Panjshir Valley enclave in Afghanistan's far northeast and, recruiting support from anti-Taliban forces
along the way, roll all the way into Kabul.
Grenier gave the eight-page draft paper to his staff to review, then sent it to Tenet in
Washington, who passed it through the deputies committee (the second-in-command of each of the major national security
agencies), then presented it to Bush. "I regard that cable," Grenier wrote, "as the best three hours of work I ever did in
my twenty-seven-year career."
Three days after the Tenet-Grenier telephone conversation, on September 26, the CIA
landed a covert-operations team in Afghanistan to recruit local allies in the hunt for bin Laden. The quick action was
impressive, but then events slowed to a crawl. It wasn't until October 20 that the first U.S. Special Forces team linked up
with anti-Taliban rebels, and it took another week for U.S. units to land in strength. But by early November al Qaeda was
on the run and the Taliban's grip on the country was slipping away. On November 13, militias of the Northern Alliance
seized Kabul. The Taliban was defeated, its badly mauled units fleeing south and east (its last bastion, in the south, fell
on December 6), and into nearby Pakistan, while what remained of al Qaeda holed up in a series of cave complexes in the
Spin Ghar mountain range of eastern Afghanistan.
By almost any measure, the CIA-led anti-al Qaeda and anti-Taliban offensive (dubbed
Operation Enduring Freedom by George Bush) marked a decisive victory in the war on terror. The U.S. had set out a plan,
marshaled the forces to carry it out, and then seen it to completion.
But this triumph came with problems. The first was that the offensive was hampered by
Washington infighting that pitted the CIA against a puzzlingly recalcitrant U.S. military and a carping Donald Rumsfeld,
who questioned George Tenet's leadership of the effort. This bureaucratic squabbling, focused on just who was responsible
for what (and who exactly was running the Afghanistan war), would remain a hallmark of American efforts well into the Obama
administration. The second problem was that Afghanistan's southern Pashtun tribes were only marginally included in the
effort, and they remained suspicious of their northern non-Pashtun counterparts. The mistrust, CIA officers believed, would
almost certainly plant the seeds of an endless inter-tribal Afghan conflict, embroiling the United States in an effort to
prop up an unpopular Kabul government. The third problem was Pakistan -- or, more precisely, Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence agency, the ISI, and the ISI's "Directorate S," responsible for covertly supplying, training, and arming
Pakistan's Islamist allies, including the Pashtun-dominated Taliban.
♦♦♦
The intractability of these variables, and America's 17-year effort (sometimes focused
but often feckless) to resolve them, form the basis of Steve Coll's
Directorate S
,
a thick but eminently readable account of America's Afghanistan misadventure. While
Directorate S
stands alone as a comprehensive
exposition of the Afghanistan conflict dating from 9/11, it's actually a follow-on of
Ghost Wars
, Coll's Pulitzer Prize-winning 2004
narrative of America's efforts to oust the Soviets from Afghanistan following their invasion in December 1979. Given the
breadth of Coll's dual treatments and the depth of his research, it's likely that these books will remain the standard
exposition of the period for years to come.
While the focus of
Directorate S
is on Pakistan and its shady intelligence services, each of the obstacles that confronted the United States in Afghanistan
from the moment the Taliban abandoned Kabul is embraced in detail. These obstacles included America's post-9/11 attention
deficit disorder (the pivot away from al Qaeda to Iraq was being considered in Washington even as the Northern Alliance
cleared the Afghan capital) and the deeply embedded antipathy toward the new Kabul government among Pakistani-supported
southern tribesman. Thus, after the United States ousted al Qaeda and its Taliban supporters, it embarked on a program to
strengthen the new Kabul government, anointing Hamid Karzai as Afghanistan's president and pledging billions in
reconstruction aid. And so, or so it seemed, everything had gone as planned. The Taliban was routed; al Qaeda was on the
run; a new anti-terrorism government was in place in Kabul; and the United States had signed Pakistan on as a willing
accomplice. On May 1, 2003, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld declared an end to major combat operations in Afghanistan. The war
was over. Won.
But of course it wasn't.
Coll's account provides a disturbing catalogue of the U.S. mistakes in the wake of the
Taliban defeat. Almost all of them are well known: Hamid Karzai, the consensus choice of a grand assembly (a loya jirga) as
Afghanistan's interim president, proved to be a weak leader. The monies appropriated for Afghanistan's postwar
reconstruction were woefully inadequate for the task -- "laughable," as one U.S. official put it. American soldiers
responsible for countering the Taliban's return (and hunting al Qaeda terrorist cells) were thinly and poorly deployed
(and, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, of secondary importance in the Pentagon). Tentative Taliban efforts to engage the
United States in political talks were summarily and unwisely spurned. Allegations of prisoner abuse at U.S. detention
facilities consistently undermined U.S. legitimacy. American funds were funneled into Afghan ministries laced with corrupt
officials. Afghani poppy production increased, despite faint-hearted U.S. eradication efforts. And U.S. counter-terrorism
actions proved ham-handed and caused preventable civilian casualties, pushing Afghanis into a resurgent anti-Kabul
resistance.
More crucially, Pakistan's unstinting support for America's Afghanistan efforts proved to
be anything but unstinting. The reason for this was not only entirely predictable but was actually the unintended result of
the American victory. When the Northern Alliance and U.S. airpower pushed what remained of the Taliban (along with the
remnants of al Qaeda) out of Afghanistan, they pushed them into Pakistan, creating conditions that, as Coll tells us,
"deepened resentment among Pakistan's generals, who would come to see their country's rising violence as a price of
American folly . . ." Put simply, for the United States to seal the Operation Enduring Freedom victory, it had to ensure
that its effects did not spill over into the one nation that could ensure that its victory would, in fact, be enduring.
That didn't happen. The result was that the Taliban was able to rebuild and rearm its networks not only in Pakistan, and
under the eyes of the ISI, but also in Afghanistan.
It might have been otherwise. During a series of discussions I had about America's
intervention in Afghanistan in the months immediately following 9/11, a number of currently serving and former senior U.S.
officials told me they believed that, given enough time, the Taliban might well have handed bin Laden over to the
Americans, obviating the need for a full-on invasion. One of these officials was Milton Bearden, a famed CIA officer (his
close friends refer to him as "Uncle Milty") who, during his time as a station chief in Pakistan, had helped to head up the
CIA's war against the Soviets in the mid 1980s.
♦♦♦
After 9/11, Bearden recharged his Pakistan and Afghanistan networks in an effort to
convince the Taliban that turning bin Laden over to the Americans was a better option than the one they were facing. All
the while, Bearden kept senior U.S. officials apprised of what he was doing, even as he was attempting to head off their
rush to war. Bearden told me that, while his efforts had not reached fruition by the time the Bush White House had decided
on a course of action, he believes the United States had not fully explored all of its options -- or thought through the
long-term impact of its intervention. "I don't know what would have happened, I don't know," he says wistfully, "but I
think we have a handhold in history. We should have seen what was coming." He notes that Alexander the Great "took one look
at Afghanistan's mountains and decided against it. He thought his whole army could get swallowed up in there, and he wasn't
going to take that chance. So, well, you tell me if I'm wrong, but Alexander was no slouch, right?"
Not everyone agrees with this, of course. The dissenters include Robert Grenier, the
first drafter of what became the American war plan. Taliban leader Mullah Omar, he told me, was committed to his pledge to
protect Osama bin Laden; he viewed it as a blood oath that could not be broken. Moreover, argues Grenier, "Omar viewed
himself as a kind of world historical figure, a person on whom the axis of history would turn." One result was that he
believed his fight against the Americans would be epochal.
That said, Grenier believes America's foray into Afghanistan, and the mistakes that
followed, might at least have been dampened by a more diligent focus on the inherent divisions of Afghan society. "We [at
the CIA]," he told me several months ago, "were very aware that the march of the Northern Alliance into Kabul would likely
create real difficulties in the south. And we tried to slow it, precisely for this reason. But events overtook us, and it
just wasn't possible. So, yes, things might have been otherwise, but in truth we just don't know."
The value in Coll's
Directorate S
comes not from the elegant telling of a story not fully known, but from the dawning realization that Afghanistan is the
kind of lock for which there is no key. There is no reason to believe that a different outcome would have ensued if other
events had intruded -- for example, more personnel, money, focused diplomacy, or robust and disciplined enemy-defeating and
nation building; or that our war there and the occupation that followed would have yielded the same results that we
realized in, say, Japan after 1945. The real hubris here is not that we tried and failed but that we thought we could
actually succeed. Afghanistan is simply not that kind of place.
There is a term of art for this in the military, which found its first usage in Iraq in
2009, when U.S. commanders adopted it as an appreciation of what could and could not be accomplished. Instead of focusing
on defeating corruption, inefficiency, disunity, and poor leadership, the focus shifted almost exclusively to dampening
violence, to keeping the doors to Iraq open even as its factions battled for its control. More importantly, the adoption of
the phrase marked the abandonment of high expectations and an embrace of realism. The United States would have to yield the
business of replicating a Western-style democracy on the banks of the Euphrates. That goal, if it was going to be
accomplished at all, would have to be realized by the Iraqis.
Analyst Anthony Cordesman, one of America's premier military thinkers, adopted the phrase
and applied to Afghanistan in 2012 in an essay he entitled, "Time to Focus on 'Afghan Good Enough.'" His plan was simply
stated but had all the elegance of actually working: keep the Taliban out of Kabul and the major cities, preserve the
central and provincial government even in the face of endemic corruption, and work to provide security to large numbers of
Afghanis. Cordesman conceded that this was not the kind of victory that Americans had hoped for on September 12. And it was
difficult to describe the outcome as even vaguely passable -- or "good." But it was far better than adopting goals that could
not be realized or embracing an illusion that disappeared even as it was grasped. For the time being at least, it would
have to be "good enough."
Mark Perry is a foreign policy analyst, a contributing editor to
The American Conservative
and the author of
The Pentagon's Wars
.
This Guardian pressitute can't even mentions the term neoliberalism, to day noting to accept that neoliberalism now experience a
crisis (which actually started in 2008)
Globalization blowback will not totally bury neoliberal globalization, but it puts some limits on transnational corporations racket...
hat is happening to national politics? Every day in the US, events further exceed the imaginations of absurdist novelists and comedians;
politics in the UK still shows few signs of recovery after the "
national nervous breakdown " of Brexit.
France "
narrowly
escaped a heart attack " in last year's elections, but the country's leading daily feels this has done little to alter the "
accelerated decomposition " of the political system. In neighbouring Spain, El País goes so far as to say that "the rule of law,
the democratic system and even the market economy are in doubt"; in Italy, "the collapse of the establishment" in the March elections
has even brought talk of a "barbarian arrival", as if Rome were falling once again. In Germany, meanwhile, neo-fascists are preparing
to take up their role as
official opposition , introducing anxious volatility into the bastion of European stability.
But the convulsions in national politics are not confined to the west. Exhaustion, hopelessness, the dwindling effectiveness of
old ways: these are the themes of politics all across the world. This is why energetic authoritarian "solutions" are currently so
popular: distraction by war (Russia, Turkey); ethno-religious "purification" (India, Hungary, Myanmar); the magnification of presidential
powers and the corresponding abandonment of civil rights and the rule of law (China, Rwanda, Venezuela, Thailand, the Philippines
and many more).
What is the relationship between these various upheavals? We tend to regard them as entirely separate – for, in political life,
national solipsism is the rule. In each country, the tendency is to blame "our" history, "our" populists, "our" media, "our" institutions,
"our" lousy politicians. And this is understandable, since the organs of modern political consciousness – public education and mass
media – emerged in the 19th century from a globe-conquering ideology of unique national destinies. When we discuss "politics", we
refer to what goes on inside sovereign states; everything else is "foreign affairs" or "international relations" – even in this era
of global financial and technological integration. We may buy the same products in every country of the world, we may all use Google
and Facebook, but political life, curiously, is made of separate stuff and keeps the antique faith of borders.
Yes, there is awareness that similar varieties of populism are erupting in many countries. Several have noted the parallels in
style and substance between leaders such as Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Narendra Modi, Viktor Orbán and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. There
is a sense that something is in the air – some coincidence of feeling between places. But this does not get close enough. For there
is no coincidence. All countries are today embedded in the same system, which subjects them all to the same pressures: and it is
these that are squeezing and warping national political life everywhere. And their effect is quite the opposite – despite the desperate
flag-waving – of the oft-remarked "
resurgence of the nation state ".
The future of economic globalisation, for which the Davos men and women see themselves as
caretakers, had been shaken by a series of political earthquakes. "Globalisation" can mean many
things, but what lay in particular doubt was the long-advanced project of increasing free trade
in goods across borders. The previous summer, Britain had voted to leave the largest trading
bloc in the world. In November, the unexpected victory of Donald Trump , who vowed to withdraw from
major trade deals, appeared to jeopardise the trading relationships of the world's richest
country. Forthcoming elections in France and Germany suddenly seemed to bear the possibility of
anti-globalisation parties garnering better results than ever before. The barbarians weren't at
the gates to the ski-lifts yet – but they weren't very far.
In a panel titled Governing Globalisation , the economist
Dambisa Moyo , otherwise a well-known supporter of free trade, forthrightly asked the
audience to accept that "there have been significant losses" from globalisation. "It is not
clear to me that we are going to be able to remedy them under the current infrastructure," she
added. Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund,
called for a policy hitherto foreign to the World Economic Forum : "more redistribution".
After years of hedging or discounting the malign effects of free trade, it was time to face
facts: globalisation caused job losses and depressed wages, and the usual Davos proposals
– such as instructing affected populations to accept the new reality – weren't
going to work. Unless something changed, the political consequences were likely to get
worse.
The backlash to globalisation has helped fuel the extraordinary political shifts of the past
18 months. During the close race to become the Democratic party candidate, senator Bernie
Sanders relentlessly attacked Hillary Clinton on her
support for free trade . On the campaign trail, Donald Trump openly proposed tilting the
terms of trade in favour of American industry. "Americanism, not globalism, shall be our
creed," he bellowed at the Republican national convention last July.
The vote for Brexit was strongest in the regions of the UK devastated by the flight of
manufacturing. At Davos in January, British prime minister Theresa May, the leader of the party
of capital and inherited wealth, improbably picked up the theme, warning that, for many, "talk
of greater globalisation means their jobs being outsourced and wages undercut." Meanwhile,
the European far right has been warning against free movement of people as well as goods.
Following her qualifying victory in the first round of France's presidential election,
Marine Le Pen warned darkly that "the main thing at stake in this election is the rampant
globalisation that is endangering our civilisation."
It was only a few decades ago that globalisation was held by many, even by some critics, to
be an inevitable, unstoppable force. "Rejecting globalisation," the American journalist George
Packer has written, "was like rejecting the sunrise." Globalisation could take place in
services, capital and ideas, making it a notoriously imprecise term; but what it meant most
often was making it cheaper to trade across borders – something that seemed to many at
the time to be an unquestionable good. In practice, this often meant that industry would move
from rich countries, where labour was expensive, to poor countries, where labour was cheaper.
People in the rich countries would either have to accept lower wages to compete, or lose their
jobs. But no matter what, the goods they formerly produced would now be imported, and be even
cheaper. And the unemployed could get new, higher-skilled jobs (if they got the requisite
training). Mainstream economists and politicians upheld the consensus about the merits of
globalisation, with little concern that there might be political consequences.
Back then, economists could calmly chalk up anti-globalisation sentiment to a marginal group
of delusional protesters, or disgruntled stragglers still toiling uselessly in "sunset
industries". These days, as sizable constituencies have voted in country after country for
anti-free-trade policies, or candidates that promise to limit them, the old self-assurance is
gone. Millions have rejected, with uncertain results, the punishing logic that globalisation
could not be stopped. The backlash has swelled a wave of soul-searching among economists, one
that had already begun to roll ashore with the financial crisis. How did they fail to foresee
the repercussions?
"... Bin Salman's affair with academia isn't a fluke – it's a result of the neoliberal logic by which universities increasingly operate. As the journalist David Dickson noted in 1984, American universities and corporations have "teamed up to challenge the democratic control of knowledge" by delegating control over academic research to "the marketplace". ..."
Bin Salman's affair with academia isn't a fluke – it's a result of the neoliberal logic by which universities increasingly operate.
As the journalist David Dickson noted in 1984, American universities and corporations have "teamed up to challenge the democratic
control of knowledge" by delegating control over academic research to "the marketplace".
This market rationality extends even to the way research is evaluated – which the Saudi government has been gaming. To give one
example, it paid highly cited mathematicians at universities around the world to list
King Abdulaziz University as an affiliation,
thereby making it the seventh "best" mathematics department worldwide in the
2014 US
News and World Report university rankings .
Here, the Saudi government is only playing by the rules of a game designed by western elites. This is the same logic that has
been used to allow corporations, nonprofits and the military to steadily buy out chunks of academia to the point where it makes little
sense to presume clear boundaries exist between these entities. As a result, numerous partnerships entangle MIT researchers with
Bin Salman. On his Boston tour, he also visited IBM's Cambridge research facility, which recently partnered with MIT to form an artificial
intelligence research laboratory in exchange for a $240m commitment to the university.
Boston Dynamics , an MIT partner that builds robots for the US military, also offered a demonstration. Such alliances ought to
cast doubt on MIT's promise to understand the "societal and ethical" implications of AI and build socially beneficial technologies.
The terms of all of these partnerships are essentially opaque, while the secrecy that surrounds them denies the community the
chance to deliberate and take action. The growth of unaccountable university partnerships, like other crises facing educational institutions,
stems from the absence of democratic engagement. When universities decide to sell themselves to the highest bidder, they become deaf
to the interests of their students and the wider societies in which they operate. Subservience to war criminals and corporate overlords
tends to follow.
Transit of Russian natural gas via Ukraine will be reduced to just about 10-12 billion cubic
meters annually after the completion of two new pipelines -- Turkish Stream and Nord Stream 2.
That's what Gazprom's chief executive Alexei Miller told a Russian TV channel yesterday, confirming Kiev's
fears that Nord Stream 2 will deprive it of a lot of income in the form of transit fees.
The significance of the new figure can easily be seen when compared with the transit
quantities for last month: Gazprom sent
8.1 billion cubic meters of gas via Russia's eastern neighbor in March, a 21.3-percent
increase on the year. In other words, when Turkish Stream and Nord Stream 2 are ready, Ukraine
will receive something like a 12th of its current annual gas transit revenues from Gazprom.
This is reason enough for Kiev to be so vocally against Nord Steam 2, but unfortunately for
Ukraine, Germany is just as vocally supportive of the project, of which it will be the biggest
beneficiary. The expanded Nord Stream pipeline will have a capacity of 110
billion cubic meters annually.
Still, Miller said, not all transit via Ukraine will be suspended. "We are not saying we
will stop entire transit via Ukraine, since there are neighboring countries that border Ukraine
on the side of Europe. Naturally, supplies to these European countries will continue via
Ukraine."
While the news is bad for Ukraine, it makes sense for Russia as European countries eagerly
seek alternatives to Russian gas, including the "neighboring countries that border Ukraine,"
notably Poland. Yet Germany is by far Gazprom's biggest client in Europe and Russian gas is the
cheapest for Europe's largest economy, hence the support for a project seen as controversial by
the European Commission.
Turkish Stream, for its part, will send Russian gas to the European part of Turkey up to the
border with Greece, to supply gas to southeastern Europe. Its capacity is much smaller than
Nord Stream's, but still larger than the future transit via Ukraine, at 15.75
billion cubic meters of gas.
"... Speaking in Moscow, Lavrov said there was "a lot of talk about a 'cold war', about the situation being worse than it was during the classic cold war, because then there were some rules, and some decency was observed". ..."
"... It came as a former Russian military official Lt-Gen Evgeny Buzhinsky warned that the conflict could even end up as "the last war in the history of mankind". In a thinly veiled threat, he said the diplomatic crisis could result in a "very, very bad outcome" and accused the west of "cornering Russia" which, he argued, was a "very dangerous thing". ..."
"... The deputy foreign minister, Alexander Grushko, called the poisoning of Sergei Skripal a "provocation arranged by Britain" in order to justify high military spending because "they need a major enemy". ..."
"... Russia is also keeping up the pressure on the UK to provide consular access to Skripal's daughter, Yulia, now she is recovering in a Salisbury hospital. ..."
"... Lavrov said it was outrageous that the UK was not letting diplomatic staff see Yulia Skripal . The Russian embassy in London claims the UK is in breach of article 36 of the Vienna convention by refusing consular access to a Russian national. ..."
"... Russia also warned it would not accept any international scientific findings on the nerve agent used to poison the Skripals unless its scientists were involved in testing the nerve agent samples. Moscow spelt out its conditions for cooperation before an emergency meeting it has convened for Wednesday of the executive of the Organisation for Prevention of Chemical Weapons in The Hague. ..."
"... Alexander Shulgin, Russia's permanent representative to the OPCW, complained that Russian scientists have been barred from the tests owing to British objections. ..."
Russian ministers suggest that British secret services carried out Skripal poisoning to
distract from Brexit
Tue 3 Apr 2018 10.03 EDT Last modified on Tue 3 Apr 2018 12.34 EDT Downing Street has issued
a plea for "proportionate" action from Russia to the Salisbury poisoning row after its
foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, warned that relations with the west are now worse than during
the cold war.
Theresa May is visiting Scandinavia next week with the international security threat from
Russia expected to be at the top of the agenda.
Speaking in Moscow, Lavrov said there was "a lot of talk about a 'cold war', about the
situation being worse than it was during the classic cold war, because then there were some
rules, and some decency was observed".
He added: "I believe that our western partners, I mean primarily the United Kingdom, the
United States and some countries that blindly follow them, have cast away all decency, they are
resorting to open lies, blatant misinformation."
It came as a former Russian military official Lt-Gen Evgeny Buzhinsky warned that the
conflict could even end up as "the last war in the history of mankind". In a thinly veiled threat, he said the diplomatic crisis could result in a "very, very bad
outcome" and accused the west of "cornering Russia" which, he argued, was a "very dangerous
thing".
The deputy foreign minister, Alexander Grushko, called the poisoning of Sergei Skripal a "provocation
arranged by Britain" in order to justify high military spending because "they need a major
enemy".
However, Downing Street in effect called for calm at its weekly briefing for political
reporters, simply saying it expected the wider dispute with Russia would not be settled for a
long time. A No 10 spokesman said: "We need to respond in a proportionate way to this aggressive
behaviour from Russia and that's what we're doing."
He added: "As the prime minister has made clear, the UK would much rather have in Russia a
constructive partner ready to play by the rules. But this attack in Salisbury was part of a
pattern of increasingly aggressive Russian behaviour, as well as a new and dangerous phase in
Russian activity within the continent and beyond. As the prime minister has said, we must face
the facts, and the challenge of Russia is one that will endure for years to come."
Russia is also keeping up the pressure on the UK to provide consular access to Skripal's
daughter, Yulia, now she is recovering in a Salisbury hospital.
Reports from Russia claim that a cousin has contacted the British and Russian authorities to
be given permission to go to the UK to be by her bedside.
Downing Street raised the possibility that the 33-year-old may have requested that consular
access be denied. It said access was based on a number of considerations "including consent
from the individual".
Russia also warned it would not accept any international scientific findings on the nerve
agent used to poison the Skripals unless its scientists were involved in testing the nerve
agent samples. Moscow spelt out its conditions for cooperation before an emergency meeting it has convened
for Wednesday of the executive of the Organisation for Prevention of Chemical Weapons in The
Hague.
The OPCW is the internationally recognised body responsible for overseeing the 1997 chemical
weapons convention and has been testing samples provided by British scientists from the
Skripals.
The first results about the nature of the poison - which the UK believes to be novichok, a
nerve agent of Russian origin – are expected in days. Alexander Shulgin, Russia's
permanent representative to the OPCW, complained that Russian scientists have been barred from
the tests owing to British objections.
"... I wanted to investigate whether the growing volume of criticism toward Russia, sometimes by people who could hardly claim to be knowledgeable about the country, concealed a political agenda. ..."
"... I discovered evidence of Russophobia shared by different circles within the American political class and promoted through programs and conferences at various think tanks, congressional testimonies, activities of NGOs, and the media. Russophobia is not merely a critique of Russia, but a critique beyond any sense of proportion, waged with the purpose of undermining the nation's political reputation. ..."
"... To these individuals, Russophobia is merely a means to pressure the Kremlin into submitting to the United States in the execution of its grand plans to control the world's most precious resources and geostrategic sites. In the meantime, Russia has grown increasingly resentful, and the war in the Caucasus in August 2008 has demonstrated that Russia is prepared to act unilaterally to stop what it views as US unilateralism in the former Soviet region. ..."
"... Anti-American attitudes are strongly present in Russian media and cultural products, as a response to the US policies of nuclear, energy, and military supremacy in the world. Extreme hegemonic policies tend to provoke an extreme response, and Russian nationalist movements and often commentators react harshly to what they view as unilateral encroachment on Russia's political system and foreign policy interests. Russia's reactions to these policies by the United States are highly negative and frequently inadequate, but hardly more extreme than the American hegemonic and imperial discourse. ..."
"... The central objective of the Lobby has been to preserve and strengthen America's power in the post-Cold War world through imperial or hegemonic policies. The Lobby has viewed Russia with its formidable nuclear power, energy reserves, and important geostrategic location as a major obstacle in achieving this objective. Even during the 1990s, when Russia looked more like a failing state3 than one capable of projecting power, some members of the American political class were worried about the future revival of the Eurasian giant as a revisionist power. In their percep- tion, it was essential to keep Russia in a state of military and economic weakness-not so much out of emotional hatred for the Russian people and their culture, but to preserve American security and promote its val- ues across the world. To many within the Lobby, Russophobia became a useful device for exerting pressures on Russia and controlling its policies. Although to some the idea of undermining and, possibly, dismembering Russia was personal, to others it was a necessity of power dictated by the realities of international politics. ..."
"... According to this dominant vision, there was simply no place in this "New American Century" for power competitors, and America was destined eventually to assume control over potentially threatening military capabilities and energy reserves of others. As the two founders of the Project for the New' American Century (PNAC), William Kristol and Robert Kagan, asserted when referring to the large military forces of Russia and China, "American statesmen today ought to recognize that their charge is not to await the arrival of the next great threat, but rather to shape the international environment to prevent such a threat from arising in the first place."4 ..."
"... Russia was either to agree to assist the United States in preserving its world-power status or be forced to agree. It had to either follow the U.S. interpretation of world affairs and develop a political and economic system sufficiently open to American influences or live as a pariah state, smeared by accusations of pernicious behavior, and in constant fear for its survival in the America-centered world. As far as the U.S. hegemonic elites were concerned, no other choice was available. ..."
"... This hegemonic mood was largely consistent with mainstream ideas within the American establishment immediately following the end of the Cold War. For example, 1989 saw the unification of Germany and the further meltdown of the Soviet Union, which some characterized as "the best period of U.S. foreign policy ever."5 President Jimmy Carter's former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski envisioned the upcoming victory of the West by celebrating the Soviet Union's "grand failure."6 ..."
"... Charles Krauthammer, went as far as to proclaim the arrival of the United States' "unipolar moment," a period in which only one super- power, the United States, would stand above the rest of the world in its military, economic, and ideological capacity ..."
"... The mid-1990s saw the emergence of post-Soviet Russophobia. The Lobby's ideology was not principally new, as it still contained the three central myths of Sovietophobia left over from the Cold War era: Russia is inherently imperialist, autocratic, and anti-Western. This ideology now had to be modified to the new conditions and promoted politically, which required a tightening of the Lobby's unity, winning new allies within the establishment, and gaining public support.15 ..."
"... During the period of 2003-2008, Vice President Richard Dick Cheney formed a cohesive and bipartisan group of Russia critics, who pushed for a more confrontational approach with the Kremlin. ..."
"... Cheney could not tolerate opposition to what he saw as a critical step in establishing worldwide US hegemony. He was also harboring the idea of controlling Russia's energy reserves.91 ..."
"... In Russia, however, the Cold War story has been mainly about sovereignty and independence, rather than Western-style liberalism. To many Russians it is a story of freedom from colonization by the West and of preserving important attributes of sovereign statehood. ..."
"... In a world where neocolonialism and cultural imperialism are potent forces, the idea of freedom as independence continues to have strong international appeal and remains a powerful alternative to the notion of liberal democracy. ..."
"... The West's unwillingness to recognize the importance of this legitimizing myth in the role of communist ideology has served as a key reason for the Cold War.5 Like their Western counterparts, the Soviets were debating over methods but not the larger assumptions that defined their struggle. ..."
"... Yet another analyst wrote "at the Cold War's end, the United States was given one of the great opportunities of history: to embrace Russia, the largest nation on earth, as partner, friend, ally. Our mutual interests meshed almost perfectly. There was no ideological, territorial, his- toric or economic quarrel between us, once communist ideology was interred. We blew it. We moved NATO onto Russia's front porch, ignored her valid interests and concerns, and, with our 'indispensable-nation' arrogance, treated her as a defeated power, as France treated Weimar Germany after Versailles."114 ..."
It was during the spring of 2006 that I began this project. I wanted
to investigate whether the growing volume of criticism toward Russia, sometimes
by people who could hardly claim to be knowledgeable about the country, concealed
a political agenda.
As I researched the subject, I discovered evidence of Russophobia shared
by different circles within the American political class and promoted through
programs and conferences at various think tanks, congressional testimonies,
activities of NGOs, and the media. Russophobia is not merely a critique of Russia,
but a critique beyond any sense of proportion, waged with the purpose of undermining
the nation's political reputation.
... ... ....
Although a critical analysis of Russia and its political system is entirely
legitimate, the issue is the balance of such analysis. Russia's role in the
world is growing, yet many U.S. politicians feel that Russia doesn't matter
in the global arena. Preoccupied with international issues, such as Iraq and
Afghanistan, they find it difficult to accept that they now have to nego- tiate
and coordinate their international policies with a nation that only yesterday
seemed so weak, introspective, and dependent on the West. To these individuals,
Russophobia is merely a means to pressure the Kremlin into submitting to the
United States in the execution of its grand plans to control the world's most
precious resources and geostrategic sites. In the meantime, Russia has grown
increasingly resentful, and the war in the Caucasus in August 2008 has demonstrated
that Russia is prepared to act unilaterally to stop what it views as US unilateralism
in the former Soviet region.
And some in Moscow are tempted to provoke a much greater confrontation with
Western states. The attitude of ignorance and self-righteousness toward Russia
tells us volumes about the United States' lack of preparation for the twenty-first
century's central challenges that include political instability, weapons proliferation,
and energy insecurity. Despite the dislike of Russia by a considerable number
of American elites, this attitude is far from universally shared. Many Americans
understand that Russia has gone a long way from communism and that the overwhelming
support for Putin's policies at home cannot be adequately explained by high
oil prices and the Kremlin's manipulation of the public-despite the frequent
assertions of Russophobic observers.
Balanced analysts are also aware that many Russian problems are typical difficulties
that nations encounter with state-building, and should not be presented as indicative
of Russia's "inherent drive" to autocracy or empire. As the United States and
Russia move further to the twenty-first century, it will be increasingly important
to redefine the relationship between the two nations in a mutually enriching
way.
Political and cultural phobias are, of course, not limited to those of an
anti-Russian nature. For instance, Russia has its share of America-phobia --
a phenomenon that I have partly researched in my book Whose World Order (Notre
Dame, 2004) and in several articles. Anti-American attitudes are strongly
present in Russian media and cultural products, as a response to the US policies
of nuclear, energy, and military supremacy in the world. Extreme hegemonic policies
tend to provoke an extreme response, and Russian nationalist movements and often
commentators react harshly to what they view as unilateral encroachment on Russia's
political system and foreign policy interests. Russia's reactions to these policies
by the United States are highly negative and frequently inadequate, but hardly
more extreme than the American hegemonic and imperial discourse.
The Anti-Russian Lobby
When the facile optimism was disappointed, Western euphoria faded, and
Russophobia returned ... The new Russophobia was expressed not by the
governments, but in the statements of out-of-office politicians, the
publications of academic experts, the sensational writings of jour-
nalists, and the products of the entertainment industry. (Rodric Braithwaite,
Across the Moscow River, 2002)1
....
Russophobia is not a myth, not an invention of the Red-Brovvns, but
a real phenomenon of political thought in the main political think tanks
in the West . .. [T]he Yeltsin-Kozyrev's pro-U.S. "giveaway game" was
approved across the ocean. There is reason to say that the period in
ques- tion left the West with the illusion that Russia's role was to
serve Washington's interests and that it would remain such in the future.
(Sergei Mikoyati, International Affairs /October 2006j)2
This chapter formulates a theory of Russophobia and the anti-Russian lobby's
influence on the U.S. Russia policy. 1 discuss the Lobby's objec- tives, its
tactics to achieve them, the history of its formation and rise to prominence,
and the conditions that preserved its influence in the after- math of 9/11.1
argue that Russophobia has been important to American hegemonic elites in pressuring
Russia for economic and political conces- sions in the post-Cold War era.
1. Goals and Means
Objectives
The central objective of the Lobby has been to preserve and strengthen
America's power in the post-Cold War world through imperial or hegemonic policies.
The Lobby has viewed Russia with its formidable nuclear power, energy reserves,
and important geostrategic location as a major obstacle in achieving this objective.
Even during the 1990s, when Russia looked more like a failing state3 than one
capable of projecting power, some members of the American political class were
worried about the future revival of the Eurasian giant as a revisionist power.
In their percep- tion, it was essential to keep Russia in a state of military
and economic weakness-not so much out of emotional hatred for the Russian people
and their culture, but to preserve American security and promote its val- ues
across the world. To many within the Lobby, Russophobia became a useful device
for exerting pressures on Russia and controlling its policies. Although to some
the idea of undermining and, possibly, dismembering Russia was personal, to
others it was a necessity of power dictated by the realities of international
politics.
According to this dominant vision, there was simply no place in this
"New American Century" for power competitors, and America was destined eventually
to assume control over potentially threatening military capabilities and energy
reserves of others. As the two founders of the Project for the New' American
Century (PNAC), William Kristol and Robert Kagan, asserted when referring to
the large military forces of Russia and China, "American statesmen today ought
to recognize that their charge is not to await the arrival of the next great
threat, but rather to shape the international environment to prevent such a
threat from arising in the first place."4
Russia was either to agree to assist the United States in preserving
its world-power status or be forced to agree. It had to either follow the U.S.
interpretation of world affairs and develop a political and economic system
sufficiently open to American influences or live as a pariah state, smeared
by accusations of pernicious behavior, and in constant fear for its survival
in the America-centered world. As far as the U.S. hegemonic elites were concerned,
no other choice was available.
This hegemonic mood was largely consistent with mainstream ideas within
the American establishment immediately following the end of the Cold War. For
example, 1989 saw the unification of Germany and the further meltdown of the
Soviet Union, which some characterized as "the best period of U.S. foreign policy
ever."5 President Jimmy Carter's former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski
envisioned the upcoming victory of the West by celebrating the Soviet Union's
"grand failure."6
In his view, the Soviet "totalitarian" state was incapable of reform. Communism's
decline was therefore irreversible and inevitable. It would have made the system's
"practice and its dogma largely irrelevant to the human conditions," and communism
would be remembered as the twentieth century's "political and intellectual aberration."7
Other com- mentators argued the case for a global spread of Western values.
In 1990 Francis Fukuyama first formulated his triumphalist "end of history"
thesis, arguing a global ascendancy of the Western-style market democracy.®
... ... ...
Marc Plattner declared the emergence of a "world with one dominant principle
of legitimacy, democracy."9 When the Soviet system had indeed disintegrated,
the leading establishment journal Foreign Affairs pronounced that "the Soviet
system collapsed because of what it was, or more exactly, because of what it
was not. The West 'won' because of what the democracies were-because they were
free, prosperous and successful, because they did justice, or convincingly tried
to do so."10 Still others, such as Charles Krauthammer, went as far as to
proclaim the arrival of the United States' "unipolar moment," a period in which
only one super- power, the United States, would stand above the rest of the
world in its military, economic, and ideological capacity.11
In this context of U.S. triumphalism, at least some Russophobes expected
Russia to follow the American agenda. Still, they were worried that Russia may
still have surprises to offer and would recover as an enemy.12
Soon after the Soviet disintegration, Russia indeed surprised many, although
not quite in the sense of presenting a power challenge to the United States.
Rather, the surprise was the unexpectedly high degree of corruption, social
and economic decay, and the rapid disappointment of pro-Western reforms inside
Russia. By late 1992, the domestic economic situation was much worsened, as
the failure of Western-style shock ther- apy reform put most of the population
on the verge of poverty. Russia was preoccupied not with the projection of power
but with survival, as poverty, crime, and corruption degraded it from the status
of the indus- trialized country it once was. In the meantime, the economy was
largely controlled by and divided among former high-ranking party and state
officials and their associates. The so-called oligarchs, or a group of extremely
wealthy individuals, played the role of the new post-Soviet nomenklatura; they
influenced many key decisions of the state and suc- cessfully blocked the development
of small- and medium-sized business in the country.13 Under these conditions,
the Russophobes warned that the conditions in Russia may soon be ripe for the
rise of an anti-Western nationalist regime and that Russia was not fit for any
partnership with the United States.14
The mid-1990s saw the emergence of post-Soviet Russophobia. The Lobby's
ideology was not principally new, as it still contained the three central myths
of Sovietophobia left over from the Cold War era: Russia is inherently imperialist,
autocratic, and anti-Western. This ideology now had to be modified to the new
conditions and promoted politically, which required a tightening of the Lobby's
unity, winning new allies within the establishment, and gaining public support.15
... ... ...
The impact of structural and institutional factors is further reinforced
by policy factors, such as the divide within the policy community and the lack
of presidential leadership. Not infrequently, politicians tend to defend their
personal and corporate interests, and lobbying makes a difference in the absence
of firm policy commitments.
Experts recognize that the community of Russia watchers is split and that
the split, which goes all the way to the White House, has been responsible for
the absence of a coherent policy toward the country. During the period of
2003-2008, Vice President Richard Dick Cheney formed a cohesive and bipartisan
group of Russia critics, who pushed for a more confrontational approach with
the Kremlin. The brain behind the invasion of Iraq, Cheney could not
tolerate opposition to what he saw as a critical step in establishing worldwide
US hegemony. He was also harboring the idea of controlling Russia's energy reserves.91
Since November 2004, when the administration launched a review of its policy
on Russia,92 Cheney became a critically important voice in whom the Lobby found
its advocate. Secretaries of State Condoleezza Rice and, until November 2004,
Colin Powell opposed the vice president's approach, arguing for a softer and
more accommodating style in relations with Moscow.
President Bush generally sided with Rice and Powell, but he proved unable
to form a consistent Russia policy. Because of America's involvement in the
Middle East, Bush failed to provide the leadership committed to devising mutually
acceptable rules in relations with Russia that could have prevented the deterioration
in their relationship. Since the end of 2003, he also became doubtful about
the direction of Russia's domestic transformation.93 As a result, the promising
post-9/11 cooperation never materialized. The new cold war and the American
Sense of History
It's time we start thinking of Vladimir Putin's Russia as an enemy of the
United States. (Bret Stephens, "Russia: The Enemy," The Wall Street Journal,
November 28, 2006)
If today's reality of Russian politics continues ... then there is the real
risk that Russia's leadership will be seen, externally and internally, as illegitimate.
(John Edwards and Jack Kemp, "We Need to Be Tough with Russia," International
Herald Tribune, July 12, 2006)
On Iran, Kosovo, U.S. missile defense, Iraq, the Caucasus and Caspian basin,
Ukraine-the list goes on-Russia puts itself in conflict with the U.S. and its
allies . . . here are worse models than the united Western stand that won the
Cold War the first time around.
("Putin Institutionalized," The Wall Street Journal, November 19, 2007) In
order to derail the U.S.-Russia partnership, the Lobby has sought to revive
the image of Russias as an enemy of the United States. The Russophobic groups
have exploited important differences between the two countries' historical self-perceptions,
presenting those differences as incompatible.
1. Contested History
Two versions of history
The story of the Cold War as told from the U.S. perspective is about American
ideas of Western-style democracy as rescued from the Soviet threat of totalitarian
communism. Although scholars and politicians disagreed over the methods of responding
to the Soviet threat, they rarely questioned their underlying assumptions about
history and freedom.' It therefore should not come as surprise that many in
the United States have interpreted the end of the Cold War as a victory of the
Western freedom narrative. Celebrating the Soviet Union's "grand failure"-as
Zbigniew Brzezinski put it2-the American discourse assumed that from now on
there would be little resistance to freedom's worldwide progression. When Francis
Fukuyama offered his bold summary of these optimistic feelings and asserted
in a famous passage that "what we may be witnessing is not just the end of the
Cold War... but the end of history as such,"3 he meant to convey the disappearance
of an alternative to the familiar idea of free- dom, or "the universalization
of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."4
In Russia, however, the Cold War story has been mainly about sovereignty
and independence, rather than Western-style liberalism. To many Russians it
is a story of freedom from colonization by the West and of preserving important
attributes of sovereign statehood.
In a world where neocolonialism and cultural imperialism are potent forces,
the idea of freedom as independence continues to have strong international appeal
and remains a powerful alternative to the notion of liberal democracy.
Russians formulated the narrative of independence centuries ago, as they successfully
withstood external invasions from Napoleon to Hitler. The defeat of the Nazi
regime was important to the Soviets because it legitimized their claims to continue
with the tradition of freedom as independence.
The West's unwillingness to recognize the importance of this legitimizing
myth in the role of communist ideology has served as a key reason for the Cold
War.5 Like their Western counterparts, the Soviets were debating over methods
but not the larger assumptions that defined their struggle.
This helps to understand why Russians could never agree with the Western
interpretation of the end of the Cold War. What they find missing from the U.S.
narrative is the tribute to Russia's ability to defend its freedom from expansionist
ambitions of larger powers. The Cold War too is viewed by many Russians as a
necessarily defensive response to the West's policies, and it is important that
even while occupying Eastern Europe, the Soviets never celebrated the occupation,
emphasizing instead the war vic- tory.6 The Russians officially admitted "moral
responsibility" and apolo- gized for the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia.7
They may be prepared to fully recognize the postwar occupation of Eastern Europe,
but only in the context of the two sides' responsibility for the Cold War. Russians
also find it offensive that Western VE Day celebrations ignore the crucial contribution
of Soviet troops, even though none of the Allies, as one historian put it, "paid
dearer than the Soviet Union for the victory. Forty Private Ivans fell in battle
to every Private Ryan."8 Victory over Nazi Germany constitutes, as another Russian
wrote, "the only undisputable foundation of the national myth."9
If the two sides are to build foundations for a future partnership, the two
historical narratives must be bridged. First, it is important to recognize the
difficulty of negotiating a common meaning of freedom and accept that the idea
of freedom may vary greatly across nations. The urge for freedom may be universal,
but its social content is a specific product of national his- tories and local
circumstances. For instance, the American vision of democracy initially downplayed
the role of elections and emphasized selection by merit or meritocracy. Under
the influence of the Great Depression, the notion of democracy incorporated
a strong egalitarian and poverty-fighting component, and it was not until the
Cold War- and not without its influence-that democracy has become associated
with elections and pluralistic institutions.10 Second, it is essential to acknowledge
the two nations' mutual respon- sibility for the misunderstanding that has resulted
in the Cold War. A historically sensitive account will recognize that both sides
were thinking in terms of expanding a territorial space to protect their visions
of security. While the Soviets wanted to create a buffer zone to prevent a future
attack from Germany, the Americans believed in reconstructing the European continent
in accordance with their ideas of security and democracy. A mutual mistrust
of the two countries' leaders exacerbated the situation, making it ever more
difficult to prevent a full-fledged political confronta- tion. Western leaders
had reason to be suspicious of Stalin, who, in his turn, was driven by the perception
of the West's greed and by betrayals from the dubious Treaty of Versailles to
the appeasement of Hitler in Munich. Arrangements for the post-World War II
world made by Britain, the USSR, and the United States proved insufficient to
address these deep-seated suspicions.
In addition, most Eastern European states created as a result of the Versailles
Treaty were neither free nor democratic and collaborated with Nazi Germany in
its racist and expansionist policies. The European post-World War 1 security
system was not working properly, and it was only a matter of time before it
would have to be transformed.
Third, if an agreeable historical account is to emerge, it would have to
accept that the end of the Cold War was a product of mutually beneficial a second
Cold War, "it also does not want the reversal of the U.S. geopolitical gains
that it made in the decade or so after the end of the Cold War."112 Another
expert asked, "What possible explanation is there for the fact that today-at
a moment when both the U.S. and Russia face the common enemy of Islamist terrorism-hard-liners
within the Bush administration, and especially in the office of Vice President
Dick Cheney, are arguing for a new tough line against Moscow along the lines
of a scaled-down Cold War?"113
Yet another analyst wrote "at the Cold War's end, the United States was
given one of the great opportunities of history: to embrace Russia, the largest
nation on earth, as partner, friend, ally. Our mutual interests meshed almost
perfectly. There was no ideological, territorial, his- toric or economic quarrel
between us, once communist ideology was interred. We blew it. We moved NATO
onto Russia's front porch, ignored her valid interests and concerns, and, with
our 'indispensable-nation' arrogance, treated her as a defeated power, as France
treated Weimar Germany after Versailles."114
Those companies are way too connected with intelligence agencies (some of then are
essentially an extension of intelligence agencies) and as such they will be saved in any case.
That means that chances that it will be dot com bubble burst No.2 exist. but how high they are is
unclear.
Trump is after Amazon, Congress is after Facebook, and Apple and Google have their problems
too. Should the world's top tech firms be worried?
rump is going after Amazon; Congress is after Facebook; Google is too big, and Apple is
short of new products. Is it any surprise that sentiment toward the tech industry giants is
turning sour? The consequences of such a readjustment, however, may be dire.
Trump lashes out at Amazon and sends stocks tumbling
Read more
The past two weeks have been difficult for the tech sector by every measure. Tech stocks
have largely driven the year's stock market decline, the largest quarterly drop since 2015.
Facebook saw more than $50bn shaved off its value after the Observer revealed that Cambridge
Analytica had harvested millions of people's user data for political profiling. Now users are
deleting accounts, and regulators may seek to limit how the company monetizes data, threatening
Facebook's business model.
On Monday, the Federal Trade Commission confirmed it was investigating the company's data
practices. Additionally, Facebook said it would send a top executive to London to appear in
front of UK lawmakers, but it would not send the chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, who is
increasingly seen as isolated and aloof.
Shares of Facebook have declined more than 17% from the close on Friday 16 March to the
close on Thursday before the Easter break.
Amazon, meanwhile, long the target of President Trump's ire, saw more than $30bn, or 5%,
shaved off its $693bn market capitalization after it was reported that the president was
"obsessed" with the company and that he "wondered aloud if there may be any way to go after
Amazon with antitrust or competition law".
Shares of Apple, and Google's parent company Alphabet, are also down, dropping on concerns
that tech firms now face tighter regulation across the board.
For Apple, there's an additional concern that following poor sales of its $1,000 iPhone X.
For Google, there's the prospect not only of tighter regulation on how it sells user date to
advertisers, but also the fear of losing an important Android software patent case with the
Oracle.
Big tech's critics may be forgiven a moment of schadenfreude. But for shareholders and
pension plans, the tarnishing of tech could have serious consequences.
Apple, Amazon and Alphabet make up 10% of the S&P 500 with a combined market
capitalization market cap of $2.3tn. Add Microsoft and Facebook, with a combined market value
of $1.1tn, and the big five make up 15% of the index.
Overall, technology makes up 25% of the S&P. If tech pops, the thinking goes, so pops
the market.
"We're one week into a sell-off after a multi-year run-up," says Eric Kuby of North Star
Investment Management. "The big picture is that over the past five years a group of mega cap
tech stocks like Nvidia, Netflix, Facebook have gone up anywhere from 260% to 1,800%."
The post office is a service for citizens. It operates at a loss. Being able to send a letter
across the country in two days for fifty cents is a service our government provides. Amazon
is abusing that service. It's whole business model requires government support.
Amazon's spending power is garnered simply from its massively overalued stock price. If that
falls, down goes Amazon. Facebook is entirely dependent on the postive opinion of active
users. If users stop using, down goes Facebook's stock price, and so goes the company. It's
extremely fragile. Apple has a short product cycle. If people lose interest in its newest
versions, its stock price can tank in one year or so. Google and Microsoft seem quite solid,
but are likely overvalued. (Tesla will most likwly go bankrupt, along with many others.) If
these stocks continue to lose value, rwtirement funds will get scary, and we could enter
recession again almost immediately. Since companies such as Amazon have already degraded the
eatablished infrastructure of the economy, there may be no actual recovery. We will need to
change drastically in some way. It seems that thw wheels are already turning, and this is
where we are going now - with Trump as our leader.
'Deutsche Bank analyst Lloyd Walmsley said: "We do not think attacking Amazon will be
popular."'
Lloyd Walmsley hasn't spent much time in Seattle, apparently. The activities of Amazon and
Google (but especially Amazon) have all contributed to traffic problems, rising rents and
property prices, and gentrification (among other things) that are all making Seattle a less
affordable, less attractive place to live. That's why Amazon is looking to establish a
'second headquarters' in another city: they've upset too many people here to be able to
expand further in this area without at least encountering significant resistance. People here
used to refer to Microsoft as 'the evil empire'; now we use it to refer to Amazon. And when
it comes to their original business, books, I and most people I know actively avoid buying
from Amazon, choosing instead to shop at the area's many independent book stores.
Dear Guardian,
why do you still sport the FB, Twitter, Google+, Instagramm, Pinterest etc. buttons below
every single article? Why do you have to do their dirty work? I don't do that on my webpages,
you don't need to do neither. Please stop it.
Not being a Trump supporter, however there is a lot of sense in some of the comments coming
from Trump,. Whether he carries through with them , is another subject.
His comment on Amazon:- " Unlike others, they pay little or no taxes to state or local
governments, use our postal system as their delivery boy (causing tremendous loss to the US)
and putting many thousands of retailers out of business."
Who can argue against that? Furthermore, the retailers would have paid some
tax!
Talk about elephants in the room. What about the elephants who were let out of the room
to run amuck ? Should it not have been the case of being wise before the event , rather than
after the event?
A quasi-battle of the billionaires. With Bezos, there's the immediate political element in
Bezos' ownership of the clearly anti-Trump Washington Post, which has gone so far as to
become lax in editorial oversight (eg, misspelling and even occasional incomplete articles
published in an obvious rush to be first to trash POTUS), but there are other issues.
Amazon's impact on physical retail is well-documented, and not so long ago (ie, before Trump
"attacked" Amazon"), it was sometimes lamented by those on the American left, and Trump is
correct in that critique, provided one believes it is valid in the first place. Amazon does
have a lot of data on its customers, including immense expenditure information on huge
numbers of people. What kinds of constraints are there in place to protect this data, aside
from lawyer-enriching class action suits? Beyond that, there's also online defense
procurement, worth hundreds of billions in revenue to Amazon in the years to come, that was
included in the modified NDAA last year. Maybe that is on Trump's mind, maybe not, but it
should probably be on everyone's mind. Maybe the Sherman Antitrust Act needs to be
reinvigorated. It would seem that even Trump's foes should be willing to admit that he gets
some things right, but that now seems unacceptable. I mean, look at the almost knee-jerk
defense of NAFTA, which way back when used to be criticized by Democrats and unions, but now
must be lionized.
If Amazon can get cheaper shipping than anyone else and enable manufactuers to sell direct,
they can sell more than anyone else as long as consumers only buy according to total price.
This means two things. One, all retailers as well as distributors may be put out of business.
Two, the success of Amazon may rely almost entirely on shipping costs. American consumers
also will need to forego the shopping experience, but if they may do so if they're sarisfied
with remaining in their residences, workplaces, and cars most of the time. This is the case
in many places. People visit Starbucks drive thrus and eat and drink in their cars. If Amazon
owns the food stores such as Whole Foods and Starbucks, it's a done deal. Except for one
thing. If this happens, the economy will collapse. That may have already happened. Bezos is
no rocket scientist.
This is definitely cancer stage of neoliberalism, but I doubt that there is connection
between Skripal poisoning and Ukraine.
Also why the USA served as the catalyst for coming nationalists to power in 2014 the process
started long ago with Yushchenko and to a certain extent is typical for all post Soviet
republics, including Kazakhstan and Belorussia. they all try to distance themselves from Russia
to prove their sovereignty. The low intensity warfare in Donetsk is the only differentiator, but
even this remind attempt of Georgia to subdue South Ossetia in the past and Karabah conflict
between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Still the author is definitely a brilliant writer and thinker he describes geopolitical
tensions really well
Notable quotes:
"... has to have such a war-drum distraction to survive. ..."
"... Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs Committee of the UN General Assembly ..."
As usual there is amnesia of the ever-recurring big-lie pretext, the need for another crisis
to keep the two-billion-dollar a day NATO war machine going, the baleful puppet moves of Canada
in the process, the crisis of legitimacy of the lead attacker's government, and the silent
diversion from the whole nightmare scenario unfolding by all NATO-member governments, mass
media and even 'peace activist' organisations.
This time the big-lie pretext is about the alleged poisoning by the Kremlin/Putin of a
double-agent, usually a stock move in the espionage entertainments, but here with no evidence
of the claimed origin of the lethal nerve-agent, but rather expert denial within British
defence and weapons research itself, with devious political word games to get around the
absence of any corroborated evidence in familiar denuciations of Russia full of aggression and
hate. Not even a death is recorded while US-led nd UK-armed ally forces are still
mass-murdering poor civilian Yeminis, drone-murdering endless targets and civilians abroad,
continuing on unblamed for the ongoing NATO-executed eco-genocides of Iraq and Libya societies,
and on the 19-years anniversary of the mass bombing of, once again a society, Yugoslavia, with
the most evolved social infrastructures of health, education, housing and life security in the
region.
What this latest war pretext for US and NATO-backed aggression is really about is justifying
more war in the Ukraine now that the massive war preparations along all of Russia's
Western borders following the self-declared Nazi-led and proven US- orchestrated and commanded
mass-murder coup d'etat in February 2014 . As usual there is amnesia of the ever-recurring
big-lie pretext, the need for another crisis to keep the two-billion-dollar a day NATO war
machine going, the baleful puppet moves of Canada in the process, the crisis of legitimacy of
the lead attacker's government, and the silent diversion from the whole nightmare scenario
unfolding by all NATO-member governments, mass media and even 'peace activist'
organisations.
This time the big-lie pretext is about the alleged poisoning by the Kremlin/Putin of a
double-agent traitor, usually a stock move in the espionage entertainments. Yet here there is
no confirmed evidence whatever of the claimed origin of the lethal nerve-agent, but rather
expert denial within British defence and weapons research itself that is silence in the press,
with devious political word games crafted to get around the absence of any corroborated facts
in the familiar denuciations of Russia full of team aggression and hate. Not even a death is
recorded while US-led nd UK-armed ally forces are still mass-murdering poor civilian Yeminis,
drone-murdering endless targets and civilians abroad, continuing on unblamed for the ongoing
NATO-executed eco-genocides of Iraq and Libya societies, and on the 19-years anniversary of the
mass bombing of Yugoslavia -- once again a socialist society with the most evolved social
infrastructures of health, education, housing and life security in the region.
What this latest war pretext for US and NATO-backed aggression is really about is justifying
more war in Ukraine now that the massive war preparations along all of Russia's Western borders
following the self-declared Nazi-led and proven US- orchestrated and commanded mass-murder coup
d'etat in February 2014 . As always, this US-directed mass murder was reverse-blamed on the
ever shifting Enemy face -- Russia's allied but duly elected government of the Ukraine. It was
only after this violent-coup Nazi-led and US directed overthrow of the elected
government of the very resource-rich Ukraine -- "the breadbasket of Europe" and sitting on
newly discovered rich fossil fuel deposits -- that Russia annexed its traditional territory of
the Crimea next to Eastern Ukraine, the latter after the violent coup put under the rule of a
US-Nazi-led government until its people fought back with Russia assistance for the now
NATO-targeted zones of the new Donetsk and Lugansk republics.
What is new now is that we are about to enter yet another NATO-member war build-up against
the cornerstone of Western ideology, the designated Enemy Russia. As usual there is amnesia of
the ever-recurring big-lie pretext, the need for another crisis to keep the two-billion-dollar
a day US-led NATO war machine going, the baleful puppet moves of Canada in the process, the
crisis of legitimacy of the lead attacker's UK government, and silent diversion from the whole
nightmare scenario unfolding in NATO-member states, mass media and even 'peace activist'
organisations.
Cui Bono?
The UK and the US followed by Canada and some of the EU have by expulsion of Russia
diplomats prepared the diplomatic way for war in the Ukraine to seize back these lost
coup-territories, and it will be in the name of "freedom", "human rights" and "the rules of
civilised nations". But there is much officially suppressed colour to the warring parties
political conflict which reveals who the truly heinous suppressor of human rights is.
Under mass media and corporate-state cover, the US-UK-NATO axis about to make war in Ukraine is
doing so under the factually absurd but non-stop pretext of "Russia aggression" constructed out
of the double-agent poisoning affair, with the guilty agents and poison having no proof but the
ever louder UK-led and NATO-state assertion of it in unison. Yet there is a clear answer to the
cui bono question -- which party does all this benefit? Clearly once the question is
posed, as opposed to completely gagged in the corporate press, Theresa May's slow-motion
collapsing Tory government -- now even challenged for its fraudulent Brexit referendum
protecting the big London banks from EU regulation -- has to have such a war-drum
distraction to survive. The old war of aggression pattern reverse-blamed on the official
enemy unwinds yet again.
It is revealing in this context how Canada's government has no such ruler need of war --
unless it be its Ukraine-descendent Foreign Minister up front and the very powerful and widely
Nazi-sympathizing Ukraine Liberal vote bank and leadership brought to Canada after 1945 to
overwhelm the preceding active socialist Ukrainian community in Canada. Canada's government --
not its people -- is in any case used to being a puppet regime in foreign affairs as a
twice-colonized rule by big business (why the NDP is not allowed to govern unless so
subjugated).
The Human Rights Question
In light of all of this suppressed factual background and motive for more war in Ukraine
which is unspeakable in the official news, interaction with the United Nations is of revealing
interest. While it has been the cover for US-led NATO executed genocidal wars of aggression in
the past as in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yugoslavia and Korea, the pretexts of 'human rights',
'responsibility to protect' and 'stopping communist aggression', which are in fact always been
the spectacular opposite on the ground in terms of diseased, mass-murdered and destituted
bodies, these pretexts may not sell well when the background facts are no longer suppressed
from public view.
It is worthwhile recalling how Science for Peace leadership used to be against but has since
Afghanistan collaborated with these false-pretext wars in sustaining their illusions and thus
the war crimes and crimes against proceeding underneath them.
The NATO-executed Ukraine war now being orchestrated is especially revealing in its actual
record of 'protecting human rights' through 'international law' and 'norms of civilised
nations'. Completely buried in official records is a United Nations resolution n on Ukraine
that the US and Canada repudiated on November 20 2015 after the US-led bloody coup d'etat in
Ukraine was in full motion of claiming all the vast tracts of land and resources that were
Russia-speaking territory in the past.
The resolution was straightforwardly against "Nazi symbols and regalia" as well as
"holocaust denial". The Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Affairs Committee of the UN
General Assembly overwhelmingly voted for a resolution to enable measures against "the
glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that facilitate the escalation of
modern forms of racism, xenophobia and intolerance". A total of 126 member-states of the UN
voted for it for the second time. Over 100 countries voted for a similar resolution in 2014
including "denial of the holocaust and glorification of the Nazi movement, former members of
the Waffen SS organization, including the installation of memorials to them, and post-coup
attempts to desecrate or destroy the monuments to those who fought against Nazism in Ukraine
during World War II".
How could any civilised state vote against these United Nations Resolutions for human rights
as Canada and the US have done and stood by ever since? Well instituted group hatred of the
officially designated enemy can justify anything whatsoever, and does so right into next
NATO-executed orgy of war crime and crimes against humanity, again inside Europe itself
flaunting reverse-blame lies and slogans as red meat for psychotically trained masses. It is
not by accident that Canada's Foreign Minister is in this near century-old Nazi loyalist vs
Russia-speaking conflict was before her appointment the "proud "granddaughter of a leading Nazi
war propagandist during its occupation of Poland and Ukraine described as a "fighter for
freedom".
Yet on the other hand, we must not lose ourselves in ad hominem responsibility.
Crystina Freeland, her Canada name, is interestingly propagandist in itself from her birth --
Christian Free Land -- but not observed in the corporate press. Minister Freeland is only a
symptom of something far deeper and more systemically murderous and evil in state-executed
unlimited greed and immiserization of innocent millions of people masked as 'human rights' ,
'freedom' and 'rule of law' . Her more sinister double in the US is also a renamed person of
the region, Victoria Nuland (read New Land) who orchestrated the whole 2014 mass-murder coup in
Ukraine and now tub-thumps on public television for the 'need to teach Putin and Russia a hard
lesson', aka another war attack by US-led NATO on Russia's borders.
The difference now is that the absurd pretext and geostrategic mechanisms now in motion
beforehand can be seen in front of our eyes -- that is, if we can still see through the
engineered prism of the US-UK led NATO war machine. This alone will stop it.
"... Still, George McGovern was a humble man who carried the burden, and honor, of his military service with grace. Though proud of his service, he was never constrained by it. When he saw a foolish war, an immoral war -- like Vietnam -- he stood ready to dissent. He was an unapologetic liberal and unwavering in his antiwar stance. These days, his kind is an endangered species on Capitol Hill and in the Democratic National Committee. McGovern died in 2012. His party, and the United States, are lesser for his absence. ..."
"... Today's Democrats are mostly avid hawks, probably to the right of Richard Nixon on foreign policy. ..."
"... Heck, even Gen. David "Generational War" Petraeus , once found himself in some hot water when -- in a rare moment of candor -- he admitted that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of US favoritism for Israel." Translation: US policy toward Israel (and, no doubt, the foolhardy 2003 invasion of Iraq) make American soldiers less safe. ..."
"... So does the basic post-9/11 American policy of sovereignty violation and expansive military intervention whenever and wherever Washington feels like it -- so long as it's in the name of fighting (you guessed it) "terrorism." ..."
"... George McGovern -- a true patriot, a man who knew war but loved peace -- wouldn't recognize the likes of Klobuchar, Clinton, Schumer and company. He'd be rightfully embarrassed by their supplication to the national warfare state. ..."
"... In 1972, McGovern's presidential campaign (as, to some extent, Bernie's did) reached out to impassioned youth in the "New Left," and formed a rainbow coalition with African-Americans and other minority groups. His Democrats were no longer the party of Cold War consensus, no longer the party of LBJ and Vietnam. No, McGovern's signature issue was peace, and opposition to that disastrous war. ..."
"... His campaign distributed pins and T-shirts bearing white doves . Could you even imagine a mainstream Democrat getting within 1,000 meters of such a symbol today? Of course not. ..."
He knew war well -- well enough to know he hated it.
George McGovern was a senator from South Dakota, and he was a Democrat true liberals could admire. Though remembered as a staunch
liberal and foreign policy dove, McGovern was no stranger to combat. He
flew 35 missions
as a B-24 pilot in Italy during World War II. He even earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for executing a heroic emergency crash
landing after his bomber was damaged by German anti-aircraft fire.
Still, George McGovern was a humble man who carried the burden, and honor, of his military service with grace. Though proud
of his service, he was never constrained by it. When he saw a foolish war, an immoral war -- like Vietnam -- he stood ready to dissent.
He was an unapologetic liberal and unwavering in his antiwar stance. These days, his kind is an endangered species on Capitol Hill
and in the Democratic National Committee. McGovern died in 2012. His party, and the United States, are lesser for his absence.
Today's Democrats are mostly avid hawks, probably to the right of Richard Nixon on foreign policy. They dutifully
voted for Bush's Iraq war . Then, they won back
the White House and promptly expanded an unwinnable Afghan
war . Soon, they again lost the presidency -- to a reality TV star -- and raised hardly a peep as Donald Trump expanded
America's aimless wars
into the realm of the absurd.
I've long known this, but most liberals -- deeply ensconced (or distracted) by hyper-identity politics -- hardly notice. Still,
every once in a while something reminds me of how lost the Democrats truly are.
I nearly spit up my food the other day. Watching on C-SPAN as Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., gleefully
attended a panel at the
American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference, I couldn't help but wonder what has happened to the Democratic Party.
The worst part is I like her, mostly. Look, I agree with Sen. Klobuchar on most domestic issues: health care, taxes and
more. But she -- a supposed liberal -- and her mainstream Democratic colleagues are complicit in the perpetuation of America's warfare
state and neo-imperial interventionism. Sen. Klobuchar and other Democrats' reflexive support for Israel is but a symptom of a larger
disease in the party -- tacit militarism.
AIPAC is a lobbying clique almost as savvy and definitely as effective as the NRA. Its meetings -- well attended by mainstream
Democrats and Republicans alike -- serve as little more than an opportunity for Washington pols to kiss Benjamin Netanyahu's ring
and swear fealty to Israel. Most of the time, participants don't dare utter the word "Palestinian." That'd be untoward -- Palestinians
are the unacknowledged
elephants in the room .
The far right-wing Israeli government of Netanyahu, who is little more than a co-conspirator and enabler for America's failed
project in the Middle East, should be the last group "liberals" pander to. That said, the state of Israel is a fact. Its people --
just like the Palestinians -- deserve security and liberty. Love it or hate it, Israel will continue to exist. The question is: Can
Israel remain both exclusively Jewish and democratic? I'm less certain about that. For 50 years now, the Israeli military has divided,
occupied and enabled the illegal settlement of sovereign
Palestinian territory , keeping Arabs in limbo without citizenship or meaningful civil rights.
This is, so far as international law is concerned, a war crime. As such, unflinching American support for Israeli policy irreversibly
damages the U.S. military's reputation on the "Arab street." I've seen it firsthand. In Iraq and Afghanistan, hundreds and thousands
of miles away from Jerusalem, captured prisoners and hospitable families alike constantly pointed to unfettered US support for Israel
and the plight of Palestinians when answering that naive and ubiquitous American question: "Why do they hate us?"
Heck, even
Gen. David
"Generational War" Petraeus , once found himself in
some hot water when
-- in a rare moment of candor -- he admitted that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception
of US favoritism for Israel." Translation: US policy toward Israel (and, no doubt, the foolhardy 2003 invasion of Iraq) make American
soldiers less safe.
So does the basic post-9/11 American policy of sovereignty violation and expansive military intervention whenever and wherever
Washington feels like it -- so long as it's in the name of fighting (you guessed it) "terrorism." So, which "liberals" are raising
hell and ringing the alarm bells for their constituents about Israeli occupation and America's strategic overreach? Sen. Klobuchar?
Hardly. She, and all but four Democrats, voted for
the latest bloated Pentagon budget with few questions asked. Almost as many Republicans voted against the bill. So, which is
the antiwar party these days? It's hard to know.
Besides, the Dems mustered fewer than 30 votes in support of the
Rand Paul amendment and
his modest call to repeal and replace America's outdated, vague Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF). All Sen. Paul,
a libertarian Republican, wanted to do was force a vote -- in six months -- to revisit the AUMF. This wasn't radical stuff by any
means. The failure of Paul's amendment, when paired with the absolute dearth of Democratic dissent on contemporary foreign policy,
proves one thing conclusively: There is no longer an antiwar constituency in a major American political party. The two-party system
has failed what's left of the antiwar movement.
By no means is Amy Klobuchar alone in her forever-war complicity. Long before she graced the halls of the Senate, her prominent
precursors -- Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer (to name just a few) --
rubber-stamped a war of aggression in Iraq and
mostly acquiesced as one president after another (including Barack Obama) gradually expanded America's post-9/11 wars. When will
it end? No one knows, really, but so far, the US military has deployed advisers or commandos to
70 percent
of the world's countries and is actively
bombing at least seven . That's the problem with waging clandestine wars with professional soldiers while asking nothing of an
apathetic public: These conflicts tend to grow and grow, until, one day -- which passed long ago -- hardly anyone realizes we're
now at war with most everyone.
So where are the doves now? On the fringe, that's where. Screaming from the distant corners of the libertarian right and extreme
left. No one cares, no one is listening, and they can hardly get a hearing on either MSNBC or Fox. It's the one thing both networks
agree on: endless, unquestioned war. Hooray for 21st century bipartisanship.
Still, Americans deserve more from the Democrats, once (however briefly) the party of McGovern. These days, the Dems hate Trump
more than they like anything. To be a principled national party, they've got to be more than just anti-Trump. They need to provide
a substantive alternative and present a better foreign policy offer. How about a do-less strategy: For starters, some modesty and
prudent caution would go a long way.
George McGovern -- a true patriot, a man who knew war but loved peace -- wouldn't recognize the likes of Klobuchar, Clinton,
Schumer and company. He'd be rightfully embarrassed by their supplication to the national warfare state.
In 1972, McGovern's presidential campaign (as, to some extent, Bernie's did) reached out to impassioned youth in the "New
Left," and formed a rainbow coalition with African-Americans and other minority groups. His Democrats were no longer the party of
Cold War consensus, no longer the party of LBJ and Vietnam. No, McGovern's signature issue was peace, and opposition to that disastrous
war.
His campaign distributed pins and T-shirts bearing
white doves . Could you even imagine a mainstream Democrat getting within 1,000 meters of such a symbol today? Of course not.
Today's Dems are too frightened, fearful of being labeled "soft" (note the sexual innuendo) on "terror," and have thus ceded foreign
policy preeminence to the unhinged, uber-hawk Republicans. We live, today, with the results of that cowardly concession.
The thing about McGovern is that he lost the 1972 election, by a landslide. And maybe that's the point. Today's Democrats would
rather win than be right. Somewhere along the way, they lost their souls. Worse still, they aren't any good at winning, either.
Sure, they and everybody else "support the troops." Essentially, that means the Dems will at least fight for veterans' health
care and immigration rights when vets return from battle. That's admirable enough. What they won't countenance, or even consider,
is a more comprehensive, and ethical, solution: to end these aimless wars and stop making new veterans that need "saving."
Major Danny Sjursen, anAntiwar.comregular, is a U.S. Army
officer and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has written
a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War,Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians,
and the Myth of the Surge. He lives with his wife and four sons in Lawrence, Kansas. Follow him on Twitter at@SkepticalVetand check out his new podcast"Fortress on a Hill,"co-hosted with fellow vet Chris 'Henri' Henrikson.
[ Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an unofficial capacity, and do not reflect
the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]
Across the country, correctional facilities are struggling with the reality that they have
become the nation's de facto mental healthcare providers, although they are hopelessly
ill-equipped for the job. They are now contending with tens of thousands of people with mental
illness who, by some counts, make up as much as half
of their populations .
Little acknowledged in public debate, this situation is readily apparent in almost every
correctional facility in the country. In Michigan, roughly half of all people in county jails
have a mental illness, and nearly a quarter of people in state prisons do. In 2016, the state
spent nearly $4m on psychiatric medication for state prisoners. In Iowa about a third of people
in prison have a serious mental illness; another quarter have a chronic mental health
diagnosis.
Meanwhile, nearly half of the people executed nationwide between 2000 and 2015 had been
diagnosed with a mental illness and/or substance use disorder in their adult lives. When a
legal settlement required California to build a psychiatric unit on its death row at San
Quentin the 40 beds were filled immediately.
The
mental health crisis is especially pronounced among women prisoners: one study by the US
Bureau of Justice Statistics found that 75% of women incarcerated in jails and prisons had a
mental illness, as compared with just over 60% and 55% of men, respectively. A more recent
study showed that 20% of women in jail and 30% in prison had experienced "serious psychological
distress" in the month before the survey, compared with 14% and 26% of men, respectively.
Although the overall number of people behind bars in the US has decreased in recent years,
the proportion of prisoners with mental illness has continued to go up. In 2010, about 30% of
people at New York's Rikers Island jail had a mental illness; in 2014, the figure rose to 40% ,
and by 2017, it had gone up to 43%. Studies of the most frequently arrested people in New York,
Los Angeles and elsewhere have found that they are far more likely than others to have mental
illness, to require antipsychotic medications while incarcerated and to have a substance use
problem.
That there are so many people with mental illness locked in our jails and prisons is but one
piece of the crisis. Along with race and poverty, mental illness has become a salient feature
of mass incarceration, one that must be accounted for in any discussion about criminal justice
reform.
Mental illness affects every aspect of the criminal justice system, from policing to the
courts to prisons and beyond. Nor are the effects limited to the criminal justice system; many
people with mental illness cycle back and forth between jail or prison and living in the
community.
The racial inequity of the criminal justice system has been widely noted: it is estimated
that one out of every three African American men and one of every six Hispanic men born in 2001
will be arrested in their lifetimes.
But for Americans with serious mental illness, it is estimated that as many as one in two
will be arrested at some point in their lives. It's not just arrests. One in four of the nearly
1,000 fatal police shootings in 2016 involved a person with mental illness, according to a
study by the Washington Post. The Post estimated that mental illness was a factor in a quarter
of fatal police shootings in 2017, too.
People with mental illness are among the most disadvantaged members of our society, and when
they end up in the criminal justice system, they tend to fare worse than others. People with
mental illness are less likely to make bail and more likely to face longer sentences. They are
more likely to end up in solitary confinement, less likely to make parole and more likely to
commit suicide.
Yet jail and prison have become, for many people, their primary means of getting mental
healthcare. Their experiences offer an especially eye-opening view of a criminal justice system
that today houses more than two million people and costs us hundreds of billions of dollars a
year.
The problems with Germany is that it does not have any independent press... German MSM are
probably worse then the USA MSM in being neoliberal stooges, if not to say prostitutes.
Also Merkel is a staunch neoliberal politician hell bent on neoliberal globalization and who
still cling to power and tried to use the USA as a leverage to stay in power
Notable quotes:
"... So in a certain sense, I can imagine that the Russians feel really betrayed by this kind of behavior by Merkel. Now, Merkel has a specific background. You know, many people have always asked themselves, what makes this woman tick? Nobody has been able to answer that question in any satisfying way. But I think the Russians really feel betrayed. ..."
"... Merkel is just obviously following like a puppy-dog -- even though puppies are cuter than Mrs. Merkel, I would say. But I think it's a serious matter, and I think people should absolutely not fall for this, because these are the kinds of things which can get out of control and be the trigger for a new world war, and who would want that? ..."
ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think the case of France is a little bit more complicated, because Macron,
who had a slightly different emphasis on the cooperation with the New Silk Road and China, than
Merkel, for example; the French Foreign Minister Yves Le Drian just announced that Macron will
go to Moscow in May. So I think that that looks a little bit different than Mrs. Merkel, who --
really, I mean, it's a complete shame, and obviously this new "Grand Coalition" government,
which is not so grand, given the fact that they are all falling in the polls like a stone; I
think this is really a reflection of the fact that there is presently no German elite worth
being called the name.
And I think that people in Germany should really not accept that. The history of the
German-Russian relationship, given the fact that there were two world wars, the Second World
War being an unbelievable memory in every Russian person; and then the fact that Russia agreed
to the German unification, without any shots being fired or tanks being deployed, -- you know,
in a peaceful way. Russia gave up East Germany and agreed to the unification, and received
promises at that time that NATO would never be expanded to the borders of Russia, a promise
which was broken. And then you had all these escalations.
So in a certain sense, I can imagine that the Russians feel really betrayed by this kind
of behavior by Merkel. Now, Merkel has a specific background. You know, many people have always
asked themselves, what makes this woman tick? Nobody has been able to answer that question in
any satisfying way. But I think the Russians really feel betrayed.
And I think the German people should go back to the kind of Ostpolitik, at minimum, which
was characteristic for German attitude for a very long time, to have a policy of
good-neighborliness, of peaceful dialogue, of cooperation. And I think this is really, really
important that the population in Germany does not fall in line with this aggressive British
policy which Merkel is just obviously following like a puppy-dog -- even though puppies are
cuter than Mrs. Merkel, I would say. But I think it's a serious matter, and I think people
should absolutely not fall for this, because these are the kinds of things which can get out of
control and be the trigger for a new world war, and who would want that?
Russian elite already views May's government as bandits, who staged this despicable provocation. So stakes for British elite are
very high.
And the way May government tried to capitalize on this "poisoning" is really like going "all in". May clearly went what French call
"va bank". Reckless statement of Johnson, who is a very weak diplomat, but no fool, if a clear testament that they expect to prevail
with pretty weak cards. With ultimate reliance on power of the USA to secure favorable outcome.
Looks more and more that this is a part of Russiagate, or color revolution against Trump, however you want to call the effort: the
collusion between the intelligence heads of the Obama administration with British intelligence to oust President Trump.
The Russian Foreign Ministry is now openly pointing the possibility of a UK intelligence involvement. That sheds a very bad light
on EU vassals who without any questioning and with any proof immediately fell into line behind Theresa May.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry even said this was a tool used by the Europeans and the United States to try to get unity at a point
when they were completely disunified. And this is the old geopolitical game, that in order to create unity you create a war, and then
everybody has to fall into line before attacking Iran.
Compare with Ron Paul views on this incident: www.youtube.com
Notable quotes:
"... The UK foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, in a speech late on Wednesday waxed lyrical about how the Skripal episode represented a turning point in the west's approach to Russia, but his officials are aware that this mood can easily dissipate as other considerations, such as commerce, energy security or the Middle East come into play. ..."
"... The UK will try to push for further measures against Russia at the June meeting of the EU heads of state. If it is ambitious, it may may challenge German support for Nord Stream 2, the gas pipeline from Russia that could put European energy demand at the mercy of Moscow. ..."
That does not mean the crisis will necessarily end there, or that the crisis is contained.
Russia, whose standing among the international community
is badly damaged, is determined to do go further to clear its name, or at least throw up enough chaff so that a chunk of western
public opinion doubts the British intelligence service's account of Skripal's poisoning. Moscow has already suggested a meeting on
Monday of the executive of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to have "an honest conversation" about
the poisoning.
The OPCW is studying samples – provided by the UK – of the novichok nerve agent allegedly used, but does not have the ability
to judge the identity of the person that
placed the agent by the door of Skripal's house . But the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, is determined to put the UK
on the defensive and has already claimed that "if our western partners dodge the meeting then it will be further evidence that every
thing that is happened is a provocation".
Russia has also responded to the apparent recovery of Yulia Skripal, who was poisoned alongside her father. She may be able to
provide insights into how the poisoning occurred, or even reveal whether she knows of some other motive by some other non-state actor.
The British intelligence services will be debriefing her as soon as her health permits. It would clearly be a huge embarrassment
for the UK government if it emerged she believed the Russian state was not involved.
As it is, the UK government is aware that some allied leaders, despite the public show of solidarity, face skeptical voters at
home who are either against a confrontation with Vladimir Putin, or expect more convincing proof to be provided.
The UK foreign secretary, Boris Johnson,
in a speech late on Wednesday waxed lyrical about how the Skripal episode represented a turning point in the west's approach
to Russia, but his officials are aware that this mood can easily dissipate as other considerations, such as commerce, energy security
or the Middle East come into play.
The UK will try to push for further measures against Russia at the June meeting of the EU heads of state. If it is ambitious,
it may may challenge German support for Nord Stream 2, the gas pipeline from Russia that could put European energy demand at the
mercy of Moscow.
Russia now openly accused Britain in the attempt to kill Skripals. Also each new British
version of poisoning have larger and larger holes in it. Britain tries to deflect
accusations
Many people now view May Skripals gambit (in which Skripals were just pawns -- unclear
winning or unwilling) as an attempt to save Russiagate in the USA -- operation conduction jointly
with rogue elements of the USA intelligence agencies against Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... Mikhailov said Theresa May should resign for misleading world opinion. ..."
Zakharova said nobody had cancelled the agreement, which she said still had force in
international law. The UK is likely to argue that an agreement between the UK and the Soviet
Union is not enforceable in court and there is no reason to give Russia access to a woman it
apparently tried to kill. Russia challenged claims made by Dean Haydon, Britain's
counter-terror police chief, that the Skripals
first came into contact with the nerve agent from their front door .
... ... ...
"Traces of the nerve agent have been found at some of the other scenes detectives have been
working at over the past few weeks, but at lower concentrations to that found at the home
address," Haydon said on Wednesday.
Maj-Gen Alexander Mikhailov, from the Russian security agency FSB, claimed that if it was
true the poisoning had happened on the doorstep then the Skripals would have died instantly and
would not made it as far as the park where they were found slumped on a bench.
Mikhailov said Theresa May should resign for misleading world opinion.
Both sides are waiting for a report from the OPCW, which sent experts to visit the scene in
Salisbury and is studying samples of the nerve agent.
Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of Russian president Vladimir Putin, said it was
difficult to guess what other options for anti-Russian measures Britain could take.
"As for the UK, due to the fact that now it is a fairly unpredictable country in relations
with the Russian Federation, it is difficult for us to judge what other options can be
considered, and what can be the basis for this," Peskov said.
When a friend invited me to join Googlemail over a decade ago, I accepted and used it as an
address for any organisation who might store or misuse my data.
Little was I to know that Android would rely on a Gmail address...
Having said that, my AdSense adverts still show me ads that are no way based on my online
activity so I wonder if the same people are behind the algorithms here as were predicting the
world economy in 2007.
Usage of Facebook is of cause a big mistake. It is simply stupid in most cases. But usage of
Wikipedia is not. Althouth probably NSA also gets information about pages you visited directly or indirectly.
Notable quotes:
"... consider the "internet of things" (IdiOT) directly intrusive ..."
"... how long will it remain technically feasible to opt out of the idiot stuff? ..."
While I love Wikipedia as a wonderful, creative application of social media, I've always been
spooked by Facebook and the like, and consider the "internet of things" (IdiOT) directly
intrusive ...
Does my resistance to the big-bro-data invasion classify me as a Luddite? And how long
will it remain technically feasible to opt out of the idiot stuff?
I recall a time some 20 or so years ago when many of us thought about and wondered how in the
world the Internet could survive if info and interactions were without monetary cost. It
seemed like a space within which we could freely move and think and engage. I recall driving
down the NJ Turnpike in 1993 Listening intently to a radio news report about the wonders of
the upcoming information super highway that was about to bring us all together and overcome
violence and racism and sexism and without any tolls. Al Gore himself was encouraging this
wondrous new world. We were about to be a part of World Wide Web love fest reminiscent of a
1967 Summer of Love Be-In.
Now we know how the Internet survived. Call it innovation. I call it a police state,
engineered by right-wing jerks at Stanford with a little help from their friends at Cal Tech,
MIT, and Harvard, and based in Silicon Valley. If that's the way you want it, well that's the
way you'll get it.
Neoliberalism and spying are connected at birth. anybody who think that Google or Facebook shenanigans are anomaly needs to
think again... Survellance Valley is the product of neoliberalism. As simple as that.
Notable quotes:
"... We need to take ownership of our information and data back again and regulate the internet as a utility. ..."
"... It may not have much affect on who knows what about those of us who have already given away our privacy, but it could protect future generations ..."
Actually, it's wonderful (though it's also full of lies, propaganda and bs).
But like all too many wonderful things, the greedy and the power hungry despoil it,
manipulate it to their own advantage, and use it to exploit others - often under the guise of
"security."
A new technology is developed, people start using it, and before they know it, they can't
live, work, or perform many daily tasks without it.
Oh, sure, all of us here could stop commenting online. We could abandon social networks.
But what about everything else that involves giving up our personal information to a
corporation and/or the government that has become part of how things get done in our
world?
That's a heck of a lot harder.
Add to that our collective intention since 1980 to weaken government regulation of
business' ability to do whatever it wants with our personal information, while increasing
government's ability to surveil us and invade our privacy, as well, and you have an internet
that is getting less and less wonderful by the day.
Oh, and don't forget those in business and government trying to destroy net neutrality, so
some (those who can pay for it) will be more equal than others in their ability to use the
internet.
We need to take ownership of our information and data back again and regulate the
internet as a utility.
It may not have much affect on who knows what about those of us who have already given
away our privacy, but it could protect future generations .
... Remember to look at the back of the your envelopes containing your personal mail - when
it's being scanned by your State it will have it's rear various pencilled initials. At one
time the departments in sorting offices were only allowed to deviate mail for twenty minutes
but now given that standards have dropped not such constraints exist. That's progress.
I recommend the new 'Brave' browser - it's primary focus is on privacy. It was created by
the former CEO of Mozilla (Firefox) and employs at least one engineer involved in the
development of the Tor browser (the one used for super-secure browsing on the dark web).
Its snappy performance is also a pleasant surprise.
19. One way to limit the amount of data that you are providing is to stop using Google
Chrome. It is a browser created by an advertising company specifically to harvest your
personal information. If you are logged in to gmail, using google for your searches, watching
Youtube and browsing on chrome, then you're making it easy for them. Try Firefox or one of
the other browsers out there, use a different search engine, and don't leave your account
logged in to google all day.
With every financial transaction, banks know the location, value and can estimate the goods I
buy. They could run AI algorithms to determine everything about my habits and preferences to
spend and sell this insight to shops and websites who could use this it to get me to part
with my money easier...but they don't.
Mobile operators poll my mobile phone constantly so always know my location, they know the
numbers I call and text so know my social network. They could run AI algorithms to determine
where I'll be when, and who I'll likely be with...but they don't.
Make their day, write something outlandish.
Decades ago, long before mobile phones were invented, we used to get crossed lines on our
landline regularly. We could hear other people in the background, and one day a nosy woman
listening to our conversation was relaying what we were talking about to her husband,
oblivious to the fact we could hear her, so we spiced up the conversation.
I started it by saying, "OK, but down to business, lets talk about next week". We made it
sound as if we were planning a heist. She was totally taken in, to the point of asking her
husband if she should tell the police! After a few minutes of leading her on, I said," Do you
think the nosy bitch listening in on the crossed line got all that? ".
She slammed her phone down.
"... If you wipe your phone every year, you learn which apps you need and which are just sitting in the background hoovering up data ..."
"... 14. Have as many social-media-free days in the week as you have alcohol-free days ..."
"... 16. Don't let the algorithms pick what you do ..."
"... 18. Finally, remember your privacy is worth protecting ..."
"... Increasingly, our inner lives are being reduced to a series of data points; every little thing we do is for sale. As we're starting to see, this nonstop surveillance changes us. It influences the things we buy and the ideas we buy into ..."
"... Being more mindful of our online behaviour, then, isn't just important when it comes to protecting our information, it's essential to protecting our individuality. ..."
"... It seems sensible to take steps to 'protect' ourselves from the data hoover that is google or Facebook. ..."
"... Our data is ours, and not theirs to sell onto or allow political freak shows to 'target' us for the suckers benefit, and not the suckees welfare. Who knows how many abusers have been able to hit on vulnerable family's with children! ..."
"... The internet is a colourful addictive place that most users have only a limited grasp of its potential, as nicely illustrated by our politicians being dumb to these recent events impact. Capitalist thinking, we know, is incapable of self regulation. ..."
You may well have downloaded your Facebook data already; it has become something of a trend
in recent days. Now take a look at what Google has on you. Go to Google's "Takeout" tool and
download your data from the multiple Google products you probably use, such as Gmail, Maps,
Search and Drive. You'll get sent a few enormous files that contain information about
everything from the YouTube videos you have watched, your search history, your location history
and so on. Once you've seen just how much information about you is in the cloud, you may want
to go about deleting it. I highly recommend deleting your Google Maps history, for a start,
unless you are particularly eager to have a detailed online record of everywhere you have ever
been. You may also want to stop Google from tracking your location history. Sign in to Google,
open Maps, then click on "timeline" in the menu. At the bottom, there's an option to manage
your location history.
... ... ...
10. Never put your kids on the public internet
Maybe it's fine to upload pics to a shared (private) photo album, or mention their day in a
group DM. But if it's public, Google can find it. And if Google can find it, it's never going
away. How are you going to tell your child in 16 years' time that they can't get a drivers'
licence because Daddy put a high-res photo of their iris online when they were two and now they
trip alarms from here to Mars?
12. Sometimes it's worth just wiping everything and starting over
Your phone, your tweets, your Facebook account: all of these things are temporary. They will
pass. Free yourself from an obsession with digital hoarding.
If you wipe your phone every year, you learn which apps you need and which are just
sitting in the background hoovering up data .
If you wipe your Facebook account every year, you learn which friends you actually like and
which are just hanging on to your social life like a barnacle.
14. Have as many social-media-free days in the week as you have alcohol-free
days
This can be zero if you want, but know that we're judging you.
15. Retrain your brain to focus
Save up your longreads using Instapaper or Pocket and read them without distraction. Don't
dip in and out of that 4,000-word article on turtles: read it in one go. Or maybe even try a
book!
16. Don't let the algorithms pick what you do
You are not a robot, you are a human being, and exercising your own free will is the
greatest strength you have. When that YouTube video ends, don't watch the next one that
autoplays. When you pick up your phone in the morning, don't just click on the stories at the
top of Apple News or Google Now. Exercise choice! Exercise freedom! Exercise humanity!
17. Do what you want with your data, but guard your friends' info with your life
Yes, you should think twice before granting that fun app you downloaded access to your
location or your photo library. Do you trust it not to do weird things with your pictures? Do
you know it won't track your every movement? But ultimately, those are your decisions, and they
are for you to make. But your friends' data isn't yours, it's theirs, and you are a trusted
custodian. Don't think twice before authorising access to your address book, or your friends'
profiles: think five or six times, and then don't do it.
18. Finally, remember your privacy is worth protecting
You might not have anything to hide (except your embarrassing Netflix history) but that
doesn't mean you should be blase about your privacy.
Increasingly, our inner lives are being reduced to a series of data points; every little
thing we do is for sale. As we're starting to see, this nonstop surveillance changes us. It
influences the things we buy and the ideas we buy into .
Being more mindful of our online behaviour, then, isn't just important when it comes to
protecting our information, it's essential to protecting our individuality.
Frenske 28 Mar 2018 23:58
I always use the wrong birthday when registering for accounts unless it is for financial
services and utility which may do credit check or are used in credit checks. If my real name
is not required I use a variation on my last name.
Jack Harrison 28 Mar 2018 22:33
Astounding that people are surprised about all this data hoarding and selling.
There's a reason Facebook, Google etc are worth BILLIONS. It ain't because of the ads you
ignore or are blocked.
FooBar21 -> cachito11 28 Mar 2018 21:31
"There billions of species on our own very planet that show us daily how life is not
about money."
In their case daily life is a constant struggle to evade an endless supply of predators
who are always looking to tear them limb to limb or swallow them whole, find whatever scraps
of food they can find to avoid starving to death, and compete with conspecifics for the right
to procreate. On a good day.
wascallywabbit -> Davinci Woohoo 28 Mar 2018 19:34
Thanks Davinci for the reasoned and balanced response.
I appreciate that it's not necessarily your view, but that there is a lot of history
behind it. However, to a European living in a modern democracy, it just seems to be a strange
and counter-productive attitude. For example, rather than paying taxes for pooled and
equitable public services, many of those services are run as profit-making businesses, thus
removing money from the system. It also reinforces class divisions, as the rich can pay, but
the poor cannot. As a result, many people cannot pay for medical care, cannot send their
children to university, and are forced to buy a car to move around.
Again, I'm not criticising you personally, just the mindset that you mentioned.
fatkevin 28 Mar 2018 19:25
It seems sensible to take steps to 'protect' ourselves from the data hoover that is
google or Facebook.
But should it be that way round? These cyborg organisations should frame their technology
and services that automatically displays social responsibilities towards those they are
currently sucking dry of personal information.
Our data is ours, and not theirs to sell onto or allow political freak shows to
'target' us for the suckers benefit, and not the suckees welfare. Who knows how many abusers
have been able to hit on vulnerable family's with children!
The internet is a colourful addictive place that most users have only a limited grasp
of its potential, as nicely illustrated by our politicians being dumb to these recent events
impact. Capitalist thinking, we know, is incapable of self regulation. Internet orgs
therefore need steep guidelines that imposes tight operating practices that ensures the
vulnerable (that's you and me) don't have to encounter the likes of these recent
catastrophes.
Putting lead into food a century ago was deadly until food standards were criminalised;
the same applies to the cyborgian world of the internet.
The US has been cracking down on protected First Amendment rights for years now. Just heard
that someone was kicked off the post office lawn last week for protesting, so FIrday's peace
vigil may be at risk again.We haven't had any problems with the police harassing us for
probably 12 years, but that may be raising its head again.
The US government has a lot to answer for in terms of press freedom and its reaction to
organized protest. One only need remember the clusterfuck at Standing Rock during the final
months of Obama's presidency to see that this country has major problems with racism,
violence, liberty, equality, fraternity. The US is by no means a "functioning democracy with
proper rule of law". More like a corrupt plutocracy riding full-speed into overt fascism,
where who you know and who you blow makes the most difference if you wind up in trouble with
the law.
I never take First Amendment rights for granted. I am totally aware that if you don't use
your rights, and often, you lose them. I have never had an account on Facebook, but sometimes
I cruise other people's pages to the extent that Zuckerburg will allow without gathering my
information(or maybe they can get it if you just look at a page). Always thought it was a
supremely wrong idea to allow your identity to be taken away by some fat cat with a clever
idea.
Germany - if I remember correctly - was instrumental on behalf of her client state Croatia
in persuading the U S to acquise in the destruction of Yugoslavia.
Many could see at the time that this would unravel all the balances put into place after the
travail of World War 2 . So it is proving to be . The German peoples' for whatever reasons have
a history of 'overeach'. On one hand the Germans are now - after millennium - within settled
borders but the political and economic wisdom and patience still seems lacking .
It has nothing to do with marxism. I think "cultural marxism" is used in the same context.
It's basically just a label used by right-wingers to describe all the identity politics
etc that faux lefties like the neoliberal democrats engage in to distract their voters from
looking at actual leftist economic policies. So instead of trying to narrow the gaps between
economic classes it's focuses on giving all identities, cultures and subcultures equal
worth.
If that makes sense.. My vocabulary kind of lacked the words I was looking for to try to
give a good description just now.. (English being my 2nd language an all)
speaking of "smart toasters" this 'daily show' clip from 15 years ago is a gut-busting
hoot.
i rarely if ever post links in comment sections, but this ties in quite nicely with this
article!!
I have fuzzy feeling is that "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." (Hamlet, Act 1,
Scene 4). Looks like Brennan machinations as a part of a larger trend.
So while those fears might look exaggerated, in no way they represent outlier in the spectrum
of the opinion of the commentarial. There are also people like Kevin Shipp who might agree with
me more then you do.
Moreover, the gradual shift toward some kind of "MIC leadership" was really noticeable in
Trump administration just my the number of retired generals inhis administration. It might be
just a beginning of the process of shifting the power, as military now are respected more then
elected representatives. And CIA will be the key player is any such shift.
Existence of almost five million people with security clearance creates kind of "state within
the state" situation. This is the point when quantity turns into quality.
Shipp expressed that the CIA was created through the Council on Foreign relations with no
congressional approval, and historically the CFR is also tied into the mainstream media (MSM.)
He elaborated that the CIA was the "central node" of the shadow government and controlled all
of other 16 intelligence agencies despite the existence of the DNI. The agency also controls
defense and intelligence contractors, can manipulate the president and political decisions, has
the power to start wars, torture, initiate coups, and commit false flag attacks he said.
As Shipp stated, the CIA was created through executive order by then President Harry Truman
by the signing of the
National Security Act of 1947.
According to Shipp, the deep state is comprised of the military industrial complex,
intelligence contractors, defense contractors, MIC lobbyist, Wall St (offshore accounts),
Federal Reserve, IMF/World Bank, Treasury, Foreign lobbyists, and Central Banks.
In the shocking, explosive presentation, Shipp went on to express that there are "over
10,000 secret sites in the U.S." that formed after 9/11. There are "1,291 secret government
agencies, 1,931 large private corporations and over 4,800,000 Americans that he knows of who
have a secrecy clearance, and 854,000 who have Top Secret clearance, explaining they signed
their lives away bound by an agreement.
"... The problem is CIA impunity. CIA uses it to make money -- and to make plutocrats and keep them in line. You don't like plutocrats? Good for you. Lock up some CIA scumbags, storm Langley and take the files, problem solved. ..."
This article is a tour de force of beating around the bush. It relates a campaign initiated
and led by CIA DCI John Brennan, prosecuted with illegal secret government surveillance,
coerced confessions, and suppressed investigation of the murder of Seth Rich. And it blames
the Plutocrat Class.
How many divisions does the Plutocrat Class have? Does the Plutocrat Class have impunity
for murder, torture, and denial of the rights of trial? Does the Plutocrat Class have
anything like these get-out-jail-free cards?
The Central Intelligence Agency Act, which
put CIA covert crime beyond the reach of any court. The Rogers-Houston MOU permitting the DCI
to abort DoJ investigations with the magic words 'national security.'
The Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which makes the identity of CIA criminals a
state secret. The operational files exemption to FOIA, which prohibits public scrutiny of
evidence of CIA crime.
The 'political questions' judicial doctrine which stops judicial review of CIA crimes
condoned, however vaguely or unwittingly, by Congress.
The article outlines criminal coup de main by domestic enemies, and sics us on cartoon
Rich Uncle Pennybags.
Don't get wrapped around the axle overthinking some rock-paper-scissors transitivity
relations of abstract political and economic power -- that's CIA-infiltrated Paris Review
bullshit. Impunity beats money every time. To understand this, just watch what happens when a
plutocrat gets in CIA's way. You see right away who's in charge. Plutocrat Ralph Nacchio
learned his lesson, didn't he?
Plutocrat Elliot Spitzer learned his lesson. Dynastic plutocrats John and Bobby Kennedy
didn't learn their lesson fast enough, but everybody else got the message.
The problem is CIA impunity. CIA uses it to make money -- and to make plutocrats and
keep them in line. You don't like plutocrats? Good for you. Lock up some CIA scumbags, storm
Langley and take the files, problem solved.
Firs of all Mark Galeotti is very weak. That's incurable.
I want your money poor Pinocchio -- that the new slogan of May government. Kind of
compensation for Brexit losses at Russian oligarchs expense.
What Russophobe Galiotti does not understand is that this another nail in the coffin of neoliberalism. As soon as you
start to distriminate between oligarche neoliberalism stops and nationalism starts
Notable quotes:
"... Of course, the irony is that by driving out Russian money, London would in part be doing Putin's work for him ..."
"... He has launched a " de-offshorization " campaign to try to persuade, cajole, and intimidate oligarchs and minigarchs into bringing their money back home. Along with the stabilization of the economy as a whole, this has had some limited success. While more than $31 billion flowed out of the country last year alone, this is a dramatic fall from 2014's $154 billion . ..."
"... The thought that Britain would actually be returning capital into Putin's grasp may be an uncomfortable one. After all, a third possible policy goal would be actively to seek to undermine the regime in Moscow. ..."
This is also a project in which further international cooperation would be crucial. Chasing
that money and the influence it buys out of London but seeing it find comfortable new homes in
Paris, Frankfurt, and New York is only half the job done and will do little to chasten Moscow.
Although it will be difficult to persuade others to turn away tempting business, the unexpected
support Britain is receiving from European Union partners in particular suggests this may be an
opportune moment to convince them that in its experience this money is too toxic to be safe and
that this is a Western, not just a British, problem.
Of course, the irony is that by driving out Russian money, London would in part be doing
Putin's work for him . Since 2014, the Russian economy has been in the doldrums.
Furthermore, Putin is a man who understands power better than economics, and he is unhappy to
see elites stash their money outside his grasp.
Putin is a man who understands power better than economics, and he is unhappy to see elites
stash their money outside his grasp.
He has launched a "
de-offshorization " campaign to try to persuade, cajole, and intimidate oligarchs and
minigarchs into bringing their money back home. Along with the stabilization of the economy as
a whole, this has had some limited success. While more than $31
billion flowed out of the country last year alone, this is a dramatic fall from 2014's
$154 billion .
The thought that Britain would actually be returning capital into Putin's grasp may be
an uncomfortable one. After all, a third possible policy goal would be actively to seek to
undermine the regime in Moscow. Overt efforts at regime change would be dangerous and
likely counterproductive, but London may feel that it should not pass up opportunities to
weaken the Kremlin
London may feel that it should not pass up opportunities to weaken the Kremlin
, in the hope that this may tame its appetite for playing confrontational
geopolitics.
... ... ...
Mark Galeotti is a senior research fellow at the Institute of International Affairs Prague and a visiting fellow with
the European Council on Foreign Relations.
As the porn star's allegations show, discourse in Washington is shifting to something more
tawdry and celebrity-oriented
... The idea of a porn star appearing on network television to share details of a sexual
encounter with the US commander in chief would have been intellectually confounding at any
other moment in time. Instead, the interview, which took place only few days after
a former Playboy playmate, Karen McDougal , talked about her affair with Trump, seemed a
part of the everyday political landscape in 2018.
... Trump may seem like an aberration but instead he may be an inflection point. It's
possible that after over two centuries of presidential campaigns with governors, senators and
the occasional general, American politics is shifting to something more tawdry and more
celebrity-oriented. The often spoken and rarely met ideal in the United States is that
political debates should be about issues. But, after a political campaign where candidates
debated penis size on a debate stage, it may be the legacy of Trump that politics has
permanently descended to locker-room talk.
You are quite right, Power Elite is more accurate description, but now that the
term Deep State has reached common parlance, is it useful to try to rebrand them?
Well, perhaps, because what we have now is a general misidentification (misdirection!) of
defining the Deep State. Some single out the Intel agencies, others blame think-tanks, some
even blame career civil servants (the 'bureaucrat' smear). Are these accusers really
gatekeepers for the deep money interests?
All the same, how would you do it, and is it worthwhile? We've had the same chatter about
the Fake News, i.e. MSM vs. Legacy News vs. Corporate News vs. Big News, etc. Some good work
is coming out under Deep State -
Misunderstanding the Deep State
CIA Agent Whistleblower Risks All To Expose The Shadow Government
The 'deep state' is not a 'conspiracy theory', it is a basic fact beyond debating. The deep
state by definition means the USA's military industrial complex, i.e. all of the massive
security agencies (Dept of Defense; CIA; State Dept; Pentagon; US Army; CentComm; Navy;
Marines; NSA; NSC; etc) combined with their partners in the corporate sector who sell them
the equipment: Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, General
Electric, SAIC, Huntington Ingalls, etc. The 'revolving door' between these two sectors is a
key aspect of the deep state: top ranking brass leave public service to take top positions at
these defense corporations, or become lobbyists for them to continue their multi-billion
dollar contracts at the government trough. The top officials at the security agencies often
have careers spanning decades: these people are 'the deep state' personified. Presidents come
and go, they are window dressing. The deep state calls the shots.
Maybe better to say 'Deep State shoots, and wants far more shooting'.
Just this day a former member of the EU Commission, he did Foreign Affairs, retired, appeared
on the leading German tv channel, with deep doubts about May's assertions, and deep concern
where the anti Russia propaganda will lead to.
He had negotiated with Putin, who he described a very rational man.
He still was quite emotional about the western lies that lead to the attack on Iraq.
BBC, or BBCW, did not watch it myself, broadcast the same interview, also, today.
One cannot fool all people for all times.
BS. The "power elite" in the US is associated with a clearly identifiable group, which
doesn't even hide its own tribal interest and allegiances. A parasite lodged in a host. Its
messianic DNA slowly unfolds and takes over the host's vital functions. Loss of identity and
cognitive ability are only phases preceding total destruction. The complicit host is
apparently fully and gleefully embracing its fate.
Yeah. Distract them with the race issue. Kill extra couple of blacks. Provoke riots. Seen
some money to BLM. And have the right and alt-right and all Sailers write about race , IQ
until they dissipate all energy they got.
It's impossible to overstate the significance of the survey. The data suggest that
representative democracy is a largely a fraud, that congressmen and senators are mostly
sock-puppets who do the bidding of wealthy powerbrokers, and that the entire system is
impervious to the will of the people.
How far-off it it to naming the Jews as the powerbrokers?
How far-off is the JQ – one year – two, three, four?
Lol yep here we go again it must be Russia and Putin,I sure hope nothing happens to
either, for if it did you would have nothing to live for,that grand place you live in would
be awful lonesome with out either to whine about ,.
It seems you may have missed the main thrust of the article. It is that the Deep State is
directing what Trump does or doesn't do. Trump may not like what he is doing but he has
little choice but to eat crap and comfort himself with vacuous bluster on Twitter.
Deep state?
Sounds like what they called "corporate state" a century ago, especially since there's
little hidden and nothing profound about it. Should be called "mafia state."
The Deep State wielded preponderant power over this nation at least by the time Lincoln
was buried, and its main actors then were virtually all pure WASPs (the non-Wasps were all
Protestants of Continental Germanic ancestry, some of them Saxons, as was Martin Luther).
Jews didn't become the major power in the US Deep State until well after WW2. Probably
after the assassination of JFK. Of course, you also need to face the many implications of the facts that Anglo-Saxon
Puritanism was a Judaizing heresy and that archetypal Mr. WASP himself Oliver Cromwell made
the alliance with Jews concrete.
WASP culture is doing what it always was meant to do.
The Deep State was called The Shadow Government in the 9o's.
And its the same thing it always was people and groups with ideologies or money
interest or power interest or foreign interest ..all trying to direct the government to serve
their interest.
And for the most part they have been successful in doing that.
"... "The invasion of Iraq is often spoken of in the United States as a 'blunder,' or even a 'colossal mistake.' It was a crime. Those who perpetrated it are still at large. Some of them have even been rehabilitated thanks to the horrors of Trumpism and a mostly amnesiac citizenry." ..."
The Iraq War architects have been thoroughly rehabilitated and are planning
their next adventure, even as the catastrophic ramifications of their crimes continue to
reverberate around the world. Last week marked the 15th anniversary of the American invasion of
Iraq in 2003. April 9 will be the 15th anniversary of the fall of Baghdad. The consequences of
these events are still playing out today, from Mali to Niger, to the Philippines. Iraq has
never recovered and is only beginning to emerge from the trauma, while American officials plan
the next military adventure.
Writing in the New York Times, Iraqi novelist Sinan Antoon
observed : "The invasion of Iraq is often spoken of in the United States as a
'blunder,' or even a 'colossal mistake.' It was a crime. Those who perpetrated it are still at
large. Some of them have even been rehabilitated thanks to the horrors of Trumpism and a mostly
amnesiac citizenry."
The rehabilitation of the neocons
Indeed, the rise of Trump has provided the cabal of Iraq War architects with a rebranding
opportunity. After their utter failure in Iraq, these people were largely disgraced and no
longer taken seriously outside of right-wing circles. But Trumpism, and the desire of liberals
to oust the current president, has led to an anti-Trump coalition which includes at its helm
many of the instrumental figures behind the Iraq invasion. The list includes David
"axis
of evil" Frum, former speechwriter to President George W. Bush and now a senior editor
at the Atlantic, as well as neoconservative think tanker Bill Kristol, and
George W. Bush , who is now celebrated as a pragmatic leader – even by nostalgic
Democrats who contrast him with Trump.
Trump's victory in the Republican primary on a seemingly isolationist platform, which was
obviously a facade, sent many of these neoconservatives running toward Hillary Clinton, the
Democratic nominee. Those who lined
up behind Clinton have since been embraced by the Democratic establishment, while the more
extreme neoconservative hawks who stuck by the Republican Party have effectively inserted
themselves into the Trump administration. The most recent and terrifying of these is John
Bolton, former US ambassador to the UN. Bolton played a key role in politicizing the
intelligence that was used to mislead the public about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And
now he is Trump's national security advisor.
Bolton is a neoconservative extremist who has never seen a country he didn't want to bomb.
On the top of his hit list is Iran and North Korea, though Bolton has expended most of his
energy
agitating for the US to bomb Iran , which he seeks to hand over to the Mujahedin E Khalq (MEK), a
cultish group of Iranian exiles that has received backing from Israeli intelligence and was
formerly classified as a terrorist organization by the United States.
In light of the Iraq war anniversary and the recent appointment of Bolton, it's a good time
to survey the damage that neocons such as Bolton caused in Iraq. The war left an estimated
1 million Iraqis
dead , 4.5 million displaced, 5 million orphaned, some 2 million widowed, and caused
birth
defects and cancer rates in some
Iraqi cities that are significantly worse than those seen in the aftermath of the atomic
bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan at the end of the Second World War.
The irony is that Trump's rise to the presidency is in many ways the fault of the Iraq War
architects. Their policies in Iraq, which were recycled in Libya and Syria, led to
the rise of Islamic State and the refugee crisis that fueled right-wing populists such as
Trump and his counterparts in Europe. The war in Iraq revived a jihadist movement that was dead
after the first few months of the war on Afghanistan, opening the floodgates to jihadists and
their supporters from around the world.
When the US dismantled the Iraqi state in 2003, instead of replacing it with a functioning
government it punished Sunni areas and installed a sectarian Shiite regime comprised of exiles
with no popular support in the country. The US essentially created a new category known as the
Sunni Arab and, where the state collapsed, it was Al-Qaeda who would fight on their behalf. The
inflammation of sectarian fears and lack of security resulted in a power vacuum that opened the
floodgates to Al-Qaeda in Iraq and ignited a gruesome civil war . AQI eventually morphed into
the Islamic State of Iraq. Before morphing into ISIS, ISI established an Al-Qaeda
offshoot in Syria called Jabhat al-Nusra, the strongest and most disciplined armed opposition
group in the country.
ISIS and Al-Qaeda groups cultivate and thrive off of stateless zones as well as a Sunni
Arab victimhood narrative , which started with the execution of Saddam Hussein and has been
propagated throughout the region by popular gulf-funded
religious figures and media outlets such as Al Jazeera Arabic .
Beheadings became a hallmark of the Al Qaeda branch in Iraq under Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who,
unlike Osama bin Laden began to focus on fighting the near enemy -- the Arab dictatorships,
secular people and minorities -- as opposed to the far enemy of the infidel west. We would
later see these beheadings in ISIS propaganda videos aimed at terrifying the west. There was a
theory in the past in bin Laden's era that you should fight the far enemy, the west, before the
near enemy. But under this new and evolved Al Qaeda, whether in Iraq or Yemen or Mali, we saw
local franchises focused on slaughtering their fellow countrymen, with particular genocidal
hatred for Shias.
The American occupation of an Arab country fueled this Salafi jihadist movement on a global
scale. The occupation led to sympathy for this Iraqi jihad throughout the Muslim world, which
meant foreign fighters coming in and a huge amount of funding from the gulf.
This global war on terror framework was also implemented by the US in countries such as
Somalia and Yemen and across North Africa as well.
The Iraq War gave us Donald Trump
In spite of America's criminal disaster in Iraq, Barack Obama continued to implement regime
change policies in both Libya and Syria by funding and arming right-wing insurgencies made up
of none other than Al-Qaeda affiliates, the very ideology the US was supposedly fighting in its
global war on terror. Like in Iraq, US intervention led to the rise of a failed state in Libya
and in much of Syria.
In Syria, these failed state zones were then filled by thousands of foreign fighters coming
in from the Turkish border, which the US tolerated as a means to put pressure on the Syrian
regime, hoping the regime would offer concessions, which of course it never did. ISIS
eventually took over many of these failed state areas and began kidnapping westerners and the
group made millions of dollars in ransom money
as a result.
The massive refugee flows which resulted from the US encouraging war and regime change in
the Middle East led to the destabilization of much of Europe and to some extent, the rise of
Donald Trump, who campaigned on the fear-mongering of ISIS, refugees and Muslims. You can trace
all these and other terrible consequences to the US decision to encourage war and state
collapse rather than to prioritize stability and order in the Middle East. It all started with
the Iraq War.
The gift that keeps on giving
The ramifications of the Iraq War are still playing out today, having inspired Salafi
jihadist movements from the
Philippines to Mali and even
Niger , where US soldiers were recently killed by jihadists.
Moreover, the war in Iraq, according to the very people who architected it, has strengthened
Iran in the region. That isn't necessarily a bad thing given that Iran and its partners, such
as Hezbollah and the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), were crucial to defeating ISIS in
Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. But a strengthened Iran is a nightmare for the US as it threatens
American, Saudi and Israeli hegemony in the region. So, the Iraq war planners are using the
strong position of Iran – created by neoconservative policies – to push for a war
with Iran. They've also expanded their hit list to include Russia, who they're still hoping to
escalate against in Syria.
With Bolton as Trump's national security advisor, a war with Iran is now much more likely.
For the war industry and the neocons who lobby for it, the Iraq war they started is the gift
that keeps on giving.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Rania Khalek is an American journalist, writer and political commentator based in the Middle East.
"... It's impossible to overstate the significance of the survey. The data suggest that representative democracy is a largely a fraud, that congressmen and senators are mostly sock-puppets who do the bidding of wealthy powerbrokers, and that the entire system is impervious to the will of the people. These are pretty damning results and a clear indication of how corrupt the system really is. ..."
"... So, along with the fact, that most Americans think democracy is a pipe-dream, a clear majority also believe that the country has changed into a frightening, lock-down police state in which government agents gather all-manner of electronic communications on everyone without the slightest suspicion of wrongdoing. ..."
"... There's no doubt in my mind that the relentless attacks on Donald Trump have reinforced the public's belief that the country is controlled by an invisible group of elites whose agents in the bureaucracy follow their diktats ..."
"... Brennan says "America will triumph over you." But whose America is he talking about? The American people elected Trump, he is the legitimate president of the United States. Many people may not like his policies, but they respect the system that put him in office. ..."
"... Brennan and his cadres of rogue agents have been at war with Trump since Day 1. Brennan does not accept the results of the election because it did not produce the outcome that he and his powerful constituents wanted. Brennan wants to destroy Trump. He even admits as much in his statement. ..."
"... And why do Brennan and his fatcat allies hate Trump so much? They don't. Because it's not really about Trump. It's about the presidency, the highest office in the land. The US Plutocrat Class honestly believe that they are entitled to govern the country that they physically own. It's theirs, they own it and they are taking it back. That's what this is all about ..."
On Monday, the Monmouth University Polling Institute released the results of a survey that
found that "a large bipartisan majority feel that national policy is being manipulated or
directed by a 'Deep State' of unelected government officials ..
[1] Public Troubled By Deep State, Monmouth University Polling Institute
The Monmouth University Poll was conducted by telephone from March 2 to 5, 2018
with 803 adults in the United States. The results in this release have a margin of error of +/-
3.5 percent. The poll was conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute in West Long
Branch, NJ.
According to the survey:" 6-in-10 Americans (60%) feel that unelected or appointed
government officials have too much influence in determining federal policy. Just 26% say the
right balance of power exists between elected and unelected officials in determining policy.
Democrats (59%), Republicans (59%) and independents (62%) agree that appointed officials hold
too much sway in the federal government. ("Public Troubled by 'Deep State", Monmouth.edu)
The survey appears to confirm that democracy in the United States is largely a sham. Our
elected representatives are not the agents of political change, but cogs in a vast bureaucratic
machine that operates mainly in the interests of the behemoth corporations and banks.
Surprisingly, most Americans have not been taken in by the media's promotional hoopla about
elections and democracy. They have a fairly-decent grasp of how the system works and who
ultimately benefits from it. Check it out:
" Few Americans (13%) are very familiar with the term "Deep State ;" another 24%
are somewhat familiar, while 63% say they are not familiar with this term. However, when
the term is described as a group of unelected government and military officials who secretly
manipulate or direct national policy, nearly 3-in-4 (74%) say they believe this type of
apparatus exists in Washington. Only 1-in-5 say it does not exist." Belief in the
probable existence of a Deep State comes from more than 7-in-10 Americans in each partisan
group "
So while the cable news channels dismiss anyone who believes in the "Deep State" as a
conspiracy theorist, it's clear that the majority of people think that's how the system really
works, that is, "a group of unelected government and military officials secretly manipulate or
direct national policy."
It's impossible to overstate the significance of the survey. The data suggest that
representative democracy is a largely a fraud, that congressmen and senators are mostly
sock-puppets who do the bidding of wealthy powerbrokers, and that the entire system is
impervious to the will of the people. These are pretty damning results and a clear indication
of how corrupt the system really is.
The Monmouth survey also found that "A majority of the American public believe that the U.S.
government engages in widespread monitoring of its own citizens and worry that the U.S.
government could be invading their own privacy." .
"Fully 8-in-10 believe that the U.S. government currently monitors or spies on the
activities of American citizens, including a majority (53%)who say this activity is
widespread Few Americans (18%) say government monitoring or spying on U.S. citizens is
usually justified, with most (53%) saying it is only sometimes justified. Another 28% say
this activity is rarely or never justified ." ("Public Troubled by 'Deep State",
Monmouth.edu)
So, along with the fact, that most Americans think democracy is a pipe-dream, a clear
majority also believe that the country has changed into a frightening, lock-down police state
in which government agents gather all-manner of electronic communications on everyone without
the slightest suspicion of wrongdoing. Once again, the data suggests that the American people
know what is going on, know that the US has gone from a reasonably free country where civil
liberties were protected under the law, to a state-of-the-art surveillance state ruled by
invisible elites who see the American people as an obstacle to their global ambitions–but
their awareness has not evolved into an organized movement for change. In any event, the public
seems to understand that the USG is not as committed to human rights and civil liberties as the
media would have one believe. That's a start.
There's no doubt in my mind that the relentless attacks on Donald Trump have reinforced the
public's belief that the country is controlled by an invisible group of elites whose agents in
the bureaucracy follow their diktats. From the time Trump became the GOP presidential nominee
more than 18 months ago, a powerful faction of the Intelligence Community, law enforcement
(FBI) and even elements form the Obama DOJ, have vigorously tried to sabotage his presidency,
his credibility and his agenda. Without a scintilla of hard evidence to make their case, this
same group and their dissembling allies in the media, have cast Trump as a disloyal
collaborator who conspired to win the election by colluding with a foreign government. The
magnitude of this fabrication is beyond anything we've seen before in American political
history, and the absence of any verifiable proof makes it all the more alarming. As it happens,
the Deep State is so powerful it can wage a full-blown assault on the highest elected office in
the country without even showing probable cause. In other words, the president of the United
States is not even accorded the same rights as a common crook. How does that happen?
Over the weekend, former CIA Director and "Russia-gate" ringleader John Brennan fired off an
angry salvo at Trump on his Twitter account. Here's what he said:
"When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes
known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history.
You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America America will triumph over
you."
Doesn't Brennan's statement help to reinforce the public's belief in the Deep State? How
does a career bureaucrat who has never been elected to public office decide that it is
appropriate to use the credibility of his former office to conduct a pitch-battle with the
President of the United States?
Brennan says "America will triumph over you." But whose America is he talking about? The
American people elected Trump, he is the legitimate president of the United States. Many people
may not like his policies, but they respect the system that put him in office.
Not so, Brennan. Brennan and his cadres of rogue agents have been at war with Trump since
Day 1. Brennan does not accept the results of the election because it did not produce the
outcome that he and his powerful constituents wanted. Brennan wants to destroy Trump. He even
admits as much in his statement.
And Brennan has been given a platform on the cable news channels so he can continue his
assault on the presidency, not because he can prove that Trump is guilty of collusion or
obstruction or whatever, but because the people who own the media have mobilized their deep
state agents to carry out their vendetta to remove Trump from office by any means possible.
This is the "America" of which Brennan speaks. Not my America, but deep state America.
And why do Brennan and his fatcat allies hate Trump so much? They don't. Because it's not really about Trump. It's about the presidency, the highest office in the land. The US Plutocrat
Class honestly believe that they are entitled to govern the country that they physically own. It's theirs, they own it and they
are taking it back. That's what this is all about
Former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz
spells out what the nuclear deal with Iran does and what withdrawing from it would
mean:
Conversely, if Trump withdraws the United States from the agreement, with Iran complying
and with our allies clearly committed to its continuation, he will have compromised the most
stringent nuclear verification standard ever achieved, with no credible prospect for
restoring or improving it [bold mine-DL]. Such a move would hand Iran a political "wedge"
dividing the international community, and undercut vital arguments for verification of any
agreement reached with North Korea.
Opponents of the deal often claim to be against it because it isn't "tough" enough, but as
Moniz explains the deal contains the "most robust verification measures the world has ever
known." Withdrawing from the deal means throwing that away for no good reason. If Trump follows
through on his threat to withdraw, he will confirm that his complaints about the agreement were
made in bad faith. Reneging on the deal just because some of its restrictions expire after a
decade or more gives the game away. It gives Iran the excuse to ignore some or all of the
deal's restrictions immediately instead of having some of them lifted in the 2020s or 2030s.
We're supposed to believe that the gradual expiration of some restrictions is so intolerable
that we should throw away all of the restrictions right away. It's a completely irrational
position, and so it's obviously just a bad excuse for killing an agreement that Iran hawks
never wanted.
If Iran is supposed to ratify the Additional
Protocol that it is currently implementing voluntarily. Ratification will make these
verification measures permanent, and that will make ensuring that Iran abides by its NPT
obligations much easier. Blowing up the deal now would give Iran an excuse to stop voluntarily
complying with the Additional Protocol years before they have to ratify it. Sina Azodi
suggests that this is how Iran might respond to a U.S. withdrawal:
One possible response to a US withdrawal would be for Iran to declare that it will no
longer implement the Additional Protocol of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. This
supplementary protocol significantly enhances the ability of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) to monitor and verify Iran's compliance with the JCPOA.
Under the agreement, Iran is required to implement the protocol and to ratify it within
eight years of the January 2016 implementation of the JCPOA. If the deal collapses, Iran will
no longer feel obliged to allow the intrusive inspections required by the protocol or to
ratify it. This would significantly reduce the IAEA's ability to monitor Iran's nuclear
activities. However, this seems to be a relatively safe option for Iran, since implementation
of the protocol is on a voluntary basis.
As Azodi explains, this is the least provocative response available to Iran, and it allows
Iran to further divide the U.S. and our European allies, who remain committed to honoring the
agreement. It's also quite possible that Iran will follow the U.S. out of the deal to protest
the resumption of U.S. sanctions. Either way, the verification measures that make the JCPOA
such a strong nonproliferation agreement will be lost.
The verification measures in the deal were so stringent because of the fear that Iran
wouldn't keep its side of the bargain, but if the deal dies it won't be because of Iranian
cheating. Opponents of the deal have shown that the one truly fatal flaw of the deal was that
it contained no provision to make sure that the U.S. fulfills its obligations. Posted in
foreign
policy , politics . Tagged
Iran ,
IAEA ,
Donald Trump ,
JCPOA
, Sina Azodi , Ernest
Moniz .
"... My short visit only confirmed my conviction and fear that the invasion would spell disaster for Iraqis. Removing Saddam was just a byproduct of another objective: dismantling the Iraqi state and its institutions. That state was replaced with a dysfunctional and corrupt semi-state. ..."
"... Paul Bremer III, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, announced the formation of the so-called Governing Council in July 2003. The names of its members were each followed by their sect and ethnicity . Many of the Iraqis we spoke to on that day were upset with institutionalization of an ethno-sectarian quota system. Ethnic and sectarian tensions already existed, but their translation into political currency was toxic. Those unsavory characters on the governing council, most of whom were allies of the United States from the preceding decade, went on to loot the country, making it one of the most corrupt in the world. ..."
"... The next time I returned to Baghdad was in 2013. The American tanks were gone, but the effects of the occupation were everywhere. I had low expectations, but I was still disheartened by the ugliness of the city where I had grown up and horrified by how dysfunctional, difficult and dangerous daily life had become for the great majority of Iraqis. ..."
"... I didn't expect the beautiful Basra I'd seen on 1970s postcards. That city had long disappeared. But the Basra I saw was so exhausted and polluted. The city had suffered a great deal during the Iran-Iraq war, and its decline accelerated after 2003. Basra was pale, dilapidated and chaotic thanks to the rampant corruption. Its rivers are polluted and ebbing. ..."
"... Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion) , and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter . ..."
Photo
A statue of Saddam Hussein
in front of the burning National Olympic Committee in Baghdad in 2003.
Credit
Tyler Hicks/The New
York Times
When I was 12, Saddam
Hussein, vice president of Iraq at the time, carried out a huge purge and officially usurped total power. I was
living in Baghdad then, and I developed an intuitive, visceral hatred of the dictator early on. That feeling only
intensified and matured as I did. In the late 1990s, I wrote my first novel, "I'jaam: An Iraqi Rhapsody," about
daily life under Saddam's authoritarian regime. Furat, the narrator
,
was a young college student
studying English literature at Baghdad University, as I had. He ends up in prison for cracking a joke about the
dictator. Furat hallucinates and imagines Saddam's fall, just as I often did. I hoped I would witness that
moment, whether in Iraq or from afar.
I left Iraq a few months
after the 1991 Gulf War and went to graduate school in the United States, where I've been ever since. In 2002,
when the cheerleading for the Iraq war started, I was vehemently against the proposed invasion. The United States
had consistently supported dictators in the Arab world and was not in the business of exporting democracy,
irrespective of the Bush administration's slogans. I recalled sitting in my family's living room with my aunt
when I was a teenager, watching Iraqi television and seeing Donald Rumsfeld visiting Baghdad as an emissary from
Ronald Reagan and
shaking hands with Saddam
. That
memory made Mr. Rumsfeld's words in 2002 about freedom and democracy for Iraqis seem hollow. Moreover, having
lived through two previous wars (the Iran-Iraq war of 1980 to 1988 and the Gulf War of 1991), I knew that the
actual objectives of war were always camouflaged by well-designed lies that exploit collective fear and
perpetuate national myths.
I was one of about 500
Iraqis in the diaspora -- of various ethnic and political backgrounds, many of whom were dissidents and victims of
Saddam's regime -- who signed a petition: "No to war on Iraq. No to dictatorship." While condemning Saddam's reign
of terror, we were against a "war that would cause more death and suffering" for innocent Iraqis and one that
threatened to push the entire region into violent chaos. Our voices were not welcomed in mainstream media in the
United States, which preferred the pro-war Iraqi-American who promised cheering crowds that would welcome
invaders with "sweets and flowers." There were none.
The petition didn't make
much of an impact. Fifteen years ago today, the invasion of Iraq began.
Three months later, I
returned to Iraq for the first time since 1991 as part of a collective to film a documentary about Iraqis in a
post-Saddam Iraq. We wanted to show my countrymen as three-dimensional beings, beyond the binary of Saddam versus
the United States. In American media, Iraqis had been reduced to either victims of Saddam who longed for
occupation or supporters and defenders of dictatorship who opposed the war. We wanted Iraqis to speak for
themselves. For two weeks, we drove around Baghdad and spoke to many of its residents. Some were still hopeful,
despite being drained by years of sanctions and dictatorship. But many were furious and worried about what was to
come. The signs were already there: the typical arrogance and violence of a colonial occupying power.
Every weekday, get thought-provoking commentary from Op-Ed columnists, the Times editorial
board and contributing writers from around the world.
My short visit only
confirmed my conviction and fear that the invasion would spell disaster for Iraqis. Removing Saddam was just a
byproduct of another objective: dismantling the Iraqi state and its institutions. That state was replaced with a
dysfunctional and corrupt semi-state. We were still filming in Baghdad when L. Paul Bremer III, the head of the
Coalition Provisional Authority,
announced the formation
of the so-called Governing Council in July 2003. The names of its members were each
followed by their
sect and ethnicity
. Many of the Iraqis we
spoke to on that day were upset with institutionalization of an ethno-sectarian quota system. Ethnic and
sectarian tensions already existed, but their translation into political currency was toxic. Those unsavory
characters on the governing council, most of whom were allies of the United States from the preceding decade,
went on to loot the country, making it one of the most corrupt in the world.
We
were fortunate to have been able to shoot our film in that brief period during which there was relative public
security. Shortly after our visit, Iraq descended into violence; suicide bombings became the norm. The invasion
made my country a magnet for terrorists ("We'll fight them there so we don't have to fight them here," President
George W. Bush had said), and Iraq later descended into a sectarian civil war that claimed the lives of hundreds
of thousands of civilians and displaced hundreds of thousands more, irrevocably changing the country's
demography.
The
next time I returned to Baghdad was in 2013. The American tanks were gone, but the effects of the occupation were
everywhere. I had low expectations, but I was still disheartened by the ugliness of the city where I had grown up and
horrified by how dysfunctional, difficult and dangerous daily life had become for the great majority of Iraqis.
My last visit was in April
2017. I flew from New York, where I now live, to Kuwait, where I was giving a lecture. An Iraqi friend and I crossed
the border by land. I was going to the city of Basra, in the south of Iraq. Basra was the only major Iraqi city I had
not visited before. I was going to sign my books at the Friday book market of al-Farahidi Street, a weekly gathering
for bibliophiles modeled after the famous
Mutanabbi Street book market
in Baghdad. I was driven around by friends. I didn't expect the beautiful Basra I'd
seen on 1970s postcards. That city had long disappeared. But the Basra I saw was so exhausted and polluted. The city
had suffered a great deal during the Iran-Iraq war, and its decline accelerated after 2003. Basra was pale,
dilapidated and chaotic thanks to the rampant corruption. Its rivers are polluted and ebbing. Nonetheless, I made a
pilgrimage to the famous statue of Iraq's greatest poet, Badr Shakir al-Sayyab.
One of the few sources of joy
for me during these short visits were the encounters with Iraqis who had read my novels and were moved by them. These
were novels I had written from afar, and through them, I tried to grapple with the painful disintegration of an
entire country and the destruction of its social fabric. These texts are haunted by the ghosts of the dead, just as
their author is.
No one knows for certain how
many Iraqis have died as a result of the invasion 15 years ago. Some credible estimates put the number at more than
one million. You can read that sentence again. The invasion of Iraq is often spoken of in the United States as a
"blunder," or even a "colossal mistake." It was a crime. Those who perpetrated it are still at large. Some of them
have even been rehabilitated thanks to the horrors of Trumpism and a mostly amnesiac citizenry. (A year ago, I
watched Mr. Bush on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," dancing and talking about his paintings.) The pundits and "experts"
who sold us the war still go on doing what they do. I never thought that Iraq could ever be worse than it was during
Saddam's reign, but that is what America's war achieved and bequeathed to Iraqis.
Within a week after Brennan's 'routine' visit in April 2014 to the Ukraine the Ukrainian army
launched a civil war. That was within 2 weeks of the CIA instigated coup an the end of
February 2014.
"... Trump himself has pledged to walk away from the Iran nuclear deal -- "the worst deal ever" -- and reimpose sanctions in May. His new national security adviser John Bolton, who wrote an op-ed titled "To Stop Iran's Bomb, Bomb Iran," has called for preemptive strikes and "regime change." Secretary of State-designate Mike Pompeo calls Iran "a thuggish police state," a "despotic theocracy," and "the vanguard of a pernicious empire that is expanding its power and influence across the Middle East." ..."
"... China and Russia would not abrogate the deal but would welcome Iran into their camp. England, France and Germany would have to choose between the deal and the U.S. And if Airbus were obligated to spurn Iran's orders for hundreds of new planes, how would that sit with the Europeans? ..."
"... How would North Korea react if the U.S. trashed a deal where Iran, after accepting severe restrictions on its nuclear program and allowing intrusive inspections, were cheated of the benefits the Americans promised? ..."
The last man standing between the U.S. and war with Iran may be a four-star general
affectionately known to his Marines as "Mad Dog."
Gen. James Mattis, the secretary of defense, appears to be the last man in the Situation
Room who believes the Iran nuclear deal may be worth preserving and that war with Iran is a
dreadful idea. Yet, other than Mattis, President Donald Trump seems to be creating a war
cabinet.
Trump himself has pledged to walk away from the Iran nuclear deal -- "the worst deal
ever" -- and reimpose sanctions in May. His new national security adviser John Bolton, who
wrote an op-ed titled "To Stop Iran's Bomb, Bomb Iran," has called for preemptive strikes and
"regime change." Secretary of State-designate Mike Pompeo calls Iran "a thuggish police state,"
a "despotic theocracy," and "the vanguard of a pernicious empire that is expanding its power
and influence across the Middle East."
Trump's favorite Arab ruler, 32-year-old Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman, calls Iran's
Ayatollah Khamenei "the Hitler of the Middle East." Bibi Netanyahu is monomaniacal on Iran,
calling the nuclear deal a threat to Israel's survival and Iran "the greatest threat to our
world." U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley echoes them all.
Yet Iran appears not to want a war. U.N. inspectors routinely confirm that Iran is strictly
abiding by the terms of the nuclear deal. While U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf often
encountered Iranian "fast attack" boats and drones between January 2016 and August 2017, that
has stopped. Vessels of both nations have operated virtually without incident. What would be
the result of Trump's trashing of the nuclear deal?
First would be the isolation of the United States.
China and Russia would not abrogate the deal but would welcome Iran into their camp.
England, France and Germany would have to choose between the deal and the U.S. And if Airbus
were obligated to spurn Iran's orders for hundreds of new planes, how would that sit with the
Europeans?
How would North Korea react if the U.S. trashed a deal where Iran, after accepting
severe restrictions on its nuclear program and allowing intrusive inspections, were cheated of
the benefits the Americans promised?
Why would Pyongyang, having seen us attack Iraq, which had no WMD, and Libya, which had
given up its WMD to mollify us, ever consider given up its nuclear weapons -- especially after
seeing the leaders of both nations executed?
And, should the five other signatories to the Iran deal continue with it despite us, and
Iran agree to abide by its terms, what do we do then?
Find a casus belli to go to war? Why? How does Iran threaten us?
A war, which would involve U.S. warships against swarms of Iranian torpedo boats could shut
down the Persian Gulf to oil traffic and produce a crisis in the global economy. Anti-American
Shiite jihadists in Beirut, Baghdad and Bahrain could attack U.S. civilian and military
personnel.
As the Army and Marine Corps do not have the troops to invade and occupy Iran, would we have
to reinstate the draft?
And if we decided to blockade and bomb Iran, we would have to take out all its anti-ship
missiles, submarines, navy, air force, ballistic missiles and air defense system.
And would not a pre-emptive strike on Iran unite its people in hatred of us, just as Japan's
pre-emptive strike on Pearl Harbor united us in a determination to annihilate her empire?
What would the Dow Jones average look like after an attack on Iran?
Trump was nominated because he promised to keep us out of stupid wars like those into which
folks like John Bolton and the Bush Republicans plunged us.
After 17 years, we are still mired in Afghanistan, trying to keep the Taliban we overthrew
in 2001 from returning to Kabul. Following our 2003 invasion, Iraq, once a bulwark against
Iran, became a Shiite ally of Iran.
The rebels we supported in Syria have been routed. And Bashar Assad -- thanks to backing
from Russia, Iran, Hezbollah and Shiite militias from the Middle East and Central Asia -- has
secured his throne.
The Kurds who trusted us have been hammered by our NATO ally Turkey in Syria, and by the
Iraqi Army we trained in Iraq.
What is Trump, who assured us there would be no more stupid wars, thinking? Truman and LBJ
got us into wars they could not end, and both lost their presidencies. Eisenhower and Nixon
ended those wars and were rewarded with landslides.
After his smashing victory in Desert Storm, Bush I was denied a second term. After invading
Iraq, Bush II lost both houses of Congress in 2006, and his party lost the presidency in 2008
to the antiwar Barack Obama.
Once Trump seemed to understand this history.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, "Nixon's White House Wars: The
Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever."
The Russian government called the expulsions "a provocative gesture" and said it would
retaliate in kind, raising the prospect of further tit-for-tat expulsions, as the US and Europe
left the door open for additional measures. The Kremlin said Vladimir Putin would make the
final decision, and the Russian embassy in the US launched a poll on Twitter asking which US
consulate in Russia should be closed.
The US has ordered the expulsion of 60 Russian officials who Washington says are spies,
including a dozen based at the United Nations, and told Moscow to shut down its consulate in
Seattle, which would end Russian diplomatic representation on the west coast.
The EU members Germany, France and Poland are each to expel four Russian diplomats with
intelligence agency backgrounds. Lithuania and the Czech Republic said they would expel three,
and Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands two each. Estonia, Latvia, Croatia, Finland, Hungary,
Sweden and Romania each expelled one Russian. Iceland announced it would not be sending
officials to the World Cup in Russia .
Ukraine, which is not an EU member, is to expel 13 Russian diplomats, while Albania, an EU
candidate member, ordered the departure of two Russians from the embassy in Tirana. Macedonia,
another EU candidate, expelled one Russian official.
Canada announced it was expelling four diplomatic staff serving in Ottawa and Montreal who
the Canadian government said were spies. A pending application from Moscow for three more
diplomatic posts in Canada is being denied.
Raj Shah, a White House spokesperson, told reporters Monday that the US expulsions were part
of "a coordinated effort".
He added that Donald Trump "spoke with many foreign leaders, European allies and others and
encouraged them to join with the United States in this announcement".
"... made a fairly desultory expulsion of a diplomat or two or three, but the United States' act is a kind of declaration of war, all the more surprising given that according to the deep state, and the liberal confluence in the United States, President Trump is Russia's man ..."
"... "precursor to a very sharp deterioration of relations" ..."
"... deep state opponents" ..."
"... "If it were me who was making the decision, I certainly wouldn't proceed on the assumption that being soft will in any way satiate the ravenous beasts that are baying for Russia's blood at this point in time," ..."
"... "As far as I can see there is no investigation, ..."
"... "The verdict was declared before the investigation began and I think there's no investigation because the results of any serious scientific analytical investigation would show that the allegations against Russia are baseless." ..."
"... "I don't believe that Russia is responsible for this act. And the good news is that most of the British public tend to agree," ..."
British politician, broadcaster, and writer George Galloway has slammed Donald Trump's decision to expel 60 Russian diplomats
and close the Russian consulate in Seattle. Galloway regards it as tantamount to a "declaration of war." Galloway contrasted the
US' actions with those of EU member states. Those EU countries who rushed to follow the lead of Britain and the US in response to
the poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal are simply acting as "vassal states," doing what they are told.
European states have " made a fairly desultory expulsion of a diplomat or two or three, but the United States' act is a kind
of declaration of war, all the more surprising given that according to the deep state, and the liberal confluence in the United States,
President Trump is Russia's man ," Galloway told RT.
The former British MP said the decision to leave just 40 Russian diplomats to do their jobs in the US was either a "precursor
to a very sharp deterioration of relations" -- or alternatively a "charade " designed to make Trump's " deep state
opponents" lay off him over not being tough enough on Russia.
Galloway said Russia should not assume that being soft in response to Trump's action will have any desirable effect.
"If it were me who was making the decision, I certainly wouldn't proceed on the assumption that being soft will in any way
satiate the ravenous beasts that are baying for Russia's blood at this point in time," he said.
According to Galloway, the UK has not conducted a serious and unbiased investigation into the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter.
"As far as I can see there is no investigation, " he said. "The verdict was declared before the investigation began
and I think there's no investigation because the results of any serious scientific analytical investigation would show that the allegations
against Russia are baseless."
Galloway said there are still many questions which have been left unanswered in the Skripal case.
"I don't believe that Russia is responsible for this act. And the good news is that most of the British public tend to agree,"
he said.
Trump Expels 60 Russian Diplomats as World Slides Towards War Tyler Durden (
Zerohedge ) 9 hours ago | 4,602
314 President Trump has reportedly ordered the expulsion of 60 Russians from the United States on Monday, including 12 people
identified as Russian intelligence officers who have been stationed at the United Nations in New York, in response to Russia's alleged
poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain.
As The New
York Times reports, the expulsion order, announced by administration officials, also closes the Russian consulate in Seattle.
The Russians and their families have seven days to leave the United States, according to officials.
The expulsions are the toughest action taken against the Kremlin by President Trump, who has been criticized for not being
firm enough with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
In a call with reporters, senior White House officials said that the move was to root out Russians actively engaging in intelligence
operations against the country, and to show that the United States would stand with NATO allies.
The officials said that the closure of the consulate in Seattle was ordered because of its proximity to a U.S. naval base.
The expulsion of 60 diplomats is the most sweeping since the Reagan administration ordered 55 diplomats out of the country in
1986.
As The Washington Post reports, a senior administration official, who was only authorized to discuss the actions on the condition
of anonymity, commented:
"This was a reckless attempt by the government to murder a British citizens and his daughter on British soil with a nerve agent,"
"It cannot go unanswered."
Deep State 1 - 0 Trump.
"To the Russian government, we say, when you attack our friend you will face serious consequences," said a senior administration
official.
"As we have continually stressed to Moscow, the door to dialogue is open." But, this official continued, Russia must "cease
its recklessly aggressive behavior."
Last week EU leaders declared in a statement that it was "highly likely" there was "no plausible alternative explanation" other
than Russia being to blame. Today, EU Council President Tusk announces that 14 EU nations will expel Russian diplomats...
... US Senator Ernest Hollings was moved in May 2004 to acknowledge that the US invaded Iraq
"to secure Israel," and "everybody" knows it.
...who played an important role in prodding the US into war: Richard Perle, chair of the
Pentagon's Defense Policy Board; Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defense Secretary; and Charles
Krauthammer, columnist and author.
Hollings referred to the cowardly reluctance of his Congressional colleagues to
acknowledge this truth openly, saying that "nobody is willing to stand up and say what is
going on ."
Due to "the pressures we get politically," he added, members of Congress uncritically
support Israel and its policies.
Remarks by Ernest F. Hollings, May 20, 2004. Congressional Record -- Senate, May 20, 2004,
pages S5921-S5925. Also ""Iraq Was Invaded to Secure Israel
"... The mainstream media here in Germany, which is entirely and 100% under CIA control ..."
"... yes.... 100% right..... the servility of Germany with Merkel is disgusting and unbearable ..."
"... It's what one expects from Merkel and her NWO domesticated admin. EU gov'ts have been crying wolf for so long that few now believe a word coming from their media. ..."
I have the same worries. The mainstream media here in Germany, which is entirely and
100% under CIA control , has been ramping up anti-Russia propaganda since weeks. I
didn't think it would be possible after the Ukraine conflict but it is even worse now. The
comments of this filthy lunatic Boris Johnson but also of his boss-bitch Theresa May have
been way below any line of decency. It's even below the kind of rhetoric Hitler has used when
he talked about other statesmen such as (this fat, ugly war-criminal and mass murderer)
Winston Churchill.
But it's not "the West" that is going to war, it is the Anglo-American establishment.
"West" is an artificial propaganda term that should not be used anyway, because all it
denotes is the countries dominated by Anglo-America. Germany and France, the only countries
powerful enough to stop Anglo-American madness, are usually dancing to the tune of
Warshington and London, but I am not so sure if they will really go all the way here,
especially with Iran. Also and despite all the propaganda, while German and French people may
not trust Russia and see Putin as a "dictator", they also see the US regime (especially with
the Trumpet in charge) as nothing but a dangerous, trigger-happy war machinery. There is no
way you could sell a war against Iran to them, also not the rest of Europe including Britain.
I even have doubts about whether the American public would swallow such a war.
Either way, it will be a disaster for the "West" - economically, politically, militarily.
In fact, it will be the end of the "West" and of the Anglo-American empire including the
Zionist colony. So in the end there might be a great result of yet another horror. What
Russia really needs to do now is to give both Syria and Iran the full power of Russian air
defence.
Having spent some time in Germany, I have to agree with these comments. If you think the
Propaganda is bad in the US and the UK, in Germany it is even worse. It is almost as if they
are in competition to be the most servile and obedient to their masters. It is if history
doesn't even exist. It is 1941 all over again. The difference being Germany has nothing to
fight with and if it comes to war they will be absolutely pulverized to nuclear ash.
This is how stupid the media is to hype this Anti-Russian propaganda 24/7, 7 days a week.
There is no real "alternative" news that I could find either. If there is a silver lining in
all this though, is that many Germans don't take the media seriously at all anymore. When you
overcook the pot, this is what can happen. Just like that fool Boris Johnson. He has now
compared Putin to Hitler and the 1936 olympics. How stupid can this buffoon be? You think you
can just carry on with business as usual once this stupid provocation with the poisoned spy
blows over after saying something like that? He hasn't just insulted Putin, he has insulted
all of Russia who sacrificed more than any other country to stop Hitler. I can't believe what
low IQ clowns the UK is producing as politicians these days. It is really scraping the bottom
of the barrel.
Has Germany ever had an election without US interference? I would imagine that securing
power for anyone they choose in the EU has been a doddle for the US, even Hitler's daughter.
That would be a sick joke typical of US neocons.
As a former journalist in Germany I agree. All German news and current affairs are
sanitized. People who object to too much power in the hands of the US on German soil or who
are against the wars will be sidelined or blacklisted, depending on what their job is. "They"
prepare for a new war, or they would not need a new billion $ military hospital near
Ramstein. It said in one article that the German government could not prevent it and had to
contribute, too. Pawns.
On the whole, though, what they prepare is NOT a war by the West, it is by the US for Full
Spectrum Dominance. They rope in allies,sure, but I'd like to be optimistic. After the Iraq
and ME experiences the populations (also here in Australia) are not enthusiastic. So maybe
this time it will be US vs .... and they cannot hide behind a coalition.
The governments of Germany and Australia always kowtow of course. Ramstein and Pine Gap
are crucial for the warmongers.
Thank you for recognizing this, but you're wrong about the German alternative scene. I
think it is one of the strongest out there, it is just, well, German. Not so aggressive and
more analytical. If you ask me, what the world needs is German Spirit, but this spirit has
been oppressed (largely voluntarily, I admit) for the past 70 years or so, but it is still
there.
And when I say German, I mean the real meaning of it, so the cultural heritage of the
German language. Switzerland, Austria and others are definitely included. Do you speak
German?
It's what one expects from Merkel and her NWO domesticated admin. EU gov'ts have been
crying wolf for so long that few now believe a word coming from their media. Most sit
there and view it all as a form of entertainment. Maybe it's the reason why many people in
the west are ambivalent.
Bolton would be on with this idea. I expect Trump go ahead with a military bombing of
nuclear reactor sites and Government/military sites as envisage by Pompeo. They dare not try
for a full invasion as they will most likely lose. What will be Iran's reaction be?
What could Iran do? They might get Hezbollah to initiate contact with Israel. Try to sink
US navy assets where ever they are. Spread the campaign to Afghanistan. Attack Saudi Arabia
with missiles. However if the US peruses this course I believe it will be a brief attack
lassting 2/3 weeks, whereby a brokered peace to stop US action. But I could be wrong.
Basically McMaster started clearing out the Israel Zios in the department ...including
several who violate security rules on top secret info. The report list person after person
McMaster canned and the ZOA is furious all their inside boys were turned out.
Very cleverly the report is presented to Trump as McMaster firing all the 'Pro Trumpers"
because McMasters is ''anti Trump''.
So the ZOA are now Trump Loyalist..lol...just pledge your loyalty to Trump and he'll
follow you like a puppy.
I am beginning to wonder though if there is a small but growing number of upper rank
military that are trying to weed out the bomb Iran Zionist.
"... The Iranian regime, in my mind, is the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East...For all the talk of ISIS and Al Qaida everywhere right now they're a very serious threat. But nothing is as serious in the long term enduring ramifications, in terms of stability and prosperity and some hope for a better future for the young people out there, than Iran. ..."
"... We know that vacuums left in the Middle East seem to be filled by either terrorists or by Iran or their surrogates or Russia In order to restore deterrence, we have to show capability, capacity and resolve. ..."
"... Using our special neocon-speak translator, we see that "capability, capacity and resolve" actually means "weapons, deployments, and wars." No wonder Kristol and company are touting this man as their savior. ..."
The neocons have been in a panic this election season. One by
one, their preferred choice for the Republican presidential nomination has been soundly
rejected by the uncooperative American voting public. Sen. Lindsey Graham made a run for the
nomination saying , "If
you're tired of war, don't vote for me," and nobody did. Perhaps the idea of perpetual war to
the very last US dollar is beginning to wear thin among Republican voters.
Though the two Republicans left standing, Sen. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, have endorsed
sending thousands of troops into the Middle East and even turning the sand into glass with a
nuclear weapon, they are viewed as not reliably neoconservative enough for the Beltway
bombardiers. William Kristol, absolutely forlorn over the American voter's rejection of the
reliable Republican neocons in the race, has thrown his hat in with a very reliable Democrat
neocon, Hillary Clinton. "I would rather see Hillary than Trump,"
said Kristol.
But such a move comes not without risk for the Kristol-ites. The neocons migrated from the
Democratic Party to the Republican Party like a virus to a new host and one promising candidate
does not a happy return necessarily make.
What to do?
Again from Kristol: "We'll have to start a new party if it's Trump." And that's what
they're doing. With the help of the compliant media, of course.
Thanks to Target Liberty for its diligence in "Mad Dog"
spotting , we see the (former) house organ of the CIA, Time Magazine, joining the neocon
cheering section behind the notion of a third party run by retired Major General James "Mad
Dog" Mattis, former Commander of the US Central Command.
What is it about military leaders that has led so many voters to champion them for the
Presidency? After all, it's not like the nation has emerged victorious from its recent wars.
... Retired Marine general James "Mad Dog" Mattis, who hung up his uniform three years ago,
has fervent supporters who want him to run for President.
The very title of the article is a fraud. Who are these "Americans" who are
clamoring for a General to become president? Neocons! What percentage to neocons make up of the
US electorate? Re-read the first paragraph for an indication.
Why are the neocons panting like a dog in heat for "Mad Dog" Mattis? His speech today at the
military-industrial complex funded
Center for Strategic and International Studies tells the tale of the tape. What gets the Mad
Dog all hot and bothered? War with Iran!
The Iranian regime, in my mind, is the single most enduring threat to stability and peace
in the Middle East...For all the talk of ISIS and Al Qaida everywhere right now they're a
very serious threat. But nothing is as serious in the long term enduring ramifications, in
terms of stability and prosperity and some hope for a better future for the young people out
there, than Iran.
And, in what must be music to the ears of all those inside the Beltway who have
become rich robbing the rest of us to pay for their wars, Mattis spells out his foreign policy.
In a word: War!
We know that vacuums left in the Middle East seem to be filled by either terrorists or by
Iran or their surrogates or Russia In order to restore deterrence, we have to show
capability, capacity and resolve.
Using our special neocon-speak translator, we see that "capability, capacity
and resolve" actually means "weapons, deployments, and wars." No wonder Kristol and company are
touting this man as their savior.
General George Washington was a reluctant political leader. He accepted the office of
president only at the insistence of others. His preference after the battle was won was to hang
up his guns and retire to hemp-growing and whiskey-distilling. In these days of
increasingly political military officers , it seems the notion of civilian control of the
military is, like the Constitution itself, just another anachronism.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we give you President Mattis:
The first time you blow someone away is not an insignificant event. That said, there
are some a**holes in the world that just need to be shot.
( Business
Insider )
I come in peace. I didn't bring artillery. But I'm pleading with you, with tears in my
eyes: If you f*ck with me, I'll kill you all.
( San Diego Union
Tribune )
Find the enemy that wants to end this experiment (in American democracy) and kill every
one of them until they're so sick of the killing that they leave us and our freedoms
intact.
( San Diego Union
Tribune )
Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet.
( San Diego Union
Tribune )
You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they
didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a
hell of a lot of fun to shoot them. Actually it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a
hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up there with you. I like
brawling.
( CNN )
I'm going to plead with you, do not cross us. Because if you do, the survivors will
write about what we do here for 10,000 years.
( San Diego Union
Tribune )
The problem with your rational approach and concern for US casualties is, obviously, that
we're dealing with seriously deranged people here. When Trump, Bolton, Adelson, and Netanyahu
put their four propaganda-addled minds and blood-lusting/inferiority-complex-fueled emotions
together ... the challenge may be "How can we attack Iran, inflict ostensibly serious damage,
not lose any of our own 'guys', and receive only a very limited response?"
Perhaps a large but not too large conventional attack by US/Israel on 'industry and
facilities directly related to Iran nuclear weapons development'? Just something to throw to
the big-pockets Israel First crowd in the U.S. and Yahu's domestic base.
The advantage of having Israel launch the attack is that the US can 'defend' them and limit
Iran's ability to respond. In addition it brings the Iranian nuclear issue front and centre
for the world press, allows the US to pressure the Europeans to back away from JCPOA (if only
by 'informal' sanctions) and (based on Israeli media mis-information) allows the US to
challenge the UN to snap-back sanctions on Iran.
I agree with comments above - the US will not directly attack Iran. There is however a
great advantage to having Israel do it and then provide backup.
The Untold Story of John Bolton's Campaign for War With Iran, by Gareth Porter
....More than anyone else inside or outside the Trump administration, Bolton has already
influenced Trump to tear up the Iran nuclear deal. Bolton parlayed his connection with the
primary financier behind both Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump himself -- the militantly
Zionist casino magnate Sheldon Adelson -- to get Trump's ear last October, just as the
president was preparing to announce his policy on the Iran nuclear agreement, the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). He spoke with Trump by phone from Las Vegas after
meeting with Adelson.
It was Bolton who persuaded Trump to commit to specific language pledging to pull out of
the JCPOA if Congress and America's European allies did not go along with demands for major
changes that were clearly calculated to ensure the deal would fall apart.....
"... President Trump congratulated Vladimir Putin to his reelection as president of the Russian Federation. It was a matter of simply courtesy to do so. The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (aka the National Security Advisor), three star general McMaster, had advised him to not congratulate Putin. (McMaster now claims differently .) That was bad advice. But it became even worse when McMaster, or someone in his shop, promptly leaked this to the press. The usual Republican nutters like John McCain grumbled and Trump was furious. ..."
President Trump congratulated
Vladimir Putin to his reelection as president of the Russian Federation. It was a matter of
simply courtesy to do so. The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (aka the
National Security Advisor), three star general McMaster, had advised him to not congratulate
Putin. (McMaster now
claims differently .) That was bad advice. But it became even worse when McMaster, or
someone in his shop, promptly leaked this to the press. The usual Republican nutters like John
McCain grumbled and Trump was furious.
Trump decided to fire McMaster the very next day. He had it coming. Both the White House
Chief of Staff Kelly as well as the Secretary of Defense Mattis wanted McMaster out.
Unfortunately for them Trump chose a replacement that they did not want and will find difficult
to live with.
So on the 15th anniversary of the Iraq debacle, a neocon who cheered it on is rewarded
with a national security post where he can cue up the attack on Iran that was always the
ultimate prize for Israel's US stooges?
Guess we'll be out marching again, just like last time. Bolton's walrus mustache is the
21st century version of Adolph H's toothbrush mustache. Down with the Persian Untermenschen!
/sarc
Of course while working for Cheney Bolton was pretty confident about getting Dubya to
start a war with Iran and that didn't happen. Here's a backgrounder that suggests that Bolton
is tight with both Adelson and the Mossad so one way of looking at this has Russia fading as
a target and Iran falling under the bulls eye. Trump's recent friendly phone call with Putin
was contrary to instructions from his NSC and therefore presumably McMaster.
Looked at optimistically it could be out of the frying pan and into a smaller frying pan
(for us if not for Iran but that remains to be seen).
Of course looked at pessimistically it's terrible news but if the public and Congress are
afraid of Trump gratuitously starting a new war then perhaps they should take away his power
to do so. Seems the Constitution did have something to say about that.
Tol'ja so these miserable wretches simply cannot die resurrection a promise any time a
misfit administration takes power all that audition time on FoxNews paid off Trump stripping
the cable channels of right-wing bloviators "best people for the jawb", don't you know.
Looks like the rules of neoliberal game for Ukraine are as following: Ukraine should be ready
for fight Russia till the last Ukrainian, serving as cannon fodder for EU geopolitical interests
in Eurasia; (2) As a "debt slave" Ukraine should allow the transfer of ownership of all strategic
assets and commodities to EU corporations for pennies on dollar independently of how Donbass
situation is resolved; (3) Ukraine should buy EU products, no matter how poor they are and local
production should be be iether eliminated ("Baltics style deindustrialization"), or outsourced to
transnational corporations with Ukrainian as a cheap labor force (wage slaves).
Notable quotes:
"... And the Ukraine made a massive mistake. Their situation is completely different to Poland after USSR fell. ..."
And the Ukraine made a massive mistake. Their situation is completely different to
Poland after USSR fell.
Very true. Poland was the first Eastern European country which adopted neoliberal model
and thus served to a certain extent as "photo model" of neoliberalism for the rest of Eastern
Europe and xUSSR space. So standard of living did not drop too low. The country was somewhat
supported by EU and by the USA.
Ukraine was royally raped economically in 1991-2000. Probably as bad as Russia, may be
even worse.
In 2014 Ukrainians were lured by unrealistic dream of getting Western European standard of
living as a gift for breaking with Russia. As well as the resentment toward kleptocrat
Yanukovich (which actually was pretty typical neoliberal politician; not much worse then
Poroshenko )
Now they start to understand that the EU will devour the corpse to the bones and they are
stuck at the Central African level poverty of $2 a day or so (on average), but this is too
late.
A very typical story, a very typical outcome. Neoliberalism is a cancer. As Russian prime
minister quipped about economic rape of Russia by local and Western neoliberals in 1991-2000:
"We strived to get the best [economic] outcome, but it turned out like we got even worse then
average. As always." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Chernomyrdin
)
So in a way they stepped on the same rake twice: once in 1991 and the second time in 2014.
That's unforgivable.
On a related note, this article by Prof. Niels Harrit claims that a document declassified
in 2008 was the basis for the ongoing war in Afghanstian, and that the document is as
evidence free as the Novichok claims:
Is there any forensic evidence provided in this document to serve as a legal basis for
the invocation of Article 5? Nothing. There is absolutely no forensic evidence in support of
the claim that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated from Afghanistan. Only a small part of the
introductory text deals with 9/11, in the form of summary claims like the citation in Lord
Robertson's press release. The main body of the text deals with the alleged actions of
Al-Qaeda and the Taliban in the nineties.
On 4 October, NATO officially went to war based on a document that provided only
'talking points' and no evidence to support the key claim.
Sound familiar? Of course, I've no idea if he's right.
The Taliban foreign minister at the time tried to warn the Americans of the attack they
learned about it from a third party that is about as far removed from being behind the attack
as it gets. Didn't help them did it the Americans were after vengeance and wanted to satisfy
their bloodlust by bombing a country which didn't even have a single one of its citizens
involved in the attack. Classic scapegoating.
They had other reasons to want to attack Afghanistan . In fact, they warned the Taliban
that they would if the Taliban did not permit the desired pipeline.
What do you expect from Johnson? A grindingly stupid man who has never got a job on merit
and is now desperately hoping the public don't see through his lies for the Americans. No
wonder the government don't want to bring back grammar schools.
New Viz character; Boris the Bullshitter. Textbook bullshitting:
-- "Let me be clear with you" (though what is to follow is as clear as mud,)
" When I look at the evidence, I mean" (not me, actually, I mean) "the people
from Porton Down, the laboratory So they have the samples They do." (believe me)
"And they were absolutely categorical" (about what?) "and I asked the guy
myself," (what did you ask him, Boris?) "I said, "Are you sure?" And he said there's
no doubt" (no doubt of WHAT, Boris?)
Craig, I have to set you straight on this. Boris is as incapable of lying as he is of
telling the truth. As strange as it may seem to rational minds, the concepts of truth and
falsity simply do not exist in minds such as his. To him, everything is merely an
opportunity for achieving his goals, or a threat to his credibility that needs to be bluffed
over, and to those ends every statement he makes will be as vague as he can get away with
under the circumstances.
So on the 15th anniversary of the Iraq debacle, a neocon who cheered it on is rewarded
with a national security post where he can cue up the attack on Iran that was always the
ultimate prize for Israel's US stooges?
Guess we'll be out marching again, just like last time. Bolton's walrus mustache is the
21st century version of Adolph H's toothbrush mustache. Down with the Persian Untermenschen!
/sarc
Of course while working for Cheney Bolton was pretty confident about getting Dubya to
start a war with Iran and that didn't happen. Here's a backgrounder that suggests that Bolton
is tight with both Adelson and the Mossad so one way of looking at this has Russia fading as
a target and Iran falling under the bulls eye. Trump's recent friendly phone call with Putin
was contrary to instructions from his NSC and therefore presumably McMaster.
Looked at optimistically it could be out of the frying pan and into a smaller frying pan
(for us if not for Iran but that remains to be seen).
Of course looked at pessimistically it's terrible news but if the public and Congress are
afraid of Trump gratuitously starting a new war then perhaps they should take away his power
to do so. Seems the Constitution did have something to say about that.
Tol'ja so these miserable wretches simply cannot die resurrection a promise any time a
misfit administration takes power all that audition time on FoxNews paid off Trump stripping
the cable channels of right-wing bloviators "best people for the jawb", don't you know.
Let's get over the McMaster ouster. The fact is that he was completely unqualified to be the
National Security advisor. McMaster was uneducated in history and international politics.
McMaster (1) was excellent as an army unit leader and (2) obtained a PhD with a thesis that
claimed that the US lost in Vietnam because generals weren't listened to, which is complete
BS.
Now we may not like Bolton, but at least he's qualified. Does the NSA have the authority to
start a war? No. The simple fact is that in the most likely war scenarios, Korea and Iran,
the US has bases, ships etc. within easy reach of prospective enemies. Forward basing, it's
called. The Pentagon knows this very well. They hate it when bases are destroyed and ships
are sunk.
Currently the US is crowing about an evacuation exercise in Korea -- with a hundred people,
when there are tens of thousands of Americans in South Korea endangered by any war.
So let's cheer up.
As I understand it, Mc Master's thesis was worse than 'generals weren't listened to", it
was that Generals knew what it would take to win but were reluctant to press their case.
I think McMaster's view gets watered-down and sugar-coated into: "Generals should provide
true info to civilian authority" when it seems to me that the message he conveys to Generals
is simply this: be stubborn; insist on full and unconditional support of civilian authority
for any military action. We see this attitude reflected in "The Powell Doctrine" and now
Trump's hand's-off approach to the military.
I see this as civilian authority (the President) essentially handing the keys to the
Generals once any military action is authorized.
@jr 49
Vietnam, a US attempt at nation-building within a nation (stupid), was a lost cause to begin
with and so what generals "knew" was irrelevant.
Harry Truman got it right.
A couple of President Harry Truman quotes: "It's the fellows who go to West Point and are
trained to think they're gods in uniform that I plan to take apart". . ."I didn't fire him
[General MacArthur] because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not
against the law for generals. If it was, half to three quarters of them would be in jail."
Now currently generals aren't any smarter, they are still dumb SOBs who rise up by sucking
up, but at least they are smart enough to realize that forward basing dooms any offensive
attacks against countries that have the capability to counter-attack against US bases and
ships. That would be North Korea and Iran, for starters. Bolton's ascendance won't change
that simple truth, so the sky isn't falling.
Yes, agreed, let's please cheer up. We live in a age of miracles, when Russia and China
see fit to ally, and preserve, or create, world stability.
Trump has always been surrounded by completely vile people, and none of this has stopped
Russia from laying down the gauntlet. Bolton is as much a nothing, I suggest, as Boris
Johnson across the ocean. Neither of them holds power. The west doesn't hold power any
longer. It's been checkmated at every turn - by Russia militarily and China economically.
Power is the ability to force things to your will, and it's backed up by a gun or it fails
in the end. Trump's button may be big but it's old and maybe rusted and the odds are good it
doesn't even work very well, especially against next generation jamming and hypersonic
speeds.
So the west can bluster and parade its theater all it wants, it means nothing as the
caravans all move on into the future. And even the theater is getting found out in advance
now, with chemical-weapon caches and plans rendered visible before they can act.
As for the bluster, it only works on domestic populations, who have no power and thus
cannot affect reality, and whose governments have no power and thus cannot use a mandate to
war even if given one by their populations, gulled by propaganda. It's a useless, circular
mechanism whose paradigm has ended, is defunct.
I find it encouraging beyond words to watch the real power on the ground in this Eurasian
Century, as the west declines. And I'll quote just one last time, because I love the potency
of this equation: "Power. The one quality of the human condition that you can't fake."
I am not a fan of LNG. If I was a Euro there is no way I would allow LNG in, whether
from Sabetta in Russia or from Sabine Pass in the US.
Being fan or no fan of specific type of energy hardly factors into economic reality of
Europe and coercing it into buying American LNG. If Europe continues to buy Russian gas --
that will be bad news for US. The US, however, may yet succeed in sabotaging Nord Stream II
and thus, in a long run, kill European industrial competitiveness thus opening European
market for US products. At least that is the plan. Here is a small taste of what is at
stake.
Turkish press is reporting that 'TurkStream' , the pipeline to bring natural gas from
Russia to Turkey, is now 80% complete and to be in operation by later this year. It is
expected to deliver close to 16 billion cubic meters per year from Gazprom to Turkish gas
distribution networks. A second phase scheduled for next year will reportedly deliver an
equal amount to Greece and other points in southern Europe.
This is in addition to the existing 'BlueStream' pipeline from Russia to Turkey,
operational since 2005, that also has a 16 billion cubic meter per year throughput.
Why the Western concern about NordStream pipeline but none about TurkStream? Are there no
sanction problems for the Swiss company working with GazProm? Plus I wonder if this is one of
the reasons why Russia has lately become paranoid regarding US Navy FON operations in the
Black Sea?
Why the Western concern about NordStream pipeline but none about TurkStream? Are there no
sanction problems for the Swiss company working with GazProm? Plus I wonder if this is one of
the reasons why Russia has lately become paranoid regarding US Navy FON operations in the
Black Sea?
The main concern has the name Sabetta--it is the port and a hub to a largest Liquid
Natural Gas operation, which also happened to be (in relative terms) next to Europe's LNG
ports. I usually don't do this but I apologize, here is a link to my blog's piece on
that:
LNG is precisely a commodity which is counted by US as a major component in possibly (and
most likely not very probable) US re-industrialization. For that, the US has to sell her LNG
to Europe. This implies removing Russian LNG from the EU market which dwarfs that of Turkey
and some South European nations. Germany, France, UK, Holland among others are the prize
here. Russian LNG must be verboten, in US mind, or at least pushed back. As per FON--it has
nothing to do with FON but has everything to do with:
1. Flag demonstration--that is presence and Fleet In Being.
2. Signals collection from Sevastopol, Novorossyisk and, in general, all Russia's Southern
Military District emitters.
MUNICH -- Just hours after the Justice Department indicted 13 Russians in what it charged
was a broad conspiracy to alter the 2016 election, President Trump's national security adviser,
Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, accused Moscow of engaging in a campaign of "disinformation,
subversion and espionage" that he said Washington would continue to expose.
The evidence of a Russian effort to interfere in the election "is now incontrovertible,"
General McMaster said at the Munich Security Conference, an annual meeting of European and
American diplomats and security experts, including several senior Russian officials. On Friday,
just hours before the indictment, the top White House official for cyberissues accused Russia
of "the most destructive cyberattack in human history," against Ukraine last summer.
Taken together, the statements appeared to mark a major turn in the administration's
willingness to directly confront the government of President Vladimir V. Putin. Defense
Secretary Jim Mattis and C.I.A. Director Mike Pompeo also attended the Munich conference, and
while they did not speak publicly, in private meetings with others here they reiterated similar
statements.
The comments highlighted a sharp division inside the administration about how to talk about
the Russian covert efforts, with only Mr. Trump and a few of his close advisers holding back
from acknowledging the Russian role or talking about a larger strategy to deter future
attacks.
The indictment characterized the cyberattacks and social media fraud as part of a larger
effort by Russia to undermine the United States. A senior administration official called the
effort to confront Russia "a significant point of contention" within the administration.
After the indictment on Friday Mr. Trump declared in a Twitter post that "the results of the
election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong -- no collusion!" He made no
mention of Russia as a "revisionist power," the description used in his own National Security
Strategy, or of the elaborate $1.2 million-a-month effort that the indictment indicated
Russia's Internet Research Agency spent in an effort to discredit the election system and
ultimately to support his candidacy.
Vice President Mike Pence, speaking this past week in Washington, misstated American
intelligence conclusions about the election hacking, arguing "it is the universal conclusion of
our intelligence communities that none of those efforts had any effect on the outcome of the
2016 election." The intelligence chiefs have said they have not, and cannot, reach such a
conclusion.
Sergey V. Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, cited Mr. Pence's comments during the
session here Saturday to make the case that Russia did nothing wrong. "So until we see the
facts, everything else is just blabber," he said.
The man who served as the Russian ambassador to the United States during the period covered
by the indictments, Sergey I. Kislyak, picked up on a favorite theme of Mr. Trump's:
questioning the credibility of the F.B.I. and intelligence agency assessments.
"I have seen so many indictments and accusations against Russians," Mr. Kislyak said on
Saturday afternoon. "I am not sure I can trust American law enforcement to be the most truthful
source against Russians." He added, "The allegations being mounted against us are simply
fantasies."
Mr. Kislyak, who has been caught up in the investigation because of meetings with Trump
campaign officials during his time as ambassador, went on to cite a study, which he said he was
keeping in his briefcase, that proved the "main source of computer attacks in the world is not
Russia. It is the United States."
This supposedly MI6-connected presstitute promoted Steele dossier. Now he promotes the war
with Russia.
His idea is confiscate cash from Russian oligarchs. He forgot that British have investments
in Russian that can also be gone.
Notable quotes:
"... Expulsion of diplomats is a temporary setback but the PM might have done more ..."
"... There is one area where the Russian elite is vulnerable. It keeps its money in the west, with much of it laundered in London and via UK corporate entities and banks. Unlike in Soviet times when apparatchiks enjoyed superior Moscow apartments, Putin's friends are multibillionaires, with yachts, villas, planes and other international assets. ..."
"... May could have frozen the luxury properties of tycoons such as Alisher Usmanov or Igor Shuvalov, Russia's deputy prime minister, whose handsome London flat overlooks the Ministry of Defence. She didn't. Oligarchs, of course, are not officials. But they are useful intermediaries who enjoy their fortunes at Putin's pleasure. ..."
Expulsion of diplomats is a temporary setback but the PM might have done more
... ... ...
There is one area where the Russian elite is vulnerable. It keeps its money in the west,
with much of it laundered in London and via UK corporate entities and banks. Unlike in Soviet
times when apparatchiks enjoyed superior Moscow apartments, Putin's friends are
multibillionaires, with yachts, villas, planes and other international assets.
An entire class of British professionals service Russia's super-rich. They include lawyers,
public relations executives, real estate firms, headmasters and accountants. It is this last
group which sets up complex offshore-managed structures used for the purposes of money
laundering. They went unmentioned by May.
And on the question of what to do about Russian cash, May was vague. The measures she
suggested on Wednesday were aspirational. They included bringing to bear the capabilities of
law enforcement against "serious criminals and corrupt elites". This happens already. But
hard-pressed officers from the National Crime Agency admit prosecuting wealthy perpetrators is
difficult and time-consuming.
May could have frozen the luxury properties of tycoons such as Alisher Usmanov or Igor
Shuvalov, Russia's deputy prime minister, whose handsome London flat overlooks the Ministry of
Defence. She didn't. Oligarchs, of course, are not officials. But they are useful
intermediaries who enjoy their fortunes at Putin's pleasure.
"As for the tragedy that you mentioned, I found out about it from the media. The first thing that entered my head was that if
it had been a military-grade nerve agent, the people would have died on the spot," said Putin.
"Secondly, Russia does not have such [nerve] agents. We destroyed all our chemical weapons under the supervision of international
organisations and we did it first, unlike some of our partners who promised to do it, but unfortunately did not keep their promises."
Despite the tensions, Putin said Moscow was ready to cooperate with London: "We are ready to cooperate, we said that straight
away. We are ready to take part in the necessary investigations, but for that there needs be a desire from the other side and we
don't see that yet. But we are not taking it off the agenda, joint efforts are possible."
"I think any sensible person would understand that it would be rubbish, drivel, nonsense, for Russia to embark on such an escapade
on the eve of a presidential election."
Surprisingly this Guardian presstitute has some sound thoughts ;-)
Theresa May was probably pushed by Big Uncle. It is inconceivable that she behaved so
arrogantly and foolishly on her own, even taking into account that any confrontation with Russia
might prolong the life of her cabinet.
All-in-all this false flag operation looks like the first step is some gambit designed by
British intelligence services against Russia. With Scripals as sacrificed pawns. It is amazing
how "false flag friendly" poisoning cases are. Uncomfortable evidence can always be hidden under
that smoke screen of "state secrecy".
There might be strong desire to confiscate Russian oligarch money as one of the motives for
the current May goverment hysteria. That's explains why members of parliament jumped so high on
orders, and why the reaction was so bipartisan. Because the attempt to spoil the World Cup looks
so petty, that it is smells with the USA, not British intelligence serves. After all British team
is a favorite. But such attempts were numerous in the past, so you never know. Sochi was the most
recent example.
Notable quotes:
"... Theresa May's language in the wake of events in Salisbury has been unhelpful, given our history of provoking Russia ..."
"... The prospect has certainly taken British minds off Brexit. It has exhilarated the press. It has given Theresa May an immense boost and helped the defence lobby in its campaign for more money. There is nothing democracy seems to enjoy so much as contemplating war, to unite it and raise its spirits. It is never unpopular -- beforehand. ..."
"... Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the west has revelled in the humiliation of Russia. Every act of the EU and Nato after 1989 was to the same destructive end. Russia's neighbours were welcomed into the EU. Nato extended its defensive border to the edge of the Russian Federation, despite then president Boris Yeltsin (and to an extent Germany) pleading with the west "not to play with fire". ..."
"... As Yeltsin plunged into his botched privatisations in the 1990s, London egged them on by opening its banks to handle Russia's stolen billions. Britain was complicit in creating the world's greatest kleptocracy, brazenly and for a quarter of a century. Even this week, the prime minister lacked the guts to face down the City of London and call a halt to Russian money laundering. ..."
Theresa May's language in the wake of events in Salisbury has been unhelpful, given our
history of provoking Russia
Do we really want war with Russia? Do we want to risk one, even a tiny one? The prospect
has certainly taken British minds off Brexit. It has exhilarated the press. It has given
Theresa May an immense boost and helped the defence lobby in its campaign for more money. There
is nothing democracy seems to enjoy so much as contemplating war, to unite it and raise its
spirits. It is never unpopular -- beforehand.
... ... ...
Parliament parroted the same nonsense. The Tories' Tom Tugendhat said the poisoning "if not
an act of war, was certainly a warlike act". Labour's Chris Leslie and John Woodcock worked
themselves into a lather over "our country under attack" and "the gravity of the threat Russia
poses to this nation". In these bidding wars of exaggeration, words lose all meaning.
... ... ...
Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the west has revelled in the
humiliation of Russia. Every act of the EU and Nato after 1989 was to the same destructive end.
Russia's neighbours were welcomed into the EU. Nato extended its defensive border to the edge
of the Russian Federation, despite then president Boris Yeltsin (and to an extent Germany)
pleading with the west "not to play with fire".
As Yeltsin plunged into his botched privatisations in the 1990s, London egged them on by
opening its banks to handle Russia's stolen billions. Britain was complicit in creating the
world's greatest kleptocracy, brazenly and for a quarter of a century. Even this week, the
prime minister lacked the guts to face down the City of London and call a halt to Russian money
laundering.
All this is a grim echo of how the allies treated Germany after Versailles in 1919. They
rubbed its nose in defeat, occupying its territory, destroying its dignity and stripping it of
its flimsy wealth. Germany eventually found refuge in dictatorship.
... ... ...
Camus wrote that "plagues and wars take people equally by surprise". The idea that Skripal
may be the Franz Ferdinand of the next European conflict may seem ludicrous. Yet the west's
responses to post-Soviet Russia, however reasonable in the short term, have been disastrous in
general. A war with Russia would be the west's fault.
"... Senior Russian diplomatic and military officials have accused the UK of hiding and possibly planning to destroy evidence in the investigation into the Salisbury nerve agent attack. ..."
Senior Russian diplomatic and military officials have accused the UK of hiding and possibly planning to destroy evidence
in the investigation into the Salisbury nerve agent attack.
The comments came during a remarkable briefing at Moscow's foreign ministry given for all foreign ambassadors in Russia, to lay
out the country's argument for why it is not responsible for the attack on former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter,
Yulia, on 4 March.
Britain says they were poisoned with a nerve agent known as novichok and has blamed Russia for the attack, but Moscow has
fiercely denied any involvement. The case has prompted the two countries to expel diplomats in a tit-for-tat dispute.
Speaking to a lecture hall of diplomats, Vladimir Yermakov, deputy head of the ministry's department for non-proliferation,
suggested that the UK was "hiding facts" about the case that may later "disappear".
Laurie Bristow, the British ambassador to Russia, did not attend and the ambassadors of other major allies, including the US,
Germany and France, also boycotted the briefing.
But one British diplomat did go. Emma Nottingham condemned the "disinformation" coming from the Russian government during the
briefing, which was closed to the press but streamed live online.
"Russia has offered us so far no explanation of how this agent came to be used in the United
Kingdom and no explanation as to why Russia has an undeclared chemical weapons programme in
contravention of international law," Nottingham told the five-person panel.
"We are not obliged to give anything to Great Britain," Yermakov replied to Nottingham. "It
is an attack on Russian citizens on the territory of Great Britain, so why don't we carry out a
joint investigation?"
Yermakov also suggested that Russia may not accept the conclusions of an investigation by
the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons as fact.
"It is not possible to evaluate what happened in Salisbury within the framework of the
convention and within the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons," he said in
remarks translated by Interfax. "Deeper expert evaluations will be needed, and in any case we
need to conduct our own investigations for Russia to be able to draw any conclusions."
At present there is no way of disciplining a retired judge who trades on his former title of
"Judge" and his rank of QC to give advice to lay people (without any up-to-date knowledge of
law or professional indemnity insurance) and then speak on their behalf as a McKenzie Friend
in Court.
I know of a case where this actually happened - a retired Chancery Circuit Judge
intervened in a case involving a religious charity when he has no known connection to the
faith in question. His intervention was distinctly unhelpful for the parties and impeded the
proper administration of justice. But nothing could be done about his unprofessional and
meddling behaviour.
Journalists are not state officials, and do not have the power to imprison citizens. There is
no right to be a judge (so state regulation of judges is legitimate) whereas there is a right
to freedom of speech (so state regulation of journalism is not legitimate).
Judges are lawyers: a rapacious breed drawn predominantly from and representing the "highest"
stratum of society. They are expert at presenting one-sided arguments, whatever the facts and
evidence. They provide "blue chip justice" favouring that social segment that can afford to
hire lawyers and so keep the legal sector in work. They know how to wear down complainants
(often of limited means) with unjustified decisions that have to be appealed at every stage
of proceedings. They are assisted by absurb laws which deem them virtually infallible in
jurisdictions such as the Employment Tribunal, where it is, in practice, not an "error of
law" to find something impossible to be true or to make a finding contrary to the weight of
evidence, or without evidential basis (and invariably favouring the employer). Even when an
indefatigable complainant succeeds in an appeal against a rotten judgement, they often find
their case "remitted" for a rehearing before the same biased tribunal or another made up of
the friends and colleagues of the first, and likewise of the employer. Many contributors
here, and all employment lawyers, know this to be true, yet this unjust system persists. What
criticisms of it there are focus on ultimately minor issues such as whether one should have
to pay fees to lodge complaints, rather than the more important issue of its institutional
racialism and the virtual impossibility of Black people being successful in complaints
against members of the establishment within it.
You also need to remember that judges work within a system which is controlled by politics,
press start complaining about high number of car thefts, car thieves suddenly start getting
jailed while house breakers do not.
There are also other parts of the system for instance social work reports, often made
about people who know the systems inside out, know exactly what to say and when to say it.
Lawyers who are simply there to lie, on both sides of the case with full knowledge they are
doing it. Police who are more concerned about getting results than actually justice. And
finally the judges themselves who all appear to have totally different interpretations of the
law, I have seen grown men break down when they find out they are getting 1 judge over
another and that was just the lawyers.
Judicial lies are far from confined to racism-motivated instances. The whole system of
"justice" is the biggest scam on the planet. That's why they don't allow recording of your
own hearing.
The judiciary regularly get away with complete and utter cheap lies in their judgments. They
are unaccountable as it only takes two more judges to refuse permission to challenge the lies
and that's the end of the matter. In one of my cases I asked to audio-record (my own case).
Both the judge and government barrister insisted I would not be alllowed to record. The
reason for this refusal of recording is so that there is no record of the filthy lies judges
deploy in the smaller civil court rooms where there are no reporters. One important subset of
lies is about the limitation act. Supposedly fact means possibility, knowledge means
suspicion, and was means might be - well that's what high court judges say these words mean,
and the fact that loads of dictionaries say otherwise is of no power against them.
We need every litigant to have the right to record their own cases.
And perhaps that needs review. After all, they are all members of same brotherhood or
society, and all operate from under Londons Bar .So is no independence at all.
My recent experience of JCIO is not entirely sanguine. I represented myself in a child
custody case in Birmingham. The Cafcass favored my child to stay with me. The Circuit Judge
presiding over the case, lied in his judgment three times in order to favor my ex. When I
took the matter to the appeal in High Court, the Law Lord presiding practically said that
because the Circuit Judge is experienced, he is entitled to lie. I was quite gobsmacked. JCIO
were completely unmoved by my protestations. It is apparent that truth is diminished if you
are a layman fighting the excesses of establishment.
The internet is awash with people who have been unfairly treated by the Justice system. Court
observers have commented on the familiarity between Judges and business men in employment
tribunal cases, and the employee losing, and also losing an appeal. Has anybody ever tried to
get an employment judge's notes from the case? Impossible. Ultimately when the judge says the
notes are not to be released under any circumstances (why not if they have nothing to hide)
and the Trbunal President when asked under a data protection request, tells you that the data
controller, is, yes the original judge who won't release them under any circumstances, is it
any wonder that people have no faith in the British Justice system, or should we rename it
Old Boys Network system?
The corrupt protecting the corrupt!
I refer to the Porton Down cover-up that involved the killing of 39 Porton Down veterans who
died as a result of being injected with a bacteria derived from salmonella - abortus equi -
in an altered state. (source FOI) Upper Tribunal Judge Edward Jacobs (unlike Judge Brian
Kennedy QC) who ordered details of the deaths to be made public) did purposely support the
MoD by allowing them to keep secret ALL facts related to the killings. Judge Edward Jacobs
also ignored a 3.72 million pounds fraudulent payment (stolen from public funds) awarded to
Martyn Day Senior Partner with the London law firm Leigh Day & Co. It was Martyn Day who
supposedly represented 39 family members of deceased veterans. In effect Jacobs by his very
silence and by allowing crimes of this nature to be kept under wraps did himself become party
to the crime.
"The comments in this section so far could hardly be more wrong" I don't know, I though
Patrick Logicman was spot on with his "But then you couldn't tell them from janitors" remark
above.
Yes but in the midst of the usual press anarchy, a few wise words from Joshua are surely not
out of order?
The predilection of cheap jack town magistrates describing themselves as Judges, takes
some beating. The powers of local authorities to press their own non-criminal "charges" can
be rather unpleasant, and quite happy to present fictitious evidence in abundance, backed up
by such "judges".
If you review most Laws in Britain,USA Canada,etc they were enacted worded and favored the
very rich and property owners when passed. Judge`s hands are really tied to the laws of the
land and it is the rich bias and regulations that keep the poor in their place that Judges
are restricted by when looking to dispense justice [as far as the law allows].
Same applies to the Police they didn`t make the laws.The Justice system and the Police
have been deliberately kept apart from society so they identify more with conservatism and
the status quo and even identify with it as elitists.
The difference is that the father needs to be suspended in case the allegations prove to be
true, because something important is alleged. Here the allegations against the judges seem to
be about nothing - nothing obviously wrong has happened even if the facts are true.
In my experience of the judiciary in criminal trials is that they do have a tendency to
protect the Police and even on the odd occasion pervert the course of justice to protect
them. You cannot assume that any judge will be impartial in any case or inquiry especially if
police corruption is being investigated or has been alleged. In my view you trust a judge to
be independent and impartial at your own risk.
Suspending a judge from duty pending investigation is rather like a judge confining a
separated father to a supervised contact centre while his ex's phony allegations are looked
into. All rather unnecessary but what do you do?
My experience of the judiciary convinces me that it functions principally to protect the
establishment. This is perhaps seen most blatantly in the employment tribunal, where judges
make virtually unchallengeable findings of "fact" that contradict incontrovertible evidence
that they simply ignore in order to exculpate defendants in race and religous discrimination
cases. Sometimes they collude with defendants to pervert the course of justice by accepting
fabricated documents as genuine, despite the existence of the genuine documents showing their
inauthenticity (which they do not mention as they are irreconcilable with the documents that
they wish to represent as genuine). Sometimes, they make important findings based on key
documents that they have never seen, which the claimant dispute ever existed and the
defendants claim they have lost. At other times, the judges just simply lie about the
evidence if that is required to discredit the complainant. Such phenomena are well-documented
(e.g.,
http://www.irr.org.uk/news/culture-of-disbelief-why-race-discrimination-claims-fail-in-the-employment-tribunal/).
However, maybe because sex, drugs and death are not involved - and it only affects Blacks,
after all - no-one seems at all interested, no programmes get made about this or articles get
written in the mainstream media even when prominent journalists have the evidence of its
occurrence.
It is a tradition in this country that, freedom of speech notwithstanding, judges do not
respond to attacks on them in the media. This means that we often hear the attack, but not
the defence. Let me illustrate this with an example from history which shows that judges can
be right, even when non-lawyers think they are obviously wrong.
If the media and some members of Parliament had got their own way, Mr. Justice Grantham
would have been sacked after instructing a jury in strong terms that a prison warder charged
with manslaughter, against whom the evidence of guilt was overwhelming, was nevertheless not
guilty. It transpired about two years later that the single prosecution witness had lied: the
"victim" was dead before the warder entered the room. I understand that the warder was named
Mitchell and, despite being acquitted, did not get his job back.
Had Mr. Justice Grantham been sacked he could not have investigated the Adolph Beck case, the true facts
might never have come out and we might still not have a criminal appeals process.
"The credit for resolving this miscarriage of justice lay firstly with the 1904 trial
judge, Mr Justice Grantham, who had lingering doubts about Beck's guilt and had delayed
concluding the case despite apparently strong prosecution evidence and procedures. It was in
this period of delay, before being sentenced, that the crucial arrest of the real offender
took place."
Source - historybytheyard.co.uk
Each? But then you couldn't tell a judge from a janitor. They tried that in China. It
didn't work. Call me old-fashioned, but I rather like the wigs and gowns.
The comments in this section so far could hardly be more wrong. Perhaps self-regulation does
not work for most professions, but in the case of judges it seems to "over-work" and the
desire to ensure that judges are seen as people of integrity seems to take over at times. On
the basis of JR's article, there seems very clearly to be no substance in the allegations
against either Fulford or Thornton. When normal people face such baseless allegations, the
case is struck out, or a responsible prosecutor stops it. So the impression here is that the
regulator is afraid to be thought to sweeping things under the carpet and so the process
continues - and absurdity is piled onto absurdity when the judges are even suspended from
work in the meantime.
Turenne and Shetreet's book, referred to in the text, notes instances when judges not only
face complaints but actually receive criticism for doing things which others can do and might
even be expected to do. For example, it seems that judges should plead guilty to minor
traffic offences if they are guilty, and should not seek technical ways that might exist to
defeat the charges (ie ways that are not based on the merits of the case). This may be a good
idea, of course, but it further ridicules any notion that the regulator is soft.
I have for many decades thought that most judges are daft old fools, out of touch with
reality. My opinion has been confirmed by many examples.
I'm not up enough with the law to be able to suggest a better alternative, those who know
what they are talking about should do that. However, I was pleased to see the web site linked to in the article ,
which seems to be a small step in the right direction.
Justice and access to it should be a cornerstone of our society - except that in its
current form, it is reduced to a cleverly disguised commodity - whereby the 'truth' /
'justice' can be purchased by paying for expensive lawyers.
This age old practice of letting "professionals" regulate themselves is thankfully in decline
but not quickly enough. They didn't regulate themselves, they protected each other like
brothers in crime. Lawyers, police, bankers, religious institutions, doctors banded together
to give themselves maximum benefit. And the pompous indignation when Joe Public dared to
question them. I have always felt that these groups pulled the wool over our eyes. I laugh at
the term "professional" often they are far from it.
Who is judging the judges?
We know a lot more about judicial complaints than we used to but it remains the case that
judges themselves judge judges
I find it amusing that a journalist in a National Newspaper is writing an article about a
group of self interested people being able to judge themselves.
Who handles complaints about newspapers? I'll give you a clue with a quote fro the Press
Complaints Commission's website:
The Press Complaints Commission is currently in a phase of transition; and it will soon
be replaced by a new structure of independent self-regulation for the newspaper and
magazine industries.
Self-regulation. Sounds a bit like what the judges do.
One of the key elements of the English judiciary is that it is NOT elected. The executive and
legislature are the elected bits and thus the judiciary must defer to them in terms of
law-making and keep to their own province of interpreting the law - true it can be a fuzzy
line at times but it is a hugely important part of the functioning of the rule of law.
Elected judges would be a disaster for many reasons.
What the UK judiciary gets away with is utterly horrifying. That they palm it off as
'isolated cases' is bad enough, but hiding behind the pretence that people 'don't know the
facts' is even worse.
The move to a system of locally elected (ie, accountable) judges is long overdue.
"... When I read: "As X becomes increasingly aggressive, even reckless geopolitically," frankly Russia was not the first country that came to mind. ..."
Yves
here. I trust readers will be able to filter out the new Cold War assumptions in the piece to
focus on the price of Germany's plans. Does anyone have an informed take on how significant the
broader economic impact might be?
By Tim Daiss, an oil markets analyst, journalist and author working out of the
Asia-Pacific region for 12 years who has covered oil, energy markets and geopolitics for
Forbes, Platts, Interfax, NewsBase, Rigzone, and the UK-based Independent (newspaper) as well
as providing energy markets analysis for subscription newsletters. Originally published at
OilPrice
More problems are mounting for Russia's oil and gas sector. This time it's coming from
Germany, which until recently usually gave Russia's energy sector more lead way than the U.S.
or other allies.
But now it seems that German Chancellor Angela Merkel has also had enough. On Monday,
Bloomberg reported that Merkel's government is seeking to build a liquefied
natural gas (LNG) industry in Germany basically from scratch to reduce the nation's dependence
on supplies arriving by pipeline from Russia and Norway.
Merkel backs "all initiatives supporting further diversification of gas supply -- whether
from different regions or means of transporting gas," said German Economy and Energy Ministry
spokeswoman Beate Baron.
The move comes as natural gas resources from the UK and the Netherlands are depleting, and
Germany is forced to rely more on Russian gas. Merkel's newly formed coalition has a "coalition
contract" that among other policies sets out energy agenda including LNG for the next four
years, the Bloomberg reported added.
Germany, for its part, is Europe's largest gas consumer. In
2015, the country consumed 7.2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of natural gas, according to
U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data. According to the German energy research
group, AG Energiebilanzen, imports account for about 90 percent of Germany's total natural gas
supply, while most imports come from three countries: Russia (40 percent of total imports in
2015), Norway (21 percent) and the Netherlands (29 percent).
Moreover, German companies are participating in Russia's controversial Nord Stream 2
pipeline, an expansion of an existing route for gas to flow from Russia to Europe under the
Baltic Sea. The U.S., Poland and others have recently condemned the pipeline as a threat to
European security.
As Russia becomes increasingly aggressive, even reckless geopolitically, the security threat
to not only the EU but to Germany is apparent, causing the country of some 83 million people to
do an abrupt energy policy about face.
Germany's LNG pivot also comes as a geopolitical storm between the U.K. and Russia
intensifies over an alleged Moscow-orchestrated nerve-agent attack on British soil against what the
BBC called a double spy and his daughter.
British Prime Minister Theresa May retaliated last week by expelling Russian diplomats and
seeking alternatives to Russian gas, including LNG produced at its new Arctic plant, the Yamal
LNG export project. Addressing the UN Security Council last week, the U.K.'s deputy UN
ambassador, Jonathan Allen, accused Russia of breaking its obligations under the Convention on
the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
The U.S. for its part also condemned the nerve agent attack. U.S. ambassador Nikki Haley
said that Washington stood in "absolute solidarity" with Britain, citing the "special
relationship" between the two countries and saying that Washington would "always be there" for
the UK.
Germany's Abrupt LNG Pivot
However, until recently many in Germany accused the U.S., notably President Trump, of using
U.S.-sourced LNG as a geopolitical weapon to challenge Russia's decades' old dominance of
European gas markets -- an accusation that played perfectly into the hands of Russian energy
companies and even Vladimir Putin.
When Trump singed fresh sanctions against Russia's energy sector in August, Uniper -- a
German utility and one of Europe's largest energy firms -- said the new sanctions were an
American economic move as much as a political one.
"The core reason (for the sanctions) is strategic economic interests, meaning the targeted
dominance of the US in energy markets," Uniper CEO Klaus Schaefer told journalists shortly
after Trump signed the sanctions bill. Uniper is one of five companies that have invested in
Nord Stream 2.
Brigitte Zypries, Germany's economy minister, claimed last year that the sanctions violated
international law and said that the EU should take action against the U.S. "Of course we don't
want a trade war. But it is important the European Commission now looks into countermeasures,"
she said. "The Americans can't punish German companies because they have business interests in
another country."
Cost Factors Could Impede Pivot
However, any Germany pivot to LNG away from Russian gas will come at a cost. Shipping LNG by
one of several suppliers, including Qatar, the U.S. or Angola to name a few, is simply more
expensive than Russian piped gas. While Russia already has an extensive pipeline network in
place, LNG is more expensive when transportation, liquefaction and regasification costs are
added.
Using a Henry Hub gas price of $2.85/MMBtu as a base, Russian energy giant Gazprom recently
estimated that adding processing and transportation costs, the price in Europe would reach
$6/MMBtu -- a steep markup.
Henry Hub gas prices are currently trading at $2.657/MMBtu. Over the last 52-week period
U.S. gas has traded between $2.64/MMBtu and $3.82/MMBtu.
Russian gas sells for around $5/MMBtu in European markets. Moreover, Russian gas exporter
Gazprom is also moving away from oil-indexation for gas prices to a European gas hub
indexation, which will allow additional price savings and unfortunately for Germany -- an
incentive to stick with Russian gas, even if it's geopolitically distasteful.
Meanwhile, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak
said yesterday that Russia is Europe's most flexibly and reliable source of energy that is
needed.
Its a long long way from a political announcement to an industrial reality. Also, the
quote:
Merkel backs "all initiatives supporting further diversification of gas supply" is
telling.
Germany does not want to be caught out in a Russia/US energy squeeze while its pursuing an
alternative energy path. Nor does Merkel want to overtly pick sides.
Plus if you will note, given the momentum of current German/Russian energy initiatives, I
rather doubt that this "announcement" will have a lot of traction in the near future.
The Oilprice site, although very informative is somewhat shrill from day to day
(everything is a BIG DEAL).
Yes, its a telling quote -- it can basically be paraphrased as 'if someone is willing to
pay for these facilities, we would be happy to hear that'. There are quite a few stalled
projects for LNG terminals in Europe -- but they are expensive and even the promise of cheap
US LNG won't unlock them so long as Russia can supply relatively cheap gas. If European
governments want more LNG terminals for security reasons then they'll have to pay for them.
Thats not likely to happen, there are far more pressing infrastructural needs.
Is anyone considering the possibility that the US's ability to deliver LNG may not exist
for long enough to pay the cost of building the infrastructure necessary to use it?
Is anyone factoring in the damage to our environment, including our fresh water when
calculating the cost of poking Russia in the eye?
At first glance, this whole play appears short-sighted, at least, probably foolish.
Of course the big oil companies have never gone unrewarded for their fealty to the whims
of the MIC, even when any objective analysis finds massive foolishness.
Dont worry, Novatek already delivered a shipment of LNG from the Yamal peninsular to the
UK.
I would bet that Nord Stream will not eliminate the need to export across the Ukraine.
Undersea pipelines dont have great capacity. But additional marginal pipeline capacity does
reduce the bargaining power of the Ukraine. Im sure LNG capacity does the same.
We're deep into our malinvestment phase where uneconomic industries are being sustained
with monetary policy to prop up an unsustainable status quo.
The question is whether the left can coordinate collective action before the right can
start WW3. It will be real events somewhere that cause real change: financialized capitalism
with its own hand on the money spigot of fiat money is, with reference to itself, a perpetual
motion machine.
It will either be a force of life, or thermodynamics that finally overthrow this machine.
The stresses for dramatic external political events are building everywhere.
However, this is where market capitalism excels. As long as there is enough money in the
hands of the average person (a major issue), the average person will install solar panels and
batteries and heat pumps and buy an EV and say "to hell with you" to the oil, gas, and coal
industries.
Less money is going to those average folks, but local EV is hopeful. Tons of money goes to
supporting facking, which in the absence of QE and the spigot of free money for
(mal)investors, would not be economical.
LNG ports to receive a fuel with what is approaching negative EROEI are pure
mal-investment.
MMT was used to incentivize net positive public goods by Mariner Eccles making the US the
richest nation in the world. We're now seeing the global financial cabal use the same tool to
despoil real wealth, monetizing it along with trust wherever it can find either. It is an
epic of short-termism that will ultimately destroy the money itself by liquidating the real
productive social and economic constellations that support it.
I read the statement as that Germany is looking for a replacement of its Dutch and
Norwegian gas sources. As Germany does not want to depend for 100% of its gas from Russia,
they do need to look for alternatives.
It is just smart policy not to depend from a single source, for whatever purpose.
Dutch and Norwegian gas reserves are in
long term decline , so its likely that Russian gas will become a higher proportion of
supply in the medium to longer term.
i) the cost of transport is very high and there is a linear relationship between distance
and transport costs
ii) both the client and the supplier would like stable long-term contracts to secure
investments and supply.
There is always interdependence if you want durable supply.
Constructing some LNG facilities, besides the cost factors mentioned above won't reduce
such interdependence by much given that Russia provides 40% of current consumption. Also,
Russia migth seek providing NG to fast growing asian markets. I think that Germany is trying
to diversify just because Norway, Netherlands, and its own production are declining. I also
think that this means that fracking gas in Europe is not seen as an alternative.
I wouldn't say that Germany will "pivot" from russian gas, that is giving too much weigth
to potential LNG supplies.
Another point is that if the issue is security, it would most likely be more cost
effective to build up a buffer in underground storage facilities than building new LNG
terminals.
I could be that Germany is buckling under the pressure of attacks as the US is threatening
to sanction European firms involved in the Russian/EU Nord Stream 2 project ( https://www.rt.com/business/421900-us-sanctions-nord-stream-companies/
) which if true, would mean that the EU would have to ask the permission of Washington in
dealings with any countries not to Washington's liking.
The Poles have already built a LNG gas delivery terminal so you would think that Germany
would just pipe it in from there unless Germany wanted to build their own terminal so that
they would not have to pay Poland any fees as Poland is one of the counties opposing Nord
Stream 2.
Poland has already received at least one LNP shipment from the US but the price of the
delivery is a state secret apparently.
The Russians could always turn around and sell their cheaper gas to China so no big loss
to them. Thing is, it will take a decade to build a fleet of tankers to carry the gas that
Germany needs annually as these ships would just be going back and forth like clockwork. Who
pays for that? Germany would also need years just to build the LNP port facility to receive
these shipments. I believe too that the US export terminal is in the Gulf so tough luck if a
hurricane shut down that terminal at any time. Remember, this winter the Russians had to ship
two tankers of gas to the US because of shortages so how reliable could a US supply be?
Add up the costs of building the port facility, a fleet of tankers and the infrastructure
to deal with it all, then top up with the gas not only being more expensive than the Russian
gas but also less reliable and the Germans will have to take a knife to their budget to pay
for it all. Trump would have a fit if it was their defense budget so that means the social
budget. Good luck with that. One last factor of which I have even less knowledge of is the US
gas supply. I believe that it comes from shale deposits aka fracking but I know that these
wells deplete rapidly so if true, would suggest that US gas as a supply source may be self
limiting over time. I don't think that the economics work out here for Germany somehow.
It's not a pivot. The only important thing is North Stream 2: if the US or the
transatlantic lobby manages to kill that, then there is a pivot. Otherwise, it's business as
usual.
So unless one wants to be ~90% dependent on russian gas, there has to be some alternatives
to keep the russians honest. Only realistic way is LNG. So Germany has to build the
infrastructure for it to have a credible bargaining position. The marketshare of russian gas
will increase over the next few years in any way.
Also, I would like to add that the German Press isn't treating this like some sort of
revelation.
As everywhere else, if a politician wants to get a little patriotic push on their side,
they hold a speech touting "energy independence". Germany is no different in that regard and
Merkel needs to appear a bit more nationalistic right now.
Current headlines are all about social issues like immigration, Facebook data breaches,
internal politics, etc. No one is obsessing about LNG facilities or things like Brexit.
There are major offshore gas fields in the Mediterranean -- on the coast of Cyprus and all
the way offshore from Syria to Egypt. Their exploitation is still largely pending resolution
of local crises (Turkey vs EU re Cyprus, Israel vs Palestine and Lebanon, in Syria because of
war). Once those fields come on line, the need for special-purpose ports to bring in LNG from
afar to Europe no longer makes much economic sense.
Besides, Algeria continues to provide gas (and oil) to the EU.
Germany is a major shareholder in the EPR reactor, but isn't building any
because its proven far too expensive, much more expensive than domestic renewables.
Its untrue to say that Germany buys a lot of French nuclear energy, imports from France are minor at a net
of around 4 terawatt hours a year, similar to the amount of wind energy Germany buys from
Denmark. Its dwarfed by the huge renewable sector in Germany which produces over 200 TWh per annum . Germany is
actually a net exporter of energy to France in most summers as the inland nuclear plants
often go off-line due to water shortages.
"Germany's LNG pivot also comes as a geopolitical storm between the U.K. and Russia
intensifies over an alleged Moscow-orchestrated nerve-agent attack on British soil against
what the BBC called a double spy and his daughter."
When one thinks about the geopolitical repercussions of this nerve gas attack on $$ for
USA LNG, the control of energy supplies to the EU by the USA and its middle east puppets, the
quickly identified fingerprint and emotionally charged finger pointing, a complex technical
topic to which the general public has general knowledge and therefore must rely on
"authorities", the high level of media attention for a relatively minor character, and the
ongoing attempts to vilify and isolate Russia -- one has to wonder if this is just another
CIA false flag event similar to Iraq WMDs and the Syrian chemical weapons attacks -- another
false flag that will eventually fall apart after it has served its purpose. Examined in the
light of past and ongoing CIA atrocities (Renditions and torture in Abu Ghraib and Gitmo,
droning, MKULTRA, Operation Mongoose, Phoenix Program, Iran-Contra, numerous assassinations
and coups -- just to name a few), it seems quite in line with what I would expect from this
criminal organization. Not that we can really know the truth at this time, but those who
dutifully believe the corporate media on this topic might want to open a skeptical eye. There
are likely cover stories within cover stories -- much like cover stories one finds in the
Wormwood documentary.
This news along with Trudeau's support for Kinder Morgan Canada's Trans Mountain oil/tar
sands pipeline expansion should make it clear that the Paris Accords were a cruel joke on
humanity. We will keep extracting every single last drop of recoverable oil until we run out
of energy to continue or we nuke ourselves.
So, it's easy enough for Germany to pivot away from gas *if* they switch to heating with
electricity. However, Merkel refuses to push this. Because Merkel.
As such Russia still gravitates towards "a strong man" style of leadership.
Ironically it was the US and its ((advisers)) that first handed all of the Russian wealth
over to the ((oligarchs)), and then, later, supported Yeltsin when he illegally dissolved the
Rada and arrested their leaders (generally known as the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis)
(they had also supported him earlier, back when he was only President of the Russian Soviet
Socialist Republic and Gorbachev was head honcho, when Yeltsin sent tanks to bomb the
Rada/Parliament, during the so-called "August coup"). As a result, so that "their man" had
all the authority he needed to crush any dissent, the US and "West" fully supported the
"authoritarian" Constitution adopted later that year to cement Yeltsin's powers.
But of course now they blame Putin and the "Russian character" for it. Because, you know,
that is how the "West" rolls.
taking on democratic principle is just not as breezy as assumed
Yes and that is why there is not one country, aside perhaps from Switzerland, that is even
remotely democratic. The US is an utter oligarchic tyranny. Some other countries in Europe
may have some minimal claim at a semblance of democracy but it all collapses under closer
scrutiny. Heck many European countries still have their monarchies, including, probably in
the most extreme form, the UK.
Russia has yet to untangle some several hundred years of central authority style
leadership and taking on democratic principle is just not as breezy as assumed.
This is such a cliche phrase. Could you specify where exactly do you see stellar examples
of "democratic principles" ? In the UK with its unelected upper chamber of the parliament and
the Prime Minister, also not elected directly by the citizens? In the US, with its two-party
system in indirect elections? In Australis, with its compulsory voting?
Today's Russia is as democratic as any Western country, more so than some. Whatever
peculiarities our political system has is due to our history, the same as in any other
country. The same as in the UK, with their "constitutional" monarchy in the absence of actual
constitution. The same as in the US, with their voting system designed by Founding Fathers.
Russia is large and divers; some centralized authority is needed to keep it together
structurally and mentally, that is all.
The whining is coming for the land of Bush the lesser, Cheney five deferments, Rice
mushroom cloud, Chicago-style elections, and the Lobby strict censorship over the US Congress
(only Israel-firsters are allowed). Wouldn't it be great if the US first punish her own
criminals, including banksters and dual-citizenship spies? Four million civilians --
including a multitude of children -- were slaughtered in the Middle East since 1999 to
satisfy the desires of Israel-firsters, MIC, and oilmen. And yet, the major war criminals who
pushed for the wars of aggression (a supreme crime) are wondering free: from Bush and Kristol
to Clinton and Powers
Comment section: " all these statements by Votel are true and it took a good deal of
courage to make them in public." -- Get it? Just stating truthfully that Syria has won a
civil war is an anathema to the Lobby and it takes a great personal courage by a four-star
general in the United States Army who has been commander of United States Central Command to
testify the truth for the US Congress.
Russian Federation is an independent state. The US is ZUSA -- Ziocon United States of
America. Ukraine has become the Kaganat of Nuland, and the UK has become a personal estate of
the Friends of Israel. For example, Boris Johnson proclaimed himself a committed Zionist:
http://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/boris-johnson-zionist/
The rapid rise of oligarchy and wealth and income inequality is the great moral, economic, and political issue of our time. Yet,
it gets almost no coverage from the corporate media.
How often do network newscasts report on the 40 million Americans living in poverty, or that we have the highest rate of childhood
poverty of almost any major nation on earth? How often does the media discuss the reality that our society today is more unequal
than at any time since the 1920s with the top 0.1% now owning almost as much wealth as the bottom 90%? How often have you heard the
media report the stories of millions of people who today are working longer hours for lower wages than was the case some 40 years
ago?
How often has ABC, CBS or NBC discussed the role that the
Koch brothers and other billionaires play in creating
a political system which allows the rich and the powerful to significantly control elections and the legislative process in Congress?
We need to ask the hard questions that the corporate media fails to ask
Sadly, the answer to these questions is: almost never. The corporate media has failed to let the American people fully understand
the economic forces shaping their lives and causing many of them to work two or three jobs, while CEOs make hundreds of times more
than they do. Instead, day after day, 24/7, we're inundated with the relentless dramas of the Trump White House, Stormy Daniels,
and the latest piece of political gossip.
We urgently need to discuss the reality of today's economy and political system, and fight to create an economy that works for
everyone and not just the one percent.
We need to ask the hard questions that the corporate media fails to ask: who owns America, and who has the political power? Why,
in the richest country in the history of the world are so many Americans living in poverty? What are the forces that have caused
the American middle class, once the envy of the world, to decline precipitously? What can we learn from countries that have succeeded
in reducing income and wealth inequality, creating a strong and vibrant middle class, and providing basic human services to everyone?
We need to hear from struggling Americans whose stories are rarely told in newspapers or television. Unless we understand the
reality of life in America for working families, we're never going to change that reality.
Until we understand that the rightwing Koch brothers are more politically powerful than the Republican National Committee, and
that big banks, pharmaceutical companies, and multinational corporations are spending unlimited sums of money to rig the political
process, we won't be able to overturn the disastrous US supreme court decision on Citizens United, move to the public funding of
elections and end corporate greed.
Until we understand that the US federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour is a starvation wage and that people cannot make it on $9
or $10 an hour, we're not going to be able to pass a living wage of at least $15 an hour.
Until we understand that multinational corporations have been writing our trade and tax policies for the past 40 years to allow
them to throw American workers out on the street and move to low-wage countries, we're not going to be able to enact fair laws ending
the race to the bottom and making the wealthy and the powerful pay their fair share.
Until we understand that we live in a highly competitive global economy and that it is counterproductive that millions of our
people cannot afford a higher education or leave school deeply in debt, we will not be able to make public colleges and universities
tuition free.
Until we understand that we are the only major country on earth not to guarantee healthcare to all and that we spend far more
per capita on healthcare than does any other country, we're not going to be able to pass a Medicare for all, single-payer program.
Until we understand that the US pays, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs because pharmaceutical companies
can charge whatever price they want for life-saving medicine, we're not going to be able to lower the outrageous price of these drugs.
Until we understand that climate change is real, caused by humans, and causing devastating problems around the world, especially
for poor people, we're not going to be able to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel and into sustainable forms of energy.
We need to raise political consciousness in America and help us move forward with a progressive agenda that meets the needs of
our working families. It's up to us all to join the conversation -- it's just the beginning.
March 20 marks a major anniversary. You'd be forgiven for not knowing it. Fifteen years
after we invaded Iraq, few in the US are addressing our legacy there. But it's worth recalling
we shattered that country.
We made it a terrorist hotspot, as expected. US and British intelligence, in the months
preceding the invasion, expected Bush's planned assault would invigorate Al-Qaeda. The group "
would see an opportunity
to accelerate its operational tempo and increase terrorist attacks," particularly "
in the US and UK ," assessments warned. Due course for the War on Terror.
Follow-up reports confirmed these predictions. "The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause
celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and
cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement," Washington analysts explained in
2006.
Fawaz Gerges
lists two groups this milieu produced: Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), "a creature of the 2003
US-led invasion," and ISIS, "an extension of AQI."
There were good reasons for anyone -- not just jihadists -- to resent US involvement.
Consider sectarianism. "The most serious sectarian and ethnic tensions in Iraq's modern history
followed the 2003 US-led occupation," Sami Ramadani affirmed .
Nabil Al-Tikriti concurs , citing US
policies that "led to a progressive, incessant increase in sectarian tensions." The Shia death
squads "
organized by U.S. operatives" were one such decision.
The extent to which these squads succeeded is, in part, what scholars debate when they tally
the war deaths. Low estimates, like Iraq Body Count's, put civilians killed at just over 200,000. One research
team determined
some "half million deaths in Iraq could be attributable to the war." Physicians for Social
Responsibility concluded "that the war has, directly or
indirectly, killed around 1 million people in Iraq," plus 300,000 more in Afghanistan and
Pakistan.
Iraqis surviving the inferno confronted a range of nightmares. The UN " reported that over 4.4
million Iraqis were internally displaced, and an additional 264,100 were refugees abroad," for
example. US forces dealt with Iraqi prisoners -- 70-90% of whom were " arrested by
mistake " -- by "arranging naked detainees in a pile and then jumping on them;" "breaking
chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees;" and "forcing groups of male
detainees to masturbate themselves," to list some of the ways we imparted , with the approval of top
Bush administration officials, democratic principles.
Then there are the generations of future Iraqis in bomb-battered cities: Fallujah, Basra. In
the former, "the reported increases in cancer and infant
mortality are alarmingly high" -- perhaps "
worse than Hiroshima " -- while "birth defects reached in 2010 unprecedented
numbers." In the same vein, "a pattern of increase in congenital birth defects" plagues Basra, and
"many suspect that pollution created by the bombardment of Iraqi cities has caused the current
birth defect crisis in that country."
This bombardment began decades before 2003, it's crucial to clarify. We can recall UN
Under-Secretary-General Martti Ahtisaari's mission to Baghdad after Operation Desert Storm. He
and his team were familiar with the literature on the bombings, he wrote in March 1991, "fully
conversant with media reports regarding the situation in Iraq," but realized upon arrival "that
nothing that we had seen or read had quite prepared us for the particular form of devastation"
-- "near-apocalyptic" -- "which has now befallen the country," condemning it "to a
pre-industrial age" for the foreseeable future. This was the scale of ruin when the UN Security
Council imposed sanctions. The measures were "at every turn
shaped by the United States," whose "consistent
policy " was "to inflict the most extreme economic damage possible on Iraq."
The policy was, in this respect, a ripping success. The UN estimated
in 1995 that the sanctions had murdered over a half-million children -- " worth it ," Madeleine Albright said --
one factor prompting two successive UN Humanitarian Coordinators in Iraq to resign. Denis
Halliday
thought the sanctions "criminally flawed and genocidal;" Hans von Sponeck
agreed , citing evidence of "conscious violation of human rights and humanitarian law on
the part of governments represented in the Security Council, first and foremost those of the
United States and the United Kingdom."
Eliminating hundreds of thousands of starving children was just the prequel to the
occupation -- "the biggest cultural disaster since the descendants of Genghis Khan destroyed
Baghdad in 1258," in one writer's judgment
. But try to find more than a handful of commentators reflecting on any of these issues on this
dark anniversary. Instead, silence shows the deep US capacity for forgetting.
Nick Alexandrov lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He can be reached at: [email protected]
For an extra funny, at one time, the United States was happy to supply fuel cycle capable
breeder reactors to Iran, before the 1979 Revolution intervened.
No less a personage than Dick Cheney, who was President Ford's Chief of Staff at the time,
commented at the time that he could figure out what those reactors would be used for. The
same Dick Cheney who insisted that non-fuel cycle capable reactors were somehow proof of
Iran's bad intentions.
Source: "The Silk Roads" by Professor Peter Frankopan.
"... The Iranians know how that cartoon ends, so they'd refuse, unlike Mr Saddam. And then the US would call on the client states in the EU to join them in tightening sanctions. Eventually provocation could be arranged and the US would "have no choice but to respond." - some patrol boats being shot at by Iranians as has happened. We all will recall how Obama was cast as a creampuf appeaseer when 'our boys' were caught zooming around Iranian waters. ..."
"... Too many powerful actors on the American political stage have determined hat Iran must be collapsed (It was on the famous hit-list after all) for them to let this go. ..."
What had been happening and what I expect to see is that, as during the George II
Administration, the US would loudly accuse Iran of breaking faith with agreements and demand
unlimited access for 'inspectors'.
The Iranians know how that cartoon ends, so they'd refuse, unlike Mr Saddam. And then
the US would call on the client states in the EU to join them in tightening sanctions.
Eventually provocation could be arranged and the US would "have no choice but to respond." -
some patrol boats being shot at by Iranians as has happened. We all will recall how Obama was
cast as a creampuf appeaseer when 'our boys' were caught zooming around Iranian
waters.
Too many powerful actors on the American political stage have determined hat Iran must
be collapsed (It was on the famous hit-list after all) for them to let this go.
The Senators' argument is that dependence on Russian gas undermines European security.
Whereas to the Russians, it is obvious that the Americans wish to replace cheap Rusian
piped gas with expensive liquefied American gas, which is a bi-product of fracking for oil
and currently in surplus. Some frackers in Canada are even having to pay someone to take
their gas.
Surprisingly, no one has yet pointed out that Russia could deliver Novichok to the whole
of Europe via Nordstream 2.
"An editor at the Guardian says the poisoning was a 'brazen attack on a sovereign country'
and 'cannot go unpunished'".
So presumably The Guardian will now be agitating for the trial and severe punishment of
all those responsible for brazen and unprovoked attacks on Yugoslavia, Afghanistan. Iraq,
Libya and Syria?
All of which did rather more than poisoning two or three people (so far, non-fatally). In
Iraq alone the "coalition" is responsible for over 3 million civilian deaths. In Iraq and
Libya the civil infrastructure was demolished and the head of state murdered.
And what does The Guardian have to say about that?
Mizan Thrope • 2 days ago
Another FALSE FLAG created by the western neocons to discredit Russia. This is so
obvious. The sheeple need to wake up.
"... Iran yielded a great deal, but they were never going to give up their entire nuclear program. That is not just because Iran is permitted to have such a program under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but also because Iran had already invested so many resources at significant cost that retaining some part of it was a matter of national pride. ..."
Uri Friedman reviews
Mike Pompeo's hard-line foreign policy views. Here he quotes Pompeo's criticism of the
negotiations leading up to the nuclear deal with Iran:
The Obama administration failed to take "advantage of crushing economic sanctions to end
Iran's nuclear program," he declared when the deal was struck. "That's not foreign policy;
it's surrender."
Pompeo's statement is ridiculous, but it does provide us with a useful window into how he
understands foreign policy issues. Like many other Iran hawks, he opposes the nuclear deal
because it "failed" to bring an end to Iran's nuclear program. He dubs Iran's major concessions
on the nuclear issue as "surrender" by the U.S. because they were not forced to give up
absolutely everything. That reflects the absurd all-or-nothing view of diplomacy that prevails
among hard-line critics of the JCPOA.
Iran yielded a great deal, but they were never going to give up their entire nuclear
program. That is not just because Iran is permitted to have such a program under the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but also because Iran had already invested so many resources at
significant cost that retaining some part of it was a matter of national pride. If the Obama
administration had insisted on the elimination of Iran's nuclear program, the negotiations
would have failed and the restrictions on that problem that are now in place would not exist.
There would have been no nuclear deal if the U.S. had insisted on maximalist demands. What Pompeo calls surrender is what sane people call compromise. Putting someone so inflexible and
allergic to compromise in charge of the State Department is the act of a president who has
nothing but disdain for diplomacy, and Pompeo's all-or-nothing view of the nuclear deal bodes
ill for talks with North Korea.
Robert Bartley, the late editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal, was a free trade
zealot who for decades championed a five-word amendment to the Constitution: "There shall be
open borders."
Bartley accepted what the erasure of America's borders and an endless influx or foreign
peoples and goods would mean for his country.
Said Bartley, "I think the nation-state is finished."
His vision and ideology had a long pedigree.
This free trade, open borders cult first flowered in 18th-century Britain. The St. Paul of
this post-Christian faith was Richard Cobden, who mesmerized elites with the grandeur of his
vision and the power of his rhetoric.
In Free Trade Hall in Manchester, Jan. 15, 1846, the crowd was so immense the seats had to
be removed. There, Cobden thundered:
"I look farther; I see in the Free Trade principle that which shall act on the moral world
as the principle of gravitation in the universe -- drawing men together, thrusting aside the
antagonisms of race, and creed, and language, and uniting us in the bonds of eternal
peace."
Britain converted to this utopian faith and threw open her markets to the world. Across the
Atlantic, however, another system, that would be known as the "American System," had been
embraced.
The second bill signed by President Washington was the Tariff Act of 1789. Said the Founding
Father of his country in his first address to Congress: "A free people should promote such
manufactures as tend to make them independent on others for essential, particularly military
supplies."
In his 1791 "Report on Manufactures," Alexander Hamilton wrote, "Every nation ought to
endeavor to possess within itself all the essentials of national supply. These comprise the
means of subsistence, habitat, clothing and defence."
This was wisdom born of experience.
At Yorktown, Americans had to rely on French muskets and ships to win their independence.
They were determined to erect a system that would end our reliance on Europe for the
necessities of our national life, and establish new bonds of mutual dependency -- among
Americans.
Britain's folly became manifest in World War I, as a self-reliant America stayed out, while
selling to an import-dependent England the food, supplies and arms she needed to survive but
could not produce.
America's own first major steps toward free trade, open borders and globalism came with
JFK's Trade Expansion Act and LBJ's Immigration Act of 1965.
By the end of the Cold War, however, a reaction had set in, and a great awakening begun.
U.S. trade deficits in goods were surging into the hundreds of billions, and more than a
million legal and illegal immigrants were flooding in yearly, visibly altering the character of
the country.
Americans were coming to realize that free trade was gutting the nation's manufacturing base
and open borders meant losing the country in which they grew up. And on this earth there is no
greater loss.
The new resistance of Western man to the globalist agenda is now everywhere manifest.
We see it in Trump's hostility to NAFTA, his tariffs, his border wall.
We see it in England's declaration of independence from the EU in Brexit. We see it in the
political triumphs of Polish, Hungarian and Czech nationalists, in anti-EU parties rising
across Europe, in the secessionist movements in Scotland and Catalonia and Ukraine, and in the
admiration for Russian nationalist Vladimir Putin.
Europeans have begun to see themselves as indigenous peoples whose Old Continent is mortally
imperiled by the hundreds of millions of invaders wading across the Med and desperate come and
occupy their homelands.
Who owns the future? Who will decide the fate of the West?
The problem of the internationalists is that the vision they have on offer -- a world of
free trade, open borders and global government -- are constructs of the mind that do not engage
the heart.
Men will fight for family, faith and country. But how many will lay down their lives for
pluralism and diversity?
Who will fight and die for the Eurozone and EU?
On Aug. 4, 1914, the anti-militarist German Social Democrats, the oldest and greatest
socialist party in Europe, voted the credits needed for the Kaiser to wage war on France and
Russia. With the German army on the march, the German socialists were Germans first.
Patriotism trumps ideology.
In "Present at the Creation," Dean Acheson wrote of the postwar world and institutions born
in the years he served FDR and Truman in the Department of State: The U.N., IMF, World Bank,
Marshall Plan, and with the split between East and West, NATO.
We are present now at the end of all that.
And our transnational elites have a seemingly insoluble problem.
To rising millions in the West, the open borders and free trade globalism they cherish and
champion is not a glorious future, but an existential threat to the sovereignty, independence
and identity of the countries they love. And they will not go gentle into that good night.
"... The former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, who visited the site at Nukus, said it had been dismantled with US help. He is among those advocating scepticism about the UK placing blame on Russia. ..."
"... In a blog post , he wrote: "The same people who assured you Saddam Hussein had WMDs now assure you Russian 'novichok' nerve agents are being wielded by Vladimir Putin to attack people on British soil." ..."
"... The UK government case rests not just on its argument that novichok was developed in Russia, but what it says is past form, a record of Russian state-sponsored assassination of former spies. ..."
"... Murray, in a phone interview, is undeterred, determined to challenge the government line, in spite of having been subjected to a level of abuse on social media he had not experienced before. ..."
"... "There is no evidence it was Russia. I am not ruling out that it could be Russia, though I don't see the motive. I want to see where the evidence lies," Murray said. "Anyone who expresses scepticism is seen as an enemy of the state." ..."
The question now is whether all of Russia's chemical weapons were
destroyed and accounted for. Theresa May – having identified the nerve agent used in the
Salisbury attack as novichok, developed in Russia – told the Commons on Wednesday that
Russia had offered no
explanation as to why it had "an undeclared chemical weapons programme in contravention of
international law". Jeremy Corbyn introduced a sceptical note, questioning whether there was
any evidence as to the location of its production.
The exchanges provoked a debate echoing the one that preceded the 2003 invasion of Iraq over
whether UN weapons inspectors had overseen the destruction of all the weapons of mass
destruction in the country or whether Saddam Hussein had retained secret hidden caches.
On social media, there were arguments that the novichok could have come from some part of
the former Soviet Union other than Russia, such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan or Ukraine, or some
non-state group, maybe criminals.
The years following the fall of the Berlin Wall were chaotic, with chemical weapons
laboratories and storage sites across the Soviet Union abandoned by staff who were no longer
being paid. Security was almost non-existent, leaving the sites at the mercy of criminal gangs
or disenchanted staff looking to supplement their income.
"Could somebody have smuggled something out?" Amy Smithson, a US-based biological and
chemical weapons expert, said to Reuters. "I certainly wouldn't rule that possibility out,
especially a small amount and particularly in view of how lax the security was at Russian
chemical facilities in the early 1990s."
It took almost a decade before order was restored, in part through stockpiles being
transferred to Russia from other parts of the former Soviet Union and in part through help from
US and other western experts.
Novichok was developed at a laboratory complex in
Shikhany, in central Russia, according to a British weapons expert, Hamish de
Bretton-Gordon, and a Russian chemist involved in the chemical weapons programme, Vil
Mirzayanov, who later defected to the US. Mirzayanov said the novichok was tested at Nukus, in
Uzbekistan.
The former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, who visited the site at Nukus,
said it had been dismantled with US help. He is among those advocating scepticism about the UK
placing blame on Russia.
In a blog post , he wrote:
"The same people who assured you Saddam Hussein had WMDs now assure you Russian 'novichok'
nerve agents are being wielded by Vladimir Putin to attack people on British soil."
A Russian lawyer, Boris Kuznetsov, told Reuters he was offering to pass to the British
authorities a file he said might be relevant to the Salisbury case. It details an incident when
poison hidden in a phone receiver killed a Russian banker and his secretary in 1995. The poison
came from an employee at the state chemical facility who sold it through intermediaries –
in an ampule placed in a presentation case – to help reduce his debts.
The UK government case rests not just on its argument that novichok was developed in Russia,
but what it says is past form, a record of Russian state-sponsored assassination of former
spies.
Murray, in a phone interview, is undeterred, determined to challenge the government line, in
spite of having been subjected to a level of abuse on social media he had not experienced
before.
"There is no evidence it was Russia. I am not ruling out that it could be Russia, though I
don't see the motive. I want to see where the evidence lies," Murray said. "Anyone who
expresses scepticism is seen as an enemy of the state."
"... This is a European energy issue. From the start. The US either wants to be the middle-man or cut Russia off from it entirely. No other options have been tabled or would be acceptable to Washington. Remember the Trump quote "Why don't we just take their oil and gas?" ..."
"... Look at the opposition gaining speed against Nord Stream II. And also look, the UK and all of Europe may be in for some cold summers and winters now, it's a trend they cannot ignore as it gets colder for longer periods, this trend isn't relaxing with the stratosphere doing some flips and turns and sending "The Beast From The East" towards the once Great Britain. ..."
The Skripal anti-Russia hysteria effort is just another step in the US/CIA campaign to
interfere with the Russian hosting of the World Cup -- the next step will be to attempt to
have the qualifying European countries boycott the event ... remember, to them, every Russian
loss is an American win.
However, I will go on record to predict that the US will have its Ukrainian neo-Nazi
vassals mount a major attack on the Donbass within week of the beginning of the World Cup
tournament.
I agree the World Cup is on the agenda, but this effort is multi-pronged, like Octi-putin,
they will want to boycott it and you will see all sorts of FIFA related articles in the
coming months, corruption and so on. It's all predictable.
This is a European energy issue. From the start. The US either wants to be the
middle-man or cut Russia off from it entirely. No other options have been tabled or would be
acceptable to Washington. Remember the Trump quote "Why don't we just take their oil and
gas?"
Look at the opposition gaining speed against Nord Stream II. And also look, the UK and
all of Europe may be in for some cold summers and winters now, it's a trend they cannot
ignore as it gets colder for longer periods, this trend isn't relaxing with the stratosphere
doing some flips and turns and sending "The Beast From The East" towards the once Great
Britain.
"If We Should Have to Leave Our Bleached Bones on These Desert Sands in Vain, Then Beware the Anger of the Legions."
Quote Investigator
Notable quotes:
"... Prussian war theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously spoke of the " fog of war ," the confusion created by and inherent uncertainty built into that complex human endeavor. As thick as that fog often is, in these years the fog of phony war has proven even thicker and more disorienting. ..."
A bizarre version of blitzkrieg overseas and an even stranger version of sitzkrieg at home could be said to define this peculiar
American moment. These two versions exist in a curiously yin-yang relationship to each other. For how can a nation's military be
engaged in warfare at a near-global level -- blitzing people across vast swaths of the globe -- when its citizens are sitting on
their collective duffs,
demobilized
and mentally disarmed? Such a schizoid state of mind can exist only when it's in the interest of those in power. Appeals to "patriotism"
(especially to revering "our" troops) and an overwhelming
atmosphere
of secrecy to preserve American "safety" and "security" have been remarkably effective in
controlling and stifling interest in the
country's wars and their
costs
, long before such an interest might morph into dissent or opposition. If you want an image of just how effective this has been,
recall the moment in July 2016 when small numbers of earnest war protesters quite literally had the
lights turned
off on them at the Democratic National Convention.
To use an expression I heard more than a few times in my years in the military, when it comes to its wars, the government treats
the people like mushrooms, keeping them in the dark and feeding them bullshit.
The Fog of Phony War
Prussian war theorist Carl von Clausewitz famously spoke of the "
fog of war ," the confusion created by and inherent uncertainty
built into that complex human endeavor. As thick as that fog often is, in these years the fog of phony war has proven even thicker
and more disorienting.
By its very nature, a real war of necessity, of survival, like the Civil War or World War II brings with it clarity of purpose
and a demand for results. Poorly performing leaders are relieved of command when not killed outright in combat. Consider the number
of mediocre Union generals Abraham Lincoln cycled through before he found Ulysses S. Grant. Consider the number of
senior officers relieved
during World War II by General George C. Marshall, who knew that, in a global struggle against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, subpar
performances couldn't be tolerated. In wars of necessity or survival, moreover, the people are invariably involved. In part, they
may have little choice, but they also know (or at least believe they know) "
why we fight " -- and generally approve of it.
Admittedly, even in wars of necessity there are always those who will find ways to duck service. In the Civil War, for example,
the rich could pay others to fight in their place. But typically in such wars, everyone serves in some capacity. Necessity demands
it.
The definition of twenty-first-century phony war, on the other hand, is its lack of clarity, its lack of purpose, its lack of
any true imperative for national survival (despite a never-ending hysteria over the "terrorist threat"). The fog it produces is especially
disorienting. Americans today have little idea "why we fight" other than a vague sense of fighting them over there (Afghanistan,
Iraq, Libya, Niger, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, etc.) so they won't kill us here, to cite George W. Bush's
rationale for launching the war on terror. Meanwhile, with
such a lack of national involvement and accountability, there's no pressure for the Pentagon or the rest of the national security
state to up its game; there's no one even to point out that wherever the U.S. military has gone into battle in these years, yet more
terror groups have subsequently sprouted like so many malignant weeds. Bureaucracy and mediocrity go unchallenged;
massive boosts in military spending reward incompetency and the creation of a series of quagmire-like "
generational
" wars.
Think of it as war on a Möbius strip. More money shoveled into the Pentagon brings more chaos overseas, more imperial overreach,
and undoubtedly more
blowback
here at home, all witnessed -- or rather largely ignored -- by a sitzkrieg citizenry.
Of course, for those fighting the wars, they are anything but phony. It's just that their experience remains largely isolated
from that of the rest of us, an isolation that only serves to elevate
post-traumatic stress disorder rates,
suicides , and the like. When
today's troops come home, they generally suffer in silence and among themselves.
America's New (Phony) National Defense Strategy
Even phony wars need enemies. In fact, they may need them more (and more of them) than real wars do. No surprise then that the
Trump administration's recently announced
National Defense Strategy (NDS) offers a laundry list of such enemies. China and Russia top it as "revisionist powers" looking
to reverse America's putative victory over Communism in the Cold War. "Rogue" powers like North Korea and Iran are singled out as
especially dangerous because of their nuclear ambitions. (The United States, of course, doesn't have a "rogue" bone in its body,
even if it is now devoting at least $1.2
trillion to building a new generation of more usable nuclear
weapons.) Nor does the NDS neglect Washington's need to
hammer
away at global terrorists until the end of time or to extend "full-spectrum dominance" not just to the traditional realms of
combat (land, sea, and air) but also to
space and cyberspace.
Amid such a plethora of enemies, only one thing is missing in America's
new defense strategy
, the very thing that's been missing all these years, that makes twenty-first-century American war so phony: any sense of national
mobilization and shared sacrifice (or its opposite,
antiwar resistance ). If the United
States truly faces all these existential threats to our democracy and our way of life, what are we doing frittering away more than
$45
billion annually in a quagmire war in Afghanistan? What are we doing spending staggering sums on exotic weaponry like the F-35
jet fighter (total projected program cost:
$1.45 trillion ) when we
have far more pressing national needs to deal with?
Like so much else in Washington in these years, the NDS doesn't represent a strategy for real war, only a call for more of the
same raised to a higher power. That mainly means more money for the Pentagon, the Department of Homeland Security, and related "defense"
agencies, facilitating more blitz attacks on various enemies overseas. The formula -- serial blitzkrieg abroad, serial sitzkrieg
in the homeland -- adds up to
victory , but only for the military-industrial complex.
Solutions to Sitzkrieg
Of course, one solution to phony war would be to engage in real war, but for that the famed American way of life would actually
have to be endangered. (By Afghans? Syrians? Iraqis? Yemenis? Really?) Congress would then have to declare war; the public would
have to be mobilized, a draft undoubtedly reinstated, and taxes raised. And those would be just for starters. A clear strategy would
have to be defined and losing generals demoted or dismissed.
Who could imagine such an approach when it comes to America's forever wars? Another solution to phony war would be for the American
people to actually start paying attention. The Pentagon would then have to be starved of funds. (With less money, admirals and generals
might actually have to think.) All those attacks overseas that blitzed innocents and spread chaos would have to end. Here at home,
the cheerleaders would have to put down the pom-poms, stop mindlessly praising the troops for their service, and pick up a few protest
signs.
In point of fact, America's all-too-real wars overseas aren't likely to end until the phony war here at home is dispatched to
oblivion.
A final thought: Americans tell pollsters that, after all these years of failed wars abroad, they continue to
trust the
military more than any other societal institution. Consistent with phony war, however, much of that trust is based on ignorance,
on not really knowing what that military is doing overseas. So, is there a chance that, one of these days, Americans might actually
begin to pay some attention to "their" wars? And if so, would those polls begin to change and how might that military, which has
experienced its share of blood, sweat, and tears, respond to such a loss of societal prestige? Beware the
anger of the legions .
Faith in institutions undergirds democracy. Keeping the people deliberately demobilized and in the dark about the costs and carnage
of America's wars follows a pattern of governmental lying and deceit that stretches from the
Vietnam War to the
Iraq Wars of
1991 and 2003
, to military operations in Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere today. Systemic lies and the phony war that goes with them continue
to contribute to a slow-motion process of political and social disintegration that could result in a much grimmer future for this
country: perhaps an authoritarian one; certainly, a more chaotic and less democratic one.
Societal degradation and democratic implosion, caused in part by endless phony war and the lies associated with it, are this country's
real existential enemies, even if you can't find them listed in any National Defense Strategy. Indeed, the price tag for America's
wars may in the end prove not just heavy but catastrophic.
The text of the letter in French as it appeared in "Les Centurions" [LCJL] has been appended near the bottom of this post. Here
is the English language version published in the 1962 edition of "The Centurions" [TCJL]:
We had been told, on leaving our native soil, that we were going to defend the sacred rights conferred on us by so many
of our citizens settled overseas, so many years of our presence, so many benefits brought by us to populations in need of our
assistance and our civilization.
We were able to verify that all this was true, and, because it was true, we did not hesitate to shed our quota of blood,
to sacrifice our youth and our hopes. We regretted nothing, but whereas we over here are inspired by this frame of mind, I
am told that in Rome factions and conspiracies are rife, that treachery flourishes, and that many people in their uncertainty
and confusion lend a ready ear to the dire temptations of relinquishment and vilify our action.
I cannot believe that all this is true and yet recent wars have shown how pernicious such a state of mind could be and to
where it could lead.
Make haste to reassure me, I beg you, and tell me that our fellow-citizens understand us, support us and protect us as we
ourselves are protecting the glory of the Empire.
If it should be otherwise, if we should have to leave our bleached bones on these desert sands in vain, then beware of the
anger of the Legions!
Marcus Flavinius,
Centurion in the 2nd Cohort of the Augusta Legion,
to his cousin Tertullus in Rome
William Astore, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel and history professor, is a
TomDispatch
regular . He blogs at Bracing Views .
I'm not sure why the US's actions overseas are called "wars". They're attacks upon weak 3rd and 4th world countries with little
capability to resist. The US has never fought a peer enemy despite all it's self-promotion. It moved in on the Germans at the
last moment after they were already on the ropes, despite all the WWII movie hype. All other enemies have been carefully chosen
for their vulnerability. But who actually wants a "real" war? Only an insane person wants that. These phony wars serve as an income
transfer scheme siphoning tax money upward from the masses to the upper classes. Funny how that works. An actual war with a country
that can defend itself and inflict real damage might have the effect of upsetting this racket they have going and they don't want
that. Of course the money spent for Afghanistan could be better put to use domestically for roads, medical research and other
ways of spending our money on ourselves but apparently that's not in the cards. What's important is to keep the hysteria going
so as to maintain the .1% in the style to which they're entitled. The people getting killed are the expendables and of no importance.
It's all just a money transfer. Ya have to be in the thick of things around DC, the Pentagon, the likes of Lockheed, the spooks
at NSA, certain aspects of Federal Law Enforcement, the whole Alphabet Soup. The dough is a-flowing and they're up to their hand-sewn
collars in it. Their mansions, their 5 BMWs or whatever, the Rolexes, the vacations, beautiful women at home AND on the road.
They intend to hand it all over to their children as their fathers handed it over to them. They are NOT giving this up. Ever.
Get in the way, Mr. Senator or Congressman or President? Here's what we have on YOU sir, usually a girlfriend or some depravity,
they're politicians after all. End of the day, these are the people that get richer every day by killing people. They're very
good at it. Even in Britain, the UK, even Russians aren't safe in the quest to keep it all going. Get in the way of the cabal
and their income streams in any way, they can disappear you and blame it on Putin. These are the people that kill people. Remember
that, you'll be well-served.
But: there IS sacrifice. All those trillions of dollars wasted on pointless winless foreign wars are coming out of the standard
of living of the United States, one way or the other. It's just indirect and hard to trace.
One is reminded that Donald Trump, during his presidential campaign, suggested that we stop wasting all these trillions on
stupid wars, and spend it on ourselves. For this he was excoriated as "literally Hitler." A lot of Americans voted for him because,
propaganda aside, they are not stupid and they don't want this phony war nonsense. After the election, though, he finally caved,
and now it's back to business as usual. The elites really like their war profits and they will not shy away from playing dirty
to keep them. That's why these phony wars continue.
Remember: IN THE LAST ELECTION THE AMERICAN PEOPLE VOTED AGAINST PHONY WARS. It's just that we don't live in a Democracy.
But there is an alternate view. One is reminded that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 were only possible because the immigration
policy of the United States is increasingly open to people from unstable nations full of extremists. That attack could not have
happened a decade or so earlier.
Even if the United States had the most benevolent foreign policy imaginable, it's a big messy world. There will always be people
who hate the United States, for whatever reason. In the past these people would just stew in their own misery and kill each other.
Now they can come here no questions asked. Now every extremist group in Tyrannia or Fanatistan is our concern, and we need to
break up any potentially hostile organized faction anywhere in the world. So maybe – maybe – these stupid wars aren't that stupid
after all. Maybe these phony wars is just one more price for "there shall be open borders."
Minding our own business was never a strong suit of our ruling classes, but it would have saved the world a lot of grief. However,
it would have shaved the profits of the bankers and other war profiteers.
The "war for profit group" seem to labor under the impression that it is their war, and that it shall be their material
gain. That group, surely is the cause of wars
-Charles A. Lindbergh, Why is your country at war and what happens to you after the war, and related subjects" p77, (1917)
In the battle of Manchuria ( China ) , August 1945 , or " August Storm " , the Russians defeated the imperial japanese army
, the road to Japan was open for the Red Army and the chinese . Then the yankees threw the atomic bombs to Japan to threaten the
Russians ( who still did not have the atomic bomb at the time ) to not to invade Japan .
Japan was completeley defeated , there was not any military need to throw atomic bombs on Japan . The Americans have a sad
record for bombing unarmed civilians : Corea , Vietnam , Germany , Irak, Afganistan , Libia , Siria , Japan , etc ..
Americans are no longer allowed to see the reality of war, as some old movies showed. From my blog:
Jun 8, 2017 – Patriotic Nonsense
Do you become angry when you hear nonsense that our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are fighting for our freedoms? Do you become
enraged when the death of soldiers is explained by claiming they protected us? This is nothing new, as shown in this short movie
clip with Korean War vet James Garner. Most blame the Generals and politicians, but he also blames the people back home for glorifying
wars, thus allowing the deadly ruse to continue. He stated: "It is always the war widows who lead the Memorial Day parade" as
though their husbands died by accident.
Back when Reagan was doing his impersonation of POTUS, the defense deficit was some measly amount and the cry went out to privatize
defense because the free market could do it for less. Pretty funny in retrospect.
They also fixed our inefficient corporations and markets, then went on to fix housing, inequality and end poverty. As if that
wasn't enough, they also fixed healthcare and banking. I'm surprised we're still afloat. I expect a Wiley Coyote moment soon.
The Secretary of Defense has
written to Congressional leaders to express his opposition to S.J.Res. 54, the resolution
that would end U.S. involvement in the war on Yemen:
In a letter sent to congressional leaders Wednesday and obtained by The Washington Post,
Mattis wrote that restricting military support the United States is providing to the
Saudi-led coalition "could increase civilian casualties, jeopardize cooperation with our
partners on counterterrorism, and reduce our influence with the Saudis -- all of which would
further exacerbate the situation and humanitarian crisis."
He urged Congress not to impose restrictions on the "noncombat," "limited U.S. military
support" being provided to Saudi Arabia, which is "engaging in operations in its legitimate
exercise of self-defense."
The Pentagon has been putting forward very weak legal
arguments against S.J.Res. 54, and Mattis'
statement of the policy arguments against the resolution are not any better. The Saudi-led
coalition would have great difficulty continuing their war without U.S. military assistance.
U.S. refueling allows coalition planes to carry out more attacks than they otherwise could, so
it is extremely unlikely that ending it could possibly result in more civilian casualties than
the bombing campaign causes now. Mattis is taking for granted that U.S. military assistance
somehow makes coalition bombing more accurate and less likely to result in civilian casualties,
but that is hard to credit when coalition forces routinely target civilian structures on
purpose and when the military
admits that it doesn't keep track of what happens after it refuels coalition planes.
Secretary Mattis says that cutting off support could jeopardize cooperation on
counter-terrorism, but the flip side of this is that continuing to enable the Saudi-led war
creates the conditions for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the local ISIS affiliate to
flourish. The coalition's war has made AQAP stronger than it was before, and AQAP members have
sometimes even fought alongside coalition forces on the ground. Instead of worrying about
whether the U.S. is jeopardizing cooperation with these states, we should be asking whether
that cooperation is worth very much in Yemen.
He claims that the Saudis and their allies are engaged in "a legitimate exercise of
self-defense," and this is simply not true. The Saudis and their allies were not attacked and
were not threatened with attack prior to their intervention. Saudi territory now comes under
attack because the coalition has been bombing Yemen for years, but that doesn't make continuing
the war self-defense. If an aggressor launches an attack against a neighboring country, it is
the neighbor that is engaged in self-defense against the state(s) attacking them.
Mattis also warns that ending support for the Saudi-led coalition would have other
undesirable consequences:
As Mattis put it in his letter to congressional leaders Wednesday, "withdrawing U.S.
support would embolden Iran to increase its support to the Houthis, enabling further
ballistic missile strikes on Saudi Arabia and threatening vital shipping lanes in the Red
Sea, thereby raising the risk of a regional conflict."
These claims also don't hold water. Iranian support for the Houthis remains limited, but it
has increased as a direct result of the war. The longer that the war goes on, the greater the
incentive the Houthis and Iran will have to cooperate. The absurdity of this intervention is
that it was dishonestly sold as a war against Iranian "expansionism" and yet it has done more
to aid Iran than anything Iran's government could have done on its own. Missile strikes on
Saudi Arabia wouldn't be happening if the Saudis and their allies weren't regularly bombing
Yemeni cities. If the coalition halted its bombing, the missile strikes would almost certainly
cease as well. Continuing the war is a guarantee that those attacks will continue, and U.S.
military assistance ensures that the war will continue. Every reason Mattis gives here for
continuing U.S. support for the war is actually a reason to end it.
Shipping lanes weren't threatened before the intervention and won't be threatened after it
ends. Yemenis have every incentive to leave shipping lanes alone, since these are their
country's lifeline. Meanwhile, the cruel coalition blockade is slowly starving millions of
Yemenis to death by keeping out essential commercial goods from the main ports that serve the
vast majority of the population. Mattis is warning about potential threats to shipping from
Yemen while completely ignoring that the main cause of the humanitarian disaster is the
interruption of commercial shipping into Yemen by the Saudi-led blockade. The regional conflict
that Mattis warns about is already here. It is called the Saudi-led war on Yemen. If one wants
to prevent the region from being destabilized further, one would want to put an end to that war
as quickly as possible.
Mattis mentions that the U.S. role in the war is a "noncombat" and "limited" one, but for
the purposes of the debate on Sanders-Lee resolution that is irrelevant. It doesn't matter that
the military assistance the U.S. is providing doesn't put Americans in combat. That is not the
only way that U.S. forces can be introduced into hostilities. According to the War Powers Resolution
, the U.S. has introduced its armed forces into hostilities under these circumstances:
For purposes of this joint resolution, the term "introduction of United States Armed
Forces" includes the assignment of member of such armed forces to command, coordinate,
participate in the movement of, or accompany [bold mine-DL] the regular or irregular military
forces of any foreign country or government when such military forces are engaged, or there
exists an imminent threat that such forces will become engaged, in hostilities.
Any fair reading of this definition has to apply to the regular U.S. refueling of coalition
planes that are engaged in an ongoing bombing campaign. The U.S. is obviously participating in
the "movement" of coalition forces when it provides their planes with fuel. Indeed, our forces
are making the movement of their forces possible through refueling. U.S. involvement in the war
on Yemen clearly counts as introducing U.S. forces into hostilities under the WPR, and neither
administration has sought or received authorization to do this. No president is permitted to do
this unless there is "(1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a
national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or
its armed forces." There has obviously been no action from Congress that authorizes this, and
there is certainly no emergency or attack that justifies it. U.S. involvement in the war on
Yemen is illegal, and the Senate should pass S.J.Res. 54 to end it.
"Mattis wrote that restricting military support the United States is providing to the
Saudi-led coalition "could increase civilian casualties, jeopardize cooperation with our
partners on counterterrorism, and reduce our influence with the Saudis -- all of which would
further exacerbate the situation and humanitarian crisis.""
Wow. So MBS is blackmailing us. He's threatening to kill more civilians, to stop
anti-terror cooperation, and to shut us out of other Saudi regional security decisions if we
don't help him starve and wreck Yemen.
Maybe the situation is a little clearer, but how can anyone take Trump seriously after
this embarrassing confession by Mattis?
We may assume that Trump has no self-respect, but doesn't he have any respect for his
office? Is he really going to let this disgusting little torture freak jerk him around like
this? When it implicates all Americans in Saudi war crimes?
Re: "Mattis' Weak Case for Supporting the War on Yemen"
Unfortunately, in this day of warped Military Exceptionalism as the civic religion, a
4-Star pedigree fronting weak arguments makes them essentially unassailable. No matter how
immoral, idiotic or costly to the taxpayers.
Mad Dog Mattis got a free ride with his logically incoherent, hyper-belligerent
pronouncements related to the National Security Strategy. Expect no different response to his
perverse rationalizations of the Yemen catastrophe.
Generals and Admirals now pop off stupid and dangerous opinions right and left and are
never challenged by an MSM that is bedazzled by anyone wearing stars on their shoulders.
Mattis' case for Yemen is not only weak, it's pathetic. Too bad the co-opted and seduced
MSM will never suggest that to the public at large deluded by the omnipresent propaganda of
the National Security State.
Nothing will change until the undeserved fawning adoration of the War Machine Elite is
substantially attenuated.
The neocons will stop at nothing to bring down anyone they suspect of threatening Israel or
U.S. military hegemony in the Middle East.
First, they lied about WMDs in Iraq and started a completely illegal war, killing millions
and devastating that country for generations. That led directly to the creation of ISIS and
the havoc it has wrought on both Iraq and Syria (and increasingly in other countries).
Then under Obama and Sec. Clinton, they allowed the military takeover of Egypt by the
murderous and oppressive El-Sisi and launched an aggressive war of regime change in Libya,
throwing both North African countries into turmoil.
Then they supported the brutal and savage ongoing Saudi war against Yemen to curb
non-existent Iranian influence, followed by politically isolating Qatar for its supposed
chumminess with Iran.
The neocons will do absolutely anything to bring down the Iranian regime, no matter how
many foreign and American lives and destroyed to achieve that end.
The details of Mattis' letter of indulgence do not matter as much as the fact that he is
willing to defend the indefensible. Even if his professed concerns were not only genuine, but
actually reflected reality, he also has to know better than anybody else within the
administration about the consequences of the US-backed Saudi/UAE invasion of Yemen.
Mattis has joined Graham and Albright in the "worth it" campaign to sustain and extend
perfectly predictable atrocities.
If he wants to make the case that we cannot accept uncertainty with respect to an alleged
Iranian aggression towards Saudi Arabia – and with even more unlikely acquiescence by
the Houthi to let Iran use them the way the US uses the Kurds – or even assuming that
Mattis wants to misrepresent possible Houthi blowback against Saudi Arabia as "Iranian" just
for convenience – then it should be clear that he is claimng we can easily accept
uncertainty with respect to Yemeni blowback against the US – blowback that he also uses
to justify the US campaign inside Yemen, and that fueled Obama's pathological obsession with
ideological cleansing in Yemen and other prospective "safe harbors".
Mattis is proving the validity of the actual Powell Doctrine – if you join it, you
own it – both with respect to US co-belligerence in Yemen, and with respect to Mattis
personally. He is also proving the observation that anybody who is willing to join an
administration as criminal as that of Bush, Obama or Trump is unlikely to do any good –
by their voluntary association they have irredeemably tainted themselves.
We do not want to get in the middle of this Sunni vs. Shiite war. The Saudis want to destroy
the Shiites in Yemen and we are fools at best and criminals at worst to help them. The people
of Yemen are no threat to the US and for theAmerican Government to cooperate with the Saudis
in the murderof Yemeni women and children is revolting.
Americans have heard for years that supporting "democracy" and popular uprisings throughout
the Middle East are in our national interests, the basis being that oppressed people are more
likely to resort to terrorism.
Yet in the cases of Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and now Yemen popular revolutions of Shias
demanding equal rights are actually deemed a threat to our national security.
The neocons have gotten so deep in the Gulf/Israel v. Iran conflict that they're not even
keeping to the ostensible reasons for interventionism.
It is about bankrupting Russia and also trying to get European
nations to turn the Russian gas tap off, and so Europe will have to resort
to buying gas through Western controlled natural gas resources, liquid gas
shipments, and a proposed Qatar-Turkey pipeline through Syria. Once most
Western people discover the actual history of our wars and what ruthless,
unconscionable bastards our Western power brokers actually are, they will
automatically want to support Russia.
This is the May-Johnson excuse for not going through with Brexit. Now they
will say they need their partner in the EU to protect them. Good luck with
that one.
I wouldn't write NATO off just yet. Rothschild bought Naftogaz which has an
office in Egypt. Igor Kolomoisky has some interesting ties also the
temporary occupation of Crimea by Russia. And who is Genie Energy?
As we approach the fifteenth anniversary of the unwarranted invasion of Iraq, which we are still paying for in so many ways, it
is important to remember the misuse of intelligence that provided a false justification for war. It is particularly important to
do so at this time because President Donald Trump has talked about a military option against North Korea or Iran (or Venezuela for
that matter). Since there is no cause to justify such wars, it is quite likely that politicized intelligence would once again be
used to provide a justification for audiences at home and abroad.
In 2002 and 2003, the White House, the Department of Defense, and the Central Intelligence Agency collaborated in an effort to
describe the false likelihood of a nuclear weapons program that had to be stopped. In the words of Bush administration officials,
the United States was not going to allow the "smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." On September 8, 2002, Vice President Cheney and
national security adviser Condi Rice used that phrase on CNN and NBC's "Meet the Press," respectively, to argue that Saddam Hussein
was "using his procurement system to acquire the equipment he needs to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon."
In October 2002, the CIA orchestrated a national intelligence estimate to argue falsely that Iraq was acquiring uranium from Niger
for use in a nuclear weapon. Senior officials throughout the intelligence community knew that the so-called Niger report was a fabrication
produced by members of the Italian military intelligence service, and several intelligence officials informed Congressional and White
House officials that they doubted the reports of Iraqi purchases of uranium from Niger. Nevertheless, the national intelligence estimate
spun a fictitious tale of a clear and present danger based on false reports of alleged stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons;
nuclear weapons; unmanned aerial vehicles; and ties between Iraq and al Qaeda that were nonexistent.
In December 2002, President George W. Bush found the CIA's case for war inadequate and asked for "something that Joe Public would
understand or gain a lot of confidence from." Bush turned to CIA director George Tenet and remarked, "I've been given all this intelligence
about Iraq having WMD and this is the best we've got?" Instead of being truthful, Tenet replied, "Don't worry, it's a slam dunk!"
Several days later, Alan Foley, the chief of the Weapons Intelligence, Proliferation and Arms Control Staff, told his analysts to
prepare a briefing for the president. "If the president wants intelligence to support a decision to go to war," Foley said, "then
it is up to the agency to provide it." In early January, CIA Deputy Director John McLaughlin gave the phony "slam dunk" briefing
at the White House.
The Pentagon's Office of Special Plans distributed the unsubstantiated and flawed intelligence that not even the CIA would vouch
for. The Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith supplied bogus intelligence to the White House on Iraqi WMD and links
to terrorist organizations to make the case for war, and then "leaked" this intelligence to key journalists such as Judith Miller
at The New York Times . Miller had a front page article in the Times on September 8, 2002, citing administration
officials claiming that Saddam was seeking "specially designed" aluminum tubes to enrich uranium, the so-called "smoking gun." Several
days later, President Bush inserted the Times' claim in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly.
The aluminum tube issue was central to Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech to the UN in February 2003, which was based on
the phony CIA estimate from October 2002. As Powell's chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson wrote in The New York Times in
February 2018, the secretary's "gravitas was a significant part of the Bush administration's two-year-long effort to get Americans
on the war wagon. It was CIA Deputy Director McLaughlin who lied to Secretary of State Powell about the reliability of the intelligence
in Powell's speech. McLaughlin was the central advocate for the phony intelligence on mobile biological laboratories that ended up
in that speech.
President Bush would have gone to war with or without intelligence, and once again we are confronted by a president who might
consider going to war with or without intelligence. Fifteen years ago, we had a CIA director from Capitol Hill who was loyal to the
president and unwilling to tell truth to power. Once again, we have a CIA director, Gina Haspel, who is a White House loyalist and
cannot be counted on to tell truth to power. She was one of the Agency's leading cheerleaders for torture and abuse, and sent the
message that order the destruction of the torture tapes. And former CIA director Mike Pompeo, a neoconservative hardliner, is now
secretary of state, who earned his new position by being a total loyalist who would never tell truth to power. Is there a voice for
moderation left in the White House?
Bush's war destabilized the entire Middle East. Any Trump war could lead to the use of nuclear weapons that would destabilize
the entire world.
"... I'd define coup in this case as a potentially "illegal seizure of power" in the form of a slowly unfolding, unresolved constitutional crisis that sticks over time. ..."
"... The 1933 coup plot was funded by Wall Street money in hopes of subverting the power of Franklin Roosevelt, a leader deemed by many wealthy men of the time to be a traitor to his blue-blood class. ..."
"... The Plot to Seize the White House ..."
"... "War is a racket. It always has been," is how Butler's booklet War Is a Racket opens. "A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many." The little book ends this way: "Secretly each nation is studying and perfecting newer and ghastlier means of annihilating its foes wholesale. But victory will be determined by the skill and ingenuity of our scientists. If we put them to work making poison gas and more and more fiendish mechanical and explosive instruments of destruction, they will have no time for the constructive job of building a greater prosperity for all peoples." ..."
"... The Wall Street cabal's coup plot was based on the idea of insinuating a disciplined military man into a White House operation deemed irresponsible and out of control. The plan was to install Butler into a newly created cabinet-level position called the Secretary for General Affairs. Negative press would be arranged to inform the American people that the President of the United States was a cripple. The "man on a white horse" was there to save a problematic administration from itself -- all for the good of the country. ..."
"... Today's politics are very different; the similarity is in the troublesome situation of a sitting president deemed a national security problem. In FDR's case, it was weakness due to sympathy for the downtrodden; while in Trump's case, it's unprecedented governmental inexperience linked with a volatile narcissism contributing to chaos in the highest reaches of the government. ..."
I'd define coup in this case as a potentially "illegal seizure of power" in the form of
a slowly unfolding, unresolved constitutional crisis that sticks over time. Like the
oft-cited frog being boiled to death in a pot of water rising in temperature very slowly.
Center right Times columnist David Brooks had a column recently in which he compared Trump USA
to Berlusconi Italy and how, once democracy has been sullied by a right-wing populist like
Berlusconi (or Trump), getting democracy back within its previous (constitutional) lines is
difficult to impossible.
Some like to call the 2000 election of George W. Bush a "coup" legitimized by a conservative
Supreme Court. Whatever one calls the 2000 election, it did put a permanent stain on US
democracy. I have no doubt in this age of "fake news" and sophisticated PR that an unresolved
constitutional crisis cum coup in Washington D.C. would be spun by info wizards as a
pro-American, patriotic event. All this, of course, has helped ratchet up political
polarization to new heights.
Instead of seeing a military coup as restricted to melodramatic fiction like the film Seven
Days In May, it might be instructive, beneficial and even patriotic to think of it as possible
with at least one very real historical antecedent to consider.
The 1933 White House Plot
We don't hear much about the 1933 American "coup" -- here, put in quotes because it was
always ambiguous and it was thwarted. The plot has effectively been deep-sixed into historical
oblivion. Why might that be? Might it be because it amounted to just another example of the
dirty little secret that hovers over everything in America: the power of money married to the
power of violence? Just another day in the history of America. Maybe one has to be a
left-leaning antiwar activist born under the sign of the National Security State to understand
this. But, to me, the antiwar left is perennially at a loss in this equation: Not only is it
oriented on peace versus war, but it's also unarmed in the sense of an NRA obsession with guns.
Furthermore, the left tends to be crippled thanks to the Cold War that established left-leaning
ideas as association with subversion and the enemy.
The 1933 coup plot was funded by Wall Street money in hopes of subverting the power of
Franklin Roosevelt, a leader deemed by many wealthy men of the time to be a traitor to his
blue-blood class. Had the whistle not been blown on the plot by a Marine general named
Smedley Butler, it could have succeeded in politically crippling FDR and his New Deal
government. Had it gone differently, it could have changed history. (The 1933 coup attempt is
described by Jules Archer in a 1973 book titled The Plot to Seize the White House .
Also, The History Channel produced a 41-minute
documentary on the plot .)
As the depression set in, the nation watched the rise of fascism in Europe. FDR was opposed
on the right by people like the popular hero Charles Lindbergh who cozied up with the Nazis.
Much of this ugly, polarized political struggle has slipped from our popular history, in large
part due to the unifying power of World War Two that helped end the depression and ended up
consuming both sides of the right/left battle. The internal political struggles of the thirties
shifted into a focus on military dominance. The US ended up top of the heap at the end of World
War Two. It also ended up at odds with the other victor in the war, the Soviet Union. It was at
this juncture that US leaders formulated The National Security Act of 1947, thus creating the
National Security State we live under today.
MacArthur busting Bonus Marchers, Butler speaking to them and the Mussolini incident
Smedley Butler was raised a Hicksite Quaker in West Chester, Pennsylvania. One side of a
major 19th century split, the Hicksites saw "the inner light" contained within each of us as
the primary source of truth, while Orthodox Quakers were more like fundamentalist who saw The
Bible as the primary source of truth. The young, idealistic Butler learned the US Marines was
expanding and recruiting new officers. He lobbied his parents (his father was a US congressman)
to let him join, and in 1898 at age sixteen, a fresh Second Lieutenant Butler was dropped off
at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he was first exposed to hostile fire. He went on to the
Philippines. He fought in counter-insurgency wars in places like Nicaragua and Haiti. He
undertook spy missions in Mexico. His career was unique. At one point, he took leave of the
Marines and became police commissioner of Philadelphia, only to quit when he grasped the level
of corruption in the city. He was awarded two Congressional Medals of Honor, and at the end of
his career he was court martialed by Secretary of War Stimson for calling Benito Mussolini a
bum in a speech. He, then, began speaking out in public, effectively undermining the charges.
Today, amongst leftist, antiwar activists he's considered a hero thanks to a small book he
wrote in 1935 called War Is a Racket. On the other hand, I mentioned him once to General
Stanley McChrystal at a book signing and the respected Iraq "surge" leader cited him back at me
as, in his mind, one of the great US military heroes. Both views paradoxically prevail. In
1939, he expressed opposition to war in Europe. But, then, he conveniently died in 1940. How he
would have responded to the attack on Pearl Harbor remains an intriguing question.
Butler got involved in the 1933 coup when he was asked by the Wall Street cabal to be their
"man on a white horse" to lead the plot. Due to his humility and his bravery, Butler was
beloved by the common soldier -- even when he pushed them. In one story, a soldier has fallen
out of a long march and General Butler, wearing no insignia of rank, gets the man back up and
walking by carrying his pack. The plotters' modeled their efforts on the rising fascist states
in Europe and the various colored-shirt thug organizations significantly made up of WWI
veterans. Fatefully, Butler was a terrible choice; he supported FDR. Smelling a rat, he played
along with the plotters' front-man, Gerald MacGuire, a fat, cigar-chomping stock broker paid to
go to Europe and study the various colored-shirt groups. The idea was to install Butler as the
commander of the American Legion, whose 500,000 members -- many disgruntled WWI vets -- had
been used to smash union strikers with baseball bats. The Legion outnumbered the US military at
the time. With the help of a reporter from the Philadelphia Record, Butler got the goods and
went to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), which held hearings and exposed the
right-wing plot. (It's the very same HUAC that went on to notoriety as a prosecutor of the
left.) Those named in the coup all denied they were plotting anything, and the story
disappeared into obscurity. No charges were made.
Had the cabal, instead, set up General Douglas MacArthur as the "man on a white horse" --
who they had considered -- it might have turned out differently. MacArthur had an arrogant
"fascist" character, but he was not loved by the common soldier. Butler and MacArthur had
crossed paths in July 1932 during the Bonus March encampment in Washington DC. Butler was
sympathetic and spoke to the encamped veterans seeking their promised bonus for WWI service.
"They may be calling you tramps now, but in 1917 they didn't call you bums!" the cragey,
diminutive general hollered at them. "You are the best-behaved group of men in the country
today. I consider it an honor to be asked to speak to you." MacArthur, of course, led the
troops who burned the Bonus Marchers out, killing one veteran and wounding 50.
"War is a racket. It always has been," is how Butler's booklet War Is a Racket opens. "A
racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of
people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of
the very few, at the expense of the very many." The little book ends this way: "Secretly each
nation is studying and perfecting newer and ghastlier means of annihilating its foes wholesale.
But victory will be determined by the skill and ingenuity of our scientists. If we put them to
work making poison gas and more and more fiendish mechanical and explosive instruments of
destruction, they will have no time for the constructive job of building a greater prosperity
for all peoples."
The Wall Street cabal's coup plot was based on the idea of insinuating a disciplined
military man into a White House operation deemed irresponsible and out of control. The plan was
to install Butler into a newly created cabinet-level position called the Secretary for General
Affairs. Negative press would be arranged to inform the American people that the President of
the United States was a cripple. The "man on a white horse" was there to save a problematic
administration from itself -- all for the good of the country.
Today's politics are very different; the similarity is in the troublesome situation of a
sitting president deemed a national security problem. In FDR's case, it was weakness due to
sympathy for the downtrodden; while in Trump's case, it's unprecedented governmental
inexperience linked with a volatile narcissism contributing to chaos in the highest reaches of
the government. In both cases, the overarching issue is a very dangerous world and the
need for experience and discipline. Is General Kelly today's "man on a white horse" insinuated
into the White House to represent the interests of the National Security State?
There are no neat or absolute answers to these questions. We tend to associate the idea of a
"coup" with coup d'etat in Third World nations. Our CIA and military have notoriously been up
to their eyeballs in foreign coups; there's classics like Iran 1953 and Guatemala 1954.
Venezuela 2002 and Honduras 2009 had the stink of US complicity, but they are more current and,
thus, there was lots of plausible deniability and lots of fog. And fog and doubt only get worse
in this internet age.
The National Security Act of 1947 codified the reality of the imperial American
military for the baby-boom generation and beyond. The War Department became the Defense
Department; the CIA we know today was formed from the Office of Strategic Services. The 1947
NSA document amounted to a formal re-arrangement of the country's priorities coming out of WWII
-- when the victorious United States of America became the "leader of the free world." We
forget that before World War Two changed everything, the US military was a shadow of what it
was to become.
Over these 70 years, the executive in the White House has ping-ponged back-and-forth between
the moderate left and the moderate right, between the Democratic and Republican Parties. (Trump
may be the exception in being far right.) Every four years there's a national "conversation" of
sorts about who's going to live in the White House and make executive decisions and who's going
to legislate in Congress. You couldn't come up with a better example to illustrate the idea of
a civilian political see-saw than January 20, 2016, the day Barack Obama handed the civilian
reins over to Donald Trump. Meanwhile, over those same 70 years, the National Security State
(as an institution led by the Pentagon) has existed as a steadily ascending through-line
leading to today's post-9/11 world. Our imperial military has been, and remains, virtually
untouchable through the electoral process that chooses civilian leadership. Just like assault
weapons on a small scale, the National Security State thrives beyond the reach of American
politics. In my mind, White House Chief of Staff and former four-star Marine General John Kelly
resides in this protected zone as a power behind the civilian throne.
"... is an ex-geek turned writer and editor. He hails from Boston and writes about whatever distortions of reality strike his fancy. Currently, he's pedaling a novel chronicling the lives and times of members of a cell of terrorists in Europe, completing a collection of essays on high technology delusions, and can be found barking at progressivepilgrim.review. ..."
I wonder how Rex Tillerson feels about being the first high-level federal official to be fired publically and online, in one brutal
tweet. I'm sure he expected the hammer to come down on him, but not like that. And I wonder if he will come forward to describe what
led up to it. Unlikely, as he's an extremely wealthy and still influential corporate player who would have little to gain from telling
all. Still, some intrepid journalist should take Rex to lunch and encourage him to cry in his beer.
The events unfurled in typical chaotic Trumpian fashion.
According
to The Atlantic,
The White House said Tuesday that Tillerson was informed last Friday that he would be replaced as secretary of state. But the
statement released Tuesday by Steve Goldstein, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, suggested Tillerson did not see
it coming until he saw the president's tweet Tuesday morning that he would be replaced by Mike Pompeo, the CIA director. Goldstein
himself has been fired since making the statement.
Chief of Staff John Kelly claimed to have informed Tillerson three days previously that a tweet would be forthcoming, and let
it hang. That's how long it took for the triumvirate behind the throne (Kelly, DoD Secretary James Mattis, and National Security
Advisor H.R. McMaster) to line up a B team. These military officers have become Trump's minders, nudging him toward decisions that
implement deep state war plans. John Grant writes in
CounterPunch :
The ex-Nixon dirty trickster Roger Stone, who Kelly blocked from Trump access, is cited in Michael Wolff's Fire and Fury: Inside
the Trump White House as telling people, "Mattis, McMaster and Kelly had agreed that no military action would ever be taken unless
the three were in accord -- and that at least one of them would always remain in Washington if the others were away."
And so, here we have a junta minding the store whose collective wisdom had determined that State under Tilllerson wasn't accommodating
US bellicosity as enthusiastically as it should. Their solution? Elevate CIA Chief Mike Pompeo to replace Tillerson. Pompeo, whom
NPR glowingly
described as having "an extraordinary résumé. He graduated at the top of his class at West Point. He served as a tank officer
in Europe. He went to Harvard Law School." He's also a bombastic Tea-Party Republican and a national security hawk who takes a hard
line no matter what crisis is at hand. I'm sure that résumé will be useful in convincing North Korea to disarm and Putin to back
off from Syria. At least, that seems to be the troika's current calculus. Trump seems amenable to their choice: "With Mike, we've
had a very good chemistry from the beginning," he told reporters. And Pompeo says he's equally chill with the Tweeter-in-Chief: "We
have a half-hour, 40 minutes every day. He asks lots of hard questions as any good intelligence consumer would. He's very engaged."
Before that hammer hit Tillerson, they had already cleared the way to replace Pompeo with seasoned spook Gina Haspel, who proved
her loyalty to the Company by destroying evidence of systematic torture. "She ran the 'black site' prison in Thailand where al-Qaida
suspect Abu Zabaydah was waterboarded 83 times," NPR
reported last winter. "Those sessions were videotaped but the tapes were destroyed in 2005, two years after a member of Congress
called on the CIA to preserve such tapes." Who ordered or at least expedited their destruction? Gina Haspel herself. Running a torture
center was a "dirty job," John Bennett, the chief of the CIA's clandestine service at the time later told NPR, but Gina bravely stepped
up to do it. " it was not only legal but necessary for the safety of the country. And they did it – Gina did it – because they felt
it was their duty."
Obama apparently felt that way, since he declined to prosecute any CIA officials for engaging in torture. Had he had the guts
to go after them, Gina might be wearing a jumpsuit now instead of a business suit. As Dexter Filkins
wrote in the New
Yorker last year after Trump named Haspel Deputy Director,
When Obama took office, in 2009, he declared that he would not prosecute anyone involved in the C.I.A.'s interrogation programs,
not even senior officers, among whom Haspel was one. At the time, Obama said he wanted to look forward and not back. But the past,
as Obama well knows, never goes away. With the prospect of American torture looming again, I wonder if Obama regrets his decision.
After all, people like Haspel, quite plausibly, could have gone to prison.
When Edward Snowden heard of her advancement, he tweeted (
March 13, 2018 )
Interesting: The new CIA Director Haspel, who "tortured some folks," probably can't travel to the EU to meet other spy chiefs
without facing arrest due to an @ECCHRBerlin
complaint to Germany's federal prosecutor. Details: https://t.co/7q4euQKtm7
Such team spirit clearly deserves a promotion. A round of applause, then, for Gina Haspel, someone who has known no calling besides
black ops, winner of the George H. W. Bush Award for excellence in counterterrorism, and the first of her sex to crash through CIA's
bulletproof glass ceiling to the Director's office. Her résumé implies she must have been born at Langley HQ. There's no paper trail
for her prior to 1985, when she joined the agency.
The one bright spot is that both Pompeo and Haspel will have to testify before Congress votes of on their appointments. John McCain
and Ron Wyden are already on record as being opposed to Haspel's appointment. Intense public pressure may help to drag skeltons of
torture victims out of the agency's closet, but don't expect it to matter. The deep state is used to getting what it wants and doesn't
let things like due process get in the way.
Now that the Department of State is to be a wholly owned subsidiary of the CIA, America can rest easy. No more mister nice guy.
Diplomacy is for wimps. Let's show all those upstart nations and that upstart commander-in-chief who's boss.
Join the debate on Facebook More articles
by: Geoff Dutton
Geoff Duttonis an ex-geek turned writer and editor. He hails from Boston and writes about whatever distortions of
reality strike his fancy. Currently, he's pedaling a novel chronicling the lives and times of members of a cell of terrorists in
Europe, completing a collection of essays on high technology delusions, and can be found barking at progressivepilgrim.review.
"... The FAZ angle (and therefore the angle of Germans in Washington) is, that Tillerson was displaced because he was too bellicose towards Russia. Pompeo is seen as moderate towards Russia but as a hawk regarding Iran. The British noise about the alleged nerve gas agent is then nothing more but another attempt to force Washingtons´s hand to increase hostility towards Russia. ..."
For what its worth: there was a very long and detailed analysis by the Frankfurter Allgmeine
Zeitung yesterday regarding Tillersons dismissal. You can take this analysis as something
like the "official" German position as FAZ journalists are the equivalent of Pravda
journalists. That is fully in the know but only writing what is desired.
The FAZ angle (and therefore the angle of Germans in Washington) is, that Tillerson was
displaced because he was too bellicose towards Russia. Pompeo is seen as moderate towards
Russia but as a hawk regarding Iran. The British noise about the alleged nerve gas agent is
then nothing more but another attempt to force Washingtons´s hand to increase hostility
towards Russia.
Interestingly enough today Germany´s defense minister who is a close confident of
Merkel echoed the outrage about the alleged nerve gas attack but called for a "UN
investigation". That is she didn´t endorse the British claim.
Another background to the British provocation might be the Nord Stream gas pipeline from
Russia to Germany. Construction is to start now and once it is finished Ukraine can´t
blackmail Europe anymore by holding up gas delivery. Poland, the Baltics, the US and of
course Ukraine are violently opposed to Nord Stream 2.
"... "We believe that Russia was responsible for this attack, and we call on the Russian government to answer all questions related to this incident, and to provide full information to the OPCW [Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons]. No nation -- Russia, China, or anybody else, any other nation -- should be using chemical weapons and nerve agents," McMaster said, following what critics have called a belated Wednesday statement casting blame on Moscow for the attack on Skripal. ..."
If H.R. McMaster is on his way out of the White House, he's going out with two middle fingers raised and pointed in the direction
of the Kremlin.
"Russia is also complicit in [Syrian dictator Bashar] Assad's atrocities," McMaster, President Trump's national security adviser,
said Thursday during an appearance at a discussion of the Syrian civil war held at the U.S. Holocaust memorial museum.
His voice raised, McMaster used harsher and more moralistic language than his boss does in characterizing Russia's geopolitical
influence, and unequivocally blamed the Kremlin for "the abhorrent nerve agent attack" on a former double agent,
Sergei Skripal , and proposed "serious political and economic consequences" for Russian aggression.
"We believe that Russia was responsible for this attack, and we call on the Russian government to answer all questions related
to this incident, and to provide full information to the OPCW [Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons]. No nation --
Russia, China, or anybody else, any other nation -- should be using chemical weapons and nerve agents," McMaster said, following
what critics have called
a belated Wednesday statement casting blame on Moscow for the attack on Skripal.
McMaster's brief remarks, lasting under 20 minutes, came as the Army three-star general is the subject of furious speculation
that Trump will soon fire him and install hardliner ex-ambassador John Bolton atop the National Security Council. His capstone achievement
thus far has been a Russia-and-China-centric
security strategy
that has been conspicuously out of step with Trump's rhetoric and actions toward both countries.
"Russia has done nothing to encourage Assad to ensure delivery of humanitarian aid, to respect ceasefires and de-escalation agreements
or to comply with U.N. Security Council Resolution 2254's call for a U.N.-monitored political process," McMaster said.
Those remarks suggested that Trump got suckered during his 2017 rounds of personal diplomacy with Vladimir Putin. In November,
Trump and Putin issued a joint statement firmly
pledging support for what is known as the 2254 Process -- though critics considered it a cover for Moscow to continue ensuring support
for its client, Assad -- that "took note" of Assad's "recent commitment to the Geneva process and constitutional reform and elections
as called for under UNSCR 2254."
"... Another background to the British provocation might be the Nord Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. Construction is to start now and once it is finished Ukraine can´t blackmail Europe anymore by holding up gas delivery. Poland, the Baltics, the US and of course Ukraine are violently opposed to Nord Stream 2. ..."
...The British noise about the alleged nerve gas agent is then nothing more but another
attempt to force Washingtons´s hand to increase hostility towards Russia.
Interestingly enough today Germany´s defense minister who is a close confident of
Merkel echoed the outrage about the alleged nerve gas attack but called for a "UN
investigation". That is she didn´t endorse the British claim.
Another background to the British provocation might be the Nord Stream gas pipeline from
Russia to Germany. Construction is to start now and once it is finished Ukraine can´t
blackmail Europe anymore by holding up gas delivery. Poland, the Baltics, the US and of
course Ukraine are violently opposed to Nord Stream 2.
"... All this speech to stifle speech comes in reaction to the first publication in the start of WikiLeaks' "Vault 7" series. Vault 7 has begun publishing evidence of remarkable CIA incompetence and other shortcomings. This includes the agency's creation, at a cost of billions of taxpayer dollars, of an entire arsenal of cyber viruses and hacking programs -- over which it promptly lost control and then tried to cover up the loss. These publications also revealed the CIA's efforts to infect the public's ubiquitous consumer products and automobiles with computer viruses. ..."
"... President Theodore Roosevelt understood the danger of giving in to those "foolish or traitorous persons who endeavor to make it a crime to tell the truth about the Administration when the Administration is guilty of incompetence or other shortcomings." Such "endeavor is itself a crime against the nation," Roosevelt wrote. President Trump and his officials should heed that advice ..."
Mike Pompeo, in his first speech as director of the CIA, chose to declare war on free speech
rather than on the United States' actual adversaries. He went after WikiLeaks, where I serve as
editor, as a "non-state hostile intelligence service." In Pompeo's worldview, telling the truth
about the administration can be a crime -- as Attorney General Jeff Sessions quickly
underscored when he described my arrest as a "priority." News organizations reported that
federal prosecutors are weighing whether to bring charges against members of WikiLeaks,
possibly including conspiracy, theft of government property and violating the Espionage
Act.
All this speech to stifle speech comes in reaction to the first publication in the start
of WikiLeaks' "Vault 7" series. Vault 7 has begun publishing evidence of remarkable CIA
incompetence and other shortcomings. This includes the agency's creation, at a cost of billions
of taxpayer dollars, of an entire arsenal of cyber viruses and hacking programs -- over which
it promptly lost control and then tried to cover up the loss. These publications also revealed
the CIA's efforts to infect the public's ubiquitous consumer products and automobiles with
computer viruses.
When the director of the CIA, an unelected public servant, publicly demonizes a publisher
such as WikiLeaks as a "fraud," "coward" and "enemy," it puts all journalists on notice, or
should. Pompeo's next talking point, unsupported by fact, that WikiLeaks is a "non-state
hostile intelligence service," is a dagger aimed at Americans' constitutional right to receive
honest information about their government. This accusation mirrors attempts throughout history
by bureaucrats seeking, and failing, to criminalize speech that reveals their own failings.
President Theodore Roosevelt understood the danger of giving in to those "foolish or
traitorous persons who endeavor to make it a crime to tell the truth about the Administration
when the Administration is guilty of incompetence or other shortcomings." Such "endeavor is
itself a crime against the nation," Roosevelt wrote. President Trump and his officials should
heed that advice .
Jeepers Cripes, y'all need to get a room and ass-hammer it out!
Latter Day America, there are no pristine people to choose from to populate any goddamned
post in government, period! Everybody has baggage, everybody is compromised.
This is the latter days of Rome 2.0 dipshits, got it? It is why one batch of clowns find
it impossible to see one thing Trump (or anybody in any country...except Czar Valdimir Putin
in Russia...for whatever reason...default/nobody else to pick...when the real answer even
there is none of the above though many people refuse to see it) can do right and while the
other batch is mystified at those incapable of seeing (albeit sometime thin) distinctions
between evils in the era of this-is-as-good-as-it'll-get. Cue the inevitable endless circle
jerk.
Trump, and all of DC have as much power to affect what is coming as a flea does trying to
bench press 300 lbs. Those of them who are aware of the true situation are scared shit less.
Pompeo's appointment is just validating what is really about to come down! When they can't
intimidate the public into submission, they will try using a club.
Thanks for saying that. I detest Clinton and I want JUSTICE for what the evil treasonous
psychopaths did in 2016, but I also know Bibi and MBS have Trump on a short leash and
Islamaphobes fill his home and cabinet.
The soft coup is now complete and a war with Iran inevitable.
Hmmmm.....let's see. Pompeo hates Julian Assange. Assange has told us a lot of truth but
won't even consider that 911 was an inside job. Pompeo hates Iran and Assad, but he's not
about 911 truth at all either. The 911 myth is the basis for all US foreign policy. Trump
hates Rosie O'Donnell, who seems to be about the only media figure who'll admit that the
Trade Centers came down by controlled demolition. In the midst of all these powerful world
leaders, if Rosie O'Donnel is the only person speaking the truth, i'd say we are royally
fucked. And I don't even especially like Rosie O'Donnell. Doesn't seem likely we will avoid a
catastrophic war. What a world.
Trump hates Rosie O'Donnell, who seems to be about the only media figure who'll admit
that the Trade Centers came down by controlled demolition.In the midst of all these
powerful world leaders, if Rosie O'Donnel is the only person speaking the truth, i'd say we
are royally fucked.
One Donald J Trump was interviewed on TV on the day of 9/11. He said that's not the way
planes hit buildings. There were explosives of some sort involved. Moreover, the same Donald
J Trump as a contender for the Republican nomination in the debate in South Carolina in
February 2016 stated that if he won the presidency he would publish the secret documents
about 9/11.
You have to be paying attention to figure out who Trump really is. Why is that? It is
because Judaia as a conscious policy of that quasi-state has for long had total control of
the minds of the whole West. The brains of Americans have been turned to oatmeal (as Russians
put it) and most of what Trump says has to be oatmeal-to-oatmeal. Trump's brilliance is never
challenging directly the memes (such as 9/11 or the Holocaust or false flag shootings) that
Judaia has so laboriously constructed. That would be foolish. Rather, he takes one strand of
received discourse and short circuits it with another under high voltage. Only rarely and
briefly does Trump address clued-in supporters directly (perhaps he's doing it indirectly
through Q Anon). You have to be paying attention.
A lot of Trump administration double-talk is a game, his way of strongly playing a weak
hand. The anti-Iran bit seems to be a key gambit, going all the way back to Flynn
co-authoring an anti-Iran book with Neocon Ledeen. But Tillerson seems to have turned traitor
by taking over the script. Declaring that America was going go hang on to territory in Syria
was not a 'globalist' gambit in the script. Trump had to tweet that defeating ISIS was
America's only aim in Syria and that had been almost accomplished. Similarly, a limited
anti-Russia posture is necessary to deal with the Muller caper. But supporting the Empire's
Russian poisoning absurdity seems not to be where Trump wants America to be. Tillerson had to
go.
If Pompeo is talking a load of shit, and sounding surprisingly uneducsted for someone who
was number one at West Point and an editor (unlike Obama, under his own steam) at the Harvard
Law Review, be sure there is a game involved.
I instinctively like Trump, and have over a long period, Maybe Trump is at the head of a
huge world-historical change. It's looking good, actually, and I'm willing to wait and
see.
"... The problem is that this would have some semblance of solubility were it not for Israel. Israel desperately, repeat desperately, wants the U.S. to go to war in a very big way in the ME. That could tip the scales. ..."
"... I hope you are wrong, but Trump sees very clearly what "Wartime President" did for the cipher Bush. It's the only straw left for him to grasp at ..."
This post was about Mattis being the only "grown-up in the room".
I'm not sure that's something to be reassured about. Brian Cloughley is a seasoned
military writer and analyst. A few years ago he wrote a piece on Mattis that was not very
complimentary. If even half of it is right, we should all be worried.
Trump's mojo has evaporated. He has no coattails. He has negative coattails. So it is time
for war.
The problem is that this would have some semblance of solubility were it not for
Israel. Israel desperately, repeat desperately, wants the U.S. to go to war in a very big way
in the ME. That could tip the scales.
I hope you are wrong, but Trump sees very clearly what "Wartime President" did for the
cipher Bush. It's the only straw left for him to grasp at .
"... I agree with you all that replacing Rex Tillerson, who could not be brow-beaten all the time, with Mike Pompeo, "who agrees with me," further isolates the Trump Whitehouse and makes the world that more dangerous. ..."
I agree with you all that replacing Rex Tillerson, who could not be brow-beaten all the time, with Mike Pompeo, "who agrees with
me," further isolates the Trump Whitehouse and makes the world that more dangerous.
But, am I alone in noting a tendency of President Trump to fire his staff without warning, at considerable distance, and to
deny that anything he might have done was a reason for poor polling?
The first time we saw this was the dismissal of Corey Lewandowski, the man who was with Candidate Trump 24 / 7 for 18 months
of Primaries. Corey arrives at his desk in Trump Tower at 6:00 am and is asked to join Trump Jr. He reaches Jr.'s office and is
assigned a security guard to vacate his office. "What have I done?" he asks and Jr. does not reply. On 5th Avenue he calls Trump's
personal number. The Donald says that "They are killing us." and hangs up. Corey is persuaded to meet Dana Bash of CNN and is
extremely loyal to his former boss, while saying he has no idea about the firing. On leaving the studio, Trump calls him to say
how proud he was of Corey. A nice gesture, but inadequate given Corey's personal sacrifice. (Let Trump Be Trump -- Lewandowski
and Bossie 128 - 133.)
We will probably never learn why President Trump turned on Rex Tillerson. If we ever do, it may be because Neocons are furious
reality refuses to bend to their fantasies.
Individual are highly rewarded i f they "accept the party-line" that masquerades as US interests".
Rebels, individual thinkers tend to get fired, not promoted, snubbed
Notable quotes:
"... The individuals who work in our State Dept., CIA, DOD, corporate defense contractors, lobbyists, politicians, media......these individuals appear to benefit on an indivdual level (promotions, high paying jobs, social acceptance, nice neighborhoods and schools for their kids) when they "accept the party-line" that masquerades as US interests". ..."
Jack, in my opinion, there is no "US". The "US" doesn't have an interest.
There are individuals who behave in their own individual self interest.
The individuals who work in our State Dept., CIA, DOD, corporate defense contractors, lobbyists, politicians, media......these
individuals appear to benefit on an indivdual level (promotions, high paying jobs, social acceptance, nice neighborhoods and schools
for their kids) when they "accept the party-line" that masquerades as US interests".
Its a monumental unconscious group-think based on individual self interest.
This is my understanding of "the Borg" and "US interests", "US foreign policy goals"....they are actually individual interests
shaped by what individuals who work in this realm believe they should believe and espouse to achieve their own goals. Rebels,
individual thinkers tend to get fired, not promoted, snubbed
"... Angleton embodied and shaped the CIA's operational ethos and its internal procedures, especially in the realm of counterintelligence. His theories of Soviet penetration dominated the thinking of Western intelligence agencies, and their legacy can even be seen in the counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign and allegations of collusion with Russia. I want to emphasize that I only use the term deep state as a colloquial shorthand term for the array of US national security agencies that operate under the shroud of official secrecy. ..."
"... Angleton, I'm going to put to you, was a founding father of what we call the deep state. ..."
"... With the passage of the National Security Act in July 1947, Angleton went to work at the CIA. The CIA came into existence and Angleton became the chief of the foreign intelligence staff with responsibility for intelligence collection operations worldwide. ..."
"... Angleton became the CIA's exclusive liaison with the Mossad in 1951. ..."
"... He was introduced to Amos Manor, chief of counterespionage for Israel's domestic security service known as Shabak or Shin Bet. ..."
"... "I didn't know exactly what to do, but I had the idea of giving them material we had gathered a year earlier about the efforts of the Eastern Bloc to use Israel to bypass an American trade embargo. We edited the material and informed them that they should never ask us to identify our sources." From such arrangements, the CIA-Mossad relationship began to grow. Manor would be friends with Angleton for the rest of his life. ..."
"... Asher Ben-Natan, Angleton's source dating back to the OSS days, was playing a key procurement role in the secret Israeli program to obtain nuclear weapons. Teddy Kollek, one of Angleton's closest contacts and friends in Washington, later became the mayor of Jerusalem. Angleton's Israeli friends in short were really the architects, some of the architects of the Zionist state. ..."
"... As I came to learn his story from talking to CIA veterans and Israelis and reading a lot, a couple of things stood out to me. First of all, the Israeli recruitment of Angleton was extremely astute. In the early 1950s, Angleton was a rising star at this new agency, the CIA, but he was not a senior figure and not even particularly powerful. The Israelis recognized the latent qualities that would make him powerful. ..."
"... In 1954 Angleton became the chief of the CIA's counterintelligence staff, the first one. In 1956 Amos Manor passed him a copy of Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech to the Soviet Communist Party in which he criticized the cult of personality around the deceased dictator, Joseph Stalin. This intelligence coup made Angleton a legend within the CIA and the power within the agency as well, and it was very much made possible by the Israelis. ..."
"... Angleton's formative and sometimes decisive influence on US policy towards Israel can be seen in many areas – from the impotence of US nuclear nonproliferation policy in the region, to Israel's triumph in the 1967 Six-Day War, to the feeble US response to the attack on the Liberty, to the intelligence failure represented by the Yom Kippur War of 1973. ..."
"... The question, which was put to me by Grant but is right on point, was why didn't the CIA help the FBI investigate the diversion of US weapons-grade material from the United States to Israel in the 1960s and 1970s? The short answer is because Jim Angleton didn't want to. Angleton played a key role in enabling Israel to obtain nuclear weapons, and he did so in a subtle way that characteristically left few fingerprints. He was not a man to investigate himself. Many of these details are now known thanks to Grant Smith, Roger Mattson, John Hadden, Jr. and others. ..."
"... the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation, otherwise known as NUMEC, started processing highly-enriched uranium in the United States in 1959. NUMEC had been created by David Lowenthal, a Zionist financier who financed the postwar boatlift from Europe to Palestine that was romanticized in the book and movie Exodus. He hired Zalman Shapiro, a brilliant young metallurgist to run the company. ..."
"... By October 1965, the AEC estimated that 178 kilograms of highly-enriched uranium had gone missing from the NUMEC facility, by March 1968, that figure was 267 kilograms. ..."
"... John Hadden was the CIA station chief in Israel from 1964 to 1967. He worked very closely with Angleton throughout this period. He would later concur with the near unanimous assessment of CIA's nuclear scientist that Israel had indeed stolen fissile material from NUMEC and used it to build their nuclear arsenal. ..."
"... With the fissile material diverted from NUMEC, Israel was able to construct its first nuclear weapon by 1967 and become a full-blown nuclear power by 1970 – the first and still the only nuclear power in the Middle East. Angleton, it is fair to say, thought collaboration with Israel was more important than US nonproliferation policy. ..."
"... When Angleton left government service 20 years later, Israel held twice as much territory as it had in 1948. The CIA and Mossad collaborated on a daily basis and the governments of the United States and Israel were strategic allies knit together by expansive intelligence sharing, multibillion-dollar arms contracts and coordinated diplomacy. ..."
"... Angleton's influence on U.S.-Israeli relations between 1951 and 1974 exceeded that of any Secretary of State with the possible exception of Henry Kissinger. His influence was largely unseen by Congress, the press, other democratic institutions, and much of the CIA itself. He was empowered by his own ingenuity and the clandestine arrangements rationalized by doctrines of national security and counterintelligence. The arc of his career breathes life into the concept of the deep state. ..."
"... Angleton, more than any other American, enabled the Americans to gain and hold this strategic high ground in the Middle East. He was, as his friend Meir Amit said, the biggest Zionist of the lot ..."
Angleton embodied and shaped the CIA's operational ethos and its
internal procedures, especially in the realm of counterintelligence. His theories of Soviet
penetration dominated the thinking of Western intelligence agencies, and their legacy can even
be seen in the counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign and allegations of
collusion with Russia. I want to emphasize that I only use the term deep state as a colloquial
shorthand term for the array of US national security agencies that operate under the shroud of
official secrecy.
Let's not forget there are a dozen, at least a dozen such agencies based here in Washington.
The CIA with its $15 billion a year budget is the largest. The NSA with a budget of about $10
billion is the second largest. The Defense Intelligence Agency is about $4 billion. Then along
with some other obscure but still very large agencies like the NGIA. Never heard of the NGIA? I
didn't think so. The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is a $4.9 billion a year agency.
Collectively, these agencies spend probably $50 billion to $60 billion a year, which make them
a very small but powerful potent sector in the American scheme of power.
Want to know how the NGIA spent your $4.9 billion? Good luck. Want to see a line item budget
of CIA activities in Africa last year? Move along. It's true that Congress nominally has
oversight powers over these agencies. Our elected officials do have their security clearances
that we don't have, so they can go in and look at selected operations. But the intelligence
oversight system is very weak as even its defenders will admit. The intelligence committees
polarized and politicized can't even agree on what kind of secret activities they're supposed
to monitor. The FISA court system is supposed to protect Americans from surveillance by their
government, but it largely functions as a rubberstamp of the secret agencies. A secret
government is the norm in America in 2018 which is why the discourse of the deep state has such
currency today.
Angleton, I'm going to put to you, was a founding father of what we call the deep state. So who was he? Born in
December 1917, James Angleton grew up as the oldest son of James Hugh Angleton, a brash self-made American businessman who moved
to Milan, Italy during the Depression and made a fortune during the time Benito Mussolini selling cash registers. Angleton
attended private school in England. He went to Yale College, and then to Harvard Law school. He was a precocious good-looking
young man with sophisticated manners and a literary frame of mind.
As an undergraduate, he befriended his fellow expatriate – Ezra Pound – in
Italy. Pound was the modernist poet in the mad tribune of Mussolini's fascism. In their
correspondence, which I found at Yale, Angleton sometimes ape the anti-Semitic rhetoric of Ezra
Pound. For example, criticizing the Jewish book merchants who he thought overcharged for
Pound's books.
In 1943, Angleton was recruited into the Office of Strategic Services, America's first
foreign intelligence service stationed in Rome during and after World War II. He excelled at
secret intelligence work. I tell a story in The Ghost of how he rescued a leading Nazi and a
leading Italian fascist from postwar justice. Among other tasks, he reported on the flow of
Jews escaping from Germany and heading for Palestine. The revelations of the Holocaust
transformed his disdain for Jews into something of sympathy. He began to develop sources among
the leaders of the Jewish and Zionist organizations – including Teddy Kollek who was a
British intelligence agent, and a German operative named Arthur Pier who later became known as
Asher Ben-Natan.
With the passage of the National Security Act in July 1947, Angleton went to work at the
CIA. The CIA came into existence and Angleton became the chief of the foreign intelligence
staff with responsibility for intelligence collection operations worldwide. In those days, the
CIA was right here in the heart of Washington. It's hard for people to believe now, but the CIA
was located in a series of temporary buildings located along the reflecting pool next to the
Lincoln Memorial. The tempos, as they were called by CIA people, were drafty in the winter, hot
in the summer, and devoid of charm year-round. But this is where Angleton worked, at what was
known as the Office of Special Operations.
Angleton, while sympathetic to Jewish suffering, was still very wary of Israel when he
started his career at the CIA. Before the 1948 war, the Jewish army had been largely armed by
Czech arms manufacturers and communist Czechoslovakia. The Soviet Union was the first country
to recognize the state of Israel in 1948. Angleton initially feared that the Soviets would use
Israel as a platform for injecting spies into the West. The Israelis, for their part, were
looking to cultivate American friends. Stalin's anti-Semitic purges in 1948 showed that his
allegiance to the Jewish state was superficial at best.
In 1950 a man named Reuven Shiloah, the founder of Israel's first intelligence organization,
came to Washington. He visited the CIA and he came away very impressed with how it was
organized. He went back to Israel and in April 1951, he created out of a very fractious
collection of security forces what was known as the Institute for Intelligence and Special
Tasks – inevitably known as Mossad, Hebrew for institute.
In 1951 Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion came to the United States and brought Shiloah with
him. Ben-Gurion met privately with President Truman, and Angleton arrange for Ben-Gurion to
also have lunch with his friend Allen Dulles who would shortly become the director of the CIA.
The purpose of this meeting, Efrain Halevy, a retired director of the Mossad and a longtime
friend of Angleton's told me in an interview in Tel Aviv, the purpose was in Halevy's words to
clarify in no uncertain terms that notwithstanding what had happened between Israel and United
States 1948 and notwithstanding that Russia had been a key factor in Israel's survival, Israel
considered itself part of the Western world and would maintain the relationship with the United
States in this spirit.
Shiloah stayed on in Washington to work out the arrangements with Angleton. Shiloah,
according to his biographer, soon developed a special relationship – quote/unquote
– and Angleton became the CIA's exclusive liaison with the Mossad in 1951. Angleton
return the favor by traveling to Israel often. He was introduced to Amos Manor, chief of
counterespionage for Israel's domestic security service known as Shabak or Shin Bet.
Manor headed up Operation Balsam which was the Israeli's conduit to the Americans. "They
told me I had to collect information about the Soviet bloc and transmit it to them," Manor
recalled about the Americans. "I didn't know exactly what to do, but I had the idea of giving
them material we had gathered a year earlier about the efforts of the Eastern Bloc to use
Israel to bypass an American trade embargo. We edited the material and informed them that they
should never ask us to identify our sources." From such arrangements, the CIA-Mossad
relationship began to grow. Manor would be friends with Angleton for the rest of his life.
In 1963 a man named Isser Harel was succeeded as the chief of Mossad by a military
intelligence officer named Meir Amit. Amit found Angleton to be a little eccentric, but he
noted that his – quote – identification with Israel was a great asset for Israel.
Asher Ben-Natan, Angleton's source dating back to the OSS days, was playing a key procurement
role in the secret Israeli program to obtain nuclear weapons. Teddy Kollek, one of Angleton's
closest contacts and friends in Washington, later became the mayor of Jerusalem. Angleton's
Israeli friends in short were really the architects, some of the architects of the Zionist
state.
As I came to learn his story from talking to CIA veterans and Israelis and reading a lot, a
couple of things stood out to me. First of all, the Israeli recruitment of Angleton was
extremely astute. In the early 1950s, Angleton was a rising star at this new agency, the CIA,
but he was not a senior figure and not even particularly powerful. The Israelis recognized the
latent qualities that would make him powerful.
Second, Angleton's creative intellect and his operational audacity inspired deep feelings of
loyalty among the Israelis. While Angleton's counterintelligence vision would become very
controversial within and bitterly divisive within the CIA, he was widely admired in Israel as a
stalwart friend. He still is to this day.
In 1954 Angleton became the chief of the CIA's counterintelligence staff, the first one. In
1956 Amos Manor passed him a copy of Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech to the Soviet Communist
Party in which he criticized the cult of personality around the deceased dictator, Joseph
Stalin. This intelligence coup made Angleton a legend within the CIA and the power within the
agency as well, and it was very much made possible by the Israelis.
Angleton's formative and sometimes decisive influence on US policy towards Israel can be
seen in many areas – from the impotence of US nuclear nonproliferation policy in the
region, to Israel's triumph in the 1967 Six-Day War, to the feeble US response to the attack on
the Liberty, to the intelligence failure represented by the Yom Kippur War of 1973. I tell a
lot of the story in The Ghost, but the story of Angleton in Israel is really so large and so
profound that it probably deserves its own book. I could certainly not do justice to it in the
18 minutes that I have, so I'm going to confine myself to one narrow question about the
tradeoffs that became implicit in this arrangement between the CIA and the Mossad and its
implications for us.
The question, which was put to me by Grant but is right on point, was why didn't the CIA
help the FBI investigate the diversion of US weapons-grade material from the United States to
Israel in the 1960s and 1970s? The short answer is because Jim Angleton didn't want to.
Angleton played a key role in enabling Israel to obtain nuclear weapons, and he did so in a
subtle way that characteristically left few fingerprints. He was not a man to investigate
himself. Many of these details are now known thanks to Grant Smith, Roger Mattson, John Hadden,
Jr. and others.
I want to just give you a sense of how this transpired. So the Nuclear Materials and
Equipment Corporation, otherwise known as NUMEC, started processing highly-enriched uranium in
the United States in 1959. NUMEC had been created by David Lowenthal, a Zionist financier who
financed the postwar boatlift from Europe to Palestine that was romanticized in the book and
movie Exodus. He hired Zalman Shapiro, a brilliant young metallurgist to run the company.
At that time, the US government owned all of supplies of nuclear fuel which private
companies, like NUMEC, were allowed to use but ultimately had to return to the government.
Within a few years the Atomic Energy Commission noticed worrisome signs that the Apollo Plant
– NUMEC had a plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania – that the plant's security and
accounting were very deficient. Unexplained losses of nuclear material did happen at other
companies, but NUMEC's losses were proportionately much larger. By October 1965, the AEC
estimated that 178 kilograms of highly-enriched uranium had gone missing from the NUMEC
facility, by March 1968, that figure was 267 kilograms.
John Hadden was the CIA station chief in Israel from 1964 to 1967. He worked very closely
with Angleton throughout this period. He would later concur with the near unanimous assessment
of CIA's nuclear scientist that Israel had indeed stolen fissile material from NUMEC and used
it to build their nuclear arsenal. This story is now very well documented. In the spring of
1965, a technician working at the night shift at NUMEC went out on a loading dock for a breath
of fresh air and saw an unusual sight. Zalman Shapiro was pacing on the dock while a foreman
and truck driver loaded cylindrical storage containers, known as stovepipes, onto a flatbed
truck.
The technician saw a clipboard saying that the material was destined for Israel. It was
highly unusual to see Dr. Shapiro in the manufacturing section of the Apollo nuclear facility,
the technician said. It was unusual to see Dr. Shapiro there at night, and it was very unusual
to see Dr. Shapiro so nervous. The next day NUMEC's personnel manager visited the technician
and threatened to fire him if he did not keep his mouth shut, that's a quote, concerning what
he had seen. It would be 15 years before the employee told the story to the FBI.
What did Angleton know about NUMEC? Well, he knew that the AEC and the FBI were
investigating starting in 1965. As the Israel desk officer of the CIA, he talked about the
NUMEC case with liaison agent Sam Papich who was monitoring the investigation for the FBI. He
also spoke about it with his colleague John Hadden.
On the crime scene particulars, Hadden defended his former boss. "Any suggestion that
Angleton had help the Israelis with the NUMEC operation was totally without foundation," he
told journalists Andrew and Leslie Cockburn. But Hadden didn't deny that Angleton had helped
the Israeli nuclear program. Why would somebody whose whole life was dedicated to fighting
communism have any interest in preventing a very anti-Communist nation for getting the means to
defend itself, Hadden asked. The fact they stole it from us didn't worry him in the least, he
went on. I suspect that in his inmost heart he would have given it to them if they had asked.
Hadden knew better than to investigate any further. I never sent anything to Angleton on this
– the nuclear program – because I knew he wasn't interested, Hadden later told his
son, and I knew he'd try to stop it if I did.
With the fissile material diverted from NUMEC, Israel was able to construct its first
nuclear weapon by 1967 and become a full-blown nuclear power by 1970 – the first and
still the only nuclear power in the Middle East. Angleton, it is fair to say, thought
collaboration with Israel was more important than US nonproliferation policy. He believed that
the results proved his point. When he started as chief of the counterintelligence staff in
1954, the state of Israel and its leaders were regarded warily in Washington – especially
at the State Department. When Angleton left government service 20 years later, Israel held
twice as much territory as it had in 1948. The CIA and Mossad collaborated on a daily basis and
the governments of the United States and Israel were strategic allies knit together by
expansive intelligence sharing, multibillion-dollar arms contracts and coordinated
diplomacy.
Angleton's influence on U.S.-Israeli relations between 1951 and 1974 exceeded that of
any Secretary of State with the possible exception of Henry Kissinger. His influence was
largely unseen by Congress, the press, other democratic institutions, and much of the CIA
itself. He was empowered by his own ingenuity and the clandestine arrangements rationalized by
doctrines of national security and counterintelligence. The arc of his career breathes life
into the concept of the deep state.
I thought of this story when I visited one of the memorials to Angleton in Israel in 2016.
The memorial is located on a winding road outside the city of Mevaseret Zion, which is now
really a suburb of Jerusalem. Historically, control of this high ground has been seen as key to
the control of Jerusalem and of Palestine itself. A nearby ruins of a castle built by
12th-century Christian crusaders for exactly that purpose stands in mute testimony to the
importance of its strategic location.
The Angleton memorial consists of a pedestal of stones topped with a black plaque. To James
Angleton, a friend it says. This plaque was dedicated in 1987, a few months after Angleton
died, and it has been maintained by his Israeli friends ever since. It's still in perfect
condition. The location is no accident. In the course of his extraordinary career,
Angleton, more than any other American, enabled the Americans to gain and hold this
strategic high ground in the Middle East. He was, as his friend Meir Amit said, the biggest
Zionist of the lot . Thank you.
Do some of you ding-a-lings actually think Trump can go off the rails
against the bureaucracy when he's got Mueller trying to crawl up his
ass? He's got to find a balance somehow. He's got to stay alive. Both
politically and personally.
Pompeo is in for a rude awakening in the diplomatic arena if he tries to spar with Lavrov.
Lavrov IMO will bloody Pomepo's nose before he knows what hit him.
Where's Jim Jones when you need him to serve up some of his koolaid to the numerous
politicos and propagandists pushing the Russiagate Big Lie, for they surely deserve several
pitchers full each.
Given the degree of effort Pompeo's used in pushing Russiagate, I can't wait for his first
meeting with Lavrov or Putin.
The sooner Corbyn is able to become British PM, the better for all excepting the
corrupt.
Jeepers Cripes, y'all need to get a room and ass-hammer it out!
Latter Day America, there are no pristine people to choose from to populate any goddamned post in government, period! Everybody
has baggage, everybody is compromised.
This is the latter days of Rome 2.0 dipshits, got it? It is why one batch of clowns find it impossible to see one thing Trump
(or anybody in any country...except Czar Valdimir Putin in Russia...for whatever reason...default/nobody else to pick...when the
real answer even there is none of the above though many people refuse to see it) can do right and while the other batch is mystified
at those incapable of seeing (albeit sometime thin) distinctions between evils in the era of this-is-as-good-as-it'll-get. Cue
the inevitable endless circle jerk.
Trump, and all of DC have as much power to affect what is coming as a flea does trying to bench press 300 lbs. Those of them
who are aware of the true situation are scared shit less. Pompeo's appointment is just validating what is really about to come
down! When they can't intimidate the public into submission, they will try using a club.
Thanks for saying that. I detest Clinton and I want JUSTICE for what the evil treasonous psychopaths did in 2016, but I also
know Bibi and MBS have Trump on a short leash and Islamaphobes fill his home and cabinet.
The soft coup is now complete and a war with Iran inevitable.
Unfortunately, it gets worse. Much worse. For all his flaws, Rex Tillerson had a
surprisingly sane take on the Middle East, at least relatively. He was known for being against
the idiotic Saudi-UAE attempt blockade of Qatar, as well as in favor of keeping the Iran deal
active. Pompeo shares no such sentiments.
Pompeo, named as his pick for secretary of state by Trump on Tuesday shortly after he
announced Tillerson's departure on Twitter, has taken a notoriously tough stance on Iran in
the past in his erstwhile role as director of the CIA.
"Thuggish police state." Similar to Saudi Arabia then, which Pompeo had no problem bestowing
with a CIA medal last year.
back" its 2015 nuclear deal.
"Thuggish police state." Similar to Saudi Arabia then, which Pompeo had no problem bestowing
with a CIA medal last year.
... ... ...
But there's more
In November 2016, when Pompeo was appointed to lead the CIA, he warned that Tehran is
"intent of destroying America" and called the nuclear deal "disastrous." He added that he was
looking forward to "rolling back" the agreement.
Differences
of opinion over how Iran should be treated are said to be the source of discord between
Trump and Tillerson, whose firing followed a clash over the nuclear deal, the president said
Tuesday.
"If you look at the Iran deal I think it's terrible and I guess he thought it was OK We
weren't really thinking the same," Trump said in a statement outside the White House. He said
he and Tillerson got on "quite well" but had "different mindsets."
Iran has been increasingly marginalized during the Trump administration, which has sided
with Saudi Arabia in the regional battle for influence in the Middle East.'
Here's the bottom line. As I outlined multiple times last year, Trump is determined to have
a war with Iran and Rex Tillerson was standing in the way. Putting unhinged war hawk Pompeo in
place as Secretary of State is simply Trump getting his ducks in a row ahead of confrontation.
Watch as the sales pitch for another war in the Middle East picks up considerably in the months
ahead.
I believe this forthcoming war against Iran will have almost no international support.
Probably just autocratic regimes in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, as well as
Israel and possibly the UK depending on who's Prime Minister when it gets going. The rest of
the world will be against it, which will lead to spectacular failure.
It's become increasingly clear that a huge military error, such as a new major confrontation
in the Middle East is what will spell the end of the U.S. empire. Such a confrontation is now
increasingly likely with Tillerson out of the picture
Oh, and the person Trump picked to head the CIA to replace Pompeo is Gina Haspel, a 33-year
CIA careerist who
ran a torture black site in Thailand .
... ... ...
Donny boy sure has a strange way of "draining the swamp."
* * *
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J,
Haspel isn't alone in her views on torture - according to your link Mattis, Trump and Pompeo
also think waterboarding is an excellent intelligence tool.
According to your article Pompeo answered to Feinstein's torture criticism that agents who
had tortured people were " heroes, not pawns in some liberal game. "
*sob* ... poor heroes ... *sob*
Apparently it was all that heroism that made Haspel destroy evidence about the CIA torture
site in Tailand which she led.
One of the men, known as Abu Zubayda, was waterboarded 83 times in one month and was
slammed into walls by the head. He was deprived of sleep and kept in a coffin-like box.
Interrogators later decided he didn't have any useful information.
ProPublica found that Haspel personally signed cables to CIA headquarters that detailed
Zubayda's interrogation.
CIA videos of the torture were destroyed in 2005, on the orders of a cable drafted by
Haspel.
Indeed, apparently these heroes (and their leaders) needed to be protected from that odd
and unpleasant "liberal game" called 'prosecution for crimes'.
Military Contractors have 400 lobbyists, revolving doors with military officers and
civilian officials, jobs in congressional districts; plus, corporations and their employees
contribute to election campaigns. Most importantly, they are part of the connected elite. You
are groomed to succeed and are paid handsomely if you belong to their exclusive club.
Unfortunately, today the system is corrupt and the global establishment has absolutely no
concern for the well-being of American citizens.
Blaming Russia for the 2016 election and Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatening U.S. troops in
Manjib Syria are signs of the House of Cards collapsing around us.
Looks like Tillerson was yet another Big Lie junkie whose entire worldview is based on bullshit
Notable quotes:
"... Mattis sometimes calming influence over Trump on military issues will now become less effective. ..."
"... Haspel would be in jail if former president Barack Obama had not decided against prosecuting the CIA torture crimes. Torturing prisoners is a war crime. Obstruction of courts and destruction of evidence are likewise crimes. ..."
"... This is getting messy for the empire. Trump wants to attack Iran and be friends with Russia. The US neo-cons want to attack both Iran and Russia. UK and France want to be friends with Iran and attack Russia. ..."
"... The current anti Russia propaganda ["axis of evil" ] - Haley, Macron, May. Veto wielding members of the UNSC Russia, China vs US, France, UK...? ..."
"... I think the US, UK and Israel want to battle Russia in Syria. There will be more collateral damage done to Russians. ..."
Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson
for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!
According to the anti Russian propagandists
(vid) Tillerson got the job because Trump loves Russia and Tillerson was in good standing with Putin. The same people
now claim that Tillerson was fired from his job
because Trump loves Russia and Tillerson was not in good standing with Putin.
Neither is correct. The plan to oust Tillerson and elevate Pompeo to State has been rumored and written about
for several
month . The plan was "developed by John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff". It had nothing to do with Russia.
Tillerson never got traction as Secretary of State. Congress disliked him for cutting down some State Department programs. Trump
overruled him publicly several times.
There is some contradiction in the statements coming from the White House and the State Department. According
to the Washington Post:
Trump last Friday asked Tillerson to step aside, and the embattled top diplomat cut short his trip to Africa on Monday to return
to Washington.
Last Friday Tillerson suddenly
fell ill while traveling
in Africa and canceled several scheduled events.
... ... ...
Thus ends the 2018 insurrection at State.
With Tillerson leaving Secretary of Defense Mattis is losing
an ally in the cabinet:
[I]t starts with me having breakfast every week with Secretary of State Tillerson. And we talk two, three times a day, sometimes.
We settle all of our issues between he and I, and then we walk together into the White House meetings. That way, State and Defense
are together.
Mattis sometimes calming influence over Trump on military issues will now become less effective.
CIA head Pompeo, the new Secretary of State, is a neoconservative with a
racist anti-Muslim
attitude and a
special hate
for Iran which he
compared
to ISIS . That he will now become Secretary of State is a bad sign for the nuclear agreement with Iran. The Europeans especially
should take note of that and should stop to look for a compromise with Trump on the issue. The deal is now dead. There is
no chance that a compromise will happen.
The new CIA director Gina Haspel is
well
known for actively directing and participating in the torture of prisoners at 'black sites':
Beyond all that, she played a vital role in the destruction of interrogation videotapes that showed the torture of detainees both
at the black site she ran and other secret agency locations. The concealment of those interrogation tapes, which violated multiple
court orders as well as the demands of the 9/11 commission and the advice of White House lawyers, was condemned as "obstruction"
by commission chairs Lee Hamilton and Thomas Keane.
Haspel would be in jail if former president Barack Obama had not decided against prosecuting the CIA torture crimes. Torturing
prisoners is a war crime. Obstruction of courts and destruction of evidence are likewise crimes.
Both, Pompeo and Haspel, will need to be confirmed by Congress. Both will receive a significant number of 'yes'-votes from the
Democratic side of the aisle.
I think last straw to fire him been TRex stance toward russians -give up Crimea and we cease sanction(WHAT A JOKE) same toward
eastern republics of Ukraine LNR,DPR..good move VSGPDJT !!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is getting messy for the empire. Trump wants to attack Iran and be friends with Russia. The US neo-cons want to attack both
Iran and Russia. UK and France want to be friends with Iran and attack Russia.
The current anti Russia propaganda ["axis of evil" ] - Haley, Macron, May. Veto wielding members of the UNSC Russia, China vs US, France, UK...?
Poor Syria. At least one more fierce year of war. But more likely, endless 2,3,4 more years of war.
Israel and US are getting the rebels in Daraa (DEZ #4) primed to start up fighting again. I think the US, UK and Israel want to battle Russia in Syria. There will be more collateral damage done to Russians.
(My notes)
Tillerson says:
- got call today, afternoon from president, also spoke to Kelly (implies that this was the firing)
- hopes for smooth transition
- Deputy Sec State Sullivan will be acting Sec State
- Tillerson job officially terminates March 31
to DoD and State:
- bound by office oath, support constitution, ...
- always stay by oath, (sounds crying)
to people in uniform:
- great relationship State DOD - thanks Mattis and Dunford, all soldiers
work review:
- DPRK pressure campaign was success
- Afghanistan commitment also
- Syria, Iraq - work remains
- nothing goes without allies, partner
- work to be done on China and "troubling behavior" of Russia
- predicts more isolation if Russia doesn't knee
- nothing on Iran
Didn't say thank you to Trump. Emphasized oath to constitution, not to president. Nothing on Iran, Saudis or Palestine.
This was a f*** you to the White House and its priorities. The endorsement by name of Mattis and Dunlap makes them targets.
A Professor for political science from the United Arab Emirates just posted this:
"History will record that a GCC country had a role in the sacking of the foreign minister of a great power, and this is only the
beginning of more"
"All my life I have been fighting against the spirit of narrowness and violence,
arrogance, intolerance in its absolute, merciless consistency. I have also worked to
overcome this spirit with its evil consequences, such as nationalism in excess, racial
persecution, and materialism. In regards to this, the National Socialists are correct in
killing me.
I have striven to make its consequences milder for its victims and to prepare the way for
a change. In that, my conscience drove me – and in the end, that is a man's duty."
Helmuth James Graf von Moltke,
Executed in Plötzensee Prison on 23 January 1945
"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to
speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."
Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
Executed in Flossenbürg Camp on 9 April 1945
As journalist activist Carl von Ossietzky put it, 'we cannot hope to affect the conscience of
the world when our own conscience is asleep.'
Heroic virtue shines across the vast seas of history like beacons to those in the troubled
waters of general deception.
"... He has cultivated ties with Charles and David Koch, the billionaire industrialists who are patrons of conservative causes. They invested in Thayer Aerospace, a company Pompeo started with friends from West Point in 1998. He turned to Koch Industries, the Wichita-based conglomerate which has holdings in oil and other sectors, to help bankroll his 2010 congressional race. Pompeo was criticized by liberals for hiring a Koch Industries lawyer as his chief of staff and for introducing legislation that would benefit Koch interests. ..."
"... Pompeo has hawkish views on a range of policy issues, including torture, surveillance and the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. ..."
Pompeo graduated from both the United States Military Academy at West Point and Harvard and served three terms as a representative
for Kansas's fourth district. As a member of the House select committee on intelligence, he was an aggressive critic of
US foreign policy under the Obama administration,
particularly regarding the nuclear deal with Iran.
... ... ...
He has
cultivated ties with Charles and David Koch, the billionaire industrialists who are patrons of conservative causes. They invested
in Thayer Aerospace, a company Pompeo started with friends from West Point in 1998. He turned to Koch Industries, the Wichita-based
conglomerate which has holdings in oil and other sectors, to help bankroll his 2010 congressional race. Pompeo was criticized by
liberals for hiring a Koch Industries lawyer as his chief of staff and for introducing legislation that would benefit Koch interests.
Pompeo has hawkish views on a range of policy issues, including torture, surveillance and the National Security Agency whistleblower
Edward Snowden.
... ... ...
He has, however, diverged from Trump on Russia. In his confirmation hearing, he appeared to share with CIA staff an adversarial
view of Russia and Vladimir Putin.
The Senate approved his nomination 66-32.
The Democratic minority leader, Chuck Schumer, who voted to confirm Pompeo, said in a statement on Tuesday: "If he's confirmed [as
secretary of state] we hope that Mr Pompeo will turn over a new leaf and will start toughening up our policies towards Russia and
Putin."
Sanctions on Russia are being ignored. China is investing its US Trillions. Under US imposed
sanctions, ExxonMobil withdrew and China said "Thank You" and took the partnership.
Chinese state-controlled Huarong Asset Management has bought a 36.2 percent stake in the unit
of CEFC China Energy through which CEFC is acquiring a $9.1 billion stake in Russian oil
giant Rosneft.
According to CEFC filings seen by Reuters, Huarong has bought the stake in CEFC in two
tranches, one in December and one in February. Huarong is controlled by China's Ministry of
Finance.
In September, CEFC Energy announced plans to acquire 14.16 percent of Rosneft shares from
Glencore and the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA).
"The final structure of Rosneft's shareholders has been formed," Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin
told Rossiya 24 television.
As part of a long-term agreement, Rosneft and CEFC Energy inked a deal on crude oil
deliveries in 2017. According to the agreement, the Russian oil major will supply CEFC with
60.8 million tons of oil annually until 2023.
The agreement covers the development of exploration and production projects in Siberia.
The two companies plan to cooperate in refining, petrochemicals and crude trading.
Sanctions on Russia are being ignored. China is investing its US Trillions. Under US imposed
sanctions, ExxonMobil withdrew and China said "Thank You" and took the partnership.
Chinese state-controlled Huarong Asset Management has bought a 36.2 percent stake in the unit
of CEFC China Energy through which CEFC is acquiring a $9.1 billion stake in Russian oil
giant Rosneft.
According to CEFC filings seen by Reuters, Huarong has bought the stake in CEFC in two
tranches, one in December and one in February. Huarong is controlled by China's Ministry of
Finance.
In September, CEFC Energy announced plans to acquire 14.16 percent of Rosneft shares from
Glencore and the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA).
"The final structure of Rosneft's shareholders has been formed," Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin
told Rossiya 24 television.
As part of a long-term agreement, Rosneft and CEFC Energy inked a deal on crude oil
deliveries in 2017. According to the agreement, the Russian oil major will supply CEFC with
60.8 million tons of oil annually until 2023.
The agreement covers the development of exploration and production projects in Siberia.
The two companies plan to cooperate in refining, petrochemicals and crude trading.
Could Tillerson dismissal be related to:
"@realDonaldTrump son-in-law Jared #Kushner told Trump to back the #Saudi/#UAE blockade on
#Qatar after Qatar refused to invest in Kushner's indebted property at 666 Fifth Avenue in
New York City."
When this blockade happened, Tillerson supported Qatar and clashed with Kushner. Now that
Kushner's loan issue is public, could Trump be lashing out at Tillerson, could someone at
State have publicized the loan?
Posted by: likklemore | Mar 13, 2018 7:48:34 PM | 69
" Betcha Rex is so so sorry he went to D.C. "
Nah I wouldn't be fretting 'bout l'il rexie; these 1%ers don't make a move unless they
know there is gonna be a top earner or 57 in it for themselves.
I have no doubt tillerson pulled off a mob of smart (for himself n maybe exxonMobil) deals
whilst SecState. That is what 'these people' do.
Tillerson is more than enough evidence for the premise that the first move of any truly
revolutionary political movement must be to put the entire elite up against a wall and shoot
them.
For, as debilitating as such a move can be for the moral hygiene of a revolution, history
has taught us that allowing sociopathic scum such as he to keep breathing, ultimately costs
the lives of millions of ordinary decent, non-sociopathic humans. Sad but true.
"... We are at a dangerous crossroads in our history. ..."
"... The dangers of a Third World War are routinely obfuscated by the media. A world of fantasy permeates the mainstream media which tacitly upholds the conduct of nuclear war as a peace-making endeavor. ..."
"... "Fake News" has become "Real News". ..."
"... And "Real News" by the independent online media is now tagged as Russian propaganda. ..."
"... In turn, the independent media (including Global Research) is the object of censorship via the search engines and social media. ..."
"... What we are dealing with is a War against the Truth. Objective reporting on the dangers of a Third World war is being suppressed. Why? ..."
"... The future of humanity is at stake. The danger of nuclear annihilation is not front-page news. ..."
"... The unfolding consensus among Pentagon war planners is that a Third World War is "Winnable". ..."
"... Concepts are turned upside down. Political insanity prevails. ..."
"... Author's note: the later part of this article entitled The Road Ahead was first formulated in 2010. ..."
The dangers of a Third World War are routinely obfuscated by the media. A world of
fantasy permeates the mainstream media which tacitly upholds the conduct of nuclear war as a
peace-making endeavor.
World War III is terminal. Albert Einstein understood the perils of nuclear war and the
extinction of life on earth, which has already started with the radioactive contamination
resulting from depleted uranium, not to mention Fukushima.
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be
fought with sticks and stones."
The media, the intellectuals, the scientists and the politicians, in chorus, obfuscate the
untold truth, namely that war using nuclear warheads destroys humanity.
"Fake News" has become "Real News".
And "Real News" by the independent online media is now tagged as Russian
propaganda.
In turn, the independent media (including Global Research) is the object of censorship
via the search engines and social media.
What we are dealing with is a War against the Truth. Objective reporting on the dangers
of a Third World war is being suppressed. Why?
The future of humanity is at stake. The danger of nuclear annihilation is not front-page
news.
The unfolding consensus among Pentagon war planners is that a Third World War is
"Winnable".
Nuclear War as an "Instrument of Peace"
Concepts are turned upside down. Political insanity prevails.
A diabolical discourse is unfolding. The so-called "more usable" tactical nuclear weapons
(B61-11, B61-12) with an explosive capacity between one third and twelve times a Hiroshima bomb
are heralded (by scientific opinion on contract to the Pentagon) as "peace-making" bombs,
"harmless to the surrounding civilian population because the explosion is underground".
These are the weapons which are contemplated for use against North Korea (or Iran) in what
is described by the Pentagon as "a bloody nose operation", with limited civilian casualties.
And the corporate media applauds.
Fake News : these nuclear bombs are WMD. The "Bloody Nose" ("safe for civilians") Concept is
"Fake News"
Lest we forget, when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima (see image below),
100,000 people died within the first seven seconds following the explosion. Needless to say,
today's nuclear weapons are far more advanced than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in
August 1945.
When war becomes peace, the world is turned upside down. Conceptualization is no longer
possible. Insanity prevails. The institutions of government are criminalized and so is the
media.
The Pentagon and NATO are beating the drums of war. What is at stake is a Worldwide media
disinformation campaign in support of a Third World War, which almost inevitably would lead to
nuclear annihilation.
In the words of Fidel Castro: " In a nuclear war the "collateral damage" would be the life
of all humanity".
"The use of nuclear weapons in a new war would mean the end of humanity.
Today there is an imminent risk of war with the use of that kind of weapon and I don't
harbour the least doubt t hat an attack by the United States and Israel against the Islamic
Republic of Iran would inevitably evolve towards a global nuclear conflict.
There would be "collateral damage", as the American political and military leaders always
affirm, to justify the deaths of innocent people.
In a nuclear war the "collateral damage" would be the life of all humanity.
Let us have the courage to proclaim that all nuclear or conventional weapons, everything
that is used to make war, must disappear!" ( Complete text and video
recording , October 2010 Interview with Fidel Castro by Michel Chossudovsky)
When the lie becomes the truth there is no turning backwards.
When war is upheld as a humanitarian endeavor endorsed by the self proclaimed international
community, pacifism and the antiwar movement are criminalized. yet it should be noted that in
the course of the last 15 years, the anti-war movement has largely become defunct, civil
society organizations have been coopted.
How do we reverse the tide: a cohesive grassroots counter-propaganda campaign
The Road Ahead
There are no easy solutions. What is required is t he development of a broad based
grassroots network which seeks to disable patterns of authority and decision making pertaining
to war. This is by no means an easy and straightforward undertaking.
This network would be established nationally and internationally at all levels in society,
towns and villages, work places, parishes. Trade unions, farmers organizations, professional
associations, business associations, student unions, veterans associations, church groups would
be called upon to integrate the antiwar organizational structure. Of crucial importance, this
movement should extend into the Armed Forces as a means to breaking the legitimacy of war among
service men and women.
The first task would be to disable war propaganda through an effective campaign against
media disinformation. (including support of the online independent and alternative media).
The corporate media would be directly challenged, leading to boycotts of major news outlets,
which are responsible for channelling disinformation into the news chain. This endeavor would
require a parallel process at the grass roots level, of sensitizing and educating fellow
citizens on the nature of the war and the global crisis, as well as effectively "spreading the
word" through advanced networking, through alternative media outlets on the internet, etc. It
would also require a broad based campaign against the search engines involved in media
censorship on behalf of the Pentagon.
The creation of such a movement, which forcefully challenges the legitimacy of the
structures of political authority, is no easy task. It would require a degree of solidarity,
unity and commitment unparalleled in World history. It would require breaking down political
and ideological barriers within society and acting with a single voice . It would also require
eventually unseating the war criminals, and indicting them for war crimes.
Abandon the Battlefield: Refuse to Fight
The military oath taken at the time of induction demands unbending support and allegiance to
the US Constitution, while also demanding that US troops obey orders from their President and
Commander in Chief:
"I,____________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the
Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear
true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of
the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to the
regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God"
The President and Commander in Chief has blatantly violated all tenets of domestic and
international law. So that making an oath to "obey orders from the President" is tantamount to
violating rather than defending the US Constitution.
"The Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) 809.ART.90 (20), makes it clear that military
personnel need to obey the "lawful command of his superior officer," 891.ART.91 (2), the
"lawful order of a warrant officer", 892.ART.92 (1) the "lawful general order", 892.ART.92
(2) "lawful order". In each case, military personnel have an obligation and a duty to only
obey Lawful orders and indeed have an obligation to disobey Unlawful orders, including orders
by the president that do not comply with the UCMJ. The moral and legal obligation is to the
U.S. Constitution and not to those who would issue unlawful orders, especially if those
orders are in direct violation of the Constitution and the UCMJ." (Lawrence Mosqueda, An
Advisory to US Troops A Duty to Disobey All Unlawful Orders,
The Commander in Chief is a war criminal. According to Principle 6 of the Nuremberg
Charter:
"The fact that a person [e.g. Coalition troops] acted pursuant to order of his Government
or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a
moral choice was in fact possible to him."
Let us make that "moral choice" possible, to enlisted American, British, Canadian and
US-NATO Coalition servicemen and women.
Disobey unlawful orders! Abandon the battlefield! Refuse to fight in a war which blatantly
violates international law and the US Constitution!
But this is not a choice which enlisted men and women can make individually.
It is a collective and societal choice, which requires an organizational structure.
Across the land in the US, Britain, Canada and in all coalition countries, the new anti-war
movement must assist enlisted men and women to make that moral choice possible, to abandon the
battlefield in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now in Syria and Yemen.
This will not be an easy task. Committees at local levels must be set up across the United
States, Canada, Britain, Italy, Japan and other countries, which have troops engaged in US led
military operations.
We call upon veterans' associations and local communities to support this process.
This movement needs to dismantle the disinformation campaign. It must effectively reverse
the indoctrination of coalition troops, who are led to believe that they are fighting "a just
war": "a war against terrorists", a war against the Russians, who are threatening the security
of America.
The legitimacy of the US military authority must be broken.
What has to be achieved:
Reveal the criminal nature of this military project,
Break once and for all the lies and falsehoods which sustain the "political consensus" in
favor of a pre-emptive nuclear war.
Undermine war propaganda, reveal the media lies, reverse the tide of disinformation, wage
a consistent campaign against the corporate media
Break the legitimacy of the war-mongers in high office.
Dismantle the US sponsored military adventure and its corporate sponsors.
Bring Home the Troops
Repeal the illusion that the State is committed to protecting its citizens.
Expose the "fake crises" such as the global flu pandemic as a means to distract public
opinion from the dangers of a global war.
Uphold 9/11 Truth. Reveal the falsehoods behind 9/11 which are used to justify the Middle
East Central Asian war under the banner of the "Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT)
Expose how a profit driven war serves the vested interests of the banks, the defense
contractors, the oil giants, the media giants and the biotech conglomerates
Challenge the corporate media which deliberately obfuscates the causes and consequences
of this war,
Reveal and take cognizance of the unspoken and tragic outcome of a war waged with nuclear
weapons.
Call for the Dismantling of NATO
Implement the prosecution of war criminals in high office
Close down the weapons assembly plants and implement the foreclosure of major weapons
producers
Close down all US military bases in the US and around the World
Develop an antiwar movement within the Armed Forces and establish bridges between the
Armed Forces and the civilian antiwar movement
Forcefully pressure governments of both NATO and non-NATO countries to withdraw from the
US led global military agenda.
Develop a consistent antiwar movement in Israel. Inform the citizens of Israel of the
likely consequences of a US-NATO-Israeli attack on Iran.
Confront Target the pro-war lobby groups including the pro-Israeli groups in the US
Dismantle the homeland security state, call for the repeal of the PATRIOT
legislation
Call for the removal of the military from civilian law enforcement. Call for the
enforcement of the Posse Comitatus Act
Call for the demilitarization of outer space and the repeal of Star Wars
People across the land, nationally and internationally, must mobilize against this
diabolical military agenda, the authority of the State and its officials must be forcefully
challenged.
This war can be prevented if people forcefully confront their governments, pressure their
elected representatives, organize at the local level in towns, villages and municipalities,
spread the word, inform their fellow citizens on the implications of a nuclear war, initiate
debate and discussion within the armed forces.
What is required is the development of a broad and well organized grassroots antiwar network
which challenges the structures of power and authority, the nature of the economic system, the
vast amounts of money used to fund the war, the shear size of the so-called defense
industry.
What is required is a mass movement of people which forcefully challenges the legitimacy of
war, a global people's movement which criminalizes war.
What is needed is to break the conspiracy of silence, expose the media lies and
distortions, confront the criminal nature of the US Administration and of those governments
which support it, its war agenda as well as its so-called "Homeland Security agenda" which has
already defined the contours of a police State.
The World is at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern history. The US has
embarked on a military adventure, "a long war", which threatens the future of humanity.
It is essential to bring the US war project to the forefront of political debate,
particularly in North America and Western Europe. Political and military leaders who are
opposed to the war must take a firm stance, from within their respective institutions. Citizens
must take a stance individually and collectively against war.
We call upon people across the land, in North America, Western Europe, Israel, The Arab
World, Turkey and around the world to rise up against this military project, against their
governments which are supportive of US-NATO led wars, against the corporate media which serves
to camouflage the devastating impacts of modern warfare.
The military agenda supports a profit driven destructive global economic system which
impoverishes large sectors of the world population.
This war is sheer madness.
The Lie must be exposed for what it is and what it does.
It sanctions the indiscriminate killing of men, women and children.
It destroys families and people. It destroys the commitment of people towards their fellow
human beings.
It prevents people from expressing their solidarity for those who suffer. It upholds war and
the police state as the sole avenue.
It destroys both nationalism and internationalism.
Breaking the lie means breaking a criminal project of global destruction, in which the quest
for profit is the overriding force.
This profit driven military agenda destroys human values and transforms people into
unconscious zombies.
Let us reverse the tide.
Challenge the war criminals in high office and the powerful corporate lobby groups which
support them.
Break the American inquisition.
Undermine the US-NATO-Israel military crusade.
Close down the weapons factories and the military bases.
Bring home the troops.
Members of the armed forces should disobey orders and refuse to participate in a criminal
war.
From what's emerging now, it seems there simply were no assassins wandering round Salisbury.
Instead, it appears Mr Skripal for some reason has a house full of nerve gas, or enough
of it at least to take out himself, his daughter and a policeman who inspected the
premises.
"... It's rather scary. The Guardian screaming for a crusade aimed at toppling the Russian system and replacing it with something else, something closer to 'our values.' The moralizing is shocking and grotesque. I really wish the ground would just open up and swallow the Guardian whole. We'd be far better off with out it. ..."
"Poor little Britain", with half the population, a much smaller territory, and being
part of the largest military alliance in the world, spends only 10 billions less than Russia in
"defense".
If the same tone would have been used in the BBC and guardian articles against another
nation, for example Israel, it would rightly be treated as anti-Semitic and even considered as
hate crime by the Police.
The stink of hypocrisy from the Guardian and almost all the English press has made me
absolutely convinced that the public are being softened up for a direct conflict against
Russia. My guess is that it will kick off within the next year. I think that Putin has
mis-calculated because NATO know that the Russians don't yet have the capability that they
boasted of recently, it's largely still in development, so NATO needs to move now before they
are further constrained. The lunacy of such a move is lost in their desperation to go to
war.
Several weeks ago I predicted that there would be some false-flag event that would lead to a
boycott of the World Cup in Russia, there's no way that the neocons can allow Russia to be
portrayed positively.
I suppose by now we should be used to the nauseating, self-righteous bluster dished out on a
daily basis by the Anglo-Zionist media. The two minutes hate by the flabby 'left' liberals
who now have apparently joined forces with the demented US neo-cons in openly baying for a
war against Russia. How, exactly did these people expect Russia to react to the abrogation of
the ABM agreement, marching NATO right up to Russia's doorstep, staging coups in the Ukraine
and Georgia, having the US sixth fleet swanning around in the Black Sea? Of course, Russia
reacted as any other self-respecting state would react to such blatant provocations. And this
includes the US during the Cuba crisis and its self-proclaimed right to intervene in its
sphere of influence – Latin America – and for that matter anywhere else on the
planet. And it does so A L'outrance.
But I was foregetting, the Anglo-Zionist axis has a divine mission mandated by the deity
to reconfigure the world and bring democracy and freedom to those "Lesser breeds without the
Law" (Kipling). Of course, this updated version of 'taking up the white man's burden' by the
'exceptional people' may involve mass murder, mayhem, destruction and chaos, unfortunately
necessary in the short(ish) run. But these benighted peoples should realise it is for their
own good, and if this means starving to death 500,000 Iraqi children through sanctions, well,
it was 'worth it' according to the lovely Madeline Albright. This is the language and
methodology of a totalitarian imperialism. As someone has remarked the Anglo-zionist empire
is not on the wrong side of history, it is the wrong side of history.
The arrogance, ignorance and crass venality of these people is manifest to the point of
parody.
I agree with Mark Rice-Oxley that Russian oligarchs should pull their money out of Britain
and return it to Russia to invest in businesses there. That would be the ethical thing for
them to do, to fulfill their proper tax obligations and stop using Britain as a tax haven.
I hear that Russia has had another bumper wheat harvest and is now poised to take over
from Australia as the major wheat exporter to Egypt and Indonesia, the world's biggest buyers
of wheat. So if Russian oligarchs are wondering where to put their money in, wheat
production, research into improving wheat yields and the conditions wheat is grown in are
just a few areas they can invest in.
Be careful what you wish for, Mr Rice-Oxley – your wish might come true bigger than
you realise!
On top of what I said yesterday, if Russian oligarchs do pull all their money out of Britain,
the British economy would crash, it being highly dependent on the services sector
(constituting 80% of Britain's GDP in 2016 according to Wikipedia) and the financial services
industry in particular. So if all those Russian billions swirling through Britain's financial
system are "dodgy", that's because the system itself encouraged those inflows.
"Poor little Britain" which actually spends on par with Russia in terms of its military
budget, despite the fact that a) it's a much smaller country to defend and is surrounded by
water, and b) it's part of NATO with the US as its staunch defender so it really doesn't need
a standalone military anyway.
Their world is falling apart- in Korea and the Middle East the Empire is on the verge of
eviction. All the certitudes of yesteryear are dissolving. Even the Turks, who, famously,
held the line in Korea when the PLA attacked and the US Eighth Army fled south, are now on
the other side. The same Turks who hosted US nuclear armed strategic missiles so openly that
the USSR sent missiles of its own to Cuba.
As to the UK, the economy is contracting and the economic infrastructure is cracking up-
living standards are plummeting and the only recourse of those responsible for the mess-the
officers on the bridge- is propaganda. Like the Empire the British Establishment has been
living on the fruits of its own propaganda for so long that, when it is exposed as merely
empty bullying, there is nothing left but to resort to more lies in the hope that they will
obscure raw and looming reality.
In The Guardian newsroom the water is three feet deep and rising inexorably, the ship is
sinking and all hands are required to bail or the screens will go black. There is no time to
wait for developments, for investigations to be completed, for evidence- every ounce of
strength must be thrown into the defiance of nature, the shocking nakedness of reality.
There is something very significant about the way that simultaneous attacks of impotent
russophobic dementia are eating away the brains of the rulers on both sides of the
Atlantic.
The game, which has been going the same way for about 500 years, is up. The maritime
empire is becoming marginal and the force that it has used, throughout these centuries, no
longer overwhelms. The cruisers and carriers no longer work except to intimidate those not
worth frightening.
There is only one thing left for the Empire and its hundreds of thousands of
apparatchiki-from cops to pundits, from Professors to jailers- either they adjust to a new
dispensation because the Times are Changing or they blow themselves and the whole planet
up.
Cleary the Guardian was swallowed up by England's fascist regime controlled by the City of
London when it surrendered its hard drives to the regime for examination and/or destruction
in the wake of the Snowden revelations.
The Guardian ownerships also sold their souls -- although the Guardian had already been in
decline before they nabbed Glenn Greenwald. When he left, the Guardian lost ALL presumptive
credibility.
Now The Guardian is just an organ of regime propaganda like the BBC (thank GOd for
OffGuardian) and here is the island nation AGAIN asserting its dominance over the whole
world, but this time on behalf of his brawnier brother, the EUSE, aka Exceptional US
Empire.
One wonders how much longer the Russians will put up with this now that it is CLEAR that
-- for the first time ever -- the Russians have complete military and nuclear superiority
over "The West."
I'll bet Putin won't invade Ukraine, Germany, France, Brussels and England from the North
and from the sea in the wintertime.
The Big Problem Is That Americans are afraid -- frightened -- but they are NOT afraid or
frightened of a particular thing -- it is a generic fright. So they are no longer afraid of
nuclear war. Trotsky said America was the strongest nation but also the most terrified' and
nothing has changed except military and nuclear superiority along with economic clout has
shifted to Russia and China. Were Americans afraid of nuclear war -- or say, of an invasion
from Saskatchewan or Tamaulipas -- there might be hope.
But somewhere along the time beginning with Clinton, Americans didn't worry their pretty
little heads about nuclear war or American wars on everybody anywhere any longer so long as
it didn't disturb their creature comforts and shopping and lattes by coming to the homeland.
The Nuclear Freeze movement was, after all, a direct response to Reagan's "evil empire"
military buildup in the 1980s and then voila he and Gorbachev negotiated away a whole class
of nuclear weapons and Old Bush promised Nato wouldn't expand. Hope. Then that sneaky little
bastard Clinton started expanding Nato on behalf of the Pentagon / CKIA / NSA / military
/congressional industrial complex.
None of this suggests tht it will end pretty.
MichaelK, March 9, 2018
The whole piece is an emotionally charged rant, bordering on hysteria, based on a transparent tissue of lies, distortions
and absolutely stunning hypocrisy; and this coming from the 'liberal' 'left of centre' Guardian!
It's rather scary. The Guardian screaming for a crusade aimed at toppling the Russian system and replacing it with
something else, something closer to 'our values.' The moralizing is shocking and grotesque. I really wish the ground would
just open up and swallow the Guardian whole. We'd be far better off with out it.
"... This,,,"Russia appears lost, a global menace, a moral vacuum, a far greater threat than it ever was during the cold war." Should be changed to "The Guardian appears lost, a global menace, a moral vacuum, a far greater threat than it ever was during the cold war." ..."
"... The Guardian has consistently propagandised for regime changes inspired by Washington NeoCons, those of Libya, Syria, Ukraine and is ramping up their propaganda machine toward North Korea, Venezuela and now Russia itself having promoted destabilisation on its borders in Ukraine. ..."
"... On top of what I said yesterday, if Russian oligarchs do pull all their money out of Britain, the British economy would crash, it being highly dependent on the services sector (constituting 80% of Britain's GDP in 2016 according to Wikipedia) and the financial services industry in particular. So if all those Russian billions swirling through Britain's financial system are "dodgy", that's because the system itself encouraged those inflows. ..."
"... "Poor little Britain" which actually spends on par with Russia in terms of its military budget, despite the fact that a) it's a much smaller country to defend and is surrounded by water, and b) it's part of NATO with the US as its staunch defender so it really doesn't need a standalone military anyway. ..."
"... From what's emerging now, it seems there simply were no assassins wandering round Salisbury. Instead, it appears Mr Skripal for some reason has a house full of nerve gas, or enough of it at least to take out himself, his daughter and a policeman who inspected the premises. ..."
"... There is one key element that proves that the Russians didn't do it: The Russians aren't so clumsy as to poison over a dozen other people at the same time. ..."
"... The whole piece is an emotionally charged rant, bordering on hysteria, based on a transparent tissue of lies, distortions and absolutely stunning hypocrisy; and this coming from the 'liberal' 'left of centre' Guardian! ..."
Mark Rice-Oxley,
Guardian columnist and the first in line to fight in WWIII.
The alleged poisoning of ex-MI6 agent Sergei Skripal has caused the Russophobic MSM to go into overdrive. Nowhere is the desperation
with which the Skripal case has been seized more obvious than the Guardian. Luke Harding is spluttering incoherently about a
weapons lab that might not even exist anymore . Simon Jenkins gamely takes up his position as the only rational person left at
the Guardian, before being heckled in the comments and dismissed as a contrarian by Michael White on twitter. More and more the media
are becoming a home for dangerous, aggressive, confrontational rhetoric that has no place in sensible, adult newspapers.
Oh, Russia! Even before we point fingers over poison and speculate about secret agents and spy swaps and pub food in Salisbury,
one thing has become clear: Russia appears lost, a global menace, a moral vacuum, a far greater threat than it ever was during
the cold war.
Read this. It's from a respected "unbiased", liberal news outlet. It is the worst, most partisan political language I have ever
heard, more heated and emotionally charged than even the most fraught moments of the Cold War. It is dangerous to the whole planet,
and has no place in our media.
If everything he said in the following article were true, if he had nothing but noble intentions and right on his side, this would
still be needlessly polarizing and war-like language.
To make it worse, everything he proceeds to say is a complete lie.
Usually we would entitle these pieces "fact checks", but this goes beyond that. This? This is a reality check.
Its agents pop over for murder and shopping
FALSE: There's no proof any of this ever happened. There has been no trial in the Litvinenko case. The
"public
inquiry" was a farce, with no cross-examination of witnesses, evidence given in secret and anonymous witnesses. All of which
contravene British law regarding a fair trial.
even while its crooks use Britain as a 24/7 laundromat for their ill-gotten billions, stolen from compatriots.
TRUE sort of: Russian billionaires do come to London, Paris, and Switzerland to launder their (stolen) money. Rice-Oxley is too
busy with his 2 minutes of hate to interrogate this issue. The reason oligarchs launder their money here is that WE let them. Oligarchs
have been fleeing Russia for over a decade. Why? Because, in Russia, Putin's government has jailed billionaires for tax evasion and
embezzling, stripped them of illegally acquired assets and demanded they pay their taxes. That's why you have wanted criminals like
Sergei Pugachev doing interviews with Luke Harding, complaining he's down to
his
"last 270 million" .
When was the last time a British billionaire was prosecuted for financial crimes? Mega-Corporations owe
literally billions in tax , and our government lets them
get away with it.
Its digital natives use their skills not for solving Russia's own considerable internal problems but to subvert the prosperous
adversaries that it secretly envies.
FALSE: Russiagate is a farce,
anyone with an open-mind can see that . The reference to Russians envying the west is childish and insulting. The 13, just thirteen,
Russians who were indicted by Mueller have no connection to the Russian government, a
nd allegedly
campaigned for many candidates , and both for and against Trump. They are a PR firm, nothing more.
It bought a World Cup,
FALSE: The World Cup bids are voted on, and after years and years of investigation the US/UK teams have found so little evidence
of corruption in the Russia bid that they simply stopped talking about it. If the FBI had found even the slightest hint of financial
malpractice, would we ever have stopped hearing about it?
Regarding the second "neighbour": Ukraine. Ukraine and Russia are not at war. Ukraine has claimed to have been "invaded" by Russia
many times but has never declared war. Why? Because they rely on Russian gas to live, and because they know that if Russia were to
ever REALLY invade, the war would last only just a big longer than the Georgian one. The
"anti-terrorist operation" in Ukraine was started by the coup government in 2014. Since that time over 10,000 people have died.
The vast majority killed by the governments mercenaries and far-right militias many of whom
espouse outright fascism
.
bombed children to save a butcher in the Middle East.
MISLEADING: The statement is trying to paint Russia/Assad as deliberately targeting children, which is clearly untrue. Russia
is operating in Syria in full compliance with international law. Unlike literally everybody else bar Iran. When Russia entered the
conflict, at the invitation of the legitimate Syrian government, Jihadists were winning the war. ISIS had huge swathes of territory,
al-Qaeda affiliates had strongholds in all of Syria's major cities. Syria was on the brink of collapse. Rice-Oxley is unclear whether
or not he thinks this is a good thing.
Today, ISIS is obliterated, Aleppo is free
and the war is almost over. Apparently Syria becoming another Libya is preferable to a secular government winning a war against terrorists
and US-backed mercenaries.
And now it wants to start a new nuclear arms race.
FALSE: America started the arms race when they pulled out of the anti-ballistic missile treaty.
Putin warned at the time it was a dangerous move . America then moved their
AEGIS "defense
shield" into Eastern Europe . Giving them the possibility of first-strike without retaliation. This is an untennable position
for any country.
Putin warned, at the time, that Russia would have to respond. They have responded. Mr Rice-Oxley should take this up with Bush
and Cheney if he has a problem with it.
And before the whataboutists say, "America does some of that stuff too", that may be true, but just because the US is occasionally
awful it doesn't mean that Russia isn't.
MISLEADING: America doesn't do "some of that stuff". No, America aren't "occasionally awful". They do ALL of that stuff, and have
been the biggest destructive force on the planet for over 70 years. Since Putin came to power America has carried out aggressive
military operations against Pakistan, Libya, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria. They have sanctioned and threatened
and carried out coups against North Korea, Ukraine, Iran, Honduras, Venezuela and Cuba. All that time, the US has also claimed the
right to extradite and torture foreign nationals with impunity. The war crimes of American forces and agencies are beyond measure
and count.
We are so used to American crimes we just don't see them anymore. Imagine Putin, at one his epic four-hour Q&A sessions, off-handedly
admitting to torturing people in illegal prison camps .
Would we ever hear the end of it?
Even if you cede the utterly false claim that Russia has "invaded two neighbours", the scale of destruction just does not compare.
Invert the scale of destruction and casualties of Georgia and Iraq. Imagine Putin's government had killed 500,000 people in Georgia
alone, whilst routinely condemning the US for a week-long war in Iraq that killed less than 600 people. Imagine Russia kidnapped
foreign nationals and tortured them, whilst lambasting America's human rights record.
The double-think employed here is literally insane.
Note to Rice-Oxley and his peers, pointing out your near-delusional hypocrisy is not "whataboutism". It's a standard rhetorical
appeal to fairness. If you believe the world shouldn't be fair, fine, but don't expect other people not to point out your double
standards.
As for poor little Britain, it seems to take this brazen bullying like a whipping boy in the playground who has wet himself.
Boycott the World Cup? That'll teach them!
FALSE: Rice-Oxley is trying to paint a picture of false weakness in order to promote calls for action. Britain has been anything
but cooperative with Russia. British forces operate illegally in
Syria , they arm and train rebels. They refused to let Russian authorities see the evidence in the Litvinenko case, and refused
to let Russian lawyers cross-examine witnesses. Britain's attitude to Russia has been needlessly, provocatively antagonistic for
years.
Russians have complained that the portrayal of their nation in dramas such as McMafia is cartoonish and unhelpful, a lazy smear
casting an entire nation as a ludicrous two-dimensional pantomime villain with a pocketful of poisonous potions .Of course, the
vast majority of Russians are indeed misrepresented by such portrayals, because they are largely innocent in these antics.
TRUE: Russians do complain about this, which is entirely justifiable. The western representation of Russians is ignorant and racist
almost without exception. It is an effort, just like Rice-Oxley's column, to demonize an entire people and whip up hatred of Russia
so that people will support US-UK warmongering.
Most ordinary Russians are in fact also victims of the power system in their country, which requires ideas such as individual
comfort, aspiration, dignity, prosperity and hope to be subjugated to the wanton reflexes of the state
FALSE: Putin's government has decreased poverty by
over 66% in 17 years . They have increased life-expectancy, decreased crime, and increased public health. Pensions, social security
and infrastructure have all been rebuilt. These are not controversial or debated claims. The Guardian published them itself just
a few years ago. That is hardly a state where hope and aspiration are put aside.
Why is Russian power like this: cynical, destructive, zero-sum, determined to bring everything down to a base level where everyone
thinks the worst of each other and behaves accordingly?
MISLEADING FALLACY: This is simply projection. There is no logical basis for this statement. He is simply employing the old rhetorical
trick of asking WHY something exists, as a way of establishing its existence. This allows the (dishonest) author to sell his own
agenda as if it solves a riddle. Before you can explain something, you need to establish an explanandum something which requires
explaining. This is the basic logical process that our dear author is attempting to circumvent. We don't NEED to explain why
Russian power is like this, because he hasn't yet established that it is .
I think there are two reasons. The most powerful political idea in Russia is restoration. A decade of humiliation – economic,
social and geopolitical – that followed its rebirth in 1991 became the defining narrative of the new nation.
MISLEADING LANGUAGE: Describing the absolute destruction caused by the fall of the USSR as "rebirth" is an absurd joke. People
sold their medals, furniture and keepsakes for food, people froze to death in the streets.
At times, even the continued existence of the Russian Federation appeared under threat.
TRUE: This is true. Russia was in danger of Balkanisation. The possibility of dozens of anarchic microstates, many with access
to nuclear weapons, was very real. Most rational people would consider this a bad thing. The achievement of Putin's government in
pulling Russia back from the brink should be applauded. Especially when compared with our Western governments who can barely even
maintain the functional social security states created by their predecessors. Compare the NHS now with the NHS in 2000, compare Russia's
health service now to 17 years ago. Who do you think is really in trouble?
The second reason is that the parlous internal state of Russia – absurdist justice, a threadbare social safety net, a pyramid
society in which a very few get very rich and the rest languish – creates moral ambivalence.
PROJECTION: he actually makes this statement without even a hint of irony. The Tory government has killed people by slashing their
benefits, and homeless people froze to death during the recent blizzards. The overall trend of British social structure has been
down, for decades.
Poverty is increasing all the time ,
food banks are opening and people are increasingly desperate. We are trending down. 20%, one in five British people,
now live in poverty .
In that same time, as stated above, Russia's poverty has gone down and down. 13% of Russians live in poverty, almost half the
UK rate. In 2014, before we sanctioned Russia, it was only 10%. Even the briefest research would show this. Columnists like Rice-Oxley
go out of their way to avoid inconvenient facts.
What is to be done? I wouldn't respond with empty threats, Boris Johnson. No one cares.
Here we come to the centre of the shrubbery maze, up until now the column was just build up. Establishing a "problem" so he can
pitch us a "solution".
There are only two weaknesses in this bully's defences. The first is his money. Britain needs to do something about the dodgy
Russian billions swilling through its financial system. Make it really hard for Kremlin-connected money to buy football clubs
or businesses or establish dodgy limited partnerships; stop oligarchs from raising capital on the London stock exchange. Don't
bother with sanctions. Just say: "No thanks, we don't want your business."
FALSE: This shows not even the most basic understanding of the way money works. Money being made in Russia and spent in London
is bad fo Russia. Sending billionaires back to Russia would inject money INTO the Russian economy. Either Rice-Oxley is actually
a moron, or he is being deliberately dishonest.
What he REALLY means is that we should put pressure on the oligarchs, not to the hurt the Russian economy, but in the hopes the
oligarchs will turn on Putin and remove him by undemocratic means.
He is pushing for backdoor regime change. And if you think I'm reading too much into this, then here
The second is public opinion. The imminent presidential election is a foregone conclusion, but the mood in Russia can turn
suddenly, as we saw in 1991, 1993 and 2011-2012.
Notice how quickly he dismisses the democratic will of the Russian people. Poor, stupid, "envious" Russians aren't equipped to
make their own decisions. We need to step in. "Public opinion" turning means a colour revolution. It means US backed regime change
in a nuclear armed super-power. Backed by the cyberwarriors paid to spread Western propaganda online.
Maybe it's time to try some new digital hearts-and-minds operation. In the internet age, Russians have already shown how public
opinion can be manipulated. Perhaps our own secret digital marvels can embark on the kind of information counter-offensive to
win over the many millions of Russians who share our values. Perhaps they already are.
The hypocrisy is mind-blowing, when I read this paragraph I was dumb-founded. Speechless. For months we've been hearing about
how terrible Russia is for allegedly interfering in the American election. Damaging democracy with reporting true news out of context
and some well placed memes.
Our response? Our defense of our "values"? Use the armies of online propagandists our governments employ –
their existence
was reported in the
Guardian – in order to undermine, or undo the democratic will of the Russian people. Rice-Oxley is positing this with a straight
face.
Russia is such a destabilising threat to "our democratic values", such a moral vacuum, that we must use subterfuge to undermine
their elections and remove their popular head of state.
Rice-Oxley wants to push and prod and provoke and antagonise a nuclear armed power that, at worst, is guilty of nothing but playing
our game by our rules and winning. He wants to build a case for war with Russia, and he's doing it on bedrock of cynical lies.
It's all incredibly dangerous. Hopefully they'll realise that before it's too late. For all our sakes.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Putin's 10 year plan for the future of Russia. Putin is a builder, like Peter the Great. He
is a seeker after excellence, like Catherine the Great. If his 10 year plan can achieve the half of what he set out in his recent
speech, the name Putin will go down in history with the same sobriquet.
The most important part of Putin's March 1st speech:
And on the village level, because that's where most of the real work of the world is done, a snippet BTL from Auslander who
lives in the Crimea: "the first implications of anti corruption efforts are obvious in our little village. We'll see how it pans
out but everyone can, and should, assist in this task. The proof will be in the pudding when The West starts screaming about certain
kind, gentle and innocent 'businessmen' who end up counting trees [in Siberia?] for a decade or three."
I wonder how much longer the general readership over there will cotton on to the pro-war and propaganda agenda of the Guardian
and leave it en masse? It's as dishonest as The Sun.
"Poor little Britain", with half the population, a much smaller territory ,and being part of the largest military alliance in
the world, spends only 10 billions less than Russia in "defense". One of those "defense" strategies included in the budget, one
that all those commentators vilifying Russia conveniently ignore, is to blow up weddings, funerals and entire villages with missiles
fired from drones. No trial, no public kill list, no record of people killed, no accountability. That is sanctioned, extra-judicial
murder of suspects and everyone around them. And these progressive commentators, eager to spread prosperity by any mean, seem
to be ok with it.
Update: as I was writing this I noticed that The Guardian has a piece by (of all people!), Simon Jenkins, which, yes, takes
for granted that the assassination attempt was carried out by the Russians, but asks if there is a moral difference between that
and killing suspects with drone strikes. For that, he has been labeled an useful idiot and "an apologist for attempted mass murder
on British soil". Highly amusing if you ask me, but also a terrifying example of how straying if only a little bit from the official
line ("yes, the Russians tried to kill this guy, they are the worst, but maybe we should have a look at ourselves and our (kind
of) inappropriate tendency to murder everyone we want") has to be punished. There are no ifs or buts while at the two minutes
of hate. Now even the pieces that are there to give a semblance of balance have to be torn apart by those liberal, prosperity
loving persons that can´t seem to be able to condemn the murder of children at will. Now it is time to express hatred towards
Goldstein, I mean, of course, Putin and everything Russia.
This,,,"Russia appears lost, a global menace, a moral vacuum, a far greater threat than it ever was during the cold war."
Should be changed to "The Guardian appears lost, a global menace, a moral vacuum, a far greater threat than it ever was during
the cold war."
All suffering from PTDS AKA Putin-Trump Derangement Syndrome.
The Russophobes over at the Guardian (and the rest of the corporate media) would be well advised to review the trial of Julius
Streicher at the Nuremberg Tribunal.
The Guardian has consistently propagandised for regime changes inspired by Washington NeoCons, those of Libya, Syria, Ukraine
and is ramping up their propaganda machine toward North Korea, Venezuela and now Russia itself having promoted destabilisation
on its borders in Ukraine.
I find it the ultimate paradox that a publication purporting to be 'liberal' acts so enthusiastically
for deadly regime changes from this once Trotskyist but now extreme Right Wing group. There is nothing 'liberal', 'humanitarian',
or moral about promotion of deadly regime changes that have destroyed previously peaceful nations and murdered hundreds of thousands
in the process. Guardian for the geopolitical goals of the self-declared 'exceptional' Empire, the new 'master race' that of the
US.
One final observation on the Skripal case (for now): this stuff is so toxic. We don't know what the stuff is: nevertheless,
we know it is so toxic, can only be made by a state, and needs careful expert handling. We know this because every paper
and TV channel has by now emphasised that this stuff is so toxic, etc. If we missed the "nerve agents and what they do
to you" coverage: we can ascertain for ourselves from the men in the hazmat suits, the this stuff must be so toxic. The
Army have now been deployed: on hand after completing the largest CW exercise ever held, 'Toxic Dagger'; they are now employing
their specialist skills to carry out "Sensitive Site Operations" because this stuff is you get it by now. In another piece of
pure theater: police in hazmat suits were examining the grave of Alexander and Liudmila Skripal because even after a year or more
buried underground, you can't be too careful, because this stuff is A woman from the office next to Zizzi was taken ill (maybe
she had the risotto con pesce) because even after a week, and next door, traces of this stuff can still be
11 (or 16) people were hospitalised from the effects of 'this stuff': the first attending officer, Nick Bailey, is only just
out of ICU and lucky to be alive. The Skripal's are not so lucky: and on "palliative care" according to H de Bretton-Gordon. Yet
the eye-witness calling himself 'Jamie Paine' was close enough to get coughed on; and the unnamed passing doctor and nurse that
attended the Skripals at the scene, clearing their airways, are all fine (despite being hospitalised). Yet PC Bailey nearly died?
Funny that?
When first you practice to deceive: someone in the propaganda department must have noticed this glaring inconsistency. Enter,
stage right, former Met Chief Ian (now Lord) Blair (guess who was leading the Met when Litvinenko was poisoned?): to clarify that
PC Bailey was contaminated when he was the first officer to enter the Skripal's home – not attend them in Salisbury. This allowed
the Torygraph and Fox to speculate that Yulia brought a contaminated present for her father (which she kept in a drawer for a
week, because this stuff is so toxic?). The Torygraph's previous spin: that Skripal was poisoned for his contributions
to the Pissgate dossier were torpedoed by Orbis (Steele's company). Speaking on Radio 4: after pushing the Buzzfeed "14 other
deaths" dodgy dossier; Blair said "So there maybe some clues floating around in here." Yes, clues that you are lying? This is
pure theater: only it is more Morecambe and Wise than Shakespeare.
Check out the report from
C4News (mute the sound).
Two guys plodding around in fluorescent breather suits, another couple with gas masks, but behind them firemen in normal uniform
and no gas masks and the reporter 20 feet in front, in civvies wih no protective gear at all.
Virulent nerve agent threat? Theatre, and not very convincing at that.
Flaxgirl: a bit OT, but not too much as this event does not seem to have too much basis in reality: on the question of fabrication
the UK Home Office held an event this week – Security and Policing 2018 – where the "Live Demo Area" was sponsored by Crisis Cast.
I though you might interested? Are they providing critical incident training: or the critical incidents themselves is a legitimate
question after the events in Salisbury?
I suppose by now we should be used to the nauseating, self-righteous bluster dished out on a daily basis by the Anglo-Zionist
media. The two minutes hate by the flabby 'left' liberals who now have apparently joined forces with the demented US neo-cons
in openly baying for a war against Russia. How, exactly did these people expect Russia to react to the abrogation of the ABM agreement,
marching NATO right up to Russia's doorstep, staging coups in the Ukraine and Georgia, having the US sixth fleet swanning around
in the Black Sea? Of course, Russia reacted as any other self-respecting state would react to such blatant provocations. And this
includes the US during the Cuba crisis and its self-proclaimed right to intervene in its sphere of influence – Latin America –
and for that matter anywhere else on the planet. And it does so A L'outrance.
But I was foregetting, the Anglo-Zionist axis has a divine mission mandated by the deity to reconfigure the world and bring
democracy and freedom to those "Lesser breeds without the Law" (Kipling). Of course, this updated version of 'taking up the white
man's burden' by the 'exceptional people' may involve mass murder, mayhem, destruction and chaos, unfortunately necessary in the
short(ish) run. But these benighted peoples should realise it is for their own good, and if this means starving to death 500,000
Iraqi children through sanctions, well, it was 'worth it' according to the lovely Madeline Albright. This is the language and
methodology of a totalitarian imperialism. As someone has remarked the Anglo-zionist empire is not on the wrong side of history,
it is the wrong side of history.
The arrogance, ignorance and crass venality of these people is manifest to the point of parody.
I agree with Mark Rice-Oxley that Russian oligarchs should pull their money out of Britain and return it to Russia to invest in
businesses there. That would be the ethical thing for them to do, to fulfill their proper tax obligations and stop using Britain
as a tax haven.
I hear that Russia has had another bumper wheat harvest and is now poised to take over from Australia as the major wheat exporter
to Egypt and Indonesia, the world's biggest buyers of wheat. So if Russian oligarchs are wondering where to put their money in,
wheat production, research into improving wheat yields and the conditions wheat is grown in are just a few areas they can invest
in.
Be careful what you wish for, Mr Rice-Oxley – your wish might come true bigger than you realise!
On top of what I said yesterday, if Russian oligarchs do pull all their money out of Britain, the British economy would crash,
it being highly dependent on the services sector (constituting 80% of Britain's GDP in 2016 according to Wikipedia) and the financial
services industry in particular. So if all those Russian billions swirling through Britain's financial system are "dodgy", that's
because the system itself encouraged those inflows.
"Poor little Britain" which actually spends on par with Russia in terms of its military budget, despite the fact that a) it's
a much smaller country to defend and is surrounded by water, and b) it's part of NATO with the US as its staunch defender so it
really doesn't need a standalone military anyway.
"It's them, over there, they are evil. We must stop them. They are coming for us, they will take our children and steal our i
phones !!! Arrgh!!!" "I'll have another strong short black thanks"
Their world is falling apart- in Korea and the Middle East the Empire is on the verge of eviction. All the certitudes of yesteryear
are dissolving. Even the Turks, who, famously, held the line in Korea when the PLA attacked and the US Eighth Army fled south,
are now on the other side. The same Turks who hosted US nuclear armed strategic missiles so openly that the USSR sent missiles
of its own to Cuba.
As to the UK, the economy is contracting and the economic infrastructure is cracking up- living standards are plummeting and the
only recourse of those responsible for the mess-the officers on the bridge- is propaganda. Like the Empire the British Establishment
has been living on the fruits of its own propaganda for so long that, when it is exposed as merely empty bullying, there is nothing
left but to resort to more lies in the hope that they will obscure raw and looming reality.
In The Guardian newsroom the water
is three feet deep and rising inexorably, the ship is sinking and all hands are required to bail or the screens will go black.
There is no time to wait for developments, for investigations to be completed, for evidence- every ounce of strength must be thrown
into the defiance of nature, the shocking nakedness of reality.
There is something very significant about the way that simultaneous attacks of impotent russophobic dementia are eating away
the brains of the rulers on both sides of the Atlantic.
The game, which has been going the same way for about 500 years, is up. The maritime empire is becoming marginal and the force
that it has used, throughout these centuries, no longer overwhelms. The cruisers and carriers no longer work except to intimidate
those not worth frightening.
There is only one thing left for the Empire and its hundreds of thousands of apparatchiki-from cops to pundits, from Professors
to jailers- either they adjust to a new dispensation because the Times are Changing or they blow themselves and the whole planet
up.
From what's emerging now, it seems there simply were no assassins wandering round Salisbury. Instead, it appears Mr Skripal
for some reason has a house full of nerve gas, or enough of it at least to take out himself, his daughter and a policeman who
inspected the premises.
Cleary the Guardian was swallowed up by England's fascist regime controlled by the City of London when it surrendered its hard
drives to the regime for examination and/or destruction in the wake of the Snowden revelations.
The Guardian ownerships also sold their souls -- although the Guardian had already been in decline before they nabbed Glenn
Greenwald. When he left, the Guardian lost ALL presumptive credibility.
Now The Guardian is just an organ of regime propaganda like the BBC (thank GOd for OffGuardian) and here is the island nation
AGAIN asserting its dominance over the whole world, but this time on behalf of his brawnier brother, the EUSE, aka Exceptional
US Empire.
One wonders how much longer the Russians will put up with this now that it is CLEAR that -- for the first time ever -- the
Russians have complete military and nuclear superiority over "The West."
I'll bet Putin won't invade Ukraine, Germany, France, Brussels and England from the North and from the sea in the wintertime.
The Big Problem Is YThat Americans are afraid -- frightened -- but they are NOT afraid or frightened of a particular tbhing
-- it is a generic fright. So they are no longer afraid of nuclear war. Trotsky said A'meria was the strongest nation but also
the most terrified' and nothing has changed except military and nuclear superiority along with economic clout has shifted to Russia
and China. Were Americans afraid of nuclear war -- or say, of an invasion from Saskatchewan or Tamaulipas -- there might be hope.
But somewhere along the time beginning with Clinton, Americans didn't worry their pretty little heads about nuclear war or
American wars on everybody anywhere any longer so long as it didn't disturb their creature comforts and shopping and lattes by
coming to the homeland. The Nuclear Freeze movement was, after all, a direct response to Reagan's "evil empire" military buildup
in the 1980s and then voila he and Gorbachev negotiated away a whole class of nuclear weapoms and Old Bush promised NAto wouldn;t
expand. Hope. Then that sneaky little bastard Clinton started expanding Nato on behalf of the Pentagon / CKIA / NSA / miklitary
/congressional industyrial complex.
Maybe it's time to try some new digital hearts-and-minds operation. In the internet age, Russians have already shown
how public opinion can be manipulated. Perhaps our own secret digital marvels can embark on the kind of information counter-offensive
to win over the many millions of Russians who share our values. Perhaps they already are.
He really is taking Russians for idiots and fools!
There is one key element that proves that the Russians didn't do it: The Russians aren't so clumsy as to poison over a dozen
other people at the same time.
The whole piece is an emotionally charged rant, bordering on hysteria, based on a transparent tissue of lies, distortions
and absolutely stunning hypocrisy; and this coming from the 'liberal' 'left of centre' Guardian!
It's rather scary. The Guardian screaming for a crusade aimed at toppling the Russian system and replacing it with something
else, something closer to 'our values.' The moralizing is shocking and grotesque. I really wish the ground would just open up
and swallow the Guardian whole. We'd be far better off with out it.
"... Jones proceeds to suggest the Tuesday hearing is an important step in the effort to wake up Americans who will spread the word that Congress is "brain dead" concerning its constitutional responsibility in regard to war. ..."
According to the Congressional Research Service, the 2001 AUMF has been cited as statutory
authority for unclassified military or related actions at least 41 times in 18 countries. Both
President George W. Bush and President Obama used it, and now President Trump is following the
same path.
That is a portion of the cogent analysis Reps Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Justin Amash
(R-MI) offer in their Wednesday The Hill editorial explaining why they support repealing the AUMF
that has facilitated members of the United States Congress abdicating their authority over US
wars and three presidents exercising unrestrained use of military force abroad. The editorial
came the day after Lee and Amash
hosted a joint hearing of the United States House of Representatives Progressive Caucus and
Liberty Caucus focused on exploring repealing the AUMF.
Watch here the Progressive
Caucus and Liberty Caucus' fascinating hearing. The hearing includes testimony of Michael
McPhearson from Veterans from Peace, Daniel L. Davis from Defense Priorities, and Rita Siemion
from Human Rights First, as well as statements and questions from Reps. Lee, Amash, Walter Jones
(R-NC), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), Thomas Massie (R-NC), Jan Schakowski (D-IL), Jim Jordan
(R-OH). Mark Sanford (R-SC), Warren Davidson (R-OH), Jim McGovern (D-MA), and Dave Brat
(R-VA).
We'll see if the bipartisan movement in the House for a repeal of the 2001 AUMF ultimately
gains enough support to force a debate and vote on the House floor. Over the years, House Speaker
Paul Ryan (R-WI) and his predecessor
John Boehner (R-OH) have ducked their constitutional responsibility by withstanding pressure
from members to hold such a debate and vote.
During the hearing, Jones frankly addressed Ryan and Boehner's responsibility for preventing a
House floor debate and vote on the AUMF. "The one man blocking this debate is Paul Ryan,"
declared Jones. Jones elaborates:
The speaker of the House has the authority to order the committees of jurisdiction to mark up a
new AUMF. We have written letters individually and also in a bipartisan way; we still have not
had a debate. We started that request under John Boehner -- no debate.
Jones proceeds to suggest the Tuesday hearing is an important step in the effort to wake
up Americans who will spread the word that Congress is "brain dead" concerning its constitutional
responsibility in regard to war.
Jones and Massie are members of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity Advisory
Board.
Guardian is just an organ of regime propaganda like the BBC...
Notable quotes:
"... Now The Guardian is just an organ of regime propaganda like the BBC (thank God for OffGuardian) and here is the island nation AGAIN asserting its dominance over the whole world, but this time on behalf of his brawnier brother, the EUSE, aka Exceptional US Empire. ..."
"... But somewhere along the time beginning with Clinton, Americans didn't worry their pretty little heads about nuclear war or American wars on everybody anywhere any longer so long as it didn't disturb their creature comforts and shopping and lattes by coming to the homeland. ..."
"... The Nuclear Freeze movement was, after all, a direct response to Reagan's "evil empire" military buildup in the 1980s and then voila he and Gorbachev negotiated away a whole class of nuclear weapons and Old Bush promised Nato wouldn't expand. Hope. Then that sneaky little bastard Clinton started expanding Nato on behalf of the Pentagon / CKIA / NSA / military /congressional industrial complex. ..."
Cleary the Guardian was swallowed up by England's fascist regime controlled by the City of
London when it surrendered its hard drives to the regime for examination and/or destruction
in the wake of the Snowden revelations.
The Guardian ownerships also sold their souls -- although the Guardian had already been in
decline before they nabbed Glenn Greenwald. When he left, the Guardian lost ALL presumptive
credibility.
Now The Guardian is just an organ of regime propaganda like the BBC (thank God for
OffGuardian) and here is the island nation AGAIN asserting its dominance over the whole
world, but this time on behalf of his brawnier brother, the EUSE, aka Exceptional US
Empire.
One wonders how much longer the Russians will put up with this now that it is CLEAR that
-- for the first time ever -- the Russians have complete military and nuclear superiority
over "The West."
I'll bet Putin won't invade Ukraine, Germany, France, Brussels and England from the North
and from the sea in the wintertime.
The Big Problem Is That Americans are afraid -- frightened -- but they are NOT afraid or
frightened of a particular thing -- it is a generic fright. So they are no longer afraid of
nuclear war. Trotsky said America was the strongest nation but also the most terrified' and
nothing has changed except military and nuclear superiority along with economic clout has
shifted to Russia and China. Were Americans afraid of nuclear war -- or say, of an invasion
from Saskatchewan or Tamaulipas -- there might be hope.
But somewhere along the time beginning with Clinton, Americans didn't worry their pretty
little heads about nuclear war or American wars on everybody anywhere any longer so long as
it didn't disturb their creature comforts and shopping and lattes by coming to the homeland.
The Nuclear Freeze movement was, after all, a direct response to Reagan's "evil empire"
military buildup in the 1980s and then voila he and Gorbachev negotiated away a whole class
of nuclear weapons and Old Bush promised Nato wouldn't expand. Hope. Then that sneaky little
bastard Clinton started expanding Nato on behalf of the Pentagon / CKIA / NSA / military
/congressional industrial complex.
Looks like neocons represent a trap in which the US society got and out of which there is not easy end. That trap
which can be fatal.
Notable quotes:
"... American power elites, the majority of whom have never served a day in uniform nor ever attended serious military academic institutions and whose expertise on serious military-technological and geopolitical issues is limited to a couple of seminars on nuclear weapons and, in the best case scenario, the efforts of the Congressional Research Service are simply not qualified to grasp the complexity, the nature, and application of military force. They simply have no reference points ..."
"... In the " Empire of Illusions ," facts simply don't matter at all. In fact, I predict that the now self-evidently useless ABM program will proceed as if nothing had happened. ..."
"... The zombified US general public won't be told what is going on, those who will understand will be marginalized and powerless to make any changes, as for the corrupt parasites who have been making millions and billions from this total waste of taxpayer money, they have way too much at stake to throw in the towel ..."
"... In fact, since the US is now run by Neocons, we can very easily predict what they will do. They will do what Neocons always do: double down. So, after it has become public knowledge that the entire US ABM deployment is useless and outdated, expect a further injection in cash into it by "patriotic" "Congresspersons" (my attempt at being politically correct!), surrounded by flags who will explain to the lobotomized public that they are "taking a firm stance" against "the Russian dictator" and that the proud US of A shall not cave in to the "Russian nuclear blackmail". These colors don't run! United we stand! Etc. etc. etc. ..."
Bringing a sense of reality to a deeply delusional Empire
The leaders of the Empire, along with their brainwashed ideological
drones , live in a world completely detached from reality. This is why Martyanov writes
that the US " still continues to reside in her bubble which insulates her from any outside
voices of reason and peace " and that Putin's speech aimed at " coercing America's
elites into, if not peace, at least into some form of sanity, given that they are currently
completely detached from the geopolitical, military and economic realities of a newly emerging
world ". Martyanov explains that:
American power elites, the majority of whom have never served a day in uniform nor ever
attended serious military academic institutions and whose expertise on serious
military-technological and geopolitical issues is limited to a couple of seminars on nuclear
weapons and, in the best case scenario, the efforts of the Congressional Research Service are
simply not qualified to grasp the complexity, the nature, and application of military force.
They simply have no reference points. Yet, being a product of the American pop-military
culture, also known as military porn and propaganda, these people -- this collection of
lawyers, political "scientists", sociologists and journalists who dominate the American
strategic kitchen which cooks non-stop delusional geopolitical and military doctrines, can
understand one thing for sure, and that is when their poor dears get a bulls-eye on their
backs or foreheads.
The fact that in the real world these elites have had a bulls-eye on their backs for decades
doesn't change the fact that they also managed to convince themselves that they could remove
that bulls-eye by means of withdrawing from the ABM treaty and by surrounding Russia with
anti-missile launchers. The fact that some (many? most?) US politicians realized, at least in
the back of their minds, that their ABM systems would never truly protect the US from a Russian
counter-strike did not really matter because there were some uniquely American psychological
factors which made the notion of an ABM system irresistibly attractive:
1) An ABM system promised the US impunity : impunity is, along with military superiority,
one of the great American myths (as discussed here ). From Reagan
with this "weapons which kill weapons" to the current crisis in Korea, Americans have always
strived for impunity for their actions abroad: let all countries drown in an ocean of fire,
murder and mayhem as long as our "homeland" remains the untouchable sacrosanct citadel. Since
WWII Americans have killed many millions of people abroad, but when 9/11 came (nevermind that
it was obviously a false flag) the country went into something like clinical shock from the
loss of about 3'000 innocent civilians. Soviet, and then later, Russian nuclear weapons
promised to deliver many tens of millions of deaths if the USSR/Russia was attacked and that is
why spinning the fairy tale about an ABM "shield" was so appealing even if it was
technologically speaking either a pipe-dream (Reagan's "Star Wars") or an extremely limited
system capable of stopping maybe a few missiles at most (the current ABM system in Europe).
Again, facts don't matter at all, at least not in American politics or in the US collective
psyche.
2) An ABM system promised a huge financial bonanza for the fantastically corrupt US
Military-Industrial Complex for which millions of Americans work and which made many of them
fantastically rich. Frankly, I suspect that many (most?) folks involved in the ABM programs
fully realized that this was a waste of time, but as long as they were getting their bank
accounts filled with money, they simply did not care: hey, they pay me – I will take
it!
3) The US military culture never had much of an emphasis on personal courage or
self-sacrifice (for obvious reasons). The various variations of the ABM fairy tale make it
possible for Americans to believe that the next war would be mostly fought by pressing buttons
and relying on computers. And if real bombs start falling, let them fall somewhere else,
preferably on some remote brown people who, well, ain't quite as precious to God and humanity
as us, the White "indispensable nation".
Add to this a quasi-religious belief (a dogma, really) in the myth of American technological
superiority and you understand that the Russian leaders began to realize that their US
counterparts were gradually forgetting that they did have a bulls-eye painted on their backs.
So what Putin did is simply paint a few more, different ones, just to make sure that US leaders
come back to reality.
The goal of Putin's speech was also to prove both Obama ("the Russian economy is in
tatters") and McCain ("Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country") wrong. The Russian
message to the US ruling elites was simple: no, not only are we not lagging behind you
technologically, in many ways we are decades ahead of you, in spite of sanctions, your attempts
to isolate us, the dramatic drop in energy prices or your attempts at limiting our access to
world markets (the successful development of this new generation of weapons systems is a clear
indicator of the real state of fundamental research in Russia in such spheres are advanced
alloys, nanotechnology, super-computing, etc.).
To the warmongers at the Pentagon, the message was equally clear and tough: we spend less
than 10% of what you can spend on global aggression; we will match your quantitative advantage
with our qualitative superiority. Simply put, you fight with dollars, we will fight with
brains. US propagandists, who love to speak about how Russia always uses huge numbers of
unskilled soldiers and dumb but brutal weapons now have to deal with a paradigm which they are
completely unfamiliar with: a Russian soldier is much better trained, much better equipped,
much better commanded and their morale and willpower is almost infinitely higher than one of
the typical US serviceman. For a military culture used to mantrically repeat that everything
about it is "the best in the world" or even "the best in history" this kind of new reality will
come as a very painful shock and most will respond to it by going into deep denial. To those
who believed in the (historically completely false) narrative about the US and Reagan
bankrupting the USSR by means of a successful arms race, it must feel very strange to have sort
of "traded places" with the bad old USSR and being in the situation of having to face
military-spending induced bankruptcy.
Nothing will change in the Empire of Illusions (at least for the foreseeable
future)
Speaking of bankruptcy. The recent revelations have confirmed what the Russians have been
warning about for years: all the immense sums of money spent by the US in ABM defenses have
been completely wasted. Russia did find and deploy an asymmetrical response which makes the
entire US ABM program completely useless and obsolete. Furthermore, as Martyanov also points
out, the current force structure of the US surface fleet has also been made basically obsolete
and useless, at least against Russia (but you can be sure that China is following close
behind). Potentially, this state of affairs should have immense, tectonic repercussions:
immense amounts US taxpayer money has been completely wasted, the US nuclear and naval
strategies have been completely misguided, intelligence has failed (either on the acquisition
or the analytical level), US politicians have made disastrous decisions and this is all a total
"cluster-bleep" which should trigger God knows how many investigations, resignations, and
numerous sanctions, administrative or even criminal ones. But, of course, absolutely nothing of
this, nothing at all, will happen. Not a single head will roll
In the " Empire of
Illusions ," facts simply don't matter at all. In fact, I predict that the now
self-evidently useless ABM program will proceed as if nothing had happened. And, in a way, that
is true.
The zombified US general public won't be told what is going on, those who will
understand will be marginalized and powerless to make any changes, as for the corrupt parasites
who have been making millions and billions from this total waste of taxpayer money, they have
way too much at stake to throw in the towel.
In fact, since the US is now run by Neocons, we
can very easily predict what they will do. They will do what Neocons always do: double down.
So, after it has become public knowledge that the entire US ABM deployment is useless and
outdated, expect a further injection in cash into it by "patriotic" "Congresspersons" (my
attempt at being politically correct!), surrounded by flags who will explain to the lobotomized
public that they are "taking a firm stance" against "the Russian dictator" and that the proud
US of A shall not cave in to the "Russian nuclear blackmail". These colors don't run! United we
stand! Etc. etc. etc.
Those are two different phenomena. Most of the opposition is directed against warmongering
Likudniks, neocons and financial oligarchy (signicant part of which is ethnically Jewish, like
Germany in 30th), while often incorrectly using ethnic terminology. So in many case you need to
substitution Jew with a Neocon or Likudnik to make sense of the sentiments expressed.
"How much anti-Jewish hostility is there today in America? A lot? A little? Is it
negligible? Potentially explosive? It is hard to tell because disliking Jews is often a
firing offense, and a controlled press makes discussion impossible.
A clue can perhaps be
found in the comments sections of political websites where, protected by anonymity,
commenters are often bitterly anti-Jewish. But then, these comments may, or may not, be the
work of a few cranks."
This is a question that has moving parts. There might be a lot of hostility today and was
very little a few decades ago because what was once thought behavior we could afford or was
perhaps thought a temporary reaction to WW2 now seems much more insidious.
Or any of a dozen
similar relationships. I have always noticed Jewish behavior being a New Yorker, but had
until very recently been rather indulgent about it.
What some refer to as "Middle Eastern" characteristics probably more correctly can be called the "rug merchant mentality."
Notable quotes:
"... Diversity often disappears through assimilation. Today people named O'Toole and Libertini may be proud of their ancestry, but they think of themselves as American, not as Irish and Italian. So do others. Thus hostility to them, once intense, has vanished. ..."
"... Jews do not assimilate. Yes, they speak the same language, wear the same clothes, and peck at smartphones like everyone else. Yet they think of themselves as Jews. So, therefore, does everyone else. While there is no legal or moral reason why they should not so think of themselves, there are consequences: Human nature is what it is, regardless of whether we think it should be. ..."
"... Worse -- and this has caused millions of deaths -- Jews are often successful. It doesn't matter whether the success arises from superior intelligence, greater drive, collusion, or the will of Yahweh. It happens. Thus the pattern repeated over and over and over down the ages. Jews prosper, become rich, gain power sometimes abused, and become arrogant. If Christians did this -- Bill Gates, or the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age -- they would be resented as individuals perhaps, not as an ethnicity. But Jews are Them. The surrounding population feels colonized -- by Them, by Space Aliens, by internal foreigners -- and deeply resents it. ..."
"... Power and wealth are not necessary to engender slaughter. Mere difference, specifically not being Christian, has often been enough. History is littered with examples, of which Jews are well aware. When the First Crusade took Jerusalem in 1099, the Christian armies immediately burned the synagogue with the Jews inside. Why? The Jews had no part in the war, which was between Muslims and Christians. ..."
"... A Jewish friend once expressed the attitude as sometimes being, "Look what they have done to us. We can do anything we want to them." ..."
"... "It appears that gypsies are born only to be thieves. They are born as thieves, raised among thieves, study to be thieves, and finally end by being common thieves." Cervantes died in 1616, which makes the story over 400 years old. Yet this description of gypsies is their reputation today, very much supported by police files.They haven't assimilated, and they haven't changed. Jews of course have never been associated with burglary or picking pockets, but the passage makes clear that peoples can maintain characteristics over centuries ..."
"... Jews with remarkable consistency have been described for centuries as smart, greedy, combative, clannish, "pushy," exploitative, and arrogant. This is how I hear them described in Mexico, where I live. (I think of these as Middle Eastern traits, but never mind.) Then there is chutzpah. which in practice seems to mean "brashly walking over other people." It can leave others feeling bulldozed, defeated, used. This bruising of the ego, of self-respect, arouses a hostility all out of proportion to actual damage done. It is, or so I think, a major cause of dislike for Jews. Such descriptions are dismissed today as stereotypes. A stereotype is just the aggregate observation of many people over time. ..."
"... In sum, Jews seem alien, smarter than others and far more aggressive than Christians, whom they seem to trample. Christians feel that they cannot compete, that they are outsmarted at every turn, or at least pushed around, and made victims. This bruising of the ego sets off irrational, serious hostility. It is the attitude of blacks toward whites, for the same reasons ..."
"... Finally there is Israel, the albatross around the Jewish neck, making it impossible for Jews quietly to be more or less normal Americans. To Jews Israel is of immense and understandable importance, but this enthusiasm brings up charges of dual loyalty or, often, loyalty exclusively to Israel. The truth of this doesn't matter. It looks true, which is enough. Does Rachel the Jewish dentist in Peoria back Israel? To what extent? What does she think of Israeli behavior? We don't know. We know that Jewish lobbies like AIPAC and the Neocons back Israel one hundred percent. And they control American Mid-Eastern policy. This is much noted on the Web. ..."
"... America is not really stable. Political animosity runs high, racial hostility is great and growing, standards of living fall, offshoring and automation leave the young with nowhere for their lives to go. Wealth goes rapidly from the many to the few and what was the working class falls into drugs and anomie. The wars never end. Infrastructure ages and falls behind that of more advanced nations. Anger grows. As the pie shrinks, someone will have to get less pie. ..."
It is strange: Jews have been disliked everywhere and in all times. The dislike appears in odd places. I was astonished to find
that my Nepalese trekking guides were intensely hostile to Jews. They said that Jews (actually Israelis in most cases I think, but
the Nepalese do not seem to make the distinction) were loud, demanding, and always trying to force down the guides' fees. Historically
the hostility has often been powerful and, not infrequently, murderous. Jews have been expelled from country after country, excluded
from polite society, subjected to quotas,and required to live in certain regions. Why?
How much anti-Jewish hostility is there today in America? A lot? A little? Is it negligible? Potentially explosive? It is hard
to tell because disliking Jews is often a firing offense, and a controlled press makes discussion impossible. A clue can perhaps
be found in the comments sections of political websites where, protected by anonymity, commenters are often bitterly anti-Jewish.
But then, these comments may, or may not, be the work of a few cranks.
Today there appear news stories about growing hostility on campuses, that Jews are fleeing Paris because of increased or more
openly expressed dislike, or that the German Right, never fond of Jews, gains strength.
Since the dislike has existed for at least two thousand years, there must be some enduring reason or reasons. What?
One I think is the Space Alien Effect. It is human nature to dislike people different from oneself. This fact runs against today's
cult of diversity, which accounts for the disastrous reality of American life, but a glance around the world reveals that diversity
causes most of the planet's troubles: Sunni and Shia, Jew and Muslim, Tutsi and Hutu, black, white and brown in America, Tamil and
Sinhalese; Turks and Kurds; Turks and Armenians; Thais and Muslims, Germans and Jews. Protestants and Catholics in Ireland, on and
on for a very long list of religious, ethnic, and racial differences. Diversity is nobody's strength.
Diversity often disappears through assimilation. Today people named O'Toole and Libertini may be proud of their ancestry, but
they think of themselves as American, not as Irish and Italian. So do others. Thus hostility to them, once intense, has vanished.
Jews do not assimilate. Yes, they speak the same language, wear the same clothes, and peck at smartphones like everyone else.
Yet they think of themselves as Jews. So, therefore, does everyone else. While there is no legal or moral reason why they should
not so think of themselves, there are consequences: Human nature is what it is, regardless of whether we think it should be.
Specifically, Jews are always Them. We are Us. We are aware that Feinstein is Jewish as we are not aware that O'Malley is Irish
-- because he isn't. Difference alone doesn't cause antagonism. but makes it much more likely.
Worse -- and this has caused millions of deaths -- Jews are often successful. It doesn't matter whether the success arises
from superior intelligence, greater drive, collusion, or the will of Yahweh. It happens. Thus the pattern repeated over and over
and over down the ages. Jews prosper, become rich, gain power sometimes abused, and become arrogant. If Christians did this -- Bill
Gates, or the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age -- they would be resented as individuals perhaps, not as an ethnicity. But Jews are
Them. The surrounding population feels colonized -- by Them, by Space Aliens, by internal foreigners -- and deeply resents it.
As noted, the reaction may take the form of ostracism, enforced quotas, confinement to the Pale of Settlement, expulsion from the
country, ghastly pogroms, or Auschwitz.
Hitler's complaints against the Jews were along usual lines, that Jews controlled German culture, finance, academia, and the media.
These are also things said in America today today on the internet against Jews . Whether these criticisms are true, fair, justified,
or make sense does not matter. What matters is that people feel, or can easily be made to feel, controlled, by Them. Making a list
of powerful Jews is sufficient and, with the internet, easy.
The dislike is profoundly visceral, not rational, tapping into deep wells of instinct that make little sense -- which doesn't
matter. This can be seen in the wild disproportion between offense given and reaction. How do you get rationally in Germany from
growlings in beer halls, "There are too damn many Jews in everything," to "We should kill all the Jews"?
Them, not Us. It makes little obvious sense to say that Jews are not Americans. Bob Dylan isn't an American? Lauren Bacall? Yet
this is clearly how anti-Jewish commenters on the web see it. Them, not Us. It is a matter of limbic tribalism, which does not map
well onto legal principles.
The hostility is often to Jews more as a metaphysical category than as actual people. Many who loathe Jews have little contact
with them. Ask, "What have Jews actually done to you? Hacked your bank account? Gypped you out of your house? Shot your dog?" and
the answer will likely be, "Nothing." Rachel Cohen, the dentist next door in Peoria, is not easily envisioned as trying to destroy
America, impose communism, or wreck the currency. Thus, "some of my best friends but ." While the Jews one actually knows probably
are not bad people, or at most annoying, The Jews collectively are a sort of ominous barely visible miasma. (For the record, no American
Jew has ever harmed me, and many have helped me in what I humorously call "my career." Coupla girlfriends, too.)
Importantly, Jewish presence is seen as Jewish conspiracy. Four Jews on the Supreme Court? From two percent of the population?
My God, they must be up to something . A conspiracy, doubtless. But a conspiracy to do what? A candidate theory, correct as it happens,
is that Jews as a people do anything and everything they can to advance the fortunes of Israel. But on the Supreme Court how? Other
suggestions are a desire to destroy the white race (including themselves?), to bring America down (why?), to wreck the international
monetary system (why?), or to impose a Zionist world empire. Most of these make between little and no sense, which doesn't matter.
Jews don't actually have to sacrifice Christian children to die for it. They just have to be thought to do so.
It is interesting that these usually nonexistent Jewish conspiracies get enduring attention while other, demonstrably real, conspiracies
do not arouse similar ire. For example, the Koch brothers, who are not Jewish, have funded and led a massive and disguised campaign
to subvert American politics for the benefit of big business. The arms industry bribes, suborns, and finagles to get the government
to buy hugely expensive weapons. The FBI was recently caught trying to prevent the election of Donald Trump. The Clintons are crooked
as kite string in a ceiling fan. So why do Jewish conspiracies, sometimes real but, more usually, imagined, get attention on the
web?
The Space Alien Effect. Jews are Them. We are Us. Both know it.
The importance of this tribalism should not be underestimated. I once walked down Main Street in Farmville, Virginia, a small
town in the Southside, with a friend. He said -- I forget how the subject came up -- with some bitterness, "The Jews own everything
on Main Street. Just like they do everywhere." He pointed to Rose's, a perfectly ordinary department store. It did nothing wrong
or even interesting. But it was Jewish. That was enough.
Them, not Us. The Presbyterian owners of a store actually engaged in gouging would have been resented as individuals, not as a
tribe. The Jews.
Power and wealth are not necessary to engender slaughter. Mere difference, specifically not being Christian, has often been
enough. History is littered with examples, of which Jews are well aware. When the First Crusade took Jerusalem in 1099, the Christian
armies immediately burned the synagogue with the Jews inside. Why? The Jews had no part in the war, which was between Muslims and
Christians.
This explains why Jews do not like Christianity, though the antipathy typically is (wisely) disguised as a principled adherence
to the invented constitutional doctrine of separation of church and state. Note that while Americans think of the Holocaust as something
the Germans did (I do) to Jews it can look like just another attack by a Christian country (Poland, Russia, England, the Baltics,
and so on.) A Jewish friend once expressed the attitude as sometimes being, "Look what they have done to us. We can do anything
we want to them."
Here we encounter the unfortunate human tendency to blame entire groups for what a few members did. For example, the Jews killed
Christ. "(Gosh, Rachel, you don't look old enough.") Or whites enslaved blacks. Actually, no one in the United States has been a
slave, or owned one, for a century and a half. Most of liberal politics would wither to nothing if we accepted that people cannot
be guilty of things they did not do.
It is not necessarily wise to be seen as trying to eliminate a majority religion.
Note that a people, though living always among others, can maintain characteristic over long periods. Recently I was reading Las
Novelas Ejemplares of Cervantes, specifically La Gitnailla , which means very approximately The Little Gypsy Girl. It begins,
"Parece que los gitanos y gitanas solamente nacieron en el mundo para ser ladrones: nacen de padres ladrones, críanse con ladrones,
estudian para ladrones y, finalmente, salen con ser ladrones corrientes."
"It appears that gypsies are born only to be thieves. They are born as thieves, raised among thieves, study to be thieves,
and finally end by being common thieves." Cervantes died in 1616, which makes the story over 400 years old. Yet this description
of gypsies is their reputation today, very much supported by police files.They haven't assimilated, and they haven't changed. Jews
of course have never been associated with burglary or picking pockets, but the passage makes clear that peoples can maintain characteristics
over centuries .
Jews with remarkable consistency have been described for centuries as smart, greedy, combative, clannish, "pushy," exploitative,
and arrogant. This is how I hear them described in Mexico, where I live. (I think of these as Middle Eastern traits, but never mind.)
Then there is chutzpah. which in practice seems to mean "brashly walking over other people." It can leave others feeling bulldozed,
defeated, used. This bruising of the ego, of self-respect, arouses a hostility all out of proportion to actual damage done. It is,
or so I think, a major cause of dislike for Jews. Such descriptions are dismissed today as stereotypes. A stereotype is just the
aggregate observation of many people over time.
Of course the evidence does not always support a particular explanation for avisible effect. A Jewish friend says, "We're no more
greedy than anyone else. We're just good businessmen so we make money." Those with money are usually described as greedy. I don't
think I have ever met a greedy Jew, though I have met many who were very careful with money. It doesn't matter whether you really
are greedy only that people think you are.
Chutzpah: When I was seven we lived in Arlington, Virginia, next to the Furmans, recently someone said, of Hell's Kitchen, which
I didn't know what was. The Furmans were by no means bad people. One day Mrs. Furman came over and gave my mother a hard time because
my little brother, five was playing with a kid across the street instead of little Andrew Furman. Mom had done nothing to influence
my brother's choice of friends. She, a quietly genteel woman from the Southside of Virginia, was horrified by the aggressiveness.
She told me of this decades later, so it clearly made a bad impression. Thereafter, Them were not our kind of people. Small things
can produce lifelong dislike.
In sum, Jews seem alien, smarter than others and far more aggressive than Christians, whom they seem to trample. Christians
feel that they cannot compete, that they are outsmarted at every turn, or at least pushed around, and made victims. This bruising
of the ego sets off irrational, serious hostility. It is the attitude of blacks toward whites, for the same reasons .
Finally there is Israel, the albatross around the Jewish neck, making it impossible for Jews quietly to be more or less normal
Americans. To Jews Israel is of immense and understandable importance, but this enthusiasm brings up charges of dual loyalty or,
often, loyalty exclusively to Israel. The truth of this doesn't matter. It looks true, which is enough. Does Rachel the Jewish dentist
in Peoria back Israel? To what extent? What does she think of Israeli behavior? We don't know. We know that Jewish lobbies like AIPAC
and the Neocons back Israel one hundred percent. And they control American Mid-Eastern policy. This is much noted on the Web.
Jewish backing for Israel requires emotional contortions since Israel is everything liberals, to include Jews, profess to hate,
being racist -- just now it is expelling blacks -- religiously exclusive, an apartheid state, militaristic, and brutal in its treatment
of Arabs. This I suspect bothers some Jews, but assuredly is a grave PR problem for the country. But then, as a small coastal enclave
in a part of the world intensely hostile to it, a sort of second Crusader Kingdom, it is hard to see what choices it has. If it becomes
democratic or allows extensive intermarriage, for example, it will quickly cease to be a Jewish state, and there is no way to rule
nicely over a sea of people who want to kill you.
Is there a possibility of active anti-semitism in America? Yes. Why is America immune to a dislike that has influenced all of
history?
Yet at the moment, no. No overt expression will soon occur, and perhaps never will. But the classic preliminary conditions exist
and grow. The appearance of Jewish power is strong. Four of nine justices of the Supreme Court, a majority of Ivy presidents, CEOs
of television networks. Zuckerberg of Facebook, Sergei Brin co-founder of Google. the New York Times , Time-Warner, Disney,
much of Hollywood, huge parts of retail, most of the big publishing houses in New York. Anyone who has worked in Washington knows
that Jewish control of Congress and the media is near absolute. The list could go on for pages. Things like this create a propagandist's
paradise.. If America's tight control over expression ever slipped, a would-be Adolf with Google searches could come up with a shocking
list.
A rational person might ask, "So what?" Do the Supreme Court's Jewish justices make Jewish decisions -- whatever that might mean?
Or do they vote like any four NPR listeners chosen at random? Did Mark Zuckerberg do anything underhanded? Or was he a very bright
Jewish kid who had an idea and the strength of character to push it into existence? Does Schultz of Starbucks do something evil,
or does he, like, you know, sell reasonably good coffee at a reasonable price?
It doesn't matter. They are there, so they must be conspiring. And their influence is becoming more obvious, as with Trump's subservience
(as seen by much of the world) to Israel in planning to move the embassy.
People who think they are defending Jews will point to Jewish contributions to nearly everything -- science, music, math, technology,
literature, charity, medicine, support for symphonies. These contributions are real and immense. With respect to anti-Jewish politics,
they are also irrelevant or worse. Since the hostility to Jews rests largely on their excessive presence (again, in the eyes of the
anti-Jewish) pointing to their intellectual contributions just increases the dislike. It emphasizes both the Jewish presence and
apparent superiority.
Happy, prosperous societies seldom form lynch mobs. When things break down, when hope wanes, expectations fall, and near-desperation
sets in, explosions come. Today the United States quite arguably heads into a Weimar-like future of chaos and social violence. This
may sound crazy but is it? Nobody thought such a highly civilized country as Germany capable of Treblinka.
America is not really stable. Political animosity runs high, racial hostility is great and growing, standards of living fall,
offshoring and automation leave the young with nowhere for their lives to go. Wealth goes rapidly from the many to the few and what
was the working class falls into drugs and anomie. The wars never end. Infrastructure ages and falls behind that of more advanced
nations. Anger grows. As the pie shrinks, someone will have to get less pie.
It is hard to see how this can continue forever. My guess is that the fighting -- "unrest" is the polite term -- will break out
first between white and black. Whites are quiescent now, but see their lives worsening and their world deteriorating. The kneelers
in the NFL, the rioters
Fred, you know we love most of your columns, but this one is deeply flawed:
Specifically, Jews are always Them. We are Us.
That's it, huh? Then why did you go on to write the following?
Anyone who has worked in Washington knows that Jewish control of Congress and the media is near absolute.
That doesn't sound like being hated for the offense of simply being different; that sounds like something that would piss people
off.
They said that Jews (actually Israelis in most cases I think, but the Nepalese do not seem to make the distinction) were
loud, demanding, and always trying to force down the guides' fees.
Implicit in this is that the Nepalese don't dislike most other foreign visitors as much as they do the Israelis. And what had
the Israelis done, other than just what the Nepalese guides said? Failed to assimilate into the culture of Nepal while on vacation
there? I think your're kind of undermining your central thesis with this one.
Animus goes much deeper than simple resentment at Jewish success.
It is because of the destruction of our once stable society and the implosion of Western European nations under cultural currents
unleased by the Jews that is the source of that animus.
Speak honestly Fred and stop the tangential and mealy mouthed explanations for the animus.
For someone who thinks antisemitism is irrational, Fred, you sure do seem to provide a lot of rational sounding reason for disliking
the Jews.
Note: I haven't encountered any Jews who were pushy or hostile with me. I've known Jews from work, school and the community,
and they don't seem any more likely to be aggressive, in the interpersonal sense, than anyone else. I think this tendency has
been exaggerated – a lot. When I was in my early twenties my blond shiksa cousin had a couple of Jewish friends she would take
with her when she visited. Trust me, the only aggressive and mean one in the bunch was my cousin. The two Jewish girls were good
company, and my friends and I were always happy to socialize with them. The one Jewish kid in my class would never have been described
as aggressive by anyone.
That was in 1099. I could give a F who did what to whom that long ago. But with Jews their motto is "never forgive, never forget".
Even when they've lived better in white Christian nations than in any other they still work to undermine the white Christians
they live among. That their historical grudges have an endless shelf life is reason to hate them and bar them from living in our
nations.
Importantly, Jewish presence is seen as Jewish conspiracy. Four Jews on the Supreme Court?
Right. When Jews are overrepresented in any field it's because they're so darn smart. It whites are overrepresented in their
own friggin countries then Jews lecture us about unearned white privilege. This is why I and a growing number of whites hate them.
And it just so happens that all four Jews represent the totalitarian left wing of the court who consistently vote against white
American interests. Another reason they're hated.
I won't waste too much time since Fred's writing philo-semitic propaganda and taking pot shots at anyone who doesn't think
they're as groovy as he does. This is just one of Freddy's partisan diatribes similar to how he lionizes and promotes Mexicans
and Mexico.
Anyone who examines the historical record and the history of the Jews in the diaspora with an open mind will become anti-semitic.
As Fred hinted, Jews prize their ethnic identity much more than most whites. For example, while Italian and Greek Americans may
pay homage to their respective identities, they don't wear them on their sleeves. They certainly wouldn't describe an Italian
marrying a Greek as "intermarriage," a few potential exceptions notwithstanding.
Of course, Jews bragging about their success doesn't help either. Chinese and other Asian Americans – while not wielding the
political and cultural clout of Jews – are also very economically successful; but they at least have the wisdom to keep quiet
about it, as evidenced by their strident rejection of the "model minority" stereotype. Successful minorities worldwide such as
Bohras in India also manage to quietly enjoy their success; and that's saying something, given that India is an openly – and often
violently – majoritarian country.
Ultimately, I think that Jews' chutzpah engenders a lot of ill will. Of all affluent and accomplished minorities, they're
certainly the most flamboyant and pushy.
When a state is composed of a homogeneous population, the natural inertia of such a population will hold the Stage together
and maintain its existence through astonishingly long periods of misgovernment and maladministration.
But the situation is utterly different in a country where the population is not homogeneous .Should the ruling hand show signs
of weakness in such a State the result will be to awaken the individualistic instincts which are slumbering in the ethnological
groups.
Fred the apologist clearly states the jooies exercise "near absolute control" of Wash DC i.e. the goy 98% of the
US population has essentially been disenfranchised. That's not a reason to hate on the vile conniving jooies?
March 5, 2018 at 3:27 am
GMT 100 Words Stereotypes come from somewhere.
I have a friend who is prejudiced against Chinese people, based on his dealings with Chinese in the computer industry. His
perception (right or wrong, but it is the perception which matters) is that they were "sneaky," "underhanded," they "stuck
together against the round eyes."
Yet, as a school teacher, this same fellow readily bragged up the achievements of his numerous Oriental students. Which tells
me that, on a personal level, prejudice can be overcome. As the saying went, back in the days of hippies vs. rednecks, "Bar
stool to bar stool, things can be pretty cozy."
My friend is a devout evangelical Christian. Whenever I see the "fish" symbol, I tend to run the other way. But, I make an
exception in his case, because I know him to be, and respect him as, a good man.
Hitler's complaints against the Jews were along usual lines, that Jews controlled German culture, finance, academia,
and the media.
Not exactly.
In his own words:
There were few Jews in Linz.
As I thought they were persecuted on account of their Faith my aversion to hearing remarks against them grew almost into
a feeling of abhorrence.
Then I came to Vienna.
In the Jew I still saw only a man who was of a different religion, and therefore, on grounds of human tolerance, I was against
the idea that he should be attacked because he had a different faith.
Once, when passing through the inner City [Vienna], I suddenly encountered a phenomenon in a long caftan and wearing black
side-locks. My first thought was: Is this a Jew? They certainly did not have this appearance in Linz.
Cleanliness, whether moral or of another kind, had its own peculiar meaning for these people.
What soon gave me cause for very serious consideration were the activities of the Jews in certain branches of life .Was
there any shady undertaking, any form of foulness, especially in cultural life, in which at least one Jew did not participate?
The fact that nine-tenths of all the smutty literature, artistic tripe and theatrical banalities, had to be charged to the
account of people who formed scarcely one percent of the nation – that fact could not be gainsaid.
In summary, Hitler states that his antipathy towards Jews, as a group, was based on his experiences in the "big city" (Vienna),
and his *perception* that the Jews he encountered there were mostly immoral and corrupt, unlike those he had known in his (smaller)
home town.
"David Goldman–Sadly, American Jews stand out as a horrible example of demographic failure. In the United States, secular
and loosely affiliated American Jews, that is, the vast majority, have the lowest fertility rate of any identifiable segment
of the American population. As I wrote in my book How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam is Dying, Too):
Nowhere is the fertility gap between religious and non-religious more extreme than among American Jews. As a group, American
Jews show the lowest fertility of any ethnic group in the country. That is a matter of great anguish for Jewish community leaders.
According to sociologist Steven Cohen, "We are now in the midst of a non-Orthodox Jewish population meltdown. Among Jews in
their 50s, for every 100 Orthodox adults, we have 192 Orthodox children. And for the non-Orthodox, for every 100 adults, we
have merely 55 such children."
Half of the non-Orthodox children, moreover, marry non-Jews, and very few children of mixed marriages will remain Jewish.
As Reform Rabbi Lance J Sussman wrote in 2010, "With the exception of a number of Orthodox communities and a few other bright
spots in or just off the mainstream of Jewish religious life, American Judaism is in precipitous decline the Reform movement
has probably contracted by a full third in the last ten years!"
which in turn was inspired, if that is the word, by the trial of Captain Alfred Dreyfus of the French Army, in which Capt
Dreyfus was unjustly convicted of espionage.
From the preface:
In 1902, he [Herzl] published a utopian novel about the Jewish state, Altneuad (oldnew
land) a vision complete with monorails and modern industry. , Altneuad
envisioned a multipluralistic Democracy in which Arabs and Jews had equal
rights.
Doesn't seem to have worked out that way.
The central premise of Zionism seems to be that Jews cannot expect equable treatment in a majority Gentile society. Ironically,
the infamous case which inspired it also disproves this hypothesis.
To wit:
In the long run, justice was done in the case of Capt. Dreyfus.
He was very publicly restored to rank, with a promotion, in the French Army, and served honorably in what was then known as
the Great War, which was all he ever wanted to do in the first place.
On 12 July 1906, Dreyfus was officially exonerated by a military commission. The day after his exoneration, he was readmitted
into the army with a promotion to the rank of major (Chef d'Escadron). A week later, he was made Knight of the Legion of
Honour,[6] and subsequently assigned to command an artillery unit at Vincennes.
Of course, there are (particularly) Jews who will say, "But he had years of his life stolen from him." This is, of course,
true, but in the long run it is nothing more, nor less, than another miscarriage of justice, which in the case was, fortunately
for its victim, eventually corrected. It is, in that sense, not unique. It did result in an an outcome more favorable than
some both before and since.
It isn't just cultural currents unleashed; it's deliberate destruction planned by institutional Jewry. Barbara Specter's
married to the chief rabbi of Sweden and says Europe's "too monolithic," meaning "too white." She says Jews will be resented
for their leading role in making Europe multicultural, i.e., non-white majority. Right you are, Barbara.
1,200+ rabbis in the U.S. came out for unchecked immigration of "refugees" and Adelson, Saban, Gelbaum, the ADL, the AJC,
the HIAS, and BB are all for open borders. And the utter destruction of white America.
Jews played a huge role in Bolshevism, in putsches in Hungary, Austria, and Germany, and in Holodomor. "Jew" and "communist"
were practically synonymous in 1930s America and Israel ran Pollard, one of the most destructive spies ever known in America.
Jews have also done their utmost to push the most destructive aspects of the civil rights disaster.
Israel went to war against the U.S. with its deliberate attack on the USS Liberty with machine gunning of our sailors trying
to make it into the lifeboats. It's protestations of "mistake" were transparent lies.
AIPAC ensures that billions from the treasury are squandered every year on an enemy nation that tries to involve us in fighting
their wars for local hegemony. Is greater Israel also one of our projects?
Finally, institutional Jewry does everything in its power to distort National Socialism as "right-wing" to deflect attention
from the leftist essence of totalitarian destruction, torture, theft, and murder and the disproportionate Jewish role in extreme
leftist movements. The Jewish obsession with "The" Holocaust is the ultimate "holocaust denial." And woe betide he who cares
to point that out. "The" Holocaust pales in comparison to the communist ones? Hater!!
What is not to loathe in organized Jewry?
I know of decent, patriotic Jews but I know of few Jews who dare to speak out against what I have mentioned. I would be
attacked for "anti-Semitism" long before such voices are heard.
Fred us always a great read and a personal hero of mine. However, he missed the target here with his discussion of a bland
"otherness." Reading excerpts from the Talmud and quotes from the great Rabbi Schneerson reveals that there is indeed some
virulent Jewish hatred of the goyim out there. Bland otherness is not what I'm picking up.
Hitler's complaints against the Jews were along usual lines
You disingenuously fail to note that it is the consistency of these particular accusations throughout history that makes
them 'usual'. Jews are always persecuted for the same list of crimes . because they're always up to the same list of crimes.
How many times have they been expelled from the gentile nations that were effectively isolated in time and by geography. Are
you saying that gentile civilization has quietly conspired to sew a false narrative of Jews, across national borders, and throughout
it's entire, and diversely recorded history? Because that's the official Jewish narrative, as wild and absurd as it is. Of
course, you'll have to fight tooth and nail just to get one of them to be honest enough to admit that they've been routinely
expelled from a great many nations that had formerly welcomed them. And even then, you'll almost never get one honest enough
to admit any wrongdoing on the part of the Jews in any such instances of expulsion. Jews can only be victims or heroes, after
all. Never villains. Just ask the Democrats, or the Republicans. Or the Media. Or the ADL, or the SPLC, or your college professor
etc etc etc.
Them, not Us. It makes little obvious sense to say that Jews are not Americans.
Tell that to the Jews. They're the one's who don't practice what they preach. More than anything, it's that double standard,
along with the mass censorship of all criticism and dissent via a deafening chorus of cries of 'antisemitism' that foster the
most hostility towards Jews as a collective. Even your dentist Isn't likely to reproach Jews for their wrongdoings, or call
for the Orwellian 'strength' of diversity to flood Israel, the way they would in America. You make no mention of the widespread
'ethno-nationalism for me, but not for thee' views held by Jews with regards to Israel and the West.
Four Jews on the Supreme Court? From two percent of the population? My God, they must be up to something. A conspiracy,
doubtless.
Don't stop there. Not unless you're TRYING to be dishonest. You've pointed out a single piece in a very long pattern of
such events and then attempted to misrepresent the rest of the argument by omitting all the other pieces of evidence that come
together to show a cohesive Jewish conspiracy that is rooted in verifiable facts. Tell everyone how much of our government,
media, academia, finance etc is overwhelmingly dominated by this 2%.
Then compare the results of such an analysis with Hitler's complaints against the Jews. And then look at the collective
leftward political lean of all these Jewish dominated positions of power and influence in America/The West. The Marxists in
our colleges, the academics dictating our historical narrative and how we record it in history books, the bankers, the globalist
billionaires and media moguls and Hollywood big wigs etc etc etc.
What they all lobby for, advocate for and push, is all the same things they won't tolerate at all in Israel. And for exactly
all the same reasons that they decry whites as racists and bigots for bringing up.
Jews with remarkable consistency have been described for centuries as smart, greedy, combative, clannish, "pushy," exploitative,
and arrogant. This is how I hear them described in Mexico, where I live.
At some point, Fred, hopefully you figure out how to tell the difference between a coincidence and pattern of events. I'm
not holding my breath though.
I was astonished to find that my Nepalese trekking guides were intensely hostile to Jews. They said that Jews (actually
Israelis in most cases I think, but the Nepalese do not seem to make the distinction) were loud, demanding, and always trying
to force down the guides' fees. Historically the hostility has often been powerful and, not infrequently, murderous. Jews
have been expelled from country after country, excluded from polite society, subjected to quotas,and required to live in
certain regions. Why?
LOL.
No, see, this is just brainwashing by the Great Global Antisemitic Conspiracy. They read some virulent antisemitism online
first. Then, primed for antisemitism, they saw bad behavior from Jews where it didn't exist.
How much anti-Jewish hostility is there today in America? A lot? A little? Is it negligible? Potentially explosive? It
is hard to tell because disliking Jews is often a firing offense, and a controlled press makes discussion impossible.
Yeah, no recipe for animus there.
Countersemitism is probably less common than the countersemites think, and more common than the philosemites think.
Jewish success isn't the problem. Jews are very fond of this answer, because it strokes their ethnic egos, and feeds their
dindu nuffin culture (nobody, I mean NOBODY, does dindu culture like the Jews), but it's silly. Whites are rich tourists; did
your Nepalese friends say they didn't like whites? Or do you suppose they bitch to their Jewish clients about whites? I suppose
it's possible.
Countersemitism thrives despite an extremely hostile environment (it's firing, ruination, and unpersoning stateside; prison
time in Europe) because there are much better reasons for it than envy. No serious person takes up countersemitism trivially;
the cost is too high. There are far easier ways to work out one's psychological needs, if that's the only motive. No, countersemitism
is driven by altruism.
Finally there is Israel, the albatross around the Jewish neck, making it impossible for Jews quietly to be more or less
normal Americans.
Jews make it impossible. All they have to do is what whites would do; turn on Israel the way whites turned on South Africa.
All they have to do is be consistent in their leftism, and subject themselves to the same rules that they enforce on others.
You just glide past this and start yakking about Israel; what they do is their business, what the Jewish diaspora does
is our business.
Whites and Jews really are different.
Jewish behavioral profile: "we should be the last people to have to live by the rules we push on everyone else."
White behavioral profile: "we can't push rules on everyone else that we aren't already living by ourselves."
A rational person might ask, "So what?" Do the Supreme Court's Jewish justices make Jewish decisions–whatever that might
mean? Or do they vote like any four NPR listeners chosen at random? Did Mark Zuckerberg do anything underhanded? Or was
he a very bright Jewish kid who had an idea and the strength of character to push it into existence? Does Schultz of Starbucks
do something evil, or does he, like, you know, sell reasonably good coffee at a reasonable price?
It doesn't matter. They are there, so they must be conspiring. And their influence is becoming more obvious, as with
Trump's subservience (as seen by much of the world) to Israel in planning to move the embassy.
A rational person might point to the Jews and their leftism, support for "diversity" and such. Jews say "we need black faces
here, brown faces," etc., but then we're not supposed to turn around and say, "fine, we need white gentile faces in here"?
Sauce, gander. Jews see removal of Jews as antisemitism, so we should see removal of white gentile faces as anti-white racism.
Let Jews and all the rest advocate for their own representation, and we whites will advocate for ours.
That's the rational response.
People who think they are defending Jews will point to Jewish contributions to nearly everything–science, music, math,
technology, literature, charity, medicine, support for symphonies. These contributions are real and immense. With respect
to anti-Jewish politics, they are also irrelevant or worse. Since the hostility to Jews rests largely on their excessive
presence (again, in the eyes of the anti-Jewish) pointing to their intellectual contributions just increases the dislike.
It emphasizes both the Jewish presence and apparent superiority.
Nah. Jews follow whites around, the same way blacks do. Jews need whites, to live in white countries, the same way
blacks do. Jews chimp out at the thought of being excluded from white communities or countries, the same way blacks
do. That burning need is not the hallmark of superiority. Whites, on the other hand, don't need either group. They certainly
don't need to follow either around, or go ape at the idea of being excluded from their communities or countries.
This explains a lot of the chip on the Jewish shoulder. Jews have a love-hate, superiority-inferiority complex going with
whites, big time.
America is not really stable.
Owed mostly to diversity, which in turn is owed largely to the Jews, and their tireless efforts from 1924 to 1965 to pry
open our borders.
Your idealism and altruism are wasted on Fred Reed.
He isn't arguing in good faith.
He is just writing lies, which he knows full well to be lies, to provoke the anger of his audience, for his own amusement.
I believe they call it "trolling".
The only way antisemitism will ever go away is if more members of the Jewish elite follow the lead of Ron Unz and Stephen
Miller and make a good faith effort to use their influence for the benefit of the host community. (If you made a list of the
100,000 most influential Jews in America, would there be anyone on that list other than Unz and Miller who is favorably disposed
towards old-stock Americans?)
Trolls like Fred Reed, on the other hand, will reliably increase antisemitism every time they get access to a keyboard.
They will be perceived as toadies of the hostile Jewish elite, and unfortunately all Jews will receive a share of the animus
stirred up by the all too numerous likes of Fred Reed.
Dickerson: "What keeps you awake at night?" Mattis: "Nothing, I keep other people awake at night." and. . . MATTIS: A conflict in North Korea, John, would be probably the worst kind of fighting in most
people's lifetimes. Why do I say this? The North Korean regime has hundreds of artillery cannons and rocket
launchers within range of one of the most densely populated cities on earth, which is the
capital of South Korea.
We are working with the international community to deal with this issue. This regime is a
threat to the region, to Japan, to South Korea, and in the event of war, they would bring
danger to China and to Russia as well.
But the bottom line is, it would be a catastrophic war if this turns into combat, if we are
not able to resolve this situation through diplomatic means.
here
We shouldn't expect that any meeting and talks would actually solve anything, because the
DPRK and US positions are basically irreconcilable. DPRK wants the US out of Korea, US wants
DPRK to denuke (disarm).
The DPRK strategy, probably, is to spawn endless meetings for a long
time. The Vietnam peace talks serve as a model, first with the parties discussing the shape
of the table, etc. I look for DPRK to play this game.
It's a basic east vs. west gambit, where the east has the patience to endure years whereas
the west expects quick results.
The Ukrainian authorities have started the seizure of assets belonging to the Russian gas
giant Gazprom, citing its alleged non-compliance with the decision of the Stockholm arbitration
court. "Under the current circumstances, the Ukrainian cabinet initiates action aimed at
recovering [a] penalty from Gazprom," the Ukrainian government's press service said in a
statement published on its official website. It also claimed that the move was conducted in
compliance with the decision of the Stockholm court and involves collecting a fine from the
Russian company over its alleged violation of Ukrainian anti-monopoly legislation. Read more
Ukraine is
overpaying for European gas & wants Russia to foot the bill
The Swedish arbitration body initially ruled on the three-year dispute between Gazprom and
the Ukrainian energy company, Naftogaz, back in December 2017. The policy of the court prevents
it from even acknowledging that it's mediating a case, which makes it impossible to obtain its
own account of the final ruling. Both energy companies, which have opposing takes on the
outcome, initially claimed victory in the case.
In late February, the same court ordered Gazprom to compensate Naftogaz $4.6 billion for
what the latter sees as lost profit from the transit of Russian gas to Europe.
The legal battle between the two energy companies in the Arbitration Institute of the
Stockholm Chamber of Commerce had rumbled on since June 2014. Gazprom's claims related to fines
for insufficient withdrawal and use of gas by the Ukrainian side, in accordance with a
'take-or-pay' rule. The Russian gas giant also demanded payment of a debt for gas
delivered to Ukraine between May and June 2014.
Naftogaz pushed for a retroactive change in the price of gas, the reimbursement of
overpayments and the repeal of a ban on reselling Russian gas. The court eventually satisfied
some of the Ukrainian company's demands, in particular by setting a minimum amount of gas that
Naftogaz must buy from Gazprom annually (from 2018) at a volume that was 10 times lower than in
the original contract. At the same time, it also obliged Gazprom to pay for the transit of the
Russian gas through the Ukrainian territory between 2009 and 2017 even though the gas was not,
in fact, transited over that period.
The Head of Gazprom, Alexei Miller, then called the court's decision "asymmetric"
and "very politically motivated." The court justified its decision by referring to a
difficult economic situation in Ukraine.
"... The figures contained in the recent budget deal that kept Congress open, as well as in President Trump's budget proposal for 2019, are a case in point: $700 billion for the Pentagon and related programs in 2018 and $716 billion the following year. ..."
"... Though the Pentagon's budget was already through the roof, it will get an extra $165 billion over the next two years, thanks to the congressional budget deal reached earlier this month. ..."
"... Ben Freeman of the Center for International Policy put the new Pentagon budget numbers in perspective when he pointed out that just the approximately $80 billion annual increase in the department's top line between 2017 and 2019 will be double the current budget of the State Department; higher than the gross domestic products of more than 100 countries; and larger than the entire military budget of any country in the world, except China's. ..."
"... Meanwhile, the majority of Republican fiscal conservatives were thrilled to sign off on a Pentagon increase that, combined with the Trump tax cut for the rich, funds ballooning deficits as far as the eye can see -- a total of $7.7 trillion worth of them over the next decade. ..."
"... Although Congress is likely to rein in the administration's most extreme proposals, the figures are stark indeed -- a proposed cut of $120 billion in the domestic spending levels both parties agreed to. The biggest reductions include a 41% cut in funding for diplomacy and foreign aid; a 36% cut in funding for energy and the environment; and a 35% cut in housing and community development. And that's just the beginning. The Trump administration is also preparing to launch full-scale assaults on food stamps, Medicaid, and Medicare. It's war on everything except the US military. ..."
"... Items that snagged billions in new funding in Trump's proposed 2019 budget included Lockheed Martin's overpriced, underperforming F-35 aircraft, at $10.6 billion; Boeing's F-18 "Super Hornet," which was in the process of being phased out by the Obama administration but is now written in for $2.4 billion; Northrop Grumman's B-21 nuclear bomber at $2.3 billion; General Dynamics' Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine at $3.9 billion; and $12 billion for an array of missile-defense programs that will redound to the benefit of you guessed it: Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing, among other companies. These are just a few of the dozens of weapons programs that will be feeding the bottom lines of such companies in the next two years and beyond. For programs still in their early stages, like that new bomber and the new ballistic missile submarine, their banner budgetary years are yet to come. ..."
"... Trump wants to create jobs, jobs, jobs he can point to, and pumping up the military-industrial complex must seem like the path of least resistance to that end in present-day Washington. Under the circumstances, what does it matter that virtually any other form of spending would create more jobs and not saddle Americans with weaponry we don't need? ..."
"... The list of wasteful expenditures is already staggeringly long and early projections are that bureaucratic waste at the Pentagon will amount to $125 billion over the next five years. Among other things, the Defense Department already employs a shadow work force of more than 600,000 private contractors whose responsibilities overlap significantly with work already being done by government employees. Meanwhile, sloppy buying practices regularly result in stories like the recent ones on the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency losing track of how it spent $800 million and how two American commands were unable to account for $500 million meant for the war on drugs in the Greater Middle East and Africa. ..."
"... Most important of all, this flood of new funding, which could crush a generation of Americans under a mountain of debt, will make it easier to sustain the seemingly endless seven wars that the United States is fighting in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. So call this one of the worst investments in history, ensuring as it does failed wars to the horizon. ..."
The Military-Industrial Complex Is on Corporate WelfareThe Pentagon will get an
extra $165 billion over the next two years -- that's even more than Donald Trump asked
for.
Imagine for a moment a scheme in which American taxpayers were taken to the cleaners to the
tune of hundreds of billions of dollars and there was barely a hint of criticism or outrage.
Imagine as well that the White House and a majority of the politicians in Washington, no matter
the party, acquiesced in the arrangement. In fact, the annual quest to boost Pentagon spending
into the stratosphere regularly follows that very scenario, assisted by predictions of imminent
doom from industry-funded hawks with a vested interest in increased military outlays. Most
Americans are probably aware that the Pentagon spends a lot of money, but it's unlikely they
grasp just how huge those sums really are. All too often, astonishingly lavish military budgets
are treated as if they were part of the natural order, like death or taxes.
The figures contained in the recent budget deal that kept Congress open, as well as in
President Trump's budget proposal for 2019, are a case in point: $700 billion for the Pentagon
and related programs in 2018 and $716 billion the following year.
Remarkably, such numbers far exceeded even the Pentagon's own expansive expectations.
According to Donald Trump, admittedly not the most reliable source in all cases, Secretary of
Defense Jim Mattis reportedly said, "Wow, I can't believe we got everything we wanted" -- a
rare admission from the head of an organization whose only response to virtually any budget
proposal is to ask for more. The public reaction to such staggering Pentagon budget hikes was
muted, to put it mildly.
Unlike last year's tax giveaway to the rich, throwing near-record amounts of tax dollars at
the Department of Defense generated no visible public outrage. Yet those tax cuts and Pentagon
increases are closely related. The Trump administration's pairing of the two mimics the failed
approach of President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s -- only more so. It's a phenomenon I've termed
"Reaganomics on steroids." Reagan's approach yielded oceans of red ink and a severe weakening
of the social safety net. It also provoked such a strong pushback that he later backtracked by
raising taxes and set the stage for sharp reductions in nuclear weapons.
Donald Trump's retrograde policies on immigration, women's rights, racial justice, LGBT
rights, and economic inequality have spawned an impressive and growing resistance. It remains
to be seen whether his generous treatment of the Pentagon at the expense of basic human needs
will spur a similar backlash. Of course, it's hard to even get a bead on what's being lavished
on the Pentagon when much of the media coverage failed to drive home just how enormous these
sums actually are. A rare exception was an Associated Press story headlined "Congress, Trump
Give the Pentagon a Budget the Likes of Which It Has Never Seen." This was certainly far closer
to the truth than claims like that of Mackenzie Eaglen of the conservative American Enterprise
Institute, which over the years has housed such uber-hawks as Dick Cheney and John Bolton. She
described the new budget as a "modest year-on-year increase." If that's the case, one shudders
to think what an immodest increase might look like.
The Pentagon Wins Big
So let's look at the money.
Though the Pentagon's budget was already through the roof, it will get an extra $165
billion over the next two years, thanks to the congressional budget deal reached earlier this
month. To put that figure in context, it was tens of billions of dollars more than Donald
Trump had asked for last spring to "rebuild" the US military (as he put it). It even exceeded
the figures, already higher than Trump's, Congress had agreed to last December. It brings total
spending on the Pentagon and related programs for nuclear weapons to levels higher than those
reached during the Korean and Vietnam wars in the 1950s and 1960s, or even at the height of
Ronald Reagan's vaunted military buildup of the 1980s. Only in two years of Barack Obama's
presidency, when there were roughly 150,000 US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, or about seven
times current levels of personnel deployed there, was spending higher.
Ben Freeman of the Center for International Policy put the new Pentagon budget numbers
in perspective when he pointed out that just the approximately $80 billion annual increase in
the department's top line between 2017 and 2019 will be double the current budget of the State
Department; higher than the gross domestic products of more than 100 countries; and larger than
the entire military budget of any country in the world, except China's.
Democrats signed on to that congressional budget as part of a deal to blunt some of the most
egregious Trump administration cuts proposed last spring. The administration, for example, kept
the State Department's budget from being radically slashed and it reauthorized the imperiled
Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for another 10 years. In the process, however, the
Democrats also threw millions of young immigrants under the bus by dropping an insistence that
any new budget protect the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or "Dreamers," program.
Meanwhile, the majority of Republican fiscal conservatives were thrilled to sign off on a
Pentagon increase that, combined with the Trump tax cut for the rich, funds ballooning deficits
as far as the eye can see -- a total of $7.7 trillion worth of them over the next
decade.
While domestic spending fared better in the recent congressional budget deal than it would
have if Trump's draconian plan for 2018 had been enacted, it still lags far behind what
Congress is investing in the Pentagon. And calculations by the National Priorities Project
indicate that the Department of Defense is slated to be an even bigger winner in Trump's 2019
budget blueprint. Its share of the discretionary budget, which includes virtually everything
the government does other than programs like Medicare and Social Security, will mushroom to a
once-unimaginable 61 cents on the dollar, a hefty boost from the already startling 54 cents on
the dollar in the final year of the Obama administration.
The skewed priorities in Trump's latest budget proposal are fueled in part by the
administration's decision to embrace the Pentagon increases Congress agreed to last month,
while tossing that body's latest decisions on non-military spending out the window.
Although Congress is likely to rein in the administration's most extreme proposals, the
figures are stark indeed -- a proposed cut of $120 billion in the domestic spending levels both
parties agreed to. The biggest reductions include a 41% cut in funding for diplomacy and
foreign aid; a 36% cut in funding for energy and the environment; and a 35% cut in housing and
community development. And that's just the beginning. The Trump administration is also
preparing to launch full-scale assaults on food stamps, Medicaid, and Medicare. It's war on
everything except the US military.
Corporate Welfare
The recent budget plans have brought joy to the hearts of one group of needy Americans: the
top executives of major weapons contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman,
Raytheon, and General Dynamics. They expect a bonanza from the skyrocketing Pentagon
expenditures. Don't be surprised if the CEOs of these five firms give themselves nice salary
boosts, something to truly justify their work, rather than the paltry $96 million they drew as
a group in 2016 (the most recent year for which full statistics are available).
And keep in mind that, like all other US-based corporations, those military-industrial
behemoths will benefit richly from the Trump administration's slashing of the corporate tax
rate. According to one respected industry analyst, a good portion of this windfall will go
towards bonuses and increased dividends for company shareholders rather than investments in new
and better ways to defend the United States. In short, in the Trump era, Lockheed Martin and
its cohorts are guaranteed to make money coming and going.
Items that snagged billions in new funding in Trump's proposed 2019 budget included
Lockheed Martin's overpriced, underperforming F-35 aircraft, at $10.6 billion; Boeing's F-18
"Super Hornet," which was in the process of being phased out by the Obama administration but is
now written in for $2.4 billion; Northrop Grumman's B-21 nuclear bomber at $2.3 billion;
General Dynamics' Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine at $3.9 billion; and $12 billion for
an array of missile-defense programs that will redound to the benefit of you guessed it:
Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing, among other companies. These are just a few of the
dozens of weapons programs that will be feeding the bottom lines of such companies in the next
two years and beyond. For programs still in their early stages, like that new bomber and the
new ballistic missile submarine, their banner budgetary years are yet to come.
In explaining the flood of funding that enables a company like Lockheed Martin to reap $35
billion per year in government dollars, defense analyst Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group
noted that "diplomacy is out; air strikes are in In this sort of environment, it's tough to
keep a lid on costs. If demand goes up, prices don't generally come down. And, of course, it's
virtually impossible to kill stuff. You don't have to make any kind of tough choices when
there's such a rising tide."
Pentagon Pork Versus Human Security
Loren Thompson is a consultant to many of those weapons contractors. His think tank, the
Lexington Institute, also gets contributions from the arms industry. He caught the spirit of
the moment when he praised the administration's puffed-up Pentagon proposal for using the
Defense Department budget as a jobs creator in key states, including the crucial swing state of
Ohio, which helped propel Donald Trump to victory in 2016. Thompson was particularly pleased
with a plan to ramp up General Dynamics's production of M-1 tanks in Lima, Ohio, in a factory
whose production line the Army had tried to put on hold just a few years ago because it was
already drowning in tanks and had no conceivable use for more of them.
Thompson argues that the new tanks are needed to keep up with Russia's production of armored
vehicles, a dubious assertion with a decidedly Cold War flavor to it. His claim is backed up,
of course, by the administration's new National Security Strategy, which targets Russia and
China as the most formidable threats to the United States. Never mind that the likely
challenges posed by these two powers -- cyberattacks in the Russian case and economic expansion
in the Chinese one -- have nothing to do with how many tanks the US Army possesses.
Trump wants to create jobs, jobs, jobs he can point to, and pumping up the
military-industrial complex must seem like the path of least resistance to that end in
present-day Washington. Under the circumstances, what does it matter that virtually any other
form of spending would create more jobs and not saddle Americans with weaponry we don't
need?
If past performance offers any indication, none of the new money slated to pour into the
Pentagon will make anyone safer. As Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and International
Studies has noted, there is a danger that the Pentagon will just get "fatter not stronger" as
its worst spending habits are reinforced by a new gusher of dollars that relieves its planners
of making any reasonably hard choices at all.
The list of wasteful expenditures is already staggeringly long and early projections are
that bureaucratic waste at the Pentagon will amount to $125 billion over the next five years.
Among other things, the Defense Department already employs a shadow work force of more than
600,000 private contractors whose responsibilities overlap significantly with work already
being done by government employees. Meanwhile, sloppy buying practices regularly result in
stories like the recent ones on the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency losing track of how it
spent $800 million and how two American commands were unable to account for $500 million meant
for the war on drugs in the Greater Middle East and Africa.
Add to this the $1.5 trillion slated to be spent on F-35s that the nonpartisan Project on
Government Oversight has noted may never be ready for combat and the unnecessary
"modernization" of the US nuclear arsenal, including a new generation of nuclear-armed bombers,
submarines, and missiles at a minimum cost of $1.2 trillion over the next three decades. In
other words, a large part of the Pentagon's new funding will do much to fuel good times in the
military-industrial complex but little to help the troops or defend the country.
Most important of all, this flood of new funding, which could crush a generation of
Americans under a mountain of debt, will make it easier to sustain the seemingly endless seven
wars that the United States is fighting in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Somalia,
and Yemen. So call this one of the worst investments in history, ensuring as it does failed
wars to the horizon.
It would be a welcome change in 21st-century America if the reckless decision to throw yet
more unbelievable sums of money at a Pentagon already vastly overfunded sparked a serious
discussion about America's hyper-militarized foreign policy. A national debate about such
matters in the run-up to the 2018 and 2020 elections could determine whether it continues to be
business-as-usual at the Pentagon or whether the largest agency in the federal government is
finally reined in and relegated to an appropriately defensive posture.
"... We're keeping our eyes out for another report confirming that Hick's account had been hacked (by shadowy Russia-affiliated hackers, no doubt). ..."
As
NBC News pointed out, Hicks' hacking claim raises questions about who hacked the account and why. But the committee wasn't able
to pursue those questions because Hicks, like many other members of the White House staff who have appeared before the House Intel
Committee, has refused to answer questions about her time at the White House or her experiences during the transition -- and also
because she was appearing voluntarily and not under a subpoena for her testimony.
It is standard practice for lawmakers to ask witnesses about phone numbers and email accounts. However, it is uncommon, according
to people familiar with the committee process, for a witness to tell lawmakers that he or she no longer has access to past accounts.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has famously been pursuing the emails of Trump associates and other records from the campaign period,
transition and the Trump administration.
Mueller recently sent a subpoena to former Trump aide Sam Nunberg ordering Nunberg to turn over documents relating in any way
to 10 current and former Trump associates, including Hicks.
As
NBC points out, Corey Lewandowski, Trump's first campaign manager (who reportedly dated Hicks during the campaign while he was
married to another woman), is slated to testify before the committee on Thursday.
We're keeping our eyes out for another report confirming that Hick's account had been hacked (by shadowy Russia-affiliated hackers,
no doubt).
What is always a mystery to me is why these email servers are attached and available to the public Internet. Any script kiddie
with a version of "crack" can eventually guess a password that is composed of regular words or favorite clichés. Not to mention
some inherently hackable OSs.
Are your email accounts all hosted on servers not attached to the internet?
Email servers, even ones attached to the internet, can be protected. Not perfectly, but well enough. Throw in proper use of
non-trivial passwords and you become even safer in a relatively private environment such as a corporation or campaign committee
might set up. When email services are offered freely to everyone you are always at risk, because the hosts will have full access
to whatever you send and receive.
One more thing: make certain you can trust those running your servers. Then you won't have to hire someone to kill them when
they steal stuff via direct access to the servers. Think Seth Rich.
The US Power Elite ... would be rightfully called the „Deep State" of the USA (
http://tinyurl.com/ho2nz87
).
And this Deep State has become more and more ruthless over the time. They have brought
nightmares over the Southern Hemisphere by installing brutal dictatorships ( http://tinyurl.com/kkpvcf7 ) in their
interest and waging bloody colonial wars, in the last one and a half decades especially with
their „War on Terror" ( http://tinyurl.com/nrxxej5 ).
One of their aims is to prevent countries of Africa, Latin America, Near and Middle East and
Southern Asia from choosing their trade partners freely and from making use of their resources
and industrialize, since that would mean a division of resources and allowing them their part
of „consuming ecologic Earth capacity".
Looks like "Javanka" does not have many friend among pro-Trump crown at Zerohedge...
Notable quotes:
"... Trump denied reports that he was displeased. "As I told Jared days ago, I have full confidence in his ability to continue performing his duties in his foreign policy portfolio including overseeing our Israeli–Palestinian peace effort and serving as an integral part of our relationship with Mexico," ..."
"I am
not a person who has sought the spotlight. First in my business and now in public service, I have
worked on achieving goals, and have left it to others to work on media and public perception," Kushner
told congressional investigators last July.
But it is not immediately obvious what he's achieved.
There has been little
progress on Mideast peace and relations with Mexico, another top Kushner priority, remain
contentious over Trump's proposed border wall. Kushner's much ballyhooed project to reinvent the
federal government has gained little traction. And
questions persist about his family
business's global hunt for cash just a year before a $1.2 billion mortgage on a Manhattan
skyscraper must be paid off by the company
. -AP
Kushner has come under fire of late, as Special Counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly probing his
family's Real Estate dealings - including whether foreign nationals sought to manipulate him over his
family's financial position.
The Kushner Co. says it is financially sound, however skeptics point to the company scrambling to
raise funds from investors whose country of origin may present a conflict of interest.
The
Intercept
reported that Kushner supported a blockade against Qatar after his father, Charles
Kushner, sought and failed to obtain financial support from the Qatari financial minister for the
family's troublesome 666 Fifth Avenue property.
"If it's true it's damning,
" Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) a member of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, told ABC on "This Week" Sunday. "
If it's true he's got to go."
Kushner also lost his ability to access top-secret intelligence last week, as President Trump - who
could have granted Jared a permanent clearance - left the decision to Chief of Staff John Kelly.
"I will let General Kelly make that decision," Trump told reporters. "I have no doubt he'll make
the right decision."
The couple perceives Kelly's crackdown on security clearances as a direct shot at them,
according to White House aides and outside advisers. But one White House official disputed that
account, suggesting that Kushner welcomed Kelly's efforts to organize the West Wing, allowing him
to more singularly focus on his portfolio.
Kelly, in turn, has been angered by what he views as the couple's freelancing. He blames
them for changing Trump's mind at the last minute and questions what exactly they do all day
,
according to one White House official and an outside ally. -
AP
Kushner's clearance was downgraded from "Top Secret/SCI-level" to "secret" - walling them off from
the most sensitive information. The decision was the first major shakeup since the dismissal of former
White House staff secretary Rob Porter, who was exposed for abusing both of his ex-wives. The FBI
insinuated that it had informed the White House of Porter's conduct, appearing to contradict a
timeline of events initially offered by Kelly.
"Only a son-in-law could withstand this sort of exposure and not be fired," said former Obama
communications director, Jennifer Palmieri "
Kushner's vulnerable and in an accelerated fall
from grace
. Even though his departure would leave Trump even more isolated, a decision could
be made that it's just not worth it for him to stay."
That said, Trump has reportedly grown
frustrated
with both Kelly and over negative press surrounding Jared and Ivanka, according to the New York Times
- and has been quietly seeking a solution to remove them from the White House.
Trump denied reports that he was displeased. "As I told Jared days ago, I have full confidence in
his ability to continue performing his duties in his foreign policy portfolio including overseeing our
Israeli–Palestinian peace effort and serving as an integral part of our relationship with Mexico,"
said Trump. "Everyone in the White House is grateful for these valuable contributions to furthering
the president's agenda. There is no truth to any suggestion otherwise."
The AP reports that Jared and Ivanka have no plans on leaving Washington anytime soon.
can't be any worse than the Clinton Foundations pay to play scheme ... By the
way, I don't know what general Kelly does all day either but I will put money he
will go to work for the MIC industry capitalizing on his position so fuck that pot
says the kettle.
"... Politically the situation we see in Ukraine is that the ordinary people don't really care about the politics they are genuinely concerned about bread and butter it is quite sad actually that the US is treating the Ukraine as a pawn and a quite cheap one at that in its game with Russia ..."
1. There is some mystery in this Putin "bragging" about new formidable weapons. This is
not his style. Why now? Why do it when sanctions are in place and can be easily be tightened
as the result? Looks like in order to make such a statement Putin should have intelligence
information about a real threat of attack from the USA, or some large scale provocation in
Syria or Ukraine. Only in this case his statement makes some sense. As a open warning: do not
do it. Otherwise this is just an open invitation for the new, more destructive and expensive
stage in nuclear arms race. The scenario that Russia should try to avoid.
2. Also the rule is: if your adversary is making a mistake, you should not try to stop
him. If missile defense systems and aircraft carriers are useless why not to allow the USA to
put another 100 billion dollars into it ? Something does not compute here. BTW both remain
perfectly viable as the first strike weapons (you never know what those tubes contain and
they can hold cruise missiles as well). The fact that they will perish is just part of the
cost of the whole operation.
3. Russia has way too many problems, both economic and political. So each dollar put into
military technology is stolen from the civilian sector and makes sanctions more effective. So
succumbing to the arm race is like self-sanctions.
4. After 2012 it is clear that the way the USA will try to undermine Russia is most
probably via political interference during the next election, in which there will be a power
vacuum as Putin finishes his last term, and there is no Putin II. The problem of the leader
succession is a well-known Achilles' spot of Russia. In 2012 the "collective West" achieved
pretty significant success in staging color revolution in Russia using pro-West (aka
Zapadniki) and comprador sector in Moscow as the fifth column. The political situation in
Moscow will always favor pro-European forces, as this city has a huge concentration of
employees of foreign companies, professionals and entrepreneurs who depend on the West and
earn money from the West (compradors) . Efforts to put in power a classic neoliberal like
Macron in France will be multiplied for elections in 2024. I do not see, why they can't be
more successful then in 2012.
5. While weakened by the recent McCarthyism campaign in the USA, Russian comprador sector
and neoliberals are still a very powerful political force and control a significant part of
media and oligarch money. Russian constitution was written by the USA. And scars from the
economic rape of Russia in 90th still did not fully heal. In other words, pro-Western forces
in Russia are powerful enough to serve as a base to stage another color revolution. Probably
along with crashing oil prices before the elections again, or some other nasty trick. In this
case you do not need any missiles. As long as Russia is a neoliberal country Putin and his
policies remain a political anomaly. And Putin himself a maverick. There will be no another
Putin, but there can well be another Gorbachov, or, worse, Yeltsin. The same is true for
China, but at least China has political control of the Communist Party and state ownership of
the financial sector. The latter is not true for Russia and is a huge political risk. While
neoliberalism entered the stage of decline there is no viable alternatives on the
horizon.
6. Loss of Ukraine was/is a huge geopolitical defeat of Putin (and Russia as a country)
which can't be compensated any bragging about new weapon systems. It was and still is a
geopolitical knockdown.
7. Hopes about "some sensible conversation on the new world order may start between key
geopolitical players" are naïve. The US elite is hell-bent on world superiority as this
is a pre-condition of the existence of the dollar as the primary world currency. This
situation will not probably change until the end of cheap oil, which might take another
twenty years or more.
8. If time is working against the USA, why not to sit quiet and try not to anger aging
hegemon as China supposedly does (having also advantage of host of "offshored" manufacturing
from the USA and having the USA as debtor).
9. The level of brain drain from Russia actually is a huge limiting factor, which makes a
claim about cruising missile with a nuclear reactor as a part of propulsion engine highly
suspect.
10. The network of intelligence agencies around Russia (which now include Estonia and
Ukraine) probably represents much more serious threat then the "first strike" capability of
the USA, if such thing can ever exist.
11. "Collective West" can easily tighten sanction expanding them on more technological
sectors, thus damaging Russia economic growth. So bragging about new weapons is bad diplomacy
when the opponent is much stronger economically and politically.
12. China has less than 300 nuclear weapons and still is regarded as a formidable nuclear
power, probably spending 20 times less money in this area.
13. The claim that "The Kinzhal effectively removes any non-suicidal surface force
thousands of miles away from Russia's shores and renders its capabilities irrelevant" is
highly questionable. The idea of the first strike includes the elimination of the possibility
of launching most (or all) Kinzhal missiles carriers, as a necessary part required for the
success of the operation. Any losses of forward deployed units are acceptable in such a huge
game.
Just a pre-empt, tiring if you say you don't understand Ukraine, etc. then twenty
comments; dem Jews.
No rain, too much rain, dem Jews.
Well, you did utter the trigger word.
Guess your family believes religiously in the eternal victimhood and in the right of
Jewish people to demand special treatment from "others"– "because of Holocaust." --
This is over. After the fraternization of the Kagans' clan (via Nuland-Kagan) with neo-Nazi
in Ukraine and after Israeli's support for ISIS, Jewish pretenses on superior morality (and
similar fantastic inventions) have become unrealistic.
Putin should have intelligence information about a real threat of attack from the USA,
or some large scale provocation in Syria or Ukraine.
I'd go for Ukraine.
Something does not compute here.
Well, "if we can't have it it's not good."
Sour grapes.
Russia has way too many problems, both economic and political. So each dollar put into
military technology is stolen from the civilian sector and makes sanctions more effective.
So succumbing to the arm race is like self-sanctions.
Agree.
In other words, pro-Western forces in Russia are powerful enough to serve as a base to
stage another color revolution. In this case you do not need any missiles.
...While neoliberalism entered the stage of decline there is no viable alternatives on the
horizon.
Agree.
Loss of Ukraine was/is a huge geopolitical defeat of Putin (and Russia as a country)
which can't be compensated any bragging about new weapon systems. It was and still is a
geopolitical knockdown.
Agree.
But, perhaps that's not true. In any case, the resident "Team Russia" will now explain that.
As victory, of course.
Hopes about "some sensible conversation on the new world order may start between key
geopolitical players" are naïve. The US elite is hell-bent on world superiority as
this is a pre-condition of the existence of the dollar as the primary world currency.
Agree.
If time is working against the US, why not to sit quiet and try not to anger aging
hegemon as China supposedly does (having also advantage of host of "offshored"
manufacturing from the USA and having the USA as debtor).
and
The level of brain drain from Russia actually is a huge limiting factor, which makes a
claim about cruising missile with a nuclear reactor as a part of propulsion engine highly
suspect.
and
"Collective West" can easily tighten sanction expanding them on more technological
sectors, thus damaging Russia economic growth. So bragging about new weapons is bad
diplomacy when the opponent is much stronger economically and politically.
"Team Russia" coming up. You are about to see the light. Somehow.
Putin and those around him would better do concentrate on internal issues or eventually
issues will concentrate on them.
Agree.
This obsession with high tech is actually puzzling.
Not only that, but, overall, which "military" is better. "Whose father/older brother is
stronger" kid talk.
The Empire shall go for the Russia's internal problems and try to capitalize on that.
Ukraine was taken down using that approach. Oh, wait, not only Ukraine but all those who
didn't tow the line. Thinking that, somehow, a conventional war, only, will settle the issue
is not only delusional but stupid. Why would The Empire do that? No reason whatsoever.
It will try to do exactly what's been doing since '91. Internal dissent.
So, while Russian elites will keep building high tech weaponry (remember USSR), The Empire
will keep working on getting all those "unhappy" with Putin regime onboard and using them for
weakening the regime.
If the regime in Moscow can't, or doesn't want to see it, well, it doesn't deserve that
position. True, weapons industry is good for making money and stashing most of it offshore.
Not sharing that wealth, though, with general population is not that smart, just, they simply
can't help it. That's the way of the world there. Czars and serfs.
The problem is, of course, they can't step down even if they wanted to. Nobody wants
kangaroo courts and hanging. Or public murder broadcast live on Internet. Conundrum.
You make some interesting observations and your comment is thought-provoking
However I think the intent of the article was to explore some of the technical
issues of what we saw on March 1 not so much the political dimension and certainly your
approach is to try to get an overall wide angle picture that gets every possible Russia issue
into the frame
which by necessity means you give up some resolution or granularity if you will compared
to a more tightly focused article
You start with an initial premise of why announce these weapons now and question the
wisdom the simple answer may be technical related these weapons may be already mature
technically and now is the time to show them ?
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar
A couple more points you mention sanctions quite a bit but we have seen that Russia is
able to carry on just fine sanctions or not
The key indicator there is that sanctions are having a much bigger blowback on the US
itself i.e. the US is losing Europe
Germany has been quite vocal about US going a step too far in trying to dictate energy
policy which is key to German industrial export economy and besides they may finally be
finding their sea legs after years of subservience to an increasingly unhinged country that
is heading for the cliff
The Germans are going to get Nordstream 2 because they want it. It is actually more
important to Germany than to Russia Russia has been supplying energy to Europe for many
decades going back to Soviet times but is just now starting to feed the biggest energy
consumer in the world China
Other, smaller EU countries notably Italy have become quite vocal about Russia sanctions
hurting them we saw just now an election in Italy where the ruling claque were turfed
So it seems that the days of US dictating the politics to its European vassals may be over
the kind of friction they are making with sanctions and their increasing hysteria is only
hastening this process of vassals breaking off
The other issue is Ukraine you bring to this the the typical US perspective of 'losing' a
country this again goes back to the vassal game
The US gained all of Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union but did Russia
lose anything sensible people will say the lost they burden of empire long after it had
ceased being profitable as with the British previously
Ukraine is historically something of an artificial country the original Kievan Rus
[Rurivik dynasty] was the original Russia it fell apart after the Mongol invasions but the
Russian and Ukrainian language and people are mostly indistinguishable other than the
Galician Catholic minority
For several hundred years the peoples of the Ukraine [ie even then it was more than a
single national people] were under rule by the Poles and Lithuania while the new Russian
empire based in Moscow gained strength and eventually took over 300 years ago
There are and have always been Ukrainian nationalists that do not like Russia but they are
in the minority the best way to think of Ukraine is similar to Scotland even the Irish are
more distant from the English than Ukrainians from Russians
Politically the situation we see in Ukraine is that the ordinary people don't really care
about the politics they are genuinely concerned about bread and butter it is quite sad
actually that the US is treating the Ukraine as a pawn and a quite cheap one at that in its
game with Russia
I don't believe the Russians look at the situation that way there is real fraternity among
many Russians and Ukrainians that goes to a fundamental level again similar to Scotland where
the country is divided on the issue of the English
So unless the EU and US are prepared to do a full Marshall plan to drag Ukraine into a
reasonable living standard then this 'win' will turn out to be something of a chimera
Heck the polls even in eastern Europe are trending against the post Cold War direction
with about half the people now questioning if the new boss is really better than the old
boss
And finally if you are going to do a wide angle shot like this then get the crazy cousin
into the picture also ie the US and its failing Ponzi economy that is bound to collapse just
on the principles of mathematics
China and Russia are working to bury the source of all US strength the petrodollar this is
literally kryptonite the US is quite simply toast once the petrodollar sinks
China is the world's biggest economy and biggest energy buyer Russia is the world's
biggest energy seller other nations too that are not so strong and have felt the body blows
of US economic warfare such as Iran, Venezuela and other will gladly join in
It's starting to feel like US has used up all its chips and all its markers
The entire developing world wants real prosperity not economic colonialism and corporate
plunder
These are some large and powerful currents that have to be taken into account if one is
going to take a wide angle shot of geopolitics
Ukraine is historically something of an artificial country the original Kievan Rus
[Rurivik dynasty] was the original Russia it fell apart after the Mongol invasions
Relationship of Kievan Rus to modern Russia and Ukraine is somewhat analogous to the
relationship of Charlemagne's Frankish Empire to modern France or Germany. Although both
Germany and France would have to be in the same linguistic family for the analogy to be more
accurate.
For several hundred years the peoples of the Ukraine [ie even then it was more than a
single national people] were under rule by the Poles and Lithuania
Correct. This meant not only political separation but largescale settlement (about 10% of
the population were Polish settlers – these were absorbed by the natives, so most
Ukrainians have some Polish roots), centuries of schooling, etc. And this was enough to lead
to a different culture, language, identity.
eventually took over 300 years ago
The eastern half of Ukraine was linked to Moscow in the 1650s (so indeed about 300 years),
but the western half in the 1770s (so 200 years) and Galicia not until 1939.
but the Russian and Ukrainian language and people are mostly indistinguishable
Incorrect. Ukrainian is about as close to Russian as it is to Polish (Ukrainian grammar
and pronunciation is closer to Russian, but Ukrainian vocabulary actually has more words in
common with Polish than with Russian). The Scandinavian languages are closer to each other
Russian is to Ukrainian. The catch is that in everyday life about half of Ukrainians, and
most urban Ukrainians other than people in Lviv, use Russian rather than Ukrainian. Kiev is a
Russian-speaking city (and Dublin an English-speaking one).
the best way to think of Ukraine is similar to Scotland
Anatol Lieven correctly observed that Ukraine's relationship to Russia is somewhere
between that of Scotland and that of Ireland, to England. Viewing it as Scotland is too
positive, as Ireland too negative. Given that Scotland itself nearly separated, it is natural
to see Ukraine as separate.
President Trump
reportedly berated former White House communications director Hope Hicks the day before her resignation, according
to a new report.
CNN's Erin Burnett reported Wednesday
that Trump was angry with Hicks following her closed-door testimony to the House Intelligence
Committee, in which she reportedly revealed she was sometimes required to tell "white lies" as
part of her work in the White House.
Burnett reported one of Trump's "close allies" told CNN that Trump asked Hicks after her
testimony "how she could be so stupid."
"Apparently, that was the final straw for Hope Hicks," Burnett said.
"There are no words to adequately
express my gratitude to President Trump. I wish the president and his administration the very
best as he continues to lead our country," Hicks said in a statement announcing her departure.
The 29-year-old has served as a top adviser to Trump since he launched his presidential
campaign in 2015.
Hicks has set no departure date but is expected to leave the White House in the next few
weeks, White House officials said.
Her departure comes one day after her lengthy interview with the House Intelligence panel as
part of its investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
"... Bullshit. The Ukrainians have been on a pay before delivery tariff from Russia for years. They have chosen war over trade. They currently prefer to spend what income they get that survives oligarch looting on trying to kill the East Ukrainians (currenly 6.9% of GDP). ..."
Sat, 03/03/2018 - 21:13 Last week, Russia's state-run gas giant and quasi-monopolist when it
comes to European natgas supplies, Gazprom, announced it would not restart shipments of natural
gas to Ukraine's Naftogaz starting March 1 after the two sides failed to reach an agreement,
Gazprom deputy chairman, Alexander Medvedev, told journalists.
Russian gas deliveries to Ukraine were supposed to restart on Thursday following a foreign
court ruling aimed at ending years of disputes between Kiev and Moscow, including two halts to
Russian gas supplies to Europe through Ukraine. But Gazprom unexpectedly refused to resume
deliveries, returning the prepayment for supplies made by Kiev, claiming amendments to a
contract had not been completed.
The decision came as the sides reportedly failed to extend a supplemental agreement to the
current gas contract, RT
reported.
"So far, the supplemental agreement to the operating contract with Naftogaz has not been
approved, and that is a compulsory condition for launching the shipments," Medvedev said. "So,
we have to recover the amount paid by the company in full. And it is obvious that the shipments
in March won't start."
In response, Ukraine's state monopoly said that Gazprom had failed to deliver prepaid gas.
Naftogaz is reportedly planning to claim damages for supply failure from the Russian energy
major.
And while the long-running dispute may, but likely won't, be resolved in court, Ukraine has
suddenly found itself without heat and on Friday urged schools to close and factories to cut
production, while residents shivered as the country strained to save on gas supplies.
The decision coincided with freezing temperatures all over Ukraine, and the government
called on Friday for measures to reduce consumption.
" Starting today, we recommended ... to stop the work of kindergartens, schools and
universities ," Ukraine energy minister Igor
Nasalyk told lawmakers , while urging Ukrainian companies to adjust their operations to
save gas, while power companies were ordered to switch to fuel oil where possible.
Nasalyk said these savings measures would be in effect until Tuesday, when temperatures are
expected to rise.
* * *
Meanwhile, on Friday, Gazprom director Alexei Miller said that the company would immediately
turn to the Stockholm arbitration court to break its contract with the Ukrainian operator
Naftogaz, Russian news agencies reported. A ruling by the same court last year was meant to
halt disputes over gas prices and shipments, which had often been a proxy for political
disputes between Moscow and Kiev. The court set a price and ordered Kiev to resume purchases it
had cancelled following the breakout in "proxy" violence between the two nations in 2014.
Also on Friday, Naftogaz said that Gazprom had not only refused to resume deliveries meant
for it, but lowered the pressure in gas pipelines by 20 percent and minimized sales to other
customers. In a statement, Naftogaz said that Gazprom was trying to portray Ukraine in a
negative light and suggest that it was willing either to let its own population freeze or make
it out to be "an unreliable transit company that takes the gas away" from European
countries.
In response,
Reuters reported today that Gazprom said there had so far been no impact on supplies
through its pipelines to Europe, despite the sharp escalation in tensions with the key transit
nation.
Russia's Energy Minister Alexander Novak told European Commission Vice President Maros
Sefcofic in a phone conversation that gas transit would not be at risk until Gazprom and
Naftogaz fully terminated their agreement.
"Minister Novak assured that the gas transit from Russia to Europe is under no threat. The
transit remains as reliable as in the past," the ministry said.
* * *
Kiev and Moscow have a history of clashing over prices and obligations under contracts for
the delivery of Russian gas to Ukraine as well as transit to Europe. The standoff in the winter
of 2006 triggered supply disruptions, with Russia accusing Ukraine of stealing gas intended for
the European market.
The gas giants are currently involved in a long-standing litigation over the terms of the
current delivery contract. Ukraine's lawyers are struggling for annulment of the so-called
take-or-pay provision that obliges Kiev to purchase a minimum annual quantity of gas. Earlier
this week, Naftogaz claimed it had won a $2.56 billion victory in another round of its legal
battle with Gazprom.
Karma can be a bitch Ukraine. Still, I'm sure your friends in Washington will immediately
provide you with an endless supply of free LNG? Call Vicky.
Incidentally, to the author, your map is incorrect (i'm sure that was just an error like
Goolag's deletion of Themtube sites). Crimea is no longer a part of Ukraine after 95%+ of its
population excercised their right to self-determination after the Maidan coup.
Ukraine's already connected to Poland's LNG port. And by the way, days at sea for a ship
with Qatari LNG is the same as a saudi tanker hauling oil to the U.S.
Ukraine is in a total meltdown, forget about Venezuela which at least has energy stores.
Ukraine has to import most of its energy. Donbass has all the coal. Putin is a genius, he is
starving Ukraine of energy. There will be mass unrest in the country. Expect a government
friendly to Russia to come back into play. The only thing that can prevent this is if Europe
and the USA are willing to pay for Ukraine's energy needs.
Where otherwise will Ukraine get
the hard currency. Well for a while it will get it by selling off its farmland and its women.
In ww2 you could buy a woman with a package of pantyhose, an MRE, or a pack of cigarettes.
Now you will be able to buy them again the same way and with a lump of coal.
"Ukraine Freezes After Russia Halts Gas Deliveries"
Bullshit. The Ukrainians have been on a pay before delivery tariff from Russia for years.
They have chosen war over trade. They currently prefer to spend what income they get that
survives oligarch looting on trying to kill the East Ukrainians (currenly 6.9% of GDP).
On
March 1, Ukraine closed all schools, colleges and universities to conserve energy. Following
a Stockholm arbitration court decision on March 1, Gazprom has started the process of
cancelling the contracts for supply of gas to and through Ukraine. They are at liberty to
purchase it at market rates ($600 per 100 cubic metersversus the subsidised $300 from Russia)
from the Europeans.
Joe Biden's son, Hunter, was hired by a Ukraine company, Burisma Holdings Limited,
promoting energy independence from Moscow. So hows it goin Hunter??
Too busy fooling around with his late brother's widow. No time for Ukraine. Murica can help
fund some gas, if they can throw away a couple billion for the coup, c'mon Guys, Porky is
yoar Bro.
Most likely he was fooling around with her before his brother died. Some of his nieces and
nephews may be his kids. The Bidens are a microcosm of the perverse behavior in DC.
"Kathleen Biden accused estranged husband Hunter of reckless spending on 'drugs,
prostitutes, and an $80,000 diamond' in divorce docs - days before his affair with widowed
sister-in-law Hallie was revealed"
" Kathleen claims Hunter spends money on 'drugs, alcohol, prostitutes, strip clubs and
gifts for women with whom he had sexual relations' in her new motion "
I live in Minneapolis. The weather here isn't too different from much of Ukraine. For
early March we're having a very warm day, nearly 50 F. But next week we get back to more
seasonal highs around freezing, with maybe 6" of slushy snow on Monday.
I really like it when my heat works. I do have a wood-burning fireplace but if I have to use it for heat we've got a lot of
problems all at once. Ukraine is a great example of what always happens when Nazis get in charge. Everything
goes to hell in a handbasket, quickly.
The fools just might do that to keep the riots out of the government buildings in Kiev.
Russia doesn't want the basket case either so who knows what the war would look like. Kiev is
totally screwed either way this goes.
No Russia knows that any dealings with Kiev or ukr companies are disastrous. Russia acts
very carefully within the law. Hence immediate return of first gas payement since 2014, so
not legally bound. Hence Gasprom requiring a signed contract under mutually agreed conditions
which they did not get.
Already Ukraine is say there is a 20 percent drop off in pressure on transit gas thru.
ukr. Russia says not, it is gas pressure as usual.
Looks like Ukraine is stealing 20percent of transit gas immediately.
The Ukrainian economy is in a catastrophic state after four years of "euro-reforms," said
Viktor Medvedchuk, head of the public movement "Ukrainian Choice – People's
Right." "At the end of 2013. Ukraine's state and publicly guaranteed debt was 40% of GDP, and
by the end of 2017 it had more than doubled, exceeding 80% of GDP. In 2013, Ukraine's GDP per
capita was more than $ 4,075, and in 2016 decreased to $ 2221.
The average monthly salary in 2017 as a whole for the country was $ 267 (in 2013 it exceeded
$ 408), pensions are also 2.3 times lower than before the euro reform. Today, it is slightly
more than $ 48, while in 2013 it was almost $ 112, " Medvedchuk said.
So this pro-Hillary bastion of Neoliberal innuentndo -- Guardian -- does not not like Hicks.
As onecommneter noted " The poisonous Guardian which is so toxic I would advise folks not to use
it even as an ass wipe, did not allow comments as is their custom now."
Source
What is despicable pressitute is this guy: "The Washington Post has
found that "members of the Trump campaign interacted with Russians at least 31 times
throughout the campaign" in "at least 19 known meetings"."
Hicks, 29, had the high-pressure job last summer of
crafting , with the president, an explanation for his son Donald Trump Jr's secret
meeting with Russians at Trump Tower in New York in 2016 – an explanation later
revealed as false. More recently, Hicks was said to have run the botched White House response
to domestic abuse allegations
against former aide Rob Porter, with whom she has been linked romantically.
... ... ...
Hicks aggressively defended the president-elect and his team against charges of
inappropriate ties to Russian figures.
"The campaign had no contact with Russian officials," she said. Two days after the
election, she said: "We are not aware of any campaign representatives that were in touch with
any foreign entities before yesterday, when Mr Trump spoke with many world leaders."
The Washington Post has
found that "members of the Trump campaign interacted with Russians at least 31 times
throughout the campaign" in "at least 19 known meetings".
Discrepancies such as those have perhaps accelerated Hicks' political education. On
Tuesday, the House intelligence committee questioned her for close to nine hours about the
campaign's Russia ties.
Hicks refused to answer some of the most sensitive questions, including about the
explanation for Trump Jr's meeting with Russians, according to House Democrat Adam
Schiff.
But Hicks was said to have made one concession, admitting to having told, on an
unspecified number of occasions, certain "white lies" on the president's behalf.
With Ukrainian officials continuing to
talk up their hostility with neighboring Russia, the Pentagon announced on Thursday that
approval has been granted for the sale of Javelin anti-tank systems to Ukraine.
Russia is protesting the sale, however, arguing that the sale of the missiles would
encourage Ukraine to resume the use of force against Eastern Ukraine's ethnic Russian rebels,
with the idea that they would deploy the missiles against any rebel tanks, and also against
any Russian tanks that might join the fight.
Pentagon officials downplayed the issue, saying they don't believe the Javelin missiles
will materially change the military balance of power in the region. Despite obvious offensive
uses for such missiles, the US is trying to spin this as another "defensive" sale to
Ukraine.
The first line of the Ukrainian national anthem is "Ukraine has not yet died," one
interviewee says in "Breaking Point," a fierce documentary about that country and its recent
clashes with Russia. For a land often perched on the edge of ruin, she says, mere survival is
something to celebrate.
Directed by Mark Jonathan Harris and Oles Sanin, the film starts with a rundown of a history
that has repeated itself for centuries -- invaders have long prized Ukraine for its resources
and geography, and modern times are no exception.
... ... ...
The filmmakers supply terrifying footage: At civilian rallies, we see nightstick beatings
and bloody riots. During military battles, bullets whiz by and explosions shake the cameras.
Nerve-racking scenes follow Ukraine's extraordinarily bold volunteer soldiers.
"... Yes but very slowly. Russia consistently confounds my western sense of escalation by slicing all situations into tiny increments, smaller than I would have guessed they could be sliced, but on inspection completely realistic and sane. ..."
"... And at the end of each gradual path of escalation sits a hammer blow so final that every time it strikes the world has changed, in the blink of an eye. ..."
"... You wake up and Russia's in Syria. You wake up and every map of Crimea needs to be changed. You wake up and it takes the sane perspective of people like b to narrate how the Munich speech warning of consequences spent 11 years in the preparation, and on this day the Kremlin decided the time to announce this had come. ..."
"... The US has shown nothing but developmental incompetence for some years now. No amount of forced science on special projects can compensate for the systemic failures of a naval fleet that can't steer straight, a trillion-dollar 5th-gen plane that actually doesn't work to 5th-gen standards, and the clear display of a Military Complex saturated with corruption. The gang that can't shoot straight is incapable of peer warfare. You'd hate to be a village without some nuclear arms to protect you in the next 3-4 years, but otherwise the US is done as a world force, and Putin's speech is the milestone of that. ..."
"... The stupidity that the US is trapped it is fealty to the God of Mammon. If your first priority is to make profit then making good stuff become secondary and your competitors have you for lunch ..."
"... Pushing the US into an arms race will be the final nail in its bankruptcy coffin. Are the other nations of the world going to continue to buy Treasuries so we can build weapons to suppress them more? ..."
@39 V. Arnold - "I sense the gloves are coming off"
Yes but very slowly. Russia consistently confounds my western sense of escalation by
slicing all situations into tiny increments, smaller than I would have guessed they could be
sliced, but on inspection completely realistic and sane.
And at the end of each gradual path of escalation sits a hammer blow so final that every
time it strikes the world has changed, in the blink of an eye.
You wake up and Russia's in
Syria. You wake up and every map of Crimea needs to be changed. You wake up and it takes the
sane perspective of people like b to narrate how the Munich speech warning of consequences
spent 11 years in the preparation, and on this day the Kremlin decided the time to announce
this had come.
And with the announcement of the fruition of the last warning comes also the next warning,
that new systems are in development and they will be developed.
~~
@14 karlof1
I like what you're saying about an arms race. And so let the US try. Let it either do
nothing and bluster in its media, or else attempt to catch up and step into the real world to
match the forces playing at the table. Either way it achieves nothing of substance.
The US has shown nothing but developmental incompetence for some years now. No amount of
forced science on special projects can compensate for the systemic failures of a naval fleet
that can't steer straight, a trillion-dollar 5th-gen plane that actually doesn't work to
5th-gen standards, and the clear display of a Military Complex saturated with corruption. The
gang that can't shoot straight is incapable of peer warfare. You'd hate to be a village
without some nuclear arms to protect you in the next 3-4 years, but otherwise the US is done
as a world force, and Putin's speech is the milestone of that.
The US is trapped in its own stupidity.
I'd say, stick a fork in it, but Putin could probably describe the 36 gradations of
fork-sticking, and advise me to be patient ;)
@ Grieved who wrote: "The US is trapped in its own stupidity."
The stupidity that the US is trapped it is fealty to the God of Mammon. If your first
priority is to make profit then making good stuff become secondary and your competitors have
you for lunch
Pushing the US into an arms race will be the final nail in its bankruptcy coffin. Are the
other nations of the world going to continue to buy Treasuries so we can build weapons to
suppress them more?
Pushing the US out of Syria will be the test of Putin's strategy. Will it work? I suspect
we will know soon enough.
More than likely the same clown as went by the username milomilo back in the aussie
ambassador thread.
The username this time round links back to a junk news site.
Grieved | Mar 1, 2018 8:58:39 PM | 44
Indeed, Putin seems a man of infinite patience; but calculating and analyzing might be a
better descriptive.
And then there is NATO; standing naked in front of the Bear. When will its citizens (of so
many countries) realize they'll be the first recipients of nuclear wrath wrought by a corrupt
hegemon and its sycophant vassals (redundant?) following an insane behavior not their own? Or
rather, do they realize they now own that inane behavior?
Greived 44 "You'd hate to be a village without some nuclear arms to protect you in the next
3-4 years, but otherwise the US is done as a world force"
I have felt for some time that Putin's aim is to see the US empire done and dusted before
he retires. 3-4 years looks about right as he will be getting on a bit by the end of the next
term.'
America's Beltway wonks admit the USA won't be able to keep up with Russia, bring idea of
abolishing nukes altogether. I have to admit that although I view condition of the United
States as dire and hopeless, I didn't expect to see first signs of folding so soon.
It is Daniel 8. The watchman (Trump) will unfortunately decide to have a big go at
eliminating Syria. The descendant of the Greek shaggy goat is RF. This announcement will be
misread. The US will fall into the Daniel 8 trap. 2017 it erected its first facilities
between the holy mountain and the sea. We are being puppeted into Armageddon. And for a
little tickle consider the Sanhedrin minted coin celebrating Trump's movement of the US
embassy to Jerusalem...he is put on same level as Cyrus...the anointed one...messiah...Cyrus
is considered by the Judaics as a messiah...Trump is being lauded by them as a new messiah in
the vein of Cyrus.
p
You are right on. The hypersonic Russian cruise missile rules; the US has nothing like it. And
we have seen that the evolution of battleship-->carrier-->cruise missile is complete.
First planes from carriers out-distanced battleship rounds, now cruise missiles have
out-distanced carrier planes (plus speed and maneuver). Bye-bye carrier fleets in peer
conflict. At 12 billion each, plus the cost of the escorts and the 5,000 crew (prospects for
Davey Jones's locker). Still effective against third world.
Actually they have a small presence anyhow because they are high maintenance. Currently, as
usual, only two carriers of the US eleven are deployed as seen here . Two of eleven!!
Posted by: Don Bacon | Mar 1, 2018 10:24:24 PM |
52
Hope Hicks, President Trump's communications director and one of his longest-serving advisers, said
Wednesday that she planned to leave the White House in the next few weeks.
When Hope Hicks walked into
President Trump's private study on Wednesday to inform him that she planned to leave the White House -- concluding a
can't-make-it-up run in which Ms. Hicks, a woman with zero political experience three years ago,
became the closest aide to the most
powerful man in the world
-- the president responded like a father whose daughter had outgrown the nest.
According to a person with
knowledge of their conversation, Mr. Trump expressed an understanding of Ms. Hicks's desire to pursue a new phase of
her life. But, the person added, he also acknowledged something else: that Ms. Hicks's happiness in her role had
begun to wane lately, after a trying few weeks in the public glare.
The
departure
of Ms. Hicks, arguably the least experienced person to ever hold the job of White House communications director,
capped an astounding rise for a political neophyte whose seemingly implausible career hinged on a deep understanding
of, and bottomless patience for, her mercurial charge.
But as someone with a pull
toward discretion -- Ms. Hicks, 29, who grew up in the buttoned-up suburb of Greenwich, Conn., the daughter and
granddaughter of prominent public relations men -- seeing her name splashed across international tabloids had taken a
toll.
In
explaining her decision to friends, Ms. Hicks, a communications director who rarely spoke publicly, made clear that
she had no interest in being at the center of the public conversation.
That
aversion to the spotlight had become increasingly difficult to maintain.
Ms. Hicks's role in helping
write a statement by Donald J. Trump Jr. about a 2016 meeting with Russian officials has
drawn attention
from federal investigators. On Tuesday, she
testified
for eight hours before the House Intelligence Committee and made headlines for admitting that she had
sometimes told fibs as part of her job.
Last month, the man she had
been dating, the former White House staff secretary Rob Porter, was accused by his former wives of domestic abuse,
sparking an ongoing scandal that offered a glimpse of her closely guarded personal life and drew paparazzi to her
apartment building. There were rumblings that Mr. Trump questioned Ms. Hicks's judgment after the White House
initially defended Mr. Porter, although a bevy of administration officials, including the president's daughter Ivanka
Trump, later vouched for Ms. Hicks in on-the-record interviews.
Ms. Hicks had stopped
monitoring news coverage of herself, restricting her television intake to Fox News, which she often watched on mute,
assuming that the Trump-friendly network would rarely include her name on its chyrons.
Friends who reached out to
her, offering support or guidance, acknowledged that Ms. Hicks had been distressed. But they also received text
messages from her in which she declared that she was tougher than people assumed.
Ms. Hicks's career followed a
curious trajectory. As a young model, she appeared on the covers of young adult paperbacks and in Ralph Lauren
catalogs before going to work for Ms. Trump's apparel and licensing brand. Even after she had begun serving as an
Oval Office gatekeeper, she maintained a low public profile, which fueled the fascination -- and sometimes disdain --
of those who watch national politics closely.
Recent Comments
paula
1 hour ago
"I don't worry about Hope, I fully expert her to land on her feet," says Feldman.Seems she should
land in jail on obstruction of justice...
MS
1 hour ago
One can already foresee the title of her future tell all book, ''Little White Lies".
Emma
1 hour ago
No one cares about hope hicks. I hope she never gets another job.
Trump's relationship with Hope was always puzzling and oddly salacious. Hicks dated Trump's
campaign manager Corey Lewandowski while he was still married, to Alison Hardy. She later began dating former White
House Staff Secretary Rob Porter. This is not acceptable in the Me too and Times Up era. I am a woman and I have seen
inappropriate office romances that adversely affected everyone in the office.
Point is Trump's penchant for surrounding himself with beauty queens is inappropriate. Her behavior is also
inappropriate. Then, there are the lies. Sometimes known as, "Alternative facts".
Beautiful girl. She will have a great career at Fox.
"Ms. Hicks's success was viewed as a product of other qualities, including her nuanced
understanding of Mr. Trump's moods, her ability to subtly nudge him away from his coarser impulses..."
She did that? When? And what on earth is a "nuanced understanding of Mr. Trump's moods?" Angry and angrier?
Soon-to-be-former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks hasn't even left the West
Wing yet, but unsurprisingly, she's already received a flood of offers from powerful publishers
and producers promising eight-figure paydays if she's wiling to provide juicy insider details
like those.
A friend of Hicks' who spoke with the
Daily Mail said the communications director - who once handled as many as 250 media
requests per day - was "overwhelmed" by the response. As the Mail points out, the desirability
of Hicks' story has increased because of her informal position as the "most glamorous person in
the West Wing."
One anonymous source from inside the publishing industry even went so far as to compare
Hicks with Jackie Kennedy.
One insider told the Mail that Hicks kept a diary of her time in the White House, which
could be an incredible resource should she decide to write a memoir.
What would it take to do your story as a mini-series or on the big screen? I can get the
financing, like tomorrow, and make you rich and even more famous. You have an incredible
story. Let's talk!'
And since then Hick has been overwhelmed with messages offering millions of dollars in
advances for book deals by major publishers, and offers from Hollywood to make biopics about
her glamorous political and scandalous life.
As one publishing executive told DailyMail.com, 'Next to Ivanka and Melania, Hope is the
woman closest to the president, and knows all the secrets, all the foibles, all the
quirks.
'She's also the most glamorous White House female since Jackie Kennedy. Her story will be
a blockbuster. I have the authority to offer her an advance of $10 million, and we're open to
negotiate.'
If she does decide to publish, it'd be prudent for Hicks to hold an auction. Hicks could
probably walk away with an agreement to keep 15% of total sales.
'If a book were to happen, it would undoubtedly be the subject of an auction among the
major publishers, which would be a key factor in driving up the amount of the advance.'
Another prestigious literary agent who has represented Pulitzer Prize-winning political
journalists, among other high-profile, celebrity clients – and receives a fifteen
percent commission on every book sold -- told DailyMail.com: 'Hope Hicks was a star
Washington insider.
'I always saw a book coming from her when the time was right. Now the time's right.
Overnight she's become a potential goldmine.
Several Trump confidants, employees and advisers have books in the works. Corey Lewandowski,
Trump's first campaign manager who briefly dated Hicks during the campaign while he was married
to another woman, published a book last year that earned high praise from Trump.
Former Press Secretary Sean Spicer announced in December that he was publishing a West Wing
tell-all of his own.
And while we imagine Spicer knows where at least some of the bodies are buried, James
Comey's book - "A Higher Honor: Truth, Lies and Leadership" - is set to be published in
mid-April. It already has a sizable backlog of preorders.
Hicks is turning 30 in October. During her time running the communications department, Hicks
rarely gave interviews or on-the-record statements - which only deepened the mystique
surrounding her personality. That and she famously dated Lewandowski and former Staff Secretary
Rob Porter.
We imagine, after all those months of silence, Hicks probably has something to say. The
question is: Will she risk her relationship with the president to say it?
A former employee
of Jared Kushner has claimed the senior adviser doesn't read and calls his father "daddy."
Kyle Pope, who worked as an editor for the New York Observer while Kushner was
publisher, described his time working for Kushner in a tell-all article for the Columbia
Journalism Review , where he is currently editor-in-chief and publisher.
Despite Kushner being responsible for the publication, Pope said he did not take much
interest in actually reading the paper -- or any other publication. "Most weeks, Kushner not
only didn't read the Observer , he didn't appear to read anything else, either. I
never knew him to discuss a book, a play, or anything else that was in the Observer 's
cultural wheelhouse," Pope wrote, also stating he could see where the first strains of
anti-media sentiment began.
"... Mr. Kushner's clearance was reduced to the level of secret and his official portfolio inside the West Wing, especially with regard to his globe-trotting conduct of foreign affairs on behalf of President Trump, is expected to be sharply reduced as well, the people said. ..."
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR and KATIE ROGERS
FEB. 27, 2018
WASHINGTON -- Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, has been
stripped of his top-secret security clearance after months of delays in completing his
background check, and will now be limited in his ability to view highly classified information,
a White House official and another person familiar with Mr. Kushner's situation said on
Tuesday.
Mr. Kushner's clearance was reduced to the level of secret and his official portfolio inside
the West Wing, especially with regard to his globe-trotting conduct of foreign affairs on
behalf of President Trump, is expected to be sharply reduced as well, the people said.
"... Russia has no more bleak a likely future than the massively indebted, corrupt, racially violent, culturally and linguistically balkanizing, opioid-suiciding, bridge-collapsing, high-tax, antifamily, morally perverse, and homosexualized USA. ..."
"... A piece of that restoration would be ending the belligerence, dishonesty, sanctions, and threatening troop movements that the us gov is perpetrating against Russia. Oh, and stop killing Russian and Syrian personnel who are fighting Islamists. And stop supporting ISIS and other Islamists, and intentionally letting them escape. Just for starters, WarMaster. ..."
First, and this is crucial, Russia is at war. Let me repeat this: Russia is at war with the AngloZionist Empire. The fact
that this war is roughly 80% informational, 15% economic and 5% kinetic does not make it less real or less dangerous, if only
because these ratios can very rapidly change.
So is China, except we're not as aware of it. Especially the information warfare part.
I think Putin should just kick democracy to the curb and make sure his opponents never have a chance to even deny him a majority.
The west already regards Russia as an "non-democratic authoritarian state" anyway, it wouldn't make a difference in terms of perception.
Yes and no. It is much more complex with China than with Russia. US-Chinese relations have a peculiar dynamics, although at
some pint of time things may get really dicey, no doubt about it.
Russia has no more bleak a likely future than the massively indebted, corrupt, racially violent, culturally and linguistically
balkanizing, opioid-suiciding, bridge-collapsing, high-tax, antifamily, morally perverse, and homosexualized USA.
I'm praying for both of our countries to turn it around, each according to its own culture, traditions, and core people's wishes
(I.e. I want a less centralized system than Russia has, and than WE have for that matter, and generally more individual liberty
than most Russians would want. America and Russia can develop on different paths and still be effective partners, increasing trade
and military cooperation to destroy Islamists, crush piracy on the sea, deter and contain China to Asia, etc.)
A piece of that restoration would be ending the belligerence, dishonesty, sanctions, and threatening troop movements that the
us gov is perpetrating against Russia. Oh, and stop killing Russian and Syrian personnel who are fighting Islamists. And stop
supporting ISIS and other Islamists, and intentionally letting them escape. Just for starters, WarMaster.
"... Western elites may deplore the return of nationalism. But they had best not dismiss it, for assertions of national and tribal identity appear to be what the future is going to be all about. ..."
"... In Hungary and Poland, ethnonationalism, the belief that nation-states are created and best suited to protect and defend a separate and unique people, with its separate and unique history and culture, is already ascendant. ..."
"... Globalists may see the U.N., EU, NAFTA, TPP as stepping stones to a "universal nation" of all races, tribes, cultures and creeds. But growing numbers in every country, on every continent, reject this vision. And they are seeking to restore what their parents and grand-parents had, a nation-state that is all their own. ..."
"... Looking back over this 21st century, the transnational elite that envisions the endless erosion of national sovereignty, and the coming of a new world order of open borders, free trade and global custody of mankind's destiny, has triggered a counter-revolution. Does anyone think Angela Merkel looks like the future? ..."
"... Indeed, now that George W. Bush's crusade for democracy has ended up like Peter the Hermit's Children's Crusade, what is the vision, what is the historic goal our elites offer to inspire and enlist our people? ..."
"... The US has always been ruled or parasitized by corrupt, murderous psychopaths with the results we have to live with today. All corny rhetoric aside, it has never been a force for peace, justice, or freedom. Why would anyone desire it to remain what she has been? ..."
"... There is a rebellious coolness in tearing down the PC edifice similar to the fun that could be had attacking Christianity and its holy cows back in the 20th century. The age of Blair, Merkel, Obama and Juncker is drawing to a close. ..."
"... Nationalists supporting such people – any supposedly nationalist movement rooted on the political left – will simply be betrayed, as were the Greeks who voted for SYRIZA, the leftist supposedly "anti-establishment" party that carried its leaders into office and power and then transformed itself into a "respectable" party of the "centre left", and ensured that the boat was not rocked in any ways that might really upset the EU/globalist elites. ..."
"... The war is between globalism and nationalism, the stakes are whether we continue on the path to one world corporatist government and culture – a place where there are no borders, there is no "outside", and no escape from the crushing dogmas of political correctness, or step off before it's too late. And the only true nationalism is the nationalism of the right. That will be true until parties of the old left – devoted to supporting indigenous workers and not to pushing social radicalism – reappear, if they ever do. ..."
In a surprise overtime victory in the finals of the Olympic men's hockey tournament, the
Russians defeated Germany, 4-3. But the Russians were not permitted to have their national anthem played or flag raised, due
to a past doping scandal. So, the team ignored the prohibition and sang out the Russian
national anthem over the sounds of the Olympic anthem. One recalls the scene in "Casablanca," where French patrons of Rick's saloon stood and
loudly sang the "La Marseillaise" to drown out the "Die Wacht am Rhein" being sung by a table
of German officers.
When the combined North-South Korean Olympic team entered the stadium, Vice President Mike
Pence remained seated and silent. But tens of thousands of Koreans stood and cheered the
unified team. America may provide a defensive shield for the South, but Koreans on both sides of the DMZ
see themselves as one people. And, no fool, Kim Jong Un is exploiting the deep tribal ties he
knows are there.
Watching the Russians defiantly belt out their anthem, one recalls also the 1968 summer
Olympics in Mexico City where sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos stood on the podium, black
gloved fists thrust skyward in a Black Power salute, asserting their separate racial
identity
Western elites may deplore the return of nationalism. But they had best not dismiss it, for
assertions of national and tribal identity appear to be what the future is going to be all
about.
Some attendees at the CPAC conclave this past week were appalled that Britain's Nigel Farage
and France's Marion Le Pen were present.
But Farage was the man most responsible for Brexit, the historic British decision to leave
the EU. Le Pen is perhaps the most popular figure in a National Front party that won 35 percent
of the vote in the runoff election won by President Emmanuel Macron.
And the most unifying stand of the NF appears to be "Let France be France!" The French
people do not want their country invaded by unassimilable millions of migrants from Africa and
the Islamic world. They want France to remain what she has been. Is this wrong? Is preservation of a country, the national family one grew up in, not conservative?
In Hungary and Poland, ethnonationalism, the belief that nation-states are created and best
suited to protect and defend a separate and unique people, with its separate and unique history
and culture, is already ascendant.
Globalists may see the U.N., EU, NAFTA, TPP as stepping stones to a "universal nation" of
all races, tribes, cultures and creeds. But growing numbers in every country, on every
continent, reject this vision. And they are seeking to restore what their parents and
grand-parents had, a nation-state that is all their own.
Nationalists like Farage, who seek to pull their countries out of socialist superstates like
the EU, and peoples seeking to secede and set up new nations like Scotland, Catalonia, Corsica
and Veneto today, and Quebec yesterday, are no more anti-conservative than the American
patriots of Lexington and Concord who also wanted a country of their own.
Why are European peoples who wish to halt mass migration from across the Med, to preserve
who and what they are, decried as racists? Did not the peoples of African and Middle Eastern countries, half a century ago, expel the
European settlers who helped to build those countries? The Rhodesia of Spitfire pilot Ian Smith was a jewel of a nation of 250,000 whites and
several million blacks that produced trade surpluses even when boycotted and sanctioned by a
hating world. When Smith was forced to yield power, "Comrade Bob" Mugabe took over and began the looting
of white Rhodesians, and led his Shona tribesmen in a slaughter of the Matabele of rival Joshua
Nkomo.
Eighty-five percent of the white folks who lived in Rhodesia, prior to "majority rule," are
gone from Zimbabwe. More than half of the white folks who made South Africa the most advanced
and prosperous country on the continent are gone.
Are these countries better places than they were? For whom?
Looking back over this 21st century, the transnational elite that envisions the endless
erosion of national sovereignty, and the coming of a new world order of open borders, free
trade and global custody of mankind's destiny, has triggered a counter-revolution. Does anyone think Angela Merkel looks like the future?
Consider the largest countries on earth. In China, ethnonationalism, not the ruling
Communist Party, unites and inspires 1.4 billion people to displace the Americans as the first
power on earth. Nationalism sustains Vladimir Putin. Nationalism and its unique identity as a Hindu nation
unites and powers India. Here, today, it is "America First" nationalism.
Indeed, now that George W. Bush's crusade for democracy has ended up like Peter the Hermit's
Children's Crusade, what is the vision, what is the historic goal our elites offer to inspire
and enlist our people?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That
Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever."
It's far more complicated. Scotland and Catalonia wanted to secede because they found their
nations TOO CONSERVATIVE. Catalonia wanted to be independent to take in MORE immigrants.
Scotland wanted independence to take in MORE immigrants and push diversity and leftism even
more.
At this point, I think France is too far gone. By some estimates, 70% of all births in
Paris are to Africans and Muslims. And French women got serious junglois fever, and many new
black babies are popping out of white wombs.
Also, Korean nationalism is myth. Koreans are toadies of any great power. 80% of Koreans
want to move to US or Canada and forever abandon their identity. Even though the current
'leftist' regime in SK is for better relations with NK, it is also for massive immigration
and replacement of Koreans with foreigners. And 80% of Korean youth support Diversity since
their US-trained teachers taught them so.
I'm not sure what Buchanan means by including Rhodesia. Is he saying nationalism was
justified in expelling whites? Or is he saying imperialism is better because whites ran a
better nation?
what is the vision, what is the historic goal our elites offer to inspire and enlist our
people?
The globalists envision the earth as a plantation with oligarchs (stateless corporate
monopolists) as planters, former national governments as overseers and the people of earth as
niggers.
They want France to remain what she has been. Is this wrong?
Insofar as France has been a colonial power, the answer is, "yes." Insofar as France has
been a puppet of Israel, the answer is also, "yes."It's really sad when an historian of PB's
caliber seems to be either clueless or worse about what France has been. As far as the US being what she has been, the answer is also, "yes." Why would anyone want the US to support an entity like the bloody USSR as it has done in
the past? Why would anyone want to US to be a morally and fiscally bankrupt nation ruled by
monsters and controlled by Zio-gangsters, as she has been, and is?
The US has always been ruled or parasitized by corrupt, murderous psychopaths with
the results we have to live with today. All corny rhetoric aside, it has never been a force
for peace, justice, or freedom. Why would anyone desire it to remain what she has been?
Pretty much this, Pat. The future of white people rebounds inexorably towards
ethnonationalism. Yes, there will be a boiling off into so much mystery meat of immigrants
and whites who are attracted to that or end up with it, but a lot of those areas are
Balkanized. Every white child that is born will have more genetic and/or cultural attraction
to their own by default.
The baby boomers who have ascended the heights of the institutions can't take it with
them. Their time is over. The time for those adults who have been able to make a realistic
assessment of the world, now it's not a whitopia any more, has come. They are emboldened by
the s *** posting of the internet, the audacity of Trump. There is a rebellious coolness in
tearing down the PC edifice similar to the fun that could be had attacking Christianity and
its holy cows back in the 20th century. The age of Blair, Merkel, Obama and Juncker is
drawing to a close. The era of Xi and Putin has already been here a while, and now we have
Trump and will have a cascade of similar leaders in the West in due course I believe.
peoples seeking to secede and set up new nations like Scotland, Catalonia, Corsica and
Veneto today, and Quebec yesterday, are no more anti-conservative than the American
patriots of Lexington and Concord who also wanted a country of their own.
Well, yes and no. On the one hand, these people are in fact inherently anti-conservative
in the most fundamental sense – they are radicals, seeking to overturn the existing
order. On the other hand, where they are merely local elites seeking to formalise their own
power and shrug off remote overseers, and don't seek radical social change otherwise, then
they are also conservative. That's why the American Secession was not a revolution, merely a
transfer of power from remote to local elites.
Things are complicated further by supposed "nationalist" movements that are run by
leftists – as in the case of Scotland or Catalonia. These are people who merely want to
transfer control from the established state to a more distant superstate, the EU, and who are
firmly committed to all the dogmas of leftism – internationalism, antiracism, open
borders, social radicalism, and who are just as much dupes for globalist corporatism as any
establishment pseudo-conservative.
Nationalists supporting such people – any supposedly nationalist movement rooted on
the political left – will simply be betrayed, as were the Greeks who voted for SYRIZA,
the leftist supposedly "anti-establishment" party that carried its leaders into office and
power and then transformed itself into a "respectable" party of the "centre left", and
ensured that the boat was not rocked in any ways that might really upset the EU/globalist
elites.
The war is between globalism and nationalism, the stakes are whether we continue on the
path to one world corporatist government and culture – a place where there are no
borders, there is no "outside", and no escape from the crushing dogmas of political
correctness, or step off before it's too late. And the only true nationalism is the
nationalism of the right. That will be true until parties of the old left – devoted to
supporting indigenous workers and not to pushing social radicalism – reappear, if they
ever do.
It's far more complicated. Scotland and Catalonia wanted to secede because they found
their nations TOO CONSERVATIVE. Catalonia wanted to be independent to take in MORE
immigrants. Scotland wanted independence to take in MORE immigrants and push diversity and
leftism even more.
And they did not want independence, they wanted to transfer their subordination to a
slightly more remote, more globalist supranational organisation, namely the developing
superstate that is the EU.
And 80% of Korean youth support Diversity since their US-trained teachers taught them
so.
Considering growing numbers of S. Koreans want U.S. forces out of their nation and their
highly restrictive immigration policy where's the evidence that they're becoming diversity
loving social justice warriors?
Globalists may see the U.N., EU, NAFTA, TPP as stepping stones to a "universal nation"
of all races, tribes, cultures and creeds. But growing numbers in every country, on every
continent, reject this vision. And they are seeking to restore what their parents and
grand-parents had, a nation-state that is all their own.'
Right on Pat! So why your hypocritical stance towards Ukraine and its quest to separate
itself from Russian imperial interests? Your inconsistencies are appalling!
No, it's the eternal lure of family. As Sailer has noted, races/ethnicities are just
extended families. Only sociopaths don't care more for their family than strangers. Even with
the most overarching propaganda – schools, media, government, etc. – in history
pushing whites to forget this, we are slowly coming out of our slumber. Will we ever fully
wake up and, if so, in time? Who knows.
But I do know that our current society won't last. Much like what's going on in Africa,
this system – based on the falsehood of racial equality – will slowly (then
quickly) fall apart. Of course, the timeframe that I use is historic, not the timeframe that
we use in our own lives. A hundred years is a nothing if you look over the past 5,000 years
when human civilization began.
Does anyone really believe that the current Cult of Equality system in W. Europe and the
U.S. will still be around in 100 years, much less 200 years? No chance. Could it still be
hanging on by a thread in 50 or 60 years – long after I'm dead? Quite possibly.
However, we're already seeing some cracks in the system after 50 years and things seem to
be accelerating. What happens when Muslims start demanding Sharia law in parts of Paris or
London? What happens when whites are no longer welcome in the Dem Party as we're beginning to
see at the top level? What happens when government debt reaches a level where the gov can't
borrow as much and must start cutting welfare spending? What happens when an increasingly
black and brown Congress (and state houses) starts to demand much higher taxes on whites (and
Asians) to support blacks and browns?
Wanting to be ruled by your own people is natural – and good. Whites have been on
top for 500 years and have forgotten what it's like to have to fight for our place in the
sun. As we start to get ruled by others year after year, that tribal instinct will grow. Will
it grow fast enough that we survive? Again, who knows. I hope so.
If not, well, natural selection is a bitch, isn't it.
Should we give up these evil nation states for an evil global feudalism?
I can understand a desire for more options. The anarchists have the best of it in my
opinion when it comes to political ideology. But there is the real problem of security and
survival for anarchists in a non anarchist world.
From the point of view of globalists, nationalism is already a de-centralization of
political power. I favor decentralization even if it will not take me all the way to a
Jeffersonian agrarian utopia.
Who said "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good"?
French people do not want their country invaded by unassimilable millions of migrants
from Africa and the Islamic world.
They want France to remain what she has been. Is this wrong?
I guess six million wasn't enough for Pat Buchanan
anyone with a kippah's worth of brains know that if France is allowed to remain French,
then the gas chambers and soap factories are only a matter of time.
let's let ((Nicolas Sarkozy)) explain it to you all
Nazis:
must be forced to mix, if they don't do so willingly, because if not, then you can
just sit back and count the days until geysers of blood start shooting out of the ground
again.
we've all seen this kind of 'will to power' before, when people like the French (and Poles
and Hungarians) think they can threaten others with their anti-Semitism by refusing to mix
and blend their vile and evil white Nazi features and culture away.
Totally agree. If gentile whites aren't breed out of existence, it's just a matter of time
before we see gas chambers in Ohio or Lincolnshire.
Throughout Jewish history, non-Jewish whites inexplicably have shown an insanely
irrational dislike of Jews. Since it emerges over and over, across time and regions, it must
be some form of mental sickness inherent in gentile whites. There's no other explanation. The
only commonalty is gentile whites.
No matter where Jews go, within a century or two, the local goys start to hate them to the
point that Jews are often ejected from the area, sometimes attacked. Everywhere, every time.
Jews, who just want to fit in and become a part of the community – no, to improve the
community – are singled out for no reason again and again.
Well, this must end. Even with their own homeland surrounded by a fence and protected by
nuclear weapons, Jews will never be safe until gentile whites are no longer a race. What is
the loss of the European peoples and their culture compared to the need to protect the Jewish
people from the inevitable Holocaust II: Revenge of the Goys.
Thankfully, the new breed – a mix of African, European, Mesitzo and whatever else
– will be more enlightened.
Here's an interesting example of modern nations trying to deal with the consequences of
globalism in the context of the ruling political correctness dogmas:
Imagine trying that in the US! How's that for some disparate impact, eh Obama?
He denied that harsher penalties in one area could simply drive criminals into other
areas.
This seems a bit of a stretch really. I mean, it's still got to be a good thing to harass
ghetto thugs and petty criminal oafs on the turf they think is theirs, but there needs to be
preparation for the inevitable spillover into more respectable areas. Unless you take the
view that ghetto dweller crime spilling over more is a price worth paying because it will
help to "wake up" the wealthy leftist classes who vote for more immigration and evade the
costs.
it's just a matter of time before we see gas chambers in Ohio or Lincolnshire.
we already saw it in Charlottesville!
the SS was goose stepping towards Sobibór redux, chanting Nazi propaganda about how
'Jews will not replace us"
have you ever heard anything so vile?!
Of course Jews will replace you! because white people are congenitally EVIL!
They don't know their place, because jehovah put them here to SERVE the Jews!!! Yet
they stubbornly refuse!
and appoint a Nazi goyim to the Supreme Court!!!
and a CIS at that!
I'm sure glad you too can see what we're up against as these neo-Nazis in France try to
assert their inner Himmler, and avoid the Great Kosher Blending.
Thankfully, the new breed – a mix of African, European, Mesitzo and whatever else
– will be more enlightened.
not unattractive, but more to the point, unconnected to any ethnic or cultural
heritage.
the perfect obedient slave race
a doubleplus good improvement over the Nazis (all white people/anti-Semites)
Scotland wanted independence to take in MORE immigrants and push diversity and leftism
even more.
Scottish elites – in the form of the Scottish National Party – wanted that.
But did Scottish voters? Or were they just voting for Scottish independence rather than for
the policies of the SNP? Hard to tell.
I'm not sure what Buchanan means by including Rhodesia. Is he saying nationalism was
justified in expelling whites? Or is he saying imperialism is better because whites ran a
better nation?
I think he's saying that white Rhodesians were the nation, and that they would have
been justified in expelling the blacks if the blacks weren't happy with their lot –
rather than allowing the blacks to destroy 'their' country. This is a very old school WN
viewpoint that, even among WNs, you don't hear much of anymore, but Buchanan likes to make
ambiguous and plausibly deniable statements like this. I mean, it's very easy for him to
backtrack and claim that he simply meant one of the options you outlined, but probably what
he really believes is the version I put forward.
Rhodesia's a bit much, imo; there were just too few whites. You need to have
Israeli-settler-like fanaticism to support whites' keeping control of all that territory. I
could have supported the South Africans sending the blacks to their own 'homelands' and then
cutting off contact with them. That would have been a better long term solution than the
segregation they tried to implement. You need a much larger majority – like the South
has/had – to pull segregation off. Although, even then, apartheid could have last much
longer than it did, if it wasn't for pressure from other white countries.
It's not just nationalism that's rising but racial nationalism or what some like to refer to
as ethno-nationalism. No doubt those Russian hockey players were all ethnically Russian and
their celebration was as much one of blood as of nation which in saner times are indivisible.
black gloved fists thrust skyward in a Black Power salute, asserting their separate
racial identity
And it's long past due that whites in America and throughout the Western world start to
assert their separate racial identity and act accordingly. We are the only race of people
that doesn't act in its own racial interests and if that doesn't change we won't last this
century.
Raceless civil nationalism is a dead end for white people and it doesn't resonate with
anyone but brainless and brainwashed whites. Religion will always play second fiddle to race
and ethnicity and it always will.
Militant multiculturalism, the de facto secular religion of the West, must be overthrown
by any means necessary along with its many mullahs in government, universities and the
media.
"No, it's the eternal lure of family. As Sailer has noted, races/ethnicities are just
extended families."
No, races and ethnicities do NOT fit that description. It's an appeal to authority.
"But I do know that our current society won't last."
No, you are only speculating here. No one knows for certain.
"What happens when Muslims start demanding Sharia law in parts of Paris or London? What
happens when whites are no longer welcome in the Dem Party as we're beginning to see at the
top level? What happens when government debt reaches a level where the gov can't borrow as
much and must start cutting welfare spending? What happens when an increasingly black and
brown Congress (and state houses) starts to demand much higher taxes on whites (and Asians)
to support blacks and browns?"
Chicken Little.
"Wanting to be ruled by your own people is natural – and good."
Our people are Americans.
"Whites have been on top for 500 years and have forgotten what it's like to have to fight
for our place
in the sun."
The human race is more important than whites or blacks or Asians.
And French women got serious junglois fever, and many new black babies are popping out
of white wombs.
Is this right? Anyone have stats? Is anyone keeping count?
Even though Black African nationalism did expel European powers, can nationalism survive
in black Africa without whites?
Good point – no doubt the current borders have a lot to do with how lines were drawn
by the retreating European powers.
Without whites and their organization skills, black African tends to fracture into
tribes, and warring tribes do no make a nation
Possibly, but they did have the capability to organize into fairly large empires
(depending on which part of Africa you are talking about. The capability to form an empire
over a vast multi-ethnic, multi-religious landscape is certainly a stepping stone for the
ability to form a modern nation-state (not that that is the goal).
If things do fracture down and tribal alliances become preeminent, then expect the very
large ethno-linguistic groups (like the Fulani and Hausa that number in the tens of millions)
to form something that lies across many of the current borders.
Religion will always play second fiddle to race and ethnicity and it always will.
That seems to be ahistorical when put in those absolute terms. Consider that Catholics and
Protestants joined others apart from their own ethno-linguistic background to slaughter (what
they considered) heretics of their own ethnicity. The current mess in the Middle East is also
quite a bit related to religious fault-lines. Sunni and Shiah of various backgrounds are
ganging up on each other.
To take another example of a recent breakdown of civil law and slaughter (the Rwandan
genocide). It was split; being Christian didn't seem to matter to transcend ethnic fault
lines, but being Muslim did:
"Roman Catholicism has been the dominant faith in Rwanda for more than a century. But many
people, disgusted by the role that some priests and nuns played in the killing frenzy, have
shunned organized religion altogether, and many more have turned to Islam.
'People died in my old church, and the pastor helped the killers," said Yakobo Djuma
Nzeyimana, 21, who became a Muslim in 1996. 'I couldn't go back and pray there. I had to find
something else.'"
As an imam from Rwanda explains, the Muslim Hutus and Tutsis have made their ethnic
identity a lesser priority:
"First, you have to remember that Muslims represent one of the only -- perhaps the only --
truly integrated community in Rwanda. What do I mean by this? I mean that most mothers of
Muslims are Tutsis, and most fathers of Muslims are Hutus -- let's say something like 80
percent on each side. And while many Muslims share the appearance of Tutsis, we are really a
mixed community. We are a community built by intermarriage."
So I understand this attitude in places like Europe, but that's because they don't really
take religion as seriously as they used to, which means that other priorities bubble up. If
you observe other places in the world, ethnicity plays second fiddle.
Peace.
Note: By the way, sometimes people being scared of you can be quite helpful (from the
above article):
"You see, for many years Hutus had been taught to fear Muslims. They were scared of our
mosques, so we could hide Tutsis there without fear of Hutus entering. Hutus had been taught
that our mosques were houses of the devil. They were taught that the devil lived in Muslim
homes, too. It went even further. It was also believed by many Hutus that if you shook the
hand of a Muslim something bad would happen to you, maybe get sick, because Muslims were
dirty people. So for all these reasons, Hutu militias were afraid of Muslims and left us
alone for the most part. "
Please provide an example of Catholics and Protestants joining ethnic others to slaughter
heretics of their own race/etnicity so I can better respond.
The current mess in the Middle East is also quite a bit related to religious
fault-lines. Sunni and Shiah of various backgrounds are ganging up on each other.
Without a doubt but what Muslims won't admit is that there are also ethnic fault lines
between Kurd, Arab, Turk and Persian. Turks, Kurds and Arabs are mostly Sunni yet Sunni Islam
has not united them or fostered goodwill and they are savagely fighting each other. The
enmity between Arab Muslim and Turkish Muslim goes back almost 1000 years.
To take another example of a recent breakdown of civil law and slaughter (the Rwandan
genocide). It was split; being Christian didn't seem to matter to transcend ethnic fault
lines, but being Muslim did:
Partly proves my point that the Catholic faith of Hutu and Tutsi didn't avert the
inter-ethnic bloodshed nor was Catholic dogma sufficient to prevent the bloodletting. I don't
think I was aware that some turned to Islam which is arguably a much more militant,
uncompromising and violent faith than Christianity or Catholicism. So any future conflicts
involving that particular group are likely to be religious in nature.
So I understand this attitude in places like Europe, but that's because they don't
really take religion as seriously as they used to, which means that other priorities bubble
up. If you observe other places in the world, ethnicity plays second fiddle.
Be careful with that claim, because again it appears Hutu and Tutsi took Catholicism far
more seriously than Europeans do but it did not transcend the ethnic hatred and tensions that
existed.
Iran takes religion seriously but it, too, is affected by ethnic tensions such that the
CIA was inflaming ethnic minorities against the majority Persians in 2006 in an attempt to
weaken the central government. Racial and ethnic diversity isn't such a strength after all
since a foreign government could easily foment racial unrest in America with it's 40%
no-white population.
Afghanistan takes the Islamic religion very seriously (home of the Taliban) but Sunni
Uzbeks and Tajiks loathe the Sunni Pashtuns and vice versa while the Pashtuns loathe the
Shiite Hazeras. Islam has not melded the various ethnic groups into one polity nor has it
fostered mutual affection between them.
In America it's been long known that Sunday Christian worship is a very racially
segregated affair and Christianity and Catholicism has not melded its three dominant racial
groups (white, black, Latino) into a cohesive group.
Europeans took religion far more seriously during the WWI and WWII era (but less seriously
than previous centuries) but that didn't stop the mind boggling fratricide during the two
world wars which may yet lead to the demise of Western Europe and the U.K. Ideology,
nationality and ethnicity had greater pull and won the day.
While there's certainly outliers and exceptions I believe that the evidence shows that,
generally speaking, ethno-nationalism trumps religion in most cases because it's a force of
nature that people must come to terms with instead of deny.
So I understand this attitude in places like Europe, but that's because they don't
really take religion as seriously as they used to, which means that other priorities bubble
up.
And don't forget that Europeans took religion so seriously in the 17th century that it
nearly wiped out 50% of Germany's population during the Thirty Years War. I doubt ethnic
conflict would have been any more bloody and brutal. Your Tamerlane took it so seriously that
he's responsible for murdering 17 million people.
Note: By the way, sometimes people being scared of you can be quite helpful (from the
above article):
Not unlike a KKK member wearing a white sheet in the 19th century since blacks thought the
mask wearer(s) were ghosts and would flee in terror and fear. They incurred the slur "spook"
since they were so easily spooked by the sight of a white men wearing white sheets.
White people will be bred out and chased down. Within the next generation they will become
functionally enslaved (we're halfway there already). Our Overlords have seen to this by
shifting our nation's demographics in a decisive and irreversible way. Everything–
everything –is being redefined such that if white people do it, it's a crime,
and if nonwhite people or chosenites do it, it's a mitzvah . Your predictions? They
are delusional–I say enjoy them!
They stole America once they had grabbed the reins of the mass media, and that happened
before Patrick came along. Since then it's just been consolidation. PJB is one of the most
courageous voices of our time and he's paid a very high price professionally. Neither of
these is true of his critics, yourself included.
Referendums, at the point of a Russian gun, as was done in Crimea aren't truly an accurate
meaure of anything.
Would you feel that a referendum today, after somewhere in the vicinity of 3million people
have left the Donbas, would likewise settle anything?
I'd bet on the bred out before I'd bet on the functionally enslaved. It's hard to enslave
a population that's smarter and better-organized than your people. At the moment, whites are
enslaving themselves. That's very different than being enslaved.
Gentile whites can free themselves at any moment – if we choose to. Will we? Good
question. I don't care if whites drop to 10% or 20% of the population; if that small minority
found its racial/ethnic cohension and decided to push back as a group, it'd be functionally
independent and free in a very short period of time.
Whites are not blacks or mestizos. We are not being enslaved. (Jews are clever and
certainly a major driving force behind much of what's going on, but they aren't omnipotent.)
We have agency. A glitch in our DNA makes many whites ill suited for the current environment,
ironically, an environment we created. This means that one of three things will happen. All
whites will be absorbed by other groups better suited for this environment. Whites with the
attributes to survive in this environment – the tribal whites – survive and
prosper while other whites fade away. The environment changes.
The future is not linear. You can't just extrapolate today's trends a hundred years out.
Europe was 99%+ white a hundred years ago. Now, 10% to 15% of births are to non-whites with
immigration continuing. North America was 100% native Indians 600 years ago. Now, they are
only a couple of percentage points of the population.
Things change. Momentum changes. I already hear whites laughing in public about being call
a racist. Granted, they laugh because they believe that they are "color blind" and thus not
racist, rather than being proud of being white. But let's take this one step at a time.
Indeed, my own child – truly unprompted – mentioned to me that she should be as
proud of European ancestry and a black should be of their African ancestry.
That is patently false. Whites are free to make their own decisions, and are only
"enslaved" as individuals if their choices box them in, and they choose not get themselves
out of their predicament.
"I don't care if whites drop to 10% or 20% of the population; if that small minority found
its racial/ethnic cohension and decided to push back as a group, it'd be functionally
independent and free in a very short period of time."
No, because that group would be enslaving the 80-90% of other white people. You neglect to
consider that European whites themselves tend to lack cohesiveness due to their political or
religious differences. You assume this minority group will be able to set aside their
problems for the benefit of their "race". Perhaps, but perhaps not.
"A glitch in our DNA makes many whites ill suited for the current environment, ironically,
an environment we created."
A false premise on your part.
"Indeed, my own child – truly unprompted – mentioned to me that she should be
as proud of European ancestry and a black should be of their African ancestry."
Yet she was programmed to make this remark, maybe without realizing it. No different than
an SJW who have their own kids and indoctrinate them. You and them are one in the same in
this regard.
Please provide an example of Catholics and Protestants joining ethnic others to
slaughter heretics of their own race/etnicity so I can better respond.
Not race, but certainly ethnicity. The slaughter in Germany that you described was (if I
recall my history correctly) due to the Thirty Years War where various powers from outside
what is now Germany were called in on one side or another; from as far as Sweden, Spain, even
Scotland. Some states even sided with the Ottomans (though I think they did not put soldiers
out in the field).
I don't really have a problem with your greater point that ethnicity/tribal identity is
often at odds and in tension with religious identity and often wins out. I simply don't see
how one can make an absolutist claim that ethnicity always wins out since there are many
historical exceptions to the rule.
For instance you pointed to the tension among the various ethnic groups in Afghanistan.
This is true, but religion also can help them transcend that divide, something that the
Taliban have been pushing successfully as of late:
"Ethnic Minorities Are Fueling the Taliban's Expansion in Afghanistan: The Taliban is gaining
dangerous leverage by recruiting Tajiks, Turkmen, and Uzbeks."
Of Islam and race, Arnold Toynbee (the very capable British historian) wrote:
"The extinction of race consciousness as between Muslims is one of the outstanding moral
achievements of Islam, and in the contemporary world there is, as it happens, a crying need
for the propagation of this Islamic virtue; for, although the record of history would seem on
the whole to show that race consciousness has been the exception and not the rule in the
constant interbreeding of the human species, it is a fatality of the present situation that
this consciousness is felt-and felt strongly-by the very peoples which, in the competition of
the last four centuries between several Western powers, have won-at least for the moment-the
lion's share of the inheritance of the Earth."
Though Toynbee was being hyperbolic, it is a phenomenon that is quite real and caused
someone like Malcolm X (ra) to completely re-evaluate his assumptions about White people
after having gone to Hajj, writing:
"During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate,
drunk from the same glass, and slept on the same rug – while praying to the same God
– with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest
of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the deeds of the
white Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of
Nigeria, Sudan and Ghana."
You are right about ethnic/tribal affiliation being part of the core of the human animal.
It is, like sexuality and lust, embedded deep in the recesses of human consciousness. Just
like a pack of wolves or a troop of chimpanzees will tear apart another group in competition
for resources, we too have that innate animal instinct in us. But like sexuality, avarice or
a whole host of human traits – the whole point of religion is to help us to; a)
transcend them and b) point them to a useful purpose or keep them under control.
We will never see ethnic identity or attraction to it completely wiped out (thank God),
that is part of the beauty of the human project:
"O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you nations and tribes
that you may know one another. Indeed, the most noble of you in the sight of Allah is the
most pious of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted." (49:13)
However, religion is supposed to helps us to overcome the pathologies and extremes that
can arise from it, same as from unchecked sexuality or other natural human tendencies. Of
course, religion can be used to underwrite other pathologies as well. Well, the world is
never perfect, eh? It'll be interesting to see which way this goes.
I think people will start to be more ethnocentric and identity-conscious for a while
(Whites will jump in on this as Blacks and other minorities already do), but I simply don't
know how long that will last since that really doesn't provide much in the way of long term
transcendental purpose and seems really to be a temporary reaction to the way things have
gone to the other extreme for the last few decades.
Yet she was programmed to make this remark, maybe without realizing it.
Not sure about this. It comes naturally to people and there is a side of it that is wrong
(which takes it to extreme pride and arrogance) and a side which is natural and healthy.
On twitter, I follow an African American Muslim scholar, Dr. (Shaykh) Abdullah Ali, who
once wrote – in criticism of some of the SJW Muslim activists that like to call
everyone racist:
Can a White Man Be Proud of His People?
Another area of concern related to Muslim activists is the push for cultural Marxist
egalitarianism. It is not that one should be opposed to equal opportunity for all members
of society. It is just that Islam promotes meritocracy rather than "sameness" and "equal
representation" for the sake of equal "representation." According to this cultural
paradigm, it is "good" to celebrate and take pride in what is unique about one's own
culture. This seems the case, at least, for any person who is not "white." White people, on
the other hand, due to their historical domination of others are forbidden from publicly
expressing pride about European civilizational contributions lest they be declared a racist
or white supremacist. This concern is shared by nativists like Richard Spencer. But
Spencer, however, regurgitates the pseudoscientific racist assumptions of the 19th century
French aristocrat Arthur De Gobineau who pioneered the Aryan master race theory. Those
blinkered notions aside, what legitimate wrong could be claimed about a white man or woman
feeling pride about the achievements of their ancestors if it does not result in cultural
domination?
The question he ends with is a pertinent one; what is wrong with that, especially if
everyone else is able to publicly do it and not be shamed. Why should we assume this is a
sign of indoctrination and not something very natural and healthy. My kids are mixed
heritage; I definitely want them to know and love their European side as much as their roots
from the Indian subcontinent.
Corny's not a bad guy. He has schtick – sort of a cross between "We're all God's
children" and libertarianism – and he sticks to it. Whether he believes it or not, who
knows.
But he is disingenuous.
There was a point in my career when I dealt a lot with lawyers from other companies about
reasonably complex issues. After awhile, I could tell when a lawyer was doing their best to
make things clearer to see if we could reach a deal and when a lawyer was trying to make
things murky in hopes of cheating you out on something. Naturally, the DB lawyers would
always argue that our side just wasn't smart enough to understand their brillant
proposition.
It was just annoying. Everyone knew what was going on. I suppose that the DB lawyers felt
that they needed to try, but it just ended up making everything take a lot longer than
necessary.
Corny most definitely falls in the DB lawyer camp. He deliberately obfuscates. If you tell
him that an orange is the color orange, he'll say that you can't prove that because there are
different shades of orange and thus the color orange doesn't exist. It's tedious and
pointless.
It's a shame. I'd love to have someone who believes in multi-everything to discuss these
issues with. I've changed my mind on a number of things over the years so maybe they could
show me where I'm wrong. That'd be a fascinating dialogue.
Sadly, that's Corny is not that guy. He's either a true believer or a very diligent (maybe
paid?) troll. Either way, not of much use.
There were opportunities to take it back but they weren't taken and Pat was there then.
The reason it isn't written about much is because Pat would have to come to terms with who
the real Nixon and Reagan were and Pat will never allow such thoughts into his head, let
alone his writing.
there has been dramatic improvement in number of soldiers, usability of
equipment
That is the show.
The Ukrainian army's battlefield performance after February 2015 has not improved, nor
will the odds ever again be as favourable as they were in Mid-2014. Kiev has assembled an
army suitable for skirmishing and the occasional terrorist attack, nothing more strenuous.
Building an army capable of winning the war would entail discipline and sacrifice, and the
effort would be for nothing since the RF forces would move in and crush Kiev's army if it
were ever on the point of victory.
Kiev is content with the status quo – it's far from ideal for them but it's not so
bad as to justify the risks involved in a new offensive (this will never happen). Barring
black swan events, the Ukraine is meta-stable and can muddle along indefinitely, so long as
Moscow does not pull its finger out of its backside and resolve the situation properly.
Kiev is content with the status quo – it's far from ideal for them but it's not so
bad as to justify the risks involved in a new offensive (this will never happen). Barring
black swan events, the Ukraine is meta-stable and can muddle along indefinitely, so long as
Moscow does not pull its finger out of its backside and resolve the situation properly.
Two consideration:
1. Ukraine decides very little. Government was outsourced to Washington, DC. If creation
of tension with Russia is necessary, they will launch offensive.
2. Nationalist movements, especially far-right, have their own often destructive dynamics and
can do things that are illogical and/or highly harmful for the country. They also are ready
to fight and die for their ideas. In this sense Poroshenko is a hostage of Galician far right
"revolutionaries. "
Looks like Poroshenko is playing with fire. the longer Donetsk and Lugansk republics exists as a separate political
entities the more difficult and costly will be to bring them back. Each year matters in this respect. After, say, ten year
probably no compromise could ever emerge, unless Russia is weakened and /or dissolved into smaller statelets (the permanent
problem for Russia is change of leadership, so 2024 will be a very important year, as Putin does not have any realistic successor
who can continue his policies. So iether Russian "economic nationalists" (to borrow Bannon's term) or Pro-European faction
will come to power. In both cases foreign policies change. Or the US economy crash again and military budget will be
drastically cut, leaving no money for foreign military adventure and the protection of neoliberal empire. Direct attach
might elicit Russian response and as such is highly risky (especially in view of Russia being pissed by the USA all the time now
and might want to make Ukraine, as a US client, a boy for beating) , but periodic skirmishes just run this territory into
wasteland that Syria regions now are. They also drive population out.
Notable quotes:
"... IMO the emerging partition is likely to last a long time. Syria is only 80 years old as a state and a prolonged de facto partition as opposed to wartime occupation can easily become more or less perm ..."
"... If the Kurds of Afrin throw themselves on the mercy of the Syrian government in Damascus then Kurdish autonomy is squashed in that enclave. And, when it is all said and done, isn't that what Erdogan really wants? ..."
You don't understand what I mean. IMO the emerging partition is likely to last a long
time. Syria is only 80 years old as a state and a prolonged de facto partition as opposed to
wartime occupation can easily become more or less permanent as was the case with Turkey's
acquisition of Hatay. pl
I certainly don't dispute that Turkey is invading Afrin. And I agree with you that if things
continue to stand as they are now then that invasion will continue until all of Afrin has
been overrun.
But to simply extrapolate from what has happened into the future suggests that
circumstances won't change or - if they do - that Erdogan will continue on like some wind-up
automaton.
If the Kurds of Afrin throw themselves on the mercy of the Syrian government in Damascus
then Kurdish autonomy is squashed in that enclave. And, when it is all said and done, isn't
that what Erdogan really wants?
If the Kurds are too stupid or too proud to play that card then, yeah, sure, you and I
both agree that they will be ground into the dirt.
But if they do supplicate to Assad then the situation changes.
You (I assume) believe that in that circumstance Erdogan will continue to grind on with
this invasion regardless.
I believe he will beat his chest and then go home.
One of us will be wrong, and one of us will be right.
Jesus Christ, US turning to a dictatorship with its info war and censorship. Ex-US envoy to Russia calls for branding RT 'foreign
agent' over 'involvement' in elections
Somehow in numerous statements in this thread, mostly boiling down to "mine is more
Russian than yours", the key issues were missed. I am not even talking about obvious trolls
trying to denigrate Putin's foreign policy feats. He achieved a lot more with a relatively
weak hand than the US with a much stronger one, both in Syria and in Ukraine.
Admittedly, Ukraine does not count: only Americans, who have no history and don't know the
history of other countries, could have stepped into that particular pile of s Ukraine brings
ruin to anyone it supports. At the beginning of the eighteens century Ukrainian Hetman Mazepa
betrayed Russia and joined the Swedes. Peter the Great decimated Swedes in the battle near
Poltava. That was the end of Sweden as a great European power. Western Ukrainians fought for
Austro-Hungarian Empire in WWI. Where is that Empire now? Then "independent" Ukraine
supported Germans. Well, they lost WWI. Then Ukrainians served Hitler in WWII. USSR smeared
Nazi Germany over he wall. Then Ukrainians were "holier then thou" supporters of the Soviet
Union. Where is it now? So, if I were in the US or EU leadership, I'd make sure that Ukraine
is not my friend, simply for the sake of self-preservation.
Syria is a totally different story. The Empire, on behalf of Israel and Saudis, tried to
break it up into a bunch of powerless Bantustans. The plan seemed to be close to bearing
fruit until Putin threw a wrench into the works. With ridiculously small ground and air force
he turned the tide of the war. The Empire was frustrated. Hence the hysterics.
Anyway, IMHO Putin's Russia has two major weaknesses. One is the profusion of oligarchs
who stole their riches from the state and hid the loot offshore. He does not seem inclined to
tackle them, likely honoring the deal he made in 2000. "Protected" appear to include even
such notorious figures as Chubais (if you ask Russians, ~90% would say that oligarchs should
be stripped of their wealth, tried, and imprisoned; but as many or more would say that
Chubais should be publicly hanged). The other weakness is that it remains a one-man show,
i.e., the absence of credible state institutions and an obvious successor. The rest is
chaff.
"what we see is that western democracies are run by gangs of oligarchs and bureaucrats who
have almost nothing in common with the people they are supposed to represent."
Just for a moment I will take you seriously, although you sometimes write truly silly
stuff, and respond.
Yes, the AngloZionist would prefer to turn and absorb the Russian and Chinese elite, but
only as low subordinates. This is what they have been doing in other conquered countries
– generating a mix of the new and compliant part of the old elite with a greater
proportion of the new elite. The Russian neo-Liberals are ready and waiting for the job,
looking down on their compatriots as cattle (the same word as goyim, what an amazing
coincidence!?). Read what this Felix writes about the Russians. This gang turned Russia into
killing fields in 1917 and will gladly do it again given half a chance by their foreign
masters.
The masters are underwriting the full-time writing of puppets such as Karlin.
Karlin is the Russian Elliot Higgins , interpreting data without a faintest idea of
solid data analysis, a paid full-time hack drawing the right conclusions for the empire.
Perhaps he sees himself as a minister in the Russian puppet government after the successful
regime change.
Therefore, this group of regular trolls (about 10 nicks) on all Saker's
writings are aiming to be that future new Russian servant elite when Russia would be
absorbed. They are truly the last thing that Russian people need.
As I said above, I have seen it all before, it is deja vu all over again (Yogi Bear).
Actually life in Ukraine was not that bad in 2010-2014. Hopefully "After-Maydan" deterioration might be temporary,
although without new markets for Ukrainian industrial goods recovery is almost impossible. Also the level of foreign
debt is now much higher, so they dig a deeper hole for themselves to climb out. Other probable scenario is bankruptcy.
See also
Bill
Black Once a Poster Child for Austerity, Latvia Becomes a Hotbed of Corruption naked capitalism
Poland's level of GDP per capita is 6 times bigger than Ukraine's. They started out
around the same level in 1991 and were supposed to follow the same playbook. To the extent
that their paths diverged can be explained by Ukrainian corruption and incompetence.
Poland received hundreds of billions of dollars in EU subsidies and transfers. Not a fair
comparison. Even still today they are receiving this transfer of wealth from net contributor
countries in the EU (there's another good reason EU became unpopular in net contributor
countries like the UK and the Netherlands):
Energy subsidies from Russia to the Ukraine are estimated at hundreds of billions of
dollars since 1991. The Ukraine has been well subsidized since independence. What they have
been desperately lacking is governance.
Latvia now is a typical neoliberal debt slave and flourishing sex trafficking market. Not
that different from other Baltic states, Ukraine, Moldavia and generally all xUSSR space.
Bill mentions the brain drain from Latvia, but I seem to recall a quite massive general
emigration from the country during austerity, which also helped to "reduce unemployment" as
well. The neoliberal "methodology" for "showing economic success" is moral and economic
bankruptcy masquerading as "science". And wow. So we have Latvia to thank for the coming
nuclear holocaust as well. A true neoliberal market miracle.
Lambert's two principles of neoliberalism are once again brought to mind:
All those 'excess' workers who left were helping keep wages low in the EU
In the sense that Latvia's future productivity is sacrificed for short-term benefits on the
books, it starts to look like another asset-stripping scheme, and the costs are borne by
workers in the EU.
Latvia already has one of the highest levels of poverty and income inequality in the EU
and its population has dropped by about a fifth in the past 18 years which is a bit of a
record considering that there was no war, that is, unless you count the neoliberal war on
people. Some moved to the capital Riga but most bailed out of the country altogether and are
not coming back. You can find whole blocks of empty buildings in some towns.
But don't worry. The Latvians are on the case. The head of the Latvian Central Bank detained
for extortion and the Latvian Ministry of Defense both blame, you guessed it, Russia!
Lambert's two principles of neoliberalism may have to be updated. He already has
#1 Because markets.
#2 Go die.
He may have to modify the second one to say
#2 Go die or get the hell outta Dodge.
Now I may be prejudiced because the Gs came from deepest darkest Lithuania–and we're
talking out in the endless woods in a village along a lake.
When people talk about population decline in Latvia, you are talking about part of the
corruption. The native Latvians wanted a way of getting rid of the Russian population, many
of whom are considered immigrants. So dropping 20 percent of the population means throwing
out the Russians. When your "population policy " is based on something like that, you can
image what the country's economic policies are like.
In contrast–although Lithuania, too, has lost some 10 – 15 percent of its
population since restored independence–the Lithuanians came to terms, imperfect terms,
with their smaller Polish and Russian minorities. Nevertheless, the Lithuanians didn't go
whole-hog free-market fundamentalism. And when a recent president was found to be corrupt,
they impeached him and threw him out.
So you have different models for how to survive as a Baltic State. Latvia has made a mess
of its "model."
"Now of course that's still in a land where they had really severely repressed wages for
the working class and for middle class, and continued to tolerate a fair degree of
unemployment and underemployment for folks, as well. So, yeah it works really well for the
oligarchs. And they do employ people. The unemployment rate drops, but the country
invariably becomes extremely corrupt."
Was he still talking about Latvia or did he switch over to the USA?
Half a decade ago when Latvia was considered a success story for neoliberal austerity, one
animator made this great satire video making fun of how farcical it was to consider it
such.
Latvia also being part of that running sore which involves according to the US state
department's last global estimate, about 800,000 to a million victims per annum of people
trafficking. Of which around 80% are female, with a not stated amount being children, used
for both labour & sexual purposes.
I suppose that it comes as little surprise that the 2 main flows of these commodities is
from East to West & South to North.
An interesting discussion with two polar views on the situation. There is no good guys in the
story anyway. Nether the USA, or Russia, or Ukrainian nationalists, or separatists qualify. Truth
probably lies somewhere in between. The debate itself reminds the current political debate in the
USA between neoliberals/globalists and "economic nationalists"/isolationalists : the two sides do
not hear other and their positions are irreconcilable. Each has its own set of grievances. Its
own version of history. And its own vision of the desirable future.
Independence by itself meant huge stimulus to Western Ukrainian nationalists (who
historically lived a long time under Hapsburg empire). So their political ascendance were given
and Maydan was just the culmination point of a long process (actually encouraged by EU members
such as Germany, Poland , Baltic republics and Sweden)
The USA clearly tried to secure it geopolitical interests via forcefully turning Ukraine to
the West. Despite the fact that it was not completely ready for such a move yet; although were
slowly moving in this direction since independence. Germany (and EU in general) played the same
fatal role of "accelerator" as well. They wanted new markets for their goods and also have
geopolitical interests in weakening Russia (which did happened; Ukraine was the biggest strategic
defeat of Putin). The Nazi Lebensraum was, after all, about Ukraine.
But the process of "separation" from Russia was pretty much under way since independence and
proceeded at a brisk pace under Yanukovich too, who actually supported Ukrainian nationalists
during his term (especially Svoboda, hoping to create something like the USA two party systems:
nationalists vs Party of Regions). And it was Yanukovich government which prepared and intended
to sign the association agreement with the EU. Then Yanukovich hesitated to sign it and at this
point was doomed as pro-Western forces has already their own dynamics and financial support from
abroad. With the financial. organizational and political support support of the USA and EU were
able to depose him. Large (for Ukraine political scene) amount of money was injected, protesters
bused from Western Ukraine, and eventually yet another color revolution (the first was so called
Orange revolution which brought to power Yushchenko government) took care of Yanukovich regime.
The problem is that this "alternative" political course and a new vision of Ukrainian future
proved to be a minefield. Also the association agreement with EU was very unfair to Ukrainian
economic interests and essentially downgraded the status of Ukraine to the status of neo-colony
openly promoting deindustrialization like in Baltic Republics.
Some unrealistic dreams about benefits of Ukraine association with EU were pretty widespread
and become a political factor in the success of the Maydan. nobody understood that by trying to
balance between Russia and the West Yanukovich postponed the day of reckoning and kept economics
expanding. Everybody hated corrupt Yanukovich although some members of his cabinet were pretty
competent technocrats. Nobody calculated losses from the separation of economic ties with Russia
and having a hostile Russia as a neighbor. Hopes that EU will open its market for Ukrainian
agricultural goods and to Ukrainian gastarbeiters proved to be exaggerated. To say nothing about
the danger (or even mere possibility) of civil war as the result of Maydan. All those dreams
about improving the standard of living via association with EU were buried after the Maydan very
soon. The currency dropped around 300% after 2014 from 8.5 to 27 grivna per dollar. Markets in
Russia are almost completely lost.
Ukrainian nationalists decided that the success of Maydan gave them carte blanche on
neo-colonization of Eastern Ukraine as well as the suppression of Russian language and culture.
They miscalculated. This policy was similar to "Polinization of Western Ukraine" by Poles and it
faced growing resistance. Lugansk and Donetsk republic are direct results of this resistance (not
without Russia help). In other words this policy backfired, and now those regions represent a
Gordian knot for both the USA, EU, Russia and Ukraine. For Poroshenko government to agree on
federalization (which Minsk accords presuppose) means to lose face politically (Why to organize
Maydan in such cases, if the net result is a huge drop of the standard of living, loss of Crimea,
and federalization of Ukraine?), and they prefer military solution to the problem. The USA under
Trump administration are only happy to sell weapons to them (as well as coal to replace lost coal
from Donetsk region). And nuclear fuel to electrical stations inread of Russia. Meanwhile
economics is not improving and that also represents a political threat to Poroshenko, making push
for the military solution more probable.
Notable quotes:
"... Any agreement, however -- at least as far as the U.S. State Department is concerned -- would require that Russia must make the first move to ease tensions. ..."
"... Secretary Tillerson has made it abundantly clear that Russia must take the first steps to de-escalate violence and resolve this conflict by fully implementing the Minsk Accords." ..."
"... Dave Majumdar is the defense editor for ..."
"... . You can follow him on Twitter: ..."
"... This country is screwed, alas. Peacekeepers will not change much, but they could help stop shellings and thus help regular people who suffer the most. ..."
"... Strelkov came into Donbass on April 12, 2014 and the acting president Turchinov announced ATO (Anti terrorist operation) on April 7. The people of Donbass protested peacefully for months and no one wanted to talk with them. They sent tanks and jets instead. ..."
"... "And yes, his self-promotion as the "governor of Donetsk" was both illegal and unpopular with the locals." ..."
"... Indeed, that is why there is a civil war in Ukraine. "Red Cross officially declares Ukraine civil war" https://www.thelocal.ch/201... ..."
Any agreement, however -- at least as far as the U.S. State Department is concerned --
would require that Russia must make the first move to ease tensions. However, it is
unclear is Secretary of State Rex Tillerson or anyone in his department truly speaks for the
Trump Administration.
"It's important to be clear about U.S. policy towards the conflict: Crimea is Ukraine. The
Donbas is Ukraine. We will never accept trading one region of Ukraine for another. We will
never make a deal about Ukraine without Ukraine," John J. Sullivan, deputy secretary of state,
said during a speech in at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Diplomatic Academy in Kiev on
Feb.
21 . "To advance these fundamental goals, Secretary Tillerson appointed Ambassador Kurt
Volker as Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations in July of last year. And his mandate
is to break the deadlock with Russia over Ukraine. Secretary Tillerson has made it
abundantly clear that Russia must take the first steps to de-escalate violence and resolve this
conflict by fully implementing the Minsk Accords."
Time will tell if any progress will be made in solving the Donbas situation.
Dave Majumdar is the defense editor for The National Interest . You can follow
him on Twitter:@davemajumdar.
If that's the case, then America needs to pull it's own illegal occupation forces out of
eastern Syria ASAP too! Eastern Syria is Syria. Eastern Syria is NOT part of Kurdistan! What
a bunch of hypocrites.
"One potential approach -- which as been proposed by U.S. special representative to
Ukraine Kurt Volker -- is where peacekeepers would be deployed in phases while Ukraine
implements some of the measures it agreed to under the Minsk agreements."
It stipulates that Ukraine should complete a number of things, and by the end of it
Donbass will be returned to Ukraine. If you add phased peacekeepers to this it could work,
the peacekeepers would start between Donbass and Ukraine, and then move into Donbass and get
more control the more of the Minsk 2 agreement Ukraine completed.
The peacekeepers could not be NATO or Russian troops for each side to agree obviously
Europe and the US have nothing of value to offer to Ukraine because there's little to
exchange it for. There is no economy and too few natural resources to fight for. Thus,
Ukraine will remain a suitcase without a handle despite wet dreams of its ultra-nationalists
(should be represented in the troll section of this thread).
It will remain useless as an economical ally to Russia in the upcoming years because
Ukraine is divided within itself.
The only thing it will be good for, is to serve as an example for everybody on how foolish
it is to overthrow democratically elected governments for the sake of fairy tales.
The conflict there will be frozen for decades, as it was frozen in Moldova and Georgia.
Without Russian and European investments, there will be no economical development in
Ukraine.
This country is screwed, alas. Peacekeepers will not change much, but they could help
stop shellings and thus help regular people who suffer the most.
Vadim, if Ukraine is not important, why do you spend so much of your precious time writing
about it? Why does Russia keep financing the war in Donbass if its so uninteresting to invest
in Ukraine? Why did Russia steal Ukrainian gas in the Azov Sea? Or why does it steal
ukrainian coal in Donbass? Where did the machinery from the Donbass factories go, Vadim?
-The coal belongs to the people of Donbass, not Ukraine, and Ukraine itself banned buying
gas from these territories in hope that it will cause more misery to the civilians living
there, just like Ukraine stole their pensions and their social welfare in hope for causing
maximal suffering.
The Donbass is internationally recognized as part of Ukraine. Second Ukraine is not
obliged to pay for the Russian occupation of its territory. The occupation force is
responsible for everything that happens inside that territory, even the payment or not of
pensions.
That is a pure lie, the conflict between Donbass and Ukraine is a civil war. Russia is not
occupying those territories. And Donbass will return to Ukraine if they can follow thru on
the Minsk 2 agreement like they agreed to, but never will of course, because the
hyper-corrupt Ukrainian government need the legitimacy and distraction that war brings both
domestically to avoid coup and internationally as an excuse.
Strelkov, referring to the war he helped start in Donbas: "In the beginning, nobody there
wanted to fight."
Pro-Russian agitators like Pavel Gubarev tried to illegally take over government buildings
in E Ukraine, and also tried to organize protests, but they had little support from the local
population. The local population was cynical about Kiev, but they certainly weren't
interested in starting a civil war. That is why Strelkov and other Russians had to start the
war.
"but they certainly weren't interested in starting a civil war. That is why Strelkov
and other Russians had to start the war."
-Nobody wanted a war of course, that is one reason why the Kiev government became so
dependent on volunteer n4zists, they were the only one that was eager and willing to kill
their brothers at the whims of the unconstitutional coup regime. The average Ukrainian
soldiers didn't want to fight and a lot of the Donbass fighters came from defected Ukrainian
soldiers.
Again, all I have to do is point to Strelkov: "In the beginning, nobody there wanted to
fight."
"I dream of a Russia in its natural borders," he says. "At least those of 1939." He claims
to have been the one who convinced Putin to intervene militarily in Ukraine, at a time, he
says, when the Kremlin was still debating the proper approach to the country."
"I was the one who pulled the trigger for war," Strelkov boasts."
Doesn't matter at all what some commanders "boasts" , the war was started when the
unconstitutional and unelected government of Ukraine sent its army to crush the rebels.
Strelkov came into Donbass on April 12, 2014 and the acting president Turchinov
announced ATO (Anti terrorist operation) on April 7.
The people of Donbass protested peacefully for months and no one wanted to talk with them.
They sent tanks and jets instead.
"and also tried to organize protests, but they had little support from the local
population. "
Strelkov took Slavyansk on April 12 - that's not when he arrived. As for the ATO, yes, it
was announced on April 7, after armed separatists stormed regional government buildings in
Donetsk, Lugansk and Kharkov, raised Russian flags, and said they would hold an independence
referendum. What would Russia do if Karelia was taken over by pro-Finnish separatists? And
keep in mind, when the ATO was announced, Turchynov promised amnesty for separatists who laid
down arms.
No, the "people" of Donbass did not protest peacefully (Gubarev and others were not
representative of the people of Donbass). Gubarev and others repeatedly tried to seize
buildings and declare self-rule/independence. But polls during that time clearly showed that
people did not want independence, even if they were unhappy about Yanukovych being ousted
from the presidency. Public opinion did not really shift towards independence until after the
fire of Odessa and Mariupol, when Donbass regions were under separatist control and
influenced by Russian propaganda.
"Strelkov, referring to the war he helped start in Donbas: "In the beginning, nobody there
wanted to fight.""
-The civil war was started when the unelected and unconstitutional coup government sent
the army to kill the rebels in Donbass for just wanting their language rights protected.
"Pro-Russian agitators like Pavel Gubarev tried to illegally take over government
buildings in E Ukraine,"
-Pavel is a Ukrainian, and it is pretty far fetched to call it illegal to resist to an
illegal unconstitutional coup government.
I have not seen any proof that there was a coordinated coup to remove Yanukovych. On Feb
21st, Western powers got what they wanted when Yanukovych agreed to form a coalition
government with Yatsenyuk, Klitschko, and Tyahnybok (OK, maybe Tyahnbok wasn't they're first
choice) and have early elections. Yanukovych fled because the security forces abandoned him.
They most likely abandoned him because the Feb 21st agreement called for investigation into
violence on the Maidan, and they thought they would be blamed for everything.
I never said Gubarev wasn't Ukrainian. But he was clearly a pro-Russian agitator. And yes,
his self-promotion as the "governor of Donetsk" was both illegal and unpopular with the
locals.
He was in Kharkiv, but not on an official visit. He was fleeing. And sorry, but protests
attended by a few thousand people do not mean that Gubarev had widespread support.
"And yes, his self-promotion as the "governor of Donetsk" was both illegal and unpopular
with the locals."
-Hardly illegal, quite the opposite, more like it was a duty to resist an unconstitutional
coup government. And while I have not found a opinion poll on rebel controlled areas, the
closes I found suggest that the rebels has a very high support among the Donbass
population.
"An opinion poll that was taken on the day of the referendum and the day before by a
correspondent of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Washington Post, and five other
media outlets found that of those people who intended to vote, 94.8% would vote for
independence. The poll did not claim to have scientific precision, but was carried out to get
a basis from which to judge the outcome of the referendum, given that independent observers
were not present to monitor it. Even with those who said they would not vote counted in, a
65.6% majority supported separation from Ukraine"
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/...
You should probably try reading the actual article, instead of quoting Wikipedia. The
journalists polled 186 people, and of those 110 supported independence. That's a tiny and
insignificant sample size. People voting for independence had been going through a war
started by pro-Russian separatists, they were under the martial law of pro-Russian
separatists, and their only news was Russian propaganda telling them that Kiev was all Nazis
who wanted to exterminate Russia. Also, as you no doubt saw while reading Wikipedia, polls
taken before Strelkov and the others started the war showed that the locals were not
supportive of independence.
" them that Kiev was all Nazis who wanted to exterminate Russia"
-Pretty close to the truth actually, Kiev certainly did and are doing everything they can
do exterminate the local civilians in Donbas, but stealing their pensions, cutting of social
pay, hindering and stoping food, medicine and water.
Actually I mentioned that in my comment, there are no opinion polls but the closes we get
is the opinion polls from Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the Washington Post, which shows a
massive support for the rebels. Which is no surprise as we are talking about an illegal
unconstitutional pro-nazi government seizing power.
"tthe locals were not supportive of independence.
-The support for rebels are as all sources show quite high, of course nobody wanted the
war, but that was forced on them by the unelected coup government. If Ukraine had just
language right of the Donbass people there would have been no war.
No, Kiev was not filled with Nazis. Russia engaged in fearmongering to get Crimeans to
vote for independence. And what happened? The Ukrainian Army in Crimea resisted all
provocations to start a war. Kiev thought that the international community would come to its
aid. Remember the presidential and parliamentary elections of 2014? Svoboda and Right Sector
barely had any public support at all. The lie that Kiev was filled with Nazis was just that -
a lie.
Again, your Frankfurter Allgemeine poll was less than 200 people who happened to be
willing to talk to Western journalists. Only 110 of them said they wanted independence, and
this was after living under martial law and Russian propaganda for months. There were plenty
of actual scientific polls conducted in April before the "referendum" which showed that there
was no support for secession - at most, people wanted decentralisation.
Well, depends on what you mean with proof I suppose, is an American marxist oligarchs
admitting they spent millions to training demonstrators to subvert Ukrainian democracy
proof?
Is the fact that 100% of NATO controlled media support the Ukrainian opposition proof?
Is that fact that USA leaders went down to Ukraine and gave out cookies to the undemocratic
opposition and held speeches encouraging them to overthrow their government proof?
Is leaked phone calls from USA telling Ukraine which leaders should be installed(which later
were installed) proof?
Is Obama openly admitting they handled the "transition of power" in Ukraine proof?
Is the fact that the fascist and ultra-nationalist groups used used to overthrow the
democratic government of Ukraine(OUN) known CIA assets proof? I mean, basically, it was the
most blatant coup in world history. But if you literally want the USA government to totally
in details describe and admit to every detail you will just have to wait a few years or
decades until it is released in a FOI report like the fact that USA created ISIS.
- I'm assuming you mean the $5 billion the US invested over 20+ years? Russia invested $40
billion in the same time frame - 8x as much as the US (see Sergey Glazyev's March 24, 2014
interview with National Review). Financial investments in democratic institutions are not
proof of a coup, but nice try.
- NATO controlled media? There's no such thing.
- Why is it such a big deal with Nuland giving out cookies?
- John McCain didn't encourage them to "overthrow their government". When did he say that?
He said "We are here to support your just cause, the sovereign right of Ukraine to determine
its own destiny freely and independently. And the destiny you seek lies in Europe."
- Did you know that government officials from European countries and the EU also
encouraged the protesters?
- Nuland and the US were clearly operating to keep the opposition united, and yes, they
pushed their interests by encouraging Yatsenyuk to take the lead. But Yatsenyuk, Klitschko,
and Tyahnybok were already established as opposition politicians in general, and had been
accepted by the Maidan protesters before the US arrived on the scene. And besides, the Feb
21st agreement was what the US wanted - it would have placed those three figures in a
coalition government with Yanukovych, followed by early elections. All of that considered,
the fact that they emerged as leaders after Yanukovych left is really not surprising.
- Obama admitted what everyone knew - the US had entered into the crisis on the side of
the EU to push Yanukovych to listen to the protesters. Russia, of course, was pushing
Yanukovych to crack down. I remember when RT and Sputnik tried to twist it to mean Obama was
claiming the US was behind a coup - it was the most blatant spin/propaganda I've ever seen.
Go back and watch Obama's interview with Fareed Zakaria.
- You'll have to provide at least an ounce of proof that ultranationalist, far-right, or
neo-Nazi groups in Ukraine are "CIA assets". Otherwise you're just another baseless
conspiracy theorist.
- Yes, the US and USSR (Russia) have engaged in regime changes in the past. There's zero
proof though, that there was a coup in Ukraine.
lol, yes, that is what is called a coup. Not only a coup but the most blatant coup in
history I would say, I can only imagine if Russia funded trained and funded demonstrators
Mexico, Russian leaders went to Mexico handing out cookies and giving support to the
demonstrators, and ordering the opposition which leaders should be installed after the coup
and so forth,and then afterwards openly admitting it did it.Hilarious. But I guess you are
paid troll, and even when FYI releases information where USA planned the entire thing in
detail, like it has with its creation of ISIS and al-qaeda you will deny it still.
Here is the head of Stratfor by the way, the "Shadow CIA" saying the exact same thing,
xD
"Head of Stratfor, 'Private CIA,' Says Overthrow of Yanukovych Was 'The Most Blatant Coup
in History'"
http://www.washingtonsblog....
Watch the video of Obama's interview (
https://www.youtube.com/wat... - he clearly states "Yanukovych then fleeing after we had
brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine." In other words, he openly admits to helping
form the February 21st "Agreement on settlement of political crisis in Ukraine". Obviously
he's not talking about the Rada removing Yanukovych from office.
Nuland's conversation backs this up. It shows the Obama administration was helping
Yatsenyuk, Klitschko, and Tyahnybok stay united. Yanukovych was individually offering them
posts in his government. The US was pushing them to resist those offers. This culminated in
the February 21st agreement, where the US and EU got additional concessions from Yanukovych -
a coalition government with those three leaders, early elections, and investigations of the
violence on Maidan.
As for the head of Stratfor, George Friedman went on to write an article in which he said
that his quote was completely taken out of context (
http://www.businessinsider.... .
You think handing out cookies means people are funding coups. I'll have to remember that
when giving cookies to my children.
Russia does not steal anything, the Crimean people voted to join Russia and that is their
democratic right.
"With two studies out of the way, both Western-based, it seems without question that the
vast majority of Crimeans do not feel they were duped into voting for annexation, and that
life with Russia will be better for them and their families than life with Ukraine. A year
ago this week, 83% of Crimeans went to the polling stations and almost 97% expressed support
for reunification with their former Soviet parent."
https://www.forbes.com/site...
Crimea was a coup, initiated on February 27, 2014 when armed/masked militants (Spetsnaz?)
stormed the Crimean parliamentary building, raised the Russian flag over the building, and
barricaded themselves inside. During this occupation, an emergency parliamentary session was
called. It is unknown how many MPs participated - a number have said they were not there,
even though they were claimed to have been there. But in that emergency session, the Crimean
PM (Anatolii Mohyliov) was illegally removed and replaced with an unpopular pro-Russian MP
(Sergey Aksyonov). Aksyonov immediately called for the independence referendum. Just to
emphasize, all of this happened while the parliamentary building was under armed occupation
from unknown pro-Russian forces (most likely Spetsnaz), and against the will of the current
Crimean and Ukrainian governments. Interestingly, just the day before (February 26), the
Crimean government had told pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian protesters outside the building
that there would be no effort to seek independence from Ukraine.
Derp, there is quite literally a source right above you debunking your lies and linking to
several USA and Germany opinion polls verifying that the result of the referendum was
reflective of the democratic will of the Crimean people.
I didn't dispute the poll. What I said is that before the referendum Russia instigated a
coup, suppressed protests, and created a sense of fear in Crimea that drove people to think
Kiev was filled with Nazis. Of course they voted to join Russia after that.
Isn't that what happened throughout Ukraine when "protestors" (more accurately thugs) took
over the Regional Administration buildings and occupied them? Well, before the coup in Kiev,
numerous government buildings in other regions were occupied.
You said that it was a big propaganda exercise to portray being pro-Ukraine as being
pro-Nazi. Then why was the Euromaidan far right? Why were the most prominent activists and
leaders of the "revolution" associated with Svodoba and Right Sector? Why were there thugs
destroying monuments to Lenin? Why were many activists extolling Stepan Bandera and Roman
Shukhevych?
The people on the Maidan behaved like far-right lunatics and brigands. No wonder why there
it isn't difficult to conceive of them as Nazis.
If I were a woman in Crimea, I would be grateful that I am not living under the jackboot
of the Maidan thugs.
"... Nevertheless, the US retains its political clients in the Baltic , the Balkans and Eastern and Central European regimes. However, these clients are unruly and often eager to confront a nuclear-armed Russia, confident that the US-NATO will intervene, in spite of the probability of being vaporized in a nuclear Armageddon. ..."
"... Despite President Trump's campaign promises to 'pull-back', the US has re-entered Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria in a big way. The Trump shift from global containment and realism to 'rollback and aggression' against Russia and China has failed to secure a positive response from past and present allies. ..."
"... China has increased economic ties with the EU. Russia and the EU share strategic gas and oil trade ties. Domestically, the US military budget deepens the fiscal deficit and drastically threatens social spending. This creates a scenario of increasing US isolation with its futile aggression against a dynamic and changing world. ..."
Russia has reduced and challenged the US pursuit of a uni-polar global empire following the
recovery of its sovereignty and economic growth after the disaster of the 1990's. With the
ascent of President Putin, the US-EU empire lost their biggest and most lucrative client and
source of naked pillage.
Nevertheless, the US retains its political clients in the Baltic , the Balkans and
Eastern and Central European regimes. However, these clients are unruly and often eager to
confront a nuclear-armed Russia, confident that the US-NATO will intervene, in spite of the
probability of being vaporized in a nuclear Armageddon.
Washington's efforts to recapture and return Russia to vassalage have failed. Out of
frustration Washington has resorted to a growing series of failed provocations and conflicts
between the US and the EU, within the US between Trump and the Democrats; and among the
warlords controlling the Trump cabinet.
Germany has continued lucrative trade ties with Russia, despite US sanctions, underscoring
the decline of US power to dictate policy to the European Union. The Democratic Party and the
ultra-militaristic Clinton faction remains pathologically nostalgic for a return to the 1990's
Golden Age of Pillage (before Putin). Clinton's faction is fixated on the politics of
revanchism . As a result, they vigorously fought against candidate Donald Trump's campaign
promises to pursue a new realistic understanding with Russia. The Russia-Gate Investigation is
not merely a domestic electoral squabble led by hysterical 'liberals.' What is a stake is
nothing less than a profound conflict over the remaking of the US global map. Trump recognized
and accepted the re-emergence of Russia as a global power to be 'contained', while the
Democrats campaigned to roll-back reality, overthrow Putin and return to the robber baron
orgies of the Clinton years. As a result of this ongoing strategic conflict, Washington is
unable to develop a coherent global strategy, which in turn has further weakened US influence
in the EU in Europe and elsewhere.
Nevertheless, the intense Democratic onslaught against Trump's initial foreign policy
pronouncements regarding Russia succeeded in destroying his 'pivot to realism' and facilitated
the rise of a fanatical militaristic faction within his cabinet, which have intensified the
anti-Russia policies of the Clintonite Democrats. In less than a year, all of Trump's realist
advisers and cabinet members have been purged and replaced by militarists. Their hard core
confrontational anti-Russia policy has become the platform for launching a global military
strategy based on vast increases in military spending, demands that the EU nations increase
their military budgets, and open opposition to an EU-centered military alliance, such as the
one recently proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron.
Despite President Trump's campaign promises to 'pull-back', the US has re-entered
Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria in a big way. The Trump shift from global containment and realism
to 'rollback and aggression' against Russia and China has failed to secure a positive response
from past and present allies.
China
has increased economic ties with the EU. Russia and the EU share strategic gas and oil trade
ties. Domestically, the US military budget deepens the fiscal deficit and drastically threatens
social spending. This creates a scenario of increasing US isolation with its futile aggression
against a dynamic and changing world.
"... He basically is a Senator for Israel. He totally supports the Israeli foreign policy viewpoint, which is a very hawkish, if you were a Republican you would call him a neocon. ..."
"... Schumer criticized the Obama administration for abstaining on this very basic resolution, which every other country voted for. So the US was still a pariah, because the US didn't vote for it, it just abstained on it. But to Schumer that was not enough, he wanted it to be completely vetoed, because anything that Israel does is sacrosanct, and anyone who criticizes it, in Schumer's eyes, is not someone he wants to ally with politically, so he'd rather affectively ally with Trump. ..."
"... The most recent showing of that allegiance was last month, when Schumer supported Trump's decision to launch an air strike on an Air Force base in Syria, something Israel also strongly supported. ..."
"... The criticism of the Democratic Party is it is the Wall Street and war party. That is Chuck Schumer, and so for him to have this kind of pretend progressive image, it's just so obviously fraudulent. ..."
"... Chuck Schumer has replaced Joe Lieberman as the Senator representing Israeli interests in the Senate. US interests are usually secondary to his machinations ..."
"... Great development and exposure of this hillary-look-alike. Love the phrase 'pretend progressive,' as it describes Schumer to a T. Great piece. ..."
"... Schumer and Clinton must be understood in relation to Israel. Israel to both of them are sacrosant. Israel can do no wrong. Both these two war hawks for Israel takes their orders from Netanyahu. He is like a vice president for Israel in the United States. ..."
"... Schumer (sic) is a scum bucket who ought to be trounced out of the Senate, through the revolving door to his sinecure on Wall Street. Schumer's ultimately loyalties are to his corporate benefactors on Wall Street. Which too is his constituency. ..."
"... Schumer is a puppet for the deep state and the deep state may have some "dirt" on him in order to keep him in line...and his famous quote about the security state: "they have 6 ways to Sunday to get back at you" or something to this effect...makes me wonder what he knows? ..."
"... Israel is the driving force behind disruption of the middle east...the more the middle east is neutralized, the better for Israel...Chuck is one of their best foot soldiers ..."
"... Generals gathered in their masses, just like witches at black masses. Evil minds that plot destruction, sorcerer of death's construction. In the fields the bodies burning, as the war machine keeps turning. Death and hatred to mankind, poisoning their brainwashed minds...Oh lord yeah! ..."
"... Politicians hide themselves away They only started the war Why should they go out to fight? They leave that role to the poor ..."
"... Time will tell on their power minds Making war just for fun Treating people just like pawns in chess Wait `till their judgement day comes, yeah! ♪ ..."
Thomas Hedges: In the 2007 book he published, Positively American, in the midst of his campaign against the war, Schumer
admitted that his opposition that year and the year before, was as much about ending a failed policy as it was about getting votes.
In reality Schumer had been one of the war's most ardent supporters, beyond his public display against the war carefully timed for
the 2006 Congressional elections, Schumer in fact pitted much of the blame on Iraqis themselves, arguing that Sunis, Shiites and
Kurds seemed more interested in starting a civil war in Iraq than in receiving help from the Americans and constructing any democratic
central government.
He even said, that in a similar future situation, he might vote again to authorize the use of force against a country like Iraq.
"Today," he wrote in his book, "I still believe that when our country is under attack the chief executive deserves a degree of latitude,
if God forbid, we were attacked again, I could well vote to give it to a future President, Democrat or Republican." And when a Real
News correspondent pressed Schumer in 2007 on US reparations to the Iraqi people, this is what he had to say.
Sam Husseini: Do we owe something to the Iraqi people other than just getting out? Do we owe them reparations for having
brought about this war?
Chuck Schumer: I don't believe that.
Ben Norton: It's hard to find a Democrat that's more gung-ho about war than Chuck Schumer. Not only did he support the
Iraq war, and fearmonger about weapons of mass destruction, he tepidly criticized the Bush administration for how it carried out
the war.
Thomas Hedges: In fact, tepid criticism seems to be Schumer at his most radical. In general, he is someone who supports
hard-line policy decisions, atoning for mistakes only years down the line, and usually because it's politically expedient to do so,
as in an election is about to take place.
Chuck Schumer: If you don't give up and you keep fighting and you're right, you win!
Thomas Hedges: In his early days, Schumer wasn't as focused on foreign policy, in the years before 911 would shift America's
attention to the Middle East, Congressman Schumer, along with the new Democrats like Bill Clinton among others, would exploit the
crime scare of the 1990's in order to gain more votes and more power. During those years, Schumer supported the Omnibus Crime Bill
of 1994, which spiked the prison population. And in 1995 he sponsored the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act, which became the foundation
from which the Patriot Act six years later, was built.
Ben Norton: When it comes to the war on terror he was a very enthusiastic supporter and remains so. He voted for the Patriot
Act, and again this is a supposed Democratic leader, who voted for the Bush administration to take away Americans civil liberties.
Thomas Hedges: In the years straddling 911, he supported many of the same policies Republicans supported. From his tough
on crime approach to supporting war in the Middle East, to defending the surveillance of Muslim groups in New York after 911. Schumer
and the GOP had very few differences, in fact despite shedding tears at a press conference earlier this year after the Muslim ban
that Trump implemented, Schumer himself had proposed something eerily similar.
Ben Norton: In November of 2015, not that long ago, less than two years ago, Schumer also said that the US government should
consider a so called pause on the re-settlement of Syrian refugees. He also, in one of the most egregious yet under reported aspects
of Schumer, previously said that torture should be considered in some places, and he said that, "Oh well if you oppose torture, you
say this now, but you need to put yourself in the shoes of people in these particular situations etc." So he really left torture
on the table.
Before Trump was President, he had actually donated money to Schumer, that of course, represents something, this is not a progressive
Democrat. Schumer actually represents the segment, the influential powerful segment of the Democratic Party, that has helped pave
the way for Donald Trump to carry out many of the policies he's already implementing.
Thomas Hedges: But for voters who have paid attention to Schumer for a long time, the Senator's policy choices are anything
but surprising.
Kevin Zeese:He basically is a Senator for Israel. He totally supports the Israeli foreign policy viewpoint, which
is a very hawkish, if you were a Republican you would call him a neocon.
Ariel Gold: He has come out in strong opposition to the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement and was very supportive
of New York Governor Cuomo's order to ban BDS in New York state, and Schumer made a direct statement in support of that.
Thomas Hedges: Schumer's staunch support for Israel has prompted him for example, to criticize the Obama administration,
when in 2016, the United States abstained from a UN Security Council resolution re-affirming something the Council had almost unanimously
upheld since 1979. Namely, that Israel's settlement building projects on Palestinian land violated international law.
Ben Norton:Schumer criticized the Obama administration for abstaining on this very basic resolution, which every other
country voted for. So the US was still a pariah, because the US didn't vote for it, it just abstained on it. But to Schumer that
was not enough, he wanted it to be completely vetoed, because anything that Israel does is sacrosanct, and anyone who criticizes
it, in Schumer's eyes, is not someone he wants to ally with politically, so he'd rather affectively ally with Trump.
Thomas Hedges:The most recent showing of that allegiance was last month, when Schumer supported Trump's decision to
launch an air strike on an Air Force base in Syria, something Israel also strongly supported.
Chuck Schumer: On Syria, I salute the professionalism and skill of our armed forces, who took action last night. The
people of Syria have suffered untold horrors and violence at the hands of Bashar al-Assad and his supporters in Tehran and in
Putin's Russia, making sure that Assad knows when he commits such despicable atrocities he will pay a price, is the right thing
to do.
Thomas Hedges: But perhaps Schumer's greatest show of allegiance to Israel, was his decision to oppose the Iran nuclear
deal, without which experts have warned, would put the United States and Iran on a collision course.
Ben Norton: Under President Obama, Schumer was one of the most prominent Democrats to oppose the Iran nuclear deal, and
he was of course fearmongering about Iran, which to him is the devil incarnate, and he actually made factually false statements about
the nuclear agreement, and claimed that it would allow Iran in 10 years to produce nuclear weapons etc.
Thomas Hedges: Leading up to his decision, Schumer reassured Zionists that he was consulting the most credentialed men
in Washington, including Henry Kissinger, an opponent of the deal, and the man who orchestrated the violent coup in Chile that toppled
its democratically elected leader, as well as the architect of the very bloody Vietnam war.
Chuck Schumer: I spent some time with Dr. Kissinger, I'm spending time with excellence.
Ariel Gold: So it threatened to pull us into another war, and we're back in that threat again with Trump winning the election
we hear a lot about undoing the Iran nuclear deal, and it's one of the things that Israel has been saying they would like to see
come out of the Trump administration.
Thomas Hedges: Schumer's willingness to oppose the deal early on, which created an opening for other undecided Democrats
to do the same, is a strong display of support for Israel.
News Anchor: Schumer's support here really would have been key for the White House, but coming out overnight against
this deal saying in a statement quote, "I will vote to disapprove the agreement, not because I believe war is a viable or desirable
option, not to challenge the path of dis-plomacy it is because, I believe Iran will not change."
Thomas Hedges: It also put him in yet the same camp as current President Donald Trump in terms of pursuing a Middle East
policy that is in line with Washington's most hawkish advocates. In the end, Schumer's a friend of the neo conservative foreign policy
agenda. While he may cry over Trump's Muslim ban and purport to have the same inclinations as America's most progressive members
of the Senate, he's fundamentally in agreement with the United States forceful efforts abroad.
Kevin Zeese:The criticism of the Democratic Party is it is the Wall Street and war party. That is Chuck Schumer, and
so for him to have this kind of pretend progressive image, it's just so obviously fraudulent.
Thomas Hedges: As the United States nears yet another arms deal with Middle East ally Saudi Arabia, this time for
a hundred billion dollars, and coupled with its four billion dollar annual aid to Israel, we can expect Schumer not only to support
an even more militarized Middle East, but to continue to rail against countries like Iran that pose a threat to US and Israel's hegemony
in the region.
Chuck Schumer has replaced Joe Lieberman as the Senator representing Israeli interests in the Senate. US interests are
usually secondary to his machinations
Schumer and Clinton must be understood in relation to Israel. Israel to both of them are sacrosant. Israel can do no wrong.
Both these two war hawks for Israel takes their orders from Netanyahu. He is like a vice president for Israel in the United States.
"I only take up causes in which I know I'll find no allies. And often I wait for a cause to become successful before
attacking it."
Schumer (sic) is a scum bucket who ought to be trounced out of the Senate, through the revolving door to his sinecure on
Wall Street. Schumer's ultimately loyalties are to his corporate benefactors on Wall Street. Which too is his constituency.
Anything in the way of progressiveness that you suggest will be only, like Obama's eloquent blackness, to run cover for favors
for the war party. Which at this late date ought also be christened the "hastening to collective extinction" party.
Schumer is a puppet for the deep state and the deep state may have some "dirt" on him in order to keep him in line...and
his famous quote about the security state: "they have 6 ways to Sunday to get back at you" or something to this effect...makes
me wonder what he knows?
Israel is the driving force behind disruption of the middle east...the more the middle east is neutralized, the better
for Israel...Chuck is one of their best foot soldiers
♪ Generals gathered in their masses,
just like witches at black masses.
Evil minds that plot destruction,
sorcerer of death's construction.
In the fields the bodies burning,
as the war machine keeps turning.
Death and hatred to mankind,
poisoning their brainwashed minds...Oh lord yeah!
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor
Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait `till their judgement day comes, yeah! ♪
"... But in recent decades, both Mr. Hall and Mr. Johnson argued, Russian and American interferences in elections have not been morally equivalent. American interventions have generally been aimed at helping non-authoritarian candidates challenge dictators or otherwise promoting democracy. Russia has more often intervened to disrupt democracy or promote authoritarian rule, they said. ..."
"... Equating the two, Mr. Hall says, "is like saying cops and bad guys are the same because they both have guns -- the motivation matters." ..."
Is the CIA So Bad that Even When It Tells the Truth It Adds-In Lies?
On Sunday, February 17 th , I was surprised to see in the reliably
neoconservative newspaper, New York Times, an 'opinion'-article headlined with the
distinctively non-neoconservative title, "Russia Isn't the Only One Meddling in Elections. We Do It, Too."
But, then, I got to the neocon core, in the article itself:
But in recent decades, both Mr. Hall and Mr. Johnson argued, Russian and American
interferences in elections have not been morally equivalent. American interventions have
generally been aimed at helping non-authoritarian candidates challenge dictators or otherwise
promoting democracy. Russia has more often intervened to disrupt democracy or promote
authoritarian rule, they said.
Equating the two, Mr. Hall says, "is like saying cops and bad guys are the same because
they both have guns -- the motivation matters."
That's just a typical neocon lie -- reality turned upside-down, black-is-white and
white-is-black.
When the CIA hired Iranian mercenaries to rebel against and overthrow the progressive
democratically elected Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh in 1953 and installed
there a dictatorship (which lasted till 1979); and did the same to overthrow and replace the
progressive democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Arbenz in 1954; and, more
recently, in 2009, helped Honduras's aristocracy to overthrow that country's progressive
democratically elected President Manuel
Zelaya , and to cement and make permanent their new and fascist regime; and, in 2014,
perpetrated a brutal coup in Ukraine overthrowing that country's democratically elected but
corrupt (like all prior post-communist Ukrainian Presidents were) President Viktor
Yanukovych -- even the Soviets (including the pre-1991 and pre-independent Russians)
weren't that bad; and a
1992 classic BBC documentary about the CIA's having set up in Western Europe during the
Cold War numerous deadly terrorist incidents which were designed so as to be blamed on
'communists', makes clear, that the US CIA is a spiritual implant into the US Government, of
Adolf Hitler's Nazi (but now American) Gehlen Organization -- a darling of the
CIA Director Alan Dulles, and which is still today the CIA's spirit.
But, even that hypocrisy misses the essentially fascist nature of America's secret-police
agencies, because America's Presidents are now reliably pro-fascist, and on many occasions are
even pro- racist -fascist, or pro-"nazi" (standing out to defend the nazi ideology
itself). At the U.N., both President
Obama and President
Trump have stood America up publicly as being one of only three countries ( in Obama's
case ) and then of only two countries ( in Trump's
case ) publicly defending nazism. Furthermore,
on one day (31 October 2015), twice in close succession , the U.N. Secretary-General
publicly criticized Obama, though not by name, for opposing and insisting on blocking,
democracy in Syria. Whereas Russia insists upon a democratic and united -- instead of
ethnically broken-up -- Syria, and polls amongst Syrians consistently show that the vast
majority of Syrians insist upon the same thing, the US Government not only does everything
possible to block it, but has the gall to deny the blatant fact that it's
seeking to replace Syria's secular non-sectarian Government, by a fundamentalist-Sunni
Government that will do the Sauds' bidding (and the bidding of America's oil-giants) .
However, that February 17 thNew York Times article is deceptive not
merely on account of its holier-than-thou admission of the CIA's supposedly 'past history' of
badness and its presumption of today's Russia being almost as bad as was the Soviet Union.
Actually, the article includes several other lies, such as are exposed in these three articles
about how American billionaires systematically robbed Russia during the 1990s:
Those articles offered at least some of the explanation as to why America's billionaires (at
least the ones who care about this matter at all) hate Vladimir Putin: they had loved Boris
Yeltsin because he allowed them to rape Russia, but Putin put a stop to it.
So, while millions of Americans, who subscribe to the New York Times, will learn the lie,
that (and here is the regime's basic message) internationally 'we're the good guys against the
bad guys', there's no more reason to trust that, than there was when the same lies came from
Joseph Goebbels's shop, at which time, the US itself was a progressive country, heading in
progressive directions, under President FDR. Bill Clinton and the post-Clinton Democratic Party
have repudiated that direction for their Party; and, now, in international relations, the US is
solidly fascist, in both Parties. The CIA lies, as usual, indistinguishably differently when
it's run by a Democratic President and Congress, than when it's run by a Republican President
and Congress. In international relations, it's the same regime, regardless: full of the same
lies. And that historical fact, and ongoing but unpublished news, is not to be found to be
accepted in the Times 's masthead-lie,
"All the News That's Fit to Print" -- or else the truth itself, just isn't "Fit to Print."
It's fit to print here (and without paying a subscription), but how many people even read here?
This explains how the regime protects itself, against democracy -- by hiding what's
essential.
So one year ago McMaster was under attack and survived. Note that this was the time of
appointment of the Special Prosecutor which changed the dynamics, probably preserving his scalp.
This time might be different.
The Afghanistan strategy McMaster is pushing, with the support of Defense Secretary James
Mattis, would send roughly 3,000-5,000 U.S. and NATO troops to Afghanistan, according to a
separate source familiar with the internal deliberations. These troops would be sent to help
bulk up the Afghan National Security Forces, which, after years of U.S. assistance, are still
struggling against the Taliban, al Qaeda, and a small Islamic State presence in the
country.
According to the Washington Post , the new strategy "would authorize the Pentagon, not the White
House, to set troop numbers in Afghanistan and give the military far broader authority to use
airstrikes to target Taliban militants." The hope is that by increasing pressure on the
Taliban, it will force them to the negotiating table with more favorable terms for Kabul and
Washington. Sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan follows a decision made last year by
then-President Barack Obama, who
announced in July that 8,400 U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan through January 2017
because of the "precarious" security situation there, undoing his previous plan to draw down to
5,500 by the time he left office.
The Post reported that "those opposed to the plan have begun to refer derisively to
the strategy as 'McMaster's War,'" and this particular criticism is repeated in a handful of
negative stories about McMaster that have already cropped up this week. For those plugged into
the dicey world of Trump administration power plays, this slur has the hallmarks of a hit job
by Bannon's team. (It's worth noting that the same people who oppose McMaster are no fans of
Mattis's moderating influence on the president, but he's seen as politically untouchable for
now.)
Marion Maréchal-Le Pen, the right-wing French politician, delivered a solid speech to CPAC today. It's embedded
above. It was not the usual American conservative boilerplate. For example, check out this passage:
To open oneself to the outside, you must have a solid core. To welcome, you have to remain, and to share, you must
have something to offer. Without nation, and without family, the limits of the common good, natural law, and
collective morality disappears, as the reign of egoism continues.
Today, even children have now become merchandise. We hear now in the public debate, we have the right to order a
child from a catalog, we have the right to rent a woman's womb, we have the right to deprive a child of a mother or
father. No you don't! A child is not a "right". Is this the freedom that we want? No. We don't want this atomized
world of individuals without gender, without fathers, without mothers, and without nation.
She went on to condemn euthanasia, gender theory, and transhumanism. Le Pen said that the fight cannot be political
alone, but must take place in culture, in media, and in the education system. She ended like this:
I finish with a Mahler quote I like very much, a quote which sums up conservatism in modernity: 'Tradition is not
the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire."
I like that quote very much too:
"Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire." -- Gustav Mahler.
#BenedictOption
Michael Brendan
Dougherty picked out the most unusual thing about her speech
: how it inadvertently revealed how very, very
Protestant most American conservatism is. Check out his short reaction piece for the details. That is what occurred to
me as well, especially having just returned from a week in France. Even though
The Benedict Option
was written for an American readership, I find it so much easier to discuss it with
French and Italian Catholics, for reasons that I have not been able to figure out. Hearing Le Pen in an American context
really brought that out. Even American Catholics are a lot more Protestant in how they think politically than they
realize.
I don't say this as a put-down; it's what you would expect from people raised in an overwhelmingly Protestant nation,
one built on Protestant, classic-liberal principles. But there it is. My friend Fred Gion, a Catholic and political
conservative in Paris, told me over a decade ago that the arguments in my book
Crunchy Cons,
which was being
attacked by many US conservatives for being crypto-liberal, made perfect sense to European conservatives.
Continental conservatives in the Le Pen mold are more traditionalist, focusing on natural law, religion, and culture.
Conservative US Protestants share a lot of the views of European conservatives, but there seems to be among
conservatives from Catholic cultures a deeper sense of order unifying these principles. There also tends to be much more
skepticism of the free market and individualism.
Readers who have thought more about this than I have: tell me why this is. Which principles define conservative
politics in Britain and America as more Protestant than conservative politics on the continent? Let's talk about this --
but anybody, Protestant or Catholic, who wants to sneer at the other, keep it to yourself.
I agree with this from Dougherty as well:
And I have a warning for those who would warm to [Le Pen's speech] uncritically. As my career grants me
friendships with other conservatives across Europe, I notice the tendency in them and in myself to idealize or
project hopes onto the conservatives in other nations.
My Irish and
English friends tend to be far more positive about Trump than I am. And I have been far more positive about some of
their would-be champions than they can be. Unfamiliarity breeds fantasy.
This is true. I was asked quite a bit about Trump while I was in France. It was interesting to me
that most of my interlocutors regarded him ideally, in contrast to Emmanuel Macron, whom they detested. I could tell
that folks didn't really understand why I was so cool on Trump. I bet that things would be exactly reversed in the
matter of Marion Maréchal-Le Pen (but not her secular nationalist aunt Marine, whom I find unappealing!).
The main reason why nothing ever gets done in the Beltway is because the two-party system has strangled
everything. It is an archaic system which cries out for reform.
Hear! Hear! Three or four parties doing
some honest horse trading would serve us much better.
'Look, you know we're never going to agree to X, but, none of us alone have sufficient strength to form a
government, so, we could give you Y if you'll go along with Z, and pretty much all of us agree on Q.'
Any way there are a lot reasons that Trump is still unpopular in a nation with ~4% unemployment.
The
European country with the lowest unemployment rate is the Czech Republic (also with good economic growth and
tied for the second-lowest Gini index in the world), and they're also the most ethnocentric and, in a value
neutral sense, the most opposed to ethnic diversity. Denmark and Switzerland among others have also seen
major
reactions against ethnic diversification, in spite of being model high performing social democracies.
I don't know what they think about Trump per se in the Czech Republic or Denmark, I doubt they care for him at
all, but I do think it's a mistake to reduce all concerns about ethnicity and identity to economics. (As noted,
it's also a major mistake to elide all anti-liberal, ethnic-tribalist politicians together. Trump is not Marine
Le Pen, much to his discredit, and he's a cut below most other major cultural-reactionary leaders in Europe as
well, both in terms of ideology and personal character).
Yes, as a commenter above noted, I have to wonder where you found these pro-Trump Frenchmen? That alone gives
me pause about their supposedly Catholic ways. I get that there can be cultural differences that make the grass
look greener on the other hill. But they are seeing green where even their fellow countrymen see an
orange-colored blight. Worry.
I think the difference between American Protestant "conservatives" and European Catholic conservatives is
rather simple: the latter are steeped in the "Tory" benevolent paternalism of the social justice encyclicals of
the modern papacy, which, though not overtly socialistic, are extraordinarily concerned with the social
responsibilities of the "owners" and the rights and dignities of the "laborers." Those encyclicals totally and
completely reject unregulated free-market capitalism, albeit favoring entrepreneurship. The model of capitalism
they seem to embrace is called "distributism."
New ideas, good or bad, achieve escape velocity more easily where traditions are weak. Just as ideas can be
good or bad, traditions can be stultifying or sustaining. Protestant culture developed in rebellion against an
established culture and any time the dust begins to settle it can be stirred up again by rebels referring to
founding principles (inner light, congregationalism, every man his own priest, etc.)
My preference is for
protestantism as a personal mode of existence but I feel that a successful society will probably have a strong,
stiffening admixture of catholicism.
I'm not really religious and I'm trying to abstract protestantism and catholicism a bit from their formal
identities. I think that is okay if understood in the same spirit that Rod says that the United States is a
protestant culture and that this influences even American Catholics. I use upper and lower case letters to
differentiate confessing members of religions from general tendencies and mental dispositions.
Walter Bagheot once said that a reason the British political experience had been happier and more successful
than the French was that the British were more stupid. From the essay:
"In fact, what we opprobriously call 'stupidity,' though not an enlivening quality in common society, is
nature's favorite resource for preserving steadiness of conduct and consistency of opinion; it enforces
concentration: people who learn slowly, learn only what they must. The best security for people's doing their
duty is, that they should not know anything else to do; the best security for fixedness of opinion is, that
people should be incapable of comprehending what is to be said on the other side."
Bagheot doesn't just mention the French and the English, he also compares Greece to Rome. And in Bagheot's
formulation the inquisitive and experimental virtues are given to the Catholic French and steadiness assigned
to Protestant Great Britain Possibly a reason to look for a deeper more accurate division than protestant and
catholic.
Within the same TAC site, it's interesting how
Bill Wirtz
had a polar opposite reaction to La Pen's CPAC speech. Wirtz's obsession with Jean-Marie Le
Pen's Holocaust quote (which must be
contextualized
) notwithstanding, there is a profound struggle for the soul of the conservative movement
taking place, both here in the States and across Europe.
DRK,
Marine
LePen is the divorced-and-cohabiting one. (as for her religious beliefs, she claims to be a
believer, but doesn't go into detail and doesn't appear to be a regular churchgoer. She did have all her kids
baptised).
Marion
Marechal Le Pen is the practicing Catholic one.
Why is the "Benedict Option" easier to discuss with the French and Italian Catholics, even though it was
written mainly for the American readership? This is what I, a Traditionalist Catholic, think:
(a)
Protestantism covers a wide spectrum of beliefs, so a less "cohesive" and more "grainy" response is to be
expected (Fragmentation);
(b) Benedict Option may sound like "salvation by works" – if we only work hard and form these communities
ourselves, we'll survive and be "saved" in the end. And anyway, weren't those monasteries dens of vice?
(Anathema);
(c) A belief that God blesses the faithful us, but others bring evil upon themselves because they have
abandoned God, or follow idolatrous religions (Exceptionalism);
(d) Benedict Option, if it's to be done right, requires a comprehensive and rigorous study of the past.
However, such studies often bring on uncomfortable questions which can challenge "settled facts" (Amnesia);
To be fair, many Catholics share in some of the above. Part (c) can be heard among a few of my fellow
Catholic Traditionalists, and (d) can be found within the Vatican II faction. I think part (c) is particularly
tricky – the Book of Job comes to mind.
I've formerly posted at TAC as "A Libertarian Guy"
I watched Marion Maréchal-Le Pen's speech at CPAC last
night. It was like a thunderbolt out of a clear blue sky when she got to the part where she spoke against
surrogate mothering and the nonsensical fluid-gender stuff. I had no idea there were any political people in
Europe with that kind of common sense and morals.
I too, liked the quote, : 'Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire."
In January, McMaster quashed rumors of his departure, telling reporters "I have a job and it is my
intention to go as long and hard as I can in service of the President of the nation," adding that it
was "a tremendous honor to do this job every day."
Trump's first National Security Advisor, Michael
Flynn, resigned shortly after taking office amid a controversy over whether he lied to Vice President
Mike Pence about his contacts with Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak.
On Thursday, the Pentagon directed all inquiries about McMaster to the White House. "General
McMaster works for President Trump. Any decision with regards to staff, the White House will make
those determinations," said chief spokesperson Dana White. Meanwhile, White House Press Secretary
Sarah Sanders told reporters on Tuesday that Trump "still has confidence in General McMaster."
A Source within the White House, leaking to CNN, reports that Trump can't stand McMaster's demeanor
during briefings - and that the President considers his National Security Advisor to be "gruff and
condescending."
He prefers the briefing style of someone like CIA Director Mike Pompeo or Defense Secretary
James Mattis, who patiently answer his questions, regardless of the premise. McMaster, meanwhile,
is the person who delivers the news that Trump doesn't want to hear on a daily basis, according to
the senior Republican source.
The issue is not political but mostly stylistic, as McMaster and Mattis tend to discuss
information before it is presented to the President, the same source added. -
CNN
Kelly and McMaster both declined to comment,
however Reuters' sources were quick to add that
"tensions could blow over, at least for now, as have previous episodes of discord between the
president and other top officials who have fallen out of favor."
McSinister is the essence of Goldfinger in the old James Bond fiction. One
couldn't envision a more stereotypical "worm-tonguesque" villain in charge
of our armed forces and acting presidential "advisor".
McMaster Finally Out? Pentagon Paving Way For Return To Military:
Report
My response: Looks like the POTUS is prepping for the Return
of General Flynn.
McMaster has some very suspicious associations and has been
referenced in Q-ANON posts. He was an "OBOZO" plant.
Also, it appears that "OBOZO's" LEGAL problems are growing by the
day.
"OBOZO" maybe the first POTUS in US history to be charged
with TREASON. Also, KERRY is in a DEEP PILE OF SHIT as well. He
directed the US State Department to provide 9 million dollars to her
charity. This is ladies and gentlemen of ZH is BULLSHIT!!!!!!
CORRUPTION and CRIME as far as the EYE can see for the last four
POTUS office holders. It make me ashamed of my nation at times.
May GOD bless, guide and protect President TRUMP and the TRUMP
administration as they "DRAIN THE SWAMP".
Flynn blew the whistle on Pure Evil War Criminal Treasonous
Seditious Psychopath Obama, the CIA & State Dept. arming,
funding & training terror organizations.
The Criminal Deep State has had it for him ever since.
Boy you sure get a different news feed than I do.... Mine says we
have heavy ground presence in Syria (didnt under Obowel), are on
the verge of war with the NORKs after the Olympics, and our CIA
has been stirring the shit pot in Iran....
Does your news
coverage come before of after the episodes of My little pony?
The only difference between Trump and Hillary is Hillary has
better hair. Follow what Trump actually does and not what he
Tweets, HUGE difference. WE ARENT WINNING.
SecDef knows him (from in the sandbox) and might want/need him to fill a CinC
slot. The pussified O crowd cut off the balls of many of the flag ranks and
they need to be purged (Regan did that and brought in/up Starry and Papa Bear
and Vuono and Art C-ski and the other knuckle draggers).
POTUS might be
getting his foreign policy situation sorted out. McMaster hasn't ever been a
smooth team player within the Army structure--that would also endear him to
Jim, but not suit him to a staff/advisor role.
We can always blame it on Global Climate Change and the Rooskies--cover all
the bases.
Monster McMaster opening greeting to the Munich security conference, "I know OUR
good friend John McCain can't be here, as unfortunately he can't, but he brings you
good wishes"....Then he proceeded to outline Russian Election bullshit. Cyber bot
farm meddling invading Georgia BLA BLA BLA. This is why war is plausible, McMaster
is Military SWAMP.
Oh boy, some oversized ego tripping....the sheer hubris of it all....fuckers cannot
see or admit to the gross amount of meddling they have done to the world, and yet
react like little bitches when allegations are merely cooked up.
I cannot believe
that this is the
lowly
state of American political discourse in 2018 AD.
Just another Rome, only with a much bigger budget for bullshit and weaponry.
Fire him. Forget the fourth star. He is undeserving. Another scumbag trying to
upend President Trump's agenda/objectives. The scumbag conveniently doesn't
mention that the Russian Hacking didn't have an impact on the election. This
untrustworthy piece of shit never should have been brought into the fold. And
don't even think about allowing him back into the military. Fuck off you
turncoat.
This guy was the commanding officer of 3rd ACR while I was in. Only time I saw
him in Iraq was when he flew down to tell us how sorry he was, or something like
that, after we lost 1/3 of our platoon. The rest of the time he was in northern
Iraq where it was safe. While those of us unlucky enough to be in 3rd Squadron
were stuck down on the south side of Baghdad. If you read his bio they make it
out like he personally did all kinds of Rambo shit. I guess that's they way it is
for officers. Those guys will slit your throat for the next shiny thing to stick
on their uniform.
Even back then my buddy SSG Judy, just talked to him an hour
ago, told me McMaster was being groomed for bigger roles. He definitely nailed
that one.
These two and Mad Dog keep whispering "Evil Russia" at Trump and demanding US
troops keep poking a stick at the bear - meanwhile Trump knows there is no
collusion. How does that square up?
Ukraine is crucial in this Russian sense of territorial imperative. It's a tragically split
country, with part tilting toward the West and part facing eastward toward Russia. That makes
for a delicate political and geopolitical situation, but for centuries that delicate political
and geopolitical situation has been overseen by Russia. Now the West wants to end that.
Upending a duly elected (though corrupt) Ukrainian president was part of the plan. Getting
Ukraine into NATO is the endgame.
Note that the Ukrainian revolution occurred in 2014, which just happened to be the year,
according to the U.S. indictments, that Russia initiated its grand program to influence
America's 2016 elections. Kennan was right: Russia inevitably would react badly to the NATO
encirclement policy, and then America's anti-Russian cadres would cite that as evidence that
the encirclement was necessary all along. That's precisely what's happening now.
Which brings us to the fifth and final fundamental reality surrounding the revelation of
Russia's grand effort to influence the U.S. election. It was an incredible blunder. Given all
that's happened in U.S.-Russian relations this century, there probably wasn't much prospect
that those relations could ever be normalized, much less made cordial. But that is now utterly
impossible.
Donald Trump campaigned on a platform of seeking better relations with Russia. After getting
elected he repeatedly asserted in his first news conference that it would be "positive,"
"good," or "great" if "we could get along with Russia." Unlike most of America's elites, he
vowed to seek Moscow's cooperation on global issues, accepted some U.S. share of blame for the
two countries' sour relations, and acknowledged "the right of all nations to put their
interests first."
This suggested a possible dramatic turn in U.S.-Russian relations -- an end to the
encirclement push, curtailment of the hostile rhetoric, a pullback on economic sanctions, and
serious efforts to work with Russia on such nettlesome matters as Syria and Ukraine. That was
largely put on hold with the narrative of Russian meddling in the U.S. election and vague
allegations of campaign "collusion" with Russia on behalf of Trump's presidential
ambitions.
It doesn't appear likely that investigators will turn up any evidence of collusion that
rises to any kind of criminality. But it doesn't matter now, in terms of U.S.-Russian
relations, because these indictments will cement the anti-Russian sentiment of Americans for
the foreseeable future. No overtures of the kind envisioned by Trump will be possible for any
president for a long time. It won't matter that every nation does it or that America in
particular has done it or that the West's aggressive encirclement contributed to the Russian
actions. The U.S.-Russian hostility is set. Where it leads is impossible to predict, but it
won't be good. It could be tragic.
Robert W. Merry, longtime Washington, D.C., journalist and publishing executive, is
editor of The American Conservative . His latest book,President McKinley: Architect of the American Century, was
released in September.
"... Among Global Research's most popular articles in 2016. ..."
"... Hillary is Dangerous. She Means What She says? Or Does She? (M. C. GR. Editor) ..."
"... On July 3, 2015, presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton addressed a hand-picked audience at a Dartmouth College campaign event. She lied calling Iran an "existential threat to Israel I hope we are able to get a deal next week that puts a lid on (its) nuclear weapons program." ..."
Among Global Research's most popular articles in 2016.
Hillary is Dangerous. She Means What She says? Or Does She? (M. C. GR. Editor)
* * *
On July 3, 2015, presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton addressed a hand-picked audience at a Dartmouth College campaign event.
She lied calling Iran an "existential threat to Israel I hope we are able to get a deal next week that puts a lid on (its) nuclear
weapons program."
Even if we do get such a deal, we will still have major problems from Iran. They are the world's chief sponsor of terrorism.
They use proxies like Hezbollah to sow discord and create insurgencies to destabilize governments. They are taking more and
more control of a number of nations in the region and they pose an existential threat to Israel.
We have to turn our attention to working with our partners to try to reign in and prevent this continuing Iranian aggressiveness.
Fact: US and Israeli intelligence both say Iran's nuclear program has no military component. No evidence whatever suggests Tehran
wants one. Plenty indicates otherwise.
As a 2008 presidential aspirant, she addressed AIPAC's annual convention saying:
The United States stands with Israel now and forever. We have shared interests .shared ideals .common values. I have a bedrock
commitment to Israel's security.
(O)ur two nations are fighting a shared threat" against Islamic extremism. I strongly support Israel's right to self-defense
(and) believe America should aid in that defense.
I am committed to making sure that Israel maintains a military edge to meet increasing threats. I am deeply concerned about
the growing threat in Gaza (and) Hamas' campaign of terror.
No such campaign exists. The only threats Israel faces are ones it invents.
Clinton repeated tired old lies saying Hamas' charter "calls for the destruction of Israel. Iran threatens to destroy Israel."
"I support calling the Iranian Revolutionary Guard what it is: a terrorist organization. It is imperative that we get both
tough and smart about dealing with Iran before it is too late."
She backs "massive retaliation" if Iran attacks Israel, saying at the time:
" I want the Iranians to know that if I'm president, we will attack Iran. In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly
consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."
She endorses using cluster bombs, toxic agents and nuclear weapons in US war theaters. She calls them deterrents that "keep the
peace." She was one of only six Democrat senators opposed to blocking deployment of untested missile defense systems – first-strike
weapons entirely for offense.
*
Stephen Lendmanlives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].
His new book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."
This is an old method to unite the nation against external enemy. Carnage (with so much oil and gas) needs to be
destroyed. And it's working only partially with the major divisions between Trump and Hillary supporters remaining
open and unaffected by Russiagate witch hunt.
Notable quotes:
"... It is an age-old statecraft technique to seek unity within a state by depicting an external enemy or threat. Russia is the bête noire again, as it was during the Cold War years as part of the Soviet Union. ..."
"... Russophobia -- "blame it all on Russia" -- is a short-term, futile ploy to stave off the day of reckoning when furious and informed Western citizens will demand democratic restitution for their legitimate grievances. ..."
"... The dominant "official" narrative, from the US to Europe, is that "malicious" Russia is "sowing division;""eroding democratic institutions;" and "undermining public trust" in systems of governance, credibility of established political parties, and the news media. ..."
"... A particularly instructive presentation of this trope was given in a recent commentary by Texan Republican Representative Will Hurd. In his piece headlined, "Russia is our adversary" , he claims: "Russia is eroding our democracy by exploiting the nation's divisions. To save it, Americans need to begin working together." ..."
"... He contends: "When the public loses trust in the media, the Russians are winning. When the press is hyper-critical of Congress the Russians are winning. When Congress and the general public disagree the Russians are winning. When there is friction between Congress and the executive branch [the president] resulting in further erosion of trust in our democratic institutions, the Russians are winning." ..."
"... The endless, criminal wars that the US and its European NATO allies have been waging across the planet over the past two decades is one cogent reason why the public has lost faith in grandiose official claims about respecting democracy and international law. ..."
"... The US and European media have shown reprehensible dereliction of duty to inform the public accurately about their governments' warmongering intrigues. Take the example of Syria. When does the average Western citizen ever read in the corporate Western media about how the US and its NATO allies have covertly ransacked that country through weaponizing terrorist proxies? ..."
"... The destabilizing impact on societies from oppressive economic conditions is a far more plausible cause for grievance than outlandish claims made by the political class about alleged "Russian interference". ..."
"... Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several languages. Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For over 20 years he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and Independent. Now a freelance journalist based in East Africa, his columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation and Press TV. ..."
Russophobia - "blame it all on Russia" - is a short-term, futile ploy to stave off the day of reckoning when furious
and informed Western citizens will demand democratic restitution for their legitimate grievances
It is an age-old statecraft technique to seek unity within a state by depicting an external
enemy or threat. Russia is the bête noire again, as it was during the Cold War years as
part of the Soviet Union.
But the truth is Western states are challenged by internal problems. Ironically, by denying their own internal democratic challenges, Western authorities are
only hastening their institutional demise.
Russophobia -- "blame it all on Russia" -- is a short-term, futile ploy to stave off the day
of reckoning when furious and informed Western citizens will demand democratic restitution for
their legitimate grievances.
The dominant "official" narrative, from the US to Europe, is that "malicious" Russia is
"sowing division;""eroding democratic institutions;" and "undermining public trust" in systems
of governance, credibility of established political parties, and the news media.
This narrative has shifted up a gear since the election of Donald Trump to the White House
in 2016, with accusations that the Kremlin somehow ran "influence operations" to help get him
into office. This outlandish yarn defies common sense. It is also running out of thread to keep
spinning.
Paradoxically, even though President Trump has rightly rebuffed such dubious claims of
"Russiagate" interference as "fake news", he has at other times undermined himself by
subscribing to the notion that Moscow is projecting a campaign of "subversion against the US
and its European allies." See for example the National Security Strategy he signed off in
December.
Pathetically, it's become indoctrinated belief among the Western political class that
"devious Russians" are out to "collapse" Western democracies by
"weaponizing disinformation" and spreading "fake news" through Russia-based
news outlets like RT and Sputnik.
Totalitarian-like, there seems no room for intelligent dissent among political or media
figures.
British Prime Minister Theresa May has chimed in to
accuse Moscow of "sowing division;" Dutch state intelligence claim Russia
destabilized the US presidential election; the European Union commissioner for security, Sir
Julian King, casually lampoons Russian news media as "Kremlin-orchestrated
disinformation" to destabilize the 28-nation bloc; CIA chief Mike Pompeo recently warned
that Russia is stepping up its efforts to tarnish the Congressional mid-term elections later
this year.
On and on goes the narrative that Western states are essentially victims of a nefarious
Russian assault to bring about collapse.
A particularly instructive presentation of this trope was given in a recent commentary by Texan
Republican Representative Will Hurd. In his piece headlined, "Russia is our adversary"
, he claims: "Russia is eroding our democracy by exploiting the nation's divisions. To save
it, Americans need to begin working together."
Congressman Hurd asserts: "Russia has one simple goal: to erode trust in our democratic
institutions It has weaponized disinformation to achieve this goal for decades in Eastern and
Central Europe; in 2016, Western Europe and America were aggressively targeted as
well."
Lamentably, all these claims above are made with scant, or no, verifiable evidence. It is
simply a Big Lie technique of relentless repetition transforming itself into "fact"
.
It's instructive to follow Congressman Hurd's thought-process a bit further.
He contends: "When the public loses trust in the media, the Russians are winning. When
the press is hyper-critical of Congress the Russians are winning. When Congress and the general
public disagree the Russians are winning. When there is friction between Congress and the
executive branch [the president] resulting in further erosion of trust in our democratic
institutions, the Russians are winning."
As a putative solution, Representative Hurd calls for "a national counter-disinformation
strategy" against Russian "influence operations" , adding, "Americans must
stop contributing to a corrosive political environment".
The latter is a chilling advocacy of uniformity tantamount to a police state whereby any
dissent or criticism is a "thought-crime."
It is, however, such anti-democratic and paranoid thinking by Western politicians -- aided
and abetted by dutiful media -- that is killing democracy from within, not some supposed
foreign enemy.
There is evidently a foreboding sense of demise in authority and legitimacy among Western
states, even if the real cause for the demise is ignored or denied. Systems of governance,
politicians of all stripes, and institutions like the established media and intelligence
services are increasingly held in contempt and distrust by the public.
Whose fault is that loss of political and moral authority? Western governments and
institutions need to take a look in the mirror.
The endless, criminal wars that the US and its European NATO allies have been waging across
the planet over the past two decades is one cogent reason why the public has lost faith in
grandiose official claims about respecting democracy and international law.
The US and European media have shown reprehensible dereliction of duty to inform the public
accurately about their governments' warmongering intrigues. Take the example of Syria. When
does the average Western citizen ever read in the corporate Western media about how the US and
its NATO allies have covertly ransacked that country through weaponizing terrorist proxies?
How then can properly informed citizens be expected to have respect for such criminal
government policies and the complicit news media covering up for their crimes?
Western public disaffection with governments, politicians and media surely stems also from
the grotesque gulf in social inequality and poverty among citizens from slavish adherence to
economic policies that enrich the wealthy while consigning the vast majority to unrelenting
austerity.
The destabilizing impact on societies from oppressive economic conditions is a far more
plausible cause for grievance than outlandish claims made by the political class about alleged
"Russian interference".
Yet the Western media indulge this fantastical "Russiagate" escapism instead of campaigning
on real social problems facing ordinary citizens. No wonder such media are then viewed with
disdain and distrust. Adding insult to injury, these media want the public to believe Russia is
the enemy?
Instead of acknowledging and addressing real threats to citizens: economic insecurity,
eroding education and health services, lost career opportunities for future generations, the
looming dangers of ecological adversity, wars prompted by Western governments trashing
international and diplomacy, and so on -- the Western public is insultingly plied with corny
tales of Russia's "malign influence" and "assault on democracy."
Just think of the disproportionate amount of media attention and public resources wasted on
the Russiagate scandal over the past year. And now gradually emerging is the real scandal that
the American FBI probably colluded with the Obama administration to corrupt the democratic
process against Trump.
Again, is there any wonder the public has sheer contempt and distrust for "authorities" that
have been lying through their teeth and playing them for fools?
The collapsing state of Western democracies has got nothing to do with Russia. The
Russophobia of blaming Russia for the demise of Western institutions is an attempt at
scapegoating for the very real problems facing governments and institutions like the news
media. Those problems are inherent and wholly owned by these governments owing to chronic
anti-democratic functioning, as well as systematic violation of international law in their
pursuit of criminal wars and other subterfuges for regime-change objectives.
Finian Cunningham (born 1963) has written extensively on international affairs, with articles published in several
languages. Originally from Belfast, Northern Ireland, he is a Master's graduate in Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a
scientific editor for the Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a career in newspaper journalism. For
over 20 years he worked as an editor and writer in major news media organizations, including The Mirror, Irish Times and
Independent. Now a freelance journalist based in East Africa, his columns appear on RT, Sputnik, Strategic Culture Foundation
and Press TV.
The Polish leadership intends to implement a project of its own with the Baltic Pipe gas
pipeline - in face of the "Nord Stream - 2". This is reported by the German newspaper
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung .
The Polish party "Law and Justice" decided to revive the Baltic Pipe project and connect to the
Norwegian gas network. According to press releases, at the end of last year the Polish state
oil and gas company PGNiG reserved the capacity of the gas pipeline for 15 years, at a cost of
two billion dollars. It is assumed that the Polish project with an annual capacity of 10
billion cubic meters per year will begin to function in 2022, but the final decision on this
project will be taken later in 2018.
Poland actively opposes the construction of the Russian "Nord Stream - 2". Earlier, the Polish
Prime Minister called on the US leadership to extend American sanctions for the implementation
of this project. In addition, he said that European companies involved in the construction of
the gas pipeline should be fined.
Germany has rebuffed such statements, stating that the project guarantees energy security for
Europe.
Nord Stream -2 is a project worth 9.5 billion euros, which involves the construction of two
lines of pipeline across the Baltic Sea from the coast of Russia to Germany. The total capacity
will be 55 billion cubic meters of gas per year.
THE EARTHQUAKE that shook Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince on January 12 is one of the worst
disasters in human history. The quake flattened houses, hotels, and government buildings,
including the National Palace and UN headquarters. By some estimates, 60 percent of
Port-au-Prince's buildings collapsed. Even more damage struck some of the smaller towns near
the capital like Leogane and Jacmel. At least 230,000 people were left dead, 300,000 in need of
medical attention, 1.5 million homeless, and over 2 million bereft of food and water.
The Obama administration reacted immediately. "I have directed my administration to respond
with a swift, coordinated, and aggressive effort to save lives," Obama told the nation in a
speech he delivered the day after the quake. "The people of Haiti will have the full support of
the United States in the urgent effort to rescue those trapped beneath the rubble, and to
deliver the humanitarian relief -- the food, water, and medicine -- that Haitians will need in
the coming days. In that effort, our government, especially USAID and the Departments of State
and Defense are working closely together and with our partners in Haiti, the region, and around
the world." 1
This seemed a far cry from the reaction of the Bush administration to Hurricane Katrina,
where tens of thousands of the city's poor, mostly Black, residents were left stranded and
without help as Bush sent troops and Blackwater paramilitaries to police the city. The lack of
a prompt humanitarian response prompted rap artist Kanye West to famously state, "George Bush
doesn't care about Black people."
Yet while Obama said all the right things, the gap between his words and deeds has been
immense. When all is said and done, the Haitian relief effort looks eerily like a replay of
Katrina, only on a larger scale. A month into the disaster, the U.S. and UN were managing to
feed only 1 million people, leaving more than a million people without relief aid. 2
Instead of mobilizing to provide water, food, and housing for the victims, the U.S. focused on
occupying the country with 20,000 U.S. troops and surrounding it with a flotilla of U.S. Navy
and Coast Guard ships.
This military effort actually impeded the delivery of urgent aid. In an op-ed piece in the
Wall Street Journal entitled "Haiti: Obama's Katrina," three doctors who volunteered
to provide emergency services wrote, "Four years ago the initial medical response to Hurricane
Katrina was ill equipped, understaffed, poorly coordinated and delayed. Criticism of the paltry
federal efforts was immediate and fierce. Unfortunately, the response to the latest
international disaster in Haiti has been no better, compounding the catastrophe." After they
describe the horrific conditions in Haiti's hospitals, the doctors continue, "The U.S. response
to the earthquake should be considered an embarrassment. Our operation received virtually no
support from any branch of the U.S. government, including the State Department . Later, as we
were leaving Haiti, we were appalled to see warehouse-size quantities of unused medicines, food
and other supplies at the airport, surrounded by hundreds of U.S. and international soldiers
standing around aimlessly." 3
The U.S. government and media have covered up these realities with puff pieces about the
supposed success of U.S. relief efforts. They have also wrongly portrayed this catastrophe as
simply a natural disaster, ignoring the historical and social causes of Haiti's poverty --
principally the imperialist stranglehold over the nation -- that exacerbated the impact of the
earthquake.
If the military flotilla is not there to deliver aid, why is it there? The Obama
administration has used the cover of humanitarian aid to occupy the country in pursuit of
several goals. First and foremost, after disastrous wars that have discredited U.S.
interventionism, Obama hopes through the operation in Haiti to win back domestic support for
military intervention. What better means to do that than to present a military invasion and
occupation as a humanitarian relief effort?
With a flotilla of ships surrounding the country, the U.S. also aims to repatriate desperate
Haitians and prevent a wave of refugees reaching Florida. Through this assertion of power, the
U.S. aims also to reassert its dominance in the Caribbean and Latin America over regional
rivals like Venezuela and international ones like China. Finally, the U.S. intends to impose a
traditional neoliberal economic program on Haiti itself in the interest of U.S. multinational
corporations and the Haitian ruling class.
Not just a natural disaster
Most of the media reported the earthquake as a natural disaster. While this is no doubt true,
that is only part of the story. Certainly, there was talk of Haiti being the poorest country in
the Western Hemisphere, with over 80 percent of its population making about $2 a day. Media
acknowledged that the Haitian state was completely unprepared and unable to respond to the
crisis not only in Port-au-Prince, but throughout the country. However, the reason for these
conditions -- the historical context -- is left out. The story of Haiti's poverty is merely an
excuse to further justify why Haiti needs help from the United States, even though the "help"
Haiti has received from the U.S. and other world powers is precisely the reason for Haiti's
extreme poverty.
Some conservative commentators blamed Haitians for their situation. Pat Robertson on The
700 Club claimed that the disaster was the result of a pact that Haitians made with the
devil during their revolution from 1791 to 1804. The devil was merely taking his revenge on
Haitians more than 200 years later. 4 In a more polite, but no less racist manner,
David Brooks argued that the root cause of the social problems in Haiti was their
"progress-resistant" culture. He claimed,
There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is
capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is
often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and
harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10. We're all supposed to politely respect each other's
cultures. But some cultures are more progress-resistant than others, and a horrible tragedy
was just exacerbated by one of them. 5
These are extreme versions of a dominant media story that essentially blames the victims of
the earthquake. None of this answers the real questions. Why are the majority of Haitians so
poor? Why according to the mayor of Port-au-Prince, were 60 percent of the buildings unsafe in
normal conditions? Why is there no building regulation in a city that sits on a fault line? Why
was the Haitian state so weak and disorganized before and after the earthquake? To answer these
questions, we must delve into Haiti's history.
European slavery, revolution, and U.S. domination
The answer lies in Haiti's history of European conquest, slavery, resistance, and U.S. imperial
domination. At every step, instead of aiding the Haitian majority, the U.S. has manipulated the
country's politics and exploited its poverty in pursuit of profit, and used it as a pawn in its
competition with regional and international rivals. In doing so the U.S. has reduced Haiti to
abject poverty and incapacitated its government to manage the society and the current crisis.
This history, a second and unnatural fault line, interacted with the natural one to make the
earthquake so devastating.
Columbus set off the first tremors when he landed on the island he called Hispaniola in
1492. He proceeded to enslave the Taino natives, whose population was estimated to be more than
half a million. The combination of European disease, massacre, and brutal exploitation led to
the genocide of the native population. Spain ceded the western section of the island in 1697 to
France, which renamed it San Domingue. Spain remained in control of the eastern section of the
island, Santo Domingo, which would become the Dominican Republic. French merchants and planters
turned their colony into a vast slave plantation and slaves from Africa replaced Indians and
white indentured servants. The colony was a killing field where slaves were literally worked to
death -- half the African slaves who arrived died within a few years. But it was an enormously
profitable one. San Domingue was the richest colony in the new world; the slave plantations
produced half of the world's coffee, 40 percent of its sugar, as well as a host of other
commodities. 6
In 1791, Toussaint L'Ouverture, a literate freed slave, led the world's first successful
slave revolution. Toussaint defeated the three great empires of the age -- France, Spain, and
England -- which all attempted to defeat the great slave army. During the struggle, the French
managed to kidnap Toussaint and jail him in France, where he died. His second-in-command,
Jean-Jacques Dessalines, led the final victory and established the new nation of Haiti in
1804.
Haiti's very existence was a threat to all the empires and their colonies. They all lived
off profits from plantation slavery. So the great powers quarantined the country, attempting to
prevent the spread of slave revolution. France finally recognized Haiti in 1824, but on the
condition that it pay reparations to France for the loss of its property -- its slaves. In
today's terms this sum amounted to $21 billion. Thus France shackled Haiti with debt at its
birth that it did not finish repaying until 1947, fundamentally distorting the nation's
development. 7
Under the eagle
The U.S. was one of the last powers to recognize Haiti, finally doing so in 1862. It became
interested in Haiti not to help it, but instead to plunder it. In the late nineteenth century
the U.S. became an imperialist power, extending its talons to snatch control of the Caribbean,
Latin America, and the Pacific from potential rivals like Spain, Britain, and Germany. The U.S.
launched its imperial conquest under the guise of liberating Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the
Philippines from Spain. Puerto Rico and the Philippines became U.S. colonies -- U.S. marines
killed hundreds of thousands of Filipinos to conquer the island -- while Cuba became a colony
in all but name. The U.S. then policed the Caribbean as if it were an American lake. The number
of occupations and invasions over the following decades is too many to list.
A leader of this conquest was Major General Smedley Butler, who became one of the most
decorated marines in history. After he turned against U.S. imperialism later in life, he summed
up his experience:
I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this
country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps . And during that period, I spent most
of my time being a high-class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the
Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism . I helped make Mexico,
especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a
decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping
of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of
racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown
Brothers in 1909–1912 . I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar
interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking
back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to
operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents. 8
The U.S. saw Haiti as one of the key sites to establish client governments to protect U.S.
interests in the Caribbean. 9 In 1915 the U.S. used the pretext of political turmoil
in Haiti to invade the country and occupy it until 1934. The U.S. plundered the island, forced
it to repay its debts to the U.S., and established involuntary corvee gang labor to build
roads. United States corporations, hoping to take advantage of Haiti's cheap labor, gained
control of 266,000 acres of Haitian land, displacing thousands of Haitian peasants. Haitians
rose up against this exploitation in a mass liberation movement, the Cacos Rebellion, led by
Charlemagne Peralte. The U.S. slaughtered thousands of resistance fighters, crucifying Peralte
in Port-au-Prince.
The U.S. also established one of the most reactionary institutions in Haitian society, the
Haitian National Army. The U.S. designed that army not to fight foreign wars but to repress the
country's peasant masses.
The neoliberal "plan of death"
While the U.S. ended its occupation of Haiti -- prompted in part by a renewed wave of protests
and strikes by workers and students -- it continued to intervene in the country's politics and
economics with devastating consequences. From 1957 to 1986, the U.S. supported the father-son
dictatorship of Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier and Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier. The
Duvaliers' dictatorship maintained power through the army and a vast network of death squads
called the Tonton Macoutes. The U.S. backed them as a counterweight to Fidel Castro who had
aligned Cuba with Russia in the Cold War struggle for Latin America and the Caribbean. Most
observers believe that Papa Doc Duvalier's Macoutes killed tens of thousands. 10 The
Duvaliers' economic vision for Haiti -- one that has continued to motivate U.S. plans for Haiti
-- was to establish Haiti as low-tax, low-wage, non-union offshore assembly site for U.S.
corporations.
Though half of Haitians lived in dire poverty, Haiti until the mid–1980s was
self-sufficient in the production of rice, its most important staple. All this changed with the
imposition of neoliberal policies, pushed by the United States, that required Haiti to slash
tariffs, privatize state-owned industries, and cut the state's agricultural budget. Haitian
activists would come to call it a "plan of death."
President Reagan pushed this plan as part of his Caribbean Basin Initiative that aimed to
open up the area to U.S. corporations and U.S. agricultural products. Baby Doc opened up the
Haitian market to a wave of U.S. agribusiness exports like rice and wheat, which are heavily
subsidized. The Haitian peasants were simply unable to compete with these cheap, subsidized
imports, and Haiti's rural economy gradually collapsed. Hundreds of thousands of peasants
abandoned the countryside for the cities to seek some kind of employment. Deprived of their
livelihood, peasants turned to cutting down trees to make charcoal for cooking fuel, leading to
the massive deforestation of the country, and the further destruction of Haiti's already
depleted soil. 11 As a result, Port-au-Prince, which had been a small town of 50,000
in the 1950s, exploded in size to nearly 800,000 in the 1980s and well over 2 million today.
12
Reagan and Baby Doc claimed that they would absorb these dislocated peasants into an
enlarged sweatshop industry. But the various factories in the export processing zones only
created about 60,000 jobs. As a result, the masses in Port-au-Prince gathered in slums, left to
survive on remittances from relatives who had fled abroad and income scraped together in a
highly unstable informal economy.
Finally, the U.S. tried to subject Haiti to the same tourist industry that swept the rest of
the Caribbean. Baby Doc cut deals with Club Med and various hotel chains to offer the country's
beaches for tourism. Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton first came to Haiti on their honeymoon as
part of the jet set that Baby Doc welcomed into the swank resorts on the island. It would not
be the last time the Clintons played around in Haiti.
Baby Doc took out $1.9 billion in loans from the U.S., other powers, and international
financial institutions to bankroll this neoliberal "reform" of the country. 13
Meanwhile, Haitians suffered a calamitous drop in their standard of living; during the 1980s,
absolute poverty increased by 60 percent -- from 50 to 80 percent of the population.
14 The dictator and his family joined the American and Haitian ruling class to party
and profit at the expense of Haitian peasants, workers, and the urban poor.
Killing social reform
Peasants, workers, and the urban poor rose up against Baby Doc in opposition to this social
catastrophe in a tremendous social movement called Lavalas (the Creole word for a cleansing
flood). A young Catholic priest and advocate of liberation theology, Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
became the spokesperson of the struggle. In 1986, Lavalas succeeded in driving Baby Doc from
power. The U.S. whisked him away into exile in France along with $505 million stolen from the
country. 15 Duvalier left behind a shattered country, shackled again with the odious
debt accrued by a dictator to finance the neoliberal disaster.
Under pressure from the movement -- but also to stem the tide of impoverished Haitian
refugees pouring out of the country -- the U.S. and Haitian governments finally agreed to hold
elections in 1990. The U.S. spent $36 million to try to get their candidate, a former World
Bank employee, elected. He received only 14 percent of the vote. Aristide defeated fourteen
rivals, winning two-thirds of the vote, on a platform of extensive popular social reforms. The
U.S. and the Haitian ruling class literally saw red. They thought that, in the words of a U.S.
embassy official in Port-au-Prince, a "Marxist maniac" had been elected to the Haitian
government. 16 President George Bush Sr. backed a military coup against Aristide in
1991 and tacitly backed the brutal regime that ruled Haiti from 1991 to 1994.
The military massacred thousands of Lavalas activists and drove 38,000 more out of the
country. Bush Sr. and his successor President Bill Clinton repatriated most of these refugees
and jailed others in Krome Detention Center in Florida and Guantánamo in Cuba. After an
international outcry, the U.S. opted for a face-saving intervention to restore Aristide to
power in 1994, but on the condition that he agree to the neoliberal plan of death. Aristide
signed on to the deal but resisted its full implementation during his remaining two years in
office. He did abolish the Haitian military in 1995 -- a great victory for the movement -- and
implemented some reforms, but it was far from what he had promised during the struggle against
Duvalier. "The author of a text entitled 'Capitalism is a Mortal Sin,'" wrote Paul Farmer at
the time,
now meets regularly with representatives of the World Bank, the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) and AID [U.S. Agency for International Development]. He was once the priest of the
poor; now he's president of a beleaguered nation, run into the ground by a vicious military
and business elite and by their friends abroad. Aristide finds himself most indebted to the
very people and institutions he once denounced from the pulpit. 17
Aristide's Lavalas ally and successor, René Préval, implemented much of the
U.S. neoliberal agenda during his term from 1996 to 2000. 18
Aristide would again run for and win the presidency in 2000, to the great irritation of
Clinton and then-President George W. Bush. In his second term, Aristide implemented reforms
such as raising the minimum wage and building schools. He also began to demand that France
refund the $21 billion that it forced Haiti to pay from 1824 to 1947. 19 At the same
time, however, Aristide backed new sweatshop developments in Ounaminthe and agreed to other
neoliberal measures. 20 But the U.S. was not appeased and France was outraged.
Another coup and U.S. occupation
The U.S., France, and Canada used the pretext of charges that Aristide manipulated the
parliamentary elections, something they usually tolerate with their own allies, to justify a
destabilization campaign against Aristide and yet another coup. Bush, of course, had no ground
to stand on as he himself had stolen the 2000 U.S. presidential election. Nevertheless, the
U.S., Canada, and France imposed economic sanctions, mounted a vast propaganda campaign against
Aristide, backed the ruling-class political opposition in the Group of 184, and aided the
right-wing death squads. Finally, in 2004, as the death squads swept through the country, the
U.S. kidnapped Aristide, whisked him out of the country to temporary exile in the Central
African Republic and to final exile in South Africa. Thus, on the two hundredth anniversary of
its declaration of independence, Haiti was occupied by the U.S., yet again.
Soon the U.S. delegated the occupation to the UN and its 9,000 mostly Brazilian troops, who
continue to patrol the country to this day. This UN force, MINUSTAH, protected the
U.S.-installed puppet regime headed up Gérard Latortue who they brought out of
retirement from Boca Raton, Florida. The coup regime was utterly corrupt and brutal. With its
death squad allies, the regime conducted a terror against the remnants of the social movements
and Aristide's party, Fanmi Lavalas. The combination of death squad and UN repression killed an
estimated 3,000 people. 21 The UN troops either joined the slaughter or stood aside
while repression swept the island. 22
While the U.S. and UN allowed elections in 2006, they banned Aristide's party, the most
popular party in the country. Aristide's former ally, René Préval, again won the
presidency, but by this time he had become a servant for the U.S. political and economic agenda
in Haiti. For example, Préval banned Fanmi Lavalas from running in elections and refused
to sign a bill passed in the parliament to raise the minimum wage. 23 In fact, the
real power was no longer in the hands of the Haitian government. The U.S.- backed UN occupation
rules the country in colonial style, dictating policy to the Haitian government.
The occupation has completely failed to develop the country. It has done nothing to improve
living conditions for Haitians, to rebuild the country's ravaged infrastructure, or to reforest
the countryside. Before the earthquake, two rounds of natural disasters swept Haiti and exposed
the U.S. and UN's callous neglect of the country. Hurricanes hit in 2004 and 2008, killing
thousands. 24 The pattern of impoverishment, deforestation, and degradation of the
country's infrastructure, which has accelerated in recent years, has rendered natural disasters
in Haiti far more devastating than anywhere else. In what is perhaps the worst exposure of the
result of U.S. and UN refusal to improve conditions in Haiti, the food crisis in Haiti spiraled
out of control on their watch. Even before the food crisis in 2008, the urban poor were reduced
to eating mud cakes flavored with salt as a regular meal. When capitalists speculated on the
international food market, they drove up the prices of Haiti's imported staples, especially
rice. In response Haitians rioted, only to be repressed by the UN troops. 25
Imposing a new plan of death on Haiti
During the UN occupation, the U.S. imposed the same neoliberal economic plan on Haiti in the
interests of multinational capital and the Haitian ruling class. UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon appointed Bill Clinton as special envoy to Haiti in 2009 and tasked him with
revitalizing the country's economy. Clinton developed a new version of the plan of death along
with Oxford economics professor and former research director for the World Bank, Paul Collier.
Collier outlined their program in his paper, "Haiti: From natural catastrophe to economic
security." 26 It advocated investment in the tourist industry, redevelopment of the
sweatshop industry in cities, export-oriented mango plantations in the countryside, and
construction of infrastructure to service that development.
As Polly Pattullo documents in Last Resorts: The Cost of Tourism in the Caribbean ,
the tourist industry is largely controlled by U.S. multinational corporations. She quotes one
critic of the tourist industry who argues, "When a third world economy uses tourism as a
development strategy, it becomes enmeshed in a global system over which it has little control.
The international tourism industry is a product of metropolitan capitalist enterprise. The
superior entrepreneurial skills, resources and commercial power of metropolitan companies
enable them to dominate many third world tourist destinations." 27
Clinton has orchestrated a plan for turning the north of Haiti into a tourist playground, as
far away as possible from the teeming slums of Port-au-Prince. He lured Royal Caribbean Cruise
Lines into investing $55 million to build a pier along the coastline of Labadee, which it has
leased until 2050. From there, Haiti's tourist industry hopes to lead expeditions to the
mountaintop fortress Citadelle and the Palace of Sans-Souci, both built by Henri Christophe,
one of the leaders of Haiti's slave revolution. 28
For the cities, Collier promotes sweatshop development. Without a hint of shame, he notes,
"Due to its poverty and relatively unregulated labor market, Haiti has labor costs that are
fully competitive with China, which is the global benchmark. Haitian labor is not only cheap it
is of good quality. Indeed, because the garments industry used to be much larger than it is
currently, there is a substantial pool of experienced labor." 29 Given the abolition
of tariffs on many Haitian exports to the U.S., Haiti is primed, according to Collier, for a
new sweatshop boom.
But this is no sustainable development plan in the interests of Haitian workers. At best,
Collier promises 150,000 or so jobs. As anthropologist Mark Shuller argues, "subcontracted,
low-wage factory work does not contribute much to the economy besides jobs. Being exempt from
taxes, it does not contribute to the financing of Haiti's social services." 30
Moreover these jobs themselves do not even pay enough to support life -- they pay for transport
and lunch at about $1.60 a day. The U.S. will want to keep these wages low, since that is the
profitable basis for the investment.
For the peasant majority in the country, Clinton and Collier advocate the construction of
vast new mango plantations. According to them, such new plantations will both create an export
crop and aid the reforestation of the country. While it may create jobs for poor peasants, such
plantations will not rebuild the agricultural infrastructure of the country so that it can
return to the self-sufficient food system it had before the 1980s. As TransAfrica founder
Randall Robinson told Democracy Now! , "That isn't the kind of investment that Haiti
needs. It needs capital investment. It needs investment so that it can be self-sufficient. It
needs investment so that it can feed itself." 31 Such self-sufficiency runs against
the grain of U.S. policy to control the international food market with its subsidized
crops.
Collier finally argues for investment in infrastructure -- airports, seaports, and roads --
not so much to meet people's needs as to service these new investments in tourism, sweatshops,
and plantations. As a result, Collier's plan will actually increase infrastructural inequities;
businesses will get what they need to export their products, while the Haitian masses'
infrastructural needs, like navigable roads, will be left unaddressed. Even worse, Collier
advocates increased privatization of Haiti's infrastructure, especially the port and the
electrical system.
It is not incidental that Collier is also the author of The Bottom Billion ,
32 a book that calls for outside intervention by wealthy nations such as the United
States into what he calls "post-conflict" poor nations, combining targeted aid and economic
restructuring under long-term military occupation. In a modern recasting of the old colonialist
"civilizing mission," this is meant to lift these nations out of a vicious cycle of violence
and poverty.
On his whirlwind tour of the country in 2009, Bill Clinton promised investors that Haiti was
open for business with Aristide and Lavalas out of the way and the U.S. and UN in effective
control of the country. "Your political risk in Haiti" he declared at a press conference "is
lower than it has ever been in my lifetime." 33
Failing to deliver relief to victims
In the aftermath of the earthquake, the press has cooperated with the Obama administration in
giving the impression that the U.S. military has been busy delivering aid to desperate
Haitians. The facts don't bear this out. To begin with, Obama's promise of $100 million in aid
to the country is a pittance -- less than the winnings of a Kentucky couple in a recent
Powerball lottery. 34 It is a paltry amount compared to the hundreds of billions
that the U.S. shelled out to American banks and the $3 trillion the U.S. will have expended on
the Iraq War alone.
There were early warning signs that this humanitarian mission was not all it was cracked up
to be. Obama's decision to appoint former presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton to oversee
the collection of donations through the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund displays incredible callousness
toward the Haitian masses. Clinton imposed the plan of death on Lavalas. Bush let New Orleans
get washed out to sea and backed the 2004 coup that overthrew Aristide. Appointing Bush is like
putting Nero in charge of the fire department.
Aid was slow to arrive, and what did turn up was inadequate. Amid a crisis where the first
forty-eight hours are decisive in saving people's lives, the U.S. and UN failed to come
anywhere near addressing the needs of the 3 million people impacted by the earthquake. Every
minute that aid was delayed meant more people died from starvation, dehydration, injury, and
disease. It also meant that the hospitals and doctors desperately trying to help the victims
were left stranded without the basics to heal the injured.
As Dr. Evan Lyon of Partners in Health, speaking from Port-au-Prince's main hospital just as
heavily-armed U.S. troops were arriving, told Democracy Now! ,
In terms of supplies, in terms of surgeons, in terms of aid relief, the response has been
incredibly slow. There are teams of surgeons that have been sent to places that were, quote,
"more secure," that have ten or twenty doctors and ten patients. We have a thousand people on
this campus that are triaged and ready for surgery, but we only have four working ORs without
anesthesia and without pain medications. And we're still struggling to get ourselves up to
twenty-four-hour care. 35
In the week after the quake, Partners in Health estimated as many as 20,000 Haitians were
dying daily from lack of surgery. 36
The U.S. and UN used all sorts of technical alibis to justify the delay in meeting people's
needs. They complained that the damage done to Haiti's airport, seaport, and roads impeded
delivery of doctors, nurses, food, water, and rescue teams. Such claims are unconvincing.
Clearly the means exist to deliver aid quickly to a country only 700 miles away from Miami,
Florida, and only 156 miles from a fully functional international airport in the Dominican
Republic. Other countries had no difficulty sending planes of aid and volunteers. China, from
half way around the world, got a plane of aid to Haiti earlier than the United States. Iceland
sent a rescue team within forty-eight hours of the quake. Cuba sent dozens of doctors to join
the several hundred doctors already working the country.
This failure of the U.S. to respond produced a chorus of denunciations from relief experts.
One official from the Italian government, Guido Bertolaso, who was acclaimed for his successful
handling of the April 2009 earthquake in Italy, denounced the U.S. effort as a "pathetic
failure." He declared, "The Americans are extraordinary but when you are facing a situation in
chaos they tend to confuse military intervention with emergency aid, which cannot be entrusted
to armed forces. It's truly a powerful show of force but it's completely out of touch with
reality." 37
Guns over aid
As with Katrina, Obama prioritized the deployment of the U.S. military over provision of aid.
He sent Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Haiti right away to get President Préval
to secure emergency powers. "The decree would give the government an enormous amount of
authority, which in practice they would delegate to us," she stated. 38 The U.S. has
taken effective control of Haiti. It has secured control of the airport and seaport and
deployed 20,000 U.S. troops to bolster the enlarged UN force of 12,500 already in the country.
Thus, for the fourth time since 1915, Haiti is under a U.S. occupation.
How did the U.S. justify the fact that six days into the relief effort only a trickle of aid
had gotten through to those who needed it? The U.S. government claimed that aid could not be
delivered properly until security was first established. When asked why the U.S. hadn't used
its C-130 transport planes to drop supplies in Port-au-Prince, Secretary of Defense Robert
Gates said, "Air drops will simply lead to riots." 39 However, precisely the
opposite is the case; people will riot because they lack food and water.
In lockstep, the corporate media's coverage shifted from its initial sympathy with victims
of the disaster to churning out scare stories. "Marauding looters emptied wrecked shops and
tens of thousands of survivors waited desperately for food and medical care," Reuters claimed.
"Hundreds of scavengers and looters swarmed over wrecked stores in downtown Port-au-Prince,
seizing goods and fighting among themselves." 40
These scare stories in turn became an excuse for not delivering aid. Writer Nelson Valdes
reported,
The United Nations and the U.S. authorities on the ground are telling those who directly
want to deliver help not to do so because they might be attacked by "hungry mobs." Two cargo
planes from Doctors Without Borders have been forced to land in the Dominican Republic
because the shipments have to be accompanied within Port-au-Prince by U.S. military escorts,
according to the U.S. command. 41
The scare stories led relief workers and military personnel to treat Haitians in a
dehumanizing fashion. Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman reported an incident where an aid
helicopter refused to distribute food on the ground and instead dropped it on people. An
angry Haitian compared the incident to "throwing bones to dogs." 42
Many non-governmental organizations (NGOs), because of their close relation with the U.S.,
have adopted a paranoid obsession with security to the detriment of providing relief. Ecologist
and human rights activist Sasha Kramer reported on Counterpunch,
One friend showed me the map used by all of the larger NGOs where Port-au-Prince is
divided into security zones, yellow, orange, red. Red zones are restricted, in the orange
zones all of the car windows must be rolled up and they cannot be visited past certain times
of the day. Even in the yellow zone aid workers are often not permitted to walk through the
streets and spend much of their time riding through the city from one office to another in
organizational vehicles. The creation of these security zones has been like the building of a
wall, a wall reinforced by language barriers and fear rather than iron rods, a wall that,
unlike many of the buildings in Port-au-Prince, did not crumble during the earthquake. Fear,
much like violence, is self-perpetuating. When aid workers enter communities radiating fear
it is offensive, the perceived disinterest in communicating with the poor majority is
offensive, driving through impoverished communities with windows rolled up and armed security
guards is offensive . Despite the good intentions of the many aid workers swarming around the
UN base, much of the aid coming through the larger organizations is still blocked in storage,
waiting for the required UN and U.S. military escorts that are seen as essential for
distribution, meanwhile people in the camps are suffering and their tolerance is waning.
43
Yet this disastrous "beware of the Haitian people" line is simply not borne out by reports
coming from Haiti. "There are no security issues," argues Dr. Lyon:
I've been with my Haitian colleagues. I'm staying at a friend's house in Port-au-Prince.
We're working for the Ministry of Public Health for the direction of this hospital as
volunteers. But I'm living and moving with friends. We've been circulating throughout the
city until 2:00 and 3:00 in the morning every night, evacuating patients, moving materials.
There's no UN guards. There's no U.S. military presence. There's no Haitian police presence.
And there's also no violence. There is no insecurity. 44
As the real nature of the U.S. operation became clear, an array of forces criticized the
U.S. for imposing an occupation, not supplying relief. Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez
rightly declared on his weekly television show, "Marines armed as if they were going to war.
There is not a shortage of guns there, my God. Doctors, medicine, fuel, field hospitals --
that's what the United States should send. They are occupying Haiti undercover."
45
Impeding relief
The U.S. occupation actually prevented relief efforts. Once the U.S. was in charge of the
airport it prioritized military flights over relief flights. Jarry Emmanuel, the air logistics
officer for the World Food Program, complained, "There are 200 flights going in and out every
day, which is an incredible amount for a country like Haiti. But most of those flights are for
the United States military. Their priorities are to secure the country." 46
Hillary Clinton herself brought relief missions to a halt when she flew into Port-au-Prince
to seize emergency powers from Préval. The U.S. military shut the airport down for three
hours, preventing the desperately needed delivery of aid. Outraged, Alain Joyandet, the French
Cooperation Minister, called on the UN to investigate America's dominant role in the relief
effort and protested: "This is about helping Haiti, not occupying it." 47
The chorus of complaints further escalated not only from governments but also from aid
organizations. Richard Seymour reports that,
Since the arrival of the troops, however, several aid missions have been prevented from
arriving at the airport in Port-au-Prince that the U.S. has commandeered. France and the
Caribbean Community have both made their complaints public, as has Médecins Sans
Frontières [MSF] on five separate occasions. UN World Food Program flights were also
turned away on two consecutive days. Benoit Leduc, MSF's operations manager in
Port-au-Prince, complained that U.S. military flights were being prioritized over aid
flights. 48
The U.S. military has even turned back masses of health care workers who wanted to volunteer
to provide needed medical care in Haiti. The National Nurses Union organized an emergency
conference call to mobilize thousands of nurses to go to Haiti. More than 1,800 nurses called
in and they proceeded to recruit 11,000 others to the project. Initially the U.S. military said
that it would accept them, but then, inexplicably, they reversed themselves and told them that
the U.S. had plenty of military personnel to address the health care disaster in Haiti. Nothing
could be further from the truth. 49
The U.S. military, Florida's state government, and the Obama administration also colluded in
one of the worst examples of the callous treatment of Haitian victims. They refused to allow
landing of planes loaded with injured people in desperate need of medical treatment. The Obama
administration and Florida's governor were locked in a battle over who would pay for the cost
of the medical care. So for five days, the U.S. let injured people suffer in Haiti because
budget battles mattered more than people's lives. 50
Al Jazeera captured the nature of the U.S. and UN military occupation in a January
17 report:
Most Haitians here have seen little humanitarian aid so far. What they have seen is guns,
and lots of them. Armored personnel carriers cruise the streets. UN soldiers aren't here to
help pull people out of the rubble. They're here, they say, to enforce the law. This is what
much of the UN presence actually looks like on the streets of Port-au-Prince: men in uniform,
racing around in vehicles, carrying guns. At the entrance to the city's airport where most of
the aid is coming in, there is anger and frustration. Much-needed supplies of water and food
are inside, and Haitians are locked out. "These weapons they bring," [an unidentified Haitian
says], "they are instruments of death. We don't want them; we don't need them. We are a
traumatized people. What we want from the international community is technical help. Action,
not words." 51
Problems with the NGOs
Haiti has approximately 10,000 NGOs operating within its borders, one of the highest numbers
per capita in the world. The international NGOs are unaccountable to either the Haitian state
or Haitian population. So the aid funneled through them further weakens what little hold
Haitians have on their own society. These NGOs have taken deep hold in Haiti at the very same
time that the conditions in the country have gone from bad to apocalyptic.
Amid this crisis, some of the NGOs and their employees have tried valiantly to fill the
vacuum left by the U.S. and UN. But most of them did not have real forces inside the country to
respond to the disaster. The Red Cross, for example, only had 15 employees on the ground, but
has received the bulk of donated money -- more than $200 million -- from people around the
world. Add to this the reluctance of the big NGOs to act without "security," as mentioned
above.
Moreover, as the British medical journal The Lancet argues, many of the international NGOs
are engaged in a fierce battle for funds and have allowed that competition to distort their
provision of food, water, medical aid, and services amidst the crisis. After calling aid an
"industry in its own right," the Lancet noted that NGOs are
jostling for position, each claiming that they are doing the most for earthquake
survivors. Some agencies even claim that they are "spearheading" the relief effort. In fact,
as we only too clearly see, the situation in Haiti is chaotic, devastating, and anything but
coordinated. Polluted by the internal power politics and the unsavory characteristics seen in
many big corporations, large aid agencies can be obsessed with raising money through their
own appeal efforts. Media coverage as an end in itself is too often an aim of their
activities. Marketing and branding have too high a profile. Perhaps worst of all, relief
efforts in the field are sometimes competitive with little collaboration between agencies,
including smaller, grass-roots charities that may have better networks in affected countries
and so are well placed to immediately implement emergency relief. 52
Repatriating and jailing refugees
As Haitians' needs continued unmet, the U.S. occupation devolved into policing the disaster,
including preventing the flight of refugees from Haiti. It is true that activists finally
compelled Obama to grant Haitians Temporary Protected Status (TPS). Obama's decision delayed
the deportation of 30,000 Haitians and will make TPS available to 100,000 to 200,000 more.
These provisions, however, have strict limitations.
First of all, the U.S. plans to exclude victims of the earthquake, offering TPS only to
those who arrived in the U.S. without legal documents before January 12. Those who quality must
prove they are indigent and at the very same time pay $470 in application fees. 53
Those Haitians who are granted TPS will only be allowed to stay in the U.S. for eighteen months
before they must return to Haiti. If they do qualify for the program they will become known to
the authorities and thus make themselves more vulnerable to repatriation. Moreover, given the
scale of destruction in Port-au-Prince, there is no way that the city or country will be in
better condition in a year and a half. So if the U.S. enforces this eighteen-month limitation,
it will return Haitians to an ongoing disaster area.
To enforce the bar on Haitians coming to the U.S., a flotilla of military vessels has
surrounded the country. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano tried to spin this in
humanitarian terms. "At this moment of tragedy in Haiti," she lectured, "it is tempting for
people suffering in the aftermath of the earthquake to seek refuge elsewhere, but attempting to
leave Haiti now will only bring more hardship to the Haitian people and nation." 54
In a far more blunt statement of the actual policy, Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Chris
O'Neil, in charge of Operation Vigilant Sentry declared, "The goal is to interdict them at sea
and repatriate them." 55
The U.S. made sure to broadcast this threat to Haitians. A U.S. Air Force transport plane
spends hours in the air above Haiti every day, not ferrying food and water, but broadcasting a
radio statement in Creole from Haiti's ambassador to the U.S., Raymond Joseph. "I'll be honest
with you," Joseph says, according to a transcript on the State Department's Web site. "If you
think you will reach the U.S. and all the doors will be wide open to you, that's not at all the
case. And they will intercept you right on the water, and send you back home where you came
from." 56
To prepare for the eventuality that some Haitians may get through the military cordon around
Haiti, Obama, like Bush and Clinton before him, has prepared jail space to incarcerate refugees
at Krome Detention Center in Florida and at the U.S. military base in Guantánamo, Cuba.
57
Asserting who's boss in Latin America
Days after the quake, the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation posted an article
detailing what it considered should be Washington's aims in occupying Haiti. The U.S. military
presence, they argued, in addition to preventing "any large scale movements by Haitians to take
to the sea to try to enter the U.S. illegally," also "offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti's
long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United
States in the region." At the same time, it argues, the U.S. military presence could "interrupt
the nightly flights of cocaine to Haiti and the Dominican Republic from the Venezuelan coast
and counter the ongoing efforts of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez to destabilize the
island of Hispaniola." There is no evidence of Venezuelan cocaine flights or efforts to
"destabilize" Haiti, but the point is clear: The U.S. sees Haiti as part of an effort to assert
more control over the region and contain "unfriendly" regimes. 58
The military response to Haiti's crisis cannot be separated from Washington's regional
interests. As Greg Gandin writes in the Nation ,
In recent years, Washington has experienced a fast erosion of its influence in South
America, driven by the rise of Brazil, the region's left turn, the growing influence of China
and Venezuela's use of oil revenue to promote a multipolar diplomacy. Broad social movements
have challenged efforts by US- and Canadian-based companies to expand extractive industries
like mining, biofuels, petroleum and logging. 59
Faced with such regional and international competition, the U.S. under Bush and now Obama is
angling to launch a counteroffensive. The U.S. tried to topple Chávez in 2002, it
succeeded in overthrowing Aristide in 2004, and last year backed the coup against President
Zelaya in Honduras. As Grandin reports, the U.S. is actively promoting the right-wing
opposition to the various reform socialist governments in the region. It is backing up this
political initiative with an expansion of its military bases in the region, particularly in
Colombia. "In late October," Grandin writes, "the United States and Colombia signed an
agreement granting the Pentagon use of seven military bases, along with an unlimited number of
as yet unspecified 'facilities and locations.' They add to Washington's already considerable
military presence in Colombia, as well as Central America and the Caribbean." 60
Haiti is thus a stepping-stone for further U.S. interventions in the region.
"Shock doctrine" for Haiti
For Haiti itself, the U.S. is preparing to impose its old neoliberal plan at gunpoint. In
The Shock Doctrine , Naomi Klein documents how the U.S. and other imperial powers take
advantage of natural and economic disasters to impose free-market plans for the benefit of the
American and native capitalists. The U.S., other powers, the IMF, and World Bank had their
shock doctrine for Haiti immediately on hand. Hillary Clinton declared, "We have a plan. It was
a legitimate plan, it was done in conjunction with other international donors, with the United
Nations." 61 This is the Collier Plan, the same old plan of sweatshops, plantations,
and tourism.
The U.S., a few other imperial powers, a few lesser countries, and the UN convened a meeting
on January 26 in Montreal to profess their concern and promises to aid Haiti. The fourteen
so-called "Friends of Haiti" made sure to include the Haitian prime minister, Jean-Max
Bellerive, to at least give the illusion of respect for the country's sovereignty. But outside
a protest organized by Haiti Action Montreal opposed the meeting with signs demanding "medical
relief not guns," "grants not loans," and "reconstruction for people not profit."
In the Guardian , Gary Younge criticized the summit for failing to produce any
solutions to the crisis in Haiti. "Even as corpses remained under the earthquake's rubble," he
wrote, "and the government operated out of a police station, the assembled 'friends' would not
commit to canceling Haiti's $1 billion debt. Instead they agreed to a 10-year plan with no
details, and a commitment to meet again -- when the bodies have been buried along with coverage
of the country -- sometime in the future." 62
By contrast, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and his Latin American and Caribbean allies
assembled in the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) announced their opposition to
America's shock doctrine. They denounced Washington's neoliberal plans, called for relief not
troops and for the cancellation of Haiti's debt. Venezuela itself immediately cancelled Haiti's
debt and began sending shiploads of relief offering over $100 million in humanitarian aid with
no strings attached. 63
No such humanitarian motives animate the U.S., its capitalist corporations, and the
international financial institutions. These vultures began circling above Haiti almost
immediately. The Street, an investment Web site, published an article misleadingly entitled,
"An opportunity to heal Haiti," that lays out how U.S. corporations can cash in on the
catastrophe. "Here are some companies," they write, "that could potentially benefit: General
Electric (GE), Caterpillar (CAT), Deere (DE), Fluor (FLR), Jacobs Engineering (JEC)."
64 The Rand Corporation's James Dobbins wrote in the New York Times, "This disaster
is an opportunity to accelerate oft-delayed reforms." 65
Over the last few years, the U.S. has been trying to give a facelift to the international
financial institution that it uses to impose its plans in Haiti. As Jim Lobe reports,
Last June, 1.2 billion dollars in Haiti's external debt, including that owed to the
Washington-based International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and Inter-American
Development Bank (IDB), was cancelled after the Préval government completed a
three-year Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) program. Over half of that debt had been
incurred by Haiti's dictatorships, notably the Duvalier dynasty that ruled the country from
1957 to 1986. But the cancellation covered debt incurred by Haiti only through 2004. In the
last five years, the country has received new loans -- some of them to help it recover from
the floods and other hurricane damage -- totaling another 1.05 billion dollars.
66
In other words, the U.S. and the financial institutions exchanged the old debts for new
so-called "legitimate loans," trapping Haiti yet again in debt. Eric Toussaint and Sophie
Perchellet call this "a typical odious debt-laundering maneuver." 67
In the wake of the crisis, the bankers were at Haiti's door yet again, ready, incredibly, to
loan Haiti money with the usual conditions. The IMF offered Haiti a new loan of $100 million
with the usual strings attached. As the Nation 's Richard Kim writes,
The new loan was made through the IMF's extended credit facility, to which Haiti already
has $165 million in debt. Debt relief activists tell me that these loans came with
conditions, including raising prices for electricity, refusing pay increases to all public
employees except those making minimum wage, and keeping inflation low. They say that the new
loans would impose these same conditions. In other words, in the face of this latest tragedy,
the IMF is still using crisis and debt as leverage to compel neoliberal reforms.
68
Debt cancellation activists like Jubilee pushed back against the IMF and scored a victory
over it. "On Jan. 21," Lobe reports,
the World Bank announced a waiver of Haiti's pending debt payment for five years and said
it would explore ways that the remaining debt could be cancelled. The IDB [Inter-American
Development Bank] has said it is engaged in a similar effort and will present alternatives
for reducing or canceling the debt to its board of governors. On Jan. 27, the IMF, which
lacks the authority to provide outright grants, announced that it would give Haiti a 102
million-dollar loan at zero-percent interest and that would not be subject to any of the
Fund's usual performance conditions. 69
The pressure even forced the U.S. to call for all new monies extended to Haiti to be in the
form of grants, and U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner called for debt relief in the run
up to the G-7 conference in February. 70
While activists can claim these concessions by the U.S. and the international financial
institutions as victories that open up the possibility for even more progress in demanding full
cancellation of Haiti's debt and all third world debt, no one should look at this situation
through rose-colored glasses. The U.S. is using this promise -- and it is just a promise at
this point -- to cover up its determination to implement the Collier Plan for tourism,
sweatshops, and mango plantations to exploit Haiti's desperately poor workers and peasants. In
fact, the U.S. does not need to use the leverage of debt to force Haiti to agree to the plan;
it has secured colonial rule over the country and can impose its plans directly at
gunpoint.
Resistance and solidarity
The left has a responsibility to cut through the propaganda of the Obama administration and the
mainstream media. The U.S. is not engaged in humanitarian relief, but old-fashioned imperialism
in Haiti. Humanitarianism has long been one of the means the U.S. uses to provide a cover story
for its military actions abroad. But whether it was saving the Cuban people from Spanish
brutality, sending the marines into Mogadishu in 1993 to feed starving Somalis, or overthrowing
the Taliban to "liberate women," the real aims and practical results of these interventions
diverged radically from their alleged noble intentions.
Humanitarian military intervention was heavily promoted in the 1990s during the latter part
of the first Bush administration and the Clinton administration -- in particular during the
wars in the former Yugoslavia. Its purpose was to reestablish the legitimacy of U.S. military
intervention in the wake of the U.S. defeat in Vietnam, as part of a policy intended to erase
what was known as the "Vietnam syndrome." It is being revived again in the wake of the
unpopularity of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan and weariness toward the "war on
terror," for similar reasons. The U.S. hopes that it can re-legitimize its military as a force
for good so that it can lay the groundwork for more U.S. interventions in the region and around
the world.
Even if the U.S. gets away with its new plans for Haiti, it will inevitably breed resistance
in the population and throughout the region where through bitter experience workers and
peasants have learned to oppose U.S. designs on their countries. In Haiti, workers and peasants
will find their way to organize in the countryside on the plantations, in the sweatshops, and
in the shantytowns.
Already Haitian organizations have come out against the U.S. agenda. A statement issued on
January 27 from the Coordinating Committee of Progressive Organizations announced:
We must declare our anger and indignation at the exploitation of the situation in Haiti to
justify a new invasion by 20,000 U.S. Marines. We condemn what threatens to become a new
military occupation by U.S. troops, the third in our history. It is clearly part of a
strategy to remilitarize the Caribbean Basin in the context of the imperialist response to
the growing rebellion of the peoples of our continent against neo-liberal globalization. And
it exists also within a framework of pre-emptive warfare designed to confront the eventual
social explosion of a people crushed by poverty and facing despair. We condemn the model
imposed by the U.S. government and the military response to a tragic humanitarian crisis. The
occupation of the Toussaint L'Ouverture international airport and other elements of the
national infrastructure have deprived the Haitian people of part of the contribution made by
Caricom, by Venezuela, and by some European countries. We condemn this conduct, and refuse
absolutely to allow our country to become another military base. 71
The Haitian left has thus already started building opposition to the U.S. occupation and the
Collier Plan. Every year since the U.S. coup in 2004, activists have marched on February 28 in
Port-au-Prince against the UN occupation and to demand the end of Aristide's exile. Workers'
organizations just last year protested in the thousands for an increase in the minimum wage
that Préval opposed. Lavalas activists had protested before the earthquake against their
exclusion from the scheduled parliamentary elections. Now amid crisis and occupation,
Préval, who has proved to be a puppet for the U.S. agenda, thus losing what little
political support he had, has cancelled those elections. No doubt Préval's behavior will
provoke political opposition from below against his government's collaboration with the United
States.
Outside Haiti, the left must build solidarity with that struggle and make several demands on
the Obama administration. First, Obama must immediately end the military occupation of Haiti,
and instead flood the country with doctors, nurses, food, water, and construction machinery.
Second, the U.S. must also stop its enforcement of Jean-Bertrand Aristide's exile and the ban
on his party, Fanmi Lavalas, from participating in elections. Haitians, not the U.S., should
have the right to determine their government.
Third, the left must demand that the U.S., other countries, and international financial
institutions cancel Haiti's debt, so that the aid money headed to Haiti will go to food and
reconstruction, not debt repayment. More than that -- France, the U.S., and Canada, the three
countries that have most interfered with Haiti's sovereignty -- should pay reparations for the
damage they have done. France can start by repaying the $21 billion dollars that it extracted
from Haiti from 1824 to 1947. Fourth, leftists must agitate for Obama to indefinitely extend
Temporary Protected Status to Haitians in the U.S. -- and open the borders to any Haitians who
flee the country. Finally, the left must direct all its funds to Haitian grass-roots
organizations to provide relief and help rebuild resistance to the U.S. plan for Haiti.
Only through agitating for these demands can we stop the U.S. from imposing at gunpoint its
shock doctrine for Haiti. In this struggle, the left must educate wider and wider layers of
people, already suspicious of U.S. motives after Hurricane Katrina, and the Iraq and
Afghanistan wars, that the U.S. state never engages in military actions for humanitarian
motives. As the great American revolutionary journalist John Reed declared, "Uncle Sam never
gives anybody something for nothing. He comes along with a sack stuffed with hay in one hand
and a whip in the other. Anyone who accepts Uncle Sam's promises at their face value will find
that they must be paid for in sweat and blood." 72
"President Obama on U.S. rescue efforts in Haiti, www.America.gov .
Bill Quigley, "Haiti: still starving 23 days later," Huffington Post, posted
February 4, 2010.
Soumitra Eachempati, Dean Lorich, and David Helfet, "Haiti: Obama's Katrina," Wall
Street Journal , January 26, 2010.
Rich Schapiro, "Rev. Pat Robertson says ancient Haitians' 'pact with the devil' caused
earthquake," New York Daily News , January 13, 2010.
David Brooks, "The underlying tragedy," New York Times , January 14, 2010.
For an overview of the French colony and the slave revolution see Ashley Smith, "The
Black Jacobins," International Socialist Review (ISR) 63, January–February
2009.
Peter Hallward, Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politicsw of
Containment (New York: Verso Books, 2007), 12.
Quoted in Sidney Lens, The Forging of the American Empire (Chicago: Haymarket
Books, 2003), 270.
For an overview of the history of U.S. imperialism in Haiti see Helen Scott, "Haiti under
siege," ISR 35, May-June 2004.
Paul Farmer, The Uses of Haiti (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1994),
108.
Alex Dupuy, Haiti in the New World Order (New York: Westview Press, 1996),
37.
For an analysis of Baby Doc's neoliberal plans see chapter 2 of Alex Dupuy, The
Prophet and the Power (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007).
Eric Toussaint and Sophie Perchellet, "Debt is Haiti's real curse," Socialist
Worker , January 20, 2010.
Regan Boychuck, "The vultures circle Haiti at every opportunity, natural or man-made,"
Znet, February 3, 2010.
Dupuy, Haiti in the New World Order , 31.
Quoted in Amy Wilentz, The Rainy Season (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1989),
137.
Quoted in Ashley Smith, "The new occupation of Haiti: Aristide's rise and fall,"
ISR 35, May–June, 2004.
For an analysis of Lavalas after Aristide's restoration see chapter 5 of Robert Fatton,
Haiti's Predatory Republic (Boulder: Lynne Reiner Publishers, 2002).
For a perhaps overly generous portrait of Aristide in his second term see chapters 6 and
7 of Peter Hallward, Damming the Flood .
Clara James, "Haiti free trade zone," Dollars and Sense , November/December
2002.
"... Lockheed Martin, after all, gets nearly as much money from the US government as the State Department. CEO Marilyn Hewson is, by the reckoning of some analysts, as powerful as most US cabinet secretaries. ..."
Lockheed Martin, after all, gets nearly as much money from the US government as the
State Department. CEO Marilyn Hewson is, by the reckoning of some analysts, as powerful as most
US cabinet secretaries.
Teal Group's Richard Aboulafia has the gold medal quote on this – "
diplomacy is out; airstrikes are in. " From the F-35 on, Lockheed is a key facilitator of
airstrikes, and soaring demands for its products are leading to soaring revenue and rising
profit margins.
Reports on the company brag about "juicy" shipbuilding deals, and the money pouring in from
nuclear weapons upgrades. Lockheed Martin's status as a main seller of US arms and the US
obsession with growing its military seem to ensure that the company will remain rich, and
wildly influential, for years to come.
"... How about Brazil, Argentina, and South Africa? Fuck Allen Dulles, Mike Pompeo, and everybody in-between! ..."
"... BTW, Victoria Noodles will be very disappointed Ukraine didn't make the list after all of her hard work. ..."
"... Victoria "F*ck the EU" Nuland and the CIA were all over the Ukrainian "coup", but of course no mention of that on "Fair and Balanced". Laura Ingram is a typical Fox News Zio-Nazi bitch, hiding behind a cross, who apparently believes her own BS, and along others like Hannity have blood on their hands. ..."
"... You can always spot a psychopathic liar by their predisposition to smile or laugh at questions that are not humorous. Laura Ingraham is a neocon mouth-peice for the establishment. ..."
Former CIA chief James Woolsey appeared on Fox News to push the narrative of how dastardly 'dem Russkies' are in their meddling
with the sacred soul of America's democracy.
Woolsey did his patriotic deep-state-duty and proclaimed the evils of "expansionist Russia" and dropped 'facts' like "Russia has
a larger cyber-army than its standing army," before he moved on to China and its existential threats.
But then, beginning at around 4:30 , the real debacle of the conversation begins as Ingraham asks Woolsey,
"Have we ever tried to meddle in other countries' elections?"
Hes responds, surprisingly frankly...
"Oh probably... but it was for the good of the system..."
To which Ingraham follows up...
"We don't do that now though? We don't mess around in other people's elections?"
Prompting this extraordinary sentence from a former CIA chief...
"Well...hhhmmm, numm numm numm numm... only for a very good cause...in the interests of democracy"
So just to clarify - yes, the CIA chief admitted that Democracy-spreading 'Murica meddled in the Democratic elections of other
nations "in the interests of democracy."
In case you wondered which ones he was referring to, here's a brief selection since 1948...
2016: UK (verbal intervention against Brexit)
2014: Afghanistan (effectively re-writing Afghan constitution)
2014: UK (verbal intervention against Scottish independence)
2011: Libya (providing support to overthrow Colonel Gaddafi)
2009: Honduras (ousting President Zelaya)
2006: Palestine (providing support to oust Prime Minister Haniyeh)
2005: Syria (providing support against President al-Assad)
2003: Iran (providing support against President Khatami)-
2003: Iraq (ousting of President Hussein)
2002: Venezuela (providing support to attempt an overthrow of President Chavez)
1999: Yugoslavia (removing Yugoslav forces from Kosovo)
1994: Iraq (attempted overthrow of President Hussein)
1991: Haiti (ousting President Aristide)
1991: Kuwait (removing Iraqi forces from Kuwait)
1989: Panama (ousting General Noriega)
1983: Grenada (ousting General Austin's Marxist forces)
1982: Nicaragua (providing support
1971: Chile (ousting President Allende)
1967: Indonesia (ousting President Sukarno)
1964: Brazil (ousting President Goulart)
1964: Chile (providing support against Salvador Allende)
1961: Congo (assassination of leader Lumumba)
1958: Lebanon (providing support to Christian political parties)
1954: Guatemala (ousting President Arbenz)
1953: Iran (ousting Prime Minister Mossadegh)
1953: Philippines (providing support to the President Magsaysay campaign)
1948: Italy (providing support to the Christian Democrats campaign)
This Russia bullshit has gotta stop. For the love of God, it's been like two and a a half years now. If Vladimir Putin was
as twice as evil as we're told, he still wouldn't be half as evil as the Clintons are on any given Thursday.
Democracy? Annnnnnnd it's gone! No wonder the rest of the world thinks we've collectively lost our minds. BTW, Victoria
Noodles will be very disappointed Ukraine didn't make the list after all of her hard work.
Victoria "F*ck the EU" Nuland and the CIA were all over the Ukrainian "coup", but of course no mention of that on "Fair
and Balanced". Laura Ingram is a typical Fox News Zio-Nazi bitch, hiding behind a cross, who apparently believes her own BS, and
along others like Hannity have blood on their hands.
The whole purpose of the Mueller indictment was to give the mainstream outlets something to report so idiot Americans will
believe the crap put out about Russia since the Winter Olympics in Sochi and set the tone to justify a military conflict with
Russia that won't end well for anyone, IMO
mary, just a touch catty tonight, don't cha' think?
Zio-Nazi? How dat work?
Whole purpose of the Mueller indictments is to give the folks a show to prove that their money hasn't been wasted on a Trump
collusion charge for collusion that started in 2014 when Trump was prolly out schlongin' some playmate or other..
I kinda wondered why they missed that one, too. I've seen that list on here before. I guess messing with Israel's elections
doesn't fit the ZH narrative?
No way he believes it. One thing about people who lack human empathy is that they would NEVER fall for the same tricks that
the empathy having population does. They will always see the angle. It's what their brain is devoted to. All the capacity that
we use to be reflective, emotional or caring all goes to angling for advantage with them. He knows exactly why people are tortured
and couldn't give a shit less. You are either shark or mutilated gold fish as far as he is concerned.
Woolsey is an evil man, for a certainty. But, au contraire, I bet he does believe it is for their own good. Whoever "they"
are that he's doin' shit to. Like the Jesuits in Andalusia, purging the non-believers.
You can always spot a psychopathic liar by their predisposition to smile or laugh at questions that are not humorous. Laura
Ingraham is a neocon mouth-peice for the establishment.
It really would be a new dawn for this country if the entire Deep State were outed, and publicly executed. I know that sounds
like tinfoil hat talk, but hey, I'm sure the NSA is all over me right about now. Too bad they can't seem to find serial killers
that say they're going to shoot up a school online. Too busy trying to shut up those that don't like the Deep State.
They have always done this and every single other accusation that they have levied against other "tyrants". The crazy train
continues to pick up speed.
Ummm, Fidel Castro, Cuba, 1962 ? Leading up to Dallas? Which led to LBJ and ramp up of Indochina. If you look closely you will
see that there was a huge little war going on in Laos, lots of bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail from fighter bombers based in
Thailand.
Also, Australia. The 1972 Whitlam dismissal was a bloodless coup d'état. Whitlam recognized North Vietnam which pissed off
a bunch of people in Langley. The pilots were on strike and they couldn't fly parts and crew into Alice Springs (Pine Gap Satellite
facility). The Aussies have long memories and it will be a cold day in hell before they trust the Yanks like before. This is a
country with a strong sense of injustice. The Aussies still talk about the "bodyline" cricket scandal with the Brits, and that
happened in the 1930's....
Here is an interesting article that points to the new American strategy with respect to Iran and central Asia. Iran is already
being attacked from West and East in the North. And central Asia is next. This might force Iran to pull back some forces from Syria
and Iraq.
But thankfully we now have Stephen Miller, the 32-year old Trump advisor and immigration hard-liner recently blamed by Democratic
senators for scuttling their desired amnesty deal for illegal immigrants. Transparently, the Dems are trying to spoil Trump's relationship
with Miller, as they did with Bannon,
by insinuating that
Miller is pulling Trump's strings. Of course it is absurd to suggest that Trump is anything but his own man. But Miller is a
crucially important figure in the Trump administration and his influence is, from what I can tell, entirely positive for the interest
of Americans concerned with mass immigration and the very tangible threat of
Europeans and people of European descent becoming
minorities in their own countries.
Jews, and Americans overall, need more Stephen Millers. Brash, unafraid, quick-witted, verbally formidable, and unabashedly "America
First," Miller is a powerful spokesman for
economic nationalist positions
,
anti-globalism , and for preserving this country's original culture and people against the Democratic scheme to flood it with
illegal and legal immigrants whose main gift to America will be their reliable Democratic votes in every future election. Miller
is roundly despised by the establishment for his positions and rhetoric.
Nancy
Pelosi has called Miller a "White supremacist," while others on the left have
compared him to Joseph Goebbels . He's the only Jew I can think of offhand that the mainstream media actively encourages the
country to hate.
But we Jews should be honest: for every mensch like Miller, we have shmucks like
Tim Wise ,
Noel Ignativ ,
Rob Reiner , Charles Schumer, and thousands
of other high-profile Jews who seem to hate or fear White Christian Americans and seek to hasten their demise as the ethnic majority
of this country. Yes, we Jews have Miller, but we also have the ADL and the SPLC -- powerful well-funded groups who conduct witch
hunts against anyone who dares speak out against multiculturalism, open-borders, globalist doctrine, or who dares to criticize Jews.
Jewish political influence in the US is still overwhelmingly negative, despite the great work of a few good Jews.
As an American (first) and Jew (second) who supports Trump and Trumpism, the European New Right, and anyone concerned with the
long-term impacts of mass immigration, I want to see more Jews, particularly younger, Generation Z Jews move to our ideological side.
I have tried to explore my own motivations for this. Why do I find myself so far to the Right on the issue of immigration and of
protecting European cultures and peoples? Why do I hope other Jews follow me on this ideological journey? And there is
growing indication
they are.
First of all, it has nothing to do with being "self-hating", a common but largely asinine Jewish slur used against Jews who step
out of line. I neither hate myself or Jews collectively. Like many non-Jewish critics of Jews, I just want Jews to stop attacking
Europeans and their descendants in their former colonies by pushing destructive ideologies and policies.
Secondly, I agree with the major criticism of Jews and certainly of Jewish activists: that they seek to do what they think is
good for Jews, while hiding their ethnocentrism by pretending their interests are universalist. Self-interest is often disguised
as "tikun olam," bringing light to the world.
Most importantly, accepting some of the recent critique of the JQ, or the Jewish role in the West's current situation -- without
thinking the situation is simple, monocausal, or part of a grand conspiracy, I view it as important to think about what Jews can
do positively in the current year.
It seems clear that ethnic Jewish activists in the 20 th century had a conscious or subconscious fear of European Christians
maintaining their ethnic or cultural identities, and this manifested itself in the various movements MacDonald brilliantly analyzes
in the Culture of Critique : the anthropology of race, psychoanalysis, communism, the Frankfort School and Cultural Marxism.
When Jewish activists pushed through immigration reform in the US, the effects were absolutely transformative. Jews largely achieved
their goals, or maybe even surpassed them. Now, more than 50 years later, we can re-examine the question: was this actually good
for the Jews?
To me the answer to this question is a resounding NO. To look at just one simple factor: the people pouring into the US in recent
years are no more Jew-friendly then the White Americans who made up almost 90% of the county in 1960 were. In fact, they are likely
to be considerably less Jew friendly. Mexicans have no special relationship with Jews or with Israel. Neither do Somalis, or Syrians,
or Afghans, or MS-13. Identity-politics obsessed leftist college activists have already made it quite clear that
Jews who side against them are to be viewed as White s -- their Jewishness will not protect them. This trend will continue, and
Jews will become Whites in the eyes of the many people who hate Whites. However different things may have looked to our parents'
or grandparents' generation, there is no tangible benefit today to ordinary American Jews today from the importation of quarter of
Mexico's population, or to ordinary French Jews from a million new Muslims. To think otherwise is to deny reality.
A main motivation for Jewish activism on immigration and other related issues was Jewish fear of being a major outgroup in American
society. Perhaps these fears may have seemed real in the wake of the Second World War, or perhaps even then they were delusional.
Today, they seem absurd. Maybe it is a generational thing, or maybe my Jewish identification is too weak, or maybe it was the context
I grew up in; but I just can't understand American Jews having feelings of fear or hostility towards White Christian Americans in
general. I grew up around White Christians; work with them; live amongst them; and count many as friends, neighbors, colleagues or
teachers. Jewish neurosis or not, a generalized Jewish fear of American Whites is, in my view, insane. Granted, things could change
in the future if we reach such a desperate state that American Whites begin to focus on some of the negative influence Jews have
had in changing their society, and collectively determine to do something about it. But flooding the country with immigrants doesn't
lessen the possibility that will happen. Quite the opposite, it increases it.
Given that, what is really best for the Jews? As American Whites slowly begin to wake up to the reality of their own ethnic interests,
what kind of Jews do we want as our representatives in the public sphere: Stephen Miller or Charles Schumer?
From my point of view, what is "best for the Jews" is to realize that while Jewish elites have been pushing a corrosive and destructive
agenda for 50 years or more, the rest of us are under no obligation to support it. Being Jewish doesn't mean one has to be a leftist
or multiculturalist booster, or work to disenfranchise White majorities in traditionally White countries. Stephen Miller is proof
of that.
But there is another response to the question "what is good for the Jews?" that is also worth serious consideration by American
Jews. The response is: who cares? Seriously, look at the current state of Jews in America. Jews have an extremely disproportionate
share of control over the media, entertainment industry, banking and financial sector, law, medicine, academia, and important policy-making
institutions. Jews are the wealthiest ethnic group in the country. I don't allege any conspiracy here. Jews' tendency to position
ourselves close to power is well described in Benjamin Ginsberg's The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State. Jews have high
IQs and are excellent verbalists, and obviously Jewish nepotism exists as well. While I abhor the contemporary politicized notion
of "privilege" that minority groups use to cover up their lack of rational argument, it would be dishonest to not admit that if there
is a privileged ethnic group in the US today, that group is not Whites as a whole, but Jews.
It is impossible to look at the situation objectively and not see that generally things have been going very well for American
Jews, and certainly for Jewish elites, for some time. There is thus no reason to spend time and energy thinking about what is good
for the Jews. Even if things do go wildly wrong for diaspora Jews in the future, we have a viable ethnostate that we know will take
us in; a luxury few other peoples in the world possess.
There are abundant reasons however to worry about the welfare of Europeans and people of European descent. The migration crisis
in Europe and the reality of looming major demographic increases in Africa and the Middle East that could drive much larger waves
of migrants are rapidly creating a potential future in which entire peoples could become minorities in their own countries. In the
US, demographic changes due to migration and considerably higher fertility rates among immigrants will alter the country permanently
unless drastic changes to immigration policies are made. Jews need to focus our "tikun olam" on the moral necessity of protecting
ethnic homelands and cultures in Europe, and the neo-Europes. In Stephen Miller we see a Jew who seems to understand what needs to
be done. There is no reason other American Jews can't follow his lead.
In my view, in 2018 what's good for the Jews is for us to stop thinking about what's good for the Jews and start thinking about
the right to self-determination and survival for the people we live amongst: the people who have facilitated the most stunning successes
of our tribe's history in diaspora to date, Americans, Europeans, and people of European descent. (Republished from
The Occidental
Observer by permission of author or representative)
"... From Eisenhower to Trump, the intelligence community has always struggled with its political role. ..."
"... Note: this article is part of a ..."
"... included in the March/April 2018 issue of the ..."
"... George Beebe is director of the Center for the National Interest's intelligence program. He formerly served as chief of Russia analysis at the CIA, and as special advisor to Vice President Cheney on Russia and the former Soviet Union. ..."
From Eisenhower to Trump, the intelligence community has always struggled with its political role.
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ShareMarch-April 2018Note: this article
is part of asymposium
included in the March/April 2018 issue of the National Interest .
FEW QUESTIONS have greater import for the health and integrity of any republic than the question of whether important parts of
its government's national-security apparatus are abusing their power for political purposes. This is particularly true in the United
States, where the departments and agencies known collectively as the Intelligence Community (IC) have grown so large and capable,
where faith in the integrity of our democratic institutions is so vital to the effective functioning of our system, and where suspicions
about secret police and intelligence organizations are baked so deeply into our country's political culture.
The United States has faced this question several times in its recent history. The Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations
all used -- or attempted to use -- the FBI and CIA to gather intelligence on U.S. citizens they suspected of collaboration with communist
agents, with too little regard for statutory regulations and prohibitions of such practices, and too great a tendency to view their
political enemies as national-security threats. Lyndon B. Johnson believed, without much justification, that the CIA had conspired
against him at the 1960 Democratic convention to ensure that John F. Kennedy won the presidential nomination. Richard Nixon was equally
convinced that the CIA had helped to swing the subsequent presidential election to Kennedy. These misperceptions barely surfaced
in public at the time and did little to shake voters' faith in the outcome of the election, but they had significant implications
for the working relationships of both Johnson and Nixon with the CIA once in office. Johnson's suspicions probably increased his
inclination to side with the Defense Department's optimistic assessments of the Vietnam War over the CIA's more pessimistic -- and,
in retrospect, more accurate -- analyses. Nixon's suspicions fueled his determination to build a small intelligence-gathering and
covert-action group within the White House, which ultimately led to the Watergate break-in and cover-up that destroyed his presidency.
Investigations in the 1970s into various IC abuses, including efforts to collect intelligence on the political activities of U.S.
citizens, led to the creation of specially designated congressional oversight committees -- the House Permanent Select Committee
on Intelligence and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence -- with the power and authorization to ensure that the CIA, NSA,
FBI, and other IC bodies conduct their activities strictly within the bounds of law. The investigations also resulted in the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978, which imposed strict limits on the government's ability to surveil the communications
and activities of U.S. persons, requiring warrants issued by a special FISA court based on probable cause to believe that the target
is a foreign power or its agent. The act established "minimization" requirements for disclosing the identities of U.S. persons being
surveilled, allowing for "unmasking" -- that is, revealing their names to authorized government officials -- only when there is strong
reason to believe they have committed a crime or when their identities are necessary to understand the intelligence information.
The now-infamous Iraq WMD estimate of 2002 raised questions of the political misuse of intelligence in a different form. Seldom
had intelligence figured more prominently in the public justifications for a decision to go to war, and seldom had it been proven
more spectacularly wrong in retrospect. Years of efforts by the CIA to increase its relevance had paid off in an unprecedentedly
close relationship to the White House, but its unique ability to provide policymakers with the skepticism of a disinterested party
suffered. The reorganization and reform of the IC mandated by the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2005 were designed
less to prevent political abuses of intelligence than to make the IC less prone to such consequential errors. This required something
new of intelligence overseers: not only to ensure that IC activities remained within the bounds of law, but also to encourage qualitative
improvements to its analytic rigor, information sharing and collaboration.
In principle, no one disputes that intelligence operations should be conducted strictly within the bounds of law, and that intelligence
and law-enforcement professionals should be guided solely by evidence and analytic rigor in producing their assessments. Human nature
being what it is, however, two temptations will be a never-ending challenge: for the IC, to please its White House masters, and for
the presidency, to conflate its political enemies with those of the country as a whole. Aspects of both these temptations are evident
in the controversies over the 2016 presidential election.
The use of the IC's vast capabilities to gather intelligence on opposition political campaigns should occur only in the rarest
of circumstances, justified by solid evidence of treasonous activities warranted by the FISA court. The so-called Steele dossier,
a piece of Clinton-funded opposition research gathered from London through unsecure communications with unnamed contacts in Russia,
does not meet that standard of evidence. If, as is alleged but not proven, the FBI relied on this unverified document to justify
a FISA warrant for collecting intelligence on Trump campaign officials, then the Obama administration crossed an important ethical,
though probably not legal, line. Is there a deep state in the United States? Yes, if that means that important parts of our national-security
apparatus have the capability, albeit not the legal authority, to abuse intelligence to alter the outcomes of national elections
or distort public-policy debates. But we have processes in place to minimize this danger if the oversight provisions established
by our laws are properly implemented and our independent media play their informal oversight role effectively. The IC, Congress,
judiciary and media all appear to have fallen short of the standards our country should expect.
George Beebe is director of the Center for the National Interest's intelligence program. He formerly served as chief of Russia
analysis at the CIA, and as special advisor to Vice President Cheney on Russia and the former Soviet Union.
Mr. Beebe, crossed an ethical but probably not legal line??? Really, appalling. FBI/DOJ operatives using the national level
intel services to spy against a political opponent? Corruption, deception, lying to judges? Then there's this little aspect of
a "cover up." Remember Nixon and Watergate, the break in was small potatoes, it was the lying and cover up that cost Nixon the
Presidency. These two questions MUST be asked: What did they know and when did they know it??? Lynch, Holder, Brennan, Comey,
Panetta, Biden and especially Obama. The truth will come out, eventually.
CIA and Intelligence community in common are parts of the American political system;their successful functioning is basis of
success and victory of the USA as civil country;its alpha and omega of practical politics!
The American so-called "Intel community" is a very peculiar phenomenon. Including this very term. Any intelligence agency is
a military organisation with a very strict discipline directly subordinated to the commander in chief. Its activity is strictly
secret and the commander in chief is the only recipient of the intelligence they acquire.
The Chinese book of military strategy "Sun Tzu" says that if the information of an agent became known to anyone before it was
reported to the superior commander, both the agent and the recipient must be executed: the former for his loose tongue, the latter
for his inappropriate curiocity. This implies that a particular branch of the intelligence service cannot distribute the information
even to the adjacent branches, leaving alone the media.
In the US these rules seems to be entirely foreign. The intelligence officers actively discuss everything both with each other
and with the media so that the commander in chief is often the last receiving the information. In a normal country this behaviour
would have been stopped by executing the first 100 caught in leaking. The rest would learn the lesson.
I agree but i would say these people are obviously Obama lovers... We both know the realities of today wouldn't allow for executions
but it would stop ot and i do agree... The only answer is smaller government but it's to late for that..
Another worthless article - how can you mention the Deep State and Nixon and not mention the mighty James Schlesinger and the
Family Jewels? I think the Master Old Boy talked about peak oil in his later years too - nah, no such thing as the Limits to Growth
eh boys?
"... Michael Lind is a visiting professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author, with Robert D. Atkinson, of ..."
"... (MIT Press, March 2018). ..."
"... The rise of the power elite has long been a serious problem in many Western societies, but trying to forcibly overthrow it will only create a new and potentially more dangerous elite in turn. ..."
"... Information is the key to winning any war between the people and the elite ..."
"... Would have been nice to mention that all this was possible post-1991 because there was no longer a peer competitor to the US, and thus Western business elite no longer was constrained to be allied with Western workers. Since 2014, that has all changed. There are now two near-peer competitors to the US. ..."
Political scientists often divide explanations of democratic politics in the United States and similar nations among theories
of pluralism, state autonomy and elitism. The pluralist theory holds that the American elite, like the population, is divided among
competing centers of power and authority with different values and interests. The state-autonomy theory holds that government agencies
and military and intelligence organizations are independent actors in politics. The elitist theory holds that in most democracies
most of the time, no matter how many political parties there may be, there is a dominant elite, which includes most of the leaders
of politics, the economy and civil society and shares a broad consensus.
... ... ...
In my view, the elitist approach best explains the Trump phenomenon, along with contemporary populism on both sides of the Atlantic.
Since the end of the Cold War, highly homogeneous social elites in North America and Europe have liberated themselves from the constraints
of the institutions that restrained them between 1945 and 1989 -- institutions including strong labor unions, grassroots political
parties and, in the United States, a distinct Southern oligarchy that by now has largely lost its identity and power and has been
absorbed into the national ruling class.
Elites in the United States, Britain, Germany and other Western nations under post–Cold War leadership have deliberately weakened
the bargaining power of workers in their nations by a combination of austerity-induced unemployment, offshoring, permitting Western-controlled
corporations to play nation-states against one another and mass low-skilled immigration, creating a low-wage "reserve army of labor"
in Western countries.
While restructuring the global economy to crush organized labor, transatlantic elites have simultaneously restructured government
to minimize democratic accountability, by shifting decisionmaking from legislatures to executive and judicial agencies within the
nation-state, and by enabling treaties and transnational agencies like the European Union, which are more insulated from voters,
to replace or modify national statutory law. In both of the cases of anti-worker economic restructuring and de-democratization, American
and European oligarchs have claimed that a mysterious, unstoppable force called "globalization" compelled them to do what they wanted
to do anyway. This post–Cold War oligarchic revolution from above might be described as a conspiracy, but it is not a secret conspiracy
perpetrated by the deep state. It was a program carried out in broad daylight by Bill Clinton and George Bush, Tony Blair and centrist
European leaders. And it succeeded in its two goals of weakening the economic leverage and political power of the working-class majorities
in the United States, the UK and other Western nations.
The populist rebellions of the second decade of the twenty-first century, which have been led by right-wing tribunes like Trump
or left-wing demagogues like Sanders and Corbyn, can only be understood as a long-delayed reaction by populations to the replacement
of the cross-class compromises of the post–World War II period by untrammeled oligarchy. America's newly empowered ruling class has
closed ranks against Trump, but it would also close ranks against any other outsider president who challenged its post–Cold War dominance
of American society, including Bernie Sanders. Deep divide? Yes. Deep state? No.
A bizarre misreading of history, though good points are made as well.
This is a classic example of a dishonest person analyzing something they disagree with, and instead of sticking to reality,
they build a straw man bugaboo to assign blame to, and make their side into a victim:
"deliberately weakened the bargaining power of workers in their nations by a combination of austerity-induced unemployment,
offshoring, permitting Western-controlled corporations to play nation-states against one another and mass low-skilled immigration,
creating a low-wage "reserve army of labor" in Western countries"
He pretends that he isn't calling it a conspiracy, but that is exactly what he's doing, and some have done what he describes,
but where he willfully jumps off the cliff of dishonesty is in claiming to know why ("deliberately") these actions were taken
by so many people, over such a long period of time.
That's an obvious lie. Unless Mr. Lind is Professor X, using science fiction psychic magnifying machines to read thousands
of minds, both past and present, there is no way anyone could honestly make that claim.
His use of conspiracy theory makes it doubly interesting in how he deconstructs the conspiracy theory many on the right are
pushing about the 'deep state'.
Turn that skeptic's lens back on yourself, Mr. Lind.
The rise of the power elite has long been a serious problem in many Western societies, but trying to forcibly overthrow it
will only create a new and potentially more dangerous elite in turn.
Information is the key to winning any war between the people and the elite.
Would have been nice to mention that all this was possible post-1991 because there was no longer a peer competitor to the US,
and thus Western business elite no longer was constrained to be allied with Western workers. Since 2014, that has all changed.
There are now two near-peer competitors to the US.
"... Putin is evil, Putin kills, Putin steals, bla bla bla!!! Putin is only guilty for not being America's vassal. The Russia bashing in MSM will cease by miracle if it becomes America's client state. Putin and Russia are presumed guilty of everything bad that happens in the world. ..."
"... No evidence is needed, high confidence is enough!! It is almost funny that a country like USA which has a long records of meedling and intervention in others countries internal affairs worlwide, now is losing reason about alleged russia meedling. ..."
For a very simple reason. The Deep Staters care first and foremost about themselves. They wanted Hillary to win, badly, but
were not willing to risk too much for her. James Comey in particular cares about James Comey. Remember, this is a guy who views
himself as a historical Religious Figure. He wanted to be able to serve out a full 10 year term. He wanted to please his Democratic
masters enough to avoid being fired by either Obama or Clinton, but not too much to gain excessive ire from Congress. He was afraid
that a Republican Congress under a future Clinton Administration would go after him tooth and nail if he "concealed" new evidence
against Clinton prior to the election - especially since he promised the Congress that he would inform them of new developments.
And Comey probably feared the worst as to what was in Wiener's email archive. When they finally went through that archive, and
failed to find much that was new, he must have breathed a sigh of relief - only to see the wrong person win the election.
The political system in the US is a near complete failure. On one hand the massive levels of corruption legalized in Citizen's
United give influence over political decisions to wealthy elites previously unseen outside of the deeply corrupted and criminal
Russian oligarchy. On the other hand and synergistic with the previous point, the least informed and most easily influenced of
people have votes equal in weight to highly informed, well-educated, expert and professional practitioners.
Rights guaranteed by a difficult-to-alter constitution combined with easily managed and easily created social media content
based on opaque sources of emotionally charged, unverified and unverifiable information have gained control over public opinion
(making alteration of our constitution even more difficult.)
And look at the fourth (Reagan, Bush, Bush, Trump) wave of Republican explosion of national debt under the banner of "fiscal
responsibility."
It is astounding how "A" can be so successfully marketed as "B."
I am afraid that once control of public opinion has been so successfully attained in our form of democracy/legalized-corruption
that there is no way to recover.
It is a sad state of affairs. I'd love to hear solutions.
Great piece by Merry. Not new, but worthy of repetition when presented clearly like this.
It does not matter what you call it, Deep State or something else. What Merry says about the threat it poses to what remnants
of democracy we have is true.
I prefer to call it the Imperial State since its highest priority is the US Empire, with domestic well-being simply an afterthought
or of no cosequence at all.
There is only ONE country that consistently "messes" in the politics of nearly every other country on the planet and that is
not Russia.
It is the USA Deep State. I challenge you to research the evidence, "hidden in plain sight", of these examples:
1) US
money that flowed into France and Italy elections after WW2;
2) overthrow of Greece elected pres in 1974 by US-friendly generals;
3) overthrow of Salvadore Allende in Chile 1973;
4) overthrow of Iran Mossadegh in 1953;
5) overthrow of neutral govt in Indonesia
in early '60s;
6) the massive money that flowed into Russia in 1996 to get Yeltsin re-elected;
7) the money and attention US put
into overthrowing legally elected govt in Ukraine in 2014.
That is just a VERY short list.
NO OTHER COUNTRY ON EARTH HAS MAINTAINED THIS FRANTIC PACE OF MASSIVE INTERVENTIONS/MEDDLING/BRIBING/OVERTHROWING/BOMBING/INVADING/DEATH-SQUADing
FOREIGN POLITICAL SYSTEMS FOR 70 YEARS LIKE YOUR "GOOD OLE USA", powered by it's un-elected Deep State.
Putin is evil, Putin kills, Putin steals, bla bla bla!!! Putin is only guilty for not being America's vassal. The
Russia bashing in MSM will cease by miracle if it becomes America's client state. Putin and Russia are presumed guilty of everything
bad that happens in the world.
No evidence is needed, high confidence is enough!! It is almost funny that a country like USA which has a long records
of meedling and intervention in others countries internal affairs worlwide, now is losing reason about alleged russia meedling.
You're right, Kelly, about some of your points. Evil: check. Kill: check. Steal: check. Co-opting the largest per capita criminal
network in the world: check.
Note: this article is part of asymposiumincluded in the March/April 2018 issue of the National Interest .
OF COURSE there's a Deep State. Why wouldn't there be? Even a cursory understanding of human nature tells us that power corrupts,
as Lord Acton put it; that, when power is concentrated and entrenched, it will be abused; that, when it is concentrated and entrenched
in secrecy, it will be abused in secret. That's the Deep State. James Burnham saw it coming. The American philosopher and political
theorist (1905–87), first a Trotskyist, then a leading conservative intellectual, wrote in 1941 that the great political development
of the age was not the battle between communism and capitalism. Rather, it was the rise of a new "managerial" class gaining dominance
in business, finance, organized labor and government. This gathering managerial revolution, as he called it, would be resisted, but
it would be impervious to adversarial counteractions. As the managerial elites gained more and more power, exercised often in subtle
and stealthy ways, they would exercise that power to embed themselves further into the folds of American society and to protect themselves
from those who might want to bust them up.
Nowhere is this managerial elite more entrenched, more powerful and more shrouded in secrecy than in what Dwight Eisenhower called
the military-industrial complex, augmented by intelligence and law-enforcement agencies. That's where America's relentless drive
for global hegemony meshes with defense manufacturers only too willing to provide the tools of dominance.
Now we have not only a standing army, with hundreds of thousands of troops at the ready, as in Cold War days. We have also permanent
wars, nine of them in progress at the moment and not one with what could even remotely be called proper congressional approval. That's
how power gets entrenched, how the managerial revolution gains ever greater force and how the Deep State endures.
Few in the general public know what really happened with regard to the allegations of Trump campaign "collusion" with Russia,
or how the investigation into those troubling allegations emerged. But we know enough to know we have seen the Deep State in action.
We know that U.S. agencies released an "Intelligence Community Assessment" saying that Russia and President Putin were behind
the release of embarrassing Democratic emails in a plot to help Trump win the presidency. But we also know that it wasn't really
a National Intelligence Assessment (a term of art denoting a particular process of expansive intelligence analysis) but rather the
work of a controlled task force. As Scott Ritter, the former Marine intelligence officer and arms-control official,
put it , "This deliberate misrepresentation of the organizational bona fides of the Russia NIA casts a shadow over the
viability of the analysis used to underpin the assessments and judgments contained within." Besides, the document was long on assertion
and short on evidence. Even the New York Timesinitially derided
the report as lacking any "hard evidence" and amounting "essentially . . . to 'trust us.'"
We have substantial reason to believe that an unconfirmed salacious report on Trump, paid for by the Democratic Party and the
Hillary Clinton campaign (with the FBI eventually getting hold of it), was used in an effort to get a secret national-security warrant
so the government could spy on the Trump campaign. We know that the FBI went easy on Clinton in its investigation of her irresponsible
email practices, and then we find out that a top FBI official involved in both the Clinton and Trump/Russia investigations despised
Trump, liked Hillary and expressed an interest in doing what he could to thwart Trump's emergence. We know he
privately told his lover
that, while he didn't think Trump could win, he nevertheless felt a need for an "insurance policy" because "I'm afraid we can't take
that risk." We know these matters were discussed in the office of FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe.
We know further that former FBI director James Comey used a cutout to leak to the press a rendition of an Oval Office conversation
with the president that could be interpreted adversely to Trump. We know he did this to set in motion the appointment of an independent
investigator, a potentially mortal threat to any president -- and perhaps particularly to this freewheeling billionaire developer.
Perhaps most significant, we know that all this had the effect of wrenching from the president the flexibility to pursue a policy
agenda on which he had campaigned -- and which presumably contributed to his election. That was his promise to work toward improved
relations between the United States and Russia. Prospects for such a diplomatic initiative now are as dead as the dodo bird. Trump
lost that one. The Deep State won.
I don't believe there is a secret 'deep state' controlling the USA from the shadows like some Bond villian.
What people call the deep state is in fact the interests of the business elite who have been granted nearly unprecedented political
influence by the American people in the form or nearly unlimited campaign contributions to politicians who promote their interests,
unregulated lobbying, control of the MSM and the funding of think tanks and other institutions that promote their interests.
When historians look back at this time it will be Madison Avenue and the revolution in persuasion that they study.
1934 Major General Smedley Butler, US Marine Corp, was asked by US Industrialists to help them overthrow the government. Roosevelt
was to remain as the figurehead of the US but the industrialists would be in charge. The industrialist would supply Butler with
a 500,000 man army that he would be in charge of. Butler's father was a congressman in the 1920's and Butler told congress of
the possible Coup. Read of The Committee of Foreign Affairs, CFA.
Teddy Roosevelt and the Presidents that followed him understood the dangers of the Robber-Barons buying the government. That's
why they launched anti-trust, income tax and estate taxes to protect democracy.
The problem is not that the "deep state" is thwarting Trump's policy agenda. It is his reliance on advisers who agree with the
post–Cold War foreign-policy consensus.
"... History informed his judgement. "The means of defense against foreign danger," he said, "have been always the instruments of tyranny at home." ..."
"... National Security and Double Government ..."
"... Christopher A. Preble is vice president for defense and foreign-policy studies at the Cato Institute and the author of ..."
AMERICA'S FOUNDERS anticipated how a sprawling national-security state could subvert the
popular will, and even endanger the nation's interests. James Madison told his fellow delegates at the
Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, "A standing military force, with an overgrown
Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty."
History informed his judgement. "The means of defense against foreign danger," he said,
"have been always the instruments of tyranny at home."
George Washington agreed. In his Farewell Address, the general turned president advised his
countrymen to "avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any
form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly
hostile to republican liberty."
Another general-president, Dwight Eisenhower, echoed these concerns. He worried that the
evolving "military-industrial complex" would acquire "unwarranted influence" and "endanger our
liberties or democratic processes." "Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry," he continued,
"can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with
our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
Alas, the citizenry is neither alert nor knowledgeable.
Which means that the actual conduct of foreign policy falls to what Michael Glennon dubbed
the Trumanites: "the network of several hundred high-level military, intelligence, diplomatic,
and law enforcement officials within the executive branch who are responsible for making
national security policymaking." And within that executive branch, Glennon concludes in his
book National Security and Double
Government , "The President . . . exercises little substantive control over the
overall direction of U.S. national security policy."
Even if you don't buy Glennon's argument, it seems likely that the men and women responsible
for executing U.S. foreign policy are uninterested in the views of the many Americans who
actually pay for the nation's wars, and the few Americans who fight them.
Defenders of the status quo like to argue that it survives because it works. The public is
wrong to doubt the wisdom of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the foreign-policy elite sees it,
the American people can't be expected to understand why we defend wealthy allies, deploy
hundreds of thousands of military personnel in numerous foreign countries and align ourselves
with some of the world's most reprehensible autocrats.
Dean Acheson, Truman's secretary of state, presumably spoke for many elites (though perhaps
too candidly) when he explained, "If you truly had a democracy and did what the people wanted,
you'd go wrong every time."
In this sense, it isn't merely inertia that explains why U.S. foreign policy remains on
autopilot, despite widespread public dissatisfaction with the status quo. Rather, it's the deep
state, doing what the deep state does.
Donald Trump tapped into the resentment engendered by the establishment's contempt for the
great unwashed. He has failed, so far at least, to dislodge the deep state and its policies.
Then again, maybe he never intended to roll back American primacy. After all, he promised
massive military spending increases, and expressed regret that we didn't take the Iraqis' oil.
Even his claim to have always opposed the Iraq War was a taradiddle. So there were ample
grounds for doubting that Trump would give the American people the foreign policy they wanted.
Maybe the deep state didn't thwart him?
The deep state obviously isn't all-powerful. After all, had the deep state gotten its way,
Donald J. Trump would never have come close to the Oval Office, let alone be sitting in it.
Now, given the power that we have erroneously invested in the office of the presidency,
critics of the deep state should rethink their opposition to it, and members of the deep state
should rethink their enthusiasm for a chief executive generally unencumbered by the Congress or
the people. The deep state doesn't control the @realDonaldTrump Twitter feed. It cannot stop
him from engaging in behavior that increases the risk of a catastrophic conflict. Perhaps we
should wish that it could?
But we should never welcome a situation in which unelected officials distort or ignore
public sentiments, or undertake policies that are demonstrably harmful to vital national
interests.
If anything, recent weeks have offered remarkable evidence of just how
victorious this country's losingest commanders and their colleagues really are in our
nation's capital. In the bipartisan style that these days usually applies only to the U.S.
military, Congress has just settled on giving an extra $165 billion
to the Pentagon over the next two years as part of a formula for keeping the government open.
As it happens, the 2017 Pentagon budget was already as large as the defense spending of the next
seven
nations combined. And that was before all those extra tens of billions of dollars ensured
that the two-year military budget (for 2018 and 2019) would crest at a total of more than
$1.4 trillion .
That's the sort of money that only goes to winners, not losers. And if this still seems a
little strange to you, given that military's
dismal record in actual war-fighting since 9/11, all I can say is: don't bring it up. It's
no longer considered polite or proper to complain about our wars and those who fight them or
how we fund them, not in an age when every American soldier is a " hero ," which
means that what they're doing from
Afghanistan to
Yemen , Syria to
Somalia , must be heroic indeed.
In a draft-less
country, those of us not in or connected to our military are expected to say "
thank you " to the warriors and otherwise go about our lives as if their wars (and the
mayhem
they continue to generate abroad) were not a fact of global life. This is the definition of a
demobilized
public. If you happen to be that rarest of all creatures in our country these days -- someone
in active opposition to those wars -- you have a problem. That means Stephanie Savell, who
co-runs the Costs of War
Project , which regularly provides well-researched and devastating information on the
spread of those wars and the money continually being
squandered on them, does indeed have a problem. It's one she understands all too well and
describes vividly today.
We won't bother doing an analysis of its lies, stupidities and racism. Simon Tisdall, author
of the piece, could easily find out the reason Putin is virtually certain to return as
president isn't because the election is rigged but because people in Russia overwhelmingly
support him. Even Gallup
admit that much. Even the more
level-headed western outlets acknowledge it . It's a fact beyond dispute. Putin doesn't
need to rig anything on order to win an election.
But Tisdall's brutish conviction is proof against facts. Any facts, even Western-backed
facts. Instead of doing even basic research he prefers to riff for umpteen paragraphs on
something that is a total, demonstrable lie .
Fact-based reality is not the one Tisdall and his peers live in any more. They don't see it.
And when it's presented to them they think it's Kremlin propaganda. In the matter of Russia
they have become over the last few years blind and deaf to reason and fact. They are the most
dangerous of deceivers -- those who believe their own lies. Even the best of them now truly
thinks anyone who questions their Russia=Evil narrative is a paid Kremlin agent. These
well-paid supposedly well-educated people are on Twitter literally asking anyone who challenges
them what the weather is like in St. Petersburg.
The sheer wanton deception, the outright, blunt and brutal propagandising is getting worse.
It's attaining new heights of spittle-flying hate. And in concert the war drums are beating
again in Syria and Ukraine.
And we can be sure this is going to continue up until and for some while after the Russian
election is done.
Supposing any of us live that long.
Because, without unnecessary alarmism, we have to be aware xenophobia of this magnitude
comes with a risk. In the past it has always been a prelude to war. And if this current case
isn't an exception, humanity is not going to survive. Not even those Guardian journos snug in
their cosy hubris. Hubris isn't bomb-proof sadly.
The Guardian allowed comments on this article for six whole hours. Long enough to make it
clear the suicidal, fact-blind, cultist insanity ATL is not shared by most who read it. Yes
there are predictable cries of "putinbots" and predictable agenda-setting claims such as that
Corbyn needs to be tougher on Putin (look forward to this becoming a major facet of the next UK
general election), but for all that it's the rational observations that get the most upvotes.
And that's even after the mods have scoured and censored as is their wont.
Here are a couple of the best.
Nik2
Being Russian, residing in Moscow and having never before voted for V. Putin because
he
was once chosen and promoted by B. Yeltsin and the oligarchs (so praised by Western
"liberals"), this time I am not so sure about my vote, and there is a chance I may vote
for
V. Putin for the first time. There are some 2-3 reasons for me to vote for V. Putin
(and
some - against him), and one of the strongest among pro-Putin stimuli - the writings of
Western "progressivists" like this article.
I do not like lies and fakes, and S. Tisdall presents many of such stuff.
1. How can V. Putin "steal" the victory if anyone knows he leads in opinion polls by a
huge
margin? There are several services, doing monitoring of public opinion, including the
"Levada centre", officially designated as a "foreign agent" in Russia and generally
well
accepted by Western colleagues.
2. To call Alexei Navalny the "most credible challenger" is to tell lies: it was always
a
communist, coming second after Putin at all the previous presidential elections with
some 15% - 20% (30% in 2000) of votes, and this time P. Grudinin is taking the 2nd
position in the polls (and most likely in elections too).
3. To say that Putin's "political opponents are virtually invisible" is to spread
obvious fake
news - see, for example, the results of monitoring TV-programmes by communists on
February 6, 2018: https://msk.kprf.ru/2018/02/08/37248/ (in
Russian; in short, V. Putin
got 14 only positive mentions; P. Grudinin -13 mentions, with 69% negative ones; M.
Suraikin, hard-line communist and opponent of P. Grudinin -11 mentions with no negative
ones; V. Zhirinovsky -10 mentions with no negative ones, etc.).
The more anti-Putin writings of this kind appear in Western mass-media (and are
covered
in Russia), the larger portion of Russians would vote for V. Putin because: first,
people
remember well how they lived under Yeltsin's rule in the 1990's who was so generously
backed up by the West, and second - everyone can see what has happened with standards
of living (and with prospects of just staying alive) after Western-backed
"democratization" of the Ukraine, Libya, etc.
Pemulis 8h ago
"There are no presidential debates, no unsanctioned opinion polls."
Credible external polls indicate consistently high approval for Putin. Obviously this
is
influenced by his stranglehold on information, but even Navalny's internal polling
shows
a high level of approval for Putin.
thinlkandleap1234 6h ago
I am unable to take this nonsense about Putin and democracy seriously any longer,
and
especially so when we have to endure it from outlets such as the Guardian and the BBC.
In July 2013, the Egyptian military staged a coup d'etat which overthrew a
democratically
elected Government: Obama did nothing, other than to insult the intelligence of
ordinary
Americans by disregarding the Federal Laws that required him to cut off military and
other forms of aid to democracy-suppressing regimes; the BBC did nothing, other than to
have the now disgraced former Prime Minister Blair on the Radio 4 Today programme
justifying the actions of al-Sisi and the Generals (and he followed this up with an article
in
this very newspaper where he did the same thing); and the UN did nothing, other than to
arrange to have Ms Yousafzai mouth some empty platitudes about girls' education in
some children's forum at the headquarters of this tawdry and discredited institution.
The
BBC and the EU and the other usual suspects whipped up dissent in the Ukraine in order
to bring about the overthrow of the lawful - and elected - government, and thereby
plunge that unhappy country into internal conflict akin to a civil war. As for the
United
States, Hillary Clinton and her henchpersons in the DNC did a lot of chicanery to
ensure
that Senator Sanders was denied the opportunity to go up against Donald Trump in the
November 2016 presidential election. We in the UK are even being sold the lie that
Putin
swung the vote for Brexit in June 2016, although quite how he is supposed to have done
this is something that no one bothers to explain. All in all, the hypocrisy is appalling:
so
perhaps we should just shut about it, and attend, here in the UK, to the problems
attaching to the failed and failing state that is our own country.
avenir 8h ago
So the guardian's Mi6 assets still want regime change. Im sure they'll supply you with
a
rifle a one-way ticket to Finland and cooperation of a US multi billionaire nutcase to
help.
Oops that's the plot of billion dollar brain.
fragglerokk
Oh Simon! such hyperbole. There are many (and regular) independent polls conducted
by
western polling firms and not one of them gets less than 80% support at home for Putin.
This kind of silly sabre rattling just diminishes the impact of anything the Guardian has
to
say on Russia. Navalny is a no hoper and polling over the whole of Russia will be lucky
to
get 5%, he'll fare better in Moscow but nowhere near enough. He's just another western
backed stooge, a stalking horse for the wests babe in arms Khordokovsky, sat patiently
waiting in Berlin. How about an in depth report on why Putin has ratings western
leaders
would die for and how he manages to maintain them over such a long period? Something
interesting and meaningful not just the ill informed, alarmist pap that comes out of
the
foreign office, the armed forces and govt backed 'institutes' like RUSI.
The outstanding feature of the MSM and particularly the modern Guardian is that it will not
under any circumstance allow an alternative view to be put by the pro Syrian side of the
argument. They would not dare allow Eva Bartlett or Vanessa Beeley to use their own voices to
reply to the fact free claims of Guardian journalists who happily promote the views of the
terrorists through the perspective of the White Helmets and the UK based Muslim Brotherhood
man who calls himself the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Can anyone recall the Guardian talking to the majority Syrian citizens who want Assad as
President and who are not in terrorist controlled areas. There are many Syrians who have
become refugees due to the illegal invasion but who never get interviewed, only the Al Qaeda
terrorists get a voice.
This is today's Guardian a mish mash of propaganda, populism! and salacious click bait, while
heavily restricting discussion on important issues. Shame on these cowardly traitors of
truth.
I have real Russians in my large and extended family, and they all admire and pretty much
adore Putin, especially after the shameful years typified by Yeltsin.
One of the amusing things about Russia, is that the leadership have discovered and
understood that they don't need to produce 'propaganda' about the West, like the old Soviets
did, all they need to do is tell the truth about the West and use openly available western
sources; which is somewhat ironic.
As an aside, sorry; I've just watched the movie 'Kill the Messenger' about the journalist
Gary Webb who wrote a series of articles linking the CIA with gun-running and drug-running on
a massive scale in the 1970's. Webb's
story, unfortunately, was to big to tell and the rest of the quality press turned on him and
basically destroyed him and his career. What struck me about the movie was how closely Webb's
story, what happened to him, the reaction of the rest of the press to his staggering
revelations about massive criminality at the heart of government, echoes the way Assange has
been savaged by the Guardian and the rest of them. Webb, like Assange became the story,
diverting attention away from the information they gathered and released. There are so many
parallels between what happened to Webb and the way Assange's reputation has been undermined
and how both of them were taken 'out of circulation.'
In the movie Webb says that he was never fired by an editor and never told what to write
because nothing he'd written really mattered or threatened any vested interests or powerful
people or the state.
One of the things that irritates me about the 'liberal' Guardian is how they simply love to
preach and moralize about well, almost everything everywhere, as if they and the West
represent so kind of 'moral civilization' superior to everyone a 'progressive vanguard' with
a mandate from providence to lead the world in the right direction in all things. They truly
believe that they are both 'right' and 'good' and have a duty to help and save other
countries and peoples from their backwardness, ignorance and darkness. The Guardian's writers
are innocent, to a degree that's staggering as well as being incredibly dangerous, because,
fundamentally they are self-delusional and soaked in a form of 'liberal imperialist'
dogmatism and faith that's been the mainstay of western thinking and beliefs for centuries,
and allowed us to justify crimes we've committed on a vast global scale, wiping entire
countries and civilizations off the map, holocaust after holocaust after holocaust. And now,
since the fall of Soviet Russia we've been on a roll smashing state after state and leaving a
great swathe of mass-destruction and mass-slaughter behind our military juggernaut, which the
fools at the Guardian honestly believe isn't a giant killing machine covered in body parts
and gore, red and monsterous to behold; but a gleaming, white ambulance covered in peace
signs and slogans about 'peace' 'love' and 'human rights'.
" Control the Media"
" Ruin the youth with sex & drugs"
These are 2 of the 25 points in a strategy for world domination drawn up by Adam
Weishaupt, ex Jesuit professor of canon law, in 1773 for the Rothschilds Banksters.
This is dealt with in William Guy Carr's 1955 book: Pawns in the Game.
I first saw this book referenced in a 1 hr 4 mins youtube video by Ted L. Gunderson. Worth
the hour.
Put in youtube search box: Ex Head of FBI Tells All.
I think it's a sign of terminal decline when the leading members of a ruling elite begin,
seemingly and in public, to act like they actually believe in their own propaganda,
regardless of how far it is from reality and truth.
They keep sermonizing like religious fanatics and they're increasingly dogmatic and
aggressive in their utterances, clinging to their beliefs no matter what.
That there's more actual evidence that there was far more 'stealing' and 'rigging' in the
last US presidential elections, especially inside the Democratic Party, doesn't bother them
at all. That the US has a system that structurally allows electoral 'stealing' on a vast
scale, where the will and votes of the people can be overturned and the candidate with the
most votes 'loses', doesn't register with them. And what about the UK? Here magically a party
with only 42% of the votes cast in an election, can be transformed into a powerful government
with a huge majority over all the other parties combined! And this happens over and over
again. 42% becomes a 'landslide' and a 'mandate' from the electorate, and this is called
'democracy' and gives us the right to lecture everyone else and the Russians?!
' "For years," the [US Senate minority report] said, "Vladimir Putin's government has engaged
in a relentless assault to undermine democracy and the rule of law in Europe and the US. Mr
Putin's Kremlin employs an asymmetric arsenal that includes military invasions,
cyber-attacks, disinformation, support for fringe political groups, and the weaponisation of
energy resources, organised crime, and corruption" '
Dear Mr Tisdall, are you sure the people who researched and compiled that report weren't
hired hacks from Hollywood who normally write scripts for science fiction movies?
Has anyone else noticed that the arsenal Moscow supposedly employs to undermine democracy
and the rule of law in Europe and the US is the very same arsenal (plus more, such as using
other countries' impeachment laws to get rid of Presidents the US doesn't like, as in Brazil
in 2016) that the US uses to erode and weaken democracy and stability across the world
including Europe?
"screams of outrage from the West" – er, whimpers of 'where's that?' AND – isn't
that where we sent an awful lot of electronic surveillance equipment to help that nice man we
got into government last time?
You know, the one that let's us use the country for a military
base – sopoooo strategically useful. Was a little worried there that closing down the
computers when the opposition was obviously winning was a tad blatant, but, no.
That nice man
has been endorsed by US and UN. Oh, you are worried about the UN delegation investigating the
election fraud, er, sorry, result? One's from Guatemala, one's from El Salvador and one's
from, yes, of course, the US. No problems there. I don't think anyone's reporting the riots
in the streets, the protest marches and the 30 dead. Result.
The easiest way to dismember this nonsense is to talk to ten real Russians. Real Russians
were seriously alarmed by the 'nuke Russia' Hillarybilly psycho nonsense in 2016, not because
they seriously believed it, but they worried that in a mad world, could they easily disregard
it? Amazingly enough, real Russian people who hope to have babies do not want depleted
uranium in their neighbourhoods.
These ordinary Russians have no interest in invading eastern Europe, bombing America and
really have no desire for war with Ukraine. They are interested in things like going out with
friends, having a nice holiday, meeting interesting people, finding a partner to marry and
raise a family with. They are, in other words, exceedingly normal people.
They do not take kindly being told that the man they desire as President does not
represent them. I can say with certainty that President Putin represents Russians
considerably more diligently than the Washington patsies found in Western European offices of
state. If I were a Russian citizen, I would vote for him, despite him not being either Jesus
Christ MkII nor a drunken puppet of Western bankers.
As a UK citizen, I do not expect President Putin to agree to win-lose deals with the UK,
his job as Russian President is to ensure that dodgy UK charlatans do not screw his country
something chronic. I would consider him amenable to deals which benefits both parties. Watch
Washington try and trash anything like that .
Mercifully, Russians take little notice of UK media. Hopefully they realise that fewer and
fewer Brits do either
What I find grotesque, bizarre and frightening is the attitude of the journalists in relation
to grooming the public to support war, as if they won't end up frying too like everyone else!
They reallys seem immune to rational thought and the dangers of demonizing Russia and the
seemingly inexorable momentum towards WW3. Do they believe they'll escape the nuclear
holocaust 'cause they write for the Guardian? The way they appear to think is truly
frightening and underneath the brittle liberal gloss their extraordinarily reactionary too.
They are all, basically, neoconservatives with a dreadful, sanctimonious tone that's
insufferably smug. They love putting their virtue on display and preen themselves like
peacocks.
I honestly think they are so ignorant of history, politics and human behavior generally that
they cannot make the connection of cause to effect. They aren't afraid of being fried because
it hasn't occurred to them that such a thing is even possible. It's pretty slow-going in the
minds of the folks who live in imperially privileged fantasy-land.
But as we all know, the Guardian long ago abandoned fact based journalism – its one
of the reasons so many articles are evicerated BTL.
By the way, which leader is Tisdall referring to?
Does he seriously expect the laughing stock of Europe, or at least her own party, Theresa
May, to make weighty pronouncements about a sovereign leader who enjoys the kind of national
goodwill she can only dream about?
In contrast I can hardly wait for Zoe Williams next bout of tabloid style sycophancy for
the horrific HRC.
The Guardian is actually getting worse and worse when covering foreign policy and especially
the West's official enemies, who are slammed in the dock, with the charges shouted at them,
but rarely, if ever allowed to come with a word in their defence or even the opportunity to
deny the charges or protest their innocence.
Let's face it, the western media is grooming the public for the next war WW3, yet the
hacks at the Guardian seem strangely and frighteningly sanguine about the prospect. I often
wonder, just how stupid does one have to be to write for the Guardian these days?
The Guardian joins the BBC in attacks of all sorts on Russia, China and Syria. The BBC has
been giving almost daily reports of child deaths in Gouta while never mentioning the mortar
bombs that go the other way, unguided, into resedential areas of Damascus. No mention either
of mass child deaths in Yemen which is being treated like a WW2 ghetto. The same goes for
Idlip. Alongside such slanted coverage we also have the "analysts" who assure us "Yes! The
Russians really are after our guts for garters. Believe me Old Boy!" The "experts" have never
been more obviously run by the MoD, some are right out of the bunker. The recent intensity of
this avalanche of propaganda suggests things are being geared up in preparation for War.
Maybe there is something they haven't told us, like the date?
The Guardian has swung hard Right and can never recover it's reputation. Thank Goodness for
sites like this!!
Tried to read the original article but foundered after a few paragraphs. It wasn't so much
the (de haut en bas) tone but the evidence free content. Tisdall is almost unreadable
anyway.
There were lot of the usual – and possibly to some extent astroturf – Russophobic
comments, but many intelligent ones as well. And, as Catte says, the latter tended to get
more up-votes. And that is allowing for the moderator censorship.
I don't know. Apart from very few, I found the bulk of the comments initially infuriating but
ultimately depressing. A disgraceful article, whose putrescence certainly drew the zombies
– the guardian readership these days. I've abandoned it, and visit only on occasion, eg
when highlighted by 'you'. The sooner its demise the better. Regards, an ex-pat who
subscribed to the guardian for 15 yrs (20 yrs ago)
The only Journos in the Graun that were ever worth reading were Jonathan Steele and Seamus
Milne. Since their departure we are now left with cossetted, fanatical hacks from the
Ministry of Truth telling us what to think. There is not a smidgen of compromise, diplomacy,
or God forbid, 'peace' as an option from this chorus of jihadist neo-cons seemingly spoiling
for a war.
Perhaps the only exception comes in the shape of Peter Hitchens who writes for the Mail on
Sunday who adopts a high-Tory realist persective: namely, that war, particularly nuclear war,
is bad and should be avoided at all costs, and it is not a good or even legal policy to
interfere in the internal affairs of other sovereign states.
Oh, how utterly passe, intone the soi-disant enlightened ones. Now doubt we should –
they have – adopted the position in International Relations as outlined by Mr Francis
'end of history' Fukuyama.
"Dictators and human rights abusers like Serbia's Milosevic could not hide behind the
principle of sovereignty to protect themselves as they committed crimes against humanity,
particularly in the multi-ethnic states like Yugoslavia where the borders of the sovereign
state in question were themselves contested, under these circumstances outside powers, acting
in the name of human rights and democratic legitimacy, had not just the right but the
OBLIGATION to intervene." Yep, 'White Man's Burden' circa 1995.
I don't suppose it was of any import than Milosevic was acquitted of these 'crimes' by the
International Court after his death in prison from a heart attack. But simply consider the
sanctimonious bluster above and remember the old axiom, 'The road to hell is paved with good
intentions ' though truth to tell I am not convinced about the goodness or otherwise of the
intentions.
There is a particular passage in Orwell's 1984 where Winston Smith and two of his
co-workers are having their lunch when they overhear a defender of the faith describing the
party's role in the elimination of the enemies of Oceania. From a nearby table a party member
– like our Guardian journos – holds forth "what was horrible was that from the
stream of sound that poured out of his mouth, it was almost impossible to distinguish one
word. Just once Winston caught a phrase -complete and final elimination of Goldsteinsim
– jerked out very rapidly , and as it seemed, all in one piece all like a line of type
cast solid. For the rest it was just a noise, a quack-quack-quacking "
Winston's intellectual colleague sitting at the same table was wont to comment.
"There is a word in Newspeak' said Syme 'I don't know whether you know it: it is
duckspeak, to quack like a duck. Applied to an opponent it is abusive, applied to someone you
agree with it is praise"
Unquestionably Syme would be vaporised. (1984 p.62.63)
Prescient or what?
Duckspeak, the lingua franca of 'liberal journalists' – a group of propagandists not
far from clinical schizophrenia
"... And the dossier, a pastiche of falsehoods from gossips in the Kremlin, has been exposed as a smear job paid for by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee ..."
"... The hunters are the prey and Trump will prosecute, sack, or intimidate the deep state. But it is there, can arise quickly and can be very dangerous. Forewarned is forearmed. ..."
...Donald Trump went to war against the entire political class: all factions of both parties, the bureaucracy, the national
media, the lobbyists, Hollywood and Wall Street. He said the whole system was rotten and had failed the nation: hopeless wars
that accomplished nothing except the wastage of thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, the extension of Iranian influence
and an immense humanitarian crisis, a flatlined economy, a shrinking workforce, increasing poverty and crime, oceans of debt,
large trade deficits from trade agreements that exported unemployment to the United States and the unmonitored influx of
millions of illiterate peasants from Latin America.
... ... ...
For the first nine months of the new administration, there was the constant confected threat
of impeachment. The phantasmagorical imbecility that Trump had somehow colluded and connived
with the Russian government to rig the election was the excuse of the hapless Clinton and her
Trump-hating echo chamber in the national media for the election result.
The deep state was almost the whole state, and it pitched in to sabotage the administration.
For nearly that long, the Republican leaders sat on their hands waiting to see if he would be
impeached or not. His nominees were a long time in being confirmed. There were leaks of White
House conversations, including with foreign leaders -- outright acts of insubordination
causing Trump, a decisive executive, to fire some fairly high officials, including the malign
director of the FBI, who then informed Congress that he had leaked a self-addressed memo
(probably illegally, as it was technically government property), in order to have a special
prosecutor named to torment the president over the fatuous Russian allegations, although
Comey testified that Trump himself was not a target or suspect and the Russians had not
influenced the outcome of the election. (This was a sober position compared to the wholesale
fabrications of the Democratic vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark
Warner, that a
thousand Russian agents had swarmed the key battleground states and had delivered
Wisconsin to Trump.)
The president has strengthened the White House staff. The FBI and Justice Department have
been ripped apart in their partisanship and misuse of the dossier on which the collusion
argument and the surveillance of the Trump campaign were based. And the dossier, a pastiche
of falsehoods from gossips in the Kremlin, has been exposed as a smear job paid for by the
Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, and the whole impeachment movement has
collapsed. The hunters are the prey and Trump will prosecute, sack, or intimidate the deep
state. But it is there, can arise quickly and can be very dangerous. Forewarned is
forearmed.
Conrad Black is a writer and former newspaper publisher whose most recent book is
Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full
(PublicAffairs, 2007).
The New York Timesreports on the
Trump administration's poor grasp of diplomacy:
American officials were more guarded, saying they were open to talks but not a
full-fledged negotiation.
The United States, they said, would reiterate its demands that North Korea make
concessions and did not plan to offer any in return.
This is being billed as the administration's willingness to "open the door" to holding talks
with North Korea, but as we can see here there is no real interest in pursuing a diplomatic
solution. If U.S. officials just want to deliver an ultimatum in person to North Korean
officials, it is a pointless exercise that would make it harder to enter into real negotiations
later. North Korea knows what the U.S. wants it to do, and it has said many times that it will
never do that, so why would they agree to talks where the same demands will be put to them once
again? The U.S. is not willing to make confidence-building gestures that might lead to more
substantive negotiations down the road, and it has no intention of offering North Korea
anything in exchange for any concessions it might conceivably make.
In the very unlikely event that North Korea agreed to a meeting with administration
officials, they would have nothing to gain from the encounter and every incentive to stay away.
The problem isn't just that the administration won't offer North Korea the tiniest of carrots,
but that it doesn't accept the idea of using carrots in diplomacy in the first place. The
administration's posturing is what a government does when it wants to feign support for
diplomacy even as it rejects diplomacy at every turn. If people here at home can see through
this ploy, North Korea will definitely take it as more proof of Washington's bad faith.
Mattis is probably mentally ill. He'll gleefully kill millions more.
The terrorists are mentally ill. They would kill millions if they could.
Implacable.
Thus, the reason for the rise of Russia and the influence and respect for Putin. Russians
will kill terrorists but embrace Islamic people who want peaceful cooperation.
Peace is a long way off. The Hegemon abhors Peace and has the means and ideology to create
chaos, death and destruction anywhere on the globe.
The American economic system depends on MIC expenditures, debt, waste, corruption, and
fiscal abuse.
Nothing much will change until multi-polar economic forces come into dominance and coerce
the American changes. Those are a long way off, also, though a few of those forces are coming
into view.
Posted by: Red Ryder | Feb 12, 2018 12:21:31 PM |
2
Pentagon statement today: 550 million dolar, 2018 budget, for PKK.
(Meaning: You can defeat terrorism, but you can't you beat our purse!)
There is a massive propaganda campaing targeting Turkey in the past 2-3 days. It's coming
from international sources. BBC, AFP etc.
This is the main theme
"Turks, beware of Russia, Syria and Iran! They are your enemy. Israel is your friend! The
USA is a superpower, obey!"
I believe nobody, no muslim targets America or ordinary American people for that mater! So
any incident should be received as provocation.
Those who pull the strings in the USA, behind the doors, maybe under risk though.
@colin 3, Yes, I used to try to update the wikipedia page on the TAPI pipeline and while some
things remained on the site, most of it was edited away. Anything to do with Exxon, Chevron,
US military actions along the pipeline route, Hillary Clinton's cheerleading for the project
during the Obama era, actions taken by the US State Department in summer 2001 (pre 9-11)
aimed at pressuring the Taliban into signing off on the deal (in exchange for handing over
bin Laden, etc.) all gone. Not worth the bother; you're up against PR firms with full-time
staff devoted to sanitizing everything.
@4 CP, the corporate media PR stream, it's something I can't even watch anymore (I follow
it with Google News search just to see what the headlines are, but it's basically predictable
content so that's enough). Here and there across the web there are some honest discussions
though: https://thewire.in/219467/russia-turkey-iran-triangle-economic-interests-paramount/
I really can't see what Tillerson and Mattis have to offer Turkey other than
threats.
"If America Wasn't America, The United States Would Be Bombing It".
Damn, that's funny
yeah, i just read
the article , and while the title is indeed humorous, the content is decidedly not. but
it's a good synopsis of the unprecedented amount of death and destruction wrought on this
undeserving planet by the US of Argh.
The West and in particular Amerikkans constantly use the Circular Argument in its public
relation and propaganda statements. That kind of attitude works with an allies, nominal or
otherwise, in the cases where sovereignty/national interest is threatened that kind of
deception is treated just like that, deception.
Unfortunately Tayyip has been used as client state for long time, from Libya to Syria where
he experienced sudden awakening.
The US has reiterated that it has no plans to withdraw its forces from Manbij.
Paul Funk, the commander of US forces in Syria and Iraq, made a recent visit to Manbij
and said that the US and its partners in Syria would hit back if attacked.
"You hit us, we will respond aggressively. We will defend ourselves," Funk said.
Erdogan took aim at that, saying: "It is obvious that those, who say they will 'give a
sharp response' if they were hit, have not been hit by the Ottoman slap."
Note: this article is part of a symposium included in the
March/April 2018 issue of the National Interest .
OF COURSE
there's a Deep State. Why wouldn't there be? Even a cursory understanding of human nature tells
us that power corrupts, as Lord Acton put it; that, when power is concentrated and entrenched,
it will be abused; that, when it is concentrated and entrenched in secrecy, it will be abused
in secret. That's the Deep State.
James Burnham saw it coming. The American philosopher and political theorist
(1905–87), first a Trotskyist, then a leading conservative intellectual, wrote in 1941
that the great political development of the age was not the battle between communism and
capitalism. Rather, it was the rise of a new "managerial" class gaining dominance in business,
finance, organized labor and government. This gathering managerial revolution, as he called it,
would be resisted, but it would be impervious to adversarial counteractions. As the managerial
elites gained more and more power, exercised often in subtle and stealthy ways, they would
exercise that power to embed themselves further into the folds of American society and to
protect themselves from those who might want to bust them up.
Nowhere is this managerial elite more entrenched, more powerful and more shrouded in secrecy
than in what Dwight Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex, augmented by
intelligence and law-enforcement agencies. That's where America's relentless drive for global
hegemony meshes with defense manufacturers only too willing to provide the tools of
dominance.
Now we have not only a standing army, with hundreds of thousands of troops at the ready, as
in Cold War days. We have also permanent wars, nine of them in progress at the moment and not
one with what could even remotely be called proper congressional approval. That's how power
gets entrenched, how the managerial revolution gains ever greater force and how the Deep State
endures.
Few in the general public know what really happened with regard to the allegations of Trump
campaign "collusion" with Russia, or how the investigation into those troubling allegations
emerged. But we know enough to know we have seen the Deep State in action.
We know that U.S. agencies released an "Intelligence Community Assessment" saying that
Russia and President Putin were behind the release of embarrassing Democratic emails in a plot
to help Trump win the presidency. But we also know that it wasn't really a National
Intelligence Assessment (a term of art denoting a particular process of expansive intelligence
analysis) but rather the work of a controlled task force. As Scott Ritter, the former Marine
intelligence officer and arms-control official,
put it , "This deliberate misrepresentation of the organizational bona fides of the Russia
NIA casts a shadow over the viability of the analysis used to underpin the assessments and
judgments contained within." Besides, the document was long on assertion and short on evidence.
Even the New York Times initially
derided the report as lacking any "hard evidence" and amounting "essentially . . . to
'trust us.'"
Judah Grunstein
dubs Trump "the generals' president" because of his total capitulation to whatever the
current and former generals around him want:
Trump's generals have instead gone back to the future, restoring the model of a U.S.
military that faces no fiscal or strategic constraints, while preparing for a conflict -- a
conventional war with either or both of its nuclear-armed big power competitors -- that is
not just unlikely, but unwinnable.
While it is true that Trump voiced some objections to foreign wars long after they were over
or when it was no longer very risky to do so, it is important to remember that he was always in
favor of throwing more money at the military from the beginning of his campaign. He seized on
the nonsense talking point that the military had been "depleted" under Obama, and he has
continued to use it until now, and he made undoing the imaginary "depletion" one of the main
planks of his platform. Since Trump is a militarist, and since he now comes from the more
hawkish of the two parties, it was more or less a given that he would waste huge sums on higher
military spending while agreeing to the policies favored by Mattis, McMaster, et al. Add to
this his fetish for "strength" and "greatness," and you have a recipe for massive wasteful
spending on weapons and programs that the U.S. doesn't need. When there are already Pentagon
agencies losing
track of how they spend hundreds of millions of dollars , throwing more money at a huge
department with inadequate oversight is pure folly.
The increase in military spending that Trump has endorsed reflects his impulse to give the
military whatever they want. In addition to being completely unnecessary, higher military
spending will
indulge the Pentagon in all its worst habits:
The Pentagon budget request for 2019 puts the military on a course of spending unmatched
since the Reagan-era buildup, boosting the number of troops, warplanes and bombs, according
to documents and analysts.
But, defense analysts say, the $716 billion spending plan risks flooding too much money
into a Defense Department that may not spend it wisely.
"The risk is that when the budget is flowing freely, policy makers are usually reluctant
to make hard choices," said Todd Harrison, director of defense budget analysis at the Center
for Strategic and International Studies, a non-partisan think tank.
"While this is not a record increase, it comes on top of a budget that was already higher
than the peak of the Reagan buildup when adjusted for inflation [bold mine-DL]," Harrison
said.
The fantasy claim that the military budget suffered significant reductions in the last
decade has been one of the standard hawkish criticisms of the previous administration, and
Trump takes that falsehood as gospel. The truth is that an already bloated military budget has
continued to grow, and Trump proposes to make it grow even faster. Everyone in Washington was
so desperate to have the generals rein in Trump that most of them never thought through what it
meant for Trump to be the military's unthinking yes-man.
Oct 10, 2016 In last night's debate, the Republican nominee said, apropos military policy:
"General George Patton, General Douglas MacArthur are spinning in their grave at the stupidity
of what we're doing in the Middle East."
In most of his speeches Trump mentions those same two generals. Reader Marcus Hall assesses
what the reliance on Patton and MacArthur might tell us about Trump:
It is easy to see why these two military legends are attractive to Trump:
1) Both were known as showmen and motivators. This is clearly Trump's modus operandi as
well; he is most comfortable being the showman and motivator. When he isn't in the granted
position of head of the dais, he looks, seems, and acts out of place. (For example, think
back to the instance in Flint where the pastor takes the initiative to challenge him as a
person.)
2) Both were known to take personal animus against rivals on their own side to extremes.
Think of Patton's constant infighting with Montgomery, and his less than amicable
relationship to Bradley after Sicily.
3) Both were known for strident aggressive stances against an enemy without consideration
for larger picture effects. MacArthur's blunders with antagonizing the Chinese after Inchon,
and Patton's immediate post-war desire to go to war with the Soviets before the armed forces
and the country (or its non-Russian allies) could even recover from WWII.
4) Both faced disgrace at the hands of the media and at the hands of those who were better
able to handle the larger context of events (Eisenhower for Patton, and Truman for
MacArthur).
"... anti-Trump movements combined with critics of the liberal/democrat apparatus to build broader movements and especially oppose growing war-fever. ..."
"... Abroad, bi-partisan wars have failed to defeat independent state and mass popular resistance struggles for national sovereignty everywhere – from North Korea, Iran, Yemen, Syria, and Venezuela and beyond. ..."
"... Even the fight within the two-headed reactionary party of the US oligarchy has had a positive effect. Each side is hell-bent on exposing the state-sponsored crimes of the other. In an unprecedented and historic sense, the US and world public is witness to the spies, lies and crimes of the leadership and elite on prime time and on the wide screen. We head in two directions. In one direction, there are the threats of nuclear war, economic collapse, environmental disasters and a full blown police state. In the other direction, there is the demise of empire, a revived and renewed civil society rooted in a participatory economy and a renewed moral order. ..."
President Trump has pursued an agenda mirroring the police state operations of the FBI
– only on a global scale. Trump's violation of international law includes collaboration
and support for Saudi Arabia's tyrannical invasion and destruction of the sovereign nation of
Yemen; intensified aid and support for Israel's ethnic war against the Palestinian people;
severe sanctions and threatened nuclear first-strike against North Korea (DPRK); increased
deployment of US special forces in collaboration with the jihadi terrorist war to overthrow the
legitimate government of Syria; coup-mongering, sabotage, sanctions and economic blockade of
Venezuela; NATO missile and nuclear encirclement of Russia; and the growing naval threats
against China.
... .. ...
In the face of the national-political debacle local and regional movements became the
vehicle to support the struggles. Women organized at some workplaces and gained better
protection of their rights; African-Americans vividly documented and published video evidence
of the systematic brutal violation of their rights by the police state and effectively acted to
restrain local police violence in a few localities; immigrant workers and especially their
children gained broad public sympathy and allies within religious and political organizations;
and anti-Trump movements combined with critics of the liberal/democrat apparatus to build
broader movements and especially oppose growing war-fever.
Abroad, bi-partisan wars have failed to defeat independent state and mass popular resistance
struggles for national sovereignty everywhere – from North Korea, Iran, Yemen, Syria, and
Venezuela and beyond.
Even the fight within the two-headed reactionary party of the US oligarchy has had a
positive effect. Each side is hell-bent on exposing the state-sponsored crimes of the other. In
an unprecedented and historic sense, the US and world public is witness to the spies, lies and
crimes of the leadership and elite on prime time and on the wide screen. We head in two
directions. In one direction, there are the threats of nuclear war, economic collapse,
environmental disasters and a full blown police state. In the other direction, there is the
demise of empire, a revived and renewed civil society rooted in a participatory economy and a
renewed moral order.
So Korean anger at Ramo's comments finally induced
NBC to give him the flick . Unfortunately Ramo won't be sweating it as the article I linked
to by Japanese academic Joseph Essertier points out. Ramo is thoroughly entangled with the DC
political/intelligence elite. He is a former CEO of mercenary zionist lobby corp Kissinger
Associates, ex-senior editor of Time magazine as well as a host of other elite gigs
which doubtless came his way thanks to grandaddy who put the 'R' in TRW . It amazes me that many amerikans remain
largely unaware of TRW, now a division of Northrop Grumman. TRW took a PR hit in the 70's when
Christopher
Boyce one of their operatives got caught hawking the communications between Langley and the
amerikan embassy in Canberra that laid out the strategy for the 1974 coup against the Gough
Whitlam government. Yeah yeah I know, ancient history - well that is certainly the way that all
Oz politicians and media look at it but for some of us the rage will never subside. Amerikans's
fixation with the JFK assassination, a pretty odd fixation since Kennedy was just another
arsehole, comes close, but in the case of Gough he did have principles, acted on them, albeit
reluctantly, and the smoking gun to the CIA is established.
TRW is interesting - well not really I got pissed with a bunch of mid-level TRW execs at the
Frankfurt Hilton one night and what a boring bunch of straightlaced & unimaginative
fuckwits. I had just arrived from Northern Thailand, was jonesing like fuck - I had staggered
across to the joint and booked a room & hit the bar to get sorted for Europe. The Frankfurt
Hilton is right by the airport.
This probably didn't help my sense of tolerance but honestly these guys had no class, it was
a wonder they let them outta Cleveland. As standard the bar was chocka with German sex workers
looking to make an earner. This was pre 1990 so they were mainly German, but I've never seen
the like of these TRW blokes. The women were attractive in that painted manner certain
amerikans prefer, no doubt about their beauty and skill, but they were the end result of
amerikan post euro war imperialism - preying on victims has no interest. These idjits from TRW
were obviously really attracted to the young women, so they were pulling all sorts of weird
stunts to engage with the workers while seeming disapproving of their occupational choice. One
even pulled out a bible! The women appeared to be well used to this nonsense, after all, a sex
worker's primary training is in how to overcome humiliation and go home better than than she/he
arrived, so on one level it was amusing.
AFAIK TRW has been winning contracts to provide 'clerical and communications support' to
military and intelligence services since euro-war part 1. The communication stuff was beyond
the abilities of the double entry bookkeepers; just like with the NSA, inviting smart
imaginative fellows in proved their undoing.
This then is Ramo, an unimaginative trust-funder who has sold his soul to empire.
I have no doubt that he knew Koreans would react badly to the insult but that was of no
concern. The point was to sow the seed among the great amerikan herd that Koreans are notorious
for their ingratitude so one just shouldn't stress over their possible nuking - North or South
Koreans. South Korea's kissy kiss to their friends and family in the North should be considered
in that light, just another manifestation of that ingratitude.
There is no reason to suppose Ramo's handlers are incorrect in this assumption, after all
the most egregious act of the post war amerikan-japanese war criminal conjunction, the proven
rendition of Japanese biological warfare research scientists to Fort Dietrick and the
subsequent use of germ warefare weapons containing bubonic plague, anthrax and smallpox on
Koreans during the 1950 amerikan invasion is unknown to most amerikans and those who are aware,
airily dismiss this horror as "propaganda".
In a lot of ways there is nothing at all noteworthy about any of this. Tune your
discriminators correctly, and this manner of deliberately subjective, misleading dross
comprises the majority of every 'news bulletin'. The difference here of course is that this
wasn't a news bulletin, it was a sportscast, allegedly a celebratory sportscast. The
celebration was meant to be congratulating South Korea on their capitalist victory over 'the
stalinist' North. Nirvana by outproduction of disposable techno tat. Hmm.
Instead of appreciating the opportunity provided by amerika and Japan to pollute their
nation and turn the fuckers at the bottom into toxic, diseased slaves, those ungrateful Koreans
were cuddling up to the 'stalinists' - Those fucking unappreciative parasites!
We can analyse this stuff and see exactly how transparent it all is, but for the bloke
relaxing into his couch with a beer looking forward to an evening trying to check out the latex
enveloped skater's bods, political analysis is the last thing on their mind. The next time the
subject comes up with the boys in the bar, they will know why 'we' have to stay
intransigent - "those koreans are just ungrateful assholes - remember that family which had the
7-11 on Jefferson? Everything was overpriced and past its use-by".
That stuff works which is why the arseholes have been using it for centuries - and that is
why the seeming nonsense such as "the Russkies stole the election" must be resisted - fought
hard. The net has provided the world with a wide vista of alternative viewpoints - even though
most of us hang where we see what we want to see, alternative points of view still slip thru in
a way that they never did before. The arseholes are working that out now which is why this site
like every other woke joint is subjected to an increasing barrage of lunatic nonsense - no
wonder b needs some time off; not only are his threads getting congested with haters (ask
yourself if MoA is so awful why do these derps hang around here like spare pricks at a
wedding?) some site users are perpetuating the nonsense by engaging with them.
I dunno what to say unity doesn't come about by some little arsehole issuing orders, it happens
when people decide for themselves to put the interest of a group asset ahead of their need to
purge their liver at an obvious fuckwit. I realise that the concept of unity is alien to most
amerikans and increasing numbers of non-amerikans, but of itself that should be considered
objectively and the subtle indoctrinations which created that resistance considered before
acting out.
The New York Timesreports on the
Trump administration's poor grasp of diplomacy:
American officials were more guarded, saying they were open to talks but not a
full-fledged negotiation.
The United States, they said, would reiterate its demands that North Korea make
concessions and did not plan to offer any in return.
This is being billed as the administration's willingness to "open the door" to holding talks
with North Korea, but as we can see here there is no real interest in pursuing a diplomatic
solution. If U.S. officials just want to deliver an ultimatum in person to North Korean
officials, it is a pointless exercise that would make it harder to enter into real negotiations
later. North Korea knows what the U.S. wants it to do, and it has said many times that it will
never do that, so why would they agree to talks where the same demands will be put to them once
again? The U.S. is not willing to make confidence-building gestures that might lead to more
substantive negotiations down the road, and it has no intention of offering North Korea
anything in exchange for any concessions it might conceivably make.
In the very unlikely event that North Korea agreed to a meeting with administration
officials, they would have nothing to gain from the encounter and every incentive to stay away.
The problem isn't just that the administration won't offer North Korea the tiniest of carrots,
but that it doesn't accept the idea of using carrots in diplomacy in the first place. The
administration's posturing is what a government does when it wants to feign support for
diplomacy even as it rejects diplomacy at every turn. If people here at home can see through
this ploy, North Korea will definitely take it as more proof of Washington's bad faith.
Mattis is probably mentally ill. He'll gleefully kill millions more.
The terrorists are mentally ill. They would kill millions if they could.
Implacable.
Thus, the reason for the rise of Russia and the influence and respect for Putin. Russians
will kill terrorists but embrace Islamic people who want peaceful cooperation.
Peace is a long way off. The Hegemon abhors Peace and has the means and ideology to create
chaos, death and destruction anywhere on the globe.
The American economic system depends on MIC expenditures, debt, waste, corruption, and
fiscal abuse.
Nothing much will change until multi-polar economic forces come into dominance and coerce
the American changes. Those are a long way off, also, though a few of those forces are coming
into view.
Posted by: Red Ryder | Feb 12, 2018 12:21:31 PM |
2
A production sharing agreement (PSA) between Royal Dutch Shell and Ukraine's Nadra Yuzivska
for the development of Yuzivske shale gas deposits located in Ukraine's Kharkiv and Donetsk
regions was signed in Davos on 24 January 2013 through the mediation of Ukrainian president
Viktor Yanukovych and Netherlands prime minister Mark Rutte. The agreement was inked by
Ukraine's energy and coal industry minister Eduard Stavitsky and Royal Dutch Shell CEO Peter
Voser.
Prior to the signing ceremony Yanukovych told journalists that Ukraine would benefit from
the agreement since it would allow attracting investments, which Ukraine could use to increase
the domestic natural gas production thus creating jobs, raising the level of the country's
economy as well as increasing the budget revenues and providing funds for social needs.
On 23 January Ukraine's cabinet of ministers approved a draft PSA between Shell Exploration
and Production Ukraine Investments B.V. and Nadra Yuzivska for Yuzivske shale gas field
(7,886m2 acreage) development.
Yuzivske field prognostic resources are estimated at 2-4trln m3 of gas, which can be a viable
alternative for costly natural gas volumes Ukraine imports form Russia. In the meanwhile US
Energy Information Agency (EIA) estimates Ukraine's shale gas potential at 1.2trln m3 in this
way making the country's shale gas reserves the 4th largest in Europe after Poland, France and
Norway. Totally consuming some 60bn m3 of natural gas annually, Ukraine has to import 40bn m3
of natural gas from Russia priced $430 per 1,000 m3 based on the terms of agreements inked in
2009.
Ukraine's prime minister Mykola Azarov stated earlier that Yuzivske field commercial
development over the span of a decade could give Ukraine an additional 8-10bn m3 of gas
annually.
As Eduard Stavitsky put it in Davos, Ukraine could possibly meet its domestic natural gas
demand in full in about 5 years of shale gas production cooperation with Shell. "According to
Shell's optimistic scenario about 20bn m3 of gas could be extracted annually; according to the
pessimistic one, at the very least 7-8bn m3. If the top forecasts were fulfilled, we would
tackle the gas shortfall problem in Ukraine or might even go into surplus", Stavitsky was
quoted as saying. He stated earlier that Shell saw investments under the deal of at least $10bn
under the most likely scenario and possibly as much as $50bn.
OILMARKET Info
In May 2012 Shell was chosen the successful bidder for 7,800km2 Yuzivske acreage (Kharkiv and
Donetsk regions, Ukraine) development with projected reserves estimated at 4.054trln m3 of gas
of various categories. The project calls for raising at least $20mn (UAH1.6bn) in investments
for the geological study phase, and $3.75bn (UAH30bn) for the industrial production phase. The
agreement envisages stage-by-stage exploration, development and hydrocarbons production. Both
companies (Shell and Nadro Yuzivske) will hold a 50% participation stake, with Shell chosen the
project operator responsible for carrying out works under the terms of agreement.
According to Shell press service, the mentioned PSA was signed for 50 years period. The
initial geological study phase at Yuzivske field implies 2D and 3D seismics as well as 15 well
drilling, which is expected to enable effective exploration and assessments of hydrocarbon
deposits potential especially that of natural gas trapped in compacted sandstone. Yuzivske
field development will be implemented in line with the highest international HSE standards. In
this way Shell is to carry out comprehensive possible environmental, social and public health
impact assessment of the project prior to launch.
Conway appeared Sunday on CNN's State of the Union with Jake Tapper to address
questions surrounding Porter's departure, which came last week after accusations that he had
abused his two ex-wives.
Tapper asked about Porter's reported relationship with Hicks, and concerns expressed by
Jennie Willoughby, Porter's second ex-wife, that Porter would abuse Hicks, too. Conway said
that she did not worry about Hicks because she is "strong."
"... The world had a great opportunity in March of 1953 to reverse course rather than this insane military spending that was beginning. On March 5th, 1953, Stalin died. The Soviet leaders reached out to the United States. They offered the Americans an olive branch. They talked about changing the direction of our relations. They talked about, basically, ending the Cold War. We could've ended the Cold War as early as March 5, 1953, taken a different route. Eisenhower and the others in his administration debate what to do, how to respond. Churchill, who was now re-elected and back in office in England, begged the United States to hold a summit with the Soviet leaders and move toward peace, rather than belligerence and hostility. Eisenhower doesn't say anything publicly in response for six weeks. Then he makes a speech. It's a visionary speech. It's the kind of vision that Eisenhower represented at his best, and he says there ..."
"... PRESIDENT EISENHOWER: Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. ..."
"... two days later, John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, makes a speech reversing the whole thing. Instead of an olive branch, he gives the Soviets a middle finger and he accuses the Soviet Union of trying to overthrow every Democratic government in the world. The exact wrong message. ..."
"... Did Eisenhower speak for it or did Dulles speak for it? Was Eisenhower the militarist or was Dulles the militarist? In many ways, the '50s was a very, very dangerous time. And there were so many harebrained schemes that were going on. ..."
"... The great independent journalist I.F. Stone mentioned that the word for lunar, for moon, in Latin is Luna. And he said, we should have a new department in the cabinet and call it the Department of Lunacy because of the crazy ideas that were being promulgated at the time. ..."
"... Well, the Cuban Missile Crisis is very important because now we're going through the Korean Missile Crisis, and if Trump has his way, we'll also go through the Iranian Missile Crisis. And the last time we were this close to nuclear war was during the Cuban Missile Crisis. What happens there is that Khrushchev, in order to try to accomplish two things, or three things, really. ..."
"... And so, we were planning, we had the plans in place to overthrow the Cuban government, number one. Number two, Khrushchev wanted a credible deterrent. The Americans learned, Kennedy says, "Let's find out what the reality of the Missile Gap is." And he has McNamara do the study. We find out that there is a Missile Gap. By October of '61, we find out that there is a Missile Gap, and it's in our favor. The United States is ahead between 10 to 1 and 100 to 1 over the Soviet Union in every important category. ..."
"... He said, "We would've definitely destroyed Cuba and probably wiped out the Soviet Union as well." So, that's how close we came at this time. Which is again, as Robert Gates, another hawk, warns, "The United States should not invade Syria," he said. "Or should not bomb Syria because haven't we learned anything from Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya, that whenever these things happen, you never know what the consequences are going to be. It's always the unintended consequences that are going to get you." ..."
"... It takes two to tango. The idea that the US is solely to blame for the continuation of the Cold War, or that the US is solely to blame for a revival is Soviet/Russian propaganda. Great powers are aggressive, and rarely circumspect. ..."
"... And given Churchill's anathema toward Communism in general, and the Soviet Union in particular, and given that he was the architect of the Cold War from the West I find the idea of him being a peacenik to be bizarre. ..."
"... They do not appreciate that there are different manifestations of both economic models. (Neoliberalism is eating us alive.) They do not appreciate that communism was probably the salvation of both post-war Russia and China. They conflate socialism with communism, view high taxes as communistic, and ignore that the countries with the highest standard of living are quite socialist. ..."
"... Ike was so right about the Military-Industrial complex, and yet we have only enabled it to grow to the point that it dominates every political decision – every law – every regulation in ways that ensure weapons are expended so more can take their place; and more weapons need to be developed because the boogeyman out there (pick a regime) probably, maybe, could be building an even nastier weapon. Make no mistake, Sputnik was viewed as evidence that the Russians already had better weapons and that they would take over "outer space" and we would thus be at their mercy. Back in the 60s the US did worry that communism was working better than capitalism, and that fear enabled a lot of foreign policy (gunboat diplomacy). ..."
"... Capitalism has fatal flaws, but we should all thank Communism died the way it did. ..."
"... not like capitalism didn't murder a few proletarians if murder is the standard, both are condemned ..."
"... the vast bulk of provocations and exacerbations in that now-reprised Cold War were a pas de deluxe, not mostly driven by our own insane US leaders, like the ones discussed in small detail in the post. Conveniently ignoring the whole escalation process of the Exceptional Empire doing the "policies" of the Dulleses and their clan, the craziness of stuff like the John Birchers and the McCarthy thing, and the madness of MAD (which I believe was a notion coined by that nest of vipers called RAND, that "we have to be understood to be insane enough to commit suicide, to kill the whole planet, for the 'deterrent effect' of Massive Retaliation (forget that the US policy and military structure very seriously intended a first strike on the Evil Soviets for quite a long time, and are now building "small nukes" for 'battlespace use' as if there are no knock-on consequences.) ..."
"... Russia suffered 20 million dead in WW II, pretty much won that war against fascism, and the leaders there get dang little decrepit for being (so far) so much more the "grownups in the room" in the Great Game Of RISK! ™ that our idiot rulers are playing. Go look up how many times, however, beyond that vast set of slapstick plays that led to the "Cuban Missile Crisis", the human part of the world skated up, by combinations of accident and error, to getting its death wish. And the main impetus for the nuclear "standoff" has been the US and the "policies" forwarded by "our" insane rulers and militarists. ..."
"... Guys, I generally treasure the NC comments section, and I am not singling anyone out, but some of the rhetoric here is starting to remind me of ZeroHedge doomp&rn. Let's please recover some perspective. ..."
"... Every year of human history since the expulsion from Eden will let us cherry pick overwhelming evidence that the lunatics were running the asylum. Or that every generation of our forebears gleefully built our civilization atop heaps of skulls of [insert oppressed groups here]. ..."
"... Such faith we have in ourselves, and such little evidence other than maybe a couple of world wars and long histories of the loonies playing stupid with whole populations, that we don't need to worry about the concentrated efforts of the sociopathic lunatics to rise to positions of great power and do stupid stuff. ..."
"... "It's the kind of vision that Eisenhower represented at his best, and he says there" Was he subsequently co-opted, or BSing? ..."
"... But that doesn't help the millions who would die on the peninsula. Further, whats known as a Nuclear Famine could still occur, which would be pretty damn devastating for civilization, even if mankind itself manages to survive. ..."
"... Science is about doubt and skepticism. That's what the scientific process is. Doubt a nuclear winter: Ok, I'll bite. We have examples – Large Volcanic eruptions, and we have the year without a summer sometime in the 1830s I believe – that is in recorded History. The we searched to archeological record for more evidence, and found large die-offs following a layer of volcanic dust. Again and again, I believe. Quoting scientists who "doubt nuclear winter" requires more examination: ..."
"... Humanity might survive as a species but not as an idea. Am about halfway through the Ellsberg book and, yes, it does make Dr. Strangelove look like a documentary. Current thinking does not seem much changed. ..."
"... Something missing from the sequence of events here is that the main reason that the Kremlin put nuclear missiles in Cuba was the fact that more than 100 Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles were deployed in Italy and Turkey in 1961 by the US, thus cutting down any reaction time by Moscow to minutes in case of a US attack. ..."
"... The main – unacknowledged – part of the climb down from the Cuba missile crisis was that as Russia pulled its nuclear missiles out of Cuba, the US would do the same in Europe. It cooled things down again until Reagan was electe ..."
"... I had forgotten that the 50s had just as many crazies as present times – the Dulles brothers, Curtis LeMay, Edward Teller, J. Edgar Hoover – really scary people and probably founding members of the deep state. ..."
"... The Jupiter missile agreement was a secret at the time. Kennedy wanted to minimize the appearance of a quid-pro-quo. The subsequent presence of Pershings and Tomahawks in Europe (but not Turkey) was a reaction to the mobile IRBMs deployed by the Soviet Union. Which they still have. France and Britain have their own independent deterrents. Which is just as well, since the Pershings and Tomahawks were traded away as part of START/SALT. ..."
"... The more recent escalation of NATO into E Europe, the Baltics and the Ukraine are a definite violation of the spirit of the Cuban Missile Crisis agreement, and are pure aggression against a Russia that was seen as too weak to do anything about it until they did do something about it in 2014. ..."
"... An aggressive NATO is something I view with horror. One does not poke the bear. But Kissinger (the German) and Berzhinski (the Pole) are fanatically anti-Russian. They made up for the passing of Churchill. ..."
"... LeMay had suggested that we should perhaps wipe out the Soviet Union before they had the chance to catch up to us in nukes. It was an era ruled by fear of nuclear war–a fear that was unleashed by the use of the bomb in Japan. Truman and Byrnes (the latter in a meeting in his hometown–my hometown) rejected calls by some of the Los Alamos scientists to share the nuclear secrets with the Russians and forestall this arms race or so they hoped. ..."
"... This isn't accurate. Stalin tried repeatedly and even towards the end, desperately, to sign a treaty with the Britain and France. They rebuffed him because [he was a] Commie. He signed up with Hitler only after those efforts had clearly failed. It was a self-preservation move. It probably did buy him less time than he thought. But let's not kid ourselves: Hitler's first move otherwise would have been to the East. What were later the Allies would have been delighted to see him take over the USSR. This was why British aristos were so keen on Hitler, that he was seen as an answer to Communism and therefore "our kind of man". ..."
"... General LeMay was responsible for the death of a fifth (some say a third) of the North Korean population by saturation bombing with napalm, was he not? A third? Isn't that one in three? ..."
"... Additional books that shed light on both leaving the new deal behind and the Cuban missile crisis are (1) "The Devil's Chessboard" by Talbot and (2) "JFK and The Unspeakable" by Douglass. The first is mostly about Allen Dulles but has interesting chapters on McCarthy, Eisenhower, Nixon, etc. It is reasonably well foot-noted. The second is about the assassination and has loads of detail about the missile crisis and its power players. It is meticulously foot-noted. ..."
Jerri-Lynn here: Lest anyone be deluded into thinking that the current lunacy of Trump foreign policy is unprededented and ahistoric,
part eight of
an excellent
Real News Network series on Undoing the New Deal reminds us this simply isn't so.
That series more generally discuses who helped unravel the New Deal and why. That was no accident, either. In this installment,
historian Peter Kuznick says Eisenhower called for decreased militarization, then Dulles reversed the policy; the Soviets tried to
end the cold war after the death of Stalin; crazy schemes involving nuclear weapons and the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba put the
world of the eve of destruction.
Three things I've seen recently made me think readers might appreciate this interview. First, I recently finished reading
Stephen Kinzer's The Brothers
, about the baleful consequences of the control over US foreign policy by Dulles brothers– John Foster and Alan. These continue to
reverberate to today. Well worth your time.
Over the hols, I watched Dr. Strangelove again. And I wondered, and this not for the first time: why has the world managed to
survive to this day? Seems to me just matter of time before something spirals out of control– and then, that's a wrap.
Queued up on my beside table is Daniel Ellsberg's
The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of
a Nuclear War Planner . Haven't cracked the spine of that yet, so I'll eschew further commentary, except to say that I understand
Ellsberg's provides vivid detail about just how close we've already come to annihilation.
PAUL JAY: Welcome to The Real News Network, I'm Paul Jay. We're continuing our series of discussions on the Undoing of the New
deal, and we're joined again by Professor Peter Kuznick, who joins us from Washington. Peter is a Professor of History, and Director
of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University. Thanks for joining us again Peter.
PETER KUZNICK: My pleasure, Paul.
PAUL JAY: So, before we move on to Kennedy, and then we're going to get to Johnson, you wanted to make a comment about Eisenhower,
who made a couple of great sounding speeches about reducing military expenditure but I'm not sure how much that actually ever got
implemented. But talk about this speech in, I guess, it's 1953, is it?
PETER KUZNICK: Yes. The world had a great opportunity in March of 1953 to reverse course rather than this insane military
spending that was beginning. On March 5th, 1953, Stalin died. The Soviet leaders reached out to the United States. They offered the
Americans an olive branch. They talked about changing the direction of our relations. They talked about, basically, ending the Cold
War. We could've ended the Cold War as early as March 5, 1953, taken a different route. Eisenhower and the others in his administration
debate what to do, how to respond. Churchill, who was now re-elected and back in office in England, begged the United States to hold
a summit with the Soviet leaders and move toward peace, rather than belligerence and hostility. Eisenhower doesn't say anything publicly
in response for six weeks. Then he makes a speech. It's a visionary speech. It's the kind of vision that Eisenhower represented at
his best, and he says there
PRESIDENT EISENHOWER: Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a
theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.
It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber
is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.
It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half
million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I
repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense.
Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.
PETER KUZNICK: This is not a way of life at all. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.�
What a great speech and the Soviets were thrilled. They republished this. They reprinted it. They broadcast it over and over, and
then two days later, John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State, makes a speech reversing the whole thing. Instead of an olive branch,
he gives the Soviets a middle finger and he accuses the Soviet Union of trying to overthrow every Democratic government in the world.
The exact wrong message.
And so, it's sort of like Trump, where Tillerson says something sane and then Trump will undermine it two days later when it comes
to North Korea. The same thing happened in 1953 with Eisenhower and Dulles. We're really much more on the same page, but if you look
at the third world response, you've got the Bandung Conference in Indonesia in 1955, and the third world leaders are all saying,
"We have to be independent. We have to be neutral." They say, "It is insane to spend all these dollars and all these rubles on the
military when we need money for development."
PAUL JAY: So, what went on with Eisenhower, making that kind of speech? He's not known for any big increase in social spending
domestically. He helps build, as you said, the military industrial complex, especially the nuclear side of it. So, what was that
speech about, and then how does he allow Dulles to contradict him two days later?
PETER KUZNICK: That's one of the mysteries. That's why writing books on the debate, what was going on in that administration.
Did Eisenhower speak for it or did Dulles speak for it? Was Eisenhower the militarist or was Dulles the militarist? In many ways,
the '50s was a very, very dangerous time. And there were so many harebrained schemes that were going on.
We talked a little bit about Sputnik but one of the proposals after that was to blast a hydrogen bomb on the surface of the moon
to show the world that we really are the strongest. And they talked about putting missile bases on the moon, and then the idea was
to have the Soviets respond by putting their own missile bases on the moon. We could put ours on distant planets, so that we could
then hit the Soviet bases on the moon. The great independent journalist I.F. Stone mentioned that the word for lunar, for moon,
in Latin is Luna. And he said, we should have a new department in the cabinet and call it the Department of Lunacy because of the
crazy ideas that were being promulgated at the time.
This comes across, really, with the nuclear policies. So, when McGeorge Bundy asks Dan Ellsberg in 1961 to find out from the Joint
Chiefs what would be, how many people would die as a result of America's nuclear launch in the event of a war with the Soviet Union,
the Pentagon comes back with the idea that between 600 and 650 million people would die from America's weapons alone in our first
PSYOP. And that doesn't even account for nuclear winter, which would have killed us all, or the numbers who would be killed by the
Soviet weapons. That includes at least 100 million of our own allies in Western Europe.
We are talking about a period the lunacy and insanity was captured best by Stanley Kubrick in Dr. Strangelove in 1964. That policy
was so close to what was actually occurring at the time. Did Eisenhower speak for this? When Eisenhower wanted to, one of his visions
was for planetary excavation using hydrogen bombs. People should study the lunacy of Project Plowshare.
PAUL JAY: They used to have tourism to go look at nuclear tests outside of Las Vegas and people would sit just a few miles away
with sunglasses on.
PETER KUZNICK: And we sent American soldiers into the blast area, knowing that they were going to be irradiated. Yeah, the irrationality
in these times. People are going to look back at the Trump administration and if we're here later, maybe they'll laugh at us. If
we survive this period, they'll laugh. They'll look back and say, "Look at the craziness of this period." Well, if you look at the
history of the '50s and early '60s, you see a lot of that same kind of craziness in terms of the policies that were actually implemented
at the time, and the ones, for example, one of the ideas was to melt the polar ice caps using hydrogen bombs. We wanted to increase
polar melting. We wanted to increase the temperature on the planet by exploding nuclear bombs.
PAUL JAY: And this was to do, to what end?
PETER KUZNICK: For what end? I'm not sure. I mean, one-
PAUL JAY: Well, they may get their way, the way things are heading right now. They may get that.
PETER KUZNICK: And one of the things from Trump's National Security speech was to not talk about, or to say that global warming
is not a National Security concern as Obama and others had believed it was. But they wanted to actually redirect hurricanes by setting
off hydrogen bombs in the atmosphere in the path of the hurricane, so they could redirect hurricanes. They wanted to build new harbors
by setting off hydrogen bombs. They wanted to have a new canal across the, instead of the Panama canal, with hydrogen bombs and reroute
rivers in the United States.
I mean, crazy, crazy ideas that was considered American policy. And actually, it was the Soviets who saved us because Eisenhower
wanted to begin to do these programs, but the Soviets would not allow, would not give the United States the right to do that because
there was a temporary test ban in the late 1950s. And Eisenhower would have had to abrogate that in order to begin these projects.
PAUL JAY: Okay. Let's catch up. So, we had just, the last part dealt with some of Kennedy. We get into the 1960s. Kennedy is as
preoccupied with the Cold War, the beginning of the Vietnam War, Cuba, the Missile Crisis. And we had left off right at the moment
of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Give us a really quick recap because I think on this issue of militarization and former policy, we kind
of have to do a whole nother series that focuses more on that. We're trying to get more into this issue of the New Deal and what
happened to domestic social reforms in the context of this massive military expenditure. But talk a bit about that moment of the
Cuban Missile Crisis.
PETER KUZNICK: Well, the Cuban Missile Crisis is very important because now we're going through the Korean Missile Crisis,
and if Trump has his way, we'll also go through the Iranian Missile Crisis. And the last time we were this close to nuclear war was
during the Cuban Missile Crisis. What happens there is that Khrushchev, in order to try to accomplish two things, or three things,
really.
One is to, he knows the United States is planning an invasion of Cuba. The United States had been carrying out war games, massive
war games, 40,000 people participating in these war games. Like now, we're carrying out war games off the Korean coast. And the war
game that was planned for October of '62 was called Operation Ortsac. Anybody who doesn't get it? Certainly the Soviets did. Ortsac
is Castro spelled backwards.
And so, we were planning, we had the plans in place to overthrow the Cuban government, number one. Number two, Khrushchev
wanted a credible deterrent. The Americans learned, Kennedy says, "Let's find out what the reality of the Missile Gap is." And he
has McNamara do the study. We find out that there is a Missile Gap. By October of '61, we find out that there is a Missile Gap, and
it's in our favor. The United States is ahead between 10 to 1 and 100 to 1 over the Soviet Union in every important category.
Still, the pressure was to increase America's missiles and so, the Strategic Air Command in the Air Force wanted to increase
our missiles by 3,000. McNamara figures that the least number he can get away with is to increase our intercontinental ballistic
missiles by 1,000 even though we're ahead 10 to 1 already at that point. The Kremlin interpreted that, and said, "Why is the US increasing
its missiles when it's so far ahead of us?" They said, "Obviously, the United States is preparing for a first strike against the
Soviet Union." That was the Kremlin interpretation. It needed a credible deterrent.
They knew that, initially they thought, "Well, the fact that we can take out Berlin will be a credible enough deterrent. The Americans
will never attack." Then they realized that that wouldn't be a sufficient deterrent to some of the hawks in the American military,
the Curtis LeMays, who had a lot of influence at the time. Or before that, the Lemnitzers. And so, they decide, "Well, we've got
to put missiles in Cuba, which is a more credible deterrent."
And the third is that Khrushchev wanted to appease his hawks. Khrushchev's strategy was to build up Soviet consumer economy. He
said, "The Soviet people want washing machines. They want cars. They want houses. That's what we need." And so, he wanted to decrease
defense spending and one of the cheap ways to do that was to put the missiles in Cuba. So, they do that foolishly. It's a crazy policy
because they don't announce it. It's very much like the movie Strangelove, where Khrushchev was planning to announce that the missiles
were in Cuba on the anniversary of the Soviet Revolution. That was coming up in a couple-
PAUL JAY: You mean Dr. Strangelove, meaning what's the point of a doomsday machine if you don't tell people you've got it?
PETER KUZNICK: As Strangelove says, "Well what's the point of the doomsday machine if you don't announce that you have it?" And
then, the Americans didn't, the Soviets didn't announce that they had the, if they had announced that the missiles were there, then
the United States could not have invaded Cuba the way the military wanted. They could not have bombed Cuba. It would've been an effective
deterrent, especially if they announced that also, that the missiles were there, that the warheads were there and that they also
had put 100 battlefield nuclear weapons inside Cuba.
That would have meant that there was no possibility of the United States invading and that the deterrent would've actually worked.
But they didn't announce it. And so, the United States plans for an invasion and we got very close to doing so. But again, the intelligence
was abysmal. We knew where 33 of the 42 missiles were. We didn't find the other missiles. We didn't know that the battlefield nuclear
weapons were there. We didn't know that the missiles were ready to be armed.
And so, the United States was operating blind. We thought that there were 10,000 armed Soviets in Cuba. Turns out, there were
42,000 armed Soviets. We thought that there were 100,000 armed Cubans. Turns out, there were 270,000 armed Cubans. Based on the initial
intelligence, McNamara said, "If we had invaded, we figured we'd suffer 18,000 casualties, 4,500 dead." When he later finds out how
many troops there actually were there, he says, "Well, that would've been 25,000 Americans dead." When he finds out that there were
100 battlefield nuclear weapons as well, he doesn't find that out until 30 years later, and then he turns white, and he says, "Well
that would've meant we would've lost 100,000 American Troops." Twice as many, almost, as we lost in Vietnam.
He said, "We would've definitely destroyed Cuba and probably wiped out the Soviet Union as well." So, that's how close we
came at this time. Which is again, as Robert Gates, another hawk, warns, "The United States should not invade Syria," he said. "Or
should not bomb Syria because haven't we learned anything from Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya, that whenever these things happen,
you never know what the consequences are going to be. It's always the unintended consequences that are going to get you."
Which we learned in Cuba. We learned in Iraq and Afghanistan or we should've learned from Iraq and Afghanistan. Obviously, Trump
hasn't learned it and we had better learn before we do something crazy now in Korea.
PAUL JAY: All right, thanks, Peter. And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.
It takes two to tango. The idea that the US is solely to blame for the continuation of the Cold War, or that the US is
solely to blame for a revival is Soviet/Russian propaganda. Great powers are aggressive, and rarely circumspect. The existence
of nuclear weapons, was what prevented either the US or the Soviet Union/Russia from attacking each other. Otherwise the sport
of kings would have continued as usual.
And given Churchill's anathema toward Communism in general, and the Soviet Union in particular, and given that he was the
architect of the Cold War from the West I find the idea of him being a peacenik to be bizarre.
It's always that word, "communism", isn't it? As long as that word is used, everything is justifiable. If you look at it closely,
it would seem that the Russians have discovered that communism is every bit as susceptible to corruption as capitalism. Communism
has been, in fact, MORE discredited than capitalism (for now.) With Russia on the other side of the planet, what would be the
harm in letting whatever failed ideologies they have fail like Kansas failed? As Jesus might say, "Ah Ye of little faith."
The vast majority of Americans today have no idea what communism is. Most cannot even thing about communism in terms of it
being just another economic system different from capitalism. (No, it is slavery!) They do not appreciate that there are different
manifestations of both economic models. (Neoliberalism is eating us alive.) They do not appreciate that communism was probably
the salvation of both post-war Russia and China. They conflate socialism with communism, view high taxes as communistic, and ignore
that the countries with the highest standard of living are quite socialist.
In many cases, Americans vote against their own interests just because some pol labels a new social program as communist so
he can give his new bill and edge.
Ike was so right about the Military-Industrial complex, and yet we have only enabled it to grow to the point that it dominates
every political decision – every law – every regulation in ways that ensure weapons are expended so more can take their place;
and more weapons need to be developed because the boogeyman out there (pick a regime) probably, maybe, could be building an even
nastier weapon. Make no mistake, Sputnik was viewed as evidence that the Russians already had better weapons and that they would
take over "outer space" and we would thus be at their mercy. Back in the 60s the US did worry that communism was working better
than capitalism, and that fear enabled a lot of foreign policy (gunboat diplomacy).
Trump is anything if he is not politically and strategically a dim wit. Thus he probably buys into the communist boogeyman
scenario common in our culture. He is likely attracted to the economic stimulus that more guns and less butter offer in the short
run. Our problems seems to hinge on leaders who limit their action to the short run, and the long run (ensuring survival of the
human species?), well, they never get around to that.
I would not be so loving over the "communistic ideals". My great grandparents were murdered for the fact that one was a postal
office manager, another was a sock factory owner. Believe what you want, but communism is far from just an economic theory.
Communism, once you force the politics into the economic theory, is this: equality of all men, regardless of abilities, and
damn if you started off well because everything will be taken from you. Your life is not your own, your family is not your own,
your work is not your own: it belongs to the state.
Capitalism has fatal flaws, but we should all thank Communism died the way it did.
Yaas, it's just Putin friendly propaganda, that's all. Let us persuade ourselves that the vast bulk of provocations and
exacerbations in that now-reprised Cold War were a pas de deluxe, not mostly driven by our own insane US leaders, like the ones
discussed in small detail in the post. Conveniently ignoring the whole escalation process of the Exceptional Empire doing the
"policies" of the Dulleses and their clan, the craziness of stuff like the John Birchers and the McCarthy thing, and the madness
of MAD (which I believe was a notion coined by that nest of vipers called RAND, that "we have to be understood to be insane enough
to commit suicide, to kill the whole planet, for the 'deterrent effect' of Massive Retaliation (forget that the US policy and
military structure very seriously intended a first strike on the Evil Soviets for quite a long time, and are now building "small
nukes" for 'battlespace use' as if there are no knock-on consequences.)
How does one break the cycle of ever-increasing vulnerability and eventual destruction, that includes the extraction and combustion
and all the other decimations of a livable planet? how to do that when the Imperial Rulers are insane, by any sensible definition
of insanity? And the Russians sure seem to be wiser and more restrained (barring some provocation that trips one of their own
Doomsday Devices that they have instituted to try to counter the ridiculous insane provocations and adventures of the Empire?
Maybe revert to "Duck and cover?" Or that Civil Defense posture by one of the Reaganauts, one T.K. Jones, who wanted Congress
to appropriate $252 million (1980 dollars) for Civil Defense, mostly for SHOVELS: in the firmly held belief that "we can fight
and win a nuclear war with the Soviet Union:"
Three times Mr. Jones – or someone speaking in his name – agreed to testify. Three times he failed to appear. The Pentagon
finally sent a pinch-hitter, Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle. But the Senate wants Mr. Jones. It wants an authoritative
explanation of his plan to spend $252 million on civil defense. Evidently, most of that money will go for shovels.
For this is how the alleged Mr. Jones describes the alleged civil defense strategy: "Dig a hole, cover it with a couple
of doors and then throw three feet of dirt on top. It's the dirt that does it."
Mr. Jones seems to believe that the United States could recover fully, in two to four years, from an all-out nuclear
attack. As he was quoted in The Los Angeles Times: "Everybody's going to make it if there are enough shovels to go around."
Dig on, Senator Pressler. We're all curious.
Russia suffered 20 million dead in WW II, pretty much won that war against fascism, and the leaders there get dang little
decrepit for being (so far) so much more the "grownups in the room" in the Great Game Of RISK! ™ that our idiot rulers are playing.
Go look up how many times, however, beyond that vast set of slapstick plays that led to the "Cuban Missile Crisis", the human
part of the world skated up, by combinations of accident and error, to getting its death wish. And the main impetus for the nuclear
"standoff" has been the US and the "policies" forwarded by "our" insane rulers and militarists.
"Tu Quoque" is an especially weak and inapposite and insupportable argument in this context.
SPOT ON! IF Robby Mook and the gang can stir up a Russian frenzy from hell based on nothing more than sour grapes, and IF what
we know about the deep state is only the tip of the iceberg, and IF the media is largely under the control of the 'Gov, THEN a
logical human must at least be open to the possibility that there is also such a thing as American propaganda, must (s)he not?
Yes. Nobody invaded Argentina when Juan Peron et al took over. Hitler and Mussolini could have died as dictators decades later
if they had simply kept their armies home.
Guys, I generally treasure the NC comments section, and I am not singling anyone out, but some of the rhetoric here is
starting to remind me of ZeroHedge doomp&rn. Let's please recover some perspective.
Every year of human history since the expulsion from Eden will let us cherry pick overwhelming evidence that the lunatics
were running the asylum. Or that every generation of our forebears gleefully built our civilization atop heaps of skulls of [insert
oppressed groups here].
Yet during the Cold War, there were plenty of prominent people calling out the McCarthys and Lemays of the world as loons (and
behind the Curtain, even Stalin was removed from key posts before his death). Guess what, sane generally wins out over the mad
king. The arc of history indeed bends toward justice, though never without sacrifice and diligent truthseeking. The ones to worry
about are the snake oil merchants, who pee on our shoes and tell us it's raining.
g.
Such faith we have in ourselves, and such little evidence other than maybe a couple of world wars and long histories of
the loonies playing stupid with whole populations, that we don't need to worry about the concentrated efforts of the sociopathic
lunatics to rise to positions of great power and do stupid stuff.
Yes, this is what the world gets when technological advancement is combined with a socio-economic system that rewards sociopathic
tendencies. A system advanced by propaganda (disguised as entertainment and education) backed up with the barrell of a gun and
cameras everywhere.
This article is not scary enough. Find out that in 1983 there was almost a nuclear war. Both sides have a first strike strategy
and a Russian general thought that actions of Reagan were getting ready for the first strike and he was going to strike first.
And during the Cuban missile crisis, Russian subs had nuclear weapons on them and we dropped low level depth charges on them and
we didn't know that they were armed.
This is a very long interview of Daniel Ellsberg in Seattle on Jan 9, 2018.
Now that everyone, except many in the USA, knows that when the USA changes a government that the country is ruined, this may
have forced North and South Korea to get together.
Ellsberg says that any nukes used in the Korean Peninsula would result in at least 1 million dead and while 60 million in WWII
were killed during the course of the war, with nukes that many cold be killed in a week. And then, nuclear winter would finish
off the rest of us.
To be fair, there are now doubts among scientists that Nuclear Winter as classically described would even be a thing.
But that doesn't help the millions who would die on the peninsula. Further, whats known as a Nuclear Famine could still
occur, which would be pretty damn devastating for civilization, even if mankind itself manages to survive.
Science is about doubt and skepticism. That's what the scientific process is. Doubt a nuclear winter: Ok, I'll bite. We
have examples – Large Volcanic eruptions, and we have the year without a summer sometime in the 1830s I believe – that is in recorded
History. The we searched to archeological record for more evidence, and found large die-offs following a layer of volcanic dust.
Again and again, I believe. Quoting scientists who "doubt nuclear winter" requires more examination:
List them, together with their credentials and "donor$."
You can google nuclear winter early enough. And yes, there are scientists who are skeptical for various reasons. The only group
that has written a paper on it in recent years is composed of some of the same scientists who originally proposed it and they
think it is real.
Reasons for skepticism include doubt about the amount of smoke that would be produced. And the volcano and asteroid comparisons
are imperfect because the details are different. People used to talk about volcanic dust, and now it is mostly sulfuric acid droplets.
With asteroids the initial thought was the KT boundary layer represented trillions of tons of submicron size dust and then Melosh
proposed ejects blasted around the world heated the upper atmosphere and ignited global fires and created soot and then his grad
student Tamara Goldin wrote her dissertation saying the heat might not be quite enough to do that and then people suggested it
was ( I won't go into why) and others suggested the bolide hit sulfur layers .
The point is that there is not a consensus about the detailed atmospheric effects of either large asteroid impacts or of super
volcanoes like Toba and yet we do have some evidence because these things happened. We don't have an example to study in tge geologic
record where hundreds of cities were hit simultaneously with nuclear weapons.
I could go on, but I don't want to give the impression I have a strong opinion either way, because I don't. But I think the
case for global warming is overwhelming because vastly more people are working on it and it is happening in front of us. It is
not just computer models.
Forget possible nuclear winter, the economic effects alone would be worth 10 Lehman brothers (2008 meltdowns). And then the
knock on effects would cause other knock on effects like other wars. Even without a nuclear winter, civilization would probably
collapse within 18 months anyway.
All this, while true, only change the details not the results. The Chicxulub impact almost certainly exterminated the
majority of then living species, and the Toba Supervolcano probably almost caused our extinction. That suggest throwing massive
amounts of anything into the atmosphere is not good.
As a student I would like to know the details, but in practice, it's like arguing whether a snow storm or a blizzard killed
someone. Humanity as a species would probably survive a nuclear war okay, but many(most?) individuals as well as our planetary
civilization would be just as dead. The numbers dying would be slightly different is all.
Humanity might survive as a species but not as an idea. Am about halfway through the Ellsberg book and, yes, it does make
Dr. Strangelove look like a documentary. Current
thinking does not seem much changed.
Something missing from the sequence of events here is that the main reason that the Kremlin put nuclear missiles in Cuba
was the fact that more than 100 Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic nuclear missiles were deployed in Italy and Turkey in 1961
by the US, thus cutting down any reaction time by Moscow to minutes in case of a US attack.
The main – unacknowledged – part of the climb down from the Cuba missile crisis was that as Russia pulled its nuclear missiles
out of Cuba, the US would do the same in Europe. It cooled things down again until Reagan was elected.
I had forgotten that the 50s had just as many crazies as present times – the Dulles brothers, Curtis LeMay, Edward Teller,
J. Edgar Hoover – really scary people and probably founding members of the deep state.
The Jupiter missile agreement was a secret at the time. Kennedy wanted to minimize the appearance of a quid-pro-quo. The
subsequent presence of Pershings and Tomahawks in Europe (but not Turkey) was a reaction to the mobile IRBMs deployed by the Soviet
Union. Which they still have. France and Britain have their own independent deterrents. Which is just as well, since the Pershings
and Tomahawks were traded away as part of START/SALT.
The more recent escalation of NATO into E Europe, the Baltics and the Ukraine are a definite violation of the spirit of
the Cuban Missile Crisis agreement, and are pure aggression against a Russia that was seen as too weak to do anything about it
until they did do something about it in 2014.
An aggressive NATO is something I view with horror. One does not poke the bear. But Kissinger (the German) and Berzhinski
(the Pole) are fanatically anti-Russian. They made up for the passing of Churchill.
Just recently Russia deployed more nuclear-capable Iskander missiles to the Kaliningrad enclave between Poland and Lithuania.
Maybe something to do with all those special forces NATO keeps stationing on the Russian border?
And all the a -- -oles who Command and Rule, and most of the commentariat and punditry, all treat these affairs as if they
are playing some Brobdingnagian Game of Risk ™, where as with Monopoly (which was originally intended to teach a very different
lesson) the object of the game is all about TAKING OVER THE WHOLE WORLD, WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA an idiotic froth on top of an ever more
dangerous brew of exponentially increasing,and largely ignored, mutual if often asymmetric, deadly vulnerability.
Stupid effing humans and their vast stupid monkey tricks
LeMay had suggested that we should perhaps wipe out the Soviet Union before they had the chance to catch up to us in nukes.
It was an era ruled by fear of nuclear war–a fear that was unleashed by the use of the bomb in Japan. Truman and Byrnes (the latter
in a meeting in his hometown–my hometown) rejected calls by some of the Los Alamos scientists to share the nuclear secrets with
the Russians and forestall this arms race or so they hoped.
So no the crazy didn't start with Trump and Trump had even advocated we make nice with the Russians until the Dems, their remnants
at State and Defense and the press forced him to change course (on threat of impeachment). The elites who have gained more or
less permanent power over the direction of this country are a threat to us all.
Anyhow, thanks for the above post. Those who forget history ..
Different world. The first generation of nuclear weapons had yields (around 20-30Kt) that were comprehensible in terms of conventional
bombing, which of course would have required many more aircraft but was also much more efficient per tonne of explosives. For
the formative years after 1945, therefore, people thought of nuclear weapons as weapons in the classic sense and, at that time,
nobody really knew that much about the effects of radiation and fallout. This all changed with the advent of the hydrogen bomb,
but even then it took a long time for the likely catastrophic effects of the use of such weapons in large numbers to sink in.
Nuclear technology, and both delivery and guidance systems, evolved far more quickly than rationales for their use could be found.
Indeed, you can say that the Cold War was a period when nuclear powers found themselves acquiring weapons with technologies that
couldn't actually be used, but couldn't be un-invented either. Enormous intellectual effort went into trying to provide post-hoc
rationales for having these weapons, some of it very ingenious, most of it wasted.
Don't forget the role of paranoia either. NSC-68, the report that formalized US strategy during the Cold War, reads today like
the ravings of a group of lunatics, seeing, almost literally, Reds under the beds. And if Stalin was dead, the Soviet leadership
had just gone through a war which had cost them almost 30 million dead, and any, literally any, sacrifice was worth it to make
sure that they prevented another war, or at least won it quickly.
US military casualties in WW2: 407,300
US civilian casualties in WW2: 12,100
USSR military casualties in WW2: estimated by various sources [see the footnotes] between 8,668,000 to 11,400,000.
USSR civilian casualties in WW2: 10,000,000 [plus another 6-7 million deaths from famine, a line in the table that is completely
blank for the US]
Simply put, for every American that died, somewhere between a thousand to two thousand of their Russian counterparts were killed.
And somehow people in the US were convinced and worried that Russia wanted to start yet another war when they still hadn't finished
burying the dead from the last one.
1. Stalin made his pact with the devil that gave Hitler free rein to invade Poland and France. Hitler then invaded Russia from
Poland as the jumping off point. Stalin miscalculated big-time.
2. Invaded countries always have many more civilian countries than un-invaded ones.
3. Germany started WW II only 20 years after the end of WW I that also slaughtered 2 million German soldiers. Past losses generally
does not appear to impact the decision-making of dictators regarding new wars. So it would have been irrational for the West to
think that the USSR had no intent to expand its borders. That was the blunder that France and Britain made in 1938-39. However,
the paranoia did get extreme in the Cold War.
This isn't accurate. Stalin tried repeatedly and even towards the end, desperately, to sign a treaty with the Britain and
France. They rebuffed him because [he was a] Commie. He signed up with Hitler only after those efforts had clearly failed. It
was a self-preservation move. It probably did buy him less time than he thought. But let's not kid ourselves: Hitler's first move
otherwise would have been to the East. What were later the Allies would have been delighted to see him take over the USSR. This
was why British aristos were so keen on Hitler, that he was seen as an answer to Communism and therefore "our kind of man".
The Poles have been the Germans and Russians chewtoy ever since it was completely partitioned. All the countries immediately
around Russia have been horribly abused by Russia. Putin is doing his country no favors by reminding everyone of that. He can
cow them into submission, but like the American government is finding, just because they are doesn't mean they cannot cause trouble.
Heck, the current Great Game could be said to have started with the Soviet-Afghanistan War.
Going into the war every country was unprepared and unwilling to fight and had difficulty choices. The German military
itself was not prepared. It was Hitler's choice to start when and where and by 1938 everyone knew it. Hitler was surprised that
France and Great Britain honored their guarantee to Poland.
As evil as Stalin's regime was, and his invasion of Poland was just as bad as Hitler's at first, I don't think most people
really understood just how evil the Nazis were and what they were planning on doing for Germany's living space. It was worse than
anything that Stalin did and between the Ukrainian famine, the Great Purges, the takeover of the Baltic States, the invasion of
Finland, etc he did serious evil.
General LeMay was responsible for the death of a fifth (some say a third) of the North Korean population by saturation
bombing with napalm, was he not? A third? Isn't that one in three?
Additional books that shed light on both leaving the new deal behind and the Cuban missile crisis are (1) "The Devil's
Chessboard" by Talbot and (2) "JFK and The Unspeakable" by Douglass. The first is mostly about Allen Dulles but has interesting
chapters on McCarthy, Eisenhower, Nixon, etc. It is reasonably well foot-noted. The second is about the assassination and has
loads of detail about the missile crisis and its power players. It is meticulously foot-noted.
I was going to post the text of the short review, but all I got at the moment is this blankety iPhone and its limits with cut
and paste.
Not many read books anyway these days, and what sufficient moiety of them will form the groundswell that tips over the Juggernaut
we are all pushing and pulling and riding toward the cliff?
I read this stuff mostly to sense which hand holds the knife and not to go down asking "What happened? What did it all mean?"
Trump has been bellicose re NK and Iran, but I see him as resisting the Syrian adventure, while cia plus military hawks pushing
forward.
Dems today are real hawks, itching to confront Russia in both Syria and Ukraine the latter another place trump may be resisting
hawks, the area has been quiet since the election, I.e. since dems were in charge.
It's an odd thought that in some theaters trump may be the sane one
Yaas, nothing is happening in Ukraine, all is quiet on the Eastern Front of NATO:
http://ukraine.csis.org/ Nuland has gone on to other conquests, and all
that. The CIA and War Department have lost interest in that Conflict Zone. Nothing is happening. You are getting sleepy. Sleepy.
Yeah, the title of this post would lead one to believe that their is something uniquely horrible about Trump's foreign policy.
From anything I can detect, her bellicose statement about a no-fly zone in Syria and her abject destruction of Libya, HRC's FP
would have been even worse.
If she had been elected, we might already be in a ground war with the Russians in Syria. The only hopeful sign is that while
Trump spends his day watching TeeVee, State, DOD, and CIA are all working at cross purposes and getting in each other's way.
Foreign policy? We have a foreign policy? If anybody finds it, will they please explain it to me?
I almost never comment, although I rely on NC for most of my news and blood pressure control. You are a treasure.
May I recommend another book – "All Honorable Men" – by James Stewart Martin. Published in 1950 and shortly thereafter all
bookstore copies were hoovered-up and burned by the CIA. It might have been referenced in one of the RNN segments, but I haven't
slogged through all of them yet.
You can get a hardback at Amazon for a mere $298. An i-book is cheaper.
After reading "The Brothers," and "The Devil's Chessboard," I considered starting a non-profit using GPS technology – Piss-on-their-Graves.org.
The Forbidden Bookshelf series by Open Media
is fantastic. Sadly for dinosaurs like me, it is mostly ebooks, but they do the occasional hard copy reprints, and since much
in the series would be out of print without Open Media, even the ebooks are great to have.
And it is interesting to see how many bothersome books just go away even without any "censorship" even with the First Amendment
being the one right courts have consistently, and strongly, enforced.
This article reminded me of an interesting/disturbing thing I saw on tv last night – a local news show had a bit on what to
do in case of nuclear attack!
Boomers & older probably remember the drill: go to the basement or innermost room of the house, have 72 hours of food & water
stashed & don't go outside for at least 3 days, etc. (yeah, that's the ticket).
Thought I was having a flashback to the 60's
Of course the best advice I ever heard on the subject was "Squat down, put your head between your knees & kiss your sweet [rear
end] goodbye."
Well, as I recall they were trying to give us the illusion of control so that we would not go all nihilistic or into a drunken
fatalistic stupor. I don't know if telling people, like little JBird, that the bombs might start dropping anytime in which case
you're just f@@@@d would have done any good.
One interpretation of the Cold War, that I found revealing, was that the two "opposing" militaries colluded to magnify the
threat so as to pump up their respective budgets. So both were essentially conning their own governments – and putting the whole
world at risk in the process.
Of course, another big factor, equally obvious at the time, was (and is) that world "leaders," elected or not, can't resist
the temptation to play chess with live pieces. They don't seem to care that people wind up dead, or that occasionally they put
the whole world in danger.
It's SIOP, not PSYOP. SIOP stands for Single Integrated Operating Plan, which was what the first nuclear war plan was called.
PSYOPS are Psychological Operations.
Having served in the first Cold War, it simply is beyond my comprehension that the Democrats restarted it all over again. Even
weirder are the neo-con proponents of a First Strike. If the USA wins, at least one or two major cities (if not all) will be destroyed.
New Zealand becomes the sequel to "On the Beach". We are in the same position as Germany in the 1930s except we know that the
world war will destroy us. Tell me, how in the hell, did a few thousand U.S. soldiers and contractors ended up in the middle of
Eastern Syria surrounded by Russians, the Syrian Arab Army and Shiite militias at risk of attack by Turkey?
Tell me, how in the hell, did a few thousand U.S. soldiers and contractors ended up in the middle of Eastern Syria surrounded
by Russians, the Syrian Arab Army and Shiite militias at risk of attack by Turkey?
Why they are needed to fight the evil-doers of course! Anything to protect our Freedom and the American Way. Now, ifyou keep
asking these inconvenient questions, then "they" might start asking if you support the terrorists.
It's like when my half blind aged mother, and her possibly weaponized cane, is scrutinized as a possible al-Qaeda terrorist
with a super hidden weapon, and I ask why it's 9/11 and the very bad people might hurt us.
Nuclear winter. How quaint. Soot and dust. Rapid cooling. Crop failures. Starvation. Billions -perhaps- dead.
But life, certainly, will find a way!
Not in my world. All-out thermonuclear war means 250 nuclear reactors melt down simultaneously and several hundred thousand
tons of loosely stored nuclear waste becomes aerosoled.
The resulting radiation blast burns the atmosphere off and the earth becomes a dead planet.
We can never look the thing straight in the eye. Take North Korea. We have been told, repeatedly, endlessly, that they have
20,000 artillery pieces trained on Seoul!
Again, how quaint. How SCARY! What we should be reading about, are the priority targets, the game changers:
"People should study the lunacy of Project Plowshare."
__
Yeah. In 1992 my wife was serving as the QA Mgr for the Nevada Test Site (NTS) nuke remediation project contractor. In 1993
a successful FOIA filing unearthed the Alaskan "Project Chariot." One of the brilliant Project Plowshare ideas was the potential
utility of nuke detonations to carve out deep water harbors (they now deny it), so they took a bunch of irradiated soil from NTS
and and spread it around on the tundra 130 miles N of the Arctic circle on the coast of the Chukchi Sea to "study potential environmental
impacts."
The nuke "dredging" idea went nowhere, so they just plowed the irradiated crap under the surface, where it remained secret
until the FOIA revelation decades later. DOE told my wife's company "go clean this shit up" (Eskimo tribes were freaking after
finding out), so off goes my wife and her crew to spend the summer and fall living in tents guarded by armed polar bear guards
(they had to first plow out a dirt & gravel runway, and flew everyone and all supplies in on STOL aircraft). They dug the test
bed area all up (near Cape Thompson), assayed samples in an onsite radlab, put some 30 tons of "contaminated" Arctic soil in large
sealed containers, barged it all down to Seattle, loaded it on trucks and drove it all back down to be buried at NTS.
Your tax dollars.
She looked so cute with her clipboard, and her orange vest, steel toed boots and hardhat.
As a teenager I read in a newspaper a proposal to use nuclear blasts to form a canal that would bring the sea to the middle
of Australia and form an inland sea from which water could be drawn. We already had nuclear weapon being tested here (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_tests_in_Australia
) so there was no appetite for ideas like this.
"... Last year, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime noted that while West Africa "has long been a transit zone for cocaine and heroin trafficking, it has now turned into a production zone for illicit substances such as amphetamines and precursors" and that drug use "is also a growing issue at the local level." Meanwhile, heroin trafficking has been on the rise in East Africa , along with personal use of the drug. ..."
"... In the spring of 2001, American experts concluded that a ban on opium-poppy cultivation by Afghanistan's Taliban government had wiped out the world's largest heroin-producing crop. Later that year, the U.S. military invaded and, since 2002, America has pumped $8.7 billion in counternarcotics funding into that country. A report issued late last month by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction detailed the results of anti-drug efforts during CENTCOM's 16-year-old war: "Afghanistan's total area under opium cultivation and opium production reached an all-time high in 2017," it reads in part. "Afghanistan remains the world's largest opium producer and exporter, producing an estimated 80% of the world's opium." ..."
"... While AFRICOM and, to a lesser extent, CENTCOM have made changes in how they track counternarcotics aid, both seemingly remain hooked on pouring money into efforts that have produced few successes. More effective use of spreadsheets won't solve the underlying problems of America's wars or cure an addiction to policies that continue to fail. ..."
More troubling than the findings in the IG's report or CENTCOM's apparent refusal to heed
its recommendations may be the actual trajectory of the drug trade in the two commands' areas
of responsibility: Africa and the Greater Middle East. Last year, the United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime
noted that while West Africa "has long been a transit zone for cocaine and heroin
trafficking, it has now turned into a production zone for illicit substances such as
amphetamines and precursors" and that drug use "is also a growing issue at the local level."
Meanwhile,
heroin trafficking has been on the
rise in
East Africa , along with personal
use of the drug.
Even the Pentagon's Africa Center for Strategic Studies is sounding an alarm. "Drug
trafficking is a major transnational threat in Africa that converges with other illicit
activities ranging from money laundering to human trafficking and terrorism," it
warned last November. "According to the 2017 U.N. World Drug Report, two-thirds of the
cocaine smuggled between South America and Europe passes through West Africa, specifically
Benin, Cape Verde, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Nigeria, and Togo. Kenya, Nigeria, and Tanzania
are among the countries that have seen the highest traffic in opiates passing from Pakistan and
Afghanistan to Western destinations." As badly as this may reflect on AFRICOM's efforts to
bolster the counter-drug-trafficking prowess of key allies like Kenya, Mali, and Nigeria, it
reflects even more dismally on CENTCOM, which oversees Washington's long-running war in
Afghanistan and its seemingly ceaseless
counternarcotics mission there.
In the spring of 2001, American experts concluded
that a ban on opium-poppy cultivation by Afghanistan's Taliban government had wiped out the
world's largest heroin-producing crop. Later that year, the U.S. military invaded and, since
2002, America has pumped
$8.7 billion in counternarcotics funding into that country. A report issued
late last month by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction detailed the
results of anti-drug efforts during CENTCOM's 16-year-old war: "Afghanistan's total area under
opium cultivation and opium production reached an all-time high in 2017," it reads in part.
"Afghanistan remains the world's largest opium producer and exporter, producing an estimated
80% of the world's opium."
In many ways, these outcomes mirror those of the larger counterterror efforts of which these
anti-drug campaigns are just a part. In 2001, for example, U.S. forces were fighting just two
enemy forces in Afghanistan: al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Now, according to a recent
Pentagon report , they're battling more than 10 times that number. In Africa, an official
count of
five prime terror groups in 2012 has expanded, depending on the Pentagon source, to more
than
20 or even closer to
50 .
Correlation doesn't equal causation, but given the outcomes of significant counternarcotics
assistance from Africa Command and Central Command -- including some $500 million over just
three recent years -- there's little evidence to suggest that better record-keeping can solve
the problems plaguing the military's anti-drug efforts in the greater Middle East or Africa.
While AFRICOM and, to a lesser extent, CENTCOM have made changes in how they track
counternarcotics aid, both seemingly remain hooked on pouring money into efforts that have
produced few successes. More effective use of spreadsheets won't solve the underlying problems
of America's wars or cure an addiction to policies that continue to fail.
160 billion plus 160 billion are pretty serious money. money that were stolen from ordinary Americans.
PRESIDENT EISENHOWER: Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a
theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money
alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern
heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000
population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter
plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000
people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at
all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. (cited from
The Age of Lunacy The Doomsday Machine naked
capitalism )
Notable quotes:
"... The military talks about needing all these scores of billions to "rebuild." And, sure, there are ships that need to be refitted, planes in need of repairs, equipment that needs to be restocked, and veterans who need to be cared for. But a massive increase in military and war spending, perhaps as high as $320 billion over two years, is a recipe for excessive waste and even more disastrous military adventurism. ..."
"... Perhaps you've heard of the expression, "Spending money like drunken sailors on shore leave." Our military has been drunk with money since 9/11. Is it really wise to give those "sailors" an enormous boost in the loose change they're carrying, trusting them to spend it wisely? ..."
The new Congressional budget boosts military spending in a
big way . Last night's PBS
News report documented how military spending is projected to increase by $160 billion over
two years, but that doesn't include "overseas contingency funding" for wars, which is another
$160 billion over two years. Meanwhile, spending for the opioid crisis, which is killing
roughly 60,000 Americans a year (more Americans than were killed in the Vietnam War), is set at
a paltry $6 billion ($25 billion was requested).
One thing is certain: Ike was right about the undue
influence of the military-industrial-Congressional complex.
The military talks about needing all these scores of billions to "rebuild." And, sure, there
are ships that need to be refitted, planes in need of repairs, equipment that needs to be
restocked, and veterans who need to be cared for. But a massive increase in military and war
spending, perhaps as high as $320 billion over two years, is a recipe for excessive waste and
even more disastrous military adventurism.
Even if you're a supporter of big military budgets, this massive boost in military spending
is bad news. Why? It doesn't force the military to think . To set priorities. To define limits.
To be creative.
Perhaps you've heard of the expression, "Spending money like drunken sailors on shore
leave." Our military has been drunk with money since 9/11. Is it really wise to give those
"sailors" an enormous boost in the loose change they're carrying, trusting them to spend it
wisely?
William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen
years at military and civilian schools and blogs at Bracing Views . He can be reached at [email protected] . Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author's permission.
"... The new weapons for Ukraine coincides with an increase in US troop deployments in the Baltic region on Russia's border, prompting Russia to accuse the United States of violating the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, and position nuclear-capable ballistic missiles in response. ..."
One consequence of the Trump-Russia fixation is the overshadowing of the far-right agenda
that Trump and his Republican allies are carrying out, including, inexorably, policies that
undermine the narrative of Trump-Russian collusion. But as that narrative is also used as a
cudgel against Trump's presidency, it is worth asking if some of those policies are now even a
direct result.
In December, Trump
authorized the sale of new weapons to Ukraine for its fight against Russian-backed
separatists. President Obama had rejected the arms shipments, "fearing that it would only
escalate the bloodshed," as The New York Times noted in 2015. Trump had also opposed such a move during the
campaign, but was swayed by lobbying from
advisers and congressional neoconservatives
. "Overall,"
observed Andrew Weiss , a Russia expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, "I see this discussion [on Trump-Russia] as fitting within a broader effort by people
within the national security bureaucracy to box Trump in on Ukraine."
The new weapons for Ukraine coincides with an increase in US troop deployments in the
Baltic region on Russia's border, prompting Russia to accuse the United States of violating the
1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act, and position nuclear-capable ballistic missiles in
response.
Cohen is a Communist and reflexive hater of the United States in the Noam Chomsky mold. He is
either naive or a fool if he believes half of what he is saying.
Russia never had a decent shot at democracy. The collapse of the Soviet Union was arranged
by the Nomenklatura for their own benefit as a massive asset grab. The fight between Yeltsin
and the Russian Parliament was basically a fight between two factions, and the Yeltsin/KGB
faction beat the CPSU/Red Manager faction. Putin is very much a product of and continuation
of the Yeltsin/KGB team (notice, for example, the role that Chubais continues to play in
government policy), but the current team realizes how hated Yeltsin is and are smart enough
to create plausible distance for public consumption.
For the most part the Putin years have been a failure, and these last two decades will be
seen as squandered. Very little economic growth, continuing deterioration of the education
and health systems, increasing dependence on China and massive transfers of wealth abroad.
Those are Putin's primary achievements.
On the plus side, Western sanctions have been a net benefit to Russia over the last three
years – keeping capital in the country and giving the agricultural, food processing and
light manufacturing industries some room to breathe and develop free from Western
competition.
Brand attracted interest because of her potential to assume a key role in the Trump-Russia
investigation. The official overseeing the special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation,
the deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, has been repeatedly criticized by Trump. If
Rosenstein had been fired or quit, oversight would have fallen to Brand. That job would now
fall to the solicitor general, Noel Francisco.
"She felt this was an opportunity she couldn't turn down," her friend and former colleague
Jamie Gorelick said. Walmart sought Brand to be head of global corporate governance at the
retail giant, a position Gorelick said has legal and policy responsibilities that will cater
to her strengths.
"It really seems to have her name on it," Gorelick said.
After 16 years of war in Afghanistan, experts have stopped asking what victory looks like
and are beginning to consider the spectrum of possible defeats.
All options involve acknowledging the war as failed, American aims as largely unachievable
and Afghanistan's future as only partly salvageable. Their advocates see glimmers of hope
barely worth the stomach-turning trade-offs and slim odds of success.
"I don't think there is any serious analyst of the situation in Afghanistan who believes
that the war is winnable," Laurel Miller, a political scientist at the RAND Corporation, said
in a
podcast last summer, after leaving her State Department stint as acting special
representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
This may be why, even after thousands have died and over $100 billion has been spent, even
after the past two weeks of shocking bloodshed in
Kabul , few expect the United States to try anything other than the status
quo.
It is a strategy, as Ms. Miller described it, to "prevent the defeat of the Afghan
government and prevent military victory by the Taliban" for as long as possible.
Though far from the most promising option, it is the least humiliating. But sooner or later,
the United States and Afghanistan will find themselves facing one of Afghanistan's endgames --
whether by choice or not.
Throughout Donald Trump's campaign and relentlessly chaotic presidency, the single constant presence at his side, outside of his
family, has been the 29-year-old former Ralph Lauren model and White House communications director Hope Hicks.
While aides and advisers fall in and out of favor, Hicks has remained Trump's Oval Office gatekeeper, companion and sounding board,
offering consistent loyalty.
But now Hicks has herself been cast into two plotlines currently playing out in the presidential daytime reality-soap.
In one, Hicks features as a likely target in the special counsel Robert Mueller's effort to acquire cooperating witnesses in the
investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Hicks has
reportedly
been interviewed by Mueller's investigators.
Publicly, Trump has offered his support for Hicks, saying: "Hope is absolutely fantastic. She was with the campaign from the beginning,
and I could not ask for anything more. Hope is smart, very talented and respected by all."
But in private, the president is believed to have issued rare criticism of a woman who by some estimates is the most influential
figure in the administration after Trump himself.
At issue is whether Hicks, who also served as communications director during the campaign, relaxed her judgment owing to her relationship
with Porter.
White House officials have said Hicks knew that an ex-girlfriend of Porter's had informed aides that both of Porter's ex-wives
had said he was violent. Hicks continued to see him and did not tell the president. Porter denies the allegations against him.
If the unfolding episode calls into question the maturity of Hicks' judgement, she clearly is invaluable as a personal assistant.
In his campaign memoir, Let Trump Be Trump, Corey Lewandowski, the early campaign strategist – with whom, coincidentally, Hicks also
had an affair – described her steaming Trump's suit while he is wearing it.
"She's really quite talented and able," Christopher Ruddy, a close friend of the president and chief executive of the conservative
website Newsmax,
told the Washington Post .
But her professional experience, especially where is comes to matters that carry potentially legal consequences, is limited. Hicks
came to the Trumps through a PR firm that represented the Trump Organization. The family later hired her away to work exclusively
for them, furnishing her with responsibilities that included working on Ivanka Trump's fashion line.
A GQ magazine profile in June
2016 described her: "She is a hugger and a people pleaser, with long brown hair and green eyes, a young woman of distinctly all-American
flavor – the sort that inspires Tom Petty songs, not riots."
But her looks and fashion background can cause people to underestimate her. She has a background in PR and is a graduate of Dallas'
Southern Methodist University.
"... The post WW2 promotion process in the armed forces has produced a group at the top with a mentality that typically thinks rigorously but not imaginatively or creatively. ..."
"... These men got to their present ranks and positions by being conformist group thinkers who do not stray outside the "box" of their guidance from on high. They actually have scheduled conference calls among themselves to make sure everyone is "on board." ..."
"... If asked at the top, where military command and political interaction intersect, what policy should be they always ask for more money and to be allowed to pursue outcomes that they can understand as victory and self fulfilling with regard to their collective self image as warrior chieftains. ..."
"... In Trump's time his essential disinterest in foreign policy has led to a massive delegation of authority to Mattis and the leadership of the empire's forces. Their reaction to that is to look at their dimwitted guidance from on high (defeat IS, depose Assad and the SAG, triumph in Afghanistan) and to seek to impose their considerable available force to seek accomplishment as they see fit of this guidance in the absence of the kind of restrictions that Obama placed on them. ..."
"... Like the brass, I, too, am a graduate of all those service schools that attend success from the Basic Course to the Army War College. I will tell you again that the people at the top are not good at "the vision thing." They are not stupid at all but they are a collective of narrow thinkers ..."
"... Academia reinforces the groupthink. The mavericks are shunned or ostracized. The only ones I have seen with some degree of going against the grain are technology entrepreneurs. ..."
"... "They are not stupid at all but they are a collective of narrow thinkers." I have found this to be the case with 80 to 90% of most professions. A good memory and able to perform meticulously what they have been taught, but little thinking outside that narrow box. Often annoying, but very dangerous in this case. ..."
"... Since Afghanistan and the brass were mentioned in the editorial statement, here is an immodest question -- Where the brass have been while the opium production has been risen dramatically in Afghanistan under the US occupation? "Heroin Addiction in America Spearheaded by the US-led War on Afghanistan" by Paul Craig Roberts: https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/02/06/heroin-addiction-america-spearheaded-us-led-war-afghanistan/ ..."
"... A simple Q: What has been the role of the CENTCOM re the racket? Who has arranged the protection for the opium production and for drug dealers? Roberts suggests that the production of opium in Afghanistan "finances the black operations of the CIA and Western intelligence agencies." -- All while Awan brothers, Alperovitch and such tinker with the US national security? ..."
"... God help the poor people of Syria. ..."
"... thanks pat... it seems like the usa has had a steady group of leaders that have no interest in the world outside of the usa, or only in so far as they can exploit it for their own interest... maybe that sums up the foreign policy of the usa at this point... you say trump is disinterested.. so all the blather from trump about 'why are we even in syria?', or 'why can't we be friends with the russia?' is just smoke up everyone's ass... ..."
"... Predictably there is always someone who says that this group is not different from all others. Unfortunately the military function demands more than the level of mediocrity found in most groups ..."
"... A lot of technology entrepreneurs--especially those active today--are stuck in their own groupthink, inflated by their sense that they are born for greatness and can do no wrong. ..."
"... The kind of grand schemes that the top people at Google, Uber, and Facebook think up to remake the universe in their own idea of "good society" are frightening. That they are cleverer (but not necessarily wiser) than the academics, borgists, or generals, I think, makes them even more dangerous. ..."
"... They [the generals] seem to have deliberately completely ignored the issues and policy positions Trump ran on as President. It isn't a case of ignorance but of wilful disregard. ..."
"... So true and as others commented this is a sad feature of the human race and all human organizations. Herd mentality ties into social learning ..."
"... Our massive cultural heritages are learned by observing and taken in as a whole. This process works within organizations as well. ..."
"... I suspect a small percentage of the human race functions differently than the majority and retains creative thinking and openness along with more emphasis on cognitive thinking than social learning but generally they always face a battle when working to change the group "consensus", i.e. Fulton's folly, scepticism on whether man would ever fly, etc. ..."
"... This is an interesting discussion. The top in organisations (civil and military) are increasingly technocrats and thinking like systems managers. They are unable to innovate because they lack the ability to think out of the box. Usually there is a leader who depends on specialists. Others (including laymen) are often excluding from the decision-making-proces. John Ralston Saul's Voltaires Bastards describes this very well. ..."
"... Because of natural selection (conformist people tend to choose similar people who resemble their own values and ways-of-thinking) organizations have a tendency to become homogeneous (especially the higher management/ranks). ..."
"... In combination with the "dumbing" of people (also of people who have a so-called good education (as described in Richard Sale's Sterile Chit-Chat ) this is a disastrous mix. ..."
"... That's true not only of the US military but of US elites in general across all of the spectra. And because that reality is at odds with the group-think of those within the various elements that make up the spectra it doesn't a hearing. Anyone who tries to bring it up risks being ejected from the group. ..."
"... "The United States spent at least $12 billion in Syria-related military and civilian expenses in the four years from 2014 through 2017, according to the former U.S. ambassador to the country. This $12 billion is in addition to the billions more spent to pursue regime change in Syria in the previous three years, after war broke out in 2011." https://goo.gl/8pj5cD ..."
"... "They are not stupid at all but they are a collective of narrow thinkers." I've often pondered that concept. Notice how many of radical extremist leaders were doctors, engineers and such? Narrow and deep. ..."
"... Long ago when I was a professor, I advised my students that "the law is like a pencil sharpener, it sharpens the mind by narrowing it." I tried to encourage them to "think backwards". ..."
"... Col, I think it might help people to think of "the Borg" - as you have defined & applied it - in a broader context. It struck me particularly as you ID'd the launching of our modern military group-think / careerism behavior coming from the watershed of industrialized scale & processes that came out of WWII. ..."
"... We note parallel themes in all significant sectors of our civilization. The ever-expanding security state, the many men in Gray Flannel Suits that inhabit corporate culture, Finance & Banking & Big Health scaling ever larger - all processes aimed to slice the salami thinner & quicker, to the point where meat is moot ... and so it goes. ..."
"... I just finished reading Command & Control (about nuclear weapons policy, systems design & accidents). I am amazed we've made it this far. ..."
The Borgist foreign policy of the administration has little to do with the generals. To comprehend the generals one must understand their collective mentality and the process that raised them on high as a collective
of their own. The post WW2 promotion process in the armed forces has produced a group at the top with a mentality that typically
thinks rigorously but not imaginatively or creatively.
These men got to their present ranks and positions by being conformist group thinkers who do not stray outside the "box" of
their guidance from on high. They actually have scheduled conference calls among themselves to make sure everyone is "on board."
If asked at the top, where military command and political interaction intersect, what policy should be they always ask for
more money and to be allowed to pursue outcomes that they can understand as victory and self fulfilling with regard to their collective
self image as warrior chieftains.
In Obama's time they were asked what policy should be in Afghanistan and persuaded him to reinforce their dreams in Afghanistan
no matter how unlikely it always was that a unified Western oriented nation could be made out of a collection of disparate mutually
alien peoples.
In Trump's time his essential disinterest in foreign policy has led to a massive delegation of authority to Mattis and the
leadership of the empire's forces. Their reaction to that is to look at their dimwitted guidance from on high (defeat IS, depose
Assad and the SAG, triumph in Afghanistan) and to seek to impose their considerable available force to seek accomplishment as they
see fit of this guidance in the absence of the kind of restrictions that Obama placed on them.
Like the brass, I, too, am a graduate of all those service schools that attend success from the Basic Course to the Army War
College. I will tell you again that the people at the top are not good at "the vision thing." They are not stupid at all but they
are a collective of narrow thinkers. pl
IMO, this conformism pervades all institutions. I saw when I worked in banking and finance many moons ago how moving up the
ranks in any large organization meant you didn't rock the boat and you conformed to the prevailing groupthink. Even nutty ideas
became respectable because they were expedient.
Academia reinforces the groupthink. The mavericks are shunned or ostracized. The only ones I have seen with some degree of
going against the grain are technology entrepreneurs.
You remind me of an old rumination by Thomas Ricks:
Take the example of General George Casey. According to David Cloud and Greg Jaffe's book Four Stars, General Casey, upon learning
of his assignment to command U.S. forces in Iraq, received a book from the Army Chief of Staff. The book Counterinsurgency Lessons
Learned from Malaya and Vietnam was the first book he ever read about guerilla warfare." This is a damning indictment of the degree
of mental preparation for combat by a general. The Army's reward for such lack of preparation: two more four star assignments.
"They are not stupid at all but they are a collective of narrow thinkers."
I have found this to be the case with 80 to 90% of most professions. A good memory and able to perform meticulously what they
have been taught, but little thinking outside that narrow box. Often annoying, but very dangerous in this case.
Since Afghanistan and the brass were mentioned in the editorial statement, here is an immodest question -- Where the brass have
been while the opium production has been risen dramatically in Afghanistan under the US occupation? "Heroin Addiction in America
Spearheaded by the US-led War on Afghanistan" by Paul Craig Roberts:
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/02/06/heroin-addiction-america-spearheaded-us-led-war-afghanistan/
" in 2000-2001
the Taliban government –with the support of the United Nations (UNODC) – implemented a successful ban on poppy cultivation. Opium
production which is used to produce grade 4 heroin and its derivatives declined by more than 90 per cent in 2001. The production
of opium in 2001 was of the order of a meager 185 tons. It is worth noting that the UNODC congratulated the Taliban Government
for its successful opium eradication program. The Taliban government had contributed to literally destabilizing the multibillion
dollar Worldwide trade in heroin.
In 2017, the production of opium in Afghanistan under US military occupation reached 9000 metric tons. The production of opium
in Afghanistan registered a 49 fold increase since Washington's invasion. Afghanistan under US military occupation produces approximately
90% of the World's illegal supply of opium which is used to produce heroin. Who owns the airplanes and ships that transport heroin
from Afghanistan to the US? Who gets the profits?"
---A simple Q: What has been the role of the CENTCOM re the racket? Who has arranged the protection for the opium production
and for drug dealers? Roberts suggests that the production of opium in Afghanistan "finances the black operations of the CIA and
Western intelligence agencies." -- All while Awan brothers, Alperovitch and such tinker with the US national security?
There needs to be a 're-education' of the top, all of them need to be required to attend Green Beret think-school, in other
words they need to be forced to think outside the box, and to to think on their feet. They need to understand fluid situations
where things change at the drop of a hat, be able to dance the two-step and waltz at the same time. In other words they need to
be able to walk and chew gum and not trip over their shoe-laces.
By no means are they stupid, but you hit the nail on the head when you said 'narrow thinkers'. Their collective hive mentality
that has developed is not a good thing.
thanks pat... it seems like the usa has had a steady group of leaders that have no interest in the world outside of the usa, or
only in so far as they can exploit it for their own interest... maybe that sums up the foreign policy of the usa at this point...
you say trump is disinterested.. so all the blather from trump about 'why are we even in syria?', or 'why can't we be friends
with the russia?' is just smoke up everyone's ass...
i like what you said here "conformist group thinkers who do not stray outside the "box" of their guidance from on high. They
actually have scheduled conference calls among themselves to make sure everyone is "on board." - that strikes me as very true
- conformist group thinkers... the world needs less of these types and more actual leaders who have a vision for something out
of the box and not always on board... i thought for a while trump might fill this bill, but no such luck by the looks of it now..
As a young person in eighth grade, I learned about the "domino theory" in regard to attempts to slow the spread of communism.
Then my generation was, in a sense, fractured around the raging battles for and against our involvement in Vietnam.
I won't express my own opinion on that. But I mention it because it seems to be a type of "vision thing."
So, now I ask, what would be your vision for the Syrian situation?
Westmoreland certainly, Macarthur certainly not. This all started with the "industrialization" of the armed forces in WW2.
we never recovered the sense of profession as opposed to occupation after the massive expansion and retention of so many placeholders.
a whole new race of Walmart manager arose and persists. pl
The idea of the Domino Theory came from academia, not the generals of that time. They resisted the idea of a war in east Asia
until simply ordered into it by LBJ. After that their instinct for acting according to guidance kicked in and they became committed
to the task. Syria? Do you think I should write you an essay on that? SST has a large archive and a search machine. pl
I am talking about flag officers at present, not those beneath them from the mass of whom they emerge. There are exceptions.
Martin Dempsey may have been one such. The system creates such people at the top. pl
Your usual animosity for non-left wing authority is showing. A commander like the CENTCOM theater commander (look it up) operates
within guidance from Washington, broad guidance. Normally this is the president's guidance as developed in the NSC process. Some
presidents like Obama and LBJ intervene selectively and directly in the execution of that guidance. Obama had a "kill list" of
jihadis suggested by the IC and condemned by him to die in the GWOT. He approved individual missions against them. LBJ picked
individual air targets in NVN. Commanders in the field do not like that . They think that freedom of action within their guidance
should be accorded them. This CinC has not been interested thus far in the details and have given the whole military chain of
command wide discretion to carry out their guidance. pl
"I am not sure that I understand what makes a Borgist different from a military conformist." The Borg and the military leaders
are not of the same tribe. they are two different collectives who in the main dislike and distrust each other. pl
Anna. Their guidance does not include a high priority for eradicating the opium trade. Their guidance has to do with defeating
the jihadis and building up the central government. pl
Predictably there is always someone who says that this group is not different from all others. Unfortunately the military function
demands more than the level of mediocrity found in most groups. pl
Trump would like to better relations with Russia but that is pretty much the limit of his attention to foreign affairs
at any level more sophisticated than expecting deference. He is firmly focused on the economy and base solidifying issues like
immigration. pl
The medical profession comes to mind. GP's and specialists. Many of those working at the leading edge of research seem much wider
thinking and are not locked into the small box of what they have been taught.
Combat Applications Group and SEALS don't even begin to compare, they're not in the same league as 'real deal' GBs. The GBs are
thinkers as well as doers, whereas Combat Applications Group and SEALs all they know is breach and clear, breach and clear.
There is more to life than breach and clear. Having worked with all in one manner or another, I'll take GBs any day hands down. It makes a difference when the brain is
engaged instead of just the heel.
A lot of technology entrepreneurs--especially those active today--are stuck in their own groupthink, inflated by their sense that
they are born for greatness and can do no wrong.
The kind of grand schemes that the top people at Google, Uber, and Facebook think
up to remake the universe in their own idea of "good society" are frightening. That they are cleverer (but not necessarily wiser)
than the academics, borgists, or generals, I think, makes them even more dangerous.
They are indeed "narrow thinkers", but I think the problem runs deeper. They seem to be stuck in the rut of a past era. When
the US was indeed the paramount military power on the globe, and the US military reigned supreme. They can't seem to accept the
reality of the world as it is now.
Of course, these policies ensure that they continue to be well-funded, even if the US is bankrupting itself in the process.
They [the generals] seem to have deliberately completely ignored the issues and policy positions Trump ran on as President. It isn't a case of
ignorance but of wilful disregard.
I've been reading this blog for some time. My question was facetious and written with the understanding of your statement about
the generals not having a good grasp of "the vision thing" on their own.
So true and as others commented this is a sad feature of the human race and all human organizations. Herd mentality ties into
social learning. Chimps are on average more creative and have better short term memory than humans. We gave up some short term
memory in order to be able to learn quickly by mimicking. If shown how to open a puzzle box but also shown unnecessary extra steps
a chimp will ignore the empty steps and open the box with only the required steps. A human will copy what they saw exactly performing
the extra steps as if they have some unknown value to the process. Our massive cultural heritages are learned by observing and
taken in as a whole. This process works within organizations as well.
I suspect a small percentage of the human race functions differently than the majority and retains creative thinking and openness
along with more emphasis on cognitive thinking than social learning but generally they always face a battle when working to change
the group "consensus", i.e. Fulton's folly, scepticism on whether man would ever fly, etc.
One nice feature of the internet allows creative thinkers to connect and watch the idiocy of the world unfold around us.
"A natural desire to be part of the 'in crowd' could damage our ability to make the right decisions, a new study has shown."
The military by definition is a rigid hierarchical structure.
It could not function as a collection of individuals.
This society can only breed conforming narrow leaders as an "individual" would leave or be forced out.
That part of our brain responsible for the desire to be part of the 'in crowd' may affect our decision-making process, but it
is also the reason we keep chimps in zoos and not the other way around. Or, to put it another way; if chimps had invented Facebook,
I might consider them more creative than us.
This is an interesting discussion. The top in organisations (civil and military) are increasingly technocrats and thinking like systems managers. They are unable
to innovate because they lack the ability to think out of the box.
Usually there is a leader who depends on specialists. Others (including laymen) are often excluding from the decision-making-proces.
John Ralston Saul's Voltaires Bastards
describes this very well.
Because of natural selection (conformist people tend to choose similar people who resemble their own values and ways-of-thinking)
organizations have a tendency to become homogeneous (especially the higher management/ranks).
In combination with the "dumbing" of people (also of people who have a so-called good education (as described in Richard Sale's
Sterile Chit-Chat ) this is a disastrous
mix.
Homogeneity is the main culprit. A specialists tends to try to solve problems with the same knowledge-set that created these.
Not all (parts of) organizations and people suffer this fate. Innovations are usually done by laymen and not by specialists.
The organizations are often heterogeneous and the people a-typical and/or eccentric.
(mainly the analytical parts of ) intelligence organizations and investment banks are like that if they are worth anything.
Very heterogeneous with a lot of a-typical people. I think Green Berets are also like that. An open mind and genuine interest
in others (cultures, way of thinking, religion etc) is essential to understand and to perform and also to prevent costly mistakes
(in silver and/or blood).
It is possible to create firewalls against tunnel-vision. The
Jester performed such a role. Also think of the
Emperors New Clothes . The current trend
of people with limited vision and creativity prevents this. Criticism is punished with a lack of promotion, job-loss or even jail
(whistle-blowers)
IMO this is why up to a certain rank (colonel or middle management) a certain amount of creativity or alternative thinking
is allowed, but conformity is essential to rise higher.
I was very interested in the Colonel's remark on the foreign background of the GB in Vietnam. If you would like to expand on this
I would be much obliged? IMO GB are an example of a smart, learning, organization (in deed and not only in word as so many say
of themselves, but who usually are at best mediocre)
Would you then say that a rising military officer who does have the vision thing faces career impediments? If so, would you
say that the vision thing is lost (if it ever was there) at the highest ranks? In any case, the existence of even a few at the top, like Matthis or Shinseki is a blessing.
"When the US was indeed the paramount military power on the globe, and the US military reigned supreme. They can't seem to
accept the reality of the world as it is now."
That's true not only of the US military but of US elites in general across all of the spectra. And because that reality is at
odds with the group-think of those within the various elements that make up the spectra it doesn't a hearing. Anyone who tries
to bring it up risks being ejected from the group.
I forget an important part. I really miss an edit-button. Comment-boxes are like looking at something through a straw. Its easy
to miss the overview.
Innovations and significant new developments are usually made by laymen. IMO mainly because they have a fresh perspective without
being bothered by the (mainstream) knowledge that dominates an area of expertise.
By excluding the laymen errors will continue to be repeated. This can be avoided by using development/decision-making frameworks,
but these tend to become dogma (and thus become part of the problem)
Much better is allowing laymen and allowing a-typical people. Then listen to them carefully. Less rigid flexible and very valuable.
Apparently, according to the last US ambassador to Syria Mr. Ford, from 2014-17 US has spent 12 Billion on Regime change in Syria.
IMO, combinedly Iran and Russia so far, have spent far less in Syria than 12 billion by US alone, not considering the rest of
her so called coalition. This is a war of attrition, and US operations in wars, are usually far more expensive and longer than
anybody else's.
"The United States spent at least $12 billion in Syria-related military and civilian expenses in the four years from 2014 through
2017, according to the former U.S. ambassador to the country.
This $12 billion is in addition to the billions more spent to pursue regime change in Syria in the previous three years, after
war broke out in 2011." https://goo.gl/8pj5cD
It may "demand" it - but does it get it? Soldiers are just as human as everyone else.
I'm reminded of the staff sergeant with the sagging beer belly who informed me, "Stand up straight and look like a soldier..."
Or the First Sergeant who was so hung over one morning at inspection that he couldn't remember which direction he was going down
the hall to the next room to be inspected. I'm sure you have your own stories of less than competence.
It's a question of intelligence and imagination. And frankly, I don't see the military in any country receiving the "best and
brightest" of that country's population, by definition. The fact that someone is patriotic enough to enter the military over a
civilian occupation doesn't make them more intelligent or imaginative than the people who decided on the civilian occupation.
Granted, if you fail at accounting, you don't usually die. Death tends to focus the mind, as they say. Nonetheless, we're not
talking about the grunts at the level who actually die, still less the relatively limited number of Special Forces. We're talking
about the officers and staff at the levels who don't usually die in war - except maybe at their defeat - i.e., most officers over
the level of captain.
One can hardly look at this officer crowd in the Pentagon and CENTCOM and say that their personal death concentrates their
mind. They are in virtually no danger of that. Only career death faces them - with a nice transition to the board of General Dynamics
at ten times the salary.
All in all, I'd have to agree that the military isn't much better at being competent - at many levels above the obvious group
of hyper-trained Special Forces - any more than any other profession.
That is well put.most important is the grading system that is designed to fix a person to a particular slot thereby limiting his
ability to think "outside the box" and consider the many variables that exist in one particular instant.
Creative thinking allows
you to see beyond the storm clouds ahead and realize that the connectedness of different realities both the visible and invisible.
For
instance the picture of the 2 pairs of korean skaters in the news tells an interesting story on many levels. Some will judge them
on their grade of proffiency, while others will see a dance of strategy between 2 foes and a few will know the results in advance
and plan accordingly
"They are not stupid at all but they are a collective of narrow thinkers." I've often pondered that concept. Notice how many of radical extremist leaders were doctors, engineers and such? Narrow and
deep. STEM is enormously useful to us but seems to be a risky when implanted in shallow earth.
These narrow "but deep" thinkers were unable to grasp the nature of the Iraq War for the first couple of years. They thought
of it as a rear area security problem, a combat in cities problem, anything but a popular rebellion based on xenophobia and anti-colonialism
The IED problem? They spent several billion dollars on trying to find a technology fix and never succeeded. I know because they
kept asking me to explain the war to them and then could not understand the answers which were outside their narrow thought. pl
War College selectees, the national board selected creme de la creme test out as 50% SJs (conformists lacking vision) in Myers-Briggs
terms and about 15% NTs (intellectuals). To survive and move upward in a system dominated by SJs, the NTs must pretend to be what
they are not. A few succeed. I do not think Mattis is an intellectual merely because he has read a lot. pl
Long ago when I was a professor, I advised my students that "the law is like a pencil sharpener, it sharpens the mind by narrowing
it."
I tried to encourage them to "think backwards".
My favorite example was a Japanese fisherman who recovered valuable ancient Chinese
pottery. Everyone knew where an ancient ship had sunk, but the water was too deep to dive down to the wreck. And everyone knew
the cargo included these valuable vases. And the fisherman was the first to figure out how to recover them. He attached a line
to an octopus, and lowered it in the area, waited awhile, and pulled it up. Low and behold, the octopus had hidden in an ancient
Chinese vase. The fisherman was familiar with trapping octopuses, by lowering a ceramic pot (called "takosubo") into the ocean,
waiting awhile, then raising the vase with octopus inside. His brilliance was to think backwards, and use an octopus to catch
a vase.
the original GBS were recruited in the 50s to serve in the OSS role with foreign guerrillas behind Soviet lines in th event
of war in Europe. Aaron Bank, the founder, recruited several hundred experienced foreign soldiers from the likely countries who
wanted to become American. By the time we were in VN these men were a small fraction of GBs but important for their expertise
and professionalism. pl
Col, I think it might help people to think of "the Borg" - as you have defined & applied it - in a broader context. It struck
me particularly as you ID'd the launching of our modern military group-think / careerism behavior coming from the watershed of
industrialized scale & processes that came out of WWII.
We note parallel themes in all significant sectors of our civilization.
The ever-expanding security state, the many men in Gray Flannel Suits that inhabit corporate culture, Finance & Banking & Big
Health scaling ever larger - all processes aimed to slice the salami thinner & quicker, to the point where meat is moot ... and
so it goes.
I note many Borgs... Borgism if you will. An organizational behavior that has emerged out of human nature having difficulty adapting
to rapidly accelerating complexity that is just too hard to apprehend in a few generations. If (as many commenters on STT seem
to...) one wishes to view this in an ideological or spiritual framework only, they may overlook an important truth - that what
we are experiencing is a Battle Among Borgs for control over their own space & domination over the other Borgs. How else would
we expect any competitive, powerful interest group to act?
In gov & industry these days, we observe some pretty wild outliers... attached to some wild outcomes. Thus the boring behavior
of our political industries bringing forth Trump, our promethean technology sector yielding a Musk (& yes, a Zuckerberg).
I find it hard to take very seriously analysts that define their perspective based primarily upon their superior ideals & opposition
to others. Isn't every person, every tribe, team or enterprise a borglet-in-becoming? Everybody Wants to Rule the World ... &
Everybody Must Get Stoned... messages about how we are grappling with complexity in our times. I just finished reading Command
& Control (about nuclear weapons policy, systems design & accidents). I am amazed we've made it this far.
Unfortunately, I would
not be amazed if reckless, feckless leaders changed the status quo. I was particularly alarmed hearing Trump in his projection
mode; "I would love to be able to bring back our country into a great form of unity, without a major event where people pull together,
that's hard to do.
But I would like to do it without that major event because usually that major event is not a good thing." It
strikes me that he could be exceptionally willing to risk a Major Event if he felt a form of unity, or self-preservation, was
in the offing. I pray (& I do not pray often or easily) that the Generals you have described have enough heart & guts to honor
their oath at its most profound level in the event of an Event.
As a time traveler from another age, I can only say that for me it means devotion to a set of mores peculiar to a particular
profession as opposed to an occupation. pl
Another springs to mind: James Lovelock (of Gaia hypothesis fame) was once part of the NASA team building the first probe to
go to Mars to look for signs of life. Lovelock didn't make any friends when he told NASA they were wasting their time, there was
none. When asked how he could be so sure, he explained that the composition of the Martian atmosphere made it impossible. "But
Martian life may be able to survive under different conditions" was the retort. Lovelock then went on to explain his view that
the evolution of microbial life determined the atmospheric composition on Earth, so should be expected to do the same if
life had evolved on Mars. Brilliant backwards thinking which ought to have earned him the Nobel prize IMHO (for Gaia). Lovelock,
a classic cross-disciplinary scientist, can't be rewarded with such a box-categorized honor, as his idea doesn't fit well into
any one.
Another example of cross-disciplinary brilliance was Bitcoin, which has as much to do with its creator's deep knowledge of
Anthropology (why people invented & use money) as his expertise in both Economics and Computer Science.
This is they key to creative thinking in my view - familiarity with different fields yields deeper insights.
"... Walmart employs 1.4 million Americans. The military employs 1.3 million active duty soldiers. That's a problem. Peace can't be allowed to break out. And the best way to insure that it doesn't is to kill the minimum number of people and export the maximum number of arms to keep people fighting with each other around the world. ..."
Walmart employs 1.4 million Americans. The military employs 1.3 million active duty
soldiers. That's a problem. Peace can't be allowed to break out. And the best way to insure
that it doesn't is to kill the minimum number of people and export the maximum number of arms
to keep people fighting with each other around the world.
That is all about as far as conceivable away from any notion of a professional
soldier.
How do you stop this? Who will employ those 1.3 million... 1.3 million who have been
brainwashed about "terrorism", "communism", "democracy", "muslims", etc. etc. etc.?
Particularly in the context of the tsunami of social change that is about to hit with the
advent of real artificial intelligence. Doctors? Their jobs are on the line and I suspect
they don't know it. Lawyers? Even worse.
The following article was the start of an epochal change in medicine:
Lasko TA, Denny JC, Levy MA (2013) Computational Phenotype Discovery Using Unsupervised
Feature Learning over Noisy, Sparse, and Irregular Clinical Data. PLoS ONE 8(6): e66341.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0066341
I guess I should add, although it should be obvious, that the one thing that absolutely
cannot under any circumstances be allowed to happen is real war. Then you have to figure out
how to employ both the soldiers and the Walmart employees. Those that are still alive. And of
course if you look at the behavior of the U.S. in Syria you see that we are about as
interested in real war as we are in the arts.
"... That effort led to a war of choice with Iraq -- one that resulted in catastrophic losses for the region and the United States-led coalition, and that destabilized the entire Middle East. ..."
"... Just over a month ago, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said that the administration had " undeniable" evidence that Iran was not complying with Security Council resolutions regarding its ballistic missile program and Yemen. Just like Mr. Powell, Ms. Haley showed satellite images and other physical evidence available only to the United States intelligence community to prove her case. But the evidence fell significantly short . ..."
"... It's a vivid reminder of Vice President Cheney's desperate attempts in 2002-03 to conjure up evidence of Saddam Hussein's relationship with Al Qaeda from detainees at Guantánamo Bay. It harks back to the C.I.A. director George Tenet's assurances to Mr. Powell that the connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden was ironclad in the lead-up to his United Nations presentation. Today, we know how terribly wrong Mr. Tenet was. ..."
"... As I look back at our lock-step march toward war with Iraq, I realize that it didn't seem to matter to us that we used shoddy or cherry-picked intelligence; that it was unrealistic to argue that the war would " pay for itself ," rather than cost trillions of dollars; that we might be hopelessly naďve in thinking that the war would lead to democracy instead of pushing the region into a downward spiral. ..."
"... The sole purpose of our actions was to sell the American people on the case for war with Iraq. Polls show that we did. Mr. Trump and his team are trying to do it again. If we're not careful, they'll succeed. ..."
Fifteen years ago this week, Colin Powell, then the secretary of state, spoke at the United Nations to
sell pre-emptive
war with Iraq . As his chief of staff, I helped Secretary Powell paint a clear picture that
war was the only choice ,
that when "we confront a regime that harbors ambitions for regional domination, hides weapons of mass destruction and provides haven
and active support for terrorists, we are not confronting the past, we are confronting the present. And unless we act, we are confronting
an even more frightening future."
Following Mr. Powell's presentation on that cold day, I considered what we had done. At the moment, I thought all our work was
for naught -- and despite his efforts we did not gain substantial international buy-in. But polls later that day and week demonstrated
he did convince many Americans. I knew that was why he was chosen to make the presentation in the first place: his standing with
the American people was more solid than that of any other member of the Bush administration.
President George W. Bush would have ordered the war even without the United Nations presentation, or if Secretary Powell had failed
miserably in giving it. But the secretary's gravitas was a significant part of the two-year-long effort by the Bush administration
to get Americans on the war wagon.
That effort led to a war of choice with Iraq -- one that resulted in catastrophic losses for the region and the United States-led
coalition, and that destabilized the entire Middle East.
Just over a month ago, the United States ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said that the administration had "
undeniable" evidence that Iran was not complying with Security Council resolutions regarding its ballistic missile program and
Yemen. Just like Mr. Powell, Ms. Haley showed satellite images and other physical evidence available only to the United States intelligence
community to prove her case. But the evidence
fell significantly
short .
It's astonishing how similar that moment was to Mr. Powell's 2003 presentation on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction -- and how
the Trump administration's methods overall match those of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. As I watched Ms. Haley at
the Defense Intelligence Agency, I wanted to play the video of Mr. Powell on the wall behind her, so that Americans could recognize
instantly how they were being driven down the same path as in 2003 -- ultimately to war. Only this war with Iran, a country of almost
80 million people whose vast strategic depth and difficult terrain make it a far greater challenge than Iraq, would be 10 to 15 times
worse than the Iraq war in terms of casualties and costs.
If we want a slightly more official statement of the Trump administration's plans for Iran, we need only look at the recently
released National Security
Strategy , which says, "The longer we ignore threats from countries determined to proliferate and develop weapons of mass destruction,
the worse such threats become, and the fewer defensive options we have." The Bush-Cheney team could not have said it better as it
contemplated invading Iraq.
The strategy positions Iran as one of the greatest threats America faces, much the same way President Bush framed Saddam Hussein's
Iraq. With China, Russia and North Korea all presenting vastly more formidable challenges to America and its allies than Iran, one
has to wonder where the Trump team gets its ideas.
Though Ms. Haley's presentation missed the mark, and no one other than the national security elite will even read the strategy,
it won't matter. We've seen this before: a campaign built on the
politicization
of intelligence and shortsighted policy decisions to make the case for war. And the American people have apparently become so
accustomed to executive branch warmongering -- approved almost unanimously by the Congress -- that such actions are not significantly
contested.
So far, news organizations have largely failed to refute false narratives coming out of the Trump White House on Iran. In early
November, news outlets
latched onto claims by unnamed American officials that newly released documents from Osama bin Laden's compound represented "evidence
of Iran's support of Al Qaeda's war with the United States."
It's a vivid reminder of Vice President Cheney's desperate attempts in 2002-03 to conjure up evidence of Saddam Hussein's relationship
with Al Qaeda from detainees at Guantánamo Bay. It harks back to the C.I.A. director George Tenet's assurances to Mr. Powell that
the connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden was ironclad in the lead-up to his United Nations presentation. Today,
we know how terribly wrong Mr. Tenet was.
It seems not to matter that 15 of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 were Saudis and none were Iranians. Or that, according to the United
States intelligence community, of the groups listed as actively hostile to the United States, only one is loosely affiliated with
Iran, and Hezbollah doesn't make the cut. More than ever the Foundation for Defense of Democracies seems like the Pentagon's
Office of Special Plans that pushed falsehoods
in support of waging war with Iraq.
The Trump administration's case for war with Iran ranges much wider than Ms. Haley's work. We should include the president's decertification
ultimatum in January that Congress must "fix" the Iran nuclear deal, despite
the reality of Iran's compliance ; the White House's
pressure on the intelligence community to cook up evidence of Iran's noncompliance; and the administration's
choosing to view the recent protests
in Iran as the beginning of regime change. Like the Bush administration before, these seemingly disconnected events serve to create
a narrative in which war with Iran is the only viable policy.
As I look back at our lock-step march toward war with Iraq, I realize that it didn't seem to matter to us that we used shoddy
or cherry-picked intelligence; that it was unrealistic to argue that the war would "
pay for itself
," rather than cost trillions of dollars; that we might be hopelessly naďve in thinking that the war would lead to democracy
instead of pushing the region into a downward spiral.
The sole purpose of our actions was to sell the American people on the case for war with Iraq. Polls show that we did. Mr.
Trump and his team are trying to do it again. If we're not careful, they'll succeed.
Recent Comments
TrueLeft February 7, 2018
We need a Chilcot Inquiry in this country. But it is unthinkable here.
Janice February 6, 2018
Too little, too late.
Roger Rabbit February 6, 2018
Mr. Wilkerson seems to have forgotten he was part and parcel of Powell's egregious lie. Details. Details.
"... The whole situation with Russia, of which, be it her economy, history, military, culture etc., is not known to those people, is a monstrous empirical evidence of a complete professional inadequacy of most people populating this bubble. ..."
"... Most of those people are badly educated (I am not talking about worthless formal degrees they hold) and cultured. In dry scientific language it is called a "confirmation bias", in a simple human one it is called being ignorant snobs, that is why this IC-academic-political-media "environment" in case of Russia prefers openly anti-Russian "sources" because those "sources" reiterate to them what they want to hear to start with, thus Chalabi Moment is being continuously reproduced. ..."
"... Again, the level of "Russian Studies" in Anglophone world is appalling. In fact, it is clear and present danger since removes or misinterprets crucial information about the only nation in the world which can annihilate the United States completely in such a light that it creates a real danger even for a disastrous military confrontation. I would go on a limb here and say that US military on average is much better aware of Russia and not only in purely military terms. In some sense--it is an exception. But even there, there are some trends (and they are not new) which are very worrisome. ..."
Another limitation on their understanding is that the last thing they are interested in
his how the world outside the bubbles they prefer to inhabit operates, and they commonly have
absolutely contempt for 'deplorables', be they Russian, British or American. This can lead to
political misjudgements.
It is not just "can" it very often does. The whole situation with Russia, of which, be
it her economy, history, military, culture etc., is not known to those people, is a monstrous
empirical evidence of a complete professional inadequacy of most people populating this
bubble.
Most of those people are badly educated (I am not talking about worthless formal
degrees they hold) and cultured. In dry scientific language it is called a "confirmation
bias", in a simple human one it is called being ignorant snobs, that is why this
IC-academic-political-media "environment" in case of Russia prefers openly anti-Russian
"sources" because those "sources" reiterate to them what they want to hear to start with,
thus Chalabi Moment is being continuously reproduced.
In case of Iraq, as an example, it is a tragedy but at least the world is relatively safe.
With Russia, as I stated many times for years--they simply have no idea what they are dealing
with. None. It is expected from people who are briefed by "sources" such as Russian fugitive
London Oligarchy or ultra-liberal and fringe urban Russian "tusovka".
Again, the level of
"Russian Studies" in Anglophone world is appalling. In fact, it is clear and present danger
since removes or misinterprets crucial information about the only nation in the world which
can annihilate the United States completely in such a light that it creates a real danger
even for a disastrous military confrontation. I would go on a limb here and say that US
military on average is much better aware of Russia and not only in purely military terms. In
some sense--it is an exception. But even there, there are some trends (and they are not new)
which are very worrisome.
"... The sanctions list means that holding Western assets has become more risky for Russian oligarchs. And because of precedent for Chinese, Arab, etc . They have three choices: (1) Remove Putin and co. and thus remove the risk; (2) Protect their wealth by shifting out of Western assets. (3) Defect to the West to protect assets in the West (and lose assets in Russia). ..."
"... They have some thinking to do. Very few will leave for the West, it is not clear how much of their wealth that would protect. But some will and they will get inordinate publicity. Option 1. seems very hard and unpredictable, and it would increase chaos. Chaos is not something the oligarchs want. The likely outcome is option 2. That strengthens Russia, and marginally hurts the West. ..."
"... When you are a global repository for safe assets and wealth – as US and West have been for 2-3 generations – the last thing you need is to put that safety haven status in doubt. Once people start doubting, things change. Saker is right, this policy is very stupid. ..."
"... "Now, at the same time, I want to be able -- because I think it's very important -- to get along with Russia, to get along with China, to get along with Vietnam, to get along with lots of countries, because we have a lot of things we have to solve. And, frankly, Russia and China in particular can help us with the North Korea problem, which is one of our truly great problems." ..."
"... I point this out, because some may imagine that expressions of such an intention on the part of Trump ceased long ago, perhaps at the point Flynn was let go. ..."
"... A simple explanation for the list of Russian persons who might potentially be sanctioned, is that Congress, as part of the law it passed six months ago, _required_ the production of such a list. So the Administration, through Treasury, produced such a list in answer to that requirement (crudely, as Saker points out) – but chose to not actually adopt any new sanctions, finding that they are not needed. And it appears that Trump is under new attack in the mainstream precisely for his minimalist compliance with the mandate from Congress. ..."
"... If Putin and the Russians are still baffled by American hostility, or rather (((American))) hostility, then it's time to question the collective IQ and wisdom of the Russian people. ..."
"... Jaish al-Nasr, a faction in the Free Syrian Army shot it down, .. Su-25 was shot down by a man-portable air-defense system" Is US trying to do an Afghanistan on Russia after successfully kicking the Vietnam Syndrome off it's "not talk list" but leaving it on the " do repeat lists " in ME theater ? Not a good sign . ..."
"... "I have come to the conclusion that the Empire is run by stupid, ignorant ideologues who live in a world totally detached from reality." ..."
"... State Department official Henry Precht will later recall that Brzezinski had the idea "that Islamic forces could be used against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the Soviets." [Scott, 2007, pp. 67] In November 1978, President Carter appointed George Ball head of a special White House Iran task force under Brzezinski. Ball recommends the US should drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the radical Islamist opposition of Ayatollah Khomeini. ..."
"... This idea is based on ideas from the British Jewish Islamic expert Dr. Bernard Lewis, who advocates the balkanization of the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. The chaos would spread in what he also calls an "arc of crisis" and ultimately destabilize the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union. ..."
"... Which west goals ? I do not want USA world supremacy. At present Putin is the only man preventing this. ..."
"... As far as the "Russian interference" in the everyone's elections and everything under the sun is concerned, the German or British press, if anything, is worse than the US one. The Spanish press promptly accused Russia of engineering the Catalan independence movement. My sister told me that when she read a translation from Spanish about this in the Russian press she thought the Russians made it up, for it sounded so silly. But I read the original in El Pais and knew the Russian didn't make it up – the European media these days is such you truly can't make it up, try as you might. In fact, there's never been anything resembling proof in any of the stories, and all of them are completely nonsensical, which did not prevent the European media from spreading them far and wide. ..."
"... http://www.historycommons.org good resource it is collection of news reports, documents, books, time lines of events, etc just plug Iran or Israel or whatever subject into search that particular report is from Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (American Empire Project) by Robert Dreyfuss ..."
"... "I call this (informal) opposition the "Atlantic Integrationists" because what these pro-western globalists want is for the AngloZionist Empire to accept Russia as an equal partner and to have Russia fully integrate itself into the US-controlled international financial and security structures:" Absolutely. What the Saker calls the Anglo-Zionist Empire is what I call the self-righteous imperialism of WASP culture. And it is relentless. It is like Mordor and Sauron. It intends to secure and then use the One Ring to Rule Them All, and no body count matters. ..."
"... To the best of my knowledge, so far only one country used nukes against humans. And it wasn't North Korea. ..."
"... That the oligarchs made their money through connections, behind the scene deals, outright duplicity and so on, should have been obvious to anyone who studied the phenomenon for a short period of time. Does anyone really believe that all those (largely) Jewish oligarchs indulging in the Premier League and other forms of conspicuous consumption made their money like Henry Ford or Andrew Carnegie, by building industries and providing jobs for millions? ..."
"... The Russian billionaires all made their money by gaming the Russian system. There isn't a single new service or product that we can associate with these people. The question then arises: Why the belated outrage now? The answer is simple: The thieves in the US, have turned on some fellow thieves from overseas, having run out of ways to fleece the American people ..."
"... It will place a great deal of pressure on EU corporations not to do business with the Russians and, therefore, it will further place the EU and the US on a collision course. ..."
"... I would emphasize this aspect. German industrialists (but not only) are already upset with US interference in German – Russia trade, and actions like this will only make it worse. ..."
"... The paradoxical result from the US point of view, is that proposed sanctions serve more to build EU opposition to the US, rather than weaken Russia. Russia is a major market for the EU and the EU doesn't want US imposed sanctions. ..."
"... Group three. Ignore what he says. Consequences are secondary to neocons; rhetoric is primary. Instead, watch what he does (consequences). Qui bono ? http://www.oom2.com/f81-q-anon-archive-analytical-discussion ..."
The sanctions list means that holding Western assets has become more risky for Russian oligarchs. And because of precedent
for Chinese, Arab, etc . They have three choices: (1) Remove Putin and co. and thus remove the risk; (2) Protect their wealth
by shifting out of Western assets. (3) Defect to the West to protect assets in the West (and lose assets in Russia).
They have some thinking to do. Very few will leave for the West, it is not clear how much of their wealth that would protect.
But some will and they will get inordinate publicity. Option 1. seems very hard and unpredictable, and it would increase chaos.
Chaos is not something the oligarchs want. The likely outcome is option 2. That strengthens Russia, and marginally hurts the West.
When you are a global repository for safe assets and wealth – as US and West have been for 2-3 generations – the last thing
you need is to put that safety haven status in doubt. Once people start doubting, things change. Saker is right, this policy is
very stupid.
Every aspect of human existence evolves around one basic (mis?)calculation: Am I better than someone else? Every second of every
day individuals, organizations, political parties, companies, countries, religions (God knows why) are trying to prove the above
– that they are better than the next in their respective category.
There are only 4 possible outcomes here:
You are better than someone and you can prove it. – ideal outcome
You are better than someone, but you can't prove it. – It sucks
You are no better than someone, but you have the means to manipulate the outcome into appearing like you are better. –
Probably the most unfair outcome.
You are no better than someone and if you try to prove that you are, you prove the opposite.
The current state of affairs between US and Russia is that US are aware that number 1 doesn't apply, they believe that they
can pull off a number 3, but I think that the most realistic assessment is number 4.
The underlying assumption of your comment is that applying pressure to Russia works in achieving the West's goals. But everything
we have seen from Russia in at least the last decade shows that pressuring Russia doesn't work. Ergo your conclusions are wrong.
Maybe it's time you start learning something from history.
"Now, at the same time, I want to be able -- because I think it's very important -- to get along with Russia, to get along
with China, to get along with Vietnam, to get along with lots of countries, because we have a lot of things we have to solve.
And, frankly, Russia and China in particular can help us with the North Korea problem, which is one of our truly great problems."
[....]
"And, you know, people don't realize Russia has been very, very heavily sanctioned. They were sanctioned at a very high level,
and that took place very recently. It's now time to get back to healing a world that is shattered and broken. Those are very important
things. And I feel that having Russia in a friendly posture, as opposed to always fighting with them, is an asset to the world
and an asset to our country, not a liability."
[....]
"President Obama wanted to get along with Russia, but the chemistry wasn't there. Getting along with other nations is a good
thing, not a bad thing -- believe me. It's a good thing, not a bad thing."
I point this out, because some may imagine that expressions of such an intention on the part of Trump ceased long ago,
perhaps at the point Flynn was let go.
A simple explanation for the list of Russian persons who might potentially be sanctioned, is that Congress, as part of
the law it passed six months ago, _required_ the production of such a list. So the Administration, through Treasury, produced
such a list in answer to that requirement (crudely, as Saker points out) – but chose to not actually adopt any new sanctions,
finding that they are not needed. And it appears that Trump is under new attack in the mainstream precisely for his minimalist
compliance with the mandate from Congress.
If Putin and the Russians are still baffled by American hostility, or rather (((American))) hostility, then it's time to
question the collective IQ and wisdom of the Russian people. Putin is standing in the way of greater Israel and a Jewish
world empire that is furthered by American military might. Despite his faults he is a strong nationalist leader who's preventing
Jewish globalists from turning Russia into a global plantation like America and their economy into a revenue stream for Jewish
robber barons like they have the American economy.
I'm baffled that a people who have had so much experience with Jews and their machinations can't recognize that America is
now what they used to be when they were under Jewish management from 1917 until Jews began losing control in the 50′s and 60′s.
Now the red diaper babies and their progeny loom large over America.
Jaish al-Nasr, a faction in the Free Syrian Army shot it down, .. Su-25 was shot down by a man-portable air-defense system"
Is US trying to do an Afghanistan on Russia after successfully kicking the Vietnam Syndrome off it's "not talk list" but leaving
it on the " do repeat lists " in ME theater ? Not a good sign .
Interesting ..but I can see no reason for always claiming that the money laundering is done by the 'Russia State' instead of
private individual actors .the only motivation I can see for the State doing it is to turn rubles into western dollars and English
pounds .but since the dollar dominates in trade, for now anyway. the English pound isn't such a lure for Russia's holdings of
foreign currencies.
UK promises to crack down on assets of corrupt oligarchs – The Times
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain will use new powers to seize the assets of foreign criminals and corrupt politicians, The Times
newspaper reported on Saturday quoting the security minister. Investors from Russia, China and the Middle East have poured billions
into London, buying everything from luxury properties to entire companies, but the provenance of some of those funds has been
questioned by transparency campaigners. It is unclear how much money is laundered through Britain, but the National Crime Agency
has said calculations of between 36 billion pounds ($50.83 billion) and 90 billion pounds ($127.08 billion) are "a significant
underestimate".
Security minister Ben Wallace told The Times that the government would use powers regarding unexplained wealth to freeze and
recover property if individuals cannot explain how they acquired assets over 50,000 pounds ($70,000).
What we know from the Laundromat exposé is that certainly there have been links to the [Russian] state," he was quoted as saying.
"The government's view is that we know what they are up to and we are not going to let it happen any more."
I'm baffled that a people who have had so much experience with Jews and their machinations can't recognize that America
is now what they used to be when they were under Jewish management from 1917
I am fairly sure that those in Russia who need to know already know plenty about Jew/Isr led USA Russian policy ..they've been
after Russia for a long time.
1977-1981: Nationalities Working Group Advocates Using Militant Islam Against Soviet Union
In 1977 Zbigniew Brzezinski, as President Carter's National Security Adviser, forms the Nationalities Working Group (NWG) dedicated
to the idea of weakening the Soviet Union by inflaming its ethnic tensions. The Islamic populations are regarded as prime targets.
Zionist Richard Pipes, the father of Daniel Pipes, takes over the leadership of the NWG in 1981. Pipes predicts that with the
right encouragement Soviet Muslims will "explode into genocidal fury" against Moscow. According to Richard Cottam, a former CIA
official who advised the Carter administration at the time, after the fall of the Shah of Iran in 1978, Brzezinski favored a "de
facto alliance with the forces of Islamic resurgence, and with the Republic of Iran." [Dreyfuss, 2005, pp. 241, 251 - 256]
November 1978-February 1979: Some US Officials Want to Support Radical Muslims to Contain Soviet Union
State Department official Henry Precht will later recall that Brzezinski had the idea "that Islamic forces could be used
against the Soviet Union. The theory was, there was an arc of crisis, and so an arc of Islam could be mobilized to contain the
Soviets." [Scott, 2007, pp. 67] In November 1978, President Carter appointed George Ball head of a special White House Iran task
force under Brzezinski. Ball recommends the US should drop support for the Shah of Iran and support the radical Islamist opposition
of Ayatollah Khomeini.
This idea is based on ideas from the British Jewish Islamic expert Dr. Bernard Lewis, who advocates the balkanization of
the entire Muslim Near East along tribal and religious lines. The chaos would spread in what he also calls an "arc of crisis"
and ultimately destabilize the Muslim regions of the Soviet Union.
I've always appreciated your candid exposure of American hypocrisy and stupidity, Saker, especially as unfairly and dangerously
directed at Russia. But explain to me why most Russian opinion columnists, such as yourself, have to make their pieces as long
as a novel by Tolstoy or Dostoevsky? Something to do with the R1a haplotype perhaps? Many long introns amidst the essential exons
perhaps? Or, just an inability to stop when having a good time?
The US congress is such a freaking circus of idiots, clowns, whores for Israel, crooks, perverts and incompetents I don't think
I can stomach keeping up with their malfeasance much longer.
But I will leave this snippet -- -the 'list' and idea to sanction Russian individuals was the work of former Russian hating
State Dept Amb to Poland, uber Jew Daniel Fried working in conjunction with uber Jew Sen Ben Cardin of the Foreign Relations Committee.
That tells you all you need to know. ((They)) were delighted to seize on Hillary's Russian excuse for losing the election and
may have even instigated it to Hillary.
It will be interesting to see if the oligarchs faced with the choice of Russia or Europe or US as a home for their billions
ever meet with little boy Kushner who might guarantee them safe bank accounts in Israel for a fee of course lol.
Crocodile tears. ~15 million Soviet citizens were killed or murdered by Nazi invaders. Plus ~3 million Red Army POWs deliberately
starved to death, or died to due deliberate neglect, withholding medical aid, etc by Nazi invaders. A total of ~10 million Red
Army troops lost their lives to prevent the extermination of Slavic peoples by Nazi invaders.
The whole hate the Russians deal is a Zionist ploy as the Russians are defeating ISIS aka AL CIADA in Syria and since ISIS and
all of its branches are a creation of the U.S. and ISRAEL and BRITAIN via the CIA and the MOSSAD and MI6 , the Zionists cannot
accept defeat and are turning the U.S. against Russia .
If anyone doubts that Israel and the zionist neocons control the U.S. gov, just remember that ISRAEL and the deepstate did
911 and got away with it, that is control in spades.
The last week or so the left has been bombastically upset at Trump because he did not enact more sanctions against Russia, and
were pleased at the action against the Russian Oligarchs though. – These people are always convinced that the government has the
power to do things by fiat- take away guns, punish global warming skeptics, sanction politically incorrect speech – lets pass
a law-. The right is not immune from this instinct either with drug wars .etc. This belief
that the direct application of force 180 degrees against the foe, never a thought to strategy or cause and effect or blowback
or complex analysis, – brute force and ignorance- into the valley of death rode the 600. Those drunk with power grasp the reins
and charge madly. The drunk are not great thinkers. Putin raises a glass to their return.
As always, simplistic pro-Putin propaganda buried in a mass of details so as to bog people down. The centrepiece is at the end:
sanctions. The basic argument is always "lift the sanctions" then some pretext or other is trotted out to justify that pre-ordained
conclusion. In today's serving, the sanctions are useless and the US should just surrender and "work with" Putin. What is interesting
though is that the author claims to see opposition to Putin within the elite but (needlwss to say!) "the people" are solidly behind
Putin. Reading between the lines, that suggests that sanctions are starting to bite.
" ..weakening the Soviet Union by inflaming its ethnic tensions." Same strategy is operating in US now. Some allege Soros is
promoting this, but he's not the only one. [#Resist was/is underwritten by MeetUp! CEO.] Can you give citations for your quotes
about Nationalities Working Group? Thanks.
It is getting rather tiresome, the "The Russians did it" meme. Whatever happens that contradicts US perceptions of reality , "The
Russians did it". Maybe the American public is gullible, but us Europeans are rather more reserved on this. It has has been dis
proven that Russia meddled in the French and German elections, and while the Brexit vote is inconclusive , we still have not been
exposed to the smoking gun.
There is no doubt that the US MSM is trying to steam roll all objections to this stance, but proof,
where is it? The bought ads on Fakebook is laughable at best, and the new Dutch source is another "Flat earther theory". Has general
American IQ deteriorated so much in the span of a decade ? I doubt it.
Anon from TN
The author did not need so many words to state the obvious: the US shot itself in the foot again, and now it's going to start
complaining that it hurts. Anyone familiar with human history knows that dying empires invariably make maladaptive moves that
speed up their demise. This was the scenario with Roman, Spanish, Ottoman, British, and French Empires. Look on the bright side,
though: the US Empire follows in the footsteps of the greatest.
' that suggests that sanctions are starting to bite '
What disneyland character are you portraying ? I'm guessing Dopey from the Seven Dwarfs. US has zero ability
to influence the trajectory of Russia which is straight up like the Russian rocket launches that take Nasa astronauts into space
for the last seven years. US sanctions have only been a blessing to Russia
For one thing they have driven a wedge between EU and the US especially Germany which is a natural Russian ally. For another
they are helping Putin to clean up the remaining rotten apples in the Russian billionaire class by forcing them to bring their
offshore money home or get the hell out of Russia and have whatever they leave behind confiscated by the Russian people. I have
noticed you here as a monkey with a serious Russia chip on his shoulder
I'll be checking back to see what you are spouting as soon the US Ponzi scheme economy starts collapsing. The only thing holding
up this house of cards is the petrodollar which is already in the frying pan. Russia and China along with other emerging powers
like Iran and the Brics are working round the clock to dismantle the present US-based world financial order. The Brics already
exceed the G7 in total GDP. Enjoy your coming poverty
Anon from TN: The Europeans will never appreciate to what extent the thinking and behavior of Americans is determined by the
view that "this is not my problem". They would also never understand or believe how parochial and uninformed the people in the
US are. Then again, the Europeans have nothing to be proud of: while the US elites are at least open about their ulterior motives,
the Europeans fell into a trap of anti-Russian sanctions (which hurt them a lot more than the US, BTW) by virtue of pure hypocrisy.
Sorry I don't have the tea leaves to read between the lines, but I was reading that a number of business leaders from the EU
was just in the Crimea, and I rather doubt they were there for a vacation, sanctions are a double edged sword and it would seem
the EU are feeling them as much if not more than Russia .
Maybe the American public is gullible, but us Europeans are rather more reserved on this.
Oh really? You Europeans just like to hide behind the US's back and pretend you are so-o-o European, so advanced and civilized,
unlike the American barbarians, while behaving exactly the same – or worse.
As far as the "Russian interference" in the everyone's elections and everything under the sun is concerned, the German
or British press, if anything, is worse than the US one. The Spanish press promptly accused Russia of engineering the Catalan
independence movement. My sister told me that when she read a translation from Spanish about this in the Russian press she thought
the Russians made it up, for it sounded so silly. But I read the original in El Pais and knew the Russian didn't make it up –
the European media these days is such you truly can't make it up, try as you might. In fact, there's never been anything resembling
proof in any of the stories, and all of them are completely nonsensical, which did not prevent the European media from spreading
them far and wide.
So, it I were you, I'd first question the collective European IQ, before laughing at the Americans. The European policy towards
Russia for the past 25 years has been unnecessarily confrontational and generally extremely stupid. After all, the US is far away,
but Europe is right next door to Russia. If push comes to shove, you'd be the first to get a kick in your tender behind. It happened
before, remember? Not only your IQ seems to have deteriorated, even assuming it was ever high, but your memory as well.
http://www.historycommons.org good resource it is collection of news reports, documents, books, time lines of events,
etc just plug Iran or Israel or whatever subject into search that particular report is from Devil's Game: How the United States
Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam (American Empire Project) by Robert Dreyfuss
"I call this (informal) opposition the "Atlantic Integrationists" because what these pro-western globalists want is for
the AngloZionist Empire to accept Russia as an equal partner and to have Russia fully integrate itself into the US-controlled
international financial and security structures:" Absolutely. What the Saker calls the Anglo-Zionist Empire is what I call
the self-righteous imperialism of WASP culture. And it is relentless. It is like Mordor and Sauron. It intends to secure and then
use the One Ring to Rule Them All, and no body count matters.
"Oh really? You Europeans just like to hide behind the US's back and pretend you are so-o-o European, so advanced and civilized,
unlike the American barbarians, while behaving exactly the same – or worse."
Context of '1977-1981: Nationalities Working Group Advocates Using Militant Islam Against Soviet Union'
[MORE]
Albert Wohlstetter, a professor at the University of Chicago, gathers a cadre of fiery young intellectuals around him, many of
whom are working and associating with the magazine publisher Irving Kristol (see 1965). Wohlstetter's group includes Richard Perle,
Zalmay Khalilzad, and Paul Wolfowitz. Wohlstetter, himself a protege of the Machiavellian academic Leo Strauss, is often considered
the "intellectual godfather" of modern neoconservatism. Formerly an analyst at the RAND Corporation, Wohlstetter wielded a powerful
influence on the US's foreign policy during the heyday of the Cold War.
The recently formed neoconservatives, bound together by magazine publisher Irving Kristol (see 1965), react with horror to
the ascendancy of the "McGovern liberals" in the Democratic Party, and turn to conservative senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson (D-WA)
for leadership. Jackson calls himself a "muscular Democrat"; others call him "the Senator from Boeing" for his strong support
of the US defense industry.Jackson assembles a staff of bright, young, ideologically homogeneous staffers who will later become
some of the most influential and powerful neoconservatives of their generation, including Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Elliott
Abrams, Abram Shulsky, and Paul Wolfowitz. Jackson's office -- Jackson's neoconservative disciples came of age either fighting
two foreign dictators -- Stalin and/or Hitler -- or growing up with family members who fought against them. [Unger, 2007, pp.
35-41] Wolfowitz's father's family perished in the Holocaust; he will later say that what happened to European Jews during World
War II "shaped a lot of my views." [New York Times, 4/22/2002] Feith will tell the New Yorker in 2005, "[My] family got wiped
out by Hitler, and all this stuff about working things out -- well, talking to Hitler to resolve the problem didn't make any sense."
Most neoconservatives like Feith and Wolfowitz tend to look to military solutions as a first, not a last, resort. To them, compromise
means appeasement, just as Britain's Neville Chamberlain tried to appease Hitler. Stefan Halper, a White House and State Department
official in the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations, will say of the neoconservatives, "It is use force first and diplomacy
down the line."
Former Trotskyites – On the other hand, many neoconservatives come to the movement from the hardline, socialist left, often from
organizations that supported Bolshevik revolutionary Leon Trotsky (see Late 1930s – 1950s). Trotskyites accused Stalin of betraying
the purity of the Communist vision as declaimed by Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. "I can see psychologically why it would not be
difficult for them to become [conservative] hard-liners," says Harvard Sovietologist Richard Pipes, himself a hardliner whose
son, Daniel Pipes, will become an influential neoconservative. "It was in reaction to the betrayal." Many neoconservatives like
Stephen Schwartz, a writer for the Weekly Standard, still consider themselves to be loyal disciples of Trotsky. Richard Perle
is a Trotskyite socialist when he joins Jackson's staff, and will always practice what author Craig Unger calls "an insistent,
uncompromising, hard-line Bolshevik style" of policy and politics. Like Trotsky, Unger writes, the neoconservatives pride themselves
on being skilled bureaucratic infighters, and on trusting no one except a small cadre of like-minded believers. Disagreement is
betrayal, and political struggles are always a matter of life and death. [Unger, 2007, pp. 35-41]
After George H. W. Bush becomes the head of the CIA (see November 4, 1975 and After), he decides to break with previous decisions
and allow a coterie of neoconservative outsiders to pursue the allegations of Albert Wohlstetter that the CIA is seriously underestimating
the threat the USSR poses to the US (see 1965),
The neocon team of "analysts" becomes known as "Team B," with "Team A" being the CIA's own analytical team. It is unprecedented
to allow outsiders to have so much access to highly classified CIA intelligence as Bush is granting the Team B neocons, so the
entire project is conducted in secret.
Former CIA deputy director Ray Cline says Team B had subverted the National Intelligence Estimate on the USSR by employing "a
kangaroo court of outside critics all picked from one point of view." Secretary of State Henry Kissinger says that B's only purpose
is to subvert detente and sabotage a new arms limitation treaty between the US and the Soviet Union. [Bulletin of Atomic Scientists,
4/1993; Common Dreams (.org), 12/7/2004; BBC, 1/14/2005; Quarterly Journal of Speech, 5/2006 ; Unger, 2007, pp. 53-57]
Although the entire "Team B" intelligence analysis experiment (see Early 1976, November 1976, and November 1976) is supposed to
be classified and secret, the team's neoconservatives launch what author Craig Unger will call "a massive campaign to inflame
fears of the red menace in both the general population and throughout the [foreign] policy community -- thanks to strategically
placed leaks to the Boston Globe and later to the New York Times." Times reporter David Binder later says that Team B leader Richard
Pipes is "jubilant" over "pok[ing] holes at the [CIA]'s analysis" of the Soviet threat. Team B member John Vogt calls the exercise
"an opportunity to even up some scores with the CIA." [Unger, 2007, pp. 57]
In 1993, after reviewing the original Team B documents, Cahn will reflect on the effect of the B exercise: "For more than a
third of a century, assertions of Soviet superiority created calls for the United States to 'rearm.' In the 1980s, the call was
heeded so thoroughly that the United States embarked on a trillion-dollar defense buildup. As a result, the country neglected
its schools, cities, roads and bridges, and health care system. From the world's greatest creditor nation, the United States became
the world's greatest debtor -- in order to pay for arms to counter the threat of a nation that was collapsing." [Bulletin of Atomic
Scientists, 4/1993
Sanctions are almost always counterproductive. We should have learned this from Cuba, but we didn't. When US breaks connections
with a country, we force the country to develop its own skills and products, or to do business with our enemies. Result: the sanctioned
country gets stronger, our enemies get richer, and US loses business. Total loss for US, total gain for everyone else.
There already is the "Jewish Autonomous Oblast", known as Birobidzhan, in Eastern Siberia. It is much larger than the land
mass of any configuration of the State of Israel, tons of fresh water, natural resources. And get this: they wouldn't have to
behave like Nazis to benefit from a land ready for them.
There is a monument on Mamayev Kurgan, called The motherland calls. Luckily, when the motherland called millions of Russians
answered. The Russians not only like to answer the call of duty, but also the call of booty – as the Germans found out around
1945.
It's not like the Europeans haven't gone on a genocidal rampages before – Spanish and Anglo-Saxon massacres of native Americans
comes to mind. The real genius of those monkeys – the Germans – is that they attempted to treat the Russians like they were American
Indians. If anything, the Russians were too kind to those beasts.
Can Israel be trusted with nukes? They, like the U$A have exemptions from IAEA inspections. They have equal exclusiveness in
their military doctrine. I recall an anon poster a couple weeks ago stating that Israel has positioned nukes in strategic locations,
including continental U$A and Europe, influencing Israel-favourable decisions, explaining why Western countries make decisions
that are NOT in their best interests.
Well, Russia must not be baffled. After having so much baffling experience with partners being baffled is not a good thing especially
after 2 consequitive Soviet and then Russia leaders basically gave to USA everything they wanted on a plate with blue stripe so
to speak only to get baffled yet again by partners not giving an inch. This is zero sum game and relaxed attitude is not part
of it. Every single opportunity must be used to undermine remaining pillars of USA might namely her currency status and international
financial system which is built by as Sacker said uncle Shmuel for uncle Shmuel benefits. USA military is just an outgrowth which
will collapse like sand cattle without massive cash infusions allowed only because those two pillars mentioned above still standing.
Hoping that there will be some reasonable people in Washington with whom some detente is possible is dangerous illusion. There
not going to be lasting detente between USA and Russia until USA is reduced to her natural state of regional northern American
power with zero influence everywhere beyond Mexican and Canadian borders. Now I always wonder where indeed Putin is taking Russia.
I am watching Russia tv and see sort of very ugly place which sole existence is to dumb down Russian people and destroy people
morals and ethics. I wonder what kind of population and new generation of russians can grow watching this? I know there are still
many people born and brought up in ussr to be immune to this garbage but what about young people? Where indeed Putin is taking
Russia and does he need dumbed down American way population for this. Not to be forgotten is that people's strength is country
strength. What is going on is quite simple. America is plainly hot bed of capitalism and capitalism is quite obviously in death
throws. Exponential growth of debt around the world and continuous reduction of life standards and overall moral decay around
the world is a proof of this and obviously Russia and other former socialist states did a very bad bet on capitalism. Results
of the past 25 years are extremely disappointing and downright catastrophic for long term survival of the very people who adopted
this dead end system which passed its prime long time ago and dying. Communism is not popular at the moment but I have no doubt
it will come back because nothing in the past 25 years convinced me that capitalism is better.
Anon from TN
Let me add a little vignette. In Stalingrad (now Volgograd), there are preserved ruins of one of only two buildings that remained
semi-standing: Pavlov's house. Not only it was defended for 60 days against Wehrmacht (longer than France), Germans lost more
solders there than they lost conquering France. That should explain to Europeans why Russians don't take Europe too seriously:
they say that every 100 years or so the whole of Europe unites, makes war on Russia, gets beaten to pulp, and then licks its wounds
for another century. There was Napoleon in the nineteenth century, there was Hitler in the twentieth century, there is NATO in
the twenty first
Was there no bravery on the German side ?After the Normandy invasion western generals expected the war to be over at Christmas,
or even in September, when they tried to take the Dutch bridges, and failed miserably. It in my opinion is amazing how one country
withstood GB, USSR and USA so long.
Alas NATO seems to be planning a nuclear war. If this war comes, it will be the 'war that ends all wars', as Wilson said about
WWI, because no human being will survive, as all bigger animals. Rats seem to have a chance.
A simple explanation for the list of Russian persons who might potentially be sanctioned, is that Congress, as part of the
law it passed six months ago, _required_ the production of such a list.
Have heard that they went to a Forbes list to get the sanction names. This looks very very bad – it makes us look ridicules.
Congress doing foreign policy is wrong. Of course, this is Jew business – AIPAC doings. America for America – NOT – America for
Israel. Think Peace -- Art
Anon from TN. Yes, rodents, insects, and simpler life forms will inherit the Earth. The elites, if they start that war, won't
survive, either. Poor consolation for the rest of us, though.
Definite answer is Yes! Israeli government are not nuts like Kim. Wherever Israel did put their nukes, the only reason is that
the responsibility and cost of maintenance they did put on some other suckers.
Israel has nothing to fear. If there would be some concentrated and dangerous attack on Israel US air force would be there in
the matter of hours. Maybe even Russians would help with their air force.
To attack Israel is out of question. Maybe some terrorist attack is an option, but that is difficult to prevent
Actually, it is your ziocon propaganda that is simplistic: -- " the US should just surrender and "work with" Putin." -- An
honest cooperation between the US and Russian Federation would be the best solution for humanity at large. But this cooperation
would be the worst outcome for the bloody "chosen" dreaming of Eretz Israel and world dominance, while they can't stop whining
about "eternal victimhood."
Since 1999, four million human beings, including a multitude of children, died in the Middle East because of your bloody mythological
"promised land" of Israel.
Probably they won't have any choice. The more that it would be in the heart of the new Eurasian economic configuration. But
they still want Ukraine and Crimea. That's why you hear so much talk about the Khazars.
"From the world's greatest creditor nation, the United States became the world's greatest debtor -- in order to pay for arms
to counter the threat of a nation that was collapsing."
And look at the corruption within the highest echelons of the US government and security apparatus -- the opportunists and ignoramuses
have taken the upper hand. This is very convenient for Israel-firsters but deadly for the US. The hatred of ziocons towards Russia
is boundless and irrational.
"If Putin and the Russians are still baffled by American hostility, or rather (((American))) hostility, then it's time to question
the collective IQ and wisdom of the Russian people. "
Ken, I think that The Saker is just baffled on their behalf.
Ever heard of existential threat, sport? WW1 and the Crimean war were not existential threats to Russia. The minute they turned
into such, the outcome would have been different.
Here is what sanctions do. I recently saw a story about a German farmer/dairy expert who
went to Russia and jump started a large network of dairy farms in Russia. Before sanctions, Russia thought the could buy their
dairy from Europe, but after the sanctions, Russian knew they needed domestic suppliers, and lo an behold, this German (Joint
Russian German citizen actually and friend of Putin) was phonemically successful and now there is a robust local Dairy Industry
in Russia. Now the people who are howling are the European Farmers who used to have a healthy export market for their products.
well, if shamir is right and the looted accounts of the old money is equal to 1 trillion usd. that is alot of money for the
people in charge to not see green and only green. doubt long term consequences/effects would ever factor into the decision.
That the oligarchs made their money through connections, behind the scene deals, outright duplicity and so on, should have
been obvious to anyone who studied the phenomenon for a short period of time. Does anyone really believe that all those (largely)
Jewish oligarchs indulging in the Premier League and other forms of conspicuous consumption made their money like Henry Ford or
Andrew Carnegie, by building industries and providing jobs for millions?
The Russian billionaires all made their money by gaming the Russian system. There isn't a single new service or product
that we can associate with these people. The question then arises: Why the belated outrage now? The answer is simple: The thieves
in the US, have turned on some fellow thieves from overseas, having run out of ways to fleece the American people
Then look a step further and forget about the US for a second: Russia is trying hard to work with the Europeans on many
join projects. What do you think the creation of such a list will have on joint ventures between EU and Russian businessmen?
I predict two things:
1. It will place a great deal of pressure on EU corporations not to do business with the Russians and, therefore, it
will further place the EU and the US on a collision course.
2. I would emphasize this aspect. German industrialists (but not only) are already upset with US interference in German
– Russia trade, and actions like this will only make it worse.
The paradoxical result from the US point of view, is that proposed sanctions serve more to build EU opposition to the US,
rather than weaken Russia. Russia is a major market for the EU and the EU doesn't want US imposed sanctions.
There is no subject that he doesn't derail by going on about Wasps his intent is to "divide and conquer" the building momentum
against neocon foreign policy.
Selecting wealthy individuals at random regardless of political beliefs indeed makes no sense at all. Perhaps if you had read
the rest of the article you would understand why. Then again, swine don't typically understand the value of pearls.
"... On Strategy : A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War, ..."
"... In his own work, Summers marginalized all Vietnamese actors (as would so many later military historians), failed to adequately deal with the potential consequences, nuclear or otherwise, of the sorts of escalation he advocated, and didn't even bother to ask whether Vietnam was a core national security interest of the United States. ..."
"... A more sophisticated Clausewitzian analysis came from current National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster in a highly acclaimed 1997 book, Dereliction of Duty ..."
"... McMaster is a genuine scholar and a gifted writer, but he still suggested that the Joint Chiefs should have advocated for a more aggressive offensive strategy -- a full ground invasion of the North or unrelenting carpet-bombing of that country. In this sense, he was just another "go-big" Clausewitzian who, as historian Ronald Spector pointed out recently, ignored Vietnamese views and failed to acknowledge -- an observation of historian Edward Miller -- that "the Vietnam War was a Vietnamese war." ..."
"... The Army and Vietnam ..."
"... Foreign Affairs ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... A Better War : The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... The Daily Show with Jon Stewart ..."
"... Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife : Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... David Petraeus and current Secretary of Defense James Mattis, co-authors in 2006 of FM 3-24, the first ( New York Times ..."
"... On Strategy ..."
"... Dereliction of Duty ..."
"... The Army and Vietnam ..."
"... Most of the generals leading the war on terror just missed service in the Vietnam War. They graduated from various colleges or West Point in the years immediately following the withdrawal of most U.S. ground troops or thereafter: Petraeus in 1974 , future Afghan War commander Stanley McChrystal in 1976 , and present National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster in 1984 . Secretary of Defense Mattis finished ROTC and graduated from Central Washington University in 1971 , while Trump's Chief of Staff John Kelly enlisted at the tail end of the Vietnam War, receiving his commission in 1976 . ..."
"... Petraeus, Mattis, McMaster, and the others entered service when military prestige had reached a nadir or was just rebounding. And those reading lists taught the young officers where to lay the blame for that -- on civilians in Washington (or in the nation's streets) or on a military high command too weak to assert its authority effectively. They would serve in Vietnam's shadow, the shadow of defeat, and the conclusions they would draw from it would only lead to twenty-first-century disasters ..."
"... Meanwhile, President Trump's hearts-and-minds faction consists of officers who have spent three administrations expanding COIN-influenced missions to approximately 70% of the world's nations. Furthermore, they've recently fought for and been granted a new "mini-surge" in Afghanistan intended to -- in disturbingly Vietnam-esque language -- "break the deadlock ," "reverse the decline," and "end the stalemate " there. Never mind that neither 100,000 U.S. troops (when I was there in 2011) nor 16 full years of combat could, in the term of the trade, "stabilize" Afghanistan. The can-do, revisionist believers atop the national security state have convinced Trump that -- despite his original instincts -- 4,000 or 5,000 (or 6,000 or 7,000) more troops (and yet more drones , planes , and other equipment) will do the trick. This represents tragedy bordering on farce. ..."
"... The hearts and minders and Clausewitzians atop the military establishment since 9/11 are never likely to stop citing their versions of the Vietnam War as the key to victory today; that is, they will never stop focusing on a war that was always unwinnable and never worth fighting. None of today's acclaimed military personalities seems willing to consider that Washington couldn't have won in Vietnam because, as former Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill McPeak (who flew 269 combat missions over that country) noted in the recent Ken Burns documentary series, "we were fighting on the wrong side." ..."
"... Today's leaders don't even pretend that the post-9/11 wars will ever end. In an interview last June, Petraeus -- still considered a sagacious guru of the Defense establishment -- disturbingly described the Afghan conflict as " generational ." ..."
"... Vietnam lost in the end. Its greedy corrupt elites are now puppets of US. They allow open prostitution in Ho Chi Minh city. They allow Vietnamese women to be a bunch of hookers again. ..."
"... "America tends to gain from commerce what it thinks it will get by warfare. Not so much the other way around" Rather like 20th century Germany, don't you think? ..."
"... The Vietnam war killed the draft. The draft is involuntary servitude, slavery in a sense. For ordinary Americans this was the only positive thing to come from the war. ..."
"... Ultimately, the victory of WW2 due to sheer weight of industrial productivity ramp and hence massive output of planes, tanks, submarines, etc. made defense a large part of the US economy. Since that time, too many entrenched interests just never want the military to downsize. Hence, the US has to keep invented new demand for a product that otherwise would not have such demand, but keeps some major entrenched interests powerful. ..."
"... The BIGGEST lesson to come out of the illegal and immoral War against Vietnam is that the draft was impeding the MIC's effort to sell Americans on the idea of supporting endless war. ..."
"... The same generals who let 911 happen and started the Iraq war still run the show. All of them should have faced a firing squad for that, but instead, the grossly incompetent General Kelly runs the White House and the grossly incompetent Mattis runs the military. ..."
"... The warhawk imperialists – some of them Clausewtizians and most COINdinistas – rule everything. No matter how many lives are lost, no matter how much money is wasted, they demand we remain on the same path of playing world hegemon. George Washington fought the British Empire for our freedom, so our subsequent leaders, starting most importantly with Lincoln, could remake the country into the British Empire 2.0. ..."
"... No; it's psychotic, psychopathic mayhem and mass-murder. Lemma: At any crime-scene, there are one or more perpetrators, possibly accessories, apologists and/or 'idle' bystanders. It is incumbent upon *all* witnesses to attempt to a) restrain malefactors and where possible b) rescue victims from harm. *All* present and not in active resistance to the crime attract proportional guilt. Addendum: Any person profiting from crime also makes him/herself an accessory, like all residents in the 'illegitimate entity' and/or the puppet executives, manufacturers of the means and their enablers = the whole MIC[*] plus all their dependents, say. ..."
"... The US rogue regime = US-M/I/C/4a†-plex, with dog-wagging-tail, its illegitimate sprog the Zionist/Israeli rogue regime + Js = I/J/Z-plex, all components rife with corruption. ..."
"... Save the BS for your fellow geezer drunks at the VFW lounge. Vietnam featured a complete collapse of the conscripted US military, rampant drug use, fragging, insubordination, faked injuries, disintegration of the chain of command, mass murder of civilians, and finally TOTAL DEFEAT after turning tail and running following the negotiation of a charitable "decent interval" allowing the yanks to save some face. Pathetic. ..."
"... Wars fought to make countries like Vietnam open to big corporations to move American jobs there. Corporate money backed by the fist of the Marines has worked all their lives, all their parents' lives, and all the modern history of America. "Why not now?", the sheep ask. ..."
"... According to Bobbie McNamara, American efforts resulted in the murder of over 4 million Vietnamese and the maiming of millions of others .MOSTLY CIVILIANS. ..."
"... If the war mongers had had an all-volunteer army like the one they have today, they could have and would have kept the Vietnam War going indefinitely. But, since they didn't, draftees and their parents wised-up to the Pentagon's money-making scam and put a stop to it by refusing to participate. ..."
"... Very rich families and corporatists started their own think tanks after World War II. This is when the looting began for RAND. These are the bastards Eisenhower was afraid of. Abe Lincoln feared the large corporations born of business profiteering during the U.S. Civil War -- the military industrial complex of the day -- easily constituted the greatest threat to the American republic. ..."
"... Remember that Eisenhower's definition of the complex included among the bastards, not only the military defense industry corporations, but also right alongside them the news media and the university and private research establishments. ..."
"... That war was a cluster fuck and a crime against humanity. It's only purpose was to make a few rich men richer. The murder and destruction in the MENA is just more of the same. ..."
Vietnam: it's always there. Looming in the past, informing American futures.
A 50-year-old war, once labeled the longest in our history, is still alive and well and
still being refought by one group of Americans: the military high command. And almost half a
century later, they're still losing it and blaming others for doing so.
Of course, the U.S. military and Washington policymakers lost the war in Vietnam in the
previous century and perhaps it's well that they did. The United States really had no business
intervening in that anti-colonial civil war in the first place, supporting a South Vietnamese
government of questionable legitimacy, and stifling promised nationwide elections on both sides
of that country's artificial border. In doing so, Washington presented an easy villain for a
North Vietnamese-backed National Liberation Front (NLF) insurgency, a group known to Americans
in those years as the Vietcong.
More than two decades of involvement and, at the war's peak, half a million American troops
never altered the basic weakness of the U.S.-backed regime in Saigon. Despite millions of Asian
deaths and 58,000 American ones, South Vietnam's military could not, in the end, hold the line
without American support and finally collapsed under the weight of a conventional North
Vietnamese invasion in April 1975.
There's just one thing. Though a majority of historians (known in academia as the "orthodox"
school) subscribe to the basic contours of the above narrative, the vast majority of senior
American military officers do not. Instead, they're still refighting the Vietnam War to a far
cheerier outcome through the books they read, the scholarship they publish, and (most
disturbingly) the policies they continue to pursue in the Greater Middle East.
The Big Re-Write
In 1986, future general, Iraq-Afghan War commander, and CIA director David Petraeus penned
an article
for the military journal Parameters that summarized his Princeton doctoral
dissertation on the Vietnam War. It was a piece commensurate with then-Major Petraeus's
impressive intellect, except for its disastrous conclusions on the lessons of that war. Though
he did observe that Vietnam had "cost
the military dearly" and that "the frustrations of Vietnam are deeply etched in the minds of
those who lead the services," his real fear was that the war had left the military unprepared
to wage what were then called "low-intensity conflicts" and are now known as
counterinsurgencies. His takeaway: what the country needed wasn't less Vietnams but
better-fought ones. The next time, he concluded fatefully, the military should do a far better
job of implementing counterinsurgency forces, equipment, tactics, and doctrine to win such
wars.
Two decades later, when the next Vietnam-like quagmire did indeed present itself in Iraq, he
and a whole generation of COINdinistas (like-minded officers
devoted to his favored counterinsurgency approach to modern warfare) embraced those very
conclusions to win the war on terror. The names of some of them -- H.R. McMaster and James
Mattis, for instance -- should ring a bell or two these days. In Iraq and later in Afghanistan,
Petraeus and his acolytes would get their chance to translate theory into practice. Americans
-- and much of the rest of the planet -- still live with the results.
Like Petraeus, an entire generation of senior military leaders, commissioned in the years
after the Vietnam War and now atop the defense behemoth, remain fixated on that ancient
conflict. After all these decades, such "thinking" generals and "soldier-scholars" continue to
draw all the wrong lessons from what, thanks in part to them, has now become America's
second longest war.
Rival Schools
Historian Gary Hess identifies two main schools
of revisionist thinking.
Both schools, however, agreed on something basic: that the U.S. military should have won in
Vietnam.
The danger presented by either school is clear enough in the twenty-first century. Senior
commanders, some now serving in key national security positions, fixated on Vietnam, have
translated that conflict's supposed lessons into what now passes for military strategy in
Washington. The
result has been an ever-expanding war on terror campaign waged ceaselessly from South Asia
to West Africa, which has essentially turned out to be perpetual war based on the can-do belief
that counterinsurgency and advise-and-assist missions should have worked in Vietnam and can
work now.
The Go-Big Option
The leading voice of the Clausewitzian school was U.S. Army Colonel and Korean War/Vietnam
War vet Harry Summers, whose 1982 book, On Strategy : A
Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War, became an instant classic within the military. It's
easy enough to understand why. Summers argued that civilian policymakers -- not the military
rank-and-file -- had lost the war by focusing hopelessly on the insurgency in South Vietnam
rather than on the North Vietnamese capital, Hanoi. More troops, more aggressiveness, even
full-scale invasions of communist safe havens in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam, would have
led to victory.
Summers had a deep emotional investment in his topic.
Later , he would argue that the source of post-war pessimistic analyses of the conflict lay
in "draft dodgers and war evaders still [struggling] with their consciences." In his own
work, Summers marginalized all Vietnamese actors (as would so many later military historians),
failed to adequately deal with the potential consequences, nuclear or otherwise, of the sorts
of escalation he advocated, and didn't even bother to ask whether Vietnam was a core national
security interest of the United States.
Perhaps he would have done well to reconsider a famous post-war
encounter he had with a North Vietnamese officer, a Colonel Tu, whom he assured that "you
know you never beat us on the battlefield." "That may be so," replied his former enemy, "but it
is also irrelevant."
Whatever its limitations, his work remains influential in military circles to this day. (I
was assigned the book as a West Point cadet!)
A more sophisticated Clausewitzian analysis came from current National Security Adviser
H.R. McMaster in a highly acclaimed 1997 book, Dereliction of
Duty . He argued that the Joint Chiefs of Staff were derelict in failing to give
President Lyndon Johnson an honest appraisal of what it would take to win, which meant that
"the nation went to war without the benefit of effective military advice." He concluded that
the war was lost not in the field or by the media or even on antiwar college campuses, but in
Washington, D.C., through a failure of nerve by the Pentagon's generals, which led civilian
officials to opt for a deficient strategy.
McMaster is a genuine scholar and a gifted writer, but he still suggested that the Joint
Chiefs should have advocated for a more aggressive offensive strategy -- a full ground invasion
of the North or unrelenting carpet-bombing of that country. In this sense, he was just another
"go-big" Clausewitzian who, as historian Ronald Spector pointed
out recently, ignored Vietnamese views and failed to acknowledge -- an observation
of historian Edward Miller -- that "the Vietnam War was a Vietnamese war."
COIN: A Small (Forever) War
Another Vietnam veteran, retired Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Krepinevich, fired the opening
salvo for the hearts-and-minders. In The Army and Vietnam , published in 1986, he
argued
that the NLF, not the North Vietnamese Army, was the enemy's chief center of gravity and that
the American military's failure to emphasize counterinsurgency principles over conventional
concepts of war sealed its fate. While such arguments were, in reality, no more
impressive than those of the Clausewitzians, they have remained popular with military
audiences, as historian Dale Andrade points
out , because they offer a "simple explanation for the defeat in Vietnam."
Krepinevich would write an influential 2005 Foreign Affairspiece , "How to Win
in Iraq," in which he applied his Vietnam conclusions to a new strategy of prolonged
counterinsurgency in the Middle East, quickly winning over the New
York Times 's resident conservative columnist, David Brooks, and generating "discussion in
the Pentagon, CIA, American Embassy in Baghdad, and the office of the vice president."
In 1999, retired army officer and Vietnam veteran Lewis Sorley penned the definitive
hearts-and-minds tract, A Better War : The
Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam . Sorley boldly
asserted
that, by the spring of 1970, "the fighting wasn't over, but the war was won." According to his
comforting tale, the real explanation for failure lay with the "big-war" strategy of U.S.
commander General William Westmoreland. The counterinsurgency strategy of his successor,
General Creighton Abrams -- Sorley's knight in shining armor -- was (or at least should have
been) a war winner.
Critics
noted that Sorley overemphasized the marginal differences between the two generals'
strategies and produced a remarkably counterfactual work. It didn't matter, however. By 2005,
just as the situation in Iraq, a country then locked in a sectarian civil war amid an American
occupation, went from bad to worse, Sorley's book found
its way into the hands of the head of U.S. Central Command, General John Abizaid, and State
Department counselor Philip Zelikow. By then, according
to the Washington Post 's David Ignatius, it could also "be found on the
bookshelves of senior military officers in Baghdad."
Another influential hearts-and-minds devotee was Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl. (He even
made it
onto The Daily Show with Jon Stewart .) His Learning to Eat Soup with
a Knife : Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam followed Krepinevich in
claiming that "if [Creighton] Abrams had gotten the call to lead the American effort at the
start of the war, America might very well have won it." In 2006, the Wall Street
Journalreported that Army Chief of Staff
General Peter Schoomaker "so liked [Nagl's] book that he made it required reading for all
four-star generals," while the Iraq War commander of that moment, General George Casey, gave
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld a copy during a visit to Baghdad.
David Petraeus and current Secretary of Defense James Mattis, co-authors in 2006 of
FM 3-24, the first ( New York Times -reviewed ) military field manual for counterinsurgency since
Vietnam, must also be considered among the pantheon of hearts-and-minders. Nagl wrote a
foreword for their manual,
while Krepinevich provided a glowing back-cover endorsement .
Such revisionist interpretations would prove tragic in Iraq and Afghanistan, once they had
filtered down to the entire officer corps.
Reading All the Wrong Books
In 2009, when former West Point history professor Colonel Gregory Daddis was deployed
to Iraq as the command historian for the Multinational Corps -- the military's primary tactical
headquarters -- he noted that corps commander Lieutenant General Charles Jacoby had assigned a
professional reading list to his principal subordinates. To his disappointment, Daddis also
discovered that the only Vietnam War book included was Sorley's A Better War . This
should have surprised no one, since his argument -- that American soldiers in Vietnam
were
denied an impending victory by civilian policymakers, a liberal media, and antiwar protestors
-- was still resonant among the officer corps in year six of the Iraq quagmire. It wasn't the
military's fault!
Officers have long distributed professional reading lists for subordinates, intellectual
guideposts to the complex challenges ahead. Indeed, there's much to be admired in the concept,
but also potential dangers in such lists as they inevitably influence the thinking of an entire
generation of future leaders. In the case of Vietnam, the perils are obvious. The generals have
been assigning and reading problematic books for years, works that were essentially meant to
reinforce professional pride in the midst of a series of unsuccessful and unending wars.
Just after 9/11, for instance, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Richard Myers -- who spoke at my
West Point graduation -- included Summers's On
Strategy on his list. A few years later, then-Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker
added
McMaster's Dereliction of Duty . The trend continues today. Marine Corps Commandant
Robert Neller has kept McMaster and added Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger (he of the
illegal bombing of both Laos and Cambodia and war
criminal fame). Current Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley kept Kissinger and
added good
old Lewis Sorley. To top it all off, Secretary of Defense Mattis has included
yet another Kissinger book and, in a different list , Krepinevich's
The Army and Vietnam .
Just as important as which books made the lists is what's missing from them: none of these
senior commanders include newer scholarship
,
novels , or journalistic accounts which might raise thorny, uncomfortable questions about
whether the Vietnam War was winnable, necessary, or advisable, or incorporate local voices that
might highlight the limits of American influence and power.
Serving in the Shadow of Vietnam
Most of the generals leading the war on terror just missed service in the Vietnam War.
They graduated from various colleges or West Point in the years immediately following the
withdrawal of most U.S. ground troops or thereafter: Petraeus in
1974 , future Afghan War commander Stanley McChrystal in 1976 , and present National Security Adviser H.R.
McMaster in 1984 .
Secretary of Defense Mattis finished ROTC and graduated from Central Washington University in
1971 , while
Trump's Chief of Staff John Kelly enlisted at the tail end of the Vietnam War, receiving his
commission in 1976
.
In other words, the generation of officers now overseeing the still-spreading war on terror
entered military service at the end of or after the tragic war in Southeast Asia. That meant
they narrowly escaped combat duty in the bloodiest American conflict since World War II and so
the professional credibility that went with it. They were mentored and taught by academy
tactical officers, ROTC instructors, and commanders who had cut their teeth on that conflict.
Vietnam literally dominated the discourse of their era -- and it's never ended.
Petraeus, Mattis, McMaster, and the others entered service when military prestige had
reached a nadir or was just rebounding. And those reading lists taught the young officers where
to lay the blame for that -- on civilians in Washington (or in the nation's streets) or on a
military high command too weak to assert its authority effectively. They would serve in
Vietnam's shadow, the shadow of defeat, and the conclusions they would draw from it would only
lead to twenty-first-century disasters .
From Vietnam to the War on Terror to Generational War
All of this misremembering, all of those Vietnam "lessons" inform the U.S. military's
ongoing "surges" and "advise-and-assist" approaches to its wars in the Greater Middle East and
Africa. Representatives of both Vietnam revisionist schools now guide the development of the
Trump administration's version of global strategy. President Trump's in-house Clausewitzians
clamor for -- and receive
-- ever more delegated authority to do their damnedest and what retired General (and Vietnam
vet) Edward Meyer called for
back in 1983: "a freer hand in waging war than they had in Vietnam." In other words, more
bombs, more troops, and carte blanche to escalate such conflicts to their hearts' content.
Meanwhile, President Trump's hearts-and-minds faction consists of officers who have
spent three administrations expanding COIN-influenced missions to approximately 70%
of the world's nations. Furthermore, they've recently fought for and been granted a new
"mini-surge" in Afghanistan intended to -- in disturbingly Vietnam-esque language -- "break the
deadlock ," "reverse the decline," and "end the
stalemate " there. Never mind that neither 100,000 U.S. troops (when I was
there in 2011) nor 16 full years of combat could, in the term of the trade, "stabilize"
Afghanistan. The can-do, revisionist believers atop the national security state have convinced
Trump that -- despite his original
instincts -- 4,000 or 5,000 (or
6,000 or 7,000) more troops (and yet more
drones ,
planes , and other equipment) will do the trick. This represents tragedy bordering on
farce.
The hearts and minders and Clausewitzians atop the military establishment since 9/11 are
never likely to stop citing their versions of the Vietnam War as the key to victory today; that
is, they will never stop focusing on a war that was always unwinnable and never worth fighting.
None of today's acclaimed military personalities seems willing to consider that Washington
couldn't have won in Vietnam because, as former Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill McPeak (who
flew
269 combat missions over that country) noted in the
recent Ken Burns documentary series, "we were fighting on the wrong side."
Today's leaders don't even pretend that the post-9/11 wars will ever end. In an
interview last June, Petraeus -- still considered a sagacious guru of the Defense establishment
-- disturbingly described the Afghan conflict as " generational ."
Eerily enough, to cite a Vietnam-era precedent, General Creighton Abrams predicted something
similar. speaking to the White House as the war in Southeast Asia was winding down. Even as
President Richard Nixon slowly withdrew U.S. forces, handing over their duties to the South
Vietnamese Army (ARVN) -- a process known then as "Vietnamization" -- the general warned
that, despite ARVN improvements, continued U.S. support "would be required indefinitely to
maintain an effective force." Vietnam, too, had its "generational" side (until, of course, it
didn't).
It's not that our generals don't read. They do. They just doggedly continue to read the
wrong books.
In 1986, General Petraeus ended his influential Parametersarticle
with a quote from historian George Herring: "Each historical situation is unique and the use of
analogy is at best misleading, at worst, dangerous." When it comes to Vietnam and a cohort of
officers shaped in its shadow (and even now convinced it could have been won), "dangerous"
hardly describes the results. They've helped bring us generational war and, for today's young
soldiers, ceaseless tragedy.
[Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an
unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of
the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]
The book that needs to be written is the one that explores the question, "Does this war need
to be fought by us?"
The guys running the show now were mid-grade officers when I served in the '80s. They know
we already were waging a war on terror, but it was a quiet one, e.g "low-intensity conflict,"
the kind that doesn't pump up budgets or put lots of ribbons and badges on the chests of more
than a few of them, much less punch the ticket for promotion.
The problem here is one of governance: Civilians who should be reigning in and questioning
the military leadership (including the senior civilian leadership at DoD and apparently
State) when it wants to take us on yet another foreign adventure seem instead to be be
captive to them, because the spoils of war accrue to their benefit via procurement in their
districts.
Vietnam and the GWOT are merely symptoms of a bigger problem.
BTW, re Vietnam: Vietnam went through its Communist phase, but in a rather short time came
back to pseudo-capitalism, much like China, so aside from nearly 60k US troops and a few
million Viets killed and 20 years of lost time, what did we gain from fighting there?
America tends to gain from commerce what it thinks it will get by warfare. Not so much the
other way around.
Didn't US realize that it can win any war with bribes and trade?
Vietnam lost in the end. Its greedy corrupt elites are now puppets of US. They allow
open prostitution in Ho Chi Minh city. They allow Vietnamese women to be a bunch of hookers
again.
And Vietnam even has homo parades because it comes with more gibs and bribes.
They established a myth that we almost won in Vietnam but the politicians wouldn't let us
finish the job, claiming we never lost a battle in Vietnam. That is false, so I posted a list
of 104 "Lost Battles of the Vietnam War" that squashed this myth.
"America tends to gain from commerce what it thinks it will get by warfare. Not so
much the other way around" Rather like 20th century Germany, don't you think?
Thanks for that link. I agree, whitewashing those tragedies is a grave disservice to our
soldiers who had to fight in those conditions (how are we supposed to learn from our mistakes
if we can't even come to terms with what we did wrong?).
No the JCS initially said SE Asia was strategically a backwater and not worth the
concentrating of America's limited resources. But military high command were operating within
longstanding army protocols of subordinating the military to civilian policymakers. It was
the CIA's job to say whether the war could be won and they were always skeptical.
America's Rasputin: Walt Rostow and the Vietnam War makes clear who was responsible for
pressing for escalation and bombing in Vietnam, who was the optimist, and who continued to
insisted after it had finished that the war had stabilized a domino.
If one's fundamental image of the world is as a place full of Quislings, McCains and assorted
dual nationals; then it follows that one will be militarily a Coindinista. If only third
world citizens were like American pols and stayed bought, but they aren't and they don't. If
one's fundamental image is that it is a world full of nationalists, patriots and Churchills:
then the bomb them back to non-existence; then it follows that one is a Summer's soldier.
Unfortunately, if one wishes to debate other nuanced alternatives to this dichotomy; the
enemy gets to shoot first. A policeman walks a beat in his city because he is paid to do it,
the "world's indispensable policeman" is unnecessary to the rest of the world but inevitable
to himself.
The Vietnam war killed the draft. The draft is involuntary servitude, slavery in a sense.
For ordinary Americans this was the only positive thing to come from the war.
Blah blah blah. That war was a cluster fuck and a crime against humanity. It's only purpose
was to make a few rich men richer. The murder and destruction in the MENA is just more of the
same.
It's also weird that the idea of Vietnam War as a missionary conflict is never discussed. The
colonial Vietnam & later South Vietnam government gave preference to christians in
governmental positions, bureaucracy & had a monopoly on education. The prevailing
narrative in the west, is that somehow christianity is better & that people flock to it
due to this, just like their ancestors did. Mosmaiorum.org/persecution_list.html
For example, the anti Buddhist discriminatory laws in Korea are never discussed, neither
is the flooding of Japan with bibles post ww2. In the present age you have missionaries
following closely behind the USA army & organizations like the US council on religious
freedom being headed by missionaries sic. soul vultures.
From that pov, if white nationalists cannot control the predatory instincts of 'their'
people nor disavow them by becoming Pagan; then, they deserve their fate & should expect
no support from outsiders. As others have remarked, tariffs & protectionism help accrue
capital as do socially conservative views. The pushing of free trade & social liberalism
on 2nd/3rd world countries is akin to kicking the ladder. It's probably in everyone's
interest for the Protestant west to collapse under Afro-Islamic demographic pressure so the
great clean up can begin. Tldr yes state power leads to liberalism & liberal views but,
if you view that as the legacy of your people, fuck your people.
we are deeply at odds. We did not lose the Vietnam conflict. I am confident that billions
of dollars have been spent drilling that myth into the minds of well everyone. I remember
being a young poli-sci student in KS. And as I listened to the lecture on Vietnam, did the
reading my conclusion was so distant from his as to cause me no small amount of turmoil. The
contention that we lost Vietnam is so counter to the data -- it makes the Twilight Zone look
like Gilligan's Island, the twists on reality are directionless -- but conclude we lost, when
nothing could be further from the truth.
I have another theory, the reason that Vietnam remains etched in the psyche is because the
analysis was political as opposed to what actually occurred. This kind of hyperventilated
self flagellating recriminations will distort truth. Perception over reality -- then becomes
self fulling history.
_________________
But to the point. The US has lost two wars: The war of 1812 and in my view, the Iraq
conflict -- no direct fault of those on the ground doing the fighting. And we may lose the
Afghanistan gambit. It's a loss because it fell apart during our occupation. The guerrilla
warfare (asymmetrics) was not the issues for that failure. The failure was in
1. unjustifiable cause
2. poor implementation
3. under resourced
4. an inability to maintain order among communities -- (1-3)
5. and just a lot of bad decisions
Trying compare Vietnam to Iraq is like trying compare a stone to water in similarity. You
might be able to some generic references and very tiny specifics, but overall: the
environment politically and strategically, just never mesh. We didn't invade Vietnam. They
had a functioning government. There were clear lines of who was who based on borders (I am
not ignoring the insurgency -- Vietcong, etc.
It was the cold war and unlike Iraq there were not six varying countries throwing a myriad
of combatants into the fray with varying agendas and varying religious convictions. Even the
physical environment demanded a different strategy, insurgents or no insurgents.
One has to plan for insurgent warfare as invading any country is bound to have those who
get the best defense is one of stealth when your foe is as large a target as the US was in
Iraq. But for all of the complaints about Counter-Insurgency the one that no one seems
willing to state is the simplest. Don't invade countries for which there is no clean or clear
motive to do so. It's that simple. There was never a need to invade Iraq, if anything we
should have readjusted our dynamic and began a process of easing sanctions for their aide in
countering terrorism.
There was no reason to invade Afghanistan -- even to distribute more bikinis and advance
killing children in the womb. We wanted twenty guys and instead we stirred a hornet's nest .
. . ok well, more than one.
Vietnam really was an act of selflessness, we wanted to shore up a small republic seeking
a different course to communism. It bolstered our own ideas against the grand schema of the
Soviet Union, rightly or wrongly. Now you are not the only one who has a gripe with
counterinsurgency.
And I think it's a debate/discussion worth having, and while it may be useful to examine
COIN as to Vietnam strategically -- I think it can be done minus the incorrect and yet
incessant sack cloth and ashes built on mountains of liberal psychological faux trauma as if
the trauma of war is somehow unique to Vietnam,. It is not. As you know war is a nasty filthy
business, best left alone. But on occasion one gets pushed into a fight as did S. Vietnam and
when that screw is turned -- well history is replete of the consequences, the waste, the
blood, the brokenness . . . The tragedy of war does not mean one loses a war.
How true! If only the US had recognized the power of man's baser instincts and did what
the US does best -- continue selling its culture of consumerism and hedonism, Vietnam would
have arrived at the point much sooner and with virtually no loss of life.
Ultimately, the victory of WW2 due to sheer weight of industrial productivity ramp and
hence massive output of planes, tanks, submarines, etc. made defense a large part of the US
economy. Since that time, too many entrenched interests just never want the military to
downsize. Hence, the US has to keep invented new demand for a product that otherwise would
not have such demand, but keeps some major entrenched interests powerful.
I mean, the Korean war started just 5 years after WW2 ended. They could barely wait for a
new crop of boys to turn 18 and become cannon fodder. 50,000 in Korea right after the 300,000
in WW2.
When casualties became politically incorrect (after VietNam), the focus shifted towards
lengthy 'nation building', that was not meant to succeed, but just to cost a lot for a long
time. In theory, the Iraq War could have worked, IF the true objective was the installation
of a moderate regime in Iraq, coupled with no extended US occupation. But that was not the
true objective after all, so it did not work.
The BIGGEST lesson to come out of the illegal and immoral War against Vietnam is that the
draft was impeding the MIC's effort to sell Americans on the idea of supporting endless
war.
Get rid of the draft and there will be no protests hell raised back home by people of
draft age–and their families and friends–who don't want to get drafted to fight
wars so colonels can become generals; Wall Street can make a killing on the killing and so
the Pentagon can try out its new 'gee-whiz' weapons in the field on actual people.
The next biggest lesson was that the media must be tamed and brought under control with
embedding, so they'll push the Pentagon's and Wall Street message of duty, honor, Mom and
apple pie onto gullible Americans, who now damn near get orgasmic when they see a
multi-billion dollar killing machine–the B-2–fly over the upcoming gladiator
battle in the newest billion dollar coliseum and go into the State-mandated 'Two Minutes
Hate' whenever they see or hear the word Muslim or Islam.
For the record, I did my time in the US Army with the 82nd Airborne.
So America worships Ares/Mars and doesn't expect the god of War to want to eat them too?
There shall be wars and rumors of wars .I so look forward to watching this love of war spread
itself from sea to shining sea.
Until the young wise up and realize that the military operations in other countries have
nothing to do with the freedoms we have here and that they're being used as fodder for the
investments that the MIC has in the companies that make the tools of war, we will keep having
this nonsense. The kids need to wise up. The government has at its disposal all it needs to
'win' if it wants to. But if you 'win' , the sales and manufacturing of the
goodies is curtailed. They'd rather send the kids into the meat grinder all pumped up
thinking they're 'preserving freedom' LOL!
Nice, thank U. I´d never before had figured out, never outlined such a precise
conceptual sight of the two still remaining American mindsets on HOW to win.
Yes, cause for them Amerika must obviously must always win. So there are two viewpoints, that
in plain clear English we citizens of the shitholin´ countries wherever -- express as
follows:
Yes, you say tariffs and proteccionism help accrue capital.
Have you got any objection against a large, populous but still poor country (like Nigeria,
Indonesia, India or Brazil) sticking to higher (though not sky high) tariffs and
protectionism to raise their production, their income and their living standards?
That was PRECISELY HOW the US, Uk, Germany and the Meiji era Japan, not to mention China
from 1949 to Chu enLai) acted and because of it rose the heights of the present status and
well being societies.
Yes, you naive repeater, let´s us first protect ourselves from the globalist wolves
and THEN, we can sit down and talk but from a firm solid position, not the other way round.
cut the frack! We southern people are fed up with that northern hemispheric sales talk
– it ´s so convenient to you – but the web exists and times change.
It's not that our generals don't read. They do. They just doggedly continue to read the
wrong books.
It's not just the generals. The whole idea of the state is to control the uncontrollable
in order to continue "growing". That's why we conducted Vietnam as we did and why we conduct
operations as we do all over the world. Rather than Total War that produces winners and
losers we are trying to keep a lid on behavioral sinks and modify behavior so that economic
"growth" can continue.
I am not advocating Total War, but I am predicting that horrible war is coming.
How many dead men will it take
To build a dike that will not break?
The Zionists have been the root cause of every war that America has been in since WWI and
right on through the wars in the Mideast and the wars in the Mideast were perpetrated by the
Israeli and Zionist controlled deep state attack on 911.
America is under Zionist control and if anyone doubts this, just remember Israel did the
attack on 911 and got away with and every thinking American knows that Zionist Israel did the
attack which killed 3000 Americans, that is control.
. . .supporting a South Vietnamese government of questionable legitimacy
Actually the US created the "Republic of Vietnam" within Vietnam, which was rather
unusual, and then fought Vietnam. The US grabbed a Christian out of a New Jersey seminary
(Ngo Dinh Diem) to run the Buddhist "country," that didn't help. More recently the US has
overthrown governments (Iraq and Afghanistan) and then fought the natives. Whatever, it
doesn't work. The citizens (AKA dissidents, insurgents, terrorists, etc.) so effected don't
want US troops in their countries, and who can blame them.
Why do credulous Americans read anti-war books written by war criminals? Only brainwashed
people support the troops. Most Americans hated soldiers after Vietnam. They had seen
soldiers raping wives and daughters, burning houses and huts and crops and wiping out entire
villages. They knew that men who agree to kill for a paycheck do other bad things like raping
and looting and then writing books about it later.
The cons put a stop to all those "incorrect" ideas American slaves had developed by
ramping up the propaganda in the 1980s. Movies kicked in and "learned" the zombies about the
wonderfulness of war and killing and how American soldiers kill with love in their hearts and
the tragedy of the boy baby killers left behind – probably by "communists in the US
Government."
The United States really had no business intervening
That's a, maybe "the," key concept. The US has always had enough internal problems
of its own to deal with and it should always have tended to its own interest first. Damned
know-it-all, brainless busybodies!
I suspect most of them would wise up if their elders did so first, and would teach 'em.
One of the most annoying sights to me is to see some ancient fart wearing some sign that he's
a vet. Even though I was once a sucker too, I always make it a point to remind them that we
had no business in whatever war they happen to be glorifying and still wallowing in. How old
does one have to be to get a clue?
Nothing quite says freedom like heavily armed soldiers on the streets demanding papers. Soon
the US will have the same situation, with the "freedom loving" Americans willingly
surrendering all their freedoms for "safety." Today the US government spies on everyone's
communications, conducts over 80,000 SWAT raids a year, locks over 2 million people in actual
slavery, and lets the cops execute people on the street. Nothing quite says Freedom when cops
can execute poor people without any repercussions. Nothing quite says Freedom when opiate
casualties in one year exceed the American total in Vietnam. Nothing quite says zombie when
Americans can't see the war that is being waged on them right now.
Is that true? The Military simply harvested the poors out of the hills, the South and
other rural areas the same way they would have drafted 'em. All the kids respond once the
Government offers them a way out of potential starvation and hopeless poverty. That's just a
better way to draft people, although they won't call it that.
The same generals who let 911 happen and started the Iraq war still run the show. All of
them should have faced a firing squad for that, but instead, the grossly incompetent General
Kelly runs the White House and the grossly incompetent Mattis runs the military.
"The danger presented by either school is clear enough in the twenty-first century."
Apparently it is not close to clear. The warhawk imperialists – some of them
Clausewtizians and most COINdinistas – rule everything. No matter how many lives are
lost, no matter how much money is wasted, they demand we remain on the same path of playing
world hegemon. George Washington fought the British Empire for our freedom, so our subsequent
leaders, starting most importantly with Lincoln, could remake the country into the British
Empire 2.0.
"Because we are here to help the Vietnamese because inside every go*k is an American
trying to get out." Replace 'Vietnamese' with 'Middle Easterners' and 'gook' with 'Arab' or
'Moslem,' and you have the Neocon position. Replace 'Vietnamese' with 'the world' and replace
'gook' with 'dark skinned non-Christian' and place the word "liberal' before 'American,' and
you have the Liberal/Leftist position.
As a youth during that time it seemed like a strange idea that they were pushing. How could
Vietnamese be invading Vietnam? They already live there. The Americans had to travel
thousands of miles to prevent this. Years later I realize my youthful intuition was right;
Vietnamese can't invade Vietnam. This North-South dichotomy was just a made up propaganda
tool. The South was an artificial concoction set up by the West to divide someone else's
country. This question of how could we have won is absurd nonsense. What would 'winning' have
looked like? The South would just have been a multi-billion millstone around our neck.
The can-do, revisionist believers atop the national security state have convinced Trump
that -- despite his original instincts -- 4,000 or 5,000 (or 6,000 or 7,000) more troops
(and yet more drones, planes, and other equipment) will do the trick. This represents
tragedy bordering on farce.
No; it's psychotic, psychopathic mayhem and mass-murder. Lemma: At any crime-scene,
there are one or more perpetrators, possibly accessories, apologists and/or 'idle'
bystanders. It is incumbent upon *all* witnesses to attempt to a) restrain malefactors and
where possible b) rescue victims from harm. *All* present and not in active resistance to the
crime attract proportional guilt. Addendum: Any person profiting from crime also makes
him/herself an accessory, like all residents in the 'illegitimate entity' and/or the puppet
executives, manufacturers of the means and their enablers = the whole MIC[*] plus all their
dependents, say.
[*] The US rogue regime = US-M/I/C/4a†-plex, with dog-wagging-tail, its
illegitimate sprog the Zionist/Israeli rogue regime + Js = I/J/Z-plex, all components rife
with corruption.
a = academic = econ, psy, leg et al.; 4 = MSM+PFBCs, † = churches
add a few significant stragglers like $ = banksters & ¿ = spies
=====
It's a lot, and here I point for emphasis to all the citizens of the two named entities;
silence is acquiescence. Take a look at the result, not 'just' in Afghanistan but Libya,
Syria etc., the WC7in5 [fortunately not
yet Iran]; wherever the US/Zs deploy their 'hammers.'
In the fewest words: The US/Zs including their 'ordinary people' are all true monsters,
with the only exception being the actively objecting few.
Not so BTW, from the above [but not only] I conclude that there can be no 'god' –
for surely, any such would strike all the US/Z villains down.
Again a 'special case' for emphasis, the intellectuals and academics who really should
know better but where again, silence is acquiescence.
*Guilty, your honour; may they all hang by the neck until dead!* rgds
American sheep can't see war even though they are in one. What better weapon than to have a
group of writers spreading disinformation and colorful propaganda that revolves around
discrediting the other propaganda with falsehoods and romanticization of the war that came
before. Let's have yet another debate about the thing that happened half a century ago
because driving the flock in circles gets them no where closer to resistance.
Meanwhile the real war. If the financial crisis wasn't a terrorist attack because the
press never told you, what will you believe? If more men and women die in one year because of
opiates than in the entire Vietnam effort, will the real owners tell you in their newspapers
that they do it because they want to win?
I think the kids are more pumped up with college tuition, VA health , a chance to learn a
civilian applicable skill , citizenship and something to do other than competing with illegal
Indios for low wages.
Save the BS for your fellow geezer drunks at the VFW lounge. Vietnam featured a
complete collapse of the conscripted US military, rampant drug use, fragging,
insubordination, faked injuries, disintegration of the chain of command, mass murder of
civilians, and finally TOTAL DEFEAT after turning tail and running following the negotiation
of a charitable "decent interval" allowing the yanks to save some face. Pathetic.
The Vietnam war was not a "civil-war" but was an INVASION by the North Vietnamese
communists, who were not amenable to letting people decide for themselves what political
system they chose to live under. They wanted "the whole pie". The South Vietnamese and
American military fought courageously, with one hand tied behind their backs, as they were
not permitted to attack the supply lines, logistics and staging areas of the North Vietnamese
communists. The American news media played a large part in the sympathetic attitudes they had
towards the communists, taking every chance to denigrate American and South Vietnamese
troops, a prime example was communist sympathizer Walter Cronkite reporting that the 1968
"Tet offensive" was a "major loss" for Americans and south Vietnamese, despite it being a
total slaughter of North Vietnamese communists and the Viet Cong. In fact, the Viet Cong
operating in the South were almost all totally decimated.
Yes, the final result of the Vietnam war was communist control, BUT, it was not due to the
efforts of South Vietnamese and American troops. The Vietnamese "boat people" who risked life
and limb to escape that communist "paradise" have a totally different story to tell, but
which had been rarely reported. Ken Burns is a communist sympathizer whose "documentary" on
the Vietnam war was so one-sided, even the communists admitted that his whole premise on the
Vietnam war was one-sided and false. Communist sympathizer Ken Burns inadvertently "let it
slip" that "re-education" by the communists was not a "six month deal" (as he claimed) in
which those in positions of power in South Vietnam would be "re-educated", but were actually
prisons, in which "enemies of the (communist) state were to be interned for as long as 20
years. It is interesting to note that the communists could not exert the same harsh level of
control as was the case in the North, to the people in the South.
Apparently unfamiliar with my long and detailed discussions here and at TAC about the
Vietnam War. I don't think you will find a single suggestion in mt two or more years of
discussion on Vietnam , that it was a civil war -- it was not. In every way, the North
Vietnamese were the aggressors. And if anyone looking at the political issues and objectives
of what happened in Vietnam – those who protested got nearly every aspect about Vietnam
wrong, nearly every contention they make was predicated on the incorrect information, except
one.
war is a nasty filthy affair in which a lot hoes wrong – because that is part and
parcel to the nature of war so many moving pieces on so many potential unpredictable planes.
The entire enterprise is best avoided, but sometimes as in the case of S. Vietnam, you are
left little choice but to defend yourself. Boys and girls afraid to fight screaming "Give
peace a chance" at the defenders like pushing a drowning men under the waves and telling him
all he need do is swim.
You are preaching to the choir and the preacher.
I am going to avoid rehashing the conflict, I think the data sets are on my side in tons.
But I think the authors intentions are to really dismantle the cadre and their advocacy of
COIN. Given that the current President has reneged on his campaign agenda to avoid needless
wars violating the territory of others to regime change. The issue of counter insurgency is
relevant. Because it looks like we are in for more than we bargained for. No doubt, SAS, the
French Legionaries, CIA and a spec ops contingents are pre-prepping for insurgencies of our
own.
A brief look suggests that the only effective response to counter insurgency is
intelligence and brutal response. though intended to suggest finesse, in the end -- it's root
them out and destroy them. I think this is one those the cure is worse than the illness,
because without indigenous support for your political and strategic goals in country --
brutal reprisals eventually reignite acts of terror as a means of self defense.
What are you a troll playing the same old broken record spewing forth the same old line,
for there was a vote coming up by the Geneva Accord, to decide just what kind of government
the two Vietnam's wanted, a vote that would'nt go the way we wanted thus the false flag to
get us involved.
FDR had made a deal with Ho that if they would rise up and drive out the Japs that Vietnam
could choose their own destiny, colonialism was dead he said, well until that little man in
the to big a house got into office and then once again America's word wasn't worth a mouth
full of warm spit and its never changed
Today's officer corps would spare us all a great deal of cost, blood and grief and we
Americans would all do much better if the cadets', midshipmen's, officer candidates' and
officer corps' reading list began with the Bernard Fall book Rue Sans Joie .
Rand? American Conservative? Tom's Dispatch? All fake news for the sheep, i.e COIN. If
people want change, they have to refuse to cooperate. That means no voting. Voting means you
agree with the basic trends and just want to tweak the system. All of us have gotten cheated
by the Government all of our lives. Destruction of schools so people can't learn. Wars
fought to make countries like Vietnam open to big corporations to move American jobs there.
Corporate money backed by the fist of the Marines has worked all their lives, all their
parents' lives, and all the modern history of America. "Why not now?", the sheep
ask.
The religious aspect of the Vietnamese CIVIL WAR is overlooked by the senile VFW geezers
posting here. The patriots were mostly Buddhists the quislings were mostly Catholics
(inherited from the French). In between perving little kids, American Cardinals and Bishops
demanded even more war and Vietnamese blood. The bloodthirsty homo, Cardinal Spellman, would
even visit the troops in person and exhort them to create more carnage and mayhem.
According to Bobbie McNamara, American efforts resulted in the murder of over 4 million
Vietnamese and the maiming of millions of others .MOSTLY CIVILIANS. The role of the vile
bloodthirsty Homo Cult of the Seven Hills has been mostly overlooked.
Note, I list of sites is not definitive. There are articles critical and article
supportive of COIN. Some articles are just descriptive of what COIN means. COIN has been a
subject of a good deal of debate for a very long time. Most articles are from TAC because
that is the site I most frequently read and comment. And as Dr. Unz will tell you, they
invite a host of articles by a host of authors -- with varying view points.
About Rand, they are one of the most noteable contributors to government policy via
research and while one may not appreciate their advocacy, it's not a bad idea to read what
they are presenting on issues, in this case COIN. Even considering broad definitions of fake
news -- it is unlikely that Rand would be included as such an outlet.
One of the advances launched in the late sixties -- forward was that Vietnam was a MIC
windfall and in fact manufactured by the MIC.
I don't think there is much evidence of that. Pres Johnson and most of the leadership
actually saw it as a case for democracy against the Chinese, the Soviets -- etc. You are not
going to be able to escape the private sector profiting from war. Sure had democracy and
capitalism actually won the day , I don't think there is any question money would have been
made -- capitalism is a very healthy system -- if operated minus manipulation/unfair
dealings. But that is not unique. One does business where business is. but cold war strategic
aims made money for lots of people -- that doesn't deny that there was actually a system of
proxy engagements for democracy and communism.
I am not a member of the VFW. I don't drink and have never been drunk. There was drug use
how prevalent it was is unclear. not enough to prevent mission readiness, it appears.
A lot has been made of fragging, but if you can find the numbers -- The evidence is very
sparse that this practice was anywhere close to a staple. Here's an estimate 800 such
incidents attempted. But given that there are only about 13 confirms that estimations is
suspect. Some 3 million service members service in Vietnam that's a percentage of
0.026666666666% attempted. The actual number of men who died as the result of fragging
0.0005% and i used the highest number of fifteen actuals.
There were tragic incidents of mass killings, but those two were rare. The next series of
complaints are hard to quantify -- but suffice it to say, whatever the complaints -- when
push came to shove the US service member repeatedly got the job done. And contrary to your
comments, the process of the US withdrawal is well documented. More than anything, they
secured a line of defense, and the situation at home was the most pressing. There is no
evidence that the US ran from the battle field.
OI think the evidence is clear that we should maintained support via air and sea power to
ensure the victory was maintained on behalf of the S. Vietnamese who fought and died to
defend their country. kudos to the Aussie's for their loyal support.
If the war mongers had had an all-volunteer army like the one they have today, they could
have and would have kept the Vietnam War going indefinitely. But, since they didn't, draftees
and their parents wised-up to the Pentagon's money-making scam and put a stop to it by
refusing to participate.
Money's made fighting wars not winning them. 1945 was the last time the US made the
mistake of winning a war, and may not have made that one had Russia not been on the verge of
invading and occupying Japan, thus forcing the US into bringing the war to a close.
Very rich families and corporatists started their own think tanks after World War II.
This is when the looting began for RAND. These are the bastards Eisenhower was afraid of. Abe
Lincoln feared the large corporations born of business profiteering during the U.S. Civil War
-- the military industrial complex of the day -- easily constituted the greatest threat to
the American republic.
Remember that Eisenhower's definition of the complex included among the bastards, not
only the military defense industry corporations, but also right alongside them the news media
and the university and private research establishments.
Tom Jefferson thought periodic revolution against wealth and authority was desirable to
keep these bastards in check. Which implies that he figured they would inevitably get us by
the throat down on the floor from time to time.
I don't think that you understand at all the history of the USG involvement in
VietNam–an act of selflessness??? What a crock.
The entire foreign policy of the united states has been controlled by the
military/industrial/security/espionage etc etc complex since, at least, the end of WWII. that
group doesn't really care about victory–on going conflict somewhere is the only goal.
Personally, I doubt that the USG has ever committed a selfless act in it's entire history.
VietNam was just one stop in a long line of USG aggression.
Of course, the U.S. military and Washington policymakers lost the war in Vietnam in
the previous century and perhaps it's well that they did.
LOL.. True enough. Yet an assortment of "Church of Rambo" true believers in civilian life,
including several here on Unz, continue to insist that that the US never lost the war, hell,
never even lost a battle -- claims all debunked by credible historians and military men who
fought there.
the vast majority of senior American military officers do not. Instead, they're still
refighting the Vietnam War to a far cheerier outcome through the books they read, the
scholarship they publish, and (most disturbingly) the policies they continue to pursue in
the Greater Middle East.
The weakness of the piece is that you don't say exactly which Vietnam approach today's
generals are following. Are they doing the "big battalions" approach of Westmoreland's
"search and destroy"? Are they doing the "Expanding Inkblot" of Marine General Krulak,
Sorley's "Better war", or John Paul Vann's "Hearts and Minds"?? You say these are all things
from Vietnam but exactly which one is in place, and why is it losing?
Blah blah blah. That war was a cluster fuck and a crime against humanity. It's only
purpose was to make a few rich men richer. The murder and destruction in the MENA is just
more of the same.
Two decades later, when the next Vietnam-like quagmire did indeed present itself in
Iraq, he and a whole generation of COINdinistas (like-minded officers devoted to his
favored counterinsurgency approach to modern warfare) embraced those very conclusions to
win the war on terror.
Again questionable. Petraeus had the correct approach to counter the previous "lets just
invade and beat Saddam" approach of Rumsfeld. Rummy's "lean force" package backed by almost
unlimited air power was enough to win the conventional struggle but was woefully short of the
numbers needed for occupation and pacification. Same thing happened to Hitler in the Balkans.
Initial smooth success, grinding guerrilla attrition for years afterward.
Both schools, however, agreed on something basic: that the U.S. military should have
won in Vietnam.
"Winning" by 1972 did not contemplate victorious US troops marching into Hanoi, or total
abandonment of the field by PAVN/VC but a better final political settlement enabling the
southern regime to survive, and/or a "decent interval" for the US to save face.
n 1999, retired army officer and Vietnam veteran Lewis Sorley penned the definitive
hearts-and-minds tract, A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of
America's Last Years in Vietnam. Sorley boldly asserted that, by the spring of 1970, "the
fighting wasn't over, but the war was won." According to his comforting tale, the real
explanation for failure lay with the "big-war" strategy of U.S. commander General William
Westmoreland. The counterinsurgency strategy of his successor, General Creighton Abrams --
Sorley's knight in shining armor -- was (or at least should have been) a war
winner.
You are misrepresenting Sorley's full argument somewhat. Sorley did not envision or claim
that there would have been any sweeping US victory with US troops marching into Hanoi, or
that the VC/NVA would flee and abandon the struggle. A big part of his argument is for "a
better war" – that is- the end game of which inevitably would be a BETTER NEGOTIATED
SETTLEMENT. Sorley knew quite well that the VC would not disappear (their political apparatus
was still in place) and that the NVA would not simply pack up and return north. Sorley's book
"A Better War" contemplates a BETTER FINAL POLITICAL SETTLEMENT as part of the bottom line,
not US troops marching triumphantly into downtown Hanoi, as PAVN armies scurried away into
the jungle.
To his disappointment, Daddis also discovered that the only Vietnam War book included
was Sorley's A Better War. This should have surprised no one, since his argument –
that American soldiers in Vietnam were denied an impending victory by civilian
policymakers, a liberal media, and antiwar protestors – was still resonant among the
officer corps in year six of the Iraq quagmire. It wasn't the military's fault!
Keep in mind that Daddis wrote a book on the Vietnam War called 'No Sure Victory' in which
he pins US failure on not being versed ENOUGH on hearts and minds counterinsurgency war,
hence the reliance on massive and unworkable statistical and reporting systems of
"progress."
"The army's unpreparedness for counterinsurgency in the early 1960s surely encouraged
this confusion. Conventional officers had little experience in developing a
counterinsurgency reporting system and applying it within a larger strategic context.. So
it was for the U.S. Army in Vietnam. Insufficiently versed in the mysteries of
counterinsurgency, officers turned to statistics to assist them in measuring and reporting
progress and effectiveness. Statistics, though, bred more statistics, and the MACV
headquarters soon became awash in a flood of numbers, facts, and figures."
–Daddis, No Sure Victory
but also potential dangers in such lists as they inevitably influence the thinking of
an entire generation of future leaders. In the case of Vietnam, the perils are obvious. The
generals have been assigning and reading problematic books for years, works that were
essentially meant to reinforce professional pride in the midst of a series of unsuccessful
and unending wars.
You are barking up the wrong tree somewhat. Daddis laments reading list limitations as far
as Iraq, but the reading list did not make any difference given 3 issues:
(a) the decision to go to war in Iraq, when it was not necessary
(b) the woefully inadequate number of troops provided the commanders for conquest and
occupation and
(c) the cavalier, careless nature of planning for postwar Iraq.
What was or was not on the reading list is of limited impact given these 3 big realities
the civilian leadership saddled commanders with.
The question is, how much longer will European workers remain peaceful dissenters to 'laws'
that resemble the prohibition of Unions in NS-Germany? A number of member states are
threatening their own exit from the EU, although for entirely different reasons. But more
"Exit"-Nations will weaken neo-liberal EU to the much desirable breaking point.
As it stands, EU/NATO policies are the biggest threat to European citizens.
Watch: Bernie Sanders' Response to Trump State of the Union
"Here's the story that Trump failed to mention "
Following President Donald Trump's State of the Union address on Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) offered a response.
"I want to take a few minutes of your time to respond to Trump's State of the Union speech," Sanders announced. "But I also want
to talk to you about the major crises facing our country that, regrettably, Trump chose not to discuss."
And, he added, "I want to offer a vision of where we should go as a nation which is far different than the divisiveness, dishonesty,
and racism coming from the Trump Administration over the past year."
Watch:
... ... ...
The complete text of Sanders' prepared remarks follow:
Good evening. Thanks for joining us.
Tonight , I want to take a few minutes of your time to respond to President Trump's State of the Union speech. But I want
to do more than just that. I want to talk to you about the major crises facing our country that, regrettably, President Trump chose
not to discuss. I want to talk to you about the lies that he told during his campaign and the promises he made to working people
which he did not keep.
Finally, I want to offer a vision of where we should go as a nation which is far different than the divisiveness, dishonesty,
and racism coming from the Trump Administration over the past year.
President Trump talked tonight about the strength of our economy. Well, he's right. Official unemployment today is 4.1 percent
which is the lowest it has been in years and the stock market in recent months has soared. That's the good news.
But what President Trump failed to mention is that his first year in office marked the lowest level of job creation since
2010. In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 254,000 fewer jobs were created in Trump's first 11 months in office
than were created in the 11 months before he entered office.
Further, when we talk about the economy, what's most important is to understand what is happening to the average worker. And
here's the story that Trump failed to mention tonight .
Over the last year, after adjusting for inflation, the average worker in America saw a wage increase of, are you ready for
this, 4 cents an hour, or 0.17%. Or, to put it in a different way, that worker received a raise of a little more than $1.60 a week.
And, as is often the case, that tiny wage increase disappeared as a result of soaring health care costs.
Meanwhile, at a time of massive wealth and income inequality, the rich continue to get much richer while millions of American
workers are working two or three jobs just to keep their heads above water. Since March of last year, the three richest people in
America saw their wealth increase by more than $68 billion. Three people. A $68 billion increase in wealth. Meanwhile, the average
worker saw an increase of 4 cents an hour.
Tonight , Donald Trump touted the bonuses he claims workers received because of his so-called "tax reform" bill. What he forgot
to mention is that only 2% of Americans report receiving a raise or a bonus because of this tax bill.
What he also failed to mention is that some of the corporations that have given out bonuses, such as Walmart, AT&T, General
Electric, and Pfizer, are also laying off tens of thousands of their employees. Kimberly-Clark, the maker of Kleenex and Huggies,
recently said they were using money from the tax cut to restructure -- laying off more than 5,000 workers and closing 10 plants.
What Trump also forgot to tell you is that while the Walton family of Walmart, the wealthiest family in America, and Jeff
Bezos of Amazon, the wealthiest person in this country, have never had it so good, many thousands of their employees are forced onto
Medicaid, food stamps, and public housing because of the obscenely low wages they are paid. In my view, that's wrong. The taxpayers
of this country should not be providing corporate welfare to the wealthiest families in this country.
Trump's Broken Promises
Now, let me say a few words about some of the issues that Donald Trump failed to mention tonight , and that is the difference
between what he promised the American people as a candidate and what he has delivered as president.
Many of you will recall, that during his campaign, Donald Trump told the American people how he was going to provide "health
insurance for everybody," with "much lower deductibles."
That is what he promised working families all across this country during his campaign. But as president he did exactly the
opposite. Last year, he supported legislation that would have thrown up to 32 million people off of the health care they had while,
at the same time, substantially raising premiums for older Americans.
The reality is that although we were able to beat back Trump's effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, 3 million fewer Americans
have health insurance today than before Trump took office and that number will be going even higher in the coming months.
During his campaign, Trump promised not to cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid.
As president, however, he supported a Republican Budget Resolution that proposed slashing Medicaid by $1 trillion and cutting
Medicare by $500 billion. Further, President Trump's own budget called for cutting Social Security Disability Insurance by $64 billion.
During Trump's campaign for president, he talked about how he was going to lower prescription drug prices and take on the
greed of the pharmaceutical industry which he said was "getting away with murder." Tonight he said "one of my greatest priorities
is to reduce the price of prescription drugs."
But as president, Trump nominated Alex Azar, a former executive of the Eli Lilly Company -- one of the largest drug companies
in this country -- to head up the Department of Health and Human Services.
Trump spoke about how in other countries "drugs cost far less," yet he has done nothing to allow Americans to purchase less
expensive prescription drugs from abroad or to require Medicare to negotiate drug prices – which he promised he would do when he
ran for president.
During the campaign, Donald Trump told us that: "The rich will not be gaining at all" under his tax reform plan.
Well, that was quite a whopper. As president, the tax reform legislation Trump signed into law a few weeks ago provides 83
percent of the benefits to the top one percent, drives up the deficit by $1.7 trillion, and raises taxes on 92 million middle class
families by the end of the decade.
During his campaign for president, Trump talked about how he was going to take on the greed of Wall Street which he said "has
caused tremendous problems for us.
As president, not only has Trump not taken on Wall Street, he has appointed more Wall Street billionaires to his administration
than any president in history. And now, on behalf of Wall Street, he is trying to repeal the modest provisions of the Dodd-Frank
legislation which provide consumer protections against Wall Street thievery.
What Trump Didn't Say
But what is also important to note is not just Trump's dishonesty. It is that tonight he avoided some of the most important
issues facing our country and the world.
How can a president of the United States give a State of the Union speech and not mention climate change? No, Mr. Trump, climate
change is not a "hoax." It is a reality which is causing devastating harm all over our country and all over the world and you are
dead wrong when you appoint administrators at the EPA and other agencies who are trying to decimate environmental protection rules,
and slow down the transition to sustainable energy.
How can a president of the United States not discuss the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision which allows billionaires
like the Koch brothers to undermine American democracy by spending hundreds of millions of dollars to elect candidates who will represent
the rich and the powerful?
How can he not talk about Republican governors efforts all across this country to undermine democracy, suppress the vote and
make it harder for poor people or people of color to vote?
How can he not talk about the fact that in a highly competitive global economy, hundreds of thousands of bright young people
are unable to afford to go to college, while millions of others have come out of school deeply in debt?
How can he not talk about the inadequate funding and staffing at the Social Security Administration which has resulted in
thousands of people with disabilities dying because they did not get their claims processed in time?
How can he not talk about the retirement crisis facing the working people of this country and the fact that over half of older
workers have no retirement savings? We need to strengthen pensions in this country, not take them away from millions of workers.
How can he not talk about the reality that Russia, through cyberwarfare, interfered in our election in 2016, is interfering
in democratic elections all over the world, and according to his own CIA director will likely interfere in the 2018 midterm elections
that we will be holding. How do you not talk about that unless you have a very special relationship with Mr. Putin?
What Trump Did Talk About
Now, let me say a few words about what Trump did talk about.
Trump talked about DACA and immigration, but what he did not tell the American people is that he precipitated this crisis
in September by repealing President Obama's executive order protecting Dreamers.
We need to seriously address the issue of immigration but that does not mean dividing families and reducing legal immigration
by 25-50 percent. It sure doesn't mean forcing taxpayers to spend $25 billion on a wall that candidate Trump promised Mexico would
pay for. And it definitely doesn't mean a racist immigration policy that excludes people of color from around the world.
To my mind, this is one of the great moral issues facing our country. It would be unspeakable and a moral stain on our nation
if we turned our backs on these 800,000 young people who were born and raised in this country and who know no other home but the
United States.
And that's not just Bernie Sanders talking. Poll after poll shows that over 80 percent of the American people believe that
we should protect the legal status of these young people and provide them with a path toward citizenship.
We need to pass the bi-partisan DREAM Act, and we need to pass it now.
President Trump also talked about the need to rebuild our country's infrastructure. And he is absolutely right. But the proposal
he is bringing forth is dead wrong.
Instead of spending $1.5 trillion over ten years rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, Trump would encourage states to
sell our nation's highways, bridges, and other vital infrastructure to Wall Street, wealthy campaign contributors, even foreign governments.
And how would Wall Street and these corporations recoup their investments? By imposing massive new tolls and fees paid for
by American commuters and homeowners.
The reality is that Trump's plan to privatize our nation's infrastructure is an old idea that has never worked and never will
work.
Tonight , Donald Trump correctly talked about the need to address the opioid crisis. Well, I say to Donald Trump, you don't
help people suffering from opioid addiction by cutting Medicaid by $1 trillion. If you are serious about dealing with this crisis,
we need to expand, not cut Medicaid.
Conclusion/A Progressive Agenda
My fellow Americans. The simple truth is that, according to virtually every poll, Donald Trump is the least popular president
after one year in office of any president in modern American history. And the reason for that is pretty clear. The American people
do not want a president who is compulsively dishonest, who is a bully, who actively represents the interests of the billionaire class,
who is anti-science, and who is trying to divide us up based on the color of our skin, our nation of origin, our religion, our gender,
or our sexual orientation.
That is not what the American people want. And that reality is the bad news that we have to deal with.
But the truth is that there is a lot of good news out there as well. It's not just that so many of our people disagree with
Trump's policies, temperament, and behavior. It is that the vast majority of our people have a very different vision for the future
of our country than what Trump and the Republican leadership are giving us.
In an unprecedented way, we are witnessing a revitalization of American democracy with more and more people standing up and
fighting back. A little more than a year ago we saw millions of people take to the streets for the women's marches and a few weeks
ago, in hundreds of cities and towns around the world, people once again took to the streets in the fight for social, economic, racial
and environmental justice.
Further, we are seeing the growth of grassroots organizations and people from every conceivable background starting to run
for office – for school board, city council, state legislature, the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate.
In fact, we are starting to see the beginning of a political revolution, something long overdue.
And these candidates, from coast to coast, are standing tall for a progressive agenda, an agenda that works for the working
families of our country and not just the billionaire class. These candidates understand that the United States has got to join the
rest of the industrialized world and guarantee health care to all as a right, not a privilege, through a Medicare for All, single-payer
program.
They understand that at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when the top one-tenth of one percent now owns almost
as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent, we should not be giving tax breaks for billionaires but demanding that they start paying
their fair share of taxes.
They know that we need trade policies that benefit working people, not large multi-national corporations.
They know that we have got to take on the fossil fuel industry, transform our energy system and move to sustainable energies
like wind, solar and geothermal.
They know that we need a $15 an hour federal minimum wage, free tuition at public colleges and universities, and universal
childcare.
They understand that it is a woman who has the right to control her own body, not state and federal governments, and that
woman has the right to receive equal pay for equal work and work in a safe environment free from harassment.
They also know that if we are going to move forward successfully as a democracy we need real criminal justice reform and we
need to finally address comprehensive immigration reform.
Yes. I understand that the Koch brothers and their billionaire friends are planning to spend hundreds of millions of dollars
in the 2018 mid-term elections supporting the Trump agenda and right-wing Republicans. They have the money, an unlimited amount of
money. But we have the people, and when ordinary people stand up and fight for justice there is nothing that we cannot accomplish.
That has been the history of America, and that is our future.
"... For some reason C-Span has recently been running US propaganda films promoting the war in Vietnam, featuring John Wayne and USAID workers involved in civilian pacification in rural areas. At that time and place USAID was really a CIA front. ..."
No, USAID is a separate organization
with its own budget and oversight. It has a separate and distinct mission and it conducts that
mission on a day to day basis around the world.
[1]
Within the intelligence community, personnel are sometimes introduced into their embassies
via "official cover." This is standard practice among all intelligence agencies around the
world. For this reason, any government agency that has representatives in an embassy could be
used as a means of bringing intelligence officers into the country under "official cover" which
provides them significant protection.
This does not mean that organization is a "front." A front, by definition, means that it
only exists to serve as a cover for other operations. It may conduct business to keep up
appearances but it exists first and foremost as cover and nothing else. Once it gets burned,
that organization tends to be shut down and the utilizing agency finds another cover.
[2]
Air
America is an example of a "front company." Arc Electronics, Inc would be an example of a
Russian intelligence "front company." [3]
USAID is not a "front company". It really does exist. It really does do the things it is
tasked with. It *may* be used by the CIA to provide an official reason for one of its officers
to be in a country under official status.
Fred Landis
Investigative Reporter Worked at University of Southern California PhD Political Science &
Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Graduated 1975 Lives in Southern
California 15.6m answer views 427.1k this month Top Writer 2015, 2014, and 2013
Published
Writer Business Insider Follow 11.4kTurn On NotificationsFred Landis , Investigative
Reporter
For some reason C-Span has recently been running US propaganda films promoting the war in
Vietnam, featuring John Wayne and USAID workers involved in civilian pacification in rural
areas. At that time and place USAID was really a CIA front.
The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation has shown how much better a job can be done with aid
work in Africa if you just take the politics out of it.
USAID was a CIA front back during the Cold War in a few hot spots .
"... President Putin has joked that he is disappointed to have been left off the list. Putin was left off for a reason. The list is directed at him. ..."
"... The list is an implicit threat against the business interests of Russian oligarchs, and they understand that. Reports are that many lobbied Washington to get off the list. By suggesting that Washington could curtail the oligarchs' travel to the West, seize their Western-based assets, and prevent Americans and Europeans from doing business with their companies, Washington is telling them to remove their support from President Putin. Washington intends to use the Western-funded NGOs and media in Russia to interfere in the upcoming Russian elections. Washington does not want Putin to have the smashing victory that is expected. It is difficult to make a monster out of a person who has higher public support than any American president in history. ..."
"... The list is an intended insult to Russia and to President Putin. As a result of Putin's low-key response to past provocations, Washington anticipated, correctly, no response from Putin to Washington's insult to the entire political and economic leadership of Russia. The unanswered insult thus becomes Washington's way of displaying its hegemony over Putin and Russia. ..."
"... Consider the audacity of US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, a person regarded by many as a devious financial gangster who did great harm to many Americans, issuing a list that suggests the US government is going to take some kind of punitive action against the Prime Minister of Russia, against the Foreign Minister of Russia, against the Defense Minister of Russia. ..."
"... Such a list is a way of telling Russia that Washington regards Russia as one of Trump's "shithole countries." The list tells Russia that Washington is never going to take any consideration of any Russian interest and that Russia will continue to be punished until it submits to Washington's hegemony, like the UK, Germany, France, Scandinavia, Japan, Canada, Australia, Italy, Spain, and the rest of the servile Western puppet states. As George W. Bush declared, "You are with us or against us." Being with us means you do as you are told. Russia can either do as she is told or fight. Russia has no other choice. ..."
The Russian government, media, and public don't know what to make of the US Treasury's
"Kremlim list." The Treasury list contains the names of the top echelon of Russian government
and business leadership. The Russians understand that the list is unfriendly and furthers
Washington's policy of worsening the relationship between the two major nuclear powers, but
beyond that the list seems to be a mystery to them.
President Putin has joked that he is disappointed to have been left off the list. Putin
was left off for a reason. The list is directed at him.
1) The list is an implicit threat against the business interests of Russian oligarchs,
and they understand that. Reports are that many lobbied Washington to get off the list. By
suggesting that Washington could curtail the oligarchs' travel to the West, seize their
Western-based assets, and prevent Americans and Europeans from doing business with their
companies, Washington is telling them to remove their support from President Putin. Washington
intends to use the Western-funded NGOs and media in Russia to interfere in the upcoming Russian
elections. Washington does not want Putin to have the smashing victory that is expected. It is
difficult to make a monster out of a person who has higher public support than any American
president in history.
2) The list is an intended insult to Russia and to President Putin. As a result of
Putin's low-key response to past provocations, Washington anticipated, correctly, no response
from Putin to Washington's insult to the entire political and economic leadership of Russia.
The unanswered insult thus becomes Washington's way of displaying its hegemony over Putin and
Russia.
The lack of a meaningful Russian response will encourage more insults and actual sanctions
against Putin's supporters, which will cause some of them to separate from Putin in order to
protect their own economic and career interests. In the past Washington has used sanctions in
efforts to deprive leaders of public support. With the Kremlin list, Washington has changed its
tactics and is targeting the reputations and economic interests of the leadership class. The
list is Washington's attempt to deprive Putin of the support of the top echelon of government
and business leaders. The list is a bullet aimed at Putin's heart.
Consider the audacity of US Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, a person regarded by many as a
devious financial gangster who did great harm to many Americans, issuing a list that suggests
the US government is going to take some kind of punitive action against the Prime Minister of
Russia, against the Foreign Minister of Russia, against the Defense Minister of
Russia.
Such a list is a way of telling Russia that Washington regards Russia as one of Trump's
"shithole countries." The list tells Russia that Washington is never going to take any
consideration of any Russian interest and that Russia will continue to be punished until it
submits to Washington's hegemony, like the UK, Germany, France, Scandinavia, Japan, Canada,
Australia, Italy, Spain, and the rest of the servile Western puppet states. As George W. Bush
declared, "You are with us or against us." Being with us means you do as you are told. Russia
can either do as she is told or fight. Russia has no other choice. (Republished from
PaulCraigRoberts.org
by permission of author or representative) ← The Second Dossier
So, the long-awaited " Kremlin List "
happened to be a purely formal action. What was made public is just a meaningless compilation
of names partly taken from a phonebook with some of them cribbed from the Forbes' Billionaires list – a kind
of Who Is Who reference publication. The administration had to release the document as required
by law, so it adopted the "get what you want and leave me alone" approach. At least, that's
what the unclassified part of the report looks like. Technically correct, the list is just a
mockery in its essence. Nothing in the report indicates that the US is in possession of
information about the individuals' involvement in any wrongdoings. The paper says it is not a
sanctions list though Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin
said it would result in restrictive measures. He did not specify the date.
It's not the "Kremlin List" that really matters. On Jan.29, one day before the document was
made public, Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee
voted to release a classified memorandum, revealing the misconduct by the FBI and the
Justice Department in the Russia investigation. The paper expresses grave concern over the way
the investigation, launched by the Obama administration, was conducted. The lawmakers took the
decision ignoring the position of
the Justice Department, which had warned not take this "extraordinary reckless" step. It's
highly probable that if an investigation into the abuses is launched, the trail will lead to
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
It's not Donald Trump but rather his opponents who will be at center of the scandal with
media raising ballyhoo (and they will do it as practice shows). Everything will turn around to
put the Democratic backers of Hillary Clinton on the defensive with the president's hands
untied giving him much more freedom to implement his Russia policy. He won't keep one eye on
Congress when it comes to dealing with Russia. Trump will become the defender of democracy
threatened by Clinton's camp. The "Kremlin's List" will be on the backburner.
Russia knows well all the ins and outs of US politics. It is reserved and patient but it
cannot forever abstain from striking back. Both governments realize this fact and act
accordingly. They don't sever the contacts, so that wouldn't have to start from scratch when
the times change.
On the contrary, they do what is possible under the circumstances. It's enough to look at
the news that doesn't hit headlines but tells about the events of great significance. For
instance, Sergey Naryshkin, the head of Russian foreign intelligence service, has recently visited the United States to
discuss terrorism. The Russian foreign intelligence chief is under sanctions but the visit was
important enough to make the US executive turn a blind eye on this fact. Naryshkin was granted
entry to the country. It's hard to imagine such a high-ranking official coming alone.
So, the information exchange with Russia is too important to be affected by ups and downs in
the relationship. It's enough to remember how the interaction
between the intelligence services of both countries prevented a terrorist act in Saint
Petersburg last December. In his recent
interview with Russian Echo Moskvy ( Echo of Moscow ) radio
station, US Ambassador to Moscow Jon Huntsman
said the time is propitious for a Russia-US bilateral summit. He also emphasized the
importance of military-to-military communications. Until now, the leaders have met only on the
sidelines of top-level international events. A summit could change a lot of things, addressing
many problems beyond the scope of bilateral relationship.
2018 is an election year in the United States. The Democrats' chances will diminish greatly
when the secret memo is released. With economy going strong, the chances for Republicans to
strengthen their position in both houses look good enough. So do the opportunities for the
president to keep his pre-election promise to improve the relationship with Russia.
In case it is not clear, the Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, is a neocon. Strong evidence
of this unfortunate fact is his speech on January 17, 2018 at Stanford's Hoover Institute.
After warmly acknowledging his debt to Dr. Condoleezza Rice and George Shultz, Tillerson goes
into his " Remarks on the Way Forward for
the United States Regarding Syria."
What do we hear? " it is crucial to our national defense to maintain a military and
diplomatic presence in Syria, to help bring an end to that conflict, and assist the Syrian
people as they chart a course to achieve a new political future." He wants the US to stay in
Syria indefinitely, its purposes being to defend the American nation, to cause the war to end,
and to create a new government/state in Syria.
We've heard the same neocon language in the past 17 years regarding Iraq, Afghanistan,
Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia and other countries. None of these countries are "crucial" to
American security. Entry by US forces into each and every one of them has increased American
insecurity, generating ever more Muslim terrorist forces. None of these places posed state-led
threats to Americans and none posed non-state forces that could not have been addressed by
means other than the failed methods that the US government adopted, symbolized by the entirely
unnecessary and counter-productive
War on Terror .
In his speech, Tillerson presents new elaborations, new rationales, and new flowerings of
neocon thought, but the root of it all remains unchanged. It's the same old rot we've heard for
the past 17 years and longer. The War on Terror remains fixed firmly in his mind. This he makes
clear, saying "The fight against ISIS is not over." And he says "Similarly, we must persist in
Syria to thwart al-Qaida " The secondary excuse for the uninvited US presence inside Syria is
to get rid of the Assad government and create a new state. "Additionally, a total withdrawal of
American personnel at this time would restore Assad and continue his brutal treatment against
his own people. A murderer of his own people cannot generate the trust required for long-term
stability."
Baloney. Tillerson's language echoes the language used against Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi.
The US always resorts to holier-than-thou language like this when it wants to justify the
empire's presence in some place that has nothing to do with American security.
Tillerson knows enough not to name "nation-building" in Syria as US policy. Instead he uses
a euphemism: "STABILIZATION".
The world is not a pretty place everywhere, not even in parts of the Americas that I'll
refrain from naming; but some are close to the White House. This doesn't justify a costly US
presence that, in any event, is very likely not only to fail but also to produce a worse
situation.
It's not the role of the US government to dry out an alcoholic world, or to get it off
drugs, pretty it up, wash it clean, apply new makeup, get it a paying job, find it a mate, turn
it into a responsible citizen, and have it raise its children as good parents. Why not? Because
it cannot! It doesn't know enough to do it and it cannot know enough to do it, so that when it
tries the results are no better and often worse than doing nothing at all, not to mention the
costs.
People in power who use lofty language as in this speech present to us a scenario, which is
that they have surveyed the turf, discovered the issues, and formulated a plan. They make out
that they actually understand human problems and can do something about them using the powers
of their office. We should believe none of this. The processes that they think are predictable
and governable are neither. Non-ergodicity rules much of human life.
NON-ERGODIC: "Attribute of a behavior that is in certain crucial respects incomprehensible
through observation either for lack of repetition, e.g., by involving only transient states
which are unique, or for lack of stabilities, e.g., when transition probabilities (see
probabilities) are so variable that there are not enough observations available to ascertain
them. Evolution and social processes involving structural changes are inherently non-ergodic.
To understand non-ergodic behavior requires either reference to the underlying organization of
the system exhibiting it or the study of a large sample of systems of the same kind (see
ergodic). (Krippendorff)"
In my opinion there is method to Trump's apparent madness. We must first remember he came
into office faced with foes from the Deep State apparatus which has infiltrated every aspect
of American government. Every government entity has been (sometime openly) hostile to
anything he has wanted to do so he has been swimming against the stream all the way along. He
inherited several disastrous situations and most without hope of ending.
The Korean War (it is still active declared war and only in an unsigned armistice) is
hopeless. The PRNK has carefully observed that the US acts as a rogue nation, reneges on all
treaties and promises, and kills anyone who opposes them. Faced with that the development of
nuclear weapons was necessary to survival. What can Trump do to end that after the horse has
left the stable?
He can scare the piss out of the South Koreans and show that we are more than willing to
sacrifice their entire Peninsula for our own bizarre needs. Trump, by acting out the Deep
State's wildest fantasy is actually bringing both Koreas together and likely we will be
invited to leave the Peninsula.
The same thing is happening with Turkey. It will take a miracle to avoid the deaths of
Americans who have illegally invaded Syria and are attempting to create a separate Kurdistan.
Once this gets out of control, and that is a certainty, the Turkes will throw us out of
Turkey entirely. The alternative is to leave Syria completely.
Ukraine is being ramped up for yet another confrontation and a complete break from the
Minsk II agreement. Again, Trump is fulfilling the Deep State's orgasmic fantasy to challenge
Russia at her doorstep. As we have seen now repeatedly the US fails to back up these gambits
and walks away in disgrace. No one is taking American threats seriously. For example Trump
very clearly said he doesn't like the EU. Was there any reaction at all? The European and
American markets were up yet again. This is clear evidence none of this is seriously being
considered.
Afghanistan is America's new tar baby and Trump is pissing off the entire Muslim world and
especially Pakistan. Only a madman would do that unless there is a different motive.
We cannot exist in Afghanistan without a land route in and out of the country. Russia has
cut the US off from all other countries (Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan) with road
access and now we have pissed off the Pakistani's so they will close the roads to us.
That leaves Trump with no option except to pull out. Again, he does this by acting on Deep
State fantasies which they are at first dazzled by and then when they realize the
repercussions are horrified. He has them all running for cover now.
The release of the memo today will be a game changer and the dominoes will start to fall
exposing the Deep State actors for who they really are and name will be revealed.
Maybe The other 95% of Snowden's material plus whatever Assange is holding back on. Maybe
we will finally see Hillary's deleted emails?
All bets are off now and it looks to me like Trump is going to close out all this insane
business in Korea, Afghanistan, Syria, and Ukraine through his efforts. Then maybe we can
finally focus on our enormous problems at home.
In theory, the USA could anihilate any single country it wishes to.
But that's not the problem. The problem is that you don't bomb other countries just for
the sake of bombing them. You bomb them to achieve a goal.
And America's goal is to maintain its status as the sole global superpower. You can't
achieve it by bombing and invading Syria only. You have to anihilate Russia and China first,
and them proceed to the Middle East in order to control the Heartland -- the core of human
civilization. Adolf Hitler knew that -- that's why he didn't stop in France and North Africa,
instead proceeding to conquer and enslave the Soviet Union.
With due respect; I think you see today's realities accurately.
But I disagree with your conclusions/assumptions.
The U.S. will not give up Afghanistan easily because of China's BRI; Afghanistan is a key
element of that.
If BRI is successful, it spells the end of western economic hegemon. The U.S. will go down
fighting to stop it; and go down it will; one way or the other.
If I may suggest; expand your horizons; geo-politics are changing rapidly, mostly against
U.S. interests; and it's only the beginning...
Such a war effort would be a vast improvement over fixing pot holes at home; unless, of
course, one could put up a privately owned but publicly subsidized toll booth at every pot
hole and then, rather than fix them, force people to sign a waiver or somehow get off the
road then and there.
A good all round nuclear war would take care of everything at once.
"... For being "intelligence" agencies who no one is apparently allowed to question or criticize, they sure make a lot of "mistakes", "lose" a lot of documents, and just get a lot of things "wrong". ..."
"... Iraq was invaded and occupied as well. Control resources!! That is the end game...As a Combat Veteran served during 9/11 and tip of the spear in 2003 we found ZERO weapons of mass destruction....So many young Americans impacted and suffered for pure profit at the hands of greedy Men... ..."
His comments came hours after SIGAR said in
a quarterly report on the conflict that the Pentagon prohibited the inclusion of information on the number of districts in Afghanistan,
and the population therein, controlled by the Afghan government or the Taliban or contested by both sides.
"The number of districts controlled or influenced by the Afghan government had been one of the last remaining publicly available
indicators for members of Congress -- many of whose staff do not have access to the classified annexes to SIGAR reports -- and for
the American public of how the 16-year-long U.S. effort to secure Afghanistan is faring," SIGAR said in a statement. "This is the
first time SIGAR has been specifically instructed not to release information marked 'unclassified' to the American taxpayer."
In his emailed statement, Gresback said that, as of October 2017, about 56 percent of the country's 407 districts were under Afghan
government control or influence, 30 percent remained contested, and roughly 14 percent were now under insurgent control or influence.
R Roger47 yesterday
Afghanistan is too big and too poor for their own government and military to ever be able to control. Much of the country is
controlled by tribal leaders associated loosely with the Taliban. They want to continue to live their lives as they have done
for hundreds of years. We can either let them do so, or occupy their country forever. I say make an agreement to leave them alone
as long as they keep terrorists out, and bring our troops home.
e edward yesterday
For being "intelligence" agencies who no one is apparently allowed to question or criticize, they sure make a lot of "mistakes",
"lose" a lot of documents, and just get a lot of things "wrong".
C CBVET2003 yesterday
Iraq was invaded and occupied as well. Control resources!! That is the end game...As a Combat Veteran served during 9/11
and tip of the spear in 2003 we found ZERO weapons of mass destruction....So many young Americans impacted and suffered for pure
profit at the hands of greedy Men...
V Vegasvince 22 hours ago
Several things he promised to work on are traditional Democratic issues. Since they also agree, I'd hope we can see quick
congressional action. Infrastructure, prescription drug costs, terminal patients access to drug trials, Job training investment,
Paid family leave, former prisoner job training, etc... These should be fast tracked through Congress and to the Presidents. We
can agree on things in America and need a productive governement to get thing s done!
"... General Flynn had warned Trump during the campaign before election and afterward that CIA briefers were lying to him. Flynn took over briefing Trump himself and that ended when they got Flynn out. ..."
In the WH it will be NSC adviser and chief lunatic McMaster. He will levitate with
enthusiasm for more war.
The briefings Trump gets are packed with lies and he has grown to trust them.
The entire foreign policy is so different from his stated goals and intentions that it is
clear he is fed fairy tales of success and bogus estimates of what the US can accomplish.
Last weeks Voltairnet.org piece by Thierry Meyssan indicated that Trump did not know what
his planners were doing.
"The president Trump had not been informed of the plan Votel-McGurk. The secretary of
Defense, James Mattis, confirmed to his men the instructions of the White House against the
jihadists. However Votel and McGurk are still in place." -- Thierry Meyssan
General Flynn had warned Trump during the campaign before election and afterward that
CIA briefers were lying to him. Flynn took over briefing Trump himself and that ended when
they got Flynn out.
We have a President misled who is told bogus results based on biased input data and
reports.
Meyssan has been crazy in love with Trump for a year, so for him to report this shows he
knows things are being setup for Trump to be trapped in Syria.
"... There is likely a fourth reason for the list. Israel wants Washington's pressure on Russia, because Russia has so far prevented Israel's use of the US military to create the same chaos in Syria and Iran as has been created in Iraq and Libya. Israel wants Syria and Iran destabilized because they support Hezbollah, which prevents Israel from occupying the water resources of southern Lebanon. The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which requires the list, passed the House and Senate by a vote of 517-5. Normally, such unanimous foreign policy votes are associated with demands from the Israel Lobby. ..."
"... The Russian government and the Russian people need to understand that Washington considers Russia to be a threat because Russia is not under Washington's thumb. The Zionist neoconservatives control US foreign policy. Their ideology is world hegemony. They do not use diplomacy. They rely on disinformation, threats, and violence. Therefore, there is no American diplomacy with which Putin and Lavrov can engage. ..."
"... Putin, being a responsible political leader of a great power, does not respond to provocation with provocation. He ignores the insults and continues to wait for the West to come to its senses. But what if the West does not come to its senses? ..."
"... Everyone in the world should realize the threat of nuclear war that is inherent in Washington's policy toward Russia, and everyone in the world should understand that the only threat that Russia poses is to Washington's unilateralism. ..."
In an act of insane escalation of provocations against Russia, Washington has produced a
list of 210 top Russian government officials and important business executives who are
"gangsters," "members of Putin's gang," "threats," "people deserving to be sanctioned," or
however the Western presstitutes care to explain the list. The absurd list includes the Prime
Minister of Russia, the Foreign Minister, the Defense Minister, and executives of Gazprom,
Rosneft, and Bank Rossiya. In other words, the suggestion is that the entirety of Russian
political and business leadership is corrupt.
The Russians do not seem to understand the purpose of the list. Presidential spokesman
Dmitry Peskov said that the government sees the list as an attempt to interfere in the Russian
presidential election. There is no doubt that Washington would like to reduce Putin's public
support so that Washington can use the Western-funded NGOs operating in Russia to present
American stooges as Russia's true voices. However, it is unlikely that the Russian people are
stupid enough to fall for such a trick.
Washington's list has three purposes:
To undercut Russian diplomacy by presenting the top echelons of Russia as gangsters.
To present Russia as a military threat as per the ridiculous announcement by British defense
minister Gavin Williamson on January 26 that Russia intends to rip British "infrastructure
apart, actually cause thousands and thousands and thousands of deaths," and create "total chaos
within the country."
To shift American and European attention away from the coming release of the House
Intelligence Committee's report that proves Russiagate is a conspiracy between the FBI, the
Obama Department of Justice and the Democratic National Committee against President Trump.
Washington's Russian list will give the presstitutes something else to talk about instead of
the act of treason committed against the President of the United States. Expect to hear nothing
from the presstitutes except that the House Intelligence Committee report is only a political
effort to shield Trump from accountability.
There is likely a fourth reason for the list. Israel wants Washington's pressure on Russia,
because Russia has so far prevented Israel's use of the US military to create the same chaos in
Syria and Iran as has been created in Iraq and Libya. Israel wants Syria and Iran destabilized
because they support Hezbollah, which prevents Israel from occupying the water resources of
southern Lebanon. The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, which requires
the list, passed the House and Senate by a vote of 517-5. Normally, such unanimous foreign
policy votes are associated with demands from the Israel Lobby.
The Russian government and the Russian people need to understand that Washington considers
Russia to be a threat because Russia is not under Washington's thumb. The Zionist
neoconservatives control US foreign policy. Their ideology is world hegemony. They do not use
diplomacy. They rely on disinformation, threats, and violence. Therefore, there is no American
diplomacy with which Putin and Lavrov can engage.
Putin, being a responsible political leader of a great power, does not respond to
provocation with provocation. He ignores the insults and continues to wait for the West to come
to its senses. But what if the West does not come to its senses?
For the West to come to its senses requires the complete overthrow of the Zionist
neoconservatives and/or the breakup of NATO. The overthrow of the neoconservatives would
require a rival foreign policy voice, and that voice is very weak as it is shut off from the
media, the think tanks, and the universities. The breakup of NATO would require European
political figures to give up their Washington subsidies and the career advancement that
Washington provides.
As I write the Atlantic Council is holding a members and press call in for a discussion with
Atlantic Council members Amb. Daniel Fried and Anders Aslund. The Atlantic Council is a
neoconservative propaganda agency. The purpose of the "discussion" is to further undermine
US-Russian relations.
The Russian government faces a difficult situation. The foreign policy of the US, and
thereby of the Western world, is controlled by neoconservatives who are determined to present
Russia in the most threatening light. Russian diplomacy can do nothing to change this. The
non-provocative and responsible Russian response has the effect of encouraging more
provocations from Washington. At some point Russian passivity might convince the
neoconservatives that they can successfully attack Russia. Alternatively, the continual
provocations might convince Russia that the country is targeted for attack, thereby causing a
Russian pre-emptive action.
Everyone in the world should realize the threat of nuclear war that is inherent in
Washington's policy toward Russia, and everyone in the world should understand that the only
threat that Russia poses is to Washington's unilateralism.
"... Like the Romans, we have become an empire, committed to fighting for scores of nations, with troops on every continent and forces in combat operations of which the American people are only vaguely aware. "I didn't know there were 1,000 troops in Niger," said Senator Lindsey Graham when four Green Berets were killed there. "We don't know exactly where we're at in the world, militarily, and what we're doing." ..."
"... Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, ..."
"... . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com. ..."
Forward Operating Base Torkham, in Nangahar Province, Afghanistan (army.mil) If Turkey is not bluffing, U.S. troops in Manbij, Syria,
could be under fire by week's end, and NATO engulfed in the worst crisis in its history.
Turkish President Erdogan said Friday his forces will cleanse Manbij of Kurdish fighters, alongside whom U.S. troops are embedded.
Erdogan's foreign minister demanded concrete steps by the United States to end its support of the Kurds, who control the Syrian
border with Turkey east of the Euphrates all the way to Iraq.
If the Turks attack Manbij, America will face a choice: stand by our Kurdish allies and resist the Turks, or abandon the Kurds.
Should the U.S. let the Turks drive the Kurds out of Manbij and the entire Syrian border area, as Erdogan threatens, American
credibility would suffer a blow from which it would not soon recover.
But to stand with the Kurds and oppose Erdogan's forces could mean a crackup of NATO and a loss of U.S. bases inside Turkey, including
the air base at Incirlik.
Turkey also sits astride the Dardanelles entrance to the Black Sea. NATO's loss would thus be a triumph for Vladimir Putin, who
gave Ankara the green light to cleanse the Kurds from Afrin.
Yet Syria is but one of many challenges facing U.S. foreign policy.
The Winter Olympics in South Korea may have taken the menace of a North Korean ICBM out of the news, but no one believes that
threat is behind us.
Last week, China charged that the USS Hopper, a guided missile destroyer, sailed within 12 nautical miles of Scarborough Shoal,
a reef in the South China Sea claimed by Beijing, though it is far closer to Luzon in the Philippines. The destroyer, says China,
was chased off by one of her frigates. If we continue to contest China's territorial claims with our warships, a clash is inevitable.
In a similar incident Monday, a Russian military jet came within five feet of a U.S. Navy EP-3 Orion surveillance jet in international
airspace over the Black Sea, forcing the Navy plane to end its mission.
U.S. relations with Cold War ally Pakistan are at rock bottom. In his first tweet of 2018, President Trump charged Pakistan with
being a false friend.
"The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given
us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools," Trump declared. "They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt
in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!"
As for America's longest war in Afghanistan, now in its 17th year, the end is nowhere on the horizon. A week ago, the International
Hotel in Kabul was attacked and held for 13 hours by Taliban gunmen who killed 40. Midweek, a Save the Children facility in Jalalabad
was attacked by ISIS, creating panic among aid workers across the country.
Saturday, an ambulance exploded in Kabul, killing 103 people and wounding 235. Monday, Islamic State militants attacked Afghan
soldiers guarding a military academy in Kabul. With the fighting season two months off, U.S. troops will not soon be departing. If
Pakistan is indeed providing sanctuary for the terrorists of the Haqqani network, how does this war end successfully for the United
States? Last week, in a friendly fire incident, the U.S.-led coalition killed 10 Iraqi soldiers. The Iraq war began 15 years ago.
Yet another war, where the humanitarian crisis rivals Syria, continues on the Arabian Peninsula. There, a Saudi air, sea, and
land blockade that threatens the Yemeni people with starvation has failed to dislodge Houthi rebels who seized the capital Sanaa
three years ago. This weekend brought news that secessionist rebels, backed by the United Arab Emirates, seized power in Yemen's
southern port of Aden from the Saudi-backed Hadi regime fighting the Houthis. These rebels seek to split the country, as it was before
1990.
Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE appear to be backing different horses in this tribal-civil-sectarian war into which America has
been drawn. There are other wars -- Somalia, Libya, Ukraine -- where the U.S. is taking sides, sending arms, training troops, flying
missions.
Like the Romans, we have become an empire, committed to fighting for scores of nations, with troops on every continent and
forces in combat operations of which the American people are only vaguely aware. "I didn't know there were 1,000 troops in Niger,"
said Senator Lindsey Graham when four Green Berets were killed there. "We don't know exactly where we're at in the world, militarily,
and what we're doing."
No, we don't, Senator. As in all empires, power is passing to the generals. And what causes the greatest angst today in the imperial
city? Fear that a four-page memo worked up in the House Judiciary Committee may discredit Robert Mueller's investigation of Russia-gate.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President
and Divided America Forever . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists,
visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.
"... By Major Danny Sjursen, a U.S. Army strategist and former history instructor at West Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has written a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, ..."
"... He lives with his wife and four sons in Lawrence, Kansas. Follow him on Twitter at ..."
"... and check out his new podcast ..."
"... . Originally published at TomDispatch ..."
"... On Strategy : A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War, ..."
"... Dereliction of Duty ..."
"... The Army and Vietnam ..."
"... Foreign Affairs ..."
"... New York Times ..."
"... A Better War : The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... The Daily Show with Jon Stewart ..."
"... Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife : Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... On Strategy ..."
"... Dereliction of Duty ..."
"... The Army and Vietnam ..."
"... War Comes to Long An ..."
"... I. Laying Plans ..."
"... 1. Sun Tzu said: The art of war is of vital importance to the State. ..."
"... 2. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected. ..."
"... 3. The art of war, then, is governed by five constant factors, to be taken into account in one's deliberations, when seeking to determine the conditions obtaining in the field. ..."
"... 4. These are: (1) The Moral Law; (2) Heaven; (3) Earth; (4) The Commander; (5) Method and discipline. ..."
"... 5,6. The Moral Law causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger. ..."
"... 7. Heaven signifies night and day, cold and heat, times and seasons. ..."
"... 8. Earth comprises distances, great and small; danger and security; open ground and narrow passes; the chances of life and death. ..."
"... 9. The Commander stands for the virtues of wisdom, sincerely, benevolence, courage and strictness. ..."
"... 10. By method and discipline are to be understood the marshaling of the army in its proper subdivisions, the graduations of rank among the officers, the maintenance of roads by which supplies may reach the army, and the control of military expenditure. ..."
"... 11. These five heads should be familiar to every general: he who knows them will be victorious; he who knows them not will fail. ..."
"... 12. Therefore, in your deliberations, when seeking to determine the military conditions, let them be made the basis of a comparison, in this wise:– ..."
"... 13. (1) Which of the two sovereigns is imbued with the Moral law? (2) Which of the two generals has most ability? (3) With whom lie the advantages derived from Heaven and Earth? (4) On which side is discipline most rigorously enforced? (5) Which army is stronger? (6) On which side are officers and men more highly trained? (7) In which army is there the greater constancy both in reward and punishment? ..."
"... 14. By means of these seven considerations I can forecast victory or defeat. ..."
"... 15. The general that hearkens to my counsel and acts upon it, will conquer: let such a one be retained in command! The general that hearkens not to my counsel nor acts upon it, will suffer defeat:–let such a one be dismissed! ..."
"... The History Thieves: Secrets, Lies and the Shaping of a Modern Nation. ..."
"... Chaque fois que les incidents de guerre obligent l'un de nos officiers à agir contre un village [ ], il ne doit pas perdre de vue que son premier soin, la soumission des habitants obtenue, sera de reconstruire le village, d'y créer un marché, d'y établir une école. C'est de l'action de la politique et de la force que doit résulter la pacification du pays et l'organisation à lui donner plus tard. ..."
"... Every time one of our officers is forced to act against a village because of war incidents, he must not lose sight of his first concern, which, after the submission of the inhabitants, is to rebuild the village, to create a market, to establish a school. It is the joint action of policy and force that must result in the pacification of the country and in its later organization. ..."
"... The Bridge on the River Kwai ..."
"... A Bright Shining Lie ..."
"... The Best and the Brightest ..."
"... The Ugly American is a 1958 political novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer. The Ugly American depicts the failures of the U.S. diplomatic corps, whose insensitivity to local language, culture, customs and refusal to integrate was in marked contrast to the polished abilities of Eastern Bloc (primarily Soviet) diplomacy and led to Communist diplomatic success overseas [sic]. The book caused a sensation in diplomatic circles. John F. Kennedy was so impressed with the book that he sent a copy to each of his colleagues in the United States Senate. The book was one of the biggest bestsellers in the country, has been in print continuously since it appeared and is one of the most politically influential novels in all of American literature. ..."
"... The title of the novel is a play on Graham Greene's 1955 novel The Quiet American and was sometimes confused with it. ..."
"... The "Ugly American" of the book title refers to the book's hero, plain-looking engineer Homer Atkins, whose "calloused and grease-blackened hands always reminded him that he was an ugly man." Atkins, who lives with the local people, comes to understand their needs, and offers genuinely useful assistance with small-scale projects such as the development of a simple bicycle-powered water pump.[2] ..."
"... as it very properly attempted to conceal from the Japanese, ..."
By Major Danny Sjursen, a U.S. Army strategist and former history instructor at West
Point. He served tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has written a
memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War,Ghost Riders of Baghdad:
Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . He lives with his wife and four sons
in Lawrence, Kansas. Follow him on Twitter at@SkepticalVetand check out his new podcastFortress on
a Hill. Originally published at TomDispatch
[Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author, expressed in an
unofficial capacity, and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of
the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. government.]
Vietnam: it's always there. Looming in the past, informing American futures.
A 50-year-old war, once labeled the longest in our history, is still alive and well and
still being refought by one group of Americans: the military high command. And almost half a
century later, they're still losing it and blaming others for doing so.
Of course, the U.S. military and Washington policymakers lost the war in Vietnam in the
previous century and perhaps it's well that they did. The United States really had no business
intervening in that anti-colonial civil war in the first place, supporting a South Vietnamese
government of questionable legitimacy, and stifling promised nationwide elections on both sides
of that country's artificial border. In doing so, Washington presented an easy villain for a
North Vietnamese-backed National Liberation Front (NLF) insurgency, a group known to Americans
in those years as the Vietcong.
More than two decades of involvement and, at the war's peak, half a million American troops
never altered the basic weakness of the U.S.-backed regime in Saigon. Despite millions of Asian
deaths and 58,000 American ones, South Vietnam's military could not, in the end, hold the line
without American support and finally collapsed under the weight of a conventional North
Vietnamese invasion in April 1975.
There's just one thing. Though a majority of historians (known in academia as the "orthodox"
school) subscribe to the basic contours of the above narrative, the vast majority of senior
American military officers do not. Instead, they're still refighting the Vietnam War to a far
cheerier outcome through the books they read, the scholarship they publish, and (most
disturbingly) the policies they continue to pursue in the Greater Middle East.
The Big Re-Write
In 1986, future general, Iraq-Afghan War commander, and CIA director David Petraeus penned
an article
for the military journal Parameters that summarized his Princeton doctoral
dissertation on the Vietnam War. It was a piece commensurate with then-Major Petraeus's
impressive intellect, except for its disastrous conclusions on the lessons of that war. Though
he did observe that Vietnam had "cost
the military dearly" and that "the frustrations of Vietnam are deeply etched in the minds of
those who lead the services," his real fear was that the war had left the military unprepared
to wage what were then called "low-intensity conflicts" and are now known as
counterinsurgencies. His takeaway: what the country needed wasn't less Vietnams but
better-fought ones. The next time, he concluded fatefully, the military should do a far better
job of implementing counterinsurgency forces, equipment, tactics, and doctrine to win such
wars.
Two decades later, when the next Vietnam-like quagmire did indeed present itself in Iraq, he
and a whole generation of COINdinistas (like-minded officers
devoted to his favored counterinsurgency approach to modern warfare) embraced those very
conclusions to win the war on terror. The names of some of them -- H.R. McMaster and James
Mattis, for instance -- should ring a bell or two these days. In Iraq and later in Afghanistan,
Petraeus and his acolytes would get their chance to translate theory into practice. Americans
-- and much of the rest of the planet -- still live with the results.
Like Petraeus, an entire generation of senior military leaders, commissioned in the years
after the Vietnam War and now atop the defense behemoth, remain fixated on that ancient
conflict. After all these decades, such "thinking" generals and "soldier-scholars" continue to
draw all the wrong lessons from what, thanks in part to them, has now become America's
second longest war.
Rival Schools
Historian Gary Hess identifies two main schools
of revisionist thinking. There are the "Clausewitzians" (named after the nineteenth century
Prussian military theorist) who insist that Washington never sufficiently attacked the enemy's
true center of gravity in North Vietnam. Beneath the academic language, they essentially agree
on one key thing: the U.S. military should have bombed the North into a parking lot.
The second school, including Petraeus, Hess labeled the "hearts-and-minders." As
COINdinistas, they felt the war effort never focused clearly enough on isolating the Vietcong,
protecting local villages in the South, building schools, and handing out candy -- everything,
in short, that might have won (in the phrase of that era) Vietnamese hearts and minds.
Both schools, however, agreed on something basic: that the U.S. military should have won in
Vietnam.
The danger presented by either school is clear enough in the twenty-first century. Senior
commanders, some now serving in key national security positions, fixated on Vietnam, have
translated that conflict's supposed lessons into what now passes for military strategy in
Washington. The
result has been an ever-expanding war on terror campaign waged ceaselessly from South Asia
to West Africa, which has essentially turned out to be perpetual war based on the can-do belief
that counterinsurgency and advise-and-assist missions should have worked in Vietnam and can
work now.
The Go-Big Option
The leading voice of the Clausewitzian school was U.S. Army Colonel and Korean War/Vietnam
War vet Harry Summers, whose 1982 book, On Strategy : A
Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War, became an instant classic within the military. It's
easy enough to understand why. Summers argued that civilian policymakers -- not the military
rank-and-file -- had lost the war by focusing hopelessly on the insurgency in South Vietnam
rather than on the North Vietnamese capital, Hanoi. More troops, more aggressiveness, even
full-scale invasions of communist safe havens in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam, would have
led to victory.
Summers had a deep emotional investment in his topic.
Later , he would argue that the source of post-war pessimistic analyses of the conflict lay
in "draft dodgers and war evaders still [struggling] with their consciences." In his own work,
Summers marginalized all Vietnamese actors (as would so many later military historians), failed
to adequately deal with the potential consequences, nuclear or otherwise, of the sorts of
escalation he advocated, and didn't even bother to ask whether Vietnam was a core national
security interest of the United States.
Perhaps he would have done well to reconsider a famous post-war
encounter he had with a North Vietnamese officer, a Colonel Tu, whom he assured that "you
know you never beat us on the battlefield."
"That may be so," replied his former enemy, "but it is also irrelevant."
Whatever its limitations, his work remains influential in military circles to this day. (I
was assigned the book as a West Point cadet!)
A more sophisticated Clausewitzian analysis came from current National Security Adviser H.R.
McMaster in a highly acclaimed 1997 book, Dereliction of
Duty . He argued that the Joint Chiefs of Staff were derelict in failing to give
President Lyndon Johnson an honest appraisal of what it would take to win, which meant that
"the nation went to war without the benefit of effective military advice." He concluded that
the war was lost not in the field or by the media or even on antiwar college campuses, but in
Washington, D.C., through a failure of nerve by the Pentagon's generals, which led civilian
officials to opt for a deficient strategy.
McMaster is a genuine scholar and a gifted writer, but he still suggested that the Joint
Chiefs should have advocated for a more aggressive offensive strategy -- a full ground invasion
of the North or unrelenting carpet-bombing of that country. In this sense, he was just another
"go-big" Clausewitzian who, as historian Ronald Spector pointed
out recently, ignored Vietnamese views and failed to acknowledge -- an observation
of historian Edward Miller -- that "the Vietnam War was a Vietnamese war."
COIN: A Small (Forever) War
Another Vietnam veteran, retired Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Krepinevich, fired the opening
salvo for the hearts-and-minders. In The Army and Vietnam , published in 1986, he
argued
that the NLF, not the North Vietnamese Army, was the enemy's chief center of gravity and that
the American military's failure to emphasize counterinsurgency principles over conventional
concepts of war sealed its fate. While such arguments were, in reality, no more
impressive than those of the Clausewitzians, they have remained popular with military
audiences, as historian Dale Andrade points
out , because they offer a "simple explanation for the defeat in Vietnam."
Krepinevich would write an influential 2005 Foreign Affairspiece , "How to Win
in Iraq," in which he applied his Vietnam conclusions to a new strategy of prolonged
counterinsurgency in the Middle East, quickly winning over the New
York Times 's resident conservative columnist, David Brooks, and generating "discussion in
the Pentagon, CIA, American Embassy in Baghdad, and the office of the vice president."
In 1999, retired army officer and Vietnam veteran Lewis Sorley penned the definitive
hearts-and-minds tract, A Better War : The
Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America's Last Years in Vietnam . Sorley boldly
asserted
that, by the spring of 1970, "the fighting wasn't over, but the war was won." According to his
comforting tale, the real explanation for failure lay with the "big-war" strategy of U.S.
commander General William Westmoreland. The counterinsurgency strategy of his successor,
General Creighton Abrams -- Sorley's knight in shining armor -- was (or at least should have
been) a war winner.
Critics
noted that Sorley overemphasized the marginal differences between the two generals'
strategies and produced a remarkably counterfactual work. It didn't matter, however. By 2005,
just as the situation in Iraq, a country then locked in a sectarian civil war amid an American
occupation, went from bad to worse, Sorley's book found
its way into the hands of the head of U.S. Central Command, General John Abizaid, and State
Department counselor Philip Zelikow. By then, according
to the Washington Post 's David Ignatius, it could also "be found on the
bookshelves of senior military officers in Baghdad."
Another influential hearts-and-minds devotee was Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl. (He even
made it
onto The Daily Show with Jon Stewart .) His Learning to Eat Soup with
a Knife : Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam followed Krepinevich in
claiming that "if [Creighton] Abrams had gotten the call to lead the American effort at the
start of the war, America might very well have won it." In 2006, the Wall Street
Journalreported that Army Chief of Staff
General Peter Schoomaker "so liked [Nagl's] book that he made it required reading for all
four-star generals," while the Iraq War commander of that moment, General George Casey, gave
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld a copy during a visit to Baghdad.
David Petraeus and current Secretary of Defense James Mattis, co-authors in 2006 of
FM 3-24, the first ( New York Times -reviewed ) military field manual for counterinsurgency since
Vietnam, must also be considered among the pantheon of hearts-and-minders. Nagl wrote a
foreword for their manual,
while Krepinevich provided a glowing back-cover endorsement .
Such revisionist interpretations would prove tragic in Iraq and Afghanistan, once they had
filtered down to the entire officer corps.
Reading All the Wrong Books
In 2009, when former West Point history professor Colonel Gregory Daddis was deployed
to Iraq as the command historian for the Multinational Corps -- the military's primary tactical
headquarters -- he noted that corps commander Lieutenant General Charles Jacoby had assigned a
professional reading list to his principal subordinates. To his disappointment, Daddis also
discovered that the only Vietnam War book included was Sorley's A Better War . This
should have surprised no one, since his argument -- that American soldiers in Vietnam
were
denied an impending victory by civilian policymakers, a liberal media, and antiwar protestors
-- was still resonant among the officer corps in year six of the Iraq quagmire. It wasn't the
military's fault!
Officers have long distributed professional reading lists for subordinates, intellectual
guideposts to the complex challenges ahead. Indeed, there's much to be admired in the concept,
but also potential dangers in such lists as they inevitably influence the thinking of an entire
generation of future leaders. In the case of Vietnam, the perils are obvious. The generals have
been assigning and reading problematic books for years, works that were essentially meant to
reinforce professional pride in the midst of a series of unsuccessful and unending wars.
Just after 9/11, for instance, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Richard Myers -- who spoke at my
West Point graduation -- included Summers's On
Strategy on his list. A few years later, then-Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker
added
McMaster's Dereliction of Duty . The trend continues today. Marine Corps Commandant
Robert Neller has kept McMaster and added Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger (he of the
illegal bombing of both Laos and Cambodia and war
criminal fame). Current Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley kept Kissinger and
added good
old Lewis Sorley. To top it all off, Secretary of Defense Mattis has included
yet another Kissinger book and, in a different list , Krepinevich's
The Army and Vietnam .
Just as important as which books made the lists is what's missing from them: none of these
senior commanders include newer scholarship
,
novels , or journalistic accounts which might raise thorny, uncomfortable questions about
whether the Vietnam War was winnable, necessary, or advisable, or incorporate local voices that
might highlight the limits of American influence and power.
Serving in the Shadow of Vietnam
Most of the generals leading the war on terror just missed service in the Vietnam War. They
graduated from various colleges or West Point in the years immediately following the withdrawal
of most U.S. ground troops or thereafter: Petraeus in
1974 , future Afghan War commander Stanley McChrystal in 1976 , and present National Security Adviser H.R.
McMaster in 1984 .
Secretary of Defense Mattis finished ROTC and graduated from Central Washington University in
1971 , while
Trump's Chief of Staff John Kelly enlisted at the tail end of the Vietnam War, receiving his
commission in 1976
.
In other words, the generation of officers now overseeing the still-spreading war on terror
entered military service at the end of or after the tragic war in Southeast Asia. That meant
they narrowly escaped combat duty in the bloodiest American conflict since World War II and so
the professional credibility that went with it. They were mentored and taught by academy
tactical officers, ROTC instructors, and commanders who had cut their teeth on that conflict.
Vietnam literally dominated the discourse of their era -- and it's never ended.
Petraeus, Mattis, McMaster, and the others entered service when military prestige had
reached a nadir or was just rebounding. And those reading lists taught the young officers where
to lay the blame for that -- on civilians in Washington (or in the nation's streets) or on a
military high command too weak to assert its authority effectively. They would serve in
Vietnam's shadow, the shadow of defeat, and the conclusions they would draw from it would only
lead to twenty-first-century disasters.
From Vietnam to the War on Terror to Generational War
All of this misremembering, all of those Vietnam "lessons" inform the U.S. military's
ongoing "surges" and "advise-and-assist" approaches to its wars in the Greater Middle East and
Africa. Representatives of both Vietnam revisionist schools now guide the development of the
Trump administration's version of global strategy. President Trump's in-house Clausewitzians
clamor for -- and receive
-- ever more delegated authority to do their damnedest and what retired General (and Vietnam
vet) Edward Meyer called for
back in 1983: "a freer hand in waging war than they had in Vietnam." In other words, more
bombs, more troops, and carte blanche to escalate such conflicts to their hearts' content.
Meanwhile, President Trump's hearts-and-minds faction consists of officers who have spent
three administrations expanding COIN-influenced missions to approximately 70%
of the world's nations. Furthermore, they've recently fought for and been granted a new
"mini-surge" in Afghanistan intended to -- in disturbingly Vietnam-esque language -- "break the
deadlock ," "reverse the decline," and "end the
stalemate " there. Never mind that neither 100,000 U.S. troops (when I was
there in 2011) nor 16 full years of combat could, in the term of the trade, "stabilize"
Afghanistan. The can-do, revisionist believers atop the national security state have convinced
Trump that -- despite his original
instincts -- 4,000 or 5,000 (or
6,000 or 7,000) more troops (and yet more
drones ,
planes , and other equipment) will do the trick. This represents tragedy bordering on
farce.
The hearts and minders and Clausewitzians atop the military establishment since 9/11 are
never likely to stop citing their versions of the Vietnam War as the key to victory today; that
is, they will never stop focusing on a war that was always unwinnable and never worth fighting.
None of today's acclaimed military personalities seems willing to consider that Washington
couldn't have won in Vietnam because, as former Air Force Chief of Staff Merrill McPeak (who
flew
269 combat missions over that country) noted in the
recent Ken Burns documentary series, "we were fighting on the wrong side."
Today's leaders don't even pretend that the post-9/11 wars will ever end. In an interview
last June, Petraeus -- still considered a sagacious guru of the Defense establishment --
disturbingly described the Afghan conflict as " generational ." Eerily
enough, to cite a Vietnam-era precedent, General Creighton Abrams predicted something similar.
speaking to the White House as the war in Southeast Asia was winding down. Even as President
Richard Nixon slowly withdrew U.S. forces, handing over their duties to the South Vietnamese
Army (ARVN) -- a process known then as "Vietnamization" -- the general warned
that, despite ARVN improvements, continued U.S. support "would be required indefinitely to
maintain an effective force." Vietnam, too, had its "generational" side (until, of course, it
didn't).
That war and its ill-fated lessons will undoubtedly continue to influence U.S. commanders
until a new set of myths, explaining away a new set of failures in Iraq, Afghanistan, and
elsewhere, take over, possibly thanks to books by veterans of these conflicts about how
Washington could have won the war on terror.
It's not that our generals don't read. They do. They just doggedly continue to read the
wrong books.
In 1986, General Petraeus ended his influential Parametersarticle
with a quote from historian George Herring: "Each historical situation is unique and the use of
analogy is at best misleading, at worst, dangerous." When it comes to Vietnam and a cohort of
officers shaped in its shadow (and even now convinced it could have been won), "dangerous"
hardly describes the results. They've helped bring us generational war and, for today's young
soldiers, ceaseless tragedy.
I know there is a book with the name; "The Arrogance of Power", but it is apt when applied
to US attempt to obliterate the nation of Vietnam. We continue to spread this filthy type of
"war" around the globe only because we have not really met our "match" but, we will .oh yes,
we will. Every book that has been written about either the war itself or the tactics used to
try to "win" has contributed to more understanding of that brutal war. The military must
relearn the rule of war that war itself alone cannot win, it takes the political side also.
It has been infernally "easy" since 9/11 for the politicians, the military industrial complex
to construct a world of "terror" and most Americans believe in that world. It has been
immensely profitable. No compulsory military service; a bunch of "little" wars around the
globe being run by private enterprises; no excess war profits taxes; a Pentagon budget that
includes the propagandizing of the American sports public .and on and on and on. What's not
to like for the profit mongers and the ideologically bent?? Ho Chi Min and the people of
Vietnam were outright betrayed by WW1 (just like the Arabs) treaties; by the US in it's
treatment of Vietnam in the treaties of WW2 (Roosevelt died but he already had an
understanding with the French (DeGaulle)) to not interfere with their retaking over of
Vietnam after WW2 so as to get French cooperation with the birth of NATO.
May I add another book: "Ho Chi Min" "A Life" William J. Duiker. Pub. 2000.
Well if they are looking for good books on 'Nam, might I suggest some of the books from my
own collection?
"Long Time Passing" – Myra MacPherson
"About Face" – David H. Hackworth
"Nam" – Mark Baker
"Dispatches" – Michael Herr
"One Soldier"- John H. Shook
"The Only War We Had" – Michael Lee Lanning
"To Heal a Nation" – Jan C. Scruggs
Also, the novel (based on the authors experience as an NVA soldier), 'The Sorrows of War'
by Bao Ninh. It shows many NVA soldiers were as cynical of their political masters as the
average US grunt.
Oh, I'd forgotten 'The Quiet American', incredible book – I kept having to check the
inside page when I read it to confirm that it was in fact written before the Vietnam War
– its prescience was amazing. It should be compulsory reading for anyone interested in
foreign policy of any type.
George Martin Windrow's "The Last Valley" (1996) displaces Bernard Fall as the definitive
work on Dien Bien Phu, prelude to America's debacle. I work a lot in Vietnam, and his
description of how their society organizes and moblilizes is spot on. He also has blood
curdling descriptions of what artillery does to human bodies. And there is the entertaining
interlude where the US briefly entertained atomic bombing to break the siege.
From Bernard Fall's Newport lecture at the Naval War College in about 1964:
"Let me state this definition: RW = G + P, or, "revolutionary warfare equals guerrilla
warfare plus political action." This formula for revolutionary warfare is the result of the
application of guerrilla methods to the furtherance of an ideology or a political system.
This is the real difference between partisan warfare, guerrilla warfare, and everything else.
"Guerrilla" simply means "small war," to which the correct Army answer is (and that applies
to all Western armies) that everybody knows how to fight small wars; no second lieutenant of
the infantry ever learns anything else but how to fight small wars. Political action,
however, is the difference. The communists, or shall we say, any sound revolutionary warfare
operator (the French underground, the Norwegian underground, or any other European anti-Nazi
underground) most of the time used small-war tactics–not to destroy the German Army, of
which they were thoroughly incapable, but to establish a competitive system of control over
the population. Of course, in order to do this, here and there they had to kill some of the
occupying forces and attack some of the military targets. But above all they had to kill
their own people who collaborated with the enemy."
Also worth a look: War Comes to Long An by Jeffrey Race, which essentially
discloses that the U.S. war effort, as understood by the Vietnamese themselves, was to keep
the French colonial oligarchy in place.
Race learned Vietnamese on the boat over to Vietnam and interviewed the Vietnamese
themselves to find out why they continued to fight. Basically, the oligarchy promised only
continued oppression by the rentiers.
I didn't need to read books about Vietnam. I simply listened to the stories and night-time
screams of my new roommates returning to school on the GI Bill in '68 and '69. The lives
ruined, on both sides, stays with me today.
One of those room-mates was on Hamburger Hill in May of '69 and was attempting college in
the Fall. PTSD was apparent and he soon enough dropped out (of life).
The sad part is we Americans do everything we keep to keep snatching defeat from victory's
teeth. The Vietnamese as a whole were happy with us before our government (read CIA)
sabotaged the elections, and handed power over to the Catholic minority and its most corrupt
part at that. (When you have to pay/bribe someone for artillery support during a battle ) Ho
Chi Min and company did not ally themselves to their worst enemy, the Chinese, because they
wanted too.
Same with Iraq. It was probably unwindable, but scrapping detailed State Department plans
on what when, and if, Iraq was occupied because you don't want to spend the money, defend
only the oil ministry's offices, let the entire country just collapse, and then fire not only
anyone a member of the Ba'ath Party as well as the entire Iraqi Army. Of course, if wanted to
be a teacher or have a job in the government, you had to be a Ba'athist, and to secure any of
the weapons and ammunition of the army is something. I am not what that something is, but
it's really something. And then the Bush Administration basically says it's going to invade
Iran once everything settles, which gave the Iranians incentive to keep arming anyone in Iraq
fighting the Americans and British.
I am raaaanting now and I can feel my blood rising so I am gonna stop now. It's just so
hard seeing our government's foreign policy and its intelligence services being run by well
educated morons.
Can't comment on Iraq, but Vietnam was a MAJOR F-up by USA. Ho Chi Min was actually very
much pro-USA – until they handed them back to French after WW2.
With even a bit of US support Vietnam could have been fairly firmly pro-US (it always was
anti-China, so the "it will go to Chinese like Koreans did" fears were fearmongering/PR at
worst and lack of understanding at best), aiming to build a sort of social-democratic regime
rather than full-on Communist one. Yes, it would have upset the French. What's not to like,
given how deGaule was trying to screw everyone around to push their national interests? (much
better than British at the time, one should say).
The Cold War was spinning up in Europe, and the U.S. was trying to get France on its side.
The price for that was allowing France to attempt to reassert itself in Indochina.
I know the usual excuse – but there was about zero chance that France would really
go into bed with USSR.
deGaule definitely threatened it, but I very much doubt he would go the full hog –
if nothing else, he didn't want to be anyone's, and that included USSR's, puppet. At the very
very worst, they might end up Yugoslavia-like, although I'd say that once proto-EU was cooked
up, France would jump there pretty quick, as otherwise it would have lost pretty much all
influence in Europe.
Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan were all, arguably, 'winnable' – the common thread in
all three is the US failure to understand local political dynamics. With Vietnam, it was the
failure to understand that what was happening was primarily a civil war with the 'Communists'
not necessarily being anti-American – they saw (and still see) China as their long
historical enemy. In Iraq the dismembering of the existing Ba'ath party structures without
having anything (apart from the free market of course) to replace it proved fatal, along with
an ignorance of Shia/Sunni dynamics. In Afghanistan the 'victory' was blown by an insistence
on chasing phantom Al-Q enemies when the Taliban was more or less destroyed.
When you read the history of long lived empires, from Rome to the British Empire, a common
characteristic they all have is an acute awareness of how to manipulate local dynamics in
order to maintain control without expending too much manpower. The US military seems to
completely lack this capacity. In fact, rather than being in charge, a common feature seems
to be that US military power is all too easily manipulated by local powerbrokers for their
own ends.
Yep, I'll sign under that. I do wonder how much it has to do with the American psyche, and
how much with the fact that even British or Roman empires had sort of hard limitations (not
just in terms of manpower, but more importantly in the ability to get the manpower to the
sharp end pronto).
I think an element of it is quite simply the sheer wealth and power of America means it
doesn't have to think through the consequences of interventions too much. Even in the heyday
of the European empires, military adventures were very expensive operations – two or
three failures in a row could fatally set an empire back.
I think another major issue is the lack of skin in the game for decision makers. I think
the early days of WWII was the last time there was a major cull of military officers for
incompetence in the US. And even in WWII, it was rare for officers to get killed. Even more
so since then, and with the ending of the draft, it means no risks for their sons or
daughters, and minimal ones for anyone they would be likely to know.
There is simply little or no price paid for failure. At least not by the people
responsible.
"All, arguably, winnable." For what definition of "WIN?"
Our military rulers are supposed to "study war." The curriculum supposedly includes not
only Clausewitz, Mr. "Center of Gravity," on "modern" war, but also that hoary old classic
under the nom de plume "Sun Tzu," called "The Art of War." Said rulers, for some reason, skip
over the first part of Sun Tzu's advice, the part about asking whether going to war is wise
at all, at all:
I. Laying Plans
1. Sun Tzu said: The art of war is of vital importance to the State.
2. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a
subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.
3. The art of war, then, is governed by five constant factors, to be taken into
account in one's deliberations, when seeking to determine the conditions obtaining in the
field.
4. These are: (1) The Moral Law; (2) Heaven; (3) Earth; (4) The Commander; (5) Method
and discipline.
5,6. The Moral Law causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so
that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger.
7. Heaven signifies night and day, cold and heat, times and seasons.
8. Earth comprises distances, great and small; danger and security; open ground and
narrow passes; the chances of life and death.
9. The Commander stands for the virtues of wisdom, sincerely, benevolence, courage and
strictness.
10. By method and discipline are to be understood the marshaling of the army in its
proper subdivisions, the graduations of rank among the officers, the maintenance of roads by
which supplies may reach the army, and the control of military expenditure.
11. These five heads should be familiar to every general: he who knows them will be
victorious; he who knows them not will fail.
12. Therefore, in your deliberations, when seeking to determine the military
conditions, let them be made the basis of a comparison, in this wise:–
13. (1) Which of the two sovereigns is imbued with the Moral law? (2) Which of the two
generals has most ability? (3) With whom lie the advantages derived from Heaven and Earth?
(4) On which side is discipline most rigorously enforced? (5) Which army is stronger? (6) On
which side are officers and men more highly trained? (7) In which army is there the greater
constancy both in reward and punishment?
14. By means of these seven considerations I can forecast victory or defeat.
15. The general that hearkens to my counsel and acts upon it, will conquer: let such a
one be retained in command! The general that hearkens not to my counsel nor acts upon it,
will suffer defeat:–let such a one be dismissed!http://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html
There's a lot more in "The Art of War" about the idiocy of doofus war-fighting in absence
of the Moral Law and true national interest at the end of immense logistics and supply
chains, war that bankrupts the peasants, getting stuck in quagmires and such. The current
rulers just jump (if they pay any attention at all to the work any more) straight to all the
chestnuts ("All war is deception," duh, "Attack where he is weak, retreat where he is
strong," duh) about how to conduct strategy and tactics.
When was the last time any of these fundamental "Think before shooting" considerations Sun
Tzu distilled from millennia of earlier wars and his own experiences was given ANY attention
by the rotter nihilists ("Mutual Assured Destruction, Massive Retaliation, "counterinsurgency
always and everywhere, the F-35 model of logistics?) who commit "the nation" and the peasants
to their programs and "operations"? And even the attempts to "get the peasants on side" via
Bernays saucing, one of the necessary conditions per Sun Tzu, have been completely bollixed,
or simply plowed over.
All this sh!t-storm activity is conducted from within the same kind of bubble that got
inflated around the French High Command in the run up to the Great War, and seems to
regularly envelop "high commands" which are maybe experiencing a "contact high" from
breathing, inside that bubble, the heady fumes of their self-generated hallucinogenic
"designer drugs."
Many of our cities and towns already look a lot like Fallujah and Raqqa after
"liberation-by-destruction." Waiting for a massive collapse, maybe slow-mo or maybe
tipping-point quick, with huge collateral damage, in three, two, one
The problem is, many will argue that the parts of Sun Tzu you so correctly pointed out
aren't really the US military's job, they are the responsibility of the US Congress.
But something other than "Congress" is what's loosing the dogs of war. There's how it's
supposed to work, on paper, per that "quaint document," and how it actually works. Like so
much of "the Republic." Which ain't.
"When you read the history of long lived empires, from Rome to the British Empire, a
common characteristic they all have is an acute awareness of how to manipulate local dynamics
in order to maintain control without expending too much manpower."
+ 100
It won't surprise readers that Petraeus' "masterpiece" on counterinsurgency bears a strong
similarity to a publication by the late Sir Frank Kitson. Sir Frank commanded British forces
in Northern Ireland in the 1970s and UK Land Forces soon after. He also served in colonial
insurgencies in the 1950s. Kitson gave a talk, based on his publication, on such matters to
his alma mater, which I attended, in the mid-1980s. He was also the speaker at "speech day"
around then.
When the Iraq and Afghanistan War started, the British military were full of confidence
that their experience in counterinsurgency would allow them to show the US how it was done.
They had to be rescued in somewhat ignominious manner from both Basra and Kandahar as they
were shown to be completely out of their depth. It is part of British Army mythology that
they defeated the IRA using sound and sensible COIN, but the reality is much more
complicated.
Incidentally, it is said that Mao (and possibly Ho Chi Minh too) were avid readers of the
biographies of early 20th Century IRA leaders, including Michael Collins and Tom Barry, both
experts in counter-counter insurgency. Tom Barry was the leader of the most effective unit,
the West Cork Brigade. Collins was a master in using intelligence against intelligence
services, while Tom Barry was capable of using limited resources to keep an enormous number
of soldiers tied up. Both knew the skills of provoking the State into over-reactions which
pushed civilians over onto the rebels side.
Yes – despite its obligations under the Good Friday Agreement the British Government
is still sitting on files which would likely shed light on the dirty war in Northern Ireland.
Its pretty clear that both the main loyalist groups were to a large extent run by the
intelligence services to kill suspected IRA members, and were very likely involved in
bombings that resulted in mass casualties in Dublin and Monaghan. While they did undoubtedly
manage to neutralise some IRA Units in reality they stoked up as much violence as they
stopped.
In advance of a Corbyn government, many papers, some going back to the smearing of Labour
in the 1920s, have been "lost". The cache lost include the papers on the "sexed up dodgy
dossier", written by the UK's current envoy to the UN (Matthew Ryecroft) and sexed up by the
loathsome Alistair Campbell, and the death of the weapons inspector. The form of death
officially recorded, as with George Michael's, is disputed by many pathologists, including
former colleagues of my father.
Indeed. Document "disappearance" is a serious problem, with a long history, addressed
pretty well in Ian Cobain's recent title The History Thieves: Secrets, Lies and the
Shaping of a Modern Nation.
Whatever approach Petraeus & Co proposed, "hearts and minds" counter-insurgency was
basically a century old. Here:
Chaque fois que les incidents de guerre obligent l'un de nos officiers à agir
contre un village [ ], il ne doit pas perdre de vue que son premier soin, la soumission des
habitants obtenue, sera de reconstruire le village, d'y créer un marché, d'y
établir une école. C'est de l'action de la politique et de la force que doit
résulter la pacification du pays et l'organisation à lui donner plus
tard.
I.e. Every time one of our officers is forced to act against a village because of war
incidents, he must not lose sight of his first concern, which, after the submission of the
inhabitants, is to rebuild the village, to create a market, to establish a school. It is the
joint action of policy and force that must result in the pacification of the country and in
its later organization.
From the "fundamental instructions" of General Gallieni from 22nd May 1898, in the midst
of the "pacification" of Madagascar. Its estimated death toll was about 100000.
These generals remind me of the character of Colonel Nicholson (played by Alec Guinness)
in The Bridge on the River Kwai . They're so focused on the task in front of them,
they can't seem to step back and think about the wider picture.
In the Netflix film The Siege of Jadotville ,
the real life Commandant Pat Quinlan is quoted as saying 'Soldiers do tactics, politicians do
strategy'. The US miliitary always seems to have a surfeit of tactics with no discernable
strategy.
And of course Nicholson, at the end of the film, was going to stop the demolition of that
so painfully built bridge by the "inglorious bastards" on his nominal own team. Only dumb
luck and the timing of a bullet from a "Jap" led to his falling on the detonator as he died,
and blowing up the span .
re: wider picture.
The wider picture is the political picture. The military in the US is supposed to be and
remain non-political. The politicians send the military to wars. The military does not choose
what war, where, why to fight. Those decisions are Congress and the prez's job.
adding: When then (2003) Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki told the Senate Armed
Services Committee the truth about what an Iraq invasion required he displeased the Bush
admin and DoD, and was shortly edged out of his command by retirement. That in-essence
"sacking" had a large effect on the thinking of the entire chain of command, imo.
Thank you Yves for posting this article. It is rather disheartening but explains a lot of
what I have been wondering about for years – Didn't we learn anything from Vietnam?
Obviously the answer is no; but even worse is the attitude of "we could/should have won"
displayed by the current military brass.
I remarked to wifey the other day that kids who were only a year old on 9/11 will be old
enough to join the military this year
I first heard of Ghost Riders of Baghdad by following various military Twitter accounts,
like Angry Staff Officer, or the account of Robert Bateman ( who sometimes writes for
Esquire). Angry Staff officer also has a blog with very informative posts. I thought of, Is
The Amy's Professional Military Education Broken?, after reading the above post. A sample, "
All military education must stem from the fundamental that war is a human endeavor, and as
such cannot be prosecuted without understanding basic factors of humanity".
https://angrystaffofficer.com/2017/07/18/is-the-armys-professional-military-education-system-broken/
It is never mentioned here but how about the possibility that some wars simply cannot be
won – ever. It is not for nothing that Afghanistan is know as the place that empires go
to die nor that a geopolitical axiom is to never fight a land war in Asia. There was no
possible time-line where the US won in Vietnam using either military means or COIN
operations. The terrible truth is that most of those 58,00 Americans died long after it was
know that they could never win.
The COINdinistas had their chance in Iraq but younger offices at the time were furious with
senior officers in how out of touch they were with what was going on so it was a repeat of
the Vietnam experience all over again, including the notorious body-counts. And this whole
we-would-have-won-if-not-for-the-politicians-and-hippies is as much crap as the post WW1
German officers with their we-were-stabbed-in-the-back obsession. I see this even here in
Australia. Years ago I saw an Army show that featured the history of the Army. When they got
to the Vietnam war era they had Aussie soldiers naming the dead bodies in a mock-up of the
Battle of Long Tan while of the other side of the arena they had hippies shouting peace
slogans and the like. The message was clear – you betrayed us!
And that "you never beat us on the battlefield" was apparently not true either according to
an article I read last year setting out a few hard truths. The truth is that the training of
American officers is badly broken and that sycophants do very well in it. The whole system
needs to be junked as America is not bringing out the best officers that it can – not
by a long shot – and it was this system that produced leaders like Petraeus. They may
have been presented as the Great White Hope once but I invite other commentators find out how
his superior, Admiral William Fallon, regarded him. Nothing less than a root and branch
overhaul of the American officer training regime will counter how we see wars being fought
now. Otherwise we will continue to see more of the same.
Its worse than that: the US military is the cutting edge of a political Imperialist policy
completely contradicted by the
21st C environment. This is failure at the DNA level.
Two things that need to be understand about the Vietnam war that the US military does not
get.
The first is that the US did not lose the Vietnam war, we were beaten by the Vietnamese.
If we just "lost" the war, then all the "Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics" crap where the
only to lose is through a failure of will, (protesters and namby-pamby members of Congress)
becomes the dominant explanation.
We were beaten, and so we need to know why our military was beaten, and what the
military/Pentagon did wrong.
The second thing is the idea that the
Vietnamese won no battles in the war is patently false .
There are at least 70 battles that were lost.
The reason that the Pentagon insists on ignoring both of these is because the "stab in the
back from protesters" means that there is no accountability for the failures of our
military.
So, like the Bourbon kings, our military has learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
The article states "Two decades later, when the next Vietnam-like quagmire did indeed
present itself in Iraq "
In fact, the next Vietnam-like quagmire was engineered much sooner than that, and is still
running.
From an interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, US National Security Adviser at the time:
" it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the
opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the
president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a
Soviet military intervention The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote
to President Carter, essentially: 'We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its
Vietnam war.' " http://dgibbs.faculty.arizona.edu/brzezinski_interview
Popular insurgencies can be beaten. There are many examples, especially in Latin America.
The common enabling condition appears to be exhaustion of the peasantry over a period of
years, after which they choose 'peace and order' enforced by thugs with badges over the
guerrillas who cannot restore economic life, even in 'liberated zones'.
Pastoral mountain tribesmen are probably the least susceptible to this exhaustion and
subjugation can take generations: witness the Scots.
I think you're getting at something that the win/lose focus misses: whether or not the US
ultimately failed to maintain a client regime in Vietnam, it brutally demonstrated the costs
of resistance.
In Yves' intro she writes
but decided to stay at war because they deemed the damage to US prestige of winding down
the war to be too great.
US prestige = certainty of monumental costs to resistance. Prestige is honorspeak for
legitimate terrorism.
I think you are missing the point of all of this and in fact trivializing the war.
Vietnam was not a popular insurgency (whatever that means). It was an all out war to rid
that nation of colonial domination and unify the country. It was not the "Viet Namese war"
for these people, but the war against America.
"Popular insurgency" is the Orwellian term used by those in power. A good example is the
American war of independence. From the British Empire's point of view, it was a "popular
insurgency".
It would be instructive if you could define "popular insurgency" more clearly and provide
some context.
The issue is that they can only be done by governments in their own nations or the nations
that they are very close by.
Even then, the success record is mixed and it requires a willingness to be totally
ruthless. Otherwise the subjugated people eventually will be able to win some form of
independence, like the Irish.
The US is different. It is dealing with self inflicted and totally pointless wars in the
Middle East, Africa, and Afghanistan.
The insurgencies in Latin America can hardly be compared to Vietnam, as they were for the
most part beaten by CIA dirty work rather than crushed by a full-on military operation.
The long, sad record is so awful, maybe we just turn over the whole military to the Civil
Air patrol and the Coast Guard! They could not possibly do worse, and might be much
better!
In no time flat, either of those organizations (already peopled by nascent Petraeuses and
Mattises) would revert to the mean that we already know too well. Nice thought, though. The
Coast Guard's multi-missions mission: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missions_of_the_United_States_Coast_Guard
Unlike all the other "branches" of the MIC hydra, the CG suffers from cost cutting and
neoliberalism. "More and more work, for fewer and fewer people, for less and less money,
under tighter and tighter constraints, with every more detailed metrics " and their recent
acquisitions of new cutters are kind of F-35/littoral-combat-ships-ish "Billions Later, Plan
to Remake the Coast Guard Fleet Stumbles," http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/09/us/09ship.html
One thing that is rarely, if ever, mentioned is the type of person who joins the officer
corps. The school I attended has produced (British) generals and admirals (only, not the
ranks). Many, if not most, of the pupils who joined, or were encouraged to join, and only as
officers were considered dunces. Goodness knows what the soldiers and sailors, especially
NCOs, thought of the "young ruperts".
One contemporary, now a well regarded and well known painter (deservedly so), stayed in
the same class / year for three years. He was encouraged into the Welsh Guards and served a
few years. His elder brother joined the same regiment and is a general. Ian Duncan Smith,
formerly of the Scots Guards, is similar.
Read The Pentagon Papers to see why we couldn't win hearts and minds. The Vietnamese hated
the French and we ended up doing everything the French did to make the Vietnamese hate us
too.
Two good books that give a historical perspective of American involvement in the Pacific
and Asia are James Bradley's,The Imperial Cruise, and The China Mirage- The Hidden History of
American Disaster in Asia. Both books are written in a narrative style that is very
approachable and entertaining. Bradley tells a great story. They describe some long standing
American policy that go unreported and bring new understanding to todays events.
These titles led me to Barbara Tuchman's, Stilwell and the American Experience in China-
1911-45. I haven't read this one yet, but Stilwell seems an interesting American character.
Someone on the ground, seeing reality for what it is, and ignored by the upper brass. Another
typical American story- a tragedy.
One of the criticisms of American foreign policy made by the British has always been the
lack of political foresight and strategic thinking. I came across these criticisms in the
context of WWII policy, but at their core, I think they say much about the character of
American leadership. American founding principles and the needs of Empire are contradictory
to the citizenry. America has become an Empire by luck and default. Luck in the unmatched
bounty the North American continent has bestowed on the Nation and Europeans wearing
themselves out. This point is driven home by the fact that American standing in the world is
falling like a rock in many metrics.
I believe this explains why Americans still are reluctant to view themselves as being an
Empire. Too many tricky contradictions when dealing with their own citizens and reason for
being. It is what lies behind the lie of spreading "Democracy" to the world. The British
Empire faced no such dilemma. At least they brought law, order, and culture to those they
conquered. American Empire spreads chaos. Resisting cultures are treated to the political
ideology of annihilation. American policy is, "bombing them into the stone age."
Another great read is Halford Mackinder, The Geographical Pivot of History. In a way, his
thesis ties up all the loose ends of the Great Game being played by our political and social
betters. The Anglo-Saxon mode of rule has been to carve up the world. Asian cultures are much
older and as humanity moves forward in time, people are truly tiring of war. A united
Eurasian Continent would be a supreme power to set living standards and future goals. True
power is moving East.
What has the West to offer, but more blood and bombs. The embrace of cultural diversity
moves away from war and embodies political power in the melding of culture not its
extermination. I think that was the policy of Alexander the Great.
The great fear of American political leaders is being labeled provincials. Failed world
leadership lends credence to this charge. We are not ready to lead, and it shows by the
mediocracy of our leaders. An Empire that kills itself has to be a first. Is it any wonder
that the leadership now embrace the kill anything that moves mentality. It is all they have
in the form of power projection and vision.
All this to get to the point that maybe a multipolar world is not such a bad thing. Trying
something new when everything else seems to fail.
Eh I'm no fan of the West but I wouldn't paint the East in very pretty colors either, for
sure. Humanity has a tendency to suck. Look close to home to make things better I would
say.
You want a multipolar world, me too but what's with this "supreme" "United Eurasian
Continent"??? I want to have to at least take my shoes off to count the world's power
centers.
We have all forgotten the "Forgotten War". In another Asian byproduct of WWII, Curtis
LeMay channeled Clausewitz to the max as we flattened North Korea. How did that work out?
Does it have any ramifications for the USA in 2018?
Books to "explain" Vietnam and sequelae: Why no mention of a really seminal tome, "The
Ugly American"? Dated 1958. I read it, avidly, several times over, as a young,
testosterone-poisoned American Boy Scout Youth, and its mythos helped in getting me to enlist
in the Imperial Army in 1966. From Wiki:
The Ugly American is a 1958 political novel by Eugene Burdick and William Lederer. The
Ugly American depicts the failures of the U.S. diplomatic corps, whose insensitivity to local
language, culture, customs and refusal to integrate was in marked contrast to the polished
abilities of Eastern Bloc (primarily Soviet) diplomacy and led to Communist diplomatic
success overseas [sic]. The book caused a sensation in diplomatic circles. John F. Kennedy
was so impressed with the book that he sent a copy to each of his colleagues in the United
States Senate. The book was one of the biggest bestsellers in the country, has been in print
continuously since it appeared and is one of the most politically influential novels in all
of American literature.
The title of the novel is a play on Graham Greene's 1955 novel The Quiet American and
was sometimes confused with it.
The "Ugly American" of the book title refers to the book's hero, plain-looking
engineer Homer Atkins, whose "calloused and grease-blackened hands always reminded him that
he was an ugly man." Atkins, who lives with the local people, comes to understand their
needs, and offers genuinely useful assistance with small-scale projects such as the
development of a simple bicycle-powered water pump.[2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_American
Another of the hero's engineering triumph was getting the women of "Dong Ba" (?) to unbend
their backs by changing to a New, Improved, longer model of the bamboo brooms they used to
sweep the dirt floors of their huts. A relatively innocuous form of Coca-Colonialism But the
part that I got all hepped up about was the engineer's innovation, borrowing from the Soviet
"multiple launch rocket systems" known as "Katyushas," https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=F2lPpPVlDhg ,
of fitting a truck with a several dozen rocket-launching rails, which he used to fire a
volley of "spin-stabilized folding-fin air-to-ground rockets (SSFFARs)" into a bamboo grove
where Evil Insurgents were having a meeting of their cabal -- "in the glare, you could see
body parts spinning up into the night sky " Heady Stuff for young mopes.
Apparently the myth of "The Ugly (But Big-Hearted, Local-Language-Speaking) American
settled nicely into the mind and mindset of Saint Kennedy, too
Tradition is durable. I recall Haitians, like some African forebears, preferred to cook
with charcoal, which one gets by burning wood in a low oxygen furnace before burning it in
your clay stove. Vastly wasteful. Now a good part of local effort goes into long walks to
find bits of shrubbery to reduce to charcoal. And they denuded the whole country of trees and
woody shrubs. Efforts made to change the custom met resistance -- "good enough for
grandemere, good enough for.me." Like trying to get Americans to stop smoking, or worse, to
drive smaller cars let alone kick the deadly automobile habit that has so many knock-on
deleterious effects on people and planet.
The degradation of the Haitian portion of Santo Dimingo was as much a result of the soil
erosion caused by that mono-crop, sugar cane. The French merchants were making "boo koo"
bucks deploying as many slaves as possible to harvest this cash crop. (Too many slaves on too
little land.)
The other half of Santo Domingo Island is the Dominican Republic and it has little of the
resource devastation apparent in Haiti.
I see VietNam as the perfect example of successful neo liberal economic policies. Military
Keynesianism, the workings of Adam Smith's "invisible hand" and corporate profiteering are
more pertinent than Clausewitz or Coin. As with the thoroughly neo liberal DNC, it's never
been about winning or losing. It's just about the next consulting or munitions contract.
Forever war means forever contract. The Mt. Pelerin society didn't start in 1947 for nothing.
Keep them talking about winning and losing while the money flows in. Tough about the GI Joe
collateral damage.
The destined warriors are misused. International Law has no problem with wars of defense.
I have a right to defend myself. The State has a monopoly on the use of force.
Sports aren't enough for the action figures.
Couldn't beat the Vietnamese so beating the Beats
at home, in the homeland develops into for profit prisons
& the recreation of the Gulag. American Gulags
& how much of that labor for pennies is done for Koch Industries?
Meltoy?
I could found an entire nation on a love & war movie. South Koreans have made the
theaters called 4D. Shakes you around and blows wind and smells on you.
Spies fail in concert with their employers, the diplomats.
Haley is at the UN taking names.
Economic Warfare is universal. I mean there has been all my life
War against me. I went to Canada, so I am the enemy & the Wall is to keep me here where I
can be found & made to pay.
One term President Carter pardoned dodgers.
Wear sweaters.
On goes the petrodollar war. 100 Year Oil War.
Law of unintended consequences.
No care.
10,000 a year die from just small arms, in Mexico, not even artillery.
US Police kill 2,000 or is it 3? or is it 4? A year.
Now it is striking that Scandinavia, the Netherlands?
Nations other places & until France so few do big
murders of their countrymen or even within the EU.
They have lived where war means everything is
bombed or destroyed by cannons.
Germany won economically in capitalism matured
Because debts were to NAZIs enabling a great write off
of debt, not happening and inflated by Hedge Funds
for anybody else till Greece is enslaved & Puerto Rico
& whose next?
Doesn't matter, the US Military & its Bankers
& its police have been & will be at war with or
just at all Territories.
Unitary Power but as Gov. of Govs, can't be
That.
Why? Why Not?
War is not a war against spaceship aliens
So war is to destroy the Earth.
Kill anyone because you are destined
to kill.
Great Generals Have a Zest for Killing the Enemy.
Read "Our Jungle Road to Tokyo" by Robert L. Eichelberger who
is a great and perfect General of the 8th Army
in the Pacific.
Long as a General & an Army has one job only
At the behest of its Civilians.
All will be well.
Or at least rational, which is better.
Obviously Econ War is war.
Declaration of Econ War is Sanctions
Declared.
Because of illegal War.
I insist that the ICAO demand that
Kim Y. Un & DPRK give Notices to Airmen
When launching their Rockets.
My Rocket Program is called
The "Message Rocket Program".
Beat, I'm Beat.
"Army censorship concealed from
the American public, as it very properly
attempted to conceal from the Japanese, How weak we were.
The ethical weakness of the US
has become so profound.
All it does is war piratical parasitical
& everywhere all the time
on the ground or in the mind.
Out flow of all territory is by right
The Unitary Power's.
No Territory is won or lost.
Revisionist history is in full swing across the MSM spectrum. Take, for instance, the new
movie – 'The Post' – that pretends to be an accurate drama about Daniel Ellsberg,
the Pentagon Papers, and the "heroic" roll played by the Washington Post. It's fake history,
as this excellent review makes clear, but it fits a certain preferred narrative. https://consortiumnews.com/2018/01/22/the-post-and-the-pentagon-papers/
adding: one the the self-serving fictions the Dem party estab tells itself is that the
working class voted for Nixon and other GOP candidates because the working class is racist.
That neatly sidesteps the then growing belief that Vietnam – a Dem war, LBJ's war
– was unwinnable, the Dem power establishment new it was unwinnable, and yet kept
drafting working class boys to go fight and die because LBJ and others' egos were at stake.
The Dems have never dealt with that betrayal of the working class.
The reading list is missing the books that describe the actual horrors of combat that our
soldiers endured:
Hamburger Hill – the movie does not do full justice to the total clusterfuck that
battle was. I guarantee that you will weep bitter tears as you read accounts of the stupidity
of commanding officers from general to lieutenant, and of the tragic waste of life of young
draftees.
We Were Soldiers Once – The first 3/4 of the movie closely follows the book -- and
then goes all Hollywood at the end. It had to, because what actually happened was a stinging
defeat of the American troops and a template for the rest of the war. A REMF staff officer
needed to "get his ticket punched" for promotion with combat command experience, so was put
in charge of a battalion that took part in the latter phases of the battle. While withdrawing
from the battlefield afterward, he led the unit into an NVA ambush and lost 2/3 of his men
(155 KIA, 124 WIA and 4 MIA out of about 450 troopers present).
For somewhat more sanitized versions of what the grunts endured, see the half-dozen books
(extended after-action reports) by S. L. A. Marshall.
Nothing has changed from Nam to GWOT as far as the utter stupidity of America's military
leaders, and their need for constant wars to advance their careers and feed their patrons in
the MIC. One thing they *did* learn, after getting their sorry asses fragged by young
draftees fed up with dying at the hands of incompetent dolts, was to ditch the draft and pay
for mercenary -- called "volunteer" -- enlisted ranks. The wonder is, after 16 years of
endless, futile deployemnts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now Syria, that the mercs aren't
murdering their idiot officers now as well ..
"Go tell the spartans" did without the hollywood ending, us military assistance and Burt
Lancaster ponied up the 150k USD required to finish it.
Set in 1964, says it was clearly fucked then.
Worth a look.
Yeah, Go Tell the Spartans is an excellent Nam flick.
Another is Platoon. Oliver Stone served in the 25th Infantry Division in Quang Tin
Province in 1967. The last big battle of Platoon is based on an actual event in Quang Tin in
1971, when the VC overran Firebase Mary Ann and inflicted 33 KIA and 83 WIA on the 23rd
Division.. Sappers in the Wire is a very good book about that fiasco.
Books by S. L. A. Marshall may have to be read with caution, even though I have never read
them. The reason that I say this is a book that I recommended in this series of posts called
"About Face" by David H. Hackworth. Hackworth was detailed to escort Marshall around Vietnam
and he "described his initial elation at an assignment with a man he idolized, and how that
elation turned to disillusion after seeing Marshall's character and methods firsthand.
Hackworth described Marshall as a "voyeur warrior," for whom "the truth never got in the way
of a good story", and went so far as to say, "Veterans of many of the actions he 'documented'
in his books have complained bitterly over the years of his inaccuracy or blatant bias". The
guy was always chasing a buck.
One significant action this piece left out was Congress' cutting off aid to South Vietnam
after the US military withdrawal in '72 on. When the final tank-led NVA push came in Apr 75
most of the ARVN forces remained at their bases for lack of fuel and ammunition. Could the
NVA Apr 75 campaign have met with similar lack of success as the '71 and '68 campaigns had
Congress continued support for South Vietnam? Guess we'll never know.
Tom Hagel, at one point, calls the wars in Iraq and Afganistan stupid but I can't find it
in the transcript. However, he also said this;
WE DISTRUST OUR INSTITUTIONS, WE DISTRUST THE GOVERNMENT, BOTH POLITICAL PARTIES. WE ARE
ANGRY AND WE JUST WANT TO SMASH IT. IN A WAY, I THINK THE CHICKENS HAVE COME HOME TO WRIST
BECAUSE OUR CURRENT POLITICIANS TOO OFTEN, I DON'T TRUST THEM, EITHER. I THINK THEY
CONTINUALLY LIE TO US, BUT WE'VE ALLOWED OURSELVES TO BE LIED TO BECAUSE WE ELECT THEM ALL
THE TIME. THEY FORGOT THAT THEY WORK FOR US. WE ARE CITIZENS, WE RUN THE SHOW. THEY WORK FOR
US. FOR SOME REASON, AS A SOCIETY, WE HAVE LOST THAT. WE JUST LET IT GO ON. CONSEQUENTLY, A
LOT OF THE DISTRUST IN THE POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS CAN BE TRACKED BACK TO THE VIETNAM WAR.
BECAUSE IT WAS SO CLEAR UP OR A WHILE,. ESPECIALLY WITH ALL THE ARCHIVES AND THE MATERIALS
THAT HAVE BEEN RELEASED IN THAT, THE SOCIETY AND THE TROOPS WERE LIED TO,
Basics (I learned this at a military University, informally, not as coursework):
The objective of the military in war is to cause the enemy's economy to collapse.
This can be achieved by other means: eg Sanctions (an act of war) and Venezuela as an
example.
It would have been easier to control Vietnam in the '60s, by becoming the largest customer
for their major product, Rubber, and having American corporations, such as Coca-Cola,
"colonize" the country.
My experience of the Vietnamese, in the largest Vietnamese community outside Vietnam, is
they are Capitalists.
The various wars the US is fighting around the world have all the appearance of draining
the US economy and forcing it to collapse. Which in the world of soccer is referred to as an
"own goal."
That is, the US' largest enemy appears as itself.
1914 there were a number of Empires, British, French, German, Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman,
Russian, et, and the US.
By the 1920s there were many less.
By the 1960s few.
Today, one, the US.
In California, where I live, manufactured goods used to come from the east, over the
mountains. Today it appears few goods come over the mountains from the east.
One wonders if the union will last, for how long, and if it's ending will be bloody or
peaceful.
I came back from Vietnam feeling that I had just bathed in a septic lagoon. It was a war
based on a false moral premiss, and the obvious was apparent to anyone properly informed. In
a war that is at its foundation a moral outrage, even if you win you lose. Added to our
present situation is the fact that no one will read the Koran READ THE KORAN ..(the Penguin
Classic translation will do nicely) then come back and we'll talk about "hearts and minds".
The halls of power are everywhere stacked with sociopaths, narcissists, and culpable
morons.
David Halberstam from the Best and Brightest:
"The truth of the war never entered the upper-level American calculations; that this was a
revolutionary war, and that the other side held title to the revolution because of the
colonial war which had just ended. This most simple fact entered into the estimates of the
American intelligence community and made them quite accurate. But it never entered into the
calculations of the principals, for a variety of reasons; among other things to see the other
side in terms of nationalism or as revolutionaries might mean a re-evaluation of whether the
United States was even fighting on the right side. In contrast, the question of Communism and
anti-Communism as opposed to revolution and anti-revolution was far more convenient for
American policy."
The Vietnam War could never have been won by the USA. Invasion of the North at worst would
have started a nuclear war (as Russia threaten) or at best a wider war with the Chinese
Peoples Army which had ended in a tie a decade before in Korea.
Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria are repeats except without the draft there is inadequate
manpower. The USA's Great Game uses proxy forces that they supply and then fight; the
Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS. Kurds will soon be added to the list. These wars likewise cannot
be won. Counter insurgency wars have been won against minorities who do not have outside
support or safe havens; the American Indian Wars or Australia for example. This is fairly
clear. Then why don't the experts, West Point graduates, see it? First, it is hard to admit
that it all for nothing. Second, the ruling ideology in the West; neo-liberalism, advocates
the free movement of people, goods and services. The way mankind ends wars is with strong
borders, home based militias and peace treaties. This is antithesis to western plutocrats.
The military is doing what their bosses want them to do.
I think the thing that always needs to put out in front of any discussion of the
euphemistically named 'Vietnam War' is that there literally wouldn't have been a war if not
for US interference. Debates about whether we could have 'won' or not, or if the US should
have 'intervened' in the first place always seem to ignore the fact that this wasn't just
some regional conflict that the US decided to interject itself into. If we had allowed the
elections stipulated by the 1954 Geneva Accords to happen, rather than seeking to make the
South into a permanent puppet regime, there wouldn't have been any war. Going even further
back, if we hadn't given our support to the French to continue their colonial rule there
probably wouldn't have even been a First Indochina War, or it would have at least been far
shorter.
Memorable books that I was reading at the time and shortly thereafter:
"A Viet Cong Memoir," by Truong Nhu Tang, a massively detailed account of his own personal
journey from a privileged family serving the French, to a leader of the Viet Cong war against
the US invaders.
Frances Fitzgerald's "The Fire in the Lake" What the American invaders did not understand
nor care to learn about Vietnamese society and customs, that did them in as much as anything
else in that war.
"Betrayal" by Marine Colonel William Corson;
"Our Own Worst Enemy" by William J Lederer;
"The Viet-Nam Reader," edited by Marcus Raskin and Bernard Fall
Neil Sheehan's "A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam"
"Sideshow: Kissinger, Nixon, and the Destruction of Cambodia" by William Shawcross (This
is an explosive, massively researched, highly detailed and horrifying account of Kissinger's
deliberate destruction of the land and the people of what until then had been the "bread
basket of SE Asia" and the most contented society on earth.)
Why would anyone blame de Gaulle WRT to anything in Indochina? De Gaulle didn't take over
France until several years after their Vietnam debacle, and de Gaulle was the man who got the
French out of Algeria (he nearly got assassinated for this). De Gaulle was an authoritarian
French nationalist, but he was neither an imperialist nor a sabre-rattler.
As the author alludes, the war in Vietnam was essentially unwinnable because it failed to
meet a basic precept for success in any war: It did not have a higher purpose. Ditto
Afghanistan and Iraq.
Raises fundamental questions regarding military action as the geopolitical default option
of choice, which as the title to the post suggests, is not desired by the MIC.
"... In December 2016, President Obama closed two diplomatic compounds used by Russia in retaliation for "hacking the election," expelling 35 diplomats amid fresh sanctions. Then in July 2017, the Senate voted to increase sanctions on Russia by a 98-2 margin, which Trump reluctantly signed off on August 2 - stoking fears over a trade war after comments by Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev that the law had ended hope for improving US-Russia relations. ..."
"... Perhaps one of the main drivers behind Russian oligarchs shedding assets before the U.S. Treasury's "indices of corruption" are released is an Executive Order signed quietly in Late December which freezes the U.S. housed assets of foreign government officials or executives of foreign corporations deemed to be corrupt. ..."
"... In fact, anyone in the world who has "materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material or technological support for, or goods or services" to foreigners targeted by the Executive Order is subject to frozen assets. This would apply to D.C. lobbyists working for corrupt Russian oligarchs, or U.S. government officials who have, say, effectuated a uranium deal deemed corrupt. ..."
"... As such, tomorrow's release of "corrupt oligarchs" by the US Treasury Department may have serious consequences for the finances of Americans who have done any type of business with any Russians deemed corrupt by the United States. ..."
The US Ambassador to Russia urged the Kremlin to react "calmly" to the U.S. Treasury
Department's list of "corrupt oligarchs" due Monday. The list is designed to "name and shame"
elite Russians into thinking twice before engaging in business with Putin's government. It will
be up to Congress to decide whether the list should be published.
"I urge to take this report, based on its real and not a contrived essence and without
emotions, because relations between our countries are far from being exhausted by this one
legal act, and I was reminded about it in Washington, where I was two weeks ago," - US
Ambassador John Huntsman via - newsru (translated)
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters two weeks ago that Russia will
react to any punitive measures against its businessmen, stating "The principle of reciprocity
remains," suggesting that Putin would employ a commensurate response to a U.S. crackdown on
oligarchs.
As we
previously reported , the list was created pursuant to an August, 2017 law requiring the
Treasury and State Departments identify officials and oligarchs as determined by "their
closeness to the Russian regime and their net worth" in order to penalize the Kremlin for its
alleged meddling in the 2016 election.
The report is intended to "name and shame" Russia's elite who prop up Putin , and to send
a message "that Putin's aggression in terms of Russian interference in our elections will be
very costly to them," said Daniel Fried, a former assistant secretary of State who led the
State Department Russia sanctions office.
It is likely to signal to Russia's political and business classes that they'd be better
off maintaining a distance from the Putin government, and it could lead to further sanctions
against individuals who participate in corruption, Fried said.
" The Russian elite reacted with something between anxiety and panic about the prospect of
this list ," Fried said. "They focused on this immediately, and they're very worried about
it. " - USA Today
The list will include "indices of corruption with respect to those individuals," along with
any foreign assets they hold. According to Bloomberg, this sent Russian fat cats into a
liquidation frenzy - with many scrambling to contact D.C. lobbyists in order to buy their way
off the list.
Some people who think they're likely to land on the list have stress-tested the potential
impact on their investments , two people with knowledge of the matter said. Others are
liquidating holdings , according to their U.S. advisers.
Russian businessmen have approached former Treasury and State Department officials with
experience in sanctions for help staying off the list, said Dan Fried, who previously worked
at the State Department and said he turned down such offers. Some Russians sent proxies to
Washington in an attempt to avoid lobbying disclosures, according to one person that was
contacted . -
Bloomberg
Corruption Index
The Treasury's report must include "indices of corruption , " which will list any foreign
assets next to an oligarch considered corrupt. " Because of the nervousness that the Russian
business community is facing, a number of oligarchs are already beginning to wind back
businesses , treating them as if they are already designated, to stay ahead of it," said Daniel
Tannebaum, head of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP 's global financial
sanctions unit.
Russia's well-connected billionaires have hired law firms to try to keep them off the
list, said Ariel Cohen, a Russia analyst at the Atlantic Council think tank. Russians believe
the list is a first step toward increasing the current 29 Russians under U.S. sanctions by
adding 40 to 400 names, Cohen added. - USA Today
Vladimir Putin has warned wealthy nationals over worsening U.S. sanctions, and provided them
with a capital amnesty program designed to allow oligarchs to repatriate some of their overseas
assets. Meanwhile, Putin has issued
special bonds which will allow the wealthy to hold assets outside of the reach of the U.S.
Treasury.
Separate sanctions handed down
As we reported earlier in the month, Treasury officials are concerned that people will
confuse Monday's list of corrupt oligarchs with separate sanctions handed down to Russians over
the Ukraine crisis.
On Friday, the Treausry Department added 11 individuals to a "blacklist" which now contains
21 Russian or
Ukraainian nationals and nine companies - most of which are power or energy firms. The
Treasury's announcement reads in part:
WASHINGTON –The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control
(OFAC) today designated 21 individuals and 9 entities under four Executive Orders (E.O.s)
related to Russia and Ukraine, including three individuals and two entities related to
Russia's transfer of four turbines made by a Russian-German joint venture to Crimea. Today's
action is part of Treasury's continued commitment to maintain sanctions pressure on Russia
until it fully implements its commitments under the Minsk agreements. This action underscores
the U.S. government's opposition to Russia's occupation of Crimea and firm refusal to
recognize its attempted annexation of the peninsula. These sanctions follow the European
Union's recent extension of sanctions and reinforce our continued unity in supporting
Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
As a result of today's action, any property or interests in property of the designated
persons in the possession or control of U.S. persons or within the United States must be
blocked. Additionally, transactions by U.S. persons involving these persons are generally
prohibited.
"The U.S. government is committed to maintaining the sovereignty and territorial integrity
of Ukraine and to targeting those who attempt to undermine the Minsk agreements," said
Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin. "Those who provide goods, services, or material support
to individuals and entities sanctioned by the United States for their activities in Ukraine
are engaging in behavior that could expose them to U.S. sanctions."
Today, OFAC also identified 12 subsidiaries that are owned 50 percent or more by
previously sanctioned Russian companies to provide additional information to assist the
private sector with sanctions compliance.
Relations between Washington and Moscow have deteriorated since 2014, when Russia annexed
Crimea, sparking the conflict in Ukraine. Diplomatic ties have worstened between the two
nuclear superpowers, with Washington accusing Moscow of interfering in the 2016 US presidential
election.
In December 2016, President Obama
closed two diplomatic compounds used by Russia in retaliation for "hacking the election,"
expelling 35 diplomats amid fresh sanctions. Then in July 2017, the Senate voted to increase
sanctions on Russia by a 98-2 margin, which Trump reluctantly
signed off on August 2 - stoking fears over a trade war after comments by Russian prime
minister Dmitry Medvedev that the law had ended hope for improving US-Russia relations.
Several weeks later in August 2017, the Trump administration "thanked" Russia again - giving
them 72 hours to vacate three more diplomatic facilities in San Francisco, Washington DC, and
New York City.
Towards the end of 2017, Washington took a series of steps to further vilify Russia,
branding the country a "rival power" and "revisionist power," while imposing new sanctions on
several individuals linked to the Kremlin.
Trump's Executive Order
Perhaps one of the main drivers behind Russian oligarchs shedding assets before the U.S.
Treasury's "indices of corruption" are released is an
Executive Order signed quietly in Late December which freezes the U.S. housed assets of
foreign government officials or executives of foreign corporations deemed to be corrupt.
In fact, anyone in the world who has "materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial,
material or technological support for, or goods or services" to foreigners targeted by the
Executive Order is subject to frozen assets. This would apply to D.C. lobbyists working for
corrupt Russian oligarchs, or U.S. government officials who have, say, effectuated a uranium
deal deemed corrupt.
As such, tomorrow's release of "corrupt oligarchs" by the US Treasury Department may have
serious consequences for the finances of Americans who have done any type of business with any
Russians deemed corrupt by the United States.
Completely unrealistic assessment of the situation. Essentially "kicking the can down the road:" approach. Looks
like Trump administration is now neocon administration. Kind of Obama II or Bush III.
Military Keysianism (in the style of national socialism) all over again. But the US empire requires now spending that can
hardly be afforded by US economy. Add to this care of disabled veterans, number of which is growing each year (while casualties
rate due to modern medicine is low, number of disabled soldiers is substantial).
Hopefully over $100
per barrel oil will sober some hot Pentagon heads. Neocons, who now dominate foreign policy of Trump administration, are hopeless in this respect, they will
pursue the dream of global dominance and American empire ("America uber alles") till the last American (excluding of cause themselves
-- 99% of them are chickenhawks -- and their families)
So 700 billion dollars will be spent not matter what suffering and deprivations for ordinary
Americans (no jobs, no hope) it entails
The USA population lose much treasure and has a deteriorating standard of living to maintain
an empire at the behest of neoliberal elite... This sentiment is merely confirming the US public
discontent with interventionism and neocon foreign policy that had been revived by the 2003 Iraq
invasion. The recent J. Wallin Opinion Research
survey revealed that 71 percent of Americans believed Congress should pass legislation that
restrained military action. Due to power of MIC an overblown defense budget does not get proper
the scrutiny of any other form of public spending. the United States' annual military budget
around $700 billion. Those guys need war to justify it.
Much of those costs have been borne by ordinary Americans -- from paying for war debts to
being at greater risk of terrorist attacks -- while the war profits go to a select group of
corporations. It is difficult to imagine any single decision in any other realm of policy that
has cost so much, delivered little, and harmed America and the rest of the world so
irreparably.
Notable quotes:
"... our competitive edge has eroded in every domain of warfare, air, land, sea, space and cyberspace, and it is continuing to erode. ..."
"... to keep the peace for one more year, one more month, one more week, one more day. To ensure our diplomats who are working to solve problems do so from a position of strength ..."
"... It is incumbent upon us to field a more lethal force if our nation is to retain the ability to defend ourselves and what we stand for. The defense strategy's three primary lines of effort will restore our comparative military advantage. ..."
"... We're going to build a more lethal force. We will strengthen our traditional alliances and building new partnerships with other nations. And at the same time we'll reform our department's business practices for performance and affordability. ..."
"... We will modernize key capabilities, recognizing we cannot expect success fighting tomorrow's conflicts with yesterday's weapons or equipment. Investments in space and cyberspace, nuclear deterrent forces, missile defense, advanced autonomous systems, and resilient and agile logistics will provide our high-quality troops what they need to win. ..."
"... And again, the 40-odd nations that stand shoulder-to-shoulder in NATO's mission in Afghanistan. ..."
"... Our third line of effort serves as the foundation for our competitive edge: reforming the business practices of the department to provide both solvency and security, thereby gaining the full benefit from every dollar spent, in which way we will gain and hold the trust of Congress and the American people. ..."
We face growing threats from revisionist powers as different as China and Russia are from
each other, nations that do seek to create a world consistent with their authoritarian models,
pursuing veto authority over other nations' economic, diplomatic and security decisions.
Rogue regimes like North Korea and Iran persist in taking outlaw actions that threaten
regional and even global stability. Oppressing their own people and shredding their own
people's dignity and human rights, they push their warped views outward.
And despite the defeat of ISIS' physical caliphate, violent extremist organizations like
ISIS or Lebanese Hezbollah or al Qaida continue to sow hatred, destroying peace and murdering
innocents across the globe.
In this time of change, our military is still strong. Yet our competitive edge has
eroded in every domain of warfare, air, land, sea, space and cyberspace, and it is continuing
to erode.
Rapid technological change, the negative impact on military readiness is resulting from the
longest continuous stretch of combat in our nation's history and defense spending caps, because
we have been operating also for nine of the last 10 years under continuing resolutions that
have created an overstretched and under-resourced military.
Our military's role is to keep the peace; to keep the peace for one more year, one more
month, one more week, one more day. To ensure our diplomats who are working to solve problems
do so from a position of strength and giving allies confidence in us. This confidence is
underpinned by the assurance that our military will win should diplomacy fail.
When unveiling his national security strategy, President Trump said, "Weakness is the surest
path to conflict, and unquestioned strength is the most certain means of defense."
Ladies and gentlemen, we have no room for complacency, and history makes clear that America
has no preordained right to victory on the battlefield. Simply, we must be the best if the
values that grew out of the Enlightenment are to survive.
It is incumbent upon us to field a more lethal force if our nation is to retain the
ability to defend ourselves and what we stand for. The defense strategy's three primary lines
of effort will restore our comparative military advantage.
We're going to build a more lethal force. We will strengthen our traditional alliances
and building new partnerships with other nations. And at the same time we'll reform our
department's business practices for performance and affordability.
In doing this, we will earn the trust of the American people and Congress, if their defense
dollars are well spent.
But let me go through each of the lines of effort. And I want to start with lethality,
because everything we do in the department must contribute to the lethality of our
military.
The paradox of war is that an enemy will attack any perceived weakness. So we in America
cannot adopt a single preclusive form of warfare. Rather we must be able to fight across the
spectrum of conflict.
This means that the size and the composition of our force matters. The nation must field
sufficient capable forces to deter conflict. And if deterrence fails, we must win.
We will modernize key capabilities, recognizing we cannot expect success fighting
tomorrow's conflicts with yesterday's weapons or equipment. Investments in space and
cyberspace, nuclear deterrent forces, missile defense, advanced autonomous systems, and
resilient and agile logistics will provide our high-quality troops what they need to
win.
Changing our forces' posture will prioritize readiness for warfighting for major combat,
making us strategically predictable for our allies and operationally unpredictable for any
adversary.
Increasing the lethality of our troops, supported by our defense civilians, requires us to
reshape our approach that managing our outstanding talent, reinvigorating our military
education and honing civilian workforce expertise.
The creativity and talent of the department is our deepest wellspring of strength, and one
that warrants greater investment.
And to those who would threaten America's experiment in democracy, they must know: If you
challenge us it will be your longest and your worst day. Work with our diplomats; you don't
want to fight the Department of Defense.
The second line of effort I noted was to strengthen alliances as we build new partnerships,
as well.
In my past, I fought many times and never did I fight in a solely American formation. It was
always alongside foreign troops.
Now, as Winston Churchill once said, the only thing harder than fighting with allies is
fighting without them. But we are going to be stronger together in recognizing that our
military will be designed and trained and ready to fight alongside allies.
History proves that nations with allies thrive, an approach to security and prosperity that
has served the United States well in keeping peace and winning war. Working by, with and
through allies who carry their equitable share allows us to amass the greatest possible
strength.
We carried a disproportionate share of the defense burden for the democracies in the
post-World War II era. The growing economic strength of today's democracies and partners
dictates they must now step up and do more.
When together we pool our resources and share responsibility for the common defense,
individual nations' security burdens become lighter. This has been demonstrated right now,
today, for example, by over 70 nations and international organizations of the Defeat-ISIS
campaign that is successfully conducting operations in the Middle East. And again, the
40-odd nations that stand shoulder-to-shoulder in NATO's mission in Afghanistan.
To strengthen and work jointly with more allies, our organizations, processes and procedures
must be ally-friendly. The department will do more than just listen to other nations' ideas. We
will be willing to be persuaded by them, recognizing that all not -- that not all good ideas
come from the country with the most aircraft carriers.
This line of effort will bolster an extended network capable of decisively meeting the
challenges of our time. So we're going to make the military more lethal, and we are going to
build and strengthen traditional alliances, as well as go out and find some new partners --
maybe nontraditional partners -- as we do what the Greatest Generation did, coming home from
World War II, when they built the alliances that have served us so well, right through
today.
Our third line of effort serves as the foundation for our competitive edge: reforming
the business practices of the department to provide both solvency and security, thereby gaining
the full benefit from every dollar spent, in which way we will gain and hold the trust of
Congress and the American people.
It is OK for an empire to be hated and feared, it doesn't work so good when Glory slowly fades and he empire instead
becomes hated and despised
Notable quotes:
"... There's only one explanation: Tillerson must be so blinded by hubris that he couldn't figure out what Erdogan's reaction would be. He must have thought that, "Whatever Uncle Sam says, goes." Only it doesn't work like that anymore. ..."
"... Simply put, Washington is losing the war quite dramatically due in large part to the emergence of a new coalition (Russia-Syria-Iran-Hezbollah) that has made great strides in Syria and that is committed to preserve the Old World Order, a system that is built on the principles of national sovereignty, self determination and non intervention. ..."
"... Tillerson's blunder will only make Washington's task all the more difficult by drawing Turkey into the fray in an effort to quash Uncle Sam's Kurdish proxies. ..."
"... In an effort to add insult to injury, Tillerson didn't even have the decency to discuss the matter with Erdogan– his NATO ally– before making the announcement! ..."
"... One day you're a terrorist, and the next day you're not depending on whether Washington can use you or not. ..."
"... Now the US has to choose between its own proxy army (The Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces) and a NATO ally that occupies the critical crossroads between Asia and Europe ..."
"... "In response to President Erdoğan's call on the United States to end the delivery of weapons to the [Democratic Union Party] PYD-YPG, President Trump said that his country no longer supplied the group with weapons and pledged not to resume the weapons delivery in the future," the sources added." (Hurriyet) ..."
"... So far, the only clear winner in this latest conflagration has been Vladimir Putin, the levelheaded pragmatist who hews to Napoleon's directive to "Never interfere with an enemy while he's in the process of destroying himself." ..."
"... Putin gave Erdogan the green light to conduct "Operation Olive Branch" in order to pave the way for an eventual Syrian takeover of the Northwestern portion of the country up to the Turkish border. Moscow removed its troops from the Afrin quarter (where the current fighting is taking place) but not before it presented the Kurds with the option of conceding control of the area to the central government in Damascus. The Kurds rejected that offer and elected to fight instead. ..."
"... Erdogan's demand that Trump stop the flow of weapons to the SDF will benefit Russia and its allies on the ground even more than they will benefit Turkey. It's another win-win situation for Putin. ..."
So why did Tillerson think Erdogan would respond differently?
There's only one explanation: Tillerson must be so blinded by hubris that he couldn't figure
out what Erdogan's reaction would be. He must have thought that, "Whatever Uncle Sam says,
goes." Only it doesn't work like that anymore.
The US has lost its ability to shape events in
the Middle East, particularly in Syria where its jihadist proxies have been rolled back on
nearly every front. The US simply doesn't have sufficient forces on the ground to determine the
outcome, nor is it respected as an honest broker, a dependable ally or a reliable steward of
regional security. The US is just one of many armed-factions struggling to gain the upper hand
in an increasingly fractious and combustible battlespace. Simply put, Washington is losing the
war quite dramatically due in large part to the emergence of a new coalition
(Russia-Syria-Iran-Hezbollah) that has made great strides in Syria and that is committed to
preserve the Old World Order, a system that is built on the principles of national sovereignty,
self determination and non intervention.
Washington opposes this system and is doing everything
in its power dismantle it by redrawing borders, toppling elected leaders, and installing its
own stooges to execute its diktats. Tillerson's blunder will only make Washington's task all
the more difficult by drawing Turkey into the fray in an effort to quash Uncle Sam's Kurdish
proxies.
In an effort to add insult to injury, Tillerson didn't even have the decency to discuss the
matter with Erdogan– his NATO ally– before making the announcement! Can you imagine
how furious Erdogan must have been? Shouldn't the president of Turkey expect better treatment
from his so-called friends in Washington who use Turkish air fields to supply their ground
troops and to carry out their bombing raids in Syria? But instead of gratitude, he gets a big
kick in the teeth with the announcement that the US is hopping into bed with his mortal
enemies, the Kurds. Check out this excerpt from Wednesday's Turkish daily, The Hurriyet ,which
provides a bit of background on the story:
"It is beyond any doubt that the U.S. military and administration knew that the People's
Protection Units (YPG) had organic ties with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which
Washington officially recognizes as a terrorist group .The YPG is the armed wing of the
Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is the political wing of the PKK in Syria. They share the
same leadership the same budget, the same arsenal, the same chain of command from the Kandil
Mountains in Iraq, and the same pool of militants. So the PYD/YPG is actually not a
"PKK-affiliated" group, it is a sub-geographical unit of the same organization .
Knowing that the YPG and the PKK are effectively equal, and legally not wanting to appear
to be giving arms to a terrorist organization, the U.S. military already asked the YPG to
"change the brand" back in 2015. U.S.
Special Forces Commander General Raymond Thomas said during an Aspen Security Forum
presentation on July 22, 2017 that he had personally proposed the name change to the YPG.
"With about a day's notice [the YPG] declared that it was now the Syrian Democratic Forces
[SDF]," Thomas said to laughter from the audience. "I thought it was a stroke of brilliance
to put 'democracy' in there somewhere. It gave them a little bit of credibility."
(Hurriyet)
Ha, ha, ha. Isn't that funny? One day you're a terrorist, and the next day you're not
depending on whether Washington can use you or not. Is it any wonder why Erdogan is so pissed
off?
So now a messy situation gets even messier. Now the US has to choose between its own proxy
army (The Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces) and a NATO ally that occupies the critical
crossroads between Asia and Europe. Washington's plan to pivot to Asia by controlling vital
resources and capital flowing between the continents depends largely on its ability to keep
regional leaders within its orbit. That means Washington needs Erdogan in their camp which, for
the time being, he is not.
Apparently, there have been phone calls between Presidents Trump and Erdogan, but early
accounts saying that Trump scolded Erdogan have already been disproven. In fact, Trump and his
fellows have been bending-over-backwards to make amends for Tillerson's foolish slip-up.
According to the Hurriyet:
"The readout issued by the White House does not accurately reflect the content of
President [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan's phone call with President [Donald] Trump," "President
Trump did not share any 'concerns [about] escalating violence' with regard to the ongoing
military operation in Afrin." The Turkish sources also stressed that Trump did not use the
words "destructive and false rhetoric coming from Turkey."
Erdoğan reiterated that the People's Protection Units (YPG) must withdraw to the East
of the Euphrates River and pledged the protection of Manbij by the Turkish-backed Free Syrian
Army (FSA)
"In response to President Erdoğan's call on the United States to end the delivery of
weapons to the [Democratic Union Party] PYD-YPG, President Trump said that his country no
longer supplied the group with weapons and pledged not to resume the weapons delivery in the
future," the sources added." (Hurriyet)
If this report can be trusted, (Turkish media is no more reliable than US media) then it is
Erdogan who is issuing the demands not Trump. Erdogan insists that all YPG units be redeployed
east of the Euphrates and that all US weapons shipments to Washington's Kurdish proxies stop
immediately. We should know soon enough whether Washington is following Erdogan's orders or
not.
So far, the only clear winner in this latest conflagration has been Vladimir Putin, the
levelheaded pragmatist who hews to Napoleon's directive to "Never interfere with an enemy while
he's in the process of destroying himself."
Putin gave Erdogan the green light to conduct "Operation Olive Branch" in order to pave the
way for an eventual Syrian takeover of the Northwestern portion of the country up to the
Turkish border. Moscow removed its troops from the Afrin quarter (where the current fighting is
taking place) but not before it presented the Kurds with the option of conceding control of the
area to the central government in Damascus. The Kurds rejected that offer and elected to fight
instead. Here's an account of what happened:
Nearly a week ago, [a] meeting between Russian officials and Kurdish leaders took place.
Moscow suggested Syrian State becomes only entity in charge of the northern border. The Kurds
refused. It was immediately after that that the Turkish Generals were invited to Moscow.
Having the Syrian State in control of its Northern Border wasn't the only Russian demand. The
other was that the Kurds hand back the oil fields in Deir al Zor. The Kurds refused
suggesting that the US won't allow that anyway.
Putin has repeatedly expressed concern about US supplies of advanced weapons that had been
given to the Kurdish SDF. According to the military website South Front:
"Uncontrolled deliveries of modern weapons, including reportedly the deliveries of the
man-portable air defense systems, by the Pentagon to the pro-US forces in northern Syria,
have contributed to the rapid escalation of tensions in the region and resulted in the launch
of a special operation by the Turkish troops." (SouthFront)
Erdogan's demand that Trump stop the flow of weapons to the SDF will benefit Russia and its
allies on the ground even more than they will benefit Turkey. It's another win-win situation
for Putin.
The split between the NATO allies seems to work in Putin's favor as well, although, to his
credit, he has not tried to exploit the situation. Putin ascribes to the notion that relations
between nations are not that different than relations between people, they must be built on a
solid foundation of trust which gradually grows as each party proves they are steady, reliable
partners who can be counted on to honor their commitments and keep their word. Putin's honesty,
even-handedness and reliability have greatly enhanced Russia's power in the region and his
influence in settling global disputes. That is particularly evident in Syria where Moscow is at
the center of all decision-making.
As we noted earlier, Washington has made every effort to patch up relations with Turkey and
put the current foofaraw behind them. The White House has issued a number of servile statements
acknowledging Turkey's "legitimate security concerns" and their "commitment to work with Turkey
as a NATO ally." And there's no doubt that the administration's charm offensive will probably
succeed in bringing the narcissistic and mercurial Erdogan back into the fold. But for how
long?
At present, Erdogan is still entertains illusions of cobbling together a second Ottoman
empire overseen by the Grand Sultan Tayyip himself, but when he finally comes to his senses and
realizes the threat that Washington poses to Turkish independence and sovereignty, he may
reconsider and throw his lot with Putin.
In any event, Washington has clearly tipped its hand revealing its amended strategy for
Syria, a plan that abandons the pretext of a "war on terror" and focuses almost-exclusively on
military remedies to the "great power" confrontation outlined in Trump's new National Defense
Strategy. Washington is fully committed to building an opposition proxy-army in its east Syria
enclave that can fend off loyalist troops, launch destabilizing attacks on the regime, and
eventually, effect the political changes that help to achieve its imperial ambitions.
Tillerson's announcement may have prompted some unexpected apologies and back-tracking, but
the policy remains the same. Washington will persist in its effort to divide the country and
remove Assad until an opposing force prevents it from doing so. And, that day could be sooner
than many people imagine. Join the debate on
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"... The plundering of Greece is so huge that the Greek people don't realize it. Tsipras doesn't wear a tie. He was going to stop imperialism. But Tsipras works for them. Do you remember? There was a finance minister who rode around on a motorcycle. An academic. They got rid of him. I mentioned that on this programme in the past. They will sack that Greek finance minister and then Greece will sign the agreement with the INF. I said it. When they had got rid of the finance minister they brought an Englishman and the Englishman became a minister of the Greek government and they signed. We said that on our programme here before it happened. ..."
"... The imperialist model hasn't changed. Countries get into debt. They sink into crisis. The property of the people is transferred and after that they simply change the government. The same thing happened in Turkey in 2001. They sent Kemal Derviş to Turkey to put things in order for the imperialists. They appointed him Roman governor in Turkey. But fortunately Devlet Bahçeli was found to spoil their game for them," ..."
"... Erdoğan's advisor stated, and continued: "I feel sorry for the Greeks. They ..."
Greece will be in a "non-functional condition" until 2020, predicts the advisor to the
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Yiğit Bulut, who characterizes the Prime
Minister Alexis Tsipras as a "tool of the imperialists".
Speaking on the state television programme "Deep Analysis" he gave the example of Greece to
show the consequences of imperialism for global political developments.
"They sold off everything. The banks have passed into the hands of the Germans. They have
been left with nothing. People in Greece wait for products from Germany and Italy. There is a
film about 300 Spartans who fall heroically in battle. Those 300 of Leonidas should come back
to Greece now, because nothing has remained standing.
The plundering of Greece is so huge that the Greek people don't realize it. Tsipras
doesn't wear a tie. He was going to stop imperialism. But Tsipras works for them. Do you
remember? There was a finance minister who rode around on a motorcycle. An academic. They got
rid of him. I mentioned that on this programme in the past. They will sack that Greek finance
minister and then Greece will sign the agreement with the INF. I said it. When they had got rid
of the finance minister they brought an Englishman and the Englishman became a minister of the
Greek government and they signed. We said that on our programme here before it
happened.
The imperialist model hasn't changed. Countries get into debt. They sink into crisis.
The property of the people is transferred and after that they simply change the government. The
same thing happened in Turkey in 2001. They sent Kemal Derviş to Turkey to put things in
order for the imperialists. They appointed him Roman governor in Turkey. But fortunately Devlet
Bahçeli was found to spoil their game for them,"Erdoğan's advisor stated,
and continued: "I feel sorry for the Greeks. Theyarevictimsofimperialism."
The above declaration by the Turkish official was made to the Turkish state television. It
was translated for DDP from the Greek sites that reproduced it, under the headline "Erdogan's
advisor makes provocative declarations".
Turkey still occupies a large part of Cyprus after having invaded the island in 1974 and
expelled more than 200,000 Greeks from their homes. It has territorial claims on Greek Aegean
islands and deploys the world's largest fleet of landing craft some miles from them. The
Turkish National Assembly has voted a resolution threatening Greece with war in the event of
use by Athens of its right to expand Greek territorial waters to 12 miles. It is only natural
that Greeks do not much appreciate a Turkish official speaking of their country in this way. It
is indeed a "provocation" from the point of view of rules of diplomatic behavior, given that
Mr. Erdogan is preparing his visit to Greece.
Of course Greeks know only too well that the description of the Turkish official is quite
close to the truth. It is probable that the advisor of the Turkish President does not so much
have the intention of provoking Greeks as influencing Turkish politics by showing his public
opinion what happens to a country that surrenders to "Western Imperialism".
There is a deep irony to Turkey depicting, as it does here, the EU, Germany, the Eurozone,
NATO and big finance destroying a member-state of the EU, and using this argument
rhetorically!
Remember how the USA ignited the Ukraine to punish the Russians for their thwarting of the
planned US attack on Syria? Well, the very same Ukraine has recently passed a law abolishing
the "anti-terrorist operation" in the Donbass and declaring the Donbass "occupied territory".
Under Ukie law, Russia is now officially an "aggressor state". This means that the Ukronazis
have now basically rejected the Minsk Agreements and are in a quasi-open state of war with
Russia. The chances of a full-scale Ukronazi attack on the Donbass are now even higher then
before, especially before or during the soccer World Cup in Moscow this summer (remember
Saakashvili?). Having been ridiculed (again) with their Border Security Force in Syria, the US
Americans will now seek a place to take revenge on the evil Russkies and this place will most
likely be the Ukraine. And we can always count the Israelis to find a pretext to continue to
murder Palestinians and bomb Syria. As for the Saudis, they appear to be temporarily busy
fighting each other. So unless the Empire does something really crazy, the only place it can
lash out with little to lose (for itself) is the eastern Ukraine. The Novorussians understand
that. May God help them.
Saker, interesting analysis. 1 tiny point of criticism:
Remember how the USA ignited the Ukraine to punish the Russians for their thwarting of
the planned US attack on Syria?
If I am not mistaken the CIA fomented "Orange revolution" in Ukraine was in 2014, whereas
Russia stepped into the Syrian war in 2015. So in the quoted sentence, it seems you got the
sequence of events back to front.
Ha-ha! Goddam Russkies scorched the Amero-ISIS arse and now Russo-Turks are gaslighting the
Kurds and their ten 'Murican lilypads. It's time for a diversionary Great Patriotic Ukrainian
War, just as soon as Porko sobers up.
What occurred in 2014 was the Maidan psy-op. As far as I recall, the only thing
significant that happened in Ukraine in 2010 was the election of Yanukovych.
In an article about Syria, Russia is omnipresent and the article ends by talking about
Ukraine. Nothing could better illustrate the fact that Putin has painted himself into a
corner in both places. He is irreversibly bogged down in Syria and any deal he makes with the
Kurds will just bog him down even more. Putin is a sitting duck. The US can lower the boom on
him at any time by relaunching the war and there's nothing he can do about it. And, of
course, the author makes clear that all this is "about" Ukraine. Syria is a proxy war. But in
Ukraine also, Putin has painted himself into a corner. He can't go forward, he can't go
backwards and he can't stay where he is!
Looks to me like he has done very well, the Ukraine is a basket case, surviving on little
more than borrowed money(I see on the QT that they are back to having to buy coal from Russia
AGAIN) and sooner rather than later there will be another coup as they find that even the EU
don';t want them.Syria why does he need to make a deal with the Kurd's for they are not his
problem,if anyone makes a deal with the Kurd's it will have be Syria,as far as that little
chunk we carved out just what good is it landlocked with no access to a water port,as normal
your trolling along with the mighty U.S. which is little more than a paper tiger with its
involvement in Afghanistan Africa and other places of interest as it tries to save what can't
be saved,the EMPIRE
I am not sure there is any evidence that Pres Putin needs t do anything.
He has no intention of raking the Ukraine. Not an issue. He's responding the consequences
of a western incited violent revolution that spun out of control -- and is protecting "ethnic
Russians" a dynamic that plagues Europe and Asia.
In Syria he is not launching a campaign of conquest but supporting. Anyone who thinks
Russia is caught in a vice is sorely mistaken. I can see from the comments that
misunderstanding the motivations of pothers remains in play and that is not encouraging.
Yo be clear, I have full faith of US might. we can bring a formidable amount of force on
any situation -- it's frightening, just how formidable we are. The question remains
first should we
second how long we need to sustain it
third tested against multiple adversaries (of our own making) in multiple locations
fourth tested against other modern states who themselves have engaged in tech superior
forces
fifth the strategic advantages -- short verses long term
Just because one can -- doesn't . . .
Nor am I ignoring that we have allies willing to take on Russia, but when push comes to
shove . . . who knows. I think we are the ones getting played and as for trapped -- and
bogged down --
"... "The top American diplomat said his country is ready to help Poland continue to diversify its fuel supplies, including through the sale of U.S. liquefied natural gas, to reduce its dependence on Russia" ..."
Tillerson apes Hillary Clinton PR lines on Russia:
WARSAW (Reuters) - The United States sees the planned Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline between
Russia and Germany as a threat to Europe's energy security, U.S. Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson said on Saturday.
The rest of the Reuters article is garbage, so I'm not bothering with a link. . . Bloomberg
seems to spell out the larger rationale, at least:
"The top American diplomat said his country is ready to help Poland continue to diversify its
fuel supplies, including through the sale of U.S. liquefied natural gas, to reduce its
dependence on Russia"
Notice also that Secretary of Defense Mattis says that the US military is now focused on
"Great Power Conflicts" - so what is this, right back to the Hillary Clinton gameplan? At
least, Trump is unlikely to get any international support for reckless military actions, so
that's one good thing about him over Clinton.
"... As a former service member, Uncle Sam paid me to live in Europe for a couple years and sure opened my eyes (though they got their money out of me from an Iraq and A-stan deployment). I realized that many parts of US are overrated, crime ridden dumps even when compared to most places even in Eastern Europe. ..."
"... Europeans can thank US promoted defense freeloading so they can focus on beating the US on all quality of life measure including crime rates, mortality, longevity, health care, and other measures of happiness other than GDP such as not worrying about your kids getting massacred at school from yet another mass shooting. ..."
"... I'm a proud American but these infinitely proved wrong neocons keep resurrecting themselves. ..."
@deef, the ad hominem you begin with against the author shows where you are coming from.
George the Lesser revisionists like you never learn.
Where is the ROI on global policing? Selective sampling of wars? Where have you been for
the last 15 years as the US digs deeper within the biggest strategic blunder in the history
of the US? We could have done more useful things with the $5,000,000,000,000+ that was spent
on these dumb wars of choice such as manned mission to mars, universal insurance, pave the
freeways in gold
The US causes more unintended consequences and greater conflicts and deaths than the good
intentions they believe they are performing. See Syria, Iraq, Yemen, et al.
What's the casualty/death/missing numbers of Iraqis during the US's invasion vs. Saddam's
time? Is the average Iraqi happy to be there? I guess all that matters is that the US is
supposedly safer. Would any US citizen agree to that for the past 15 years?
And let's not kid ourselves, the State Dept. in any neocon administration is an extension
of the Department of Defense.
As a former service member, Uncle Sam paid me to live in Europe for a couple years and
sure opened my eyes (though they got their money out of me from an Iraq and A-stan
deployment). I realized that many parts of US are overrated, crime ridden dumps even when
compared to most places even in Eastern Europe.
Europeans can thank US promoted defense freeloading so they can focus on beating the US on
all quality of life measure including crime rates, mortality, longevity, health care, and
other measures of happiness other than GDP such as not worrying about your kids getting
massacred at school from yet another mass shooting.
I'm a proud American but these infinitely proved wrong neocons keep resurrecting
themselves.
I stand corrected, it is 17 years of continuous hole digging, tax dollar burning, and
amortization of the decline of future prosperity continues un-abated.
Sons and daughters born in 2001 of vets of these stupid wars of choice are now eligible to
fight the same end-stateless, no condition of victory wars with an expanded enemy set to
include peer competitors of Russia, China, N. Korea.
The annual soldier that dies on Jan. 1 of year X hand wringing editorial can continue
indefinitely.
@jk "I'm a proud American but these infinitely proved wrong neocons keep resurrecting
themselves."
Because we let them. We don't laugh them off television programs or kick them out of the
auditoriums where they keep inviting each other to appear. We don't punish elected
politicians (like Trump) who keep hiring them because they think we won't notice.
As far as I remember his posts Michael Kenny is "Israel-firster."
He does not care much about the US national security by definition, having different
priorities.
BTW it's a news for me that AEI launched such neocon stalwarts as "Frederick Kagan, John
Bolton, former vice president Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Eliot Cohen,
Michael Ledeen, Joshua Muravchik, David Frum, and Danielle Pletka."
It is a sad fact that Trump administration now is infiltrated with neocons, but in reality
how it can be different.
POTUS no longer defines the US foreign policy; MIC does (neocons can probably be better
understood as professional lobbyists of MIC). In a way, POTUS is now by-and-large ceremonial
figure, although Trump at least during the election campaign (and shortly after, say, before
April 2017 and Mueller commission) has had somewhat more isolationist views (his bellicosity
toward Iran and NK notwithstanding.) But he was quickly brought into the fold. Now he acts
like a regular Republican President, say, like Bush III.
The latter just demonstrates the power of MIC.
That's why there a surprising level of continuity of foreign policy between different
administrations.
My impression is that Israel also is effectively acting as a MIC lobbyist injecting some
money they got via military help into the USA politics directly, or indirectly.
Fantastic article. A very plausible hypothesis. "The Deal. Connected people, in-the-know, claim that a top-secret agreement
was reached between the late Mr Yeltsin and his cronies, on one side, and The West, on the other side, in 1991. Yeltsin et al had sold
Russia's interests down the river, and in return, The West allowed the bastards to hoard their ill-gotten gains in the Western financial
system. Yeltsin et al had promised to let the Soviet republics go; to disarm; to follow the Washington Consensus, i.e. to stick to the
liberal economic model; to allow the free import of consumer goods; to allow Western access to the Russian military complex; to let
the West write Russian laws; to permit the free outflow of capital from Russia. The West promised to bring investment, to let Russia
live in peace, to keep NATO away from Russian borders."
Notable quotes:
"... And now, at last, as the feasts are over, the real trial begins. The US is preparing a new round of sanctions, including seizure of Russian oligarch assets. They are ripe for collection. The confiscation of Russian holdings in Cyprus banks in 2013 passed without a hitch and served as a trial balloon. Putin didn't object overmuch, for he is a sworn enemy of offshore accounts. None of the fleeced Russian businessmen succeeded in recovering their losses in court. Now is the time for the real thing, and much of the anti-Russian hysteria is aimed at preparing the ground for the seizure. In this way, they plan to get a cool trillion dollars into the US Treasury. Who will lose his assets and who will survive, this is the talk of the day in Moscow. ..."
"... Now we are coming to a difficult part. The Deal. Connected people, in-the-know, claim that a top-secret agreement was reached between the late Mr Yeltsin and his cronies, on one side, and The West, on the other side, in 1991. Yeltsin et al had sold Russia's interests down the river, and in return, The West allowed the bastards to hoard their ill-gotten gains in the Western financial system. Yeltsin et al had promised to let the Soviet republics go; to disarm; to follow the Washington Consensus, i.e. to stick to the liberal economic model; to allow the free import of consumer goods; to allow Western access to the Russian military complex; to let the West write Russian laws; to permit the free outflow of capital from Russia. The West promised to bring investment, to let Russia live in peace, to keep NATO away from Russian borders. ..."
"... Mr Putin inherited The Deal. Slowly, the Deal has been eroded from both sides. NATO troops moved eastward, no sizeable investment came in, the West supported Chechen rebels. Russia limited Western access to its military-industrial complex; took Crimea; regained some of its international independence. ..."
"... The powerful personalities of Yeltsin's era remained embedded in the upper echelons of Putin's state. Chubais and Kudrin were and are untouchable. They are connected with the FRS and the IMF, they go to Bilderberg and Davos, they are often described as 'the colonial administration'. ..."
"... They steal with both hands, and do it with impunity. Just last week it was revealed and published that Mr Chubais and Mr Kudrin appropriated a cool billion dollars of Russian state money while repaying the Soviet debt to the Czech Republic. ..."
"... Yeltsin's oligarchs remained as rich as they were; Yeltsin's family still possesses immense riches. And Putin does not dare to touch them. He goes hat in hand to open a Yeltsin's Memorial Centre; he is courteous with Yeltsin's widow and daughter. Putin's establishment cautiously avoided celebration, or even mention of the Revolution centenary, in keeping with Yeltsin's anticommunism. This is the Deal. ..."
"... Putin has been unhappy with the Deal for a long time, vocally so since his Munich talk in 2007, but he stuck to the script. Even now, Russia's economy follows the liberal model; billions of dollars are being siphoned out of Russia monthly; billions of dollars' worth of Western manufactured consumer goods are imported and sold in Russia, though it would make perfect sense to organise local manufacture. Russia's Central Bank is directly connected to the Western finance system, and its emission is limited by the amount of hard currency in its coffers. The Rouble carry trade prospers, like the Yen carry trade did years ago. ..."
"... This presented the golden opportunity for the anti-Putin activists, the time they can collect the fruit of their hard work. A somewhat typical anti-Putin activist is an émigré, Mr Andrey Illarionov, a Yeltsin man, an ex-adviser to President Putin (until 2005), a US resident, a member of the loony Cato Institute and an adept of Ayn Rand. He is an anti-Russian fanatic; next to him Rachel Maddow is a Putin groupie and Tokyo Rose a symbol of patriotism. ..."
"... Speaking to the Congress Committee of Foreign Affairs in 2009, he famously claimed about the US administration policy towards Russia that "it is not even an appeasement policy so well known to us by another Munich decision in 1938, it is a surrender. A full, absolute, unconditional surrender to the regime of secret police officers, chekists and Mafiosi". Despite these fighting words, he is a frequent visitor to Moscow, and he never misses a demo where he can call out "Putin must leave" apparently unafraid of the "secret police officers, chekists and Mafiosi". This is all you should know about the totalitarian Russian regime! ..."
"... Now Mr Illarionov is lobbying the US Congress to remove its threats from the heads of those deserving oligarchs, who (in his words) amassed their fortune before advent of Mr Putin and "in order to survive, they had been forced to pay a large tribute to the Kremlin". His lobbying effort on behalf of the Old Money people has been shared and supported by two notorious Putin haters, a fellow émigré Piontkovsky and a Swedish Neo-Con Anders Aslund. ..."
"... This is not a coincidence; the Russian Old Money is solidly in bed with the Clinton camp. If Friedman succeeds in escaping the sanctions, it will be an additional proof that the Bankers still have the upper hand in the US Administration. ..."
"... Echo Moskwy ..."
"... But perhaps it is too late for him. An unverifiable odd rumour has risen in Moscow. They say that the Communist candidate Pavel Grudinin has strong backing among the "siloviki", that is Putin's appointees, often but not exclusively of security services background, for they are unhappy with Putin's adherence to the Deal. But that will be the subject of my next piece. ..."
"... That is my understanding also but I could be wrong. Excellent piece. But I have one small point–the crawling re-nationalization of many crucial industries did happen on Putin's watch. But in general, as I stated many times, he faces an inevitable meeting, if he were to survive as a politician, with the issue of 1990s robbery and with necessity to dismantle Yeltsin's "heritage'. ..."
"... I wonder how much of what Israel wrote might be real thing. If Putin really is going to do what you are writing he is going to be company of Russia history greatest. ..."
"... There is also indeed a question of all those offshore capitals which are stolen money. Considering state resources and capabilities there definitely might be an offer they cannot refuse to just give money back. ..."
"... Putin sure as hell has all necessary resources to make this offer. ..."
While you have probably already forgotten the feast, Russia is only now slowly coming back to life after its overlong Christmas
break completed on January 14 by the quaintly named Old New Year, or even perhaps by the Epiphany on January 19. Everybody went somewhere,
even candidates for the presidential race coming in on March 18: the Communist one went to ski in Austria, while the right-winger
went to Bali. On the eve of Epiphany, they dipped in the ice-cold waters: the ultimate trial of Russian fitness. Not only he-man
Putin, but even she-woman Sobchak did it!
And now, at last, as the feasts are over, the real trial begins. The US is preparing a new round of sanctions, including seizure
of Russian oligarch assets. They are ripe for collection. The confiscation of Russian holdings in Cyprus banks in 2013 passed without
a hitch and served as a trial balloon. Putin didn't object overmuch, for he is a sworn enemy of offshore accounts. None of the fleeced
Russian businessmen succeeded in recovering their losses in court. Now is the time for the real thing, and much of the anti-Russian
hysteria is aimed at preparing the ground for the seizure. In this way, they plan to get a cool trillion dollars into the US Treasury.
Who will lose his assets and who will survive, this is the talk of the day in Moscow.
The Russian assets in the west could be divided into New Money, assets of Putin's people, and the Old Money, assets of Yeltsin's
people. The sanctions are supposed to deal with Putin's people, but Russian experts think the Old Money is more vulnerable, for a
good reason. The New Money is under Putin's protection. If the US or any other western authority grabs it, the Russian government
may seize Western shares in Russian companies and properties.
But what about the Old Money? Its owners, elder oligarchs, are extremely worried about Putin's nonchalance. Putin takes it easy,
they say. Ma'alish , the Arab in Putin says. Que sera sera , says his inner Frenchman. And this nonchalant attitude
drives the oligarchs crazy. They want him to fight and save their money. They insisted on his meeting with President Trump in Vietnam;
some say the meeting took place in the depth of the night, far from prying eyes, and didn't bring results. Now Putin says to the
Old Money: if you want to save your money, repatriate it to Russia. We aren't that mad, they reply. You have to defend us anyway!
That was the Deal!
Now we are coming to a difficult part. The Deal. Connected people, in-the-know, claim that a top-secret agreement was reached
between the late Mr Yeltsin and his cronies, on one side, and The West, on the other side, in 1991. Yeltsin et al had sold Russia's
interests down the river, and in return, The West allowed the bastards to hoard their ill-gotten gains in the Western financial system.
Yeltsin et al had promised to let the Soviet republics go; to disarm; to follow the Washington Consensus, i.e. to stick to the liberal
economic model; to allow the free import of consumer goods; to allow Western access to the Russian military complex; to let the West
write Russian laws; to permit the free outflow of capital from Russia. The West promised to bring investment, to let Russia live
in peace, to keep NATO away from Russian borders.
Mr Putin inherited The Deal. Slowly, the Deal has been eroded from both sides. NATO troops moved eastward, no sizeable investment
came in, the West supported Chechen rebels. Russia limited Western access to its military-industrial complex; took Crimea; regained
some of its international independence.
Putin was elected, or you may say, he was appointed to stick to the Deal and to serve as the Supreme Arbiter among the oligarchs,
with very little of a power base of his own. Slowly, he created his own oligarchs (they are described as "siloviki", though not all
of them have some security forces background), and he had built up a limited power base; though many important positions, in particular
in the economic sphere, remained in the hands of the Old Guard, Yeltsin's men. This, too, was a part of the Deal.
The powerful personalities of Yeltsin's era remained embedded in the upper echelons of Putin's state. Chubais and Kudrin were
and are untouchable. They are connected with the FRS and the IMF, they go to Bilderberg and Davos, they are often described as 'the
colonial administration'.
They steal with both hands, and do it with impunity. Just last week it was
revealed and published that Mr Chubais and Mr Kudrin appropriated
a cool billion dollars of Russian state money while repaying the Soviet debt to the Czech Republic. The worst Putin can do about
them is to give them a fat chunk of the Russian economy to chew on, while limiting their access to the rest. So he gave Mr Chubais
the Rusnano company that made no profit but
embezzled
billions . This was the Deal.
Yeltsin's oligarchs remained as rich as they were; Yeltsin's family still possesses immense riches. And Putin does not dare
to touch them. He goes hat in hand to open a Yeltsin's Memorial Centre; he is courteous with Yeltsin's widow and daughter. Putin's
establishment cautiously avoided celebration, or even mention of the Revolution centenary, in keeping with Yeltsin's anticommunism.
This is the Deal.
The topmost schools of Russia, the most endowed, the most privileged schools for the children of the new nobility are the HSE,
(the Higher School of Economics, a clone of the LSE and the economic think-tank of the government), and MGIMO, (Moscow State Institute
of International Relations, the school for perspective diplomats). Their graduates were been trained to despise Russia and admire
the neo-liberal West (just like the Indian students trained by the Brits, had admired England and despised their country in the days
of the British Raj). Professor Medvedev of the HSE called upon Russian government to transfer the Russian Far North to the international
community, though this is the place of the greatest gas reserves (he kept his position). Professor Zubov of the MGIMO had compared
Putin to Hitler, and denounced Russian diplomats as liars (his contract hasn't been prolonged). All that is a part of the Deal.
Putin has been unhappy with the Deal for a long time, vocally so since his Munich talk in 2007, but he stuck to the script.
Even now, Russia's economy follows the liberal model; billions of dollars are being siphoned out of Russia monthly; billions of dollars'
worth of Western manufactured consumer goods are imported and sold in Russia, though it would make perfect sense to organise local
manufacture. Russia's Central Bank is directly connected to the Western finance system, and its emission is limited by the amount
of hard currency in its coffers. The Rouble carry trade prospers, like the Yen carry trade did years ago.
Meanwhile, the Deal has been undone from the West, as a result of the epic struggle between Bankers and Producers, otherwise described
as Liberals vs. Conservatives, or Globalists vs. Regionalists, personalised as Clinton vs. Trump. Yeltsin's people are historically
aligned with the Clinton camp. Now, their assets in the West, previously protected by the Deal, have lost their protection and come
up for grabs.
The Old Money people are putting their effort into persuading the West, namely the US, to let them live in peace and instead confiscate
the pro-Putin New Money.
This presented the golden opportunity for the anti-Putin activists, the time they can collect the fruit of their hard work.
A somewhat typical anti-Putin activist is an émigré, Mr Andrey Illarionov, a Yeltsin man, an ex-adviser to President Putin (until
2005), a US resident, a member of the loony Cato Institute and an adept of Ayn Rand. He is an anti-Russian fanatic; next to him Rachel
Maddow is a Putin groupie and Tokyo Rose a symbol of patriotism.
Speaking to the Congress Committee of Foreign Affairs in 2009, he famously
claimed
about the US administration policy towards Russia that "it is not even an appeasement policy so well known to us by another Munich
decision in 1938, it is a surrender. A full, absolute, unconditional surrender to the regime of secret police officers, chekists
and Mafiosi". Despite these fighting words, he is a frequent visitor to Moscow, and he never misses a demo where he can call out
"Putin must leave" apparently unafraid of the "secret police officers, chekists and Mafiosi". This is all you should know about the
totalitarian Russian regime!
(Émigrés are frequently like that, and the US, a country of immigrants, had been vulnerable to the attack by Illarionov Syndrome,
by listening to Masha Gessen, or to Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi émigré who claimed Iraq has had WMD, to Alexander Solzhenitsyn with
his horror stories about GULAG, etc. I made it a rule to moderate my critique of Israel while abroad, in fear of failing the Illarionov
Sanity Test.)
Now Mr Illarionov is lobbying the US Congress to remove its threats from the heads of those deserving oligarchs, who (in his
words) amassed their fortune before advent of Mr Putin and "in order to survive, they had been forced to pay a large tribute to the
Kremlin". His lobbying effort on behalf of the Old Money people has been shared and supported by two notorious Putin haters, a fellow
émigré Piontkovsky and a Swedish Neo-Con Anders Aslund.
Direct and generous beneficiaries of their lobbying are the Three Alpha Jews, Peter Aven, Michael Friedman and Herman Khan. They
are owners of the Alpha Bank, a very big Russian bank , and they are Old Money oligarchs from Yeltsin's days when their kin ruled
the land.
Michael Friedman, the fat guy with a jolly piglet face, rose to his eminence from being a ticket tout selling illegally obtained
opera tickets to Western tourists near Bolshoi Theatre; afterwards he became The Mind behind all ticket mafias in Moscow, and then
proceeded to banking and so many other things.
Like many Old Money guys, Friedman earns money in Russia, but siphons it off for Jewish causes. He is a co-founder of a "Jewish
Nobel Prize", also called Genesis Prize, a cool million dollars being given annually to a deserving Jew, the most recent one being
the notorious Ruth Bader Ginsburg who
called Donald
Trump, "the faker". This is not a coincidence; the Russian Old Money is solidly in bed with the Clinton camp. If Friedman succeeds
in escaping the sanctions, it will be an additional proof that the Bankers still have the upper hand in the US Administration.
Alternatively, it could mean they are just smart and able to play the both houses. The Three Alpha Jews had been mentioned in
the Steele Dossier as the conduit of Putin influence for Trump and against Clinton in the recent US Presidential elections. (They
are
suing Fusion GPS and BuzzFeed for spreading the accusation).
According to an even better conspiracy theory spread on the social networks, both Mr Illarionov and the smart Alpha Jews are a
sleeper cell organised by cunning Mr Putin to ensure his survival in the most adverse conditions. All of them were very friendly
with Putin; perhaps they just pretended to become his enemies, the conspiratorially minded journalist from the anti-Putin Echo
Moskwy has implied.
Leaving the conspiracy theories aside for a while, we can reach a conclusion. The forthcoming attack of the US establishment on
Russian assets is likely to undermine the Old Money of the Yeltsin Oligarchs, and not only them. This confiscation will spell the
death knell to the notorious Deal, and then we shall see Putin Unbound.
But perhaps it is too late for him. An unverifiable odd rumour has risen in Moscow. They say that the Communist candidate
Pavel Grudinin has strong backing among the "siloviki", that is Putin's appointees, often but not exclusively of security services
background, for they are unhappy with Putin's adherence to the Deal. But that will be the subject of my next piece.
The forthcoming attack of the US establishment on Russian assets is likely to undermine the Old Money of the Yeltsin Oligarchs,
and not only them. This confiscation will spell the death knell to the notorious Deal, and then we shall see Putin Unbound.
That is my understanding also but I could be wrong. Excellent piece. But I have one small point–the crawling re-nationalization
of many crucial industries did happen on Putin's watch. But in general, as I stated many times, he faces an inevitable meeting,
if he were to survive as a politician, with the issue of 1990s robbery and with necessity to dismantle Yeltsin's "heritage'.
"Que sera sera". One of my favorite songs. Sung by Doris Day and was a hit in the 1950′s. Italian in origin and translates
to "whatever will be, will be".
Agree. I wonder how much of what Israel wrote might be real thing. If Putin really is going to do what you are writing
he is going to be company of Russia history greatest.
There is also indeed a question of all those offshore capitals which are stolen money. Considering state resources and
capabilities there definitely might be an offer they cannot refuse to just give money back.
"... at a speed that far exceeds an Internet capability for a remote hack ..."
"... Return to Moscow ..."
"... The demonization of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia is where the neocons and the liberal interventionists most significantly come together. The U.S. media's approach to Russia is now virtually 100 percent propaganda. For instance, the full story of the infamous Magnitsky case cannot be told in the West, nor can the objective reality of the Ukrane coup in 2014 . The American people and the West in general are carefully shielded from hearing the "other side of the story." Indeed to even suggest that there is another side to the story makes you a "Putin apologist" or "Kremlin stooge." ..."
The claim of Russian meddling in the US election has brought US-Russia relations to what may
be an all-time low, substantially contributing to the near-universal demonization of Russian
president Vladimir Putin and of Russia itself in virtually all major media, with little or no
discussion of the supposed evidence for the claim. A stellar exception is the London Review
of Books, which published a critically important essay by Rutgers University professor
Jackson Lears in the January 4, 2018 issue. Titled "What We Don't Talk about When We Talk about
Russian Hacking," the article is an excellent overview and analysis of many of the issues the
title suggests.
The claim of Russian meddling in the election remains to this day
evidence-free, although you would never know that from the treatment of the topic in the
mainstream media. As Professor Lears observes:
Like any orthodoxy worth its salt, the religion of the Russian hack depends not on
evidence but on ex cathedra pronouncements on the part of authoritative institutions and
their overlords. Its scriptural foundation is a confused and largely fact-free 'assessment'
produced last January by a small number of 'hand-picked' analysts – as James Clapper,
the director of National Intelligence, described them – from the CIA, the FBI and the
NSA. The claims of the last were made with only 'moderate' confidence. The label Intelligence
Community Assessment creates a misleading impression of unanimity, given that only three of
the 16 US intelligence agencies contributed to the report. And indeed the assessment itself
contained this crucial admission: 'Judgments are not intended to imply that we have proof
that shows something to be a fact. Assessments are based on collected information, which is
often incomplete or fragmentary, as well as logic, argumentation and precedents.' Yet the
assessment has passed into the media imagination as if it were unassailable fact, allowing
journalists to assume what has yet to be proved. In doing so they serve as mouthpieces for
the intelligence agencies, or at least for those 'hand-picked' analysts.
But although Professor Lears refers to the reports of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity in his discussion of "Russian hacking," it seems clear there must have been a leak, not
a hack, because "the DNC data was copied onto a storage device at a speed that far exceeds
an Internet capability for a remote hack ." ("Was the 'Russian Hack' An Inside Job?", July
25, 2017, https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/07/25/was-the-russian-hack-an-inside-job/
.)
In any case, definitive claims about who was responsible (assuming, purely arguendo
, it was a hack) face the fact that, according to Ray McGovern and William S. Binney, two
members of VIPS,
McGovern was a CIA analyst for 27 years; Binney worked for NSA for 36 years, was the
agency's technical director of world military and geopolitical analysis and reporting, and
created many of the collection systems still used by NSA.
In other words, as Russian president Vladimir Putin has explained,
today's technology is such that the final address can be masked and camouflaged to an
extent that no one will be able to understand the origin of that address. And, vice versa, it
is possible to set up any entity or any individual [so] that everyone will think that they
are the exact source of that attack. (Valdimir Putin's televised interview on NBC (June 4,
2017), by NBC News' Megyn Kelly, text published on the website of the President of
Russia, June 5, 2017.)
[9]
Demonization of Putin and Russia
The demonization of Russian president Vladimir Putin and Russia itself is just part, albeit
the most dangerous part, of a disinformation campaign flowing from the mainstream media. I
don't propose to present a full treatment of the subject here. But in broad outline, it's my
understanding that when the Cold War ended in 1991, Russian president Boris Yeltsin accepted
the advice of Western neoliberal planners and dismantled much of the Russian "safety net," with
the result that the Russian economy tanked and millions of people faced terrific hardship.
Vladimir Putin has been attempting to repair that situation, and his initial success is part of
the reason for his popularity in Russia. That understanding comes from a number of articles
I've read over the years, but primarily from Tony Kevin's book Return to Moscow ,
mentioned above. I'm hardly an expert on internal Russian politics. But I've read many of the
extensive public statements Mr. Putin has made since 2007, and with my primary concern being
his role in international relations and with respect to the control of Russia's nuclear
arsenal, he strikes me as a statesman.
[10] . Yet as investigative journalist Robert Parry observes,
The demonization of Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia is where the neocons and
the liberal interventionists most significantly come together. The U.S. media's approach to
Russia is now virtually 100 percent propaganda. For instance, the full story of the
infamous
Magnitsky case cannot be told in the West, nor can the objective reality of the Ukrane
coup in 2014 . The American people and the West in general are carefully shielded from
hearing the "other side of the story." Indeed to even suggest that there is another side to
the story makes you a "Putin apologist" or "Kremlin stooge."
Western journalists now apparently see it as their patriotic duty to hide key facts that
otherwise would undermine the demonizing of Putin and Russia. Ironically, many "liberals" who
cut their teeth on skepticism about the Cold War and the bogus justifications for the Vietnam
War now insist that we must all accept whatever the U.S. intelligence community feeds us,
even if we're told to accept the assertions on faith.
[11] .
One result is a needless heightening of the dangers and risks outlined in this article.
"... Here's another map that's a little different than the one linked by Peter AU1. The Kurdish Project - https://thekurdishproject.org/kurdistan-map/ (remove the space) ..."
"... Notice the potential for deep water ports on the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas. Tillerson's role with Exxon provided him with an unique understanding of exactly how much $$ that Erdogan was able to steal without consequence and leaves the pit bulls' jowels dribbling with saliva, as if a rib eye steak's aroma was wafting thru the room, with jealous envy. ..."
I think you're on target with your comment. Also, I don't believe Jared has asked the Kurds themselves whether they're on board
or not. Let me explain.
Remember that both Pence and Tillerson were outspoken Never Trumpers. Pence was promised that he'd be 100% in charge of
policy and all day to day decisions. When he asked Trump what he intended to be doing he replied: "I'll be busy making America
Great Again." Whatever deal and contract wound up being signed between them, I think the tomahawk missile attack on Syria violated
the details and revoked most of Pence's authority.
Several, including Bannon have stated that Jared is in charge of ME policy. So, what did Jared offer to Exxon and Tillerson
in exchange for the SOS position? I believe he / they are slated to become the King of Kurdistan. "King" is the only thing
that Tillerson hasn't had in his life; yet.
Notice the potential for deep water ports on the Mediterranean, Black, and Caspian Seas. Tillerson's role with Exxon provided
him with an unique understanding of exactly how much $$ that Erdogan was able to steal without consequence and leaves the pit
bulls' jowels dribbling with saliva, as if a rib eye steak's aroma was wafting thru the room, with jealous envy.
Bernie Sanders figured out that he could double down and REALLY monetize the scam that Ron Paul executed against the Republican
voters in 2012; which he executed to perfection.
I believe Exxon / Tillerson have figured out that they are going to REALLY monetize the oil theft that Erdogan executed with
Kurdistan and his name will be written in the history books as a King.
Trump wants out of Nato. The Pentagon wants ports, runways and to surround Russia. Whether Turkey remains in Nato or not is
inconsequential to Jared and Greater Israel.
"... The risk has been with us since the 1950s, but has become scarier beginning with the US-backed coup in Ukraine, and increased with US involvement in the war on Syria. It's been heightened by plans for "modernization" of US warheads and delivery systems -- plans initiated by President Obama and continuing or expanded by President Trump. ..."
"... The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. ..."
"... Return to Moscow ..."
"... The whole Bush II thing, the elections, Iraq, 9-11 were kind of "through the looking glass" events in which political corruption became mainstream acceptable in a surreal kind of way. I take events like the "Russian Hack" as a kind of ready-reckoner of political consciousness: if you accept or support such muck the only question remains – are you a gull or a knave? An idiot or a cynical bastard? ..."
"... "Sleepwalking into nuclear war" is a haunting and apt metaphor for what is happening to us as a society. Reading Robert Roth's provocative musings on the collective insanity currently enveloping us, I was reminded of William Shirer's accounts of the period he was stationed in Nazi Germany as a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune before the outbreak of WWII. ..."
"... Even with all the propaganda the Germans were subjected to, said Shirer, Germans realized that Hitler was taking them into an unwinnable war against the rest of the world that they really didn't want. They knew they were headed into the abyss, yet the political climate was so paranoid that resistance seemed unpatriotic, if not treasonous. They went along in the hope that the national nightmare would dissipate of its own accord, that things weren't as bad as they seemed. ..."
"... Mr. Roth's observations about the blights of willful public ignorance and mass media disinformation are important. Commenter "animalogic" (#7) aptly describes those party to the widespread deceit as either "a gull or a knave." The Establishment needs and therefore nurtures both. ..."
"... Roth has gone straight to the relevant point, nuclear war , for it is already clear that the prospective outcome of any permutation of a 'conventional' war will see the Empire hegemony, USA/Israel and vassal states, lose against Russia, who will be supported, by mutually recognized need, with China. No matter how it is considered, a Russia-China alliance will defeat the empire hegemony if nuclear weapons are not used. ..."
"... One positive thing in US policy is a stability and progress – dummy president replaced by stupid one, that replaced by insane; after him goes imbecile. I can't imagine who's going to be next :-). But there are many of old crazy women and men ready to help if current imbecile went down. ..."
"... There will be no nuclear war as Russia and the U.S. can wipe each other off the map, however the Zionists will continue to keep America at war for the Zionist NWO as that is the game plan and we goyim Americans will continue to be sent to the slaughter house for greater Israel. ..."
"... One honest, generally morally competent man holding the ever-more-powerful office of president of the U.S., could fix many things. Unfortunately, Donald John Trump is not that man. ..."
"... Let's consider one example: Many people believe that a real investigation into 9/11 would destroy the "deep state". Dr. J. Leroy Hulsey et al. have recently completed a study of the "collapse" of WTC7, whereby they've proven that "fire" was not the cause of the "collapse" of that building. This finding directly contradicts the NIST report. For the first time in 16 years there is now incontrovertible scientific evidence in the public domain that 9/11 was an "inside job". Why won't Donald John Trump take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity and order an investigation? ..."
"... The world is not about to end, but the Western public space has become very stupid. Most politicians, media and academics have managed to redefine basic terms into idiotic caricatures. Concepts like meddling, trolls, collusion, etc don't mean what we are told they mean. They are all an eternal part of human society, exchange of ideas, disagreements. Expressing one's opinions is not 'propaganda', or 'meddling' in elections – it is freedom of speech. The idea that there is only one correct view – the Western liberal one – is medieval. ..."
"... Nobody will deliberately start nuclear war, but the probability that it might start as the result of series of mistakes has increased. ..."
"... The US and its vassals (including other NATO countries) moved NATO troops close to Russian borders, destabilized Ukraine, Syria, cooked up "Russiagate" (which is really an FBI-gate, but sore losers would not admit it) to justify further increases in Pentagon budget (a trough where very fat pigs feed). ..."
"... The main danger is that in its death throes the Empire will start a war, although we can only hope that even degenerate US elites understand that dead people cannot benefit by their wealth. Hope springs eternal. ..."
"... Agree with much of the sentiment and some of the proposals here regarding the need to ratchet down rhetoric, pledge no first strike, and generally try much harder to reduce the risk of even a "small" nuke exchange. ..."
"... Well, hope is always nice. But we might not understand the dynamic nature of the global-liberal overreach that we have been experiencing. People don't behave the way Western elites have been acting without some measure of disconnect from reality. And hubris. When a substantial part of elite climbs on an irrational high horse of invincibility they become paralysed by the framework they have created. They don't want to hear other views because it makes them uncomfortable. They have given up on both principles and institutions – it is anything goes world now. ..."
"... The Trotskyites who became in America first anti-Stalinist Democrat Hawks and then anti-Russian/Israel-first Republican Hawks have worked things so that they control foreign affairs for both political parties. And they have an insatiable bloodlust. Like the godfather of their movement, they are amoral with genocidal desires when it comes to peoples they despise. They are the type of self-righteous bullies who aspire to rule the globe to overreach and push and shove and threaten and sucker punch until the worst for the world happens. ..."
"... Good to see you posting. I hear they are muling Ophrah. Really good choice for next president. Woman, black, fat and wealthy. Not gay or transvestite though but that's coming next. ..."
"... Makes me wonder what after Putin. I do it like him that much but he still intelligent, cool and calculating man that is not doing stupid things but neither genius. ..."
"... Regarding Americans, unfortunately they never felt real pain. Like a kid who does not know that fire is dangerous. I think financial collapse gonna be trouble sooner or later with them. The best thing Russia and China can do is to undermine us dollar status and the whole financial system which was built by uncle Sam for uncle Sam benefit. ..."
My goal in writing about these things is to alert you to the problems and encourage you to
share your concerns with people you know and with federal policy-makers. Right now, the entire
gamut of political discussion all but excludes the topic nuclear war, so if some Senators,
Members of Congress, and the President were to begin hearing from people that we're concerned
about the threat, and how easily it could happen, and that we want that threat removed, it
would be some progress.
Why the focus on nuclear war? Because of all the pending potential disasters we may have to
face, it's the most sudden, inescapable, irrevocable. At some level, people know that, though
they don't like to think about it. Author Carl Boggs describes the reaction of the people of
Hawaii when they received a false alarm about an incoming ICBM attack:
People scattered frenetically, mostly without logic or purpose or hope. Where to go? If
this turned out to be one of Kim Jong Un's powerful ICBMs, it could be over in 20 minutes.
Repair to a shelter? None exist. Go to the basement? Sure suicide. Find a car or taxi and
head for the hills? No time. [T]he response was utter psychological numbness, paralysis -- a
dysfunctional yet comprehensible state of mind in the face of nuclear oblivion. [T]he end
seemed inescapable.
And because, as Mr. Boggs says upon hearing a talk by former nuclear war planner Daniel
Ellsberg, it's a lot less unlikely than most of us have been led to believe.
The American people have been lulled to sleep, distracted by endless media and political
spectacles, while busy warmakers keep refining their insane nuclear blueprints . More than 70
years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Pentagon elites still theorize and fantasize about the
unthinkable, their demented plans far removed from the realm of political debate or even
public awareness.
[1]
The risk has been with us since the 1950s, but has become scarier beginning with the
US-backed coup in Ukraine, and increased with US involvement in the war on Syria. It's been
heightened by plans for "modernization" of US warheads and delivery systems -- plans initiated
by President Obama and continuing or expanded by President Trump. And it's heightened
further by a Pentagon plan to develop a "low-yield" warhead for the submarine-based Trident
missile, and a new nuclear-tipped sea-launched cruise missile.
[2] I believe that expanding the range of options in this way would
increase the likelihood that the weapons will actually be used.
In case you think I'm overstating the problem, you should know that almost everything in
"Dr. Strangelove" -- the Stanley Kubrick film in which nuclear war is started by a rogue
military officer -- was true.
[3] . "Doomsday" is an "Actual War
Plan," as Daniel Ellsberg says in a December 13, 2017 interview discussing his new book,
The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.
[4].
Dan Ellsberg proposes a Six-Step Program for dismantling the Doomsday Machine:
A U.S.
no-first-use policy;
Probing investigative hearings on our war plans in the light of nuclear
winter;
Eliminating our ICBMs;
Foregoing the delusion of preemptive damage-limiting by our
first-strike forces;
Giving up the profits, jobs, and alliance hegemony based on maintaining
that pretense;
Otherwise dismantling the American Doomsday Machine.
Of course none of that will happen under present circumstances. It's Ellsberg's goal to
contribute to developing an informed electorate that, recognizing the risk, will demand such
actions.
... ... ...
Regarding the two nuclear-armed superpowers, who between them possess some 15,000 nuclear
warheads, the Cold War that ended in 1991 has lately been replaced by a New Cold War. U.S. and
NATO provocations to Russia have reached a largely unheard crescendo in Ukraine, where a
U.S.-backed coup installed a regime, essentially in the Russian belly, that's riddled with
neo-Nazis and hostile to Russia; in eastern Europe generally, where NATO war games have been
held repeatedly just across the Russian border; and in Syria, where the U.S. continues to
maintain an unlawful presence in proximity to Russian forces legitimately there at the
invitation of the internationally recognized and constitutionally elected Syrian government.
And in both Syria and Ukraine, there are signs the situation is becoming even more dangerous
than it's been for some time.
[7]
These situations raise the risk of unintended nuclear war, as confrontation may lead at any
time to escalation spiraling out of control. Dr. William Polk, a member of the White House team
that handled the Cuban Missile Crisis, describes how in a confrontational situation, the logic
of events could force the Russians and us to the next step and that step also to the next and
so on, to the ultimate disastrous result without anyone having initially intended it.
[8] . Mr. Shatz concludes that what we once mistook for safety was more like sleepwalking.
Former Australian diplomat Tony Kevin sums up the situation in similar terms:
"Under the false and demonizing imagery of 'Putin's Russia' which has now taken hold in the
United States and NATO world, the West is truly 'sleepwalking', as Kissinger, Gorbachev,
[University of Kent professor Richard] Sakwa, [Princeton emeritus professor Stephen F.] Cohen
and others have urgently warned, into a potential nuclear war with Russia. It is the Cuban
missile crisis all over again, but actually worse now [in part] because American policy under
recent U.S. presidents has been so lacking in statesmanship, consistency or historical
perspective where Russia is concerned." ( Return to Moscow , University of Western
Australia, 2017, p. 255).
Think you're pretty spot with all you say. The whole Bush II thing, the elections, Iraq,
9-11 were kind of "through the looking glass" events in which political corruption became
mainstream acceptable in a surreal kind of way.
I take events like the "Russian Hack" as a kind of ready-reckoner of political consciousness:
if you accept or support such muck the only question remains – are you a gull or a
knave? An idiot or a cynical bastard?
"Sleepwalking into nuclear war" is a haunting and apt metaphor for what is happening to us as
a society. Reading Robert Roth's provocative musings on the collective insanity currently
enveloping us, I was reminded of William Shirer's accounts of the period he was stationed in
Nazi Germany as a correspondent for the Chicago Tribune before the outbreak of WWII.
His account of attending a Nazi rally where he appeared to be the only member of the
audience not mesmerized by Hitler's delusional rants reminds me of my own reaction to the
Russiagate hysteria being orchestrated by neocons and Clinton dead-enders. Who are these
people and what is the matter with them? The current state of our Union is a testament to the
power of propaganda, which Hitler and Goebbels understood so well.
Even with all the propaganda the Germans were subjected to, said Shirer, Germans realized
that Hitler was taking them into an unwinnable war against the rest of the world that they
really didn't want. They knew they were headed into the abyss, yet the political climate was
so paranoid that resistance seemed unpatriotic, if not treasonous. They went along in the
hope that the national nightmare would dissipate of its own accord, that things weren't as
bad as they seemed.
But as it turned out, things were even worse than they seemed. The nightmare was real and
there was no waking from it.
The USA/Russia/China/Israel/France/UK/India/Pakistan have collectively been playing Russian
Roulette for 65 years.
Probability dictates sooner or later, one of the chambers will contain a live round.
What an excellent essay. It appears to have been submitted initially to The Unz Review, which
should enhance the reputation of both the author and publisher.
Mr. Roth's observations about the blights of willful public ignorance and mass media
disinformation are important. Commenter "animalogic" (#7) aptly describes those party to the
widespread deceit as either "a gull or a knave." The Establishment needs and therefore
nurtures both.
Great article and great comments so far (11 of them).
We have a scenario much like those scenarios prior to the Great War (WWI) and the second
world war, and the same shadowy 'hidden hand' orchestrating the entire pending disaster so
they can yet further augment their control and expand their illegal land theft.
The consolidation of the mass media agencies, now almost pure propaganda/perception
management agencies controlled by the competing factions of the 0.1%, and the advent of the
internet and 'big data' have enabled this psychopathic cabal to attain previously undreamt of
control over the common 99%, including control over their perception.
Roth has gone straight to the relevant point, nuclear war , for it is already clear
that the prospective outcome of any permutation of a 'conventional' war will see the Empire
hegemony, USA/Israel and vassal states, lose against Russia, who will be supported, by
mutually recognized need, with China. No matter how it is considered, a Russia-China alliance
will defeat the empire hegemony if nuclear weapons are not used.
It is because of this point that the entirety of humanity must rally and do 'what ever it
takes' to stop the terrorist empire from sustaining the current tyranny. The psychopaths of
the empire, not exposed to public scrutiny, hidden in the shadows, can and will nudge the
world into unwinnable (for anyone) nuclear war; their egos are the definition of human
depravity.
Exposing the grand charade to a critical mass of the general population is the first
objective, then exposing the 'hidden hands' in the shadows is the next.
The parasite must be stopped, and we, the people who have seen glimpses of the enemy, are
incumbent to spread the word.
I left this comment on a different article ( http://thesaker.is/listening-to-mattis/ ), but
seems it could be in place here also. Cause we're talking approximately same and nothing gonna
change
-- -- -
Well, it's getting boring a little. I mean the descriptions of the insanity of US's
rulers.
One positive thing in US policy is a stability and progress – dummy president
replaced by stupid one, that replaced by insane; after him goes imbecile. I can't imagine
who's going to be next :-).
But there are many of old crazy women and men ready to help if current imbecile went
down.
Thanks God, we, Russians, not that happy. After imbecile alcoholic Yeltsin we've got not
bad alternative (your media and stupid people in power call him a killer). Who (with his sanity) the only chance for this world to survive.
But, actually we're very tired from all this stuff and the possibility of US generals to
test our conventional and even nuke arms constantly increasing. They can also test if our
soldiers who've seen Napoleon, Hitler and many others got worse or still the same. I'm asking US citizens – Is it really interesting to you to get know it for
sure?
There will be no nuclear war as Russia and the U.S. can wipe each other off the map, however
the Zionists will continue to keep America at war for the Zionist NWO as that is the game
plan and we goyim Americans will continue to be sent to the slaughter house for greater
Israel.
"But as Mr. Shatz observes, the problems run much deeper than President Trump."
This statement is misleading. One honest, generally morally competent man holding the
ever-more-powerful office of president of the U.S., could fix many things. Unfortunately, Donald John Trump is not that man.
Let's consider one example: Many people believe that a real investigation into 9/11 would
destroy the "deep state". Dr. J. Leroy Hulsey et al. have recently completed a study of the
"collapse" of WTC7, whereby they've proven that "fire" was not the cause of the "collapse" of
that building. This finding directly contradicts the NIST report. For the first time in 16
years there is now incontrovertible scientific evidence in the public domain that 9/11 was an
"inside job". Why won't Donald John Trump take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity
and order an investigation?
There is only one plausible explanation: I believe that Donald John Trump was the "deep
state" candidate of choice in the 2016 election. I believe that's why they ran wild-eyed
madwoman Hillary Clinton against him rather than the more electable Sanders. I believe that's
why, in the early fall of 2016, as the election was coming into the home stretch, Obama
started ramping up tensions with Russia; i.e., so as to nudge the disgruntled anti-war
Democrats (Sanders supporters) into Trump's camp, swinging the election to him.
I believe that Donald John Trump is a "deep cover" or "sleeper" agent that's been groomed
and waiting in the wings for his masters' call. I believe that Donald John Trump was called
to power in a desperate now or never moment to save the "deep state" (Zionist) agenda.
Donald John Trump is a liar. Donald John Trump is a fraud. Donald John Trump is a con man.
Donald John Trump is a mass-murderer.
I don't think anyone in the West is sleepwalking into anything, esp the USA. I think the
American people see the writing on the wall and that if the American Empire loses status the
economy of the USA will revert to being a labor intensive existence of working the ground
just to have enough food to eat and water to drink. So entitled and lazy Americans are and
horrified to be relegated back to a 1920/30′s quality of life (loss of Bread &
Circuses), that if the Military Industril Complex has to threaten the entire planet with nuclear
annihilation if they don't tithe 10% of their GDP (Roman Empire) so fat ass Yankees can
continue to be fat asses – then just burn the place to the ground.
If the BRIC countries attempt to dethrone the petro dollar lazy entitled Americans will
BEG Washington to do whatever it takes to bring back $3.00 t-shirts at Wal-Mart.
The world is not about to end, but the Western public space has become very stupid. Most
politicians, media and academics have managed to redefine basic terms into idiotic
caricatures. Concepts like meddling, trolls, collusion, etc don't mean what we are told they
mean. They are all an eternal part of human society, exchange of ideas, disagreements.
Expressing one's opinions is not 'propaganda', or 'meddling' in elections – it is
freedom of speech. The idea that there is only one correct view – the Western liberal
one – is medieval.
We are at a point when views other than BBC, CNN, NY Times , are routinely dismissed as
'meddling', 'trolling, or sometimes 'hatred'. The objective is to suppress and dismiss them.
That is very dangerous for any civilisation, but for a system that was built on celebrating
free speech, it is fatal.
I often hear that it is a 'natural' pendulum swing, that most people in the West don't
agree with it, that it is an angry reaction to an unexpected loss ('Clinton dead-enders'),
that it will self-correct over time. In my view that is missing the point and overlooks the
permanent damage this hysteria has caused. If the more rational members of the elite are
unable to defend rationality and freedom today – when it is still easy – they are
co-responsible for the madness.
"After the Maidan the leaders of two right wing neo-Nazi organisations were rewarded with
control of four ministries
Andriy Parubiy, co-founder of the fascist Social National Party (SNPU) , which later
changed its name to Svoboda, became the new top commander of the National Defense and
Security Council (covering the military, police, courts and intelligence apparatus). The CIA
renamed the organisation to "Svoboda," meaning "Freedom," to make it more acceptable to
Americans.
Dmytro Yarosh, Right Sector commander, was second-in-command of the National Defense and
Security Council. This is the man who organized and ran Ukraine's February 22nd Coup in Kiev,
and the May 2nd Massacre of Its Opponents in Odessa, for Barack Obama. Yarosh's teams
carry out the most violent operations for the CIA in Ukraine. They are responsible for the
atrocities committed in the Donbass, for the crimes against humanity .
Oleh Tyahnybok, co founder of the SNPU and currently the party leader of Svoboda, a self
confessed neo-Nazi. He opposed the introduction of the Russian language as the second
official state language; called for the lustration of former communist officials. He also
proposed recognition of the fighting role of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and
Ukrainian Insurgent Army during World War II."
-- Where are the Lobby, the Anti-Defamation League, the Friends of Israel in UK, and the
whole Holocaust business? Where are the fighters with BDS?
Nobody will deliberately start nuclear war, but the probability that it might start as the
result of series of mistakes has increased.
The US and its vassals (including other NATO
countries) moved NATO troops close to Russian borders, destabilized Ukraine, Syria, cooked up
"Russiagate" (which is really an FBI-gate, but sore losers would not admit it) to justify
further increases in Pentagon budget (a trough where very fat pigs feed).
The Empire is
afraid of losing its position, but shortsighted elites do everything to accelerate its
demise. The main danger is that in its death throes the Empire will start a war, although we
can only hope that even degenerate US elites understand that dead people cannot benefit by
their wealth. Hope springs eternal.
Agree with much of the sentiment and some of the proposals here regarding the need to ratchet
down rhetoric, pledge no first strike, and generally try much harder to reduce the risk of
even a "small" nuke exchange.
But giving up our inter-continental ballistic missiles would be foolhardy, even more so if
it's done unilaterally. With rivals / potential enemies like China and eventually India, who
in time will be able to muster conventional forces and troop contingents far larger than
ours, we cannot give up the nuke deterrent.
And the reference "the TWO nuclear-armed superpowers" is out of date. That would be at
least THREE nuke-armed superpowers: China, the USA, and Russia.
"But giving up our inter-continental ballistic missiles would be foolhardy, even more so
if it's done unilaterally. With rivals / potential enemies like China and eventually India,
who in time will be able to muster conventional forces and troop contingents far larger than
ours, we cannot give up the nuke deterrent."
because it will keep the victims of ZIO/U$A imperial policy at bay for the victims request
for REPARATIONS, when that time comes
understand that dead people cannot benefit by their wealth. Hope springs eternal
Well, hope is always nice. But we might not understand the dynamic nature of the
global-liberal overreach that we have been experiencing. People don't behave the way Western
elites have been acting without some measure of disconnect from reality. And hubris. When a substantial part of elite climbs on an irrational high horse of invincibility they
become paralysed by the framework they have created. They don't want to hear other views
because it makes them uncomfortable. They have given up on both principles and institutions
– it is anything goes world now.
So where is the assurance that rationality would prevail in a crisis? It didn't in 1914.
Who would step in and tell the morons that they have been living a lie of their own creation?
That constraints are still there, that their verbal acuity has not changed how the world is,
that 'soft power' is called soft for a reason – it doesn't add up to a hill of beans
when it matters. The risk for any dissenter of consequence is very high (see Trump for a
related, imperfect example).
Let's hope. Most bad scenarios don't actually end life on the planet, they just make life
more miserable. That's what happened in the past. We might see a 'nuclear' version of that.
One thing I know for sure: none of the liberal fire-eaters in Washington, Brussels or London
will ever own up to this. They are born 'victims', so they will go on whining
The Dutch government tries to get a law accepted now that greatly increases the legal
possibilities of our secret service to spy on anyone.
March 21 there is a referendum on the law, I expect that we will reject it, but the
politicians already stated that they will reject a negative referendum.
By accident, of course, today our secret service made public that they spied on Russian
interference in the USA elections, without being specific of course, 'classified', as a lot
in the USA.
The Trotskyites who became in America first anti-Stalinist Democrat Hawks and then
anti-Russian/Israel-first Republican Hawks have worked things so that they control foreign
affairs for both political parties. And they have an insatiable bloodlust. Like the godfather
of their movement, they are amoral with genocidal desires when it comes to peoples they
despise. They are the type of self-righteous bullies who aspire to rule the globe to
overreach and push and shove and threaten and sucker punch until the worst for the world
happens.
Most regular readers of Unz Review can agree with the above. What they also need to accept
is that those problems did not enter the US, or more generally the Anglosphere, with the
flight of mostly Jewish Trotskyites from the USSR and Europe. The same attitudes of
insufferable hubris that was basically amoral in regard to national and ethnic groups it most
despised marked the British Empire.
The British WASP Elite form certainly was more refined
and pleasant-seeming than the Jewish Neocon form, and other groups of people within that
world usually proved able to bring the most crazed WASP Elite monsters back from the edge of
the cliff. But they existed, and they caused needless trouble around the globe.
It is the mix of the two that makes the American hawkish anti-Russian, Israel-first
foreign policy insane enough to try to start a nuclear exchange.
Anon from TN
You may be right, but we can't do anything about it now: much hyped democracy is a pure ruse
(look at presumably two party system in the US: Republicrats always win). I just hope that
the sense of self-preservation in those degenerate elites is stronger than their lies that
they apparently believe themselves (even mice are smart enough for that). If not, then those
morons along with innocent bystanders (99.9% of world population) would be dead. Look on the
bright side: rodents and insects would be happy to inherit the Earth.
Unpopular jerk-boy opinion incoming. I honestly think the Hawaii response is pretty typical
but shameful. I like the response of the guy who just tweets, 'OK, if I die goodbye, I'm
golfing anyway' and turns his stupid phone off.
Good to see you posting. I hear they are muling Ophrah. Really good choice for next
president. Woman, black, fat and wealthy. Not gay or transvestite though but that's coming
next. What makes me wonder how this sort of imbeciles gets elected without collapsing the
state. I think it is moving slowly in this direction but there was enough to have just 2 morons in top positions and
look -- no
more USSR. Talk about "Checks and balances."
Makes me wonder what after Putin. I do it like him that much
but he still intelligent, cool and calculating man that is not doing stupid things but
neither genius.
Regarding Americans, unfortunately they never felt real pain. Like a kid who does not know that fire is dangerous. I
think financial collapse gonna be trouble
sooner or later with them. The best thing Russia and China can do is to undermine us dollar
status and the whole financial system which was built by uncle Sam for uncle Sam benefit.
Anon from TN
You are right: Dutch government has already thrown away negative results of the referendum on
EU association with Ukraine. What's more, it betrayed its own citizens by still pretending to
investigate the crash of MH-17, even though everyone with a brain knows that Ukrainian puppet
government is to blame (international airlines made this conclusion long time ago: they fly
over Russia, but avoid Ukraine, flying around it, just like they fly around North Korea).
I
am tempted to say that you guys elected this scum, but then you'd say that I elected Trump,
which I didn't (anyway, what choice did we have: corrupt to the core mad witch would have
been even worse).
today our secret service made public that they spied on Russian interference in the USA
elections
Spying is like a recursive algorithm. Next Russia will announce that they ' spied on
the Dutch spies who were spying on them '. Maybe we can skip the ' motivations ':
they are all spying on each other, all the time, it is their job description.
I am still waiting for someone to explain to us how is ' interference ' or '
meddling ' different from having an opinion about an election. And we all know that
Americans (or Dutch) have never, ever, expressed any opinions about other countries'
elections. Right. My democracy promotion is your meddling.
It is bad when you kill my cow. It is very good when I kill your cow. Monkey reasoning
level?
"... There is nothing to lose at this point. The elite have made day to day life a void of lifelessness and stress chasing inflating life necessities with a falling dollar. The revolt hinges on the upcoming market crashes. ..."
"... As in the Rome's example, it may be that America can be saved by the cancerous corruption only by a military coup, the alternative being a massive war which will also enable the Army to overtake the control of the government ..."
Trump's got the military behind him - the only institution powerful enough to challenge the deep state. I also understand he
has a special forces security contingent in addition to SS. Trump gets hit - revolution will explode in their face.
After reading the new National Security policy directive I'm not so sure. it is a blueprint for a new cold war possibly nuclear
war with Russia and China which is antipathy to Trumps stated policies of collaboration with Russia, no more regime change and
cooperation with China on Infrastructure projects. There is obviously a very strong Neo-con component in the Trump administration
so i would not necessarily say the generals have his back.
Black Knight Pence is the Deep State choice, and the military is the epicenter of the Deep State. The US is no longer a country,
but an empire, with born and bred, programmed Globalist Officers in the military and all through the government.
It's a system which isn't a part of the country, it's completely in it's own synthetic realm, devoid of reason and logic. It's
officers often confer with the Council on Foreign Relations and various controlled think tanks for it's marching orders. We, the
American people aren't in the decision loop.
This system was designed from the outcome of the civil war. It's a centralized command and control system. It rules the states
as harshly as it rules the world. We speak of freedom, but no one in their right mind can call this freedom. So most of us are
not in our right mind, some brainwashed, others suspicious.
Agree. I'm sure that Army's Intelligence services are indeed behind all the hacks & leaks which collapsed HC campaign and helped
DT's. Also, they exposed the FBI's and NSA dirt. Kind of they didn't liked the ascension of the civils controlling the intelligence
policies strategically - kind of the situation between Soviet's army and KGB. In the game of the pig and the chicken, the chicken
is only involved with the eggs but the pigs must provide the bacon. Id Trump gets hit I'm pretty sure you'll see a military coup
overtaking the governement.
I have a feeling the US army is really pissed they died for nothing. Despite all the talk of shortcomings, the US army, not
USAF or USN, is not to be toyed with in an existential war, they will fight!
All adversaries understand that, they lose wars because they don't believe, simple. If the deep state, including feckless military
leaders push too far, they'll be facing rifle barrels and possibly be chesting bayonets.
A military coup can happen in the USA despite talk of sacrosant democracy, it happened in Rome, word enough for the wise.
😎
BTW, the bulk of us army is not in active service, never underestimate patriotic veterans, if it comes to a shootout at the
OK corral, they'll kill and die for their loved ones, against all enemies, foreign, and "domestic".
No, they won't Never have, never will .Gutless cowards one & all.They pick on the poor& weak & never won a real war, except Japan. They
burn babies 4 billionaires,& there is no such thing as a domestic enemy.
Stupid goldbricking brutes fit 4 fertilizer and nothing else. Go copsuck & flagwank elsewhere, cuckfaggot vet or fanboi
There is nothing to lose at this point. The elite have made day to day life a void of lifelessness and stress chasing inflating life necessities with a falling dollar.
The revolt hinges on the upcoming market crashes.
Agree + Scipio. As mentioned, till now the chickens lied and Army provided the bacon and the chickens collected all the revenue.
As in the Rome's example, it may be that America can be saved by the cancerous corruption only by a military coup, the alternative
being a massive war which will also enable the Army to overtake the control of the government, here is where NK and Iran would
be good players in the scheme.
"... GDP growth, which is way ahead of schedule under my administration, will be one of America's truly greatest weapons. ..."
"... We also face rival powers, Russia and China, that seek to challenge American influence, values, and wealth. We will attempt to build a great partnership with those and other countries, but in a manner that always protects our national interest. ..."
"... It calls for a total modernization of our military, and reversing previous decisions to shrink our armed forces -- even as threats to national security grew. It calls for streamlining acquisition, eliminating bloated bureaucracy, and massively building up our military, which has the fundamental side benefit of creating millions and millions of jobs. ..."
"... Fourth and finally, our strategy is to advance American influence in the world, but this begins with building up our wealth and power at home. ..."
At home, we are keeping our promises and liberating the American economy. We have created
more than 2 million jobs since the election. Unemployment is at a 17-year-low. The stock market
is at an all-time high and, just a little while ago, hit yet another all-time high -- the 85th
time since my election. (Applause.)
We have cut 22 regulations for every one new regulation, the most in the history of our
country. We have unlocked America's vast energy resources.
As the world watches -- and the world is indeed watching -- we are days away from passing
historic tax cuts for American families and businesses. It will be the biggest tax cut and tax
reform in the history of our country. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
And we are seeing the response we fully expected. Economic growth has topped 3 percent for
two quarters in a row. GDP growth, which is way ahead of schedule under my administration,
will be one of America's truly greatest weapons.
Optimism has surged. Confidence has returned. With this new confidence, we are also bringing
back clarity to our thinking. We are reasserting these fundamental truths:
A nation without borders is not a nation. (Applause.)
A nation that does not protect prosperity at home cannot protect its interests
abroad.
A nation that is not prepared to win a war is a nation not capable of preventing a
war.
A nation that is not proud of its history cannot be confident in its future.
And a nation that is not certain of its values cannot summon the will to defend
them.
Today, grounded in these truths, we are presenting to the world our new National Security
Strategy. Based on my direction, this document has been in development for over a year. It has
the endorsement of my entire Cabinet.
Our new strategy is based on a principled realism, guided by our vital national interests,
and rooted in our timeless values.
This strategy recognizes that, whether we like it or not, we are engaged in a new era of
competition. We accept that vigorous military, economic, and political contests are now playing
out all around the world. We face rogue regimes that threaten the United States and our allies.
We face terrorist organizations, transnational criminal networks, and others who spread
violence and evil around the globe.
We also face rival powers, Russia and China, that seek to challenge American influence,
values, and wealth. We will attempt to build a great partnership with those and other
countries, but in a manner that always protects our national interest.
As an example, yesterday I received a call from President Putin of Russia thanking our
country for the intelligence that our CIA was able to provide them concerning a major terrorist
attack planned in St. Petersburg, where many people, perhaps in the thousands, could have been
killed. They were able to apprehend these terrorists before the event, with no loss of life.
And that's a great thing, and the way it's supposed to work. That is the way it's supposed to
work.
But while we seek such opportunities of cooperation, we will stand up for ourselves, and we
will stand up for our country like we have never stood up before. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank
you. Thank you.
We know that American success is not a forgone conclusion. It must be earned and it must be
won. Our rivals are tough, they're tenacious, and committed to the long term. But so are
we.
To succeed, we must integrate every dimension of our national strength, and we must compete
with every instrument of our national power.
Under the Trump administration, America is gaining wealth, leading to enhanced power --
faster than anyone thought -- with $6 trillion more in the stock market alone since the
election -- $6 trillion.
With the strategy I am announcing today, we are declaring that America is in the game and
America is going to win. (Applause.) Thank you.
Our strategy advances four vital national interests. First, we must protect the American
people, the homeland, and our great American way of life. This strategy recognizes that we
cannot secure our nation if we do not secure our borders. So for the first time ever, American
strategy now includes a serious plan to defend our homeland. It calls for the construction of a
wall on our southern border; ending chain migration and the horrible visa and lottery programs;
closing loopholes that undermine enforcement; and strongly supporting our Border Patrol agents,
ICE officers, and Homeland Security personnel. (Applause.)
In addition, our strategy calls for us to confront, discredit, and defeat radical Islamic
terrorism and ideology and to prevent it from spreading into the United States. And we will
develop new ways to counter those who use new domains, such as cyber and social media, to
attack our nation or threaten our society.
The second pillar of our strategy is to promote American prosperity. For the first time,
American strategy recognizes that economic security is national security. Economic vitality,
growth, and prosperity at home is absolutely necessary for American power and influence abroad.
Any nation that trades away its prosperity for security will end up losing both.
That is why this National Security Strategy emphasizes, more than any before, the critical
steps we must take to ensure the prosperity of our nation for a long, long time to come.
It calls for cutting taxes and rolling back unnecessary regulations. It calls for trade
based on the principles of fairness and reciprocity. It calls for firm action against unfair
trade practices and intellectual property theft. And it calls for new steps to protect our
national security industrial and innovation base.
The strategy proposes a complete rebuilding of American infrastructure -- our roads,
bridges, airports, waterways, and communications infrastructure. And it embraces a future of
American energy dominance and self-sufficiency.
The third pillar of our strategy is to preserve peace through strength. (Applause.) We
recognize that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unrivaled power is the most certain
means of defense. For this reason, our strategy breaks from the damaging defense sequester.
We're going to get rid of that. (Applause.)
It calls for a total modernization of our military, and reversing previous decisions to
shrink our armed forces -- even as threats to national security grew. It calls for streamlining
acquisition, eliminating bloated bureaucracy, and massively building up our military, which has
the fundamental side benefit of creating millions and millions of jobs.
This strategy includes plans to counter modern threats, such as cyber and electromagnetic
attacks. It recognizes space as a competitive domain and calls for multi-layered missile
defense. (Applause.) This strategy outlines important steps to address new forms of conflict
such as economic and political aggression.
And our strategy emphasizes strengthening alliances to cope with these threats. It
recognizes that our strength is magnified by allies who share principles -- and our principles
-- and shoulder their fair share of responsibility for our common security.
Fourth and finally, our strategy is to advance American influence in the world, but this
begins with building up our wealth and power at home.
America will lead again. We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but we will
champion the values without apology. We want strong alliances and partnerships based on
cooperation and reciprocity. We will make new partnerships with those who share our goals, and
make common interests into a common cause. We will not allow inflexible ideology to become an
obsolete and obstacle to peace.
We will pursue the vision we have carried around the world over this past year -- a vision
of strong, sovereign, and independent nations that respect their citizens and respect their
neighbors; nations that thrive in commerce and cooperation, rooted in their histories and
branching out toward their destinies.
That is the future we wish for this world, and that is the future we seek in America.
(Applause.)
With this strategy, we are calling for a great reawakening of America, a resurgence of
confidence, and a rebirth of patriotism, prosperity, and pride.
And we are returning to the wisdom of our founders. In America, the people govern, the
people rule, and the people are sovereign. What we have built here in America is precious and
unique. In all of history, never before has freedom reigned, the rule of law prevailed, and the
people thrived as we have here for nearly 250 years.
We must love and defend it. We must guard it with vigilance and spirit, and, if necessary,
like so many before us, with our very lives. And we declare that our will is renewed, our
future is regained, and our dreams are restored.
Every American has a role to play in this grand national effort. And today, I invite every
citizen to take their part in our vital mission. Together, our task is to strengthen our
families, to build up our communities, to serve our citizens, and to celebrate American
greatness as a shining example to the world.
As long as we are proud -- and very proud -- of who we are, how we got here, and what we are
fighting for to preserve, we will not fail.
If we do all of this, if we rediscover our resolve and commit ourselves to compete and win
again, then together we will leave our children and our grandchildren a nation that is
stronger, better, freer, prouder, and, yes, an America that is greater than ever before.
God Bless You. Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause.)
"... For Germany, the idea of Europeanism has provided the country's elites with the perfect alibi to conceal their hegemonic project behind the ideological veil of 'European integration' ..."
"... "That may sound absurd given that today's Germany is a successful democracy without a trace of national-socialism – and that no one would actually associate Merkel with Nazism. But further reflection on the word 'Reich', or empire, may not be entirely out of place. The term refers to a dominion, with a central power exerting control over many different peoples. According to this definition, would it be wrong to speak of a German Reich in the economic realm?" ..."
"... More recently, an article in Politico Europe ..."
"... Even though the power exercised by Europe's 'colonial masters' is now openly acknowledged by the mainstream press, it is however commonplace to ascribe Germany's dominant position as an accident of history: according to this narrative, we are in the presence of an 'accidental empire', one that is not the result of a general plan but that emerged almost by chance – even against ..."
"... Germany (and France) have been the main beneficiaries of the sovereign bailouts of periphery countries , which essentially amounted to a covert bailout of German (and French) banks, as most of the funds were channelled back to the creditor countries' banks, which were heavily exposed to the banks (and to a lesser degree the governments) of periphery countries. German policy, Helen Thompson wrote , overwhelmingly 'served the interests of the German banks'. ..."
"... This is a telling example of how Germany's policies (and the EU's policies more in general), while nominally ordoliberal – i.e., based upon minimal government intervention and a strict rules-based regime – are in reality based on extensive state intervention on behalf of German capital, at both the domestic and European level. ..."
"... German authorities have also been more than happy to go along with – or to encourage – the European institutions' 'exercise of unrestrained executive power and the more or less complete abandonment of strict, rules-based frameworks' – Storey is here referring in particular to the ECB's use of its currency-issuing monopoly to force member states to follows its precepts – 'to maintain the profitability of German banks, German hegemony within the Eurozone, or even the survival of the Eurozone itself'. ..."
"... Germany (and France) are also the main beneficiaries of the ongoing process of 'mezzogiornification' of periphery countries – often compounded by troika -forced privatisations –, which in recent years has allowed German and French firms to take over a huge number of businesses (or stakes therewithin) in periphery countries, often at bargain prices. A well-publicised case is that of the 14 Greek regional airports taken over by the German airport operator Fraport. ..."
"... France's corporate offensive in Italy is another good example: in the last five years, French companies have engaged in 177 Italian takeovers, for a total value of $41.8 billion, six times Italy's purchases in France over the same period. This is leading to an increased 'centralisation' of European capital, characterised by a gradual concentration of capital and production in Germany and other core countries – in the logistical and distribution sectors, for example – and more in general to an increasingly imbalanced relationship between the stronger and weaker countries of the union. ..."
"... In short, the European Union should indeed be viewed a transnational capitalist project, but one that is subordinated to a clear state-centred hierarchy of power, with Germany in the dominant position. In this sense, the national elites in periphery countries that have supported Germany's hegemonic project (and continue to do so, first and foremost through their support to European integration) can thus be likened to the comprador bourgeoisie ..."
"... Exportnationalismus' ..."
"... Modell Deutschland ..."
"... Even more worryingly, Germany is not simply aiming at expanding its economic control over the European continent; it is also taking steps for greater European military 'cooperation' – under the German aegis, of course. As a recent article in Foreign Policy ..."
"... In other words, Germany already effectively controls the armies of four countries. And the initiative, Foreign Policy ..."
Originally from: Germany's dystopian plans for Europe: from fantasy to reality?By Thomas
Fazi 4 December 2017
For Germany, the idea
of Europeanism has provided the country's elites with the perfect alibi to conceal their
hegemonic project behind the ideological veil of 'European integration'
After Emmanuel Macron's election in France, many (including myself) claimed that this
signalled a revival of the Franco-German alliance and a renewed impetus for Europe's process of
top-down economic and political integration – a fact that was claimed by most
commentators and politicians, beholden as they are to the Europeanist narrative, to be an
unambiguously positive development.
Among the allegedly 'overdue' reforms that were said to be on the table was the creation of
a pseudo-'fiscal union' backed by a (meagre) 'euro budget', along with the creation of a
'European finance minister', the centre-points of Macron's plans to 're-found the EU' – a
proposal that raises a number of very worrying issues from both political and economic
standpoints,
which I have discussed at length elsewhere .
The integrationists' (unwarranted) optimism, however, was short-lived. The result of the
German elections, which saw the surge of two rabidly anti-integrationist parties, the
right-wing FDP and extreme right AfD; the recent collapse of coalition talks between Merkel's
CDU, the FDP and the Greens, which most likely means an interim government for weeks if not
months, possibly leading to new elections (which polls show would
bring roughly the same result as the September election); and the growing restlessness in
Germany towards the 13-year-long rule of Macron's partner in reform Angela Merkel, means that
any plans that Merkel and Macron may have sketched out behind the scenes to further integrate
policies at the European level are now, almost certainly, dead in the water. Thus, even the
sorry excuse for a fiscal union proposed by Macron is now off the table, according to most
commentators.
At this point, the German government's most likely course in terms of European policy
– the one that has the best chance of garnering cross-party support, regardless of the
outcome of the coalition talks (or of new elections) – is the 'minimalist' approach set
in stone by the country's infamous and now-former finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, in
a 'non-paper' published shortly
before his resignation.
The main pillar of Schäuble's proposal – a long-time obsession of his –
consists in giving the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), which would go on to become a
'European Monetary Fund', the power to monitor (and, ideally, enforce) compliance with the
Fiscal Compact. This echoes Schäuble's previous calls for the
creation of a European budget commissioner with the power to reject national budgets – a
supranational fiscal enforcer.
The aim is all too clear: to further erode what little sovereignty and autonomy member
states have left, particularly in the area of fiscal policy, and to facilitate the imposition
of neoliberal 'structural reforms' – flexibilisation of labour markets, reduction of
collective bargaining rights, etc. – on reluctant countries.
To this end, the German authorities even want to make the receipt of EU cohesion funds
conditional on the implementation of such reforms , tightening the existing arrangements
even further. Moreover, as noted by Simon
Wren-Lewis , the political conflict of interest of having an institution lending within the
eurozone would end up imposing severe austerity bias on the recovering country.
Until recently, these proposals failed to materialise due, among other reasons, to France's
opposition to any further overt reductions of national sovereignty in the area of
budgetary policy; Macron, however, staunchly rejects France's traditional
souverainiste stance, embracing instead what he calls 'European sovereignty', and thus
represents the perfect ally for Germany's plans.
Another proposal that goes in the same direction is the
German Council for Economic Experts' plan to curtail banks' sovereign bond holdings.
Ostensibly aimed at 'severing the link between banks and government' and 'ensuring long-term
debt sustainability', it calls for: (i) removing the exemption from risk-weighting for
sovereign exposures, which essentially means that government bonds would no longer be
considered a risk-free asset for banks (as they are now under Basel rules), but would be
'weighted' according to the 'sovereign default risk' of the country in question (as determined
by credit rating agencies); (ii) putting a cap on the overall risk-weighted sovereign exposure
of banks; and (iii) introducing an automatic 'sovereign insolvency mechanism' that would
essentially extend to sovereigns the bail-in rule introduced for banks by the banking union,
meaning that if a country requires financial assistance from the ESM, for whichever reason, it
will have to lengthen its sovereign bond maturities (reducing the market value of those bonds
and causing severe losses for all bondholders) and, if necessary, impose a nominal 'haircut' on
private creditors.
As noted by the German economist Peter Bofinger , the only member of the German Council of
Economic Experts to vote against the sovereign bail-in plan, this would almost certainly ignite
a 2012-style self-fulfilling sovereign debt crisis, as periphery countries' bond yields would
quickly rise to unsustainable levels, making it increasingly hard for governments to roll over
maturing debt at reasonable prices and eventually forcing them to turn to the ESM for help,
which would entail even heavier losses for their banks and an even heavier dose of
austerity.
It would essentially amount to a return to the pre-2012 status quo, with governments once
again subject to the supposed 'discipline' of the markets, particularly in the context of a
likely tapering of the ECB's quantitative easing (QE) program. The aim of this proposal is the
same as that of Schäuble's 'European Monetary Fund': to force member states to implement
permanent austerity.
Of course, national sovereignty in a number of areas – most notably fiscal policy
– has already been severely eroded by the complex system of new laws, rules and
agreements introduced in recent years, including but not limited to the six-pack, two-pack,
Fiscal Compact, European Semester and Macroeconomic Imbalances Procedure (MIP).
As a result of this new post-Maastricht system of European economic governance, the European
Union has effectively become a sovereign power with the authority to impose budgetary rules and
structural reforms on member states outside democratic procedures and without democratic
control.
The EU's embedded quasi-constitutionalism and inherent (structural) democratic deficit has
thus evolved into an even more anti-democratic form of 'authoritarian constitutionalism' that
is breaking away with elements of formal democracy as well, leading some observers to suggest
that the EU 'may easily become the postdemocratic prototype and even a pre-dictatorial
governance structure against national sovereignty and democracies'.
To give an example, with the launch of the European Semester, the EU's key tool for economic
policy guidance and surveillance, an area that has historically been a bastion of national
sovereignty – old-age pensions – has now fallen under the purview of supranational
monitoring as well. Countries are now expected to
(and face sanctions if they don't): (i) increase the retirement age and link it with life
expectancy; (ii) reduce early retirement schemes, improve the employability of older workers
and promote lifelong learning; (iii) support complementary private savings to enhance
retirement incomes; and (iv) avoid adopting pension-related measures that undermine the long
term sustainability and adequacy of public finances.
This has led to the introduction in various countries of several types of automatic
stabilizing mechanisms (ASMs) in pension systems, which change the policy default so that
benefits or contributions adjust automatically to adverse demographic and economic conditions
without direct intervention by politicians. Similar 'automatic correction mechanisms' in
relation to fiscal policy can be found in the Fiscal Compact.
The aim of all these 'automatic mechanisms' is clearly to put the economy on 'autopilot',
thus removing any element of democratic discussion and/or decision-making at either the
European or national level. These changes have already transformed European states into
'semi-sovereign' entities, at best. In this sense, the proposals currently under discussion
would mark the definitive transformation of European states from semi-sovereign to de
facto (and increasingly de jure ) non-sovereign entities.
Regardless of the lip service paid by national and European officials to the need for
further reductions of national sovereignty to go hand in hand with a greater 'democratisation'
of the euro area, the reforms currently on the table can, in fact, be considered the final
stage in the thirty-year-long war on democracy and national sovereignty waged by the European
elites, aimed at constraining the ability of popular-democratic powers to influence economic
policy, thus enabling the imposition of neoliberal policies that would not have otherwise been
politically feasible.
In this sense, the European economic and monetary integration process should be viewed, to a
large degree, as a class-based and inherently neoliberal project pursued by all
national capitals as well as transnational (financial) capital. However, to grasp the processes
of restructuring under way in Europe, we need to go beyond the simplistic capital/labour
dichotomy that underlies many critical analyses of the EU and eurozone, which view EU/EMU
policies as the expression of a unitary and coherent transnational (post-national) European
capitalist class.
The process underway can only be understood through the lens of the geopolitical-economic
tensions and conflicts between leading capitalist states and regional blocs, and the
conflicting interests between the different financial/industrial capital fractions located in
those states, which have always characterised the European economy. In particular, it means
looking at Germany's historic struggle for economic hegemony over the European continent.
It is no secret that Germany is today the leading economic and political power in Europe,
just as it is no secret that nothing gets done in Europe without Germany's seal of approval. In
fact, it is commonplace to come across references to Germany's 'new empire'.
A controversial Der Spiegel editorial from a few years back event went as far as
arguing that it is not out place to talk of the rise of a 'Fourth Reich':
"That may sound absurd given that today's Germany is a successful democracy without a trace
of national-socialism – and that no one would actually associate Merkel with Nazism. But
further reflection on the word 'Reich', or empire, may not be entirely out of place. The term
refers to a dominion, with a central power exerting control over many different peoples.
According to this definition, would it be wrong to speak of a German Reich in the economic
realm?"
More recently, an article in
Politico Europe – co-owned by the German media magnate Axel Springer AG
– candidly explained why 'Greece is de facto a German colony'. It noted how, despite
Tsipras' pleas for debt relief, the Greek leader 'has little choice but to heed the wishes of
his "colonial" masters', i.e., the Germans.
This is because public debt
in the eurozone is used as a political tool – a disciplining tool – to get
governments to implement socially harmful policies (and to get citizens to accept these
policies by portraying them as inevitable), which explains why Germany continues to refuse to
seriously consider any form of debt relief for Greece, despite the various commitments and
promises to that end made in recent years: debt is the chain that keeps Greece (and other
member states) from straying 'off course'.
Even though the power exercised by Europe's 'colonial masters' is now openly acknowledged by
the mainstream press, it is however commonplace to ascribe Germany's dominant position as an
accident of history: according to this narrative, we are in the presence of an 'accidental
empire', one that is not the result of a general plan but that emerged almost by chance –
even against Germany's wishes – as a result of the euro's design faults, which
have allowed Germany and its satellites to pursue a neo-mercantilist strategy and thus
accumulate huge current account surpluses.
Now, it is certainly true that the euro's design – strongly influenced by Germany
– inevitably benefits export-led economies such as Germany over more internal
demand-oriented economies, such as those of southern Europe. However, there is ample evidence
to support the argument that Germany, far from having accidently stumbled upon European
dominance, has been actively and consciously pursuing an expansionary and imperialist strategy
in – and through – the European Union for decades.
Even if we limit our analysis to Germany's post-crisis policies (though there is much that
could be said about Germany's post-reunification policies and subsequent offshoring of
production to Eastern Europe in the 1990s), it would be very naïve to view Germany's
inflexibility – on austerity, for example – as a simple case of ideological
stubbornness, considering the extent to which the policies in question have benefited Germany
(and to a lesser extent France).
Germany (and France) have been
the main beneficiaries of the sovereign bailouts of periphery countries , which essentially
amounted to a covert bailout of German (and French) banks, as most of the funds were channelled
back to the creditor countries' banks, which were heavily exposed to the banks (and to a lesser
degree the governments) of periphery countries. German policy, Helen Thompson wrote ,
overwhelmingly 'served the interests of the German banks'.
This is a telling example of how Germany's policies (and the EU's policies more in general),
while nominally ordoliberal – i.e., based upon minimal government intervention
and a strict rules-based regime – are in reality based on extensive state
intervention on behalf of German capital, at both the domestic and European level.
As Andy Storey notes, not only did the German government, throughout the crisis, show a
blatant disregard for ordoliberalism's non-interference of public institutions in the workings
of the market, by engaging in a massive Keynesian-style programme in the aftermath of the
financial crisis and pushing through bailout programmes that largely absolved German banks from
their responsibility for reckless lending to Greece and other countries; German authorities
have also been more than happy to go along with – or to encourage – the European
institutions' 'exercise of unrestrained executive power and the more or less complete
abandonment of strict, rules-based frameworks' – Storey is here referring in particular
to the ECB's use of its currency-issuing monopoly to force member states to follows its
precepts – 'to maintain the profitability of German banks, German hegemony within the
Eurozone, or even the survival of the Eurozone itself'.
Germany (and France) are also the main beneficiaries of the ongoing process of
'mezzogiornification' of periphery countries – often compounded by troika
-forced privatisations –, which in recent years has allowed German and French firms to
take over a huge number of businesses (or stakes therewithin) in periphery countries, often at
bargain prices. A well-publicised case is that of the 14 Greek regional airports taken over by
the German airport operator Fraport.
France's corporate offensive in Italy is another good example: in the last five years,
French companies have engaged in 177 Italian takeovers, for a total value of $41.8 billion, six
times Italy's purchases in France over the same period. This is leading to an increased
'centralisation' of European capital, characterised by a gradual concentration of capital and
production in Germany and other core countries – in the logistical and distribution
sectors, for example – and more in general to an increasingly imbalanced relationship
between the stronger and weaker countries of the union.
These transformations cannot simply be described as processes without a subject: while there
are undoubtedly structural reasons involved – countries with better developed economies
of scale, such as Germany and France, were bound to benefit more than others from the reduction
in tariffs and barriers associated with the introduction of the single currency – we also
have to acknowledge that there are loci of economic-politic power that are actively driving and
shaping these imperialist processes, which must be viewed through the lens of the unresolved
inter-capitalist struggle between core-based and periphery-based capital.
From this perspective, the dichotomy that is often raised in European public discourse
between nationalism and Europeanism is deeply flawed. The two, in fact, often go hand in hand.
In Germany's case, for example, Europeanism has provided the country's elites with the perfect
alibi to conceal their hegemonic project behind the ideological veil of 'European integration'.
Ironically, the European Union – allegedly created as an antidote to the vicious
nationalisms of the twentieth century – has been the tool through which Germany has been
able to achieve the 'new European order' that Nazi ideologues had theorised in the 1930s and
early 1940s.
In short, the European Union should indeed be viewed a transnational capitalist project, but
one that is subordinated to a clear state-centred hierarchy of power, with Germany in the
dominant position. In this sense, the national elites in periphery countries that have
supported Germany's hegemonic project (and continue to do so, first and foremost through their
support to European integration) can thus be likened to the comprador bourgeoisie of
the old colonial system – sections of a country's elite and middle class allied with
foreign interests in exchange for a subordinated role within the dominant hierarchy of
power.
From this point of view, the likely revival of the Franco-German bloc is a very worrying
development, since it heralds a consolidation of the German-led European imperialist bloc
– and a further 'Germanification' of the continent. This development cannot be understood
independently of the momentous shifts that are taking place in global political economy –
namely the organic crisis of neoliberal globalisation, which is leading to increased tensions
between the various fractions of international capital, most notably between the US and
Germany.
Trump's repeated criticisms of Germany's beggar-thy-neighbour mercantilist policies should
be understood in this light. The same goes for Angela Merkel's recent call – much
celebrated by the mainstream press – for a stronger Europe to counter Trump's
unilateralism. Merkel's aim is not, of course, that of making 'Europe' stronger, but rather of
strengthening Germany's dominant position vis-à-vis the other world powers (the US but
also China) through the consolidation of Germany's control of the European continental economy,
in the context of an intensification of global inter-capitalist competition.
This has now become an imperative for Germany, especially since Trump has dared to openly
challenge the self-justifying ideology which sustains Germany's mercantilism – a
particular form of economic nationalism that Hans Kundnani has
dubbed ' Exportnationalismus' , founded upon the belief that Germany's massive
trade surplus is uniquely the result of Germany's manufacturing excellence ( Modell
Deutschland ) rather than, in fact, the result of unfair trade practices.
This is why, if Germany wants to maintain its hegemonic position on the continent, it must
break with the US and tighten the bolts of the European workhouse. To this end, it needs to
seize control of the most coveted institution of them all – the ECB –, which
hitherto has never been under direct German control (though the Bundesbank exercises
considerable influence over it, as is well known). Indeed, many commentators openly acknowledge
that Merkel now has her eyes on the ECB's presidency. This would effectively put Germany
directly at the helm of European economic policy.
Even more worryingly, Germany is not simply aiming at expanding its economic control over
the European continent; it is also taking steps for greater European military 'cooperation'
– under the German aegis, of course.
As a recent article in Foreign Policy revealed , 'Germany is quietly building a
European army under its command'.
This year Germany and two of its European allies, the Czech Republic and Romania, announced
the integration of their armed forces, under the control of the Bundeswehr. In doing so, the
will follow in the footsteps of two Dutch brigades, one of which has already joined the
Bundeswehr's Rapid Response Forces Division and another that has been integrated into the
Bundeswehr's 1st Armored Division.
In other words, Germany already effectively controls the armies of four countries. And the
initiative, Foreign Policy notes, 'is likely to grow'. This is not surprising: if
Germany ('the EU') wants to become truly autonomous from the US, it needs to acquire military
sovereignty, which it currently lacks.
Europe is thus at a crossroads: the choice that left-wing and popular forces, and periphery
countries more generally, face is between (a) accepting Europe's transition to a fully
post-democratic, hyper-competitive, German-led continental system, in which member states
(except for those at the helm of the project) will be deprived of all sovereignty and autonomy,
in exchange for a formal democratic façade at the supranational level, and its workers
subject to ever-growing levels of exploitation; or (b) regaining national sovereignty and
autonomy at the national level, with all the short-term risks that such a strategy entails, as
the only way to restore democracy, popular sovereignty and socioeconomic dignity. In short, the
choice is between European post-democracy or post-European democracy.
There is no third way. Especially in view of the growing tensions between Germany, the US
and China, periphery countries should ask themselves if they want to be simple pawns in this
'New Great Game' or if they want to take their destinies into their own hands.
"... Imagine a Russia in which Putin was no longer around and the hawks, with plenty of stored up grievances, were in power. The Russians have their neocons too and if they came out on top we'd be worse off than now ..."
"... The European elites wish to see Europe as a world power. Unrealistic, perhaps, but say that entity did become a dominant force. They complain about the lack of democratic control in the States, but that's nothing to the lack of democratic control in Europe. And we've already seen what the Europeans, including us, are capable of when it comes to predatory foreign intervention. Give the Europeans enough things that go bang and we could be yearning for the good old days. ..."
Babak - "The only sensible thing to do is to cut and run; in my opinion. Just work through
the implications as US cuts and run in the Levant, in the Persian Gulf, in South Korea."
As you point out, that could have unexpected effects. We saw what happened when a previous
dominant power - Great Britain, though by no means as overwhelmingly dominant and not at all
so at the end - effectively cut and ran after the Second World War. It ended up more of a
mess than it started out as.
Even in an ideal world, a world in which the current style of Great Power politics was
universally abandoned, the sudden withdrawal of the US would cause instability and chaos. The
disengagement would have to be gradual.
But there is no such ideal world as that and there will not be. Therefore the sudden
withdrawal of the US would leave a power vacuum that others would fill.
What others? Imagine a Russia in which Putin was no longer around and the hawks, with
plenty of stored up grievances, were in power. The Russians have their neocons too and if
they came out on top we'd be worse off than now .
The European elites wish to see Europe as a world power. Unrealistic, perhaps, but say
that entity did become a dominant force. They complain about the lack of democratic control
in the States, but that's nothing to the lack of democratic control in Europe. And we've
already seen what the Europeans, including us, are capable of when it comes to predatory
foreign intervention. Give the Europeans enough things that go bang and we could be yearning
for the good old days.
I'm one of those that still hope that the non-interventionist policy that was voted for in
America in 2016 will be carried through. But if that is indeed Trump's intention then there
is more in his way than local political or administrative difficulties. To engineer such a
transition would require great care. It's no good if the US just steps back and worse comes
forward to take its place.
It's not overly idealistic, or even that unrealistic, to hope for a world in which defense
forces (AND defensive alliances) are used for the proper purpose of defence and not for
expensive and destructive enterprises dreamed up by some bubble elite. That's part of what
Trump 2016 was about. But getting to such a world would require a considerably more careful
transition than we've seen in similar circumstances in the past.
There are some analogies here with the recent Poroshenko government desire to take Donbass area back by military force.
Notable quotes:
"... How will this breakup of Syrian national territory affect the situation between the Donbass region and the Ukraine junta? ..."
"... True and very sad. The Syrians have been caught in the crossfire since the beginning. We have theorized over the various causes of the war, but, in the end, when the superpowers are hanging around, Syrians are the first row of pieces to be sacrificed. ..."
"... The Afrin war plays several roles. It will demonize and demoralize further the 'independentist' Kurds, awake the nationalist Turkish feeling by displaying military power that has been damaged by the coup, boost the Islamist flame among the rural Turks so the Turks can forget about their grudge over the EU and the declining buying power. ..."
"... All the actors are tributaries flowing into the main river, and all moving in the same general direction, because the river is actually the tide of history. All players are advancing to meet their inevitable destinie ..."
Let me see if I understand all this? The Erdogan Turks fully back the terrorists in Syria
aiming to dislodge the Assad Syrian government. The USA et al fully backs the same.
The USA also backs the PKK/YPG Kurd faction in Syria as a means to at least break up
Syrian national territory, as originally in their plans, even if they do remove the Assad
government as originally planned.
Erdogan has wanted to expand Turkey's national boundaries at the expense of Syria's. This
latest encroachment, as with Euphrates Shield, accomplishes this goal especially if they can
subsume their terrorist proxies occupied areas in Idlib Province as the USA has by using
their newest Kurd proxies in eastern Syria. Erdogan need only create some new proxy
(Turkmen?) and go after the terrorists and Kurds in western Syria. No doubt with American
help.
Erdogan and the USA disagree only on what future the Kurdish people will play in the
eastern territories of Syria and Turkey. So what will be the necessary accommodation between
them?
If a Kurdish state is declared and backed by NATO and a UN resolution what if anything can
Syria and her allies do about it as war is simply out of the question.
How will this breakup of Syrian national territory affect the situation between the
Donbass region and the Ukraine junta?
This would not be some devious plot by Turks/US to prolong the war in Syria and give cover to
send more troops in ... troops that never leave? The whole thing seems a bit too ...
convenient.
True and very sad. The Syrians have been caught in the crossfire since the beginning.
We have theorized over the various causes of the war, but, in the end, when the superpowers
are hanging around, Syrians are the first row of pieces to be sacrificed.
And I would never put my faith in any international community ruling after Syria. We are
in uncharted territory, I believe. Dance with the one you came with and if you have to stand
on Putin's toes to keep up, then hold him close.
"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong
do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." -- Thucydides
"These oilfields seem to be the big prize and one of the main reasons the US wants to hold
onto this corner of Syria."
Posted by: financial matters | Jan 21, 2018 10:37:30 AM | 18
The goal of the MIC and Deep State is just to keep the chaos going as long as possible to
sell arms and benefit careers. However, Trump has been enticed to go along with it by the
promise that the US will "take their oil."
You may be correct that those Kurds aren't Syrian, but not necessarily so. The areas of
Syria that have actually had Kurdish, or for instance Armenian, majorities have enjoyed a
large measure of de facto autonomy, which has only increased in the last 20 years. So while
nominally required to use Arabic in schools, if the school is staffed with Kurdish teachers
and administrators with Kurdish students, there is little to stop them from simply teaching
in Kurdish. Or Armenian, or Aramaic, etc.
We had wrongly predicted that Turkish threats against the Kurdish held north-west area of
Afrin were empty:
Maybe not. Maybe your first analysis was correct. If the Kurdish militias do fight, it will
take many weeks, and lead to substantial Turkish losses. So it is really too early to say
that Erdogan will attempt to conquer Afrin no matter the cost, and too early to say that the
US will not put effective pressure on Erdogan, or offer him some sort of deal.
So far, Erdogan has upped the ante, but he hasn't gone all in.
Erdogan is obsessed by keeping power and winning his re election in 2018 or 2019 . To get
that, he needs to neutralize the Turkish Kurds who don't vote for him. Sunni conservative
Kurds worship Erdogan for his promotion of Sunni Islam. For them Islam is the unifying factor
of Turks especially Sunni Islam. They all vote for the AKP.
Erdogan has emasculated the burgeoning liberal Kurdish party, the HDP, by demonizing the
liberal Kurds and throwing its leader in prison just to get more votes in the previous
parliamentary election that he reran to win with a very small margin.
For the next election, he is very worried about the growth of other centrist parties, the
weakness of his ally the MHP, a nationalist party archi-enemy of the Kurds and about the
insatisfaction of the Turks with the deteriorating relation with the EU and the fall of the
lira.
The Afrin war plays several roles. It will demonize and demoralize further the
'independentist' Kurds, awake the nationalist Turkish feeling by displaying military power
that has been damaged by the coup, boost the Islamist flame among the rural Turks so the
Turks can forget about their grudge over the EU and the declining buying power.
The question is will he win fast enough not to create the impression of failure and a
quagmire that would reflect negatively on his voters? And what will be the aftermath of
Afrin? early elections?
It's a multiple win-win, a great demonstration of congruent interests all doing their own
thing. Lots of things remain to play out. But there are no downsides to this situation, no
matter who holds what piece of Syrian territory for what temporary short time.
All the actors are tributaries flowing into the main river, and all moving in the same
general direction, because the river is actually the tide of history. All players are
advancing to meet their inevitable destinies: Turkey moves closer to Russia, and closer,
despite much bad blood, to restoring the friendship between itself and Syria (over time); the
Kurds get their final lesson about the perfidious US and settle into their lands in Syria, as
Syrians; Dr. Assad gets his entire country back for his people (over time); terrorists die;
the US is further marginalized and its generals scream mayhem, in words only.
The Ukrainian Parliament has practically declared
the Minsk agreements null and void and decided to militarily "liberate" Donetsk, Lugansk and
Crimea from the will of the people living there. Just in time the neo-nazi fanatics of the Azov
Battalion
received a U.S. military delegation and U.S. arms.
The 2015 Minsk II agreement (
full text ) demanded that the Ukraine creates a new law for the administration of these
regions:
Without delays, but no later than 30 days from the date of signing of this document, a
resolution has to be approved by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, indicating the territory
which falls under the special regime in accordance with the law "On temporary Order of Local
Self-Governance in Particular Districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts," based in the line
set up by the Minsk Memorandum as of Sept. 19, 2014.
Russia is not a party of the agreement. But when the resolution by the Ukrainian parliament
was not forthcoming western propaganda falsely blamed Russia for "not fulfilling the Minsk
agreement" and the west has since bound the sanctions on Russia to this fake conclusion.
The National Bank of Ukraine announced
that an independent accountant found that PrivatBank, then owned by the coup financier and
billionaire
Ihor Kolomoyskiy , was plundered of $5.5 billion shortly before it went bankrupt and
nationalized by the coup government. In connection with that an IMF loan of $1.8 billion to the
Ukraine
allegedly went directly into Kolomoyskiy's pockets. How much of this stolen money was paid
to U.S. politicians?
While the anti-Trump politicians and media still fret about "Russian influence" on U.S.
social media everyone seems to have forgotten that in early 2016 the Ukraine set up a massive
troll farm and a Ministry of Truth. Back then even the U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine
disliked that . If every troll tweeting in Russian or with Cyrillic letters in its name is
under the direct command of Vladimir Putin where then are those Ukrainians trolls?
The last round in Ukraine erupted while the winter games finished in Sochi. I see the
empire positioning things to repeat the treatment during FIFA. Ukraine is being primed and
the clock is set to create incidents that will force Russia's hand.
This potential very public shaming of Russia is what is restraining Russia from responding
to many of the US and Israeli (and Turkish?) provocations in Syria. Perhaps they are hoping
their present silence will gain them some grace for that showcase event.
Personally, I doubt it.
And should some incidents happen during the FIFA world cup events, we will see the real
Putin - which might be for the best in the long run.
re:?The Ukrainian Parliament has practically declared the Minsk agreements null and void and
decided to militarily "liberate" Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea from the will of the people
living there. Just in time the neo-nazi fanatics of the Azov Battalion received a U.S.
military delegation..."
And also just in time Russia is voting on legalizing militias in Africa and elsewhere; just
in time for Spring in the Ukraine? http://russiafeed.com/russia-legalize-private-military-contractors-get-leg-africa/
I'm curious about Ukraine & its neo-nazi's. How do the Israelis who work there, knowing
the past-present? After all, mention the word nazi in their presence, and they go out of
their collective minds attacking the source. Or maybe there's some sort of collusion taking
place?
LNG tanker Gaselys was scheduled to arrive in Boston Saturday. Vessel reversed course to
Spain after almost 21 days en route
... ... ...
While unusual, it's not unheard of for LNG cargoes that aren't tied into a contract with
fixed destination to change course en route as cargo owners seek the highest price and the best
market. Companies with access to wide global supplies can also swap shipments between regions.
What's more, the tanker may still make it to Boston with a delay, as was the case with
deliveries earlier this month, according to Kpler SAS, a cargo-tracking company.
"We have still not canceled the Everett port call for Gaselys," Madeleine Overgaard, an LNG
market analyst at Kpler, said by email. "Her course is currently not very different from the
average delivery at Everett in 2017, she is probably just diverting to delay arrival."
Engie SA's North American unit bought the spot cargo for delivery to the U.S. from
Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd. to supplement its contracted volumes from Trinidad and
Tobago into its Everett terminal near Boston, it said last week. Engie declined to comment on
the tanker's movement on Friday.
The Yamal LNG project, co-owned by Russia's Novatek PJSC, Total SA, China Natural Petroleum
Corp. and China's Silk Road Fund, started production in December despite U.S. financial
sanctions imposed in 2014 because of Russia's involvement in the Ukrainian conflict. It plans
to deliver 14 spot cargoes by April, when long-term contracts kick in.
I am afraid, if one is to believe Mathis words, that the Syrian, Ukrainian and Korean potential confrontations will lead to
exchanges that will force us into wars on several theaters in the very near future.
As of today, Gen. Mathis exposing the sew Us Defense Strategy warned that: The US will counter any "threat to America's democracy
experiment" in the world, if necessary with military force, the Pentagon chief threatened.
He singled out Russia and China as "adversaries", a far cry form the "partners" designation used by Russia in designing the
USA. He vowed: the US will respond with lethal force.
So the stage is set for escalation of escalation in several theaters. How long will the bear be poked and the dragon provoked
before retaliation ensues?
I am afraid that war looks more and more certain in 2018.
@40 b... thanks for that... the place was getting out of hand.. you are becoming too popular..
@56 carl... it is an outrageous statement from mattis, any way you read it!
"The US will counter any threat to America's democracy experiment in the world..."
usa as country that gets to dictate its agenda anywhere in the world.. it would explain why they want to circumvent any international
body that they don't already control too, like the un.. america's democracy experiment is imposing the us$ as world currency under
the threat of their military.. it is already starting to fall apart on all accounts which explains mattis's anxiousness in representing
these same undemocratic structures and institutions he refers to as 'america's ''democracy'' experiment'... he needs to get a
gig in hollywood at comedy central.. he never found his true calling..
"We will modernize key capabilities," Mattis said. "Investments in space and cyberspace, nuclear deterrent forces, missile defense,
advanced autonomous systems and resilient and agile logistics will provide our high-quality troops what they need to win." [Sputnik
News]
Just two quotes from 'Mad dog' Mattis which prove he needs to be put in an asylum.
"I come in peace. I didn't bring artillery. But I'm pleading with you, with tears in my eyes: If you fuck with me, I'll kill you
all".
"Find the enemy that wants to end this experiment (in American democracy) and kill every one of them until they're so sick of
the killing that they leave us and our freedoms intact."
He singled out Russia and China as "adversaries", a far cry form the "partners"
designation used by Russia in designing the USA. He vowed: the US will
respond with lethal force.
Actions speak louder than words. The US is scared of two things: 1) a military conflict where its troops get slaughtered wholesale,
and 2) going up against any army or regular military force it can't destroy from the air. Whatever happens in the near future
we can rest assured Uncle Scam won't be engaging in direct hostilities with China or Russia.
@63 "Investments in space and cyberspace, nuclear deterrent forces, missile defense, advanced autonomous systems and resilient
and agile logistics will provide our high-quality troops what they need to win."
Nice for the high-quality troops. Sounds like they should be totally risk-free. But I don't share Mad Dog's faith in technology.
Looks like an accident waiting to happen.
Mattis opens his mouth and reveals his level of ignorance when it comes to understanding the Outlaw US Empire's history--it's
certainly not a "democracy experiment," nor has it ever tried to install a democracy anywhere on the planet. I'd bet he's
just as ignorant when it comes to military history, too. He reminds me of the ignorant brute Sgt. Snorkel from the Beatle Bailey
comic strip. The so-called "new" "defense posture" is no more than a tidied-up version of the two that preceded it: What we say
goes; either you're with us or against us.
By way of rebuttal, I highly recommend reading
this interview of Hassan Nasrallah from 3 Jan 2018, particularly his remarks about differences in the quality of soldiers
from The Resistance versus those of the enemy--IDF, NATO, USA, Daesh--and why they exist.
Contrary to all the hype about the Empire being a new energy exporting colossus,
it needed to import LNG
to keep its East Coast dwellings warm, but the cargo seems to have found a better price elsewhere. Just how will it displace Russian
gas from the market when it can't provide enough domestic supply?
Meanwhile, Tillerson pulls an Albright
: "Signs of starvation and death in North Korea indicate that US diplomatic strategy works fine, says the secretary of state."
Is he being two-faced? You bet! From last year
: "We're not your enemy, we're not your threat..."
Ignorant, lying, immoral are just a few of the important behavioral traits of those leading faces of the Outlaw US Empire.
And my historical investigations prove such traits have been in the forefront since its inception. Guess we can thank its tutor,
the British Empire.
The US administration either is very smart in bluffing to temporarily reassure its panicking regional allies, Israel and Saudi
Arabia or it is living in the la-la land of an incompetence close to stupidity.
Do they really believe that the Russians will allow the USA to rob their victory in Syria over ISIS? Or that the Turks will
stay idle while the USA is building a Kurdish military entity on their border? Or that Iran and Syria will allow the partitioning
of Syria and the US illegal long term presence in the region?
The USA administration is posed for dramatic blowbacks and reshuffling of alliances in the region.Maybe that is why it is running
like a headless hen!
This will damage Trump with his base. Reducing the involvement of the United States military abroad was one of the more important
commitments he made to his base and now he has broken that commitment and quite a few of his base are disappointed. Even if it's
just a couple of hundred thousand of them, there goes the next presidential election for Trump and the Republicans. By forgetting
about Russia-gate, focusing on his foreign military involvements, and provided the Democratic candidate is not a Clinton, the
presidency is for there for taking by the Democrats. Having Tulsi Gabbard on the ticket would help.
The only reservation I have is if Trump is stiffing the generals in the White House and sometime in the future pulls the plug
on all those interventions then he'll remain in the White House for another four years.
Tillerson could have been speaking for Trump, or Obama, or Bush - under whose regime the Likudnik/neocons/Zionists were able to
foment a policy coup while using the OSP to concoct lies for Israel's long-desired war.
While there are generally multiple motives for entry into wars, only one is whitewashed. As Phil Giraldi put it:
""Why doesn't anyone ever speak honestly about the six-hundred-pound gorilla in the room? Nobody has mentioned Israel in this
conference and we all know it's American Jews with all their money and power who are supporting every war in the Middle East for
Netanyahu? Shouldn't we start calling them out and not letting them get away with it?"
Here's where we are, as the same cabal cheerlead for war on Iran (Lebanon must be first) a you are either committed to stopping
the drive to war by all cognizable social and pitical forces, or you are not.
The time for letting cries of 'anti-Semite' preclude FAIR dis ussuon of the role of Jews and the Israel Lobby is over.
Those who censor this necessary component of analysis should be deemed confederates of the bankers, MIC, transnationals, and
Zionist Jews who have been driving wars for decades.
With millions dead, playtime is over. Those censoring the truth side with the warmongers.
The United States cannot be a moral or ethical country until it faces up to the realities of US empire and the destruction it
causes around the world. The US undermines governments (including democracies), kills millions of people, causes mass migrations
of people fleeing their homes, communities and countries and produces vast environmental damage.
A new coalition, The Coalition Against US Foreign Military Bases , held
its inaugural event January 12-14, 2018 at the University of Baltimore in Maryland. The meeting was framed by a
Unity Statement that brought together numerous peace and justice organizations.
The basis for unity was:
"U.S. foreign military bases are the principal instruments of imperial global domination and environmental damage through wars
of aggression and occupation, and that the closure of US foreign military bases is one of the first necessary steps toward a just,
peaceful and sustainable world."
... ... ... (image deleted)
US foreign military bases as of 2015. Source BaseNation.us
Responsibility to End Global Empire of Bases
Ajamu Baraka of the Black Alliance for Peace and the vice presidential candidate for the Green Party in 2016 opened the conference,
describing the responsibility of the people of the United States (USians) to protect the world from US aggression. He
argued :
"The only logical, principled and strategic response to this question is citizens of the empire must reject their imperial
privileges and join in opposing ruling elites exploiting labor and plundering the Earth. To do that, however, requires breaking with
the intoxicating allure of cross-class, bi-partisan 'white identity politics.'"
This reality conflicts with one of the excuses the US uses to engage in war – so-called 'humanitarian wars', which are based on
the dubious legal claim that the US has a "responsibility to protect." The
United
States is viewed as "the greatest threat to peace in the world today" by people around the world. Thus, USians need to organize
to protect the world from the United States.
US empire is not only a threat to world peace and stability but also a threat to the United States.
Chalmers Johnson , who wrote a series of books on empire,
warned in his 2004 book, " The
Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic ," that there were four "sorrows" the United States would
suffer. In the 14 years since they have all come true:
"If present trends continue, four sorrows, it seems to me, are certain to be visited on the United States. Their cumulative
impact guarantees that the United States will cease to bear any resemblance to the country once outlined in our Constitution. First,
there will be a state of perpetual war, leading to more terrorism against Americans wherever they may be and a growing reliance on
weapons of mass destruction among smaller nations as they try to ward off the imperial juggernaut. Second, there will be a loss of
democracy and constitutional rights as the presidency fully eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from an "executive branch"
of government into something more like a Pentagonized presidency. Third, an already well-shredded principle of truthfulness will
increasingly be replaced by a system of propaganda, disinformation, and glorification of war, power, and the military legions. Lastly,
there will be bankruptcy, as we pour our economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects and shortchange the education,
health, and safety of our fellow citizens."
The footprint of US empire are what Chalmers Johnson called an "empire of bases." David Vine, the author of
Base Nation, put US empire in context by describing 800 US bases in 80 countries
and US military personnel in more than 170 countries. Bases range from so-called Lily Pad Bases of hundreds of troops to town-sized
bases of tens of thousands of troops and their families. He noted many bases have schools and they do not need to worry about heating
or air conditioning,
unlike schools in
Baltimore where parents bought space heaters to keep children warm and where schools were closed due to lack of heat.
The contrast between Baltimore schools and military base schools is one example of many of the heavy price USians pay for the
military. Vine reported that $150 billion is spent annually to keep US troops on bases abroad and that even a Lily Pad base could
cost $1 billion. More is spent on foreign military bases than on any agency of the federal government, other than the Pentagon and
Veterans Administration.
The Pentagon is not transparent about the number of US foreign bases it manages or their cost. They usually publish a Base Structure
Report but have not done so in several years. The Pentagon only reports 701 bases, but researchers have found many, even significant
bases, not included in their list of bases.
"95% of all foreign military bases in the world are US bases. In addition, [there are] 19 Naval air carriers (and 15 more planned),
each as part of a Carrier Strike Group, composed of roughly 7,500 personnel, and a carrier air wing of 65 to 70 aircraft – each of
which can be considered a floating military base."
The military footprint of the United States shows it is the largest empire in world history. In
our interview with
historian Alfred McCoy , author of In The Shadows of the
American Century , he describes how some of the key characteristics of US empire are secrecy and covert actions. This are
some of the reasons why it is rare to ever hear US empire discussed in the corporate media or by politicians. McCoy told us this
was true for some other empires too, and that it is often not until the empire begins to falter that their existence becomes part
of the political dialogue.
Strategies for Closing US Foreign Military Bases
David Vine described an unprecedented opportunity to close bases abroad, to do so we need to build a bigger movement. We also
need to elevate the national dialogue about US Empire and develop a national consensus to end it.
Vine pointed to Donald Trump's campaign rhetoric about pulling back from US involvement abroad and focusing on the necessities
at home as indicative of the mood of the country. In fact,
a
recent survey found that "78 percent of Democrats, 64.5 percent of Republicans, and 68.8 percent of independents supported restraining
military action overseas."
McCoy argued that after the globalization of President Barack Obama, which included the Asian Pivot and efforts to pass major
trade agreements, in particular the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP),
created a backlash desire to focus on "America First." Both trade agreements, the TPP and TTIP, failed as a result of a political
shift in the country, in part created by grassroots movements.
McCoy describes Obama as one of three "Grandmasters of the Great Game" (the other two being Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Carter's
National Security Adviser, and Elihu Root, former Secretary of War and Secretary of State at the beginning of the 20th Century) who
excelled in being strategic on behalf of US empire. In addition to trade agreements and the Asian Pivot, Obama built on the intelligence
apparatus of the George W. Bush era. Even though Obama was a "grandmaster," he did not slow the weakening of US empire. McCoy sees
the inability to account for the unpredictable complexities of US and global political developments as a common weakness of empire
strategists.
The conference was divided into regions of the world (with the exception of one session on the impact of military bases on the
environment and health). There will be reports and videos published on each section of the conference on the
No Foreign Bases webpage . One common denominator around the world is opposition
to US military bases. According to the Unity Statement of the coalition:
"Many individual national coalitions – for example, Okinawa, Italy, Jeju Island Korea, Diego Garcia, Cyprus, Greece, and Germany
– are demanding closure of bases on their territory. The base that the US has illegally occupied the longest, for over a century,
is Guantánamo Bay, whose existence constitutes an imposition of the empire and a violation of International Law. Since 1959 the government
and people of Cuba have demanded that the government of the US return the Guantánamo territory to Cuba."
One important strategy for success is for US activists to work in cooperation with people around the world who want US military
bases to be closed and for the US military to leave their country. Attendees at the conference had traveled to South Korea, Okinawa
and other places to protest in solidarity with US activists.
Another strategy that many in the conference urged was the need for education about US imperialism and to tie US militarism abroad
with militarized police at home. Similarly, the reality of the US military focusing on black and brown countries abroad highlights
a white supremacy philosophy that infects foreign policy and domestic policy. Members of the No US Foreign Bases coalition also engage
in domestic efforts for racial and environmental justice.
Further, the no bases coalition highlights the environmental and health damage caused by foreign and domestic military bases.
As the Unity Statement notes, "military bases are the largest users of fossil fuel in the world, heavily contributing to environmental
degradation." Pat Elder and David Swanson described
the degradation in and around the Potomac River, writing:
"The Pentagon's impact on the river on whose bank it sits is not simply the diffuse impact of global warming and rising oceans
contributed to by the US military's massive oil consumption. The US military also directly poisons the Potomac River in more ways
than almost anyone would imagine."
The conference attendees decided on some next steps. A national day of action against foreign military bases is being planned
for February 23, the anniversary of the US seizing Guantanamo Bay, Cuba through a "perpetual lease" that began in 1903. Activists
are encouraged to plan local actions. If you plan an event, contact [email protected]and we'll post it on the events page. The demands will include closing the base and prison in Guantanamo, returning the land
to Cuba and ending the US blockade.
The conference also decided to hold a conference outside of the United States in one of the countries where the US has a foreign
military base within the next year. People from some countries were not allowed to attend the inaugural conference this weekend.
And, the coordinating committee will reach out to other peace and justice groups to select a date and place for a national mass
action against US wars. This will be organized as quickly as possible because the threat of more wars is high.
This is a key moment for the antiwar movement in the US to make itself more visible and to demand the closure of US foreign bases.
In this report on
living in a post-primacy world , even the Pentagon recognizes what many commentators are seeing – the US empire is fading. One
great risk as the empire ends is more wars as the US tries to hang on to global hegemony. We must oppose war and work for the least
damaging end of empire.
Indeed, if the US becomes a cooperative member of the global community, rather than being a dominator, it would be a positive
transition. Imagine how much better it would be for everyone in the world if the US collaborated on addressing the climate crisis
in a serious way, obeyed international law and invested in positive programs to solve the many crises we face at home and abroad.
During the Baltimore conference, World Beyond War sponsored
a billboard nearby that read, "3% of US military spending could end starvation on earth." Imagine what a peace budget could look
like. The US could invest in domestic necessities including rebuilding infrastructure, a cleaner and safer public transportation
system, education, housing and health care. The US could provide aid to other countries to repair the damage it has caused. Members
of the US military could transition into a civilian jobs program that applies their expertise to programs of social uplift.
It is imperative that as the US Empire falls, we organize for a smooth transition to a world that is better for everyone. The
work of the new coalition to end US foreign military bases is a strong start.
Homeless encampment in the foreground of a Baltimore, MD billboard that read, "3% of US military spending could end starvation
on earth." Source World Beyond War.
What was behind the false missile attack alarm in Hawaii yesterday. Poynter
has some context:
One of the big stories in the Honolulu
Star-Advertiser Saturday morning was that military "brass" updated island officials on
how the military would respond to a nuclear attack from North Korea . Military authorities
warned there was a "real" threat.
At 8:07 a.m. Saturday, Hawaiian residents saw a terrifying alert message on their
phones.
It took 38 minutes to correct the "mistake". A missile from North Korea would take 32-35
minutes from launch to impact in Hawaii.
But of interest is the newspaper report hyping the "threat" followed by the false alarm.
Coincidence? And the "
leaking " of the Draft Nuclear Posture Review this week, in which the military demands
hundreds of new "small" nuclear weapons to fight North Korea and Russia, is also just a
coincidence? Or is all of this part of a public relation campaign designed to increase the
acceptance of new nuclear weapons and "limited" nuclear warfare? A preparation for war on North
Korea? (Related: Deconstructing the North
Korean 'Threat' and Identifying America's Strategic Alternatives
What was behind the false missile attack alarm in Hawaii yesterday. Poynter has
some context:
One of the big stories in the Honolulu
Star-Advertiser Saturday morning was that military "brass" updated island officials on
how the military would respond to a nuclear attack from North Korea . Military authorities
warned there was a "real" threat.
At 8:07 a.m. Saturday, Hawaiian residents saw a terrifying alert message on their
phones.
It took 38 minutes to correct the "mistake". A missile from North Korea would take
32-35 minutes from launch to impact in Hawaii.
But of interest is the newspaper report hyping the "threat" followed by the false
alarm. Coincidence? And the "
leaking " of the Draft Nuclear Posture Review this week, in which the military demands
hundreds of new "small" nuclear weapons to fight North Korea and Russia, is also just a
coincidence? Or is all of this part of a public relation campaign designed to increase the
acceptance of new nuclear weapons and "limited" nuclear warfare? A preparation for war on
North Korea? (Related: Deconstructing the North
Korean 'Threat' and Identifying America's Strategic Alternatives (pdf))
Scott Creighton has been working up collateral to his theory that the Hawaii false alert was
part of a test to sell the Aegis radar system to Japan. Aegis controls the alert system in
Hawaii. The sales contract is $2 billion. Japanese and Pentagon officials were in the area
last Thursday as part of an ongoing demonstration of the system. This is his written post (he
has a later post in a 20-minute video for those who prefer):
So, while it could be a false flag test of some kind, and while it could be tied to the
talks between the two Koreas, I can see it could just as easily be corrupt MIC business as
usual. It seems unlikely this alert was sent in error. But could it have been sent so the
Japanese could see the warning system in action? And US officials reason, well, it's only
Korea and Hawaii's closest, so we have a plausible scenario and neither area has any clout to
complain? And that's as far as their thinking needed to go, because at that point it all
looks perfectly explainable?
Re: Hawaii and nukes. This behavior is to be expected when generals are placed in charge of
foreign affairs because generals are: > ignorant of anything besides warfare. > taught
to believe that they are always right and their detractors are always wrong. >of the
belief that only wars, properly conduced with maximum force, solve problems.
A couple of President Harry Truman quotes: "It's the fellows who go to West Point and are
trained to think they're gods in uniform that I plan to take apart". . ."I didn't fire him
[General MacArthur] because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not
against the law for generals. If it was, half to three quarters of them would be in
jail."
The Pentagon apparently will investigate the "leaked amateur non-professional" video of the
truck driver assault, not the assault itself, and the people connected with the video will be
punished, not the shooter. Memories of Chelsea Manning and the video of the
helicopter-shooting of the Iraqi Journalists, resulting in Manning's court-martial and
imprisonment.
Military investigating shooting in newly leaked Afghan combat video
U.S. commanders have launched an investigation into video footage that appears to show
an American service member firing into the cab of a civilian truck as the two vehicles pass
on a road in Afghanistan, an action that could have violated the military's rules of
engagement and may hamper the alliance with the Afghan government. The shooting briefly
appears during a gritty montage of combat footage allegedly recorded by U.S. troops
battling the Islamic State's Afghan affiliate. An anonymous user recently uploaded the
video to YouTube under the title "Happy Few Ordnance Symphony," then quickly removed it.
"The amateur video posted on a public website gives us serious concern," the U.S. Central
Command told POLITICO in a statement. "The video in question is not official, not
authorized and does not represent the professionalism of the service members of U.S.
Central Command. "We are conducting an investigation into this video, and will take
appropriate actions as a result of this investigation," it added. . .
here
The best treat today is to listen to all those that experienced yesterday's 'nuclear
attack'.
Many of us did not receive a missile attack message at all. This was not due to lack of
cell phone reception. Their phones worked, but they were not alerted. They also use the
same provider. Then, alert messages were different. Some said that the ballistic missile
threat would expire at 6pm. Right.
Here are my own experiences. You be the judge:
Driving towards Pahoa and reaching the High School intersection, I saw cops coming from
the Kalapana direction with lights and sirens on. They stopped at every pulled over vehicle
to talk to the driver. Then they turned into Pahoa road and I also pulled to the side of
the road, thinking whom they are after this time.
I had just turned down the radio, where HPR had started the news. That was at 8:01
AM.
The cop told me (both of his windows were rolled down): "The guy in North Korea has
fired three missiles at us. You should go home and stay with your family." He drove off to
Paul's gas station to talk to other drivers. His co-cop did the same at the propane
place.
My first thought was "That's bullshit." Cops driving around talking to folks
individually while the ICBM's are homing in. It would take those things 20 minutes to hit
their target.
Fuck that shit, I am going to have breakfast as intended. Should that be true, I had at
least a last break fast.
At the store the news had already created panic among those who are easily manipulated.
The hysteria was quite impressive and my reassuring them that things are okay went in the
one ear and out the other.
Mind you that I know these people for years and I am well known for being level
headed.
I get my breakfast and sit outside. A few other guys are rolling in. Then, at 8:07 AM,
the emergency alert appears on our phones. Those who knew, were all filled in by the cops
BEFORE the alert.
The alert caused the store to close. I did my best to calm people down. Explaining to
them that they should listen to their body, instead to anything the government says. George
Carlin's made that clear a long time ago.
But people are now so disconnected from the 'Here and Now' have been so propagandized
and brainwashed, that they are incapable to keep cool and THINK.
IF that would have been the real McCoy, we would have had twenty minutes left from the
time the cops 'informed' people.
Then, when it became apparent that it was bullshit, the cops drove around and appeared
to be taking license plates of those who did not panic, but have breakfast instead.
Around 8:30 AM, Tulsi Gabbard's tweets had made it around enough for people to calm down
somewhat.
The alert cancellation came at 8:45 AM.
Here are some questions.
Who will be the first to become aware of a ballistic missile taking off?
Whom would they inform about that?
Why were cops driving around and telling people personally about the impending
attack?
Flight time is approximately 20 minutes, which means that there were only ten minutes
left from the emergency alert counted from when I was told.
Likely less than ten minutes from 8:07 AM down to impact.
The excuses and explanations that followed made it even more clear that this was an
intentionally triggered false alarm.
That in turn is the dictionary definition of a TERROR ATTACK. To create fear, to
terrorize the population. This was not Kim Jong UN terrorizing Hawai'i, this was the US
regime creating a false flag Emergency Alert to terrorize the Hawai'ian people.
Who would be the first to be informed about an actually and factually happening
attack?
The so called "Commander in Chief"?
Or Bill Maher?
Hopefully, of the flood of people having inundated the islands - especially the Big
Island - most will go back where they came from. Ask anybody that lives here, or was born
here "WHY?".
Yes, they can. Manifest Destiny, WW1, WW2, State of Israel, Coup in Iran, Korean War,
JFK. Gulf OF Tonkin, Viet Nam, Oil Shortages, Oil Wars, Persian Gulf War, 911 and so
on....
Tulsi GAbbard's declarations after the false alarm point to the fact that she is one of the
few the very few U.S. representatives witha spine and a real understanding of the Korean
issue.
She wants talks without preconditions and give and take to reach the point where Kim no
longer feels he needs nuclear clout.
here's what actually happened to cause the false alarm quote Emergency Management Agency
Administrator Vern Miyagi said that the employee who made the mistake felt terrible for
triggering the alarm.
Miyagi apologized for the "trouble" and "heartbreak" caused by alert. "I accept the
responsibility for this," he said. "This is my team. We made a mistake."
But Miyagi also used the opportunity to highlight the fact that if the missile threat
were real, Hawaii residents would only have 12 to 15 minutes to react and find shelter.
"I regret what happened this morning," Miyagi said. "But it brings us up to speed again
about what to expect and what to do."
Miyagi explained that the mistake happened during a drill that occurred around a shift
change at the agency. He said an employee, was using a computer program as part of the
drill, and clicked on the wrong button, which sent out the mass alert.
"It's human error," Miyagi said. "There is a screen that says, 'Are you sure you want to
do this?'"
According to Miyagi, the employee clicked through the warning prompt, which resulted in
thousands of residents receiving an alert that a missile was headed toward the islands.
It's unclear how many people actually received the warning.
Miyagi said he was uncertain why some emergency sirens around the state also went
off.
Ige said that testing of the alert system will be suspended for now. He also said that
two people will now have to approve an alert before it goes public.
The testing on Saturday was part of Hawaii's efforts to upgrade its alert system to
provide earlier warning to residents in case of a missile attack.
Ige and Miyagi acknowledged that the state's emergency agency did not have a process in
place to cancel a false warning. Furthermore, the agency didn't realize until several
minutes later that it had accidentally sent out the warning to the public, Miyagi said.
"We didn't have a message scripted that said this is a false alarm," Ige said. "We were
not prepared for that."
"So we have built that now," he added.
While state officials could instantaneously send out the erroneous alert, they required
approvals from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to send out the corrected alert --
and that process contributed to the 38-minute delay, officials said.
"We have to clear that to make sure that we can get that out," Miyagi said. On Saturday
morning, information technology staff with the emergency agency scrambled to get those
approvals "as fast as they could," he added. Civil Defense head Verne Miyagi apologizes to
our community/public via media during press conference held at the Diamond Head Emergency
Operations Center.
Typical government incompetence. Having a dialog box " Are you sure? Y/N "
doesn't cut it anymore, as people have been conditioned for years to click on the OK
button without reading the prompt, to get to what they want. Waiting for a request of
federal funding to upgrade their systems. I can only imagine on what the price tag will be.
I suppose the silver lining is that the Japanese government observing the drill, now knows
what not to do regarding issuing public alerts.
Interesting comment about the police taking note of non-responders.
... It took 38 minutes to correct the "mistake". A missile from North Korea would take
32-35 minutes from launch to impact in Hawaii. ...
Wow! Good catch, And a nice piece of sleuthing, b... Oz's reptilian MSM didn't bother
acquainting its 'consumers' with that vital snippet of relevance. So, was the alert a
mistake or was it just another big chunk of pre-emptive Yankee Arseholery from The
Swamp?
I'll not waste time on whether or not the warning was legitimate; but rather, on the
expressed behavior of the people; it's a sure sign they're scared; which translates to; the
U.S. propaganda campaign has been very effective. This is truly frightening and a marker of
the true mental state of the populace. I must add; I'm very concerned; it exceeds my
vision/perception of today's reality. IMO; we've really crossed the Rubicon I'll re-adjust
my perception meter immediately to extreme.
"...Emergency Management Agency Administrator Vern Miyagi said that the employee who
made the mistake felt terrible for triggering the alarm..."
Miyagi should feel worse about remaining on his job despite his lack of management
skills and complete absence of system controls. He should also feel bad about having a
pre-programmed missile alert message that can be sent without any such alert from Pacific
Command and requires nothing more than a few clicks by a low-level employee.
"...But Miyagi also used the opportunity to highlight the fact that if the missile
threat were real, Hawaii residents would only have 12 to 15 minutes to react and find
shelter. "I regret what happened this morning," Miyagi said. "But it brings us up to speed
again about what to expect and what to do..."
Bad, bad time to look for a teachable moment here, Miyagi. I have to doubt the sincerity
of his earlier apology if he immediately morphs into a psychopathic, patronizing Homeland
Security bureaucrat and takes the opportunity to dispense a few words of government wisdom
to the little people since he has their attention. Jesus - I would have punched him in the
face at this point.
"...Miyagi explained that the mistake happened during a drill that occurred around a
shift change at the agency. He said an employee, was using a computer program as part of
the drill, and clicked on the wrong button, which sent out the mass alert..."
There is no such 'drill' or test performed anywhere else in the US that sends anything
but the canned test message to the Integrated Public Alert Warning System (IPAWS) on a
weekly or monthly schedule.
"It's human error," Miyagi said. "There is a screen that says, 'Are you sure you want
to do this?'"
The error is using the damn live IPAWS console for your 'drill'. No home-brew drill or
test should ever involve any access to the live IPAWS console for this exact
reason. I'm glad Miyagi never crewed a nuclear missile silo - we would all be dead by
now.
"...According to Miyagi, the employee clicked through the warning prompt, which
resulted in thousands of residents receiving an alert that a missile was headed toward the
islands. It's unclear how many people actually received the warning..."
Another reason for Miyagi's immediate dismissal. When you punch in an alert on the IPAWS
console, it goes directly to the FEMA IPAWS server, where it is then disseminated to
all your other client messaging systems. Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) is one of
those systems. WEA feeds every cell phone provider in the area (all of Hawaii in this
case). Any modern smartphone that's turned on and using a Hawaiian network will
automatically display the message with some obnoxious audio alert. 1.5 million people and
he thinks this message only reached 'thousands'? He's either a horrible liar or he's a
complete idiot.
"...Miyagi said he was uncertain why some emergency sirens around the state also went
off..."
Well, that was because his agency programmed IPAWS to fire the sirens for Civil
Emergency-type messages. Mostly because that's how you're suppose to activate them
if you're using IPAWS. That's what it's for. Didn't he just start testing the 'nuclear
attack' sirens last year? Don't tell me this message set off the Tsunami warning horns
instead. And why only some of them? Does this HEMA terrorist understand how to make any of
his DHS/FEMA junk in Hawaii work properly?
"...Furthermore, the agency didn't realize until several minutes later that it had
accidentally sent out the warning to the public, Miyagi said..."
What, NONE of these guys had a cellphone? Everyone in the building with one should have
seen/heard the alert within tens of seconds. That's how WEA works. They knew right away -
that's why they sent out FB and Twitter messages minutes later.
"We didn't have a message scripted that said this is a false alarm," Ige said. "We
were not prepared for that."
Doesn't he know anything about IPAWS? You don't NEED a pre-approved, scripted message.
There may be a specific message to deactivate WEA rebroadcasts, but there's nothing that
should have prevented them from sending a simple update for everyone to disregard the
earlier warning. This is done all the time in IPAWS - they must
really be confused or just not know how to use it at all. One would think they would take
the trouble to learn since they're inexplicably using the live console for testing.
"...While state officials could instantaneously send out the erroneous alert, they
required approvals from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to send out the corrected
alert -- and that process contributed to the 38-minute delay, officials said..."
More painfully-obvious made-up BS to cover their butts. HEMA *is* the messaging
authority there, period. FEMA has nothing to do with approving any messages for
them. The other US operators must be shaking their heads in disbelief.
"...information technology staff with the emergency agency scrambled to get those
approvals "as fast as they could," he added..."
Oh, I get it now. Contract IT that had no clue. They had to call FEMA to figure out what
to do, since they were apparently as unfamiliar with the system as the HEMA guys and
couldn't get it to work either. Good thing they didn't call the overseas help desk -
unplugging it for ten seconds wouldn't have fixed much.
What really worries me is how the Pacific Command in Hawaii reacted when all their
cellphones suddenly alerted them that THEY had 'detected an incoming ballistic missile'.
That's not the kind of erroneous alert I want my nuclear-armed military to see - ever.
According to Miyagi, the employee clicked through the warning prompt, which resulted in
thousands of residents receiving an alert that a missile was headed toward the
islands."
@Mauisurfer
How come, that cops were driving around telling everybody to go home and stay with their
families, because "the guy in North Korea" had fired three missiles? Plenty of people can
attest to that. If the error was with "this employee", than that would mean that there
could have been no prior knowledge of the cops about this ballistic missile threat. How did
the cops know before the employee made "a mistake"? That is not possible. The employee made
'the mistake' at 8:07 AM. We here in Pahoa we're warned before 8:07 AM.
There is obviously much more to this than meets the eyes and ears.
The ballistic missile threat was not created by 'this employee'.
Please take the time to read this excellent written review of Daniel Ellsberg's new book
about the "Doomsday Machine". It should further the under standing about the scope of the
Doomsday Machine that would have responded to any ballistic missile fired at Guam, Hawai'i,
or the mainland. https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/01/09/rational-insanity-a
the-mad-logic-of-americas-nuclear-doomsday-machine/
Thank You so much. While I am not familiar with
the intricacies of the IPAWS warning system, I
have experienced a number of tsunami and hurricane
alerts through this system. The cancellation was
always as immediate as the website would report.
(PTWC / CPHC respectively).
I get must be impeached and with all lower level
employees be prosecuted and terminated.
This 'event' has caused PTSD among a number of
people, especially the countless mother's with
infant babies.
This was not an accident, but it shall serve as
a wake up call to dismantle the nuclear Doomsday
machine.
North Korea aquired ICBM's to protect itself from
the people that almost entirely exterminated it
by the likes of Curtis LeMay.
The country with the most nukes must start unilaterally
to abolish its Doomsday Machine. Others will follow.
The threat by North Korea is a psychological projection
by the only people to ever have dropped nuclear bombs.
...
In that case North Korea would have lots of targets to chose from.
Posted by: somebody | Jan 15, 2018 5:43:22 AM | 60
Yes, interesting point reinforced, somewhat, by this extract from SST's January 13 post
about domestic US Military base closures...
"What's more, at the same time that the domestic base closings are proceeding, the
U.S. military footprint abroad is expanding. According to American University professor
David Vine, there are presently 800 American military bases abroad, in 70
countries, with an annual cost of $160-200 billion, including American theaters of
combat--Iraq and Afghanistan. Recent Pentagon studies of the need to devise a "third offset
strategy" to address the increased vulnerabilities of American military bases around the
globe raise further questions about the viability of the current military posture."
Unfortunately for the Yankees, Kim (correctly) regards the US Homeland as the top
priority target for NK retaliation to US Military violence inflicted on North Korea. Why
Nuke Hawaii, or some other island outpost, when he can Nuke Washington, New York, Boston,
plus the 5 biggest US freight ports and airports - at the same time on the same day? He
only has to convince the Yankees that it's "do-able" and NK will be AmeriKKKa-proof.
And let's not forget that China has said that if NK is attacked, China will respond on NK's
behalf.
Hoarsewhisperer , Jan 15, 2018 6:33:15 AM |
62Heros , Jan 15, 2018 6:58:12 AM |
63
@54 nottheonly1
"The threat by North Korea is a psychological projection by the only people to ever have
dropped nuclear bombs."
This reminds me of a famous expression out of 16th century Poland:
"The jew cries out in pain as he strikes you"
The evidence here clearly indicates that by signalling this alarm, which automatically
sent it out to IPAWS/HEMA/FEMA/PACCOM/NORAD/[who knows else where], someone was trying to
provoke a missile exchange and start a war.
Some miracle or god prevented this war that the MIC is so horny for from getting started
and the US nuking North Korea. It must be the same god that in 1967 prevented the Zionists
from sinking the Liberty after 2 hours of bombs and torpedoes, which would have directly
pulled the US into Israel's war against her Arab neighbors.
Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Jan 15, 2018 6:33:15 AM | 62
NK has been America-proof since the last war. The difference being that they have
convinced the US now that they can act on their own - without Chinese or Russian support.
That means the US will have to talk to North Korea directly.
"Rex Tillerson has been advocating for a diplomatic approach to this crisis, that is a
point of view that Canada shares, and so the purpose of this meeting is to talk about
economic and diplomatic ways of getting North Korea to the table," Paris said.
"I think it's the main purpose of this meeting," said Shin Maeng-ho, South Korea's
Ambassador to Canada, who is attending the meeting.
During an interview on CBC's The House with guest host Alison Crawford, Shin added: "I
think diplomacy is the only option left to us. War on the Korean peninsula means death of
millions of people."
"All foreign ministers in Vancouver will seek all the ways and means for diplomatic
solution," Shin said.
"... Regarding North Korean US military targets, the Guardian failed to include what might its primary target. Camp Humphreys which is 57 miles from the DMZ, in DPRK 300mm rocket range, and currently houses 12,000 Americans and is growing. So DPRK can't be attacked unless those Americans are evacuated first, and that won't happen. The host country would no permit it, and go crazy if they did. It would be mass mayhem. ..."
"... In fact the whole concept of forward basing actually puts a damper on any Pentagon aggression. Another example is the 40,000 Americans at various bases in the western Persian Gulf, well within Iran rocket and missile range. That means no attack against Iran. ..."
"... Finally, these bases are financially supported by host countries. In South Korea the current Camp Humphreys $10 billion expansion is reportedly being funded by ROK. ..."
> Regarding North Korean US military targets, the Guardian failed to include what might
its primary target. Camp Humphreys which is 57 miles from the DMZ, in DPRK 300mm rocket
range, and currently houses 12,000 Americans and is growing. So DPRK can't be attacked unless
those Americans are evacuated first, and that won't happen. The host country would no permit
it, and go crazy if they did. It would be mass mayhem.
> In fact the whole concept of forward basing actually puts a damper on any Pentagon
aggression. Another example is the 40,000 Americans at various bases in the western Persian
Gulf, well within Iran rocket and missile range. That means no attack against Iran.
> Finally, these bases are financially supported by host countries. In South Korea the
current Camp Humphreys $10 billion expansion is reportedly being funded by ROK.
What was behind the false missile attack alarm in Hawaii yesterday. Poynter
has some context:
One of the big stories in the Honolulu
Star-Advertiser Saturday morning was that military "brass" updated island officials on
how the military would respond to a nuclear attack from North Korea . Military authorities
warned there was a "real" threat.
At 8:07 a.m. Saturday, Hawaiian residents saw a terrifying alert message on their
phones.
It took 38 minutes to correct the "mistake". A missile from North Korea would take 32-35
minutes from launch to impact in Hawaii.
But of interest is the newspaper report hyping the "threat" followed by the false alarm.
Coincidence? And the "
leaking " of the Draft Nuclear Posture Review this week, in which the military demands
hundreds of new "small" nuclear weapons to fight North Korea and Russia, is also just a
coincidence? Or is all of this part of a public relation campaign designed to increase the
acceptance of new nuclear weapons and "limited" nuclear warfare? A preparation for war on North
Korea? (Related: Deconstructing the North
Korean 'Threat' and Identifying America's Strategic Alternatives
What was behind the false missile attack alarm in Hawaii yesterday. Poynter has
some context:
One of the big stories in the Honolulu
Star-Advertiser Saturday morning was that military "brass" updated island officials on
how the military would respond to a nuclear attack from North Korea . Military authorities
warned there was a "real" threat.
At 8:07 a.m. Saturday, Hawaiian residents saw a terrifying alert message on their
phones.
It took 38 minutes to correct the "mistake". A missile from North Korea would take
32-35 minutes from launch to impact in Hawaii.
But of interest is the newspaper report hyping the "threat" followed by the false
alarm. Coincidence? And the "
leaking " of the Draft Nuclear Posture Review this week, in which the military demands
hundreds of new "small" nuclear weapons to fight North Korea and Russia, is also just a
coincidence? Or is all of this part of a public relation campaign designed to increase the
acceptance of new nuclear weapons and "limited" nuclear warfare? A preparation for war on
North Korea? (Related: Deconstructing the North
Korean 'Threat' and Identifying America's Strategic Alternatives (pdf))
Scott Creighton has been working up collateral to his theory that the Hawaii false alert was
part of a test to sell the Aegis radar system to Japan. Aegis controls the alert system in
Hawaii. The sales contract is $2 billion. Japanese and Pentagon officials were in the area
last Thursday as part of an ongoing demonstration of the system. This is his written post (he
has a later post in a 20-minute video for those who prefer):
So, while it could be a false flag test of some kind, and while it could be tied to the
talks between the two Koreas, I can see it could just as easily be corrupt MIC business as
usual. It seems unlikely this alert was sent in error. But could it have been sent so the
Japanese could see the warning system in action? And US officials reason, well, it's only
Korea and Hawaii's closest, so we have a plausible scenario and neither area has any clout to
complain? And that's as far as their thinking needed to go, because at that point it all
looks perfectly explainable?
Re: Hawaii and nukes.
This behavior is to be expected when generals are placed in charge of foreign affairs because
generals are:
> ignorant of anything besides warfare.
> taught to believe that they are always right and their detractors are always wrong.
>of the belief that only wars, properly conduced with maximum force, solve problems.
A couple of President Harry Truman quotes: "It's the fellows who go to West Point and are
trained to think they're gods in uniform that I plan to take apart". . ."I didn't fire him
[General MacArthur] because he was a dumb son of a bitch, although he was, but that's not
against the law for generals. If it was, half to three quarters of them would be in
jail."
The Pentagon apparently will investigate the "leaked amateur non-professional" video of the
truck driver assault, not the assault itself, and the people connected with the video will be
punished, not the shooter. Memories of Chelsea Manning and the video of the
helicopter-shooting of the Iraqi Journalists, resulting in Manning's court-martial and
imprisonment.
Military investigating shooting in newly leaked Afghan combat video
U.S. commanders have launched an investigation into video footage that appears to show
an American service member firing into the cab of a civilian truck as the two vehicles pass
on a road in Afghanistan, an action that could have violated the military's rules of
engagement and may hamper the alliance with the Afghan government.
The shooting briefly appears during a gritty montage of combat footage allegedly recorded
by U.S. troops battling the Islamic State's Afghan affiliate. An anonymous user recently
uploaded the video to YouTube under the title "Happy Few Ordnance Symphony," then quickly
removed it.
"The amateur video posted on a public website gives us serious concern," the U.S. Central
Command told POLITICO in a statement. "The video in question is not official, not
authorized and does not represent the professionalism of the service members of U.S.
Central Command.
"We are conducting an investigation into this video, and will take appropriate actions as a
result of this investigation," it added. . .
here
The best treat today is to listen to all
those that experienced yesterday's 'nuclear
attack'.
Many of us did not receive a missile attack
message at all. This was not due to lack of
cell phone reception. Their phones worked,
but they were not alerted. They also use
the same provider.
Then, alert messages were different. Some
said that the ballistic missile threat
would expire at 6pm. Right.
Here are my own experiences. You be the
judge:
Driving towards Pahoa and reaching the
High School intersection, I saw cops
coming from the Kalapana direction with
lights and sirens on. They stopped at
every pulled over vehicle to talk to
the driver.
Then they turned into Pahoa road and
I also pulled to the side of the road,
thinking whom they are after this time.
I had just turned down the radio, where
HPR had started the news. That was at
8:01 AM.
The cop told me (both of his windows were
rolled down):
"The guy in North Korea has fired three
missiles at us. You should go home and
stay with your family."
He drove off to Paul's gas station to
talk to other drivers. His co-cop did
the same at the propane place.
My first thought was "That's bullshit."
Cops driving around talking to folks
individually while the ICBM's are
homing in. It would take those things
20 minutes to hit their target.
Fuck that shit, I am going to have
breakfast as intended. Should that
be true, I had at least a last break fast.
At the store the news had already created
panic among those who are easily manipulated.
The hysteria was quite impressive and my
reassuring them that things are okay went
in the one ear and out the other.
Mind you that I know these people for years
and I am well known for being level headed.
I get my breakfast and sit outside. A few
other guys are rolling in. Then, at 8:07 AM,
the emergency alert appears on our phones.
Those who knew, were all filled in by the
cops BEFORE the alert.
The alert caused the store to close. I did
my best to calm people down. Explaining to
them that they should listen to their body,
instead to anything the government says.
George Carlin's made that clear a long time
ago.
But people are now so disconnected from the
'Here and Now' have been so propagandized
and brainwashed, that they are incapable
to keep cool and THINK.
IF that would have been the real McCoy,
we would have had twenty minutes left
from the time the cops 'informed' people.
Then, when it became apparent that it was
bullshit, the cops drove around and appeared
to be taking license plates of those who did
not panic, but have breakfast instead.
Around 8:30 AM, Tulsi Gabbard's tweets had
made it around enough for people to calm
down somewhat.
The alert cancellation came at 8:45 AM.
Here are some questions.
Who will be the first to become aware of a
ballistic missile taking off?
Whom would they inform about that?
Why were cops driving around and telling
people personally about the impending
attack?
Flight time is approximately 20 minutes,
which means that there were only ten minutes
left from the emergency alert counted from
when I was told.
Likely less than ten minutes from 8:07 AM down
to impact.
The excuses and explanations that followed
made it even more clear that this was an
intentionally triggered false alarm.
That in turn is the dictionary definition
of a TERROR ATTACK. To create fear, to
terrorize the population. This was not
Kim Jong UN terrorizing Hawai'i, this
was the US regime creating a false flag
Emergency Alert to terrorize the Hawai'ian
people.
Who would be the first to be informed about
an actually and factually happening attack?
The so called "Commander in Chief"?
Or Bill Maher?
Hopefully, of the flood of people having
inundated the islands - especially the
Big Island - most will go back where they
came from. Ask anybody that lives here, or
was born here
"WHY?".
Yes, they can. Manifest Destiny, WW1, WW2, State of Israel, Coup in Iran, Korean War,
JFK. Gulf OF Tonkin, Viet Nam, Oil Shortages, Oil Wars, Persian Gulf War, 911 and so
on....
Tulsi GAbbard's declarations after the false alarm point to the fact that she is one of the
few
the very few U.S. representatives witha spine and a real understanding of the Korean issue.
She wants talks without preconditions and give and take to reach the point where Kim
no longer feels he needs nuclear clout.
@somebody 60
> Regarding North Korean US military targets, the Guardian failed to include what might its
primary target. Camp Humphreys which is 57 miles from the DMZ, in DPRK 300mm rocket range, and
currently houses 12,000 Americans and is growing. So DPRK can't be attacked unless those
Americans are evacuated first, and that won't happen. The host country would no permit it, and
go crazy if they did. It would be mass mayhem.
> In fact the whole concept of forward basing actually puts a damper on any Pentagon
aggression. Another example is the 40,000 Americans at various bases in the western Persian
Gulf, well within Iran rocket and missile range. That means no attack against Iran.
> Finally, these bases are financially supported by host countries. In South Korea the
current Camp Humphreys $10 billion expansion is reportedly being funded by ROK.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Jan 15, 2018 10:08:20 AM |
76
Okay, the segment with the shooting through the truck window is still only 5 seconds but
I'd argue that the fact that it is part of a 3 minute montage 'our guys are kicking ass in
Afghanistan' actually gives it a much worse context. If this was some innocent procedural,
'we had to reluctantly do it' incident, no one in their right mind would have popped it into
such a sequence.
Bannon backed candidate later lost. So much for this Bannon "success".
This idea of Trump playing 6 dimensional chess is a joke. It's the same explanation that was pushed for Obama disastrous neocon
foreign policy. Here is one very apt quote: "What Trump has done are disasters, and equates to treason. Selling billions of dollars
of weapons the our enemies the terrorists/Saudis, killing innocent people in Syria, and Yemen, sending more troops to
Afghanistan..." What 6-dimetional chess?
According to Occam razor principle the simplest explanation of Trump behaviour is probably the most correct. He does not control
foright policy, outsourcing it to "generals" and be does not pursue domestic policy of creating jobs as he promised his
electorate. In other words, both in foreign policy and domestic policy, he became a turncoat,
betraying his electorate, much like Obama. kind of Republican Obama.
And as time goes by, Trump looks more and more like Hillary II or Republican Obama. So he might have problems with the candidates he supports
in midterm elections. His isolationism, if it ever existed, is gone. Promise of jobs is gone. Detente with Russia is gone.
What's left?
Note the level disappointment of what used to be Trump base in this site comment section...
Notable quotes:
"... In a serious rebuke for President Trump (and perhaps moreso for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell), ousted judge and alt-right favorite Roy Moore has won the Alabama Republican Primary by a landslide ..."
"... The Steve Bannon-backed candidate, who defied court orders to remove the Ten Commandments from his courtroom and refused to recognize gay marriage after the Supreme Court's June 2015 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, is leading by 9.6 points with 92% of the votes counted... ..."
"... These attacks on Bannon were one of the most prominent news stories in the first week following Trump's election victory. It didn't take long, however, for a counter-attack to emerge - from the right-wing elements of the Jewish community. ..."
"... Bannon is a true fucking patriot trying to pull this once great country from the sinkhole. ..."
"... I think the reality is that this was a message to McConnell much more than Trump. That message is simple: I'm coming to kill your career. Bannon went out of his way to say he fully supports Trump (despite backing the opposite candidate). And, let's face it, if Bannon buries McConnell, he's doing everyone a service, Trump included. ..."
"... The echo chamber media "is so surprised" that in Germany and the US we are seeing a rising tide of pissed off people, well imagine fucking that? Leaving the echo chamber and not intellectually trying to understand the anger, but living the anger. ..."
"... Well, we can only hope that Trump gets the message. He was elected to be President of the USA, not Emperor of the World. Quote from that Monty Python film: "He's not the Messiah; he's a very naughty boy!" ..."
"... A cursory background reading on Roy Moore tells me that he is one of the worst types for public office. And he might just turn out to be like Trump -- act like an anti-swarm cowboy and promise a path to heaven, then show his real colors as an Establishment puppet once the braindead voters put him in office. ..."
"... When Trump won the Republican nomination, and then the Presidency it was because people were rebelling against the establishment rulers. There is considerable disgust with these big government rulers that are working for themselves and their corporate cronies, but not for the US population. ..."
"... Trump seems to have been compromised at this point, and his support of the establishment favourite, Luther Strange is evidence that he isn't really the outsider he claimed to be. Moore's victory in Alabama says the rebellion still has wheels, so there is some hope. ..."
"... In Missouri where I live, the anti-establishment Republican contender for the upcoming US Senatorial 2018 race is Austin Peterson. It will be interesting to see how he, and his counterparts in other states do in the primaries. Both of the current Missouri Senators are worthless. ..."
"... I remember well the last "3-Dimensional Chess master" Obama while he too was always out maneuvering his apponents, per the media reports... ..."
"... Every now and then Trump tends to make huge blunders, and sometimes betrayals without knowing what he is doing. "Champions"- (great leaders) do not do that. ..."
"... What Trump has done are disasters, and equates to treason. Selling billions of dollars of weapons the our enemies the terrorists/Saudis, killing innocent people in Syria, and Yemen, sending more troops to Afghanistan... ..."
"... It is epitome of self-delusion to see people twisting themselves into pretzels, trying to justify/rationalize Trump's continuing display of disloyalty to America ..."
"... YOU CAN'T BE A ZIONIST AND AN AMERICAN FIRSTER, IT IS ONE OR THE OTHER. ..."
Congratulations to Roy Moore on his Republican Primary win in Alabama. Luther Strange started way back & ran a good race. Roy,
WIN in Dec!
In a serious rebuke for President Trump (and perhaps moreso for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell), ousted judge and
alt-right favorite Roy Moore has won the Alabama Republican Primary by a landslide
The Steve Bannon-backed candidate, who defied court orders to remove the Ten Commandments from his courtroom and refused to
recognize gay marriage after the Supreme Court's June 2015 ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, is leading by 9.6 points with 92%
of the votes counted...
... ... ...
However, as Politco
reported this evening, President Donald Trump began distancing himself from a Luther Strange loss before ballots were even cast,
telling conservative activists Monday night the candidate he's backing in Alabama's GOP Senate primary was likely to lose ! and suggesting
he'd done everything he could do given the circumstances.
Trump told conservative activists who visited the White House for dinner on Monday night that he'd underestimated the political
power of Roy Moore, the firebrand populist and former judge who's supported by Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon, according
to three people who were there.
And Trump gave a less-than full-throated endorsement during Friday's rally.
While he called Strange "a real fighter and a real good guy," he also mused on stage about whether he made a "mistake" by backing
Strange and committed to campaign "like hell" for Moore if he won.
Trump was encouraged to pick Strange before the August primary by son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner as well as other aides,
White House officials said. He was never going to endorse Alabama Republican Rep. Mo Brooks, who has at times opposed Trump's agenda,
and knew little about Moore, officials said.
... ... ...
Déjŕ view -> Sanity Bear •Sep 26, 2017 11:19 PM
AIPAC HAS ALL BASES COVERED...MIGA !
On Sept. 11, the Alabama Daughters for Zion organization circulated a statement on Israel by Moore, which started by saying
the U.S. and Israel "share not only a common Biblical heritage but also institutions of representative government and respect
for religious freedom." He traced Israel's origin to God's promise to Abram and the 1948 creation of modern Israel as "a fulfillment
of the Scriptures that foretold the regathering of the Jewish people to Israel."
Moore's statement includes five policy positions, including support for U.S. military assistance to Israel, protecting Israel
from "Iranian aggression," opposing boycotts of Israel, supporting Israel at the United Nations, and supporting direct Israeli-Palestinian
negotiations without outside pressure. He added, "as long as Hamas and the Palestinian Authority wrongly refuse to recognize Israel's
right to exist, such negotiations have scant chance of success."
While those views would give Moore common ground with much of the Jewish community regarding Israel, most of the state's Jewish
community has been at odds with Moore over church-state issues, such as his displays of the Ten Commandments in courthouses, and
his outspoken stance against homosexuality, both of which led to him being ousted as chief justice.
moore misreads the Bible as most socalled christians do. they have been deceived, they have confused the Israel of God( those
who have been given belief in Christ) with israel of the flesh. They cant hear Christs own words, woe is unto them. they are living
in their own selfrighteousness, not good. they are going to have a big surprise for not following the Word of God instead following
the tradition of men.
They were warned over and over in the Bible but they cant hear.
I Claudius -> VinceFostersGhost •Sep 27, 2017 6:27 AM
Forgive? Maybe. Forget? NEVER!! He tried to sell "US" out on this one. We now need to focus on bringing "Moore" candidates
to the podium to run against the RINO's and take out McConnell and Ryan. It's time for Jared and Ivanka to go back to NYC so Jared
can shore up his family's failing empire. However, if his business acumen is as accurate as his political then it's no wonder
the family needed taxpayer funded visas to sell the property. Then on to ridding the White House of Gen Kelly and McMaster - two
holdover generals from the Obama administration - after Obama forced out the real ones.
Clashfan -> Mycroft Holmes IV •Sep 26, 2017 11:33 PM
Rump has hoodwinked his supoprt base and turned on them almost immediately. Some refuse to acknowledge this.
These attacks on Bannon were one of the most prominent news stories in the first week following Trump's election victory.
It didn't take long, however, for a counter-attack to emerge - from the right-wing elements of the Jewish community. The
Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) came to Bannon's defense and accused the ADL of a "character assassination" against Bannon.
The Wizard -> Oh regional Indian •Sep 26, 2017 10:12 PM
Trump should figure out the Deep State elites he has surrounded himself with, don't have control of the states Trump won. Trump
thought he had to negotiate with these guys and his ego got the best of him. Bannon was trying to convince him he should have
stayed the course and not give in.
~"American politics gets moore strange by the day..."~
Technically speaking OhRI, with Moore's win politics became less Strange, or "Strange less", or "Sans Luther", depending on
how one chose to phrase it [SMIRK]
Adullam -> Gaius Frakkin' Baltar •Sep 26, 2017 11:05 PM
Trump needs to fire Jared! Some news outlets are saying that it was his son in law who advised him to back Strange. He has
to quit listening to those who want to destroy him or ... they will.
overbet -> Killtruck •Sep 26, 2017 9:41 PM
Bannon is a true fucking patriot trying to pull this once great country from the sinkhole.
Juggernaut x2 -> overbet •Sep 26, 2017 10:07 PM
Trump better pull his head out of his ass and quit being a wishy-washy populist on BS like Iran- the farther right he goes
the greater his odds of reelection because he has pissed off a lot of the far-righters that put him in- getting rid of Kushner,
Cohn and his daughter and negotiating w/Assad and distancing us from Israhell would be a huge help.
The whole Russiagate ploy was a diversion from (((them)))
NoDebt -> Killtruck •Sep 26, 2017 9:42 PM
I think the reality is that this was a message to McConnell much more than Trump. That message is simple: I'm coming to
kill your career. Bannon went out of his way to say he fully supports Trump (despite backing the opposite candidate). And, let's
face it, if Bannon buries McConnell, he's doing everyone a service, Trump included.
Oldwood -> NoDebt •Sep 26, 2017 10:08 PM
I think it was a setup.
Bannon would not oppose Trump that directly unless there was a wink and a nod involved.
Trump is still walking a tightrope, trying to appease his base AND keep as many establishment republicans at his side (even
for only optics). By Trump supporting Strange while knowing he was an underdog AND completely apposed by Bannon/his base he was
able to LOOK like he was supporting the establishment, while NOT really. Trump seldom backs losers which makes me think it was
deliberate. Strange never made sense anyway.
But what do I know?
Urahara -> NoDebt •Sep 27, 2017 12:20 AM
Bannon is hardcore Isreal first. Why are you supporting the zionist? It's an obvious play.
general ambivalent -> Urahara •Sep 27, 2017 2:23 AM
People are desperate to rationalise their failure into a victory. They cannot give up on Hope so they have to use hyperbole
in everything and pretend this is all leading to something great in 2020 or 2024.
None of these fools learned a damn thing and they are desperate to make the same mistake again. The swamp is full, so full
that it has breached the banks and taken over all of society. Trump is a swamp monster, and you simply cannot reform the swamp
when both sides are monsters. In other words, the inside is not an option, so it has to be done the hard way. But people would
prefer to keep voting in the swamp.
Al Gophilia -> NoDebt •Sep 27, 2017 3:58 AM
Bannon as president would really have those swamp creatures squirming. There wouldn't be this Trump crap about surrounding
himself with likeminded friends, such as Goldman Sachs turnstile workers and his good pals in the MIC.
Don't tell me he didn't choose them because if he didn't, then they were placed. That means he doesn't have the clout he pretends
to have or control of the agenda that the people asked him to deliver. His backing of Stange is telling.
Bobbyrib -> LindseyNarratesWordress •Sep 27, 2017 5:38 AM
He will not fire Kushner or Ivanka who have become part of the swamp. I'm so sick of these 'Trump is a genius and planned this
all along.'
To me Trump is a Mr. Bean type character that has been very fortunate and just goes with the flow. He has nearly no diplomacy,
or strategic skills.
NoWayJose •Sep 26, 2017 10:35 PM
Dear President Trump - if you like your job, listen to these voters. Borders, Walls, limited immigrants (including all those
that Ryan and McConnell are sneaking through under your very nose), trade agreements to keep American jobs, and respect for our
flag, our country, and the unborn!
I had hope for Trump, but as someone who reads ZH often, and does not suffer from amnesia (like much of America), I knew he
was way too good to be true.
We all know his back tracking, his flip flops...and while the media and many paid bloggers like to spin it as "not his fault",
it actually is.
His sending DACA to Congress was the last straw. Obama enacted DACA with a stroke of his pen, but Trump "needed to send it
to Congress so they could "get it right". The only thing Congress does with immigration is try and get amnesty passed.
Of course while Trump sends DACA to Congress, he does not mind using the military without Congress, which he actually should
do.
Why is it when it's something American's want, it has to go through the "correct channels", but when its something the Zionists
want, he does it with the wave of his pen? We saw the same bull shit games with Obama...
Dilluminati •Sep 26, 2017 11:02 PM
Anybody surprised by this is pretending the civility at the workplace isn't masking anger at corporate America and Government.
I'll go in and put in the 8 hours, I'm an adult that is part of the job. However I'm actually fed up with allot of the stupid
shit and want the establishment to work, problem is that we are witnessing failed nations, failed schools, failed healthcare,
even failed employment contracts, conditions, and wages.
The echo chamber media "is so surprised" that in Germany and the US we are seeing a rising tide of pissed off people, well
imagine fucking that? Leaving the echo chamber and not intellectually trying to understand the anger, but living the anger.
You haven't seen anything yet in Catalonia/Spain etc, Brexit, or so..
This is what failure looks like: That moment the Romanovs and Louis XVI looked around the room seeking an understanding eye,
there was none.
Pascal1967 •Sep 26, 2017 11:19 PM
Dear Trump:
Quit listening to your moron son-in-law, swamp creature, Goldman Sachs douchebag son-in-law Kushner. HE SUCKS!! If you truly
had BALLS, you would FIRE his fucking ass. HE is The Swamp, He Is Nepotism! THE AMERICAN PEOPLE HATE HIM.
MAGA! LISTEN TO BANNON, DONALD.
DO NOT FUCK THIS UP!
ROY MOORE, 100%!!!!
You lost, Trump ... get your shit together before it is too late!
ElTerco •Sep 26, 2017 11:28 PM
Bannon was always the smarts behind the whole operation. Now we are just left with a complete idiot in office.
Also, unlike Trump, Bannon actually gives a shit about what happens to the American people rather than the American tax system.
At the end of the day, all Trump really cares about is himself.
samsara •Sep 26, 2017 11:25 PM
I think most people get it backwards about Trump and the Deplorables.
I believed in pulling troops a from all the war zones and Trump said he felt the same
I believed in Legal immigration, sending people back if here illegal especially if involved in crime, Trump said he felt the
same.
I believed in America first in negotiating treaties, Trump said he felt the same.
I didn't 'vote' for Trump per se, he was the proxy.
We didn't leave Him, He left us.
BarnacleBill •Sep 26, 2017 11:31 PM
Well, we can only hope that Trump gets the message. He was elected to be President of the USA, not Emperor of the World.
Quote from that Monty Python film: "He's not the Messiah; he's a very naughty boy!" It's high time he turned back to the
job he promised to do, and drain that swamp.
napper •Sep 26, 2017 11:47 PM
A cursory background reading on Roy Moore tells me that he is one of the worst types for public office. And he might just
turn out to be like Trump -- act like an anti-swarm cowboy and promise a path to heaven, then show his real colors as an Establishment
puppet once the braindead voters put him in office.
America is doomed from top (the swarm) to bottom (the brainless voters).
Sid Davis •Sep 27, 2017 1:40 AM
When Trump won the Republican nomination, and then the Presidency it was because people were rebelling against the establishment
rulers. There is considerable disgust with these big government rulers that are working for themselves and their corporate cronies,
but not for the US population.
Trump seems to have been compromised at this point, and his support of the establishment favourite, Luther Strange is evidence
that he isn't really the outsider he claimed to be. Moore's victory in Alabama says the rebellion still has wheels, so there is some hope.
In Missouri where I live, the anti-establishment Republican contender for the upcoming US Senatorial 2018 race is Austin Peterson.
It will be interesting to see how he, and his counterparts in other states do in the primaries. Both of the current Missouri Senators
are worthless.
nevertheless -> pfwed •Sep 27, 2017 7:33 AM
I remember well the last "3-Dimensional Chess master" Obama while he too was always out maneuvering his apponents, per the
media reports...
LoveTruth •Sep 27, 2017 2:56 AM
Every now and then Trump tends to make huge blunders, and sometimes betrayals without knowing what he is doing. "Champions"-
(great leaders) do not do that.
nevertheless -> LoveTruth •Sep 27, 2017 7:16 AM
What Trump has done are disasters, and equates to treason. Selling billions of dollars of weapons the our enemies the terrorists/Saudis,
killing innocent people in Syria, and Yemen, sending more troops to Afghanistan...
But most treasonous of all was his sending DACA to "get it right", really? Congress has only one goal with immigration, amnesty,
and Chump knows dam well they will send him legislation that will clearly or covertly grant amnesty for millions and millions
of illegals, dressed up as "security".
Obama enacted DACA with the stroke of a pen, and while TRUMP promised to end it, he did NOT. Why is it when it's something
Americans want, it has to be "Constitutional", but when it comes form his banker pals, like starting a war, he can do that unilaterally.
It is epitome of self-delusion to see people twisting themselves into pretzels, trying to justify/rationalize Trump's continuing
display of disloyalty to America, and loyalty to Zionism.
Trump should always have been seen as a likely Zionist shill. He comes form Jew York City, owes everything he is to Zionist
Jewish bankers, is a self proclaimed Zionist...
YOU CAN'T BE A ZIONIST AND AN AMERICAN FIRSTER, IT IS ONE OR THE OTHER.
Either Zero Hedge is over run with Zionist hasbara, giving cover to their boy Chump, or Americans on the "right" have become
as gullible as those who supported Obama on the "left".
With the opening of the new ESPO oil pipeline connecting Siberia to China doubling the
amount of oil China can import to 600,000 barrels per day we'll see those numbers continue to
accelerate.
And that's the key. Remember, the massive $400 billion gas deal China made with Gazprom in
2014 hasn't begun delivering gas. The first Power of Siberia pipeline isn't due to be completed
until 2019. The second Power of Siberia pipeline is on the table after this one.
And the two countries just agreed to a third pipeline to bring gas in from Russia's far east
last month.
So, despite back-biting from western media about the profitability of these projects, they
are going forward and the two countries continue to strengthen fundamental ties to one
another.
... ... ...
The important takeaway is that China has created the first unassailable and above-ground
challenge to the petro-dollar oil trade. To break the world's use of the dollar as the sole
settlement currency for oil required the right contract issued by a country the U.S. can't
immediately invade and conduct a regime change operation in – like in Iraq and Libya.
Russia wins here because now there is a path for its Urals grade to become an international
benchmark like WTI and Brent. And since Gazprom prefers to price its long-term gas contracts
based on underlying oil prices rather than the more volatile natural gas price, this is also a
win in the long run for them.
Gold convertibility is a means to deepen China's sovereign debt markets by making it less
risky to hold Chinese bonds. The lack of true yuan convertibility is the big impediment to
people holding them. So, gold convertibility creates a viable exit route.
Bob, when you control 40% of the World's Oil & Gas Reserves and can turn the tap on
and off then you can hardly be considered POOR, especially when you make up 20% of the
world's Land Mass ( am also thinking Fresh Water ).
Vichy DC's Sanctions on Russia are in Essence, Sanctions on Exxon & the Majors (who
soon won't be Majors at this rate ) and the EUROPEAN UNION.
The vice tightens inexorably and US foreign policy thrashes about in response to the
pressure. What will the parasitic Jewish overlords do to save their declining host?
Institute for Policy Studies Co-founder Marcus Raskin will be remembered, among many other
noteworthy achievements, for coining the term "national security state." In congressional
testimony in 1967, he used the phrase to describe the complex web of war institutions he feared
would drive continuous conflict abroad while turning the United States into a "garrison and
launching pad for nuclear war."
Raskin died on December 24, 2017, at age 83 -- just as the current president of the United
States was about to make nuclear threats via Twitter. And as for his fears about the country
becoming a garrison, Raskin wasn't far off. Over the five decades after Raskin's testimony, the
number of inmates in U.S. state and federal prisons grew from 188,000 to 1.5 million , with the vast majority of them
poor and people of color.
While progressive activists have tended to treat these issues separately, Raskin
consistently connected the dots between America's military adventures overseas and economic and
racial injustice at home.
In a 2008 book with Robert Spero, for example, he used President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's
"four essential human freedoms" as a clever frame for exposing the extent to which the national
security state had accelerated poverty and inequality while undermining other basic rights.
Roosevelt laid out these four freedoms in his 1941 State of the Union address. They included
freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. FDR's notion
of "freedom from want" built on this famous line from his 1937 inaugural address: "The test of
our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether
we provide enough for those who have too little."
Institute for Policy Studies Co-founder Marcus Raskin will be remembered, among many other
noteworthy achievements, for coining the term "national security state." In congressional
testimony in 1967, he used the phrase to describe the complex web of war institutions he feared
would drive continuous conflict abroad while turning the United States into a "garrison and
launching pad for nuclear war."
Raskin died on December 24, 2017, at age 83 -- just as the current President of the United
States was about to make nuclear threats via Twitter. And as for his fears about the country
becoming a garrison, Raskin wasn't far off. Over the five decades after Raskin's testimony, the
number of inmates in U.S. state and federal prisons grew from 188,000 to 1.5 million , with the vast majority of them
poor and people of color.
While progressive activists have tended to treat these issues separately, Raskin
consistently connected the dots between America's military adventures overseas and economic and
racial injustice at home.
In a 2008 book with Robert Spero, for example, he used President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's
"four essential human freedoms" as a clever frame for exposing the extent to which the national
security state had accelerated poverty and inequality while undermining other basic rights.
Roosevelt laid out these four freedoms in his 1941 State of the Union address. They included
freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. FDR's notion
of "freedom from want" built on this famous line from his 1937 inaugural address: "The test of
our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether
we provide enough for those who have too little."
In Four Freedoms Under Siege , Raskin and Spero concede that the Cold War
superpower rivalry did contribute to some progress towards Roosevelt's dream of freedom from
want. Raskin was a young aide in Kennedy's National Security Council during a period of high
tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union that were playing out with deadly
consequences in Cuba, Vietnam, and elsewhere.
And while he was horrified by the existential threat posed by the superpower standoff,
Raskin later recognized that the competition with the Soviet Union did give a boost to the U.S.
labor unions and other forces that were pushing for progressive economic reforms.
The elites, Raskin and Spero explained, feared that movements for "social and economic
justice, from rhetoric to out-and-out radicalism, would transform the power structure in such a
way as to open up the society to democracy that displaces overlapping economic oligarchies. The
right, especially big business, also feared that this would be just the prelude to the
redistribution of resources, or at least access to them."
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Raskin and Spero point out, "people at the top no
longer had to concern themselves with the people at the bottom." And the permanence of the
national security state obliterated any hope of a post-Cold War "peace dividend" that could've
helped realize FDR's dream of freedom from want.
Raskin and Spero wrote their book during the militarily aggressive administration of
President George W. Bush. As Halliburton and other private military contractors lined up to
feed at the Iraq War trough, the period perfectly illustrated the danger of a war economy
without end.
"This kind of 'let 'er rip' corruption policy did not originate with Bush II conservatives,"
Raskin and Spero wrote, "but they pushed the idea of a corporate controlled state to the limit
as a partner to military expansion."
In his final weeks, Marc Raskin was excited to learn about plans for a Poor People's Campaign that, like his own work,
will take on the inter-connected problems of the War Economy, poverty, racism, and ecological
devastation.
The campaign will mark the 50th anniversary of a similar effort led by the Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. and other leaders who saw the need to build on the civil rights cause by
tackling the militarism that had led to the Vietnam War and the poverty that plagued too many
Americans of all races. Back then in 1968, Institute for Policy Studies staff included leaders
of both the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements. Raskin himself was indicted that year
for conspiracy to aid resistance to the draft.
The new Poor People's Campaign, led by two prominent faith leaders -- the Rev. Liz Theoharis
and the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II -- held a kick-off event in Washington on December 4. The
Institute for Policy Studies prepared a report for
the launch that includes data on each of the campaign's focus areas. Theoharis and Barber
announced plans for a historic 40-day wave of civil disobedience across the country in the
spring of 2018, culminating in a mass demonstration in the capital in June.
At a December 12 follow-up meeting at the Institute for Policy Studies, Raskin asked one of
the lead organizers of the new Poor People's Campaign who they expect to be their strongest
opponents. From his six decades of experience in Washington, he had a keen sense of the
challenges ahead. Sarah Anderson directs the Global Economy Project at the Institute for
Policy Studies and is a co-editor of Inequality.org.
I'm in the UK as well and now find it quite alarming how the BBC shapes the news.
Recently on Radio 4 I listened to the BBC talking of a terrorist group related to or derived from Al Qaeda merely as "rebels",
and giving the impression that their actions were part of a legitimate insurgency. That's not how 9/11 was described.
It's all too like the BBC's Ukraine reporting, in which the neo-Nazi component was played down and the indiscriminate shelling
of civilian areas in Donetsk and Lugansk spoken of as legitimate warfare.
Crazy. And not only the PR. All those journalists and expensive editors and more admin staff than you can shake a stick at,
and there's more fact to be got on some one man and a dog Russian news outlet. I heard recently of an old BBC hand describing
the way the BBC changed after David Kelly. What with that and what with the material we now see put out by the BBC, I reckon that
as far as foreign news goes we've got ourselves our very own Pravda on the Thames.
"... Kushner Companies received a $30 million investment from Israeli insurer Menora Mivtachim; that investment went to Maryland apartment complexes that Kushner still has a stake in despite stepping down from the company after accepting a White House job last year. The company has also taken out large loans from Israeli banks. ..."
Jared Kushner's family real estate firm has continued to extend its business ties to Israel despite his role leading the administration's
peace efforts in the Middle East, raising concerns that he may be breaking the spirit -- though not the letter -- of conflict-of-interest
laws. The New York Times reports that shortly before President Trump's son-in-law departed on a diplomatic trip to Israel last year,
Kushner Companies received a $30 million investment from Israeli insurer Menora Mivtachim; that investment went to Maryland apartment
complexes that Kushner still has a stake in despite stepping down from the company after accepting a White House job last year. The
company has also taken out large loans from Israeli banks.
With Kushner playing such a big role in the peace process, "I think it's reasonable for people to ask whether his business interests
are somehow affecting his judgment," government ethics expert Matthew Sanderson, a lawyer who advised Rand Paul's campaign, tells
the Times. Kushner's lawyers and White House officials, however, stress that he is in full compliance with ethics rules. We have
"tremendous confidence in the job Jared is doing leading our peace efforts, and he takes the ethics rules very seriously and would
never compromise himself or the administration," White House spokesman Raj Shah tells the Jerusalem Post.
Listen to the state-'guided' US media this past week and you'd believe a series of spontaneous anti-government protests broke
out across Iran. The protests, according to President Donald Trump and his Israeli allies, were caused by `anger over Iran's spending
billions on wars in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon and helping the Palestinian movement Hamas.' Trump tweeted that Iranians were finally
rising up against what he called their hated, brutal regime.
Talk about manufactured news. Most Iranians were elated and proud of their nation's role in thwarting US plans to occupy much
of Syria and overthrow the government of President Bashar al-Assad. By contrast, the other side in this long proxy war – the US,
Israel, Saudi Arabia and Britain – was smarting with defeat and seeking ways to exact revenge on the hateful trio, Syria, Iran and
Russia.
Interestingly, the so-called news of protests over Iran's military spending did not apparently originate in Iran but rather in
Washington which spread it far and wide to our state-guided media. This was clumsy, but the US and Israel were so eager to get this
piece of made-up good news out that they forget the basics of propaganda management: wait for the event before you proclaim it.
What in fact was going on in Iran where more than 21 demonstrators have died violent deaths? As a very long-time Iran watcher
allow me to explain.
Restive minority groups in Iran's Kurdish, Azeri and Sunni Arab regions, most far from the big cities, have been demonstrating
and protesting severe economic problems. Iran is a big, resource-rich nation of 80 million people that should be booming. But it
has been under economic siege warfare by the US and its allies ever since a popular uprising in 1979 overthrew the US-British backed
monarchy that was raping the nation and keeping it a vassal of the western powers.
Iran's new Islamic Republic was deemed a dire threat to Western and Israeli strategic and military interests (think Saudi Arabia).
The very idea that the Islamic Republic would follow the tenets of Islam and share oil wealth with the needy was anathema to London
and Washington. Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, ran Iran's dreaded, brutal secret police, Savak. The crooked royal family looted
the nation and stored their swag in California.
The West's first act was to induce Saddam Hussein's Iraq to invade Iran, in Sept 1980. The West (including the Gulf Arabs) armed,
financed and supplied Iraq. As I discovered in Baghdad, Britain and the US supplied Iraq with poison gas and germ warfare toxins.
After eight years, 250,000 Iraqis were killed and nearly one million Iranians died.
Ever since the Islamic Revolution, the US, Britain, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Arabs have been trying to overthrow the Tehran government
and mount a counter-revolution. CIA and Britain's MI6 has ample practice: in 1953, the CIA and MI6 mounted an elaborate operation
to overthrow Iran's democratically-elected leader, Mohammed Mossadegh who sought to nationalize Iran's British-owned oil company.
Mobs of specially trained anti-Mossadegh plotters poured into Tehran's streets. Bombs went off. Army commanders were suborned, lavish
bribes handed out.
The 1953 coup went perfectly. Mossadegh was ousted with backing from the Army and Savak. Iran's oil remained safe in western hands.
The successful Iran uprising became the template for future 'color revolutions' in Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Russia, Poland,
and Romania.
But in 2009 a US-engineered 'color revolution' in Iran went badly wrong even though it used all the latest arts of social media
to whip up protestors and deploy them in the streets. Something similar happened in Iran this past weekend where mobs of 20-somethings,
agitated by US and British covert social media, poured into the streets of dingy provincial towns.
As of now, this medium-sized uprising in Iran looks to be over, though it could re-ignite at any time. Young Iranians, at least
40% of the population, suffer due to 50% unemployment. Iran's $1 trillion economy is extremely fragile and in some cases barely functioning
after decades of US-engineered economic warfare and boycotts. High unemployment is a result of US economic warfare and bullying other
nations not to do business with Iran, producing 13% overall unemployment and a 40% inflation rate. The latter and wide-scale corruption
were the spark that ignited the latest riots.
In two more weeks, President Trump, who makes no secret of his hatred and contempt for Muslims, must decide whether to reaffirm
the multilateral nuclear energy deal with Iran or heed Israel's demands and refuse to certify it. His cutoff this week of US military
aid to Muslim Pakistan bodes ill for Iran.
Many Iranians observing the current US-North Korea nuclear standoff will wonder if their nation was not better off continuing
its nuclear program and holding the Saudi oil fields at risk to deter a US attack. Trump's wild, inconsistent and often infantile
responses on this issue are making matters murkier and ever more dangerous.
"Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaida elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq in preparation for a summer showdown with
coalition forces intended to tip a wavering US Congress into voting for full military withdrawal, US officials say.
"Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq and it's a very dangerous course for them to be following. They are already committing
daily acts of war against US and British forces,"
The official said US commanders were bracing for a nationwide, Iranian-orchestrated summer offensive, linking al-Qaida and
Sunni insurgents to Tehran's Shia militia allies, that Iran hoped would trigger a political mutiny in Washington and a US retreat.
The administration official also claimed that notwithstanding recent US and British overtures, Syria was still collaborating
closely with Iran's strategy in Iraq." May 2007 Simon Tisdall
You see the lies that bind the newspaper columnist and USA's warlords!!
Vety soon after this write-up , USA liberated ISIS from prison and from foreign lands ,gathered them together from the disparate
mixture of foreign fighters who populated the roster of Al Qaida and unleashed them on
Shia.
But per the narrative Al Qaida and Shia were plotting to topple American the warlords from the Board Of Director of the company
known as Freedom Democracy Liberty .
Iran is learning so has Russia and EU . Hope they extend the learning to the underlying philosophies that govern USA's behaviors.
US is screwing with Iran. Good deal I say. Why all this constant moaning here in defense of the Persian-Shia supremacists? Those
fellows are at war with us, starting with the act of war of occupying our embassy in 1976. The supreme leaders there proclaim
"Death to America" every chance they get . We have been too lenient. They should have been reduced to the level of Somalia by
now.
Are the Iranians chanting "Death to America" any different than you and your Israel First buddies that chant "Death to Iran"?
Other than that you do your chanting on the internet?
Did you not read about the attack by the CIA on the Iranian people in 1953?
The best thing we could do is to being all our troops home from the Middle East, end all aid to every other nation, let Israel
sleep in the bed it has made, and mind our own business. Nothing in the Middle East is any responsibility of the American people.
US is screwing with Iran. Good deal I say. Why all this constant moaning here in defense of the Persian-Shia supremacists?
Persian-Shia supremacists? LOL, the only true supremacists in the ME are the Jews. You don't see the Persians ethnically cleansing
other groups and occupying their lands. You don't see the Persians lobbying and infiltrating Washington to get the US puppets
to destroy their neighbors.
Those fellows are at war with us, starting with the act of war of occupying our embassy in 1976.
The acts of war occurred in 1953 when the US overthrew Iran's government and installed a savage dictatorship. The US embassy
staff were an occupying force. Iran had every right to arrest every single person in the embassy as an illegal occupying force,
which was intimately involved in the crimes the Shah committed against the Iranian people. Those embassy personnel were murderers,
torturers, kidnappers and thugs. They got off easy.
The supreme leaders there proclaim "Death to America" every chance they get .
Actually they don't, and they certainly don't chant "Death to America". Given your general stupidity, you obviously don't speak
a foreign language. Translations are wide open to abuse, and no more so, than when someone's enemy does the translation. What
they are really chanting is "Down with America", using the proper translation, and what they really mean is "Down with American
Imperialism and Interference in Iranian Affairs". Of which there has been a lot (US being the successor to British imperialism
/ occupation / war crimes in the region).
We have been too lenient. They should have been reduced to the level of Somalia by now.
Would make me much happier if your home and family were destroyed instead. For you are a truly evil war-mongering criminal.
Though even that, I don't wish for, as I am nowhere near the deep realms of hatred, supremacism and evil as you.
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Listen to the state-'guided' US media this past week and you'd believe a
series of spontaneous anti-government protests broke out across Iran. The protests, according to President
Donald Trump and his Israeli allies, were caused by `anger over Iran's spending billions on wars in Syria,
Iraq and Lebanon and helping the Palestinian movement Hamas.' Trump tweeted that Iranians were finally
rising up against what he called their hated, brutal regime.
Talk about manufactured news. Most Iranians were elated and proud of their
nation's role in thwarting US plans to occupy much of Syria and overthrow the government of President Bashar
al-Assad. By contrast, the other side in this long proxy war – the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Britain –
was smarting with defeat and seeking ways to exact revenge on the hateful trio, Syria, Iran and Russia.
Interestingly, the so-called news of protests over Iran's military
spending did not apparently originate in Iran but rather in Washington which spread it far and wide to our
state-guided media. This was clumsy, but the US and Israel were so eager to get this piece of made-up good
news out that they forget the basics of propaganda management: wait for the event before you proclaim it.
What in fact was going on in Iran where more than 21 demonstrators have
died violent deaths? As a very long-time Iran watcher allow me to explain.
Restive minority groups in Iran's Kurdish, Azeri and Sunni Arab regions,
most far from the big cities, have been demonstrating and protesting severe economic problems. Iran is a
big, resource-rich nation of 80 million people that should be booming. But it has been under economic siege
warfare by the US and its allies ever since a popular uprising in 1979 overthrew the US-British backed
monarchy that was raping the nation and keeping it a vassal of the western powers.
Iran's new Islamic Republic was deemed a dire threat to Western and
Israeli strategic and military interests (think Saudi Arabia). The very idea that the Islamic Republic would
follow the tenets of Islam and share oil wealth with the needy was anathema to London and Washington.
Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, ran Iran's dreaded, brutal secret police, Savak. The crooked royal
family looted the nation and stored their swag in California.
The West's first act was to induce Saddam Hussein's Iraq to invade Iran,
in Sept 1980. The West (including the Gulf Arabs) armed, financed and supplied Iraq. As I discovered in
Baghdad, Britain and the US supplied Iraq with poison gas and germ warfare toxins. After eight years,
250,000 Iraqis were killed and nearly one million Iranians died.
Ever since the Islamic Revolution, the US, Britain, Saudi Arabia and the
Gulf Arabs have been trying to overthrow the Tehran government and mount a counter-revolution. CIA and
Britain's MI6 has ample practice: in 1953, the CIA and MI6 mounted an elaborate operation to overthrow
Iran's democratically-elected leader, Mohammed Mossadegh who sought to nationalize Iran's British-owned oil
company. Mobs of specially trained anti-Mossadegh plotters poured into Tehran's streets. Bombs went off.
Army commanders were suborned, lavish bribes handed out.
The 1953 coup went perfectly. Mossadegh was ousted with backing from the
Army and Savak. Iran's oil remained safe in western hands. The successful Iran uprising became the template
for future 'color revolutions' in Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Russia, Poland, and Romania.
But in 2009 a US-engineered 'color revolution' in Iran went badly wrong
even though it used all the latest arts of social media to whip up protestors and deploy them in the
streets. Something similar happened in Iran this past weekend where mobs of 20-somethings, agitated by US
and British covert social media, poured into the streets of dingy provincial towns.
As of now, this medium-sized uprising in Iran looks to be over, though it
could re-ignite at any time. Young Iranians, at least 40% of the population, suffer due to 50% unemployment.
Iran's $1 trillion economy is extremely fragile and in some cases barely functioning after decades of
US-engineered economic warfare and boycotts. High unemployment is a result of US economic warfare and
bullying other nations not to do business with Iran, producing 13% overall unemployment and a 40% inflation
rate. The latter and wide-scale corruption were the spark that ignited the latest riots.
In two more weeks, President Trump, who makes no secret of his hatred and
contempt for Muslims, must decide whether to reaffirm the multilateral nuclear energy deal with Iran or heed
Israel's demands and refuse to certify it. His cutoff this week of US military aid to Muslim Pakistan bodes
ill for Iran.
Many Iranians observing the current US-North Korea nuclear standoff will
wonder if their nation was not better off continuing its nuclear program and holding the Saudi oil fields at
risk to deter a US attack. Trump's wild, inconsistent and often infantile responses on this issue are making
matters murkier and ever more dangerous.
"Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaida elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq in preparation for a
summer showdown with coalition forces intended to tip a wavering US Congress into voting for full military
withdrawal, US officials say.
"Iran is fighting a proxy war in Iraq and it's a very dangerous course for
them to be following. They are already committing daily acts of war against US and British forces,"
The official said US commanders were bracing for a nationwide, Iranian-orchestrated summer offensive,
linking al-Qaida and Sunni insurgents to Tehran's Shia militia allies, that Iran hoped would trigger a
political mutiny in Washington and a US retreat.
The administration official also claimed that notwithstanding recent US and British overtures, Syria was
still collaborating closely with Iran's strategy in Iraq." May 2007 Simon Tisdall
You see the lies that bind the newspaper columnist and USA's warlords!!
Vety soon after this write-up , USA liberated ISIS from prison and from foreign lands ,gathered them
together from the disparate mixture of foreign fighters who populated the roster of Al Qaida and unleashed
them on
Shia.
But per the narrative Al Qaida and Shia were plotting to topple American the warlords from the Board Of
Director of the company known as Freedom Democracy Liberty .
Iran is learning so has Russia and EU . Hope they extend the learning to the underlying philosophies that
govern USA's behaviors.
US is screwing with Iran. Good deal I say. Why all this constant moaning here in defense of the Persian-Shia
supremacists? Those fellows are at war with us, starting with the act of war of occupying our embassy in
1976. The supreme leaders there proclaim "Death to America" every chance they get . We have been too
lenient. They should have been reduced to the level of Somalia by now.
Are the Iranians chanting "Death to America" any different than you and your Israel First buddies that chant
"Death to Iran"? Other than that you do your chanting on the internet?
Did you not read about the attack
by the CIA on the Iranian people in 1953?
The best thing we could do is to being all our troops home from the Middle East, end all aid to every
other nation, let Israel sleep in the bed it has made, and mind our own business. Nothing in the Middle East
is any responsibility of the American people.
US is screwing with Iran. Good deal I say. Why all this constant moaning here in
defense of the Persian-Shia supremacists?
Persian-Shia supremacists? LOL, the only true supremacists in the ME are the Jews. You
don't see the Persians ethnically cleansing other groups and occupying their lands. You
don't see the Persians lobbying and infiltrating Washington to get the US puppets to
destroy their neighbors.
Those fellows are at war with us, starting with the act of war of occupying our
embassy in 1976.
The acts of war occurred in 1953 when the US overthrew Iran's government and installed
a savage dictatorship. The US embassy staff were an occupying force. Iran had every right
to arrest every single person in the embassy as an illegal occupying force, which was
intimately involved in the crimes the Shah committed against the Iranian people. Those
embassy personnel were murderers, torturers, kidnappers and thugs. They got off easy.
The supreme leaders there proclaim "Death to America" every chance they get .
Actually they don't, and they certainly don't chant "Death to America". Given your
general stupidity, you obviously don't speak a foreign language. Translations are wide
open to abuse, and no more so, than when someone's enemy does the translation. What they
are really chanting is "Down with America", using the proper translation, and what they
really mean is "Down with American Imperialism and Interference in Iranian Affairs". Of
which there has been a lot (US being the successor to British imperialism / occupation /
war crimes in the region).
We have been too lenient. They should have been reduced to the level of Somalia
by now.
Would make me much happier if your home and family were destroyed instead. For you are
a truly evil war-mongering criminal. Though even that, I don't wish for, as I am nowhere
near the deep realms of hatred, supremacism and evil as you.
"... Similarly, the Federation Council, the upper chamber of Russian Parliament, will ban U.S. journalists, but, due to procedural issues, the ban will be enacted later, on December 12, Igor Morozov, a member of the Federation Council's international affairs committee, told RBC. ..."
Reporters representing U.S. media outlets will be banned from Russian Parliament, in a
response for Russia's Kremlin-funded international TV news channel RT having its Congressional
press accreditation
stripped earlier this week.
A ban on attending sessions of the State Duma, the lower chamber of Russian Parliament, will
be introduced "for all U.S. media," Olga Savastyanova, head of the Duma's committee on
regulations and control, was quoted as saying by RBC news.
According to Savostyanova, the measure is Russia's "reciprocal response to the U.S.
Congress' decision" regarding RT. The restriction is expected to begin Dec. 6, after being
formally adopted by the Duma council and a plenary meeting.
Similarly, the Federation Council, the upper chamber of Russian Parliament, will ban U.S.
journalists, but, due to procedural issues, the ban will be enacted later, on December 12, Igor
Morozov, a member of the Federation Council's international affairs committee, told RBC.
Many expected the election of Donald Trump as U.S. president in November 2016 to lead to
improved ties between Russia and the United States. That didn't happen.
Relations between Washington and Moscow are now at a nadir, not helped by Trump's recent
speech lumping in Russia with China as "rival powers" to the U.S. and the primary threats to
America's economic dominance in the world.
For Hollywood, which has relied on Russia as a significant market for its films and TV
series, 2018 is likely to bring more bad news and more challenges to doing business.
Kremlin watchers will be focused on March 18, the date of Russia's presidential election.
While the result is not in doubt -- Vladimir Putin is certain to secure another six-year term
-- it is anyone's guess how far President Putin will go in his "Russia First" policies of
economic nationalism.
After the 2012 election, for example, Putin took a sharply anti-Western stance, imposing new
restrictions on foreign companies working in Russia and cracking down on his country's mostly
pro-Western liberal opposition. Most observers expect this trend to continue in 2018.
The question is: How far will Putin go? Here is THR's look at three key challenges
for Hollywood in Russia that will be in focus next year.
New Taxes
Moscow's Russia First policy -- which Russia's government calls "import substitution" -- has
looked to the tax code as a way to protect the local film industry at the expense of Hollywood
and other foreign imports.
Russia backed down from a radical idea to hike the exhibition license fee for theatrical
releases in the country -- the fee, which is mandatory for a theatrical release in Russia, was
set to jump from 3,500 rubles ($60) to 5 million rubles ($85,000) -- but the ministry is still
adamant about taxing foreign releases in one way or another.
Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky, an ardent Russia First advocate keen to protect
homegrown films against the Hollywood invasion, is expected to lose his position in the new
cabinet, but his replacement will likely be drawn from the same conservative and anti-Western
contingent.
A proposal, introduced mid-December, would implement a 3 percent tax hike on all foreign
theatrical releases. Expect that to pass easily and go into law in early 2018.
"... Bannon is almost universally loathed by the Washington press corps, and not just for his politics. When he was the CEO of the pro-Trump Breitbart website, he competed with traditional media outlets, and he has often mercilessly attacked and ridiculed them. ..."
"... The animosity towards Bannon reached new heights last month, when he incautiously told the New York Times that "the media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while." He also said the media was "the opposition party" to the Trump administration. To the Washington media, those are truly fighting words. ..."
"... Bannon's comments were outrageous, but they are hardly new. In 2009, President Obama's White House communications director, Anita Dunn, sought to restrict Fox News' access to the White House. She even said, "We're going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent." The media's outrage over that remark was restrained, to say the least. ..."
"... Reporters and pundits are also stepping up the effort to portray Bannon as the puppet master in the White House. Last week, MSNBC's Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski said, "Legitimate media are getting word that Steve Bannon is the last guy in the room, in the evening especially, and he's pulling the strings." Her co-host, Joe Scarborough, agreed that Bannon's role should be "investigated." ..."
"... I'm all for figuring out who the powers behind the curtain are in the White House, but we saw precious little interest in that during the Obama administration. ..."
"... Liberal writer Steven Brill wrote a 2015 book, America's Bitter Pill , in which he slammed "incompetence in the White House" for the catastrophic launch of Obamacare. "Never [has there] been a group of people who more incompetently launched something," he told NPR's Terry Gross, who interviewed him about the book. He laid much of the blame at Jarrett's doorstep. "The people in the administration who knew it was going wrong went to the president directly with memos, in person, to his chief of staff," he said. "The president was protected, mostly by Valerie Jarrett, from doing anything. . . . He didn't know what was going on in the single most important initiative of his administration." How important was Jarrett inside the Obama White House? Brill interviewed the president about the struggles of Obamacare and reported Obama's conclusion: "At this point, I am not so interested in Monday-morning quarterbacking the past." ..."
"... five of the highest-ranking Obama officials had told him that "as a practical matter . . . Jarrett was the real chief of staff on any issues that she wanted to weigh in on, and she jealously protected that position by making sure the president never gave anyone else too much power." When Brill asked the president about these aides' assessment of Jarrett, Obama "declined comment," Brill wrote in his book. That, in and of itself, was an answer. Would that Jarrett had received as much media scrutiny of her role in eight years under Obama as Bannon has in less than four weeks. ..."
"... I've had my disagreements with Bannon, whose apocalyptic views on some issues I don't share. Ronald Reagan once said that if someone in Washington agrees with you 80 percent of the time, he is an ally, not an enemy. I'd guess Bannon wouldn't agree with that sentiment. ..."
Bannon is almost universally loathed by the Washington press corps, and not just for his politics. When he was the
CEO of the pro-Trump Breitbart website, he competed with traditional media outlets, and he has often mercilessly attacked
and ridiculed them.
The animosity towards Bannon reached new heights last month, when he incautiously told the New York Times that "the media
should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while." He also said the media was "the opposition
party" to the Trump administration. To the Washington media, those are truly fighting words.
Joel Simon, of the Committee to Protect Journalists, told CNN that "this kind of speech not [only] undermines the work of the
media in this country, it emboldens autocratic leaders around the world." Jacob Weisberg, the head of the Slate Group, tweeted that
Bannon's comment was terrifying and "tyrannical."
Bannon's comments were outrageous, but they are hardly new. In 2009, President Obama's White House communications director,
Anita Dunn, sought to restrict Fox News' access to the White House. She even said, "We're going to treat them the way we would treat
an opponent." The media's outrage over that remark was restrained, to say the least.
Ever since Bannon's outburst, you can hear the media gears meshing in the effort to undermine him. In TV green rooms and at Washington
parties, I've heard journalists say outright that it's time to get him. Time magazine put a sinister-looking Bannon on its
cover, describing him as "The Great Manipulator." Walter Isaacson, a former managing editor of Time , boasted to MSNBC that
the image was in keeping with a tradition of controversial covers that put leaders in their place. "Likewise, putting [former White
House aide] Mike Deaver on the cover, the brains behind Ronald Reagan, that ended up bringing down Reagan," he told the hosts of
Morning Joe . "So you've got to have these checks and balances, whether it's the judiciary or the press."
Reporters and pundits are also stepping up the effort to portray Bannon as the puppet master in the White House. Last week,
MSNBC's Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski said, "Legitimate media are getting word that Steve Bannon is the last guy in
the room, in the evening especially, and he's pulling the strings." Her co-host, Joe Scarborough, agreed that Bannon's role should
be "investigated."
I'm all for figuring out who the powers behind the curtain are in the White House, but we saw precious little interest in
that during the Obama administration.
It wasn't until four years after the passage of Obamacare that a journalist reported on just how powerful White House counselor
Valerie Jarrett had been in its flawed implementation. Liberal writer Steven Brill wrote a 2015 book, America's Bitter Pill
, in which he slammed "incompetence in the White House" for the catastrophic launch of Obamacare. "Never [has there] been a group
of people who more incompetently launched something," he told NPR's Terry Gross, who interviewed him about the book. He laid much
of the blame at Jarrett's doorstep. "The people in the administration who knew it was going wrong went to the president directly
with memos, in person, to his chief of staff," he said. "The president was protected, mostly by Valerie Jarrett, from doing anything.
. . . He didn't know what was going on in the single most important initiative of his administration." How important was Jarrett
inside the Obama White House? Brill interviewed the president about the struggles of Obamacare and reported Obama's conclusion: "At
this point, I am not so interested in Monday-morning quarterbacking the past."
Brill then bluntly told the president that five of the highest-ranking Obama officials had told him that "as a practical matter
. . . Jarrett was the real chief of staff on any issues that she wanted to weigh in on, and she jealously protected that position
by making sure the president never gave anyone else too much power." When Brill asked the president about these aides' assessment
of Jarrett, Obama "declined comment," Brill wrote in his book. That, in and of itself, was an answer. Would that Jarrett had received
as much media scrutiny of her role in eight years under Obama as Bannon has in less than four weeks.
I've had my disagreements with Bannon, whose apocalyptic views on some issues I don't share. Ronald Reagan once said that
if someone in Washington agrees with you 80 percent of the time, he is an ally, not an enemy. I'd guess Bannon wouldn't agree with
that sentiment.
But the media's effort to turn Bannon into an enemy of the people is veering into hysterical character assassination. The Sunday
print edition of the New York Times ran an astonishing 1,500-word story headlined: "Fascists Too Lax for a Philosopher Cited
by Bannon." (The online headline now reads, "Steve Bannon Cited Italian Thinker Who Inspired Fascists.") The Times based this
headline on what it admits was "a passing reference" in
a speech by Bannon at a Vatican conference in 2014 . In that speech, Bannon made a single mention of Julius Evola, an obscure
Italian philosopher who opposed modernity and cozied up to Mussolini's Italian Fascists.
Think of this as but the latest episode in an upside down geopolitical fairy tale, a grim,
rather than Grimm, story for our age that might begin: Once upon a time -- in October 2001, to
be exact -- Washington launched its war on terror. There was then just one country targeted,
the very one where, a little more than a decade earlier, the U.S. had ended a
long proxy war against the Soviet Union during which it had financed, armed, or backed an
extreme set of Islamic fundamentalist groups, including a rich young Saudi by the name of Osama
bin Laden.
By 2001, in the wake of that war, which helped send the Soviet Union down the path to
implosion, Afghanistan was largely (but not completely) ruled by the Taliban. Osama bin Laden
was there, too, with a relatively modest crew of cohorts. By early 2002, he had fled to
Pakistan, leaving many of his companions dead and his organization, al-Qaeda, in a state of
disarray. The Taliban, defeated, were pleading to be allowed to put down their arms and go back
to their villages, an abortive process that Anand Gopal vividly described in his book, No Good Men Among the
Living .
It was, it seemed, all over but the cheering and, of course, the planning for yet greater
exploits across the region. The top officials in the administration of President George W. Bush
and Vice President Dick Cheney were geopolitical dreamers of the first order who couldn't have
had more expansive ideas about how to extend such success to -- as Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld indicated only days after the 9/11 attacks --
terror or insurgent groups in more than 60 countries. It was a point President Bush would
reemphasize
nine months later in a triumphalist graduation speech at West Point. At that moment, the
struggle they had quickly, if immodestly, dubbed the Global War on Terror was still a
one-country affair. They were, however, already deep into preparations to extend it in ways
more radical and devastating than they could ever have imagined with the invasion and
occupation of Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the domination of the oil heartlands of the planet that
they were sure would follow. (In a comment that caught the moment exactly, Newsweekquoted a British official
"close to the Bush team" as saying, "Everyone wants to go to Baghdad. Real men want to go to
Tehran.")
So many years later, perhaps it won't surprise you -- as it probably wouldn't have surprised the
hundreds of thousands of protesters who turned out in the streets of American cities and towns
in early 2003 to oppose the invasion of Iraq -- that this was one of those stories to which the
adage "be careful what you wish for" applies.
Seeing War
And it's a tale that's not over yet. Not by a long shot. As a start, in the Trump era, the
longest war in American history, the one in Afghanistan, is only getting longer. There are
those U.S. troop levels
on the rise ; those air strikes
ramping up ; the Taliban
in control of significant sections of the country; an Islamic State-branded terror group
spreading
ever more successfully in its eastern regions; and, according to the
latest report from the Pentagon, "more than 20 terrorist or insurgent groups in Afghanistan
and Pakistan."
Think about that: 20 groups. In other words, so many years later, the war on terror should
be seen as an endless exercise in the use of multiplication tables -- and not just in
Afghanistan either. More than a decade and a half after an American president spoke of 60 or
more countries as potential targets, thanks to the invaluable work of a single dedicated group,
the Costs of War Project at
Brown University's Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, we finally have a
visual representation of the true extent of the war on terror. That we've had to wait so long
should tell us something about the nature of this era of permanent war.
America's war on terror across the globe (from the Costs of War Project). Click on the map
to see a larger version.
The Costs of War Project has produced not just a map of the war on terror, 2015-2017
(released at TomDispatch with this article), but the first map of its kind ever. It
offers an astounding vision of Washington's counterterror wars across the globe: their spread,
the deployment of U.S. forces, the expanding missions to train foreign counterterror forces,
the American bases that make them possible, the drone and other air strikes that are essential
to them, and the U.S. combat troops helping to fight them. (Terror groups have, of course,
morphed and expanded riotously as part and parcel of the same process.)
A glance at the map tells you that the war on terror, an increasingly complex set of
intertwined conflicts, is now a remarkably global phenomenon. It stretches from the Philippines
(with its own ISIS-branded group that just fought an almost five-month-long campaign that
devastated Marawi, a city of 300,000) through South Asia, Central Asia, the Middle East,
North Africa, and deep into West Africa where, only recently, four Green Berets died
in an ambush in Niger.
No less stunning are the number of countries Washington's war on terror has touched in some
fashion. Once, of course, there was only one (or, if you want to include the United States,
two). Now, the Costs of War Project identifies no less than 76 countries, 39% of those on the
planet, as involved in that global conflict. That means places like Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq,
Yemen, Somalia, and Libya where U.S. drone or other air strikes are the norm and U.S. ground
troops (often Special
Operations forces ) have been either directly or indirectly engaged in combat. It also
means countries where U.S. advisers are training local militaries or even militias in
counterterror tactics and those with bases crucial to this expanding set of conflicts. As the
map makes clear, these categories often overlap.
Who could be surprised that such a "war" has been eating American taxpayer dollars at a rate
that should stagger the imagination in a country whose infrastructure is now visibly crumbling ? In a
separate study , released in November, the Costs of War Project estimated that the price
tag on the war on terror (with some future expenses included) had already reached an
astronomical $5.6 trillion. Only recently, however, President Trump, now escalating those
conflicts, tweeted
an even more staggering figure: "After having foolishly spent $7 trillion in the Middle East,
it is time to start rebuilding our country!" (This figure, too, seems to have come in some
fashion from the Costs of War estimate that "future interest
payments on borrowing for the wars will likely add more than $7.9 trillion to the national
debt" by mid-century
.)
It couldn't have been a rarer comment from an American politician, as in these years
assessments of both the monetary and human costs of war have largely been left to small groups of scholars and activists. The
war on terror has, in fact, spread in the fashion today's map lays out with almost no serious
debate in this country about its costs or results. If the document produced by the Costs of War
project is, in fact, a map from hell, it is also, I believe, the first full-scale map of this
war ever produced.
Think about that for a moment. For the last 16 years, we, the American people, funding this
complex set of conflicts to the tune of trillions of dollars, have lacked a single map of the
war Washington has been fighting. Not one. Yes, parts of that morphing, spreading set of
conflicts have been somewhere in the news regularly, though seldom (except when there were
"lone wolf" terror attacks in the United States or Western Europe) in the headlines. In all
those years, however, no American could see an image of this strange, perpetual conflict whose
end is nowhere in sight.
Part of this can be explained by the nature of that "war." There are no fronts, no armies
advancing on Berlin, no armadas bearing down on the Japanese homeland. There hasn't been, as in
Korea in the early 1950s, even a parallel to cross or fight your way back to. In this war,
there have been no obvious retreats and, after the triumphal entry into Baghdad in 2003, few
advances either.
It was hard even to map its component parts and when you did -- as in an August New York Times map of territories controlled by the Taliban in Afghanistan -- the
imagery was complex and of limited impact. Generally, however, we, the people, have been
demobilized
in almost every imaginable way in these years, even when it comes to simply following the
endless set of wars and conflicts that go under the rubric of the war on terror.
Mapping 2018 and Beyond
Let me repeat this mantra: once, almost seventeen years ago, there was one; now, the count
is 76 and rising. Meanwhile, great cities have been turned into rubble
; tens of millions of human beings have been displaced from their homes; refugees
by the millions continue to cross borders, unsettling ever more lands; terror groups have
become brand names across significant parts of the planet; and our American world continues to
be militarized
.
This should be thought of as an entirely new kind of perpetual global war. So take one more
look at that map. Click on it and then enlarge it to consider the map in full-screen mode. It's
important to try to imagine what's been happening visually, since we're facing a new kind of
disaster, a planetary militarization of a sort we've never truly seen before. No matter the
"successes" in Washington's war, ranging from that invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 to the
taking of Baghdad in 2003 to the recent destruction of the Islamic State's "caliphate" in Syria
and Iraq (or most of it anyway, since at this moment American planes are
still dropping bombs and firing missiles in parts of Syria), the conflicts only seem to
morph and tumble on.
We are now in an era in which the U.S. military is the leading edge -- often the only edge
-- of what used to be called American "foreign policy" and the State Department is being
radically
downsized . American Special Operations forces were deployed to 149
countries in 2017 alone and the U.S. has so many troops on so many bases in so many places
on Earth that the Pentagon can't even account for the whereabouts of
44,000 of them. There may, in fact, be no way to truly map all of this, though the Costs of
War Project's illustration is a triumph of what can be seen.
Looking into the future, let's pray for one thing: that the folks at that project have
plenty of stamina, since it's a given that, in the Trump years (and possibly well beyond), the
costs of war will only rise. The first Pentagon budget of the Trump era, passed with bipartisan
unanimity by Congress and signed by the president, is a staggering $700
billion . Meanwhile, America's leading military men and the president, while escalating the
country's conflicts from Niger to
Yemen ,
Somalia to Afghanistan, seem eternally in search of yet more wars to launch.
Pointing to Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, for instance, Marine Corps Commandant
General Robert Neller recently
told U.S. troops in Norway to expect a "bigass fight" in the future, adding, "I hope I'm
wrong, but there's a war coming." In December, National Security Adviser Lieutenant General
H.R. McMaster similarly suggested
that the possibility of a war (conceivably nuclear in nature) with Kim Jong-un's North Korea
was "increasing every day." Meanwhile, in an administration packed with Iranophobes, President
Trump seems to be preparing to tear up the
Iran nuclear deal, possibly as early as this month.
In other words, in 2018 and beyond, maps of many creative kinds may be needed simply to
begin to take in the latest in America's wars. Consider, for instance, a recent
report in the New York Times that about 2,000 employees of the Department of
Homeland Security are already "deployed to more than 70 countries around the world," largely to
prevent terror attacks. And so it goes in the twenty-first century.
So welcome to 2018, another year of unending war, and while we're on the subject, a small
warning to our leaders: given the last 16 years, be careful what you wish for.
Looks like false analysis to me. IMHO Trump betrayed his election platform with ease,
especially in foreign policy.
It is kind of wishful thinking that is used by some to justify voting for Trump and hide the sense of great betrayal.
The fact that Trump won is nothing special. I think Sanders would win too, if given a change. The level of
disappointment with the establishment was way too high.
What follows is an attempt to divine Trump's foreign policy. It proceeds from the assumption
that he does know what he's doing (as he did when he decided to run in the first place) and
that he does have a destination in mind. It proceeds with the understanding that his foreign
policy intentions have been greatly retarded by the (completely false) allegations of Russia
connections and Russian interference. There was no Russian state interference in the election
(the likelihood is that Moscow would have preferred known Clinton) and, as I have written
here , the story doesn't even make sense. I expect when the Department of Justice Inspector
General completes his report that the Russiagate farrago will be revealed as a conspiracy
inside the US security organs. We do not have a date yet, but mid-January is suggested. Readers
who want to follow the story are recommended to these websites: Dystopiausa , CTH and Zerohedge .
To the neocon and humanitarian intervention crowd, who have been driving US foreign policy
for most of the century, these four points, when properly understood (as, at some level, they
do understand them), are a fatal challenge. Trump is saying that
The post 911 military interventions did nothing for the country's security;
Foreign interventions impoverish the country;
The alliance system is neither useful nor a good deal for the country;
Russia is not the once and future enemy.
A Chinese leader might call these the Three Noes (no regime change wars, no overseas
adventures, no entangling alliances) and the One Yes (cooperation with Russia and other
powers).
Which brings us to his slogan of Make America Great Again. We notice his campaign themes of
job loss, opiates, lawlessness, infrastructure, illegal immigration, the stranglehold of
regulations, the "swamp", the indifference of the mighty, the death of the "American Dream".
None of these can be made better by overseas interventions, carrier battle groups or foreign
bases. But they can be made worse by them. There is every reason to expect that by MAGA he
means internal prosperity and not external might.
If I am correct in this and this is indeed his aim, how can he do it?
There is a powerful opposition in the United States to the Three Noes and One Yes. And it's
not just from the neocon/humanitarian interventionists: most Americans have been conditioned to
believe that the USA must be the world's policeman, arbiter, referee, example. Perhaps it's
rooted in the City on a Hill exceptionalism of the early dissenter settlers, perhaps it's a
legacy of the reality of 1945, perhaps it's just the effect of unremitting propaganda, but most
Americans believe that the USA has an obligation to lead. Gallup informs us that, in this
century, well over half of the population has agreed that the USA should play the leading or a
major role in the world . The percentage in the punditocracy believing the USA must lead
would be even higher.
If I have understood him right, what would Trump see if he read this stuff? Lead, lead,
lead... everything everywhere. The South China Sea, the Middle East and North Korea
specifically but everywhere else too. More infrastructure repairs foregone so as to ensure
what?... That ships carrying goods to and from China safely transit the South China Sea?
"Friendly" governments installed in " Kyrzbekistan
"? Soldiers killed in countries not even lawmakers knew they were in?
40,000 troops out there somewhere ? Trying to double the Soviet record for being stuck in
Afghanistan? How many bridges, factories or lives is that worth? Trump sees more entanglements
but he sees no benefit. He's a businessman: he can see the expense but where's the profit?
How to get out of these entanglements? It's too late to hope to persuade the legions
bleating that "America must lead" and, even if they could be persuaded, there isn't enough time
to do so: they salivate when the bell rings. President Trump can avoid new entanglements but he
has inherited so many and they are, all of them, growing denser and thicker by the minute.
Consider the famous story of the Gordian Knot: rather than trying to untie the fabulously
complicated knot, Alexander drew his sword and cut it. How can Trump cut The Gordian Knot of
American imperial entanglements?
The Three Noes and One Yes policy will be achieved by others: others who realise that the
USA is no longer going to lead and they will have to lead themselves. Or not. Perhaps, as the
neocons love to say, US leadership was necessary in the immediate postwar situation, perhaps
NATO served a stabilising purpose then but there has been nothing stabilising about US
leadership in this century. Endless wars and destruction and chaos and loss. Thus abroad and
– the part that Trump cares about – so at home. It's not
incompetence , as the people who fail Adams' test tell themselves; it's a strategy.
(All real theories must be falsifiable; let's see in a year's time whether the US is more
entangled or less entangled. It should be pretty apparent by then and, by the end of Trump's
first term, obvious to all.)
well, if your income, assets, and investments are denominated in US dollars, you better
hope the "denial" and privilege continues as long as possible.
Maybe if the petro dollar collapses there will be people who "get what they deserve"...and
I'm not all sure who those people are. As for me, when I'm paying $11 a gallon for gasoline
and a $1,000 per/month utility bill, I'm not going to be praising the fall of the petro
dollar, and I'd be willing to be the other ZH petro-dollar bashers won't be liking that too
much either.
PS...I'm in Houston, and would actually benefit from $11 gasoline.
Just when you thought that the intravenous feed of fake news/phony psyopin/double down
b.s. into the veins of TARDNATION couldn't get any
tackier... we get
Not a professional politician begging for funds but a rich man who spent his own money
and raised money on his own name: he arrived in office unencumbered with obligations. Free
from a history in politics, he owes nothing to anyone.
Hello? That the Drumpster raised pon the knee of daddy FRED "hump the HUD' Drumpf, and
mentored by Roy "hump the rumps - o boyz" Cohn.. to stick his small hands in every orifice
when the sun don't shine but the leprachauns hide their shiny sinful loot -
that POTUS with the mostest debt burden ever... to luabvitcher usurers of the usual dual
passport type....
has 'nothin to hide... and is ha ha ha... 'free of obligations' ... and 'owes nuthin to no
one...
signals that today... we reach PEAK PROPAGANDA of previously unimaginable proportions...
and that the desperation of tards to be told SOME KINDA GOOD NEWS... in the shitstorm of
trouble that the maggots of the MAGA kind find themselves in
is not just INSANITY BY DEFINITION... but the CAPITULATION we have awaited in eager
anticipation... showing that these retards are finally on empty... and can soon be lowered
into their shallow graves to be gradually turned into some kind of useful topsoil
material.
Mentally ill...OK. Most qualified candidate in history...give me a fucking break!
What many do not realize, including this author, is if there was a viable third party, and
their candidate was Satan, they would have won the presidency.
The voter turn out says a lot. If Trump and Clinton (and those they ran against!) were the
best leaders the US had to offer up we are so fucked. Fucked with a big ball of rusty barbed
wire coated in shit.
and Tyler is speeding that process along by posting articles that pander to racial
divides, man with longest penis, and other rubbish, which only attracts more of the
lowlifes.
this used to be a terrific site back in 2011 when we joined, was a real education in
finance back then.
but, as the USA continues its decline, more people will want someone to blame instead of
taking responsibility - as a nation, Americans have been asleep at the wheel, they've
abdicated responsibility for government spending run amuck, for the social security Ponzi
scheme, for American military adventurism, for the Clinton and bush crime families, for the
fed bleeding the country dry like a nightmarish vampire.
its hard to admit that, yes, we behaved stupidly and evilly, we squandered vast fortunes
and ruined other nations that never attacked us, we accepted a criminally corrupt
"leadership" who claimed to rule in the interest of the public but served their own secret
agendas.
much easier to blame the Jews (or other group of choice) because, you know we're the good
guys, the situation couldn't possibly be our fault.
Is anyone else watching the "The Trump-Russia Investigation" one-and-half hour special
report on CNN? Fuck this is yellow journalism at its dirtiest. Because, if it is on CNN it
must be true. Fucking swine.
I don't know if the U.S. will be more or less entangled in one years time. I do know that
after one year of Trump, deportations of illegal immigrants are down, being less in 2017 than
they were in 2016!
Hes cut off the Palestinians and the Pakistani's,the Afghan situation is worsening,there's
no cutting losses and running in Syria,Mogadishu,Nigeria,the US is arming Ukrainians,building
up with Nato in the Baltics and Eastern Europe,actively talking about nuclear war in North
Korea,pissing the Chinese off,Iran,Venezuela etc etc....have a guess he is not cleaning up
he's making a bloody great mess.
Yep, it's a huge mess, mostly because they are trying very, very hard to start a war and
nobody wants to play. So, like playing chess with a pigeon, we knock over the pieces, strut
around, shit everywhere and think we are awesome. Trump and the gang's complete lack of
diplomatic skills (USA is #1 andthe world will kiss our asses or face consequences (excepting
Israel)) is isolating us and not by their choice. Isolation means no petro-dollar which means
seriously hard times at home. No wall. No MAGA. No freedom.
One by one countries are turning their backs on the US. Trump thinks he's CEO of the
world. In reality, nothing better could happen to the world that Trump with hold ALL foreign
aid, pull troops and bases out of every country they're in, concentrate on lowering debt and
rebuilding infrastructure and stop being such a fucking bomb dropping bully. That would be
good for the planet.
But it's not what the banks and the MIC want. He's beginning to make oblahblah look good
which may be his biggest accomplishment yet.
Where does the Executive get the authority to maintain a personal military empire, to
launch wars unilaterally without a declaration of war by the Legislature, to build bases on
another nation's property, to wage terrorism against other nations, etc? Trump is still doing
these things, just like his predecessors. They all go to the "wailing wall", put on the
yarmulke, and carry out a ritual to antichrist.
Congress may be informed after the war begins is the mentality of the regime. Meanwhile,
the Constitution the men and women who volunteer as mercenaries swear to uphold and defend,
requires a declaration of war by the Legislature before the President may act as Commander in
Chief. There is no authority for an army for him to command without the declaration. So, what
gives? Those "soldiers" are violating their oath by even volunteering to serve the regime
violating the Constitution. They are ultimately the ones enabling and empowering the illegal
regime.
He is still doing them. Not only that, but he has expanded, increased involvement in the
attack on Yemen, occupying and building bases illegally on Syrian soil, etc. If someone tells
me they're trying to lose weight, while they're spooning down a gallon of ice cream, I'll
call them a liar to their face. Stop making excuses.
Open another tab, put in US troops Yemen. You'll see there has been no drawback under
Trump, but rather an increase in support for attacks in Yemen, as well as for Saudi
Arabia.
Pull up US forces remain in Syria while you're at it. They're not going anywhere. They're
building bases. Trump rails about illegals coming into the US while he oversees illegal
invasion of other nations.
Do I need to post the links, or can you operate a search engine?
Trump believes in the importance of projecting toughness- the image that he is tough and
not to be trifled with. That means at least some military engagement, from time to time,
regardless of whether or not it makes geostrategic sense. In his mind, projecting toughness
is in and of itself a geostrategically sensible thing to do. Show the enemy what you're
capable of, both in terms of resolve and hardware. I don't think he sees an imminent danger
to the planet. He seems comfortable with MAD. He also appears to place a lot of faith in the
judgments of his generals. If they say we need to keep throwing good money after bad (Iraq,
Afghanistan, Syria) he'll follow their orders...err, I mean suggestions. In my opinion, the
Trump of 20 years ago was a more sensible, realpolitik person than the Trump of today.
So, the US regime is a bully that needs to make sure to knock someone down in front of the
crowd from time to time, to keep the fear and intimidation factor fresh in their minds.
It's a nationalist economic, yes fascist, group of policies. The projection of foreign
policy only exists to make our own economics stronger in terms of sum. Less incentives to
multinationals to screw us by taking advantage of cucked and sellout trade agreements. Less
incentives for aliens to come and suck the taxpayer tit. It's economic pragmatism, much like
you would run your own small business. More cream for us, less cream for them.
For us in Australia it looks very much like the global bloodsucker corporations are in
Delaware with accounts in the Cayman Islands. They take our money and don't give anything in
return, except a few lowly paid hours in the gig economy.
"... The violence against public property by some young rioters has alienated the original legitimate protesters who have ample economic reasons to reject the neo-liberal policies of the current Iranian government. The instigating of violence from the outside of Iran, likely due to CIA machinations, has robbed them of their voice. ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Occupy Wall Street ..."
"... Stephen Kinzer points out that U.S. animosity against Iran and its government lacks any strategic reasoning: ..."
"... Kinzer is right on the lack of a strategic argument. But he neglects the influence of the Zionist lobby and its interest to keep the U.S. involved in smashing any potential adversary to its colonial endeavor. Genuine interest of the people of the United States is not what drives U.S. policy and has not been for some time (if ever). ..."
"... The former senior intelligence official I spoke with seconded the NBC report that the Israelis were working with the M.E.K., adding that the operations benefitted from American intelligence. He said that the targets were not "Einsteins"; "The goal is to affect Iranian psychology and morale," he said, and to "demoralize the whole system -- nuclear delivery vehicles, nuclear enrichment facilities, power plants." ..."
"... Meanwhile in Syria's Idlib, SAA Tiger Forces are rolling up village after village and captured the key transport node of Sinjar. It's also been announced that Iran will get a large proportion of the reconstruction contracts which will certainly help Iran's economic condition. I can't help feeling the Shock Doctrine's boomeranged on The Outlaw US Empire and its regime change partners. ..."
"... The double standard isn't new. In 1981, Ronald Reagan's defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, vowed not to allow "a hopelessly repressive, medieval government, such as has taken over in Iran, to take over in Saudi Arabia" -- somehow overlooking that the Saudis already had their own repressive, medieval government. ..."
The reaction to the minor protests in Iran drive another wedge between the U.S. and Europe. It exposes the belligerence of the
Zionist lobby and its influence in the U.S. media and politics. The issue shows the growing divergence between genuine U.S. interests
and the interests of Israel.
Some anti-government demonstration and attacks on public institutions continue in Iran. But, as the graph shows, such protests
and riots continue to decrease. Yesterday's events took place in only 15 places while, since December 28, a total of 75 towns and
cities had seen some form of protest or incidents. Additional to these several pro-government marches took place yesterday each of
which was by far bigger than the anti-government events.
The violence against public property by some young rioters has alienated the original legitimate protesters who have
ample
economic reasons to reject the neo-liberal policies of the current Iranian government. The instigating of violence from the outside
of Iran, likely due to CIA machinations, has robbed them of their voice.
The plan may well be not to immediately overthrow the Iranian government, but to instigate a sharp reaction by the Iranian
government against the militant operations in its country. ... That reaction can then be used to implement wider and stricter
sanctions against Iran especially from Europe . These would be another building block of a larger plan to suffocate the country
and as an additional step on a larger escalation ladder.
The administration just called for a UN emergency
session about the situation. That is a laughable move ...
Laughable indeed. Other members of the Security Council and the UN Human Rights council have rejected the U.S. plans. It is not
the UN's business to insert itself into internal affairs of any country. But even for those who believe that the UN has a right to
intervene, the protests in Iran, estimated at no more than
15,000 people at any time and maybe 45,000
in cumulation, are way too insignificant to justify any UN reaction.
The European Union, main target of U.S. plans to again push for sanctions on Iran, has officially
rejected any such attempts. The Swedish Foreign Minister
said that
these are "unacceptable" and that the situation does not qualify for any such move. The French President Macron
warned (French) that breaking relations with Iran would lead to war. He was quite
explicit (machine translation) about the actors behind such moves:
France has firm relations with the Iranian authorities but wants to keep this link "because what is being done otherwise is that
it is surreptitiously rebuilding an 'axis of evil'," said the president.
.,..
"We can clearly see the official speech that is made by the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia , which are our allies in many
ways, it is almost speech that will lead us to the war in Iran ." he added, pointing out without further details that it was a
"deliberate strategy of some".
Russia's Foreign Minister warned the U.S.
against any interference in Iran's internal affairs. Meanwhile a Saudi flagship paper, Al Arabiya , is challenging The Onion as it
asserts that Iran has called up Hizbullah, Iraqi units and Afghan mercenary to quell the protests. In a Washington Post op-ed Vice President Pence
rants about the Obama administration's alleged lack of reaction to protests in Iran, but announces no reaction by the Trump administration.
The Washington Post editors add
several
op-eds by pro-Zionist lobbyists bashing Iran and blaming Europe for not following Trump's line.
Adam H. Johnson @adamjohnsonNYC - 4:04
AM - 3 Jan 2018
in past 72 hrs radical pro-regime change outfit FDD has had op-eds in NYTimes, Washington Post, NYPost, Politico and WSJ on Iran,
repeating in each one the same tired, pro-intervention talking points.
Adam H. Johnson @adamjohnsonNYC - 6:14
PM - 3 Jan 2018
having used up their designated slots in respectable WSJ, WaPo, Politico, and NYTimes for this week, FDD slumming it in Washington
Times today. Sad!
The supposedly "centrist" Lawfare blog published a
call for handing improvised mines
with "Explosive Formed Penetrators" to Iranian protesters. (During the U.S. invasion of Iraq the local resistance made and used such
EFPs against the U.S. occupiers. The U.S. military
falsely claimed that the EFPs were coming
from Iran.) The editor of Lawfare , the notorious Benjamin Wittes, seems to agree with the piece. He, the editor,
writes that he never edits anything that is published on
his site. His only complain about the piece is that the call to arm rioters in Iran lacks a professed legal reasoning. (One wonders
how the Lawfare writers will react when China delivers anti-tank weapons to the next Occupy Wall Street incarnation.)
It is a big campaign in the U.S. that is accompanying rather small events in Iran. The campaign is designed to create the atmosphere
for a war on that country. The media give it ample room. But the U.S. is very lonely in these attempts. Saudi Arabia is a paper tiger
that does not count and Israel can not move against Iran. The axis of resistance is ready for a great war,
says Hizbullah leader Nasrallah . He explains that such a war
would be waged deep within Israel.
Stephen Kinzer
points out that U.S. animosity against Iran and its government lacks any strategic reasoning:
History decrees that any Iranian government must be strongly nationalist and a vigilant defender of Shiite Muslims everywhere,
so the idea that "regime change" would produce a more pro-American Iran is a fantasy. The security of the United States will not
be seriously affected by the course of Iran's domestic politics.
...
In 1980 President Carter proclaimed that any challenge to American dominance of the Persian Gulf would be considered "an assault
on the vital interests of the United States of America." He was driven by the global imperatives of his era. Much of America's
oil came through the Persian Gulf, and the West could not risk losing it to Soviet power.
Today there is no Soviet Union, and we no longer rely on Middle East oil. Yet although the basis for our policy has evaporated,
the policy itself remains unchanged, a relic from a bygone age.
Kinzer is right on the lack of a strategic argument. But he neglects the influence of the Zionist lobby and its interest to keep
the U.S. involved in smashing any potential adversary to its colonial endeavor. Genuine interest of the people of the United States
is not what drives U.S. policy and has not been for some time (if ever).
It isn't just the Zionist lobby.
The billionaires who own 60% of the pistachio market share in the US - entirely as a result of the imposition of the original
Iran sanctions in the 1970s, stands to lose tens of millions per year just from this one industry.
The Sinclairs also front Fiji water, Pom fruit juice and own the largest water bank in the entire US, if not the world in the
California central valley.
A multipolar world is emerging, or at least trying very hard. What is multipolar going to mean? I hope it means that war will
stop being the centerpiece of the world economies. That of course means that energy will be focused elsewhere and hopefully in
a positive way.
I expect the the UK will be the last to stop, if they ever do, supporting the Western Way of the US/Israel
thanks b... your ongoing coverage is appreciated.. i want to reitterate your last line as it is so true.."Genuine interest of
the people of the United States is not what drives U.S. policy and has not been for some time (if ever)."
@1 c1ue.. thanks for that.. how very interesting.. another example of economics driving the actions of some to the point of
complete moral depravity..
The US is an occupied country, and 9/11 was the solidifying event which put the Zionist menace firmly in control of the levers
of power. Resistance to their rule has been purged, they created and dominate the Department of Homeland Security, and their consolidated
control over media, finance, and industrial power is going to make them very hard to unseat.
The US's highly skewed view on Iran is similar to their unrealistic view of Russia. "The Iranian government, which is entirely
in line with the prevailing view in Iran, is an unlawful dictatorship!"
Similarly, they say, "Vladimir Putin, who has the support of 80% of the people and would be replaced by harder line nationalist
should he ever lose an election, is a DICTATOR who doesn't represent the Russian people!"
I like that one paragraph alludes to an "axis of evil", and another lists "USA, Israel and KSA". Is there some European biotech
with a new spine regeneration product? Or those are reflexes analogous to phantom pain, feelings felt in lost parts of the body
(before amputation, European countries actually had independent policies). Such feelings do not translate into action.
About the role of Zionist billionaires, this is the sad situation in the axis that grandiose ideas of billionaires and princes
can run rampant under the umbrella of the only (momentarily) superpower.
This shows how lawless the U.S. has become. Why should these protests have any bearing on whether or not the U.S. honors its commitment
for the JCPOA?
A. Because we perceive that sanctions would impact the internal affairs of another country. I'm a bit old fashioned but I thought
that agreements should be based on mutual compliance.
Oh, and the very nature of these sanctions amount to a virtual blockade which is by nature an act of war. The U.S. does indeed
have the right to engage in commerce with any country of its choosing but once we coerce other countries in how they conduct commerce,
it crosses the line into a blockade.
As Jen ' 8 says The Onion is a satirical newspaper in the US but the stories are all made up and ridiculous but with a grain
of truth to draw people in. so "challenging The Onion" means that the Saudi story is made up and ridiculous, There are other legitimate
newspapers that make stories up but few involve such ridiculous claims.
Meanwhile, OT, The Washington Post seems to have had
an unexpected outburst of honesty . Perhaps the owner was out of the country long enough over the holidays for some-one to
sneak something into the paper.
Deebo @ 177 (previous MoA post): Yours was one of the better comments I read in the comments forum - thanks for the effort. So
don't worry that you don't comment much.
I've just read Alex Mercouris' second article on the protests in Iran and what he says in some parts jibes with what you said
about protesters in cities and towns around Iran: that most of the protesters now are less educated young men from poor backgrounds. http://theduran.com/protests-in-iran-coming-to-an-end/
You mentioned that you've been to Iran. Did people there say anything about Afghan refugees living in Iran? I've heard there's
a large Afghan refugee population in the country. From the very little I know - I don't personally know any Iranians and have
never been to the country - the Afghans there experience a lot of prejudice and discrimination from Iranians and have problems
in finding work. They may be an easy target for foreign intel to work on.
However b, there may be a reason for the deep state to be interested in stirring up trouble in Iran. That is that Tehran is a
central node in the Chinese One Road (OBOR), both for rail and Road transport.
Adam Garrie has a very interesting map on his site - which I hope I have linked to correctly. It shows the correlation between
protests and projected routes. China-Tehran, India-Tehran, Tehran-Vienna and Tehran-Moscow. (Apologies to the originator of the
map without giving him/her credit - as I do not know in which alphabet his/her name is written.)
https://twitter.com/adamgarriereal. You will probably need to
scroll down to find the map/graphic - Jan 2.
Have the Europeans finally found out that they are the ones paying for US aggression? France in particular had multiple contacts
and business contacts in Iran before sanctions were increased out of spite by the US/Israel and now Saudi Arabia (the three "we-evils").
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jan 4, 2018 4:07:56 PM | 10
Macron got caught up in French contradictory foreign and business policy. France was heavily invested in Obama's Muslim Brotherhood
strategy in Syria, and more invested in Qatar than Saudi Arabia, basically keeping up French colonial contacts in Syria and Lebanon.
French business has jumped at the opportunity after sanctions were lifted. At the same time they host the leadership of MEK near Paris - maybe simply due to French liberal laws concerning political
refugees, after all they hosted Khomeini.
Anyway, they have some explaining to do after this "Iranian revolution". Basically he is is trying to get
his
foot into a closed door .
Macron said the international community should "not give ground to certain powers which think that just a few, recognising
one part of the opposition from the outside, will be able to find a stable and lasting solution for the situation in Syria,"
he said.
"In this context, the United Nations, regional powers, Europe and the United States have a great responsibility, and I will
fully commit... to succeeding in building the peace in Syria," he told the diplomatic corps in Paris.
Macron is due to meet Friday with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who backs the rebels fighting Syrian leader Bashar
al-Assad, while Moscow and Teheran have thrown their support behind Damascus.
The French leader also said that peace in Syria and neighbouring Iraq is urgently required in order to avoid any resurgence
in jihadist attacks once the Islamic State was defeated "militarily".
France will focus its efforts on ensuring free and secure elections in Iraq this spring, and appeared to target Iran by
calling for "vigilance" over "any destabilisation linked to foreign powers," said Macron.
"I think you're beginning to see the initial kernel of a revolution forming right now. If this thing is sustained over a period
of time and the government tries to clamp down, but the numbers of protesters grows, I think at that point you've got a revolution
on your hands,' Kaveh Sharooz, a Toronto lawyer, human rights activist and former senior policy adviser to Global Affairs Canada,
told me over the weekend..."
Justin Raimondo reminds us that "economic uncertainty due to Trump's threats to cancel the Iran deal. This, we are told, caused
Iranian banks to refrain from investing in vast new projects, and so the standard of living hasn't met rising expectations." http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2018/01/03/iranian-rebellion-everybodys-wrong/
I suppose it wasn't in good taste. Hopefully, b can look past it. Stirring the pot, instead of smoking the bees, is just no
good right now. In fact, it is very suspicious.
Must second the Mercouris article Jen linked at 13. He also has an OT item about the
Manafort Lawsuit , that will
hand the Deep State another defeat. Pepe Escobar
also tells us "why there won't be a revolution in Iran."
Yes but despite everything Daniel 8 will be choreographed and puppet walked to terminus. Every integer must be manifested. They
plan megacide, because it is written.
Perhaps in the past, but no longer. People are slowly waking up to reality. Look at the latest failed attempt by the US to
get the UNSC to meet on Iran.
The UN has historically sided with the USUKIS nexus. It hasn't met a regime change it didn't support (Afghanistan and Iraq). Venezuela,
Honduras,Libya and Ukraine also. No? It came around against apartheid Africa very late and it ignores apartheid Israel. Like the
pope, it makes a few noises but does nothing to stop the genocide in Yemen. It assisted in the Syria Regime Change. Did it not?
It seems to be at odds with Trump and he with it.
This is perhaps one of Trump's few redeeming qualities. And a reason perhaps for the incessant attacks against him by the globalists/NWO/media
complex.
As in most occasions I agree, but in this case would have waited till tomorrow friday when everybody in Iran isn't busy to assess
further developments.
Ramin Mazaheri has another article at the Saker. Can't link to it from here, but it's called: WSWS on Iran protests: Another missed chance to support a working socialist country
He's a great fan of the World Socialist Web Site, but takes it to task for its inherent Trotskyist nature and also for its
untrue badmouthing of the conditions of workers in Iran.
His article is really trying to get the dedicated communists to climb down from their haughty goals of worker paradise and
join in with the actual world that exists, but along the way he describes Iran from the inside, and in a few lines manages to
explain the mixture of socialism and neo-liberalism in the country, in a perfectly comprehensible way. I've already said he has
a way of connecting concepts to everyday experience, and this article is quite beautiful in this regard.
He describes Iran's position in the world and in current history as very much a nation feeling its way to the best for all.
He illustrates in passing how much good Iran negotiated for itself in the nuclear deal - inbound technology transfer rather than
simple resource selloff.
Oddly, in an article aimed largely at discussion between socialist points of view, he managed to explain more to me about Iran
than I had been able to gather in the last week. Maybe others will enjoy it too - it's quite short.
Retrained ISIS from al Hasakah, through Kurd Iraq, and across a somewhat porous border in the Kurdish area into Iran?
I think it was commenter somebody on the last thread said that Iran had tightened up it border security over the last few years.
Seems like they cleaned up this lot no problems.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Jan 4, 2018 8:55:28 PM | 36
After reading the last thread and comments and other sites' speculations about the original instigation of the protests in
Mashhad, it occurs to me this could have been an elaborate trap by the hard liners to both weaken Rouhani and roll up some Western
intelligence assets.
It's clear the Telegram channels were set up well in advance, and quite likely that Iranian intelligence was aware of them.
Thus, it was entirely predictable that any spark would activate the plan. I am guessing as well that the Western assets were infiltrated
and the Iranians knew exactly who the traitors were. The protests were precipitated at precisely the moment Iranian intelligence
was best prepared to deal with them, and they now have a quite legal basis for rounding these people up and sentencing any perpetrators
or planners of violence to heavy prison terms or in some cases execution, without them being labeled "political prisoners" because
of their actual involvement in criminality.
Rouhani will have to deal with legitimate economic grievances. He and other reformers have been shown that currying favor with
the West through neo-liberal policies will only result in turmoil and their potential overthrow, and the public has been shown
that the only current alternative to the overall system is criminal gangs. All shores up support for the system, while allowing
the legitimate roll-up of an enemy 5th column.
The pleasant surprise the hard liners may not have expected is the European reaction to all this. Always present your enemy
with an opportunity to make a mistake if he is prone to do so.
William Rood 38
Thinking about your comment, with Russia and Iran working together in Syria there is a good chance that the combined intelligence
forces of Iran, Russia and Syria have been at work on uncovering this latest US/Israeli scheme. These types of takedowns/traps
are something the Russian leadership excels in.
Russia has put in a lot of study on the US colour revolutions. How to identify the provocateurs and the terrorists that are often
shipped in for the hardcore violence, and take them out without alienating or attacking the genuine protesters.
"Kinzer is right on the lack of a strategic argument. But he neglects the influence of the Zionist lobby and its interest to keep
the U.S. involved in smashing any potential adversary [...]"
... and the requirement of this monetary system to perpetually expand credit markets...
If credit market expansion stalls or, ye gods, reverses, many balance sheets of the great and the good would become as many
albatrosses around their necks.
Credit markets must expand and nothing expands credit markets more than instability and crisis thus enabling ever greater transfers
of wealth towards to sponsors of the monetary system
Iran knew the plot's name and even the names of the alternative models proposed, as well as the ("former") CIA and current
Mossad officer, who together were the main plotters. They planned to bring re-purposed Daesh fighters into Iran as part of the
plan. It's not clear to me how advanced this part was, but Montazeri says that they activated the plan ahead of schedule, dues
to Iran's "special circumstances" - I don't know what that means.
I would really like to know what triggered the activation of this plan, and whether it pre-empted the full Daesh force's arrival
in the country. The enemy planned, but did Iran pull the trigger?
Either way, when I read your scenario, the word "cauldron" came to mind. Perhaps it really is the case that Iran let these
players walk into their cauldron and, as you suggest, scooped them up. Khamenei has said that he knows much more about this that
he will share with the people later.
~~
I would like to exculpate Rouhani somewhat from all this, however. To my very limited understanding, Rouhani chose a certain
path in order to get the nuclear deal, and it involved a measure of neo-liberalization in return. Khamenei (hat tip to
Lozion in the last thread for the link) said privately to Rouhani to "try his luck" with the west but never forget for one
moment that they were always and unremittingly the enemy.
So Rouhani did try his luck, and it worked. And Ramin Mazaheri, in the article at the Saker that I cited at #35 here, describes
what the Iranian negotiators actually achieved in that deal, and it was a large net benefit, a great achievement that Iran is
justly proud of.
So, Rouhani is still caught in the bargain he made, but the economy is rising more than falling, and Rouhani knows neo-liberal
policies don't work, as at least one other commenter in the previous thread illustrated. One can assume that Iran will amend this
course as soon as the way is clear to do so. Perhaps these protests will even form the rationale for doing so, which would be
wonderful.
Earlier today I read a headline saying that the UNSC was refusing to have a meeting on Iran - rightly. Now I read that they are
going to have one after all. I don't know exactly how the UNSC works, but it sounds very much like the usual is happening, as
in once again the Hegemon is to be appeased and some country that resists the Hegemon's will is to be brought to its knees.
It's pointless to ask why a meeting isn't called over Honduras then, to cite just one example that points to stunning US hypocrisy,
also UNSC hypocrisy. No the Hegemon must be appeased by its vassals, Russia and China. Sure they'll often ay the right thing outside
the UN, but when the US snaps its fingers, they snap to.
I would really like to know what triggered the activation of this plan, and whether it pre-empted the full Daesh force's arrival
in the country. The enemy planned, but did Iran pull the trigger?
Here's a thought:
Iran's air defense system operational by March 2018
Grieved 44/42
Magnier also has a string of interesting comments on the start of the genuine protest, its cause and so forth, from the last day
or so at his twitter account. These would add to his article. https://twitter.com/ejmalrai
@43, I wouldn't worry to much about the unsc meeting. My guess it's a "give Nikki Haley enough rope" moment, courtesy of Russia
and China. Let her make a fool of herself by droning nonstop about how she is very concerned about freedom in Iran (but oddly,
only in Iran and nowhere else, except maybe Binomo) and then let them veto whatever bogus resolution she will try to pass. Assuming
they even have to. It might actually be outvoted by majority.
Ok, perhaps not outvoted. It seems only Bolivia, Kazakhstan and Peru are the likely no votes. Most of the others will be a yes,
but I suspect there can be a surprise where even a vassal state might abstain. We shall soon see, anyway.
An interesting article Grieved linked to @42.
If the plot has been four years in the making, then this goes back to the time, or just before, ISIS burst onto the big screen
in a blaze of MSM publicity and promotion.
The plot put on ahead of schedule? The involvement of Russia destroyed ISIS in Syria to the point the US had to publicly take
the remnants of ISIS under its wing to save them. US occupation in Syria is tenuous, if they hang around too long in Syria they
will start shipping back US boots in body bags. Perhaps a reason for setting the plan off early?
With Obama admin's ambitions in Syria unachievable after Russia's entry, Trump with his hatred of Iran installed as CEO to cut
the losses, gather the assets and turn the focus onto the last in Wesley Clark's list, Iran?
@Lysander 48
Kazakstan; The US will probably use financial pressure, as JP Morgan "froze" some 42% of their financial reserves to cover a small
debt question (Belgian - Danish if my memeory serves me right) of about 800 million. ie. They froze about 23 billion of their
sovereign wealth fund.
If Kazakstan does the "right thing" it might get some of that back. maybe.....
I would resist the urge to read too much into it now since we're early in the development. Add it to MbS move to charge 'corruption'
in KSA and it looks like a push to force Wahhabists out into the open.
This four year old article speaks to the separation of church and state:
Wahhabism to ISIS: how Saudi Arabia exported the main source of global terrorism
During the 18th century, revivalist movements sprang up in many parts of the Islamic world as the Muslim imperial powers began
to lose control of peripheral territories. In the west at this time, we were beginning to separate church from state, but this
secular ideal was a radical innovation: as revolutionary as the commercial economy that Europe was concurrently devising. No
other culture regarded religion as a purely private activity, separate from such worldly pursuits as politics, so for Muslims
the political fragmentation of their society was also a religious problem. Because the Quran had given them a sacred mission
– to build a just economy in which everybody was treated with equity and respect – the political well-being of the umma ("community")
was always a matter of sacred import. If the poor were oppressed, the vulnerable exploited or state institutions corrupt, Muslims
were obliged to make every effort to put society back on track.
In 1980 President Carter proclaimed that any challenge to American dominance of the Persian Gulf would be considered "an assault
on the vital interests of the United States of America." He was driven by the global imperatives of his era. Much of America's
oil came through the Persian Gulf, and the West could not risk losing it to Soviet power.
Today there is no Soviet Union, and we no longer rely on Middle East oil. Yet although the basis for our policy has evaporated,
the policy itself remains unchanged, a relic from a bygone age.
The Soviet Union may not exist anymore, but China does, and most of its oil still comes from the Persian Gulf (which still
comes by sea, hence the Chinese necessity of the OBOR), whose route can still be easily blocked by the US Navy both in the Hormuz
and the Malacca.
U.S. goods and services trade with China totaled an estimated $648.2 billion in 2016. Exports were $169.3 billion; imports
were $478.9 billion. The U.S. goods and services trade deficit with China was $309.6 billion in 2016.
Nationalist policies are impossible in this context but people's brains are firmly tribally wired, so politicians try to score
points playing to national sentiment ie. Trump.
Most of the military is useless as there are no enemies left just "competitors" according to the Trump doctrine - but these
competitors are tied to each other closely.
But people have been indoctrinated to be good and fight "evil" for a long time and the military wants budget increases so enemies
- ISIS, Muslims, Iran, whoever, are produced.
@ somebody 56 "Most of the military is useless as there are no enemies left just "competitors" according to the Trump doctrine - but these
competitors are tied to each other closely."
The US problem with China goes beyond competition, as the US charges China with upsetting the global norms that have long been
dictated by the US.
@somebody 58 "Which norms?"
The basic norms are that the US controls the world politically, economically and militarily, and those controls are being threatened.
Iran won't do what we tell it to do, China has an unshakable economic advantage under state control and contests US rule of the
seas, Russia is designing weapons far in advance of US ones, North Korea wants nukes for defense just like the big guys,...the
list goes on.
from the National Security Strategy
China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity.
They are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data
to repress their societies and expand their influence. At the same time, the dictatorships of the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran are determined to destabilize regions, threaten Americans and our allies, and brutalize
their own people... .
here
62
I would call this constructing enemies and threats. It is absurd when you consider the economic codependency of China and the
US.
From Merriam Webster - definition of norms
1 : an authoritative standard : model
2 : a principle of right action binding upon the members of a group and serving to guide, control, or regulate proper and acceptable
behavior
No society lacks norms governing conduct. -- Robert K. Merton
Anonymous @57
However it does show up that Iran is a central node for the rail and road links to OBOR. Most maps place the lines of transit
either north of the caspian or via sea links along the Persian gulf.
Admittedly, it can be argued that naturally protests happened only in the urban areas, and there are more of those in the North
rather than the South. The map does not show the pipeline explosion in southern Baluchistan either.
One other thing it does not show is the Pakistan connections to OBOR. (Northwards) (ps. and Pakistan is in the "bad-books"
of the US for not allowing unlimited drone killing in the tribal areas)
But I found it interesting none the less.
64 Iran's geopolitical position is superb. What you see today is the shrunk mountainous part of the Persian empire
that used to bridge Asia, Europe and Africa .
The "Iranian aggression" the US hate so much is the cultural sphere left by history.
@43
"No the Hegemon must be appeased by its vassals, Russia and China. Sure they'll often say the right thing outside the UN, but
when the US snaps its fingers, they snap to."
Syria?
Things have changed in the past few years. And the change has been of tectonic plate significance. China and Russia are no longer
afraid of US power, whether it be of the military, economic or cultural sort. US threats no longer impress those who have seen
the idiocy at work in Iraq, Libya and Syria. The US petro dollar and SWIFT are being reduced, daily, in their abilities to do
mischief.
And, perhaps most significant of all, US culture is now seen to be utterly corrupt, its news media-from the NY Times and Guardian
downwards, prostituted and propagandistic; its legal system, exemplified by Guantanamo, an insult to kangaroos. Nobody believes
either threats, promises or even passing observations datelined Washington, New York, Hollywood or London.
I'm parotting myself, apologies. -- That judgment depends partly on how one reads the history of Iran. (E.g. Victory for islamist
/ muslim brothers / the like, in 1979, perhaps, *loved* or instrumentalised by the US.)
Israel and KSA might wish such. Neither will attempt anything alone nor together (together is risky for both of them) they
merely prod the USA, they are used to influecing the hegemon they think hope pray so it be.
The US will not attack Iran, too risky, complex. The balance of power has shifted marginally but noticeably in favor of the
opponents of the US, Iran in first place, after the defeat in Syria (partly because of US actions in the region, which perpetually
end up re-inforcing Iran.. go figure, long story..) with a now resurgent Russia openly defending its interests to prevent more
chaos (in their terms) and take-over while still very hesitant back-benchers.
The entire world hailed the Kerry-Obama initiative to lift sanctions > Iran for business, economic reasons (energy, big corps,
varous infrastr., import export, profits, etc. etc. ) as well as more 'personal' ones, travel, small biz, family, ordinary contacts
(which btw the US allowed in some measure as they knew it would be bad PR to forbid) such as chess championships, photo shoots
for various contests like sports, mathematicians meets, thousands of 'student exchanges,' love marriages, and on and on.
As b points out, the EU is furious, why, after all this struggle, cannot we, trade normally with this country? Plus Trump as
prez. is easily denigrated and opposed. Once more, it is blatant that the US cannot be trusted, ever, ever.
First I would like to first give "Three cheers for our queer old dean!"
USA "Rah Rah Rah" is old and will not happen.
Iran is not going to be invaded, just as attack on N.Korea is not going to happen. All this is not going to happen.
It's done and over. USA is finished. It's a new year. Be happy.
I see in a recent Reuters article US oil production has risen to just under ten thousand barrels a day, which is close to coving
half of US demand. From what I have read, a lot of wells have been drilled then capped, waiting for prices to rise. Trump just
opened up large areas of the US continental shelf for exploration and drilling.
The US is no longer reliant on oil imports from Saudi Arabia, and as Russia is now a rival to KSA in oil production and many other
countries exporting oil, Saudi's selling oil in US dollars no longer guarantees that the world must use US dollars in trade.
A limited war with Iran, perhaps cutting supplies from the area would boost oil prices, kick start the US oil industry and hurt
China.
About democracy or despotism in Iran: there are four to five nominally democratic governments in West Asia, in Israel, Lebanon,
Turkey and Iran, and all fit into rubric "imperfect democracies". It is a bit moot to ponder which one is less imperfect and which
is "better" because you can always latch on characteristics that you view as "important".
All absolute monarchies are our friends, while the attitude to "imperfect democracies" is mixed, suggesting a preference for
clear-cut despotism, and more reliably, very low actual interest in democracy.
Because the Quran had given them a sacred mission – to build a just economy in which everybody was treated with equity and
respect – the political well-being of the umma ("community") was always a matter of sacred import. If the poor were oppressed,
the vulnerable exploited or state institutions corrupt, Muslims were obliged to make every effort to put society back on track.
And that, I fear, is the original and authentic definition of jihad , at least in Shia Islam, as I have understood in
some books I was doned while visiting Nasarieh Madrassa in Isfahan, for to protect the poor and vulnerable from oppression
and exploitation by corrupted states or institutions. It was precisely while doing that the so venerated by these muslims, Imam
Ali (AS), was killed in martyrdom. Also he was recommending avoiding use of violence whenever was not necessary....
This is the man, the way I saw they represented him in Iran::
And these are some of his quotes ( sorry for the long links, but this can not be reduced to a few words...I hope this do not
provoke any damage ), I post them here for you to know the kind of thinking of this wise man, which most probably will help you
understanding Iran and Shia world....
The same way, you can conclude that what terrorists groups like IS, AL Nusra, Al Qaeda and so on....perform is anything except
jihad , since working for the oppressors against the oppressed and moreover employing gratuitous violence in massive killings
in the most macabre ways and destruction of basic infrastructures needed for preserving people´s way of life, cultural and historical
heritage and the likes we are so accustomed today.
That is not jihad but common psychopathic thuggery teached by their psychopathic masters.
Finally, after reading and considering all this, in case you lost it, I will post here the speech of Mr.Rouhani at the last
UNGA, for you to compare with that of his main opponents, and then you take your conclusions on who is demonized by whom and who
is the real evil:
Peter AU 1 @ 51: Wesley Clark's hit list probably came from the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) think tank, several
of whose authors were neocons with dual citizenship loyalties. (Robert Kagan aka Mr Victoria Nuland comes to mind.) Some signatories
- Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz - wound up in George W Bush's administration. PNAC was mothballed in 2006 but its
ideology and aims still survive in Washington DC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century#People_associated_with_the_PNAC
PNAC never goes away. It just changes its name. It used to be called Manifest Destiny. The USA still demands Full Spectrum Dominance
which requires acquiesence, subjugation and obedience from its "allies & partners" while it bombs the hell out of its perceived
enemies (but only the defenseless ones).
There must be some benefit to the partners of a mad and paranoid dominator, but I can't see the attraction.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Jan 5, 2018 1:59:38 PM | 70
It would help Russia, would it not?
Apart from that, it would hit the consumer who in the end will have to pay the price of oil and - with bad luck - it
will be the beginning of world wide recession - leading to lower oil price.
Some people would profit but these are the people who profit from anything, crises included.
Don B @ 63 said:"The basic norms are that the US controls the world politically, economically and militarily, and those controls
are being threatened. Iran won't do what we tell it to do, China has an unshakable economic advantage under state control and
contests US rule of the seas, Russia is designing weapons far in advance of US ones, North Korea wants nukes for defense just
like the big guys,...the list goes on."
IMO, as of now, correct, although slowly changing. Hurry up please, a multi-polar world. The health of the world depends on
that happening...
Indeed, and I agree with you and those are some of the reasons, amongst many, why I left the Catholic church in which I was
baptized and educated, although I never regreted my education at a Catholic school and the values transmitted at home, being my
mother a very religious person in the past. Those two aspects you cite here are those most probably invented by religious ( in
association with non religious ) hierarchies so that people resigns itself to its destiny determined by birth or fatality, for
not to mention the ethernal Catholic church allignement with fascist dictators instead of with the oppressed....
But if you read, at least the quotes I have selected, they make a lot of sense, and they are like a guide or advice by a good
and wise friend or protector, I can not find in Imam Ali´s quotes and sayings anything resembling surrender or avoiding fighting
for a better destinty, a better world or a more dignified situation. Also you notice what he said about women....Then you have
the misinterpretations by people in Islam with spurious interests according to their own personal background...
Anyway, what I was trying to do is trying to demosntrate what kind of influences could have Iranian people in their way of
behavior and way of life, nothing to do with promoting Islam or Shia Islam in any way, although I must confess a bit keen on Imam
Ali, although still I do not get to celebrate Ashura ....But...who knows...
Iranians have also other influences, as well, and, as Rouhani pointed out in his speech, those influences came from so distant
times as those of Zoroastro, whose religion´s main directives could be summarized in three main principles, say "To talk well,
think well, behave well" , passing through the times of their many tolerant and intelligent dirigents who always protected,
liberated and even hosted oppressed minorities along history, not to mention their love and promotion of culture, sciences, technology
and knowledge in general.
It has been through absorbing all this knowledge and influences what has come to conform what is today a very hospitable, educated,
respectfull, and kindhearted society.
@Noirette 68
One large factor keeping the US from attacking Iran (and North Korea) is the US strategy of forward basing. The US has half a
dozen installations and 40,000 troops, also civilians, on the western side of the Gulf within easy rocket & missile range from
Iran. Korea is similar, with the US Osan Air Base and Camp Humphreys, including civilians and dependents, within range of DPRK
rockets. Any planned attack would have to be preceded by an evacuation, which is impractical.
@somebody 64 . . . the economic codependency of China and the US.
from Bloomberg--
China's Global Ambitions Could Split the World Economy
Globalization -- China wants to control it. Instead of integrating China into the existing world order, it is creating a separate
economic bloc, with different dominant companies and technologies, and covered by rules, institutions, and trade patterns dictated
by Beijing.. .
here
somebody 77
After posting my thoughts on the US forces in Syria pivot on Iran, I started thinking about Trump tweeting support for the protesters.
A sure means of stopping any genuine domestic protest in Iran in its tracks. Why? Trump laid a trap for someone? Was the exercise
to create tension and drive oil prices up? It could be just because Trump foolishly thought it would help the protesters, but
I feel he may have had other reasons for doing so.
Five Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated since 2007. M.E.K. spokesmen have denied any involvement in the killings,
but early last month NBC News quoted two senior Obama Administration officials as confirming that the attacks were carried out
by M.E.K. units that were financed and trained by Mossad, the Israeli secret service. NBC further quoted the Administration officials
as denying any American involvement in the M.E.K. activities.
The former senior intelligence official I spoke with seconded the
NBC report that the Israelis were working with the M.E.K., adding that the operations benefitted from American intelligence. He
said that the targets were not "Einsteins"; "The goal is to affect Iranian psychology and morale," he said, and to "demoralize
the whole system -- nuclear delivery vehicles, nuclear enrichment facilities, power plants."
Attacks have also been carried out
on pipelines. He added that the operations are "primarily being done by M.E.K. through liaison with the Israelis, but the United
States is now providing the intelligence." An adviser to the special-operations community told me that the links between the United
States and M.E.K. activities inside Iran had been long-standing. "Everything being done inside Iran now is being done with surrogates,"
he said.
The sources I spoke to were unable to say whether the people trained in Nevada were now involved in operations in Iran or elsewhere.
But they pointed to the general benefit of American support. "The M.E.K. was a total joke," the senior Pentagon consultant said,
"and now it's a real network inside Iran. How did the M.E.K. get so much more efficient?" he asked rhetorically. "Part of it is
the training in Nevada. Part of it is logistical support in Kurdistan, and part of it is inside Iran. M.E.K. now has a capacity
for efficient operations that it never had before."
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Jan 5, 2018 4:17:33 PM | 82
I think they tried to panic the Tehran "regime" to a clampdown and at the same time tried to ensure "protesters" inside Iran
that they would get support from the US. Trump and the Jerusalem Post (plus probably Al-Arabya) were the first to have heard of the protests. BBC Persian seems to have
been involved in collecting the videos from the start. I guess, when the money is paid for something like this everyone continues to work even though everyone knows it will be a
failure.
Nikki Haley is just getting a severe beating by the countries on the UN security council. Lots of ambassadors bring up the
unsolved two state solution in Palestine.
Amongst the many still photos and videos of the numerous pro-government marches
posted here , I see no placards written in English; all are in Farsi,
which isn't the case with the previous small protests. If audible volume could express the differences, it would be deafening!
It seems the Big News of the day is the fallout between the Outlaw US Empire and its troublesome vassal Pakistan. Imran Khan
was very outspoken in an interview with CNN that Pakistan could do very well without any further US "aid" and welcomed the cooling
of relations: "Yet another attack on Pakistan's sovereignty today! Donald Trump & his threat; how low can one stoop? Are we so
greedy and in-need of US AID? We fought their war and lost our people. We fought their war and lost our integrity. We fought their
war and lost our dignity!!!" He conducted a news conference today that can be viewed at Tehreek-e-Insaf"s
Twitter site , unfortunately broken into small snippets and only
in Urdu. Now, if India and Pakistan would end their many years of bombastic behavior toward each other that only serves the Outlaw
US Empire's purposes, an opportunity for great progress exists that didn't just a few days ago.
Commenting via phone is painful. But the occasion warrants it.
Something large is looming over the West's destruction of
numerous Nations beginning in 2001. In all the reasoning about
the imperialistic stance of the West towards its global play
ground, one aspect is most often overlooked.
'Money'.
While the notion stands "follow the money", it is
seldom elevated to its real importance. After all, politics
and especially global politics appear to remain within the
boundaries of Nationalism. The so called 'unipolar" world
is not different from a 'multipolar' world subdued to monetary
interests. Iran is not even a new target in this regard. The
immense amounts of money that are to be had via the control
of the Iranian territory are second to no other Middle Eastern
Nation.
It is therefore that I like to point towards 'money' as being
the underlying motivation for the destruction of Middle Eastern
and North African Nations. This sentiment was enforced today
when I read the latest essay by Eric Zuesse about "Who will
pay for the reconstruction of Syria". Due to the problematic
of writing on a phone, I shall be forgiven the insertion of
this link without formatting it.
Please take the time and read it, since it opens up a box,
that makes Pandora's appear like a matchbox.
Slowly but constantly the good old europeans are discovering they can stand against who fooled them so long
in the name of ''protection''. And how stupid they have behaved.
A second hint wishfully the street guys in europe find out that has been their own elites´game only...
We latin americans cannot understand such a yesmanship, such a long and deep hibernation from those white savvy post christian
self sufficient europs.
Perhaps they are seeing light that comes from beijing.
better late than never.
Its plan foiled within Iran, the Outlaw US Empire sends its paid goons to throw stones at Iranian Embassies, the Netherlands's
certainly, and total defeat and humiliation pilled-on at the UNSC. And an interesting thought item from
Brasco_Aad's Twitter : Beste [sic] quote this week came from Henry
Kissinger (what do you know, right?)
"There is a HUGE war going on within the White House between the Jews and the Non-Jews at the moment.
"Between the Jews and the Non-Jews.
"Let that sink in for a minute."
Meanwhile in Syria's Idlib, SAA Tiger Forces are rolling up village after village and captured the key transport node of Sinjar.
It's also been announced that Iran will get a large proportion of the reconstruction contracts which will certainly help Iran's
economic condition. I can't help feeling the Shock Doctrine's boomeranged on The Outlaw US Empire and its regime change partners.
Paris does not follow Washington tune, and, apparently, neither does
Chicago . Nice quote:
The double standard isn't new. In 1981, Ronald Reagan's defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, vowed
not to allow "a hopelessly repressive, medieval government, such as has taken over in Iran, to take over in Saudi Arabia" -- somehow
overlooking that the Saudis already had their own repressive, medieval government.
Meanwhile in Syria's Idlib, SAA Tiger Forces are rolling up village after village and captured the key transport node of Sinjar.
It's also been announced that Iran will get a large proportion of the reconstruction contracts which will certainly help Iran's
economic condition. I can't help feeling the Shock Doctrine's boomeranged on The Outlaw US Empire and its regime change partners.
Not exactly, all current maps show the line of control 3 km (2 miles) south of Sinjar, and the latest advance of Tigers was
expanding their salient to east and west, securing the flanks. In the meantime, multiple rebel brigades (rebel brigade is like
a platoon in a regular army) reinforced the defense of Sinjar area. The trademark Tiger tactic is to abruptly change the direction
of advance rather than trying to crush the most fortified positions. But they got to their targets on many occasions.
Perhaps the strategic goal is to punch through a new supply line to Aleppo that would be several times more economical than
the current Khanasser route: the railroad from Hama to Aleppo. The economy of the Aleppo, the largest center of population and
industry before the civil war, would get a huge boost, and "Idlibstan" would be reduced in size by one third once the isolated
eastern part would be mopped out. We can see it before the Spring.
A big unnown is what Erdogan, ever mercurial, will be doing. Suddenly he have returned to his past slogan about Assad being
the largest criminal etc., does it mean renewal of supplies of heavy weapons to idlib rebels? I guess it is already happening,
but the situation is convoluted. Erdogan was making moves against Afrin Kurds, and probably he got Syrian/Russian red light, but
if he will insist too much, Kurds will get Russian weapons from Syrians. But Erdogan's card are weapons for Idlib. Such escalation
would bleed both Syrians and Turks, to nobody's advantage, except Erdogan's "almost Trumpian" thirst for importance.
"Before we wax too eloquent about the democratic aspirations of the great Iranian people, we should keep in the mind that the
most probable scenario for Iran under any likely regime is a sickening spiral into poverty and depopulation. Iran has the fastest-aging
population of any country in the world, indeed, the fast-aging population of any country in history. It has the highest rate
of venereal disease infection and the highest rate of infertility of any country in the world. It has a youth unemployment
rate of 35% (adjusted for warehousing young people in state-run diploma mills). And worst of all, it has run out of water."
Fastest aging population in the world in history.
Highest rate of infertility and VD in the world .
Diploma mills and NO WATER .
Ninel, if you are an Iranian why didn't you tell us about this hell hole but instead wax eloquent about the problem of 'child
brides'? If PJ media is correct it looks like Iran needs more, not less child brides.
I believe David Goldman, he's published on the Internet, he would never lie or exaggerate about Iran, never.
I try to ignore these things but ... that does sound like a Yiddish name to me which is fine but if is okay to learn about Iran
from Jews and Israelis to learn about Iran, should we go to Iran to learn about Israel or are both ideas pretty much insane?
Eric Edelman, a fossil of the establishment, put it all into perspective in recent testimony to the US Senate Armed Services Committee
recently: (extracts)
. .However tempting a strategy of disengagement might be, we should bear in mind that it would reverse a strong bipartisan
consensus over the past 60 years that the maintenance of a stable regional balance and prevention of any external or regional
power from dominating the Middle East is vital to the nation's security.
Since 2009 the United States has pursued a policy of retrenchment and limited liability in the region that has raised questions
about its role as the Middle East's security guarantor. This was first made clear during the Obama Administration, which expressed
through policy statements its desire to unburden America of the region altogether and "pivot" to East Asia. As a result, the
United States withdrew from Iraq at the end of 2011, it failed to uphold its own redline against Assad's use of chemical weapons
in Syria in 2013, and President Obama expressed a desire for Saudi Arabia and Iran to "share the neighborhood and institute
some sort of cold peace."
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on Iran's nuclear program removed some limits on Iran's power projection
capabilities by freeing up resources that Tehran subsequently redirected to its weapons programs and support for proxies. The
agreement was seen by many Sunni Arab allies in the region as undermining U.S. pledges to constrain Tehran's revisionist ambitions
in the region.
President Trump's policies in the region to this point, although couched in very different rhetoric, have broadly continued
the policies of his predecessor, perhaps reflecting the views of the Middle East he put forth during the campaign. He called
it "one big, fat quagmire" and welcomed Russian intervention in Syria. Whether or not he will put into place a different strategy
remains an open question....
here
Thanks for the Sputnik report on the UNSC session. Now the US has been rebuffed at the UN twice in two weeks (with the Jerusalem
vote being the first). Actions become habits, as we all know. Perhaps the world could get used to this groove of rebuffing the
US.
Finally, the US is losing its global influence. This was all that was left to fear.
~~
The UNSC has handed the US its hat, and rejected the US effort to examine the internal affairs of Iran, as exceeding its charter
and wholly inappropriate. Both France and UK have spoken in full support of keeping the nuclear deal going - which makes 4 out
of 5 of the veto-holding, permanent members of the Security Council, with the US being the odd one out.
We now enter a time of seeing exactly what economic power the US wields when the world doesn't agree with it. When the world
does agree, no question but the US is to be feared in the realm of sanctions, contracts and money movements. But it appears that
the fearsome power of sanctions is something that the US will have to act alone to levy against Iran.
And what is the power of sanctions when the world begins to re-route around them? Why stay in the US Dollar when the cost and
effort involved outweighs the costs of alternatives?
I don't know what these relative answers are, only that we now get to watch them being weighed, over the next, perhaps 12-18
months.
~~
We've seen that the US military cannot or will not fight. We've long suspected that its intelligence gathering is hugely defective.
We've seen that its economic heft resides not so much in its own transactions as in its power to compel others to make or forego
their own transactions in a prescribed way. And now we're seeing that its ability to forge agreement for its policies is slipping.
As this consensus tears, the propaganda cannot hold. There's nothing left.
So let's hope the US continues to come out with these half-assed initiatives that both fail to succeed and fail to impress
others.
By Benjamin Wittes Wednesday, January 3, 2018, 6:52 PM
Earlier today, Lawfare published an article that was significantly beneath its editorial standards. I take full responsibility
for this decision and, on behalf of myself and Lawfare's board of directors, wish to explain the circumstances of the decision
to publish it and the steps we are taking to ensure that such a lapse does not happen again.
This is indeed weird note. The plan of providing protesters with improvised explosive devices lacked legal analysis, so perhaps
a more proper venue would be Unlawfare or Soldier of Misfortune, because try as I might, I do not see how such a plan could fit
in any legal framework (or even a plan for a successful rebellion). But somehow good mister Wittes does not write it directly.
Indeed, it reminds me a discussion that requires a bit of cut and paste to refresh our memory:
[item] On January 2, 2016, armed militants seized the headquarters of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County,
Oregon, United States and continued to occupy it until law enforcement made a final arrest on February 11, 2016. Their leader
was Ammon Bundy, who participated in the 2014 Bundy standoff at his ...
[item] Ammon Bundy, 6 others acquitted in Oregon standoff trial - CNN
Oct 28, 2016 - Seven people who were among the armed occupiers of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon earlier this year were acquitted
Thursday of charges related to the 41-day standoff.
The point we "debated" or joked about is how that failed protest would gain if moderate elements were supplied with more advanced
weapons, anti-vehicle and anti-aircraft missiles, and perhaps those improvised land mines too? Apart from jokes, they would be
annihilated using high altitude precision bombing, and few American would shed tears. Instead, they became cheap martyrs, acquitted
by a sympathetic jury and without a doubt, we can expect to see them again at another fun-filled protest. In other words, their
cause lives and they keep marching on.
If not conventional war then economic war is just around the corner.
Until and unless countries switch to alternative international currency exchange and transaction processing services that are
not controlled by the private finance cabal, those countries will be susceptible to manipulated currency valuations and erratic
or halted electronic transaction processing.....war by other means. A controlled crash of the US economy can cow the mightiest
naysayers when they need more IMF/World Bank juice for their countries response to the coming economic pneumonia.
I expect that late term actions like this will be accompanied by more communication manipulation and control such as outages.....blamed
on terrorists/Russia of course.
What is Hollywood going to do with the reality we see unfolding in front of us? Can they get out in front of the energy forming
and turn it into a parade of their propaganda tunes? It is not looking like same old, same old this time....but I have been too
optimistic before.
"... The grand history of Latin America: borrow billions of $$$ from U.S. banks, hand the money to the wealthy who immediately deposit it right back in American banks, and let the poor pay back the principal and interest. Hmmm . seems more and more the way this country is going. ..."
"... The fixed exchange rate under Kirchner was totally unsustainable. One difference between Macri's neoliberalism and his predecessors is Macri is allowing much more of a floating currency than in the pre 2001 time period (We can debate how much it is actually is floating and clearly a lot of this debt issuance is for currency stabilization that I personally don't approve of). ..."
"... Brazil's recent neoliberal turn was frustrating for a variety of reasons, but being a big, diverse economy, they've got more sovereignty than their neighbors. However, the business and political elites in Brazil decided to hammer through austerity (spending cuts and interest rate hikes) because they WANTED to, not because external forces made them do it. ..."
by lan Cibils and Mariano Arana, Political Economy Department, Universidad Nacional de
General Sarmiento, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Originally published at Triple Crisis
In Argentina's 2015 presidential run-off election, the neoliberal right-wing coalition
"Cambiemos" (literally, "lets change"), headed by Mauricio Macri, defeated the populist
Kirchnerista candidate by just two percentage points. Macri's triumph heralded a return to the
neoliberal policies of the 1990s and ended twelve years of heterodox economic policies that
prioritized income redistribution and the internal market. The ruling coalition also performed
well in the October 2017 mid-term elections and has since begun implementing a draconian set of
fiscal, labor, and social security reforms.
One of the hallmarks of the Cambiemos government so far has been a fast and furious return
to international credit markets and a very substantial increase in new public debt. Indeed,
since Macri came to power in 2015, Argentina has issued debt worth more than $100 billion. This
marks a clear contrast to the Kirchner administrations, during which the emphasis was debt
reduction.
The Kirchner Years: Debt Reduction?
Both Néstor and Cristina Kirchner pointed to desendeudamiento -- debt
reduction -- as one of the great successes of their administrations. To what extent was debt
reduced during the twelve years of Kirchnerismo?
Figure 1 shows the evolution of Argentina's public debt stock and the debt/GDP ratio between
2004-2017. One can see that there was a substantial reduction in the debt to GDP ratio between
2004-2011 -- the first two Kirchner terms -- due primarily to: a) the 2005 and 2010 debt
restructuring offers, b) a deliberate policy of desendedudamiento (debt cancellation),
and c) high growth rates. Indeed, debt/GDP dropped from 118.1% in 2004 to 38.9% in 2011. One
can also see that the actual stock of public debt fell after the 2005 debt restructuring
process, and then remained relatively stable until 2010. In 2011, it began a slow upward trend,
due to the re-appearance of the foreign exchange constraint once the commodity bubble burst and
capital flight increased.
Figure 1: Public Debt Stock (millions of dollars) and Debt/GDP ratio
Source: Ministry of Finance, Argentina.
An additional, fundamental change occurred during the first two Kirchner administrations:
the change in currency composition of Argentina's public debt. Indeed, as Figure 2 shows,
peso-denominated public debt reached 41% of total debt after the 2005 debt-restructuring
process. Between 2005 and 2012 it remained relatively stable, and then, after 2012,
dollar-denominated public debt began to grow again although never reaching pre-2005
debt-restructuring levels. The currency composition change is key, since it reduces
considerably the pressure on the external accounts.
Figure 2: Currency Composition of Argentina's Public Debt (as a % GDP)
Source: Ministry of Finance, Argentina.
Fast and Furious
Since Macri became president in December 2015, there has been a dramatic change in official
public debt strategy, radically reversing the process of debt reduction of the previous decade.
As shown in Figure 1, there was a substantial jump in the stock of public debt in 2016, and it
has continued to grow in 2017.The result to date has been a substantial increase in the stock
of Argentina's dollar-denominated public debt, as well as an increase of the debt service to
GDP ratio. New debt has been used to cover the trade deficit, pay off the vulture funds,
finance capital flight, and meet debt service payments. All of this has resulted in growing
concerns about Argentina's future economic sustainability, not to mention any possibility of
promoting economic development objectives.
Upon taking office, the Macri Administration rapidly implemented a series of policies to
liberalize financial flows and imports, and a 40% devaluation of the Argentine peso. [1] In
this context, it also went on a debt rampage, increasing dollar denominated debt considerably.
Between December 2015 and September 2017, Argentina's new debt amounts to the equivalent of
$103.59 billion. [2] This includes new
debt issued by the Treasury (80%), provincial governments (11%), and the private sector (9%).
While Argentina's debt had been increasing slowly since 2011, the jump experienced in 2016 was
unlike any other in Argentina's history.
If the increase in debt is alarming, the destination of those funds is also cause of
concern. Data from Argentina's Central Bank (Banco Central de la República Argentina or
BCRA) show that during the first eight months of 2017, net foreign asset accumulation of the
private non-banking sector totaled $13.32 million, 33% more than all of 2016, which itself was
17% more than all of 2015. This means that since December 2015, Argentina has dollarized assets
by approximately $25.29 billion.
According to the BCRA, during the same period there was a net outflow of capital due to debt
interest payments, profits and dividends of $8.231 billion. Additionally, the net outflow due
to tourism and travel is calculated at roughly $13.43 billion between December 2015 and August
2017.
In sum, the dramatic increase in dollar-denominated debt during the two first Macri years
served to finance capital flight, tourism, profit remittances, and debt service, all to the
tune of roughly $50 billion.
Where is This Headed?
Argentina's experience since the 1976 military coup until the crash of 2001 has shown how
damaging is the combination of unfavorable external conditions and the destruction of the local
productive structure. The post-crisis policies of the successive Kirchner administrations
reversed the debt-dependent and deindustrializing policies of the preceding decades. However,
since Macri took office in December 2015, Argentina has once again turned to debt-dependent
framework of the 1990s. Not only has public debt grown in absolute terms, but the weight of
dollar-denominated debt in total debt has also increased. Despite significant doubts regarding
the sustainability of the current situation, the government has expressed intentions of
continuing to issue new debt until 2020.
What are the main factors that call debt-sustainability into question? First, capital
flight, which, as we have said above, is increasing, is compensated with new dollar-denominated
public debt. Second, Argentina's trade balance turned negative in 2015 and has remained so
since, with a total accumulated trade deficit between 2015 and the second quarter of 2017 of
$6.53 billion. Import dynamics proved impervious to the 2016 recession, therefore it is
expected that the deficit will either persist as is or increase if there are no drastic
changes. Furthermore, in the 2018 national budget bill sent to Congress, Treasury Secretary
Nicolás Dujovne projects that the growth rate of imports will exceed that of exports
until at least 2021, increasing the current trade deficit by 68%.
Finally, according to the IMF's World Economic Outlook (October 2017), growth rate
projections for industrialized countries increase prospects of a US Federal Reserve interest
rate increase. This would make Argentina's new debt issues more expensive, increasing the
burden of future debt service and increasing capital flight from Argentina (in what is
generally referred to as the "flight to safety").
The factors outlined above generate credible and troublesome doubts about the sustainability
of the economic policies implemented by the Macri administration. While there are no signs of a
major crisis in the short term (that is, before the 2019 presidential elections), there are
good reasons to doubt that the current level of debt accumulation can be sustained to the end
of a potential second Macri term (2023). In other words, there are good reasons to believe that
Argentines will once again have to exercise their well-developed ability to navigate through
yet another profound debt crisis. This is not solely the authors' opinion. In early November
2017 Standard & Poor's placed Argentina in a list of the five most fragile economies.
[3] It looks like,
once again, storm clouds are on the horizon.
'What are the main factors that call debt sustainability into question? First, capital
flight.'
Capital flees Argentina whenever the opportunity arises because successive governments --
whether leftist or conservative -- refuse to control inflation and maintain a stable
currency.
Since 2001, the Argentine peso has slid from one-to-one with the US dollar to about 19 to
the dollar today. With Argentine inflation running in the low to mid twenties (according to
INDEC and Price Stats), the peso can be expected to carry on weakening against the dollar
indefinitely.
A hundred years during which the peso has lopped off thirteen (13) zeros owing to chronic
inflation shows that Argentina is politically and culturally incapable of responsibly
managing its own currency.
Argentines know this. Unfortunately, only the richer ones have assets they can move to
safety outside the country. The hand-to-mouth poor will continue being ravaged by inflation,
not to mention the large quantities of counterfeit pesos in circulation.
Letting Argentines play with fiat currency is like handing out loaded pistols to rowdy
5-year-olds. In both these sad cases, adult supervision is urgently needed.
The grand history of Latin America: borrow billions of $$$ from U.S. banks, hand the
money to the wealthy who immediately deposit it right back in American banks, and let the
poor pay back the principal and interest. Hmmm . seems more and more the way this country is
going.
The fixed exchange rate under Kirchner was totally unsustainable. One difference between
Macri's neoliberalism and his predecessors is Macri is allowing much more of a floating
currency than in the pre 2001 time period (We can debate how much it is actually is floating
and clearly a lot of this debt issuance is for currency stabilization that I personally don't
approve of).
I'm not an expert in this at all, but in Peru, you could hold bank accounts in either
national currency or dollars. The national currency accounts spared you currency exchange
fees and also had higher interest rates. Most people who could hedged their bets by putting
money in both accounts.
It seems like a happy medium between abandoning national currencies and letting savers get
ravaged? No?
While not as spectacular of a return as Bitcoin, but impressive nonetheless, the escape
route for an Argentinean @ the turn of the century was the golden rule, an ounce of all that
glitters was 300 pesos then and now around 25,000 pesos, a most excellent 'troy' horse.
So, is austerity good or is austerity bad? And in what conditions?
I'm for expansionary government expense (and direct government ownership of some
industries, such as with an NHS) balanced by taxes on high incomes.
So in my view the problem happens when the government lowers taxes on the rich, as seems
likely in this case.
On the other hand taxes on the rich are likely to cause capital flight.
So why did Macri get elected to do this? Yeah he didn't win by much, but he won.
>The hand-to-mouth poor will continue being ravaged by inflation
Which is freaking weird. Argentina has cropland. They have energy sources (and I won't
bore everybody ok, I will with the observation that the Industrial Age is generously a
300/8000 year ratio part of human history).
And doesn't the below need some unpacking?:
>only the richer ones have assets they can move to safety outside the country
What are these assets? Why are said assets mobile? How did they come to "own" them? What
percentage of the population is encompassed by "the richer ones" phrasing?
Question: why doesn't MMT thinking work for countries like Argentina?
As wikipedia notes:
"The key insight of MMT is that "monetarily sovereign government is the monopoly
supplier of its currency and can issue currency of any denomination in physical or
non-physical forms. As such the government has an unlimited capacity to pay for the things
it wishes to purchase and to fulfill promised future payments, and has an unlimited ability
to provide funds to the other sectors. Thus, insolvency and bankruptcy of this government
is not possible. It can always pay."
Is this a general flaw in MMT? Does MMT only apply to dominant nation-states like the
U.S., who can use foreign military and financial pressures to protect the currency, aka the
petrodollar? Is the petrodollar a true 'fiat currency' or is it somehow based on control of
commodities (especially oil)? Is there something peculiar about Argentina and other countries
facing currency devaluation that MMT doesn't handle well? Any ideas on this?
That wikipedia write up isn't wrong, but it could be better. Probably need to hammer home
the point that the sovereign can always pay IN THE CURRENCY THAT IT ISSUES.
Most of the MMT related conversations on this site, and the posts that are written up on
the subject are mostly about explaining how there are constraints that many people THINK
exist in the USA, but don't actually exist, at least in economic terms (political constraints
notwithstanding). A country cannot be forced to default on a currency it issues. If the USA
had significant debts in EUR or JPY, then it'd be a very different conversation.
External constraints are a big deal for most countries, especially developing countries
that depend on exports of primary commodities. Chile, for instance, is constrained by balance
of payments problems when the price of copper declines. Also, developed countries that are
relatively smaller have much more limited sovereignty. The Swiss Central Bank has to follow
what the ECB does, to a large degree.
On the other hand, there's episodes where some countries have found room for maneuver when
they give up their sovereign currency. I didn't expect that Ecuador's economy would perform
quite as well as it has in recent years. But, they've shown that you can find ways to get
creative to compensate for loss of monetary sovereignty. Of course, the fiscal constraints
are real since Ecuador can't print USD.
Brazil's recent neoliberal turn was frustrating for a variety of reasons, but being a
big, diverse economy, they've got more sovereignty than their neighbors. However, the
business and political elites in Brazil decided to hammer through austerity (spending cuts
and interest rate hikes) because they WANTED to, not because external forces made them do
it.
No doubt an MMT prescription for Argentina would advice them to lay off the $ denominated
debt and stick to pesos as much as possible. I'd imagine Stephanie Kelton or any of the UMKC
crew would advise curtailing imports or doing some import substitution in order to take
pressure off balance of payments issues. They'd also take a look at what was driving
inflation domestically and try to find ways to relieve it with a targeted approach, instead
of risking recession and unemployment. Neoliberal/Washington Consensus type economists would
say hike interest rates, cut government spending in order to curtail demand. They'd argue
that the private sector will make the best decisions about where to reign in spending to
reduce inflation.
Iran is seeing its most widespread protest demonstrations since 2009. They are still gaining momentum and some 15 people are reported
to have been killed, though the circumstances in which they died remains unclear. The motive for the protests is primarily economic,
but many slogans are political and some directly attack clerical rule in Iran which was introduced with the overthrow of the Shah
in 1979.
The demonstrations began with one against rising prices on Thursday in Mashhad, Iran's second largest city and the site of its
most holy shrine, a place which is traditionally seen as a stronghold for clerical hardliners. It may be that these conservatives
initiated or tolerated the protests as a way of undermining President Hassan Rouhani, seen as a political moderate, who was re-elected
by a landslide last year. If so, the protests have swiftly spiralled out of the control of the conservatives and are erupting all
over Iran, strong evidence of a high level of discontent everywhere in the country and possibly a sign of covert organisation by
anti-government groups.
Donald Trump threatened last year to support domestic anti-government resistance in Iran, though this does not necessarily mean
that his administration has done anything about this as yet. His latest tweet accuses Iran's leaders of turning the country "into
an economically depleted rogue state whose chief exports are violence, bloodshed and chaos". The US and Saudi Arabia may also be
tempted to fund ethnic groups like the Iranian Kurds who are already alienated from the central government.
Belligerent rhetoric like Mr Trump's will be used to discredit protesters as the pawns of foreign powers.
Iran has been divided politically since the fall of the Shah, but the most immediate cause of unrest over the past five days is
economic and social discontent. In many respects, grievances are similar to those in other oil states where there is long-suppressed
anger against corruption and inequality. Youth unemployment was 28.8 per cent last year. The nuclear deal with the US and other major
powers in 2015 reduced sanctions, but has not produced the benefits that many expected. A 50 per cent increase in the price of fuel
was announced in the budget in December. Egg and poultry prices recently rose by 40 per cent.
"... The upshot? It's quite acceptable, on the Left and the pseudo-Right, to casually quip about troops in Niger and Norway . "We
have soldiers in Niger and Norway? Of course we do. We need them." With neoconservatism normalized, there is no debate, disagreement
or daylight between our dangerously united political factions. ..."
"... How exactly did the president normalize neoconservatism: In 2016, liberals accused candidate Trump of isolationism. Neoconservatives
-- aka Conservatism Inc. -- did the same. ..."
"... No one should be surprised by Trump promoting Israeli interests über alles. For decades he was so involved in Israel events
in New York I debated whether he was actually Jewish or not. Bannon said the embassy move to Jerusalem was at the behest of Adelson,
Trump's old casino buddy. In the campaign Trump got a lot of support from NY Jewish billionaires (Icahn, Feinberg, Paulson, et al.).
They know him and how he operates. ..."
"... But being pro-Israel doesn't necessarily equate to neocon. The neocons are the dumb Jews with serious inadequacy issues who
could never make it in business and instead went into politics and journalism. The latter are still staunchly opposed to Trump even
after a lot of pro-Israel moves. They might warm up to Trump's bellicosity towards a lot of Israel's enemies (a long list with degrees
of separation), but so far they've simply moved left. ..."
"... I'm a little more sanguine about a Zionist President who approaches problems from a business and deal-making position than
from one who comes a neocon political position (e.g., Hillary, every other GOP candidate except Rand Paul). The former are pragmatic
and will avoid conflict, especially stupid conflict, at all costs. While the latter believe they are virtuous in going to war and/or
attacking countries. Did you hear Hillary threaten to shoot down Russian planes in Syria during the campaign (WTF??!). ..."
"... Lastly, I like to think Trump surrounded himself with neocons (McMaster, Haley, et al.) to placate the GOP establishment because
he knows he has to play the game. ..."
"... People are inclined to believe that any activity -- in this instance, voting for the red/blue puppets in Washington -- in which
their participation is patronized must be legitimate and effectual. Many duped in November 2016, even those who now feel betrayed by
that farce, were still around here a few weeks ago acting like a Senator Moore in Alabama would be pivotal to reform, his defeat devastating.
That's how Ms. Mercer and her pundit ilk (Buchanan, Napolitano, etc.) thrive -- supporting the Empire by never questioning its legitimacy,
just taking sides within the Establishment. And they'll be buying into the 2018 congressional contests, ad nauseum. ..."
"... Of course, what is done to us, and to others in our name and with our money, never changes to any meaningful degree. Americans
might realize this if they thought critically about it, so they don't. Instead, they lap up the BS and vote for who tells them the lie
they like to hear. When there are identity politics involved, the delusion seems even deeper. There are self-styled "progressives" who
used to advocate single-payer, nationalized health care who are elated over the retention of so-called "Obamacare," the legislation
for which was written by and for the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. ..."
"... Far from all Neocons are Jews. However, virtually all Neocons are militantly pro-Israel to the point of making Israel's foreign
policy desires central to their assessment of what America needs in foreign policy. ..."
"... Pres Trump is a situational leader. It's a rare style, for good reason. However, he is openly situational. That was clear during
the campaign season. however, ..."
"... I thought his positions were sincere. I don't think that this was any kind of slight of hand, "watch me pull a rabbit out of
my hat". His positions on Israel, same sex behavior, marijuana, healthcare remain what they were going in. His foreign policy and immigration
positions have been buffered and he seems incapable of standing where he came in. ..."
"... It was no secret he intended an assertive military. However, he seems easily convinced that strong means aggressive, and that
needlessly aggressive policy is a substitute for a strong US -- that is a mistake. Syria cruise strike was the first sign that he was
giving in to the men whom he chose as advisers. As it it turns out winning the election has been easier than governing. I assumed he
had a much stronger backbone, than he has been willing to exhibit in office. ..."
"... Pardon the earlier tag. I thought that you just had to be joking. Nikki Haley was inflicted upon the world at large because
Trump doesn't actually know anybody in this new world he fell into once he was inaugurated. ..."
"... Trump is so arrogant about his cluelessness that we'll be lucky to avoid a nuclear war caused by his bumbling. As in the final
line of an old proverb: "He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool. Shun him. ..."
It's fact: Neoconservatives are pleased with President Trump's foreign policy.
A couple of months back, Bloomberg's Eli Lake let it know he was in neoconservative nirvana:
" for Venezuela, [Donald Trump] came very close to calling for regime change. 'The United States has taken important steps to
hold the regime accountable,' Trump said. 'We are prepared to take further action if the government of Venezuela persists on its
path to impose authoritarian rule on the Venezuelan people.'"
... ... ...
No one would deny the largely neoconservative nature of
Trump's National Security Strategy . Tucked in there somewhere is the Trumpian theme of "sovereignty," but in watered-down words.
The promised Wall has given way to "multilayered technology"; to the "deployment of additional personnel," and to the tried-and-tested
(not!) "vetting of prospective immigrants, refugees, and other foreign visitors."
These are mouthfuls Barack Obama and Genghis Bush would hardly oppose.
"It's often said that the Trump administration is 'isolationist,'"
wrote historian
Andrew J. Bacevich, in the UK Spectator. Untrue. "In fact, we are now witnessing a dramatic escalation in the militarization of US
foreign policy in the Middle East, Africa and Afghanistan. This has not been announced, but it is happening, and much of it without
any debate in Congress or the media."
Indeed, while outlining his "new" Afghanistan plan, POTUS had conceded that "the American people are weary of war without victory."
(Make that war, full-stop.) Depressingly, the president went on to promise an increase in American presence in Afghanistan. By sending
4000 additional soldiers there, President Trump alleged he was fighting terrorism, yet not undertaking nation building.
This is tantamount to talking out of both sides of one's mouth.
Teasing apart these two elements is near-impossible. Send "4,000 additional soldiers to add to the 8,400 now deployed in Afghanistan,"
and you've done what Obama and Bush before you did in that blighted and benighted region: muddle along; kill some civilians mixed
in with some bad guys; break bread with tribal leaders (who hate your guts); mediate and bribe.
Above all, spend billions not your own to perfect the credo of a global fighting force that doesn't know Shiite from
Shinola .
The upshot? It's quite acceptable, on the Left and the pseudo-Right, to casually quip about troops in Niger and
Norway . "We have soldiers in Niger and Norway? Of course we do. We need them." With neoconservatism normalized, there is no
debate, disagreement or daylight between our dangerously united political factions.
This is the gift President Trump has given mainstream neoconservatives -- who now comfortably include neoliberals and all Conservatism
Inc., with the exceptions of Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter and Tucker Carlson.
How exactly did the president normalize neoconservatism: In 2016, liberals accused candidate Trump of isolationism. Neoconservatives
-- aka Conservatism Inc. -- did the same.
Having
consistently complained of his isolationism , the Left and the phony Right cannot but sanction President Trump's interventionism
. The other option is to admit that we of
the callused Old Right,
who rejoiced at the prospects and promise of non-interventionism, were always right. Not going to happen. To some, the normalizing
of neoconservatism by a president who ran against it is a stroke of genius; of a piece with Bill Clinton's triangulation tactics.
To others, it's a cynical sleight of hand.
I think Bannon's ouster and his subsequently being attacked by Trump is just further evidence of Trump the Neocon. McConnell and
the establishment are piling on with glee. Welcome to the swamp.
Trump isn't a neoconservative or a turncoat, but he was not nearly aggressive enough in purging the unelected bureaucracy or in
preparing replacements. By the end of his first term I expect it will be different. He has appointed many federal judges and sent
consistent signals to law enforcement agencies. Also, sending Nikki Haley to the UN was a prank. Kushner's indefensible though.
"Trump attacking Bannon" was Trump reacting hastily and badly to a misreported non-story from half a year ago. Bannon has now
irritated the Mercers and will go through some sort of hair shirt thing.
> establishment gleefully piling
When have they ever done anything else? Do you expect them to admit they were wrong? Remember when Trump could not possibly be
the nominee?
You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all
the time.
But you can fool the whole country all the time in American bi-partisan system. ,Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump each were brought
to power by fooling their electorate.
So Trump did morph into Hillary.
Actually, it was something I was afraid of once I got the good news of Hillary losing, but expected, considering that I view presidents
as empty suits, and the National Security State calling the shots.
I'm waiting for another one of those "Trump's Truth in Action" moments when describes the real political atmosphere in Washington.
Trump was asked about something he said in a previous interview: "When you give, they do whatever the hell you want them to do."
"You'd better believe it," Trump said. "If I ask them, if I need them, you know, most of the people on this stage I've given
to, just so you understand, a lot of money."
I think its time to dump the label "neoconservative". The appropriate term is "interventionists without a cause" (IWAC or IWC)
or some other descriptor.
The real problem that Pres Trump has and I remain a Pres Trump supporter is two fold:
He seems to have forgotten he won the election.
He seems to have forgotten what he was elected to do.
And nearly everyone of these issues on foreign policy the answer rests in respecting sovereignty – that of others and our own.
I didn't need to read,"Adios, America" to comprehend the deep state damage our careless immigration policy has on the country.
I don't need to reread, "Adios, America" to grasp that our policies of intervening in the affairs of other states undermines our
own ability to make the same case at home.
If I weren't already trying to plow my way through several other books, documentaries and relapsing to old school programming
such as The Twilight Zone, Star Trek, and now the Dick Van Dyke show, i would reread, "Adios , America."
In Col. Bacevich's book, Washington Rules, he posits a distressing scenario that the foreign policy web is so tangled and entrenched,
the executive branch is simply out his league. The expectation was that Pres trump had the will to turn the matter. I hold out
hope, but maybe not. There's time.
The Trump holdouts that maintain his turncoat buffoonery is actually 5d chess are the 2018 equivalent of the 2009 hopey changey
Obots and can't accept their big daddy is a liar and a spineless turncoat. The system is broken and cannot be fixed from within.
Jews and the Jewish Media normalized Jewish NeoCons by guaranteeing that they always have a voice and airtime in American
culture and media. Never called out by the WashingtonPost and NY Times for their previous blunders, they continue to shape
American foreign policy. And, of course, the end game here is Israel and the Israeli agenda at all costs, you Jews are one
issue folk. And You definitely do your part, with the subtle subterfuge at work in the articles that you write.
No one should be surprised by Trump promoting Israeli interests über alles. For decades he was so involved in Israel events
in New York I debated whether he was actually Jewish or not. Bannon said the embassy move to Jerusalem was at the behest of Adelson,
Trump's old casino buddy. In the campaign Trump got a lot of support from NY Jewish billionaires (Icahn, Feinberg, Paulson, et
al.). They know him and how he operates.
But being pro-Israel doesn't necessarily equate to neocon. The neocons are the dumb Jews with serious inadequacy issues
who could never make it in business and instead went into politics and journalism. The latter are still staunchly opposed to Trump
even after a lot of pro-Israel moves. They might warm up to Trump's bellicosity towards a lot of Israel's enemies (a long list
with degrees of separation), but so far they've simply moved left.
I'm a little more sanguine about a Zionist President who approaches problems from a business and deal-making position than
from one who comes a neocon political position (e.g., Hillary, every other GOP candidate except Rand Paul). The former are pragmatic
and will avoid conflict, especially stupid conflict, at all costs. While the latter believe they are virtuous in going to war
and/or attacking countries. Did you hear Hillary threaten to shoot down Russian planes in Syria during the campaign (WTF??!).
Lastly, I like to think Trump surrounded himself with neocons (McMaster, Haley, et al.) to placate the GOP establishment
because he knows he has to play the game.
Classical Liberalism may be very principled, but Trump was not elected promising to halt intervention. Make America Great said
nothing about the morality of the means he would be employing.
People are inclined to believe that any activity -- in this instance, voting for the red/blue puppets in Washington --
in which their participation is patronized must be legitimate and effectual. Many duped in November 2016, even those who now feel
betrayed by that farce, were still around here a few weeks ago acting like a Senator Moore in Alabama would be pivotal to reform,
his defeat devastating. That's how Ms. Mercer and her pundit ilk (Buchanan, Napolitano, etc.) thrive -- supporting the Empire
by never questioning its legitimacy, just taking sides within the Establishment. And they'll be buying into the 2018 congressional
contests, ad nauseum.
Of course, what is done to us, and to others in our name and with our money, never changes to any meaningful degree. Americans
might realize this if they thought critically about it, so they don't. Instead, they lap up the BS and vote for who tells them
the lie they like to hear. When there are identity politics involved, the delusion seems even deeper. There are self-styled "progressives"
who used to advocate single-payer, nationalized health care who are elated over the retention of so-called "Obamacare," the legislation
for which was written by and for the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.
Me? I cope by boycotting national elections and mass media, participating in forums like this, and hoping that when the tottering
tower of debt and gore tips over, as few innocents and as many guilty as practicable are among those crushed.
The Zionist neocons and Israel did 911 and got away with it and everyone in the U.S. gov knows it and they tried to sink the USS
LIBERTY and got away with it and so normal is an Orwellian society where Zionists can kill Americans and destroy the Mideast and
nobody does jack shit about it.
The neocons are Satanists warmongers and will destroy America.
Basically the illegal immigrants are coming in ever larger numbers because they know that there will be no crackdown on them.
Likewise deportations are declining.
Neocons are about as evil as proudly proclaimed Leftists, and they are obviously more duplicitous.
Either Neocons will be refuted and publicly rebuked and rejected, or Neocons will eventually destroy the country. Their long
term fruits are destruction of that which they have used to destroy so many others.
Far from all Neocons are Jews. However, virtually all Neocons are militantly pro-Israel to the point of making Israel's
foreign policy desires central to their assessment of what America needs in foreign policy.
And the source is Anglo-Saxon Puritanism, which was a Judaizing heresy. Judaizing heresy necessarily produces pro-Jewish culture.
WASP culture is inherently pro-Jewish, as much as it is anti-Catholic and anti-French and and anti-Spanish and anti-Irish, etc.
And all that means that WASP is opposed to the best interests of the vast majority of white Christians while being pro-Jewish.
Jews did not cause any of that. Anglo-Saxon Puritan heretics did.
Pres Trump is a situational leader. It's a rare style, for good reason. However, he is openly situational. That was clear
during the campaign season. however,
I thought his positions were sincere. I don't think that this was any kind of slight of hand, "watch me pull a rabbit out
of my hat". His positions on Israel, same sex behavior, marijuana, healthcare remain what they were going in. His foreign policy
and immigration positions have been buffered and he seems incapable of standing where he came in.
It was no secret he intended an assertive military. However, he seems easily convinced that strong means aggressive, and
that needlessly aggressive policy is a substitute for a strong US -- that is a mistake. Syria cruise strike was the first sign
that he was giving in to the men whom he chose as advisers. As it it turns out winning the election has been easier than governing.
I assumed he had a much stronger backbone, than he has been willing to exhibit in office.
Pardon the earlier tag. I thought that you just had to be joking. Nikki Haley was inflicted upon the world at large because
Trump doesn't actually know anybody in this new world he fell into once he was inaugurated.
Trump is so arrogant about his cluelessness that we'll be lucky to avoid a nuclear war caused by his bumbling. As in the
final line of an old proverb: "He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool. Shun him."
Iranians have killed zero Americans in terrorist attacks in the US between 1975-2015; Saudi Arabians murdered 2369!
Given that this juden woman's kind were clearly aware of the impending murder of 2369 people, the correct statement would be;
Saudi Arabians and IsraHellis murdered 2369!
The Israeli/AIPAC bribery of American bible thumper preachers, especially in the fundamentalist southern American states has
more to do with it than the reformation. The preachers get huge donations to pay for their churches and TV shows. They get free
trips to Israel for themselves and their families all the time.
On their Israel trips they pay more attention to the OT Jewish and holocaust sites than the Christian ones. It's true that
the reformation was a return to Judaism and a rejection of Christianity, but that was 500 years ago. What's important now is the
vast amounts of money the Israeli government and the lobby funnels into those fundamentalist churches. If the southern fundamentalists
only knew what Jews think of them. I really got an earful of Jewish scorn and hate for southerners and fundamentalists during
the recent Roy Moore election.
Read Jewish publications if you want to learn what they think of southern fundamentalists
"... The first year of the Trump administration saw much more than the continuity in U.S. foreign policy that many of us expected. Trump's candidacy and then his election were greeted with alarm by almost everyone in the foreign policy establishment, with an overwhelming consensus that he stood for a so-called "isolationist" withdrawal from international affairs. This interpretation was a serious misreading of Trump's rhetoric and led to the usual knee-jerk reflex to define anything that differed from post-Cold War foreign policy as an outright rejection of all international engagement. ..."
"... Trump is not interested in disentangling the United States from foreign conflicts. Instead, he continues and expands them, as well as stoking new crises that could erupt into conflict. Trump is easily persuaded to accept conventional foreign policy positions so long as they are the more aggressive alternatives available. When he does break from consensus views, he does so in a unilateral and nationalist fashion that repudiates diplomatic compromises, rejects the legacy of his predecessor, and panders to some of his core constituencies at home. ..."
"... As 2018 begins, America is now even more deeply involved in the multiple wars that Trump inherited from Obama. There are a growing number of U.S. forces in Syria, more American soldiers have been sent to Afghanistan to continue our longest war, and U.S. backing for the Saudi-led war on Yemen has ratcheted up as well. In each case, Trump has signed off on increased U.S. involvement. ..."
"... Tensions with Iran and North Korea have both increased over the last year, and in both cases the Trump administration is to blame. Between the travel ban, the decertification of the nuclear deal, bombing Syrian government forces in the spring, belligerent speeches at the U.N. and elsewhere, and an overall regional policy defined by unremitting hostility towards Iran, Trump has mishandled relations with Tehran about as badly as a new president can. ..."
"... Considering how poorly Trump has managed issues related to Iran, it is remarkable that his handling of a much more sensitive and potentially explosive situation in the Korean Peninsula has been even worse. ..."
The first year of the Trump administration saw much more than the continuity in U.S.
foreign policy that many of us expected. Trump's candidacy and then his election were greeted
with alarm by almost everyone in the foreign policy establishment, with an overwhelming
consensus that he stood for a so-called "isolationist" withdrawal from international affairs.
This interpretation was a serious misreading of Trump's rhetoric and led to the usual knee-jerk
reflex to define anything that differed from post-Cold War foreign policy as an outright
rejection of all international engagement. As Trump's policies have shown, he is open to a
kind of international engagement, but it is one that is heavily militarized and defined by
zero-sum contests with adversaries and allies alike.
Trump is not interested in disentangling the United States from foreign conflicts.
Instead, he continues and expands them, as well as stoking new crises that could erupt into
conflict. Trump is easily persuaded to accept conventional foreign policy positions so long as
they are the more aggressive alternatives available. When he does break from consensus views,
he does so in a unilateral and nationalist fashion that repudiates diplomatic compromises,
rejects the legacy of his predecessor, and panders to some of his core constituencies at
home.
As 2018 begins, America is now even more deeply involved in the multiple wars that Trump
inherited from Obama. There are a growing number of U.S. forces in Syria, more American
soldiers have been sent to Afghanistan to continue our longest war, and U.S. backing for the
Saudi-led war on Yemen has ratcheted up as well. In each case, Trump has signed off on
increased U.S. involvement. There is evidence that the number of Americans fighting in
Afghanistan will increase in the coming year, and U.S. forces operating in Syria are set to
remain there indefinitely. U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition is even greater than it was
under Obama, and there is no sign that it will be reduced anytime soon. Unfortunately, the one
thing Trump refuses to abandon are the wars that Obama bequeathed to him.
Tensions with Iran and North Korea have both increased over the last year, and in both
cases the Trump administration is to blame. Between the travel ban, the decertification of the
nuclear deal, bombing Syrian government forces in the spring, belligerent speeches at the U.N.
and elsewhere, and an overall regional policy defined by unremitting hostility towards Iran,
Trump has mishandled relations with Tehran about as badly as a new president can. If he
next reneges on U.S. commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Trump
will risk creating a new crisis over Iran's nuclear program. If the nuclear deal does fall
apart, the risk of war with Iran would significantly increase.
Considering how poorly Trump has managed issues related to Iran, it is remarkable that
his handling of a much more sensitive and potentially explosive situation in the Korean
Peninsula has been even worse. For most of the last year, Trump has answered North Korean
provocations with bellicose rhetoric and reckless threats, and repeatedly dismissed the
possibility of entering into talks with Pyongyang to reduce tensions. He and his national
security advisor, H.R. McMaster, have been talking down the possibility of deterring North
Korea and instead insisting on an impossible goal of denuclearization. Senior members of the
Trump administration bizarrely seem to believe they can take military action against North
Korea without it escalating into a major war. On this issue, the one where Trump most needs to
be reined in by his advisors, it appears he's instead being egged on by them. There is a much
greater chance of war with North Korea today than there has been in decades. The current
administration has helped bring this about, and alarmingly it doesn't seem to have sunk in with
members of Congress or the public.
As we look ahead to 2018, the picture is not at all encouraging for those interested in
peace and restraint. The danger that the U.S. may foolishly plunge into at least one new
avoidable war is greater than it has been perhaps since the period leading up to the Iraq
invasion in 2002. It will be up to members of Congress and the public to keep the
administration from committing such a monumental blunder.
Daniel Larison is a senior writer at The American Conservative. Follow his blog and at
Twitter @DanielLarison
.
None of us who voted for him did so because we wanted him to start new wars.
We didn't want any new wars for Israel or Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, and we didn't
want new wars against Russia, China, or North Korea.
We wanted him to crush ISIS and then bring our troops home to protect our own borders.
Instead he's digging in to the Middle East and letting illegal and legal immigrants flood
into America.
The way he's going, he could be worse than Clinton, Bush II, and Obama COMBINED. And I
think we may have made a terrible mistake.
"... Ukraine. Putin's remarks on the state of affairs in Ukraine are, of course, wholly at odds with what Washington puts out on the subject. But they are not at odds with reality: Washington is. ..."
"... Those terms remain Putin's point of reference. They appear to remain the European Union's, too. Washington, which the Europeans and Russia excluded from the Minsk talks for the wisest of reasons, does not seem to have a point of reference, busy as it is pretending there is progress on the corruption front and that Kiev is not dependent on a frightening collection of militias, many of them led by neo–Nazi fanatics. ..."
"... These groups still present the threat of a massacre in the eastern provinces, as Putin reminded his audience. He spoke with notable ease of Russian assistance in those regions, suggesting this can end when they are capable of self-defense. ..."
Ukraine. Putin's remarks on the state of affairs in Ukraine are, of course, wholly at
odds with what Washington puts out on the subject. But they are not at odds with reality:
Washington is. As Putin calmly noted, the number-one obstacle to a settlement in Ukraine
is, as it has been for three years come next February, the profoundly corrupt government
installed in Kiev after the American-cultivated coup in 2014.
I say three years next February because it was then the settlement framework known as Minsk
II (for the city where it was negotiated and signed) was put in place.
Those terms remain Putin's point of reference. They appear to remain the European
Union's, too. Washington, which the Europeans and Russia excluded from the Minsk talks for the
wisest of reasons, does not seem to have a point of reference, busy as it is pretending there
is progress on the corruption front and that Kiev is not dependent on a frightening collection
of militias, many of them led by neo–Nazi fanatics.
These groups still present the threat of a massacre in the eastern provinces, as Putin
reminded his audience. He spoke with notable ease of Russian assistance in those regions,
suggesting this can end when they are capable of self-defense.
We would do well to understand where the force of inertia lies in Ukraine. This was Putin's
topic. A settlement in Ukraine remains possible via the framework fixed three years ago. Let us
not forget this. Moscow has not deviated from Minsk II -- another point worth noting. The
spoilers are in Kiev, and behind them are those in Washington, which continues to encourage the
irresponsible behavior of the Poroshenko government and other Ukrainian elites.
Are companies which produce it profitable or they survive by generating a parallel stream
of junk bonds and evergreen loans?
Most of them are also shale oil producers and might well depend on revenue from shale oil
to produce gas. Shale oil proved to unsustainable at prices below, say $65-$75 per barrel or
even higher, excluding few "sweet spots". Also a lot of liquids the shale well produce are
"subprime oil" that refiners shun.
They are not only much lighter but also they have fewer hydrocarbons necessary for
producing kerosene and diesel fuel. Mixing it with heavy oil proved to be double edged sword
and still inferior to "natural" oil. So right now the USA imports "quality" oil and sells its
own" subprime oil" at discount to refineries that are capable of dealing with such a mix.
Say, buying a barrel for $60 and selling a barrel of "subprime oil" at $30.
And without revenue from oil and liquids it can well be that natural gas production might
be uneconomical.
I wonder what percentage of the total US oil production now is subprime oil.
Modern multistage shale well now cost around $7-10 million. And that's only beginning as
its exploitation also costs money (fuel, maintenance, pumping back highly salinated and often
toxic water the well produces, etc). So neither oil nor gas from such wells can be very
cheap.
Generally such a well is highly productive only the first couple of years. After that you
need to drill more.
Also there is a damage to environment including such dangerous thing as pollution of
drinking water in the area,
From what I can tell, in Europe there was a policy of encouraging LNG terminals in order
to provide leverage against Russian supply. But there seems to have been a significant
slowdown in construction – quite simply, LNG is too expensive relative to Russian and
domestic (Norwegian, Dutch, UK, Mediteranean) supplies. It makes much more sense for Europe
to broaden out its pipeline network. So I think the only appetite for US LNG comes from the
more anti-Russian eastern European countries such as Poland, which hates dependency on
Russian gas.
Poland would suffer without revenue from pipelines that transport Russian natural gas to
Western Europe. That's why they adamantly oppose North Stream II.
Not as much as Ukraine, for which it might mean the economic collapse, but still.
"... By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and author, with extensive international work experience. Originally published at Wolf Street ..."
"... Exports to Mexico via pipeline have been rising for years as more pipelines have entered service and as Mexican power generators are switching from burning oil that could be sold in the global markets to burning cheap US natural gas. The US imports no natural gas from Mexico. ..."
"... This is just the Sabine Pass export terminal. In addition, there are five other LNG export terminals under construction, according to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), with a combined capacity of 7.5 Bcf/d. This brings total LNG export capacity to over 11 Bcf/d over the next few years and will make the US the third largest LNG exporter globally, behind Australia and Qatar. ..."
"... According to the Institute of Energy Research, global LNG demand is currently around 37 Bcf per day. This is expected to grow substantially as China is shifting part of its power generation capacity from coal to natural gas. And US LNG exports to China have surged from nothing two years ago to 25.6 billion cubic feet in October (for the month, not per day): ..."
"... US natural gas production has been booming since 2009 as fracking in prolific shale plays took off, and the price has collapsed – it currently is below $3 per million British thermal units (mmBtu) at the NYMEX, despite tthe majestic cold wave that is gripping a big part of the country. ..."
"... This caused some immense price differences between the US market -- where a gas "glut" crushed prices, pushing them from time to time even below $2/mmBtu -- and, for example, the Japanese LNG import market, with prices that were in the $16-$17/mmBtu range in 2013 and 2014. Even the average spot price contracted in November 2017, the most recent data made available by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry , was $9/mmBtu. US LNG exporters hope to arbitrage these price differentials. ..."
"... Meanwhile, US producers are hoping that this overseas demand will mop up the glut in the US and allow them to finally boost prices, including the prices LNG exporters pay. But funding continues pouring into the oil and gas sector to pump up production, and prices have remained low, and drillers continue to bleed. ..."
"... Poland may have one built but think about this – the Ukraine may be happy to pay for American coal which is twice as expensive as what they could buy from the Donbass regions but will Europe be happy to pay double or more for LNG from the US just to spite the Russians? ..."
By Wolf Richter, a San Francisco based executive, entrepreneur, start up specialist, and
author, with extensive international work experience. Originally published at
Wolf Street
Even China is Buying U.S. LNG
In 2017, the US became a net exporter of natural gas for the first time. It started small in
February, when the US exported 1 billion cubic feet more than it imported. By October, the last
month for which data from the Energy Department's EIA is available, net exports surged to 45
billion cubic feet. For the first 10 months of 2017, the US exported 86 billion cubic feet more
than it imported. And this is just the beginning.
Exports to Mexico via pipeline have been rising for years as more pipelines have entered
service and as Mexican power generators are switching from burning oil that could be sold in
the global markets to burning cheap US natural gas. The US imports no natural gas from
Mexico.
Imports from and exports to Canada have both declined since 2007, with the US continuing to
import more natural gas from Canada than it exports to Canada.
What is new is the surging export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) by sea to other parts of
the world.
This chart shows net imports (imports minus exports) of US natural gas. Negative "net
imports" (red) mean that the US exports more than it imports:
The first major LNG export terminal in the Lower 48 – Cheniere Energy's Sabine Pass
terminal in Cameron Parish, Louisiana – began commercial deliveries in early 2016 when
the liquefaction unit "Train 1" entered service. Trains 2 and 3 followed. The three trains have
a capacity of just over 2 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d). In October 2017, the company
announced that Train 4, with a capacity of 0.7 Bcf/d, was substantially completed and is likely
to begin commercial deliveries in March 2018. Train 5 is under construction and is expected to
be completed in August 2019. The company is now lining up contracts and financing for Train 6.
All six trains combined will have a capacity of 4.2 Bcf/d.
This is just the Sabine Pass export terminal. In addition, there are five other LNG export
terminals under construction, according to the
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), with a combined capacity of 7.5 Bcf/d. This brings
total LNG export capacity to over 11 Bcf/d over the next few years and will make the US the
third largest LNG exporter globally, behind Australia and Qatar.
In addition, there are several other export terminals that FERC has approved but
construction has not yet started. And other projects are in the works but have not yet been
approved.
According to the Institute of Energy Research, global LNG demand is currently around 37 Bcf
per day. This is expected to grow substantially as China is shifting part of its power
generation capacity from coal to natural gas. And US LNG exports to China have surged from
nothing two years ago to 25.6 billion cubic feet in October (for the month, not per day):
US natural gas production has been booming since 2009 as fracking in prolific shale plays
took off, and the price has collapsed – it currently is below $3 per million British
thermal units (mmBtu) at the NYMEX, despite tthe majestic cold wave that is gripping a big part
of the country.
Exporting large quantities of LNG is a momentous shift for the US because it connects
previously landlocked US production to the rest of the world. Unlike oil, the US natural gas
market has largely been isolated from global pricing.
This caused some immense price differences between the US market -- where a gas "glut"
crushed prices, pushing them from time to time even below $2/mmBtu -- and, for example, the
Japanese LNG import market, with prices that were in the $16-$17/mmBtu range in 2013 and 2014.
Even the average spot price contracted in November 2017, the most recent data made available by
the Ministry of
Economy, Trade and Industry , was $9/mmBtu. US LNG exporters hope to arbitrage these price
differentials.
Meanwhile, US producers are hoping that this overseas demand will mop up the glut in the US
and allow them to finally boost prices, including the prices LNG exporters pay. But funding
continues pouring into the oil and gas sector to pump up production, and prices have remained
low, and drillers continue to bleed.
And there are already global consequences – including in Europe, where large regions,
including Germany, increasingly depend on natural gas from Russia as production in Europe is
declining. The new competition from the US – though it really hasn't started in earnest
yet since most of US LNG goes to places other than Europe at the moment – is already
reverberating through the Europe-Russia natural gas trade.
The first major LNG export terminal in the Lower 48 began commercial deliveries in early
2016
Hmmm, is this a case of build it and they will come? Somebody has to sink the capital in
to build a fleet of LNG containers which will take a decade to come online. Somebody also has
the build the LNG terminals as well as the infrastructure to go along with it.
Poland may
have one built but think about this – the Ukraine may be happy to pay for American coal
which is twice as expensive as what they could buy from the Donbass regions but will Europe
be happy to pay double or more for LNG from the US just to spite the Russians?
Consider this as well. That LNG terminal is in Louisiana. Which is in the Gulf. Which has all
those annual hurricanes. Which is getting worse through climate change. Would the Europeans
want to risk depending on American deliveries under these conditions? I will reword that.
Will the Europeans want to risk their economies over this? Last year they shut down the place
for a month for repairs. What if Hurricane Harvey had slammed into the place. How will the
Europeans be able to trust that a future Trump doesn't shut down LNG deliveries in winter
time to get them to commit to some American policy? Too many variables with no net gain and
all loss – on their part.
"... Well so far I have to say that 2018 is starting off nicely. The Pakistanis are totally pissed off with Trump. The Iranians have now shown the real Grass Roots by their massive demonstrations against the violence of the color revolutionaries - this is the grass roots discussed by Mazaheri in karlof1's link @36. And the UN has dismissed the US attempt to convene a Security Council emergency session over Iran. ..."
"... What's next for the US? Financial terrorism? Go on, do it. Push the multi-polar world into the Yuan as currency of choice, and gold as the hedge of choice, with the Russian alternative to SWIFT as the clearing system of choice. ..."
"... Wonderful. It looks like the 'Streisand effect' is kicking in. While NPR is continuing to spread misinformation, I hope the same effect will make listeners that still trust this propaganda outlet drop this pathetic CIA tool. ..."
"... There's a struggle going on within the country between various factions of the ruling class. The Mashhad protests were initiated by opponents of Rouhani (Raisi's father in law). This struggle is in large part connected to the issue of succession of the Supreme Leader (rumours have been spread about Khameini's health, possibly by foreign forces or other actors with a stake in the system). ..."
"... "To sum it up, this is a plot against the moderates by two unlikely allies, in DC and in Mashhad. Rouhani would either be completely defeated as a capable leader, or he'd manage to manipulate the force of the threat against its instigators, like a jujitsu master." ..."
"One commentator at least clarified the issue by writing:
Most of the pictures in this article are pictures of pro-government rallies.
The handful of pictures of the anti-government "protests" have been circulated over and
over in the Western Media in the last few days to push an agenda.
Give it a rest Western Media! these anti-government protests are small and unpopular even
by the people who want change in Iran.
They couldn't have come at a worse time (trump is just looking for any excuse to nix the
Nuclear Deal), and serve no purpose than to destabilize the country at the moment which is
not good for anyone with any political view living in Iran."
Haaretz published an article with a similar claim:
Analysis What Israeli Intel Really Thinks About the Iran Protests
Tens of thousands of Iranians breached barriers of fear and have taken to the streets, but
the regime hasn't yet responded in full force
The telegraph published an article with the opposite 'Tens of thousands in Iran take to
streets in pro-government protests'
Ditto The Express: Iran news: Tens of thousands take to the streets in SUPPORT of regime
in latest protests
Iranians profoundly detest violence. These demonstrations turning violent and manipulated by
Nikki, Bibi and her likes will create more cohesion against the USA and will allow Rohani to
stand firmer in front of Trump's threats.
Obviously the USA and Israel do not realize how hated they are and how any move they make
only re-inforce that hatred.
Go on Nikki and Bibi stir the pot! The burning oil will get into your face!
Folks who come to Moon of Alabama tend to be much more informative. And the site (MoA) and
the content posted here is reflective of this. I bounce around a few sites to get my true
news and MoA is one. What I would like is to have all you good and informed people to visit a
few more sites that are similar.
I have been reading MoA for about 5 years but rarely posted since its more a church of the
believers and I'm one. I'm also a fan of Zero Hedge and Tom Feeley's Information clearing
house. Another good site is the 'Sakers' and some more.
The reason I mention this is that we need to make our presence felt more by posting
comments.
For 9 years I was a comment moderator and I know how this free for all makes the wind blow.
We all should try to prevent war mongers, racists, and societies built on pillage of the weak
from controlling the narrative.
Since this is a site that I love and the comments are usually what I agree with, I forgot to
emphasize in my previous post, that it's in our interest to post comments on all the sites we
visit. Duh! Stating the obvious but do it .
#IRGC chief: Sepah forces only had limited presence and were deployed in Isfahan, Hamedan
& Lorestan provinces after latest riots.
The biggest gathering was held with only 1500 people and
in total no more than 15,000 people joined riots at their peaks.
---
The total number of 15,000 total protesters/rioters which the IRGC chief gives sounds
reasonable to me. All videos I watched showed only a few dozen during riots and a few hundred
during protest marches. Tiny when one knows that Iran has 80 million people. The G20 protests last year in Hamburg were way bigger (and the rioting smaller).
The funny thing is that even if the demonstrations completely fade, the FOX news crowd
will still hail this as a victory for Trump's new approach.
Perception vs. reality list:
1. Obama missed a chance to change the Iranian regime by being quiet during protest.
Trump did the exact opposite and the result ???, FOX hails non-accomplishment.
2. Bill Clinton appeases N. Korea; obtaining an 8yr freeze on their Plutonium
production.
Trump threatens N. Korea continuously as they develop a two stage miniaturized, thermonuclear
weapon and an ICBM within 1yr.
Sean Hannity is ecstatic with Trump's handling of situation; no more appeasement.
3. Obama has ineffective air campaign against ISIS (I'll grant that one).
Trump takes off the gloves and gives the Generals full license in Afghanistan, they drop MOAB
on ISIS, MSM has collective orgasm for weeks, war over, or maybe not, ISIS presence grows in
Afghanistan.
Regarding other websites, which websites have you written off as hopeless where it is
impossible to even post a contrary opinion?
1. Newsmax - totally unbearable.
2. Politico - forgettaboutit.
3. HuffPo - used to be okay until they became Russophobic Maximus.
Oddly enough, National Review, facebook section stream is bearable. The
people there are at least civil, perhaps posting under your own name contributes to that.
They might ignore you but tend not to insult.
Well so far I have to say that 2018 is starting off nicely. The Pakistanis are totally pissed
off with Trump. The Iranians have now shown the real Grass Roots by their massive
demonstrations against the violence of the color revolutionaries - this is the grass roots
discussed by Mazaheri in karlof1's link @36. And the UN has dismissed the US attempt to
convene a Security Council emergency session over Iran.
It's all over except the empty words and false images. And it never had much substance to
begin with. A few provocateurs, relative to the numbers of the real people.
THIS is the strength of the US today? And Israel? And Saudi Arabia? And France?
Now I look forward to the forensic analysis. Oh, for a smoking gun.
What's next for the US? Financial terrorism? Go on, do it. Push the multi-polar world into
the Yuan as currency of choice, and gold as the hedge of choice, with the Russian alternative
to SWIFT as the clearing system of choice.
Wonderful. It looks like the 'Streisand effect' is kicking in. While NPR is continuing to
spread misinformation, I hope the same effect will make listeners that still trust this
propaganda outlet drop this pathetic CIA tool.
Who would have thought that Faux news will essentially become the propaganda office for
Agent Orange?
There's a struggle going on within the country between various factions of the ruling
class. The Mashhad protests were initiated by opponents of Rouhani (Raisi's father in law).
This struggle is in large part connected to the issue of succession of the Supreme Leader
(rumours have been spread about Khameini's health, possibly by foreign forces or other actors
with a stake in the system).
According to Hossein Derakhshan Rouhani may wish to succeed
Khameini and Ali Larijiani who is speaker of parliament and who Rouhani has worked closely
with to implement the nuclear deal may wish to become the next president. But the hardliners
are obviously opposed to this. And obviously foreign powers and agents are trying to take
advantage of the situation. Derakshan writes:
"To sum it up, this is a plot against the moderates by two unlikely allies, in DC and in
Mashhad. Rouhani would either be completely defeated as a capable leader, or he'd manage to
manipulate the force of the threat against its instigators, like a jujitsu master."
Elsewhere on his twitter page, an IRGC commander is quoted as saying "a formal official
who nowadays uses language opposing principles and values of the Islamic Republic" is under
investigation for involvement in the protests." This suggests that former president
Ahmadinejad is being implicated
M.K. Bahadrakumar over at Indian Punchline writes insightfully about this issue.
"The current unrest is doomed to fizzle out. The absence of middle class (which is in the
vanguard of all revolutions in history) guarantees it. Again, the lack of leadership among
protestors would mean that "fatigue" would set in sooner or later. The wretched of the earth
do not have the luxury to protest till eternity instead of eking out their daily livelihood
to keep body and soul together."
Not to worry, Trump will write some more inspiring tweets reminding the Iranians that they
are on the travel ban because they are all terrorists and that we have renamed that famous
body of water, the 'Arab Gulf' , the Iranians love that.
Trump can follow that up with more sanctions, freezing assets, and strong arming the EU
into cancelling whatever civilian projects on in the queue, we could even stiff them on the
Boeing deal, anything to show our solidarity with the Iranian people.
They put all options on the table, from velvet revolution, military coup to full scale
invasion and so on.
170 pages of "crazy" stuff. There are some serious sociopaths running around ...
Anybody here able to give more details about how the Rohani camp leaked/published details
about the real payments to religious institutions etc.? If publishing it was first no wonder
that the other side took that as an attack on the fundaments of their power.
Thank you! Doesn't this mean that Rohani started the fight. I do not believe that he is so
naive not to realize what most likely would happen. As of now it seems to work. Wrong?
Thanks to ninel . . . Ludicrous to describe such a commenter as a troll
There's good reason to believe that he is a troll - just a well informed one.
Firstly, readers of MOA are already aware of economic and civil right problems in places
like Russia, Iran, and China. But we also know that USA and it's allies have taken advantage
of these to push regime change. Such action undermines those who seek positive change and
lead instead to turmoil and war. The lesson (still unlearned) is that those who would lead
the world must act morally.
One hallmark of trolls is the focus one a single issue or cause. ninel is very loquacious
and claims to be a reader of MoA for years but shows up only now as USA-Israel-KSA push hard
to turn small protests (as described by b @106) into something more.
In addition, there are other clues:
>> his non responsiveness to valid criticism;
>> his urging us to prioritize anti-Iranian regime over all else and his
associated stories of suffering - as though there is no suffering anywhere else;
>> his evident use of second handle (ArioBarzan);t
>> his pushing hard on the story of Neda only to dismiss her later as
insignificant when JS describes the real story, saying "As for poor Neda, she is only
one casualty." (@145 in 'Iran - Early U.S Support For Rioters Hints At A Larger
Plan');
>> his attempt to make it personal -if you don't see it his way - he considers you
to be against the Iranian people.
You mean for Rohani? Not really, as the US has been siding with the protests of his
opponents, puts pressure on Europe, and his middle class base depends on him getting Iran out
of isolation. I guess, he could not avoid the fight.
As I understand Iran's clerical system, Khamenei is checked by the clerical establishment
whose power in the end depends on their respective followers who chose their leaders.
Plus the military establishment involved in economic enterprise probably have a life of
their own.
Iranian clerics are highly literate . They know
that they need the buy in of the youth.
If these demonstrations convinced them that young people under 25 cannot be coopted by
personal freedom but need economic security, and there is no way of economic agreement
with the west, Rouhani's attempts at neoliberal reforms designed to open the country for
western investment are doomed.
Not that I know anything, really. Just reading stuff and applying logic.
It seems to have worked for Iranian security services who let this run to arrest some 1000
people according to reports, plus probably the existing inside network of Iranian royalists
and MEK.
Unusual characteristics of #IranProtests:
No widespread calls in advance
Lack of specific root/demand
Lack of reformers' support
Reaches Tehran from smaller cities
Less violent reax by security forces
High number of deaths in a short time
No comments from the victims' families
@121 jackrabbit.. i basically agree with you.. thanks for saying all that.
@122 somebody.. here is my quick take on iran's situation.. on the one hand the
usa-israel-ksa want to isolate and make war on them while claiming they are a terrorist state
- the opposite to me seems the case), while iran itself struggles to be in the everyday
internet world that has become standard thinking in the west.. whether iran wants to open
itself up to neo-liberal, corporate agenda world or not is only a part of it.. the other part
is the religious rule that seems to dictate a particular code of behaviour, although no where
near as bad was what the usa and west happily accept with saudi arabia.. so, dealing with
these double standards, while under threat is a challenge and makes the west appear very
hypocritical, especially at this moment in time.
at some point khamenei is going to have to pass the baton to someone else.. they need to
have the support of the youth, as someone else mentioned here... if the religious leadership
of iran is anything like the corruption that we know takes place in the vatican - they could
hang in their for a long time and keep what they have going.. i can see iran being accepted
into the community, however if the west continues to have control over the financial system
that is ruling things at present, it is going to remain a challenge. perhaps after saudi
arabia bites the dust and the usa is in full acknowledgement of a multi polar world, it will
be different.. that seems like a good 10 to 100 years out from here. in the meantime i
suspect the west will come up with some shitty reason to make war on iran, while life for
iran will remain a challenge.. i would like to see iran succeed.. russia and china can help
and i think they probably are.. too bad the usa is such a shitty actor on the world stage at
this point.
Somebody @ 122, 123,124: Thanks for the information on Khamenei and the updates. From what
you cite from Reza Derakhshi's Twitter account @ 124, the number of dead looks to be
exaggerated, perhaps deliberately so.
A somewhat OT addition to @122 somebody.
The "unusual" part is the suddeness of the "protests" at the beginning and the lack of any
build-up of momentum so far. Even the US and others seemed to think that it would fail - so
why do it ? ( I am assuming that there is a definite "foreign" influence)
It has been an excellent distraction from the personal troubles of Netanyahu, MbS and
Trump/Mueller/Clinton . It has had the secondary effect of "questioning" publicly the
Iranian Governement/society. (Note I said Clinton rather than Trump - deliberately, as it is
she that was about to be exposed - I am NOT going to discuss why on this thread, much too far
OT for the moment).
However, the sudden protests during christmas, seem more a desperate attempt by the
"weevil" three (US-Israel-Saudi) to change the course of MSM revelations from their own
internal problems by using an external "threat" or pole of interest.
Mmmmm... still, I have learnt a lot about Iran on MoA recently. Thanks all.
"... We have the memes with women without hijab, we have all the usual tired guff about freedom and democracy. As if Iraq Syria and Lybia and Ukraine disasters never happened ..."
"... One astounding aspect of this "color revolution" is its banal and repetitive nature. The tactics used by the rent-a-mob protesters of hijacking and exploiting legitimate protests as cover to attack and kill police, and burn cars and buildings are the same as those carried out in Dar'aa in Syria in 2011 that led to the war there, and in Kiev in 2014 that led to the overthrow of the Yanukovych government. Not surprisingly, John McCain supported those events and visited the people involved on a number of occasions. ..."
Iran - Few Protests - Some Riots - U.S. Prepares The Next Phase
Updated below:
---
The riots and protests in Iran continue for a 6th day. While "western" media
claim that the protests are growing I see no evidence for that in the various videos that
appear online. The legitimate protests over price rises, failing private banks and against the
new neoliberal
austerity budget of President Rohani
were hijacked early on by rioting gangs. These are obviously coordinated from the outside
of the country
through various internet applications, especially Telegram and Instagram
:
Amad News, a channel on Telegram, appears to have played a pivotal role in the wave of
protests. Reportedly administered by exiled journalist Rohollah Zam -- a son of a senior
Reformist cleric said to have escaped the country after being accused of having links with
foreign intelligence agencies ...
Blocking the specific control channels proved to be insufficient
:
Special software used to circumvent the government filters could still be downloaded easily.
And on Monday, as on other days, there were calls for protests online and on foreign-based
Persian-language satellite channels.
The blockage of the internet applications was lifted today.
The original protests over economic issues seem to have died down after President Rouhani
confirmed the right to protest, conceded economic problems and promised to take them on. Indeed
there are only few new videos of genuine protest marches but an avalanche of videos of rioting,
arson and tussling with police forces. The size of the protests are in a few hundred people
or less .
Counter
demonstrations , expressing loyalty for the republic (not noted in "western" media), are
bigger in size than the anti-government protests. Since December 28 protests and riots have
occurred in a total of 66
cities by now, but only about 30 have been taking place each night. This might point to some
planning behind the events. A daily switching of venues might be intended to prevent police
preparations.
The groups of rioters are between 30 and 80 people in size with a some bystanders milling
around. They seem to follow a flash mob strategy appearing here and there and to vanish again
when police appears in force. In some cities rioters attacked police stations ,
military
posts and were even stealing firetrucks . Some of
the rioters are evidently trying to get their hands on weapons.
Altogether only a few thousand people, overwhelmingly male youth, seem to be involved.
Thousands
protest in Israel each week against the corruption of Prime Minister Netanyahoo. On
New-Years-Eve more
than 1,000 cars in France were set alight by arsonists. None of this is front page news but
a few dozen riots in Iran get elevated to a "revolution".
The total death toll of the "peaceful protests" is now
some 21 of which (by my count) at least five were policemen killed in attacks by
"protesters" and two unrelated civilians who were run over and
killed by rioters driving a stolen firetruck. Six rioters were killed when they tried to attack
a police station in the town of Qahderijan. The governor there claimed that the attackers were
armed with guns.
The same faking of pictures of large demonstrations and "evidence" of government brutality
that we have seen with regard to the war on Syria is taking place with Iran. Videos of
demonstrations from Argentine and Bahrain are
used to claim large demonstrations in Iran. A tweet with the Bahrain video by a
"journalist" who claimed it was in Iran has received more than 17,000 re-tweets. Videos
from
Spain or even movie scenes are purported to
show police violence in Iran. A video of a man lying on his back and being cared for is once
claimed to show that he has been shot by police while at the same
time another propagandists claims that the man had a
cardiac arrest after police used a taser on him. There are no signs of wounds or other trauma.
The dude probably just passed out.
The terrorist group MEK (NCRI, MKO) "
leaked " fake protocols of an alleged government meeting which it claims shows panic over
the protests. Allegedly the government fears the leader of the MEK, Marjam Rajavi. The MEK has
paid large sums to get support from politicians, including John McCain in Washington and elsewhere. During the
Iraq-Iran war it fought against Iran on the side of Iraq. After the U.S. invaded Iraq the MEK
was held in special camps under U.S. control. According to a 2012 Seymour Hersh report the
U.S.
military trained MEK fighters in the U.S. in sabotage and insurgency technics. These people
are deeply hated in Iran but feared they are not. Their early engagement in the "protests" via
their website and propaganda ops in Iran may point to deeper
role in the riots.
The usual neoconservatives in the U.S. media are arguing for "more help" for the "Iranian
people". The help they want to offer is designed to worsen their economic situation.
I
earlier argued that the larger plan of the instigators of these riots is not aimed at
winning a violent "regime change" conflict, but at causing a reaction by the Iranian government
which can then be used to press especially Europeans to again isolate Iran. This plan is now
confirmed by an op-ed in the Washington Post . Michael Singh of the Zionist lobby in
Washington
writes :
If the regime resorts to violence anyway, the international response should focus on
diplomatic isolation. European and Asian states should reduce their diplomatic ties with Iran
and downgrade Iran's participation in international forums. Sanctions may also have a role
...
Unsurprisingly the neoconned WaPo editors are
fully in sync with the lobby:
European leaders, who have been far more cautious, should speak up. ... On Sunday [President
Rohani of Iran] recognized that the demonstrators had legitimate grievances and nominally
accepted their right to protest. The Trump administration and other Western governments
should aim to hold him to those words through diplomacy and the threat of sanctions in the
event of more bloodshed.
The rioting at the current level is in no way endangering the Iranian republic. Should some
rioters acquire weapons the intensity might change a bit. But unless they receive material and
personal support from the outside, like it happened in Syria, the situation will soon calm
down. The people of Iran are against such violence and the government has yet to use its
manifold capabilities.
I had documented in
earlier
posts that the Trump administration, in tight co-operations with Israel, long prepared for
an intensification of a conflict with Iran. Half a year ago the CIA set up a special office
with a high level Iran hawk leading the charge. Last month Trump
named another Iran hawk to lead the State Department Middle East section.
Since the Iranian people successfully achieved "regime change" in 1979 the U.S. and Britain
have had an adversarial policy against Iran. It has ebbed and flowed in intensity but never
changed. Under Trump we will see a rapid increase of hostile actions. The administration just
called for a
UN emergency session about the situation. That is a laughable move when one considers the size
of daily murder the U.S. and its allies commit in Yemen, Syria and Palestine. But the operation
that unfolds now is likely just a small part of a larger anti-Iran strategy that has yet to
become visible.
Update (Jan 3, 01:00am EST)
I just checked various internet resources for two hours to find new videos of protests/riots
of January 2 to 3. There were just a handful and none of them was remarkable. Some short clips
of loud screaming of small crowds and light bashing with riot police. The protests and riots
are obviously dying down.
With Yemen under reported and daily deaths of women and children - they want a UN meeting
about Iran?
They are playing there regime change hand in a very heavy way.
Netanyahu made a speech, Trump, Hillary, McCain - IRan just needs to put these people on
TV and let them broad cast to the nation!!
Social media also is being used to manipulate the uniformed - many of the many American
alt/right commentators are in the vanguard of this anti Iran social media campaign.
We have the memes with women without hijab, we have all the usual tired guff about freedom
and democracy. As if Iraq Syria and Lybia and Ukraine disasters never happened
One astounding aspect of this "color revolution" is its banal and repetitive nature. The
tactics used by the rent-a-mob protesters of hijacking and exploiting legitimate protests as
cover to attack and kill police, and burn cars and buildings are the same as those carried
out in Dar'aa in Syria in 2011 that led to the war there, and in Kiev in 2014 that led to the
overthrow of the Yanukovych government. Not surprisingly, John McCain supported those events
and visited the people involved on a number of occasions.
The sloppiness of the reporting is amazing as well. It's as if the MSM simply doesn't care
any more that astute members of the public can see that material from past news reports or
even movies is being used as "evidence" of supposed genuine protest or police repression.
The most worrying thing all these "cplor revolution" activities, wherever they occur,
point to is how deeply insulated from the real world The Powers That (Should Not) Be are.
thanks b.. the western propaganda version of the syrian white helmets continues on with the
latest dispatches from iran.. the usa-uk and some others are in no position to speak with any
authenticity in any of it.. i like what you said here because it highlights the selectivity
of the western press :
"Thousands protest in Israel each week against the corruption of Prime Minister
Netanyahoo. On New-Years-Eve more than 1,000 cars in France were set alight by arsonists.
None of this is front page news but a few dozen riots in Iran get elevated to a
"revolution"."
it explains the role western msm is willing to play in accommodating this ongoing
anti-iran agenda..
I'll put a few dollars on US air or missile strikes on Iran for 2018. Until now, Trump admin
attacks on Iran have been verbal. Looks like whatever they have been cooking up for the past
eleven months has now been set in motion.
b, exactly--"But the operation that unfolds now is likely just a small part of a larger
anti-Iran strategy that has yet to become visible."
The CIA, US Military, UK and Israel have many operations ongoing against Iran.
This is a long-shot, these protests.
What is more likely is a 'civil war', like Syria, with 'moderates' armed and a flow of
terrorists from Afghanistan into the East (where much of this uprising has occurred.)
The template is for a destabilizing of Iran and a nice four-six year war on the eastern
front would be likely.
The airport at Herat is a base of operations for ISFA/NATO. The CENTCOM war of choice has
been Afghanistan because everyone knows it is un-winnable, but "must" be fought. It creates
huge issues for China and now Pakistan, too. So, using it to direct arms and trainers against
Iran is predictable and relatively easy, logistically.
The Shia Crescent will be pounded at both ends--Lebanon-Syria and Iran's eastern
region.
I think it would be useful to analyze which news agencies, internet companies, browser
providers and search engine providers are actively involved in the disinformation campaigns
..
are users dealing only with media providers, or does the disinformation involve the
information transport technology providers as well?
If so that suggest this is a corporate war, not a nation state war?
Classification of information tampering by type:
information blocking campaign
disinformation promoting campaign
and assigning to each type the parties..
might produce some real useful data?
Nodes at nation state boundaries are either transparent or filtered.
Tracking nation state behaviors at these boundaries by media provider.
One instance of disinformation came to light in discussions over the weekend where in one
country.. the same provider delivered three very different messages that covered the same
event from the same media source.. one party said the client side browsers had key directives
which determined which of the media stories about the same event to allow into the browswer..
So the webservers answering the get request would or could differentiate between users and
decide which content a particular user is allowed to have. I have not been able to confirm
this yet.
I think it is not the event, where ever the event takes place but what the viewer is
informed about the event that counts..
Seems the disinformation filter system capable to advise different folks differently about
the same events. HUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!
Explains maybe why when Iran had its Earthquake a few weeks back, the same news agency said
the quake happened in three different Iranian towns, but it turned out the origin of the
quake was in a Iraq town.
I am not sure the reporting variance is sloppy.. more I would say deceptive.
The US has called a UNSC meeting. Watch Russia throw Iran under the bus at the UNSC, as it
has done before and as it not long ago did to North Korea. Russia is a two faced vassal state
to the hegemon. But go ahead and prove me wrong Vlad.
I haven't followed all the discussion so far, as I've been away for Xmas.
As the demonstrations are in the provinces, it means something much more serious than the
2009 demonstrations in Tehran. If it were US running it, this route would not have been
chosen, indeed impossible, although they want to profit from opportunities.
The obvious reason is that the US failed to carry out its side of the nuclear agreement,
and did not lift sanctions. So the economic recovery promised did not occur. And Iranians are
understandably unhappy that what they expected did not happen. Disappointment of expectation
is what led to revolt.
I want to repeat one of your statements for emphasis
"
Altogether only a few thousand people, overwhelmingly male youth, seem to be involved.
Thousands protest in Israel each week against the corruption of Prime Minister Netanyahoo. On
New-Years-Eve more than 1,000 cars in France were set alight by arsonists. None of this is
front page news but a few dozen riots in Iran get elevated to a "revolution".
"
This is the issue that needs to be brought up in the UN meeting.
While I'm equally disgusted by Russia's and China's imposing genocidal sanctions on North
Korea, there are very good reasons to expect they won't have the same attitude toward Iran in
the coming meeting of the UNSC.
1. Iran is not in violation of Security Council resolutions the way North Korea is with
its nuclear and ballistic missile tests. On the contrary, US hostility and aggression toward
Iran is in the context of perfect alignment with the JCPOA on the part of Iran while the
United States grabs every opportunity to renege on its obligations.
2. Russia and China have massive geopolitical, energy and economic interests in Iran and
deep, active strategic partnership with Iran, unlike the case of North Korea. Russian/Chinese
investments run in the tens of billions of dollars, including in oil/gas extraction,
pipelines and nuclear energy, and Iran is an essential node in the Belt and Road
Initiative.
3. The current protests follow the exact same color revolution script successfully used in
the Ukraine, Georgia, Libya, Syria etc., along with similar and inspired opposition protests
in Russia and Hong Kong. Russia and China would destroy any credibility with regard to past
and potential future events in Ukraine and Hong Kong if they follow the US line on Iran in
the UNSC, and encourage the usage of the same tactics eventually in Russia and China
themselves.
On a side note, does anyone know whether this UNSC meeting is now actually a given because
of the US request, and if so when it is likely to be held?
As I've said before, if these western-sponsored (apparently) riots turn the Rouhani
government less neoliberal it could end up all to the better for the people of Iran. The
bloviating of the US and Israel will be hard to listen to but as long as it's just words Iran
can take it.
As I've said before, if these western-sponsored (apparently) riots turn the Rouhani
government less neoliberal it could end up all to the better for the people of Iran.
Oh yeah. They're calling for the return of the Shah, = absolute dictator.
Some speculation: why economic discontent in Iran now?
Based on very few data points, I think that Iran may experience some "prosperity
symptoms": during severe sanctions, Iran developed import substitution industries as foreign
currency was scarce and rationed, and various industries were relatively well distributed
over the territory of Iran. With more oil revenue imports are easier. On one hand, government
may afford more for services like schools and healthcare, perhaps some social spending,
priming the demand side of the economy, on the other, many parts of import substitution
sector may experience drop in profits and even outright unprofitability, hence factories that
do not pay workers.
If this is the case, the government has the resources to placate the working class
protesters, and security apparatus will take care of the remainder. Hypersalivation in USA
and Israel will energize "the base". However, there is a gap between having resources and
using them, because importing and import-substitution sectors have interests that may be hard
to reconcile.
Some speculation: why economic discontent in Iran now?
It's obvious, isn't it? The US agreed to lift sanctions in exchange for the
nuclear agreement, but they didn't do what they agreed. Not surprising that the Iranians are
unhappy.
i have met many iranian who where very happy and prosperous under the original 1913 anglo
persian oil agreement contracts the shah indeed was along with menechem begin and golda meir
one of the greats.
why not indeed help the innocents b free let domocracy prevails?
bp uk, dutch shell, france chevron and exxon really mobile good all help to stabilise iran
supplies once persia is brookings and chatham house converted into libya 2.
please do not underestimate the value of open air slave trading.
with the closing off of the live human organ traffic flows from syria to turkey then onto tel
aviv then haiti new markets need to be opened.
the simple fact was yemen and syria iraqi had way to much history.
iranian persia has to be year zero for the new bbc simon scharma ashkanazi revised history of
the middle and near easts.
oded yinon moves on
history must be dustified for the official chabad kosher seal
A true is that the Gov. of both countries are bitter enemies from geo-political reasons as
well as the historical one. However, when one look at economic policy of the Iranian Gov.
he/she can see identical set of austerity measures, i.e. the same oppressive economic
policies that benefit only and Just only ruling elites of both countries.
a simple central bank
tired to the nazi swiss bank of international settling munts
compensation to the uk,usa and israel for the breach of contracts relating to anglo persian
oil companies stolen oil and gas supplies over countless decades.
a gold ingot return aggreement
kinder transport style epic journey return of the gold from tehran to bis where it can be
placed into bonded very safe uk,israel usa accounts for safe keeping.
during times of instability is it not better that chosen professionals look after vitals
such treasure
Russia and China have not imposed genocide sanctions on NKR. NKR is well prepared. They can
survive for a year or two in their stockpiles. The effect therefore of the current sanctions
are in large part some distance into the future. China and Russia feeding a bit of blood to
the vampire US whilst at the same time punching out gazillions of garlic spiked silver arrows
seems like a reasonable economy to me. In effect Russia and China have agreed to meet the US
on the field of battle about the time these sanctions actually do/would take devastating
effect. They have said...ok have your year or so of tantrums...suck on that.
Based on a simple formula that is always used without fail, every act of munificence on US
part assumes a major concession. Europe did not get a spine in Iran's case, as Obama gave a
wink and a nod to his fellow globalist-Zionist oligarchy, to "pressure" US to sign a nuclear
deal. The deal was cut with Rouhani, a known "reformer", who was to introduce neoliberal
economy, and let US and Europe in. Did not happen. Instead, in response to the growing
anti-Shia Saudi cult ISIS and others, Iran opted to support Iraq and Syria. US not happy.
Rouhani not happy. Iran firmly tied now to Russia for defence and China for the long range
development. US not happy to the extreme. We were thus toooo generous, so all the promises
are off, one more Indian treaty. Like the Clinton one with North Korea.
So, do not count on Europe keeping its spine, as the ruling oligarchy/media scribes are
the same. Slowly, "reluctantly" they will have to "pressure" Iran on human rights, etc. etc.
Deal will be off. When it comes to US, the economic losses for us are potential great. Who
knows what is happening to Boeing sales, etc. But this is peanuts compared to the salivating
of Zionist crowd -- being able to get their Iranian agenda back on track!
But I need to think some of this through. It is getting murky out there. Why is South
Korea running to Moscow, and declaring Russia a reliable negotiating partner. Why are both
Russia and China ignoring many sanctions on North Korea? Why is Erdogan running to Riyadh,
and then announcing the deal with Sudan on restoring an old port city, abandoned after Port
Sudan was built. And using the port for military base. So close to Saudi city of Jeddah,
across the hot Red Sea pond. Presumably, Saudis are unhappy. Presumably Egypt is unhappy.
Presumably they -- like all inferior beings, in our view of the world -- do not talk to each
other. So, many inconsistencies are afoot, many confusing and contradicting moves -- what
does it all mean? For one, it may mean that US practices are linear and predictable, while
the Asian and Mid East regions are opaque.
And Turkey becoming dependent on Russian air defence, nuclear energy, and oil and gas
pipelines, as well as Chinese infrastructure, both physical and internet -- will not make
moves without consulting them both. So, what is afoot? We do not know. But we do know that
following Egypt's intervention, Qatar "conditions" were redefined as "principles, while the
trade, and air traffic has increased from Qatar to Iran and Turkey. Given that Iraq has over
60% Shia population, Kuwait, 40%, Bahrain 80%, with large populations in Syria, Lebanon, and
even Turkey. Almost entire North Yemen, is Shia. And the somewhat different religion of Oman,
I would say, Oman is not too keen on letting Saudi Arabia spread Sunni caliphates. And given
how US occasionally berates the new Crown Prince, while heaping regular abuse on his father,
the King, I would say something is not quite kosher in this bromance. China opened a base in
Djibouti. Egypt and Russia working on Libya mess. Pakistan put US on notice that it will
shoot down any US flying object, as the days of drone attacks on Pakistan are over.
So, linear vs. opaque. I do not think we see or understand many other events, as they are
not getting much coverage. We need to assume some asymmetrical events coming.
Legit peaceful protests enjoined by violent rioters. We've heard this story before but I
doubt the US will pull a fake no-fly on Iran the way Hillary/Obama did for Libya. Supporting
the terrorists like the US did in Syria is probable and may be going on now. Good of you to
point this out, b.
And in the list of articles Google News threw up was one that suggested Iran's govt is
"teetering" on collapse. Doubtful. The govt/regime has too much power and support to collapse
anytime soon.
As I understand it Rouhani tried to cut subsidies or convert subsidies to charity for the
poor. That would endanger the subsistence of a lot of people and be reason enough to
demonstrate. It is also the type of neoliberal remedy investors love. On top of that Rouhani
seems to have started an anti-corruption drive against his political enemies which usually
creates trouble.
Iran also closed the border to Iraqi Kurdistan which interrupted all kinds of business
transactions there. They have reopened the border in the last few days.
Iran needs neither US nor European investment as
China has most of the money to spend , Trump is basically forcing Iran into economic
dependence from China. He attacked Pakistan by tweet as well, so part of this marks the US
losing Iran and Pakistan to China. How NATO can remain in Afghanistan or Iraq after this is
anybody's guess. General Mattis might have a say in this.
In the end this "regime change light" might prove how impotent the US/Britain/Saudi have
become to influence developments.
SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iranian hackers have compromised more than a dozen
accounts on the Telegram instant messaging service and identified the phone numbers of 15
million Iranian users, the largest known breach of the encrypted communications system,
cyber researchers told Reuters.
I've yet to see anyone reference Ramin Mazaheri's excellent article written for The Saker
blog. Fortunately, it's been mostly republished
here so I can link it directly. Being an Iranian journalist posted to Paris, he provides
a greatly needed balance to the many lies of Big Lie Media and educates those willing to read
about the nature of Iran. I wanted to provide an excerpt, but the essay's structure makes
that difficult, so I'll just leave this:
'A final point: Why are democratic protests for policy reform a "sign of a vibrant and
healthy democracy" when they occur in the West but "an indicator people want to bring down
the system" whenever they occur in non-Western countries? Ultimately, these protests will be
heeded and, like all genuine protests, will make Iranian democracy stronger and the country
better.'
About time for the snipers on the rooftops to show up. Then, it's on for real. With both
sides taking causalities, and the Govt. getting the blame. Then, we'll see the position
Russia takes.
@37 indeed, " watch for snipers ", but I dont think it will happen this time, Iranians are
smart and the IRGC and Basij are on the watch no doubt. Rouhani will address some issues and
while the internal struggle between hardliners and reformists for Khameini´s
replacement will go on, this will hopefully fizzle out soon..
Laguerre @ 27: I asked only because the news I have seen so far here at MoA and at The Duran
is that the protesters were complaining about the increase in the prices of eggs and poultry.
Some time ago there had been a bird flu epidemic in Iran which has affected the supply of
chickens and eggs. It would seem very peculiar for ordinary people outside the main cities to
demonstrate against continuing US sanctions against Iran due to Iran's continued nuclear
energy program.
If demonstrations are taking place outside Tehran at the same time, that fact in itself
could still be evidence of US infiltration. Mashhad in Iran's northeast is a large city (the
second largest) and close to Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. Borders could be quite porous for
all we know.
There are many Western tourists visiting Iran now and the major tourist trails are in the
south-central (Yazd, Isfahan, Shiraz) and south-west (Choqa Zanbil) parts of the country.
Urban populations in these areas could have elements antagonistic towards the national
government. Baha'i followers in particular would be hostile towards the government as theirs
is a much persecuted religion. Sections of the US government would be aware of and targeting
these groups because historically in most cultures, minority groups (and persecuted minority
groups) are focii for social and political change. Plus such groups have diaspora populations
in the US and beyond and communications among the homeland and the diaspora most certainly
would be monitored closely by US intel agencies.
The interesting thing is that this time violence is not the issue. The EU calls for "all
sides to refrain from violence". Trump threatens that "the US is watching".
Iran has been fighting PJAK, Jundullah and MEK for quite a while. It is unlikely there
will be any surprises.
To demonstrate how informed Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch is, the Angry Arab tweeted this . Rephrasing
the Angry Arab, I can't for the life of me understand why Kenneth Roth subsequently deleted
his tweet.
I hope all the folks that think no real violence will occur are right. My thought process is
a bit jaded because of the empire's sordid history of regime change..
I posted Mazaheri's article on an earlier thread - glad you supplied the Greanville link
for it. I have really enjoyed Mazaheri's writing over the last several months at Saker. And
this is an excellent view of the grass roots heart of Iran I think. His article rambles a
bit, he broke his vacation to write it in a hurry, but he made his points.
Reviewing the snippet I excerpted I still like it so I'll reprint it here:
Exactly like in Venezuela this year – there is a hardcore, GRASSROOTS system of
citizen supporters who will defend the Iranian Revolution with their lives because they
feel the Iranian Revolution (like Chavismo) has benefited the average citizen so very much.
That's why Venezuelan democracy didn't fall – it was due to the common person
attending a counter-protest, maybe even wielding a garden tool. This is what preserved
Venezuelan democracy – not state military action – and this is also what
happened in Iran in 2009.
[...]
What must also be remembered is that Iran already had their "NATO intervention" –
it was called the Iran-Iraq War. For 8 horrible years the West foisted Iraq on Iran,
supplied Iraq with weapons, turned a blind eye to the worst chemical weapons atrocities
since World War One, and did all they could to create, prolong and influence the deadliest
war in the last quarter of the 20th century.
Afghan on one side with US/ISIS coalition, Iraq Kurd/US border other side. US have been
flying ISIS into Afghanistan (a number of reports some months ago with even official Russia
questioning who the US was flying into ISIS controlled areas).
US airlifting ISIS out of west Syria to Hasaka for retraining, perhaps as peaceful Iranian
demonstrators, from where they have free movement through to the Kurd majority area of the
Iraq/Iran border.
I gather about 450 protesters have been arrested so far. They are predominantly under 25
years old. I believe the government will be tough on them. Their story will emerge
eventually. Perhaps there will be documented smoking guns. The forensic study of these events
will obviously take time but it's clear that Iran never for one moment misunderstood what was
happening to it. Ayatollah Khamenei has called it out as a foreign intervention by the usual
countries.
The dynamic seems practically like a de-escalation zone now: the government has affirmed
the right to protest, and condemned the act of violence. So that's how the authorities will
tell the innocent from the guilty.
As b states, everything has been handled by the police thus far. The government's
"manifold capabilities" have yet to become visible. They will become visible, one assumes, at
every turn as the anglo-zionists attempt to escalate, and as each move is met and destroyed
by the authentic national power.
In all, while it is sad to see the destruction and the dead innocents, including those yet
to come, it will be supremely satisfying to watch as Iran - I predict - shows the world
exactly how to deal with this attack by the west.
Good piece. The only thing I would add is that the genuine protesters (to the extent that
they exist) who are unhappy about the sluggish Iranian economy are a result of the economic
sanctions the US placed on Iran. Making life hard for ordinary people is intended to stir up
anti-government sentiment among them.
Trump's tweets about his "concern" for the Iranian people and "human rights" are
particularly hypocritical and vile. What a piece of shit. Apparently he didn't see the leaked
memo that reveals how Rex Tillerson, who may have been naive enough to believe the guff about
the US upholding human rights abroad, was put in his
place in no uncertain terms by the DoS.
Sharmine Narwani tweeted a response to anglo-zionist media hack Josh Rogin's drivel about how
Syria started the same way as Iran, when "...peaceful protesters were attacked by their
tyrannical government."
"Peaceful protestors" in #Syria were not so peaceful. They killed 88 soldiers in the first
month
In her tweet she links to her own important article, a seminal work that details exactly
how the color uprising in Syria began, and once again how it was the violence that surprised
everyone: Syria: The Hidden
Massacre
If you haven't read it, I earnestly recommend it for a clear and exact picture of what is
being ventured in Iran right now.
@ somebody
I hope they do have their borders covered, but I believe in the Kurdish area, the border will
be somewhat porous, plus re-uniformed/re-named ISIS from all directions will have the
assistance of US intel.
The more I look at the Trump/US establishment fight in the US, the more this seems a fight
over a re-direction of the empire than anything else. Obama's soft talk/lead from
behind/snake in the grass style failed miserably. Trumps job is to turn the US focus from
Russia Syria ect onto China whos economy is the main threat facing the empire, and Iran which
is the strong point in the resistance against Israel.
Seems to be a lot of cold war warriors still in the US establishment wanting to re-live their
glory days, plus generations of soviet block/east European so called dissidents carrying
inherited hate for Russia that have to be overcome for US to fully focus on the new
direction.
Early on in the Trump admin, there were a number of meetings between Trump/Kissinger and
Putin/Kissinger. Apart from Trump perhaps carrying no grudge against Russia, the re-direction
would require separating Russia from the target countries, China and Iran.
@22 Yes would be very interesting to know more about this Rohollah Zambia whose new telegram
channel Sedaie Mardom of more than 1.2 M user now (and main cause behind Telegram
filtrage).... Is really suspect. Just have a look on whatis posted inside and you will
understand a lot.
Is there an English translation of your video?
Is there a chance that those other, rather impotent members of the UNSC call in an
emergency meeting about the number of innocent young unarmed African American being shot with
impunity by 'law' enforcement?
Will there be a session about the rampant homeless in the U.S.? About the mass
incarcerations? About the use of prison inmates in the California wild fires without
protective gear? About the opiod pandemic? About the treatment of innocent protesters in
Dakota and elsewhere?
The propaganda emanating from air waves is unbearable to those with both common sense and
critical thinking skills.
This is psychological projection par excellence. The preposterous displays of Haley speaking
for the U.S. surpasses what goes for "the pot calling the kettle black".
IF the protests in Iran would have anything to do with legitimate calls for redress, what
does that say about the U.S. population? Compared to the shortcomings in Iran, the present
conditions in the U.S. should be sufficient to get tens of millions of people into the
streets.
Why is that not happening? National Billionaires' Radio bemoans conditions in Iran that are
are worse in the U.S. These script readers ask for money for their "high quality"
journalism?
Is all this just acid satire? Bill Maher talking about getting a phone call from the corrupt
Nutanyahoo asking for advice in regards to the regime change plans regarding Iran?
Hmmm... protest here in the USSA can be just as violent and destructive. Wish the
international community would sanction this growing police state. But then again, I foresee
the US imploding economically soon so it'll be a moot point once the zombie tax livestock see
all they know evaporate. Nature abhors that which is contrary to Itself and eventually
corrects.
I watched similar scenarios in Syria and Libya in early 2011. In Syria, the government
arrested some teenagers in Da'ar for writing anti-government graffiti. The parents and others
protested the arrests. Some who joined the protests began shooting from within the crowd of
parents and others at police, killing 7. Some police shot back and the Western Media reported
that Assad was killing his own people. In Libya, some gangs tried to storm army barracks. The
soldiers defended. themselves and the same media said Qaddafi was killing his own people. I
hope we have learned from these examples and from Iran in 2009. The situation is serious and
will require great strength and wisdom on the side of the Iran government and the great mass
of Iranian people, but I do not expect Iran to become another Libya.
Partisan @25, that was an interesting link. Do you think that Rohani & his "moderates"
have sold out, then? Should we expect to see their govt-owned central bank become an
"independent" bank? That is, a bank that's joined the international cabal & is insulated
from its own govt or the needs of its own people.
Since Rohani has moved TOWARD the globalists in trade & monetary ("austerity") policy,
you wdn't expect Western-induced protests. Maybe it's pressure to make him move faster.
Thanks much for your comments, links and excerpts. What we are witnessing is how The
Outlaw US Empire manifests Terror through its stated policy of establishing full spectrum
dominance of the planet and its people--virtually everyone is targeted, yet most remain
ignorant of that which threatens them most.
@60 Grieved, are you familiar with Lebanese professor Amal Saad? Here she links to translated
video excerpts from protesters and their demands a la vox populi.
@49 lozion.. definitely sarcasm on ghost ships part.. kenneth roth is an idiot... i don't
know if he even looked at the pic, which would explain how some folks tweet first and think
later..
and after a week or more off, the usa daily press briefing was on tap today right on
cue... read the link here for more info.. i
have quoted some of it below..
amazing how important social media is to the usa! more important then removing any of the
financial sanctions that cause hardship.. hey - who cares about eating? but, one must not
have their social media removed!
"QUESTION: When you say that you're watching it very closely, monitoring, as everyone
knows quite well, the U.S. doesn't have an embassy in Iran, it doesn't have any – at
least no publicly known presence there. So how exactly are you following the situation? News,
social media?
MS NAUERT: Well, Matt, this would go back to how we watch many nations when things are
going on, especially when we don't have a presence there. We get our information from a
variety of sources. Some of that can come from NGOs. Some of that can come from media
reports. Obviously, that's a little more difficult right now because the government has
clapped – clamped down not only on media but, as we've seen, social media too. We
expect and we certainly hope that people will be able to access social media and speak freely
there, just like we've seen them speak on the streets.
QUESTION: Right. Last --
MS NAUERT: So we'll get that from a variety of sources. Some of that will include
intelligence, our partners on the ground, and many other nations as well.
QUESTION: Last one. So you are, in fact, calling on the Government of Iran to restore any
social media that has been – that may have been blocked?
MS NAUERT: Well, I think that would certainly be an important thing for them to do. We
support a freedom of the press here in the United States. We support the right of voices to
be heard. And when a nation clamps down on social media or websites or Google or news sites,
we ask the question, "What are you afraid of?" What are you afraid of? We support the Iranian
people and we support their voices being heard.
QUESTION: And are you considering sanctions?
MS NAUERT: We don't get ahead of sanctions, but that is one toolkit, a couple things that
we have in a very broad and wide toolkit. It's – there are a range of options that we
certainly have going forward. And that's why I say we are watching reports very carefully of
any potential human rights abuses of these protesters who are protesting peacefully.
Okay. Hi, Andrea. Nice to see you.
QUESTION: Hi, Happy New Year to you.
MS NAUERT: Thank you.
QUESTION: Is there – first of all, is there anything that the U.S. can do to help
restore access to social media to the Iranian people?
MS NAUERT: Not that I'm aware of. I mean look, I'm not a tech expert. There are lots of
ways that people can get information through different sources and different apps and all of
that, but I'm not aware of anything particularly that we as a government are able to do. But
we're watching it carefully." what bullshite..
like social media is the great revolution tool when in fact it's the great manipulative tool
which nsa monitors 24/7 thanks the police state the usa has become..
Im an avid reader of MOA, ZeroHedge etc... and a strong supporter of movement towards a multi
polar world and agree with much of what the axis of resistance stands for, but as a young
Iranian Im very disappointed in this analysis and the following comments, perhaps this is
understandable though since non of you guys seem to be aware of the extent of oppression and
hypocrisy that exists in Iran under the Islamic republic.
So here I will try to give a narrative of why these protests are happening as a voice (out of
many) for the Iranian youth,
What is happening these days in Iran doesnt resemble a color revolution to me as much as
it does the constitutional revolution of 1906-1909 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_Constitutional_Revolution);
for more than a 100 years we have called for Freedom, Independence and independent judiciary,
and what have we got?
A state which has crafted its own upper class clerical and related oligarchy that openly
claim majority of the resources and sole right of final decision making for themselves,
A state whose own president admitted 2 days ago that he has no control over 200,000 Billion
Tumans of its budget out of a total budget of 360,000 Billion Tumans, due to special interest
groups that he can not challenge,
A state in which "Centre for supporting clerical students" receives about $200 million a year
while the whole of the very earthquake prone country's emergency services receive $50 million
a year,
A state in which the office of the representative of the supreme leader in universities
receive more than $40 million a year while fund for helping university students with
financial difficulty receives less than $10 million a year,
Over a hundred years ago our forefathers marched in the streets asking for an independent
judiciary and what have we got?
An openly political judiciary whose head is an anoitee of the unelected supreme leader and
whose former head (Mr.Shahroudi) called it a ruin,
A Judiciary which doesnt even reject that its current head has 63 personal bank accounts in
his own name and receives over $7 million a month of interest from those accounts (because of
"certain considerations") while his own deputy and head of prison services admits that the
prisons dont have the budget to feed prisoners 3 times a day.
A Judiciary where the Head openly interferes with domestic and international politics of the
country and even goes as far as personally ordering the cancellation governmentally approved
concerts by Shiite ISIS while rejecting to even consider corruption cases againstg his
brothers with video proof.
My dear Multi polar world supporters, we are rebelling because we are oppressed, for too
long we've been oppressed economically, Politically and socially,
We are sick and tired of the IR's Hypocrisy,
we are sick and tired of seeing our troops and wealth fighting and dying in Syria, yemen etc
(rightly in my opinion) in defense Alevites and Houthis and other groups while if in Iran
these same groups would have been badly prosecuted as proved by the IR's treatment of the
Yaresan, Ahl el Haq and various sufi and dervish denominations in Iran,
We are sick and tired of our troops fighting and dying in Syria, for President Assad and
Putin to say cheers in Sochi, while we would be lashed for the same cup of wine.
We are sick and tired of seeing our beloved religion hijacked by a few and used as a tool of
oppression with the sole purpose of enriching a few.
The children of Sattarkhan,Sardar Assad Bakhtiari and Sepahsalar Tonekaboni have risen in
the 4 corners of Iran against a clerical oligarchy that sucks the blood of the country dry, a
clerical establishment that has amassed in 40 years an amount of wealth comparable to the
Catholic church while our beloved Iran is going trough environmental and social disaster.
I have no doubt the enemies of Iran (US, Israel, saudi or other) will do their best to use
these protests in their favor, but to call whats happening a color revolution is not only
closing your eyes towards all the legitimate demands of the people protesting, but also
bringing into question the sole achievement that IR has been claiming these past few years
domestically as the providers of national security for Iran. If IR has failed to stop foreign
infiltrators to cause unrest in 20+ of the small towns that are protesting all around Iran
today, as well as failing Iran, economically, socially and politically, Isnt it the peoples
right to call for a referendum that gives them a way out of this broken, corrupt system?
If you dont want this to turn into a color revolution then dont let it become one, dont
let the vulture's of the uni polar world to dominate the dialogue about the events in Iran,
heed people's legitimate concerns and ask your Governments (specially Brics countries) to
engage IR and convince it of holding a referendum under international(specially brics)
supervision, this way the one can ensure which ever side wins in this referendum will see
Brics as partners not enemies, and after all if IR is as popular as you claim it to be, it
shouldn't have any fears of getting a second stamp of approval from the Iranian people 40
years on by holding a referendum.
Thank you for reading through my long comment, I hope you found it useful;
MOA if you believe in freedom of expression Tag-post this comment as a rebuttal to your
analysis.
ariobarzan - there was another poster recently on another thread called ninel.. your post
reminds me of theirs..
"but to call whats happening a color revolution is not only closing your eyes towards all
the legitimate demands of the people protesting".. no actually.. it is not... the 2 go
together like butter and jam.. you can't have the one without the other..
"MOA if you believe in freedom of expression Tag-post this comment as a rebuttal to your
analysis." that isn't the way it works in the free world.. you can start your own website
though..
@ ArioBarzan
Very few countries have managed to stand against the US empire. China and Russia are powers
in their own right who cannot be attacked by the US without the US being destroyed
itself.
Of the smaller countries, it is only those with ideological or religious fanaticism that have
stood against the US empire. Makes it a really shitty world. It is Iran's (or a good section
of Iran) religious fanaticism that has enabled it to kick the US out and stand against them.
It would be much better if the world did not have to function in this way.
Perhaps in the coming multi-polar world..
There will be opposition to both religious authority, and economic problems (economic
problems brought on by us Sanctions), same as any country. US empire will identify this, use
this, insert a few provocateurs, snipers, fake media ect.
It's unlikely that there will be another Sino-Russian split. Both Beijing and Moscow will
be polite and listen to what Washington has to say, but they'll ignore them. I agree that
Trump is trying to shift focus away from Russia and towards China and Iran. IMO, the problem
for Washington is that they can only go after one, China or Iran. It's anybody guess on who
will win in the fight between the Zionists and Nationalists.
Iran is not Syria. Iran is not an arab country.It appears that the US do not understand this
fact. They further do not understand that the Iran - Iraq war, while horribly stunting
development of Iran, cemented the idea of a national belonging and national spirit,
regardless of religious issues. That was never present in Syria.
Israel on the other hand, however vile it acts, clearly understands these facts, and indeed
did cooperate with the Islamic state in the beginning. But Israel fears Iran, because Iran is
the only state in the region that is in earnest capable of opposing Israels ambitions. Iran
as such , imo, has only the ambition of countering the Wahabis, not Sunni or any other
religion. Other religions are absolutely tolerated in Iran, although proselyting is frowned
upon. Try proselyting in SA! Head goes off!
I doubt that the subversion of the protests will work at all.
This talk about China - Russia splits, Russia throwing Syria, Iran, Turkey under the bus, are
wet dreams of our own Western press. Sensational journalism, when worst. The case of NK is
much different as NK in fact is in breach of UN conventions and agreements. But as we have
seen sanctions can be broken readily. The US itself is a master of disregarding international
Law, the UN and any agreement that they suddenly feel inhibit their aspirations.
The Silk road is all too important for all involved, including the EU. EU is already heavily
engaged in Iran, with Iranians welcoming it. The EU sees the Silk Road as tremendous
opportunity for developing new markets in the world.
And please dont forget the EU is supremely the worlds largest economic power. Having good
trade relations with the EU is far, far more important than with the US.
The US is a has been. Spent, it industries off shored, like Britain, done by corporations
only driven by greed.
Posted by: Peter AU 1 | Jan 3, 2018 2:57:32 AM | 69
Vietnam did, Cuba did. Both countries are now keen on economic relations with the US. To
see the world as with / against the US is a strange prism. Both - China and Russia -
cooperate and have cooperated with the US in lots of ways.
It makes more sense to analyze what is going on as a fight over who secures/controls trade
routes, who takes or pays levy. History has not progressed much from the Middle Ages.
Religion/ideology is used to cover warfare and crime on all sides.
The New York Times now has proclaimed the Iranian "revolution" as internal economic
conflict, whilst Iran presumably has prove of what has been going on. This here is the
Washington Post:
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani says an exiled opposition group is inciting violence in
Iran, where anti-government protests have been held in a number of cities in recent days.
In a phone call with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, Rouhani called on France to
stop hosting the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq group, known as the MEK. Several of the group's leaders
are based in Paris.
I have full sympathy with most Iranian emigrants but they are irrelevant for what is going
on in Iran. There are now official demonstrations in support of the Iranian government and
they are massive. Yes people are probably bussed in government employees but there seem a lot
of them and all they needed to do to protest would be simply not to go.
@ Ian, I agree that another Sino/Russian split is unlikely. Highly unlikely.
China or Iran is interesting. Will keep an eye on that. Perhaps Iran first then China is the
plan?
@74 -- "There are now official demonstrations in support of the Iranian government and they
are massive."
All likely part of a 'Reality TV' strategy. Controlled opposition and opportunism to
distract and misdirect the MSM narrative and even draw out the 'official' response from the
Swamp.
No doubt vectors are moving and assets positioning in respect to Iran and NK. However,
Trump's comic 'art of bullying' is a dangerous clown gambit with Netanyahu behind him
pushing.
True, in 2018 "something must be done" to save the US economy (and indeed, Assad just
won't go...), but starting WW3 and/or losing huge amounts of 'face' are likely even worse
scenarios for most players.
I suspect Persia's long history provides many case studies and opportunities to slice the
diplomatic 'polony' as thin as it gets.
Trump's getting frustrated with international affairs and he now appears to have the
Clinton gang in his sights. So, perhaps we should expect more US domestic orientated scenes
in the 2018 reality-tv circus?
Methinks that ArioBarzan @ 66 has revealed his/her trolling nature by claiming that Iranians
are sick and tired of seeing their troops fighting ISIS in Syria and assisting the Houthis in
Yemen: for suggesting that foreigners should pressure the Iranian government to hold a
referendum in which Iranians can vote for the government of their choice (and if in that
referendum most Iranians choose the devil they know over the devil they don't know,
ArioBarzan is going to have a lot of egg on his/her face); and for demanding that MoA
privilege his/her comment above everyone else's.
Never mind that assisting Syria in its war against ISIS and its foreign supporters is in
Iran's interests as well; that there is as yet no evidence of Iranian assistance to the
Houthis, what with Saudi Arabia enforcing a blockade of Yemen; and that there are extremely
few if any Alevis in Yemen (but plenty in Turkey).
The AAZ Empire have enough life left for one more military adventurism. There isn't any
viable way to take on China without risking an exchange of nukes where the best case scenario
is the loss of an ally, South Korea (because they'd be all dead). Invade Taiwan? That'll piss
off the Chinese on both the mainland and among the diaspora. Thus, inviting a security
nightmare, unless he brings back internment camps which will bring about another nightmare.
The PLA would invade and fight the US which will turn Taiwan into another Syria. I highly
doubt Taipei would want such devastation. Japan stated that they'll come to the aid of Taipei
but then Beijing would green light an attack from North Korea and you can kiss those nuclear
power plants goodbye. No American would be motivated to fight in East Asia due to a lack of
cultural connectivity. The best Trump can do against China is wage an economic war.
My money is on Iran because of the Israeli-Saudi lobbyists which have infiltrated every
aspect of US life. People like Sheldon Adelson and the Evangelical Christians, would make
Trump's life a living hell if Israel's core interest is sacrificed. Trump have no choice.
@ ArioBarzan aka zio-Lenin from previous thread. Go away with your trolling and shilling for
shekels. Their point of view just happen to be inline with US, Israel and MEK, what a
coincidence! :)
Considering how much zionists invests in mass and social media, its quite surprising they
send just one or two guys to derail threads here, it must be they dont consider MoA that
popular... Their mistake.
@78
Me thinks Jen is an uninformed person who doesnt know what is he/she talking about and only
engages in name calling without actually answering any of the points I made,
I clearly stated that I support Iranian involvement in both Syria and Yemen ( to what ever
extent it exists or used to exist) exactly because I think its in Iran's as well as the
former countries interest,
what I hate is the double standard of the Islamic republic in supporting these groups
externally while oppressing very similar faiths and denominations internally.
Also yes there is no Alevis in Yemen and actually not many in Syria the one's in Syria are
called Alawites and the houthi's in Yemen are Zaidi Shias, to see how any of these groups
would have been treated if they had been in Iran just look at the Islamic republic's
treatment of any non twelver denomination,
Again, humble apologies to b for my having believed that the Q "Storm" phenomenon was Trump
fighting the deep state starting with the purge in S.A. Apparently the Iran regime change
nonsense is his "Storm".
Fellow Iranian here. I can not agree at least with half of what @Ariobarzan is talking about.
To me it seems he just want to highlight the points that is important for him or his
opposition! yet forgets to mentions where is the source of all these issues and corruptions
!
But hey my 2cents, do you know what was/is the difference between Iran under Pahlavi and
nowadays Iran? both of them are same shit, dictatorship in different ways! the only
difference was under Pahlavi there was no sanctions! there was no demonising, Iran was part
of hegemony! Now its not, so it has to pay for being against it and not part of it!
I guess Iran would have (had) to pay either way - being part of hegemony or being against
it. Look at Pakistan - which used to be part of hegemony. Or look at Turkey - which used to
be part of hegemony.
@BB8
Can you please tell me which points dont you agree with,
also im not sure if I understand you correctly but are you claiming that the reason for
internal corruption and oppression pointed out is the sanctions and demonising ?
Not that I agree with sanctions and demonisation, not only they cause many problems for the
Iranian people but also they are used as a tool by the regime to justify the internal
oppression,
As we say in Iran we are stuck between چکش و
سندان or the rock and a hard place in english.
@Ariobarzan
As I said I did no agree with what you said earlier just because I can easily smell "Saltanat
Talab" out of it! Using words like Shiite ISIS, like seriously? or mentioning someone like
Sepahsalar Tonekaboni can clearly show from what opposition you are talking!
I do however agree with the fact the we should be allowed to protest and ask for changing
ask for reforming but don't fool yourself for a moment if you think any change in Iran will
lead to transferring power to peoples hand. Though I think you know changing regime in Iran
will transfer power to whom.
And if you want to know more how I do not agree with you just read @Jen @Ian @harry @Peter
AU 1's posts and the others, I do agree with them!
@BB8 86
Again the name calling ! Im not "Saltant Talab" or monarchist and I only mentioned SepahSalar
Tonekaboni within the context of the Constitutional revolution and also mentioned Sardar
Assad Bakhtiari who was murdered by the monarchy later on,
Im sure if I was a Monarchist and wanted to come up with an example I could have came up with
someone much more recent than Tonekaboni...
Anyways whether Im a monarchist or not shouldn't even matter; Attacking the messenger rather
than the message is clear logical fallacy, Answer the points I have made non of the people
you mentioned (besides @peter au to some extent) has even engaged with what ive said,
Dont attack me based on who you assume I am, You dont know who am I and I dont know who you
are,
yes I do refer to the " Gorooh Feshars " and the Mesbah types as Shia ISIS, Not all of the
Iranian Regime.
Thanks
On the sixth day of protests that have cost 21 lives, according to official figures, Macron
told Rouhani that he was worried about the number of victims and insisted that "fundamental
liberties, especially freedom of expression and demonstration, must be respected".
He called on Rouhani to exercise "restraint and appeasement".
...
Iranian state television reported that Rouhani called on Macron to take action against the
Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), an exiled opposition group that is currently based in
Auvers-sur-Oise, north of Paris.
The Iranian government describes the organisation as a "terrorist group" and it was on
the European Union's terrorist list until 2009.
Tehran claims that it has stirred up the current demonstrations on the orders of Saudi
Arabia and "certain European countries".
...
French companies have increased trade with Iran since the lifting of sanctions over its
nuclear programme, although US President Donald Trump has threatened to pull out of the
deal.
As expected this new so called revolution was faded out quick. US, Israel, Saudi and their
lackeys Monarchist & MKO . failed again.
This was not the first nor the last violent attempt but they will fail every time against
IRI.
Laguerre wrote: "As I understand it Rouhani tried to cut subsidies or convert subsidies to
charity for the poor. That would endanger the subsistence of a lot of people and be reason
enough to demonstrate. It is also the type of neoliberal remedy investors love."
I agree. Most of the commentators here are not giving much weight to economic issues. And,
I see no one referring to the leak of the budget by Rouhani, a leak that shows religious
institutions getting fat while subsidies are being cut and youth unemployment is above 35%.
It's a certainty that Iran's external enemies are trying to fan the flames, but the regime
has created plenty of embers. Sure, check out the satellite photos of demos, but also take a
look at the leaked budget.
91 - They are pretty good. German radio at present describes today's demonstration as "in
support of the conservative clerical rule". Judging from the photos above (88) they did not
fall into this trap.
Posted by: dadooronron | Jan 3, 2018 8:22:26 AM | 92
I think we got the plot of this tragicomedy now.
1. Rouhani publishes the budget to highlight large unaccounted spending on the religious
institutions of his opponents.
2. His opponents fight back by highlighting the cut of subsidies and handouts making the
poor depend on charity.
3. Iranians get upsite sharing their discontent via Telegram messenger.
4. Telegram's Dubai developers hand the data over to a secret service center used for
coordinating the enemies of Iran. The latest highly sophisticated software used to evaluate
the mood of populations declares the situation to be revolutionary. Population centers where
most dissatisfaction is registered are identified. For some reason these centers are in the
provinces.
5. Popular Iranian messenger channels inform people in the localities identified on
simultaneous dates for demonstrations.
6. MEK and Royalist networks activate their sleeper cells to be there.
7. Somewhere in Tehran a counterinsurgency center with similar software to the one used in
Dubai evaluates what is going on in the notoriously unsafe Telegram messenger. Iranian secret
service cannot believe their luck - the enemy does a sting operation for them.
5. The Iranian Islamic Department for Soft Warfare (IIDSW) begins to plan the look and
feel of the final unity demonstrations.
ArioBar(HAM)zan: "yes I do refer to the " Gorooh Feshars " and the Mesbah types as Shia ISIS,
Not all of the Iranian Regime.'
Iranian Regime? sounds like US' UN Nikki Babe' label for governments she/Israel doesn't
like . don't you think so? IMO, Ziocan hasbra didn't get far this time,
There are things the IRI could do to improve its image inside and outside the country. Do
you take any position regarding the following issues:
a) child marriages
According to the Islamic Republic civil code, the legal age of marriage in Iran is 13 for
girls and 15 for boys. UNICEF estimates approximately 17% of girls in Iran are married before
the age of 18. The population is close to 80 million, do the math (!) The IRI does not keep
proper records of child marriages inside the country. But in 2012, the Iranian Parliament
sought to lower girl's legal marriage age to 9. See Vivian Tsai's 'Child bride practice
rising in Iran'.
b) torture, executions and public hangings
c) bonyads are religious charitable trusts in Iran that receive billions of dollars.
Rouhani who has been trying to improve the economy, create jobs and allocate proper funds to
various sectors, recently disclosed details of the new budget, in particular the allocation
of billions of dollars of funds to bonyads, as a way to provoke popular resentment, which
worked as many Iranians were outraged
d) repression of trade unions and of the right to organize, to collectively bargain and to
strike.
e) compulsory dress code for women (and men)
f) corruption and mismanagement
g) prohibition of alcohol
By addressing these issues, which I don't think would threaten the IRI in any fundamental
way, other than perhaps ideologically or financially in the case of corruption, the
government would help protect itself from criticisms and threats, both from within and
outside of the country. Can you think of any good reason why the IRI doesn't 'update' its
laws?
@ Ariobarzan 85 wrote in response to BB8:
"but are you claiming that the reason for internal corruption and oppression pointed out
is the sanctions and demonising ? Not that I agree with sanctions and demonisation, not only
they cause many problems for the Iranian people but also they are used as a tool by the
regime to justify the internal oppression,"
Yes, I wholeheartedly agree and I have heard the same from many Iranians. The excuses must
end. Even Rouhani and other government officials have sought to address the issue of
corruption!
In Iran, there was a great revolutionary figure who mysteriously died in 1979, he was more
popular than Khomeini, and in fact helped promote Khomeini's image in the country when the
latter was living in exile by copying recorded tapes of his lectures and distributing them to
his countrymen. This man spent over a decade in prison and was even tortured by SAVAK agent.
He was called the Red Mullah because of his association with various socialist groups in Iran
back in the 60s and 70s. He even wrote a piece on private property in Islam. This man's name
was Ayatollah Taleqani, who has much respect in the country, even among the non-religious.
There is a famous story of him which I would like to share: immediately after the revolution,
when many Islamic revolutionaries had rushed into government buildings and in Parliament with
the intention of occupying and securing for themselves seats in the newly established
government, Taleqani who feared that a new dictatorship would replace the old one, famously
did not take a seat in the parliament building, instead he sat on the floor, in protest at
what he perceived to be a lust for power and corruption. He warned against a 'return to
despotism' decades before. Here is the picture:
Leaving Syria aside for now and going for the greatest contrast, Ukraine, the 'color'
revolution 'Maidan' - with the snipers / deaths, worked because of many particular local
conditions. Note is was a *second* attempt after the Orange Revolution, 2004-5, which
fizzled out, with Yanukovitch, Party of Regions, elected.
The Ukr. 'opposition' gathered all kinds of 'refusniks' together: the strongest were the
Nazis, they were joined by deluded or 'paid' young ppl, ppl from the countryside, political
opponents, splinter interests, etc.
In a country that traditionally is, was split in two, supposedly ethnically -
culturally/linguistically - (pale distinctions, basically, the Donbass is the stronghold of
the uncivilized, thugs, Russia lovers, etc.) and rife with internal strife. Already losing
population - suitcase protest - since the middle 90's, from 52 m down to maybe less than 45
m. today. With a super-weak totally oligarchic Gvmt. In Ukraine, the ugly dark murderous
chaos might be wonderful from a US pov, heh yet oohlaa Crimea was lost to Russia.
None of these detrimental and negative characteristics (one could add many others) apply
to Iran.
Nothing will happen. These manifestations of 'protests' engineered by various and blown up
by the MSM are like the application of a tired, outdated script, the last dance, the small
eruptions that finally fizzle or bubble out.
It would seem that the Trump administration and its allies in deep state are exporting Fake
News and rent a mobs. Are these exports increasing our GDP, Pres Trump?
Why don't you just get busy on your pledged agenda like cleaning the stinkin swamp,
re-building infrastructure and creating term limits in congress?
The president, who increased his mandate by 5m votes when he won his second term, fired
back this week by saying that the political legitimacy of a religious leader is determined
by the "people's will and invitation" – comments that supporters of Khamenei, whose
position as supreme leader is a lifelong appointment, have received with disdain.
Clerics sympathetic to Khamenei argue that the legitimacy of the leader, or the rule of
the Islamic jurist (Velayat-e-Faghih) is divine.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps is being forced to shrink its sprawling business empire
and some of its senior members have been arrested as part of President Hassan Rouhani's
attempts to curb the elite force's role in the economy.
@Paul Well, the
real enemy of the people are the real terrorists behind the scenes. Those who planned the
9/11 false flag. Those who sent the Anthrax letters to resisting congress members. Those who
pre-planned the wars of aggression in the whole middle east.
So any appeal to the "White House" is almost pointless since the White House is one
element of the power structure captured by the war-criminal lunatics.
To change something people in the US should at first stop buying their war criminal lying
mass media.
Then they should stop supporting ANY foreign intervention by the US and should stop
believing any of the preposterous lies released by the media, the state dept., or any other
neocon outlet.
Actually Trump was probably elected because he said he was anti-intervention and
anti-media. But did it help?
The US needs mass resistance (demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, non-participation,
sit-ins, grass-root information, or whatever) against their neocon/zionist/mafia/cia power
groups or nothing will change.
We need demonstrations against NATO, against war, against false flag terrorism, against
using terrorists as secret armies, against war propaganda!
B.t.w. Iran has always been one of the main goals. Think of it: Why did the US attack
Afghanistan and Iraq? What have those two countries in common? (Hint: a look on the map helps
to answer this question.) I am beginning to get interested in why some people are sure 9/11
was a false flag affair covered up by a lot of lies. So may I try my opening question on you.
How much, if any of it, have you read of the official 9/11 commission report?
ho is Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the 30-year-old White House aide who could be a key player in the blockbuster
investigation into Russian ties to President Trump and his campaign?
Cohen-Watnick, 30, who
The New York Times reports
provided key information in the probe, is a once fast-rising protege of ousted
Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn with deep roots in suburban Washington's Jewish community.
The paper identified him as one of two staffers who explosively gave information on intelligence gathering in
the Russia probe to Republican House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, a move that potentially
compromised the lawmaker's role in the bombshell probe.
Cohen-Watnick grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, just outside the nation's capital, and attended the nearby
Conservative synagogue Ohr Kodesh. Last November he celebrated his engagement to Rebecca Miller at the synagogue.
He attended the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 2008. Cohen-Watnick began working as an intelligence
analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency after college. At the DIA, Cohen-Watnick met Flynn, the then-director
who was later removed from his position during the Obama administration.
After Trump won the November election, Flynn brought Cohen-Watnick from the DIA to the Trump transition team,
where the young staffer, according to
The Washington Post,
was among the few Trump advisers to hold a top security clearance. He participated in
high-level intelligence briefings and briefed Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and their team on national security
issues.
When Flynn was appointed to lead the National Security Council, he hired Cohen-Watnick to work with him there.
But Flynn served as national security adviser for less than a month before being asked to leave following
revelations that he had maintained ties with Russia during the campaign.
Flynn's successor, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, sought to remove Cohen-Watnick from the team, following input from
the CIA director who pointed to problems intelligence officers had when dealing with Cohen-Watnick. Questions were
raised about his ability to carry out the position of senior NSC director for intelligence programs, who oversees
ties with intelligence agencies and vets information that should reach the president's desk.
But Cohen-Watnick was spared when Trump personally intervened, reportedly after top White House aides Sphen
Bannon and Jared Kushner stepped in. Cohen-Watnick still serves as senior director at the NSC.
Cohen-Watnick is known for holding hawkish views on national security issues and of being a proponent of an
American tough line toward Iran.
The Times said that Cohen-Watnick became swept up in the Russia probe this month, shortly after Trump wrote on
Twitter about unsubstantiated claims of being wiretapped on the orders of the former president Barack Obama.
Cohen-Watnick apparently was reviewing highly classified reports detailing the intercepted communications of
foreign officials that consisted primarily of ambassadors and other foreign officials talking about how they were
trying to curry favor with Trump's family and inner circle in advance of his inauguration.
He and another aide, identified as Michael Ellis, came across information that Trump aides may have been
inadvertently caught on some of the surveillance.
Nunes says he went to the White House to meet with the aides, whom he has refused to identify. Nunes wolud not
share the information with his colleagues on the committee but did brief Trump, raising major questions about his
independence.
Cohen-Watnick, 30, who
The New York Times reports
provided key information in the probe, is a once fast-rising protege of ousted
Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn with deep roots in suburban Washington's Jewish community.
The paper identified him as one of two staffers who explosively gave information on intelligence gathering in
the Russia probe to Republican House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, a move that potentially
compromised the lawmaker's role in the bombshell probe.
Cohen-Watnick grew up in Chevy Chase, Maryland, just outside the nation's capital, and attended the nearby
Conservative synagogue Ohr Kodesh. Last November he celebrated his engagement to Rebecca Miller at the synagogue.
He attended the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 2008. Cohen-Watnick began working as an intelligence
analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency after college. At the DIA, Cohen-Watnick met Flynn, the then-director
who was later removed from his position during the Obama administration.
After Trump won the November election, Flynn brought Cohen-Watnick from the DIA to the Trump transition team,
where the young staffer, according to
The Washington Post,
was among the few Trump advisers to hold a top security clearance. He participated in
high-level intelligence briefings and briefed Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and their team on national security
issues.
When Flynn was appointed to lead the National Security Council, he hired Cohen-Watnick to work with him there.
But Flynn served as national security adviser for less than a month before being asked to leave following
revelations that he had maintained ties with Russia during the campaign.
Flynn's successor, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, sought to remove Cohen-Watnick from the team, following input from
the CIA director who pointed to problems intelligence officers had when dealing with Cohen-Watnick. Questions were
raised about his ability to carry out the position of senior NSC director for intelligence programs, who oversees
ties with intelligence agencies and vets information that should reach the president's desk.
But Cohen-Watnick was spared when Trump personally intervened, reportedly after top White House aides Sphen
Bannon and Jared Kushner stepped in. Cohen-Watnick still serves as senior director at the NSC.
Cohen-Watnick is known for holding hawkish views on national security issues and of being a proponent of an
American tough line toward Iran.
The Times said that Cohen-Watnick became swept up in the Russia probe this month, shortly after Trump wrote on
Twitter about unsubstantiated claims of being wiretapped on the orders of the former president Barack Obama.
Cohen-Watnick apparently was reviewing highly classified reports detailing the intercepted communications of
foreign officials that consisted primarily of ambassadors and other foreign officials talking about how they were
trying to curry favor with Trump's family and inner circle in advance of his inauguration.
He and another aide, identified as Michael Ellis, came across information that Trump aides may have been
inadvertently caught on some of the surveillance.
Nunes says he went to the White House to meet with the aides, whom he has refused to identify. Nunes wolud not
share the information with his colleagues on the committee but did brief Trump, raising major questions about his
independence.
"... Haley's remarks are consistent with the Trump administration's hopeless North Korea policy. She is insisting that North Korea do something it has said it will never do, and she says that it will have to do this before the U.S. begins to "take seriously" any negotiations North Korea enters into. Setting preconditions for talks is bad enough, but here Haley is setting absurd, deal-breaking preconditions that even she has to know will never be accepted. ..."
"... Certainly she is looking down the road, when she knows she will need the moneyed interests of those groups who support using the American military to further their goals.. She has the cover of being the thug without the responsibility of using force.. ..."
"... I know I'm a broken record on this, but is there really no one left in the realm of American foreign policy who understands the saying, "Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way"? ..."
Our ambassador to the U.N. doesn't understand anything about diplomacy:
Nikki Haley on reports South Korea is proposing talks with North Korea: "We will not take
any of the talk seriously if they don't do something to ban all nuclear weapons in North
Korea." https://t.co/RaGT9E3dRtpic.twitter.com/pVyCc9VxzD
Haley's remarks are consistent with the Trump administration's hopeless North Korea policy.
She is insisting that North Korea do something it has said it will never do, and she says that
it will have to do this before the U.S. begins to "take seriously" any negotiations North Korea
enters into. Setting preconditions for talks is bad enough, but here Haley is setting absurd,
deal-breaking preconditions that even she has to know will never be accepted.
There is no more obvious non-starter than demanding that the other side surrender before
negotiations even begin. By dismissing all talks that precede denuclearization, Haley is
restating the administration's complete refusal to compromise and its utter contempt for
diplomacy as a tool of statecraft. It is an exceptionally obtuse and unreasonable position to
take when there is an opportunity to open negotiations with Pyongyang, and I expect that our
regional allies will be as baffled as they are disturbed by it.
This is standard operating procedure as far as the U.S. goes.
1. 2008 – U.S. insists that Iran has to dismantle their entire nuclear infrastructure
as a precondition of 'negotiations'. HRC cackles that the additional sanctions she put in
place 'brought Iran back to the negotiating table'. Obama, to his credit, accepts Iran's
original claim to their right to enrich uranium to produce their own fuel but the myth that
sanctions brought 'them' to the negotiating table lives on.
2. The U.S. torpedoes Geneva peace plan in 2012 (Obama's bad moment) by making it a
requirement that Assad (and his cronies) have to resign and be barred from new elections in
Syria. End result, civil war continues for another 5yrs, Saudi backed rebels are still
demanding that Assad has to step down even after getting whipped on the battlefield.
So as bad as Nikki Haley is, sadly, she is not uncommon but rather she is the pinnacle of
what passes in the U.S. for diplomacy.
Certainly she is looking down the road, when she knows she will need the moneyed interests of
those groups who support using the American military to further their goals.. She has the
cover of being the thug without the responsibility of using force..
Like most everyone still involved with trump at this point, they are trying to maximize
whatever window they have to benefit themselves..
After citizens united they just might get away with it, but they have no feelings of
responsibility to our country, IMO..
I know I'm a broken record on this, but is there really no one left in the realm of American
foreign policy who understands the saying, "Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have
your way"?
Maybe South Korea will take its rightful place and carry out its own policy toward North
Korea. Then the Trump administration will get angry and threaten to pull out all of our
troops. South Korea will be courageous and continue its own policy. Then our troops will
leave. The best result for South Korea and North Korea. And best for us, since we will no
longer be wasting time and money there, as well as placing our troops in danger for no valid
purpose.
"... Andrew Bacevich needs to study more deeply about Syrian history and politics, since his description of Syrian president Bashar Assad as a brutal dictator fits as a description of Bashar's father Hafez Assad but is inaccurate in relation to Bashar Assad, who seems to have a rather gentle personality and is actually one of the more benign leaders in the Middle East. ..."
"... Under that new constitution, in 2014 he ran in a free election observed by international observers against two other politicians and was reelected president. He has promised that if he loses the next election he will step down. ..."
"... Nevertheless Assad has been systematically demonized by the governments and MSM of the US, UK, and France, as well as by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. Demonization is a technique that is often used to prepare the way for regime change, and it is not based on objective analysis. ..."
"... Similar tactics were used in Ukraine in February 2014 by ultranationalist Right Sector sharpshooters, who were seen shooting Maidan demonstrators. The deaths of the demonstrators were then blamed on the police. ..."
"... "'From the start the protest movements were not purely peaceful. From the start I saw armed demonstrators marching along in the protests, who began to shoot at the police first. Very often the violence of the security forces has been a reaction to the brutal violence of the armed rebels.' ..."
"... opposition is armed and frequently employs brutality and violence, only in order then to blame the government. ..."
"... For an objective overview of the context of the events of 2011 in Syria that led to the international war against the elected Syrian government, see Stephen Gowans, "The Revolutionary Distemper in Syria That Wasn't." ..."
"... Also see Gowans' well-researched 2016 book 'Washington's Long War on Syria.' The US has been demonizing and trying to overthrow the Syrian government for several decades now, above all because it is the only remaining semi-socialist nation in the Middle East and has single-payer national health insurance, support for the elderly, and free college education for all. Assad is no saint, but he is one of the more democratic and forward-looking leaders in the Middle East today. ..."
Andrew Bacevich needs to study more deeply about Syrian history and politics, since his description of Syrian president
Bashar Assad as a brutal dictator fits as a description of Bashar's father Hafez Assad but is inaccurate in relation to Bashar
Assad, who seems to have a rather gentle personality and is actually one of the more benign leaders in the Middle East.
Bashar Assad had planned to be a doctor, and he studied medicine for two years in the UK before being ordered to return to
Syria by his father after his elder brother died in an accident. Although there were some excesses by the police in 2011, Bashar
Assad quickly relaxed some old security laws and pushed for a new democratic constitution, which was promulgated in 2012.
Under that new constitution, in 2014 he ran in a free election observed by international observers against two other politicians
and was reelected president. He has promised that if he loses the next election he will step down.
Nevertheless Assad has been systematically demonized by the governments and MSM of the US, UK, and France, as well as by
Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar. Demonization is a technique that is often used to prepare the way for regime change, and it is
not based on objective analysis. Although Assad is often called a butcher who gasses his own people, experts such as Theodore
Postol of MIT and others have shown that not a single allegation of gassing by the Syrian government under Assad has ever been
proven. In addition, many of the excesses by the Syrian police against demonstrators in 2011 seem to have been initiated by armed
members of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda in Syria, who quickly infiltrated the demonstrations.
There have even been allegations that jihadi sharpshooters on rooftops shot demonstrators in false-flag attacks.
Similar tactics were used in Ukraine in February 2014 by ultranationalist Right Sector sharpshooters, who were seen shooting
Maidan demonstrators. The deaths of the demonstrators were then blamed on the police. In the case of Syria:
"Syrian-based Father Frans van der Lugt was the Dutch priest murdered by a gunman in Homs . His involvement in reconciliation
and peace activities never stopped him from lobbing criticisms at both sides in this conflict. But in the first year of the crisis,
he penned some remarkable observations about the violence – this one in January 2012:
"'From the start the protest movements were not purely peaceful. From the start I saw armed demonstrators marching along
in the protests, who began to shoot at the police first. Very often the violence of the security forces has been a reaction to
the brutal violence of the armed rebels.'
"In September 2011 he wrote: 'From the start there has been the problem of the armed groups, which are also part of the opposition
The opposition of the street is much stronger than any other opposition. And this opposition is armed and frequently employs
brutality and violence, only in order then to blame the government. '"
For an objective overview of the context of the events of 2011 in Syria that led to the international war against the elected
Syrian government, see Stephen Gowans, "The Revolutionary Distemper in Syria That Wasn't."
Also see Gowans' well-researched 2016 book 'Washington's Long War on Syria.' The US has been demonizing and trying to overthrow
the Syrian government for several decades now, above all because it is the only remaining semi-socialist nation in the Middle
East and has single-payer national health insurance, support for the elderly, and free college education for all. Assad is no
saint, but he is one of the more democratic and forward-looking leaders in the Middle East today.
"... What's puzzling is why that capacity for outrage and demand for accountability doesn't extend to our now well-established penchant for waging war across much of the planet. ..."
"... Compare their culpability to that of the high-ranking officials who have presided over or promoted this country's various military misadventures of the present century. Those wars have, of course, resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and will ultimately cost American taxpayers many trillions of dollars. Nor have those costly military efforts eliminated "terrorism," as President George W. Bush promised back when today's G.I.s were still in diapers. ..."
"... Bush told us that, through war, the United States would spread freedom and democracy. Instead, our wars have sown disorder and instability, creating failing or failed states across the Greater Middle East and Africa. In their wake have sprung up ever more, not fewer, jihadist groups, while acts of terror are soaring globally. These are indisputable facts. ..."
"... For starters, there is no "new strategy." Trump's generals, apparently with a nod from their putative boss, are merely modifying the old "strategy," which was itself an outgrowth of previous strategies tried, found wanting, and eventually discarded before being rebranded and eventually recycled. ..."
"... Thus far, Trump's interventionism has been a fragment of what the Hillary campaign promised. ..."
"... This is the center of a world empire. It maintains a gigantic military which virtually never stops fighting wars, none of them having anything to do with defense. It has created an intelligence monstrosity which makes old outfits like Stazi seem almost quaint, and it spies on everyone. Indeed, it maintains seventeen national security establishments, as though you can never have too much of a good thing. And some of these guys, too, are engaged full-time in forms of covert war, from fomenting trouble in other lands and interfering in elections to overthrowing governments. ..."
"... It's unlikely that the USA would be remaining in Afghanistan if its goals were not being attained. So the author has merely shown that the stated goals cannot be the real goals. What then are the real goals? I propose two: 1) establish a permanent military presence on a Russian border; 2) finance it with the heroin trade. Given other actions of the Empire around the globe, the first goal is obvious. The bombing of mud huts containing competitors' drug labs, conjoined with the fact that we do not destroy the actual poppy fields (obvious green targets in an immense ocean of brown) make this goal rather obvious as well. The rest of the article is simply more evidence that the Empire does not include mere human tragedy in its profit calculation. ..."
"... Andrew Bacevich calls for a Weinstein moment without realizing that it already happened more than ten years ago. The 2006 midterm elections were the first Weinstein moment, which saw the American people deliver a huge outpouring of antiwar sentiment that inflicted significant congressional losses on the neocon Republicans of George W. Bush. ..."
What makes a Harvey Weinstein moment? The now-disgraced Hollywood mogul is hardly the first
powerful man to stand accused of having abused women. The Harveys who preceded Harvey himself
are legion, their prominence matching or exceeding his own and the misdeeds with which they
were charged at least as reprehensible.
In the relatively recent past, a roster of prominent offenders would include Bill Clinton,
Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, Bill O'Reilly, and, of course, Donald Trump. Throw in various jocks,
maestros, senior military officers, members of the professoriate and you end up with quite a
list. Yet in virtually all such cases, the alleged transgressions were treated as instances of
individual misconduct, egregious perhaps but possessing at best transitory political
resonance.
All that, though, was pre-Harvey. As far as male sexual hijinks are concerned, we might
compare Weinstein's epic fall from grace to the stock market crash of 1929: one week it's the
anything-goes Roaring Twenties, the next we're smack dab in a Great Depression.
How profound is the change? Up here in Massachusetts where I live, we've spent the past year
marking John F. Kennedy's 100th birthday. If Kennedy were still around to join in the
festivities, it would be as a Class A sex offender. Rarely in American history has the cultural
landscape shifted so quickly or so radically.
In our post-Harvey world, men charged with sexual misconduct are guilty until proven
innocent, all crimes are capital offenses, and there exists no statute of limitations. Once a
largely empty corporate slogan, "zero tolerance" has become a battle cry.
All of this serves as a reminder that, on some matters at least, the American people retain
an admirable capacity for outrage. We can distinguish between the tolerable and the
intolerable. And we can demand accountability of powerful individuals and
institutions.
Everything They Need to Win (Again!)
What's puzzling is why that capacity for outrage and demand for accountability doesn't
extend to our now well-established penchant for waging war across much of the planet.
In no way would I wish to minimize the pain, suffering, and humiliation of the women preyed
upon by the various reprobates now getting their belated comeuppance. But to judge from
published accounts, the women (and in some cases, men) abused by Weinstein, Louis C.K., Mark
Halperin, Leon Wieseltier, Kevin Spacey, Al Franken, Charlie Rose, Matt Lauer, Garrison
Keillor, my West Point classmate Judge Roy Moore, and their compadres at least managed
to survive their encounters. None of the perpetrators are charged with having committed murder.
No one died.
Compare their culpability to that of the high-ranking officials who have presided over or
promoted this country's various military misadventures of the present century. Those wars have,
of course, resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths and will
ultimately cost American taxpayers many
trillions of dollars. Nor have those costly military efforts eliminated "terrorism," as
President George W. Bush promised back when today's G.I.s were still in diapers.
Bush told us that, through war, the United States would spread freedom and democracy.
Instead, our wars have sown disorder and instability, creating failing or failed states across
the Greater Middle East and Africa. In their wake have sprung up ever more, not fewer, jihadist
groups, while acts
of terror are soaring globally. These are indisputable facts.
It discomfits me to reiterate this mournful litany of truths. I feel a bit like the doctor
telling the lifelong smoker with stage-four lung cancer that an addiction to cigarettes is
adversely affecting his health. His mute response: I know and I don't care. Nothing the doc
says is going to budge the smoker from his habit. You go through the motions, but wonder
why.
In a similar fashion, war has become a habit to which the United States is addicted. Except
for the terminally distracted, most of us know that. We also know -- wecannot not
know -- that, in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, U.S. forces have been unable to
accomplish their assigned mission, despite more than 16 years of fighting in the former and
more than a decade in the latter.
It's not exactly a good news story, to put it mildly. So forgive me for saying it (
yet again ), but most of us simply don't care, which means that we continue to allow a free
hand to those who preside over those wars, while treating with respect the views of pundits and
media personalities who persist in promoting them. What's past doesn't count; we prefer to
sustain the pretense that tomorrow is pregnant with possibilities. Victory lies just around the
corner.
By way of example, consider a
recent article in U.S. News and World Report. The headline: "Victory or Failure in
Afghanistan: 2018 Will Be the Deciding Year." The title suggests a balance absent from the text
that follows, which reads like a Pentagon press release. Here in its entirety is the nut graf
(my own emphasis added):
"Armed with a new strategy and renewed support from old allies, the Trump
administration now believes it has everything it needs to win the war in Afghanistan.
Top military advisers all the way up to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis say they can accomplish
what two previous administrations and multiple troop surges could not: the defeat of the
Taliban by Western-backed local forces, a negotiated peace and the establishment of a
popularly supported government in Kabul capable of keeping the country from once again becoming
a haven to any terrorist group."
Now if you buy this, you'll believe that Harvey Weinstein has learned his lesson and can be
trusted to interview young actresses while wearing his bathrobe.
For starters, there is no "new strategy." Trump's generals, apparently with a nod from their
putative boss, are merely modifying the old "strategy," which was itself an outgrowth of
previous strategies tried, found wanting, and eventually discarded before being rebranded and
eventually recycled.
Short of using nuclear weapons, U.S. forces fighting in Afghanistan over the past decade and
a half have experimented with just about every approach imaginable: invasion, regime change,
occupation, nation-building, pacification, decapitation, counterterrorism, and
counterinsurgency, not to mention various surges ,
differing in scope and duration. We have had a big troop presence and a smaller one, more
bombing and less, restrictive rules of engagement and permissive ones. In the military
equivalent of throwing in the kitchen sink, a U.S. Special Operations Command four-engine prop
plane recently deposited the largest non-nuclear weapon in the American arsenal on a cave
complex in eastern Afghanistan. Although that MOAB made a big
boom, no offer of enemy surrender materialized.
$65
billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars. And under the circumstances, consider that a mere down
payment.
According to General John Nicholson, our
17th commander in Kabul since 2001, the efforts devised and implemented by his many
predecessors have resulted in a "stalemate" -- a generous interpretation given that the Taliban
presently controls more
territory than it has held since the U.S. invasion. Officers no less capable than Nicholson
himself, David Petraeus and Stanley McChrystal among them, didn't get it done. Nicholson's
argument: trust me.
In essence, the "new strategy" devised by Trump's generals, Secretary of Defense Mattis and
Nicholson among them, amounts to this: persist a tad longer with a tad more. A modest uptick in
the number of U.S. and allied
troops on the ground will provide more trainers, advisers, and motivators to work with and
accompany their Afghan counterparts in the field. The Mattis/Nicholson plan also envisions an
increasing number of air strikes, signaled by the recent use of B-52s to attack illicit
Taliban "
drug labs ," a scenario that Stanley Kubrick himself would have been hard-pressed to
imagine.
Notwithstanding the novelty of using strategic bombers to destroy mud huts, there's not a
lot new here. Dating back to 2001, coalition forces have already dropped tens of thousands of
bombs in Afghanistan. Almost as soon as the Taliban were ousted from Kabul, coalition efforts
to create effective Afghan security forces commenced. So, too, did attempts to reduce the
production of the opium that has funded the Taliban insurgency, alas with essentially
no effect whatsoever . What Trump's generals want a gullible public (and astonishingly
gullible and inattentive members of Congress) to believe is that this time they've somehow
devised a formula for getting it right.
Turning the Corner
With his trademark capacity to intuit success, President Trump already sees clear evidence
of progress. "We're not fighting anymore to just walk around," he remarked in his
Thanksgiving message to the troops. "We're fighting to win. And you people [have] turned it
around over the last three to four months like nobody has seen." The president, we may note,
has yet to visit Afghanistan.
I'm guessing that the commander-in-chief is oblivious to the fact that, in U.S. military
circles, the term winning has acquired notable elasticity. Trump may think that it
implies vanquishing the enemy -- white flags and surrender ceremonies on the U.S.S. Missouri . General Nicholson knows better. "Winning," the field commander
says , "means delivering a negotiated settlement that reduces the level of violence and
protecting the homeland." (Take that definition at face value and we can belatedly move Vietnam
into the win column!)
Should we be surprised that Trump's generals, unconsciously imitating General William
Westmoreland a half-century ago, claim once again to detect light at the end of the tunnel? Not
at all. Mattis and Nicholson (along with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and National
Security Adviser H.R. McMaster) are following the Harvey Weinstein playbook: keep doing it
until they make you stop. Indeed, with what can only be described as chutzpah, Nicholson
himself recently announced that we have "
turned the corner " in Afghanistan. In doing so, of course, he is counting on Americans not
to recall the various war managers, military and civilian alike, who have made identical claims
going back years now, among them Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in 2012
.
From on high, assurances of progress; in the field, results that, year after year, come
nowhere near what's promised; on the homefront, an astonishingly credulous public. The war in
Afghanistan has long since settled into a melancholy and seemingly permanent rhythm.
The fact is that the individuals entrusted by President Trump to direct U.S. policy believe
with iron certainty that difficult political problems will yield to armed might properly
employed. That proposition is one to which generals like Mattis and Nicholson have devoted a
considerable part of their lives, not just in Afghanistan but across much of the Islamic world.
They are no more likely to question the validity of that proposition than the Pope is to
entertain second thoughts about the divinity of Jesus Christ.
In Afghanistan, their entire worldview -- not to mention the status and clout of the officer
corps they represent -- is at stake. No matter how long the war there lasts, no matter how many
"
generations " it takes, no matter how much blood is shed to no purpose, and no matter how
much money is wasted, they will never admit to failure -- nor will any of the
militarists-in-mufti cheering them on from the sidelines in Washington, Donald Trump not the
least among them.
Meanwhile, the great majority of the American people, their attention directed elsewhere --
it's the season for holiday shopping, after all -- remain studiously indifferent to the charade
being played out before their eyes.
It took a succession of high-profile scandals before Americans truly woke up to the plague
of sexual harassment and assault. How long will it take before the public concludes that they
have had enough of wars that don't work? Here's hoping it's before our president, in a moment
of ill temper, unleashes "
fire and fury " on the world.
It's astonishing to see people make the claim that "victory" is possible in Afghanistan.
Could they actually believe this or are they lying in order to drag this out even longer and
keep the money pit working overtime? These are individuals that are highly placed and so
should know better. It's not really a war but an occupation with the native insurgents
fighting to oust the foreign occupier. The US has tried every trick there is in trying to
tamp down the insurgency. They know what we're trying to do and can thwart us at every step.
The US lost even as it began it's invasion there but didn't know it yet in the wake of it's
initial success in scattering the Taliban, not even a real army and not even a real state.
They live there and we don't; they can resist for the next thirty years or fifty years. When
does the multi-billion bill come due and how will we pay it?
"How long will it take before the public concludes that they have had enough of wars that
don't work?"
It already happened, but Progressives like you failed to note that Republican voters
subbed the Bush clan and their various associates for Trump in the Primary season, precisely
because he called the Iraq and Afghan wars mistakes. The Americans suffer under a two party
establishment that is clearly antagonistic to their interests. As a part of that regime, a
dutiful Progressive toad, you continue to peddle the lie that it was the war-weary White
Americans who celebrated those wars. In reality, any such support was ginned up from tools
like you who wrote puff pieces for their Neocon Progressive masters.
Thus far, Trump's interventionism has been a fragment of what the Hillary campaign
promised. Might you count that among your lucky stars? Fat chance. You cretinous Progressive
filth have no such spine upon which to base an independent thought. You trot out the same old
tiresome tropes week after week fulfilling your designated propagandist duty and then you
skulk back to your den of iniquity to prepare another salvo of agitprop. What a miserable
existence.
This is the center of a world empire. It maintains a gigantic military which virtually never
stops fighting wars, none of them having anything to do with defense. It has created an
intelligence monstrosity which makes old outfits like Stazi seem almost quaint, and it spies
on everyone. Indeed, it maintains seventeen national security establishments, as though you
can never have too much of a good thing. And some of these guys, too, are engaged full-time
in forms of covert war, from fomenting trouble in other lands and interfering in elections to
overthrowing governments.
Obama ended up killing more people than any dictator or demagogue of this generation on
earth you care to name, several hundred thousand of them in his eight years. And he found new
ways to kill, too, as by creating the world's first industrial-scale extrajudicial killing
operation. Here he signs off on "kill lists," placed in his Oval Office in-box, to murder
people he has never seen, people who enjoy no legal rights or protections. His signed orders
are carried out by uniformed thugs working at computer screens in secure basements where they
proceed to play computer games with real live humans as their targets, again killing or
maiming people they have never seen.
If you ever have wondered where all the enabling workers came from in places like Stalin's
Gulag or Hitler's concentration camps, well, here is your answer. American itself produces
platoons of such people. You could find them working at Guantanamo and in the far-flung
string of secret torture facilities the CIA ran for years, and you could find them in places
like Fallujah or Samarra or Abu Ghraib, at the CIA's basement game arcade killing centers,
and even all over the streets of America dressed as police who shoot unarmed people every
day, sometimes in the back.
ZOG has now asserted the right to kill anyone, anywhere, anytime, for any reason. No trial,
no hearing, no witnesses, no defense, no nothing. Is this actually legal? Any constitutional
lawyers out there care to comment? Has ZOG now achieved the status of an all-powerful
all-knowing deity with the power of life and death over all living things?
It's unlikely that the USA would be remaining in Afghanistan if its goals were not being
attained. So the author has merely shown that the stated goals cannot be the real goals. What
then are the real goals? I propose two: 1) establish a permanent military presence on a
Russian border; 2) finance it with the heroin trade. Given other actions of the Empire around
the globe, the first goal is obvious. The bombing of mud huts containing competitors' drug
labs, conjoined with the fact that we do not destroy the actual poppy fields (obvious green
targets in an immense ocean of brown) make this goal rather obvious as well. The rest of the
article is simply more evidence that the Empire does not include mere human tragedy in its
profit calculation.
The Native Born White American Working Class Teenage Male Population used as CANNON FODDER
for Congressman Steven Solarz's and Donald Trump's very precious Jewish only Israel .
Israel and the deep state did the attack on 911 and thus set the table for the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya and Syria and the Zionist neocons who control every facet of
the U.S. gov and the MSM and the MIC and the FED ie the BANKS set in motion the blood
sacrifice for their Zionist god SATAN, that is what they have done.
The Zionist warmongers and Satanists will destroy America.
It's not so much that America is addicted to war as that the American "business model" makes
permanent war inevitable. US global dominance rests on economic domination, in particular,
the dollar as world reserve currency. That has allowed the US economy to survive in spite of
being hollowed out, financialised and burdened with enormous sovereign debt. Economic
dominance derives from political dominance, which, in its turn, flows from military
dominance. For that military dominance to be credible, not only must the US have the biggest
and best military forces on the planet, it must show itself willing to use those forces to
maintain its dominance by actually using them from time to time, in particular, to
unequivocally beat off any challenge to its dominance (Putin!). It also, of course, must win,
or, more correctly, be able to present the outcome credibly as a win. Failure to maintain
military dominance will undermine the position of the dollar, sending its value through the
floor. A low dollar means cheap exports (Boeing will sell more planes than Airbus!), but it
also means that imports (oil, outsourced goods) will be dear. At that point the hollowed out
nature of the US economy will cut in, probably provoking a Soviet-style implosion of the US
economy and society and ruining anyone who has holdings denominated in dollars. I call that
the Gorbachev conundrum. Gorby believed in the Soviet Union and wanted to reform it. But the
Soviet system had become so rigid as to be unreformable. He pulled a threat and the whole
system unravelled. But if he hadn't pulled the thread, the whole system would have unravelled
anyway. It was a choice between hard landing and harder landing. Similarly, US leaders have
to continue down the only road open to them: permanent war. As Thomas Jefferson said of
slavery, it's like holding a wolf by the ears. You don't like it but you don't dare let go!
"How long will it take before the public concludes that they have had enough of wars that
don't work?" Answer: Never.
In Alabama when people would rant about how toxic Roy Moore was, I would politely point
out that his opponent for Senate was OK with spending trillions of dollars fighting pointless
winless wars on the other side of the planet just so politically connected defense
contractors can make a buck, and ask if that should be an issue too? The response,
predictably, was as if I was an alien from the planet Skyron in the galaxy of Andromeda.
We are sheep. We are outraged at these sexual transgressions because the corporate press
tells us to be outraged. We are not outraged at these stupid foreign wars, because the
corporate press does not tell us to be outraged. It's all mass effect, and the comfort of
being in a herd and all expressing the same feelings.
Andrew Bacevich is wrong about a couple of things in this article.
First, he says that the American public is both apathetic and credulous. I agree
that we have largely become apathetic towards these imperial wars, but I disagree that we
have become credulous. In fact, these two states of mind exclude one another; you cannot be
both apathetic and credulous with respect to the same object at the same time. The credulity
charge is easy to dismiss because virtually no one today believes anything that comes out of
Washington or its mouthpieces in the legacy media. The apathy charge is on point but it needs
qualification. The smarter, more informed Americans have seen that their efforts to change
the course of American policy have been to no avail, and they've given up in frustration and
disgust. The less smart, less informed Americans are constrained by the necessity of getting
on with their meager lives; they are an apolitical mass that possesses neither the
understanding nor the capacity to make any difference on the policy front whatsoever.
Second,Andrew Bacevich calls for a Weinstein moment without realizing that it
already happened more than ten years ago. The 2006 midterm elections were the first Weinstein
moment, which saw the American people deliver a huge outpouring of antiwar sentiment that
inflicted significant congressional losses on the neocon Republicans of George W. Bush. An
echo of that groundswell happened again in 2008 when Barack Obama was elected to office on an
explicitly antiwar platform. But Obama turned out to be one of the most pro-war presidents
ever, and thus an angry electorate made one final push in the same direction by attempting to
clean house with Donald Trump. Now that Donald has shown every sign of having cucked out to
the war lobby, we seem to be left with no electoral solutions.
The only thing that's going to work is for the American Imperium to be handed a
much-deserved military and financial defeat. The one encouraging fact is that if the top ten
percent of our political and financial elite were planed off by a foreign power, the American
people would give as few damns about that as they currently do about our imperial wars.
Very good but some little errors. Concerning Russia and China, Russia vent all or
nothing.
China was much smarter. First they allowed self employment, than small business and long time
after they started to sell state enterprises,
If Tom's Dispatch continues to be successful, Americans will continue to be asleep.
Masterful propaganda. War, according to our favorite spooks, is necessary to win, but
otherwise reprehensible.
Sex is otherwise necessary for human life but Harvey Weinstein is ugly. Hold tightly to
your cognitive dissonance, because you're expected to remember John F Kennedy who got it on,
but is the expendable martyr you should care about, not that other guy
Let's review: terror attacks are wins. Superior or effective anti-war propaganda comes
from the military
itself. They really don't want war, but really they do.
We're trying to make Afghanistan not Afghanistan: aka, trying to be a miracle worker. We
can throw as much money as we like at that place, and it isn't going to happen, least of all
with troops on nine month shifts.
Let Iran and Pakistan squabble over it. Good riddance.
1) doesn't really make much sense, given that Poland and the Baltic States would be more
than happy to take all US forces in Europe to give us a presence near Russia in a part of the
world that would be far easier to justify to the American public-and to the international
community. Afghanistan? Who exactly is Russia going to mess with? Iran is their-for now,
longer term, the two have conflicting agendas in the region, but don't expect the geniuses in
the Beltway to pick up on that opportunity-ally, and unlike the USSR, the Russians don't want
to get involved in the India-Pakistan conflict. Russia's current tilt toward China makes a
strategic marriage with India of the kind that you found in the Cold War impossible, but they
obviously don't want to tilt toward the basketcase known as Pakistan. The only reason that
Russia would want to get involved with Afghanistan beyond having a more preferable status
than having American troops there is power projection among ex-Soviet states, and there are
far more effective ways to do than muddle about with Afghanistan.
2, on the other hand, given Iran-Contra who knows? The first generation of the Taliban
pretty much wiped the heroin trade out as offensive to Islamic sensibilities, but the newer
generations have no such qualms.
I think you give America's rulers far too much credit. The truth is probably far scarier:
the morons who work in the Beltway honestly believe their own propaganda-that we can make
Afghanistan into some magical Western democracy if we throw enough money at it-and combine
that with the usual bureaucratic inertia.
According to General John Nicholson, our 17th commander in Kabul since 2001,
We have been killing these people for 17 years. Now our generals say that if we
indiscriminately kill enough men, women, and children who get in the way of our B52s, that
they will see the light and make peace. How totally wonderful.
My solution is to gage the Lindsey Grahams for a year.
What will do more good for peace – B52s or shutting up Graham's elk?
I remember when Trump said he knew more than the generals and was viciously attacked for it.
It turns out he did know more than the generals just by knowing it was a waste. Trump was
pushed by politics to defer to the generals who always have an answer when it comes to a war
– more men, more weapons, more time.
"The less smart, less informed Americans are constrained by the necessity of getting on
with their meager lives; they are an apolitical mass that possesses neither the understanding
nor the capacity to make any difference on the policy front whatsoever."
I wonder if any Abolitionists criticized the slaves for failing to revolt? Probably not;
I'm guessing they were mostly convinced that the negro required intervention from outside,
whether due to their nature or from overwhelming circumstance.
If the enslaved American public is liberated, I hope we'll know what to do with ourselves
afterwards. It'd be a shame to simply end up in another kind of bondage, resentful and
subject to whatever oppressive system replaces the current outrage. Perhaps the next one will
more persuasively convince us that we're important and essential?
We are sheep. We are outraged at these sexual transgressions because the corporate press
tells us to be outraged. We are not outraged at these stupid foreign wars, because the
corporate press does not tell us to be outraged. It's all mass effect, and the comfort of
being in a herd and all expressing the same feelings.
Thank you, Andrew J. Bacevich, for your words of wisdom and thank you, Mr. Unz, for this
post.
This corporation needs to be dissolved. I've read about "the inertia" of Federal Government
that has morphed into a cash cow for a century of wasted tax dollars funding the MIIC, now
the MIIC. Does our existence have to end in financial ruin or, worse yet, some foreign entity
creating havoc on our soil?
The Founders NEVER intended that the US of A become a meddler in other Sovereignty's internal
affairs or the destroyer of Nation States that do not espoused our "doctrine." Anyone without
poop for brains knows that this is about Imperialism and greed, fueled by money and an
insatiable luster for MORE.
This should be easier to change than it appears. Is there no will? After all, it Is our
Master's money that lubricates the machinery. So, we continue to provide the lubrication for
our Masters like a bunch of imbeciles that allow them to survail our words and movements.
Somebody please explain our stupidity.
the folks in the US are sick of the wars, contrary to Bacevich. They simply will vote come
next election accordingly. They register their disgust in all the polls.
This article is not very useful. More punditry puff.
No comments on the Next War for Israel being cooked up by the new crop of neocon
youngsters, I guess, and Trump who will trump, trump, trump into the next War for the
Jews.
How about some political science on Iran, Syria, Hisbollah, Hamas and the US, Arabia,
Judenstaat axis of evil?
Hey Bacevich? When you link to WashPost and NYTimes to make your points, you don't. They
block access if you've already read links to those two papers three times each and can no
longer, for the month, read there. When folks link to papers that won't let you read, it
makes one wonder why.
I believe Americans are damned sick and tired of the stupid, needless war in Afghanistan. But
then they should have been sick and tired of stupid , needless wars like Korea, Vietnam and
Iraq, and probably most of them were. But it's easy to be complacent when someone else's son
is doing the fighting and dying And it's easy to be complacent when your stomach is full and
you have plenty of booze and pain killers available. There will be a day of reckoning when
the next big economic bust arrives and which may make the Great Depression paltry by
comparison. America is a far different place then it was in the 1930s when our population was
140 million. Americans were not so soft and the conveniences we now take for granted not
available. When the supermarkets run out of food, watch out. There may not even be any soup
lines to stand in.
In truth, U.S. commanders have quietly shelved any expectations of achieving an actual
victory -- traditionally defined as "imposing your will on the enemy" -- in favor of a more
modest conception of success.
Your assumptions are wrong about the US goal of the invasion of Afghanistan. Afghanistan and Iraq were not invaded to establish democracy or impose American will
whatever that is. Afghanistan and Iraq were invaded to establish a temporary military staging ground for a
US invasion of Iran, the designated regional enemy of Israel. As long as the current regime in Iran remains, the US will remain in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
And minerals! Eric Prince himself recently tried to sell the idea of having his private
militias do the fighting in Afghanistan for the US and finance it by mining said country's
minerals, thus making himself even richer.
I was onboard with Mr. Bacevich, until I got to this:
Almost as soon as the Taliban were ousted from Kabul, coalition efforts to create
effective Afghan security forces commenced. So, too, did attempts to reduce the production
of the opium that has funded the Taliban insurgency
What utter rubbish! The Taliban was instrumental in shutting down the poppy production
until the CIA came along and restarted it to fund their black ops.
We have the reverse Midas touch. Everything we touch (Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, etc.,
etc.) turns to shit. We supposedly attack countries to liberate them from their tyrants who
are supposedly killing their own people, and end up killing more people than all of them put
together. And, oh yes, we have our favorite tyrants (Saudis, Israelis) whom we provide with
horrible weapons (like cluster bombs) to help them kill people we hate.
Mr. Bacevich is right about the lack of outrage about our wars, but the current Weinstein
explosion consists of hordes of mostly American female victims, mostly white, a (very) few
jews, and a few men, who have the stage to complain about their oppressors. What would be the
counterpart of that w.r.t. the wars? Millions of brown victims in far away lands that most of
us couldn't even find on a map? How likely is that to happen?
So yes, no outrage, and none likely. The last 17 years have proven that.
You don't know the American has been paying everything through monopoly money printed
through the thin air since WWI, i.e. a keystroke on the Federal Reserve's computer? No wonder
the Americans have been waging reckless wars all over the world on the fabricated phantom WMD
allegations as humanitarian intervention relentlessly.
Romans did not stop waging reckless wars until their empire collapsed; the British
imitates the Romans and the American is born out of the British, hence the Americans will no
stop waging reckless wars until their empire collapsed like the Romans.
"... The Russia Investigation shifts to Clinton's Political Rivals ..."
"... Let me get this straight: The Democrats think Stein siphoned votes away from Hillary, so Stein must be a "Russian agent". Is that it? ..."
"... The persecution of Jill Stein strips away the facade once and for all exposing Russia-gate as a complete fraud that is being used to exact revenge on the adversaries of Hillary Clinton and her reprobate friends. The New York Times even admits as much. ..."
"... That's what's really really going on, the fatcat honchos behind the scenes are just settling scores for Hillary's lost election. It's payback time for the Clinton Mafia. Here's more baloney from the Times: ..."
"... Give me a break. Does anyone on the Senate Intelligence Committee honestly believe that Jill Stein is a Russian agent? ..."
"... Of course not. They're just harassing her to send a message to anyone who might be thinking about running for president in the future. They're saying, "You'd better watch your step or we'll trump-up charges against you and make your life a living hell. Isn't that the message?You're damn right it is! ..."
"... "This is a witch hunt. It is neo-McCarthyism, plain and simple. The people who are outright calling Stein a Russian agent are making a complete mockery of themselves and of the American political process ..."
"... Dragging Stein into this mess shows Clinton Democrats up for what they really are. It proves that the 'Resist' crowd's crusade is not just about Trump and "collusion" -- it's also about discrediting all dissenting American voices and establishing their own definition of what political opposition is supposed to look like -- and for the Clinton cult, it's not supposed to look like Jill Stein . ..."
"... Anyone who disagrees with the Democrats is a Putin puppet -- and if you've ever been to Moscow, forget it -- don't even bother trying to defend yourself. Off with your head." ("McCarthy-style targeting of Jill Stein proves Democrats have truly lost the plot", RT) ..."
"... "The Socialist Equality Party condemns the targeting of Jill Stein, the Green Party presidential candidate in the 2016 election, by the neo-McCarthyite witch-hunters on the Senate Intelligence Committee . The attack on Stein, spearheaded by the Democratic Party, is an unconstitutional attempt to delegitimize and suppress political opposition to the monopoly of the capitalist two-party system . ..."
"... This is the Orwellian reality of America in 2017, ruled by two right-wing, oligarchic parties that can and will tolerate no political opposition . ..."
"... If you're a liberal and you hate Donald Trump, then you probably see the Russia-gate investigation as your best chance to achieve the Golden Grail of "impeachment". But are you willing to compromise your principles, join forces with the sinister and unscrupulous Clinton cabal, and throw allies like Jill Stein under the bus to achieve your goal? ..."
"... How high a price are you willing to pay to get rid of Trump? That's the question that every liberal in America should be asking themselves. And they'd better answer it fast before it's too late. ..."
"... Mueller is clearly not the upstanding 'protector of American values' he is painted he is a servile political degenerate. A lifetime of betrayal has rendered him ethically autistic. He is blind to the way his own actions condemn him before reasonable minds. Hopefully he will wake up when condemned hiself in an American Court of Law at some future date. ..."
"... According to Edward Aguilar of Project for Nuclear Awareness, cancelling construction of the new submarines, reducing the current number of such subs, and retiring rather than replacing nuclear warheads and a couple hundred ICBMs would save $270 billion. ..."
"... The weapons oligarchy appears to be a racketeering-influenced and corrupt organization. Luckily, the RICO Act provides for heavy criminal penalties for such death-dealing corruption. ..."
Money quote: "And even given that, I would have to qualify the nature of the threats. Russia and China are best described as adversaries
or competitors rather than enemies as they have compelling interests to avoid war, even if Washington is doing its best to turn them
hostile. Neither has anything to gain and much to lose by escalating a minor conflict into something that might well start World War
3. Indeed, both have strong incentives to avoid doing so, which makes the actual threat that they represent more speculative than real.
And, on the plus side, both can be extremely useful in dealing with international issues where Washington has little or no leverage,
to include resolving the North Korea problem and Syria, so the US has considerable benefits to be gained by cultivating their cooperation."
Notable quotes:
"... And even given that, I would have to qualify the nature of the threats. Russia and China are best described as adversaries or competitors rather than enemies as they have compelling interests to avoid war, even if Washington is doing its best to turn them hostile. Neither has anything to gain and much to lose by escalating a minor conflict into something that might well start World War 3. Indeed, both have strong incentives to avoid doing so, which makes the actual threat that they represent more speculative than real. And, on the plus side, both can be extremely useful in dealing with international issues where Washington has little or no leverage, to include resolving the North Korea problem and Syria, so the US has considerable benefits to be gained by cultivating their cooperation. ..."
"... Cohen-Watnick is thirty years old and has little relevant experience for the position he holds, senior director for intelligence on the National Security Council. But his inexperience counts for little as he is good friend of son-in-law Jared Kushner. He has told the New York Times ..."
"... Both Cohen-Watnick and Harvey share the neoconservative belief that the Iranians and their proxies in Syria and Iraq need to be confronted by force, an opportunity described by Foreign Policy ..."
"... What danger to the U.S. or its actual treaty allies an Iranian influenced land corridor would constitute remains a mystery but there is no shortage of Iran haters in the White House. Former senior CIA analyst Paul Pillar sees "unrelenting hostility from the Trump administration" towards Iran and notes "cherry-picking" of the intelligence to make a case for war, similar to what occurred with Iraq in 2002-3. And even though Secretary of Defense James Mattis and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster have pushed back against the impulsive Cohen-Watnick and Harvey, their objections are tactical as they do not wish to make U.S. forces in the region vulnerable to attacks coming from a new direction. Otherwise they too consider Iran as America's number one active enemy and believe that war is inevitable. Donald Trump has unfortunately also jumped directly into the argument on the side of Saudi Arabia and Israel, both of which would like to see Washington go to war with Tehran on their behalf. ..."
"... You forgot the third significant potential threat from a friendly nation, i.e. Israel. Israel will sabotage any effort to normallize relations with Russia or even Iran. They will resort to false flag operations to start a war with Iran. ..."
"... The problem with this White House, as well as the previous ones, is that none of the so-called experts really understand the Middle East. The US is not interested in having friendly relations with all nations. All her efforts are towards one goal, the world domination. Even if President Trump wanted to normalize relations with Russia, the MSM, the democrats, as well as, his republican opponents will not let him. ..."
"... That is why the constan drumbeat of Russia's meddling in the 2016 election despite the fact that no proof has been given so far. Similarly, the "Iran has nuclear weapons" narrative is constantly repeated, the reports by IAEA and the 17 Intelligence Agencies to the contrary not withstanding. ..."
"... The elevation of Muhammad bin Salman to the Crown Prince position will only make the Middle East situation worse. Israel will be able to manipulate him much more easily than the old guard. ..."
"... The titanic elephant in the room -- that US foreign policy is not governed by "rationality" but by "special interests" seems .missing ..."
"... Trump has no control of most government functions, particularly foreign affairs. The Deep State takes care of that for him. The Deep State has been calling the shots for decades and all Presidents who weren't assassinated have complied. Democracies never work and ours quit long ago. ..."
"... I fully agree that attacking Iran would be yet another disaster but I don't understand why Saudi Arabia is portrayed as an 'enemy', the 'real' one, no less, in alt-media circles like this. I mean let's be honest with ourselves. KSA is the definition of a vassal state. Has been so since the state established established relations with the USA in the 1940s and the status was confirmed during the 1960s under King Faisal. Oil for security. Why pretend that they have any operational clearance from the US? ..."
"... The BIGGEST threat to the USA is from within, as we are nothing more than an occupied colony of Apartheid Israel, paying that bastard state tributes each year in the form of free money and weapons, political backing at the UN, and never tire of fighting her wars of conquest. ..."
"... The also have a choke-hold on Congress, which is always eager to wag their tail and hope their Yid Overlord gives them a treat and not a dressing-down in the Jew MSM, which is a career killer. ..."
"... Israel's current "agreements" and its "kowtowing" to Saudi Arabia speaks VOLUMES. Once again, Israel is about to get others to do their "dirty work" for them. ..."
"... There's no alternative to Saudi royal family rule of the peninsula. Who's there to replace them? Any other group, assuming there might be one somewhere waiting in the wings, would probably be anti-American and not as compliant as the Saudis. They've spent gigantic sums in the endless billions buying military equipment from the US, weapons they can't even fully use, as a way of making themselves indispensable customers. Many other billions of petrodollars find their way westward into our financial systems. They collaborate with the US in various schemes throughout the Muslim world using their intelligence services and money in furtherance of US goals. ..."
"... Mattis still seems stuck with his Iran obsession. Shame I thought he had the intellectual curiosity to adapt. Trump has good instincts, I hope Tillerson comes to the fore, and Bannon stays influential. ..."
"... Iran is US enemy #1 not only because it is against that country smaller than New Jersey with less people (Israel) but also because Iran has been a model for other countries to follow because of its intransigence to US oppression and attacks, financial political and cyber. As the world becomes multi-polar, Iran's repeated wise reactions to the world hegemon have been an inspiration to China and others to go their own way. The US can't stand that. ..."
"... Contrary to the popular view, Wahabism is necessary to keep the local population under control. Particularly the minority Shia population who live along the eastern coast, an area, which incidentally also has the all the oil reserves. USA fully understands this. Which is why they not only tolerated Wahabism, but strongly promoted it during Afghan jihad. The operation was by and large very successful btw. It was only during the '90s when religion became the new ideology for the resistance against the empire across the Muslim world. Zero surprise there because the preceding ideology, radical left wing politics was completely defeated. Iran became the first country in this pattern. The Iranian left was decimated by the Shah, another vassal. So the religious right became the new resistance. ..."
"... And as far as the KSA is considered, Wahabi preachers aren't allowed to attack the USA anyway. If any individual preacher so much as makes a squeak, he will be bent over a barrel. There won't be any "coming down very hard on Saudi Arabia" because USA already owns that country. ..."
"... The British Empire 'made' the House of Saud. Thinking it wise to use Wahhabism to control Shia Islam is like thinking it wise to use blacks to control the criminal tendencies of Mexicans. ..."
It is one of the great ironies that the United States, a land mass protected by two broad oceans while also benefitting from the
world's largest economy and most powerful military, persists in viewing itself as a potential victim, vulnerable and surrounded by
enemies. In reality, there are only two significant potential threats to the U.S. The first consists of the only two non-friendly
countries – Russia and China – that have nuclear weapons and delivery systems that could hit the North American continent and the
second is the somewhat more amorphous danger represented by international terrorism.
And even given that, I would have to qualify the nature of the threats. Russia and China are best described as adversaries
or competitors rather than enemies as they have compelling interests to avoid war, even if Washington is doing its best to turn them
hostile. Neither has anything to gain and much to lose by escalating a minor conflict into something that might well start World
War 3. Indeed, both have strong incentives to avoid doing so, which makes the actual threat that they represent more speculative
than real. And, on the plus side, both can be extremely useful in dealing with international issues where Washington has little or
no leverage, to include resolving the North Korea problem and Syria, so the US has considerable benefits to be gained by cultivating
their cooperation.
Also, I would characterize international terrorism as a faux threat at a national level, though one that has been exaggerated
through the media and fearmongering to such an extent that it appears much more dangerous than it actually is. It has been observed
that more Americans are killed by falling furniture than by terrorists in a year but terrorism has a particularly potency due to
its unpredictability and the fear that it creates. Due to that fear, American governments and businesses at all levels have been
willing to spend a trillion dollars per annum to defeat what might rationally be regarded as a relatively minor problem.
So if the United States were serious about dealing with or deflecting the actual threats against the American people it could
first of all reduce its defense expenditures to make them commensurate with the actual threat before concentrating on three things.
First, would be to establish a solid modus vivendi with Russia and China to avoid conflicts of interest that could develop
into actual tit-for-tat escalation. That would require an acceptance by Washington of the fact that both Moscow and Beijing have
regional spheres of influence that are defined by their interests. You don't have to like the governance of either country, but their
national interests have to be appreciated and respected just as the United States has legitimate interests within its own hemisphere
that must be respected by Russia and China.
Second, Washington must, unfortunately, continue to spend on the Missile Defense Agency, which supports anti-missile defenses
if the search for a modus vivendi for some reason fails. Mutual assured destruction is not a desirable strategic doctrine
but being able to intercept incoming missiles while also having some capability to strike back if attacked is a realistic deterrent
given the proliferation of nations that have both ballistic missiles and nukes.
Third and finally, there would be a coordinated program aimed at international terrorism based equally on where the terror comes
from and on physically preventing the terrorist attacks from taking place. This is the element in national defense that is least
clear cut. Dealing with Russia and China involves working with mature regimes that have established diplomatic and military channels.
Dealing with terrorist non-state players is completely different as there are generally speaking no such channels.
It should in theory be pretty simple to match threats and interests with actions since there are only a handful that really matter,
but apparently it is not so in practice. What is Washington doing? First of all, the White House is deliberately turning its back
on restoring a good working relationship with Russia by insisting that Crimea be returned to Kiev, by blaming Moscow for the continued
unrest in Donbas, and by attacking Syrian military targets in spite of the fact that Russia is an ally of the legitimate government
in Damascus and the United States is an interloper in the conflict. Meanwhile congress and the media are poisoning the waters through
their dogged pursuit of Russiagate for political reasons even though nearly a year of investigation has produced no actual evidence
of malfeasance on the part of U.S. officials and precious little in terms of Moscow's alleged interference.
Playing tough to the international audience has unfortunately become part of the American Exceptionalism DNA. Upon his arrival
in Warsaw last week, Donald Trump doubled down on the
Russia-bashing, calling on Moscow to "cease its destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere and its support for hostile regimes
including Syria and Iran." He then recommended that Russia should "join the community of responsible nations in our fight against
common enemies and in defense of civilization itself."
The comments in Warsaw were unnecessary, even if the Poles wanted to hear them, and were both highly insulting and ignorant. It
was not a good start for Donald's second overseas trip, even though the speech has otherwise been interpreted as a welcome defense
of Western civilization and European values. Trump also followed up with a two hour plus discussion with President Vladimir Putin
in which the two apparently agreed to differ on the alleged Russian hacking of the American election. The Trump-Putin meeting indicated
that restoring some kind of working relationship with Russia is still possible, as it is in everyone's interest to do so.
Fighting terrorism is quite another matter and the United States approach is the reverse of what a rational player would be seeking
to accomplish. The U.S. is rightly assisting in the bid to eradicate ISIS in Syria and Iraq but it is simultaneously attacking the
most effective fighters against that group, namely the Syrian government armed forces and the Shiite militias being provided by Iran
and Hezbollah. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly clear that at least some in the Trump Administration are seeking to use the Syrian
engagement as a stepping stone to war with Iran.
As was the case in the months preceding the ill-fated invasion of Iraq in 2003, all buttons are being pushed to vilify Iran. Recent
reports suggest that two individuals in the White House in particular have been pressuring the Trump administration's generals to
escalate U.S. involvement in Syria to bring about a war with Tehran sooner rather than later. They are Ezra Cohen-Watnick and Derek
Harvey, reported to be holdovers from the team brought into the White House by the virulently anti-Iranian former National Security
Adviser Michael Flynn.
Cohen-Watnick is thirty years old and
has little relevant experience for the position he holds, senior director for intelligence on the National Security Council.
But his inexperience counts for little as he is good friend of son-in-law Jared Kushner. He has told the New York Times
that "wants to use American spies to help oust the Iranian government," a comment that reflects complete ignorance, both regarding
Iran and also concerning spy agency capabilities. His partner in crime Harvey, a former military officer who advised General David
Petraeus when he was in Iraq, is the NSC advisor on the Middle East.
Both Cohen-Watnick and Harvey share the neoconservative belief that the Iranians and their proxies in Syria and Iraq need
to be confronted by force,
an opportunity described by Foreign Policy magazine as having developed into "a pivotal moment that will determine whether
Iran or the United States exerts influence over Iraq and Syria." Other neocon promoters of conflict with Iran have described their
horror at a possible Shiite "bridge" or "land corridor" through the Arab heartland, running from Iran itself through Iraq and Syria
and connecting on the Mediterranean with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
What danger to the U.S. or its actual treaty allies an Iranian influenced land corridor would constitute remains a mystery
but there is no shortage of Iran haters in the White House. Former senior CIA analyst Paul Pillar
sees "unrelenting hostility from the Trump administration" towards Iran and notes "cherry-picking" of the intelligence to make
a case for war, similar to what occurred with Iraq in 2002-3. And even though Secretary of Defense James Mattis and National Security
Advisor H.R. McMaster have pushed back against the impulsive Cohen-Watnick and Harvey, their objections are tactical as they do not
wish to make U.S. forces in the region vulnerable to attacks coming from a new direction. Otherwise they too consider Iran as America's
number one active enemy and believe that war is inevitable. Donald Trump has unfortunately also jumped directly into the argument
on the side of Saudi Arabia and Israel, both of which would like to see Washington go to war with Tehran on their behalf.
The problem with the Trump analysis is that he has his friends and enemies confused. He is actually supporting Saudi Arabia, the
source of most of the terrorism that has convulsed Western Europe and the United States while also killing hundreds of thousands
of fellow Muslims. Random terrorism to kill as many "infidels and heretics" as possible to create fear is a Sunni Muslim phenomenon,
supported financially and doctrinally by the Saudis. To be sure, Iran has used terror tactics to eliminate opponents and select targets
overseas, to include several multiple-victim bombings, but it has never engaged in anything like the recent series of attacks in
France and Britain. So the United States is moving seemingly inexorably towards war with a country that itself constitutes no actual
terrorist threat, unless it is attacked, in support of a country that very much is part of the threat and also on behalf of Israel,
which for its part would prefer to see Americans die in a war against Iran rather that sacrificing its own sons and daughters.
Realizing who the real enemy actually is and addressing the actual terrorism problem would not only involve coming down very hard
on Saudi Arabia rather than Iran, it would also require some serious thinking in the White House about the extent to which America's
armed interventions all over Asia and Africa have made many people hate us enough to strap on a suicide vest and have a go. Saudi
financing and Washington's propensity to go to war and thereby create a deep well of hatred just might be the principal causative
elements in the rise of global terrorism. Do I think that Donald Trump's White House has the courage to take such a step and change
direction? Unfortunately, no.
Saudi Arabia is THE worst nation in the Middle East.
Why does the US follow along blindly? Well, it is a WASP thing. We are the new Brit Empire. By the height of the Victorian
era, virtually all English Elites were philoSemitic. Roughly half of the UK WASP Elite philoSemitism was pro-Jewish and half was
pro-Arabic/Islamic. And by the time of WW1, the English Elite pro-Arabic/Islamic faction came to adore the house of Saud. So,
our foreign policy is merely WASP culture continuing to ruin most of the rest of the world, including all the whites ruled by
WASP Elites.
In reality, there are only two significant potential threats to the U.S. The first consists of the only two non-friendly
countries – Russia and China – that have nuclear weapons and delivery systems that could hit the North American continent and
the second is the somewhat more amorphous danger represented by international terrorism.
No, the only threats are the following three:
Too many Meso-Americans invading from the border. These people have totally changed the SW and may drastically alter parts
of US as well. This is an invasion. Meso-Americans are lackluster, but Too Many translates into real power, especially in elections.
The other threat is Hindu-Indian. Indians are just itching to unload 100s of millions of their kind to Anglo nations. Unlike
Chinese population that is plummeting, Indian population is still growing.
The other threat, biggest of all, is the Negro. It's not Russian missiles or Chinese troops that turned Detroit into a hellhole.
It is Negroes. And look at Baltimore, New Orleans, Selma, Memphis, Oakland, St. Louis, South Side Chicago, etc.
Afromic Bomb is more hellish than atomic bomb. Compare Detroit and Hiroshima.
Also, even though nukes are deadly, they will likely never be used. They are for defensive purposes only. The real missiles
that will destroy the West is the Afro penis. US has nukes to destroy the world, but they haven't been used even during peak of
cold war. But millions of Negro puds have impregnanted and colonized white wombs to kill white-babies-that-could-have-been and
replaced them with mulatto Negro kids who will turn out like Colin Kapernick.
The real missile gap is the threat posed by negro dong on white dong. The negro dong is so potent that even Japanese women
are going Negroid and having kids with Negro men and raising these kids as 'Japanese' to beat up real Japanese. So, if Japan with
few blacks is turning like this, imagine the threat posed by Negroes on whites in the West.
Look at YouTube of street life and club life in Paris and London. Negro missiles are conquering the white race and spreading
the savage genes.
Look how Polish women welcomed the Negro missile cuz they are infected with jungle fever. ACOWW will be the real undoing of
the West.
Besides what Priss Factor said above the following is to be reinforced with every real American man, woman and child.
Israel , which for its part would prefer to see Americans die in a war against Iran rather that sacrificing its
own sons and daughters.
Israel, the REAL enemy! ,
@K India is looking to unload hindus to U.S? Quite the opposite. India is 'losing' its best brains to the U.S so its
trying to attract them back to their country. For eg: The chief- architect of IBM's Watson is a Hindu Indian and so is the
head of IBM's neuro-morphic computing. These people are advancing western technology.... civilian and also defense (IBM
is collaborating with the American defense organization DARPA) instead of helping India achieve technological competence.
And most of other super intelligent Indians also India is losing them to the west.
(i dont hate the west for doing that. Any country in amercia's place would have done the same. It is india's job to keep
its best brains working for it and not for others. And india is trying its best to do that albeit unsuccessfully.)
100 Words #UNRIG adds AMERICA FIRST, NOT ISRAEL to Agenda.
."A.I.P.A.C.. you're outta business!"
Due to slanderous attacks by a Mossad internet psy-op, Steele now prioritizes Israeli malign influence on US. Also, check out
Cynthia McKinney's twitter.
#UNRIG – Robert David Steele Weekly Update
@Durruti Nice action approach
to cure ills of society.
Enclosing copy of flier we have distributed - with a similar approach at a cure.
*Flier distributed is adjusted & a bit more attractive (1 sheet - both sides).
The key is to Restore the Republic, which was definitively destroyed on November 22, 1963.
Feel free to contact.
Use this, or send me a note by way of a response.
For THE RESTORATION OF THE REPUBLIC
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal governments are instituted among men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the
right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles "
The above is a portion of the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson.
We submit the following facts to the citizens of the United States.
The government of the United States has been a Totalitarian Oligarchy since the military financial aristocracy destroyed
the Democratic Republic on November 22, 1963 , when they assassinated the last democratically elected president, John Fitzgerald
Kennedy , and overthrew his government. All following governments have been unconstitutional frauds. Attempts by Robert
Kennedy and Martin Luther King to restore the Republic were interrupted by their murder.
A subsequent 12 year colonial war against Vietnam , conducted by the murderers of Kennedy, left 2 million dead in a
wake of napalm and burning villages.
In 1965, the U.S. government orchestrated the slaughter of 1 million unarmed Indonesian civilians.
In the decade that followed the CIA murdered 100,000 Native Americans in Guatemala .
In the 1970s, the Oligarchy began the destruction and looting of America's middle class, by encouraging the export of industry
and jobs to parts of the world where workers were paid bare subsistence wages. The 2008, Bailout of the Nation's Oligarchs
cost American taxpayers $13trillion. The long decline of the local economy has led to the political decline of our hard working
citizens, as well as the decay of cities, towns, and infrastructure, such as education.
The impoverishment of America's middle class has undermined the nation's financial stability. Without a productive foundation,
the government has accumulated a huge debt in excess of $19trillion. This debt will have to be paid, or suffered by future generations.
Concurrently, the top 1% of the nation's population has benefited enormously from the discomfiture of the rest. The interest rate
has been reduced to 0, thereby slowly robbing millions of depositors of their savings, as their savings cannot stay even with
the inflation rate.
The government spends the declining national wealth on bloody and never ending military adventures, and is or has recently
conducted unconstitutional wars against 9 nations. The Oligarchs maintain 700 military bases in 131 countries; they spend as much
on military weapons of terror as the rest of the nations of the world combined. Tellingly, more than half the government budget
is spent on the military and 16 associated secret agencies.
The nightmare of a powerful centralized government crushing the rights of the people, so feared by the Founders of the United
States, has become a reality. The government of Obama/Biden, as with previous administrations such as Bush/Cheney, and whoever
is chosen in November 2016, operates a Gulag of dozens of concentration camps, where prisoners are denied trials, and routinely
tortured. The Patriot Act and The National Defense Authorizations Act , enacted by both Democratic and Republican
factions of the oligarchy, serve to establish a legal cover for their terror.
The nation's media is controlled, and, with the school systems, serve to brainwash the population; the people are intimidated
and treated with contempt.
The United States is No longer Sovereign
The United States is no longer a sovereign nation. Its government, The Executive, and Congress, is bought, utterly owned
and controlled by foreign and domestic wealthy Oligarchs, such as the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and Duponts , to name only
a few of the best known.
The 2016 Electoral Circus will anoint new actors to occupy the same Unconstitutional Government, with its controlling International
Oligarchs. Clinton, Trump, whomever, are willing accomplices for imperialist international murder, and destruction of nations,
including ours.
For Love of Country
The Restoration of the Republic will be a Revolutionary Act, that will cancel all previous debts owed to that unconstitutional
regime and its business supporters. All debts, including Student Debts, will be canceled. Our citizens will begin, anew, with
a clean slate.
As American Founder , Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a letter to James Madison:
"I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, 'that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living':"
"Then I say the earth belongs to each of these generations, during it's course, fully, and in their own right. The 2d. Generation
receives it clear of the debts and incumberances of the 1st. The 3d of the 2d. and so on. For if the 1st. Could charge it with
a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not the living generation."
Our Citizens must restore the centrality of the constitution, establishing a less powerful government which will ensure
President Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms , freedom of speech and expression, freedom to worship God in ones own way, freedom
from want "which means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peace time life for its inhabitants
" and freedom from fear "which means a world-wide reduction of armaments "
Once restored: The Constitution will become, once again, the law of the land and of a free people. We will establish a government,
hold elections, begin to direct traffic, arrest criminal politicians of the tyrannical oligarchy, and, in short, repair the damage
of the previous totalitarian governments.
For the Democratic Republic!
Sons and Daughters of Liberty [email protected]
In reality, there are only two significant potential threats to the U.S. The first consists of the only two non-friendly
countries – Russia and China – that have nuclear weapons and delivery systems that could hit the North American continent and
the second is the somewhat more amorphous danger represented by international terrorism.
You forgot the third significant potential threat from a friendly nation, i.e. Israel. Israel will sabotage any effort
to normallize relations with Russia or even Iran. They will resort to false flag operations to start a war with Iran.
The problem with this White House, as well as the previous ones, is that none of the so-called experts really understand
the Middle East. The US is not interested in having friendly relations with all nations. All her efforts are towards one goal,
the world domination. Even if President Trump wanted to normalize relations with Russia, the MSM, the democrats, as well as, his
republican opponents will not let him.
That is why the constan drumbeat of Russia's meddling in the 2016 election despite the fact that no proof has been given
so far. Similarly, the "Iran has nuclear weapons" narrative is constantly repeated, the reports by IAEA and the 17 Intelligence
Agencies to the contrary not withstanding.
The elevation of Muhammad bin Salman to the Crown Prince position will only make the Middle East situation worse. Israel
will be able to manipulate him much more easily than the old guard.
The western world is dependent on oil, especially ME oil. Saudi Arabia was made the USA's main oil supplier at the end of 1944.
The Saud dynasty depends on the USA. That the Saudis would sponsor terrorism, why would they ? And which terrorism is Muslim terrorism
?
Sept 11 not, Boston not, Madrid and London very questionably. We then are left with minor issues, the Paris shooting the biggest.
That Saudi Arabia is waging war in Yemen certainly is with USA support. The Saudi army does what the USA wants them to do.
Mr. Giraldi, you forgot to mention Israel as one of America's biggest liabilities besides Saudi Arabia. But with such amateur
dramatics in the White House and on the Security Council, the US is destined for war but only against the wrong enemy such as
Iran. If the Saudis and the right-wing Netanyahu regime want to get after Iran they should do it alone. They surely will get a
bloody nose. Americans have shed enough blood for these rascal regimes. President Trump should continue with his rapprochement
towards Russia because both nation states have more in common than expected.
I'm a little disappointed in this article. Not that it's a bad article per se: perfectly rational, reasonable, academic even.
But unfortunately, it's simply naive.
"Realizing who the real enemy actually is and addressing the actual terrorism problem would not only involve coming down very
hard on Saudi Arabia rather than Iran, it would also require some serious thinking in the White House about the extent to which
America's armed interventions all over Asia and Africa have made many people hate us enough to strap on a suicide vest and have
a go."
Realize who the real enemy is ? Come down hard on the Saud's ? No -- really ?
The titanic elephant in the room -- that US foreign policy is not governed by "rationality" but by "special interests" seems
.missing. Israel, the Saudi's themselves, the MIC & so on & so forth ARE the special interests who literally "realise" US Policy.
Well, the real enemy of the people are the real terrorists behind the scenes. Those who planned the 9/11 false flag.
Those who sent the Anthrax letters to resisting congress members. Those who pre-planned the wars of aggression in the whole middle
east.
So any appeal to the "White House" is almost pointless since the White House is one element of the power structure captured
by the war-criminal lunatics.
To change something people in the US should at first stop buying their war criminal lying mass media.
Then they should stop supporting ANY foreign intervention by the US and should stop believing any of the preposterous lies
released by the media, the state dept., or any other neocon outlet.
Actually Trump was probably elected because he said he was anti-intervention and anti-media. But did it help?
The US needs mass resistance (demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, non-participation, sit-ins, grass-root information, or whatever)
against their neocon/zionist/mafia/cia power groups or nothing will change.
We need demonstrations against NATO, against war, against false flag terrorism, against using terrorists as secret armies,
against war propaganda!
B.t.w. Iran has always been one of the main goals. Think of it: Why did the US attack Afghanistan and Iraq? What have those
two countries in common? (Hint: a look on the map helps to answer this question.)
I am beginning to get interested in why some people are sure 9/11 was a false flag affair covered up by a lot of lies.
So may I try my opening question on you. How much, if any of it, have you read of the official 9/11 commission report? ,
"The White House is targeting Iran but should instead focus on Saudi Arabia"
Trump has no control of most government functions, particularly foreign affairs. The Deep State takes care of that for
him. The Deep State has been calling the shots for decades and all Presidents who weren't assassinated have complied. Democracies
never work and ours quit long ago.
I fully agree that attacking Iran would be yet another disaster but I don't understand why Saudi Arabia is portrayed as an 'enemy',
the 'real' one, no less, in alt-media circles like this.
I mean let's be honest with ourselves. KSA is the definition of a vassal state. Has been so since the state established
established relations with the USA in the 1940s and the status was confirmed during the 1960s under King Faisal. Oil for security. Why pretend that they have any operational clearance from the US?
Contrary to the popular view, Wahabism is necessary to keep the local population under control. Particularly the minority Shia
population who live along the eastern coast, an area, which incidentally also has the all the oil reserves.
USA fully understands this. Which is why they not only tolerated Wahabism, but strongly promoted it during Afghan jihad. The
operation was by and large very successful btw.
It was only during the '90s when religion became the new ideology for the resistance against the empire across the Muslim world.
Zero surprise there because the preceding ideology, radical left wing politics was completely defeated. Iran became the first
country in this pattern. The Iranian left was decimated by the Shah, another vassal. So the religious right became the new resistance.
And as far as the KSA is considered, Wahabi preachers aren't allowed to attack the USA anyway. If any individual preacher so
much as makes a squeak, he will be bent over a barrel. There won't be any "coming down very hard on Saudi Arabia" because USA
already owns that country.
So what's the answer? Well, props to Phillip as he understood – "it would also require some serious thinking in the White House
about the extent to which America's armed interventions all over Asia and Africa have made many people hate us enough to strap
on a suicide vest and have a go."
Your analysis starts too late. The US supports Wahhabism and the House of Saud because the pro-Arabic/Islamic English
Elites of 1910 and 1920 and 1935 supported Wahhabism and the House of Saud.
The British Empire 'made' the House of Saud,
Thinking it wise to use Wahhabism to control Shia Islam is like thinking it wise to use blacks to control the criminal
tendencies of Mexicans.
In reality, there are only two significant potential threats to the U.S. The first consists of the only two non-friendly
countries – Russia and China – that have nuclear weapons and delivery systems that could hit the North American continent and
the second is the somewhat more amorphous danger represented by international terrorism.
No, the only threats are the following three:
Too many Meso-Americans invading from the border. These people have totally changed the SW and may drastically alter parts
of US as well. This is an invasion. Meso-Americans are lackluster, but Too Many translates into real power, especially in elections.
The other threat is Hindu-Indian. Indians are just itching to unload 100s of millions of their kind to Anglo nations. Unlike
Chinese population that is plummeting, Indian population is still growing.
The other threat, biggest of all, is the Negro. It's not Russian missiles or Chinese troops that turned Detroit into a hellhole.
It is Negroes. And look at Baltimore, New Orleans, Selma, Memphis, Oakland, St. Louis, South Side Chicago, etc.
Afromic Bomb is more hellish than atomic bomb. Compare Detroit and Hiroshima.
Also, even though nukes are deadly, they will likely never be used. They are for defensive purposes only. The real missiles
that will destroy the West is the Afro penis. US has nukes to destroy the world, but they haven't been used even during peak of
cold war. But millions of Negro puds have impregnanted and colonized white wombs to kill white-babies-that-could-have-been and
replaced them with mulatto Negro kids who will turn out like Colin Kapernick.
The real missile gap is the threat posed by negro dong on white dong. The negro dong is so potent that even Japanese women
are going Negroid and having kids with Negro men and raising these kids as 'Japanese' to beat up real Japanese. So, if Japan with
few blacks is turning like this, imagine the threat posed by Negroes on whites in the West.
Look at youtube of street life and club life in Paris and London. Negro missiles are conquering the white race and spreading
the savage genes.
Look how Polish women welcomed the Negro missile cuz they are infected with jungle fever. ACOWW will be the real undoing of
the West.
Replies: @Sowhat And what grudge
is that? The only two I can find are connected. The deposing of our puppets, the Assads and the nationalization of their natural
resources. I have the impression that it removes around future hegemon and the rich gas reserves off their coast and the decades
long desire to run a pipeline west to the Mediterranean.
The BIGGEST threat to the USA is from within, as we are nothing more than an occupied colony of Apartheid Israel, paying that
bastard state tributes each year in the form of free money and weapons, political backing at the UN, and never tire of fighting
her wars of conquest.
You won't see Israeli troops in the streets, since their confederates control the economy thru their control of the FED and
US Treasury and most of those TBTF banks, which we always bail out, no matter the cost.
The also have a choke-hold on Congress, which is always eager to wag their tail and hope their Yid Overlord gives them
a treat and not a dressing-down in the Jew MSM, which is a career killer.
The WH is also Israeli territory, especially now with a Jew NYC slumlord now Trump's top adviser and his fashion model faux
Jew daughter egging Daddy on to kill more Arab babies, since she can't stand the sight of dead babies
@Paul Well, the real enemy of
the people are the real terrorists behind the scenes. Those who planned the 9/11 false flag. Those who sent the Anthrax letters
to resisting congress members. Those who pre-planned the wars of aggression in the whole middle east.
So any appeal to the "White House" is almost pointless since the White House is one element of the power structure captured
by the war-criminal lunatics.
To change something people in the US should at first stop buying their war criminal lying mass media.
Then they should stop supporting ANY foreign intervention by the US and should stop believing any of the preposterous lies
released by the media, the state dept., or any other neocon outlet.
Actually Trump was probably elected because he said he was anti-intervention and anti-media. But did it help?
The US needs mass resistance (demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, non-participation, sit-ins, grass-root information, or whatever)
against their neocon/zionist/mafia/cia power groups or nothing will change.
We need demonstrations against NATO, against war, against false flag terrorism, against using terrorists as secret armies,
against war propaganda!
B.t.w. Iran has always been one of the main goals. Think of it: Why did the US attack Afghanistan and Iraq? What have those
two countries in common? (Hint: a look on the map helps to answer this question.) I am beginning to get interested in why some
people are sure 9/11 was a false flag affair covered up by a lot of lies. So may I try my opening question on you. How much, if
any of it, have you read of the official 9/11 commission report?
@eah The WH should focus on
the USA. And what grudge is that? The only two I can find are connected. The deposing of our puppets, the Assads and the nationalization
of their natural resources. I have the impression that it removes around future hegemon and the rich gas reserves off their coast
and the decades long desire to run a pipeline west to the Mediterranean.
Israel's current "agreements" and its "kowtowing" to Saudi Arabia speaks VOLUMES. Once again, Israel is about to get others
to do their "dirty work" for them.
The point that everybody seems to miss is the fact that Judaism and Islam are inextricably linked. In fact, one could safely
argue that Islam is an arabicized form of Judaism.
1. Both Judaism and Islam promote their own forms of supremacy, relegating non-adherents as "lesser human beings", or in Judaism's
take "no better than livestock, albeit with souls, to be used for the advantage of the jew".
2. Both systems proscribe lesser (or no) punishment for those of each respective "tribe" who transgress against "outsiders"
-- goyim
or infidels. Both systems proscribe much harsher punishments against "outsiders" who transgress against those of each respective
"tribe".
3. When it comes to "equality under law", Israel is no better than Saudi Arabia, as a jew who has a disagreement with an "outsider"
will always have the advantage of a judicial system which almost always rules for the jew.
4. Both Judaism and Islam have taken it upon themselves to be arbiters of what the rest of the world should follow, demanding
that "outsiders" conform to what THEY believe, thinking that they know what is best (for the rest of us). Just look at the demands
moslems (who are guests in western Europe) make of local non-moslem populations.
Read the jewish Talmud and islamic Koran you will find virtually identical passages that demonize and marginalize those of
us who are "goyim" or "infidels".
A pox on both their houses
Now before I say what I'm going to say I want to say that Israel has the right to define and defend her interests just
as China, Russia and USA do, as Geraldi says above. No nation or people can be denied this (without force).
Having said that, I am grateful to you, anarchyst, for having pointed out the familial similarities between Islam and
Judaism. In addition to what you say there is the fact that the Jewish genome is virtually identical to that of the Palestinians--except
for that of Ashkenazi Jews who are more than half European.
As far as I can see, Ashkenazi Jews have an existential choice. They can identify with their European half whereby they
acknowledge that the Greeks and not Moses made the greatest contributions to humanity (and more particularly, their humanity)
or they can go with their atavistic Semitic side and regress to barbarism. Science, Logic, Math, History, Architecture,
Drama and Music or blowing up Buddhas and shrouding your women. Take your pick.
Of course, this is sorta unfair in as much as they were kicked out of Europe and now dwell in the ME where if they try
to act like Europeans they will be persecuted by their neighbors as apostates. The Jews do indeed have a tough row to hoe.
, @bjondo Jews/Judaism
bring death, destruction, misery.
Muslims/Islam (minus Western creation of "Muslim"terrorists) brought golden ages to many areas.
Christianity and Islam elevate the human spirit. Judaism degrades.
June 7, 2017 We Have Met the Evil Empire and It Is Us
Life in America was pure injustice, the lash and the iron boot, despite the version of history we have been given by the Ford
and Rockefeller Foundations who "re-invented" America and its history through taking control of public education in the late 1940s.
You see, the multi-generational ignorance we bask in today is not unplanned. The threat represented by advances in communications
and other technology was recognized and dealt with, utterly quashed at birth.
@anarchyst Israel's current
"agreements" and its "kowtowing" to Saudi Arabia speaks VOLUMES. Once again, Israel is about to get others to do their "dirty
work" for them.
The point that everybody seems to miss is the fact that Judaism and Islam are inextricably linked. In fact, one could safely argue
that Islam is an arabicized form of Judaism.
1. Both Judaism and Islam promote their own forms of supremacy, relegating non-adherents as "lesser human beings", or in Judaism's
take "no better than livestock, albeit with souls, to be used for the advantage of the jew".
2. Both systems proscribe lesser (or no) punishment for those of each respective "tribe" who transgress against "outsiders"--goyim
or infidels. Both systems proscribe much harsher punishments against "outsiders" who transgress against those of each respective
"tribe".
3. When it comes to "equality under law", Israel is no better than Saudi Arabia, as a jew who has a disagreement with an "outsider"
will always have the advantage of a judicial system which almost always rules for the jew.
4. Both Judaism and Islam have taken it upon themselves to be arbiters of what the rest of the world should follow, demanding
that "outsiders" conform to what THEY believe, thinking that they know what is best (for the rest of us). Just look at the demands
moslems (who are guests in western Europe) make of local non-moslem populations.
Read the jewish Talmud and islamic Koran...you will find virtually identical passages that demonize and marginalize those of
us who are "goyim" or "infidels".
A pox on both their houses... Now before I say what I'm going to say I want to say that Israel has the right to define and defend
her interests just as China, Russia and USA do, as Geraldi says above. No nation or people can be denied this (without force).
Having said that, I am grateful to you, anarchyst, for having pointed out the familial similarities between Islam and Judaism.
In addition to what you say there is the fact that the Jewish genome is virtually identical to that of the Palestinians–except
for that of Ashkenazi Jews who are more than half European.
As far as I can see, Ashkenazi Jews have an existential choice. They can identify with their European half whereby they acknowledge
that the Greeks and not Moses made the greatest contributions to humanity (and more particularly, their humanity) or they can
go with their atavistic Semitic side and regress to barbarism. Science, Logic, Math, History, Architecture, Drama and Music or
blowing up Buddhas and shrouding your women. Take your pick.
Of course, this is sorta unfair in as much as they were kicked out of Europe and now dwell in the ME where if they try to act
like Europeans they will be persecuted by their neighbors as apostates. The Jews do indeed have a tough row to hoe.
Trump is torn between Israel's permanent need to weaken its powerful neighbors (Iraq, Iran) and the necessity to protect the USA
from terrorists attacks.
Iran is an hypothetical threat to Israel, Saudi Arabia has proven to be a threat to the world.
In Tehran and other Iranian cities including Iran's holiest, that is, most conservative cities like Mashad. there are taxi
companies owned and run by women.
Tehran traffic makes NYC look like Mayberry RFD; many Iranians use small motorcycles to commute and take care of daily chores.
It's not at all uncommon to see an Iranian woman in full chador driving a motorcycle with a child and parcels in tow.
Iranian women could offer to teach the women of Saudi Arabia to drive.
@Wizard of Oz I am beginning
to get interested in why some people are sure 9/11 was a false flag affair covered up by a lot of lies. So may I try my opening
question on you. How much, if any of it, have you read of the official 9/11 commission report? A better question: Have YOU read
The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation by Phillip Shenon?
There's no alternative to Saudi royal family rule of the peninsula. Who's there to replace them? Any other group, assuming
there might be one somewhere waiting in the wings, would probably be anti-American and not as compliant as the Saudis. They've
spent gigantic sums in the endless billions buying military equipment from the US, weapons they can't even fully use, as a way
of making themselves indispensable customers. Many other billions of petrodollars find their way westward into our financial systems.
They collaborate with the US in various schemes throughout the Muslim world using their intelligence services and money in furtherance
of US goals.
They live the royal life thanks to being able to use the money from their nation's resource wealth as their own personal kitty,
living in palaces, buying obscene amounts of jewelry and other luxury goods, and so on. They'll never give that up and being a
close ally of the US affords them protection which of course they pay for. They may be seen as an enemy by the average person
but not at the elite level with whom they all consort and roll around in the money with.
Mattis still seems stuck with his Iran obsession. Shame I thought he had the intellectual curiosity to adapt. Trump has
good instincts, I hope Tillerson comes to the fore, and Bannon stays influential.
Iran is US enemy #1 not only because it is against that country smaller than New Jersey with less people (Israel) but also
because Iran has been a model for other countries to follow because of its intransigence to US oppression and attacks, financial
political and cyber. As the world becomes multi-polar, Iran's repeated wise reactions to the world hegemon have been an inspiration
to China and others to go their own way. The US can't stand that.
@Paul Well, the real enemy of
the people are the real terrorists behind the scenes. Those who planned the 9/11 false flag. Those who sent the Anthrax letters
to resisting congress members. Those who pre-planned the wars of aggression in the whole middle east.
So any appeal to the "White House" is almost pointless since the White House is one element of the power structure captured
by the war-criminal lunatics.
To change something people in the US should at first stop buying their war criminal lying mass media.
Then they should stop supporting ANY foreign intervention by the US and should stop believing any of the preposterous lies
released by the media, the state dept., or any other neocon outlet.
Actually Trump was probably elected because he said he was anti-intervention and anti-media. But did it help?
The US needs mass resistance (demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, non-participation, sit-ins, grass-root information, or whatever)
against their neocon/zionist/mafia/cia power groups or nothing will change.
We need demonstrations against NATO, against war, against false flag terrorism, against using terrorists as secret armies,
against war propaganda!
B.t.w. Iran has always been one of the main goals. Think of it: Why did the US attack Afghanistan and Iraq? What have those
two countries in common? (Hint: a look on the map helps to answer this question.) "Well, the real enemy of the people are the
real terrorists behind the scenes. Those who planned the 9/11 false flag."
Saudi Arabia is THE worst nation in the Middle East.
Why does the US follow along blindly? Well, it is a WASP thing. We are the new Brit Empire. By the height of the Victorian
era, virtually all English Elites were philoSemitic. Roughly half of the UK WASP Elite philoSemitism was pro-Jewish and half was
pro-Arabic/Islamic.
And by the time of WW1, the English Elite pro-Arabic/Islamic faction came to adore the house of Saud.
So, our foreign policy is merely WASP culture continuing to ruin most of the rest of the world, including all the whites ruled
by WASP Elites. SECOND worst,my friend.
@Chad I fully agree that attacking
Iran would be yet another disaster but I don't understand why Saudi Arabia is portrayed as an 'enemy', the 'real' one, no less,
in alt-media circles like this.
I mean let's be honest with ourselves. KSA is the definition of a vassal state. Has been so since the state established
established relations with the USA in the 1940s and the status was confirmed during the 1960s under King Faisal. Oil for security.
Why pretend that they have any operational clearance from the US?
Contrary to the popular view, Wahabism is necessary to keep the local population under control. Particularly the minority
Shia population who live along the eastern coast, an area, which incidentally also has the all the oil reserves. USA fully understands
this. Which is why they not only tolerated Wahabism, but strongly promoted it during Afghan jihad. The operation was by and large
very successful btw. It was only during the '90s when religion became the new ideology for the resistance against the empire across
the Muslim world. Zero surprise there because the preceding ideology, radical left wing politics was completely defeated. Iran
became the first country in this pattern. The Iranian left was decimated by the Shah, another vassal. So the religious right became
the new resistance.
And as far as the KSA is considered, Wahabi preachers aren't allowed to attack the USA anyway. If any individual preacher
so much as makes a squeak, he will be bent over a barrel. There won't be any "coming down very hard on Saudi Arabia" because USA
already owns that country.
So what's the answer? Well, props to Phillip as he understood - "it would also require some serious thinking in the White House
about the extent to which America's armed interventions all over Asia and Africa have made many people hate us enough to strap
on a suicide vest and have a go."
Bingo. Your analysis starts too late. The US supports Wahhabism and the House of Saud because the pro-Arabic/Islamic English
Elites of 1910 and 1920 and 1935 supported Wahhabism and the House of Saud.
The British Empire 'made' the House of Saud. Thinking it wise to use Wahhabism to control Shia Islam is like thinking it
wise to use blacks to control the criminal tendencies of Mexicans.
1,000 Words @RobinG#UNRIG
adds AMERICA FIRST, NOT ISRAEL to Agenda.
..................."A.I.P.A.C.. you're outta business!"
Due to slanderous attacks by a Mossad internet psy-op, Steele now prioritizes Israeli malign influence on US. Also, check out
Cynthia McKinney's twitter.
#UNRIG - Robert David Steele Weekly Update Nice action approach to cure ills of society.
Enclosing copy of flier we have distributed – with a similar approach at a cure.
*Flier distributed is adjusted & a bit more attractive (1 sheet – both sides).
The key is to Restore the Republic, which was definitively destroyed on November 22, 1963.
Feel free to contact.
Use this, or send me a note by way of a response.
For THE RESTORATION OF THE REPUBLIC
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal governments are instituted among men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the
right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles "
The above is a portion of the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson.
We submit the following facts to the citizens of the United States.
The government of the United States has been a Totalitarian Oligarchy since the military financial aristocracy destroyed
the Democratic Republic on November 22, 1963 , when they assassinated the last democratically elected president, John Fitzgerald
Kennedy , and overthrew his government. All following governments have been unconstitutional frauds. Attempts by Robert
Kennedy and Martin Luther King to restore the Republic were interrupted by their murder.
A subsequent 12 year colonial war against Vietnam , conducted by the murderers of Kennedy, left 2 million dead in a
wake of napalm and burning villages.
In 1965, the U.S. government orchestrated the slaughter of 1 million unarmed Indonesian civilians.
In the decade that followed the CIA murdered 100,000 Native Americans in Guatemala .
In the 1970s, the Oligarchy began the destruction and looting of America's middle class, by encouraging the export of industry
and jobs to parts of the world where workers were paid bare subsistence wages. The 2008, Bailout of the Nation's Oligarchs
cost American taxpayers $13trillion. The long decline of the local economy has led to the political decline of our hard working
citizens, as well as the decay of cities, towns, and infrastructure, such as education.
The impoverishment of America's middle class has undermined the nation's financial stability. Without a productive foundation,
the government has accumulated a huge debt in excess of $19trillion. This debt will have to be paid, or suffered by future generations.
Concurrently, the top 1% of the nation's population has benefited enormously from the discomfiture of the rest. The interest rate
has been reduced to 0, thereby slowly robbing millions of depositors of their savings, as their savings cannot stay even with
the inflation rate.
The government spends the declining national wealth on bloody and never ending military adventures, and is or has recently
conducted unconstitutional wars against 9 nations. The Oligarchs maintain 700 military bases in 131 countries; they spend as much
on military weapons of terror as the rest of the nations of the world combined. Tellingly, more than half the government budget
is spent on the military and 16 associated secret agencies.
The nightmare of a powerful centralized government crushing the rights of the people, so feared by the Founders of the United
States, has become a reality. The government of Obama/Biden, as with previous administrations such as Bush/Cheney, and whoever
is chosen in November 2016, operates a Gulag of dozens of concentration camps, where prisoners are denied trials, and routinely
tortured. The Patriot Act and The National Defense Authorizations Act , enacted by both Democratic and Republican
factions of the oligarchy, serve to establish a legal cover for their terror.
The nation's media is controlled, and, with the school systems, serve to brainwash the population; the people are intimidated
and treated with contempt.
The United States is No longer Sovereign
The United States is no longer a sovereign nation. Its government, The Executive, and Congress, is bought, utterly owned
and controlled by foreign and domestic wealthy Oligarchs, such as the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and Duponts , to name only
a few of the best known.
The 2016 Electoral Circus will anoint new actors to occupy the same Unconstitutional Government, with its controlling International
Oligarchs. Clinton, Trump, whomever, are willing accomplices for imperialist international murder, and destruction of nations,
including ours.
For Love of Country
The Restoration of the Republic will be a Revolutionary Act, that will cancel all previous debts owed to that unconstitutional
regime and its business supporters. All debts, including Student Debts, will be canceled. Our citizens will begin, anew, with
a clean slate.
As American Founder , Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a letter to James Madison:
"I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, 'that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living':"
"Then I say the earth belongs to each of these generations, during it's course, fully, and in their own right. The 2d. Generation
receives it clear of the debts and incumberances of the 1st. The 3d of the 2d. and so on. For if the 1st. Could charge it with
a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not the living generation."
Our Citizens must restore the centrality of the constitution, establishing a less powerful government which will ensure
President Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms , freedom of speech and expression, freedom to worship God in ones own way, freedom
from want "which means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peace time life for its inhabitants
" and freedom from fear "which means a world-wide reduction of armaments "
Once restored: The Constitution will become, once again, the law of the land and of a free people. We will establish a government,
hold elections, begin to direct traffic, arrest criminal politicians of the tyrannical oligarchy, and, in short, repair the damage
of the previous totalitarian governments.
For the Democratic Republic!
Sons and Daughters of Liberty [email protected]
are studying US states and ranking them according to financial stability measures. The states with biggest problems -- Illinois,
California, New Jersey, Connecticut -- are in the mess they are in largely because of pension liability issues: some pensions
are unfunded or underfunded.
I recall that ten years ago about a dozen Jewish organizations formed the "Iran Task Force," ** whose primary activity was
to persuade managers of State pension funds to divest from Iran-connected companies; that is, corporations & banks, etc. that
did business with Iran. I recall very clearly that Arnold Schwartznegger was the poster child for California's vanguard role in
divesting from such nasty nasty companies, in accord with the wishes of Jewish Israel-firsters.
Perhaps the Mercatus scholars could prepare an exercise in alternative financial history: What shape would the US economy,
and the various States's economies, be in if the US were NOT so overwhelmingly influenced by Israel firsters, and were NOT persuaded,
Against Our Better Judgment, to entangle themselves in Israel's nefarious activities?
____
** The 2007 Iran Task Force is NOT the same as the group formed in 2015 or so, embedded in US House/Senate, with Joe Lieberman
and Michael Hayden playing prominent roles in attempting to influence the Iran Deal.
The 2007 initiative was sponsored by groups such as ZOA, RJC, AIPAC, etc., and / or spun off groups such as Foundation for
Defense of Democracy, United Against Nuclear Iran.
This review way written almost two year ago. The new President is now sitting in White house. Nothing changed.
The problem with Bacevich' views is that neoliberalism dictates expansion and maintenance of neoliberal empire as well in best
Trotskyism tradition "export of neoliberal revolution" using bayonets, if other means do not work. So this is the nature of the
neoliberal beast, not an aberration like he assumes. Militarism is essence of US foreign policy under neoliberalism.
Notable quotes:
"... This book, Bacevich's eighth, extends his string of brutal, bracing and essential critiques of the pernicious role of reflexive militarism in American foreign policy. As in past books, Bacevich is thought-provoking, profane and fearless. Assailing generals, journalists and foreign policy experts alike, he links together more than a dozen military interventions that span 35 years and declares them a single war. Bacevich analyzes each intervention, looking for common themes from Carter's late 1970s missteps to Barack Obama's widespread use of assassination by drone strike today. ..."
"... A presumption that using military power signified to friends and foes that Washington was getting serious about a problem diminished the role of diplomats and diplomacy. " 'Getting serious' also implied a preference for uniforms over suits as the principal agents of U.S. policy," Bacevich writes. "Henceforth, rather than military power serving as the handmaiden of diplomacy, the reverse would be true." ..."
"... In another repeated mistake, triumphalist American commanders prematurely declare victory without realizing that their opponent has simply withdrawn to fight another day as a guerrilla force, as occurred in Afghanistan in 2001. They also personalize the enemy, wrongly assuming that the removal of figures like Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and Muammar Qaddafi will instantly end conflict. ..."
"... From Somalia in 1993 to Yemen today, American commanders and policy makers overestimated the advantage American military technology bestows on them. And most crucially of all, the United States has failed to decide whether it is, in fact, at war. ..."
"... "In the war for the greater Middle East, the United States chose neither to contain nor to crush, instead charting a course midway in between," Bacevich writes. "Instead of intimidating, U.S. military efforts have annoyed, incited and generally communicated a lack of both competence and determination." ..."
"... For all that, Bacevich is right that the United States' reflexive use of armed intervention in the Middle East is folly. An unquestioning faith in military might and an underinvestment in diplomacy has tied Washington in a policy straitjacket. Bacevich's call for Americans to rethink their nation's militarized approach to the Middle East is incisive, urgent and essential. ..."
BOOK REVIEW: AMERICA'S WAR FOR THE GREATER MIDDLE EAST (A Military History) By Andrew J. Bacevich
Illustrated. 453 pp. Random House. $30.
In the opening chapter of his latest book, the military historian Andrew J. Bacevich blames Jimmy Carter, a president commonly
viewed as more meek than martial, for unwittingly spawning 35 years of American military intervention in the Middle East. Bacevich
argues that three mistakes by Carter set precedents that led to decades of squandered American lives and treasure.
First, Carter called on Americans to stop worshiping "self-indulgence and consumption" and join a nationwide effort to conserve
energy. Self-sacrifice, he argued in what is now widely derided as Carter's "malaise speech," would free Americans from their dependence
on foreign oil and "help us to conquer the crisis of the spirit in our country."
The president came across as more hectoring pastor than visionary leader, Bacevich argues in "America's War for the Greater Middle
East." His guileless approach squandered an opportunity to persuade Americans reeling from high foreign oil prices to trade "dependence
for autonomy."
Carter's second mistake was authorizing American support to guerrillas fighting a Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan, a move
that eventually helped fuel the spread of radical Islam. Finally, in a misguided effort to counter views that he was "too soft,"
Carter declared that the United States would respond with military force to any outside effort to seize Persian Gulf oil fields.
"This statement, subsequently enshrined as the Carter Doctrine, inaugurated America's war for the greater Middle East," Bacevich
writes.
This book, Bacevich's eighth, extends his string of brutal, bracing and essential critiques of the pernicious role of reflexive
militarism in American foreign policy. As in past books, Bacevich is thought-provoking, profane and fearless. Assailing generals,
journalists and foreign policy experts alike, he links together more than a dozen military interventions that span 35 years and declares
them a single war. Bacevich analyzes each intervention, looking for common themes from Carter's late 1970s missteps to Barack Obama's
widespread use of assassination by drone strike today.
Washington's penchant for intervention, Bacevich contends, is driven by more than America's thirst for oil or the military-industrial
complex's need for new enemies. In addition to these two factors, he argues that "a deeply pernicious collective naďveté" among both
Republicans and Democrats spawns interventions doomed by "confusion and incoherence."
The ultimate responsibility for the United States' actions lies with an "oblivious" American public engrossed in "shallow digital
enthusiasms and the worship of celebrity," Bacevich writes. Americans support freedom, democracy and prosperity in other nations,
he tells us, as long as they get the lion's share of it. "Ensuring that Americans enjoy their rightful quota (which is to say, more
than their fair share) of freedom, abundance and security comes first," Bacevich says. "Everything else figures as an afterthought."
Bacevich's argument is heavy-handed at times, but when he writes about military strategy, he is genuinely incisive. Citing numerous
examples, he convincingly argues that destructive myths about the efficacy of American military power blind policy makers, generals
and voters. The use of overwhelming lethal force does not immediately cause dictators or terrorists to turn tail and run, even if
that's what politicians in Washington want to believe. Rather, it often leads to resentment, chaos and resistance.
A presumption that using military power signified to friends and foes that Washington was getting serious about a problem
diminished the role of diplomats and diplomacy. " 'Getting serious' also implied a preference for uniforms over suits as the principal
agents of U.S. policy," Bacevich writes. "Henceforth, rather than military power serving as the handmaiden of diplomacy, the reverse
would be true."
In another repeated mistake, triumphalist American commanders prematurely declare victory without realizing that their opponent
has simply withdrawn to fight another day as a guerrilla force, as occurred in Afghanistan in 2001. They also personalize the enemy,
wrongly assuming that the removal of figures like Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and Muammar Qaddafi will instantly end conflict.
From Somalia in 1993 to Yemen today, American commanders and policy makers overestimated the advantage American military technology
bestows on them. And most crucially of all, the United States has failed to decide whether it is, in fact, at war.
"In the war for the greater Middle East, the United States chose neither to contain nor to crush, instead charting a course
midway in between," Bacevich writes. "Instead of intimidating, U.S. military efforts have annoyed, incited and generally communicated
a lack of both competence and determination." The historical forces at work in the Middle East are different from the dynamics
that led to American victories in World War II and the Cold War. American officials have failed to understand that. What's more,
a deluded Washington foreign policy establishment believes that an American way of life based on "consumption and choice" will be
accepted over time in the "Islamic world."
But it is here, in his description of the "Islamic world," that Bacevich stumbles. What is missing in this book about "the greater
Middle East" are the people of the greater Middle East. Bacevich's most highly developed Muslim character in these pages is Saddam
Hussein. The former Afghan president Hamid Karzai is a distant second. Beyond those two, the rest of the world's estimated 1.6 billion
Muslims come across as two-dimensional caricatures.
And so Bacevich lumps together vastly different nationalities - from Bosnians to Iraqis to Somalis - often referring to all of
them primarily as "Muslims." The dizzying complexities of each country's history, politics, culture, resources and rivalries are
missing. And when it comes to how "Muslims" view the world, Bacevich veers into the simplistic essentialism that he accuses Washington
policy makers of following.
Bacevich suggests that in the "Islamic world" lifestyles based on "consumption and choice" might not work. Such broad-brush statements
might well be considered simplistic and even bigoted if applied to other faiths. Can one contend that a "Christian world," "Hindu
world" or "Jewish world" exists? Are such generalizations analytically useful? Do the world's hundreds of millions of Muslims practice
their faith identically?
As a result of this essentialism, Bacevich glosses over a vital point about the Middle East today: A historic and brutal struggle
between radicals and modernists for the future of the region is underway. One can argue that the United States has no place in that
fight, but making sweeping generalizations about Muslims as Bacevich does limits our understanding of the forces at work in the region.
It also plays into the hands of extremists who seek to divide the world by faith.
In the most troubling passage of the book, Bacevich breezily questions pluralism itself. "According to one of the prevailing shibboleths
of the present age, this commingling of cultures is inherently good," he writes. "It fosters pluralism, thereby enriching everyday
life. Yet cultural interaction also induces friction, whether spontaneously generated or instigated by demagogues and provocateurs."
We do live in a dangerous world, but it is also an inevitably interconnected one. The commingling of cultures cannot be stopped.
Nor should it be.
For all that, Bacevich is right that the United States' reflexive use of armed intervention in the Middle East is folly. An
unquestioning faith in military might and an underinvestment in diplomacy has tied Washington in a policy straitjacket. Bacevich's
call for Americans to rethink their nation's militarized approach to the Middle East is incisive, urgent and essential.
David Rohde is the national security investigations editor for Reuters and a contributing editor for The Atlantic.
Essentially CIA dictates the US foreign policy. The tail is wagging the dog. The current Russophobia hysteria mean
additional billions for CIA and FBI. As simple as that.
The article contain some important observation about self-sustaining nature of the US
militarism. It is able to create new threats and new insurgencies almost at will via CIA activities.
The key problem is that wars are highly profitable for important part of the ruling elite,
especially representing finance and military industrial complex. Also now part of the US
ruling elite now consists of "colonial administrators" which are directly interested in maintaining
and expanding the US empire. This is trap from which nation might not be able to escape.
Notable quotes:
"... The U.S. government may pretend to respect a "rules-based" global order, but the only rule Washington seems to follow is "might makes right" -- and the CIA has long served as a chief instigator and enforcer, writes Nicolas J.S. Davies. ..."
"... Once the CIA went to work in Vietnam to undermine the 1954 Geneva Accords and the planned reunification of North and South through a free and fair election in 1956, the die was cast. ..."
"... No U.S. president could extricate the U.S. from Vietnam without exposing the limits of what U.S. military force could achieve, betraying widely held national myths and the powerful interests that sustained and profited from them. ..."
"... The critical "lesson of Vietnam" was summed up by Richard Barnet in his 1972 book Roots of War . "At the very moment that the number one nation has perfected the science of killing," Barnet wrote, "It has become an impractical means of political domination." ..."
"... Even the senior officer corps of the U.S. military saw it that way, since many of them had survived the horrors of Vietnam as junior officers. The CIA could still wreak havoc in Latin America and elsewhere, but the full destructive force of the U.S. military was not unleashed again until the invasion of Panama in 1989 and the First Gulf War in 1991. ..."
"... Half a century after Vietnam, we have tragically come full circle. With the CIA's politicized intelligence running wild in Washington and its covert operations spreading violence and chaos across every continent, President Trump faces the same pressures to maintain his own and his country's credibility as Johnson and Nixon did. ..."
"... Trump is facing these questions, not just in one country, Vietnam, but in dozens of countries across the world, and the interests perpetuating and fueling this cycle of crisis and war have only become more entrenched over time, as President Eisenhower warned that they would, despite the end of the Cold War and, until now, the lack of any actual military threat to the United States. ..."
"... U.S. Air Force Colonel Fletcher Prouty was the chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1955 to 1964, managing the global military support system for the CIA in Vietnam and around the world. Fletcher Prouty's book, The Secret Team: The CIA and its Allies in Control of the United States and the World , was suppressed when it was first published in 1973. Thousands of copies disappeared from bookstores and libraries, and a mysterious Army Colonel bought the entire shipment of 3,500 copies the publisher sent to Australia. But Prouty's book was republished in 2011, and it is a timely account of the role of the CIA in U.S. policy. ..."
"... The main purpose of the CIA, as Prouty saw it, is to create such pretexts for war. ..."
"... The CIA is a hybrid of an intelligence service that gathers and analyzes foreign intelligence and a clandestine service that conducts covert operations. Both functions are essential to creating pretexts for war, and that is what they have done for 70 years. ..."
"... Prouty described how the CIA infiltrated the U.S. military, the State Department, the National Security Council and other government institutions, covertly placing its officers in critical positions to ensure that its plans are approved and that it has access to whatever forces, weapons, equipment, ammunition and other resources it needs to carry them out. ..."
"... Many retired intelligence officers, such as Ray McGovern and the members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), saw the merging of clandestine operations with intelligence analysis in one agency as corrupting the objective analysis they tried to provide to policymakers. They formed VIPS in 2003 in response to the fabrication of politicized intelligence that provided false pretexts for the U.S. to invade and destroy Iraq. ..."
"... But Fletcher Prouty was even more disturbed by the way that the CIA uses clandestine operations to trigger coups, wars and chaos. The civil and proxy war in Syria is a perfect example of what Prouty meant ..."
"... The role of U.S. "counterterrorism" operations in fueling armed resistance and terrorism, and the absence of any plan to reduce the asymmetric violence unleashed by the "global war on terror," would be no surprise to Fletcher Prouty. As he explained, such clandestine operations always take on a life of their own that is unrelated, and often counter-productive, to any rational U.S. policy objective. ..."
"... This is a textbook CIA operation on the same model as Vietnam in the late 1950s and early 60s. The CIA uses U.S. special forces and training missions to launch covert and proxy military operations that drive local populations into armed resistance groups, and then uses the presence of those armed resistance groups to justify ever-escalating U.S. military involvement. This is Vietnam redux on a continental scale. ..."
"... China is already too big and powerful for the U.S. to apply what is known as the Ledeen doctrine named for neoconservative theorist and intelligence operative Michael Ledeen who suggested that every 10 years or so, the United States "pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show we mean business." ..."
"... As long as the CIA and the U.S. military keep plunging the scapegoats for our failed policies into economic crisis, violence and chaos, the United States and the United Kingdom can remain the safe havens of the world's wealth, islands of privilege and excess amidst the storms they unleash on others. ..."
"... But if that is the only "significant national objective" driving these policies, it is surely about time for the 99 percent of Americans who reap no benefit from these murderous schemes to stop the CIA and its allies before they completely wreck the already damaged and fragile world in which we all must live, Americans and foreigners alike. ..."
"... Douglas Valentine has probably studied the CIA in more depth than any other American journalist, beginning with his book on The Phoenix Program in Vietnam. He has written a new book titled The CIA as Organized Crime : How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World, in which he brings Fletcher Prouty's analysis right up to the present day, describing the CIA's role in our current wars and the many ways it infiltrates, manipulates and controls U.S. policy. ..."
"... In Venezuela, the CIA and the right-wing opposition are following the same strategy that President Nixon ordered the CIA to inflict on Chile, to "make the economy scream" in preparation for the 1973 coup. ..."
"... The U.S. willingness to scrap the Agreed Framework in 2003, the breakdown of the Six Party Talks in 2009 and the U.S. refusal to acknowledge that its own military actions and threats create legitimate defense concerns for North Korea have driven the North Koreans into a corner from which they see a credible nuclear deterrent as their only chance to avoid mass destruction. ..."
"... Obama's charm offensive invigorated old and new military alliances with the U.K., France and the Arab monarchies, and he quietly ran up the most expensive military budge t of any president since World War Two. ..."
"... Throughout history, serial aggression has nearly always provoked increasingly united opposition, as peace-loving countries and people have reluctantly summoned the courage to stand up to an aggressor. France under Napoleon and Hitler's Germany also regarded themselves as exceptional, and in their own ways they were. But in the end, their belief in their exceptionalism led them on to defeat and destruction. ..."
The U.S. government may pretend to respect a "rules-based" global order, but the only rule Washington
seems to follow is "might makes right" -- and the CIA has long served as a chief instigator and enforcer,
writes Nicolas J.S. Davies.
As the recent PBS documentary on the American War in Vietnam acknowledged, few American officials
ever believed that the United States could win the war, neither those advising Johnson as he committed
hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops, nor those advising Nixon as he escalated a brutal aerial bombardment
that had already killed millions of people.
As conversations tape-recorded in the White House reveal, and as other writers have documented,
the reasons for wading into the Big Muddy, as
Pete Seeger satirized it
, and then pushing on regardless, all came down to "credibility": the domestic political credibility
of the politicians involved and America's international credibility as a military power.
Once the CIA went to work in Vietnam to undermine the
1954 Geneva Accords
and the planned reunification of North and South through a free and fair election in 1956, the die
was cast. The CIA's support for the repressive
Diem regime and its successors
ensured an ever-escalating war, as the South rose in rebellion, supported by the North. No U.S. president
could extricate the U.S. from Vietnam without exposing the limits of what U.S. military force could
achieve, betraying widely held national myths and the powerful interests that sustained and profited
from them.
The critical "lesson of Vietnam" was summed up by Richard Barnet in his 1972 book
Roots
of War . "At the very moment that the number one nation has perfected the science of killing,"
Barnet wrote, "It has become an impractical means of political domination."
Even the senior officer corps of the U.S. military saw it that way, since many of them had survived
the horrors of Vietnam as junior officers. The CIA could still wreak havoc in Latin America and elsewhere,
but the full destructive force of the U.S. military was not unleashed again until the invasion of
Panama in 1989 and the First Gulf War in 1991.
Half a century after Vietnam, we have tragically come full circle. With the CIA's politicized
intelligence running wild in Washington and its covert operations spreading violence and chaos across
every continent, President Trump faces the same pressures to maintain his own and his country's credibility
as Johnson and Nixon did. His predictable response has been to escalate ongoing wars in Syria, Iraq,
Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and West Africa, and to threaten new ones against North Korea, Iran and
Venezuela.
Trump is facing these questions, not just in one country, Vietnam, but in dozens of countries
across the world, and the interests perpetuating and fueling this cycle of crisis and war have only
become more entrenched over time, as
President Eisenhower warned that they would, despite the end of the Cold War and, until now,
the lack of any actual military threat to the United States.
Ironically but predictably, the U.S.'s aggressive and illegal war policy has finally provoked
a real military threat to the U.S., albeit one that has emerged only in response to U.S. war plans.
As I explained in a recent article , North Korea's discovery in 2016 of a U.S. plan to assassinate
its president, Kim Jong Un, and launch a Second Korean War has triggered a crash program to develop
long-range ballistic missiles that could give North Korea a viable nuclear deterrent and prevent
a U.S. attack. But the North Koreans will not feel safe from attack until their leaders and ours
are sure that their missiles can deliver a nuclear strike against the U.S. mainland.
The CIA's Pretexts for War
U.S. Air Force Colonel Fletcher Prouty was the chief of special operations for the Joint Chiefs
of Staff from 1955 to 1964, managing the global military support system for the CIA in Vietnam and
around the world. Fletcher Prouty's book,
The Secret Team: The CIA and its Allies in Control of the United States and the World ,
was suppressed when it was first published in 1973. Thousands of copies disappeared from bookstores
and libraries, and a mysterious Army Colonel bought the entire shipment of 3,500 copies the publisher
sent to Australia. But Prouty's book was republished in 2011, and it is a timely account of the role
of the CIA in U.S. policy.
Prouty surprisingly described the role of the CIA as a response by powerful people and interests
to the abolition of the U.S. Department of War and the creation of the Department of Defense in 1947.
Once the role of the U.S. military was redefined as one of defense, in line with the United Nations
Charter's
prohibition against the threat or use of military force in 1945 and similar moves by other military
powers, it would require some kind of crisis or threat to justify using military force in the future,
both legally and politically. The main purpose of the CIA, as Prouty saw it, is to create such
pretexts for war.
The CIA is a hybrid of an intelligence service that gathers and analyzes foreign intelligence
and a clandestine service that conducts covert operations. Both functions are essential to creating
pretexts for war, and that is what they have done for 70 years.
Prouty described how the CIA infiltrated the U.S. military, the State Department, the National
Security Council and other government institutions, covertly placing its officers in critical positions
to ensure that its plans are approved and that it has access to whatever forces, weapons, equipment,
ammunition and other resources it needs to carry them out.
Many retired intelligence officers, such as Ray McGovern and the members of Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), saw the merging of clandestine operations with intelligence analysis
in one agency as corrupting the objective analysis they tried to provide to policymakers. They formed
VIPS in 2003 in response to the fabrication of politicized intelligence that provided false pretexts
for the U.S. to invade and destroy Iraq.
CIA in Syria and Africa
But Fletcher Prouty was even more disturbed by the way that the CIA uses clandestine operations
to trigger coups, wars and chaos. The civil and proxy war in Syria is a perfect example of what Prouty
meant. In late 2011, after destroying Libya and aiding in the torture-murder of Muammar Gaddafi,
the CIA and its allies began
flying fighters
and weapons from Libya to Turkey and infiltrating them into Syria. Then, working with Saudi Arabia,
Qatar, Turkey, Croatia and other allies, this operation poured
thousands of tons of weapons across Syria's borders to ignite and fuel a full-scale civil war.
Once these covert operations were under way, they ran wild until they had unleashed a savage Al
Qaeda affiliate in Syria (Jabhat al-Nusra, now rebranded as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham), spawned the even
more savage "Islamic State," triggered
the heaviest
and
probably the deadliest U.S. bombing campaign since Vietnam and drawn Russia, Iran, Turkey, Israel,
Jordan, Hezbollah, Kurdish militias and almost every state or armed group in the Middle East into
the chaos of Syria's civil war.
Meanwhile, as Al Qaeda and Islamic State have expanded their operations across Africa, the U.N.
has published a report titled
Journey to Extremismin Africa: Drivers, Incentives and the Tipping Point for Recruitment
, based on 500 interviews with African militants. This study has found that the kind of special operations
and training missions the CIA and AFRICOM are conducting and supporting in Africa are in fact the
critical "tipping point" that drives Africans to join militant groups like Al Qaeda, Al-Shabab and
Boko Haram.
The report found that government action, such as the killing or detention of friends or family,
was the "tipping point" that drove 71 percent of African militants interviewed to join armed groups,
and that this was a more important factor than religious ideology.
The conclusions of Journey to Extremism in Africa confirm the findings of other similar
studies. The Center for Civilians in Conflict interviewed 250 civilians who joined armed groups in
Bosnia, Somalia, Gaza and Libya for its 2015 study,
The People's Perspectives: Civilian Involvement in Armed Conflict . The study
found that the most common motivation for civilians to join armed groups was simply to protect themselves
or their families.
The role of U.S. "counterterrorism" operations in fueling armed resistance and terrorism, and
the absence of any plan to reduce the asymmetric violence unleashed by the "global war on terror,"
would be no surprise to Fletcher Prouty. As he explained, such clandestine operations always take
on a life of their own that is unrelated, and often counter-productive, to any rational U.S. policy
objective.
"The more intimate one becomes with this activity," Prouty wrote, "The more one begins to realize
that such operations are rarely, if ever, initiated from an intent to become involved in pursuit
of some national objective in the first place."
The U.S. justifies the deployment of 6,000 U.S. special forces and military trainers to
53 of the 54 countries in Africa as a response to terrorism. But the U.N.'s Journey to Extremism
in Africa study makes it clear that the U.S. militarization of Africa is in fact the "tipping
point" that is driving Africans across the continent to join armed resistance groups in the first
place.
This is a textbook CIA operation on the same model as Vietnam in the late 1950s and early
60s. The CIA uses U.S. special forces and training missions to launch covert and proxy military operations
that drive local populations into armed resistance groups, and then uses the presence of those armed
resistance groups to justify ever-escalating U.S. military involvement. This is Vietnam redux on
a continental scale.
Taking on China
What seems to really be driving the CIA's militarization of U.S. policy in Africa is China's growing
influence on the continent. As Steve Bannon put it in an
interview with the Economist in August, "Let's go screw up One Belt One Road."
China is already too big and powerful for the U.S. to apply what is known as the Ledeen doctrine
named for neoconservative theorist and intelligence operative Michael Ledeen who suggested that every
10 years or so, the United States "pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against
the wall, just to show we mean business."
China is too powerful and armed with nuclear weapons. So, in this case, the CIA's job would be
to spread violence and chaos to disrupt Chinese trade and investment, and to make African governments
increasingly dependent on U.S. military aid to fight the militant groups spawned and endlessly regenerated
by U.S.-led "counterterrorism" operations.
Neither Ledeen nor Bannon pretend that such policies are designed to build more prosperous or
viable societies in the Middle East or Africa, let alone to benefit their people. They both know
very well what Richard Barnet already understood 45 years ago, that America's unprecedented investment
in weapons, war and CIA covert operations are only good for one thing: to kill people and destroy
infrastructure, reducing cities to rubble, societies to chaos and the desperate survivors to poverty
and displacement.
As long as the CIA and the U.S. military keep plunging the scapegoats for our failed policies
into economic crisis, violence and chaos, the United States and the United Kingdom can remain the
safe havens of the world's wealth, islands of privilege and excess amidst the storms they unleash
on others.
But if that is the only "significant national objective" driving these policies, it is surely
about time for the 99 percent of Americans who reap no benefit from these murderous schemes to stop
the CIA and its allies before they completely wreck the already damaged and fragile world in which
we all must live, Americans and foreigners alike.
Douglas Valentine has probably studied the CIA in more depth than any other American journalist,
beginning with his book on
The Phoenix Program in Vietnam. He has written a new book titled
The CIA as Organized Crime: How Illegal Operations Corrupt America and the World, in which he brings Fletcher Prouty's
analysis right up to the present day, describing the CIA's role in our current wars and the many
ways it infiltrates, manipulates and controls U.S. policy.
The Three Scapegoats
In
Trump's speech to the U.N. General Assembly, he named North Korea, Iran and Venezuela as his
prime targets for destabilization, economic warfare and, ultimately, the overthrow of their governments,
whether by coup d'etat or the mass destruction of their civilian population and infrastructure.
But Trump's choice of scapegoats for America's failures was obviously not based on a rational reassessment
of foreign policy priorities by the new administration. It was only a tired rehashing of the CIA's
unfinished business with two-thirds of Bush's "axis of evil" and Bush White House official
Elliott Abrams'
failed 2002 coup in Caracas, now laced with explicit and illegal threats of aggression.
How Trump and the CIA plan to sacrifice their three scapegoats for America's failures remains
to be seen. This is not 2001, when the world stood silent at the U.S. bombardment and invasion of
Afghanistan after September 11th. It is more like 2003, when the U.S. destruction of Iraq split the
Atlantic alliance and alienated most of the world. It is certainly not 2011, after Obama's global
charm offensive had rebuilt U.S. alliances and provided cover for French President Sarkozy, British
Prime Minister Cameron, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Arab royals to destroy Libya,
once ranked by the U.N. as the
most developed country
in Africa , now mired in intractable chaos.
In 2017, a U.S. attack on any one of Trump's scapegoats would isolate the United States from many
of its allies and undermine its standing in the world in far-reaching ways that might be more permanent
and harder to repair than the invasion and destruction of Iraq.
In Venezuela, the CIA and the right-wing opposition are following the same strategy that President
Nixon ordered the CIA to inflict on Chile, to
"make the economy
scream" in preparation for the 1973 coup. But the
solid victory of Venezuela's
ruling Socialist Party in recent nationwide gubernatorial elections, despite a long and deep
economic crisis, reveals little public support for the CIA's puppets in Venezuela.
The CIA has successfully discredited the Venezuelan government through economic warfare, increasingly
violent right-wing street protests and a global propaganda campaign. But the CIA has stupidly hitched
its wagon to an extreme right-wing, upper-class opposition that has no credibility with most of the
Venezuelan public, who still turn out for the Socialists at the polls. A CIA coup or U.S. military
intervention would meet fierce public resistance and damage U.S. relations all over Latin America.
Boxing In North Korea
A U.S. aerial bombardment or "preemptive strike" on North Korea could quickly escalate into a
war between the U.S. and China, which has reiterated
its commitment to North
Korea's defense if North Korea is attacked. We do not know exactly what was in the
U.S. war plan discovered by North Korea, so neither can we know how North Korea and China could
respond if the U.S. pressed ahead with it.
Most analysts have long concluded that any U.S. attack on North Korea would be met with a North
Korean artillery and missile barrage that would inflict unacceptable civilian casualties on Seoul,
a metropolitan area of 26 million people, three times the population of New York City. Seoul is only
35 miles from the frontier with North Korea, placing it within range of a huge array of North Korean
weapons. What was already a no-win calculus is now compounded by the possibility that North Korea
could respond with nuclear weapons, turning any prospect of a U.S. attack into an even worse nightmare.
U.S. mismanagement of its relations with North Korea should be an object lesson for its relations
with Iran, graphically demonstrating the advantages of diplomacy, talks and agreements over threats
of war. Under the
Agreed Framework
signed in 1994, North Korea stopped work on two much larger nuclear reactors than the small experimental
one operating at Yongbyong since 1986, which only produces 6 kg of plutonium per year, enough for
one nuclear bomb.
The lesson of Bush's Iraq invasion in 2003 after Saddam Hussein had complied with demands that
he destroy Iraq's stockpiles of chemical weapons and shut down a nascent nuclear program was not
lost on North Korea. Not only did the invasion lay waste to large sections of Iraq with hundreds
of thousands of dead but Hussein himself was hunted down and condemned to death by hanging.
Still, after North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon in 2006, even its small experimental
reactor was shut down as a result of the
"Six Party Talks" in
2007, all the fuel rods were removed and placed under supervision of the International Atomic Energy
Agency, and the cooling tower of the reactor was demolished in 2008.
But then, as relations deteriorated, North Korea conducted a second nuclear weapon test and again
began reprocessing spent fuel rods to recover plutonium for use in nuclear weapons.
North Korea has now conducted six nuclear weapons tests. The explosions in
the first five tests increased gradually up to 15-25 kilotons, about the yield of the bombs the
U.S. dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but estimates for the yield of the 2017 test range
from 110
to 250 kilotons , comparable
to a small hydrogen bomb.
The even greater danger in a new war in Korea is that the U.S. could unleash part of its arsenal
of
4,000 more powerful weapons (100 to 1,200 kilotons), which could kill millions of people and
devastate and poison the region, or even the world, for years to come.
The U.S. willingness to scrap the Agreed Framework in 2003, the breakdown of the Six Party Talks
in 2009 and the U.S. refusal to acknowledge that its own military actions and threats create legitimate
defense concerns for North Korea have driven the North Koreans into a corner from which they see
a credible nuclear deterrent as their only chance to avoid mass destruction.
China has proposed a
reasonable framework for diplomacy to address the concerns of both sides, but the U.S. insists
on maintaining its propaganda narratives that all the fault lies with North Korea and that it has
some kind of "military solution" to the crisis.
This may be the most dangerous idea we have heard from U.S. policymakers since the end of the
Cold War, but it is the logical culmination of a
systematic normalization of deviant and illegal U.S. war-making that has already cost millions
of lives in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan. As historian Gabriel Kolko
wrote in Century of War in 1994, "options and decisions that are intrinsically dangerous
and irrational become not merely plausible but the only form of reasoning about war and diplomacy
that is possible in official circles."
Demonizing Iran
The idea that Iran has ever had a nuclear weapons program is seriously contested by the IAEA,
which has examined every allegation presented by the CIA and other Western "intelligence" agencies
as well as Israel. Former IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei revealed many details of this wild
goose chase in his 2011 memoir,
Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times .
When the CIA and its partners reluctantly acknowledged the IAEA's conclusions in a 2007 National
Intelligence Estimate (NIE), ElBaradei issued
a press release confirming that, "the agency has no concrete evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons
program or undeclared nuclear facilities in Iran."
Since 2007, the IAEA has resolved all its outstanding concerns with Iran. It has verified that
dual-use technologies that Iran imported before 2003 were in fact used for other purposes, and it
has exposed the mysterious "laptop documents" that appeared to show Iranian plans for a nuclear weapon
as forgeries. Gareth Porter thoroughly explored all these questions and allegations and the history
of mistrust that fueled them in his 2014 book,
Manufactured
Crisis: the Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare , which I highly recommend.
But, in the parallel Bizarro world of U.S. politics, hopelessly poisoned by the CIA's
endless disinformation campaigns, Hillary Clinton could repeatedly take false credit for disarming
Iran during her presidential campaign, and neither Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump nor any corporate
media interviewer dared to challenge her claims.
"When President Obama took office, Iran was racing toward a nuclear bomb," Clinton fantasized
in a
prominent foreign policy speech on June 2, 2016, claiming that her brutal sanctions policy "brought
Iran to the table."
In fact, as Trita Parsi documented in his 2012 book,
A Single
Roll of the Dice: Obama's Diplomacy With Iran , the Iranians were ready, not just
to "come to the table," but to sign a comprehensive agreement based on a U.S. proposal brokered by
Turkey and Brazil in 2010. But, in a classic case of "tail wags dog," the U.S. then rejected its
own proposal because it would have undercut support for tighter sanctions in the U.N. Security Council.
In other words, Clinton's sanctions policy did not "bring Iran to the table", but prevented the U.S.
from coming to the table itself.
As a senior State Department official told Trita Parsi, the real problem with U.S. diplomacy with
Iran when Clinton was at the State Department was that the U.S. would not take "Yes" for an answer.
Trump's ham-fisted decertification of Iran's compliance with the JCPOA is right out of Clinton's
playbook, and it demonstrates that the CIA is still determined to use Iran as a scapegoat for America's
failures in the Middle East.
The spurious claim that Iran is the world's greatest sponsor of terrorism is another CIA canard
reinforced by endless repetition. It is true that Iran supports and supplies weapons to Hezbollah
and Hamas, which are both listed as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government. But they are
mainly defensive resistance groups that defend Lebanon and Gaza respectively against invasions and
attacks by Israel.
Shifting attention away from Al Qaeda, Islamic State, the
Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and other groups that actually commit terrorist crimes around the
world might just seem like a case of the CIA "taking its eyes off the ball," if it wasn't so transparently
timed to frame Iran with new accusations now that the manufactured crisis of the nuclear scare has
run its course.
What the Future Holds
Barack Obama's most consequential international achievement may have been the triumph of symbolism
over substance behind which he expanded and escalated the so-called "war on terror," with a vast
expansion of covert operations and proxy wars that eventually triggered the
heaviest U.S.
aerial bombardments since Vietnam in Iraq and Syria.
Obama's charm offensive invigorated old and new military alliances with the U.K., France and
the Arab monarchies, and he quietly ran up the
most expensive military budget of any president since World War Two.
But Obama's expansion of the "war on terror" under cover of his deceptive global public relations
campaign created many more problems than it solved, and Trump and his advisers are woefully ill-equipped
to solve any of them. Trump's expressed desire to place America first and to resist foreign entanglements
is hopelessly at odds with his aggressive, bullying approach to every foreign policy problem.
If the U.S. could threaten and fight its way to a resolution of any of its international problems,
it would have done so already. That is exactly what it has been trying to do since the 1990s, behind
both the swagger and bluster of Bush and Trump and the deceptive charm of Clinton and Obama: a "good
cop – bad cop" routine that should no longer fool anyone anywhere.
But as Lyndon Johnson found as he waded deeper and deeper into the Big Muddy in Vietnam, lying
to the public about unwinnable wars does not make them any more winnable. It just gets more people
killed and makes it harder and harder to ever tell the public the truth.
In unwinnable wars based on lies, the "credibility" problem only gets more complicated, as new
lies require new scapegoats and convoluted narratives to explain away graveyards filled by old lies.
Obama's cynical global charm offensive bought the "war on terror" another eight years, but that only
allowed the CIA to drag the U.S. into more trouble and spread its chaos to more places around the
world.
Meanwhile, Russian President Putin is winning hearts and minds in capitals around the world by
calling for a recommitment to the
rule of international
law , which
prohibits
the threat or use of military force except in self-defense. Every new U.S. threat or act of aggression
will only make Putin's case more persuasive, not least to important U.S. allies like South Korea,
Germany and other members of the European Union, whose complicity in U.S. aggression has until now
helped to give it a false veneer of political legitimacy.
Throughout history, serial aggression has nearly always provoked increasingly united opposition,
as peace-loving countries and people have reluctantly summoned the courage to stand up to an aggressor.
France under Napoleon and Hitler's Germany also regarded themselves as exceptional, and in their
own ways they were. But in the end, their belief in their exceptionalism led them on to defeat and
destruction.
Americans had better hope that we are not so exceptional, and that the world will find a diplomatic
rather than a military "solution" to its American problem. Our chances of survival would improve
a great deal if American officials and politicians would finally start to act like something other
than putty in the hands of the CIA
Nicolas J. S. Davies is the author of Blood On Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction
of Iraq . He also wrote the chapters on "Obama at War" in Grading the 44th President: a Report Card
on Barack Obama's First Term as a Progressive Leader .
Nationalism really represent a growing threat to neoliberalism. It is clear the the rise of
nationalism was caused by the triumph of neoliberalism all over the globe. As neoliberal
ideology collapsed in 2008, thing became really interesting now. Looks like
1920th-1940th will be replayed on a new level with the USA neoliberal empire under stress from
new challengers instead of British empire.
Rumor about the death of neoliberalism are slightly exaggerated ;-). This social system still
has a lot of staying power. you need some external shock like the need of cheap oil (defined as
sustainable price of oil over $100 per barrel) to shake it again. Of some financial crisis similar
to the crisis of 2008. Currently there is still
no alternative social order that can replace it. Collapse of the USSR discredited both socialism even
of different flavors then was practiced in the USSR. National socialism would be a step back from
neoliberalism.
Notable quotes:
"... The retreat of [neo]liberalism is very visible in Asia. All Southeast Asian states have turned their backs on liberal democracy, especially Indonesia, the Philippines and Myanmar in the last decade. This NYT article notes that liberalism has essentially died in Japan, and that all political contests are now between what the west would consider conservatives: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/15/opinion/liberalism-japan-election.html ..."
"... What is today called "Liberalism" and "Conservatism" both are simply corrupted labels applied to the same top-down corporate-fascistic elite rule that I think Mr. Buchanan once referred to as "two wings of the same bird of prey." ..."
"... Nobody at the top cares about 'diversity.' They care about the easy profits that come from ever cheaper labor. 'Diversity' is not suicide but rather murder: instigated by a small number of very powerful people who have decided that the long-term health of their nations and civilization is less important than short-term profits and power. ..."
"... Hillary and Obama are to the right of the President that Buchanan served in his White House. Richard Nixon was to the Left of both Hillary and Obama. I can't even imagine Hillary accepting and signing into law a 'Clean Water Act' or enacting Price Controls to fight inflation. No way. Heck would freeze over before Hillary would do something so against her Banker Backers. ..."
"... It's sure that financial (neo)liberalism was in a growth phase prior to year 2000 (under Greenspan, the "Maestro") with a general belief that the economy could be "fine tuned" with risk eliminated using sophisticated financial instruments, monetary policy etc. ..."
"... If [neo] Liberalism is a package, then two heavy financial blows that shook the whole foundation were the collapse of the dot.com bubble (2000) and the mortgage bubble (2008). ..."
"... And, other (self-serving) neoliberal stories are now seen as false. For example, that the US is an "advanced post-industrial service economy", that out-sourcing would "free up Americans for higher skilled/higher wage employment" or that "the US would always gain from tariff free trade". ..."
"... The basic divide is surely Nationalism (America First) vs. Globalism (Neo-Liberalism), as shown by the last US Presidential election. ..."
"... Neoliberalism, of which the Clintons are acolytes, supports Free Trade and Open Borders. Although it claims to support World Government, in actual fact it supports corporatism. This is explicit in the TPPA Trump vetoed. Under the corporate state, the state controls the corporations, as Don Benito did in Italy. Under corporatism, the corporations tell the state what to do, as has been the case in America since at least the Clinton Presidency. ..."
"... But I recall that Pat B also said neoconservatism was on its way out a few years after Iraq war II and yet it's stronger than ever and its adherents are firmly ensconced in the joint chiefs of staff, the pentagon, Congress and the White House. It's also spawned a close cousin in liberal interventionism. ..."
Asked to name the defining attributes of the America we wish to become, many liberals would answer
that we must realize our manifest destiny since 1776, by becoming more equal, more diverse and more
democratic -- and the model for mankind's future.
Equality, diversity, democracy -- this is the holy trinity of the post-Christian secular state
at whose altars Liberal Man worships.
But the congregation worshiping these gods is shrinking. And even Europe seems to be rejecting
what America has on offer.
In a retreat from diversity, Catalonia just voted to separate from Spain. The Basque and Galician
peoples of Spain are following the Catalan secession crisis with great interest.
The right-wing People's Party and far-right Freedom Party just swept 60 percent of Austria's vote,
delivering the nation to 31-year-old Sebastian Kurz, whose anti-immigrant platform was plagiarized
from the Freedom Party. Summarized it is: Austria for the Austrians!
Lombardy, whose capital is Milan, and Veneto will vote Sunday for greater autonomy from Rome.
South Tyrol (Alto Adige), severed from Austria and ceded to Italy at Versailles, written off by
Hitler to appease Mussolini after his Anschluss, is astir anew with secessionism. Even the Sicilians
are talking of separation.
By Sunday, the Czech Republic may have a new leader, billionaire Andrej Babis. Writes The Washington
Post, Babis "makes a sport of attacking the European Union and says NATO's mission is outdated."
Platform Promise: Keep the Muslim masses out of the motherland.
To ethnonationalists, their countrymen are not equal to all others, but superior in rights. Many
may nod at Thomas Jefferson's line that "All men are created equal," but they no more practice that
in their own nations than did Jefferson in his
... ... ...
European peoples and parties are today using democratic means to achieve "illiberal" ends. And
it is hard to see what halts the drift away from liberal democracy toward the restrictive right.
For in virtually every nation, there is a major party in opposition, or a party in power, that holds
deeply nationalist views.
European elites may denounce these new parties as "illiberal" or fascist, but it is becoming apparent
that it may be liberalism itself that belongs to yesterday. For more and more Europeans see the invasion
of the continent along the routes whence the invaders came centuries ago, not as a manageable problem
but an existential crisis.
To many Europeans, it portends an irreversible alteration in the character of the countries their
grandchildren will inherit, and possibly an end to their civilization. And they are not going to
be deterred from voting their fears by being called names that long ago lost their toxicity from
overuse.
And as Europeans decline to celebrate the racial, ethnic, creedal and cultural diversity extolled
by American elites, they also seem to reject the idea that foreigners should be treated equally in
nations created for their own kind.
Europeans seem to admire more, and model their nations more, along the lines of the less diverse
America of the Eisenhower era, than on the polyglot America of 2017.
And Europe seems to be moving toward immigration polices more like the McCarran-Walter Act of
1950 than the open borders bill that Sen. Edward Kennedy shepherded through the Senate in 1965.
Kennedy promised that the racial and ethnic composition of the America of the 1960s would not
be overturned, and he questioned the morality and motives of any who implied that it would.
Liberalism is the naivete of 18th century elites, no different than today. Modernity as you
know it is unsustainable, mostly because equality isn't real, identity has value for most humans,
pluralism is by definition fractious, and deep down most people wish to follow a wise strongman
leader who represents their interests first and not a vague set of universalist values.
Blind devotion to liberal democracy is another one of those times when white people take an
abstract concept to weird extremes. It is short-sighted and autistically narrow minded. Just because
you have an oppressive king doesn't mean everyone should be equals. Just because there was slavery/genocide
doesn't mean diversity is good.
The retreat of [neo]liberalism is very visible in Asia. All Southeast Asian states have turned their
backs on liberal democracy, especially Indonesia, the Philippines and Myanmar in the last decade.
This NYT article notes that liberalism has essentially died in Japan, and that all political contests
are now between what the west would consider conservatives:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/15/opinion/liberalism-japan-election.html
Good riddance. The idea that egalitarianism is more advanced than hierarchy has always been
false, and flies against the long arc of history. Time for nationalists around the world to smash
liberal democracy and build a new modernity based on actual humanism, with respect to hierarchies
and the primacy of majorities instead of guilt and pathological compassion dressed up as political
ideology.
"Liberalism" is not dying. "Liberalism" is dead, and has been since at least 1970.
What is today called "Liberalism" and "Conservatism" both are simply corrupted labels applied
to the same top-down corporate-fascistic elite rule that I think Mr. Buchanan once referred to
as "two wings of the same bird of prey."
Nobody at the top cares about 'diversity.' They care about the easy profits that come from
ever cheaper labor. 'Diversity' is not suicide but rather murder: instigated by a small number
of very powerful people who have decided that the long-term health of their nations and civilization
is less important than short-term profits and power.
Its been dead for nearly 20 years now. Liberalism has long been the Monty Python parrot nailed
to its perch. At this point, the term is mainly kept alive in right-wing attacks by people who
lack the imagination to change their habitual targets for so long.
To my eye, the last 'liberal' politician died in a susupicious plane crash in 2000 as the Bush
Republicans were taking the White House by their famous 5-4 vote/coup and also needed to claim
control of the Senate. So, the last authentic 'liberal' Senator, Paul Wellstone of MN was killed
in a suspicious plane crash that was never properly explained.
Hillary and Obama are to the right of the President that Buchanan served in his White House.
Richard Nixon was to the Left of both Hillary and Obama. I can't even imagine Hillary accepting
and signing into law a 'Clean Water Act' or enacting Price Controls to fight inflation. No way.
Heck would freeze over before Hillary would do something so against her Banker Backers.
And, at the root, that is the key. The 'Liberals' that the right now rails against are strongly
backed and supported by the Wall Street Banks and other corporate leaders. The 'Liberals' have
pushed for a government Of the Bankers, By the Bankers and For the Bankers. The 'Liberals' now
are in favor of Endless Unconstitutional War around the world.
Which can only mean that the term 'Liberal' has been so completely morphed away from its original
meanings to be completely worthless.
The last true Liberal in American politics was Paul Wellstone. And even by the time he died
for his sins, he was calling himself a "progressive" because after the Clintons and the Gores
had so distorted the term Liberal it was meaningless. Or it had come to mean a society ruled by
bankers, a society at constant war and throwing money constantly at a gigantic war machine, a
society of censorship where the government needed to control all music lyrics, the same corrupt
government where money could by anything from a night in the Lincoln Bedroom to a Presidential
Pardon or any other government favor.
Thus, 'Liberals' were a dead movement even by 2000, when the people who actually believed in
the American People over the profits of bankers were calling themselves Progressives in disgust
at the misuse of the term Liberal. And now, Obama and Hillary have trashed and distorted even
the term Progressive into bombing the world 365 days a year and still constantly throwing money
at the military machine and the problems it invents.
So, Liberalism is so long dead that if you exumed the grave you'd only find dust. And Pat must
be getting senile and just throwing back out the same lines he once wrote as a speechwriter for
the last Great Lefty President Richard Nixon.
Another question is whether this is wishful thinking from Pat or some kind of reality.
I think that he's right, that Liberalism is a dying faith, and it's interesting to check the
decline.
It's sure that financial (neo)liberalism was in a growth phase prior to year 2000 (under
Greenspan, the "Maestro") with a general belief that the economy could be "fine tuned" with risk
eliminated using sophisticated financial instruments, monetary policy etc.
If [neo] Liberalism is a package, then two heavy financial blows that shook the whole foundation
were the collapse of the dot.com bubble (2000) and the mortgage bubble (2008).
And, other (self-serving) neoliberal stories are now seen as false. For example, that the
US is an "advanced post-industrial service economy", that out-sourcing would "free up Americans
for higher skilled/higher wage employment" or that "the US would always gain from tariff free
trade".
In fact, the borderless global "world is flat" dogma is now seen as enabling a rootless hyper-rich
global elite to draw on a sea of globalized serf labour with little or no identity, while their
media and SWJ activists operate a scorched earth defense against any sign of opposition.
The basic divide is surely Nationalism (America First) vs. Globalism (Neo-Liberalism),
as shown by the last US Presidential election.
A useful analogy might be Viktor Orbán. He started out as a leader of a liberal party, Fidesz,
but then over time started moving to the right. It is often speculated that he started it for
cynical reasons, like seeing how the right was divided and that there was essentially a vacuum
there for a strong conservative party, but there's little doubt he totally internalized it. There's
also little doubt (and at the time he and a lot of his fellow party leaders talked about it a
lot) that as he (they) started a family and having children, they started to realize how conservatism
kinda made more sense than liberalism.
With Kurz, there's the possibility for this path. However, he'd need to start a family soon
for that to happen. At that age Orbán was already married with children
Neoliberalism, of which the Clintons are acolytes, supports Free Trade and Open Borders.
Although it claims to support World Government, in actual fact it supports corporatism. This is
explicit in the TPPA Trump vetoed. Under the corporate state, the state controls the corporations,
as Don Benito did in Italy. Under corporatism, the corporations tell the state what to do, as
has been the case in America since at least the Clinton Presidency.
Richard Nixon was a capitalist, not a corporatist. He was a supporter of proper competition
laws, unlike any President since Clinton. Socially, he was interventionist, though this may have
been to lessen criticism of his Vietnam policies. Anyway, his bussing and desegregation policies
were a long-term failure.
Price Control was quickly dropped, as it was in other Western countries. Long term Price Control,
as in present day Venezuela, is economically disastrous.
Let's hope liberalism is a dying faith and that is passes from the Western world. If not it will
destroy the West, so if it doesn't die a natural death then we must euthanize it. For the evidence
is in and it has begat feminism, anti-white racism, demographic winter, mass third world immigration
and everything else that ails the West and has made it the sick and dying man of the world.
But I recall that Pat B also said neoconservatism was on its way out a few years after
Iraq war II and yet it's stronger than ever and its adherents are firmly ensconced in the joint
chiefs of staff, the pentagon, Congress and the White House. It's also spawned a close cousin
in liberal interventionism.
What Pat refers to as "liberalism" is now left wing totalitarianism and anti-white hatred and
it's fanatically trying to remain relevant by lashing out and blacklisting, deplatforming, demonetizing,
and physically assaulting all of its enemies on the right who are gaining strength much to their
chagrin. They resort to these methods because they can't win an honest debate and in a true free
marketplace of ideas they lose.
"... My predecessor Benedict XVI likewise proposed "eliminating the structural causes of the dysfunctions of the world economy and correcting models of growth which have proved incapable of ensuring respect for the environment". [10] He observed that the world cannot be analyzed by isolating only one of its aspects, since "the book of nature is one and indivisible", and includes the environment, life, sexuality, the family, social relations, and so forth. It follows that "the deterioration of nature is closely connected to the culture which shapes human coexistence" ..."
"... Patriarch Bartholomew has spoken in particular of the need for each of us to repent of the ways we have harmed the planet, for "inasmuch as we all generate small ecological damage", we are called to acknowledge "our contribution, smaller or greater, to the disfigurement and destruction of creation". [14] He has repeatedly stated this firmly and persuasively, challenging us to acknowledge our sins against creation: "For human beings to destroy the biological diversity of God's creation; for human beings to degrade the integrity of the earth by causing changes in its climate, by stripping the earth of its natural forests or destroying its wetlands; for human beings to contaminate the earth's waters, its land, its air, and its life – these are sins". [15] For "to commit a crime against the natural world is a sin against ourselves and a sin against God". [16] ..."
"... He asks us to replace consumption with sacrifice, greed with generosity, wastefulness with a spirit of sharing, an asceticism which "entails learning to give, and not simply to give up. It is a way of loving, of moving gradually away from what I want to what God's world needs. It is liberation from fear, greed and compulsion". ..."
"... It is possible that we do not grasp the gravity of the challenges now before us. "The risk is growing day by day that man will not use his power as he should"; in effect, "power is never considered in terms of the responsibility of choice which is inherent in freedom" since its "only norms are taken from alleged necessity, from either utility or security". [85] But human beings are not completely autonomous. Our freedom fades when it is handed over to the blind forces of the unconscious, of immediate needs, of self-interest, and of violence. In this sense, we stand naked and exposed in the face of our ever-increasing power, lacking the wherewithal to control it. We have certain superficial mechanisms, but we cannot claim to have a sound ethics, a culture and spirituality genuinely capable of setting limits and teaching clear-minded self-restraint. ..."
"... Human beings and material objects no longer extend a friendly hand to one another; the relationship has become confrontational. This has made it easy to accept the idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology. It is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth's goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed dry beyond every limit. It is the false notion that "an infinite quantity of energy and resources are available, that it is possible to renew them quickly, and that the negative effects of the exploitation of the natural order can be easily absorbed". ..."
"... We have to accept that technological products are not neutral, for they create a framework which ends up conditioning lifestyles and shaping social possibilities along the lines dictated by the interests of certain powerful groups. Decisions which may seem purely instrumental are in reality decisions about the kind of society we want to build. ..."
"... Technology tends to absorb everything into its ironclad logic, and those who are surrounded with technology "know full well that it moves forward in the final analysis neither for profit nor for the well-being of the human race", that "in the most radical sense of the term power is its motive – a lordship over all". [87] As a result, "man seizes hold of the naked elements of both nature and human nature". [88] Our capacity to make decisions, a more genuine freedom and the space for each one's alternative creativity are diminished. ..."
"... At the same time, we have "a sort of 'superdevelopment' of a wasteful and consumerist kind which forms an unacceptable contrast with the ongoing situations of dehumanizing deprivation", [90] while we are all too slow in developing economic institutions and social initiatives which can give the poor regular access to basic resources. We fail to see the deepest roots of our present failures, which have to do with the direction, goals, meaning and social implications of technological and economic growth. ..."
"... The specialization which belongs to technology makes it difficult to see the larger picture. The fragmentation of knowledge proves helpful for concrete applications, and yet it often leads to a loss of appreciation for the whole, for the relationships between things, and for the broader horizon, which then becomes irrelevant. ..."
"... It becomes difficult to pause and recover depth in life. If architecture reflects the spirit of an age, our megastructures and drab apartment blocks express the spirit of globalized technology, where a constant flood of new products coexists with a tedious monotony. Let us refuse to resign ourselves to this, and continue to wonder about the purpose and meaning of everything. Otherwise we would simply legitimate the present situation and need new forms of escapism to help us endure the emptiness. ..."
"... All of this shows the urgent need for us to move forward in a bold cultural revolution. Science and technology are not neutral; from the beginning to the end of a process, various intentions and possibilities are in play and can take on distinct shapes. Nobody is suggesting a return to the Stone Age, but we do need to slow down and look at reality in a different way, to appropriate the positive and sustainable progress which has been made, but also to recover the values and the great goals swept away by our unrestrained delusions of grandeur. ..."
"... Modern anthropocentrism has paradoxically ended up prizing technical thought over reality, since "the technological mind sees nature as an insensate order, as a cold body of facts, as a mere 'given', as an object of utility, as raw material to be hammered into useful shape; it views the cosmos similarly as a mere 'space' into which objects can be thrown with complete indifference" ..."
"... Once the human being declares independence from reality and behaves with absolute dominion, the very foundations of our life begin to crumble ..."
"... This situation has led to a constant schizophrenia, wherein a technocracy which sees no intrinsic value in lesser beings coexists with the other extreme, which sees no special value in human beings. But one cannot prescind from humanity ..."
"... Nor must the critique of a misguided anthropocentrism underestimate the importance of interpersonal relations. If the present ecological crisis is one small sign of the ethical, cultural and spiritual crisis of modernity, we cannot presume to heal our relationship with nature and the environment without healing all fundamental human relationships. ..."
"... The culture of relativism is the same disorder which drives one person to take advantage of another, to treat others as mere objects, imposing forced labour on them or enslaving them to pay their debts. The same kind of thinking leads to the sexual exploitation of children and abandonment of the elderly who no longer serve our interests. ..."
"... We are convinced that "man is the source, the focus and the aim of all economic and social life". [100] Nonetheless, once our human capacity for contemplation and reverence is impaired, it becomes easy for the meaning of work to be misunderstood. [101] We need to remember that men and women have "the capacity to improve their lot, to further their moral growth and to develop their spiritual endowments". [102] Work should be the setting for this rich personal growth, where many aspects of life enter into play: creativity, planning for the future, developing our talents, living out our values, relating to others ..."
"... it is essential that "we continue to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for everyone", [103] no matter the limited interests of business and dubious economic reasoning. ..."
"... We were created with a vocation to work. The goal should not be that technological progress increasingly replace human work, for this would be detrimental to humanity. Work is a necessity, part of the meaning of life on this earth, a path to growth, human development and personal fulfilment. Helping the poor financially must always be a provisional solution in the face of pressing needs. The broader objective should always be to allow them a dignified life through work. ..."
"... The loss of jobs also has a negative impact on the economy "through the progressive erosion of social capital: the network of relationships of trust, dependability, and respect for rules, all of which are indispensable for any form of civil coexistence". [104] In other words, "human costs always include economic costs, and economic dysfunctions always involve human costs". [105] To stop investing in people, in order to gain greater short-term financial gain, is bad business for society. ..."
"... In order to continue providing employment, it is imperative to promote an economy which favours productive diversity and business creativity. For example, there is a great variety of small-scale food production systems which feed the greater part of the world's peoples, using a modest amount of land and producing less waste, be it in small agricultural parcels, in orchards and gardens, hunting and wild harvesting or local fishing. Economies of scale, especially in the agricultural sector, end up forcing smallholders to sell their land or to abandon their traditional crops. ..."
"... To ensure economic freedom from which all can effectively benefit, restraints occasionally have to be imposed on those possessing greater resources and financial power. To claim economic freedom while real conditions bar many people from actual access to it, and while possibilities for employment continue to shrink, is to practise a doublespeak which brings politics into disrepute. Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving our world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the areas in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good. ..."
6. My predecessor Benedict XVI likewise proposed
"eliminating the structural causes of the dysfunctions of the world economy and correcting models of growth which have proved incapable
of ensuring respect for the environment".[10]
He observed that the world cannot be analyzed by isolating only one of its aspects, since "the book of nature is one and indivisible",
and includes the environment, life, sexuality, the family, social relations, and so forth. It follows that "the deterioration of
nature is closely connected to the culture which shapes human coexistence".[11]
Pope Benedict asked us to recognize that the natural environment has been gravely damaged by our irresponsible behaviour. The social
environment has also suffered damage. Both are ultimately due to the same evil: the notion that there are no indisputable truths
to guide our lives, and hence human freedom is limitless. We have forgotten that "man is not only a freedom which he creates for
himself. Man does not create himself. He is spirit and will, but also nature".[12]
With paternal concern, Benedict urged us to realize that creation is harmed "where we ourselves have the final word, where everything
is simply our property and we use it for ourselves alone. The misuse of creation begins when we no longer recognize any higher instance
than ourselves, when we see nothing else but ourselves".[13]
United by the same concern
7. These statements of the Popes echo the reflections of numerous scientists, philosophers, theologians and civic groups, all
of which have enriched the Church's thinking on these questions. Outside the Catholic Church, other Churches and Christian communities
– and other religions as well – have expressed deep concern and offered valuable reflections on issues which all of us find disturbing.
To give just one striking example, I would mention the statements made by the beloved Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, with whom
we share the hope of full ecclesial communion.
8. Patriarch Bartholomew has spoken in particular of the need for each of us to repent of the ways we have harmed the planet,
for "inasmuch as we all generate small ecological damage", we are called to acknowledge "our contribution, smaller or greater, to
the disfigurement and destruction of creation".[14]
He has repeatedly stated this firmly and persuasively, challenging us to acknowledge our sins against creation: "For human beings
to destroy the biological diversity of God's creation; for human beings to degrade the integrity of the earth by causing changes
in its climate, by stripping the earth of its natural forests or destroying its wetlands; for human beings to contaminate the earth's
waters, its land, its air, and its life – these are sins".[15]
For "to commit a crime against the natural world is a sin against ourselves and a sin against God".[16]
9. At the same time, Bartholomew has drawn attention to the ethical and spiritual roots of environmental problems, which require
that we look for solutions not only in technology but in a change of humanity; otherwise we would be dealing merely with symptoms.
He asks us to replace consumption with sacrifice, greed with generosity, wastefulness with a spirit of sharing, an asceticism
which "entails learning to give, and not simply to give up. It is a way of loving, of moving gradually away from what I want to what
God's world needs. It is liberation from fear, greed and compulsion".[17]
As Christians, we are also called "to accept the world as a sacrament of communion, as a way of sharing with God and our neighbours
on a global scale. It is our humble conviction that the divine and the human meet in the slightest detail in the seamless garment
of God's creation, in the last speck of dust of our planet".[18]
... ... ...
I. TECHNOLOGY: CREATIVITY AND POWER
... ... ...
105. There is a tendency to believe that every increase in power means "an increase of 'progress' itself", an advance in "security,
usefulness, welfare and vigour; an assimilation of new values into the stream of culture",[83]
as if reality, goodness and truth automatically flow from technological and economic power as such. The fact is that "contemporary
man has not been trained to use power well",[84]
because our immense technological development has not been accompanied by a development in human responsibility, values and conscience.
Each age tends to have only a meagre awareness of its own limitations. It is possible that we do not grasp the gravity of the
challenges now before us. "The risk is growing day by day that man will not use his power as he should"; in effect, "power is never
considered in terms of the responsibility of choice which is inherent in freedom" since its "only norms are taken from alleged necessity,
from either utility or security".[85]
But human beings are not completely autonomous. Our freedom fades when it is handed over to the blind forces of the unconscious,
of immediate needs, of self-interest, and of violence. In this sense, we stand naked and exposed in the face of our ever-increasing
power, lacking the wherewithal to control it. We have certain superficial mechanisms, but we cannot claim to have a sound ethics,
a culture and spirituality genuinely capable of setting limits and teaching clear-minded self-restraint.
II. THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE TECHNOCRATIC PARADIGM
106. The basic problem goes even deeper: it is the way that humanity has taken up technology and its development according
to an undifferentiated and one-dimensional paradigm. This paradigm exalts the concept of a subject who, using logical and rational
procedures, progressively approaches and gains control over an external object. This subject makes every effort to establish the
scientific and experimental method, which in itself is already a technique of possession, mastery and transformation. It is as if
the subject were to find itself in the presence of something formless, completely open to manipulation. Men and women have constantly
intervened in nature, but for a long time this meant being in tune with and respecting the possibilities offered by the things themselves.
It was a matter of receiving what nature itself allowed, as if from its own hand. Now, by contrast, we are the ones to lay our hands
on things, attempting to extract everything possible from them while frequently ignoring or forgetting the reality in front of us.
Human beings and material objects no longer extend a friendly hand to one another; the relationship has become confrontational. This
has made it easy to accept the idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts
in technology. It is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth's goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed
dry beyond every limit. It is the false notion that "an infinite quantity of energy and resources are available, that it is possible
to renew them quickly, and that the negative effects of the exploitation of the natural order can be easily absorbed".[86]
107. It can be said that many problems of today's world stem from the tendency, at times unconscious, to make the method and aims
of science and technology an epistemological paradigm which shapes the lives of individuals and the workings of society. The effects
of imposing this model on reality as a whole, human and social, are seen in the deterioration of the environment, but this is just
one sign of a reductionism which affects every aspect of human and social life. We have to accept that technological products
are not neutral, for they create a framework which ends up conditioning lifestyles and shaping social possibilities along the lines
dictated by the interests of certain powerful groups. Decisions which may seem purely instrumental are in reality decisions about
the kind of society we want to build.
108. The idea of promoting a different cultural paradigm and employing technology as a mere instrument is nowadays inconceivable.
The technological paradigm has become so dominant that it would be difficult to do without its resources and even more difficult
to utilize them without being dominated by their internal logic. It has become countercultural to choose a lifestyle whose goals
are even partly independent of technology, of its costs and its power to globalize and make us all the same. Technology tends
to absorb everything into its ironclad logic, and those who are surrounded with technology "know full well that it moves forward
in the final analysis neither for profit nor for the well-being of the human race", that "in the most radical sense of the term power
is its motive – a lordship over all".[87]
As a result, "man seizes hold of the naked elements of both nature and human nature".[88]
Our capacity to make decisions, a more genuine freedom and the space for each one's alternative creativity are diminished.
109. The technocratic paradigm also tends to dominate economic and political life. The economy accepts every advance in technology
with a view to profit, without concern for its potentially negative impact on human beings. Finance overwhelms the real economy.
The lessons of the global financial crisis have not been assimilated, and we are learning all too slowly the lessons of environmental
deterioration. Some circles maintain that current economics and technology will solve all environmental problems, and argue, in popular
and non-technical terms, that the problems of global hunger and poverty will be resolved simply by market growth. They are less concerned
with certain economic theories which today scarcely anybody dares defend, than with their actual operation in the functioning of
the economy. They may not affirm such theories with words, but nonetheless support them with their deeds by showing no interest in
more balanced levels of production, a better distribution of wealth, concern for the environment and the rights of future generations.
Their behaviour shows that for them maximizing profits is enough. Yet by itself the market cannot guarantee integral human development
and social inclusion.[89]At the same time, we have "a sort of 'superdevelopment' of a wasteful and consumerist kind which forms an unacceptable contrast
with the ongoing situations of dehumanizing deprivation",[90]
while we are all too slow in developing economic institutions and social initiatives which can give the poor regular access to basic
resources. We fail to see the deepest roots of our present failures, which have to do with the direction, goals, meaning and social
implications of technological and economic growth.
110. The specialization which belongs to technology makes it difficult to see the larger picture. The fragmentation of knowledge
proves helpful for concrete applications, and yet it often leads to a loss of appreciation for the whole, for the relationships between
things, and for the broader horizon, which then becomes irrelevant. This very fact makes it hard to find adequate ways of solving
the more complex problems of today's world, particularly those regarding the environment and the poor; these problems cannot be dealt
with from a single perspective or from a single set of interests. A science which would offer solutions to the great issues would
necessarily have to take into account the data generated by other fields of knowledge, including philosophy and social ethics; but
this is a difficult habit to acquire today. Nor are there genuine ethical horizons to which one can appeal. Life gradually becomes
a surrender to situations conditioned by technology, itself viewed as the principal key to the meaning of existence. In the concrete
situation confronting us, there are a number of symptoms which point to what is wrong, such as environmental degradation, anxiety,
a loss of the purpose of life and of community living. Once more we see that "realities are more important than ideas".[91]
111. Ecological culture cannot be reduced to a series of urgent and partial responses to the immediate problems of pollution,
environmental decay and the depletion of natural resources. There needs to be a distinctive way of looking at things, a way of thinking,
policies, an educational programme, a lifestyle and a spirituality which together generate resistance to the assault of the technocratic
paradigm. Otherwise, even the best ecological initiatives can find themselves caught up in the same globalized logic. To seek only
a technical remedy to each environmental problem which comes up is to separate what is in reality interconnected and to mask the
true and deepest problems of the global system.
112. Yet we can once more broaden our vision. We have the freedom needed to limit and direct technology; we can put it at the
service of another type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral. Liberation from the dominant
technocratic paradigm does in fact happen sometimes, for example, when cooperatives of small producers adopt less polluting means
of production, and opt for a non-consumerist model of life, recreation and community. Or when technology is directed primarily to
resolving people's concrete problems, truly helping them live with more dignity and less suffering. Or indeed when the desire to
create and contemplate beauty manages to overcome reductionism through a kind of salvation which occurs in beauty and in those who
behold it. An authentic humanity, calling for a new synthesis, seems to dwell in the midst of our technological culture, almost unnoticed,
like a mist seeping gently beneath a closed door. Will the promise last, in spite of everything, with all that is authentic rising
up in stubborn resistance?
113. There is also the fact that people no longer seem to believe in a happy future; they no longer have blind trust in a better
tomorrow based on the present state of the world and our technical abilities. There is a growing awareness that scientific and technological
progress cannot be equated with the progress of humanity and history, a growing sense that the way to a better future lies elsewhere.
This is not to reject the possibilities which technology continues to offer us. But humanity has changed profoundly, and the accumulation
of constant novelties exalts a superficiality which pulls us in one direction. It becomes difficult to pause and recover depth
in life. If architecture reflects the spirit of an age, our megastructures and drab apartment blocks express the spirit of globalized
technology, where a constant flood of new products coexists with a tedious monotony. Let us refuse to resign ourselves to this, and
continue to wonder about the purpose and meaning of everything. Otherwise we would simply legitimate the present situation and need
new forms of escapism to help us endure the emptiness.
114. All of this shows the urgent need for us to move forward in a bold cultural revolution. Science and technology are not
neutral; from the beginning to the end of a process, various intentions and possibilities are in play and can take on distinct shapes.
Nobody is suggesting a return to the Stone Age, but we do need to slow down and look at reality in a different way, to appropriate
the positive and sustainable progress which has been made, but also to recover the values and the great goals swept away by our unrestrained
delusions of grandeur.
III. THE CRISIS AND EFFECTS OF MODERN ANTHROPOCENTRISM
115. Modern anthropocentrism has paradoxically ended up prizing technical thought over reality, since "the technological mind
sees nature as an insensate order, as a cold body of facts, as a mere 'given', as an object of utility, as raw material to be hammered
into useful shape; it views the cosmos similarly as a mere 'space' into which objects can be thrown with complete indifference".[92]
The intrinsic dignity of the world is thus compromised. When human beings fail to find their true place in this world, they misunderstand
themselves and end up acting against themselves: "Not only has God given the earth to man, who must use it with respect for the original
good purpose for which it was given, but, man too is God's gift to man. He must therefore respect the natural and moral structure
with which he has been endowed".[93]
116. Modernity has been marked by an excessive anthropocentrism which today, under another guise, continues to stand in the way
of shared understanding and of any effort to strengthen social bonds. The time has come to pay renewed attention to reality and the
limits it imposes; this in turn is the condition for a more sound and fruitful development of individuals and society. An inadequate
presentation of Christian anthropology gave rise to a wrong understanding of the relationship between human beings and the world.
Often, what was handed on was a Promethean vision of mastery over the world, which gave the impression that the protection of nature
was something that only the faint-hearted cared about. Instead, our "dominion" over the universe should be understood more properly
in the sense of responsible stewardship.[94]
117. Neglecting to monitor the harm done to nature and the environmental impact of our decisions is only the most striking sign
of a disregard for the message contained in the structures of nature itself. When we fail to acknowledge as part of reality the worth
of a poor person, a human embryo, a person with disabilities – to offer just a few examples – it becomes difficult to hear the cry
of nature itself; everything is connected. Once the human being declares independence from reality and behaves with absolute
dominion, the very foundations of our life begin to crumble, for "instead of carrying out his role as a cooperator with God
in the work of creation, man sets himself up in place of God and thus ends up provoking a rebellion on the part of nature".[95]
118. This situation has led to a constant schizophrenia, wherein a technocracy which sees no intrinsic value in lesser beings
coexists with the other extreme, which sees no special value in human beings. But one cannot prescind from humanity. There can
be no renewal of our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself. There can be no ecology without an adequate anthropology.
When the human person is considered as simply one being among others, the product of chance or physical determinism, then "our overall
sense of responsibility wanes".[96]
A misguided anthropocentrism need not necessarily yield to "biocentrism", for that would entail adding yet another imbalance, failing
to solve present problems and adding new ones. Human beings cannot be expected to feel responsibility for the world unless, at the
same time, their unique capacities of knowledge, will, freedom and responsibility are recognized and valued.
119. Nor must the critique of a misguided anthropocentrism underestimate the importance of interpersonal relations. If the
present ecological crisis is one small sign of the ethical, cultural and spiritual crisis of modernity, we cannot presume to heal
our relationship with nature and the environment without healing all fundamental human relationships. Christian thought sees
human beings as possessing a particular dignity above other creatures; it thus inculcates esteem for each person and respect for
others. Our openness to others, each of whom is a "thou" capable of knowing, loving and entering into dialogue, remains the source
of our nobility as human persons. A correct relationship with the created world demands that we not weaken this social dimension
of openness to others, much less the transcendent dimension of our openness to the "Thou" of God. Our relationship with the environment
can never be isolated from our relationship with others and with God. Otherwise, it would be nothing more than romantic individualism
dressed up in ecological garb, locking us into a stifling immanence.
120. Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion.
How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be,
if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties? "If personal and social sensitivity
towards the acceptance of the new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away".[97]
121. We need to develop a new synthesis capable of overcoming the false arguments of recent centuries. Christianity, in fidelity
to its own identity and the rich deposit of truth which it has received from Jesus Christ, continues to reflect on these issues in
fruitful dialogue with changing historical situations. In doing so, it reveals its eternal newness.[98]
Practical relativism
122. A misguided anthropocentrism leads to a misguided lifestyle. In the Apostolic Exhortation
Evangelii Gaudium, I noted that the practical relativism typical of our age is "even more dangerous than doctrinal relativism".[99]
When human beings place themselves at the centre, they give absolute priority to immediate convenience and all else becomes relative.
Hence we should not be surprised to find, in conjunction with the omnipresent technocratic paradigm and the cult of unlimited human
power, the rise of a relativism which sees everything as irrelevant unless it serves one's own immediate interests. There is a logic
in all this whereby different attitudes can feed on one another, leading to environmental degradation and social decay.
123. The culture of relativism is the same disorder which drives one person to take advantage of another, to treat others
as mere objects, imposing forced labour on them or enslaving them to pay their debts. The same kind of thinking leads to the sexual
exploitation of children and abandonment of the elderly who no longer serve our interests. It is also the mindset of those who
say: Let us allow the invisible forces of the market to regulate the economy, and consider their impact on society and nature as
collateral damage. In the absence of objective truths or sound principles other than the satisfaction of our own desires and immediate
needs, what limits can be placed on human trafficking, organized crime, the drug trade, commerce in blood diamonds and the fur of
endangered species? Is it not the same relativistic logic which justifies buying the organs of the poor for resale or use in experimentation,
or eliminating children because they are not what their parents wanted? This same "use and throw away" logic generates so much waste,
because of the disordered desire to consume more than what is really necessary. We should not think that political efforts or the
force of law will be sufficient to prevent actions which affect the environment because, when the culture itself is corrupt and objective
truth and universally valid principles are no longer upheld, then laws can only be seen as arbitrary impositions or obstacles to
be avoided.
The need to protect employment
124. Any approach to an integral ecology, which by definition does not exclude human beings, needs to take account of the value
of labour, as Saint John Paul II wisely noted in his Encyclical
Laborem Exercens. According to the biblical account of creation, God placed man and woman in the garden he had created (cf.
Gen 2:15) not only to preserve it ("keep") but also to make it fruitful ("till"). Labourers and craftsmen thus "maintain the
fabric of the world" (Sir 38:34). Developing the created world in a prudent way is the best way of caring for it, as this
means that we ourselves become the instrument used by God to bring out the potential which he himself inscribed in things: "The Lord
created medicines out of the earth, and a sensible man will not despise them" (Sir 38:4).
125. If we reflect on the proper relationship between human beings and the world around us, we see the need for a correct understanding
of work; if we talk about the relationship between human beings and things, the question arises as to the meaning and purpose of
all human activity. This has to do not only with manual or agricultural labour but with any activity involving a modification of
existing reality, from producing a social report to the design of a technological development. Underlying every form of work is a
concept of the relationship which we can and must have with what is other than ourselves. Together with the awe-filled contemplation
of creation which we find in Saint Francis of Assisi, the Christian spiritual tradition has also developed a rich and balanced understanding
of the meaning of work, as, for example, in the life of Blessed Charles de Foucauld and his followers.
126. We can also look to the great tradition of monasticism. Originally, it was a kind of flight from the world, an escape from
the decadence of the cities. The monks sought the desert, convinced that it was the best place for encountering the presence of God.
Later, Saint Benedict of Norcia proposed that his monks live in community, combining prayer and spiritual reading with manual labour
(ora et labora). Seeing manual labour as spiritually meaningful proved revolutionary. Personal growth and sanctification came
to be sought in the interplay of recollection and work. This way of experiencing work makes us more protective and respectful of
the environment; it imbues our relationship to the world with a healthy sobriety.
127. We are convinced that "man is the source, the focus and the aim of all economic and social life".[100]
Nonetheless, once our human capacity for contemplation and reverence is impaired, it becomes easy for the meaning of work to be misunderstood.[101]
We need to remember that men and women have "the capacity to improve their lot, to further their moral growth and to develop their
spiritual endowments".[102]
Work should be the setting for this rich personal growth, where many aspects of life enter into play: creativity, planning for the
future, developing our talents, living out our values, relating to others, giving glory to God. It follows that, in the reality
of today's global society, it is essential that "we continue to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for everyone",[103]
no matter the limited interests of business and dubious economic reasoning.
128. We were created with a vocation to work. The goal should not be that technological progress increasingly replace human
work, for this would be detrimental to humanity. Work is a necessity, part of the meaning of life on this earth, a path to growth,
human development and personal fulfilment. Helping the poor financially must always be a provisional solution in the face of pressing
needs. The broader objective should always be to allow them a dignified life through work. Yet the orientation of the economy
has favoured a kind of technological progress in which the costs of production are reduced by laying off workers and replacing them
with machines. This is yet another way in which we can end up working against ourselves. The loss of jobs also has a negative
impact on the economy "through the progressive erosion of social capital: the network of relationships of trust, dependability, and
respect for rules, all of which are indispensable for any form of civil coexistence".[104]
In other words, "human costs always include economic costs, and economic dysfunctions always involve human costs".[105]
To stop investing in people, in order to gain greater short-term financial gain, is bad business for society.
129. In order to continue providing employment, it is imperative to promote an economy which favours productive diversity
and business creativity. For example, there is a great variety of small-scale food production systems which feed the greater part
of the world's peoples, using a modest amount of land and producing less waste, be it in small agricultural parcels, in orchards
and gardens, hunting and wild harvesting or local fishing. Economies of scale, especially in the agricultural sector, end up forcing
smallholders to sell their land or to abandon their traditional crops. Their attempts to move to other, more diversified, means
of production prove fruitless because of the difficulty of linkage with regional and global markets, or because the infrastructure
for sales and transport is geared to larger businesses. Civil authorities have the right and duty to adopt clear and firm measures
in support of small producers and differentiated production. To ensure economic freedom from which all can effectively benefit,
restraints occasionally have to be imposed on those possessing greater resources and financial power. To claim economic freedom while
realconditions bar many people from actual access to it, and while possibilities for employment continue to shrink, is to
practise a doublespeak which brings politics into disrepute. Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving
our world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the areas in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs
as an essential part of its service to the common good.
New biological technologies
130. In the philosophical and theological vision of the human being and of creation which I have presented, it is clear that the
human person, endowed with reason and knowledge, is not an external factor to be excluded. While human intervention on plants and
animals is permissible when it pertains to the necessities of human life, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that
experimentation on animals is morally acceptable only "if it remains within reasonable limits [and] contributes to caring for or
saving human lives".[106]
The Catechism firmly states that human power has limits and that "it is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer
or die needlessly".[107]
All such use and experimentation "requires a religious respect for the integrity of creation".[108]
This is way too simplistic interpretation of the events, but still she shed
a light on the problems of anti war movement in the USA. As sson as soch movemetn
grow to represnt a threat to status wquo they instantly get in cross hears of intelligence
agencies. Arrests follow.
Bill Ayers part is better and he managed to land a couple of quotes with rather
deep observations about the nature of the problems with the US media.
Notable quotes:
"... UnAmerican Activities ..."
"... "Empire always, then and now, cloaks itself in the garments of mystification and deceit," Ayers said. "The message from the corporate media was unambiguous: the US loves peace and fights only when it must, and always selflessly in defense of freedom and democracy." ..."
"... "The lies and misdirection go on and on," Ayers said. "And don't believe the narcissistic media today rewriting its role in moving the country against the war 50 years ago, making itself a forerunner and a major actor, heroizing its efforts and turning reality on its head." ..."
"... The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan ..."
"... Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq ..."
"... The Mass Destruction of Iraq: Why It Is Happening, and Who Is Responsible ..."
In 1970, the Weather Underground Organization (WUO), a group that emerged
out of Students for a Democratic Society, issued a "Declaration of a State of
War" against the US government, and shortly thereafter began carrying out bombings
against symbols of US Empire, including even the Pentagon itself. Targeting
mostly government buildings and several banks -- and taking care not to injure
human beings -- the actions were designed to "bring the war home" in order to
highlight imperial injustices against the oppressed, and the egregious violence
of US imperialism.
... ... ...
"[The Media's role was] so important that the US military learned to never
again allow independent journalists into their war zones," Dohrn explained.
"[Significantly], the mainstream media never again allowed images of human people,
families, women or children who suffer the consequences of US bombings or invasions."
With the dominant media avoiding these responsibilities, one of the many
roles the WUO played was, according to Dohrn, to communicate to the public the
ways in which people, cultures and whole civilizations were suffering under
US air strikes and CIA repression.
"The media was plenty corporatized during the '60s and '70s, and it was the
anti-war movement in concert with the Black Freedom Movement and the returning
vets who changed the hearts and minds of the US people from 1965-1968," she
said.
WUO member David Gilbert told Truthout he believes it was the strength of
the anti-war movement, and the US losses in Vietnam, that finally pushed sectors
of the media to start reporting some of the truth about the war.
He echoes Dohrn's point that the media was already corporatized back then
(though the conglomerates were not nearly as large as they are today), and the
pro-war bias of the media was just as real as it is now.
"An example was the use of napalm bombs, designed to cling to and burn through
flesh, on civilians," Gilbert said. "The mainstream media completely whited-out
these horrible war crimes."
In fact, in January 1967 a radical magazine, Ramparts, published a series
of color photos of children and babies burned by napalm.
"That's the point when some of us became absolutely frantic to stop the war,"
Gilbert said. "But it also exposed the mainstream media for what they were covering
up."
According to Gilbert, by 1967 a whole network of small radical papers had
a combined readership of roughly 6 million, making up a crucial wing of the
movement. Of course, it was therefore ripe for targeting by intelligence agencies.
"An important part of the FBI and police offensive to beat the radical movements
was to destroy the radical media, a campaign that's detailed in Geoffrey Rips's
UnAmerican Activities ," he said.
By the late '60s, largely due to constant pressure from the increasingly
powerful anti-war movement, portions of the media started to come around to
presenting some of the realities of the Vietnam War. Plus, by then, it was clear
the US was likely going to lose the war, US brutality abroad was being exposed
to the world, and the political upheaval on the home front was becoming white
hot.
Gilbert went on to explain how, then as now, "The hawks waged a concerted
campaign to blame that on 'the liberal media,' to the point that this lie has
become accepted today."
At that time, the myth of the "liberal media" accomplished several things
for the right wing, according to Gilbert. "It's covered up the truth that the
US military machine was defeated by a Global South nation, it's convinced the
public that the 'truth lies somewhere in between' the hawks and the media, when
in fact the media didn't do nearly enough to expose the injustice and horrors
of the war, and it's intimidated the media, which fell into line as pure propaganda
organs in subsequent wars."
Naomi Jaffe, one of the WUO's founding members who joined in solidarity with
movements for Black self-determination, agreed with Gilbert in that pressure
from the anti-war movement was a leading factor that pushed the media to share
more images of the war. However, she was quite critical of the overall role
the media played during Vietnam.
"Remember the Gulf of Tonkin? Not a hint of independent reporting ever questioned
it until long after the war was over," Jaffe told Truthout. "The body counts?
Regular reports of how the US was winning by killing more 'Viet Cong' every
week than could possibly have existed overall."
Bill Ayers, who is married to Dohrn, was also a leader and cofounder of the
WUO.
"Empire always, then and now, cloaks itself in the garments of mystification
and deceit," Ayers said. "The message from the corporate media was unambiguous:
the US loves peace and fights only when it must, and always selflessly in defense
of freedom and democracy."
For example, Ayers says, the New York Times announced that it saw the "light
at the end of the tunnel" -- the turning point when the war would at long last
be turned around and won -- days before the decisive defeat during the Tet Offensive
in 1968. In 1966, Walter Cronkite, CBS anchor and the most trusted journalist
of his generation, presented a fawning interview with the puppet and fascist
Nguyen Cao Ky and called him the George Washington of Viet Nam.
"The lies and misdirection go on and on," Ayers said. "And don't believe
the narcissistic media today rewriting its role in moving the country against
the war 50 years ago, making itself a forerunner and a major actor, heroizing
its efforts and turning reality on its head."
Ayers said it wasn't the media that played a role in helping end the war
in Vietnam, it was, by far, the decisive actions of the Vietnamese people themselves
"in defeating the most potent military force on earth." He pointed out, "Vietnam
was engaged in an authentic social revolution, deep and broad, in which peasants
and workers were massively engaged in the overthrow of colonialism and foreign
control as well as feudal relationships and capitalism itself."
Moreover, Ayers said, this revolution was part of "the anti-colonial and
Third World moment, a context that allowed us to understand the revolution in
Vietnam as part of a world phenomenon sweeping from South Africa to Egypt to
Chile to Indonesia."
He also pointed to "the important role of the underground -- popular or alternative
or movement -- press in the US, and its ability to tap international sources
like the Cuban media, for example, to uncover the truth of events."
He sees the typical narrative -- the idea that the military draft made the
war real in the eyes of the US public, and the media cemented that reality,
helping to end the war -- as skewed. It "buys into a simplistic and largely
self-serving explanation," Ayers said. "The Vietnamese revolution and war resistance
at home impacted the media coverage, not the other way around."
"... Many "never-Trumpers" of both parties see the deep state's national security bureaucracy as their best hope to destroy Trump and thus defend constitutional government, but those hopes are misguided. ..."
"... As Michael Glennon, author of National Security and Double Government, pointed out in a June 2017 Harper's essay, if "the president maintains his attack, splintered and demoralized factions within the bureaucracy could actually support - not oppose - many potential Trump initiatives, such as stepped-up drone strikes, cyberattacks, covert action, immigration bans, and mass surveillance." ..."
"... Corraborative evidence of Valentine's thesis is, perhaps surprisingly, provided by the CIA's own website where a number of redacted historical documents have been published. Presumably, they are documents first revealed under the Freedom of Information Act. A few however are copies of news articles once available to the public but now archived by the CIA which has blacked-out portions of the articles. ..."
"... This led to an investigation by New Times in a day when there were still "investigative reporters," and not the government sycophants of today. Based on firsthand accounts, their investigation concluded that Operation Phoenix was the "only systematized kidnapping, torture and assassination program ever sponsored by the United States government. . . . Its victims were noncombatants." At least 40,000 were murdered, with "only" about 8,000 supposed Viet Cong political cadres targeted for execution, with the rest civilians (including women and children) killed and "later conveniently labeled VCI. Hundreds of thousands were jailed without trial, often after sadistic abuse." The article notes that Phoenix was conceived, financed, and directed by the Central Intelligence Agency ..."
"... But the article noted that one of the most persistent criticisms of Phoenix was that it resulted "in the arrest and imprisonment of many innocent civilians." These were called "Class C Communist offenders," some of whom may actually have been forced to commit such "belligerent acts" as digging trenches or carrying rice. It was those alleged as the "hard core, full-time cadre" who were deemed to make up the "shadow government" designated as Class A and B Viet Cong. ..."
"... Ironically, by the Bush administration's broad definition of "unlawful combatants," CIA officers and their support structure also would fit the category. But the American public is generally forgiving of its own war criminals though most self-righteous and hypocritical in judging foreign war criminals. But perhaps given sufficient evidence, the American public could begin to see both the immorality of this behavior and its counterproductive consequences. ..."
"... Talleyrand is credited with saying, "They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing." Reportedly, that was borrowed from a 1796 letter by a French naval officer, which stated, in the original language: Personne n'est corrigé; personne n'a su ni rien oublier ni rien appendre. In English: "Nobody has been corrected; no one has known to forget, nor yet to learn anything." That sums up the CIA leadership entirely. ..."
Douglas Valentine has once again added to the store of knowledge necessary for American citizens
to understand how the U.S. government actually works today, in his most recent book entitled
The CIA As Organized Crime . (Valentine previously wrote The Phoenix Program ,
which should be read with the current book.)
The US "deep state" – of which the CIA is an integral part – is an open secret now and the Phoenix
Program (assassinations, death squads, torture, mass detentions, exploitation of information) has
been its means of controlling populations. Consequently, knowing the deep state's methods is the
only hope of building a democratic opposition to the deep state and to restore as much as possible
the Constitutional system we had in previous centuries, as imperfect as it was.
Princeton University political theorist Sheldon Wolin described the US political system in place
by 2003 as "inverted totalitarianism." He reaffirmed that in 2009 after seeing a year of the Obama
administration. Correctly identifying the threat against constitutional governance is the first step
to restore it, and as Wolin understood, substantive constitutional government ended long before Donald
Trump campaigned. He's just taking unconstitutional governance to the next level in following the
same path as his recent predecessors. However, even as some elements of the "deep state" seek to
remove Trump, the President now has many "deep state" instruments in his own hands to be used at
his unreviewable discretion.
Many "never-Trumpers" of both parties see the deep state's national security bureaucracy as
their best hope to destroy Trump and thus defend constitutional government, but those hopes are misguided.
After all, the deep state's bureaucratic leadership has worked arduously for decades to subvert
constitutional order.
As Michael Glennon, author of National Security and Double Government, pointed out in a June
2017 Harper's essay, if "the president maintains his attack, splintered and demoralized factions
within the bureaucracy could actually support - not oppose - many potential Trump initiatives, such
as stepped-up drone strikes, cyberattacks, covert action, immigration bans, and mass surveillance."
Glennon noted that the propensity of "security managers" to back policies which ratchet up levels
of security "will play into Trump's hands, so that if and when he finally does declare victory, a
revamped security directorate could emerge more menacing than ever, with him its devoted new ally."
Before that happens, it is incumbent for Americans to understand what Valentine explains in his book
of CIA methods of "population control" as first fully developed in the Vietnam War's Phoenix Program.
Hating the US
There also must be the realization that our "national security" apparatchiks - principally but
not solely the CIA - have served to exponentially increase the numbers of those people who hate the
US.
Some of these people turn to terrorism as an expression of that hostility. Anyone who is at all
familiar with the CIA and Al Qaeda knows that the CIA has been Al Qaeda's most important "combat
multiplier" since 9/11, and the CIA can be said to have birthed ISIS as well with the mistreatment
of incarcerated Iraqi men in US prisons in Iraq.
Indeed, by following the model of the Phoenix Program, the CIA must be seen in the Twenty-first
Century as a combination of the ultimate "Murder, Inc.," when judged by the CIA's methods such as
drone warfare and its victims; and the Keystone Kops, when the multiple failures of CIA policies
are considered. This is not to make light of what the CIA does, but the CIA's misguided policies
and practices have served to generate wrath, hatred and violence against Americans, which we see
manifested in cities such as San Bernardino, Orlando, New York and Boston.
Pointing out the harm to Americans is not to dismiss the havoc that Americans under the influence
of the CIA have perpetrated on foreign populations. But "morality" seems a lost virtue today in the
US, which is under the influence of so much militaristic war propaganda that morality no longer enters
into the equation in determining foreign policy.
In addition to the harm the CIA has caused to people around the world, the CIA works tirelessly
at subverting its own government at home, as was most visible in the spying on and subversion of
the torture investigation by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The subversion of democracy
also includes the role the CIA plays in developing and disseminating war propaganda as "information
warfare," upon the American people. This is what the Rand Corporation under the editorship of Zalmay
Khalilzad has described as "conditioning the battlefield," which begins with the minds of the American
population.
Douglas Valentine discusses and documents the role of the CIA in disseminating pro-war propaganda
and disinformation as complementary to the violent tactics of the Phoenix Program in Vietnam. Valentine
explains that "before Phoenix was adopted as the model for policing the American empire, many US
military commanders in Vietnam resisted the Phoenix strategy of targeting civilians with Einsatzgruppen-style
'special forces' and Gestapo-style secret police."
Military Commanders considered that type of program a flagrant violation of the Law of War. "Their
main job is to zap the in-betweeners – you know, the people who aren't all the way with the government
and aren't all the way with the Viet Cong either. They figure if you zap enough in-betweeners, people
will begin to get the idea," according to one quote from The Phoenix Program referring to
the unit tasked with much of the Phoenix operations.
Nazi Influences
Comparing the Phoenix Program and its operatives to "Einsatzgruppen-style 'special forces' and
Gestapo-style secret police" is not a distortion of the strategic understanding of each. Both programs
were extreme forms of repression operating under martial law principles where the slightest form
of dissent was deemed to represent the work of the "enemy." Hitler's Bandit Hunters: The SS and the
Nazi Occupation of Europe by Philip W. Blood describes German "Security Warfare" as practiced in
World War II, which can be seen as identical in form to the Phoenix Program as to how the enemy is
defined as anyone who is "potentially" a threat, deemed either "partizans" or terrorists.
That the Germans included entire racial categories in that does not change the underlying logic,
which was, anyone deemed an internal enemy in a territory in which their military operated had to
be "neutralized" by any means necessary. The US military and the South Vietnamese military governments
operated under the same principles but not based on race, rather the perception that certain areas
and villages were loyal to the Viet Cong.
This repressive doctrine was also not unique to the Nazis in Europe and the US military in Vietnam.
Similar though less sophisticated strategies were used against the American Indians and by the imperial
powers of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth centuries, including by the US in its newly acquired
territories of the Philippines and in the Caribbean. This "imperial policing," i.e., counterinsurgency,
simply moved to more manipulative and, in ways, more violent levels.
That the US drew upon German counterinsurgency doctrine, as brutal as it was, is well documented.
This is shown explicitly in a 2011 article published in the Journal of Military and Strategic Studies
entitled German Counterinsurgency Revisited by Charles D. Melson. He wrote that in 1942, Nazi commander
Heinrich Himmler named a deputy for "anti-bandit warfare," (Bevollmachtigter fur die Bandenkampfung
im Osten), SS-General von dem Bach, whose responsibilities expanded in 1943 to head all SS and police
anti-bandit units and operations. He was one of the architects of the Einsatzguppen "concept of anti-partisan
warfare," a German predecessor to the "Phoenix Program."
'Anti-Partisan' Lessons
It wasn't a coincidence that this "anti-partisan" warfare concept should be adopted by US forces
in Vietnam and retained to the present day. Melson pointed out that a "post-war German special forces
officer described hunter or ranger units as 'men who knew every possible ruse and tactic of guerrilla
warfare. They had gone through the hell of combat against the crafty partisans in the endless swamps
and forests of Russia.'"
Consequently, "The German special forces and reconnaissance school was a sought after posting
for North Atlantic Treaty Organization special operations personnel," who presumably included members
of the newly created US Army Special Forces soldiers, which was in part headquartered at Bad Tolz
in Germany, as well as CIA paramilitary officers.
Just as with the later Phoenix Program to the present-day US global counterinsurgency, Melson
wrote that the "attitude of the [local] population and the amount of assistance it was willing to
give guerilla units was of great concern to the Germans. Different treatment was supposed to be accorded
to affected populations, bandit supporters, and bandits, while so-called population and resource
control measures for each were noted (but were in practice, treated apparently one and the same).
'Action against enemy agitation' was the psychological or information operations of the
Nazi
period. The Nazis believed that, 'Because of the close relationship of guerilla warfare
and politics, actions against enemy agitation are a task that is just as important as interdiction
and combat actions. All means must be used to ward off enemy influence and waken and maintain a clear
political will.'"
This is typical of any totalitarian system – a movement or a government – whether the process
is characterized as counterinsurgency or internal security. The idea of any civilian collaboration
with the "enemy" is the basis for what the US government charges as "conspiracy" in the Guantanamo
Military Commissions.
Valentine explains the Phoenix program as having been developed by the CIA in 1967 to combine
"existing counterinsurgency programs in a concerted effort to 'neutralize' the Vietcong infrastructure
(VCI)." He explained further that "neutralize" meant "to kill, capture, or make to defect." "Infrastructure"
meant civilians suspected of supporting North Vietnamese and Vietcong soldiers. Central to the Phoenix
program was that its targets were civilians, making the operation a violation of the Geneva Conventions
which guaranteed protection to civilians in time of war.
"The Vietnam's War's Silver Lining: A Bureaucratic Model for Population Control Emerges" is the
title of Chapter 3. Valentine writes that the "CIA's Phoenix program changed how America fights its
wars and how the public views this new type of political and psychological warfare, in which civilian
casualties are an explicit objective." The intent of the Phoenix program evolved from "neutralizing"
enemy leaders into "a program of systematic repression for the political control of the South Vietnamese
people. It sought to accomplish this through a highly bureaucratized system of disposing of people
who could not be ideologically assimilated." The CIA claimed a legal basis for the program in "emergency
decrees" and orders for "administrative detention."
Lauding Petraeus
Valentine refers to a paper by David Kilcullen entitled Countering Global Insurgency. Kilcullen
is one of the so-called "counterinsurgency experts" whom General David Petraeus gathered together
in a cell to promote and refine "counterinsurgency," or COIN, for the modern era. Fred Kaplan, who
is considered a "liberal author and journalist" at Slate, wrote a panegyric to these cultists entitled,
The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War. The purpose of this
cell was to change the practices of the US military into that of "imperial policing," or COIN, as
they preferred to call it.
But Kilcullen argued in his paper that "The 'War on Terrorism'" is actually a campaign to counter
a global insurgency. Therefore, Kilcullen argued, "we need a new paradigm, capable of addressing
globalised insurgency." His "disaggregation strategy" called for "actions to target the insurgent
infrastructure that would resemble the unfairly maligned (but highly effective) Vietnam-era Phoenix
program."
He went on, "Contrary to popular mythology, this was largely a civilian aid and development program,
supported by targeted military pacification operations and intelligence activity to disrupt the Viet
Cong Infrastructure. A global Phoenix program (including the other key elements that formed part
of the successful Vietnam CORDS system) would provide a useful start point to consider how Disaggregation
would develop in practice."
It is readily apparent that, in fact, a Phoenix-type program is now US global policy and - just
like in Vietnam - it is applying "death squad" strategies that eliminate not only active combatants
but also civilians who simply find themselves in the same vicinity, thus creating antagonisms that
expand the number of fighters.
Corraborative evidence of Valentine's thesis is, perhaps surprisingly, provided by the CIA's
own website where a number of redacted historical documents have been published. Presumably, they
are documents first revealed under the Freedom of Information Act. A few however are copies of news
articles once available to the public but now archived by the CIA which has blacked-out portions
of the articles.
The Bloody Reality
One "sanitized" article - approved for release in 2011 - is a partially redacted New Times article
of Aug. 22, 1975, by Michael Drosnin. The article recounts a story of a US Army counterintelligence
officer "who directed a small part of a secret war aimed not at the enemy's soldiers but at its civilian
leaders." He describes how a CIA-directed Phoenix operative dumped a bag of "eleven bloody ears"
as proof of six people killed.
The officer, who recalled this incident in 1971, said, "It made me sick. I couldn't go on with
what I was doing in Vietnam. . . . It was an assassination campaign . . . my job was to identify
and eliminate VCI, the Viet Cong 'infrastructure' – the communist's shadow government. I worked directly
with two Vietnamese units, very tough guys who didn't wear uniforms . . . In the beginning they brought
back about 10 percent alive. By the end they had stopped taking prisoners.
"How many VC they got I don't know. I saw a hell of a lot of dead bodies. We'd put a tag on saying
VCI, but no one really knew – it was just some native in black pajamas with 16 bullet holes."
This led to an investigation by New Times in a day when there were still "investigative reporters,"
and not the government sycophants of today. Based on firsthand accounts, their investigation concluded
that Operation Phoenix was the "only systematized kidnapping, torture and assassination program ever
sponsored by the United States government. . . . Its victims were noncombatants." At least 40,000
were murdered, with "only" about 8,000 supposed Viet Cong political cadres targeted for execution,
with the rest civilians (including women and children) killed and "later conveniently labeled VCI.
Hundreds of thousands were jailed without trial, often after sadistic abuse." The article notes that
Phoenix was conceived, financed, and directed by the Central Intelligence Agency, as Mr. Valentine
writes.
A second article archived by the CIA was by the Christian Science Monitor, dated Jan. 5, 1971,
describing how the Saigon government was "taking steps that could help eliminate one of the most
glaring abuses of its controversial Phoenix program, which is aimed against the Viet Cong political
and administrative apparatus." Note how the Monitor shifted blame away from the CIA and onto the
South Vietnamese government.
But the article noted that one of the most persistent criticisms of Phoenix was that it resulted
"in the arrest and imprisonment of many innocent civilians." These were called "Class C Communist
offenders," some of whom may actually have been forced to commit such "belligerent acts" as digging
trenches or carrying rice. It was those alleged as the "hard core, full-time cadre" who were deemed
to make up the "shadow government" designated as Class A and B Viet Cong.
Yet "security committees" throughout South Vietnam, under the direction of the CIA, sentenced
at least 10,000 "Class C civilians" to prison each year, far more than Class A and B combined. The
article stated, "Thousands of these prisoners are never brought to court trial, and thousands of
other have never been sentenced." The latter statement would mean they were just held in "indefinite
detention," like the prisoners held at Guantanamo and other US detention centers with high levels
of CIA involvement.
Not surprisingly to someone not affiliated with the CIA, the article found as well that "Individual
case histories indicate that many who have gone to prison as active supporters of neither the government
nor the Viet Cong come out as active backers of the Viet Cong and with an implacable hatred of the
government." In other words, the CIA and the COIN enthusiasts are achieving the same results today
with the prisons they set up in Iraq and Afghanistan.
CIA Crimes
Valentine broadly covers the illegalities of the CIA over the years, including its well-documented
role in facilitating the drug trade over the years. But, in this reviewer's opinion, his most valuable
contribution is his description of the CIA's participation going back at least to the Vietnam War
in the treatment of what the US government today calls "unlawful combatants."
"Unlawful combatants" is a descriptive term made up by the Bush administration to remove people
whom US officials alleged were "terrorists" from the legal protections of the Geneva Conventions
and Human Rights Law and thus to justify their capture or killing in the so-called "Global War on
Terror." Since the US government deems them "unlawful" – because they do not belong to an organized
military structure and do not wear insignia – they are denied the "privilege" of belligerency that
applies to traditional soldiers. But – unless they take a "direct part in hostilities" – they would
still maintain their civilian status under the law of war and thus not lose the legal protection
due to civilians even if they exhibit sympathy or support to one side in a conflict.
Ironically, by the Bush administration's broad definition of "unlawful combatants," CIA officers
and their support structure also would fit the category. But the American public is generally forgiving
of its own war criminals though most self-righteous and hypocritical in judging foreign war criminals.
But perhaps given sufficient evidence, the American public could begin to see both the immorality
of this behavior and its counterproductive consequences.
This is not to condemn all CIA officers, some of whom acted in good faith that they were actually
defending the United States by acquiring information on a professed enemy in the tradition of Nathan
Hale. But it is to harshly condemn those CIA officials and officers who betrayed the United States
by subverting its Constitution, including waging secret wars against foreign countries without a
declaration of war by Congress. And it decidedly condemns the CIA war criminals who acted as a law
unto themselves in the torture and murder of foreign nationals, as Valentine's book describes.
Talleyrand is credited with saying, "They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing." Reportedly,
that was borrowed from a 1796 letter by a French naval officer, which stated, in the original language:
Personne n'est corrigé; personne n'a su ni rien oublier ni rien appendre. In English: "Nobody has
been corrected; no one has known to forget, nor yet to learn anything." That sums up the CIA leadership
entirely.
Douglas Valentine's book is a thorough documentation of that fact and it is essential reading
for all Americans if we are to have any hope for salvaging a remnant of representative government.
Todd E. Pierce retired as a Major in the US Army Judge Advocate General (JAG) Corps in November
2012. His most recent assignment was defense counsel in the Office of Chief Defense Counsel, Office
of Military Commissions. This originally appeared at
ConsortiumNews.com .
CIA is actually a state within the state as Church commission revealed and it has an immanent tendency to seek control over "surface
state" and media. In other words large intelligence apparatus might well be incompatible with the democratic governance.
Notable quotes:
"... The CIA has a track record of acting out of self interest since its inception and should not be believed. That being said, the public is almost completely unaware of the agency's misdeeds. ..."
"In the long run, the CIA can't deceive the Chinese government without also deceiving, in some way, the American public. This
leaves us with an obvious problem: Should we believe anything the CIA says?" [RealClearWorld].
"It's a tough question for a democracy to answer. Trust is built on the tacit agreement that the "bad things" an agency does are
good for the country.
If the public believes that that is no longer the case – if it believes the agency is acting out of self-interest and not national
interest – then the agreement is broken. The intelligence agency is seen as an impediment of the right to national self-determination,
a means for the ends of the few."
Huey Long <
RE: Hall of Mirrors/Believing the CIA
The CIA has a track record of acting out of self interest since its inception and should not be believed. That being said,
the public is almost completely unaware of the agency's misdeeds.
I think the reason folks like Manning, Snowden and Assange are so reviled by the agency is because they are a threat to the
CIA's reputation more than anything else.
"... The warning signs that Kushner was fronting for the neo-conservatives was always present. His media company, Observer Media, which publishes the weekly on-line New York Observer, prominently featured several neo-conservative writers. ..."
"... The narrow gap of separation between Jared Kushner and some of Israel's top gangsters is cause for alarm. This situation became especially acute after it was revealed that Kushner failed to provide all the requested information on his national security questionnaire forms concerning his contacts with foreign persons and interests, has led for congressional calls for his security clearance to be suspended. ..."
"... The feud between Jared Kushner and Bannon is not the first personality conflict Kushner has had with members of the Trump team. The first demonstration of Kushner's powerful influence over Trump was evidenced in his firing of Trump transition team chairman New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and his loyalists, who included former U.S. Representative Mike Rogers and Matthew Freedman. For Kushner, the firings were an ultimate payback for Christie. While the U.S. Attorney for Northern New Jersey, Christie successfully prosecuted Kushner's father for tax evasion, witness tampering, and illegal campaign contributions. Christie wanted a three-year prison sentence for the elder Kushner but he ended up serving a year at a federal penitentiary in Alabama. ..."
"... Christie's federal law enforcement investigation discovered that Charles Kushner tried to lure his brother-in-law and employee, William Schulder, into a prostitution honey trap at the Red Bull Inn motel in Bridgewater, New Jersey. The elder Kushner paid $10,000 to a high-end prostitute, who reportedly worked for a Manhattan escort agency linked to the Mossad, to lure Schulder into a trap, complete with a videotape system, designed to prevent him from testifying on behalf of Christie at Kushner's trial. ..."
"... Charles Kushner also managed to get New Jersey Democratic Governor Jim McGreevey to appoint him to the New York-New Jersey Port Authority Commission, which owned the World Trade Center, a plum position on 9/11 for a suspected asset of Israel's Mossad. Hudson County and Jersey City law enforcement authorities were well-aware that Mossad elements were involved in many of the intelligence activities surrounding and in support of the 9/11 event in the months leading up to the attack in 2001. ..."
"... After becoming governor, McGreevey appointed Cipel, an Israeli national and employee of Kushner, as his chief counselor on political strategy, foreign affairs, and relations with the Jewish community. But it was McGreevey's appointment of Cipel as his director for homeland security that raised eyebrows across the state, especially after 9/11. ..."
"... Undoubtedly, Christie, who had his eyes already set upon the New Jersey governor's mansion in Princeton, knew all about the role that Charles Kushner played in the ultimate blackmailing of one of his predecessors as governor. With the sort of background information possessed by a federal prosecutor like Christie, who had access to wiretap transcripts gathered from the Kushner family's phone and other communications, it is clear that Jared Kushner saw Christie as a major threat to the future Kushner family agenda within the Trump administration. ..."
"... With Christie, and, possibly soon, Bannon out of the way, Jared Kushner will be able to cement his Svengali-like control over Trump. Considering the record of political muscle exercised by the Kushner klan against two New Jersey governors, one can only surmise the Kushners have a great deal of blackmailable information on Mr. Trump. ..."
Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has emerged as a significant influence within the policy-making apparatus of the White
House. After a rather public imbroglio with Trump's strategic policy adviser Stephen Bannon over the U.S. cruise missile attack on
the Shayrat airbase in Syria, Kushner is "in", as they often say in Washington, and Bannon is "out". In any case, the anti-globalist
faction, which is led by Bannon, has received verbal "thumbs down" on several fronts from Trump.
Trump's adoption of Clintonesque Democratic Party policies of opposing the Syrian government, confronting Russia, supporting NATO,
backing the U.S. Export-Import (EXIM) Bank, and militarily confronting North Korea and China in East Asia have neo-conservatives
and globalists cheering but many within Trump's political base of "America First" nationalists and libertarians crying foul.
The warning signs that Kushner was fronting for the neo-conservatives was always present. His media company, Observer Media,
which publishes the weekly on-line New York Observer, prominently featured several neo-conservative writers. Kushner, who also
led the real estate firm Kushner Companies, turned over control of the newspaper to his brother-in-law after being named as senior
adviser to President Trump.
Kushner inherited a real estate empire from his father, Charles Kushner. In 2007, Jared Kushner made the largest single purchase
of a single building in U.S. history, he paid $1.8 billion for a 41-story building at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. In 2015, Jared
Kushner bought a 50.1 percent share in the Time Square Building in Manhattan from Africa Israel Investments, Ltd. (AFI), an investment
and holding company owned by Israeli-Uzbek diamond magnate Lev Leviev. In what could spell trouble for U.S. relations with the Palestine
and Africa, AFI has been involved in the building of illegal settlements on the West Bank and the acquisition of diamonds from Africa's
bloodiest of conflict zones.
AFI and its subsidiary, Danya Cebus, have been subjected to disinvestments by a number of governments and companies over its West
Bank activities. In August 2010, the Norwegian pension fund divested in the two firms. Leviev is also involved in dodgy casino operations,
which puts him in the same business circles as casino operator Trump. In 2009, Playtech Cyprus, Ltd., one of AFI's companies, began
providing casino equipment to a new casino in Bucharest, Romania. Playtech was started in 1999 by four Israelis, Teddy Sagi, Elad
Cohen, Rami Beinish, and Amnon Ben-Zion. Playtech's on-line gambling software is primarily provided by software programmers in Estonia.
Sagi is a convicted stock fraudster, having been convicted of fraud in the 1996 "Discount Bank affair", a stock and bond manipulation
scheme that shook the Tel Aviv business community. Leviev's Africa diamond mining operations involve several "former" Mossad officers,
most notably in Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Namibia, and Angola.
The narrow gap of separation between Jared Kushner and some of Israel's top gangsters is cause for alarm. This situation became
especially acute after it was revealed that Kushner failed to provide all the requested information on his national security questionnaire
forms concerning his contacts with foreign persons and interests, has led for congressional calls for his security clearance to be
suspended.
The feud between Jared Kushner and Bannon is not the first personality conflict Kushner has had with members of the Trump
team. The first demonstration of Kushner's powerful influence over Trump was evidenced in his firing of Trump transition team chairman
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and his loyalists, who included former U.S. Representative Mike Rogers and Matthew Freedman. For
Kushner, the firings were an ultimate payback for Christie. While the U.S. Attorney for Northern New Jersey, Christie successfully
prosecuted Kushner's father for tax evasion, witness tampering, and illegal campaign contributions. Christie wanted a three-year
prison sentence for the elder Kushner but he ended up serving a year at a federal penitentiary in Alabama.
Christie's federal law enforcement investigation discovered that Charles Kushner tried to lure his brother-in-law and employee,
William Schulder, into a prostitution honey trap at the Red Bull Inn motel in Bridgewater, New Jersey. The elder Kushner paid $10,000
to a high-end prostitute, who reportedly worked for a Manhattan escort agency linked to the Mossad, to lure Schulder into a trap,
complete with a videotape system, designed to prevent him from testifying on behalf of Christie at Kushner's trial.
After Schulder's wife was sent a videotape of the tryst at the motel, Christie managed to not only ensure that an embarrassed
but angered Schulder remained a star witness but also got the prostitute to testify against Kushner. Another witness for the prosecutors,
Robert Yontef, Kushner's chief bookkeeper, was also subjected to a Kushner prostitution trap and a "smoking gun" videotape arranged
by another call girl hired by Kushner.
Charles Kushner also managed to get New Jersey Democratic Governor Jim McGreevey to appoint him to the New York-New Jersey
Port Authority Commission, which owned the World Trade Center, a plum position on 9/11 for a suspected asset of Israel's Mossad.
Hudson County and Jersey City law enforcement authorities were well-aware that Mossad elements were involved in many of the intelligence
activities surrounding and in support of the 9/11 event in the months leading up to the attack in 2001.
The Kushner family appears to relish in the politics of revenge and blackmail as McGreevey discovered the hard way.
While he was mayor of Woodbridge, McGreevey met an Israeli intelligence asset named Golan Cipel during a 2000 fact finding trip
to Israel arranged by Charles Kushner, who was a generous donor to McGreevey's political coffers. Although the trip was sponsored
by the United Jewish Federation of MetroWest, the goal was to ensure future loyalty from an up-and-coming New Jersey politician being
groomed for governor of his state. Cipel was the chief spokesman for the Israeli city of Rishon LeZion, but he soon ended up on McGreevey's
gubernatorial campaign staff, thanks to the influence, U.S. work visa clearance, and money arranged by the elder Kushner. It is noteworthy
that Rishon LeZion represents one of the right-wing Likud Party's most important bases of support in Israel. A powerful political
kingmaker, Charles Kushner secured McGreevey's Democratic nomination for the governor's race after seeking the support – that is,
arm twisting – the Democratic Party chairmen of the counties of Union, Essex, Middlesex, and Camden.
After becoming governor, McGreevey appointed Cipel, an Israeli national and employee of Kushner, as his chief counselor on
political strategy, foreign affairs, and relations with the Jewish community. But it was McGreevey's appointment of Cipel as his
director for homeland security that raised eyebrows across the state, especially after 9/11.
During McGreevey's governorship, Cipel decided to file a sexual harassment lawsuit against the governor in Mercer County Court.
Cipel, a one-time "diplomat" – read that as a Mossad agent – at the Israeli Consulate General in New York, in a single legal action,
destroyed McGreevey's political career. The suit forced McGreevey, who was married with two children, to admit that he led a parallel
and secret gay lifestyle. With that bombshell news hitting the media, McGreevey was forced to resign. Several New Jersey political
observers believe that Charles Kushner was behind Cipel's lawsuit after McGreevey did not turn out as the kind of puppet Kushner
expected him to be. In fact, during the Cipel suit, McGreevey's lawyers contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation and tipped
them off about a possible Kushner-Cipel extortion operation directed against the governor.
Undoubtedly, Christie, who had his eyes already set upon the New Jersey governor's mansion in Princeton, knew all about the
role that Charles Kushner played in the ultimate blackmailing of one of his predecessors as governor. With the sort of background
information possessed by a federal prosecutor like Christie, who had access to wiretap transcripts gathered from the Kushner family's
phone and other communications, it is clear that Jared Kushner saw Christie as a major threat to the future Kushner family agenda
within the Trump administration.
With Christie, and, possibly soon, Bannon out of the way, Jared Kushner will be able to cement his Svengali-like control over
Trump. Considering the record of political muscle exercised by the Kushner klan against two New Jersey governors, one can only surmise
the Kushners have a great deal of blackmailable information on Mr. Trump.
"... This couldn't last. In February 2007 Kaplan closed his office door and said he was a Zionist, Kushner was a Zionist, Kempner was a Zionist, and the janitor was a Zionist, too, and the newspaper would not pay for me to blog, as I was demanding (at that time I was only paid for published columns). It was fitting; I was gone. ..."
"... Kushner reminds me of a few bosses I have had. They only know what they know which means SFA . Zero interest in the wider world. He probably knows loads about NY real estate and not much else ..."
"... Very good profile, Phil. One thing struck me, as it did Keith. The only "peace" that Kushner and people like him want for Israel is the "peace" of total domination and rule over others with no disturbance. So, talking about him bringing "peace" makes no sense whatsoever. That's not at all what he or anyone around him wants. ..."
"... Israelis and their supporters are forever talking about peace, when anyone of sound mind knows that the issue is not peace but justice for the Palestinians who have had their land stolen by European colonists. ..."
"... Israel pushes the peace line because it knows the issue is not about peace and that a subjugated people like the Palestinians have not a snowball's chance in hell of wielding any sort of power which might contribute to peace. ..."
"... While the appointment of Kushner is clearly nepotistic, it does not seem much worse than JFK's appointment of his brother. The historical record indicates that Robert Kennedy was if anything much more vile on Israel Palestine issues than Jared Kushner is. ..."
Donald Trump has now named his son-in-law Jared Kushner as a senior adviser, notably on Middle
East/Israel issues, and as Kushner fired me ten years ago over these issues, it seemed a good time
to review my memories of our (limited) interactions and do what journalists do, make a prognosis
about his future efforts.
Kushner was 25 when he bought the New York Observer from investment banker/artist Arthur
Carter in 2006, and as all such transactions do, the move set off panic on the editorial side of
the paper. The editor, my dear friend Peter Kaplan, now deceased, was at once engaged in a struggle
with his new boss over the paper's news budget and independence. For my part I had been a columnist
for a few years, protected against attacks and my own ineptitude by my Harvard chum Kaplan (yes,
Virginia, that's how media works), and had lately started Mondoweiss there as a personal blog, and
because I was vehemently against the Iraq war and beginning to connect that tragedy to the US relationship
to Israel in my postings, I was apprehensive about Kushner's view of the blog and me. I knew that
he had been a big supporter of the orthodox Jewish Chabad House at Harvard and had
lauded Alan Dershowitz
there. Not a good sign - when I was discovering Rachel Corrie and The Israel Lobby.
Peter Kaplan was a great student of character; it was his chief delight in life (after a cigar,
a turkey leg, and a Preston Sturges film in the middle of the night); and my understanding of Kushner's
character was formed by closed-door conversations with Peter. He told me that Kushner was smart,
ambitious, and full of hubris. The two statements Peter made that resonate down through the years
are: "Jared has ice in his veins." And: "He doesn't know what he doesn't know."
For a little while the clear-skinned young owner took Kaplan on as his grizzled guide to the world
of journalism, but that interval was short-lived. It was somewhat shocking to Kaplan that a guy who
had no experience of journalism, and was a boob about literature, wasn't a very good reader, had
spent his college years doing real estate deals, etc., was eager to make decisions about the paper's
values. But such is the way of the world, and after an agonizing couple of years Peter went back
to Conde Nast.
I didn't last as long. Jared and I had a few polite conversations in the year that we cohabited
on Broadway, and two very uncomfortable meetings over Israel and Palestine. One was before I went
out there in July 2006 on his dime to see the country for the first time, during the Lebanon War,
and the second one was after I got back that August. In the first, Kushner told me about his Holocaust
background, his
grandparents who barely survived , and his regard for Israel. When I got back, Kushner and Brian
Kempner, the newspaper's publisher who had worked at the Israel lobby group AIPAC (American Israel
Public Affairs Committee), couldn't wait to hear what I had seen out there, they said. But when I
started talking about the occupation, the room went cold as the poles, and Kushner gazed right through
me with those unsmiling dark little eyes. Kaplan was even more uncomfortable than I was, and thankfully
brought the tortuous meeting to a close.
This couldn't last. In February 2007 Kaplan closed his office door and said he was a Zionist,
Kushner was a Zionist, Kempner was a Zionist, and the janitor was a Zionist, too, and the newspaper
would not pay for me to blog, as I was demanding (at that time I was only paid for published columns).
It was fitting; I was gone.
My interactions with Jared were limited, but they don't give me hope about his ability to achieve
peace in the Middle East. He lived in a deeply-Zionist-patriarchal mental space then; I never saw
him take a step out of it. There was a provincial element to his commitment. As Peter said, he didn't
know what he didn't know. The guy who replaced Kaplan was even more of a Zionist than Kaplan, while
the nimble-footed Kempner went on to work in the Kushner real estate firm. Kushner's ambition and
political shrewdness were evident to us, but I never saw any worldliness or largeness of spirit.
He was very impressed by his own family. The big asterisk is that he was 25 and 26. I wouldn't want
anyone to judge me on the basis of stuff I said at that age . . .
Lastly, I bear no ill will to Jared Kushner. He paid for my first trip to Israel and Palestine
(at 50!); he paid for me to see the occupation. My firing was also a blessing; he cut me loose from
the paternalist mainstream media, and I was forced to sink or swim on the internet. To some smaller
or bigger degree, I can thank Jared for this website, and the wonderful relationships I have formed
through the internet with people of strong hearts and principle, qualities prestige media culture
does not select for. For the sake of all of us, I can only hope Kushner gets to enter a larger world
too.
Kushner reminds me of a few bosses I have had. They only know what they know which means SFA .
Zero interest in the wider world. He probably knows loads about NY real estate and not much else
Very good profile, Phil. One thing struck me, as it did Keith. The only "peace" that Kushner and
people like him want for Israel is the "peace" of total domination and rule over others with no
disturbance. So, talking about him bringing "peace" makes no sense whatsoever. That's not at all
what he or anyone around him wants.
Israelis and their supporters are forever talking about peace, when anyone of sound mind knows
that the issue is not peace but justice for the Palestinians who have had their land stolen by
European colonists.
Justice first and then peace is possible. Israel pushes the peace line because it knows
the issue is not about peace and that a subjugated people like the Palestinians have not a snowball's
chance in hell of wielding any sort of power which might contribute to peace.
I read somewhere that the soon to be FLOTUS (ivanka kushner) is scared s#%&less of israel. That's
good. I don't imagine her husband has any plans to make it one of his homes.
Lack of experience/knowledge in the positions being filled is the hallmark of the tRUMP administration,
especially wrt tRUMP himself. I have no idea what the next 4 years are going to be like, but i
imagine the worst.
While the appointment of Kushner is clearly nepotistic, it does not seem much worse than JFK's
appointment of his brother. The historical record indicates that Robert Kennedy was if anything
much more vile on Israel Palestine issues than Jared Kushner is.
"... As General Smedley Butler, twice awarded the Medal of Honor, said: War is a racket . Wars will persist as long as people see them as a "core product," as a business opportunity. In capitalism, the profit motive is often amoral; greed is good, even when it feeds war. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is willing to play along. It always sees "vulnerabilities" and always wants more money. ..."
"... Wars are always profitable for a few, but they are ruining democracy in America. Sure, it's a business opportunity: one that ends in national (and moral) bankruptcy. ..."
A good friend passed along an
article at Forbes from a month ago with the pregnant title, "U.S. Army Fears Major War Likely
Within Five Years - But Lacks The Money To Prepare." Basically, the article argues that war is possible
- even likely - within five years with Russia or North Korea or Iran, or maybe all three, but that
America's army is short of money to prepare for these wars. This despite the fact that America spends
roughly $700 billion each and every year on defense and overseas wars.
Now, the author's agenda is quite clear, as he states at the end of his article: "Several of the
Army's equipment suppliers are contributors to my think tank and/or consulting clients." He's writing
an alarmist article about the probability of future wars at the same time as he's profiting from
the sales of weaponry to the army.
As General Smedley Butler, twice awarded the Medal of Honor, said:
War is a racket
. Wars will persist as long as people see them as a "core product," as a business opportunity.
In capitalism, the profit motive is often amoral; greed is good, even when it feeds war. Meanwhile,
the Pentagon is willing to play along. It always sees "vulnerabilities" and always wants more money.
But back to the Forbes article with its concerns about war(s) in five years with Russia or North
Korea or Iran (or all three). For what vital national interest should America fight against Russia?
North Korea? Iran? A few quick reminders:
#1: Don't get involved in a land war in Asia or with Russia (Charles XII, Napoleon, and Hitler
all learned that lesson the hard way).
#2: North Korea? It's a puppet regime that can't feed its own people. It might prefer war to distract
the people from their parlous existence.
#3: Iran? A regional power, already contained, with a young population that's sympathetic to America,
at least to our culture of relative openness and tolerance. If the US Army thinks tackling Iran would
be relatively easy, just consider all those recent "easy" wars and military interventions in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Libya, Syria
Of course, the business aspect of this is selling the idea the US Army isn't prepared and therefore
needs yet another new generation of expensive high-tech weaponry. It's like convincing high-end consumers
their three-year-old Audi or Lexus is obsolete so they must buy the latest model else lose face.
We see this all the time in the US military. It's a version of planned or
artificial obsolescence . Consider the Air Force. It could easily defeat its enemies with updated
versions of A-10s, F-15s, and F-16s, but instead the Pentagon plans to spend as much as $1.4 trillion
on the shiny new and
under-performing F-35 . The Army has an enormous surplus of tanks and other armored fighting
vehicles, but the call goes forth for a "new generation." No other navy comes close to the US Navy,
yet the call goes out for a new generation of ships.
The Pentagon mantra is always for more and better, which often turns out to be for less and much
more expensive, e.g. the F-35 fighter.
Wars are always profitable for a few, but they are
ruining democracy in America. Sure, it's a business opportunity: one that ends in national (and
moral) bankruptcy.
William J. Astore is a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF). He taught history for fifteen years
at military and civilian schools and blogs at
Bracing Views . He can be reached at [email protected]. Reprinted
from Bracing Views with the author's permission.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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expansion, except in the sense that "security" means operational freedom. You can find references to Russia's nuclear weapons, though, which are described as defensive, designed "to counter US forces and weapons systems." [vii] Try finding that on the BBC. I should mention that even "defensive" nukes can be launched accidentally.
FILE PHOTO: Haley laughing with her Russian counterpart at the UN Vassily Nebenzia © Reuters/Lucas Jackson
Haley takes part in Venezuelans' anti-Maduro protest in New York on September 27, 2018 © AFP/Jim Watson
Jarrod Agen ✔ @VPComDir
© Libyan War The Truth Save BREAKING News direct from the great Tribes of Libya
Image copyright REUTERS
MARK CHAPMAN August 31, 2018 at 2:41 am
FILE PHOTO: Iranian
Parliament © Islamic Consultative Assembly News Agency / AFP In a rare statement Iran's
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has lashed out at the country's authorities, accusing
them of poorly handling internal issues. The mismanagement is even worse than US sanctions, he
said. "It is not that the sanctions do not play a role; but a major part of the situation
is the result of [government's own] actions," Khamenei said, according to Irna, as he was
addressing thousands of
Iranians in Tehran on Monday.
Rouhani blasts
Trump's 'psychological warfare' as Iran braces for US sanctions
Erdogan urges Turks
to dump dollar to support lira
Russia to retaliate
if Washington bans Aeroflot flights to US
Ukraine is
overpaying for European gas & wants Russia to foot the bill
